31 Days of Hell ~ Welcome To Kravenwood

RULES

1) Winners will provide a list including each sponsor in order that they would like to have the prizes. We will then choose what prizes you win on a first-come, first-serve basis. You have an entire month from the time that the contest is posted to get us this list and if you do not include the actual prizes you want, you will have one week from the time you are contacted to get these to us. If we do not receive your list one week after you've been alerted of what you have won telling us what you want (in case that was not provided on the list), this is fine. What matters is we have your list telling us the sponsors from first to last.
By the end of the given month "during the contest" if we have not received said list, items will be chosen for you.

2) Unless otherwise specified, make sure to add an alternate prize selection should you want a bundle or partnered item. Some of our sponsors allow this, some do not and some may on certain items of which we have no way of knowing. You may provide a list to us at any time during the month. Providing the list does not guarantee a prize. Items given to runners-up, if any, will come from these lists or be donated by prize winners.

3) Our Responsibility is to contact you and the sponsors. If you have not received your prize, remember that sponsors respond when they can and we will do follow-ups if you keep in touch with us. If we do not hear from you within a month after you are alerted, we will consider you have received your prize but we will extend this from the moment of your previous communication. Like participants and management, sponsors can be slow to respond and we beg your patience on these matters as we will do the follow-ups as promised.

4) Our First Place winner will receive the first item on their list which will be removed from all other winner's lists. Our Second Place winner will be given the first item remaining on their list and so forth. When each winner has been awarded a prize, we will begin again with the First Place winner until all prizes are awarded.

5) Please remember that some prizes are gift card items while others may be coupons.
Also, remember to include the following information ~

A) Username (for DSA and sponsors site)
B. Email Address
C) Real Name & Physical Mailing Address (for software and physical prizes)

6) No AI-generated art. This must be your art and not Artificial Intelligence generated art using images data mined from the internet. You may use it to create background settings like skies and atmosphere but the majority beyond this must be your work. You are welcome to share this art in the forums and we might one day add a gallery for this. But we will not allow it in the contests. As long as AI-generated images are created from other artist's work data mined from the internet, we cannot allow it in our contests and any such art will be removed. While AI may not be subject to copyrights, it may be determined later that the end user is so make sure the art is your own work.

7) Your images must follow the theme to the best of your ability but how you do this is up to your individual creativity and imagination. Ask if you have questions about the theme.

This month's theme is... Horror and Halloween, nightmarish realities and wicked dark fantasy delights

8 ) There is a post limit of one image a day... no reworks as all images must be original for this contest. Try adding more diversity such as races and different cultures. Explore the variety that makes up who and what we are.

9) Images cannot be posted anywhere else for five days and must include links to this contest or statements that it is for this contest.

10) Images posted late will be excluded from the judging unless the closing date is extended by the site.

11) Artistic nudity is allowed. No child nudity is allowed. This is defined as genitals and nip's so cover them up or risk violating our rules. A good alternative would be anime or faeries but do not use child morphs.

12) The contest is open to any medium that you wish to use (except AI as mentioned above). This is primarily a 3d art site but hand-drawn, painted, or any other type of medium is fine as long as you created it. Make note of the prizes being offered as only rarely might they not be 3d oriented.

13) We consider it trolling if criticism about content is made when images are within the rules. Constructive criticism and praise are encouraged and welcomed.

14) Our normal monthly contests will have 5 winners. Our larger contests will have up to 31 winners. We will alert members should this change at any time or if the sponsors have alerted us to award items to runners-up.

15) Remember, if you have any questions, please ask them in the contest topic so that staff or fellow members can explain and help you to understand the rules or themes in our competition.

Welcome To Kravenwood

William Jenner was a salesman who worked his way up the corporate ladder, going through two marriages and raising six children who hated him because their mothers blamed him for their failed marriages. They gained custody of the children because he was always working, but William was a meek man who knew about his ex-wife's affairs and even for that, always blamed himself, so that he took no issue providing for them while finding himself alone. All he cared about was that his children never needed to want for anything, even if he knew they were being raised to hate him. In each case, his ex-wives not only got alimony and child support but remarried to men they had affairs with, and William even helped their new husbands get high-paying jobs. Yet, there were many times when William would break down crying, wondering where it had all gone wrong.

