[AD&D Gamebook] Sceptre of Power (Kingdom of Sorcery, book 1 of 3)

[Jfdlsjfd]

Commentary:

Ohhhhhkay.

One. The College of Arcane Sciences isn't anyone's "house". One might say that Landor in the past and Beldon in the present were "housed in" the tower, but nobody would describe a multi-story basalt tower that also contains a dining hall, basement training room, and various other people's living areas as their "house".

House as in Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw or that other one

Three. If Landor was under threat from within the college, why didn't he magic himself into the crypts that no-one knew how to enter other than his familiar, Rufyl?

Four. Why did Landor give his familiar such a goofy name?

Maybe he rolled a toad and embraced the ridicule?

Five. What evidence do we have up to now of Beldon’s evil? In the course of this book, Beldon has:

• taken in his penniless nephew,
• asked everyone in the college to respect Carr,
• allowed and encouraged Carr to skip the cantrips and go straight to the more advanced spell classes,
• prevented a fight between Arno and Carr,
• and warned Carr away from the door of death.

I promiss I didn't read your analysis before posting my reaction to the post before this one. Great minds think alike, I guess.

We, the readers, know that Beldon is evil because Thayne and Landor say so, but Beldon doesn't seem to have done anything wrong other than bad-mouthing his dead sister and perhaps not strongly warning other non-Carr wizards away from the door.

The sign is written on the door. Anyone can see that entrance is reserved to whoever walks in Landor's shoes. There is no need for additional warnings.

An obvious step to demonstrate Beldon's evil would be for Landor to call out Beldon specifically as his murderer: "Dear son. If you're reading this, your mother is dead, and so am I. Beldon killed me. Don't ask how I'm writing this after already being dead. P.S. My spellbooks are with Perth the Archdruid."

That would fit Carr's WIS 3.

Alternatively, one can imagine a plot wherein Beldon and Landor fought a Gandalf-vs.-Saruman style wizards' duel that left Landor mortally wounded. Landor barely managed to escape, then barricaded himself in his room and had just enough time to write the letter before he succumbed to his wounds.

Or perhaps one of Beldon's assassins poisoned Landor (poison being one of the AD&D assassin's signature abilities), and Landor had just enough time, etc.

And take time to describe that he was dying because of the fast acting poison that was injected into his blood system by 3 assassins that I will now describe in excruciating details.... and also, my spellbooks are safely kept at AARGH. Yes, as in the Castle of AARGH.

 

[Joshua Randall]

This is 100% coherent with my guess that we aren't yet level 1. The most spells we can learn is three, provided we succeed in learning each one, isn't it? And newly minted level 1 magic users are entitled to FOUR spells.

Hoist on my own rules lawyerly petard! Or am I? Because AD&D already differentiated between spells KNOWN, spells LEARNED in this book’s parlance — vs. spells PREPARED. The 1st level magic-user spawned in with 4 spells known/learned, but could only prepare and cast 1, 1st level spell per day. At 2nd level 2, 1st level spells. At 3rd level 2, 1st level and 1, 2nd level. (And BTW. If you hadn’t found and succeeded on your roll to learn that 2nd level spell by the time you had enough XP to be 3rd level? Too bad.) At 4th level you could finally prepare that 3rd, 1st level spell you may know. Got all that? Would be easier if I posted the chart….

She wasn't even wearing a skirt!!! [when Carr looked up at her]

Judging by the drawing at [Gamebook] Sceptre of Power Dalris’s clothes are quite form fitting. Yowza!

2. Why reach the what if the goal is to skillfullly avoid the window to get up to the battlement, then we go back down afterwards to reach... the same door that we couldn't open two sections ago because someone had cast the Arcane Lock spell? What's the point?

Sorry, I made it too vague. When we arrived at the college after following the fence of flowery doom, we entered through the ground floor door into the tower. That’s the door that is now Arcane Locked.

