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I'm very excited about this month's Showcase for David J Rodger's Yellow Dawn. YD is an awesome game, one I've played in its pre-production phase and which is now due for release as a stand alone title for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition through publisher Modiphius (Achtung Cthulhu, Mutant Chronicles etc). Full hold-in-the-hand publication is planned for 2016, so this is a real sneaky sneak preview and a heads up for fans of the Lovecraft mythos. Yellow Dawn will blow you away.

Mazes, Maps & Monsters does not return this issue as was originally planned. Apologies if you were hoping to see the next installment. I am, however, happy to announce production is underway on full publication of a Mazes, Maps & Monsters release following completed playtests and encouragement from you guys to produce a proper system and hold in the hand book.

We ran two playtest campaigns, the first GM'd by me, the second by my 6 year old daughter (a highly entertaining experience) with a view to resolving some of the issues with the rules and rewriting new rules for older players (aged 10+).

This issue is a Fighting Fantasy Special, with a showcase for two great titles associated with the legendary Fighting Fantasy brand: P J Montgomery's graphic novel based on Steve Jackson's book, Trolltooth Pass, and FF fan favourite Jonathan Green's chronicle of the Fighting Fantasy saga, from its inception to current day projects, You Are the Hero.

I really wanted to run a showcase on the proposed Fabled Lands project by Megara entertainment too but unfortunately space and time commitments did not allow. I've run a small ad for them anyway - it's a very promising project with some big names, including gamebook gods Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson and illustrator Russ Nicholson (Warlock of Firetop Mountain), so in the spirit of gamebook July please do show your support for Megara and let them know what you think. As always, thanks for reading and have a great July!

DS Forever Folio Issue 3, July 2015 Š Forever People Digital Press, all rights reserved 2015 Graphic Design: David Sharrock Written and produced by: David Sharrock, Wyn F Dawkins Cover Art: Hastur, by Jason Engle Other Art: David Sharrock, Jason Engle, Gavin Mitchell, Martin McKenna, Russ Nicholson.

Thanks to: David J Rodger, J P Montgomery, Jonathan Green, Richard S Hetley and David Shaw.

Drop by: www.foreverpeople.co.uk Get in touch: foreverfolio@foreverpeople.co.uk

If you redistribute or share this electronic product please ensure you do so for non-profit purposes and that no part of this PDF is in any way altered from its original format and that all contents in their entirety are included.

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Showcase: David J Rodger on Yellow Dawn, a post apocalyptic vision set in the Lovecraft universe.

The Wyrd campaign continues with The Aura of Coriola, sending players into the north land of Listholm in search of a missing duchess

Q&A: J P Montgomery brings Steve Jackson's Titan setting to the graphic novel format New regular feature focusing on Forever People's EVP roleplaying game and the latest Haunt release. This month, Smoke & Mirra's, the world's most haunted nightclub

Q&A: Jonathan Green on the use of Kickstarter to reinvigorate the gamebook world's most famous brand.

3 Preview on Kickstarter

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PDF link: www.mythoard.com

Day One <mm:02879999:KBSB:Sandra_sergevski>

Correspondent Witnesses Horrific Start to Robot Killing Spree...

[Anchorman talks to camera] ANCHORMAN: We’ve got KLBB correspondent, Sandra Sergevski, ready to talk to us from Manhattan which is currently going into meltdown as reports of more of these killings come in... [ Anchorman turns to a hologram of the correspondent ] ANCHORMAN: What can you tell us Sandra?

SANDRA SERGEVSKI: We now know more about what started this incident, but we’re still unclear about exactly who is behind the robots and their actions. UTOC military sources seem to be in a state of panic and confusion: the persistent rumour is that the military lost control. It is almost certain that this event is linked to the robot killings occurring in other parts of the world, which follows the growing wave of people succumbing to an unknown virus . Official sources are connecting both events to the SOYAR corporation ship that tore through Earth’s atmosphere and rained wreckage across the Mediterranean and North Africa on Sunday.

What I can tell you is that early Monday morning, in Athens, a businessman boarded a plane for New York. The flight was delayed for almost 24 hours. Just like many other flights disrupted by the SOYAR incident. It’s likely the businessman Forever Folio July

joined the crowds of people stuck in the airport, watching the news feeds covering populated areas struck by the wreckage. It was Monday morning when several hundred million people across the impact zone woke up to see the sunrise tinged with an alien yellow glow.

Subsequently the majority of media feeds now carry the strap line ‚Yellow Dawn ‛.

The businessman was returning to New York after spending a week touring the Greek countryside. We’re certain he was in the area of the impact zone at the time of the SOYAR ship breaking up. During the flight he started to complain about feeling unwell. By the time he reached JFK he had developed symptoms that matched a bad case of flu.

Coughing and sneezing, the businessman travelled into Manhattan, checked into a hotel and tried to sleep it off.

Early today, he walked into the nearest emergency medical centre, suffering acute symptoms of pneumonia, respiratory distress, gastric problems and rapidly began to haemorrhage from mouth, nose and eyes. Staff were alarmed, especially considering his recent international travel, but alarm turned into confusion as the computer system for the medical centre locked down the entire building.

Technicians tried to override the lockdown but failed. Then, about twenty minutes after the lockdown began, roughly six hours ago, a bi-pedal robot walked into the medical centre equipped with a tank of ‘sticky’ petroleum and nozzle-type 5 5

weapon. The robot was more bulky than the familiar SONY Houseman, drab grey metal stencilled with UTOC military markings. The hospital computer allowed the robot access to each part of the building in turn, room by room. The robot incinerated the businessman and over half the people trapped with him. <//mm>

[ Many readers may be unaware of Yellow Dawn's history.

This is a game that's been rolling around the cult-hit circuit for some time. Can you give us some background on where all this started for you and how Yellow Dawn went from conception to the first published rulebook? ] It all started early in 2004 when a big surly meta gamer called Hagen joined my game group and broke my homebrew RPG system I simply called GAME. Up to that point I'd had the same bunch of players for 9 years, during which GAME evolved organically as a disparate set of systems.

GAME was a hybrid of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu and the cyberpunk genre, essentially the same setting as the novels I was writing at the time. It made sense to match the RPG and novels because both could feed off each other. Hagen is Norwegian and as stubborn as they come. He joined the group for one session and managed to break GAME. We never played it again.

I didn't call Hagen again, either. Not for a couple years.

In 2005 I finished another novel (Iron Man Project) and began looking for the next thing to work on. I was missing role-playing. We all were. I realised that GAME could be fixed, but if I was going to go through all that effort, I may as well do something completely new and radical with it. I thought: "What if the Cthulhu Mythos delivers a hammer blow against humanity. A Mythos-apocalypse!"

But what if that Mythos plot didn't quite go to plan for the creatures and human agents involved? It would leave room for humanity to survive and maybe fight back.

The seed idea took hold. I selected Hastur, The King in Yellow as the main malefactor because as an entity it is one of the least understood within the Cthulhu Mythos pantheon and probably one of the most frightening.

Yellow Dawn - The Age of Hastur is David J Rodger's end-of-days vision set in the Lovecraft universe; a cross-genre spectacular presenting a world recovering from a viral apocalypse set against the backdrop of the Cthulhu mythos. While infected roam the wastes, turning entire swathes of the landscape into no-go zones, those who survive struggle to rebuild the world anew. But life has changed irrevocably for the people of this new Earth. The Yellow Dawn was more than just a harbinger of global catastrophe, it was the portent of a new age - an age in which humanity phases gradually into the strange dimensions of an eldritch reality more terrible than the world has seen since its primordial youth.

Into this setting go players of the Yellow Dawn roleplaying game, but this is more than just another out and out survivalist/zombie apocalypse horror. Yellow Dawn combines many different genres, mixing them up to produce something that takes the standard and turns it on its head. Here you'll find military-style strategy and tactics, cyberpunk, survivalism, fantasy, science-fiction, even elements of sword and sorcery. The scope to create memorable characters with deep personalities and backgrounds is virtually limitless and there's immense potential for fun.

I caught up with designer and author of the game system and setting, plus nine novels set in the Yellow Dawn universe, David J Rodger:

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I wrote and launched the first edition of Yellow Dawn in 2006. A few pages as a PDF. This was more a proof-ofconcept and the very enthusiastic response led me to spend most of 2007 developing the second edition launched in early 2008, using Print-on-Demand publishers Lulu.

"I selected Hastur, The King in Yellow as the main malefactor because as an entity it is one of the least understood within the Cthulhu Mythos pantheon and probably one of the most frightening."

In January 2009 I released version 2.1 which contained bugfixes and minor tweaks to systems. In 2012 I launched version 2.5, containing an overhaul of the structure and formatting of the rulebook with very little change to the actual systems themselves.

In an interview I did with Michael Tresca (Examiner), he stated that Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur was the first game to combine Cthulhu Mythos with a post-apocalyptic setting. I don't know if that’s true – but if it is I’m very happy.

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I was exceptionally pleased when "The Unspeakable Oath" did a small piece on YD. Written by Bobby Derie he called Yellow Dawn "...a gold mine of material to port into your home campaign." [ You recently published your ninth book set in the Yellow

Dawn universe, Oakfield. How do you feel your fiction supplements the game? Do you use the fictional elements of your writing to help develop the game aspects? ]

a few drinks. So I ring up every Tuesday afternoon to reserve the room, and the pub is happy to oblige even though they don't normally do reserved tables.

Drinking too much rarely happens - players are too busy stressing and freaking out with what's happening in the game. Afterwards however, Wednesday mornings are sometimes painful.

Yes, weirdly, Oakfield was the first novel I ever started to write.

That was way back in 1989 and took me 25 years to finish.

Oakfield occurs before the other novels. It is actually a prequel to my first published novel, God Seed. As such, it happens before the event known as Yellow Dawn wrecks the world.

