The Lord of Shadow Keep

During my last time in Montreal, I gave myself a few nostalgic and geeky gifts: some medieval fantasy gamebooks, like the ones I used to buy with my pocket money when I was a child. I used to get through as many of them as I could and it is my love for them that got me into Dungeons & Dragons. Among the books I bought in Montreal was The Lord of Shadow Keep by Oliver Johnson. As a child I had always wanted to read it, because of the gorgeously sinister cover picture. I've seen a more recent cover on Amazon, quite nice, but too adult. This one is classic. The book is part of the Golden Dragon series. I don't know for the original English, but in the French book there is an introduction saying that you are the titular Golden Dragon, a seasoned adventurer who gained a great reputation through many great deeds... although nobody in the books ever refer to you by that surname or even mentions this reputation you have. And the books are independent from each other. In fact, they are so independent from each other that you seem to have a completely different background in every one of them.

In The Lord of Shadow Keep, you are a member of the elite Imperial Guard of King Valafor of Lalassa. After the king gets cursed by an ageing spell and the kingdom is taken over through witchcraft by Arkayn Darkrobe, the Lord of the Shadow Keep from the title, you set out to right wrongs and save the once prosperous and happy kingdom and free its sovereign from the curse. Simple, classic stuff, a bit naive maybe but enjoyable all the same. And the motivation for your character is merely that, a motivation, so you can start the adventure and engross yourself in the atmosphere. Because Oliver Johnson is great at writing good atmosphere and making you feel like you are living it. So until my next game of D&Dr, I have this to keep me entertained.

The Elven Crystals

The Elven Crystals is a book I read in my early teenage. A book my brothers and I bought I don't know for why exactly really. Because it is in fact an adventure from the role playing game Dragon Warriors. A Dungeons & Dragons wannabe role-playing game, which made the mistake of giving its rules into different books, so you needed to buy a few of them before being able to even start playing. We had not even started playing D&Dr when we bought this one. We had started playing RPGs and were curious about this one, I think attracted to it because of two classes: the assassin and the knight. And we bought this book because of the cover, which I always found beautiful and atmospheric.

So why am I plugging this book tonight? I never played the RPG or the module. But the content matched the cover fairly well actually, when it came to beauty and atmosphere anyway. As an adventure, for any RPG, it was very flawed: too many great mages that had lived in such a small place, there was no links between the different modules and very little sense of conclusion, for instance. But the atmosphere, the descriptions, the whole setting (minus a few places) were simply amazing. Here is the story, as described on its Amazon page: 

"The Elven Crystals is a short campaign of four linked adventures: a quest across the kingdom of Ereworn to find four shards of an ancient crystal that forms a gateway to another world. But were they originally split up to stop anyone leaving this world... or to prevent something from getting in? Along the way they will find themselves searching for a kidnapped girl in a forest populated by dark and supernatural beings; hunting a corrupted nobleman through his terrifying castle; a desperate chase through a coastal village where a recent shipwreck has brought an ancient cult to light; and a battle to halt the invasion of a force of darkness and shadow."

 The first part, set in a forest during the beginning of autumn, is by far the best one. It starts in the inn of a poor village, by a sinister forest. You have to fight plenty of monsters, a witch, black knights (who are in fact supernatural creatures), ghosts, ghouls and even a mad hermit. And in the dark forest, you find plenty of interesting places: bridges, ruined manors, abandoned towers, etc. It is just such a rich adventure setting. My brother PJ was heavily inspired by it when he wrote our first D&Dr adventure. Every time I go home, I read at least a few pages, especially when I want to get myself into a gaming mood.