“Qwindrak’s lines are broken, and he has few defenses left. However, we must bear in mind that the warlock has been using this time to refine his powers. Now I fear they are at their greatest. Heroes, I tried to prophesize your fate. But the future is uncertain. Take these potions. The taste may be bitter, but survival doesn’t come free. It is time. Deliver the realm from Qwindrak’s wrath!”
These were Mentor’s words to us, sent through his weird telepathy as mysterious vials filled with a bitter liquid appeared in our hands. As we drank, Mentor informed us that they would give us extra defense against spells that attacked our Mind stat.
It was clear that we were expected. Orcs and goblins delayed us while word was sent ahead of our arrival. Undead that magically returned to unlife unless they were dragged from their room kept us busy. Qwindrak’s minions made one final stand outside his room, but even though we were surrounded and outnumbered, our gear was such that we never felt the slightest bit in danger.
Here at the end of the First Light campaign, and having a few years back done the traditional base campaign, it’s good to take a look back at what we enjoyed about both campaigns.
First, if someone is new to HeroQuest, I would absolutely 100% recommend that they start with First Light. I feel the story is better, the board is more innovative, and the writing is just vastly improved. HeroQuest is kind of cagey about this, but the First Light and the original campaign are both things that exist in the timeline, and the original campaign takes up after the First Light campaign, with a different set of adventurers. Group #1 is done with Might of the Synchroform. A new team takes up the mantle, and when they are done and the Witch King is finally destroyed and all that, then characters from both those teams can take on other adventurers to meet the continual dangers that threaten the world.
In the first campaign, we brought in the Rogue and the Monk from later adventures, and that was clearly a mistake. The Monk was too overpowered for the base campaign. The Rogue fits in somewhat better, and as in the first campaign, we replaced the Wizard with the Rogue in First Light as well, because magic in both campaigns is sad.
Magic of any sort can only be used once per quest. Elf, who gets three spells, went most quests without using any of her spells at all; until she could buy a crossbow and become a ranged fighter, her only real use was to get in the way of better characters. Her low body points and low base attack dice basically limited her to casting her heal spell once per quest and soloing the occasional goblin. Wizard, who gets nine spells, had to gauge when to use them. Use them too early, and there won’t be any for the boss. Wait for the boss, and you spend most of the quest doing absolutely nothing. Both campaigns give the Wizard a staff that can strike diagonally for some low number of attack dice, making the Wizard marginally more useful than the Elf.
Barbarian and Dwarf are both strong characters from the start, and only get stronger. Wizard never really gets the chance to feel powerful. Once Elf gets the class-defining crossbow, they finally find their niche. But spells are too rare, too weak, and too easily resisted. If you’re only going to allow a certain spell to fire once per quest, that spell should be impactful.
What is the might of the synchroform? When we finally fought our way through the melee outside his room, Qwindrak tossed a few dread spells that largely had little effect, and then decided to show us his power by transforming into a… goblin. That we killed. He then worked his way through Orc, Dread Knight, Gargoyle, and Abomination before landing on his dragon form, which the rogue killed in one hit by drinking a strength potion, a heroic brew, with an ally also adjacent to the monster, and rolling well. Rogue had been holding onto those potions for just the right moment. He also had the Sword of Orc Slaying which helped out on one of the forms.
The dragon egg we’d been curious about hatched into a baby dragon named Alouson. I am entirely unsure why Qwindrak had that egg there. Was he the father? The mother? Did he steal it? Did it just happen to be there? Alouson said she was not our enemy, and that she would see us later. Later being the base HeroQuest campaign, where many of the storylines that started in First Light would be resolved, such as the fate of the Witch Queen Kessandria and the truth behind Sir Ragnar’s sudden personality shift. Again, this would be with a different crew; as overpowered as our First Light crew is now, they would make short work of the base campaign and there would be few, if any, upgrades from it.
But that is it for HeroQuest for awhile. We have a lot of the expansions, but we’re eager to move on.
Next time, I plan to run a Dungeon Crawl Classics one-shot, the same one I played at CaptainCon this year. Should be fun. After that, we’re going to do Captain Sonar for a couple of sessions, and then it sounds like there might be a Starfinder campaign happening. So, lots to look forward to 🙂