Inside the multi-floor tower if you go up the stairs to just below the battlements, there is a landing (it’s fifteen feet wide) that has two doors on it. One of them is Landor’s.

dozens of practical jokes where one attach the scepter to a door knob and wait for travelling salesmen. Right now, using it as a mace to remove both Dalris and Beldon

Dude, you are doing a SUPERLATIVE job of setting up my future jokes. Are you sure you don’t have access to my Google doc?

don't know about high level MU in 1e, but a 3.5e archmage, realizing that, would have approximately 347 ways of making himself scarce instead of just waiting to die in his own "house"

The AD&D 1st edition archmage was pretty terrifying and did have a bag of tricks with almost no bottom. Surviving to REACH archmage level was a slog.

Even if Rufyl was the wasted scroll, we'd be left with a spell to "protect us from Beldon's appetite for wealth and power", which I suspect is a Disintegrate spell...

You are going to be so, so disappointed when you find out what’s on the third scroll. Once we do our alternate timelines.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Back to the gamebook: Rufyl has teleported away to negotiate with the crypt thing to bring Carr to the crypts where the sceptre is located.

---

236

After a short time waiting and with no warning, the walls of Landor's chamber seem to melt. We feel a sensation like the world is changing around us and are deposited in pitch blackness.

"Hello? Where am I?" we ask, because with our INT 18 we are unable to deduce that we're exactly where we chose to be: in the crypt of the Bhukodian sceptre.

"Where you chose to be," replies a raspy voice. "In the crypt of the Bhukodian sceptre."

Oh. Right.

We can't see anything and ask if there's a torch.

"What need have I of light? I am a thing of darkness, of tombs," says the voice. It asks if the son of Landor is unable to cast a simple Light spell.

(228) if Light is in our spellbook, or
(11) if it's not.

---

228

Fortunately for our pride and desire not to be mocked by a disembodied raspy voice, we do know the Light spell.

The darkness is "shattered" by the "blinding light" above our head. [Aha! The AD&D version of the Light spell can be "blinding"!]

We gaze at our strange surroundings: an ancient crypt filled with rows of sarcophagi that extend out of sight. The tombs are unweathered as though they have remained here, undisturbed, since time immemorial.

"Welcome to the graveyards of Bhukod, Carr Delling!" says the voice.

We contemplate what we could do to attack the crypt thing if push came to shove. Telepathically, Rufyl advises against that course of action, because the crypt thing could simply teleport us away -- even into solid rock. We can't see Rufyl, who explains that he is "rather shy" and prefers to remain invisible when he can.

As we advance, the radius of our Light spell reveals a seated figure in the distance.

With shaking hands we turn to (157).

 

[Joshua Randall]

157

The crypt thing is a skeletal being (of course) seated on a throne decorated with death's heads. (Metal!)

It wears a brown robe and in its hand holds the Sceptre of Bhukod, “a mace-shaped rod of golden metal, its bulbous end composed of a silver setting containing three golden pearls."

[The number of D&D relevant words used to describe this magic item is off the chart: sceptre, wand, mace, rod… we're just missing "glaive" for me to fill my Gygaxian bingo card.]

The crypt thing asks if we have come to steal the sceptre, which it hefts and points at us menacingly.

We explain that we want to keep the sceptre out of our uncle's hands because he would use its powers for evil. Whereas we will return it to "the Kandian people whose ancestors lie here under your watchful eyes."

[Given that the crypt thing doesn't immediately correct our mistake, I suppose this cements that fact that Kandians = Bhukodians. I take back some of my previous rants.]

…

[No, who am I kidding; the rants stand.]

Rufyl congratulates us for a good speech and advises us to wait while the crypt thing considers: It has no need for the sceptre. It only craves diversion.

The guardian extends the rod towards us. "Come then! Take the wand and be gone!"

But a voice booms out of the darkness. A voice we're all too familiar with: Beldon. He must have "somehow" followed us here.

[How?! Per Rufyl, only the crypt thing can teleport people down here, which is the ENTIRE POINT of why Landor set it to guard the sceptre. So HOW did Beldon get here?]

Beldon demands "the wand" for himself. We can't let him have it. We may have to sacrifice our own life to protect the guisarme-voulge.

(218) grab the halberd even though we don't know how it works, or
(239) use one of our novice spells

 

[Joshua Randall]

218

This is not a difficult choice. The name of the book is Sceptre of Power, not Novice Spells Of Way Less Power.

