The Villain's Hour

November 2026 round · Entries and voting open until 30 November

Every great story is held up by someone who believes they are right. This time, give your villain the floor. Write a monologue of 300 words or fewer, spoken by an antagonist at the moment they finally explain themselves — to a captive, a rival, a mirror, or to no one at all. Do not let them cackle. The best villains are persuasive, and the chill comes when the reader catches themselves nodding along. The Guild will reward menace that has logic behind it, a voice unlike any hero's, and one detail so specific that it could belong to no other character. You may borrow a villain from your own book, or invent one for the occasion. One entry per scribe each month, open to every rank. Here is the kind of entry we hope to see: “Sit, please. No — the chair is quite safe; I had it tested. You look at me as though I enjoyed this. I did not. I buried my first village in a ledger long before I ever burned one. Do you know what the crown spent on ceremonies last winter while your people starved? Seven thousand marks. I did the sums. Everyone does the sums, child, but only I was willing to say the answer aloud: a hundred lives now, or a hundred thousand in ten years. You call that cruelty. I call it arithmetic with a conscience. I shall be hated for it, and I have made my peace with that, truly. But I will not be wrong. Now drink your tea. It really is rather good, and there is not much of it left.”

Prize: A free week of the Archmage tier, sent to the winner by email when the round closes.