The Dark Company - revised

I've been intrigued by this quest for a while now. Its a gigantic 13 stage quest spread over 4 standard Heroquest boards. The Hero party can cross between the four boards using special doorways, with the board being reset each time, but there is no recovery of health or spells at all! To make it worse, Morcar has the use of some fearsome new henchmen called Dark Warriors. All in all its a bit of a beast. Maybe too much of a beast. Players have complained that its too confusing with all multiple exits off the boards. As with many the HQ expansions, its a great concept that doesn't quite meet the potential (usually down to a lack of play testing).

So I decided to redesign the Dark Company. One way to do it is to actually have four boards, with 4 sets of furniture, so that the map doesn't have to reset each time. However, that only works if you actually have 4 Heroquest sets (not to mention a table big enough to fit it all on). I'm not so lucky and at todays EBay prices for the game...no, that's not gonna happen.


Another way to do it (my eureka moment!) is to reshape the layout so that all of the early stages are represented on just one game board, before the Heroes find a single exit that leads to the next game board (which has the next stages), and so on. In other words, making it more like a traditional quest pack, but keeping the concept of no recovery of health & spells.


A quick drawing of how the 13 stages link together in the official quest showed that it was indeed doable. Each of the dots is coloured the same way as the stage in the quest book, with the size of the dot approximately representing the size of the stage (number of rooms etc). I figured I could group the stages together using the dotted lines shown below, with each grouping representing one 'dungeon level'. If the Heroes were tough enough they could battle their way all the way to dungeon level 4, and the final showdown with Hinsgrim, the boss of the Dark Company.

Below you can see Dungeon level one. It was a little bit of a squeeze, which was not surprising as it has the most stages crammed into it, but it does make a nice looking quest map. I only had to eliminate a few empty rooms, combine a couple of rooms into a single room, and change the flow a little bit, and it checked out. Crucially, it has the same number of monsters as in the official map, and uses the doors and furniture available in just one Heroquest set.
The quest notes are below. DW on the map stands for Dark Warrior. (The wandering monster for the entire quest pack is also a single Dark Warrior)

A - The Heroes begin the adventure on this stair tile. They must find another stair tile in order to progress to Dungeon level 2.
B - This secret door may be opened by the Evil Wizard player on his turn. The monsters in the room are placed on the game board and may move and attack.
C - The closed door here separates the corridor into two sections. Once opened, remove the door from the game board.
D - The treasure chest contains two hand axes.
E - This chest contains 50 gold coins.
F - Any character stepping into this room will notice how warm it is. If he finishes his turn standing in this room he must roll one die. If he rolls equal to or greater than his mind points, he falls into a wasting sleep and loses one body point. On his next and subsequent turn, he must attempt to roll equal to, or less than  his mind points on one die or remain asleep and lose another body point. If he does awake, he may take his turn in the normal way.
G - A Hero searching for treasure in this room will find a magic scroll of spells. If the Elf or Wizard find this they may choose to miss one turn and read the scroll. Once the scroll has been read, it disappears. The reader may then regain all the spells he had at the beginning of the adventure.
H - A Hero searching for treasure will find a crossbow on the weapons rack. However, there are only 6 quarrels. Each time the player fires the crossbow, mark of one quarrel on his character sheet. If he runs out of quarrels the crossbow cannot be used again until he finds some more.
I - This treasure chest contains a potion of healing which will restore up to four lost body points.
J - This is the exit to the next dungeon level (level 2).
K - This is a Shrine of Learning. Once  all the monsters in the room have been defeated, the Elf or the Wizard can attempt to build a full complement of spells through meditation. The player rolls one die on his turn. If he rolls equal to or less than his mind points tally, he can regain all the spells he had at the start of the adventure. If he rolls a greater number, he is gripped by a magical vortex and loses one body point.


Quest 2 to follow shortly...


