Starship Traveller - Attempt 1

The fate of the starship Traveller and her crew lies in YOUR hands!

Sucked through the nightmare of the Seltsian Void, the starship Traveller emerges at the other side of the black hole into an unknown universe.  YOU are the captain of the Traveller and her fate depends on YOU!  Will you be able to discover the way back to Earth from the alien peoples and planets you encounter, or will the starship be doomed to roam uncharted space forever?

Starship Traveller, the fourth Fighting Fantasy gamebook and the second solo effort by Steve Jackson, ditches the fantasy setting of the previous three books and instead presents a sci-fi space exploration adventure.  It's a bold move; the series was massively successful at this point, and the safe thing to do would have been to churn out another fantasy.  That's not Steve Jackson's style, though.  Jackson has always been an innovator, and no two of his gamebooks are alike (unless you count Sorcery!, but that's really just one huge gamebook split into four).

As innovative as it may have been, however, the end result comes across as rushed and sloppy.  Spoilers, folks: I've never really liked this one.  But, for the sake of the blog and my desire to complete every FF there is, I'll soldier on.

Your role in this adventure is the captain of the starship Traveller, pride of the AstroNavy.  Basically, you're Captain Kirk, which is something I approve of greatly.  Not only do you control Kirk, but you also get to play as Spock, McCoy, Scotty and a few red-shirt security officers.  Or, you know, reasonable facsimiles of said fellows, if you're not of a mind to embrace the Trek-ness.

The first major difference between this book and the ones that came before is that you have a lot of stats to roll.  Not only do you roll your own Skill and Stamina, but you have to do the same for your Science Officer, Medical Officer, Engineering Officer, Security Officer and two Security Guards.  These are done in the same way as usual: one die roll added to 6 for Skill, and two die rolls added to 12 for Stamina.  Skill in this book determines how good each character is at their job; as such, characters that don't have a focus on combat (your Medical, Science and Engineering Officers) suffer a -3 penalty to Skill in combat.  The Security types fight for a living, so they don't suffer the penalty, and the Captain is, of course, very handy with his fists.  This is original-flavour Trek, not The Next Generation with its namby-pamby "diplomacy" and "counsellors". 

My crew was rolled up as follows:

CAPTAIN

Skill - 11

Stamina - 20

SCIENCE OFFICER

Skill - 10

Stamina - 16

MEDICAL OFFICER

Skill - 10

Stamina - 17

ENGINEERING OFFICER

Skill - 12

Stamina - 15

SECURITY OFFICER

Skill - 11

Stamina - 17

SECURITY GUARD 1

Skill - 8

Stamina - 16

SECURITY GUARD 2

Skill - 7

Stamina - 15

That is one elite crew.  Sure, the security guards are wimps, but everyone else on this ship knows his job, and knows it well.  I've got a good feeling about this one. 

I need to roll stats for my ship as well, for Weapons Strength and Shields.  The former is determined by rolling one die and adding 6.  The latter is determined by rolling one die and adding 12.  My luck with the dice continued, as I rolled up a ship with Weapons Strength 12 and Shields 18.  I kind of wish that I could save all these sixes for when I'm playing Deathtrap Dungeon.

Finally, I need to determine Luck, by rolling one die and adding 6.  My result was a 9, which is acceptable.  I don't recall Luck being much of a factor in the book at all, so I don't think this average score will hinder my chances of success.

With my crew ready, it's time to begin the adventure.

Awesome scribbles.

 Panic!

The adventure began with my starship in desperate straits, a malfunction having locked the warp engines into a constant increase in velocity.   We were headed right into a black hole known as the Seltsian Void, and not even the best efforts of my Science Officer were enough to help us escape.  The ship was sucked through the black hole and spat out into another dimension, and it was now my goal to get my crew home safe and sound.  It's all a bit Voyager, but thankfully this book came out at a time when Star Trek was still good.

Even though this book is in a different genre, it still begins with the classic FF dilemma: which way should we go?  I had the option of a life-bearing system ahead, a life-bearing system to port, or a barren system.  I was pretty sure that the barren system would be of no help, and I was reluctant to waste fuel on turning the ship, so I opted for the system straight ahead.  (In other words, I have some of this book committed to memory, and I know which way to go.)

We soon discovered a blue planet that showed signs of life.  The most heavily populated area was a city on an island, and I decided to beam down with my Science Officer, my Medical Officer and my Security Officer.

Yeah, this illustration goes here.  I think.

We materialised on a wide street, lined by small buildings with a larger building at the end of the road.  Entering the large building, we found it occupied by many alien creatures who were involved in a debate.  Their political system was one of extreme equality and democracy: everyone's voice was given equal weight, and so debates took years, and things were accomplished very slowly.  I wasn't particularly interested in their petty problems.  Instead I went to the map room, where I learned a bit about the nearby planets: Trax, which was devastated by a war; Culematter, orbiting a purple star; and Macommon, orbiting a double star.  It wasn't the most helpful information, so I decided to beam back up to the Traveller and depart the planet.

(At this point I could have restored some Stamina: your crew members all heal a little bit every time you leave a planet.  As nobody had been injured, it wasn't necessary.)

Next we opted to explore the planet Trax, orbiting the same sun just a little farther out.  There were signs of civilization, but no signs of life.  I beamed down with my Science Officer and my Security Officer to investigate.

We materialised in a deserted city, but were soon accosted by a humanoid figure in a flowing white cape.  He seemed friendly enough, until my Security Officer gunned him down, claiming that he had been about to shoot me.  I had the alien beamed up to the ship, to see if he could be saved, but apparently nothing arrived in the Transmat Room.  It was as though he had never existed at all.

We continued down a street, but were forced to take cover when we came under machine-gun fire.  Or, at least, I took cover; the others could not hear or see anything, and when they pointed it out to me, the machine guns stopped.  We continued our explorations, and found a library, in which we discovered that there was supposedly a black hole in Sector 288.  This was valuable information: a black hole might be our only chance of getting home.

We returned to the ship, and with the help of a newspaper found on the planet, we solved the mystery.  The planet's fate had been debated by two factions: the tech-loving Progressives (yay!) and the back-to-basics Regressives (boo!).  The Progressives had developed a powerful hallucinogen that they intended to inflict upon the Regressives, but when the plot was discovered, the drugs were all stuck in a rocket and shot into outer space.  Unfortunately, the rocket exploded, and the drugs spread throughout the planet's atmosphere, which explained all the weird goings-on that I and my crew had experienced.

Our next destination was Culematter, the planet orbiting a purple star.  It was civilized, so I decided to beam down with my Science Officer and Security Guard, and materialised in a deserted street (what, another one?).  It wasn't deserted for long, as a hover-car appeared on the street ahead, moving towards us.  An insectoid creature stepped from one of the small buildings, and frantically beckoned us to safety.

He's beckoning frantically, I guess.

Reasoning that patrol cars are never good news, we followed the insectoid, who explained that we were being chased by Population Controllers, who would exterminate us to prevent the planet becoming overcrowded.  He should have spent more time running and less time expositing, because the PCs caught up to us and lasered our insect friend to death.  We were taken captive and driven to a cell where more aliens awaited extermination.

