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

[Joshua Randall]

19

Magic Missile was already rejected as a solution and, by-the-book, may not even be powerful enough to down a manticore. So that choice is out.

If we give up on the spell component, that renders this entire scene pointless. So that choice is out, too.

Let’s grab some tail.

When Dalris learned of our plan to missile the manticore down to mortally wounded, she insisted that we do things her way, because to allow harm to the manticore would violate her "druid oaths."

We "slip cautiously" past the entranced manticore and lunge for its tail, which we grab "just below the cluster of quills that encircle its tip." However, our "sudden movement" startles the beast, which breaks free of Dalris’s spell!

[So we both slip cautiously and move suddenly. That’s a neat trick.]

The manticore thrashes its tail which is so powerfully muscled that it lifts us off the ground as we try to hang on.

Make a DEX test!
(36) if 18 or more;
(7) if less than 18.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Commentary:

Dalris is using Charm (Person or) Mammal to control the manticore. According to the 1e AD&D Players Handbook (pp. 55-56), this 1st-level (!) spell "affects all mammalian animals and persons." It does allow a saving throw, but it's still a ridiculously powerful and broadly applicable spell for 1st level.

A manticore seems mammalian from its description, and indeed its writeup tells us that manticores mate for life, the male remains with the female during gestation, and she bears one or two cubs. So the manticore has all the earmarks of a mammal and thus is a valid target for Dalris's spell.

(One could debate whether a manticore is an animal, a debate that certainly must have happened numerous times in those glorious AD&D rules argument years.)

On a failed save, the charmed creature regards the caster in the most favorable light possible, although it won't obey suicidal commands. The charmed creature doesn't get a new save until an amount of time has passed based on its Intelligence score (for the Low Intelligence manticore, this will be 1-2 months!) or if the druid "harms or attempts to harm the charmed creature by some overt action."

Somehow Carr's "sudden movement" caused the manticore to startle and break free of the spell. In fairness, "Dalris's ally moves into flanking position" seems to count as Dalris's attempt to harm the manticore.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Interlude -- Character Creation

Or, "Establishing Your Character" as the gamebook titles that section.

YOUR Carr Delling will be different from someone else's because YOU help to create him.

Each gamebook comes with a tear-out bookmark-slash-character-sheet. Unfortunately, 13-year-old Joshua did not heed the advice to make a photocopy of it nor to reproduce the card on a 3x5-inch index card. So my historical artifact has numerous pencil marks and erasures.

Fortunately, we have Demian's Gamebook Webpage to the rescue with a clean image.

I will explain the top part of the bookmark-slash-character-sheet in this post and explain the rest later.

Hit Points

As Carr Delling, you have a specific life strength, represented by hit points. Once your character's hit points are gone, he ceases to exist, and the adventure has ended, whether the text has come to an end or not.

In book 1, OUR Carr Delling didn't lose a single HP. And even if he had, I am fairly sure there was no possible way to lose enough HP in that book for Carr to "cease to exist".

In book 2, in my recollection, it will be possible to "cease to exist" due to HP loss.

Magic-users must spend most of their time in musty studies, poring over arcane tomes. They rarely eat or exercise properly. In THE SORCERER'S CROWN, Carr Delling's physical strength has deteriorated from the time he was an athletic mountain boy on rugged Seagate Island. He begins the adventure with a base of 6 hit points, pulse the best two of four die rolls.

The pasty, unathletic magic-user is of course a staple cliche of D&D.

According to AnyDice with this syntax

output [highest 2 of 4d6] named "4d6 drop lowest two"

we get a bell curve that looks like this

If we take that peak at 10 as the most likely outcome, then Carr can be expected to have 16 HP.

OUR Carr Delling in book 1 had a base of 8 HP plus the best die of 2d6, so the book 1 Carr was expected to have 13 HP.

He has leveled up a lot [citation needed and pending] but not gained very many HP. Which is a good reflection of the pasty, unathletic magic-user cliche.

Now let's roll the dice for OUR Carr Delling.

