My kids' epic run through Barak Tor

[manaknight14]

Since acquiring the 2021 remake, I introduced the game to my kids and have been playing as Zargon for my daughter (age 9) and son (age 7). My son is completely hooked and my daughter enjoys it as well, but playing with them can be trying because they often bicker over who gets to open the next door, who should get the next treasure, etc. However, today they were playing through Quest 12 of the Game System (daughter as barbarian and wizard, son as dwarf and elf), and this was probably the most exciting HQ session I have ever experienced whether as a Zargon or as a Hero, so I thought I would create a record of this epic rollercoaster while it was still fresh in my memory. If you would like to share in my children's experience of retrieving the Star of the West, read on:

• The first hero heads out the door into the long, empty hallway, prompting a search for traps which reveals the falling block trap at the end of the corridor. However, the second hero decides to perform a secret door search before leaving the room and spots the hidden entrance to room E, so they decide to go that way first. They quickly dispatch the mummy there and find the Wizard's Staff shortly after. They also find the second secret door here, but decide to check out the standard door first.
• The barbarian is the first into room D and wakes up the Witch Lord. The heroes heed Mentor's warning that they want nothing to do with this room and run for the secret door they found, but not before the Witch Lord hits the barbarian with a Fear spell.
• The heroes spill out into the southern hallway and come face to face with a gargoyle. The barbarian is still overcome with Fear so the dwarf and elf are forced to deal with this monster, which they manage to do while taking minimal damage. While this is going on, the Witch Lord casts Summon Undead and rolls a 5, giving him a total of 4 zombies and 2 mummies at his disposal, but the heroes don't know this yet. I have a house rule that when enemies are not visible to the heroes, I remove them from the board and keep track of them on a sheet of paper, so my kids are currently blind to this huge undead force being dispatched to destroy them.
• The barbarian's Fear wears off as the heroes begin the long journey around the southeastern quadrant of the board, but the kids get a dose of real fear as four undead monsters pour into the hallway behind them, with no clue how many more are coming. The kids have never seen a summon spell before, and there are wide-eyed cries of "can the Witch Lord make monsters?!!" Then it's a race around the long, twisting hallway, trying to stay ahead of the pursuing undead while searching for traps and secret doors, but once the heroes turn the first corner, the monsters are out of sight and removed from the board, so the heroes don't know how large the force is or how far it is behind them.
• The heroes find the secret entrance to the central room at the end of the twisting corridor. The elf dispatches the zombie there and picks up the Star of the West.
• The heroes now need to make it back to the stairs, and decide that the north route is the most likely to get them there without running into the Witch Lord again or having to fight through the monsters chasing them. However, at this point my daughter comes up with a brilliant idea that is a testament to how well she has learned just what kind of Zargon I am. I mentioned earlier that I keep monster movements secret from my players if the heroes can't see the monsters. The flip side of this is that if the monsters can't see where the heroes went, I won't meta-game and will force the monsters to "guess" where to look for the heroes, sometimes via rolling dice. This is especially true in the case of mindless undead, who I will often have wandering aimlessly in the absence of a more powerful boss who can direct them. So with this in mind, my daughter says that while they are going to go north, they should open the west door as well. Her goal is to create a "false trail" for the pursuing undead, hoping that if the heroes have already left this room by the time the monsters arrive, some of them will end up going the wrong way. My son is all in on this idea and has the dwarf open the west door.
• When the opening of the west door reveals another door leading into the small room adjacent to the Witch Lord's tomb, my daughter insists that the dwarf should open that one too. Her logic is that if the monsters see that that door is closed, they might know the heroes didn't go that way, so it needs to be open too. She also has a secondary motive behind this, because with all the talk of "only the Spirit Blade can harm the Witch Lord," she is convinced that the Spirit Blade might be somewhere in the quest and wants to check if that room contains a chest or any other likely hiding place for the artifact. My son reluctantly agrees and the dwarf heads west while the rest of the party heads north.
• The barbarian, elf, and wizard find the secret door into the first of the northwestern rooms. They agree to continue through the west door, but first open the door that leads toward the false "A" doors, hoping to create another possible false trail. They continue west and make short order of the skeletons and zombies in the second room, and even stop to take out the solo mummy in the third room, although the elf has taken a few big hits by this point. They also search for treasure in each of these rooms on the off chance they find the Spirit Blade, but all they find are some gold and gems, and the elf draws a wandering monster who roughs him up a bit more, forcing him to use his Heal Body spell. Meanwhile, the dwarf enters the small room and takes out the skeleton inside. He doesn't see anything inside worth searching, but my daughter convinces him to open the other small room in one last attempt to find the Spirit Blade. He gets only the pleasure of fighting a few more skeletons before heading back to rejoin the rest of the team.
• As the dwarf comes back into the center room, he is horrified to realize he spent a little too much time opening doors. Three zombies who came through the secret door just before he got there are now blocking his path to the north door. He dispatches one of them quickly, but the other two start to rough him up. The rest of the group races back toward the central room to help. On top of their friend being in trouble, none of them have a tool kit. Without the dwarf they have no safe way of passing the falling block trap to get back to the stairs, so they are in big trouble if they don't rescue him. While the dwarf races around the table to try and put some distance between himself and the zombies, a mummy has now arrived through the secret door and the dwarf is forced to engage this new threat. Meanwhile, the barbarian is the first to arrive in the northern hallway. The zombies now see her as the nearest target and surround her in the hallway, dealing some minor damage. While the dwarf finishes off the mummy, the barbarian responds by downing a Heroic Brew to try and clear out the remaining zombies, but completely whiffs on her first attack and a zombie successfully blocks the second. With combined efforts of the wizard, the barbarian, and the dwarf, they manage to clear the remaining monsters on the next turn, but the dwarf has definitely seen better days.
• Finally back at the northwest corner, the dwarf goes to disarm the falling block and rolls a black shield (I swear this dwarf has the worst rolls when disarming traps), but is shocked when nothing happens. However, they quickly discover a new threat. The Witch Lord sent one of his summoned monsters along a different route, and now a mummy is blocking their path back to the stairs! None of the heroes has a big enough movement roll to reach the mummy for a melee attack, but the wizard decides to be aggressive and jumps to the front of the line to fire off a Ball of Flame spell. However, the mummy blocks one of the two points of damage and turns its wrath on the wizard, hitting her with a 3-skull attack roll that reduces her to her last body point. As the dwarf moves to join the other heroes, the falling block trap finally triggers and collapses the path behind him. Luckily, the barbarian dispatches the mummy on the next turn, so the heroes are home free... right?
• On the next turn, the barbarian is at the head of the line and makes it to the last square of the hallway, but as she peers into the door to the stair room, she sees the Witch Lord peering in through the secret door from room E! The Witch Lord steps into the room and unleashes his Command spell upon the barbarian, shouting "kill your friends!" The barbarian tries to resist but fails her mind point rolls, and bears down on the next hero in line... the one-BP-left wizard! The barbarian rolls two skulls, but the wizard (who just bought a set of bracers before this quest) somehow manages to block them both and survive for another round!
• The heroes are now faced with a terrifying prospect. Not only do they have a brainwashed barbarian to deal with, but the Witch Lord is inching slowly toward the door to the hallway. If he reaches it, he will present an impassible, invincible barrier between them and the stairs. With the collapsed hallway behind them and the Witch Lord in front of them, their only choice to complete the quest may be for the elf to use Pass Through Rock on himself to get the Star of the West to the stairs, abandoning his friends to a TPK. They have to end this quickly. The barbarian has to come to her senses or they will be forced to kill her, if they even can. She rolls her mind points check... and gets a 6!!! She is free! She and the wizard race for the stairs and make it out in one quick sprint. The Witch Lord manages to get off a parting Ball of Flame spell, but the dwarf partially blocks it before he and the elf escape up the stairs too.

