The Mines of Moria
adapted for HeroQuest by Mitchel Hansinger

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The HeroQuest game board is not used for this quest.  The dungeon floor images included with this zip file are used construct the play area.  The moriamap.gif file shows an overview of the entire play area and how to construct it.  Several copies of each image will be needed to play.
 
Might is equivelent to Body Points.   It reflects a Hero's general vigor and physical strength.
A fixed SPeed score replaces the die roll for movement.  SPeed also reflects a Hero's dexterity.

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"You are traveling in the wilderness hunting for wargs, which have recently been terrorizing all of the surrounding lands.  It is daytime, for at night few survive the concerted attacks of a warg pack.  High above, the Elf sights a hawk on a hunt of its own.  It circles above you several times, then begins to dive.  When it is no more than a bowshot away it becomes clear that it is diving on your group.

Give the PCs a chance to do something.  They can even shoot the hawk down, so long as they go to find it.

If hawk is alive - "Nearly upon you now, the hawk suddenly pulls its head and wings up and pushes its talons in front of it, checking it's speed.  It comes to a soft landing upon the shoulder of the Dwarf."
	
Upon closer examination - "You notice that there is a bright band around one of its legs."
Upon removing the band, "Inside the hollow band is a tiny piece of parchment."  (Give PCs the following note on a tiny piece of rolled up paper)
	It reads, "Your aid urgently needed.  King's Hall by fastest means."

	If PCs ask the fastest way to the King's Hall the GM may tell them, "The King's Hall is on the other side of the Inveterate mountains.  Even the fastest overland route will take four or five weeks."

Give the following to the dwarf player on a separate piece of paper:
"Dwarf, please roleplay this to the best of your ability:  
You need to put on a grave expression and attempt to gain the notice of your fellow (human) players without saying any words.  You may grunt, humph, ummm, etc. but it should not be too obvious, you are hoping that the other players notice you on their own.  When they notice you and ask what is on your mind you should reluctantly tell them that you know of a faster route.  Do not readily volunteer any information, roleplay this so that the other players are forced to draw the info out of you a little at a time.  You may reveal as little or as much as you like from what you personally remember of the journey through Moria in Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring.  

The following additional information is part of your Dwarven knowledge:
Even Borin, the mightiest of the Dwarven heroes of long ago, perished in Moria's dark halls.  In Dwarven legend it is rumored that Borin's broken axe awaits another mighty dwarf to cast it anew in the fabled Dwarven furnace under those mountains.  Many hardy Dwarves, including some you knew, dared the perilous quest.  None have ever returned."

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Once the PCs determine to take the shortcut, read:
	"After marching all day and into the evening you reach the area where the eastern entrance was located.  A shallow valley used to run right up to the walls of Moria, and the gate stream, Sirannon, flowed through the valley with the road beside it.  But now, across the valley stretches a dark still lake.  The Sirannon has been dammed and fills all the valley.  Between the stony ridges that enclose the valley and the water's edge runs a  rim of open ground.  It is narrow, often hardly a dozen feet across, and encumbered with fallen rock and stones. 
	You reach the eastern end of the valley by hugging the cliff face and skirting the dark water.  Close under the cliff there stands, still strong and living, two tall trees, larger than any trees of holly that you have ever seen or imagined.  They tower overhead, stiff, dark, and silent, throwing deep night-shadows below their branches, standing like sentinel pillars at the end of the road.  
	Between the two trees faint lines can be seen, like slender veins of silver running in the stone.  Lines so fine that they only twinkle fitfully where the moon catches them.  At the top, higher than any of you can reach, is an arch of letters in a Dwarvish character.  Below can be seen an anvil and hammer surmounted by a crown with seven stars." (Show players the image of the Hollin gate)

If PCs try to read the inscription on the arch give them an index card with the following riddle on it.

I am a riddle, of that there is no doubt,
though only the wise may enter through this route.
As vast as the ocean, yet smaller than a flea,
as young as a dawning day, yet older than any tree.
As swift as lightning, faster than the winds blow,
more changing than the clouds, more elusive than a rainbow.
As deep as the sea, as high as the sky,
now tell me friend, what am I?

Hint: Cover all but the first and last lines.

When the riddle is answered correctly read the following:
"Without a sound a great doorway is outlined, though not a crack or joint had been visible before.  Slowly it divides in the middle and swings outwards inch by inch, until both doors lay back against the wall.  Through the opening a shadowy stair climbs steeply up; but beyond the lower steps the darkness is deeper than the night."

As soon as the doors open read:
"Before any of you has a chance to set a foot on the lowest step, you suddenly hear the water roil behind you.  Swinging round you see the lake seething, as if a host of snakes were swimming up from the other end.  A mass of long sinuous tentacles burst from the water and lash out for you.  They are pale-green and luminous with fingered ends.  The dark water boils, and there is a hideous stench."

