Saturday, April 6, 2024

The dragon with a thorn in its side...

Dragonsbane (#7/30, #98/365) [EA:V2] (Artefact)    

This is a heavy spear with an ivory tip and sharp tine of archaic design, mounted on a shaft made from Ebony wood (see The Titan Herbal, p. 30). The words "Dragonsbane" are carved into the shaft, in a variant of the runes of the Ancient Allansian script. Dragonsbane radiates an air of obvious magical enchantment, and using this spear in combat allows the wielder to add 1 to their SKILL score for the duration of a battle. In addition, the weapon especially enjoys seeking out reptilian foes and piercing their soft underbellies. Any Reptile or Dragon (and including Dragon-like creatures such as Drakes, Wyverns, Wyrms and so on), suffers 5 STAMINA points of damage with no Armour Roll when wounded by a hit from Dragonsbane, as the magical spear sinks deep into their flesh!

Legend has it that Dragonsbane was originally forged by an Arch-Enchanter of the Celenasian Empire, for use in their battles against the scaly legions of Lizard Men from the swamplands of Silur Cha. Allegedly, the Two-Headed Lizard Priests had begun breeding War Dragons, and Dragonsbane was made to combat aerial troops of Lizard Men riding these devastatingly powerful draconic steeds. The last hero to wield Dragonsbane was the Amazon commander, Myrmidesa of Torgos, who fled south when the Celenasian Empire was destroyed. Myrmidesa's lost tomb is thought to be found in the cliff-lined valleys of the Mountains of Grief, and Dragonsbane is likely sealed in there with the Amazon's revenant, waiting for a day when they will both be needed again to combat War Dragons and other scaly fiends.

4 comments:

  1. Out of curiosity, do you intend to include creatures from any of the video games?

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    1. Tough call. I'm leaning towards including the Deathrap Dungeon video game monsters because I have the Bestiary (written by Jamie Thomson - very entertaining!), and they add greatly to some other beasts from the gamebooks that I will be including. I have no real experience with any of the other video games - do they have any new or interesting monsters?

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  2. There's about 10 original creatures in the Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Tin Man Games and maye 8 in the Steve Jackson's Sorcery games by Inkle. A Steam user called zZz made a few useful guides on the Warlock of Firetop Mountain which gives some details.
    I've got most of my information on Steve Jackson's Sorcery by watching youtube playthroughs.

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    1. Awesome, will start checking these out to see if any applicability in adapting to AFF 2e monster books. :-) Thanks! :-)

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