Picturing Solo History

There are many gamers who will tell you that it was Vampire the Masquerade that got them into roleplaying. That was in the 1990s. There are many gamers who will tell you that it was Dungeons & Dragons that got them into roleplaying. That was in the 1970s and of course, ever since... There are many gamers who will tell you that it was another phenomenon, of the 1980s, that got them into gaming, certainly if they are British, that of the Fighting Fantasy™ solo roleplaying books. Created in 1982 by Sir Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson with the publication of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, in the thirty years since, some sixty or so titles have published in the series and some seventeen million copies have been sold. In their time, the Fighting Fantasy™ series has produced bestsellers, computer games, board games, and of course, a dedicated fan base. In 2014, the series finally received the history book it deserved with the publication of You Are The Hero: A History of Fighting Fantasy™ Gamebooks and now, a decade on, there is a follow-up.

Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy is a celebration and exploration of the pictorial presentation of the Fighting Fantasy series, for it was not famed for its accessibility and innovative format—and of course, its fantastic stories, but also its art and illustrations. Beginning with Peter Andrew Jones’ cover for The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, which stood out on the bookshelves for its then radical composition, and the internal illustrations by the late Russ Nicholson, the series introduced readers to a wide array of artists and illustrators, styles, and striking images, across the many genres that the series would encompass. In particular, the pen and inks of Nicholson would create the look of the series’ titular character, Zagor the Warlock, as well as others, but in particular, his artwork added so much to the look and feel of the series. Not just horror and fear, but the idea that monsters could be doing something other facing the brave adventurer as his player leafed through the pages of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Dwarves playing cards and drinking into their cups, bored Goblins waiting for something to happen, a man having fallen asleep and being guarded by his dog. Yet the horror comes to the fore with images like the decomposing ghoul reaching to grab and rend the skin of the adventurer or the partially unwrapped mummy climbing over its saprophagous to attack the adventurer. Though the Fighting Fantasy series was aimed at a young teenage audience, its artwork was not. It never infantilised its fantasy, but instead, it was grim and gritty, savage and scary, enticing and exciting, and it remains so today. All of these pieces of artwork—and more—are given space in Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy, which highlights the work of over forty artists in its pages.

Published by Unbound, and written by Sir Ian Livingstone and Jonathan Green—who previously collaborated on You Are The Hero: A History of Fighting Fantasy™ Gamebooks, what Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy does is bring together the work of some thirty or artists who worked on the Fighting Fantasy series and more. Sir Ian Livingstone provides a foreword in which discusses his pleasure of working with so many great artists, Iain McCaig in particular, and also highlights out how artwork and artists in the series crossed over from other genres. For example, Jim Burns with his cover for both Freeway Fighter and the Games Workshop board game, Battlecars, and comic book artist Brian Bolland with his cover for Appointment with F.E.A.R. and for the Games Workshop board game, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One (recently republished by Rebellion), as well as, of course, as his work on 2000 AD. This fostered a degree of synergy between the different genres and media, and the Fighting Fantasy series and Games Workshop beyond what was already there. Jonathan Green provides a more straightforward introduction.

Then from Chris Achilléos, Robert Ball, and Krisztián Balla to Duncan Smith, Greg Staples, and Gary Ward and Edward Crosby, Magic Realms presents the art of some thirty artists. Every artist gets to talk bout their involvement in the series and working with the commissioning editor, or many cases, the author, and the fantastic pieces they contributed. Some of the write-ups about the artists are more overviews, drawing retrospectively on older interviews, such as with Brian Bolland and Martin McKenna. Each is accompanied by the illustrations themselves. In fact, several pages of them, and typically longer than the interview. These begin with the artist’s most well-known pieces, such as Chris Achilléos’ wraparound cover to Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World, Robert Ball’s cover to the Scholastic Books’ version of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, John Blanche’s cover to The Shamutani Hills, the cover to The Caverns of the Snow Witch, and the cover to Scorpion Swamp and Fighting Fantasy: The Introductory Role-Playing Game by Duncan Smith. This is followed by a gallery of smaller images, a mixture of colour and black and white, depending on the artist. None of the art here is straight reproduction of Fighting Fantasy covers—that comes later in Magic Realms—but the art sans the titles, author names, and trade dress. Thus, artwork here can be seen in all of its glory.

Almost three quarters of Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy is devoted to these artists, but they are not the only ones. The contributions of another twenty-artists, such as Dave Carson, Maggie Keen, Steven Lavis, and Brian Williams are acknowledged, as the artists on the overseas editions of the series. The latter highlights art that is unlikely to be familiar to most readers, unless that is, they are ardent fans or collectors of the Fighting Fantasy series, so it often brings a fresh perspective upon books with covers have long associations and are firmly cemented in the imagination of the English-speaking fan of the Fighting Fantasy series. This includes artwork from Brazil, Denmark, and France. All of covers are reproduced for the series, including those published by Puffin Books, Wizard Books, Scholastic Books, and overseas editions. There is a gallery of every cover of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain in every language, too, but that is not all. Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy comes to a close with galleries for Warlock: The Fighting Fantasy Magazine—surely due a reprint anthology, the Fighting Fantasy graphic novels, and the miniature figures. These are lovingly presented here, stunningly painted and superbly bringing the art to life in three dimensions and making the reader wish they could bring them to the gaming table.

Physically, Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy is exactly what you want it to be. The perfect reproduction of art accompanied by some interesting words.

There can be no doubt that Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy is an absolute must for any fan of the Fighting Fantasy series. It shines a spotlight on both the many great artists who brought to life the words of the Fighting Fantasy authors and the great choices made by authors and editors in selecting the artists, whilst for the reader there is the thrill of being able to see all of the Fighting Fantasy all in one place and the frisson of excitement at the memory of seeing it for the first time.

1982: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

Today is ‘International Gamebook Day’, a celebration of interactive fiction. Which also means that in 2022, it is also Zagor’s birthday. Zagor of course, is the ‘Warlock of Firetop Mountain’ whose labyrinth will be explored by the reader of the eponymous game book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Written by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone and published by Puffin, it was the first of some fifty-nine entries in the Fighting Fantasy series which would encompass numerous genres—horror, Science Fiction, superheroes, and more—but would always, always come back to fantasy. The series would sell millions of copies, have its own magazines, and get its own history with YouAre The Hero: A History of Fighting Fantasy™ Gamebooks, and The Warlock of Firetop Mountain would receive sequels, be adapted into board games and computer games and a roleplaying scenario for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and even an audio adventure.

There were of course, ‘choose your adventure path’ style books available before the Fighting Fantasy series began with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. There was the Tracker series published in seventies, plus the ‘Choose Your Adventure Path’ books and various solo scenarios for Tunnels & Trolls, the roleplaying game from Flying Buffalo, Inc. There were computer games, such as The Hobbit for the ZX Spectrum, also published in 1982. None of these had the advantages or the impact of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. The ‘Choose Your Adventure Path’ books presented simple choices with nothing else for the reader to do to influence what happened from one paragraph to the next. The Tracker series—such as Mission to Planet L—had the advantage of using illustrations to present the reader with choices, but the stories were quite short. The solo adventures for Tunnels & Trolls required the reader to own and understand how to play Tunnels & Trolls before even attempting to play through them. Computer games such as The Hobbit required a player to own the computer and have ready access to a television, as well the knowledge to install the game. Then for both the Tunnels & Trolls solo scenarios and computer games like The Hobbit, they were not as readily available.

