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

[Jfdlsjfd]

[Alternate timeline in which we use one of the spells from the traveling spellbook.]


If we have a manticore’s tail quill, we may use Enchant an Item.

At last we get to fire the Chekhov’s Gun that was loaded at the very beginning of the gamebook.

Except that casting the spell from a scroll removes the need for material components.

We remember the manticore “quill” we gathered and decide that now is our chance to use Enchant an Item on our already poisoned darts. We remove the “stiff spike” from “the top pocket of our jerkin” and open our traveling spellbook to the parchment leaf “containing the spell [we’ve] been studying more than any other for the past month.”

And after month of study, we don't even understand the basics, like Enchanting takes time? I feel I, the player, have more knowledge about D&D's magic than Carr.

An anguished cry from Dalris rips through our dismay. We hear a scuffle in the fen up ahead and run blindly into the noxious fog. We catch a glimpse of Dalris being lifted into the air by a giant humanoid hand!

We stumble, we fumble, we run blindly... When are we starting to be cool? Also, considering Dalris behaviour, there is absolutely no way she can be a love interest.

(170) to attack the hand with our poisoned darts, or
(188) to save our darts and instead use our enchanted quarterstaff.

I wonder which of these two actions will lead the the more graphical and entertaining death.

One cannot "begin" to translate something right now if one has "been studying" it for the past month. (Unless one has merely been gazing blankly at the squiggly lines on the page and wondering what they are, which I suppose is possible for OUR Carr Delling.)

He was trying to solve a conundrum: how can I learn a spell if reading it causes it to disappear from the sheet of paper forever and I am not even allowed to remember what I just read -- since the spell is wasted just by reading a simple sentence that Carr could remember....

Also, you mentionned parchment somewhere. A papyrus, I'd have understood, especially with the close proximity of a swamp. But parchment? That's strange. It's made from, you know, dead animals. I am pretty sure Dalris wouldn't approve.

In case there was any doubt about the Read Magic explanation in the PH, the DMG reiterates that reading a scroll to determine "its contents" does not cast the spell.

If it was, a scroll would an item that you use to cast a random spell, since there would be no way to know beforehand what sort of spell is supposed to be cast. "I am hurt, do something" reads scrolls of Summon Wildlife Animals.

But even if the DM told you only the scroll-spell’s title, this would be a meaningless restriction because any player worth his salt would immediately consult the PH for the details of the spell.

On of the cool thing of Mythras's [Runequest-based] Detect Magic is that if you concentrate enough, you can know the spell that is being cast... except there is a provision saying that not every tradition has the same name for spell and Wrack could be called Harm or Ray of Pain. I had much fun giving Vancian-souding names to spells when the player explored a lost civilization. There is a lot of fun in watching players determining if they should cast "Childish Glee of the Sociopathic Surgeon" on their friends or on their foes.

OUR Carr Delling is a complete nincompoop with the foresight of a gnat.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Except that casting the spell from a scroll removes the need for material components.

Huh. That raises an interesting question: if you somehow acquired a scroll of Enchant an Item, would the scroll obviate the material component (the item being enchanted), meaning you would enchant... nothing? I need to go back in time and ask Skip Williams.

I feel I, the player, have more knowledge about D&D's magic than Carr.

100% factual.

We stumble, we fumble, we run blindly... When are we starting to be cool?

It's pretty bad, isn't it? I thought we'd be experiencing a power fantasy, but it's more like some kind of masochistic story about reliving my real-life clumsy nerdity.

Also, considering Dalris behaviour, there is absolutely no way she can be a love interest.

Why do you say that? Love interests are always being grabbed up by giant creatures!

I had much fun giving Vancian-souding names to spells when the player explored a lost civilization.

That does sound fun! There's a Vancian spell name generator on Perchance that copies from a much older version. I have generated The Pattern of Odorous Plagiarism which, as much as I complain about these books, is clearly not a critique we can levy at Morris Simon.

 

[Joshua Randall]

We catch a glimpse of Dalris being lifted into the air by a giant humanoid hand!
(170) to attack the hand with our poisoned darts, or
(188) to save our darts and instead use our enchanted quarterstaff.

I will leave off this alternate timeline here because "Dalris gets grabbed by a giant hand" happens regardless of what we do. And I want to save "attack the hand" for a bit later.... [cue ominous music]

---

[A different alternate timeline in which we use Contact Other Plane from our traveling spellbook.]

136

We fix our eyes on the Contact Other Plane spell. Well, just on its title, because we haven’t translated our father’s notes on the planes of existence, which are “advanced magical topics” that we’re just beginning to explore.

