#8 - Scorpion Swamp

Time to take on the first FF book not written by the big two. Scorpion Swamp is written by the other Steve Jackson and it's certainly got a slightly different set up and feel.

My history with the book

Never owned it. Never played it. Although I think I must have looked through someone else's copy at school, as a lot of the pictures ring a bell with me. Suffice to say, I'll be going into the swamp totally blind.

What's it all about?

Once again, I'm a 'hardy adventurer'. However, I've never been to the famous Scorpion Swamp because everyone gets lost in it. Cos of an eeeeevil fog. So far, so ... weird. One day, while adventuring, I find an old woman lying on the floor so I decide to help her. She's so happy that she gives me a magic ring. What makes this ring magic? It means I will always know where north is! (It can also detect evil but that seems less important). If i can always find north, then I should obviously go to Scorpion Swamp! Apparently.

The adventure

Skill : 12
Stamina: 15
Luck : 12

I seem pretty hardy so I hope this goes well.

I travel towards the swamp and end up in the town of Fenmarge. Obviously, I enter the local bar immediately and get the goss from my fellow drunks. Seems the swamp is currently inhabited by a group of wizards who have called themselves The Masters. As I go to leave, I'm stopped by a man calling himself Gronar who inexplicably demands I have a purpose for my trip into the swamp. I listen to him though and he tells me of three wizards who all have business in the swamp - Selator, Grimslade and Poomchukker. Obviously, they each have their own allegiances too. Being a kiss up, I decide to help the good wizard, Selator. I soon find him and he explains his mission. He wants a plant called Antherica. As its only useful to good wizards, the forces of evil have wiped out all but one last plant and I must find it. He also gives me 6 spells : Stamina, ice, fire, friendship, illusion and bless. As I finally have a mission, its time to get going.
I enter the swamp and immediately meet my first obstacle - a tree root. A luck test stops me tripping over it and I head east. I ignore the hollow tree I find there and turn north. The gradual appearance of several spider webs suggests I am about to meet my first big bad - The Master of Spiders. My magic ring says he's bad news so I take no chances - my fire spell immediately sets him on fire before he even speaks. Although I've just incinerated an old man who'd technically done me no wrong, I have no time to mourn as the fire spreads further and burns me.

He's a pain in the arse, but highly flammable

I run north until I realise the grass is snapping at me. This is Crabgrass so I hack at it til it dies and head east. Some arrows embedded in a tree cause me to find a dead man surrounded by dead orcs - seems I've missed an epic ruck. I take the man's magnet shaped necklace and go north, where I meet a fellow leaning against a tree. My magic ring tells me he is an evil thief so I ignore him and walk on.  Course, being a thief, he's also a dick so he creeps up behind me, garrottes me and steals all my magic from my unconscious body. I wake up and head east, grumbling about the youth of today.
After an exciting scorpion leaping escapade and an even more exciting eagle ignoring event, I bump into a giant who refuses to let me pass. The magic ring says that he isn't evil so I try to chat with him. I don't have the handkerchief he's lost, but I stroll past him nonetheless. Wandering on, I find a ranger who demands to know my allegiance. I tell him I'm working for Selator, which pleases him. He gives me directions to find the Antherica berry which, due to some mapping errors, I don't follow very well.  (In fact, I ended up moving further away from where I was meant to be but I wouldn't realise that for a long while).

Before Google Maps, this guy got people lost

I head off in the direction I think it is correct but get lured astray by a Will-o-the-Wisp, that leads me into a swamp and vanishes. I head back and then continue in the direction I think I'm supposed to, killing a slime and befriending some brigands, having lightly stabbed their leader. I soon find myself in the town of Willowbend, suggesting my attempts to follow the Ranger's directions have gone massively wrong. I go for a kip at The Bent Spear and am immediately approached by the Innkeeper in the morning. He directs me to a local wizard who sells me magic in exchange for the magnet necklace thing. I take a stamina spell and leave town.
As I realise that I'm at the end of the western trail, I try to amble back east in an effort to regain my sense of direction. After ALOT of bumbling around, I find a giant Scorpion killing a dwarf. Although I kill it, the dwarf is already dead. I raid his corpse and drink his skill potion, 'cept it's a dwarf potion so takes my skill down a notch. I keep wandering in circles for a while until I stumble upon a fella smoking in the middle of a pretty garden. He is, of course, the Master of Gardens. He gives me his own set of directions to find the Antherica berry and, although my map is now so wrong they don't entirely work, I eventually find a clearing guarded my two wolves. As I can't tame wolves, I'm forced to kill them. In the middle of the clearing is a bush and on that bush - an Antherica berry! It's been a long journey but with the berry in my pocket, my adventure is finally ov.... oh wait. No. I need to walk it all the way back to Selator.

Master of Gardens. By this point, no effort is being put into captions either...

I'm pretty bored of my adventure by this point, so I simply retrace my steps to avoid any new excitement. Unfortunately, the Master of Spiders is still on fire so I'm forced to take a slight detour. This detour sees me fighting some Sword Trees and meeting the Master of Wolves, who I refused to even acknowledge.
Finally, I stumble back through Selador's door and hurl the berry at him in frustration. Fortunately, he's incredibly happy to have an Antherica berry of his own so he rewards me. With dinner. No money or magic or fame. Dinner.
Still - Success...!

So, How'd it go?

It took me 5 tries to beat Scorpion Swamp.

Adventurer 1 - Sk 9. Jumped into a river which was actually just mud. Got stuck and eaten by crocodiles.
Adventurer 2 - Sk 12. Tried chatting to Master of Spiders. Spiders ate me
Adventurer 3 - Sk 9. Died fighting the Master of Spiders.
Adventurer 4 - Sk 8. Died fighting Sword Trees.

I'm not sure how I felt about Scorpion Swamp. The free nature of the book and multiple quests is a great idea and would lead to lots of replay value. But, it was the free moving nature that caused me to wander around in circles for so long. I enjoyed mapping the adventure but I feel the map doesn't always work - at least one part caused an error on my map that lead me to be lost for so long. The fact it's taken me nearly a year to actually write this blog post suggests I wasn't keen to go back through it for a while.
However, if I ever get through this blog, I'll come back and replay some other adventures. Maybe.

Next time - Caverns of the Snow Witch.

I'll definitely never finish this blog...

#7 - Island of the Lizard King

Another fairly well known entry in the series, although not as notoriously hard as the previous few. Let's see how I get on.

My History With the Book

I owned this one when I was young, although I'm pretty sure it was one of the last ones I bought. Since then though, Tin Man Games haves once again released it in app form and I have certainly finished it a few times on long journeys. With that in mind, I'm not anticipating too many issues with this one - I'm certainly not expecting another Deathtrap Dungeon debacle...

What's it all about?

Once again, I am a veteran adventurer. This time though, I've adventured too much and so go for a little R & R in a lil place by the sea, known as Oyster Bay. I have a friend there called Mungo (or as he's known to his friends, 'The ill-fated' Mungo). I arrive to see Mungo and his villager chums looking pretty cheesed off, as villagers are constantly being kidnapped and taken to the nearby Fire Island by a group of Lizard Men.
Apparently, Fire Island was turned into a prison colony by a Prince Olaf many years ago - an Allansian version of Australia if you will. Unfortunately, the crime problem wasn't solved by shipping ne'er do wells to another country, so the Prince abandoned his plan. This also meant he abandoned his idea of paying the lizard men guarding the prisoners, presumably hoping they would simply grow to love the country and begin producing a variety of Lizard themed soap operas. This didn't happen though, and they instead took out their anger on the prisoners, with one Lizard Man pronouncing himself king of the island - a Lizard King if you will.
Mungo has decided to deal with this problem himself but asks me to tag along as his sidekick. This sounds pretty good, as being the main hero all the time is beginning to grow tiresome - playing second fiddle to a different hero will be fun for once. We hop in Mungo's boat and set sail for Fire Island.

