Background -
It is the tail end of 1986. Over two years since Fighting Fantasy went from concept to juggernaut powerhouse. But things are not all a bed of roses at Puffin Towers. Ian and Philippa are in her office having a heated discussion. Philippa behind her majestic mahogany desk while Ian sits on a plastic chair that would not be out of place in an 80s school dinner hall.
Philippa "All I am saying is that if he wants to keep his name on the books then he has to write more."
Ian "But he says he is not being challenged creatively enough! Can't they just say Ian Livingstone presents?"
Philippa "Thats not in the agreement. Unless you get Steve to write another book we will start putting the actual authors names on the book, and we might even given them your royalties."
Ian with a face redder than an Aberdeen home strip "Fine, ill talk to him."
Philippa "And I want a fantasy one from him, they sell the best!"
Scene moves to Ian and Steve's pad. Ian is outside Steve's locked bedroom door.
Ian "Look Steve I know, I know but I really need a book from you"
Steve "Fine but its not going to be fantasy, I have done horror, sci-fi, superheroes but I am sick of fantasy. How about a book about book publishers writing a book? It will be so meta!"
Ian "No Steve, I need a bog standard fantasy adventure based in Allansia."
Steve "I would rather gouge my own eyes out with a spoon."
Ian sighing "Look, I know, but this is important. If you do not give them another book they will take your name off the series."
Steve "Fine..."
Ian "And take away your royalties."
Steve "Fine."
Ian "And without royalties how will you pay for Mr Riddles cat food?"
Silence for a while and Ian slowly slides down the door, sitting with his back against it.
Ian "Ok, ill work something out with Philippa. If you do me one more fantasy book, then thats it. I will let you out and you can go on with your life."
Steve "Promise?"
Ian "Yes, this has gone on long enough."
Steve "Can I have more pages?"
Ian "Yes, you can have the ones you missed out on Starship Traveller back."
Steve "And can my hero, not be a hero?"
Ian "Erm, I guess so?"
Steve "And what about being a mindless being that has no idea on language?"
Ian "I have no idea how that even works but as long as you make it clear its in Allansia."
Steve "Deal"
In the real world Creature of Havoc was released in November 1986 and was the last entry of the original run to be written by series co-creator Steve Jackson. Even though he was not releasing as many as Ian Livingstone (as he was working on Sorcery), the ones he has released have always had something a bit different and I have enjoyed them all. Starship took us to Sci-Fi (although it was poor), House of Hell was a brilliant modern horror and Appointment was a fantastic super hero one. Even Citadel introduced a magic system! I am really looking forward to what he does here. I am aware of some of it from my youth, such as its very difficult, fiendish puzzles, possibly a big error, and that you are an actual monster. Lets hope he goes out on a high.
Covers -
Ok what is going on here? I normally really like the classic covers but I am going to be a bit controversial here and say this is one of the worst FF covers so far. I mean what kid wants to play a book with a green wizard doing his admin work?
I do have questions though -
I mean his writing technique is awful and what is up with the pen he is using? |
What has this guy seen? Whatever it is its far more exciting than this cover. |
Does anyone know what we are looking at now? I think its a dragon familiar regurgitating a miniature sun with a face. But I could be wrong. |
Now the Wizard cover is a lot better! Now for years and years I thought this was you, the actual Creature of Havoc, but it is not, its actually a creature from the game itself. Not much of a looker but its a great unique looking creature in the process of ripping an orc limb from limb. Pretty badass.
He also got the shield cover reissue treatment but meh, the full cover is better.
Scholastic are back on the reprint train here with it being a Steve Jackson book. And erm, well maybe the first cover is not so bad after all. We get a close up of old Zharradan Mharr drawn in a comic book style. He looks very much like the Leader from Marvel.
Will the Avengers save Allansia? |
Premise -
Ok people, you are going to have to bear with me here. Steve has presented us with a whopping 20 pages of background here called the Tales of Trolltooth Pass. The nerd in me loves the world building here, the blogger looks on in dread.
Trolltooth Pass -
The first part is a bit of a geography guide of various hills, plains and villages. And a bit about how the trading works. Guards known as Strongarms protect caravans going through the flatlands. Silverton gets a mention after appearing as the "good" place in City of Thieves and of course a Port Blacksand mention as well. Not too much here.
