Curse of the Mummy playthrough

Written by Jonathan Green, artwork by Martin McKenna.

I guess that quite a few people want me to play this. I received two copies in the post, after all. One of which was from the author himself. This is always a nice thing, and I certainly could get used to it. I'd encourage other authors to maybe someday send me free copies of their books, so that I can read them and rate them on a score out of ten. I also accept bottles of wine as gifts, by the way.

I never actually played this adventure as a kid, mostly because mummy men are't really my type. No, really, it's a sore spot that definitely needs some bandaging. Nah, I'm not going to look a gift Horus in the mouth here... Okay, enough bad puns.

I had the chance to get this book in a shop when I was a kid, but chose Revenge of the Vampire instead, because at the time I didn't know that Revenge was as awful as it would be.

The only additional stat to take care of is poison. If it hits 18, you die. Simple enough. Must admit, by this point in the franchise we're all a bit tired of the more complicated, unnecessary additional stats, so a simple one like this is a breeze. We begin the adventure by washing up ashore from a shipwreck, which only goes to support my belief that undertaking ANY journey by water in one of these books is always, always doomed to horrible failure.

I find my way into a nearby merchant town and take a job as bodyguard to an archaeologist  who tells me that there is a particularly nasty old mummy in a tomb somewhere around. He intends to rob the tomb for all its worth, but a particularly nasty cult of villainous villains want to bring the mummy back to life, because they're gits like that.

No sooner have I taken the job, than a group of said cultists attack. Together we fight off the group, causing one to flee. I give chase, but he escapes when he sets a nearby giant black lion on me.Pausing for a moment to consider the health and safety ramifications of any merchant town that lets people carry around giant killer lions in easily-unlockable boxes that any villainous cultist could open and unleash on poor hapless adventurers.... Okay, done.

We head out into the desert, and make camp for the night, during which we are attacked by giant scorpions and the archaeologist is killed. This is the usual fate for any companions you make in Fighting Fantasy adventures. In some parts of Titan, they call you 'doombringer'.

Stumbling around in the desert, I find an old ruined amphitheater  where I meet a crazy old man who is convinced that he's an actor. He has a few items that he's willing to trade, no doubt for items that I could have picked up in the market earlier if I'd stuck around to do so, and no doubt very important key items for the plot. But without any, all I can do is wave him goodbye.

My next destination is to find an old shaman, purely because the archaeologist told me to check in with him. My path to him takes me through an old gorge, which the locals use to ambush travelers  Thankfully the actor warned me about this, so I'm able to avoid being attacked.

It isn't long before I find the shaman's hut, which is on top of a very nasty cliff. I attempt to climb said cliff, and only wind up in falling off the side of it, breaking a few ribs and bones along the way. Fortunately I survive, although I'm in some very bad shape.

I'm also slightly poisoned by this point, because I indulged in my habit of eating random plants I found lying on the ground. Oh well. I chew down on some provisions and decide to head onwards anyway, without any real clue which direction to travel in.

That night, I'm attacked by a nandibear, a creature I've not seen in quite a few FF books, and it manages to deal quite a bit of damage to me before I kill it. I find a cultist's ring in its cave, and shortly thereafter I find an explorer's journal in another cave, this time belonging to a giant lizard which I've also killed. Y'know, I really should have kept a list of how many things I've murdered during all of these books, it must number in the thousands by now.

Without anything to light a fire with, I'm forced to spend a night shivering for warmth, just like I'm needing to do in this new flat here in Leeds. Bleh. The next morning, however, I reach the valley of the kings. Heading right along into the ruins, I find a large map of the area carved onto an old wall. I expect that it will guide me to the mummy's treasure, or at very least, to the lost arc.

But without any way to decipher the map, I've no idea where to start looking for the entrance to the tomb. So my adventure ends here. I suspect I'd have fared better had I got a few items from the market, traded them with the actor, and actually managed to speak with the shaman, who I expect was meant to tell me how to use the map. That's just my guess, though. It's a fair ending, for a first playthrough.

I'd like to play this again, mostly because I really don't think I got very far. And partly because I think that I know what I'd need to do in order to succeed, which is something that a lot of the FF books tend to lack - a feeling that you can win if you play again and do this, this, and this differently.

The structure of this book is nicely different from the usual 'go kill the evil wizard' type, instead giving you more the feeling that you're exploring a new region of Titan with a new history to it. In short, it's a first-rate book, clear to see why it earned a wizard reprint, and I'd have much preferred it instead of Revenge of the Vampire.

As I'm sure people noticed, I didn't get a chance to upload a blog post last week. All I can say is that I'm very sorry. Sometimes I wish real life was less complicated. I'm currently in Leeds, where I will remain until the end of this month. Following which, I'm heading back to Portsmouth, where I will be seeking new employment. I have decided that this relocation simply isn't working out and, although Leeds is a nice enough city, it'll never truly be a 'home' to me. But because of this, upcoming playthroughs may be more sporadic than I'd hope. Please accept my apologies for this.

Anyway, the hardest part of the collecting is now behind me. With the help of many of my readers, I've been able to pick up almost the entire series, with only ten or so still outstanding. Look forward to those in the next few months. I'll see you then, folks!

Legend of Zagor playthrough

Written by Ian Livingstone, artwork by Martin McKenna

Here's an interesting question. Which was designed first - the Legend of Zagor book, or the board game?

You see, I genuinely can't tell. I've spoke about the board game before, but now I'm getting my teeth into the book. This book always stuck out as different in the later stages of the Fighting Fantasy series, and I think a lot of it comes down to being vaguely cross-platform. I suspect that at this stage in development, it was already decided to create a board game, so the decision was made to attempt to replicate it as a book. But that's just a guess, I've no evidence to support it.

But I can explain why I think that. You see, this book features four selectable characters. You've got Anvar the Barbarian, Braxus the Warrior, Stubble the Dwarf and Salazar the Wizard. The only real difference between them is their advantages, disadvantages, and how many magic points they each have - their skill and stamina are determined normally, but with very slight differences between the four. The advantages tend towards bonuses towards rolls, and the disadvantages tend to be which weapons or armour they can use. Magic points can be spent to cast spells, and it's pretty self evident which characters will have more or less of those.

The book's layout is not as complicated as some others released at this point in the franchise. You have a castle to explore, and the aim is to find special treasure chests. When you open each of these chests, you have a chance of recovering a pendant or a dagger, which are used to defeat the powerful boss monsters. The book is completely open and upfront about this. Which is one of the reasons why I suspect it was written with the board game in mind.

I want to pick the most balanced character for the first playthrough, so we go with Braxus the Warrior, who has no real disadvantages and a handful of magic points to spend. The introduction into the adventure is very well written, binding elements from the Casket of Souls and so on into a story that ultimately comes down to this - Zagor is back, and you need to go to Castle Argent to kill him again. I've got mixed feelings about this, because it does have the slight downside of making the otherwise excellent Return To Firetop Mountain rather anticlimactic. I have a soft spot for Return, remember.

