The Spiked Maiden is about to claw you.
Beneath Nightmare Castle is the 25th entry in the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks, written by Peter Darvill-Evans.
You are an adventurer and a mercenary, on the way to Neuburg, a city in Khul, intending to pay a visit to your old friend, Baron Tholdur, the Margrave of Neuburg Keep. However, as you approach the town, a pack of southern swordsmen attacks you and takes you prisoner. After freeing yourself, you find out that something strange is going on in Neuburg: foreign warriors patrol the streets, the inhabitants look scared and pale, and shapeless horrors prowl the city by night. Something terrible has happened to Neuburg Keep — Baron Tholdur, an eldritch threat from a half-forgotten past, has returned! It's up to you to find a way into the infested keep, investigate the source of this corruption, and eradicate it before it extends its tendrils beyond Neuburg, all without losing your life or your mind to the skulking horrors lurking in the dungeons.
Much like House of Hell, Beneath Nightmare Castle takes an approach closer to a horror story than a fantasy one, namely the grotesque alien madness of the Lovecraftian Horror found in other works like The Call of Cthulhu and At the Mountains of Madness. Along with the usual Skill, Stamina, and Luck scores, you also start with a Willpower score, which determines your sanity and force of will. This score slowly decreases each time you have to roll a Willpower Test, or if you see something really disturbing or creepy. If your Willpower drops below 6 and you fail a test, you go insane from the ordeal and your quest is over.
Beneath Nightmare Castle provides examples of:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Sort of: the Vlodblad starts with a risible Skill score, but as he keeps advancing and spawning tentacles, he adds 2 points to said score for each round where you aren't able to harm him.
- And I Must Scream: The Baron's daughter, pictured above, is very lucid and aware of her situation, but she cannot do anything about her predicament, as the cursed armor she wears forces her to attack anyone who comes near.
- Apologetic Attacker: The Spiked Maiden is compelled to attack anyone who comes near, and she profusely apologizes for it as she attacks.
- Back from the Dead: Xakhaz was thought dead and long defeated, his carcass sealed under the Keep. "Thought" being the key word here...
- Bad Boss: The Orc Cook takes delight in abusing her gnome servant.
- The Berserker: People possessed by the Runic Axe or the Armor of Spikes are compelled to attack and fight blindly with no rest. On the good side, Oiden, God of Battle and Madness, is on your side, and his priest will give you a Berserk Potion that increases your Skill by 4 for a single combat.
- Big Bad: Xakhaz, the evil, revenant sorcerer sealed under Neuburg Keep.
- Black Eyes of Evil: The Tentacle Woman. It's not mentioned in the text, but can be seen in the accompanying illustration, which was removed in some printings.
- Blob Monster: Several of the disgusting creations of Xakhaz include the deadly Brain Defiler, the grotesque Death-Kiss Protoplasm and the obese Vlodblad. The Luminous Warrior is really a giant slug-thing compressed in a suit of armor.
- Body Horror: The trademark of Xakhaz and his wicked sorcery.
- Body of Bodies: Xakhaz takes you on with his new body, a disgusting amalgam of flesh, limbs, trunks and tentacles flaying around.
- Brainwashed and Crazy:
- Baron Tholdur is under the spell of Senyakhaz and completely unaware of what's really going on in his castle.
- Subverted with the Spiked Maiden; she is aware of what's going on, but she cannot do anything about it.
- Carry a Big Stick: You can find a rather creepy mace which is clumsy but hits hard.
- The Chosen One: Your coming was foretold. This is why the last priest of one of the benevolent gods saves you from your captors at the start of the book.
- Cognizant Limbs: If you, for some unfathomable reason, decided to pick up a severed Blood-Lurcher's tentacle and put it in your sack, after some time you'll find out that it devoured some of your provisions to turn into a Death-Kiss Protoplasm which tries to latch on your face.
- Combat Tentacles: The Mottled Kraken, the Blood Lurchers and, infamously, a woman-like mutant that spawns a mass of tentacles from her mouth (a picture which was removed from the book as it was considered too scary).