Having just celebrated his 56th birthday with no family to share it with, William found himself the object of a beautiful young woman the same age as his eldest daughter at the bar he found himself drowning his sorrow in. Her name was Diane Price, and she gave him a shoulder to cry on, telling her about his troubles, and at some point, he must've passed out having drunk a few too many beers. When he woke up the next morning, he found himself with Diane in what had to be her apartment, where he could hear her singing as she was preparing breakfast, because he recognized the sound and could smell the aroma. Walking downstairs and finding his way into the kitchen, he found her dressed in his open shirt, sipping a cup of coffee, which she dipped her finger into and rubbed it across his lips before handing the cup over to him.

They would talk after breakfast, where she explained he was too drunk to drive, so she brought him to her apartment to sleep it off. He knew she was telling him the truth because when he first laid eyes on her in the kitchen that morning, he could swear she looked like a typical red devil with red skin, horns, and even a forked tail, which he knew had to be because he was still feeling the effects of the alcohol from the night before. Telling her he had to be back at work, she gave him a kiss, biting his lower lip, and told him she'd have to drive him because the bar had already called her and told her his car had been towed. After letting him out, William went to his office to begin another day of work, but he couldn't get Diane out of his mind and finally left work early, telling his employees he had to go pick up his car.

As he got behind the wheel of his car and began to drive, William didn't notice how fast time was slipping by until it was night and a large full moon was in the sky before him. Turning on his radio, he could swear the DJ said he was in Louisiana, which was impossible because he lived and worked in Los Angeles, California. Not knowing what to believe, he thought for a moment that he saw Diane in his rear-view mirror, sitting in the back seat, forcing him to pull over. Although he found he was alone in the car, he realized he was near a motel and decided he needed to rest, as too many things were happening that were leading him to question his sanity. Maybe he just needed sleep, so he collected the key to a room and lay down for the night, finding the room quaint as it looked like something he'd see on TV out of the 1930s.

The next morning, William went to the bathroom and washed his face, where he noticed his reflection in the mirror and saw a much younger version of himself looking back. Walking back to the bedroom, wiping his face with a towel, William would be even more confused because when he opened the door to go to his car, he found himself walking into the living room of a home he didn't recognize. A few moments later, he found someone's arms around him from behind and turned to find Diane in his face, kissing him, calling him "Lover" affectionately. It was all he could do to stare into her eyes, as none of this was making sense. Then came the children, three of them, all calling him daddy, which he assumed must belong to Diane, so he asked her if they were hers, only to be further surprised when she called him silly and asked if he couldn't recognize his own children?

A honk of the horn, and Diane was handing him a lunchbox, kissing him, telling him to hurry up or he'd be late for work. The driver in the car was a man named Joe Lewis, whom he hadn't seen in decades, because he had died in an industrial accident, and now he knew something was going on, and the first thought crossing his mind was that he had died or something. But he decided to play along with things for now, as whatever was going on, he wasn't feeling the weight of all the years weighing him down that seemed to be the only constant in his life. When he arrived at work, it was the job where everything had begun, and he was a salesman again, which was always something he enjoyed more than being an executive, where hundreds of people relied on his every decision because their livelihoods depended on it. But the mystery only seemed to deepen as the day went on, as other people from his memories seemed to be reintroduced to him until it was time to go home, and Joe told him they needed to hurry because Diane was waiting for William, and he knew what that meant when he really didn't have a clue.

Days gave way to weeks and months until finally William could contain himself no longer, as it was in his nature to go with the flow of things and to be meek around others. How he had even risen to where he was might have been a mystery if not for the drive and determination to do everything he could for his family. What Diane had to tell him was unbelievable, to say the least, as she told him that this place where they were was the Darkest Place on Earth and that she had escaped from it only to have it find her and change her into a devil, granting wishes and making deals to lure people back with her to avoid being made to suffer for her transgression as no one escaped this place where theree wasn't hell to pay for it. On the night she had met him, he opened up to her, but had also revealed how displeased he was with his life and his family. She had made a deal with him that she would make him happy if he would agree to give himself over to her completely without fully explaining to him what that meant.