The Adventure

Skill: 12
Stamina: 20
Luck: 12

Those stats are pretty good so I presume the adventure will be fairly simple for me this time.

Yes. I see it too. Kinda hard to miss the giant island...

Mungo continues sailing the boat whilst regaling me with stories about his life - his Strongman father died in Deathtrap Dungeon for instance. Before long, we spot land and Mungo (somewhat needlessly) points at the island and shouts a stereotypical 'Land ho'. We land and stroll over the beach until I spot a hut. As we walk towards it, the sand beneath our feet moves as a Giant Enemy Crab emerges and crushes Mungo in his claws. I rush to help and defeat the (insanely tough skill 10) Crab before picking Mungo up. Unfortunately, he has been too crushed and so dies, making him a pretty lousy hero overall (dying in the third paragraph? Even my worst heroes make it further than that). So I bury my friend and then walk into the hut, where I find a potion which makes me immune to certain plant poison.

Hit the weak spot for massive damage!

I begin to traipse through the jungle, ignoring the opportunity to have a kip by a tree, until I walk into three Head hunters. Presuming they are not seeking workers for their company and are rather literally hunting for heads, I fight them all and win. I see smoke up ahead and so opt to avoid it - can't be dealing with anymore locals. Eventually I arrive at a marsh, where I encounter a small, Gollum-esque creature. My creature knowledge tells me this is a Marsh Hopper - a creature with an excellent knowledge of navigating swamps. Also a creature known to stab people in the back every now and then. Very Gollum-esque then. With that in mind, I follow it half way across the swamp and then ditch it. I trudge across the swamp and eventually find dry land. Unfortunately, I also find a whole bunch of giant leeches sucking at my leg, so I remove them using my handily salted provisions.

Next, I get to a valley, which I opt to navigate around. Good thing too, as a landslide crashes into the valley and would have no doubt squished me had I been down there. I soon find a nice looking hole so I stick my hand into it. This seems like less of a good idea, as a rattlesnake nips out and bites me. My constitution is enough to stand it though and I'm able to shake off the poison with only a mild loss in stamina. I stab the snake and then try the hole again. This time I find the unfortunately named 'Sog's Helmet'. This helmet is so intimidating that I will always win my first attack round in a battle.

Not long after, I come across what appears to be the scene of a scuffle. Seems some of the prisoners are trying to escape, but they're not too good at it. Fortunately, this prisoner has left me a gift on the way back to the prison camp - a snuff box. In it, I find a note explaining that this escapee has left a raft nearby to sail down the river. He also leaves me a gold nugget which I pocket before trotting off on my merry way. Unfortunately, my trotting leads me right up to a Giant Lizard which I'm forced to kill.


Next up, I find a pool of refreshing water. Feeling the urge to drink, I walk up to the pond only to be attacked by a Spit Toad. It gobs some kind of acid at me, but I dodge out the way and kill it. Wading into the pond, I find a casket which contains all kinds of goodies. I take some innocuous looking boots and a pouch which can hold everything by bending space and time or something. It's a pouch of unlimited contents! I soon find the hidden raft my escapee friend had warned me about and start sailing. After a brief fight with a crocodile, I eventually sail up to a small Lizardman village - seems I've found the prison mines. I sneak into the village, kill two Lizardman guards and then sneak into the mines.

I stroll around the mines, finding an enchanted sword after I randomly guess that my new boots are magical wall-sticking boots. I soon locate a bunch of slaves being whipped by a Lizardman and, once I start hitting him, his slaves gang up and and help me beat him down. My new posse helps me stomp around the mines and soon I've rescued some 60 slaves who all leave with me.

Heigh Ho! No, not in a singing mood?

Outside the mine, we have a party to celebrate the freedom I've granted these people, happy that my adventure is over. Oh wait, it isn't. Not at all. An freed Elf pulls me aside and talks about the Lizard King. He has a Gonchong on his head - a creature which digs into his brain and gives him super powers. Only the local shaman might know how to deal with such a creature, so it seems I have a new mission - find the shaman. I tell my new army to meet me at Lizard King residence in a couple of days while I head off on my next task.

I take a random guess that a Shaman would live on the volcano - seems a bit much to base the fate of my entire mission on a hunch, but there you go. Turns out my hunch is pretty good as I soon find a message from my Shaman friend suggesting that I shove a bird feather in my hair to prove I am the one. I almost immediately get attacked by a Hill Troll, but I kill it and very soon find a dead bird. I steal a feather and stick in my hair. Not long after that, I get attacked by a Raquel Welch style cave woman. She is fairly weak though, so I kill her off and raid her cave. In there I find a bowl of powder, which I rub on my face. Fortunately, this is powder that banishes illusions, so that should come in handy. Up the volcano I go and I find a bowl full of trinkets. I drop in some iron keys I stole off a guard, and a series of arrows light up to show me the way. I follow them to the Shaman himself.

He's impressed by my seagull feather, so agrees to help me if I can pass his three trials. I pick:
Trial 1 - Skill. He places an orange on a rock and asks me to hit it with a knife. Skill 12 means these is simple.
Trial 2 - Fear. He fills my head with terrible images. Luckily, the red powder on my face makes it disappear immediately.
Trial 3 - Strength. He asks me to lift a heavy boulder. I'm pretty strong so this is also easy.
Shaman is impressed with this and so tells me all he knows. The Gonchong is a parasite and so needs to be killed to prevent it finding a new host - kill it asap. As for the Lizard King, he can only be harmed by fire swords and has a fear of monkeys. Time to find a fire sword and a monkey then!

Monster on dinosaur. Seem fair...

I blag my way past a guard with the classic 'What' is the password routine. Unfortunately, I can't do the same with a Lizard man riding a bloody great dinosaur. A tough Styracosaurus followed by Lizardman rider follows but my high skill and magic sword help me to triumph. I take the Lizardman's shield to add a further point to my skill. After enduring a poison plant scratch (thanks potion I found at the beginning!), I soon find a dead pirate attached to, wouldn't you know it, a monkey. I place my new monkey pal on my shoulder and soon am at Lizardman central.

Looks more sleepy than angry, but never mind.

My army is ready to go so we march into battle. I do my part by killing a Lizardman, but my army is getting decimated. I target the most authoritative looking monster - a cyclops. He's a toughie, but I take him down, inspiring my troops to rout the Lizard man troops. I take this as my chance to head into the palace for my final assault. I march through the palace, kicking down a door to find a group of rusty weapons. My suspicions are aroused, so I pick one up. It's a fire sword masked by an illusion! Time to take down the big boss. I get to the main part of the palace and free a dwarf from his Lizard man captor. Unfortunately I gave my keys away so I give him a cheery pat on the back before leaving him chained up.

