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When the fanfic section up here was folded into SYM, it sorta vanished. Not that we had a lot of entries, but still...it's very difficult currently to find any of it. People who wrote it and people who read it and wanted to read it again, couldn't easily find it.

The same applies, of course, to good fanfiction, anywhere. Bad fanfiction is ubiquitous. It exists seemingly everywhere. But the good stuff? It's tough to find.

So I thought we could daze and possibly run over two birds with one large, 100,000 hp stone by having a thread in which you link to your favorite fanfics for roleplaying games, both in SYM, and elsewhere. Hence this thread. If it takes off, maybe I'll sticky it. Or maybe I'll just give it a nice two-color knit sweater made from genuine llama wool. We'll see.

I'll start things off with two recommendations. The first is Destiny's Child. It's a great parody of BG1, though obviously never beta'd--there are plenty of spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors, throughout. But the contents are glorious. The idea is that the true Bhaalspawn and Imoen were killed by the mage attacker at the Inn, while Montaron and the moderately mad Xzar were nearby, leading Jaheira and Khalid to believe Xzar is their old friend's adopted child. Here's one passage:

“ IF the ethics lesson for the day is done,” Jaheira said with just a hint of impatience. “May we please get on with this?” There were no objections from the men so Jaheira smiled and said, “Before we attack and kill them we must first check…”

“Our underwear,” Xzar finished. “Yes, very wise of you to bring it up Jaheira. I can’t tell you how many stories of adventures end with a detailed account of the dismal and disgusting state and their unmentionables, not to mention ponderous details about the cut and quality of such articles of clothing. I know if we were to die this day you would not wish to be remembered for what you have on underneath that lovely suit of armor. Personally, I blame the paladins for this current obsession with undergarments. It seems all their tales of daring do spend an inordinate amount of time going on and on about how, when the horribly slaughtered party was found, not a single one had on clean underwear. As if facing a hoard of snack happy Illithids predisposes one to have and maintain clean underwear. Still, it is the trendy thing to do and who am I to argue with what the “in” thing is. So let’s have it out about our knickers so we can get on with the senseless violence that awaits us. Now I know Monty is a boxer kind of man, and since it is Tuesday I just know he is wearing the pale blue cotton pair, ones his dear mumsey embroidered with the word “Tuesday” and a cute little cupid."

...and later on:

“I’m going out on a limb here.” Xzar snickered and turned to Montaron. “Did you hear that Monty. I used a nature pun. Limb…Tree…Druid...get it?” Montaron scowled. “Oh Monty you have no sense of humor.” Xzar returned his attention to Jaheira and he struck an introspective posture. Jaheira looked like she was ready to explode. “Jaheira I’m going to have to go with what my instincts are telling me and say…thong.”

Or there's this, the first encounter with Minsc:


The huge warrior stopped unnervingly close to Ajantis and regarded him for a moment with a scowl. “Hold very still, so that my hamster.” At this point the warrior’s fist shot forward showing it held a rather pudgy brown hamster. “Can have better look at you.” With that, the warrior began moving the hamster back and forth in front of Ajantis while making beeping sounds.

“Xzar…” Ajantis said quietly. “I’m…I’m…”

“Being scanned by a rodent. Yes I see. I hope your health insurance covers this.”

“I belong to an HMO…Holy Muttering Organization.”

“Isn’t that restrictive?” Xzar asked.

“No I can get emergency healing at any good or neutral deity’s temple. Of course purely cosmetic procedures like limb reattachment or liposuction can only be done by pre-approved clerics.”

The party also turns on its head encounters with Garrick and Bassileus, the mad clerk.

Unfortunately, you have to go up a level in the directory here to find the next chapter, because they're scattered through several pages, mixed in with other stories. But the story is great.

Another fine one is In the Cards, by Laufey. It's your standard "redo BG1 with a new protagonist" novel, except for several things: 1) far better writing; 2) good characterizations; and 3) an Edwin love match with the Bhaalspawn heroine--and it's actually believable, too. (Without changing his abrasive personality, either.) The beginning is a bit shaky, with short chapters and solutions to problems drawn from traditional trickster folk tales that are pretty easy to figure out, but things quickly improve.

