Warlock Magazine #4

Editorial: The magazine opens with an editorial that names the winners of the various competitions held over the last few issues.  The most notable of these is Paul Struth, whose adventure The Dervish Stone appears later on.  Not much of interest otherwise, aside from Ian and Steve signing off with a plea for us to "keep bashing the orcs".  Will do, lads!

Out of the Pit: This entry features four new beasties created by Marc Gascoigne, who it is noted is currently editing an unnamed collection of monsters.  All of them are appearing here for the first time, and they all make it into that monster book.  I wonder what it's title will be...
  Caarth: These snake men rule the deserts south of human civilization, lording it over tribes of ape-men and neanderthals.  Intelligent, strong and merciless, the Caarth are stopped from conquering the lands around them only by their aversion to temperate and colder climates.  A few tidbits of FF lore are dropped in this short entry.  First, we learn that men descended from apes, and orcs were crossed with swine.  (Bleargh, get your pig orcs outta my fantasy, Gascoigne.)  The Snake Demon Sith is mentioned, as he is worshipped by the high priests of the Caarth.  Overall they're a cool monster, and it's a wonder that there was never a gamebook centered around them.
  Death Spider: The demonic creatures have the five-metre-wide body of a spider and the head of a human.  Their webs are their link to the Realm of the Damned, and any adventurers caught within it - or paralysed by the spider's bite and dragged into it - will be bitten until they die.  The web and the corpses within will then fade away back to the demonic plane, where their soul will be tortured for eternity.  Is this the first real notion we get that demons are a thing in Titan?  I guess there's been the Mirror Demon in Deathtrap Dungeon, and the Ice Demon from Caverns of the Snow Witch.  I'm probably forgetting others as well, but this seems to me to be the first blatant "torture your soul in hell" type of demon.
  Strangle Weed: This plant grows in Darkwood Forest, and... look, it's a plant with vines that will strangle you to death.  It's not much else to say about it, although the macabre touch of it raising dead adventurers over its head to squeeze out the juices, then leaving the skeletons hanging above is pretty great.
  Krell: These are six-armed apes that can be tamed, and taught tricks.  There are tales of the arch-wizard Belandros, who even taught his pets how to speak the language of men "though, it must be said, with a thick eastern accent!"  They supposedly dwell in jungles to the east, though I'm not sure where that would be.  There aren't really many jungles on the continent of Allansia, certainly none to the east of the area where most of the gamebooks had been set to this point.  There are some jungles to the south, past the Desert of Skulls, so maybe there.   Otherwise I guess we could place them on Khul, which is technically east of Allansia.  Shit, you can put anything in Khul and it works, that's the whole point of it.

Warlock Profile: This month's artist's profile is on Iain McCaig, and it's presented in the form of a comic strip drawn by McCaig himself.  It shows off his seldom seen flair for comedy, as a cigar-smoking dragon shows the reader around McCaig's mansion, but it doesn't really tell us anything about the man himself.  Unless you want to believe that he was born shortly after the dinosaurs, and grew up drawing on cave walls.

Tricks & Traps by Ian Livingstone: "Throw a few Skill 12 monsters at 'em, that'll get the little fuckers."  Jeez, short article, Ian.
  Haha, I kid.  This actually is a short article, in which Ian outlines some basic traps: falling stone blocks, pits, illusions, riddles, the rudimentary stuff.  Of more interest are the John Blanche illustrations that accompany them.  It ends with a competition, inviting the readers to submit their own ideas to the magazine.  They'll no doubt show more imagination than the examples Ian provided (not that he's short of imagination, but it's obvious that he's saving his best ideas for the books).

Cartoon Competition Results: The winner and runner-up of the cartoon competition are printed.  The first is a two-pager showing the adventures of Arkenor the Wizard, and the runner-up is a guide on "How to be an Adventurer".  Neither are all that funny to my humourless, jaded self.  If these are the winners, I'd actually be more interested to see the other entries.  Awfulness is far more interesting to me then mediocrity.

The Warlock's Quill: Stephen Taylor of Newport gives some general praise.  Russell Cooper of Southport wants Skill to decrease along with Stamina, because he obviously hates winning. S. Wilson of Sheerness provides a system for calculating XP and levelling up in FF.  The editor (Ian, I assume) dismisses it with some twaddle about how the books would then have to get increasingly tougher, never mind that there's already a massive discrepancy between adventurers with Skill 7 and Skill 12.  Patrick Fahy of Epping ranks the books (with Starship Traveller at the bottom and Deathtrap Dungeon at the top).  He also whines about the Maze of Zagor being impossible.  Crybaby.  Michael Waite  of Dorchester wonders why the adventure sheet for House of Hell in Warlock #3 had sections for magic spells.  Paul Cater Malden of Essex wants an FF convention.  L. Heilbronn of Malda Vale thinks it's very important to let us all know that she's a girl.  Lewis Tennant of Tregaron wants an FF version of Disneyland.  And Daniel Clayton of Salisbury is annoyed that Warlock has printed nothing but rehashes of existing adventures.