Anyway, after hitting the local market to stock up on a few odds and ends, I catch a boat out to the dread castle. Given that this is a Fighting Fantasy adventure and I'm on a boat, it's only a matter of time before disaster strikes. Some creepy fog descends, and I'm asked if I want to spend a luck point to get through the journey safely. I decide to play it risky, and don't spend it. In return, a giant and very powerful dragon flies down and beats the ever-living snot out of me for a while.

After (eventually) killing the thing and nursing my wounds, I start to wonder if all the monsters are going to be that over-powered. It seems that my worry spreads to the crew of the ship, because they refuse to even go to shore with me, instead just dumping me in a small raft and telling me to row to the castle instead. I get to the island, and proceed to explore some of the ruins around the place. Eventually we manage to find a well, which is enchanted and gives me some advice in exchange for a gold coin.

Arriving at the gates to Castle Argent, I'm asked if I want to use an 'open' spell to get through the door. I opt to save my magic, and push my way through the door, stepping over a trip-wire, and hurrying into one of the nearby doorways. I am then very nearly caught in a net trap by a group of goblins, who I proceed to smack over the head without much difficulty, and find a longbow in the debris of the hallway for my trouble. It's about this point in the adventure that I realise that I'm going to be testing my skill and luck a LOT!

I stumble around the castle for a while and eventually find my way into the guest bedroom. I start to dig through the mattress and find a magic ring, and an 'open' spell scroll. As I leave, I notice a hidden door in the corner of the room. I've always been a sucker for checking these out, so I head down the tunnel, managing to trip and smack my head on the floor as I do so. Eventually I get to the other end of the tunnel, which holds a door that has some weird runes marked on it. I decide to cast the 'open' spell, and that is precisely what sets the runes off, causing them to explode.

Grumbling angrily, I stumble into the room to find a very angry dark elf, who was hiding here. He tells me to get out, but I want to talk. Things don't go too well as we discuss and debate our mutual positions, and he ends up falling on my sword several times. I steal his magic ring and a few gold pieces and run for it.

The cutest pet rat in the universe, ever!

I stumble around for a while now, having no real idea where I'm going. I should probably map this place out. In fact, the entire area seems to be very apt for making a good map. Perhaps that's the intention. Anyway, I eventually find my way into the feast hall, where I am beset by a swarm of rats. I'm guessing that these are not the snuggly, affectionate type of pet rats that I've recently become the owner of. Seriously, they're the cutest things in the entire cosmos.

Before long I've worked by way into another corridor, and found my way to a wizard's sanctum. I can tell it's a wizard's sanctum because the book tells me it is one after I try to smash down the door and get hit with a fireball for my trouble. I don't think I'm doing too well at this book. I cast an open spell, eventually, and am rewarded with a rather nice haul of loot, which also contains my first silver dagger of the adventure. Not too bad all in all.

I manage to find my way into the castle's jail, which is without a doubt one of the worst ideas I've ever had. I stumble my way into the jailor's room, where I am attacked by a gigantic golem. My stamina is now seriously flagging after this combat, so I do my best to recover as much of it as possible while I search the room and find the jailor's keys. Then I meet Mungus. Mungus is a gigantic, and very powerful, boss type monster. An ogre-like prisoner with a massive hammer and the ability to quickly turn my head into a smear in the floor.

More DOTS! MORE DOTS!!!

Somehow I survive the battle, but my stamina is not going to be able to get up to its initial level any time soon again. I don't even get one of those special treasure chests for my trouble! Well, I don't get one from Mungus. I do get one elsewhere in the jail. It was guarded by a giant dragon. Which was locked in one of the cells. For an unknown reason. Seriously, who locks a dragon in a jail cell? Well, Zagor, I guess. Maybe he was angry with it. I don't know. Either way, the thing is a bloody titan to destroy, and in return I get another silver dagger, some gold, and a magic wand that can only be used by the wizard character.

So far, a LOT in this adventure is only useable by the wizard character....

I trudge back upstairs and reap my way through a bunch of zombies and skeletons, which are no real match for me compared to the dragon. Soon, I find my way into the upper area of the castle, which is such an achievement that I'm given a boost to my scores. Woo, my stamina is back up to double figures again!

In the upper floor of the castle, I find my way into a room which contains a set of dwarven armour, useless to me. There is an old and ruined art gallery, which I investigate. I find a painting of an old wizard, Zagor himself, who threatens me and causes me to lose luck points. Oh, that wacky wizard, playing his silly painting games. I wonder if they're paint by numbers...

I work my way to an especially large and important hallway, which contains several coloured doors. I head into the green one, and I'm beset by a giant plant elemental. After doing a little bit of pruning, I stumble my way into a ladies make-up room, from which I steal a bunch of cosmetics. The book claims that I'm doing this so that I have a disguise I can use to fool the monsters in the castle, but I'm not so convinced. Hey Braxus, it's cool man, you can wear the makeup if you like, I won't judge.

I manage to find the hall of heroes, a ruined gallery of the greatest warriors in the known universe. I'm saddened not to see any monuments to my own awesomeness here, given how many of these adventures I've been on. I do find a small secret doorway, which a knight called Sir Davian is using to barricade himself in and hide from the orcs. Because Braxus is a massive egotistical git, he then insults Sir Davian until the poor man hands over his magic armour.

No, not THAT kind of club....

Sir Davian also tells me that an old friend of his used to possess a magic sword that could do all the fighting for him, floating through the air and dispatching enemies while his friend would do more important matters. I like this idea, because it would let me outsource all my fighting work to the sword. I head off to follow the knight's directions to find the sword, but I evidently get quite lost, and stumble into the barracks, where I encounter a very large and very angry statue that beats me around the head with a large club.

And so my adventure ends there, on the receiving end of a very large club.

I really don't know what to make of this book. The writing is good in terms of description and atmosphere, and the artwork is very appealing. It has all of the dungeon crawl elements of classic FF. But on the other hand, the general layout and way you navigate around the dungeon is overly complicated, as are the rules and over-use of dice systems. You test skills and luck more than any other rolls in this adventure, except perhaps for the combat, which is often just far too brutal and does not scale well as the adventure progresses.

I really end up thinking that this book was attempting to closely emulate the board game and present that in a book style, and that comes across to its detriment. This had some real potential, but I think it was too ambitious in trying to do something that didn't fit with what the general context of the adventure gamebook formula. I'd give it points for trying, but not for execution.

Before I go though, I just want to say that there's a good chance that next weekend's Fighting Fantasy playthrough will be delayed a bit, due to my move to Leeds during this week. If anyone out there would like to get together at some point during the week, I'm going to be checking out the Travelling Man shop there, so just let me know and I can say hi.

Portal of Evil playthrough

Written by Peter Darvill-Evans, artwork by Alan Langford.

Before I start on this playthrough, I feel that I should apologise to my readers. Last weekend's blog post, Masks of Mayhem, just wasn't up to the standard that you guys deserve. I've also been neglecting to post and comment on other people's blogs, due to time constraints. With this impending move to Leeds, I'm just so strapped for time that I'm struggling to get the attention to the blogsphere that you all deserve. I think I still owe Stuart Lloyd a playthrough of one of the Knightmare books, too...

