Because when you see that dragon, you know it's strong and solid.
The hearth is cold. Choose how you would like to be received — and the fire, the sound, and the story will rise to meet you.
Either door turns the sound on. Change it whenever you like.
The Living Sigil
The Long Memory
The house keeps a long memory. Leave an address and you hear of new voices, new instruments and new work before the world does. No course, no call, no salesman.
Four authors a year walk out of this house with a production of their book, given at no charge — and a fifth walks through a door that costs nothing to enter at all. Not a raffle. Not a favour. A reading — your work weighed against posted criteria, the strongest in each tier taking the build.
The door is the Workshop. All 23 instruments are free and always were; walk every one and the Instrument Seal is struck on your standing. The Seal is what admits an entry.
Season 2027 · Entries close August 10, 2027 · Winners proclaimed September 10, 2027
worth $16,000 and up
A full novel-game build — up to 60,000 words.
Your novel walked rather than read — chapters as ground, choices as gates, forged and shipped by this house. The largest thing Drakenscroll makes, given once a year to one author.
$500entry
worth $9,500 and up
A Citadel website build — up to 60,000 words.
An author's house on the open web, built to the Hall standard: the pages, the ground, the motion, the metadata — and a year of the Watch kept over it.
$400entry
worth $7,200 and up
A film book build — up to 60,000 words.
Your novel as a film book, up to sixty thousand words — cast, cut, scored and delivered, with the matching audio book edition riding with it.
$300entry
worth $4,200 and up
An audio book build — up to 60,000 words.
Your novel spoken in full, up to sixty thousand words — voices auditioned, chapters broken for the ear, mastered to retail specification.
$200entry
no fee, no purchase, no coin of any kind
Three motion graphic illustrations.
The free door, and it is a real one. Three moving illustrations from your own book — scenes or characters, drawn and set in motion by this house, yours to use for your cover reveal, your feeds, your launch. Smaller than the four builds, because it must be: a free entry cannot be weighed against a paid one. But an author with nothing in their purse can still be read here, and can still win something worth having.
Freeentry
Every entry is read, paid or free. One hundred points, five criteria, posted here before a single entry was taken and never moved. The highest score in each tier wins. Chance decides nothing.
The Opening · 20 points
Does the first page earn the second? Voice, clarity, and the reason to keep going.
The Prose · 20 points
Control of sentence and paragraph. Cleanliness, rhythm, and an ear that can be trusted aloud.
The Shape · 20 points
Structure that holds: chapters that break where they should, a spine a reader can feel.
Fitness for the Vessel · 20 points
How well the work suits the prize it is entered for — a game needs choices, a film book needs images, a spoken book needs voices.
The Craft Shown · 20 points
What the entry itself demonstrates: the roll, the sheet, the cast, the calendar. The instruments were the course; this is the examination.
Turning the key…
This is a contest of skill, not a drawing
No winner is chosen by chance. Every entry, paid or free, is read and scored by the house against the five criteria posted above, and the highest score in each tier wins. Ties are broken on The Prose, then The Opening.
No purchase is necessary to enter or to win
The Open Door tier is free. No fee, no purchase and no payment of any kind is required to enter or to win the Open Door, and no purchase improves an entrant's chance of winning it. A free entry is read against the same five criteria, by the same readers, with the same care as a paid one. Because a free entry pays nothing into the paid purses, the Open Door awards three motion graphic illustrations rather than a full production. The four paid tiers are funded solely by their own entry fees; the Open Door is funded by the house.
Who may enter
Any author eighteen years or older who holds the rights to the work they enter. Void where prohibited, taxed or restricted by law. Employees of Strength and Solidarity LLC, its partners, and their immediate households may not enter.
The Seal is required
An entry is admitted only from an author whose Instrument Seal is struck — all 23 instruments of the Workshop walked and marked to their own name. The instruments are free and always have been. No purchase of any kind is required to earn the Seal.
The entry fee
The fee is stated on each paid tier and paid once, at entry. The Open Door has no fee. A paid fee is what funds the prize builds; it is not a donation and it is not refundable once the entry is read, save at the house's discretion. One entry per author per tier, per year.
What is awarded
One winner in each of the five tiers — the four paid tiers and the Open Door — receives the prize named for that tier and no other, at no charge, up to the stated word ceiling where one applies. Work beyond the ceiling may be added at the house's ordinary rates. Each prize is a production or a set of illustrations, never cash, and may not be transferred, substituted or exchanged for coin.
Separate brackets: free entries and paid entries never compete against one another
Each tier is a closed and separate bracket, judged only against itself. An entry in the Open Door competes solely with other Open Door entries and is eligible solely for the Open Door prize — three motion graphic illustrations. It is not eligible for, and will not be considered for, the gamebook, website, film book or spoken book productions. An entry in a paid tier competes solely within that paid tier and is eligible solely for that tier's production; it is not eligible for the Open Door prize. Brackets are never merged, carried across, or substituted, and an entry cannot be moved from one bracket to another after it is filed. This separation is a condition of entry and is enforced in the house's own records: the reading board will not permit a free entry to be named winner of a paid tier, nor a paid entry to be named winner of the Open Door.
Skill decides every bracket
In every bracket, paid and free alike, the winner is determined solely by the scored judgement of the entry's own merit. No element of chance, drawing, lot, raffle or random selection is used at any point, in any tier. Because no prize in any bracket is awarded by chance, no entry fee is consideration for a game of chance. Entrants bear their own costs of preparing and submitting an entry.
Rights stay with the author
Entering grants Drakenscroll no rights in your manuscript. A winner grants only what the production requires — the right to make, show and market the awarded build, with credit. You keep your book.
The reading and the proclamation
Entries close August 10, 2027. The five winners are proclaimed September 10, 2027 and notified by the email on their entry. The house's judgement is final.
If a tier does not fill
A tier that does not draw enough entries to fund its prize may be held over to the following year, with every entrant carried forward at no further cost or refunded in full at their choosing. The house will not award a build it cannot pay for.
The Seal cannot be bought, and a broken Seal forfeits the fee
The fee is taken only after the Seal is struck, so no author can pay their way past the 23 instruments. If a Seal is afterwards found false — marks struck by another hand, or an instrument never truly walked — the entry is void, it is not read, and the fee is forfeited. Walking all 23 instruments is the contest's first and hardest condition, and it is not waived for anyone.
The sponsor
Strength and Solidarity LLC, trading as Drakenscroll. Questions to hearth@drakenscroll.com.
Void where prohibited. This is a judged contest of skill; no element of chance decides a winner in any tier. No purchase is necessary to enter or win the free Open Door tier, and no purchase improves an entrant's chance of winning it. Free entries compete in a separate bracket for the Open Door prize only and are not eligible for the paid-tier prizes. Open to entrants 18 and over.