Expanding Fighting Fantasy - Experience and Character Improvement by Graeme Davis: This article provides a system for increasing a character's Skill score in the FF introductory RPG.  Basically, you earn experience points equal to the Skill score of monsters defeated.  When you have ten times your current Skill in XP, you can roll 2d6.  If you score equal to or higher than your Skill, it increases by 1 point.  It also presents a similar system for your Magic score, if you happen to be using the system from Citadel of Chaos.  Luck is included as well.  Steve Jackson chimes in at the end with his own opinions of the system, which is pretty cool.  He seems in favour of it, though he doesn't like the idea of a new character popping in with Skill 12, and instantly being as good as someone who's worked his way up from Skill 7.  He's also against the idea of Luck increasing, as you can't really train to be luckier.

Expanding Fighting Fantasy - Magic in Fighting Fantasy by Tony Smith: This article has some ideas for spell-casting characters.  The spells must be read and learned by the prospective caster, and a Skill roll will be required for the casting, which then drains Stamina points.  This sets up a red flag for me already - Skill is already paramount for warriors, and making it important for spellcasters as well just unbalances the game further in favour of those who rolled a high Skill.  It ends with some sample spells obviously cribbed from Sorcery!  It's rudimentary stuff, and unfortunately Steve doesn't share his opinion here to liven things up a bit.

Fighting Fantasy News: The production schedule is ramping up to a book a month, with the following all in the pipeline: Space Assassin, Talisman of Death, Freeway Fighter, Temple of Terror, Rings of Kether, and Seas of Blood.  The monster collection is mentioned again, this time with the working title of Out of the Pit.  Two jigsaw puzzles have also been released, and Citadel Miniatures are releasing a set of plastic minis.

Fighting Fantasy Feedback: This is a survey for the fans to give their feedback.  I'm going to record my own answers for posterity, drawing only from those books I've covered so far in the blog.  Any other questions I'll answer as though I was at my peak FF-reading age.

1. What is the most exciting Fighting Fantasy Gamebook you have read?  Deathtrap Dungeon

2. Which Gamebook did you find the most difficult to complete?  House of Hell

3. Which Gamebook features the best cover art?  Forest of Doom

4. Which Gamebook featured the best interior black and white illustrations?  Deathtrap Dungeon

5. What is your favourite monster?  Dog-Ape. Or is it Ape-Dog?

6. Most Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks have featured a swords and sorcery theme.  Would you like some of the future books to be based on different themes?

• Science fiction - No
• Horror - Yes
• Espionage - Hell no
• Pirates - Yes
• Wild West - All the no ever
• War - Only if it's war with swords
• Time-Travel - Yes
• Samurai - Yes
• Superheroes - No
• Any other suggestions - More skeletons

7. Which Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks have you bought? (Please circle)  As a kid, I had bought books, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10.

8. Which Sorcery! Gamebooks have you bought?  I never even saw these books as a kid.

9. Which magazines do you read? G.M. and Dragon.

10. Did you enjoy the Fighting Fantasy board game 'Market Mayhem' in Warlock 3?  I'll say no, because it didn't really even have rules.

11. Would you like to see more board games in future issues of Warlock? Sure, why not.

12. Would you like to see Fighting Fantasy Role-Playing Game Scenarios in future issues of Warlock? Yes please!

13. Would you like to read fiction in Warlock? Nooooo.

14. Would you like to see a regular cartoon strip in Warlock? Yes, contingent on it actually being funny.

15. How do you rate the current features of Warlock?

• Out of the Pit - Wizard!
• Warlock's Quill - Average
• News - Average
• Crossword - Orc's Armpit
• Warlock Profile - Orc's Armpit
• Cartoons - Orc's Armpit
• Fighting Fantasy Adventures - Wizard!
• Tricks and Traps: Orc's Armpit

 Yes, those are the actual ratings in the magazine.

16. Do you think the Fighting Fantasy game system should: a) stay the same b) be made more complex? or c) be simplified?  Stay the same.

17. Do you always play through the Gamebooks strictly according to the dice rolls? Oh yeah.  Sure.

18. Do you play computer games? Yes, on Commodore 64

19. What is your favourite computer game? Bard's Tale 3.

20. How old are you?  Ten.  (I'm actually 39...)

The Dervish Stone: The remainder of the magazine is taken up by this 200 paragraph adventure.  That's for my next entry, however.

