Another tie in the poll! I will go with Phantoms of Fear for now since it took the lead a couple of times, but I will also run Masks of Mayhem at a later date since there appears to be sufficient interest.
As per usual, we start with
Standard FF Boilerplate Rules:
Skill, Stamina, & Luck
SKILL score: Roll one die. Add 6 to the result.
STAMINA score: Roll two dice. Add 12 points to the result.
LUCK score: Roll one die. Add 6 to the result.
SKILL score reflects your expertise in combat, your ability with weapons, and your dexterity. STAMINA is your general constitution and "Life points" . LUCK score shows how lucky you are. None of them may exceed their Initial score unless specifically stated.
Eating a meal restores up to 4 points of STAMINA; you may only eat one meal at a time.
Testing your Luck: When instructed by the book to Test your Luck, roll two dice. If the result is equal to or less than your current LUCK score, you are Lucky. If the result exceeds your current LUCK score, you are Unlucky. Whatever the outcome, you must deduct one point from your current LUCK score every time you Test your Luck. The more you use your LUCK, the less likely you are to be Lucky.
All standard rules above, but as mentioned, we won't be rolling for stat because we'll be playing this adventure as a badass 12/24/12 hero!
Combat:
SKILL and STAMINA scores are given in the text for each adversary that you face.
The combat sequence is then:
1. Roll two dice for your opponent. Add the total rolled to its SKILL score. This is the Attack Strength of your enemy.
2. Roll two dice and add the total to your own current SKILL score. This is your Attack Strength.
3. If your Attack Strength is the higher, you have wounded your opponent: deduct 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA..
If your opponent's Attack Strength is higher, it has wounded you: deduct 2 points from your own STAMINA.
If both Attack Strengths are equal, you have avoided each other's blows.
4. Begin the next Combat Round, starting again at step 1. This procedure continues until either you or your opponent has a STAMINA score of zero. If your opponent's STAMINA score reaches zero, you have killed it and can continue with your adventure. If your own STAMINA score reaches zero, you are dead.
Often you will have to fight more than one opponent at a time. Sometimes you will treat them as a single opponent; at others, you will be able to fight them one at a time; and sometimes all of them will be able to attack you, while you defend yourself and may attack only one of them. Against any additional opponents you must roll for your Attack Strength as normal, but cannot damage them if you have the higher Attack Strength.
Using Luck in Combat
You can use your LUCK in combat to inflict a particularly serious wound, or to minimize a wound that has been inflicted on you.
Whenever you wound an opponent, you may Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, you have inflicted a severe wound: deduct an extra 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA. If you are Unlucky, you have merely grazed it, and you deduct 1 point less than normal from its STAMINA.
If you have been wounded, you can Test your Luck in exactly the same way. If you are Lucky, the wound upon you was only a glancing blow and you can deduct 1 less point of STAMINA than usual. If you are Unlucky, the wound is serious: deduct 1 extra point from your STAMINA.
Now for the
new stuff introduced in this book:
POWER:
This is the measure of your abilities as a shaman, which affects how well you fare in Dreams and how much energy you can spend on casting spells.
Starting POWER is determined by rolling 2D6 +6. Unlike your other stats, there's no upper limit to the score, so we don't have to keep track of Initial value. This stat will increase or decrease regularly, and casting we would also need to spend POWER when we cast spells. There will also be "Dream Combats" where we would lose POWER instead of STAMINA, but for those the rules are stated in the relevant sections of the story text, not in the rules section at the front. Due to the shaman abilities of our PC, we will often have dreams during the adventure, many (but not all) of them are prophetic by nature. Towards the later part of the story we would also have the option to "travel" through the dream world may in some subtle ways parallel the real world that our physical body will also be travelling in at the same time.
Spells:
We start with access to 6 spells. All of them will cost 1 point of POWR each time we cast it and may last up to a quarter of an hour (depending on the type of spell):
Protect - Creates an area of invisibility around the caster (I'm assuming only living things become invisible and not that the area suddenly turns into a void). The text warns that if an opponent is close enough to you and thus within the area of the spell effect, then he will still be able to see you while both of you are invisible to everyone outside the zone.
Illusion - Self-explanatory, it creates an illusion. The text says that the effect of the spell should be "within reason". and the example given is that "you cannot make a molehill appear to be a mountain".
Weaken - Reduces 4 STAMINA from enemy.
Levitate - Again, pretty straight-forward. We can use it to ascend or descend.
