Let's Play Fighting Fantasy #25: Beneath Nightmare Castle

Stories about games that you run and/or have played in.

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Which book should I run first?

#3 The Forest of Doom
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#25 Beneath Nightmare Castle
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Dr_Noface
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Post by Dr_Noface »

damn, did we get lucky with the second jail sequence? Or is it pretty easy to escape?
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

I like that after we exploded the horrible dark god made of living corpses and picked through the remains of his brain, we ate and took a nap.

Orphankiller indeed.
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Darth Rabbitt
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

(The second jail sequence is easy to escape if you go along with the guards and let them take you. That way they won't even bother stripping your weapon, and I'm sure you can see why that would make things easier. If you have the Trident or the Globe then you can go down the tunnel, otherwise you wait for Cernic to bust you out.)

OK, so cool things we missed:

A number of bad ends. I'll just list my personal favorites:
[*]You know how I mentioned there was at least one really cool weapon in the armory? If you pick up the sword you find out that it is possessed by the spirit of Vlax the Slayer, a warlord who died in battle with Skarlos. Xakhaz then put his soul in his sword because he's an asshole like that. Vlax's spirit tries to possess you, and if you fail your WILLPOWER test you get this:
You despise your pitiful ambition to assist the people of Neuburg. They are puny fools who are unworthy of your attention and are fit only to be slaves. You have greater concerns: an army to raise, enemies to slaughter, an empire to reconquer. Images of revenge, bloodshed and hatred fill your thoughts. You are Vlax the Slayer, and if you manage to extricate yourself from this dungeon you will bathe your sword in blood until entire continents kneel before you. But your previous adventure ends here.
[*]Depending on how exactly you get to Senyakhaz and how you fiddle with her remote a lot of mirror-related mishaps can occur. The two personal favorites of mine are:
You step out of empty air into a place that you know at once is alien and wrong. The magic portal has transported you across unguessable gulfs, and you are in a place that has not a single element of familiarity. It is night, but the breeze carries the perfume of unknown flowers; the shapes of the trees are all wrong. The moon is too big, too yellow. It seems to have a sardonically winking face . . .

If you can successfully Test your Willpower, you will remain sane, but you will never return to Khul.
and
Senyakhaz has set the mirror to destroy itself. You try to step into the reflective surface, and find yourself pushing into a viscous, clinging swirl of colors. Your intrusion speeds the process of destruction: the frame turns white-hot and then bursts asunder in molten blobs. Only half of your charred body is later found on the floor of this room; the other half is lost in limbo, or perhaps it followed Senyakhaz to her safe refuge.
[*]An ending where you drink a green liquid found on another path in the garden:
The green liquid is almost tasteless and seems very refreshing. Unfortunately it is concentrated magical fertilizer. You watch in helpless horror as roots sprout through your boots and hungrily penetrate the soil. You feel no pain as green-leaved shoots emerge from your arms and torso. Your thoughts become strange, disturbed and no longer truly human. You are a very healthy young tree and, unless someone chops you down or sets fire to you, you will grow in this garden for hundreds of years.
[*]Creature of Havoc isn't the only book to have bad endings where you end up as a wandering monster in someone else's story. This book does it better, however. First off is if you put on the Ogre's hat, or fail your WILLPOWER test when inspecting it:
You place the floppy white object over your head and experience a moment of panic as you feel something like cold jelly molding itself to your scalp. Your fear is soon submerged in a welter of alien images; you feel your own personality sinking in a morass of memories. Your head is filled with images from aeons past and from otherworldly places. Your emotions are superseded by totally inhuman desires and needs. You are the latest in a long line of hosts for a Brain Defiler; you will spend the rest of your days skulking in dark places, a slave to its whims, the instrument of its unnatural purposes.
The other is found in another dungeon passage, we might have come across a couple of Xakhaz's mutants. They are quite nasty in general, but especially if you fail a LUCK test:
You really are very unlucky indeed. The two mutated creatures were the victims of a disease magically created by the sorcerer Xakhaz. The disease is infectious, and you have been infected. Before you reach the end of the corridor your neck will begin to swell and to hurt abominably. Even at this stage you will have a suspicion of the truth. You will fall into a fever from which, if someone finds and tends you, you will recover. But you will have changed. You will be confused, violent, less than human, and abhorred by anyone you meet. An unpleasant fate for such a promising adventurer.
There's a very similar end triggered if you lose a WILLPOWER test when coming across one of them, but I'm not bothering copying it in.
Coming soon: Illustrations and, if anyone is interested, my final thoughts on the book.
EDIT: and, of course, other cool stuff we missed.
Last edited by Darth Rabbitt on Wed Jan 15, 2014 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Starmaker »

This is actually a well-designed book, even considering the initial bullshit. There are hints available for most wtf choices we faced, as a kind of reward for exploring dead ends with fuck-yous. For example, it's possible to encounter at least two illusions immediately before the spider, and if we had questioned the priest, he'd have told us how to [not] use the Talisman. The "you turn into a tree" scene Darth linked is the result of a choice that is far from binary.