I reach the Lizard King balcony where he is cheering on his troops. He barely acknowledges me as he sends his vicious Black Lion on to me. Another tough battle follows, but I kill it. This annoys the Lizard King enough to face me, but he soon catches sight of my monkey chum (who has remained on my shoulder throughout a full on war, so good for him!). He is so terrified he can barely attack but the Gonchong pushes him on. He's so weak with fear though that he goes down quickly. I swiftly stab the Gonchong and throw it off the balcony. My army sees this and is so inspired, they finish off the Lizard King army.

Success!

So, How'd it go?

It took me 6 attempts to conquer the Lizard King.

Adventurer 1 - Sk8. Killed fighting a Slime sucker in the swamp.
Adventurer 2 - Sk10. Killed fighting the Styracosaurus.
Adventurer 3 - Sk10. Killed fighting a Slime Sucker. Again
Adventurer 4 - Sk9. Killed fighting the Styracosaurus. Again.
Adventurer 5 - Sk12. Killed fighting a Giant Lizard (although I had been severely poisoned by a snake just before.


Every single failed adventure was due to battles which is a fairly clear example of this books difficulty. The adventure itself is very linear, but there are a lot of skill 10 and skill 11 opponents. The fact that the Giant enemy Crab at the beginning is Skill 10 shows how hard this book can be (interestingly, he has been reduced to skill 6 in the recent app version).
I've always liked this book, but the fact it took me so long to get through it (and even longer to write it up in this blog) suggests I wasn't as inspired by it as I thought I was. I like the number of Giant insects and dinosaur type things you fight, but there are an awful lot of battles in it.

Anyway, finally done and written up. Time to finally challenge a book I've never toughed before - Scorpion Swamp!

#6 - Deathtrap Dungeon

Right, here we go. One of the most famous, most popular and most notoriously difficult gamecocks ever.

My History With the Book

I had this one in my original collection and so have had some experience with it, although probably not playing it fairly. I know that I'll need to collect three gems to finish and I know that the end has some hideously difficult enemies to fight. Due to that, I'm fairly certain that any adventurer with a skill less than 11 has no chance, but we'll see how long I can last before I bring in my mildly cheating rules from last time.

What's it all about?

Fang was just an ordinary town, until one day local nut job Baron Sukumvit moved in (I imagine years of being bullied for having a ridiculous name probably contributed to his craziness). So what's a rich but insane baron gonna do? Build an insanely dangerous labyrinth, that's what! To test out his new dungeon, he sent ten of his best men in. None came out. With word spreading of the men who died in the dungeon, people came from far and wide to prove they could get through the Trial of Champions. No one ever did.
I am a simple yet presumably reckless adventurer. One who is bored enough to challenge the Trial of Champions. Once in Fang, I'm treated as king. People love me for entering and I walk around like I'm a celebrity. However, the day arrives when it is time to enter the labyrinth myself. As I get there, I see there are 5 other contestants this year - 2 barbarians, a knight, an elf and a ninja (Classic fantasy character there). Baron Sukumvit gives us some spiel about how he wishes us luck and then we draw lots. I'm the fifth to enter. I watch the others go in, before I follow on...

The Adventure

Skill: 11
Stamina 19
Luck: 12

Well, I said that a minimum of skill 11 would be required. Let's see how it goes. Hopefully, that cracking luck score will help.

I begin my adventure strolling down a dark corridor until I find a box with my name on it. I decide to open it and find a note praising my good sense to take help and to look for items that will get through the dungeon. The box also has 2 coins, which I pocket. Eventually, I reach a junction. Footprints suggest that 3 of my fellow adventurers have gone left and one has gone right. Never one to follow the crowd, I go right as well and head in an easterly direction. The corridor soon comes to a strange blockage that looks like a boulder, only squishy. I choose to climb over it and find that it is harmless. Phew. First problem conquered! The tunnel turns north and I see some bamboo on my left. I take a drink from it and find it is super refreshing and also houses secret magic powers. Those powers soon reveal themselves as the tunnel begins to get insanely hot. Fortunately, my magical bamboo water keeps me safe and so I am able to stroll on happily.

I arrive at a door with an iron plate on it. I decide it might be best to peek in first and so I look through the iron plate. Indeed it was a trap, as there is a pit on the other side of the door. I open the door hop over the pit, and grab the rope on the opposite wall. Heading back to the corridor, I turn left and am immediately attacked by two orcs. Unfortunately, they hit me with their mace before I can kill them, costing me a few valuable stamina points. Moving on, I find another door which I choose to enter. I am confronted by the unfortunately ventilated body of one of my barbarian friends. Seems he triggered a trap which sprung a rack of spikes into him. That's one down I guess. I search his body and find some food which I eat.

Oooh. Nasty. (To quote another popular 80s dungeon crawl)

I get off on my travels again and decide to head north where I enter a giant cave. In said cave is some kinda giant idol with emerald eyes and two stuffed birds on either side. As strange as this is, I like the look of those shiny eyes so I fling my rope around its neck and climb up. I choose to take the left eye which causes the giant birds to magically come to life and attack me. Rather than slide down the rope to fight them, I apparently choose to fight while hanging from the rope, giving me a skill penalty. Still, both birds die and I soon have a lovely shiny emerald in my backpack.

I head north and eventually find a door on my left, which I enter. As I walk in, a sinister voice asks me to 'pay respects to his master'. Of the two choices I'm given, I choose to shout the slightly peculiar choice of 'Sukumvit is a worm'. The sinister voice thinks that this shows I have spirit and so gives me a magical Ring of Wishes.

Next up on my journey, I find a strange beam of light with floating faces all over it. I opt to walk through it and I find the faces are suddenly a lot sadder and also a little bit poetic. A sad girl face tells me through the medium of poetry that, should I meet water, I shouldn't run away but instead take a deep breath and jump in. Thanks disembodied face!

I decide to skip the next door I see and then turn right at the top of the corridor. Soon I arrive at another door and decide to check it out. It's full of statues and crazy men. Or crazy man rather. He challenges me to a math quiz in exchange for not turning me into a statue - like this knight here! Yep - seems another contender is dead. Apparently he weighs 100kg plus half his weight. Of course, that means that half of his weight is 100kg and thus he weights 200kg! The man congratulates my brainpower and ups all of my attributes by one. Nice fella.

Skeleton. There's always a skeleton...

Next I find a door with a cross on it which seems like an excellent reason to enter. Inside I find a skeleton in a throne holding a note. That note looks worth having so I grab it. Predictably, the skeleton comes to life and attacks me. It is swiftly destroyed and I proceed to read its note. If I meet a manticore, it poetically tells me, get my shield ready for the poison spikes it'll fling at me. Will do, random piece of poetry! I leave through a door in the back and move through a tunnel. This ends at a trapdoor, which I fling open, surprising a couple of goblins. I quickly kill them and raid their cupboards.

Taking the northern exit, I find yet another door to open, so open it I do. Inside is a one armed prisoner who starts screaming in my face. Rather than make gags about him being 'mostly armless', I decide to set him free. He seems grateful and tells me I need to find gemstones to escape, before running away. A short while later, I find a small pipe which I crawl into. I find a box and shuffle out to look at it - an iron key and a Sapphire. The prisoners tips seem to be paying off as I now have two gemstones.

