Q18: Under The Mountain

[Gold Bearer]

Who need the heroscribe addon pack. Yetis = Beastmen. Dark Warriors = Cultists. Polar Warbear = Minotaur.

Ogres.png

All the chaos warriors and chaos cultists in this quest are worshippers of Khorne unless stated otherwise.

Ogre Warriors 6BP, Champion and Chieftain 8BP, Lord 10BP.

Ogre Battle Shaman
Movement: 6. Attack: 5. Defend: 5. Body Points: 5. Mind Points: 5.
The ogre battle shaman has the two left over spell sets after the wizard and elf have chosen.

A. Greatsword, handaxe and 100gp.

B. Four potions of healing that fully restore BP and the key to the captive ogre's shackles.

C. This trapdoor can only be found if the dwarf searches for secret doors. Adventurers can move from here into the sub level. The players are told that at least one character has to stay in the room so that the others can get back up. If the room to the southwest hasn't been explored then the ogre attempts to open the stone door with three combat dice using the standard rules. Don't tell the players what the roll is for until the door is opened and then lay out the contents of the room, or if the room is explored before the door is opened place the ogre on the square next to the stone door.

D. This ogre is a shaman who is being held prisoner. He tells the heroes that there are two powerful magicians who have been sent by Morcar along with the Khorne reinforcements and it was them that ordered him to be locked in chains so they could drain his power. He says he has more useful information if they free him. If they have the key they can choose to set him free and he tells them the location of the ogre lord and that he has lots of gold. If they don't have the Talisman Of Chaos in their possession he also tells them about the trap door if they haven't already found it and says that there's a powerful magical talisman down there that the two magicians plan on sending the ogres to retrieve but it's heavily guarded by the dead. He offers to join the heroes in exchange for letting him have the amulet and assures them that they can keep anything else they find. If they already have the amulet and refuse he becomes an enemy monster and the heroes turns immediately end. If they don't have the amulet and refuse he goes on his merry way, escaping using the route that the heroes used on their way in. If they accept the deal they give him amulet if they have it and he joins them for the rest of the quest controlled by the hero who set him free. If he has the talisman at the end of the quest he also joins them for the next quest.

E. 300gp.

F. This ogre chieftain can trigger these two traps. He can attempt to jump the pit of darkness to set off the swinging blade trap at the risk off being hurt by both. {This is in case the players wonder why the ogre isn't moving and chose to not to attack. I'm not sure what the official rule is for monsters setting off traps. I've always played that they could, so if that's right this note won't be needed.}

G. This room contains a Storm Master and a High Mage. If an adventurer steps on one of the squares with a starburst icon they get attacked by a Fire Of Wrath spell. They disappear when the High Mage is killed or leaves the room. If the room is searched for treasure the heroes find one random potion, two random scrolls and 50gp in a hidden draw of the table.

H. This is a Khorne champion. He has one extra body and mind point, can attack diagonally and can attack three times per turn and can move either before, after or in between attacks. He carries the Khorne seal.

I. From this point on the dungeon is a higher level and Pass Through Rock won't reveal this area (including the chest marked K). {We could have a bit with the rules at the start saying that some quests have multiple levels so think about it when they use pass through rock, so this note can go as well.}

J. These are Nurgle followers. The zombie is a swamp zombie and the skeleton is a marsh skeleton. The square marked with X contains a Nurgle chaos sorcerer with the Summon Fogwalkers, Summon Marsh Skeletons and Creeping Snare spells. This is a low level chaos sorcerer so fogwalkers and marsh skeletons can't attack on the same turn that they're summoned. Refer to the chaos card for the nurgle worshipper stats and rules. The rules and stats for the swamp zombie and marsh skeleton are found on the swamp summoning spell cards.

K. 250gp.

Wandering Monster: Beastman.

Ogre+.png

There's no board for this bit, just tiles.

