Dwarven Storyline Announcements

The winning entries have been selected! To be a part of the further development of these stories and our fantasy world in general, join us on Google Wave. Details here.

The Submissions:

One of our favorite parts of this contest was seeing so many entertaining story entries come in week after week. Today we will be posting some of our favorite entries from the month past, as we work our way to our final selection.

Honorable Mention: Starting with our first honorable mention, we would like to present the The story of the Stonebrew submitted by Zac Lovoy. Zac tells us a story of deceit with a rather disturbing, but justified ending. Thanks for the entry Zac, good stuff!

Honorable Mention: Next up was a submission from Laura Daniel called "Frothbeard" which was another favorite of ours. We like Laura's writing style, and she is quite the skilled designer as well. She also submitted a label design that we hope to be sharing with you later this month. Love the character names and dialogue in this one. We also like how the story doesn't make Dal out to be a natural brewer, and can relate with him when we hear about some of the not so good batches he has had to deal with, and the pride that comes when you nail a winning recipe.

Runner-up: This next one was actually one of our favorite stories! The story has a bit of a different feel than most of the Dwarven stories we saw and was quite refreshing. In the end, it just didn't quite fit the big picture of what we were looking for. Thank you Cynthia Echterling for your fantastic submission of The Legend of Utti. We hope you all enjoy it as much as we did. It's a long one, so here it is in 3 parts:

The Legend of Utti, Son of Ugli Silver Nose, and The Quest for The Brewer's Gold
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

And Now for our two Finalists:

Our first finalist has been a long time member and supporter of Fantasy Brewmasters. Robert Lee (aka RobertsInferno) submitted a couple different versions of his story about Frostpaw, but this was our favorite of the two. We like the mythological feel in this one and could see it being used to tell the story of long ago when beer was first given unto the world. Take a look and let us know what you think.

Our other finalist is David Martin (aka ArmoryDave) with Burdisson’s Bolder Beer. This story really hit home because we had been looking for a good way to present a multitude of beers through a single "face". This story and overall approach could add a common ground between each of the beers while allowing every one of them to stand on their own with individual stories.

The Conclusion:

It was a tough decision, but we're happy to announce that we have chosen a story to represent Fantasy Brewmasters' first Dwarven beer! Both entries were fantastic, and each of them hit on some key elements that really hit.

As we've been researching ancient brewing techniques and reading about the history of beer, we have repeatedly seen beer in mythology, and then again mythology in fantasy. With such a close connection between them all, we would like to see some of these actual mythological tales that are a part of the true history of beer retold with a fantasy twist. This would not only be entertaining, but have a touch of historical and educational value as well. Robert's tale of the bear Asbjorn giving the gift of beer to Eithhrim was like something straight out of the Norse Edda. We also like his writing style, and his overall ideas for world development.

As mentioned earlier, we have also been looking for a common connection to tie our product line together. This has been a challenge since we want to offer a variety of beers from different races. The question is, how do you present a Dwarven beer along side an Elven or Ogre beer? With the many personality conflicts, and sometimes pure hatred that comes between these races, how would we present these different beers to the custromer while staying in character? Dave's perspective brings an ideal approach of a renowned Dwarven beer connoisseur that travels the world hunting for the perfect beer and recording his efforts and experiences along the way. This is reminiscent of the great Michael Jackson (The Beer Hunter... not the entertainer). Even if he were not liked by say, an Ogre tribe, he would be respected and accepted for his expertise. Thus we find our common window for presenting a Dwarven beer along side an Ogre beer (and more).

In the end, we have a long way to go in pulling this project together, and we think we can use the foundations, expertise, and writing styles of each of our finalists. Therefore, we would like to offer each of them $500 for their pieces, given that they will work together with us to critique and combine these stories into a single final draft. Continuing with our open development model, the future development of this story is open to anyone that would like to join. We will use the Goolge Wave platform to advance the development of the storyline, and will be offering invites on a site seniority/first come first serve basis. Details here.

Cheers to each of you, and thanks to everyone that submitted entries. They were all a joy to read!

In closing, we would like to remind our artists that the label design deadline has been extended through the end of January. We hope you'll take a look at Robert and Dave's stories to start getting ideas for packaging designs!

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