Dungeon Level 2

A - The Heroes begin this dungeon level here at the stair tile. Remember, health and spells lost in the previous level are not recovered for this quest. The Heroes must find another stair tile to progress to Dungeon level 3.
B - The closed door here separates the corridor into two sections. When the door is opened, Mentor appears as a spectre to the players and says the following before disappearing: "Beware the ghost of Vadim Gorfell. Fight him not". Once opened, remove the door from the game board.
C - This chest contains a trap which will be found if a Hero searches for traps. If the Hero opens the chest he will lose 1 body point.
D - The treasure chest contains 100 gold coins
E - This chest is a trap. Even if a Hero searches for traps he will not find this one. If the Hero opens the chest he will lose 1 body point.
F - If a Hero searches for treasure in this room, read out the following. "You notice on the altar a magic Rune book. As you read the pages you feel raw power flowing through your body. Your strength increases and you see great spells before you. Movement! A growing shadow! The Gargoyle strikes, leaping from the pages. Place the Gargoyle next to the Hero. It attacks immediately, in the same way as a wandering monster.
G - This is the Tomb of Vadim Gorfell. The zombie which represents his restless spirit cannot be defeated in combat. If any player attacks the zombie, roll the defence dice in the normal way but then inform the player that the zombie has survived. The only way Vadim Gorfell can be destroyed is by a spell which inflicts one or more body points of damage.
H - This is the exit to the next dungeon level (level 3).




Dungeon Level 3

A - The Heroes begin the adventure on this stair tile. They must look for a gate that will take them to the final part of the quest.
B - The closed door here separates the corridor into two sections. Once opened, remove the door from the game board.
C - All the Dark Warriors in this room are armed with crossbows
D - If a Hero opens the chest, the secret door will slam shut. The room then begins to fill with a green gas. The Hero must roll a white shield on one combat die to force the door open again. The Hero can attempt one such roll each turn. If the roll is unsuccessful he loses one body point. Heroes outside the room may not attempt to open the door.
E - This chest is empty, but if a player searches for treasure in this room he will find an Elixir of Life on the desk. If he administers it to a dead character, it will bring him back to life with one body point.
F - This secret door may be opened by the Evil Wizard player on his turn. The monsters in the room beyond are placed on the game board and may immediately move and attack.
G - This chest contains 100 gold coins.
H - This is a Shrine of Strength. Once  all the monsters in the room have been defeated, Heroes can attempt to build full strength through meditation. On his next turn, the Hero rolls one die. If he rolls equal to or less than his body points tally, he can regain all body points he had at the start of the adventure. If he rolls a greater number, he is gripped by a magical vortex and loses one body point. When a Hero meditates, he may do nothing else this turn.
I - This is an exit to the final level (level 4). If the Heroes leave through this door make a note that they went through the west gate.
J - This is an exit to the final level (level 4). If the Heroes leave through this door make a note that they went through the east gate.




Dungeon Level 4

A - The Heroes start here if they exited the previous level through the west gate.
B - The Heroes start here if they exited the previous level through the east gate.
C - This treasure chest is empty.
D - This treasure chest contains one magic crossbow quarrel. When fired at a monster it automatically inflicts one body point of damage. There is also a further unlimited supply of normal crossbow quarrels in the chest.
E - This treasure chest is a trap. If a Hero opens the chest it will explode and cause the player to lose two body points.
F - This treasure chest contains 100 gold coins and a potion of healing which will restore up to four lost body points.
G - If a Hero searches for treasure in this room he will find a potion of healing which will restore up to four lost body points.
H - This treasure chest contains a trap. If the chest is opened, three darts shoot from the lid. Roll three combat dice and for each skull rolled, the Hero who opened the chest loses one body point.
I - This is Hinsgrim, the Chaos Warrior. He rolls the same number of dice as a Doomguard Warrior but has five body points.
The X marks the position of Delzarron, a Chaos Sorcerer. He rolls the same number of dice as a normal Chaos Warrior in combat but has three body points. Delzarron may also cast a spell, once per turn. This spell will summon one undead creature (zombie, skeleton or mummy) which may be placed anywhere in the room and attack and move immediately.
Once Hinsgrim and the other monsters in this room have been defeated, read the following to the players: 'There is a whirl of blue light in the corner and Mentor appears to you. "You have done well my champions. Each of you shall be rewarded with a Ring of Brilliance. Come now! I shall return you to the Emperor!" There is a blinding flash as you are thrown through a gate of teleportation. The Emperor awards each of you with a Ring of Brilliance.