A. Any character dropping down from above starts here. Tell the players that the room is extremely dark and there's two torches on the wall marked with Xs that illuminate three squares around them (diagonally counts as 1.5 squares). They can take the torches from the wall and use them either with a one handed weapon or a shield attacking with two combat dice. As soon as one of the torches is removed tell the heroes they here a loud creaking like an old door being opened. You can now use all the zombies from the next room. Make a note of where they are if a zombie is in an unlit area when you've finished moving or if an adventure moves away. This whole sub level is dark and the same rules apply to the other rooms.

B. When an adventurer steps into this room tell them that the tomb slowly opens and then place the mummy last. Tell them that this looks like no ordinary mummy. It wears a crown and an amulet on a chain around its neck. If a torch is used as a weapon against the mummy it attacks with five combat dice. The mummy has one of each of the chaos sorcerer tokens. He can use Dominate to walk someone into the pit to kill them but he needs the target to be in a square so he can see them. The bookcase has a random scroll.

Mummy Tomb King
Movement: 3. Attack: 5. Defend: 5. Body Points: 6. Mind Points: 4.

If they kill the mummy then the hero who killed it (or the hero in charge of the ogre if he kills it) gets the Chaos Talisman and the mummy's crown (which they can sell). If they have the ogre with them and they give him the talisman then he joins them for the next quest. If he dies then the heroes can take the amulet. If he survives until the end of the next quest he offers to sell them the amulet for 350gp. They can either accept, decline or offer him 300gp. If they offer 300 he says "400!". He doesn't like to haggle. Then they can either pay 400gp or go without. If they don't give him the amulet then he becomes an enemy monster and the heroes turns immediately end if the ogre hasn't had his turn yet. If he has taken his turn already then he becomes an enemy monster on your turn.

Wandering Monster: Gargoyle.

[Count Mohawk]

I'm reserving this post to help clean up the language on this quest. One thing I will note here before I go to work: the exit point for the Quest is not clearly marked on the map. I'll get around to the rest of it later.

Edit at 9PM: OK, I am back and I have finally gotten around to looking through this Quest more thoroughly. Before I start the refining process, I'm going to start with an ugly generalization, namely: there's too much going on in this Quest. I reworded the Quest Notes you provided to make them flow better, but I cannot make them fit onto one page as they currently exist. Also, you ran about two rooms short of being able to fit this Quest on one board, and while it's true that double-board Quests are firmly-established in Hero Quest's canon, I don't think this one warrants it. And then there's the monsters: most of them are super-high-level, and the ones that aren't make up for it with the advantage of numbers.

Now that that bit of ugliness is out of the way, let's see what we can do to improve this Quest.

• By my count, this Quest currently features 13 Cultists, 14 Beastmen (plus a Minotaur), 7 Chaos Warriors including a Chaos Champion, 8 Ogres including the three higher-level ones, three other wizards and a whopping 21 undead in the basement - totaling 67 different figures! For reference, the base game only comes with 31 monsters between the 8 different kinds. I suspect you're going to need to reduce that count down to something closer to 40, maybe 50 monsters total - say 8-10 Cultists, 8-10 Beastmen, 5 CWs, 5-6 Ogres, a dozen Undead and a few special monsters, for example.
• The Ogres have quite a nice base in the southwest, but they're not sharing that area with anyone, which wastes valuable room space. Try consolidating the northern area with the Beastmen into the southern Ogre lair a bit.
• Putting a Pit of Darkness right next to the Ogre Chieftain is a bit of a jerk move, as the Heroes can't attack while fallen in one of those. If they also lack ranged weapons (which is a bit of a longshot, but it's possible), then that Ogre can make the Quest unsolvable just by standing still and refusing to move ever. If you're going to use a Pit in that corridor, I would change it to a normal pit trap. Or remove it entirely - if a Hero rolls a 12 or something, he still gets stopped by the long axe trap.
• Your concerns about the Cultists not getting to do their summoning trick are valid and duly noted. However, eight cultists in one room seems excessive, even accounting for a few of them getting splat before they can move. What you could do instead is put only four or five into the Sun Eye room and have the Gargoyle ("lesser demon") figure already on the board, then write in the Quest Notes that he was just summoned. Since there aren't any other rooms with 3 or more Cultists in this Quest, we can note his stats and abilities here without wasting notes space.
• Thematically, what's the Nurgle sorcerer doing in the corner room J? This mountain would have to have some very weird geology for a swamp to be growing on the top of a mountain pass. I concede that Nurgle is not just about swamp magics, but even if so the fogwalkers would be out of place here. If you want to keep him, I would move him to a room more on the left side of the Quest.
• I did notice the arrows pointing off the board in room J - good fix. I would briefly note that this is the end of the Quest in the notes there, though.
• You have a lot of 'unique' characters in this Quest. If the way I am reading prior Hero Quest lore is correct, the four Wizards of Morcar were/are specific characters sent by Morcar to assassinate the Heroes during the Quest Pack of the same name. It feels awkward to me to have them show up again here without any story-related reason, since they either don't care about the Heroes specifically at this point (if HQ25 is before WoM) or they're very dead after having been slain by the Heroes twice over (if it's after). I feel similarly about the Ogre Lord, who is a specific character from the Against the Ogre Horde pack. Even if we decided to keep all of them, writing out the specific stats and magics for each one takes up a lot of note space very quickly. Note that I'm not against having multiple sorcerers in a Quest in general - just these specific ones. I only intend to contest their inclusion this one time, though, so if you make them fit well, that will be that.
• The Ogre Shaman / talisman of Chaos subplot... what does this mysterious object do? At the moment, all it does is buy the shaman at point D's services for the next Quest (or piss him off if the Heroes don't want to give it to him). Given that the talisman is not the explicit objective of the Quest, the Heroes need a better reward than a temporary, albeit strong, Man-at-Arms for taking the time to go searching for it.

