Monster Compendium Refresh

This Hero Kids Monster Compendium refresh has taken way longer than I hoped, but it's almost done. 

The Monster Compendium is increasing from ~130 monsters to almost 180 monsters!  This includes over 20 pieces of new and refreshed art, now in full color.

One thing for youse all, I'm redoing the Monster Stand-Ups PDF for printing, and I'm reducing the number of stand-ups on each page for the 'tougher' monsters, on the grounds that you should never need 8 tough monsters!  Let me know if this might be a problem. 

Heroes in full color

Thanks to everyone's sage feedback, I've decided to update all of the Hero Cards and Monsters to full color.  I will also maintain the existing B&W versions of the Hero Cards and Hero stand-ups for the folks who want to color in their heroes!

The first step in this process is to color all of the Heroes.  

Which is a lot:

Here's a sneak peek at what a colored Hero Card looks like:

More on this as I make progress.

Out.  :-)

Hero Cards and Stand-Ups in Color?

So I've put off reaching out to y'all to ask this, but now is as good a time as ever. Would you prefer the Hero Kids stand-ups and hero cards in B&W (for coloring by the kids) or in color? 

The reason I'm asking is because if I switch to color heroes, I don't have the capacity to maintain B&W variations of the hero cards and stand-ups.

Let me know in the comments what you'd prefer!

Hero Kids YouTube Actual Play - Darkness Neath Rivenshore

People who've never played RPGs before often ask, "How do you even play Hero Kids?" This is a great question.

So much of playing RPGs is learned through participation and tradition. Which makes it hard for people to get started outside of that tradition.

For those out there who want to know how to play Hero Kids, I recorded a playtest of Darkness Neath Rivenshore with my kids:

This was my first shot at recording video and audio, and comes with a bunch of embarrassing qualifications and apologies.
• The exposure fluctuates a bit at the start, I kept moving the papers.
• I read too much of the adventure text verbatim (when you're running Hero Kids it's best to internalise the gist of the text blocks rather than read them like I did).
• Dash was sniffing at the start (you can see me looking at him sternly)...  :-)
• The video gradually progresses into potato quality as we lost light (it's not terrible, but it's a bit grainy). :-)
• I forgot to use some of the monsters' special abilities...
• Any rules mistakes are all my responsibility.
• The adventure changed slightly after this paytest; I added another puzzle in the encounter with the dire rats.

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Check out the Hero Kids Complete Fantasy PDF Bundle at DriveThruRPG

New adventure Darkness Neath Rivenshore

I've just released a new Hero Kids adventure; Darkness Neath Rivenshore!

This seven-encounter adventure takes place in the ancient tunnels, chambers, and cisterns beneath Rivenshore.

When the town’s well runs dry, a child’s pleas for help echo from the dry pit. The kids must delve to rescue the lost child. Yet something sinister lurks in the ancient structures beneath the town, and the kids will need all their skill and bravery to rescue the lost child Emon.

• Adventure with seven encounters and maps
• Monster Cards for the unique monsters (water beasts, dire rats, slime, slime beast)
• Additional 14 modular encounter maps

I'm trying something new with this adventure, it includes two possible endings, one for younger kids, and another for more mature players:

• The heroes rescue the lost child and reunite him with his parents
• The heroes discover that the lost child is a ghost who died in the well long ago

In the ‘rescue’ ending, the heroes find the child hiding in the final room, and reunite him with his parents. In the ‘ghost’ ending, the heroes find the child's bones, and take them to the cemetery to bury alongside his family.

I playtested the adventure with the 'ghost' ending, which my kiddos found challenging, but not distressing.

Once we got to the climax of the adventure, my youngest - Dash - twigged pretty quickly about the bones at the bottom of the fountain pool.  Violet was a bit more affected by the ending of the ending of the adventure, but they both determined to help reunite Emon with his (also long-dead) parents.

All in all, I was very proud of how they dealt with the adventure.

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Check out the Hero Kids Complete Fantasy PDF Bundle at DriveThruRPG

Reign of the Dragon adventure!

Folks, it's been a long time coming, but I've finally finished the latest Hero Kids adventure: Reign of the Dragon.

This is by far the largest Hero Kids adventure yet, weighing in at a whopping 57 pages of encounters, maps and monsters.

This premium adventure takes the kids on a journey to rescue the dragon Algoxarth. Can the kids slip past the cultists who have surrounded Rivenshore? And can they rescue Algoxarth and her dragon egg from the Dragon Prince, or will he succeed in his fiendish plan?

• Premium adventure with 11 encounters
• Includes monsters; cultists, dragon, dragon hatchling, dragon prince
• Includes two playable heroes; dragon hatchling and dragon warrior
• Comes with 13 new modular map tiles and more variations

The kids certainly had a blast helping out with this adventure.  They both chose a core hero and a pet for this one.  Violet chose the female warrior (Ayla) and the fox (Bliss).  Dash chose the warlock (Warlock) and the wolf (Wolfy).

