[TRAD] Attack on the Sleep Wizard (from Dragão Brasil No.8)

[j_dean80]

Quest 1 map:

[j_dean80]

Quest 2 map:

[j_dean80]

Quest 3 map:

[Pancho]

Intro reworked for spelling/grammar etc;

Attack on the Sleep-Wizard: (or alternative title)

To complete each quest the heroes must complete their goal and return to the starting point, which is represented by the stairs tile.
Read the following text to the players:

After travelling for several weeks, you are finally back in the Empire. You soon realize that something is wrong. The streets are deserted. Where is everyone? What happened to the merchants, farmers, children and minstrels? You decide to go to the old tavern, searching for news.
Upon arrival, you are surrounded by silence, but the place is not empty.
The usual frequenters of the tavern are there, some are bent over tables while others are laying on the floor. Are they dead?
As you examine the bodies you see that none of them are dead; rather they have fallen into a deep sleep. Attempting to awake them doesn't work at all.
While you are trying to awaken them from their slumber, something strange happens: the embers in the fireplace suddenly burst aflame and a figure takes form within the fire.
His face is well known to you. It is Mentor that speaks;

"My friends, the Empire is the victim of a terrible sorcery*. Everyone is sleeping deeply.
An awful black cloud, like a tempest, covered this whole region. And once it disappeared everyone had fallen asleep.
Only the ones that were away in that moment have been spared, such as yourselves.
This is for sure the work of Lengrati, a powerful wizard who serves Zargon.
It is necessary to break the spell and this is only possible with the help of the legendary Magic Horn.
It is hidden in Lengrati's underground lair, in an old ruin, not so very far from here.
As soon as the Horn is played, everyone will awake.
Do not hesitate, my friends, go now and retrieve the horn."


(*sortilege is a word I was not familiar with. After looking it up it sort of fits the text, and its an interesting word, but its definitely not a word that would have been used in an official Quest pack in English, as very few players would be familiar with it. We can keep it, or just go with sorcery instead.

[Pancho]

Quest notes reworked for spelling/grammar etc;


Quest 1: The Rescue of the Crown

"Your first task is to regain the Emperor's* crown, stolen by Lengrati's Goblin whilst everyone was sleeping."

NOTES:
A. The chest in this room contains 30 gold coins.
B. The unlucky hero who opens this chest will be immediately attacked by 2 wandering monsters.**
C. If a hero searches for treasure here, he will find the Emperor's crown hidden inside the tomb.
D. This is a very old and damaged fireplace: when a hero searches for treasure in this room, a stone will fall on his head causing 2 BP of damage.

Wandering Monster: Goblin

*The Quest note says the Kings crown, but no King is ever mentioned, only the Empire/Emperor, so I went with that.
**alternatively the quest designer could mean that from now on that hero will be attacked by 2 wandering monsters instead of one, like a kind of curse?


Quest 2: The Sleep-Wizard

"It is now necessary to find Lengrati, the Sleep-Wizard, and ensure that he will never again cast any more of his sleep magic."

NOTES:
A. On the Wizard's table there are two magic scrolls: Genie and Swift Wind.
B. All of the weapons on the rack are in a bad state, except for one, a magic sword: it is the same as a broadsword but is able to cast a Tempest spell, once per quest (even if its bearer is not a wizard or an elf).
C. On the alchemist's bench there is a bottle of Heroic Brew.
D. The hero who searches for treasure here will find 50 gold coins hidden in the cupboard.
E. The hero who searches for treasure in this room will be immediately attacked by a wandering monster.
F. This is Lengrati's room, the "Sleep-Wizard". Lengrati is a shapeshifter: he can transform himself into an exact copy of any one hero, with the same attack and defence stats, body and mind points, weapons, armour and all his other equipment.*
Use the Chaos Warlock figure to represent him; however, the heroes will be confused and not easily able to discern Lengrati from their mimicked companion. Each time a hero attacks Lengrati he must roll a combat dice: if he rolls a black shield he will wrongly attack his companion (who will need to defend against the attack in the usual way) instead of Lengrati.
Obviously, the mimicked hero will not need to roll the dice to pass the test.

Wandering Monster: Gargoyle

*I think we should also give Lengrati the ability to cast the Sleep spell, like Lestodante suggested. Maybe he could attempt to cast it on all the Heroes and they can attempt to each counter it using a mind-based roll, in order to stay awake. This is because they have the advantage of knowing what Lengrati will try do to them, whereas the unsuspecting people of the Empire did not. I would allow him to do the shapechanging thing as soon as a Hero enters the room, then cast sleep on each subsequent turn. Otherwise I think the Heroes will just run in and kill him straight away before he can do anything interesting. He only has a single Skeleton to guard him. He doesn't have any stats of his own, so I think it is implied that he shapeshifts into a Hero before he can be attacked. The sleep spells will then keep the fight interesting.


Quest 3: The Magic Horn

"Lengrati has been defeated. It only remains to discover the Magic Horn that will awaken the entire Empire, freeing it from the evil sleep"

NOTES:
A. In this room, sitting upon the alchemist's bench, lies the Magic Horn.
B. The weapons on the rack are rusted and useless.
C. The bookshelf seems to be full of useless old scrolls, but when a hero searches for treasures he will find a small gem rolled up inside one scroll. It is worth 60 gold coins.
D. The cupboard in this room is a trap: if a hero searches for treasures here, a magic explosion will cause a 2 BP damage to all the heroes in the room.
E. Each chest in this room contains 50 gold coins.
F. On the wizard's table there is a Healing Potion.

