RESCUE PARTY
“Rescue party” is an introductory
adventure designed to ease the
74
player into the game's rules, without
having to worry about generating a
location to explore. Simply follow the
steps and descriptions below. It's a
short and engaging adventure that
will lead the characters to the
dangerous Tomb of Kal-Tharas. The
first time the player characters
encounter a settlement (as per the
rules of Hex Exploration), this
settlement will be the town of Eshran.
P��� 1
“Just another dust-covered town”
After days of roaming the empty
landscape, partially following an old
road, you see the familiar shapes of
civilization in the distance. It appears
to be some sort of settlement, the
first you have encountered in a
while. This will be a great
opportunity to hunt for rumors and
get some warm food. A few hours
later you cross the decaying gates,
where an old, bored guard stares at
you with suspicion, but not enough
to question you. He lets you pass
unchallenged. This “town” is no
more than a few ruined houses, with
very few people coming and going.
You overhear the name of the town:
Eshran. It seems that the only reason
this place exists is because it's close
enough to a trade route to be
appealing to weary travelers. Before
long you find an inn, get some rest
and grab something to eat.
While you are finishing a stew of
questionable quality, you start to
feel relaxed enough to check your
surroundings. Nobody would
mistake this place for a bustling
urban tavern, but you do see other
travelers sitting at some nearby
tables, as well as a bunch of locals
huddled close together in furtive
conversation. Their voices raise now
and then, as they discuss something
very heatedly while trying not to
attract any attention. This
immediately makes you pay more
attention.
“...and I told her, I told her not to
let the lad go with him! I knew this
would happen; you cannot trust a
foreigner to take care of your kid. He
may be a clever boy, but we all know
what horrors roam these lands,
especially around the ruins...”. You
hear murmurs of approval, and see
the other men nodding. The man
speaking seems to be in his late
fifties, and he has the appearance of
someone who has been working this
harsh land his whole life. He has
strong muscled arms, dirt under his
fingernails and a permanent scowl
on his face. He suddenly turns his
head toward you, his eyes narrowing
when he realizes you've been
listening to their conversation.
“Didn't your mother teach you not
to listen to other people's
conversations?”, he says, infuriated.
He faces toward you, the other men
following behind. Before he can say
another word though, a woman say no. I know he would have
coming from the kitchen interferes. sneaked out anyway... You know he
“Leave the customers alone, you old
geezer! Things are already bad
would have, right, Staud?”, she looks
over her shoulder at the man she 75
enough around here without you berated before, looking for support.
starting a fight!”. The woman is in “Of course he would have, he’s an
her thirties and has the tired and independent one, that one”, the
swollen eyes of someone who has man says while resting his hand on
been crying for several days. You can the woman's shoulder. “There is no
also tell by her eyes that though she controlling that boy once he's
is suffering and knows this won’t be decided he wants to do
the last time, she is holding tight to something...”.
her resolve. She approaches your The woman looks back to you, a
table, standing between you and the spark of hope in her eyes. “But you!
men. “My apologies, traveler”, she You are also a traveler and judging by
says, “the past days have been your weapons you are used to facing
rough, and we are all on edge”. Your danger. My boy has been gone for
curiosity now genuinely piqued, you almost a week, so he must be in
gently ask what happened. Barely trouble! I beg you please, please go
holding back tears, the woman to that place and bring him back
speaks. “Not even a week ago a man home. I'll do whatever you want,
came here. He was a traveler, an give you everything I own. But
explorer, looking for directions. My
boy Rhal was serving tables that day,
and somehow convinced the man he
could guide him to the ruins. We all
know about the ruins, they were
there before Eshran even existed,
but we don't talk about them or
acknowledge their existence. It's
bad luck, that place is cursed!” Her
voice breaks while she starts to sob,
but regaining control she continues,
“But Rhal is a stubborn boy, a brave
boy... He was so full of enthusiasm
when he asked me for permission,
planning all these things he was
going to do with the payment the
man was going to give him. I couldn't
please! You must help me!” By the
time she finishes talking she is on her
knees, begging you with tears in her
eyes. The room is quiet, and
everybody is staring at you.
This did not go as you had hoped
it would. She leaves you with no
option but to agree; things are
already heated enough here without
you refusing to help a poor mother
find her lost boy... Besides, who
knows what treasures you will find?
You smile and accept.
Wiping the tears off her eyes,
the woman thanks you with a smile,
offering you free accommodations
and as much food and drink as you
want. You quickly prepare for the
next morning, when you meet a local
man who agrees to take you to the
aforementioned ruins.
Whathaveyougottenyourselfinto?
