4. HQ25 - Story Arc discussion

[Sjeng]

well 18-25 seems a bit lengthy, so just write up 4 quests if you need 4. We'll sort that out later.

[gootchute]

Yeah someone mentioned combining the Greenskins with the intro, but by all means, separate the intro and lengthen the Ork quest as needed Quest 18-25 have a lot of filler, I was trying to come up with ideas to spark someone's Imagination here. Who will be handling these last quests?

[Count Mohawk]

Whoever gets to them, I assume. 18-25 (now 19-25, I suppose) isn't that bad an arc to write aside from its length, though. Are #24 and #25 going to be a sequence of two quests, or one double-sized Quest a la Frozen Horror / Mage of the Mirror? It's not difficult to make a case for either. #20, The City under Siege one sounds like fun to write, though. I have a fair bit of Quest writing left for my chapter, but if I finish and this section is still open I might take a crack at it myself.

[Gold Bearer]

I'd like to do Q23. I've got something in mind, nothing fancy, more of a standard quest than the four in the other chapter.

[MrBigB]

Here's an ultra short version of a plot outline (haven't got to filling out greenskin or undead chapter plots yet, that's why they're blank) I had floating around in my head. Not trying to step on toes, but I had to shorten/combine some stuff to get it to fit the 25 quest structure.

Respectfully submitted.

Chapter 1: Intro
Q1 - Village invaded
Q2 - Try to save villagers
Q3 - Escape back to Mentor

Chapter 2: Greenskin Arc
Q4 - (not sure who has this one)
Q5 - ?
Q6 - ?
Q7 - ?

Chapter 3: Kobold/Fimir Arc
Q8 - Reacue the noble's daughter from Fimir/Kobolds
Q9 - Save the Nobleman and try to recover the Scale of Teshnirax. It's gone!
Q10 - Into the Swamp Tomb and battle the Fimir leader. Recover the Scale.
Q11 - Tie up loose ends. Finish off the Kobold shaman.

Chapter 4: Beastmen/Chaos Dwarf Arc
Q12 - Through the caves to the Dark Castle... AMBUSHED!
Q13 - Entrance to Dark Castle [stealth quest] Chaos Dwarfs revealed. Find the dark forge, free the prisoners.
Q14 - find the relics, battle chaos dwarf sorcerers. Too late!
Q15 - Battle the demon, escape the crumbling castle.

Chapter 5: Undead Arc
Q16 - [insert Gold Bearer & Count Mowhawk's story]
Q17 -
Q18 -
Q19 -

Chapter 6: City Under Seige
Q20 - fight off the invading forces
Q21 - Kill the lieutenant to end the siege. Learn about 5th artifact to defeate big bad
Q22 - Quest for 5th artifact

Chapter 7: The big finale
Q23 - battle into the stronghold
Q24 - Finale part 1
Q25 - Finale part 2



Just an idea

[Gold Bearer]

I like that, it's neater. It would be Q22 I'm interested in that layout.

I've got something in mind, nothing fancy, more of a standard quest than the four in the other chapter.

I should have known better, I've had two ideas since I posted that. I'll go through what I'm thinking to see if people like it before I start on it.

The basic idea is to have a chaos lord in possession of the fifth master artefact. It will be an ice themed dungeon (ish) in the mountains somewhere, but without the ice monsters. I want to use our slannesh rules for this quest. They're my favourite and they'll probably be the least used because they'll be in a quest that's mostly undead in the other chapter. I'll put in a slannesh sorcerer because we haven't got one in the other chapter. He can have the AtHO tokens to make him distinct from the other two types. I plan on using ogres and beatsmen again. There's a big enough gap after the ogre/khorne quest to bring them back.

The two ideas I've just had are to have an ice mage npc join them for this quest. There's quite a few ice chaos spells so this will be easy to do. If fact he could simply have the six from the barbarian quest pack. The other idea is to reverse the normal quest narrative. They find the chaos lord/sorcerer/ogre chieftain in the central room so they have the main battle and get the artefact straight away but there's a cave in so the have to find another way out.

[Sjeng]

I'm doing the greenskin arc. I have the plot outline posted somewhere.

[Goblin-King]

@ MrBigB

Overall your plot outline seems pretty good.
Right now the chapter length is:

3 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 3

It's a minor detail, but personally I'd like if they varied a little more in length. Especially the four 4Q chapters.

***************************''

On another note. We are introducing a slew of new monsters...
Right now, depending on which force the BIG INVASION is made of (Really? What are the last two chapters? Have anyone talked about that?), each new monster gets around 4 quests.
I mean... If the chapters are gonna have just some hint of a theme, I don't expect say the kobold/fimir arc to be strewn with chaos dwarfs and beastmen.
Do you see the problem here?

We have a dedicated chaos dwarf/beastmen and Fimir/kobold arc. That's fine. But can we change some of the other things around to fit in more of the new monsters?
Like... can the intro be Fimirs/kobolds or beastmen instead of orcs? I mean it's insane NOT to use at least one of the new monsters in the FIRST quest.
Maybe the undead arc can take place in marshlands and include kobolds and fimirs.
These are just suggestions, but I think we really need to think the new monsters much more into the story.

Sorry for bringing this up this late in story development, but I only first really realized it now...

[Gold Bearer]

Maybe the undead arc can take place in marshlands and include kobolds and fimirs.

It does. One of the quests has beastmen as well, or it will if I ever get the heroscribe addon pack to run. I'll also be using beastmen and maybe chaos dwarves for the fifth artefect quest.

[MrBigB]

I'm doing the greenskin arc. I have the plot outline posted somewhere.

Awesome!

@ MrBigB

Overall your plot outline seems pretty good.
Right now the chapter length is:

3 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 3

It's a minor detail, but personally I'd like if they varied a little more in length. Especially the four 4Q chapters.

I don't disagree but the trick will be finding the space. Seems like in the last month we've gone from "yikes we need to get moving" to overflowing with content (which is awesome!). For my outline I had to artificially condense the Chaos dwarf chapter down to make it fit, which may or may not work with the authors vision for that chapter.

in my humble opinion we need to decide who is going to give and take, or cut some other element like the siege chapter (boo the siege idea is cool), shorten the intro ( ), or use the combined intro/greenskin arc to make room for some variety in the 25 quest structure. Alternatively we could up the total quest number, but frankly 25 is huge already.

Just spitballing ideas.