So during this LP, I will also run a poll on which Paul Mason book to play next after this one is over, so please vote for the one you prefer!
Here are the back-cover blurbs:
FF32 (Co-written w/ Steve Williams):
"Kallamehr lies defenceless. The army is away, facing an invasion to the north, and now a new threat is at hand - another enemy from the east! Lady Carolina of Kallamehr summons YOU, a famous adventurer, to her aid. But can you help? Will you manage to preserve this stronghold of Good against the invading hordes? Or is this task beyond even your heroic abilities? You will need your wits as well as your sword of Fangthane steel to prevent the sands of time engulfing the city..."
"In the mysterious Isles of the Dawn, ancient forces are returning from the past, bringing chaos and war. Their intention is to wrest power from the Child-King and regain their evil rule. It is up to YOU to bring peace to the land once more. But who are you? Woken, it seems, from the dead, you have only unreliable fragments of memory to go on. You must discover your own identity before the Black Vein Prophecy can finally be fulfilled!"
"Civil war wracks the Isles of the Dawn. You are a young farmer, unaffected by the turmoil until chaos strikes. A roving band of mercenaries ransacks your village, killing your father and enslaving your mother. This injustice must be righted!
Arcane creatures, martial monks and battle-hardened warriors must all be overcome, as your quest for justice leads you from your quiet village to the very Court of the God-King!"
"YOU are a Magehunter, tracking down evil-doers and bringing them to justice. Your trusty flintlock pistol and fine steel broadsword have seen many fights, and you have the knowledge, skill and equipment to capture the craftiest sorcerer. But disaster strikes. Magic drags you far from your familiar world, to a land of treasures, traps, and treachery. Strange tales and bizarre transformations must all be endured if you are to win through, defeat your enemy and return to your homeland."
****
But in the meantime, I'm going to do another book which I kind of said I would be doing a long time ago...
Way back last year I ran a poll for the Storytrails series, and 3 of the books received votes. I've run 2 of them, but somehow never got to the third one, so I'm finally getting this out of the way!
Cover link:
https://gamebooks.org/gallery/strail21.jpg
Here's the back cover:
https://gamebooks.org/gallery/strail21back.jpg
And as usual there's a brief paragraph of background during the introductory pages that also describes the rules. Not that there's much of the latter, since they're just straight-forward CYOA with no complicated game mechanism, so I'll just post only the setting and background of the story, as usual:
With that ominous intro out of the way, the PC's story begins in section 1, but first, a map of the Bahamas and of the town San Salvador is provided for the readers to help them find their way:San Salvador is one of the small 'out islands' of the Bahamas. It has one town and a population of 800. Today, its attraction is to divers seeking to explore the coral reefs that surround it. But it has a much older claim to fame.
It was on the beach of Long Bay, near to present-day Cockburn Town, that Christopher Columbus first set foot in the 'New World'. That was in the year 1492.
Columbus found the island inhabited by a gentle race of people who called themselves 'Lucayans'. They treated their strange visitors with every honour and kindness but, for Columbus, it was not enough. He had promised to return with 'great treasure'. The Lucayans had none. So, Columbus sailed on, making his way south, until he reached the island of Haiti.
The 'Tainos' of Haiti were a people much like the Lucayans; probably related to them - but the Tainos had gold! They had so much gold that Columbus believed that Haiti must have some vast, hidden goldmine.
Gold-seeking Spanish colonists were soon flocking to the island. They enslaved the Tainos, treating them with such unspeakable cruelties that soon they were running out of slaves. They turned to the Lucayans. The Lucayans believed Haiti to be the home of their gods and were easily lured aboard the Spanish slave ships with promises of a 'trip to heaven'!
It was fifty years before the horrors of the Spanish slavers reached the ears of a shocked world. Bishop Las Casas sent a ship to the Bahamas to search the islands for any survivors of the terror. The search lasted for three years, in which time, only eleven Lucayans were found to be still alive.
Though four and a half centuries have passed, does someone still seek revenge for the death of 30,000 innocent people? Are you willing to join battle with terrifying and supernatural forces to save the senseless spilling of yet more human blood?
The church of St Francis Xavier looks directly down over the harbour of Cockburn Town. If you fail to notice the church, you would surely notice the statue of Christopher Columbus which stands over its porch. The statue is painted bright yellow. And the only explanation you will be given for that curious fact is, 'dat de colour him al'ays bin painted'!
Father Nicolas was standing on the steps of the church, broom in hand, and talking to Mort Jackson, the island's policeman. As I walked over to speak to them I felt a distinct tremor in the ground beneath my feet. It was over in seconds.
"Don't get too close" 'Mort shouted. "The father thinks that one of those is going to bring Columbus down from up there!"
It was the latest of several earth tremors we'd had in the past few weeks. The experts said that it was due to undersea landslips in the deep Puerto Rico trench two hundred miles to the south.