In comparison, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain required nothing more than the ability to read, understand some simple rules, a pair of six-sided dice—easily found in any board game, let alone a toy shop, and pencil and paper. Even if the reader lacked dice, numbers were printed on the book’s pages that he could flip through to generate the required numbers. With or without dice, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was easily portable. Plus it was a book, which meant that the player was reading—usually a good thing as a far as most parents were concerned. It was also a book which could be found on the shelves of your local bookshop, meaning that its market presence and penetration had the potential to be huge. So it proved. This only increased as sales rose, again and again, so that Fighting Fantasy titles became bestsellers. Obviously advertised in the pages of White Dwarf magazine, because Livingstone was the editor, its sales reached out beyond those of the hobby, with many readers being introduced to interactive fiction, roleplaying, and fantasy through their reading and playing of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and other Fighting Fantasy series titles.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain began by asking the reader if he was brave to take on the monsters and magic of Firetop Mountain? The treasures within lay ripe for the taking, but in order to do that the powerful warlock Zagor must be slain! To face him, the mighty hero must navigate the tunnels and caverns that form the maze of his mountain stronghold, often facing the warlock’s horrid minions and monsters who would kill you as much as look at you. Even if the hero can find his way through every twist and turn of Zagor’s maze, defeat every monster and minion encountered, and even Zagor himself, he still must have both keys to unlock the chest containing the warlock’s mightiest treasures! Only then will he have survived the perils of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain!

There is little fanfare to the instruction of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. It very quickly into the explanation of what it is and what the reader will need before getting to roll up his character, who has Skill, Stamina, and Luck. Skill is primarily used in combat—added in opposed rolls against the monsters, Stamina is the character’s life force and health, and Luck covers everything else. Actually, Luck mostly covers running away, although other instances of its use are explained in individual paragraphs. Combat works by the player rolling for his character and adding his Skill and then doing the same for the monsters. The highest result each round wins and inflicts damage on the other. Anyone reduced to zero Stamina is dead. In comparison to most monsters, the character does start play with a lot. In addition, the reader’s character has a sword and leather armour and a potion, which will restore one of his three stats.

Then onto page one and the labyrinthine cavern complex inside Firetop Mountain. It is a brutal journey. Very quickly the reader encounters Goblins, some asleep, some in a murderous mood, then Orcs, traps, a box with a snake which will try and bite him, a ferryman to bargain to take him across the river into the second part of the adventure. Besides sneaking past Goblins and killing Orcs, the reader might find himself gambling with Dwarves, getting lost in a maze—the non-linear nature of the book manages to make a maze even more annoying, distracting Ogres, and much more. To be fair, there is very little story to The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and arguably the character who the reader is controlling is morally suspect given his attitude towards torture in one scene and the fact that he wants to take Zagor’s treasure when the warlock is merely minding his own business and not oppressing the nearby populace. That said, the story is one that the reader is creating in reading and playing through The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. As much as it is ‘dungeon bash’, the authors are really setting a template for the other Fighting Fantasy titles to come which would be more sophisticated and mature in their storytelling.

Of course, throughout The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the reader and his character is in constant peril and danger of dying. Combat is not the only way that the reader can die in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. This increased sense of peril and the possibility of death is arguably the solo game book’s innovation, making survival and its play uncertain. Whatever way in which he does die, the reader has to start again, this time with new stats rolled up for a new character. Where the new character will have an advantage is in having access to a map showing the progress of the previous character or characters. This is because the reader is encouraged to draw a map as he reads through and explores the tunnels and caverns of Firetop Mountain. In this way he maps out the routes explored and looks for untried ones, again and again each time his character dies and he begins anew. Here then, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is working like a Rogue-style computer game in which death is permanent and the player has to start again. Of course, the new character has the advantage of the map and hopefully learning from previous wrong choices. It is notable that in many cases that map would be replicated again and again as new players read through the solo game book for the first time.

Physically, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain looks and feels like a novel. It is not of course, but the standard of presentation is excellent, with the artwork of Russ Nicholson—sadly lacking in later printings of the book—really standing out and giving the book its signature look.

—oOo—

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was reviewed in White Dwarf No. 36 (December 1982) in Open Box by Nicholas J R Dougan. He opened with, “The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, is, in gaming terms, a fairly simple programmed dungeon. Its uniqueness, however, as a may be guessed for the publisher’s name and the its paperpack format, is that it is designed to sit on the children’s shelves of a bookshop as much as in a gaming shop.” Before awarding it ten out of ten, he concluded that, “The book would make an ideal present for anyone who has expressed an interest in role-playing games, or indeed any young brother (or sister!). I imagine that the minimum age would be about ten, but I would recommend it to novice and veteran players alike for quite a few hours of entertainment. I imagine that the minimum age would be about ten, but I would recommend it to novice and veteran players alike for a few hours of entertainment. The authors, Steve Jackson (UK not USA) and Ian Livingstone (there’s only one), are to be congratulated on the successful development of an original idea that should benefit the hobby.”

More recently, author and publisher, Chris Pramas, chose The Warlock of Firetop Mountain as his entry in Hobby Games: The 100 Best, published by Green Ronin Publishing in 2007, also the year of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain’s twenty-fifth anniversary. He described The Warlock of Firetop Mountain as, “…[A] pioneering release that popularized the solo gamebook and successfully brought the roleplaying game experience to a wider audience. This book alone sold over two million copies and it was only the first of the Fighting Fantasy series. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain spawned 58 more Fighting Fantasy books in the original series, a support magazine, a board game, an ambitious spinoff series, several computer games, two traditional roleplaying games, and a series of fantasy novels. Then there was the legion of imitators, another sure sign of success. Not bad for a slim paperback less than 200 pages long.”

—oOo—

The influence and reach of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is undeniable. Millions of copies sold, reprinted again and again, and adapted to other formats, it started the Fighting Fantasy series and led to numerous other publishers their own lines of game books too. Yet it also introduced many readers to the concept of interactive fiction and many readers to the concepts behind roleplaying as well, and for gamers, it gave them something to play away from the game table and something that was very much game related that they could buy at their local bookshop. This combination of accessibility and availability helped increase the understanding of what roleplaying was and what its kind of play was like in a way that computer roleplaying games would later do, and in the process, it helped make both more acceptable.

For all of its influence and reach, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain remains still a nasty little dungeon, perhaps just a little grim and a little perilous with a dash or two of humour, where there is the real chance of the reader’s character dying at the hands of some monster or by some mishap. For the teenager starved of gaming it enabled gaming again and again until the cavern complex was fully explored and mapped out, and ultimately The Warlock of Firetop Mountain defeated and his treasure taken. Coming back to it as adult, it feels familiar, evoking memories of the first few times it was played and of the first few steps taken into all too many dungeon.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain did not invent the form of interactive fantasy fiction, but it made it popular and made it accessible. It is also made it fun.

