This is the third of the starter adventures in the new HeroQuest reprint.
Last session, we rescued Sir Ragnar from the clutches of the orcs. He was mostly starved, barely coherent, and just glad to be alive. Once returned to his keep, though, the thought of those orcs, goblins, and other foul beasts being left alone to just plot their plots and raid the unwary travelers grew until he couldn’t take another moment.
Ragnar took up his sword and armor and headed toward the dungeon. As he neared it, he was consumed by an overwhelming fear and couldn’t continue. Discouraged, but not defeated, he sent word to us that 180 gold would be ours to split if we would descend once again and take care of the orc warlord.
Ally played Zargon tonight, so I played her Barbarian. Kasul took back his Dwarf and Elf, and Drew continued with his Wizard.
It’s really nice that the game is easy enough to referee that we can just trade out who does it, each time we play. I did it, Kasul did it, Ally did it, and I’ll do it again next time. Drew has zero interest in playing Zargon. He loves his Wizard.
Which is why it’s always weird when he immediately runs off on his own. He ran straight into the next room while everyone else was busy looking for treasure and traps. He was immediately set upon by two goblins and took a few hits before the rest of the group caught up. Off he went again, coming up on a wandering monster with nobody there to help him. First couple of moves and he was already at just a single point of health.
After that, he decided to be a little more cautious.
Ally had bought a crossbow for the Barbarian last session. This is a three attack dice ranged weapon that can hit anything the Barbarian can see. Very overpowered. There’s been plenty of battles in the past where the Barbarian just couldn’t push his way through all the other heroes. Now a thing of the past. The dwarf and elf were a little envious.
We did find a wizard’s staff as a treasure in one of the rooms. The wizard gladly took it. It can attack diagonally, making it possible for the wizard, protected by two meat shields, to poke his staff in between them and trip up the odd orc.
We’re still not getting the amount of gold we really need in order to buy the best stuff from the armory, but I did have enough gold at the end of the night to buy a helmet, giving the Barbarian another defense die. Other players have said that the game gets easier every trial, as long as you search for treasure consistently and buy upgrades. We’re three adventures in, and the Barbarian was never in any real danger. Part of that was the Wizard tanking, but the Dwarf and Elf soaked up their share of hits. I have a couple of potions I hadn’t needed, good weapons and some armor… we’ll see.
Last time we had a dungeon rush where every mob in the dungeon came running at us. Since we didn’t have much hope of making it out of the dungeon with Sir Ragnar, we were forced to fight them all — and we lived. Through that, anyway. The Wizard died later to a trapped chest. In this adventure, the Dwarf fell prey to a trapped chest.
Dude. Search for traps. Don’t be so greedy.
So — adventures are fun, we can do a little roleplaying, anyone can “be Zargon” for the night and run the game, and we have more fun to look forward to.
There’s decades of expansions, both official and unofficial, for this game. This whole set of fourteen adventures is just a starting point. By the end, when we meet Zargon… we should be prepared. I hope.
I made my own heroic fantasy art style for Midjourney that I have been using for the header images for the HeroQuest write-ups. While I do like the art style, Midjourney has a real issue with making stuff without huge issues.
My prompt was for a female elf warrior in full armor fighting an orc warlord, in the heroic fantasy style I’d generated. But in this one, the elf isn’t really clearly an elf, is not wearing full armor (or any armor, really), her left knee is facing the wrong way, and her left arm is missing entirely. The sword the orc is carrying apparently has two hilts, but the rest isn’t bad.
I generated over a dozen different variations; this was the best.
For the one I did use, I just put the same prompt into ChatGPT and this is what it gave me. Aside from the army in the background, it is exactly what I asked for, and looks beautiful.
I know that there’s a lot of controversy around using AI art, but I’m probably going to keep doing it.
