Contest October-November Short Story Contest Voting Thread (Votes Close December 7th)

Spoiler: Story 1: “A Critique”

My fun little attempt at channelling the inner snob in me. Picture each word being uttered with a nasally "well ack-shoo-ally" tone.

Overall? I am really happy with how this came out.

Spoiler: Story 2: “The warrior’s Art”

My fun little attempt at going through the life of a saurus, from young'un that doesn't understand he isn't an artist, to realising that he is an artist in conflict.

Overall? I am really happy with how this came out.

Spoiler: Story 3: “The Never-Histories”

My fun little attempt at taking a very literal attempt at the subject matter. Felt smugly satisfied when I put in the cameos of other works.

Overall? I am really happy with how this came out.

Spoiler: Story 4: "Like Father, Like Son"

My attempt at bribing @NIGHTBRINGER into giving me a free vote. Also, I am a nerd who wanted to find a way to incorporate a mecha-Godzilla. I was laughing the entire time I wrote that reveal.

Overall? I am really happy with how this came out.

 

First rule of writing: know thy audience.

 

Especially the Kroxigor and Elven Child one, but also the lizardmen with guns have been featured in some stories.
Perhaps the author may reveal all hidden references when the voting is over.

I loved your reviews by the way... keep disorienting us

Grrr, !mrahil

 

Spoiler: Review time [story spoilers]

Like Father, Like Son.

There are stories with mentions of Chaos Dwarfs and then there Chaos Dwarf stories, praise be to Hashut that this entry belongs to the latter. What we've got here is a genuine tale of the mighty Dawi-Zharr that is dripping with clever nods to the lore while carefully expanding it in new directions. Drazhoath is an intriguing character whose devotion to his craft is only outstripped by his devotion to the Father of Darkness, Hashut. It is this devotion that justifies the betrayal of his father. This is no small feat for a Chaos Dwarf, who by nature and creed belong to the lawful evil category. A slave's life is meaningless beyond what work it can accomplish (as evidenced by the cruel but hilarious misfortune of the Hobgoblin servant at the hands of Ghazgorr), but to spill the life of a fellow Chaos Dwarf is not to be taken likely. The way I read the story, Drazhoath genuinely believes his father has betrayed the path of Hashut, so he is within his right to correct that deviation. The author does a great job of ensuring that it never feels like a Skaven(or Dark Elf)-esque grab at power for self-serving gain. Drazhoath while cruel, remains true to the dictates of his people and of his god. If I had to describe Drazhoath with a single word, it would be devotion. He is devoted to the true path, and his father is not. He is willing to make the sacrifices that his father cowers from. I love the way that this is demonstrated through the petrification that Chaos Dwarfs suffer as consequence of using their magic. At first I thought the description of Ghazgorr was a clever tie-in to the existing lore, but nothing more. However, in the end, the unwavering willingness of Drazoath to take on the very same curse in order to serve his true master puts an exclamation point on his story arc. In one stroke we are shown his resolute inner strength; a strength that is lacking in his father. It was a very impactful way of making the point while working within the limited wordage of a short story.

I must say I really liked the line "Being my firstborn won’t save you from the punishment for negligence, and it certainly doesn’t give you the luxury of insolence". It sounds good, and draws a sharp picture of the harsh boundaries that Ghazgorr has for his son. The dealing with the Skaven was equally good. Drazhoath understands the manipulative creatures and is having none of it (as is proper for a Chaos Dwarf!). Lastly, of course the Dread K'daai is a beautiful touch to cap off the story; chef's kiss. A very memorable and genuinely meaningful way to satisfy the short story Lizardmen inclusion requirement. That's how you do it with style!

Overall, its a wonderful story and more than worthy of my promised vote. The author provides a finely detailed view of Chaos Dwarf society and even more importantly, a brilliant characterization of Drazoath. There isn't much I can critique about it. The only thing that comes to mind (and I hope it is okay to provide constructive feedback too) is that the correct spelling is "K'daai" instead of "K'daii".

Anyways, that is my personal reading of the story and some of the things I liked about the tale. Kudos to the author. May Hashut's blessings guide you to victory!

 

For some reason that's the entry that spoke to me!

 

Can't imagine why. Say, what faction is this place primarily for again?

 

That's tough to say. The iconography of the forum seems centered around the Lizardmen, but the forum's undisputed posting king (and by a comically large margin) seems dedicated to the Dawi-Zharr and Chaos in general. The influence of the other factions is constantly in a state of growth, slowly cannibalizing the attention that at one point in time was heaped upon the Lizards. There is no escape from Chaos. It marks us all

Besides, Lizardmen make lousy viewpoint story characters. I don't make the rules, but that's the reality of it.





.

 

We are slowly being pushed back by the forces of Chaos to a small forum thread called Lustria from which we make many attempts to extricate ourselves and to which we must retreat every time.

Try being a furry (or scalie). It helps.

