Pagan: Ordeal Involving Conflagration

 

Just a normal day on Daemon's Crag.

        

The session begins with the Avatar standing on Daemon's Crag, a peninsula surrounded on all sides by the lava spewed by Mount Morgaelin. As usual, I begin exploring by rounding the circumference, but the only things I find are a welcome teleportation pad and a stone bridge leading to a large, locked double-door.

   

I then turn exploration inward to the small road network leading through a group of buildings. The first house I come to is labeled "ACOLYTE BANE." I am surprised to find it occupied by a woman.  She intuits that I'm a stranger to this island and asks my name, calling me "friend" in the process. Among the responses is an amusing one: "You are not my friend, lady." But as is this game's wont, choosing it, or any other option, just leads to the same result: Bane says that I need a name in the Elder Tongue and decides to call me "Daemion." Now I want to know what happens if you create a character named Daemion.

     

That does not look like a stable bridge.

      

The dialogue with Bane is long, but here are the highlights:

   

• Corodin was the first leader of the sorcerers, but he wasn't very good. He was overthrown by his acolyte, Maedron. This set a precedent for the Calling, a time of wizard's duel that allows masters to be overthrown. I'm sure that, somewhere, Anton Chekhov is smiling down at this dialogue. Later, Maedron created the Elder Tongue. 

• The Elder Tongue allows sorcerers to bind fire to objects like wands and rods.

• The sorcerers are led by a Master named Malchir. All other sorcerers are acolytes or disciples. Malchir is a "wily one" who prefers to keep to himself, making him disliked by some of his acolytes.

• Fire is the domain of the Lord of Flame, Pyros. Bane thinks he is the most powerful of the titans. He is bound to the sorcerers, which limits his power somewhat. If the titans were not bound in this way, they would be gods.

• All sorcerers have a Truename that differs from the name they use in conversation. Knowing a being's Truename allows a sorcerer to bind it to service. Something called the Tongue of Fire allows sorcerers to control Pyros.

• Daemons are the souls of people who have been killed by flame. They are mindless and filled with destructive rage, but they can be bound.

• Daemon's Crag was so named because the first demon appeared here, that of a young woman whose father threw her into the lava to save her from a bloodthirsty mob. She roared out of the lava as a daemon and scared the attackers away. 

• Morgaelin means "Dark Jewel" in the Elder Tongue. 

• Vardion is the First Acolyte. He is "more beast than man . . . a brutish, overbearing, pompous lout." 

     

Bane holds nothing back.

       

• The other acolytes are Gorgrand ("slow of wit") and Beren ("a man to be trusted").

• Bane thinks Vardion is preparing to overthrow Malchir and return the sorcerers to their traditional levels of power, which Bane thinks will lead to them being shunned by the rest of the island.

      

By the end of the conversation, Bane has decided to trust me. She asks me to gain Vardion's confidence and learn his Truename, which will allow Bane to spy on him and learn his true intentions. I say that I'll think on it, and I leave. 

   

Continuing on, I next come to the house occupied by First Acolyte Vardion. Again, I have options to be rude to him, which I take just for fun, and it leads to Vardion attacking me. He surrounds me in a ring of fire, then teleports outside of it and starts hurling spells at me. I can't escape the ring. But when the ring dies, I charge up to him and kill him. I figure that's probably irrecoverable and I need to reload, but the game removes any dilemma by crashing with the error: "Halting in file YAMM.C, line 131."

         

I push Vardion too far.

       

On a reload, I try again. Vardion is a bit difficult. He demands to know why I'm here and tells me that he's in charge. He otherwise mostly repeats what Bane told me, only more obnoxiously. When he asks how I can be so ignorant of the elements, I say frankly that I'm from another world. Not only does he believe me, but he also says that his own grandmother spoke of other worlds and may have in fact vanished to one. You'll recall that Vardion's grandmother, Mordra, is in the Chronicle of Pagan as the source of information about Britannia. She appears in Ultima VII as the healer in Skara Brae. I assumed she traveled there and back home again, but from Vardion's account she must have learned about Britannia (and told people about it) while she was still on Pagan, then somehow traveled there at the end of her life.

       

The Avatar practices for Ultima IX.

          

Although he briefly seemed to like me, Vardion returns to being a jerk in further conversation. One new bit of information he imparts is that the people of Tenebrae pay the sorcerers in food, clothing, and other sundries so that the sorcerers keep Pyros from destroying Tenebrae in a flood of ash and lava. When I accuse him of "extorting" the people of Tenebrae, he orders me from his house. 

   

Moving on, I meet:

  

• Daemos, Cardas, Tallon, Mentar, and Kothius, all disciples. They have the exact same dialogue, which mostly confirms what I already know. They live in single rooms and mutter to themselves when I'm not talking to them. 

       

A disciple talks to himself.

        

• The Hall of Sorcery is a large building with some wooden tables and a pentagram on the floor. A library in the rear is locked.

• A road ends at another pentagram, this one with gouts of flame at every point.

• Acolyte Gorgrond is pacing around his house. As Bane warned, he's a little thick. He takes easy offense to my questions. He worships Vardion and says he "has plans" for Bane. He says he's been here since he was a babe, and there's a hint that he might be Malchir's son. 

• Acolyte Belen is also in his house. He relates the story of the Guardian, the Destroyer, and the creation of the elemental titans as told in the Chronicle of Pagan. If the player has not already figured out from the story that the Guardian and the Destroyer were the same being, the Avatar has. When I say this to Belen, he refuses to believe it or hear any more about it.

    

I love to think that half the players at this point were saying, "Wait . . . what?!"

       

• Also, he's clearly in love with Bane. When I tell him I'm trying to find my way home, he insists that Bane can help.

• All of the sorcerer's houses have pentagrams in the middle of their floors, some with flames in the center, some dormant. 

• None of them have any dialogue options about stopping Hydros. But I'm not able to find Malchir. Maybe he's in the library or behind those other locked doors. 

