Recaps & Roundups part 54: The Inner Temple of the Skeleton King

I'm still stuck on the topic of Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson after my trawl through their earliest work.  Last time I posted an early adventure from Steve, so now I guess it's Ian's turn.  I honestly couldn't remember where I found this image of "The Inner Temple of the Skeleton King", but a Googling of the filename revealed that it was The Other Side blog, the same place that I found the summaries of Owl & Weasel.  Apparently it comes from part 1 of a history of Games Workshop, but the link to the article is unfortunately dead.

This is apparently Ian's first ever dungeon.  Some of the writing is hard to make out, so it's not 100% clear what's in every room.  From what I can tell, it shares some of the same design sensibilities as Steve's "Dungeon of the Ground Goblins", though not being prepared for publication means that it's not as polished.  A lot of this is written in shorthand, so it's impossible to know what a lot of it means.  What's with all of the letters and cards scattered around the dungeon?  What do the underlined numbers at the end of some entries mean?  Without more levels of the dungeon, or access to the twisted mind of Mr. Livingstone, we'll never know.

It's interesting to see some of Livingstone's tropes already present here though.  If his Fighting Fantasy books are any indication, he loves to put a shop in a dungeon, and this one has a few.  He also loves to make players scavenge for essential items, and I would assume that the cards and numbers found in the dungeon are essential to some puzzle or trap on another level.  I'd love to see the whole thing; this snippet of the dungeon is obviously an early D&D design, with all the strengths and weaknesses that entails.  It has no concept of "monster ecology" or realistic dungeon design, but it does have touches of the anything-goes weirdness of 70s gaming.

This one would take a lot of work to get up to snuff if I decided to include it in the Ultimate Sandbox project, much more than Steve's effort.  I'm on the fence with doing the work for either, but those are decisions for a theoretical time in the future.  For now, I'll file them both away in the "maybe" basket.

Recaps & Roundups part 52: Owl & Weasel

While Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and company got the fantasy RPG ball rolling over in the USA, in the UK that credit should probably go to Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.  In early 1975 the two school friends and flatmates, along with mutual friend John Peake, founded Games Workshop. Initially they sold games out of their flat by mail order.  They also launched the games fanzine Owl & Weasel, a copy of which ended up in the hands of Brian Blume.  In return, Blume sent them a copy of TSR's new game Dungeons & Dragons.  Jackson and Livingstone were impressed by the imaginative potential of the game, and got in touch with Blume to negotiate exclusive rights to sell D&D in Europe.  They started selling the game in late 1975, still operating out of their flat (until they got evicted in Summer of 1976 because too many gamers were showing up looking for a shop that didn't exist).

(I looked up John Peake, because I've never heard of him.  Apparently he was far more into the boardgame side of things, and had very little interest in RPGs.  He got out some time in 1976 when he saw which way the wind was blowing.)

The company expanded after that, and was able to open the first Games Workshop store in 1977.  In June of that year, they published the first issue of the magazine White Dwarf (which I just learned was chosen because it works for fantasy as well as sci-fi). In later years Jackson and Livingstone created the gamebook genre with the Fighting Fantasy series, which I would venture may have actually had more pop culture penetration outside of the USA than Dungeons & Dragons.  Certainly in Australia you're more likely to find 80s kids who were into FF than D&D, and those books were my gateway into the hobby.  In the 90s Livingstone became a top executive at video game company Eidos, and had a hand in the Tomb Raider and Hitman franchises.  Both of these men are giants in the gaming field, and a lot could be written about them, but for this blog I'll be focusing on their earlier RPG-related work.

White Dwarf includes plenty of D&D content, some of which eventually ends up in TSR's Fiend Folio.  I'm going to cover it for a while, at least up until issue #74, which is when Livingstone steps down as the magazine's editor.  Before that, though, I want to take a look at its precursor, Owl and Weasel, with a focus on its D&D articles.

Owl and Weasel ran for 25 issues, from February 1975 to April 1977.  The early issues focus on war-gaming, puzzles, and board games.  There are articles on chess and mah jong up in this thing; it's apparent that Ian and Steve were fans of games at large, not just fantasy and sci fi.  The first mention of Dungeons & Dragons is a brief bit in issue #5, from June of 1975.  Steve had watched a game being played at the City University Games Club, and been fascinated by it.  As of the writing of the article he'd yet to play D&D, but he asks for opinions and reviews from readers.

