The Tyrant's Tomb - a solo quest pack

[wallydubbs]

starts off searching the main hall for traps, finding none. So the runs ahead finding the 2 Ice Gremlins. His first attack was a flop, but Skull Cleaver allowed him to roll again, getting 1 , but the Ice Gremlin blocked it.
Boy he Ice Gremlins attacked the , 1 got in, while the other was blocked. Not a good start, losing 2 BP so early on.
ran in to help the , both got 1 in on their attacks. Neither Gremlin managed to get a hit.
rolled , finishing off 1 Ice Gremlin, but flopped on his attack.
The ice Gremlin then grabbed the 's Potion of Healing and ran away.

The 2 continued on, rolling short, allowing the to get to the Ice River first. He rolled , losing 1 BP to the cold.
took no aversion to the cold and passed the , who rolled and spent an additional turn in the river.
On their next turn they got into the small room, but the Ice Gremlin there rolled remarkably well on defense. It took them an extra turn to kill it.
found no traps, found no secret doors and got a Potion of Healing from the treasure deck.

They put their Warm Furs on and moved into the Ice Vault. found no trap, found no secret doors, got 25 gold from the treasure deck.
waited a turn so they could both enter the next room.
was the first in and managed to kill an Ice Gremlin on his first attack. The 's attack, however, was blocked.
The 2 remaining Gremlins failed to do any damage on their attacks. killed one on his next attack, but the only got 1 in. The Gremlin flopped on its attack allowing the to finish it off.
found no traps, no secret doors for , got 20 more gold from the treasure deck.

In the next room they find the and . The has all elemental spells and the has the Illusion spells as well as his Healing spell, which he uses. The also uses Water of Healing on himself.

Now the 4 used heroes carried on:
found no traps
found no secret doors
lost 1 BP from a hazard in the treasure deck
made it to space just before the frozen river, wishing he had Moses' power to part the waters...

was the first to go in, rolling , taking no damage from the cold...
was next, rolling , freezing his beard off...
rolled and didn't even make it to the river.
cast Swift Wind on himself, attempting to run through the water fast enough that he won't take damage, rolling ... didn't seem to help.
continued on, but this time the cold water got to him, losing 1BP.
rolled , continuing through the Icey river.
finally got in but took no damage... I was at a bit of a loss here, the was contemplating using his Disappear spell... although this spell negates traps I wasn't sure about Ice rivers or vaults...
rolled , taken damage from the cold.

finally made it out of the ice river and saw the Ice Gremlin at the end of the hall, but he had no more movement to approach it.
managed to get out too, but not without taking another BP of damage
rolled and continued on in the river
made it through without taking damage and landed ahead of the , knowing thrice Gremlin will be coming for him, he cast Rock Skin on himself.

Unfortunately the rock skin was useless and broke on his first defense. The Gremlin rolled , but the defended with nothing but s.
and had to waste their turns as there was no space available for them to reach the Ice Gremlin. , however, made it out of the river.
rolled a when attacking the Ice Gremlin, but it rolled in defense. So ran to the back of the line.
Ice Gremlin moved forward and took a shot at the , who blocked its attack.
managed 1 damage on his turn and ran to the back of the line.
stepped forward and killed the Ice Gremlin.
moved to the front of the line and did a search for traps, finding none.
moved up to the door and had Faustus take a peak inside, noting the 3 orcs.

voluntarily ran in and killed the first he laid eyes on.
used Skullcleaver to take out the 2nd one
rolled short, but just barely reached the 3rd . Unfortunately his attack was blocked.
took a chance, ran around from the other side and attacked with , killing the .
found no traps
found no doors
found a Potion of Warmth from the treasure deck.
left the room

was the first to make it to hall D, but found no traps.
and rolled short
went to the northern square in hallway D and checked for secret doors.
waited outside the middle room, suggesting maybe someone should scout ahead with the Disappear spell, if the wished to use it.
, still rolling small, suggested to wait as there might be a big fight in the middle room.
lost his patience, went in and searched for traps... finding none.
entered and found no secret doors
searched for treasure and drew a Potion of Defense.
As soon as the entered, an Avalanche occured in hallway D.

rolled (-1)... he doesn't make it out...
rolls , takes the eastern door, runs into the next room full of s and casts Hypnotic Blaze.
All 3 s roll for mind points: , , all hypnotized.
was closer to the Northern door and only rolled , barely managing to escape.
rolled and was only able to make it out the eastern door.
The Avalanche came and killed the .

killed the first hypnotized .
entered Room F and had to cast Fire of Wrath to get some form of light, only to be met with dread and despair at the sight of the 3 stone creatures...
They surrounded the and attacked:
1st attack:
defends:
2nd Attack:
defends:
3rd attack:
defends: , only taking 1 damage.

