Blast from the Past! Vault of the Vampire

Published in 1989, Vault of the Vampire was the 38th gamebook in the Fighting Fantasy series. Written by the late Carl Sargent, under the name Keith Martin, and illustrated by the late Martin McKenna, FF's riff on Dracula is a bona fide classic of interactive horror fiction.

Interestingly, despite blood-suckers appearing on a regular basis throughout the previous thirty-seven titles, up until this point no one prince of the night had taken centre stage and become the Big Bad to be dealt with at the climax of an adventure.

Keith Martin rectified this by transporting the reader to Titan's version of Transylvania, set within the mountainous Old World realm of Mauristatia, replete with wolves howling at the moon, creepy forests, a headless coachman, and a sinister, bat-haunted castle.

The plot is also just what you would want from a story called Vault of the Vampire...

Can you put an end to Count Heydrich's evil reign of terror?

YOU are a hardy adventurer and have journeyed to the icy mountains of Mauristatia in search of great wealth and fortune... but what you find there makes your blood run cold.

You discover by chance the terrible secret of the local villagers. Can YOU free them from the evil tyranny of the bloodthirsty Count, or will you too succumb to a horrifying fate?

Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need. YOU decide which paths to take, which dangers to risk and which foes to fight!

Les Edwards painted the cover for the book: “Vault of the Vampire turned out to be one of those classic images. I can’t say why exactly. It’s just one of those cases where everything works the way that was intended. It’s a pretty traditional Vampire but maybe that’s part of its strength. It’s a simple and dramatic image and very direct. It was a big influence on Vampire paintings that I did subsequently.”

Martin McKenna, who was still only eighteen at the time, turned his hand to producing some very Hammer Horror-esque images for the book’s internal illustrations that have stood up to the test of time very well.

 

A blood-soaked sequel followed in 1995, entitled Revenge of the Vampire. This was the only occasion a direct sequel to a gamebook was written by an author other than the series’ co-creators Jackson and Livingstone.

Revenge of the Vampire (FF58) was Keith Martin’s seventh contribution to the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series. In the story, Count Reiner Heydrich returns from the dead once more to stalk the Old World in search of fresh blood and new slaves. It is up to the hero (who is not the same hero as featured in Vault of the Vampire) to put an end to him once and for all.

Count Heydrich, Vampire, is back from the dead!

A half-forgotten evil has arisen from the grave to stalk the Old World in search of fresh blood and new victims to enslave. Count Reiner Heydrich, undead Vampire Lord, is ancient beyond the reckoning of mortals. This time, however, there is someone on his trail, a brave hero who is determined that he shall not succeed in his evil plans. That someone is YOU!

As well as being written by Keith Martin, author of Vault of the Vampire, once again Les Edwards painted the stunning cover image while Martin McKenna came up trumps with the internals.

Winter Wonderlands

The month of Freeze is well and truly here, and the temperature is dropping right across the Pagan Plains and beyond.

Many heroes will doubtless have fond memories* of adventuring in the northern regions of Allansia, notably the Icefinger Mountains, but which is your favourite snowbound escapade?

Is it Ian Livingstone's Caverns of the Snow Witch? Is it Keith Martin's Tower of Destruction, or perhaps Night Dragon? Or is it Jonathan Green's Stormslayer, which features every type of weather under the sun? Or maybe there's another icy encounter you found particularly memorable.

Why not let us know in the comments below? And if anyone wants to send us a picture of one of the nefarious creatures that can be found in wintry climes, we will add them to the Out of the Pit page on www.FightingFantasy.com.

"Boo!"

* And maybe some not-so-fond memories.

Carl Sargent (1952-2018)

We were very sorry to hear the news, late last night, that the prolific RPG writer, author, and parapsychologist, Carl Sargent, has passed away.

Carl will be better known to Fighting Fantasy fans the world over as Keith Martin, author of seven gamebooks in the series, written between 1988 and 1995 - Stealer of Souls, Vault of the Vampire, Master of Chaos, Tower of Destruction, Island of the Undead, Night Dragon, Legend of Zagor, and Revenge of the Vampire.

However, his work appeared under his own name when he collaborated with Ian Livingstone on the quartet of four short novels - Firestorm, Darkthrone, Skullcrag, and Demonlord - which featured the exploits of three heroes from Legend of Zagor*.

Just as he enriched the worlds of Greyhawk, Warhammer, Shadowrun and Earthdawn with his work, the world of Titan would have seemed a much smaller place without Carl's contributions.

And so tonight we shall be raising a glass of fine Mortvanian claret, drawn from the cellars of Castle Heydrich, in his memory, and our thoughts remain with his friends and family at this difficult time.

