So Fir was plotting in my brain recently, trying to figure out away to expand both his social network and his cash. This is what we came up with:

1) Firs loves racing brooms. He'd prefer a Muggle motorbike, but brooms at least have that nice 'Holy crap I'm flying' quality to them, so they'll do.
2) Fir despises the outdoors with a great and fiery passion
3) Fir likes gambling, but hates to do so alone.

All this lead me to the idea of a (literal) underground racing circuit at Hogwarts. Right now I'd imagine that people who want to enter the race pay an entry fee and the winner gets the pot, with possible side bets going on for non-racers. Maybe a record board and best times and racers as well. It's still taking form in my mind, but I'd thought I'd through it out here because more people than Fir would have to be involved and also get a green light from the curators

Participents:
Fir Cuween
Edmund Klint
Quinn McAvoy
Mairead ó Fearghail
Erin Harper
Keegan Kearney
Antony Dervish [NPC]

Hahahahaha. I think this would be hilarious and fantastic. A few things come to my mind...

-By underground, do we mean dungeons and cellars level of Hogwarts? Or... using the Room of Requirement or something? How will they hide this from the profs?
-If they did get caught, I'd imagine they'd likely get detention(s). As long as we are all cool with this as an in-character consequence, I'd say go for it. Haha... oh man, I can see it now. Mairead careening down the corridors. Eirene stumbling on it and shouting about how it's "against the rules!"

WHOOT ^(^_^)^

Yeah, I figured if they get caught there'd be detention and Fir and I are happy to take that risk.

I'm not sure. I like both the dungeons/cellars and the Room of Requirement. The room might be a better option because it's less likely to have professor intrusion and Fir can construct the track to his little heart's content, but I wasn't sure how common knowledge the room was, if it gets patrolled at all and if it really could contain a racetrack.

Let there be chaos <3

Fabulous idea! I'm Malia by the way, play Vasily, Quinn, Kitty, Hildegarde and the lovely Edmund. We should plot!

Anyway, going-off-on-a-tangent aside, it's a brilliant plot, and one that I think Edmund and Quinn would definitely get involved in.

Oh - Elle beat me to it, but yeah, Mairead' be there.  She'd love it. 

Erin would be there in a heartbeat. He loves flying, and the dangerous, competitive idea of racing brooms? Psh, even better.

I agree that the Room of Requirement would be the best idea. If in the cellars/dungeon, there's a good chance that Juliette Vaillancourt might stumble over them, since she teaches classes down there, or Landis, since he patrols down there sometimes. The Hufflepuff and Slytherin dorms both get a lot of traffic, too. The upperclassmen would probably have heard rumors of the room - it may have passed down into legend. But if no one knows how to reach it, or where it is, or even if it's real, surely Fir could accidentally discover it if he was just dreaming of the broom racing idea when he walked past.

Oh yay! I'm glad other people are excited about this ^_^

So then I'm think Room of Requirement will be the location of the track. I'm assuming the room's existence, if not exact location and how to get to it, are a little more well known at this point and I can defiantly see Fir as the kind of kid who hears there might be a secret room/passage somewhere in a general area and then go spend hours hunting for it instead of doing homework.

I'll go start a list on the first post for interested characters. We also need a way for students to find out about this. Since it's supposed to be hush-hush, it will probably have to be by word of mouth and possibly password protected?

Yes- room of requirement probably works best!

I'd love to, at some point, have Eirene or Fauna stumble on it. Like I'm just seeing one of them walking down the corridor, and suddenly there's this loud zooming sound and whoops coming from within the wall, and she has to investigate. Hahahaha. Anyway...

Word of mouth would probably work? Maybe they need a special knock too... I think I remember the DA using coins so maybe something like that could be used to send messages . Or you know how they have fluttering memos in the Ministry? I'm sure there's a way to send charmed notes to specific people, and have the ink only show up to the right person, so that everyone involved knows the right place and time.

Is it sad the Declan in me goes "They can bribe me into not turning them in... And in return i could help. I like money." ?

A student underground racing league is such an awesome idea; does Fir propose the idea and people turn up through word of mouth? I can't imagine it being a publicised sort of event somehow!

Haha, Eirne and Fauna are more than welcome to stumble upon the races. I like the paper airplanes idea like they do at the ministry and maybe mixing it with password-protected ink that that was on the Maurader's Map. Fir's best subject is charms, so that's probably something he could handle. And the paper might also have the layout of this week's race on it. Or it might not. Not sure if Fir wants to be that generous to his competition. I like a knock better than a password for the room of requirement as well.

To spread the word, yeah I was think of word of mouth because they can't very well put up fliers for it. Maybe Fir starts by recruiting racers amoung some people he knows and they can recommend other racers or tell their friends to come and those people can tell their friends, etc.

I also just realized we'll need a door man, though maybe we could just NPC that

Well if it is a newer thing, then Dev wouldn't be able to be part of it much... but if it is an older thing that Fir started a bit back, I could see him helping with the betting before he got kicked out. That is something he enjoys lol.

If you want an NPC racer to mention, My character Sidney Dervish's nephew Antony Dervish is big on broom racing. His whole family are broom fanatics and even though he is like a 3rd year, I could see him knowing a lot about racing since his parents likely taught him how to fly before hogwarts... as well as dragged him to races. He could be one of the racers

Oooo, shiny NPC racer. Thanks

I was thinking that maybe this would be one or two years old but it doesn't have a huge following yet so Fir's trying to increase interest? Then that would explain how some people know about it already etc.

But the new plot guidelines made me think it needs to be brand new thing? Did I read that right? That's cool too, that just means I'll have Fir right now go out and start to gather people up from what he knows about them. He's already working on recruiting Erin in a thread right now. So maybe now anyone who wants to be involved as a spectator, racer or staff we can start to work on recruiting? Either thread or plot over IM and then go from there?

I was also thinking that the first official thread for this would be the actual race day. I'm not sure Fir really wants to have a racer meeting so I think he'll end up sending paper airplanes with a password-protected message with all the details on it?

Structure I was thinking that the course would be three-dimensional- it would go up the walls and ceiling as well as the floor to make the most of the space and probably change each race. My thoughts for marking it was either some kind of neon paint or hoops a la HP video games:



But I thought the hoops might be too constraining with multiple people on a track at once, unless it was purely a time thing, which I'm not sure would be as interesting.

Positions would be determined either by the whim of Fir or a trail test-run on the track a day or so before. Haven't really solidified that.

There would be a place to bet, with the odds of all the players win chances for everyone to see as well as a booth selling lucky charms for riders and watchers. Entry fee would be 10 galleons, Fir gets 1 or 2 of that, the rest goes in the pot- winner takes all.

Thoughts?

hmm seems a bit hard to believe that it has remained hidden for so long. A teacher would have caught on surely. Perhaps it can have started at the beginning of the year? That way it is still fresh and new but at the same time, people know of it... Would that seem plausible?

I would also offer Keegan if all years are able to join. He would def. be interested (He's a first year though lol)

Yeah, I think it would be best to build it up from the beginning (starting this January), so Fir can be the leader of it and we don't have to think too much about how the racing would have gone in years prior. You don't have to role-play him looking for participants if you don't want to, since we are discussing it in here-- we can just cut to the first thread where they try out the racing .

I really love that the course would be 3-D! Maybe the racers would have fun distractions too. Perhaps they have to go through sections that make the broom wobble, or make the air foggy, or something like that. Maybe the crowds are encouraged to be as distracting as possible (sending out sparks or thinking of songs or jeers). Maybe there are things that the racers have to grab before they can reach the finish line, like a flag or a token hidden somewhere.

Just thoughts!