[AD&D Gamebook] The Sorcerer's Crown (Kingdom of Sorcery, book 2 of 3)

[Joshua Randall]

So basically, asking the One True question has no other effect than retelling the obvious and getting us to avoid a totally unrelated event, our visit to the College Arcane?

ANY path to College Arcane ALWAYS ends in death. I’ve made things confusing by jumping around among the success and failure paths in this gamebook — sorry about that. Maybe in book 3 I should go back to one path at a time?

So basically, all the cool foreshadowing is lost if you do the right thing? I mean, I'm all for increasing replaying value, but what about sharing the background information among several VICTORIOUS path instead?

Strictly speaking, any given Carr Delling only ever asks Shanif the Marid one question and learns only one of two interesting pieces of information: about the twin crowns which gets Carr onto the One Truth Path or about The Tarrasque and how Landor broke into its tomb. (Shanif’s info about Pazuzeus is useless.) Of course, it is highly likely that any gamebook PLAYER will read the answers to all three questions eventually.

But I agree: why hide such cool background behind a one-and-done section? Why not scatter the info in various places that Carr visits? For example, make College Arcane survivable and put some of the info there.

[Estla is] as "removed" to the last queen of Tikandia as Prince George is from Elizabeth II.

Fair. Except: why was Estla introduced as merely some random lady in book 1, if she’s royalty?

So that Wendel who sent us away in Freeton to look for our father's book actually had one of these books in his hut?

I’m sure Wendel would say it’s not a spellbook, it’s a reference book that Landor wrote and then left in a random village to help educate the children there in demonology so they could better fight off the lions.

I am pretty sure this means that each crown is intended to be worn by a different person...

Hmm….

Honestly, [visit College Arcane] sounds the best choice for a wizard.

It does! Which of course means it’s wrong and we inevitably die there.

But yes, it would make far more sense if Landor’s book o’ demons was in College Arcane than in Wendel’s hut!

what happened to the whole population of Freeton?

The implication is that some of them joined Arno’s evil gnoll-and-orc hordes that are being led by corrupted paladins.

prostitutes catering to all sort of people back at the time. Has the sex-working scene changed so much?

I’d say the people of Freeton are being quite open minded about the new world’s-oldest-profession purveyors. Not everyone would accept half-orcs joining the ranks of the self-employed.

I feel the author, given his bio, was totally aware of that... or his experience of academia was totally opposite to... everyone else's?

Honestly? I think it’s sarcasm on Morris Simon’s part.

I know that there is a penchant for euphemism when it comes to dying, but is "vanish" one of them?

In the real world, “vanish” is sometimes used colloquially when someone disappears under shady circumstances and no body is ever found. In the gamebook world, it could mean that or it could mean Haslum was sent to another plane.

Lone Wolf never passed the opportunity to side with a few hirelings/companion who quite consistently died some sections later.

I replayed LW#4 The Chasm of Doom over and over and over again trying to save the Sommlending Border Rangers, but it can’t be done.

If we totally avoid the marsh path, can we take the boat initially, choose the path to the southern area of Seagate and chance upon the lost tribe of Lara Estla without knowing anything about the threat? I know you didn't want us to take this path earlier, but would it lead to another (un)wanted death?

Yes and yes. If we blunder towards Thayne’s village without the One True Answer in our heads, we still come across the stunted demihuman preparing an ambush but when we hear Thayne’s name, the quantum flux causes the knight to be a corrupted paladin rather than Garn (who we haven’t met) and said knight then kills us while our back is turned.

TIME FOR A MAP !

Brilliant! I particularly like the scribbles to represent the coastal trail.

 

[Joshua Randall]

So now, Rufyl's telepathic seems to extend much farther. […] since it helps us escape scouts.... there must be some much longer advance warning. 200-300m at least

Like everything else in the story, Rufyl’s telepathy has the range of plot.

Thanks for the illustration. It makes me think that Bob Dylan is a nature god, with the logs and sprouts livery.

