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Descent: The Road to Legend — Preview #1The Quest for Adventure
From his stronghold in the hidden regions of Terrinoth, the overlord schemes the ruination of all mankind. Beastmen breed and gather in the darkness. Bane spiders spin their webs in the thickest forests. Razorwing flocks blot out the moon with their numbers. Fortunately, a small band of heroes is gathering in Tamalir… Descent: The Road to Legend is, we can safely say without fear of exaggeration, our most ambitious and extensive expansion to Descent yet. It changes the scope and the feel of the game from a single romp through a massive dungeon, to an entire campaign spanning potentially weeks of game time. The good news is that, despite the overall lengthening of the game, individual dungeons and play sessions have been shortened to much more "bite-sized" portions. The result is a game that you can play a little bit at a time over a long stretch. In order to enable this "bite-sizing" of the game, The Road to Legend features randomized dungeons and encounters, which are collectively referred to as quests. Overall, there are five kinds of quests that heroes may undertake: Encounters are minor quests generally involving a chance meeting while the heroes are traveling from dungeon to dungeon. Encounters are only a single area and are usually resolved fairly quickly.  These trails are relatively safe. Roll the number of power dice equal the number showing on the green encounter shield, which results in an encounter if any of the dice come up blank. Dungeons are the standard quest type that the heroes will have most often. Heroes encounter dungeons by traveling to an unexplored dungeon location on the overland map and then exploring it. Dungeons have three levels, and each level is drawn randomly from a deck of 40 dungeon level cards. Each dungeon level is playable in an hour or less. Rumors are special kinds of quests that the heroes can acquire by spending some time in a tavern. Rumor cards specify how far away from the party’s current location the rumor must be placed on the overland map, and once that’s been done, the heroes can travel there and complete that quest to receive some sort of (potentially very valuable) bonus reward! Rumors function like dungeons, except that the third dungeon level is determined by the rumor card. (Rumor dungeon levels are often longer and more in-depth than normal dungeon levels.)
The Overlord's Keep represents the culmination of the campaign! Like Legendary Areas, the Overlord's Keep is a single, pre-set dungeon level with multiple areas and a very nasty opponent waiting at the end: the Overlord's Avatar! Each avatar has its own keep. So, three of these quest types are randomized or semi-randomized, which is probably the single most-requested design feature to be added to the Descent game, judging by message board chatter. Let's explore how it works. Dungeon levels are the most often-used mechanic here, featuring in both dungeons and rumors. In some ways, they're the simplest. When the party moves to a new dungeon level, a single dungeon card is drawn. This card has a number and a title, as well as all the special rules for that dungeon. ;)
;) Level 4, "the Bridge of Death" — card and map Once the dungeon level has been drawn and assembled, the heroes place themselves onto the map as normal…and then the overlord chooses from the list of possible minions provided for the quest. (Note that options C and D will usually require The Well of Darkness and The Altar of Despair expansions, respectively.) He can place those minions anywhere on the map outside of the red-shaded area.
Speaking of new terrain pieces, most encounters highlight an entirely new sort of map tile: outdoor terrain. Outdoor terrain is printed on the flip side of our dungeon tiles, which means that the jigsaw-hook for the terrain is "backwards" and the two types can't connect. Outdoor terrain is also full of obstacles like trees, mud, and water, in addition to grass and bright sunlight and all that stuff. Of course, it's often also full of monsters. When the heroes travel from location to location on the overland map, they must check for an encounter. Certain routes and locations are quite safe, with a low chance of a weak encounter. Others are very dangerous, with a high chance of a very lethal encounter! When the heroes do have an encounter, they draw from the incident deck until they draw a card that matches the danger level of their current trail. Most, but not all, of the encounters are hostile monsters that the heroes must escape, and when such an encounter is drawn they also draw a location, which determines the map and some additional special rules. ;)
;) Location Cards ;)
;) Incident Cards Every outdoor location has one or more exits, and the heroes usually can choose to either kill the leader of the enemy monsters or escape the encounter through the exit. If they vanquish their foes, they receive a reward of coins. If they escape, well, they escape! That should be good enough. There is one other circumstance in which a hero party may find themselves engaged in an outdoor battle: fighting the overlord's lieutenants! But, more on that another day… Read the other articles in this series: | |
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Legendary Areas are special quests that are accessible only at certain points during the campaign. They are essentially similar to quests from Descent: Journeys in the Dark, in that they are fixed, multi-area dungeons. There are three legendary areas in The Road to Legend and each of them has its own special reward for completing it. 
Each dungeon level has its own special rules, and each dungeon level has a leader. Unless otherwise noted, the leader carries the red runekey for the level, so the heroes must usually kill him to proceed. The Bridge of Death showcases some of the ways that the special rules can interact, and it also shows off a new terrain piece! See that red-shaded 4x4 room? Those pits on the edges are pre-printed. You'll see a lot of pieces like this, and expect them to be put to good use in the dungeon levels and rumors in The Road to Legend!