But still, I also want to take a moment to thank a few people in particular who have pitched in with donations. We've received a copy of Magehunter, which is going to make finishing up the remainder of the collection significantly easier on the wallet. And we have not just one, but TWO copies of Curse of the Mummy. Damn, you must really want me to play through that one! I'll be moving it up in the list now. Expect it soon.

Right, so, Portal of Evil. Never played this one before. The front of the cover tells me that it involves a goblin with a pet stegosaurus or something similar, and the back of the book tells me that an evil something-or-other has awakened in the mountains. It's not very specific, but at least it doesn't jump right into wizards with unpronouncable names raising undead armies again.

The back cover also has a sticker on it which the book seller put on, stating that the quality of the book is 'verygood'. Sadly this sticker can't be removed without tearing the cover. Book sellers.... don't do this. Ever.

On first glance, the book looks simple enough in terms of system, no additional 'time' or 'honour' scores to keep track of or anything, just skill and stamina and luck etc. So let's dive right in.

Long story short, there's a mountain full of gold, people are mining there. But weird stuff has been going on, miners have vanished, so the mine owner has asked me to go look at it. The book tells me that I've bought a map of the area, which is duplicated on the inside cover of the book. Uhh.. no, it's not. The inside cover of the book is blank. Maybe it's just my copy of this. Hmm.

Anyway, with or without a map, I head off to meet the owner of the mine. During the travel, I bump into an elf and her pet dinosaur. They're being pursued by some soldiers, and after I fight them off, the dinosaur tells me that he's actually an elf who has been put under a spell by an evil portal. It doesn't make much sense, but who am I to argue? It's a talking dinosaur, man! I'm just wishing that the book gave me the option of locking a chain around its neck and selling it to the circus.

The dino-elf tells me that I should go and talk to Gartax, an old miner, who is organising a resistance movement against the portal and its worshipers. This doesn't seem like a very profitable way to spend my time, but hey, maybe it'll be good for a laugh. It's not long before Gartax sneaks up behind me, holds a knife to my back and demands to know who I am. After spilling the beans about who I am, Gartax leads me back to his secret rebel base camp, which I'm secretly hoping will look like the ewok village.

It seems that the leader of this group is happy to hear that the mine owner has hired me, and tells me a few useful details. Such as that the mine owner in question is a dwarf, but doesn't want anyone to know that he's a dwarf, so he shaved off his beard and wears very tall shoes. I suppose even a dwarf can have a bit of a napoleon complex. He also tells me that there's a wizard who lives near a lake to the south who can help me.

But first, he wants me to protect his camp from an attack by the minions of the portal, who are all brainwashed zombie types. Gartax's soldiers are all useless, but so are the zombies, so I kinda imagine that this attack just involved groups of people all swinging swords around blindly and missing with each attack. Over the course of a few hours, my character has trudged around the battlefield, killing all the enemies single-handedly.

Taking only a bunch of food and one of the portal zombie's evil magic amulets with me, I head off in pursuit of the wizard of the lake. It's not too long before I find a cave near the lake, which I proceed to stick my head into in the hopes of finding the wizard living there. Instead, I find that the cave contains a giant lizard monster called a Stegocephalian. It's not much of a threat, possessing only three skill points. It does have a 19 in stamina though, so although it's an easy fight, it takes forever to whittle it down.

There's no wizard in the cave, keeping the lizard as a pet or anything. I continue to follow the lake along, until I find an actual proper hut. I knock on the door, hoping to meet the wizard this time. Instead I find a hungry dwarf who, in exchange for a meal, gives me his boat. "Right," I say to myself, "I'll just take the boat and find the wizard. He's got to be around here somewhere!"

I hop into the boat and head out into the middle of the lake. And, this being a Fighting Fantasy book, it's only a few pages later that hit some rapids, and only a few moments later that I'm washed up on the shore of the lake, having lost all of my belongings except for my sword. And by sod's law, I am immediately attacked by bandits.

The bandits insist that I tip out my backpack, so I upturn the soggy, empty bag and let them decide how much of the water and fish they're going to take from me. Telling me that they're unhappy with my offering, I duel with their leader. When I win and then spare his life, the bandits let me leave with their respects.

By this point I've all but given up on meeting the wizard, when I stumble across a shadowy cloaked figure on the side of the lake. I tell him that I'm looking for the wizard, and when I answer his rather easy riddle, he admits that he's the wizard I'm looking for and that he will help me out. I catch a boat out to his little island, where he gives me a magic anti-zombie ring. Makes you wish the chaps from Walking Dead had one of those, eh?

He also hands me over a magic sword, and tells me that he's going to head off to the nearby town in order to arrange for the people to get their act together and fight back against this evil portal and its army. The wizard, whose name I don't think I've been told at this point in the adventure, promptly climbs onto his robot horse and offers me a lift. If you've ever seen the old 1959 Mexican Santa Claus movie (or its MST3K episode), I'm remembering the scary-ass robot reindeer at this point. And you really should check it out if you want to see Santa Claus fighting the devil.

Having rode through the air on the back of the wizard's terrifying robotic abomination of nature, I stumble into town and sleep for the night. Rising the next morning, the book offers me a chance to beg for food, but I decide to just pay for my dinner instead. It seems that the wizard, the mine owner I was supposed to meet but never got around to it, and the Margrave (the head of the town, for those not up to speck on their outdated semi-medievil titles) are having a council meeting to discuss what they should do about the portal's evil army.

It is announced that they will put together an army of their own, with a champion to lead it. The champion will be chosen by means of a tournament, which is an excellent way to make sure that the best fighters in your city are all crippled or dead by the time the huge battle comes around. Seriously, why does that never occur to anyone in these kind of books?

Anyway, it seems that they're wanting to go for the less lethal kind of tournament, because the first test is to stay still while the mine owner puts slugs on my face. The second test is to do some maths. No, I'm not joking.

It's only the third test that involves any combat, and when I get to this point, I remember that Gartax mentioned that the mine owner loves a bit of a duel himself. So I challenge him, and it proves to be one of the hardest fights in the book so far.

Nevertheless, as the battle draws to a close I'm given the option to throw the fight, which I do. Following Gartax's suggestions from earlier, I applaud the mine owner and tell him that he is as strong as a very tall dwarf. He's so happy that he invites me back to his place, where he gives me the horn. No, really. He has a magic horn, which can summon some eagles, and he lets me have that valuable artifact. After the sex.

The town is very happy to have a new champion, so much so that they decide to abandon the idea of forming an army and send me off alone to stop the invasion of the portal people. I'm given more food, some gold, a magic potion, and sent off on my own to fix the world. I stumble hopelessly into the forest, without a clear direction in mind, sure to face a horrible and gruesome fate.

After killing another dinosaur and its portal-zombie owner, I wander into an abandoned village. Hearing a bunch of people approaching, I hide in an abandoned tavern, only to be attacked by giant maggots. The bunch of people are some of the Margrave's soldiers, and they have to come and rescue me from the giant maggots, which is suitably embarrassing. By the time they finish interrogating me and let me go free, I'm wondering if this is worth the paycheck.

