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Guy Fawkes posted:Prpfessor Heny Jones (jr) a.k.a. Indy would like to remind us that "70 percent of archaeology is done in the library" The Kingdoms of Terror posted:The books are catalogued under headings that cover all manner of subjects. You search for those relating to the Lorestone of Varetta or any that detail the history of the Kai or Sun Eagle’s quest. You discover to your surprise that they have all been removed. Judging by the lack of dust on the empty shelves, they were taken away less than a day ago. After double-checking that you have not overlooked anything, you decide that there is little here to help you on your quest and leave the library.
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Dec 12, 2017 00:40
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 15:47 |
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Observatory
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Dec 12, 2017 00:58
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Let's observe.
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Dec 12, 2017 01:39
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OK, let's knock out the last of the major players in Legends of Lone Wolf with Alyss. She an essentially omnipotent manic pixie dream girl (before that was an identified thing) who works/messes with the good guys through the series. She pops up in Banedon's early scenes, intimating she has some foreknowledge of a romantic relationship they will share in the future. She later gives his rather lowly magic a boost to get him back home to Toran alive. She also ruffles the feathers of some of the antagonists as well. She's the one who faces down the previously young and hearty Vonotar and curses him with a few extra decades and a severe case of kyphosis (permanently crippling him...at least physically). She also disguises herself as a Drakarrim to annoy Zagarna which is more or less in line with how her character is presented. So the big thing in the early books she does is bring Lone Wolf back to life. After his ship to Durenor is sunk, he's left weaponless and relatively helpless. He's taken in by some jerk fishermen who steal all of his possessions (including the Seal of Durenor) and then slit his throat. This is apparently not part of the big plan, and sets off some cosmic alarm bells. Now while Alyss is presented as essentially omnipotent, she does admit to some limitations. Her early origin story is a bit abstract: Naar and Ishir came to an accord dividing the multiverse between them (Aon and particularly Magnamund serving as the final battle lines) and Alyss was made up of what Ishir had left over at the end. While she can create tornadoes at a whim, blind people with her mind and cause darkspawn to explode with a thought, her actual ability to enact palpable change against the grain of reality is limited. Nevertheless, she's on the right side of things and recognizes the true catastrophe presented by Lone Wolf's untimely death. She warps to Toran and combines her powers with those of Banedon and the Guildmaster of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star in a...dance...and changes the weave of reality to restore Lone Wolf's life and subsequently ensure the retrieval of the Sommerswerd and the fall of Zagarna. This extraordinary effort puts her into a coma for a book or so until Banedon revives her by inadvertently sacrificing a relic of hers. This coincides with book 3, the Caverns of Kalte. And then things get weird.
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Dec 12, 2017 07:21
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I wonder how and if Legends of Lone Wolf address the taxidermist.
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Dec 12, 2017 10:15
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The Kingdoms of Terror posted:The door clicks shut behind you. It takes a few seconds for your eyes to grow accustomed to the dimly lit interior, but the room appears to be the antechamber of a larger hall. Following the faint sound of voices, you pass through an archway, along a corridor, and into the main hall. Gathered about a circular table of gleaming steel, a group of elderly men are poring over books, star charts, and astral maps, engrossed in discussion. Globes of blue-white fire hang motionless in the air above them to illuminate their work. The old men do not see you until you are close to their steel table. Their reaction to your sudden appearance is astonishing—they look as though they have seen a ghost. There are yelps of shock and startled expressions; sweat forms on their brows. The sight is too much for one old man, who swoons and faints, falling limply across his books and maps. Only one man remains calm and collected.
We've heard the names "Tekaro" and "Armory" before. We have no room to spare in our backpack and no free weapon slots. I remember a weird bit from the novelisation of this book that relates to this meeting with Gwynian; in the novels, Lone Wolf investigates the hut on Raider's Road and meets the old man just as we did, and he recognises Gwynian here, but Gwynian doesn't recognise him. Turns out that wasn't Gwynian in the hut. It was a manifestation of the power of the Sommerswerd bonding with Lone Wolf's soul, and it just appeared in the form of someone that Lone Wolf would eventually meet. The novels are weird.
