HeroQuest World

[Kurgan]

It's like so many other long running franchises. What is "canon" changes from year to year and owner to owner based entirely on pushing product to earn a profit. Are indvidual players really obligated to respect any of that? Unless you're running some kind of official tournament with rules that exclude certain editions or years or whatever, it really doesn't matter much at all. The purpose of creating a "canon" in most fictional works is similar to the creation of a "writer's bible" to try to keep the storyline and characters consistent when you have a staff of multiple contributors... with the assumption that the creator/owner or at the very least the audience, cares about such things. In a board game, to me it's a bit like trying to set a canon for chess matches. The rules change from one set to another, and the setting is whatever you want it to be. Using it to hype up other products was the goal here and saving time not having to invent as much new concept art. For people who love an old setting or notion, they have just as much right to hold onto that as someone else who is refreshing social media to see what Avalon Hill is saying this month about it or some other person who is just inserting their own head canon.

I say if it inspires you to write a good fun quest for your table, then use whatever the heck you want, even if nobody involved with the franchise ever intended it. HeroQuest is even more in the camp of "do it yourself" since from the very beginning that was intended and explicitly pointed out over and over again. Hasbro could, in theory, release a new edition of HeroQuest that says no one but Hasbro is allowed to create new HeroQuest content and all previous mods and editions are non-canon and disallowed. But if they did this they would destroy a major foundation of the following for the game, to their own financial detriment. In short, it would be a completely foolish act, so it's unlikely to happen. But if they did, could they really stop the world's HQ fans of just carrying on like before? All they could possibly do is stop the small percentage of people who are selling HQ compatible mods out there (see D&D OGL situation and how that went, Hasbro remembers).

[therealshrek]

Ive been doing the whole Heroquest, Warhammer Quest thing since they began. When this all started GW basically took advantage of MB to get things in front of the eyes of more people. And even though GW wanted it to act as a gateway to GW products like Warhammer Quest and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Warhammer Fantasy Battle, it was also advertised as being "loosely based around archetypes of fantasy roleplaying games." None specifically, it was meant to be generalized.

So, it is similar yes, because it is similar to all fantasy games. It could be Warhammer Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, or any one of several D&D settings. But it is not any of them, it is its own World. Under the new ownership of the game, GW is no longer connected with it, so all GW branding and intellectual rights have been removed. That is why "Chaos" is "Dread" now, and why the Fimir" a specifically GW creature is no longer in the base set and why it was replaced with the Abomination. While HQ is still a generic setting, it has been made very clear that it is not, and can not be considered the Warhammer setting.

That being said, as an old school 1st ed. WFRP, WFB player, my HQ is definitely loaded with references to such, and my Monster Manual for Heroquest has been extensively expanded to include all the monsters from Adv. Heroquest, Warhammer Quest, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Warhammer Fantasy Battle. But if Hasbro makes a new Map and a sourcebook with the "World of Heroquest" Id be perfectly happy with that, it means another whole realm to play in. As I see it, Heroquest is ALL the games. In my world, you will find all the continents of Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, all D&D settings, Terrinoth, the Conan setting and more, like Camelot, and any other fantasy setting you can imagine. Pixie Hollow? You betcha.

[BlackJax]

An interesting discussion but doesn't the answer depend on when?

I'm just reading Dave Morris's HeroQuest books and blog which I found via links on the Inn (just finished the second one) and the author says that when he was first commissioned there weren't any maps of the HQ world so he had to create his own, which suggests to me that two worlds were not initially the same as Warhammer had a world map at that point, and only later during the process for the second and third books were "official" maps provided and by that point the HeroQuest world was considered "loosely based" on the Warhammer world so it suggests to me that the answer to the poll question might depend on when you are asking.

I don't recall there being a Heroquest world at the time I wrote the first book, so I created part of one and drew my own map of it. By the time I was asked to write the second book, Games Workshop had designed their own version of the world, which included some of the place names from my novella but with a quite different geography "loosely based on the Warhammer world"

By the time I was working on the second book, Games Workshop had dashed in and changed my map of the Heroquest world to something more like their Warhammer map. It wasn't actually the same as the Warhammer one, but it had a lot of place names in common (including the curious "Trullheim" - did they know what a trull actully was?) and also made no sense in relation to the events of the first book, The Fellowship of Four. Go figure.

[Parzival]

A: Only if you want it to be.

Granted, I only have the new Hasbro edition, but from what I’ve read of the originals, it may have the GW look and feel, but it’s really too generic to be part of Warhammer. And the structure of the game is so tightly focused on dungeon crawls that the external setting only matters as far as fluff goes. For the heroes, it doesn’t really matter what the world at large is like, as long as the loose backstory fits in. They themselves have no real backstory or origin tales, unless the players wish to give them one. It’s thematic to do so, but it affects the game not one whit.

The closest “world” product to HeroQuest is Battle Masters, the Milton Bradley/GW giant-hex-and-miniatures game. We are introduced here to the existence of an Empire (of men) and the evil forces of Chaos (orcs, goblins, beastmen, humans and one big ogre). We get place names as origins for some Empire units— Altdorf is one I recall— and a few of the Chaos forces have the names of “leaders” attached to them. My understanding at the time was these were linked to Warhammer, but how closely I don’t know. I can see that both partners in the game’s production might want to keep any existing IP “close to the vest.” But beyond that the world is only loosely presented. One can glean relative position of locations from the “campaign” scenarios, which feature the Chaos Army gradually approaching the Imperial Capitol, but for all that it could as well be the world of Tom Wham’s Search for the Emperor’s Treasure as Warhammer. The terms are just too loose. (Hey, SftET had the monsters “Fish Fiends” which are dead ringers for Hasbro’s “Abominations!” )

(Hey, Hasbro— bring back Battle Masters, and update it with expansion armies to include HQ elements: Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf, Wizard (Magic would be a great addition to BM), Undead. I guarantee that would sell, especially with a strong HQ tie-in.