Stumbling blindly through the forest a while longer, I come across a nice garden, belonging to the inhabitants of a tree house. I decide to be friendly, climbing up to the house to say hello to the inhabitant. The elf witch inside threatens to hit me with her touch of death spell unless I go and clean up her garden. So, while the forces of evil are crawling over the planet's face, I spent a few hours gardening for an unhappy person. In return, she gives me a pair of budgerigars, which is just weird. "Thanks for cleaning my garden. Here, have a budgie."

After a few hours of exploring, I find myself surrounded by wood elves. They offer to take me to their forest home for an evening of dancing, singing and whatever else elves do. I take a sip of my magic potion, and it shows me that the entire elven settlement has been possessed by portal-zombies! For some reason, the book won't let me fight my way free from them and insists that I let them escort me back to their treehouse.

That evening I try to sneak out, but find that the door is magically sealed shut. The spell on the door says that it'll let me through if I can guess its number, but I can't do this, so I instead have to leap out of the window and fall to the ground below.

I survive, though.

Meanwhile, the entire village of possessed-elves go off to invade the Margrave's town. Yeah, hope you all changed your minds about putting together an army of your own! So, I push onwards. There are more and more portal zombie patrols, and I'm needing to sneak through the undergrowth to make progress. Before long, I catch sight of a path leading towards a mine.

Clambering over the fence for the mine, I head into the tunnels. And then, completely unexpected to me, I come face to face with the portal. I wasn't quite expecting it to be sitting there, all happy and content. I'm told that it feels ancient, like a thing from beyond the dawn of time. And then it begins to probe my brain.

I'm a bit confused at this point. Is the portal a sentient thing? Is it GLADOS? Is it a shoggoth? I don't know. All I know is that the fall from the elven treehouse took far too much damage from me, meaning that I just wasn't strong enough to resist the portal's mind-whammy. I turn into one of its mindless zombie minions, and promptly toddle off to chew on the Margrave's kidney.

Portal of Evil was a lot of fun. The combat is quite sparse, but it makes up for it by being pretty damn hard-going on the dice rolls. The atmosphere is very nice, and I'd definitely score this book highly. Eight portal-zombies out of ten, or whatever.

No cake at the end, though.

Masks of Mayhem playthrough

Written by Robin Waterfield, artwork by Russ Nicholson

So far I've been rather down on Mr Waterfield's work. I was, as I'm sure you'll remember, fairly unimpressed with Rebel Planet and Deathmoor. But I do have stronger memories about this book, because this is the ones that I actually owned as a kid. Specifically, this is one that I got at Hamleys on a holiday to London. That, and a very nice comic version of The Hobbit, which I still own to this day, and which is far far far superior to the recent film version. Having said that, so was the Rankin Bass animated film version. But I digress.

I also remember that I'd specifically been keeping an eye open for this book, and that it was either meant to be very difficult or very important, I'm not sure. Either way, it was one that I had been looking for, and I was glad to have found a copy of it. Nowadays though, I'm not so sure. All I know is that it has a very basic system (which I like) and a quest involving preventing an evil sorceress creating an army of golems. Or something.

So, as the ruler of the local kingdom, I'm asked to set my armies to defend the... oh no, of course not. No, I need to go off alone on yet another dangerous quest. Why am I doing this? Actually, the book does explain this. I've been advised to go off on my own with just a pointy sword and shiny hat, on the suggestion of my court mage, Ifor Tynin. Remember that name, I'll be discussing it later.

Our first obstacle is Lake Necros, which has possibly the friendliest name of any lake ever, except perhaps Lake Painful Death. The first thing I do is put together a raft and sail out into the river, only to be immediately eaten by a giant monster. Re-rolling my character (who turns out slightly stronger this time), I instead opt to ride around the edge of the river. While camping on the shore overnight, the giant kraken drags itself to the shore and tries to eat me, which necessitates much chopping of tentacles in order to get rid of the damn thing.

Y'know, you'd think that if the lake had a kraken in it, people wouldn't only notice it, but would do something about it. Even if that something was to just set it up as a tourist attraction. Anyway, slaying the kraken is such an impressive feat that the spirits of all the stupid sods he's killed rise from the dead to thank me and offer me assistance later on in the adventure. I wonder if my first character is among the group. Anyway, as much as I want an army of the undead to command, they insist on waiting until just the right section in the book before they'll do anything.

I spent most of last week resting up, due to all the recent work-based upheaval in my life, so spent a good amount of time in Dartmoor. At one point, while out in the moors exploring the tors, a vast shroud of mist fell all around us. We could barely see a few feet in front of us. I loved it, because I'm a gothy bastard, and proceeded to stagger around the place shouting "Heathcliff!" for about ten minutes. Anyway, the same thing happens in the book at this point. Although in the book, when my character explores one of the tors, he encounters an angry wraith who attacks him. Upon killing it, he leaves behind a rather nice sword.

As the mist lifts, I find my way to an old abandoned house. At least, I think it's abandoned, but while I sniff around the place, search through all the boxes and eat their dinner and generally do my best three bears impression, the inhabitant of the house finds me. Rather than being upset, he explains that he knew that I was coming because the voices in his head warned him about me. He then gives me a royal scepter which he seems to have been keeping hidden in the house. It's all quite confusing, and I back away out of the house very discreetly before turning away and running like all hell.

Past the ruined hut, and we enter a small region known as Fallow Dell, which is a group of small settlements overseen by a lord. I'm on my way to visit the lord of the Dell, when I'm beset by a group of drunks from the local pub. The book tells me that I deal with them using the 'art of fisticuffs', a term which I've only ever seen used by people who get beaten up by any fight they ever pick.

By the time I get to the lord's keep, it's quite late in the evening and he invites me to join him in the banquet hall, where I have some dinner. Meanwhile, the guards inform me that the belongings that they were storing in my room have been stolen by orcs. Wow, what a safe and reputable keep this lord manages! I head off alone to follow the thieves, following their trail, only to soon be surrounded by them and chopped apart. In retrospect, I should probably have waited for the lord to give me a guard or two.

I'd normally be happy to do a quick replay of this book, and continue from where I was, but I'm a little bit rushed at the moment and just don't have the time. This book is much better than some of Waterfield's other works, and I rather enjoyed it. There's nothing really special about it, but it's a solid enough piece. Except for one thing...

Remember the character I mentioned earlier, Ifor Tynin? Well, it turns out that later in the book, you're supposed to identify the person who has betrayed you, or something. I dunno, I'm working from memory here. Anyway, you're told that if you know who has betrayed you, you should know what paragraph to turn to. Turning there means that you're able to slay the traitor before he can assassinate you. There's no clues given as to who the traitor is, and even if you're able to deduce that it's Ifor, the book doesn't tell you the paragraph to turn to.

Of course, it's fairly infamous in Fighting Fantasy knowledge that you need to turn to paragraph forty, because you run the first and surname together to create I-forty-nin. Which seems so simple and easy, except... that because, when I was a kid and actually did get to that part, the 'nin' part of the name completely threw me off, and left me turning to paragraph 49.

