Paragraph 9-4: it says that I have my torch, but if I look at my possessions on the right, I can see no torch.

Maybe the Sleeping Dragon can somehow help putting back to sleep the Kraken (or Leviathan, as you prefer...), as this was Ulysses proposed over arching quest.

In Albatross Atoll there is a big reference to this creature, while in Hummingbirds Island there is another potential over arching quest

SPOILER

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yaztromo
Thu Dec 4 22:15:03 2014

Dear fellow authors, I have a bald demand for you: whenever you have inns/taverns near harbours and similar, it would be nice that, in presence of the codeword: "Leviathan", the locals chat worriedly amongst them about the alleged presence somewhere in the Ocean of a huge sea monster previously unheard of, that is said to be the cause of the disappearing of a mighty ship sailed from that harbour or similar. The playing character should feel sad and probably guilty hearing this, as he'she may think that this may be due to some mistake done sometimes in the past...;-)

Just a humble request - don't feel forced to adhere if you don't think it suits your stary.

Richard Evans
Sun Dec 7 20:00:09 2014

Dear All,

I have recently returned to the site to see the Bird Islands gamebook (or at least its first iteration) up, and after playing through it and enjoying it deeply - it reminded me of Fabled Lands, my favourite gamebook series - I thought I might contribute a work of my own.
Please let me know if you find this idea interesting, as I am currently also working on a concluding chapter to my "...In the North" gamebooks and I have yet to start writing my island - though it is planned.

Setting:
A dismal island surrounded by constant tempests. A graveyard littered with ships that came too close and the wreckage of long lost settlers. Only once a week for a single hour do the currents permit entry and even then only small boats can make it through. Legend has it that none survive to leave it.

Story:
A bastard prince of Analand has been drawn to the island, aiming to prove himself fit for the crown by surviving its rumoured terrors. The King, worryied for his fate, has sent his third son (and a small crew) to recover him. You are able to encounter that crew and join them (although your own men are too scared to accompany you) as they make landing...

SPOILER

END SPOILER

It turns out...

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Items
Item needed elsewhere: I have no idea, but given that there's ruins, a semi-dormant volcano, several cave systems and a graveyard of wrecked ships on the island, I can find a logical reason for most anything other people want to be there.
Items needed here: The opportunity to buy Myrrh, Salt and Sulphor for relatively cheap prices in an apothecary.

Any thoughts as to where it should go on the map (the scale is such that Sempura is about 80 miles from north to south) ?

Sempura, Morkatal and Nen-Tai are still not taken, alternatively you could have a new island altogether. The vague rule is that the northern islands are drier, the southern islands more jungly.

I think Ulysses is planning an apothecary. If necessary, as an interim measure I can add the items you need to the market at Goi-Han. Alessandro would probably like some insects that can steal your soul, as his Hummingbirds Island contains an item to deal with them.

Yaztromo
Sun Dec 7 22:32:33 2014

Woo-hoo!!!

Richard Evans
Mon Dec 8 10:23:45 2014

Its large enough to take most of a day to walk from north to south, but also quite remote. Its also vaguely oval in shape. The unnamed island to the east of Sempura should serve (if its geography was slightly changed).
BTW I was thinking Storm Petrel Island as a name.

Yaztromo Mon Dec 8 19:05:15 2014	Hi Andy, where do you place Albatross Atoll and Silouhette island?
	Silhouette Island probably should go in the south somewhere. Albatross Atoll could go anywhere really - do you have any opinion on the subject?

Richard Evans
Mon Dec 8 21:09:10 2014

If the unnamed island is taken, perhaps we could place something some way above Goi-Han (its a rather desolate and certainly not tropical place).

The unnamed island is sort of taken, yes. It's the suggested location for pi4t's gamebook, and is positioned there simply because it needs to be somewhat remote. However, as pi4t has said nothing at all since I drew the first map last year, I don't think there would be any problem with letting you have that spot and moving pi4t somewhere else (further south maybe). Or you could have your island north of Goi-Han as you suggest. It's up to you really.

