#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...

#2 - The Citadel of Chaos

Sticking with chronological order, straight onto book 2 and Steve Jackson's first solo outing.

My history with the book

Never owned this one as a child, but I'm pretty sure I flicked through a friend's copy. I certainly remember the gorilla-dog and dog-gorilla. My first real experience of this was the app that came out a while ago. From my memory of that, getting past the ganjees is the real issue, and I'm pretty sure I remember how to do that so I'm not anticipating too many problems. With those famous last words, off I go.

What's it all about?

So, apparently, the good people of the Vale of Willow have spent 8 years living in fear of local bad wizard - Balthus Dire. But now rumour has it that he is planning to attack and so something must be done! Why we had to wait until the attack was imminent to do anything about him is unclear, but the King decides to send a wizard to stop him. The local wizard is too old apparently, so he sends his star pupil instead. That pupil is ME. So, magic-ing myself up, I head off to the citadel!

The adventure

Skill 9
Stamina 17
Luck 7
Magic 15

These stats are.... not so good. For most books. Citadel of Chaos is quite renowned for being one of the few you can finish without insane dice rolls. And I do have a decent magic set there so I can wizard my way through most situations. I hope.

I trudge up to citadel where I am greeted by two guards - the dog with an ape head and the ape with a dog head. They demand to know why I am here and I claim to be a herbalist, having picked up a handful of weeds on the way.
'Uh huh. And who are you here to heal?' they ask.
'Erm....Kyll....tog?' I reply, having seemingly plucked a number of phonemes and shoved them together.
'Oh Kylltog!' they reply, 'He's a dick. I'd leave him if I were you.'
But they let through anyway. Ignoring the fact that I blundered through my first challenge by inexplicably guessing a made up name, I walk through to the courtyard. I head straight to the group sitting around a fire and sit myself down. They are so shocked at my forward nature that they immediately start blabbing all kinds secrets to me - the password to get in is 'Scimitar'. I ask about the vial in their box, which upsets them enough that I have to kill 75% of them, with one individual running away screaming. Still, I've gained some ointment, a copper key and the vial of magic juice which I'm super excited about.

I continue across the courtyard when I feel a slight breeze. Looking around, I see the living whirlwind from the front of the book. She claims my appearance is offensive to her, which is a little rich coming from a living, green hurricane woman thing. I decide to simply levitate over her, which upsets her no end. The book notes that I give her a smug grin as I fly over, as if to prove the kind of self-satisfied young wizard I am. More Malfoy than Granger it seems.

Insult me? You look like spaghetti! How's that for a burn?

I get to the front door, which is opened by a big Rhino man guard. He is easily defeated by my use of the password, which I had conveniently learnt 2 minutes earlier. I follow the corridor until I get a door which instructs me to 'Ring for service.' Ever the polite assassin, I do just that. A bizarrely chuckling butler opens the door, and I confound him by barging past while demanding directions. He points off to the left and I decide to trust him.

His directions lead me to a sleeping goblin-giant thing. Turns out it's a Gark and he's none too happy to see me. I throw a weakness spell at him, and then kill him. Raiding his room, I find he has an ornate hairbrush, which I take. Although I do so while wondering why a bald creature needs a hairbrush, let alone such a pretty one.

Continuing on, I enter a door and find myself in a library of sorts. 'Secrets of the Black Tower' catches my eye, and it's quite the read. It also , rather bizarrely, contains security information about the tower. So now I know the security code for Balthus Dire's door - it's 217. I leave and find myself faced with 3 doors. I choose the locked one and use my copper key - it works! The room I find myself in appears to be Mrs Dire's room, which makes me wonder why the key for it was held by a drunken posse in the courtyard...

I quickly forget my concerns about Balthus Dire's marriage however, as the lady becomes angry with her eyes glowing red. Thinking quickly, I ...er...pull a hairbrush out of my bag. Fortunately, she loves it and begins to stare at it. I sneak by and steal her golden fleece as I walk past. I soon arrive in a room which has a large pit and treasure chest in the middle, but by now I'm bored of prating around with sub quests and so stomp on past it all and through the next door.