If Blessed Dyan is a nature deity, that might subtly explain part of the conflict between His adherents and the old Druidic faith of the Kandians: after all, you can’t have two gods of the same domain. This might also subtly explain how the pre-Pazuzu Dyan-ites had success converting enough of the Kandians to get them to come from the highlands down to Saven to worship in the cathedral: because it wasn’t a big stretch to switch them from one type of nature worship to another.

Of course this is all speculation and rationalization on my part.

I also like the fact that Rufyl complains, but doesn't offer to act as an information hub

It was you who proposed Rufyl is a cat, and when was the last time you saw a cat volunteer to help with anything?

[Perth] he was the defender of Wealwood and left with the population to be killed and enslaved. And our rod to be fondled by strangers.

I wonder if the author realized he needed to get all the good guys into one place, but he had put the good guys’ most appropriate home base (Wealwood) only a half-day’s journey from the bad guys’ home base (Saven). As well as had the bad guys invade and then blockade Seagate Island, which turned out to be irrelevant, because everyone in the College Arcane was already dead or fled. So there had to be a rewrite to explain how to separate the two teams and divide them between the two landmasses, hence the offhanded way in which Perth abandons the seat of Druidic power, the very land that is “we are the empire of Bhukod” according to Dalris.

Because apparently, Thayne got reincarnated into a whole svirfneblin civilization, able to develop a manufacturing technique for a cultural weapon all on his own.

That’s (A)D&D for you! Anything distinctive about a culture is inherent in the beings that make up that culture. Drow? No matter where they are, they have weapons that disintegrate in sunlight and use poison. Dwarves? Have mining technology. Elves? Are born knowing how to use bows and swords.

No illustration?

Unfortunately no. It would be cool to see a group portrait of most of Team Good Guys. We can imagine the scene: Thayne the gnarled svirneblin stands with one hand on his hip and the other shading his eyes from the sunlight; Garn holds the bridle of his horse; Dalris is in the foreground gesturing as she tells her tale; and Carr sits resting against a tree feeding Rufyl an apple. If you follow the sightlines of the characters, Dalris gazes into the distance, Thayne and Garn look at her, and Carr is off to the side where he can leer directly at Dalris’s supple curves and leather-clad backside.

What, this book is going to end on a cliffhanger???

Wait for it….

isn't there a way to get there and bypass Garrn totally?

A way of death, yes. If we take the path I disallowed earlier (from Wealwood to Seagate Island to Thayne’s village) then it means we have completely bypassed Saven and thus never met Garn.

Since he mentally detected both Garrn and Thayne, whom he's familiar with (assuming we met Garrn), why didn't he warn us of who they were when he detected them, instead of saying "hide, there is an ugly-looking creature in ambush that is about to attack a random paladin." Telepathy is sure a useful tool, unless you yourself are WIS 3.

But again: cat! And what could be more catlike than to give JUST enough information that it leads to the potential for random violence and death, rather than complete information that leads to a peaceful resolution?

How does one enters this magical dilation time called Dungeon Time?

By realizing that despite what “they” have told you over the decades, AD&D is and always was heavily Gamist (with some nods to Simulationism). The word “Turn” in AD&D is explicitly a player-facing word, a turn that the player takes in the game being played. How much can you accomplish in one turn? As much as the rules say you can. And because the cycle of play emphasizes dungeon delving at a granular level and de-emphasizes everything else, one turn in the dungeon is much more precisely defined than one turn outside the dungeon.

Player: Hey DM, how far can we get down the corridor in one turn?
DM: Consult your movement speed, as modified by encumbrance, and lighting, and whether you are tapping the floor with a ten-foot pole, and also be aware that the longer it takes to traverse this dungeon the more rolls I make for wandering monsters.

Vs.

Player: Hey DM, we’re in our forest home base. What can we accomplish by tomorrow?
DM: Eh, let’s call that one turn, so anything up to that amount.

