The rulebook says to keep the OL hand at the end of an encounter and says to combine the draw and discard pile, but does not say whether or not to keep the OL hand. We just finished a quest and the OL had three unplayed cards. If he keeps the (this is what we did), he ends up with 5 or 6 cards in his hand at the start of the next quest, after campaign / travel phase. Is this correct?

p. 20 : " 7. Set Up Quest: The players begin setting up the next quest following the standard rules for setting up a quest. The overlord player should remember to shuffle his Overlord deck, including any new cards just purchased, to create a new deck before drawing his starting hand."

p. 22 (Travel) : " Before travel begins, the overlord player may customize his deck. He then draws his starting hand of Overlord cards—one card per hero. These cards are not played during the travel step, but may be affected by certain events. These Overlord cards are the overlord player’s starting hand for the upcoming quest , so he does not draw any additional cards at the beginning of the quest."

I think this clearly states that the OL does not keep his preceding quest's remaining hand - especially as he has bought additional cards and customized his deck (cf. p. 20).

Start with a new hand every quest, you only keep your hand for the 2nd encounter in a 2 encounter quest.

Thank you both!