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. 

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

Downloadable Hero Kids GM Screen

Spencer over at Wisps of Time has put together a free Hero Kids gamemaster's screen AND a Google Docs version of Josiah Fiscus's encounter generator spreadsheet!

Check them out:
Hero Kids Compatible Game Master Screen

Construction Paper Kingdom campaign

Check it out, people! Ryan Ross has just released a huge Hero Kids compatible Construction Paper Kingdom campaign.

Adventures in The Construction Paper Kingdom Presents "Scourge of The Goblyn Flu"

Hero Kids Random Encounter Generator

Hero Kids enthusiast and all-round spreadsheet wizard Josiah Fiscus has put together an amazing Hero Kids random encounter generator:
Hero Kids - Random Encounter Generator

The generator is pretty straightforward, but has deep underlying sophistication. It basically reverse-engineers my difficulty tuning for Hero Kids encounters, based on number of heroes and the type of encounter.

The generator allows you to plug in a few settings, and then gives you an approriate encounter, using creatures from the Hero Kids Monster Compendium. The settings are:
• Location
• Number of heroes
• Desired difficulty
• Type of encounter (normal or boss battle)

Here are some examples:

Also, Adam Bragg has put together a blog post at Spiralbound Studios that demonstrates how to use Josiah's random encounter generator with the Hero Kids Monster Compendium to quick generate an adventure:
An Endless Supply of Adventures for Hero Kids

If you don't have it, you can get the Hero Kids Monster Compendium here:
Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Monster Compendium

Monster Compendium 50% off in print!

Alrighty-then.  The new Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Monster Compendium softcover book is DONE!  Here's proof:

Let's take a look inside:

Use this link for 50% off the softcover Hero Kids Monster Compendium:
Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Monster Compendium

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Introducing Hero Kids Monster Compendium

It's DONE!  (The PDF anyway...)

Now, I know you're dying to know what's in this bad boy!  The PDF of the Monster Compendium has 136 monsters in the 60 page book.  I've designed multiple monsters for most of the 'types', so you can mix and match them to create interesting (and challenging encounters).

Bats, Beguilers, Boars, Brigands, Bugbears, Commoners, Constructs, Coot and Crone, Cultists, Dragons, Elementals, Firestarter, Flaming Skull, Foxes, Froglings, Gargoyle, Ghost, Giants, Gladiators, Goblins, Gorillas, Guards, Helm Knight, Hydra, Knights, Kobolds, Lizardkin, Minotaur, Mummies, Pirates, Ratlings, Rats, Scorpion, Sea Serpent, Skeletons, Slimes, Snakes, Spiders, Tengu, Water Beast, Weasels, Werewolf, Wolves, Wraith, Wyvern, Zombies...

Each monster section contains ecology and adventure hooks for the monsters.  As Brian Benoit says:

"From the perspective of a GM, I absolutely love all the hooks you've included in the book.  You could literally flip to any page and run an off-the-cuff adventure off of any one of the hooks provided, so I love the book from that perspective.  I also like the lists of names included, makes it easy to name an NPC on the fly.  It's a nice touch."

The PDF also comes with another 51 page PDF for all of the monster stand-ups.  They look like this:

It's slightly hard to see here, but the top half is monsters numbered 1 to 4, and the bottom half of the page is the monsters numbered 5-8.  So depending on how you play, and how many monsters you throw at your heroes, you can just cut the top half of each of these pages.

Now that the PDFs are finished (pending any updates), I'm gonna put together a print version of this Monster Compendium.

Get the Hero Kids Monster Compendium here:
Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Monster Compendium

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Monster Compendium Cover Art...

I loved working with Hero Kids resident artist Eric Quigley on the cover for the new Monster Compendium.  One of life's greatest pleasures is watching other people work. :-)

In honor of Eric's work, and so that others can have the pleasure of watching Eric work, I created this GIF of the each of the steps we followed creating the cover for the new book:

Although technically it was mostly him doing the work...

Monster Compendium Editing...

Spent the week editing the Hero Kids Monster Compendium.  I'm noticing a pattern that little projects develop into big projects...

The compendium is now 120-ish monsters, but also includes details about the monsters, a sprinkling of history, and a boatload of adventure hooks.  As Brian Beniot states:

"From the perspective of a GM, I absolutely love all the hooks you've included in the book.  You could literally flip to any page and run an off-the-cuff adventure off of any one of the hooks provided, so I love the book from that perspective."

The compendium also features an amazing new cover by Eric Quigley:

Hero Kids - Monster Compendium preview

Quick update on the Hero Kids - Monster Compendium.  Each of the types of monsters will include a description of the monster, plus extra gameable details about their tactics and adventure hooks.

Here's a preview of the Elementals and Cultists:

Six-Score Monsters Approaching...

Sooooo...  I'm still working on the monsters for the upcoming Hero Kids monster compendium. And now's a good time for an update.  First, I've finished 120 monsters.  Approximately 40 of these are from previous adventures and the core game.  The rest are new.  There's also a bunch of new art for some of the old monsters...

Second, I'm currently editing these monsters.  Much highlighting.

Third, I've been exploring boss monsters and how to make them work well when fighting one to four heroes.  For example, this hydra is my current favorite.  As you can see, each of its heads must attack a different target, giving it more actions as the number of attackers increases:

Finally, here's a preview of all these bad boys (and girls):

Das Beguiler!

I'm still going on the Hero Kids monster compendium.  Here's something different, the Beguiler (updated version below):

I'm still thinking about the best way to implement the effects of the eye stalks.  Should they all affect the targets for only they next turn?  Should they they have ongoing effects?  Can I find enough space on the card to add this information?  How many effects do they need?

Here's an updated version:

Questions, questions, questions...

Get Hero Kids here: Hero Kids - Fantasy RPG

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!