This highlights the dividing mark between all of my novels.

Some take place before the apocalypse and can be considered cyberpunk dark fantasy; others unfold after the apocalypse and focus on life in the ruined world, and the terrible consequences of Yellow Dawn. What many fans enjoy in my work is the consistency of the world setting.

The same technology, corporations, public figures and even secondary characters will appear across different novels: read all of them and you get to see how it all ties together.

And see how some are affected by the apocalypse. This is what the role-playing game has been placed within.

Whatever happens in the novels feeds into, and is fed by, the roleplaying game. [ Can you tell us a bit about your current pub-based RPG

meets and how are those working out by the way? I always imagine having a bar within easy reach during a game is a potential recipe for disaster (depending on your players I guess!) ]

We play every Tuesday night at a pub in the centre of Bristol, on the historic Kings Street. Before 2014 we used to play every three weeks, on a Saturday, at my house on the edge of Bristol - but because of diaries and players who now have families, etc, every three weeks usually became one game every five weeks. It was a problem, because it meant every game session was precious - so socialising and banter was cut short whilst we got down to business.

And notes had to be extensive to maintain the flow of the story with such long gaps in between sessions.

In April 2014 we agreed to change gear and play every week, on a Tuesday night, at a central location. I spent an evening scouting different pubs looking for one that felt right. It needs to have a space away from the main bar, a space that we can own as our own during a game. We struck gold. The pub has a front room with two low tables that can be pushed together, surrounded on 3 sides by wide leather sofas and with a real log fire in the room. Winter sessions were amazing. And playing every week, the pressure is off, so we usually start every session with a chance to catch up over a drink and bite to eat. Really nice.

It's been a hugely positive step. The key is maintaining a good relationship with the pub manager: we all buy food and Forever Folio July

[ You've had to do some tweaking and rewrites of the

original Yellow Dawn ruleset in order to keep it compatible with Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition (Basic Roleplaying). How did you find that process? ] At first I bloody hated it. I hadn't seen CoC7e before I started.

A fan actually bought me a copy as he's massively excited about the prospect of CoC and YD being compatible: so come January this year, I sat down to start scoping out the conversion and nearly threw my toys out of the pram.

"I was abruptly looking down the dark end of a barrel on a lot of work."

CoC7e has some radical changes to what I was used to with previous Call of Cthulhu rules. I was abruptly looking down the dark end of a barrel on a lot of work. But as I read through CoC7e and discussed it with said fan (a massive help) I quickly saw the brilliance of CoC7e and how adapting Yellow Dawn to work with it would make a significant adjustment to my game.

Everyone loves Yellow Dawn. The setting, in particular. But the rule mechanics are very dice crunchy. Lots of tables. Lots 7 7

of flicking back and forth between rule pages. This has worked fine to date but CoC7e has this beautiful freedom of movement; it's a game system written for narrative flow, for story-tellers and GMs who just want to keep the game on the rails. I am very excited about playing the 3rd edition of Yellow Dawn with these changes in place. [ For a long time you've been the sole driving force

behind YD. Modiphius (Achtung! Cthulhu, Conan, Mutant Chronicles) are now bringing Yellow Dawn out of the shadows and into the light (where it frankly deserves to be). What are some of the releases we can expect to see on this front? New titles? Campaigns? ] I'll be operating within the license agreement Modiphius has with Chaosium. The core release will be followed by three supplements: - A couple of scenarios, back to back: "Red Desire, Cold Murder" and "Baruch's Burden" both adapted for YD3e - Shadows of the Quantinex: A major globe-spanning campaign that reveals what (and who) caused Yellow Dawn to happen, and gives characters a chance to exact revenge and stop another hammer blow against humanity.

- Mirage Effect / Influence of Hastur: an expansion for Dead City runs and bringing the Infection further along its evolution, showing that the term "zombie" is a misnomer and that these horrors are much worse. [ I was lucky enough to be a playtester for YD not so very

long ago, though I didn't play for long enough for my liking! I was always impressed by how dedicated your playtesters were to the game and its improvement. How important to you is playtest feedback and how have you used it to make the game better? ]

Yes, I remember you participating. A shame you moved away. Playtesting and feedback is gold dust to me. I can have the "best" idea in the world but until you have real players actually working with it, you can't see the flaws. At the end of the day, this is a product and people are paying money to buy something they want to enjoy - if there's something wrong with it I need to know. Put ego aside and do the work. Oh, and whilst we're talking about playtesters. I called Hagen, nickname now GBH - Game Breaker Hagen back in 2007 to get involved. He's been a core player ever since and excellent tester. [ A few aspects of Yellow Dawn have always stood out for

me, dead city runs being a definite highlight. Can you give readers a few tasters of what they can expect to experience when they play? ] Dead City runs are a favourite piece of horror-play with my group, but they do it as little as possible because it is so darn creepy. It's not just that the characters have to contend with sneaking through a deserted city crowded with the Infected, but these once-human creatures don't need to bite 8 Forever Folio July

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people to cause the Infection to spread: just being in a Dead City and near to the Infected can expose people to the "influence of Hastur ". However, the rewards for completing a Dead City run can be high: scavenged resources and finding high-value items. They're comparable to dungeon crawls looking for loot.

communication and ‚likeability‛ allowing characters to leverage influence with the NPCs they meet.

"At the end of the day, this is a product and people are paying money to buy something they want to enjoy - if there's something wrong with it I need to know. Put ego aside and do the work."

Yellow Dawn is called "The Age of Hastur", and plugs neatly into the concept of The King in Yellow. H. P. Lovecraft included references to The King in Yellow in "The Whisperer in Darkness" and associated the Yellow Sign with Hastur.

Players of CoC will known Hastur (The Unspeakable One, Him Who Is Not to be Named, Assatur, Xastur, or Kaiwan) is a fictional entity (Great Old One) of the Cthulhu Mythos. The King in Yellow is merely one of many aspects of this potent and truly amorphous denizen, but it also exists as an imaginary play, representing another piece of occult literature in the Cthulhu Mythos alongside the Necronomicon and others.

Other features of Yellow Dawn include: survival in a harsh new wilderness; repairing and building things from scavenged resources; trading in scavenged goods; options to enhance SAN rolls with Morality, Stress and Depression; cyberware, rules for surgery and genetic enhancement through bioware; computer hacking, use of cyberspace, recorded mindstates and true AI; divergent stains of the human race, introducing Carbons and The Changed (think Orcs); cyborgs, robots and drones; lots of gear and weapons ranging from high-tech stuff that comes down from the unaffected orbital colonies, through to near medieval kit used by survivors far from any Living City; a full Occult system, that sits separate from the Cthulhu Mythos, including sorcery, demonology and astral travel; and First Contact, a nifty little system that allows less-confident players to run confident characters, with interpersonal

[ Leading on, perhaps, from the last question, how does

the Yellow Dawn premise tie in with Chaosium's Lovecraftian universe in terms of raw story? ]

Hastur is possibly one of the most written about and discussed entities within the Cthulhu Mythos, and conversely, one of the least understood. This fuzzy, blurred and vague state of comprehension is exacerbated by a divide between literary fans of Hastur, and the RPG community. The fact Hastur is so hard to accurately quantify is no coincidence.

The man who first brought Hastur out of the shadows of the churning chaos and into the printed daylight of humanity’s collective consciousness was Ambrose Bierce, in 1893, with his short story ‚Haïta the Shepherd‛ where Hastur appears

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on. Chambers was taken by the idea of Carcosa and expanded it into a nocturnal, warped version of Paris, which was where he lived and worked as an artist in the late nineteenth century.

I’ve certainly been drawing heavily upon its murky waters as I explore the influence of Hastur and the King in Yellow within the world of Yellow Dawn, including the recently published short stories: ‚House of Heavenly Light‛, ‚The Tainted Moor‛ and ‚The Corrupt Moon‛. For me, the idea of a fusion of Renaissance Paris with rusting and decaying components, also fits my experience of Venice – with its labyrinthine alleys and canals, its dislocation from normal reality through separation by fluid and the confusion created by the city layout.

I like to think that Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers were touched by That Which Must Never Be Named and consequently spent an increasing amount of their lives trying to define the very thing that is indefinable, giving birth to a perpetually evolving horror. Other writers and artists have been sucked into this fascination, adding to the Mythos and so the infection grows.

In Yellow Dawn, the Influence of Hastur can warp the surrounding reality leaving characters isolated and stranded (in a Dead City full of Infected) or succumbing to a madness that is highly infectious - just by uttering sounds or drawing shapes that pervade their conscious mind. as the benign God of shepherds. Bierce had already introduced Carcosa two years earlier, in 1891, with the short story ‚An Inhabitant of Carcosa‛ – and like all things to do with Hastur, the definition of this place is hard to pin down.

Robert W. Chambers pulled Hastur and Carcosa together, amongst other iconic memes, in 1895 with his collection of short stories called, aptly enough, The King in Yellow. Most notable within this collection are the individual shorts called:

[ CoC has always been an unforgiving kind of game. Death,

in short, is a very real threat. Given the disparity between the relatively civilized world of CoC where society still exists, albeit under subtle threat from eldritch forces, and players can always take a breather in the safety of Arkham, and the massively perilous post-apocalyptic world of Yellow Dawn, How does the YD system compare? Are total party kills a frequent problem? ]

- The Yellow Sign (Hastur is a vague entity without explanation)

CoC has always had a high mortality rate. It is geared around the idea you cannot fight the bigger horrors you encounter, certainly not physically, and to try is to invite death. Likewise using potent magick to beat off the Mythos can have a terrible consequence on the human body and mind.

In ‚The Repairer of Reputations‛ and ‚The Yellow Sign‛ Chambers swirls together the ingredients of a deadly cocktail: Carcosa, Hali, The Yellow Sign, and the apocryphal play The King in Yellow (not to be confused with the title of the overall collection of short stories).

