← Retour au catalogue

Esprit Jeu

The Ice Wastes of Madness A CTHULHU MYTHOS GAMEBOOK

Par Savage Realms Gamebooks

Accéder au Pledge Manager

Statut actuel

Pledge Manager ouvert Fin de campagne : 01/09/2025

Fonds récoltés : 3 272 €

Jeu de plateau

Ajouter aux favoris Je me tâte J'ai pledgé

Enter the prolific worlds of Savage Realms Gamebooks...

Book 0: Balance of Fate: The Legorian Kings Saga

Book 1: What Dreams May Come

Book 2: Malivor: Cataclysm's Edge

Book 3: The Tavern on Gallows Hill

Book 4: Wasteland

Book 5: Where Shadows Fail

Book 6: Subterranea: Empire of Wrath

Book 7: Arbiter: Judge Jury Executioner

Book 8: Return to the Tavern on Gallows Hill

and coming soon...

Rift: Herald of Oblivion

The Ice Wastes of Madness

Dread Hollow

Evan-Yor

Written in the interactive style of the Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks series, YOU, the reader, determine the outcome of the story by the choices that you make! Sometimes, however, your very fate may even depend on the roll of the dice themselves!

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK WITH AN EXCERPT

Antarctica, the last wilderness on Earth...

Set in the near future, YOU play the role of a GEOLOGIST who has been sent as part of an expedition team to investigate why contact has been lost with all of the Antarctic research stations...

INTRODUCTION

Monday 16th February, 2027

Massachusetts, USA

You are in Antarctica again...

You are standing in a blizzard, wearing the simple clothes you would wear on a summer’s day back home. The cold is crippling and you cannot see more than an arm’s length in front of you. Then, you hear the voice ― a loud, unearthly voice that inspires terror. You hear the sound of a beast's paws thundering towards you through the snow. A shape comes out of the blizzard…

You wake up in your bed, drenched in sweat. This is the third nightmare in as many days, but you're sure it’s just anxiety about the meeting with the Vice Chancellor. You have no idea what the meeting is about. Analysing mineral cores is a lot more boring than your time spent on an Antarctic base, but you didn’t think you had let your boredom affect your work. You get ready for the day.

Three hours later, you are sitting in a chair in the office of Vice Chancellor Lyndon Ford. It is everything you would expect from a Vice Chancellor’s office ― plush carpet, wood-panelled walls, and bookshelves lined with old books and various paraphernalia that were probably gifts from prestigious people in America’s history. On his desk, is the Nobel Prize for economics. The Vice Chancellor, himself, is a vigorous, middle-aged man who enjoys rock climbing and fencing when he isn’t doing Nobel Prize-worthy work.

The Vice Chancellor looks at you over his desk.

"You might be wondering why I have called you in today. Well, it was at the behest of a higher authority than I..."

The vice chancellor slides a file across the desk to you. You open it to find papers with "CLASSIFIED", "CIA", and "DEFENCE DEPARTMENT" stamped all over them. So this meeting isn't about your excessive photocopying!

"Here’s the summary. Last night, one of my old friends, now in the CIA, called me. Apparently, we have lost contact with the researchers in Antarctica."

"Which researchers... and which base?" you ask.

"All of them! The only contact we have with the bases is a distress signal coming from the Kolodiny Base played in morse code on a loop. Everything else has been silent for a week. No one is answering our communications! Satellite and aerial photos seem to show everything intact, but no signs of life..."

"The Kolodiny Base? That’s been abandoned since the 1980s!"

"Indeed, it has. This is all a big mystery. The most predominant theory is that the giant iceberg that broke off of the ice shelf last month may have released an ancient, prehistoric virus that has been trapped there for aeons. If the virus just happens to have the right genes to infect humans, and, if it gets into the wider, civilized world, we could have another global pandemic on our hands ― a pandemic worse than any that have come before it! Antarctic ice has been melting for decades due to climate change. To some of our officials, this kind of disaster is a matter of when, not if..."

"I’m no doctor," you reply.

"No, but you HAVE been to Antarctica and know the bases, which is why various departments in the government are mounting an expedition to find out what happened. Since you have done exemplary research in Antarctica in the past, you have been selected to go with it. Your job will be to act as a guide to the medical professionals who will accompany you."

"But my paper deadline and my experiment with…"

"This is not a request! This is an order from the highest officials in our government. You will be picked up from your house at 1PM. I suggest you go home and pack."

You pick up the file, stand up, and go to leave the Vice Chancellor’s office. As you reach the door, you hear him send out a parting shot.

"When you return, we can discuss your photocopying!"

