THE SPIRIT QUEEN'S TORMENT discussion

[Kurgan]

Or I mean like a two parter where you can't recharge spells, Mind/Body between the last two quests or something of that sort as is done in some of the official quest packs.

[Kimarous]

Okay, sure, everyone having a laugh over "elves and orcs working together", but how does it operate in context? Is it purely a fluff thing people might easily multiply? Are there orc allies in-game? If so, how do they operate? Do they "blend in" with the other orcs or warrant a distinct appearance?

[Kurgan]

Spoilerific spoilers. Spoilers obviously follow, plus my impressions skimming it all over, thanks to deadgamer's spoiler video.

We already know that elves and orcs are working together here, and I'm not totally against the idea, but here is what we learn...

So far it seems the quests are about medium difficulty by GS standards (23-31 BP worth of monsters, not counting wandering ones). They do work up to multiple monsters being the wandering variety (similar to some of the later classic Quest packs). If you survived The Trial, you probably won't have much trouble here, and it will be even easier if you remember HeroQuest and have a "fully equipped" team. This seems designed to ease the players back into it as opposed to trying to crush their spirits and punish them for their past successes. It doesn't quite feel as epic as ROTWL but there is a thread running through it, so it is clearly meant to be played in order (14 total quests). I was a bit surprised there were more than 10 here, so as to whether some of the missions are going to feel like filler, I'd have to see by playing it through with others.

As far as monsters there is enemy variety, so it's not just greenskins you'll be facing. Also the Orcs you do find as allies are magic users (3 spells apiece), so they should help out a lot. [Edit: I was wrong about this, the magic using Bard only appears as a backup life for one hero, the rest of the Orc allies have regular Orc stats] If your heroes never die, this could make the quests fairly easy, if you're experienced at all and especially if you had any leftover gear from past campaigns, even if you have to endure some puzzles.

The Orc history seems to be that in ancient times they had kingdoms, studied dangerous magic and weren't all evil. Today they are mostly evil but there are some exceptions, like those that are hired by a certain Elf lady who is a "diviner" for Mentor (why does he need diviners if he has Loretome? Who knows).

So were the Orcs corrupted by dread magic and then became allied to the evil sorcerer Zargon or did he introduce the magic to them? I'll have to read on...

There are many references to the "far voice spell" which is just a way to have the good guy narrator character provide advice or whatever mid-quest. By making it someone other than Mentor I guess they avoid all that "I cannot interfere..." stuff from previous lore. Though it does beg the question of why can't Mentor always send far voice diviners to help you out all the time?

In certain quests if a hero does, he can be replaced ONCE by the Bard hero. Otherwise when you find an Orc ally you can take control of them after your own hero similar to controlling Sir Ragnar. They don't collect treasure but otherwise can do everything the "Bard" can do.

There seem to be a puzzle mission or two (think, you have to beat it within a certain time/number of turns or you fail; or magical effects are on heroes for most/all of the quest, stuff we've seen before but always interesting), and some search and rescue missions here. Monsters that have Dread spells are sprinkled here and there but nothing too crazy. The general lack of boss characters with unique stats is interesting... until the end that is. There's more than one way to defeat the final baddie, which is kind of a cool thing, and I almost don't want to spoil it here, but here goes. Basically you can try to overwhelm them with combat like usual or try to drain their mind points (riskier).

Some familiar Game System artifacts re-appear in this one and the Alchemist Shop used is identical to the one in KK/ROTWL (the artifacts are a mixture of new ones, GS and KK/ROTWL). They do at times include the verbiage (if they don't already have it) meaning you wouldn't necessarily have two copies of it if you retained it from the GS, but if not, then in theory you could. Helpful if you have brand new heroes or lost your gear along the way. It looks very possible you could play this with a brand new group.

My take. Mentor seems really casual in this one. I guess the idea of him having more people working for him makes a certain amount of sense (or at least that he'd keep tabs on all the magic users in the area). There's many mentions of the afterlife, which we hadn't seen before (but one could presume it was always there in the background, just not a topic of frequent discussion). The idea of some Orcs not being all bad is controversial with some but I don't have a real problem with it, since the main reality is still (at least according to this quest pack) most Orcs are evil, cannon fodder, like they always were in HQ. The new Orcs wouldn't even have to be Orcs at all, so they're not over the top meatheads like say the 40K Orks, which loses a bit of the charm, but at the same time HQ never really played up those aspects. The player was left to fill in the details of what the Orcs were actually like in their behavior, besides providing constant trouble for the good guys and seeming to relish violence in general. Considering how it could have gone, I appreciate the restraint shown here in trying to re-overwrite the past lore. I'll have to look at the other quest packs to see if there's anything more there. Obviously the GS monster section gives the impression that only some (most?) of the Orcs today are "allied with evil sorcerers."

