Blood Sword
Encyclopedia
Gamebook
A gamebook is a work of fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making effective choices. The narrative branches along various paths through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages...
s created by Oliver Johnson and Dave Morris
Dave Morris
Dave Morris is a British author of gamebooks, novels and comics and a designer of computer games and role-playing games.-Biography:Dave Morris is a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford where he read Physics from 1976-79....
and published by Knight Books in the late 1980s. The books were illustrated by Russ Nicholson
Russ Nicholson
-Career:Nicholson is best known for his work on the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, in particular, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and numerous Games Workshop products, including Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Warhammer 40,000 and to their magazine White Dwarf.Nicholson...
and the maps supplied by Geoff Wingate. It was set in the invented fantasy world of "Legend", the authors' own fantasy world, which was the setting for their Dragon Warriors
Dragon Warriors
Dragon Warriors is a fantasy role playing game system written by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson and published by Corgi Books between the years 1985 and 1986. In 2009 it was re-collected in a new hardcover edition by Mongoose Publishing...
role playing game too.
The world of Legend
The world of Legend has noticeable parallels with our own in the late 10th century AD, with strong elements of ChristianChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
and Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
ian mythology. Crusaders of the 'True Faith' (an analogue of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
) have defeated the Ta'ashim people (an analogue of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
) and conquered the Outremer
Outremer
Outremer, French for "overseas", was a general name given to the Crusader states established after the First Crusade: the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and especially the Kingdom of Jerusalem...
. As the timeline approaches 1000 AD, Millennialist
Millennialism
Millennialism , or chiliasm in Greek, is a belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state...
fever grips many.
After emerging victorious from the Battlepits of Krarth (book 1), where a deadly contest is held every thirteen months, you - a hero (or a group of heroes) belonging to the True Faith - are involved in a bloody battle against a pack of werewolves (book 2). Having defeated the pack, you receive a jeweled scabbard from a dying harpist - it's the scabbard
Scabbard
A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, knife, or other large blade. Scabbards have been made of many materials over the millennia, including leather, wood, and metals such as brass or steel.-Types of scabbards:...
of the Sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
of Life, dubbed Blood Sword in popular folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
. You will need to find the missing parts of the sword - first the hilt
Hilt
The hilt of a sword is its handle, consisting of a guard,grip and pommel. The guard may contain a crossguard or quillons. A ricasso may also be present, but this is rarely the case...
, then the blade
Blade
A blade is that portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with a cutting edge and/or a pointed tip that is designed to cut and/or puncture, stab, slash, chop, slice, thrust, or scrape animate or inanimate surfaces or materials...
- in order to slay the coming True Magi, who were killed in the Blasting - a major cataclysm - six hundred years ago, and now want to rule the world on their return. Only the Blood Sword, the bane of the undead
Undead
Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased and yet behave as if alive. Undead may be incorporeal, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as vampires and zombies...
, can stop them. So you travel to the northern land of Wyrd
Wyrd
Wyrd is a concept in Anglo-Saxon culture roughly corresponding to fate or personal destiny. The word is ancestral to Modern English weird, which retains its original meaning only dialectally....
, where the Warlock-King guards the hilt from inside his Palace of Eternal Dusk. Then your journey takes you south (book 3), to Crescentium - the main port of the Outremer. There you will find several allies - among whom the assassin
Hashshashin
The Assassins were an order of Nizari Ismailis, particularly those of Persia that existed from around 1092 to 1265...
leader Hasan-i-Sabbah - who will help you find the blade. But your old enemy Aiken - a Yamatese
Yamato Province
was a province of Japan, located in Kinai, corresponding to present-day Nara Prefecture in Honshū. It was also called . At first, the name was written with one different character , and for about ten years after 737, this was revised to use more desirable characters . The final revision was made in...
warrior, known in the lands of the West by the name of Icon the Ungodly - will eventually find you, and after you defeat him for the second time Icon falls down to Sheol
Sheol
Sheol |Hebrew]] Šʾôl) is the "grave", "pit", or "abyss" in Hebrew. She'ol is the earliest conception of the afterlife in the Jewish scriptures. It is a place of darkness to which all dead go, regardless of the moral choices made in life, and where they are "removed from the light of God"...
, the realm of the dead, taking the Blood Sword with him. So you will have to enter Sheol (book 4), a patchwork of hells from different mythologies, where a mysterious man who goes by the name of the Traveller takes you through a long journey which ends before archangel Azrael
Azrael
Azrael is the name of the Archangel of Death in some extrabiblical traditions. He is also the angel of death in Islamic theology and Sikhism. It is an English form of the Arabic name ʿIzrāʾīl or Azra'eil , the name traditionally attributed to the angel of death in some sects of Islam and Sikhism,...