You are a whirlwind of excitement and dread as you drive home. You are returning to the place where you felt most alive, and yet, you are becoming embroiled in a potentially deadly mystery. By the time you get home, you barely have time to pack and tell your loved ones before a black SUV turns up outside of your house. Two men in black suits and sunglasses get out and wait. You walk out to meet them and one of them takes your luggage and puts it in the boot. You get in with them.

What follows is a blur of events ― you are briefed about the locations, probed for all of your knowledge about your expeditions, driven to an airport, flown to Argentina, introduced to dozens of people, and then put on a ship that will take you all to Antarctica.

It has been an exhausting four days since you were picked up from your home, and your sleep has been infested with vivid nightmares of the cold and an unknown presence that inspires dread.

In your last dream, you hear someone speak the last words that Captain Scott of the Antarctic wrote before he died there.

"For God's sake, look after our people."

On the morning of the fifth day, you are in your cabin, hurriedly preparing. You are eager to get on the deck and see King George Island. You are within minutes of landing at Villa Las Estrellas, a small hamlet on the south of the island. You can't wait to set foot on Antarctica again.

BOOM!

You are flung across your cabin as the ship lurches sideways from an explosion. Alarms ring out and you can hear shouting.

"GET TO THE LIFEBOATS!"

You get to your feet and scramble to the door and fling it open. Panicked crew bolt past you. You dash down the corridor, but should you escape straight away or do you want to see what's happening?

If you head straight for the lifeboats, turn to 45

If you go to the engine room, turn to 168

If you head to the hold, turn to 233

It's been said, "Never judge a book by its cover." Well, we at Savage Realms Press believe that a great gamebook cover is everything! That's why, with every single release, we have partnered with high-caliber artists, and this title will be no different!

For this book, we have re-enlisted legendary Fighting Fantasy artist, Tony Hough, who has already produced two phenomenal covers for two books in the Savage Realms Gamebooks series, Subterranea: Empire of Wrath and Return to the Tavern on Gallows Hill!

Below, is the mind-blowing cover for this project, followed by both of the covers he did for two of the previous Savage Realms Gamebooks...

Believe it or not, there are 200 rats in the original!

Tony Hough will also be handling the artwork for the cover of the special, limited-edition, numbered hardcover!

What you may or many not know is that Stuart Lloyd and Tony Hough first teamed up on Asuria Awakens by Tin Man Games. Well, it is our professional opinion that a reunion is long overdue! With that being said, we excited to announce that all of the interior illustrations will be done by Tony Hough as well!

Stuart Lloyd is a lifelong fan on gamebooks. He is the founder of the Lloyd of
Gamebooks blog, which he started to improve his gamebook writing practice.
He has written several gamebooks and game systems and runs the
Lindenbaum Competition for gamebook writing in order to encourage new
talent in the genre. Stuart lives in Hertfordshire, England where he enjoys
teaching and tries to give up eating chocolate hazelnut spread out of the jar.

The paperback of this book will be 6" x 9" and will be between 400 - 550 pages in total length, depending on the final number of illustrations.

Rewards include:

a virtual HIGH-FIVE and YOUR NAME in the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DIGITAL WALLPAPER featuring exclusive, FULL-COLOR ARTWORK from both the paperback and the limited edition hardcover
BOOKPLATE STICKERs signed by author, Stuart Lloyd, and featuring EXCLUSIVE ARTWORK by artist Tony Hough
a PAPERBACK COPY of Wasteland
THREE PRINTS featuring ARTWORK by Thomas Massey and inspired by Wasteland
CUSTOM BUTTONS featuring artwork from the Savage Realms Gamebooks series
CUSTOM DRINK COASTERS featuring the dragon logo and a monster from The Ice Wastes of Madness
a PAIR of CUSTOM DICE (2 dice total, each one a different color) featuring the Savage Realms dragon logo
THREE exclusive FULL-COLOR BOOKMARKS featuring ARTWORK by artist Tony Hough
EXCLUSIVE FULL-COLOR prints featuring Tony Hough's COVER ART for both the paperback and the limited edition hardcover
a LIMITED-EDITON, NUMBERED HARDBCOVER of The Ice Wastes of Madness, with a BOOKPLATE STICKER signed by author Stuart Lloyd. This special edition hardback will feature an entirely different cover than the paperback and is exclusive to this Kickstarter. It will NOT be available anywhere else or at any time in the future!

PLEASE NOTE: Some pledges and rewards will be shipped from the Savage Realms base of operations in beautiful Colorado Springs, CO in the United States, while others may be drop-shipped. Rewards may also, depending on when they are completed or received from authors, artists, and partner companies, be shipped at different times and not necessarily altogether.

Should you decide not to partner with us in this campaign, paperback copies will eventually be available on Amazon and all of its affiliate worldwide marketplaces.

Thank you in advance for your support!