In this regard, Yellow Dawn lines up seamlessly with CoC. But in Yellow Dawn, alongside investigating the Mythos, a key feature is survival: scavenging, building, repairing, exploring (a new wilderness) and fighting those who seek to take what you have.

Carcosa is a city, supposedly destroyed before the narrator recounts the tale of it within Ambrose’s story, ‚An Inhabitant of Carcosa‛. It’s a fabulous literary creation of tenebrous mood, confusion, paranoia, despair and insanity. It’s interesting to note that Carcosa preceded the emergence of Hastur into the fertile imagination of men by two years; Carcosa was the conduit to infection. Bierce was possibly influenced by a Gustave Naudad’s poem ‚Carcassonne‛ which deals with the subject of striving for completion of a quest whilst the cold breath of death enfolds and urges you

The second edition of Yellow Dawn had a lot of "get out of jail free" aspects, where characters could spend Hero or Karma points to adjust dice rolls when they were really desperate.

This helped facilitate character groups who survived for years of game play. But total party kills have occurred: the best being in a scenario called ROOTS written by Simon Brake.

Hero Points and Karma Points don't exist in YD3e as I have conformed to the CoC7e system of spending LUCK to adjust dice rolls. I like this because players think twice now before dropping such an important stat.

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- The Demoiselle D’Ys (Hastur is suggested as being a sort of supernatural servant) - The Repairer of Reputations (Hastur is defined as a place)

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you're impatient to taste more there are three novels that will give players a full flavour of the Yellow Dawn world: Dog Eat Dog, The Black Lake and The Social Club.

I've also been delighted to be approached by a Hollywood screenwriter. He thinks Yellow Dawn would be a great setting for a movie. We've had several video calls whilst he works up a treatment. The plan is he'll write the movie this autumn with a view to pitching once YD3e comes out.

Thanks again for the opportunity to talk about Yellow Dawn with your readers. I hope they become as excited about Yellow Dawn 3rd edition as I am.

Modiphius are planning a 2016 release of Yellow Dawn. In the meantime here are some links to whet the appetite: • Sneak peek / 1st chapter of next Yellow Dawn novel • Introduction to Yellow Dawn (PDF) • Official Yellow Dawn webpage (2nd edition) • Facebook • Blog for 3rd Edition - Work in progress • Twitter [ What are some of your favourite memories from running the game? What have been some highlights for you overall? ] Linking in to your previous question. It's great when you start a bunch of characters in the filth and poverty of a wilderness survivor settlement, with barely food or water to live, and nothing in the way of modern equipment or weapons... and they start to adventure. Crude displays of bravery and the desperate struggle to find resources. Cue Dead City Run. And eventually they're renovating a massive office building on the outskirts of a new city, building power generators, adding aesthetic touches, growing food, installing bioware lab facilities... and so the stories get bigger and more complex.

"Modiphius is looking forward to sharing David J Rodger's Yellow Dawn with the world - a very dark near future that is about to engulf us all!"

Chris Birch, founder of Modiphius, creator of Achtung! Cthulhu

"A key feature is survival: scavenging, building, repairing, exploring (a new wilderness) and fighting those who seek to take what you have" One highlight was when I ran Horror On The Orient Express in the Yellow Dawn world. Of course, it was impossible to have a luxury train trundling across the wastelands of an Infection riddled Europe, so I conspired a story where the characters were propelled into parallel time stream (cyberpunk era in which Yellow Dawn had never happened) and got dragged back into the horror of Yellow Dawn at key moments. Excellent visuals and much fun. [ Lastly, any words you'd like to add, dates you'd like to put out there or links you'd like us to share? ] Sure! Modiphius aren't looking to launch YD3e until 2016. So if

If you'd like to experience the current edition of Yellow Dawn, The Age of Hastur second edition is available from Lulu in both paperback (£21.95) and special hard cover edition (shown above, £35).

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a serialised adventure campaign for the wyrd setting and elderune multi-dice roleplaying system AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION Four years ago I began writing Wyrd, starting with a mythology and following (with all due humility) in the footsteps of Tolkien by constructing a language from which the mythology would evolve. From language and mythology came the Wyrd setting, the world of Yarnia and the continents of Ereth, the wyrmen and their rich civilisations. The result was Chronicles of Yarnia 1 - The Age of Thaw and the The GM Background is priced at $1.98 in order to fund Elderune multi-dice roleplaying system. the continued release of Forever Folio and to One year after putting pen to paper on Wyrd , I also began dissuade casual acquisition of the file. Either use the working out the framework for a fully realised adventure link above or find a link to the sales page for this title campaign which I intended to publish as part of a on our website. gamesmaster's guide covering the setting. However, the title in question ( the Overmaster's Companion ) has since ballooned beyond my original plans and is unable to sensibly support the campaign, which itself is sizeable and no longer fits as a mere addendum to another title.

Visit www.foreverpeople.co.uk

In order to run this campaign as a Wyrd game, using the Elderune multi-dice system, the GM will also need the essential Wyrd corebooks including System & Setting, The Wyrd Pandemonium and the For a while I considered collecting The Unsung Weave into first of the Wyrd gazeteers: Chronicles of Yarnia 1 a separate title for sale in the usual outlets, but then decided Ereth in the Age of Thaw. instead to give those gamers who have gone out on a limb to give Wyrd a try the break I think they deserve and which I am only too happy to give them by offering the campaign here, in the free pages of Folio. Here it will be serialised over the coming issues into a complete and unabridged volume.

Issue 3 sees the second of ten adventures designed specifically for your Wyrd game, but which, with a little adaptation, should be applicable to most fantasy settings and systems.

Full background disclosure, for the benefit of the GM, can be acquired from the Forever People website as a short PDF. This full background is provided as a seperate file in order to ensure players don't discover any major spoilers by leafing through these freely available copies of Forever Folio.

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Verdandi

Set Up The player group are based in The Angle and have assembled in Verdandi , capital city of the Anglian counties, on the first day of Apryl at the start of Merrydew, a series of spring festivities celebrating the coming of summer.

For suggestions on introducing the player group to Verdandi, see issue #1 of Forever Folio.

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The Crier is one of two dominant newspapers printed at the House of Lead Letter and player characters who wish to enquire about the mentioned reward will need to attend this location in Verdandi and meet with the editor of the paper. If they attend the Courant offices first they will meet with Xenophil Goodlove , a bohemian Shamancer with little interest in getting to the bottom of the story himself. He will instead direct the group to Garran Rustbridge , editor of The City Crier . He will also purchase any rumours the player group have for between 2 and 10 Wealth per rumour depending on how well known they are and how interesting he deems them to be. Rumours on the rumour sheet provided with the GM's Disclosure are probably known to Xenophil already.

Details Garran Rustbridge will tell the player characters what This scenario will take the player group to Listholm and the city of Tunturthis, introducing them to the Hyns-Horn railway (if they haven't already completed the Sleeper Agents scenario) and the perils of Sanas Morcorm.

Chronology Coriola's state of mind will never recover and, therefore, the time when her personality is introduced to the campaign is irrelevant as she will never present any difference in her characteristics. For this reason the point at which players confirm her presence in Meresken is less relevant than the information they are likely to glean from those treating the Duchess. How far along in the campaign players are will determine how they are able to utilize the information they acquire and whether the information is new to them or not.

Player Information RUMOUR The Grand Duke's wife, Coriola, has not been seen in Verdandi for many months. Some say she has lost her mind and languishes now in the Salver's Asylum of Listholm.

The group pass a newspaper vendor selling The Courant , a cheap newspaper featuring small ads and local rumours.

Within this paper is a story about Coriola and rumours which seem to suggest she has been taken to Listholm's Meresken Mansion (a healer's asylum) for treatment. The story is vague and ends with a hint that anyone capable of confirming the rumour by, for example, attending the asylum, might earn themselves a handsome reward from other newspapers.

he knows, which isn't much. Coriolis has vanished from Verdandi but Levena Castle and spokesmen for the Grand Duke are reticent, giving nothing away other than to say the Duchess has been unwell and is taking a break from all state business and public appearances. Rustbridge has heard rumours that the Duchess may be in Meresken Mansion in Tunturthis , but has no agents there to confirm the rumour.

Rustbridge intends to run a story on the vanishing of the Duchess but requires confirmation of her presence in Tunturthis and some background information as to why she is there, of all places. Apart from the likely repurcussions the Crier would suffer if it simply ran a story based on the rumours alone, the newspaper is an institution of integrity and Rustbridge deals purely in facts.

The reward for the player group if they can secure what Rustbridge needs will be a payment of 3000 Wealth. Proof is required. The player group will need to attend Tunturthis in Listholm and figure out a way to acquire proof of the Duchess's presence there.

Rustbridge, ideally, wishes to secure some kind of interview with the Duchess or her medical staff and if possible - documented proof of her staying in Meresken. To achieve this, the player group will need to find and take documented evidence that the Duchess is in attendance.

THE HOUSE OF LEAD-LETTER The House newspapers.

of

Lead-Letter

is

home

to

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The City Crier is a royalist publication and supports the belief that a king will one day return to the Angle, draw the sword from Kenwythi's tomb-stone and rule the land by divine appointment. The Crier opposes the Grand Duke's rule and believes that a county-system 13

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of decentralized government weakens the Angle.

The Anglian Hawk harbours the less romantic view that politics and non-central government are a necessary evil in order for the Angle to thrive. They support the Grand Duke and are pro-aristocracy but anti-royal.

The Courant is a small daily digest with no political leanings. The paper tends to print local rumours and advertisements and has little to no integrity.

