Villain Profile - The Beast from Kill the Beast by Victor Cheng

Villain profiles return!  In my quest to promote more amateur gamebooks, I will look at a villain from a book I've found on www.ffproject.com.  I will mention these great amateur books in future posts.  The Beast is from Kill the Beast by Victor Cheng who has also written In the Footsteps of a Hero.  So, on with The Beast.

Appears in

Kill the Beast by Victor Cheng.  No prizes for guessing what the aim of the book is.

Background

You are a villager who is plodding along fine until The Beast comes from nowhere and crushes houses and crops.  It also carries off some of your fellow villagers.  You are tasked with going to a nearby town and hiring someone who can kill it.

The Beast has a thick soil coloured hide that resists blows.It also has 'tentacles, primitive limbs and big eyes – dreadful, demonic eyes.' It is also described as a 'great barrel of a creature' with a 'toothy maw'

Prominence

The beast is roaming around the countryside and can strike at any time.  This fact is made more terrifying by the fact that The Beast can burrow under the earth and can burst out of the ground in front of you at any time.  Now that's a surprise you don't want.  7/10

Hardness

The Beast's toothy maw and its many tentacles and limbs make it an extremely dangerous foe.  It has a skill of 12 and a stamina of 15.  It also has a thick hide that '... seems to be made of the Earth itself'.  Damage dealt against The Beast in combat is reduced by 1 point.  Besting it in combat will definately be difficult.  Your skill is between 5 and 7, so it will be suicide to take the Beast on yourself which is why you hire someone else to do it.  However, along the way, you may get a chance to weaken it and reduce its skill which will go a long way.  The trick to killing the beast is reducing its skill so that if you get someone who can hit it constantly then they will gradually wear it down.  It takes some luck and good judgement to do this, however.  7/10

Ambition

The Beast does not seem to want to do anything beyond wrecking the countryside and eating people.  5/10

Style

As beasts go, this one definitely seems unique (bonus point).  It's origin story is not explained, but I imagine it to be some kind of abandoned cosmic horror or the failed experiment of a mad wizard or an animal that has been mutated by evil magic or evil substances.  However, being a Beast means that it's not going to be an urbane Bond villain any time soon.  Of course, that also means that its actually going to kill someone.  6/10

Diabolical genius

Like Hate, there is no evidence of The Beast being sentient (of course absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but I'm going on the source material here.  of course, if Victor says that it is, then that's a different matter.)  1/10

Total score

It is not something that you want to come across, but it's not going to come up with a master plan to destroy the world any time soon.  26/50

Some amateur gamebooks and their inspirations

There are loads of great amateur gamebooks out there and some of them have been inspired by a published gamebook or gamebook series.  They have drawn inspirations from their systems, their settings or their themes.

Isle of the Cyclops and The Hills of Phoros both by Andrew Wright - The way the gamebook is structured reminds me of Fabled Lands.  You have a lot of freedom to wander around and you have random encounters.

Hunger of the Wolf by Kieran Coghlan - This is a brilliant Fighting Fantasy gamebook that starts off with an origianl setting but there is a twist half way through which takes you to the site of an early Fighting Fantasy gamebook and you will also get to know more about a character from that gamebook.  The clue is in the name of the book.

Red World by Zachary Carango- This great gamebook has a brilliant and original system and a setting that is reminds me Heart of Ice.  You are living in a post apocalyptic world and are tasked to find a mysterious item where you come across all kinds of adventure.

Word Fell Silent by Kieran Coghlan- This is a well researched historical gamebook set in Jerusalem, 63AD.  It is a well written story with some good twists.  The stats for your character reminds me the Eternal Champions gamebooks .  The random encounter table on paragraph 48 also reminds me of Fabled Lands.

The Triad of Skulls by myself - My book uses the Fighting Fantasy game system and is set on Fire Island, the place where Island of the Lizard King (Fighting Fantasy 7) is set.  I also used some of the encounters from Island of the Lizard King as inspiration for what you may come across in the book - headhunters, the delerious prisoner, the cyclops, the black lions and the shaman.

The Rise of Skarlos by Ramsay Duff - This great gmaebook is a prequel to the Lovecraftian Fighting Fantasy book Beneath Nightmare Castle.

Escape Neuburg Keep by Khaxzan (online name)  - This book is set in the keep from Beneath Nightmare Castle.

The Achaeid Book 1 : The Enriyes by Ramsay Duff - This great gamebook is full of characters from Greek myths.


Beggars of Blacksand by Al Sander - This book has a great twist to it that I will not reveal here.  As well as being set in Blacksand, it also has some references to another early Fighting Fantasy.


Rampage! by Andrew Wright - The premise of this book is brilliant.  You are monster and the aim is to cause as much havoc as possible.  There is a flavourful game system to fit the monster theme.  There are some parody names of Fighting Fantasy characters (Gastromo instead of Yaztromo, The Curer instead of the Healer, Brilligan instead of Gillibran and many more.)


The Black Lobster by Andrew Wright - This book is based in the den of thieves that is Port Blacksand.