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Dec 12, 2017 13:38
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To Soren!
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Dec 12, 2017 14:09
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The road to Amory seems to be the more direct route to our destination.
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Dec 12, 2017 14:49
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Grab the brass whistle and then to Amory!
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Dec 12, 2017 16:31
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It's not Armory, it's Amory (with one R).
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Dec 12, 2017 19:12
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Let's get the Brass Whistle and then to Amory.
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Dec 12, 2017 19:56
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Leraika posted:Grab the brass whistle Materant posted:It's not Armory, it's Amory (with one R). The Kingdoms of Terror posted:You ride all night without sleep, with only the moon to light your way and the howling wind as your companion. As the first light of dawn creeps over the horizon, you see a small village less than a mile ahead. A dog barks gruffly at you as you ride into the refuse-strewn streets, and you are forced to drive it away with the toe of your boot as it snaps persistently at your horse’s hind legs.
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Dec 13, 2017 01:40
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cess /ses/ (noun) (in Scotland, Ireland, and India) a tax or levy. Sounds like we're going to need to stop and ask. Materant fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Dec 13, 2017 |
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Dec 13, 2017 04:48
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Keep riding. Kai Lords are tax exempt.
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Dec 13, 2017 10:29
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Materant posted:cess /ses/ (noun) The Kingdoms of Terror posted:Spurring your horse up the steep path to the manor house, you pass beneath its turreted gate and halt at a small outhouse whose walls are embellished with intricate ironwork. The top half of a stable door swings open, and a spiky-haired youth leers at you.
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Dec 13, 2017 12:50
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Three coins is nothing, bounce them off his forehead
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Dec 13, 2017 12:59
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What’s a cess? Does it mean what we think it means?
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Dec 13, 2017 14:03
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In Italian, cesso (a common, slightly coarse word for toilet) is shortened to cess in many dialects, so this is especially amusing to me. Sure man, give us your loo.
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Dec 13, 2017 19:15
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Let’s talk about the weirdness that is Dagger in the Spine. It comes between Hunting Wolf and Sacrifice at Ruanon, or The Caverns of Kalte and the Chasm of Doom. First off, Alyss decides to go back to the beginning of the universe to learn about her birth creation. She stumbles on a verbal dust worm named Garna that she brings with her. On the way she meets a rogue Kai named Cloud Maker in Ragadorn who she sends to help Lone Wolf and Qinifer rebuild the monastery and the order of the Kai. It’s possible to meet him in book 2 if you pick right and he puts you up for a night. He also meets LW in the fiction series in the process of being resurrected and regaining the Seal. He’s a nice guy and gets killed pretty soon after arriving at the Monastery. Alyss gets a bit lost on the way and gets stranded in a primeval chaotic plane of existence. She at one point bumps into a tree that comes out of nowhere and briefly befriends some spectral flying dogs, one of whom is overcome by some evil forces chasing them along their way. At the end of her search, she learns that by interacting with these beings in the early primordial soup of existence, she created Vashna (the tree), Agarash the Damned (the hound) and Zagarna (the mud worm). She is appropriately chagrined, and goes home. So there’s that dimension to things. Lone Wolf, in the meantime, gets kidnapped by Kraan and brought to Helgedad under the command of Haakon who is making a play for head Darklord against Slûtar with Gnaag lurking in the wings. Haakon keeps LW hostage for two years before Slûtar schemes with Carag to free Lone Wolf and make Haakon look bad. This backfires and Haakon comes out on top. Slûtar is described thusly: posted:He was not quite so tall as Gnaag or even Haakon, but he was much bulkier, so that even his powerful mount needed all its great strength to bear him. His body was covered in luxurious blond fur, which whipped and snapped in the shrill wind as he urged the Zlanbeast on to even greater feats of speed. His wide mouth seemed to fill most of his face, so that the eyes were crushed up towards the corners. He had a larger pair of eyes, one at the front of each shoulder, and these flitted fretfully from side to side, observing everything yet showing few signs of intelligence. Remaining open even when he slept, these were linked to a secondary brain in his chest, which sifted the information from them and then relayed anything it considered relevant on to his primary brain. He had a long and very thick coiled tail thattwitched seemingly uncontrollably. Like the rest of his body it was covered in long fair hair. It was powerfully muscled: when he uncoiled it in battle itcould move so quickly as to be almost invisible, crushing opponents on every side. While all this is going on, Banedon and Qinifer go to Vassegonia to investigate evil goings on. Banedon gets some street smarts, Qinifer kills a helghast with an ordinary weapon, and they learn that the old Zahkan is a jerkoff letting spawn infiltrate his city with concerns only for himself. In the end, everyone goes back home in the end to set up for the equivalent of book 4.