Each hero must roll less than their Mind Points on 1d6 or lose their first action out of surprise.  Wizard will probably gain automatic success, as Gandalf did.  Any heroes not surprised may attack this turn.

	The watcher may attack every Hero each turn.  For each skull which is not defended against, the hero suffers 1BP of damage and a tentacle wraps itself around them and starts to crush them.  The Hero automatically loses one body point for each attached tentacle on every combat turn thereafter.  
	The Hero can state that they are specifically attacking the tentacles attached to them.  A single point of damage severs a tentacle, and several tentacles can be severed each turn if a hero rolls more than one skull.  Damage done to individual tentacles effects the whole and is subtracted from the watcher's total.
	The GM should increase the BPs of the watcher for their particular group so that they must flee into Moria or be killed.*

Watcher in the Water:  (AD 3, DD 0, BP 50*, MP 0, SP 3/9) 
(SPeed on land = 3, SPeed in the water = 9)

Once all the surviving heroes flee into Moria read, "The last of you has barely begun to climb when the groping tentacles writhe across the narrow shore and finger the cliff-wall and the doors.  One wriggles over the threshold, glistening in the starlight.  Many coiling arms seize the doors on either side, and with horrible strength, swing them round.  With a shattering echo they slam shut.  A noise of the trees being uprooted and thrown across the gate comes dully through the ponderous stone.  The passage is blocked behind you, and there is only one way out - on the other side of the mountains."

Give the PCs a chance to heal and take stock of themselves before continuing.

	"At the top of the broad and shallow steps is an arched passage with a level floor leading into the dark.  The passage twists round a few turns, and then begins to descend.  It goes steadily down for a long while before it becomes level once again.  The air grows hot and stifling, but it is not foul, and at times you feel currents of cooler air upon your faces, issuing from half-guessed openings in the walls.  There are many of these.  In your pale light, you catch glimpses of stairs and arches, and other passages and tunnels, sloping up, or running steeply down, or opening blankly dark on either side.  It is bewildering beyond hope of remembering.  If it were not for your dwarven guide you would quickly have come to grief.
	There are not only many roads to choose from, there are also in many places holes and pitfalls, and dark wells beside the path in which your passing feet echo.  There are fissures and chasms in the walls and floor, and every now and then a crack opens right before your feet.  The widest is more than seven feet across, with a noise of churning water comming up from far below, as if some great mill-wheel is turning in the depths.
	When you halt you hear nothing at all, unless it is the occaisonal  faint trickle and drip of unseen water.  Yet you begin to hear, or to imagine that you hear, something else: like the faint fall of feet.  It is never loud enough, or near enough, for you to feel certain that you heard it; but once it started it never stopped, while the party is moving.  But you don't think it is an echo, for when you halt it patters on for a little all by itself, and then grows still.
	The passage grows loftier and wider.  The floor is now level and sound, without pits or cracks.  Evidently you are now on what once must have been an important road.
	All about you hangs the darkness, hollow and immense, and you feel oppressed by the loneliness and vastness of the Dolven halls and endlessly branching stairs and passages.  The wildest imaginings that dark rumour had ever suggested fall altogether short of the actual dread and wonder of Moria!

Great Hall
"You see a vast roof far above your heads, upheld by many mighty pillars hewn of stone.  Before you and on either side streches a huge empty hall; its black walls, polished and smooth as glass, flash and glitter.  The other entrances are dark black arches, except for the northern one, through which a light glimmers faintly.  In the center of the room you see a large round hole like the mouth of a well.  Broken and rusty chains lay at the edge and trail down into the black pit.  Fragments of stone lay near."    

If the PCs drop anything into the well, read the following, 
"You feel your heart beat many times before there is any sound.  Then, far below, as if it has fallen into deep water in some cavernous place, there is a plunk, very distant, but magnified and repeated in the hollow shaft."    
	Wait several minutes before reading the next part.
	"From out of the depths you hear faint knocks: tom-tap, tap-tom.  They stop, and once their echoes die away, they are repeated: tap-tom, tom-tap, tap-tap, tom.  They sound disquietingly like signals of some sort."

The exit door to the south has many flights of stairs leading down and off the "board".  Northern arch leads to Chamber of Mazarbul.  Can discourage PCs from going south or east with forboding drums if they start down those passages.

Chamber of Mazarbul
"As you enter your feet disturb the deep dust upon the floor, and you stumble among many bones, broken swords, axe-heads, and cloven shields and helms.  Some of the swords are crooked: orc-scimitars with blackened blades.  The chamber is lit by a shaft in the roof high above the eastern door.  The light falls directly on a single oblong block in the middle of the room, about two feet high and deeply graven with Dwarven runes."

