Entry into EndMaster's 2024 Prompt Contest! 

The Faceless Knights uphold divine law, crushing mutation and degeneracy whenever they encounter it. When the young lord of a recently-conquered territory calls for a true servant of God, you must answer. 

This game has a sequel.

A short, silly, high-octane ride through a cyberpunk future where your bullets are few, your friends are fewer, and the long tentacles of the law are slithering up your pant legs. 

I am aware that technically, writing a sentence in all capital letters is gramatically incorrect. I did this on purpose, several times, for stylistic effect. If you point this out in the reviews, a team of hit-apes will kick in your door. 

Winner of EndMaster's 2024 Crisis Contest! 

This is a sequel to A Prayer for Destruction. It is highly recommended that you read that work before beginning this one.

The North, that frozen-over land of fanatics and heathens, has suffered a great and mysterious calamity. The Sultan bids you raise your banners and ride in his name to investigate.

Winner of EndMaster's 2020-2021 Grimdark Contest!

Take the role of Lord Winter, an aspiring sorcerer and the scion of a noble line that has fallen into obscurity. 

Contains scenes of intense gore, brutality, and sexual violence. 

Cover art by the talented MadHattersDaughter.

"Death is struck and nature quaking;
All creation is awaking,
To its Judge an answer making.
Lo, the book, exactly worded,
Wherein all hath been recorded;
Thence shall judgment be awarded.
When the Judge His seat attaineth,
And each hidden deed arraigneth,
Nothing unavenged remaineth."

-- Dies Irae

Ultimately, the fate of life is to destroy itself.

Note: This was adapted with express permission from a friend's "Creative Nonfiction" project for ENG223: Journalism in the 21st Century at Toronto Metropolitan University. Footnotes added by me to add clarity when needed. 

this is so fucking stupid

Your friends and brother are retarded lol 

TSR having a double meaning will always make me smile 

Hello friends, 

These past two weeks, we have encountered some of the best storytelling that world literature has to offer. In particular, we get a really fascinating example of an idealized  version of the ritual and formal relationship between host and guest, which was of paramount importance in the ancient Greek world. Additionally, we get some really fantastic characterization of Hector and his family. The whole chapter has a really gloomy, kind of fatalistic vibe to it. Great stuff. Thanks Homer. 

Here's our questions. As always, answer some none or all. 

On page 135-136, there is an interesting exchange between the two royal brothers on what to do with a defeated Trojan soldier. What do their attitudes signify? Why might one of them be more in favour of massacring the defenceless than the others? 

Diomedes, who last book wounded two Olympians, insists on page 138 that he has no quarrel with the deathless gods, just in case the warrior he is encountering on the field is secretly a god. What does that tell us about that most important of heroic virtues, prudence? 

In Glaucus’ lengthy spiel, we see how the great deeds of the generations gone by seem more impressive than the heroes of today, through the discussion of Bellerophon. Do you think that is the case? Are many heroes of the Iliad less impressive than their pedigree? 

From page 150-151, Hector gives voice to the sense of doom and futility that pervades all of the verses that discuss life inside the walls of Troy.  What does it mean that Hector expects his wife to be raped and enslaved, and his home destroyed? 

During the scene with Hector and Andromache, Hector is forced to remove his helmet, as it frightens the infant Scamandrius. He then expresses his desire for his son to kill an enemy and bring his bloodsoaked armour back to the city. Is this a proper wish for one’s infant son, or is Hector’s deep investment in the heroic ideal of brutal plundering and war meant to read as tragic? 

Congratulations everyone who has been keeping up, you're officially 25% of the way through! Nice. 

The median book published now is booktok / romantasy gooner slop, which might literally be worse than not reading. 

In any case, most men consume short form video content that's designed to turn you into schizo Hitler for fifteen hours a day. Not much room in there for reading. 

Wow. I didn't know that. I just - you're telling me that now for the first time. 

I think Ares is "human" insofar as he has an appetite for blood; Neal makes the case that appetites for food and drink are generally not predicated of the gods in the Iliad, which seems to mark him as slightly more anthropomorphic. 