Yaztromo
Mon Dec 8 23:06:37 2014

Hi Andy, feel free to place Albatross Atoll wherever you prefer.

Ulysses
Tue Dec 9 09:26:02 2014

Hi all.
I've been quite busy recently, so I've put writing aside for a while, but now have time to work on some gamebooks. So I'll be trying to get the Blackfort gamebook done (The gamebook effectively has two parts, the island facilities such as the market, including an apothecary, and then the quest. I'll complete and send in the facilities part so there is at least a place to go to, and then I'll add the quest in later.)
While I was travelling for work I also started a very short atoll-based adventure which can serve as a lead in to Silhoette Island, but is entered only after a ship wreck.

Richard Evans
Tue Dec 9 16:23:07 2014

Hi!

I have started my island and should finish it within a week or two. I was just interested in a more general point concerning the "bird islands", namely difficulty levels. Given that the idea of the islands is to allow a person to complete multiple adventures across them whilst retaining the same character, I was slightly worried that certain islands have a high likelihood of character death (albatross island, silhouette island and mine, for instance). I was wondering whether we could find some way to compensate for this, or at least give players a heads-up (hummingbird island sounded idyllic, for instance, but killed my character several times).
1.) Could we find some way of labelling the difficulty of islands in the "travel to" screen that doesn't clash with the island-hopping theme - e.g. each island on your map is marked as to its danger, from perilous to calm.
2.) Has anyone considered a means for you to bring your character back from the dead, like the resurrection deals in fabled lands? You would lose (most?) all your items but retain your stats and history.

Speaking only with regard to the online version (the paper version is up to the authors) :

1) I'm reluctant, though not entirely set against it, because I think it would represent an untidy break in the narrative. At the moment I don't have a way of collecting difficulty stats for the individual islands, so the difficulty would only be a matter of opinion anyway.

2) Andrew Wright does mention resurrection deals in Isle Of The Cyclops, but none are ever granted. If they were, the mechanism would apparently have you lose all your possessions and turn to reference 1 in any of the books in the series. It seems to me, though, that the real reason for the existence of this concept is that it saves you having to go through all the books rubbing out the ticks you have made. For the online version this is not an issue of course. Furthermore you are able to save games at any time using bookmark/favourites, if you are killed it is easy to retreat to an earlier position that way.

Yaztromo
Tue Dec 9 18:48:02 2014

Hi Richard,

Hummingbird Island and Albatross Stoll are one-trick dogs: learn the trick and you'll fly through them.

Great news from Ulisses and you!

Richard Evans
Tue Dec 9 21:19:31 2014

Andy, you make a good point about making online favourites and resurrection deals. But I still think labelling islands in some way is a good idea. Often (hummingbird island again) you can travel to an island with no idea about difficulty and no way to back out and get yourself killed really easily.
In addition it seems some islands easier than others, so your character is better off going to them first to get items needed to deal with tougher islands (papayago island is a good example in this regard). The problem then becomes how do players know which islands they should tackle first, and which they would be best attempting with several victories under their belt.

The players don't know which islands they should tackle first, any more than they know which way to go in The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain in advance. Trial and error plays a big part, and if they die, so be it : some stories have sad endings.

It sounds to me that you're really advocating for a walkthrough, because the need to obtain certain critical items might impose an order other than 'easiest island first'. That could be arranged I suppose (and could always be deduced by reading this thread), though in my view it would be much better to have an in-story way of pointing you at the next destination - for example a magic item that you can USE, the advice of a crew member, a mysterious list of islands (in the 'right' order), an insane hermit in a cave etc.

Richard evans
Tue Dec 9 23:01:48 2014

A few questions for Ulysses:
1. My island contains a number of wrecked vessels, are you interested in having boxes of pearls or spices in their wreckage?
2. Completing my island quest wins you the favour of a (minor) prince of Analand, given that the bird Islands are nominally controlled by Analand, could this have any relevance for the defeat of the baron (you are accompanied in a naval assault by the princes galleon, for instance).
3. My island is well known for its strange weather and dark reputation, having you overhear someone in an inn talking about it - or referencing the voyage of either of the princes to it, would be great.