- Covers Always Lie: While you do meet the Spiked Maiden, she's encountered inside the castle. Second, Neuburg Keep is on a hill in the middle of the city itself. Also, the cover implies that the person depicted is some kind of assassin for the villains, but she's actually an innocent victim, and will plead with you to run away while she's attacking you.
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Deleted Scene: The infamous, deleted illustration for paragraph 50 (the encounter with the woman with the tentacles coming out of her mouth), which was left out because of its disturbing nature. Can be seen here at your own risk
. - Dem Bones: You fight a skeleton rising out of a coffin. It's notable that this skeleton has a ridiculously low Skill of 4, but a surprisingly high Stamina of 10, unusual stats compared to skeleton enemies from other entries.
- Distracted by the Sexy: One room in the dungeon reveals three beautiful girls that entertain you with a captivating dance, who're actually Senyakhaz and two illusions, trying to distract you enough to lure you into a trap.
- The Dragon: Senyakhaz is one to Xakhaz, who's blocked in the cavernous dungeons beneath the castle.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Since Xakhaz spends the story as a Sealed Evil in a Can, it is Senyakhaz who drives the plot, leading the Southern Warriors, making Baron Tholdur her slave while passing as his adviser, reviving him, and helping him prepare his return. Xakhaz is only faced after she is dealt with.
- Eldritch Abomination:
- The incomprehensible alien hideousness of the grotesque ancient horrors stalking Neuberg is enough to rip a man's mind into tatters of madness on sight before they do the same to his body.
- Xakhaz himself takes the cake. His new makeshift body is a humongous, writhing, grotesque amalgamation of monstrous body parts, defying logic.
- Elemental Embodiment: The Vitriol Essence is a humanoid being entirely made of corrosive liquid.
- Elite Mook:
- While most of the Southern Swordsmen have relatively low Skill and Stamina in the single digits, you might get into a fight with an elite swordsman (accompanying a dwarf) who has surprisingly high stats of Skill 9 Stamina 18.
- You can find another Swordsman with Skill 11 later on, though he only has Stamina 6.
- Enfant Terrible: A child might steal your money on a visit to the market, and in trying to get it back you can be attacked by all their knife-wielding friends.
- Evil Weapon:
- The Runic Axe forces you to fight all your opponents to the death.
- The sword of Vlax the Slayer still hosts the soul of the bloodthirsty owner in the hilt and will possess you if you wield it.
- Excalibur in the Rust: The "broken fork" you can find in the stall of an old, seemingly demented Goblin merchant is actually the spearhead of the Trident of Skarlos, the most powerful weapon in the story.
- Femme Fatalons: The Spiked Maiden rakes at you with the massive, talon-like fingers of her gauntlets.
- Giant Spider: A massive one is summoned by Senyakhaz, but is really an illusion.
- In the Hood: Senyakhaz in the throne room of Tholdur, hiding, among various things, her real gender.
- Infinity +1 Sword: The Trident of Skarlos, if you manage to find both its components (and having the spearhead is needed to find the handle): it was made to kill undead and sorcerous creatures, which means it gives you more Skill, deals extra damage to those foes, and restores some of your Willpower and Luck upon finding it. It also really enjoys ripping Xakhaz's undead body apart, doing lots of extra damage to the Final Boss.
- Laser Blade: You can find a wand which projects a blade of freezing light. Unfortunately this weapon is powered with some of your life force.
- Light 'em Up: The Talisman of Loth, which you're encouraged to find and can be obtained halfway through, allows you to dazzle certain enemies with its light, reducing their Skill by 2.
- Lovecraft Country: A menacing town of unfriendly and paranoid folks secretly harboring ancient horrors older than mankind? Neuberg is a medieval Innsmouth in all but name.
- Luck-Based Mission: If you find yourself in the Baron's wine cellar, your gluttony gets the better of you and you decide to tap one of the casks, which is determined by a random die roll. One of the possible results of this is you drinking a potion the Baron had made that's supposed to inhibit his appetite so he can lose weight, and it means you can't eat Provisions any more.
