Let it be noted that by the end of this I've run through pretty much all of the adventure, so anyone who hasn't played it but figure they will want to should know what to do.
FFzine 17: Barbarian Warlord by Andrew WrightThe 17th issue of the zine more than doubles its file size from the previous record (which was issue 10), being more than three times the average and more than 13 times the smallest (issue 1). Does the adventure come with three times the number of sections? Or is it the smoke and wailing that blanket Allansia adding to the volume?
There's a bunch of added rules and features: horde stats borrowed from Seas of Blood, an Honour score, a record of captured cities, codewords, and tick boxes.
Me, Grud the Grim, and my horde, the Fire*Wolf tribe:
Skill | 7 |
Stamina | 19 |
Luck | 10 |
Honour | 1 |
Horde Strike | 8 |
Horde Strength | 15 |
Surely there's a path on which any horde, no matter how weak and dishonourable, will prevail over the total might of Allansia's cities and mage-lords both good and bad. The rules say it's possible I won't win my first game, implying it is after all likely I will. Starting equipment: 1 talent of Gold and a sword.
The adventure begins as I, the Barbarian Warlord, decide to form a small army out of elements of the Flatlands barbarians, to loot some parts of Western Allansia. Do we do it because we've obtained a terrific artefact or are led by an immortal sorcerer? Well, no. Have we been called by the voices of the gods, has every last tribe been inflamed by an irresistible fervour? Not really that either. Is it a time of omens, of three-headed cows and comets criss-crossing the night sky? No, that's silly, never happens. Did I take some drugs and see a vision in which some ancestor spirits said hey dude maybe go and whack people and take their stuff?
Yes! Good enough for anyone, off we march. We have "steppes bison" pulling our supply wagons, I argued we should use them for shock cavalry but they said no.
I have to decide in which part to strike first and show those civilized bastards they were wrong to think of us as primitive jerks, by setting fire to their homes and livestock. Let's apply maximum logic to this as always. Going to the Trolltooth Pass is dumb: we don't want to start by fighting the bad guys and then getting hammered by the good guys (also most likely we'd get hammered right away), we want to hit the good guys and hope the bad guys seize the opportunity to go raiding also. The Moonstone Hills are equally as dumb a destination: there's nothing there but Roc nests, Clay Golems and creepy convents, so even if we reach the western heartlands we'd be weakened. Zengis is the only sane choice here.
Whoa, it's the second paragraph and I'm asked if I have any of two codewords. I do not. I choose to attack since that's why we're here, if we can't raze this we can't raze anything. With the city walls being in need of repair, their forces ride out to meet us. There's a reference to turn to if I reach zero Horde Strength, which I take to override the general instruction in the rules that reaching zero ends the game, though that doesn't matter at the moment as there's also an instruction to only fight two Attack Rounds. I lose both, then the local boss shows up and summons a Golden Sentinel to fight me personally, with no help from my horde. This turns out to be a sound tactical decision as it handily defeats me. But wait, there's that reference for losing again, maybe our steppes bison will go mad, infused by ancestral power, trampling our enemies and replenishing our ranks with zombarians? No, I'm dead, thanks a bunch, ancestors.
Me, Grod the Quick, and my horde, the Bone-Sword tribe:
Skill | 12 |
Stamina | 18 |
Luck | 9 |
Honour | 6 |
Horde Strike | 9 |
Horde Strength | 18 |
Now that's more in line with what I'd expect a Barbarian Warlord to be, more Honourable too.
I have to decide in which part to strike first and show those civilized bastards they were wrong to think of us as primitive jerks, by tearing down their stupid clothes lines and trampling their flower beds. The Trolltooth Pass is still full of evil spirits, let's not go there ever. Zengis is guarded by an invincible army, it is known. In the Moonstone Hills, however, stories tell of a boat skeleton handing out magical weapons for free, and we'd be able to take a shortcut into the western heartlands. It's the only sane choice here, onwards!
The adventure asks, do you have
Trollslayer. No, I say. Then you're gonna have to slay some Trolls, it says. OK but I ask them to join me, I say. They don't, it says, you're gonna fight them in this valley. Great, I say, can I ambush them. No, it says.