But it's quite long, so I recommend splitting it up across at least two sessions.

Check it out here at DriveThruRPG:

DriveThruRPG: Hero Kids - Reign of the Dragon

Hero Kids Flat Plastic Miniatures

In all of the excitement of the work on the Hero Kids Monster Compendium, I almost forgot that a neat box arrived containing 64 Hero Kids flat plastic miniatures from ArcKnight's Kickstarter campaign.

Even better, these are now available from ArcKnight's online store:
Hero Kids Flat Plastic Miniatures.

The set contains 64 miniatures from these sets:
•  Hero Kids - Fantasy RPG
•  Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Hero Cards - Set II
•  Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Hero Cards - Set III
•  Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Hero Cards - Pet Cards
•  Hero Kids - Space Expansion - Hero Cards - Set I
•  Hero Kids - Space Expansion - Hero Cards - Set II

Hero Kids pipeline...

People often come up to me in the street and ask, "Justin, what's next for Hero Kids?"

It's a great question, so here's a list of the things I'm working on:
•  Update all of PDFs to the new format monsters
•  Update the core Hero Kids PDF and print book
•  Write Reign of the Dragon
•  Create a Hero Kids monster compendium
•  Update the pirate monsters

Update the PDFs

I've been progressively updating all of the PDFs to reformat the monster standups into the new landscape format.  This horizontal format allows me to put more monster and hero stand-ups onto each page, more monsters cards fit on each page, and DMs don't need to cut the 'boss' monsters off the pages that include the monster cards.

Update the Core Rules

In the background I've been working on some minor updates and refinements to the core rules.  These updates include:
•  Expanded glossary to better define key game terms (such as 'engaged')
•  Added section on Equipment and Items
•  Added Advanced Combat section
•  A couple of new monsters, as explained below

I still have a few more bits to do:
•  Role-playing section with guidance for DMs
•  Update the print version

The hold-up with releasing the updated core rules is the print version.  I don't want the PDF to get out of sync with the print version so I need to update the print files and then get new proofs from DriveThru before I can release this updated version to the public.

Reign of the Dragon adventure

This is likely to be a premium adventure, and is taking a while...

Pirates

I recently received this comment over on DriveThruRPG:
"Are the skeleton archer, skeleton swordsman, and skeleton warrior supposed to have exactly the same stats and special abilities as their pirate counterparts?"

The answer is 'no'.

These are some of the very first monsters that I created for Hero Kids, and not even I realized they were identical!  So I've redesigned the pirates with a new bonus ability (Timid instead of Rattled):

Old:

New:

So these new pirates will be included in the updated core Hero Kids rules. There's also a couple of new pirates included:

The Pirate Recruiter amuses me... :-)

Monster Compendium

The monster compendium (maybe Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Threats to the Brecken Vale) is where most of my efforts are going at the moment.  Before I started the compendium I had released about 40-50 monsters across all of the fantasy adventures.  For the compendium, I'm working towards over 100 monsters.

To achieve this, I've been working on all my unused unique monster artwork and my mannequin monsters.

The current mannequin monsters are usually the humanoids to which I can mix and match equipment and weapons to create variations of the base monster type.  This includes the goblins and skeletons, as well as these nefarious brigands:

I have a few unique monsters I haven't used yet, like this crone, wraith, and zombie:

I've also commissioned a bunch of new monsters from Eric Quigley, so here's a preview of these new baddies:


That feels like a lot of stuff.  So here's a sneak peek at the developing list of monsters for the compendium:

Phew!  That seems like a lot!

Forest friends incoming...

Deep in the Darkenwold Woods of the Brecken Vale, a new band of Hero Kids heroes join the battle against evil:

•  The Spear Bearer Ferret uses his spear to keep enemies at bay.
•  The Turtle Knight's armor protects him from enemy attacks, which enrage his replies.
•  The Rogue Shrew moves like a shadow and strikes distracted enemies
•  The Badger Brute is a ferocious combatant who specializes in knocking down enemies.
•  The Warlock Ocelot's razor sharp claws deter enemies, and allies.
•  The Wombat Mage is an unstoppable force of nature who repulses his enemies with powerful magic.
•  The Otter Hunter pins down opponents with precise shots.
•  The Mouseling Warrior maiden is a fearsome warrior and inspiring leader.
•  The Squirrel Healer heals herself and her allies.
•  The Mouseling Warrior fights side-by-side with his allies.

Get it here: Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Hero Cards IV

A Whole Lotta Heroes...

The time for complaining is over, 'cos I've finished coloring all of the Hero Kids heroes for the ArcKnight Flat Plastic Miniatures Kickstarter campaign.  

And... here they are:

If you happen to want to see all of them at once (including three extras):

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Here's the link to DriveThruRPG:

DriveThruRPG - Hero Forge Games