Titan Wargames Presents: The 1st Scribe’s Contest writing competition on Chaos Dwarfs Online!
We are pleased to announce that this Scribe’s Contest has been sponsored by Titan Wargames! There will be one prize of the unpainted character model Baggronor the Mighty for the Gold winner:
"The minds of the mysterious slavers and blacksmiths of the Dark Lands may be glimpsed through their words, be they songs, sayings or everyday speech. Those are glimpses of a world of cruelty, oppression and blind obedience, maniac inventions, toil and a ruthless drive for power where the supernatural is just one resource amongst many to be exploited. They hint of a world of mysticism, terror and devotion. They are witnesses of a world where gods and Daemons are as real as the tools, weapons and whips handled by the Chaos Dwarfs.
These are the words of the Blacksmiths of Chaos.“
Subject Matter: Chaos Dwarf Infamous Quotes The theme for this writing competition is infamous quotes. According to Wikipedia, “quotation is the repetition of someone else’s statement or thoughts”. We want you to invent and write 1-3 quotes made by, or concerning, Chaos Dwarfs. These could be your army general’s speech to his troops; a curse on your favourite enemy; the last words of a Dawi Zharr; a slave, foreigner or Hobgoblin speaking about Chaos Dwarfs; or something else entirely.
Note that infamous quotes by, or concerning Hobgoblins will be a later contest theme. This time, focus on Chaos Dwarfs, though quotes by Hobgoblins speaking about Chaos Dwarfs are of course allowed.
Quotes are not to be confused with popular proverbs (which are a theme for a later contest).
Writing Rules The word limit for each entry is 10-300 words in total. You may write 1-3 quotes within this boundary.
Quotes are to be written in this format:
“Johnny stole an apple.” - Billy
"Gorhak whipped the wretch and tore the limbs from its body. Then he burnt it atop the Father’s pyre in sight of His mighty idols!” - Barukimbul Thunderskull, following the maiming of Urkak Stuntystompa and the defeat of Da Bloo Waaagh!
All entries are to be written “in-universe”, meaning no lines about D6s or green stuff are allowed. See the General Rules.
Spellcheck Please spellcheck your entry before submission. Even so, to help even the field for the non-native English speakers, Admiral may correct grammar and spelling mistakes within the limits of his grasp of the English language.
Inspiration Sources Anything can be your inspiration, including your latest tabletop game. See the Guidelines, and the Chaos Dwarf Quotes list. (You are not allowed to copy someone else’s work!)
Deadline: 11:59 PM Nov 9th 2014 EST (Eastern Standard Timezone) Submit your entry by PM to the Scribe account before the deadline. Entries will not be accepted after that date and time regardless of how cool your submission is. (You have around 3 weeks to complete your entry.)
If for some reason you are having trouble with your submission, contact one of the Staff before the deadline. In order to avoid problems, we strongly advise entrants not wait until the very last minute to submit their entries… As things can and do go wrong at the last minute. Please do not send entries to individual Admin or Staff members to submit on your behalf as they may not check their PMs!
How to Enter Write one to three Chaos Dwarf quotes, invented by you, and send a PM to Scribe (a special user that all Staff have access to) containing the quotes. The moderator organizing the contest will then check the inbox one or a few days before deadline and verify to each entrant that their submission was received.
If you win - Take your place in the upcoming Scribe’s Contest Hall of Fame (to be created after this competition), where your glory will be remembered for years to come. - Receive the Scribe’s Contest medal for your online persona: - Everyone who enters gets a number of slaves equal to the number of entries. If 40 people enter we award 40 slaves to each person who entered. - If you win Gold, you’ll win a character model prize, courtesy of Titan Wargames.
Entries will count towards a participation medal, which is the simpler Scribe’s Contest equivalent of Artisan’s Contest and Golden Hat veteran medals.
As usual once all entries are received a voting thread will be created. If there are any questions please PM me, another Staff member or post them here.
