THE SPIRIT QUEEN'S TORMENT discussion

[SirRick]

My friends and I that participated in the crowdfunding effort were really hoping we would meet the goal to get the Orc Bard. We just got a kick out of it. That being said, if they released some large hero pack with alternates of everything, I wouldn’t mind an elf or human bard with a goatee, musketeer-style hat, and jamming on a lute.

[Markus Darwath]

The point I was trying to make is that a traditional Bard lacks fighting prowess that wouldn't be the best allie for a battle. I meant this in general, not in HeroQuest.
If you recall the Dungeons and Dragons movie, Honor Among Thieves, the group consisted of a Bard, Barbarian, Wizard and Druid (funny that, we can run a quest pack with these characters), the main character (which I assume was a bard because he played a lute in one scene) wasn't any good at fighting. He was just clever and came up with plans.

If you're talking about real-world bards, no, probably not a great choice for battle (maybe a tavern brawl, though.) Fantasy genre bards, on the other hand, it just really depends. Bards in D&D tend to be a bit squishy, but part of that is players who want to run them like some sort of swashbuckler and mix it up in front rather than playing the supporting role. Sword college bards can pull that off more easily than other builds. At my current table we have a Lore college bard, arguably the weakest of bard builds in terms of combat stats, but he's being played very effectively and contributes a lot to the party's successes while typically remaining one of the two least damaged characters in any given combat. And he's actually racked up a fair share of kill shots with Vicious Mockery, which is always fun.
As far as the movie goes, it's hard to say since they never really specify. He could be a bard, or he could be a rogue with an entertainer background.

[j_dean80]

Warhammer Armies (for 3rd edition) pg 97: Orcs & Goblins: Baggage: "Heavy and multiple-dugged Orc womenfolk make up the majority of the baggage train. Their mewling off-spring, the aged, whelps and assorted hangers-on make up the rest."

[Jelsabob]

by the way, seeing how people wonder at what the canon is in regards to greenskins, & many hope an orc bard (of all things) is an anomaly)—I looked through the Hasbro Avalon blog & saw https://hasbropulse.com/blogs/avalon-hill/heroquest-concerning-the-guardian-knight a picture which shows that in their new version of Hero Quest, orcs are even among the Guardian Knights! Not sure if anyone has spotted & pointed this out. It is frustrating that instead of coming up with new interesting creatures they have to rewrite the nature of a species for political purposes. Orcs by definition are by nature violent thugs, there isn’t any amount of nurture that should change that. Tolkien in fact had them come from being elves twisted into evil warriors. If they could become good on a meaningful scale, they’d have to be reverted to elves.

[Jelsabob]

The idea that not all orcs are evil is not 'woke.' It simply allows for greater variation in plot and unexpected twists. I say this for the simple fact that -orcs aren't real-. They're a fantasy invention. 'Woke' has to do with identifying certain real-world groups as perpetual victims and insisting that they therefore be elevated and coddled as a display of "fairness." It just doesn't really apply to made-up species in a fantasy game.
And as far as orcish reproduction; how do you explain half-orcs in D&D? Tolkien is not the absolute and sole source for fantasy lore.

However the people who put forward these ideas most often ARE trying to make a political point, & the move to make orcs goods guys comes from those same people assuming that orcs were an allegory for either black people or indigenous Americans or Chinese/Mongol. Thus they claim that everyone in the past like Tolkein were evil racists. Modern D&D has been moving towards completely rewrighting orcs to just be aesthetic choice & have no connection to the history of the lore. & again, why not create a wholly new creature & new or less well known name? When you use a name & appearance from another creator & then change nothing about it except gut its soul & pervert its nature for wholly political purposes, that’s lazy & ridiculous among many other criticisms. Besides it can be done better & less lazy, like how Elder Scrolls did. But it’s obvious that this move is a part of the same movement from D&D which is explicitly political & about bashing the original creators.

[Markus Darwath]

Sorry, I and several people I know have been throwing the occasional non-evil orc, goblin, kobold, whatever bands into adventures for -decades-. The purpose in doing so is a) to toss an unexpected curve now and then and b) to encourage players to think more analytically and strategically, rather than rush in and slaughter everything that looks a certain way.

Yes, there are some people who think in the manner that you are criticizing, but to be blunt, dignifying their absurdity with your outrage is counter-productive at best. Those types are well practiced at distorting facts to fit their ridiculous agendas, and we would do well not to stoop to their level. Twits, from the self-appointed arbiters of political correctness all the way to members of the KKK, are most easily robbed of their impact simply by ignoring them as being beneath any concern or contempt.