Hello friends, 

We've now completed five books of the Iliad. Slowly, surely, we are making our way through. Sorry for this buzzer beater discussion post, but I'm incredibly busy this month. Accordingly, this discussion post is going to be an abbreviated one; I need to study and work. 

This book features two instances of a mortal man wounding a deity. Zoe Stamatopoulu argues that this is how Homer constructs the idea of a heroic generation; Diomedes is, essentially, representative of the larger-than-life capabilities of his generation. Check out the article if you're interested: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26572880.

This week, I also have an article to offer by Tamara Neal about the poetic use of bloodshed in the poem. Give it a read: https://doi.org/10.1086/505669.  I'll draw your attention to p.28, where Neal writes: 

"Ares, however, is an exception to the convention that the gods have no
desire for 'nourishment.'  He is said, explicitly, to have an appetite; for
instance, he is formulaically described as “insatiate of war” 

This book, we also see more from the god Ares. Homer depicts him as basically despised by everyone: gods and men. What do you think of that? Is there a sense in which he is the most "human" of the Olympians? 

Pasha Malk, who has been missing for what feels like days, bursts out of his eight wheel luxury carriage pulled by an entire camel train. Behind him are two eunuchs, visibly struggling to contain a beast that is writhing kicking from under a velvet curtain.

"My friends, I have assembled this creature according to ancient texts so blasphemous that they are proscribed by the wise masters of the Turd Council. I must apologize for my lateness: I had to receive special dispensation from the Porcelain Throne just to assemble this beast. It is a creature of the night that sups on human blood, its very existence is an object of study by the Time Wizards of Chronomatica, and by Allah, it smells fucking terrible. May I present the.... 

SHIT NOSFERATU THAT INHABITS THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE TINDALOS CORNERS OF TIME." 

At a signal, the sackless warriors unveil the monster. One of them produces a pink parasol that he uses to shield it from the sun. 

"It is, as the name suggests, a  dreadful vampire made of poop.  A cunning observer will also notice that geometry seems to fail in the creatures presence:  it has an aura of Non-Euclidean Poop Math, sure to confound and torment any heroes who attempt to slay it. Of course, the Tindalos Corners of Time have no sunlight, so the creature can be slain easily by solar radiation: however, as this is meant to guard a dungeon lair, that is of no concern. Please take it. I really don't want to have to put it back in the carriage." 

Meterial, creature, suffix. 

Hello friends, 

We've now read four books of the Iliad. This is where the carnage begins. Lots of good stuff in this chapter: battle, bickering gods, Agamemnon being mogged by his subordinates, getting speared in the head so hard the spear fully penetrates your skull, etc. 

I'd also like to draw your attention to the work of poetry Memorial, by classicist and poet Alice Oswald. It is, essentially, an extrapolation of the common Homeric trope of eulogizing a character who has just been killed. As you've now seen, when someone is slain, there is often a brief discourse about their biography and ancestry. Which minor character who gets instantly eulogized is your favorite, this chapter? 

Here, we see again another instance of the gods intervening. To keep the war going, Athena influences the "mindless mind" of Pandarus (133), telling him to take the shot against Menelaus. Hilariously, she also deflects the arrow away from his vital organs. Are concepts like "agency" and "free will" operative here?

Emily Wilson's style has been called conversational, casual, and plainspoken. How does that affect your reading experience? Are there any particular lines that are un-flowery that struck you as particularly moving? Did any feel jarring or out of place? 

There is an exchange where Agamemnon scolds Odysseus for not being yet mobilized, and then walks back his comments almost immediately. Who has the right of it? Is the audience meant to take a side in their dispute, or is this a matter of intentional ambiguity? Is Agamemmnon a diplomatic leader for not wanting to "scold or blame [Odysseus]" (477) or is he, in fact, a little bitch? 

There are several instances in this book of people fighting over the arms and armour of deceased warriors. What might that tell you about the political economy of the elite landowning warrior classes being depicted? How does plunder factor into their understanding of manhood, glory, and martial prowess? 

As always, the questions are just a starting point. Answer some, none, or all. Keep an eye on Diomedes, who will be centrally important in Book 5 (and badass). 

Welcome! Writing a good CYOA is the same as doing any good writing: read a bunch, imitate what works, and create a novel style from your inspirations.