Heroquest remake by Hasbro - The BIG discussion thread

[Edge]

That would certainly be cool (and I can't take all the credit of course).

Have you ever used HeroScribe, Edge?

It may not be Mario Maker, but it's pretty simple once you start using it.

I haven’t, though I’ve heard about it. I’ll check it out! Still hoping for super simple drag-and-drop, with text editing and official fonts in the Companion App, though.

[Edge]

While I am not a Warhammer geek, I do prefer Fimir to Abominations. Dread/Chaos...whatever. That is just semantics. But Fimir were nasty when you know the Lore. Abomination fish men dudes just do not thematically fit. Where is the nearby body of water? What is this Creature from the Black Lagoon looking freak even doing in this crypt or dungeon or other place underground nowhere near water?

It is a minor thing to hang up on and I won't mention it when we play again. (Saturday) If the players mention it I will point out that the new edition will be mothballed once we play with it a couple times. I painted up 4 sets of old school mini's, I got the huge roll up mat (the one with double wide halls) and all my original furniture is painted. I only got the mythic tier because I am a HQ junkie. I seriously didn't need the new set.

To be honest, I never even knew the lore of the Fimir, and my vision for the Abominations is inspired by Lovecraft’s Deep Ones rather than the Lagoon Creature.

I looked up Fimir lore, though, (thank you!) and now I have a developing backstory for the Abominations:

They are the most ancient race, the chosen before the rise of Humans, before even the Elves inhabited this world. They worship primarily Sh’drash and her consort Daegon, and the other Chaos Gods. The Chaos Gods lost out to the gods of the Elves and Humans, eventually becoming demonic deities of Dread. They are a matriarchal society, each clan or “Hive” ruled by a High Priestess Queen. Young females who can appear mostly human are “Sirens” who seduce or abduct human males. They delight in enslaving and torturing humans, though an extremely rare few have grown to sympathize with “human scum”. This transgression is seen similarly to how most humans view bestiality when not explicitly ordered by a High Priestess Queen. It is a cardinal sin punishable by torture and death, with the human lover being tortured and killed first and the traitorous Abomination forced to watch before she is also tortured and executed. Both female Abominations and human males possess genes which limit growth, otherwise the offspring would grow to the size of Ancient Ones and the clandestine work of establishing these hybrid villages would be lost. Also, since most male Abominations lack the magic abilities of the female, Abominations believe that such offspring would be addlebrained “abominations”, an affront to themselves.

The “Abominations”, who actually have many ancient names, are the most devout followers of Zargon, as they alone have religious zeal motivating their fight against the Heroes. They believe that the world has been stolen from them, and they seek to recanonize their gods as supreme rulers of the universe and themselves as the chosen and dominant people. In truth, they are also biding their time to overtake Zargon himself, whom they actually view as just another usurper and a means to their own end of restoring the world to its former glory as a place of chaos, destruction, and bloody survival. Most of the Abominations sent to serve Zargon are males, who hold a place in Abomination society similar to bee drones. Due to their lack of magic, Abomination males have no value in society. Males are taught that their lack of magic and place in society is a byproduct of the fall of their ancient gods. Abominations live for vengeance and one of the only ways males have to gain honor of any kind is fighting or dying in service to “the Restoration”. Even given the honor of breeding with a Priestess is seen as simply obligatory and does nothing to elevate a male’s status. They see the Orcs, Goblins, Undead, and especially the humanoid Dread Warriors and Witches as fundamentally beneath them. They are only allied out of convenience, their passionate zeal serving a much greater cause.

Over time, some of them have made the ultimate sacrifice of breeding with humans, to establish clandestine strongholds (like Lovecraft’s Innsmouth and Dunwich) and adapt to living longer on land, manipulating human events. They hate the elves, too, but breeding with them proved impossible for many reasons. For bigoted elves who also see humans as inferior, they enjoy the joke that humans are filthy crossbreeders who will lay with all manner of beasts and vermin and most understand little about the ancient world, with their feeble minds and short, fragile lives.

This was fun to write! Thanks for inspiring me! Now I love the Abominations even more! I need an Abomination High Priestess for “Wizards of Zargon”, and dragon-scale minis of Daegon and Sh’drash! Also perhaps Cthulhu. It’s interesting for me to imagine Lovecraftian horror in a “medieval” high fantasy/sword-and-sorcery setting, but it makes sense, as all of Lovecraft’s monsters are both ancient and multiversal, transcending time and space. I’ll have to look back at stats, but I may also need to up Abominations’ Mind Points*. Fun!

HeroQuest is fundamentally a board game, so I may not actually use much of this lore, but it’s fun to create it anyway. I really enjoy the meta for how Chaos became Dread, and having the new Abominations explained as central to that process.

*Just realized, no need to adjust Mind Points since those serving Zargon are male and wouldn’t usually have stronger MP. I know some don’t like it, but I enjoy the complexity the new edition has added to Orcs, and I like it for Abominations, too!

Are any of the Abominations visibly feminized. They aren’t mammals, so none of them are sculpted with breasts, I hope? My Mythic boxes have arrived to my friend in the US, but have yet to be forwarded to me, so I can’t just check.

