We will, we will, rock you!
Stormslayer is the 63rd entry of the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks written by Jonathan Green, illustrated by Stephen Player.
The Kingdom of Femphrey, in the world of Titan, is being wrecked by storms, blizzards, cyclones, and weather anomalies of all sorts. There are dark powers, fearsome magic that harnesses the destructive might of Nature. And with the passing of each day, the increasing power of storms further threatens the existence of Femphrey.
All these comes from the powers of Balthazar Sturm, a Weather Mage and once a proud student of the Academy of Naval Sorcerers; banished by the Council of Wizards over his ambitions, Balthazar had returned to seek revenge, by unleashing his powerful, dangerous, weather-manipulating sorcery throughout the lands. Only you, a warrior and the Hero of Tannatown, can stop Balthazar by in filtrating the mad sorceror's ship, The Eye of the Storm, defeat Balthazar, and prevent Femphrey's destruction...
One notable factor about the book is an additional stat, called "Time", which allow players to keep track of through a calendar. Each and every day is represented by a single element, including Seasday, Stormday, Fireday, Earthday, and Highday, where each day will be reflected in the changing of stats in certain enemies, and the player themselves. And of course, the amount of days taken by a player will reflect the difficulty of the final battle.
Stormslayer provides examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Brokk the Dwarf is quite the drinker, and can even brew different kinds of beer for you, with varying effects.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Subverted with the Juggernaut battle; before the penultimate confrontation, you can come across a clue to find a hidden lever on the monster, and either push or pull it, in order to Activate or Deactivate the machine. If you pick the correct choice and Deactivate it, you still need to fight the Juggernaut... but the machine would slow down considerably and battle with it's SKILL reduced.
- Bazaar of the Bizarre: Crystal City has magic markets as well as more mundane stuff as its situated between two major cities. It's highly recommended that you buy the crystal mace from here.
- Behemoth Battle: More than once, you can summon giant monsters to fight enemies far larger than you, such as the Rust Golem on the Earth Elemental or the Dreadnaught on the Juggernaut.
- Big Bad: Balthazar Sturm the rogue weather mage is threatening to have the entirety of Titan wiped out with his powerful vessel, the Eye of the Storm, starting with his hometown of Femphrey. You must stop him before it's too late.
- Bird People: Birdmen are enemies you can encounter while travelling through the plains.
- Blow That Horn: You will need that Hunting Horn if you want to catch up with The Eye of the Storm.
- Continuous Decompression: Upon being defeated, Balthazar Sturm will get sucked out of the windows aboard the Eye of the Storm to his death. You will need proper items to prevent yourself from suffering the same fate.
- Continuity Nod:
- Right off the start, your quest starts off in Chalannabrad, the same academy that trained the hero from the Sorcery! series.
- You also get to re-visit Mauristatia, the setting of Vault of the Vampire, Revenge of the Vampire and Howl of the Werewolf.
- In the final battle, Balthazar Sturm will transform himself into multiple elemental forms, which you can counter with summoning elementals of your own, just like the final battle against Zagor in Return to Firetop Mountain.
- Convection, Schmonvection: You get to cross the River of Fire while exploring Mount Pyre, which is a lava river where the only way to the other side is through rock platforms and stepping stones. However, you do not suffer any penalty unless you touch the fire itself.
- Cool Plane: Balthazar Sturm's vessel, the Eye of the Storm, a vehicle shaped like a giant mechanical fish, which you will need to infiltrate in order to confront him.
- Cool Sword: Your default weapon is a powerful sword called "Wyrmbiter". It is made of enchanted metals, capable of harming elementals and grants a bonus to it's wielder when it comes to battling dragons.
- Crystal Weapon: You can buy a magical crystal mace, this lets you have an alternate magic weapon to Wyrmbiter and useful for situations where a blunt weapon can inflict more damage on a particular enemy.
- Drill Tank: Getting the assistance of Brokk the Dwarf will give you access to a vehicle called the Mole, with a drill on it's tip.
- Elemental Embodiment: You'll need to fight quite a bunch of these:
- Boulder beasts, a reoccurring enemy in the franchise, and the Colossus, beings made of rocks.
- The huge Earth Elemental that attacks you in a cavern, as shown in the front cover. It's as insanely powerful as it looks, but there are ways to weaken it before the battle.
- There's also fire-based beings such as Fire Sprites, Firewyrms, Magma Beasts and a Fire Elemental.
- You can also summon your own elementals to help you during the final battle, such as Vulcanus the Fire Elemental, Zephyrus the Wind Elemental, Arkolith the Earth Elemental and Hydana the Water Elemental.
- Elemental Powers: A lot of the major enemies are elementals, and more than that, the days of the week are elemental in nature. What that means is elementals are a little more powerful if fought on the day matching their theme.
- Elemental Shapeshifter: Balthazar Sturm can transform himself into four types of elemental forms - respectively Fire, Earth, Water, and Air - to take you down during the climatic final battle.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: In the final battle, Balthazar will transform himself into a variety of elemental forms to destroy you, and you will need to either battle him directly, or summon elementals of your own to counter Balthazar. The latter option is trickier, but will make the final confrontation a lot easier by reducing the number of times you might need to fight Balthazar.
- Experienced Protagonist: Your character, the Hero of Tannatown, got that title from saving the town from the Crimson Witch and her vampiric horde. That's only one of the hero's many past deeds. A result of all that adventuring, your character starts off with the famous magical sword Wyrmbiter and a choice of two special items from a choice of 4. The hero can have more starting gold than the typical Fighting Fantasy adventurer.