We roll 5, 4, 4, 3 so we get to keep 5 and 4, add them to our base of 6, for a total of 15 HP.

The AD&D magic-user has a d4 hit die, average 2.5, and 15 / 2.5 = 6. This does not necessarily mean Carr is only 6th level. What it means is that he has the HP of your average 6th level magic-user. Which is quite fragile given the level of dangers he will face.

Skill Points

Or, ability scores. These gamebooks track only three: Intelligence (INT), Dexterity (DEX), and Charisma (CHA).

Your scores will go up and down over the course of the book. This isn't how AD&D works at all, but as the gamebook reminds us, we don't need no steenkin' Advanced Dungeons & Dragon rules. We do our own thing.

The gamebook uses DEX as a catchall for any physical action we make, including things that would be STR or possibly CON in the real game.

CHA is used for any type of personal interaction.

INT is used when Carr casts a spell, to see if it works or not. Sometimes when it doesn't work, Carr dies horribly due a magical mishap. Other times, it's just a miss and Carr continues on.

When you are instructed to make a test, you roll 2d6, add it to your base skill, and see if the result equals or exceeds the target number in the book. In book 1, we saw "normal difficulty" tests (for DEX and CHA) with targets of 17 or 18, and "hard difficulty" tests (for INT) with targets of 21 or 22.

Book 1 was inconsistent about whether a failed test was a hard failure with immediate consequences (up to and including Your Quest Ends Here) or a soft failure with another chance to succeed (loss of fictional positioning, followed by another test, sometimes at a higher target number).

Back to Carr's Skill Points. He has a base of INT 14, DEX 10, CHA 12 and another 7 points to spend across those three skills. (Unfortunately we do not get to carry over our book 1 scores, which by the end of the book were an awesome INT 18, DEX 12, CHA 18.)

By the gamebook's rules, Carr has to put at least 1 point into each skill and his total INT score has to be higher than each of the other two scores.

So you cannot do INT 15, DEX 15, CHA 13 (because INT 15 would not be higher than DEX 15) nor INT 15, DEX 11, CHA 17 (because INT 15 < CHA 17) no matter how satisfying it would be to play against type that way.

There are a large number of possible combinations, but I'm going to shortcut all of that to lean into this gamebook series title, KINGDOM OF SORCERY. I'll put 5 points into INT and 1 each into DEX and CHA.

INT 14 + 5 = 19
DEX 10 + 1 = 11
CHA 12 + 1 = 13

OUR Carr Delling's low DEX reflects the toll that years of magic study have taken upon him.

His low CHA reflects that he is a huge jerk much of the time. (You'll see.) Also, Carr is no longer in the College Arcane where he had grown his Charisma to Paladin-qualifying levels through a careful application of sarcasm, insults, passive aggressive behavior, and showing off in front of the other students.

Sceptre of Bhukod, Book of Lesser Spells, Traveling Book of Greater Spells

Cool your jets. I'll explain those when I'm good and ready.

Character Portrait

This bookmark-slash-character-sheet is too jam-packed with information for something as silly as a depiction of what OUR Carr Delling looks like. Instead we get this amazing spot illustration:

Oof. That is not a flattering angle, buddy.

 

[Joshua Randall]

19, redux [to refresh your memory after my long digression into gamebook mechanics]

The manticore thrashes its tail which is so powerfully muscled that it lifts us off the ground as we try to hang on.

Make a DEX test!
(36) if 18 or more;
(7) if less than 18.

---

36

We roll 1 & 6, add this to our base DEX of 11, and eke out an 18. (Less than 18 and we die ignominiously, savaged by the manticore, three sections into the gamebook.)

We channel our inner mountaineer-sheepherder from our youth, grab a big handful of the manticore’s tail, and squeeze as hard as we can, really feeling that tail in our hands. Err… we close our fingers around one of the tail spikes and wrench it free from "the membrane that holds the quill-cluster." [Aaaaargh! They're not quills!]

Waving our prize in one hand, we yell to Dalris that she should "kill this thing" so we can get out of here.

