Advanced Hero Quest – Story and Lore – Part I
Well, lets get back to some basics.. in a way. Advanced Heroquest was… well, an advanced version of HeroQuest. While HeroQuest was a co-deal between Citadel/Games Workshop and MB games, Advanced Hero Quest was Citadel/Games Workshop on their own. And had much less support, more complex gameplay and .. well.. Did it flop? hard to say but it clearly didn’t have as much love as HeroQuest did and didn’t last as long.
I partly blame how the boxset was done. The original Heroquest gave you four Hero options, then a large assortment of monster/Enemy types to introduce players and get interest (technically, 3 types of Undead, 3 types of Goblinoid and 3 types of Chaos). Advanced HeroQuest had 4 Hero types, a Bunch of ‘Men at Arms’ which were more important and useful in AHQ then they were in HeroQuest, and then just Skaven. If you think I have something against Skaven, you are clearly wrong but only one enemy type. ehuh. that’s.. far less interesting. But you did get some card tokens for other monsters, and the rule book came with rules for using others.. you just needed to supply your own figures. Oh and you could use the different base colours so that the Skaven mini could be one of the special types not supplied… Kinda feels like you got less for your money, eh?
AHQ gave a quest in the rule book… compared to HQ having the rule book and quest been as two things.. and the quest was much shorter. They said the quest is only the beginning and more quests and other material will appear as supplements to the game and in White Dwarf… erm… yeah.. about that.. One supplement which was a book and some card stock, with no miniatures to use in that quest.. and only a couple of WD missions. It really didn’t take. There are also a number of ‘weird’ things but that’s for a different topic really. Lets look at what characters and lore was created for this game.
Heinrich Löwen
Heinrich was the Default ‘Human Warrior’ character. No longer was the Barbarian a part of the team, despite being such a focal point of the boxart, but we had this warrior. Fair enough. Other then an empty name for the default character, He was in the little intro story to the quest. We know he was from the Empire as he swears on lesser deity Sigmar, while moaning about doing some trekking through the mountains. He is a pretty moany Warrior. He carries on his moaning about the reasons for the party’s quest to find the Amulet of Solkan and was.. a minor coward, having to really fight his urge to run in order to carry on the quest. Kinda far from the brave Rogar the Barbarian. It is mentioned that he met Magnus in Parravon and it appears to have been some time ago, which is in the Grey mountains, on the Bretonnia side. While kinda close in theme (both Human knights but have a different take) Bretonnia and the Empire have.. an uneasy relationship.
Magnus the Bright
A Human Wizard from the Bright college and the reason for the quest. He was an older wizard whose master, Jervais, was killed by Skaven who were after getting the Amulet of Solkan. It was Magnus who gathered his friends to both avenge Jervais and to stop the Skaven getting the Amulet. He is strongly driven to this goal and if the rule book is anything to go by, Know the spells ‘Dragon Armour’, Flames of Death, Open Window (Seriously? that’s the name you are going with for a spell?), and Flames of the Phoenix. All Bright Wizard spells.
Torallion Leafstar
The parties elf and like all elves, has a slight dislike of Dwarves. He was helping with tracking the Skaven path they were on the trail of and appeared to be a wood elf as he comments about leaving Athel-loren’s glades, which was kinda put him being from Bretonnia. Which is interesting as this party really appears to have spend some time in Bretonnia. He does talk about having been across the mountains as he had visited the Empire’s Chaos-tainted woods and the Salt Marshes beyond Sith Rionnasc’namishtthir (which is Marienburg) so.. all places on the Empire side of the Grey Mountains.
Sven Hammerhelm
And the final member of the party, Sven the Dwarf. He is the guy that there is the least info on. Being a Dwarf, he is from and quite used to the mountains, possibly from the World’s Edge mountains. And that’s about it. Like many Dwarfs, he appeared to lack a sense of humour.
Jervais
Jervais was a master wizard and holder of a fragment of the Amulet of Solkan. It was for this amulet that he was killed by a Skaven party. It is unknown how he got the fragment but he was well aware of it’s importance. One of his students, Magnus the Bright, went to avenge his death which appeared to take place in the year 2412.
Solkan And Fernadrag
In the time of the first kingdom of Man, the Empire was seated in Remas, on the Tilean coast. However it wasn’t a strong kingdom and the Chaos Blood God Khorne was able to find many followers amongst the people, even reaching to the Emperor Giovanni VIII.
This awoke Solkan, the Avenger, a deity of Remas, wearing his blazing silver armour. Then the corrupted Ogre Fernadrag, general of Khorne’s armies came attacking with his axe against Solkan’s silver Scythe. After hours of battle, Fernadrag struck a blow against Solkan right into his chest, but it didn’t slay him. The Sword of fire (that he appeared to also have with his axe) hit the amulet that Solkan was wearing and broke it into four pieces which flew off over the horizon. Solkan then swore at Fernadrag and gutted him completely, killing him and ending the war between Solkan and Khorne. It is unknown what happened to Solkan after this but it is known that Solkan’s Amulet allowed him to teleport his followers to a prison where he had trapped Praznagar, Prince of Agony, so he could keep an eye on him.
