Exploring Titan 10: The Dervish Stone

Before I get into dissecting the setting of The Dervish Stone, there's one question that needs to be answered: does it belong on Titan?  After all, it's just a mini-adventure from a spin-off magazine.  It's not written by Steve Jackson or Ian Livingstone (or even Fake Steve Jackson).  More pertinently, it features a setting with two suns, something that no other book set on Titan before or since has ever depicted.  Surely that last piece of evidence should be enough to rule it out completely?

Despite these points, I'm still inclined to consider it a part of Titan.  It's published in an official Fighting Fantasy product after all, one that's edited by Ian.  It's far from the only adventure that the two founders didn't write.  Finally, it's set in the Twin Sun Desert; on a world where there are two suns, why would any one geographical feature be singled out with that name?  None of these are ironclad reasons to set The Dervish Stone in Titan, but it has the right vibe, the ineffable feel of that setting.  It's D&D-style fantasy written under the FF rules, of course it's going to feel right.  So in it goes, at least in my head-canon.  Titan's a patchwork world, and one more patch is always welcome.

Alasiyan
This town, squatting on the edge of the deadly Twin Sun Desert, is a lawless place.  Gnolls, Lizard Men, Goblins and Hobgoblins walk the streets in plain view, and the guards seem to pay more attention to the belongings of those entering the town than the criminals inside.  It's a melting pot, where thugs, ruffians, and merchants mix with the Nomads of the Twin Sun Desert.

The place is ruled over by Gumpas, with the odd title of "Sorcerer-Governor".  He's moderately powerful, able to cast fireballs and lightning bolts, shield himself from projectiles, and turn invisible, and it seems that he craves even more power: his guards are under orders to search everyone who enters Alasiyan, and to confiscate every item of magic found.  He rules from a large house near the centre of town, where he is guarded by a troop of Hobgoblins and a Thoul (more on this creature later).  Despite this association with monsters, Gumpas's guards aren't particularly cruel when arresting people for the possession of magic items; the items are taken, and the prisoner released after half an hour or so.

The other major figure of interest in Alasiyan is never named, but he is a young man with elfin features who claims to be 379 years old.  This is apparently due to the frequent use of potions of longevity, with the implication being that he's in prison due to being discovered in possession of them. He's also a thief, operating out of a "den of thieves", and is able to steal back confiscated magic items with little difficulty.

Inside the walls, there is a prison, a market square, the aforementioned mansion and den of thieves, and the One Safe Wall Inn.  On the outskirts closest to the desert there are a collection of beehive-shaped buildings, that seem to be tombs (the Night Ghoul prowling around them would suggest as much).

Twin Sun Desert
The desert is deadly, and easy to become lost in if you venture far from well-trodden paths.  About a day's travel from Alasiyan can be found the castle of Kuperan, Monarch of the Sands.  Somewhere beyond that are some hills where a hermit dwells, and further still is the Lost Cave of the Dervishes.

There are two peoples who seem to be the main inhabitants of the desert.  The first of these are the Nomads, who are all tattooed with the mark of a twin sun.  The Nomads can be found trading goods in Alasiyan, but even so they can be dangerous; some of them wait in the rocky desert passes to ambush travellers with poison blowdarts and rob them.  They use giant centipedes called Sand-Crawlers, though whether as steeds or pack animals it's unclear.  One of the Nomads encountered is said to be "dwarfish", but I don't think that means he's actually a Dwarf; all of the other Nomads are human, so I'm assuming that this one particular Nomad is just a very small man.

The second of these people are the Laupers, a race of cat-like men who fight with vicious, trained war-cats, and wield iron claws.  Little else is known about them, except that they are hostile, and not found within Alasiyan.  It's possible that they have a special hatred for Dervishes, as the Lauper encampment holds a dagger especially enchanted for killing them.

How these two groups interact is unclear, but both of them can be found in the court of Kuperan, the Monarch of the Sands.  Kuperan is a Fire Giant, and seemingly the ruler of the desert.  He delights in forcing visitors to his castle to do battle with his personal Bronze Golem.  Those that survive, he takes into the desert to be eaten by his "Earth Demon".

There are also slavers operating in the desert, possibly affiliated with Kuperan; the track they are encountered on leads right to his castle.

The Dervishes are a mystery.  All we learn about them is that one of their priests found the Stone of Shanhara ages ago, and that they are still guarding the cave in which the diamond was hidden.