Only a dwarf can read the runes.  Give the Dwarf the card with the runes and their translation.
 
					Borin son of Balin
					    Lord of Moria

When the PCs open the tomb, read:
"You slide the heavy stone lid aside and marvel at the body of a dwarf clad in fantastic armor.  His arms are folded across a great broken double-headed axe lying on his chest."

The tomb contains the legendary dwarven hero Borin in his armor with the broken Axe of the Dwarven Lords laying across his chest.  The Dwarf character needs to take and repair the axe in the Forge of the Dwarves.  Gold ring of the dwarves on his finger?

Axe of the Dwarven Lords:
	The Axe was crafted for Durin by Narvi not only as a great weapon fit for the use of a Dwarf like Durin, but also as a symbol of majesty and power for all the king-successors of Durin's line.  For this reason, it is nothing more than a well made two-handed axe in the hands of anyone of another race.

	It is a great two handed axe which causes 4 attack dice of damage.
	The entire axe is constructed of mithril.

	The Axe never fails to hit Dwarven foes (Orcs, Dragons, [goblins?]).  When fighting a Dwarven foe, the wielder rerolls all the attack dice until at least one skull comes up.

	When swung forcefully and the secret catch pressed, the blade of the axe detaches and flies end over end toward its target.  Whether or not the blade sucessfully strikes the target, it returns to the wielder, like a boomerang, on the same turn.

	The Blade is magical and is effective against all creatures which can only be struck by magical weapons.

	The axe empowers the wielder with the ability to strike a mighty blow against any opponent.  The wielder can channel all of their strength into an attack.  Divide the number of dice you defend with by two, rounding down, and add that many dice to your current attack.  However, putting all your strength into an attack leaves you somewhat off balance and unable to defend against the next attack on you.


If the room is searched for treasure read,  "Among the debris you find the remains of a book.  Though it has been so slashed and stabbed and partly burned and so stained with black and other dark marks like old blood that little of the writing remains."  

Only allow dwarf to read book since it is in dwarvish.  Give Dwarf character a piece of paper with the info below on it.

"We drove out many orcs from. . .  . . .the deeps below ground remain unexplored and infested with foul creatures.  . . .secured the upper halls of the levels . . . battles to clear the lower halls of the deeps a chamber at a time. 

. . . inally found the Forge of the Dwar . . . irst level . . . emained undisturbed all th. . .   . . . our great surprise . . . not died, and its flame lept and roared anew when we pumped the bellowes.  . . . s fire issues from the very depths of the earth.
 
We have laid Borin to rest in the Twenty-first Hall of the Seventh Level, the Chamber of Mazarbul.  We slew the orc, but many more . . .up from the lower deeps . . . we cannot get out.   They have taken the bridge and second hall of the first deep.   . . . drums, drums in the...  They are coming. . . "

Give PCs only a brief chance to read the book of records then yell, "Boom!  Doom!  Drumbeats shake the very walls.  You hear the hurrying sound of many feet outside the west door."  

Swarm PCs with orcs, throw in a troll.  Put first group of Orcs (# of PCs X 2) right outside chamber door.  Each subsequent turn bring in another group of Orcs from all of the doorways in the main hall.

How to conduct a pushing battle between opponents on opposite sides of a door:
The figure directly in front of a door counts their full might.  Figures immediately adjacent to main figure, but not those diagonally adjacent, count one half their total might, rounded down.  Each side rolls a die and adds their combined might score.  The side with the higher total wins.  The door moves 30 degrees in the direction the victors are pushing.  Three consecutive victories will fully open/close the door 90 degrees.  The pushing counts as their action for that turn for all the figures involved.  Arrows may be shot through the partially opened door if the height and arrangement of the figures allows.  

It takes one action to wedge a spike under a door.  The door must be held closed during the turn it is being spiked.
	
A door is broken down by destroying it through attack.  Each skull rolled on the combt dice counts as one point of damage to the door.  Some doors are stronger than others, so the number of points needed to break down any given door will differ.  Recall though that in the story the doors to the Chamber of Mazarbul are made of stone!

Though the PCs can flee through east door, GM should suggest that,"It is no good flying blindly with pursuit just behind."
Need to give Wizard a hold portal spell.
Wizard can spend the mana to enhance the hold portal spell.  Need to work out rules for wizard/balrog door confrontation.
East door bursts in pieces, brief glimpse of something dark as a cloud blocking out all light, wall gives way.  PCs run from fear out other door.  
Make wizard do a dexterity check.  The worse the check the less he lept and the more damage he gets from falling rubble.

After Mazarbul
every 100 steps is a small landing, every 3rd landing is larger than the preceeding two.

