Joe Dever gave his permission for free distribution of the books online via the internet. Subsequently, there has been a strong revival of interest in Lone Wolf, particularly in Italy, Spain, and France where the books were republished between A computer game and a mobile phone game are currently in production for release in early Lone Wolf was notable as a gamebook series because it was the only one of its type where the reader played a single character who grew more and more advanced over the course of the series.
It was the first role-playing mega-campaign, and it has had a hugely influential effect upon the design of the first person fantasy computer games and MMO's Massively Multi-player Online games of recent years.
Lone Wolf is a series of gamebooks created by Joe Dever and initially illustrated books by Gary Chalk. The series began publishing in July and sold millions of copies worldwide.
Book 1. Flight from the Dark by Joe Dever. You are Lone Wolf. In a devastating attack the Dar… More. Want to Read. Shelving menu. Shelve Flight from the Dark. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Rate it:. Book 2. Fire on the Water by Joe Dever.
You are Lone Wolf - last of the Kai Lords. Bitter … More. Shelve Fire on the Water. Book 3. The Caverns of Kalte by Joe Dever. Shocking… More. Shelve The Caverns of Kalte. Book 4. The King has summoned you, Lone Wolf, last of the … More. Shelve The Chasm Of Doom. Book 5. Shadow on the Sand by Joe Dever. A voyag… More. Completing books successfully allows new skills to be added, and all of the skills are used frequently during gameplay, either by allowing special actions to be performed or by modifying the rules in various ways Healing, for example, recovers lost Endurance as time passes, while Hunting prevents the reader from being forced to carry food around.
Later books in the series offer more advanced skills and add a few minor additional details to the rules. Fairly early on, Hutchinson released The Lone Wolf Adventures , a hardback volume containing the first two gamebooks.
The sixteen books following the first twelve along with reprints of their predecessors, including an omnibus edition of the first two titles were put out by Red Fox.
In the United States, the series was picked up by Pacer, which printed faithful reproductions with different covers of the first two volumes. Pacer was absorbed into Berkley shortly thereafter, and the quality of the American editions slowly declined from that point on. Berkley's editions reduced the original books' color maps to black and white, and when Berkley got around to releasing books thirteen through twenty of the series, it actually printed abridged editions with many sections of text removed.
The final eight books were never released in the United States. In , after all English-language editions of Lone Wolf had gone out of print, Joe Dever announced that he wished to encourage the creation of free Internet editions of his work. For this purpose, Project Aon was formed, and the group slowly but steadily began creating authoritative, corrected online versions of the gamebooks. The efforts of Project Aon eventually bore fruit, as they helped fuel the revised and expanded Lone Wolf Reissues that appeared starting in A completely new 29th book was announced from Holmgard Press in See the reissues listing for this and newer titles.
Black for the image! Lone Wolf: Dawn of the Dragons from Dragon , page Yes, they stay sealed, thanks to Lone Wolf and Grey Star.
Sealed Good in a Can : Not quite a true example since they weren't actually sealed away, but the goodly gods Kai and Ishir are relegated to their own dimensions and can only provide aid to Magnamund indirectly. It is revealed in Book 19 that their Evil Counterpart Naar can bypass the same limitation by using the Moonstone to open Shadowgates, allowing his minions to constantly harass Magnamund and Lone Wolf in particular.
Second-Person Narration : The player is referred to as "you" as a staple of gamebooks. Sequential Boss : In Book 14, you face a fire-breathing demonic monkey, whose corpse turns into a swarm of man-eating insects. After you deal with them, they come together and form an ice dragon. Serrated Blade of Pain : The Drakkarim are very fond of weapons with a serrated blade, be they swords, axes, daggers or polearms.
The Barbarians of Kalte from Book 3 wield serrated bone swords in combat. Series Continuity Error : Some of the Lorestones are described as crumbling away or becoming nonmagical when you acquire them, but are later intact and active again when you return to the Monastery after having acquired all of them.
Sewer Gator : Not alligators exactly, but close enough: the Baga-darooz in Barrakeesh is an Absurdly Spacious Sewer inhabited by Kwaraz giant carnivorous lizards among other monsters. A couple of them can try to eat the hero during his visit in book 5, Shadow on the Sand. Single-Stroke Battle : Some fights are close to this trope, usually when one or both opponents are on mounts and they have only one round to strike each other before the momentum bring them apart.