. Here you discover that the Traveller is no one else but Icon, your arch-enemy, whom you finally manage to kill, thus retrieving the Blood Sword. In the last book, while the Millennialist fever is engulfing the continent, you travel north once more to enter the citadel of Spyte, where the True Magi are going to reincarnate at midnight at the end of the millennium. You finally defeat them with the help of Karunaz, a Ta'ashim noble warrior, son of Hasan-i-Sabbah. It's now midnight of Winter's Eve, 999 AD - Judgment Day has come, and you are rewarded with eternal life in Paradise
Paradise
Paradise is a place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and...
.
Gameplay
The book series differed from many of the Fighting FantasyFighting Fantasy
Fighting Fantasy is a series of single-player fantasy roleplay gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The first volumes in the series were published by Puffin in 1982, with the rights to the franchise eventually being purchased by Wizard Books in 2002...
and Choose Your Own Adventure
Choose Your Own Adventure
Choose Your Own Adventure is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's outcome. The series was based on a...
type books of the era by being designed for multi-player, co-operative play (though there was also a single-player option, and one player could control more than one character at a time).
A party could consist of up to four players, with each player being either a Sage, Enchanter, Trickster or Warrior. Each of the classes was well-balanced and offered a different playing style from the others. Characters advanced in level, gaining power as the series progressed, and were carried forward from book to book, giving the experience of one long story. Players reported they felt they had engaged in more of a roleplaying game session than "merely" a gamebook.
Each player was autonomous - often paragraphs would be for one player's eyes only, and he would be privy to some information that he was free to withhold from the rest of his party.
Combat
Combat took place on mini-maps consisting of squares, with players able to use tactical combat options to defeat their foes. This added a dimension of realism to the game, for players had to move to their enemies before fighting them, and if it were a surprise attack, their enemies would start near or next to them. Some mini-maps include a square for fleeing; if the players wish to flee from the battle, they must move to that square before turning to the appropriate paragraph.Sometimes there would be impassable obstacles on maps which characters would have to get around, or squares impassable to players but usable by monsters (eg: burning hot coals).
Classes
- Warrior: The typical hack-and-slash, honourable fighter. He can absorb and deal the most damage, but does not have any unique skills and must also act honourably or face penalties.
- Trickster: A cunning and charismatic thief, albeit one with a heart.
- Sage: A warrior-monk with mystical powers such as levitation and healing, as well as knowledge of ancient loreFolkloreFolklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
. There are many occasions when a Sage's wisdom is called upon to solve a problem or provide more information about something. - Enchanter: The obligatory mage who starts the game with a long list of spells.
Attributes
- Fighting Prowess: A measure of how powerful a fighter the character is.
- Psychic Ability: An indicator of the character's resistance to attack spells and (in the case of an Enchanter) his or her aptitude for magic.
- Awareness: The character's speed, dexterity and cunning.
- Endurance: Measures the character's state of health; wounds are deducted from Endurance and if it reaches zero, the character dies.
Attributes are dependent on your level. This makes for simpler gameplay and admittedly has a certain charm about it, but you cannot customise your character by, say, making him a slightly better fighter.
Books in the series
The series consisted of five books:1 : The Battlepits of Krarth
"Every thirteen lunar months the Magi of Krarth hold a deadly contest to see which of them will rule that bleak and icy land. Teams of daring adventurers are sent down into the labyrinths that lie beneath the tundra, each searching for the Emblem of Victory that will win power for their patron. Only one team can survive. The others must die."
2 : The Kingdom of Wyrd
"From the Palace of Eternal Dusk, the Warlock-King holds his realm in thrall. His tyrannized subjects live in perpetual fear, for they know their evil monarch can see into the minds of others and slay them in their dreams. Only outsiders from beyond the boundaries of Wyrd may slay the tyrant - and they will need all the courage and skill that mortals ever can possess."
3 : The Demon's Claw
"Will you survive the perils of the desert city of Crescentium? The wandering ghouls and assassins? The half-human monsters? The dreaded Seven-in-One? For this is a land of sorcery and treachery - where you will encounter terrors and wonders more fabulous than you had ever dared imagine - the great Roc, the three wishes, the ship of the Pirate-King, the flying horse, the magic of the beautiful Psyche. And who shall win the Sword of Death, the Demon's Claw itself?"
4 : Doomwalk
"Of all the desperate adventures, this is the most desperate - and the most vital. Only two years remain before the year 1000, when the Magi's power will have waxed full and the moment of their reincarnation will be at hand! All is not lost; if you can recover the fragments of the Blood Sword, the Magi can be opposed. But to do so, you must travel to the land of death..."
5: The Walls of Spyte
"In the darkening sky above, five ominous stars have come into conjunction for the first time in 200 years. Out of the vault of the sky they cast their baleful influence across the frozen landscape. They are the disembodied spirits of the last of the Magi, seeing the return to the mortal world at midnight and ushering in a new era of terror. You wield the sole force in the world capable of destroying the Magi. The Sword of Life is mankind's only hope but it is no guarantee of victory. The Magi have had 2 centuries of exile to plan their reincarnation. To stop them you will need greater courage and strength than ever before!"