In memory of

Carl Sargent

1952-2018

* Which was itself based on the board game designed by Ian Livingstone and published by Parker Brothers.

The Second Swordsman – More of Martin’s Mêlées

This week, Malcolm Garcia is back with his 16th Second Swordsman post, which is intriguingly entitled...

The Second Swordsman – More of Martin’s Mêlées

By Malcolm Garcia

After the recent enjoyment of exploring Castle Heydrich in Vault of the Vampire, I chose to have a go at a few other adventures which had been written by its author, Keith Martin (the writing alias of Carl Sargent). I’d previously tried the Second Swordsman process in his books Stealer of Souls (where I found my way into the Empire of Illusions beyond the Iron Crypts), Night Dragon (where I actually got to encounter several dragons) and Legend of Zagor (where I survived for quite some time before being killed by a thief with an unusually high SKILL). This time I would see whether always choosing the second option would lead to similar longevity in Martin’s Island of the Undead, Master of Chaos and Tower of Destruction.

Island of the Undead, illustrated inside by the prolific Russ Nicholson, started well enough, with some promising numbers and a Presence score to keep track of. Some of Martin’s other books also have extra scores to influence the gameplay – the Faith value in Vault and the Honour, Nemesis and Time values in Night. I did, however, start Island with just a knife for a weapon, which imposed not only a SKILL penalty, but also made it likely I’d inflict only half my usual STAMINA damage. I’m not usually a fan of these sorts of impediments, but I suppose they do mean you’re more likely to fail early if you don’t find the right gear, rather than wasting time marching to your inevitable doom.

The backstory has YOU on a ship en route to the Island of Solani to investigate why storms have returned to your village on the Strait of Knives in southeastern Allansia. The vessel sinks and section one has YOU immediately thrown into a battle against a Sea Zombie. While a fight at the very start is what I’d usually expect in a Jonathan Green adventure, Stealer also had a similar early fight – and that was against the much harder Giant Stormbird. After winning this skirmish I started exploring the island, but it became obvious pretty quickly that always choosing the second option meant I was aimlessly wandering around and missing out on opportunities to find information or objects that would assist me in my quest. Not only did I fail to find a sword, but I didn’t find a book about fungi, I never learned the name of a hermit who lived in a tree, I had no special green cream, and I neglected to explore a monastery when given the opportunity.

Because I chose to attack the aforementioned hermit I contracted the lung rot disease which eroded my STAMINA and, while not immediately fatal, was an annoyance. Other than the aforementioned Sea Zombie I only managed to defeat one other adversary, the tree-dwelling Grupplers (sort of a cross between a monkey and a frog), but not before my lung rot cost me some more STAMINA. Soon afterwards I fell into some swamp water and, while I didn’t drown instantly (as I did in Scorpion Swamp), an unlucky dice roll meant I was eaten by a Swamp Alligator during the middle of a fight against it.

In my attempt at Master of Chaos (which coincidentally had the same ranking in the Fighting Fantazine poll as Island) my starting scores were again decent, but once again there were some penalties to apply. The adventure started with YOU going undercover as a galley slave on a ship bound for Khul, thus earning Martin the rare trifecta of having a book set on each of the three continents of Titan. Once there YOU are expected to find your way to the desert ruins of the city of Kabesh, where a magical staff has been taken. While going undercover YOU possess no weapons, which means that in any fight your Attack Strength will be reduced by two, and you’ll do less damage to an opponent if you do manage to strike them. I also had a Notoriety score to keep track of, which measured how much attention I was attracting from local law enforcement, as well as selecting three special skills of my own choosing.

The adventure began with me losing eight STAMINA relatively quickly, partly because of the meagre rations and also because I chose to try and stop a shipmate from being whipped to death. When, soon after, I was given the choice to confront the orc wielding the whip, I did so. And while the orc was killed in the ensuring slave uprising, I was made to walk the plank and (unlike in Demons of the Deep where being forced into the ocean was the beginning of my journey) I soon became the meal for a shark. No treasure. No battles. No knowledge. While dead in just two choices isn’t quite as bad as what happened in Beneath Nightmare Castle, it was a very poor showing. So far, all I had learned was that choosing the second option in both of Martin’s books would result in me being eaten by some of the local fauna.

