2026 Reviews - The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh
Time for another entry into the beloved-by-me "town with problems and lots of interesting stuff to discover nearby" style of adventure which I have written about previously. This time I will be reviewing The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh by Liam Pádraig Ó Cuilleanáin.
This adventure exists in two versions-- the original, known simply as The Hounds of Hendenburgh was written for Cairn and is available as PWYW on Liam's itch.io page. The one that I am reviewing is an expanded version that was published by The Merry Mushmen. For their version, the adventure was converted to Old-School Essentials, and I ran it with White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game. The conversion between these two systems is exceedingly simple, as I wrote about previously.
The Mushmen version adds several new adventure sites to the forest around Hendenburgh, and it includes some incredible art from Bruno Prosaiko and the usual top-notch Mushmen layout by Olivier "Nobboc" Revenu.
Getting it to the Table
Like previous Mushmen productions, the layout does a great deal to make this adventure easy to run at the table-- I've written about these extensively so I won't retread too much old ground, but the key points for new readers are the placement of NPC, monster, and magic item stat blocks in the place where you need them, and a consistent style for information presentation that makes it very easy to pick out the important details from the text.
The booklet begins with a brief background timeline that lists the events that led to the current situation in the forest and a summary of the main factions in the adventure. Then we have a very useful explanation of three possible solutions to the problem in the adventure; namely, the ancient spirit of the Kryptwood Tyrant being accidentally released from its tomb, and his undead hounds terrorizing the area. There is also a great adventure hook table which notably includes several entries that are only tangentially tied to the deeper situation in the forest, but will almost certainly lead to the party becoming entangled in the things that are happening. This would provide an excellent way to introduce your players to this adventure in an indirect manner, and it would feel very organic and alive if they stumbled across the ancient evil while simply trying to collect a bounty on a bandit leader.
Next we're given an overview of the titular town that manages to cram a lot of implied history into a small space, followed by a roster of the townsfolk and the various shops and amenities in Hendenburgh. One thing I really appreciated about this section was that every NPC has some sort of link to the larger story, even if it seems like some minor errand that needs to be run. No matter who the PCs decide to interact with, they will get pulled further along in the adventure. This section is rounded out by a rumor table as well as an "events and encounters" table that helps build the atmosphere of terror that is gripping the town and also could potentially lead the PCs to useful places.
After the town section we're given the hex map of the Kryptwood, paired with some simple travel rules and methods for rolling encounters and even hunting and foraging mechanics for PCs who want to stay out in the woods for a long time. Along with the map there is a forest encounter table with all of the relevant stat blocks tucked neatly in place. The location key is laid out very neatly with concise descriptions of the minor points of interest; the more involved ones simply list a page reference.
The "in depth" locations (the Infested Silver Mine, the Ancient Villa, and the Tyrant's Tomb) each have a nice consistent layout with encounter tables and stat blocks at the beginning of the section and a concise format for the location key, with bolded text to indicate items/places that can be further interacted with. The maps were a little bare-bones for my taste, and this made them just a little confusing to work with at first glance-- the stairways leading between levels weren't always clear on the maps themselves, though they were explained in the text.
The booklet ends with some nice "ending the adventure" advice including developments based on what the party actually does about the problems. The appendices are also nice to have-- a "cheat sheet" for the many NPCs, a summary of the new magical items introduced in the adventure, and a collection of potential retainers or replacement PCs.
What Worked?
- That chef's kiss Mushmen layout
- Everything is connected. It's truly a mark of solid writing when you can tie everything together in such a way that it doesn't feel forced. The PCs could be approaching this situation with a very mundane goal in mind and simply by doing normal RPG town stuff they will keep finding more things to do and interact with.
- So many things to do! My group spent a lot of time in Hendenburgh, even after the Tyrant was defeated. There are numerous side quests that can easily become main quests after the immediate danger is past, and there are some excellent NPCs that can become major driving forces for more adventuring.
What Didn't Work?
- Extra stuff is extra. I read the original adventure so that I could have a sense of what was "new" in the Mushmen version, and overall I think I preferred the entirely new areas to some of the expansions of existing areas. In particular, the two custodial factions encountered in the Tyrant's Tomb (the Boar-Knights and the Hawk-Sisters) were cool on the surface, but it felt a little awkward to introduce them in play, partially because there wasn't much connective tissue to anything else in the adventure. They were there, but it felt a little bit incidental and they didn't have a major impact on the actions my players took.
- Maps could have used a little brushing up-- maybe some symbols and keys that would make them more meaningful when viewed on their own.
Final Thoughts
Overall this is one of the adventures that I felt that my players were having the most fun in, and if I hadn't been so keen to shift the action to a new adventure (incidentally one written by the same author), Hendenburgh and the denizens of the Kryptwood could easily have become the seed of an entire campaign.
You can get The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh at the Merry Mushmen's web store and I highly recommend it. Thanks for reading!