Issue #6 is where D&D bursts onto the scene, with an enthusiastic three-page article from Steve.  He outlines the game, complains that the price is too high for three small booklets, and gives some examples of play.  It's mentioned that Ian was the "Gamesmaster", running a dungeon called the Caves of Truenor.  Should I decide to include these caves in my campaign, the details given are as follows:

• The entrance is a cave in a rocky beach-side cliff.
• The first tunnel leads to a four-way junction. One points to the left, and says "Beware Nixies" in the Universal Tongue. The other points right and says "White is Right" in Orcish.  (Well, they are Chaotic Evil...)
• Some tunnels lead to a room that appears to be an elevator trap that takes the players deeper into the dungeon.
• One of the rooms leads to a chamber with a chest guarded by a dozen ghouls.
• Elsewhere in the dungeon is a corridor with six doors, and a chalice full of poison. The sixth door opens into a room with four giant snakes.

I'm pleased to note that Steve Jackson is an absolute bastard genius of a player: his plan to kill the snakes involves chopping up a dead party member, poisoning the pieces and feeding the snakes with them.  The other party members refuse, but he still does it anyway when their backs are turned.  Mr. Jackson, I salute you.

Issue #7 has more D&D, including a letter from a reader complaining about how unrealistic the D&D combat system is, and offering some alternatives.  The opposite page has an article by Ian Livingstone, with some very basic advice on the balance and design of dungeons.  Necessary stuff in the hobby's early days, but there's nothing revelatory here for D&D veterans.

Issue #8 has an article about the first play-by-mail D&D campaign in England. It also includes some house rules from Steve's game: PCs get two chances to open a stuck door, clerics can pray for extra spells, and fighters can't roll less than 3 hit points at 1st level.

(Also mentioned briefly is that there is already a computer version of D&D. This is probably The Dungeon or The Game of Dungeons, both of which I covered on my other blog, CRPG Adventures, in which I'm chronologically playing every CRPG and adventure game I can get my hands on. Posts on the games are here and here.)

Issue #9 has more house rules, related to death and healing.  Issue #10 reprints the Ranger class from The Strategic Review #2.  Issue #11 has a one-page article about hirelings, and some stuff about Empire of the Petal Throne. Issue #12 plugs the release of Supplement II: Blackmoor.  There doesn't appear to be much of any D&D content in issue #13, #14 or #15 (although #14 does feature the first appearance of future game designer Don Turnbull).

Issue #16 has a feature on the release of Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry, and also mentions that Ian and Steve are planning to head to America in July.  Quite a long time ago (2005!) I asked Gary on a message board if he had any personal contact with Steve and Ian, and he regaled me with a tale of them staying at his house and helping him clear his yard of some poison oak. He also dropped an interesting historical tidbit about wanting TSR and Games Workshop to merge, which got scuttled because Steve and Ian were wary of the Blumes.  It's still archived here.

Issue #17 has a house rule in the letters page that reduces a monster's combat effectiveness as it loses hit points.  On the article side, issue #18 has one about reality in D&D, but it's more interesting from a real world perspective: it has a reports about Ian and Steve's trip to the US and their first Gen Con, small write ups on Supplement IV: Gods, Demigods & Heroes and Swords and Spells, and a note on the final issue of The Strategic Review and the first issue of The Dragon.  It also has a full page on skateboarding, which is weird, but I guess it must have been a real novelty back then.

Issue #19 devotes more of its space to D&D than any issue before it.  It has some new rules in the form of ability score minimums for demi-human characters (similar to those that would soon appear in the upcoming Basic Set), as well as some house rules about time-keeping and spell use.  There's a little more about the two new supplements, and a two-page article about alignment (the never-ending debate).

Issue #20 is light on D&D, though it does have an old grognard writing in to complains about "all this fantasy nonsense".  Issue #21 is similarly light.

Issue #22 is D&D-heavy again, featuring Don Turnbull's first stab at the Monstermark system, a mathematical calculation to determine the relative strength of various monsters.  This will pop up again in the future as Turnbull refines it, so I'll write about it then.

Issue #23 is given over almost entirely to coverage of the upcoming Games Day convention, with descriptions of the games happening there, a map of the hall, and ads galore.

