The Legend of Arcadia: Quest#1

QUEST #1: PROVE YOURSELF

This is the first in an ongoing series of posts that use an example that shows how to play the Legend of Arcadia Solo Variant. The example uses a fictional player named Bill...

Bill selects Splendour Lake to be his base camp. He chooses a Male Naga for his character and names it Pyro. Pyro starts with 4 free Pyretics Arts, so Bill selects Burn & Boil. He takes 4 flaws: Imps (Enemy), Slaugh (Enemy), Indecisive (Weakness), and Warrant (Curse). This allows him to add 6 extra points of Merits, so he has 16 Merit points total. He chooses Lord Gamine's Backing for 5 (Advantage), Dem Bones for 4 (Treasure), Warhorse for 2 (Ally, Mount), Davelon, Gleeful Satyr for 2 (Ally), Perceptive Fighter for 2 (Ability), and 2x Bag of Gold for 1 (Treasure). Indecisive and Perceptive Fighter  are Seelie and there are no Unseelie cards, so Pyro is Seelie.

The Ardenmore League cards are laid out, the special cards are set aside, and Bill is ready to go. He draws the first Quest, Prove Yourself. This has a Waylay of 14 (which is reduced to 10 thanks to Lord Gamine's Backing, but still gives him 15 days to complete it) and Treasure of 1. Bill has decided to draw from a Treasure Deck rather than pick, so he draws until he gets a Treasure of 1, Pixie Dust, and puts the others he couldn't use on the bottom of the Treasure Deck. Pixie Dust is placed on Sundered Woods and Bill begins.

Day 1
Because he needs to travel to 4 different Leagues, Bill decides not to use the Warhorse movement. Pyro moves into Sundered Woods to try to claim the Pixie Dust. There is no Enter Trial. From the Waylay Deck, Bill draws Sphinx's Riddle, which can be played on Road and has a rating of 3. Sphinx's Riddle can be played as either Resolve or Combat. Bill chooses Resolve and rolls a 9, giving him 12; the Sphinx rolls 4 for a total of 6. However, since it is a Resolve Test, Bill is forced to exhaust Indecisive and re-test. His second roll is 6 for a total of 9, and the opposing roll is 8 for a total of 10.

Bill could re-roll one of the 3s he rolled using Dem Bones, but to win he'd have to roll a 5 or 6. Bill fails the Test and exhausts a Bag of Gold. According to the Sphinx's Riddle, the Resolve Waylay now becomes a Combat Waylay.

Day 2
Pyro attacks the Sphinx in combat. Bill rolls 11, for a total of 13 and the Sphinx rolls 11 for a total of 15. It looks like Bill has lost, but he exhausts Burn & Boil to add 4 to his score for a revised total of 17. The Sphinx is beaten and Bill has completed a Combat Waylay, with three more now to go. Sphinx's Riddle is discarded.

Day 3
Bill claims the Pixie Dust Treasure.

Day 4
Since Pyro is Seelie, he can recover a Merit by resting on Sundered Woods, so he does and recovers Burn & Boil.

Day 5
Bill decides to move Pyro from Sundered Woods to Pitha's Testing Zone. There is no Exit Trial for Sundered Woods and no Entry Trial for Pitha's Testing Zone. There is a Special Trial, but according to the rules, under Leaving Leagues, "You must pass any Terrain Trials stipulated by your current League before you move." So Bill will not have to pass this Trial until he leaves. The top card of the Waylay deck is drawn: Slavers, cost of 2, so Bill still has 5 points of Waylays to face. Bill doesn't want to mess around with another Combat Test, so he exhausts Pixie Dust, which allows him to ignore a Waylay until the end of the next day.

Day 6
To avoid the Slavers, Pyro needs to leave. Althros, The Steam City, has no Trials, so that's where Bill wants him to go. He now faces Pitha's Special Trial, Reserve 6. Bill rolls a 6, adding the Naga's 3 for a total of 9 and passes the Trial. There's no Exit Trial for Pitha's and no Entry Trial for Althros. The Slavers Waylay remains on Pitha's.

The Waylay drawn for Althos is Roc Attack, a Might Test and 4 point Waylay. Normally that would only leave 1 Waylay point and make it impossible to complete the Quest, but Bill will have to exhaust Lord Gamine's Backing at some point to overcome this. Bill rolls 5, for a total of 7; the opposing roll is 11, for a total of 14. Bill loses and Pyro is carried off to the Mountains. He rolls a D6 for the 6 closest Mountain Leagues, and rolls a 3, ending up on Ogre King Road. He exhausts Lord Gamine's Backing, and Roc Attack is discarded.

