A short-lived obscure Gamebook series by author J.H. Brennan, who is more famous for his GrailQuest and Sagas of the Demonspawn series. It was released in 1986.
It is constituted of a grand total of two books: Dracula's Castle and Curse of Frankenstein. As can be seen from their titles/cover-art, they are directly based on the Universal Horror monsters.
The particularity of this series is that each book allows the reader to play as either the "good" human protagonist or the "bad" monster antagonist, each one having their own special abilities. Dracula's Castle has you playing as either Jonathan Harker or Count Dracula, Curse of Frankenstein has you as either Baron Frankenstein or the Monster.
Despite its horror theme, the series still has much of the parodic Brennan humor.
Although the series is quite obscure, it still has a minor following, and has a fan-written sequel (in French), La Malédiction des Baskerville ("Curse of the Baskerville"), inspired by The Hound of the Baskervilles; it allows the reader to play as either Sherlock Holmes or the Hound.
Dracula's Castle provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: Jonathan Harker and Van Helsing are quite a challenge in combat against the vampire count. Van Helsing even summons the Signs of the Zodiac to fight at his side.
- Adaptational Wimp: If played as a protagonist, Dracula is not as strong as you'd expect from the dark prince of the night. He loses hit points at each paragraph and can only suck blood from his enemies if he casts a 6 or 12 in his dice throw.
- Classical Movie Vampire: Dracula, of course.
- Healing Boss: When playing as Dracula in Dracula's Castle, the Final Boss is Van Helsing, who counts amongst his special abilities (which he will unleash in rotation every time he wins an attack round) the ability to restore 2d6 worth of Life Points.
- The Igor: Dracula has Igor as a servant.
- Shout-Out: Dracula's library contains the complete series of GrailQuest ("a sign that Dracula is clearly dangerously insane").
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: When Dracula fights Virgo, no battle stats are given whatsoever for her. Online websites recommend to give her the same stats as the Gemini.
Curse of Frankenstein provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: Baron Frankenstein is quite a challenge in combat against his creation. In fact, he is more than twice as strong as him.
- Charm Person: One of the Monster's abilities, enabling him to cancel a fight. Cannot be used on the Baron, though.
- Dr. Frankenstein: Curse of Frankenstein offers the player two different adventures: one where they play the monster, and one where they play Baron Frankenstein. Both adventures are set after an alternate ending to the original novel where the Baron did not die, and both creature and creator are now trying to track the other down in the Arctic wastes.
- Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen: A strange version of this trope; if the Monster decides to bathe in a hot spring, the water will destroy his clothes without hurting him. Thus, he ends up naked and in quite the predicament until he gets new clothes.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Don't try to fight the Ice Trolls. They have top stats, top HP and will resurrect each time you kill them.
- Only Smart People May Pass: The Mark 1 Frankenstein Monster will refuse to help the Monster unless he can answer a mathematical riddle involving chickens.
- Power Born of Madness: When the Monster ends up facing Baron Frankenstein (remember one is a famously superstrong construct and the other a normal man), the latter has twice the maximum strength that the player can get. The reason given? He's mad.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Averted with Frankenstein Monster Mk. 1 who looks like a gruesome reptilian monster, but will join the Monster (Mk. 7) under certain circumstances. He will become abhorrent if he fails and inevitably insult him.
- The Unfought: If you play as Baron Frankenstein, you will not get to fight the Monster, as he is in a comatose state and you need to fight an evil gnome instead.
