The plot is about the Prince and the Princess of Time, the twin children of Chronada, Queen of Time, who rules over the Kingdom of Time in the center of the Earth where people live forever, away from the human world.
Chronada having to leave the Kingdom for other duties, she decides that one of her two children will replace her. In order to choose which one, she sends them on a mission: free the Messengers of Time, four citizens of the Kingdom of Time who are prisoners on the Earth's surface, in different places and time periods. Those people are Gayok the Brave in Middle-Age France, Hensock the Crazy in Paris before the French Revolution, Oclock the Good in the United States during the Civil War and Valiocka the Fair in California in 1989.
Gameplay is directly based on the Fighting Fantasy series, with a special system for hit points lost in battle. There are also moments where you can or you are forced to rely on pure hard luck, by choosing a card among others to cut out of the book.
You can choose to play either as the Prince or the Princess of Time, which has very little influence on gameplay but more on the dialogue.
List of the books:
- Le Carillon de la Mort (The Chimes of Death)
- Le Masque de Sang (The Blood Mask)
- L'Homme au Cheval de Brume (The Man on the Fog Horse)
- Objectif: Apocalypse (Objective: Apocalypse)
Les Messagers du Temps provide examples of:
- Action Girl: The Princess of Time can get her touch of action as well as her brother, and doesn't enjoy sexist remarks from men who tell her that she'd better be washing laundry instead of carrying weapons (no, really).
- Affably Evil: The Mollues. They are plump and jovial witches, who look like very pleasant individuals. They also despise women or any man who doesn't compliment their beauty to the highest degree, and will use their saliva to turn you into miserable jelly individuals. Sometimes, they will do it for fun.
- And I Must Scream: Whoever gets spat on by a Mollue becomes a helpless jelly creature, cursed to barely wander like a slug in marshes.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: In the second book, where some of the main antagonists are aristocrats. However, the story also partly subverts this by introducing aristocrats who are trying to change the monarchy and give more freedom to the people: Thibaud de Ponsac, Eloi de Courtemare and Robert de la Gaillottière. Also counts as Shown Their Work, as some aristocrats (even if they were a minority) were favorable to the idea of giving more freedom to the people in the France of the 18th Century.
- Artistic License – History: The third book, because it insists on its Wild West setting, gives us an extremely Manichean and extremely simplified rendition of The American Civil War. All we learn is that the Confederates are esclavagists and that the Union wants to free the slaves. The other causes of this conflict and its complexity are conveniently forgotten.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Aymeric des Effraies looks like an owl. His name "Effraies" is based on the French name for a barn owl, "chouette effraie".
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The Prince and the Princess of Time may be rivals for the throne, but they're also twin siblings. And some scenes show that they care a lot about each other.
- Paradoxically, the best scenes that illustrate this are hard to find. For instance, in the first book, if you really screw up the first part where you have to look for informations about the place you have to go, you will get dragged in a fight to liberate a prisoner from English soldiers. After the fight, the prisoner is revealed to be the hero's/heroine's sibling. Before they split up (as they are now rivals), they stop to give each other a big hug.
- An other, far more tragic example, may occur during the battle when the two siblings attack the boat of the men of the Society of the Blood Mask. If your sibling is killed, your character will immediately stop fighting and hug their dead body while crying, not even defending themself when they're mortally struck.
- If you really screwed up in the fourth book and failed to escape Meduzz's cell, your sibling will rescue you.
- Been There, Shaped History: The Prince or the Princess of Time will tell Joan of Arc to go fight the English, and the Parisians to take over the Bastille prison.
- Berserk Button: Furyos the Short absolutely hates being made fun of his height, and will turn very violent if this happens.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Eudes the Gentle, the first human met by the protagonist, usually lives up to his name. However, if you try to attack him, he will go on a fierce War Is Hell diatribe and intimidate you enough to back off, despite him being unarmed.
- Big Bad: Each book has a different one.
- Gouttard de Malgrâce in Le Carillon de la Mort. He's a French lord who took sides for England during The Hundred Years War and an Evil Genius who tries to create a chemical, in order to age the French armies and help England win the war.
- The society of the Blood Mask and its leader abbot Goulot de Peillac in Le Masque de Sang. They try to prevent the Revolution and to secure the absolute monarchy.