Overall even without playing them yet, it looks like this pack is a decent "get rid of the ring rust" outing for the heroes who haven't played in decades but wanted a fresh adventure that wasn't too familiar, like an alternate game system as opposed to a bloody meat grinder like the other official quest packs.

That's what has stuck out so far, thanks to deadgamer for the spoilers!

[lestodante]

like those that are hired by a certain Elf lady who is a "diviner" for Mentor (why does he need diviners if he has Loretome? Who knows).

Loretome is often not very clear so he maybe needs some help to interpret its pages some times .

Okay, sure, everyone having a laugh over "elves and orcs working together", but how does it operate in context? Is it purely a fluff thing people might easily multiply? Are there orc allies in-game? If so, how do they operate? Do they "blend in" with the other orcs or warrant a distinct appearance?

In Quest 12 from Prophecy of Telor there is also a Goblin that meets the Heroes and helps them. It says "he serves the Realm".

[Kurgan]

Nice! In my version he will say "For the Empire!" (although it came out sounding like a squeaky kind of Gollum voice when he said it)

Zargon must really be in trouble by this point if his low level grunts are starting to break ranks and turn traitor. So in the chronology I guess you could put this early on (like before things have gotten really serious and he's weeded out the weak links) or even later on, as a kind of mop up operation?

Some of Zargon's disciples are true slaves to darkness, others are fanatics and others are just there because they see in him the promises of plunder and an excuse for bloodshed. If there can be traitors among the Empire/Realm's ranks, there maybe there can be on the monster's side too. Again, may be controversial with some.

I was kind of expecting this quest book to not be very good, but it doesn't sound so bad reading it over.

[Kurgan]

I need to rest, but thinking about it more, maybe the whole "diviners" thing is another clue that perhaps we are reaching the end stages of the war. Maybe Mentor's age is finally catching up with him and he can't quite keep track of it all like he used to so he needs these diviners to supplement his abilities. You can make up whatever ideas you want but that combined with Orcs slipping through the cracks makes me think Zargon himself might be slipping, meaning his power and threat over the world is starting to crack. Just speculation of course. You could just as easily say that it was "always like this" in the background, we just didn't focus on it in the past. Or this could just be the exception in this one part of the world (he has allies in other regions that stretch that influence out).

[Pancho]

The story sounds *lemony goodness* to be honest. Sounds like the writer has either never played Heroquest or has a big enough ego/delusion that he thinks he can do better.

In your opinions how easy would it be to change the story so that the good orcs ( ) are completely replaced by another race? Humans from Bretonnia, or Tilea, for example, or even Norsemen?
Bretonnians could be a good option because they have a strong tradition of chivalry (for the Bard) and it lies right on the border of the Elven realm.

[Shadzar]

The story sounds *lemony goodness* to be honest. Sounds like the writer has either never played Heroquest or has a big enough ego/delusion that he thinks he can do better.

or maybe both..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5seuZ50yk-Q

[manaknight14]

Hey everybody, longtime lurker here but I finally made an account because I saw an issue that nobody seems to be addressing here nor in the errata thread.

Quest 8 mentions that all monsters deal damage to heroes' mind points instead of body points. However, it never states what the MP damage actually does when you hit 0. MP effects are usually situation-specific, correct? Borokk from KK can kill you with MP damage while Bellthor from RotWL just knocks you unconscious, but each of those describe the effect as specific to that character's attack. Given that this expansion uses NA rules, the closest thing I can think of as a "default" 0MP effect would be the "shock" rules from the Barbarian and Elf packs, but that would make Quest 8 a joke. The only way to fail would be accumulating damage from hazards drawn during treasure searches and the single spear trap on the map. However, that system would make Quest 9 pretty interesting, since only the orcs there do MP damage while the other monsters are normal.

Any thoughts?

[Kurgan]

Hey everybody, longtime lurker here but I finally made an account because I saw an issue that nobody seems to be addressing here nor in the errata thread.

Quest 8 mentions that all monsters deal damage to heroes' mind points instead of body points. However, it never states what the MP damage actually does when you hit 0. MP effects are usually situation-specific, correct? Borokk from KK can kill you with MP damage while Bellthor from RotWL just knocks you unconscious, but each of those describe the effect as specific to that character's attack. Given that this expansion uses NA rules, the closest thing I can think of as a "default" 0MP effect would be the "shock" rules from the Barbarian and Elf packs, but that would make Quest 8 a joke. The only way to fail would be accumulating damage from hazards drawn during treasure searches and the single spear trap on the map. However, that system would make Quest 9 pretty interesting, since only the orcs there do MP damage while the other monsters are normal.

Any thoughts?

You should add this to the list being put together at the Errata thread

I just assumed that MP damage in KK was like ROTWL MP damage, but I guess my memory isn't that good and I'd have to look back at it.