HeroQuest De-Magicified (!)

[Kurgan]

I like your suggestions! I think I'll keep the Skills, but the Latin names for the WOZ do sound cooler.

[Kurgan]

More images... these are pretty much final. I added a little symbol to identify what elemental group each belongs to (for when they start combining them to summon Elementals at Knight rank).

[torilen]

Do you have any thoughts on the heroes carrying the items?
Skates, for example...a set of skates are kind of big and clunky to carry around.
Are they special skates that strap to boots or shoes? What about keeping safe with the
sharp edge?

Not trying to kill the idea - I like it. Just running through questions that might arise.

[Kurgan]

There's surely a bit of fudging that goes on. I figure there is already... I mean yes you can sort of imagine how a physically fit Hero is wearing a helmet and a coat of mail, and also has a shield slung across his back, a sword in one hand and a crossbow in the other, with a quiver on his belt (somehow holding infinite arrows), and somewhere he's got his regular provisions (food, water) stashed away in a knapsack, plus a bunch of small bottles of potions and rolled up scrolls in there too. And the Wizard (Alchemist) has a big cloak on that has a jacket inside with tons of pockets and straps to carry everything, bracers and his trusty staff at his side, plus a bandolier of throwing daggers. Eventually your character may start to resemble Oswald the Overladen (he works for cheap to carry your stuff!).

These "packets" are like emergency rations, they somehow hold everything they need. Looking back, the warhog bladder was one of the more cartoonish ideas I thought of, like those "instant rafts" that somehow expand out of a tiny little roll from a compressed air cylinder.

I realized of course that just handing a person a pair of skates isn't going to teach them how to use them, but we can just imagine they are a quick study, or got lucky. A beginner, if he isn't going to fall down immediately, could barrel through a group pretty easily as they scramble to get out of the way. Maybe he pushed off from the wall or one of his buddies gave him a helpful shove in the right direction. I never really learned to ice skate as a kid, but I recall they had double bladed skates, that you could easily maintain balance with while walking around.

In this case, I like your idea, they must be one size fits all "clip on" type skates, a bit like the roller skates kids had in the 1950s (before the "shoe skate" took over in later decades). Both ice and roller varieties existed back in the day and they were adjustable. Ice skates typically come with rubber guards these days, so they could exist, or they might be made of leather to make them seem more old worldy. I like using imagination to come up with reasons why it makes sense!

[Kurgan]

If you're using the latin names, you may want to change the WOM sets to:
Protection = Aegis
Detection = Videns or Specto
Darkness = Tenebris

Similarly the Spell Scroll, using Alchemical terminology, could be "opperations", and Spells could be Recipies.

I already printed my cards, but these ideas are still cool, so here's the mock-up!

[Jesperj]

looks nice

[Kurgan]

Thanks, which is your favorite and why?

[Kurgan]

Last batch (I think) of the Alchemist Items... all have been updated with the category symbols too (many of the ones I posted before were early samples). I didn't really like the idea of the "ruined scroll" (I figure you should just always get something good), but I had fun making a "bad card" anyway. The "Cliffs Notes" of Alchemy! (much cooler than generic spell scrolls)

As for Mentor... he's still Mentor, he and Zargon have both kept their cold war (which has recently become a hot war once again) going and they each have a version of "Lore Tome" (Zargon's is a bootleg of Mentor's original) but it isn't a magic book that foretells the future. Rather, it's like one of those old vacuum tube computers that fills a room. Imagine Mentor's fortress bunker, filled with many rooms of computers, with loyal monks scurrying about maintaining and monitoring all the gears and relays and tubes. It calculates probabilities and analyses threats, but it isn't perfect. Both he and Zargon have been alive for centuries, due to their continual ingestion of the Elixir of Life. If either one of them stopped taking these rare and expensive drugs, they would quickly die.

Apothecaries and Alchemists really do have knowledge in this world (charlatans and conmen are fiercly persecuted for their malpractice) and they are constantly mixing up potions for various things and working on various technologies. The "single use" Alchemist Items were really fun to create.

[Zenithfleet]

Late to the party, I know, but I'll just leave this here for any HQ fans who like the 'magic is actually ancient science' idea...

The Warhammer background actually does have a science-fictional (or at least science-fantasy) origin.

This was even more obvious back in the 80s. The first proper setting for Warhammer wasn't the Old World, but Lustria, the continent across the ocean (analogous to South America). It had space frogs (Slann), Amazons, and lots of ancient, buried, half-understood technology.

Later, in the 90s, this was revised. The original spacefarers were the now-vanished Old Ones, cold-blooded aliens who came to the world from the stars. They genetically engineered many species (including uplifting Elves, Dwarves and Humans to sentience) and even moved the planet closer to the sun to make it more comfy for themselves.

But a great disaster befell them. Their interdimensional portal above the north pole collapsed and the raw energy of another dimension came pouring through: Chaos.

What humans think of as magic is actually dangerously uncontrollable interdimensional energy that now swirls around the globe. There's more to it than that, of course--because the energy is in some sense alive and malevolent--but that's the basics.

[Oftkilted]

There is a quote “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Perhaps they just have “secret technology from “the future”?

In any case, there was a video game back in the 90’s called Darklands that was based in medieval Germany that didn’t have magic either, though they had alchemy. They had monsters as well... but magic ... not really a thing.