Temporary Heroes

by Hobbes1tig

In the original HeroQuest game, rescuing the injured Sir Ragnar is the object of a quest. By the time the Heroes find him, Sir Ragnar isn't much help to them -- he cannot attack, and he only defends weakly. However, there's nothing to stop you from creating a quest in which the rescued victim is capable of more. Something you could have in your own quests is a "Temporary Hero," a character that would join the Heroes and help them, but die or leave before or after the quest is over.

When I used this idea, the temporary hero was tied up on a rack in a room with a bunch of monsters. Then he was untied and he attacked the monsters and destroyed them. The goal of the quest was supposedly to escape with the temporary hero, but in the end he was killed by a magic Chaos Warrior.

Temporary Heroes can help the part in various ways other than just fighting monsters. In the Elf Quest Pack, a Prospector has to be rescued because only he can identify an artifact that the Heroes need. The Prospector isn't even rated with attack or defense scores, and is possible for the Heroes to lose him in battle, more like an artifact than a character. The Prospector appears in just two quests, and once he has performed his role, he leaves.

The "Temporary Heroes" concept can be used a lot of different ways. Some alteratives would be to have the temporary hero be an orc or goblin who was tired of serving Zargon, or have a couple of people that join, a demented Ghost, etc. etc.