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

[Dogopolis]

Anybody interested in this one? It hasn't been done yet, but fair warning: it's not good. It's not Gates of Death/Sky Lord/Luke Sharp level bad though.

[SGamerz]

How does it compare to Ian's older books, though?

[Dogopolis]

I'd say better than Eye of the Dragon, Port of Peril and Blood of the Zombies, worse than everything else, and at least one section is clearly designed for small boys who like toilet humour. If you play it straight it's a pretty linear "one true path or you're dead" due to a Blood of the Zombies style "eff you" at the end but I'd be inclined to bypass/ameliorate it slightly.

[Thaluikhain]

Even if it's not great, if you run it people will still play it, so why not?

[Dogopolis]

OK I will.

Probably won't get the background and first paragraph up until tomorrow, but I'll give a decision in the meantime. Are we Harry Balzac, the hero of The Port of Peril? (Skill 10, Stamina 20, Luck 11) or do you want to roll a new character? The game is very ambiguous about whether you are Harry or if you've been misidentified. Harry's stats should be enough to win if you take good paths.

[Beroli]

I'd vote for a new character.

[JourneymanN00b]

I'm fine with Harry Balzac, but I will also vote for a new character to see if we can get one with at least 11 Skill.

[Dogopolis]

OK, the ruleset is copper plate rules from early Fighting fantasies, look at the LP for City of Thieves if you're unfamiliar with that. This includes a Potion of Strength, Skill or Fortune and 10 Provisions but no gold. As will quickly be pointed out you're starving. I assume that provisions, whilst being good for quickly bringing someone from the brink of death by bodily damage are not good for hunger.

Snake Island is a small, uninhabited island which lies between Dogfish Island and Ghost Island off the west coast of Allansia. It is rugged and inhospitable, and it is said that the reason why nobody lives there is because all those who set foot on the island are never seen again.

Whether it is the terrifying creatures or undead spirits that claim the lives of visitors, nobody knows, but the rumours about Decayers, Worm Dogs and Flesh-Heads are enough to put most people off from going there.

YOU have been on the island for two days, with most of the time spent making camp and foraging for food. A wager brought you to the island following a chance meeting with an old burly sea captain by the name of Samuel Crow in Port Blacksand, the notorious seaport run by the tyrant Lord Azzur. He challenged you to live on the island for a month with a wager of 20 Gold Pieces should you live to collect it. Being a brave adventurer unafraid of myths or monsters, you accepted his challenge with a shake of the hand.

The captain beamed with satisfaction and slapped you on the back, saying you would regret your foolish decision. The next day, he sailed you over to Snake Island on his boat,t he Blue Moon. It was a thrilling ride, with huge waves battering the small sailing boat as it bobbed up and down on the ocean swell. Whooping loudly as the sea spray pounded his face, the captain trimmed his sails to get as much speed as he could out of his old boat.

He taunted you most of the way, saying you would survive less than twenty-four hours. But you ignored the old salt, confident that you would be more than able to deal with any danger that the island had to offer. It was mid-afternoon by the time the rocky island appeared on the horizon, and an hour later before the captain finally dropped anchor.“Enjoy yourself,” he said sarcastically, ushering you off his boat with a flick of the hand.

You jumped into the cold water and waded ashore to a stony beach littered with driftwood and sun-bleached bones. You were just able to hear the captain above the noise of the waves crashing on the beach. He wished you luck with a wry grin, saying,“I’ll be back in thirty days to pay you or bury you — unless you’ve been eaten!” You shook your fist at him with a smile and walked off to survey your new surroundings. It soon became apparent how desolate the rocky island was, evil spirits or no evil spirits. The trees were ugly, with bent trunks and gnarled, twisted branches.

The thick vegetation was hostile - a tangled mix of needlesharp thorn bushes and poisonous creepers. A cloud of mosquitoes buzzed around your head, and red ants crawled up your legs, biting you relentlessly. By the end of the day, you had encountered spiders, snakes, scorpions, ticks, grubs, leeches and other bloodsucking creatures that were going to make your life a misery in the weeks ahead. But having recently narrowly escaped with your life in Darkwood Forest, the prospect of living on an island didn’t seem so bad.

It would be a good place to test your survival skills, and hopefully reward you with the 20 Gold Pieces which you so desperately needed. Leaving the stony beach behind, you walked round to the west side of the island to a small, sandy beach where you found an abandoned wooden hut nestled between somel arge boulders. The roof had holes in it and the door was hanging off its hinges, but with minor repairs it would be a good place to live for a month. The hut was empty apart from a dented tin jug on a small table made from driftwood, and two dirty sacks stuffed with old rags which had once been used as a makeshift bed. You fixed the door and mended the roof as best as you could as the light faded.

When the sun slipped down below the horizon, the sky became a rich canvas of deep reds, vivid pinks and bright orange. The light quickly faded into total darkness, and there was nothing else to do but to lie down on the sacks and go to sleep. After spending an uncomfortable nightas the target for countless mosquitoes, you wake up soon after dawn to find your whole body covered in angry red bites.