But I will also reiterate that every game-master's world is uniquely their own. To boldly declare that certain mythical/fantasy creature types should only ever be portrayed in a certain way on the basis of "history of the lore" is also "lazy and ridiculous." I mean, I've never read the books myself, but I'm sure there are a LOT of R.A. Salvatore fans who would find the world a lot more boring if no one had ever bothered to ponder, "what if there were a -good- drow?" At what point, exactly, do you draw the line of "the lore -must- be inviolate" vs. acceptable creative license?

[Jelsabob]

Outliers are 1 thing, within reason. But there are many plot holes presented in acting as if orcs are just another group of humans, apparently so trusted as to be common enough in the Guardian Knights, yet at the same time be the most common fodder foe in the evil army, with no explanation whatsoever. They want it both ways, without actually making orcs just other guys, they’ve broken their own canon & injected things lazily. We know why they’re doing it, & intention is part of this.
& while Drizzt is good reading some of the time, those books kept in mind he was an anomaly (except the transparent lines by Salvatore wormed in from time to time which made it a supreme insult & “I Drizzt have a dream” tidbits that make no sense considering every other time a point is made that Drow are almost unanimously evil). Even those books made extreme lengths to say orcs were meant to be slaughtered like vermin, no questions asked (specifically in the prequel that went thru Drizzt’s early life & 1st years on the surface). Guess D&D crew don’t care about that. Wonder if they’ll rewrite those books to take those lines out?
The word orc was specifically made by Tolkien, & the lore began with him. It’s similar to rewriting a character just to make a political statement, from racist hypocrites—which is what Woke is. Truth is, all these creatures came from folk beliefs of spirits, & goblin wasn’t much different in their beliefs from elf, the distinction came for these words to mean certain things. Separating the spirits into distinctions by alignment such as goblin, kobold, halfling, dwarf, duargar, elf, drow was specifically to create groups of good guys & bad guys. & in this obviously confused era where idiots protest on campuses in favor of terrorists that would murder them all, there is an effort to confuse the idea of any distinction between right & wrong. & I find it offensive that the big push to make orcs good comes from simpletons who are making them allegory for peoples & groups real life.

I do point out it apparently IS the intention by Avalon Hill that orcs are just other people wandering around towns & a part of Guardian Knights, & the bard isn’t an anomaly in their vision, & so people might want to take that into consideration in how they play the game. I don’t necessarily pass judgement on that, but it does change how people have been presenting the game, & it was flown so under the radar to cause this confusion.

[Markus Darwath]

I just don't see the existence of -an- orc bard and the presence of a couple orcs in the Guardian Knights as portraying orcs to be regular people walking about town. Orcs are generally portrayed as having a warlike culture, so the bard IS an outlier, and joining a military or mercenary group completely makes sense for an orc that leaves his native tribe/culture for whatever reason.
But even if that actually is the intent handed down from Hasbro corporate, so what? You don't have to play the game their way. Your table, your rules. Just like I don't have to play or pay for D&D Next just because they make it. Nor do I need to stop playing or improving 5e at any point in my life. The sad fact is that railing against stupidity and social engineering isn't going to stop it. Society has devolved more than enough in the last four decades to prove that. And I would much rather continue having new content and resources to use, alter, or ignore as I see fit than have HeroQuest fall to 'cancel culture' from any extreme.

[Kurgan]

I happen to own a copy of Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition core rulebook as well (which I admit I paid for recently only to get more background on HQ's sources of inspiration! I did the same thing with the Rogue Trader reprint book GWS put out this year). I read the sections on "Half Orcs" (and also snuck a glimpse at a PDF of Warhammer Fantasy RPG as well). The Bard fits in with that pre-established lore. Now granted, that isn't to say that all Warhammer lore of the past is automatically awesome and should be referenced, but there you go, despite it seeming silly to a lot of us, it has a precedent in the historical milieu of our favorite game's origin. People have been laughing at the dinosaurs in Jungles of Delthrak, but those were in Warhammer as well. There was even a "chaos moon" type thing as well. So while maintaining the proper respect for GWS IP agreements they still did what they could to reference old stuff... though granted some of it only hardcore lore nerds will remember (and maybe not always so fondly).

Still, my Bard is a Pirate (still an Orc!), but I didn't complain when a new player joined our group and wanted to simply play the Bard as is.

Avalon Hill is being very careful with the lore, and now that they know what fans generally want (not a lot of changes to the good stuff, tweaks to the untested stuff, new content in the spirit of the old) I think we don't have anything to worry about. If you want to invent backstories to your characters, you've always had the freedom to do that.

