Old School Hero of the Week: Lone Wolf

For the first Old School Hero of the Week article, I’m going back to where it all started for me. My first taste of role playing was with the Lone Wolf game books by Joe Dever. I was 9 years old and I had just completed reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I can vividly remember bumming around the school library trying to find other books of the same calibre (not that I even knew the word calibre…) and finding myself very disheartened. One night I was at David Jones at Macarthur Square with my mum, bored out of my skull, just trolling through the sci-fi/fantasy section looking at books that were way above my literacy capabilities/maturity level. I came upon this:

 

 

I opened it up and it was a choose-your-own-adventure style book with incredibly grim and grisly artwork. You got to choose your weapon (what?) and special abilities (WHAT!). You needed a random number table (WUT?!!). This had to be it right? My mum asked me if I wanted to get a book, and my heart kind of sank. There was NO WAY I was going to be allowed to get that book. I showed it to her and she just said “O…K…..wow. Are you sure?…”. Thanks mum xoxo

So, 24 years ago a sat in my room and became Lone Wolf for the first time. Entering at book 15, I had a massive burden of history behind me I had no idea about. I tailored my character to be something like Aragorn or Faramir and started playing. Lone Wolf died many times that night, but was also immortalised in my mind. Over the next few years I hunted down the entire back catalogue, lost some books to dodgy friends, re-hunted down some books (no amazon in those days, champs) and eagerly awaited the new releases. I pre-ordered the last three, with book 20 “The Curse of Naar” being an almost religious experience to read and complete. Just recently, I have downloaded the Lone Wolf saga app for android, which is a nostalgia bomb if there ever was one. The only hiccup is that you can’t stick your finger in to mark pages; no respawning!

 

 

 So here he is, Lone Wolf: Old School Hero of the Week.

Name: Lone Wolf

Background: Silent Wolf was the only surviving member of the Kai after their monastery was attacked by the forces of Naar. In a Conan-like episode, Silent Wolf is out collecting wood when the monastery in attacked, saving him form the massacre. Renaming himself Lone Wolf, the young Kai Lord heads out into the war-stricken land of Magnamund to protect its people, restore the Kai way and generally kick some heads in.

Weapon of choice: The Sommerswerd, a blade that increases your weapon skill AND fires bolts of energy that smite things every now and then. My second choice was always a bow, because honestly, the amount of times the book asked “if you have a bow and wish to use it turn to page…” In the artwork, Lone Wolf is sometimes depicted with an axe, which looks boss.

Claims to fame: Lone Wolf is the last surviving Kai Lord, bearer of the great Sommerswerd, the Book of the Magnakai, Lore Stones of Nyxator and the Moonstone. He is the slayer of Archlord Zagarana, Vonotar the betrayer of Sommerlund, Vashna, Haakon, Gnaag, Cadak the Archdruid, Warlord Magnaarn, the Deathlord of Ixia, Wolf’s Bane, Kekataag (below, whacking Alyss with his dirty great axe) and the Demoness Shamath. He also sent the Dark God Naar packing: making him an epic old school hero.