The Crown of Kings

YOU become a mountain climber winding your way through the mountains of Mampang. You’ve spent three books surviving the Shamutanti Hills, the city of Khare, and the desert of Kakhabad, and the Archmage’s fortress is in sight.

You’ll have to survive the  mountains, then the four levels of a fortress crawling with guards who (probably) know that you’re coming. It won’t be easy, but if you’ve played the first three books you have some bonuses that could turn chance to your favor.

Review and Opinion

Overall, it’s a dungeon crawl, but a pretty big one and a really fun one.

There really is some clever writing, notably the tie-ins between the different books. Each book gives you some bonus on the next book such as a permanently increased Luck. In Seven Serpents your bonus was even better: when someone recognizes you as The Analander, you turn to a different page where you’re just some stranger. This book also involves time travel, potentially knocking you all the way back to book 2 or book 3!

This was a fine capstone to the four-part Sorcery! series. And I will also say, that I think four books is a good size for a series. Way of the Tiger is six, which felt a bit long. Lone Wolf was five before they had to reboot it because they ran out of superpowers. But four kept me engaged, feeling like a series while also having a satisfying end in sight.

Well done.

Maps

Publication

Written by Steve Jackson

Illustrated by John Blanche

1985

Book 4 in the series

Other Players and Links

• Fighting Dantasy
• Champskees best path walkthrough over at FF Proboards
• The Crown of Kings page at Titannica
• Buy the digital version on Steam