I disagree more with a chronology of SQT that puts it so early in the careers of the heroes... when in fact I see both it showing signs as being towards the end. Recovering old artifacts, Orcs defecting indicates Zargon's forces are collapsing... the war is NOT going well for them (see Return of the King), and Mentor is showing signs of weakness as if age is finally catching up with him (perhaps his power weakens as does the power of his former student?) and so he needs assistants like that to help him. Both it and Prophecy of Telor are more like latter day adventures for the veteran heroes, who have been away from things for awhile and coming back for one more mission... (and like Danny Glover's character who was "too old for this sh---" he still had to act his way through multiple sequels).

[wallydubbs]

Sorry, I and several people I know have been throwing the occasional non-evil orc, goblin, kobold, whatever bands into adventures for -decades-. The purpose in doing so is a) to toss an unexpected curve now and then and b) to encourage players to think more analytically and strategically, rather than rush in and slaughter everything that looks a certain way.

There's nothing wrong with playing it either way, but in the storyline of HeroQuest the Empire is at war with the orcs, or at least Zargon, where orcs make up the majority of his armies. I don't doubt that there would be a few orcs working as spies for the empire or humans working for Zargon. There are probably orcs that are double spies and everyone knows it.

However the original notion of orcs, before taking the ball and giving them their own story was for an evil warlike nemesis that detracts from humans. Orcs were invented to shield Tolkien from having humans kill other humans. They were invented as savage antagonists for humans to band together against. It's fine for any fantasy writer to build off this race. When I started a book loosely based off of HeroQuest and Dark World I had orcs leading the majority of the antagonist's army. Even the Elves had preconceived notions that all orcs were evil only to learn later on that one Orc saved his love interest from being raped by another orc.

Yes, there are some people who think in the manner that you are criticizing, but to be blunt, dignifying their absurdity with your outrage is counter-productive at best. Those types are well practiced at distorting facts to fit their ridiculous agendas, and we would do well not to stoop to their level. Twits, from the self-appointed arbiters of political correctness all the way to members of the KKK, are most easily robbed of their impact simply by ignoring them as being beneath any concern or contempt.

What the hell are you going on about? I agree that Hasbro has gone a bit woke and lost its mind along with every other major corporation with an agenda. People with sanity just want to live by the truth. I think someone was just making a point that we don't need to be so inclusive to orcs because orcs aren't real. Do what you wish as story master, I'm just saying an orc bard is inconsistent with medieval orc lore. It's a bit silly and D&Dish and that what happens when Hasbro enlists D&D players to make new quests and characters. The generic nature of HeroQuest has been a bit sidelined when all new heroes are now diverse races built into classes. The original Dwarf and Elf were stereotypical models of a warrior from their respective races, but it's grown a little convoluted now with a Rogue and Explorer being of those races leaving two of our beloved original heroes as just that: classless stereotypes.

But I will also reiterate that every game-master's world is uniquely their own. To boldly declare that certain mythical/fantasy creature types should only ever be portrayed in a certain way on the basis of "history of the lore" is also "lazy and ridiculous." I mean, I've never read the books myself, but I'm sure there are a LOT of R.A. Salvatore fans who would find the world a lot more boring if no one had ever bothered to ponder, "what if there were a -good- drow?" At what point, exactly, do you draw the line of "the lore -must- be inviolate" vs. acceptable creative license?

I think you start drawing the line, at least in HeroQuest, when the line becomes inconsistent with the HeroQuest story. To your credit there's no law saying the Orc can't be a bard, but it is in conflict with the way most consumers would see the way orcs should be and introducing one as a bard revokes anything generic he should have about him. My notion of a savage warlike antagonistic species producing a flamboyant melody-making fencer forces my mind to reconcile how this happened. His story is already halfway written in my head. The same goes for the Warlock... How a female halfling conjured and befriended a demonic entity is quite perplexing. Apparently I'm supposed to believe demons are good too now!

It's not just the Bard being an orc but the whole story of Spirit Queen's Torment throws a monkey wrench into the Zargon/Orc relationship. The Orc's drowned a temple to keep Zargon out? This is questionable as the heroes constantly slaughter orcs and there's no "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" dynamic. It's conceivable that there are Orc tribes that didn't enlist to fight for Zargon, then why are the heroes still fighting them? Furthermore if there's magic that allows the heroes to breathe underwater, Zargon should be able to counter this with all his power. So the story and potential characters of this quest book seems questionable and requires creative input to keep it consistent with other quest books.