Ulysses
Wed Dec 10 11:53:53 2014

Hi Richard.

1. The market on Blackfort Island has places where you can sell pearls and spices for Talons, so being able to find these commodities throughout other adventures would be great.
2. I would need to know more about your adventure before I could say how the two stories could affect each other. But the quest on Blackfort was going to humiliate the Baron rather than topple him, just so references to the island can be consistent. Being in the favour of the prince could however be the thing you need to make the Baron cancel the bounty on your head after you humiliate him.
3. I have and will definitely put in more references to other adventures and descriptions of other islands in the taverns and shops of Blackfort.

Richard Evans
Wed Dec 10 12:11:58 2014

I think there's not much difference between what I'm advocating and what gamebooks do already, i.e. Give you easier enemies in earlier stages and the chance to squire better equipment before you face tougher foes. Consider, for instance, how weird it would be to choose wrong and end up fighting the warlock as soon as you enter the mountain, before you had any chance to find the keys, or weapons to help you defeat him.
However I do really like the "list of islands" idea, I was thinking of an annotated map you can buy cheaply at the IotC market, it's the same as your normal one, but the islands are marked according to danger.
Hummingbird and Silhouette - perilous
Albatross - dangerous
Papayago - wild
Goo Han - civilised
Tell me what you think.

Yes I'm fine with this, because it's easy to implement and also makes a virtue of the fact that the danger levels are subjective (because they are the opinion of whoever annotated the map). Hummingbirds Island wouldn't be mentioned by name though, as it is the player that gives it that name.

By the way, the map in this thread isn't intended to be part of the game, it's just there as a reference so that the writers are all aware of the approximate geography. Isle Of The Cyclops makes it clear that the character starts with no map or knowledge of the Bird Islands - "You know little of these lands other than that they lie some way off the southern coast of Far Analand ... your only possession is the weapon..."

Richard Evans
Wed Dec 10 13:26:39 2014

Dear Ulysses,

The best ending for my adventure involves you saving the princes life (by killing a particularly dangerous monster). You and the Prince return to his galleon, and he asks you if he might perform a favour for you. I was thinking, with your information, that the choice of favours might be...
1. Gold, lots of it.
2. A particularly choice looking ancestral weapon or amulet (stat boosting item).
3. Forcing the Baron to remove the price on your head.

Richard Evans
Wed Dec 10 23:12:08 2014

Dear all,

I have two proposals to make:
1. I like the seas of blood method of ship combat and think we should go with it. It's simple and easy to understand. In addition I don't think it precludes the use of stuff like fire pots, flaming arrows or Rams.
E.g. You can USE a fire pot to boost your attack strength by 2 for a given attack round; or USE a volley of flaming arrows to directly damage another crews CREW STRENGTHS. A ram might give you extra attack strength and damage for the first round of combat. These are all just suggestions, and I don't want to criticse ulysses ship combat (which I actually think would be really cool, if a little complex).
2. Has anyone considered random encounters whilst ravelling between islands? We could write a load of small encounters and then, whenever you travelled between an island, there'd be a chance you'd meet something interesting (or dangerous). I don't know whether this is technically possible, but I'd love to hear any feedback on it. I think it could make the whole sea-travel element of the adventure much more central to the experience as well as injecting an element of surprise into voyages. If no one else wanted to write them, I certainly would (I'm 3/4 of the way through Storm Petrel Island, praise be to long university holidays).

I agree with you about the Seas Of Blood method, because it is authentically FF, and also because it doesn't ever specify the exact number of crew members. The latter is important in order to avoid possible contradictions in the text. However as far as the online version is concerned, I'm not even going to think about ship combat, cargoes etc until everything else is in place.

Richard Evans
Sat Dec 13 12:29:54 2014

Storm Petrel Island is officially complete!