During their visit to the House of Lead-Letter, players might meet Darcy Bland , editor of the Anglian Hawk, who will know of Rustbridge's intentions to investigate Coriolis. He may offer the player group a bribe not to investigate, or to return with false information. Bland supports the Grand Duke and fears what would happen if The Crier revealed the Duchess is insane and therefore unlikely to provide the Duke with an heir.

GM Information & Location Keys The road to Tunturthis is perilous. The player group will need to find a way to get to the land of Listholm, preferably without passing on foot through the terrible virus-plagued land of Sanas Morcorm.

The Hyns-Horn railway will offer the safest route into Listholm, though the GM should roll d20 and on a roll of 1 the engine breaks down and the train is forced to stop midjourney for 1d4 hours.

If the train breaks down and any player (not NPCs) make a successful Spirit roll the train is repaired 1 hour sooner (if this cancels out the repair time the problem is something minor which engineers can easily fix without further delay).

TUNTURTHIS A full key and detailed map of the city of Tunturthis can be found on page 52 of The Age of Thaw. The GM should refer to this when moderating the player group's journey to, arrival in and exploration of Tunturthis.

MERESKEN MANSION

By Listholm standards, Meresken is a relatively small and recent construction. It stands in a cleared dell within Derwose Woods , its gothic turrets and crenulated rooftops peeking above the trees overlooking the Sound of Mul .

Meresken (meaning Kindred of the Water , a subtle reference to the nations of northern Morturth at the time, whose civilizations were surrounded on all sides by the Inland Sea) was constructed toward the end of the Sanas Morcorm war as a palatial lodge for the express purpose of bringing together the clans of Celtrein and Cornoval .

When the warlord Caynum Bitterblade was defeated by the combined forces of Cornoval and Listholm, the Cornovish Jarls - whose rule replaced that of the Weavers - set their sights on conquering the broken Morcelt and expanding their territory to the borderlands of Listholm. Fearing imperialism and the rise of a significant threat south of Listholm, the then Laird, Aurulent the Just , was advised, by

Forever Folio July

the vanyirborn Mythyar Num to construct a mansion of tranquility wherein the warring lords could meet on neutral ground and settle their differences with diplomacy.

Mythyar's advice was misconstrued and, though the mansion was built in the form of Meresken, the building was imbued with numerous magickal runes designed to lull those within into a false sense of security. The very interior layout of corridors and rooms is arranged in the shape of potent rune-strings, while everywhere the runes of Naming are used they are hidden within the walls, the stone and the timbers of the structure - imbuing a school of magick intended for righteous use with deceptive facets. So potent is this magick that even when the castle is viewed from the outside; from the bays and harbour of Tunturthis, or from the woodland of Derwose, the place seems strangely romantic, relaxing the mind of the observer and giving all the land hereabouts a sense of the mythic and the profound.

When the rulers of Cornoval and Celtrein were assembled in Meresken the runes were activated and there seemed hardly any need for talk. A treaty of 14 14

peace was immediately established and the unified realm of Sanas Morcorm was formed.

Upon learning of the deception, the treaty was deemed to be both an insult and a fraud, both the Jarl of DroodCynncarn and Narpanum of Tarantel denouncing the agreement as a cynical ploy by Listholm to subdue emerging states. Thereafter both nations deteriorated, their trust in the Norwyr shattered and their sense of morality shaken to its core. The Jarls fell open to the suggestive and bitter whisperings of the Fronc端dha while the Morcelt fell to barbarism in their jungle idolatry. The Norwyr embraced anew the concept of nationalism and isolationist politics and withdrew from the rest of the world.

Meresken is thus considered by the people of modern Listholm with mixed feelings. On the one hand here was the historic meeting place of all the nations of Sanas Morcorm, the site where peace was forged and the most destructive war of the Age of Thaw was brought to a close. On the other hand, if not for the collapse of Drood-Cynncarn, war might eventually have come to the borders of Listholm. Few Norwyr accept that the trickery employed in the construction and use of Meresken was responsible for the subsequent social collapse in Celtrein and Cornoval. Most believe either that both nations were already barbarian and merely embraced their natural state or that the deception was the fault of Mythyar Num who, with her immortal wisdom, could see all ends and should have envisaged the consequences of her own advice.

Today Meresken is the property of The Salver's Guild which purchased the estate shortly after construction of the HynsHorn railway and now uses the mansion as a place to house convalescents. The northern wing has been turned into an asylum where those whose minds are troubled beyond the help of conventional medicine may benefit from specialized treatments and the magicks of the runes hidden in the mansion structure.

ACCESS TO MERESKEN Only the mentally or physically sick can gain free access to Meresken Mansion's facilities.

Members of the Salver's Guild enjoy free access to the building, though some wings are restricted unless they are of a suitably high rank.

Medicine Man creeds, Premancers and any rune-caster capable of casting healing runes will also be welcomed into the mansion provided they are prepared to give their services for a minimum period of one month.

The mansion stands in Derwose Woods, its gothic architecture constructed on a promontory overlooking the Sound of Mul to the north. The grounds include a small private beach, though this is rarely used due to the constant rain and bad weather that plague Listholm.

The mansion can be accessed by a narrow road wide enough for two horses abreast or a small cart/wagon. The road begins in Ismere Bay, the mansion clearly signposted.

Forever Folio July

The grand front entrance of Meresken Mansion (a) is a stately portico with steps leading to a high but narrow door of oak. This door will be guarded at all times by soldiers of the Kengard. Etched into the keystone above the door and around the edges of the portico's flat roof are various runes of Naming.

Any caster of the Runes of Naming will recognize the runes. Alternatively any player may make a passive AA Orphic Knowledge dice check to identify them as Runes of Naming or the same dice check but with Dd2 incurred to identify the purpose of the runes. The runes are complex but describe the building as a place of sanctuary, comfort and peace. A precise interpretation by any non caster of the Runes of Naming will also require a successful passive AA Speak / Read / Write Language dice check:

'These walls bind the essence of the Web of Wyrd. Herein the strands resonate in stone and mortar as they resonate through the weave of time and mind. In the name of Mot Elyeth, be at peace, you who enter, and deal only in peaceful things.'

A lavish reception hall (b) is also used as a lounge

for visitors and convalescing patients. Here a peat fire burns in a huge cast iron burner, pipes running around the walls and ceiling to warm the room. Easy chairs are scattered between marble columns whose surfaces are etched with more Runes of Naming.

These runes are similar to those found outside and reiterate the same sentiment of peace and tranquility.

Visitors who have come to meet a specific patient or guild member will be directed to wait here. Similarly, all guild members are free to relax in this chamber.

A reception office (c) is staffed at all times by an administrative member of the Salver's Guild. A small window looks onto the corridor adjoining the front entrance and the reception hall.

Newcomers will be directed to this office where they will need to state their business. Any enquiries made after Coriola will be met with a stoney response. The Salver's Guild takes patient confidentially seriously and will be deeply suspicious of anyone who comes asking too many questions.

A spiral stairway leads to more offices on the second floor. These are staffed by guild members and serves the guild rather than the hospital aspects of the mansion.

The surgeon's office (d) is a locked room containing

items used in surgery and in treating patients during surgical procedures. Here can be found a variety of 15 15

a c d

b

e

g f h

v i

j

k

l

m

n u

t

p

o

s

r

q

Meresken Mansion The Salver's Guild of Tunturthis 16

locked cupboards containing enough medical items to make up ten Kit Bags of the Medicine Man (see System & Setting, table 23).

Other items stored here include stacks of labelled flasks, bottles and boxes containing: Acidic ash spores of the Urdian Pallatrap, Agaric Fungus, Cantrell Fungus, Caps of the Blastotundra, Cowhage pod, Crushed Essence of a Magickally Summoned Swarm, Crushed essence of a Stone Golem, Crushed Essence of Spleen Tentacle, Crushed Essence of the Trongwend Thorax, Cytox Thrawnic hormone, Digestive Acid of a Cavernous Pitcher, Droplet of Withery Blood, Essence of Ammonia, Oestox Thrawnic hormone, Oospor mushrooom caps, Secreted Resin, Splyder Blood, Twigs of Chitinspor Mold and Wallowing Slime of a Spleen.

In other cupboards and on shelves are stored rubber gloves, sharp scalpel blades, several Workman's Tool-roll of the Butcher (used for more gruesome surgical procedures) and numerous bottles of alcoholic spirit, used to sterilise equipment, sedate patients and to disinfect wounds.

Stores are always running low and the guild is always keen to hear from travellers willing to source exotic ingredients.

Bulk deliveries are usually preferred, though the guild might consider topping up certain stocks provided the price is not exorbitant.

Administration office (e) accessed from rooms c or d, this

small office is furnished with a desk, chair and various cupboards and filing cabinets. Details about the Duchess Coriola will be found here in one of the locked cabinets.

Anyone searching will find the letter shown overleaf and the patient notes for Coriola shown on page 21, both of which the GM should print and hand to the finder.

I will send Coriola by train, to arrive in three days time.

She asks always for the object of her desire - the tapestry from her ancestral home. It is a subject of contention, for it seems to form the seat of her madness. She speaks of it always, and little else occupies her mind. The only instruction I would give is that her desire not be indulged. I fear this tapestry of which she speaks so often. Let it remain where it is and perhaps her mind will mend.

Your servant Grand Duke Triton Gwelenbryal.

This letter is extremely sensitive and if taken then printed in a Verdandi newspaper will place a strain on the relationship between the Angle and Listholm. It may even result in Coriola's expulsion from Meresken, though her doctors will do their best to keep her there for her own sake.

Outer Courtyard (f). A tranquil open-air courtyard

surrounded by cloisters and furnished with its own well and a large decorative statue of the female wyrwoman Amonir Salver , founder of the Salver's Guild.

Here nurses and medicine men will be moving to and fro, between the various wards and theatres.