Dalris whispers in irritation that we should stop reading “that damnable stuff long enough to get past this stinking fog.” She motions with her sword towards the thick fog up ahead and wants to know if we’re coming or not, because “there’s something in there and we have to get past it.”

We point to the traveling spellbook and explain that we can use the powerful divination spell to contact a being on another plane to ask it to tell us what kind of creature lives in the fog. “We might even be able to ask advice on finding Arno!”

Dalris tells us we’re crazy, that we don’t have time, and that even if we did, she doesn’t think we’re ready for such advanced magic. “Now put that book away and let’s get out of this bog.”

We insist “there’s nothing to this spell”: no gestures nor devices nor components, just a few words and some concentration.

Rufyl jumps in to telepathically warn us that he traveled once with Landor to the Astral Plane, where some of the strangest creatures —

We interrupt our familiar and ask for quiet on the set. Amazingly, both Rufyl and Dalris comply, and wait while we “read the High Elvish inscription aloud one word at a time so [our] pronunciation will be accurate. It’s a long incantation, and [we’re] aware of the unearthly silence all around [us] at the instance [we] pronounce the last syllable.”

INT test.
(123) if 24 or more;
(8) if less.

 

[Joshua Randall]

On a failure (at 8), we realize we don’t know enough about the other planes of existence to control the spell. A cold sweat springs out on our forehead but we keep reading, bumbling past words and names we can barely pronounce and past concepts about Outer and Inner planes we don’t understand.

Our brain fills with “a barrage of sinister voices, voices from every plane [we] carelessly mentioned in the incantation.” Some communicate in grunts and growls rather than recognizable speech.

But the worst part is the hallucinations that leave us alone in a black void where “[our] brain becomes a bloody battleground” among the forces of good and evil: devas, demons, and devils.

As your insanity worsens, merging terrible thoughts with a hideous reality, you discover too late the truth in Dalris’s warnings about the dangers of experimenting with sorcery. ✠

[This technically-not-death-but-may-as-well-be doesn't count because this is an alternate timeline we didn't actually take.]

 

[Joshua Randall]

Commentary:

…we haven’t translated our father’s notes on the planes of existence, which are “advanced magical topics”...
On a failure (at 8), we realize we don’t know enough about the other planes of existence to control the spell.

What, exactly, has OUR Carr Delling been learning for the last FIVE YEARS? He doesn't know demonology. He doesn't know about the planes. He’s only read the titles of his father’s super awesome spells.

A cold sweat springs out on our forehead but we keep reading…

An excellent illustration of WIS 3 at work. We realize that we don't know what we're doing, but we keep going anyway.

As your insanity worsens…

The risk of insanity from casting Contact Other Plane is in the rules as written. For each plane "removed" from the magic-user's home plane (normally the Material Plane), there is a cumulative 5% chance of insanity: 5% at 1 plane removed, 10% at 2 planes removed, up to 50% at 9 planes removed.

Why would you want to contact a far removed plane? Because the chance of the contacted being's knowledge also increases with further removal, starting at 60% for 1 plane removed and increasing by 5% for each further plane removed, except it caps at 98% for 9 planes removed because screw you that's why. So does the chance that the being answers truthfully, from 65% at 1 plane removed up to 95% at 9 planes removed.

Except for the elemental planes, which have a fixed 20% chance of insanity, 90% chance of knowledge, and 75% chance of insanity -- for no apparent reason. Although elementals only know stuff about the appropriate elemental plane, so unless you want to ask about air, earth, fire, or water why did you bother to contact an elemental plane anyway?

(Contact Other Plane is AD&D at its worst: you can cast a high-level spell at risk to your own sanity and end up with either lies or “I don’t know” in response. Gygax hated player success almost as much as Morris Simon does.)

The chance of insanity does get reduced by 5% for each point of Intelligence over 15, so OUR Carr Delling with INT 19 would subtract 20% from the listed chances. Thus he could contact any plane out to 4 removed at zero risk, out to 5 removed with only a 5% insanity chance, all the way out to 9 removed with a 30% chance of going insane.

Apparently Carr contacted a far removed plane and rolled low on the insanity chance. Typical.

---

And what does it mean for a plane to be "removed" from the Material Plane? OUR Carr Delling never bothered to learn this, but 13-year-old Joshua did. By turning to page 120 of the Players Handbook we can consult APPENDIX IV: THE KNOWN PLANES OF EXISTENCE.

Well. We can consult this appendix and then be confused, because the maximum number of planes of removal we can count is… 5. Not 9.