kills the 2nd
strikes down the 3rd defenseless .
Normally I don't allow Pass Through Rock to work on monsters, but since these were Stone Creatures, the cast Pass Through Rock on himself. He rolled for movement and debated with himself which way to run... he could check the 2 adjacent rooms (if they were in fact rooms) and the hall just for safety... 3 possible escapes. The first room he reached has the secret door, he chose to stay, there were no monsters in there so it appeared to be safe.

searched for traps
searched for secret doors, finding 1
searched for treasure, but drew a Hazard, losing 1BP.
checked out the chasm, finding no traps, he did have a rope to cross it.
checked the next room, an empty ice vault... he had warm furs so he might as well do a treasure search... which turned out to be a Wandering Monster. blocked its attack.
The backtracked to help the but flopped on his attack
Ice Gremlin attacked again, but it was blocked.
's attack was completely blocked
While the 's attacked killed the Ice Gremlin.

Meanwhile the found no traps in the room, he found the secret door leading back to the stone creatures but wasn't going to open it by any means. He also found Nothing! From the treasure deck.
He then went out through the hall and checked the hallway for traps, but couldn't find and (the Elf has the scrying glass).

moved over the chasm via rope and searched the area for treasure, taking another arrow as a Hazard was drawn.
followed him across but didn't have enough movement to reach the door.

moved to the north east corner and searched that hall, spotting the spear trap... great, no dwarf...

jumped out the door surprising the 2 but he completely flopped on his attack.
couldn't really do much here, so he turned the corner and locked eyes with the from a distance. "Scout Ahead!" He shouted as he cast Disappear on his friend.
rolled and headed back down the northern hall.

The first also flopped on his attack, so he and his partner swapped. The 2nd did roll a , but it was blocked.
killed one
used Woa to slay the other
continued down the north hall with , he passed through the magic trap, as Disappear makes him immune to that and he walked through the Ice Gremlins, who couldn't see him.

and headed down the Eastern hall to catch up with the . attempted to jump the spear trap but rolled , however he for damage.
was going to check on Room I, but he rolled and Disappear was broken... the Ice Gremlins could see him! Using his Wand of Recall he cast Ball of Flame on one, and Sleep on another. Ball of Flame only did 1 damage and Sleep did not take hold. So he backed himself into a corner so only 2 could attack him.
Both Ice Gremlins flopped on their attacks.

and both rolled poorly and would be another 2 or 3 turns before they could help the , so he saw the only chance he was was to cast Veil of Mist on himself and run back down the northern corridor so only 1 could attack him. He rolled , ran through the Ice Gremlins and then towards the , but he triggered the Magical trap and was frozen... so he had no choice but to use Courage (his last fire spell) to free himself.

Ice Gremlin attacks the , but he blocks.
and continue running down the corridor, makes it to the space next to the .
attacks with his dagger, he does roll a , but the Ice Gremlin managed 2 s. moved back and hid behind the .
Ice Gremlin rather then attacking the , swiped his Scrying Glass and ran away.

This gave a chance to pass the and go after an Ice Gremlin, taking it out in 1 attack.
moved forward and managed to get 1 hit in on the last Ice Gremlin.
tried an attack on the Ice Gremlin but failed to roll a .

Unlike the other Ice Gremlin, this one could not steal an item and run away as the heroes now had line of sight for the whole corridor. He had to stay and fight. Going after the he rolled
The defends with , brought down to 1 BP.

came running to aid them, but the Ice Gremlin blocked the attack.
However, the would land a 2nd hit, defeating the ice Gremlin.
then took the opportunity to search for secret doors, cycling around to the start of their next turn so they could all enter Room I together... this is the hut where the heroes spend the night and they all regain 1 BP.
now has 6BP
has 5BP.
has 2BP

Reacting to the Hatu's scream:
rolled
rolled
rolled

attacked the Hantu, but despite rolling 2 s his weapon was useless against it.
cast Genie against it... unfortunately he only got 2 out of the roll.
Even more surprising the Hantu blocked 1.

The hantu then attacked the , rolling
was down to 2BP so he used a Potion of Defense, , just barely staving off death.

threw a vile of Holy Water at the Hantu, dealing 1 damage.
The rolled a and woke up, but when attacking the Hantu with Woe, s was all he rolled.
used his Wand of Recall casting Heal Body on himself and Tempest against the Hantu.

Hantu lost a turn...
attacked but it had no effect.
finally got the last hit in to banish the Hantu.
checks out the door, noting the ledge and searches for traps.

is next out, not really expecting to find anything but searches for secret doors
rolls , not enough to get in there.
makes it in and searches for treasure, finding the Scrying Glass, Talisman of Vigor and the 's Healing potion.

was the first to make it to the room with the stairwell. A search for treasure brought on yet another hazard!


