Blood Bowl!
Ok here goes. This is going to be something Completely Different, and as far as I’m aware a first for the TPM Fanfic board. This is my own take on the Blood Bowl stories published by Black Library, based upon a table top, dice based fantasy football game. A number of the references will be borrowed from them (although they borrow them cheekily from real life companies etc) as well as a couple of characters but nothing instrumental in the plot. The rest will be an original work of my own.
…..apart from this first bit which explains a little about what Blood Bowl is for you that don’t know and is printed at the start of every Blood Bowl Novel(as such it will be the only part of this Fic with correct grammar and punctuation).
Prologue
‘Hi there, sports fans, and welcome to the Blood Bowl for tonight’s contest. You join us here with a capacity crowd, packed with members of every race from across the known world, all howling like banshees in anticipation of tonight’s game. Oh, and yes there are some banshees…… Well, kick-off is in about half a pages’ time, so we’ve just got time to go over to your commentator for tonight, Jim Johnson, for a recap on the rules of the game before battle commences. “Good Evening, Jim!”
“Thank you, Bob! Well, good evening and boy, are you folks in for some great sporting entertainment. First of all though, for those of you at home who are unfamiliar with the rules, here’s how the game is played.”
“Blood Bowl is an epic conflict between two teams of heavily armed and quite insane warriors. Players pass, throw and run with the ball, attempting to get it to the other end of the field, the end zone. Of course, the other team must try and stop them, and recover the ball for their side. If a team gets the ball over the line into the opponents’ end zone it’s called a touchdown: the team that scores the most touchdowns by the end of the match wins the game. Of course, it’s not always as simple as that…..
Chapter 1
There was something he should be doing, he knew that much, anything else however was a mystery. He opened his eyes and looked up into a clear blue sky, the occasional cloud drifting by and birds flying. Slowly he was aware that his hearing was beginning to return, and that there was a sound like cheering all but drowned out by a constant, pulsing, throbbing noise that he couldn’t explain. As if someone were sat next to him beating a drum. He managed to pull himself up, his eyes screwed closed with the effort and his hand rubbed his eyes through the holes in the grille, attached to the front of his helmet, designed to protect his face.
As he looked around he realised a couple of things. The first was that there wasn’t a drummer sat beside him. Infact it was wholly possible that he was inside his head though the beat had slowed and he could hear more of the braying chanting again. The second thing was that he couldn’t remember his name which almost worried him until the rest of his memory came back to him. Looking around he realised he was in the middle of a game. Someone, or more likely something had knocked him clean out and no one from the dugout had bothered sending a medic out to get him.
Slowly he shook the cobwebs from his head as he returned to his feet and looked to see most of the action was down at the other end of the field. Either the game had quickly gone from one end of the field to the other, or he had been taken out in back play. Either was as likely as the other. He saw something else as he watched too. One of the other men, dressed in the same white overalls with Orange Armour as he was wearing, seemed to make a motion as if throwing something. As he looked up there was a small dark shape spiralling through the air towards him and instinctively he reached out and caught it.
It was a ball. A stretched, egg shaped pig bladder, stitched up and inflated, with a metal spike on each end was now resting n the palms of his hands. He looked up, still a little dazed to see all the men wearing armour that matched his shouting and waving. He couldn’t tell what but as he saw the much larger people on the field, the big green people wearing black and white armour all turn and charge directly towards him, he had a feeling they were telling him to run.
As he turned he saw the end of the field wasn’t actually that far away. Of course with his memory returning he knew reaching the end of the field and scoring wasn’t a guarantee he wouldn’t get hurt, Orc’s after all, never appreciated anyone scoring against them, but at least he would do some good for the team. He bolted as fast as his legs would carry him. Slowing only to dodge the occasional missile from the angry opposition crowd. Bricks, sections of seating, and even the occasional unfortunate fan, in the form of the smaller green skin races, the snotlings and Gretchin.
“He’s scored!” he heard a booming voice cry as he crossed the white line of the End Zone and remembered all about the commentators.
“This newly formed team from distant Albion have scored their first ever tournament touchdown and it comes here against the Orcland Raiders!!”
“That they have Jim” replied another voice “It’s just a shame that the Raiders have already scored five and it was nothing more than a consolation”
“Right you are Bob…” came back the first voice “…and if John Jaeger, the Blitzer that scored the touchdown doesn’t keep running that may have been his first and only score”
‘That’s right,’ he thought to himself. ‘That’s who I am, I’m John Jaeger of the North Albion Tigers Blood Bowl team! And I just scored!”
He smiled proudly to himself, turning to appreciate the cheers from the small number of loyal fans that supported them. All he saw, though briefly, was a wall of Green wearing black and white shirts. Then his world went black again. The drummer picked up his sticks and continued his solo.
-------------------------------------------------------------
First chapter, just something short to gauge interest and see where it goes from there. All comments, suggestions and rates are extremely welcome and wanted