Spiral stairways housed in their own towers are found at the south and west corners of the courtyard. These lead up to locked doors which in turn lead to chambers used by ranks equal to Highbinder and above. The chambers include guest rooms (where

The script on the letter is difficult to decipher and should be as hard for players to read as it is for player characters. For the GM's benefit the text of the letter reads:

Laird Mul Gerenum Evergreen & Lady Bethan Evergreen Once again my family owes you a debt of thanks. Since the days of my forefathers and the founding of the Hyns-Horn we have ever been allies. Though we share not the same faith, our people are of the same common source and we share the same bitter histories.

It is thus, with great gratitude, that I accept the extended hand you offer and the services of Meresken Mansion in the convalesence of my dear wife Coriola. I cannot describe the pain her descent into madness has caused, but my heart is torn and I fear our union will be the last of the Gwelenbryal line. You spoke openly in your missiv of the fate of our allegiance in days yet to come. I can tell you only that I have no heir other than the son of my darling wife. Skylerat Eaglewood is his name, for he is filled with resentment and despises me and my name. He will inherit the duchy of Verdandi and there is nothing I can do to stop that now. Mot be blessed and may your wisdom and kindness extend to him as it has to me. I only pray he will return the same courtesy to you and your people.

17 Forever Folio July

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members can stay for free), and a further area locked off and protected by various magickal wards. The contents of these chambers should be determined at the GM's discretion. In virtually every case player characters who enter these chambers will be breaking and entering and subject to the full wrath of the guild. The contents of these chambers is therefore likely to be controversial, if not illegal, as is commonly the case at the highest echelon of most guilds. Accessing these restricted areas should be considered virtually impossible by any but the most powerful caster of the Runes of Naming. The wards in place are empowered by exquisitely complex rune strings which work in concert with the runes embedded within Meresken itself. Some of these enforce feelings of tranquility and peace but many also enforce compliance, a desire to conform and a need to be lawful. The wards are designed to enhance these compunctions, causing anyone who wishes to break into the restricted regions to lose that wish almost immediately they attempt entry. The subject doesn't know why they no longer desire to explore the forbidden rooms, only that other things are far more important.

The power of these compunctions should be considered almost impossible to overpower by will alone. Righteous characters will instantly comply. Neutral or Wicked characters may make an Intellectual Intimidate dice check using the Automatic Chance of Success rule but must roll double 1 on 2d20 to succeed. If they overcome their own sense of compliance, they must still get past the standard locks and magical locks.

Note: there should be no real reason for the player group to enter the restricted area and the above information is given for the GM's benefit in case players persist or Meresken is used at some future point in a different adventure. The level of opponents and secrets likely to be found in the restricted rooms should be considered beyond the capabilities of the target player group for this specific adventure.

Spa and Bathing Room (g). Where patients and guild members can bathe in one of several pools of varying depth. The water is either warm or freezing cold depending on the prescribed temperature.

a cold cellar and larder containing food stocks, including milk and cheese.

Main Refectory (m) where patients who are mobile and active enough to attend meals are fed and watered. A long banquet table furnishes the centre of the room. Meals are served at morning, midday and late afternoon, but paying patients can acquire food and drink at any time of the day.

Covered Porch (n) leading to the nurse's station (j).

Inner Courtyard (o). A large open quadrangle. The middle of this area is a turfed garden where convalescing patients can walk in the fresh air. In the southern corner is a roofed terrace offering shelter from Listholm's inclement weather.

Luxury Wards (p) where VIP patients are housed in large sectioned off cubicles furnished with four poster beds. Coriola is housed in one of these cubicles, though she will likely be seated in a chair rather than lying in bed. She will be found staring vacantly into the middle distance, unresponsive to nurses, medicine men and visitors alike.

Hallway (q) leading to chamber (r) where a staircase

climbs to the upper floor and rooms where Medicine Men and guild members can stay for a price of 10 Wealth per night. The walls of the hallway are decorated with murals depicting peaceful woodland scenes.

Day

Room (s) where patients can relax in comfortable chairs before a roaring fire. The day room serves patients who are generally too unwell or unwilling to venture into the main refectories and lounge, particularly those who are too sick to mingle with the guild's general populace.

Quarantine (t). A small ward closed off to the rest of the main ward and used to house patients suffering from contagious illnesses or disease.

Main Ward (u) where the vast majority of the

recovering from surgery and requiring close observation.

mansion's patients are housed. Beds are lined along both long walls with barely a few feet gap between.

Anyone venturing into the Main Ward should make a Spirit roll. If they fail they should then roll d10 and consult Table 1 below. The GM should determine periods of illness and should not inform the player of the period unless the player character actively seeks consultation with a professional or a creed who can diagnose the sickness. Even then, the period should be given as a vague term (a few weeks, a couple of days, etc.) and not as a specific number of days.

Nurses Station (j) containing an office, common room and

Surgical Theatre (v). The lower part of this room is a

Guild Member and Healer Refectory (h). An eating hall used by guild members and those who work in Meresken Mansion. Like most of the other chambers, the walls are scribed with Runes of Naming extolling the virtues of peace and tranquility. A huge stone fireplace stands in one corner, while the centre of the room is taken up by an enormous table.

Patient Recovery Room (i). Used to house patients

storage closets for nurses serving the mansion.

Kitchens (k) where food is prepared for patients and for the two adjoining refectories.

Large Oven (l) a huge fireplace here can be used to roast complete animal carcasses. A spiral stairway leads down to

sunken pit furnished with an operating table. Circular seating rises like an amphitheatre around the pit and serves Medicine Men or other healers who wish to learn surgery by observing operations.

See also the notes below, Using the Surgical Theatre to gain Skill Dice.

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Table 1 - Disease & Illnesses Contracted in the Main Ward (Location u) d10 roll

Type

Details

1

Consumption

Chronic cough with blood in the sputum, weight loss and sometimes death. Loss of 1d4 Condition first day, 1d6 Condition second day, 1d8 third day, 1d10 fourth, 1d12 fifth, 1d20 thereafter. Treatment at a Salver's Guild premises will halt the dice level and if treatment continues for at least 3 days the dice level will reduce by one level per day. 1d4 marks the last day of the illness.

2

Moral Flu

Minor viral contagion with temporary depressive effects, causes loss of 1d4 Spirit.

3

Lock Jaw

Infectious disease contracted from bacteria in the blood. Loss of 1d6 Condition.

4

Plasmoditis

Parasitic disease contracted from the bite of a fly or flea. Causes sickness and fever.

The sickness lasts 20 days minus the character's AA Immunity to Disease value. For each day the character is sick they lose 1 Condition and may not apply Skill Dice to any CC Art & Expertise or CC Force & Form based dice checks.

5

Unsightly Masels

A respiration disease causing blemishes on the skin, spread by touch. The disease lasts 24 days minus the player character's AA Immunity to Disease value. While the character is infected he may not apply Skill Dice to any AA Allure dice check.

6

Hasking Cough

Respiratory infection causing violent cough. The infection lasts 1d20+4 days minus the player character's AA Recover value. While the character is infected he may not apply Skill Dice to any AA Sneak dice check.

7

Sleeping Sickness

Characterized by exhaustion and the need to sleep, sometimes for days. Contracted from fly bites. The victim's Art & Expertise, Force & Form and Storm & Stamina Core Characteristics are reduced to 1 and the player may not apply Skill Dice to any rolls made using Active Abilities belonging to those Core Characteristics. The sickness lasts 24 days minus the player character's AA Recover value (value unaffected by restrictions in this instance only). All Core Characteristic values are restored as soon as the illness ends.

8

Corpse Disease

The victim loses weight and becomes very pale, appearing corpse-like.

Accompanied by malaise and disorientation. The player character loses 1d4 Condition per day for 7 days. During this period the Storm & Stamina and Mind & Memory Core Characteristics are reduced to 3 and Skill Dice may not be applied when using any Active Ability associated with either Core Characteristic. All Core Characteristic values are restored as soon as the illness ends.

9

Apraxia

Parasitic disease preventing speech for short periods, caused by the bite of infected mosquitos. The term of illness lasts 24 days minus the character's AA Immunity to Disease value. While the sickness lasts the character cannot speak, thus his player cannot convey ideas or information freely during play. Instead the player must make a passive AA Aesthete dice check. If successful the character uses sign language to get his message across and the player may impart information to other players or speak to NPCs. This rule applies strictly to in-game communication only and does not apply to the player's ability to talk freely out-of-game, ask the GM questions and so on.

10

Binswanger Disease

Causes the onset of old age. The player character gains 1 year of age every day for 20 days minus his AA Immunity to Disease value.

Using the Surgical Theatre to Gain Skill Dice Medicine Man creed player characters gain +1 Skill Dice in AA Surgery by attending eight operations. Attendance is free, but operations are typically carried out no more than once per in -game week. During this time the player character will need to stay at the mansion, or at least in Tunturthis from where he can v isit the mansion regularly.

Operations are typically gruesome and unnerving. The Medicine Man must make one passive AA Courage and one passive AA Endurance dice check when attending each operation. If he fails the check he is unable to observe the surgical procedure to completion and that instance does not count toward the acquisition of Skill Dice.

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21

Finding Proof Evidence can be acquired in a number of ways, though players should, in most cases, be left to figure out the method for themselves.

If the GM notices the group are struggling for proof (having already found Coriola) she should call for a general Spirit roll from each player in clockwise order (from GM's left). The first player to succeed their Spirit roll can be given one of the following prompts: o

You remember from previous experience with guilds that they are administered with meticulous attention to detail. Most guilds are fastidious about keeping records and paperwork up to date.

o

The services of a Catharxis might be useful.

Next Issue THE GEOTANEUM MOLD Something odd afflicts the Geotaneum of Gor, otherwise known as the Quarry Master's Society .

The nature of the problem is vague, but rumours seem to suggest some kind of fungal infestation in the building itself.

