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Secret of the Silver Blades

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Secret of the Silver Blades
Developer(s)Strategic Simulations, Inc.
MicroMagic (Amiga, Mac)
Publisher(s)Strategic Simulations, Inc.
WizardWorks (re-release)
Designer(s)David Shelley
Programmer(s)Russell Brown
Ken Nicholson
Artist(s)Mark Johnson
Composer(s)John Halbleib
SeriesGold Box
Platform(s)Commodore 64/128, MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh, Amiga, NEC PC-9801
Release
  • NA: 1990
  • NA: 1991 (Amiga, Mac)
  • JP: July 17, 1992 (PC-98)
Genre(s)Role-playing game, Tactical RPG
Mode(s)Single player

Secret of the Silver Blades is the third in a four-part series of Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons "Gold Box" adventure role-playing video games. The game was released in 1990.[1]

The story is a continuation of the events of Curse of the Azure Bonds. In this game, a small mining town is being threatened by monsters who were released from a glacial prison. The monsters are led by the evil Eldamar, who had been interred in the glacier by his twin brother Oswulf and a group known as the Silver Blades.[2]

Plot

375 years ago, twin brothers Oswulf and Eldamar built a castle in a large valley in the Dragonspine Mountains and the town of Verdigris was founded below the castle. The town prospered under the guidance of the brothers. Oswulf was a paladin and Eldamar was a mage. As Eldamar became older, his obsession for immortality grew and he began studying how to become a lich. Oswulf tried to stop his brother, but failed. Eldamar became a lich known as the Dreadlord.

A horrified Oswulf could not bear to kill his own brother. He sought the help of a band of adventurers known as the Silver Blades to help contain the Dreadlord. The Dreadlord was certain that these adventurers were called upon to slay him and he began gathering armies of evil creatures to aid him. The town was overrun by monsters and the inhabitants abandoned it. With the help of the Silver Blades, they succeeded in driving the monsters out of the town and back to the castle. Oswulf was still determined not to kill his own brother, however. The Silver Blades set out to research a spell and when cast, it encased the entire valley in a glacier. Everything inside became frozen, but was still alive. Oswulf sacrificed himself so his spirit could guard the castle.

A few of the Dreadlord's followers were beyond the glacier's effects and began attempts to get through the ice, but failed. 15 years ago, they formed a group known as the Black Circle and succeeded in breaking the spell. The glacier began to melt. As the ice melted, many miners noticed the old mines of Verdigris were once again accessible and founded the town of New Verdigris. The mines contained vast amounts of gems. As the miners descended to the lower levels, monsters that had been frozen for over 300 years began to emerge and once again took over the mines.

In desperation, the miners took all their gems to the Well of Knowledge, which is said to grant wishes and provide information for those who dropped treasure into it. The party was then summoned to the town of New Verdigris by the Well of Knowledge at the wish of the townspeople. They need the party to protect them from the monsters and so begins the story of the Secret of the Silver Blades.

Plot overview

The party's objective is to adventure through the mountain region near Verdigris, entering areas such as the ruins of Old Verdigris, the Well of Knowledge, the mines, the crevasses, and eventually to the Dreadlord's castle. The party will face off against an evil group of humans called the Black Circle, many kinds of monsters in the mines and crevasses, and finally against the lich the Dreadlord himself.

There is no overworld in the game, so all action takes place in the first person maps. The Well of Knowledge offers some teleporters so the party can reach various points in the maps. Nearly all the teleporters must be opened from their destination away from the well, however.

The Well of Knowledge can give the party hints if it pays a certain amount of gems.


The Black Circle, who are evil former servants of the Dreadlord, are scheming to gain entrance to the Dreadlord's frozen castle and revive their sleeping evil overlord. This is easier said than done because the entire valley is covered in an impenetrable glacier. Meanwhile the evil Cult Of Bane is fighting an open war with the Black Circle for access to the frozen Dreadlord for their own nefarious purposes. Surviving humans in the small town of New Verdigris are in danger of being overwhelmed by the never ending swarm of monsters coming out of the slowly melting glacier covering the valley.

