Descent 2nd ed: The Cardinal's plight

Continuing the campaign following the heroic victory during the Castle Daerion scenario the heroes were boosted to 4 as we had two new players trying out the game during the ongoing campaign. This was nice since I got to try out the "4 player" configuration and stats for monsters involved.

The Cardinal's plight is a scenario where Lord Merrick Farrow, brother to the other Farrow guy slain during the previous quest is raising zombies in order to attack a nearby abbey and kill the cardinal residing there. The more zombies that lord Farrow manages to raise and send off table the more zombies will take part in the attack on the abbey. It is up to the heroes to stop the necromancy and the rush to save the cardinal.

What I have learned playing as the Overlord is that the first half of the quest is best used to weaken the heroes. Since the wounds carry over from first to second half of each quest it sometimes makes better sense to distribute wounds on several heroes than trying to "kill" a single one. In this scenario however the heroes were slowed down enough for lord Farrow to raise all 4 zombies and escape just as the heroes broke through to him. This proved to make the second half of the scenario extremely challenging.






The conditions in second half which are based on the results from the previous fight saw the Cardinal surrounded by all zombies that Farrow was able to raise. The heroes had to try to fight their way to the Cardinal before he was torn to pieces by the zombies - and then try to fight their way back out of the abbey as lord Farrow arrives with reinforcements and blocks the entrance. The second half of the scenario was however over a lot sooner than that, the amount of zombies and the bad armor save rolls of the cardinal combined in a gruesome and rather quick death before the heroes were able to reach him. So the scenario ended as a Overlord victory and the overlord received the scepter of shadows which will come in handy for the remainder of the campaign.

That is the fun part of some scenarios; they have this unique gear that can be used either by the Overlord or the heroes depending on who ultimately wins a decisive quest.