Ye Olde Inn

Indulge me...

I've always assumed that the big scary-looking wizard in the red robes, shown on the game screen, is Morcar/Zargon. (The bazillion monsters he's directing forward kinda give it away.)

Meanwhile, I always thought Mentor was the wizardly fellow shown poring over a book (Loretome?) in that little window on the European Heroes' character cards.

Believe it or not, it's taken me twenty years to notice that they're identical.

Now, I reckon the real explanation for this is simply that both pictures show Morcar/Zargon, and that there's no picture of Mentor. Possibly the little picture on the character cards was removed from the North American version so nobody would mistake it for Mentor.

HOWEVER... just for fun ... what if Mentor and Morcar are the same person? A case of split personalities? Curious, don't you think, that Mentor's Loretome seems to know all about Morcar's schemes, yet neither seems capable of truly defeating the other?

What if Mentor leads a double life as Morcar and neither of them realises it? What if all that Morcar backstory Mentor tells the heroes in the first questbook is nothing but lies and/or fantasies he's built up to protect himself from the horrifying truth? It wasn't his apprentice who 'saw magic as a shortcut to power'. It was himself. Dun dun dunnnn...

It's certainly suspicious that their names share the same first and last letters...

Psychologists, to arms!

Of course, the Marvel Winter Special muddies the waters by showing Morcar/Zargon as a hooded blue-skinned fellow. I propose to deal with the problem thusly: Not canon.

From a meta perspective, the Morcar/Zargon player has the dual role of trying to defeat the Heroes and giving them an enjoyable, fulfilling game. There's a certain about of doublethink involved. It certainly feels like you're Mentor and Morcar simultaneously

And from a fan Quest Pack perspective, imagine this: The Heroes are summoned by a strangely flustered and panicky Mentor because he's made some terrible discovery. They find him gone and a mysterious magic portal open in his study, leading into the heart of Morcar's bastion. The Heroes assume Mentor has been kidnapped and leap through the portal to save him, fighting through the toughest Quests they've ever attempted, perhaps even confronting Morcar himself... but all the while they notice increasingly weird coincidences and connections, and slowly begin to realise the truth... Mentor and Morcar are never in the same room at the same time...

Zenithfleet wrote:HOWEVER... just for fun ... what if Mentor and Morcar are the same person? A case of split personalities? Curious, don't you think, that Mentor's Loretome seems to know all about Morcar's schemes, yet neither seems capable of truly defeating the other?

The first rule about Fight Club is... never talk about Fight Club.

I've read threads on various boards about this same topic. It's always interesting. I would like to see someone attempt a quest that reveals the truth some day.

Actually, in a comic called "united we stand?" in a HeroQuest Marvel winter special magazine from 1991, the white haired, red robed wizard is Mentor. Zargon is depicted as a sort of Dr. Doom, with a hood and red eyes.

I'm pretty sure both the screen and the cards depict Mentor, not Morcar. The giveaway is the book. But it sure does look like he is commanding the monsters!
Anyway it's also more mysterious and exciting if we never see Morcar.

As a kid I thought the chaos warlock represented Morcar. Now I believe it specifically represents the Witch King.

Sjeng: see my original post for my answer. It's like I have a time machine or something!

Goblin-King: I'm intrigued by the number of people who believe the red-robed wizard is Mentor. (I'm not saying they're wrong, mind you. It's just interesting to see people's different interpretations.)

To me, the red fella is clearly Morcar/Zargon because a) he's on the Evil Wizard Player's game screen, b) he's directing the monsters (or appears to be), and c) he looks suitably deranged and evil.

As for the book, well, surely an evil wizard needs a spellbook as much as a good wizard?

As I said, though, this means the little pic on the character boards makes no sense. Methinks somebody at MB didn't quite think it through...

Mentor is a bad-ass wizard who've seen some tough *lemony goodness* in his life. He is no jolly old Gandalf. He looks stern!
The game-master has as you say a dual job. Being Mentor in giving the players the quest (justifying his picture on the screen), and being Morcar and trying to kill the heroes.

But for the sake of your plot idea. One of the heroes takes a look in Loretome only to discover it's just full of Mentors doodles and insane scribbles!

Also Sir Ragnar was the one person who knew Mentor's secret. That's why the orcs were ordered to kidnap him. The heroes saved him, yes, but not before Mentor had already worked his evil magic on him.
I seem to remember Ragnar turning evil by the way. Was that a real quest or just a fan quest?

edit: I've always thought Loretome was a terrible plot device. It doesn't make much sense, even in a fantasy world.
This plot twist would if nothing else explain why Loretome can "predict" stuff.