[Kurgan]

While I am not a Warhammer geek, I do prefer Fimir to Abominations. Dread/Chaos...whatever. That is just semantics. But Fimir were nasty when you know the Lore. Abomination fish men dudes just do not thematically fit. Where is the nearby body of water? What is this Creature from the Black Lagoon looking freak even doing in this crypt or dungeon or other place underground nowhere near water?

I've simply re-imagined these creatures as able to emit powerful pheromones that can attract humans (and let's face it, there are those even in our world who would willingly choose a monstrous mate if such a thing were possible). Again, possible explanation to keep the unit more or less unchanged, each to their own. In your game world whether the "races" are separate species or compatible (producing fertile offspring) is up to you.

SPOILERS, the Abominations actually do fit into the new game because of the instances of underwater dungeons. I am cool with using both types of monster even if the stats are the same.

I only got the mythic tier because I am a HQ junkie. I seriously didn't need the new set.

Fair take! I was interested in the Stephen Baker quest book, and thankfully it seems to be shaping up to be pretty good (despite a few typos).

As far as the male/female thing I assumed they were going all out there. Several people have told me there's no female skeleton but I insist that the skirt wearing skeleton with the shield is probably female if we would check the bones that are covered up and compare them.

I assumed the weaponless Abomination was meant to be female because of the egg sacks but those could be barnacles or anything else, since we are talking about a monster here. I assumed one of the Gargoyles was also meant to be female but that one seems the biggest stretch as far as the intentions of the designers, but it would certainly follow the precedent set with the most of the rest of the characters (the limited edition figures don't have their gender swap counterpart). Not saying you can't have your coed miniature cast, but if you did want to go all male, there are enough figures to play the GS that way but for the all female cast you'll be short a few goblins. Just an interesting bit of trivia.

[Edge]

I've simply re-imagined these creatures as able to emit powerful pheromones that can attract humans (and let's face it, there are those even in our world who would willingly choose a monstrous mate if such a thing were possible).

I like the pheromones, yes. And yes, as with Lovecraft, some of the human males are “volunteers”. Some are even fully bought-in agents of the Restoration. A rare few are even simply fully in love couples for whom the political/religious struggle is backdrop to their lives. That case is exceedingly rare, though.

[Gatch]

Speaking of reimaginings, my brother came up with a hilarious backstory for the Bard...and the funny thing is, it came from a quest he wrote a decade ago, that he completely forgot about until he randomly looked in his notes

It was designed to be an even easier quest; you could probably solo this as the wizard if you so pleased. He wanted to get a handle on designing quest, so he deliberately made this one very easy. It was a quest where an Orc was stealing things, and you had to go beat him up and teach him that stealing is wrong.

You don't even kill him at the end; he actually says "Okay, fine, you win! I won't steal again!" before running away.

A decade later, this Orc bard came about, and my brother thought of something perfect; his personal Orc bard is the very same orc that was beaten up in that quest so many years back. He has seen the light after his defeat, and is now helping the heroes.

It's canon to me, dangit.

[Edge]

Speaking of reimaginings, my brother came up with a hilarious backstory for the Bard...and the funny thing is, it came from a quest he wrote a decade ago, that he completely forgot about until he randomly looked in his notes

It was designed to be an even easier quest; you could probably solo this as the wizard if you so pleased. He wanted to get a handle on designing quest, so he deliberately made this one very easy. It was a quest where an Orc was stealing things, and you had to go beat him up and teach him that stealing is wrong.

You don't even kill him at the end; he actually says "Okay, fine, you win! I won't steal again!" before running away.

A decade later, this Orc bard came about, and my brother thought of something perfect; his personal Orc bard is the very same orc that was beaten up in that quest so many years back. He has seen the light after his defeat, and is now helping the heroes.

It's canon to me, dangit.

Love to see it! Canon for me now, too, though I’ll merge it with whatever the official line is. I love the “pirate theming” of the Bard and the Zombies. I hope after they reprint everything — Frozen Horror, Mage of the Mirror, Ogre Horde, and (I hope it’s called) Sorcerers of Zargon — I hope the next big expansion is a sea adventure. I don’t actually even know how I’d design it or make that work, but I’d love it! And once we have seafaring, we open up the world to endless possibilities for which players can jump onboard, or completely ignore.

EDIT: I’d really like to see your brother’s Quest or hear more details of the story, if you have it? *I was sure I’d typed this, but apparently I just thought it. Oops.

[Kurgan]

Brother Garbog is proud to hear another of his wayward cousin Orcs be givin' ol' demon dawg Zargon the heave-ho and seein' thee light! Praises be!

[Gatch]

But what if you play this quest as the Orc bard? "I went back in time to beat myself up. I was a little *lemony goodness* back then; I deserved it."

[Kurgan]

In case anybody didn't see the video from Asmodee UK hyping up the UK release...

[HispaZargon]

In case anybody didn't see the video from Asmodee UK hyping up the UK release...

And again, the back of knights' skill cards is not revealed.... (minute 13:55)

The knights are presented there as "The Guardian Knights of the Frozen North"... interesting.