We grab the Bohemian ear-spoon out of the crypt thing's lap. It flares to brilliant light.

Beldon, his yellowish ivory robe eerily similar in color to the crypt thing's bones, tells us to give him the bec de corbin and he might allow us to play with whatever else we can find down here.

In a word: no.

We raise the fauchard-fork just as Beldon flings "fine dark dust" into the rays of light and pronounces, "Black pearl, powder of doom, I summon death and gloom."

Rufyl telepathically screams that this is a Death Spell, Beldon's most powerful incantation.

Everything happens at once: a green "dweomer" shoots out from Beldon's eyes towards our chest, but when it is a few feet away, it bends upwards to be drawn into the "center of the three shining pearls" atop the spetum.

The power drained from Beldon's spell passes through the handle of the I'm-out-of-funny-polearm-names into our fingers and as soon as it does, we light up with green death magic which streams from eyes into Beldon's heart, dropping him to the floor like a loaf of moldy bread.

The "dweomer" of the Death Spell vanishes and is replaced by the white brilliance emanating from the Sceptre of Bhukod.

The book concludes at (244).

 

[Joshua Randall]

Commentary:

The crypt thing is a weird monster and a weird choice as guardian. I'll write more about it when I dig up my Fiend Folio from the basement.

---

The boss fight is simultaneously anticlimactic and thrilling.

Anticlimactic because Beldon stood no chance against the sceptre-granted plot armor -- although that was foreshadowed sufficiently: the sceptre performed exactly as it was described by Thayne.

Thrilling because it's not often you survive the Death Spell, and the description of how quickly the sceptre functions is well done.

For the record, Death Spell is a level 6 magic-user spell in AD&D, which means Beldon was at least 11th level. The Death Spell instantly slays a certain number of creatures based on their hit dice, with no saving throw!

With my amazing natural 6 at the start of the book, OUR Carr Delling has 14 HP. The magic-user class in AD&D has a d4 hit die, for an average of 2.5 HP per die. Thus OUR Carr Delling has 5.6 hit dice.

Not a problem for Beldon's Death Spell, which could have snuffed out 2-8 creatures of 4 to 6 hit dice. Good thing we had the sceptre!

---

It's disappointing that from the time we finish climbing the tower until now there are no rolls required nor any opportunities to use other spells. One could imagine some INT tests to deduce things, CHA tests to placate the crypt thing, or uses of Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, or Read Magic in the crypt.

---

If you're wondering what happens if we try to cast a novice spell on Beldon: he laughs in our face, threatens to give us some Fireballs to juggle, and then… casts Armor on himself. Uhh… OK.

We use the sceptre which drains away Beldon's Armor dweomer, which allows Rufyl to sting him to death with his O.P. pseudodragon tail. (Yeah. Pseudodragons have scorpion-like stingers.)

 

[Echohawk]

The crypt thing is a weird monster and a weird choice as guardian. I'll write more about it when I dig up my Fiend Folio from the basement.

Here you go...

 

[Joshua Randall]

Thanks @Echohawk .

Look at the last phrase in the Crypt Thing's writeup: "their aim appears to be solely that of obtaining pleasure by creating confusion and dissent."

I would like to submit that part of the reason this book is so screwy is because the Crypt Thing has been secretly sowing discord from behind the scenes. It was the Crypt Thing who encouraged Dalris and Thayne to lie to Carr about the location of Landor's spellbooks. It was the Crypt Thing who encouraged various non-Carr students to try their luck with Landor's murder door. It was the Crypt Thing who, when Landor first summoned (?) it, encouraged the archmage to leave the Sceptre of Power in the same tower as his worst enemy (Beldon) rather than place the Sceptre somewhere safer.

I'm being tongue-in-cheek, but....

Also note that "victims [of the random teleportation] never arrive in solid material". So Rufyl's statement to Carr that this could happen is either misinformed or yet another lie. (And if it's a lie, maybe one suggested by the Crypt Thing!)

