Some stories have a message...kinda...

Additional Notes:

WARNING! (The real one)

This story is pretty offensive, it can get graphic and downright ruthless at times so if you don’t like that sort of humor, don’t read this story. But if you read it anyway don’t complain if you get offended, I did warn you and keep in mind it IS only a story.

(Or read it anyway, get offended and leave a hilariously triggered comment, that's fine too.)

Also, don't bother trying to "win" either. You can't. Just heed the moral lessons you may learn.

One musician's tale in a dying world

Additional Notes:

If you’ve read and liked Necromancer, then this might interest you as this story takes place during the same course of events of that story. (Not a prequel, not a sequel, but an equal!)

However, this story is definitely more “story” than “game”. In fact you shouldn’t even bother reading it if you’re intent on “winning”. You can’t. That being said, there is a “true ending” to this story and you’ll probably know if you get it. If you do get it, you can consider it a “win” if you like.

There are a few points in the story where there are links that lead to “Letters to Home”. While not necessary to understand the story, they do provide a little more insight into the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings on various situations.

The last hope for a dying empire

Additional notes:

This story can be very long assuming you're not dying. Years pass and your surroundings will most likely change. You may very well live a life time in the story.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the epilogues.

There are 13 epilogues total.

There are also several points in the story where there are links that lead to more background information on various people, places, things and events. While not completely necessary to understanding the story, they do give you more insight into it.

Carnivals aren't all fun and games.

Additional Notes:

While there is only one spot that contains extra histories for this story, it's basically the background information of all the major characters and factions. It's strongly recommended that these are read due to the fact that your character will be interacting with most of these folks in his attempts to successfully accomplish his task(s).

This story has a very factional feel to it, so choose your allegiances carefully to get one of the better endings.

If you see a bright light, duck and cover!

Additional notes:

I should point out that this story can be very long assuming you're not dying. Years pass and your surroundings will most likely change. You may very well live a life time in the story if you're lucky. You will also experience a completely different adventure depending on how you escaped the initial nuclear strike. (Assuming you do survive it.)

As with any of my writings, the "story" comes before the "game". However, this story was written in a "game like" format. So while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the 4 special endings. (You'll know if you get one because you'll get an epilogue)

This one's for the kids, no really!

Additional Notes:

This story has clear cut win/lose endings. There is nothing excessively unusual about this story, it's just a simple "children's story".

(Yes, you can still die in it)

Running the family business isn't easy!

Additional Notes:

In a few places there are links for history or certain characters. While not necessary to understand the story, they do provide further background information.

There are several endings varying in degrees of good/bad or neutral outcomes. Technically there is one very happy ending, but it isn't labeled as such.

Underneath the sickness there's love...

Additional Notes:

WARNING!

This story contains a lot of graphic content, if you are offended by ultra violence, explicit sexual descriptions, tons of swearing, blasphemy, inappropriate dark humor, and brutal misanthropy in general then DO NOT read this story!

Of course now that I’ve mentioned all the things it contains, you’ll probably read it anyway, you sick little monkey.

Well don’t complain if you get offended, I did warn you and keep in mind it IS only a story.

(Or read it anyway knowing it'll offend you and leave an amusingly triggered comment. That's fine too.)

This also isn't really a "win/lose" type story. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just a tale about a very twisted man and his very twisted lifestyle.

Additional Notes:

This story is definitely more "story" than "game", however there are two distinct paths that can be followed, each with their own pitfalls and additional choices. There is also "one true" ending in which can be considered a "win" (You'll know if you got it, because you'll get an epilogue)

This story can get long, and assuming you're surviving, years do pass in it and you and your environment will change. There are a few points in the story where there are links that lead to more background information on various people and things. While not completely necessary to understand the story, they do give you more insight into it. The text that accompanies some of the pics are also done for similar purposes (Your journal entries, personal thoughts, letters written to you, etc)

Humanity never changes...

Additional Notes:

There are links leading to various background information and your character's current thoughts throughout the story. In some cases these may provide greater insight since some mysterious things can occur in this story.

There are also several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. Technically there is one ultimate "winning" ending, but it isn't labeled as such.

Emotions can be wonderful or dangerous...

Additional Notes:

This story has a few bits that are probably a bit on the disturbing side. Not many, but they are there in places. So if you don't like that sort of thing, you probably shouldn't read it.

This story in general is probably a bit odd and less verbose than most of my other stories. There are also several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just the tale of a teenager who definitely has some issues.

From humble beginning to infamy and beyond!

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as a "sequel" to Innkeeper.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the 12 epilogues.