Asides from the Dwarf dying this one wasn't too bad. But with 4 heroes having 1 turn to escape the avalanche, I knew at least 1 hero would roll short.

[Pancho]

Thanks again for another useful report.

I have some ideas to decrease the deadliness of this quest, if you could let me know what you think of them.

1. Give the Stone creatures 1bp each rather than 3, and 4 defence rather than 5. The Wizard did well to escape them but if another of the Heroes ended up facing them alone, I think it could be game over.

2. The centre room; once avalanche D is triggered, any Hero in room E at the end of his turn loses 2bp. The Hero will lose another 2bp at the end of each subsequent turn, until they manage to get off the tile. My main intention here is to split the Heroes up, not to actually kill them (unless they are really slow).

3. The magically Ice trap in the top corridor; the Hero is only encased in the Ice if he rolls a skull, using one combat die. So if the trap isn’t detected with the scrying glass, the Hero still has a 50/50 chance of avoiding death if all the Fire spells have been used up.

[lestodante]

Wow! love it that someone is doing artwork for this!

I would like to lay my hands on raw artwork in large format and raw card texts. I would then give you back those cards in a dozen professional-printer-suitable formats by stuffing all of it into my card maker.

Sure Anderas. At the moment I am still editing the artworks. Then I will send you an HD version.
The one I posted are previews.

[wallydubbs]

Thanks again for another useful report.

I have some ideas to decrease the deadliness of this quest, if you could let me know what you think of them.

1. Give the Stone creatures 1bp each rather than 3, and 4 defence rather than 5. The Wizard did well to escape them but if another of the Heroes ended up facing them alone, I think it could be game over.

2. The centre room; once avalanche D is triggered, any Hero in room E at the end of his turn loses 2bp. The Hero will lose another 2bp at the end of each subsequent turn, until they manage to get off the tile. My main intention here is to split the Heroes up, not to actually kill them (unless they are really slow).

3. The magically Ice trap in the top corridor; the Hero is only encased in the Ice if he rolls a skull, using one combat die. So if the trap isn’t detected with the scrying glass, the Hero still has a 50/50 chance of avoiding death if all the Fire spells have been used up.

1.) I didn't really have an issue with the stone creatures. Even if they had 1BP I don't think the Wizard would stick around to fight them alone... Barbarian would have the best chance against them, as 2 attack dice might take a while to beat them down. But I guess it kinda depends at what point does them being stone come in, is that more of a defensive measure or body point stat?
They could either be sloppy on defense and just rely on their hard exterior (poor defense dice, but high body point and the heroes just need to chip pieces away) or their stone exterior IS their defense and they're really soft underneath (high defense dice and low body points and the heroes just have to find a soft spot to stab).

2.) I totally get what you're going for with the Avalanche, you want to show off the imminent danger but you don't want to outright kill a hero. 2 damage is good, but also force the character to discard some items, like he loses his pack in the Avalanche and has to get rid of all his potions or something like that. Because of all the snow he'll need to use 2 movement to make it to the next door...
That or he can ride the avalanche back down to the start of the quest and spend his next dozen turns catching up to the heroes...

3.) You could also allow a Potion of Warmth and Potion of Magic Resistance to free the hero from the predicament if he has it.

Asides from the Avalanche it wasn't really that deadly. The orcs don't last long enough to do sufficient damage and the Ice Gremlins 2 attack dice don't always land a hit.

[lestodante]

Who wants to see some new cards?
All artworks by Luis Octavio.
Now work in progress for the Elf cards!
Also... should I ask to re-draw the 3 cards for the Thor artifacts, belt, gloves and hammer to match the same style for all the cards?
Please check the last phrase for the Scrying-Glass text. Is "at the same same as" correct (SAME is repeated twice)?
Also, for the backs. Are they all Artifacts? Or some of them should be considered as "equipment" (the harpoon) or "treasure" cards?

[Pancho]

Absolutely stunning .

Scrying glass should say “same time” not “same same”.

The Thor artefacts could be redrawn too, if that’s OK. These cards are so good, it would be great to have them all match up stylistically.

I’d prefer if they all remained as artefacts rather than equipment or treasure cards.

[wallydubbs]

I've got a few questions/suggestions on Fellowship of Four:

1.) Are the stalagtite traps in the 4x4 room the same as the ones marked "E"?
I'd also like to make a suggestion regarding these: since you're going by the books, the point is made that the Dwarf has nocturnal vision; I'd suggest that the stalagtite can only be detected on a trap search by the Dwarf, but cannot be disarmed as they are too high up... perhaps the scrying glass could help in this situation too.