A challenging dungeon crawl sees the player group return to Verdandi to investigate their most perilous mystery thus far. What lurks beneath the Geotaneum and where did it come from? What secrets are the Quarry-Masters harbouring and why does the headquarters of their operation appear to be rotting from the inside out?

The Geotaneum Mold brings the player group into contact with some challenging foes from the Yarnian bestiary - The Wyrd Pandemonium - and introduces them to the dark underbelly of Verdandian society.

Wyrd is a fantasy setting and game system (Elderune) written for mature gamers by mature gamers and intended as a next level RPG for roleplay veterans who feel they've 'seen it all'. A mix of the familiar and the very definitely unfamiliar combine in a setting so detailed you'll never need another. Download the free System & Setting PDF here for a preview of the game.

For more visit www.foreverpeople.co.uk

22 Forever Folio July

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23 Click here to download the free core rulebook (redacted special abilities, combat combos and reference sections)

Bringing the epic Fighting Fantasy world of Titan to the graphic novel medium. The original story, written by FF co-creator Steve Jackson and featuring fan favourite characters and locations from the series, are brought to life in a brand new story by writer J P Montgomery (Stiffs, Dynamite, The Pride Adventures) and artist Gavin Mitchell 24 (Santa Claus Vs The Nazis, The Samurai Slasher, Stiffs, The Pride). https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pjmontgomery/steve-jacksons-the-trolltooth-wars/updates

Text Wyn F Dawkins, Q&A David Sharrock/J P Montgomery

The novel tells the story of a war between two evil sorcerers, Balthus Dire and Zharradan Marr. With the peaceful kingdom of Salamonis threatened by the escalating conflict, King Salamon dispatches Chadda Darkmane to find a way of either ending the war, or turning it to Salamonis's advantage. The novel was successful enou gh to spawn two sequels, Demonstealer and Shadowmaster, featuring the continuing adventures of Darkmane and the good wizard, Gereth Yaztromo (Yaztromo being a character instantly familiar to anyone who braved the perils of The Forest of Doom - third of the legendary Fighting Fantasy gamebooks), which were in turn followed by the four part Zagor Chronicles series (yes, that Zagor - he of the infuriating maze and the very warlock responsible for so many torn up editions of Warlock of Firetop Mountain - although personally the dragon was always my downfall, ed).

This graphic novel is going right back to the beginning, adapting The Trolltooth Wars to bring the story to life in a medium as yet untested with the Fighting Fantasy brand. P J Montgomery explains: " We're sticking closely to the story

established by Steve Jackson, with some minor changes for space and pacing reasons (something you get whenever any story is adapted into a new format) ." The comic promises to bring Allansia, the main landscape for the Fighting Fantasy saga, to life like never before.

J P Montgomery, talent behind turning Steve Jackson's novel into a readable comic format, bravely faces the Conjuror of Questions who dips his quill into his ink pot and fixes the quillsmith with the kind of stare only a dire-eagle would dare to return. The quillsmith looks nonplussed and proceeds to give the Conjuror some background information about himself.

"I've been steadily trying to make a living as a writer for a

number of years now, and have several comics, radio scripts and a short film to my name, plus a regular series of columns for the website Sidekickcast. I don't tend to stick to any particular genre or style, having done horror, comedy, superheroes and, now, fantasy, and I have a few more things in the pipeline too. That said, I do like to try and inject a bit of humour into anything I write. Whether I'm successful or not is up to my readers to decide! I'm based in Cardiff, having originally been brought up in Surrey, then moving to Wales to attend the University of Glamorgan. I guess I liked Wales as I stuck around."

The Conjuror of Questions nibbles on his quill tip; a nasty habit he's formed since the Mistress of Mayhem insisted he stop biting his nails. "Quillsmith, can you give the pathetic malingering reader a bit of background information about this project?

What in particular drew you to the Fighting Fantasy world?"

"I've been a fan of the Fighting

Fantasy books since I was a young child. I've always loved the series, particularly the books set on Titan, and it's been a lifelong dream of mine to contribute something to that world. A comic book adaptation seemed like a

25 25

natural fit to me. Titan has always been a very well-realised world, visually speaking, thanks to the immensely talented artists who worked on the books, so to translate that into a full colour comic, and really bring Titan to life like never before, was an exciting prospect."

The Conjuror takes a moment to crush a worthless minion as a lesson to the rest of them - the useless simpering fools - then moves onto his next question. "There are hundreds of gamebooks to choose from. Given this is Fighting Fantasy we're talking about, why did you choose a novel rather than a gamebook for your adaptation?"

"I did look at the gamebooks as well, of course. But a huge part

of the fun of a Fighting Fantasy book is that you're inserting yourself into that world. The reader is going on an adventure. I had, at first, considered trying to do a full Fighting Fantasy graphic novel, but it was a real struggle to make it work properly, so I resolved to just tell a straight story. At that point, it became an easy decision. With many of the gamebooks, if you take the game part out, there isn't actually a whole lot of story there, other than some nameless warrior travelling through a dungeon and slaying monsters. There are exceptions, of course, but when there are already full novels set on Titan, with ready made stories waiting to be adapted, it just made sense to start there. And with Trolltooth Wars being not only the first novel, but featuring a number of fan favourite characters, it was definitely the way to go ."

The Conjuror is suddenly set upon by a foul adventurer who downs a Luck potion before using the 'thumb in the last page' spell (which the Conjuror has always considered a bit of a cheat to be honest) to launch a vicious attack. Ever the professional, the Conjuror continues to quiz the quillsmith while also fighting off the intruder... "What were some of the significant challenges in bringing this project from brainwave to Kickstarter ?" (he yells above the sound of a Zap spell bursting overhead) "Honestly, the whole thing's a bit of a challenge, but one that we're thoroughly enjoying taking on. Writing the script was

difficult at times, because although you want to tell Steve's story, by the very nature of moving it to a different medium, you have to make some changes, cuts and additions, just to make it flow visually, and keep the page count from getting too high. The Kickstarter itself was thirty days of anxiety and worry that we wouldn't make our goal. I can't really recommend it to people who are easily stressed! And now we're in the phase where Gavin Mitchell (the excellent artist drawing the book) and I have to put the book together.

This is mostly with Gavin now, but I see the pages as he's drawing them, and have to work behind the scenes to get printing and back up material sorted as well, and all in a timely fashion so that the people who have already paid for the book aren't waiting too long for their comics ."

The adventurer is vanquished, the battle is won. As the Conjuror picks his teeth with the foolish mortal's sword a sudden thought strikes him. "Was the selection of the artist a no-brainer or a Herculean task?"

"It was pretty easy. Gavin actually approached me when he found out I was working on Trolltooth Wars, and I said yes immediately. We've worked together previously on the horror comedy comic Stiffs (co-written with Drew Davies and Joe Glass), so we have a good working relationship already, which is useful. It helps that he's extremely talented !"

The Conjuror cannot relate. Being a dark lord, he tends always to employ the pathetic and downtrodden rather than the extremely talented. He stirs his Bloody Mary with a cocktail stick ornamented with the adventurer's eyeball and the subject of dark lords reminds him of something. "Has Steve Jackson 26 10

given you any useful insights? What kind of input will he have on the finished product?"

"Trolltooth Wars is Steve's baby, and we're very aware of that. We've been sending him character designs and comic pages as Gavin's been drawing them, and he has had suggestions here and there. This is our take on his story, but we certainly don't want to tread on his toes at all, or do anything with it he really doesn't like, so it's been good to have hi m involved ."

"Forever Folio is a roleplaying game zine, primarily, and our readers tend to be pathetic mortals.... I mean... gamers. Do you have any crossover experience of roleplaying games or are your feet planted more in the graphic novel/gamebook/fiction foundation?"

"I will admit to being a bit of a novice when it comes to roleplaying

games. I have been interested in trying some out for a long time, but had only really dabbled here and there in the Marvel and Star Wars RPGs. However, more recently, I've managed to get a group together (including Gavin) that regularly plays Advanced Fighting Fantasy. We're still beginners, but we're really enjoying it. At the moment my group is making their way through Firetop Mountain to try and steal the Warlock's treasure. It's a lot of fun!"

Ah, yes, the Conjuror thinks, good old Zagor. You didn't see much of hi m these days. Not since he and the Snow Witch had that thing together. He returns to quizzing the quillsmith. "For your next adaptation which book will you choose and why will it be the House of Hell?"

"Ha! I do love House of Hell, and, actually, I think I've figured out a way to tell that story in a graphic novel. However, there are currently no plans beyond Trolltooth Wars. I guess we need to see how this first one does, and if there is a demand for more afterwards. I think if we did continue, we'd probably continue adapting the novels first and move on to Demonstealer, but who knows where we'd go after that? Original stories set on Titan? Finding ways to adapt the gamebooks? As I say though, it's all just a pipedream at the moment. We'll see ."

"Pipes do not have dreams," the Conjuror points out. At least not the ones he knows.

But then, all the pipes in his dungeon are strictly forbidden from sleeping - there's far too much work to be done! He moves swiftly on, leaning more toward the topic of Fighting Fantasy rather than Trolltooth specifically. "It's always great to see how strong the fanbase is for Steve and Ian's endlessly imaginative output, and also heartening to see Steve and Ian are openly inviting developers to do new stuff with their license. What has your experience of the FF fan community been like and what advice would you give to other developers looking to do something creative with the Fighting Fantasy universe?"

"The fans have been amazing. Before we

started the Kickstarter I had no idea what to expect, but the number of messages we had from Fighting Fantasy fans all over the world supporting our project and getting excited about the comic was pretty overwhelming. They've all been lovely too, and really helped get the word out. I want to particularly mention Jonathan Green*, author of some classic FF books and the recent You Are The Hero coffee table book, who campaigned tirelessly to help us raise the funds, and Fighting Fantasy 27 superfan Lin Liren, who gave a hefty chunk of cash, and seemed to be spreading the word almost twenty-four / seven."

