Of Greed and Blood (custum Campaign)

By Chaoticus, in Descent Quest Vault Open Beta

Hello Folks,

I started to create my own campaign called "Of Greed and Blood" and the first quests are ready for publication (although still in alpha state). I still need to play-test them and set some variables (as HP of certain doors, number of turns for completion of certain tasks etc.). Nevertheless, I am open and happy for suggestions and comments. Soon, I will be able to publish the other Quests of Act 1. If people like it, I will continue with Act 2.


The campaign tells the Story of the Dwarven City of Therundar which is under attack by evil creatures. The main villain is Valyndra and their second-in-commands are Belthir and Splig. This campaign features Raythen as an Ally and Requires the following expansions to play:

- Labyrinth of Ruins
- Lair of the Wyrm
- Manor of Ravens
- Shadow of Nerekhall (most likely)

The maps are usually quite large and the Overlord will field a lot of groups. To balance this out, the heroes will often find some help as well. Furthermore, 6 Relics will be featured:
- Shield of the Dark God
- Gauntlets of Power
- Aurium Mail
- Trueshot
- Valyndras Bane
- Ynfernal Rune (most likely)

Act I consists of the following Quests:

Intro: Mercenaries (1 Encounter)
1a : Trouble on the Road (2 Encounters)
1b : A Shortcut (2 Encounters)
2a : This mine is mine (2 Encounters)
2b : The Labyrinth (2 Encounters)
3a : The missing carrion (1 Encounter); not yet published
3b : Fortifying the city (1 Encounter); not yet published
Interlude 1: Therundar besieged (1 Encounter); not yet published
Interlude 2: Unwelcome Guests (1 Encounter); not yet published

I try to avoid snowballing by granting both sides rewards and included side missions to get certain rewards even when loosing. Still, balancing a complex game as Descent is difficult, so bear with me and report any issues here in this forum.

So, I hope somebody will play this first act of a grand campaign at some point. I will start to work on Act 2 as soon as Act 1 is in beta.

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For further updates, this thread will be edited.




Nice, finally another fan-made campaign to play with :D


I will test it (although it will be a solo-play and until mid-january hehe) but definetely test it :D


I will give you feedback as I have done with Zaltyre's Legacy of Timmorran ;) One thing he said that I consider amazing too, is the fact that this campaigns (quests) can be modify to adapt to further monster and heroes that FFG releases over time.


One thing I like is the use of the ally and the Dwarf theme. Perhaps making other dwarf heroes ally too can make it interesting (just an idea hehe)


Oh, and on a quick glance I made to the intro quest, in the section of "The Messenger" it says " He is aktivated " is a C instead of K... Another thing may be to eliminate the sentence where you say the Villager Token is the Messenger. I feel it can be understood that he is the messenger, and at least for me, it is clear with only looking at the map :D


Anyway...later I will make a deeper and careful reading to provide some feedback ;)

There are certainly some typos I have to hunt down^^, also, English is not my mother language, so feel free to point out any awkward formulations and mistakes.

Regarding the dwarfs: In some quests, I use a group called "dwarfen warriors" to support the heroes. Currently, I use civilian tokens but it is recommended to replace those with Dwarfen heroes (Grisban, Krutzbeck, Augur, Ulma or Corbin). They are not named though and are killable. However, maybe I create an Ally card for all of them and incorporate them this way into the campaign. Could be awesome, but limits the number of playable heroes.

I am new to map making and am trying to make one of my own, do you have any beginner advice?

The map tool is easy enough to use, I guess you'll find out very fast. The difficult things are mission design and balancing and testing.

Regarding mission design: look at the existing campaigns for starters. Often you get some stereotypes like:

- Kill specific monster

- Grap item and run

- Do X before Overlord does X or Y

These come usually with some sort of timer to keep the heroes on their toes. At the core, these are very good, but it's the interesting variants that makes a specific mission stand out. Be creative and try to introduce mechanics that aren't used so often. For example: hidden pieces of information like in the nerekhall campaign/random events. Or you can build a mission around a certain monster which really looks cool, but is kind of meh (Fire Imps for example). You can create mission specific rules to beef these monsters up and let them shine for a change.

Regarding balancing and testing: a LOT of work. Takes at least 10x the time you need to design a mission. My recommendation: go for single missions first. I tried to design a whole campaign once and got stuck. Now I don't have time to continue. :/