I tried to contact the ship, only to discover that the signal was being jammed.  It was a stroke of luck, however; somehow, my communicator caused all of the aliens around to become motionless.  We were soon collected and directed to line up.  At this point my Science Officer might have had a good idea, but despite his Skill of 10, he failed to roll under his Skill on two dice.  He reasoned that our captors must have energy packs under their helmets, and we tried to overpower a guard and pry his helmet off.  The guard was tough (Skill 11), but it was three on one, and we were soon able to knock off his helmet.  It rendered him motionless, but did us no good, as more guards arrived to capture us.  We were bundled back into line, and marched into the extermination chamber.

Our adventure ended here.

Argh, my first failure!  The irritating thing is that I shouldn't have died here at all.  The options that I was given read as follows: "Do you have your Science Officer with you? If so, turn to 33.  If you have already tried to contact the ship, turn to 238.  Otherwise, turn to 309."  If I had taken the option presented for having already tried to contact the ship, I would have escaped the planet with little difficulty.  But because the first two options were equally true, I went with the first one, assuming that it would be the best option simply because it was first.  The Lone Wolf series always did things that way, and it's influenced my ideas of good gamebook design.  I suppose that I can't expect every designer to think that way.

Still, I died.  There are no take-backs, no do-overs.  I'll go back to the start and try again, and perhaps next time I will succeed.  That's the rule I'm setting myself here: no cheating.  No re-rolling bad dice, no marking my previous choices with my finger, no pretending that I have items I don't.  It's just me, my memories, and a whole bunch of random chance.  That's all I need to make Starship Traveller my bitch, and I'm going to try again next week.

Exploring Titan 3: The Forest of Doom

The Warlock Firetop Mountain focused solely on its dungeon environment.  The Citadel of Chaos did the same thing, but set it in the context of a wider world.  The final book in what I like to refer to as the "original Fighting Fantasy trilogy" dispenses with the dungeon altogether, and takes the largest step thus far in establishing Allansia and Titan as a setting.

BACKGROUND

The hero of the book begins his adventure as a sword for hire, roaming the northern borderlands of his kingdom.  The kingdom isn't named, nor is it detailed.  The only kingdom mentioned so far in the series is the Vale of Willow from The Citadel of Chaos, ruled over by King Salamon, but as yet the series isn't in the business of drawing its books together.  We'll get there soon, but not quite yet.

While camping in the wilderness, our hero's rest is interrupted by dwarf named Bigleg.  Bigleg is dying, having been shot full of poisoned arrows, but he manages to gasp out his final message.  He and his friends were on their way to Darkwood Forest, on a quest to retrieve the Hammer of Gillibran, when they were ambushed by "the little people".  Bigleg implores the hero to seek out the master mage Yaztromo, and then to find the hammer and return it to Gillibran, the Lord of Stonebridge.

Again, it's some solid world-building, introducing a number of recurring staples of the Allansian continent.  Interestingly, the hero of the book has heard of neither Gillibran nor Yaztromo.  It can't be that he's from a faraway land, as the kingdom mentioned above is his home.  At this point, Yaztromo isn't the world-famous wizard he'll become, and Gillibran is probably only a big deal to the dwarfs.  He is only the king of a small village, after all.  I'm also curious about the "little people" Bigleg refers to.  Who are they?  The Wild Hill Men?  Pygmies?  It seems odd that a dwarf would call either of those "little".

(On an irrelevant note, I hate typing the word "dwarfs".  I much prefer the Tolkien-derived "dwarves", but for now I am deferring to Ian Livingstone, Commander of the Order of the British Empire.)

Bigleg also provides us with our first ever map:

Not exactly loaded with detail, is it?  Still, it's an adequate representation of the lands that this adventure take place in.  Note that the hills on the far right aren't named, and neither is the river.

The rest of the background is explained later by Yaztromo.  I'll talk about him later, but right I want to examine the history of the hammer.  It is apparently "fabled", and without it the king can't get his people to fight back against the hill trolls that threaten them.  I find this odd for such a naturally war-loving people, but if the hammer is magical the dwarfs may have come to rely on it a little too heavily.  Or perhaps they're just stubborn, as dwarfs tend to be.

The hammer was stolen by an eagle sent by the king of another village of dwarfs (which we later learn is named Mirewater, and lies to the west of Darkwood Forest).  The eagle was killed by death hawks while flying over Darkwood, and the hammer was retrieved by a pair of goblins, who split it in two and kept half each.  

YAZTROMO

Yaztromo lives in a tower to the south of Darkwood Forest, where he makes a living selling single-use magic items (for very reasonable prices).  He doesn't seem to be overly concerned with the plight of Stonebridge, as he doesn't offer any particular aid to the hero after finding out the purpose of his quest.  He's initially grumpy, though not too quick to take action if the hero menaces him; he gives the hero a warning before transforming him into a frog.  Transforming his foes seems to be a regular thing for Yaztromo, as there's a crow in the forest who was once human, and is saving gold to pay the wizard to change him back.  Overall we're seeing a decidedly neutral version of the wizard, not yet embroiled in the fate of Allansia, or trying to aid the cause of Good.

THE FOREST

Darkwood Forest is widely regarded as a dangerous place full of unknown perils, but it's really not so deadly as it's made out to be.  Yes, it's infested with all manner of monsters, but there are a number of  friendly folk who call the place home, most notably Quin the arm-wrestler.  There's even a fellow there who is hunting for wild boar; he has his dogs with him, but surely there are safer places to do so.  The bandits set up on the northern exit of the forest are also curious.  Who are they expecting to rob?  Is the trail really that well-traveled?  The final straw is the young lad who wanders by if you get caught in the Ogre's trap, munching casually on a chicken leg.  What the hell is he doing there?  All in all, I feel as though the forest has an exaggerated reputation.
  The forest is bisected by an unnamed river, and surrounds a very large central clearing.  Indeed, most of the area shown on the map is open, and the forest seems to form something of a doughnut shape.
  The history of the forest isn't explored at all, but there are a lot of mysteries that go unexplained.  What is with the Gremlins, and their obsession with smashing clay hands?  Why are the Fire Demon and his Clone servants growing mushrooms?  Who was it that was buried in the Ghoul's tomb?  These are all intriguing to me, and I'm sure there are more that I've forgotten.

MONSTERS

The monsters of The Forest of Doom are mostly derivative of D&D, but there are a few new additions.  Goblins, orcs, vampire bats, barbarians, ghouls, werewolves, giant spiders, cave trolls, and dwarfs have all appeared in Fighting Fantasy books previous.  The Fire Demon has appeared before, but only as an illusion cast by the hero of The Citadel of Chaos.  Giants have appeared before, but this is a Forest Giant; any difference to the Giant in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is unspecified, although this one does seem to be significantly taller.