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Dec 13, 2017 20:04
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Ratatozsk posted:Let’s talk about the weirdness that is Dagger in the Spine. The last one I've read of the "legends" and the one that convinced me to stop. In fact the story could'va been avoided at all, it added NOTHING to the plot and was WEIRD... For our actual course of action, Lets' pay the cess (or toll).
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Dec 13, 2017 20:52
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Ratatozsk posted:On the way she meets a rogue Kai named Cloud Maker in Ragadorn who she sends to help Lone Wolf and Qinifer rebuild the monastery and the order of the Kai. It’s possible to meet him in book 2 if you pick right and he puts you up for a night. Jackard posted:Three coins is nothing, bounce them off his forehead The Kingdoms of Terror posted:The youth snatches your gold, flicks the square of blue card at you and slams shut the outhouse door. It is stamped with today’s date and will allow you access to the town of Amory on this day only. You pocket the Cess (mark it as a Special Item on your Action Chart) and leave.
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Dec 14, 2017 02:35
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Go to Soren. We might need to stay in Amory more than one day, and I don't like places with restricted access.
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Dec 14, 2017 02:43
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Tiggum posted:I'm fairly certain that's not true. I don't think he appears in the gamebooks at all. Going back, it looks like you're right. You can meet the innkeeper of the North Star after whom Cloud Maker is modeled, but he's unnamed and is never given much of a character beyond generic innkeeper. I think that I was conflating him with a little factoid you pick up when running across the grave of Swift Fox, a Kai journeyman killed by the Red Death plague. In Legends there's this weird repeated suspicion that Cloud Maker is in fact Swift Fox. I'm not sure if it was eventually intended to reveal that they were one and the same - it kinda felt like they were building to that the way it was repeatedly intimated but then they just kill him off abruptly which is strange for how much characterization he's given.
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Dec 14, 2017 03:07
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Uhh go to Amory that's why we bought the damned thing
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Dec 14, 2017 04:32
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Jackard posted:Uhh go to Amory that's why we bought the damned thing
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Dec 14, 2017 04:38
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Jackard posted:Uhh go to Amory that's why we bought the damned thing
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Dec 14, 2017 04:44
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Jackard posted:Uhh go to Amory that's why we bought the damned thing The Kingdoms of Terror posted:An hour after sunset you arrive at the gates of Amory. Beneath the deepening shadow of its watchful guard tower, you fight back your fatigue and wait as the gate creaks open. A soldier wearing a hauberk of black and gold chainmail strides forward and demands to see a Cess. Death Count: 7 Tiggum fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Dec 19, 2017 |
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Dec 14, 2017 12:40
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On second thoughts, let's not go to Amory. It is a silly place.The Kingdoms of Terror posted:The highway descends into a wide valley that bears the scars of war—derelict cottages, their walls broken and charred, dot the landscape. You cross a stagnant stream by a rickety wooden bridge and climb towards a copse of trees at the brow of a hillock. As you draw closer to the copse you hear a low hypnotic chant coming from somewhere inside the ring of trees. The cess does absolutely nothing. If you don't have one they let you in anyway, presumably because they recognise your face from the wanted posters.
