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

[Joshua Randall]

Commentary:

Huh. I thought one of these paths would send us to the cantrips classes directly, but nope. All of them put us in our room where we decide how many of our belongings to put outside the door. And then the next morning we have our interview with Beldon. So let's take the other choice at that point.

 

[Joshua Randall]

193

At the "interview", we tell Beldon we don't want any special treatment [possibly for the second time] and that we don't want to miss the chance for Arno to teach us some tricks.

Beldon gives us the catalog of cantrips and tells us to study up, then schedule time with Arno when we are ready to be tested.

---

226

Here we get a list of four cantrips to choose from:

1. Exterminate (201)
2. Tweak (29)
3. Hairy (96)
4. Unlock (121)

[We're instructed to roll 1d6 and subtract 2 to choose our spell. So if we roll a 1 or 2, we get an unhandled exception and the gamebook explodes like one of Landor's scrolls. Well, either that or the author trusts us to be smart enough to figure out that we need to re-roll until we get a valid number, or to use the 4-sided die we have lying around.]

 

[Joshua Randall]

[Sadly the cantrip sections are not as fun as I remembered them. For three of the cantrips there is just one numbered passage associated with it that contains the build up, the lesson, the gamebook's instruction to roll a die, and what happens on failure. By popular demand I'll take us to…]

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201

"The EXTERMINATE cantrip excites [our] imagination. Although its range is extremely limited, it nevertheless is extremely powerful."

[All AD&D cantrips had a 1" range, meaning one wargame inch, meaning it's different indoors vs. outdoors. But "extremely limited" range is not the issue. The issue is that this cantrip can only affect "a small pest such as a fly, mouse, rat, beetle, or the like;" or later in its description, "normal-sized creatures magically shrunk to insect-size" (which I will note is way, way smaller than a mouse or rat). So it's only "extremely powerful" if your enemies consist of tiny things.]

We knock on Arno's door and after he makes the inevitable "exterminator" joke, he tells us to grab a cage from the corner. Inside the cage of woven steel wire there are four goblins whom Arno has somehow shrunk to the size of mice. They're jabbering in chipmunk-like high pitched goblin voices and waving their tiny weapons.

[Why the HECK does Arno have this cage in his room?!]

"Watch closely, Delling. You don't want to miss a thing," Arno says.

[I can imagine Arno with the flushed cheeks, gleaming eyes, and flop sweat on his upper lip of a psycho killer in training.]

Arno points his finger at one of the miniaturized goblins, makes a buzzing noise with his mouth, and the poor goblin clutches its throat and drops dead. Holy crap!

He says it's our turn and if we can pass an INT test of 21, we also murder an innocent goblin, add 1 to our CHA (?!), and get to add this spell to our spellbook. If not…

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Point taken. But the difference is that Hampshire, England, and Zealand (and York and Jersey and etc.) were existing places that lent their names to some other place in a different location.

Kandia and Tikandia are the same exact continent, as far as we know.

You're right. New hypothesis: there was some kind of social upheavel and the ruler of Kandia decided to break with the old order, proclaiming his land to be New Kandia because he promoted a new political organization. Because we don't know exactly what Ti and Kandia mean. If we take Kandia to designe the political organization (like Reich) and Ti means "Second", it is consistant with the usage of the Holy Roman empire and the Second Reich from 1871 to 1919. The land stayed, the system evolved.

Indeed, and I haaaaaaaaated that section. It's only a "gotcha!" once, it punishes you for behavior that was never punished and always rewarded in the past (Thou Shalt Not Leave Behind Loot!), and it wrecks your perfect run if you had one up until that point.

I imagine getting back to Holmgard at the end of Fire over Water and saying "Do I have the Sommerswerd? No, I actually put it back in its display case in <can I remember the name of the Durenese capitol... No I can't I had to google) Hammerdal. How could have I known that you're supposed to keep the loot you find???"

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

We can choose who we eat our meal with:
(13) the "darker man" who is "swarthy and lean, perhaps a bit more than twenty years old" [not Arno, but someone who weirdly resembles him], or
(46) the one with "thick glasses" who is "fair skinned", "chubby", and around our age, or
(75) no-one: we eat our meal alone, in silence.

[The second and third choices stab this aged nerd right in the feels.]