I also love, love, love the alternate Crypt Thing who paralyzes and invisibles its victims and then, presumably, claims to have disintegrated them. That's the most AD&D thing ever.

---

By-the-book Crypt Thing cannot teleport people from elsewhere to itself, only the other way around. And it can only teleport people "once per party". I guess that does beg the question: if Carr alone visits it, then Carr+Dalris, then Carr+Dalris+Rufyl, would that count as three separate parties from the Crypt Thing's perspective, allowing it to teleport Carr three different times?

---

Why did good-aligned Landor choose a Crypt Thing to guard the Sceptre? Well, technically the Crypt Thing isn't undead, it just looks exactly like an undead. Landor had some rules lawyer in him.

Maybe Landor suspected that Beldon would eventually be able to reach the vaults and wanted a guardian in place that would bamboozle and befuddle Beldon.

Or maybe Landor with his hereditary WIS 3 just chose a random Fiend Folio monster because it looked cool. You can't deny that second illustration is amazing!

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

We can't see anything and ask if there's a torch.

Why would we even ask for a torch if we knew the Light spell in the first place? Carr isn't yet thinking like a magic-user.

Fortunately for our pride and desire not to be mocked by a disembodied raspy voice, we do know the Light spell.

We also have desire of not being mocked by decidedly elder women (who, after looking back at the illustration showing Dalris, isn't wearing a legging and a long top, but is just wearing an extremely short dress).

We gaze at our strange surroundings: an ancient crypt filled with rows of sarcophagi that extend out of sight. The tombs are unweathered as though they have remained here, undisturbed, since time immemorial.

And who just happens to be located under the den of piracy that is now the city.

It wears a brown robe and in its hand holds the Sceptre of Bhukod, “a mace-shaped rod of golden metal, its bulbous end composed of a silver setting containing three golden pearls."

[The number of D&D relevant words used to describe this magic item is off the chart: sceptre, wand, mace, rod… we're just missing "glaive" for me to fill my Gygaxian bingo card.]

It isn't made of gold, but of golden metal. I am surprised by this cheap Chinese copy of a sceptre of power.

The crypt thing asks if we have come to steal the sceptre, which it hefts and points at us menacingly.

OUR Carr Delling should remind the crypt thing that it is it that is currently stealing the scepter, since he's the rightful owner, not the crypt thing, and the latter should be surrendering it to its legitimate owner, us, instead of making unacceptable accusations.

We explain that we want to keep the sceptre out of our uncle's hands because he would use its powers for evil. Whereas we will return it to "the Kandian people whose ancestors lie here under your watchful eyes."

Why are we explaining our intent to a crummy skeleton? It's our sceptre, we can use it however we want!

Rufyl congratulates us for a good speech and advises us to wait while the crypt thing considers: It has no need for the sceptre. It only craves diversion.

The guardian extends the rod towards us. "Come then! Take the wand and be gone!"

But a voice booms out of the darkness. A voice we're all too familiar with: Beldon. He must have "somehow" followed us here.

[How?! Per Rufyl, only the crypt thing can teleport people down here, which is the ENTIRE POINT of why Landor set it to guard the sceptre. So HOW did Beldon get here?]

Beldon demands "the wand" for himself. We can't let him have it. We may have to sacrifice our own life to protect the guisarme-voulge.

Actually, we should say "Cool, Uncle Beldon, I was going to send for you, I just got you the wand you had misplaced" and watch him be torn apart by our father's defensive enchantments. We haven't forgotten that only OUR Carr can wield the sceptre.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Rufyl telepathically screams that this is a Death Spell, Beldon's most powerful incantation.

This familiar should really be calmer: the sceptre is bound to absorb the hostile magic...

The power drained from Beldon's spell passes through the handle of the I'm-out-of-funny-polearm-names

You missed a few of my favourites, like the Lucerne hammer, the Partisan or the Ranseur!

into our fingers and as soon as it does, we light up with green death magic which streams from eyes into Beldon's heart, dropping him to the floor like a loaf of moldy bread.

This beats actually learning spells.

The final fight is anticlimactic, since well, we just activated our Sommerswerd and bypassed the fight against the Darklord of the day...