Even then, he was supposed to secure it, not keep it on him while he works out how to start a revolution...

Garn is a quick worker. In the last week, while we have hiked across Seagate Island, Garn has met up with “most of” the still-pure paladins; created resistance cells; saw them on their own two feet such that they no longer need his direct involvement; journeyed to Wealwood; found it abandoned and ravaged by Arno’s troops; somehow gathered the intelligence that Perth, in disguise, got smuggled off the mainland to the island; went back to the coast; somehow also booked passage from the mainland to the island (despite being persona very much non grata in the eyes of the corrupted church); and rode his horse into the mountains. Poor Garn hasn’t had time to stroke our sceptre!

Given the efficiency of the Sceptre so far, why exactly did we took it out off the Crypt?

Because D&D requires a fabulous treasure as the object of our quest.

Even in our world, I would be pretty sure that the nephew of a knight who came back from the crusader's land and brought along a piece of the Holy Shroud, irrespective of the chances of it being false, would have heard of it and it would be the family's most treasured possession...

Yes, that is an even better analogy.

Although I had this thought: we know that Dalris can collect relics from Ancient Bhukod in the same way that I might collect Superfriends lunchboxes from the 1980s: both are relatively commonplace and unremarkable. What if the reason Thayne didn’t take note of his aunt’s deific crown is that everyone has an entire collection of stuff worn by the gods?

“Oh that’s right, Estla does have the crown of Aerdrie. She keeps it in her closet next to the vest of Correlon, the shoes of Labelas, and the gloves of Sehanine.”

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Efficient Garn should have been able to solo this adventure.

Actually, I think there is no adventure to be had.

Realistically

1. Landor was a friend of Estla and most assuredly Perth (at least, he was extremely close to Perth's wife)
2. Perth is a demonstated friend of Estla.

We can deduce that he must know that Landor recovered the crown of Aerdrie and gifted it to Estla.

From 1, we can guess that Perth probably was given a copy of the primer on daemons, and knows (if he didn't know that by virtue of being at least a 13th level druid) that Pazuzu can only be defeated by wearing the twin crowns of Lolth and Aerie from the get-go.

He doesn't know that Pazuzu is behind the troubling situation with Paladins recently. But, they are convienently standing guard along the coast for some undiscernable reasons. Some of them are susceptible to being taken and questionned, which would lead the name Pazuzu quickly as part of information gathering on what the Paladins are doing (instead of waiting for a drunkard to bring in one-year old piece of news, he could be proactively protecting his home base). And they are not really hiding that they dropped Dyan for Pazuzu... If he is somehow a pacifist druid, just sending Rufyl to read the mind of the Paladin is enough, their god must be in their surface thoughts.

It was the only missing element that was needed for Perth, from section 1, to understand he needed to recover Aerdrie's crown and take a regular boat to Freeton, from where the most direct route to Estla's village starts, and reach and and borrow her crown. He could have sent the youngsters to do that if he was too busy not defending Waelwood, if really needed for the book to be interested. It could be solved in 5 sections.

1. We are hunting a manticore.
2. We kill the manticore, damn Dalris
3. We get a mission to send Rufyl to walk along the road, get invisible and from a thicket, read the mind of a Paladin.
4. Debrief with Perth, learn about the twin crown and Estla.
5. Take the boat to Freeton.
6. Ignore a probably lethal detour by the College Arcane and follow the road to the village.

Here, without rolling a single die or casting a single spell. Or making a meaningful choice. That is the epic of this book.


I liked it a lot, but I think that yes, getting back to following one path, will be easier to follow in the third book!

 

[Joshua Randall]

220

Estla knows us when she sees us (so to speak) even though Thayne told her we were dead at the hands of "the monstrous enemy who is determined to destroy us all." We remark that she knew otherwise, of course, to which Estla smiles. "Her smooth, ageless skin gleams in the sunlight beneath her shock of white hair."