Goblin-King wrote:Also Sir Ragnar was the one person who knew Mentor's secret. That's why the orcs were ordered to kidnap him. The heroes saved him, yes, but not before Mentor had already worked his evil magic on him.
I seem to remember Ragnar turning evil by the way. Was that a real quest or just a fan quest?

I love this! "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean..." etc.

And yes, Sir Ragnar is corrupted by Chaos (in the EU version). He helps Skulmar leg it with the Witch Lord's spellbooks, but gets caught and executed. It's in the flavour text at the end of the RotWL questbook. At least, that's the way Mentor tells it... hmm...

The Skulmar plotline never went any further, as far as I know. Pity. He's got the second-cheesiest name in all of HeroQuest, he's the star of the Marvel Winter Special... he deserved better treatment!

I'm pretty sure drathe and Phoenix used this unresolved plot point to kick off a couple of their fan quest packs.

Goblin-King wrote:edit: I've always thought Loretome was a terrible plot device. It doesn't make much sense, even in a fantasy world.
This plot twist would if nothing else explain why Loretome can "predict" stuff.

These days I tend to picture Loretome as being like that sarcastic talking book from China Mieville's "Un Lun Dun", ordering everybody about according to the prophecies and predictions in its pages... which often turn out to be hopelessly wrong.

"It's hardly my fault if these young idiots are incompetent, Mentor! So what if they keep getting themselves killed in their first Quest? It is written that Verag's catacombs are a cakewalk. Where is it written, you ask? In ME! Page nine, paragraph seven! You think they'd call it a trial if they didn't mean it? Oh, you know better than Scribes Meelton and Bradli, do you? Finest wizarding minds of their day! We had real Heroes back then, oh yes..."

...and so on...

I had an idea for a Quest line where the Wizzard discovers that Mentor and The Evil One are one and the same. The quest would see the heroes assaulting the palace of the Emperor and slaying off the entire cohort of the emperors body gaurds. Eventually the Heroes make it to Mentors study and sieze loretome after a battle with a dragon. Once Loretome is siezed the WIzzard and the Elf learn the spells they will need to destroy Mentor.
The last quest finds them in an old crypt where Chaos lords and demons meet to take orders from Zargon/Mentor. Of course the last fight should be epic and only the Wizzard or Elf should survive. (to become driven mad with power by Loretome and eventually become the next Zargon.)

An interesting plot point. My introduction thread in the lobby shows how I use an overarching evil entity to allow for many different quest packs and iterations of the game. The storyline version for the evil entity, Xadius, is that unearthed Loretomes create a crack into the respective universe that allows Xadius access to the greatest wizard and to begin to siphon off their repressed darkness and create new avatars to control to manipulate his new playground. Borrowing some from Jacob Busby's "Tears of Time Passed" Morcar and Zargon are apprentices/companions to Mentor, but unlike how Mentor believes, they are not true apprentices, but in fact growing personifications of his power unrestrained by his morals and compassion. As he believes he is teaching/training/adventuring with them, he is in fact spending more time with them allowing Xadius to siphon off more of Mentor's repressed power into creating his new agents.

I'm now thinking that around quest 50-75(yeah, I've tied all of the quests available on Phoenix's website together with a storyline ) my hapless band of heroes will realize that by defeating Morcar and Zargon, they sent the repressed power back into Mentor; but now unfettered by his control, unbalancing Mentor and sending him warring within himself, his power feeding back onto the physical plane. It borrows a bit from the Prof. X and Onslaught interaction, and ultimately the heroes will have to slay a crazed Mentor at his request before seeking out a greater avatar of Xadius created by Morcar and Zargon pooling power gained outside of siphoning Mentor.

This community is great for finding new ways to send my hapless band of misfits to their dooms time and time again. Luckily since Xadius has existed since time immemorial he enjoys the distraction that adventures bring so he revives them time and time again. Thankfully you fine folk will give us plenty of ways to destroy them!

How many of us remember the film entitled "The Vikings" Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine, et al, wasn't (Sir) Ragnar one of the Vikings How did he get into Heroquest This film also inspired my famous Runes Dice, rolled when Morcar has no underlings on the board, just to keep young Puck on his toes.