Talisman of Death: Final Thoughts

Talisman of Death is a book that never quite fit. The Fighting Fantasy series covered a fair number of genres in its day, from sci-fi to horror to post-apocalypse to super-heroes, but medieval fantasy was always its bread and butter. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone set the tone for FF's take on that genre, and established the setting of Allansia as a place where those adventures could take place. Sure, Scorpion Swamp wasn't explicitly set there, but it felt like it could have been. Talisman of Death is another story altogether.

Written by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson, Talisman of Death takes place on the world of Orb, and has a distinctly different vibe than the FF books that came before it. Everything is a little weirder, and a little more tinged with horror. There are dark forces pursuing you at every turn, and a feeling of menace hangs over you as you try to escape with the talisman. Religious cults are everywhere, and everyone you meet has their own agenda. It feels like a cohesive, lived-in world, in a way that Allansia never did. With such a distinct setting and flavour, Talisman of Death never felt like it belonged in the series.

I should mention at this point that the world of Orb also featured in the Way of the Tiger series, and that characters like the rogue Tyutchev have appeared in other works by Smith and Thomson. I can't find anything now, but I'm sure I've read somewhere that this book draws heavily on the pair's home Dungeons & Dragons campaign. If that's true, it shows. A bunch of the monsters are direct from D&D, and many of the abilities used by characters (such as Hawkana's obvious flame strike spell) work much the same as they would have in the tabletop game. This possibly explains why Orb feels like such a rich, detailed place: it was constantly developed over the course of years and countless games of D&D. It's not surprise that Smith and Thomson would draw from that material when tasked with writing a book for the series.

A rich setting is worthless in a game when you have nothing to do, though. Talisman of Death doesn't fall into that trap. There is a lot of content in this adventure, from the Rift, the journey to Greyguilds, and the myriad streets of Greyguilds itself. This is where the book really comes alive, and although it becomes quite linear there are numerous interesting paths that weave through that plotline. It perhaps falls down at the end, with a dinosaur-filled plateau that seemingly comes out of nowhere and an unexplained dungeon that just happens to have the one weapon you need to defeat the big bad, but overall it's a satisfying blend of gameplay and story, with a setting more complex than FF had ever seen before.

I've been saying nothing but positive things here, but for all that this is obviously a rather good gamebook, it's never been one of my favourites. Part of that has to do with it not being a part of Allansia or Titan, and the out-of-place feeling the book has because of that. I'm sure that the distinct and weird tone also contributes to my apathy, as when I was younger I was looking for baseline D&D in my fantasy for the most part. Perhaps it's just that the book is a little too easy. More likely it's a combination of all of these things. Regardless, it's a good gamebook but a good gamebook that never really captured my imagination or lived in my memory.

COOL STUFF I MISSED

I covered most of the major encounters in this book, although there were a lot of shops I missed in Greyguilds, and an escape from the city through its graveyard. Probably the most important thing I missed is on the southern path away from Greyguilds, where Hawkana's spirit returns and tries to drag you into the Valley of Death.

MISTAKES AND RED HERRINGS

There are no obvious mistakes in the book, although I there is one paragraph where a monk might steal Hawkana's Ring from you when you don't have it. There's nothing mechanically broken about this adventure, though.

As for red herrings, there aren't any. Every single inventory item you can obtain serves some sort of purpose, even if it's just a stat boost.

BEST DEATH

Before I make a choice here, the question should be asked: what constitutes an "instant death" in this book? Most of the deaths allow you to be resurrected and continue your adventure, and only a handful are truly the end. Even so, I'm counting all of them, even the ones that you can come back from. A death is a death, whether or not the Gods reverse it.

That said, there are 35 instant death paragraphs in Talisman of Death, so I had a lot to choose from. It could have been the one where a dragon bites your head off and throws your body down the mountainside, or the one where a harpoon trap spills your entrails into the sewer, or even the one where Tyutchev, Cassandra and Thaum kill you all at once. In the end, I went with this one:

For once, mythic power wins out over comedic gore.