Dalris tells us that no killing will be necessary. She stands with her hands clenched in front of her face. [That’s a weird somatic component.]

"Mignam flerol, lursip gravdam," Dalris says in the "spell language of the aboriginal Kandian druids."

These are the words of an Entangle spell which causes roots and creepers and entire saplings to bend into a cage for the manticore. We barely manage to slip through the thickening tree trunks before we are trapped inside. We emerge next to Dalris and a now visible Rufyl who resembles a "four-foot-high" red dragon.

Dalris says she could have handled the manticore without our help [which is good, because we didn’t do crap], and our interior monologue reminds us that her “strict druid faith” makes her a protector of all living things, even ferocious, wild, man-eating beasts like the manticore.

We retort that we should’ve used our original plan to cripple the manticore with Magic Missile and then grabbed a tail spike before it died.

Dalris understandably remarks that she should have left us trapped with the savage manticore: "The two of you would have gotten along nicely." She wants to know why we can’t leave innocent man-eating beasts alone rather than use them for our magical experiments.

We say that we’re tired of defending our magic to Dalris. After all, Landor was a proud Kandian. "His magic has its roots in the Bhukodian sorceries of your precious ancestors, and they weren’t druids!"

We "watch with amusement and joy as the bard’s clear eyes sparkle with fury, bringing her wild beauty to life."

The "lithe" Dalris has heard this taunting many times. She bounds away into the forest, leaving Rufyl and us behind. We mentally command Rufyl to go after her in case the bloodthirsty man-eating manticore has a mate nearby.

Rufyl doesn’t have to be told twice. He has formed a strong bond with Dalris and would do anything to protect her. The pseudodragon fades away into invisibility.

We hurry toward Wealwood and hope that we reach it before nightfall.

Turn to (46).

 

[Joshua Randall]

Commentary:

"Mignam flerol, lursip gravdam," Dalris says in the "spell language of the aboriginal Kandian druids."

The words of Dalris's Entangle spell are a neat touch. Some spells' verbal components are phrases in Common (well, English in my version of the gamebook), some are recognizable Fakus Latinus, and others are purely made up like in this example.

---

Waving our prize in one hand, we yell to Dalris that she should "kill this thing" so we can get out of here.

It’s only been one section and we’ve already forgotten that the entire reason Dalris is here is so that we DON’T kill the manticore.

When Dalris reiterates that as a druid she is sworn to protect all living things:

We retort that we should’ve used our original plan to cripple the manticore with Magic Missile and then grabbed a tail spike before it died.

So we double down on our assertion that the only good manticore is a dead manticore, even though we know this will upset Dalris. This is just the first of many, many examples that show that we are an insensitive jerk.

---

We emerge next to Dalris and a now visible Rufyl who resembles a "four-foot-high" red dragon.

Rufyl has put on a LOT of weight: he was only two feet high in the previous book.

---

Landor was a proud Kandian. "His magic has its roots in the Bhukodian sorceries of your precious ancestors, and they weren’t druids!"

Are we back to Bhukod does NOT equal Kandia, when it was clearly established in the previous book that they were one and the same? Or Bhukod does still equal Kandia, but Carr's point is that the ancient Bhukodians were sorcerers and not druids? If so, at what point did sorcery give way to druidism? Presumably after the fall of Bhukod 500 years ago, but WHY?

If only there was some long-lived race of beings for whom 500 years ago is well within living memory. We could ask them whether the Ancient Bhukodians had druidism going back then or if not then, when and why druidism replaced sorcery.

Oh well! Too bad there are no races at all in AD&D who live way, way, way longer than a human lifespan.

---

We "watch with amusement and joy as the bard’s clear eyes sparkle with fury, bringing her wild beauty to life." The "lithe" Dalris has heard this taunting many times. She bounds away into the forest, leaving Rufyl and us behind.

