Games - Grailquest

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	Games - Grailquest

Grailquest is a series of gamebooks by J.H. Brennan.

The series is based around a young adventurer called Pip, who lives in the Middle Ages at the time of King Arthur, and who receives missions from Merlin to perform grand quests in a fantasy-like world.

The series is light in tone and does not take itself seriously, often spoofing the fantasy genre and inserting a lot of pure slapstick humor or nonsensical elements in order to make the game a fun read. There is more serious drama, but this is mostly concentrated in very special moments.

If the character dies, the player must go to paragraph 14, which describes his afterdeath and tells him to calculate his data again and return to the beginning. Merlin then resurrects Pip, but if he goes adventuring again, all killed enemies remain dead and picked up objects remain disappeared. In some later books Pip also has access to spellbooks and can use magic against enemies.

One volume, Voyage of Terror, was almost totally out of the setting. In it, Pip is accidentally transported to ancient Greece by Merlin and has to adventure with Jason and the Argonauts in a Greek mythology setting.

The books are illustrated by John Higgins.

Characters

Pip: the hero of the series. He used to be a young farmer boy with his adoptive parents, but one day he was brought by soldier officers of Arthur to Merlin, who charged him with the mission to save Queen Guinevere who was abducted by evil sorcerer Ansalom, because all the knights of the Round table were too busy. Pip fights with a magical sword, Excalibur Junior, and wears a solid dragon-hide jacket when adventuring.
Merlin: the wise old wizard, although not so wise. In every volume, he is the one who gives a mission to Pip, providing him items and some magic. Merlin tends to be sarcastic and grumpy, and even though he treats Pip like a stupid child, he still cares about him. Merlin has a strange habit of changing his home setting in every volume.
Excalibur "E.J." Junior: Pip's magical sword. It was created by Merlin who based its design on King Arthur's sword (hence the "Junior") and given to Pip as his main weapon, which is quite powerful (It is unclear if Merlin really created the original Excalibur, though he usually says so). A special trait of Excalibur Junior is that it has a mind and the ability to speak like a human. E.J. often enters in dialogue with Pip, showing its sarcastic personality. Sometimes, E.J. can even refuse to get out of its sword case when in a bad temper. Particularly, E.J. suffers from arachnophobia, which is a hindrance when Pip finds giant spiders.
Nosferax: A vampire poet who is a recurrent character through the series. Nosferax loves to make poems and feels that he is a great artist, but the problem is that he is extremely clumsy at finding good rhymes, making his works a pain to hear (for the hero, at least). He can help Pip in his quest, but can get dangerous if Pip gets harsh with him.
King Arthur: King Arthur of old legend. He is rarely seen, but as the king of the country, he takes important decisions on the land and has one of the most serious roles. He is the one who gives missions to Pip by the way of Merlin.
King Pellinore: King Pellinore of Listinoise, a lost king who makes some appearances as a running gag, where his role seems mostly to confuse Pip by wearing a dark armor which makes him look like the Black Knight.
Sorcerer Ansalom: An evil black-magic-using sorcerer, who is the main villain in the very first adventure. He returns as a ghost when Pip visits the Kingdom of the Dead and Pip discovers some of his dark rule remains in the last volume.
The Black Knight: The Black Knight of old legend is the main villain in an adventure of Pip. He seems to star in several volumes, but those other appearances are actually King Pellinore (see above).

Titles

# Castle of Darkness (1984) # Den of Dragons (1984) # The Gateway of Doom (1984) # Voyage of Terror (1986) # Kingdom of Horror (1986) # Realm of Chaos (1987) # Tomb of Nightmares (1987) # Legion of the Dead (1987)

Warrior and Wizard

The rules of Grailquest are quite simple when compared to current RPGs. The player must roll two six-sided dices and add the results. If the result exceed 6 (which will happen in a 58.3% of times), then the enemy is injured and looses an amount of "life points". When the life points of a character reach zero, then the character is dead. If the character wields a weapon, she could have a bonus to the damage and/or a bonus to hit. For instance, Excalibur Junior provides Pip with a bonus of +5 to the damage, and it only needs you to get a 4 in the dices to hit (a 91.7% of the times it's a hit). There is no defense roll, but a character might wear an armor reducing the damage.

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Games - Grailquest

Characters

Titles

Warrior and Wizard

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