The 50 Best Fighting Fantasy Deaths

One of the great things about interactive fiction is the sheer number of opportunities it affords you to kill yourself in a great many imaginative ways, with none of the downsides of actually dying. Here, then, are my 50 favourite ways to die in perhaps the most famous adventure gamebook series of them all, Fighting Fantasy.

The rules I had in compiling this list were as follows:

1. Your character actually has to die – disqualifying a large number of non-fatal endings, however interesting they might be. (I’ve bent this rule on occasion to include anything not immediately fatal but clearly will be in the near future, anything considered ‘a fate worse than death’, or anything I just liked too much not to put in.)

2. The qualifying books were the original 59 published by Penguin, the 4 books in Sorcery!, the two-player adventure Clash of the Princes, plus the six new adventures published by Wizard (numbered as #60-#65 for the purposes of this list). The exception to this was #56 Knights of Doom, as it’s the only one I’ve never read and I’m not really prepared to shell out the £200 Amazon is asking for a used copy right now…

3. No book gets more than two entries. (A lot of deaths didn’t make the shortlist – there were about ten from The Crown of Kings I could have gone for. Let me know if you think there’s anything that should’ve made the list and it might make it into a second selection some day.)

Right, here we go. I’ve roughly ordered the list as a countdown, based on graphic descriptions of violence, creativity and downright strangeness. (I’m also rather drawn to occasions when the book lets you do something obviously really stupid.) I’ve included the section numbers you can find each death at for reference, so watch out for spoilers if you’ve not read the book in question.

50. You are killed and replaced by a Mandrake, a vegetable-like pod person. (#44 Legend of the Shadow Warriors by Stephen Hand, section 91)

49. An immense force of magical cold turns you to ice and your body-tissues to frozen slush. (#51 Island of the Undead by Keith Martin, section 119)

48. You are paralysed by a cat’s saliva. (#54 Legend of Zagor by Keith Martin, credited to Ian Livingstone, section 336)

47. A giant chains you up and forces you to play games until the final wall of your citadel is breached, resulting in your death. (#39 Fangs of Fury by Luke Sharp, section 327)

46. The mercenaries you have hired as reinforcements turn out to be traitorous and slaughter your own men seconds after you’re relieved to see them show up. (#42 Black Vein Prophecy by Paul Mason & Steven Williams, section 364)

45. You accidentally trigger a sleeping gas trap in the Count’s bedroom, and pass out just as he walks into the room… (#38 Vault of the Vampire by Keith Martin, section 387)

44. You get into an argument with a toad-like creature over the ownership of a bag of explosive pellets. In the ensuing struggle the bag is dropped and explodes, killing both of you. (#33 Sky Lord by Martin Allen, section 386)

43. A large slab you are walking across turns out to be a Boulder Beast, which rolls over and throws you into a chasm. (#36 Armies of Death by Ian Livingstone, section 138)

42. Whilst brewing potions, you accidentally mix and consume the Potion of the Exploding Death. (#35 Daggers of Darkness by Luke Sharp, section 284)

41. Having been trapped in a pit for hours, a voice tells you they’re coming to rescue you. You look up in hope to discover it’s a Gorgon and turn to stone. (#44 Legend of the Shadow Warriors by Stephen Hand, section 336)

40. You implement Plan 368 on your spaceship’s computer without checking what it is. It turns out to be detonating a ten-megaton bomb in order to take everything within a 50-mile radius out with you. (#33 Sky Lord by Martin Allen, section 368)

39. You get stuck in a submarine’s ejection chamber. The crew of the sub take the obvious action. (#17 Appointment with F.E.A.R. by Steve Jackson, section 390)

38. A paperweight grazes your skull and knocks you out. (#15 The Rings of Kether by Andrew Chapman, section 369)

37. You meet yourself in the past and cause a rift in the continuum, trapping you in an infinite time-loop and dooming you to repeat your brother’s funeral for all eternity. (#40 Dead of Night by Jim Bambra & Stephen Hand, section 343)

