Osprey Games – Warriors of Athena Quests

Welcome to the second part of the Warriors of Athena review. After taking a close look at the Warriors of Athena - Heroes book, we focus specifically on the book “Quests” today.

What is it about?

As the name already suggests, this book focuses primarily on developing the narrative of the setting for Warriors of Athena. While the first book focused on the heroes we play, this book highlights the heroes' journey. This takes the form of mini-campaigns, which are categorized into three parts. I will go into more detail about this below.

It should be noted that this book does not work without the Heroes core rulebook. The rules for Warriors of Athena are not included here, which gives this book the feel of an expansion.

First impression

Like Warriors of Athena Heroes, the book's design is very beautiful, but it also has the same weaknesses. Once again, I immediately noticed the wavy paper and a misalignment in the first binding of the book. From a printing perspective, I wondered whether some decisions had been made in favor of production costs. Binding at the spine is actually an expensive processing method and significantly higher quality than, for example, a book that is bound with glue. The cover, on the other hand, is made of carton with a glossy finish, whereas a matte finish would have made the book a little more durable.

I don't think I need to highlight Hazem Ameen's artwork any further. His work can now also be admired on his Instagram account, where the double-page images in the book can now be admired in digital splendor.

How do you play Warriors of Athena Quests?

Unlike Heroes, Quests does not provide rules for playing the game itself, but rather scenario-specific special rules, such as how to set up the playing field, a selection of antagonists to use, and an extensive bestiary at the back of the book. The game distinguishes between quests, scenarios, and scenes.

A quest is, roughly speaking, a chain of scenarios and/or scenes. It lays out the general plot arc and can be viewed as a mini-campaign. Everything there is to do in this quest is explained in a short summary at the beginning.

The scenario, on the other hand, represents a step within the quests that is played out on the tabletop field. This is important to note because, in contrast to the scenario, the scene depicts an action or situation that is not handled with the help of miniatures. Although the profile values may come into play, this is the more role-playing-heavy part of Warriors of Athena Quests. Scenes deal with situations that take place before, between, or after scenarios, for example. At the beginning of the quests, you might receive a mission at a king's court that gives you the impression that he is deliberately giving you an impossible task. A furtive glance from a priest prompts you to seek him out in the next room, and the game master (the Oracle) allows you to take a diplomacy test in order to gain advantages through conversation that will ultimately come into play in the following scenario.

How intensively the pen and paper element is used ultimately depends on the Oracle itself. If the game master feels that he needs to intervene during a scenario, he can do so without necessarily having to resort to a pre-planned scene.

After each scenario, each scene, or at the end of the quest, players ultimately receive rewards in the form of experience or special items. The part called the epilogue then explains what happens next if the heroes were successful (or unsuccessful) in their task.

What’s next?

The book itself offers four quests, with increasing levels of difficulty. The first quest is aimed at newcomers who are still getting to know the game. The aim here is to bring three Cyclopses to justice for killing their father and claiming Olympic honey for themselves.

The second quest sends you on a rescue mission to free an Oceanid from the clutches of a cult. While the first adventure offers two scenarios, this follow-up adventure requires a little more resource management, as this time you play three scenarios in a row.

Quest number 3 begins in a ruined temple of Athena and sends you on an adventure divided into four scenarios against a multitude of centaurs and satyrs. If you want to play through this quest faithful to the book, you will need at least seven of the four-legged creatures and at least eleven satyrs, six of them armed with bows. Furthermore, you will play a scenario with multiple scenes for the first time, which should serve as good practice for future game masters. Oh, and by the way, this scenario also marks the first time it is possible to encounter a god on the battlefield.

The last quest offered is by far the most difficult and should only be played once the heroes have gained sufficient experience, as it pits them against a variety of monsters in five scenarios, from undead and minotaurs to fire-breathing dragons. In terms of the story, evil takes its course when the wife of the King of Aktrea dies and he subsequently rejects the gods. Hades in particular takes offense at this and strikes back in retaliation.

For those who still haven't had enough thrills, there is a twenty-page section on creating your own adventures. Although this section may seem a little thin at first glance, it contains everything you need to know to bring your own great stories to the gaming table. There are currently around 30 monsters and several gods to choose from in the bestiary starting on page 144, which you can easily incorporate into your game. The profile also includes the experience points you can earn in return for defeating the creatures.

Conclusion

Warriors of Athena Quests is an entertaining expansion for Heroes and is on par with the main book in terms of quality. Although I believe that Warriors of Athena can also be played without this book (in which case it would be a player-versus-player variant, for which only the first book would be needed), Quests enriches the ambitious player with a multitude of narrative possibilities. The price is the same as for Heroes, £25, or €29.99 in Germany. With a whopping 176 full-color pages, this is a nice bonus, as the price could have been raised slightly to reflect the increased page count.

The content is particularly appealing to narrative players. If you want to play an entire campaign right away, you could, for example, combine all four quests on offer to play a larger saga (if your heroes survive that long).

Solo players will also quickly feel at home here, although they won't have all the work done for them – the bestiary is missing one very important entry: that for ordinary humans.

All monsters that you can recruit into your party as a player, such as satyrs or centaurs, have the same profile as in the bestiary. Depicting human opponents would therefore not be a problem, but you will not find the equivalent experience points for slaying them in the quest book.

However, McCullough is not known for holding back, and I expect that these values will be provided at some point, either in the form of an online PDF or as part of a further expansion.

Warriors of Athena is a game by Joseph A. McCullough and distributed by North Star Figures and Osprey Games.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.