Rho Iota Phi: Updates!

Hi friends! If you don’t already know, this lil chee is heading up another anthology! An anthology about queer furry frat boys and a cursed frat house that seems to always have some horrific misfortune befalling its members.

Before I start talking about the anthology as a whole, I do need to let you know that if you are interested in writing for this anthology at all, please let me know! We have a group chat where we all coordinate and share so that whatever stories we write don’t contradict or clash with one another. The group chat is where we keep the Setting Foundation Document links! Each of the chat’s nine (current number tally) have contributed to this document, and now there is a significant amount of lore! If you’re not good with group chats, let me know and I will send over the foundation doc so you can look it over.

As far as progress, we have eight wonderful writers in the chat already (as well as two outside the chat that have also expected interest in joining.) We’ve got some wonderful writers who are working on some great stories. And we’d be so happy to see more join us! The collaboration has been so nice to see.

Speaking of the collaboration, let’s get into the lore! There’s lore now! We have built a strong lore and backstory for the house and the place the house was built on. Obviously, I can’t say too much on that for the benefit of the people planning to read this anthology.

What I can do though is give a little more context into the world we’ve built and give you an idea of what we’re looking for.

The stories in the anthology should take place in Corman County, Minnesota mostly around Browning Hall, the house where Rho Iota Phi and its brothers took up residence, and more generally on the campus of Prescott University. (If you have ideas for other settings outside the frat, we’re open to them! Just as long as they fit in with the overall storyline.) Since the fraternities opening, the brothers of the fraternity have been plagued by ghostly visions, monstrous creatures, and death.

As I said in a previous post, the frat was open from 1987 to 2015. After a disastrous situation, some of the surviving alumni met together to officially close the fraternity’s doors for the good of any future queer men on campus. In 2019, the alumni (with a little pushback from others) decided to reopen Browning Hall as a tribute to the frat and their fallen members. The tribute slowly turned into a bit of a tourist stop for people that were interested in the frat’s cursed history.

So, here are the guidelines again, with some additions.

• Any genre of horror is welcome in this anthology! When coming up with the idea for the collection, I thought of movies like the Slumber Party Massacre series (both the original trilogy and the remake), Cabin in the Woods, and HeartEyes. So, I would love to see some campy horror stories.
• Works must be furry in nature! That means stories should include and surround anthropomorphic animal characters.
• None of these stories should present Homophobia, Biphobia, or Transphobia in a positive light. Queerness manifests itself in different ways. I hope to have stories with characters of different sexualities/gender identities in the spotlight for this anthology.
• As it says in the call on Armoured Fox’s website, works featuring erotica are encouraged (though not a must-have in order to be accepted.)
• AI Generated works will not be accepted or tolerated.
• As you can see, we don’t have a lot of stuff ironed out about the frat’s earlier years or most of its existence as a fraternity. So, we’re looking for stories that take place while the fraternity is still open, from as early as the frat’s opening in 1987, to about 2015. Ideas for after 2015 will still be considered, but we’ve also got a few authors already working on stories that follow the frat/frat members after the closure of Browning Hall.

And remember! Entry into the chat doesn’t guarantee a spot in the anthology! The chat is to make sure all the stories have good continuity, and to get advice from other writers! It’s all collaboration.