2.) For the path of Tenobrosity (Room H), when a hero slips and holds on, he can be helped up by another hero, they can't occupy the same space, so I'm assuming he's helped up to the next space...
Well every time a hero jumps from one square to the next diagonal one and falls, it will reqire the next hero to jump to the square the last hero was previously on. But by jumping, he too could fall. So the question is, what if that hero is alone or all heroes that take this route find themselves dangling and noone to pull them up. I guess they just lose BP and die?

3.)Path of Sciomachy (Room J), when the heroes fight the dark version of themselves, does the Dark Version need black shields in defense?
4.) Also, is interference allowed? Suppose the Barbarian is fighting the dark version of himself and the Wizard or Elf is watching behind the portcullis, could the the Wizard use Tempest or something to aid the Barbarian? As much as I like this notion, if Pass Through Rock doesn't work it seems like no magic should work...

5.) So the Pit of Chaos room gets placed on the board the same time as the Crag and the door leading from one to the other is opened. Would this mean all orcs get placed on the board once Door L is opened? If not I don't see why the door's open anyway.

[Pancho]

I've got a few questions/suggestions on Fellowship of Four:

1.) Are the stalagtite traps in the 4x4 room the same as the ones marked "E"?
I'd also like to make a suggestion regarding these: since you're going by the books, the point is made that the Dwarf has nocturnal vision; I'd suggest that the stalagtite can only be detected on a trap search by the Dwarf, but cannot be disarmed as they are too high up... perhaps the scrying glass could help in this situation too.

2.) For the path of Tenobrosity (Room H), when a hero slips and holds on, he can be helped up by another hero, they can't occupy the same space, so I'm assuming he's helped up to the next space...
Well every time a hero jumps from one square to the next diagonal one and falls, it will reqire the next hero to jump to the square the last hero was previously on. But by jumping, he too could fall. So the question is, what if that hero is alone or all heroes that take this route find themselves dangling and noone to pull them up. I guess they just lose BP and die?

3.)Path of Sciomachy (Room J), when the heroes fight the dark version of themselves, does the Dark Version need black shields in defense?
4.) Also, is interference allowed? Suppose the Barbarian is fighting the dark version of himself and the Wizard or Elf is watching behind the portcullis, could the the Wizard use Tempest or something to aid the Barbarian? As much as I like this notion, if Pass Through Rock doesn't work it seems like no magic should work...

5.) So the Pit of Chaos room gets placed on the board the same time as the Crag and the door leading from one to the other is opened. Would this mean all orcs get placed on the board once Door L is opened? If not I don't see why the door's open anyway.

1) Those stalactites should be marked E as well.
The Dwarf having the ability to spot them would be nice, but I’m worried that this quest would be too easy. Due to the nature of the book, there aren’t many foes encountered here. I’ve had to increase the power of traps and other impediments to give the Heroes a bit of a challenge before they get to the end room. I want to see what happens in your playtest, then we can make changes.

2) Yes they will just die,

3) they use white shields. The dark Self is an identical version of a starting Hero, except for spells.

4) No interference is allowed. I thought to include a note to say this, but must have forgot!

5) Both rooms are placed at once, including the tomb and the orcs. The open door is there just to show where ordinary movement can be made between the two tiles, but the rope can also be used anywhere along the crag and ranged attacks between the two tiles are possible.

[lestodante]

Thunder God's Gloves
These magical gloves are one of three sacred treasures of the Barbarian Thunder God. A Hero wearing these may wield Thor's Hammer.

What do you guys think, should they be gloves or gauntlets?

and for the other two:
BELT: the original belt from the book allow you to roll 4 dice to defend (while Megingjord, the legendary Thor's belt can double his strenght); here it only allows 1 extra defense die.
HAMMER: in the book it allows to attack with 4 combat dice. 3 dice in attack is less than a standard battle axe. And the barbarian already rolls 3 dice in attack. If he owns a xbow he can also make ranged attacks with 3 dice. I think Thor's Hammer should be more powerful. I think 4 dice is more appropriate.
If you think they could be too much owerpowered, consider that all three sacred items must be returned to the barbarian tribe after the quest (or after the whole questpack?).

[Anderas]

Who wants to see some new cards?
All artworks by Luis Octavio.
Now work in progress for the Elf cards!
Also... should I ask to re-draw the 3 cards for the Thor artifacts, belt, gloves and hammer to match the same style for all the cards?
Please check the last phrase for the Scrying-Glass text. Is "at the same same as" correct (SAME is repeated twice)?
Also, for the backs. Are they all Artifacts? Or some of them should be considered as "equipment" (the harpoon) or "treasure" cards?

Awesome art!