- The closest thing in L'Homme au Cheval de Brume is Wayward, a cruel Confederate general. The reader never meets him, but he's responsible for Oclock's imprisonment.
- Peter Meduzz in Objectif: Apocalypse. Another Evil Genius who tries to flood the world in order to create his new perfect world.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Peter Meduzz has an actual sasquatch as a minion.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Abbot Goulot de Peillac and Bastien Frontouillard in the second book look harmless, but in reality they are respectively the Big Bad and The Dragon.
- Bond Villain Stupidity:
- As he is an Affectionate Parody of James Bond villains, Peter Meduzz does this a lot. He gloats and monologues, he reveals his master plan to the captured heroes and he ''doesn't'' know when to just shoot them.
- Gouttard de Malgrâce also does this in the first book. Gloating over the Prince/Princess, telling his plans, and even letting him/her have a last request before going to face the Chimes of Death. Said request has him/her prepare gingerbread to turn into a rejuvenating cure.
- Bound and Gagged: It may happen to you in the second book if you're captured while spying the meeting of the society of the Blood Mask and it happens to your sibling at the end of the fourth book when they are captured on Montrainer's boat.
- Catchphrase: "Chaussette à poule!" by Hensock. The funny thing here is that this is the literal translation of his name in French.
- Chekhov's Gun: You think that, since Furyos hates being called short, you'd know exactly what to do to get some of his saliva by making him angry, eh? Actually, calling him short is the worst option, since he will get overly violent and hit you. You just need to call him ugly.
- The Chief's Daughter: The Prince of Time will be captured by a Native tribe, and will spare his life if he agrees to marry the Chief's daughter who has taken a liking to him. If the Princess of Time is captured, it will be the Chief's son. However, accepting the offer will lead to a Non-Standard Game Over, since it means the Prince/Princess will be forced to remain in the tribe forever, unable to escape under inevitable penalty of death.
- Cool Horse: The Fog Horse in the third book is a horse spirit who can point you the right path to take.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover of the first book is a serious offender. You never fight a giant black monster who catches you in its tongue while you battle naked with just a helmet and a sword as a dark cloaked figure watches. The monster is possibly based on the "Crocopotamus" monster who is confronted inside the Chimes of Death maze, with its tongue based on the Albino Chameleon. Cover artist Christian Broutin said in an interview he didn't even bother to stick to the story, and mostly relied on Rule of Cool.
- Creepy Twins: The Quintuplets who are the minions of Peter Meduzz.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Peter Medduzz could use the water-multiplying crystals to save many lives and also become a very, very rich man adored forever by history. He uses it to cause floods and destroy a lot of stuff.
- Damsel in Distress:
- Kind of subverted, since three of the four persons to rescue are men.
- It can sometimes also happen to the Princess of Time, although she's just as likely to be a Damsel out of Distress.
- The Dragon: Since the Big Bad is different in each book, so is his second-in-command.
- In Le Carillon de la Mort, Gouttard de Malgrâce is assisted by Mimol the Monk, who creates hybrid creatures for him by sewing different animals together.
- The Big Bad of Le Masque de Sang has Bastien Frontouillard, who assists him in his schemes to secure the absolute monarchy. He also serves as The Heavy, as he is the main threat for the main character during most of the book and is confronted several times.
- L'Homme au Cheval de Brume has a very inactive Big Bad, (the setting is the real antagonist), but Sarah Wayward may technically count as one for her father.
- In Objectif: Apocalypse, Peter Meduzz has Hicboum the Mad. Reverend Montrainer may also qualify, but it's unclear wether he works for Meduzz or he is his equal in a Big Bad Duumvirate.
- Drunken Master: Hicboum the Mad, who is The Dragon to the Big Bad in the fourth book, is constantly drunk but this makes him even more of a fierce fighter, one of the most powerful enemies in the series.
- Eagleland: The United States is not represented too positively in the third and fourth book. The narration even makes some unnecessary remarks such as a sarcastic "America is the country of diversity" when the Prince/Princess only finds detective TV series on the air.
- Evil Cripple: Mimol has half of his body paralyzed and turned to jelly. He is still a nasty piece of work.
