Monday, May 24, 2021

Peter Cooper's Warhammer Quest Redux: A Playthrough



Preamble and Premise 




Warhammer Quest is a series of RPG-lite dungeon crawlers by the miniatures game behemoth Games Workshop. The original game came out in 1995 and has since become a scarce and unreachably expensive collectors' item. Fortunately, GW revived the concept twenty years later, with the release of Silver Tower (2016). Coinciding with the rebadging of their fantasy brand (from Warhammer Fantasy to Age of Sigmar), Silver Tower chronicled the adventures of an intrepid band of heroes and opportunists as they navigated the magical maze of a demon wizard's lair. 

The following year GW dropped Shadows Over Hammerhal, which retained the core features of its predecessors but uniquely added a Game Master to the mix. 

Silver Tower and Shadows Over Hammerhal are two sides of a coin, therefore; the former a stylish, compact cooperative experience, the latter a much-expanded roleplaying adventure game that set one player apart from the rest. 

Enter an enthusiastic modding community to the rescue. Peter Cooper has painstakingly crafted a full modification of both of these games, allowing them to be played together and solo or cooperatively. Weighing in at an astounding 85,000 words, this project can only be called a new game in its own right, incorporating the best ideas from both Silver Tower and Hammerhal and adding mechanics that fit so naturally they will make players wonder why they weren't there in the first place. 

This blog will chronicle my attempt to play through the entirety of the Sneaky Petey mod. The plan is to include both illustrations and linking narrative text as I go along. Since adversaries are procedurally generated, I will have to periodically pause the adventure to acquire, assemble and paint the various impediments to my heroes' journey, and as a result I anticipate this project will take place over an extended period of time. Hopefully it will nevertheless retain my hobby and gaming attention. 

Wish me luck! 

(eta a disclaimer: much of the writing in this playthrough is not my own; much of it is cribbed and paraphrased from the materials provided by Peter Cooper and the great James Workshop himself.) 

Table of Contents: 

Chapter 0 - The Setup

Chapter 1 - The Chase

Chapter 2 - The Trial of Hysh, Part 1 

Chapter 2 - The Trial of Hysh, Part 2 

Chapter 3 - The Trader's Gate, Part 1 

Chapter 3 - The Trader's Gate, Part 1b

Chapter 3 - The Trader's Gate, Part 2 

Chapter 3 - The Trader's Gate, Part 2b 

Chapter 3 - The Trader's Gate, Part 3 

Chapter 4 - The Trial of Ghyran 

Interlude: The Dank Pit 

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