And here are the Heroscribe Quest maps, courtesy of Anderas;


Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 3 above is missing a doorway into the centre room. It should be in the square next to the orc standing sentry outside.
I made a quick colouring of the original hand-drawn maps, just so people can compare my redesigned dungeons with the layout of the 13 stages in the official adventure.

Level 4

Quest 6 - Lair of the Orc Warlord

"Prince Magnus has ordered that the Orc Warlord Ulag, who was responsible for the kidnapping of Sir Ragnar, should be sought out and killed. Whoever kills Ulag will be rewarded with 100 gold coins. Any treasure found in Ulag's stronghold may also be kept".
                                                                                                                                            Mentor




I thought it would be fun to have the alternative Heroes from the Chronicles of Sir Ragnar take on this quest. It makes a bit of sense in terms of the storyline so far, seeing as it was Sir Ragnar and his boys that lost the original fight against Ulag and ended up eing imprisoned. Now that they are all free, they are chomping at the bit to gain revenge on the Orc Warlord.


I was excited to put on this quest night as I've been very busy recently, not only repainting my orcs and Fimirs, but also painting up better miniatures for these alternative Heroes than what I had for the previous adventure. Not only that, but I've finished painting ALL of my Heroquest furniture! Check out this little box of goodies;

Here are the five heroes descending the stairway into Ulag's lair. Sir Ragnar is leading the way, then clockwise from him we have Sneeks the scout (new model), Zaphod the wizard, Sarymoor the crossbowman and Garmin the swordsman (another new model).

I knew I would have to make some changes to this quest to balance out the fact that these Heroes have very different abilities than the traditional four. These guys are low in body points but own much more equipment than a Hero at this stage should really have. The traditional Heroes have a combined total of 25 body points plus a guaranteed 8 8 body points of healing from the elemental spell decks. Sir Ragnar's crew also have 25 combined body points, but no access to the healing spells. I figured that their available armour would more than compensate for the missing spells. I also needed to account that these guys are harder hitting than a Hero should be at this point, so I planned to add in four more orcs. As if anything else needed to be thrown into the mix, I also changed the layout of the quest a little. This was my devious plan to keep any players who may have already played this quest on their toes. I just hoped that all these changes wouldn't break the game...

Sir Ragnar led the way through the first doorway and was confronted by two goblins on sentry duty. Rather ignominiously he failed to land a hit, ended up blocking the way forward for his men, and then suffered a wound from one of the goblins. Ragnar  eventually slew the creature, allowing him to move aside and let Garmin through the doorway to impale the second sentry, The photo shows the Warhammer Fantasy Empire figure that I'm now using for the swordsman, a rather dashing figure full of character. The goblin itself has a converted shortsword and a much paler green skintone than previously shown.

With the goblins gone the band joyously begin the business of plundering the room. Sarymoor finds a potion of Heroic brew on the table, but Zaphod Swiftspell is not so lucky and gets hit by an arrow trap. On the next turn Zaphod casts Enchant Weapons, a powerful spell that adds one combat die for every Hero in the room, when attacking with their weapon of choice . This enchantment lasts until any one of the Heroes is killed, so is a very big boon.

In the next room are some orcs who are not too happy about having their fireside chat disturbed by Imperial soldiers. One of the orcs has had a head swop, and the fireplace has had its base painted/ some cobwebs added (mostly to disguise the damage to this overly-used three decade old model!). Sarymoor shoots the shouty orc dead with his now enchanted crossbow, whilst Sir Ragnar takes care of the other an enchanted broadsword.

Flushed with their easy success with the monsters so far, the group decides to split, Ragnar and Sneeks, heading towards a small room containing two more orcs. Sneeks disarmed a trap along the way with his dwarf-like abilities. The other guys head north.

