Blue Frog Tavern is the only Tunnels & Trolls solo I was ever really curious about before acquiring it. This was because I'd picked up a copy of Dicing with Dragons, Ian Livingstone's introduction to RPGs, in the Book Exchange, and the chapter on available games included sample pages from the four systems that got most attention. T&T was one of the four, and the page depicted was page 8 of Tavern. Those seven out-of-context sections from the adventure made me want to see the whole thing, so I was pleased when BFT turned out to be part of the bundle of Flying Buffalo editions I bought in 1990. Not so pleased at having to get it again in order to obtain the Corgi reissue of author James Wilson's earlier solo, Sword for Hire, but it makes sense that two adventures by the same writer were bundled together, especially as the eponymous tavern appears briefly in Sword.
Based on one possible encounter I remember, I'm creating a male character. Magic isn't permitted, so I'll just roll up a straightforward fighter.
Strength 13
Intelligence 9
Luck 11
Constitution 9
Dexterity 14
Charisma 13
Speed 10
Slightly above average, then, but well within the parameters laid down in the book.
My adventure starts when I enter the tavern and chat with the barman. He mentions that the proprietor is looking to hire an adventurer, and comments that the local order of Red Robed Priests have been harassing people in the region. Rumour has it that this is because their treasure room was looted. I also learn that I shouldn't address the Troll bouncer by his given name if I wish to retain my limbs.
There's a sudden, brief outbreak of violence, as a rock demon assaults the dwarf with whom he'd been conversing, and Butterfly-Dances-In-The-Morning-Dew (now you know why the bouncer doesn't like it when people say his name) grabs the demon and hurls him across the tavern. I choose to mind my own business, as I know that not much good can come of interfering in matters of industrial relations, and I remember from past attempts that the demon who just hit the wall is the tavern's new owner.
Then again, maybe I should have intervened, as Quartz, the demon, doesn't think much of my adventuring spirit. I get a chance to prove myself, though, as a couple of the Red Robed Priests burst into the tavern and take an ominous interest in Quartz and me. The bouncer kills one of them with a stool, but Quartz indicates that he wants me to finish the other one off. Which could be tricky, looking at the stats. The Priest does way more damage than I do, but I have armour that almost cancels out the disparity. It'll take some extremely flukey rolls for me to be able to harm him, but he's not necessarily going to find it easy to kill me.
While there's still some debate over the relative mightiness of the pen and the sword, no such uncertainty applies when it comes to scimitar versus pulsing rune death-staff. It took the priest eight rounds to chip away at my meagre Constitution, as it turned out. Still, compared to my last T&T battle, that's almost like surviving to retirement age.
Monday, 15 July 2013
Friday, 12 July 2013
The Dead Tree Gives No Shelter
The Tyrant's Tomb is the third and final of Dave Morris' Heroquest books. Like the first two, it contains both a story and a gamebook, and like the second one, there's also a GM-and-player Heroquest scenario in there.
The story is a further adventure of Asgrim, the barbarian character from The Fellowship of Four. Here he's accompanied by a lame, disfigured and embittered thief named Flügel, who has discovered the lost tomb of Chungor Khan and needs help in dealing with the more physical obstacles to extracting the treasure within. It's an entertaining tale, with some unexpected developments along the way, and the means by which Asgrim defeats the revenant Khan is set up in advance, but mentioned casually enough not to come across as a blatant Chekhov's Pistol.
My only gripe is a minor one, and a consequence of the gamebook's being much more closely based on the accompanying story than the previous two. One thing that annoys me any time it happens in a mystery story is when the detective takes dozens of pages to figure out something obvious enough that I've already twigged it. There's an analogous bit here, where the set-up within the tomb is clearly designed to have a secret door activated by the solving of a puzzle, yet Asgrim completely fails to put two and two together, and laboriously smashes a hole in the wall. No doubt the gamebook will allow the option of using brains rather than brawn, but it was a bit irritating to have the set-up and no proper pay-off within the story.
The scenario, A Growl of Thunder, seems more cohesive than the one in The Screaming Spectre. Beyond that, there's not a lot I can say about it without GMing it, and I don't anticipate much opportunity of getting to do so.
And now for The Treasure of Chungor Khan, in which I get to participate in a different version of the events of The Tyrant's Tomb. The introduction warns that some things won't be the same as in the story: 'That is the nature of Chaos.'
My character comes ready-made, so there's no need to list stats. The adventure starts with me in a rather insalubrious tavern, overhearing a conversation between two rather unpleasant-sounding individuals, one of whom has lately (and rather violently) come into possession of a map. I listen long enough to find out that it's the map to a great treasure and then pop to the bar before either of the low-lifes notices me eavesdropping. At which point the text points out that I don't have the money for another drink, which I should really have already known. Might as well introduce myself to the rogues with the map, then.
They impolitely tell me to leave, so I threaten to spill beer on their map (a bluff, as I don't even have dregs in my tankard) and force them to let me join them. They introduce themselves as Grinch and Grivois, and explain that the map shows the way to a treasure-filled tomb, undisturbed to this day because of the curse laid upon the treasure. Being quite astute, they researched the precise wording of the curse, and learned that it threatened 'eternal damnation' for anyone who plunders the tomb. Given that their past misdemeanours have already qualified them for such a fate, that's not much of a deterrent to them. I'm less keen on the prospect myself, but I don't want to take the 'walk out' option, and my character's beliefs give him no fear of the snake goddess upon whom the curse depends.
Before setting off, I take a look around the market, learning that my insufficient-for-a-beer funds are more than enough to pay for a flask of water, a lantern and some garlic. That's one pricey establishment I was in.
There are three possible routes to the tomb's location: through the 'Swamp of Lost Souls', across the Ogre-infested mountain range, or south to the coast where I can hope to get passage on a ship. I pick the mountain path, and decide that the reputed danger of the pass is less to be feared than the definite hazards of mountaineering. A blizzard makes things rather unpleasant, but I avoid the light I see, as its colour (green) suggests that it's more likely to be of faerie origin that shining from a trapper's hut. I take some damage from the cold, but nothing I can't handle.
Beyond the pass, my path takes me close to a clump of trees, from which faint music drifts. Could be another fae lure, so I don't linger. Nothing else of note happens before I reach the citadel of Tarkesh Varn, the last outpost of civilisation before the wastelands in which the tomb lies. My companions, who have gone unmentioned for a surprisingly long while, now use trickery to steal the map and get me into trouble with the citadel guards. As I'm taken to the dungeons, I learn that I'm to be executed for my 'crime', so I spend the night loosening a stone in the wall.
It's already getting light by the time I create a hole. I decide to try deception, and hide in the mound of bedding in the corner. It works, the hole leading the guards who come for me to assume that I've escaped. I sneak out of the door while they're fetching reinforcements, and make my departure once the search is under way in the wrong part of the fortress. On the way out I see the gallows that has been prepared for me, and opt not to take the time to find a weapon before leaving.
No longer having the map, I'm going to have to catch up with my erstwhile 'allies' if I'm to get any further. An arbitrary choice of directions is presented, and I choose poorly, getting lost in the desert and eventually dying. Not a very satisfactory ending.
And now for The Treasure of Chungor Khan, in which I get to participate in a different version of the events of The Tyrant's Tomb. The introduction warns that some things won't be the same as in the story: 'That is the nature of Chaos.'
My character comes ready-made, so there's no need to list stats. The adventure starts with me in a rather insalubrious tavern, overhearing a conversation between two rather unpleasant-sounding individuals, one of whom has lately (and rather violently) come into possession of a map. I listen long enough to find out that it's the map to a great treasure and then pop to the bar before either of the low-lifes notices me eavesdropping. At which point the text points out that I don't have the money for another drink, which I should really have already known. Might as well introduce myself to the rogues with the map, then.
They impolitely tell me to leave, so I threaten to spill beer on their map (a bluff, as I don't even have dregs in my tankard) and force them to let me join them. They introduce themselves as Grinch and Grivois, and explain that the map shows the way to a treasure-filled tomb, undisturbed to this day because of the curse laid upon the treasure. Being quite astute, they researched the precise wording of the curse, and learned that it threatened 'eternal damnation' for anyone who plunders the tomb. Given that their past misdemeanours have already qualified them for such a fate, that's not much of a deterrent to them. I'm less keen on the prospect myself, but I don't want to take the 'walk out' option, and my character's beliefs give him no fear of the snake goddess upon whom the curse depends.
Before setting off, I take a look around the market, learning that my insufficient-for-a-beer funds are more than enough to pay for a flask of water, a lantern and some garlic. That's one pricey establishment I was in.