Some other monsters appear here for the first time, but are derived directly from mythology or D&D: the hag, the gremlins, the centaur, the wyvern, the hobgoblins and the gnome.  The gnome has more innate magical power than those in D&D, with the ability to turn the hero's sword into a carrot.  There's also an Earth Elemental trapped in a vase, whose release causes an awful lot of wind.

Quite a few of the "monsters" are simply real-world animals, albeit that some are giant-sized: killer bees, hunting dogs, a wild boar, a bear, and wolves,  The blood eel seems to be simply a more aggressive version of a regular eel, and the death hawks are much the same.  I suppose the pterodactyl counts as a real-world animal as well, and it gives us our first inkling that dinosaurs roam the Fighting Fantasy world.

Several of the new monsters are simple human/animal hybrids that aren't particularly detailed.  The Catwoman does little more than lounge on a branch and attack passers-by.  The Fish Man is similarly devoid of detail; he lives in a crude lair behind a waterfall, eats fish, and fights with a trident.  The Ape Man lives in a tree house and fights with a bone.  Really, mashing animals and people together is the most basic method of fantasy monster creation, and I'm not surprised to see Ian Livingstone going to that well more than once.

And now to some more original entries, relatively speaking.  The Sting Worm is new, though not particularly inspired: it's a worm with a sting.  The Tree Man is also pretty much what it says on the tin: a hostile Tree Man.  The Boulder Best is a little more fleshed out: it disguises itself as a big rock, and waits for creatures to draw near before rising on stumpy legs and trying to crush them.  It's literally made of stone, and crumbles when it dies. Its origin is left a mystery, though the hero speculates that it could have been the result of experiments by an "evil elementalist".

There are a few human enemies that suggest things about the Fighting Fantasy world.  There are the Wild Hill Men, who dwell in the hills to the east of Darkwood Forest and harass travellers by shooting arrows at them.  They're a primitive people who seem to be modelled on the stereotypical image of the American "hillbilly".  The Barbarian I mentioned above suggests that there are other primitive types in the Conan mold; there was another one in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.  There are also Pygmies in Darkwood Forest, who attack the hero with blowpipes.  They're the epitome of the stereotypical jungle savage: brown skin, grass skirt, bone-through-the-nose, and one of the most incongruous things in the book.  What are these fellows doing in an otherwise temperate climate?  It's a mystery, for now.

The Shape Changer is the creature on the front cover of the book.  Naturally, it has the power to change its shape, and uses this power to draw in potential prey.  In the book it disguises itself as Goblin, then waits until the hero comes close before assuming its natural reptilian form and attacking.  The curious thing is that, while in Goblin form, the handle of the Hammer of Gillibran hangs around its neck as part of the disguise.  Is it simply that the Shape Changer has heard the rumours, and expects any passing adventurers to be looking for the hammer?  Or can it read the hero's mind?

Lastly, we have the most fascinating encounter in the book: the Fire Demon and his Clones.  The Clones appear as small, pale-skinned humanoids, and there are two types, Workers and Warriors.  The Workers tend a crop of multi-coloured mushrooms, and are completely non-aggressive.  They simply go about their mushroom-tending business no matter what's going on around them.  If one is killed, however, its corpse sprouts into a purple mushroom that sprays its attacker with poisonous gas.  The Warriors will fight, and seem to be there to guard the Workers and the Fire Demon.  They don't turn into mushrooms upon death; instead they simply dissolve into a pool of liquid.  The Fire Demon is the boss of this whole set-up, and appears as a winged humanoid creature of *ahem* shadow and flame.  It wields a whip in one hand and a flaming sword in the other, and when it dies it is consumed by its own fire.  It's not made clear in the book just what this whole mushroom-growing scenario is for.  Indeed the Fire Demon may not even be a demon at all.  If the hero puts on the demon's crown he is transformed into a demon himself, so the Fire Demon here could just be another poor cursed individual.

NEXT

I'll be continuing these Exploring Titan posts as I make my way through the books, but for the moment I'll be taking a break from them.  The next book I'm tackling is Starship Traveller, which has not a scrap of Titan within its pages.  It's all space, all the time, and I am mercifully free from the burden of having to write one of these posts.  It gives me a little something to look forward to from the sci-fi books, at any rate.

Exploring Titan 2: The Citadel of Chaos

The second book in the Fighting Fantasy series has a similarly cliched plot to the first, but it's presented in a context that does a lot more to establish it as a part of a living, breathing world.  The Warlock of Firetop Mountain may have been first, but The Citadel of Chaos does a lot more to establish the sort of place that Titan is, even though Titan did not yet exist when it was released.

Background
From the beginning we learn about the "lawful goodfolk" of the Vale of Willow, who have been living in fear of the demi-sorcerer Balthus Dire for eight years.  The phrase "lawful goodfolk" is an interesting one, in that it evokes the alignment system of Dungeons & Dragons, while also working as perfectly decent English for those people who have never rolled a polyhedral dice.  Whichever way you interpret the phrase, it gets the message across.  The Vale of Willow is good people.

Balthus Dire's description as a "demi-sorcerer" is one I've always liked.  It's never said outright what it means, as far as I can remember, but it's obvious from the beginning that he's different from the other wizards out there.  It becomes apparent when you meet him that he's as much a warrior as he is a wizard, and that's where the "demi" comes in.  But more on Balthus Dire later.

The story begins with a spy, who is returning from his mission within the Black Tower, Balthus Dire's fortress.  The spy reports that Dire has gathered an army of "Chaotics" in the caverns of Craggen Rock, and is preparing to launch his attack within the week.  Once again Steve Jackson is evoking the D&D alignment system, with his description of Dire's forces as Chaotics; at this early stage, Fighting Fantasy is incredibly beholden to its source material.  (Incidentally, the spy is a half-elf, the first mention of such in a Fighting Fantasy gamebook.  As there are no elves in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, we have the strange situation were half-elves appear before normal elves are ever established.  Indeed, we'll meet a Black Elf later, but still no regular, plain old elves.)

From there we meet King Salamon, described as both a "man of action" and a "wise man".  He is here shown as the king of the Vale of Willow, and not of Salamonis (which has yet to be mentioned).  King Salamon sends riders into the Great Forest of Yore, home to more half-elves and also to the Grand Wizard of Yore.  The Grand Wizard, described as a "white sorcerer of great power", is also said to be too old for the coming conflict.  But he does have a number of pupils, and that's where the protagonist of The Citadel of Chaos comes in.

That's a decent amount of world-building, at least on a regional scale.  We have the Vale of Willow, whose good folk are ruled by King Salamon.  Nearby is the Great Forest of Yore, peopled by half-elves and the Great Wizard of Yore, along with his pupils.  And looming above it all, atop Craggen Rock, is Balthus Dire's citadel, also known as the Black Tower.  There's no indication of how it connects to Firetop Mountain, but then again there's no indication that it's even set in the same world.

