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Contest January-February 2022 Short Story Contest Entry Thread

Scalenex
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Scalenex

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The theme for our 29th seasonal short story contest is upon us. The theme brought forth from @Killer Angel and @Aginor is "Parasite(s)"

The Rules
-We would like you to try to keep your story between 500 and 2000 words. I am requiring that entries do not exceed 2400 words. This is counting title, poems, quotes, any add-ons. If I get a submission that exceeds 2400 words, I will trim it till it meets the limit, and you may not like what words I choose to cut. Even prepositions are not safe...
-Your name must appear nowhere with the story. There is no point in having an anonymous competition based on skill if we know whose entry is whose.
-You must send your story via private message to Scalenex before noon (US Central time) on February 6th 2022
-The story must be new. No dragging up a story you wrote months or years ago.
-No plagiarism. This means no stealing a story verbatim. You are free to use characters or settings from other works including other writer's fluff pieces and past short story contest entries.
-The story must involve Lizardmen (or Seraphon or Salamanders or Saurian Ancients), at least a little.
-The story must stick roughly within the theme, at least a little.
-No comics or illustrations. This is a short story contest. Visuals are limited to fonts and text colors.
-Only one entry allowed per person.


Once again, the winner of this contest has the honor of choosing the next contest theme if they so choose. This time because I do not want to be saddled with coming up with a last minute topic. If the winner does not give me a topic, I will pass this burden honor on to the runner-up.

If you want to talk about the theme or your eagerness to write or read something. Please do so below!
 
Last edited:
Scalenex said:
The theme for our 29th seasonal short story contest is upon us. The theme brought forth from @Killer Angel and @Aginor is "Parasite(s)"

The Rules
-We would like you to try to keep your story between 500 and 2000 words. I am requiring that entries do not exceed 2400 words. This is counting title, poems, quotes, any add-ons. If I get a submission that exceeds 2400 words, I will trim it till it meets the limit, and you may not like what words I choose to cut. Even prepositions are not safe...
-Your name must appear nowhere with the story. There is no point in having an anonymous competition based on skill if we know whose entry is whose.
-You must send your story via private message to Scalenex before noon (US Central time) on February 1st 2022
-The story must be new. No dragging up a story you wrote months or years ago.
-No plagiarism. This means no stealing a story verbatim. You are free to use characters or settings from other works including other writer's fluff pieces and past short story contest entries.
-The story must involve Lizardmen (or Seraphon or Salamanders or Saurian Ancients), at least a little.
-The story must stick roughly within the theme, at least a little.
-No comics or illustrations. This is a short story contest. Visuals are limited to fonts and text colors.
-Only one entry allowed per person.


Once again, the winner of this contest has the honor of choosing the next contest theme if they so choose. This time because I do not want to be saddled with coming up with a last minute topic. If the winner does not give me a topic, I will pass this burden honor on to the runner-up.

If you want to talk about the theme or your eagerness to write or read something. Please do so below!
Click to expand...

Interesting theme...

I'll have to have a think about this one.
 
Remember you can think outside the box.

The story does not have to be about parasites, it just needs to feature them prominently. But if you want to make a story about parasites, that's fine too.

It could be a metaphorical parasite. I am big on metaphor myself. Long ago, when the topic was "chameleons", most wrote about chameleon skinks. I wrote about a spy pretending to be a Lizardmen. A social chameleon as it were.

Mosquitos are a parasite and Lustria has a lot of them. I'm sure hot and swampy jungle realms in Age of Sigmar has mosquitos too. I did some unrelated monster research for my own fantasy world and looked for real world mosquito monster. I find it odd that despite mosquitos being a present around the world, that the only place I found giant mosquito monsters in real Earth mythos is with Eastern Native American tribes. Otherwise, most giant mosquito monsters are modern inventions. Giant mosquitos tend to leave behind blood drained corpses. That's technically a predator not a parasite, but we let it slide if someone wants to write about giant mosquitos.

I could also bring up that leeches are a parasite. Leeches used to be a big part of medieval medicine. I've been reading a lot of A Song of Ice and Fire series lately. They have almost as many leeches in the series as they have illicit sexual liaisons. I never read about medicinal leeches in Warhammer fluff before, but why not? Maybe in WHF or AoS, medicinal leeches are a thing.

Speaking of leeches, if someone wants to add more details to the fire leeches, I'd be delighted to read it. Fire leeches make no sense scientifically. Real world leeches, like most parasites have a numbing toxin that makes them harder to detect. Either literally being on fire or spewing a chemical that burns like fire doesn't seem like something a leech would want to do. Maybe they aren't technically leeches or technically parasites but that is fine.

Ticks are parasites. Tick can also be large goofy blue super heroes.

Vampires blur the line between predator and parasite. It is not 100% whether Warhammer vampires can feed from people without killing them. Even if they do kill their prey, they are metaphorical parasites on society as a whole.

There might be some Slaaneshi daemons that act in a parasitic manner. Or Nurgle.

Also, to blur the line between predator, prey, and parasite. Maybe Skinks like to eat leeches and ticks. A little gross, but I'm thinking of primates that groom other primates for parasites by picky parasites off their fellows and eating said parasites.

Hope I got your creative gears turning.

That said, you still have a few days to submit a poem, so don't forget about that if the muses inspire you in that direction.
 
Interesting theme indeed...

I will go to my thinking chair now ;)

Grrr, Imrahil
 
Imrahil said:
Interesting theme indeed...

I will go to my thinking chair now ;)

Grrr, Imrahil
Click to expand...

The chair doesn't feel as comfy as it used to be in the last contests... :(

Grrr, Imrahil
 
The vast majority of L-O writers submit their stories in the last week, but I am mildly concerned that I haven't gotten one story story yet.
 
This round i gear i am not going to produce something... :sorry:
 
I just had an idea. So hopefully can make it by 1 Feb.

(Life is being pretty harsh at the moment on scheduling)
 
I am a bit angry about it since I like the theme, but I am fairly sure that I won't be able to contribute a story. :(
 
Started writing story last night.

I think I'm usually with the early bunch as well but Omicron is making my life quite difficult currently.
 
Well I have an idea... it is better than I had, but I am not sure I'll make it in time...

Grrr, Imrahil
 
I have an idea too. But this week I'm also buried under so many things... (mostly job)
 
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