Day 7
Still smarting from the bitter defeat, Bill would like for Pyro to rest, but Ogre King Road has a Trial for resting and Bill's running out of time. He decides instead to move to Hall of the Ogre King. There is no Exit Trial from Ogre King Road and no Entry Trial for Hall of the Ogre King because Pyro is traveling by Mountains and Road. He draws the top card of the Waylay Deck and it is Huntsman's Snare, a Might Test of 1 that can be played on Mountains. Bill rolls 11 for a total of 13; the opposing roll is 8 for a total of 9. A relieved Bill has passed a Might Test, and now only needs to pass a Savvy Test and a Resolve Test. The day ends.

Day 8
Bill decides to rest and can recover 1 Treasure, so he recovers Pixie Dust.

Day 9
Instead of trying to climb down from the Mountains, which would require a Trial, Bill instead heads for Blackrock Pass. Blackrock Pass has no Trials, and since it counts as Mountains and Road, there's no exit Trial from Hall of the Ogre King. Pyro moves to Blackrock Pass and draws a Waylay: Hurricane. This is a Might Test of 3, which would leave only 1 point of Waylays and make it impossible to complete the Quest. Hurricane is moved to the bottom of the Waylay Deck and the next Waylay is Pit of the Grubworm, a Combat of 3 and the same situation as Hurricane. It is also recycled and the next Waylay is Arborian Willowtree Warrior, but it too is recycled since the terrain does not match. Finally Bill draws a Waylay he can use, Oathfriend, a Savvy Test of 2. Per Quest rules, Bill cannot use Davelon to test in Pyro's place. Bill rolls a 7 for a total of 8, the opposing roll is 9 for a total of 11. Bill elects to exhaust Dem Bones to re-roll his 3 and gets a 2. Crap! Bill does not exhaust a Merit, but he must stay on the space the next day. Oathfriend is discarded.

Day 10
Bill uses up the day on the space since he failed the Waylay.

Day 11
Only Abilities can be recovered on Blackrock Pass, and Bill doesn't have any exhausted, so there's no reason to rest. Instead, Bill moves to Eidolon. There's no Exit Trial from Blackrock Pass and no Enter Trial for Eidolon. Bill only has 3 Waylay points remaining and starts drawing Waylays: Whirlpool (wrong terrain), Quicksand (wrong terrain), Rogue Troll (Combat 4), Arborian Oak-kin (Combat 6), Pilgrim's Burden (Savvy 3), Hound of Hades (Combat 4), Renegade Dragonkin (Combat 4), Sandman (Resolve 4), Ogre Games (Savvy 3), and finally draws Lost!, Resolve 1 in Town. Bill rolls 7 for a total of 10; the opposing roll is 6 for a total of 7. Bill has defeated the Waylay! He must now beat only a Savvy Test of 1 or 2.

Day 12
Nearly out of time, Pyro moves to Ardenroad (3). There are no exit or Entry Trials, so Bill starts drawing Waylays: Unseelie Knight (Combat 3), Rockslide (Resolve 2). Finally he draws Tax Collector, Savvy 2. This is perfect to fulfill the Quest! With Savvy not the greatest of Pyro's attributes, and having a Warrant that would make things even worse, Bill elects to discard a Bag of Gold to pass the Test. Note that even though the Bag of Gold is exhausted, it may still be discarded to fulfill the Waylay requirements. Exhausted cards prevent you from benefitting from card effects listed in the text of the card; this does not affect your ability to discard a card if necessary. The Waylay stays on the space but Bill has passed it and needs only to return to Eidolon. He has also used all the Waylay points (14) for the Quest.

Day 13
Pyro moves back to Eidolon. There's no Exit or Entry Trials, so he moves and the Quest is complete. Bill returns Pixie Dust and Gains 1 XP. All his Merits (and Flaws) are restored.

NOTE: When Bill drew Slavers, he could have buried it and drawn another Waylay in its place, since he had already faced a Combat Test. Also, he could keep drawing Waylays until he got low enough numbers to stay within the Lord Gamine's Backing Waylay score. Lord Gamine's Backing is not truly a Merit if it must be exhausted and rendered useless to satisfy card draws every time you play. You'll see that this "draw until you get the Waylay you need" method (without affecting Lord Gamine's Backing) is done in Quest #2.