Yes, I was that stupid.

Robot Commando

Written by Steve Jackson, artwork by Gary Mayes

This book has been requested by readers several times, I assume purely because my readers know just how much I dislike the sci-fi Fighting Fantasy collection. No, really, for this blog I've already played through Starship Traveller, Rebel Planet, Freeway Fighter, Space Assassin, and they have all been unrelentingly painful.

I mean yeah, the fantasy ones can be very generic at times, but very few of them has ever left me wanting to peel out my own teeth and clean the inside of my skull out with them. Except perhaps Chasms of Malice. But still, people have requested that I play this one. I can think of only two possible reasons. The first is that this is a damn good book and will totally change my mind about sci-fi FF books. The second is that people like to torture me with unfathomable agonising pain.

I suspect that it's the latter, to be totally honest with you. But enough rambling, let's get on with the analysis. As you can see from the cover, this book involves giant robots and dinosaurs. In fact, your character owns a dinosaur ranch, and uses the giant robots to herd dinosaurs. This was made about a decade before Jurassic Park reminded us all that trying to put a bunch of giant carnivorous reptiles behind some flimsy fences is not a great idea.

Nontheless, I get home one day from a long day of dinosaur herding to find that the entire country has been drugged with sleeping pills, so that an enemy nation of villainous bad guys can invade. I've honestly no idea how they could have drugged the food of every single person in the country, or why I'm not affected as well. Perhaps I had lasagna instead of chicken for dinner the night before. Anyway, despite this game being set in a world far off in the future in which giant robots are a thing and high-tech guns are easily obtainable, my character rushes to fetch his father's sword from the attic. Ah, I see that we're working on the Final Fantasy approach to gunfire and swords.

Heading out into the robot's parking lot, I pick a robot to drive. Eventually settling on a cowboy robot (designed to herd dinosaurs, it is a biped robot which I imagine has a cowboy hat on top of its head), I'm asked to choose my destination. There are two cities I can go, which are named 'The City of Knowledge' or 'The City of Industry'. Urrrgh. This book is going to hurt, isn't it?

While travelling, I'm attacked by a random Pterandon, which is easily swatted by my robot. When I arrive in the City of Knowledge, I head straight to the medical college, where I start to research a cure for the sleeping sickness. Given that I'm a rancher of dinosaurs, it should come as no surprise that I am also a skilled chemist and am quickly able to find a cure. There's enough items in the college for me to make a glass bottle of Blue Potion (yes, that's what it's actually called), but I have to be careful with it as it will evaporate on contact with the air. Also, I have to give it to the whole country all at once. Seems a bit contrived, don't you think?

So with my Blue Potion safely tucked away, I decide to check out the military college before I leave town. Yes, there's a military college. Maybe there's some info I can use to gather the people together and give them a strategy to defeat the Evil McEviltons who are invading our little country. In fact, there's a couple of them guarding the military college, apparently having realised that someone might do this very thing. But I'm able to walk right past them, because they assume I'm one of their friends due to the fact that I'm not asleep. Y'know, there's lucky and there's just stupid...

The military college is fairly useless for me, as the book I manage to grab and read (on Emergency Procedures, which sadly doesn't contain any details on what to do in an emergency such as invasion from enemy stormtroopers) has no useful info, and I'm hurried out of the college. But as I leave, I opt to steal the enemy guard's giant robot, which is a powerful machine that can transform into a fighter jet. Sadly I've no idea how to actually use the damn thing, so I'm actually weaker when using it.

Determined to waste yet more time, I go to check out the local museum before I leave town. Inside, I manage to find a Luck Amulet. One that has been scientifically proven to work, the book says. The very concept of this is so mind-boggling that I can't even put it into words. A scientifically-proven luck amulet. How does that even work? Urgh. Anyway, as I leave the museum I catch sight of a giant robot Tyrannosaurus rampaging around the place. I kill it, pretty much wrecking the fighter jet robot that I'm piloting in the process.

I'm now bored with the City of Knowledge, so I want to head to the City of Industry, perhaps to find a weather control machine that I can hook my Blue Potion up to in order to dispense it across the country, or something. The book tells me of three other cities that I might visit, too - the City of the Jungle (bit of a contradiction in terms there), the City of Storms, and the City of Worship. Yeah, think I'll stick with the City of Industry.

By the time I get there, I realise that there isn't a weather machine or anything similar to be found. I head immediately to the fuel-refinery, only to be attacked by two of the enemy's giant tripod robots (who no doubt are chanting 'Ulla' all the meanwhile) and sneak into the refinery, only to be subjected to a hefty dose of radiation. The book then tells me to leave and not return to that area. Le sigh.

Instead, I head to the robot experimentation center, hoping that I'll be able to find a new robot that I can actually pilot. I'm in luck, because I find a mechanical interface helmet that makes up for my lower skill in this transformer robot. I also manage to find a heat-seeking missile to give my robot, not that this helps much as by this point in the adventure it's barely holding itself together any more. And I also manage to find a highly powerful ninja warfare suit, which damn near kills me when I put it on, sending me crashing into walls and such like.

I've only got two other options in the City of Industry - to check out the sewers, or to 'just explore'. Gosh, as much fun as wading through toxic sewage sounds, I'll opt to just wander the city cluelessly instead. Eventually I find myself in the city's junkyard, where I encounter a gorilla. I spend a few minutes wondering why there's a gorilla out here, and then choose the option to speak to it. The book then informs me that the gorilla is a pet, and that it will help me repair my robot. The logic in this is bewildering.

So now that my robot is in better shape, and probably full of bananas, I continue to explore until I'm given two choices - go into the sewer tunnels, or head back to the robot experimentation center. Without any real choice, I trudge into the sewers. I stumble through tunnels for literally ages, going around and around until I realise that this entire segment is just one massive maze. Like the maze of Zagor back in Warlock of Firetop Mountain, except significantly less entertaining. And I loathed the maze in Warlock of Firetop Mountain!

Eventually I find a small lift, which seems to offer me a way out of this hell. I click the button to make it go, and it won't start. I blindly press the other buttons, until I find one of them that makes the lift go up. Then the lift stops going up and starts to go back down again. Very fast. With a loud crash. I die in the crash. Strangely, this segment of the book reminds me of a seafront amusement ride that I remember at Scarborough...

So that's Robot Commando. I'm sure there's a lot more to it, but I'll leave that for people who like this sort of thing. The robots are implimented well enough though, so I can't fault it on that regard. If you like giant robots and you want to grow up to be a Gundam pilot or something, this should be a good read for you. It should have had more dinosaurs, though. Actually, it should have had a whole lot more fun, but more dinosaurs would be a good start!

In other news, it seems that I won't be being made redundant after all, as my company want to retain my skills and redeploy me to their new department office. Which is in Leeds, all the way across the country. For the next few weeks, my life is going to be very, very chaotic...

Deathmoor playthrough

Written by Robin Waterfield, artwork by Russ Nicholson.

