Ye Olde Inn

Greetings fellow Inn dwellers. Having not been able to play HeroQuest in a very long time, two of my friends came to stay this weekend (one from as far as Scotland) and we were able to play four quests, which I thought I might share here.

Neither had played before, but both are experienced gamers, so the learning phase was pretty quick...



We began with Quest 1: The Rescue of Sir Ragnar. One player took the Elf and the Wizard, while the second took the Barbarian and the Ranger. After opening the door from the first chamber, the party split up immediately, the Wizard heading off alone in the direction of the cell, while the other characters moved down the corridor in differing directions. The Wizard, on spying a goblin waiting by a door, proceeded to ignore it and ventured into the nearby room...where there was an Orc lying in wait. Meanwhile the Ranger had slain a goblin with her shortbow and discovered a treasure chest. On my turn the poor Wizard was pincered by my orc and goblin team, who eviscerated him. Poor Wizard hadn't even cast a spell...

After that, the players became somewhat more cohesive. As a team, they moved through the northernmost rooms one by one and took down the goblins and orcs with relative ease. After clearing the rooms, the players moved down toward the cell. Feeling a little overconfident again, the Elf cast Pass Through Rock on himself and walked straight into the room outside the guard's cell. After being jumped by a pair of orcs and surrounded, the other player quickly brought the Barbarian and Ranger around to join the fray.

Once they lay slain, the secret door was discovered, the intrepid Ranger firing a flurry of arrows into the Fimir guard. Sadly for me, but to the players' relief, the alarm that sounded alerted nobody, as the dungeon had been cleared.

In my rules the EWP may 'Gather Power' on their turn, but I had so far only managed to gather the Chaos Power 'Cursed Ground' which allowed me to raise any dead creatures as skeletons. I played it in the room with the stair tile, where the orc champion had appeared, but the heroes were able to lure him out and slay him in one turn, after the champion managed to miss the Barbarian with his strike.

All in all a good first run, although the Wizard player had to choose a new mini for his new Wizard. The gold and potions gathered from the treasure searches were stashed for this round. The Ranger wanted to save for her Greater Ability allowing her to take a companion pet, so decided to hold onto that gold for now...

-Saiya-

Quest 2: Lair of the Orc Warlord

Quite a quick one...things get more interesting in the following two quests.

The newly created Wizard joined the party and the decision was made to let the Barbarian and Ranger head in first. The group of goblins and fimir were dispatched with little trouble and the heroes proceeded deeper and deeper into the dungeon. A wandering monster and some treasure later and the party were feeling pretty comfy. So when the room just prior to Ulag revealed an angry mob they began to panic a little...but not much. Again, they swiftly cut down my poor minions, before opening the door to Ulag's chamber. For the second quest in a row, my boss was not very effective. Ulag lasted a couple of turns, and even a Shield of Protection from my goblin shaman did little to stem the flurry of blades and arrows. A well placed Wall of Flame cut off the shaman from the rest and allowed the team to take Ulag after a pathetic two turns. I hope my bosses start rolling better dice...

-Saiya-

Quest 3: Prince Magnus's Gold

Saving their gold for some big upgrades, the heroes ventured into this quest with only their basic gear still, although some good treasure searches and looted bosses had yielded some healing potions, magic resistance potions and a weapon runestone. The first few rooms offered little resistance, as several orc and goblin corpses littered the hallway. As they reached the corridor, a timely search for traps revealed the pits in front of the cell where a prisoner begged for freedom. Lacking the key, the party had no choice but to travel on.

After defeating the goblins in the torture chamber, the wizard sprung another pit trap, but was saved further humiliation when the Barbarian found the spear trap next to it. Having found the jailer, the prisoner, a scout, was freed and the traps disarmed (lacking a dwarf or a toolkit, the scout was the only way they could deal with the traps) before a secret door was revealed to allow progress into the depths of the dungeon.

By this point I had managed to gather power and had two fimir in my monster pool and the interrupt power available. When the cosy room with the orcs was revealed, I placed the fimir here too. The scout, who had opened the door, thought better of it, but it was too late. I used interrupt to move up the fimir and surround him, getting two free attacks. As the rest of the party moved down the corridor, the orcs moved up and each cast their sleep spell. The barbarian fell straight away and slept deeply on the stone floor. The scout, having escaped, incurred the ire of the dungeon's denizens and was swiftly dispatched.

Stepping over the bodies of the fallen, the heroes saw the orc archers readying their bows, so the wizard conjured a wall of flame to block their path and allow the heroes to move into position. Well played again, wizard...

The chaos warrior and its minions put up a brave fight. The wizard had burned all his spells throughout the dungeon and had to begin a meditation to gain some spells back. Meditation can only begin if he has no spells, so if I could break it, he'd be on one spell. The party huddled up though and stopped any attacks reaching the wizard, who stopped meditating with three spells and burned my poor fimir to death. The heroes found an odd trapdoor, but it was locked and so they began to leave with the chests they had been charged with retrieving. As they did, the door sealed shut and from the trapdoor Gulthor emerged, to take his revenge for the slaughter of his minions (and the theft of his gold). He managed to hurt the party, but not enough, for the heroes emerged victorious, although a little beaten.