Magic
This is the first FF gamebook in which the hero can wield magic.    There was, of course, magic in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, mostly being used by the titular Warlock.  In The Citadel of Chaos the hero is able to arm himself with a number of spells before venturing on his mission.  It makes for a more flexible range of encounter options, but it doesn't do a lot for world-building purposes.  The system here is heavily based on D&D: you choose your spells before the game, and cross them off as they are cast.  The main difference from D&D is that you can still cast while wearing armour.  The reason it doesn't do much for world-building is that there is little consistency with later books.  There's the system introduced here, the codeword system from Sorcery!, the spell gems from Scorpion Swamp, and others I'm probably forgetting.  For the moment this is the way magic works on Titan, and it fits with all of the other examples we've seen thus far.  It won't be long until it's obvious that there isn't just one way that magic works in this world, that it can be taught and learned in any number of different fashions.  It's another part of Titan's ramshackle charm, I suppose.

The Citadel
What's striking about the Citadel of Chaos, also known as the Black Tower, is just how well it functions as a society in comparison to Firetop Mountain.  Almost every chamber here serves a purpose: there are guard rooms, a prison, a library, a gambling hall, a dining room, and even a wine cellar.  Even the inhabitants serve a purpose, with guards, merchants, a butler, and more.  There are still moments that make little sense, but on the whole the Black Tower feels alive.

It even has a bit of a history established.  The Black Tower was built by Balthus Dire's grandfather.  It gradually became a haven for creatures of Chaos, and Dire's grandfather built a number of traps outside his living chambers to protect himself from his minions.  Meager details, but effective in establishing the nature of the place.

Balthus Dire
A lot can be learned about Dire throughout the book.  He is the third in a line of Sorcerer-Warlords that have ruled the Black Tower and the "Kingdom of Craggen Rock".  If Dire is a legitimate king, it's not something that future books really dwell on.  Just who is he king over?  The most obvious candidates are the various humanoid monsters lurking in and around Craggen Rock.  In the dining hall there are paintings of various lords and earls of the kingdom, but it's not indicated whether these are human or otherwise.

He is said to have risen to power after the death of his father, Craggen Dire, "some years ago".  The time-frame is kept vague, but in the Background section it is said that the people of the Vale have been living in fear of Balthus Dire for eight years, so that seems like a good estimate.  Shortly after that he married the black sorceress known as Lady Lucretia, who is said to be vain, and appreciative of the things that money and power can buy.  It's not said whether they have children, but there is a room full of toddlers right next to Lucretia's bedchamber.  The kids look orcish, but you never can tell with sorcerers involved.  I choose to believe that these are Balthus and Lucretia's kids, despite their appearance; why else would they be placed in the citadel as they are?

Dire is haughty and arrogant throughout the book, and just a general bastard all around.  It's not just his desire to conquer the Vale, which is your garden variety villainous sorcerer bit.  There's also an encounter with a ghost, whose entire family was burned to death by Dire when she failed to launder his clothes on time for an important meeting. That's a special brand of bastard right there, and goes a long way towards justifying the assassination mission that the hero is undertaking.

Monsters
Whereas The Warlock of Firetop Mountain stuck mostly to standard D&D fare, The Citadel of Chaos does a lot to establish a variety of monsters that are unique to the Fighting Fantasy series.  Though it does feature a number of creatures that were also in Warlock (dwarfs, orcs, goblins, winged gremlins, snakes), and some others that are D&D or mythological staples (hags, leprechauns, black elves, gargoyles, ghosts, golems, hydras, giant scorpions, gorgons), the rest are new.

A number of these monsters are strange hybrids, and probably the result of experimentation by Balthus Dire.  The ape-dog and dog-ape guarding the front entrance, the spider-man, and the rhino-man are examples of this.  Even the brutish gark is said to be a mix of goblin and giant, and one would hope that it is a magical experiment, because the logistics hardly bear thinking about.

A few of these monsters do not actually appear here, but are used as illusions or transformations by Dire or the book's protagonist.  The protagonist can at one point create the illusion of a giant scorpion, and during his battle with Dire he can take the form of fire demon (which is not described in any detail).  Dire takes the form of a gorgon during the final battle, and here the book is drawing more on mythology than on D&D, as this gorgon appears not as a metallic bull but as a hideous woman with snakes for hair, that can turn the protagonist to stone.

Some other monsters appear that are not gone into in great detail.  The Clawbeast is a hairy brute with four-arms that end in vicious talons; it's hair can entangle a sword, but it's easily dispatched with a Weakness spell.  The Devlin is a small fire imp, that can't be killed with a weapon but can be extinguished with liquid.  There's a mysterious whirlwind woman in the courtyard who never gets a name, and exists mainly to harass the hero.  The hags have a snapperfish living in their broth (though it could have been summoned, or perhaps illusory); it's a lot more vicious than the average Earth snapper.  The wheelies are interesting from a whimsical perspective.  They're small wheel-shaped beings that cartwheel towards their foes while hurling knives, and while they're a lot of fun, they're not gone into in any great depth.  It's probably for the best, as they kind of defy explanation and logic.

There are a few of the monsters here that bear further exploration.  The first of these are the Miks, who are said to be able to transform into anyone, or anything, they wish.  They're also said to be masters of illusion, but given that one can poison the hero to death while in the form of a snake, the transformation ability seems more likely.  As such, they never appear in their true forms, though they are described in a book as being "thin and elf-like".  The same book also says that their favourite weapon is a needleknife, that they can't use metal in their disguises, and that they can't cast illusions over objects other than themselves, but none of these things become relevant when the hero meets the Miks.  The only other thing that we really learn about them is that they have a lust for gold.

The Calacorm guards the Black Tower's prison.  It's a large, two-headed snake man with grey skin, and is said to be fairly contented as long as it has a comfortable life with plenty of dead snakes to eat.  They don't even seem to care much for gold.  They take great delight in the screams of torture, and are deathly afraid of mice.  It's not a lot, but there's more going on here than with the average orc or goblin.

The Scouts are seemingly the only friendly people living inside the citadel.  They appear as small humanoids, and panic at the prospect of danger, though they have a number of magical powers.  They can summon a gale-force wind, and possess at least one piece of cube-shaped bread that can fully heal whoever eats it.  They also have an amulet that will protect the wearer from the Ganjees, and are quite reluctant to part with it, although they are "obliged by their gods" to help.  Most puzzling of all is their seeming fondness for Balthus Dire.  Even though the scouts are obviously good, they grow hostile if the hero talks about defeating Dire.  It's an odd moment, but it does serve to humanise Dire just a little; even the vilest sorcerer must have his good days, I suppose.

Finally, there are the mysterious Ganjees.  They are spoken of ominously throughout the book, and seem to be malevolent spirits that drain their victims of magic.  They are said to haunt the citadel by night, and oddly to eat their supper in the great hall, which doesn't quite match up with the rest of their portrayal.  The Ganjees are never really explained; even if you try to look them up in the citadel library you'll find that their page has been torn out of the relevant book.  But if there's one thing that people who have played this book remember, it's the Ganjees.  Not only because of the nightmarish illustration, but because that's where the reader will probably die the most, over and over again.