 

The seeds of Chaos have already infiltrated your forum sanctuary. The corruption spreads from within. Your retreat is an illusion. There is no escape from Chaos, it marks us all.

Ummmm.... yea... I'm good.

 

It really does.

Join us, Nightbringer. Join the horde of the scalies! We have cookies!

I partially attribute that to a fair few authors just treating them as bio-robots that hold no emotion. Emotion should be muted for them, but not non-existent, and they should be taken out of their comfort zone more often. Put them in positions where they have to actually use their own critical thinking or need to come up with outside the box ideas? They're fine from outsider perspectives in their home environments, where they are at an advantage and can be played to the same archetype as The Predator. Outside of their native jungles, and forced to interact with warmbloods on their level? That's where they shine as perspective characters.

(Time to toot my own horn - toot toot!) In my own work-as seen in my signature-it's a point of note that the lizards are exaggerating how they feel in order to actually have outsiders they're interacting with even recognise what emotion they're feeling. And even that occasionally fails, as shown from the perspective of a Knight Panther who was constantly feeling a sense of alien-otherness with one of the minor characters (who was admittedly not one that usually did communications with warmbloods).

 

And therein lies the problem. According to the official lore, they are essentially emotionless (or close enough to it). They don't think and feel as we do, so it is hard for us to experience a fully fleshed out story through their eyes. The other races of Warhammer possess aspects of human nature, exaggerated in most instances, but still something that we can understand and feel. Don't get me wrong, the Lizardmen play a fundamental and valuable role in the Warhammer setting, just not as central viewpoint characters. They don't make good vessels for us to experience the story through. As a result, a writer is left with the following options:

• attempt to tell a story through an emotionless being (good luck... especially as the stories get longer in length and complexity)
• pick another viewpoint character that accompanies the focal point Lizardmen character around (you need a solid justification for it and it is very quickly overused)
• fundamentally alter the canonical nature of the Lizardmen (with some people treating them as essentially scaley humans, while others take a more nuanced approach as you've described)

Your idea above is very good... better than the official lore for the purposes of writing in-depth Lizard focused stories, but it is a deviation from what the Lizardmen are established to be. The very act of having the change a fundamental aspect of the Lizardmen proves that they are not the best perspective subjects for story building. They have their story purposes, but that purpose is not being front and center (which is why we don't see Black Library novels placing them in that role).

Maybe you guys have a different image of Furries than I do. I'm starting to think we may not be on the same page.

Come now, you can't trick a Star Wars fan like myself so easily. It is the Sith who have cookies, and the Warhammer equivalent to the Sith is Chaos. Embrace Chaos, we have cookies.

 

Let me guess, you have the unfortunate image of the... ah... Deviants, shall we call them?

The Sith only have EEEEEVIL cookies.



...Well, two out of four of the colours are correct. ¬_¬ Unless we say the hairy one is from a certain oversized rodent with horns?

 

I have a best case view of them and a worst case view of them... and let's just say that neither are something I'd aspire to be!

I'm guessing you guys have an entirely different view.

Let's be honest, the best cookies would be from Slaanesh (if you're willing to sell your soul for them ). Despite everyone thinking that Slaanesh is only carnal in nature, Gluttony is one of her temptations. Nurgle cookies would have to be the worst... followed by Khorne cookies.

 

Blood cookies for the blood god! Please buy a box, we are raising money for the new blood shrine.

Emotions can be relative. The lack of emotions is absolutely from an outsider perspective. Lizards amongst themselves can have a much larger range of emotions, you can scale (ah hah) it to human levels for the purpose of telling a tale. Which would then be interesting to then see how much more explosive warm-blood emotions are by comparison.

Most the books I've read so far have treated them as faceless creatures to be slaughtered en mass by the heros who have in-fact been the ones to invade their home, trample their sacred sites and make off with their treasures. I'm being the change I want to see in the world

 

Which in the right story can then create an interesting contrast where to the lizards, these warmbloods have such seemingly exaggerated emotions that it feels strange and off-putting to the lizardmen, to the point that it almost feels to them like they can't be real, a strange pantomime of emotion.

And mocking them the whole time with their strange overly exaggerated display of emotions that feels like they're taunting them, looking down on them while pulling stupid baby faces at them.

Fight the conformist system!

 

Maybe, but not from the sources I've read (army books, BRB, Temple of the Serpent novel). But I'm very far from being a fluff expert though, so if you have an alternative sources that indicate otherwise, share them. I can only go by what I've read, and so far they have been depicted as emotionless beings.

Change huh? Tzeentch, the changer of ways, bids you welcome brother!



There is no escape from Chaos, it marks us all.

 

Two days to go. Will there be any last minutes voters emerging from the null void of the aether to put in some changes at the dramatic moment, or are we looking at our final results.

The anticipation. It is building up, look at all these people just waiting, vibrating with the eager energy of it all.

 

The adoring public yern to know their new literary king.