P��� 2
Traveling to the Tomb
Once you leave the town, go to the
closest unexplored hex. Roll a D10;
on a roll of 1-8 you find the ruins
(your guide has a pretty good idea
where they are, but he has never
actually been there). If not, go to the
next unexplored hex. Once you find
it, you are left alone as your guide
heads back home as fast as he can.
P��� 3
Exploring the Tomb
- While exploring the inside of
the tomb, simply follow the map.
The party will start in position
number 1, but from there you are
free to explore the place as you see
fit. Read each room's description as
you enter it but try not to read ahead
and spoil the adventure!
- One of the player characters
will need to be carrying a light
source, otherwise the party will
suffer the penalties for fighting in
the dark, found in the Combat
section (page 52).
- The normal wandering enemies
rule applies to the tomb; each time 77
your party goes through a corridor
or explored room, roll a D10. On a roll
of 1-2 a wandering enemy appears.
- Most rooms have no door, but
some do as indicated on the map.
Follow the standard rules for locked
doors (page 44).
- Each time the party enters a
room (including the entrance), roll
2D10+X where X is the number of
rooms you have explored past room
1. On a roll of 20 or more, the Spawn
of Vhol'est roaming the tomb
appears and attacks the party. If
defeated, you find a trapezoidal
stone made of a quartz like material
buried in the creature's chest, in
addition to normal loot. Assign this
stone to one of your characters.
- Once you are done exploring
the place (or simply want to leave),
remember that you will need to
retrace your steps and roll random
encounter checks for each room and
corridor in order to exit safely!
The Tomb
1. The half-buried entrance of the
tomb leads into an empty chamber.
You see the remains of long-dead
animals scattered around, but you
ignore them in favor of a trail of
footprints. They are relatively recent,
not older than a couple of days. You
are in the right place.
 2. Roll on the Room Contents Table.
If you get a Special Feature result,
ignore it and roll again.
3. A crack in the ceiling above the
middle of the north wall allows a
trickle of water to flow down to the
floor. The water pools near the base
78 of the wall, and a rivulet runs along
the wall and out into the hall. The
water smells fresh. The party obtains
D6 rations.
4. Roll on the Room Contents Table.
If you get a Special Feature result,
ignore it and roll again.
5. This chamber of well-laid stones
holds a wide bas-relief of a pastoral
scene. In it you see what appears to
be a thriving city. After a few
minutes of examination, you
recognize the location thanks to
carved mountains in the
background. The area depicted has
no cities nowadays though, just
some small scattered farms. This
depiction must be many thousands
of years old, perhaps from before
the Cataclysm.
6. This room appears to have been a
library of sorts. Stacks of half-rotten
tomes gather dust in the corners and
fall from shelves into piles against
the walls. The party may spend a
whole day here sifting through the
books to see if there is anything of
interest. All characters perform a
WIL Test and if they pass, roll a D10.
On a 1, they find a scroll containing a
random spell.
7. Roll on the Room Contents Table.
If you get a Special Feature result,
ignore it and roll again.
8. Rounded green stones set in the
floor form a snake head pointing
toward the doorway you stand in.
The body of the snake flows toward
the wall to go round about the room
in ever smaller circles, creating a
spiral pattern on the floor. Similar
green-stone snakes wend along the
walls seemingly at random heights,
their long bodies making wave
shapes. After several minutes
studying the place, you find no
purpose to it and may leave.
9. Looking into this chamber, you're
confronted by a thousand
reflections of yourself looking back.
Mirrored walls set at different angles
fill the room. The path through the
room seems to go through the
mirrors before leading into the next
room. Mirrors are extremely rare;
and this is in fact the first time you
have seen one. After a few minutes
of trying to dismantle one so that
you may take it with you, you give up
and decide to continue.
10. Roll on the Room Contents Table.
If you get a Special Feature result,
ignore it and roll again.
11. A foul stench seems to be seeping
from the floor cracks; the smell is
nigh unbearable. The fumes seem to
originate from the depths, carrying a
smell similar to rotten eggs. Better
to move along. For each turn the
characters stay here, they must pass
a CON Test or lose 2 HP.
12. This room is a crypt. Stone
sarcophagi stand in five rows of
three, each carved with the visage of
a warrior lying in state. In their
center, one sarcophagus stands
taller than the rest. Held up by six
squat pillars, its stone bears the
carving of a beautiful woman who
seems more asleep than dead. The
carving of the warriors is skillful but
seems perfunctory compared to the
love a sculptor must have lavished
upon the lifelike carving of the
woman. There is no treasure here, as
all the sarcophagi lie open, their
scattered bones making it clear their
riches were ransacked long ago.
13. Roll on the Room Contents Table.
If you get a Special Feature result,
ignore it and roll again.
