History Literature / GrailQuest

* NintendoHard:''Tomb of Nightmares'', with its massive numbers of traps, powerful enemies and precious few opportunities for healing. Not to mention the secret passage mechanism unique to this book, that makes finding the right path damn hard.

* NintendoHard:
** ''Tomb of Nightmares'', with its massive numbers of traps, powerful enemies and precious few opportunities for healing. Not to mention the secret passage mechanism unique to this book, that makes finding the right path damn hard.
** ''Realm of Chaos'' requires you to [[spoiler:fail a dice roll and fall into a very specific pit trap, so that you can find the vital passage hidden there, with no indication that said pit trap is in any way different from the other pit traps you find in the same section. The catch is that the reader is not given the choice to explore these pits on purpose, but you can only fall into them by failing the roll, so ideally, particularly "lucky" players could avoid that trap more than once and never be able to beat the game, and they would never know what exactly they did wrong]].

* BonusBoss:
** The Invisible Demon in the first book.
** The ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' in the fourth.
** The Cherry Blossom Giant in the fifth.

* ObviousBeta:
** ''Realm of Chaos'' features several paragraphs that don't link together properly, and several characters give you clues and instructions that never come into play (such as when you receive the Universal Key to unlock the chest containing the Mirror Shield, and then the Shield is just lying in a random cupboard). Furthermore, the curse on Camelot is originally blamed on the Wizard Kran. When you find him, he tells you it wasn't him and explains the rest of the plot to you. It is possible to go through the adventure without meeting Kran, and hence the story just becomes you stumbling around until you stop the curse by accident.
** ''Legion of the Dead'' has similar issues.

* YourMindMakesItReal: Sleeping is one way of regaining LIFE POINTS, however you have a good chance of dreaming, which sends you to [=DreamLand=], where anything that happens to you will usually impact the real you. In the first books, this usually meant you could die or lose LIFE POINTS while dreaming, and the best you could hope from a trip to [=DreamLand=] was staying alive. Later books made way for more beneficial dreams, including one that allowed you to ''gain money'' after dreaming you found a treasure.

* CoversAlwaysLie: These books are a lot less serious in tone than the covers would suggest. The French edition covers even have beautiful dramatic art by John Howe, who would then work on visual concept for ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' films. Most of these covers portray ominous armored figures that supposedly represent Pip, who rarely ever gets to wear this type of armor.\\\
The first book's French cover, ''Castle of Darkness'', has an armored character in a boat on raging sea waves, contemplating a castle roughly sculpted on a high-steeped rocky island. In the book, Pip doesn't wear this type of armor and never gets to sea: Ansalom's castle is accessed by going through a forest.

* IntercontinuityCrossover: In book 4, Pip can meet with [[Literature/TreasureIsland Long John Silver]]. No, really.

** ''Realm of Chaos'' requires you to [[spoiler:fail a dice roll and fall into a very specific pit trap, so that you can find the vital passage hidden there, with no indication that said pit trap is in any way different from the other pit traps you find in the same section. The catch is that the reader is not given the choice to explore these pits on purpose, but you can only fall into them by failing the roll, so ideally, a particularly "lucky" player could avoid that trap more than once and never be able to beat the game, and they would never know what exactly he did wrong]].

* OurLichesAreDifferent: Grott, the BigBad in ''Tomb of Nightmares'', is a lich.

* FunWithAcronyms: Most of the spell names, including Pip's Outstanding Wallop (POW) and Pip's Incredibly Rapid Repeater (Pi R
). Parodied with the Invisibility spell, which is given the acronym "I.N.V.I.S.I.B.I.L.I.T.Y. for short".

* FunWithAcronyms: Most of the spell names, including Pip's Outstanding Wallop (POW) and Pip's Incredibly Rapid Repeater (Pi R
). Parodied with the Invisibility spell, which is given the acronym "I.N.V.I.S.I.B.I.L.I.T.Y. for short".

For other gamebook series by J.H. Brennan, check out ''Literature/HorrorClassicGamebooks'' and ''Sagas of the Demonspawn''.

* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Realm of Chaos'' is considered the bleakest and generally less inspired chapter, possibly on purpose, because it involves exploring Camelot during the peak of a curse that makes everything rot. So most of the story is spent venturing through desolate landscapes and deserted places, with very little of the trademark humour of the rest of serie.
* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: The later books in particular (the boss fight in ''Voyage of Terror'' allowed you to return to two sections before the fight if you died, and the last two books allowed you to return to the section where you died).

* FunWithAcronyms: Most of the spell names, including Pip's Outstanding Wallop (POW) and Pip's Incredibly Rapid Repeater (Pi R[[superscript:2]]). Parodied with the Invisibility spell, which is given the acronym "I.N.V.I.S.I.B.I.L.I.T.Y. for short".

** The ''TyrannosaurusRex'' in the fourth.

* ExperiencePoints: The rules regarding these were very hazy: you got one for "every battle or puzzle solved", but what defined these was never explained. In any event, you got one PERMANENT LIFE POINT for 20 experience points. The rules also say you can carry 10 PERMANENT LIFE POINTS to the next book, but you would need a very, very liberal definition of "puzzle" to get anywhere near that total.

Hold still and don't fidget. See, Merlin ([[Myth/KingArthur yes, that]] Myth/{{Merlin}}) has cast a spell on you, modern day reader, that will transport your mind back in time to the days of King Arthur and his court. See, they weren't ''quite'' as competent as the legends portrayed and someone ([[SecondPersonNarration you]]) [[HoldingOutForAHero needs to save their bacon.]] Merlin's too busy.

''Now turn to'' '''14'''.

** The first book, despite its moments of humor, still plays its plot and environment quite straight, which is quite a weird contrast to the DenserAndWackier rest of the series.

* ShoutOut:
** In book 5, if you find one of Merlin's old houses: he apparently keeps books "about some idiot named Fire*Wolf", another series that J.H. Brennan wrote.
** Likewise, in J.H. Brennan's gamebook ''Dracula's Castle'', Dracula's library contains the complete series of ''[=GrailQuest=]'' ([[SelfDeprecation "a sign that Dracula is clearly dangerously insane"]]).

* RandomEncounters: The second part of ''The Gateway of Doom'' plays like typical Dungeon, including a roll on random encounter tables every time you've crossed enough length of the grayed hallways. There is a different table for each level, and the encounters become more dangerous as you get deeper into it.