I win two Attack Rounds and then the boss Troll shows up. He throws a boulder at me but misses, they don't call me the Quick for nothing! Then I have to fight him, if that makes all the others switch sides that's fine with me. Of course, my first character would have met a muddy end here, but my second defeats the Skill 10 Troll King without taking damage. The remaining Trolls recognize me as the one true champion and join my forces...? Yes? No, they "barely notice his death" and I have to finish the battle.
I only win because the rules allow use of Luck to minimize damage in horde combat, I'm at 1 Horde Strength. This is very familiar! I've gained a total of 2 Honour points, but that's it for loot or recuperation. The list of possible destinations is much larger now, but heading to any of them would be likely to cause my current force to disappear in a puff of smoke, so I head back east to resupply or something.
The shaman greets us and prepares to Test my Honour. The odds are actually in my favour, but I roll double sixes. This causes one of the tribesmen who stayed behind to fling inaccurate accusations at me, to which I respond with patent falsehoods of my own. We fight one on one and I beat him, but lose a bunch of Stamina in the process.
I get some options for gaining strength and I'd like to choose all of them if possible. Recruitment first. I give a rousing speech and tell people to join me in pillaging the west. Wasn't this what I did before the adventure began? I now successfully Test my Honour, so I can get some new people, but I don't even have to roll to see what's the maximum amount, since I only have Gold for 1 point of Horde Strength, leaving me at 2. And I don't get to do any of the other things, we're off again immediately.
At least the Moonstone Hills should be cleared of Trolls. I must Test my Luck however to avoid halving my army (not that this would make any practical difference if we should get into a battle). I can now try to find the Healer or the Lost Lake. I doubt the former will help us any so let's go for the sword skeleton. And whoa, he's actually there! I thought that was just a dumb legend to be honest. I have nothing to lose so I take his sword, it does 3 points of damage with each hit but I'm also given a paragraph to turn to after I kill someone with it.
We're given the long list of places to go again. I feel homesick, let's go back east.
I pass the Honour test and would choose to train my guys, except they're so few I'm fairly sure it wouldn't make a difference. Instead let's visit these shrines and make the ancestors grant us an army of ten thousand spectral braves. There's the regular shrine and a smaller one where you can cash in magical objects for aid from the forces of Chaos. Well, I have this sword, so OK. I place it on the ground and a lightning bolts zaps it away, and of all the things that could happen next, the undead form of Volgera Darkstorm rises from the earth to join my (very small) army. He does nothing to improve its actual stats, though, so unless I can win the game by only whacking goblins in the backstreets of Zengis, I'm roughly as doomed.
I take the shortcut through the hills again, knowing that I'll fail a Luck test and drop to 1 HS. (My Luck is down to 5 now, but surely the designer anticipated this and will give me a bonus of like +5 shortly.) Then, just for the heck of it, let's go to Firetop Mountain to see if Zagor will have the ultimate flip-out. His minions do spill forth from the dungeons and Zagor himself comes flying on a dragon, but Darkstorm handles him while we battle the Orcs and stuff. Now all we have to do is defeat them without losing a single Attack Round.
We lose the first one. Ah well, at least Zagor's army featured Skeletons in addition to the one in the boat.
Since this is the last zine adventure for a while probably and I still feel like I only scratched the surface, let's give it one more shot. Me, Mrung the Brave, and my horde, the Storm-Sword tribe:
Skill | 11 |
Stamina | 19 |
Luck | 7 |
Honour | 1 |
Horde Strike | 12 |
Horde Strength | 20 |
Finally both my Skill and Horde Strike are in the range of what might let me be even remotely successful at pillaging in this area, but my Honour is back to rock bottom so my people will kick me in the shins and throw empty cans at me.
I have to decide in which part to strike first and show those civilized bastards they were wrong to think of us as primitive jerks, by getting drunk and staggering around in the streets singing Fairytale of Port Blacksand out of key. I'm not sure I want to go to the Trolltooth Pass yet; it might well be the case I can just sneak through without engaging, and the way the adventure's constructed I doubt I'll get any two factions to fight each other anyway, but I'll want Darkstorm before facing any of his pupils and with a competent army I might be able to beefen up first at Zengis.