Returning to the frozen north of Allansia, for the first time since Caverns of the Snow Witch, I began Tower of Destruction with poor initial SKILL and LUCK scores, but mercifully no penalties to my SKILL. Tower does, however, also add Honour and Time values to keep track of. While returning to my village, which sits in the shadow of the Icefinger Mountains, an unusual sphere hurtled through the air and attacked my hometown. Pledging revenge on the sphere, I didn’t leave straight away and chose to linger just long enough to find some climbing equipment, but not helping anyone else earned an early penalty to my Honour – although it would be pretty unlikely that just one person could help an entire village. After being forced to eat my first meal (a process that would soon become irritating) I had my first fight against a Polar Worm. My adversary had a greater SKILL than I, but my higher STAMINA paid off and I defeated the creature, although it did take eleven rounds of combat.

After this initial excitement, my adventure in Tower fell into a routine of following a trail of burned trees while I slept, and ate my way through my provisions. Something similar happened during my attempt at Night, but in Tower the process was much duller – when given the chance to encounter a White Dragon (a creature I’d killed when I found one in Caverns) I instead chose to hide in a cave for a whole day and night, which wasted two meals. Eventually I started eating my meals unprompted, figuring that the penalty for not having a meal when forced to eat was less than what I would gain from eating one. Within a handful of days I found the mysterious sphere and had to fight two Ice Ghost guards. What should have been a fight against two easy enemies was made more difficult by my poor initial SKILL and that, because I must have missed a useful weapon somewhere, my sword only did half the usual damage against the pair of creatures.

I did eventually win the battle and ate my last meal to recover, just as I was attacked by a Demonic Servant. This creature had the same SKILL as me and I left the battle with just five STAMINA remaining and little chance of finding any more local wildlife to eat and rejuvenate myself. But I had at last reached the sphere! As I explored the inside of the device, choosing the second option did not help me to find any useful information or objects and I wandered pointlessly along corridors and up and down stairs. Eventually I did just my second LUCK test of the book and, lacking a special ring, failing this test meant that a trap of fire darts relieved me of my remaining STAMINA. A painful death, but at least I wasn’t eaten this time.

Across these three books of Keith Martin’s, choosing every second option may have made me a nice person but it clearly did not work at all in Master, and in Island I fell into the usual Second Swordsman habit of wandering around aimlessly and ignoring things. Being eaten by a Swamp Alligator actually came as a welcome surprise. My failure in Tower was inevitable given my lack of food and hard fights, but it also reinforced the importance of LUCK, which is often overlooked as a factor in the success of any FIGHTING FANTASY adventure. For although a poor LUCK roll in Tower just helped to finish me off after some difficult battles, in Scorpion failing a single LUCK test actually ended the adventure for me.

Thanks, as ever, to Malcolm for taking the time to chronicle his adventure as the Second Swordsman. This is his penultimate Second Swordsman article for a while, as he has some other writing projects he needs to focus on in the coming months, so I am sure you are just as intrigued as we are as to what the subject of next month's piece will be...

The Second Swordsman - Enter the Dragon!

It's Gamebook Friday again, which means it's time for Malcolm Garcia's 13th Second Swordsman post!


The Second Swordsman - Enter the Dragon!

By Malcolm Garcia

While most of the foes to be fought in FIGHTING FANTASY adventures tend to be humanoids, such as Orcs or Goblins, there are rare occasions when YOU can encounter a creature that exists towards the top of Titan’s food chain, the Dragon. In attempting the Second Swordsman process, I’ve so far fought (and defeated) only a White Dragon (in Caverns of the Snow Witch) and met a Dragon Librarian (in Spectral Stalkers). To gain more exposure to these mysterious beasts I decided to try only choosing the second option in two dragon-themed adventures, Night Dragon and Eye of the Dragon.

In Night Dragon the stakes for my quest could not be much higher – an ancient dragon is awakening, and when it does so it will destroy everything in its path. Night was penned by Keith Martin, author of seven FIGHTING FANTASY adventures including Vault of the Vampire and Revenge of the Vampire. It also marked the first time I’d returned to Port Blacksand since attempting Temple of Terror. Eye of the Dragon was also set in Allansia, but that was where the similarities between the two books ended. Written by Ian Livingstone, the eponymous dragon is, in fact, an almost priceless golden statue which has been hidden in a trap- and monster-filled labyrinth beneath Darkwood Forest. (How these subterranean mazes are maintained is one of the great mysteries of Titan. Surely the residents are not solely relying on a steady supply of foolhardy adventures to provide them with food. And don’t the creatures within miss the sunlight and fresh air they could find outside?)