       

And that's it. Lacking anything else to do, I return to Bane and agree to help. She says that I will become her disciple. She decides that "Daemion" is my Truename, and she gives her own as Sabriane. (I think I've told you before that "Sabrina" is just about my favorite woman's name, and that's a cute variant.) She gives me my first task: "Enter into the confidences of our illustrious First Acolyte and get from him his Truename." 

     

So does "Sabraelin" mean "Well of Jewels?"

     

It takes me a few tries to do this. Vardion doesn't respond well to rudeness, but he doesn't want a toady, either. Finally, when I reverse my earlier comment and tell him that his arrangement with Tenebrae is "shrewd," he suggests that I become his disciple. He also designates my Truename as Daemion and says that his own is Morduin. His first task for me is to get Bane's Truename. He warns me not to trust her friendly demeanor: "It is a ruse. She is power hungry and ambitious." He thinks that she plans to kill both him and Malchir.

    

You know what would really help sort this out? Some spell that makes people speak the truth. Naturally, it does nothing. I suppose this could be one of those situations in which the rude person turns out to be good and the nice person turns out to be evil (for some reason, I immediately think of the first episode of Scrubs), but in my experience, nice people are usually actually nice while rude jerks are usually actually jerks, so I go with my instinct. (I'm sure the lady's name has nothing to do with it.) I return to Bane/Sabriane and give her Vardion/Morduin's name. 

      

The game has some fun dialogue if you say that Vardion's Truename is "Sabriane."

      

Bane summons a daemon and orders it to go kill Vardion. It teleports away. Thuds and cries of pain ring in the distance. "I do so enjoy the cries of torment," the Guardian gloats. Whoops.

      

Yes, that was a daemon.

      

Malchir now apparates into Bane's pentagram and demands an explanation. "Vardion was planning to assassinate you," Bane reports to him. Malchir reams her for acting on "baseless suspicion" instead of consulting with him. "You have destroyed a valuable Acolyte." Bane asks to replace him as First Acolyte and says that she has a promising young disciple (me) who can replace her. Malchir agrees that I have great potential. "Teach him our ways," he commands, and disappears. 

    

Bane's method of "teaching" me is to give me a key to the library. She tells me to return when I'm ready for the test. (I'll have to try that with my students.) I have the option to rail at her for lying to me, but she just stubbornly defends her actions with a "dog-eat-dog world" philosophy.

      

"It's all part of life's rich pattern, Brenda, and you'd better @*$%*# get used to it."

       

I briefly reload and see what happens if I give Bane's Truename to Vardion. He does the same thing she did, gets the same lecture from Malchir, and gives me the same key. He says the same thing Bane says in response to my accusation of "You lied to me!"

   

The library has a lot of books. The Art of Flame by Maedron and On Sorcerous Ways by Corodin explain the basics of sorcery. If I understand it correctly, it involves the following steps:

   

1. Assemble black or red candles around a pentagram. Different spells require different combinations of candles placed at different points.
2. Put various reagents near the candles; the specific reagents depend on the spell.
3. Put a focus in the center of the pentagram. Focuses are metal disks, wands, rods, staves, and daemon skulls, all made of Blackrock. Different focuses hold different spells and different numbers of charges.
4. Light the candles.
5. Chant a mantra specific to the spell.

   

At this point, the sorcerer can use the focus as a magic item with a limited number of charges. In all my CRPG playing, it's possible that I've never encountered a more exhausting magic system. And the last thing I need is more items in my inventory. Is there any way I can win without it?

     

This is the last thing I need right now.

        

Other books in the library teach me the words, candles, candle positions, and reagents for "Extinguish," "Flame Bolt," "Flash," "Explosion," "Summon Daemon," "Banish Daemon," "Armor of Flames," "Endure Heat," "Ignite," and "Fire Shield." There are reagents everywhere: volcanic ash, brimstone, daemon bones, pumice, obsidian, and pig iron.

   

I can't really carry all this stuff, so I put my money bag and necromancy reagent bag in a chest in the library and hope they're still there when I get back. I put a handful of each reagent into the bag I normally use for mixing earth reagents, take five of each candle, grab a wand and rod from the shelves (I don't see a staff or disk), and head back to Bane.

   

Bane helps clarify the names of the points of the pentagram, which I spend an absurd amount of time trying to draw in PowerPoint before I realize I can just copy an image off the Internet. Anyway, here are the points:

   

        

There are some real-world influences on these names, but they're mostly nonsense. I mean, aphelion means the furthest point from the sun, but in the game, it's the farthest point from the volcano. Mesostel would seem to mean something like "middle of the pillars." Perivolcan would mean "around the volcano," not just closest to it. Pa and ze are being used as "right" and "left" here, or maybe "east" and "west" and have no real-world origins that I can tell. 

       

Instructions for "Flame Bolt."

        

Bane wants me to enchant an object, or multiple objects with "Flash," "Flame Bolt," and "Endure Heat." Just "Flash" alone requires me to:

   

• Put red candles at aphelion, perivolcan pa, perivolcan zee.
• Put black candles at the other two.
• Put pumice at aphelion and volcanic ash at mesostel pa and mesostel ze.
• Light the candles.
• Chant FLAM POR.

   

I run into a few vexing problems. First, the game intermittently won't let me drag away candles that are already on the pentagram. It won't let me drag them at all at first, so I assume they must be fixed in location and I'm doing something wrong. I'm in the middle of trying to look up a solution when it suddenly works.

    

The game's most persistently obnoxious problem.

       

Second, it's not clear to me at first from the spellbooks that they only give the locations of red candles. You have to assume that black candles go everywhere else. Third, it's not entirely clear to me whether the reagents go outside or inside nor where the Avatar has to stand. Finally, how do you proactively say words in this game? It turns out that you do it by double-clicking the pentagram itself. All of this takes a lot of bumbling around. At least candles never seem to burn out.

     

The Avatar sets things up for the "Flash" spell.

