Contest July-August Short Story Contest (September 4th)

NIGHTBRINGER · Aug 16, 2025 at 4:24 PM

A decision has been made!

Imrahil · Aug 17, 2025 at 11:41 AM

J.Logan said: ↑

Reviews! Reviews for ya'll to enjoy.

“Administer” – Bureaucracy vs. the Great Plan

Warhammer stories often celebrate the clash of armies, the will of the gods, or the machinations of ancient powers. Administer instead gives us something rarer: a story about paperwork. And not just paperwork — paperwork as the battleground for a skink’s moral compass.

In the quiet, sun-baked lull between campaigns, scribe Xlatnatl toils in the cool corridors of Itza, buried in reports, expenses, and historical records. His routine is shattered when he notices a troubling omission in the war logs: Xlanhuapec received a distress call during a major Dark Elf landing… and didn’t respond.

This is where the story’s “non-conformity” theme shines. Xlatnatl does exactly what he shouldn’t do in the rigid hierarchy of Lizardmen society — he questions it. His attempt to raise the issue with Oracle Tzyni’atl is briskly smothered (“Now close the door on your way out”), and his follow-up appeal to the warmer, more sympathetic Priest Quetaltny ends with a quiet warning: pursuing the matter would mark him as non-conforming.

The tension here is understated but potent. The stakes aren’t life or death in the moment — they’re reputational, cultural, systemic. The story captures the quiet oppression of a system where stepping outside the chain of command, even for the Great Plan’s sake, is career suicide. By the end, Xlatnatl is right back where he started: sweating over reports, the truth left to rot in the archives.

Administer is a subtle, slow-burn piece that swaps battlefield heroics for the suffocating atmosphere of institutional complacency. In Warhammer’s jungle cities, non-conformity isn’t just rebellion — it’s a choice between conscience and survival. And sometimes, survival wins.

“Food for Thought” – Brainstorming at the Temple Gates

Most Warhammer short stories plunge you straight into battle, blood, or divine decree. Food for Thought is something rarer: a peek inside the forge before the blade is hammered.

The piece takes the form of an internal monologue — The writer wandering through idea after idea in search of the right take on the competition theme, “Non-Conformity.” What unfolds is half creative diary, half self-deprecating stand-up routine, as possible plots are toyed with, dissected, and set aside.

There’s a wonderful variety in the pitches:

The heart-warming-but-maybe-too-predictable “eternal enemies become allies” story.

A chameleon skink vs. Eshin assassin cat-and-mouse duel worthy of Enemy at the Gates.

A human scholar defending an abandoned temple from his own people.

A forbidden-lore conspiracy linking Hashut to the Old Ones.

A Slann mage-priest spiralling into drug-induced detachment via ixti grubs.

And, in a sudden gear-shift, a full-blown Lizardmen Toy Story where miniature models battle burglars until a 40K Titan shows up.

The joy here isn’t in which idea is “right” but in watching the process — how the narrator weighs originality, lore-breaking, personal pride, and sheer weirdness. Even the throwaways have hooks that could anchor their own full-length pieces. And that’s where the non-conformity creeps in: this is the story. Instead of delivering a polished, in-universe tale, it offers the messy, meta, very human process behind deciding what kind of story to tell.

By the end, there’s no final choice — just a notebook full of ideas and the decision to “sleep on it.” In a competition about breaking norms, Food for Thought rejects the most basic one: that a short story needs a beginning, middle, and end. Here, the ending is the pause before the real beginning.

And as an aside... I really want that last story idea to be written in full... I used to enjoy reading ToyHammer way back when... let's have a new ToyHammer. One that isn't limited to just 40K. Do it. DO IT!

“The Quest!” – How to Lose Your Plot in 10 Arguments

Some stories are about heroes defying impossible odds. The Quest! is about a Skink named Ixqual defying the narrator. And the narrator losing. Badly.

What begins as a perfectly serviceable pulp setup—lone reptilian hero, mysterious mission in Lustria, industrial evil to smite—quickly collapses into a verbal brawl between character and author. Ixqual doesn’t just break the fourth wall; he smashes through it with the stubbornness of a Kroxigor on union strike. The result is part Warhammer parody, part metatextual slap-fight, and part hostage negotiation where the hostage (the plot) doesn’t make it out alive.

The comedy lands because it’s relentless. Every time the narrator tries to wrangle the story back into shape—Chaos Dwarf factories, romance subplots, sudden Saurus enforcers—Ixqual dismantles the setup with in-universe logic or sheer bloody-minded refusal. There’s a delicious escalation here: at first he’s just poking holes in the quest premise, but by the end he’s looting the narrator’s Jammy Dodgers, recruiting the villain into the roast, and finally storming through the wall to end the story entirely.

And the “non-conformity” theme? It’s not subtle—this is full-on mutiny. Ixqual rejects not just his assigned mission but the concept of authorial control. The quest isn’t abandoned because it’s too dangerous, but because it’s “a lie,” and the only victory condition he accepts is denying the narrator their ending.

