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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9602977" data-attributes="member: 7737">I was being semi sarcastic about what you mentioned later, which is that at least we know what won’t work: the all-powerful Sceptre of Bhukod, because Pazuzu brings the psionics cheat code.We, the AD&D players, also learn enough about Arno to make some deductions.On the path we chose in which we wisely use a defensive spell, we are never explicitly told what spell Arno casts against us.On the failure path, in which we chose an offensive spell, we would learn the hard way that Arno’s attack spell is Forget, a 2nd level magic-user spell that in the AD&D rules wipes out 1 minute of memory, but in this gamebook is basically 2nd level Feeblemind, which is totally ridiculous for a 2nd level spell, and yet another example of — ehem. The point being: it’s 2nd level.Then we escape and bar the door with Wizard Lock, which Arno is unable to bypass. As previously noted, a magic-user of 4+ levels higher than the caster of Wizard Lock can automagically bypass it, so Arno must be at maximum 3 levels higher than Carr. And if we stick with our previous deduction that Carr is 6th level, that would make Arno 9th level at maximum.There is still a huge qualitative difference in spell power between Carr’s 3rd (spell) level magic-user arsenal and Arno’s 5th (spell) level magic-user arsenal. But what we-the-players have learned is that Arno does not completely outclass us: he was not the one who cast Permanency everywhere, and he is not going to toss off Limited Wishes nor the like.Unfortunately that still leaves Pazuzu, and it does totally outclass Carr’s 3rd (spell) level magic-user arsenal. As well as negates the sceptre.Ideally in front of a group of paladins. Yowza!The question remains: how much do the characters know about demonic titles, vs. the players / readers? Because given how dumb everyone is in the gamebook, I’m sure Arno (or Pazuzu) could pass off the “Lower Aerial Kingdoms” as, y’know, the bottom part of the heavy cloud layer where goodly astral messengers humbly dwell, the Upper Aerial Kingdoms being reserved only for such majestic beings as Blessed Dyan Himself.Sounds like it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />The impossibility of knowing what is omniscient authorial fact, what is metaphor, and what is the characters’ speculation is the fuel for many of my rants.Both of those statements about Landor are possibly true. Or simultaneously true. Or both true and untrue at the same time as we have seen with previous mutually exclusive sets of facts. And we will never be able to determine anything definitively. Hence my repeated SAN loss from closely reading these books!</blockquote>

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