This is either the front cover of a Fighting Fantasy gamebook, or a punk rock heavy metal band cover. Your call!
Daggers of Darkness is the 35th entry in the Fighting Fantasy series of Gamebooks, written by Luke Sharp.
The Fighting Fantasy franchise continues exploring through the cultures of our Real Life world, this time taking place in the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the Mongol Empire. Set in the ancient land of Kazan, YOU are one of Segrek's Select, a potential successor to the throne. However, the evil Vizier Chingiz has plans to usurp leadership for himself, and has allied himself with the forces of darkness.
One night, you are attacked by one of Chingiz's assassins, and while you survive, you are scratched by a cursed dagger called a Dagger of Darkness, which infects you with a deadly poison that threatens to spread all over your body. Your only way to lift the curse, and reclaim the throne, is to take the dagger back to Chingiz and confront him in his throne room. But your real enemy may not be who you think it is...
The book follows the same rules as the standard Fighting Fantasy adventure, but being a Luke Sharp gamebook, once again time is not on your side. To reflect the slow-acting poison from the titular dagger, your stats include a diagram of your body — divided into 24 units — where each unit represents a poisoned body part. When the poison has spread through your entire body, you die!
Time is running out. You must face Chingiz before it's too late: the destiny of Kazan is in YOUR hands.
Daggers of Darkness provides examples of:
- An Arm and a Leg: The huge Kalamite is driven off when Adana-Broussah, an ally, hacks off its arm.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: If you succeed in your quest, the final paragraph proudly declares you as the new ruler of Kazan.
- The Beastmaster:
- Beshbalik, shown on the cover, can command animals to fight for him or do him favours. If you get on his bad side he will sic his falcon and two pet tigers on you.
- Khomatads have the ability to control giant eagles as transports, and will drop on you to attack while clinging to their eagles.
- Bird People: The Boulyanthrop are lawful bird-men on your side, and you can enlist their help sometimes to get you out of a jam.
- Blind Weaponmaster: Alkis Fearslicer may be blind, but he's still capable of kicking ass and defeating five goblins on his own.
- Consolation Prize: After you lift the curse of the dagger by confronting Chingiz, you gain 4 Stamina points. However, the adventure is almost over, and there are no further battles, traps, enemy encounters, or opportunities to lose Stamina, which makes it nothing more than a mechanical plot reward.
- Creepy Souvenir: The Talon of Sakar is the severed, mummified arm of a Boulyanthrop, which is actually magical and can summon help should you need it.
- Defeat Means Respect: If you defeat the two marauders challenging you (it's not a fight to the death, you are allowed to retreat when your Stamina reaches 4 points), you are immediately welcomed to their camp.
- Dragon Ascendant: Chingiz's position as the Big Bad is usurped by his daughter, Meghan-na-Dur. Not that it really benefits her though, since she dies a few pages later anyway.
- Dragon Lady: Meghan-na-Dur's appearance invokes this, dressed in Oriental robes and a Chinese-inspired bun hairstyle.
- Dungeon Bypass:
- The Bogomil Medallion can help you skip battles, which is a good thing if you don't want your Poison level to spike.
- Fiends can be somehow pacified by flowers.
- The Stone Dragon trio, should you encounter them, can be ignored if you can bribe them with gems.
- Eye of Newt: You can discover an alchemy chamber, where you get to mix and match various weird ingredients to create different kinds of potions, two out of nine of which are fatal to you. Some of the ingredients you can use are Eye of Newt, Volcano Dust, Viper's Tongue, Ground Dragon's Claw, Mithir Forest Mists...
- Evil Chancellor: Chingiz, the evil chancellor and Big Bad of the story, who is after the throne and cursed you with the titular dagger.
- Flunky Boss: Meghan-na-Dur, Chingiz's daughter, has four ogre bodyguards flanking her sides. Subverted that you are not supposed to fight them; instead, she uses the ogres to trick you into inflicting a deadly curse upon yourself, since you must not draw your weapon in the presence of the throne.
- Giant Flyer: The aforementioned Khomatads can commandeer eagles to drop them on their enemies.
- Grim Up North: Taking place in a Mongol-inspired setting, most of the story is set in a winter wasteland.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The immensely huge and powerful Kalamite will instantly kill you if you try to fight it, regardless how high your stats are. instead you're supposed to let it grab you so that Adana-Broussah, a fellow warrior-woman, can hack off its arm and drive it off.
- Latex Perfection: A Mamlik assassin disguised as a woman will stalk you, and you uncover his true identity by tearing his face away.
