The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (revised) - Final Thoughts & Exploring Titan 7

FINAL THOUGHTS

There's not a lot to say here that I didn't already cover in my entry for the book version of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.  Given that the revised version is mostly identical, pretty much everything I said still applies.  It's a fun, iconic adventure that perhaps makes little sense but compensates for that with atmosphere and mystery (and perhaps a bit of nostalgia).

The idea of revising Warlock is a good one.  I doubt many buyers of the magazine hadn't already read the book, so changing a few details and mixing the keys around to create a different path to victory is a good way of giving them their money's worth.  I can't help feeling, though, that not enough was changed.  Aside from switching the keys, Ian and Steve have left the adventure much the same as it was.  Initially it was fun, as I enjoyed the uncertainty of no longer knowing the exact path to victory.  Once I found the path I was a little disappointed though, as one of they keys was in exactly the same location as the book, and another was very easy to find.  I suppose I was hoping that there would be more variance.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VERSIONS
The differences between the book and magazine versions are mostly in the locations of the keys.  In the book, the keys are located as follows:

    Key 99 - In the snake box
    Key 111 - Inside the Iron Cyclops
    Key 9 - Carried by the Ogre
    Key 125 - In the room with the gas trap
    Key 66 - In a drawer in the Boat House
    Key 111 - Guarded by the Minotaur

In the magazine, they are switched around as follows:

    Key 125 - In the Orc Chieftain's chest
    Key 111 - Guarded by the Werewolf
    Key 111 - Guarded by the Minotaur   
    Key 66 - In the room with the gas trap
    Key 99 - Inside the Iron Cyclops
    Key 9 - Carried by the Giant

This switching of locations means that some places which once had keys now have different treasures.  The snake box now contains 6 gold pieces instead of a key.  The Ogre now has 3 gold pieces.  And best of all, the drawer in the Boat House now contains a silver dart, which can be hurled at enemies before battle begins.  It's also useful in battling the Wight.

There's one other difference that switching the keys around brings: you can't win the adventure with the Eye of the Cyclops.  In the book you never have to fight the Warlock on a successful play-through, because you'll always have the Eye and can blast him into oblivion.  Here you have to battle him, and consequently the book is slightly more challenging, and less of an anticlimax.

COOL STUFF I MISSED
It's difficult to think of cool things I've missed while playing this adventure, because I've literally played through every paragraph of the book.  (I do mean literally; I spent a few weeks circa 2000 playing the book over and over again until I had legitimately covered every single entry.)

I guess I've missed some things for the blog though, in my coverage of this and the book version.  The major path I never covered is one that goes through a room of magical darkness, which you need a blue candle to get through safely.  This path also contains a magical iron helmet, and an enchanted sword by the riverbed.  Oh, and a giant spider.  It's too bad that in neither version can you take this path and still win.

MISTAKES AND RED HERRINGS
There are quite a few items in this book that serve no purpose.  The black silk glove, the Y-shaped sticks, and the book from the vampire's coffin spring immediately to mind.  The glove ties into a rumour about Zagor's power, albeit a false one, and I guess it comes in handy as an item you can discard in order to pick up the shield.  The sticks and the book do nothing except take up room in your backpack.  Like the shield, you need to discard an item to pick them up, so perhaps the purpose they serve is to tempt you into dropping something that's actually useful.

There's one entry of this adventure that can't be accessed from anywhere: 192.  It's supposed to be one of the entries you go to by adding up the numbers on your keys when unlocking the Warlock's treasure chest, but there's no combination of keys that adds up to this number.  No doubt it was added in there to bump the number of entries to 400.

Speaking of key combinations, all of the possibilities are accounted for even though you can never get to the end with every key.  There are three keys that you can always find: the one in the Orc Chieftain's chest, the one guarded by the Werewolf, and the one guarded by the Minotaur.  As for the other three, you can only get one on any adventure.  The Iron Cyclops, the Giant and the room with the gas trap are all on mutually exclusive paths, which means that you can finish with four keys at most.  As such, entries 174, 186, 200, 219, 233 and 290 can't be reached legitimately.

BEST DEATH
I've already covered my genuine favourite in my entry for the book: being eaten alive by the Ghoul.  None of the other deaths quite match up, but for this entry I'll provide a solid alternative.

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

I was tempted not to give this a STAMINA rating, as it's so similar to the book, but what the hell.  Here it is for the sake of completeness.

