Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:00 pm
I'll change my vote to fight.
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Run over like pedestrian on a RAILROAD!They lower their heads and charge at you. You wound two of them before another catches you with his tusks. The tremendous momentum of his charge pitches you in your back. Lose 2 STAMINA points. If you are still alive, they pin you down and drag you off to their village.
Do we want to tell Hogfather the truth?Their village is composed of several elegant buildings made from wattle, daubed with clay. A deep dry moat and spiked palisade surround it. You are led through the village to what must be the Headhog's dwelling, a two-storeyed building, part of which is built from crumbling green stone. A huge mud wallow lies nearby. The Headhog sits on a carved stone throne, his muscles rippling under his blue-black skin. He wears a red robe fastened at his thick neck with a necklace of amber. He seems at ease but he demands to know why you, a human, are on the plateau. If you say that you mean no harm - you are searching for the portals on Mount Starreach - turn to 110. If you tell him you are looking for a lost city, turn to 90.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Ninja Honesty.
We got back the 2 STAMINA that his underlings gored off us.The Hoglord says, 'I will help you, man-thing, for you may help me. An ancient Red Dragon has its lair within Mount Star-reach. It is the guardian of the portals. The last time it awoke, which was before my children were born, it despoiled our villages. You must slay it before you can go through the portals. It breaths fire which one cannot withstand, save when one is sheltered by scales from the Dragon itself. You must steal three of the scales from its lair and fashion a shield out of them.' He gives you a parting gift, a stoppered gourd containing the Gum of an Amber Pine, with which to make the shield. You dine with them on mangoes, nuts and guavas (gain 2 STAMINA points). You thank them and leave. After a long climb you come to a wide cave mouth reeking of sulphur - the Dragon's lair. You decide to enter.
And we're back in familiar territory.You light a torch and enter the cavern, which stretches away into blackness. You scramble across the cavern floor until you see a small smooth-walled tunnel branching off from the main tunnel. The strong smell of sulphur seems to pervade both. Will you walk down the wide and rocky main tunnel, or investigate the narrow tunnel?
Well, we were primarily interested in the scales in the first place, so I think it's safe t skip the voting.....The Dragon bellows with pain but the thick scales on its back give it some protection even from Dragonsbane. Its tail whips round and catches you across the shoulder. Lose 2 STAMINA points. A wave of fear hits you as the Dragon turns its head, its yellow slitted eyes glinting with malice and pain. 'For that cowardly blow you shall die,' it roars. Will you:
Run back down the tunnel?
Try to grab some scales?
Try to grab some of the dragon's treasure?
What a nice padding section.Test your Luck. If you are Lucky turn to 324. If you are Unlucky turn to 314.
We've been to the next paragraph before:You make a grab for one of the scales but trip over a golden goblet studded with fire opals. Recovering your balance, you snatch up three of the scales before the Dragon can turn around and run back down the narrow twisting tunnel. You leave the cave as fast as you can and continue up the mountain.
The authors really make good, economical use of these 400 sections, don't they?Do you have a gourd filled with Gum of an Amber Pine? If you do, turn to 385.
Pausing in a gully, you examine the scales. You fit them together to form a shield and, using the gum of the amber pin, you bond them together.
Persuade it, bully it, or stick our weapon into it again?You climb on, gasping for breath in the thin air. At last you reach the flat summit. The panorama is incredible. The whole plateau lies below you like a table, a college of tropical forests, mountains and huge lakes, which glisten in the sun. Thirty metres away is a rectangle of shimmering silver, handing in the air, unsupported. You realize that this is the portal. As you step towards it, you hear the rushing of wind. Looking up you see the ancient Red Dragon. It lands beside the portal. Outside its lair the Dragon is even more impressive and fearsome. Warmth and power seem to radiate from its body. 'I am bound by the Gods to guard the portal.' it says in its rich, mellow voice. Will you:
Run to attack the Dragon?
Tell you that Death threatens the world?
Threaten it?
Ninja stabbing.Darth Rabbitt wrote:I think it's some time for more Ninja Honesty.
Hey, this time we actually do have roll the dice! With a SKILL of 12 Captain Double can pass almost every SKILL test, but in this case rolling equal to her SKILL counts as a failure, so failure is possible (albeit unlikely).As you charge at the Dragon it breathes a tongue of rolling flame at you. You crouch behind your shield which protects you from the fiery blast. Before you can attack, the Dragon, roaring in anger, swipes at the shield with massive claw. Roll two dice; if the total is less than your SKILL score, turn to 34. If the total is equal to or greater than your SKILL score, turn to 79.
Of course we do, Captain Double D never leaves home without bringing her instrument of penetration with her.Deftly you dodge the flailing claw and move in to the attack. Do you have a spear? If you do, turn to 51.
