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

[Joshua Randall]

• Arno blasts two still Mini-Goblins for fun
• No-longer-mini-Goblin kills Random Student Carr.

That sounds like WIS 18 to me. For someone whose goal is to arrange the death of his new rival.

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

Cantrips are 0-level spells in AD&D. So teccccchnically you did learn some spells.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Oh, I was commenting on the WIS of the Goblin. He chooses not to strike his captor and torturer and instead attack the one who frees him!

 

[Joshua Randall]

Yeah, that would be pretty dumb.

Unless… the 4th goblin was in on it with Arno! I can totally see him tell the 4 mini-goblins, “Three of you are dead. The fourth gets to help me kill a really, REALLY annoying kid.”

 

[Joshua Randall]

There is one more spell-learnin' path at the College Arcane that we get to if we tell Beldon about Thayne during the "interview". In this case we end up at (103), where we get the following list of "Weak" spells.

1. Friends (22)
2. Unseen Servant (38)
3. Spider Climb (198)
4. Feather Fall (91)
5. Comprehend Languages (70)
6. Burning Hands (176)

Same rules as before: roll a d6 to "choose", go to that section, come back here, turn to (26) when you're tired or when you have learned three spells.

All of these have separate success / failure passages with various degrees of INT and/or CHA gains or losses associated. A couple of them also lead to entertaining deaths on failure.

---

(91) Feather Fall → (182) if we fail our INT test

"You let go of the feather [material component] too late, bumpkin!" Arno yells as [we] plummet to the stone far below.

---

(176) Burning Hands → (3) if we fail our INT test

On your fifteenth try your entire body suddenly flares with an intense aura. You seem to be floating upwards and outwards in all directions simultaneously. In the instant before your essence dissipates forever, you have a horrible glimpse of the smoking, charred thing that had been Carr Delling -- before you dabbled in magic you didn't understand.

[There we go. That's the gnarly magical mishap I was hoping for.]

[Burning Hands is doubly deadly, because if we successfully learn it and then try to use it against Dalris later, she survives our mighty 1-HP-per-level-damage spell and cuts our throat with her dagger.]

 

[Joshua Randall]

Commentary:

Among the Cantrips, Weak Spells, and Strong Spells there are 16 distinct sections, many of which branch even further into success and (usually nonlethal) failure; some of them even have interim sections with other choices to be made. So that's 50+ sections of the 244 total sections of the book dedicated to spell-learnin'.

Actually.

That's 50+ sections of the 244 total sections of the book dedicated to spell-learnin' at the College Arcane.

Let's REALLY rewind time and go back to the bazaar with Thayne.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

There is one more spell-learnin' path at the College Arcane that we get to if we tell Beldon about Thayne during the "interview". In this case we end up at (103), where we get the following list of "Weak" spells.

1. Friends (22)
2. Unseen Servant (38)
3. Spider Climb (198)
4. Feather Fall (91)
5. Comprehend Languages (70)
6. Burning Hands (176)

I've already said that, but a selection of Weak Spells (Unseen Servant, Feather Fall, Burning Hands) can be much more useful than a bad selection of Strong Spells.

(91) Feather Fall → (182) if we fail our INT test

"You let go of the feather [material component] too late, bumpkin!" Arno yells as [we] plummet to the stone far below.

I see they don't practice falling from a balcony over heavy mattresses.

"Dear students, welcome to our first self-defence lesson. For this initial foray in the realm of martial arts, we'll start with an introductory exercice: I'll take a machine gun and shoot at you while you all try to figure out how to subdue me. Who's first?"

(176) Burning Hands → (3) if we fail our INT test

On your fifteenth try your entire body suddenly flares with an intense aura. You seem to be floating upwards and outwards in all directions simultaneously. In the instant before your essence dissipates forever, you have a horrible glimpse of the smoking, charred thing that had been Carr Delling -- before you dabbled in magic you didn't understand.

[There we go. That's the gnarly magical mishap I was hoping for.]

[Burning Hands is doubly deadly, because if we successfully learn it and then try to use it against Dalris later, she survives our mighty 1-HP-per-level-damage spell and cuts our throat with her dagger.]

Both are quite entertaining!

 

[Joshua Randall]

a selection of Weak Spells (Unseen Servant, Feather Fall, Burning Hands) can be much more useful than a bad selection of Strong Spells.