- Extranormal Institute: The Academy of Naval Sorcerers, whose pupils studies in it to become protectors of Femphrey and Titan. The villain, Balthazar Sturm used to be one of their best, until power got the better of him resulting in his Face–Heel Turn.
- Fiery Salamander: You might get assaulted by two salamanders while crossing the River of Fire.
- Fish People: Courtesy of a spell from Prospero, you can transform yourself into a fish-man in order to explore the underwater world of the Eelsea.
- Henchmen Race: The Fulgurites are Balthazar's minions that serves him exclusively on the Eye of the Storm.
- Improvised Golems: The Rust Golem you can summon to fight the Earth Elemental is made of abandoned mining tools and random debris, with two lanterns for eyes. It's expectedly a rather weak fighter who doesn't stand a chance against the Earth Elemental unless you found a way to weaken the Elemental before the battle commences (which the narration lampshades: "If the Earth Elemental wins, which is more likely...").
- Lighter and Softer: Time has moved on in the world of Titan, technology has improved to Steampunk levels in some areas and the forces of Chaos were banished from the Old World ages ago. Balthazar's dangerous but he's not nearly as scary as guys like Zanbar Bone and Zagor. Also you're fighting elementals and mechanized statues, not Chaos horrors and creepy undead. And if you do encounter anything that's a bit scary, you can either gut it with your magic sword or shoot it in the face with a firearm (or impale it with a Drill Tank).
- Lethal Lava Land: Mount Pyre, an active volcano filled with burning lava, where you must cross the River of Fire for an essential clue. Make sure you get the Dragon Tattoo before you enter!
- Luke Noun Verber: An ally you can get for the water quest is the wizard Prospero Seacharmer.
- Magitek: Most of Balthazar's magic operates on this principle, from his magic powering his airship called the Eye of the Storm to creating a powerful mechanical Juggernaut as it's primary guard.
- Mechanical Monster: The powerful Juggernaut guards Balthazar's Eye of the Storm. You can summon another monster called the Dreadnaught to help you fight.
- Noun Verber: The book's title, and also the names of a few NPCs: Varick Oathbreaker, Matteus Charmweaver, Mendelev Quicksilver, Prospero Seacharmer, Nimbus Cloudchaser...
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Bone-Fires are ghosts made of flames, and can burn you with their touch. They can also be dispersed by your enchanted sword.
- Our Manticores Are Spinier: Inverted. The captive Manticore you encounter right at the start of the adventure has already been de-venomed, and is starving in a cage; if you fight it in battle, you realize it has really low SKILL stats, compared to previous Manticores in the franchise.
- Panthera Awesome: The trusty steed of Larni the Huntress is her Sabretoothed Tiger, which assists her during the battle against the Yeti.
- Pegasus: After the final battle, you can summon a flying horse to fly to to safety while the Eye of the Storm blows up into pieces.
- Power Floats: Balthazar, who floats around during the final battle while attacking you.
- Power Tattoo: You can get a Dragon Tattoo on you, which can make you immune to certain fire or heat-based attacks
- Refusal of the Call: Not rushing out to help as soon as danger strikes will hit the player with a Luck penalty.
- Shining City: Crystal City is made from exotic crystals dredged from Crystal Lake, it's the home to the largest temple of Libra (the goddess of Justice) and home to the finest market in Femphrey.
- Stock Ness Monster: The Eerieside Beast is pretty much Nessie by another name, being a lake-dwelling plesiosaur-like monster who rises out of some marshes to chomp on you.
- Summon Magic:There are more than one occasion where you can summon giant creatures to fight on your behalf, although your summons are always weaker than the opponent, necessitating you to continue the fight yourself after your summons are beaten. Such as calling forth a Rust Golem to fight the Earth Elemental, or summoning a Dreadnought to fight the Juggernaut.
- Tentacled Terror: The Abyssal Horror is an octopus-looking beast with giant crab-like Power Pincers which it uses to attack you.
- Threatening Shark: During the Eelsea portion of the quest you might get attacked by two hammerhead sharks.
- Title Drop: Should you succeed in your quest, you return to Femphrey with great honours, where you are greeted by a cheering crowd that praises you:"Hero of Tannatown! Saviour of Femphrey! Stormslayer!"
- Underwater Ruins: The Sunken Temple of Hydana in the Eelsea, which you can explore while risk being attacked by numerous hostile marine creatures.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: To avoid the writing headaches of a Wide-Open Sandbox book where most of the enemies are magical element creatures you should only be able to hurt with magical weapons, you start with one, a sword enchanted to be extra effective against dragons. You might easily forget, though, since it's your default weapon. Even though there are several fights with dragons where you should be applying those bonuses.
- Weather Manipulation: The main villain of the picture, Balthazar Sturm, can summon all kinds of natural disasters, unleashed from his aircraft called the Eye of the Storm. From blizzards to hurricanes and storms, and he's using this very method to hold the entirety of Titan hostage.
- Wrecked Weapon: Downplayed. Normally Wyrmbiter is Nigh-Invulnerable, however if you use it to destroy a certain magical device - the backlash from it will permanently weaken the sword so it takes a penalty in combat. If you have a warhammer or mace, these items can safely be used to smash the device.
- Yeti: A hostile one can be encountered on the Cloudcap Mountains.