Estla comments that apparently we have "developed some wisdom" since we left, and that she knew the son of Landor and daughter of Perth would survive "such threats as this one."

At our prompting, Dalris steps forward and one again tells the tale. (Her bard features are getting a workout!)

The elves are spellbound by the ancient Bhukodian legend. They particularly enjoy the idea that their matriarch is descended from the goddess Aerdrie, and they're excited when they hear of the Sorcerer's Crown [take a shot] having the power to balance Lolth's crown.

The crowd cheers and asks Estla to use the crown's power against our enemies. Estla announces that because the crown of Aerdie was given to her by "our friend, Archmagus Landor of Tikandia", it is fitting that she return its power to "Landor's son, Mage Carr Delling!"

The crowd cheers again and asks US to use the crown's power against our enemies, to drive the evil hordes off Seagate Island.

There's a moment of awkwardness when we realize no-one is wearing the crown right now, so Estla sends a servant to retrieve it. Dalris gasps at the crown's beauty. We place the crown on our head with trembling hands.

"Oh, Aerdrie!" calls Estla, her voice carrying into the sky. "Hear our prayers and send your assistance to us in this hour of great need and danger. Honor us with your wisdom, and empower this champion with the magical strength he will need to face the demon Pazuzu and his evil servant, Arno!"

A "beam of ivory light" surrounds us and then shoots into the sky, "a dagger of magical energy piercing the heavens." The crown's dweomer fills our brain and body with power.

A magnificent creature descends from the heavens. "It's a copper-skinned giant human with flaming bronze hair and yellow eyes. Twin golden wings extend from the shoulders of the astral creature."

We recognize this creature as a solar, "a powerful servant of good." He introduces himself as Nithran, steward of Aerdrie, and says that Pazuzu has overstepped its bounds "and must never again be summoned to Aerdrie's holy island!"

We ask how "we" can do this, sorely beset as we are by the hordes of eeeeevil creatures. Nithran tells us not to question the power of the gods (of course), says whatever force we require will be at our command as long as we wear the crown, and announces that "planetars and devas" are even now destroying the enemy in Delmer and Freeton and will drive all of Pazuzu's forces into the sea.

Perth (remember him?) asks what will become of Tikandia. Nithran is forbidden to speak of the future (of course), but then he does: Garn must recruit a new force of cavaliers to combat Pazuzu's 'Knights of Truth' because the Kandian people will only survive through the courage of men like Garn.

We ask how we can help the cause. Nithran says we are the link between all Kandians and their past and that we are destined "to seek [our] father's legacy and to restore the magnificence of Bhukod to its descendants."

The shaft of ivory light vanishes as suddenly as it came, leaving a stunned silence broken only by the distant cries of battle between Pazuzu's evil forces and your own astral allies. You stare in silence toward the north, and wonder what the next bequest of your father will bring. ✠

THE END

DEATH COUNT: 6
NONLETHAL FAILURE COUNT: 1

NUMBER OF SHOTS TAKEN: 17
(11 from the book's title, 3 from Dalris's braid, and 3 from Dalris's blushing)

---

And so The Sorcerer's Crown is finally over in an abrupt ending with an almost literal deux ex machina that smacks of we-ran-out-of-time-and-money-to-film-a-proper-battle-scene-between-good-and-evil-so-that-happens-offstage-and-we-foley-in-some-sound-effects.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Commentary:

… Estla smiles. "Her smooth, ageless skin gleams in the sunlight beneath her shock of white hair."

Her hair went white in the last five years. Interesting….

Estla comments that apparently we have "developed some wisdom" since we left…

Booyah! WIS 4, baby.

A magnificent creature descends from the heavens. "It's a copper-skinned giant human with flaming bronze hair and yellow eyes. Twin golden wings extend from the shoulders of the astral creature."

Why does the steward of Aerdie, an elven goddess, take the form of a human?