- Mad Scientist: Xakhaz is one mixed with Evil Sorcerer, given his penchant for grotesque hybrids.
- Magic Potion: The Potion of Berserk Rage boosts your Skill by four points. However, it only lasts for one combat, and players who drink this potion must fight an enemy to the finish, even if an option to escape or stop fighting is available.
- Master of Illusion: Senyakhaz is incredibly skilled with this type of magic. You can uncover her if you have the Trident of Skarlos.
- Multi-Mook Melee: Right at the beginning of the adventure, if you made a wrong exit, you can get into a fight against SIX Southern Swordsmen, one at a time, without stopping in-between.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: You can end up killing people who were out to help you, and you will end up doing so if you wield the Runic Axe. You can also get a second-rate ending if you smash the portal machine in Senyakhaz's room, which means that you won't be able to reach Xakhaz.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Xakhaz is an evil sorcerous mad-scientist revenant cultist with a body made of spare body parts and tentacles. Plays against him, as he's both undead and a sorcerous creation, which means that the Trident of Skarlos will butcher him like there's no tomorrow.
- Non-Standard Game Over: If your Willpower is less than 6 and you fail a Willpower test, you go insane and cannot continue the adventure.
- Poison Mushroom: One of the potions you can drink is a diet concoction for the Baron, which will render you unable to consume food or rations for the rest of the adventure (so, no more healing).
- Press X to Die: In the very first paragraph, you have the choice to ignore the unseen man who's trying to cut your ropes and help you escape. If you do, you will die horribly two paragraphs later.
- Pyrrhic Victory: You can destroy the portal that Xakhaz's main minion uses to report to him, but it's acknowledged in the ending that this has delayed, but not stopped, his plans.
- Red Herring: A Downplayed example. The Talisman of Loth, which Oidan's clerics insist you must find, only gives you a minor combat bonus against Xakhaz. The Trident of Skarlos, which they don't tell you about, is far more useful.
- Samus Is a Girl: You find out near the end that Senyakhaz, the person responsible for Tholdur's situation and for kickstarting the whole mess, is a rather beautiful woman and a skilled knife-fighter.
- Sanity Meter: Your Willpower score represents your sanity, which decreases as you face by the nightmarish horrors dwelling in Neuburg.
- Sinister Scimitar:
- The sword of Vlax the Slayer, which results in Demonic Possession if you wield it.
- Also, the warriors from Zagoula patrolling Neuburg are armed with scimitars.
- Spikes of Villainy: The Spiked Maiden. Zigzagged in that she's the sweetest girl ever, but it's the armor itself that controls her and forces her to kill everyone on sight.
- Stuff Blowing Up: If you didn't find the Trident of Skarlos or the Talisman of Loth, but you did find a green luminous orb, you can One-Hit Kill Xakhaz by throwing him the orb, which will detonate in the middle of his body.
- Survival Horror: While it may not play by all the tropes of the genre, this book can be seen as a hybrid of this and a standard heroic fantasy story.
- Thinking Up Portals: A portal machine in Senyakhaz' lab allows you to reach either Zagoula or Xakhaz's crypt.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Neuburg under Xakhaz's threat, with terrified people, murderous street urchins, hostile guards and monstrous abominations shambling in the night, looking for blood.
- Transflormation: One of the book's least-disgusting demises you can suffer, getting hit by magic liquid from the Elven Fountain turns you into a plant.
- Tunnel King: Subverted; digging through the dirt under the pavement of your cell does lead you somewhere else... namely, into a deeper, locked out part of the keep, forcing you to return to your cell. On the bright side, it is the same area that contains the handle of the Trident of Skarlos, which is incredibly useful for your quest.
- The Undead: A good number of the enemies you encounter are undead of some kind.
- War God: Oiden, whose followers are on your side, is highly implied to be this.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: The Trident of Skarlos was made to destroy the undead and abominations created through sorcery.
