Somewhere South Of Fang… Fighting Fantasy shirts!!!!

It is hard to believe that three and a half decades have passed since since Jackson and Livingstone unleashed their unholy creation Fighting Fantasy upon a generation hungry for adventure and anarchy, but 2017 is indeed the 35th anniversary of Fighting Fantasy’s birth. Whilst that thought does make me feel old as shit, it seems an appropriate opportunity to reflect upon the legacy of that magical series of books. I’ve spoken with great passion about FF a few times over the years here at Corehammer. It’s an enthusiasm I often find matched by the others I encounter who share that same gateway into the realms of the fantastic and arcane.

One such mortal is Paul Hardacre, the man behind a new T-shirt company called Somewhere South Of Fang . SSOF are working collaboratively with some of  the original FF  artists and printing good quality shirts using classic artwork from the early years of Fighting Fantasy. Naturally my interest was piqued and after a flurry of emails back and forth I decided to shoot Paul some questions and let him tell us all about SSOF. Paul has also graciously offered Corehammer readers a discount voucher for his store that entitles you, dear reader, to a 20% discount at checkout until June 2nd. Simply type the code COREHAMMER into the appropriate box at checkout and save yourself some bunce. Continue reading

Tales From The Darkwood Part 2 – Fates Messenger

WoFM-original-coverIn the previous installment of this primer HERE I introduced the simple premise of Fighting Fantasy. In a nutshell Fighting Fantasy could be described as self contained, simplified, single player D&D, staged for the most part (though not exclusively) in the setting of Titan. It would be fair to say that Titan definitely shared a lot of its aesthetic with what would become the Warhmmer world. Indeed for many young gamers FF provided a gateway into the more convoluted spheres of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, The Forgotten Realms, Orb and so on but we shall discuss that more in a future installment.

At the front of every Fighting Fantasy book was the Adventure Sheet. This sheet was used to document your characters progress through the adventure. It was the place where you could record the treasure, equipment and magical items you obtained along the way, document your encounters with monsters and of course keep track of the all important Skill, Stamina and Luck scores. These three statistics were the hinge upon which the progress or failure of your adventure swung. If you played by the rules, these figures were determined randomly by the dice at the start of the adventure if you were a cheating swine then you naturally maxed out with a 12/24/12 set up.
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Fighting Fantasy Fest 2014 – Your adventure starts here!

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An absolute goldmine

It takes a lot to drag me away from my home in a leafy Yorkshire village these days. The arrival of the first ever dedicated Fighting Fantasy Fest however, was a temptation I simply could not resist. I had been looking forward to this event ever since it was first announced earlier this year. By my own shameful admission I slept on the Kickstarter campaign for Jonathan’s book on the history of Fighting Fantasy, You Are The Hero! but I was delighted that the book had reached its goals and found its audience and was keen to join all the other errant sons and daughters of Allansia in making the pilgrimage to be a part of the celebration.
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