


Penters Cove

A Quest For HeroQuest Using Elements From The Game Advanced HeroQuest

by Dewayne Agin


Note:

This game uses figures from the game Advanced HeroQuest.  To play it as is you must have these figures.  There are notes below about using regular HeroQuest figures instead of the ones from Advanced HeroQuest.

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Penters Cove is copyright 1998 by Dewayne Agin, and may not be reproduced in any form without permission by the author, except for personal use.


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This Quest contains:

  readme.txt            -  This file
  quest1.bmp-quest2.bmp -  The game boards maps in bitmap format
  quest1.txt-quest2.txt -  The quest descriptions
  key.bmp               -  The key to the icons found on the quest maps
  cards1.bmp-cards4.bmp -  New monster cards, new spell cards, a new artifact card, and two new tiles.
  


Note:  The text files are not formatted in anyway.  You may wish to pull them into a word processor and format them the way you like before printing.  If your printer does not have enough memory to print the .bmp files, you may have to scale down the printing size.  If you have only a black and white printer, you may wish to have the .bmp files print on grayscale.


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To be read to the Heroes at the beginning of the quest:


The last few years have not gone well for you.  You have botched too many missions, costing the Emperor much.  Your sword swung just a little too slowly, you arrived just a little too late, your spells miscast just a little too often.  Many lives have been lost because of your failures and you have fallen into disrepute.

At last, determined to regain your lost glory, your band decided to go to the Arena at Penters Cove.  Gladiators from all over come to fight at the Arena.  If you can win there, you will prove your worth as warriors and regain your former stature.

You made your journey slowly, dreading your arrival, and at the same time looking on the city with hope; for Penters Cove is your last chance.  If you can only win in the Arena, then you will show that you are still the warriors that you once were.  Yet what you know about Penters Cove weighs heavy on your hearts.  A more wretched place could not exist on the face of the earth.  The scum of both the Empire and the Realms of Chaos make their way to this city.  Only those skilled in lying, stealing, and murder survive for long. 

You met an old man several days journey from the city.  You helped him fix his wagon, and then sat under a tree, enjoying the shade as he shared his meager supplies with you.  As the afternoon wore on, he opened up and began answering some of your questions about your destination.

"Going to Penters Cove, are you?"  He turned and spat, as if trying to get the taste of the city out of his mouth.  "Why, Penters Cove is the trash heap of the whole Empire.  I'd be surprised if you lasted long there.  You don't have the look of thieves, and that's about all that lives in Penters Cove these days."

You inquired more about the conditions in the city, and he gave you these words of advice.  "Trust no one.  Why, even the City Guards, sworn to uphold the Emperor's Laws, are as crooked as the rest of them.  When the law will steal you blind then kill you, you can guess what the rest of the citizens are like.  Chaos monsters roam the streets.  Some are permanent residents, others are attracted by the fights at the Arena.  Say, that's not why your going there, is it?".  You slowly nodded your heads.  He looked at you sadly for a moment, then said "You'll be wanting to find Griswold, then.  Griswold is an Adventurer.  He won the Championship in the Arena many years ago.  Occasionally he trains fighters, and even if he doesn't give you any training, you would do well to befriend him and listen to his advice.  Check out the White Hawk; he spends most of his time these days in that tavern.  Your spell casters may want to find the College of Magic in town.  They can teach you some spells, for a price."

Slowly the old man stood.  He shook your hands, muttering under his breath something about bad luck talking to those who are about to die, then climbed into his wagon.  Soon he was gone, and you camped for the night, thinking about his words.  

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A few days later you arrived at the city.  The attitude of the old man did nothing to lift your spirits.  In fact, you felt even more dread about your decision to come here than you did when you left, if that were possible.  You quickly asked for directions to the White Hawk, then made your way to the tavern."
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New Monsters:

There are several new monsters in this quest.  The figures are from the game Advanced HeroQuest.  The cards for these monsters are in the file cards.bmp.  I used the Henchmen figures for three different types of monsters in this game.  The Henchmen with swords are Thieves, the Henchmen with halberds are Guardsmen, and the Henchmen with spears are Adventurers and Gladiators.  The Skaven figures that come with the game are used for two types of monsters; Skaven and Skaven Champions.  There are two different color bases that come with the game.  Use black bases for Skaven and Adventurers, and gray for Skaven Champions and Gladiators. Or, if you have other fighter and Skaven figures, you can use these for the Gladiators and Skaven Champions.  The Hero figures that come with Advanced HeroQuest are used for the Elf, Wizard, Dwarf, and Warrior characters in the game.

Note:  In the School of Magic, I use the Wizard figure twice, in rooms 'K' and 'M', along with the Elf and Chaos Mage figures.  If you have another Wizard figure you may wish to use it in one of these rooms.

