The Endless Deserts: Fiction Contest!

I'm a big fan of people creating their own histories and backstories for their armies and today I have a contest to help promote that along with The Mortal Realms podcast. If you enjoy writing Warhammer based fiction and want a shot at winning some cool prizes then this right up your alley.

For those who don't know, I have been working on an unofficial Tomb Kings Battletome for Age of Sigmar, and part of that is the Endless Deserts, the setting in which they hold dominion. I have done a bunch of world building on it which you can find on the website for it here. More specifically I have also started writing some in world fiction for it, the start of which you can find here, called Tides of War.

The Endless Deserts as a setting is constantly being fleshed out, and today I would like to invite you to help contribute to that. While the Tomb Kings are the predominant race and army within the deserts, they are by no means the only one. There are countless orruks, ogors, grots, and chaos war bands as well as duardin, free peoples, other undead, and now even Stormcast. You can read a bit about the other denizens of the sands here to help get you started. You can write about anything you want, as long as it takes place within the Endless Deserts.

The best story will be picked by myself and Eric from The Mortal Realms Podcast and will win a set of The Mortal Realms Desert Status Tokens worth $15 shipped to them free of charge. Not only that, but the best selection of stories will be given the opportunity to cement their place in history within the Endless Deserts and be included in an Age of Sigmar Legends style novel/novella that will come out as a free download when the Battletome is released. These will also go up on the Endless Deserts website for everyone to read and enjoy without having to download anything.

The contest rules are simple:

• Your story must take place within the setting of the Endless Deserts and be a narrative, novelesque story, not a history type story like from a Battletome or Codex.
• It must be 500 - 1,000 words. If you want to write a longer story then I strongly encourage it, but please only submit to us a 500 - 1,000 word extract for the purposes of the contest.
• Post your entry in the Endless Deserts section of the TGA Community site here with the subject line "Fiction Contest: Your Story Title," and obviously actually put your story title in there.
• Make sure your entry is posted by October 26th.

That's all! The winner of the tokens will be announced on November 2nd as well as the entries selected for the Legends novel/novella release. If you have an army that your fiction goes along with then I strongly encourage posting photos of it in your TGA post as well. They won't be considered for the judging, but it's always great to see everyone's hobby.

Remember, the Endless Deserts website is a great resource of background and lore to research for this, but don't feel too restricted by it. For example, here's a really fun and engaging short story written by Nicholas Bollaert about some Scourge Privateers who have made port at the town of Desert's End just outside of the desert's borders which you can find on the map. You can also set your story during any time period, so don't feel like it has to fit into the current unfolding narrative of AoS. Want to have it take place during the Age of Myth or the Age of Chaos, than go for it! If you have any questions about the setting please feel free to ask me either on Twitter or at TylerM@mengelminiatures.com.

I look forward to reading everyone's entries!

Until next time,

Tyler M.