Story & Setting: Looking at the book version, I see that I gave it a rating of 5.  That is super high, and I really don't know what I was thinking.  I was going to rate this a point higher, because the Background section is a genuine improvement that ties Firetop Mountain much more directly into the FF setting.  But I can't in honesty give this a 6.  So I'm giving it the same score, and I still think it's too high.  Rating: 5 out of 7.

Toughness: It's the same well-balanced adventure as before, and garners the same score.  Rating: 5 out of 7.

Aesthetics: The writing is the same, and most of the illustration have that same Russ Nicholson goodness.  Many of the illustrations are smaller, though, and much of the detail is lost.  Nicholson provides two new illustrations, but they're in a different style.  Some time after The Citadel of Chaos Nicholson started using thicker lines, and his work looks busier and more cluttered.  I've never liked it as much as the delicate linework of Warlock and Citadel of Chaos.  Throw in the ugly frontispiece illustrations from Tim Sell (that have little relevance to the adventure at all) and I have to knock this down a few points.  Rating: 4 out of 7.

Mechanics: There's no significant difference between the book and the magazine versions.  Rating: 5 out of 7.

Innovation & Influence: Given that this is revising the original, I can't mark it as highly.  It's hard to know just how to rate this one to be honest, so I'm going to split it down the  middle.  Rating: 4 out of 7.

NPCs & Monsters: Again, this is little different from the book. The villagers in the introduction are a little more fleshed out, but not enough to affect the rating.  Rating: 5 out of 7.

Amusement: I gave the book the full rating in this category, but if I'm being perfectly honest I enjoyed this version more because it's new to me.  I can't rate this higher than a 7, though, and it doesn't feel right to rate it equally to the book. It's enjoyable, but I can't see myself going back to it any time soon. Rating: 5 out of 7.

No bonus point for this, as it's not different enough to warrant it.  The above scores add up to 33, which doubled gives a STAMINA Rating of 66. It's a strong variant, but it can't match the influence and iconic power of the original.

EXPLORING TITAN 7

This is going to be a short one, because most of this adventure has been covered in Exploring Titan 1.  The details are mostly the same as the book version, and I've covered them already.

What is different, and greatly so, is the Background.  In the book version, the adventurer follows some rumours to a generic village, stays there for a short time, then ventures off to Firetop Mountain.  It's serviceable, but that's about it.

Now, with the setting of Allansia firmly established, Ian & Steve can rewrite this so that it fits better.  It begins with you meeting an old man while wandering the Pagan Plains.  The old man tells you that his village's crops are failing, and blames it on the evil Warlock who lives in nearby Firetop Mountain, which looms over the Moonstone Hills.  The villagers sent their bravest men to face the Warlock, but only one returned, and he was a shadow of his former self.  Not only does this tie the book into Allansia better, but it also gives the hero more motivation than simple treasure hunting.  In the book, the Warlock is just minding his own business until the hero breaks into his house and tries to murder him.  In this, he's a little more explicitly sinister, and whatever it is he's doing in Firetop Mountain is having an adverse effect on the nearby village.

The village is named explicitly as Anvil, which solves a mystery that's been bugging me for decades.  I had always known Anvil from the map in Out of the Pit, but couldn't find which book it came from. I suspected that it was supposed to be the village from Warlock, but I had also gotten the idea that it was populated by Dwarves (from the name, I suspect).  Nope, it's populated by human farmers, and it is indeed confirmed here to be the village near Firetop Mountain.  At least I was half right.

As for where this adventure fits in Fighting Fantasy "continuity" (such as it is) I have two ideas.  The first is that it's a parallel reality from, one where the keys are simply in a different place.  Of course the idea of there being any solid continuity for Fighting Fantasy is absurd given the nature of the adventures.  But if there is one, then alternate/parallel realities must be a given.  Everyone's experience of the books is different, and every play-through is unique, so there must be thousands or perhaps millions of subjective realities in the FF multiverse.

That said, I prefer something that at least ties the magazine to the book.  Rather than the book and magazine realities running in parallel, I prefer the idea that the magazine branches off from the book under specific circumstances.  In this case, the circumstances would be the Warlock killing the hero, then redistributing his keys in different places.  It's perhaps a bit laboured as an explanation, and it's absolutely unnecessary, but it's also the sort of thing obsessive nerds like me enjoy thinking about.

NEXT: I'm still mired in Warlock Magazine #2, as I'll be tackling the preview of Caverns of the Snow Witch.  Gah, I haven't done a main series Fighting Fantasy since November!