The river out of Eden

Back in 1998 or 1999, I was having lunch with Russ Nicholson at the Dumpling Inn in London's Chinatown. I'd been working at Eidos, a videogames publisher, and had written specs for three games: Plague (later renamed Warrior Kings), 2020 Knife Edge, and the Fabled Lands MMO that was destined to morph into Abraxas. Astounding as it may seem today, back then most publishers had no clue that game development is an iterative process that requires continual refinement of the design, and so it had been suggested to me that Eidos wouldn't have much for me to do until their internal teams had finished those three games. I disagreed, and my friend Nick Henfrey and I had given Eidos execs a detailed analysis of how development ought to work (pretty much how every developer does it now, but not in the '90s) but while waiting to hear if the message had got through I was trying to come up with a new project. Russ was also looking for something to work on, hence our brainstorming session over dim sum.

"What about a comic book?" suggested Russ. He didn't need to twist my arm. We both loved comics. Because Russ had worked out in Papua New Guinea and met quite a few tough engineering types, we came up with a scientist/archaeologist and his roustabout minder who are searching for the site of the Garden of Eden. They find two sets of weathered tree roots, which unknown to them are the remains of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. That night they get stoned and are forced to run for their lives when attacked by bandits. They run through some kind of interdimensional portal to another world. We follow the scientist character who arrives alone in a beautiful verdant landscape quite unlike the desolate rocky terrain he was camping in moments earlier. But it's a case of out of the frying pan, as a spear thuds into the ground by his foot and he realizes he's being hunted by the natives of this other world. I scribbled the notes as we ate.

Long story short, here was our surprise twist: the roustabout guy ran through the interdimensional rift a few seconds ahead of the scientist, but in this other world that meant he arrived ten years earlier. In that time he's made himself the warlord of the place. He has corrupted paradise. We were quite pleased with ourselves for dreaming that up, and remained so until Outcast came out a few months later and it turned out to feature the exact same idea. Under the sun there is no new thing, it seems. Oh well.

I didn't lament our Garden of Eden story for long. Outcast did it all so brilliantly that it's hard to imagine we could have topped that. In any case, I got drunk with another gaming friend, David Bailey, and after an all-night conversation over whisky we came up with the idea of asking Eidos to set us up as an independent development company. That became Black Cactus and although 2020 Knife Edge and Abraxas fell by the wayside, Warrior Kings finally shipped. In the world of game development, one out of three ain't bad going.

Since then we have lost Russ, sad to say -- two years ago tomorrow, hence this post. Black Cactus and Eidos are no more. Even the Dumpling Inn has gone. The grass withereth and the flower fadeth...

A journal of the Plague years

Jamie and I went to work at Eidos Interactive in late 1995. I don't even think it was Eidos yet - that was some kind of reverse takeover manoeuvre cooked up by Charles Cornwall to finagle ailing software house Domark into a big money-spinning confection. As he put it at the time, "It's a minnow swallowing several whales."

None of that made any difference to us developers. Jamie was hired to do level design on the Deathtrap Dungeon computer game, while Ian Livingstone asked me to design a SimCity-type management and building game set in medieval London, or something like London. The inspiration was Daniel Simpson's short claymation movie H, in which a mark in the form of the letter h appears on the hand of a medieval stonemason who is sculpting a gargoyle for a cathedral. The stonemason is branded a heretic - or something else beginning with h - and burned at the stake We decided to call the game Plague, happily having talked Ian out of calling it P.

After struggling with economic models and architectural plans for a few weeks, I saw Ian in the corridor brandishing a copy of Warcraft 2 that he'd brought back from the States. He knew Warcraft was a favourite game of mine. "Have you played this yet?"

"No."

He chucked me the box. "You better take a look. Plague's got to be like this."

"OK, but Plague is a SimCity game."

I might have sprouted antennae, the way he looked at me. "Nobody wants more sim games. We want excitement. We want realtime strategy."

This was news to me, since I'd been hired to design a sim game, but I loved Warcraft 1 so I wasn't about to argue. I duly started to pack RTS elements into the city-building game the team were working on. It was going to be nearly a year before I realized that what was needed was to throw Plague out and start afresh - which is how Warrior Kings came to be conceived. That got mixed up in the political and business fallout of extricating a team from Eidos and forming Black Cactus, so the Warrior Kings that got released was a bit of a mishmash. A story for another day, that. We were talking about Plague.

