Ring of the Ruby Dragon, first in the HeartQuest series

[Moonrise]

Back in the 80s TSR decided they wanted girls playing D&D, so they published a spin-off of the Endless Quest series, HeartQuest, with an emphasis on romance in addition to the adventure. I managed to get my hands on the first four. Apparently books 5 and 6 are very rare. And for the first four, Larry Elmore did the cover art, and Jim Holloway did the interior art. Familiar names to be sure. As for playing, there's no way in hell I'm typing all this out, and for the life of me I couldn't find a PDF or ebook copy of any of them. We'll just have to deal with photos. A rare treat in any case, for fans of obscure materials.

In Ring of the Ruby Dragon we play as Chandelle, daughter of a jeweler. Her father has been kidnapped by creatures under the influence of a red dragon. There are two love interests: a young knight, and an older fighter. The very first choice compels us to choose the aid of one of these men. I've deliberately not read the book yet, this way whatever happens will be a surprise to me as well! Coren... or Torbeck?

 

[Kalin]

First - because I'm a monocled gentleman of culture.

As for the vote, 15 yo girl should obv go for the old dude.

 

[Erebus]

EDIT : You know what, I'm flip-flopping on this. Let's go with the younger knight. The less competent he is, the more we'll have to do.

 

[Dayyālu]

Aw, I was going to say get the old guy out of principle but any man that goes "ARE YOU A MAIDEN IN DISTRESS?" gets my vote.

One vote for the young 'un.

Is this based on some real module like other books (I distinctly remember some of them being adaptations of modules, like The Ghost Tower)?

 

[Moonrise]

Is this based on some real module like other books (I distinctly remember some of them being adaptations of modules, like The Ghost Tower)?

I don't think so. Might make for an interesting diversion for two players though, if you wanted to adapt it.

 

[Endemic]

Young knight.

 

[mondblut]

Old dude for a little morsel, of course. Leave zoomer asshole for milf cougars.

 

[Mortmal]

Nice find , i guess it was an experimental but commandable attempt. Its a good thing to put more young women into d&d and educate them to love unwashed old knights , the obvious path and only worthy to vote for.

 

[baud]

Young knight

 

[Moonrise]

A tight race! but the young knight edged out. I'll post more shortly.

 

[Moonrise]

 

[baud]

let him fight. That was the idea with finding a meatshield

 

[Dayyālu]

let him fight. That was the idea with finding a meatshield

+1

Writing is essentially pedestrian, but the background about this is somewhat interesting (apparently the author is a certain Jean Blashfield workin' at TSR and she had a daughter named Chandelle ).

 

[Erebus]

It's probably safer to let him fight by himself. If we don't, he'll focus on protecting us and will probably get wounded or something.

 

[Moonrise]

Alright, unanimous decision to let the knight fight by himself.

 

[Dayyālu]

Welcome to the Red Dragon raep dungeon, gal. We don't need women that want to be saved by manly men!

That's quite the high lethality for a gamebook! I approve.

 

[Moonrise]

I get the feeling these books expect you to show some degree of agency. It's pretty funny listening to the girl's inner monologue. If nothing else, she knows how to be emotionally manipulative. Should we try the other option, helping Coren fight the satyrs, or start over with the fighter?

 

[Erebus]

I was expecting the difficulty to be pretty low, but it looks like I was quite mistaken.

Let's help Coren fight the horny goat-boys. We can switch to the older guy if we fail again.

 

[Moonrise]

Okay, we'll pretend we chose to be strong and independent so the poor boy doesn't get his head bashed in.

 

[Dayyālu]

"Do we leave the retard with the Clearly Evil Woman or we follow the Clearly Evil Woman deeper into the cave?"

Let's follow the woman, a clear bad idea but what we're going to do, leave IQ 33 with her?

 

[Moonrise]

Yeah, I'm torn on this one. She's very obviously shifty, but leaving Coren alone with her sounds like a bad idea.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Yeah leaving Coren alone with her sounds like a terrible idea. Let's accompany our horny knight so he doesn't do anything stupid.

Also, thank you so much for doing this. This is loads of fun.

 

[Endemic]

Follow.

 

[Kalin]

Krizto, you dumbfucks only had to listen, but oh no, cuckdex gonna stink up every CYOA with their retarded faggotry. Good job retards.



Codex hivemind, not even once.

 

[Moonrise]