[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy 61(?) - Howl of the Werewolf!

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

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SGamerz
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Post by SGamerz »

So, having covered the villain group, we still have the "hero" group. I've already mentioned one of the (ex-)member of the Order of the Black Rose above, but the first member we actually meet is even earlier.

Remember the village we visited when our hunt began? We were told about some monster called "the Shuck". If we had asked more about this, we will be told that it the monster has been keeping Father Corran trapped in a Shrine for St Crucius (not being actually able to enter the shrine itself. We would have picked up a codeword that would later allowed us to locate the shrine.

The Shuck turned out to be some huge demon dog:
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Here is where we could have gotten a Silver Crucifix from Father Corran (but only if we kill the demon....if we couldn't do that in 7 rounds the priest joins us and helps us chase it away).

Father Corran actually never says anything about the Order of the Black Rose. We only learn about his membership from another fellow, the guy who gives us the Nethcir codeword:
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Yes, he carries a gun too. If we attacked and killed him, we could also have looted his flintlock pistol and bullet. Or he may attack us. One thing about these vigilante guys......they will ALL turn on you if they realize you're a lycanthrope (not counting Valedictus, he'll be sympathetic towards us because of his son). In this case, it's not that surprising. After all we saw this guy's brother in Night of the Necromancer and he was just the same towards the ghost PC....this guy's name is Van Richten. He doesn't have a first name in this book (his brother in NotN was Josef).

If we manage to hide our dark secrets from him and claim to be on some evil-cleansing quest (like him), he invites us to join him in killing the Countess of Maun. As a companion he automatically takes care of any additional second opponent in battles against multiple opponents, and against single opponents he gives you a second attack with SKILL 10 and STAMINA 9 to share the damage. He will also automatically save us from being beguiled by the Countess without having to roll for it. But he's no help in the final fight itself, because the Countess' pet Werebat grabs him and the two of them go crashing out of the window in a cinematic scene while locked in each other's deathly embrace.

Before entering the Tower of Maun, Van Richten also introduces us to the only other still-active member of the Order: Dokto Kafka. While you are discussing your plans against the Countess Isolde in his lab, your enemy overhears you and magically animates the dead body Kafka was dissecting:
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There's one other heroic NPC character in this book, although she's not part of the Order. She introduces herself as Katya of the Crimson Cloak, after we rescue her from the Werebeast of Vargenhof:
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After we save her by chasing off the Werebeast, we continue to track down all the way back to Vargenhof, where we need to pick him out from a group of 5 suspects:
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After the identification, there's actually a pretty length chase sequence with the PC and Katya continuing to pursue the revealed Werebeast into the wild on a carriage, which kind of reminds a little of the vehicle chase sequence in Rings of Kether (FF15), before we finally put it down for good. Sadly, Katya doesn't survive for long after this. Almost immediately after we enter Wulfenstein, we get attacked by a pair of Werewargs, and while we're fighting one of them the other one kills her off. (We would have met those Werewargs on our own too, if we hadn't followed that wererat disguised as a beggar).

The encounter with the Werebeast actually doesn't happen for some time even after we joined the Hunt. The Hunt for the Werebeast actually opens up 2-3 mini-quests, depending on where we choose to search for it. One of these paths leads us to a maze of tunnels infested with spiders....and that's where we can run into the Black Widow. This is more or less a generic dungeon maze, except all the dungeon monsters are siders.

Another path takes us to a haunted farm, where a simple farmer and his wife picked up a changeling who used its magic to fool them into believing that it was a real child. Having arrived there, our lycanthropic affliction actually gives us immunity to its illusion, giving us the opportunity to expose and kill it.
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There's also one random side-quest where we encounter a classic Frankenstein parody (mad scientist trying to crate life):
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So, yeah, a lot of content, but very little that are actually vital to winning the game. In fact, this book reminds me a bit of Dead of Night, and not just because the min-game of defending a house against wolf is an obvious rip-off of the farmhouse defense against skeletons. Both books have plenty of flavourful mini-quests and encounters, but not much in the form of actual game rewards. Just about every side-quest in this book rewards you only with LUCK bonuses (some gives you some random shiny items, but those can't be used for anything besides bribing the she-wolves).

Actually, I mentioned something about Jonathan Green possibly dong a minor tribute to Deathtrap Dungeon via the finding of a dagger in a giant fly nest.....actually his whole book strikes me as a compilation of various "Classic" segments of old FF books. The references to Deathtrap Dungeon and Dead of Night have been mentioned. The entire Maun sidequest was clearly very much influenced by Vault of the Vampire (even the part with the Lady showing up at the endgame after having successfully charmed the PC and used him to get rid of the main villain); the chase sequence similarity to Rings of Kether; the Frankenstein parody from Legend of the Shadow Warriors and Moonrunner; and possibly others that I'm less familiar with. Considering this was the first new book written for the series' revival, perhaps this was appropriate.
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