I defeat both the army and the Sentinel fairly easily. I occupy the town and garrison it with 2 points of HS. This has the advantage of healing me back to full Stamina and also gaining me 3 Gold, plus if I wanted to I could immediately raze it, so under these circumstances razing it at once would be a false choice. I visit the temple and its overboss, the gender of which the adventure insists on leaving indeterminate, and they'd have no issues with blessing me if I paid for it, but I'm not sure that's worth 2 Gold.
I go back east, predictably fail the Honour test, defeat the challenger and gain another Honour point to slightly reduce the risk of that happening in the future. The things of interest here are training and visiting the regular shrine. I opt for training, hoping it will let me do something else if 12 is the maximum Horde Strike value. I get a single Stamina point back, but it turns out there's only a 1 in 36 chance of increasing my Horde Strike, so I won't pay for that. And then the adventure throws me out in the world again. Wrightean exploration and resource management games, man, this is how they operate, stone cold. As a Barbarian Warlord I suck at resting, troop improvement capacity evaluation, and time management.
Well, I go back to Zengis to see if I can tax them some more. No, turns out you have to roll a die and compare to the size of your garrison, and I roll over mine, so they're dead. It's backstreets whacking time! I easily defeat the Sewer Goblins and re-garrison the town, gaining 3 Gold again. Then eeeh, let's sack it and move on. I get a measly 1 Gold from this though.
I had considered going to the Moonstone Hills now to collect the sword, but it occurred to me that this might be a deathtrap, as I would likely have to fight another challenger on returning to the camp, and the sword might then go something like, "You killed Razaak just now, didn't you? If you squint a bit I'm pretty sure that was Razaak", and go on to skeletonize me, which might not do wonders for my campaign, though if you ask me, I should just get a huge bonus to every stat for being a Barbarian
Skeleton Warlord. So I either have to improve my Honour by a lot, or find another magical item.
I could go back east to check out the shrine, but if the temple in Zengis is any indication, it might just be a "pay for this minor modifier" set-up rather than a shortcut to ten thousand spectral braves. So off to Fang we march.
This time after the customary two Attack Rounds of army combat, I face a Ninja in personal combat. Just as in the Troll fight I have to Test my Luck to avoid a projectile, but again, surely the adventure is on top of the possibility of a Luck death spiral and is ready to hand out bonuses. The Ninja is Skill 11 and does 3 points of damage, but I get lucky and only lose two Attack Rounds (anyone with Skill 10 or below would likely be toast though). Finishing off the army after that is easy.
Just as in Zengis I momentarily garrison the town, gaining back some Stamina and 4 Gold. I can then immediately sack the place, and I kind of intend to, but I can also enter the Deathtrap Dungeon. Which seems incredibly stupid, but I might get a magical item or something. My second-in-command says nobody can follow me inside, but he doesn't explain why. Also amusingly if I've already been inside and there's a tick box, there are bomb-proof bamboo screens preventing me from going back in. Still, the tick box implies going inside is not just an instant death.
At the first junction I can go east or west. If east isn't correct, then somebody didn't do their homework. I trigger a spear trap, and my depleted Luck means I take damage (also I'm not going to be Lucky again unless the adventure gives me a fat bonus). Next I have to fight a copy of myself, luckily not with my Initial scores, and doubly luckily I defeat it without taking damage (defeating it at all was just a 50% chance in the first place since I can't use Luck). Finding a Potion of Strength I drink it immediately.
After this I reach a room where a sign reading "Path of Dragons" has been defaced by someone crossing out the last word and scrawling "Luke Sharp" above it. I get doubles in one out of three rolls and lose some Stamina. And that's the end of the first branching, onwards north. Hm, I didn't find any stamped keys or anything. In a room there's a statue with detachable hands, and I can take one, and it's the right one for sure, but
its right or
my right? Should be its right, so my left. I get 1 Gold and 1 Luck point - not really enough, but something.
I leave the other hand, carry on north, and... have to Test my Luck. I'm Lucky, clear some slime with a jump and that means I've beaten the dungeon. Didn't really live up to its reputation, but maybe they just ripped out most of it in the off season. My reward: 1 Honour, 1 Luck and a codeword. Then I have to leave Fang, though, no razing it on the way out. Let's check out Stonebridge, then.