Happy International Gamebook Day 2022 and happy fortieth birthday Zagor!

Magazine Madness 12: The Warlock Returns Issue #01

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickstarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

—oOo—

Back in the nineteen eighties, at the height of the popularity of the solo adventure books which had begun with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and Fighting Fantasy in 1982, there not one, but two solo adventure magazines. Warlock, published between 1984 and 1986 by Penguin and then Games Workshop, ran for just thirteen issues. Its counterpart, Proteus, was published by IPC Magazines Ltd. and then Wimborne Publishing between 1984 and 1988, and ran to nineteen issues. Although both published solo adventures, Proteus was not a Fighting Fantasy-oriented magazine, but a ‘A Complete Fantasy Adventure Game Magazine’, whereas Warlock definitely was. The focus of Warlock was fantasy with an emphasis on the Fighting Fantasy adventure gamebook series. The focus of its successor is much broader. Published quarterly by Arion Games, The Warlock Returns is devoted to Advanced Fighting Fantasy, the full roleplaying game based on the Fighting Fantasy solo adventures series and its Science Fiction equivalent, Stellar Adventures.

The Warlock Returns #01 was published in September, 2020. It presents a medley of things, from monsters to scenarios, from weapons to cartoons, from advice to settings, and more. It opens with Andrew Wright’s entry for the ‘Denizens of the Pit’ column. He details three types of Chaos Dragon—the swamp-dwelling, acid-spitting Yellow Dragon; the wilderness and ruin-dwelling, superheated wind exhaling Orange Dragon; and the jungle and ruins-dwelling, green slime breathing Purple Dragon. These are nicely detailed and tied into the history of Titan—the setting for Advanced Fighting Fantasy—when Death walked the lands and breathed Chaos into the hidden places where dragons were sleeping, mutating some of them into these three forms. They suffer from mutations today. All three are fearsome great beasts and not something that an unprepared adventurer would want to encounter.

The issue includes two lists of equipment. The first is ‘Jungle Mania’, by Stuart Lloyd. Just a page in length, it lists the sort of equipment that adventurers’ might want to prepare themselves with before setting out into the jungle. They include mosquito netting, mosquito repellent, the machete, blowpipes, darts, and poisons. All fairly serviceable, but with little tweaks here and there. For example, the machete is treated as a shortsword which is more effective against plants rather than creatures. Similarly, the weapons listed in Terry d’Orleans’ ‘Chinese Inspired Weapons for the Isles of Dawn’, are also tweaked. They range from the Gong (bow) and the flexible Qiang (spear) to the Liuxingchui (meteor hammer) and the Hudie Shuangdao (butterfly swords). For example, the Liuxingchui can be used to disarm an opponent rather than inflict Stamina damage and the Shengbiao (rope dart) to inflict a penalty to all physical actions rather than damage.

Terry d’Orleans also offers advice for the Director—as the Game Master is known in Advanced Fighting Fantasy—in ‘Sizing Up Monsters’, which explores ways of making encounters and combat more interesting and enjoyable by unbalancing them for and against the adventurers. The aim here is not to make them extremely easy or extremely challenging, but appropriate to the situation, perhaps to make a fight against minions slightly easier and that against their villainous master or mistress that much harder. It is a well thought out article, and solid advice for the new Director and experienced Director alike.

Adrian Kennelly provides two lists of twenty things to be found and read. ‘For the Bookworms’ is a list of books which can be used to flesh out bookshelves, so as to hide that all too important tome which the Player Characters might need to find, which ‘Notes and letters from Arion’ is a list of notes and missives which might be found in pockets (whether their owners are dead or alive) or dropped on the floor, and which might spur an encounter or adventure. There is a certain mundane to some of the latter, but both articles, written for the setting of Arion, would an extra degree of verisimilitude to any Advanced Fighting Fantasy campaign. They could easily be adapted to other settings if necessary.

The Warlock Returns #01 contains two specials. One is a new character sheet for Advanced Fighting Fantasy designed by Dyson Logos, whilst ‘In Their Element’ is a one-page dungeon designed around the elements and their alchemical symbols, along with those for the metals copper, silver, gold, and platinum. By Peter Endean, it is the first of two adventures in the issue and is serviceable enough, emphasising puzzles as much as combat.

Calfiero Risaliti’s ‘Welcome to Arion’ is the second and much longer adventure in The Warlock Returns #01. It takes low-experience adventurers from Allansia and the Old World to Arion, from where they plan to explore Khul. It is not suitable to more than the single magic user, and requires Travels in Arion as well as the standard rulebooks as necessary. It takes a while for the adventure to get going in which the adventurers, along with the rest of the city, find themselves under a curse. To solve the curse, the adventurers have to race round Arion to find and solve a series of riddles. It feels rather lengthy and could have done with editing for clarity. One notable issue is that it does not actually state what is going on for the benefit of the Director until three pages in, which is just too late.

The Warlock Returns #01 has its own comic strip in the form of ‘The Legend of Gareus: The Hero of Karn’. Written and drawn by Shaun Garea, this tells of the adventures—or rather, not-adventures-of the cowardly anti-hero, Gareus. This is quite fun and nicely done, and Gareus is a chancer and a git. Hopefully in future issues, he might even be loveable! Gareus returns at the end of the issue as ‘Agony Aunt Gareus’ with the sort of useless titbits and pieces of advice that you would imagine that only he could offer.

After all of that fantasy, Martin Proctor offers some Science Fiction with a setting for Stellar Adventures. ‘Tora’ is the first part in a series describing the desert world of the same name. Most of its inhabitants reside in clusters of cities where they toil in a strict class system maintained by the wealthy and the Enforcement, which imposes law and order. Travel between the cities—even the clustered ones, is limited; protests and riots by the poor are common; and any potential rebellion made all the difficult by limited access to arms and armour. However nomads do survive in the desert wastelands and smugglers conduct trade off world and between the cities. Guidelines are suggested for finding a home base for the Player Characters, hiring followers, income and prices for vehicles and other equipment, and multiple group combat. The inference here is that the Player Characters establish a base on world and then attempt to overthrow the various cities’ governments or become a criminal network, and so on. It is an intriguing campaign set-up, although not fully realised in terms of the setting here as descriptions of the world’s factions are saved for the next part of ‘Tora’. This though is a solid introduction which has a Mad Max/Blake’s 7 feel and it should all come together with the next part.

Physically,The Warlock Returns #01;is a bit rough around the edges. Although the layout is okay, much of the magazine would benefit from better editing—why every occurrence of the letter ‘l’ is in bold boggles the eyes, let alone the mind. The artwork is decent though.

The Warlock Returns #01 sits at that point between fanzine and proper magazine. It is more a ‘prozine’ than a magazine. There is a certain scrappiness to it and much of it needs an edit to really make the contents easier for the Director to use. It is though a first issue, and its problems can be put down to that. Hopefully, The Warlock Returns #02 will be better in terms of design and presentation. Nevertheless, The Warlock Returns #01 is worth the time to read through and check out its content if you a fan of Advanced Fighting Fantasy and especially so if you are a Director of Advanced Fighting Fantasy.