The final beat—404: Author Not Found—isn’t just a punchline; it’s the ultimate meta-flex. In a genre where destiny is king, The Quest! is a gleeful reminder that sometimes the hero wins by setting fire to the script.

“Oaxtep” – The Peril of Improvement

Some heresies begin with malice. Others, with ambition. In Oaxtep, it begins with efficiency — and ends with a saurus executioner raising a cleaving rod.

The setup is deceptively small-scale: a skink accused of “tampering with the ordained Way” by purifying all the spawning pools at once rather than at prescribed times. His plea is simple — it would save hours for other duties. But before the reader can decide whether that’s sensible or sacrilegious, the Mage-Priest hearing his case counters with a tale from the dawn of time.

That inner story — the tragedy of Oaxtep — is where the weight of the piece lies. We learn of a Second Spawning Mage-Priest who, impatient to serve the Old Ones more effectively, studied the northern polar gate in hopes of mastering teleportation. His tinkering destabilised it, collapsing the gateway and unleashing Chaos upon the world. It’s a brilliant bit of invented myth: one “loyal servant” unwittingly triggers the Great Catastrophe, and in doing so gives the Lizardmen a doctrinal reason to mistrust change itself.

As a “non-conformity” piece, it’s a sharp inversion — the story’s moral isn’t that conformity stifles progress, but that deviation can doom entire worlds. The accused skink’s deviation is laughably minor next to Oaxtep’s, yet the moral calculus is the same. And the ending doesn’t waver: enlightenment comes, but it’s immediately followed by execution. Understanding the lesson doesn’t spare you from being the example.

Bleak, efficient, and entirely in keeping with the Lizardmen’s alien worldview, Oaxtep turns a parable about improvement into a cautionary tale about the dangers of thinking you can make the Great Plan better. In this temple, non-conformity isn’t just dangerous — it’s world-ending.

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Such beautiful reviews, in depth and thought through analysis of all stories. Well done!

Grrr, !mrahil

NIGHTBRINGER · Aug 17, 2025 at 10:58 PM

Scalenex said: ↑

Please read all four stories carefully before voting.
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*don't tell anyone, but out of curiosity I may have read a third (non-chaos dwarf) story. Don't spread the news around though because I will fiercely deny it. Maybe I'll just have to give the last one a read, just so that for one time, I will have read them all. However, my loyalties (and vote) is eternally bound to the Chaos Dwarf / Nightbringer tales.

NIGHTBRINGER · Aug 18, 2025 at 11:29 PM

NIGHTBRINGER said: ↑

don't tell anyone, but out of curiosity I may have read a third (non-chaos dwarf) story
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*fourth

Imrahil · Aug 19, 2025 at 8:30 AM

NIGHTBRINGER said: ↑

*fourth
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Very happy to hear you read them all. Can I also persuade you to write some form of review?

I am working on mine, but I struggle with reviewing my own story.

Grrr, !mrahil

NIGHTBRINGER · Aug 19, 2025 at 6:16 PM

Imrahil said: ↑

Can I also persuade you to write some form of review?
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Not really my strong suit.

Debating... sure. Memeposting... sure. Deep rules/tactical analysis... sure. Reviewing short stories... .

Especially as I am all in supporting my chosen champion! These competitions are so much more intense when a Chaos Dwarf result is on the line.

NIGHTBRINGER · Aug 19, 2025 at 9:40 PM

Looks like both Chaos Dwarf stories are on the scoreboard!

Imrahil · Aug 20, 2025 at 5:21 AM

NIGHTBRINGER said: ↑

Looks like both Chaos Dwarf stories are on the scoreboard!

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To be fair, all stories are

Grrr, !mrahil

NIGHTBRINGER · Aug 20, 2025 at 6:35 AM

Imrahil said: ↑

To be fair, all stories are

Grrr, !mrahil
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Is that not a good thing?

My eye is on that first place position!

Imrahil · Aug 20, 2025 at 6:59 AM

NIGHTBRINGER said: ↑

Is that not a good thing?
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It sure is a good thing

NIGHTBRINGER said: ↑

My eye is on that first place position!
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My eye as well, perhaps for a different story, or not. Who knows?

Grrr, !mrahil

NIGHTBRINGER · Aug 20, 2025 at 9:52 PM

Imrahil said: ↑

Who knows?
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...you know!

NIGHTBRINGER · Aug 21, 2025 at 9:49 PM

It looks as though two have broken away from the pack.

Killer Angel · Aug 22, 2025 at 7:18 AM

NIGHTBRINGER said: ↑

It looks as though two have broken away from the pack.
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yep, it seems so

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Contest July-August Short Story Contest (September 4th)

Which story did you like best? (you only get ONE vote!)

Story One: "Administer"

Story Two: "Food for Thought"

Story Three: "The Quest!"

Story Four: "Oaxtep"

NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

Imrahil Thirtheenth Spawning

NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

Imrahil Thirtheenth Spawning

NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

Imrahil Thirtheenth Spawning

NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

Imrahil Thirtheenth Spawning

NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

Killer Angel Prophet of the Stars Staff Member

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