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Dec 14, 2017 12:44
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Let's investigate the chanting, it's probably those nice fish monks that show up a lot.
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Dec 14, 2017 12:46
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Roark you're a little poo poo  Investigate the chanting.
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Dec 14, 2017 12:52
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Let's investigate.
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Dec 14, 2017 14:59
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Tiggum posted:On second thoughts, let's not go to Amory. It is a silly place.
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Dec 14, 2017 15:20
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Jackard posted:Haha what the hell was that? The rear end in a top hat lord from the start of the book shouted about how he's from Amory and if you went there he'd kill you all kinds of dead. Which we did and he did. Investigate the Chanting
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Dec 14, 2017 18:07
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Jackard posted:Haha what the hell was that? We were warned. Page 301 posted:‘Curse you, scum!’ he shrieks. ‘I am Roark, highborn of Amory. I shall have your life for this—mark my words!’
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Dec 14, 2017 18:35
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Tiggum posted:I'm fairly certain that's not true. I don't think he appears in the gamebooks at all. Ratatozsk posted:Going back, it looks like you're right. You can meet the innkeeper of the North Star after whom Cloud Maker is modeled, but he's unnamed and is never given much of a character beyond generic innkeeper. I think that I was conflating him with a little factoid you pick up when running across the grave of Swift Fox, a Kai journeyman killed by the Red Death plague. In Legends there's this weird repeated suspicion that Cloud Maker is in fact Swift Fox. I'm not sure if it was eventually intended to reveal that they were one and the same - it kinda felt like they were building to that the way it was repeatedly intimated but then they just kill him off abruptly which is strange for how much characterization he's given. If I remember well, in fact in the gamebook the innkeeper has a daughter, who was to be the centrepiece of a quite awkward scene with Lone Wolf. In the Legends series when Lone Wolf arrives at the inn, at a certain point the innkeeper reveals he run away from the Kai monastery a lot of years before. That pushes hiim to help Lone Wolf in his quest. OK, this could have been good as an insert scene, but when Alyss manipulated him to go and help rebuild the monastery, that felt to me as the first signal of the approaching shark jump.
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Dec 14, 2017 20:03
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Guy Fawkes posted:If I remember well, in fact in the gamebook the innkeeper has a daughter, who was to be the centrepiece of a quite awkward scene with Lone Wolf.  The Kingdoms of Terror posted:Expertly you move through the undergrowth without making a sound until you come to the edge of a small, rocky clearing. A group of ten hooded men stand in a circle around an altar stone. Their leader, a tall thin man wearing a hideous mask of green glass, spins a golden rod around the head of a gigantic toad-like creature spread-eagled on the altar. Lightning writhes like a sparking serpent around the creature’s body, and as the chanting rises in pitch, the beast’s body floats upwards, hovering in mid-air a few feet above the altar.
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Dec 15, 2017 00:55
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WHABAWTUI.
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Dec 15, 2017 00:59
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The Sommerswerd can catch enemy magic and hurl it back at them if I recall correctly. It doesn't always work though. I vote we try it here just in case. Use the Sommerswerd! Ratatozk- Any mention of the Taxidermist in Legends of Lone Wolf?
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Dec 15, 2017 01:02
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achtungnight posted:The Sommerswerd can catch enemy magic and hurl it back at them if I recall correctly. It doesn't always work though. I vote we try it here just in case. Use the Sommerswerd!
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Dec 15, 2017 01:44
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 15:47 |
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achtungnight posted:The Sommerswerd can catch enemy magic and hurl it back at them if I recall correctly. It doesn't always work though. I vote we try it here just in case. Use the Sommerswerd! I’m in the middle of the siege of Ruanon at the moment, so still have 1.5 CYOA booksworth of content to catch up. I’d only read up to Caverns of Kalte equivalent before this thread started and I hunted down the remainder of the series. A google of angelfire+av38+vonotar should get anyone else to that source for Legends if you’re interested in accessing them yourself.
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Dec 15, 2017 02:06
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