Some Fan Fiction material for you… Lord Dagon has turned in part 5 of his Halo 2: Return of Death series, and hipboyscott has turned in a sketch of the rifle from his Have Design, Will Build series. He says this:

the rifle design is my own, and this is a basic render. I had more in depth drawings, but they were deleted in the thunderstorm that half-fried my hard drive. If I ever can replecate them, I will turn them in. This is basically to add depth to my story, by showing what the new thing looks like.

This is actually a model with an integrated Grenade Launcher which WILL make an appearance. however the one desribed so far lacks this explosive feature.

Go read and look! (This will be the last post for a while… headed up to Thanks-Killing for the day.)

lol – Señor 404 shows a sense of humor with a Miscellaneous Art submission. Check it out.

Whoa. The Gameplay Tips section, somewhat neglected in recent weeks, has had a facelift. 40+ new tips, plus (some much-needed) sorting functions! The site map has been updated, as well. As far as I can tell, Cybrfrk has left out some of the SupaMegaTricksta-type tips that we get… which is a fine thing, SMT is in a class by himself. Go check it out, and improve your gameplay today!

Skip Weasel the pegboy, Bungie intern etraordinaire (or something), returns in the latest Bungie comic. (That thing, minus the sign, really is in the building.)

We get a lot of Wallpaper submissions. Periodically, I threaten to create some sort of ‘maintainer’s choice’ gallery, to showcase the ones I consider to be the best of the best. I haven’t found time to do this yet… but when it happens, the two new entries from Stormsinger will definitely be in there. Check these out in the Wallpaper section – they ROCK.

Stories from the last day or so, just clearing out the Fan Fiction queue:

• The Long Ride Home, part 11, by Joshua Barreto
• Taker of Life, Giver of Death, part 11, by Ian Barnes
• Human, by Mr Bill Jr V
• Halo: The Final Fight, part 2, by Daniel Luiken
• Have Design, Will Build, part 3, by hipboyscott
• An Elites Legend, part 2, by Neco Divad
• Eve, part 1, by RazorCow

Get to it!

A couple of pieces of Miscellaneous Art submitted over the last couple of days; apologies, it’s been busy. You’ll find the original version of strykerwolf’s Halloween (modified version visible on yesterday’s news page), and a clan logo from some Halo fanatics in Finland. Enjoy!

Tarrsk is compiling a database of HBO forumgoers who play on Xbox Live; it’s unclear at the moment where it will be hosted, but if you want to be included, simply reply to the forum thread, or email Tarrsk with your HBO forum screen name and your XBL gamer tag. (If you include only one or the other, or submit your entry more than once, you’ll likely be ignored.) Update: there is a page live for this – you’ll find it here.

Forum regular Warbow sent his son out for trick-or-treating last night as a Master Chief. You can see his post (and the resultant thread) on the forum, and we’ve added a local copy of the pictures. Now that’s fatherly dedication!

Thank goodness SOMEONE saved a copy of this; we were out trick-or-treating, I would have missed it. (Thanks to Candyman for the creation, and mnemesis for its posterity assuredness.) Bed…

Bungie’s hiring again… this time, they’re looking for a Community Development Manager. Responsibilities, requirements, and general info can be found on Bungie.net… oh, how I wish I lived near Seattle sometimes.

A European mirror for the Halo Winter Season promo mentioned yesterday has come online – thanks again to GJ of Fantazm!

Halo in your local pub? Narcogen, of Rampancy.net, found an interesting article describing a new marketing deal between Microsoft and Anheuser-Busch which will get Xboxes into bars. Promotional schwag, including Xboxes, will be given away during the initial phase. Nice!

In the midst of the forum madness of the last couple of days, Lorraine Reyes-McLees dropped by with an update on Eagan (misspelled the last time we mentioned him) – sounds like everyone’s doing well! (We want sketches, Lorraine!)

Strykerwolf created a pretty cool image for Halo-ween… we’ve shamelessly stolen it for use here on this page. (You can see the original on our forum.) Strykerwolf – if this thievery is not acceptable, we’ll yank it… but it was just too cool not to use.

Lots of Fan Fiction today…

• Unexpected Surprises, part 3, by JediKnight114
• Fafnir, part 7, by KnightmareWolf
• Shadows of Archon II, part 25, by Wado
• The Shadows, part 10, by Glenny
• Cooking Covies with Neco Divad, by Neco Divad
• The Time Vortex: Intro, by Arthur Wellesly
• Revolution 2 Return of the Forerunner, part 3, by Gruntkiller

See what you can read (and comment on) before the next wave.

Whoa. Can’t remember the last time we did this, but hey, exigent circumstances, and all… Travis Cossel, quickly making a name for himself in the Halo Video scene, has put together a promo film for the iGames Halo Winter Season – you can grab a copy (6.3 mb, 1:22 long, QT 5 format) over at our Mythica mirror space, or from the Psyjnir.com hotline server, or from HBO’s mac.com overflow space. (This, too, we’d be happy to offer mirrors for… if you’ve got the space, let us know.)

On October 25th, jackass the movie opened in theaters. Within three days, we’d received two submissions parodying this film. Our limited bandwidth resources required that we choose one… Kevin Kranzky has created a 6:45, 32.5 mb film that looks at stupid Halo stunts. Some of it’s hilarious, some of it is kind of silly… but then, I’d guess that can be said about the MTv film, as well, right? It’s currently being hosted by Mythica.org and the Psynjir.com hotline server, but it’s a big’un, so if you’ve got space, and would like to help out, let us know! Update: CYBRFRK has put a copy up at Cybrfrk’n. Thanks! Update 2: GJ has supplied another mirror, courtesy of Fantazm. Woohoo! (This one’s in Europe.) Full mirror list coming at some point.

iGames has posted the tournament rules for the Halo Winter Season; if you’re interested in competing in this national event (the first qualifiers are this weekend), check out this page! Thanks to Team Overkill for the heads-up.

Tuesday’s Fan Fiction:

• Liberation, part 8, by Hoju
• Indoctrination, by Havok

Have at ’em…