The party's journey starts in New Verdigris, a small human town enclave that remains within the massive sprawling ruins of Old Verdigris. The first goal of the party is to secure access to The Well Of Knowledge as The Well controls a system of teleporters through out the valley, including within the Dreadlord's castle, and is a source of hidden knowledge about the dangers they face.

The party uses the teleporter in New Verdigris to arrive at the compound of The Well Of Knowledge. The Black Circle and Cult Of Bane are fighting each other for control of The Well. The Cult Of Bane placed an Ancient Red Dragon and her brood next to The Well to deny The Black Circle access as part of their ongoing feud. The party must defeat the two forces in The Well and eliminate the Ancient Red Dragon to gain access to The Well. The Well explains the nature of their quest and informs the party that each individual teleporter in The Well's compound will only work after the party finds its corresponding brother teleporter in the valley.

Having received guidance from The Well, the party returns to New Virdigris to forcibly destroy The Black Circle outpost within the town. The Black Circle had befriended the unwitting townspeople who were unaware the Black Circle was responsible for unleashing the torrent of monsters from the glacier against their town. The party then ventures forth into the ruins of Old Virdigris to destroy the Black Circle Headquarters in the area and defeat another Ancient Red Dragon guarding a holy relic which is key to the quest.

The immediate threat having been eliminated, the next goal of the party is to seek access to the frozen Dreadlord's castle. This is only possible by accessing the ancient mines of Old Verdigris where the party hopes the mines have breached the lowest levels of the castle's dungeon.

After fighting numerous monsters in the mines, the party finally arrives at the lowest levels of the mines and walks through a breach the New Virdigris miners accidentally created in the walls of the dungeon of the Dreadlord. Prior to the party's arrival, The Black Circle had been using their supposed friendship with the townspeople to encourage them to resume excavating the old mines in the hope they would breach the walls of the Dreadlord's dungeon.

The Dreadlord's dungeon is inhabited by an insane malevolent spirit, who the Dreadlord created to look like himself, which mocks the party and attempts to lead them into various traps. The party starts at the lowest level of the dungeon and attempts to ascent to the higher levels of the dungeon in the hope of reach the castle itself. At the end of each level the malevolent spirit poses a riddle to the party which results in the party being ambushed by Steel Golemns if they fail to answer correctly. The party answers the riddles correctly, clears out a local Drider base in the dungeons, defeats the malevolent spirit and finally exits the dungeons.

The party does not find itself in the castle like it hoped. Instead the party finds itself within the glacier and has to fight its way through a long series of winding crevasses to reach the frozen entrance of the Dreadlord's castle. The party moves through the crevasse it has to fight the forces of the Black Circle, the Cult of Bane, unfrozen monsters and even recently thawed members of the elite Dread Guard formed part of the Dreadlord's ancient army over a millennia ago.

Eventually the party stumbles upon a village of Frost Giants. The Frost Giant's village has been rapidly thawing to the Black Circle using fire breathing monsters to melt the glacier to gain access to the Dreadlord. The Frost Giants are angry and looking for someone to blame, which made them easy prey for the lies of the Black Circle who tricked the Frost Giants into believing the party was responsible for their melting homes. The party has to fight its way to the Frost Giant King where they can either slay the King or alternatively convince the King of their innocent by fighting against a wave of monsters the Black Circle recently sent against their village.

After pacifying the Frost Giant village through either diplomacy or force, the party fights its way through the crevasse to the gates of the Dreadlord's castle. There the spirit of the Dreadlord's brother, Oswulf, is fighting a pitched battle against various monsters, Dread Guard and Black Circle attempting to access the castle. The party aides Oswulf's spirit who informs them that his brother's soul is not truly evil, it had simply been corrupted by the magic involved when Eldamar cast his spell to become an immortal lich. Oswulf pleads with the party to kill the Dreadlord so that his brother's soul may be freed and the evil threatening the entire valley can be thwarted.

The party enters the still frozen castle of the Dreadlord whilst Oswulf's spirit guards the entrance. The castle hasn't changed since when it was frozen over a millennia ago. Frozen monsters are visible as are monsters who suddenly wake up from their slumber when disturbed by the party. The party encounters a mad dwarf who recently thawed and has resumed making steel golems for the Dreadlord, completely oblivious to what is happening around him. The party fights its way through various traps and awakened guardians of castle to arrive at the Dreadlord's throne room.