Things would be so much easier if your name was Mary Sue

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as:

A direct sequel to the "Good Girl" short story in Tales From The Basement.

A semi sequel to the other TFTB short stories, Repression, TRASH, Love SICK and Geek.

A semi prequel to Ground Zero.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can still "win" by getting one of the epilogues.

There are 16 epilogues total.

Because Basement Dwellers are people too!

Additional Notes:

This story is three stories in one. Your first choice will lead to a separate tale of a different “basement dweller”. Each one is mostly different in tone.

Ebay Escapist is weird and random. It’s the least verbose of the three. (Or my stories in general)

Good Girl is the longest and most descriptive of the three. There is some weirdness going on here too, but is mostly kept much more in "reality". There is a cast of characters link in the beginning to help you keep up with who’s who.

Anime Addict has a lot of offensive language and humor, so if you don't like that sort of thing you shouldn’t read this one.

In all the tales there are several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. While there are some endings better than others, these are basically just tales of basement dwellers.

It's an edgelord boogaloo!

Additional Notes:

This story is three stories in one where it follows a different protagonist based on the first choice.

This story is also probably really offensive or something. Probably shouldn't read it if that's not your thing, but feel free to do so anyway and complain loudly in the comments since those are always good for a laugh.

Anyway, there's your extra warning. You can't say you weren't told.

Incel Insanity and Whining Wokie are all new tales, while Film Fanatic is a "reboot" of sorts of an older story called Exploitation Theater. Yes, it's finally here and been greatly expanded on.

As always the story is always more important than the game focus, but also as always, you definitely can get better endings than others.

Three ladies. Three legends.

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as a connection to Rogues, Eternal and Necromancer.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However there is an epilogue for each "winning" ending.

Yee Haw! It's a trailer park life for me!

Additional Notes:

This story has a ton of offensive langauge and humor so if you don't like that sort of thing, you probably shouldn't read it. Though given the setting, the language used is pretty accurate.

This also isn't really a "win/lose" type story. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just a tale about a typical day of a degenerate that lives in a trailer park.

Always glad when I can mold the youthful minds for a better future.

The funny thing is when we had a "Dark Fantasy" section on here, we suddenly got flooded with degenerates looking up fetish porn since apparently that's one of the names used within that sort of crowd.

Hence the change to Grimdark Fantasy which is a better name anyway.

I swear nobody ever bothers to keep proper track.

Contest Participants So Far

Petros

RKrallonor

Mizal

hetero_malk

Bezro

Wildblue

Darius_Conwright

benholman44

Fluxion

Cat2002116

MadHattersDaughter

Marte

There, altered the season with a brief mention.

Welp, you killed him.

Guess the Grimdark Fantasy protagonist won this battle.

So here's Rogues which despite being shorter than Eternal, probably had WAY more notes and shit I had to keep track of. (Or at least it felt that way when writing it!) In fact if you look close enough, you may even see things I didn't even use at all. It happens, but you always got notes to keep track of stuff.

And yes, I still had a few more pages on this note document, but I think you get the idea. Now you'd look at this mess and wonder how the hell you'd find anything, and the answer is probably YOU wouldn't.

Me on the other hand have been doing it like this for years, so this is normal to me.

Besides what Mizal already said, it wouldn't do much good mainly because I know the way I do it, doesn't seem to be the way everyone else does it.

If you're interested in seeing how I'm organizing stuff, well here's some examples.

So obviously "in progress" stories would go in the appropriate folder, though it usually isn't in there since I tend to have whatever I'm currently working on actually on the face of the laptop for easy access, but I do have some stuff in there that I got distracted from or on the back burner, so its useful to keep those in there.

So here's all the completed stuff, or at least the completed CYOA stuff. Shorter stories and such are elsewhere. (Probably in the Assorted folder above)

So here's the "level 1" look at Eternal which is the longest story. I had to actually divide that one into multiple folders.

And here's a "level 2" look at Eternal focusing on the Struggle path. Again that one was a little longer so I even divided the chapter into two documents since it was getting really long.

So here's an example of a "shorter Epic". In this case Suzy. There was no need for extra folders and one document per path was enough.

And here's an older example with Ground Zero. As you can see, the method of organizing didn't change much.

Of course that's all macro level organization. Things get even more fun when you do it on the micro level, which I'll show an example of in another post.

I mean you pretty much said what I did, so now there's no reason for me to say it now.

For those that can't get enough of the grimdark around here because teaching horrible lessons is fun!

Setting the Example

You’re not distracting anyone from their own ordeals and they could just get shot in the process. You’ve dealt with a lot worse, you can get through this too.

