Back Cover blurb:
I don't know if you still remember the name, but Gorak was the land where the PC in Daggers of Darkness was just arriving from before he entered Kazan, so the 2 places border each other.Gorak is under threat from the evil which haunts the dark chasms beneath it.
"The great seals of Gorak have been broken and the True Shield is gone - the Malice of Orghuz has again been unleashed! As a direct descendant of Tancred the Magnificent, it's up to YOU, a simple assistant in the underkitchens, to undertake the awesome quest for the Shield. With the Shining Sword in your hand and the cat goddess Tabasha the Bazouk at your side, YOU must enter the Chasms of Malice to seek out and destroy the evil Orghuz..."
Unlike past LPs, where I would first post the rules before going into the background, I'm going to do the reverse here, because the rules include certain things (like the Khuddam) that were brought up in the Background which really wasn't sufficiently explain. Actually, the Background doesn't do a good job of explaining them either, because this is a Luke Sharp book, and he often seems to believe the readers can easily imagine what he's talking about when he brings up a random new name he just created, but never mind, let's just look at whatever little information he's willing to provide us first.
BACKGROUND:
So, after reading all that, I hope you all understand what you're up against....From Treatise on the Kingdoms of South-west Khul by Ignatius PommfritteGorack. A minor kingdom, situated between the rivers Dart and Dagger - tributaries of the river Swordflow. Gorack was founded by Tancred the Magnificant after his adventures with his brother Orghuz in the Dark Chasms. The kingdom was to be the gateway between the area of Khul and the caverns, chasms and tunnels of the Gaddon people. Gorack has been without a monarch for many years and has been governed by the Lords of Ridermark.
Gaddon (or Feelbrethren). The Gaddon people are originally from south-west Khul. They migrated to the deep chasms (for no known reason, although some authorities claim religious persecution) and created their own culture. They began to give birth to blind babies soon after constructing their complex systems of tunnels. Their other senses were greatly enhanced and they became masters of the dark. The Gaddon Knights - the Sensewarriors - are supreme fighters in the dark. They are rarely to be seen in the Toplands (as they call Khul) since the time of Tancred the Magnificant.
Fragment from The Annals and Histories of Tancred the Magnificent, King of Gorak...in that year did We halt the Malice that was afflicting our Kingdom. But at great cost! We lost our beloved brother Orghuz to the Evil, and in a mighty struggle We cast him in the Dark Chasms, and did entrust the noble Gaddon Warriors to guard Him and His Kuddam spawn, for all eternity. The Great Seals were bound to the True Shield, and placed in the darkest vaults of Gorak Keep. Pray God that none will have to...
While flying in the guise of a hark over south-west Khul, on his way to the gathering of the Mage Order, the Wizard Astragal is summoned by the Lord Ridermark, Regent of Gorak, to investigate the sudden change in the fortunes of the small kingdom. Lord Ridermark Explains that strange, dark creatures are abroad; people are attacked and killed for no reason but sheer Malice. The vital truffle trade-route along Tancred's March is no longer safe, and the popular Azleff, leader of the stalwart knights of the Grey Order, has disappeared. Nobody can understand what is happening in what was, until recently, a peaceful land.
Astragal assumes a worried expression and rushes off the consult the Annals and Histories of Gorak. The great dusty tome conforms his memory of the story of the True Shield. He slams the book shut and makes his way to the deepest vault of Gorak Keep. By the light of blazing torch he finds the great Seals broken and the Shield GONE! Across the floor is a wide crack leading to the Dark Chasms.
Astragal explains to Lord Ridermark his fears that someone has unleashed the Malice of Orghuz and the KHuddam, by breaking the Great Seals. If Orghuz has the Shield he will be trying to break the spells of its age-old power. If he succeeds, the Seven Khuddam will then have the power to multiply: first there will be 49, then 2401,, then 5764801, until become uncountable hordes, and Orghuz becomes invulnerable. Astragal emphasizes that to kill Orghuz it is necessary first to destroy all the Khuddam, and only a direct descendant of Tancred the Magnificent can then hope to stand up to the evil power of Orghuz himself.
Lord Ridermakr tells Astragal that Tancred's line of descendant ended many ages ago. Astragal ignores the remark and pulls out the Crystal of Bahriyya, which shows him the way to the blood heir of Tancred the Magnificent. Astragal finds YOU, working in the under-kitchens as third-assistant=rabbit-skinner. He grabs you and, before you have had the chance to wipe your hands, whisk you away to the vaults. He stands you in the middle of a dusty room and whispers some strange incantations. You stare in wonder as a Sword rises from the dirst and lodges itself firmly in your hand. Astragal stands back and proclaims you 'Trancred's Heir'.
Astragal explains the quest for the Shield that no other may undertake. No other can strike fear into the Heart of Orghuz or wield the Shining Sword. He also warns you about the traotor in Gorak: 'You must be on your guard at all times, especially if...er, when you return."