As the wargame elements started to get bolted onto the original design, I realized that the team were still thinking of it as a city-building game. Our lead artist was an architecture graduate, and he had a lot of sway in the company, so it wasn't politic to junk the SimCity stuff right away. To help steer everyone's vision onto the new page, I wrote a script for the game intro sequence and got Martin McKenna to storyboard it. This wasn't even the intro I intended to use (more on that next week) but it made the team aware that the game they were working on was going to be about rather more dramatic issues than where to put the fish market...

Opening titles cards appear in sequence:

“The High King is dead.”

“The rule of law and justice is dead.”

“The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the world…”

We see the funeral of the High King. He's carried by his knights and laid in a burial mound, which is then sealed. As the knights and mourners file away, a storm-cloud darkens the sky.

Unhindered by the old King's edicts, resentment festers among his former knights. Each believes himself the rightful inheritor of the crown. Honour withers and treachery takes root, spreading like a poisoned weed in embittered hearts.

Across the countryside, the peasants huddle in fear. Murder, acrid-smelling, wafts on the air. The knights scent it; they grow grim and battle-keen. Each dreaming of dominion, they marshal their forces and prepare for the carnage to come.

In the court, knights look at each with hooded eyes, distrustfully. Some glance towards the empty seat at the round table, behind which hangs the dragon's-head banner of the High King.

Shadows on a castle wall: an assassin stabs a man in the back.

Kindled by intrigue, old grudges ignite. The kingdom is plunged into civil war. Armies surge and clash. Ringing steel and the wailing of widows drowns out the voice of reason. While Death sharpens his scythe, men who were once closer than brothers slaughter each other like wild beasts.

Crops and homesteads burn, great castles are shattered and left to ruin. A hundred noble knights lie dead, swords buried in mud, armour rusting. The victors bay for yet more blood. No quarter is given. The vanquished are hung on gibbets, ripe fruit for ravens.

Scenes of erupting battle, fire, dying men, executions...

A shadow sits now upon the vacant throne: the shadow of terror. The High King's dream has become a nightmare.

Sunset, falling through a narrow window on the deserted hall of heroes, leaves a slash of blood-coloured light across the dusty throne. The dragon's-head banner is by now moth-eaten.

Such brutal passion soon is spent. The fury of battle at last is lulled to sullen silence. In the aftermath thrive pestilence and famine. The soil, blood-clogged, yields weeds instead of wheat. Grain rots in dank barns where rats breed in the darkness. Behind the fortified walls of their towns, the survivors cower in dread of the plague that now sweeps the land. The sick are nailed inside their houses and abandoned to die. Bodies thrown into carts are left to blacken and bloat, the living too few and too fearful to bury them.

Prophets preach that Doomsday is near, that God means to wipe Man from the world for his sins. To most this is welcome news. The suffering is too much. Better the endless sleep of death than to endure the relentless horrors of the world.

Scenes of hardship. Narrow empty streets in a town, with smoke drifting on the breeze. Flagellants wearing crowns of thorns shuffle along, crying out as they whip themselves. A few peasants trudge miserably past – a weeping funeral cortege carrying the bundled body of a child.

Then, one night when the high winds howl, a traveller comes to your court. In these times, strangers are feared as carriers of the plague but he walks past your guards unchallenged, as if in a dream. With your ministers you listen to his words, even though he comes from far away and his tongue is hard to understand. In your hearts you hear him, in your memories you recognize the ring of noble speech. There is wisdom in his strange words. And he reminds you of the secret that in these terrible days of turmoil and death had been forgotten:

The court. Lightning outside. Knock at the doors, which swing open and a stranger enters. He looks like the High King seen on his bier in the first scene. This whole bit seems dream-like. We’re closing in on the stranger's face and into his eyes, sparkling in the firelight, and we hear the stranger speak:

“The soul of the land is its King. It withers because its soul, the King, is dead. So there must be a new King. His reign will mark a new beginning. For good or evil? Time will tell. But power cannot be shared. Others also come to take the throne. Therefore grasp you now this sword. Conquer by might, rule with right. One land, one King.”

