You have three stats: Skill, Stamina, and Luck. Initial Skill is generated by rolling 1d6+6. Initial Stamina is generated by rolling 2d6+12. And Initial Luck is generated by rolling 1d6+6. Your Skill, Stamina, and Luck start out equal to their Initial values, and can never exceed their Initial values; some rare bonuses will increase the Initial value as well as or instead of the current value.
When told to Test your Skill, roll 2d6. If the result is lower than or equal to your current Skill, you succeed; if it is higher, you fail.
When told to Test your Luck, roll 2d6. If the result is lower than or equal to your current Luck, you succeed; if it is higher, you fail. Either way, reduce your current Luck by 1 afterward. For obvious reasons, it is advantageous to only Test your Luck if you have to.
Most enemies you encounter will have their own Skill and Stamina scores. One-on-one combat works like this:
Each round, you roll 2d6 and add the result to your Skill to get your Attack Strength. The enemy rolls 2d6 and adds the result to their Skill to get their Attack Strength. If one of you has higher Attack Strength, the other one loses two Stamina. If both Attack Strengths are the same, both of you have avoided damage. When one reaches 0 Stamina, that one is dead.
Immediately after you win an Attack Round, you may choose to Test your Luck. If you succeed, you do a further 2 points of damage to the enemy. If you fail, the enemy gets one point of Stamina back (it turns out your hit was just a graze).
Immediately after you lose an Attack Round (before you die, if the Attack Round brought you to 0 Stamina), you may choose to Test your Luck. If you succeed, you get one point of Stamina back (the wound was just a graze). If you fail, you take 1 more point of damage.
Combat against multiple opponents works like this:
Each round, you designate which opponent you are attacking. Then you roll for your Attack Strength as if you were fighting single combats with each of however many opponents you are facing (so if you are fighting five enemies, you generate five separate Attack Strengths for yourself). Each of them rolls for their Attack Strength normally.
If your Attack Strength is higher than your chosen target’s, they lose 2 Stamina (can be increased by Luck as normal). You have no chance of wounding any other opponent that round.
For each Attack Strength higher than yours, you lose 2 Stamina (can be decreased by Luck as normal).
PROVISIONS
By default, the PC starts with ten Meals worth of unspecified Provisions. Eating a Meal without being told it’s a requirement will cure 4 Stamina points worth of damage. If a gamebook says “you must eat a Meal now,” that Meal heals no damage, and if the PC is out of Provisions and cannot eat, they take damage instead. Whether eating Provisions is at will or only when a gamebook specifies that the PC can eat if they wish to varies from gamebook to gamebook.
POTIONS
By default, the PC starts with one of three potions. A Potion of Dexterity will restore Skill to its Initial score. A Potion of Strength will restore Stamina to its Initial score. A Potion of Fortune will increase Initial Luck by 1 and then restore Luck to its new Initial score.
Individual Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks may change any of those rules.
SPECIFIC RULES FOR THIS BOOK
You begin with a sword and a rucksack--that's it. No Provisions, no potion.
Thirty years ago the Snow Witch was preparing to unleash an ice age upon Titan when her plans were thwarted by a wandering adventurer. YOU were one of the slaves freed in the wake of her defeat, and have lived a quiet life since then. But when the horrors of your past start to catch up with you again, you must go back to the caves from which you escaped. Can the Snow Witch really be returning? And if so, do you have what it takes to stop her?
The bad dreams are back.
There was a time when your whole life was a nightmare. Orphaned and enslaved on the same day. Compelled by a magical collar to do the bidding of the Orcs and Goblins who worked for the monster that was your mistress, and regularly kicked and beaten no matter how well you did your work. Bullied even by many of your fellow slaves, who took out their frustrations on you because, as a child, you were the easiest victim. Never enough food, never enough sleep. And, worst of all, the constant fear that this might be the day on which she chose to feed on you, turning you into one of her loathsome undead minions.
And then, thirty years ago, the horror ended. Someone finally managed to kill her, and the slaves rose up against the brutes that chose to serve her. You were lucky that day: not long before the uprising, you had been dragged into the kitchens for extra chores because one of the staff had been killed in a brawl, so you already had a knife in your hand when the fighting broke out. Doubly lucky: one of the others working in the kitchens at that time took pity on you, protected you in the midst of the chaos that raged as your oppressors were made to pay for their crimes, took you with him on the trek back to civilisation, and found you a new home with relatives of his who had a smallholding.
For years afterwards, though, sleep took you back to the nightmare, your dreams filled with brutish green faces, the icy visage of the beast your captors worshipped, and the terrible beauty of the bloodsucking witch who had held your fate in her chill grasp. You were made to sleep in the hayloft, so your screams wouldn’t wake the rest of the household. But gradually the bad dreams became less frequent as the memories, like the scars, faded. The last one was almost twenty years ago. Until last night. Mercifully, you can remember little of what went through your head before you woke in a cold sweat, your breathing constricted as if that infernal collar were still there to choke the defiance out of you. But one image persists: her face, eyelids closed but starting to creep open, and a malignant grin displaying her fangs.
The terrors fade with the coming of dawn, but whenever your mind wanders during the subsequent day, the sight of that evil smile returns. Eventually you decide to do something about it, and in the evening you head down to the village to see Reniso, your rescuer and oldest friend.
As always, he is delighted to see you, but you can tell that something is troubling him. Before you can say anything, he holds up a hand to indicate that you should wait. Only when the two of you are seated by the fire, a mug of ale in hand, does he ask, “You saw her too?”
You nod, and ask if he thinks it means anything.