You strap on plain leather armour and a simple cloak; Astragal announces that he has no potions with him to help you in your quest. Instead, he picks up a small cat and passes it to you. "This is Tabasha the Bazouk, from the line of the cat goddess. She will stay close to you and help you in your quest. Use her cautiously and wisely; nine times, no more. Now, there is no time to lose." He urges you on to the deep chasm in the great vault. Turn to 1.
...because I don't. Not really. :/
Alright, just like Daggers of Darkness, there's just about enough information to paint a very blurry background picture, but not more than that. The Big Evil Force of this book is called the Malice, which can apparently be taken quite literally as it somehow cause people to ravage and kill for no apparent reason. It's not clear whether it's some sentient being or just some wild primal force or something else, but apparently the brother of the kingdom's ancient founder fell prey to it and turned evil, and had to be banished and sealed away into the dark chasms with his followers after he was defeated. Said followers are also known as the Khuddam, which again we're not given any descriptions, but they certainly sound more dangerous than Mamlik just from the fact they can some how spawn themselves rapidly by squaring their own numbers each time. The fact that Trancred's line of descendants was thought to have ended "ages ago" indicates that if Orghuz or his Khuddam had ever been human and mortal, they no longer are now. The encounters with the Khuddam during the adventure show them to be of at least humanoid form visually, and are all highly-skilled opponents who can also use magic.
Maybe they're like the Ringwraiths to Orghuz's Sauron?
More importantly, Astragal never even specified what we're supposed to do. Find the True Shield and recover it? Kill Orghuz and all the Khuddam? Confront the Malice and somehow banish it? All of the above? Something else? Yeah, this one is even more vague than Daggers of Darkness.
The Gaddon, aka Sensewarriors, made an appearance in Daggers of Darkness...well, 1 of them did. Alkis Fearlicer, would might actually make an appearance in this one as well. They're apparently some sort of guardian to the banished Orghuz, although again nothing specific is given. The backstory about how they evolved to the point of being born blind after the moved to live underground is an interesting one. The text certainly indicate that they were on Tancred's side and helping him perform this guardian duty, although it's also slightly confusing in the sense that, if they went underground due to supposed religious persecution, and if they were almost never seen on the surface since Tancred's time, then doesn't it hint that Tancred was part of the persecuting group...?
Anyway, once again, we're playing the potential heir to a throne in a Luke Sharp book. Sounds like Tancred or one of his descendants might have dallied with some kitchen staff and spawned an illegitimate child long ago. And this time we don't seem to have any other apparent contenders since Tancred's line apparently died out except for us. Well, except for Orghuz, who technically can be considered our Great (Great-Great-Great-etc) Uncle of uncountable generations back. Royalty bloodlines are always messed up, even in Titan.
And with all that, let's get to the rules.
Standard FF Boilerplate Rules:
Skill, Stamina, & Luck
[spoiler]SKILL score: Roll one die. Add 6 to the result.
STAMINA score: Roll two dice. Add 12 points to the result.
LUCK score: Roll one die. Add 6 to the result.
SKILL score reflects your expertise in combat, your ability with weapons, and your dexterity. STAMINA is your general constitution and "Life points" . LUCK score shows how lucky you are. None of them may exceed their Initial score unless specifically stated.
Eating a meal restores up to 4 points of STAMINA; you may only eat one meal at a time.
Testing your Luck: When instructed by the book to Test your Luck, roll two dice. If the result is equal to or less than your current LUCK score, you are Lucky. If the result exceeds your current LUCK score, you are Unlucky. Whatever the outcome, you must deduct one point from your current LUCK score every time you Test your Luck. The more you use your LUCK, the less likely you are to be Lucky.[/spoiler]
This book is one of the most difficult in the series...but its difficulty has little to do with stats. Basically, we're every bit as likely to be hit by arbitrary sudden deaths at SKILL 7 as at SKILL 12, so I will take the dice as they fall for this playthough.
SKILL: We roll 6 and start with a SKILL of 12.
STAMINA: We roll 3 and gets a STAMINA of 15.
LUCK: We roll 5 and get a LUCK of 11.
Just our luck to roll a SKILL of 12 when it's not as important...still not complaining. That low STAMINA can be a real problem, though, if we get hit by constant STAMINA drops like we did in Daggers of Darkness through all the random dice trails.
Combat:
[spoiler]SKILL and STAMINA scores are given in the text for each adversary that you face.
The combat sequence is then:
1. Roll two dice for your opponent. Add the total rolled to its SKILL score. This is the Attack Strength of your enemy.
2. Roll two dice and add the total to your own current SKILL score. This is your Attack Strength.
3. If your Attack Strength is the higher, you have wounded your opponent: deduct 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA..