Not only are we a big jerk, we’re a big jerk who deliberately taunts a woman we supposedly like, such that she will angrily run off into an area that could be the hunting grounds of an extremely dangerous wild animal, AFTER she has expended some spells to SAVE OUR SORRY ASS. Indeed, we do this with “amusement and joy”!

Is this behavior meant to endear us to us? Because it’s horrible.

I again wonder what lessons are being taught to the teenage audience here: It’s OK to be the biggest jerk imaginable because you’re (supposedly) smart and important? It’s OK to taunt someone into danger? It’s OK to murder an innocent wild animal to harvest its organs, without any attempt at a nonlethal solution, because you found some old recipe?

Hypothetically this could be the reader’s first introduction to OUR Carr Delling. What a glorious impression he has made thus far.

 

[gban007]

Commentary:

"Mignam flerol, lursip gravdam," Dalris says in the "spell language of the aboriginal Kandian druids."

The words of Dalris's Entangle spell are a neat touch. Some spells' verbal components are phrases in Common (well, English in my version of the gamebook), some are recognizable Fakus Latinus, and others are purely made up like in this example.

---

Waving our prize in one hand, we yell to Dalris that she should "kill this thing" so we can get out of here.

It’s only been one section and we’ve already forgotten that the entire reason Dalris is here is so that we DON’T kill the manticore.

When Dalris reiterates that as a druid she is sworn to protect all living things:

We retort that we should’ve used our original plan to cripple the manticore with Magic Missile and then grabbed a tail spike before it died.

So we double down on our assertion that the only good manticore is a dead manticore, even though we know this will upset Dalris. This is just the first of many, many examples that show that we are an insensitive jerk.

---

We emerge next to Dalris and a now visible Rufyl who resembles a "four-foot-high" red dragon.

Rufyl has put on a LOT of weight: he was only two feet high in the previous book.

---

Landor was a proud Kandian. "His magic has its roots in the Bhukodian sorceries of your precious ancestors, and they weren’t druids!"

Are we back to Bhukod does NOT equal Kandia, when it was clearly established in the previous book that they were one and the same? Or Bhukod does still equal Kandia, but Carr's point is that the ancient Bhukodians were sorcerers and not druids? If so, at what point did sorcery give way to druidism? Presumably after the fall of Bhukod 500 years ago, but WHY?

If only there was some long-lived race of beings for whom 500 years ago is well within living memory. We could ask them whether the Ancient Bhukodians had druidism going back then or if not then, when and why druidism replaced sorcery.

Oh well! Too bad there are no races at all in AD&D who live way, way, way longer than a human lifespan.

---

We "watch with amusement and joy as the bard’s clear eyes sparkle with fury, bringing her wild beauty to life." The "lithe" Dalris has heard this taunting many times. She bounds away into the forest, leaving Rufyl and us behind.

Not only are we a big jerk, we’re a big jerk who deliberately taunts a woman we supposedly like, such that she will angrily run off into an area that could be the hunting grounds of an extremely dangerous wild animal, AFTER she has expended some spells to SAVE OUR SORRY ASS. Indeed, we do this with “amusement and joy”!

Is this behavior meant to endear us to us? Because it’s horrible.

I again wonder what lessons are being taught to the teenage audience here: It’s OK to be the biggest jerk imaginable because you’re (supposedly) smart and important? It’s OK to taunt someone into danger? It’s OK to murder an innocent wild animal to harvest its organs, without any attempt at a nonlethal solution, because you found some old recipe?

Hypothetically this could be the reader’s first introduction to OUR Carr Delling. What a glorious impression he has made thus far.

Yeah, feels like hallmarks of an abusive relationship taking joy in upsetting / angering the other person.

 

[Joshua Randall]

46

The torches are lit in Wealwood by the time we arrive at the sacred grove. Most of the permanent residents are "ill and kinless Kandians" who are recuperating here until they are healed or settled. It is in this "beautiful" refugee camp [oxymoron alert] that our father Landor lived and worked for "so many years."

The archdruid Perth’s "manservant" [exact word in the book!] addresses us as "Magus Delling" and informs us that Perth and a visitor await us.

