The Tyrant's Tomb - a solo quest pack

[Pancho]

The Tyrant's Tomb is a solo quest pack of 12 quests, based on the Heroquest novels by Dave Morris.

Centuries ago the Demon Kyrax was bound by wizardry under the mountains of the frozen north. Now his acolytes are on the brink of freeing Kyrax, releasing his evil power into the world again. Four lone adventurers, a Barbarian, a Wizard, and Elf and a Dwarf are drawn inexorably across the Sea of Claws to the land of Norsca. All four of them have a different reason for making their difficult journey, but each will have a role to play in thwarting the acolytes plans to bring an end to the world.

Introduction
In The Tyrant's Tomb one player will take the role of the Evil Wizard player as normal, and another player will take the role of one or more of the Heroes. In one quest this player might control the Wizard, in another quest the Barbarian, or the Elf, or Dwarf, whilst in other quests he might play with a combination of these four Heroes.
This Quest pack is heavily based on the three Heroquest novels by Dave Morris; The Fellowship of Four, The Screaming Spectre and The Tyrant's Tomb. Each book contained a central story as well as a play-your own adventure story of the type that were fairly popular in the 90's. The last two books also contained traditional Heroquest solo quests for the Wizard and the Barbarian. This pack is an attempt to combine much of this material into one large Heroquest adventure. Please note that some of the events in the books have been mixed up somewhat in order to create a coherent story.

Starting Heroes
The solo player should keep a character sheet for all four Heroes. If a quest is failed, the Hero should play that quest again. During the later quests, in which a party of Heroes may be present, if a Hero dies the party should continue on to the next quest, with a fresh Hero made available to replace the dead character.
In the Fellowship of Four, the book that deals with the Heroes attempt to prevent Kyrax's return, the characters are the Wizard Fortunato, the Elf Eildonas, the Barbarian Asgrim and the Dwarf Anvil. But this is your adventure and the players are free to choose any names they wish.
Wizard - Same stats as a starting Wizard. He can choose any 3 of the elemental spell decks. He starts with a Dagger. The Wizard also has a Familiar, a magical accomplish named Faustus (See artefact card and special rules below).
Elf - Same stats as a starting Elf, apart from his attack dice. The Elf starts with a Dagger, giving him just one combat die in attack against adjacent enemies, and a bow, which give him three combat dice with ranged attacks. The Elf may also take any 3 of the Elf spells (from the Mage of the Mirror expansion).
Barbarian - Same stats as a starting Barbarian. He starts with a Broadsword and a Spear.
Dwarf - Same stats as a starting Dwarf, but with a Pick-axe rather than a Hand-axe (The Pick-axe rolls 2 dice in attack, and may also have some Quest specific benefits).

Special requirements
As well as a copy of the Game System you will also need;
- Iron door, Trapdoor, Rolling Boulder & Grin’s Crag tile from Kellars Keep
- Pit of Darkness traps, Ogre Throne, Stone Doorway, Pit of Chaos/Outdoor tile & Bridge/Chasm tile from Ogre Horde
- Mirror door, Elf Princess token, Quicksand tile & Carpet tile from Mage of the Mirror
- Ice River, Ice Chasm, Slippery Ice, Ice Gremlin, Ice Vault, Glacial Throne Room & Snow Cave Entrance tiles from Frozen Horror
- Blizzard tile from Revenge of the Weather Man, and the Wall of Death (both found in the Marvel Winter Special).
- Ye Olde Inn Corner tile http://english.yeoldeinn.com/tiles-big-bene.php
- Step Stone Room tile http://english.yeoldeinn.com/tiles-capper.php
- Coast tile (currently under construction)