Not that there aren't fuck-yous. That room with food? it's a monster, and it eats you if you try to explore around instead of leaving immediately. The side tunnel we didn't go into? It's a shortcut around the whole mess straight to that last fork (to be fair, it provides two chances to opt out of it), and Xakhaz is Skill 14, Stamina 32. If we alerted Senyakhaz to our presence, a really creepy scene happens which I'll leave for Darth to cover (the not-Skarlos slug was kind of disturbing; this thing is worse), but the actual fuck-you is that you're then given a blind choice of two doors, and an incorrect choice means Senyakhaz escapes.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Creature of Havoc isn't the only book to have bad endings where you end up as a wandering monster in someone else's story.
Creature of Havoc gets points for Use of Medium. As in, you get stuck, get increadingly annoyed/worried, start noticing the same paragraph numbers, map that shit out and realize you're stuck.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:You step out of empty air into a place that you know at once is alien and wrong. The magic portal has transported you across unguessable gulfs, and you are in a place that has not a single element of familiarity. It is night, but the breeze carries the perfume of unknown flowers; the shapes of the trees are all wrong. The moon is too big, too yellow. It seems to have a sardonically winking face . . .

If you can successfully Test your Willpower, you will remain sane, but you will never return to Khul.
:awesome:
(Telefrag would've happened if she'd escaped and we'd followed. Moving the rod towards Z would've got us into Zagoula, where it's also possible to get imprisoned beyond the scope of the book, and the return trip (d6) is a 50% chance of teleporting somewhere remote (several days from Neuburg, several weeks from Neuburg, and the alien world paragraph quoted above) and a 50% chance of proceeding with the adventure: Skarlos slug, back to the chamber, and this:
Beneath Nightmare Castle wrote:You step out of the mirror into Senyakhaz's chamber - and come face to face with Senyakhaz herself. Both of you stand frozen in shock for several moments, since she is as surprised to see you emerging from her magic portal as you are to meet a woman you killed only minutes ago. Your mind fumbles for an explanation, and you reach a conclusion which is, in fact, close to the truth: the portal has malfunctioned and thrown you back in time. And then you have no more time to think, as Senyakhaz attacks. Return to 160 and relive your past!
And, fwiw, at least two scenes (avoidable with luck/prudence) feature the hero killing innocent (but ensorcelled) people. This penalizes willpower (among other things).
Last edited by Starmaker on Thu Jan 16, 2014 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by OgreBattle »

what happens if we smashed her box?
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Post by Starmaker »

OgreBattle wrote:what happens if we smashed her box?
Beneath Nightmare Castle wrote:You break the box under your heel. It contains a diamond, several fragments of glass, a twisted piece of metal, and some white sand. It was the control mechanism which transformed Senyakhaz's mirror into a magical portal connected to her southern homeland and to the abysmal caverns below Neuburg Keep where she has resurrected the insane and aeons-old sorcerer Xakhaz. Now that you have destroyed the box, Xakhaz is safe to pursue his horrific experiments and to plot the subjugation of Neuburg. You have merely postponed the day of reckoning.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Was there any negative consequence for killing kids in this book?
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Post by Starmaker »

OgreBattle wrote:Was there any negative consequence for killing kids in this book?
None whatsoever (except possibly lost HP if you rolled poorly). There's no benefit for killing them, either; the extra coins don't make a difference.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

OK, on a bit of a time limit but I think I can answer a few things.

Star covered a few things for me; the Zagoula mirror return trip d6 results are all pretty fun (especially the bad end and the rematch with Senyakhaz), and I do like in general that Peter Darvill-Evans realizes that failure can be from things other than death or insanity (but also writes the best deaths from those in a FF book; Manse would be proud to come up with some of these) and a lot of the bad ends actually gave very good hints.

And at SKILL 14 STAMINA 32 Xakhaz is probably the nastiest monster in a Fighting Fantasy book. There's that SKILL 16 STAMINA 12 demon in Scorpion Swamp, but Xakhaz has almost 3 times the STAMINA for 2 less SKILL. He does take shitloads of damage from the Trident: it does +5 damage to him. Talisman of Loth reduces his SKILL by 1 point, and had we missed with the globe there would be a LUCK test to see if it went off, which if successful would reduce Xakhaz to SKILL 9 STAMINA 10, but deal 3 damage to us (which is actually a really nice trade).

