Warhammer Quest: The Undisputed King (Part III) — The Let’s Play Campaign
Parts I and II catalogued the artefacts. Part III follows two fools into the dark.
In the summer of 2019, Daniel took his Barbarian and Witch Hunter into the dungeons beneath Karak Azgal on a quest to restore the Dragon’s Eye — and what followed is nine episodes of the most entertainingly doomed campaign the archive has ever preserved. It begins, as all Warhammer Quest campaigns must, with character creation: Harlan Peters the Barbarian, Saul Matheson the Witch Hunter, three magical amulets, and a quest from a dwarf named Bartok Hammersmith.
The bottomless pit claims Saul in Part 2. He rolls a three when he needs a four. The witch hunter plummets. Daniel improvises a narrative rescue — Bartok’s dwarves fish the unconscious Saul from the depths, but his faith is stripped as divine punishment. Part 3 sees the barbarian flee alone through a gauntlet of orcs and goblins, barely surviving the escape table. The quest resets. The objective remains.
The second dungeon attempt unfolds across Parts 4 through 9: skeletons with fear checks, dead-end corridors, a goblin shaman ambush, and — in a twist that would make Games Workshop’s playtesters weep — the same bottomless pit appearing again, blocking the only remaining path to the objective room. Part 6 delivers a catastrophic cascade: minotaur, spider lair, paralysis trap, and six orcs, all in consecutive power phase rolls of one. Part 7 sees the warriors survive by the thinnest of margins — a berserk barbarian, an Amulet of Holy Fire, and a Shield of Deliverance absorbing a killing blow. Both warriors cross the bottomless pit safely. The dungeon holds its breath.
The finale is magnificent in its cruelty. Harlan chains four deathblows across the objective room, clearing six enemies in a single turn. Saul falls to the minotaur. The barbarian kills the beast but the orc archers roll hot. Harlan dies within arm’s reach of the dragon statue, gem in hand. Daniel gives him one last narrative roll — a six to hurl the crystal into the dragon’s eye with his dying breath. It is not a six. The gem tumbles into the chasm. The curse endures.
Also newly surfaced from the vault: Daniel’s survey of The Best Horror Fiction — a wide-ranging tour from Arthur Machen to Victor LaValle, with particular reverence for William Peter Blatty’s dialogue and Thomas Ligotti’s atmosphere. The king of the dungeon crawl, it seems, has taste in literature to match.
The Chronicle (Part III):
- Part 1 — The Barbarian and The Witch Hunter
- Part 2 — The Bottomless Pit
- Part 3 — Escape and Rebirth
- Part 4 — The Second Descent
- Part 5 — Dead Ends and Deathblows
- Part 6 — The Spider Lair Catastrophe
- Part 7 — Survival by the Thinnest Margin
- Part 8 — The Final Stretch
- Part 9 — Glorious Failure
- The Best Horror Fiction (According to the Dungeon Dive)
Ten entries catalogued. Silver Tower, the retrospectives, and the “Still the Gold Standard” trilogy still await in the vault. The king’s court has seen its first campaign — and its first Total Party Kill.
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– The Keeper
He needed a six. He did not roll a six. The dungeon remembers.