Download Grim Portents issue 1The file is available in two PDFs, one with 72 DPI (
5 MB) and one with images at their natural resolution (
21 MB). There's also the ODT source file (
18 MB).
Feel free to distribute the zine however you like: via file-sharing, printing it out, selling it, reading it aloud in public places, whatever. It's under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence, and parts are under the even more liberal Creative Commons Attribution licence.
Contribute to Grim Portents issue 2My email: sanglorian@gmail.com
DeadlinesWritten: First drafts by the 22nd of April
Written: Final drafts by the 29th of April
Art: Sketches/dimensions by the 29th of April
Art: Final versions by the 6th of May
SubmissionsContributions do not need to follow the theme
- While Dungeon World is the focus of the zine, submissions for other * World or World of * games will be accepted
- All submissions must be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution or Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence
- Submissions are unpaid, but donations are accepted to commission more art
Written submissions: If an article is the sort that would have been published in
Dragon or
Dungeon magazines, it has a place in
Grim Portents. We also publish shorter submissions – a single monster, move or item is perfectly acceptable. If a submission is over say 5,000 words, contact me and double-check before writing it.
Format: A DOC or ODT is ideal. Don't worry too much about the style or formatting, but when in doubt use simple Word/LibreOffice styles like 'Heading 1' and 'Text body' and follow the Dungeon World book.
Artistic submissions: If you have existing artworks you'd like to contribute, feel free to post them online so others can write articles around them.
The more common form of art submission, however, is illustrations to accompany already-submitted articles. If you email me, I'll give you a few options for illustrations from what we have already (writers, this is your incentive to submit quickly: it increases your odds of getting a picture).
Format: A lossless format like TIFF or PNG is ideal.
Feedback help: If you'd like to read over an article or two and share your suggestions with the author, shoot me an email. Feedback includes both advice on the content and proofreading.
Layout: If you would like to do the layout in InDesign, please get in touch with me.
“The Wine-Dark Sea”Thanks John Ryan for the suggestion! For non-theme specific suggestions, see
the submission guide for issue 1.If you do decide to work with the theme, here's some inspiration:
Father Zeus, wilt thou at all be wroth with me if I smite Ares and chase him from the battle in sorry plight?"
And Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered and said to her: "Go to now, set upon him Athene driver of the spoil, who most is wont to bring sore pain upon him."
So spake he, and the white-armed goddess Hera disregarded not, and lashed her horses; they nothing loth flew on between earth and starry heaven. As far as a man seeth with his eyes into the haze of distance as he sitteth on a place of outlook and gazeth over the wine-dark sea, so far leap the loudly neighing horses of the gods.
– The Iliad of Homer, trans. Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers
(one of several versions on Project Gutenberg)
Australian Band
The Wine-Dark SeaAnd this declare I, and be Zeus our witness thereto; if that man slay me with the long-edged sword, let him spoil me of my armour and bear it to the hollow ships, but give back my body to my home, that Trojans and Trojans' wives may give me my due of burning in my death. But if I slay him and Apollo vouchsafe me glory, I will spoil him of his armour and bear it to holy Ilios and hang it upon the temple of far-darting Apollo, but his corpse will I render back to the well-decked ships, that the flowing-haired Achaians may entomb him, and build him a barrow beside wide Hellespont. So shall one say even of men that be late born, as he saileth in his benched ship over the wine-dark sea: 'This is the barrow of a man that died in days of old, a champion whom glorious Hector slew.' So shall a man say hereafter, and this my glory shall never die."
– The Iliad of Homer, trans. Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers
The Wine-Dark Sea, a novel of the Napoleonic War written by Patrick O'Brian
And when they came to the place where Achilles had bidden them, they set down the dead, and piled for him abundant wood. Then fleet-footed noble Achilles bethought him of one thing more: standing apart from the pyre he shore off a golden lock, the lock whose growth he nursed to offer unto the River Spercheios, and sore troubled spake be, looking forth over the wine-dark sea: "Spercheios, in other wise vowed my father Peleus unto thee that I returning thither to my native land should shear my hair for thee and offer a holy hecatomb, and fifty rams should sacrifice there above thy springs, where is the sacred close and altar burning spice. So vowed the old man, but thou hast not accomplished him his desire. And now since I return not to my dear native land, unto the hero Patroklos I may give this hair to take away."
– The Iliad of Homer, trans. Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers
Formulas as an aide-mémoire; colour blindness; strange-coloured wines; dark sunsets; blind poets; ill-omened tides (from
The New York Times)
By cunning is a woodman far better than by force; by cunning doth a helmsman on the wine-dark deep steer his swift ship buffeted by winds; by cunning hath charioteer the better of charioteer. For whoso trusting in his horses and car alone wheeleth heedlessly and wide at either end, his horses swerve on the course, and he keepeth them not in hand. But whoso is of crafty mind, though he drive worse horses, he ever keeping his eye upon the post turneth closely by it, neither is unaware how far at first to force his horses by the ox-hide reins, but holdeth them safe in hand and watcheth the leader in the race.
– The Iliad of Homer, trans. Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers
Wars; rivers of blood; feuding gods; an Odyssey