The Other OSR—Warlock! Kingdom

Warlock! Kingdom is a supplement for Warlock!, “A Game Inspired By The Early Days Of British Tabletop Gaming”, in particular, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Maelstrom as well as the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books which began with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. It has Careers—Careers such as Agitator, Boatman, Grave Robber, and Rat Catcher; it has two attributes, one of which is Luck; and it has a Warlock! running around an unnamed, humancentric kingdom causing mayhem. Although mechanically much lighter than Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, it is nevertheless intended to be grim and gritty, a world of adventure and peril, but with mud aplenty—or worse—underfoot and a certain, sardonic sense of humour. However, beyond there being a marauding Warlock!, and gods, such as the beloved Thrice Blessed, the bloody Red King, and the reviled Dragon, there is unfortunately very little in terms of background in Warlock!. This is an omission that Warlock! Kingdom aims to rectify.

Warlock! Kingdom is published by Fire Ruby Designs and is very much a book of two halves. The first is a Gazetteer of the Evening Lands, which provides an overview and entails of the western part of the Kingdom, whilst the second is a guide to Grim Biskerstaf, a thriving port city on the mighty river Vessen. Both sections are for the most part systemless, so that a Game Master could easily take the descriptions and content found here and adapt to the roleplaying game of her choice, be it Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Zweihander: Grim and Perilous, or something else.

Warlock! Kingdom opens up with the ‘Kingdom Gazetteer’, which details the Kingdom, which feels fairly generic in its fantasy. It has great forests, mighty mountain ranges, rolling hills, broad meandering rivers, deep lakes, busy cities and towns with wide swathes of untamed wilderness in between, the settled areas populated by Humans, but also Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. It stands on a peninsula, though this is not described. After this description, the book seems to go awry with a table of cultural events for the Player Characters to encounter and involve themselves in. It is a really good list, ranging from harvest festival to a funeral to dancing bear to Gerarix Stonecast with a mutated uman to exhibit, but feels too early in the book when you really want to know particular details of the country—languages, religion, and whatnot. Similarly, the discussion of the Royal Family and the Traitor, the latter the former chamberlain to the King whose worship of the demon Delock would lead to an unleashing of dark forces and precipitated a war that nearly shattered the kingdom. And also the fact that since the war against the Traitor, the King himself has not been seen, and that it appears that his wife the Queen and the King’s chief advisor are in charge given his absence. No suggestions are made as to why the King is missing or why, so there is plenty of room there to speculate—both in game and out.

Fortunately, Warlock! Kingdom settles down after that and guides the reader around the Evening Lands. This focuses on particular geographical locations like the Black Spine Mountains and the Golden Cave, the former riddled with caves and tunnels that are home to tribes of Goblins and clans of Dwarves, the latter a site of pilgrimage to the martyr, Saint Agarix, the current priest of which at the cave is probably living off the proceeds from the pilgrims’ donations. Many of these various location descriptions are accompanied by a table of random elements. Thus for the battlefield of Pomperburg, where the largest battle against the Traitor took place and which remains a place of horror to this day, there is a list of unusual items to be found on the site still. Not every location has such a table, but in each, they add a little bit of extra flavour and detail.

The bulk of Warlock! Kingdom—almost two thirds, in fact—is devoted to Grim Biskerstaf, a city on the kingdom’s south coast at the mouth of the Vessen River. In the wake of the war with the Traitor, though thriving, the city is in decline, its ruler, Lord Kelberond ineffectual and perpetually confused; the city guard forced to operate on a shoestring budget whilst the Peacock Guard, whose members protect Lord Kelberond, strut about the city as if they own it; the harbour the site of ongoing squabbles and fights between the Fish Speakers and the Dockers as to who controls trade on the river; and religious dissension growing as the Red King’s Men, worshippers of the Red King ejected from Fesselburg, the Kingdom’s capital, have taken up residence in the city—some actually devout, others little more than thugs. Then there is the Blight. This is a ghastly disease which turns the sufferer’s skin a sickly green and makes it break out into open sores. No one knows the source or cause of the Blight, but of late, the river has turned into sludge and it only affects the lower classes—so at the moment, the Blight is not all that important.

The description of Grim Biskerstaf follows the format used for the Kingdom in the first half of Warlock! Kingdom. Each of the descriptions of the city’s thirteen important locations is accompanied by two things. One is a snapshot from the main two-page illustration/map of the city, and the other is a table. Similarly, the descriptions of the city’s various organisations and notable figures are also accompanied by their own tables, which in each case adds further detail and flavour. Thus, outside the cathedral to the Thrice Blessed stands a tree and on that tree—in very Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fashion—are nailed notices of employment described in a pair of tables, whilst along the city’s famous red stone walls, built by an Elven queen a millennium ago, stand a series of great towers, many of which have fallen into a state of disrepair and rumoured to have been occupied by persons other than the city guard. Who exactly occupies a particular tower can be determined by a roll of the die and reference to the accompanying table.

Grim Biskerstaf’s organisations include the Little Council, which supposedly governs the city and has table of its various plans; the College of Doors, its school of magic whose entrance changes regularly and is actually located in a hidden magical dimension, and its table suggests where the entrance door may be found that week or so. Its notable citizens include the wizard, Dolkepper, who when not studying the universe, is crabbily ruminating on which of the city’s citizens has slighted him and then tetchedly complaining about it. Who exactly, of course, is detailed on the accompanying table. In addition to the table, all of the descriptions are full of detail and flavour that the Game Master can bring to her game.

Rounding out Warlock! Kingdom is ‘So, You’re a Local?’, which gives a sextet of new Careers for Grim Biskerstaf. These are Docker, Fish Warden, Mudlark, Night Watchman, Publican, and Servant, but to be fair would work in almost any port city or town. Alternatively, they could serve as the basis for Player Characters in a campaign or scenario set entirely in Grim Biskerstaf! All of these have tables answering a couple of questions such as ‘What have you found?’ or ‘What have you seen?’, which further tie them into the city. As well as potential Player Characters they could also form the basis for NPCs too. Finally in Warlock! Kingdom, there is another pair of lengthy tables. One of hirelings, the other of adventure seeds. There are no stats with the hirelings, but the adventure seeds are nicely detailed and could keep a campaign in Grim Biskerstaf going for a while.

Physically, Warlock! Kingdom is a buff little book, starkly laid out and illustrated in a suitably rough style which feels suitably in keeping with the period inspiration. The cartography is nicely done, but the book does need a tighter edit in places.

Warlock! Kingdom begins in underwhelming fashion, the description of the kingdom at least feeling underwritten before it settles down and starts telling you interesting stuff. It really picks up with the description of Grim Biskerstaf, a city full of secrets and dirt which could be dropped into any campaign, which is made all the easier because like much of the book, it is systemless. Pick it up for overview of the kingdom, but definitely stay for the write-up of the Grim Biskerstaf in Warlock! Kingdom, which is perfect for any Grim & Perilous setting or roleplaying game, not just Warlock!

