Brother Shatterstone said:
I've found a few of the Fabled Land books,1-2 and 4, on eBay but I'm curious about how much of these books are chose your own adventures and how much is like a sourcebook. You link did help but I imagine these books are rather unique. I remember the time machine, AD&D Endless Quest, and the mother of them all "Choose Your Own Adventure."
The Fabled Lands books are a bit of an odd kettle of fish. They are all gamebooks, but they're
structured in such a way to make them almost a sourcebook.
Each book covers a geographical area rather than a story (Book 2 "Cities of Gold and Glory" covers the
kingdom of Golnir, Book 5 "The Court of Hidden Faces" covers the countries of Old Harkuna and
Uttaku, and so on). Within each book, most paragraphs represent either a place or the events that take
place there. So, for example, each city has it's own paragraph, with separate paragraphs for the
marketplace, the temples, the harbour and so on.
To give a concrete example of how this works, below is a scan of paragraph 100 in Book 1 ("The War-
Torn Kingdom")
100
Marlock City is a huge sprawling metropolis, enclosed in a fortified wall said to have been built one
thousand years ago by the ancient Shadar empire. It is the capital city of Sokara. Marlock City was
once known as Sokar, until General Grieve Marlock led the army in bloody revolt against the old king,
Corin VII, and had him executed. The general renamed the city after himself -it is now a crime to call
it Sokar.
The general lives in the old king's palace, and calls himself the Protector-Getieral of all Sokara.
Whereas the old king was corrupt, the general rules with a fist of iron. Some people like the new
regime; others are royalists, still loyal to Nergan, the heir to the throne, who has gone into hiding
somewhere.
Outside the city gates hang the bodies of many dead people - labels around their necks read: 'Rebels,
executed by the state for the good of the people'.
"You'd best behave yourself if you don't want to end up like one of them." grates a guardsman, nodding
toward the swinging corpses, as you pass through the great eagle-headed gates of Marlock City
You can buy a town house in Marlock City for 200 Shards. Owning a house gives you a place to rest, and to store
equipment. If you buy one, cross off 200 Shards and tick the box by the town house option.
To leave Marlock City by sea, or to buy or sell ships and cargo, go to the harbourmaster.
Visit the Three Rings Tavern turn to 158
Visit the temple of Alvir and Valmir turn to 154
Visit the temple of Nagil turn to 71
Visit the temple of Sig turn to 235
Visit the temple of Elnir turn to 568
Visit the market turn to 396
Visit the harbourmaster turn to 142
Go to the merchants' guild turn to 571
Explore the city turn to 138
Visit your town house (if box ticked) turn to 434
Visit the House of Priests turn to 535
Visit the general's palace turn to 601
Travel east towards Trefoille turn to 377
Head south-east towards the Shadar Tor turn to 166
Follow the River Grimm north turn to 99
Journey north into the Curstmoor turn to 175
Head west to the River Grimm delta turn to 579
Then turning to the appropriately numbered paragraph would take you to that location, with its own set of options.
Below is what you’d see if you turned to paragraph 235 to vist the temple of Sig.
235
The temple of Sig the Cunning, patron of vagabonds, troubadours, lovers, thieves and rogues, is a ramshackle warehouse in the poor quarter. Inside, however, there is so much wealth, it makes you gasp -the idol of Sig, a saturnine two-faced young human of indistinct sex, is covered in gems.
"As you can see, we have been made rich by generous, er, donations!" says a black-robed priest.
Seek an audience with the high priest turn to 113
Become an initiate turn to 437
Renounce worship turn to 563
Seek a blessing turn to 197
Leave the temple turn to 100
And so on. It worked remarkably well, and you could go anywhere ever you wanted, a real change from the stricter structure of most other gamebooks. The setting itself is very well developed, as you would imagine, although only six of the proposed twelve books were published, leaving about half of the world undiveloped. But fortunately the six that were published covered the main northern continent, as well as the Violet Ocean and the island country of Akatsurai. As you said, the Fabled Lands books were a unique idea, foiled by being badly timed in its arrival on the market.