Note that Laufey is also two-thirds through her BG2 sequel, Cards Reshuffled, about 5 years in the making. There's a link to it from the main page, but be warned, the latter half of what has been written is only available again from the day-by-day listings where you'll find Destiny's Child, and a horde of other material.

Over to you.

Good idea Fable!

Heh! Laufey's work is probably the best fan fiction I've ever read

Another BG/BG2 fanfic I like by Blackcross-Taylor:
[url="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1934902/1/Sunrise"]Sunrise[/url] and it's sequel
[url="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1934902/1/Sunrise"]The Zenith[/url] (incomplete)


Some Morrowind Fan fiction that is a cut above most of what is out there (IMO anyway )
[url="http://arvilbren.blogspot.com/"]Arvil's Dusty Tomes[/url]
[url="http://morningstarlady.livejournal.com/90082.html"]The Archer's Tale[/url] (in progress)
[url="http://chorrol.com/fiction_o_z.html"]The Tale of Sudhendra Vahl[/url] (incomplete)

I may be abusing forum space here (and a lot, at that) since the following piece of fanfiction is NOT in any way related to RPGs. Instead, it is inspired by the Starcraft universe, a real time strategy game by Blizzard many of you I am sure are deeply familiar with.

So, although it is not directly "synced" with this forum's state of mind, I wanted to post it here in order to get some quality feedback from people whose opinion I value instead of the Blizzard forums where I am not even a member. I hope you enjoy it and feel free to comment as harshly as you see appropriate.

I have broken it down to parts due to its size and included a brief side-note as an introduction to Starcraft's basic lore for those who are not familiar with it or just want to refresh their memory. Here goes:

A brief introduction to the world of Starcraft

In Starcraft, events take place in a distant part of the galaxy and involve the ongoing struggle of three races for supremacy: the Terrans represent the future, technologically advanced version of today's humans, capable of great heroics but also prone to corruption and internal conflict; the Zerg are insectoid xenomorphs in pursue of genetic perfection, achieved through assimilation of other species; finally, the Protoss are -roughly- humanoid aliens, inclined to bring balance to the galaxy by making use of their psionic abilities and superior technology.

Part 1
“This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”
— U.S. President Jimmy Carter

He checked the calendar one more time: it was still stuck on the 25th of May. Somehow, months didn’t matter down here but days did. His shoulder still hurt from last night’s sleepwalking accident – storage cabinets always hit harder than they look. It had bumped open upon contact, for the first time since bloody forever. Upper shelf contents: three dexedrine bottles, a portable chessboard, two packs of dramamines left from his d-day on Kalos a lifetime ago and his now-obsolete shaving kit. Middle compartment: three pistol clips, two empty beer bottles, his old boxing gloves and a couple of postcards. Zoom in there: Miami, USA with a bikini girl lying on the beach eclipsed by a grinning, hairless goon, standard Hollywood style. The next postcard gave more grief: an old-fashioned window with a blue shutter and a potted plant with red flowers. A woman’s hand was watering the plant. Sergeant Lambert had found him half-crying in the showers, his shoulder bleeding casually. A toilet cabin door was swinging on one hinge. He locked eyes with him and flushed the postcards down the toilet. Lambert said: “You are tougher than I am, commander.” He did not respond. The incident didn’t leak.

He was still reluctant to face his men. He was still wondering if they had flushed their postcards already or if they were still holding hope of return. Somebody knocked; he removed his legs from the desk and downed a pickup shot of tequila before encouraging them to come in.
“Sir capitan, the breakfast is served and the boys are hoping for another exciting tale to make the food look plentiful.”
“Food for thought doesn’t multiply the bread, corporal, only miracles do.”
“Then we will also hold a prayer beforehand, commander. You are still the only one who knows the holy words.”
Coulhart smiled. “Somebody ought to keep you boys on the straight path and I am the only one who used to be a boxer.”

