#22: The Dungeon On Blood Island

 

THE DUNGEON ON BLOOD ISLAND

Ian Livingstone

Reviewed by Mark Lain

The 40th Anniversary of the publication in 1984 of Deathtrap Dungeon brought us the long hoped for Deathtrap Dungeon 3. Except it isn’t #3, it’s #2. At least in the Scholastic continuity it’s #2 as opposed the Puffin continuity that already had #2 in the form of Trial Of Champions. But Scholastic didn’t reprint ToC so this new book is not really DD3 other than that it clearly is if we remember that the Puffin series exists, except that it isn’t because of the new continuity, but for the fact that it is because there are now three of them! Allow me to explain… Someone (possibly YOU) won Deathtrap Dungeon – this fact is undeniable if we can have any sequels at all. In Trial Of Champions Baron Sukumvit was unhappy about this so he completely rebuilt his dungeon making it even more deadly but Lord Carnuss (Baron Sukumvit’s rather jealous and spiteful brother) decided to undermine him by hiring (well, press-ganging really) his own champion to beat the rebuilt dungeon – this YOU was not the same YOU as the one who defeated the first iteration and, on winning, this particular second YOU kills Lord Carnuss in a final act of revenge for all the horrible things Carnuss did to you at the start of the second book. So far then in the story arc, the dungeon has been bested twice, by two different YOUs, and Carnuss is dead. Roll on Part 3 and Carnuss is alive again which is clearly a bit of an issue when we think about the Puffin story arc. So we have to ignore that arc (we already have done in the Scholastic sequence generally anyway) and accept a new one where Carnuss was not killed by YOU #2 at the end of ToC because none of that happened. Or rather, it actually DID happen but in a different way as the Introduction to this new book explains: that YOU (the one “working” for Carnuss) died trying to defeat the dungeon that Carnuss was so jealous of, so Carnuss has had a new and rather more ambitious idea of building a rival dungeon on the titular Blood Island which, due to a convenient (and presumably not entirely coincidental) building schedule, is ready for its first contestants shortly before the annual trip to Fang is due to take place so everyone flocks to Carnuss’ version instead. Oh, and rather importantly, just to really piss Sukumvit off, the prize for winning is one of the most valuable objects in Allansia (the Orb of Fang) which Carnuss won from his brother in a dice game. So, the series has been retconned so Carnuss is still alive which puts this new book immediately after DD and in fact also after ToC but assumes the YOU in ToC cannot win hence Scholastic not reprinting the original second book and instead making an oblique reference to it here, otherwise nothing would make sense anymore. In a nutshell then, for the purposes of DD3 actually making sense, it would be helpful if you could just forget you ever played Trial Of Champions please.

Anyway, now that we understand the premise, and we have finished reading this book’s unusually long (for FF) Introduction, we now know what is going on and how Carnuss can still be drawing breath. An important point to make here incidentally is that the Introduction tells us that we have 5 Gold Pieces – I mention this because I missed it completely the first two times I read it and I know some readers have queried this in forums as there are points early on where you might buy something really useful but potentially cannot work out how you could have got any money previous to that point. Subtle and I like this idea of the book wanting you to read for accuracy despite your eagerness to get on with the game. This Introduction also tells us that there are 120 contestants for this instalment which is rather more than the six for the previous two (or one) then, which could make this one pretty challenging, not to mention crowded, and that you befriend a cheerful dwarf called Thump who is from Stonebridge (nice cross-continuity, which is something I always like to see) and he makes a comment that Stonebridge recently suffered an attack from some giants (in Shadow Of The Giants) which adds even more world-building flavour and evidently puts this book after that one in the new continuity. The Thump friendship reminds me of the Throm situation in the first book as it brings back the gloomy reality that, sooner or later, one of you has to die, and Thump does make a comment about how you are competing with each other. I was intrigued to see how the book would handle the 120 contestants thing but my hopes of an enormous dungeon and/or a battle royale of some sort were quickly dashed when Carnuss announced that he wanted that 120 cutting down to 12 in an hour. That’s a lot of people to eliminate in 60 minutes and the book has us set about a sequence of challenges against other contestants rather reminiscent of the arena in ToC (not that that happened to a YOU that is you, of course) to whittle that number down. The 12 is then halved to just six which seems a more Deathtrap Dungeon-y number of contestants to me and feels more appropriate.