Oh absolutely. The divisions into Weak and Strong is nonsensical from an actual AD&D gameplay point of view. It only makes sense in the gameBOOK as a way to differentiate “the group of spells in the catalogue if you admit you know Thayne” from “the group of spells in the catalogue if you hide that information”.

There could be some convoluted in-world justification for it — once Beldon knows that Carr learned some of the truth from Thayne, Beldon gets nervous and doesn’t want Carr to learn “Strong” magic; but still needs Carr to learn some magic because otherwise… umm… something something the door? Yeah that actually doesn’t make much sense; but what else is new in this book.

I think it’s just a way to split the paths for replay value.

P.S. About AD&D Burning Hands: I originally said it was a primo AOE attack spell.

It is not.

At 1 HP damage per caster level, by the time Burning Hands does enough damage to be meaningful, you could cast Fireball instead. I was thinking of the, what is it, 1d6+ability modifier damage that modern Burning Hands does.

For actual AD&D Burning Hands, its primary power is that it could set on fire any flammable materials in the cone. (As we all know: if fire didn’t solve your problems, you didn’t use enough fire.) So there were all kinds of debates about how BH should set on fire the target’s surcoat and hair and any paper (scrolls) being carried, etc.

I'll take a machine gun and shoot at you while you all try to figure out how to subdue me.

“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.”

 

[Joshua Randall]

[We rewind time all the way back to the bazaar with Thayne. To refresh everyone’s memory of the setup:]

159, redux

The word Bhukod sends us into a reverie. We know that it was a kingdom of super powerful elven sorcerers (of course) who flourished throughout Tikandia up until five hundred years ago.

Thayne tells us that Landor's greatest spells were learned from undead elven wizards "within the walls of ancient Bhukod." (Cool but creepy.)

We want to know what proof there is that Landor ever actually found Bhukod. Thayne responds that he saw the Sceptre of Power [take a shot] with his own eyes and that's proof enough for him.

As Thayne tells it, the sceptre is so powerful that Tikandian rulers have sought it for centuries. Its power is why Beldon wanted it and why Archcleric Oram sent his "corrupt paladins" after us two years ago.

We want to learn more about our father's discoveries. Thayne explains that we could not hope to understand such occult matters without learning magic. He presents us with the most impactful plot choice of the book.

(109) We can go with Thayne to his camp where he will "endeavor" to teach us what he knows.
(217) Or we can resume our search for Beldon and learn "the 'truth'" (as Thayne puts it) from Beldon.

---

109

This time we choose to accompany Thayne. We have one condition, though: he has to teach us enough magic that we can read our father's spellbooks when we find them.

[Irony alert. That will never happen in the confines of this book.]

Thayne readily agrees and sets off immediately: his camp is "nearly at the center of Seagate Island" and we want to be there by nightfall.

[Given the average hiking pace of a fit human is -- nah, just messing with you.]

At dusk we reach section (5)...

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

There could be some convoluted in-world justification for it — once Beldon knows that Carr learned some of the truth from Thayne, Beldon gets nervous and doesn’t want Carr to learn “Strong” magic; but still needs Carr to learn some magic because otherwise… umm… something something the door? Yeah that actually doesn’t make much sense; but what else is new in this book.

Actually it could make sense: the door can be open by anyone walking in the footsteps of Landor, not "anyone being a bastard of Landor". There is a strong chance that being of Landor's blood isn't enough if you don't have a trace of magic in you, you need to endeavour to become the next archmage. .

For actual AD&D Burning Hands, its primary power is that it could set on fire any flammable materials in the cone. (As we all know: if fire didn’t solve your problems, you didn’t use enough fire.) So there were all kinds of debates about how BH should set on fire the target’s surcoat and hair and any paper (scrolls) being carried, etc.

The (later?) exception for item being held isn't very satisfying. The book is burning, except if I take it in my hand. Also, is a wooden door flammable? Is a house flammable?

 

[Joshua Randall]

5

… where it turns out the "camp" is an entire rustic village, not merely one guy's sleeping roll and firepit. The village "clings precariously to the slopes of Seagate Island's central plateau, in one of the most secluded, inaccessible regions you've ever seen."

Thayne takes us before his grand-aunt Estla, a wood elf who is over 200 years old.

[We will learn later that Thayne is only half-elven, for what it's worth. Also see commentary below on ages.]

She has the gift of aura-reading (paraphrased) and will be able to tell if we're lying to her. She's also blind, which is always a sign of virtuous power in gamebooks.

We could refuse to let her read us, but that goes nowhere interesting, so we let her take our hands at (135).