The kakaru eggs were one week old – someone had even suggested letting them hatch and make youngling stew. Damn things were really hard to catch once they reached adult age and that was within two months since birth. Lambert was absentmindedly piling his scrambled eggs with a fork. The head chair was empty – the incident hadn’t leaked. One of the boys was wearing a “The United Earth Directorate Gives YOU a Second Chance” T-shirt. He recited the holy words. Eight sets of ears were listening to him. Seven sets of eyes were watching him – Lambert was still piling eggs. He speared a piece of concentrated cheese: “We need to fix the toilet door. I don’t mind a little fresh air when taking a leak but we’ve got to consider our lady’s privacy. See to it Corporal.” Vernon nodded: “I will if you give us one of your digestive tales of yore, mon capitan.”
“Fair enough. But this one might actually ruin your appetite. - ”
The refectory intercom crackled: “Commander Coulhart, there is action here in the transmitters. It seems kind of urgent, so I suggest that food-poisoning should wait.”
Most female shuttle pilots-turned-ground telecommunications operators were of the standard “burping woman” variety. Gail was a heart breaker. She was wearing safari shorts and tight tops and made them count. Coulhart walked on her lying back cross-legged and fixing her hair with her cigarette-free hand. She noticed him and brought the chair upright, deliberately slow.
“I still don’t understand how you pull this off.”
“Keeping my legs shaved when we’re almost out of drinking water?”
“No, keeping the boys at bay after more than 18 months of sexual deprivation.”
“I can discipline myself, commander.”
Coulhart laughed. “Most of these men are ex-convicts. Hell, some may have been rapists back home.”
“Are you saying our men are without dignity, commander?”
“I am saying they are without hope. And men without hope should not be expected to act responsibly.”
She stubbed out her cigarette and turned to the console. “Let’s give them some hope then. We received an incoming transmission from a UED Battlecruiser. They asked for the commander of this Bunker.”
“Let’s hear what they have to say.”
Gail patched the transmission through. There was heavy static – the call was long distance.
“Is this the Bunker commander?”
“This is Jeremy Coulhart. Who is this?”
“Hardly appropriate for a platoon commander to address himself as a civilian, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Coulhart?”
“Hardly a platoon left here to command. Is this call on official capacity?”
“It is. This is Admiral Gerard DuGalle from the UED fleet.”
“Should I bother to secure the line or are you simply calling to ask how many Vulture mines got rotten this week, admiral?”
“I am more interested in men getting rotten, commander. I’ve got a job for your team and the status report we have from two months back is hardly reassuring.”
“Who gave you that status report? This Bunker has been without contact for at least six months now.”
“We haven’t lost interest in you, Mr. Coulhart, I hope you still haven’t lost interest in yourselves either. There is a very delicate mission I want you to undertake.”
“Go on.”
“Our sensors picked up a signal of a probe orbiting your position for the last 68 hours. We have recently lost track of it and it is important to us that you found out why. The probe is unmanned but contains intelligence of great significance.”
“War intelligence?”
“Potentially. It is highly probable that the probe crash-landed on your planet and is heavily damaged. You must retrieve it and secure its contents, if possible.”
“Any hazardous material we should be aware of?”
“No.”
“Suppose we don’t find it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“You could remain stranded there for an unhealthy amount of time.”
“What exactly is the content of this probe?”
“Your ticket back home, commander. And, possibly, a healthy dose of cosmic blanco to help correct some of history’s mistakes.”
“I thought history doesn’t make mistakes. Those who write it won’t allow any.”
“A lot of people attempt to write history at any given time, Mr. Coulhart. It is a matter of good marketing and getting a publisher first that makes all the difference.”
“Admiral, I understand you didn’t choose my team because of our level of readiness.”
“Go on.”
“You chose us out of desperation. You chose us because there was no one else in the area. Who do you think is looking for the probe?”
“Maybe nobody. Maybe everybody.”
“Suppose we return it safe upon a fluffy, red pillow with a silky, gold lace.”
“Your crimes cannot be overwritten completely, commander, but they can certainly be made to look less significant. We will do everything within our power to provide you and your men a ride home.”
“I hope your space shuttles are more reliable than your probes.”
“Retrieve the probe, commander. We both know you and your boys would appreciate an early retirement back on Earth.”
“Actually, we’d appreciate a case full of cold beer more.”
“I shall expect an update on your mission within the next 8 hours.”
“Make it 10, we just finished breakfast.”
“Good day, commander.”
“Good day, sir.”

