Q19-Q25 Story Arc and material

[Count Mohawk]

The last 7 Quests of HQ25 will need to tie together all the loose ends and culminate in a big battle against the Big Bad!
Let's see what I can dig up from the original Story Arc thread first...

After they find out the greater scheme of things, Mentor tells them there are artefacts that can defeat the greater Evil.

Q19: Go find artefact A (greenskin caves/mines? dwarf artefact)
Q20: Go find artefact B (dragonkin swamps? wizard artefact)
Q21: Go find artefact C (chaos beastmen woods? elf artefact)
Q22: Go find artefact D (undead crypts? barbarian artefact)
Q23: Find forgotten dwarven forge in chaos dwarven territory to combine artefacts into superweapon
Q24: Find secret lair of greater Evil
Q25: Defeat greater Evil

Inside the tower (5 quests): After the collection of the artifacts, heroes can enter the tower unharmed from chaos influence. They must find Lortom before Morcar's recovery otherwise Morcar breaks the spell and the game is over immediately. That happens when the full-rounds of players reach number 150 inside the tower.

18) THE BIG REVEAL
19) Captured by Big Bad's minions
20) City under siege
21) Kill the lieutenant to end the siege
22) Get info on big bad's weakness, discover it was the 4 McGuffins you found in the mini-arcs
23) Quest to get the 5th artifact to unlock the power of the first 4
24) Part 1 of finale
25) Part 2 of finale

Chapter 6: City Under Seige
Q20 - fight off the invading forces
Q21 - Kill the lieutenant to end the siege. Learn about 5th artifact to defeate big bad
Q22 - Quest for 5th artifact

Chapter 7: The big finale
Q23 - battle into the stronghold
Q24 - Finale part 1
Q25 - Finale part 2

Reading back I realized both the Kobold/Fimir and the Chaos Dwarf Arc involves a ritual. While quite different I think it's still too similar plots.
How about I rewrite the chaos dwarf arc to revolve around the dwarfs planning a huge invasion.
The arc will be about foiling the dwarfs' war plans. Killing a warlord/destroying weapon forge/destroy magic source. Something like that.

That will also tie in nicely with the chaos dwarfs being behind the invasion later in the story.
(because the Dark Castle was just one of several secret bastions)

Thoughts?

Ah, that seems like a pretty good stash of content! Let's see what I can do with it...

Q19-Q21) First of all, I think the Chaos Dwarves are a little under-represented in the current suite of Quests, so let's give them a little more love. I believe there are some ideas being bandied around currently in the Artifact thread to suggest that the Chaos Dwarves get to use some Chaos Artifacts... so I'd like to see a couple of Quests put that concept to use. One Quest would have the Heroes drive the Chaos Dwarves out of their evil forge so they can use it for good, while the other requires they find a stash of Holy Water somewhere to purify it, since it can't be used for good until they put out the evil fires first. We could even throw in a Siege-type Quest where the Dwarves come back in greater numbers after the Heroes get their holy water, and they have to defend the forge and/or kill off their warlord.

Q22-Q25) Then the rest of the Quests would be all about going forth to defeat the Wicked Avatar (or whatever we're calling it) summoned by Zargon. This arc probably needs 3 quests at minimum, and 4 might work out better. We could even end with a hero quest classic, the Double-Board Quest!

I won't be working on these Quests until after the Swampkin arc gets completed, so if anybody else wants to contribute to the Showdown arc, go ahead!

[Anderas]

Q19-Q21) First of all, I think the Chaos Dwarves are a little under-represented in the current suite of Quests, so let's give them a little more love. I believe there are some ideas being bandied around currently in the Artifact thread to suggest that the Chaos Dwarves get to use some Chaos Artifacts... so I'd like to see a couple of Quests put that concept to use. One Quest would have the Heroes drive the Chaos Dwarves out of their evil forge so they can use it for good, while the other requires they find a stash of Holy Water somewhere to purify it, since it can't be used for good until they put out the evil fires first. We could even throw in a Siege-type Quest where the Dwarves come back in greater numbers after the Heroes get their holy water, and they have to defend the forge and/or kill off their warlord.

Q22-Q25) Then the rest of the Quests would be all about going forth to defeat the Wicked Avatar (or whatever we're calling it) summoned by Zargon. This arc probably needs 3 quests at minimum, and 4 might work out better. We could even end with a hero quest classic, the Double-Board Quest!

Let's work from here. So we have a three-quest-arc for the Chaos Dwarves with maybe some Cultist support; who may either draw on swamp spells or chaos spells. If they draw on swamp spells, the (also) underrepresented Basilisk makes an appearance here and there, which is nice.

Then we prepare the showdown in Q22-24;

and Q25 is the Double Board Quest.

right?

I am currently preparing a spooky shapeshifting labyrinth, where would it fit best? I agree to any story arc position fitting to any storyline and will adapt the types of monsters accordingly.

[j_dean80]

I couldn't utilize the basilisk as much as I would have liked because of low equipped Heroes.