31) Battleblade Warrior Solution

[champskees]

Battleblade Warrior introduces some good ideas (enemies with two attacks, for example) but unfortunately did not live up to my expectations. It is an extremely short book if you follow this method. You will need a Skill of 10+. Note you can only use Provisions when instructed.

- Take 4 Food.
- Take the Bow & 3 Silver Arrows.
- Take the Phial of Liquid.
- Add note: Turn to ‘42’ when you wish to use Phial of Liquid (2 doses of D6+2 Healing potion).
- You now have your two items.
- Try to steal a boat.
- Test Luck. Fail = Fight Sk 8 St 9 Lizard Man Guard.
- Hug the south bank (+2 Luck).
- Sail on your present course.
- Roll D6. 5-6 = 1 Damage.
- Take evasive action.
- Test Skill.
        o Succeed:
                o Roll D6. 1-3 = 1-3 Damage.
                o Pull over to the bank.
        o Fail:
                o Fight Sk 6 St 5 Swamp Goblin & Sk 5 St 5 Swamp Goblin together.
                o Fight Sk 6 St 5 Swamp Goblin & Sk 5 St 5 Swamp Goblin together.
                o Fight Sk 6 St 5 Swamp Goblin & Sk 5 St 5 Swamp Goblin together.
                o Steer a tack for the side.
- Test Skill. Succeed = Opportunity to eat food. Fail = Lose all Food.
- Head east through the jungle.
- Go on.
- Follow the depression.
- Opportunity to eat food.
        o If you have no food you may search for more (+2 Food, Black Lotus)
- Climb up into the branches of a low tree.
- Stay still.
- Stay as still as you can.
- Add note: Turn to ‘142’ if you meet another with the panther’s eyes.
- You eat food (-1 Food, +4 Stamina).
- Set off again on your journey.
- Simply chase after the creature making a threatening noise.
- Make camp where you are.
- Fight Sk 10 St 16 Swamp Mutant.
- Take 4 Food.
- Continue on your way.
- Test Skill. Fail = 2 Damage.
- Fight Sk 5 St 6 Panther Warrior. (note: you must fight them two at a time).
- Fight Sk 5 St 6 Panther Warrior.
- Fight Sk 5 St 6 Panther Warrior.
- Fight Sk 5 St 6 Panther Warrior.
- Fight Sk 5 St 6 Panther Warrior.
        o If your Stamina is reduced to less than 5 or you lose 2 consecutive rounds:
                o You see those panther eyes again. Turn to Para 142 (+1 Luck).
- Test Luck.
        o Succeed:
                o Watch the beast flying off into the distance before you move on.
        o Fail:
                o Fight Sk 7 St 9 Pterodactyl & Sk 6 St 7 Lizard Man together.
                        • If you do not kill the Pterodactyl within 6 rounds, they will fly away.
- Test Skill. Fail = 1 Damage & repeat until successful.
- Take Lantern & Rope.
- Descend into the darkness.
- Go left.
- Go through the wide archway covered by the rotting curtain.
- Move on.
- Go through the small tunnel ahead of where you came in.
- Try to reach the rags.
- Fight Sk 7 St 6 Tomb Vipers.
- Take the Arm of Telak (+2 Luck).
- Go straight ahead.
- Fight Sk 10 St 11 Warrior King.
- Prise out the gemstones.
- Take the Emeralds.
- Leave by the dark passage opposite.
- Fork left.
- Leave by the small door.
- Wait a moment so as not to disturb him.
- You have the Arm of Telak.
- Try the Emeralds.
- One thousand golden warriors follow you back to Vymorna, with the power of Telak Swordbearer blazing through every atom of your body. You will free Vymorna from the clutches of Evil & Chaos!

[Alexandros III]

Need a break from near-impossible quests like Crypt of the Sorcerer and Masks of Mayhem? Try Battleblade Warrior!

[electricwater]

Absolutely!
I’ve been re-reading and casually playing all the books in order for the first time in over 20 years. An uneven but mostly enjoyable experience so far... until Chasms of Malice, which was just rather poor. In fact I realise now why that book marked the beginning of the end of my original interest in the FF books.

Battleblade Warrior was just what was needed after that, but I didn’t buy it at the time, having been put off by COM.
BW was well-written and evocative with a varied and mappable journey. Plus it was coherent, and had no unfair instant deaths (that I found).

It feels like a spiritual sequel to Island of the Lizard King, replete with lizard men and dinosaurs, jungles, rivers, swamps, a wise-man, and art by Alan Langford (despite being incorrectly credited to David Gallagher).
It even has a similar level of difficulty.

If only it featured a cameo by Zombie Mungo

[vastariner]

The problem with BW was that it was too short. This ought to have been a gigantic epic. Titan! had Vymorna as suffering a decade-long siege that it was impossible to break, yet you do it in three paragraphs. And then in the scope of one gamebook head across country to find a sword to bring the siege to an end. If it were that easy why take 10 years?

I would have gone big with this. Marc Gascoigne was running the show, so why not take advantage and do yourself a three or four book epic within the FF series? One would be getting out of Vymorna, one would be the cross-country trek, one would be the dungeon crawl and one would be the battle to rescue Vymorna. The advantage with this is that you would not need a single 400 at least for Part 1 - you could get out via teleport spell (after battling for the right ingredients) or even kidnapping a flying lizard thing.

But instead it was "how many references to Titan! can I smush in here for no good reason?" Did we really need to meet Lecarte or taste Guursh or swear by Telak's golden sword?

[electricwater]

That could have been an excellent series. I wonder how well the Sorcery! series sold, and whether the experience of that informed any decision-making regarding other FF series.
Does anyone know if there were any plans for other series like Sorcery!?

[Ed]

Steve Jackson is on record as saying that the Sorcery ! series sold less than his books in the green spine series.


I'm not sure if he or anyone else had plans for a follow up or similar series but Sorcery ! is one hell of an act to follow.