First up some chaps, I have some really bad news. I heard yesterday from my office that my job is under risk of redundancy. This will affect my entire department, and it's most likely that I (along with everyone else in the division) will be losing our jobs.

This means that my ability to complete the collection and finish the playthroughs is going to be seriously hit as well. And I had only 9 books to go to complete the set. The problem is, one of them is Magehunter, which will now be out of my price range, delaying the playthrough of it by.... I don't know how long.

If you can help at all, I have an amazon list set up at http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/HMJ186YV6YSQ if anyone wants to send any books as a donation. Naturally I don't feel right asking people to buy things for me, but if you happen to have any of the books that I'm currently missing, please please please send them in (especially Magehunter if you have one), and I'll dedicate the entire playthrough to yourselves. As a bonus, you'll also be able to guest-write a playthrough of any gamebook you choose.

Right, so now that I've got that out of the way, let's get on with Deathmoor.....

"The dagger held at your throat cuts deep. Your adventure ends here." That's section 400 in this adventure. I read ahead. Was just curious, you see. Something tells me that this book is going to be a tricky one, and not in a good way.

Physically, Deathmoor feels to have less pages than most Fighting Fantasy books. The system is basic, without any of the extra stats to keep track of. Having hit shelves right after Legend of Zagor, I get the feeling that this one may have been overshadowed by that. I don't even think I seen this one in the shops.

The princess of some back-water kingdom in the arse-end of nowhere has been kidnapped by a group of nasty gits, who want all the gold in the kingdom for her return. But the quest isn't given to the eponymous YOU this time, it's been given to your rival adventurer, Fang-zen of Jitar! Oh well, he got the contract first. I'll just sit back and wait for the next job to come in... oh no, wait, that would result in a very short adventure. Guess I'd better give chase and rescue the princess before he does, then.

I manage to roll up pretty much the most average stats possible for my stamina, skill and luck, and head off in pursuit of Fang-zen. And I stumble off into the wilderness, no idea where to go to find the kidnappers, and die in a gutter somewhere.

Re-roll character.

So now, rather than wandering off with no clear idea what to do or where to go (which is pretty much how most Fighting Fantasy books start until I stumble upon a tarot card reader or a sage who tells me what magic weapons I need to find), I instead hit the local pub. It's there that I find Fang-zen, having a few drinks with some friends. What an odd coincidence. Almost as if the meeting was orchestrated by some author of some sort...

Anyway, I insult Fang for a bit and challenge him to that game in which people stab their fingers with knives, you know the game. I manage to not stab myself too badly, and Fang loses, handing over six gold coins and, on my insistence, the contract. It's funny, I never really imagined that being a brave and heroic adventurer involved so much paperwork!

I wasted the rest of the night going to another pub and buying some 'lucky' heather from an old hag, which was a con as it was not remotely lucky. I had a random fight later that night with two fish-people who had a grudge against me due to some previous adventure, and the next morning I stopped in at the local market to buy some rope. Rope is always useful. Having wasted enough time, I read the details on the contract, and went off to the arranged meeting point with the kidnappers.

When I meet up with the kidnapper's ogre colleague, he lets slip that he is working for Archanos. Yes friends, that is none other than the dread Archanos the Life-Stealer. Who, in case you didn't know, is an evil dastardly fiend who is responsible for acquiring trade routes across the land, buying up gold mines, and arranging for the trade federation to blockage the planet of Nabboo so that the senate will pass a vote of no-confidence in Chancellor Velorum and allow Palpatine to seize control.

Actually, no, the last one of those is too boring and stupid for this book. But either way, Archanos' plot to seize control of the gold trade by kidnapping the princess just comes across as being a bit too bureaucratic for a super-villain. Still, the ogre tells me to wait here for two days and he'll come back with the princess. So naturally I follow him back to his lair instead. Across a region of the land known as the DEATHMOOR!!!

And no sooner have I set foot into the moors, than Fang-zen shows up and lobs a spear at me. I can't say that I'm surprised at this, and frankly it's quite nice to have this plot thread tied up. Having got quite tired of his silly antics, I beat him over the head my sword for a while, and loot the body. While I steal all the gold and silly sandals that he's got, I notice that the ogre I've been tracking has escaped. I'm nowhere near skilled enough to keep tracking him, so I head to a small village outpost that's aptly named Outpost.

The villagers there are slightly more friendly than the villagers at Khare, because they don't shoot me with laser eye-beams or try to drown me with poo. But they do refuse to give me anywhere to stay for the night, all but one of them, who demands both gold and a free meal before he'll even let me crash on his sofa for the night. He does mention that he doesn't trust outsiders because a little old lady in a house nearby was murdered by a giant the night before... wait, that must be the ogre!

I hurry to the scene of the crime to investigate, only to find no clues whatsoever. And when I get back to the house, the man's locked me out. Feeling very annoyed with the lack of hospitality in the village of Outpost, I settle down to camp for the night. During which I am attacked by a wolf. I cleave its head off, and grumble in annoyance as I promise myself that, one day, I will burn this village to the ground for their display of ill manners.I still have no idea why the ogre killed the old lady. Maybe he was hungry.

We trudge along through the moors until we get to a river, where we are attacked by two Blackhearts - creatures of mixed orc and dark elf heritage. Which makes me wonder how that pairing came about. Did an orc bonk a dark elf at some point? Is that a regular thing? Are they both physically compatible? Which one carries the child? Wouldn't an orc be a little, erm, over-sized for an elf lady? And... y'know, I don't know why I'm even thinking about this. I kill them both.

The whatever-they-are have a special amulet which signifies that they're loyal members of Arch-thingie's army of goons, and a map leading to their camp. The book then actually asks if I want to go to their camp, which seems like total suicide to me. So I do it. Sadly it seems that these two chaps I've killed were the camp's only inhabitants, so after searching the place until I find bits of broken stones and rotten food (joy of joys), I decide to head south along the river.

I'm attacked by an acid-spitting snake, which I kill, and proceed to cross the river. Mid-way across I'm attacked by yet another monster, this time it's a Granochin. The book doesn't tell me much about what this thing actually is, so I have to work off the artwork, which indicates that it's a kind of angry fish-thing with clawed hands or something, I dunno. By the time I get to the other side of the river, I notice that my stamina's rather low and chow down on some provisions.

After camping up for the night, I head into a valley which seems to be littered with skeletons. They promptly come to life and try to attack me, causing me to flee into a nearby ruined farm house. The book tells me to roll dice to see if I can get into the house, but neglects to tell me how many dice I need to roll (yay for the editing!), so I'm going to just assume I make it to the house nice and safe.

Unfortunately, some stupid bugger built their house right on top of a Tantaflex, which is a giant shoggoth-type monster who has caused the skeletons in the area to come back from the dead. After I carve my way through four of the skeletons, the shoggoth awakens and gnaws on my lower intestine for a while. The book outright says 'in the unlikely event that you survive'. But I do survive. Barely. I survive with one stamina point.

I promptly die while attempting to climb up the side of the ravine in order to get out of the valley, by losing one stamina point due to minor scratches and bruises from loose grit and pebbles. I'm the greatest hero in the known universe.

