POOHEAD189

Blades of the Blood Coast

Just like last time, I'll wait until next monday before I update! Also you @DrRtron will be granted a boon soon, due to being the first person to post (and post up to standard) consecutively since we began!

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

The kaleidoscope of flame and steel from the hurtling vehicles was audible even at the speed they traveled, the torrential wind like a scythe. Dirk banked left, causing Jocasta to lurch to the side even strapped as she was. Like pins the radar showed their pursuers dropped one by one from her quick thinking. Mildly impressed, Dirk didn't respond. He would celebrate after they made it to her transport, if it was still running. Instead he turned the VEC once he eyeballed a rise in the dirt half a kilometer ahead. Over the comm, his voice rang in her ear.

"Hang on," as if she had a way to fasten herself any more effectively. Behind them the three skimmers slid into view past the boulders. Superheated beams of bright red shot past Dirk's female gunner, singing her hair from missing by a mere dozen feet. The lasers cut into the air, and soon the two of them were launched as Dirk increased the anti-grav thrust on the VEC at the cusp of the incline. The force upwards was monumental, lasers now flying dozens of feet below them as they cleared the next area of crags like it was gravel. Dirk remembered the first time he had done this, he felt his heart leap into his throat. Now he handled it like an old friend would, angling the thrusters forward to keep them from splattering along the ground as they hit the wasteland once more.

"Nice flying, but they're still on our tail."

"Gives us some time to make a move." He replied, suddenly slowing and kicking up dust before shutting the VEC off, now idly lowering behind a vast boulder. No machine worked at 100% capacity, but the minimal heat from the VEC was masked by the boiling temperatures of the blazing sun and the shelter of the rock as a minute passed. The defeaning silence only heightened the boom as the three skimmers past their position, none the wiser. Dirk would wait another thirty seconds before he lifted off again, now at a straight shot toward the woman's transport not three kilometers away.

"Time to make a move." He confirmed, ready to get out of the heat.

What Makes Grimdark?

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What makes a story Grimdark? Well I'm glad you asked. No problem. What makes a story Grimdark is something a lot of people tend to get wrong. I've heard various writers, readers, booktubers, and podcasters attempt to define a Grimdark Fantasy and they tend to not exactly hit the mark, so I decided to make this little guide for your pleasure. Also, while there's various genres that use this subgenre, I'm going to refer to Grimdark Fantasy in this discussion, even though this guide can be for anything Grimdark. Just a heads up. Now let's get down to it.

How I tend to describe the genre is setting, setting, setting, hard choices, plot points, setting, and hopeless/meaningless ending. That is the secret KFC recipe, and I'll explain in detail.

The most important aspect of a Grimdark story is the setting. You cannot have a Grimdark Story without a Grimdark setting. You can have the darkest, grimmest story imaginable, but if the world is 'haha wee!' then the atmosphere will not match it. This is why Warhammer is the father of Grimdark. Be it Fantasy or 40k, no matter how you slice it, it's a shitty and grim place world to live in. Even if you're a planetary governor or an elector count, sipping expensive wine and having orgies on an air conditioned patio, the world is shitty. At any moment, Tyranids, Beastmen, or Orcs(Orks) can appear out of nowhere to invade and butcher. The world is not long from ending. Your closest confidant can potentially be a demon cultist, your neighbors will usurp you, and the peasantry hate you. Even if you are rich enough to live comfortably, and that is beyond rare, it can still all come crashing down. You need a setting with impending doom from at least 4 aspects of your life in order to be Grimdark. Not potential doom, but impending doom.

Which brings me to a topic we need to discuss. People tend to think this means that Game of Thrones is Grimdark. It's not. Lord of the Rings is more Grimdark than Game of Thrones or ASOIAF. Just because they have dark plot points and the white walker threat, it does not a Grimdark Fantasy make. The White Walkers are an Impending Doom, but it's a Doom that has been able to be a nonissue for thousands of years. It's let Westeros live in ignorant bliss for millennia. There is no bliss in Grimdark. Yes, you can have optimistic characters, but not justifiably optimistic. Optimism in Grimdark is either because someone is sheltered or in denial. Hope is a scarce thing.

And as for the setting beyond that, Game of Thrones is probably less Grimdark than real world Medieval Europe. Scheming nobles and character deaths certainly help its case, but they do not create Grimdark. They're the icing on the cake certainly, but they're not the setting. Westeros is a fertile land with a stable geography, with little in the way of wars, at least for many years, until quite recently. There are very little monsters, very little constant dangers. The entire plot is dark, but it is dark because it isn't the norm of the world, even taking the various wars in its history into consideration.