This ogre is a shaman who is being held prisoner. He tells the heroes that there are two powerful magicians who have been sent by Morcar along with the Khorne reinforcements and it was them that ordered him to be locked in chains so they could drain his power. He says he has more useful information if they free him. The Heroes may free him using the key from point B. If they do, he will offer to join the Heroes as a Man-at-Arms until the end of the Quest or until they find the talisman of Chaos, and inform them of the hidden trapdoor in room C if they haven't found it yet.
If the Heroes meet the shaman while in possession of the talisman of Chaos, or if they collect it while traveling with him, he offers to join them for the next Quest in exchange for the talisman. If the Heroes refuse, the shaman is enraged, becomes an enemy and immediately attacks as though he was a Wandering Monster.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA why does this editing process take so longggggg
i'll be back tomorrow with the rest, i guess.

[Gold Bearer]

I'm reserving this post to help clean up the language on this quest. One thing I will note here before I go to work: the exit point for the Quest is not clearly marked on the map.

Oh yea, I forgot about that.

[Gold Bearer]

I've just thought of something. We're either going to have to make a rule that khorne cultists can summon as soon as they're placed on the board or we're going to have to pack out that eye room with lots of them, otherwise they'll easily kill two or more and they won't be able to summon.

I've added a falling rock trap so one can fall behind somebody making them think they're stuck facing chaos warriors, then another one falls in front of them. I've also added a stone door so the trapped one can sit and wait for the others.

I've put single stair tiles on top of the multi stair tiles, it's a long way up. The way I've done it they're bound to think that second flat square has a pit but it doesn't, bluff.

The arrows I've put there so they can choose not to fight the nurgle squad. I'm not sure about that though. It might be better to put the way out behind them instead. Hmm.

And lastly I've put a couple of fire of wrath traps in the magicians room so that hurricane can be used for something useful. Where are those star burst traps from?

[Gold Bearer]

I've only just noticed your edited post. I was just here to copy the quest notes so I can move it over to the Altdorf forum or I wouldn't of spotted it. Cheers for taking the time to do that. I can now answer safe knowledge that I don't have to change a bloody thing if I don't want to. It's so nice to have room to breathe. I'm going to expand this into a series of three of four quests under the mountain building up to this one at the end.

Before I start the refining process, I'm going to start with an ugly generalization, namely: there's too much going on in this Quest. I reworded the Quest Notes you provided to make them flow better, but I cannot make them fit onto one page as they currently exist.

Lots going on = interesting and good quest. Not a lot going on = dull and boring quest. If you can fit the quest notes on just one measly page then you're just not trying hard enough.

