Lesser-Known Gamebooks: Sagas of the Demonspawn

[Omegonthesane]

Pay (casting costs) to win.

[SGamerz]

Try an insta-win spell.

[angelfromanotherpin]

To battle:
The Demonspawn Regent goes first, by 12 lengths of the RNG.
Round 1: Regent 9+10, hits for 120+18+10, we're at 289/437. We try to cast Paralysis, 2+5=7, success!

Ah, cheatin'. While the spell text says that paralysis only allows us to escape, the following text makes it pretty clear that we used it for the old Hold-Monster-into-Coup-de-Gras whombo.

Fire*Wolf released the sobbing girl and held her to his breast. The body of the Spawn Regent was already an oozing pool of putrefaction, as if death had abruptly severed the sorcerous threads which held its physical form together.

'Fear not, Yalena,' Fire*Wolf murmured kindly. 'I have news of Baldar your father, and the thing which held you is now dead.'

It was as if she had not heard him. 'The Regent is dead,' she sobbed. 'Only the Regent. The Spawn remain...'

Indeed this was true enough. The hard-won victory stood for nothing in the greater game. If the battle had been worth recording, it was only because this was his first encounter with the Spawn. But small or not, it was still victory and, for the moment, he savoured it. Tomorrow would be time enough to plan his future actions.

Although one thing puzzled him sufficiently to detract, at least a little, from the joy of battle won. The creature had called him 'Messiah' and hinted it had trapped him into coming. Now what, Fire*Wolf wondered, had the Spawn Regent meant by that?

Here ends Book One of the Sagas of the Demonspawn. Follow Fire*Wolf's further adventures in Book Two: 'The Crypts of Terror.'

Well, that was actually pretty short. The book only has 183 numbered sections, even if it functionally has more with its appendices and such, and it's not as good at using them as the Sagard books.

Anyway, the mechanics are obviously a multiple-catastrofuck-pileup, but the narrative is pretty good sword-and-sorcery. F*W starts off as just another uninspired Conan clone, but that identity rapidly fuses with ersatz Elric elements, and the personal connection to the enemy is established, and it all creates a fairly interesting mixture. I just wish there was more room for player agency.

I'll take any questions you might have, but here's mine for you: do you want to see more of this series?

[MisterDee]

I'm a bit burnt-out on book LPs at the moment, and this series is a bit low on interactivity.

Wouldn't mind seeing more of it eventually, but right now it's not really something I'd insist on.