You raise your shield high and stumble as quick as you’re able behind one of the goblin dwellings. Sounds of another bolt thuds into your shield and you feel the scraping of the thankfully shoddy spears hit your armor, but nothing gets through.

Your vision is blurry, but you see a couple of the young ones running off in the distance with their nets slung over their backs. At least some of them seem to have gotten the task done.

You fend off the goblin warriors, though you’re relying more on your shield rather than counter attacking with your axe, which is feeling heavier in your hand. You need to retreat, but that fucker with the crossbow is probably still out there. You’re going to just have to risk it otherwise you’re going to get surrounded eventually and only get weaker from whatever that bolt was dipped in.

Looking to the side of you that has less goblins, you muster up all your energy and get ready to charge through like a battering ram, but then help surprisingly arrives as you see a couple of goblins getting cut down from the back.

“Come on! The way is clear now!” a familiar voice shouts. Still can’t make out the figure, but sounds like the female you spoke with earlier.

You follow her lead as goblin warriors throw their spears at you. She returns fire by throwing some axes at them. You see a couple of other dero running past you. The goblins give less of a chase when several of their number fall to throwing axes, which is good since you’re not exactly running all that fast. You think the effects are wearing off though, so if it was poison, it’s not going to kill you.

Eventually you get far enough away and you feel like your strength is returning. The female dero that helped you has stayed with you the entire time.

“You still feeling woozy?” she asks.

“Not as much now….y’know you can go up ahead to the lake. You don’t need to hang around.” You say.

“I know, but I think it’s better if I stay just in case the goblins do decide to regroup and come after us anyway.”

“Hm. You came out of nowhere when you helped, I know you weren’t with the group of six I sent and the others were on the far side of the settlement. Did you even stay with them?”

“At first, but after I saw a couple of them get killed and the rest run off with captives, I figured I’d at least try to help elsewhere, you specifically since you look overwhelmed. When I saw the cave spinner drop down and scoop up the goblin with that crossbow, I figured I’d take my chance.”

“Oh, so that’s what happened. Guess I didn’t see Twenty Eyes do that when I was staying out of sight. Guess she did come in useful.”

“Indeed. It’s really interesting how you’ve trained them like that.”

“So…what’s your name anyway?”

“Stalja. I actually told you before a long time ago when you used to train us.”

“Well you’ve obviously grown since then so you look a little different. Not to mention I have so many other things to keep track of. Anyway we can walk and talk to the lake. Let’s get moving.”

Stalja catches you up on who she saw die and who she knows survived from her group. At least two, one male and one female. She also mentions that at least two of them managed to capture goblins.

“Well that’s one less male to deal with in the future at least. Remember, you don’t want these welps surviving much longer. In fact, you need to hurry your ass up to the lake before one of them get the idea to stick his dick into goblin pussy.”

Eventually you get to the lake and see what remains of the young ones. Looks like there’s nine of them which makes ten if you include Stalja.

“Another male dead and it looks like the entire group got four goblins between them. Not bad.”

“Hey! Stop torturing that gob! We need these little green bitches and I’m not going to have you risking killing one because you have to indulge in your inherent sadism.” You shout at one of them stabbing at a captive goblin through the net.

“Aw I know what I’m doing. Besides, they don’t need to be in one piece right? Probably would be better to cut their fingers off so they can’t claw at your eyes.”

“There’s no need to mutilate when a punch or two will do.”

“Oh fine, well someone open the net, let’s get to the fun part…”

The young dero is about to pull out his dick and then you quickly stop him with a punch to his face. He goes flying to the ground and the rest just sort of step away from you and him.

“What the fuck did you do that for?!” the young dero says holding his bloody nose.

“This isn’t fun. This is serious fucking business and until you…ALL of you learn that fact, you don’t get the responsibility or the honor of propagating the race!”

“What?! We risked our lives and you’re not letting us fuck?”

“You can fuck all you want, you’re just not doing it with anything that can give birth. So have at it with your siblings if you haven’t already, I don’t care.”

The young dero finally stands up and still insists on being defiant. Seems that the breeding desire is strong enough to challenge your authority. This might be an issue.

“Fuck you, if it wasn’t for us, you’d still be at the goblin village with spears in your ass. You need us more than we need you! You…”

And that point you get tired of this teenage display of rebellion and cleave his head in two. The wet sound of brain matter falling to the ground along with his body aren’t far behind.

“Hah! Bet he wishes he stuck to shutting the fuck up and jerking off!”

You turn around putting your bloody axe over your shoulder and calm yourself as everyone looks on.

