Curse of the Azure Bonds

About Curse of the Azure Bonds

Curse of the Azure Bonds (1989) is SSI's second Gold Box Forgotten Realms RPG, in which heroes wake with five magical tattoos that let evil factions control them, and must break each bond.

Curse of the Azure Bonds in Depth

Renowned adventurers wake from a magical sleep in an inn in Tilverton, robbed of their possessions and with no memory of what happened. A passing landlord tells them they have been unconscious for over a month after an ambush on the road. On each character's arm are five azure markings, the bonds, each representing a separate evil faction that can possess and control them when it glows. The first bond forces them to attack a passing royal carriage, and after they defeat its faction, a band of assassins called the Fire Knives, they are banished from Tilverton for attempting to kill the King. The sage Filani explains the bonds, and the party must choose where to go next to remove the others.

A party of up to six player characters and two non-player characters is needed. Characters can be imported from Pool of Radiance or Hillsfar, or created from six races, nine alignments, two genders and six classes, now including the paladin and ranger, with multi-class options for demihumans; new characters start with 25,000 experience points, at level 5 for single-class heroes. Exploration uses Pool of Radiance's first-person view with a status panel and command menu, switching to an overhead view in combat, where spells and ranged weapons are aimed by lining up targets. An overland map of the Dalelands allows automatic travel between adjacent locations, with random encounters, and a new Fix command quickly heals the party if a conscious cleric or paladin is present.

Making Curse of the Azure Bonds

Strategic Simulations developed and published it in 1989, continuing the events of Pool of Radiance in the Forgotten Realms setting and using the same Gold Box style, with slightly improved 16-colour graphics. It was almost as successful as Pool of Radiance, helped on the Commodore 64 by SSI being the last major American publisher still supporting the machine, and the series passed 800,000 sales by 1996. CU Amiga-64's Tony Dillon said the graphics were "more or less the same" as Pool of Radiance, "which is no bad thing", and that it was "still as entertaining and involving as the original", comparing its views to The Bard's Tale and Gauntlet.