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Contest April-May 2020 Short Story Contest Reading and Voting Thread

Which Story or Stories Do You Like Best? (choose up to four)

  • Story One: "Bowl of Blood"

    Votes: 6 35.3%

  • Story Two: "Abomination"

    Votes: 7 41.2%

  • Story Three: "Awīak"

    Votes: 3 17.6%

  • Story Four: "Lost and Found"

    Votes: 3 17.6%

  • Story Five: "Return of the King"

    Votes: 3 17.6%

  • Story Six: "Fire of the Old Ones"

    Votes: 3 17.6%

  • Story Seven: "Prayers for Vengeance"

    Votes: 5 29.4%

  • Story Eight: "Tipping the Scales"

    Votes: 5 29.4%

  • Story Nine: "Praying for Reasons, Praying for a Purpose"

    Votes: 3 17.6%

  • Story Ten: "The Ritual"

    Votes: 7 41.2%

  • Story Eleven: "Blooded Water"

    Votes: 5 29.4%

  • Story Twelve: "The Bloodswamp War (part 1)"

    Votes: 2 11.8%

  • Story Thirteen: "Ask and It Will Be Given"

    Votes: 6 35.3%

  • Story Fourteen: "Tzeentchian Rituals"

    Votes: 5 29.4%
  • Total voters
    17
  • Poll closed .
Story One: “Bowl of Blood” by @Warden

Story Two: “Abomination” by @thedarkfourth

Story Three: “Awīak” by @DeathBringer125

Story Four: “Lost and Found” by @Lizerd

Story Five: “Return of the King” by @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl

Story Six: “Fire of the Old Ones” by @Infinity Turtle

Story Seven: “Prayers for Vengeance” by Scalenex

Story Eight: “Tipping the Scales” by @Lium

Story Nine: “Praying for Reasons, Praying for a Purpose” by @Paradoxical Pacifism

Story Ten: “The Ritual” by @Lizards of Renown

Story Eleven: “Blooded Water” by @Carnikang

Story Twelve: "The Bloodswamp War (part 1)" by @Sudsinabucket

Story Thirteen: "Ask and It Will Be Given" by @Killer Angel

Story Fourteen: "Tzeentchian Rituals" by @Tk'ya'pyk

We have a tie between Lizards of Renown and thedarkfourth! Congratulations to all.


We have a tie between Lizards of Renown and thedarkfourth! Congratulations to all, this was a great contest all around.

Special thanks to our first time entrants Lium, Lizard, and Sudsinabucket!

I award the Scalenex Cup to Warden.
 
With such a tense competition, with so many stories running for the victory, i find that a tie is very appropriate.
Even the third place is a tie between my piece and Warden's!

The only clear winner imo was for the piece that took the scalenex cup; something different that Bowl of Blood would have been unsatisfying... :p

Funnily, none of the winners took my votes (personal tastes, both are very good). My fav. stories were Bowl... and Prayers for vengeance.

But hey, kudos to everyone. What a great comp! :)
 
Some personal note about my story, "ask and it will be given".
At the beginning, it wasn't a very voted one. I was falling back, after a couple of weeks it was near the bottom. I'm glad it recovered so well! thank to anyone that voted it.


With this one, i wanted to revisit the "Birth" of Tehenhauin, the prophet of Sotek.
Both of them have always been figures veiled in mistery. In Lizardmen's fluff, Tehenhauin appeared from nowhere and even the Old-One status of Sotek was subject to debates among the Slanns. Tehenhauin himself has always been portrayed as basically a fanatical figure, obsessed by sacrifices.
At this point, i decided to use the old trope of "if a sufficient large amount of people believe in something, that something becomes real"... a thing that every 40k ork player can tell you.

