Ye Olde Inn

OK, so I got sick of trying to decipher the 'homebrew' look of this White Dwarf adventure and decided to make myself some HeroScribe maps for Eyes of Chaos.

Is it just me, or is this adventure a bit... nonsensical?

In the first Quest, there are three tombs. (Though it's easy enough to substitute the card coffins from Return of the Witch Lord.)

In the second Quest, there are no fewer than five treasure chests. (Granted, two of them don't do anything and can be left out.)

The author also doesn't seem to understand how searching for treasure works. He keeps saying things like 'the treasure chest in this room allows the Heroes to draw treasure cards' instead of providing a gold value, as if he's playing Warhammer Quest from the future (or possibly Advanced Heroquest?).

Most alarmingly, it looks as if the falling block trap on the bottom right of the map will make the Quest impossible to complete.* The players can't get into the central room without the Brass Key (unless Genie works?) and have to go past the falling block to find it. But then they won't be able to get back to the door and so can't fight the Sorcerer. Meanwhile, anyone stuck on the near side of the block won't be able to reach the stairs.

Not that any actual reward is specified anywhere for this Quest, so I suppose the Heroes could just skedaddle... "Sorry Pierre, he who lives to fight another day and all that!"

I think adding a secret door on the south side of the eastern corridor (a few squares before the pit trap) should work. It will make it easy to get to the stairway without investigating the rest of the board, but they could just go around the long way past the falling block for the same result.

*I'm not entirely sure what he intended with the block traps, though, because they lack arrows (as do the ones in Durrag-Dol from #134). They might be intended more like the Spirit Blade quest ones that just bonk you on the helmet. But some of them sure look like those nasty ones in Ogre Horde that are meant to trap you forever.

The whole Quest is a bit bonkers, really. The Eyes themselves seem like a Saturday morning cartoon gimmick (ooh, glowing skulls!) that never goes anywhere interesting. And the sheer number of Ogres looks terrifying.

It would have been nice to mention in the intro that you need to own Return of the Witch Lord as well as Ogre Horde (because zombies).

I do like the condensed-Troll-vapour-in-a-chest, though. Not your standard treasure chest trap. But can't the heroes just run straight past him down the stairs? Hmm... maybe if he's a Citadel miniature and has a large base, he can appear on the stairs and block everyone's path...

“Back in WHFB” The trolls were on 40mm square bases and blocked 4 squares.

Zenithfleet wrote:. . . Is it just me, or is this adventure a bit... nonsensical?

In the first Quest, there are three tombs. (Though it's easy enough to substitute the card coffins from Return of the Witch Lord.)

In the second Quest, there are no fewer than five treasure chests. (Granted, two of them don't do anything and can be left out.)

Carl Sargent was a professional fantasy game contributor in his time, but this is a clear example of someone brought in who doesn't understand the game well. I like your solutions.

Zenithfleet wrote:The author also doesn't seem to understand how searching for treasure works. He keeps saying things like 'the treasure chest in this room allows the Heroes to draw treasure cards' instead of providing a gold value, as if he's playing Warhammer Quest from the future (or possibly Advanced Heroquest?).

It's weird, but I don't mind it too much since the EU rules only allow one treasure search per room. I'd say it works best with the chest that gave three searches with no chance of a Wandering Monster. However, there was another instance when specific searching of the Weapon Rack was necessary to draw a Treasure Card. Was this intended as an additional search, or just the standard once-in-the-room-only search with flowery prose? That I mind.

Zenithfleet wrote:Most alarmingly, it looks as if the falling block trap on the bottom right of the map will make the Quest impossible to complete.* The players can't get into the central room without the Brass Key (unless Genie works?) and have to go past the falling block to find it. But then they won't be able to get back to the door and so can't fight the Sorcerer. Meanwhile, anyone stuck on the near side of the block won't be able to reach the stairs.

I like the Genie idea. A Pass through Rock spell to enter and then open the room from the inside would also do the trick. But yeah, the falling block trap squrely short circuits this Quest. Hopefully the Heroes have the Ring of Return handy. This is why Zenithfleet made localized EU Artifact Cards.

Daedalus wrote:

Zenithfleet wrote:Most alarmingly, it looks as if the falling block trap on the bottom right of the map will make the Quest impossible to complete.* The players can't get into the central room without the Brass Key (unless Genie works?) and have to go past the falling block to find it. But then they won't be able to get back to the door and so can't fight the Sorcerer. Meanwhile, anyone stuck on the near side of the block won't be able to reach the stairs.

I like the Genie idea. A Pass through Rock spell to enter and then open the room from the inside would also do the trick. But yeah, the falling block trap squrely short circuits this Quest. Hopefully the Heroes have the Ring of Return handy. This is why Zenithfleet made localized EU Artifact Cards.