Dree - Village of Witch-Women -
A dark village nestling in the fork of two rivers like a viper in its nest, Dree is a magnet for miscreants and black-hearted creatures. Yeah sounds lovely. How did this place come into existence you ask? Well there was once a hag-witch Romeena Dree, who was a real nasty piece of work. And I do not mean a misunderstood poultice seller. No she was a practitioner of Marrangha which was the transplanting of limbs from one creature to another using magic. She was trying to create her own super creature, but they sound more like chaos spawn from Warhammer.
Anyway this made her quite unpopular with the locals of Salamonis where she lived and when she started upsetting the Gods she was bundled up in chains and forced to live somewhere else. This somewhere else became the village of Dree as more like minded followers/maniacs flocked to her.
Anybody sailing past Dree were horrified by all the twisted mutants flopping around in the gutters. It is described as worse than hell itself.
Traders eventually decide there is a killing to be made here but they all end up being made into the witches experiments. That is apart from Ganga, who figured out the best thing would be to trade them some things they wanted, such as herbs and body parts such as elf eyes. It works and Ganga gets very rich before others figure it out as well. Good for Ganga I guess.... Its all about that supply and demand!
The Women of Dree -
Its not all bad. Romeena had three younger sisters who prefer to explore and get out and about, even helping humanity which is nice. Some others have also left though and are a lot more evil, such as the witches that ended up in Balthus Dires kitchens. Its these ones that contribute to Dree still having a bad reputation. Well that and I imagine the dark horrors they inflict on their victims.....
Zharradan Marr the Necromancer -
Remember those aforementioned sisters. Well they raised a child. Father is unknown but there is one particular unlucky demon from hell being hit for child maintenance. Anyway that child was old Zharradan himself. Now the sisters knew the only male in Dree would not be safe so they sent him off to boarding school with the premier expert of dark magic, Volgera Darkstorm. The class of 86 as it was known was Zharradan, Balthus Dire and Zargor (The Warlock of Firetop Mountain). The three became good friends and rivals.
It's during this time that Zharradan decides he does not like the last name of Dree as its got a negative association with crappy witch magic and Zharradan was far too cool for this by now. So instead of just changing his name on Deed Poll he instead cast a magic spell that made everyone who had ever heard the name forget it. From now on he was Zharradan Marr. Wait a minute if the spell was successful how do we know?
As time went by the three pupils started to get better than their master. Darkstorm panicked a bit and decided the best way to deal with this would be to kill them, which seems a bit drastic but this is bad magic school, like an evil Hogwarts. Inevitably though the Demonic Three, as they called themselves, killed Darkstorm and looted his library before going their separate ways. A tale as old as time.
Coven -
Big Z makes his way to the village of Coven and proceeds to build an underground lair for himself. In a happy coincidence he also discovers a lot of gold and becomes insanely rich. Now this would be enough for myself but not Zharradan, like any good bad guy he wants complete world domination.
Part one of this plan is his first hire - Vallaska Roue. He does not sound like a pleasant individual and shares a lot of Zharradna's values. I can imagine the interview questions.
You find a person wounded and needing help, do you -
a) press into the wound with your finger
b) rob them
c) take some flesh for experimenting
d) all of the above
Anyway Roue gets sent off to find more generals for the world domination plan and a neutral wizard called Hannicus gets a job overseeing the mine. He seems a lot more normal but Zharradan is just using him for the local information, but he does build him a house which is nice.
The Rainbow Ponds -
A mythical place hidden in the forest of spiders. Apparently all types of coloured pools, due to the crystals in them. If you bathe in them each one has a different effect, like making you really charismatic. The pools are beautiful beyond compare apparently. Why do you keep saying apparently John I hear you ask? Well because nobody has ever seen them, nobody! Convenient.
Sittle Woad -
Eren Durdinath is a fabled Elven village that lies hidden in the forest of spiders. Hidden by magic so only people that have been invited by the elves can find it. Except if a young drunk elf goes out on the town and accidently blabs about it. Yep this is exactly what happened for Leeha Falsehope. Falsehope, maybe Steve was flagging a bit with the old world building. Anyway he panics and tries to say its called Sittle Woad which is apparently a dye elves use. The people don't buy it though and Leeha goes home in shame. In fact his decedents are still living in shame because of this! Who are these elves? Warhammer Dwarfs?
