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.