The Other OSR—Warlock! Compendium

The Warlock! Compendium is the first supplement for Warlock!, the Old School Rennaisance-like Career and skills roleplaying game whose inspiration is a hybrid of Fighting Fantasy a la The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Published by Fire Ruby Designs, it complies the first four expansions for Warlock!, each of which adds flavour and detail to the core rules, particularly when it comes to Careers and magic. In turn, adds new Careers for the non-human races of the Kingdom—or wherever the Game Master’s campaign is set, new magic, rules for magic from old body parts, and rules for what happens if you entreat the unholy powers.

The Warlock! Compendium opens with ‘Part 1: Different Paths’, in particular, ‘Community Careers’. One of major omissions in Warlock! was a lack of Careers for Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. ‘Community Careers’ amends that with an expansion of the Career table in the core rules, which a player rolls on to determine his character’s first Career. This table extension adds six more, such as Dwarf Inventor, Elf Kin Guard, and Halfling Gong Farmer, which when rolled determine both a character’s first Career, but also his Community. This does not necessarily replace a player’s option to choose his character’s Community, but rather means that the character will definitely be a member of one if the right roll is made. Some of the Careers, such as Dwarf Tunnel Fighter and the Advanced Careers of Dwarf Slayer, Elf Champion, and Halfling Burglar, all feel very much inspired by a certain British fantasy roleplaying game. Warlock! however, is not a fantasy roleplaying game in which one Community is mechanically any different from any other, but ‘Community Careers’ adds potential flavour without adding any undue mechanical complexity or advantage.

‘Part 2: The Grimoire’ is all about magic. It starts by adding advice for discovering spells—essentially research, research, research—and copying scrolls. The latter is particularly trying, costing a wizard stamina which cannot otherwise be recovered. Now whilst this can be done, it definitely feels as if the author is persuading the wizard against such a rash action, suggesting instead that he concentrate upon exploration and the search already completed scrolls rather than create his own. This is followed by some forty spells, from Beam, Bleed, and Curse to Tremor, Whisper, and Yearn. These all fantastically gritty and down-to-earth, such as Dry, which protects the caster and anyone nearby from the rain, but makes all incredibly thirsty, or Glamour, which grants a bonus to the target for all actions where beauty is involved, but makes the target ugly and repulsive for several hours after the spell’s effects have worn off! ‘Rods, Staves, and Wands’ cover a wizard storing spells in them, whilst ‘Rare and Wondrous Artefacts’ adds a handful of magical items, typically with a sting the tail, such as the ‘Boots of Striding’ which enable the wearer to leap great distances, but with the chance that one boot will be left behind, the other at the destination, and the wear equally as split! ‘Lost Relics’ provides rumours of a handful of missing items, whilst ‘Community Spellcasters’ adds Advanced Careers for Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings capable of using magic, such as the Dwarf Runeforger, Halfling Conjurer—street magicians who use illusion and beguilement, and Elf Druid—who can sacrifice of the blood of sentient species for a much darker version of the Druid typically seen in fantasy roleplaying. 

‘Part 3: Necromancy’ presents the dark arts of dealing with the dead and the undead, practitioners often beginning with contacting the spirits of the departed to learn their secrets and then it is a slippery slope to degradation and terrible power. Of course, in the Kingdom, the art is forbidden and outlawed. From Bind Spirit and Create Guardian to Spirit Speak and Summon Dead, some eight necromantic spells are given as well as detailing the dangers of necromantic miscasts and some necromantic artefacts.

‘Part 4: Corrupted’ covers the effects and consequences of the dark arts, another slippery slope to power for ambitious—or foolish!—wizard, but does actually detail how a wizard might take such a path. With the inclusion of the Cultist and the Death Knight—a sorcerer who has fallen under the influence of a demon, demonic marks and gifts bestowed upon such Death Knights, along with  demon swords, demon goblins, and descriptions of such demon masters as the Cthulhu-like Delock, Lord of the Depths and the demon lord of war, Pazaali, the Warlock! Compendium strays ever closer to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay in emulating its inspiration.

Physically, the Warlock! Compendium is a handy, digest-sized hardback. It is decently illustrated throughout, the occasional roughness of the artwork contributing much to the British Old School style and look that Warlock! seeks to evoke. The book is well written and an engaging read, and everything within its pages is easy to grasp and pull out into a game.

Although it offers a little more than that, the Warlock! Compendium is very much the magic supplement for Warlock!, adding new spells, magical Careers, necromancy, the dark arts, magical monsters, and so on. As useful a set of additions and expansions as they are, it is the six Careers—the Community Careers for Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings which feel the most useful addition in the Warlock! Compendium, for in giving them something that is intrinsically theirs, they flesh out the core game rather than just adding to it. Plus, they do it without adding to the rules or mechanics—just the setting. The Warlock! Compendium is overall, a solidly sorcerous expansion for Warlock!

The Other OSR—Warlock!

At first sight, Warlock! looks like just another Old School Renaissance Retroclone—and it is, but not the sort you might be thinking of. Published by Fire Ruby Designs—previously best known for Golgotha, the Science Fiction retroclone of far future dungeon scavenging in shattered battleships—Warlock! quickly makes its inspirations known with the strap line, “A Game Inspired By The Early Days Of British Tabletop Gaming”. As much as Warlock! is a fantasy roleplaying game replete with Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings, warriors and wizards, and so on, it only draws upon Dungeons & Dragons as far as that, and no more—just as inspirations for Warlock! did. Instead, Warlock! has Careers—Careers such as Agitator, Boatman, Grave Robber, and Rat Catcher; it has two attributes, one of which is Luck; and it has a Warlock! running around an unnamed, humancentric kingdom causing mayhem. The inspiration for Warlock! is thus Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Maelstrom as well as the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books which began with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. However, Warlock! is very much lighter than Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, at least mechanically, though mechanically more complex than Fighting Fantasy. In tone though, Warlock! is intended to be grim and gritty, a world of adventure and peril, but with mud aplenty—or worse—underfoot and a certain, sardonic sense of humour.

Warlock! is a Career and Skills driven game rather than  a Class and Level game. A Player Character has two attributes—Stamina and Luck, as well as a Community. This can either be Human, Halfling, Elf, or Dwarf. These grant societal benefits rather than mechanical ones. He also has thirty-two base skills, ranging from Appraise, Athletics, and Bargain to Survival, Swimming, and Throw, and all of which range in value from one to twenty. To create a character, a player rolls dice for the two attributes, selects a Community, and sets ten skills at a base level of six and another ten at level five. The rest are set at a base level of four. The player then rolls four six-sided dice. These generate the four choices he will have in terms of Basic Career for his character. Once selected, a Career provides four things. First a quintet of skills which can be increased during play whilst the Player Character remains in that Career and a maximum level to which they can be improved, either ten or twelve. For example, the Pedlar receives Ostler 10, Streetwise 10, Appraise 12, Bargain 12, and Repair 12. The player divides ten points between these skills up to their maximum given values. Second, it provides a sixth skill, named after the Career itself, the level for this Career skill being the average of the other skills the Career grants. Third, it provides some standard equipment, and fourth it gives a pair of background elements specific to the Player Character’s time in that Career, both of which are generated randomly. For example, a Pedlar’s two die rolls would determine what he sold and where he has been. Lastly, a player picks three personality traits for character.

