Hero Kids – Fantasy Adventure – Curse of the Shadow Walkers by Justin Halliday is a role playing game supplement published by Hero Forge Games for use with the Hero Kids game system. Hero Kids is aimed at children from age 4 to 10. This supplement is a five encounter adventure with a difficulty rating of normal.
The PDF is available for $2.99 from RPGNow and can be purchased at a reduced price as part of the Hero Kids – Fantasy Adventure Pack 1 and the Hero Kids – Complete Fantasy PDF Bundle, the latter being how it was bought. It is also included in the compilation print on demand softcover Hero Kids – Fantasy Adventure Compendium.
The PDF is the version reviewed. This is a 34 page PDF in a landscape format of which one page is the colour front cover. The PDF comes in two versions, a standard version and a printer friendly version that lacks the parchment-like page backgrounds.
It starts with a list of what is required; the core rules, d6s, pencil, eraser and print out of the various hero and monster cards as well as the encounter maps and stand up minis.
This is followed by a standard background with the adventure being located in the Brecken Vale setting, followed by a brief adventure overview. It then introduces the adventure itself for the players.
There are five encounters which start with the players having to stop a runaway wagon. They are then asked to go and help the parents of the girl driving the wagon, as their farm has been attacked, the last attack mauling her brother, who she has bought into town for healing. The players could refuse; well, the suggestion is that they are sent outside to play instead.
The players, assuming they agree, help defend the farmstead from wolves and a werewolf, then go and see a wise woman in the woods for help. They next need to recover a specific herb from the forest. The forest itself is quite large, consisting of many maps. It is suggested that these can be expanded on by adding encounters if the GM wishes. Finally, the characters must confront and cure the werewolf of his curse.
Next are seventeen pages of maps for the encounter locations and the forest. These duplicate GM maps found earlier, but are a larger scale and unlabelled. There is then a single page of four monster cards and finally a page of monster stand up minis.
Hero Kids – Fantasy Adventure – Curse of the Shadow Walkers in Review
The PDF is well bookmarked with all the major and minor subsections linked, although the various print out maps, cards and minis are not. It is not really necessary for these to be printed though. There is not table of contents but navigation is on the whole above average.
The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noticed. Apart from the front cover, the only illustrations are the print out black and white maps, monster cards and minis. These are the most essential ones though, and they are all decent.
The various encounters provide role playing, combat and ability checks, depending on the particular encounter. There are usually different types of ability checks that can do the same thing, allowing flexibility. The various combat encounters can also scaled, with more monsters for more characters.
The forest is quite large, so it’s a shame that it hasn’t actually been expanded on, leaving that to the GM. A few minor encounters should be reasonably easy to come up with. Another minor problem is if the players do decide not to do the adventure; a better option for getting them involved would have been good.
Making it possible to cure the werewolf is unusual, but this is more suited to a children’s game. In adult RPGs, werewolves do not tend to be curable.
Despite the couple of niggles, Hero Kids – Fantasy Adventure – Curse of the Shadow Walkers is another decent adventure, and it can be found by clicking here.
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