She would go on to explain that he was her property, both body and soul, and that the children were indeed his as time functioned differently in this place. The fact that his memories were seemingly playing tricks on him was that there was a price to be paid for what she did for him, the first being that he would become the man he had always wanted to be. As he tried to make sense of what Diane was telling him, the illusions being cast surrounding him began to disappear, and he realized that Diane was, in fact, a devil. But as she embraced and kissed him, telling him how she had fallen in love with him, his mind became less clouded, and suddenly horrors unimagined flooded into his mind. He remembered killing his ex-wives and their husbands, beating them to death with a metal pipe, with Diane accompanying him. He had escaped police to begin a murderous rampage, becoming a serial killer, getting even with people who had done him wrong over the years.

As these memories flooded back into his mind, William couldn't help but fear he might have killed his own children because their hate for him had made him think about killing them and their mothers, so that if he killed their mothers, then what about them? Seeing his distress, Diane handed him photos of his children and grandchildren, assuring him that they were alive and well. In fact, they had inherited the fortune he left behind, and now he was a great-grandfather, but he would never return to them because he now belonged to this place, just as she herself and their children did. This place was called Kravenwood, and it was their home now and forever, as while she had been the instrument that allowed him to act upon his secret desires, there was nonetheless his. None of what he did would have happened had he not wished them so. But she had truly fallen in love with him, and this man that he wanted to be, because it was the man he had become and that she wanted to be with.

When he looked at the mantle over the fireplace in their living room, he saw a photo there showing his new family as they were, as he was muscular and young, but clearly human, while Diane was a beautiful, devil woman. Two of their children were human like him, their two sons, while their daughter was a devil like her mother. He was to learn he was no mere salesman, as the same drive he had for his human family had led him to become a wealthy executive here as well. But, unlike in his former life, he spent time with his family. But Diane was still cursed to lure others back to Kravenwood as the devil she had become, and he had learned that this was the reason she chose the last name of Price as she sought out lost souls to help them achieve their desires, but there would always be a price to be paid. William had been her first, and as such, she had fallen in love with him as she had come to Kravenwood herself quite by accident centuries before.

But William accepted his wife for what she was and what she had to do, even helping her at times. In his own way, he viewed himself as a demon for the things he had done and desired to do, but moreso on the inside than what was reflected on the outside. His was just one of countless such stories of souls damned to this place or that had innocently fallen prey to it. Kravenwood itself is a place torn from time and dimension, where almost anything might happen, where it literally is Hell on Earth. But, the beating heart of this place is Kravenwood Manor, which appears and disappears anywhere on these lands, being a microcosm of the evil that awaits, but where life continues uninterrupted for most as long as the beings that dwell here can accept that fate is ever-changing, so that what might be true one day may not be true the next. William Jenner has made it his business to understand Kravenwood and to keep track of both it and those entrapped within it whose wife collects souls and bakes cookies.

So there you have this years contest. So what is Kravenwood you might ask? For those who don't know, Kravenwood is an ode to old comic book horror anthologies where people find themselves caught up in events beyond their reckoning where anything can happen but where anything is a living nightmare. Think Twilight Zone perhaps if you're not familiar with House of Mystery and so forth from the comic books genre as horror used to be big in comics.

Kravenwood is a bit of Hell on Earth located somewhere in the bayous of Louisiana but where anyone from almost anywhere might find themselves as there are hidden doorways around the world that can lead you there and there are lost souls who have escaped Krevanwood but who carry the evil with them interacting and leading others to Kravenwood making themselves useful so that the black hounds and demonic forces within the Darkest Place On Earth will not follow in pursuit to reclaim them. Kravcenwood is a place where time itself seems to be unbound as you might find yoursel in a 1950s diner being pursued by werewolves one moment, beinf witness to witch burnings the next, finding yourself floating on a long lost inland see or being pursued by dinosaurs the next. If you become trapped within Kravenwood Manor itself, you find that every toom holds unique horrors ll its own and souls trapped there waiting to torment you with seemingly no end to the rooms and no escape unless Kravenwood itself has use of you to let you escape.

Kravenwood is the ultimate haunted house, the beating heart of a dark land as if Hell itself were reaching out and where even a man good of heart might become just another tool in the Devils workshop.