Substituting HeroQuest Figures:  HeroQuest figures can be substituted for the Advanced HeroQuest figures with a minimum of trouble.  Goblins can be used for Skaven - you can either not use the Skaven Champion or differentiate some Goblins in some way for these figures (capes, paint, etc).  Fimirs can be used for Guards.  Orcs can be used for Thieves.  You may have to delete some of the monsters from the board if you do not have enough figures.  


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Special Rules:

1.  The Heroes are suppose to be 'down on their luck' at the start of the quest.  Roll a die for any Hero that has more than 400 gold coins.  The chart below shows how much gold they are allowed to have at the start of the game:

    Roll       Gold
    ----       ---- 
     1         100
     2         150
     3         200
     4         250
     5         300
     6         350

2.  When a Hero kills a monster, roll a die.  
On a roll of 1-2 the monster is dead.  Remove it from the board.
On a roll of 3-6, tell the Hero "Your attack mortally wounds the [monster's name] and it [or he] falls to the ground.  Some lifeblood flows through its [or his] veins yet."  Lie the figure on its side.  If the Heroes wish, they may carry this monster to Dr. Morotu.  A Hero can only carry one monster at a time and may not wield a weapon or a shield while doing so.  If the Hero wants to attack or is attacked, he can drop the monster on the current turn, and on the next wield a weapon and/or shield to fight with.  After the fight the Hero can pick the monster back up.  When a Hero drops a monster, make sure you place an appropriate monster figure on its side near the Hero - this is now an obstacle in the fight.  If the Heroes leave the room where a body is lying, the monster dies.  Remove any body from the board that the Heroes do not want to take to Dr. Morotu.

3.  The Spellcasters of the party can learn new spells in rooms 'J', 'K', 'L', and 'M'.  After resting at the Inn, Spellcasters may relearn their spells.  When a Spellcaster chooses a group of spells cards, only put a new spell in the deck if the Spellcaster has learned it.  If not, leave the Spellcard out.

4. The quest has two boards.  Allow the Heroes to move freely from one to another.  Unless you actually have two HeroQuest boards, you may want to force the Heroes to move between them as a group.  If one Hero tries to move to the other board without the others, tell him "For some reason the way seems to be blocked.  Maybe if you wait for the others, together you can figure out how to move the obstruction."  Later, when the Heroes try to leave as a group, the obstruction is mysteriously gone.

5.  Note:  If a Hero dies, you may wish to allow the player to bring in a replacement.  This can be done when the rest of the party stays at the Inn (room 'F' on board #1).

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Alternate Rules:

These rules are not necessary to use as part of the game.  They are ones that I have come up with to make the quest harder, easier, or different.  You can pick and choose from these; use none, some, or all of them.


1)  If you have other figures besides the ones from HeroQuest and Advanced HeroQuest, you may wish to use these figures for some of the fights in the Arena.  Make sure that each fight still gets progressively harder, though.

2)  Allow the Gladiator Recruiter to hire out Mercenaries to the Heroes for a fight.  They can hire Warriors or Gladiators.  Warriors cost 100 Gold Coins per fight, Gladiators cost 200.  The Heroes can hire 1 or 2 Mercenaries per fight.  Mercenaries only help the Heroes in the Arena, and must be paid for before every fight.

3)  Griswold does not train the Heroes.

4)  When a Spellcasters learns a new spell at the College of Magic, add the new spell cards to the deck if that spellcaster chooses it.  Then he must choose only 4 cards from that deck and discard the others.

5)  To make the fights a little harder, allow the monsters to go first all the time.  To make them easier, allow the Heroes to go first all the time.

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A Final Note:

I wrote this quest after reworking another quest where the goal was to rescue a NPC (Non Player Character).  The question ran through my mind 'What would happen if they failed'?  This is the scenario that I came up with.  While you can play it anytime, you might like to save it for when the Heroes do fail in a quest, or you might want to write a special quest that they cannot help but fail.

The quest contains a little more description and happenings than in a regular quest; I was trying to set the mood.  The feeling of the game should be rather dark - the Heroes are fallen from favor and are trying to regain some of their past glory.  They are desperate and are using a method that some might consider, while not actually evil, at least on the gray side.

The prices of objects are set high to force the Heroes to make a decision; to try and win the fights in the Arena with what they have, or do to deal with Dr. Morotu to earn more money to buy things and get training.  Dr. Morotu was added to give the figures a chance to earn money, and also to supply a moral dilemma:  Do the Heroes earn money by bringing creatures for him to experiment on?  Dr. Morotu is a rather sinister character, and the reason for his experiments was left hanging - who knows, maybe the Heroes will meet him again someday.