This is a strong indication that Carr is much under 20, if he distinguish between someone "who's more than 20" and "our age". At 15 (the minimum), I would have classified people "my age" and it wouldn't include what is in real life a young university student. At 18, I wouldn't have differenciated between a fellow young student and someone 2 years above me. Especially just judging by glance.

The third choice is especially sad. While I might have done that, I'd have said "Eat my meal by myself, enjoying the silence and peace that comes from not having to interact with endless morons talking about stupid topics like sports."

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

193

At the "interview", we tell Beldon we don't want any special treatment [possibly for the second time] and that we don't want to miss the chance for Arno to teach us some tricks.

Are we OK that Nolan is clearly bullied? Is there a chance somewhere to stand up for him or is bullying an accepted thing in the 80s?

[We're instructed to roll 1d6 and subtract 2 to choose our spell. So if we roll a 1 or 2, we get an unhandled exception and the gamebook explodes like one of Landor's scrolls. Well, either that or the author trusts us to be smart enough to figure out that we need to re-roll until we get a valid number, or to use the 4-sided die we have lying around.]

Ah, the tricks they had to make choices outside of a 1-6 system to reflect other probabilities. The nicest offender: the random table in LW and GS, and each time they mentionned it I thought the author must have first written roll a d10 then corrected his manuscript. It was nice because a skilled player could improve his chances of getting a good result tremendously.

The worst case was those books with random number written at the bottom of the pages. If you actually wanted to use them, you'd lose your section number since you had to flip the pages randomly.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

"The EXTERMINATE cantrip excites [our] imagination. Although its range is extremely limited, it nevertheless is extremely powerful."

I prepare to be disappointed.

[All AD&D cantrips had a 1" range, meaning one wargame inch, meaning it's different indoors vs. outdoors.

That's a gag in the Blackadder goes forth TV series, where a WWI military tells the general, showing on the table an area covered in earth and grass: "the is the area our last big push managed to take back, at the cost of thousands human lives". The the general looks and say "what is the scale? One inch to a mile?" "No Sir, this isn't a representation. This is the actual land we managed to take back. We shoveled it back to HQ this morning."

The issue is that this cantrip can only affect "a small pest such as a fly, mouse, rat, beetle, or the like;" or later in its description, "normal-sized creatures magically shrunk to insect-size" (which I will note is way, way smaller than a mouse or rat). So it's only "extremely powerful" if your enemies consist of tiny things.]

Actually, a 5.5e "kill tiny creatures" cantrip would be extremely powerful, if one were to encounter a demilich.

We knock on Arno's door and after he makes the inevitable "exterminator" joke, he tells us to grab a cage from the corner. Inside the cage of woven steel wire there are four goblins whom Arno has somehow shrunk to the size of mice. They're jabbering in chipmunk-like high pitched goblin voices and waving their tiny weapons.

So, he's keeping tiny-sized slaves in a cage in his room, OK...

Arno points his finger at one of the miniaturized goblins, makes a buzzing noise with his mouth, and the poor goblin clutches its throat and drops dead. Holy crap!

He says it's our turn and if we can pass an INT test of 21, we also murder an innocent goblin, add 1 to our CHA (?!), and get to add this spell to our spellbook. If not…

And he offers us to kill one for fun and profit.

Ways to increase CHA: be disrespectful to your betters, genocide innocent creatures.

 

[Joshua Randall]

New hypothesis: there was some kind of social upheavel and the ruler of Kandia decided to break with the old order, proclaiming his land to be New Kandia because he promoted a new political organization.

You may be 100% correct.
Or not.

I honestly don't remember, AT ALL. So we'll get to discover it together.

I could remember the insult that Thayne uses on Carr when they meet ("You're an elf!" / "And you're an oaf!") but I cannot remember the sociopolitical framework. See, I only remember the important things.

I imagine getting back to Holmgard at the end of Fire over Water and saying "Do I have the Sommerswerd? No, I actually put it back in its display case in <can I remember the name of the Durenese capitol... No I can't I had to google) Hammerdal. How could have I known that you're supposed to keep the loot you find???"

For those who have no idea what we're talking about: we are referencing the Lone Wolf gamebooks, wherein the protagonist finds a legendary weapon, the Sommerswerd, in book 2 of the extremely lengthy series (20 books). The Sommerswerd is so powerful that it outclasses almost every other weapon you could possibly wield for the entire run.