We recognize this creature as a solar…
… "planetars and devas" are even now destroying the enemy…

Solars, Planetars, and Devas (in order from most to least Hit Dice) were all introduced in the AD&D Monster Manual II as powerful servants of the deities of Good.

… we are destined "to seek [our] father's legacy and to restore the magnificence of Bhukod to its descendants."

Like all good fantasy stories, this one is ultimately small-c conservative: it's about restoring the glories of the past rather than building a new future.

---

I have much more to say (of course), but I'll pause here for reflection and for several moments of silence about our 6 deaths and 1 nonlethal failure in this gamebook.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Commentary:

… Estla smiles. "Her smooth, ageless skin gleams in the sunlight beneath her shock of white hair."

Her hair went white in the last five years. Interesting….

We posited that she was rather young for a Wood Elf based on her hair not being white in book 1. Now, we learn that she's a High Elf, but her hair are white. I dispute the "they withered in 5 years" in favor of "she stopped dying her hair and assumed to be an elderly lady. This kind of realization hits when she's solidly in Old Age. Which means that she actually lived for centuries during before the Bukhod Empire fell, since Internet Wisdom tells me that se should be 1,000 years old and Bukhod fell what, 800 years ago? It's like asking a 40 years old if he remembers high school.

Also, why is exactly her people delighted to LEARN she's descended from their goddess? Shouldn't they know it since the start, as being a part of the founding legend/fact of their ruling dynasty?

Estla comments that apparently we have "developed some wisdom" since we left…

Booyah! WIS 4, baby.

Thayne didn't. He died before we left Wealwood. He couldn't possibly know anything about our journey, so saying that we're dead was immensely stupid. I can see him estimating that our task is dangerous, but it is like saying that a guy is probably dead, since he enrolled in the police force.

A magnificent creature descends from the heavens. "It's a copper-skinned giant human with flaming bronze hair and yellow eyes. Twin golden wings extend from the shoulders of the astral creature."

Why does the steward of Aerdie, an elven goddess, take the form of a human?

Because before resorting to hiring solars, she sent giant pandas and the evil god didn't take them seriously.

… we are destined "to seek [our] father's legacy and to restore the magnificence of Bhukod to its descendants."

Like all good fantasy stories, this one is ultimately small-c conservative: it's about restoring the glories of the past rather than building a new future.

The same descendants who lied about our father's books in order to fulfill their petty, immediate needs and only rewarded us with a crummy shed, and would have no qualm to neuter our brain if we questionned them. Sorry but I'm restoring the magnificence of Bhukod to my own personal use.

---

I have much more to say (of course), but I'll pause here for reflection and for several moments of silence about our 6 deaths and 1 nonlethal failure in this gamebook.

This is a great read.

 

[Joshua Randall]

This book was a major slog compared to the first one. Yes, both books have equal amounts of insane moon-logic and nonsensical plots, but in book 1 it always felt like we were making progress towards something. In book 2 there are many numbered sections that don't advance the plot. And there are some EXTREMELY lengthy chains of numbered sections that lead to inevitable death. Meaning that you're reading a whole bunch of words but psyche! None of them matter.

To illustrate my point, and I've promised it a few times, I made a map of the paths through this gamebook. I used a program called LibroGameCreator 3 by Matteo Poropat, well worth the suggested $5 purchase price.

Before I show the image, one thing that makes The Sorcerer's Crown odd is that in several places, it inverts the typical gamebook flow. Rather than send us down separate paths that ultimately join together at the end (assuming we don't die along the way), this book features several sections that check where we came from in order to determine where we are allowed to go.

While constructing these flows, I realized these special sections are conceptually no different than an inventory-based gamebook that asks if you have Item A or Item B (or neither!) to determine which numbered section you are allowed to visit. In The Sorcerer's Crown, we can think of the answers to the questions "Where did you come from?" and "What do you know?" as analogous to items that we carry in our inventory.

Without further ado, here is the complete depiction of all paths through this gamebook.

