Dark Elves’ Lair – A Hero Kids Compatible Adventure by Joshua Bixler is a role playing game supplement published by Bix Six Adventures. This is an adventure for use with the Hero Kids system.
This is a 41 page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $2 but was purchased at the reduced price of $0.80 during a sale. One page is the front cover and one page the Credits.
The Introduction explains what is needed to play the game; the standard items for most Hero Kids adventures. There is also some advice for beginner GMs, whether these be complete novices or those who have never played with kids. This explains that there are multiple options for encounters, not just combat.
Tips & Reminders explains how to decide how many monsters are needed, that to prevent the adventure ending if all the characters are knocked out the GM should draw up contingency plans, and several such are provided, to ensure that characters are restored to full health after combat and, if initiative is tied, to let the heroes go first.
The Overview gives a summary of the adventure. The characters are asked to find some stuff stolen from their town’s armoury by the mayor. They will find a map of where to go to and a key to enter it, stop the mayor from being kidnapped, travel through the forest and enter the dark elves’ lair, where they will also rescue some villagers.
There are six different encounters all told. The encounters have scaling instructions for the number, and in one case the type, of monsters encountered. There are also options other than combat, and in some cases these are also scaled depending on the number of heroes. Some ability checks are easier if there are fewer heroes, and harder if there are more of them; this means that fewer characters are generally less liable to end up in combat.
The Monster Index is four pages long and has seven new monster cards. Sadly there are no miniatures to accompany them.
The final six pages have battlemaps for the various encounters.
Dark Elves’ Lair – A Hero Kids Compatible Adventure in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with the major sections linked although not the minor ones. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two column format and appeared to be free of errors. Within the book are some illustrations and smaller versions of the battlemaps; the images are primarily taken from the monster cards or the cover. There is also a letter that the heroes can find – it would have been nice to have this as a handout. Presentation is good.
The adventure is really quite flexible and is one that demonstrates that Hero Kids adventures do not have to be pure combat. Encounters can be resolved through combat, but there are other options which is good. The different encounters have read aloud text, summaries of the encounter, tactics for the monsters, scaling instructions, what happens when the encounter is concluded and how the adventure can continue if the heroes lose a combat. In the last case this is because of things like they bought enough time for someone else to help. This means a failed combat does not derail the adventure. With the fairly generic descriptions of the town and the forest, it should also be easy enough to slot the adventure into the Bayhaven or Rivenshore settings for example.
Dark Elves’ Lair – A Hero Kids Compatible Adventure is a nice adventure for Hero Kids with a variety of options to keep it going and it can be found by clicking here.
Leave a Reply