There are three possible routes to the tomb's location: through the 'Swamp of Lost Souls', across the Ogre-infested mountain range, or south to the coast where I can hope to get passage on a ship. I pick the mountain path, and decide that the reputed danger of the pass is less to be feared than the definite hazards of mountaineering. A blizzard makes things rather unpleasant, but I avoid the light I see, as its colour (green) suggests that it's more likely to be of faerie origin that shining from a trapper's hut. I take some damage from the cold, but nothing I can't handle.
Beyond the pass, my path takes me close to a clump of trees, from which faint music drifts. Could be another fae lure, so I don't linger. Nothing else of note happens before I reach the citadel of Tarkesh Varn, the last outpost of civilisation before the wastelands in which the tomb lies. My companions, who have gone unmentioned for a surprisingly long while, now use trickery to steal the map and get me into trouble with the citadel guards. As I'm taken to the dungeons, I learn that I'm to be executed for my 'crime', so I spend the night loosening a stone in the wall.
It's already getting light by the time I create a hole. I decide to try deception, and hide in the mound of bedding in the corner. It works, the hole leading the guards who come for me to assume that I've escaped. I sneak out of the door while they're fetching reinforcements, and make my departure once the search is under way in the wrong part of the fortress. On the way out I see the gallows that has been prepared for me, and opt not to take the time to find a weapon before leaving.
No longer having the map, I'm going to have to catch up with my erstwhile 'allies' if I'm to get any further. An arbitrary choice of directions is presented, and I choose poorly, getting lost in the desert and eventually dying. Not a very satisfactory ending.
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
All Fall Down
I bought the 13th (and, as it turned out, final) issue of Warlock magazine in the newsagent's across and down the road from my school, and have a distinct memory of seeing the fake news report of a coup in the Warlock's palace (an indirect and obscure way to announce the discontinuation of the magazine) just after crossing back over the road. On a crossing - I wasn't quite so reckless as to just wander across a busy street with my head stuck in a magazine.
The mini-adventure, Tom Williams' The Temple of the Pharaoh, didn't make much of an impression on me. Proteus' rather good Treasures of the Cursed Pyramid had come out a couple of months before, and TTotP just wasn't as enjoyable as the rival magazine's Egyptian-themed adventure. My first attempt ended with my being captured and chained to a wall by two animated statues (which I'd already destroyed once) as punishment for going back somewhere I'd already been. I can't remember whether I was actually lost or knew I was retracing my steps and had a reason for doing so, but either way, I was not impressed. I didn't even get that far in my previous online attempt.
The adventure is set in the modern day, more or less. I'm an archaeologist, and after a year of unsuccessfully searching for the Temple of Pharaoh Terratakamen (whose nickname, King Terror, has more to do with his conduct than with the start of his full name), I discover a narrow cleft in some cliffs, the only way into a hidden valley that contains the temple I've been seeking. My plane crashes before I can report the discovery, though I survive unharmed, and in this condition:
Skill 12
Stamina 18
Luck 7
Rather than sit around waiting for the inevitable search party to come looking for me, I opt to have a look around the temple, erroneously thinking I'll be the first person to do so in centuries.
The place is in much better condition than I expect, and the door through the gates closes behind me on well-oiled hinges. No handle on this side, of course. I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, because even if my character is completely clueless genre-wise, I know what sort of 'fun' to expect here. There are more gates ahead of me (locked), and smaller doors to north and south. Trying to break through the gate by which I came in isn't likely to help (has anyone ever written a gamebook in which trying to flee the adventure right at the start goes well?), and standing around in the gloom seems pretty futile, so I head south.
Beyond the door is a room containing a gold goblet, a bowl of warm gruel, a spear and a coil of rope. I can take just one of them with me (perhaps the express checkout at my local supermarket has an overly strict item limit, and I've become accustomed to only ever getting one thing at a time). The spear's of no use to me as I haven't yet lost any Skill, the bowl has no lid and would be tricky to carry around without spilling its contents, and I'm not sure that there's anything to gain by carting valuables around, so I take the rope.
Still reluctant to stand around doing nothing, I check out the north door next. This leads to a room with illustrated walls, the pictures showing people in ancient Egyptian garb torturing and killing others. Some of the victims appear to be wearing 20th-century clothing, but I assume that it's just the poor light that makes them look like that because I'm too idiotic to have twigged that this place is still inhabited, and occupied by people who aren't very nice.
A ladder leads to a room above, and since the only alternative is to go back to between the gates and wait for something to happen, I climb up. Windows look down on the temple courtyard, and I have no trouble attaching the rope to the sole bar across one of the windows, squeezing through the gap, and climbing down. It's hot outside, but an arcade provides shade on three sides of the courtyard. The east wall, however, is exposed to the sun, and has a number of dead people chained to it between a couple of statues.
I make for the north arcade, which turns out to be rather pleasantly decorated. A variety of valuable items are on display here, and I ignore the jewellery and tapestries because again I can only take one thing, and while my character may be clueless, I know that a mirror is more likely to be useful than an emerald ring.
Emerging from the shade, I continue to the east wall, and read the inscription on a statue's plinth, which basically spells out bad news for intruders. To justify the threat, the statues come to life, and I decide to see if the mirror will be of any help here. Yes, I use it to reflect the sun into the statues' eyes, dazzling them and making them easier to defeat in battle.
Musing on that inscription, I conclude that Terratakamen's spirit lives on and is holding court somewhere here. If I want to survive, I'm going to have to find and destroy him. Before going any further, I check out the corpses on the wall. Many are now skeletal, but there are three relatively fresh ones in contemporary clothing, one with a camera around its neck. This is the first one I examine, and I help myself to his camera bag, which contains a second camera, lenses and a flash gun, but only counts as a single item because it's all in the one bag or something.
It's probable that there's something nasty on one of the cadavers, so I skip the second one and turn my attention to the one with red hair. He has a notebook in one pocket, and I leaf through it, finding indications that going through the gates the statues were guarding is an excellent way to get Instant Deathed, and the safest route to the great hall is via the cellars, which can be accessed from the arcade. Bearing this in mind (and remembering what I found in the south arcade on my previous attempt), I head back to the north one to see if there's a trapdoor I missed.
No trapdoor, but I do notice that three of the paving stones echo more than the rest when I step on them, and conclude that there must be hollows beneath them. There's nothing to indicate that one is preferable to the others, but I note that the one by the third pillar has a section number without a 3 in, while the ones by the sixth and eighth pillars lead to sections 6 and 88 respectively, so I choose the odd one out. Which turns out to cover a shallow grave containing a corpse that's being eaten by ants, and I just stand there gaping idiotically until the ants swarm all over me and bite away a couple of Stamina points.
Plan B: eight is not a multiple of three, so I try the stone by the eighth pillar. Beneath it is a shaft, possibly once a well. There are handholds carved into the crumbling brick walls, but they look a bit precarious, and my Luck's uncomfortably low, so I try the other stone before risking investigating this one further. Beneath that one are steps leading down, so I descend them and proceed along a corridor with phosphorescent walls to a T-junction.
It's a bit of a maze down here, so I shan't describe every junction and turning. After a little while I get attacked by a lioness, which I recognise as Sekhmet. Perceiving me as a wrongdoer, she attacks, and I defend myself. After I've wounded her a few times, she vanishes, and I realise that I can no longer remember which way I was heading before the fight. Which is only possible thanks to a deplorable bit of authorial sneakiness that had me approaching a corner without being able to see which way the passage was turning. Picking a direction at random, the orientation of the next junction I reach suggests to me that I'm continuing forwards. Yep, definitely - I'd remember the long corridor I reach if I'd been along it before.
Turning my attention to the walls, I notice some loose stones, and pull on one. It comes away, revealing a cavity. Reluctant to just stick my hand in, I remove some more stones, hoping to be able to see if there's anything of use in there. The roof collapses on top of me.
No, I still prefer the Proteus adventure.
The mini-adventure, Tom Williams' The Temple of the Pharaoh, didn't make much of an impression on me. Proteus' rather good Treasures of the Cursed Pyramid had come out a couple of months before, and TTotP just wasn't as enjoyable as the rival magazine's Egyptian-themed adventure. My first attempt ended with my being captured and chained to a wall by two animated statues (which I'd already destroyed once) as punishment for going back somewhere I'd already been. I can't remember whether I was actually lost or knew I was retracing my steps and had a reason for doing so, but either way, I was not impressed. I didn't even get that far in my previous online attempt.
The adventure is set in the modern day, more or less. I'm an archaeologist, and after a year of unsuccessfully searching for the Temple of Pharaoh Terratakamen (whose nickname, King Terror, has more to do with his conduct than with the start of his full name), I discover a narrow cleft in some cliffs, the only way into a hidden valley that contains the temple I've been seeking. My plane crashes before I can report the discovery, though I survive unharmed, and in this condition:
Skill 12
Stamina 18
Luck 7
Rather than sit around waiting for the inevitable search party to come looking for me, I opt to have a look around the temple, erroneously thinking I'll be the first person to do so in centuries.