At that point, the story developed:
a pestilence Grey Seer got an idea: if skinks lose their faith in the Old Ones, the magical power that gives lizardmen the edge, will vanish. But how? by giving them a false new faith.
So…
1) buy a frankenmonster with a head and mind of a skink, which will act as translator and scribe, to write false Sacred Plaques with the prophecy of the advent of this new deity… (Sotek, but the reader still doesn't know)
2) slay a village with a magical poison, one that gives visions… the skink that will survive this, will be forced by the visions to go in the place where the false plaque has been "hidden"
3) the poor mental damaged skink, which is a mere labourer, will find the plaque. This simple-minded guy, thirsty for vengeance, will learn of a new God that will deliver said vengeance. The Skink now got a task: to spread this amazing new truth to a world haunted by skaven.
4) the skink goes, many skinks listen to him and abandon the faith in the Old Ones; lizardmen's magic becomes weak, skaven win the first battle
5) the same happens in the big city
6) the Backfire and the revelation. With so many skinks that pray to Sotek, the "magical energy" reaches a critical point, and Sotek becomes real… with the powers that the Grey Seer gave to it in the false plaque and also with, probably, the personal increases given by Tehenhauin himself. The power of Sotek also frees the mind of the frankenslave, which kills the Grey Seer. The age of Sotek has begun.
7) not present in the story… this explains why, in the fluff, Tehenhauin came out of nowhere, and also why the Slann debated for so long before accepting Sotek into the pantheon of the Old Ones. They knew the plaque was a false one, but now the new God is undeniably true.
 
Phooey, joint fourth with a load of others. I honestly thought that I was onto a winner with my entry this time, given that it features one of Warhammer Fantasy's most beloved characters arriving into Age of Sigmar.

Never mind, it's only a bit of fun. Well done to @Lizards of Renown and @thedarkfourth for the joint win, and it could be said that my vote actually decided that it would be a joint win (sorry @Lizards of Renown mate), for 'Abomination' was one of my favourites. I wonder who gets to choose the theme for the next contest?

The other three I voted for were 'Bowl of Blood', 'Prayers for Vengeance' and 'Ask and it will be Given'. Three of my votes were definite choices, but to me the fourth was a real toss-up between 'Prayers for Vengeance' and 'Blooded Water'. 'Blooded Water' introduced a new way of writing Lizardman stories by using smell as much as sight to indicate ranks and emotions, whereas 'Prayers for Vengeance' provided an especially novel reading experience due to the tale being told from the points of view of two different protagonists at the same time. Eventually I decided upon 'Prayers of Vengeance' due to the original way the story was told, with both antagonists praying for vengeance against each other and believing they had the victory. Watching both sides of the story of the battle unfold was especially captivating.

I'm especially impressed with both the quantity and quality of the stories this time around, so I give a big hand to everyone who took part! :)

Lizards of Renown said:
@Scalenex @Carnikang

Wicked stories! You guys were my votes.
Click to expand...

You had the choice of four votes - which others did you choose?
 
I voted for stories, 2,4,8 and 14.

But none of the stories were bad, and I voted for just the way I felt at the time. A different day I might have selected all different ones.

There were none I read that I thought, this is not been done properly.

whats interesting is how you can see the different stories have their own different writing styles.

Some have very regimented blocks of text, as some are very loose.

To me this says how each person is organising the story in their head.

Some ppl meticulously plan out in chunks, others it’s sort of a spontaneous stream of ideas. There is no right or wrong way.

But obviously writing style is linked to personality as well.

So can you like someone as a writer but not as a person? Lol
 
hanskurt said:
I voted for stories, 2,4,8 and 14.

But none of the stories were bad, and I voted for just the way I felt at the time. A different day I might have selected all different ones.

There were none I read that I thought, this is not been done properly.

whats interesting is how you can see the different stories have their own different writing styles.

Some have very regimented blocks of text, as some are very loose.

To me this says how each person is organising the story in their head.

Some ppl meticulously plan out in chunks, others it’s sort of a spontaneous stream of ideas. There is no right or wrong way.

But obviously writing style is linked to personality as well.

So can you like someone as a writer but not as a person? Lol
Click to expand...

Definitely.

I have professional authors that I read, where I like some of their stories but not others.

All of the stories in this contest well bright stories, some funny, some serious, but all had a definite create to them.

You can look up examples of professional writers whowrote story after sotry and then finally made big.

Just keep writing! You'll get there.
 
Lizerd said:
Congrats @all :D amazing stories. I would write more thoughts later but im out of it right now, i will post more in a bit.


also people actually voted for my entry which is an achievement enough for me
Click to expand...


I voted for your story. It was good, started off mysterious. Had character interactions.

Some times when you start out at things, you are good because you haven’t had time to learn bad habits yet.

when you do things for a long time you can end up going to weird crevices that only you care about.

my advice, keep it light and fun, have fun. Don’t worry if your doing things the right way or other ppl like it. Just try to do it so it’s what you like.
 
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