"There has been mortar coming down from somewhere," the father admitted. "I'll have to get Joseph to get up there and take a look."
"Then I'd do it before they fire those cannon off," Mort said. "What those earth tremors haven't done, the cannon might!"
He'd obviously been looking at the short' brass cannon which, I'd had cleaned and set up along the harbour wall. I assured him they were not going to be fired. After nearly five hundred years under water, the barrels would be very likely to explode!
"A pity!" said. Father Nicolas. "I'm sure we'd all been looking forward to the grand salute when the ship's refloated. When is the 'great day'?"
Early next week, I thought. I was on my way down to the harbor workshop now, to see whether Seabrook had fixed a definite date.
Mort said that he would have to go. Sophia had lost two cockerels and Jessie Wells' goat had gone missing. That might be nothing in Nassau where he came from, but in San Salvador it felt like a crime wave was sweeping the island.
Laughing, we parted. I headed for the harbor steps. I saw that the four tugs had arrived and were anchored' beyond the salvage vessel - another reminder that two years' work was coming to an end.
Turn to page 2.
San Salvador is famous for its coral reefs, the finest stretching from Cockburn Town to Sandy Point in the south. But coral is a living, growing organism and, three years ago, was threatening to close the entry to the Town harbour. It was during blasting operations to open up the shipping channel, that one of the larger reefs split from end to end.
It was like the opening up of the two halves of a mould. Lying in the newly formed cleft, was a ship, almost free of the coral which had covered and preserved her for centuries. She was a three-masted Spanish carrack - a merchantman armed with cannon. Her name was the Marie Galante
and, but for a great hole torn in her hull, she was almost undamaged.
Minutes after leaving shore, she must have struck the underwater reef. With her bottom torn out by the razor sharp 'coral heads', she would have sunk like a stone, taking with her all who were aboard. She must have settled in a natural depression, the coral growing over her quickly enough to preserve her timbers from the usual ravages of wood-boring Teredo worms.
The first discovery was that some hundred of those aboard - men, women and children - had been packed like cattle in the tiny hold. The Marie Galante was a slave ship, those in the hold, Lucayans, whose promised 'trip to heaven' had been, perhaps, mercifully short!
The salvage cost was estimated at over four million US dollars and there was no 'treasure' to make it financially attractive. It was, therefore, very unexpected, when the whole of the money was offered by one man, Senor Miguel Alvarez, a Spanish banker from Nassau, the Bahamian capital.
Once the money had been offered, things moved very quickly. Carl Seabrook, best known for his work on the salvage of the Greek galleys sunk at the Battle of Salamis, was appointed as project director. I was working in Portsmouth, England, at the time, on the wreck of the Mary Rose. I was offered the supervision of the archaeological work. Sue Stannard, one of my colleagues, was appointed as my assistant. In nine months, a complete team was assembled. Three months later, the salvage vessel was in place, ready for work to begin.
Do we relish working OT? Or take a break to go camping?It had taken most of the two years to empty the ship of all its contents - including the human remains. Everything was now stored in a large house just on the south side of the Town.
During the same period, the fragile timbers of the ship itself had been enclosed in a wooden framework, or 'cradle'. To this would be attached huge plastic bags. When filled with air, they would lift both the cradle and the ship to the surface. The tugs were to steady the cradle during the lift and prevent its being swept against the sides of the cleft by the tidal currents. Everything had been ready for ten days, waiting for the time when tides and weather would give the best chances of a successful lift.
I knew that the tidal predictions made Tuesday and Wednesday of next week two likely days. I was, therefore, surprised to hear that Seabrook had fixed the lift for Monday - if the weather held. It was sooner than Seabrook himself would have liked, but he was increasingly worried about the earth tremors which were getting more frequent, and stronger.
That set a problem for Sue Stannard and myself. Senor Alvarez was waiting in Nassau, ready to fly to San Sal the evening before the lift. Sue and I, probably the only members of the team still working, had been putiing-together a small exhibition of the best pieces for Senor Alvarez' benefit. The cannon on the harbour wall were part of it. It was now Thursday and we had one day less to finish it.
Probably not realising how much work was still to be done, Seabrook suggested that Sue and I borrow one of the Land Rovers and go Granny Lake for a long camping weekend. He added that Malcolm was going to his dig and that we could give him a lift there and back.
Malcolm was one of the team's carpenters, but a keen amateur archaeologist. His dig was a part-excavated site on the other side of the island, which had been a very early Lucayan settlement.
I thought Sue needed a break. If I stayed and worked the weekend, Sue could go with Malcolm to his dig on Friday morning - not quite a 'break', but a change which I knew Sue would enjoy. If I was to get away too, even on Friday night, I would have to settle for a much smaller exhibition than I'd planned.