June Contest: Lost Artifacts

I wanted to start 2011 off with some contests and hopefully we can continue to run various contests each month here on the Wastex Games website. I now present the June Contest...

Lost Artifacts

Craft a unique magical artifact that would give a dangerous boost to a normally (mostly) harmless enemy. Tell how this might change the monster's tactics and lead it (and possibly its allies) to victory.





There is no minimum or maximum word count required and it is open to anywhere Amazon.com will ship, unless noted on the prize item below.

Submit your entry below and tweet the following on Twitter:
I just entered the June Contest at @WastexGames! http://bit.ly/lzWZG4 #dnd #rpg

If you wish to include any images, include a link to them in the form below. If you do not have a file sharing service, I highly recommend DropBox. It is free and if you use my referral link (here), both our accounts will receive an extra 250 MBs of storage.

The winner will get their choice of one of the three following items:

Lords of Madness - Miniatures 6-pc Booster Pack


OR

Custom made, hand dyed Dragon Chow dice bag.
(Subject to available colors once winner is announced.)


OR

A free character commission by @thedandmom.
Examples can be seen on her Deviant Art gallery.




Use the form below to submit your entry, submissions will be accepted until Thursday, June 30th at 11:59 PM EST. If you have any questions or comments, ask away here in the comments! Good luck!

Contest is closed.

Anachronisms: Contest Winner!

May's winning entry was written by Jim White, for the May Contest: Anachronisms. He can also be found on his website Wombat's Gaming Den of Iniquity and twitter under @twwombat.

Story
What if the adventurers find a full-color collating photocopier?

Consider: They open a cartography shop, able to recreate any map in mere moments. Since it's so easy, they take a copy of every map they reproduce, eventually compiling the most accurate atlas in the world, with every treasure clearly marked with an X.


Literacy rates will shoot upward since the bottom fell out of the book market, even though books are now bound with only a single staple in the upper left corner. Everybody earns training in history and geography, and many children learn the ways of the world with purloined copies of the bawdy (and graphic) "The Piercer and The Beholder".

When war comes to the kingdom, the party is put in charge of a generating and distributing propaganda leaflets which eventually end hostilities and lead to the annexation of the enemy country as a vassal state.

And don't get me started when they figure out the ink formula so they can photocopy viable magic scrolls. They'll have an unstoppable magic school where even apprentices can cast any first-level spell because scrolls are effectively free.

So it's not so much a party advantage as a world-changing device, but I still wouldn't want to be the gnome who has to keep it clean and free the paper jams all the time.

Tribes of the Land: The Stone Raiders

This entry was written by Wesley K. Hall, for the April Contest: Tribes of the Land. He can also be found as Illustrator of the Nameless PCs Webcomic, on his sketch blog and twitter under @wesleykhall.


The Story
The Stone Raiders

Paths all throughout the forests are littered with horrifying statues. Women and children with faces in terror, warriors screaming with swords drawn and shields raised in defense. These are considered to be the lucky victims of the “Stone Riders”. The unlucky victims are men and women who wander naked into town missing arms and legs, with empty spaces where noses use to be or with their eyes scratched out.



The Stone Raiders are a small group of goblins mounted on cockatrices. They are known to ambush travelers (especially the more wealthier looking ones) and quickly neutralize the major threats of the group with the bite power of the cockatrices. After petrifying a few party members, a large goblin named Kreush offers the travelers a simple exchange: the antidote for the cockatrice bites for all the traveler’s treasure and weapons. Those who accept the exchange are happy to leave alive. Those who do not accept the bargain, end up as statutes or are found wandering naked into town missing limbs with horrible scars left on their bodies when they became statutes and that remain when they are released from the cockatrice’s bite.

Kreush, is a tall brown goblin who wields a war hammer that appears to be dwarven made. He uses it to crush recently petrified foes in a single blow and is the only voice ever heard from the Stone Raiders. He is rumored to have left his goblin tribe to find the most difficult mount to ride and is rumored to have killed over 1000 foes. He has been heard to speak a wide range of languages from goblin, to dwarven, to common, to elven. Many believe that he is collecting a stockpile of weapons and money to build up a goblin empire lead by him and his Stone Raiders.

The Stone Raiders are said to be handpicked by Kreush and are picked for their veracity and their willingness to follow orders. They all mount cockatrices and are covered in leather armor; the cockatrices are covered in pieces of handmade armor mostly covering their heads and sides of their bodies. A few wield crossbows circling the travelers and keeping them pinned down, the others wield warhammers for the smashing of foes be them petrified or a bit squishier.

G4 TV's Icons: Dungeons & Dragons

A friend on twitter passed on a link to an episode of G4 TV's Icons about Dungeons & Dragons that I have never seen. It's really great, so I thought I'd post it here for others who haven't seen it as well.