House of Hell: Exploring the House of Drumer

Normally when I finish a gamebook, I write a post that details it's connections to the wider world of Titan,  That's not an option here, with House of Hell being set on modern day Earth (well, 1984 anyway). So instead I'm going to write about the house itself, it's inhabitants, and the clues scattered about as to its origins.  Some of it's drawn directly from the text, and some of it is conjecture, but here are my findings below.

THE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE
This is the history of the house, as described by the Earl of Drumer himself: "The Earl of Drumer is the last surviving member of his family. His estate stretches for miles around the house. At one time the estate was prosperous, with many tenant farmers cultivating the land and providing a healthy income for his family. But things started to change. His sister died at the age of 32 under mysterious circumstances. She was found dead in the woods with strange markings on her neck. News travelled fast, and the ignorant peasants started muttering about witchcraft and black magic. In their eyes, the house was cursed. Gradually the farmers moved to new pastures, avoiding the estate."  Whatever happened in the house, it's clear that the true evil began around the time of his sister's murder.
  (As an aside, the house is said to be a few miles away from a town called Mingleford.  Much to my disappointment, this town seems to be entirely fictional.)

SO WHAT HAPPENED TO THE EARL'S SISTER
From those strange markings on the neck, we can surmise that she was killed by a vampire.  There's a painting of a young lady in the entrance hall with the following name-plate: "Lady Margaret of Danvers: 1802-1834".  Note that she died at 32, just as the Earl's sister did.  Elsewhere in the house there's a ring with the following inscription: "To dearest Margaret from George: 1834".  Again, the same date.  The ring is probably a wedding ring or an engagement ring, which would connect the lady in the painting to the ghost wearing a wedding dress who tells you about the Kris knife.  They're both the same person, the sister of the Earl of Drumer.
  As for the ring, you might remember that wearing it can bring you under the control of a vampire who's in the house.  With Lady Margaret probably having been killed by a vampire, and the vampire currently in the house having some power over her wedding ring, there's obviously a connection.  Was this vampire her husband to be?  Or perhaps he killed both the husband and Lady Margaret?  Whatever his story, he's obviously important to the origins of the curse on the house, but we frustratingly learn nothing else about him.  Unless he's the "Count Pravemi" that writes a letter to the Earl?  Pravemi is an obvious anagram, so it seems likely.  The letter doesn't tell us anything else about him, unfortunately.  If the ring was from him, his full name is George Pravemi.
  The other takeaway from this is that Kelnor, the Earl of Drumer, is around 180 years old.

THE REST OF THE EARL'S FAMILY
Aside from Kelnor and his sister, there are two other family members shown in the paintings.  One is a lordly gentlemen with the following name-plate: "The Duke of Brewster: 1763-1828". The other is an old woman, and her name-plate reads: "The Duchess of Brewster: 1777-1845". An obvious marital pair, and their ages line up for them to be Kelnor's mother and father.  The Duke is vaguely sinister, using his gaze to direct the hero into touching an electrified doorknob. The Duchess is actually quite helpful, telling the hero to search for the man in grey.  Whatever happened to curse the house, she probably had no involvement.  The Duke, on the other hand, may have been a devil-worshipper himself.  The book doesn't give us enough information to tell.

THE EARL OF KELNOR AND HIS COVEN
The Earl, otherwise known as Lord Kelnor, is the son of the Duke and Duchess of Brewster and at the point of the book's publication would be about 180 years old.  He's described as a Black Priest of the Night, and leads a coven of devil worshippers who congregate at his house for ceremonies.  Presumably he bargained with a demon for some sort of prolonged lifespan, but how was he introduced to this lifestyle?  Through his father?  Through the vampire that killed (and was possibly engaged to) his sister?  Again, this is all conjecture, because the book isn't saying.
  As for his coven, they wear white robes when they congregate, as well as masks made from the severed heads of goats.  These masks are presumably worn to represent the goat-like Hell Demon who grants Kelnor his power.  The leader of the rituals (probably Kelnor?) wears a goat-head that's dyed purple.  The coven is secretive, and none of them drive to the meetings.  They all recognise each other's faces.  The Earl has made them all unspecified promises, but one can assume that power and maybe a lifespan like the Earl's would be among them.

