A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Hero Kids – Fantasy Adventure – Darkness Neath Rivenshore

Hero Kids – Fantasy Adventure – Darkness Neath Rivenshore by Justin Halliday is a role playing game supplement published by Hero Forge Games for use with Hero Kids. This is a seven encounter hard adventure.

The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG for $2.99 but was got for free as part of a special deal. This is a 45 page PDF that comes in two versions, one with page backgrounds and a printer friendly version without them. One page is the front cover. Twenty pages have a battlemap per page, one page has monster cards and two pages have monster miniatures.

The first page starts with a list of what is required to play; bar the core rulebook and dice, everything else is in this supplement. There is a brief background box on the Rivenshore setting.

The Adventure Overview explains that the characters will go beneath Rivenshore entering the old cistern from a buried city using a currently dry well to rescue a lost child. Running This Adventure explains that there are two outcomes, and different descriptions depending on the outcome. The first is rescuing the lost child and returning him to his parents. The second is to recover the long-dead child’s bones and have them buried with his equally-dead parents; the second outcome is aimed at older children.

The next page has a map of the underground encounter locations. These only show the six primary encounter locations; there are a further 13 modular maps of the underground area that can be joined to make a complex. The GM should decide prior to play how these should be assembled as there are no notes during the adventure as to doing this. The modular maps could be left out completely, if desired; the different encounters can simply join on to each other.

The characters are asked to enter the well by the sheriff as the adults are too big. There, they will make their way through with several combat encounters and a few skill tests. Each encounter is laid out in a similar style; the GM should be careful to note which text and encounters are applicable to the selected outcome. The final encounter, where the child, or his bones, are is essentially a boss fight. Each encounter has scaling instructions depending on the number of characters and has a map showing the initial locations of enemies.

Hero Kids – Fantasy Adventure – Darkness Neath Rivenshore in Review

The PDF is well bookmarked with the various sections and sub-sections linked. Navigation is very good. The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noticed. There are a few black and white illustrations although these are primarily maps. Presentation is okay.

As is common with most adventures for Hero Kids from Hero Forge games, this is pretty combat-heavy and, as mentioned, these can be scaled. There are ability tests in many of the encounters but every encounter with monsters needs solving with combat and the ability tests are mostly for finding out information. There is a non-combat encounter with a statue that provides healing. Combat doesn’t have to be the primary option in Hero Kids – Deck the Halls is an example of an adventure that has no combat – but it does tend to be the focus. This could perhaps have done with a bit less combat and a few other types of encounter.

Hero Kids – Fantasy Adventure – Darkness Neath Rivenshore is an underground exploration that a GM could expand on by adding more encounters, or even further adventures with quite a bit of work, and it can be found by clicking here.