1st Place: 40% of votes Rogue Skink by Pendrake 2nd Place: 30% of votes The Southern Heat by Qupakoco 3rd Place: 25.5% of votes The Betrayer by The Spawning of Bob Congratulations to the winners! Great job guys! You now have bragging rights..... Honorable mentions to all the entrants, there are no losers here. I for one thoroughly enjoyed reading these and look forward to other contests. And they are: Stranded: Assassin_NR_1 Around the Fire: Essmir Chameleons in the City of Mists: Scalenex Business Raptor in the Realm of Chaos: Slanputin Final Entry: Slanputin Completely Anonymous Sequel: Spawning of BoB Thanks for participating.
Congratulations Pendrake! Well done to the other finalists too. Twas an enjoyable competition. Do we get to see who authored the other fine entries?
Ha, why thankyou NIGHTBRINGER. You blame a long and arduous series of irrelevant lectures for that one!
Every piece got a vote and that's awesome. There were no stinkers among them, though Completely Anonymous Sequel stuck in my craw (all the more so because I probably deserved it). Bob made up for writing lampooning my lampooning by writing "The Betrayer" which was my hands down favorite. Eventually I decided on Rogue Skink as my second favorite but I had strongly considered making "Around the Fire" or "Final Entry" my second picks. I consider this a smashing success. While we had one fewer entry than the first one, we had more writers this time around and a tighter vote spread. As long as there is interest we will continue to these on three month cycles. month 1) write, month 2) vote, month 3) rest. We'll pick up in July with a new theme. I sat out of the Skaven's latest contest and so did many other people. I'm not sure whether they had one entry or zero. Hopefully their new psuedo-contest setup will attract some writers.
Some new entries just for Bob. FangGrove tree: Another name for this tree might be the Fanged Mangrove. It grows on the edge of lakes, streams, and swamps. The trunk of a mature specimen can be 7 feet thick with major roots splitting away a foot or two above the waterline. The tree sprouts big spikes on its lower trunk and on the roots as a defense against large browsing, wading, plant-eating saurians. The spikes, or fangs, make it difficult for such beasts to move in close and completely strip the tree of its foliage. The trees spread by putting up new shoots from their widely spreading roots. A grove of them will typically densely cover a shoreline. Their roots interlock making them stronger as a group. Growing unchecked they can shrink a lake and close areas of open water over time. They prefer areas inundated by water. Lake serpents often lair within their roots. Spineburl tree: The Spineburl has a tall straight trunk, similar to a palm tree. It's bark has a burled appearance and a spiraling pattern of scales which are what remains of former leaf-stalks. There is a large top-knot of browning leaf stalks with a mass of newer green shoots cascading out of the top. Its leaf stalks form drooping, branching structures which more resemble willows than any sort of palm. The scales harden to form a protective bark and usually have two or three downward pointing spines each. Terradons favor these trees as they usually grow near but not in water and they make excellent hunting perches for Terradons looking to surprise unsuspecting schools of fish. The piece got the title it did, instead of Rogue Saurus as an alternate, because I was going for a double meaning. There are two 'rogue skinks' in the story. The first one is no skink at all. Instead, he is an ancient and utterly mad saurus, who for reasons no one will ever know, has decided he is a skink and compounds this aberration by believing himself to be a skink priest no less. The second one is a chameleon. But as Bob notes: "...he is a chameleon. On a terradon. With a bow..." as well as the standard blowpipe! Both are aberrations from the standard for their type. They are both rogues. But unlike the Saurus, Tzlatoc's various extra, yet aberrant skills, are used in the service of his city.
Congrats to the winnerss! And bob how did you maneged to guess rhigt on my pice I am not one of the well knowne members, well I guess it was because I have more gramathical errorss than n810. //Essmir
@n810 is now a slann. There will be no more grammatical errors, only inscrutable utterances which we are too lowly to interpret correctly. @Essmir, grammar or not, you do have a style of story telling which is very down to earth and really shows the character's personal experiences and emotions. No one else is capturing that right know, which means that with the next comp I will hunt you down and I will find you... Do we get an illustration this time?
Or no posts at all... our mighty Slann seems unwilling to break the beautiful symmetry of his 5000 posts mark. Not that I blame him... it's such a lovely round number! Maybe he is deep in contemplation.
^^ Very nice. Matches the story quite well. Great job everyone! The authors of each was very surprising! @Slanputin I really enjoyed the work you put into Business Raptor. And CongoRats to @pendrake!! I heed to your writing excellence.
@Essmir , I love the eyes popped "Mahrlect!" expression on the chameleon's face, and the detail of the claw marks on the tree.
Oh, @spawning of Bob you asked what sporange was. It was an excuse to rhyme orange in Business Raptor. Also, it's a single or multi-celled organ from which spores are produced. Hence the "daemonic mushroom" Did anyone notice Archaon's cameo in Final Entry?
@pendrake , your story comp prize has been a WIP since 10th June. Sorry for the delay. Take care among the fang-grove trees.