S.T.A.M.I.N.A. RATING

Story & Setting: The story is a basic one: you need to dispose of a powerful evil artifact, while evil forces are chasing you down. Laid out like that, it obviously owes a lot to Lord of the Rings. It even has wraiths! The setting is where it comes alive, though, especially the city of Greyguilds with its warring religious sects, factions and cults. Every reference and every encounter feels like there's more to be told, and that's a definite improvement on the Jackson/Livingstone model where you get attacked by monsters that often feel like little more than numbers on a page. Rating: 6 out of 7.

Toughness: This book isn't all that difficult, despite a couple of unavoidable encounters with Skill 12 enemies. A large part of this comes down to the option of having your character raised from the dead; I finished this book in 3 attempts, but it really should have been 5. The path to victory is very wide, as you can go almost anywhere and still hope to succeed. The fights with Hawkana and the dragon can be tough, but there are ways to make both fights easier (and a number of Skill boosts if you allow magic items to take you over your initial score). Rating: 3 out of 7.

Aesthetics: The writing is atmospheric, and it's rare that a paragraph feels too perfunctory. Adding to the doom-laden vibe is the art of Bob Harvey, who really excels when asked to draw horrific undead and creepy monsters. He perhaps falls down a little with the dinosaurs and the dragon, and his big-nosed dark elves are very weird for a veteran of the Drizzt era of D&D, but when Harvey is on point he is really on point. I never think of him when I'm naming the best FF artists, but he deserves at the very least to be in the conversation. Add to that one of the very best covers in the series, and it's a great-looking package. Rating: 6 out of 7.

Mechanics: This book uses the standard FF rules, and uses them well. The only new thing it does is allowing the hero to be resurrected, by rolling back time to an earlier point in the story. It can save some time to roll up a new character, I guess, and it's especially nice once you've escaped from Greyguilds to not have to go back to the start, but mechanically speaking it's executed fairly basically. Rating: 4 out of 7.

Innovation & Influence: It's not that innovative, with the aforementioned resurrection being the main thing it adds outside of standard FF. It should be recognised for being the first appearance in print of Orb, however, as that setting goes on to feature in one of the most successful gamebook series of the 1980s. Rating: 3 out of 7.

NPCs & Monsters: The monster variety here is good, especially when the book veers away from D&D tropes and does its own thing. It's especially good at making these encounters feel like they matter, that they are part of a wider story and world. Where the book especially excels, though, is with the characters that appear. Hawkana, Tyutchev, and the many others that pop up throughout the adventure are well-realised and fleshed out. There's no-one here as iconic as a Balthus Dire or a Zanbar Bone, but to be honest the characters that appear here have more depth than those classics, or at least they seem to. Rating: 5 out of 7.

Amusement: Despite the many good things I have to say about this book, it just doesn't grab me. I like it well enough, but it doesn't present the kind of challenge that I like in an FF gamebook. It's very forgiving with the paths you choose, whereas I prefer to have to search for a specific path to victory. You don't have to amass an unlikely inventory that is vital to your success, or learn any passwords, or really do anything. You just keep moving towards your goal, and as long as you don't do anything too stupid you'll probably make it through. It's a good gamebook, like I said, but it doesn't scratch my particular itches. Rating: 3 out of 7.

No bonus point for Talisman of Death. The above scores total 30, which doubled gives a Final Rating of 60 out of 100. That puts it on a par with Forest of Doom, which is similarly forgettable, although vastly more flawed mechanically than Talisman. I guess sometimes nostalgia wins out.

Next week, I have a choice between tackling Space Assassin or the mammoth that is The Crown of Kings. Long ago I made the foolish choice to try to tackle the Sorcery! series as one huge gamebook, so Crown of Kings is looking really daunting right now; one failure, and I'm all the way back to The Shamutanti Hills. So, I'm postponing that nightmare scenario, and starting with Space Assassin, which I've played but have almost no memory of. The sci-fi books have never really been my bag, but I'm hoping this one proves me wrong.