The Vapours of Sittle Woad -
So what's the big secret about Sittle Woad you ask? Well its all about the vapours. It all starts with a deal between the Gods and the Elves. In return for the protection of the gods (including said magical cloaking) the elves would give them their most beautiful maiden to become the queen. The queen would then commune with the Gods and at this stage I am thinking what's in it for the Gods? Well apparently commune means get it on as the queen would always give birth afterwards. Sounds like some Zeus sh*t to me.
Hello Ladies! |
In a strange twist though instead of a child the queen gives birth to spirits called vapours. These are immediately bottled up for the queen to use later. Its very precise though, she can only use them once during her reign and even then only on one night of the year, known as the celestial equinox, when her God's constellation takes a certain position in relation to the other heavenly bodies.
Thugruff and Darramouss -
So the wizard Hannicus relates all this to his new boss Zharradan with some extra info. The current queen, Ethiless, was so beautiful three Gods "visited" her, the gods of language, reason and elf magic. Zharradans ears pop up at the mention of elf magic and he decides he wants a bit of that.
But we are talking years going by and in the meantime they recruit the half troll Thugruff to the cause. He was in the same mold as the rest of them and ended up bulldozing Hannicus house and made it into a training ground for troops. Apparently old Hannicus was a bit crap at his job anyway.
Darramouss was an undead half elf who was particularly cruel. He likes torturing his victims before killing them. He took over the running of the mine and immediately wondered why the miners were getting paid. Putting a stop to this he made them all slaves and now the armies of Zharradan regularly go and collect more slaves for the mines.
Daga Weaseltongue -The Innocent Traitor -
With a name like Daga Weaseltongue you know this not going to be good. Of course he is cousin to Erulia Falsehope, this family is terrible with names. Anyway Zharradan disguises himself as a rhino man from the army and makes friends with Daga and manipulates him into stealing the vapours for him. Great mission accomplished if you are Zharradan. Slight problem, he has no idea how they work so still needs to find the elven village. I don't know how Daga is an innocent traitor? Yes he was manipulated but he still did the deed!
The Galleykeep -
When word got around of a miracle airship that could hold a thousand troops, old Zharradan had to have it. After using his Tooki Troops, which I imagine are like Koopas, he takes the ship and uses it as his new palace. As an added bonus he thinks he will be able to spot the elven village from the air as they will not have thought to disguise it from that angle.
So now Zharradan Marr is flying in his new house over the Forest of Spiders, looking to find the village to unlock the secrets of the vapours. The world is all in a panic as it would spell doom if he is successful. Brave adventurers are being dispatched to reclaim the vapours which would normally be the lead in to this adventure but not for Steve.
And that is the epic background of Creature of Havoc. Honestly its is longer than some playthroughs! I have massively truncated it. Just one more page, I wonder what it says -
This is the background to Creature of Havoc. Much of what you have read will be of little help to you and some of the information may even lead you astray...
WHAT!!?? 20 pages of background info and you are saying its of little help!?
Instead the real background starts now. You are a creature and you do not have much awareness and your actions will be ruled by instinct. You need to find the answers to Who am I? Where do you come from? Why am I here? Could have just said that Steve.
Playthrough -
So despite it being a Steve Jackson book we do not have much fancy mechanics. In fact the adventure sheet is super basic with the usual Skill, Stamina, Luck and one big box for items carried and information gathered.
The book does say read the rules carefully as it is not the same as other Fighting Fantasy books. And it is just as well I did! For in the rules about combat I found that you only lose 1 stamina point per hit rather than the normal 2 and that a luck test can reduce it to no damage at all. My creature must have a tough hide.
Also when rolling for attack strength in combat, if you roll a double its a killing blow and you automatically win. That sounds quite powerful!
Skill - 11
Stamina - 18
Luck - 7
Well my monster is very strong, reasonably tough, but not very lucky at all! Hopefully I will not be relying too much on luck in my playthrough.