Issue #24 has coverage of the D&D Day event, an article with mapping advice, and two new classes: Samurai and Psionist.  Both are staple homebrew classes, but I wonder if these were the first to see print?  The Samurai gets extra attacks and bonuses to unarmed combat, while the Psionist specialises in psionics as detailed in Eldritch Wizardry. There's also an announcement that Owl and Weasel is ending to make way for White Dwarf, which will have a much heavier focus on fantasy and sci-fi games.

Issue #25, the final issue, seems to be mostly set-up and hype for White Dwarf. with the only actual article being a bit with some basic advice about what makes a good D&D dungeon.

(The scans and information above come courtesy of The Other Side blog, who covered the entire run of Owl & Weasel in detail.  Without those articles, I'd have no idea what was in these issues.  As it is, I only have a general sense, aside from those where actual scans were provided.)

So that cover Owl & Weasel, which as far as I can tell doesn't have a lot in terms of rules and setting-related material.  It's far more interesting as a historical window into the UK gaming scene in the 70s, and the infancy of the D&D boom.  White Dwarf will have much more D&D content, and my coverage of the first issue should be coming up in about half a dozen posts.

The Score

In the interests of sheer antagonism, I am turning this blog into a competition between myself and Messrs Jackson and Livingstone.  It's only fair; they've been killing me for decades now, and it's about time I got a chance to beat them in a contest of my own devising. 

Here's how it's going to work: each time I fail to complete a book, the author of said book gets a number of points equal to my Initial Skill minus 6, i.e. if my Skill is 7, they get 1 point for killing me; if my Skill is 12 they get 6 points.  Likewise, if I succeed in completing a book I get a number of points equal to 13 minus my Initial Skill; meaning the stronger my character is, the less points I get.  I'm also giving myself a bonus point if I complete a book on my first attempt.  Ian and Steve will each get their own separate score, only getting full points on the books they individually wrote.  For the book they co-wrote they split the points evenly.  And yes, I know that there are a whole bunch of other writers on the series.  I'm counting those books as being co-written by Steve and Ian: it's what they would want!

Now I need to come clean: I have played The Warlock of Firetop Mountain a bazillion times.  I know the entire book backwards and forwards and I can draw a map of it off by heart.  This was not an entirely fair contest, though it could have gone against me if my Skill score had been lower.  Never mind, Steve and Ian will get their revenge in due course.

And so, after round 1 the tally is:

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - Attempt 1, Part 2

A the end of my last post, I was standing at the edge of an underground river, deep in the stygian bowels of Firetop Mountain.  I had a few options for crossing: a bridge, a raft and a bell I could ring to summon the boatman.  Or I could just try to swim across.  As my good friend Mad Johnny Chairleg had told me to respect the boatman, I decide to ring the bell.  The boatman rowed over from the far side, and offered to take me over for the price of 3 gold pieces.  His sign had said 2 gold, and when I complained he mentioned inflation, which is a weird thing for a subterranean boatman to be talking about.  I could have remonstrated, but instead I just shrugged my shoulders and paid him.  My money problems will vanish when I stab the Warlock to death, you know?

On the far bank I could go north-west, east, or through a door straight ahead.  I went north-west, and found a guy sleeping in an old boat guarded by a seriously harsh-looking dog.

I woke the guy up and tried to talk to him, but he had some serious attitude towards adventurers, so it was time for a bit of the old ultra-violence.  I had to fight the dog first, and the revelation that it was a fire-breathing HELL-HOUND was not altogether surprising.  That the guy was a WEREWOLF was a little more startling, I have to say.  Come on Steve Jackson, you gotta describe the dude as extra-hairy or something!

I would have expected to need a silver weapon to kill the Werewolf, but my regular sword did the trick.  I claimed a set of boat-house keys from him, as well as a jar of pickled eggs from his larder.  Seriously.  The Werewolf has stocked up on pickled eggs.  This dungeon keeps getting weirder.

Back at the river I went east, and came to a heavy door with a barred window.  Looking through I saw a bunch of SKELETONS building boats, and you know what?  It's surprising that more fantasy settings don't feature the undead as a cheap labour force.

I decided not to go this way, and went back to the river and through the door to the north.  This may have been a bad idea, because I was instantly clubbed unconscious.  I awoke in a room with four ZOMBIES, and judging by their armaments they were probably Zombie farmers.