There are also a large number of new Monsters in these Quests. These are the suggested models to use for each.
Cacogast the Troll (Ogre)
Elf Knight (Elf Hero)
Ghost Sailors (Zombies)
Ghost Captain (Chaos Sorcerer)
The thieves Grinch & Grivois (Mercenaries)
Town Guards (Mercenaries)
Prison Cook (Mercenaries)
The Cabiri (Chaos Sorcerer plus 3x human Sorcerers from WOM)
Werewolf (Giant Wolf from MOTM)
Magister Caenwulf (Storm Master from WOM)
Orc Witch (Orc Shaman from WOM)
Rime-Wolves (Giant Wolves from MOTM)
Draugr (Zombie)
Ice Gremlins (Ice Gremlins from FH)
Stone Guardians (Chaos Warriors)
Hantu (Use the magical darkness tile from KK)
Barrow Dwellers (Zombies)
Headless Hounds (Giant Wolves)
Spriggan (Goblin)
Ghost Knights (Chaos Warriors)
Banshees (Skeletons)
Undead Brides (Mummies)
Perdita the Milkmaid (Elf Princess token from MOTM)
Grim Dugald (Necromancer from WOM)
Attercop, Cockodrilles, Sea Monster, Ravens, Giant Bats and Black Serpent (Models not required as do not have to physically represent on game-board)

Outdoor Quests
Half of the Quests in this pack take place on the surface, away from a traditional dungeon setting. This might be a forest, a swamp, a city or an icy mountain pass. A few of the Quests even take place on a boat out on open water. Unless otherwise stated in the Quest notes, these places follow the exact same rules as a normal Heroquest dungeon. A Room might be a forest glade or open field, whilst a corridor might be a sunken lane or an animal trail. A closed door might represent thick foliage over the opening to the next clearing, whilst fallen block tile might represent a fallen tree or thick bramble. In any case the rules are the same. If you have any special game boards representing these different environments feel free to use them.

Equipment & Markets
Heroes may NOT purchase new equipment between Quests. The Tyrant's Tomb forms part of a linked storyline, and equipment and other items are only gained via the Quests themselves. In another departure from the usual rules, special 'Markets' will appear at certain points during the Quests. The Heroes will have an opportunity to buy only the items listed for sale at that Market place at that time, so they should save their gold for those moments.

Weapon Changes
As some of the items in this adventure are two-handed-weapons, i.e. the bow that the Elf uses, a player may need to swap weapons when he wishes to use another piece of equipment.
A weapon swap doesn't count as an action, and is always permitted if there are no monsters present. But if there is at least one monster the player will need to roll a die to equip a new item: if a skull is rolled he swaps successfully and fast enough so he can also attack in the same turn. If any shield is rolled he may swap the weapons anyway but not fast enough; he will miss his action for that turn (the Hero must wait next turn to attack).
No weapon swap is allowed if a monster is already adjacent.

Faustus
Faustus is a small Pippestrelle bat that follows the Wizard Hero as his Familiar. TWICE per Quest, the Wizard may use Faustus to scout ahead. Faustus is small enough to squeeze through gaps in closed doorways.The Wizard can understand the bats "speech" when he reports back to his master. The Evil Wizard player must tell the Wizard player what is in the next room or around the next corridor corner. A simple description of the room layout including Monsters, furniture and special tiles will suffice; there is no need to divulge any secret rules or traps for the room. If the Wizard is killed, Faustus is also lost and should not be made available to a fresh Wizard Hero.

[Drew]

Nice Im hyped for this. Is it almost finished?
If you need any help let me know id be glad to help with anything I can

[lestodante]

very curious to read the rest....

[Anderas]

Do you need some help?

[Pancho]

A lot of the work is already done, but it’s all in note form and most of the quests need to be worked out and drawn up properly. I know what I want in each quest, I just need to make sure that the difficulty level is done right.
I’m hoping to get through it all quite quickly, but I’ve got 3 other large projects going on, plus the usual job, kids, wife, DIY blah, blah.

Help is always welcome . Feel free to chip in with any suggestions or critique. I’m a dunce with Heroscribe so I’ll definitely need help with that further down the line.

[lestodante]

if you want I can take care of the cards and make the layout if you want a classic b/w european layout. Can't help with a US layout instead.

[Pancho]

Thanks Dante, that would be great! I should be able to provide the draft text for the artefact cards soon, and we can move that bit forward.

The first quest will be for the Elf. I have a few questions about this;
- are you guys OK with the idea of a quest in a forest? I’d like to put everything in a dungeon but feel that would lose a lot of the atmosphere of the books, not to mention the special monsters.
- How do you feel about the choice of starting equipment for the elf; dagger and bow (3 ranged attack die but only 1 melee)?
- If you could select any 3 Elf spells for this beginning quest, which of the 8 would you choose? (The mission is simply to get from the forest to the coast, with the woods being full of goblins, and a few far worse creatures).