This guy looks like he needs our help. |
So I wake up in pain, can hardly open my eyes. I ascertain I have scales and spines on my back and a heavy head. I hear some breathing in the corridor to the North so I head over that way and encounter a wounded dwarf who points a pointy stick at me.
I decide there are no need for hostilities yet so try and offer him some help by showing I mean him no harm. It does not go very well as first he hits me with his sword for 2 points of stamina points. I do not give up though and try and restrain him to calm him down. This goes even worse as my long talons erm... kill him. Whoops. I also lose another stamina point as he hit me while I was "helping" him.
Since he is dead lets have a look at what he has. But even this proves difficult as my big hands fumble around. I see some nice coins but my beast does not understand coins and I am much more attracted to a scrap of leather. I play with it and even wear it as a hat. Its got a message on it which I cant read but if I need to use it I have to go to page 337.
We are now told we are currently at the whim of the creatures instinct so we need to roll a dice to see which way we head off. I roll a 3.
I am bumping along the walls of the tunnel and see a light and get excited and charge in with teeth bared. And smash straight into a group of adventurers! One of them is a hobbit who I instinctivly hate and attack without mercy!
I do not dislike Hobbits in real life but Frodo really annoys me, Sam did all the hard work. Anyway with a skill advantage of 6 I smash through him in three straight attack rounds. I start to chew away at the Hobbits arm before I remember the other two. One is clearly a wizard preparing a spell and the others description sounds like a knight of some kind. I can not choose who to attack and instead must trust to luck.
Which of course I fail. It is a Knight, Skill 8, stamina 9 so quite a tough battle for so early. I get hit twice before I take him down and already stamina is sitting at a worrying 11. No provisions either, hopefully I can toast the hobbit.
Instead though the wizard has has cast a creature control spell and he uses me to carry his dead friends bodies away. Your adventure ends here. Wow.
I think we can all agree that is far too quick for a blog so instead lets reset and pretend I randomly rolled a 4/5/6 for the direction choice.
This way leads to a door, but I have to roll to randomly determine going back the way I came or smashing it open. I roll a 2 and trudge back the way I came.... sigh
Kill hobbit again in three rounds and this time pass luck test (rolled a 5, if I had failed again I would have rage quit). Luckily you kill the wizard first without a fight but the Knight gets a free hit before the combat starts. We then proceed to draw the first 3 rounds of combat, and another one later! But he does not wound me this time and stamina is at 13.
I should mention as well that my opponents have been speaking full sentences but its all gibberish so my creature can not understand it.
Not only do I eat the hobbit though, I also eat the wizard and restore my stamina to its initial level! I discard the useless metal pieces and the dough substance they all carry (precious provisions) and head west.
Some flying creatures attack me but they cant get through my scales so I continue on happily to another door, which I can smash in or try something else, but its another dice roll. Creature decides to smash through the door and finds a scene of a battle which I think is a couple of dead adventurers and orcs on the floor (at least I think they are Orcs). As I look on though I hear chomping and flesh magically starts to disappear from the bodies.
Another random roll and I start prodding the bodies and I a rewarded by the materialization of Flesh Feeders!
Evil creatures, they must be my friends right? Wrong. |
Luckily even though they are three of them I dispatch them as they are skill 6 without getting hit (even with me rolling a snake eyes for one attack round, which was an instant kill haha). I try and eat some Orcs but its not very nice and I spit it out. More shiny metal is found and discarded but one of the adventurers has box and I struggle to open it. Finally with much banging the flask contained within opens and a purple vapor appears.
Yeah I wasn't typing this out. |
Creature is not amused so swipes away at the cloud which goes back into the flask, re stoppers itself, and then magically disappears. I then get 2 luck points. Ok.