Praznagar
Years before his battle with Fernadrag, Solkan had a war against the Horned Rat, Chaos God of the Skaven. In this war, he had fought, defeated and captured the Horned Rat’s leading Daemon-General, Praznagar, the Prince of Agony. While he was extremely dangerous, for some reason Solkan did not kill but imprisoned him in the only thng he could find which was purely free of chaos taint, pure water, which was then frozen and banished to a place of everlasting desert night. Engraved on the Amulet, Solkan put a map to this place along with a warning, while using it also to teleport his followers to check in on Praznagar from anywhere in the universe. It was also made so that it could never be used by the Skaven. However, the Skaven not only knew of this but had searched and found the location of the four pieces of the Amulet in a quest to free Praznagar.
During the Quest, the Heroes find Praznagar in his prison and have to fight him. He wears Leather Armour and welds a Chaos Sword. In the end, he is defeated and Solkan takes back his Amulet, while removing the chaos taint from Praznagar’s sword, which they may now weld.
Skaven Clans
There are a few Skaven clans which feature in this first quest which I want to just quickly go over.
Clan Mors which is described as warrior clan. Later on, by 4ed WFB, Queek Head-taker is either the head or just a major warlord from this clan.
Clan Rictus is another warrior clan but is a more lesser one in the general way of things and have less of a focus in later WFB.
Clan Eshin are the Assassin clan and basically as experts in undercover killing. Deathmaster Snikch is the head assassin of this clan, who answers only to Lord Sneek, nightlord of Clan Eshin and one of the Lords of Decay.
Clan Pestilens are the nurgle side of Skaven, highly into plagues and disease, and the home of the plague monks. The second in command of this clan is Lord Skrolk, the Plaguelord, who answers to Arch-plaguelord Nurglitch, another Lord of Decay.
Clan Skrye are a weird bunch. They are the Spellcasters and warpweavers, who, as well as using warp magic, use the warpstone to power the odd unstable machine such as the Warpfire throwers and the Jezzailachis, who weld the Jezzails. While I don’t believe he was ever 100% stated to be, Grey Seer Thanquol basically leads Clan Skrye’s Spell casters for the Lords of Decay, where the main second in command is Ikit Claw, chief Warlock and emissary of Lord Morskittar, Lord of Decay and leader of Clan Skrye.
While they don’t feature highly, Clan Moulder should also be mentioned. Clan Moulder are kinda the gene engineers, genetical creating various creatures using Warpstone’s mutation powers. Though Skaven are ‘powered’ by the warpstone, even the Grey Seers only take small amounts for the more one uses it, the more mutated and uncontrollable you become. Mixing this warpstone with selected breeding programs have lead to the Skaven’s Wolf-rats, Giant rats and fearsome Rat Ogres. This Clan is head by Lord Verminkin, Lord of Decay.
Gragoth Daemonmaster and Unnamed Skaven Warlords
The Chaos Sorcerer, Gragoth Daemonmaster built a magic maze in order to protect the second part of the Shattered Amulet.. which is a bit weird as while you are trying to get all the parts, that is mostly to stop the Skaven from getting them. So is he against the Skaven? well.. No.. cause he enlisted Clan Eshin assassins to guard it. I think Gragoth is pretty dumb. One thing he has done is given many of the Skaven in the dungeon maze magical neckbands which not only can heal them but kinda turns them into what is referred to as Skaven Zombies. Yep, he has re-animated Skaven dead!
This also includes a Skaven Warlord. Apart from being a bit stronger, there is nothing special about him. However when he is killed, the voice of Gragoth speaks out, as it turns out, he is kinda dead and just a disembodied voice who is pretty fed up with his life and wishes to pass on, but wants to guard the amulet first. He is.. kinda a wierd guy that Chaos Sorcerer.
There is another Skaven Warlord, this time from Clan Rictus, in the previous mission (yep, doing this backwards cause I think the named character comes first). Basically he is in the Grey Mountains planning things against the city of Parravon, which of course, is where you appear to be from at the base of the Bretonnia side of the Grey Mountains. While this warlord is from there, he doesn’t really appear in the mission and the dungeon appears to have connection to the colleages of magic.
And there is also a Clan Mors warlord when you are after the fourth piece of the amulet, along with a Warpeaver and white skaven sorcerer. But like others, very little information is given for them.
Praznagar’s undead Bodyguard
Well, like with the Skaven Zombis, we get more undead.. Praznagar has a bodyguard of undead skaven to protect him.. which is odd as he is trapped in a prison which he can’t get out of.. so kinda safe as it is. Depending on how well the party have gone up to this point, the stronger the bodyguard is.
Cankerclaw Darkheart
Oh .. how I want to make a reference to Darkheart… Maybe if Christy were around, he would be easier to beat? (if anyone gets that reference). But anyway, The City of Tobaro was under siege by a local Skaven Clan lead by the Sorcerer, Cankerclaw Darkheart. Heading their forces in an all out attack on the city streets, the City fathers hire a group of heroes to save them.
That was basically it. It was the solo rules mission in the rule book.
Next time, we have the only expansion and a couple of WD missions to look at.