     

The result is a Wand of Flash, which is now all sparkly glowy. I had the impression that you could put multiple spells in one object, but I don't know how that works if the game insists on naming the object after the first spell. Anyway, I don't really try. Instead, I put a rod down for "Flame Bolt" and use a rod I found in Bane's house for "Endure Heat." 

   

After I make "Flame Bolt," the game will not let me pick up the rod no matter what I do, so I have to reload and start the entire thing over again. 

     

Again.

        

When I started playing the game, some commenters praised the originality of the magic system in superlative terms. I assume they must be talking about this. I really do appreciate the wondrous variety of the human species, but sometimes it's hard for me to believe that we evolved from the same monkeys.

      

I'm not sure your eyes are what matters.

      

When I'm done with the three spells, Bane tells me to visit Malchir in the Obsidian Fortress. I assume that's the place across the bridges with the locked doors. I optimistically head over there without restocking my reagents, hoping that the game won't require me to make any more sorcerer spells. It's not that crazy; I only had to cast about three necromancy spells to finish that little questline. 

   

The double doors open automatically as I approach and lead me into a small cave, where Malchir stands with daemons on both sides. "You will remain within this fortress until you have found my inner sanctum or you are dead," he says. He then casts a spell that turns the daemon statutes into daemons, wishes me good luck, and teleports away.

      

I tried to avoid taking screenshots when the "mist" effect was active, but sometimes it couldn't be helped.

         

I deal with the daemons with Protector, pausing halfway through the battle to cast VAS MANI on myself (now that's a spell system; just double-click on a rune). I'm helped by the fact that the daemons start attacking each other halfway through the battle. I was probably supposed to cast "Banish Daemon."

   

The next room has another daemon, but he's non-hostile and says hello. When I speak to him, he congratulates me on my wisdom in not attacking and says I'm free to loot the place for spell reagents. When I ask him his name, he says it's Arcadion, which is a significant surprise. I'm glad no one spoiled it for me.

      

Arcadion asks where I'm from. Even if I'm trying to tell the truth, I don't know which of these to say.

        

Arcadion, you might recall, is the daemon that the Avatar bound to the Black Sword in the Forge of Virtue expansion to Ultima VII: The Black Gate (after freeing it from a mirror in which it had been imprisoned by the mage Erethian). The Avatar continued carrying the sword in Ultima VII, Part 2: Serpent Isle, losing it for a while, then reclaiming it, then having to free Arcadion to defeat the mad mage Lorthondo. The daemon fled after this encounter, never to be seen again in that game.

   

Here, I have options to remind him of these events, but he claims we've never met and he's never been bound to anyone, let alone someone named Erethian. By way of explanation, he suggests that the past I'm describing is still in his future: "Time does strange things to those who travel the worlds." That's all cute, but this daemon neither looks nor sounds anything like Arcadion. This is a classic Origin retcon: it initially intrigues you, but when you think about it, it doesn't really fit and is kind of dumb. See also: Mordra, daemons are really gargoyles (clearly not), the serpent that guarded Exodus's fortress was the Great Earth Serpent, the Avatar was the hero of the first three games, Shamino's whole deal. I'm sure there won't be anything like this in Ultima IX.

        

It never makes sense in sci-fi and fantasy when anyone accepts "Earth" as a proper name.

             

A platform in the center of the room has a pentagram and tables and chests with plenty of reagents, candles, and focuses. I go to save the game here and accidentally hit "Read Diary" instead of "Write Diary," and instead of saving over Game #2 reload from Bane's house after completing the second spell. I check the word count and decide I can stop here. 

       

There is a degree to which this is Ultima—exploring a new place, talking to a bunch of people, getting a lot of lore, running around doing errands. That's been the series' modus operandi since about Ultima IV, and when it works well, it's a strength. But at least earlier Ultimas coupled this type of exploration and info-dumping with some attempts at classic RPG character development, leveling, and inventory and wealth acquisition. These elements hit their peak in Ultima V and have been slowly degraded ever since, arriving here at a character who starts with no creation options except a name, hits peak attributes within a couple of hours, almost never has to buy anything, has no karma meter, and only fights when he feels like it.

      

Still, the story parts of the game aren't as bad as I'm making them out to be, and I think the problem is that the interface just spoils my mood for the entire game. I am so sick of holding down the right mouse button, of getting caught on dumb obstacles, of mincing along when I'm trying to run, of dashing heedless into lava when I'm trying to move carefully, of trying to double-click on NPCs who are moving, of not being able to pick up or move items for no reason, of tossing items into the blue yonder when I'm just trying to move them a few feet, of ESC bringing up the options menu instead of dismissing the active window, of NPCs kicking me out of dialogue because I'm taking notes for my blog, of jumping and missing, and, yes, of clicking on "Read" when I mean "Write" and vice versa. So no, I don't want to mess around with candles. For hours, I've been tempted to just watch Kikoskia play the rest of this damned thing and tell you I accidentally deleted the screenshots. I guess now that I said that, I can't actually do it.

   

Time stamp: 45 hours

    

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

11/05/2026

Game 591: Mazes and Monsters (1982)

There's no game name, but the screen gets the important part.

           

Mazes and Monsters

United States

Micro Video Corp (developer and publisher)
Released 1982 for Interact Home Computer
Date Started: 12 August 2026

       

A short and simple game is fine. A long and complex game is also fine. A short and complex game is a bit weird, and rare, but I wouldn't exactly call it a problem.

   

The problem is when a game decides to be long and simple, when it reveals all its tricks within 20 squares of exploration and you still have 2,000 squares to go. Mazes and Monsters (which, if it does nothing else right, nails the title) is that kind of game. If it had no ending, just a vague goal to get stronger, this entry would be finished in 1,500 words and less than one hour. Because it has a winning condition, it will probably require 1,600 words and 60 hours. Of course, the manual sees this as a selling point: "Mazes and Monsters is a game you might well play forever."

       

A good reminder when you're considering investing 60 hours in a simple wireframe game.