(When you zoom out enough to see the entire tree, the individual nodes are too small to make out, so you may want to save the file locally and then pan and zoom.)

---

I've also prepared a simplified flowchart to illustrate one of my main complaints about this book.

(Apologies that this one is grainy, but I was too cheap to pay for the upgraded version of Miro just to be allowed to export as an .svg)

What this simplified flowchart shows is that there is only the illusion of choice. If you decide to go to Seagate Island first, then You Are Already Dead. Any choices you make after that decision, any numbered sections you read, are irrelevant to your eventual fate.

And if you decide to go towards Saven, any path that does not redirect you into Yellow Marsh also means that You Are Already Dead. However, it may take literally dozens of numbered sections on this journey to reach an official failure point.

---

Here's an even more simplified flowchart:

This glosses over how you got to Saven, but what really matters are the two mandatory decisions on the One True Path: you must go through Yellow Marsh and you must learn about the twin adamantite crowns.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Contrast The Sorcerer's Crown with its predecessor, Sceptre of Power.

Again, this is hard to grok when zoomed all the way out, but note the massive number of branches along the way.

Recall that book 1 has two entirely separate ways to learn magic: from Thayne or at the College Arcane. (And I just noticed those rhyme.) If you choose the College Arcane then there are three entirely separate sets of spells you can learn: cantrips, weak spells, or strong spells. Armed with whatever spells you’ve learned (or not!) you then meet Dalris, enter Landor's study, summon Rufyl, and visit the crypt with the thing.

Or maybe you don't learn magic whatsoever: when Beldon shows you the Door of Death, you can choose to risk it right then and there, use Landor's scrolls to bypass huge chunks of the book including any mention of Dalris, and move straight to the crypt.

I didn't explore it in the previous thread, but way back in Freeton there are also 4 paths to get to Thayne in the alley and 3 paths from the market to College Arcane -- not counting deaths!

Simply put, Sceptre of Power allows much more exploration en route to the golden ending. Yes, you eventually have to summon Rufyl and visit the crypt with the thing, but there are multiple survivable paths that lead to those last few numbered sections. As opposed to The Sorcerer's Crown where the golden ending requires one survivable path which itself requires that you make two specific choices much earlier in the book. (Or conceptually: that you pick up the two specific inventory items you will need.)

---

How does The Sorcerer's Crown compare to the ur-example of gamebooks, Fighting Fantasy #1 The Warlock of Firetop Mountain?

Warlock has an extremely strong sense of place, such that it can be depicted as a literal map of the dungeon.

Dyson Logos shows us an unlabeled D&D module style map.

This one shows what's in each room.

And here's one from someone on Reddit, the second of which shows a True Path.

Along the way you need to pick up keys (actual inventory items!), three of which you will use to try to unlock the warlock's treasure chest at the end of the book. There are 15 possible combinations of keys (fifteen!!!). Only 1 combination is instant death. Another 12 combinations don't quite work but do allow you to restart the dungeon at the beginning. And there are 2 successful combinations available via one of two (overlapping) golden paths.

Even though there are strictly speaking only two True Paths through Firetop Mountain, it never feels as railroad-y as Sorcerer's Crown, because of the ability to retry for more keys and because of the individual choices along the way.

For example, before you attempt to unlock the warlock's treasure chest you have to battle the warlock, and you can do this in multiple ways: a straight up Skill vs. Skill fight (good luck with that), use one of two different items to debuff the warlock before you attack, or Luckily notice something in the room that also debuffs him.

Another example: when you meet the humanoid inhabitants of the dungeon, you are almost always offered a chance to speak to them vs. attack immediately. And although parlay is not always the best choice, you are still offered a choice.

Contrast the freedom allowed in Warlock of Firetop Mountain with the lack of freedom in The Sorcerer's Crown. You might think there are multiple reasonable ways to survive various encounters based on all the spells on your character card, but there is usually only one correct choice. Or you won't even be allowed a choice and you'll starve to death in the tower because of a trap you could easily bypass, or you’ll be stuck in Wendel's hut because of six, count 'em six, gnolls at the pier you could easily defeat.