Also, you ran about two rooms short of being able to fit this Quest on one board, and while it's true that double-board Quests are firmly-established in Hero Quest's canon, I don't think this one warrants it.

That's my favourite bit of the quest. The subsection isn't played on the board at all, it's all tiles.

By my count, this Quest currently features 13 Cultists, 14 Beastmen (plus a Minotaur), 7 Chaos Warriors including a Chaos Champion, 8 Ogres including the three higher-level ones, three other wizards and a whopping 21 undead in the basement - totaling 67 different figures!

Awesome! I hadn't counted. It still doesn't look like enough.

The Ogres have quite a nice base in the southwest, but they're not sharing that area with anyone, which wastes valuable room space. Try consolidating the northern area with the Beastmen into the southern Ogre lair a bit.

No. Those rooms with the stone doors shouldn't be occupied. It would mean the doors should be open because they wouldn't bother to close big heavy stone doors behind them. I actually thinking of using open doors regularly in most quests. It makes sense that some would be left open.

Putting a Pit of Darkness right next to the Ogre Chieftain is a bit of a jerk move, as the Heroes can't attack while fallen in one of those.

I know.

If they also lack ranged weapons (which is a bit of a longshot, but it's possible), then that Ogre can make the Quest unsolvable just by standing still and refusing to move ever.

Good point. I've moved it now so the blade trap swings over the pit.

Your concerns about the Cultists not getting to do their summoning trick are valid and duly noted. However, eight cultists in one room seems excessive, even accounting for a few of them getting splat before they can move. What you could do instead is put only four or five into the Sun Eye room and have the Gargoyle ("lesser demon") figure already on the board, then write in the Quest Notes that he was just summoned.

I like there being that many. My chaos cultists attack and defend with one dice. Tis fine.

Thematically, what's the Nurgle sorcerer doing in the corner room J? This mountain would have to have some very weird geology for a swamp to be growing on the top of a mountain pass. I concede that Nurgle is not just about swamp magics, but even if so the fogwalkers would be out of place here. If you want to keep him, I would move him to a room more on the left side of the Quest.

That's not a room. That whole area is outside. It's a tile from AtHO. He has the summon swamp zombies and summon marsh skeletons spells so it makes sense for them to be there even though there's no swamp because he summoned them.

I did notice the arrows pointing off the board in room J - good fix. I would briefly note that this is the end of the Quest in the notes there, though.

Still don't know whether to move the arrows behind the monsters to force the heroes to face them. I might use this as split path so if they exit where the monsters are they can go to a town to resupply and if the go straight out to the side the bypass the town. Oh yes, I'm doing that.

You have a lot of 'unique' characters in this Quest. If the way I am reading prior Hero Quest lore is correct, the four Wizards of Morcar were/are specific characters sent by Morcar to assassinate the Heroes during the Quest Pack of the same name. It feels awkward to me to have them show up again here without any story-related reason, since they either don't care about the Heroes specifically at this point (if HQ25 is before WoM) or they're very dead after having been slain by the Heroes twice over (if it's after). I feel similarly about the Ogre Lord, who is a specific character from the Against the Ogre Horde pack.

The wizards of Morcar included a necromancer and orc shaman as well. They're not unique character, and an ogre lord could be the leader of any ogre tribe. That's nothing:

Witch Lords
Written in to the story that the witch lord was one of a special cult when he was alive and now they've all risen to avenge him, maybe with a witch king and queen.

The Ogre Shaman / talisman of Chaos subplot... what does this mysterious object do? At the moment, all it does is buy the shaman at point D's services for the next Quest (or piss him off if the Heroes don't want to give it to him). Given that the talisman is not the explicit objective of the Quest, the Heroes need a better reward than a temporary, albeit strong, Man-at-Arms for taking the time to go searching for it.

This:

Chaos Amulet: Allows a magician of magic level two or above to use any one of the three chaos sorcerer spells (Dominate, Mind Blast, Mind Lock) once per quest.

It was there before. I must of accidentally deleting it when I edited it. The elf is a level one magician so he can't use it.