Next
The next installment will be an examination of The Forest of Doom, which pulls back on the unique monsters, but goes full force in establishing the building blocks of Allansia and Titan.  It's time for some Ian Livingstone world-building, folks.  Bring a very large backpack.

Exploring Titan 1: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

As I've now covered the "original trilogy" of the Fighting Fantasy series (i.e. all the ones before sci-fi comes along to ruin things) I thought it would be a good idea to detail just what these first three gamebooks introduced in terms of the Fighting Fantasy setting of Titan.  Titan is, let's be charitable here, a pastiche world cobbled together from bits of mythology and heaping gobs of Tolkien by way of Dungeons & Dragons.  It's not the most original setting out there, but it's also exactly the kind of setting I love: the kind that happens by accident.

There's something wonderfully organic about settings that just happen when a bunch of creators tell some stories, then cobble the details together after the fact.  I like the inconsistencies, the bits that don't match up, the stubborn details that refuse to make sense with everything else.  In some ways, settings that came about like this feel more real to me than those with a singular creative voice.  Titan is one of these, made from bits and pieces and unrelated adventures, from throwaway monsters and unnecessary background details.  It never quite coheres, and that's part of what makes it work.  The real world doesn't make much sense to me either.

With that in mind, I want to go through the first three books and see what they contributed to the development of Titan.  This week I'll tackle The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and next week I'll try to cover Citadel of Chaos.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

I begin, of course, with the ur-text, the book that launched the series and introduced us to Titan.  It should be noted that, at this point, and indeed throughout the first three books, the world is never named.  There is no mention of Titan, or even of Allansia, the continent upon which they take place (the best continent, y'all, Khul and the Old World can eat it).  All of that stuff comes in later.  For now, we are in a generic medieval fantasy world with no name, no map and no back-story that doesn't immediately relate to the adventure at hand.

The titular mountain is introduced, complete with red vegetation up top and monster-filled tunnels beneath. There's a village some two days' walk away, and very little else revealed about the world at large. The back-story of the mountain is minimal: there's a Warlock inside who has a load of treasure, and he has placed tricks and traps throughout his domain. Oh, and the keys to his treasure chest are scattered throughout the mountain.  Where did the treasure come from?  Why are they keys all scattered?  Why do they all have numbers engraved on them?  These are all mysteries, and this book answers none of them.  I could have sworn that it was mentioned somewhere in this book that the treasure and the mountain once belonged to dwarves, but I found nothing.  The dwarves are there, but the back-story isn't.

There are a number of lovely details that give the mountain life, though.  The river and the boathouse in particular give it at least the semblance of a functional society. There's a lovely tidbit dropped by the boatmaster, about how the river swelled up after a heavy spring thaw some years ago.  Supplies were cut off to the guards beyond the river, and they all starved, but the Warlock cursed the area to fill it with undead, so that his lair would still be guarded.  It goes a long way to explaining the abrupt change in tone that occurs once you cross the river.

Something called 'The Long Dark Night' is also mentioned by the guy who runs the candle shop, and it's properly cryptic.  It's not detailed at all beyond an ominous mention, and the fact that afterwards the price of candle-wax shot up.  Just north of the candle shop is a room full of scary magical darkness, and I've always thought of that room as the last remnant of 'The Long Dark Night', contained by the Warlock's magic into one small chamber.  But that's just speculation on my part, and nothing that's stated in the book.

Speaking of the Warlock, he's very much a cipher here. Rumours of his power abound, most of them false, though he does seem to have an over-reliance on a magical deck of cards (something that makes very little sense with the background he will later receive).  He gets a name, Zagor, and the implication of a family in the form of some portraits.  He also gets a major weakness, in the form of gem called the Eye of the Cyclops.  The nature of this is not yet explained, nor is it explained why he has it in his lair, set into the eye-socket of a living statue.  It's all left a mystery, one of many that makes me love the book so much.

The rest of the setting details are mere tidbits.  The dead warrior with his crucifix and magic sword, who had his head caved in by zombies. (And what about that crucifix, specifically named as such?  What does that say about religion in the Fighting Fantasy World?)  The vial of holy water, blessed by the Overpriest of Kaynlesh-Ma, whoever he may be.  The spell-book of Farrigo Dimaggio, which gives the reader the power to repel dragonfire, hidden in the depths of Firetop Mountain to stop it falling into the wrong hands. (Seriously?  Hiding it in the lair of the series' premiere evil wizard?)  The card-playing dwarves.  The digging ghosts.  The Giver of Sleep.  All of these details are presented with no wider context than their immediate surroundings, and the reader is left to puzzle them out on his own.  As I've said before, it's these sorts of extraneous details that make the Fighting Fantasy world come to life for me.

Before I finish, it would be remiss of me not to mention the monsters.  Nothing does quite so much to reinforce the D&D-pastiche nature of the world than the monsters.  It's as generic an array as you'll ever see: orcs and goblins, ogres and trolls, giants, spiders, rats and bats, giant worms, wererats and werewolves, zombies and skeletons, vampires, ghouls, wights, a minotaur and a dragon, and probably a whole bunch I'm forgetting.  It's high fantasy cliche at its finest, but it does a lot to establish a baseline for later authors to build on.  Probably the most startling inclusions are the crocodile and piranhas that inhabit the river.  The crocodile I can live with.  The piranhas are really stretching that pseudo-medieval vibe.  The giant sandworm is probably the only monster in here that isn't ripped straight from D&D, although D&D certainly has similar monsters.

Overall, there's not much to go on here.  Jackson and Livingstone weren't trying to create a world, they were simply crafting the setting for an adventure.  The world-building will come later, and certainly the next two books are given much more context in terms of the wider world than this one is.  I'll be back next week to dissect Citadel of Chaos, and see just how it fits into the development of Titan.

The Forest of Doom: Final Thoughts

If there is one word that I would use to describe The Forest of Doom, it might very well be "comforting".  That's probably not what Ian Livingstone had in mind when he wrote the thing, but there's just something about this book that puts me at ease.  Perhaps it's the rules; I do love a Fighting Fantasy gamebook that just goes with the basics.  It could be the multiple chances to succeed that it gives the reader; this book stands alone in that it allows you to go back to the start if you fail to find Gillibran's hammer.  It could even be the difficulty level, which is pitched in such a way that any character with any stats could complete it.  Most probably, it's a combination of all of the above.

This is Ian Livingstone's first solo effort as a gamebook writer, and it shows.  I hate to say it, but he's just not the designer that his partner Steve Jackson is, and whereas Jackson's initial outing provided a classic in The Citadel of Chaos, Livingstone's first gamebook is merely decent.

The setting is novel, at least in theory.  This is the first time that a Fighting Fantasy has ventured out of doors, but in practice what that amounts to is a dungeon with lots of trees and grass instead of tunnels.  It's probably more pleasant than Firetop Mountain, but it's not as intriguing.  That said, the forest setting does make more sense.  The Forest of Doom suffers from the same problem as Warlock of Firetop Mountain did: very few of the encounters are connected, and the whole journey through the forest feels like a string of wandering monsters.  In a forest, though, it's a bit more plausible that you'd encounter a wide variety of nasties.