Conan was very big in the 80s (the barbarian that is - not O'Brian)

Ahead I spot two dead orcs which piques me interest so I wander over. They have nothing I like the look of, but I soon find the cause of their deaths - a grouchy looking barbarian. He tells me he's heading west and I can tag along if I want. Figuring nothing bad could come from partnering with a fellow contestant who will want to kill me by the end. We find a pit and the barbarian - Throm - offers to lower me down. This seems like a trust exercise, so I take the rope and let him lower me down. And he doesn't kill me, so I guess we're friends now. Soon after, we bump into two trolls so take on one each. They're tough but we win with only minor injuries.

Next up, we find two books, one black and one red. Throm turns his nose up anything as intellectual as a book, but I take a flick through each one. The red book tells me about a mythical Bloodbeast, which stinks and tries to eat you. Kill it by stabbing it in the eye. Duly noted. Thanks book. The black book contains a potion of trap detection which sounds handy. I also gain 2 luck points so thats pretty helpful too. We stroll through a big cave but choose to ignore its vastness and just keep moving. Very soon we meet an angry looking dwarf - a trial master. Throm wants to kill him but I suggest we just go through with the trials and then kill him later.

Probably will be played by Peter Dinklage in a Deathtrap Dungeon movie.

I go first and follow the dwarf to trial number one. He rolls two dice and gets an 8. I need to guess whether the next roll will be higher or lower than this. I looked at my probability and chose to go less than 8. I roll a 5 and the dwarf congratulates me on my lucky guess. Not sure guessing counts as a trial, but I ignore this and move onto trial number 2. An angry, poisonous snake is in a basket and I need to grab it without dying. I am pretty skilful though and so I grab it without getting bit. Trial number 3 is an anagram game. I need to decipher RUIN MOAT and NO CROP IS and decide which one I'd like to fight. I choose you - MINOTAUR! And not you - SCORPION (presumably it'd be a giant version of the creature and not an unexpected Mortal Kombat Kameo). The Minotaur puts up a bit of a fight but eventually falls to my sword. The Dwarf tells me to hang around while he prepares the final trial, and tosses me a chicken to eat while I wait. I'm not sure whether its a whole chicken or simply a nugget, but by the time I've finished the final trial is on - Throm! Seems he got bitten by the poisonous snake and is now deranged. I'm kinda upset to see my good buddy foaming at the mouth, but I do what I must and battle him to the death. His death that is. Seeing how cheesed off I am, the dwarf appears and threatens me with a crossbow before showing me the exit. I decide to leave him alive, as his loneliness would be a far greater punishment than anything I could dole out (also, far more truthfully, I'd taken a bit of a beating from the last two fights).

I leave the Dwarf's arena and eventually turn left. I hear shuffling coming up the corridor and, suddenly feeling brave, decide to face the oncoming horror. Turns out the horror is time itself, as an elderly fella in chains is trotting towards me. I give him some gold and he tells me of a demon chair which contains a secret in the arm. I thank him and move on, deciding to head north. Lo and behold, a chair in the shape of a demon! I hop on it and search around, eventually finding a secret compartment which contains a 'doppelgänger' potion.

Not long after, I hear screaming and decide to check it out. It's contestant number 5 - the elf. She's in a spot of bother with a snake, in that it's crushing her. I lop its head off but she's looking pretty dead. She tells me that I need three gems, one of which is a diamond - the only one I need. I raid her corpse and find a 'bone monkey charm'. No idea what that is but I take it anyway. Not long after, there is a metal grate on the floor which I open. Reaching in to pick up a grappling hook, I'm attacked by a tentacle. It wasn't my sword arm that got attacked though, so I only lose a bunch of stamina points. Which still seems nasty.

A short while later, I hear quite the racket and see its a bunch of troglodytes having a party. I decide to drink the doppelgänger potion which fools them into thinking I too am a troglodyte. It wears off not long after and they all begin to give chase. I leg it across a bridge and bump into a door, which I swiftly unlock with my iron key. I shut it behind me and continue north, eventually bumping into a crazy looking man. He claims that his basket lift will take me where i need to go if I give him an item, so the Ring of Wishes is given away. I pulled up in the basket and find that the lift mechanism is in fact a troll named Ivy. She also demands goods off me but I distract her by asking about her family, which is oddly quick thinking. She explains how great her brother Sourbelly is (presumably the same Sourbelly who is now dead due to my City of Thieves adventure) and keeps on talking til I sneak behind her and knock her out. Her room contains nothing except a bone, which I take.

The less standard 'giant dinosaur monster'.

Down the stairs I go, and I conveniently hear angry barking. Off goes the bone and the dogs are silenced. I soon find the wall of some kind of arena, so I scale it using my grappling hook and rope and find a giant dinosaur waiting for me. This 'Pit fiend' looks pretty invincible, so I throw a bone monkey charm at it and find that it inflates in its mouth. I scale the wall and run past the monster before it can spit it out. Immediately after running from the Pit Fiend, I find shurikens being launched in my direction - it's contestant number 6, the Ninja. I fight him and eventually win. Turns out he is the holder of the diamond so I now have zero competitors and 3 gems. Looking good.


I take the exit (which is a slide) and find myself in a particularly stinky room. The cause of the stink? A giant Bloodbeast. Luckily, I read my book on Bloodbeasts, so I cut his tongue before he can drag me off and then stab it in one of its real eyes. Whilst it screams in pain, I leg it through the next door (I do like how many of my final battles involve running away as often as possible). This room contains a Manticore, who I have again read much about. I shield myself from his poisonous spikes and then kill it.

After it's dead, a gnome appears and tells me I'm at the end. He checks my gems one at a time and then tells me to put them in the door in the correct order. Amazingly, I guess correctly first time and so the door flies open. Unfortunately, the gnome hates it in here, so flings poison at me and runs out. The poison hurts, but I'm alive so I crawl to the exit. As I leave, I see the gnome ended up with a crossbow bolt in his head - fell at the final trap. Soon after, I see daylight. The crowds (who wait how long exactly?) go nuts as they see walk out, and Baron Sukumvit gives me the huge prize money.

So, How'd it go?

As predicted, not very well. All in all in took me 10 attempts to defeat the deadly dungeon.

Adventurer 1 - Chose the wrong emerald, got gassed in the face and fell off the idol.
Adventurer 2 - Looked into a magic mirror that made my head inflate (or something like that).
Adventurer 3 - Died fighting the flying guardians for the emerald.
Adventurer 4 - Knocked politely on a trapdoor and so was stabbed by the goblin who opened it.
Adventurer 5 - Died fighting Throm.
Adventurer 6 - Reached the end but had no gem stones as a bunch of leprechauns stole them.
Adventurer 7 - Died fighting Cave Trolls (Got careless with my stamina in this one).
Adventurer 8 - Picked up a fake diamond which then disappeared. Then the roof came and crushed me.
Adventurer 9 - Got knocked off the wall by the Pit Fiend before losing to it in battle.

So, this book is clearly insanely hard. After 3 adventures I made sure I didn't leave before rolling at least an 11 for skill. I soon realised that the correct route needed a lot of luck too though so it was quite fortunate that I got a decent luck roll in my final adventure.

The book is regarded as one of the best and it's very easy to see why. As others have said before, it is realistically hard as you're not expected to survive - that's kinda the point. I did enjoy witnessing the fates of my fellow adventurers too, as it really felt like we'd all gone on this journey together with only me left standing at the end. Still its difficulty may be off-putting - it looks like its taken me nearly 3 months to get through it and if I hadn't have kept rolling until I had a high skill, I could have been going for a long long time.