The one with the highest Endurance loss loses the fight, with varying results, up to a One-Hit Kill. Situational Sword : The Sommerswerd can release a devastating Sword Beam if it receives a direct ray of sunlight and there is a Darklord target within range. Skunk Stripe : Grey Star is named so for the white forelock in his otherwise black hair.
The "Star" part is because a star represents hope. Slaying Mantis : The whole nest of man-sized, aggressive, acid-spitting mantises that pursues Grey Star at the end of Grey Star the Wizard. Ixia in Book Snake People : Darklord Taktaal is the one known Darklord to not be fully humanoid, his lower body being a giant snake tail.
Soft-Spoken Sadist : Darklord Zagarna's voice is described in the Legends of Lone Wolf novels as "quiet and bubbling, as if he spoke through a foot of water", in sharp contrast to his huge imposing form. Noncombat related Magnakai skills don't cut it against the new threats in the Grand Master books. But the gameplay bonuses from the Magnakai skills are still relevant such as the Gradual Regeneration from Curing and the bonuses from Psi-Surge and Weaponmastery though Weaponmastery is replaced by Grand Weaponmastery for balance issues.
Many powers that you can select as Magnakai or Grand Master are simply improvements over existing powers. Yet there's no reason offered why you can't use Hunting in lieu of Huntmastery, or Huntmastery in lieu of Grand Huntmastery. In fact, even some of the gameplay benefits of discipline you should have disappear when improved versions of these powers become available.
The Project Aon versions have clarified that you should get the benefits of hunting as an Old Save Bonus — but Hunting doesn't work in wastelands, so it won't work in Book 8 at least. Some magical items fall victim to this too. The Grand Master series has a limited list of special items you can bring with you, which omits some trinkets that were very useful in the preceding books, like the Kalte Firesphere or the Psychic Ring.
It is implied that Lone Wolf's newfound skills are making them obsolete — by that point he can now see in the dark or create fire by himself, making the Kalte Firesphere redundant, and his Psychic Powers are so great that an Amplifier Artifact like the Psychic Ring no longer makes any difference.
Grey Star's fourth and final book does provide him with a whole bunch of new magical powers that, surprisingly, do not replace his old ones, but act as new applications to the old abilities. Options to use the older powers still exist and sometimes you're better off with the weaker versions since they often burn fewer Willpower points. Sole Survivor : At the very beginning of the series, Silent Wolf is the sole survivor of the Kai Order, which is wiped out by a surprise attack by the Darklords' force upon the Kai Monastery.
In the original, he was sent to fetch firewood as punishment and accidentally knocks himself out upon witnessing the attack. In the Updated Re Release , he takes part in the defense of the monastery and flee through a secret passage. Either way, he renames himself "Lone Wolf" and swear revenge for his fallen companions. When that fails, Naar's personal armies attack Magnamund directly. Explored a bit in the backstory: Naar's original champion on Magnamund was Agarash, a demonic being so powerful he was practically an evil god in his own right.
Upon Agarash's defeat, Naar has the realization that while a kingdom-wrecking demigod sounds like a good idea on paper, if your only envoy is defeated then all the time and effort spent preparing him is down the drain and you're back to square one. This led to the creation of the Darklords; none are anywhere near as powerful as Agarash, but even if the champion among them is defeated, there's a long list of potential replacements already on the ground to fill his role. The trope is often played with: Lone Wolf can sometimes encounter something way too powerful for him to fight.
However, the text is usually kind enough to warn you through imposing descriptions, names like "The Akraa'Neonor" , and action options such as "If you want to run like a frightened bunny, turn to Grey Star gets his "Prophecy" spell, too, and also a "Psychomancy" spell that lets him examine objects by laying his hands on it.
All of these abilities help remove forks in the road when you're at a crossroads in the books. Spider Swarm : In Book 5, Lone Wolf can upset a whole colony of fist-sized steam spiders while trying to climb out of the Baga-darooz by a steam vent.