The procedure is the same as always: fight their army for two rounds, then fight a champion. And again I have to Test my Luck or suffer some minor Stamina penalty, but it's the lost Luck point that likely matters. I kill King Gillibran, but he does inflict some heavy damage on me (and I'd be dead if I hadn't drunk the healing potion). Rounding up his army afterwards also works the same as in pretty much every other location I've been so far.
I get Gillibran's hammer, which is a magical object. I also take Stonebridge, get a little Stamina back for this, and 1 more Gold. I then get to choose between visiting the forges or the mines. I think I may need offensive power a little more than money, so I pick the forges. However, it says "nothing produced by the forges is superior to any of your current battle-gear" - Dwarfs suck, Barbarians rock - and I can only do something here if I have rare materials, such as a diamond. OK, so I go to the diamond mines, then? NOPE! You're out of Stonebridge, sucker.
I go north to Fang and find my small garrison didn't last. I beat down Sharcle's rebellion easily and
then raze the place. 6 more Gold brings me to 17, more than enough to replenish my horde. Then I return to Stonebridge to find
they're rebelling. I actually lose one Attack Round to these Gnomes, but then take control of the town again, and that means I get to visit the diamond mines, where I
loot some diamonds in a very orderly and civilized fashion purchase one (1) diamond for one (1) talent of Gold. Then I take it to the smithies of Stonebridge, right? WRONG!! Out of Stonebridge with you.
I go check out Darkwood Forest because why wouldn't an army used to fighting on the plains want to get lost in a dense forest, then I'm asked if I want to fight Yaztromo. Not really, though? I can just go back north, re-fighting Littlebig (my Honour now reaches 12, so no risk of failing future tests) and giving my diamond to some Dwarf smiths who are perfectly happy to make a special shield for me. Thanks a bunch, guys, if I ever come back here I'm torching the place.
I head past the forest to Chalice, which, like every other place we've been to, my underling assures me we could conquer in fifteen minutes. Let's put that to the test! Yeah, for once there isn't even a personal battle (with Luck-Testing projectile), we just demolish their militia and that's it. The special option here is to party, except you have to pay for your drinks like you're not some kind of occupying barbarian force. Well, I have so much gold now. At one tavern, Swinebeard tells me Chadda Darkmane can only be harmed by a weapon forged by green metal from Craggen Rock. So I have to go there, then to Stonebridge, then to Salamonis, check. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't raze Stonebridge yet, or do something to piss their craftsmen off like maybe kill the king, no wait I did do that, haha, good times.
I now head to the Moonstone Hills to whack the trolls. I kill the Troll King pretty easily and his army as well. After that I continue east and choose to recruit, my Honour of 16 means I can't fail outright, though I can still only purchase one die roll's worth of men. I'm lucky and get a 6, where getting a 1 would have pretty much wasted the visit. I then return to the hills, lose another Luck point (down to 3, can you go negative etc.), get the sword, go back east, and turn in the sword for Volgera Darkstorm. Now it's wizard hunting time!
I go to the Trolltooth Pass, where all manner of foul beings lurk. A die roll determines what I face: a dwarven merchant from Mirewater. Of course I'll trade with you, we villains must stick together. I could sell my hammer or shield but I think I'll hold on to them. Whoa, this is a smorgasbord of stuff! Potion of Strength: yes! Potion of Fortune: heck yes!! They come with section numbers so they could be fake, but there hasn't been an "if you previously bought a fake potion and want to bring up this fact" option, so it should be safe. Dragonscale shield: yes, but it's not better than the one I already have, nothing says I can't keep both around though. Horned helmet: yes, and it raises my Attack Strength by 1, so between all my gear I'm effectively Skill 14.
Time to head south to Craggen Rock, then. Balthus Dire himself comes to meet us in a "dark-draped battle-palanquin", and also with lots of creatures. Darkstorm engages the demi-sorcerer in spell combat leaving us barbarians to do the real fighting. Dire suffers the effects of too much sunlight, which in his case is any amount (so what was he doing out here anyway) and then we
look for green metal forget what we were doing and leave. We just go up to the pass again though, revisiting the merchant, and I note the implications of some of the things that he will buy from me.
There are no less than three things to do at Craggen Heights: check out the Black Tower, check the green metal mines, and recruit bandits. Ganjees scare me so I'll check the mines for now. There I
slay the Hill Barbarians and take their stuff respectfully hand over some Gold for green metal. I go back to the pass (my men don't mind this zipping back and forth at all and food is no issue) and what do you know, there's the merchant again.