Hopefully the next adventure will be easier - time to visit the Island of the Lizard King.

#5 - City of Thieves

Back to Ian Livingstone and what is regarded and one of the classics of the original line up. Will it hold against its high praise and will I hold up against whatever is in Port Blacksand?

My history with the book.

Never owned this one growing up and, strangely, never found the time to catch up on it. I think it was released as an app but never got round to buying that one. (Although, since I started playing this book, it has been released as part of the Fighting Fantasy Legends app). So I effectively have no idea at all how to beat this one, which could be interesting...

What's it all about?

I am an adventurer of some repute apparently. I've been hired by all sorts of posh nobs to slay local beasts and rescue damsels etc. Whilst out adventuring, I stumble upon Silverton. It seems like a nice place so I wander in, only to find everyone freaking out, barring their windows and letting out involuntary yelps every time I bark at them. Seems they have a curfew too, as they all leg it into their houses at nightfall. I use this opportunity to head to the pub, thinking that nervous villagers means a shorter queue for the bar. My reputation certainly does precede me, as villagers mutter as I walk in. Soon the mayor, a Mr Owen Carralif comes in and requests my time. It seems that ten days ago, two ne'er do wells entered town and proclaimed that the Night Prince himself, Zanbar Bone was in the neighbourhood. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, he demanded Owen's daughter come to stay with him. Having politely declined the offer, the villagers soon found that they were routinely being torn to pieces every night by Zanbar Bone's 'Moon Dogs. Despite this, Owen continued to refuse to send his daughter and so intends to find someone who can stop Zanbar Bone. That someone is m....er someone else! Seems Owen intends to recruit super wizard, Nicodemus, to help him. Unfortunately, Nicodemus has taken up residence in the terrible Port Blacksand. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, for Port Blacksand is a city filled with criminals and bandits - a city of thieves if you will. So, with a shiny new sword and 30 gold coins, Owen sends me on my great quest - to find a hero more capable than myself!

The Adventure

Skill: 12
Stamina: 19
Luck: 10

Generic angry guard. Nice fella really though.

My reputation is obviously warranted, as I appear to be a fairly skilled warrior. I get to the entrance of Port Blacksand ready to find Nicodemus, when I'm stopped by a guard who wants to know what business I have there. I try to blag my way past him by claiming I'm a merchant trying to sell my wares in the city. He isn't buying it though and asked to see what I'm claiming I want to sell.
"Er...yeah..I would, but they're really cursed," I mumble to which he states that my bullcrap is no worse than anyone else's bullcrap around here so I might as well go on in. Nice guy. He also offers to sell me advice but I decide that I can simply blag my way through town from now on.

I walk in and find a cross roads. I decide to go east along Clock Street. I stroll along the road, ignoring a crazy looking hobo I see at the roadside, and turn north. I see a house on the left that looks impressive enough to go snooping around. I walk in and find a grumpy ogre. What's upset him I wonder? Seems someone has stolen his lunch and so he demands that I give him some of mine. Much like Joey however, I don't share my food with anyone. Ogre isn't happy about this turn of events so attacks me. So I, in turn, kill him. I have a nose around his house and find some nice shiny gems, which I pocket.

I continue up the road, passing some kid who reckons he sells magic healing water (I have full health anyway). I turn the corner and am suddenly attacked by three midget muggers. Fortunately, I duck and smack one in the face. The others panic and run away, so I leave them and press onwards.

I stop at a flower shop and buy some magic petals (they react with dogs blood which is....kinda weirdly specific) and head into a shop with barred windows. Turns out this is a jewellers shop. He buys my stolen gems off me for a few bob and then offers some magic rings. I opt to buy a ring of fire (normally only achieved on curry night) for a reasonable price.

I end up at a crossroads and head north to the market area. I join the crowd in throwing vegetables at some fella in the stocks and get my pocket picked for the effort. I meet a strong man who has some kinda throwing game - we throw a heavy ball and whoever drops it first loses. Strongman throws me the ball. I catch it. I throw it back. He drops it. Kinda makes me wonder how he can make any money from this event when he loses so quickly. I ignore the other sideshow attractions and find myself on a bridge.

Taking the 'strong' out of 'strongman'. So, just man.

Spotting some steps on the side, I stroll down and see a small shack. Seems I've discovered the dwellings of great wizard Nicodemus. He listens to my story and decides, nope, not gonna do it. He claims he is too old for adventures like this so will instead tell me how kill Zanbar Bone. First, I will need to paralyse him by shooting a silver arrow into his heart. Once paralysed, I will need to kill him by rubbing a compound of Black Pearls, Hag's Hair and Lotus Flower into his eyes. Which seems kinda weird. Oh yeah, not forgetting that Zanbar's enchanting stare can only be over come by me tattooing a white unicorn on a yellow sun across my forehead. Part of me thinks that he might just be trolling me now, but who am I to question the wise wizard Nicodemus? Who lives under a bridge. In the worst city in the world.

And I'm sure he won't ever let us down again.

So I trot off with my massive shopping list and eventually reach a junction. I opt to go east. I walk past an ominous looking door and then another house which contains some shouting people. Eventually I hit a wall with a great deal shouting behind it, and it is this that piques my interest. Seems this is a stadium containing some oddbods playing what I realise to be the famous game Bays ball. This game involves hitting a ball with a stick to win. Bays ball. (Clever pun or some kinda copyright thing? Who knows?). I ask to join in and, with my superb skill, wallop the ball for miles. They are so impressed with me, they hand over all sorts of crap. Bananas, eye patches, chalk, potions of Mind Control. All sorts.

This place is a dead end, so I go back to the junction and head west to Harbour Street. I have a quick nose down an alley way where I am suddenly attacked by two dogs. Once they're dead, their blood mixes with my magic flowers to make some lovely gold coins which I pocket. As I continue back along Harbour Street, I find a pirate ship which I sneak on board of. I'm confronted by two doors, one quiet and one with a lot of snoring. I creep into the snoring room and am confronted by three sleeping pirates, one with a bag around his neck. I fortunately steal the bag without waking them. Inside? 6 Black Pearls! 1 down.

I soon reach another junction and head east down Clog Street. Passing a candle shop, I soon happen upon a silversmith. Seems like good odds for list item number 2, so I go in and converse politely with the smith - Ben Borryman.
"Silver arrows?", he says. "No problem. 10 coins."
Seems like a bargain, so I pay up and have another list item ticked off.

I proceed east at the next junction and find a manhole, which I inexplicably decide is worth exploring.    Seems I'm now in a sewer and decide to explore to the north, where I come across 3 giant rats. Giant does not mean strong though, and I kill them all quickly. I notice a skulking shadow and investigate it. Turns out this is where local hag's like to hang out, and the one I've just met starts mumbling at me. I decide she's casting a spell and so down my Potion of Mind Control, walk up to her, and cut a chunk of hair off. Which seems kinda mean, but hey ho - three list items gone already. I head back to the sewer entrance and go south. This time I find a giant centipede. I have no means of dealing with it other than hitting it with my sword. So I do that until it dies. I climb over its corpse and find the sewer blocked off with a grill. I can't get the grill off but do find a small hole which I reach into and find a mirror.