While the stranger speaks, the view pushes into his eyes, fades to black, and then shows the faces of those listening to him. We pan around the court, ending on the lord's face.

The stranger reaches the bit about others seeking the throne and his voice becomes more emphatic and resonant. Cut back to where he was standing to find he's no longer there. A gleaming sword hangs in the air. The lord rises, reaches to take it –

The lord wakes, sitting bolt upright. He is surrounded by his ministers and men, who had fallen drunkenly asleep at the benches. Now they stir and, seeing the resolve in the lord's eyes, are instantly alert. Perhaps they shared his dream? We see his hand close, remembering the phantom sword he was reaching for. Jaw set sternly, he repeats the final words of the dream:

“One land, one king...”

No Man’s Land is basically home

The Dark Lord books are supposed to be for kids, but I have yet to find an adult reader of fantasy who hasn't enjoyed them too, usually to the point of laughing immoderately in public whenever they open the book, thereby risking a tasering from the people who used to patrol the streets with nothing more dangerous than butterfly nets. I was recently reading the manuscript for the third book (WIP title The Dirkest Hour) in bed and I had to stop because I was laughing so loud I woke my wife up. It's a little hard to explain... "What's so funny?" "Well, there's this goblin and he's throwing custard at the wall, and then he lets off this horrendous fart and... Oh, never mind."

Jamie has just done an interview on the Hachette Children's Books site. Be sure to read the whole thing if you're interested in the creative process and the craft of writing. Here are a few highlights from the interview - and come back on Friday for more news from Jamie:

Some background before we begin... What were you doing, in the pre-Dirk world?

Well, I started off life in the '80s doing game books - the choose-your-own-adventure type - for Puffin in the Fighting Fantasy series. The first book I ever did, with my writing partner Mark Smith, was called Talisman of Death. Those did rather well, so I went off and did a load of them, then I did a two-player series and it had the only book I ever dedicated to my mother – ‘To my darling mother’ – and it was called The Arena of Death.

I must’ve done about twenty five game books, and then that whole market dried up when computer games came along. So I got back into computer games and had a computer game company called Black Cactus which went horribly wrong in the end and we lost a lot of money. After that I got back into novels, really.

Are there any games we might remember from that computer game company?

There was something called Warrior Kings, which was an RTS, in early 2000, a sort of fantasy thing. So essentially, it’s been thirty years of selling goblins to kids and just doing fantasy left, right and centre, creating endless Dark Lords and big, bad villains, shooting them down or killing them. I’ve lived in that world for so long you begin to think ‘surely Dark Lords have mothers…’ and that starts getting you into why someone would become a Dark Lord.

Do you remember where you were when you had the idea for Dark Lord?

Yes, I was with a friend of mine, Dave Morris. We’ve since started another company, Fabled Lands LLP, and we have an American investor. He’s quite a serious biotech venture capitalist, but he also used to love all of our gamebooks; for him it’s a bit of fun and he can meet up and talk to us and set us working on fun projects. It’s great for us because we’re just free to write whatever we like - it’s like having a patron, like a medieval Medici, except he’s called Big Wedge Frank. So that’s wonderful, and actually we’re doing quite well at the moment.

So it was just me and Dave, having a few beers and riffing off about how great it would be if you had a Dark Lord wandering around Earth. It began with an idea about a Diary of a Dark Lord, so it would be like Darth Vader or Sauron actually writing ‘Had to destroy a goblin today’, or you can imagine ‘Today the hobbits found my ring – Noooo!’, that kind of stuff. And then you start thinking about how could you really do the biography of a Dark Lord? You’d need to make him sympathetic or likeable, and you couldn’t really do that if you were doing it straight – then it would be like trying to make Hitler or Stalin likeable. It had to be jokey. And then the comedy angle led to the fish-out-water stuff, and then having him cursed is a natural progression, cursed into the body of a thirteen year old boy and sent to school is just perfect.

This is a very detailed world you’ve created – how long did it take to do that, and is there loads more that you know about but haven't been able to put in the book?

