Légendes et maléfices

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This series, like La saga du Prêtre Jean, was published only in French by Hachette and met a sudden demise with the end of the popularity of gamebooks. The authors wanted to write four books, all of them part of the same story. Each of the first three would have allowed the reader to play a different character (an unfairly-fallen prince warrior, a sympathetic and cunning thief and a powerful wizard). During the final book, the reader would have been able to choose his favourite character from those three and played using him. Unfortunately, though, only the first book was released.

La naissance du mal uses an original set of rules. First of all, you don't need any dice. The character (Fanwyr) has four characteristics: Constitution, Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. Constitution is the sum of the three others and representing your hit points. You start with 30 points in Constitution, and you must divide them between Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. However, Fanwyr is a warrior, so you must allocate at least 12 points to Strength. It is rather logical but it limits your possibilities. I think we can decently imagine that, in the other books, the rogue would have had at least 12 in Dexterity, and the wizard 12 in Intelligence. All of this could have led to some interesting choices for the final book, but unfortunately we'll never know.

This system looks easy but there's something you should pay attention to. Constitution is the sum of the three characteristics and must ALWAYS be. So, if you lose four Constitution points, you must remove some points from the characteristic of your choice (or divide the loss of points between several characteristics). You probably wonder what happens when you must test your Strength or your Dexterity without dice. There's the following "Table de Difficulté" (Difficulty Table):

Very Easy: 1 - 3
Easy: 4 - 6
Normal: 7 - 10
Hard: 11 - 12
Exceptional (or Very Hard): 13 - 14
Miraculous: 15

When you need to test your Dexterity, for example, the text asks you if you can succeed at a "Hard Challenge". If your current Dexterity is 11 or higher, you succeed. When you fight, you test your Strength in the same way. You don't always automatically lose if you don't have enough Strength points; sometimes you are wounded (and lose Constitution points) and have another challenge to pass. Easy and deadly, but Fanwyr has at least 12 Strength points (when he's not wounded, of course), so the fights aren't the most difficult part of this book.

The rest of the rules set is interesting too: you have a belt with six pouches, and ten coins are considered to be one item, so you can't keep a lot of money on hand. There are three types of coins: "liards" (copper coins), "deniers" (silver coins) and "couronnes" (gold coins). 1 couronne = 5 deniers = 50 liards. So you should only keep "couronnes" if you can; otherwise, you'll soon have no place for important items. Fanwyr starts with no money at all.

There's one last twist: the "Search & Discoveries Table". Sometimes in the book, you can search for items in a room or on a dead body. Instead of telling you what you found, the book has you take the last digit of your reference number and look in one of the two tables to see what you found. It can be money, magic weapons, miscellanous magic items or even cursed items.

Most content on this page was provided by Frederic Martinoty. If you have any additions or corrections, please let me know by e-mailing me at demiankatz@gmail.com.

1. La naissance du mal
Literal Translation of French Title: The Birth of Evil
Authors: Doug Headline and Stéphane Salvetti
Illustrator: Francis T. Phillipps
First Published: 1987
ISBN: 2-253-04250-1
Length: 343 sections
Number of Endings: 20
Plot Summary: You're Fanwyr, the third son of a noble Urdo family and a proud warrior. The Urdos have blue scaly skin and pointed ears. They're amphibious, but live on Earth; more precisely, on a remote island surrounded by tall walls. At first, you must protect your city from a Sea Dragon attack, then defend your people from a dreadful pirate incursion and make some cruel choices....
My Thoughts: This is yet another French title that I wish I had the language skills to read, made all the more enticing by its interesting illustrations, which are a strange blend of the attractive and the ridiculous. I love that fish monster on the cover!
Frederic Martinoty's Thoughts:

I won't keep you in suspense any further; I'll admit up front that La naissance du mal is a good gamebook, but it could have been far better. This gamebook has been written by the same author as La saga du Prêtre Jean (at least some of the authors; there were several persons involved in the writing), and there are similarities with that series. The reader has many different paths leading to the end, and it adds greatly to the replayability. Of course, the main hindrance is that the book can be a bit short if you know it well, especially since you don't have dice to roll for fights. The text is well-written and pleasant to read, the universe is promising, especially when thinking about the fourth volume where Fanwyr could have been the main character.

However, this gamebook isn't perfect and has some flaws. My first regret is turned towards the use of challenges. After a couple of attempts, I quickly figured out a "killer combo" with the three characteristics which enabled me to succeed at every challenge I had to face in the book. Of course, I didn't map the whole book, and my technique might not be perfect, but basically, the difficulty and variety of the challenges isn't optimal, and it's rather easy to realize which characteristic you should maximize, in which proportion, etc.

Another regret is the lack of use of the Search Table. In my five attempts before the final victory, I never had the opportunity to test it. I took several paths (not all of them obviously), but I never had the pleasure to gain money, a magic item or even to scream "noooooooooo" when finding a cursed item.

Overall, this gamebook deserves to be in your library and more importantly this series deserved more volumes, and a possibility to get even better.