Back to the streets now, and I continue east which quickly becomes north. I spot some unruly looking thugs who begin to approach me. Thinking quickly, and not bothering to ask if they're friendly or not, I launch my throwing knife into the nearest one. The other two look rather upset that their friend is dead and carry his body into a nearby alleyway. So all in all, a rather sad encounter that one.

I nip into a posh house, shout out I'm a tax collector and get given a bag money for my trouble. I immediately spend all my ill-gotten gains on some nice chainmail from a nearby blacksmith's.

Moving north and I see a nice looking garden which costs but one coin to enter. So I pay up and stroll in, immediately desecrating the place by stealing a lotus flower I spot. Some leaf monsters try to take it back, but I burn them to a cinder using my fire ring. So the only scenic place in Port Blacksand is now a charred mess, but hey, I got me item number 4 - The Lotus Flower.

Port Blacksand public gardens - pre burning.

Moving more northwards, I nip down an alleyway where I see a sign for Jimmy Quicktint's tattoo shop. Unable to ignore a coincidence like this, I pay him 10 coins to get a ridiculous tattoo emblazoned across my forehead. At least I'll always be welcome at Pride festivals when this is over.

I now have all list items so begin looking for an exit, when I run into two troll guards - Sourbelly and Fatnose. They ask to see my merchant's pass and then, seeing as I don't have one, demand all my money. I'm pretty rich right now so I instead decide to stab them. They are tough cookies but eventually die. Unfortunately, the noise attracts some other guards so I run, eventually bumping into a small boy whose father sneaks me out of the city as thanks for killing the trolls.

Sourbelly and Fatnose. Which is which? Answers on  a postcard.

So, I'm out of the city now. I set up camp for the night and receive a bird delivered message from Nicodemus. Seems that he's not only too old for adventure - he's too old to even advise other adventurers. I don't need three items to rub into Zanbar's eyes, I need two. Which two? Dunno. All I know that I have a 1 in 3 chance of guessing the correct combination. So, yeah, thanks Nic. I choose the Lotus Flower and Hag's Hair because...they're easier to grind up then pearls? I dunno. It's all guess work here. Speaking of random things, a cave troll blunders out of the forest and attacks me, but is swiftly dispatched.

I approach Zanbar's tower and am confronted by two Moondogs. The second one takes a few chunks out of me, but I finish them both off and knock on the tower door. A creepy butler opens up and lets me stay the night, which seems very considerate. I'm not that tired though, so I nip out of my room. I move upstairs, past doors on floors 2 and 3. I reach floor 4 and hear Zanbar's voice taunting me. I find a white door and a black door, so decide to move through the white one. I find myself in a room containing a sarcophagus and open it. Surprise! It's a Mummy. Luckily, my Ring of Fire is still on, and I swiftly incinerate him. In the now empty sarcophagus, I find a Ring of the Golden Eye. Dunno what it does but it sounds lovely.

I decide to try the black door room next and find nothing of interest - a chest and a cat. I investigate the chest when suddenly my brand new ring exposes that the whole room is an illusion. That ain't no cat, it's Zanbar Bone. He whips out three of his teeth and throws them on the floor, where they turn into skeletons (which is an amazing party trick, you gotta admit). I dispatch the minions and whip out my bow. Strangely, my immense skill isn't enough to fire an arrow accurately - I need to be lucky. I am though, so Zanbar freezes long enough for me to rub my concoction into his eyes. Seems I chose wisely, as he disintegrates before my eyes.

With the Night Prince dead, I stroll back to Silverton to win the immense praise of Mayor Owen and a truckload of money.

And still no-one bothers to ask what Zanbar Bone wanted with his daughter to begin with....

Success!


So, How'd it go?

Certainly not as well as previous adventures. It took me 9 attempts to beat Zanbar Bone.

Adventurer 1 - Killed fighting a Giant Centipede.
Adventurer 2 - Left Port Blacksand without a tattoo or the Hag's Hair.
Adventurer 3 - Killed fighting Moondogs
Adventurer 4 - Lured to my death by a vampire in Zanbar's tower.
Adventurer 5 - Killed by Moondogs.
Adventurer 6 - Fooled by Zanbar's illusion and so given the touch of Bone (errr...)
Adventurer 7 - Used the wrong combination of items on Zanbar.
Adventurer 8 - Used the wrong combination of items on Zanbar.

Obviously, I expected to take a while as I had no idea where to go, but I figured once I found the list items it'd all be simple. I didn't count on the Moondogs (skill 9 and skill 11) and the fact that my guess work is not great.

Still, this lives up to its rep of being a great book. As I didn't know where to go, I got to explore the city to its fullest. I loved that some adventures ended with me buying up the place with my vast sums of money, and others involved me being penniless and mugging shopkeepers in an effort to find items. Just like real life. The city itself is positively buzzing and, even when I knew where to go, I enjoyed meeting all the inhabitants and criminals. It's also the first one so far I felt I had to draw a map for.

And here is said map!

However, the guessing game at the end is a bit cheap and the moondogs effectively made any adventure with a skill less than 10 a dead loss. (Owning up time: After adventure 5, I invented a new rule that meant that if I rolled less than 10 for skill, I simply re rolled. I knew where to go by that point and couldn't face constantly walking through the same bits of the city knowing that the Moondogs would end me when I got out). Also a minor point, but I'm not sure why I needed luck rather than skill when attacking Zanbar Bone at the end.

It was good to have a challenge in a book though, and hopefully I won't encounter another book this hard for a while. So, what's next? Deathtrap Dungeon? Sounds pretty simple.....

#4 - Starship Traveller

Now for something a little different - we're heading into space for the first sci-fi Fighting Fantasy book.

My history with the book

Never had this one as a child. Never even glanced through it as far as I remember. My first attempt with this book was when TinMan Games released the app but I think it was somewhat altered. I know that all the artwork was changed for one. I completed the app and so I vaguely know where to go but I'm sure not 100% with it.

What's it all about?

I am captain of the Starship Traveller. That's it. There's no background information and the adventure begins from paragraph one. This book is pretty unique in that you need to roll for yourself, your various crew and the ship itself. So after rolling a dice for 20 minutes, I'm finally ready to crack on with a space adventure.

The adventure

Captain                            Science Officer                Medical Officer               Engineering Officer
Skill: 12                            Skill: 10                             Skill: 10                            Skill: 9
Stamina: 17                     Stamina: 20                       Stamina: 20                      Stamina: 16
Luck: 11

Security Officer              Security Guard 1             Security Guard 2
Skill:9                              Skill: 7                                Skill 8
Stamina: 20                     Stamina: 20                       Stamina:21

The Starship Traveller
Weapons: 12
Shields:14

Phew! I said there was a lot of crew to roll for. They seem like a fairly decent bunch - the bizarrely buff Scientist, the comically weedy Engineer and the bizarrely inept security guards. Many hilarious yet exciting adventures no doubt await us as we journey around on our starship.

Aaaaand it seems our first adventure is ending in total disaster. The ship has a massive malfunction that causes us to lose power and slowly drift towards a black hole, known to us as The Selestian Void. Knowing that black holes both literally and metaphorically suck, we belt and brace ourselves for a painful death as we disappear. However, in the style of all classic space adventures, we haven't died at all. We have merely passed through into another dimension. None of the crew know where we are so we jet off towards the nearest life bearing system. We soon arrive at a blue looking planet and decide to beam down.

