Secret Room

Secret Rooms expand quests by giving the heroes the ability to uncover hidden passages that lead to unknown chambers containing valuable rewards. These secret rooms can come into play in any quest through the effects of a new Search card. Heroes are not required to explore a secret room to complete the quest.

Discovering a Secret Room

When the “Secret Passage” Search card is drawn, it instructs the player to place a secret room entrance token in his space. Heroes in this space may explore the secret room by spending one movement point or by following the instructions on the “Secret Passage” Search card (see “Exploring a Secret Room” below).

Important: If the “Secret Passage” Search card is drawn when the hero figures are not on the map (such as during the Travel step), the players draw a replacement Search card, and shuffle the “Secret Passage” Search card back into the Search deck.

Exploring a Secret Room

A hero in the same space as a secret room entrance token may spend one movement point to explore the secret room. He then draws one secret Room card and resolves the special rules on the card. A hero cannot explore the secret room if there is already a Secret Room card in play. Many Secret Room cards instruct the player to place a secret room tile, in which case he performs the following steps:

1. Place Secret Room: He places the appropriate secret room tile near (but not connected to) the map in the central play area. The player must be sure that the tile code on the secret room tile matches the tile code shown on the Secret Room card.

1. Move Hero: The player then removes his hero figure from the map and places it on the secret room tile’s entrance space (marked with the secret room entrance symbol shown below).

1. Place Challenge Tokens: The overlord player randomly draws a number of challenge tokens equal to the number of heroes and, without looking at them, places each one facedown on the secret room tile. There can only be one challenge token per space, and they must be placed as shown on the “Secret Room Setup” diagram on page 6.

Secret Room Entrance

The secret room entrance token is used to mark the space where heroes can explore and enter the secret room. The symbol on this token matches the symbol in one space of the secret room tile. Any space containing this symbol is a secret room entrance space.

During a player’s turn, if his hero figure is in a secret room entrance space, he may spend one movement point to place his figure in any other secret room entrance space. These spaces are not adjacent, but heroes may move between secret room entrance spaces as if they were. Monsters cannot use secret room entrances.

If a hero player moves his figure to a secret room entrance space that is occupied, he places his hero figure in the closest available empty space of his choice.

Challenge Tokens

When his hero figure is adjacent to or in a space containing a facedown challenge token, the player may perform a search action to flip the token faceup (do not draw a Search card). The face of each challenge token displays either a monster or an attribute icon.

If the revealed challenge token displays a monster, it is placed in the closest available empty space from where it was revealed and is treated as a minion monster figure of the indicated type. This monster does not count against the overlord’s monster group limits. The revealed monster uses its corresponding Monster card of the current Act. If the revealed token displays an attribute icon, the hero must immediately test that attribute. If he passes, the hero player immediately draws a Search card and discards the challenge token. If he fails, the hero player still discards the token but does not draw a Search card.

At the start of each overlord turn in which there is a hero on the secret room tile, the overlord player may choose to discard one challenge token or monster figure from the secret room tile. This choice is made before the overlord player draws his Overlord card. The discarded token is not revealed. This may result in the completion of a secret room (see below), but allows the overlord to control how much time the heroes spend exploring the secret room and how many Search cards they might gain.

Secret Room Rewards

As soon as there are zero challenge tokens and zero monster figures on the secret room tile, the player taking his turn pauses to resolve any “Reward” effects on the Secret Room card. If multiple hero figures are on the secret room tile, the heroes choose one of those heroes to resolve the reward effect on the Secret Room card.

Then, players remove all hero figures from the secret room tile and place them in empty spaces nearest to the secret room entrance token (if there are multiple spaces equidistant from the secret room entrance space, the hero player chooses the space in which to place his figure). Then, the secret room tile and the secret room entrance token are discarded. Finally, the player’s paused turn resumes his turn.

Knocked Out in a Secret Room

If a hero is knocked out while in a secret room, all normal rules for being knocked out are followed with one exception: the hero player places his hero token in the secret entrance token’s space, even if that space is not empty.