Editing Fighting Fantasy (section)

==Titan==

The Fighting Fantasy weren’t actually all based in fantasy: there were a few (normally pretty bad) and otherwise non-interconnected sci-fi books, and at least one that was based in the [[What|real world]], but where they were fantasy they took place in a world which was originally nameless but would eventually be called Titan. Originally quite thin on fluff, the world got fleshed out as the books went on, and eventually a few lore books were released and even some novelizations like the Trolltooth Wars series. Titan's fluff was summarised and expanded by a book of the same name, which left the result of the Fighting Fantasy adventures as cliffhangers, as if <b>YOU</b> hadn't already effortlessly beaten them.

Titan is an generic [[Standard Fantasy Setting]], though it may have been one of a select group of early fantasy settings that defined the standard. It has [[dwarfs]], [[elves]], [[dark elves]], [[lizardmen]], [[orcs]] and [[goblins]], [[Undead|undead creatures]], [[dragons]], good and evil gods, [[Chaos|a wasteland ruined by the corrupting powers of Chaos]], [[Daemon Prince|Demon Princes]]…

Holy shit. Doesn’t the Chaos thing look [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles|really familiar]] and utterly derivative? Well, two things you need to remember. First is that this produced by the same people behind Games Workshop, so that same idea appearing in early Warhammer isn’t surprising. Secondly it was really early, beginning 1982, before most other fantasy franchises still in popular culture, and well before Warhammer. As far as other mainstream fantasy franchises go, only Dungeons and Dragons really predates it, so it would be fairer to say most of these borrowed ideas from Fighting Fantasy rather than the reverse. Well, that and [[Tolkien|the]] [[Michael Moorcock|usual]] [[Conan the Barbarian|influences]] that most fantasy heavily ripped off.

Titan is made up of three main continents. The majority of FF adventures take place in Allansia and Khul, with <i>Sorcery!</i> adventures taking place in the continent oddly named only The Old World (not [[Old World|that one]]). Some adventures also take place on islands outside the main continents to give authors a bit of creative freedom, especially as the canon developed proper. Khul is mainly barbarous wilderness and Chaos waste, while Allansia is the most populated and 'civilised'. Everywhere you go, there's always some evil character or another planning their return, with only an adventurer's sharp sword and two dice to stop him/her.

The [[grimdark]] in Titan was never quite dialled up to 11 like Warhammer ostensibly due to FF still being considered children’s books (and due to the unfailing ability of <b>YOU</b> to defeat every villain in the setting.) And also because the point of the setting was solo adventures, so there was no need to invent fluff reasons why factions would be constantly at each other’s throats like in Warhammer. The idea of balance was a persistent trope in FF where no matter how powerful the bad guy was, [[Harry Potter|he had to leave some exploitable weakness so that he could be ultimately defeated]]. Yet it did have a really irritating habit of bringing back major bad guys who had already been killed and resurrected several times, probably in the (wrong) assumption that people would buy more books if they returned popular bad guys.

Titan is mostly forgotten now except by a few sparsely maintained wikis, but a few select locations may have remained in the pop culture in some way or another:

<b>Firetop Mountain:</b> The setting where it all began as a typical dungeon delve adventure, later given a backstory to get around the embarassing fact that <b>YOU</b> bust in and murder some guy for no given reason and steal his shit. A mountain in Allansia named after the red plants that grow on it (no, it’s not a volcano), it originally was a dwarven city before taken over by evil warlock Zagor who evicted the dwarves and made those who couldn’t escape into his [[rape|private undead slaves]]. In typical FF fashion, YOU manage to [[anal circumference|penetrate his defences]] and kill him not once but <strike>twice</strike> three times! during the series, proving that true evil is no match for plot armor. Or cheating like fuck.

<b>Deathtrap Dungeon:</b> Yes, it’s a dungeon full of deathtraps. And monsters. And puzzles that are also deathtraps. Created by Baron Sukumvit near Fang, a city in Allansia, it’s a trial of champions as devious as it is unimaginatively named. It is a labyrinth where adventurers sign up to take on its challenges, and each other, for a grand prize (much like a deadly variety of the Crystal Maze). Those who succeed become incredibly wealthy, enough to raise armies of their own. But very few ever come out. <b>YOU</b>, naturally, does so twice. Basis of the popular 90s video game, probably still the most "mainstream" thing to happen to FF since the mid-80s.

<b>Port Blacksand:</b> The infamous City of Thieves. Possibly the coolest setting in any fantasy, and so popular that several books of the series take place there fully or in part, including the later RPG. Blacksand is a coastal pirate city on the Catfish River in Allansia, just as dangerous or more so as the uncivilised wilds that surround it. Its town guard is full of trolls, the city teems with vicious gangs, has a thriving Thieves Guild, and it’s ruled with an iron fist by the mysterious Lord Varek Azzur who rarely leaves his palace and never shows his face. Azzur is in league with evil sorcerer Zanbar Bone ([[Lulz|don’t laugh]]) and likes to feed internees of the city’s corrupt legal system alive to his leaf beasts. On top of that, the city is built on the ruins of ancient Carsepolis, and occasionally people disappear [[neckbeard|chilling out in their basements]] or end up tunnelling into Very Bad Things while cleaning the sewers (another punishment doled out by the city courts).

<b>Hachiman:</b> Literally a fantasy feudal Japan on Khul. Not really notable per-se, except as an object lesson of how FF was willing to bastardise itself for sales by jumping on popular bandwagons. It’s what happens when you let weebs write Fighting Fantasy. Hachiman (literally the name of the Japanese god of war) is completely cut off from the rest of Khul and civilisation in general by monster-ridden seas and impassable mountains, and full of lots of monsters from Japanese folklore. It’s still pretty cool though, pity it only ended up in a single book (<i>Sword of the Samurai</i>).