Name: Gottschalk Einstein
Community: Human
Career: Raconteur
Past Careers:

STAMINA: 17 LUCK: 13

ADVENTURING SKILLS
Appraise 07 (12), Athletics 05, Bargain 06, Blunt 05, Bow 04, Brawling 06, Command 04, Crossbow 04, Diplomacy 05, Disguise 04, Dodge 09 (10), Endurance 06, History 07 (10), Incantation 04, Intimidate 04, Language 06, Large Blade 04, Lie 08 (12), Medicine 04, Navigation 05, Ostler 05, Persuasion 06, Pole Arm 04, Repair 05, Sleight of Hand 04, Small Blade 05, Spot 06, Stealth 05, Streetwise 06 (12), Survival 05, Swimming 06, Thrown 04

Career SKILLS
Raconteur 7

POSSESSIONS
6 silver coins, backpack, three days’ foods, waterskin, eating knife, jaunty clothes, and boots.
A bottle or two of something strong and a few ‘relics’ of your past exploits, impressive but worthless.

WEAPONS
Arming sword

TRAITS
Charming, Enthusiastic, Lazy

SPELLS
None

NOTES
What tales do you tell? – The latest tales from the capital.
Where have you been? – Here and there. Buy me a drink?

Character generation is for the most part straightforward, as is character progression. A Player Character should receive one, two, or three advances per session. Each advance will increase one of a Player Character’s Career skill by one level, up to the maximum allowed by the Career. As a Player Character’s Career skills rise, so will his Stamina, representing him becoming tougher and more experienced. When a Player Character reaches the maximum skill level, he can change Careers—this will cost him a total of five advances. Whilst this grants him access to other skills, it will not increase the cap on the ones he already has. For that, he needs to enter an Advanced Career, such as Assassin, Bravo, Merchant, or Wizard. This raises the maximum skill levels to fourteen and sixteen rather than ten and twelve for Basic Careers. There are sixteen Advanced Careers in Warlock! and twenty-four Basic Careers. In general, a Player Character will be undertaking two or three Basic Careers before entering an Advanced Career—probably ten or fifteen sessions of play or so, before a Player Character is in a position to do that.

Mechanically, Warlock! is simple. To undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die, adds the value for appropriate skill or Career and aims to roll twenty or higher. More difficult tasks may levy a penalty of two or four upon the roll. Opposed rolls are a matter of rolling higher to beat an opponent. Luck is also treated as a skill for purposes of rolling, and rolled when a character finds himself in a dire or perilous situation where the circumstances go in his favour or against him. Combat is equally simple, consisting of opposed attack rolls—melee attacks versus melee attacks and ranged attacked versus the target’s Dodge skill. Damage is rolled on one or two six-sided dice depending upon the weapon, whilst mighty strikes, which inflict double damage, are possible if an attacker rolls three times higher than the defender. Armour reduces damage taken by a random amount.

Damage is deducted from a defendant’s Stamina. When this is reduced to zero, the defendant suffers a critical hit, necessitating a roll on a Critical Hit table. Warlock! has five, for slashing, piercing, crushing, and blast damage. Of course, roleplaying games like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had more, and more entries on them, but for a stripped back game like Warlock!, they are enough—and they are brutal. Damage below a defendant’s Stamina acts as a modifier to the roll on the table, so once dice are rolled on the critical damage tables, combat takes a nasty turn.

For example, Gottschalk Einstein is heading to his lodgings after a night on the town when he is attacked by a couple of thugs—Wilmar and Bruna, thinking that the worse for wear gentleman will be an easy mark. Both have clubs, 14 Stamina, and a Blunt skill of 3. The Game Master states that in his inebriated state, Gottschalk will be surprised. This means that the thugs can act first and have a +5 bonus to their rolls. Gottschalk’s player will roll normally, but will be using his Dodge skill of 9. Against Wilmar’s roll of 10, Gottschalk’s player’s roll 13 is good enough—the raconteur sees the attack coming and just steps out of the way. Bruna is more successful though, as the Game Master rolls a total of twenty against Gottschalk’s 15. The Game Master rolls 1d6-1 for her club and inflicts four points of Stamina damage, which Gottschalk suffers because he is not wearing armour—a poor way to impress the ladies! On the next round, the Game Master has everyone roll for initiative, a simple roll of a six-sided die. Gottschalk’s four beats the thug’s two, and drawing his arming sword, he swings at the nearest thug, which is Bruna. Unfortunately, Gottschalk is slightly drunk and the Game Master levies a -2 penalty to his Large Blade skill—reducing it to two (who said Gottschalk was a fighter?). His player rolls a total of 12 versus Bruna’s 8, and so hits. Gottschalk slashes at his assailant and inflicts nine damage on her, reduced by one for her padded jerkin. Bruna now has six Stamina. Wilmar attempts a second attack, and whilst Gottschalk is at a penalty on his Dodge roll, his player rolls 16, three times Wilmar’s roll of 1 which means not only that he misses, the Game Master rules that he falls flat on his face!

On round two, Gottschalk continues slashing at Bruna, his player rolling a total of 21. The Game Master rolls 18, which is not good enough and his drunken swings are enough to inflict another eight points his blade slashes open her padded jerkin. This reduces Bruna’s Stamina to -2, necessitating a roll on the Slashing Critical table. Gottschalk rolls two six-sided dice and adds two to the result for an average result of seven—which means that he has sliced at least one of her fingers off! She drops her club and clutches her hand in pain. She thinks better of her action and dashes for the alley. Meanwhile, her cohort, Wilmar manages to get to his feet and hefting his club suddenly realises he is facing a drunk with a bloodied sword in hand and his cohort has scarpered! Wilmar has a moment to think about his current Career choice…

Magic in Warlock! can be cast by either priests or wizards, but both use Incantation skill to cast, have to be cast from scrolls, and require the expenditure of Stamina to power. Spells can thus be cast so long as the caster has Stamina. However, a caster will suffer ‘Wrath of the Otherworld’ should his player roll a one, followed by a second failed Incantation test. This results on a roll on the Miscast table, leading to results such as the caster’s skin being bleached white or their face frozen in a grimace for several days. It is even possible for non-priests or non-wizards to cast spells, that is, read them off the scrolls. However, the likelihood of such spells being successfully cast is relatively low given that every Player Character will have a four in his Incantation skill… Some thirty-six or so spells are listed, from Alarm and Banish to Swarm and Unseen. Magic items in Warlock! essentially model the effects of spells, either without the need for an Incantation check, or with the Incantation check, but without the Stamina cost.