“Now then, I don’t remember calling ANY of you lot to help me and the ONLY one who actually did of her own free will was Stalja over here, so yeah if she were capable of impregnating one of these gobs, then I’d allow that, but as far as the rest of you, you’re doing the bare minimum and I’m not fucking impressed yet. Anyone else want to debate this?”

Naturally your display of violence has cowed everyone into proper submission.

“Pfft. Cowards. That’s how you know their vile svelk blood is dominant. If they were real dero, they would have mobbed up and tried to kill you. Of course they’re probably still going to, but they’re going to be scheming about it. Get you when you’re most vulnerable. Best watch your back nephew.”

The rest of the journey back home is uneventful. You tell the young ones with the goblin captives to take them to the breeding area and you’ll get to work on them a little later. They don’t argue or say anything and just do what you tell them.

You return to your own living space and find that Twenty Eyes is already there and nearby is a crossbow. You pick it up and smile.

“Well now, I heard about your part in all this. Good girl. Hope it was a tasty goblin.” You say.

After a brief bit of resting and pulling a bolt out of your side, you head over to the breeding area, but you’re stopped by Dakzat.

“What’s all this about you not letting the boys fuck the goblins? When I thought they were going to get down to business, they told me you said they weren’t allowed. Isn’t that sort of point of all this? And they said you even KILLED one of them!”

“He challenged my authority and we don’t have time for that shit. The main point was to create more dero and we can’t get that if we’re letting those fucking half-breeds spread their seed. You said it yourself they’re more disobedient than proper dero.”

“Yeah, but don’t we sort of need them right now?”

“For now, but that’s going to change eventually.”

“So you’re going to impregnate all of the female captives?”

“Who else? Not like this wasn’t going to be a possibility.”

“But…what are we going to do with a bunch of horny males until they can be replaced?”

“I don’t fucking know. I told them to go fuck their sisters or each other. Hell, you and Glastilda could pitch in and help. Suck their dicks, I don’t fucking care! This is ALL on me and I don’t need to be distracted right now! Outta my way!”

You push Dakzat aside and head to the goblin captives. You find that they’ve already been stripped naked and tied down so resistance is minimal. Three of the four are hissing and screaming at you in their language. You haven’t bothered to learn much of their language, but you definitely recognized some of the swears.

The last one is silent. She looks over at you and then away. She’s resigned to her fate, though obviously not happy about it. Understandable, this is a horrible situation she’s in.

And you’re about to make it a whole lot worse…

Later...

Having done your part, you start heading back to your living area and that’s when you notice Stalja trying to interact with Twenty Eyes who you can tell is getting agitated.

“What the hell…Stalja! You trying to get a face full of poison? Leave her alone, she’s not one of those pathetic human pets, she’s a predator!”

Stalja immediately steps away and turns to you as Twenty Eyes scurries away into the darkness.

“Apologies I just thought since she’s so tame…um…what’s a human?” Stalja asks in all honesty given that she’s never even seen or heard of them before.

“Nevermind, look don’t fuck with my cave spinners again! You’re lucky it was Twenty Eyes, the others I have aren’t nearly as friendly. What are you doing around here anyway?”

“Well…”

“Fucking hell, this one may not know what a human is, but sure the hell acts like one! Why is this one hanging around you all the time, like one of those human pets you mentioned earlier?”

“Come on girl out with it!”

“Can you teach me how to train the cave spinners too?”

“Can I…what?”

“Train the cave spinners! I really think I could help you greatly with the process! Eventually we could have more like Twenty Eyes and even use them in future raids cutting down on risking dero we can’t afford to lose.”

“Truly?”

“Yes! Also have you considered breeding them for specific traits? You could breed bigger ones for example. Maybe even big enough to ride them!”

You can’t help but smirk a little at the idea of riding some overgrown spinner. The funny thing is Stalja actually isn’t bringing up ideas you haven’t pondered in the past. You just really haven’t had time to focus on some of these ideas since you’re also busy with a lot of other things, not to mention spinners aren’t the easiest to train, let alone domesticate. Twenty Eyes you think is a bit of anomaly. Hopefully her babies when she has them inherit her traits.

In any case, this all brings you back to Stalja and you really don’t know what to make of her and her eagerness to assist you all the time. This isn’t really a “duty” thing either, there’s almost too much emotion behind it. Probably just more svelk gene weakness, they did tend to be an overly emotional lot.

“It’s a svelk trick. Don’t you see? She’s trying to get in your good graces while she plots like the rest of her mongrel kin. They’re probably all in on it.”

Just because you’re half mad, doesn’t mean your dead uncle isn’t wrong however.

Let her help

Turn her away

Locked