1/29/2020

9/17/2022 4:23 PM

363

2

0 wins / 2 losses

Architect

 

Short Stories

Please check out my short stories below:

• The Final Curse (Dark Fantasy, <2500 words)
• Hunter, APH (cross-genre, <800 words)

Recommendations

I really like the following storygames by others authors:

• Edithe Zilonis (A very nice medium length victorian mystery)
• The book of vanishing tales (Medium length, slow rolling, classic fantasy tale)
• Sheol's Passage (Medium length, dark-humored fantasy with vigilante hero overtones)
• Twin Arrows (Short supernatural western adventure)

Goldbird and Whispers of Snow

Listen up, we are in this together. My hide is on the line, so you'd better make good choices. Sure, everything looks calm right now: The usual mists wafting in from the Red River at nightfall, the same old smugglers sneaking into harbor, the bards spin their tales in the taverns, while the harlots are making their rounds. But, the good citizens are huddling in their warm little houses, speaking their prayers to Sol. They pray for order, stability and the holy law to protect them. They'd better pray real hard, cause strange things are starting to happen on Rador's day, a burglary goes unreported, a demon walks the streets, and there are whispers of snow.

An entry for Endmaster's Dark Fantasy Contest

The Covid Assignment

It is the end of January 2020. You are a network scientist who is asked to advise on possible responses to Covid-19, a new infectious disease that is just emerging. At this early stage much is till uncertain, but know what needs to be done. Can you get your numbers straight and will others listen to your advice at all?  

I have refrained from political commentary as much as possible and steered around some partisan issues. As a result all characters are purely fictional, and the game needed to be fairly linear. Nevertheless there are important choices and three different endings. 

Play this as a quiz about maths, epidemiology and communication skills. 

Goldbird (Rework)

unpublished

Listen up, we are in this together. My hide is on the line, so you'd better make good choices. Sure, everything looks calm right now: The usual mists wafting in from the Red River at nightfall, the same old smugglers sneaking into harbor, the bards spin their tales in the taverns, while the harlots are making their rounds. But, the good citizens are huddling in their warm little houses, speaking their prayers to Sol. They pray for order, stability and the holy law to protect them. They'd better pray real hard, cause strange things are starting to happen on Rador's day, a burglary goes unreported, a demon walks the streets, and there are whispers of snow.

North of Night

unpublished

This is a story about leadership and tough choices. It is set in a darkish fantasy world. Lead a spear of legionnaires into neutral territory as they take on a dangerous mission.

There will be a lot of decisions to make and every single one has consequences. Your main character, Willen, is not without flaws, but ultimately he must become a good leader. The story rewards choices that a good leader would make.

Let's get started because, you need to go to jail...

Oh this one is nice! The first paragraph has almost a little bit too much going on for my taste, that could be paced out a bit more. But overall I really like it. Particularly it is nice how the nature of the horror element shifts from being worried for the narrator to being worried about Mindy, to being worried about Mindy in a different way. Very nice for such such a short story.

One small thing: You call her Mindy in the beginning but Missy later, accident?

This statement about ratings outside the standard deviation does not make sense, mathematically speaking. It would make results non-unique.

Only read the Imaro book, a while ago. It's decent.

Personal anecdote: In 1998 I joined Princeton University. So, one day I ended up going through the website on which Princeton listed famous alumni and staff members. There were the names of people and a three word explanation of what they are famous for. Some examples are "Buzz Aldrin: Second man on the moon", "Bill Clinton: President", "Elena Kagan: Supreme Court Justice", "John Nash: Nobel Prize in Economics", "Brooke Shields: Actress", "John Wheeler: Nobel Prize in Physics", and so on. Also on this list is Cornell West. His entry said "Cornell West: Black Intellectual".

Finding this on the homepage of leftish institution in the 1990 symbolized like nothing else how prevalent systemic racism was/is. I wrote to the PR department about this and they changed the page. I think it says publisher now or something.

Excellent post. Thank you very much.

This reminds me that Charles Saunders died recently. He was an author of fantasy novels which are set in an African-inspired world where people are black. What sets Saunders apart from other authors is that struggle against slavery isn't a theme that comes up in his books. To my knowledge he is unique in this respect.

Apparently blackness and slavery have become so entwined that other authors can't escape the trope. This is perhaps the greatest tragedy: Colonization has destroyed much of the unique cultures that evolved in Africa over thousands of years and replaced it with the slavery narrative.

Hmm, I remember doing that a month ago.

So I read this at a description. Have to say, as a setting I love it and I absolutely would love to play the game.

Here is a trap though, you have a brilliant setting, but setting is the easy part. How will this become a story, where is the twist? If you don't plan ahead for this a little bit then there is a risk that the story just runs out of ideas and peters out once you reach the war.

So what could happen? You have a lot to work with ...

• Maybe we can discover a cure for our sister, derived from some? But what risks would you take to actually take to acquire it? Would you risk your own life? The survival of your unit? Would you risk losing the war?
• Perhaps we can discover avoid the draft and join rebels instead that are allied with a faction among the monsters?
• Perhaps we can discover that the war is a scam to control the population, and the monsters aren't that bad after all?
• Maybe we can find a treasure, but then we would make sure that we keep it somehow?

So basically what I am doing here is going through every sentence of your setting and thinking how could the story change this.

Welcome! I certainly have learned a lot here already.

Know that you mean there is this part of me who enjoys it as well.

No the car needs new DMV + SMOG even after going nowhere. (Also new tires)