The Ring of Return was only in the US version of HQ, so there's no reason to suspect that UK players would have it, and GW was still breaking into the US market when this quest was designed. Thus, I don't think this quest was designed with the Ring of Return in mind.

Either Carl thought that the party would be looking for traps automatically by this point, so would detect and disarm this trap, or that fallen blocks can be removed somehow. Of course, the quest is full of fallen blocks that dead-end the Heroes, so perhaps the soft-lock is intentional, since the quest itself doesn't require killing the Chaos Sorcerer, and it's supposed to be a "d'oh!" moment when you realise what the key for, and that you've missed out on the big room with the big loot (a 200gp treasure AND a three-card Treasure Without Doom effect).

If the Heroes are caught on the wrong side of the Fallen Block, then a lenient EW might allow Pass Through Rock or Genie to work to access room H. If they go this route though, then the resulting cave in from the defeat of the Chaos Sorcerer might cause the south wall to collapse, allowing the Heroes to escape to the rest of the dungeon, but they are STILL only able to enter two NEW rooms before the complex collapses. Since there are only two routes with rooms that feature another door besides the entrance, it's a 50/50 chance that they survive. Best they choose wisely!

Alternatively, the single fallen block tile outside room H could be converted to a fallen block trap. This gives the Heroes another chance to be able to complete the Quest by getting the Brass Key, and the Heroes should be more wary of fallen block traps in the area after the first one.

Finally, a really nice EW might allow the wall north of the room to the left of the stairs to collapse as the Heroes pass when the cave in has started, giving the Heroes an escape route (if they blocked or not) after defeating the Chaos Sorcerer. It's worth noting that the treasure chest in this room doesn't have any effect, so having the wall collapse ON the Treasure Chest might just haunt the Heroes enough to think about all that lost loot.

Combining these options allows the Quest to be fully playable as intended, but gives the Heroes more chance to escape, since the collapsed wall presents a 50/50 chance of finding the stairway straight away, AND any intelligent player will realise not only that there is nowhere else to go if they explored the whole dungeon, but in order to survive, the next room they enter has to contain the staircase (especially if you let the Dwarf figure out roughly how long they have). This should make the party hesitant to just rush in to every room if they haven't explored the complex, and only makes the dungeon a potential deathtrap if they didn't use the Brass Key to enter the Sorcerer's room...

So you need to look at this Quest from the EU rules perspective:

If you set off a trap it is placed on the board.
If you search for a trap it is placed on the board.

However, you can always disarm the trap and remove it. This is whether it was searched or tripped. So, in other words, they never actually trap you.

The biggest issue with the falling block trap is: Where is the arrow?

Interesting stuff guys. I had this one printed out (the version posted on Phoenix's site) for ages but still haven't played it (and I try not to study a quest until its time to play it for the first time, to avoid "spoilers") so didn't know about these issues.

Anybody want to mock up a proposed fix?

Edit: Ye Olde Inn scan here
Phoenix version available on this page

I have been recently revisiting this classic quest for EU version of the game, and yes... as told in some other posts of this thread, I also think this quest is not very well designed.

I was trying to make a decent conversion of this quest to NA rules (and also for its current Hasbro edition), and those are the main changes I would introduce to the quest, also including corrections to those so metioned flaws that the original quest has:


1. First of all I would rewrite a bit the main rules to play this quest. The role of character Pierre I think should be better explained, maybe a fifth Hero should be allowed if playing this quest, and Pierre should have the same stats, equipment and skills as a regular Knight Hero, like the ones included in Commander of the Guardian Knights and Rise of the Dread Moon expansions.

2.- The main objective of this quest should be better explained to the Heroes since it is not clear at all, and also some Mentor words as Epilogue should be also added.

3.- Two of the tombs should be replaced by 2 tomb 2x2 tiles each ike the ones from ROTWL.

4.- I would modify Monsters stats to fit with the rest of NA monsters. For regular Ogres I would consider the new stats defined for them In Mage of the Mirror edition from 2023. Then these are the stats I would define for Ogres and Trolls:

Ogre Warrior: M6 AD5 DD5 BP5 MP1
Ogre Chieftain: M4 AD6 DD6 BP6 MP2
Troll: M5 AD5 DD4 BP6 MP1

These new stats make the quest much more challenging for the Heroes, but it could justify the use of five Heroes instead of four, so no problem. However, it is true that maybe the quest should give better rewards to the Heroes for entering to this dangerous lair, so I will include good amount of gold for them (see later below).

5.- In the first map there are some 1x1 block tiles not needed that can be deleted. Moreover, I would divide the bottom 2x1 block tile in two 1x1 block tiles, and I would hide them 1 square into the lateral corridors to let making intereting for the Heroes such place of the dungeon, otherwise the traps placed in such double coirrdor have not too much sense because they would never been triggered, probably.