It's even worse if he'd contracted limbdeath earlier, and can't use his free arm to defend himself against the spiders. Spikes of Villainy : The Drakkarim's armors are rarely lacking in spikes, horns and other pointy edges. Squishy Wizard : Grey Star. He doesn't get armor, the only weapon he's any good with is his staff, and once he runs out of Willpower points he's pretty much boned. He also does not get Lone Wolf's regenerating health skills; Shianti magic relies on Alchemy for healing instead, which is limited by available potions and reagents.
Banedon too, in the Magnamund Companion adventure featuring him. He's a bit more adept with weapons than Grey Star, but the few opponents he can fight hand-to-hand are tough, even with the Status Buff spell "Vigour".
In Shadow on the Sand , his Journeyman magic sure lay waste on enemies, but when forced in close combat against a Drakkar he's severely wounded and would be dead without Lone Wolf. Stab the Sky : Lone Wolf takes the pose with the Sommerswerd at the very end of Book 2, just before blasting Darklord Zagarna with a ray of holy sunfire.
Status Buff : The most common form are "Ability Up" potions which increase Combat Skill, especially those made from the Alether fruits, as well as the more dangerous Adgana Herb.
Banedon has a few with his "Brotherhood Spells", notably "Vigour" for direct combat, or "Invisible Shield" and "Counterspell" as defenses. Them being Cast from Hit Points , you have to carefully weight down the cost versus usefulness.
That are quite situational, though, and can only be used when the text allow it, even those augmenting Combat Skill and Endurance. Steampunk : The Drakkar ironclads in Book 12, as well as the "Lajakeka" juggernaut. The city of Helgedad itself definitely embodies it, with the description of high, Gothic windows and a classic Mad Scientist Laboratory , though at times it strays closer to Diesel Punk.
Summon Magic : The Darklords and evil sorcerer types love to summon nasty things in a pinch. Among their favorites are the Crypt Spawns — flying flesh-eating tentacled brain monsters that can really ruin your day.
For the good guys, extra help can come from Shianti Elementalism magic. Which elemental shows up is a bit random, and sometimes they hurt more than they help. Earth Elementals are notoriously stupid and slow. Super Reflexes : The Magnakai discipline of Huntmastery, and furthermore the upgrade Grand Huntmastery, give a Kai lord increased celerity and agility, sometimes allowing to dodge fired arrows or even to slash them in mid-flight.
Super Senses : The discipline of Huntmastery augments a Kai Lord's senses at higher Magnakai ranks, giving telescopic vision to a Principalin, and enhanced hearing, smell and night vision to an Archmaster. Grand Huntmastery upgrades them even more, with vision in complete darkness and heightened senses of touch and taste.
Swarm of Rats : In Castle Death , one of the many niceties welcoming Lone Wolf on the shores of the island of Kazan-Oud is an immense swarm of dog-sized rats. Sword Beam : That's how the Sommerswerd blasts any Darklord if it can get a ray of sun.
Or just from the energy accumulated by not using it for most of Book 12 until the end. Tactical Suicide Boss : There are very few weapons that can kill Helghast-level undead, and even less for Darklords or worse.
In the remake, it's commented that the Sommerswerd is the only Good weapon that can kill a Darklord. If you don't have the Sommerswerd, there's almost always some way to use the villains' own magic weapons against them. Especially apparent with the Helghast attacking the king in the updated remake of the first book. If he hadn't nonchalantly thrown a magic dagger at some poor sod, there would have been no way to stop it.
Darklord Haakon can be vanquished without the Sommerswerd by turning his magic gem against him, banishing him to another dimension. Lone Wolf finds the beer weak but doesn't have a problem drinking it. In the first book of the New Order series, some ale is described as having "a peculiar smell that makes you think of greasy animal hides.
He wants to test a new taxidermy technique with a subject worthy of his talent: the last of the Kai lords. As he explains to Lone Wolf while serving him drugged wine. Technicolor Blade : The Sommerswerd, or Sword of the Sun, is explicitly described as a "golden" blade. Whatever metal it is made of, of course, is not pure gold because it's unequivocally Made of Indestructium. Teleportation : Not a common magic at all on Magnamund; Lone Wolf needs nearly maxed-out levels to have access to a version of this spell, and it's quite limited in range.