Both adventures had me starting with decent SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK scores. This was through luck of the dice in Night and by choosing the second pre-rolled character in Eye. The beginning of both Night and Eye also gave me a decent amount of provisions – not a universal thing in the latter FIGHTING FANTASY books of the series – and a purse of gold pieces. In Night YOU also have two bonus points to add to your attributes and need to keep track of several additional scores; not something I had to do when trying the Second Swordsman process previously in Martin’s, Stealer of Souls.

By choosing every second option, I started Night by, once again, passing up opportunities to fight creatures, acquire objects or learn anything about the journey ahead of me. In my journey from Port Blacksand to Rentarn I gained nothing and ate more than a third of my provisions. Upon arriving I quickly got into a battle with a trio of Assassins and learned an obscure clue. But I then wasted time and money wandering around the town, until I was put in jail. This is not an unusual situation when using the Second Swordsman process – previously I’ve been apprehended in both Chasms of Malice and Fangs of Fury, albeit temporarily. Although my adventures have ended in jail in both Bloodbones and Black Vein Prophecy.

After a while my captors released me and I learned enough to leave Rentarn and continue my quest. Within a few more choices I had encountered my first dragon of the book, and it was a friendly one. Whisked away to a conclave of dragons (where there is a White Dragon that has to be a relative of the one I’d previously slain) I’m given a load of information about how to defeat the Night Dragon. I then headed into the mountains and managed to navigate a subterranean maze and found some special armour, which will supposedly assist me in my final showdown. At this point I was feeling good about choosing every second option, even though I was down to just one meal. But the armour was damaged and the stone dwarves who could fix it would only do so if I defeated their nemesis, the Mountain Basilisk. Finding this creature was easy enough, but the fight against it wasn’t. Without a mirror I was forced to choose between two equally unpalatable impediments – a temporary skill loss of four, or testing my LUCK each round. I opted for the latter as I had not yet tested my LUCK. But the beast’s STAMINA was too great and eventually the dice failed me and I was turned to stone.

Constraining myself to only every second option was even more limiting in Eye. In total I ignored the opportunity to investigate what was behind thirteen doors! Even in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain I only ignored nine doors. By ignoring all of these doors I almost certainly avoided some fights and other bad things. But I also would have missed plenty of opportunities to find objects or gain some knowledge that could help me to successfully find the golden statue. On four occasions in my adventure I was asked if I had a certain object, and every time the answer was no. The final occasion had dire consequences as I was bitten by a poisonous spider but did not have a healing potion. Eye did feel like a return to the dungeon crawls of the earlier FIGHTING FANTASY adventures, reinforced with shout-outs to The Forest of Doom and House of Hell (and maybe even Island of the Lizard King).

In both dragon-themed books my promising starting SKILL proved handy. Although in Night I was eventually killed in the aforementioned one-sided battle against the Basilisk, I had previously triumphed in five battles, three of which were resolved with me not losing a single STAMINA point (these being against some of the multitude of Assassins who’d been sent to kill me). In Eye I fought six creatures, with four of my victories being flawless. However my final fight was against a Doppelganger (why couldn’t it have been a Shapechanger?), during which I had to endure an imposed two point SKILL loss. As I’d already lost one SKILL from the spider bite this battle proved to be too tough for me and I fell, without seeing any Dragon – real or artificial.

Although choosing every second option did not help me to find my fortune or save the world, it did get me a surprisingly long way in each adventure. A repeated attempt at both would have me explore more in the hope of finding some way to defeat the Doppelganger and Mountain Basilisk. This was also the first time that my failure in each of the adventures undertaken was due to a lost battle, rather than an instant death from a trap, overwhelming numbers, or not finding the right keys or gemstones.

Next month marks a year since Malcolm set out on his Second Swordsman quest. Which adventures will he be tackling to commemorate this momentous occasion? You'll just have to keep checking www.fightingfantasy.com to find out!

The Second Swordsman – 'Watch Out For The Hitman!'

Today is Friday the 13th, but will it be a case of 'unlucky for some' as Malcolm Garcia tackles another Second Swordsman challenge?

The Second Swordsman – 'Watch Out For The Hitman!'

By Malcolm Garcia

For every FIGHTING FANTASY book where YOU are searching for a special object or magical weapon to complete your quest, there are more than a few where the goal is for YOU to kill whatever local ‘big-bad’ is terrorizing the citizenry or scheming to take over Titan. And so, in this edition of the SecondSwordsman, I’ll see whether choosing every second option will assist me in an assortment of assassination adventures.