Finding - Detects something hidden within a short range (covers treasures, traps, hidden enemies, secret passages, etc).
Fire - Produces fire from your fingertips, which you can project onto enemies like a weapon or simply start a bonfire.
We are also warned that we cannot cast spells in dreams.
Starting Equipment:
We start with sword and leather armour like most FF fantasy PCs, but it would be reveal once the story starts that our sword actually has a name: Telessa. (Actually, our PC also has a name (Eldenurin), something which only happens in, I believe, 3 of the books in the FF series).
We
don't start with any, Provisions, although we may find some later.
We also start with the traditional single dose of magic potion that was common in the older FF books (but was removed from the new ones): either SKILL, STAMINA or LUCK. The first 2 restore the relevant stats to their Initial scores, the last adds 1 to the Initial score of the stat before restoring the stat to the new value.
While there's the usual "Background" section like most other FF gamebooks to start the story, the actual background information on the PC is given in the first paragraph of the "Introduction" of the rules:
You are a Wood Elf in north-east Khul; your home is deep within Affen Forest, a remnant of the One Forest of old. Your father was a warrior and your mother a shaman, and you have inherited both talents. You are neither as mighty as your father, nor as adept at magic as your mother, but you are good to have around in a fight, you can weave a few useful spells, and you can also enter into the dream world which is a shaman's special realm. Both your parents are dead, and you are now Eldenurin, 'Defender-Shaman of the Tribe'.
So apparently, we're supposed to be a "brilliant at nothing but decent at everything" kind of elf....not that this has any effect on the stats we roll up. "Not as mighty as our father" can range from meaning that our father was godly (13+ SKILL) or slightly better than mediocre (8+) in his skills.
Background:
You wake up suddenly shivering despite the warm mid-summer night air. You are grateful to see the familiar walls and trappings of your hut; you know that you are secure, surrounded by the rest of your tribe and deep in Affen Forest. The dream from which you awoke momentarily escapes you. What was it? Then memory floors in on you.
It was a dream or ordinary, everyday life in your village. Elves were out hunting, tilling the ground, collecting roots for medicine and food, cooking and repairing huts. You could not see yourself in the dream, but you were surveying the scene. Suddenly a voice spoke - a voice which simultaneously made everyone look up from their work and frightened you. It took you a moment to realize why if filled you with fear: it was your own voice! But what words are these you are speaking?
"I must leave you for a while," you said to your fellow Elves. "May the gods of the forest protect you all while I am gone. The Demon Prince Ishtra is just beginning to gather a vast force of damned, chaotic and evil creatures beneath our forest. He plans to overrun the entire world - starting with the Wood Elves. His rule over his army is so cruel that even his foul minions would rebel if they could, but Ishtra holds them in his sway by magical power. This he must be overcome. If his sway is broken, his army will have no organization and power: they will be reduced to civil war between themselves. His army is not yet large, so I must go now to face him, while there is still a chance of penetrating his defenses. May I fare well, and fare you all well until I return - if I return. Otherwise, we will meet again in Tir nan Og, the island realm of the Son of the Sea, and Land of Youth where all must go when their time comes."
At this point you woke up. You now take stock of the dream. You know full well that it is a message from your gods, yet never before have they chosen to communicate by having you speak their words. You realize that this must be their way of impressing upon you both the urgency of the task and the fact that you and only you have been chosen for the mission. But the idea terrifies you. As Demon Prince, Ishtra cannot be killed by any weapon of any Earthly race: even the most magical sword of the High Elves would not strike him down, so what can your lesser powers do against him? Nevertheless, you have been commanded to go, and you put your faith in the gods. They would not so command you if there was no hope. You decide to go back to sleep, to see if you can dream a dream which will give will give you more information about the noble and awesome take facing you.
This has to be one of the few protagonists who, when informed about an impending world crisis, has "decide to go back to sleep" as a legitimate sensible option.
So, before we proceed to Section 1, we should confirm our stats and starting equipment. As mentioned in the previous poll thread, I will be letting players assigning values from the dices I've rolled up to the stats they prefer for this playthrough. With the 4 stats in this game, we need to roll a total of 6 dice. The values I've rolled are:
3, 4, 4, 6, 5, and 5.
Please assign the values to the stats you wish (1 value to SKILL, 1 to LUCK, 2 to STAMINA, 2 to POWER).
Also, please vote on which magic potion (SKILL, STAMINA or LUCK) we would start with!
