The Adventurer’s Companion includes rules for playing Dungeon Saga as a campaign. The idea of a campaign is to link together a series of adventures to tell the story of a group of Heroes and the Overlords they battle against. The adventures part of this is exactly the same as normal, though you may want to use either the sections on building your own adventures or generating them randomly to add to those that are provided for you.

Excerpt from the Rulebook

Essentially, the campaign rules give you the skeleton of a heroic tale for you to flesh out as you see fit. Add as much detail and explanation as you like. You might revel in describing the time your Hero spends healing, training, telling tall stories of his exploits and wooing the ladies, or you might just want to get back to adventuring – it’s up to you. Many players get very attached to their Heroes, and create all sorts of elaborate back stories with families, enemies and all manner of curious foibles. This isn’t necessary by any means, though it is fun.

Also, these ideas may start out as a bit of minor embellishment, but they have a funny habit of getting woven into the main plot a while later. Maybe that warrior you bested in the fighting pits still holds a grudge. Was the dark stranger who spilled your pint in the tavern really just a tinker? And what did that obscure prophecy from the oracle actually mean?

In a similar way, you could add as much or as little as you like on how the Heroes come to be on these adventures in the first place. Traditionally, Heroes are hired by a patron who needs a job done that only a Hero (or four) can achieve. These patrons could be kings, princes or nobles. Alternatively they could be merchants, wizards or even whole villages of peasants. Whoever the patron may be, they provide the resources and the task to be resolved, and set the Heroes on their way.

The big difference in campaigns comes in the spaces between adventures. What do Heroes do then? This gap is called Downtime, and represents all the things a Hero does between adventuring in a simple and fun way.

DOWNTIME

In-between adventures you have some Downtime when your Hero can rest and recuperate from the rigours of fighting monsters and rescuing damsels in distress. During this time, heroes and bosses generate gold, may level up (and potentially acquire new feats), and get to visit a single Location..

Locations

Each Location is represented by its own card and offers its own combination of benefits and (occasionally) risks.

Other Locations include a Shrine, Temple, Tavern, Sacred Grove and a Fighting Pit.

When you come to choosing a Location, take the Location cards and separate out the Tavern and the Market. Lay these down in front of the Heroes. You can always choose to go to the Tavern and the Market. Also separate out any Boss-only Locations you may
have and put them to one side (unless you are playing as bosses against a ‘good’ dungeon, in which you put the Hero-only Locations to one side). Then shuffle the remaining Location cards and deal out one more for each Hero (not Boss) that took part in the adventure. These Locations are the ones you can choose from this Downtime.

Each Hero can choose freely from the Locations available, but can only choose to visit one. Each Hero can also choose to visit the Tavern and/or Market in addition to their one other Location. When a Hero has decided where he will visit, resolve the Location
as described on the card.

Typically this entails rolling a dice and looking up the result. Several abilities modify these dice rolls. However, regardless of the number of re-rolls and additional dice that apply, a Hero may only benefit from a single result from a single Location (in addition to the Tavern and Market) during each Downtime. A single location can be visited by some, all, or none of the Heroes in any given Downtime.

Dungeon Saga: The Dwarf King’s Quest is now available to pre-order from your local gaming store and the Mantic website. It begins shipping in October.

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