The Literary Khan: fiction, wisdom, and writings of The Khan

 Welcome back my readers to our literary Khanate! Pull up a fur, get comfortable, and enjoy something a little different today. We are going back to arguably one of the best specialist games that Gamesworkshop ever produced. I am speaking about Mordheim. Released in the balmy yester year of 1999. Those of you lucky to have played this know that was wild time.  In 2006 I had spent an entire day playing this game and drinking with a mate before we hit up a night on the town. To this day nothing makes me laugh like remembering my drunken friend proudly declaring he had the 'haggle' skill and should not have paid full price for his drink.  In another of my challenges in writing I found a competition on a Mordheim facebook group. These days this is the main, if not only, place that Mordheim survives. Carried on by the loyal fans that continue to play it. The competition was simple. Create a Mordheim scenario. I thought to myself that I would give it a go. I am not a 'games desig

  Well we are back again with another reflection on some fanfiction. After my last piece I found a 1000 word challenge. This one had two main rules. It had to be one thousand words, and had to be themed around the prompt 'Reclaim'. Once again we are in the Warhammer 40,000 setting.  I want to say that I have a serious issue when it comes to writing. If you ask for a ham sandwich, I am going to give you an entire pig farm. I grew up reading Tolkien and H P Lovecraft. Thus I tend to go overboard in descriptions, and details. So to be frank I found the idea of writing one thousand words to be the creative writing equivalent of a haiku. The piece I ended up designing went for more boots on the ground level of the Warhammer 40,000 setting. Not the grand sweeping tales of armies fighting over worlds. Instead I focused on a conflict we all relate to. Just wanting a quiet place to drink. The protagonist was an interesting one for me. I usually have ideas come to me fully formed. But wi

 Shortly after the 2019 rejections came out I had become active on twitter and this led me to another opportunity to deploy my Novacastellans into the literary field again. I took onboard the reflections on my Black Library entry, and dispensed with the action instead spending more time on character interactions. I had also been listening to a fair amount of the Horus Heresy books. I became fascinated with a concept that marines are more human than we often consider, and additionally that they may be ultimately faulted. Moreover that they deliberately hide their more relaxed selves from the rank and file 'mortals'.  The following was the entry I put forward for the competition.  A triumph, the thought came bitter sweet to Brother Sargeant Nius’ mind. He watched from a gallery of the capital building. Row upon row of battle tanks spewed exhaust in their wake, and Astra Militarum soldiers filed along the roadway in an faceless mass of humanity. Booming warhorns signalled the pond

As I continued the attempts to push myself in putting my writing out there I decided to try for the 2019 open submission window. I had been writing a bit of background for my own marine chapter. So I figured I would put a story about them forward. The submission required authors to write a pitch based on a tight knit group. Somewhat akin to examples such as the Gaunt's Ghosts series. To that end I sat down and created a story set at the outset of the Eye of Terror opening, and splitting the galaxy in half. The story would be a swan song for my chapter. That is right the first thing I planned to do was kill my own chapter. The story would follow the stories of the last brothers of the Novacastellan Chapter Astartes as they fight to survive as their homeworld is almost swallowed by the Cicatrix Maledictum. In the pitch I provided a list of dramatis personae with all the background on the characters. With this pitch you were also required to provide a sample of your writing. Here is t

 Some time ago I left university and had a heap of spare time. I only wanted to do one thing my new found time and money. Go back to playing my beloved Warhammer Fantasy. I walked into Newcastle Gameworkshop and found the Old World suddenly looked like first place winner in the Alderaan look alike contest. That is to say "it was goneskies". As I what the hell an End Times was and who are these gold guys I accepted that 40k would have to content me. I mothballed my Dark Elves.  Eventually I missed the crunch of warhammers, the charge of cavalry and lumbering monsters too much. But it meant one thing. I needed to learn the lore. As a player one thing will get me into a game. I MUST LIKE THE LORE TO INVEST. If the lore does not hook me I simply cant be bothered playing. I wont name names but i tried other games but they did not do it. So I did what everyone does when they want to learn something. I went to youtube. A search led me to 2+ Tough and his lore videos. Then came the l

 Greetings! Welcome! Please pull up a fur by the fire, and have a drink. After all hospitality is sacred to the Khan.  My name is Daniel and I am without any doubt a complete nerd. A former English and History teacher, as well as a life long gamer. I have also always had a passion for writing. It is a big aspiration of mine to be published one day. In regards to this I hope it will be either for my entries to Black Library, or that I finally finish my book "Cement Pills and Silver Bullets".  During my time at University I sunk as many units into creative writing courses as I could. Sadly whilst I had some good lessons my biggest take away from those courses were that firstly no one reads your workshop pieces, and secondly that if you want your material read there are far better avenues available.  This took me to the internet. I would dabble in that great arena of internet literature "fanfiction" before taking up a few competitions. You may have even come across me