*See page 32 for an interview with Jonathan Green

The Conjuror leans on his black gloved fist: "Size of personal FF collection and favourite gamebook? For the record..."

"I have a complete collection of the original run of books, from Warlock of Firetop Mountain all the way to Curse of the Mummy, plus all the spin-off books (Fighting Fantasy, Riddling Reaver, Advanced FF, and the n ovels). All I'm missing from this set is Ian Livingstone's Casket of Souls, and the Goldhawk adventures. With the re-releases, I only have the new books (Eye of the Dragon, Bloodbones, etc.), and I'm working to complete my set of the new Advanced Fighting Fantasy books too. Plus, I own the Legend of Zagor boardgame, with the electronic voice. As for favourites, there are a couple. I absolutely love Moonrunner by Stephen Hand, which combined gothic horror with a murder mystery in The Old World. Jonathan Green's Howl of the Werewolf is a firm favourite, plus Steve's Sorcery! series and Ian's Deathtrap Dungeon. Finally, any book featuring Zagor is an instant classic in my eyes ."

The Conjuror shifts his gaze to his own collection, a dog-eared copy of Warlock of Firetop mountain - a birthday gift from Zanbar Bone which turned out to be a bootleg copy with all blank pages except for one, and that was a misprint of a page out of a Choose Your Own Adventure book. He decides to change the subject. "Do you have any other projects in the pipeline, or existing work you'd like to give a mention?"

"I have to mention Stiffs again here. It's a horror comedy set in the South Wales Valleys, featuring a bunch of twenty somethings who work dead end jobs in the day, then hunt zombies at night. One of them just happens to be a talking monkey named Kenny. You can purchase it from our online store (http://www.stiffs.bigcartel.com/) or digitally on ComiXology. It's co-written by me, and illustrated by Gavin, so people who want to get a sense of what Trolltooth Wars might look like should really check it out. As for upcoming works, I've co-written a graphic novel with the musician Kevin Pearce. It's called Dynamite, and is based on the album of the same name that Kevin has recently released. It should be out later this year. You can find more information on Facebook. I've also written a short film called The Trial for Burnt Papyrus productions (http://burntpapyrus.com/) which you'll be able to watch online soon ."

The Conjuror nods and sears the links into his parchment with his Mystical Wand of the Interesting Net. He thanks the quillsmith for attending and then promptly teleports him back to his own dimension where, no doubt, he will awaken and remember the whole strange experience as nothing more than a sort of funny dream.

But it wasn't a dream, the Conjuror thinks to himself with a sly smile. Or was it?

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EVP is the new roleplaying game system from Forever People in which players take on the role of paranormal investigators - a plethora of hi-tech gadgetry and specialized skills at their disposal - then venture into some of the most haunted locations in the world. Their mission:, to prove (or disprove?) the existence of the supernatural.

EVP, short for Electronic Voice Phenomena (a term used to describe otherwise inexplicable ghostly voices captured on audio recording devices) is now in its second month as a PDF title and has risen to the top of Forever People's sales chart. The rules are inclusive within a single title, The Overseers Edition EVP, with a free player edition to print at home (enough to give each player their own copy) and options to buy additional player editions at Drive Thru RPG . Based on feedback and interest we intend to take EVP out of the realm of digital limbo and into a full print edition with lots of exciting extras by way of a Kickstarter campaign just as soon as we're sure we have enough interest. So if you would like to see EVP as a hold-in-the-hand game, including the core rules and all Haunts produced up to the date of publication, please head to www.foreverpeople.co.uk and click on the EVP News link. We'll add you to updates and KS previews and as soon as the actual KS goes live, you'll be the first to know! Send your feedback to evp@foreverpeople.co.uk Forever Folio July

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July 2015, Haunt #2 Preview only

Smoke & Mirra's Magic World Kudos Cost: 220 Site: Smoke & Mirrors Magic World Type: Nightclub/Bar Lockdown? No Address: 44 Saltlick Pike in Wilder, Kentucky Electricity Supply: industrial fuse box and power supply. No risk of power outages.

Nobody ever figured out why Smoke & Mirra's was so popular. Nobody ever will, probably. It's a dive joint, but somehow Mirra hit his demographic square between the eyes and everyone who goes tends to agree, there's no place quite like it.

Now, that's just the background on the place and not much of a divulgence at that. The history of the building goes back a long ways further than Michael Mirra, or even the Barfield Brothers. In the 40s the place served as a munitions factory, and before that belonged to an old school gangster name of Cincinatti Sawyer. In those days the upstairs was a slaughterhouse and downstairs, down in the basement - that's where Sawyer ran his less legitimate (and when I say less, I mean a lot less) business interests. I'd wager plenty of Sawyer's least favourite folk met a sticky end down there, away from the eyes of pretty much anyone who had any sense, since you gotta be crazy to want to go down into Michael Mirra's basement.

Was Sawyer who first coined the term 'Gateway to Hell'. He was referring to the well that stands centre stage, not that the basement ain't a nasty enough hole in its own right. I'm willing to hazzard a guess Sawyer sure made that basement a Hell for his enemies and I shudder to think what went down that well shaft.

Smoke & Mirra's is a Kentucky joint you probably never heard of. Used to be known as The Basement, and if you're over 35 that name probably rings a few bells. The Basement gave some well known latter day showbiz names their first break. Comedians like Steve Brand, Julie Arnett and Jack Gaier, now commanding big money (mostly in animated kids comedies) first broke onto the 80s alternative comedy circuit through their gigs at The Basement.

The Barfield brothers, Tim and Jerry, sold up in '98 when comedy went stale. Some say the real laughs died with Bill Hicks in '94 and that certainly marked a low point for The Basement; a low point from which it never really recovered. Not so for Lebanese micro-magic performer and funny-man Michael Mirra.

You know him best as the voice of Sting in Pixar's Bee-have, but before Hollywood and the big bucks of Disney, Mirra made his fortune by buying The Basement and turning it into one of the most popular nightclub venues in the world.

So that's a little of the recent history.

Before Sawyer there was a long period of nothing much at all. Before that, place was what they used to call a waystop. Like an old fashioned diner, where travelling folk could pause for some good food and good drink.

And before that, before even the bricks and mortar were piled up, the territory thereabouts belonged to the original landlords - the Odawa, the Ojibwa and the Algonquin, those folks who now like to call themselves the First Nation.

Now to modern times and things get a lot more interesting, since Smoke & Mirra's is now known as the world's most haunted nightclub, and with good reason. There's not many who visit who don't go away with some kind of story to tell and that's not just the paranormal teams who seem to camp out there on a regular basis. The revellers, the staff, the cleaners, the auditors, you name it - anyone who goes in, comes out believing in something they didn't believe in before. The building itself seems capable of changing you, which might sound like a weird thing to say, but then there's not much about Smoke & Mirra's that ain't weird to the core.

Smoke & Mirra's gave the emerging close-up magic trend an outlet for performance in front of live audiences. Blane, Daurio and 'Spades' Palmer all started out there and all went on to make it big. The magicians were supplemented by comedians, keeping the old crowd super happy, and music - mostly rock, but Mirra never made the mistake of ploughing himself a rut by sticking with a single style. S&M played rock, grunge, jazz, country, hip hop, metal, reggae, you name it. And the public loved it.

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The Murders of Lamb & Tubbs Ernest 'Tootsie' Cline purchased the site in 1956 and after an extensive refurbishment of the main factory floor reopened the building to the public as a honky tonk bar and dance hall called Tootsie's. Tootsie's was a successful endeavour and is famed for giving many top names in country music their first break, but rumours surrounded Ernest Cline, by all accounts a pervert, bully and con-man, concerning several less than legal business interests conducted at the Tootsie's premises.

In 1969 Cline was charged with the murder of Loretta Lamb and her lover Gordon Tubbs. Cline was purportedly embroiled in a love triangle and grew enraged when Loretta, an up and coming star in the music business, chose the handsome dancer Tubbs over him. Cline's lawyer claimed all evidence against him was falsified, however, and indeed the bodies of Lamb and Tubbs were never found. Cline was released and the case was dismissed.

In 2008 a TV show called The Inexplicable sent a team to investigate Smoke & Mirra's and in particular to examine the alleged murders of Lamb and Tubbs.

During filming in the basement of the property several strange black mists were famously caught on tape and an EVP, later discovered on the camera audio, seemed to say 'Tootsie, my love', which the program makers believed to be the voice of Loretta.

The EVP is unclear and different people often claim to hear different phrases when they listen to it, but the makers of the show maintain this is what the voice says and submit it as evidence not only of the paranormal but of Cline's guilt in the murders of Lamb & Tubbs.

The only apparent indication that a murder ever took place were suspicious blood stains found in Cline's office in the basemnt of the club. Regardless of his guilt or innocence, Cline's ownership of Tootsie's ended with bankruptcy shortly thereafter and the bar and business were liquidated to pay Cline's debts. The building stood empty for another fifteen years.

The Wikipedia entry for this aspect of Smoke & Mirra's history describes the murders as 'folklore' and points out that no evidence has ever been found that Ernest 'Tootsie' Cline was ever even involved in a love triangle with the pair and that much of the socalled murder was sensationalised by newspapers at the time. Certainly most of the current understanding of the murder seems to be based on amateur website sleuths whose conjecture and conclusions are entirely insubstatiated by proof of any kind. Nevertheless, the legend prevails and is one of the most infamous angles of the Magic World story.

Haunt #2 for the EVP roleplaying game.

All Haunts are free to download from... www.drivethrurpg.com Search for EVP or...