- Fake Difficulty:
- Late in the second book, there's a unavoidable event that may kill your character. Its result is entirely luck-based.
- Infamously, the third book has the Artist skill compulsory to succeed. It happens literally right before the end and there's absolutely no clue that you will need it beforehand.
- Felony Misdemeanor: If you lie to the Native American witch doctor about where you're from, he will get VERY angry and send you to be killed. Even though he is supposed to be on your side.
- Female Misogynist: The Mollues are witches who hate other women and will try to destroy any who come to their view. Therefore, the Princess will have to disguise herself.
- French Jerk: If you don't include any jerk character in the first two books (set in France), you could certainly have a special mention for the fastfood chef in the fourth book; not only is his cooking so bad it will make the protagonist sick, but he goes on a racist and xenophobic diatribe when meeting the hero/heroine. This shocks them, considering their previous adventures in France. And this is in a Eagleland setting!
- The Fundamentalist: Reverend Montrainer in the fourth book, Peter Meduzz's accomplice, is a fanatical religious who leads an Apocalypse Cult and is seeking to trigger The End of the World as We Know It in order to purge it of its sins.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The Prince/Princess can only ask Mimol about the key and therefore obtain it if they rush to attack him. Just speaking to him first will not enable the option, for some reason.
- Graceful Loser: After being mortally wounded, reverend Montrainer calmly accepts his defeat, saying that it is a proof that God didn't want the end of the world to happen. Compare and contrast with Peter Meduzz, whose last action in a similar situation was to trigger the self-destruction of his base.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: The Princess of Time is shown to be far more prone to anger than her brother. Must have something to do with the sexist remarks of almost everyone.
- Half-Identical Twins: The Prince and the Princess of Time are twins and are described as looking exactly alike. Despite this, the Princess often gets compliments about her beauty.
- Handicapped Badass: Mimol the monk has half of his body paralyzed and turned into a jelly-like substance. Despite this, he is able to keep his balance very well and hold his own in a physical fight, his jellyfied side being impervious to wounds.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Mimol the monk is coughing a lot, due to excess phlegm. This cough eventually gets him to die, after the Prince or Princess fights him!
- Injun Country: In the third book, of course.
- Juxtaposed Halves Shot: The series' logo from the French edition, as seen above, features half the faces of the Prince and Princess of Time side-by-side. Although instead of a clean separation between them, the space is occupied by half a skull in darkness.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: This is Lampshade Hanged in the beginning of the first book. The Prince or the Princess of Time can search a house, pick up all the items he/she wants inside and then suddenly the owner sneaks on your back and says "So, have you found enough to make you happy?" But he will be very friendly about this and allow the hero to keep his findings.
- Lethal Chef:
- Literal one. Mâchegras is a cook (working for the first Big Bad) who makes sausages out of any kind of meat, including rats and humans.
- A straighter example in the fourth book: the protagonists stop at a dirty fastfood restaurant and if they order something to eat or drink, the food/soda will be so bad that they will lose hit points.
- Licensed Sexist: A lot of characters when you play as the Princess of Time. The first human that she meets even remarks that she should be washing clothes instead of carrying a sword.
- Love at First Sight: The Princess of Time takes an immediate liking towards Tiburce, the wild boar tamer. And the feeling's quite mutual.
- Mad Scientist:
- Mimol the half-paralyzed monk makes hybrid creatures by sewing two different animal parts together.
- Gouttard creates a chemical that will age thousands of soldiers.
- Peter Meduzz designs a special crystal that can multiply water molecules. He wants to use it to flood the world.
- Magical Native American: In the third book, although it is mostly just to summon the Fog Horse.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Mimol has created hybrid animals by transplanting two different animals for each. These include a bear-pig, a crocodile-hippopotamus, a stag-peacock, a rat-pig, a rat-deer, a stag-calf, an eagle-swallow... several of them are just an excuse to make a pun in the original French. (ie rat-deer; "rat-daim", sounds just like "radin", which means "stingy").
- Nominal Hero: In spite of his usefulness, the journalist John Bob de Golf (the reader's ally in the fourth book) is Only in It for the Money, as he hopes to write a good article about what's going on. During the story, the Prince/Princess even takes advantage of his greedy nature in order to make the guy help him/her.