36. The animated skeleton you are fighting constantly reassembles itself every time you kill it; the game sends you around the same few sections in a loop until you die or realise what’s going on. (#24 Creature of Havoc by Steve Jackson, sections 178, 407 and others)

35. The guards who have captured you play the game of ‘Stone-drop’, which entails you being pegged to the ground beneath a tower, and each guard having one chance to drop a boulder on you until one of them is accurate enough to crush your skull. (#25 Beneath Nightmare Castle by Peter Darvill-Evans, section 157)

34. It rains so hard, for two straight days, that the water level eventually rises above your head and you drown. (#20 Sword of the Samurai by Mark Smith & Jamie Thomson, section 339)

33. You use a device that transports dangerous objects to another dimension, but requires payment for each such transportation, to eliminate 77 spheres of annihilation. The cost of this is too much for you to ever hope to repay, so the device takes the liberty of foreclosing and transporting you to an empty void where you will drift for all eternity. (#12 Space Assassin by Andrew Chapman, section 128)

32. The mere sight of the Angel of Death is enough to kill you instantly. (#11 Talisman of Death by Jamie Thomson & Mark Smith, section 188)

31. Whilst lost in some mist, you call on the God of Ice and Cold, who is delighted as mortals so rarely call on him. He promptly freezes the mist into ice, perfectly preserving you for thousands of years. (#55 Deathmoor by Robin Waterfield, section 184)

30. Having defeated the titular sorcerer, you pause whilst escaping his collapsing tomb to loot it, but touching one of the diamonds turns your entire body into a diamond-like substance. (#26 Crypt of the Sorcerer by Ian Livingstone, section 149)

29. Having accidentally transferred into the body of an alien in a teleportation accident, you try a highly experimental procedure to try and separate your two bodies, but it goes wrong and you are converted into pure energy. (#4 Starship Traveller by Steve Jackson, section 181)

28. Having reached the tower of the evil Zanbar Bone, you find a bedroom and decide to go to sleep in it, and are turned into a zombie while you sleep. (#5 City of Thieves by Ian Livingstone, section 288)

27. As retribution for killing one of their own, a group of carnival workers force you to take part in the knife-thrower’s act. Tonight, he chooses not to miss. (#62 Howl of the Werewolf by Jonathan Green, section 418)

26. You attempt a ritual to destroy a demonic object, but panic halfway through and get the ritual wrong, causing time and space to distort beyond all recognition. (#40 Dead of Night by Jim Bambra & Stephen Hand, section 52)

25. The Gonchong, a parasitic creature controlling the titular Lizard King, withdraws from its host once you’ve killed it and skewers your brain with its proboscis, controlling you forever and forcing you to watch as your troops are wiped out. (#7 Island of the Lizard King by Ian Livingstone, section 188)

24. A creature with lightning-fast reflexes poses as a statue, and attacks you once you get too close, killing you before you realise what’s happened. (Sorcery! 2 – Khare, Cityport of Traps by Steve Jackson, section 8)

23. Having killed a Fire Demon, you put on its crown and are possessed by the evil within it, to be transformed yourself into a Fire Demon and become the new master of a group of Clone Warriors. (#3 The Forest of Doom by Ian Livingstone, section 333)

22. You make the decision to beam down to a planet which you know is entirely covered in water, and promptly drown. (#4 Starship Traveller by Steve Jackson, section 288)

21. Whilst fighting a Ghoul, you are beset by a group of Zombies also in the graveyard, who take the curious decision to bury you alive. (#11 Talisman of Death by Jamie Thomson & Mark Smith, section 298)

20. You are charged with murder and the ensuing trial is held in a language you can’t understand, ensuring you face the death penalty. (#57 Magehunter by Paul Mason, section 226)

19. Seven evil spirits trick you into damning your own goddess, then send you to either death or a life in limbo. (Sorcery! 3 – The Seven Serpents by Steve Jackson, section 297)

18. You attempt to wield a Vampire-slaying sword whilst infected with latent Vampirism yourself, meaning it instantly turns on you and kills you. (#58 Revenge of the Vampire by Keith Martin, section 36)