Starmarker also mentioned another nice Bad End I missed. Again, if you knock at Senyakhaz' chamber, or say you're there on authority of the Margrave, she'll appear disguised as a serving-girl (named "Senya") and try to cast a spell on you. And if you go through the right-hand door we avoided, you also have a chance to come across three serving-girls, one of which is, once again, actually Senyakhaz in disguise. In any of these cases, if you fail a WILLPOWER test, you get a rather nasty bad end:
It is true that you feel very tired. You deserve a rest. The chair is wonderfully comfortable. Senya has a deliciously soothing voice and a gentle smile; you cannot take your eyes off the magnificent red jewel shimmering at her neck. Nothing seems important except that you should stay here and relax. You are not alarmed when the arms and legs of the chair mold themselves around your limbs—it feels even more comfortable. You die slowly and peacefully, unaware that Senya is no serving-girl but the wizard Senyakhaz, a mistress of illusion. You are not sitting on a chair: you are being engulfed by a Voldblad, a hideous creation of the resurrect evil sorcerer in the depths. The Vlodblad surrounds you and drains your STAMINA, while you remain hypnotized by Senyakhaz's flickering ruby.
This book has different mechanics for different weapons, and I believe has more magic weapons than any other Fighting Fantasy book. Other than the Trident of Skarlos, there is:
[*]The Runic Axe. This is the weapon that the Dwarf gardener is holding; if you don't call out that you killed the Ogre he'll attack you upon entering (presumably because, as he said, he's batshit insane his axe is telling him to kill people.) It gives +2 SKILL in combat, but you cannot Escape from a combat while using it, because of the bloodlust it incites. There are actually quite a few cases where this is pretty bad, so that's more of a drawback than it would be in most books.
[*]The silver-spiked mace is a very short and heavy weapon, and because of this it gives -1 Attack Strength. However, it does +2 damage because it is enchanted.
[*]The brass tube is actually an Ice Spear that is powered by the STAMINA of the wielder, and it gives +2 SKILL in combat but drains 1 STAMINA at the beginning of any combat to activate.
None of these are super complex, but other than the artifact weapon that is explicitly supposed to be the best weapon in the land they all have benefits and drawbacks which are fairly interesting.

The green liquid I mentioned before is also fairly cool. I mean, in general it's interesting to see some magical thing that has no actual value to an adventurer but is very useful to certain people in the world without just feeling like "this is a cool toy you can't use." If you stick a finger in the stuff you get -1 SKILL permanently because plants start growing on your finger, but you get a literal green thumb—it is said that if you survive, you will be awesome at growing plants for the rest of your life. This is also why the old Dwarf gardener has arms that are bright green—they're permanently stained from his work with the stuff. Again, it's just fairly cool world-building stuff that you can see being in a fantasy setting.

Peter Darvill-Evans' world-building is fairly neat for the most part; I like that his Goblins aren't all assholes, such as the old one in the market. See also: Portal of Evil, where the badass hero from the past was a Goblin. He also reuses races and cultures in later books; the Goblins and Southerners reappear; the Southern bandits even have a whole "Noble Demon" (forgive the use of a TVTropes term) thing going for them where they'll let you live and keep your stuff if you can defeat their strongest guy. There's also Spectral Stalkers' future Khul that has that nasty innkeeper and Goblins working together to kill and rob people. All of the books take place in the region of Khul near Neuburg and Zagoula. It builds a sense of a world that some of the Ian Livingstone books try to convey, but in a much more coherent manner.

In general, actually, I really like Peter Darvill-Evans' writing style. His prose is much higher quality than most FF authors, and I actually learned quite a few words from this book, which is more than I can say about any other FF. Margrave, sardonic, lugubrious, vitriol, etc. are all words that don't see much use.He is in desperate need of an editor here, though, and I suspect that he got one in his later two books.

Crap, I have a lot more to say about this book than I thought. I'll have to finish up later, again; I have stuff to do.
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Post by Starmaker »

Darth Rabbitt wrote:Again, if you knock at Senyakhaz' chamber, or say you're there on authority of the Margrave, she'll appear disguised as a serving-girl (named "Senya") and try to cast a spell on you. And if you go through the right-hand door we avoided, you also have a chance to come across three serving-girls, one of which is, once again, actually Senyakhaz in disguise. In any of these cases, if you fail a WILLPOWER test, you get a rather nasty bad end:
She does a kind of "mirror image with living people" thing with the two serving girls. Meaning you have to choose and strike one of the three identical girls, failure to guess correctly prompts yet another willpower check - fortunately, the correct paragraph number is identical in both cases.

The Vlodblad (aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!) is creepy as fuck, I figuratively shat my pants when I saw the picture. Mercifully, following the FF convention you no doubt noticed ("this picture is from elsewhere but it fits here"), the picture goes with the fight, not the bad end. It has a base skill of 3 which increases by 1 each round you don't wound it (which is never), but this is one of (at least) two fights you actually want to Escape from (in this case, to follow Senyakhaz).

