Something Wicked - Original Scenario

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Something wicked is afoot in the town of Woodinvale. Children have told tales of the evil witch Magdeline McDonnoley for the past century. The story tells of a string of seven brutal murders and
some even whisper that her kiss reanimated their cold bodies to do her bidding. Father Joseph's great grandfather, Father Francis, led a mob that captured and killed the witch Magdeline. Using an
ancient ritual he banished her evil powers into the the remains of her skull and sealed her remains in the church graveyard where she has waited patiently ever since. It is now midnight exactly
100 years since the eve of her death, and Father Joseph has awoken in a cold sweat. He looks out the window of his church and sees evidence that the Grave of Magdeline McDonnoley has been disturbed.
He doesn't know it, but Magdeline's great grandchild still lives in Woodinvale as well and is out for revenge! A terrible power has been released, and only by working together can the Citizens
of Woodinvale figure out who awoke the evil witch's power and return her weary bones to the ground.

1) After the four starting Heroes are selected, the zombie player picks a Hero at random from the remaining unused Heroes. This hero is Magdeline's great grandchild and is using
The Cursed Skull to reanimate the dead. The zombie player places that Hero Facesheet face down and keeps it secret. Subsequent Heroes must be picked randomly to protect the identity.
2) Heroes always use Father Joseph starting with faith and rosary item (cannot be dropped or exchanged) in addition to other hero cards. Always use the church/graveyard corner.
-If Father Joseph Dies, then the rosary must be retrieved from his Zombie Hero to make another character holy (and so on).
-All Heroes start at the Ritual Circle in the center of town with two Hero Cards.
3) Counters 1-8 placed randomly two per corner represent clues to the the identity of the witch. Heroes can give up a search/move to collect a clue which they place on their character sheet.
A single Hero must possess 4 clues to determine the identity of the witch. Heroes in the same space can share clues during the exchange turn.
-If a Hero dies any clues that they found must be retrieved from their Zombie Hero.
-If three Heroes die before the witch's identity has been revealed then automatically reveal the witch.
4) When the witch's identity is revealed, remove all other counters and roll a random building (must NOT already contain a Hero) and place the witch with d6 zombies in adjacent spaces (zombie choice).
5) The witch works like a Zombie Hero except:
-They can spawn one zombie per turn into any adjacent space at any time during the zombie turn. -Whenever they take a wound they can optionally attempt to disappear in a puff of smoke and move
to a random building on the roll of 4+.
-When killed the necromancer drops The Cursed Skull.
6) When a hero possesses The Cursed Skull, subtract 1 from ALL dice rolls that hero makes to a minimum of 1. The curse can be removed by a holy character with faith giving up 1 turn in the ritual circle.
The Skull (no penalty once the curse is lifted) must then brought to the graveyard and buried by a non-holy character by giving up 1 turn in the graveyard.

Please find my 1st original scenario above! I am super psyched to try this out. Special thanks to friskers because the beginnings of some of these features began when we were discussing tweaking AHE.
Eventually I came up with enough new mechanics that I thought it was worth making a new scenario all together.

Features

1. An all new use for the counters. They are collected individually by heroes as clues to a mystery. Feel free to reuse this mechanic as it could be applied to many other scenarios and stories.

2. A complete backstory and a very cinematic feel overall as heroes must gather clues, find out which hero has raised the dead, kill them, and destroy the cursed skull.

3. No scenario search items.

4. Teamwork is essential. The first objectives would be difficult to do alone. The last one is impossible to do alone.

Clarifications

1. The Witch's Grandchild is controlled by the zombies only. This is not a scenario where one of the heroes playing the heroes side is actually evil. I think that idea would be worth pursuing for another scenario, but that is not how I wanted this one to go. I thought about it a lot and it brings up too many new issues that I would rather do in a separate scenario. I do think the clue collecting would be a great
mechanic for a scenario like that.

2. Playtest needed to determine:
-# of clues needed to find. I think 4 is a reasonable place to start.
-# of turns. I think 16 would probably be enough.
-Heroes might need more starting cards to balance as I believe this will be difficult to accomplish.

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I'm bumping this because I just saw that the attachment was not working right. I think I fixed it now. Please let me know what you think.

[friskers96]

I printed it when you posted, I got a log to play through. It on my list!!

[ZombieDad]

This scenario sounds great! I like the idea of the clues in the corners, so you have to spread out and come together. Plus, the spawn points are usually in the corners making them hard to get to. Two questions:

1) Why does the identity of the Necro/Witch have to be hidden? What character it is doesn't seem to affect the play of the game. What if the Witch had the special power of that character? Say, they have a revolver if they are the sheriff, or they can move +1 if Billy, or can give up a move to heal 1 if a youth. May not work, but just throwing it out there. I like the boss feeling like AHE.

2) Do you envision any expansions when making this? Just wondering about other new character heroes and any thing from other expansions.

Like the idea of collecting clues and not having to get something out of the deck!

[deepfreeze]

(04-16-2013 02:00 AM)ZombieDad Wrote:  This scenario sounds great! I like the idea of the clues in the corners, so you have to spread out and come together. Plus, the spawn points are usually in the corners making them hard to get to. Two questions:

1) Why does the identity of the Necro/Witch have to be hidden? What character it is doesn't seem to affect the play of the game. What if the Witch had the special power of that character? Say, they have a revolver if they are the sheriff, or they can move +1 if Billy, or can give up a move to heal 1 if a youth. May not work, but just throwing it out there. I like the boss feeling like AHE.

2) Do you envision any expansions when making this? Just wondering about other new character heroes and any thing from other expansions.

Like the idea of collecting clues and not having to get something out of the deck!

1) The witch's identity being kept secret is only for thematic effect. It just for fun to make a big reveal moment "oh my God it was Jenny!" You are right that it has no real effect on the play of the game.

As for giving the zombie hero the hero's powers, I thought about this also, and I am not against the idea in theory. The reason that I did not ultimately include it is that I thought the power to spawn zombies was already pretty strong, and I was worried it might make them too overpowered if they could also be using weapons and powers.

As it stands now I think the hero's might need some starting cards or something to balance the witch. It will be very difficult to kill the witch considering that they always have other zombies around.

Just a note, the zombies that the witch spawns, like all newly spawned zombies, cannot move until the following turn. The reason I worded it "any time during the zombie turn" is that I wanted to witch to be able to spawn the zombie either before or after disappearing.

2) I only have growing hunger. GH is borderline necessary for the ritual circle and the rosary, but anyone could just replace those with something else if they don't have growing hunger. I think that the expansions are designed to balance so I don't see any reason why you couldn't use any/all of them.

[deepfreeze]

I thought it would be fun to assign the counters actual clues to keep the theme going. Again this is just for theme/fun no gameplay changes. This is a rough list so please LMK if you think of a good one.

Clues
1 - Footprint
2 - The shovel
3 - Dirty Gloves
4 - Muddy boots
5 - Handwritten Notes on Necromancy
6 - Anchient Spellbook
7 - Old McDonnoley Family Portrait
8 - Magdeline's Diary

[willco]

Not to nitpick, but don't Fathers usually have no descendants?

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(04-22-2013 09:18 PM)willco Wrote:  Not to nitpick, but don't Fathers usually have no descendants?

haha! It could be the sins of his youth right?

[PJON]

Hi. Nice work Deepfreeze. I think it sounds wicked fun. Thankz

[SirTommyKittens]

This sounds like a blast. Nice work.