In Stealer of Souls YOU start off seeking to rescue the friendly wizard Alsander from the prison of an Archmage who has learned how to harness the power of people’s fears and nightmares. But, just as the movie Predator was never going to be just about a rescue mission, quicker than you can say ‘get to the chopper’ your quest becomes a hunt to destroy the evil Mordraneth. In The Keep of the Lich-Lord YOU are sent to deal with Lord Mortis, a warrior who has risen from the grave and is amassing an army of the wicked (why killing him a second time will work any better is never explained fully). And in Legend of Zagor YOU go forth to defeat the original big-bad, but this time Zagor has become fused with a demon from a world beyond Titan.

A regular occurrence when choosing every second option in FIGHTING FANTASY novels is that YOU ignore opportunities to learn important information, gather treasure, or fight creatures and instead YOU rush through the adventure and miss out on a lot. This also happened somewhat with these three books, with the worst culprit being Keep. After arriving on Stayng Island I immediately left the town of Siltport and headed for the hills. Then I kept on moving and ignored in quick succession a cave, a cemetery, and a gathering in the woods (any of which would usually be a prime candidate for excitement) before hurriedly arriving at the docks at Keladon (more about those later).

In Stealer I began by making some good decisions and found my way to the subterranean Iron Crypts. But then I ignored several doors and passageways, and it wasn’t until after I’d fought the Dark Priest that choosing the second option led me to explore more, which helped me find the good wizard Alsander and enter Mordraneth’s Empire of Illusions. Stealer also had one of the few occasions in a FIGHTING FANTASY adventure where I got to have a nap during a dungeon crawl. I also managed to score a crowbar and some SKILL-boosting chainmail armour, as well as learn a handful of spells. These all gave me some momentary hope that, as in Battleblade Warrior, I might just muddle my way through to 400, or very close to it.

In Legend, while the Second Swordsman process didn’t make me ignore numerous rooms (as it had done in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain) it did make for a somewhat wearisome adventure. Because of the design of the castle, choosing every second option had me enter nearly every room I came across as I worked my way through the halls of Castle Argent. A few of these places were beneficial, but the purpose of most seems to have been to slowly drain me of my STAMINA through combat. But I did manage to have the most LUCK I’ve yet had when gambling (breaking my bad run from Seas of Blood and Bloodbones), fortuitously avoided the plague by having bought the antidote earlier, and discovered some more SKILL-boosting chainmail armour. Curiously I also picked up a valuable silk tapestry, which must be the first time in a FIGHTING FANTASY adventure where I’ve been rewarded with soft furnishings.

For some of these three adventures, my good initial SKILL scores were given a workout. In Stealer I had a fight at the very start of the adventure against a Giant Stormbird and then didn’t fight anything else until I went underground. But I then made up for lost time by defeating another thirteen creatures – including a few occasions where I lost no STAMINA in the battle. In Legend I chose not to waste a precious LUCK point near the very start, and had to face off in a tough battle against a Fog Wyvern. Then once I made it ashore on Tower Island I fought another fifteen creatures, including the awesomely named Skulking Shade as well as the SKILL ten Skeletal Dragon. But in Keep, choosing to rush across Stayng Island meant I did not have a single fight. The only times this has happened previously were in Crypt of the Sorcerer, Spectral Stalkers, and Island of the Lizard King.

Unfortunately, by choosing every second option I again failed to meet with success. I met my end in Keep by rushing a group of pirates at the aforementioned Keladon docks, which rewarded me for my foolishness with an instant death. I died in Stealer from being bitten by a floor of illusory snakes – which would probably not have happened if I’d not stupidly spent my sole ‘dispel illusion’ spell on a pack of rats just a few choices earlier. And in Legend I didn’t even get to meet Zagor, but instead failed in a fight against an elven thief who was armed with a poisoned dagger, a magical cloak, and a SKILL level of twelve. This was a very tough foe for one that wasn’t a ‘big-bad’ (only about one per cent of Titan’s creatures have this SKILL level) and I feel that avoiding this fight is essential to have a chance of victory. This is the twenty-seventh FIGHTING FANTASY adventure I’ve tried the Second Swordsman process on, but it’s only the sixth where I’ve fallen in combat – the other victors being the Kraken, the Fire Elemental, the Giant Sandworm, one of Carnuss’ slaves, and the Minotaur of Zagor’s maze.

So once again the Second Swordsman process yielded varying results. From the disappointment of Keep, to the frustration of Legend, and the momentary optimism of Stealer. I can only hope that next time I make fewer stupid decisions and don’t follow the lyrics of Watch Out for the Hitman and “do that thing until your body starts to break.”

Thank you once again to Malcolm, for his latest Second Swordsman blog post. If you have any suggestions for items for the official Fighting Fantasy blog don't forget to get in touch via mail@fightingfantasy.com.