Remember when I said Hawkana was arguably the hardest fight in the book? This would be the other contender. However, thanks to our Spear and the fact that he effectively only has 15 STAMINA points for this battle, this is almost a walkover for Captain Double D. Even without the Spear, his STAMINA is effectively only 1 point higher than Hawkana's.....and Hawkana can damage us with spells before the fight, so it all evens out.You attack the Dragon. 'I shall rend you limb from limb,' it roars. The great claws swipe at you as it tries to crush your head in its enormous jaws. You dodge to one side as it leaps at you and thrust your spear at its soft underbelly.
RED DRAGON SKILL 12 STAMINA 20
Each time you make a successful attack, deduct 5 STAMINA points from the Dragon's total, as the magical spear seems to bite deep into its flesh. If you reduce the Dragon's STAMINA to 5 or less, turn to 29.
Spare him or spear him?Suddenly, your weapon is flailing at air. The Dragon has changed into an old man, with long white hair, wearing a white robe. 'Spare me, I beg you,' he implores, in a thin reedy voice. 'At last you have lifted the curse that was on me. Only a strong warrior like yourself could have done it. When I came through the portal, many centuries ago, I was doomed to stay in the form of a dragon until I was beaten in combat. Now that I am myself again I can return to my world. Will you step through the portal with me?' Will you agree and walk with him into the silver shimmering portal, or attack him?
Actually, murdering a helpless old man back when we were stealing the Talisman back from Hawkana can be seen as "rewarding'. Sure, we lose a LUCK point from that, but as have been pointed out, we still need to spend a LUCK point on a luck test anyway if we don't kill him, and then have to risk alerting the guards in the process, so cold-blooded murder could be seen as the better option.Omegonthesane wrote:This book hasn't rewarded us for being Evil thus far, so spare the helpless suspicious old man.
Your first blow is fatal. Blood spurts from a gaping wound and the old man falls to the ground. You step back as he turns once more into his normal form, that of a Dragon. The Guardian Dragon of the portal is dead. You step towards the shimmering portal.
No, please don't call upon us again. You two suck at this sending-mortals-on-heroic-quest business. You didn't give us any direction on what to do with the Talisman and you didn't even warn us that we'd have to fight a bloody dragon to get back home! Why don't you just leave this to the All-Mother, who certainly seems more competent than both of you combined.Before you step through the portal you drink in the splendid view of this fantastic and magical world for a little longer. The glittering lakes and emerald forest shimmer in a haze of heat. The Talisman is heavy at your chest. With a final prayer to the All-Mother you step into the silvery screen of the portal, remembering the four crusaders who gave you your quest. You meet no resistance as you pass through the screen. All goes dark and then a very different landscape lies before you. You are within a circle of standing stones. The smells, the air, the birdsong - everything seems strange but know that you have found your way back to Earth. You are a hero, savior of the world of Orb, but there is no one here to herald your return. As you step away from the standing stones, voices speak within your head. The two beings who summoned you to Orb are thanking you for saving the world. At last they tell you who they are. Time, Eldest Father, Youngest Son, and Fate, Keeper of the Balance, both Gods of the Orb. As you leaving this sacred place, their final words ring in your ears.
'We may call upon you again!'
If we survive this fight (the Barman and his thug ally surrender once their STAMINA start to run low), we can test our Luck. If were Lucky, the charm falls off during the fight, and we will realize that it's the charm making us behave the way we did. If not, we will continue to wear the charm for a while before the GMPCs comes in:You stop at the bar and are about to ask the barman what there is to drink, when you hear yourself saying, 'You fat pig, pour me a drink before the sight of your squalid pus-ridden face makes me vomit.' The barman stiffens, astonished and incensed. He gives a strangled cry of rage, grabs his club and hurdles the bar.
If we manage to injure Cassandra enough (SK 9, ST 10), she backs off and Tyutchev steps in. If we start to win against him as well, he will call upon his god cause a mini-earthquake before escaping with Cassandra in the confusion. We will do the same (and in this case gaining 1 LUCK point for surviving the Red Dragon Inn probably makes more sense than the path we took in this book).The man, Tyutchev, strolls to the bar, but the woman called Cassandra comes over and sits at your table, looking you over. 'Find your own table, wrinkled hag,' you say before you can stop yourself. With a flash of insight you realize that the brass tiger charm must be cursed. Cassandra spits in your face and moving with the grace of a panther, draws her sword.
There was a cursed axe in Beneath Nightmare Castle, and, of course, the famous Ring of Contrariness in D&D. So, from this scene, it was pretty clear what the charm did. I thought it would've been way more dangerous, though, what with all the gods and DMPCs in the book.SGamerz wrote:And last but not least, the Brass Tiger Charm that we bypassed twice.
This is actually a pretty unique cursed magical item in FF, I don't think something like that has ever been used in any other gamebook, so it stands out as one of the more memorable encounters to me. What the charm does is to turn our character into a foul-mouthed lout who then proceed to go around insulting picking fights with everyone she meets (this was why we saw two men fighting and arguing furiously with each other when we found the charm and then apparently had no idea why they were fighting)). And since she'll be on her way to the Red Dragon Inn, she doesn't have to look far o get into a fight.