The encounters in the forest are quite good, though.  Yes, there are the obligatory Livingstone moments of "a monster jumps out, now fight it!" but there are enough genuinely interesting scenarios to make up for it.  The fire demon and his mushroom garden, the gremlins and their strange obsession with clay hands; both are examples of Livingstone at his best.

I also want to praise Livingstone here for keeping his bloodthirstiness in check.  Anyone who has played his later books can attest to the fact that he's a sadistic bugger who delights in crafting frustratingly impossible gamebooks, but this is a younger, kinder, gentler Ian.  None of the fights are too difficult.  You can take any number of different paths to victory.  You only need a couple of items to succeed.  As I've already mentioned, you can even loop back to the start if you don't find the hammer.  Yes, it creates continuity problems when you encounter the same monsters again, but at least the thought was there.  It's nice sometimes, after a long hard day of Crypt of the Sorcerer, to come back to this book and remember the times when Ian Livingstone was a very nice man.

Malcolm Barter, on the other hand, I don't have such warm feelings towards.  Some of his illustrations are genuinely great - I love the Fire Demon, for instance - but there are a few that weird me out.  There are a lot of shirtless men in this book, and they all have the same odd, lumpy quality to their musculature.  His werewolf has a too-human look, and I've always been uncomfortable with that Catwoman illustration.

Still, for all that I've disparaged it, I really love The Forest of Doom.  A lot of that is nostalgia; it is the first gamebook I ever legitimately finished, after all. But more than that, it's a solid gamebook with just about the right difficulty level, a good variety of encounters, and no complications.  It's just a simple, straightforward adventure that's fun to play through despite its flaws, and I wish the series had more of those.

Addendum - S.T.A.M.I.N.A. Rating

Story & Setting: Darkwood Forest is iconic in Fighting Fantasy lore, but it never quite feels like the dark, deadly place that the book initially describes. It has a lot of fun encounters, but few of them feel connected. As for the story, it's oddly low-key: the Hammer of Gillibran is important to the dwarves, but the hero doesn't have a lot of stake in it.  At least it's not another evil wizard, I suppose. Rating: 4 out of 7.

Toughness: This book is pitched at just about the right difficulty level. You don't need high stats to finish it, and the ability to loop back to the start means that you won't be doomed by choosing the wrong path at an intersection. Rating: 5 out of 7.

Aesthetics: The writing is evocative enough, even though Darkwood Forest isn't as fearsome as the introduction leads you to believe.  Malcolm Barter's art is strange, and his characters have an oddly lumpy quality to their musculature that grosses me out. I have to bump it back up for that Iain McCaig cover though. Rating: 4 out of 7.

Mechanics: This is as basic as it gets for FF, and that's fine by me.  There's nothing new or clever going on here, but the fundamentals of the system are done really well.  Rating: 4 out of 7.

Innovation & Influence: As far as innovation goes, the only things that Forest of Doom provides over The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is the wilderness setting and the ability to loop back to the beginning. It's also the start of a story branch that runs through (at least) books 9, 14 and 26. Does it count if Livingstone influences himself?  Rating: 4 out of 7.

NPCs & Monsters: The monsters here are mostly D&D staples, and most of the NPCs are fairly unmemorable.  Yaztromo is a big one though, and even though he's your fairly stereotypical crotchety wizard he does stand out.  Rating: 4 out of 7.

Amusement: It could be the nostalgia talking, but I do enjoy this book quite a bit. Not having to worry about finding the critical path makes it a pleasant, relaxing read, but that also means that it doesn't scratch the itch if I'm looking for a challenge. Rating: 4 out of 7.

I'm going to give Forest of Doom the bonus point, just because I love it so.  The above totals add up to 30, which doubled gives a S.T.A.M.I.N.A. Rating of 60.  It's in the enjoyable but unremarkable range.

The Forest of Doom - Attempt 1, Part 2

My last installment ended with the discovery of the first half of the Hammer of Gillibran, a handle inscribed with the letter 'G'.  Now I was left standing in the cave of a dead ogre, pondering my next move, agonising over what direction my quest would take next.  Not too much agonising, though; I was an adventurer after all.  What else was there for an adventurer to do but loot the cave?

The cave was not exactly a treasure trove, but it did contain a silver box that I could not resist opening.  Having already found one useful item in the cave, I should have known better, because the box was filled with poison gas.  Luckily, I came prepared, and was able to avoid harm by slipping in my magical Nose Filters, purchased earlier from the wizard Yaztromo.  So far, that guy is earning his keep.  The box was empty, but I kept it anyway because, you know, silver.  I do wonder why that Ogre had poison gas in a box, though.  I'd like a reason other than "Ian Livingstone put it there to kill nosy adventurers".

I left the cave and walked further north, only to catch my foot in a noose and be left dangling from a tree.  A successful Luck test meant that my sword remained in its scabbard, and I was able to cut myself down.  It should be noted that at this point my character contemplates waiting around for the trapper to arrive, presumably planning to murder the fellow.  Chilling.

Further north, I found a knotted vine hanging from a tree, and climbed up.  Who wouldn't?  It led to a wooden platform that was home to an APE-MAN, who attacked me with a daintily-clutched femur.

Despite my increased Skill (from a potion I drank earlier), and the Ape-Man's questionable bone-gripping technique, he managed to hit me a couple of times before I killed him.  I had a penalty to my Attack Strength due to fighting in a tree, while the Ape-Man was right at home, funnily enough.  It didn't do him a great deal of good, though, because soon I was looting his corpse.   He was wearing a copper bracelet that I snapped on, and it turned out to be a Bracelet of Skill which gave me a +1 bonus to Attack Strength.  Man, there are a lot of combat bonuses in this gamebook.  There's bound to be a tough boss battle at the end, right?

Still further north I came to a four-way junction, and headed west, then north at a T-junction.  Then west at another junction.  (Gripping stuff.)  The sound of barking dogs could be heard ahead, but I decided not to hide as they drew nearer.  I was met by a masked rider and his hunting pack.

I'm pretty sure that his horse is not breathing fire.  Despite being an adventurer, and also despite the gold rings he was wearing on every finger, I refrained from attacking him and entered into peaceable conversation.  The rider was on the trail of a wild boar, but I couldn't help him.  Even so he gave me some belladonna before galloping away.  What a great guy.  I'm glad I didn't cut his hand off and steal his rings.

I turned west at the next crossroads, and found a mud hut that was home to some sort of mutated freak.

This was Quin, who was just sitting around flexing his abnormal musculature. Transfixed by his horrid beauty, I went inside the hut, whereupon he challenged me to an arm-wrestling match.  How could I refuse him?

I came to the conclusion that Quin's physique could only have been reached through some sort of vile magical experiment, so I decided to use my Armband of Strength to even the odds.  It did the trick, and the defeated Quin gifted me with some Dust of Levitation.  I left him slumped at the table with a suicidal expression on his face, and journeyed back into the forest.