        

If we give it a bit of a pass, it's first because it's from 1982, before developers really knew how to do anything, and because it's for a platform so niche I hadn't even heard about it until this year. The Interact Home Computer (also called the Interact Family Computer) was developed by Interact Electronic of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and hit shelves in June 1978. By June 1979, units were off the shelves and the company was bankrupt. Later, a French company bought it and marketed it as the Victor Lambda. In 16 years of blogging, no one has ever asked me when I'm going to play a game for the Interact computer.

    

Though short-lived, the company lasted long enough to inspire a spate of software from Micro Video Corp, also based in Ann Arbor, to include Mazes and Monsters and The Dragon's Dungeon (also 1982; I didn't think it was an RPG). These games are unlisted in any online database, so as usual we have El Explorador de RPG to thank for dragging them out of the pages of computer magazines of the era. Even then, Mazes and Monsters might have been lost given that the title screen in the existing dump has no name. The only online source to include the game lists it as Castle, likely because of the title screen image. Fortunately, El Explorador also dug up documentation from the era that confirms the title.

      

A decent set of attributes.

       

Mazes takes place in a dungeon of eight 16 x 16 levels with a castle on top—specifically, a "7th-century" castle, which isn't very helpful in a game that doesn't tell you the current year. The backstory is that the Sacred Orb has been stolen and hidden on the eighth level, and you've got to retrieve it. The player selects from a dwarf, elf, or human character and then rolls as many times as he wants for strength, dexterity, IQ, and vigor (3-20, affected by race) and initial hit points (2-12). He then enters the dungeon, which he explores with (F)orward, (L)eft, (R)ight, and (T)urn around commands.

      

The dungeon levels are randomly generated for each new session, which might include any number of characters. When one character dies, another takes his place, unless you reload completely and start a new game after the title. The random generation not only includes the wall/door configuration but the initial placement of monsters, who do not move, and the placement of traps, stairways, books, and treasures.

           

Exploring the dungeon.

      

There are 15 monster types, including thieves, warriors, wizards, gargoyles, ghosts, death, demons, vampires, and dragons. You can encounter any monster on any level of the dungeon; their difficulty is a combination of their inherent strength and the level you're on. Thieves, the easiest enemies, are worth 10 experience points x the current level while sphinxes are worth 250. A Level 4 wizard (20 x 4 = 80 XP) is about as hard as a Level 2 troll (40 x 2). Some monsters have special attacks and defenses. Thieves can steal, for instance, and mind flayers can drain IQ points.

      

The thief lives up to his name.

        

Against these monsters, the character has only the ability to fight, flee (if there's at least one empty space adjacent), and cast a small selection of spells. Once the option is chosen, the combat resolves automatically and instantly (rather than round-by-round), with the player informed of the results and how many hit points he lost. 

       

Options against a vampire.

        

Successful combat is rewarded with experience and gold, which itself is converted to experience when the character leaves the dungeon. Occasionally, you find a piece of inventory. The character starts naked but can find shields, swords, and armor. Every time he finds one after the first time, it adds a "+" to the item, up to +3. He can also find a variety of one-use magic items, like an amulet that destroys undead, a spear that slays mythical monsters, and a cube that destroys any monster. I should mention I've had no luck using these items; the game simply says "Cant!" every time I try.

       

A helpful item.

     

Books occasionally appear in random squares, each with a chance of raising an attribute, wiping away all hit points, banishing the player to a random part of the dungeon, or polymorphing him into a different race. 

   

The game's various conventions, including . . .

   

• The quest for an orb
• The types of items you can find
• The types of monsters, including "death"
• The assignment of monsters by class, including a "mythical" class 
• Some of the spells
• The appearance of magic books 
• The ability to convert gold to experience
• The use of SHIFT-F to move forward through doors

   

. . . betray it as a variant of the PLATO Game of Dungeons (1975). Author John Stout went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor around this time, and the university had a network of PLATO terminals. As usual, many of the elements of the original game were dumbed down for the microcomputer. While the Mazes does not feature the permadeath of its inspiration, it does limit saving to once per character level.

         

First row: death, demon, dragon, gargoyle, ghost. Second row: mind flayer, serpent, slime, sphinx, spider. Third row: thief, troll, vampire, warrior, wizard. 

       

The game starts quite hard as the character tries to make it to Level 1. It is very possible for the random dungeon generation to create a configuration that is simply impossible to overcome. For instance, one of my games started with a sphinx (the hardest enemy in the game, immune to Level 1 and 2 spells) practically adjacent to the stairway.

   

Once the character gets enough experience for Level 2, the game becomes a matter of caution, not advancing too quickly, and regularly retreating to the castle for healing, treasure conversion, and spell point restoration. As with The Game of Dungeons, this process gets more difficult and annoying once the character has explored downward a few levels, though there are spells to help. The manual recommends that the player not move to the next dungeon level until his character level is four times the dungeon level. That would mean waiting until you hit Level 8 on dungeon Level 1 (I know, I know, too many uses of "level") before heading down to dungeon Level 2 and then hitting character Level 12 before exploring dungeon Level 3.

        

Two more levels before I can leave Level 1.

      

Monsters are seeded in fixed locations and don't move, but when you've killed enough of them, the game repopulates the dungeon. In that manner, you can grind forever. 

   

The character types make a difference. Dwarves earn only 2 magic points per level, while humans earn 3 and elves earn 4. Dwarves roll higher strength and vigor and have a permanent "Light" spell cast, allowing them to see enemies in front of them and secret doors. Elves, in addition to getting the most magic, roll higher intelligence and have a permanent "Levitate" spell cast, allowing them to avoid trap doors. These trap doors, which dump the character down to the next level, are so horrible (unless you can return immediately, you almost always die) that I agree with El Explorador that the elf is the obvious way to go unless you want to keep casting "Levitate" every couple dozen turns. The extra magic that elves earn is also vital for the navigation spells you'll want to use liberally later in the game, including "Wall Pass," "Ceiling Pass," and "Floor Pass." The disadvantage is that elves are a bit weak in physical combat. Humans, sold in the manual as "balanced," are really just lame, lacking any special abilities.