The Forest of Spiders is next. Zharradan Marr has his operation there, I'm not afraid of him. As was the case with Dire, Darkstorm distracts Marr so we Barbarians can do what we do best. As we defeat the legionnaires, the Galleykeep crashes, and we loot lots of gold and don't have to tangle with any sort of immortal lieutenants. Frankly I'm not paying Darkstorm enough.
From here I can go to Chalice, finding as always that my garrison has been routed. The rebels are easily crushed, though. I temporarily re-fortify the town to gain 2 Gold, then burn it down for yet more money. Then it's time to head up to Stonebridge, where my garrison actually hasn't been overthrown and eaten so I can tax them for 1 Gold and head directly to the forges. They make me a pretty cool sword (+2 AS, +1 damage) which also comes with a codeword, I lose this if I lose the sword so it's unclear why it's needed.
I now go north to Fang since I have a hunch there's something to do there. But I'm just given the option to rebuild the town (what, so I can raze it again?) and that means it's time to visit Firetop Mountain. As in my previous life, and just as happened with Dire and Marr, Darkstorm takes care of Zagor so I can stomp over his minions. And like we always do afterwards, we loot a little and then decide we must head to some other part of the continent. We pop over to ruined Zengis to see if there's anything going on there, but there isn't, and we can just bounce back from there... which means I can now visit the barbarian camp as many times as I want, too.
So I prepare by raising my Horde Strength back up to its maximum. I could also restore my Stamina for free, but that isn't needed. And finally I check out this shrine I've never had the opportunity to visit. At Honour 20 the ancestors won't throw empty cans at me, but give me a blessing which raises my army's Attack Strength by 1 for one battle. And after I've used it, I can come back and get it again for free.
We journey by way of Zengis back to Firetop Mountain where something random happens when I enter the dungeon. My roll just lets me recruit some Horde Strength at the exact same rate as back home, so that was useless. But there's no opportunity cost either, so I can just go to Zengis and back, my army eating apples along the way, and try again. I find this recruitment spot twice more before getting a different roll. This leads to me being attacked by some lunatic called Melric Moonblade. I beat him down, but he's rescued by some woman who "drags" him away "before I can react", this is why they
don't call me the Quick. They drop the Eye of the Cyclops, though, and if you wouldn't necessarily have killed Zagor before getting here, that could have been useful against him.
It takes me some ten journeys to the ruins of Zengis and back before I get the third dungeon result, which, it turns out, can be done three times. It involves Testing your Luck, though, so I first drink my potion - and it says "it really is a Potion of Fortune", though I would disagree, since I don't get the increased Initial score - after which I'm Unlucky anyway, getting no loot and losing 1 Horde Strength instead. I don't think I'd want to exchange Luck points for Gold even at a guaranteed exchange rate, so I'm done with this place.
I can pass through Darkwood Forest and Chalice freely, allowing me to revisit the Forest of Spiders. There are no less than four sites I can explore. Dree seems dangerous, getting turned into a toad may be game-ending. Also not sure what I'd do in the fens. I go to the Yellowstone Mines and
loot, loot, loot humbly arrange for the purchase of yellowstone ore. I then bounce off Chalice to also raid the dungeons and
politely knock on the door asking if there's anything they might be willing to sell, pretty please head into the dungeon to lop off heads first and chatter matters later. This involves Testing my Luck, though, so it's not repeatable (unless I figure I will never be Lucky in this game again anyway, in which case the resulting Stamina damage probably doesn't matter and can be regained at no cost). What happens at this point is I find the crystal club which will auto-kill an enemy and also may be needed in the endgame, who knows.
Places I haven't been or haven't wrecked: Darkwood Forest, the Forest of Yore, and Salamonis. But first to convert this ore I bought. Once again, my troops at Stonebridge have held the fort. The smiths take my yellowstone ore and forge a golden hauberk which reduces melee damage on a roll of 4-6. I assume this works alongside the diamond shield, but that damage cannot be reduced to zero, since each reduces damage to 1 "instead of the normal 2", and I guess they could reduce damage from 3 down to 1 if both activate, though with a strict reading none of them might work in that case.