If Deathmoor was a cake, it would be low-fat lemon cake. It's bland, but not criminally so. If you had the chance, you'd go for something a bit more tasty. 

The Riddling Reaver playthrough

Written by Paul Mason and Steve Williams, artwork by Brian Williams and Leo Hartas.

Boy, this is an odd one.

The book was all but impossible to find when I was a kid, and is still relatively on the 'rare' side. It kinda comes as a companion to the 'Fighting Fantasy' book on introducing roleplaying, but doesn't quite take the idea to the extent that the Dungeoneer, Blacksand and Allansia trilogy do. It has a slightly whacky atmosphere not unlike the Sorcery books. It's a real unique beastie.

It has its own set of rules for different weapons, and some spells, and comes recommended for a troupe of three or four players. As you may remember, we had a lot of 'fun' the last time we played one of these games, so... oh god why am I doing this? And why does it give my players the ability to throw fire? This will not end well, I promise you!

This time around, Simon was unable to attend, so John and Brian were accompanied by Trev, one of my friends from university. Trev doesn't much care for roleplaying games so we kinda had to press-gang him into playing this. Nevertheless, we had a party of three hardy adventurers; Simon played as Bran, John took the role of Sinerus, and Trevor donned the mantle as Micky the Bat. I took the role of 'poor tragic fool', commonly known as the GM.

The game opens at Ragnor's tower, where the party has recently arrived to see a large crowd assembled. It appears that the Baron of the region has gone quite mad and is dancing around at the top of the tower. The play was then handed over to the players. Bran opted to try to climb up the tower, only to fall and injure himself. Micky took the logical decision to break down the door and get into the tower, while Sinerus stood back and shouted "Jump!" at the Baron.

On his second try, Bran climbed to the top of the tower, only to see the Baron falling to his death. Atop the tower, he met a wild and cackling figure, the Riddling Reaver. He pranced around like John DeLance in a bad Star Trek episode (and trust me, he was in a LOT of bad Star Trek episodes... some good ones too, to be fair) and then vanished, leaving Bran a giant snake to fight. Deciding that it would result in less damage than an actual fight, Bran jumped off the tower, and landed on the Baron. During this, Sinerus pointed and laughed.

Meanwhile, Micky broke into the tower and found the Baron's wife, who was tied to a chair with a bottle of spiders balanced on her head. One of the Reaver's jokes. Sinerus pointed and laughed. When the Baron's wife squirmed and broke the bottle, the gang stamped on a few of the spiders and then trudged upstairs to find a riddle box that the Reaver had left behind. At this point, there had been little apparent reason for the Riddling Reaver to cause the Baron to go mad and take a leap off his tower, but hopefully the box will explain all?

After decrypting the riddle, to find that the answer was rather obviously water, the crew throw the Riddler's box into the sea. I thump my head against the table for a while, and indicate that the box washes back up onto the shore, so that it can give them the three more riddles that the team has to figure out, which will send them all around the town to recover rare items. To help them out, the party find a young guide called Dappa, who is very wise in the ways of the city and can tell them the answers to the riddles...

And of course, having realised that Dappa's only reason to exist is to make the mission easier for them, the party grab him, tie his hands and feet together, and beat him up until he tells them exactly what items they need and where they can be found. What, you expected them to do anything less?

Dragging Dappa around with them, the party head down to the docks, where they find a group of sailors have set up a makeshift gladiatorial pit and are challenging people to fight a minotaur that they've caught. Dappa indicates that the party need the minotaur's nose ring, and Sinerus jumps at the chance to murder a caged animal like this. He kills the minotaur without much trouble, and wins a bag of gold from the man who owns the pit.

Dappa then tells the group (between being punched in the ribs) that they need to go and find a keg of ale from a local pub. This causes the party to sneak into the back door of the 'Parrot and Cage' pub and steal three kegs of ale. They drink two of them, and then head to the next area that the bruised and bleeding Dappa indicates to them - to recover a weather vane in the shape of a ship from a local school.

The pupils at the school are rather wild, but once the players set fire to the school they are able to recover the weather vane without too much trouble. I'm wanting to punish the players after they leave the smouldering ruins of the school, so I have Dappa tell the players that they need to head to the local bath house for the next clue. Once they get into the lovely roman-age bath house, their gear is mysteriously stolen by the patrons and the troupe find their bath filled with electric eels.

After having recovered the items and learned a valuable lesson, the troupe march their way to the cliffs outside of town. There they chuck Dappa into the sea, and board the Riddling Reaver's own ship which is waiting for them. Before long they are on a long sea-going voyage towards the Reaver's secret abode.

The big problem with the section of the adventure that takes place on the boat, is that there's no clear goal or purpose. Adventurers are just expected to wander around and explore the ship, until such times as the GM wants to bring it all to an end. I suspect my party were growing a bit bored of this, as it wasn't quite as structured or clear as the previous city-bound section.

Washing up on the beach of what appears to be a deserted island, the troupe rest up for a while. It seems all quiet for a moment, until they see people hurtling through the air and into the sea. Not winged people, either. It seems much more as if they're being hurtled through the air. Which, to be fair, at this point in the Fighting Fantasy franchise isn't entirely unusual, and is kinda to be expected. Investigating, they find that a group of mutated lizard men are catapulting some explorers they've captured into the sea, for a laugh. The troupe hide in the bushes and watch. Micky chews on some popcorn.

Thinking fast, I have the last of the captive explorers shout out loudly "It's no good, vile lizard men. You may catapult me into the sea, but you'll never find where I have hidden the magical and amazingly valuable artifact that I have hidden somewhere on the island. I will take that secret to the grave with me." This, of course, spurs the 'heroes' into action, they proceed to hack their way through the assembled horde of lizard men and rescue the prisoner.

And by 'rescue', I mean they tie the prisoner to a large stick and carry him around the island for a while. The prisoner, Waxley Speed, winds up being carried around by Sinerus, who uses the man-on-a-stick as an improvised weapon, beating up giant spiders, evil shamen and pygmie headhunters with him as they go. They then spend a good ten minutes dipping Waxley into a pit of quicksand. In many ways, I think Waxley would have been safer with the lizardmen.

Either way, Waxley's entire purpose at this point in the adventure is to be rescued by the characters, and then to lead them through the jungle to an old temple, where they are to recover an old relic. This particular section of the adventure is actually quite bland, giving only one pathway through the jungle. This is the 'Final Fantasy 13' segment of the adventure, you could say. It's also a bit of a polar opposite of the segment immediately before this one - while the ship segment had plenty to explore but no clear goal, this has a clear goal but no real exploration.

Eventually the crew stumble upon an ancient and ruined temple, in the mounainous region of the island. The temple is on a small rock outcropping all on its own, connected to the path by an invisible bridge, a la the final chamber in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Not wanting to risk taking a step of faith, the party immediately recognise this type of puzzle and decide instead to use Waxley as a walking stick in order to navigate their way over the bridge, and then plant him in the ground outside the temple while they head indoors and loot the place for all its worth.