He missed his postcard terribly.

Coulhart returned to his cabinet for the pistol clips. The visit didn’t sting one bit -weird. He thought to take a tour of the dormitory. Depressed Lambert was nowhere to be found – someone said: “The kid looked plenty quiet, last I saw him”. There was something colourful sitting on Lambert’s bunk: an issue of NewsLater, one of the two magazines still on printed format – bathroom reading never grew out of fashion. Dig the cover: ‘Feature: Why being a Ghost just isn’t for Most’. Inside, full page ad: ‘Protoss hair style – Where to get it and why’. The corner of “helpful tips”: ‘Party (c)rushing: How to zerg parties with your friends and create a mess!’
He put the magazine down and left the dorm plenty quiet.

Part 2
Four men went out with him, five people stayed back at the Bunker to guard it and act as auxiliary unit should things go awry. Riding with him: Tommy Silts, Vernon Escariola, Ricky “The Rubik” Peres, Wesley Burns. At the Bunker: Aaron Sellick: doctor, Scott Perkins: mechanic, Gail Sanders: radio operator, Steiss: cook, sergeant Lambert: missing since noon.

The expedition started off on an encouraging note: three Vulture bikes were still operational. He got to ride one solo and the boys split in twos. The trip to the signal position was relatively uneventful: two stray mutalisks shot down for practice, four members of the local wildlife recorded as road kills - the boys were ecstatic. The crash site seemed deserted; a scan of the area turned out nothing. Ground sonar equipment searching for burrowed Zerg gave zero readings – “Coast is clear, commander”. The probe looked like an old satellite antenna, smashed to bits and wrapped in tin foil. They cleared some dirt around the place; on the side it read: Voyager II, Property of NASA, USA. They drilled their way in: there was a metal plaque with the engraved images of a man and a woman, depicted naked – mental note read “bizarre”; some other symbolic images, possibly chemical coding, adorned said plaque but no explanatory captions to be found – mental note read “ultra bloody peculiar”. The boys were standing guard; he was examining the inside of the damn thing alone. Upon closer inspection: a gold-plated disk with semi-familiar engravings and an old-fashioned apparatus, also disk-shaped. He combined them. Music came out of it like a wave of serenity in this sand-scorched planet. First piece sounded like something his grandmother used to hear – Beethoven’s Symphony she called it. The boys were standing still; he turned up the volume and let it fill the place completely until it reached its crescendo and faded out. Vernon and Peres were listening in trance, arms on each other’s shoulders. Next two pieces were classic Rock, followed by Jazz and then something that seemed to consist solely of drums - Vernon started swaying slightly inside his heavy gear.