There is a lot that’s been left out, but nothing’s wasted. I’m writing the third Dark Lord book now and you never know when stuff will come in. But my career has mostly been about creating worlds, so that was the easy bit. You need the nations, but you leave religion out of it as it’s too sensitive these days. Already in the American version we’ve had to take out the word ‘Hell’, so instead of ‘By the nine Hells!’ Dirk has to say ‘By the nine nether worlds!’and there’s other stuff like that.

But normally, if you’re doing a computer game or role-playing game, you’d have a very detailed pantheon of different gods for different cultures, different politics and battle and combat tactics, like you’re creating an entire medieval nation from scratch, with stuff from mythology, science fiction and Japanese themes. I’ve done so much of that it would be easy to parody, but this is a more of a comedy parody and at the same time a great example of the genre and a loving homage

Reading the book is almost like being in the mind of a proper mad person, for whom other people’s reality is incomprehensible; how did you do that?

It was definitely part of me, I’m afraid! I think I started life a bit bemused by the world, so I think I drew on that a bit…it’s a product of all that gaming, coupled with my own bemusement. Although, saying that, I was born in Iran and lived there for the first ten years of my life, and then went to boarding school in England; my dad worked for Shell and we lived on an oil field. So, in a way, that also makes you look at the world from a different perspective.

It gives you a very good understanding of the outsider principle.

I think that’s true. You're born a little bit of an outsider, in a small, unique group of people, then you come to Britain still a bit of an outsider.

No Man’s Land is basically home.

Yes, or the alternative is…I fell to your planet many years ago, from the Dark Lands – I pretend it is fiction, but it’s all true.

Do you know where you’re going next?

Not really. We sort of had this idea to do stuff, and it seemed like a good idea to write, but I never realised it would be so successful and create this writing career for me. It was more like, I’ve got some bills coming in and what can you do when you get to a certain age? I was so evolved as a specialist in game books. It's like pandas and bamboo…if there’s no bamboo, they die. As I still wanted to be a panda I had to learn to do something else.

Eye of Heroes - the special stuff

And as our final excerpt from the Eye of Heroes (spec by Steve Bristow, Will Doyle and Jamie Thomson, collectively the design team at sadly defunct PC game developer Black Cactus) here's the list of special character actions.

EoH was planned as a tactical small-squad game based around action points, similar to X-Com or Laser Squad. The spec is nice: simple, tight and comprehensive. I keeping thinking it would make a good smartphone (or slate) game.

CLASS-BASED ACTIONS

Poison Arrow (Wayfarer) This attack is more expensive than an aimed shot, but damages and Dazes any unit that it strikes (+20 Combat, 1-10 damage modified by level of success + daze). Dazed units miss their next turn and can’t perform opportunity attacks or combination attacks until they recover.

Noise Arrow (Wayfarer) This attack is slightly more expensive than an aimed shot, but causes a loud bang on impact (+20 Combat, no damage + bang).

Mighty Attack (Warrior) This attack is more expensive than a heavy attack, but causes more damage (+0 Combat, 10-30 damage modified by level of success).

Frenzy (Warrior) This action is cheap to perform, and lasts until the start of the warrior’s next turn. During the frenzy all attacks deliver extra damage, but the warrior’s defence is lowered dramatically (-30 Defence, 1-10 added to all damage delivered).

Search (Rogue) This action is used to detect for traps and secret switches. The rogue rolls his Scouting against the Concealment Value of every hidden object within LoS (modified by range: as per missile attacks). Objects that he detects fade up from transparency, accompanied by a tinkling chime.

Disarm (Rogue) This action is used to disable traps in adjacent squares. The rogue rolls his Thievery attribute against the Complexity Value of an adjacent, visible trap. The trap is disarmed if he succeeds. If he fails he risks accidentally triggering the trap, which may cause damage.

Fireblast (Mage) This action is resolved as an Aimed Shot, but causes flames to consume the affected square, and all surrounding squares (+20 Combat, 10-20 damage modified by level of success in Magic vs. Defence).

Firebolt (Mage) This action is similar to a Snap Shot. The affected square is consumed by flame (+0 Combat, 10-20 damage modified by level of success in Magic vs. Defence).

Summon (Mage) This action is expensive to perform and must be directed into an adjacent square. A cackling imp appears in the square when cast. This creature can be controlled as an additional party member, but disappears in a puff of smoke at the end of the enemy’s turn.