I move up a spiral staircase into a dark room. Ghostly voices taunt me and ....ghostly faces float around in front of me. 'Tis the Ganjees! I fill my pants a little due to the fear they produce (or in game terms, lose some stamina and skill). Reaching into my trusty rucksack, I show them the ointment I stole from the courtyard crew. Wouldn't you know, it turns out to be some kind of healing cream that Ganjees love, so they let me continue on my way.

Stupid, adventurer killing Hydra (that'll make sense in my evaluation)

Moving up some more stairs, I find myself facing a Hydra. I've read my myths and legends though, and by waving my golden fleece in it's direction (that isn't a euphemism by the way) it cowers and lets me pass. Arriving at a code door, I enter the 217 I found in a book and open to find ....

How he intends to install fear with hair like that I don't know

A bloody great trident flying at my face! I use shield magic to deflect it away and find that I am facing the great Balthus Dire. He's a bit cheesed off that I've just walked into his battle room and so sends a giant Clawbeast at me. I wave my hands around a bit and produce a weakness spell which causes the monster to fall over from it's own weight. I stab it while it's on the floor and then continue my march towards my target. He magically creates a mini earthquake to knock me over, but I bring out my second levitation spell and fly over his shaky floor.
From the options I have, I decide to hide behind the curtains. This seems an odd option, until I panic and throw the curtain over his head. Wouldn't you know it, he hates sunlight, which comes streaming through the window. I figure this will weaken him, but instead it outright kills him.

Victory!

So, How'd it go?

Again, I blundered by being overly confident. It took me 5 attempts to beat Balthus Dire!

Adventurer 1 - Spent too long pratting around in my back pack while facing the hydra, so he ate me.
Adventurer 2 - Spent too long pratting around with magic while facing the hydra, so he ate me.
Adventurer 3 - Met Miks. Tried to use an illusion spell on them which caused them to turn into dogs or something and bite me to death.
Adventurer 4 - Got to Balthus Dire's door without the code so sat down and cried.

I was so convinced that all I needed to do was find the ointment to beat the Ganjees, that I clearly forgot about all the rest I needed to do.

On the whole though, I loved this adventure. It truly can be beaten with any skill level, but still requires some effort to beat. It's a clear improvement on WoFTM and it's impressive to see that Steve Jackson was so keen to add to the formula early on.

Next up is Forest of Doom, which I'm sure is easy. But then, I've said that before....

#1 - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain

Where better to start than at the very beginning: the book that nearly every Fighting Fantasy reader has read and that every Fighting Fantasy blogger has written about. So I doubt I'll add much to it to be honest.

My history with the book

Had this one as a child, and it might have been a book I actually tried playing for real. Since then, I've played and completed the Blue Bubble app of it and played and completed the TinMan Games version that came out last year. So, technically, this should be a walk in the park. I vaguely know which way to go and what to do so I expect to finish this one without any problems.

The adventure

Skill: 12
Stamina: 21
Luck: 9

With stats like those, this quest should be a cakewalk. I'm imaging my character as a brainless Conan type, looking for fights, grunting a lot, and probably called Crunk or Biff or Lee.

I begin my adventure walking openly through the front door and finding a sleeping guard. Despite being appalled by his slothenly work ethic, I resist the opportunity to stab him and instead creep past.
I soon come across standard dungeon doors. Opening the first one, I find a sleeping orc clutching a box, so I naturally try to steal it from his grasp. Clumsy arse that I am though, I kick a chair over and he wakes up. I briefly contemplate using the classic 'sing monster back to sleep with a lullaby' technique, but that isn't an option the book gives me. So I instead simply kill him and steal his box, which contained a mouse. In the subsequent rooms, I find a snake in a box (which I kill) and two drunken orcs (who I kill). The massacre of corridor one has left me with one key, a fire spell to deal with a dragons, and a lifetime of PTSD I'd imagine.