The Hermit of the Hills is the last denizen of note, and he's another cipher, mostly.  He lives alone in the hills, is known to Kuperan, and although he doesn't know where the Lost Cave of the Dervishes is, he does know where the map is located.  For no discernible reason, he won't give up this information without first making the hero stick his hand in a hole that might have a scorpion inside. 

Of the desert's geographical features, the most interesting is the Valley of Diamonds.  The floor of this valley is indeed littered with diamonds, but it has very steep walls, and a giant Roc nests on the cliffs nearby, a sure deterrent to would-be thieves.  I wonder, could the Stone of Shanhara itself come from this valley?

The Stone of Shanhara
This diamond was discovered ages ago by a wizard named Shanhara, a dervish priest.  Many people coveted it, so Shanhara hid it away in a trap-filled cave.  The location of this cave was eventually lost, although it seems that the dervishes still know where it is; one of them guards it still.  The cave was recently discovered by a man named Jakor One-Eye, although how long ago is unclear; it has to be at least long enough for Jakor's corpse to be stripped down to its skeleton.

Monsters
The area surrounding Twin Sun Desert is home to a number of the mainstays of the standard D&D/FF menagerie (hobgoblins, goblins, lizard-men), but what's interesting is that it also features a number of D&D staples that are rarely seen in FF: gnolls (men with hyena heads), bugbears (big, hairy goblins), and kobolds (smaller dog-men) are some of them, as is the Bronze Golem and its ability to spray molten metal from its wounds.  Dragons are nothing new in FF, but the Blue Dragon with its lightning breath is distinctly D&D, as are Fire Giants, and the Crab Spiders that guard the Lost Cave of the Dervishes.

Thouls are from D&D, and are a very odd combination of hobgoblin, troll and ghoul.  How they got this way is unclear; it's not even known whether they are alive or undead.  They do retain the Ghoul's ability to paralyse their enemies, however.

A Night Ghoul prowls the tombs near Alasiyan, but it's unknown whether it's any different to a regular Ghoul.  It has no abilities beyond those of the regular Ghoul, so it's probably just a slightly different name for the same creature.

The giant Rock Toad that lurks near Kuperan's castle seems to be nocturnal, and devours its prey by pulling it in with its tongue.  There have been giant toads in FF before, notably the Spit Toad from Island of the Lizard King, but nothing quite so deadly as this variety.

While sleeping in Kuperan's castle your provisions will be eaten by Hellrats, whatever those are.  Nothing is said about them that would differentiate them from regular rats.

Surprisingly, the Griffin is making its first FF appearance here.  I would have thought such a well-known mythological beast would have appeared before this.  Here, they are the standard eagle-headed/lion-bodied variety, and serve as flying steeds for Kuperan's forces.

Also making its first appearance here is the Roc.  It's basically a really, really big bird which just happens to have the map to the Stone of Shanhara woven into its nest.  There's a Giant Hawk in this adventure as well, which might just be one too many big birds.

The other monsters debuting here are the Sandcrawler, the Laupers, and their trained War-Cats.  All of these are described in more detail above, under the Twin Sun Desert.  The Sandcrawler is a Giant Centipede, and given no more description than that.  A Catwoman appeared in Forest of Doom, and may be of the same race, but Laupers are much more cat-like in appearance.  It's not clear what species the War-Cat is, but they're big enough that a Lauper can ride one.

Finally, there's the Earth Demon, which is little more than a big mouth in the desert into which Kuperan likes to throw prisoners.  This creature seems to have little connection to the Earth Demon that first appeared in Warlock magazine #1, a spirit that dwells in the ground and draws its strength from contact with the earth.  We'll just say that this version is basically the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi, and Kuperan gave it a not-entirely-accurate name.

Other Details

There's a magic sword that was forged by Dwarves of the Copper Mountains.  Wherever they are, they're not on any of my maps of Titan.

Ylaruam was a "master mage" who lived long ago in Alasiyan.  He created the magical glass eye that can be obtained in this adventure.

Someone named Snurd Hideflayer must be a regular visitor to Alasiyan, with a knack for getting Goblins murderously angry at him.

So that's it for The Dervish Stone, after far too long a hiatus.  This was a difficult entry to write, because so few of the elements of this adventure connect in meaningful ways, and much of it is detailed only sparingly.  It introduces a few new monsters and other things to Titan, but pretty much none of it is picked up on later.  Most of the fan-sites place it in the Chaos Wastes of Khul, the Dark Continent, saying that the remnants of chaos magic make it seem as though there are two suns.  That that does seem like the best place for it: Khul really is the dumping ground for stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.

NEXT

It's time to get back to the main series, with Talisman of Death.