(Oh, and if you choose to walk past the fertilizer font, perhaps after getting a green thumb, you notice a tree that used to be a person.)
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

At this point I should probably let Starmaker just write up what we missed, she probably went through the rest of the book more recently. I totally missed mentioning the tree-man that is what you become if you drink the magic green fertilizer.

Just a few more cool things:

In the riverside, we'd have come across a bunch of slaves being forced to move crates, except for one they refused to regardless how much their Southern masters beat them. There's a scratching sound inside, and if you open it a crate of rotting limbs grab you. One of the creepier moments of the book. You can also push the crate off into the river, which nets you 1 LUCK point for destroying Xakhaz's horrors without risking your life or sanity.

In the dungeons, there are two other things worth mentioning.

[*]One is the woman from the cover with the spiked suit of armor (although she looks much sadder in the book.) She attacks you but begs you, while crying, to go away--unless you have a set of earplugs (in which case you can't hear her cries) from the jailer's (who is a one-legged Hobgoblin who has also gone crazy; Baron Tholdur seems to employ a lot of humanoids of questionable sanity, but maybe it's just the influence of Xakhaz) room that he was instructed to use when dealing with her. You can Escape unless you have the Runic Axe, and if you kill her (after being informed that "she looked almost grateful as you struck the final blow" you are informed that she was the Baron's adopted daughter who was forced by Senyakhaz to wear cursed armor. -2 LUCK, for the guilt you feel and the later shame that will come when you, if you survive, have to tell your old friend that you killed his daughter.
[*]The other is a cell with two people wearing Hannibal Lecter style headgear; a man and a woman. The man just asks you to free the woman, and is apparently less fucked up than the woman is; both are crazy mutants that have tentacle-tongues growing out of their mouth, but the man's are less pronounced and he's less aggressive. This is the place with the aforementioned magical disease. It also produces the one unilaterally banned piece of artwork in a FF book (the sacrifice image in House of Hell was banned in some releases and printings, but not all of them):
Image
This is the mutated woman.
Now for the rest of Xakhaz's Pokemon Lovecraftian demon hybrids:
Image
The Mottled Kraken is much less hardcore than the non-mottled Kraken from Demons of the Deep, but it's an ambush predator that prompts a WILLPOWER check when grabbing you, and you take a SKILL penalty for fighting it in swampy water. It's found in one of the garden towers.
Image
The Bakk-Ruman, legendary cave-dwelling monster, presumably created by Xakhaz on his first run around (like the Vitriol Essence.) Again, weak monster that produces a SKILL penalty because of its Screech attack. Most opponents in this book have fairly low SKILL, actually.
Image
Blood-Lurchers, the monsters that roam the town at night. They tear prey to shreds and then slurp up the blood with their tentacles. You come across them if you explore the town at night.
Image
Snuff-Hounds, used by the Southerners as tracking dogs. You have to fight it if you hide in the rocks in front of the temple. Old Huw gives you a Potion of Berserker Strength (+4 SKILL for one fight) as a reward for killing the beast and its master (who you have to fight right after the Snuff-Hound herself). Honestly, the food would make more sense there (since you just got in a fight that might take STAMINA from you) and the potion if you tell him about your quest and give him the ring (since you're going on a long and perilous journey and all). As an aside, I sometimes call my dog a Snuff-Hound because she makes snuffling noises (although of course she's much cuter than this monster.)
Image
Zombie Chrabats, undead creations of Xakhaz that appear if you dismember the skeleton before grabbing the shaft of the Trident of Skarlos. They have another SKILL-lowering attack if they manage to hit you, but their SKILL is low enough that it's fairly unlikely for them to pull off, even though you fight them 3 at a time.
And of course:
Image
The terrible Vlodblad that Starmaker and I have both covered at length already.
Bonus Round: Meet the Staff of Neuburg Keep.
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Bindebol, pitiable page-boy and the ugliest Gnome I have ever seen. Fighting Fantasy Gnomes look wildly different in every book, actually. Take a look at these two from other books:
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The Gnome asshole from Deathtrap Dungeon.
Image
A Gnome from The Forest of Doom, coming soon to a forum near you.
I know different artists have different styles, but Elves are always skinny pointy-eared people and Orcs are always muscular toothy greenskins and Dwarves are always stout bearded people and Goblins are always short-pointy eared people and Hobgoblins are always hairless sharp-toothed pointy-eared people. These three Gnomes literally look nothing alike.
Image
Kulgob, foul-tempered and also ugly Orc guard. To be fair, he's explicitly described as the ugliest Orc you have ever seen. Bindebol is carrying a bowl of stew that is Kulgob's lunch, and you can poison it if you killed the Dwarf Gardener and took his Orcsbane. Or you can throw it at Kulgob's face and attack him, or just let him eat non-poisoned stew (or eat it yourself) but where's the fun in that?
Image
Another Dwarf hanging out with a guard. This guy is more of a sneaky bastard than the gardener is, and it is quite possible that he will kill you if you get weak while fighting the guard, or help you out in the fight if you tell him you're a good friend of the Baron. In general, it's a good idea to tell people from Neuburg that you're a friend of the Baron, the exception being Cernic.
Image
Griltig, the jailer I mentioned earlier.