You spend the morning turning leaves and shells into rainwater traps and collecting dry wood for a fire. In the afternoon you make a chair out of driftwood fastened together with vines and a fishing rod made out of a long branch, some twine washed up on the shore, and a hook made out of a button fastening. Using limpets as bait, you manage to catch two small fish which you cook on your campfire in the dying light. Darkness falls, and day two ends the same way as day one, with you trying to get to sleep whilst being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
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The wind picks up during the night on the back of a rumbling storm which rolls in from the west. Heavy rain turns into a torrential downpour and beats down noisily on the roof. Rainwater finds its way through your roof repairs and drips down on to the floorboards. You hear strange noises coming from outside, with the howling wind playing tricks on your imagination in the pitch black darkness.

The storm eventually passes, and you finally drift off to sleep, but in the middle of the night you suddenly wake up with a start. The wind has dropped, and you can hear the sound of waves breaking on the beach. But you hear another sound much closer — a tiny squeak - and one which you recognize. Somebody is trying to open the door. Who could it be?

Nobody else lives on this forsaken island. It’s too dark to see anything. You stand up slowly, sword in hand and heart pounding, hardly daring to breathe. Do you you want to stand still where you are or do you want to go outside to investigate?

So 2 questions: which choice to you want to make, and still leaving open, Do you want to be Harry? I'll ask which potion you want after we finalise our stats. (Note I will not accept a 7 Skill character, will reroll all 1s on the skill roll.)

[Beroli]

Go to investigate.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to stand still, as I do not think it wise to give our hero's presence away given what we know.

[Thaluikhain]

Wait for it.

And I suggest Barry Halzac for our name, or alias.

(20 gold for surviving a month on a deserted island of death seems a bit low)

[Beroli]

While we are likely not meant to be one of the eponymous assassins but rather opposed to them, I am still going to vote that our character is female and is named Finella, after the noblewoman who killed King Kenneth II in 14th-century chronicles.

[Queen of Swords]

Stay where we are, and voluntarily going to a deserted island to win twenty GP (just twenty?) is definitely not how I imagined a book called Assassins of Allansia would start. I thought the book would be about an assassins' guild.

[JourneymanN00b]

Since our hero has to survive in a deserted island, I hereby propose that our hero be named Chuck Noland, since the Cast Away movie comes to mind here.

[Dogopolis]

So rolling the character we have
9 Skill
21 Stamina
11 Luck

Slightly worse than Harry.

You feel a draught of cool air on your face caused by the door opening and quickly closing again. You hear a floorboard creak, which confirms somebody has entered the hut. Do you want to call out to whoever it might be? Or do you want to toss a coin on the floor to distract the intruder?

Please make your choice, vote on name (Chuck Noland, Finella and Barry Halzac have been offered) and vote on which potion you want.

[Queen of Swords]

Sure, try tossing the coin.

Does the potion of Skill increase our initial skill by one? If so, I vote for that. If not, Potion of Luck.

[Beroli]

Toss the coin.

And yes, the Potion of Fortune/Luck.

[Thaluikhain]

Finella Noland?

And through a coin.

And yeah, luck potion.

[SGamerz]

As will quickly be pointed out you're starving. I assume that provisions, whilst being good for quickly bringing someone from the brink of death by bodily damage are not good for hunger.

Oh dear, I recall there was said to be something similar in Port of Peril where the rules state that the PC starts with provisions but the adventure was presented in such a way that implies that he didn't have any. Is this a similar case of lazy editing?

voluntarily going to a deserted island to win twenty GP (just twenty?)

Yeah, at least the Trial of Champions competitors have the prospect of possibly earning great rewards. This doesn't seem worth the risk. Maybe if the PC really is impoverished and desperately in need of some cash to feed himself, but that doesn't seem to be the case here, just a dangerous bet for cheap stakes and bragging rights. This is just barely less stupid than the poison drinker in Eye of the Dragon (and even there, at least the PC was told that the Eye was worth great riches).

***

Toss the coin for distraction. It's a choice we rarely see in these books so it's worth checking out, even if it turns out bad.

And this won't win the votes, but I vote for the Potion of Strength. I have a feeling we'd need it with the prior mention of starvation.

[Thaluikhain]

Changing my vote to half vote for potion of strength due to starvation issues mentioned above.

[Dogopolis]

The inclusion of provisions is not just a simple copy/paste mistake of an early ruleset as the book does refer to them while you're still on the island. As with Port of Peril starvation is not going to last very long or be very important.

The coin lands on the floor, and you hear soft footsteps followed by the dull sound of a blade slashing at your bedding several times. Whoever it is, they are trying their best to kill you in your sleep. Do you want to swing your sword in the direction of the intruder? Otherwise do you want to run outside?

I will provisionally lock in Finella Noland unless there are any objections. Will keep the potion open as it's running quite close.

[Thaluikhain]

Swing sword!

[Beroli]

Hrm. I think fighting blind is unwise. Run outside.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to take the Potion of strength, as our provisions are probably going to run out if this is a meatgrinder, and attack our intruder with the sword. Maybe we name our hero Finella Halzac Noland?

[Beroli]

Finella Noland sounds good to me.