[lestodante]

I like the idea of the elf with dagger+bow but it will depend also by the number of monsters in the rooms... it may become complicated for a solo hero to face a lot of monsters in a small room so he will not be able to use his bow properly because most of the monsters will be adiacent. But could be ok if they are mostly Goblins.
As for the Elf Spells, I am considering to create a 9th spell with curative capacity, so they could also been split in 3x3 groups and balancing the player's choice.

[Pancho]

I like the idea of the elf with dagger+bow but it will depend also by the number of monsters in the rooms... it may become complicated for a solo hero to face a lot of monsters in a small room so he will not be able to use his bow properly because most of the monsters will be adiacent. But could be ok if they are mostly Goblins.
As for the Elf Spells, I am considering to create a 9th spell with curative capacity, so they could also been split in 3x3 groups and balancing the player's choice.

I had planned that he’ll mostly face goblins in the first quest, and a small number of them in each room, so that’s good. There are a number of special monsters also, and the Hero player will have to adapt and think on his feet. Then early on in the adventure, much like in the novel, the Elf gains access to the sword ‘Woe’, which will give him two attack dice in subsequent quests.

I’d always found it odd that there were only 8 Elf spells, seeing as all the other decks seem to be in multiples of three. A 9th healing spell would be a good addition I think.

Which 3 spells would you then choose? I want to play test soon and it would be good to know which spells a player might bring into this quest. I like the look of Deep Sleep, Flashback, Timestop, but have no experience with any of these Elf spells.

[lestodante]

I think we need to make a distinction about the type of spells. Analyzing the 4 elemenatl spells, there are basically 3 types: offensive, defensive and complementary.
Offensive are spells that can be used to attack and make a damage to your enemy, they are 4+2: Genie and all the Fire Spells are intended to hit your opponent. Tempest and Sleep are also used to attack the enemy but they just alter the actual status of the enemy without inflicting any damage.

Defensive spells are intended to increase your defense or healing wounds. For example Rock Skin, Heal Body, Water of Healing; only 3.

Complementary spells are the other 3 spells that are used to make special actions: Veil of Myst, Swift Wind, Pass through Rock,; they allow you to move faster, or throgh enemies or walls.

Elf spells are instead really different. First they are not divided in groups and the Elf player may chose any 3 of them. There are no real OFFENSIVE spells in the Elf group and just 2 DEFENSIVE wich are Double Image and Flashback.
Let's see them in detail:
Deep Sleep is just a sleep spell, it is not a true offensive spell, it will just cause one enemy to fall asleep. Not very useful in a solo quest as the monster will automatically wake up at Zargon's next turn so the Elf can't send him to sleep and attack in a following turn while it is unable to defend. Really unuseful, I prefer to use my action to perform an aattack and kill someone instead of trying to make him sleep for just 1 turn.
Double Image is one of my favourite, allows 50% chance that the enemies miss their attacks and you suffer no damage at all. It also last for a whole battle against a group of enemies.
Hypnotic Blaze and Timestop are similar, they both create some kind of paralysis for the enemy, the only difference is that HB allow a defensive roll but last 3 turns. Negative point is that both cards seems to afflict also other HEroes in the same room.
Disappear is nice and if you are lucky could last forever but will not allow you to perform any concrete action or you will cancel the spell.
Flashback is very useful, it can be cast after a friend is killed so the action must be repeated and allow a chance to change fate. Also used to reroll any failed action, like a missed attack or someone triggering a trap.
Slow reduces one enemy skills and basically could last until the enemy dies. And he cannot defend against the spell effect.
Twist Wood is similar to slow, reducing all enemies skills in the same room but maybe also friend skills. The original card doesn't specify very well what happen to the victims as they must defend in a different way or whatever. Anyway it is unuseful against monsters with metal weapons.

So my choice will be Double Image, Flashback and Hypnotic Blaze. I will also allow to chose a 4th spell since all the others are not so powerful in my opinion.