Despite some Vietnam-style traumatic flashbacks from my youth (I used to be seriously unsettled by this encounter), I laid into these guys with my sword and emerged triumphant, without a scratch.  A search of the room was in order, and the most interesting thing I could see was the corpse of another adventurer in the corner.  On his person I found a shield, some armour, a sword and a crucifix.  Already armed with some wooden stakes, I decided to complete my anti-Vampire arsenal, and claimed the crucifix.  I also took the sword, and was delighted to discover that it was enchanted, granting me a +2 bonus to my rolls in combat.

At that point a noise startled me, and I moved on.  I don't know why, because I had just become Death incarnate, but in gamebooks - as in life - your destiny is not entirely your own.  The next room was piled with coffins, and it didn't take me long to do the math: stakes + crucifix + coffins = VAMPIRE.

Yes, a Dracula came rising out of his coffin, and I considered it my duty to do some slaying.  Holding it at bay with my crucifix, I advanced on the Dracula with my stake and mallet.  But then, disaster!  I tripped!  And then a weird thing happened.  It was a serious Inspector Clouseau moment, as a successful Luck test sent my stake flying straight into the vampire's heart, and it shrivelled into a bat and flew away.  I shrugged my shoulders and collected my loot: some gold, another y-shaped stick, and a book.  The book was given no other description at all.  It could be a copy of Warlock of Firetop Mountain, for all I knew.  I took the gold and left the rest behind.

Past a junction I came to a scene of animated tools digging a tunnel and singing Disney tunes.

With nothing to do there but watch, I returned to the junction and headed north.  Soon I found some stairs heading down, and came across three dead bodies.  Time for looting!  The first body I searched had some gold pieces, which I duly tucked away.  The second lashed out at me with claws, also providing an illustration that fuelled my childhood nightmares for years.

It was a GHOUL!  Apparently I would be paralysed if it hit me four times, but with my new enchanted sword it wasn't able to hit me even once before I cleft it in twain.  I searched the remaining body and found a map and a vial of holy water.  Normally I would keep holy water to splash on Draculas, but instead I drank it, and was rewarded with some major healing.  It was apparently blessed by the Overpriest of Kaynlesh-Ma, which is meaningless to me, but I bet it gets referenced later when the Fighting Fantasy books are stitched together into one setting.  The map was for something called the 'Maze of Zagor', but it was quite faded and not very helpful.

I went further north until a portcullis crashed down behind me, blocking my way back.  I was now in the Maze of Zagor, and let me just say that this thing is a bastard.  I've mapped it enough times now that I have it memorised, but as a youngster it used to drive me mad.  It's very well written, though.  You have to pay careful attention to the text, or you can very easily end up going around in circles.  The traps that teleport you to another part of the dungeon aren't helpful, either.  Nor is the option to search for secret doors, which more often than not activates a trap or attracts a wandering monster.

I had three encounters within the maze.  The first was a group of friendly DWARFS.  I talked to them and got some directions through the maze, then left them to their poker game.

The second was a MINOTAUR, an aggressive chap who turned out to be one of the toughest opponents in the dungeon, with a Skill of 9.  I still ganked him with little effort, and claimed his gold pieces and his key numbered '111'.

My third encounter was with the Mazemaster, a bearded old man who I intimidated into giving me directions out of the maze.  As it turns out, his directions are utter bollocks.


Eventually I emerged from the maze, right into the lair of a DRAGON.  Take a look at his eyes, I'm pretty sure I just woke him up from a nap.

 Recalling the spell that I discovered earlier in my quest, I threw up my hands and shouted: 'Ekil Erif, Ekam Erif, Erif Erif, Di Maggio!'  The Dragon tried to breathe fire, but the spell lodged his fireball in the poor bugger's mouth, and it ran off crying like it had just inhaled a whole bottle of Nando's sauce.

I continued on, and in the next room I encountered... the dreaded Warlock!

Zagor seemed pretty confident, but after my encounter with his painting I was pretty sure I knew what to do.  I held up the Eye of the Cyclops, and watched in satisfaction as he shriveled up and disintegrated.  My quest was over!  I turned to section 400 to claim my prize, and... Wait, what?  There's a locked door between me and the treasure?  Never mind, I whipped out two of the keys I found earlier and opened it up.  Wait, the treasure's in a chest with three locks?  And I need to add up the numbers on three of my keys to see if I have the right ones?  I had only found three keys: one under a snake, one inside an Iron Cyclops, and one guarded by a Minotaur.  No problem, they were the right ones, and I claimed the Warlock's treasure for my very own.