Another Bonus Round: Remaining Illustrations
Image
A Southern Swordsman dropping a boulder on your head, from a bad end where you're taken captive and the guards decide to play a game with you, betting on how long it will take them to hit you if they drop rocks above you tied up on the ground below. This book is rather schizophrenic about how it handles you being captured, which is actually a really big flaw of it.
Image
The aforementioned quasi-Mirror Image trick Senyakhaz pulls on you.
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The contents of the poison barrel we drank from in the basement.
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The fountain where the magic green fertilizer can be found, and the poor soul who drank it and turned into a tree.
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The woman from the cover of the book, a.k.a. the Baron's adopted daughter wearing a cursed suit of armor.

My final thoughts on the book will come soon, if anyone's still interested. I'll probably start The Forest of Doom in a few days, and that's the last LP I'm doing (at least for quite a while.)
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Post by Starmaker »

Darth Rabbitt wrote:It also produces the one unilaterally banned piece of artwork in a FF book
Some delicious squid is a no-no but the Vlodblad is okay all right? I will never understand censors.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:This book is rather schizophrenic about how it handles you being captured, which is actually a really big flaw of it.
This, especially because getting captured happens to be highly beneficial at one time and fatal at any other time. The difference in treatment (being executed as a spy vs being escorted to jail still in possession of weapons) is simply wtf. (Successfully escaping on the way to jail is fatal. There goes my sobriety screed.)

Generally speaking, the book is inconsistent in how it treats perceived danger. For example, the Margrave's ring Huw demanded sees questionable use in the capture scene where we're brought before the Margrave. If we talked (moar worldbuilding), he wouldn't believe us unless we had the ring and chose to display it, and even then it's still possible to catch on and hightail it out of there. As Senyakhaz works her magic (see also: the ogre's turban), the tone of the description of the hero's predicament changes from "aw shit" to "sup?" in the span of two paragraphs - which is cool. The fact that without the ring no one reacts to a half-page of "zomg dude I'm totes your bestest friend" isn't cool.

Another example:
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Blood-Lurchers, the monsters that roam the town at night. They tear prey to shreds and then slurp up the blood with their tentacles. You come across them if you explore the town at night.
Despite the warning and the general perceived inadvisability of doing so, it's possible to go out to explore the town and/or approach the castle at night and not die - in fact, there's some appreciable choice-padding between deciding to go out and a death paragraph. (Which is cool, because, as an adventurer, you are supposed to go places too scary for normal people and ignore some warnings.)

If you go to town, you run into Blood-Lurchers (they aren't tough) and a victory gives an option to take a 'lurcher tentacle. If you do, way later, in the castle, either as at the first hideout after a successful brute force break-in or at the dorf gardener's room, if the pack contained food, you discover that the tentacle mutated into the Kiss of Death Protoplasm.

If the dorf is alive, he hacks at it with his axe and smashes the bomb (it doesn't explode, it's just ruined). If he's dead or you took the brute force approach, it jumps into your face. Failing at a willpower check sends to the following paragraph:
Beneath Nightmare Castle wrote:You cannot bring yourself to touch the loathsome object that has attached itself to your hair. In demented fear you jump up and down and shake your head, but the bulbous shape clings on and swings against your shoulders with soft thuds. Its suckers mouth mindlessly, waiting for an opportunity to touch the exposed skin on your face and give you the kiss of death. Inevitably, as your frantic twitching becomes wilder and wilder, a sucker touches your flesh and holds fast. The sac of the creature's body nestles against your face and begins to turn a dull pink as it draws out your blood.
The above is an unsettlingly accurate description of what it feels like to have something you're afraid of attached to your body.
(Then it's either death or HP loss depending on remaining willpower.)
All in all, there are about a dozen paragraphs dedicated to teaching kids the valuable lesson of not picking up suspicious biomass.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:The green liquid I mentioned before is also fairly cool. I mean, in general it's interesting to see some magical thing that has no actual value to an adventurer but is very useful to certain people in the world without just feeling like "this is a cool toy you can't use."
(Points to Peter Darvill-Evans for including body horror unrelated to monsters in an adventure full of the regular variety of same.)
Another example is a barrel labeled "POTION" in the Margrave's ransacked treasury. It's an appetite-reducing potion which prevents the hero from eating meals for the remainder of the adventure. Baron Tholdur is concerned about his waistline.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:In general, it's a good idea to tell people from Neuburg that you're a friend of the Baron, the exception being Cernic.
The choice is "attack", "I'm one of Tholdur's men, wrongfully imprisoned", and "I am a pretty soldier of love and justice". So the general principle of going for the strongest expression of affiliaton with Team Good holds up. "I'm one of Tholdur's men", however, leaves the hero to starve to death in the cell, which once again proves the Southerners's incompetence at dealing with prisoners knows no bounds. Kill for the lulz? Execute? Question? Send to Xakhaz for experimentation? Sacrifice? Forget altogether? Remove equipment? Let keep a weapon? (They have been drilled on "what to do when someone tries to bluff past the checkpoint".)