The place is in much better condition than I expect, and the door through the gates closes behind me on well-oiled hinges. No handle on this side, of course. I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, because even if my character is completely clueless genre-wise, I know what sort of 'fun' to expect here. There are more gates ahead of me (locked), and smaller doors to north and south. Trying to break through the gate by which I came in isn't likely to help (has anyone ever written a gamebook in which trying to flee the adventure right at the start goes well?), and standing around in the gloom seems pretty futile, so I head south.
Beyond the door is a room containing a gold goblet, a bowl of warm gruel, a spear and a coil of rope. I can take just one of them with me (perhaps the express checkout at my local supermarket has an overly strict item limit, and I've become accustomed to only ever getting one thing at a time). The spear's of no use to me as I haven't yet lost any Skill, the bowl has no lid and would be tricky to carry around without spilling its contents, and I'm not sure that there's anything to gain by carting valuables around, so I take the rope.
Still reluctant to stand around doing nothing, I check out the north door next. This leads to a room with illustrated walls, the pictures showing people in ancient Egyptian garb torturing and killing others. Some of the victims appear to be wearing 20th-century clothing, but I assume that it's just the poor light that makes them look like that because I'm too idiotic to have twigged that this place is still inhabited, and occupied by people who aren't very nice.
A ladder leads to a room above, and since the only alternative is to go back to between the gates and wait for something to happen, I climb up. Windows look down on the temple courtyard, and I have no trouble attaching the rope to the sole bar across one of the windows, squeezing through the gap, and climbing down. It's hot outside, but an arcade provides shade on three sides of the courtyard. The east wall, however, is exposed to the sun, and has a number of dead people chained to it between a couple of statues.
I make for the north arcade, which turns out to be rather pleasantly decorated. A variety of valuable items are on display here, and I ignore the jewellery and tapestries because again I can only take one thing, and while my character may be clueless, I know that a mirror is more likely to be useful than an emerald ring.
Emerging from the shade, I continue to the east wall, and read the inscription on a statue's plinth, which basically spells out bad news for intruders. To justify the threat, the statues come to life, and I decide to see if the mirror will be of any help here. Yes, I use it to reflect the sun into the statues' eyes, dazzling them and making them easier to defeat in battle.
Musing on that inscription, I conclude that Terratakamen's spirit lives on and is holding court somewhere here. If I want to survive, I'm going to have to find and destroy him. Before going any further, I check out the corpses on the wall. Many are now skeletal, but there are three relatively fresh ones in contemporary clothing, one with a camera around its neck. This is the first one I examine, and I help myself to his camera bag, which contains a second camera, lenses and a flash gun, but only counts as a single item because it's all in the one bag or something.
It's probable that there's something nasty on one of the cadavers, so I skip the second one and turn my attention to the one with red hair. He has a notebook in one pocket, and I leaf through it, finding indications that going through the gates the statues were guarding is an excellent way to get Instant Deathed, and the safest route to the great hall is via the cellars, which can be accessed from the arcade. Bearing this in mind (and remembering what I found in the south arcade on my previous attempt), I head back to the north one to see if there's a trapdoor I missed.
No trapdoor, but I do notice that three of the paving stones echo more than the rest when I step on them, and conclude that there must be hollows beneath them. There's nothing to indicate that one is preferable to the others, but I note that the one by the third pillar has a section number without a 3 in, while the ones by the sixth and eighth pillars lead to sections 6 and 88 respectively, so I choose the odd one out. Which turns out to cover a shallow grave containing a corpse that's being eaten by ants, and I just stand there gaping idiotically until the ants swarm all over me and bite away a couple of Stamina points.
Plan B: eight is not a multiple of three, so I try the stone by the eighth pillar. Beneath it is a shaft, possibly once a well. There are handholds carved into the crumbling brick walls, but they look a bit precarious, and my Luck's uncomfortably low, so I try the other stone before risking investigating this one further. Beneath that one are steps leading down, so I descend them and proceed along a corridor with phosphorescent walls to a T-junction.
It's a bit of a maze down here, so I shan't describe every junction and turning. After a little while I get attacked by a lioness, which I recognise as Sekhmet. Perceiving me as a wrongdoer, she attacks, and I defend myself. After I've wounded her a few times, she vanishes, and I realise that I can no longer remember which way I was heading before the fight. Which is only possible thanks to a deplorable bit of authorial sneakiness that had me approaching a corner without being able to see which way the passage was turning. Picking a direction at random, the orientation of the next junction I reach suggests to me that I'm continuing forwards. Yep, definitely - I'd remember the long corridor I reach if I'd been along it before.
Turning my attention to the walls, I notice some loose stones, and pull on one. It comes away, revealing a cavity. Reluctant to just stick my hand in, I remove some more stones, hoping to be able to see if there's anything of use in there. The roof collapses on top of me.
No, I still prefer the Proteus adventure.
Monday, 8 July 2013
The Riskier the Road, the Greater the Profit
I definitely got issue 8 of Proteus, Elizabeth Caldwell's Treasures of the Cursed Pyramid, on the way to school. Probably at the newsagent's across and down the road from the school, as I remember being in the hall outside the CCF armoury when choosing which jar to open, and that choice comes so early in the adventure that I'd almost certainly have read it on the way to school. Unless the weather was too bad for reading along the way, which is a possibility, as I also remember being in room D, my form room, when I reached the two coloured pools and rolled badly while looking into 'The Great Green Lake', and I'm not sure why I'd have been in there during (IIRC) the lunch break unless it was pretty miserable outdoors. (On the off-chance that anyone remembers my having said that my form room was room F in my previous Proteus playthrough, I shall just point out that issue 7 was released in July, towards the end of the academic year, and issue 8 came out in September, early in the next academic year, so I was in a new class.) By now I know that that bad roll made it impossible for me to win that try at the adventure, but as it turned out, I never got far enough for it to matter, as I ran into the non-lethal fail ending in the maze.
I have three attributes in this adventure: the standard Dexterity and Strength, plus Charm, which reflects my ability to resist malign influences. And they are:
Dexterity 11
Strength 20
Charm 8
Not too bad, especially as Charm can rise above the Initial value to a maximum of 12.
I start in the bazaar at Kiroona, lost and fed up, and resigned to taking a look at the Relics and Curiosities stall that I've been unsuccessfully trying to avoid. A book catches my eye, but the stall-keeper attempts to dissuade me from looking in it. Probably just a sales technique, as I doubt that he'd have the book on display if he didn't want to sell it. Or did whatever influence kept driving me back to the stall also compel him to put out the book despite not wanting to let it fall into the wrong hands? I rather like the ambiguity of what's really going on here.
The book turns out to be the diary of ex-adventurer Saal Merik, and I buy it despite the stall-keeper's protests, after which I have no difficulty finding my way out of the bazaar and back to the inn where I'm staying. There I read the diary, which is an account of Merik's expedition to the Pyramid of Ptah-Hotep. It ends rather abruptly, though that turns out to be because the last pages are stuck together with wax. Carefully separating them, I discover that Merik discovered a concealed entrance to a sealed-off section of the Pyramid, but decided against exploring further because of the warning inscribed upon it. The sealed-off section imprisons 'the accursed Spirit of Seth, Incarnation of Evil' (who may be better known to you as Set, or Sutekh if you're an aficionado of 20th century Doctor Who). It also holds the bulk of Ptah-Hotep's treasure, but Merik chose not to try and get the loot because doing so risked calling down the Curse of Seth, not only on himself but upon all humanity. There is a way to avert the curse, but Merik was unable to translate the incantation which cancels the curse (so it must be written in a different hieroglyphic alphabet to the one the warning was in, as he translated the warning, and I know from past attempts at the adventure that one of the words in the incantation is also in the warning). My character does not share his qualms, and decides to use the notes and maps in the diary to try and find the sealed-off section
On the subject of old adventurers' artefacts, I have two incomplete maps of the pyramid from past attempts. I suspect that I wasn't playing to win on either occasion: when I was younger, I had a bit of an obsession with one of the 'fail' endings, and the maps go as far as the point at which the ending in question occurs, which suggests to me that I made a concerted effort to fall at that specific hurdle during those 'tries' at the adventure.
I have three attributes in this adventure: the standard Dexterity and Strength, plus Charm, which reflects my ability to resist malign influences. And they are:
Dexterity 11
Strength 20
Charm 8
Not too bad, especially as Charm can rise above the Initial value to a maximum of 12.