I'd like to note for @Jfdlsjfd 's benefit that back in the day on some of the LW mailing lists, it was considered a point of pride to finish the series without using the Sommerswerd at all after you find it. Later books give you alternate OP weapons, but it can be pretty harrowing not to have that +8 (+10 with Weaponskill) attack bonus most of the time.

The third choice [eat alone] is especially sad.

Isn't it? I think we can go out on a limb and guess that Morris Simon experienced nerd shunning as a student and observed it with his students. "Write what you know."

While I might have done that, I'd have said "Eat my meal by myself, enjoying the silence and peace that comes from not having to interact with endless morons talking about stupid topics like sports."

Yeah, that's right. Those other cool kids don't DESERVE my company. They will only DISTRACT me from learning the rules for randomly generating Artifact and Relic drawbacks.

Are we OK that Nolan is clearly bullied? Is there a chance somewhere to stand up for him or is bullying an accepted thing in the 80s?

We're not given a chance to stand up for him. We ask him some questions and then get told to STFU by the older student. Bullying wasn't OK even in the 1980s, but the book doesn't let us do anything about it.

The worst case was those books with random number written at the bottom of the pages. If you actually wanted to use them, you'd lose your section number since you had to flip the pages randomly.

Pfft. Amateur. A real gamebook reader would write down the section numbers as he went, so he could ~~cheat by rewinding to a previous point~~ remember where he was before he flipped the pages to generate 1d10.

That's a gag in the Blackadder goes forth TV series, [...] This is the actual land we managed to take back.

Hahahahaha! I now want there to be a spinoff of this series wherein the surviving goblins have adventures in tiny-land.

Actually, a 5.5e "kill tiny creatures" cantrip would be extremely powerful, if one were to encounter a demilich.

Hmm. The AD&D demilich is a crumbly skull and some dust. If the skull is sufficiently crumbled it could be smaller than a rat. (Have you seen New York City sewer rats? They are freakin' enormous. There's a photo in this old HuffPost article with a rat easily twice as big as someone's hand.)

Therefor I'm going to rule that Exterminate can indeed kill Acererak at the end of the Tomb of Horrors.

[Arno] keeping tiny-sized slaves in a cage in his room

I am more surprised he is not keeping full-sized novices as slaves in his room!

Ways to increase CHA: be disrespectful to your betters, genocide innocent creatures.

Now now. It's not genocide. Although...

"What do you call a pile of dead goblins?"
...
"A good start."

 

[Joshua Randall]

Arno points his finger at one of the miniaturized goblins, makes a buzzing noise with his mouth, and the poor goblin clutches its throat and drops dead. Holy crap!

He says it's our turn and if we can pass an INT test of 21, we also murder an innocent goblin, add 1 to our CHA (?!), and get to add this spell to our spellbook. If not…

---

18

We try to cast the Exterminate spell, screw up, and accidentally grow the goblin to full size. It bursts out of the cage and raises its sword to hack us down. In desperation we look towards Arno.

"Arno exterminates the other two [still tiny] goblins and is poised to attack your assailant, but your hope fades as his malevolent grin tells you his help will not come…."

[There. You happy now? We died again. But this is an alternate universe path so it doesn't count.]

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After we learn two cantrips or whenever we're tired, we can take a break, which sends us to (26) to meet Dalris. And no, before you ask, the Unlock cantrip is not cool enough to get us through the Wizard Locked door of the tower. We still have to climb the tower.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

• Mini-Goblins are kept into a cage by Arno.
• Arno often takes a gleeful pleasure of randomly exploding Mini-Goblins
• Random Student Carr witnesses that with horror (based on the look on OUR Carr's face on the illustration)
• Random Student Carr casts an incantation that breaks the cage an defeat the miniaturizing magic
• No-longer-mini-Goblin takes his sword...
• Arno blasts two still Mini-Goblins for fun
• No-longer-mini-Goblin kills Random Student Carr.

That's not exactly how I'd have behaved, but we must conclude that WIS 3 isn't a racial adjustment for the Seagate people, it's a campaign-wide penalty!

Also, if I follow you, and you learn cantrips instead of spells, you'll never get any spells before meeting Dalris.