Being well-stocked with both money and men I now have an idea and move north to Fang. I rebuild the place, then go to Zengis, and rebuild that too, putting the maximum garrison in each. I can now move back and forth, losing on average 5/6ths of a Horde Strength point on each visit, but getting a guaranteed 3 or 4 gold back in tribute and taxes. Whenever I have to fight a rebellion, I do so most likely at Horde Strike 13, else 12, making it very unlikely for me to lose more people that way. I can refill and re-bless my army at will. Long story short, I have infinite time, apples and money, and my steppes-bison trudge infinitely across Allansia in the stupidest ways possible. This means I can just assume at some point I roll double sixes for raising my Horde Strike to 13, and why not also get the Luck blessing in Zengis. OK, back to our regularly scheduled rampaging.
I was thinking of doing the Forest of Yore now, but Darkwood Forest is just on the way. Darkstorm insults and engages Yaztromo like he did with the other spellcasters. The elf dorks actually win an Attack Round when I roll snake eyes, but unsurprisingly they are swiftly defeated, Yaztromo is blown up, I get another codeword and a little gold to add to my infinite amount.
I bounce off Firetop Mountain to explore the forest. First encounter: I fight a Shapechanger and get an Eye of the Dragon (so it wasn't around Sharcle after all). Second encounter: I find the village of Shuggur in the forest where I can refill my army by opening my infinite coffers. Third encounter: Testing my Luck and losing 1 point of Horde Strength (which I can ignore as I can just go collect more guys).
I go south to Chalice and I could rebuild it but I don't really need it. Forest of Yore next. As always my second-in-command wants to destroy everything and why should I stand in his way. The Grand Wizard of Yore awaits us at the School of Magic, then turns out to have been a Dragon all along (is this canon? Someone tell the people at Titannica). Darkstorm deals as easily with him as he did with everybody else, turning into a Kragon (Warlock 13, page 16). The Wood Elves and such manage to tie my Barbarians in a single Attack Round and lose all others. The school is razed, the Dragon is kebab, more useless gold, and a random item: a Potion of Skill (and the reference number for the Potion of Strength I could have found instead is the same as the one I bought previously, so it should be genuine).
As usual I get thrown out of the place, but I can bounce off Chalice and return to pillage more. Trying to loot the school I get ambushed by Yorefolk, which just has the effect of raising my Honour towards unnecessary heights. Another attempt has me easily kill a Star Pupil, whoever that might be, in four Attack Rounds straight. He has another semi-fake Potion of Fortune!
There are some small scattered things I didn't do yet, like visiting Dree, the Healer, the Black Tower, buying the merchant's last few items. But Salamonis is just around the corner. Their knights and heroes ride out to face us on the battlefield, and they're the most competent adversaries yet. They shouldn't be that much of a problem, though. I win the first two Attack Rounds, then Chadda Darkmane shows up. I'm asked if I have the Nemesis codeword, and if there's anything that could stop me at this point, it would be if the vengeful dwarves have baked some kind of instant death into my sword as they forged it. With some trepidation I turn to the indicated paragraph, but it turns out Swinebeard spoke true: the sword negates Darkmane's divine protection. Without that, he's just your regular Skill 12, Stamina 24 protagonist doing 3 points of damage with attacks. I could reduce that to 2 by using the dragonscale shield, but I would rather have the diamond shield's AS modifier. I down my Potion of Fortune, and it's on! No, wait, I wave the Eye of the Cyclops at him first. He shrugs and makes a funny face.
Yeah, he wins a single Attack Round. Is this your best, Salamonis? Their army says well maybe not maybe there's some other guy around here I think his name was Bob maybe have you seen him? back ranks maybe? no? and our steppes bison step all over them, even if I assume my army blessing ran out after the first segment of this battle.
And that means turning to 200. I get a final Honour point, bringing me up to 29. There's no keeping this place in one piece, it's going to be burnt no matter what. I'm told to add up points based on my codewords, and I reach the second tier of barbarian victoriousness - evidently if you don't personally kill the Gold Dragon, which is not an option if you have Darkstorm with you, people will think, eh, conquer half a continent and get infinite gold, could have done better. But the adventure leaves the possibility open that we'll take Port Blacksand next, maybe that will provide the missing points and get us into the history books for real.
