Stealing from the Gamebooks, #3

So it's apparently NZ's hottest summer in 60 years or so, and the water restrictions and fire bans are popping up all over the place. Personally, I don't care if my lawn dies (less mowing) and my tomatoes are quite good this year. I'll work on the Eternal Summer setting later on, as it would make a change from all these Eternal Winter novels out there. Keeping as far away from Dark Sun as possible...

Also, not a good season for being hunched over a computer screen, hence the lack of posts, and thinking about RPGs.

However, sorting out the moving boxes has gone well, as has my pillaging of the books that started my interest in this, some 30 years ago... The Fighting Fantasy series. Although aimed at young children, at least at first, and having a rather goofy, somewhat simplistic world that does not agree with me, there are some hidden gems in their descriptions, characters and 400-odd paragraphs that I can pilfer for my own use.

Today, #3, The Forest of Doom...

Handsome guy on the left, right?

Shapechangers, strange leftovers from the Age of the Lizards, that hold a fearsome reptilian appearance in their natural form, but that can mimic any living form temporarily (of roughly the same size - mass is shifted, not created or removed) that it has viewed, or, as some suggest, slain and eaten. No signs of greater than goblin level intelligence and no attempts to communicate with anyone, at least attempts that didn't end with one of the parties dead.

Absolutely no relation to the Doppleganger, at least, hopefully not. These guys (girls? who knows?) lurk in places named "Doom" while Dopplegangers infest civilised places. That's the theory...

Meanwhile, the plot of the book is simple; a dying dwarf tasks you with recovering the Hammer of the Dwarves. It's a little more complicated in execution, though.

Anyway, the ideas;

• The Northern (or Eastern, or Western, or Southern) borderlands, where few people venture and a traveller can go weeks without meeting another. Wolves and Trolls, though, seem rather common.

•  A learned old witch, dwelling in an isolated cabin in these wilds, with only a hunchbacked servant for company. She knows many arcane or historical secrets, and those needing this knowledge may seek her out, but she is crafty and dangerous, and may trap unwary seekers with her schemes and dark bargains... She is also skilled in herbalism, and can escape violence by transforming into a bat. The servant is a drooling idiot, but she may require groups to take him somewhere dangerous as a condition of her help. Think of assistance from her being a form of Faustian bargain...

•  A secret underground mushroom farm where small humanoid clones tend the giant fungi for a Fire Demon. Actually, the Demon is victim of a curse, and any who slay it, and don the golden crown that it wears, finds themselves transforming into a similar Fiery figure, but are distracted by the quiblings and telepathic reports of the clones, and are trapped overseeing the operation. The end destination of the fungi, and who is responsible for the whole set-up, remains unknown to this day, but certain types of dried fungus are becoming a problem in the Coastal Cities these days... 

•  Wild hillmen do range in these parts, so be careful when entering land that might be occupied. Read up on the Welsh or Pictish 'barbarians' (well, at least to the Romans and various types of English throughout the centuries) to get an idea of how these peoples live, and hunt, and why they want to kill you. They aren't mad, and only want to kill you because you've offended one of their strange and bizarre taboos. Like pissing in their sacred river, for example, or killing a sacred deer out of season, or perhaps they don't like people wearing shoes...

•  The Eye of Amber. A simple palm sized circle of amber on a silver chain, it appears unimpressive, but when worn, in plain view, it allows the wearer to discern when someone is lying to their face, in a one-to-one situation. Useful, but not admissible in most courts..

•  The Brass Flute of Wyvern Calming. A legendary artifact, that features in many of the bards stories, where the exiled Prince must find a number of special items or blessings to defeat the guardians and claim the kingdom/princess/pot of gold. This flute, however, is actually real, and, given the frequency of wyvern flights in the mountainous areas in my worlds, of practical use. If played properly (which means some experience in flute playing, mostly) it can send a Wyvern to sleep. Any wyvern affected by this wakes if something dangerous approaches, but otherwise sleeps normally until dawn or sunset, whichever is soonest. Last known holder was Barrot the Wanderer, who financed his wastrel lifestyle by looting Wyvern nests, and the remains of past victims. Rumour is he got careless and one woke on him. All that is known for certain is that he hasn't been seen since last Winter...

•  And finally, a lesser class of bandits. Men and women of peasant stock, driven to theft and murder due to a lord's displeasure, crippling tax rates (110% bites), other bandits stealing your stuff...

Look at them - rags for clothes, chipped and rusty weapons, no armour, no safe way of shaving. Give the players a sob story about hard times and eating your dog, rather than having well armed and armoured lootable bandits.

That's all I could hoist from this book - most of the traps, tricks or even dungeons were set pieces for the use of one-shot magic items you buy at the start, and that tends to be very situation dependent...