We enter the priest’s "domed lodge of earth and logs" which is shaped like a beehive. Inside, to one side, we see Perth’s quarters which are "guarded with enchanted ivy and sacred mistletoe" (cool!) while to the other side we see a large area with a big banquet table.

Perth calls us his "tribal mage" and invites us to see who’s here. We recognize the visitor immediately. "His curly auburn hair and scraggly beard, bequests of some remote human ancestor, still seem almost comical against the smooth elven skin of his mother’s race."

This is Thayne, who was half-elven in book 1, but is referred to as elven in book 2. (Weird.)

We jokingly tell Thayne he’s "still uglier than any elf ought to be" before we embrace him. Thayne wears "supple russet doeskin" and has the "sinewy and hard" arms of "a fighter as well as a woodland sorcerer."

Thayne studies us and states that "half a decade has made you a man… but a pale one." He notes that magic has taken its toll on us, as it did with our father, and wonders what happened to “the mountain boy” he knew on Seagate.

[For clarity: we are in the Wealwood (druid grove) on the mainland of Tikandia. As opposed to on Seagate Island where book 1 took place.]

"He hasn’t learned to balance knowledge with wisdom." This from Dalris, whose entrance we didn’t notice. She has calmed down since we last saw her. Dalris greets Thayne warmly, but before this touching reunion can continue, Perth interrupts and asks Thayne to tell us of "the evils that now infest [our] father’s academy."

Thayne "quaffs a long draught of black Kandian mead from his earthenware mug" before he begins at (68).

 

[Joshua Randall]

Thayne wears "supple russet doeskin" and has the "sinewy and hard" arms of "a fighter as well as a woodland sorcerer."

According to this book's introduction, Thayne is a "ranger-wizard". That is not a valid multi-class combination per the AD&D PH (pp. 32-33). The closest valid combination is the classic Fighter/Magic-User, which as Gygax writes "obviously" combines excellent armor and weaponry with spells.

Ranger is a subclass of fighter so we can accept that the first part of "ranger-wizard" could be shorthand for the first part of "fighter/magic-user". Or, this could be a reference to Ranger the Level Title for a 9th level Ranger. (9th level generally being "name level" for most classes.)

Wizard in AD&D is not a character class but rather the Level Title for an 11th level Magic-User. (And Sorcerer, as in Thayne being a "woodland sorcerer", is the Name Level Title at 9th level.)

So Thayne as "ranger-wizard" is either a 9th level Ranger / 11th level Magic-User… or it's just flavorful writing and I should stop nit-picking it.

Pfft! As if I will ever stop nit-picking.

---

Thayne studies us and states that "half a decade has made you a man… but a pale one."

This implies that we haven’t seen Thayne since the events of the first book, five (or six) years ago. Why not?

I will also object that the passage of time has made Carr a man. He may be physically 22 years old, but he's still a child.

---

Thayne "quaffs a long draught of black Kandian mead from his earthenware mug"....

That's an oddly specific detail to include. I wonder what it could mean? (cue mysterious music)

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Hit Points

As Carr Delling, you have a specific life strength, represented by hit points. Once your character's hit points are gone, he ceases to exist, and the adventure has ended, whether the text has come to an end or not.

In book 1, OUR Carr Delling didn't lose a single HP. And even if he had, I am fairly sure there was no possible way to lose enough HP in that book for Carr to "cease to exist".

The first time you went through this, I didn't understand. Now that we now that Marla didn't die, but joined with the spirit ancestor of the Dellmer clan, and that Landor didn't die but disconnected with reality and entered an astral energy state, we can safely consider that nobody in our family is actually capable of dying. We'll just, should we be killed by a gigantic mini-goblin, find a new and convoluted way to cease to exist, like turning our body parcticules to tachyons.

Magic-users must spend most of their time in musty studies, poring over arcane tomes. They rarely eat or exercise properly. In THE SORCERER'S CROWN, Carr Delling's physical strength has deteriorated from the time he was an athletic mountain boy on rugged Seagate Island. He begins the adventure with a base of 6 hit points, pulse the best two of four die rolls.