Gotta say....not sure what this is a picture of.

Walking around the planet, I decide to lead us into the nearest building. I see a sleeping man who wakes up and exposes the terrible truth - he's some kind of weird, one-footed stump man thing. He starts screaming at me in an alien language. Resisting the urge to jam my phaser up his stump, I calm him down and have a little chat. Turns out he was a little cheesed off that people teleported down from space and strolled into his house. Fair enough I figure. He explains that the planet is full of people but has no leaders - everybody does what they want. I head to the local meeting room and witness this in action - everyone just yells at each other and gets nothing done (nothing like Earth politics then....). One of them takes me to the map room where they show me some other nearby planets. Let's go find one then!

I head to the a nearby purple planet and beam down with my Engineer and science officer. We're confronted by a some kind of bug man who beckons us over. We go to him and he explains that this planet is just as ridiculous as the last. It is Culematter, and overpopulation means that death squads execute anyone on the streets post curfew. Naturally. Unfortunately for Bugsy, the population controllers decide to execute folk on the street and in this house, as they blow a hole in his poor insect body. We pretend we are complying with the PCs, but then make a surprise attack. This goes abysmally and we get a kicking. One of the guards losing his helmet during this attack though, and this causes him to freeze. A clue it seems. I ask to see the big boss, but they tell me I'm just going to be executed instead. Nice. We decide to fight the guard and, despite my science officer taking a beating, win the fight. We run to the command centre, and find that our communicators freeze the alien guards. I steal a helmet off one, find that they're all androids, and beam off the planet. The alien helmet is top notch though, and gives me an extra point of skill.

We fly to another blue planet and beam down. We immediately see some fat aliens with spears. Another pleasant welcome then.

Yep. Those sure are aliens with spears.

Once again, I use the age old technique of asking them nicely not to stab me. They agree and take me to their leader, who explains that we are now on planet Cliba. These particular aliens worship a 'Rain Lord' who, strangely enough, provides the rain needed for their crops. I tell them I'll have a word, as who could be better to send to talk to a deity than a stranger who just fell out of the sky. Turns out, he just some fella with a weather making computer thats on the blink. My Science officer gives it the ol' turn it off and on again approach and. hey presto,  it starts working again. Rain Lord is so impressed he tries to get us home. Obviously, he can't give us much in the way of help as that would be too simple. Find a black hole and approach at Warp speed 3 is all he can say. Where is this black hole? He doesn't know. Still, better than the other weirdos we've met so far.

Only 3.3 light years to the next planet, so off we trek. We head to a greyish looking planet. This one seems empty except for a a crashed ship. My search party ignore it and head back to ship, making this by far the dullest episode of the adventures so far. Or at least, it would be the search party didn't all suddenly die once they return (convenient that we only sent red shirts on this mission really...). As I rush the survivors to the medical bay, 3 more crew members die, though still no one important it seems. The science officer decides to seal of the lab and the deaths stop. All air is evacuated from the area and the problem solved.

We set off for another blue planet where we receive a transmission from I-Abail, who works for the local government. He invites me, but no one else, to meet him. He seems pretty technologically advanced but still offers me something to eat. I chow down his offerings and immediately pass out - it seems I've fallen for the classic 'drug the main character' ruse. I'm dragged off to the portal lab, which is basically a giant space maze. I wander round in circles for a while until I blunder back into I-Abail's office. His portal experiment is a success! Apparently. His portal is too small to get my ship home and the book won't let me ditch my crew and go home by myself. However, a black hole that will get my ship home will appear in Sector 159. Things are starting to look up.

Next, we head to a yellow planet which looks hot and volcanic. So we immediately go somewhere else (Great adventuring team!).

We head 2.3 light years to a grey planet and find it to be some kind of mining planet. We meet with K'tait and chat until he is summoned to 'the arena'. After waiting for his return, a robot comes and takes us to a room. A guard asks if we are taking part in 'the contest. We telling him where to get off, so he calls up K'tait, who admits there has been a blunder. He's also really sorry about it. To make up for it, he allows us to watch the contest but, wouldn't you know it, he's scamming us. We follow the guards and find ourselves in the arena facing down the giant robot from the front cover. Despite the battle being confusing (the rules for the fight are placed on the paragraph after the fight first appears. So I killed it before turning to the next paragraph to find out that you only hit him when you beat him then roll a 5 or 6) and my engineer taking a massive beating (down to 4 stamina), we prevail. To make up for being such a dick, K'tait tells us that the black hole we need can be found in Sector 83, which is great. It's also a direct contradiction to what I-Abail said, so that's gonna prove problematic later.

We hyperspace to a black planet and beam down with the science and medical officers. Seems that was a good choice as , after a few hours of wandering around, we find our oxygen is running out and the planet is blocking my transmitter signal so we can't call for help. Luckily, the science officer concocts a plan to attract the ships attention by heating up a rock or something. Hey, it works! we beam up and fly to the next planet.

Classic 'sexy' alien family

Once on the new planet, we are confronted by some alien family. One of the children comes and takes my hand and I, of course, follow it. Turns out that on this planet, the children are the intelligent one and the adults are senile and useless. So, lucky I followed the child then, as some planets wouldn't appreciate the 'random adult going off with a child' approach. The kids takes me to his civilisations computer room, where he finds out that my dimension and this one will meet at star date 21. Seems like another clue.

Not a moment too soon either, as the crew are becoming a bit cheesed off in this dimension. They're 'wondering if they'll spend the rest of their lives searching space' which, if i'm honest, seems to be what they would have signed up for to begin with. Rather than critique their whinging, I figure I know how to get home. I need a Sector and a Star date. Having been given two sectors, I take a guess that the trustworthy one was not the fella who tried to kill us in an arena. We head to the black hole, fly in and .... find ourselves back in our own dimension.

We are home!

Back to our lovely squiggle space dimension.

So, how'd it go?

No where near as badly as I thought it would. It took us 4 attempts to get home.

Adventure 1 - Had no sector or star date by the end so flew into a random black hole and died.
Adventure 2 - Beamed down onto a water planet and drowned.
Adventure 3 - Had the wrong star date and sector so flew into a dodgy black hole and died.

I've read a lot of bad press about Starship Traveller. I think a lot of it might be true -
if I only went to the planets I needed to, the adventure would have been over very quickly.

I never used half the staff I rolled for.
I never once used ship combat on my successful adventure.
Some of the planets were literally empty.
The artwork is...interesting.

Despite this though, I still had a good time. I enjoyed beaming down to worlds not knowing what was going to be there. I do have a bit of an issue with me taking the correct path and still ending up with two different sectors. Had I chosen the wrong sector, I might have presumed I'd gone the wrong way and taken another 10 goes before I repeated that route. But, of the 4 books I've finished so far, this one made me smile the most when I finished. Maybe the fact that I'd never finished the book version before made it feel like the first big accomplishment.

Next we have another book that I've never finished - City Of Thieves.

#3 - The Forest of Doom

So here we go again. The first Ian Livingstone adventure and it's a bona fide classic. Let's go!

My history with the book

I never owned this, but I'm fairly certain it was the Fighting Fantasy I ever stumbled across, in the library of my year 3 classroom circa 1989. Whether it was the setting or the pictures or something else, it stuck with me and inspired me and my chums to try and collect all the books between us. Since then, I've played and completed the TinMan Games app, so I'm pretty sure I know what to do to finish this one.