Oh, and the deal with the talisman is that it was a gift from Oiden to Loth, "a leader of our people before we became field-ploughers and town-dwellers", who was immensely vain, and thus looking into a mirror while wearing the talisman kills you. Cernic tells this and other useful info if you detain him; there are no negative consequences whatsoever: he doesn't flip out and stab us or die of fright or scream and alert the guards. Great guy, tip of the hat to him. Now why wouldn't Huw tell us this in the first place?
(And points for suggesting fantasy worlds are not permanently locked in the faux middle ages.)
(And that makes two guys concerned with their appearance, so points for that, too.)
Darth Rabbitt wrote:My final thoughts on the book will come soon, if anyone's still interested.
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w7hyWXYzUZnlFPEtfuL7IJkcTqpZ5f5Rr+PGuxprkTcOgkEFDseiOeD6YEXBPmkxKw55dEWrgN7clRYpDbkjnE6exvZUuIUQeDbfsTtGZSAt0d9lX1jmn6I0/N1eywFpyltvFVtRRA8rO7dVOUeikHTG6Kf2jmDYrmvmz+sXHxKaNMWnVesjLjsSfas9UaOmU2LyZGWAAuoeCxlxt22Hn+Cv63CHP1PJWfCGEBpLz6o120HZqqxl0SyLsN+FsOMTO+wRXRPJBzBCtBiNnabfnZWhxe2t1NlYQbRE434cZUxHTrjYrDoqdzJcj7gsJt/NfQrMUba55a+xD/FHCTagdPG299SOY70VLoWUeLMyNrb3HYm8txZWs+C5Dz05ELptCewJbGsZwekOa9/cjHKWtBuL281X4dSAW1VricbuiOU2VfjyrImyOZXCgexHEhYtJ5gofqq/R1h2691iquvqn5nX7VFkkNifzsvYn8i1SPKjg7tgwkkksRrEvpX0WVWTA4O8y/5jl81LaeDsTy4VTsF9Ok98jiinXY0Y26JePVOZxsqbMlLIXk/n2pMe0HXrfBZZPk7Ny6VEuigzkAexalwthZYwE38EAYCWPeBqO7kteoIg1gA7FoxpJWY88m+iuxumu38lCzWDYrQJI7iyF8Xw7KS5unki/wBJRfoHcQoLi4d5EXCqAz6JDfsktPvRCasA2c4+xMup8zr3db6oA95SOmUQLVWGsJuSRbtsfeEwymeSBG3N4cvcjZ+GtJF3EeDR7yrCGjAcA1x7zokeKx1koGcK4ckc3O6M6HYnQon/AEMzIWZWgHcKVM+zHAnb2qF8sLQBb8991NwSGUmymn4TAaRHI9gPgbeF1UdBLA0Me4ydbR1tSOV7IlqsWy3zHQ7W3VLVRyTCzTl1vrzspM24ZNbLDBcEaXmR5c4nkSbDutsEaU5AbZAlJVyx6SNNu0G4RHQ1bSN1yRLLbZxj+BRzNJ1aRrcIQhwgh2tyBsTutCFQCOXihd7czzex13F0JImmMw0Pj7lE4ihyxWzlviFfxQgIf4od1bZnt8BmA8k2OPYs5dGU1dE7MSOsNdW/goTmixB79PJWtbA4EuGSQC/WaLEeIGoUCWUEE3INjv1hstyZjYKJJJLhhLU+E5B8gi7s+n2yssWhcLPvSsG1s2v2jokm6RbCrkTn1BJsB5BOQRAmzib9g38zyTeQ3s3QdvMqVTvbfIzzPM/6KMTXMJ+GhHna2zCe/U+S1unHVFkB8GUFhmLW+PNH0Wy0x0efkdyPUzUxBwTsp0TTJEUSYL4pQuF7Gw7kP/JXXv1j3ucQPYEe1g7VR4hTg6m9uxJOHtFYT9MgUtRfquObwGVo/FW8L22NgLDmNyqR8d9NmjWw/Oqcp6ktc0+dvxQhKthkiTiMjwCbC6F6ysc42be/MnZGgxRhYczQSdh+fJVphhcdgNV0oJ9phhNraBmFmt3HXldWTm5bEFWBwthuWnYpv5ML9oUJQovHKeRPto7X8EwGFj7s2PJT/k1ypUdHflokug8mxsyZm2suoofzzUptJZPshS7A3RAqLBpJ2WS8b1ozHKfY53wWtY6C2MloB7lhvEFR86Q5hGvqnUeIO7VpxxITkVkde9pBDte06m3inJZGyX6uV1je3PTcfgoZi0JabgcjuO4/iuA64PJXIlAkkkgOJHnDbb0zLnQZvvFAaPeG3Xpo2DmXe0uPwUsujR8b7FiZ7C50vo3uHM/yVlhEQLhpfvVXL1nkDYaDwCJ+HKY3AF/IfzUls0ZXSNG4dYA0WRG1ypMLhytAVqO9bUujzZbHJX28FCmHZolVO7Pcq6Sre3/VBtICR3LKR3qFLOT3lTmVDXN6xAKhZCToUjv0OiK9ullHlpzr7FeR0lhqmqhnIJJR6GTKJsJ9gXsdMVatg3tsEmjs