There's a secret to the temple. The secret, and I'll share it with you now, is that it leads into the gut of a giant otherworldly lifeform, an entity that existed before the dawn of the world. It is a thing of titanic proportions, and the adventurers are intended to explore each of its 'chambers' with the dawning horror that they are within a giant creature. The layout of this segment is pretty good, with the main chamber of the creature leading to a variety of side-rooms, spiralling out like spokes on a bicycle wheel. It takes the better half of an evening for the party to fully explore the giant's internal organs, hacking apart its various inner pieces. Sinerus makes a new hat out of part of its stomach lining, and in an effort to top this, Bran secures the horn from the minotaur he killed earlier to his forehead, so that he can kill people with his face.

I'll skip past most of the chambers, which all contain some variety of horrible squidgy squiggly intestine-type beastie of some form or other. It's a very atmospheric location which the GM gets the chance to play up quite dramatically. This was actually a lot of fun, even if there's no real reason for the temple creature here to actually exist at all. Eventually the party blunder their way into the heart chamber, where they find two living statues. Both figures are locked in an eternal struggle; one resonates with the force of good, and the other vibrates with the aura of evil. Naturally, the players leap to help the evil statue smash the good one into little pieces. The statue of evil, surprisingly, is evil and tries to destroy the players, but it's no math for Bran's face-horn. With the two guardians destroyed, the party steal the ancient relic from the heart chamber of the titan - a mystical pendulum with the ability to control the forces of good or evil.

As they emerge from the temple, the pendulum is promptly stolen from them by Wexley, who as it turns out was actually the calculating Riddling Reaver all along! Yeah, aren't you glad I didn't let them feed him to the quicksand earlier? This is meant to be quite a massive reveal, but my party had already pretty much guessed that this was going to happen anyway. Despite their best attempts to lay a cunning trap to ambush Wexley, I eventually have to tell them "Look, the book says that he steals the damn pendulum thing, so play along and stop trying to hit him with fireballs." Sinerus didn't complain about it though, because his player is an old-time Vampire the Masquerade roleplayer, who has played most of their adventures and is therefore used to being told "your character does exactly this-and-that because the big powerful NPC forces you to." But the others weren't too happy. This is what people call 'rail-roading', and it's something that a lot of roleplayers find utterly infuriating and complain about endlssly (which in turn infuriates and annoys their GMs).

Evidently trying to do one better than a whole dungeon that takes place inside a giant beastie, the game then spirals completely off the deep end into insanity-ville. The Reaver flies away from the troupe in a giant airship (!) with the relic, cackling that he intends for the gods of luck and chance to use it in order to surplant the gods of good and evil or something. The party give chase to the Reaver's lair, which they find at the top of a giant waterfall. The waterfall in question flows UPWARDS, of course, because what else would it do? They catch a ride to the very top of it,

By the time they get to the top of the waterfall, things have taken a turn for the bizarre. Plants have started turning different colours, and giant butterflies are chasing tiny dinosaurs all around the top of the mountain. Immediately, Micky grabs the mini-tyranosaurus and tries to feed the Jib-Jib that they found on the ship to it. Meanwhile, Bran meets a leprachaun. The wee Irish laddie promises to let the party into the Reaver's temple, if Bran can juggle some bottles for him. Naturally, this results in the bottles smashing all over the ground. Which in turn releases an angry genie, who chases the leprauchaun around... it's all very silly, isn't it?

The genie opens the large gateway to the Reaver's mighty ancient temple of blithering madness and insanity. The troupe enter, and find that the main hallway contains a magic bottomless well. They all gather around this well, and drop the Jib-Jib into it, watching it fall. Then a portal opens in the ceiling, and the Jib-Jib falls out of it and back into the well, creating a massive cycle. The party decide that this is more fun than a roller coaster, and dive into this well, one after the other. They ride around like this for well over half an hour, playing games with it, until I have the Reaver himself appear in the hallway and run in the opposite direction, coaxing the players to chase after him. Ah well.

The Reaver dives behind a door to his laboratory, and I'm very careful to show the party that the door is magic and only opens when it sees the Reaver's face. After trying to pick the lock, kick the door down, crash the door down with a makeshift battering ram, set fire to the door, and generally causing more damage to the walls around the door than the actual door itself, the party decide to explore the rest of the temple. They find a few Wheelies (a classically bizarre Fighting Fantasy villain), they find a few stuffed replicas of themselves (how wonderfully creepy) and set fire to the Reaver's dining room for no good reason.

Eventually they find the Reaver's lounge, which contains two things of interest. The first is a large stuffed dummy of the Reaver (why does the Reaver even have something like this, exactly?) and a wine rack that contains the Reaver's shrunken prisoners in little glass wine bottles. Naturally, the party make the most of these, by drinking the wine that can be drank, and dropping all the prisoners down the neverending well. They then used the Reaver's stuffed doll to unlock the door, then found another Reaver doll in the dining room, and posed the two of them together in lewd positions in the middle of the temple hallway.

Deep breathes, now...

The doorway leads down into the bowels of the temple, eventually leading to a large cavern. It's there that we find the Reaver, standing on a raised platform, in front of a large pool of strange water. He has the pendulum, which is floating in mid-air and... I don't know, he's doing SOMETHING with it, some kind of magical something. He's also got over 130 soldiers with him in the room, his own home-built replicant monster things, and a head's on fight is utterly suicidal. The party really don't stand a chance at all here. The book recommends that I go easy on the players here, because this is the climactic battle. But I don't GM like that. I run games like Call of Cthulhu, where a 'climactic battle' involves running away very fast unless you want to wind up dead, insane, or both. I anticipate the players to die horribly.

Instead, the players use the Jib-Jib to create an alarm, which results in the minions rushing down the cavern, up the stairs, and tripping over a carefully placed rope, tumbling one after another into the neverending well. Yeah, they win the game by setting a trap. And as for that trap, the physics of that still gives me nightmares to this very day. I'm not kidding, I still wake up screaming. I have seen the face of madness.

When the players get back into the cave, they find that there is no sign of the Reaver. Or the pendulum. Perhaps he is away, somewhere in the cosmos, planning something. Maybe. Or perhaps he just got bored and went on holiday.

And after all of this adventure, the players still have no idea why the Reaver killed the baron. And neither do I.

This is a weird adventure. If I think about it too much, it hurts my head. The main villain's goals are pretty much nonsensical, and the various encounters are all very strange. It has a nice variety of locations, and it does capture the spirit of early Fighting Fantasy games very nicely.

In terms of structure, it's very erratic. Which I guess is in keeping with the main theme of the book. Some of the areas are very linear, some are much less so. It feels like a bit of a prototype for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy series, and it's fair to say that AFF did it a whole lot better.

Still, I find myself having fond memories of this book already, even after having run the whole thing. It's a period piece in the truest sense of the word, capturing a fleeting moment in the Fighting Fantasy series before time moved on and changed how the series looked. It's Sorcery between friends, Clash of the Princes shared out among others. It's facepalmingly cheesy at times. It's innately nostalgic. It's worth reading. Maybe even worth playing, too.