"Waking Dogs" Had A New Release... Do You Want To See The End of The Series? (Warhammer 40K)

Roughly 4 years ago, I wrote a little story titled Waking Dogs about a World Eater space marine who simply decided he had enough. Enough of his legion, enough of the blood god, and enough of the godsdamned Butcher's Nails... Crixus was going to put down every rabid dog he'd once called brother, and wipe the entire legion from the galaxy. He was going to erase the mistake that Angron had made, and if he was very lucky, die in the process of trying to complete this fool's crusade.

I'd originally written it to be a stand-alone piece of fan fiction, hoping it would maybe drag some eyes over to my novel Old Soldiers, which is a dystopian sci fi thriller about 9-foot-tall albino super soldiers dealing with their own dark conspiracy that I figured would appeal to some of my fellow Warhammer 40K fans. However, several years later, Waking Dogs is now a 3-part series with several hundred thousand views on YouTube, and it seems to have made a far bigger impact on folks than I could ever have predicted.

And it's not done just yet.

The Warhounds rise... but will they fall once more?

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The Old Warhound's Saga Continues... Or Does It?

Originally, Crixus's story was a fun little what-if story. It was a question of what would happen if a World Eater went rogue, and dedicated himself to wiping out all those like him. What would it be like if their personal rage was so constant that it attuned itself to the Butcher's Nails, and those terrible engines became a weapon he was capable of wielding rather than becoming a mere slave to?

And overall, those who read it seemed to like it. They didn't buy any copies of my novel, though, and I would have just abandoned the project as a good try... except that I crossed paths with Paul Graham, the individual behind the YouTube channel A Vox in The Void. He was looking for unique, grim stories to read, and this was one of the stories I said he was welcome to put on his channel. All I asked was that he link the original story on Vocal so I could maybe get some extra traffic.

The story honestly did a LOT better than I ever expected... and looking back at it today, it just crossed 101,000 views. Which still boggles me a bit!

While this wasn't the first story of mine Paul had dramatized (if you check the archive, it's the second story of mine on the channel), it did make a pretty big impact. And it led to me writing additional stories for him over time. And as I read the comments about Crixus, and I saw there were folks who had really enjoyed his tale, I figured I'd add to it. So I wrote a sequel, Broken Chains, which has him hunting down his former Brother Sergeant to settle a grudge, and it gives us a psychic flashback to his childhood, before he was made part of the Warhounds legion in the days of the Great Crusade.

Folks welcomed Crixus home with roars of enthusiasm, and this story did even better than the first one had... in terms of YouTube views, at least (most folks don't read my stories in text format, even if they really enjoy listening), and at time of writing, that story has over 167,000 views!

Since a few years had gone by, I felt it was time for injecting a little fresh blood into Crixus's saga. My most recent story, which involves him being taken prisoner by a World Eaters warband and forced to fight for his life in the arena against several daunting opponents to the roars of the crowd, dropped a few months ago... Waking Dogs, Part 3: War Hounds.

Though this story just rounded 37,000 views, it's only been up for 3 weeks... and if you haven't checked it out yet, you should!

While Crixus hasn't met his end just yet, I do have a plan for how I'd like to end this particular series... but for folks who'd like to see it draw to an epic conclusion, I'm going to need your help to make it happen!

How You Can Help Give The Old Warhound A Proper End

Over the past few years I've had a lot of time to think about Crixus's stories, and where I'd like him to go. And while I acknowledge I could treat him like Conan, and just add a few more stories here and there until there was no longer an interested audience, honestly, I don't want him to just fade away like that. I'd much rather give him a proper and deliberate sendoff...

But I'm going to need all of your help to make that happen!

So, here's how you can help!

So, here's a list of things that would really help me get the last two parts of Crixus's tale slotted into place:

- Read the original three stories on Vocal (Waking Dogs, Broken Chains, War Hounds), and share them on your own social media pages to help boost the signal!

- Check out the audio dramas over on A Vox in The Void, subscribe to the channel, and leave some comments on the videos to let them know I sent you!

- Consider picking up a copy of my novel Old Soldiers, then when you leave a review mention that you bought a copy because you wanted me to have the time and energy to finish Crixus's story.

This list is in descending order of free-to-you as the reader, but in reverse order of what will help me most as a writer. So, just something to keep in mind... because if I could get 10,000 people (to say nothing of 40,000 or 150,000) to grab a copy of my novel, I would have all the time and energy to dedicate to bringing the old Warhound's saga to a satisfying close!

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