I've sent the draft to Andy and am willing to send it to any of you who are interested in a sneak peak before (I hope) it goes up.
At 80 references its the smallest gamebook I've done (and, surprisingly given its size, probably the hardest), but I think I've fit a decent amount in.
Having always been a fan of open world gamebooks I am also thinking of contributing some more to this project; perhaps a half-civilised half-jungle covered island (sort of Mayan/Aztec-esque). It would also be cool to get some sort of ship-based encounters going, either in and around my still-hypothetical second island or elsewhere.

Yaztromo
Sat Dec 13 13:07:37 2014

Hi Richard,

I've been considering for awhile writing this kind of random encounters.
At the moment I have in mind one with Sirens, but there may be more.
WRT ship fighting etc. I'll wait until when we have an agreed ruleset to handle that, then I'll start thinking in that direction.
I have a couple of ideas about Sempure (that might be a good setting for the invasion of insects that leave you soul less if they bite you) and for one of the islands nearby Goi-Han (that might turn into a kinda lotus-eaters island), but I'd like to see more participation and I don't want to take too much for myself, so if anybody ense wants them I'm glad to leave them available in the emanwhile.

Speaking not just to you but to any participant : it would certainly be good to have something for Sempura, Morkatal or Nen-Tai before adding extra islands. Sempura is huge, so it could easily have more than one gamebook associated with it.

Richard Evans
Sat Dec 13 14:07:30 2014

Hi Yaztromo,

About your post:
1. I also would like to see more participation, but I think we can pretty much invent as many islands as we want; we've already changed the map from the "official" fighting fantasy version and I believe the map we have now is merely a stop-gap until the final version.
2. I was thinking of Sempura for my Mayan/Aztec civilisation, but we do need some situation where soul-eating insects pose a problem (you being the one who came up with the idea - if my memory serves - I imagine you probably have the best grasp on how that might be implemented).
3. About ship combat, I think we may be forced to wait until Ulysses finishes his work (from the sounds of things it has prominent ship combat). Then we can see what sort of online hybrid we want between the "Seas of Blood" version and Ulysses deeper but more complex combat. Ultimately I imagine this will come down to Andy's choice, after all he has to programme the whole thing!

I also think that, now we have five islands completed (six, including mine) and another two on their way from Ulysses and Jest; we should begin to think seriously about an overarching quest.
As far as I am aware the basics of this overarching quest has already been boiled down to...
- A kraken as the main enemy
- Insects that steal your soul being involved somehow
- Needing particular items to beat the Kraken, to boost skill/stamina (and ship equivalents) and not as a "shopping list".

Heres my very basic outline of what such an overarching quest could consist of:
1.You release the Kraken by accident.
2.You need to go around fetching items to boost your ship/crew stats to deal with the kraken.
- one item could be on a wrecked ship on Storm Petrel Island.
- another item could be on an island infested with soul-stealing insects.
- more could be placed elsewhere...
3. At some point you can travel to where the Kraken is (follow the Krakens wake as a travelling option, for instance) and fight it.

Here is a more complex outline:
1. You are despatched on a mission to steal an artefact/disrupt some sacred artefact/ritual by a shady individual (a proxy of the Baron?).
2. Completing the mission releases the Kraken. You are caught up in some sort of battle as the kraken destroys the city/town/island you are in.
3. Item collection, but now the shadowy-individual/organisation is also after items, not to kill the kraken but to control it. You can both collect items and thwart the shadowy individuals/organisations plans to gain them.
4. "Follow the Krakens wake" option leads to a fight, except now the shadowy individual/organisation has forces there too. Depending on what items you have/what they have different scenarios result (i.e. in one they manage to take control of the kraken, in another they are destroyed by it, in a third a three way battle occurs, etc.).

Note that these can potentially be made compatible with the current "Kraken released when you do bad stuff on Albatross Atoll" state of the gamebook. These are just suggestions, but I'd also be glad to hear yours. Getting down something concrete, even if only in the planning stages, could really help the finalisation of the quest.
Sorry for the massive post. : )

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