9th Level Games, $5.95
Fantasy, 2000
The Warlock of the Extremely High Tower of Painful, Mystical Death! by Demian Katz… hey, that name sounds familiar. Could it be… oh, right, it’s that fellow that runs Demian’s Gamebook Web Page! You have to respect not only the OG but the OG of the online gamebook fandom scene, and what do you know, he has written a gamebook.
This one is based off the Kobolds Ate My Baby! system, and it even references this and that in the core rulebook. About that… yeah, you don’t have a copy of that. No matter, as a gamebook player, you have the Laugh at Reality ability—rules don’t apply to you because you can… well, cheat. Sure, this means playing this campaign may not be as fun as it might have been had you have a copy of the core rulebook, but what to do, you just make do.
Eagerly you hurry down the path until you come upon a clearing in which you see an unattended baby lying atop a tree stump. You can’t help yourself; you run right towards it. Just as you’re about to pick it up, though, its mouth opens wider and wider and a tentacle shoots out and wraps itself around your waist. You are facing a fiendish Mock Baby, and you must fight for your life!
Yes, this is that kind of campaign. You are a kobold, and as such, you and your people prize babies as the ultimate delicacy. When this campaign opens, you have found the tastiest-looking baby ever. Alas, before you can bring it back to the cooking pot of your tribe and earn the favor of King Torg, the evil archmage Tabriz appears and makes you give him your dinner. How rude. Now, you have to find your way through the Forest of Dangerously Pointy Things That Go Straight for the Eyes, to the tower referred to in the title and get dinner back.
If you are old enough to have had and carried a few babies, and most embarrassingly feel a twinge of fondness for those pink things, this campaign may make a part of you feel like the lowest of the low, especially when you complete it successfully. Still, you remember that this is not real life, and besides, it’s aimed at kids that will just love this kind of comedy.
However, the campaign itself isn’t as over the top or rude as the premise would imply, and that’s kind of disappointing. Still, perhaps Mr Katz doesn’t want to scar the most sensitive kids that just happen to pick this thing up by chance.
This is still an amusing campaign, though. Sure, you’ll be wandering around, making blind choices for the most part, but that’s okay, because even the death scenes are fun. Whether you’re flattened by magic cows or being burned into crisp by a Hellchicken, surely while great Kurtulmark may not approve, Garl Glittergold may be tickled pink by your misadventures.
While a short campaign, it can be a nice diversion on lazy days. Think of it as a Grailquest campaign that is actually, relatively fair with a touch of Fighting Fantasy.
Shame about not having the core rulebook, though. Who knows how much more fun this one might have been if you have it!
