Hey all

Glad to see a forum for fluff writing, thats a great idea...
Heres the fluff i wrote up for my tyranids at SAcon. The idea was to use the well known figure Inquisitor Kryptmann and try and communicate the desparaging effects of tyranid planetfall against the backdrop of the clumsy and unforgiving Imperial response - the execution of 'traitors' and stubborn and futile attempts to stop the tyranids.
The (short) story basically follows the thoughts in kryptmann's mind as he signals executioners to kill a couple of 'panic-mongers', citizens scared into hysteria by the imminent threat from hive fleet leviathon (sp?). Its supposed to show his iron will slipping under the unstoppable waves of the tyranids and so on and so forth. Note the writing comes in waves, like tyranids would you believe, and each paragraph we see kryptmann slipping further and frther... It was also designed to be short enough to be read before a tourney game.
note: For people who have looked at the pictures in the back of codex:tyranids, New Hope is a 'real' planet, and the date is also meant to be accurate in terms of when leviathon really arrived...
Gimme some feedback, here goes:

Parade Grounds, Rohn Imperial Palace,
City of Arkul, New Hope,
Lyan sector, Segmentum Tempestus,
113/998.M41

Inquisitor Kryptman had seen it all before - Panic-mongers, crazed and delusional, spreading seeds of cowardice amongst loyal imperial populations in the days preceding a hive fleet invasion. These two were no different from the countless others across the galaxy, their filthy mouths spouting treasonous poison. Even now, at the end of their worthless lives, blindfolded, bleeding, lined up to face the firing squad, these faithless animals still screamed for what they called ‘sanity’: world-wide evacuation. Disgusted, Kryptman signalled the sergeant,

“Weapons to full charge”.

And yet every execution order was more difficult than the last. Though he was not a soldier per se, Kryptman had seen the holovids of Tyranid engagements. He had heard the soldiers’ screams, seen the impotence of Imperial weaponry, tasted the fear that Tyranid planetfall instilled in mortal man. And though he knew that it was his duty to forever fight The Great Devourer, he often found himself thinking the thoughts of the panic-mongers. The screaming on the Imperial comm channels, the blood, the helplessness of the men – it got to you after a while, it shook the foundations of your beliefs. And after all, against a foe so countless as the Tyranids, even those whose will was like iron have to shrink up eventually, trying to forget the blood-soaked memories, the helpless screams of brothers-in-arms...

“Take aim!”

But it was the psykers who were the worst. The despair of an entire planet has no greater effect than when it is felt inside the mind of a psyker - and it is not only flesh and bone that the Tyranids consume. Too often Kryptman had sat by a psyker’s deathbed in the final phases of planet consumption and listened to the monotonous, gibbering words that issued forth: ‘No hope, no hope. They are coming, they are here! No escape, it is all around us. Emperor save me, somebody...save us...’ Words interspersed with despairing sobs, and always the heaviest sense of helplessness hung in the air as the psykers died from the inside out. Then there were the visions. As soon as the shadow in the warp fell across a system, all psykers responded to the massive psychic presence of the hive mind, experiencing sporadic but vivid visions, hallucinations and dreams. Some had even been known to vomit blood and bile or take their own lives when the experiences became too real. Kryptman had tried to forget his own dreams, but they kept coming as swift and surely as the hive fleets: humanity and all its achievements trampled under the weight of a trillion times a trillion hideous feet. Men and women torn limb from limb amidst the feral screams of the foulest aliens, the children of the imperium consumed one and all – and everywhere in the visions, despair... despair... despair.
At times, even the panic-mongers seemed right, Kryptman thought: sometimes there was no escape, no hope of survival. The Inquisitor looked at the screaming prisoners before him, begging to be evacuated, clinging to the hope that they could escape to a place of safety - they were fools, he knew.
There was no safety - not here, not for mankind. Kryptman nodded to the executioners,

“Fire”.

works for me, the only thing that stuck out were a couple of colloquialisms that are OK in speech but not in exposition, eg. per se, it got to you

but this is a pretty small niggle. V nice work.

I got shivers up my spine reading it, so I either have some serious health problems, or you've effectively captured the horror of the Tyranid menace. Nice work.

Very nicely done.

You really got the doom'n'gloom thing going there.

Nice mate. I like how the inevitability is described. I would consider Inquistors to be the last to be defeatist though, more likely to have that dogged determination that humanity will prevail. Maybe this one is more realistic than most. Good writing!'

RoV