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Fights of Fantasy

Using Kickstarter to reinvigorate the mighty warlock of gamebook branding Way back in the era of rolled up suit-jacket sleeves, Tina Turner, bad hair and eight bit computers with monitors so chunky you needed a reinforced desk to carry them, two young entrepreneurs attended Games Workshopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual Games Day exhibition at the Royal Horticultural Hall in London.

Penguin Books had taken a stand to promote a new book called Playing Politics . Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, the entrepreneurs in question and founders of GW, met one of the Penguin editors, Geraldine Cooke. The Dungeons & Dragons craze was spreading and they wanted Geraldine to publish a book on the hobby.

She invited them to send in a synopsis.

Originally intended as a 'how to' manual for FRP, the pair came up with a much more interesting idea - a solo roleplaying game presented within the pages of a book. The intention was to introduce a generation to roleplay, in a simple enough format to capture the interest of youngsters as yet completely unaware that the hobby even existed. The book would present an individual quest in which the reader, using the mechanic of jumbled paragraphs and a deceptively simple combat system, battled through a dungeon to reach the treasure. The name of this book? Not Forever Folio July

what you're expecting: The Magic Quest.

When Geraldine Cooke received a synopsis for The Magic Quest, she confessed to being baffled. A book, masquerading as a game, with suspiciously grown up concepts like combat, death, violence and mild horror, but purportedly designed for kids? The manuscript did the rounds with Penguin editors for a year before a decision was finally made to take a leap of faith.

Steve and Ian now had to turn their idea into a reality.

From proposal and synopsis to actual product required an entire rethink. Games Workshop was an emerging tour de force in the roleplaying market and a full time day job, so work on The Magic Quest was consigned reluctantly to evenings and weekends.

6 Months later and with (mercifully) a reworked title, the book was presented at last to Penguin as The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - a Fighting Fantasy gamebook.

To say that the adventure ended there and 'the rest is history' would be entirely untrue. Warlock went straight to the top of the bestseller's list, but Steve and Ian had no time to sit back and bask in the glory. They faced perhaps one of the steepest learning curves ever faced by a start-up in the FPR business - to hone not only their own writing skills (which were at first incompatible and starkly different according to Penguin at the time) but a newly invented genre, a 32 32

newly invented narrative method and even a newly invented way of reading. All this as the pressure cooker demands of Penguin required they do their honing at optimum speed in order to satisfy fans hungry for more.

It is the quintessential success story, and Fighting Fantasy's stratospheric status as the undisputed master brand of the gamebook format owes as much to the fascinating story of its own birth and evolution as it does to the tirelessly inventive imaginations of its creators and to the dedication and talent of its associate writers.

This story has now been told in full by one of those very same writers in the form of You Are the Hero, a definitive account of the real life Fighting Fantasy adventure.

Author of speculative fiction, Jonathan Green is a Fighting Fantasy fan favourite and writer with more than fifty books to his name, an active creator of content for Games Workshop's Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 and a producer of his own published gamebooks (Sonic the Hedgehog, Doctor Who, Star Wars: The Clone Wars). He's worked on apps for Tin Man Games, is a contributor to the Frostgrave RPG and designer/world builder for Attic Squad's Warlock's Bounty: Revenge of the Sorcerer. He's also written fiction for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Moshi Monsters, World of Warriors, Lego and Judge Dredd, to name a few. As if that wasn't enough, he is also the creative talent behind the long running Pax Brittania series for Abbadon Books.

"In the run up to the 30th anniversary of Fighting Fantasy (two or three years before hand) I started pitching ideas to Wizard Books to mark this momentous occasion, everything from a prequel to The Warlock of Firetop Mountain to a new Sorcery!-style epic, set during the War of the Wizards."

One of those ideas was a coffee-table art book celebrating the 30 year history of FF, but the publishers said this would be too expensive to produce. Other ideas were also rejected.

In the end Jonathan managed to persuade SFX Magazine to commission a piece. The article was commissioned at 2,000 words and ended up running to 7,000 words. The editor published every one.

Jonathan signed up for the Fighting Fantasy adventure very early on and has been an active participant ever since:

"I matched the target demographic when The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was published in August 1982. I was 10 years old, a boy, literate, and an only child. Oh, and I loved monsters! I started emulating what I read, creating comic-book versions of FF gamebooks. That passion never left me and 10 years later I was commissioned to write my first FF adventure - Spellbreaker. 23 years and 50+ books later, I'm about to launch a new gamebook project via Kickstarter."

As an 18 year old school leaver, Jonathan approached then publishers of the FF brand, Puffin, with the synopsis for a gamebook set in the Fighting Fantasy universe.

"When I left school I wrote to Puffin asking to write gamebooks for them. Marc Gascoigne, consultant editor at the time, sent me a set of writers' guidelines and I set to work. Two years, two ideas, and about three re-writes later I was commissioned to write Spellbreaker."

In June 1993, 22 years ago this month, Spellbreaker was published. It marked the beginning of a prolific career in writing which shows no signs of slowing down!

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"Having researched the article, I realised there was far more to the history of Fighting Fantasy than even I had realised and so I started planning a 30,000 word history that I would put out as an ebook."

That was until friend, and fellow FF fan, Christian Dunn (working for Black Library as an editor at the time) suggested Kickstarter to fund publication of a hold-in-thehand book. The crowdfunding website had only launched in the UK in October of that year.

Author Sean Riley was already crowdfunding with his Turn to 400 FF documentary. Unfortunately, his project didn't fund but it did demonstrate that there was a fanbase willing to back a written history of the brand.

"And, as it turned out, they did - in their hundreds!"

Jonathan's tireless research was supplemented by working closely with Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, interviewing them, going through their archives, and following up leads they suggested - they would subsequently come to write the introduction.

gamers), full of grotesque monsters and with its own simple (possibly deceptively so) rules sytem."

Steve and Ian's decision to treat their readers as gamers first instread of children was always a crucial part of the brand's appeal. Fighting Fantasy never talked down to its audience. Looking back at books like Firetop Mountain it's astonishing to read some of the more explicit material the continual threat of death, the menace and horror of the dark and shadow, the sudden appearance of gruesome personalities, unfriendly and typically intent on causing the protagonist - the hero - You - violent harm.

This can also be seen clearly in the unflinching styles of artwork, particularly of early books like The Forest of Doom and The House of Hell. Jonathan agrees:

"When other publishers tried to imitate FF's success many failed to realise what a difference the artwork made. Childish images didn't cut it. Steve and Ian were hiring the guys who created the artwork for

It was a history that needed writing, and while Kickstarter can be credited for giving projects like this the funding they need to get off the drawing board and into production, it could perhaps be argued that publishers need to recognise openings in the market for books like this and fund them accordingly.

Fighting Fantasy is one of the most critical aspects of British roleplay and for a huge number of mature gamers, and for many of the industry's most influential modern writers, designers and producers of high quality gaming material, their first experience of roleplay came in the depths of that dungeon beneath Firetop Mountain.

"From my experience, Fighting Fantasy was the gateway drug into the world of Dungeons & Dragons. I loved the cartoon show, and I enjoyed devouring the Monster Manuals, but I rarely played D&D" A sentiment true of many British gamers whose first taste of FRP was not Gary Gygax but Ian and Steve and their simple but exceptional take on Gary's invented genre.

At school Jonathan remembers the onus of Dungeon Master being unpopular, the cause of many games remaining unplayed. Where tabletop roleplay fails in this respect, the gamebook format provides a much needed alternative solution. But is this the only reason Fighting Fantasy and the gamebook genre have been, and continue to be, so popular?

"FF was the first true gamebook. Tunnels and Trolls had published solo RPGs, there had been Choose Your Own Adventures, but here was a fantasy quest, aimed at children (and Forever Folio July

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Games Workshop and soon they were hiring the games designers too, to keep the series going."

The perfect storm of timing, interpretive vision, sensible and commendable marketing, design, production strategies and, of course, a bottomless well of imagination.

"All of these factors had an impact on the enduring popularity of the series, as did the fact that the reader was the hero, and almost never even given a gender, let alone a name."

Beyond Steve and Ian themselves, Jonathan is probably the most informed expert on Fighting Fantasy in the industry. He explains, based on his understanding of FF past and present, what he'd like to see in the future.

"I would love to see a new trilogy of gamebooks, based on the War of the Wizards - and I would like to write it!"

Beyond more gamebooks Jonathan is also excited about developments in the world of Fighting Fantasy apps, and some of the latest proposed Kickstarter projects.

"It will be intriguing to see how the Pure Evil Miniatures and Greywood Publishing's Dungeon Quest projects fare on Kickstarter."

It never fails to amaze us at Forever People the number of awesome projects that might not have been which we can now enjoy thanks to crowdfunding. This is certainly the driving force behind the showcases we include in each issure of Forever Folio - our aim being to muster up support for projects that deserve to see the light of day. The use of KS to bring Fighting Fantasy back to the fans is truly a case in point.

"Whatever else happens, I'm planning on releasing an updated edition of YOU ARE THE HERO in 2022 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the publication of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain!"

The critically acclaimed You Are The Hero is available to buy on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com and you can find out more about the author and about his latest projects at his website: www.JonathanGreenAuthor.com The author would also like to inform readers of his current Kickstarter project, Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland which launches at 1:00pm BST on Saturday 4th July. Direct link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1412864360/ alices-nightmare-in-wonderland?ref=email

"Perhaps Kickstarter is the natural home for Fighting Fantasy now. Other gamebook projects - such as the revival of Lone Wolf, Fabled Lands, and Way of the Tiger - have worked very well on Kickstarter, and it certainly works for nostalgic projects backed by hardcore, old-time fans."

It's easy to imagine, Jonathan proposes, new FF books funded through Kickstarter, or special hardback editions (rather like the 25th anniversary edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain) with bonus content and maybe a coloured art section.

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