Back at the last junction I turned north I came to a waterfall that tumbled noisily down into a river.  There was a boat tied to a post nearby, and also a set of stone steps leading down behind the falls.  I took the steps, and was soon in the lair of a hostile FISH MAN.

Alas, the Fish Man had no valuables, but he also wasn't able to hit me in combat, so it all evened out.  I climbed out to the north side of the river and made camp as the sun set.

Just as The Warlock of Firetop Mountain had Chekhov's Sharpened Stick, The Forest of Doom had provided me with Chekhov's Belladonna.  Spurred on by this narrative law, a WEREWOLF awakened me from my sleep and attacked.  I dispatched it without taking any damage, though, so Chekhov's Belladonna remained on the metaphorical mantelpiece.

The next morning I set off again, heading north at another junction.  Delusions of invincibility must have been distracting me, though, because I walked right into a pit trap.  A successful Luck test meant that I avoided being impaled on a pointy stick, but I was still trapped at the bottom.  Or I would have been, were it not for my Boots of Leaping.  With a single bound I was free of the pit, and on my way.

Further down the path I found a sword stuck into a large rock.  Unable to resist such temptations, I pulled on the hilt, and with a successful Skill test yanked it free.  (With my Skill score of 12, there was no way for me to fail.)  The sword was enchanted, granting me a +2 bonus to my Skill score.

(At this point I want to digress into a discussion of The Rules.  Sometimes when you find a magical weapon it grants a bonus to your Attack Strength.  This is all fine, and presents no problem with the rules as written.  Sometimes, however, such a weapon will grant a bonus to your Skill score.  By the rules, though, your Skill score can't be raised above its initial level unless the text specifically says so.  By the rules, the sword that I just picked up would grant me no advantage at all, which doesn't make much sense.  That said, I didn't apply the bonus.  I tend to stick with the rules by following the text as closely as possible.  Besides, I was quite powerful enough.)

At the next junction I turned east, then north.  Just off the path was a pool of bubbling mud, which I decided to apply to my wounds.  This is the sort of thing that counts as medicine in Ye Olden Days, and sure enough it healed me back to full health.  Just in time to be randomly attacked by a PTERODACTYL, all flapping around and breaking verisimilitude.  The standard fantasy potpourri of mythological beasts never really bothers me, but there's something about dinosaurs that just feels wrong.  It might be the names.  Anyway, I took my frustration out on the poor bugger, and while examining its corpse I spotted an arrow painted on the ground.  My curiosity piqued, I followed the arrow to an old tree trunk with a dark hole leading downwards.

Dark holes are always promising to an adventurer, because that's where all the good treasure is.  Despite my lack of a light source, I quickly used my magic Rope of Climbing to make my way down.

At the bottom was a cavern filled with multi-coloured mushrooms, being tended to by a bunch of small, pale-skinned humanoids: CLONES!  The clones weren't attacking me, and I didn't want to attack them.  I also didn't want to mess with the mushrooms; as a rule, I don't fool around with mushrooms.  Unfortunately, the only options I had involved doing one or the other.  I figured that, being a combat monster, I'd have more chance against the clones than the mushrooms, so I rushed to the attack.

The fellow I attacked put up no resistance as I struck his head from his shoulders.  I like that touch of character; my warrior didn't try to stab him through the chest, or go for the efficient kill.  He went right for a decapitation.  There's a certain flair to it.  Anyway, the headless clone dissolved and turned into a purple mushroom that turned to face me.  That was my cue to get out of there, because, as I've said, I don't fool around with mushrooms.  I fled towards a patch of green mushrooms, then left the cavern by a flight of steps.

Halfway up the steps was a chest and a barrel.  Without even bothering to check if the chest was open, I blew it apart with my sword, and claimed the 8 gold pieces inside.  In the barrel I found a shield, described as an emperor's shield forged long ago by a master armourer.  I decided to take it with me; now, whenever I was wounded I could roll a dice, and on a 4, 5 or 6 the shield would protect me from 1 point of damage.

Further up the steps was an alcove, with the sound of shuffling feet coming from within.  The only things with shuffling feet are zombies or song-and-dance men, and neither of those are good, so I kept on up the stairs.  What I found there wasn't exactly pleasant either.

A FIRE DEMON!  I had to fight it to escape from the cavern, and for most adventurers it would have been tough.  Not only did it have a Skill and Stamina of 10, but in every round it had a chance of hitting me with its fiery whip.  Unfortunately for the poor Fire Demon, my Bracelet of Skill gave me an effective Skill of 13, and I made short work of him.  His whip almost got me on one round, but I was able to deflect it with my shield, and finish the battle unscathed.

Behind the Fire Demon was a throne, and next to his corpse was a crown.  A couple of clones were bowing to me.  I had the option of sitting on the throne, or wearing the crown, but there was no way.  I know an instant death scenario when I see one.  I hightailed it out of the cavern, and back to the surface.

I followed a path north, turned west at a junction, then turned north again, and continued until I spotted a stone building covered with ivy.  The building had no windows, and the door was stone as well.  With no key I thought I'd have to leave the place unexplored, but luckily I was able to charge the door down.  (I needed to roll under both my Skill and Luck with two dice.  My Skill was 12, which was no problem, but my Luck of 7 was a worry, so I drank my Potion of Fortune to raise it to 8.  I rolled a 7, so I would have succeeded anyway, but it was best to be safe.)

Inside the building, stone steps led downwards.  I followed them down into a crypt.

Lighting a candle I found in an alcove, I investigated the room.  The skeleton of a goblin or an orc lay in the corner; I was all prepared for it to try to kill me, but it seemed that Ian was resisting the cliche for now.  There was also a sarcophagus, which I decided to open.  The slab on top was too heavy to budge, but with the Dust of Levitation that I had won from Quin I was able to look inside, and... SWERVE!  I'd been worried about the skeleton outside, but inside the sarcophagus was a GHOUL!

Luckily I had a vial of holy water, which I splashed all over it.  The ghoul retreated into a corner of the room, leaving me free to loot its coffin.  To my delight, I found 25 gold pieces, and a bronze hammer head inscribed with the letter G.  Gillibran's hammer was complete!  Now all I had to do was get out of the forest, and my quest would be over.

I followed the path north, then east, then north again.  I stopped when I saw the lair of some creature, and something glittering within.  My quest was complete, and no doubt the dwarves would reward me handsomely, but...  Shiny object!  I had to have it!  I bent down to pick it up...

A WYVERN popped out of its cave to shoot fire at me!  I was lucky, though, and it missed.  Then, some strange premonition came over me.  I felt oddly compelled to pull out the flute that I had looted from a hobgoblin earlier, and start playing it, even though there was no logical reason that I should have done so.  Despite the seeming madness of this act, it turned out that the flute was magical, and it put the wyvern to sleep.