Brother Shatterstone said:
I agree with that both PrCs make perfect sense for Aymara, the Heartwarder is more for the bard like character that loves to perform in her name and honor, and the Watchers of course protect the world form hell. I do like the Watcher PrC but I simply will not plan on being accepted that should be based upon IC actions and IC decisions but Brystasia would definitely consider it an honor if she was selected.
Fair point on not planning to enter the Watchers. Given the fact we’re using the Test Based Entry, there really is not other method of joining than the invite.
Brother Shatterstone said:
I'll think upon her history but I'm mostly opting for the "looking for father but has never meet him." Of course her father could have been a servant of Aymara so the search for her father leads her into Aymara's services. Of course it seems rather wrong to start out as a paladin in a game like that... So maybe I should look a paragon but I as I see there is no paragon for a half-nymph, obviously, or a fey so I would have to work upon something... The human would probably work but if you look the half-elf does have one so who knows. It does make sense for her to be a paragon, though she would be a rare race I imagine her to be a pinnacle of it.
The looking for her father option certainly works for me. It’ll give her an initial sense of purpose, and goal to work towards. As for the paladin/paragon choice, go whichever way suits you best. It shouldn’t take long to work up a paragon class for both the Nymph and the Half-Nymph races, and I’ll follow the Half-Elf mould by giving the choice of taking some human levels as well. OTOH, starting as a paladin/holy warrior isn’t really a problem to my mind, as Brystasia is unusual enough to get Aymara’s attention.
Brother Shatterstone said:
If the elven blades are too much then we can simply swap them out for
other weapons, rapier and short sword respectfully and change her broad groups around and be done with the silly thing. Though if I go racial paragon then their will be little chance for her to learn the exotic weapons as she would lose the extra paladin group.
I can live with the elven blades, but I will point out that the rapier is Aymara’s favoured weapon. Not that I expect Brystasia to use a rapier for that reason, but any spells relating to favoured weapons will be rapier-based.
Brother Shatterstone said:
Oh one thing on the LA rules, we need to double the class levels needed, since gestalts do two levels at a time, not that I would ever take advantage of this.
I’d rather factored in the effect of the LA reduction rules with the Gestalt option. It's straightforwards enough, as you're still only strictly speaking gaining one character level each time you level up anyway, despite gaining the benifits of two classes.
Brother Shatterstone said:
I’m game for the test based PrC and the Defensive bonus looks sweet. I’m curious are we doing the damage reduction for armor too? If not there is no reason for her to ever wear armor. Now where did I put that chain bikini.
If you want to use DR based armour, I'm happy with the idea. I rather like the Defence rules, as the do remove the absolute dependancy on magical armour that comes into play at higher levels. Not that I've got anything against magical items, but I like them to be a removal from the norm, rather than standard equipment.
Brother Shatterstone said:
That does trigger an idea, though it might seem perverted, the Anointed Knight PrC’s test could involve combat while nude. That might sound strange but when you start to think about them coating their bodies in oils it does make a certain amount of sense. "My flesh is strong enough."
I see where you're coming from with the Anointed Knight PrC test. It does make some sense, but I'll just file that idea away for now. After all, we can't have you knowing what the test will be before the event, now can we?
Brother Shatterstone said:
I’m glad you like the flaw, I’m not sure if a -4 is high enough though. Maybe we should rule that her ability bonus does not count for those skills also. I imagine it would be easier for a person with normal charisma to be uncomfortable and lie than a highly charismatic person to lie when uncomfortable with it as their body language would change so much. If that makes sense. I think that could make a social flaw more powerful also and even if there is other party members I suspect Brystasia will always be the center of attention and will be the one speaking for the group in all matters that she has knowledge in. If its arcana someone else can speak, etc.
With regard to the Nievity flaw, I'm perfectly happy with a -4 penalty, but you write it up however you like. I get where you're coming from with removing the ability score bonus as well, so do it if you want.
Brother Shatterstone said:
As for my power gaming… Any objects to the +6 to charisma instead of
the +4?
And go on then, you can have that extra +2 to Charisma if you want
Free your inner Munchkin!