Even a Red Mage like Vonotar has no access to it; in the backstory of Book 3 he has to kidnap an elder of the Magicians' Guild of Toran, Loi-Kymar, and forces him to use his Guildstaff to teleport them both to Kalte. At the end of the book, Loi-Kymar uses it to teleport himself, Lone Wolf and the captive Vonotar back to the ship waiting for them.
Grey Star gains this spell in Book 4 of his series, once his powers have been boosted by the Moonstone. During the climax, he teleports directly to Wytch-King Shasarak's throne room in order to confront his nemesis.
That's No Moon! While lost at sea on a small raft, Lone Wolf spots a distant island and heads toward it — until it starts moving and is revealed to be a nondescript giant monster. If the player hadn't picked a magic amulet earlier, Lone Wolf gets eaten by the monster. Throw a Barrel at It : Not a barrel, but close enough: in Shadow on the Sand , if cornered on top of a guard tower in the Zakhan's palace, Lone Wolf can drop a big, heavy drum down the stairs at his Drakkar pursuers, crushing a few and gaining himself a short reprieve.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works : The opportunity to throw your sword is very rarely given, since Lone Wolf has usually plenty better options, like a bow and arrows or offensive magic in the later books. On a low roll, it will miss and Kimah will kill Lone Wolf. There is a noteworthy occurrence in Book 12, The Masters of Darkness. Between the end of the Kai series and beginning of the Magnakai series, 3 years past.
And according to the pre-release blurb for the last 4 books, they take place 18 years after the New Order series, with Lone Wolf's Apprentice now leading his own Kai Monastery located on the Shianti island of Lorn. Time Stands Still : In book 19, Wolf's Bane tries to cheat his duel with Lone Wolf when it is turning sour for him, by calling upon a demonic monster to backstab the hero with a Flaming Sword. Alyss interferes in the nick of time by stopping time before the Doom-blight can strike Lone Wolf.
And then she dismiss the demon with a touch. In the New Order series, there are mentions that heavily imply that Lone Wolf is developing his own Supreme Master disciplines; this after a point where he ages less than a year per decade, is on Kai's personal Christmas list and is already the next best thing to a demigod on Magnamund. Took a Level in Badass : Lone Wolf came a long way from being an inattentive student knocked out by a tree branch over destroying the Darklords, to becoming the mightiest Kai and possibly human in Magnamund history.
In the same book, Lone Wolf can use a blowpipe and dart on a guard; the effects are instantaneous. Trial-and-Error Gameplay : As with most gamebooks, this series has its share of moments where making the wrong choice will kill you without warning.
The Trickster : Alyss the demigoddess. She fancies herself as neutral and is certainly mischievous, but Naar and his minions are such utter bastards that she systematically ends up on the side of Good anyway. Turn Coat : Vonotar the Traitor, who gets his comeuppance twice in the series.
For the good guys' side, on the other hand, there's the Slavemaster of Aarnak. The Back Story mentions the Patar, the servants of the Elder Magi, who allowed the Cener Druids access to the Elder Magi's knowledge, which they used to engineer a plague to almost wipe them out, ending the Age of the Old Kingdoms.
Ultimate Evil : Naar the King of the Darkness is never seen in his true form for most of the series. Being one of the Powers That Be an evil one , he might not have a true form.
His preferred form, described in Book 19, is pretty damn creepy especially if the reader hates spiders. Another example from Book 1 is the timeless evil in the Graveyard of the Ancients. Which is revealed to be Naar itself in the rewrite. The Undead : Very common henchmen among Lone Wolf's various enemies. Book 17 in particular is rife with them. Unkempt Beauty : Tanith from the Grey Star books is described as being one of these.
Unstoppable Rage : Frequently manifests in almost all books as an immunity to psychic attacks possessed by some particularly berserk or enraged enemies. This can be just immunity to lower grade psychic powers, or just all of them. Unwinnable : In Book 2, you can miss getting the Magic Spear , and even if you do get it, choosing to do the right thing and give it to an ally to let him survive guarding a tunnel means that you will die about 5 page turns later.
Thankfully fixed in the project Aon version if you have Animal Kinship — otherwise, you're still screwed and will die. Also in Book 2, you are given a seal ring that will show that you are on a quest to retrieve the Sommerswerd.
If you lose it, due to selling it or getting robbed, you will die. The path continues beyond that, until you try to get a red pass.