Warlock!’s bestiary includes all of the usual suspects, from Chimera, Dire Wolves, and Demon to Wight, Wraith, and Wyvern. Advice for the Game Master highlights the deadliness of the combat, the low power of the magic and its potential accessibility by everyone, and whilst the monsters are not necessarily evil, they may act as such. It also states that the way to become powerful in terms of magic is to specialise, but there are no rules for that. The major piece of advice for the Game Master is that Warlock! is designed to be hackable, and given how light the mechanics are, that is certainly the case. There is advice too, on handling the expectations that the players have in coming to a scenario and building an adventure around those. However, there is no scenario included which would showcase what the designer expects to see, and this is not helped by the lack of background to Warlock!. What there is, is very lightly sketched out. There is a marauding Warlock! of course, and the gods, such as the beloved Thrice Blessed, the bloody Red King, and the reviled Dragon, but nothing beyond that... 

Warlock! is a buff little book, starkly laid out and illustrated in a suitably rough style which feels suitably in keeping with the period inspiration. It is very handy and especially combined with the lightness of its mechanics, makes it easy to reference and to run from the book.

The danger of being inspired by Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Fighting Fantasy is that Warlock! could have been fairly complex, but in taking concepts and structures from both—the Careers in particular of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the simplicity of Fighting Fantasy, the result is something that is leaner, faster, but still as brutal and as grim. Plus it is light enough for the Game Master to easily develop her own content. Overall, Warlock! is easy to pick up and play, presenting a quick and dirty fantasy roleplaying game that will tick many a gamer’s sense of nostalgia.

Friday Fiction: Freeway Fighter vol. 1

Friday Fiction is a series of reviews which focus upon fiction which will be of interest to roleplayers and gamers in general. These can be novels as much as they can graphic novels, which is the case with Freeway Fighter. Older gamers will recognise this as the title of the thirteenth entry of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy series—the history of which is detailed in You Are the Hero—and this graphic novel not only shares the same title, but also the same world. As the title suggests, this world is a post-apocalyptic future in the vein of the Mad Max films—three of which, Mad Max, Mad Max 2, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, had been released by the time of Freeway Fighter’s publication in 1985.

Freeway Fighter is set in a post-apocalyptic United States, after some eighty-five percent of the world’s population have been wiped out by a plague. As civilisation collapsed, the survivors divided into two groups. Most have fortified themselves in isolated towns and settlements, huddled together for protection and husbanding and trading for what few resources they could, whilst the second, roam from settlement to settlement, stealing and raiding, and killing who refused to submit to their demands. The gangs drive heavily modified vehicles, souped up, fitted with spikes, their crews armed with a variety of arms and armour. After all, there is no-one to stop them from taking it now.

In the Fighting Fantasy book, the player takes the role of a citizen of the town of New Hope. The settlement is in desperate need of a fresh supply of petrol and so send out the protagonist in a Dodge Interceptor motor car across the wastes in order to procure a tanker filled with the needed fuel. Published in 2017, the graphic novel, which collects the four-issue comic series written by Andi Ewington, drawn and inked by Simon Coleby, and coloured by Len O’Grady, is a prequel, set some twenty-four months after the spread of the virus which killed most of humanity. As the story opens, Former I-400 Driver Bella De La Rosa is driving and surviving, remensising of the days when she was a hotshot rookie racing driver and set to make a big name for herself. She is skilled enough to outdrive most nomads, but when she runs into the marauders known as the Doom Dogs, she and her recently joined passenger face a much more dangerous challenge as they attempt to reach New Hope, for her car itself becomes the subject of the Doom Dogs’ leader’s desire. This is no surprise, since the car plays a major role in the storyline and will go on to literally drive the storyline in the Freeway Fighter solo adventure book.

Freeway Fighter—both the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure and the graphic novel—wear their influences on its sleeve. Lonely stretches of highway, abandoned cars, empty towns with just about enough to picked over and scavenged from, protagonists hardened to the disaster which has fallen humanity and prepared to do almost anything to survive, and villains who believe that might means right and who will do anything to survive. The story it tells is also fairly straightforward, perhaps verging on the familiar, essentially setting everything for the reader to go and play Freeway Fighter as the sequel. Andi Ewington’s script is sparse, leaving room for art, inks, and colours of Simon Coleby and Len O’Grady to shine through and atmospherically depict the ruin that the world has fallen to and capture the action of car-on-car combat. Indeed, the look of Freeway Fighter feels not dissimilar to the Mad Max computer game of 2015.

Beyond the story itself, the Freeway Fighter collection includes a history of Fighting Fantasy and the Freeway Fighter solo adventure book in particular as well as a tribute to Kevin Bulmer, the artist on the Freeway Fighter solo adventure book. Both serve as a nice adjunct to You Are the Hero, as author of both that and the history here is Jonathan Green. Casual readers who have picked up Freeway Fighter because it looked interesting will find these extra pieces infomrative enough, but really they are aimed at the Fighting Fantasy fan who will appreciate the extra background and detail.

Published by Titan Comics, Freeway Fighter is an enjoyable, if slight post-apocalyptic tale of survival and car combat. The art is excellent and the action nicely captured, and the story, if somewhat light, sets the reader up for his playthrough of the Freeway Fighter solo adventure book. Fighting Fantasy fans will enjoy this in particular and will want to have it alongside You are the Hero on their shelves.

Solo History

There are many gamers who will tell you that it was Vampire the Masquerade that got them into roleplaying. That was in the 1990s. There are many gamers who will tell you that it was Dungeons & Dragons that got them into roleplaying. That was in the 1970s and of course, ever since... There are many gamers who will tell you that it was another phenomenon, of the 1980s, that got them into gaming, certainly if they are British, that of the Fighting Fantasy™ solo roleplaying books. Created in 1982 by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson with the publication of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, in the thirty years since, some sixty or so titles have published in the series and some seventeen million copies have been sold. In their time, the Fighting Fantasy™ series has produced bestsellers, computer games, board games, and of course, a dedicated fan base. Now it has its own history book.

You Are The Hero: A History of Fighting Fantasy™ Gamebooks is that history book. Funded via Kickstarter, this is the definitive guide to the series and the phenomenon; a ‘coffee table’ style book lavishly illustrated with artwork that has both graced the insides and the outs of titles in the Fighting Fantasy™ series, from first—The Warlock of Firetop Mountain—to the last, Blood of the Zombies. This includes the book covers by the likes of Peter Andrew Jones, Ian Miller, Ian McCaig, as well as the internal illustrations of Russ Nicholson, Martin McKenna, Alan Langford—and more!

That more includes the original map for The Warlock of Firetop Mountain; original notes for The Forest of Doom; details about cameo appearances made by Livingstone and Jackson in Fighting Fantasy artwork; maps of the worlds and locations of the Fighting Fantasy series; plus the input of not just the artists and authors involved in every Fighting Fantasy title, but the fans too. The array of opinions given here are surprisingly frank. Most of them are as positive, even as gushing, as you would expect, but some are bluntly critical, in some cases by authors and artists of their own work. This gives the book a refreshingly engaging feel. Also explored are the other media where Fighting Fantasy appears—board games, computer games, phone games, magazines, and more. The book is thus thoroughly comprehensive, all but exhaustive in its coverage of all things Fighting Fantasy. Along the way it throws in fact after fact about the books, their creators, and the Fighting Fantasy phenomenon, all before bringing right up to date with the publication of Ian Livingstone’s Blood of the Zombies and the adaptations of the Fighting Fantasy series into titles that be played on tablets and mobile telephones.