I start in the bazaar at Kiroona, lost and fed up, and resigned to taking a look at the Relics and Curiosities stall that I've been unsuccessfully trying to avoid. A book catches my eye, but the stall-keeper attempts to dissuade me from looking in it. Probably just a sales technique, as I doubt that he'd have the book on display if he didn't want to sell it. Or did whatever influence kept driving me back to the stall also compel him to put out the book despite not wanting to let it fall into the wrong hands? I rather like the ambiguity of what's really going on here.
The book turns out to be the diary of ex-adventurer Saal Merik, and I buy it despite the stall-keeper's protests, after which I have no difficulty finding my way out of the bazaar and back to the inn where I'm staying. There I read the diary, which is an account of Merik's expedition to the Pyramid of Ptah-Hotep. It ends rather abruptly, though that turns out to be because the last pages are stuck together with wax. Carefully separating them, I discover that Merik discovered a concealed entrance to a sealed-off section of the Pyramid, but decided against exploring further because of the warning inscribed upon it. The sealed-off section imprisons 'the accursed Spirit of Seth, Incarnation of Evil' (who may be better known to you as Set, or Sutekh if you're an aficionado of 20th century Doctor Who). It also holds the bulk of Ptah-Hotep's treasure, but Merik chose not to try and get the loot because doing so risked calling down the Curse of Seth, not only on himself but upon all humanity. There is a way to avert the curse, but Merik was unable to translate the incantation which cancels the curse (so it must be written in a different hieroglyphic alphabet to the one the warning was in, as he translated the warning, and I know from past attempts at the adventure that one of the words in the incantation is also in the warning). My character does not share his qualms, and decides to use the notes and maps in the diary to try and find the sealed-off section
On the subject of old adventurers' artefacts, I have two incomplete maps of the pyramid from past attempts. I suspect that I wasn't playing to win on either occasion: when I was younger, I had a bit of an obsession with one of the 'fail' endings, and the maps go as far as the point at which the ending in question occurs, which suggests to me that I made a concerted effort to fall at that specific hurdle during those 'tries' at the adventure.
They're not to the same scale, obviously.
And I appear to have overlooked the second door in the south wall of Apep's room in the second one.
And drawn the first chamber as a junction in the first. Sloppy cartography.
And drawn the first chamber as a junction in the first. Sloppy cartography.
Anyway, I gather together standard adventurer's paraphernalia and set off to the pyramid. Once inside, I eventually reach a chamber from which two flights of steps lead on. The hidden section of the pyramid is to the north, but the dead end to the east merits investigation first. Those stairs lead to a chamber containing a stone chest, which holds four stone jars, each with its top carved into the likeness of a different creature. I open the one with the jackal head in the hope of being reminded of a detail that eludes me. At once the jar transforms into a jackal-headed being, who tells me to beware the animals of the desert. That wasn't the advice I'd been hoping for, but after the message is delivered, the speaker and the other jars all vanish.
Returning to the first chamber, I take the north exit, which leads me to a junction. Merik's map indicates that both turnings loop round and terminate in the same room, and my maps show that I can find something of use if I go east, so that's what I do. On one of the walls are the hieroglyphs that come right at the end of the incantation I seek, and beneath them has been scratched a translation, which I note down.
The corridor eventually takes me into the room that contains Ptah-Hotep's sarcophagus - well, the outer stone chest. Everything else has been taken by tomb robbers or archaeologists. A sub-chamber to the north contains a statue of a jackal, and the hidden door I seek, but the means for opening it is on the sarcophagus. It has two stylised eyes carved into it, both of which can be pushed inwards. Pick the correct one, and the door will open. get the wrong one, and the jackal statue will animate and attack. And I'd know which eye to press if I'd chosen the right jar, but as it is, I'll have to guess.
Well, I said 'guess', but now I see the choice I realise that my memory for section numbers is better than my memory for directions, so I know which one not to push based on which section it would take me to. Pressing the other eye causes the jackal statue's pedestal to slide aside, revealing stairs down to the concealed door. Ignoring the warning on it, I open the door and step through. It closes behind me with a thud like a sarcophagus lid.
As a result of my not having lost any Charm (which would have been the more serious consequence of pressing the wrong eye), I spot something in the dust on the floor. This is a gold ring with a softly glowing pearl set into it, and I gain a Charm point for having it. Carrying on, I reach a junction and again go east. This passage ends in a featureless stone door, with a chain hanging beside it. So I ignore the chain and try to push the door open. It doesn't work, but while pushing, I notice faint carvings that provide me with a bit more of the incantation.
I then go back to the junction and west. Not a necessary action: I'd still be in with a good chance of beating the adventure if I'd pulled the chain to open the door, but the western path will enable me to find an item that I consider more useful than what may be acquired by continuing east. This isn't as 'one true path' an adventure as many are.
The passage leads to a room with three doors set into the north wall. If I'd picked a different jar, I'd have been told of the best option whenever I'm faced with a choice of three items. It's more memorable advice than which eye to press, so I'd still know the door to pick even if it weren't on one of my old maps. It opens onto a room with one other exit, and a golden box in the middle. Naturally I open the box, and a jet of fire singes me. As I recoil, a golden, fire-spitting Asp emerges. This is the Uraeus of Ra, and if I can subdue it, it will attack my enemies for me. Well, one of them. I only need to hit it twice to defeat it, and despite having a higher Dexterity, I take several wounds in the course of the fight. I do win, though, and will thus have an easier time in a forthcoming battle. And there's something else in the box which heals all damage inflicted by the Uraeus, so it doesn't matter that I didn't do that well in the fight. Not forgetting the golden staff that will save me from getting into another three fights later on...
The door north leads to an east-west corridor. Another two doors lead south into the rooms through which I just didn't pass, but even if I had the option of trying one, I don't think there's anything to be gained by doing so. Instead, I head east. The passage turns north and ends in a door, so I go through it into a room containing a pool of water. A second door leads south, and there are other exits to west and north. Faded hieroglyphs adorn the walls, one collection of symbols standing out as if they've recently been restored. Of course they're part of the incantation, with a translation conveniently appended.
That pool of water then gets my attention, largely because of the monstrous serpent currently emerging from it. The Uraeus springs into action, recognising Apep, the Eternal Enemy of its original owner, and burns the serpent. Apep drops back into the pool to douse the flames, then emerges again, but is now so weakened that I finish it off with ease. Beside the pool I find four valuable amulets of no further relevance to the adventure.
Leaving through the west door, I head down a corridor to a door with two pools painted on it, one green, one blue. I go through into a room containing two small pools of liquid - guess the colours. Looking into the green one, which is labelled with hieroglyphs that Merik's notes enable me to translate as 'The Great Green Lake', I see a vision. A random vision, with only a 50% chance of getting the one I need if I'm to have a chance of winning. Luck is not with me, but I don't get the worst possible outcome, just a vision of a white-clad woman with a musical instrument, who beckons to me. The sight of her fills me with inexplicable dread, causing me to look away from the pool, and when I glance back, the vision is over.
I'm pretty sure that it's futile, but I look into the other pool anyway. This one is named 'Millions of Years', and its blueness fills my head until I pass out and find myself in an infinitely long hall, filled with beast-headed men in chairs. Beside me is a huge pair of scales, and a woman in green leads me onto one pan of the scales, then steps onto the other. I succeed at the Charm roll, so the scales balance (meaning that unless I weigh the same as a duck, the woman's not a witch, right?) and I am permitted to return to the real world.
I find myself back by the pool, and the text says that I may only look at the green one if I haven't already done so. No second chance of getting the right vision, so I've failed, though the end is yet to come. I think I'll try to repeat the way my first attempt ended, as that leaves my character alive and doesn't get all humanity cursed, so as failures go, it's not too horrific. I leave through the north door, and the corridor turns east and leads into a room with doors in all four walls, though the doors to north and south are barred. In the middle of the room is a pedestal with a feather made of gold and silver on it. I don't need the feather - the vision I had in the Great Green Lake would cause me to automatically avoid the threat against which it provides protection - and can't be bothered with the fight that taking it would trigger, so I just pass through the room.
A corridor leads east. After a while I reach a point where a passage leads south, and there's a door opposite it. Going south is not an option, and continuing east is pointless, so I open the door and step through. It closes behind me, and there's no way of opening it from this side, so I continue north, noting that the air here is rather stale. Finding more hieroglyphs, I learn that I've entered the maze of Ptah-Hotep, and I have a limited period in which to find the true exit. Sand starts spilling through slits at the top of the walls: if I don't get out of here soon enough, I'll be buried alive.
This is one of my favourite gamebook mazes, actually. The design is quite simple, but the time limit adds a distinct element of urgency to the search for the way out. No wandering around in circles for ages - if I don't find the exit quickly (and there's time for a wrong turning or two, but not much leeway), it's game over.