Win ratio: 1/17
Skeletons: 2/17
ThoughtsSo obviously the concept here is putting all of these classic Allansian features in one adventure, before any of the stories from the books played out, and in some alternate universe where maybe they never will. Here comes Zagor... but you're a Barbarian Warlord! You can walk into Deathtrap Dungeon... but you're a Barbarian Warlord! You can take on all of these big shots that a normal adventurer wouldn't have cause and/or capacity to bump off one after the other... and guess what, you're a Barbarian Warlord! There are some genuinely funny quips and exchanges involving your sub-warlord Nharog, and some amusing Easter eggs.
At the same time it's immediately obvious how firmly gated this experience is behind optimal Initial scores. If you play the adventure how it seems to have been intended - and consequently how you should get to legitimately attempt it - by romping away in any direction that takes your fancy and barbarian-boot-stomping anyone whose civilized face you don't like, you would need Skill 11, Horde Strike 11 at a minimum, or you're merely a hapless blowhard in front of a few ranks of scrawny Wild Hill Men, and boy, will the adventure let you know. If you get to exploiting the game mechanisms right away you may be able to salvage a middling Horde Strike, since it's the one thing you can systematically improve (with much flipping and busywork unless you assume at some point that your Fang-Zengis engine has gone infinite), though it would likely require good to great Stamina and Horde Strength to get started in addition to a recommended Skill 12, and a bad Honour roll would also add complications. But that wouldn't exactly be
fun, would it? Breaking the system and the theme shouldn't be the intended design. (Why is Honour randomized to begin with? Why couldn't you be allowed to raise your Horde Strength to some shared maximum? Your natural commanding capacity puts a strict ceiling on that but Horde Strike can just go up and up?)
The adventure is generally well written but there are some errors which maybe could have been found if it's been in the pipeline for more than ten years. There's also a number of small, fairly inconsequential technical quandaries in addition to ones that may have been brought up in the playthrough, e.g. why don't you need to Escape with your army in 164, and why does 156 assume you're using the sword when it only checked for the codeword? It appears the designer figured there'd be two paths with respect to Honour, but I don't see one of them working well. Honour steadily increases as you win battles, and can only be decreased in two ways: one, by using ubiquitous options to Escape, but if you're not doing this on purpose, you're losing anyway, and if you are, it's blatantly counterthematic; or two, by using recruitment options that appear some way into the game and which are gated behind Honour tests that you will likely pass unless you're just repeating them until you fail. Either way you must very deliberately contrive to lower your Honour, there's no "extra wicked" path with specific Honour penalties, notably razing cities do not come with them. It's also an entirely open question whether Honour can go negative, and if it cannot, then the low-Honour path is pretty much non-viable and one half of the victory matrix could be removed. And on that subject, was it a deliberate decision that in order to get the best score category, the player must contrive to lose the Storm or Dust codeword before facing the Gold Dragon with the crystal club? Doing so is easy and comes at no real cost if you know you should do it, but there's obviously no way of knowing beforehand, making it seem like the adventure's just thumbing its nose at you at the end (and who'd play again doing one thing differently?). And whyever doesn't 13 let you calculate a score to see how well you did?
In summation, it's another Wrightean Fabled Lands-style exploration and resource management game, like a cross between the preceding titles Sea of Madness and Rampage! (where the latter forestalled the zipping back and forth with a strict time limit, which was somewhat problematic in different ways), with some good thematic content amounting to a nice celebration of the Fighting Fantasy setting of Allansia, but which ultimately doesn't seem to entirely function as intended, so that to proceed through it mechanically you most likely need to abandon any pretense of it making sense thematically, and either way,
something isn't quite working as it should.
On the art front, Johan Tieldow goes and presents the first extremely strong contender for best art in the zine aside from Brett Schofield. The compositions and details are nothing short of phenomenal. Had this appeared in some alternative 1980s, not only would it likely have been considered top tier for FF by many, but it could have nicely followed up Gary Chalk's work in Lone Wolf. I absolutely love the sleepy expression of Zagor's Dragon, the line work in the background of the Stonebridge image, and the standing stones in the background of the Troll image, just to name a few things. (The one detail I would adjust is to remove the frame around Yaztromo's magic ectoplasm, as was done for Zagor's but in conjunction with a more general fading out of the frame.)