Contrary to popular belief, the Lord of the Rings books are actually very close to being Grimdark. Not so much in the movies, although it is still present. If you read closely, it's pretty obvious. Middle Earth is a fallen world. It's Gods, the Valar, have all but abandoned it. The Elves are fading, the Dwarven Kingdoms have nearly all been decimated, the World of Men either serve Sauron or are in the middle of collapse. Oh, don't forget Sauron of course, who is essentially a demon-spirit who seeks to enslave every living thing in the world, with wraith knights under his control and hundreds of thousands of monsters in his army. That, coupled with the fact the roads are unguarded and waylaid by the monsters that aren't under the control of the demon spirit. It's no wonder Warhammer Fantasy claims it took inspiration from Tolkien, because they did so more than most. By and large, the only place in Middle Earth that is a fairly protected place to live is west Eriador, which leaves just the Shire, the Grey Havens, and Bree. Rivendell, Lothlorien, Minas Tirith are all now in untamed and enemy territory, which is what makes the journey of the ring so perilous. Even Aragorn says that the Breelanders live in complete sheltered ignorance, because horrors that would freeze a man's heart live just a day away from Bree that are only kept back by the tireless Dunedein Rangers. The only reason Lord of the Rings isn't Grimdark is because of its prose and Tolkien's christian propensity for hope. He does often show that while the Valar have fled, Eru still watches over the world and helps make all threads move to an eventual good. The setting of Middle Earth at least fits the Grimdark bill.

Of course, whilst it is likely the most important aspect, setting isn't everything. Let's talk characters, and we'll start with a very simple one. Do you need your main characters to be morally grey? No. It's certainly an option, but it is by no means a requirement. It's actually quite easy to have a morally light or 'good' character as a protagonist in a Grimdark story. What you need the character to be... is flawed. They need to be 'human' in the fallible sense of the word. They need this Grimdark setting they find themselves in to make them shaken, tired, perhaps even wholly disillusioned. But they do not need to be morally grey. What you need to do instead is give them hard choices. Make sure they are caught between a rock and a hard place in a bad way at least once per story, and don't give them a cop out. Should you kill the innocent little girl to save the village? Do you need the mercenary company to save the Kingdom, even if it means they decide to rape a few of the populace? If your mother is dangling by a thread, but so is your father, who will you save? You're a monk devoted to a God of forgiveness, and your family has just been killed. Do you seek vengeance? Do you try and go after them with the justification that they'll do it again if left unchecked? The list goes on. And I will add that even if your main character doesn't need to be morally grey, I would say it's required that a few side characters need to be. It's not a Grimdark setting without Grimdark people, after all. Also to note is, while it's not required, evil characters help a lot. You can have a Grimdark setting with people, villains, beings, any of them who are just reprehensible in terms of morals. It's not always needed, but moral absolutes are not necessarily a no-no in terms of Grimdark.

Plot isn't necessarily a topic that is that complicated in order to be a Grimdark story. My guideline would be, make sure your character has to compromise a lot due to circumstances and keep in mind that it's a Grimdark story, meaning things never turn out according to plan. There's going to be failure of some kind, which leads me to the piece de resistance of what is essential to create a Grimdark fantasy.

The ending. The ending is never, ever going to be a happy one. Not for your heroes or anyone else. It has to at least be bittersweet, but if you really want to be Grimdark, the ending is going to make it so all of their struggles have been, in essence, meaningless. Your protagonist is seeking to lift the curse of a Lich? By the end of the story, he might have learned a few things, gained a new magic sword, but he is still cursed and likely always will be. Or perhaps he finds himself free of the curse in death, or the death of a loved one? It cannot be a clean ending. Sunshine and rainbows are not allowed in this genre, sorry.

So, short and sweet, but there you have it folks. Your definitive guide to writing a Grimdark fantasy novel. Hope you enjoyed and keep reading!

This isn't working out: Part 2

Even though he's historically my favorite author, anything by R.A. Salvatore since 2016.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

Either start banning people on the forums for bans they eat in discord, or treat them as separate things. I don't support a subsection of the community getting to decide what's best for everyone else, quite frankly.

@Ammokkx

Yeah that's my main problem.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

So the rule changes are coming forum side as well?

@BrokenPromise

The entirety of the discussion was about the site, so yep.

Hello There

Hello!

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

Whoa, slow down. I'd really rather not people get in trouble for using words in descriptive contexts, especially not in a situation like this where it's relevant to mention them.

Censoring with asterisks does nothing to prevent the mental association with the words, unless you blank out the letters completely at which point it's an implicit bias test. You're not tackling the root cause of the problem and all you're doing then is stifling meaningful discussion if we can't even mention the things we're supposed to be discussing.

It's not like Zombie's gone on a 15-page long tirade dropping slurs left and right; it's one single post used to illustrate examples. He should not get in trouble for something like this, or even a warning, new rules or not. If the person in question isn't being a bigot, they shouldn't be treated like one either.

Context in these cases is very important to me, and this particular context makes me feel it was warranted enough. If the words merely being mentioned without being used for any kind of attack is upsetting people, then that is a step too far.

Reserve the censoring of speech for people who abuse their free speech to be cruel. Do not harm those who act in good faith.

@Ammokkx

Don't worry, there's no action against him. He's getting no reprimand. I'm just doing what is apart of the job description. He's not in trouble at all, but people did say they were uncomfortable with it. But the objection is noted.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

@Zombiedude101
Hold on, ok. I understand we want to discuss these things and you're welcome to it, but it has made some people uncomfortable with you sort of spilling out all of these slurs/buzz words so next time try not to use blatant examples, or at least put asterisks in there. And when the new rules come up, I won't be able to just give you a talking to. So just keep it in mind.

𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐆𝐄 | 𝖆 𝖉𝖗𝖆𝖌𝖔𝖓 𝖆𝖌𝖊 𝖗𝖕

I'm hard thinking a Fereldan soldier.