New Challara, from Bonds of the Wild, has the new Brightblaze, and this familiar, which is now trated as a figure, is placed in the closest empty space at the start of each encounter . But, when is exactly this "start of the encounter"? Right after placing heroes, or only after all setup is done? Or, what actually intrigues me, before or after monsters are placed?

Usually this has no importance, but on certain quests (Dawnblade comes to my mind) it can be very important.

Well, based on the setup directions on pages 5 and 20 of the base game rules, things happen in this order:

-heroes place their figures

-OL chooses his monsters

-monster figures and other things are placed on the map ("setup" section of encounter)

-OL deck is chosen shuffled, and cards are drawn

-Travel

-Encounter starts

What?? So "Travel" comes after the setup? That's new for me!! I always interpreted the Travel phase was previous to the heroes placement, as they arrive to the quest map after travelling. That made sense... Not af it is a huge change, but well, if something "interesting" happens during travel (discarding or drawing OL cards, hero damage or conditions, shop card or search card draws) it sometimes can change the placement of any figures on the map. Or it would, if Travel were before placement...

Ok, anyways, so this means, if I understand correctly, that Brightblaze should be placed after EVERYTHING, right?

Thanks as always, Zaltyre.

I think so. We usually travel before setup too, and the OL picks his open groups before the heroes place their figures on the map. It all sort of happens at the same time- it's never been one of those things that we've had to go to the rulebook and figure out. However, the order on page 20 seems pretty explicit after a quest you:

1-6) Get gold, cleanup, get rewards, spend XP, go shopping, choose next quest (in that order.)

7) Set up the next quest (which is described on page 5 as:

7a) Steps 1-4 are irrelevant if you're playing a campaign, step 5 is "place heroes"

7b) Choose monsters, perform "setup", select OL deck (set cards aside if desired), draw OL cards. (in that order)

8) Travel, then start the quest

Interesting, for sure. As said, nothing game-breaking, though.