Curse (Priest) This action is expensive to perform, but can be targeted upon any enemy unit within line of sight. When cast, the priest rolls their Sanctity against their enemy’s Sanctity. If successful, the enemy is Dazed for his next turn and cannot move.

Heal (Priest) This action is moderately expensive to perform, but can be target upon any allied unit within LoS. The priest rolls their Sanctity versus the target’s current Stamina to determine how many Stamina points are healed.

Bless (Priest) The action is cheap to perform, and can be targeted upon any allied unit within LoS. The Sanctity of the Priest assists the attribute used for the target’s next action. Blessings are cancelled at the end of the enemy’s next turn.

Hypnotise (Troubadour) This action is expensive to perform, and can be targeted upon any enemy unit within LoS. The Charisma of the Troubadour is pitted against the Charisma of their victim. If the Troubadour wins, the AP of the enemy unit is restored to maximum, and it can be controlled as an allied unit until the start of the enemy’s next turn. Some creatures are immune to hypnosis.

Taunt (Troubadour) This action is moderately expensive to perform, and can be targeted upon any enemy unit within LoS. The Charisma of the Troubadour is pitted against the Charisma of their victim. If the Troubadour wins, the enemy unit will become enraged, and will concentrate solely upon the Troubadour until the end of his next turn. Some creatures are immune to taunts.

Distract (Troubadour) This action is cheap to perform, and can be targeted upon any square within LoS. The Charisma of the Troubadour is pitted against the Charisma of all units who have LoS to this square. Enemies who fail the test will turn to face the square until distracted elsewhere.

Steal Soulfire (Adventurer) This action is cheap to perform, but can only be used when your adventurer is standing on the same square as a corpse. The amount of Soulfire received is variable (see Soulfire, below).

Summon Hero (Adventurer) This action is cheap to perform. When activated you are prompted to select a hero from the Eye of Heroes. The hero appears in a random square adjacent to your adventurer.

Dismiss Hero (Adventurer) This action is cheap to perform. When activated you are prompted to select an allied unit on the battlemap. The hero is instantly dismissed back to the Eye of Heroes.

Eye of Heroes - levels and enemies

The storyline of the FL tactical computer game was to involve the young protagonist Tam recovering the souls of six heroes of legend. I'm copying the plot description here exactly as it was written in the design spec, although I'm not completely sure that the very Judaeo-Christian model of heaven and hell is exactly right for the Fabled Lands. However, I assume this part must have been written by Jamie - who else would know the setting that well? - and he's the ultimate authority on FL mythos.

GAME OUTLINE

Guided by the spirit of the Eye, Tam is told that he is on a quest to save the Fabled Lands but the precise nature of the threat is not disclosed until the very end of the game. Tam and his ghostly companions soon find themselves chased by cultists, and eventually the skies across the Fabled Lands darken and the souls of the dead start raining down.

Once his soul is freed, the wizard Targdaz is able to explain the threat. It is his old rival from centuries ago: a priest of Ebron called Qadarnai. Qadarnai earned so much favour with his deity whilst Targdaz was inside the ruby that he eventually ascended to Paradise as an angel. But Qadarnai grew jealous of Ebron’s power, and attempted to raise a celestial army against his master.

Ebron learned of this plot, and cast Qadarnai down to the Underworld. Qadarnai toiled in hell for generations, until slowly he earned the respect of his new masters. In time the fallen angel became a demon, capable of visiting earth to answer the summons of necromancers and mad priests.

Qadarnai had his own plans though. He seeded a cult on earth, and drew his plans against both Paradise and the Underworld. His aim: nothing more than the complete destruction of both. The cult of Qadarnai has made him strong, and now he gathers an army in the Underworld. Civil war rages throughout the Underworld, and the screaming spirits of the dead are spat from the flumes of Starspike Island to crash down upon the Fabled Lands.

Qadarnai aims to wrest control from the Gods of the Underworld, and open the Sinkhole of Worlds. This mighty plughole sits at the bottom of the deepest sea-gorge of the Violet Ocean. Opening it would flood the Underworld, extinguishing the fires of hell and draining the entire ocean. Robbed of all moisture, the people of the Fabled Lands would die of thirst. And without their worship, the Gods would soon follow.