[wallydubbs]

I'd like to see a HeroQuest Risk. We have more than enough factions: The Realm, Greenskins, Ogres, Undead, Elves. It's just wishful thinking as this would require a designated map Hasbro/Avalon Hill feigns to include. I understand why, that's too much world building, a potential lawsuit from Games Workshop and it takes away from Zargon being the main villain.

HeroQuest is only loosely based on Warhammer. Stephen Baker had ideas for the game before Games Workshop threw pieces of their world into it.

[Parzival]

I'd like to see a HeroQuest Risk. We have more than enough factions: The Realm, Greenskins, Ogres, Undead, Elves. It's just wishful thinking as this would require a designated map Hasbro/Avalon Hill feigns to include. I understand why, that's too much world building, a potential lawsuit from Games Workshop and it takes away from Zargon being the main villain.

HeroQuest is only loosely based on Warhammer. Stephen Baker had ideas for the game before Games Workshop threw pieces of their world into it.

Not that hard to come up with a unique map that’s not Warhammer’s The Olde World (or whatever they dubbed it).

On a related note, I think Hasbro could have used “Chaos” without any problems— that’s not GW’s IP; they stole it from Moorcock who stole it from DC Comics, who stole it from Poul Anderson, who might have borrowed it from Gardner Fox, who was at least inspired by the supernatural pulps, who may have copied it from Greek (or Hindu) mythology, who got it from who knows where. The word “Chaos” even as a term for an intelligent supernatural force of disorder and destruction is hardly original. In fact, it occurs in nearly every major world religion. Unless there was some explicit agreement in the original MB deal with GW that prohibited MB from using the word in any other product, I really don’t see that GW has any legal claim to the word or even the concept it represents. For that matter, they don’t own “orc” “dwarf” “elf” “Empire” or a hundred other words they bandy about as if these were their own ideas. “Fimir” (or whatever it is) is theirs, I suppose, but since no one but a Warhammer fantasy fan knows what the heck it means, it’s of no value to Hasbro anyway. “Abomination” is as good as any, and ironically closer to the Chaos idea than the word it replaced (being vaguely Lovecraftian, or sea-based— many ancient gods of Chaos were sea gods, for rather obvious reasons).

[Kurgan]

Revisiting this question in 2026...

I can admit that Classic HeroQuest was most definitely loosely set in the world of Warhammer Fantasy, but to what depth and direction players took it was entirely up to them. US players like myself simply didn't have access to much of the extra products so we were left to our imaginations more I think vs. UK players (or Japanese players!). The ancillary lore (outside of the boxed games) added stuff that wasn't necessarily a perfect fit, but still could easily be massaged by those with imagination into fitting all together if desired (or you could see it like Tolkien's backstory to Middle Earth, a bunch of contradictory legends and myths that point to some mysterious hidden "true history" making the fantasy feel more "real").

For modern HeroQuest (the remake and beyond) I'm interested in what Doug 'WanderingMonster' Hopkins & co. (I say that because he seems to be the face of AH now that Chris 'Encarmine' Nadeau is gone) have come up with. I am curious where they take the storyline that they've developed with their new characters and quest packs (Knight, Rogue, Monk... the other new heroes don't have much development in terms of character backstory at least they got something... Rise of the Dread Moon, Jungles of Delthrak, First Light, Prophecy of Telor, Spirit Queen's Torment, Crypt of Perpetual Darkness... the one off quests written by Stephen Baker and Doug Hopkins and the new content added to Against the Ogre Horde and Wizards of Morcar). At the same time it's clear they held back on over-developing the storyline and characters even in those new packs, leaving room for the players to insert their own ideas very easily or imagine old stuff from the classic lore might still be there.

So I'll read their stuff but also add my own. I like to imagine a version of the Warhammer Fantasy world (maybe a more heroic, abbreviated version with themes and ideas grabbed from different eras and versions of the war game and the RPG) is there, but also my own head canon. At the bear minimum when you play HeroQuest it's just what's on the page and whatever you add to it (or don't) is your business, and that's a good thing.

So when I play the modern quests, I still mention "Chaos Warriors" and read some of the old lore lines, and I cycle both Fimir and Abominations into battles.

I do appreciate the fact that when AH does add new things to the lore, it seems like they have taken care to make sure that whatever it is, it is very easy to imagine it compatible with the settings and conventions of the world of Warhammer Fantasy as well. It may not officially say it's X (for legal reasons), but it sure sounds like it can easily FIT with X. I think that can enhance the nostalgia for WHF fans who are continuing those connections, and kind of validate some of their own homebrews that coincidentally AH sometimes acknowledges, which is further bonding with a lot of fans. For those who don't care about such things, it's just like a novelty and some new thing to incorporate into the minimalist world that they are given out of the box. It's still a launching point for your own imagination to be sparked! So I think they're doing it the right way.

Now the real question is, after Wizards of Morcar, what will they have for us next? UK Games Expo is coming up at the end of May. GenCon at the end of July...