And, now we are six (as A A Milne once said), we finally head excitedly into the all-new dungeon, looking forward with trepidation and glee to whatever Livingstone’s devious mind has conjured up for us this time, especially as the previous two trips to Deathtrap Dungeon really were fantastic and two of the best FF books ever, if also very (but suitably) difficult. The first thing to comment on is that, if you make a particular decision, it is possible to have lost 4 Stamina points in the first three sections (and 3 Stamina even if you don’t make that choice) so clearly this book is going to be hard on the stats. Which it is, as there are lots of potential Skill, Stamina, and Luck penalties that you can suffer along the way (some are harsh, especially on Stamina), and without a high starting Skill and Luck you’ve got no chance as there are also many tests of both of these to negotiate. Granted, not all are on the true path, but these dungeons are cracked through gradual exploration, mapping, and revisiting, so these penalties are all very noticeable and some are unavoidable. On a similar note though, most combats (bar a few Specials close to the end, which is acceptable as we like a climax) are actually pretty easy and most foes have low stats, so in that sense this one is forgiving. Indeed, if you were to play this book without dice (ie avoiding the implications of any stat penalties) it would probably be quite easy as there is a lot of signposting to aid you (if you pay attention), and the true path is basically a straight line that is hard to digress from and, if you do, more often than not you are forced to turn back onto the correct route and these parts that will send you back repeatedly suggest you “might” want to turn back anyway so it all becomes a bit obvious after a while. Similarly, it quickly becomes apparent that Carnuss sees copper as bad news and most things made of copper will have negative effects on you. There is also a book in a library that more or less explains a chunk of the dungeon map to you. If all this was not generous enough (remember, it’s a very different story if you are playing with dice as it becomes REALLY hard if you do!), there is a non-win ending where, if you fail at several of the final analysis parts, you can exit the dungeon as a failure, but an alive failure – neither of the previous dungeons gave that much quarter so maybe Carnuss is less of a sadist than his brother? However, I mentioned earlier that you must face several Special monsters at the very end and here is the part where, even if you play without dice, this book suddenly becomes (perceptibly) incredibly difficult as you are required to surrender ALL of your money and equipment to the Dragonmaster before you face the three really tough opponents. How you handle this penalty though is down to interpretation as one of the subsequent combats does prompt you to have or not have the Vorpal Sword so do we give up all equipment except weapons? Can we keep shields and armour too as they increase combat stats? Who knows, really, but how you interpret this will determine how much chance you have in combat (assuming you are playing properly with dice) against these three big end baddies which are a series of three different Demons: a Thorn Demon, a Howling Demon, and a Larva Demon. For welcome variety though, whilst the first two do have high stats in double figures and are hard to fight (especially if you get hit by either of them as both have implications), the third (the potentially most lethal too) does not involve a fight and instead you either use an item (if you decided you could keep it) or take a stat penalty, but either way the third does not involve a fight and the feeling that you are faced at the end by three consecutive crushing fights is not actually the case and this has been handled with imagination rather than having a generally easy (stats notwithstanding) path through the book to just get pasted by any of three really powerful opponents right at the end which would be a bit frustrating. Incidentally, the Howling Demon (if you did not know) is the thing on the book’s cover.

Which subject brings us to the art on display in our third/second trip to the Sukumvit-Carnuss Brothers’ designer dungeons. The cover sees the very welcome return of one of FF (and fantasy generally)’s greatest artists, Iain McCaig. And I’m not sure how I feel about his cover offering here. I want to like it because it’s McCaig and, whilst the Howling Demon is terrifying and reminds me of the Bone Demon from Casket Of Souls and also of Zanbar Bone from City Of Thieves, what usually makes McCaig’s art for me is the combination of a fantastic central subject but also a highly-detailed background (look at the cover for City Of Thieves or The Forest Of Doom or anything at all in Casket Of Souls for example and you’ll see what I mean), and the cover to TDoBI is basically a yellow monster on an empty black background, which seems rather lacking in my opinion. This is a mixed blessing as having McCaig back in FF again (he also did the alternate cover for the hardback version of The Port Of Peril remember) is also a good thing, but this could have been much better if it had been more than just the creature itself and there is definitely something missing here. The first Deathtrap Dungeon also featured internal art by McCaig (Trial Of Champions had a cover and internals by Lone Wolf’s Brian Williams, not that that book ever happened, of course) and I was really hoping the same would be the case again for this new book, but that was not to be and, instead, the internals are by Krisztián Balla. Balla’s art here is, for the most part, decent and all of the illustrations are well-detailed and atmospheric, although some of them seem a bit cluttered (the hobgoblin in the cage, for example). The only weak piece here is, curiously, the Bloodbeast, although I suspect we have an embarrassment of riches with the previous version from DD and there was no way this creature could not viably have been illustrated again this time around.