That they don't exercise properly, maybe, even if, to be honest, casting a single 1st level spell each day won't make you special enough to get another way of life than a shepherd/peasant. But I can see how the bookish apprentice will stay at hope with a good book. However, why shouldn't they eat enough? Is being appointed as land druid not enough, infinite wealth nonwithstanding, to feed properly?

Back to Carr's Skill Points. He has a base of INT 14, DEX 10, CHA 12 and another 7 points to spend across those three skills. (Unfortunately we do not get to carry over our book 1 scores, which by the end of the book were an awesome INT 18, DEX 12, CHA 18.)

So basically, as soon as we stopped belittling other students and teachers, our Charisma tanked? I guess our relationship with Dalris didn't progress that much during all these years.

By the gamebook's rules, Carr has to put at least 1 point into each skill and his total INT score has to be higher than each of the other two scores.

So, why exactly don't they give us INT 15, DEX 11, CHA 13 and another 4 points to allo

Character Portrait

This bookmark-slash-character-sheet is too jam-packed with information for something as silly as a depiction of what OUR Carr Delling looks like. Instead we get this amazing spot illustration:

View attachment 395432

Oof. That is not a flattering angle, buddy.

He does look appropriately dimwitted, though.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

19, redux [to refresh your memory after my long digression into gamebook mechanics]

The manticore thrashes its tail which is so powerfully muscled that it lifts us off the ground as we try to hang on.

Make a DEX test!
(36) if 18 or more;
(7) if less than 18.

---

36

We roll 1 & 6, add this to our base DEX of 11, and eke out an 18. (Less than 18 and we die ignominiously, savaged by the manticore, three sections into the gamebook.)

Wait, wait, wait. You're going muuuch too fast here. You're telling us that it is possible that the book entire story consists of:

• We decide to go hunt a manticore
• We prepare casting our most powerful destructive spell, one that makes even the god quake in fear, like Magic Missile
• Dalris rebuffs us saying hurting manticore is a big no no.
• The manticore gores us to the death.

I think OUR Carr would be justified if his dying words were "stupid bi..."

Waving our prize in one hand, we yell to Dalris that she should "kill this thing" so we can get out of here.

I know you already commented on that, but are we trying to be complete arses right now? Are we trying to increase CHA?

Dalris tells us that no killing will be necessary. She stands with her hands clenched in front of her face. [That’s a weird somatic component.]

"Mignam flerol, lursip gravdam," Dalris says in the "spell language of the aboriginal Kandian druids."

These are the words of an Entangle spell which causes roots and creepers and entire saplings to bend into a cage for the manticore.

... that she could have cast before we try to ambush the manticore so our quill-collecting quest would be far easier? WIS 3 she is, too. Another proof, if we needed one, that Landor's blood runs in her veins.

We barely manage to slip through the thickening tree trunks before we are trapped inside. We emerge next to Dalris and a now visible Rufyl who resembles a "four-foot-high" red dragon.

It will be revealed, at some point, that it's not a pseudodragon. It's an actual red dragon, who over the course of 5 years progressed an age group. In 300 years, he'll be ancient and the meanest familiar one could have.

Dalris says she could have handled the manticore without our help [which is good, because we didn’t do crap], and

OK girl, you could have done it by yourself then... Why on earth did you enlist our help???

our interior monologue reminds us that her “strict druid faith” makes her a protector of all living things, even ferocious, wild, man-eating beasts like the manticore

Didn't she kill us in book 1 if we fumbled with her dagger?

We retort that we should’ve used our original plan to cripple the manticore with Magic Missile and then grabbed a tail spike before it died.

That's litterally the line right below the one reminding us of her strict druid faith. We should have gotten a CHA increase.

Rufyl doesn’t have to be told twice. He has formed a strong bond with Dalris and would do anything to protect her. The pseudodragon fades away into invisibility.

OK, so we're definitely exes and she got to keep Rufyl every other week-end and half the holidays?