       

A choice only the elf gets.

       

Overall, the game has 10 combat spells and 10 noncombat spells, all spread across three levels, each requiring a number of points equal to its level. They're all available to the character at the beginning of the game provided he has enough points. The spells mirror those in The Game of Dungeons (in which they were split between cleric and mage spells), including some of their strengths and weaknesses, some of which go back to The Dungeon (1975), the first CRPG. For instance, "Hold" is almost an instant-kill, but only for "flesh and blood" monsters like thieves and trolls. "Dispel" works on mythical creatures. If there are any tactics to the game, it's in the intelligent use of spell points, choosing the right one for the right situation, always saving enough to cast a "Ceiling Pass" if you have to get out of a place in a hurry. 

   

The game is a chore to map. 256 squares per level is not a lot to map, but the procedural generation doesn't allow for rooms—just corridors and doors—so it takes longer than it looks. The maps are useless past the immediate game. The nature of the procedural generation also does not allow "islands," so any entire level can be explored by simply following one wall. On the negative side, this can mean that it takes a long time to get from stairway to stairway unless you use "Wall Pass."

         

One level map.

         

I grant there's more to the game than I suggested when I started this entry, and there's a sense to which it appeals to an atavistic desire to fight monsters, get stronger, and fight harder monsters. But it's not enough to sustain an interest for the amount of time it would take to win, nor would that be good use of my blog time. Thus, while I'd like to rise to El Explorador's challenge ("The CRPG Addict is sure to win"), I'm not going to do this one legitimately.

   

There are actually a couple of good reasons to cheat. The first is that whatever I do, I cannot get saving to tape, and subsequent reloading from tape, to work. I can never get it to work, with any platform. I don't know what I'm always doing wrong. The second problem is that, for whatever reason, saying "N" to reading a book (which is a good idea, since it can really screw things up) always ends the game. Both of these problems could be overcome with save states, but the VInteract emulator that I started with doesn't support save states, so every game I played had permadeath. Even if I were willing to accept that, I can't keep the same emulator session running for dozens of hours of gameplay.

      

It's not like I have a choice.

        

I thus sucked up the few hours I invested with my first character, killed the emulator, and spent another few hours getting the game to work in MAME, which as much as I dislike it, at least has save states (although they're not "officially supported" for the Interact, as the emulator reminds me every time I save). The use of an emulator with save states changes the experience a lot less than you might imagine. Yes, I can take slightly more risks, exploring downward a little bit faster than when I had to be cautious, but the character's ability to succeed in battle against particular foes on particular levels is relatively deterministic. Since you rarely find treasure in spaces not occupied by monsters, doing "deep dives" is relatively fruitless—and even if it wasn't, the number of spell points limits how far you can go without losing your ability to return.

    

The game is quite serious about the 4 x the current level thing. I'm at character Level 8 as I type this, and I'm still getting my hit points wiped out by sphinxes on dungeon Level 2. I'm absolutely not equipped for dungeon Level 3. But it's also taken me absurdly long to get here, and the idea of getting to Level 32 before I can explore the bottom of the dungeon is absurd.

        

Some of the equipment I've amassed.

       

Once I hit (character) Level 9, which I'm on the cusp of, I'll have enough magic points to "Floor Pass" all the way down to (dungeon) Level 8. I thought I'd do that from strategic points, mapping as much as I can, maybe getting lucky and finding the Orb without having to kill a Level 8 sphinx in the same square. Of course, this will only work if I don't then have to return the Orb to the surface. Whatever I need to do to win, after I published the most recent Ravenloft entry, I was so sure I could figure it out in 2.5 days that I went all-in on wrapping up Mazes and Monsters. It didn't happen.

 

I did flirt with hex editing, just to be able to show the winning screen, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to interpret MAME's save state files. I wasted too much time trying to figure it out. So either someone with more expertise in this area needs to assist, or I'm just going to keep chipping away at it now and then while I'm watching Teaching Company videos or listening to audiobooks. 

     

I am still frequently amazed at how solidly even a no-frills RPG can deliver that familiar dopamine rush. There's nothing about this game that should excite me, and yet I've still enjoyed every level-up, and I practically cheered when, just as I was about to schedule this entry for publication, I found a lamp. A lamp is a permanent artifact that casts "Light" and thus lets the player see secret doors and the presence of enemies in adjacent squares. Such a simple thing in such a simple game, and yet it still satisfies the addiction.

      

A monster waits in the corridor ahead.

     

Author John Stout was 25 when Mazes and Monsters was published. A newsletter from Micro Video indicates that Stout "has had a hand in almost every new piece of software in our last two catalogs," which included a variety of games and utilities, including (probably) a text adventure called The Mysterious Mansion Adventure (1982; see Jason Dyer's coverage here). His more important contribution seems to be co-creating the Video Voice Speech Training System, a program to help deaf people speak aloud, which Micro Video marketed well into this century (its web page is still active). Stout went on to a career as a music composer, arranger, and software consultant. He died of cancer in 2017 at the age of 60. His obituary mentions that his compositions appeared in television shows, films, and games, but it doesn't name any of them, and I'm having trouble untangling him from a different John Stout (of Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five).

     

John Stout, from his 2017 obituary.

        

I wish I'd gotten to this game when I first passed through 1982, as I would have liked to ask Mr. Stout whether he just picked a relatively generic, alliterative name meant to evoke Dungeons & Dragons or whether he was deliberately trying to capitalize on Rona Jaffe's 1981 novel of the same name. (The novel became a movie in 1982, starring Tom Hanks in his first lead role, but the film didn't come out until December of that year.) If so, it's a nice middle finger to the ridiculous moral panic to which both the novel and film contributed.

         

Time Stamp: 7 hours 

      

****

   

Further reading:

   

• The Game of Dungeons (1975), which inspired this one.
• My "Index of Games Played by Lineage" has other games in this line. 
• El Explorador de RPG's coverage of the game.  