- Living Statue: You can encounter and fight animated statues of trolls, eagles, snakes, fiends, tigers, gargoyles, and if you're really, really unlucky... three dragons.
- Magical Accessory: The Medallion of Bogomil is compulsory for the success of your quest.
- Making a Splash: The Necromancer can summon a tidal wave in an attempt to kill you.
- The Maze: The Maze of Bogomil contains the magic Medallion of Bogomil, a compulsory item for your quest. Unlike The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, however, the maze is more of a straight path this time where you keep walking forward while throwing a die to see what random encounters you might stumble upon while making your way across.
- Mooks: Chingiz's forces are mostly Orcs and Mamliks, the latter of which is a race of beast-men native to Kazan.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Necromancers cannot be beaten by weapons, but there is a way to learn a method (identical to learning the XEN religion from Fangs of Fury) to damage them. Defeated Necromancers "die", but their staves burrow into the ground, implying they were some form of The Symbiote.
- Night of the Living Mooks: The Necromancer you encounter can resurrect skeletons and zombies from a graveyard on you. You don't get a chance to fight, though, because of how vastly outnumbered you are, so your best bet is to run as fast as you can!
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: While crossing the Maze, you are specifically informed that two Minotaurs are stalking your trail.
- Panthera Awesome: Fangtigers are frequently encountered in this adventure. They may or may not be particularly friendly, depending which path you take.
- Random Encounters: You navigate the Maze of Bogomil by rolling a die to determine which room you end up in; each room may contain enemies, traps, treasures, or useful hints.
- Reduced to Dust:
- Victims of the titular daggers will suffer this fate, should the infected fail to find a cure in time. A victim you encounter in the first paragraph dissolves away as you try speaking to him, including all of his possessions.
- It can happen to you, if you fail to lift the curse in time.
- Meghan-na-Dur will suffer this fate when you cause her curse to backfire on her.
- Schmuck Bait:
- After you help an old crone retrieve her chest of gold, you can choose to snatch some of her gold for yourself. If you do this, you activate a magical trap which summons a poisonous serpent which will bite you, causing you to lose Stamina and your Poison level to spike.
- The ominous-looking fishing rod near a pool is actually a trap set by an Elkiem to drag you underwater.
- Near the end of the book, Meghan-na-Dur will sic her ogre bodyguards on you in order to trick you into drawing your weapon, which will cause your instant death.
- Sinister Scimitar: Given the setting being Mongol-inspired, many of your opponents wield these, including several Mamliks, marauders and Chingiz's guards.
- Slave Mooks: Chingiz's Khazanid units are described as such.
- Skippable Boss:
- Zizzadek the sorcerer is a Skill 11 opponent who can summon a Flechette Storm on you before the fight, but he is not a compulsory boss encounter.
- The trio of Stone Dragons are a Wolfpack Boss which can be avoided. If you somehow end up fighting them, you can use gems to pacify them to leave you alone.
- Step into the Blinding Fight: More often than not, you will have to do battle against enemies while in total darkness. However, if you learn the skill of Darkfighting from Alkis Fearslicer, you need not suffer a malus in such situations.
- Taken for Granite: Meghan-na-Dur's ogre bodyguards turn into stone when you cause her curse to backfire on her.
- The Usurper: Chingiz's reason for sending an assassin after you; he wanted the throne for himself. Not to mention, like father, like daughter...
- Violence is the Only Option: Inverted. With every fight you participate in, your Poison level will increase, and ultimately kill you. Your best bet is to consider encounters carefully and pick your battles.
- We Have Reserves: When the Necromancer suspects there is an impostor (that is, YOU) hiding among her mooks, but has no idea who it is, she immediately opts to summon a tidal wave and kill everyone present, including several Mamliks and goblins.
- When Trees Attack: The Gnarled Oak is a living tree which ensnares victims with its branches and fuses them into its body. There's a spooky accompanying illustration of the oak with several skeletons fused into its trunk.
- Zero-Effort Boss: Chingiz and his daughter, Meghan-na-Dur, are easily the most ridiculously anti-climatic final encounters in the entire Fighting Fantasy franchise. Your confrontation with Chingiz starts with him gloating evilly, at which point he's abruptly cut short when Meghan-na-Dur betrays him by stabbing him In the Back. You then confront Meghan-na-Dur, and defeat her... by literally walking towards her throne without lifting a weapon. The entire confrontation lasts for three pages without a struggle.