“I think it might. It’s something I’ve feared ever since what happened during the fight with One-Tusk.”
All the battles from back then have blurred together. One-Tusk was the nickname of one of the Orcs that used to boss you around, but in your mind, his fate is indistinguishable from that of any other of your brutish overseers, and you admit that you have no idea what Reniso is talking about.
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought any of us could forget...” He pauses to reflect and, knowing his mannerisms, you suppress the urge to ask what he means. He will tell you when he is ready – and does so a few moments later. “I had assumed that we all felt it, but maybe I was wrong. For just a second, maybe not even that long,” he tugs at his shirt collar, a glimmer of sweat appearing on his brow, “the collar became active again, tightened just a twinge.”
A sip of ale removes the sudden dryness of your mouth.
“Still don’t remember? No, I can see that this is new to you. But that’s why I was so determined to get the damned things cut off as soon as I could. And I’ve had to live with that memory ever since. Had to face the possibility that she might not be dead after all. So I started looking for the one weapon that could defeat her if she did come back.”
“A stake?” you ask.
Reniso gives a sad smile. “If only it were that easy. No, I mean this.” He taps his left temple. “Knowledge. Find out where she got her power, and maybe we could use it against her. Or at least keep her from using it.”
His words call to memory the monstrous being she served, and your eyes widen in horror.
Noting your reaction, he hurriedly explains, “Not the Demon. That gave her some power, it’s true, but more than that, it led her to another source. The Crystal Caves were carved out around the ruins of an ancient civilisation, maybe even from before the Splitting. And it was what she found down in that lost city that was the source of most of her power.”
“So what did she find?” you ask.
He scowls. “I only have fragments. Much of the knowledge dating back to those days has been lost, or destroyed. I always had it in mind to take a proper expedition to the Caves and see what I could find out, but part of me didn’t want to go back.”
The idea of returning to those hellish caves fills you with dread, but not as much as the possibility that she might be back. Summoning up all your courage, you suggest that you could make that expedition.
“That’s very good of you, my friend, but you wouldn’t achieve much by trekking out there on your own. How would you know where to look, or even what to look for?.”
“I could at least try,” you protest.
“Young people, always so impatient. I’m not saying not to go, just to wait a bit. I recently learned of a scholar in Salamonis who’s been piecing together much of what little does survive from back then, and persuaded him to send me some of his findings. What he’s written taught me more in three days than all my years of study.”
“And that’s not all. He’s going to come up here and take a look at what I’ve discovered. Should already be on his way. If we can convince him to accompany us – yes, us: it’s high time I stopped letting my fears hold me back – then with the help of his knowledge, and your strength, I might just have a chance of finding what we need to ensure that the witch never returns. Or, if she’s already back, to kill her again, but this time for good.”
You agree to wait for the scholar, but point out that it would be better to start preparing for the expedition at the earliest opportunity, so you’ll be ready to go as soon as he arrives. For some time you and Reniso discuss what you’re likely to need, stopping only when he becomes too tired to carry on. Before you leave, he warns you not to speak of tonight’s conversation with anyone. “Not all of her followers died back then, you know. I’ve seen signs that there’s still a cult devoted to her. If they should hear of our plans, our lives wouldn’t be worth two coppers.”
As you trudge back home, your head whirls with thoughts of the coming ordeal, long-buried memories of life as a slave, and troubling ideas of what could happen if the Snow Witch has somehow returned to life, or, worse, to undeath. When you get in, you search through what clutter you have accumulated over the years until you find the sword you looted from a dead Goblin back when you had to fight your way out of the Crystal Caves at Reniso’s side. When you finally get to bed, sleep is slow in coming, and troubled by more bad dreams.
The following morning you seek out Stef and Pita, your employers these last few decades, and the closest thing you have to family (which isn’t that close, to be honest, but at least they never mistreated you), and tell them that you may have to leave soon. They are a little sorry to hear this, as you have been a good worker, but accept that when you have to go, you have to go. And until that time comes, you can carry on working at their smallholding for the usual wage. They never were particularly given to displays of emotion.
After a morning in the lower field, you bolt your lunch and hurry into the village to call on Reniso again. There is no answer when you knock, but the door is ajar, so you step inside. At the sight which awaits you within, you freeze in horror, the door slipping from your numbed grasp to swing closed behind you.
The normally tidy interior of the hut is in an appalling state, with broken furniture, smashed pottery and torn pages of books scattered around. The place has not just been ransacked: this looks like willful destruction, chaos for chaos’ sake.
But the ruin of Reniso’s home and belongings is only an incidental detail compared to what has been done to their owner. Bound to the central wooden pillar that supports the roof is his lifeless body, the right side of his jerkin and breeches heavily stained with blood from the wound that claimed his life. The expression on his face indicates that his death was far from painless, and you notice that something small and white protrudes from between his lips.
Even worse is what you see on the floor in front of him. A final message, written by repeatedly dipping the tip of his right foot in the blood that has puddled on the floor beneath him. Though smudged and smeared, the letters are still clear enough to make out, spelling out the dread warning, ‘SHE WILL RETURN’…
- SHE WILL RETURN.jpg (182.42 KiB) Viewed 1340 times
Again you notice the thing sticking out of his mouth, and you wonder what it could be.
Try and remove it to find out?
Leave his body alone, and immediately set off to do what you can to thwart the plans of his killers?
Initial rolls: 3, 5, 4, 5. Also vote on one die to add to 6 to become your Initial Skill, two dice to add to 12 to become your Initial Stamina, and one die to add to 6 to become your Initial Luck. Finally, vote on sex and name.
