Adventures in Bayhaven – Mystery of the Stolen Pendant by Brian Benoit is a role playing game supplement published by Roving Band of Misfits Press for use with the Hero Kids system. This is an adventure set in the publisher’s town of Bayhaven.
This is a 21 page PDF which is available from RPGNow for $2.99 but was purchased for $1.50 as part of the Adventures in Bayhaven Ultimate Bundle. One page is the front cover, one page the front matter, one is largely blank, and there are a number of full page handouts.
The first page is a standard one for the publisher’s Bayhaven adventures, explaining what is needed to play the adventure, what will make it more fun, Time Units, a concept of the Bayhaven setting whereby players can fail to complete some or all of the adventure because they have run out of time and how to use the adventure.
The next page gives background on the location and adventure, a synopsis of the adventure and suggestions for further development.
There are five encounters, one being the introduction and one being the conclusion, leaving three main encounters. The children are recruited by the guard captain to look into a recent theft from a customer staying at the inn. There is a witness to interview and a room to search for clues. Two of the encounters have a combat element and all three have clues to the identity of the thief; once all three are done the thief can be caught in the concluding encounter.
The handouts take a full page each and have a colour list of six suspects, a note, a map of Bayhaven, two encounter maps (which appear to have been drawn in coloured pencil) and an image of a room to search. There is also an unsigned note and a suspect list that hasn’t been coloured in, so that the adventure can be replayed with the identity of the thief changed.
Adventures in Bayhaven – Mystery of the Stolen Pendant in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although it is quite short, they would have been appreciated. The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noticed. There are a number of images, all connected to the handouts. Presentation is decent.
This adventure may have a couple of combat encounters but it is at its core a mystery to solve, which makes a nice change from the more common combat-based adventures seen. Players will need to find the relevant clues and match them up with the images on the suspect list to work out who the thief is. The three main encounters are also non-linear; characters can do them in any order.
One of the things that can be found in the adventure is a treasure map fragment. There is no picture of this; it is included in the core Bayhaven book. Once the map is assembled, a special adventure called The Cave of the Black Sail Pirates can be played; at the time of writing, this adventure does not appear to be available.
Adventures in Bayhaven – Mystery of the Stolen Pendant is a nice problem-solving adventure that makes a bit of a change and it can be found by clicking here.
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