The final page of this book is pretty cool.  Not only did I find a whole load of treasure, but also the Warlock's book, which I was assured would give me unlimited power.  It didn't seem to have helped the Warlock any, but never mind that.  The possibility was even raised that I could remain as the master of Firetop Mountain, but no thanks.  You never know when some adventuring bastard is going to break into your house and put a sword through you.  No, I claimed the chest, loaded the treasure into my seemingly bottomless backpack, and headed back to the village, where many a weeping damsel awaited me.

(As in the previous post, some images were taken from fightingfantasyproject.wordpress.com.)

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - Attempt 1, Part 1

As this is the first book of the series, it has a suitably basic premise.  There is a Warlock.  He lives in a mountain, and he has a lot of treasure.  You want to kill him and take it for yourself.  It doesn't really get much more primal than that as far as adventuring motivations go, and we're certainly not mucking about with any moral quandaries.  So into Firetop Mountain I go, sword in hand, and woe betide anything that stands between me and that shiny pile of gold.

But first, the rules.  Fighting Fantasy characters typically have three scores: Skill, Stamina and Luck.  Skill determines how good they are in a fight, and is also used for physical feats and the like.  Stamina is like health, and works pretty much like hit points in D&D.  Luck is exactly what it says on the tin.  It gets used for all sorts of situations in which very bad things might happen.  Skill and Luck are determined by rolling a six-sided die and adding 6 to the roll, Stamina by rolling 2d6 and adding 12.  I rolled an 11 for Skill, 18 for Stamina and 12 for Luck, making for an extremely viable character.  In the early books there's a decent chance of success with low scores, but rolling high makes it a hell of a lot easier.

As for equipment, Fighting Fantasy adventurers travel light: I have a sword, leather armour, a shield, a lantern and a backpack.  I also have ten Provisions, a sort of super-food that restores 4 Stamina points when eaten.  In addition I get to choose one of the following potions: a Potion of Skill, a Potion of Strength, and a Potion of Fortune.  Each of these potions has two doses, and corresponds to one of the three stats.  When used they restore that score to its initial level.  The Potion of Fortune has the added benefit of adding 1 to your initial level as well, which is pretty nifty.  I opted for the Potion of Strength, which restores Stamina.  I don't really know why, because those Provisions are mightily curative all on their own.  I probably ought to have gone with the Potion of Fortune, but what man can explain a decision he made two weeks ago, back in the mists of the past?

After the rules there is a short introduction, in which my character stopped in a village near Firetop Mountain to gather rumours about the Warlock.  Apparently he gets his powers from an enchanted deck of cards, or possibly a black silk glove.  This could be relevant, but of more interest is the fact that after a stay of only a few days, the girls of the village weep when I leave on my mission.  Don't worry ladies, I'll be passin' this way again, oh yeah...

The quest begins!

After entering a cave mouth at the base of Firetop Mountain, I was presented with that most ubiquitous of Fighting Fantasy dilemmas: a t-junction!  Should I turn east or west?  You may scoff, but whole adventures can hinge on this choice.  Fighting Fantasy adventurers do not retrace their steps unless there is no other path forward.  I turned east and came to a door at the end of the corridor, which I promptly charged with my shoulder.  Cue a Skill test, which is done by rolling two dice and trying to get a score equal to or lower than my Skill score.  I did so, and smashed through the door, falling headlong into a shallow pit for my trouble.  The pit isn't described all that vividly, but I imagine it as a rubbish dump for the denizens of the mountain, and also a means by which author Ian Livingstone gets his jollies.  Picking myself up, and cursing the loss of 1 Stamina point, I walked back to the junction and headed west.

The tunnel turned north, but there was someone asleep at a guard post there: a warty-faced ORC!  (Yes, the book capitalises every monster or potential foe you meet.  It's terribly dramatic.)

This is the first Orc I ever encountered in any form of gaming or fiction, so he holds an extra-special place in my heart.  The good vibrations must have extended to my character as well, because I tried to sneak past the Orc instead of just running him through.  This required me to Test My Luck, which is done by rolling two dice and trying to get equal or lower than my Luck score.  Every time you Test Your Luck  your Luck score drops by one point, which means that eventually your good fortune is going to run out.  Anyway, I succeeded, and managed to sneak past without waking him up.

Further up the passage there was a door on the west wall, and inside was a sleeping quarters where another Orc lay asleep.  I sneaked into his room and managed to steal a box containing a single gold piece and the Orc's pet mouse.  Or snack mouse, depending upon your view of Orcs.  I let the mouse go, which really does go to show that this is Book 1 of the series; if this were a later Ian Livingstone book this mouse would have been vital to my success.

