To be honest, I didn’t think this would be the first post I make on this fancy new blog. I have so many other larger projects on the go, but unfortunately they’ve been moving at the speed of bureaucracy. A post about how something is coming Soon™ isn’t exactly exciting. Certainly isn’t something that my current audience of two is salivating for.

In the interest of kickstarting my brain into “getting stuff done” mode, I participated in a writing jam for One Page Rules. OPR, if you haven’t heard, is a set of tabletop wargames that, erm, borrow from popular Games Workshop properties. While there are obvious allusions to a certain 41st millennium with its Battle Brothers and DAO alien empire, from what I understand the people behind it are trying to establish its own unique identity (along with creating unique factions like the pretty rad Eternal Dynasty).

Even at a thousand words, writing up a cool story in two days that doesn’t detour into Best Value 40K sounded like a fun challenge. So what did I do, how did I do it, and did I succeed? I guess we’ll find out.

The Idea

“Strength vs. Intelligence” was the theme, and two factions immediately came to mind: the Imperial Knights (known in the OPRverse as the “Titan Lords”) and Tzeentch Daemons (Or “Daemons of Change”). Actually, I’m surprised that, from what I’ve seen and read of the entries, I seem to be the only one who thought of this combination. At least I’m not the only one with a giant robot story, that would’ve been sad.

So that was easy. Deciding how the whole “versus” thing went wasn’t. The problem I quickly ran into was that I had no idea how a Knight would fight a Tzeentch equivalent. My exposure to literature in GW universes is usually boots-on-the-ground type–the hardened, vulnerable soldiers facing off against horrors from within and without. Sure, mecha comes easy to me, but grimdark mecha? And as much as I simp for Chaos, Tzeentch was the one I knew the least about on top of all that.

Good start so far.

What saved this was the lore snippet for the Titan Lords. Unlike their regal cousins in the Imperium, who nominally fight for the good of mankind, the Lords are rich folk who just dump money into giant killing machines. Sure, they can be noble mercenaries, but in my mind they took on a more corporate quality. Colonial billionaires who rule their own personal fiefdoms with an iron fist.

With that in mind, the foundation was set. Rather than detailing an epic battle between Titan and Daemon I couldn’t possibly write, it’s instead a recounting of that tale. A very biased retelling from a literal oil baron. Sounded good to me.

If you want to read the whole thing, the itch.io page can be found here.

The Good

As difficult as it is, I have to talk about the stuff I like about my writing. This is a weird problem I have; I feel like if I compliment myself too much, it comes off as being unwarranted? Egotistical? But that's a problem to deal with another time.

I love the lore behind Prospector-Baron Hearn and Regent Rounde's Refinerates and Reserveries. For something I came up with in, like, five minutes, it's pretty evocative. The melding of business and nobility, with titles like Sir-Supervisor and so on, gives off that grimdarkness that's distinct from the gothic stylings of 40K. You can kinda imagine how the whole organization operates just on a thousand words alone.

I'm also really proud of Hearn's depiction. When I first thought of him as a literal oil baron, I went all in on it. The very low, common way he speaks ("I says") is twisted into a haughtiness. All helped by how slimy he is, how superior he thinks himself to be. How he feels like the machinations of monarchal-corporate business is all to serve him. He is easily the strongest part of this work.

Also, I gotta pat myself on the back for some of the word choice I used. I could list a few choice examples, but I will simply use only one: auditory lobotomy. Gorgeous, no notes, 10/10.

Okay, we're done complimenting myself. Time to complain!

The Horrible, Terrible, Absolutely Awful Mistakes That Will Leave Me Staring Unwaking At The Ceiling For The Rest of My Existence

I’ll be real with you: I screwed up on this. For all my attention to detail, it was this that lead to my submission’s fatal flaw.

Once I figured out that this was a first person recounting of the battle, a question needed to be answered. Who is the Prospector-Baron telling this to? For what reason? Me being me, finding the answer ended up adding density that was a detriment to the clarity of the story.

See, I thought that, to add some extra dimension to the theme, it was a good idea to have another battle going on. There’s this side plot regarding Hearn’s worsening relationship with the other Human factions, culminating in the Inquisition, the “intelligence”, beating out Hearn by letting him dig his own grave, so to speak. The tale of slaying the Change Daemon turned out to be his doom.

I thought I was so damn smart for coming up with this. Admittedly, however, it wasn’t fully thought out. The way this is communicated needed to be more clear; the format of it being a in-universe document might not have been the best choice. Hell, it was kinda half-cocked, with the dialogue written out as if in prose. Either I should’ve stuck with the primary story and cut out the side plot, or put much more focus on developing the side plot. I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too.

Onto more nitpicky stuff, my other concern is that I may have strayed too much into 40K territory. The Change Daemons are definitely more Tzeentchy (Though OPR Demon lore is pretty vague to begin with, so maybe it’s okay?). The Inquisition working for the human faction is also more of a 40K thing, whereas OPR’s factions are much more independent.

And to end off this section, I might as well let my paranoia speak while we’re on the subject of originality. Upon rereading the description of the Titan Lords, I think I may have strayed too far from what was intended. Titan Lords are less literal “lords” and more just a mercenary nobility. Perhaps the corporate fiefdom might not fit too well in what OPR envisions for this faction. Though this isn’t so much a mistake as a purposeful oversight. I wouldn’t fault someone for docking points for me not strictly adhering to the lore as written, but oh well. It’s too cool to change. What are you going to do, arrest me?

Other Entries I Liked

Before I get into my final thoughts, I figure I should do a quick showcase of some of the other entries I thought were pretty good/10.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum by Neil

This one does the lore well without slipping into 40Kisms too much. An AdMech-based faction is really easy to write AdMechy, but the author avoids it pretty well for the most part while adding some neat worldbuilding. It also helps that the story is cleanly told with a mystery that stayed in my head after I read it. Thumbs up from me. You can read it here.

Valiant Effort by Reddest-Panda

If there’s an argument to be made about not overthinking the plot like I did, this is a convincing one. A very straight forward story, yes, but it’s executed well. The lore details and the crunchy fight descriptions really sell it. Plus it’s just so unique: the protagonist is a cyberpunk dwarf cop with a technohammer! Overall solid stuff, would not be surprised to see this high up in the rankings. You can read it here.

Final Thoughts

Overall, as much as I like elements of my story, I can’t say I like how it all came together. Maybe one day I’ll go back and do a revised version, but ehh, I’m just happy that it’s done.

Next time, speaking of “auditory lobotomy”, slowly but surely this is nearing completion. Hopefully soon I'll be able to talk about it.