An argument can be made that the distance from the Material Plane to the Astral Plane is 1 "removal", given this description of the Astral Plane on p. 120:

The Astral Plane radiates from the Prime Material to a non-space where endless vortices spiral to the parallel Prime Material Planes and to the Outer Planes as well.

Thus the distance from the Material Plane to any given Outer Plane is 2: Material to Astral to Outer.

The other argument is that "SEE FIG. 1" in the second illustration encompasses every section of the first illustration, so you'd count from Material Plane to (Positive or Negative) to (an Elemental Plane) to Ethereal to Astral to (an Outer Plane), for a total of 5 removals.

But there is no way to count up to 9 given these illustrations.

I don't know why the PH spell description for Contact Other Plane features a table out to 9 planes removed. Maybe so that DMs could invent additional planes beyond the Outer? Maybe because the 5% increments of knowledge nicely reach 100% at 9 removals? (Although it's capped at 98% because screw you that's why.)

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Why do you say that? Love interests are always being grabbed up by giant creatures!

Yes, but classical love interest often adhere to the damsel-in-distress icon: they are supposed to be in need of rescuing from the giant creature, not (a) being demeaning to the hero that will rescue them (b) not to constantly remind the hero how pathetic he is (c) be a victim, ie, not run into the giant creature with a murderous intent just before being rescued -- if anything, I'd expect Dalris to say "that took long!" instead of "thanks" when (if) we manage to free her from the giant creature.

 

[Joshua Randall]

[Alternate timeline in which we use Contact Other Plane from our traveling spellbook.]

On a success (at 123) we find ourselves in a darkness so intense we are afraid to move. Our mind fills with a rush of words. “They don’t appear one by one, as if they were occurring in a sentence; instead they come in one great flash of awareness.”

“WHY HAVE YOU DISTURBED ME?” When we don’t reply immediately, that’s followed with, “YOU HEARD ME! WHAT IS IT YOU SEEK?”

We want to know what creature waits in ambush.

“WHAT? IS IT POSSIBLE THAT YOU HAVE RISKED INSANITY FOR SUCH A FOOLISH QUERY?”

Umm. Yes? Also, to whom are we speaking?

“MY NAME IS ARIOCH, SIMPLETON!”

We ask Arioch to tell us if the thing waiting in the yellow fog is evil.

“YES!” The voice booms.

We ask if that means it wishes to kill us.

“OF COURSE!”

So, we “shouldn’t go any farther into Yellow Marsh?”

“NO!”

Umm. Does that mean, “No we should not go” or “Yes we should go”?

“BOTH!”

We complain that is a confusing answer and that it has to be one or the other. We wait a long time for a reply, but there isn’t one. After a long while the darkness softens into a golden glow that resolves itself into the yellow haze of the marsh.

Dalris is shaking our shoulders while “Rufyl is nudging [our] face with his cold reptilian snout.” [Awwwww!] We assure them we are fine, but fear we wasted a valuable spell in conversation with a being named Arioch.

Dalris says we’re lucky to have escaped with our sanity, because Arioch is “an avenger for the archdevil Dispater” and therefore we can’t believe anything he said.

"Then we can’t believe his name, and we can’t believe that the creature in the fog is evil," we mumble.

We must decide whether to
(179) continue through Yellow Marsh or
(31) go back to the road.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Commentary:

To whom are we speaking?
“MY NAME IS ARIOCH, SIMPLETON!”

Arioch is a fun shout-out to Michael Moorcock's Elric series.

Also, Arioch accurately determines that OUR Carr Delling is a simpleton.

Our mind fills with a rush of words [...] in one great flash of awareness.
…
“YOU HEARD ME! WHAT IS IT YOU SEEK?”

Sheesh, way to use imprecise language, Arioch. We didn't "hear" you. You communicated mind-to-mind.

…we “shouldn’t go any farther into Yellow Marsh?”

facepalm

Carr. Buddy. Ask your questions such that the yes/no answer is unambiguous, which means: avoid negatives. The proper question here is "Should we go farther into Yellow Marsh?"

"We shouldn't go any farther into Yellow Marsh" is not grammatically a question, and even if we stick a question mark after it, the yes/no answer will be ambiguous.

Dalris says we’re lucky to have escaped with our sanity, because Arioch is “an avenger for the archdevil Dispater” and therefore we can’t believe anything he said.

That's mean, Dalris. Devils don't always lie. They tell the truth when it suits their purposes.

"Then we can’t believe his name, and we can’t believe that the creature in the fog is evil," we mumble.

Ah, the classic conundrum: "Given your interlocutor always lies, what can you believe?"

