YOU become the hero!
Friday, 10. August 2007, 08:19:51
Cobwebs brush your face and you hear the scurrying of tiny feet: rats, most likely. You set off into the cave. After a few yards you arrive at a junction. Will you turn west (turn to 71) or east (turn to 278)?
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is twenty five years old, and a hardback anniversary edition has been released, with the original cover and assorted extras, including a map of the mountain. My Puffin original, which I've dug out, is falling apart.
This book, and not, say, The Hobbit, was the start of things for me, the first step down the winding road to geekdom. The "About the Authors" text in the back of Warlock notes their love for
American Role-Playing Games like Dungeons & Dragons, Runequest and Traveller
It was a couple of years before a basic role-playing game based on the game books, "Fighting Fantasy" was released. Tom Brooks ran a couple of games of this, although he quickly advanced up to running Runequest.
It was late eighty five when I first got my hands on Chaosium's seminal Call of Cthulhu, and some of you will remember the fun we had with it. And the following year, Warhammer Fantasy Role Play was published by Games Workshop, the company founded by Warlock authors Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.
The current WFRP game is fifty two episodes old. Cthulhu is currently dormant, but not forgotten.
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain changed my life.
WIDGETIZE
Uncle Thang # 10. August 2007, 15:31
How may RPGs did we go through? Paranoia, Judge Dredd (or how to trash a lawmaster bike in 5 easy stages), Whatever the Stormbringer based one was called, WHRP, CoC and no doubt I've forgotten a few.
Personally I've never been able to hear Phaedra without checking my room exits since those CoC sessions at Pete's (hmmmm could have phrased that better).
Let's go to Czechoslovakia!
Leon # 10. August 2007, 17:08
Peter Taylor # 10. August 2007, 17:55
Zeit has crossed over to WFRP, but Phaedra remains sacred. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age and Neptune, the Mystic don't see any WFRP action, either, lest I slip into describing a ritual next to some pyramids.
Or a car chase.
Uncle Thang # 10. August 2007, 22:34
Matt # 12. August 2007, 20:39
Any plans for a Cthulu one-off?
Peter Taylor # 13. August 2007, 07:29
You wanna get Nel onto Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series. Surely the peak of the genre...?
Flat Sky # 13. August 2007, 16:33
Peter Taylor # 13. August 2007, 18:03
Eight more episodes were attempted between September and 29th November 1998, where the campaign stopped near Nairobi.
Sadly, there are hardly any records of the more seminal earlier adventures from '86 onwards. The (blindfolded, ahem) classic that featured a trek through the jungles of Belize, a temple called Bendal-Dolum, and then its alternate version in Dreamlands was called The Pits of Bendal-Dolum. Which was probably the high point of all my Cthulhuing.
So far.
miro237 # 18. August 2007, 00:33
Peter Taylor # 18. August 2007, 08:18
We'll talk about this when I'm over/rahnd your mahner/crashing at your gaffe etc.