From the entrance, the only way ahead is north. That leads to a crossroads, from which I go north again, to a corner which turns west (more than a fifth of my time is up). Hurrying round the corner, I reach a crossroads (over a quarter of my time gone) and head north again. That takes me to a T-junction (and past the one-third time marker), and I go west again. To a dead end, but before I can turn back, a trapdoor opens beneath me, dropping me into a sloping circular tunnel with smooth walls. I slide helplessly until I hit the wall at the bottom of the chute, which pivots, dumping me outside the pyramid, and then seals behind me. That was not the true exit, but getting evicted from the pyramid is preferable to suffocating in sand or dooming all humanity.
Friday, 5 July 2013
Every Country Must Be Equally Horrible
The second of J.H. Brennan's Horror Classics gamebooks, The Curse of Frankenstein, seems an appropriate title to end a week in which I've already played as a Goblin and a 'foul creature', as this book gives me the opportunity to assume the role of one of literature's most famous monsters - the one created by the eponymous scientist.
My friend Simon (previously mentioned here) got this book before I did, and as we trudged to school one morning, he read out the text and I made the decisions. While this attempt at the book didn't get very far (I remember encountering some Esquimaux and being curious about what made the woman in their midst so confident that she could deal with me if I started causing trouble - but not curious enough to risk getting hostile and finding out), it indicated to me that this series was fun, like the author's Grail Quest books, rather than overcomplicated and difficult like his Sagas of the Demonspawn. So I bought my own copy, and got the other one in the series (do two books constitute a series?) as well. I have vague memories of reading some of the more climactic sections of this one while waiting to see someone at the employment agency where I got part-time weekend jobs to help fund my gamebook-buying, though that may have been some time after I got the book.
TCoF's approach to the Frankenstein story blends together elements of Mary Shelley's text and popular myth regarding the principal characters. Thus, the adventure is set in the polar regions where the novel (and very few of the adaptations) concludes, but I have a bolt through my neck. I also have the following stats
Life Points: 100 (as standard)
Speed: 4
Courage: 6
Strength: 5
Skill: 2
Psi: 3
And in addition to a spare head, heart, liver, intestine and left foot (all of which (bar the foot) can be used to provide healing when needed), I have a rope, a box of matches and an axe.
I trudge through the trackless wastes, aware that the mad scientist who brought me into being is here, seeking to destroy me, and come to the conclusion that I need to take the initiative and kill him first. Heading south, I find the ice beneath my feet creaking and threatening to give way, so I beat a hurried retreat, and turn west instead. That leads to an unremarkable selection of rock formations, from which I take a chance on heading southwest. That leads to a sturdy log hut - sufficiently sturdy that I can't break down the door. Pinned to the door is a note in code, and the lone 'B' that is the fourth word makes it easy to work out how it has been encoded. That tells me that I need a key (and which section to turn to if I have it), so I make a mental note to return when I find the key.
Again I go south - might as well be methodical in exploring. Unless I get any indication that this region is as nonsensically structured as the tomb in Grail Quest book 7, but that's a rant for another day. This leads me to the coast, so I can't go any further in that direction. I've not yet been to whatever's between the hut and the broken ice, so I opt to check that out next. Just more coastline. Makes sense, but if the key had been here, I'd have had a frustrating time if I'd missed that one location.
Back past the hut and further west, I find another seafront. Okay then, what's due north of the hut? More trackless wastes. I appear to have found one of the less eventful regions within the setting. Heading northwest, I almost lose my left foot, but notice that it's coming loose, and reattach it. Just because I have a spare, that doesn't mean I can afford to be careless. Oddly, I may not go back the way I came from here (not that I particularly want to, but geographical anomalies like that can become problematic), so I try going southwest.
This leads me to an apparently deserted ship, held fast in the ice. Now, I know that the endgame takes place on or close to a ship, but I'm not sure whether it's this one or a less derelict one. I'll take a chance on climbing the dangling rope ladder anyway. For the moment I'll ignore the trapdoors set into the deck, and try the regular door that's close by. Behind it is a drunken sailor, who launches into an attack, apparently having mistaken me for his mother-in-law. Some pretty shabby rolling means that this pathetic opponent hacks me down to less than half of my starting Life before I overcome him. He's too pickled to die from the beating I (eventually) administer, but lapses into unconsciousness after mumbling that I'll never get away from the Baron unless I shink his hip. Which is either indicative of a peculiar Achilles-like weakness that I could exploit if only I knew how to shink, or a drink-muddled indication that I should be sinking the ship.
Continuing my exploration, I find and (in the course of vigorous searching) wreck numerous empty cabins. The book offers the option of abandoning this seemingly fruitless search. Now, sometimes when Mr. Brennan says that something looks like a waste of time, persistence reveals it to have been worthwhile after all, and other times it's as unproductive as it looked. But either way, I'll heal an extra 3 Life just for turning to the 'keep searching' section, so provided I don't uncover anything harmful or lethal (also a possibility), it'll be worth checking. And I turn up a bottle of medicinal brandy, which will restore some Life Points but may also make me drunk enough to impair my performance in the next fight.
Returning to the deck, I then head for the bridge, which has been trashed in a fight. Catching sight of a ceramic box, I try to open it, but my clumsy monster hands (and low Skill) cause me to crush it and its contents into powder. I wonder what I just destroyed.
The first trapdoor leads into the cargo hold, which contains only food. Unusually for a gamebook character, I'm not interested. Though the description of the deck mentions a second trapdoor in the stern, I don't get the option of checking it out when I head there, being too intent on the signs that further violence occurred here in the past. Despite the thickness of the anchor chain, it's been snapped, and I get a vague impression that I may have been here and done something a bit naughty a while back.
Having exhausted the possibilities offered by the ship, and not wishing to take unfair advantage of the healing rules by wandering around the barren coastline until I return to full health, I go north. And find a new stretch of barren coastline. Should I start heading back east, or see how much further north this westernmost extremity extends? Well, it's northeast rather than straight north, but I head that way in any case.
A bizarre metamorphic rock formation lies ahead. As I gape at the sight, a bullet is fired at me, so I seek shelter among the twisted spires of stone. Narrowly avoiding getting stuck in one of the narrower crevices, I eventually reach a dead end. Still, I've evaded the lone sniper, and some lunatic has preceded me here and chiselled a rather bad poem into the rock. Could it be the Poetic Fiend from the Grail Quest series? Regardless, the verse indicates that the key I seek may be found at mountains of madness (hopefully without any Lovecraftian nasties guarding it), and after facing the dangers of the log hut I must head 'To place where heat melts all the snow'.
From here I can only go south or east, and I don't think I've yet seen what lies due south, so... Just more trackless wastes, but unfamiliar section numbers to all directions but the one from which I've just come, so I'd better just check that I've not missed anything important west of here. A wise decision, as I find an abandoned campsite. One used by the Baron, as I find his lucky coin there. This prompts melancholy reminiscences on my relationship with him (and a pun about the two of us never seeing eye to eye because of our differing heights), but the coin is worth hanging on to, as it can give a +2 bonus to rolls of the dice. Not so useful when I need to roll low, but the 'allows' in the text implies that the bonus is optional.
Going southeast leads me to a cliff, with four openings in it. A trick of the light makes it look a lot like a giant skull. If I remember rightly, there's something I need in there, but I can't get it without other items from elsewhere, so I shan't go in just yet.
To the east I find the first lot of rock formations I encountered. I think north is the only way I haven't yet gone from there. That eventually leads me into a thick bank of fog. Now, the main adventure in issue 15 of Proteus contains at least four paths that lead into mist and thence Instant Death by cliff-drop, so I'm a bit wary here. There was an unexpected cliff edge in the other Horror Classics book, too. Would Mr. Brennan have included variants on the same 'trap' in both? I'm about to find out, because that fog could be a by-product of the heat referred to in the poem, so it's worth checking to see if there's somewhere I need to visit on the other side of the fog bank.
There is a cliff. The good news is that reaching it is not automatically lethal: the outcome depends on a roll of the dice. And low is bad, so the lucky coin will help me here. In fact, I have almost as little chance of plummeting to my doom here as I did of falling to my death on the stairs in Creature of Havoc earlier this week. To die twice in quick succession as a result of unlikely rolls leading to a fatal drop is highly unlikely. But not, alas, impossible and, at odds of (I believe) 1 in 432, it's what just happened.
Despite the stretches of inactivity, that wasn't anything like as frustrating as Dracula's Castle became by the end of my second try here. I'm vaguely looking forward to the distant date on which I'll be attempting it again. I just hope it won't take as many retries as there were Hammer Films sequels to their first Frankenstein movie.