Only the greatest heroes of the past can stop him. Only Tam can lead them. At the end of the game, Tam’s quest has but begun…

LEVEL 1: AMMUNAS
The first level of the game is set at night in Nerech, a peninsula on the North-eastern coast of Sokara. Nerech is home to the ravening Manbeasts. Passing through the gates of Fort Esgard, Tam is warned by the guards that his quest is sheer madness and will end in doom.

Ammunas’s bones are found within the roofless ruins of an ancient Shadar temple, exposed to the elements atop a craggy granite tor, and now home to a filthy settlement of Manbeasts. The level is staged in a thunderstorm, to the howling accompaniment of a thousand Manbeasts.

Manbeasts function as Warriors.

LEVEL 2: ROKU
The second level is set by day in Akatsurai, in the depths of the Kwaidan Forest.

Roku’s skeleton is still entwined with that of his lover, bound together by thorns at the heart of an ancient, ruined village. Cherry blossom falls from the trees beside a sparkling waterfall, which has flooded much of the village. Temple dogs peer from the bushes, choked by vines. Butterflies drift through the air. Everything here is quiet, mystical…but not for long.

A clan of Ratmen has set their sights on Tam’s golden sword, and has followed him across the seas from Sokara. They catch up with him at the ruined village, and attempt to make the kill.

Ratmen function as Wayfarers.

LEVEL 3: KERROL
The third level is set at night in the Mixen Sumps: a stretch of swampland on the southern coastline of Uttaku, the Land of Hidden Faces.

Kerrol’s bones are found on a rotted wooden altar at the heart of the swamps, surrounded by limp trees and lit by swirling marsh lights. A swathe of fog blankets the ground, and old Uttakin idols protrude from the murk.

Aware that Tam is assembling heroes to stop him, The enemy sends his cultists to intercept them. The cultists lead Manbeasts on chains, and have forged an alliance with the Ratmen.

Cultists function as Priests. Manbeasts (Warriors) and Ratmen (Wayfarers) support them.

LEVEL 4: RUSTY JACK
The fourth level is set by day in the Feathered Lands, and is staged in and around the ruins of a crashed Arkship.

The wreck of the Thunderbound is sprawled across a tropical cove. The jungle spreads right up to the sand, stretching outwards to swallow the wreck. The howls of tropical beasts fill the air, and feathered snakes wing from branch to branch.

The zombies of his crew, cursed to guard his bones as barnacle men, still haunt Rusty Jack’s ship. All manner of traps are still active to prevent intruders from penetrating into the treasury. After Jack’s soul is freed the undead assassins of Sig swear to pursue him and bring him to justice.

Barnacle Men function as Rogues.

LEVEL 5: NIAMH
The fifth level is set around a Mannekin Village, at the foot of Sky Mountain, high in the Spine of Harkun.

The Mannekin village clings to the cliff face at the bottom of a great gorge. The Wing Warriors worship the bones of Niamh of the Whispers, who flung herself from the top of Sky Mountain thousands of years ago. A Mannekin shrine is built above her final resting place, riddled with Mannekin traps to deter those who would disturb her peace.

The enemy’s plans are now coming to fruition. The skies across the Fabled Lands rain down Spectres of the dead as civil war sweeps through the Underworld. As Tam arrives in the Mannekin village the Spectres swoop down around him, scattering the Mannekin to the safety of their homes. To compound matters, the cultists arrive after a few turns, accompanied by the clan of ratmen.

Spectres function as Troubadours. Cultists (Priests), Manbeasts (Warriors) and Ratmen (Wayfarers) arrive after a few turns.

LEVEL 6: TARGDAZ
The sixth level is set in the Tomb of Targdaz, buried high in the hills in the country of Atticala.

The Tomb of Targdaz is a majestic vault filled with traps and riddles: your greatest test yet. Statues of Atticalan warriors loom from the walls, and burning sconces illuminate the corridors with flickering light. Targdaz’s remains were taken here by the Order of Fire: insane wizards who look upon his bones as religious relics.

As the Order fight to protect their master’s tomb, the enemy’s servants catch up with the party once more. A few turns later the undead assassins of Sig arrive to capture the soul of Rusty Jack.