It's lair proved to be something of a jackpot: a gauntlet, a throwing knife, 10 gold pieces and a gold ring.  I tried on the gauntlet, and was pleased to discover that it was a Gauntlet of Weaponskill, which would give me yet another +1 to my Attack Strength.  Not all that useful so close to the conclusion of my quest, but handy nonetheless.  Then I got cocky, and put on the ring.  It was cursed, a Ring of Slowness that would subtract two from my Attack Strength.  I was effectively back to my starting level, my meager Skill of 12.  However would I cope?  (At this stage of the series, I can afford to be glib about a loss like this.  It won't be long before this sort of thing will be a sure-fire death sentence.)

Cursed back to being awesome instead of super-awesome, I continued north, and was soon ambushed by five scruffy yet oddly polite bandits.  They demanded five objects to let me pass, and I was honestly too tired to be bothered fighting them.  I gifted them with a kingly treaasure: some garlic buds, two maggot-ridden biscuits, a necklace of mouse skulls, and a throwing knife.  Enjoy.

With that, I was out of Darkwood Forest, and in the village of Stonebridge.  The dwarves seemed quite suspicious of me when I asked to see Gillibran.  One of them even asked about my wounds, which was pretty weird, because I could have sworn I didn't have any.  Gillibran was looking miserable, but he perked up considerably when I gave him the hammer.  Now his people would be able to fight the Trolls, though why they couldn't do this without the hammer is never really explained.

As I'd hoped, Gillibran gave me a hefty reward: a rad winged helmet worth hundreds of gold pieces, and a box full of jewels.  I was now wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, and one gamebook closer to competing my goal.

The Forest of Doom - Attempt 1, Part 1

 The Forest of Doom, written by Ian Livingstone and illustrated by Malcolm Barter, is the third book in the Fighting Fantasy series, and something of a return to the basics.  The magic system introduced in book two is no longer in evidence, and once more the protagonist is a roaming warrior with nothing more to his name than a sword, leather armour and a backpack.  This suits me; there's less effort involved in creating my character, and no new rules to trip me up.  I do like a good, bare-bones Fighting Fantasy.

My character began the game with a Skill score of 12, a Stamina of 19 and a Luck of 8. He's a down-on-his-luck killing machine, basically.  I was relieved to see that I would begin the game with ten provisions, each one worth 4 points of healing. I also could choose one potion that could restore one of my stats to its initial level; I chose the Potion of Fortune, partly because Luck is my lowest score, and partly for that sweet boost to my initial score that only this potion provides.

The background of this adventure is a departure from the two previous books; there's not an evil wizard to be killed.  Instead, I have to venture deep into Darkwood Forest and find the hammer of the Dwarf King Gillibran, so that he can lead his people to war against the trolls. All of this was told to me by a dying dwarf named Bigleg (and no, I seriously don't want to know where a Dwarf gets that name), who stumbled into my camp with a belly full of arrows.  Bigleg stayed alive just long enough to provide the requisite amount of exposition, and also to hand me a map and a bag of 30 gold pieces.  He also told me to visit the wizard Yaztromo before I enter Darkwood, and thus my quest began.

At this point, I've just got to reiterate something that a number of other gamebook bloggers have pointed out: the protagonist of this book is a blatant sociopath.  Read about it here, it's very funny, and completely accurate.

Bigleg's map kind of sucks, but nevertheless I followed it to Yaztromo's tower at the southern edge of Darkwood Forest. The grumpy wizard conformed to all of the usual beard-and-staff cliches, and seemed none-too-pleased at my visit.  But when I informed him that I wanted to buy some magical items he invited me upstairs. I had the option here to draw my sword and attack him, and being a proper sociopath I did so.  Yaztromo very calmly told me to back off, so I meekly sheathed my sword and followed him upstairs.  I just wanted to flex my muscles, you know, let him know who's in charge around here.  I think he got the message.

Once inside his Ever-So-Wizardy Tower, we got down to the proper business of buying magical items. Ancient relics of power and mystery? None of that here! Just good old capitalism at work. I forked over 27 gold pieces and walked away with an Armband of Strength, Gloves of Missile Dexterity, Boots of Leaping, a Rope of Climbing, Garlic Buds, Nose Filters, and Fire Capsules. All of these items are good for one use (a very specific and singular use, I am certain) and they pretty much do what it says on the tin. Yaztromo also gave me a little background on Gillibran's Hammer, which amounted to "Some goblins unscrewed the handle and each took half of the hammer." Good to know, but not actually helpful in any concrete sense.  And can you really unscrew the head of a warhammer?  I know zip about forging hammers, but it doesn't seem likely.  Especially so for a mythical hammer wielded by a dwarf king.

With all transactions sorted I left Yaztromo and ventured into Darkwood Forest. And lest I begin to think that the forest might present me with a new and different kind of adventure, I came upon that most ubiquitous of Fighting Fantasy features, a T-junction. With the entire fate of my quest possibly hinging on this decision, I went east.

I quickly came to another junction, where a crow was perched atop a signpost. A talking crow, naturally, the kind who offers advice for gold. I forked over a coin and  received the sage wisdom "go north". Then I found out that he was really a man who had been turned into a bird by Yaztromo, and he needed 30 gold pieces before the wizard would turn him back. Sorry pal, if you'd met me a few entries ago I could've helped you.

Following the man/crow's advice (because what else did I have to go on?) I went north, and soon heard footsteps and voices. I opted to stand fast, and encountered these fine fellows.

What a friendly smile! Unfortunately I must have been radiating sociopathic vibes, because the Hobgoblins attacked me. It was a short and bloody affair, leaving me unscathed and in top looting form. And what a haul! 3 gold pieces, a brass flute, two maggot-ridden biscuits and a necklace of skulls. Into my clutches they go!

Further down the trail I saw a slimy hole (oo-er!) and could not resist entering it. Inside the hole was a five-metre worm (I repeat, oo-er), that I proceeded to engage in deadly combat.

The stingworm actually hit me a couple of times before I killed it, but it was totally worth it for the 4 gold pieces I found, and the mysterious vial of liquid. I quaffed it (because adventurers never drink when they can quaff) and discovered that it was a Potion of Weapon Skill, effectively giving me a Skill of 13 for the next two battles. Bad. Ass.

What was this further down the path? A cave? Of course I entered, and was startled by this sordid scene.

It was an Ogre, with a goblin in a cage for reasons that are best left unexplored. Not wishing to waste my newfound Weapon Skill unnecessarily, I decided to bung a rock at the ogre with the aid of my Glove of Missile Dexterity. One concussed Ogre later I was standing in front of the cage and opening the door, arms outstretched to receive the goblin's grateful hugs, with absolutely no thoughts of murdering him for the shiny black rod hanging around his neck. (Honestly, if I really wanted to murder him I would have poked my sword through the bars of the cage.)

Of course the little bastard had a go at me, and I was forced to Weapon Skill him to death most adroitly. And lo and behold, the black rod turned out to be the handle of a warhammer, complete with screw-thread and inscribed with the letter 'G'. Did it stand for Goblin?  Gimp? Or possibly... Gillibran?

Yes, I had found the first part of Gillibran's hammer, and it was dead easy.  The rest of this mission was going to be a walk in the park