The forged paperwork a kid will sell you isn't enough, and will just get you killed. In Book 3, if you ignore the old man in the cell and end up in section , you're doomed — there is no path to the winning page from that point onward. Despite this, that path continues for some odd sections, including several completely useless battles, events, and chances to use your items. Oddly enough, one possible path leads to the series' only possible Non Standard Game Over , which has Lone Wolf escaping Kalte on a skiff in one piece, but since he did not kill Vonotar and cannot return with the entire ice-fortress on high alert, he ends up failing in his mission.
Book 8 has you fight a timed battle against two Vordaks, with individual Combat Skill and Endurance scores meaning, overkill won't help you for the other guy. For players starting with that book, you absolutely need a completely massive string of luck for both your Combat Skill that you rolled at the beginning and all four rounds you had to fight — and all the CS-increasing items you could obtain during the journey — and the Weaponmastery ability for the weapon you use against the enemies.
Roll a 3 for your CS or get anything below an 8 during battle, you're screwed. In Book 17, The Deathlord of Ixia , it is more or less impossible to win if you do not have the Sommerswerd from book 2 , since you have two fights against opponents with much higher Combat Skill than you and far more Endurance, and you have to fight them in a row with no healing, having already gone through the demonlord before the 2-round survival battle. This is particularly fun as the Sommerswerd will make several other books much harder.
Updated Re-release : To go with getting a new publisher, all previously released books are being rereleased with new art, fixed typos, and a bonus adventure tacked on to the end.
In the case of the first book, this also involves heavy re-writing in many areas — notably having Lone Wolf participate in the doomed defense of the Kai Monastery rather than sitting it out due to an errant tree branch. Each one Lone Wolf finds allow him to learn a new Magnakai skill by the next book. In the fourth book, once the hero has completed his quest to find it, his Shianti magic is considerably boosted, gaining new advanced versions of his old powers, as well as a load of Willpower points.
Useless Useful Spell : Grey Star's Prophecy and Psychomancy are pretty good at eliminating variables when faced with a choice — sometimes.
Psychomancy can just give you a warped riddle that may or may not be right, and Prophecy sometimes completely fails to illustrate the nature of your impending doom. It's supposed to let you look into the far future rather than the immediate future like Sixth Sense does, but the opportunities to use it come up so rarely it's like the author forgot he put it in the list only once in the first New Order book, and not at all in the next two. The few times it comes up, you tend to get a Vagueness Is Coming reading, too.
There are several instances where you take damage simply because you have Telegnosis and your heightened mental sensitivity makes you vulnerable to psychic damage. Utility Magic : Kai-alchemy which has nothing to do with mixing magic chemicals, just go with it is full of utility spells that help you out in a pinch, but not so much combat magic that would be Magi-magic, which at its highest level lets you do things like crush a man in armor like a paper cup.
Elementalism the Kai version, not the Shianti version lets you do a number of things with small amounts of flame, dust, water and puffs of air, so it too falls under the "Utility Magic" label. Over the course of the series there are times Lone Wolf can do things that are The penalties for such decisions take the form of difficult battles, losing out valuable items, or dying horribly.
Lone Wolf is canonically a Messianic Archetype , he should act like it. In Book 2; when one of your travelling companions you don't know which tries to have you poisoned, you'd better pick the right suspect. The mercenary woman is bad enough, but if you pick one of the Knights of the White Mountain, he and his brother team up and become the hardest fight in the Kai books.
They're even tougher to beat than Darklord Haakon! And this takes place before you get the Sommerswerd. Aside from cheating or being very lucky , there's no real way to win this fight. Villain: Exit, Stage Left : In Fire on the Water , after an attempt at killing Lone Wolf with his magic is foiled by the Sommerswerd, Vonotar the Traitor cover his exit with a cloud of poisonous gas and This isn't strictly reserved to the bad guys however, with noble if dangerous places named things like "Zaaryx".
While Zahda isn't seen again for some time, his next appearance makes it clear that Lone Wolf's victories in the Maze and his subsequent escape have unhinged him. Zahda goes from a feared sorcerer that even the Elder Magi could only seal away to a crazed old man savagely attacking Lone Wolf.
Lord Zahda: You will die You are dead. Your life and your quest end here. Show Spoilers. How well does it match the trope?
0コメント