The return trip went less smoothly. Mental turbulences accompanied his ride; there was a secret compartment, half-opened from impact – easy prey for his omnitool. Stashed inside it he found a book that got his mind racing: “A True Story by Lucian of Samosata (c. AD 120-180), translated in English by A.M. Harmon”. On the bottom right corner a hand-written note: “courtesy of C.S. – please, use wisely.” He uploaded the entire probe’s ID information and the full contents’ description to Gail and waited. He still had three hours before Du Galle would demand a return call. Some of the boys were howling mad on top of their bikes; Ricky tossed a pulse grenade in the distance and filled his cheeks with air – “Boooom”. His interlink blipped; the voice was coming gasping and full of adrenaline under the heavy static caused by the constant sandstorms of Kalos: “Commander, I got some facts but it seems that we are still way behind in this game. The probe you found is of human origin; it was launched around 1977 with the mission to explore beyond our galaxy and -potentially- make contact. The audio disk and the metal plaque would act as indications of human culture to the aliens. Last successful transmission recorded was in 2012 – more than 500 years ago.”
“So Du Galle is collecting space garbage? What, is he afraid the Protoss will sue him for interstellar littering?”
“I think Du Galle also knew about the hidden compartment. According to the Global Database, this book supposedly recounts the specifics of an encounter with ‘monstrous aliens’ that were ‘battling each other in our solar system’ more than 2500 years before they crossed swords with the Dominion. Of course, Lucian’s work was discarded at the time as science fiction for the uneducated masses, but what if it wasn’t?”
The air was whistling menacingly around him.
“Commander, I think this goes even deeper. The Zerg are in constant search of exploitable genetic material to add to their collective gene pool, propelling their evolution ahead of any individual species. I believe…Well, I believe they assimilated humans long before the events of the book. I found a separate page, lodged inside the book, which depicts ancient hieroglyphics in which insects, like the scarab, are seemingly regarded as sacred.”
Sacred. As in friendly.
“I am not one to jump into conclusions, commander, but… But if the Zerg were behaving nicely at first and turned aggressive some mere hundreds of years later… I mean it seems too convenient to assume that they came across another sentient race in-between their earthly escapades…”
We corrupted the Zerg. The mere thought made him want to laugh out of despair. They were neutral, space-faring organisms spawned as a genetic experiment of the Xel’Naga and then they came across us and our bad genes. The Protoss were playing watchdog since the dawn of time and, thus, began monitoring this new mutation of the bugs. Flashback: pictures of millennia-old engravings and statues, depicting “technologically advanced aliens with telepathic powers” that had –assumingly- been observing humanity, flooded his mind; right now, the blurry images he could recall looked a lot less like ancient humans and a lot more like poorly-sculpted Protoss. Lucian had seen them fighting after the gene alteration made insectoids go bad – probably a little too late for the galaxy. He remembered a science fiction satire he once read: a conclave of wise aliens was cataloguing all of the universe’s sentient beings; the description given to the human race: mostly harmless.
“Are you still there, commander? What do you think about all this? Do you think DuGalle was aware of –”
A spiked tongue shot out of the ground and lodged itself in his Vulture’s front axon. The bike jerked and did a vertical somersault, reaching six feet high before meeting the ground. During his fraction-of-a-second flight he saw the ground cave in around them and the beasts emerging from a cloud of dirt. He felt bones cracking and his own senses cave in.
Everything was unfolding in slow motion. Tommy was holding his own severed arm like a used handkerchief, looking for somewhere to dump it. A man’s voice came croaked, gurgling in his own blood. Big freaking claws seemed to be coming out of everyone’s intestines and intestines seemed to be coming out of everyone’s body. A nearby claw shot out from a wall of fleshy spikes super fast and maimed his right side. The beast looked like an 8 foot demonic cobra with spiked mantis-claws giving him a Jack Nicholson “shining” smile from above - fourteen blasts from his hand pistol made its head explode into acidic rain. He heard Vernon’s laughter, roaring like mad. The acidic shower burned through the fabric and reached his right arm – this is going to sting tomorrow morning, if tomorrow morning includes you.
He tried a slow pan of the battlefield: another hydralisk was clawing fervently on top of a corpse, spattering blood full circle; Overzealous Vernon was punching holes on the skull of a motionless beast with a bent trench knife - the stench was overbearing. “News” images of “Wanton Violence” flooding his mind in fast forward complete with the taglines – “Bloody skirmish on planet Kalos: Four marines dead, one survivor lost to humanity.”
Breaking news: another Jack Nicholson slithering towards him, tooth and claw at the ready.

A voice said: There is no way we can hold them! It’s like they are bloody multiplying at the spot!
A voice said: Use your grenades! Blast those bastards to kingdom come!
A voice said: Ri’sor’atu! Narmak fer’doss!

