Infinite Dungeon, Second Quest

My day job kept me busy all through Saturday, but on Sunday morning I got the time to do what I want: continue the adventures of the HeroQuest elf and dwarf duo from last post!

I had also received Ian Schofield's Barax's Chambers battlemat printed on PVC so I was super eager to give it a try with the Infinite Dungeon deck.

So I figured it was time to turn that Saturday one shot dungeon into a campaign, then!

ABOUT THE CARDS IN THE PICS: For this game I've used the Italian version of the decks, but they are available in English too, of course.

Setting up a Campaign

Last week, the heroes rescued Sir Pepys, so now it's time to figure out who was behind his imprisonment inside the dungeon. I draw one of the Evil Mastermind cards and it turns out the campaign's Big Bad Guy is Skagor the Warlord, a cruel orc chieftain. If the elf and dwarf manage to go through the campaign, they may decide to face him.

What is Skagor really up to? I grab two dice and roll on the campaign table in the Infinite Dungeon rulesheet to see what's going on. I roll a 4 and then a 6, so the table tells me Skagor's plan is to turn the population of the realm into goblins! 
This bit of background has no real impact on the gameplay, but it's nice to know, so now I can make up a bit of a story with this and the quests. So for example, now I can reconstruct that Sir Pepys had found out about Skagor's plan, and that's why he was held prisoner and, if the heroes hadn't rescued him, he would have been the subject of the first experiment of "goblinization"! 

I now roll 1d3+6  to figure out how many quests the campaign is made of, and the result is 8. I consider "The Rescue of Sir Pepys" as the first, so the campaign to stop Skagor's plan is made of seven more quests.

Before determining today's quest, I remember to visit the armory. The dwarf had found a broad sword, so he sells his starting short sword, and with last week's loot the two heroes are now able to buy a helmet for each of them. Yay! Now both of them will roll three defense dice, and I'm ready to create their second quest.

Second Quest: The Evil Wizard

I draw a quest card and a side quest card for today's game, and I get "The Evil Wizard" and "The Enchanted Fireplace". So there's a very straightforward objective: killing the evil wizard, and an opportunity for a little healing if I find the fireplace in the dungeon. Good!

I prepare the dungeon deck, which for 2 heroes is 11 cards, + 1d6 more, + the 4 clue cards. I roll a 2 on the die, so this is the composition of the dungeon deck.

I proceed to roll the dice for the largest room, and for the three smaller (2x3 squares) rooms on the battlemat. No skulls rolled, so all those rooms won't receive cards for this quest (check out how beautiful the dungeon mat is!).

I then place 3 cards per room from the dungeon deck, and select the lagest room as the starting point, so this how the dungeon looks like at the end of the set-up, with the heroes ready to go...

The minute after I move the dwarf to explore the first room on the left, my boy Federico decides to join the game! He chooses to play the elf, so the solo game becomes a 2 players game.

The first room only contains monsters!

One orc and one skeleton shouldn't be problem... except they are! The dwarf takes one damage while the elf is stuck behind him.

Once the monsters are dispatched, we agree to open the door on the corridor and to place 2 doors and 2 wall blocks. One of the doors is guarded by a skeleton...

The dwarf dispatches it quickly, while the elf prepares to open the next door.

Inside the new room an orc is guarding a chest (YAY!) and an old cupboard... 

After the orc is defeated, Federico chooses to inspect the chest, while I search the cupboard, so we roll on the Furniture deck cards.

Inside the cupboard the dwarf finds some garlic sausage! I choose to eat it, but that damn blue die betrays me and I loose one more Body Point. The elf, in the meantime, opens the chest but finds absolutely nothing.

With a bitter taste in our mouth (especially the dwarf...) we move on as the dwarf opens the door to the south... which is protected by a toxic gas trap! Fortunately, the dwarf disarms it before the gas fills the room, so we can celebrate finding our first clue (which I represent with the brown totem thing on the board).

Disappointed with the sausage in the cupboard, I decide to search the tomb. I roll poorly so all I find is a skeleton that jumps out of it to attack me. Federico inspects the clue and decides to reveal two of the three cards in the adjacent room, so now we know, before entering it, that there's another clue in there, but also a zombie.

After the skeleton is defeated, we open the door and reveal the third card, which adds 2 goblins to the room.

We really didn't think much about efficient positioning, and the dice punish us with the dwarf taking more damage.

The heavily wounded dwarf then retreats a bit, and the elf tackles the undead.

As the zombie succumbs the her sword, the elf storms into the room to face one of the greenskins, while the other runs at the bloodied dwarf.

After the fight, the elf cast her healing spell on the dwarf, and then we examine the blue clue card and decide to head to the room up north.

As the dwarf opens the door, this is what we find:

A dread warrior and the third and fourth clue! We immediately check the quest card. The fourth clue means we've found the evil wizard, and any monster in the room must be removed (goodbye dread warrior!).

The dwarf rushes in to attack the wizard, and makes a perfect roll, which the enemy completely fails to defend against, leaving him with 1 BP!

The elf, on the other hand, rolls absolutely nothing, so it's the wizard's turn. Following the instructions for monsters with spells in the Infinite Dungeon rulesheet, we draw a random dread spell from his selection (listed on the quest card), and it casts fireball on the dwarf, who takes full damage from it. After the spell, the wizards must move as far as possible, so he retreats out of the room.

The dwarf is again quite low on BP, and we have no healing spells left, but I decide to rush to the wizard and BOOM!, another perfect roll which the wizard cannot block. Quest completed! 

Before we leave the dungeon, Federico wants to know what is inside the only unexplored room, but he wants to play it safe so he uses his pass through rock spell to take a look and see if there's anything interesting. He enters through the wall and finds the fireplace the side quest was about, and two monsters. 

Since we've completed the main quest, we don't really need the healing from the fireplace, so he leaves the room alone we leave the dungeon and get our reward for the quest: 90 gold coins each.

Conclusion (or not?)

Another fun game!

Despite their new helmets, the heroes got heavily wounded and used their only healing spell. This second quest turned out definitely more difficult than the first.

If you've read this far, I think I can assume you've enjoyed the report as much as Federico and I have enjoyed the game. Let me know in the comments if you'd like more!

Again, I forgot to take a pic of the whole board at the end... oh well.

I hope to play quest #3 next Saturday!