Had a really fun time creating a city and trying to figure out the lore considering the combination of a valley trade hub with plague doctors, pegasi, teleportation pads, samurai and secret service. Amazing how this can be one of the most ridiculous experiences ever, but can also be played straight.

Had a really fun time playing this with a mate. It got weird very quickly and I love it. Felt like it was a bit too easy to die in it, but was still fun doing it!

Henchvolk is a fun, lite RPG system that captures the absurdity of being a henchman on the run. My friend and I played for about two hours and we definitely are going to play it again with more people. 

Highlights

• Unique and elegant mechanics for everything. It took us barely ten minutes and one practice round to get going. 
• Everything fits together elegantly. You and the other players bid a die to go first; the die you bid determines enemy strength; and then you roll that die to figure out how much XP you get. Really, really impressive. 
• Naming conventions for characters, locations etc. are amusing and really help frame you in the mindset of a lowly henchman/bandit.

Ideas for the future

• We died really easily! In the end we house ruled that we healed between combat encounters, but even that didn't save us. We were only two players which may have made it more difficult. 
• Unfortunately we didn't get to use the "recall a fact about the sordid deed you are running from" mechanic as we both died before we got 10XP! 
• It would be nice to have varying encounters/types rather than just combat. Environmental hazards. Maybe some randomly generated objectives?

Overall I had a lot of fun with this and I will definitely be returning to it with a larger group!

A game like beautiful poetry.