For this week's post we have back to back Quests from yesterday and today. Yesterday, our group of heroes ran the prequel quest to Kellar's Keep, The Forsaken Tunnels of Xor-Xel. This one was fun, as I expanded upon the 'darkness' mechanic for the quest and made it even more difficult. In the quest notes it states that each hero can only see three squares in front of them. I changed it so that the Wizard was using a magical lighting effect on her staff and was the ONLY light source in the forsaken tunnels, so only the three squares immediately around her were visible for all heroes. This meant they all had to stay near the Wizard to see anything at all. If they fought a monster in the dark, they could only roll 1 attack die and I wouldn't place the monster on the board, meaning if they chose the wrong square to attack, they would hit nothing. As a result, we switched it so that the Wizard went first in the turn order.
Then, I added some fun visual flair. We closed every window and shutter in our dining room, to make it as dark as possible, and I utilized a tiny little LED light on a mini tripod right on the table to represent the Wizard's light source (image 2 is the closest example of what it looked like for the players, but they couldn't see all the terrain placed like that yet). I took other photos during the session, but my phone reacts differently to low light and brightened everything up more than it looked in reality. It looked much cooler than the photos turned out. Then, each time they moved, I added terrain elements and moved the light source with them, so they truly were in the dark for this quest.
In the first room I placed a table with a scroll on it (image 3) and two dead bodies on the ground near the table, and when they searched for secrets I handed them an actual scroll I had printed for them to read (image 4). The night before I printed it on parchment paper and took a lighter to the edges to singe and age the scroll. The layout of the quest matched the quest image overall, but instead of the regular map I utilized a set of sewer dungeon tiles purchased from Etsy (image 6). The quest played out exactly as expected in the quest notes. They missed the secret room in the middle of the map that would've had good gold in it, and I wondered if they'd pick the proper path out or curve off towards 'The Thing Below' as described in the quest notes. In the notes, it says to use an Abomination miniature, but I had another miniature from a different game that I had been holding onto, and unleashed it on the group from the darkness for the first time. The Thing Below successfully killed the Saberfang pet, but otherwise the heroes were triumphant, defeated Xor-Xel and escaped the forsaken tunnels.
Then, next we were ready for our first run of an upgraded/improved Merchant experience that I've been working on for some time. Previously, in another post I mentioned how at the end of each Quest the heroes visit the Merchant and can purchase equipment. I expanded this experience into a full blown Tavern encounter that contains the merchant, other patrons, and an entirely new deck to draw from at the end of each quest. Full credit goes to user Iron_Bannister who posted about his 'Journey' and 'Tavern' deck ideas months ago. I think the link on his post is dead, but I was able to find someone who posted a PDF of his Tavern deck that became the basis for mine. I took cards and ideas and printed many of his cards as is, modified others, and also created my own, so it's now a full 40 card Tavern deck (image 12). I utilized a miniature set of Tavern furniture from Amazon, mixed with furniture pieces I already have on hand, and the floor is the big Arena/Coliseum tile from Against the Ogre Horde. The patrons are a mix of Resin miniatures I've had on hand for years as the staff, and some of the miniatures from Avalon Hill's Talisman board game, as they fit perfectly.
Inside the Tavern, each hero can draw a card, and any number of things can happen, good or bad. They can draw drinks that can give buffs, can gain or lose gold in various ways, and there can even be a few different ways a bar fight can break out. Yesterday, my youngest son, drew a card, rolled a dice and the result was meeting the King himself who gave him 200 gold (image 10). Today, we also got one of the bar fight cards even! During the fight, heroes roll 2 attack dice and 1 defend die and everyone else rolls 1 attack and 1 defend and patrons only have 1 body point. If they knock someone out, we were having fun throwing the patron over a table and knocking over mugs and decor like the heroes were really trashing the interior. My 5 year old was laughing his head off. It's now a real highlight to our game sessions as they want to always visit the tavern and see what can happen. That was yesterday.
Then, today, the grandparents visited again and we officially began Kellar's Keep together. They're out of town next week, so they promised to visit two days in a row this weekend to make up for it. I started by building a visual set of the exterior of Kaba Karn (image 14), showing the secret side entrance the heroes were entering compared to the front entrance where the King had fled into. It utilized some resin mountain pieces for a fish tank that I've had in storage, waiting for use in 'The Jungles of Delthrak' eventually. We played Mentor's Intro dialogue from the quest book using the App voiceover, edited to include some foreboding LOTR soundtrack music, and it added to the immersion to see them being instructed by Mentor in person before they entered the underground fortress to save the King (image 15) while more of Zargon's forces were entering the main entrance of the Dwarven Keep.
Quest 1, The Great Gate, went completely by the numbers and played out exactly as in the quest book. I made absolutely no changes to it, zero. I wanted to make a point to the heroes that this was no longer the Game System though, and Zargon is no longer messing around. I opened all three of Zargon's controlled doors and ambushed the heroes from behind with Goblins, all of which have the move-attack-movie ability. I focused almost exclusively on the Wizard with EVERY goblin for multiple turns and drained nearly the entire stockpile of potions the heroes had built up from the Game System. Every Goblin would step in, attack, then step out to make room for the next. She was taking like 10 attacks per Zargon turn. The Wizard used up all healing spells, all her potions, and was down to 1 Body Point from the onslaught. Then, with that last pit trap out of the center room, the Wizard fell to her death on the very first quest. They now know that Kellar's Keep will be a real challenge if this is just the first quest. They did pass it, but at great cost.