Strolling through the corridors, I come across an orc kitchen with, what I presume is, 5 orcish Mary Berry wannabes. Aspiring to be like those loutish skinhead types you see in Wetherspoons, I march in and slaughter them all, whilst barely receiving a scratch. Thus, the journey begins seeming less like an adventure and more like a thug massacring a group of passive orcs.

So off I go again, freeing a prisoner (who I calm by calling 'Old Man'. Personally, that would enrage me further), and finding a lovely shield in the armoury and so buffing up my stats even further. Having wandered through a portcullis, I arrive at a room containing a statue with a shiny, cycloptic eye. 'No harm could possibly come from me taking that gem,' I say to myself, whilst ironically winking at an imaginary audience. Obviously, the statue comes to life and, despite giving me my first combative challenge, eventually crumbles, allowing me take the gemstone and a key which was hidden inside the statue. How you hide a key in a statue I'm not sure, but I pocket it rather than ask questions.

Also, the first of many gratuitous arse shots found in these adventures

I continue northwards and run straight into a barbarian (which, to be honest, was an encounter I hadn't expected. Kinda thought I knew this book pretty well but it seems surprises can still occur!). Obviously, I straight out murder him before moving into a room filled with portraits. Looking at the one marked 'Zagor', I suddenly feel all worried and queasy. Until, that is, I inexplicably hold my newly acquired gemstone up to the portrait. This courses the picture to scream and disappear. A clue to an easy end game perhaps...?

Unfortunately, this marked a period of the adventure where my hero's low luck caused a constant stream of calamitous events. I arrive at a river, with a sign saying I needed 2 gold for a boat ride. Somehow, I had no money so I decided to punt the boat across myself. Halfway across the river, the boat wobbles and I fall out, swimming back to shore. I decide to take the bridge but again tumble off halfway across and have to swim to the shore. Luckily, the boat has also floated back so I risk it again and manage to blunder my across the river which has so far given me more challenges than a mountain of orcs.

Continuing north, I find myself immediately beaten into unconsciousness. I awake to find 4 zombies staring at me, which I promptly...er...re-kill. I move into the next room and awaken a vampire, who is staked immediately. And so I finally arrive at the infamous Maze of Zagor. I stumble around, meet some dwarves, kill a minotaur (stealing his key) and continue to move in the direction that I thought the exit was in.

Minotaur in pants being the most erotic of my battles

However, it seems that my confidence was misplaced, for 15 minutes later I was still blundering around. Drawing a map helped me finally locate the exit and find the penultimate room - The Dragon's Lair. If only I had a spell to beat dra- oh wait. I do. Dragon runs off in tears.


So I finally reach the warlock himself, shine a gem at him and watch him melt. The 3 keys I've picked up are just the 3 I needed and the treasure is mine.

Success!

So, How'd it go?

Despite my early confidence, it took 3 tries to beat this one.

Adventurer 1 - Paralysed and eaten by a Wight despite a skill of 10
Adventurer 2 - Killed by cyclops. Because I had a skill of 7.

And how was the book?

It's hard to rate this as it's so well known. My knowledge of the book made it less of an adventure and more of a trip down memory lane. Still, I didn't expect to die so much so it shows that nothings certain. Generally, this is a fairly standard dungeon crawl, but one that led to many years of Fighting Fantasy. So can't complain really.

Here we go...

Ah, Fighting Fantasy books. My childhood summed up in book form. Surely I would not be the geek I am today without the many adventures I undertook where I was the hero. Not playing by the rules of course. Never owned dice. Or liked losing really. So most games were simply read in 'cheat mode'. No longer! Let me continue the great tradition (of the 6 or 7 blogs I've read over the last few years) of reading and completing all Fighting Fantasy books. Or at least the ones I find cheap on e-bay. Best start at the beginning...