The party approaches the throne just as the Dreadlord starts to wake from his slumber. This is the most dangerous fight for the party. The powerful Dreadlord is protected in the room by an army of Storm Giants and, ironically enough, elite clerics from The Cult Of Bane.

After a long and tough fight, the party defeats the Dreadlord. Eldamar's soul is freed and is ascends to heaven with the spirit of his brother Oswulf. The monster and Black Circle flee, their plans permanently thwarted. The party can then return to New Virdigris to witness the townspeople in a state of perpetual celebration before re-exploring the remains of the valley or setting off on the next part of their adventure.

Gameplay

To play Secret of the Silver Blades, one simply needs to create characters and form a party. The gameplay basics are identical to all games in the series. Characters can also be imported from Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds.

Game differences

Secret of the Silver Blades is similar to its two predecessors in gameplay and graphics. There is no overworld in this game, however. It takes place entirely in the first person maps. Graphics did improve slightly, though everything was still drawn in 16 colors.

The game includes some new features introduced with Champions of Krynn, and adds a difficulty selector that the player can use to change the power of the enemy creatures. The game world was the largest yet for a Gold Box game, and it included cut scene illustrations of the story.[2] It is the first Gold Box game in which random encounters do not stop after a certain point.[3]

Mages have the ability to use spells up to level 7, while clerics can reach level 6 spells.

The arrow keys are conveniently usable to select menu options as opposed to using hotkeys, which was the only way in earlier titles, though the hotkey option is still available.

There are only two known versions for MS-DOS:

OS Version Language
MS-DOS V1.00 Turbo Pascal 5.5 (exepacked)
MS-DOS V1.30 Turbo Pascal 5.5 (exepacked)

Music

Like most of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons computer games, this game contains only one song. It was composed by John Halbleib, and was his last game when the developers replaced him with Tom Wahl.[citation needed]

Reception

Secret of the Silver Blades was very successful, with SSI selling 167,214 copies. It was the last Gold Box game to sell more than 100,000.[3] Scorpia of Computer Gaming World in 1990 wrote that "Secret of the Silver Blades could easily have been sub-titled 'Hackmania'" because of the game's emphasis of combat, and stated that it was the most linear of the Gold Box series. She liked the game's story, and concluded that it was "a typical product in the Forgotten Realms series", most appealing to fans of Gold Box or hack and slash games.[6] In 1993 she stated that it was the "most boring" Gold Box game and "for hard-core slicer/dicers only".[7] The game was reviewed in 1990 in Dragon #163 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.[4] According to GameSpy, "Secret of the Silver Blades would never reach the "classic" status of much of SSI's previous work".[8]

British gaming magazine Amiga Action gave Secret of the Silver Blades an overall score of 87%, acknowledging that the game is very similar to its predecessors, but goes on to state, "the good thing is that they follow on from each other very well." and "[Silver Blades is] one of the best RPGs around. If you miss this one then you're a fool." Amiga Action also praised new features in the game such as the ability to port characters from previous installments and new monsters, rating it above Champions of Krynn, an earlier installment in the series.[5]

References

  1. ^ Barton, Matt (2007-02-23). "Part 2: The Golden Age (1985-1993)". The History of Computer Role-Playing Games. Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 2009-02-27. Retrieved 2009-03-26.
  2. ^ a b Barton, Matt (2008), Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games, CRC Press, pp. 151−152, ISBN 1439865248.
  3. ^ a b Maher, Jimmy (2017-03-31). "Opening the Gold Box, Part 5: All That Glitters is Not Gold". The Digital Antiquarian.
  4. ^ a b Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia; Lesser, Kirk (November 1990). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (163): 47–50.
  5. ^ a b "Secret of the Silver Blades Review". Amiga Action. Europress. September 1991. p. 48.
  6. ^ Scorpia (October 1990). "Scorpion's View". Computer Gaming World. p. 27. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  7. ^ Scorpia (October 1993). "Scorpia's Magic Scroll Of Games". Computer Gaming World. pp. 34–50. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  8. ^ Rausch, Allen (August 15, 2004). "A History of D&D Video Games". GameSpy. Retrieved November 17, 2012.
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