Wandering Monster: Gargoyle

[Pancho]

Thanks for posting these notes Lestodante.

I'll have another look at this later to try and make some more improvements, I was bit rushed as my little lad is teething badly and making a lot of noise!

We would also need an artefact card for the Magic longsword (and maybe the magic horn and emperors crown too).
And a conclusion stating how glad the Emperor is to get his Crown back (and maybe for waking up his suspects too ), along with a cash reward.

Feedback/ideas/comments greatly appreciated...

[lestodante]

Thanks for the maps J_dean80, though I also generated them when I did the Italian version. I will add my tile to the second map for Lengrati's room.
And thanks for the revisions to Pancho.
Sortilege is a word that is often used in other languages for Heroquest (like the French and Italian ones).
Lengrati doesn't have any stats because he will acquire the same stats of the hero he will transform into; I guess this means the hero's ACTUAL stats and not the starting ones. So if the Barbarian enter the room with 1 body point left, Lengrati will not transform into the Barbarian because he will only have 1 bp too.
I'll wait to read your confirmation about revisions and if anyone else may wish to add something...

[Pancho]

Thanks for the maps J_dean80, though I also generated them when I did the Italian version. I will add my tile to the second map for Lengrati's room.
And thanks for the revisions to Pancho.
Sortilege is a word that is often used in other languages for Heroquest (like the French and Italian ones).
Lengrati doesn't have any stats because he will acquire the same stats of the hero he will transform into; I guess this means the hero's ACTUAL stats and not the starting ones. So if the Barbarian enter the room with 1 body point left, Lengrati will not transform into the Barbarian because he will only have 1 bp too.
I'll wait to read your confirmation about revisions and if anyone else may wish to add something...

Its great to learn an interesting new word like Sortilege.

I understand that Lengrati acquires the same stats as the Hero he transforms into. I was just raising the issue of what happens if he is attacked before he can transform, i.e if the transformation has to wait until his (i.e Zargon's) turn. Even if it is implied that he can shapeshift on the Heroes turn, i.e. as soon as he is encountered, there are still a few potential problems in the Quest design.
For example, a Barbarian Hero with 1BP enters Lengrati's room and attacks Lengrati. The other Heroes are still outside the room, lagging behind (or perhaps they are dead or only the Barbarian started the quest to begin with). Lengrati is forced to adopt the Barbarians stats, he has to as he has no actual stats of his own. The barbarian promptly cuts down the 1BP wizard before he has had a chance to do anything at all. I can see a lot of other scenarios that end in a complete anti-climax in this quest. Even if the shapeshift doesn't use the current body points of the Hero, this problem remains.
This is why I think Lengrati should get the shapeshifting ability AND the Sleep spell. He gets to shapechange OR cast sleep as soon as the first Hero enters the room. On subsequent turns he can shapeshift (if he hasn't done so already), or cast Sleep.
Without this I can see this Quest falling flat when a lot of people play it. And I still think its a bit odd that the Sleep-Wizard doesn't even know the Chaos spell "Sleep".

[The Admiral]

Yes, interesting quest,

Lengrati is indeed confusing. How does a Hero mistakenly attack a companion if that companion is nowhere near? I would simplify the whole thing and give him some base stats. Before a Hero attacks him, that Hero should roll one die. on a certain roll (I would make it a white shield or any shield) Lengrati shapeshifts into the form of one of the other Heroes. The Hero is so confused that he hesitates and misses the chance of making the attack. If the attacking Hero is the last/only Hero, he is never confused.

I would definitely allow him the Sleep spell and enable it to affect all Heroes in the same room as him. Maybe putting one Hero to sleep when your backup is a skellybob, is not very scary. He should also be allowed to cast it at any time without affecting his other actions: "Suddenly a black cloud fills the room and all Heroes in the room begin to feel sleepy. A sleep spell is cast on all Heroes in the same room as Legrati."

[lestodante]

Well, I guess everyone will agree about equipping Lengrati with the Sleep spell.
Please consider that this is not an official quest. Even official quests often features mistakes and lack of informations.
I translated the two previous quest packs (by the same author) published on other Dragao Brazil magazines and they were also full of errors (they need a lot of corrections)... so I don't wonder if also this third one could have something missing.
Any update will be cool. I think it's ok to create artifacts cards for the Tempest-Sword and the Magic Horn (we did in the italian version too), they can be used in further quests too. But I don't see the need to create a card for the crown because it is just a normal object and will be returned to the Emperor at the end of this pack.
We could also give Lengrati (or even any other monster or special traps in the quest) another spell, Drowsiness (or Sleepiness or Heaviness) whose effects can be similar to the SLOW spell from the Elf Quest Pack; because, except from the intro, there is nothing related about sleep during the quests.
Anyway it is not specified that Lengrati needs to see a hero to take his appearance, and since this ability is (in my opinion) the best part of the quest, I will not risk to make him die before he will transform. The heroes could be surprised to see a clone of their companion and may end their turn in confusion, so Lengrati will do the first move.
Definetely we have no restrictions about expanding or modifying this quest, so we just have to decide what we want to do.

I also like the idea that the whole room is surrounded by the black cloud that causes drowsiness to the heros (as The Admiral sayd) so this will also justify their confusion and why on every turn they can't recognize the sorceror or their friend.
As soon as we'll finish this, I guess I will do a 2.0 Italian version including all the implementations we are discussing here!