Let's Finally Play Flight from the Dark

With the monastery in ruins and the other Kai brothers slain it was obvious that the King had to be warned of this treacherous attack.


In setting off from the monastery my sixth senses warned of creatures searching for survivors.  Using this knowledge I was able to keep to the undergrowth and avoid detection heading off to the northeast.  Always being hounded by the same enemies that destroyed the monastery and killed my friends.

Near the ruins an ancient forest temple, I happened upon a scene of a young magician fighting with numerous Giaks. The magician was about to be slain by a hidden Giak. Not wanting to witness any more death at the hands of these monsters today, the choice made itself. Surprising the Giak I was able to overpower and slay it. The remaining monsters then fled off into the forest. I then learned that the magician's name was Banedon, a member of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. He had been sent on a mission to warn the Kai of the coming attack. I told him that he was too late and the Kai were no more. He gave me a Crystal Star pendant, with the instruction to wear it and it might bring me some protection and luck in the journey to come.  Our discussion was cut short by the return of a larger party of the Giaks, we parted ways, as I sought to escape in the forest.

After some backtracking to avoid some "sleeptooth" weeds I entered into Fogwood, a small cluster of huts that had been used by a family of charcoal burners, who had also fallen to the muderous Giak. My exit from the last hut was under the close observation of a large black raven, what its intentions were, if anything were beyond my ability.

A short while later I found that the raven did indeed have a master. But who was this master? I called to him and found him to be a Vordak, a hideous undead lieutenant of the Darklords.  With the murder of my brothers still fresh I fought and gave the true death to the Vordak.  As the Vodak fell his fellows erupted out of the undergrowth and begin to attack me with arrows.  Greed getting the better of me, I grabbed a large green gem.  The gem burned my hand with an unhealthy fire, but it must be worth hundreds of crowns, surely?  After a perilous race through the forest the Giak were finally left behind.  After wandering lost for many hours I finally happened upon a dark cave, the cave would be a nice short cut through the hill, saving a lot of time, but what horrors were waiting for me inside.

Find out more in Part 2.

Let's Setup Flight from the Dark

It all started out innocently enough, on the morning of the feast of Fehmarn by being given a simple task of finding firewood for the monastery.  Nothing else from that point on would ever be simple again.

From a distant vantage point Silent Wolf was witness to the Darklords attack on the Kai monastery.  Hurrying to join the battle Silent Wolf entered an unnatural darkness and was struck a blow to the head and rendered unconscious.  When he returned to conscience the Darklord attack was over, the monastery was in flames and all his brothers had been slain.  He was Silent Wolf no more.

So begins the tale of Lone Wolf . . .

Flight from the Dark Character generation

Character generation is a mix of choosing from a list of skills and some random rolls to determine what makes up Silent Wolf.  The initial selection of skills makes it possible to really customize your character, looks like fun!

Selection of starting disciplines (you get to choose five):

• Camouflage enables a Kai Lord to blend in with his surroundings. He can hide undetected among trees and rocks and pass close to an enemy without being seen.
• Hunting ensures that a Kai Lord will never starve in the wild and to be able to move stealthily when stalking his prey.
• Sixth Sense may warn a Kai Lord of imminent danger and may also reveal the true purpose of a stranger or strange object.
• Tracking enables a Kai Lord to make the correct choice of a path in the wild, to discover the location of a person or object in a town or city and to read the secrets of footprints or tracks.
• Healing can be used to restore 1 ENDURANCE point to your total for every numbered section of the book you pass through in which you are not involved in combat.
• Weaponskill When you enter combat carrying a weapon you are skilled in, you add 2 points to your COMBAT SKILL.
• Mindshield  prevents you from losing any ENDURANCE points when subjected to mental attacks.
• Mindblast enables a Kai Lord to attack an enemy using the force of his mind and adds a two extra points to your COMBAT SKILL. Not all the creatures encountered will be harmed by Mindblast.
• Animal Kinship enables a Kai Lord to communicate with some animals and to be able to guess the intentions of others.

• Mind Over Matter enables a Kai Lord to move small objects with his powers of concentration.

My choices were:

1. Hunting: If you don't have meals to eat you lose 3 endurance and this allows you to sneak too.
2. Six Sense: Not dieing is important, and spider sense should help.
3. Healing: I want this project to last as many books as possible, this skill is a must!
4. Weapon Skill (Warhammer): Silent Wolf is a fighting monk, he would have some kind of weapon skill.
5. Mindblast: Cheap way to get a +2 advantage in combat over most foes.

Determined by random rolls:

1. Combat Ability (10+d10): 16
2. Endurance (20+d10): 25

Equipment by some random rolls:

1. An Axe
2. A Meal
3. Gold Crowns (d10): 3
4. A map of Sommerlund, pictured at the top of this entry
5. Another random weapon, this time a Mace
   
   
   I feel pretty happy with my selection of skills, all thing a trained monk would need to know to survive in the world. My random number generating did let me down a bit leaving me with average combat skill and endurance. I was quite disappointed in ending up skill with the Warhammer only to have an Axe as the default weapon and randomly rolling up a Mace, another weapon I am unskilled with, such is life.

   
   

   So with these selections made and random numbers generated Silent Wolf is ready to head out to gather some fire wood, surely nothing bad could possibly happen on a simple errand such as that.

Let's Read the Lone Wolf Game Book Series

The Flight from the Dark by Joe Dever was the beginning of the Lone Wolf series of choose your own adventure gamebooks.  In 1984 in the first month of publication it sold over 100,000 copies of the series debut alone.

It was one of the first "advanced" versions of choose your own adventure books I played as a kid.  Advanced, in that not only were you making decisions and reading associated passages, but you were also fighting combat with random number generation to determine the combat outcome.  It was also possible to customize your version of Lone Wolf picking from an assortment or starting skills.

The books are now all available online at Project Aon where you can read them for free and play along if you'd like.

Since it has been so long since I originally read these books it will be very much like a blind play-though.  I will be using the online versions of the books through Project Aon and a standard 10-sided die instead of the random number generator table originally provided in the back of the books. I won't cheat and use spoilers, walk-throughs  or re-make any bad decisions.

This means when Lone Wolf dies this project is over.  With the series running over 30 books it will be quite a challenge, a Magnakai sized one at that.

How far will I make it . . . Flight From the Dark starting soon.