Forge of the Dwarves, level 1 (6th large landing)
(Use plaster forge and anvil pieces)
Intense heat prevents all PCs but dwarf from entering room.
Weapons rack in the secret room contains special weapons vs. specific monsters.  ie shortsword vs. orcs (reroll one missed attack die when fighting orcs, or will always score at least one hit on an orc)  Protection from fire scroll?

Forge hammer of the dwarves - Its head is shaped like an anvil.  If the hammer makes a solid connection, it is likely to do much damage.  If attacker rolls one skull then defender needs only one shield to block the point of damage.  If attacker rolls two skulls then the defender needs to roll two shields to block each point of damage.  If the attacker rolls three skulls . . .

The Bridge of Khazad-Dum
"Before you is another cavernous hall, loftier and far longer than the one on the seventh level.  To the east the floor vanishes into a black chasm which is spanned by a slender bridge of curving stone 50' long, without kerb or rail.  To the west the hall dissappears into darkness.  Down the center stalks a double line of towering pillars.  They are carved like the boles of mighty trees whose boughs uphold the roof with a branching tracery of stone.  Their stems are smooth and black, but a red glow is darkly mirrored in their sides.  Right across the floor, close to the feet of two huge pillars a great fissure has opened.  Out of it a fierce red light issues, and now and again flames lick at the brink and curl about the bases of the columns.  Wisps of dark smoke waver in the hot air.  Beyond the fire is a swarm of black figures: there seems to be hundreds of orcs.  Their spears and scimitars shine red as blood in the firelight."

Monsters will fire arrows at PCs until all PCs reach the bridge.  Once all the PCs are on the bridge read the following:
"The ranks of the orcs open, and they crowd away, as if they themselves are afraid.  Something is comming up behind them.  It is like a great shadow, in the middle of which is a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet larger.  With a rush it leaps across the fissure.  The flames roar up to greet it, and wreath about it; and a black smoke swirls in the air.  Its streaming mane kindles and blazes behind it.  Its left hand wields a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire;  its right holds a whip of great length."
	"It swings its whip, and it whines and cracks.  It steps forward toward the bridge, and suddenly draws itself up to great height; its wings spread from wall to wall.  With a bound the Balrog leaps full upon the bridge, its whip hissing and snapping.

Use the HeroQuest gargoyle figure for the Balrog.

PCs should battle the Balrog to the finish, preferably on bridge, preferably with one or more PCs dying in the attempt to defeat it.  Use the locked door at other end of bridge to keep PCs on it.  Dwarf can attempt to pick the lock, but the GM should suggest that the dwarf needs to be in the battle with the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords.

Rules for PCs falling off bridge when fighting or when passing each other.  May also fall if they are hit in battle.  

BALROG: 
(AD 4/1, DD 6, BP 20*, MP 2, SP 10/20)
(SPeed on foot = 10, SPeed when flying = 20)

-power and terror in it and go before it (fear)
	Fear - When a Hero first sees the Balrog, they must immediately stop all movement and actions, and roll one red die for each mind point. A roll of 6 six on any die indicates that the Hero has mastered their fear and may finish their turn. If they fail their roll they are paralyzed with fear and cannot move or attack until a 6 is rolled at the beginning of a subsequent turn.

Fearsome Presence:
Everytime a Hero enters, or starts their turn in, the same room as the Count they must immediately make a fear check.  The Hero rolls 1d6, on a roll of 1-2 they are struck with fear and must immediately move as far as possible from him, even if it means leaving the room.  The Hero may not make any attack that turn, even against a different monster, but they may still defend.  
Does the chance decrease as the hero gets accustomed to being in the room with him?
Fear - run away
Terror - stand rooted

-shadow about it
-fire came from its nostrils (fire breath?) 
	immune to fire damage (fire/heat dmg heal it?)  
	cold always does maximum damage
	water drench extinguishes fire?
	water of healing causes 4 pts & extinguished
-flaming sword rules
	4 AD (that can be defended against) + if hit, undefendable fire damage die, monster rolls 1 additional die, anything but white shield = 1 additional point of damage (continuing damage from flamable equipment/clothes?)
-whip rules
	1 AD, can hit any foe in an unobstructed direct line up to 2 squares away
-Flight ability

*The GM should increase the BPs of the Balrog for their individual group so that the battle is difficult and dramatic.

Trolls lay stone slabs over the fire chasm after Balrog is defeated.  Orcs swarm over the chasm and chase PCs out of Moria.  Keep the play tense even after the Balrog is defeated.

Door at end of first hall is bottomless arch held by a door base on each side.

Moria gates are double bottomless arch held by three door bases.

Orcs wait in ambush just around outside gate.  If their commander is slain with one blow on first round, all other orcs will flee.  No orcs will follow the PCs into the daylight.