The hydralisk split in half laser-clear, like sliding tangram pieces. He saw the warp blade first, then a dark Protoss materialized behind the beast’s spot. Around him, the level of hysterical shrieking reached a deafening height – Protoss blades were swinging samurai-fast. His 7 foot savior fixed him with green, phosphoric eyes; a voice inside his head said: <All this is your doing. Allow us to clear it now>.
His senses slipped into limbo.

Part 3 (final)
Protoss ships looked as impressive from the inside, as they looked effective from the outside. The organic-mechanical motif maintained by Protoss physiology, apparently carried on well to their spacecraft design. Vernon was standing beside him, arms crossed, his rifle still held close to the chest as a safeguard of room peace.
What he had found out during the last two hours: the Protoss knew about the mutation that turned Zerg into this destructive, ruthless swarm, a plague of the Universe. When humans started making baby steps towards the galaxy, the Protoss tried to squeeze them with it; human governments denied the allegations and accused the Protoss ambassadors of psionic manipulation and a desire to monopolize the galaxy’s plentiful resources. Protoss assumed a cold-war mentality and responded with subterfuge, thwarting early human attempts to expand into open space – a good number of human space-faring missions turned to disasters due to “unknown reasons” and “mechanical errors”. Their ship intercepted DuGalle’s transmissions and read his thoughts: inside the probe there was proof of humanity’s unwitting crime, proof of human origin that would not be denied, secretly supplied by an astronomer named Carl.
What he hadn’t found out during the last two hours: what would happen to them once they handed over the book. What had become of his Bunker; more importantly: why did they expect Terrans to retreat after acknowledging the sins of their fathers.
<Your people will not retreat from this part of the galaxy overnight, this we understand> the voice boomed, in response to his thoughts.
<But you must understand that we cannot allow this to continue: the Zerg have assimilated your kind a long time ago, inheriting the ruthless and expansive nature of humans. Now, they adopted a new leader in the face of your own Sarah Kerrigan, a highly skilled operative, formerly a member of the psionically-gifted caste you call Ghosts, and added strategic thinking, cunningness and subterfuge to their ever-growing arsenal. This has to stop and we see only one way for this to happen: forcing your people out of this part of the galaxy, contain your potential threat to a limited area that we can control more effectively, as we did for thousands of years.>
Vernon was shifting his eyes from him to the Protoss, never relaxing the grip to his rifle. “Didn’t know you could speak Jedi, boss. What do they want with us? We should be out there burying Tommy and Ricky right now”.
“These are Dark Templars – rogue Protoss warriors that are highly skilled at stealth techniques. They will help us get back if we surrender today’s ‘loot’ to them.”
Vernon’s eyes went crazy wide; his veins could almost be heard pumping adrenaline. “This is our ticket back home and YOU want to give it to those glowing-eyed putos for god-knows-what reason?”
“Vernon, they did save our asses and it is a damn good reason. It is a chance to absolve for our species’ crimes against the galaxy and -”
Vernon turned to the talkative Protoss, screaming of psionic brainwash done to his beloved capitan. Within a blink, his knife was travelling towards the templar’s throat while his other hand was setting the rifle on steady-aim position. Four templar shapes went whoosh, a dozen rifle bursts went pow-pow, three warp blades went bzzzz and a not-so-whole body went thump.

He was feeling non-present.
He was feeling totally weightless.
He was feeling like a part of a torn postcard.
He saw himself reaching inside his uniform. He saw himself taking out the makeshift package. He saw himself slowly unfolding the cloth wrapped around the book. He saw himself handing it over to the green-eyed templar.

He was feeling a growing lack of oxygen supply to his brain.

He saw himself heading for the spaceship’s exit.
He saw himself walking the swirling, blood-stained dunes towards the Bunker, all the time playing Beethoven’s Symphony in his head.

I am currently working on my own Star Wars themed fan fiction.

Edit: Here is the link to my fan fiction prologue please go show support. Thank you.

[url='http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=210446']Star Wars: Retribution[/url]