“Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Board Game Scenario”: Glorificus, by Jeff Dee, With A Small Modification By Me

As I’ve mentioned previously, and to no one’s surprise, I used to be quite a fan of the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” television show, as well as the board game tie-in from Hasbro. The game only had scenarios for the first four seasons, with one “Big Bad” from each:

• Season 1: The Master
• Season 2: The Judge (who was soooo not the Big Bad of season two)
• Season 3: The Mayor
• Season 4: Adam

Naturally, being an old D&D Dungeon Master from way back in the day, I eventually made some of my own scenarios. I’ve previously posted the ones I did for Angelus (who―spoiler alert—was the actual Big Bad of season two), Ethan Rayne (for the “Halloween” eposide), the Gentlemen (from “Hush”), and Dracula (“Buffy vs. Dracula”). When I posted the Dracula scenario, I mentioned that the next one would be for Glorificus, AKA Glory, the biggest Big Bad from the show.

Now, just in time for Halloween, here she is.

Unlike the other scenarios I’ve posted so far, which I put together, the “Glorificus” scenario was originally written and posted by Jeff Dee of TSR artwork fame. I can’t find his post with the original scenario, but its traces are all over the net if you do a Google search for “Jeff Dee Glorificus scenario“, which will turn up any number of references to and variants of it.

So here’s mine:

GLORIFICUS

A 5th Season Scenario for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Board Game from Hasbro
by Jeff Dee

Banished from her own plane, Glory seeks the Key that will unlock the doors between the planes… heralding an eternity of chaos and suffering. But a group of monks have made the key human, and sent it to Buffy in the form of her little sister.

Evil Set-up:

Use any of the other Evil Villain pawns to represent Glory. Place Glory on The Judge’s start space.

Use any of the Evil Servant pawns to represent Glory’s 3 minions. Place one servant pawn of each color (green, blue, and red) in each square adjacent to Glory where they may attend to her magnificenceness.

Glory has 20 life points, 6 Fight dice, and 2 Magic dice. Glory’s Minions have 6 life points, 1 Fight die, and 1 Magic die.

Special Artifact:

Use any Story Artifact card to represent Dawn (The Key) and three other non-story artifact cards. The Key has no abilities of its own.

Evil Objective:

Glory must bring The Key to the Vamp X Start square in the Factory, and stay there with her until the next Sunrise phase.

Good Set-up:

Substitute Spike for Oz. Spike gets 2 Fight dice and 1 Magic die. Like Oz, Spike can carry 1 card of each type. He gets 8 Life points (use the Werewolf / Oz track to record these). If Spike ends his movement on a black circle, he gains 1 Life point (to a maximum of 15). Spike is a “Good Vampire”, so he can be burned by the sun but he may also enter private homes. Spike starts on the “Oz Start” space in the Bronze.

Good Objective:

Destroy Glory, or destroy Ben once he becomes a legal target (see below).

RESTRICTIONS:

When the Evil player does not roll a large flame, Glory spends the turn as Ben. Ben can still move, but he cannot attack or be attacked until Glory’s life points drop below 6. Ben has 0 Fight dice and 1 Magic die.

All Evil cards for summoning Servants only summon more of Glory’s standard minions.

Living Flame research cards cannot be used to destroy The Key.

The Gem of Amarra artifact card now represents the Hammer of Olaf the Troll. It can be found and carried by any character, but can only be used by Buffy or Spike. When rolling Fight dice, add THREE extra points to the total damage. The Hammer cannot be used in combination with any weapon cards.

Since there are no enemy vampires in this scenario, several of the other cards are useless. Leave them in play, and force the players to discard them. I think this will convey both the Good guys’ sense of futility, and the worthlessness of Glory’s minions.

If Glory successfully plays a Sire a Vampire card, she performs a “brain suck” on her victim.  Reduce the victim’s Magic to 0 and restore 2 life points to Glory, up to her maximum.  The “brain-sucked” character can no longer carry or use Research cards, but may continue to use Artifact, Help, and Weapon cards.  The character remains under the control of the original player.  The Restore Soul research card can cure this condition, but only if the caster is adjacent to Glory.  Successfully restoring a character’s soul will deal 2 points of damage to Glory.

I think this was the first add-on scenario I tried for the board game; it is probably what gave me the idea of creating my own scenarios, and served as a template for how to add a playable character (in this case, Spike; in my own scenarios, I subbed in Spike and others, such as Riley, Dawn, and Anya) who didn’t previously appear as playable in the game.

If I remember correctly, I added the part to this scenario about Sire a Vampire cards being used to perform brain sucks. The “Brain Suck” being such a huge part of Season 5, Glory definitely needed to be doing it in the game, but the evidence turned up by searching indicates that in the original scenario, she was not. And then we have the use of Restore Soul to undo the effects, because as Willow demonstrated in the show, the process can be reversed, healing the afflicted individual while causing Glory some well-deserved pain. You just have to be willing to get next to Glory and her victim, and be able to survive the experience …

After this, I just have one more “BtVS: TBG” scenario left, from Season 6, in which the Scooby Gang goes up against Dark Willow to protect a trio of nerds of varying degrees of unpleasantness. Stay tuned for it.