14. As soon you enter this room, the
smell of blood overwhelms your
senses. Something gruesome clearly
took place in this room, there's
blood sprayed all over the floor and
walls. It seems it wasn’t that long
ago, either. Overcoming your urge to
leave the room, you take a closer
look around. An explorer camped
here recently. There's still some food
inside a pot over a cold campfire. You
also find a knife and a lamp, and
some cooking utensils scattered
across the room. You find no corpses
though, so whatever happened
here, someone (or something) came
out alive from it.
15. Roll on the Room Contents Table.
If you get a Special Feature result,
ignore it and roll again.
16. The second you enter this room,
you sense a dark oppressive energy,
as if the air itself were trying to
escape your lungs and the room. You
immediately pinpoint the source of
such nauseating energy: a matte
black stone sarcophagus in the
center of the room. As you approach
it, the sense of dread increases. Roll 79
against magic (WIL). If you fail the
test, gain 1 CP. Approaching the
sarcophagus, you see that is a
completely featureless black
rectangle almost three meters long,
made of a stone you can’t identify.
Despite how plain it looks, it's
obviously the work of a master
stonemason. At the top center of the
thing, something catches your eye: A
socket, as if a piece has been taken
from the lid.
- If you have defeated the spawn
that roams the tomb, you have the
stone it was carrying. It fits perfectly
in the socket, and the sarcophagus
slides open without a noise.
- If you don't have the spawn's
stone, you will need to find another
way to open it. If Alred is with the
party, he will find one; otherwise
perform a Perception Skill Test
successfully to find it. “Here, there's
a crack separating the lid from the
sarcophagus”, says Alred while he
kneels close to it. He seems
unaffected by the place. You look
where he is pointing at and you see
that there does seem to be a way of
opening this thing. The question is,
should you? If you attempt to open
it, roll a STR (-5) Test. Only one
attempt per player character is
allowed.
 Once the sarcophagus opens
(one way or another), you see a tall,
skeletal figure inside of it. In the
skeleton's chest, there is a black
pulsating heart. Before you can
decide what to do with it, the
skeletal figure starts to shake and
tremble. To your horror, you see the
80 old bones reanimate before you. It
stands itself upright inside the
sarcophagus as you retreat a safe
distance away from it. It seems to
stare at you, and then attacks. Treat
this encounter as a Bonefiend (Elite
Foe).
If you manage to defeat the
skeletal guardian (who you suspect
was none other than Kal-Tharas
himself), the bones will dissolve into
a pile of dust, leaving behind The
Heart of Kal-Tharas. Alred
approaches it and cautiously picks it
up. He then wraps it in a piece of
cloth and deposits it inside his bag.
“I think it's about time we exit this
place. Let's go”.
17. Roll on the Room Contents Table.
If you get a Special Feature result,
ignore it and roll again.
18. At first glance, this room is just
another empty chamber full of
cobwebs and dust. Cautiously
moving across the chamber, as the
light of your torch casts shadows on
the walls, you find something
unusual: a small mound of sand,
seemingly out of place. You
approach it with caution, and a shine
of light is reflected off a piece of half-
buried metal, catching your eye. Still
unsure, you get on your knees and
start removing the sand. It seems to
be... a helmet! It's quite stuck, so you
dig a bit more. This is then when you
realize that the helmet is still
attached to a head! Your first
reaction is to jump away, thinking
you just uncovered some old
remains (or something worse), but
once you take a minute to look
better, you see that this is no old
corpse. As a matter of fact, you could
swear this person is still alive! Could
this be the boy you're looking for?
Ten minutes later, you realize
that it is not. You have exhumed a
middle-aged man, dressed in leather
armor and an eclectic mish mash of
clothes from tribes all around the
Dominion. After a few minutes of
basic First Aid and reanimation
techniques, the man starts
coughing. He opens his eyes,
removes some sand from his face,
and spits a mouthful of it nearby. He
looks up at you, fear crossing his
eyes before he regains control of his
body and sits up. “Who are you?” he
groans, “What are you doing here?”
You introduce yourselves and
explain to him the reason you're
there. When you mention the boy, a
shadow crosses his eyes and he
looks down.