Fighting Fantasy would've allowed you to fight those gnolls. And maybe it would've been a very hard fight -- like if you chose to straight up attack the warlock without debuffing him -- but at least you could've tried.

---

For our final comparison of gamebook paths, here is Lone Wolf #1 Flight from the Dark.

(link)

If we scroll all the way to the right where the paths converge on victory at section 350, we can see 3 incoming paths (meaning three separate ways to win); a prior important node that has 4 entries (139); and a node leading to 139 that has 6 entries (007). That is a ton of freedom to choose your own path to the ultimate meeting with King Ulnar. Far more than the amount of freedom you are allowed in The Sorcerer's Crown.

 

[Joshua Randall]

@Jfdlsjfd asked if there is a way to complete The Sorcerer’s Crown without using magic. The answer is yes.

• Grab the manticore's tail spike, which requires a successful DEX test.
• Leave the Sceptre of Bhukod with Perth in Wealwood.
• Start out on the mainland and deliberately enter Yellow Marsh.
• Don’t use any spells against the unknown enemy in the fog.
• Instead, whack the giant hand with your staff.
• Ask Shanif the Marid about how to stop Arno.
• Continue on to Saven, meet Garn, and enter the secret passage into the cathedral…
• … but you must fail the DEX test on the way in. This means you never witness the Pazuzu summoning, but that’s OK, because as cool as it is, that scene is completely useless to the One True Path. (If you pass the DEX test and end up watching the summoning, you then must escape and seal the door behind you with Wizard Lock specifically, else you die.)
• Immediately exit the secret passage and split the party. Survive your pretend-drunken encounter with the corrupted paladins. (Because you don't have the Sceptre of Bhukod, they buy your act and you escape minus 2 HP.)
• Get on a boat to Seagate Island, land on the southern coast, trek through the high desert and mountains, spot a would-be ambush, choose to intervene…
• … and that’s it.

Not only does this path not require any spellcasting, it only asks if you WANT to cast a spell twice! (Once at the very beginning vs. the manticore and a second time in the Yellow Marsh.) That makes us two-for-two on gamebooks in which we use the bare minimum magic. So much for this so-called kingdom of SORCERY trilogy.

A side benefit of the magic-free path through book 2 is that it only requires two ability checks. Both are DEX tests and you need to pass one and fail the other, which is awkward, but that's the price you pay on this path. At least you minimize your chances for death due to bad dice luck.

---

Speaking of deaths: Here's the list of all the ways we officially died in this gamebook.

• 163: Impaled by a rain of heavy iron spears thrown by Gnolls after we couldn't withstand the bright light of Arno's permanent Detect Magic radar emplacement.
• 110: Burned up by a Fire Trap and its mighty teens damage when we stroll right up to the main doors of College Arcane and open them.
• 65: Spine severed by corrupted paladins after we roll low on two DEX tests in a row and drop our extendo-weapon while fighting them on the streets of Saven.
• 171: Trapped in the College Arcane tower despite numerous spells on our character card that could get us out (plus Rufyl, plus common sense, etc.).
• 78: Crushed by a Dragon Turtle flipper when we use Polymorph Other on Rufyl while he is still aboard a small boat.
• 26: Drowned by a Marid after we throw Chekhov's darts at it.

And our nonlethal failure:

• 69: Forced to stay in Delmer with Wendel because we cannot possibly overcome the six gnolls guarding the port.

What's frustrating is that these deaths depict Carr as a bumbling idiot: he drops his staff; he can't figure a way out of obvious traps; he's flummoxed by enemy magic; he doesn't know how his own spells work.

Contrast book 2's deaths with book 1's:

• 17: Heaved over a cliff by Ulrik's men after we fail a CHA test to bluff them.
• 54: Killed by an angry mob after we intervene to save Wendel.
• 190: Fall from the fifty-foot-high tower of College Arcane after we fail a DEX test.