11/01/2026 

Ravenloft: Strahd's Destruction!

 

If this is Dhelt's response to returning an amulet, I want to be the hero who rescues his kidnapped daughter.

           

Somers and Quill, Forgotten Realms denizens, arrived in this weird little dimension after killing a burglar who stole the holy symbol belonging to Lord Dhelt. Since then, our only mission has been to recover the holy symbol and get home; in this, we are principally opposed by the enigmatic, vampiric lord of the place: Count Strahd von Zarovich. We have been joined by NPCs native to this place, all of whom either want to destroy Strahd or escape this nightmare campaign setting.

   

A note on the burglar's body indicated that he stole Dhelt's symbol because he thought it was the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, perhaps the only artifact that can defeat Strahd. Our explorations, and our meeting last session with the great raven Pyoor Twohundredsummers, have led us to believe that the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is in fact a different artifact, hidden by someone named Sasha. Its location was written on texts contained in the Old Church; the texts are readable only by someone holding Sasha's Reading Glass, which we obtained from Pyoor.

     

An inscription I failed to notice the last time I was in the church. Removing the "but" would have preserved the trochaic hexameter. 

            

Dhelt's holy symbol ironically has a secondary, and equally vital, use. After investigating other possibilities to no avail, we have learned that the way to warp out of here is to use a magical book called Trimia's Catalogue along with a fiery red gem, an elven crown, the feather of a wereraven, a Tarokka (read: tarot) card, and a "symbol of truth, honor, and religious devotion stolen from its rightful owner." Wheels within wheels, my friends.

    

At the end of the last session, Pyoor gave us a key that would open a locked door in the basement of the Old Church. We head there, hoping that the door will open into a room, and Sasha's scroll will be there, and that will be it. But of course, the door opens to reveal a stairway downward and we have to explore another entire level.

        

This is the third new Latin term I've learned this week.

        

The Old Church: Lower Level 2 is presented as a vast library. We find a scroll immediately upon entering. It is an unencrypted account of how the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind once shot a beam of light that sent Strahd into a "long hibernation." It reiterates that the symbol is now hidden, and two other scrolls are the only keys to its location.

    

I end up having to loop around the level multiple times, as there are a lot of illusory walls, plus buttons and chains that open remote locations. The only enemies are shadows and shadow fiends, both of which sound scary but are actually relatively pathetic. Their vaunted partial invisibility doesn't work in the bright light of Mischa's "Light" spell. They supposedly drain strength, but I don't see it happen. They're immune to elemental attacks, but I don't need to use such magic. They mostly die in one hit. The shadow fiends (I think there are three of them) do hit hard, and a couple of times I have to back off to heal one of my first-rank characters, but in general the level isn't much of a challenge when it comes to monsters.

       

This was briefly scary.

          

It is, on the other hand, a challenge when it comes to navigation. There are locked doors everywhere, and only one key to open them. That key is past a door that opens only to a particular button, which is nowhere near the door. Although I'm trained to look for variations in wall patterns by now, I cannot find this button despite multiple loops through the level. My characters often pipe up to alert me to oddities in the walls, but they don't here, and again I wonder whether having a thief in the party increases the chances of making that kind of identification.

      

A shadow wraith is trapped behind a chair.

        

I finally have to resort to the cluebook to find the button. I'm glad I have it. The danger of doing what I did last session, hex-editing the party to escape a "walking dead" situation, is that once you know how to do that sort of thing, and you've broken the dam, it's tempting to keep doing it. Later, I resist almost overwhelming temptation to do it in the Old Church: Lower Level 1. There's a door in the southeast that I simply cannot figure out how to open, and the cluebook is weirdly no help. 

      

The button I missed is to the lower-right of the chain.

         

The key, by the way, opens four separate doors. I may be wrong, but I think every other key in the game has only been used once. It's a good thing I didn't get into the habit of discarding them after their first use. At the end of this session, I'm carrying 23 separate keys, including a dozen on two separate keyrings. I'll take alternative opinions, but I think "best practice" when it comes to keys is to either offer an unlimited keyring or to make single-use keys vanish once used. This is just absurd, particularly when the keys weigh half a pound each.

     

One of several keyed doors.

      

Within the locked areas of the level, I find some potions, some scrolls, another set of Gauntlets of Dexterity, and Sasha's two encrypted scrolls. The way the scrolls work is that you hold Sasha's Reading Glass in one hand and the scroll in the other, then view the scroll. A little window appears that you can move across the writing to translate it. The scrolls use a simple substitution cipher, and it would be possible, if time-consuming, to figure them out without the Reading Glass. As it is, the fact that you can only see about five words at a time makes it annoying to transcribe the text.

       

The prism translates the text, bit by bit.

         

Together, the scrolls say:

        

Where azure dome yields to constant gray, where sky and cloud are one and light is but a flash among the clouds, where death lashes brightly to the ground, go you there! Search below the thundering heavens for the prize. Amid the twisted wildwood, its guardian stands. One good, straight heart of oak waits proud and true, a beauty beneath the dread sky.

Go then to the gypsies, for from the Vistani alone may you acquire a certain potion, an elixir known to be the only passport through what mists shield the place. For only those guarded thus and true of heart may challenge the fog, that wall of poison which awaits between you, the forest of the undead, and the prize.

Once twined around in stone, then twice, then thrice, then twice more in circumflexion, each circle of four waits within the greater ring, waits for the planting of the seeds. Aye, for only the seeds of divine light, of Lathander Morninglord, when placed to rest within the inner circles may free the prize. Planted within that shady circumference, one to each circle of stones, these four symbols will bring down the light, rending beauty to release the prize. Then behold! There the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind awaits.

           

I don't know what the last paragraph means, and probably won't know until I get there, but the first two paragraphs make the next steps clear: Use the Vistani potion to cross the mists and find the stout oak. 