Shaking the remainder of the
sand from his hair and clothes, the
man stands up. “I'm Alred. Thank
you for getting me out of that hole, I
owe you one for that. As for the
lad...” He shakes his head. “I'm afraid
he didn't make it. And I'm not sure if
we'll make it, either. There's this...
thing here, it killed the lad and
almost got me too. I... I tried to help,
Uzrun knows I did, but there was
nothing I could have done.” He looks
at you, as if measuring your worth
with a single look. “But now that
you're here... I have a chance. We
have a chance.” Confused, you ask
him what he's talking about. Since
the boy is dead, there's nothing to
do but to go back home. Maybe find
the body, but that's it. “Yes, yes, I
guess we could find the body... if
there is one. But no, I wasn't talking
about that.” He approaches a nearby
stone altar and sits on it, while taking
a sip of a small flask he had in a
pocket. He swallows, looks back at
you, and starts talking, “You see, this
is no ordinary tomb. This is the tomb
of Kal-Tharas, a Tyrant that ruled
over this region 3,600 years ago. As
tyrants go, he wasn't anything
special. He reached power, lost his
mind, then terrorized the region for a
few hundred years until someone
killed him and took his place. You
know, typical Tyrant story.” He stops
to take another sip of the flask, then
continues. “There was one thing he
had of interest though, one thing
that separated him from others. His
successor, Almubaran the Yellow,
trapped Kal-tharas' power in a stone
relic the old tomes call the Heart of
Kal-tharas. For some reason us
mortals will never understand, he
placed that relic in this tomb, and
sealed it. Were we to retrieve this
Heart, well… I don't need to tell you.
They say the power in this relic is
enough to challenge a Tyrant!”. Alred
smiles at you, an honest smile that
makes you want to smile back. “We
could free this region from the grip
of Fh'Thal the Breeder, let the people
choose their own destiny, rule their
own land! Can you imagine?”
No, you can't imagine, you say to
yourself. This kind of thing has been
tried before and it always ends the
same way. People die. But a
powerful relic... You’re not the kind
of people who say no to that kind of
thing. You nod and tell him that
you're interested in helping him.
“Fantastic!” says Alred, “Now we 81
only need to find it. It should be here,
somewhere... I'm sure we’ll be able
to find it, together.”
Alred walks toward the pile of
sand, and after a few minutes he digs
out a backpack. “I'm afraid I'll not be
of much use if we need to fight, my
sword is still buried down there,
somewhere... I'll stay out of the way,
but I can heal some of your wounds
if needed. Let's go!”
You follow him into the next
room.
-Alred can cast Cauterize twice
during the adventure, on any player
character who needs it.
19. Dozens of dead winged beings lie
scattered about the floor, each
about the size of a cat. Their broken
bodies are bat-like and bug-like at
the same time. Their forms are little
more than dried husks now, and
there's no sign of what killed them.
You tread carefully, trying not to
step on them, just in case.
P��� 4
Conclusion
Once you exit the tomb, Alred offers
you two options: You may keep the
heart and try to figure out how to
use it, or he may keep it and take it
back to the organization he works
 with, the Children of Rebellion.
Everybody has heard this or that
rumor about the Children. Some
people think they are the only
chance the Dominion has of freeing
itself from the grip of the Tyrants,
others think they are just a bunch of
organized bandits taking advantage
82 of gullible peasants. Still others say
they are a tool of the Tyrants to keep
tabs on what the populace is doing,
acting to rein in any feelings of
rebellion. Whatever their goals, you
never really paid any attention to
their activities, thinking that if they
did exist, they were a bunch of
idealists that would only get a lot of
people killed.
- If you give the Heart to Alred,
the Children of Rebellion will owe
you a favor which can come in handy
in the future. You never know when
a network of operatives may be
useful.
- If you keep the Heart, you will
need to figure out how to use it.
Each time you encounter ruins
during your travels, roll a D10. If you
clear the ruins (fully explore the
location), on a roll of 1-2 you find a
ritual that explains how to use it. This
is a dangerous operation that will
require you to find a skilled sorcerer
willing to perform the operation. The
procedure itself involves
substituting the heart of one of the
player characters for the Heart of
Kal-Tharas. See below to learn the
consequences of doing this. Finding
and hiring a sorcerer willing to
perform the ritual will cost 1,000
shells.
- When you return to Eshran
with news of the boy's death, each
player character may remove 1 CP.
The grieving mother will stoically
thank you for bringing her the news,
and life will go on in this harsh corner
of the Dominion. Alred will stay a
while, making reparations for his role
in the boy's death by helping around.
He thanks you once again for saving
him and promises you will meet
again in the future.
The Heart of Kal-tharas
This ancient relic will bestow upon
the owner the power of cheating
death. The next time that player
character with the heart implanted
dies, they automatically come back
to life fully healed. They will lose 1
Max Corruption in the resurrection
process, and this effect may only
happen once. The next time the
character dies, they will die for good.
Another character may harvest the
heart to transplant it onto their own
body.
Carrying the heart attracts
powerful foes. Each time you are
about to face vermin, roll a D10. On a
result of 8+, you will roll on the
Common Foes Table instead.