Kharé - Cityport of Traps: Final Thoughts

Kharé - Cityport of Traps, written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Blanche, is the second installment in the Sorcery! epic. As such, it's kind of difficult to know what to say about it that I didn't already get to in my look at The Shamutanti Hills. Yes, the magic system is fun and innovative. John Blanche's illustrations provide exactly the right tone and feel. The ability to take the same character through all of the books gives it an added dimension over the regular Fighting Fantasy series. All of that was true for The Shamutanti Hills, and it's still true here.

I guess the thing to do is focus on what makes Kharé different to its predecessor. The most obvious thing is the setting: whereas the first book was a travelogue taking the protagonist through hills and villages, this book is set in a city that's full of thieves, murderers and traps. The plot is similar, in that the hero is just trying to get through to the other side of the city, but this time there's more to it than just walking: Kharé's north gate is wizard-locked, and only by finding all four lines of the spell are you able to pass through.

What sets it above The Shamutanti Hills is that Steve Jackson starts to let loose with his more bizarre sensibilities. Strange characters and situations abound, and there's a palpable sense that everyone in this book is perhaps just a little bit mad, like living in Kharé has warped their minds. John Blanche joins in with the fun here as well, letting loose with some illustrations that are full of fun background details. He's not quite operating on the same level as Iain McCaig was in City of Thieves, but there's not a huge gulf between them.

The book is well-balanced, and finding the right path through shouldn't take too many tries. Lortag's puzzle is perhaps a bit too obscure, and the kissing ritual of Courga perhaps too deadly, but it shouldn't take more than a few tries to get through this one, especially with a character who has already been through book 1.

Overall, Kharé displays all of the strengths of The Shamutanti Hills and turns them up. The magic system is just as good, but applied to more interesting situations. The setting and characters and more flavourful. The illustrations have a little more inspiration. It's a bit more of a challenge to get through. The Shamutanti Hills was a really solid gamebook, and Kharé is that little bit better in just about every way.

COOL STUFF I MISSED
Despite passing through this book in excess of a dozen times, I didn't do all that much exploration, because I was deathly afraid of missing the lines to the North Gate spell. So I missed quite a bit, especially in the first part of the book: the Mantis Man, all of the activities at the market, Honest Hanna's Mystery Box. The sad thing is that I could have done all of this stuff, because the book is designed so you can loop around and catch most of it. But like I said, my focus was on getting through, so much of what the book has to offer was missed.

MISTAKES AND RED HERRINGS
There don't seem to be any major errors in this book. I found a few items that seemingly have no use: a vial of poison, some essence of bark, a golden locket (which is worth 8gp, so it at least has some value), a piece of moldy goat's cheese, a tinderbox, a snake-bite antidote, and a serpent ring. Those last three I know for certain are useful in the next book.

As for the unused items from the last book, I found a use for the gaoler's key and the key to  Kharé's south gate.

BEST DEATH

Surprisingly, this book only has 13 instant death passages, and most of those are from saying the spell wrong at the end; I had thought it was much deadlier than that. This here is my favourite.

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

Story & Setting: Let's get this one out of the way: the premise of this book is kind of ridiculous. A city whose north gate only opens to a spell known to one person? But there are four prominent citizens who know one line each? I dunno, it's kind of far-fetched and impractical, but it is a pretty good set up for a city adventure. It's dumb, but I like it, what can I say. The setting is where this book really shines, leaving behind the more grounded elements of The Shamutanti Hills and diving into that Steve Jackson weirdness that I love. Kharé is a crazy place, full of cults and murderers and odd monsters, and I find it a bit more flavourful than Port Blacksand. Rating: 5 out of 7.

Toughness: Survival in this book is less a matter of statistics, and more one of finding the correct path. At first I was going to ping it for being a bit too linear, but having discovered how many paths you can take at the start and still win, I can't really do that. For the most part the book takes you past the places you need to go, and for those it doesn't it gives you some extra chances (particularly for those who've finished book 1). My main issue with the book is Lortag's puzzle, which to me just seems to come down to guesswork. Maybe there is someone out there who figured it out from the illustrations, but I've never met them. Rating: 5 out of 7.

Aesthetics: The book shines here, with John Blanche's depictions of the splendour and squalor of Kharé being particularly vivid, and Jackson's prose an able companion to those. If I have one complaint, it's that I don't really love the cover; it's not all that representative of the tone or contents of the book. Rating: 5 out of 7.

Mechanics: Sorcery! continues to push the envelop in this category, with the magic system still being employed to great effect, and some items with unique combat rules being introduced. Sometimes those items can get a little over-complicated, but they're still mechanically sound, and on the whole the basic FF system is used in this book to good effect. Rating: 6 out of 7.

Innovation & Influence: The systems being used in this book are innovative, particularly the magic, but it's nothing that wasn't already brought in by The Shamutanti Hills. Rating: 4 out of 7.

NPCs & Monsters: This being a city adventure, it's full of memorable characters: Flanker the assassin, Vangorn the murderer, Slangg, that one innkeeper who tries to chop you up for stew. It even manages to bring in some fun new monsters: the Mantis Man and the Red Eyes are particular standouts. If it's missing on thing, though, it's an antagonist; I know the plot doesn't really call for one, but it still feels like the book is missing a character or force to work against. Rating: 5 out of 7.

Amusement: Kharé is full of interesting encounters, and all of them provide plenty of options; there's nothing less fun than an encounter that leaves you with no choices beyond combat. It's also much less linear than I had thought, meaning that a player can actually experience most of them as they go through the city. I look forward to tackling this one again one day, now that I know I'm not locked into a single path. Rating: 6 out of 7.

Kharé gets the bonus point. The above scores total 37, which doubled gives a STAMINA Rating of 74. That puts it even with City of Thieves, sitting equal 5th, a pretty good showing.

NEXT: My current plan is to update on Sundays, so next week I should have the next installment of The Sorcery of Sorcery. Hopefully if I can keep things up I'll have an Exploring Titan up the week after that.