And accidentally seem to conjure a Rock Demon! |
Since losing his job Hannicus has fallen on hard times. |
I honestly thought from the description I was heading towards standing stones. |
Welcome to Dree, its not bad, honest! |
The Women of Dree are all single and available to a lucky bachelor. |
Grog is the Mungo of this quest. |
The Testing Grounds, where a great new career awaits! |
Oh boy! |
Cursewitches need their beauty sleep, try not to wake them up. |
Master of Hellfire does not stay down for long! |
Absolutely needed an illustration to go with the text! |
I mean this would be fine if it didn't mean you were dead. |
It was only after I had read what happens that I noticed the eyes in the web at the top. |
Black Elves do not fear you, they just shoot you down. Or blow on a whistle for an endless amount of Chaos Warriors to pop up. |
The Carrion Bugs I came across have an illustration if you get to them from another route. |
A big assed claw beast with a strange face. |
The Giant Hornet can instant kill you if he rolls a double! |
This is the GalleyKeeps doctor, Quimmel Bone. |
The Shadow Stalker just keeps hitting your shadow. |
The Toadmen will kill you unless you have a friend. |
Mmmm Tasty! |
I actually prefer the dungeon segment to the outside. I feel once you find Grog, the outside segment becomes a bit too straightforward. For instance, a lot of the dangers of the Galleykeep like Quimmel Bone are only really encountered if you ignore what you've been told. Still, it's cool encountering so many of the things you read about in the background.
ReplyDeleteYou and me have very different feelings about the dungeon haha. But that's the beauty of theses books, everyone likes different things about them. I do agree about the Galleykeep, would have been better a bit more linear and use your knowledge to best people like Quimmel Bone.
DeleteI bought this one second-hand and have a clear memory of playing it for the first time. I got stuck in a loop where I kept coming back to the curse witch room which was quite disturbing. (Though I actually thought that once you translate what the curse witches are saying they become rather less scary, since they give a little speech about how annoyed they are at you. Sort of broke the creepiness spell for me.)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the Photoshop for Pete's Corner is absolutely brilliant this entry! I think they should use that as the cover for the next edition.
A much more sinister villain here that Zagor or almost any other FF bad guy; though I guess he still has to do mountains of paperwork judging by the cover.
Thanks Mike, with the mention of Pete's Corner from someone he is now demanding royalties haha! Its very easy to get stuck in a loop in this one, multiple times!
DeleteOh hey, you're back! I remember reading this and mostly just cursing at being stuck a lot. Definitely wouldn't have managed the decoding. Maybe I'll give it a try some day. Most of these characters and lore will feature again in the Fighting Fantasy novels, the Trolltooth Wars, where an adventurer has to contend with Balthus Dire and Zharradan Marr both warring for dominance. I liked that novel.
ReplyDeleteI still own the Trolltooth Wars but have not read it in about 25 years, but I do remember really liking it so it will be getting a re-read very soon!
DeleteGreat time to do it since you now have experienced all three parties, Zagor, Balthus Dire and Zharradan Marr. Best done before Zagor becomes super evil in the later books!
DeleteThanks for this one, and sorry to hear that it nearly tanked your holiday! If it's any consolation, I think this is probably the best review of the book I've read; it's certainly the one that is nearest to my own feelings. Like you, I love the above-ground section when you actually start to encounter all those tantalising places and characters mentioned in the wonderful introduction. The dark atmosphere of cruelty, paranoia and body-horror still packs a punch, and elements such as the Galley Keep, Dree and Quimmel Bone create a weird (but completely logical) imaginative world that is frankly stunning in its depth and moral greyness. But the dungeon is no fun to play, and even when you get control over the Creature, too much of it is taken up with blind (and bland) do-or-die, left-or-right choices straight from the pre-Deathtrap books. I suppose, like you, I appreciate the *idea* of the book, and the amount of intellectual muscle that went into it, more than I enjoy actually playing it. Still, I can't deny Jackson's genius - he definitely pushed the gamebook format almost as far as it could go here. Only Paul Mason took it closer to breaking point, to my mind. If only it was as much fun as F.E.A.R. or Sorcery! (or Secrets of Salomonis, for that matter) I'd be a lot happier joining the choir in praising it to the skies.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much Ben! Glad you enjoyed the review. Yeah I appreciate the technical achievement of the book, but if the dungeon was half as fun as the outside it would have been a top contender for me. Steve Jackson really was one for pushing innovation. Most of the time it works really well but the dungeon is a miss for me. But don't get me wrong people should still play this as the second half and the background are so good.
DeleteToo true! Weirdly, when Creature was first advertised in Warlock magazine, the super-long introduction was included as a selling point for its nerdling readership. The advert calls it something like a 'Special Introductory Section', almost as though you're getting a free novella with every purchase.
Delete