I continued north and found another door on the west wall.  This one was unoccupied, and I assume belonged to the first Orc sentry I had encountered, but there was another box.  Which I opened, of course, only to reveal a SNAKE!

This was my first fight of the book, so I'll explain how dead simple the combat rules are.  The enemy's Attack Strength is determined by rolling two dice and adding its Skill score.  I do the same with my own Skill score.  Whoever gets the highest score wins that round, and the loser must subtract 2 Stamina points.  Repeat until someone's Stamina reaches zero, which means they are dead.  Luck can be used to make a hit deal more damage to your foe, or to reduce any damage done to you, but I don't need that here because this Snake only has 2 Stamina points.  I throw the box in the air and chop the Snake in half with a single blow before claiming the key that is hidden in the box.  This key has the number '99' stamped on it, which is a pretty common thing in the Fighting Fantasy world.  Keys, jewelry, dragon teeth, they all have numbers stamped on them for no readily apparent reason other than making it harder for cheating bastards to get to the end of the book.

Further north was yet another door on the west wall, from which I could hear drunken singing.  I burst in to find the following sordid display.

I killed them, because Orcs, and discovered that they had a book called 'The Making and Casting of Dragonfire' by a dude named Farrigo di Maggio.  It contained a spell for defeating dragons, which may or may not come in handy later on I'm sure.  Why do Orcs have a book like this?  This is exactly the sort of thing the Warlock needs to crack down on.

A T-junction!  I turned left, and entered a room where an Orc Chieftain with two left hands was whipping his servant.

Thinking that I might obtain an Orc sidekick who I could push into traps and the like, I attacked the Chieftain, only for the ungrateful bastard I was trying to save to leap to his defence.  Regardless of the odds I carved said Orcs to pieces, and set about opening their treasure chest.  It was trapped, of course, and the poisoned darts knocked off a whole 6 Stamina points.  I fixed this by bandaging my stomach and scoffing some Provisions, which leads me to believe that medical practice in the Fighting Fantasy world is less than ideal.  But it was worth it, because inside the chest were a whole load of gold pieces, a black glove, and a potion of invisibility.  Score!

I headed back to the junction and went east, then east again at the next junction, and came to a kitchen wherein five Orcs were cooking up a storm.  I was feeling pretty cocky by this point, so I calmly strode in and took them on.  Much to my delight they lined up conga-style and fought me one by one, like thugs in a Bruce Lee movie. I slaughtered them, which brought my Orc tally to a respectable nine so far, and in the kitchen I found a bow and silver arrow with a rad mysterious inscription.

A vital utensil for every kitchen.  I turned back to the junction and went north.  A door in the east wall opened into a small cell, with the following dapper gentleman there to greet me:

I let Mad Johnny Chairleg know that I was there to free him, and he calmed down right quick.  It turned out that he was an adventurer who got captured by the Orcs, and he even had some good info for me: I should pull the right lever when I get to the portcullis, and I should pay my respects to the boatman.  At that point I had the temerity to ask Mad Johnny to come with me further into Firetop Mountain, which is seriously bad form.  Dude is traumatised!  Not surprisingly he opts to leave, and I bid him farewell, not bothering to mention that there are still two Orcs loitering around near the entrance.

Further north there was another door in the east wall, this one leading to an armoury.  I took a shield, which makes it harder for foes to damage me, but it was so heavy I had to leave another item behind.  I chose my original, inferior shield; it was an agonising choice.

Further north there was yet another door in the east wall (this is not a dungeon design classic, let's just say that).  Inside was a torture chamber, wherein two GOBLINS were torturing a Dwarf.  At this point the book gave me the option to walk in, poke the Dwarf with my sword and laugh evilly.  I was so tempted, but instead I leaped in and killed the Goblins with gusto.  Sadly, the Dwarf was already dead, but I was rewarded with a lovely piece of delicious cheese.  Delicious, delicious goblin cheese.

I soon came to the portcullis that Mad Johnny Chairleg had told me about, and I pulled the right lever like he told me to.  The portcullis opened, and I went on my way unharmed.  I remember this trap well.  The other lever is a fake, a sword blade covered in wax that will cut your hand if you try to pull it.  Forewarned is fore-armed!

