THE CRYPT OF PERPETUAL DARKNESS discussion

[The Admiral]

Where does the Swamp Hag 'escape' to?

[The Admiral]

Right, I've had a good look through this one at last and I have to agree with some previous posters that the initial setting is pants. The general quest after the Orc town quests are fine, but I'm going to have to change the starting story. The Orcs have overrun the town but the local barkeep is still going to work? "2 pints of your finest, human scum". "That'll be 3 groats young Goblin, and can I see some I.D. please?" No!

My intro is tailored to a Solo, but powerful elf (Fanciful). He has travelled to a town in the border princes to meet a Halfing Rogue (Lidda), called gnomes by the locals, who has a map of an ancient artifact that mustn't fall into the hands of Dread. But Zargon wants that map as well and has sent his greenskins to retrieve it. You must escape with the map and then rescue Vander to interpret it and on we go.

I will then play quests 3-10 as one continuous quest with Fanciful, Lidda and Vander the Spellsinger with his trusty forest gremlin Twiggs. They can each hire 4 henchmen. Twiggs can assist Vander in three ways i) he is good at finding things and allows Vander to make 2 searches for one action (no more than 1 treasure search), ii) He is good at disarming traps and allows Vander to do so from an adjacent space with the same ability as a Dwarf. Twiggs is quick and agile and so always avoids any damage from traps he triggers, and iii) he protects his companion by leaping on any attacker and generally putting them off their swing by hair pulling etc. Any monster attacking Vander from an adjacent space, not diagonal, loses 1 combat die.

The henchmen will be Halfing archers for Lidda, Wildwood Rangers for Fanciful and Eternal Guard for Vander. Although there are 12, the heroes must choose, before each quest starts, how many of each will join for that quest. I play Evil Wizard cards so the more henchmen the more cards. Take too many on a quest and many will be standing around doing little and just giving Zargon cards. I find a good balance is 2-6.

Here is the party:

[Maalicia_Ironhoof]

Right, I've had a good look through this one at last and I have to agree with some previous posters that the initial setting is pants. The general quest after the Orc town quests are fine, but I'm going to have to change the starting story. The Orcs have overrun the town but the local barkeep is still going to work? "2 pints of your finest, human scum". "That'll be 3 groats young Goblin, and can I see some I.D. please?" No!

My intro is tailored to a Solo, but powerful elf (Fanciful). He has travelled to a town in the border princes to meet a Halfing Rogue (Lidda), called gnomes by the locals, who has a map of an ancient artifact that mustn't fall into the hands of Dread. But Zargon wants that map as well and has sent his greenskins to retrieve it. You must escape with the map and then rescue Vander to interpret it and on we go.

I will then play quests 3-10 as one continuous quest with Fanciful, Lidda and Vander the Spellsinger with his trusty forest gremlin Twiggs. They can each hire 4 henchmen. Twiggs can assist Vander in three ways i) he is good at finding things and allows Vander to make 2 searches for one action (no more than 1 treasure search), ii) He is good at disarming traps and allows Vander to do so from an adjacent space with the same ability as a Dwarf. Twiggs is quick and agile and so always avoids any damage from traps he triggers, and iii) he protects his companion by leaping on any attacker and generally putting them off their swing by hair pulling etc. Any monster attacking Vander from an adjacent space, not diagonal, loses 1 combat die.

The henchmen will be Halfing archers for Lidda, Wildwood Rangers for Fanciful and Eternal Guard for Vander. Although there are 12, the heroes must choose, before each quest starts, how many of each will join for that quest. I play Evil Wizard cards so the more henchmen the more cards. Take too many on a quest and many will be standing around doing little and just giving Zargon cards. I find a good balance is 2-6.

Here is the party:

pretty quick and easy pivot to scrub up the terrible premise, I like the use of a halfling in place of the gnome - as I had rewritten another part for the "good" goblin later on to actually be a halfling cook wearing the "skin-suit" of a goblin as a disguise!

[The Admiral]

Playing through this and I've noticed that the evil spellcasters have a lot of the same spells. One spell is had by them all. I want a bit more variety and theme so I'm going to swap out some spells to give the Goblin Queen, Summon Orcs, the Mummy King, Summon Undead and the Dragon, Ball of Flame (acid). These are the three spells that no one has and they all seem appropriate to their characters.

Finally to deal with the escaping sorcerers. The Goblin Queen will go to the marked X (which I don't actually believe they put there for her), or the D of room D. The Hag will go to room D on the D, or the adjacent room to D between the 2 skeletons. In both cases this gives an appropriate final(ish) encounter.

[The Admiral]

Dread Skulls, despite being coloured orange are not traps, and are not called such in the quest book. You don't search for them, as they appear when you see them, and so are more akin to monsters. They have attack and defence stats and a BP like a monster, although they can't move.

So can you search when one is visible? You can't search when there is a visible monster, but these are not called monsters and they have no monster card, but as discussed above, they possess monster characteristics.

[Kurgan]

Kind of reminiscent of the "Eyes of Chaos" from White Dwarf (we've had other tile "monsters" in the past, see the Death Mist from ROTWL, I guess you could consider the Giant Rolling Boulder as a trap from KK).

For searching purposes I would treat them as monsters (unless they are incapacitated like with magic, you can't search with them in the same room/corridor).

[The Admiral]

Kind of reminiscent of the "Eyes of Chaos" from White Dwarf (we've had other tile "monsters" in the past, see the Death Mist from ROTWL, I guess you could consider the Giant Rolling Boulder as a trap from KK).

For searching purposes I would treat them as monsters (unless they are incapacitated like with magic, you can't search with them in the same room/corridor).

That's how I played it. It doesn't make a lot of difference as they are very easy to take out straight away with any ranged weapon. Last quest to go now. Bring on the Dragon!

[The Admiral]

Acid pool trap
They can't be disarmed but can they be found by searching or are they only revealed when you walk into one?

[Kurgan]

Acid pool trap
They can't be disarmed but can they be found by searching or are they only revealed when you walk into one?

The text doesn't say, but I'd rule you can find them by searching (or detected by a Potion of Vision user). It says they can't be disarmed but can be jumped.

[The Admiral]

Acid pool trap
They can't be disarmed but can they be found by searching or are they only revealed when you walk into one?

The text doesn't say, but I'd rule you can find them by searching (or detected by a Potion of Vision user). It says they can't be disarmed but can be jumped.

I have a feeling they should be coloured blue for unfindable traps, but even the unfindable slide at A is orange. Orange seems to be used for anything unusual in this quest, even things that aren't actually traps.

Also, can heroes and monsters go up the slide? I'm ruling not.