Fire Wizards function as Mages. Every other enemy encountered so far is also present: Cultists (Priests), Manbeasts (Warriors), Ratmen (Wayfarers), and Barnacle Men (Rogues). The Cultists have found a way to bottle the Spectres (Troubadours) that are falling from the heavens all across the Fabled Lands: and throw them as grenades in combat.

Golden goddess

THE TROUBADOUR: NIAMH OF THE WHISPERS
Appearance: Niamh is blessed with the body of a goddess. Her golden hair spills down to her waist, and is bound by garlands of flowers. She wears diaphanous robes that shimmer with the colours of mother-of-pearl. Her ears are delicately pointed, and she has oily butterfly wings that are veined like those of a fly. She carries a delicate flute carved from bone.

History: In ages past, when the power of the Shadar pantheon was waning, the androgynous trickster God Sig transformed itself into a songbird and tricked its way into the house of the Three Fortunes for the purposes of ravishment. The offspring was Niamh of the Whispers, a faery princess who was cursed to always fall in love with wicked men.

Blessed with immortal beauty beyond reckoning, Niamh wandered the earth for hundreds of years, her life an endless cycle of heartbreak and woe. Her stories became her songs, and were capable of bringing even the sternest warrior to tears. Famously, Niamh was once persuaded by one of her treacherous lovers to “sing down the walls of Jerubar”: a Shadar Capital in the great steppes that is now known as the City of Ruins. Her voice drifted across the city and broke the hearts of the Shadar army, most of whom fell upon their blades.

Niamh’s curse was lifted when she scaled the Peaks at the End of the World and sang her most heartbreaking song to Sig. As the god blubbered in sorrow, Niamh tore out Sig’s thighbone and used it to beat the god until it agreed to lift the curse on her. She carved Sig’s thighbone into a flute, and wandered the Fabled Lands for many years, singing for a husband. Alas, she outlived all her mortal lovers, and with her own heart broken, she threw herself from Sky Mountain.

Character: Niamh is surprised to be back, and now that she is dead, somewhat embarrassed that she killed herself. She is kind, loving and possesses a pleasant humour. Of all the party, she is the most fearful of the threat to the Fabled Lands.

A blue preacher

To begin our series of characters from the never (or not yet) developed PC/phone game Eye of Heroes, here's the player's stalwart little protagonist and the first of the mighty heroes he's seeking to restore to the world.

THE ADVENTURER: TAM, THE BOY HERO
Appearance: Tam is clothed in the garb of a Sokaran peasant. He wears a brown cloth tunic, patchy green tights and a green cloth hood. A tousled red fringe spills from the hood, partially hiding his young and freckled features. Tam is weighed down by a magnificent golden broadsword, which he struggles to hold onto as he moves. The fabled Eye of Heroes is set into the pommel of this sword.

History: Tam is the son of a Sokaran farmer, and has very little history to speak of. To date his life has consisted of nothing more than feeding chickens, ploughing the cornfields with his father, or taking the pigs to market. Tam’s life takes a dramatic turn when the local bully tries to drown him as a witch in the village millpond, and he finds a glittering broadsword submerged in the murk.

Guided by the Eye of Heroes, Tam sets out on a quest from the Gods to capture the souls of six dead champions, and save the Fabled Lands from destruction.

THE WARRIOR: AMMUNAS, THE SWORD DANCER
Appearance: Ammunas is a blue-skinned nobleman with grave and dignified features. He is swathed in white desert robes embroidered with golden decorations. Despite his age, his physique is daunting. He wears an ornate Persian helmet and wields a silver scimitar in each hand.

History: Ammunas the Baptister was the fanatical first King of the Uttakin; famous for uniting the nomads of the Blue Plains under the banner of the God Ebron, and leading them to war against their age-old enemies, the gold-skinned nomads of the Desert of Bones.

Despite many great victories, Ammunas’s army was finally defeated by the legendary Arkships of their enemy, and the Uttakin were driven across the Violet Ocean to Harkuna, where they established a mighty kingdom. Ammunas did not join them. Shamed beyond measure, the blue-skinned dervish turned his back on his people and remained in the Feathered Lands. In time he earned the name “Sword Dancer”: a near-mythical figure who would appear from nowhere to serve the enemies of the gold-skinned nomads. Every sky charioteer who fell to his whirling blades earned him some small measure of redemption; but never enough.