Garmin finds an orc and a freshly painted pink Fimir.

A close up of Garmin the Imperial swordsman. Along with Sir Ragnar, he is the most capable hand-to-hand fighter in the group. He killed both monsters with his enchanted broadsword, suffering no loss in return. He is rewarded for his efforts with a potion of healing plundered from the cupboard.

In the small room Sir Ragnar and Sneeks are having a much tougher time fighting the orcs. The wizard runs back to help out, thrusting an enchanted dagger through the eye of one of the orcs with a sideways glance at his captain as if to say "THAT'S how you're supposed to do it".

In response Ragnar barks out a warning to watch out for the other orc; who promptly rolls 3 skulls with its attack on the wizard! This is serious stuff as Zaphod only has only 3 body points left, and no chance to heal. If he doesn't roll a shield for his defence he's a goner. Thankfully for him he manages one shield, and clings on to life with 1 body point. Ragnar then brings down the last orc.

Sarymoor has also backtracked to join with his captain, and in the next room he finds a Spear on the weapon rack. As he needs both hands to use his crossbow, the spear goes on his back, ready to be equipped in any fight in which the enemy is too close to use a ranged weapons.

With most of the party now reunited, Ragnar throws the next door open with a crash, only to find this horrible lot;

Undaunted, Ragnar charges into battle against the nearest one-eyed monstrosity. The beast seems up for the fight though, rolling two black shields and taking no damage.

Up against it in the south, Ragnar could really do with Garmin's help, but the swordsman is still way back near the room with the cupboard, having rolled snake-eyes twice in a row for his movement, followed by a pitiful 3!

The big fight rages on, with Sarymoor slaying one of the orcs with a well placed bolt and Sneeks taking care of another with his enchanted shortsword. Zaphod is forced to hide in the yellow room, as he is bleeding from multiple wounds and close to death.

After a fierce struggle the remaining monsters are brought down by Sir Ragnar and his men, but Ragnar is down to just 3 body points. And still no sign of Ulag the Orc Warlord. Sneeks has other priorities at the moment, finding a treasure chest in a secret hallway...

Sir Ragnar searches the room for treasure but triggers a Wandering Monster (giving me the chance to use the newly converted orc again). This is the second time in the quest that an orc has a chance to actually kill a Hero, but Ragnar defends against all but one of the hits against him.

Sneeks pockets 40 gold from one of the newly painted treasure chests. I was finally driven to properly paint all my Heroquest furniture by some very cool threads over at Ye Olde Inn ( http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=4504&start=130 ). Thanks for the inspiration and tips Krautscientist!

Sir Ragnar kills the wandering orc and is then healed back up to full health by Garmin's potion of healing. With all the party back together, the Heroes steel themselves for another fight, sensing that the Orc Warlord must be near.

They weren't wrong. The mighty Ulag stands behind a chaos warrior and two orc minions. Morcar is feeling confident at this point that he should be able to kill off at least one of the Heroes, hopefully more.

But the dangerously wounded Wizard still has a few tricks up his sleep. Rather surprisingly, Zaphod is the first into the room, lodging himself into the corner and then casting Psychedelic Flash on the whole room, thereby blinding the monsters and preventing them from moving for one turn. We hadn't played with these Heroes for so long that I, as Morcar, had quite forgotten about this damn spell.

The move isn't wholly without danger, however, as any monsters already in contact with a Hero can still attack, albeit with one less combat dice than usual, due to be blinded by Zaphod's light sorcery. The orc rolls one skull, and once again the wizard has to roll at least one shield with two defence dice to stay alive...

...and Zaphod gets his shield, much to Morcar's dismay.

With the other monsters missing their turn due to being blinded, Sir Ragnar leads the attack on Ulag himself, somehow finding a chink in the Warlords heavy armour and causing one hit.