My friend Simon (previously mentioned here) got this book before I did, and as we trudged to school one morning, he read out the text and I made the decisions. While this attempt at the book didn't get very far (I remember encountering some Esquimaux and being curious about what made the woman in their midst so confident that she could deal with me if I started causing trouble - but not curious enough to risk getting hostile and finding out), it indicated to me that this series was fun, like the author's Grail Quest books, rather than overcomplicated and difficult like his Sagas of the Demonspawn. So I bought my own copy, and got the other one in the series (do two books constitute a series?) as well. I have vague memories of reading some of the more climactic sections of this one while waiting to see someone at the employment agency where I got part-time weekend jobs to help fund my gamebook-buying, though that may have been some time after I got the book.
TCoF's approach to the Frankenstein story blends together elements of Mary Shelley's text and popular myth regarding the principal characters. Thus, the adventure is set in the polar regions where the novel (and very few of the adaptations) concludes, but I have a bolt through my neck. I also have the following stats
Life Points: 100 (as standard)
Speed: 4
Courage: 6
Strength: 5
Skill: 2
Psi: 3
And in addition to a spare head, heart, liver, intestine and left foot (all of which (bar the foot) can be used to provide healing when needed), I have a rope, a box of matches and an axe.
I trudge through the trackless wastes, aware that the mad scientist who brought me into being is here, seeking to destroy me, and come to the conclusion that I need to take the initiative and kill him first. Heading south, I find the ice beneath my feet creaking and threatening to give way, so I beat a hurried retreat, and turn west instead. That leads to an unremarkable selection of rock formations, from which I take a chance on heading southwest. That leads to a sturdy log hut - sufficiently sturdy that I can't break down the door. Pinned to the door is a note in code, and the lone 'B' that is the fourth word makes it easy to work out how it has been encoded. That tells me that I need a key (and which section to turn to if I have it), so I make a mental note to return when I find the key.
Again I go south - might as well be methodical in exploring. Unless I get any indication that this region is as nonsensically structured as the tomb in Grail Quest book 7, but that's a rant for another day. This leads me to the coast, so I can't go any further in that direction. I've not yet been to whatever's between the hut and the broken ice, so I opt to check that out next. Just more coastline. Makes sense, but if the key had been here, I'd have had a frustrating time if I'd missed that one location.
Back past the hut and further west, I find another seafront. Okay then, what's due north of the hut? More trackless wastes. I appear to have found one of the less eventful regions within the setting. Heading northwest, I almost lose my left foot, but notice that it's coming loose, and reattach it. Just because I have a spare, that doesn't mean I can afford to be careless. Oddly, I may not go back the way I came from here (not that I particularly want to, but geographical anomalies like that can become problematic), so I try going southwest.
This leads me to an apparently deserted ship, held fast in the ice. Now, I know that the endgame takes place on or close to a ship, but I'm not sure whether it's this one or a less derelict one. I'll take a chance on climbing the dangling rope ladder anyway. For the moment I'll ignore the trapdoors set into the deck, and try the regular door that's close by. Behind it is a drunken sailor, who launches into an attack, apparently having mistaken me for his mother-in-law. Some pretty shabby rolling means that this pathetic opponent hacks me down to less than half of my starting Life before I overcome him. He's too pickled to die from the beating I (eventually) administer, but lapses into unconsciousness after mumbling that I'll never get away from the Baron unless I shink his hip. Which is either indicative of a peculiar Achilles-like weakness that I could exploit if only I knew how to shink, or a drink-muddled indication that I should be sinking the ship.
Continuing my exploration, I find and (in the course of vigorous searching) wreck numerous empty cabins. The book offers the option of abandoning this seemingly fruitless search. Now, sometimes when Mr. Brennan says that something looks like a waste of time, persistence reveals it to have been worthwhile after all, and other times it's as unproductive as it looked. But either way, I'll heal an extra 3 Life just for turning to the 'keep searching' section, so provided I don't uncover anything harmful or lethal (also a possibility), it'll be worth checking. And I turn up a bottle of medicinal brandy, which will restore some Life Points but may also make me drunk enough to impair my performance in the next fight.
Returning to the deck, I then head for the bridge, which has been trashed in a fight. Catching sight of a ceramic box, I try to open it, but my clumsy monster hands (and low Skill) cause me to crush it and its contents into powder. I wonder what I just destroyed.
The first trapdoor leads into the cargo hold, which contains only food. Unusually for a gamebook character, I'm not interested. Though the description of the deck mentions a second trapdoor in the stern, I don't get the option of checking it out when I head there, being too intent on the signs that further violence occurred here in the past. Despite the thickness of the anchor chain, it's been snapped, and I get a vague impression that I may have been here and done something a bit naughty a while back.
Having exhausted the possibilities offered by the ship, and not wishing to take unfair advantage of the healing rules by wandering around the barren coastline until I return to full health, I go north. And find a new stretch of barren coastline. Should I start heading back east, or see how much further north this westernmost extremity extends? Well, it's northeast rather than straight north, but I head that way in any case.
A bizarre metamorphic rock formation lies ahead. As I gape at the sight, a bullet is fired at me, so I seek shelter among the twisted spires of stone. Narrowly avoiding getting stuck in one of the narrower crevices, I eventually reach a dead end. Still, I've evaded the lone sniper, and some lunatic has preceded me here and chiselled a rather bad poem into the rock. Could it be the Poetic Fiend from the Grail Quest series? Regardless, the verse indicates that the key I seek may be found at mountains of madness (hopefully without any Lovecraftian nasties guarding it), and after facing the dangers of the log hut I must head 'To place where heat melts all the snow'.
From here I can only go south or east, and I don't think I've yet seen what lies due south, so... Just more trackless wastes, but unfamiliar section numbers to all directions but the one from which I've just come, so I'd better just check that I've not missed anything important west of here. A wise decision, as I find an abandoned campsite. One used by the Baron, as I find his lucky coin there. This prompts melancholy reminiscences on my relationship with him (and a pun about the two of us never seeing eye to eye because of our differing heights), but the coin is worth hanging on to, as it can give a +2 bonus to rolls of the dice. Not so useful when I need to roll low, but the 'allows' in the text implies that the bonus is optional.
Going southeast leads me to a cliff, with four openings in it. A trick of the light makes it look a lot like a giant skull. If I remember rightly, there's something I need in there, but I can't get it without other items from elsewhere, so I shan't go in just yet.
To the east I find the first lot of rock formations I encountered. I think north is the only way I haven't yet gone from there. That eventually leads me into a thick bank of fog. Now, the main adventure in issue 15 of Proteus contains at least four paths that lead into mist and thence Instant Death by cliff-drop, so I'm a bit wary here. There was an unexpected cliff edge in the other Horror Classics book, too. Would Mr. Brennan have included variants on the same 'trap' in both? I'm about to find out, because that fog could be a by-product of the heat referred to in the poem, so it's worth checking to see if there's somewhere I need to visit on the other side of the fog bank.
There is a cliff. The good news is that reaching it is not automatically lethal: the outcome depends on a roll of the dice. And low is bad, so the lucky coin will help me here. In fact, I have almost as little chance of plummeting to my doom here as I did of falling to my death on the stairs in Creature of Havoc earlier this week. To die twice in quick succession as a result of unlikely rolls leading to a fatal drop is highly unlikely. But not, alas, impossible and, at odds of (I believe) 1 in 432, it's what just happened.
Despite the stretches of inactivity, that wasn't anything like as frustrating as Dracula's Castle became by the end of my second try here. I'm vaguely looking forward to the distant date on which I'll be attempting it again. I just hope it won't take as many retries as there were Hammer Films sequels to their first Frankenstein movie.
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Watch Out For That First Step
Steve Jackson's last Fighting Fantasy gamebook to date, Creature of Havoc, got a lot of advance publicity in Warlock magazine. That, combined with the fact that the book was to contain the next bookmark in the promotion I mentioned last week, and some vague hints about the book's villain in Titan - the Fighting Fantasy World, made me very keen to get my hands on the book when it came out. I was looking forward to the book enough that the discovery that every copy in Tunbridge Wells contained bookmark 5, not 4, only mildly annoyed me (the real irritation came when non-FF book Helmquest, the last title to feature in the promotion, came out and also had bookmark 5 in it, denying me the opportunity to read the penultimate instalment of the story, solve the fourth puzzle and thus get an opportunity to work out the ultimate answer and enter the competition).
I started reading the book on the way home, and the 19-page background section ensured that, while my character might be starting the adventure with no knowledge of anything, not even its own identity, I was already fairly clued-up on the state of things, and had my suspicions about what I actually was. Yes, what. The viewpoint character of Creature of Havoc is of some never-explicitly-identified species, with scales, claws, an inability to speak, and an appearance that causes many who encounter it to use the term 'foul creature'. Sort of, though I'll get onto the book's treatment of language later, if I survive that long.
