This seems to have disappeared into the ether when I posted it on Saturday last, so here goes again. Apologies if this material somehow ends up appearing twice!
I guess lots of people remember the three RQ2 solo adventure books by
Alan LaVergne that Chaosium bought out long, long ago. The first
in the series was SOLOQUEST (1982), which featured three solo adventures,
"DreamQuest", "Phony Stones" and "Maguffin Hunt". Way back then I got
a lot of enjoyment out of this book, particularly "Phony Stones" which lends
itself well to a single player adventure. I GMed this several times for
friends who were interested in the game.
However, the first adventure in the book, SoloQuest, in which a solo player encounters a sequence of foes in a strange sort of minor (very minor) 'HeroQuest', piqued my interest so much I actually wrote some more encounters for it. And the other day I found this stuff from 13 years ago in the darkest corners of my hard disk, so, for what it's worth, here it is!
For those of you who haven't seen SoloQuest, here's what is says in the prologue:
"Once upon a dream your god appears. You are asked to fulfill a mission, a
symbolic reenactment of your god's conquests. In your dream you will attempt
to defeat your god's enemies. Unlike most dreams, in those one there are real
risks to run and real rewards to gain."
You then encounter four random foes from a list of 20, a bizarre grab bag of Gloranthan stock footage including a spear-weilding baboon, a high llama and rider, a dryad, a manticore, a "sensitive" rhino, a tusk rider on his tusker, a den of rubble runners, a sky bull, a "wizard", and a poisoned knife thrower, among others.
If you win through, you then get to fight a special encounter - a mirror image of yourself! If you win through, you get an increased chance to improve skills and POW gain, and one use magic from your cult.
I actually intended to write 10 more, but seemed to have stalled at 7. Any takers?
(add to list in SoloQuest Book)
21 Thanatar Mad Head Ghost
22 Taddy the muscular newtling
23 Oakley the Illuminate, image of Flesh Man
24 Anax the Aristocratic Healer
25 Plethon the Philosophical Broo
26 Stony the Gargoyle
27 Rip and Rend, Shadow Cat twins
21 Thanatar Mad-Head Ghost
Reaction
Neutral*: Anyone wearing a Thanatar talisman or blemish.
Hostile: Everyone else.
Friendly: Cannot be converted to "Friendly" status, but a Thanatari
DreamQuester could conceivably pick it up and use it in his
next encounter.
Notes
This gruesome severed head is in the middle of a 10m x 10m room. The insane spirit bound into it will immeadiately engage you in spirit combat. If it reduces you to zero magic points your quest is ended.
You have several ways of defeating the spirit. Perhaps the most obvious is to reduce it to zero magic points. If you want to cast any spells (such as Spirit Screen or Spirit Block ), you will need to make a concentration roll (INT x 3) first.
Simply destroying the head is not enough; to release the malign spirit within you'll also need to utter the Lhankor Mhy head smashing ritual... if you know it. It takes exactly one melee round to recite the ritual in full.
Every round of the combat one line of the ritual will appear on the north wall. It is written in your native tongue. To read a line, you must succeed in a Read Own Language roll. You can have as many attempts as you like to understand a line. At the end of six rounds, the whole ritual will be displayed on the wall, and will remain until either you or the ghost is defeated:
In the name of Full Knowledge
I rip this tool from Thanatar,
To confound his presence
In the scheme of being
And to hasten the end of chaos.
Go, spirit, to the fate of your will!
You will get an experience check if you manage to read a full line, even though this normally isn't allowed for Knowledge-based skills.
Once you have pronounced the ritual, match the ghost's Magic Points with your own. If you fail to overcome it, subtract a Magic Point and try again next round. It will keep on attacking you until you succeed.
A final way to banish the Mad-Head ghost is to use the Daka Fal Free Ghost spell.
*Thanatar Mad-Head Ghost*
INT 0
POW 14
SIZ 2
01-20 Head 01-20 3/4
Magic Points: 14
Dodge: Add +25% to your chance to hit this prone target.
Hit Points: 4
Armour: The severed head is encased in a rotted cuirboilli helmet stuffed with moldy straw giving a total of 3 AP protection. The skull can be pulled out of the helmet in 1 melee round with a successful DEX x 5 roll.
Melee Sequence
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