-Saiya-

Quest 4: Melar's Maze

This one was more involved than previous quests, and now that the heroes knew what they were doing we got into the roleplay a bit more, describing actions in combat and detailing rooms and encounters more. Took more time, but totally worth it.

After leaving the first room, the Elf searched the corridor, having spied an ancient mummy moving in the darkness beyond. The rock trap revealed, and the threat of the mummy dissipated they began to search through the first room. I was disappointed I couldn't split up the party, as the rock trap was designed to do, but I would have my fun later. As Melar's key vanished in their hand the heroes found an old study which I adorned with some old crates and barrels (note to self - need more dungeon clutter) where they encountered their first zombies. The animated cadavers dispatched, and a scroll of Tempest in the bag they began to delve deeper. After finding a secret door in the cell with the zombie, the impetuous barbarian fell right into a pit with a skeleton standing over him. The ranger by this point was getting a reputation from terrible rolls and missing most shots (saving for the companion pet meant foregoing a longbow) and this was no exception. Firing over the barbarian in the pit she missed wildly, so it fell to the wizard to incinerate the undead creature with a Fire of Wrath.

Further exploration led the heroes to a room with a long banquet table, filled with a glorious feast (odd considering the dungeon is so ancient) and four skeletons slumped against the table. As fortune would have it the Barbarian was the first in and searched for treasure. Failing a Mind check, he was drawn to the food and fell instantly to sleep. I had two zombies in the monster pool at this time, but forgot entirely... Having them sneak up on the sleeping hero would have been so much fun!

The other heroes left the barbarian to his slumber and pushed past a portcullis and an unusual statue. The barbarian missed three more turns before succeeding his mind check and running as fast as he could to catch his friends. Good thing too, as the door was opened and the gargoyle came to life...before being locked down by the wizard. First a tempest and then sleep spell meant that the gargoyle didn't survive to make an action. Shame too, as its stone form ability would have made it quite a threat. Impressed at the players I knew I had something else up my sleeve.

The chaos obelisks rose from the ground, crackling with chaos energy, to strike out at the heroes, dealing a little damage to the party before they reduced them to black dust. The best part was the golem though. When they had the talisman, the golem fell from the darkness above to attack the barbarian who had taken the Talisman of Lore. As he struck, I played my two zombies in the corridor outside, but the wizard managed to block their entry with wall of flame. The golem however proved to be a real threat. Four attack dice with no armour upgrades for the heroes meant that they had to use a good number of healing spells and potions to stay alive. The monstrous trait is had also meant that they had to score a two or more on their attack dice before the golem even needed to roll defence. After a gruelling seven turns of combat (sadly the collapse ability was only used once - rubbish rolls on my part) the heroes were beaten and bloodied, but stood victorious.

My friends are back home now, but I hope to get playing some more soon.

Next time I need my HeroQuest soundtrack to accompany the dungeon...

-Saiya-

Just wanted to tell you that I'm enjoying your recent posts.

I hope you're able to keep coming back with your friends and posting your battle reports and rules/modifications.

That's a nice addition you have for Melar's Maze there! I just came around the first time to check this thread and i must confess, i like the trap with the skeletons and the obelisks. Plus, the storm traps move a hero to the end of the corridor, in effect (finally!) turning this maze into a maze.

i think i will copy one or two features from your map here. Thanks a lot!

Yup. Keep it up.
I use that board myself, and the MiniFurniture folder in HeroScribe is the *lemony goodness*.
The possibilities this opens up are endless and you've already used some of them.
I might not always post my "Ooohs" and "Aaahs", but I'm definitely disctinctly interested in threads like these.

Thanks for the comments guys. Hoping to get some more gaming on today with another couple of mates. Might have to Skype in my friend from Scotland, but the other half of that group visits every few months, so here's hoping to get some more games on soon!

The obelisks are fun, I saw them on Reaper Minis and added them to an order and figured they'd make a good encounter of some sort. Might get them with a boss in the future! Sadly, as the heroes avoided the rockfall trap, they didn't approach from the side with the hurricane traps. Perhaps my group today will be less fortunate...

And I agree Knighcrawler, the board is excellent. £30 from printed.com and the extra width corridors make encounters far more interesting. The 30mm squares are such a godsend for the usually crowded HQ board!

-Saiya-

Nice write-up! I like your quest modifications, might incorporate some ideas into my own running campaign.
Looking forward to the continuation.

Thank you for the comments!

My friends are coming over in two weeks for a long weekend of D&D and HeroQuest, so I hope to write up some more adventures in the world of Heroquest

-Saiya-