A couple of variations in the rules mean that poor stats aren't as likely to doom me here as in most of the FF books that came out at this stage in the series' development. Well, a low Luck can be fatal, but Skill isn't as big a deal as usual, so I shall take the dice as they fall.
Skill 11
Stamina 23
Luck 11
Why couldn't I get something like that a time when it mattered, eh?
I must now hope for some significantly lower rolls, because at the start of the adventure my character doesn't even have free will: my initial actions will be determined by instinct and the whim of the dice. There are decent plot-based reasons for this, but that doesn't make it much less frustrating when a string of high rolls at the start guarantees failure. Anyway, when I encounter a wounded Dwarf in the subterranean passage where my adventure begins, while the book offers me three different options, I know from past attempts that bestial urges will override any attempt at a non-violent resolution. Going straight for the kill means that the doomed-whatever-I-choose Dwarf won't get a chance to stab me with his sword before dying, so that's what I'll do.
Another faux-choice follows: I'm going to wind up searching the body whatever option I actually pick, so I don't waste time trying to do something different. Ignoring the shiny metal discs that spill from the Dwarf's belt pouch, I take great interest in a piece of hide with markings on it. At this point my character has no way of making sense of those markings, but I shan't yet turn to the section that reproduces its content as I am no longer able to not understand the code in which language is presented, so rather than seeing the sort of incomprehensible gibberish that my character does, I'd be able to read the thing.
I'm at a junction, and randomly decide to go... west. Phew! If I'd rolled too high, I would have had at least two further rolls that could have put me back on the right track, but the sooner I get past this bit, the better, so I'm glad to have succeeded straight off. My wanderings take me to a chamber in which three humanoids are seated around a fire. Overcome by animosity towards the smallest (a detail that becomes a lot nastier once you know the full story), I charge across the floor and attack the Hobbit, killing him with one blow. No, his Stamina's not that low, nor did I use Luck to increase the damage: one of those rule changes I mentioned was that I instantaneously kill any opponent any time I roll a double while calculating my Attack Strength. There are a couple of points in the book where Mr. Jackson appears to have forgotten that detail, allowing opponents to take some specific action after so many rounds of combat, even though they might not live that long, but those incidents are all off the optimal path, so that's a relatively minor problem.
The two humans are now reacting to my presence, the one in armour shouting instructions to the one in a robe. The rapidity with which I slew the Hobbit means that my next decision is determined by Testing my Luck rather than a simple roll of one die, which gives me significantly better odds (and would still offer a better chance even if I'd started out with the minimum possible Initial Luck). I go for the human in the robe, who's too busy concentrating and chanting and pointing his little fingers to protect himself, so he dies before he can cast the spell. This gives the one in armour a free attack on me, but that's the only wound he manages to inflict before I kill him. The armour prevents me from eating the body, so I make do with just the two others. There's a fair bit of anthropophagy in this book, but such is the nature of the beast.
Continuing on my way, I disturb a flock of bats and reach a door. The die determines that I turn back, but then one of the bats flies into my left eye, so I opt not to go through the flock again after all, and smash the door down. The room beyond contains the aftermath of a battle, with two dead Orcs and two dead humans, and I see chunks of flesh mysteriously vanishing from the corpses. My next roll has me investigate, disturbing the invisible creatures that were feeding on the dead, which become visible and attack me. One of them wounds me once (and I roll an Instant Death against it the next round, as if provoked to greater savagery by the pain). Once they're dead, I search the other bodies, finding more of those uninteresting metal discs and a wooden casket containing a translucent flask of purple gas.
Inadvertently opening the flask, I release its contents, which take on the shape of a face, which speaks apparent gibberish to me. The gas then returns to the flask, which vanishes, and I must decide which exit to take from the room. The text doesn't make a big deal about my suddenly being able to make choices, and on my first attempt the change from rolling to see what I did next and being able to pick options didn't even register. Later, after I'd learned how to understand language and could find out what the face said, I understood what's going on here (Elven magic referred to in the introduction has conferred upon me the gift of Reason), but I do like the low-key way in which free will is introduced into the set-up.
Heading west, I soon encounter yet another group of adventurers (there are a few possible explanations for why this particular dungeon is so busy) and, after killing them, take a souvenir. I get to choose one of three items: a pendant, a pair of metal bracelets, or a pouch of those metal discs that adventurers seem to like so much. The bracelets would enable me to escape the trap that ended my first attempt at the book, but the pendant is the only actually essential item, so I take that. It has a power, but one which will only become apparent when circumstances are appropriate, as indicated by a specific phrase in the text. This book contains a lot of 'hidden' sections, only accessible by following rules laid down at an earlier stage in the adventure, which makes it harder to cheat. And, thanks to one of the most infamous errors in gamebook history, technically impossible to win (depending on which edition of the book you're reading), but I'm getting ahead of myself.
After eating a quick snack to restore my Stamina, I continue on my way, reaching a flight of stairs that spans a foul-smelling river. Not having human-sized feet, I must Test my Luck to make a successful descent, and the dice let me down. I trip, fall, and meet an unpleasant end in the Bilgewater River. Bother!
I got further in my previous online playthrough, but made some poor choices that led to my missing a few crucial encounters. And that write-up does rather take for granted that its readers know the book reasonably well - given that it's on a forum specifically for fans of the range, it's not unreasonable to assume that members have some familiarity with one of the more renowned (and reprinted) titles, whereas this blog draws its audience from a wider range of people. Still, for a slightly fuller experience of the book, that's all I can offer until the inevitable-but-not-for-some-time replay.
I started reading the book on the way home, and the 19-page background section ensured that, while my character might be starting the adventure with no knowledge of anything, not even its own identity, I was already fairly clued-up on the state of things, and had my suspicions about what I actually was. Yes, what. The viewpoint character of Creature of Havoc is of some never-explicitly-identified species, with scales, claws, an inability to speak, and an appearance that causes many who encounter it to use the term 'foul creature'. Sort of, though I'll get onto the book's treatment of language later, if I survive that long.
A couple of variations in the rules mean that poor stats aren't as likely to doom me here as in most of the FF books that came out at this stage in the series' development. Well, a low Luck can be fatal, but Skill isn't as big a deal as usual, so I shall take the dice as they fall.
Skill 11
Stamina 23
Luck 11
Why couldn't I get something like that a time when it mattered, eh?
I must now hope for some significantly lower rolls, because at the start of the adventure my character doesn't even have free will: my initial actions will be determined by instinct and the whim of the dice. There are decent plot-based reasons for this, but that doesn't make it much less frustrating when a string of high rolls at the start guarantees failure. Anyway, when I encounter a wounded Dwarf in the subterranean passage where my adventure begins, while the book offers me three different options, I know from past attempts that bestial urges will override any attempt at a non-violent resolution. Going straight for the kill means that the doomed-whatever-I-choose Dwarf won't get a chance to stab me with his sword before dying, so that's what I'll do.
Another faux-choice follows: I'm going to wind up searching the body whatever option I actually pick, so I don't waste time trying to do something different. Ignoring the shiny metal discs that spill from the Dwarf's belt pouch, I take great interest in a piece of hide with markings on it. At this point my character has no way of making sense of those markings, but I shan't yet turn to the section that reproduces its content as I am no longer able to not understand the code in which language is presented, so rather than seeing the sort of incomprehensible gibberish that my character does, I'd be able to read the thing.
I'm at a junction, and randomly decide to go... west. Phew! If I'd rolled too high, I would have had at least two further rolls that could have put me back on the right track, but the sooner I get past this bit, the better, so I'm glad to have succeeded straight off. My wanderings take me to a chamber in which three humanoids are seated around a fire. Overcome by animosity towards the smallest (a detail that becomes a lot nastier once you know the full story), I charge across the floor and attack the Hobbit, killing him with one blow. No, his Stamina's not that low, nor did I use Luck to increase the damage: one of those rule changes I mentioned was that I instantaneously kill any opponent any time I roll a double while calculating my Attack Strength. There are a couple of points in the book where Mr. Jackson appears to have forgotten that detail, allowing opponents to take some specific action after so many rounds of combat, even though they might not live that long, but those incidents are all off the optimal path, so that's a relatively minor problem.
The two humans are now reacting to my presence, the one in armour shouting instructions to the one in a robe. The rapidity with which I slew the Hobbit means that my next decision is determined by Testing my Luck rather than a simple roll of one die, which gives me significantly better odds (and would still offer a better chance even if I'd started out with the minimum possible Initial Luck). I go for the human in the robe, who's too busy concentrating and chanting and pointing his little fingers to protect himself, so he dies before he can cast the spell. This gives the one in armour a free attack on me, but that's the only wound he manages to inflict before I kill him. The armour prevents me from eating the body, so I make do with just the two others. There's a fair bit of anthropophagy in this book, but such is the nature of the beast.