In another surprising move I didn't expect, Sarymoor had ditched his crossbow for the spear, and gulped down his heroic brew, allowing him to kill one of the orcs in hand-to-hand combat. At this point it was becoming a bit of a joke that we couldn't remember Sarymoor ever failing an attack roll, not only with his crossbow but now the spear as well. With this Hero developing a reputation as the most deadly in the group, Morcar makes a special note to try and kill this guy whenever the chance arises...

Sneeks confronts the chaos warrior but does no damage. Zaphod Swiftspell casts Vanish on himself, telling the other Heroes that his work has been done and that he's now going to sit out the rest of the fight.

Ulag launches a vicious attack on Sir Ragnar, but the knight manages to roll a whopping three white shields and defends against all hits. The chaos warrior completely botches his attack on the veteran Imperial Scout.

Victory for the Empire! Ragnar brings down the hulking Ulag with his next attack, and on the very same turn Garmin does for the last orc and Sneeks destroys the chaos warrior. Revenge has been taken for the defeat and imprisonment suffered at the hands of the Orc Warlord.

As if to reward his victory versus the chaos warrior, Sneeks finds his second chest of the day, gaining another 100 gold after first disarming a spring-loaded spear trap.

The final act is small matter of the 100 gold coin reward. Technically it belongs to Sir Ragnar as he was the one who killed the Orc Warlord, but being the responsible leader and all-round nice guy that he is, he decides to share it out equally - 20 gold for each of the 5 Heroes.

A fun quest! The changes worked pretty well I think. On the one hand Garmin, Sarymoor and Sneeks completed the quest with barely a scratch but the other two Heroes come close to getting killed. With hindsight I should have added some more orcs to the final boss room. I also have a few reservations about Zaphod's four Sorcery spells. These spells work really well to make Zaphod a good supporting character, but the Enchant Weapons spell is pretty powerful; the wizard has now worked out that he'll just cast this spell on the stairway from now on, right at the start of the quest, making all the Heroes very strong in attack throughout the entire quest. To counterbalance that, most of the Heroes have only 5 body points (only Ragnar with six has more), so if I add some more monsters to the quest I'll still have a chance to defeat them. I think I'll try one more quest with the current arrangement, before making any changes to the spells used.

Quest 5 - The Rescue of Sir Ragnar

"Sir Ragnar, one of the Emperor's most powerful Knights, has been kidnapped. He is being held prisoner by Ulag, the Orc Warlord. You are to find Sir Ragnar and bring him back to safety. Prince Magnus will pay 200 gold coins to the character who rescues Sir Ragnar. The reward may be split between several adventurers, but no reward will be paid if Sir Ragnar is killed whilst escaping".
                                                                                                                                            Mentor


It's been a while since the last quest and there's been a few developments. We are going to continue alternating between quests from the original game system and the fan-made 'Chronicles of Sir Ragnar', using two different groups of players, but the original Barbarian can't commit to regular games, so we have a new one. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the last Barbarian being slaughtered in the last game :(.
Rather exciting for me is that somebody else volunteered to play Morcar for this quest at least, and I get to play as the Barbarian. Even better, we are playing with a variant map so none of the players know where Sir Ragnar cell is. The variant maps are by Zenithfleet and can be found here http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1463&hilit=all+heroes+die


Anyway, my new Barbarian is called "Rend". As a brand new Hero he has no equipment as yet. The Dwarf Grimgold is unchanged, as we decided to double the price for all equipment and he doesn't have enough gold even to buy a shield.
Amazingly, Bretal the Elf decided to keep the treasure chest and the 250 gold inside that belonged to Prince Magnus! This means he is now outlawed and will never become a Champion. After the bloodbath in the last quest the Elf figured he needed the gold more than he does his love of the love of the Emperor. He's never cared too much for humans anyway and his priority is to stay alive. Bretal has bought a shield and now has 3 combat dice in defence rather than 2. He still has 150 gold from his ill gotten gains left over for later.
Merkai the Wizard bought a staff, and can now attack with 2 combat dice, including against enemies that are diagonally adjacent. With a dagger already in his possession that he can throw if needs must, he is arguably now the most powerful Hero at the moment, with his Fire, Water and Air spells beefing him up.