    

Those readers who abandoned my blog when they saw the state of my inventory will, should they ever return, be happy to know that I spent about 30 minutes cleaning it up. I decided to use the apse of the Old Church as a storage place. I divested myself of all scrolls and quest items that I'm reasonably sure I no longer need, as well as extra weapons and armor.

      

Does this look any better?

          

When I'm done, I have Somers in charge of the quest items plus a few excess potions and one excess scroll. Quill has all the keys, which alone make him lightly encumbered, but light encumbrance supposedly doesn't have any consequences. Mischa has the healing items and cleric scrolls, which together make him moderately encumbered. This gives him a -1 attack penalty. To counter it, I throw away his helmet, which according to D&D rules isn't doing anything anyway. 

   

Quill's inventory has 10 doses of Keoghtom's Ointment, 16 Potions of Extra Healing, and two scroll cases full of "Raise Dead," "Neutralize Poison," and "Cure Disease," none of which I ever expect to use. I have some loose cleric scrolls like "Cure Light Wounds" and "Flame Blade," which I plan to use as soon as I can. They also weigh half a pound each.

     

We really made a mess of the church.

          

Finally, Glorianna has the magic items, including Wands of Magic Missiles, Frost, and Paralyzation, plus several mage scrolls, a whole chest of Oils of Fiery Burning, and a number of buffing potions like Speed and Giant Strength. I leave a lot of extra stuff in the church. Not for the first time, I wonder if the game is so generous with loot so as to trick the player into encumbrance.

   

I don't know if it matters where I enter the mist, but for whatever reason, I go all the way back to the Svalich Woods, where I first arrived in this realm. I use the experience to develop my theory about respawning, which I cover below. I swallow the potion and enter the fog to the Undead Forest.

       

Some dialogue from Somers saves me from having to administer the potion to every character.

         

As with the last time I tried this, I arrive on the other side and am immediately surrounded and torn apart by treants. These are the only creatures in the area, by the way, so I have no idea why it's called the Undead Forest.

   

This area takes me about an hour and is a complete nightmare. There are a couple of dozen treants in clusters all over the map. [No, Microsoft, I don't mean "in a state of disorder." I literally mean all over the map.] There's no place to flee where you don't run headlong into a pack of them. They don't seem to get hung up on obstacles as easily as other enemies; when I find a circle of stones, I at first think I'm saved, that they won't be able to fit through the gaps, but it turns out that they pose no barrier. Meanwhile, the party gets hung up on plenty of obstacles, often unable to move through what appears to be large gaps between pairs of trees. 

        

The treants corner me.

      

While I'm trying to deal with them, lightning bolts are shooting randomly out of the mists that border the  map. And I keep accidentally fleeing through the mists and back to one of the other Ravenloft maps. This isn't a big deal—the Vistani potion seems to last forever—except that I have to watch the same 30-second animation every time I go back into the mists.

   

The map is dotted with swirly white teleporters, which become my salvation. After I have lured enough of the treants away from their starting points, one of the teleporters deposits me into an area devoid of treants. I can see them in the distance, but I'm not close enough to "activate" them. I start creeping close to them, activating them one or two at a time, killing them with missile weapons or spells before they reach the party when possible. They're worth 500 experience points, which sounds like a lot, but it barely nudges me closer to the next level. I need hundreds of thousands.

      

A weird teleporter.

          

The only good news here is that I end up using a lot of my excess stuff, including every Oil of Fiery Burning, several wands, several scrolls, and a lot of potions.

        

An outraged treant escapes the fire I inflicted. Note that Glorianna has "Claws of the Umber Hulk" active. I don't remember that spell in another CRPG.

      

The area has some mundane weapons, a Wand of Frost, some additional Oils of Fiery Burning, and a couple of items called Seeds of the Morninglord. I don't find anything that looks like a sturdy oak, however. I start testing the teleporters and eventually find one that takes me to a second Undead Forest that looks mostly like the first, except it has a big oak in the analogous circle of stones. Of course, this means I have to deal with an entirely new army of treants.

   

The map has two more Seeds of the Morninglord, two cleric scrolls of "Heal," two mage scrolls of "Fireball," and some more mundane weapons. It also has two Magic Stones, which appear to be throwing weapons, but they don't return or anything.

     

It's a miracle that such a small thing just sat here undisturbed all these years.

           

The oak in the center of the stone circle is surrounded by four smaller stone circles. Sasha's scrolls said that I needed to plant a seed in each one, so I do. 

   

A cutscene shows four hands thrusting out of the ground to grab the seeds. Then a lightning bolt hits the top of the tree, splitting it down the middle. The Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is revealed within. It's a shame that the tree had to be destroyed. I like oaks, even though I got bonked in the head by three acorns last week while walking around my house. 

      

The hand thing is creepy.

       

With the Holy Symbol in hand, we wander into the nearest mists and find ourselves on the Old Svalich Road North, which is convenient. We can't think of anything to do but confront Strahd.      

        

Poor tree.

      

Commenter VladimIr V Y alerted me that I forgot about a stairway in the main chapel. I have no idea how I missed it; it's not hidden or anything. I take it now. We wind our way up half a dozen small tower levels, fighting nothing more serious than doom guards (they're worth 1,000 experience points and pose no threat whatsoever). The Ravenloft Silver Tower Key is used three times during the ascent, belying my earlier comment about keys not being re-used.

   

At the top of the tower, we find imprisoned a large man who offers to join the party. He's a Level 6 chaotic good human fighter named Anshelm. The idea that we'd need a Level 6 fighter at this stage of the game is pretty absurd. (It would have been absurd even if I'd found him during the last session.) We thank him for his offer but send him on his way. It's not clear to me why Strahd would have bothered to imprison him.

       

I think perhaps "a turn of ill-luck" deserves some elaboration.

        

We head back down to the dungeons to the final encounter with Strahd. As we approach, I get the holy symbol ready and cast all the buffing spells I can think of. Somers and Quill take Potions of Speed, Giant Strength, and Fire Resistance. I move forward.