To an extent, You Are The Hero is not just a history of the Fighting Fantasy series. It should be no surprise to the reader given that Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson created the series, that this volume also sketches a biography of the two men’s careers, and thus of Games Workshop and the games and computer industries in the UK over the last forty or so years. If there is an issue with You Are The Hero it is that it feels slightly rushed. It needs an edit in places and the layout is clumsy in places. Perhaps the book’s biggest weakness is its lack of an index, which is disappointing given that the subtitle of the book is ‘A History of Fighting Fantasy™ Gamebooks’—and that suggests that the book is intended to be reference work. The lack of an index is only a hindrance to that purpose.

There were ‘choose your adventure path’ style books available before the Fighting Fantasy™ series, whether that is the solo adventures for the Tunnels & Trolls RPG or my first experience with the genre, Mission to Planet L, part of the Tracker book series in 1975. Similarly there were various books and titles that appeared alongside the Fighting Fantasy™ series. Of course, they are not the subject of You Are The Hero, so there remains to be written a definitive history of the ‘choose your adventure path’ style book. Jonathan Green, the author of You Are The Hero and himself the author of four Fighting Fantasy adventures, is perhaps the man to write such a history… After all, he has already written the Fighting Fantasy chapter right here. As much a trip down memory lane as an informative and fascinating exploration of gaming before the digital age brought into said digital age, You Are The Hero: A History of Fighting Fantasy™ Gamebooks is the definitive guide and history to the phenomenon that introduced reading, interactive fiction, and fantasy roleplaying to a wider audience than ever before.

Fighting Fantasy Undead

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, especially if the things that you love can be brought back. When it comes to being a British gamer of a certain age, there is nothing to be more nostalgic about than the Fighting Fantasy series. Launched in 1982 with the release by Puffin Books of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, co-authored by the founders of Games Workshop, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, this series of “choose your own adventure” books holds a special place in the hearts of British gamers — The Warlock of Firetop Mountain in particular. It would run to some fifty-nine titles in the initial line-up, and in the process, sell millions of copies and popularise the concept of roleplaying, spearheading its presence in bookshops everywhere.

Since 2002, the Fighting Fantasy series has been published by Wizard Books under whose aegis two anniversaries have been celebrated. The first was series’ twenty-fifth anniversary, for which a special hardcover edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was published; the second was the thirtieth anniversary, in 2012, for which Blood of the Zombies was released. This is the first Fighting Fantasy title by Ian Livingstone since 2005’s Eye of the Dragon. It brings the series up to date, not just in terms of mechanics, but also terms of subject matter. After all, no threat is as contemporary and in vogue as zombies were in 2012 – and still are in 2013.

In Blood of the Zombies, the hero – as controlled by the reader – can be best described as “field researcher” with an interest in myths and legends, or at least a student of beasts mythological. As this hero, travelling across Europe in search of one beast after another, you find yourself taken captive in Transylvania and imprisoned in Goraya Castle. Its owner, Gingrich Yurr, is an insane megalomaniac who has plans for both you and the others he holds prisoner – that is, to turn you and everyone held captive into a zombie and then unleash the undead horde on the world. Being the resourceful type you have managed to escape, so all that stands between you and the end of the world are four hundred paragraphs of exploring, gathering the weapons and resources necessary to defeat Gingrich Yurr, and holding off one wave of the corpse cortege after another…

To handle the action, Blood of the Zombies presents a stripped set of rules. In the original Fighting Fantasy titles each hero had three statistics – Skill, Stamina, and Luck. The first of these represented a hero’s fighting ability, the second his health, and the last, his good fortune or otherwise as he proceeded through each adventure. In Blood of the Zombies, the hero has a single statistic – Stamina, essentially the number of attacks the hero can withstand before being overcome and killed. Combat is kept simple with the hero always being able to attack first – zombies after all, are notoriously slow; the hero always hitting and inflicting damage, each hit putting down a zombie, so the better the weapon the more zombies it destroys; and when it is the zombies’ turn to attack, the hero loses a point of Stamina for each zombie he faces – so it is a good idea to find the biggest weapon possible as quickly as possible! The reader will also need to note exactly how many zombies he kills in his escape attempt, otherwise the undead are still a threat to both himself and the world.

Creating a character is simply a matter of rolling two six-sided dice – which is all that a player will need along with a pencil – or flicking through the page and randomly stopping on a page, each of which has dice symbols marked between one and six and adding the result to twelve. This is the hero’s beginning Stamina. Besides the dice and pencil, a player will also need scrap paper, although the book does come with a character sheet.

As much as the adventure has a contemporary setting, in true “Grand Guignol” style, Blood of the Zombies takes place in a castle. Well of course, it is set in Transylvania! As the hero, the reader will find himself working his up from the depths – or the dungeons – of the castle to its living areas to face his gaoler, Gingrich Yurr himself! Along the way, he will encounter members of Yurr’s staff, strangeness and oddities, death-traps, and of course, members of the cadaver cavalcade.

Playing Blood of the Zombies is tough! It is not just a matter of collecting the gear necessary to defeat the zombie threat, but one of collecting the right equipment – though of course, the reader never knows ahead of time what exactly he will need. Beyond the decisions as to what to pick up or leave behind, which door to open and which to ignore, and so on, Blood of the Zombies is all about making the right dice rolls. For combat these are primarily high rolls – the higher the roll, the more zombies are wiped out – but the adventure’s design mixes the rolls up so that the reader never knows the outcome ahead of time. The likelihood is that if the reader manages to survive the rigours of escaping from Goraya Castle and its undead hordes, then it will be by the skin of his teeth.

The downside is that if the reader fails on his first time, then having to play through again is more time consuming than challenging. It does not help that there are moments in the adventure where its linear nature becomes apparent – the preponderance of long corridors makes this unavoidable. Thankfully once the reader towards the end, the various scenes and locations seem to come crashing down onto the reader, one after the other, leading to cinematic ending. The character of the hero is something of an 'everyman', an ordinary fellow, who is driven to undertake extraordinary feats in saving the world and more. He is not necessarily a capable fighter as the human opponents he may well face during the course of Blood of the Zombies are more capable than he is. This should be seen as a reflection of his weakened state as much as it is the fact that he is an ordinary man and not the trained fighter that would instead be treading the caves and passageways of Warlock of Firetop Mountain. He can of course, blast zombies away with the best of them… that is, unless his dice rolls let him down.

Throughout, the design and writing in Blood of the Zombies is decent. It is not overly descriptive, but the tension is kept high at the right points, and the few personalities that the hero meets are more than mere bodies waiting for death at the hands of said hero. In addition there are numerous in-jokes scattered throughout the halls of Goraya Castle, though some of them might be a little obscure to younger readers.

Blood of the Zombies is an enjoyably nostalgic trip back both an older style of game and and older style of adventure. It updates the format to provide a contemporary cinematic blast of an adventure and a few tense hours alone...