Silver Bow of Duadon questions

[kamqute]

First of all, does the Silver Oak Bow/Silver Bow of Duadon take up both a weapon and a Special Item slot?

Secondly, in section 17 of Jungle of Horrors,

www.projectaon.org/xhtml/lw/08tjoh/sect17.htm

I am instructed to pick a number for a bow shot, but the standard instruction to add for weaponmastery is not applied, nor anything comparable--in addition, this seems more a matter of calming the horse you are riding. Does the bonus from the Silver Bow apply in this situation?

[Dusk Fox]

First--No. It's a Special Item. Special Items only ever take up Special Item slots, I believe.

Second: I'm gonna say this is a section where bonuses from the Silver Bow and Weaponmastery are not applicable.

[Zipp]

I agree with Dusk Fox on the first, but not on the second.

You gain a bonus to any shot with the bow. And in this case, you are not being asked to control your horse. You are being asked to fire a shot while your horse is acting up. That takes archery skill, not horsemanship, at least as far as the gamebook is concerned.

[longhairyuppiescum]

For my part I agree with Zipp on the second.
But not on the first..
If you take the original text of the books, in the section you get the Silver Bow it is explicitly said to be a WEAPON. Not a special item. In some later sections it is referred to as a special item though. But I would count it as a weapon as the initial section told me to..
(Occupying a single weapons slot only.)

[outspaced]

The thing is, LHYS, it is part of the list of Special Items that you can take into the Grand Master series. Certainly by Book 8, every reference to the Silver Bow is as a Special Item rather than a Weapon. It seems to have been an oversight on Joe's part when he introduced it that he forgot to explicitly state this. Thus Project Aon has footnoted Section 252 in The Kingdoms of Terror:

In all other instances where this bow is mentioned, it is referred to as the 'Silver Bow of Duadon', and treated as a weapon-like Special Item rather than a Weapon. The 3-point bonus to your Random Number picks when using this bow can be added to the 3-point bonus you may already have with Weaponmastery with Bow for a total of 6 points. As with the bonus for Weaponmastery with Bow, you may only add this bonus when determining the success of an bow shot.

[longhairyuppiescum]

Well, fine then. - I didn't realised it on the Special Items list of the GMs, but knew of the PA approach to this...
I still treat it as a weapon. That's the written word. Even if JRD himself later talks of it as a Special Item.
It works well as a weapon like the Bronin Warhammer, too.
To each his own..