Dv-s The Skaafin Prize -

If the Nobel Prize rewards “beneficial” work and the Oscars reward “excellence,” the DV-s The Skaafin Prize rewards discordant brilliance. Eligible works include:

Notably, traditional novels are often rejected unless they contain intentional errors, missing chapters, or fake appendices that mislead the reader. This is not a prize for polish; it is a prize for provocation.

According to the fragmentary Valei Codex (a single brass folio recovered from the Bthuand Mzahnch ruins), the Skaafin Prize was a three-stage trial open to any mortal who could physically enter the Clockwork City’s outer maintenance shafts.

Stage One: The Refusal of Logic
Contestants were presented with a perfectly functional Dwemer Cog-Furnace and commanded to “improve it without addition or removal.” The correct solution—accepted only by Voxi-Valei—was to stare at the furnace in silence for exactly three hours, thereby acknowledging its perfection. Those who attempted physical alteration were ejected via a localized teleportation into the Ashlands, inverted.

Stage Two: The Debt of Silence
Each contestant received a whispered “true secret” from Voxi-Valei (e.g., “Sotha Sil regrets the color brass” or “The Heart of Lorkhan has a second chamber”). They were then forbidden from speaking, writing, or signing this secret for seven days. Any breach resulted in the contestant’s voice being permanently replaced with the sound of a malfunctioning Dwemer steam-whistle. DV-s The Skaafin Prize

Stage Three: The Skaafin Prize Proper
Survivors of the first two stages were brought before a brass chest containing the Prize—described in the Codex as “a wish without consequence, voided by its own fulfillment.” Only one mortal is recorded to have reached this stage: a Dunmer outcast named Relmus Hlaalu.

The precise origin of the title “DV-s The Skaafin Prize” remains contested among Dwemerologists and Daedrologists. The prefix “DV-s” is widely believed to be a corrupted transliteration of the Ehlnofex “Dovun-Sha” (literally “The Binding Jest”), later merged with the Aldmeri Skaafin—a caste of Daedric servitors typically associated with the Prince Clavicus Vile, known for their cunning, contractual literalism, and feigned obedience.

However, no known direct pact with Clavicus Vile explains the event. More plausibly, a rogue Skaafin named Voxi-Valei, acting independently during a temporary fracture in the Prince’s influence over his own realm (c. 3E 127), declared herself “Provisional Arbiter of Mortal Desire” and established a contest within the interstitial access tunnels of the Clockwork City.

Eligibility alone does not grant the prize. Once qualified, participants enter a 7-day Challenge Round, which consists of: If the Nobel Prize rewards “beneficial” work and

Completing the Challenge Round successfully unlocks the final stage.

Unlike most literary prizes with clear founding dates and press releases, the DV-s The Skaafin Prize emerged from a closed-door meeting in Copenhagen in the winter of 1987. A collective of disgruntled Danish game designers, surrealist poets, and exiled cyberpunk authors convened after the collapse of a mainstream fantasy convention.

Their manifesto, later leaked in fragments on early Usenet groups, declared: "We reject the tyranny of likable protagonists. We abhor the three-act structure. The future belongs to the jagged, the unresolved, and the gleefully cruel. For this, we establish the Skaafin."

The first prize was awarded in 1989 to an anonymous submission titled "The Teeth of a Clockwork Sun." The winner received no money—only a hand-forged iron medallion depicting a wolflike figure devouring its own tail. To this day, the medallion remains the prize’s only trophy. Notably, traditional novels are often rejected unless they

To understand the prize, one must first understand its name. The term DV-s is widely believed to be a shortening of Dramatis Vindictae— Latin for "Spectacle of Vengeance" or "Drama of the Avenged." However, official documents from the obscure Aurelian Society (the prize’s secretive governing body) suggest an alternative: Deus Versus Sapiens (God Versus the Knowing). This duality is intentional. The prize thrives on ambiguity.

The Skaafin, meanwhile, is a neologism derived from Old Norse influences (skapa, to create) and the Finnish skaffinen (a colloquial term for a cunning, edge-dwelling trickster). In the context of the prize, a "Skaafin" refers not to a person, but to a mode of being—a state of creative rebellion against linear narrative, commercial pandering, and emotional sentimentality.

Thus, the DV-s The Skaafin Prize is literally "The Vengeful Drama of the Trickster-Creator." It is awarded not for being the best, but for being the most dangerously inventive.