If your opponent's Attack Strength is higher, it has wounded you: deduct 2 points from your own STAMINA.
If both Attack Strengths are equal, you have avoided each other's blows.
4. Begin the next Combat Round, starting again at step 1. This procedure continues until either you or your opponent has a STAMINA score of zero. If your opponent's STAMINA score reaches zero, you have killed it and can continue with your adventure. If your own STAMINA score reaches zero, you are dead.
Using Luck in Combat
You can use your LUCK in combat to inflict a particularly serious wound, or to minimize a wound that has been inflicted on you.
Whenever you wound an opponent, you may Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, you have inflicted a severe wound: deduct an extra 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA. If you are Unlucky, you have merely grazed it, and you deduct 1 point less than normal from its STAMINA.
If you have been wounded, you can Test your Luck in exactly the same way. If you are Lucky, the wound upon you was only a glancing blow and you can deduct 1 less point of STAMINA than usual. If you are Unlucky, the wound is serious: deduct 1 extra point from your STAMINA.[/spoiler]
So far, so FF. Now let's take a look at the stuff that are unique to this book...
One-Strike Combat is something we should get out of the way from the start. It's probably the biggest reason for this book's notorious difficulty. It's really a very simple mechanism, and a frustrating one. Basically, there are a lot of combats in the book that take place on some high and precarious location, and in those cases the first to land a hit gets the insta-kill by knocking his opponent off said precarious position and sending him plummeting to his doom. The rule of this combat is simply to roll 2 dice for both combatants and see who rolls higher. SKILL is NOT taken into account. So basically, every One-Strike Combat the PC has to go through means a 50/50 chance of insta-death. And even on an "optimal path" there's more than 1 of those...
Equipment is kind of relatively familiar. We start with Sword and leather armour. The rules text actually makes a point of capitalizing the first letter of 'Sword', although we wouldn't have known why until we read the Background, which tells us that it's a special Sword that Shines and can only be wielded by Tancred's bloodline. I assume that it being a special sword is also the reason we can actually fight and harm Oghuz and the Khuddam with it, so there's no need to hunt for another magic weapon in this book...although it gives us no combat bonus whatsoever. At least we don't need to start with a lantern (which is why we don't) thanks to our Sword's Shininess.
Despite being a kitchen assistant (and now an heir to the throne), we actually start with less Provisions than most FF PCs, with only 5 to start. However, a special rule in this book is that we may pick up Fuel in this book, and if we use them to cook our meal before eating, we can restore an additional 2 STAMINA on top of the usual 4.
And last but not least, we start with the cat, Tabasha, apparently descended from some divine bloodline of the cat goddess and therefore has magic powers. It can help us up to 9 times throughout the book, and 1 of them (and only 1) involves restoring EITHER our SKILL or our LUCK. We need to choose which before the adventure begins.
We are also told that we can use Tabasha to gain extra Provisions. Since the text doesn't get more specific than that, I assume it's 1 meal per use, also there's apparently no limit to how many times we can do that (well up to a max of 9 times, of course).
There's also a box on the Adventure Sheet that lists all the names of the 7 Khuddam, and we're supposed to marked off each one that we encounter and manage to kill during the adventure. I'm going to reveal a spoiler here: contrary to what Astragal said, it's NOT essential to kill every Khuddam in order to defeat Orghuz. In fact, in the "optimal path" (if there can be said to be one in Luke Sharp's books) it might possibly be better to avoid them, since they're all high-skilled opponents.
Another thing to note is that, just like Daggers of Darkness, while the rule pages don't say anything about them, the Adventure Sheet actually contains separate boxes for Abilities and Spells, which indicate that the PC can learn them during the game.
Special House Rule Imposed for this LP:
Like the last LP, I will be granting extra lives in this playthrough. For this, I will making use of already existing mechanisms are resources and modifying them. Basically, there are 2 way to gain extra lives:
1) Use Tabasha's favours. Each extra life uses up 1 of the 9.
2) Khuddam. As mentioned earlier, it's actually not mandatory to seek out and kill of them, so matter what Astragal said. And they're all tough to kill. So as a reward, for every Khuddam killed and "marked off" the Adventure Sheet, I will grant another extra life.
That gives us potentially 16 (although we probably won't unlock all of them. And believe me, they may not be enough. Keep in mind that we died 6 times in Daggers of Darkness.
Of course, the fact that we can use all of Tabasha's favours for extra lives doesn't we will or have to. As mentioned earlier, 1 of the 9 times can be used exclusively to restore either SKILL or LUCK to initial. Before we begin the adventure, we must determine which stat we're going to use her for.
So, before I proceed further, please vote whether you want to have a 1-shot full SKILL restore or LUCK restore.
It's basically like the old-school 3-potions option, except we have only 2 choices and STAMINA is not available (although since she can also bring us extra Provisions, that's sort of covered too.