[Wolfheim]

Nicely written report with an exciting ending!
Interesting how your kids solved the challenge by going the other way through the first secret door.
And an interesting idea to hide monsters not visible by heroes and put them up again only when heroes can see them again. I have never read about such a house rule before. Very inspiring!

I'm sure your kids will remember this adventure for many years to come.
I would love to read more game reports from you.

[manaknight14]

Interesting how your kids solved the challenge by going the other way through the first secret door.

Yeah, the fact that they ended up playing the quest in the reverse of its designed flow was an interesting experience. The impact of the falling block trap was probably the most unexpected, because it changed from "you can't get out that way" to "you can only get out that way," which was a big deal when the Witch Lord made his surprise reappearance at the end.

And an interesting idea to hide monsters not visible by heroes and put them up again only when heroes can see them again. I have never read about such a house rule before. Very inspiring!

Thanks! It's not a rule for everybody, because the person running the game has to be someone you can trust not to cheat, which can be a hazard if you have a ten-year-old playing as Zargon. It's not a rule that comes up very often, since monsters are generally activated by the heroes' sight and are then hang around fighting until they are killed. The main exceptions would be monsters that spawn in a place other than directly near the heroes (some expansions have this), a fast monster who runs away from the heroes, or the heroes run away from a slow monster. I have used the example of a monster running away a couple of times. Usually it's a goblin who disappears around a corner and then ambushes the heroes on a later turn, maybe even with some buddies some in tow if there were more monsters to be found around the corner. I expect the real fun to hit when we get to the Frozen Horror expansion and we have ice gremlins disappearing with stolen gear and the heroes don't know where they're hiding. The slow monster version is usually due to running away from zombies or mummies as you saw in the Barak Tor quest. This actually happened in the very first quest my kids played through. They were going through the New Beginnings online quest with two of their cousins (so each controlled one hero). The wizard had discovered a secret door and wanted to open it, but the other heroes didn't want to stick around and headed down a corridor that led to the lair of the quest's boss. The wizard opened the door anyway and found a mummy, and when nobody would come help him, he used Swift Wind to run away from the mummy and rejoin the rest of the group. The heroes had to get through four rooms to reach the boss and they had already opened a bunch of side rooms before this, so there were lots of places the mummy could wander, so I took it off the board. After they had defeated the boss and were heading back to the corridor, they got a surprise reunion with the mummy blocking their path through a small room. That was fun.