Greetings from Wild Surge, Beamdog's community magazine!

For our third issue of the 2018 calendar year, we at Wild Surge will be hosting a Baldur’s Gate fan fiction contest.

The Baldur’s Gate trilogy has some of the most fascinating characters. Even the most minor character such as the Bhaalspawn chinchilla to the thief Mook on the docks just scream to have more backstory written about them.

And here’s the challenge for all those inspiring bards. Choose one of these characters and write a short story either about their times prior to or after meeting CHARNAME in the game.
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All entries must not be previously published, be completely written by one submitter, not exceed 5000 words, and be submitted before April 20, 2018.

A select group of judges will read each entry to determine the winner. Entries will be based on how well the story fits in the canon of the Baldur’s Gate universe and the enjoyability of the tale.

Top shortlisted entries will be published in our June Issue of Wild Surge.

Top Prize will be a Collector’s Edition of Siege of Dragonspear*
*already have it? If you win, you can select to have a $100 (CND) GOG or Steam giftcard

Secondary prize of GOG key for Pillars of Eternity 2: DeadFire

Tertiary prize of $25 (CND) GOG or Steam Giftcard

To enter:
Attach your .doc story to an email and send it to the.wild.surge (at) gmail.com with your name and title of the story in the email title or body.

No personal information (including name, forum name, phone number, or bribe money) should be present in the submitted .doc.

Anyone, besides selected judges, is allowed to enter. A confirmation email will be sent once entries are received. Winners will be contacted by email after the contest has closed.

Good luck to all those that enter!

For more information visit: www.wildsurge.ca/fan-fic-contest

And this is, Ladies and Gentlemen, how you get storyline for the new content for Baldur's Gate made by the mentioned above company.

Jokes aside, I would gladly participate (even though I don't think that I'm very skilled writer) if the price was the power to restore the original games where they belong, i.e. sold separately from their EE versions on GOG (PS:T included of course, but that could be another contest, if necessary).

Alright, this time I'm really serious. My fanfic would be something along the lines: Beamdog, can't thou just leaveth these games high-lone? Haven't thou done enow damageth?

I think that I should just stop here.

Sounds cool, I wish my English level was better in order to participate. Hope you get many wonderful stories... and perhaps they will inspire the mod community to bring the best ones into the game. :)

This is how SoD was made, wasn't it?

Is that only referring to commercial publication? What about a story I've previously posted on a fan-fic site?

Sorry for the late reply but no the submission cannot be published anywhere else, especially fan fiction sites. This is to prevent plagiarism and people submitting works they find online as their own.

Nothing in the rules says it must be in english.
Thus the company is responsible to translate the stories.


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Seems the only rule they not mention here is, anything you send to them can not be published anywhere else ever again.

This is actually false. The submitter keeps the publication rights to their stories, they just allow us to publish it first.

However, our fan fic contest is now closed. If you submitted and have not received a follow up email, contact us ASAP. Winners will be announced in our June Issue! Chicken Issue is out soon.

First, it is so nice to see how much you care. I mean you care not.

Second, let's see the rules:
"Submitters will give Wild Surge first publication rights to any submitted stories. " - Tjhis means any story which doees not win and thus gets publicised will be lost forewer, never allowed to publish, as first WS should publish it, but they won't.
So yes, actualy your story is pretty much lost if you sent it in.

To make matters worse, there's no guarantee to ever get payed, as the rules says: "Wild Surge has a right to change any of the aforementioned rules or prizes without notice."

What has Wild Surge ever said or done that would have lost your trust? Remember we are not affiliated with Beamdog, we are fans of the IE games that met on the Beamdog forums. We have been operating for a little over a year now with 8 issues in the bag. They all can be read here. Our next issue on Chickens will be out soon.

Secondly, Twilight, we're not douche bags. If any story that got submitted didn't make the cut, we'd waive first publication rights unless we felt the entry fit with a themed issue already planned. If that was the case, we would work with the submitter to see if would want it published at a later date. If they didn't, then they'd be free to do with the entry as they see fit. Almost every other writing contest has the same "unpublished, gives up the copyright" rules for various reasons. Very few allow the actual submitter to keep publication rights however.

The last line was to cover my ass if the SoD Collectors box sold out and I was unable to mail my unopened copy to the winner for whatever reason. Once again, we're not douche bags, If this was the case we'd work with the submitter to find an appropriate prize. This line also allowed us to add prizes if we saw fit depending on the amount of submissions, or change the deadline to a later date if needed.

And how do we know that?

First, we know you're workingwith Beamdog. A company which has pretty low reputation outside their work on programming.

Second: we only know what we read in the terms&conditions.

Third: you didn't even manage to quote me properly to make the site notify me of your reply. Imagine that.

Fourth: you put out a contest and not prepared to fulfill on your side. That's not very professional. The line by the way makes possible to not pay at all, and that's straigth alienating your customers. Giving your/associated company started from low rep, that's not helping your case.

You are welcome to your own opinion, you are not welcome to your own facts.

1. We are not affliated with Beamdog or any other company.

2. If you chose not to submit because you did not agree with the terms, that’s your right. The terms are there for a reason.

3. Because the conversation is over. I am only clarifying concerns you might have had. If you have further concerns or questions feel free to ask them here, just know I do not visit GoG as often as I should and maybe late in replying.

4. We were/are fully prepared. All prizes (besides the gift cards since it is an either/or) have been secured. The entries are already on their way to being judged. Our readers know how we operate but we wanted to make sure this contest was open to all fans of the Infinity Engine games, hence my post here and on Steam.

So... who are "you", exactly?

LOL.