Past the portcullis was a t-junction.  I headed east, and soon came to an inviting chair.

This set-up screamed trap to me, but I sat down anyway and ate some Provisions.  Against all odds the chair was magical, and restored more Stamina than usual to me.  I never would have guessed.

The passage turned north, then I headed east at a junction and east again at yet another junction.  This led to a lovely marble room containing an iron statue of a cyclops, with a bloody great gem set in its eye.

Even as a nine-year-old boy I knew the set-up here, but what self-respecting adventurer could leave that gem behind?  I set to prying that baby out with my sword, and tried to stifle a yawn as the IRON CYCLOPS came predictably to life.

This guy is actually pretty tough, with a Skill of 10, but I still hacked him and his incredibly well-defined buttocks to death.  Again I was well rewarded: the gem was worth 50 gold pieces, and there was another key inside the Cyclops, this one numbered '111'.

I walked back to the junction and went north, only to be attacked by a random BARBARIAN.  No warning, no options, just a fight.  I could have run away, but this guy wasn't so tough.  For reasons unknown he was carrying a wooden mallet and some sharpened stakes.  Camping supplies salesman?  If so, his sales technique was lacking.  Still, what we really have here is Chekhov's Wooden Stake: there be Vampires in this mountain somewhere.

The next room had paintings on the wall, one of which was of the Warlock.

I took a look and learned that his name was Zagor, but I also lost a Stamina point due to fear.  Somewhere in the world, there is a Fighting Fantasy reader who died by looking at that painting.  It's not so embarrassing, though, because there is obviously some magical shenanigans going on, and I was under mental attack.  I looked through my pack for an item to use, and opted for the Eye of the Cyclops over my moldy goblin cheese.  Lo and behold the gem thwarted the Warlock's power, and I was able to continue.

The next room was just full of some random junk, like a rope and some y-shaped sticks.  I checked out the rope, kind of mystified that I wasn't already carrying some, only for it to try and strangle me. I chopped it in half, understanding now why I didnt have any.  The y-shaped sticks were bulky, and I would have had to leave something behind to carry one, so I left them behind.  What could they possibly be for?  Finding water?  Making a slingshot?  Trapping a snake's head?   The possibilities are endless.

Further north I came to an underground river, which I remember as kind of the half-way point of the adventure.  As I understand it, Ian Livingstone wrote everything up to this point, and Steve Jackson did everything after the river.  This feels like a good place to take a break, so I'll tackle the rest of my quest in the next post.

Fighting Fantasy

Before I discovered Dungeons & Dragons, before I even started reading fantasy literature, there was Fighting Fantasy.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, here's a brief run-down.  In 1982 Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (co-founders of Games Workshop and White Dwarf) published The Warlock of Firetop Mountain through Penguin Books.  It was like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, only not crap, and had the added benefit of dice-rolling for combat and other situations.  The series continued until book 59, with various authors contributing, and it had something of a revival about a decade ago.  The books sold millions.  Millions and millions.  I've read that at one point the top 5 UK best-sellers were all Fighting Fantasy books, though I can't locate the source now.  Needless to say, they were a phenomenon in the UK, and they were omnipresent here in Australia as well.

My first encounter with them was in my primary school library, which had the first three: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, The Citadel of Chaos and The Forest of Doom.  I played through those with various levels of cheating involved, and the series remained a constant part of my gaming for years to come.  They were my introduction to D&D-style fantasy, and my perception of that genre is still massively influenced by them.

The 30th anniversary was last year, so I have missed that boat, but I have started playing through the series one by one.  As this blog has lain dormant for a while, and I'm not making much headway on my Ultimate Sandbox project, I thought I might as well write about it here.  So if you will forgive my indulgence, this is going to become a Fighting Fantasy play-through blog for a while.  It's not D&D, but it's still fantasy, innit?  And properly old-school at that.

There are some other FF play-through blogs out there, if the series takes your fancy.  Turnto400 is the funniest of the lot.  Fighting Fantasy Project provides more in-depth reviews.  Fighting for Your Fantasy is another that is rather good.  Or you could just hang around here and read my posts.  Those blogs tend to do a single attempt at a book before moving on to the next one.  My plan is to stick with one book and attempt to complete it without cheating before I continue.  It sounds like a good plan, but things could get tedious when I hit a book I'm not familiar with.  And then there's Crypt of the Sorcerer, which could conceivably take me hundreds of tries...

So, onward!  Next post, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain!