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Published Heroes?

Discuss general topics relating to HeroQuest that don't fit well in the categories below.

Published Heroes?

Postby CrushYourEnemies » Saturday November 16th, 2024 5:22am

Hail heroes! I'm relatively new to Heroquest, but I'm deeply fascinated by its history. After doing some digging, I discovered that White Dwarf published rules for a Trollslayer hero. Are there other examples of different heroes being published by magazines?
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Re: Published Heroes?

Postby lestodante » Sunday November 17th, 2024 3:25pm

Dragão Brasil n. 12 published 4 new (weird) heroes too:
Centaur, Fairy, Amazon, Minotaur.


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Re: Published Heroes?

Postby TechnoBiologist » Monday November 18th, 2024 10:10am

There is now an official Rogue mini-expansion, but prior to that there was already a publication on a Rogue hero:

https://www.yeoldeinn.com/downloads/pub ... ber-5a.pdf
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Re: Published Heroes?

Postby LucaRocks » Monday November 18th, 2024 1:59pm

Wow it's cool how close that Rogue is to the one we got. I guess he was the inspiration for the modener one!
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Re: Published Heroes?

Postby Kurgan » Wednesday November 20th, 2024 1:21am

Of these I would only consider the "Dwarven Trollslayer" to be official (canon). Still, all are great fodder for homebrew...! (and classic era homebrew can always influence AH projects... however indirectly) |_P


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Re: Published Heroes?

Postby TechnoBiologist » Wednesday November 20th, 2024 4:52am

I agree about being the "Dwarven Trollslayer" the only "official" hero from the above mentioned and likewise that the two published quests from White Dwarf and the one from the Marvel HeroQuest special are the only three "offical" published magazine quest from the classic era. It is really a pitty that there was no more new material published in the White Dwarf magazines after that.
Speaking of that: these quests also all mention new official monsters to add to Heroquest, including suggestions for GW miniatures: skaven, white sheer, rat ogre and troll, but the stats given for these are different in the different publications.
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Re: Published Heroes?

Postby CrushYourEnemies » Friday November 22nd, 2024 9:13pm

Kurgan wrote:Of these I would only consider the "Dwarven Trollslayer" to be official (canon). Still, all are great fodder for homebrew...! (and classic era homebrew can always influence AH projects... however indirectly) |_P

You make a great point! If I recall correctly, the idea of slain monsters coming back as zombies in ROTDM was borrowed from The Plague of Zombies quest. I'm also aware that the premiere EU edition of Heroquest had an "Arena" quest long before AH's remake of ATOH. I wonder what other ideas have been borrowed from classic Heroquest.
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Re: Published Heroes?

Postby Kurgan » Sunday November 24th, 2024 3:08pm

CrushYourEnemies wrote:You make a great point! If I recall correctly, the idea of slain monsters coming back as zombies in ROTDM was borrowed from The Plague of Zombies quest. I'm also aware that the premiere EU edition of Heroquest had an "Arena" quest long before AH's remake of ATOH. I wonder what other ideas have been borrowed from classic Heroquest.


True, that arena was very different but you can see the inspiration for something like that coming from the first edition...

Ogre mercenaries were mentioned as possible but no rule mechanics were given for them in the original ATOH but we got them in the remake edition.

Several more things from classic HeroQuest that have been re-introduced that we can find I'm sure:

I think it is interesting that the classic HeroQuest game had square bases for characters and rounded corner dice, while the remake has square cornered dice and rounded bases for characters! However it is interesting to note that promotional material and even early trailers for the remake showed the familiar rounded corners on their dice, the idea of round bases for the heroes and monsters was first shown in the promo images for the original game (look on the back of the box on especially the European editions of HQ core set, and you'll see the bases are round, also in the original commercials!).

This isn't so much a reference but just kind of a fun thing... the candlesticks on the classic era Sorcerer's table were a weak point in the set when closing the box and often broken in vintage sets (at the very least the tips of the flames were often broken off). The remake edition deliberately crafted one of the candles shorter ('more burned') than the other perhaps in reference to this fact. Also, any mentions of slavery are removed from the remake edition's Game System books, but an acknowledgement is still made of that history in the remake edition. In classic HQ it was mentioned that many goblin tribes had been enslaved by Orcs. The remake artwork of the Goblin depicts him wearing a broken shackle (as if having been freed or escaped from such a life!).

The Avalon Hill HeroQuest remake uses the "Equipment deck" of the original version instead of the "Armory board" of the 1990 NA edition the rules are based upon. The concept of the Armory itself is retained and the fact that cards do not limit supply of available equipment to buy (as clarified in the Adventure Design Kit of 1991 and retained in the 1990 NA edition) is also made clear in the rulebook.

The Spear weapon was never officially ported back over (it was removed in the NA edition of 1990, along with the Cloak of Protection that was replaced by the Wizard's Cloak Artifact, the Bracers, and Hand Axe) but we did get other "spear" type Artifacts... the "Dragon Spear" (exclusive to the Mythic set, intended for Crypt of Perpetual Darkness) and the "Ice Queen's Spear" in the digital supplement to the Frozen Horror "Into the Northlands." These were stronger and could not be thrown. A spear was mentioned in Spirit Queen's Torment quest book (with no description of its attributes) but this reference was removed in the retail version of that quest book.

The remake Dwarf is depicted in the artwork with a dark skin tone. While this doesn't match his appearance on the classic Les Edwards covers of the Game System or Kellar's Keep (or the slightly stylized versions featured in the NA editions), it does evoke the original artwork on the Dwarf's character tile (a clear tribute to the "White Dwarf" mascot of the GamesWorkShop magazine of the same name).

Hand Axe was borrowed from the EU editions. Due to an error it was allowed for the Wizard (and Warlock too) in the 2021 printing, but corrected in later printings.

Holy Water (as a card item anyway, it was only a single instance of "Sacred Water" in the NA edition of ROTWL that was a quest note in 1990) the Equipment was based on the original EU Treasure Card. Same with Potion of Speed.

Bracers were a Wizard only Equipment in the EU 2nd edition (that are now considered "non-metal armor" usable by other heroes that can be used in place of body armor).

The plan in the 1990's was to release a quest pack for each of the four heroes with a female version of each of the classic party members for each one respectively. While only the Elf (Mage of the Mirror) and Barbarian (Frozen Horror) packs were released back in 1992, we got female versions of the Dwarf and Wizard miniatures in the Haslab campaign (but sadly not yet in retail). You could of course easily use the female Berserker or the female Explorer (both from JoD) to represent these sex swapped Barbarian and Dwarf respectively if you wished. The Explorer even holds a smaller axe similar to the original sculpt of the Dwarf (even if the pose is completely different).

The remake of Mage of the Mirror introduced "elven" variants of the plastic furniture (and ROTDM continued the trend). The design of the Elven "Tomb" a little more closely resembles the design of the effigy on the classic tomb than the version included with the remake Game System. Still not a perfect match (the original had its "face" uncovered while the Elf version has a half visor covering the eyes and there are fringes on the edges of the stone though the sword is the proper length and the shoulder armor is a closer match).

The lore text about the Orcs in the remake Game System is toned down from the GamesWorkShop influenced original. However I appreciated how New Beginnings restored some of the text describing them as delighting in "cruelty and slaughter" like the good old greenskin guys we always loved to hate back in the day. While the Abomination monster completely replaces the classic "Fimir" monster, its depiction as a creature that dwells in watery areas still conforms to some of the lore surrounding the "Fomoroian" creature of folklore that was one of the inspirations for the original Fimir, which I appreciate as well.

While the original version of HeroQuest intended the white bearded man in the red cape holding the large book to be Mentor and NOT the evil wizard character (Morcar, renamed Zargon in the NA edition and Grimdead in the Japanese edition)... I feel as if Avalon Hill is kind of acknowledging that it was a widespread misunderstanding by many NA fans growing up that the guy on the GM screen was not Zargon but many of us thought he was. He seemed like a kind of evil looking fellow who appeared to be commanding the monsters to attack (and after all, the player who takes the role of Zargon puts that big picture of the white bearded guy in front of their own face, as if that's the character they are portraying! Even though the intention was it's supposed to represent Mentor holding Loretome and warning you of the monsters that you may soon be facing). NA fans didn't have easy access to the Marvel Winter Special that clearly depicts this guy as "Mentor." It was more ambiguous in the Gremlin PC game (though we didn't get that either, the NES version was cancelled before it was finished). We also didn't get the Sticker Album on this side of the pond but that would have confused us even more as that one depicts Mentor as a white bearded gentleman yes, but with a white skullcap, pointed ears, and a blue cloak (while Morcar is presented with the familiar red cape opposing him). Even so I feel like in the marketing materials and promotional fliers they will mention "ZARGON" and right next to it is a picture of "Mentor." I suppose you could read this as whenever you're hearing about Zargon it's from Mentor's words of warning. But if you are someone who grew up thinking that guy was Zargon it's like you can just go right on believing it if you want to. ;) Perhaps old Wizards kind of look alike. Zargon was once Mentor's student after all... (the computer game and Marvel Winter Special give alternate depictions that make him seem more like a Skeletor type figure perhaps similar to the Witch Lord with a hood or maybe a more wizened, elf-like character though the computer game is ambiguous as well in its cutscenes).

The Chaos Warriors had to be renamed in the new version (separating from the GWS Warhammer IP). They are now called "Dread Warriors" in the remake, but I think it is great that they picked this name because that is a term that was also found in the original lore description at the end of the quest booklet for them. The altered helmet design (from the familiar "horns" connected by a ball like on the Chaos Warlock helm) that has the horns pointing down is still a variant found within the variants of the Chaos Warrior helmets within Warhammer Fantasy art. An alternate version of the Chaos Warrior helmet (without the "ball" but facing upward) appeared in the PC game of HeroQuest from 1991. The Les Edward artwork of the ROTWL's Witch Lord featured a helmet with horns but no "ball."

There has been no official re-release of the Adventure Design Kit (all of the boxed expansions besides it and Wizards of Morcar now have an equivalent remake release in retail, thank goodness), they did release a digital PDF that is called the "Adventure Design Kit" with some art flourishes that may remind you of the original, though the icons are not all scaled properly that you could actually cut and paste them onto the grid to form a quest. Instead you're intended to use the images as a guide to draw them yourself on the paper freehand. If you did want to copy and paste icons, they helpfully placed a blank quest map (and not just the symbols as in the originals) in EACH of the quest books, further reinforcing their desire to have the players remix and even create their own adventures with the assets found in those boxes to the limits of their imaginations.

The concept of "playing the quests as a series" and so not being able to shop between quests was first introduced in the original Against the Ogre Horde (but not retained in the remake edition). However this concept of not being able to shop between quests, while it technically existed in 1992 with the "two parter" quests ending the Elf and Barbarian packs, was expanded upon in Rise of the Dread Moon. Here most quests didn't allow shopping between quests, but instead you could visit certain merchants within quests to buy or trade and visit the rare "Hideouts" for limited healing.

The original ROTWL (as well as Advanced HeroQuest, both released in 1989 incidentally) featured a "world map" on the back cover of the quest book lifted directly from Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition core rulebook's art (the NA edition had no such map), but I think it is cool that a HQ world map was finally shown (even if only a partial one) in the new version via the Path of the Wandering Monk hero collection's "lore scroll." Some say it looks a bit like an upside down and stretched version of the "Old World" again probably in tribute to the original.

The Legacy of Sorasil (a video game with no physical board game release, despite being billed as a sequel to HeroQuest) featured four heroes that have never been properly duplicated, but you could see inspiration for new heroes based on these.

For example while there is no official "Cleric" hero in the new game, the Bard character functions much like a cleric as one who has healing and buffing ability but is otherwise inclined towards lighter armor.

There is no "Ranger" but the Warlock hero (now available with Prophecy of Telor in retail) is intended to be a "magical artillerist" type character who is otherwise lightly defended.

There is no "Mystic" but the Druid (now available in ATOH remake) is a kind of female wizard (albeit with stronger fighting skills and weaker magic abilities; the Mystic in LOS was potentially more powerful than the default male Wizard).

The Paladin hero is more like a magical version of a Knight, but you could see the concept of a Guardian Knight with Skills to be a spinoff of this idea as well.

The "Guardian Knights" are mentioned in the lore of KK (if I recall correctly) but then were fleshed out a little more with the animated commercial narrated by Stephen Baker along with the lore card provided in the limited release Commander of the Guardian Knights Hero Collection, and to a lesser extent Rise of the Dread Moon.

Legacy of Sorasil featured many enemies that some have pointed out feel more at home in the world of D&D than HeroQuest, yet, the "mire men" (swamp monsters) in a way could remind someone of the Skull Blights (though the JoD monsters have a much cooler design for an enemy in my humble opinion).

The shocking plot point revealed in the ending to the original ROTWL (completely deleted from the North American release) about the direction of Sir Ragnar was re-adopted (in a different fashion of course) in Rise of the Dread Moon and its prequel "Knightfall."

White Dwarf Magazine (the official GWS magazine, Issue #145) had an bonus HeroQuest adventure written by the late Carl Sargent in 1991, that featured a character called "Pierre Chancier" and it was suggested that a Citadel minis knight figure be used to represent him, which you could say bore a resemblance to the helmeted Guardian Knight figure sold with Rise of the Dread Moon.

The Dragon presented in the Mythic exclusive "Crypt of Perpetual Darkness" and now the new dragon in "First Light" were not the first official dragons in HQ. The first Dave Morris Novel "Fellowship of Four" mentions one in the narrative section. The sequel "Tyrant's Tomb" (focused on the Barbarian) also features a Dragon-like creature as an antagonist for the hero.

"First Light" restores the "Boot tile" to the board for the first time in the new editions. Off topic, but I link the image of the boot to the fact that the first edition let you search for treasure in corridors ("passages") which would always trigger a card draw (treasure chests inside passages that function as rooms was introduced in a few instances in the NA editions of KK/ROTWL) and some of the treasure cards show a boot being examined ("tucked into the toe of an old boot you find..."). I think the original artwork of the debris on the ground was to add to the realism and provide a "hint" that you should be searching there, though in the second edition and all later this was removed, and the boot was absent in the 2021/2022 board.

Poses of the First Light sculpts of the heroes are also nostalgic... the new Elf holds her sword like the hero tile art of the Elf in the classic game.
The new Dwarf mini poses similar to the Dwarf mini intended for use with "Advanced HeroQuest" (also released in 1989, only in Europe). Also the character now starts with a Hand Axe, while he never did before, the miniature in the original game looked like a smaller weapon than the large double bladed "Battle Axe."
The new Wizard mini has a full beard, similar to the miniature intended for use with "Advanced HeroQuest." The original hero tile for the Wizard shows him with a "magical effect" coming from his right hand.. and while the pose is different, the new miniature shows him generating fire from his upturned palm.

While the "cultists" (ROTDM) and "blightweavers" (JoD) are different enemies than the original Chaos Warlock, their look and pose appears to be a tribute to that original design much more so than the "Dread Sorcerers" we got in the big boxes of the remake.

Classic HeroQuest had cardboard doors (open and closed) that were inserted into gray plastic bases. While the remake gave us all plastic doorways, it retained the cardboard mirrors (Mage of the Mirror remake, but also used in Rise of the Dread Moon) that were inserted into very similar gray plastic bases (I've checked, they're compatible... the old classic doors can fit inside them!).



The ability to break out of Yeti hugs was planned in the draft notes of the Frozen Horror but left out of the official release, then re-added in "Into the Northlands" and the Companion App options for it.

"The Caverns" map in First Light appears to be based somewhat on a concept of Rockmole tunnels from the planned (but never officially released) Dwarf quest pack which also was to have swarms of rat vermin or snakes in pits as well, somewhat like the Spawnlings concept from Jungles of Delthrak. Rat minis were used in quest notes in the planned Wizard quest pack as well. Though you could say the rats were always there in the form of the small plastic pieces, they just never had an official function in the rules other than decoration until CoPD (still a mythic exclusive). Edit: I see that the White Dwarf Magazine (Issue #134) bonus HQ adventure "The Halls of Durrag-Dol" did feature some rats that could attack the heroes and are represented by the small plastic figures included with the game.

The "Saberfang" ally in concept appears based upon an animal companion that appears in the (again not officially completed or released) Wizard quest pack, which also featured large spiders as monsters as well as spiderwebs as a form of obstacle.

There was no "giant serpent" (JoD) in the original HeroQuest, but a snake-like "carnivorous cave worm" was planned for the unreleased Dwarf quest pack (though it was more like a cross between an lamprey and a caterpillar and meant to be a huge monster). We also got a "giant centipede" as a Spawnling creature in JoD.

Maybe this one is a stretch, but while there was no "Giant Ape" in the original HeroQuest (and I'm not aware of its equivalent in Warhammer Fantasy of the time), there was planned to be giant "Rock golem" in the unreleased Dwarf quest pack. I could imagine its similar build and size could have been an inspiration. Again, that may be a stretch on my part. One could also suspect that while the Dwarf pack was never released, the lore of Dwarves was emphasized in Jungles of Delthrak and while the Dwarf pack was meant to re-use the "boss" Ogre figures from ATOH, JoD used Ogre sized creatures but they were altered to other things. Again, I may be stretching on this! (Avalon Hill chose to make their Ogre bosses into 2 square wide monsters, which is more reminiscent of some Reaper bones Ogres sold these days than the original Ogres that were single base creatures, albeit slightly larger).

The concept of the Fireplace being able to heal a hero's BP, before "First Light" was to be used in the unpublished Wizard Quest pack albeit in a more limited fashion.

We could purchase Potions of Healing before (by a different name in the Frozen Horror Alchemist Shop), but the 2 BP variant was sold in the Armory of the Japanese edition (1991) originally, but has since been featured in Prophecy of Telor and Rise of the Dread Moon.

The Japanese HeroQuest (1991) was the only version where it was explicit that you were to move adjacent to a Treasure Chest to search it and gain the contents in the rules, and a few chests are found in corridors in Rise of the Dread Moon that open almost exactly this way (as opposed to searching anywhere in their location and automatically triggering any traps and then gaining whatever is inside).

"First Light" features cardboard standees of monsters and doors. The Brazilian (Portuguese) edition of HeroQuest (incidentally the only other edition that matched the NA rules as the edition sold in the USA in the 90's) released in 1993 had cardboard standees for the monsters AND heroes, again based upon the card art of the time (the front image on both sides), though the 1993 version used white backgrounds instead of black. The Brazilian edition used smaller versions of the gray plastic door bases for all the characters while First Light uses circular clear plastic bases. Also while the Brazilian edition used the familiar half cardboard/half plastic furniture (except the Weapons rack which was ful plastic) it had two interesting exceptions... the Sorcerer's Table and the Tomb were both folded "papercraft." First Light's furniture are flat tiles with black backgrounds that fill the approximate space the symbols would fill on the quest map and are a stylized version of what the plastic furniture might look like painted.

Other things have precedents or echoes in the world of Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition (the current one at the time of HeroQuest's debut) even if they were not mentioned before in the HQ lore.

Female orcs in connection with HeroQuest were mentioned in the official "Marvel Winter Special" of 1991.

Alchemists and Alchemy were long mentioned as part of HeroQuest in the past and further expanded in Rise of the Dread Moon's Alchemy system (also mentioned though not elaborated on, in JoD). Ghosts or spirits have been mentioned before in HQ before (Uller's Ghost!) and appear again in Spirit Queen's Torment (various characters) as well as the aforementioned ROTDM (Specters and Wraiths) in the AH era of HeroQuest.

The female Elf was part of the original MOTM but instead we were given a female Elf in the new GS as the default character and the male Elf was introduced as the variant in the remake of MOTM. I think it's cool that they based the sculpt of the new male Elf directly on the old artwork from 1992 (depicting him with the distinctive looking sword and shield, although the remake version depicts the armor clad female version wielding them, something she doesn't do in her plastic figure's pose).

While he's never described as such in HeroQuest, the Orc Bard was criticized by many upon his introduction during the Haslab campaign as not fitting because there shouldn't or couldn't be "good guy" Orcs. However Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition (current as of the debut of HeroQuest) as well as the Warhammer Fantasy RPG 1st edition (ditto) mention the concept of "Half Orcs" which can be evil OR neutral, and can be mercenaries that fight alongside humans and/or may be outcasts from orc society.

Dinosaurs were never explicitly featured in HeroQuest before Jungles of Delthrak, but the concept of Raptor-like creatures as mounts for monsters existed in Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

The whole concept of the "Dread Moon" might have been inspired by the concept of the "Chaos Moon" in Warhammer Fantasy lore.

The "fire daemon" in Prophecy of Telor seems like a nostalgic nod to the origins of the original Gargoyle miniature being a smaller version of the Warhammer "Bloodthirster" as well as the origin of THAT monster based upon the Balrog from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (many nostalgic Tolkien tributes in HQ, as well as WH and D&D of course).

There may be other nods to Warhammer lore, since I'm not a lore nerd for that franchise there could be others I'm missing.

We still have yet to get any bad guys in the new editions that are cast in red plastic (so far only heroes and their allies), or dark blue plastic.

We had the beginnings of a painting guide (mostly for furniture but some other examples for other characters in social media posts) during the Haslab campaign. Promotional material from White Dwarf magazine and some posters I've seen were released for the EU edition, while painting was not emphasized for the NA release.

We haven't seen a solo quest for the Wizard in the new franchise (the Dave Morris novel "Screaming Spectre" featured one) but Into the Northlands was introduced as a solo quest for "any" hero (though probably played by many with the Barbarian since he does the other 3 solos in Frozen Horror, which naturally follows).


Not to get too off topic, but just wanted to share what I could recall! (thanks to Phoenix and Lucapaschi as sources for much of this information in my research)
I love the fact that the AH team seems to have done their best to incorporate snippets from other versions of the HQ game into their modern version, and whenever they create something new, they try to evoke something from the past lore of HQ or at the very least something that feels like it belongs, with some corollary in the old Warhammer Fantasy world.


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Re: Published Heroes?

Postby CrushYourEnemies » Sunday November 24th, 2024 6:59pm

Kurgan wrote:
CrushYourEnemies wrote:You make a great point! If I recall correctly, the idea of slain monsters coming back as zombies in ROTDM was borrowed from The Plague of Zombies quest. I'm also aware that the premiere EU edition of Heroquest had an "Arena" quest long before AH's remake of ATOH. I wonder what other ideas have been borrowed from classic Heroquest.


True, that arena was very different but you can see the inspiration for something like that coming from the first edition...

Ogre mercenaries were mentioned as possible but no rule mechanics were given for them in the original ATOH but we got them in the remake edition.

Several more things from classic HeroQuest that have been re-introduced that we can find I'm sure:

I think it is interesting that the classic HeroQuest game had square bases for characters and rounded corner dice, while the remake has square cornered dice and rounded bases for characters! However it is interesting to note that promotional material and even early trailers for the remake showed the familiar rounded corners on their dice, the idea of round bases for the heroes and monsters was first shown in the promo images for the original game (look on the back of the box on especially the European editions of HQ core set, and you'll see the bases are round, also in the original commercials!).

This isn't so much a reference but just kind of a fun thing... the candlesticks on the classic era Sorcerer's table were a weak point in the set when closing the box and often broken in vintage sets (at the very least the tips of the flames were often broken off). The remake edition deliberately crafted one of the candles shorter ('more burned') than the other perhaps in reference to this fact. Also, any mentions of slavery are removed from the remake edition's Game System books, but an acknowledgement is still made of that history in the remake edition. In classic HQ it was mentioned that many goblin tribes had been enslaved by Orcs. The remake artwork of the Goblin depicts him wearing a broken shackle (as if having been freed or escaped from such a life!).

The Avalon Hill HeroQuest remake uses the "Equipment deck" of the original version instead of the "Armory board" of the 1990 NA edition the rules are based upon. The concept of the Armory itself is retained and the fact that cards do not limit supply of available equipment to buy (as clarified in the Adventure Design Kit of 1991 and retained in the 1990 NA edition) is also made clear in the rulebook.

The Spear weapon was never officially ported back over (it was removed in the NA edition of 1990, along with the Cloak of Protection that was replaced by the Wizard's Cloak Artifact, the Bracers, and Hand Axe) but we did get other "spear" type Artifacts... the "Dragon Spear" (exclusive to the Mythic set, intended for Crypt of Perpetual Darkness) and the "Ice Queen's Spear" in the digital supplement to the Frozen Horror "Into the Northlands." These were stronger and could not be thrown. A spear was mentioned in Spirit Queen's Torment quest book (with no description of its attributes) but this reference was removed in the retail version of that quest book.

The remake Dwarf is depicted in the artwork with a dark skin tone. While this doesn't match his appearance on the classic Les Edwards covers of the Game System or Kellar's Keep (or the slightly stylized versions featured in the NA editions), it does evoke the original artwork on the Dwarf's character tile (a clear tribute to the "White Dwarf" mascot of the GamesWorkShop magazine of the same name).

Hand Axe was borrowed from the EU editions. Due to an error it was allowed for the Wizard (and Warlock too) in the 2021 printing, but corrected in later printings.

Holy Water (as a card item anyway, it was only a single instance of "Sacred Water" in the NA edition of ROTWL that was a quest note in 1990) the Equipment was based on the original EU Treasure Card. Same with Potion of Speed.

Bracers were a Wizard only Equipment in the EU 2nd edition (that are now considered "non-metal armor" usable by other heroes that can be used in place of body armor).

The plan in the 1990's was to release a quest pack for each of the four heroes with a female version of each of the classic party members for each one respectively. While only the Elf (Mage of the Mirror) and Barbarian (Frozen Horror) packs were released back in 1992, we got female versions of the Dwarf and Wizard miniatures in the Haslab campaign (but sadly not yet in retail). You could of course easily use the female Berserker or the female Explorer (both from JoD) to represent these sex swapped Barbarian and Dwarf respectively if you wished. The Explorer even holds a smaller axe similar to the original sculpt of the Dwarf (even if the pose is completely different).

The remake of Mage of the Mirror introduced "elven" variants of the plastic furniture (and ROTDM continued the trend). The design of the Elven "Tomb" a little more closely resembles the design of the effigy on the classic tomb than the version included with the remake Game System. Still not a perfect match (the original had its "face" uncovered while the Elf version has a half visor covering the eyes and there are fringes on the edges of the stone though the sword is the proper length and the shoulder armor is a closer match).

The lore text about the Orcs in the remake Game System is toned down from the GamesWorkShop influenced original. However I appreciated how New Beginnings restored some of the text describing them as delighting in "cruelty and slaughter" like the good old greenskin guys we always loved to hate back in the day. While the Abomination monster completely replaces the classic "Fimir" monster, its depiction as a creature that dwells in watery areas still conforms to some of the lore surrounding the "Fomoroian" creature of folklore that was one of the inspirations for the original Fimir, which I appreciate as well.

While the original version of HeroQuest intended the white bearded man in the red cape holding the large book to be Mentor and NOT the evil wizard character (Morcar, renamed Zargon in the NA edition and Grimdead in the Japanese edition)... I feel as if Avalon Hill is kind of acknowledging that it was a widespread misunderstanding by many NA fans growing up that the guy on the GM screen was not Zargon but many of us thought he was. He seemed like a kind of evil looking fellow who appeared to be commanding the monsters to attack (and after all, the player who takes the role of Zargon puts that big picture of the white bearded guy in front of their own face, as if that's the character they are portraying! Even though the intention was it's supposed to represent Mentor holding Loretome and warning you of the monsters that you may soon be facing). NA fans didn't have easy access to the Marvel Winter Special that clearly depicts this guy as "Mentor." It was more ambiguous in the Gremlin PC game (though we didn't get that either, the NES version was cancelled before it was finished). We also didn't get the Sticker Album on this side of the pond but that would have confused us even more as that one depicts Mentor as a white bearded gentleman yes, but with a white skullcap, pointed ears, and a blue cloak (while Morcar is presented with the familiar red cape opposing him). Even so I feel like in the marketing materials and promotional fliers they will mention "ZARGON" and right next to it is a picture of "Mentor." I suppose you could read this as whenever you're hearing about Zargon it's from Mentor's words of warning. But if you are someone who grew up thinking that guy was Zargon it's like you can just go right on believing it if you want to. ;) Perhaps old Wizards kind of look alike. Zargon was once Mentor's student after all... (the computer game and Marvel Winter Special give alternate depictions that make him seem more like a Skeletor type figure perhaps similar to the Witch Lord with a hood or maybe a more wizened, elf-like character though the computer game is ambiguous as well in its cutscenes).

The Chaos Warriors had to be renamed in the new version (separating from the GWS Warhammer IP). They are now called "Dread Warriors" in the remake, but I think it is great that they picked this name because that is a term that was also found in the original lore description at the end of the quest booklet for them. The altered helmet design (from the familiar "horns" connected by a ball like on the Chaos Warlock helm) that has the horns pointing down is still a variant found within the variants of the Chaos Warrior helmets within Warhammer Fantasy art. An alternate version of the Chaos Warrior helmet (without the "ball" but facing upward) appeared in the PC game of HeroQuest from 1991. The Les Edward artwork of the ROTWL's Witch Lord featured a helmet with horns but no "ball."

There has been no official re-release of the Adventure Design Kit (all of the boxed expansions besides it and Wizards of Morcar now have an equivalent remake release in retail, thank goodness), they did release a digital PDF that is called the "Adventure Design Kit" with some art flourishes that may remind you of the original, though the icons are not all scaled properly that you could actually cut and paste them onto the grid to form a quest. Instead you're intended to use the images as a guide to draw them yourself on the paper freehand. If you did want to copy and paste icons, they helpfully placed a blank quest map (and not just the symbols as in the originals) in EACH of the quest books, further reinforcing their desire to have the players remix and even create their own adventures with the assets found in those boxes to the limits of their imaginations.

The concept of "playing the quests as a series" and so not being able to shop between quests was first introduced in the original Against the Ogre Horde (but not retained in the remake edition). However this concept of not being able to shop between quests, while it technically existed in 1992 with the "two parter" quests ending the Elf and Barbarian packs, was expanded upon in Rise of the Dread Moon. Here most quests didn't allow shopping between quests, but instead you could visit certain merchants within quests to buy or trade and visit the rare "Hideouts" for limited healing.

The original ROTWL (as well as Advanced HeroQuest, both released in 1989 incidentally) featured a "world map" on the back cover of the quest book lifted directly from Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition core rulebook's art (the NA edition had no such map), but I think it is cool that a HQ world map was finally shown (even if only a partial one) in the new version via the Path of the Wandering Monk hero collection's "lore scroll." Some say it looks a bit like an upside down and stretched version of the "Old World" again probably in tribute to the original.

The Legacy of Sorasil (a video game with no physical board game release, despite being billed as a sequel to HeroQuest) featured four heroes that have never been properly duplicated, but you could see inspiration for new heroes based on these.

For example while there is no official "Cleric" hero in the new game, the Bard character functions much like a cleric as one who has healing and buffing ability but is otherwise inclined towards lighter armor.

There is no "Ranger" but the Warlock hero (now available with Prophecy of Telor in retail) is intended to be a "magical artillerist" type character who is otherwise lightly defended.

There is no "Mystic" but the Druid (now available in ATOH remake) is a kind of female wizard (albeit with stronger fighting skills and weaker magic abilities; the Mystic in LOS was potentially more powerful than the default male Wizard).

The Paladin hero is more like a magical version of a Knight, but you could see the concept of a Guardian Knight with Skills to be a spinoff of this idea as well.

The "Guardian Knights" are mentioned in the lore of KK (if I recall correctly) but then were fleshed out a little more with the animated commercial narrated by Stephen Baker along with the lore card provided in the limited release Commander of the Guardian Knights Hero Collection, and to a lesser extent Rise of the Dread Moon.

Legacy of Sorasil featured many enemies that some have pointed out feel more at home in the world of D&D than HeroQuest, yet, the "mire men" (swamp monsters) in a way could remind someone of the Skull Blights (though the JoD monsters have a much cooler design for an enemy in my humble opinion).

The shocking plot point revealed in the ending to the original ROTWL (completely deleted from the North American release) about the direction of Sir Ragnar was re-adopted (in a different fashion of course) in Rise of the Dread Moon and its prequel "Knightfall."

White Dwarf Magazine (the official GWS magazine, Issue #145) had an bonus HeroQuest adventure written by the late Carl Sargent in 1991, that featured a character called "Pierre Chancier" and it was suggested that a Citadel minis knight figure be used to represent him, which you could say bore a resemblance to the helmeted Guardian Knight figure sold with Rise of the Dread Moon.

The Dragon presented in the Mythic exclusive "Crypt of Perpetual Darkness" and now the new dragon in "First Light" were not the first official dragons in HQ. The first Dave Morris Novel "Fellowship of Four" mentions one in the narrative section. The sequel "Tyrant's Tomb" (focused on the Barbarian) also features a Dragon-like creature as an antagonist for the hero.

"First Light" restores the "Boot tile" to the board for the first time in the new editions. Off topic, but I link the image of the boot to the fact that the first edition let you search for treasure in corridors ("passages") which would always trigger a card draw (treasure chests inside passages that function as rooms was introduced in a few instances in the NA editions of KK/ROTWL) and some of the treasure cards show a boot being examined ("tucked into the toe of an old boot you find..."). I think the original artwork of the debris on the ground was to add to the realism and provide a "hint" that you should be searching there, though in the second edition and all later this was removed, and the boot was absent in the 2021/2022 board.

Poses of the First Light sculpts of the heroes are also nostalgic... the new Elf holds her sword like the hero tile art of the Elf in the classic game.
The new Dwarf mini poses similar to the Dwarf mini intended for use with "Advanced HeroQuest" (also released in 1989, only in Europe). Also the character now starts with a Hand Axe, while he never did before, the miniature in the original game looked like a smaller weapon than the large double bladed "Battle Axe."
The new Wizard mini has a full beard, similar to the miniature intended for use with "Advanced HeroQuest." The original hero tile for the Wizard shows him with a "magical effect" coming from his right hand.. and while the pose is different, the new miniature shows him generating fire from his upturned palm.

While the "cultists" (ROTDM) and "blightweavers" (JoD) are different enemies than the original Chaos Warlock, their look and pose appears to be a tribute to that original design much more so than the "Dread Sorcerers" we got in the big boxes of the remake.

Classic HeroQuest had cardboard doors (open and closed) that were inserted into gray plastic bases. While the remake gave us all plastic doorways, it retained the cardboard mirrors (Mage of the Mirror remake, but also used in Rise of the Dread Moon) that were inserted into very similar gray plastic bases (I've checked, they're compatible... the old classic doors can fit inside them!).



The ability to break out of Yeti hugs was planned in the draft notes of the Frozen Horror but left out of the official release, then re-added in "Into the Northlands" and the Companion App options for it.

"The Caverns" map in First Light appears to be based somewhat on a concept of Rockmole tunnels from the planned (but never officially released) Dwarf quest pack which also was to have swarms of rat vermin or snakes in pits as well, somewhat like the Spawnlings concept from Jungles of Delthrak. Rat minis were used in quest notes in the planned Wizard quest pack as well. Though you could say the rats were always there in the form of the small plastic pieces, they just never had an official function in the rules other than decoration until CoPD (still a mythic exclusive). Edit: I see that the White Dwarf Magazine (Issue #134) bonus HQ adventure "The Halls of Durrag-Dol" did feature some rats that could attack the heroes and are represented by the small plastic figures included with the game.

The "Saberfang" ally in concept appears based upon an animal companion that appears in the (again not officially completed or released) Wizard quest pack, which also featured large spiders as monsters as well as spiderwebs as a form of obstacle.

There was no "giant serpent" (JoD) in the original HeroQuest, but a snake-like "carnivorous cave worm" was planned for the unreleased Dwarf quest pack (though it was more like a cross between an lamprey and a caterpillar and meant to be a huge monster). We also got a "giant centipede" as a Spawnling creature in JoD.

Maybe this one is a stretch, but while there was no "Giant Ape" in the original HeroQuest (and I'm not aware of its equivalent in Warhammer Fantasy of the time), there was planned to be giant "Rock golem" in the unreleased Dwarf quest pack. I could imagine its similar build and size could have been an inspiration. Again, that may be a stretch on my part. One could also suspect that while the Dwarf pack was never released, the lore of Dwarves was emphasized in Jungles of Delthrak and while the Dwarf pack was meant to re-use the "boss" Ogre figures from ATOH, JoD used Ogre sized creatures but they were altered to other things. Again, I may be stretching on this! (Avalon Hill chose to make their Ogre bosses into 2 square wide monsters, which is more reminiscent of some Reaper bones Ogres sold these days than the original Ogres that were single base creatures, albeit slightly larger).

The concept of the Fireplace being able to heal a hero's BP, before "First Light" was to be used in the unpublished Wizard Quest pack albeit in a more limited fashion.

We could purchase Potions of Healing before (by a different name in the Frozen Horror Alchemist Shop), but the 2 BP variant was sold in the Armory of the Japanese edition (1991) originally, but has since been featured in Prophecy of Telor and Rise of the Dread Moon.

The Japanese HeroQuest (1991) was the only version where it was explicit that you were to move adjacent to a Treasure Chest to search it and gain the contents in the rules, and a few chests are found in corridors in Rise of the Dread Moon that open almost exactly this way (as opposed to searching anywhere in their location and automatically triggering any traps and then gaining whatever is inside).

"First Light" features cardboard standees of monsters and doors. The Brazilian (Portuguese) edition of HeroQuest (incidentally the only other edition that matched the NA rules as the edition sold in the USA in the 90's) released in 1993 had cardboard standees for the monsters AND heroes, again based upon the card art of the time (the front image on both sides), though the 1993 version used white backgrounds instead of black. The Brazilian edition used smaller versions of the gray plastic door bases for all the characters while First Light uses circular clear plastic bases. Also while the Brazilian edition used the familiar half cardboard/half plastic furniture (except the Weapons rack which was ful plastic) it had two interesting exceptions... the Sorcerer's Table and the Tomb were both folded "papercraft." First Light's furniture are flat tiles with black backgrounds that fill the approximate space the symbols would fill on the quest map and are a stylized version of what the plastic furniture might look like painted.

Other things have precedents or echoes in the world of Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition (the current one at the time of HeroQuest's debut) even if they were not mentioned before in the HQ lore.

Female orcs in connection with HeroQuest were mentioned in the official "Marvel Winter Special" of 1991.

Alchemists and Alchemy were long mentioned as part of HeroQuest in the past and further expanded in Rise of the Dread Moon's Alchemy system (also mentioned though not elaborated on, in JoD). Ghosts or spirits have been mentioned before in HQ before (Uller's Ghost!) and appear again in Spirit Queen's Torment (various characters) as well as the aforementioned ROTDM (Specters and Wraiths) in the AH era of HeroQuest.

The female Elf was part of the original MOTM but instead we were given a female Elf in the new GS as the default character and the male Elf was introduced as the variant in the remake of MOTM. I think it's cool that they based the sculpt of the new male Elf directly on the old artwork from 1992 (depicting him with the distinctive looking sword and shield, although the remake version depicts the armor clad female version wielding them, something she doesn't do in her plastic figure's pose).

While he's never described as such in HeroQuest, the Orc Bard was criticized by many upon his introduction during the Haslab campaign as not fitting because there shouldn't or couldn't be "good guy" Orcs. However Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition (current as of the debut of HeroQuest) as well as the Warhammer Fantasy RPG 1st edition (ditto) mention the concept of "Half Orcs" which can be evil OR neutral, and can be mercenaries that fight alongside humans and/or may be outcasts from orc society.

Dinosaurs were never explicitly featured in HeroQuest before Jungles of Delthrak, but the concept of Raptor-like creatures as mounts for monsters existed in Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

The whole concept of the "Dread Moon" might have been inspired by the concept of the "Chaos Moon" in Warhammer Fantasy lore.

The "fire daemon" in Prophecy of Telor seems like a nostalgic nod to the origins of the original Gargoyle miniature being a smaller version of the Warhammer "Bloodthirster" as well as the origin of THAT monster based upon the Balrog from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (many nostalgic Tolkien tributes in HQ, as well as WH and D&D of course).

There may be other nods to Warhammer lore, since I'm not a lore nerd for that franchise there could be others I'm missing.

We still have yet to get any bad guys in the new editions that are cast in red plastic (so far only heroes and their allies), or dark blue plastic.

We had the beginnings of a painting guide (mostly for furniture but some other examples for other characters in social media posts) during the Haslab campaign. Promotional material from White Dwarf magazine and some posters I've seen were released for the EU edition, while painting was not emphasized for the NA release.

We haven't seen a solo quest for the Wizard in the new franchise (the Dave Morris novel "Screaming Spectre" featured one) but Into the Northlands was introduced as a solo quest for "any" hero (though probably played by many with the Barbarian since he does the other 3 solos in Frozen Horror, which naturally follows).


Not to get too off topic, but just wanted to share what I could recall! (thanks to Phoenix and Lucapaschi as sources for much of this information in my research)
I love the fact that the AH team seems to have done their best to incorporate snippets from other versions of the HQ game into their modern version, and whenever they create something new, they try to evoke something from the past lore of HQ or at the very least something that feels like it belongs, with some corollary in the old Warhammer Fantasy world.

Wow, this was truly enlightening! Thanks for giving such a thorough response! I know this isn't an idea taken from og HeroQuest (moreso a nod really), but the end of ROTDM references the original release date with its end reward. Heroes earn 1,989 gold pieces.

Speaking of Legacy of Sorasil, I'd say the Cleric, Mystic, Paladin, and Ranger count as published heroes! I know I said magazines specifically, that's my fault for being too narrow.

I wonder how the four heroes would translate to AH's version of HeroQuest? I could see the Ranger and Paladin fitting in just fine. I think the Mystic would step on the Wizard's toe. Correct me if I'm wrong, but HeroQuest avoids mentioning any gods or religions on purpose, right? I can't imagine a cleric without pious worship.
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Re: Published Heroes?

Postby Kurgan » Sunday November 24th, 2024 7:07pm

There was a reference to the elven sage character invoking "the gods" in mythic SQT (removed in the retail version). Demons (or daemons) are referenced in PoT, and references to the afterlife are still in SQT. Religious/spiritual references are still in HQ they're just kept vague, I suppose.

The Dave Morris novels mention crossing oneself and crucifixes (Chris Nadeau called those novels "no longer canon" as far as they were concerned). The Japanese HeroQuest references an "evil god" character being summoned by the Evil Wizard GM figure (named Grimdead) and temples where gold is donated to resurrect dead heroes.

There's some question to what degree religious references are returning via First Light (mention of priests, temples and altars, blessings, oracles, curses).


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