If literally everything the voice spoke is a lie, then:

• We haven't disturbed it and/or it doesn't mind being disturbed.
• We didn't hear it. (Fact! It communicated telepathically.)
• "What is it you seek?" doesn't have a clean opposite, but perhaps it doesn't know nor care.
• It is not possible we have risked insanity. (Fact! Given that we don't go insane here.)
• Our query is not foolish. (Take that, Dalris!)
• Its name is not Arioch. (As Carr said.)
• We are not a simpleton. (Yay!)
• The thing in the fog is not evil.
• The thing in the fog does not wish to kill us.
• And we get a divide-by-zero error on the "go any farther into Yellow Marsh" question because that question is already impossible to answer yes/no definitively. Thus a lying answer, reversed to truth, is still impossible.

We must decide whether to
(179) continue through Yellow Marsh or
(31) go back to the road.

I'll stop the alternate timeline here because we don't want to go back to the road and because continuing into Yellow Marsh puts us more-or-less back on the path we were taking before our detour to waste a couple of high level spells from the traveling spellbook.

 

[Joshua Randall]

[Back to our main timeline.]

157, redux

[...]

Rufyl thinks that somewhere up ahead is a “great intelligence” that already knows about us and is planning to stop us. The psuedodragon thinks it would be wise to prepare for an attack or better yet, to leave.

Dalris tightens her grip on her sword and whispers that we should get a spell ready because she saw “something big” moving in the swirling fog.

[...]

(27) to use a spell we’ve memorized,
(61) to use a greater spell from the traveling spellbook, or
(96) “if you decide there’s no real point in wasting a spell”.

---

[This time we'll cast a "lesser" spell.]

27

We have time for one spell before we reach the "foggy hollow", and the "only" spells that make any sense are Armor or Protection from Evil because we don't see anything to attack.

(76) to cast Armor,
(102) to cast Protection from Evil, or
(114) to save our defensive spell and cast an offensive spell instead.

---

Commentary:

Normally the author spreads out his insane moon logic across several paragraphs which forces me to bring together the nonsense in order to mock it. But in this short numbered section (27), the separation between the contradictory phrases "The only spells that make any sense…" and "If you want to use an offensive spell instead" is three lines of print. Make up your mind, book!

We could cast an offensive spell blindly into the fog -- which admittedly does seem like something WIS 3 Carr would do -- but let’s try not to be a simpleton for once.

With the knowledge from all of our previous paths, we know that we'll need Protection from Evil for our confrontation with Arno and Pazuzu. Thus we’ll choose Armor.

 

[Joshua Randall]

76

We take the fragment of blessed leather from one of our magical pockets and "rub it on the palm of our left hand" [oh dear] while we recite this phrase in High Elvish:

"Mibra dogi, mibra hade;
Koton feernar chopis lade."

We're surrounded by a soft green dweomer that causes our skin to feel slightly numb, a side effect of the Armor spell.

Satisfied that we're ready for the ambush by the "intelligence" that Rufyl sensed, we slog through the dense fog. We can barely see Dalris but catch some light glinting off her sword.

Then the fog intensifies and the ground shakes! We freeze and try to see Dalris, but the haze is too thick. We hear a scuffling sound and take a step forward.

Rufyl tell us to stay here because there's something "too terrible to fight" up ahead. His telepathic plea "carries such fear and sorrow that [we] panic for Dalris's safety."

We forget our magic and rush blindly into the swirling fog, clutching our quarterstaff in one hand while "fumbling" for our poisoned darts with the other hand.

Dalris cries out that there's something here and that it looks like -- "Holy Brigit! Help me!"

We burst through the fog just as a giant hand "encircles her slender waist" and pins her arms to her sides. It's "lifting her struggling figure into the thick cloud of sulfuric fog!"

We can't cast a spell but we "might" hit the creature's arm with
(170) one of our darts or
(188) our enchanted quarterstaff.

---

Commentary:

…we slog through the dense fog…
…the fog intensifies…
…rush blindly into the swirling fog…
[The hand is] "lifting [Dalris's] struggling figure into the thick cloud of sulfuric fog!"

Previous sections as well as the first three statements here clearly establish that the fog is at ground level, yet we've been able to navigate through it and breathe in it.

The last statement makes it seem like Dalris is in extra danger from being lifted into the "sulfuric" fog. Why would the fog well above ground level be more dangerous than the fog at ground level?

… clutching our quarterstaff in one hand while "fumbling" for our poisoned darts with the other hand.

I should've made a drinking game for every time the word "fumble" (or a variant) is used. We'd be super drunk by now because this is yet another way in which the author portrays OUR Carr Delling as incompetent.