To recap, Sir Ragnars companions managed to escape Ulag's dungeons in the previous quest. Mentor has thus sent the regular Heroes in to bust out Ragnar himself.
Rend takes the first turn, searching for treasure in the large central room and finding 20 gold. Nice start.

A gaggle of goblins right inside the front door. They were dealt with in short order by all four Heroes acting in concert.

And then, true to form, the group starts to split up again!! My Barbarian ducked around the corner to the eastern corridor, but the Dwarf goes the other way and the Elf, never a team player at the best of times, goes south and opens the door to find to two orcs. He casts Rock Skin on himself in anticipation of the orcish attack. Fortunately for him the Wizard follows him that way, and helps the Elf by killing one of the orcs with Fire of Wrath.

Rend continues east and confronts another Orc guard. I'm more than happy with my first attack, rolling 3 skulls and not even giving Morcar a chance to defend. Rend is living up to his name so far.

Flushed with my success I went through the door alone. The room was empty (except for another door), but a Potion of Strength was found. Grimgold decides to follow me this way but is taking some time on his stumpy little legs.

Bretal scouts on ahead and finds a secret door into a small room, that has a pit trap just inside. Without a tool kit (or a dwarf), the Elf and Wizard have no choice but to jump it if they want to continue that way.

....whilst Rend and Grimgold open the door to a find a Orc and some potential goodies...

The Elf opens the door to the second small room and we all hold our breath as this is the room where Ragnar is found in the official quest. But only a zombie is there. A nice opportunity to use my newly converted Zombie.

Merkai deftly jumps the pit trap, runs to the aid of the Elf and destroys the Zombie with a precise blow from his new staff.

After slaying the Orc we greedily move on to the furniture. I decide not to search the chest for traps (as I didn't want to 'waste' an action and let Grimgold to steal the treasure from under my nose on his turn, and promptly lose 1BP to a spear trap!). The chest itself is empty :(.
Grimgold searches the cupboard and gets hit with another spear! Morcar is in stitches at this point.

After an easy start the quest starts going badly, and all because we wouldn't work as a team. Again. Merkai draws a wandering monster card, and the Elf has already moved away beyond the pit trap. Thankfully the orc botches his attack.

The dwarf also draws a wandering monster! This orc rolls three skulls and Grimgold suffers two wounds.

 He kills the wandering Orc but opens the door to find all these...

Merkai is also in trouble. Having used Sleep to avoid the orc and try to put the pit trap between them, he just falls in instead. Whats more, Morcar rolls well and the orc wakes up after just one turn of slumber.

The situation looking across the board. Grimgold has slain an orc and retreated back to the same room as Rend. The recently awoken orc tries to hit the Wizard down in the pit but misses. Merkai then flees and the orc is killed when it fails to span the pit in its pursuit move.

The Fimir leads his small orc warband into combat with the Barbarian. Rend is now down to just 4BP, so I swig my potion of Strength. This helps Rend bring down the Fimir in one attack. The two Heroes then finish off the orcs, taking one each, but not before my Barbarian has suffered another wound.

Bretal is off on his own again, this time scouting the dungeon towards the west. He slays another goblin and pockets the gold stash from the chest. No sign of Sir Ragnar yet though.

I search for treasure hoping to unearth a potion of healing and take yet another hit from an arrow trap shooting from the wall. Down to 2BP!
Not a moment too soon Grimgold locates a secret door and finds Sir Ragnar! I don't think any of us were expecting to find the cell in a corridor space. The special tile is by Valnar Nightrunner.

The alarm goes off but luckily Morcar informs us that there are no more monsters to fight. We've slayed them all and Sir Ragnar's cell is in fact the last unexplored area on the board. We call it a day, happy that no Heroes have been killed this time. All have suffered wounds except that pesky Elf. Grimgold decides to split the reward with me, as we fought all those greenskins together. Merkai and Bretal get only what they found in the dungeon.

This was a nice variation to the quest, and we plan to use some more of Zenithfleet's maps for other adventures.
To be continued...