17. You try to cast a Word of Power, but your father’s power has silenced your inner voice, causing your own spell’s undischarged power to race around your skull, unable to escape, until your head explodes. (#42 Black Vein Prophecy by Paul Mason & Steven Williams, section 88)

16. You accidentally unshield the spaceship’s reactor core, causing a critical malfunction that will cause the spaceship to explode in minutes, then waste too much time trying to find the escape pod and die in the blast. (#12 Space Assassin by Andrew Chapman, section 154)

15. You spend 20 minutes trying to clear a cave-in, but once you have made a hole and squeezed yourself through it, the tunnel roof collapses again and you are crushed. (#61 Bloodbones by Jonathan Green, section 140)

14. The mental defences of the monstrous Gargantis send you and your friends totally insane; you kill each other, and the sole survivor attempts to attack the Gargantis itself and die in seconds. (#26 Crypt of the Sorcerer by Ian Livingstone, section 307)

13. You are inside a volcano when it erupts. (#63 Stormslayer by Jonathan Green, section 373)

12. You wander around the titular moor until you lose the will to live and take your own life. (It’s phrased much more esoterically than that.) (#55 Deathmoor by Robin Waterfield, section 288)

11. You are trapped in a sealed room with water pouring through the grate. The room fills with water but it stops as soon as it’s above your nose, and you can’t quite reach the air before you drown. (Clash of the Princes: The Warrior’s Way by Andrew Chapman & Martin Allen, section 300)

10. You cast a levitation spell in order to escape from your prison tower by jumping out the window, unaware that your cellmate has an anti-magic aura that prevents any spells from working. (Sorcery! 4 – The Crown of Kings by Steve Jackson, section 575)

9. You are simultaneously shot by a machine gun and run over. (#65 Blood of the Zombies by Ian Livingstone, section 390)

8. Having failed to find or stop the meeting of the Federation of Euro-American Rebels, they take over the Star Wars satellite and hold the world to ransom; as proof of their power, the satellite will utterly destroy your city in thirty seconds’ time. (#17 Appointment with F.E.A.R. by Steve Jackson, section 292)

7. Having been caught by a torturer, you are given a choice of spending the rest of your life in a small cage (meaning you die of cramp as it’s too small to stretch at all), or a large cage (meaning you die of cramp as it’s very tall, but too thin to stretch or even lean in). (#10 House of Hell by Steve Jackson, sections 201 & 396)

6. Whilst navigating a maze of sword blades in a pitch-black room, your blood candle – which gets its name not from its main ingredient but the fact that it feeds on the blood of its user – flickers, causing you to bring your foot down on a blade, then lose your balance completely and fall onto the blades. (Sorcery! 4 – The Crown of Kings by Steve Jackson, section 484)

5. You wake up to discover that the physician treating you has removed your heart and placed it in a specimen jar, and your last perception of life is watching it slowly stop beating. (#24 Creature of Havoc by Steve Jackson, section 228)

4. You successfully throw Zagor into the Heartfires, destroying him forever and saving the world, but are so weak you lose your balance and fall in after him. (#54 Legend of Zagor by Keith Martin, credited to Ian Livingstone, section 310)

3. You try to crawl through a hole in a wall, unaware that it is a trap – there is a guillotine on the other side, which drops just as you’re almost through… (#58 Revenge of the Vampire by Keith Martin, section 213)

2. I’ll quote this one in full as it’s the only way to really do it justice: “You watch the soldiers as one by one they die, their hearts bursting in the grip of an unnatural fear. Gruul laughs in triumph. You must kill him before it is too late. Then you feel it – thump thump – your heart is beating faster – thump thump – you stagger forward – thump thump – chest pains – thump thump – Gruul laughing – thump thump – you must – thump th…” (#48 Moonrunner by Stephen Hand, section 372)

1. The robot you are piloting is too slow to outrun a herd of dinosaurs and you are crushed to death. (#22 Robot Commando by Steve Jackson (US), section 318)