WHAT'S HAPPENING TONIGHT?
We are told repeatedly that "the Master" is holding a ceremony in order to give Brother Isaacson his blessing.  This seemingly involves a number of ritual sacrifices.  The first of these is scheduled to be a young district nurse, who was recently assigned to the area and popped in to visit the house, only to be captured.  The second would be a man in a white gown, a former member of the coven whose conscience could no longer allow him to go along with things. It's hinted at one point that the hero of the book is intended as a sacrifice as well,  In addition to the sacrifices, there are a number of characters being held prisoner who are scheduled for "punishment", whatever that may entail.
  At one point the hero may overhear a coven member asking whether they may be "visited", which no doubt refers to a demonic visitation.  More specifically, it probably refers to the Hellfire Demon at the end of the book.  A number of ritual sacrifices, some punishments, a summoned demon, and Brother Isaacson receiving a blessing of some sort.  I wonder if he's being conferred some sort of power, or maybe a longer lifespan like Lord Kelnor?

WHY WAS THE PLAYER SUMMONED TO THE HOUSE?
The player is directed to the house by the ghost of an old man, whose corpse is later seen hanging by a noose from a tree outside.  The old man is portrayed as evil, but I wonder.  Was he another repentant coven member, who killed himself before seeking out someone who could destroy the Master? Or was his ghost sent out by the house or the Master to lure in another victim?  The headless ghost at one point says that the hero was drawn there by the house itself, so that their ghost might join him and his companions in the netherworld.  This, and the evil manner of the old man, would suggest the more sinister option, but I do kinda like the alternative.
  I'm also not quite sure what the Earl is planning to do with the hero.  He seems to be expecting your arrival, and makes a half-hearted attempt to drug you and leave you tied up in an empty room.  Presumably this would be a precursor to taking you below for the sacrifice, but why not just take you to the cells straight away?  Why only drug some of the food?  Why bother with drugged water when you're already asleep?  What was the plan if you avoid the drugged food and don't drink the water?  It doesn't quite make sense.

THE KRIS KNIFE AND THE RED ROOM
The Master can only be killed by the Kris knife in a red room (the red room symbolising the battle taking place in Hell).  There's one obvious question that comes to mind when you find this out: why would he keep the only weapon capable of killing him in his own house?  Why doesn't he just paint all of his interior walls a lovely sky blue?  The Earl is not a stupid man, and would have thought of these things himself, so there's undoubtedly a good reason.
  First, let's look at the Kris knife, and the inscription inside the box where it's found: "A blade fashioned for the glorification and pleasure of the demons of hellfire - our true Masters. To be used only by Initiates. Never to be wielded in the presence of the Masters."  That sounds like a sacrificial dagger to me, an evil item that can nevertheless be used to kill a Hell Demon.
  Now I'm going to go off into some conjecture.  If the dagger and the red room need to be in the house, they're probably a part of whatever keeps the Earl young.  Maybe he did a ritual with the Kris knife to summon a Hell Demon, who granted him immortality.  As a part of that, he needs to keep the knife close by at all times, as well as a red room symbolising hell.  It's a risk, but it's better than dying of old age, innit?

THE EARL OF DRUMER, FRANKLINS AND THE MASTER
So Lord Kelnor is the Master right?  No, actually, it's Franklins, the butler.  Who is really a Hell Demon in disguise, or manifesting a Hell Demon after the sacrifices have been performed. But Kelnor sure doesn't treat Franklins like anything other than a butler.  Even at the end of the book, he berates the man for acting cowardly. What's the relationship between the two?
  My first thought is that Kelnor is in charge of everything, and Franklins is actually his butler.  A Hell Demon is manifesting through his body by the end of the book, after the sacrifices, but Kelnor doesn't know it yet, for whatever reason.
  My second thought, and the one I rather like, is that the man we are introduced to as Lord Kelnor is just a decoy, another member of the coven.  Franklins is actually Lord Kelnor, the Earl of Drumer, and his body is inhabited by a demon as part of the evil pact he made.  Using a decoy makes sense: an Earl who's been alive for 180 years is going to draw some attention, but nobody pays much attention to a butler.

WHO IS MORDANA?
Buggered if I know.  She's an old woman who recently died, and she seems to know a lot about the house.  At first I thought she might be the Duchess of Brewster, but she's more sinister than the painting was.  Then I thought she might be another sister of Kelnor, or perhaps even his wife or daughter.  But why would she have grown old then?  Unless the Earl can't actually grant immortality to anyone else?  I thought she might be a servant, but her bedroom is probably too opulent for that.  Whoever she is, she's trusted enough that she knew the password to the Earl's secret room.  She's an unsolved mystery.

That's about all I was able to tease out of the book, but it certainly brought some of the book's little touches to light for me.  I'd never made the Pravemi/Vampire connection before.  As I expected, there are no concrete answers to be had, and I wouldn't want them in a book like this.  Mystery and horror go hand in hand, after all.  The House of Hell remains a mystery, and that's the way I like it.

Next: I take a deep dive into Warlock magazine issue #4.