- Non-Standard Game Over: There are several, mostly in the last two books. They generally involve you being too slow and your sibling succeeding in the mission before you or you being captured but being rescued in time by your sibling. In both cases, you live, but lost the competition. In the third book, there's also the (in?)famous scene where you can marry the daughter or son of the chief of a Native American tribe.
- Not So Above It All: In spite of their criticisms of modern-day consumerism, the Prince and the Princess of Time are shown to really enjoy driving cool cars and motorcycles.
- Only Smart People May Pass: In the third book, at one moment, the Prince or Princess need to catch someone through paths in a canyon. Three Native Americans are sitting here, but are only giving hints in hand gestures... you'd think they could just point the way.
- Owl Be Damned: Aymeric des Effraies and his wife are evil minions of Gouttard; they look like owls, and are named after the barn owl ("chouette effraie" in French).
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": You need to guess a special number to open the door to the Blood Mask hideout. You do not find this specific combination anywhere beforehand, you are supposed to guess it by using "logic". What is the number? It is "100", because it sounds just like "sang" (French for "blood"). You'd think they'd input a more complicate password system.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Furyos the Short has mediocre stats as a fighter, but if he can go in angry mode at the beginning of a fight, his stats double and he can become quite powerful in combat.
- Pun-Based Creature: Mad Scientist monk Mimol has stitched different animals together to create weird hybrid creatures... some that are based on French puns. So, you have a "cerf-veau" (stag-calf, sounds like "cerveau" which means "brain"), a rat-porc (rat-pig, sounds like "rapport" which means "report") and a rat-daim (rat-deer, sounds like "radin" which means "stingy").
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Implied between the Prince and the Princess of Time. The Prince is the blue to his sister's red.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Prince and the Princess of Time.
- Savage Wolves: The Prince has to slay some howling wolves if he wants to get help from the old sage Zeugma. The Princess will have to kill some to make herself a beard to disguise herself as a man.
- Shout-Out: In the third book, Lucky Luke makes an appearance! He is not referred by his full name, but his clothing description is very accurate and even the Prince/Princess can tell he is the best gunslinger in the land just by looking at him.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: The Prince of Time seems to be more cool-headed than his more impulsive sister.
- Sinister Minister:
- Abbot Goulot de Paillac is secretly the head of the evil Blood Mask organization.
- Reverend Montrainer in the fourth book is a more upfront example, what with him leading an Apocalypse Cult and actively trying to bring The End of the World as We Know It via massive flood.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: The Princess of Time will dress as a man very often. Sometimes it is optional, sometimes it is compulsary.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Thibaud de Ponsac was an aristocrat, but averted all the negative tropes associated with aristocrats, as he was humble, nice and wanted to give more powers to the people of France. Naturally, the evil aristocrats of the story killed him when he learned too much about their plan. Every character who knew him mentions how much a good person Thibaud was before his death.
- Unscrupulous Hero: The Prince and the Princess are downplayed examples. While having strong morals, they won't hesitate to steal the things they need to accomplish their mission if they have to. John Bob de Golf is far worst.
- Unwinnable by Design: The third book has the Artist skill compulsory to succeed. You don't learn about it until the very last part of the story.
- Villainous Breakdown: The Big Bad of Book 1 Le Carillon de la Mort, Gouttard de Malgrâce, is maybe an insane villain but is composed enough to first keep the Prince/Princess alive, offer him/her a last meal before letting him/her take on the trial of the tower of the Chimes of Death. If a success where the Chimes are destroyed, Gouttard will agressively attack the Prince/Princess and fight him/her in personal combat.
- Villain's Dying Grace: Reverend Montrainer uses his last breaths to tell the reader to take his keys and go in the hold of his ship where the sibling of the main character is locked up.
- War Is Hell: Eudes the Gentle couldn't handle the war anymore, especially when dozens and dozens of lives get meaninglessly lost until leaders go on an agreement, standing on the graves of casualties.
- Wicked Witch: The Mollues. They look pleasant and fun, but will turn you into jelly by spitting at you if you displease them in the slightest.
- The Wild West: Setting of the third book.