5FSZREKGmdtyKn01ERqnogpTH2UnY4m04tsnI4QnWvC6Qo6zkQLqwHJdZ03I9PFCNlZjUJdGQ38FhHFubOQ6/mt7qDoQsy9IGA3HSC5Phr7VeDJSMypDY38vHuK6k0B5XGn4JvLY7ae9OPN2nTW11YmDSSSSA4kccOaQRn63xKB0c8Nf7Ow/W+JUsujR8b7FlSG7hrZaJwwQADr3aW8VnWGuHSAEnXkFqGF9VjiNMjHEeIaT8QkxrspnYYUo2UiY6aIdwrAJZaSKX5bVCR8LH7xZc7ow7bo9rlReCqCasooKmarqGvlbmLWGNrBqbBoLCfetXIxUXj3W1KrqioF+1VOAOlrJjA6ola2Fs+ZzMge8/KnxRFxLDsyJ2wGpS4roXUXRSMnllD+mYRIWOGYQPkjcMrRzjPtU5WMqJ7Brr7ApgmI0DB5odxzB5o6CGeCpnM8ppmgPyOZmncxriWhg0GcnfkueJqI09ZQ00dTUuNQ93SkujOWNosLdTQue4WP7pQSaOL+pxJ45DxXBxVoGuvafwVZxZhlNSROMmITsmMcjoWvfHd7mt0Ab0evWLRbvVWITLNSQlz2dK+zy2wdpC95AJBt1mhLK7oZVQSfpYDcKTS4hG7S1iVQcYcMPpmU5gnncZKmGF+csdZkrsrnN6os4aarvjbhv5HRTVEVRUl8YBaHOYQdQLWyd67g/Z3JBM1w3ATzXjl7EK4rh8rDQGlqpzHVStY8vLHEMdE6UOYcgs60bhc33VjSMdHXyQdNLLGyGMvMmU2kke7IAWtH0GOv4hCWMKmXLZQe5PNeEOUFHnpXVc9ZURtBlc7KYw1rWSOGg6MmwACkTQyUphmFS6emkexrxKGZmiX+rljkY1ul7XaQbh17i1irxMPNF2XhNPkVPwzhUtTSQVEtXUsfMxsha0xhrc/WDWgx3sAQqrDelkrnUktTMA3pmscwsDnOjdG+zyWEE9HPHtb1Sj42DkghleqHiN3zTvBc4Vh8rvlz6qqnbHSyvYwsyNLo2RiUveS05nWeBfQdVKgMjqWIz6yOjaX+JFz8U3GgXZiFa7ruv2/nVMl+l7creVlccV0gbK7KNFTNdp5FVWiXsHEkklwwkYYJJanZ5/EoPRJhr/mWDx+JU8qtF/j/YJ+Hqk9KNL21/JWjxVXzTxYj5t++n0Cs+4Wa1rrWJOlze3kAtDinLo5BlPqP+6VNPuh8nYXYNW9HS4e39oyFn/wBcu/5VJwpjYHspGerHDmHgXlo+BQLW8W0opcMDKiJz4pKTpGtcC5jej6ORzhyDQ43vtZWNHxlR/pOoe6qhEXyanYx5kGVzhJM54a7YkZm38QtBlGfRXrPikp2bUui/9uSaR3+d7lEx+qdJw7DUOHXayOQ8rE3Y/wBz3JzgfieipoKtzqmAPfVVcoaXgFwMjujNr6hwa0juIXOI8ZQVuDzMqJoYamSCQGEuyuDwCWtDHG9zYe1ccHWERsNLS57aRwlt/wBYMFkC47m/TTc++ekydnRWnvbvz5r/AGU5jXGlM3D6boaiN8sbqNzo2ODn5Wuj6YZRrozPdMcY45RSV2HVMVXAejlcyXLI02jc3O17tdA1zLX/AH0GcXPpJdTs+cdPJFVCCYQNZrn9U5S3Kb9cR+1VFJrW0BIsemd/+eW6m8U4vhtQROzEmxyxxStZ0U0XWDsrsrg5pvqxuyhCqbF+jqidzY2iRrpHO6rWl9NJ6x5dY281Of2Q8fqw7kyzyyRO/uZIZB7A9vvBVHxdWdJhkzz+0y+TKgN/5VW4bxhRtxOseamIQyQU2WTOMhdGZg9rXbFwD23HgqWm4iglwVkBmj+Uvykw5h0mZ04cRk3vqqCBh6PS11MIXWJpJnxt7gNYj49HI1UOAVbpHS1Qtaomc9utwY2kRw+1jAftFS+GMcpaSSsZPPFEXStc0PeGkt6CMZhfcXBHkonB1OfkNILWIhivftyhTk/5QyXZMeb4BUHtiqT/APORR+O5izh9j2+s2KlLfEdHZLDsYoXYa+jnrIoXOE0bwXtD2ZpHj1Xc9eajcb8QUUtFDSQTtlaJaVr3MOZscUcjMz5HjqtGVqoKFFbKaY4XAAdZBGe4MppN/MNQ3xDL8nxCWXUCGWkqSdhkmbJTTnwDWNd9kK1xv0i08ctM2nlgljfIRO8OzCKO2jyWmzesQLnvQ5x9jEFQ+Z1NNHMHUMrXmNwflMcsbmZrdokfbwKEtBQW8ftaKcU43q5mMd3t9ea//pxkX7wq3EgS05UuI+IaWonpBBPHKWOlLhG4PLQYiLm2wuup33Fx2JZPsK0YpxHGWyvDjcqoGrT4FGPHdM1zswuD7ig42Dew6ja42TQ0JJdg4kkkmCJE+BRExtIGutuwa7pJKeTRbB9g84cpBGOtuUYUjLW7fFJJZL7LtFzTygDXLfwT8UQcdr+Qskkqp2RaokPY1o9UX7SEwIwTe3uXqSDfZwpB2C3knaCj+kQPYEkkoT2eIDkLnuC4Z6uy8SSIJHkj7h7FFlGXX26apJJkweyLlzat5ciOXcVa0jrjXdJJMc0PmAbkAnwCilh8uzl7F6kuegITGW2HuXkg02C9SQRzIvSaEW9yj1Ega0uA9m6SSpAWRlXE2IdI8gHTvQ3IBYpJK0NEp7BxJJJOcf/Z[/img]
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Darth Rabbitt
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

