[lets play] Fighting Fantasy (Scholastic 16): Assassins of Allansia.

[Dogopolis]

OK so I'm back: Good to see the thanks but haven't quite finished yet.

Alternative narrative following on from the battle with Urzel, just to play out the endgame

After Urzel falls you and Throm head towards the main gate of Fang. Suddenly you are waylaid by 2 swordsmen, an axeman and a woman in a red cloak. The woman is concentrating hard, clearly trying to murder you telepathically. However your headband absorbs it leaving her open for Throm to easily strike her down. One of the swordsmen fires a crossbow but misses. You and Throm make short work of the 3 remaining weedily-statted assassins. You add 4 silver necklaces to your haul and then follow the same path as in the prime narrative.

Azzur rubs his hands together, enjoying the moment. The Guards become restless and inch forward, desperate to be told to drag you away in chains. The Baron raises his hand and the Guards immediately stand upright, rigid as statues. Azzur walks slowly to the front of the podium and looks you in the eye. “Now tell me, cockroach, how many pendants do you have exactly?” he asks with a snarl. Will you reply:

Seven
Nine
Eleven
Thirteen
Fifteen

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Azzur looks at you closely, nodding his head several times deep in thought. “That’s an impressive number,” he says coldly.

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“Congratulations,” Lord Azzur says begrudgingly. “I thought it would be impossible to defeat all my assassins. You are truly a champion warrior. If circumstances were different we might have been able to work together. I thought that would be impossible since you killed my master, Zanbar Bone. But on reflection, maybe it was meant to be. Maybe I will rule Allansia one day without needing the help of the Demon Prince. And maybe you deserve the chance of freedom. Your fighting skills have certainly earned you the right to represent me in the Trial of Champions. So that’s what you will do. Should you survive, the 10,000 Gold Piece prize will be mine, of course, but I will grant you a full pardon for your crimes and give you your freedom.” Inside you are raging with anger but realize that attempting to slay Azzur now would inevitably result in certain death. Do you want to accept your fate and enter Deathrap Dungeon or do you want to refuse to enter Deathtrap Dungeon?

[SGamerz]

LOL, turns out that the pendants are really almost exactly like those gold rings in Trial of Champions.

Accepting "our fate" probably is the "good ending".

But I'd like to see the presumably ridiculous alternative bad ending either way.

Why does Sukumvit tolerate some other lord declaring that he will rule all of Allansia in front of him in his own city (which is also part of Allansia)? The book didn't just damage Azzur's image, they damaged Sukumvit's too.

And if we're supposed to also be the Hero of Deathtrap Dungeon, I guess this plotline also completely invalidates not just the background but also the ending of DD. The hero can't possibly have been thinking about what to do with the money he won, since it would got to Azzur. Unless this means we're one of the other contestants, in which case our character is doomed either way, since all the other contestants died.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to accept our doomed hero's fate and enter Deathtrap Dungeon.

[Queen of Swords]

Sure, might as well see what happens if we enter Deathtrap Dungeon.

[SGamerz]

Now that I think about it, maybe we are the ninja. Azzur will have a ninja representing him in the Trial whether we win or lose this book. We even have a headband like the Ninja Turtles. The PC of DD is someone else.

[Beroli]

Refuse.

[Dogopolis]

You salute the Baron with gritted teeth and walk over to
the entrance of the dungeon to take your place alongside
your fellow contestants.

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Baron Sukumvit raises his arm aloft for the trumpets to sound the start of this year’s Trial of Champions. The crowd cheers loudly, and one by one the contestants salute the Baron and disappear inside the dungeon. You see Throm enter third, and when your turn comes, you are greeted by a wall of noise from the excited crowd. You salute them briefly and draw your sword before stepping through the ornate stone-pillared entrance to the dark dungeon. You curse Lord Azzur’s name under your breath and promise yourself that one day you will see him dead. For now, the toughest challenge of your life awaits you as you step into the unknown to face Baron Sukumvit’s deadly traps and gruesome monsters.

Refusal would have got:

“Nobody defies an order in the court of Sukumvit of Fang!” the Baron shouts out angrily. He snaps his fingers and his elite Guards rush forward to rain blow after blow down on you with their iron maces, clubbing you to the ground. Your hands are shackled behind your back, and you are made to stand bleeding and battered in front of the baying crowd to await your fate. Lord Azzur stares at you contemptuously, his head nodding slightly with satisfaction. The Baron turns to his guest and says, “My sincere apologies for this outrage, my dear Lord Azzur. As punishment, might I suggest we put this criminal in the iron gibbet hanging from the gallows in the town square and let the hungry crows do the rest?” Lord Azzur gives his approval with a simple gesture of the hand. You are dragged from the podium and you see Throm staring at you with a look of puzzlement on his face. What will become of him you will never know, but for you the gallows await. Your adventure is over.

same as refusing any other request in Sukumvit's hall

And that's it. It's basically like Blood of the Zombies where you have to kill them all, even though in Blood of the Zombies all missed zombies should be included in the mass slaughter at the end and in Assassins of Allansia the assassins are supposed to be hunting you, not sitting around in their little corner hoping you find them. To win it rules as written you need to have taken a very specific path from the pirate ship onwards.

We are clearly not the hero of FF#6 as the back story is different. We are either the Ninja, the other barbarian or this is an earlier iteration and "Throm" is just the barbarian version of "Dave". Either way we're dead.

Missed assassins: 1 swordsman in Blacksand, 1 axeman that only gets summoned if you tell the Bogg brothers you are the person on the poster, 1 swordsman and the telepath in Kaad. To encounter them you need to reject the monk's map, encounter swordsman, then take the "assistance" of a red-cloaked woman when the guards are about to arrive. She will kill you outright without the headband.

The only way to get the earring that protects you from poison, is to join the pirates then escape back to Blue Moon when kraken appears, where a pirate has the earing. Joining the pirates loses everything else (technically including the 2 necklaces, making the game impossible but I think that's unintentional). Other than that, there's no way to avoid the 10 STAMINA hit.

And that's it. If anybody has any questions or comments, let me know.

[Dogopolis]

Oh and for all the fuss the book makes about them the "Elven boots" are pretty pointless. You can either sell them (and gold is pretty useless from Greta Morg onwards) or use them on the Orcs but owning the bag of everything is already enough to outrun them without a stat test. The use at Bogg farm is after you're already dead, as you can only use them if you miss the axeman.

[Beroli]

Wow.

Thanks for running this. Honestly, the fact that the closest thing to a "good" ending is "you get to die in Deathtrap Dungeon" makes me classify this one as even worse than Sky Lord.

[JourneymanN00b]

Well, now it is time to thank you for running this book and crossing it off the forum’s list. And I agree the book’s design is not a good one at all.

[Thaluikhain]

Thanks for running.

And, yeah, this one was just not impressive.

I actually don't mind being killed off as a nameless competitor in Deathtrap Dungeon, in theory, it might have been alright if it was handled better.

[Queen of Swords]

I’m usually fine with quests like the ones in Trial of Champions where you have to collect a number of items, but while it was plausible that gems or rings might be hidden in a dungeon, it really defied my suspension of disbelief that we had to take on one after another in a parade of bland and mostly incompetent assassins, all wearing the same pendant like their identification badge.