Continuing on my way, I disturb a flock of bats and reach a door. The die determines that I turn back, but then one of the bats flies into my left eye, so I opt not to go through the flock again after all, and smash the door down. The room beyond contains the aftermath of a battle, with two dead Orcs and two dead humans, and I see chunks of flesh mysteriously vanishing from the corpses. My next roll has me investigate, disturbing the invisible creatures that were feeding on the dead, which become visible and attack me. One of them wounds me once (and I roll an Instant Death against it the next round, as if provoked to greater savagery by the pain). Once they're dead, I search the other bodies, finding more of those uninteresting metal discs and a wooden casket containing a translucent flask of purple gas.
Inadvertently opening the flask, I release its contents, which take on the shape of a face, which speaks apparent gibberish to me. The gas then returns to the flask, which vanishes, and I must decide which exit to take from the room. The text doesn't make a big deal about my suddenly being able to make choices, and on my first attempt the change from rolling to see what I did next and being able to pick options didn't even register. Later, after I'd learned how to understand language and could find out what the face said, I understood what's going on here (Elven magic referred to in the introduction has conferred upon me the gift of Reason), but I do like the low-key way in which free will is introduced into the set-up.
Heading west, I soon encounter yet another group of adventurers (there are a few possible explanations for why this particular dungeon is so busy) and, after killing them, take a souvenir. I get to choose one of three items: a pendant, a pair of metal bracelets, or a pouch of those metal discs that adventurers seem to like so much. The bracelets would enable me to escape the trap that ended my first attempt at the book, but the pendant is the only actually essential item, so I take that. It has a power, but one which will only become apparent when circumstances are appropriate, as indicated by a specific phrase in the text. This book contains a lot of 'hidden' sections, only accessible by following rules laid down at an earlier stage in the adventure, which makes it harder to cheat. And, thanks to one of the most infamous errors in gamebook history, technically impossible to win (depending on which edition of the book you're reading), but I'm getting ahead of myself.
After eating a quick snack to restore my Stamina, I continue on my way, reaching a flight of stairs that spans a foul-smelling river. Not having human-sized feet, I must Test my Luck to make a successful descent, and the dice let me down. I trip, fall, and meet an unpleasant end in the Bilgewater River. Bother!
I got further in my previous online playthrough, but made some poor choices that led to my missing a few crucial encounters. And that write-up does rather take for granted that its readers know the book reasonably well - given that it's on a forum specifically for fans of the range, it's not unreasonable to assume that members have some familiarity with one of the more renowned (and reprinted) titles, whereas this blog draws its audience from a wider range of people. Still, for a slightly fuller experience of the book, that's all I can offer until the inevitable-but-not-for-some-time replay.
Monday, 1 July 2013
See His Little Feet
It's hard to tell precisely what makes some blog entries so much more popular than others, but it does seem pretty clear that posts about Tunnels & Trolls Pocket Adventures attract significantly less attention than almost any other kind. My attempt at Abyss is the oldest of my playthroughs to have fewer than 50 views, and the two posts that have been viewed fewer times than the one on Circle of Ice have been around for less than a month, whereas that one came out in February. Nevertheless, for thematic reasons I think it appropriate to turn my attention to the first adventure in the series, Ken St. Andre's Goblin Lake, today.
For character creation I'm going to have to either use real dice or spend a while writing extra lines of code for my T&T gamebook manager, as it's not set up to create Goblin characters, and the process for doing so deviates from the 'roll 3 dice for everything and modify numbers as required' method used for other non-human characters. As I'm not likely to have to create Goblins ever again, I think I'll use the dice I got free with issue 2 of Proteus, and the ones I got for joining some kind of official Fighting Fantasy fan group. Giving me:
Strength 10
Intelligence 8
Luck 22
Constitution 10
Dexterity 14
Charisma 11
Speed 13
Some surprisingly good rolls, there.
For some time I have been seeking Goblin Lake, home of a community of Goblins, and at the start of the adventure I've just found the cleft that gives access to the subterranean complex where it's located. Squeezing through, and heading up the stream that issues from that cleft, I reach a point where the natural phosphorescence so popular in underground caves enables me to see, and the passage opens out into a grotto. A voice addresses me in the Goblin tongue (which I can understand, being a Goblin), telling me that non-Goblins are not welcome here (it is possible to play as suitably-sized non-Goblins on attempts after the first one, which will obviously make for a significantly different adventure), and indicating that the locals call this place Fishsquish Lake. I point out that I am a Goblin, and am welcomed in.
Snorkin, the King of the Lake Goblins, invites me to join his people. Not knowing how 'bigger and nastier looking than the others' translates into stats, I decide that now is not the best time to try challenging him for the kingship. It soon becomes apparent that this is a pretty impoverished bunch, but then I start to hear of Snorkin's fabulous treasure. Deciding that he can trust me, the King shows me the hoard in question: coins to the value of less than 2 gold pieces (and most of them in bad condition), a broken mirror, an enchanted dagger that does less damage than my own flint blade (but lights up when you say the magic word) and a few magazines. Somehow I manage not to become overwhelmed by avarice.
Over the course of the next 3 months, I live the life of a flunky, gaining some Experience Points for run-ins with denizens of the caves and the odd adventurer. Then I get bored, and decide to go diving for treasure. There are a number of skeletons in rusty armour at the bottom of the lake, and I try searching one. Narrowly failing my Saving Roll, I attract the attention of something tentacled which dwells at the bottom of the lake. More precisely, a ridiculously overpowered giant devilfish (in the archaic 'octopus' sense of the word, in case any marine biologists were wondering). And when I say 'ridiculously overpowered', I mean that getting the luckiest rolls imaginable would mean I only got killed three times over in the first round of the fight. I didn't roll that well.
The 'go here if you die' section includes a request from Mr. St. Andre that readers send him details of their character and how he/she/it died, so he canlaugh at them keep track of the statistics. I don't know if he's still recording those details, or living at the address given, for that matter, so I shan't be sending him a postcard, but for the record: I was playing a Goblin, who got killed in paragraph 11F (though I had to transition through 2A to get to the generic death section) and was called Gabbo. I was quite enjoying the adventure until the OTT combat.
For character creation I'm going to have to either use real dice or spend a while writing extra lines of code for my T&T gamebook manager, as it's not set up to create Goblin characters, and the process for doing so deviates from the 'roll 3 dice for everything and modify numbers as required' method used for other non-human characters. As I'm not likely to have to create Goblins ever again, I think I'll use the dice I got free with issue 2 of Proteus, and the ones I got for joining some kind of official Fighting Fantasy fan group. Giving me:
Strength 10
Intelligence 8
Luck 22
Constitution 10
Dexterity 14
Charisma 11
Speed 13
Some surprisingly good rolls, there.
For some time I have been seeking Goblin Lake, home of a community of Goblins, and at the start of the adventure I've just found the cleft that gives access to the subterranean complex where it's located. Squeezing through, and heading up the stream that issues from that cleft, I reach a point where the natural phosphorescence so popular in underground caves enables me to see, and the passage opens out into a grotto. A voice addresses me in the Goblin tongue (which I can understand, being a Goblin), telling me that non-Goblins are not welcome here (it is possible to play as suitably-sized non-Goblins on attempts after the first one, which will obviously make for a significantly different adventure), and indicating that the locals call this place Fishsquish Lake. I point out that I am a Goblin, and am welcomed in.
Snorkin, the King of the Lake Goblins, invites me to join his people. Not knowing how 'bigger and nastier looking than the others' translates into stats, I decide that now is not the best time to try challenging him for the kingship. It soon becomes apparent that this is a pretty impoverished bunch, but then I start to hear of Snorkin's fabulous treasure. Deciding that he can trust me, the King shows me the hoard in question: coins to the value of less than 2 gold pieces (and most of them in bad condition), a broken mirror, an enchanted dagger that does less damage than my own flint blade (but lights up when you say the magic word) and a few magazines. Somehow I manage not to become overwhelmed by avarice.
Over the course of the next 3 months, I live the life of a flunky, gaining some Experience Points for run-ins with denizens of the caves and the odd adventurer. Then I get bored, and decide to go diving for treasure. There are a number of skeletons in rusty armour at the bottom of the lake, and I try searching one. Narrowly failing my Saving Roll, I attract the attention of something tentacled which dwells at the bottom of the lake. More precisely, a ridiculously overpowered giant devilfish (in the archaic 'octopus' sense of the word, in case any marine biologists were wondering). And when I say 'ridiculously overpowered', I mean that getting the luckiest rolls imaginable would mean I only got killed three times over in the first round of the fight. I didn't roll that well.
The 'go here if you die' section includes a request from Mr. St. Andre that readers send him details of their character and how he/she/it died, so he can
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