The Rings of Kether is the 15th entry of the Fighting Fantasy series of Gamebooks, and the second written by Andrew Chapman after Space Assassin, both sci-fi themed adventures in the FF-verse, and is among the earlier entries into Fighting Fantasy's foray into the science-fiction genre.
Corruption is rife in the Aleph Cygni system, caused by the flow of the illicit narcotic Satophil-d from the spaceports of the planet Kether. Attempts have been made to crack the notorious drug rings of Kether, but with no success. You are an elite enforcer of the Galactic Federation, the best officer they have, and you are entrusted to go undercover into the crime networks of Kether, find the source of the drug, and bring the drug dealers to justice...
Much like the previous two sci-fi themed adventures in the FF-verse, besides hand-to-hand combat, you are also given opportunity to wield a firearm in blaster combat. Shootouts are a-plenty in this book, and is determined by having SKILL tests of each combatant in every round. A successful SKILL test will have the shooter causing 4 STAMINA points of damage to the target, as such Blaster combats are frequently short and deadly. Unlike Space Assassin, you do not have any armour for this quest, so expect to have your STAMINA getting depleted like crazy should you end up in a shootout against 4 opponents!
Spaceship battles, as depicted in Starship Traveller, make a comeback, and in a similar manner to shootouts, the outcome is decided by rolls against WEAPONS STRENGTH and damage to an opponents' SHIELD. This time, however, you have the advantage of being able to collect SMART MISSILES (similar to ROCKETS from Freeway Fighter), precision-guided homing missiles that automatically destroy any attacking enemy ship and can even be used in conjunction with your ship's laser cannons.
Unlike other Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, there are actually two ways to beat the story; defeat Blaster Babbet, leader of the drug rings of Kether (the typical ending at the final page) or destroy the drug dealers' base and render their operations useless (found in the middle references, but the closing sentence of the paragraph declares your mission a success).
The Rings of Kether provides examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: Characters like "Blaster" Babbet, Zera Gross and Zac Kalensus appear alongside characters called Arthur, Samuel and Clive. Clive's full name is Clive Torus admittedly, but why mix such an old-school forename with such a newfangled surname?
- Ambiguous Robots: The Androform is a mechanical canine which could be a Cyborg, or a machine with organic implants. It isn't made clear, your only given choice is to kill it because it attacks you straightaway.
- Conspicuous Trenchcoat: A gunman wearing a large coat confronts you, using it to conceal his pistol and sneak upon you at gunpoint.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: When fighting Zera Gross in melee, if she gets too much of an advantage she can kill you by smothering you to death under her flabby bulk. So if you have the automatic blaster, you may be better off just gunning her down.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Zera Gross may be The Dragon to Blaster Babbett's syndicate, but she is in charge of most of the operations.
- Drugs Are Bad: Especially Space drugs!
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: By causing a meltdown on the Asteroid base where the drug ring's headquarters is located, you instantly blow up the asteroid, and every member of the syndicate in it, leading to one of two success routes.
- Eyepatch of Power: Blaster Babbett is revealed to have this over his left eye.
- Fantastic Drug: Satophil-d, which is not based on any existing Earth drugs. You can recover some of these, and use it to avoid a rather dangerous battle against the Arcturan Vanque.
- Fat Bastard: Zera Gross, one of the drug rings' most prominent enforcers. She is depicted on the front cover.
- Feed It a Bomb: A variation. When confronting the Arcturan alien monster, instead of attacking it, you can throw a sample of Satophil-d into the alien's over-sized mouth, causing the alien to overdose, lose balance, and fall into a bottomless pit.
- Final Speech: Arthur Flange's last words.Arthur: Beware of... of Zera Gross... and... and... Blaster B... [dead]
- The Gamebook is a Cheating Bastard: In one sequence you have to meet up with Clive Torus' widow in a public park where she'll be giving you the evidence Clive collected about the drug organisation before he was killed. If you just go ahead with the encounter, you both get shot by a sniper, killing her and hitting you for 1D6 damage. If you case the area beforehand and take out the sniper first, instead a bomb goes off at the meeting point, again killing her and hitting you for 2D6 damage, plus you probably took damage fighting the sniper beforehand - so you get penalised for acting intelligently.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The encounter with the Ancient Mind Parasite from Kyth feels like this, since the book's otherwise a mostly "down-to-earth" sci-fi that has human or robot enemies. You're a Space Police on a sci-fi adventure, tracking down drug dealers from space and suddenly.... WAZZUP!!! Giant multi-limbed snake monster with a woman's face!