It is said that toward the twilight of his life, Ebron set Ammunas a task to redeem himself in the god’s eyes, and earn his rightful place in paradise. Cruelly, the quest proved impossible, even for one such as Ammunas. Tasked to pluck out the eye of the war-god Tyrnai, Ammunas was finally struck down by the faithful of Tyrnai and cast into Nerech, where the ravenous Manbeasts devoured him.

Character: Ammunas is a natural leader for the party. Military minded, no-nonsense, and sharp-witted. His only downfall is his arrogance: like most Uttakin, he sets himself above others.

Eye of Heroes

Eye of Heroes was a Fabled Lands PC game designed by Steve Bristow and Will Doyle, formerly of Black Cactus Games. The reason you never heard of it is that, in notable contrast to the way that novels, movies and creator-owned comics are originated, game publishers don't usually buy NIH designs. So Eye of Heroes remains only a blueprint. But while looking through the design spec I found a bunch of great characters that Steve and Will had come up with, many with intriguing historical details that I assume they worked out with Jamie. So I'm going to run some of those over the next week. First, the one-sheet that tells you what the game's about. Incidentally, I said it was intended as a PC game but I'll bet it'd work pretty well on today's smart phones... Hmm, might have to dust it off!

Fabled Lands: Eye of Heroes

GAME OVERVIEW
“Fabled Lands: Eye of Heroes” was planned as a turn-based strategy PC game steeped in the mythology of the Fabled Lands game books. Eye of Heroes tells the story of a young Sokaran farmhand who travels the Fabled Lands in search of the souls of six long-dead heroes.

Each of the game’s levels would be played out across a colourful isometric battle map. Each unit in the party has a reserve of action points (AP) that are expended to move, attack, deploy special powers or interact with the environment. You and the computer player take turns to move your units, with each side moving any or all of their units in a single turn. AP can even be saved as “Opportunity” to interrupt your opponent’s turn with your own actions.

Eye of Heroes gameplay also includes “Distraction” - all units rotate automatically to face what they perceive as their greatest threat, even during their opponent’s turn. Combat rewards attacking to the flank or to the rear, so players must carefully coordinate their party’s attacks to counter and exploit the enemy’s ever-changing facing.

THE EYE OF HEROES
Each soul you rescue is stored within the Eye of Heroes: a magical jewel set into the pommel of your adventurer’s ancestral sword. You can call upon the Eye to summon the ghosts of six heroes to your side, but only for a short time. Each ghost needs Soulfire to take material form, and the Eye only holds so much. In order to boost your reservoirs of Soulfire you must drive your ancestral blade into the corpses of the evil dead.

Each hero conforms to one of the game book professions: Warrior, Mage, Wayfarer, Priest, Rogue and Troubadour, and each has their own unique powers. Players must spend their Soulfire wisely in order to triumph over the traps, monsters and puzzles resident on each level.

ENHANCEMENT
Between levels you’ll have the opportunity to mould your adventurer into a real hero.

The heroes of the Eye represent the pinnacle of each class, whereas your adventurer is something of a Jack-of-all-Trades. Although weak in comparison to his allies, you can draw upon the wisdom of the Eye to learn new powers. Concentrate on one class and your hero will ultimately match the abilities of one of his party members. Spread his Heroism between all six classes to develop a varied arsenal of powers that combine close and ranged combat, healing, magic, and trickery.

LOCATIONS AND ENEMIES
Each of the locations in Eye of Heroes draws inspiration from one of the game-books. As the series ran short after six books, fans will finally get to see something of the realms that were still to come: the steaming jungles of Ankon-Konu, the Desert of Bones, mythical Chrysoprais, ancient Atticala, the metropolis of Dangor and the Underworld itself.

Each battle map depicts a single adventure location, depicted in scale to your units. The first six locations detail the final resting places of the six heroes: the objective here is to find their bones and acquire their souls. Each enemy type conforms to one of the six classes: for example, the Manbeasts of Nerech use Warrior powers, whereas the snivelling Ratmen exploit the powers of the Wayfarer. The bones of each hero are watched over by monsters that conform to their class - before you can take advantage of the class for yourself you must witness its powers in combat.