One of these teaches young teenagers the important lesson that you should never stand up for your friends, but the other two are legitimately "our fault" for rolling low. And every one of the (unofficial) gnarly deaths during our spell-learnin' in book 1 are also due to low rolls on INT tests.

By contrast, only one of the deaths in book 2 was "our fault" for rolling low, at (65) where we get our spine severed. The others are arbitrary, and most of them come after reasonable decisions in prior sections.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

If we scroll all the way to the right where the paths converge on victory at section 350, we can see 3 incoming paths (meaning three separate ways to win); a prior important node that has 4 entries (139); and a node leading to 139 that has 6 entries (007). That is a ton of freedom to choose your own path to the ultimate meeting with King Ulnar. Far more than the amount of freedom you are allowed in The Sorcerer's Crown.

Bypassing the six gnolls would have been, as you said, a fight in another book. Which makes me think that HP in this book are basically irrelevant. There are no fights, there are either total success with barely a consequence outside of crossing off a spell on the list, or death. This makes the game much less gamey and more narrative than what we're used to. Even the skill and stats allocation is barely relevant given the low number of skill checks we've encountered.

The gnoll fight might be a tough fight, 2 vs 6 (though honestly, the cleric could buff us so it's more 2 buffed, high-level adventurers vs 6... CR 1/2 gnolls. Carr is what, 10th level? And Dalris even more) but it should at least be offered as a choice in the game design.

While I liked the story, and the book you narrated, I don't think it offers a particularly satisfying game experience vs a good reading experience. It's more "guess the right choices" to be made. And it's infuriating because if you're "good" at the game, which means that somehow you guess correctly each time, you bypass a lot of content that consists of long (but interesting!) path leading to your demise. Learning cool lore should be on a path that allows victory. I have the same peeve with The Other Series, but it's minor points that are explained only if you die...

Not only does this path not require any spellcasting, it only asks if you WANT to cast a spell twice! (Once at the very beginning vs. the manticore and a second time in the Yellow Marsh.) That makes us two-for-two on gamebooks in which we use the bare minimum magic. So much for this so-called kingdom of SORCERY trilogy.

It is also a very short path. We don't get information on Landor's Tarrasque, we don't get any information on Pazuzu... it's not that we miss information (I already complained about that) it's also that the optimal (ie, shortest and safest) path is also the one that doesn't advance the Plot.

1. We fight a manticore (cool, I guess)
2. We're informed by a NPC about the plot of the game, without doing anything.
3. We take the most dangerous route that offers no obvious advantage, so we fumble our way...
4. We fail to identify the Marid as a friend (mostly because of its behaviour) and being ineffective against him, which saves our lives. Note that this "ally" kills us, while knowing full well who we are, if we attack him obviously by mistake, using a magic that doesn't hurt him that much. He could, I don't know, BERATE us instead and order us to stop...
5. We are told we need the twin crowns.
6. We meet Garrn and can probably get very little information, except that the cult has been corrupted (which we know).
7. We fail the infiltration sequence and learn nothing
7. We leave by boat and make the less efficient choice of destination, learning nothing.
8. We stumble upon the dead NPC 1 and the useless NPC 2 we met, and they tell us to get to the village
9. Somehow, despite us not having learnt anything on the plot, know that Estla is wearing it and Dalris is able to tell the whole story and off to book 3.

Basically, we didn't accomplish anything meaningful. A clever investigation to locate crown, find it was... already removed by landor, investigate teh college arcane to learn it was given to Estla, would have been much more satisfying. Plus, the sceptre from book 1 didn't help at all, which means basically the whole effort of book 1 was useless. Once we joined the College Arcane and started to learn magic, we knew that Beldon was nowhere near to recover our father's books. So we could just have kept studying, maybe Arno would have offed himself after thinking he was great enough to walkk in the footstep of Landor. Or we could have dared him to do so.