- Glass Cannon: The two Robot Fighters your ship has to battle at one point. They only have 1 SHIELD point each, but with SKILL 7 they can potentially land some deadly hits on your ship.
- Good Old Fisticuffs:
- When you face Zera Gross, you can choose to shoot at her or fight her. Given her exceptionally high STAMINA stat of 11, she is likely to score a few hits on you before you gun her down, as such its preferred for you to fight her from up close, the old-fashioned Fighting Fantasy way. Doing it this way is actually better for another reason, since it's the only way to get clues on how to get through a trapped door shortly afterwards. If you just shoot her to death, she can't tell you anything.
- Your penultimate showdown with the Final Boss, should you choose to confront Blaster Babbett directly, ends with this. No blasters, grenades, or any weapons allowed.
- Goomba Stomp: When confronting the floating Sentinel Robot, you can either shoot at it, or drop on it from a high point and knock it into a wall where it then crashes and blows up.
- Immune to Bullets: Opening fire on the Ancient Mind Parasite is useless and will get you swallowed whole and killed.
- Island Base: You get to infiltrate one of these, which is used as production facility for Satophil-d, guarded by Babbett's thugs and robot security.
- Leave No Witnesses: After Zera Gross' ex-employee Clive Torus gets silenced over his discovery of his employers' illicit secrets, his wife Mrs. Torus immediately gets taken out by a sniper.
- Literal Surveillance Bug: You come across one of this, shaped like a robotic wasp.
- Made of Explodium: The drug-manufacturing asteroid base of Kether is made of this apparently, turning a key is enough to make its systems overload and causing the whole place to go KA-BOOM.
- The Man Behind the Man: Blaster Babbett being the true mastermind of the drug ring isn't made clear until more than halfway into the story.
- Meaningful Name: Zera "GROSS". Both in terms of attitude and appearance.
- Mirror Routine: If you choose to confront Blaster Babbett directly, you'll end up facing TWO identical copies of Babbett. Both of them are doubles reflected on mirrors, and attacking either one of them will lead to Babbett getting the drop on you and killing you instantly. You're supposed to Take a Third Option instead...
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The Arcturan Vanque is a blob-like alien with several arms, handy for throwing organic photon blasts at you.
- Non-Standard Game Over: If you screw up the investigation badly enough to end up with no useful leads to follow, you're eventually recalled by your superiors. You're still alive, but you've failed the mission.
- One True Sequence: Averted, there are actually two good endings in this book, probably to encourage replayability.
- Player-Guided Missile: Smart missiles can be collected and used to instantly destroy any enemy spacecrafts. Except the Asteroid Defense System, which the missiles can only do 2 instant damage to its shields.
- Phlebotinum Pills: Instead of the usual Provisions, in this adventure you get Pep Pills, which are energy pills that can restore 6 STAMINA points.
- Resignations Not Accepted: One of Zera Gross's employees, Clive Torus, suspects of the illegal activities going on in his company and attempts to resign. He gets assassinated immediately. Also overlaps with He Knows Too Much.
- Schmuck Bait: You are given the opportunity to intimidate Zera Gross... just as she is surrounded by several thugs, blasters pointed at you. If you try to intimidate her anyways, you get shot and killed on the spot.
- Smart Bomb: A grenade can deal three dice rolls' worth of damage to any enemies in an enclosed area. Best to save these whenever you're engaged in a shootout against more than three opponents.
- Space Mines: You get to navigate one en route to the asteroid base.
- Space Police: Your hero is a detective and narcotics investigation officer attempting to bust an intergalactic criminal organization.
- Spider Tank: The Arcturan Robot is a giant robot on spider legs.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- In one scene you get cornered by around six mooks with blasters pointing towards you. If you choose to duck for cover, you die instantly regardless how high your SKILL and STAMINA stats were... there is no way anyone can survive being shot at simultaneously by so many opponents.
- Your ship only have a measly 1d6 value of its SHIELD score. Unlike Starship Traveller or Robot Commando, you're piloting a police cruiser, not a battleship.
- If you get into a fight with half a dozen goons, they beat you to a pulp, reducing your stamina score permanently. You simply can't take on that many opponents hand to hand.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: While pursuing a suspect aboard Rispin's End, your suspect deliberately does this to himself, preferring death over being interrogated.
- Villains Out Shopping: You can encounter Zera Gross early on in a bar, playing cards with several of her mooks. Do not attempt to approach her — best-case scenario, you get a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from her mooks before getting thrown out the bar.
- We Will Use Lasers in the Future: Downplayed. Spaceships use phasers and some aliens and robots use energy weapons, but the blasters that humans use fire shells — as you find out if Blaster Babbet guns you down.