    

Perhaps a bit over-prepared.

      

We have the same dialogue with Strahd as before, except now we can taunt him with the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. He doesn't seem to be afraid of it. In fact, he pretends that it was All Part of His Plan.

      

I wonder if I could pull off a cape.

           

The final battle is disappointing. Strahd can't be hurt by anything except blasts from the Holy Symbol, so all our buffing was mostly wasted. The Holy Symbol is a ranged weapon with a cool-down period. If I stand far away from Strahd, he blasts me with "Fireballs," which mostly do no damage because of my rings and potions. But I hate just standing around, so I get up in his face and attack with melee weapons during cool-downs, which gives Strahd a chance to attack with his claws.

      

Firing the artifact at the blue demon.

          

I try to keep up with healing potions, but Somers is busted down to Level 4 and (somehow) only 7 hit points, so it's impossible to keep her alive. When Strahd succumbs to the last blast, Somers is dead.

    

I don't think I'm going to be able to bring these characters into the sequel, so that's fine, but something won't let me leave it at that. I reload the game and this time engage Strahd only from a distance. He barely does any damage to us before he disappears, dropping Lord Dhelt's holy symbol on the ground. I check out the sarcophagus in the center of the room to see if Strahd's body retreated to it, but the game gives me nothing. 

    

I don't know if I can live with this.

       

I could use Trimia's Catalogue right away, but I feel compelled to do a bit of "surplaying." There's no way that Strahd is dead—he's the key figure in a whole campaign setting, after all, and when he disappeared, we didn't get any experience—so someone might need this Holy Symbol of Ravenkind in the future.  

    

I'm hoping that the game acknowledges our victory in some way, but alas, it doesn't. Nobody I talk to has any new dialogue, including Tatiana, the priest in the Old Church, the Vistani in the bar, and the bartender himself. The game has us call him "innkeeper" and ask for a drink even though we know his secret. Thus, we drop the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind in front of him and then prepare the items necessary to use Trimia's Catalogue.

     

The game doesn't let you drop objects on furniture, so I leave it on the floor.

        

With no opportunity to remove Mischa or Glorianna from the party, or even ask if they want to come along, Somers clicks on the book. The endgame cutscene kicks in. 

   

First, the book opens, and a number of flashes come from it as the various items are consumed.

       

I'm curious what all the text says.

       

Then the animation shows us flying through a wormhole in space, passing a number of celestial objects but also a number of paintings showing various scenes. I suspect these are meant to be windows into various planes or campaign settings. I don't think any of them are identifiable, although there's a desert scene towards the end that could be the world of Dark Sun.

     

Or, I suppose, Al-Qadim.

       

We end up in a flat plane with a throne in the middle. As we get close, we see the symbol of Helm, god of duty, on its back. Then Helm himself is sitting on the throne, depicted as a suit of empty, animated armor. He thanks us for recovering the holy symbol for "one of his most devout followers."

     

Those eyes are a bit unnerving.

        

I guess Helm sends us home, because the next scene shows us climbing the stairs in Dhelt's castle and finding him in his chambers. He's delighted to see us and promises wealth and honors for the rest of our lives.

    

Who is well? It's been a long trip.

      

And then, predictably, the final scene shows a thick mist snaking into a coffin in a cave somewhere, followed by Strahd's glowing eyes and sinister laughter. Why are villains always laughing after they lost?

     

Strahd returns to his refuge.

     

Some miscellaneous notes:

   

• I end the game still not quite knowing how the game handles respawns. My best guess is that there are a fixed number of enemies in each area, some in the area initially, and some held in reserve to slowly repopulate the area after the party initially clears it. But once enough of these reserve monsters are depleted, the area is completely quiet—except maybe at night. And when the party unsuccessfully rests. I don't know.

• The Axe of Hurling and Dagger of Throwing were arguably the most useful items in the game. I don't think there were any other auto-returning throwing weapons. Incidentally, there are weird circumstances, against some enemies, in which these items don't return and end up on the floor instead. I never got a handle on why this happened. I was lucky enough that I always noticed their absence and managed to find them, but it was dicey a couple of times.

• I never found a key to the large door at the southern end of the Old Svalich Road South.

• The character sheets show a distinction between maximum attributes and current attributes. Quill, who was raised once, has a maximum constitution of 15 but a current constitution of 14. That implies the loss can be reversed somehow.

• I might be wrong, but I don't think the game offered any quest experience, just enemy experience. Although the experience tables in the manual go up to Level 20, I ended the game with Glorianna at Level 10 and everyone else at Level 9, all far from their next level. (I would have had to kill 2,957 zombies, if I could have found that many, for Somers to reach Level 10.) But Level 6 mage spells are programmed into the game. I can't imagine how you'd get there.

• Credits roll after the final scene, starting with the voice actors who played each character. I don't remember seeing this before.

    

Frank Schurter, whose name I accidentally clipped off, had a lot of responsibilities. He was also on the graphics team.

          

I didn't make use of enough of Glorianna's higher-level spells to justify having a pure mage in that slot. Velika might have been a better choice assuming that thief skills actually make a difference anywhere.

       

I'm going to take a little time for the "Summary and Rating," as I want to go through the Ravenloft tabletop materials and compare them to the setting presented in the CRPG and to see if they answer any questions or provide any elaboration on plot points like the Vistani (what was the purpose of the whole visit to their camp?!), the wereravens, or the Amulet of Ravenkind.

   

Here's a final thought before I go: The title is yet another example of "banallure!" I assumed Strahd would somehow possess someone, or be possessed himself. Instead, the subtitle refers to the literal thing he's clutching in his hand—Dhelt's holy symbol. Dhelt himself is awfully gleeful over such a small thing; it's not like we saved his kingdom from invasion. At the end of the game, Strahd is still alive and presumably still in charge, we're back where we started, and Dhelt has a bit of jewelry back. I've said before that I like low-stakes plots, but this one might go too far.

      

Final time: 36 hours 

 

**** 

    

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

11/02/2026