6.- It has not too much sense why most of the mosnters equiped with Crossbows are placed inside small rooms, but Ok, some re-arrangement of the monsters positions could make those weapons much interesting. However I would fully eliminate the text explaining that those weapons cannot be taken by the Heroes...

7.- First map: I would remove the empty chest next to the tombs since it makes no sense for me and I would place it in room B, including inside it 300 gold coins to justify such amount of muonsters placed there. I would also include two Potions of Healing of 4 BPs inside the empty chest of the central room since the Heroes will need them after fighting those three Ogres.

8.- First map: Reward of chest of room C should be also changed because drawing cards I think has no sense in NA rules. I would introduce there 100 gold coins. I would also rewrite the text about the appearance of the Troll to become it more dramatic, linking it to some kind of magical trap in the chest which caused the gas.

9.- First map: Rules of the trap at the stairway I think should be redesigned a bit becuase they dont cover the situation of having one Hero wearing a Plate Mail, for example. Then I would just say that the Heroes must roll twice their Movement dice, and each time they roll less than 6, they are hit by the rocks, so they also must roll 3 Combat Dice, each Skull means 1 less Body Point. I prefer saying all this information instead of refering to the general rules for Falling Rock traps, since it could be confusing (i.e. in the stairway I think there is not any 'adjacent' square to move after falling the rock). Aditionally, if somebody wears a Plate Mail, he still has a chance of not being hit, by rolling a 6 (Difficult, I know, but much better than the roriginal rule without any chance).

10.- Second map: I see Note B too breaking, because it doesn't care about how strong i each character, and the dorr cannot be opened by heroes who attack with less than 3 dice, so it should be nerfed... I would just give 5 BPs to the door with no posible defend, instead of rolling 3 combat dice. This change would also allow the use of magic against the door.

11.- Second map: In Note D I would change the rules for the sword of the Ogre since it is a bit confusing nor weird, and probably too overpowered for the new stats I have defined for this monster, so I would give the Ogre Chieftain the ability of rerolling 1 Combat Die in attack or in defense, and that's all. I would also give the door key to the Ogre Chieftain, I see thematically better. I f the ogre is defeated, the heroes take the key. I also consider absurd the reward of the rack so I would just eliminate it.

12.- Second map: I would put 300 gold coins inside the chest of Note E, and I would rewrite a bit the Spell Scroll text, explaining that only those non used spells or those already cast spells (the available ones in the game box) can be placed inside the scroll.

13.- Second map: Note F should be better written since Heroes do not open cupboards, they search for treasure. In NA rules there are no official Spears, so I would replace it by a Longsword, which will be probably taken by Pierre player if he started with a shortsword as any other basic Knight character, so I see this change cool because allows some character progression to Pierre during the quest.

14.- Second map: In Note H I think should be clarified that the dispell ability of the Chaos Sorcerer works if rolling any kind of Shield (White or Black). Additionally, I think the potion rules should be also clarified, by telling that the Sorcerrr should drink the potion once he reaches 0 Body Points, like the Heroes can do (otherwise it does not make sense a potion which restores 3 BPs since the Sorcerer only has 3 BPs). I would also introduce 500 gold coins inside the chest. And Finally, I would add the following Chaos spell list for the Sorcerer, instead of giving him the Fire spells since it has no sense under NA rules: Firestorm, Ball of Flame, Sleep and Command.

15.- Second map: As mentioned in other posts, I would change the position of lower right Falling Block trap because it could block the Heroes path to the central room once they had found the key.

16.- Second map: The rule about the Fire Ruby I think makes not too much sense beause it clashes with the searching for treasure rules of NA version of the game, so I would eliminate it (but not its value of 200 gold coins).

17.- Second map: The Finale is too weird... I would say better that a secret door is suddenly opened in the central room, below the fireplace, giving access to the corridor door in the path to the stairway, but I would also add a block tile in the corridor corner to make those final rooms only visited at the very end, once the Chaos Sorcererd had been defeated. Anyway, I think the final text should be fully rewritten to give more drama to the Heroes' escape.



And... that's all!

And another fail: the quest has troll listed as a new monster but I cant find where is it on the map. Did the designer forget about it or Im missing something?

The Troll appears (I guess magically) after activating a trap inside a chest, that's why it is not represented in the map.

Weird to read about all the problems with this. I played this waaaay back in the day with an actual group of people (wife, friend and her other half. I can't remember which one because we played with her husband and then she left him for her second husband who played then as well. It didn't seem at all strange). But I don't remember any problems. I think when I was younger I didn't care as much and was happy to just fudge things as we went along. To be honest most of my time was spent trying to get the girls to concentrate on the game!