What people are saying about Legion of the Necromancer

Copies of Legion of the Necromancer are reaching buyers. Here's what people are saying about the gamebook so far...

REVIEW IN FULL:

With the exception of Ian Livingstone’s Blood of the Zombies (Scholastic, 2012), the most recent gamebook I played was originally written in 1986 or 1987. The last four decades may well have seen incredible innovations in the medium, but frankly, I have no idea what they might be. Normally, that sort of admission should disqualify anyone from attempting to review anything, but two crucial caveats.

Firstly, this is Secret Passages, and we’re only really interested in new things when viewed through the prism of the hobby’s deep past.

Secondly, I’m not sure the lads at Hammerforge Chronicles, the creative duo behind Legion of the Necromancer, have spent much time peering beyond 1987 either.

(This is a compliment.)

This handsome hardcover is clearly very much in love with Fighting Fantasy. That’s not enough in itself, mind – rare is the fantasy gamebook without a poster of Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson on its bedroom wall. But this is elevated nostalgia. What’s abundantly clear is that writer James Gill and artist/designer James Isaacs have formidable creative chops – the two met on Metal Hammer – and LotN is a demonstration of what that nostalgia looks like in the hands of two men at the absolute pinnacle of their craft. The art is simply gorgeous – stipple shaded with heavy black lines, not reminiscent of any particular artist, but rather all of them at once, and very much its own distinct style.

The plot is a treasure hunt for a set of magical MacGuffins, leading to a confrontation with the big bad, and with a corkboard’s worth of routes to take through the hinterland, Ian Livingston’s Forest of Doom (1983) casts a long shadow over the proceedings. It’s not all Fighting Fantasy, though; there’s some brilliantly baroque worldbuilding in the intro that has a hint of Warhammer Fantasy or Lone Wolf to it: a guild of soldier-assassins, late medieval municipal government, society on the cusp of collapse, and a great inescapable dread lurking just out of shot.

It’s faithful to the style without becoming a pastiche, and your enjoyment of Legion of the Necromancer depends on how tolerant you were of these tropes the first time around. The literal randomness of early Fighting Fantasy (rooted in the literal randomness of early D&D) is particularly prominent. A run of bad luck when rolling up your stats can make the game virtually impossible, and a surprisingly large number of outcomes often hinge on whether the D6 blesses you with an odd or even number, which can be frustrating if you’re more engaged by tests of judgment than coin flips. Encounters, too, can have that goofy ‘emptying the toybox’ vibe of wandering through Firetop Mountain for the first time, and at least twice, you’ll encounter NPCs fighting over a box with a magic item in it.

On the subject of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1982), if you still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about the frustrating middle-third labyrinth, you’re going to want to make notes when you encounter your first crossroads…