What's it all about?

I am apparently a seasoned adventurer who is enjoying a bit of downtime. Camping on the outskirts of a big ol forest, I'm disturbed by a rustling in the bushes. An arrow-filled dwarf stumbles out and collapses. Those arrows are poisonous, as he rambles on about his quest to reclaim the lost Warhammer of Stonebridge so that his dwarves folk can do battle with trolls. He won't be able to fulfil the quest though, as he promptly dies. Good fella that I am though, I decide to take his quest and save the dwarves myself. After robbing his corpse, of course. And I say 'good fella', I mean that I think about how much money the dwarves will pay for their hammer back. So...nice bloke...

The Adventure

Skill - 12
Stamina - 22
Luck 11

With stats like these, I'm obviously yet another insanely butch thug. But if that's what gets me all the dwarf's money, so be it. I follow the map I looted from my dwarf friend's body and find myself at the tower of Yaztromo. Passing up the opportunity to stab the great wizard in the face, I follow him into his tower and to his magic shop. And he sure runs an impressive business, selling some 15 items of various qualities to me. With each thing costing 2 or 3 coins, I buy shed loads of items. Let's see what tat I now own:
Potion of healing
Potion of Insect Control
Armband of strength
Glove of Missile Dexterity
Holy Water

Presumably, the rent on a place like this is sky high.

Whilst I hand over a large percentage of my cash, Yaztromo explains that the Warhammer was dropped into the forest where it was discovered by two goblins. They couldn't decide who should have it so, after hours of beating the crap out of each other, decided to split it into two parts and both go off happy. So, two bits of war hammer to find then! I leave Yaztromo's tower and head east. I soon come to a junction and a talking crow. He offers me advice in exchange for a gold coin, which I pay cos...well just cos I'm entertained by magic talking animals I guess. He tells me to go north, and I'm so enamoured by his routine, I decide to take his advice.

I stroll north a short way when I hear voices coming towards me. Tough guy that I am, I stand my ground and soon bump into two ugly looking Hobgoblins. They're pretty cheesed off to see me...on their path I guess... and so attack. They don't last long. I raid their corpses and find a lovely flute, suggesting I've ended a blossoming music career. I continue along the path and find a hole, which I ignore, and then a cave. I peer in the cave and spy an ogre standing over a caged goblin. With goblins on the mind, I decide to take out the ogre and stage a rescue. I pick up a rock, put on my missile glove, and chuck a rock at the ogre's head, David and Goliath style. The ogre falls and so I stride in to rescue the goblin - who promptly picks up a chairs and attacks me. I kill him and find half a war hammer tied to his belt. MY half war hammer now though! I have a quick nose through the cave and find a shiny box. My luck has been in thus far, so I open it - and get poisonous cloud in my face. I didn't buy Yaztromo's nose plugs so I take a massive 6 stamina point hit, plus 2 skills points off too.

Knowing my luck couldn't get any worse than that, I stroll north along the path where I find myself suddenly swinging upside down from a tree. Seems I've blundered into a hunter's trap. Fortunately, I'm able to cut myself down and I head on my way. As i continue north, I spot yet another rope. I climb this one to find a lovely tree dwelling containing a less-that-lovely Ape-Man. Fighting him on a rope means I have a -2 skill penalty, making this a tough battle. I scrape through, down a potion of healing and begin nosing through my latest victim's house. He has nothing.

I was nearly, quite literally, boned to death by this fella.

I follow the path and then decide to turn left. I hear a heck of a lot of noise coming towards me, but decide to stand and face it. After all, it was only Hobgoblins last time! This time, it's a man on a horse. I stand my ground and stare him out until we decide we're both alright kinda guys. He hands me some Belladonna, but fails to tell me what it does. Nice man. Off he trots. I continue walking until I find a small hut containing a large man. His name is Quin and he spends his days waiting to arm wrestle folk who walk past his hut. I presume his days are long and very lonely. I decide to make his day a little better. By humiliating him. With my armband of Strength on, his arm wrestling is no match and he is swiftly beaten. He sadly hands over a prize - Dust of Levitation.

I cross over a nearby river, and then decide it's getting a little late. I settle down for a snooze, but am woken up by snuffling and growling - a Werewolf is sniffing around for someone to eat. It won't be me however, as I kill him without taking so much as one hit (which the text suggests would have been bad). And so off I go again!

I continue north for a little while longer, taking in the scenery (which is trees I imagine). So involved I am with looking and the greenery, I fail to see a pit trap in the middle of the path. I pass a luck test meaning that I don't become impaled on the spikes at the bottom, although some might claim that falling into two hunter traps within the space of 20 minutes takes some pretty dodgy luck. My luck isn't as bad as the hunter who laid the trap mind, as he soon turns up wondering why I'm not a bear. 3 Gold coins later, he has allowed me out of the pit.

A short while later, I spy a small hut. It's empty but has a strange jar sitting outside. I shake it and hear a rattling, suggesting that treasure is afoot! Alas, once I smash the jar I find, not riches, but some kinda mud monster - an earth elemental in fact. He doesn't attack me but flies away, announcing loudly how I have effectively doomed the world to fall at his feet. Which is nice.

I trudge on until I find a stone building. This one has a solid door which I have no key for. Luckily, I'm buff enough to charge it down. Which I do. As I walk into the darkness, I find a goblin skeleton and a creepy looking tomb. Sensing good things around the corner, I use my Dust of Levitation to remove the tombs lid. Inside is a Ghoul, who yells at me a bit for waking him up. By now, I'm a little fed up of monsters giving me stick, so I throw my Holy Water at him. Boy, does he not like that. He cries in the corner, allowing me to rob his tomb of 25 gold coins and Warhammer head. Looks like I have one complete Warhammer!

With my mission complete, I head on towards Stonebridge. Along the way, I find what looks like the lair of some creature. Obviously I march in and find that the creature is a Wyvern. I'm suddenly inspired to play my Hobgoblin flute, which seems to be a 'Flute of Wyvern Narcolepsy' as it sends him into a deep sleep. I search through his lair and find a gauntlet and a ring. I try the gauntlet and find it is Gauntlet of Weapon Skill, making me stronger than ever (I've effectively got a skill of 13 now). Knowing how these adventures work, I leave the ring and march off.

Fortunately, I can accurately play the flute whilst on fire.

I soon run into 5 bandits who demand items off me. However, I now have a Warhammer and the fighting skill of a God, so I slaughter them all and march into Stonebridge, where the Dwarves give me mountains of gold and a hearty pat on the back. Though probably not in that order.

Success!

So, How'd it go?

Pretty well, but it took me 2 attempts to complete.

Adventurer 1 - Missed the handle of the Warhammer and got killed on the way back to Yaztromo's.

So all in all, a pretty good adventure. Admittedly, I knew where the key points were, but forgot where the ogre's cave was. Obviously, the key feature of this book is that you can keep going round and round until you get all the stuff you need. In fact, on adventure 1, I was planning how I would write this event. Until I got an unlucky roll and became a pin cushion for Wild men arrows.

Overall, despite this book possibly having some issues, I loved it. It was the first I ever saw and so there's something so nostalgic about this one that I can easily ignore any faults in its layout.

Next up is one I no next to nothing about though, so let's see how long it takes to guide the Starship Traveller back to Earth...