Summary Subject Matter: Infamous quotes by, or concerning, Chaos Dwarfs. Deadline: 11:59 PM 9th of November 2014 EST (Eastern Standard Timezone)
If any forum members would like to aid Scribe’s Contest by donating models or other materials as prizes for future competitions, feel free to contact myself or one of the Staff to help sort out details.
Now, carve your tablet. Sharpen your pen and dip it in fresh slave blood, for Hashut demands words!
A rules question: If a member writes 3 Quotes do I know that or is every quote displayed separately for the voting? I`m a little bit a tactician, you know ;)
edit: Great it has started! I am looking forward to the entries.
Best of luck, guys! The contest after this one will probably have only two weeks’ deadline. So try and check in every week on CDO in the coming months if you intend to reap some medals and minis by the power of words.
Special thanks to Nicodemus for creating the medals and banner, to Baggronor for his very generous donation and to Bloodbeard for critical proofreading.
@Dînadan: Nice! Four weeks of waiting awaits you, though.
@TheHoodedMan: Each entry’s quotes will be kept together and distinctly separated from all other entries. Be sure of that.
Lovely banner, layout, medals and concept. Let’s make this contest type the new thing on the blog. I have absolutely no idea what to write but I’ll think of something.
Many voters will probably look for entirely original lines which people have made up all by themselves and that strikes them as cool, capturing the CD spirit, fun or smart. Basing quotes by modification upon other relatively well-known material will probably work to one’s disadvantage, if I am to make a guess.
It’d require more than switching names. I think it’s fairest to all participants to decree that one have to come up with new stuff. We’re aiming for creative originality here, and three weeks should be more than enough for everyone to give it a hard try.
I’ve written,read, deleted and re-written my quotes three times. And even though the essence is there, I can’t get them just right. My english vocabulary is not colourful enough. And there’s so little space to do it in.
If more people want it, then we could raise the word limit to 400.
@Bloodbeard: As for English, how about writing it in Danish first, or in English with Danish placeholder words where you think you lack the English ones? Then you could use bab.la, set it to Danish and start translating, looking for the best words that would suit your text.
The problem is that the danish language is super effective but extremely limited compared to english. We just donsn’t have words to describe things as precisely as the English language do. A good example would be the word “angry”. In danish we only have one word for that, unless we want to use metaphors (spelling?). The English language has more fine-tuned words to describe which kind of angry feeling that’s on the table. For example “livid”.
This makes our language very good for everyday life, but very bad for academics, colorful speech and not misunderstanding our partners in a heated debate, as many of our words can mean multiple things. Even in the same context. That makes translations from danish to English seem dull but maybe with multiple word suggestions it would be okay.
True, English has more nuance words. The best way to learn all those words is to read English books frequently. To translate Scandinavian words the way you want, bab.la is good since it contains English synonyms you can flick through.
To acquire more nuance words, I propose you build some longships and raid England again.
Yep, Swedish is entirely similar to Danish in that regard. But superior nevertheless in this Scandinavian sibling bicker.
The problem is that the danish language is super effective but extremely limited compared to english. We just donsn't have words to describe things as precisely as the English language do. A good example would be the word "angry". In danish we only have one word for that, unless we want to use metaphors (spelling?). The English language has more fine-tuned words to describe which kind of angry feeling that's on the table. For example "livid".
This makes our language very good for everyday life, but very bad for academics, colorful speech and not misunderstanding our partners in a heated debate, as many of our words can mean multiple things. Even in the same context. That makes translations from danish to English seem dull but maybe with multiple word suggestions it would be okay.
Isn't Swedish kinda similar in that regard btw.?
Malorndk
To be fair, that's probably got something to do with English being a mongrel language; at its base it's Germanic in origin having grown from the Anglo-Saxon language, but it also has Latin, Ancient Greek and French mixed in and a few other languages sprinkled in like Welsh/Celtic and 'Scandinavian' (eg Thursday is a corruption of Thor's Day). It means that English can use words from all of those languages (or corruptions/evolutions) of those words as synonyms.
