First quest: The Maze or The Trial?

[chaoticprime]

Mummies are shuffling corpsey-bastards that are always underestimated (for some reason). Mummies are great at upsetting the Heroes' confidence.

[Andy P]

I have to say my favourite suggestion so far is to skip both and go straight to Sir Ragnar.

I get that letting the players know where they stand (ie. using The Trial without pulling any punches, possibly killing one or two of them) is a fine idea... if they're experienced gamers and you're showing them your GM style, and if no-holds-barred is your thing (nothing wrong with that, it's a question of taste) I can see that's useful for establishing boundaries.

If they're just beginners, and this is their first experience of the game altogether, putting them through The Trial and probably getting a TPK is just mean. I'm not sure I'd come back for a second game if a GM killed everyone in our party in the first game, no matter what the game was.

The Maze is indeed a bit bland, and I have issues with The Trial. (Ooh, just thought of another one: in neither the EU or NA instructions for the quest, does it tell the players what they actually have to do. It just says they are to "enter the catacombs of Verag". OK, so, turn one, they win, right? Or do they have to kill Verag? Or kill everything in the whole dungeon? Or explore long enough to get the hang of the game then leave? Or find the tomb of Fellmarg? And do what when they find it? It doesn't actually say, which makes it not a very well-designed quest in my view). So on that basis I'd be inclined to skip both.

Come to think of it... on the assumption that the objective of The Trial is to kill Verag: well, why? Besides being "foul", what's he done to deserve death? The catacombs guard the tomb of Fellmarg. Guarding a tomb seems a reasonable thing to do, doesn't it? Keeps tomb robbers away? So what are the so-called "heroes" even doing there? Taking down Morcar - who wants to destroy the whole Empire - seems pretty reasonable. Entering catacombs to destroy someone who's not done anything wrong, only to leave the place empty of guards so others can come along later and loot poor Fellmarg's tomb, doesn't seem very heroic to me. The whole quest just wasn't thought out at all.

[chaoticprime]

http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/56515/first-quest

[Daedalus]

Come to think of it... on the assumption that the objective of The Trial is to kill Verag: well, why? Besides being "foul", what's he done to deserve death? The catacombs guard the tomb of Fellmarg. Guarding a tomb seems a reasonable thing to do, doesn't it? Keeps tomb robbers away? So what are the so-called "heroes" even doing there? Taking down Morcar - who wants to destroy the whole Empire - seems pretty reasonable. Entering catacombs to destroy someone who's not done anything wrong, only to leave the place empty of guards so others can come along later and loot poor Fellmarg's tomb, doesn't seem very heroic to me. The whole quest just wasn't thought out at all.

The North American parchment text elaborates a bit more "...You must seek out and destroy Verag, a foul Gargolye who hides in the catacombs...." So there you go--Verag is guilty of hiding, not guarding. In the Empire, that is punishable by death. Mentor says so.

Actually, the description of Gargoyles at the back of the Quest Book adds that they are produced by Chaos magic. Every good Hero knows that ain't right. (Too bad the players won't read that information when they play the Quest.)

[Goblin-King]

lol! Ye olde Judge Dredd smiting kids playing hide and seek!

Anyways... Verag's crime isn't hiding. It's being FOUL.

Who is Fellmarg by the way? Is that ever elaborated?

[TMU]

Who is Fellmarg by the way? Is that ever elaborated?

Not that I know

[Teldurn]

Who is Fellmarg by the way? Is that ever elaborated?

Not that I know

I think I just found my inspiration for what to make the questline about for HQP. Whee!

[Nephew of Mentor]

Arguably, the name Felmarg sounds pretty evil. Perhaps the foul gargoyle is hiding in the tomb of an equally foul Felmarg.

[knightkrawler]

Maybe Fellmarg was the evil chaos sorcerer who made Verag, who now "guards" his creator's tomb.
There seem to be a lot of evil chaos sorcerers in the HQ world. If they ever pooled their resources... oh well.

[Andy P]

Arguably, the name Felmarg sounds pretty evil. Perhaps the foul gargoyle is hiding in the tomb of an equally foul Felmarg.

Haha... I wonder if Verag was put there to stop Fellmarg coming back from the dead, or something. A very different sense of "guarding"!