So Star has actually covered quite a few of the points, good and bad, that I would have in my final thoughts. Actually, that's good because it means I have to type less. There are a few more things I'd like to say about this book, though.

Beneath Nightmare Castle (BNC for the rest of this post) and House of Hell (HoH, ditto) were the first two FF books I got (I found them together) and they were both FF horror. I think everyone here knows which one I like more (even when I first read them, I felt the same).

As I said, the quality of the prose in this book is excellent, perhaps the best in any FF I've read. I'm not sure how much that matters in most gamebooks, but here it's very effective at creating atmosphere, and that matters a lot in horror. It also helps that Peter Darvill-Evans designed a number of creepy creatures, and is not at all afraid to write up some truly bad Bad Ends, without the smugness that haunts UK Steve's takes on fantasy horror. (I haven't read any other FF author that tried horror, although I'm sure there are more.) Again, a lot of them are actually quite enjoyable reads. Also unlike UK Steve's stuff, there are a lot of hints dropped while there aren't too many red herrings in this book, so the annoyance of dying is further dulled by the feeling that you are getting something useful as you go around. It also helps that there are actually helpful people around town and in the keep; this, combined with some effective horror makes Neuburg a place that seems overall worth saving, without things being too grimdark to feel like you can make a difference or too cheerful to be creepy. (Although Huw is still a crazy asshole, he can go fuck himself.)

There are points that are just bullshit (like the guards being super different based on where you're captured by them, with no rhyme or reason why they are at any given point) but for the most part the bullshit manages to be the tolerable variety. And this book needed an editor super fucking bad; it's ridiculous how poorly edited some sections of it are.

I kind of feel like this book was Peter Darvill-Evans' take on UK Steve's FF style, and then Portal of Evil was his take on Ian Livingstone's. In both cases I feel he trumped them. And finally Spectral Stalkers was just "I'm going to write the best FF ever right now, kthanksbai," and a worthy swan song to the series. I wasn't sure how well this book would stand up to my memories of it; I think that for the most part it's done fairly well, but maybe that's just my nostalgia boner talking.

Next up is Forest of Doom.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
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