Mention of the Bloodbeast will surely be enough to get anyone scrambling to acquire a copy of this book and I have to say that the way this creature’s reappearance is handled is very neat as it is not just the same encounter from the first book over again – something that would have been very easy to do – but is a non-combat situation where you meet it and get the hell out as quickly as possible. Even more interesting is that the Bloodbeast is on a red herring path that yields nothing. These two factors do of course make its appearance little more than cameo but it’s an expected and necessary cameo given how iconic a creature this was in DD so it is definitely a welcome inclusion. Another returning species from the first book (and we have to assume this is a different Bloodbeast after one of the YOUs that isn’t us now killed the first one 40 years ago) is rather more subtle and low key – the mischievous Troglodyte. It would have been very easy to stock Carnuss’ dungeon with all the same monsters from the original and, whilst this would have had nostalgia value, it would have made this book into a very tired retread, so bringing back a creature that played such a small part in the first trawl is a clever touch for me. These two encounters give cohesion with the first book whilst avoiding this new one becoming a slavish rehash (which it most certainly is not by any stretch of the imagination). Obviously the three Demons in the Final Act are one of the big encounter moments, but I also really enjoyed the Imp in his Spikle (exactly how does that thing brake though?) and the non-combat encounter with the Ghost-Witch who wants her cat back was a fun moment too. The usual sword fodder is all present and correct (Goblins, Trolls, Skeletons, Ghouls, Zombies) to avoid this being a catalogue of key encounters, whilst the usual plethora of traps and tests are liberally scattered about the place too. It does seem this time though that we are expected to open almost every door (many reward you) rather than there being an element of “Oh no, what’s next?” trepidation that the first one/two books gave us, but I have already observed that the path aspect of this book is far easier than the previous Trials were. To keep things familiar (we don’t want this visit to be totally alienated from the others as we need the comfort of feeling that this is Deathtrap Dungeon again rather than some other non-Deathtrap kind of Dungeon) there is a Trialmaster (here called the Dragonmaster) near the end to act as a Day Of Reckoning concept although, as I’ve already said, whereas in the previous books any failure to have the requisite items led to death, in this iteration you just get ejected as your penalty for failure which feels rather less “Deathtrap”-y to me. That said, there is a clever anti-cheat mechanism when you are asked how many dragon balls you have (like with the ring count in ToC) but I found the compass point test (which had had some build-up before this point that suggested this could be a big event) far too obvious and really does not require you to have actually found the numbered keys to solve it as long as you have been given the info you need for this.

As with the previous DD books, you are required again to make sure the other contestants are all dead before you reach the Final Act, although (and again this makes it a bit easier) only five actually enter the dungeon as the sixth unfortunate entrant dies before he or she has even got through the front door, not that you know this unless it’s already happened to you in a previous attempt, otherwise you just have to accept meeting four others along the way and reaching the end first regardless. Also in keeping with the previous books, how these encounters with your rivals play out is varied and does not just involve you having to fight them (well, not all of them), plus there is an element of variety based on how you handled some interactions earlier in the book which, again, is good to see. Indeed, this visit to a Deathtrap Dungeon is much more plot-driven than the previous two (the first was plotless, the second just had the Carnuss aspect) and the other contestants play a big part in this as, obviously does the maguffin of the Orb Of Fang (which is itself not without its tricksy moments!) In keeping too with the way several of the new Scholastic books have concluded (Assassins Of Allansia segues directly into Deathtrap Dungeon, for example), this book has an open ending where Carnuss appears to have a new job for you – could this actually turn out to be where a reprint of Trial Of Champions could be a thing? Well, probably not, or not without some rewrites, as that book requires you to not have encountered Carnuss before and to never have entered a Deathtrap Dungeon of any kind before. So who knows really what is coming next but it is certainly an exciting proposition and the more continuity in FF the better if you ask me.

Something I always liked about Livingstone’s books was the attention to detail, the energy of his writing, and the Easter Eggs. This book is no exception and it bounces along at an energetic pace, you really feel that you are in the various moments, and there is a nice homage to Steve Jackson in the character of Jak the Jolly Juggler who even has curly ginger hair! Annoyingly though, and this is a problem with many of the new Scholastic entries, this book needed better proofreading as there are numerous typos and grammatical errors which do not detract from the enjoyment (nothing is illogical or contradicts what it is meant to mean such that you get confused, and there are certainly no broken parts like we had to endure in some of the Puffin FFs or even The Port Of Peril) but they do strike me as yet more evidence of Scholastic’s lack of quality control. Gone now though are the horrible smut marks on the page edges that were intended to be effective but just looked shoddy – at least Scholastic are listening to fan feedback to a certain extent.

Any return to Deathtrap Dungeon, handled well, is always welcome, and this is a decent series entry. There is an argument to say it’s a cash-in on an old and easily-exploited concept but I like to see it more as a much-requested fresh angle on a classic FF trope. The difficulty level is schizophrenic (incredibly hard with dice, very easy and excessively signposted if just playing the true path such as it is) but both of its predecessors were very hard so this is refreshing if unexpected and some would say it is too easy to really satisfy the hardcore players but what I got out of The Dungeon On Blood Island was a lot of enjoyment and a feeling of the early old school FF entries. It definitely needed a harder-to-find true path and more digressions into blind alleys (rather than being turned back whenever I went the wrong way) but there is enough variety of material here to see it through. Not the best of the new Scholastic FFs, but still a solid and worthwhile entry that takes us back to one of FF’s greatest ideas and rethinks it enough to keep us interested. And even its harshest of critics surely could not at least be pleased to meet the Bloodbeast again.