Image credit, Hyadic Ghat by Sam Sorenson
2/19/2025
I love Sam Sorenson’s work. I was very inspired by his zine Lowlife, and his ruleset The Big Wet. I haven’t gotten around to reading his Seas of Sand, but I’m similarly excited. The guy produces great content.
So, going into Hyadic Ghat I was expecting a lot, and I’d say he pulled it off.
For the most part.
Plot: “A world between worlds, full of rain and rain accessories”
Okay, here’s the pitch.
If you’re map gets drenched and you continue to your destination anyway, you will find yourself in the Hyades, a world-between-worlds where it is constantly raining.
I love this. It remains me of The Gardens of Yinn by Dying Stylishly Games. It’s just a little demi-plane you can plop into your D&D campaign, heck, it’s essentially a random encounter.
Inside the Hyades you’ll encounter multiple dynamic NPCs and plots to go through. There’s:
- A giant that hates the rain and wants to escape that everyone kinda hates.
- An abbess of an abbey that worships the rain spirit of the realm and has beef with the local dragon.
- A dragon (not a European dragon, a mustached Asiatic dragon) with a hoard of gold and magic items stolen from the abbey.
And those are just the strings to the major plots of the hex-crawl, there’s actually a ton of other content in the actual hexes. There is plenty for GMs to work with and either stick with what’s already there or craft something of their own! Great stuff!
There’s even a way out, though I wish it was more mystical and/or a challenge to get to. That’s the only reason I gave it a 9 instead of 10. The way out is kinda boring.
Content: “So, we’ve got the magic animal statues, the swamp with mysterious singing, the colossal bell, the swordsman’s island, and the dragon’s lair. Did I miss anything? Oh right, and the…”
For a two-page hexcrawl there is so much to do! Every hex has something interesting and most (if not all) the encounters match the rain theme and are roleplay-based. My players encountered the siren, the boatman, Emblem the swordsman, some random adventurers, and the abbess all in a three hour session that was exciting the whole way through!
The monsters don’t have stat-blocks, and the magic items are no elaborated on, but that’s fine because they’re fairly generic. A siren, a dryad, a giant, a dragon, a spear of dragonslaying, a scroll of truesight. Simple stuff.
Some of the hexes could use slightly more depth, and the vocabulary is clearly coming from a college professor, but it’s a minimalist adventure so I won’t hold that against it. Excellent work!
Art: “A lot with a little, and maybe that’s enough”
It’s a minimalist two-page dungeon. No shade. It’s really beautifully done with the layout and images on the hexes, it feels very cozy. It also reads very cozy.
A seven is probably the highest rating I could have given it without having any stand-out art. It’s a solid example of how you can do great things without needing a great art.
Usability: “*prolonged silence from the GM* Okay, you see… *more silence* wow okay, hmm…”
The only thing stopping this from being on my list of Highest Recommendations, is that it is incredibly frustrating to use unless you take some serious notes beforehand, pull apart the hex map, and reformat it to the way you understand best.
The art of the hex-map is wonderful, and completely not helpful. Strangely, the two hexes that are a massive lake are not even shown with the same symbol, or any kind of water imagery, so it took me a while to register that was where the lack was. Same issue with the dragon’s cave, the abbey, the giant’s bell and his house, THE WAY OUT would be nice to be marked.
The vocabulary is great, and helps reduce the words used, but I have a college degree and I was still needed to have Google open for this one. I mean, let’s just look at the title, “Hyadic Ghat.”
Hyadic: No definition. From combing a few different definitions, it seems to be a word for a thing that can be in multiple places at the same time or a thing that act as if it is in multiple places at the same time but isn’t.
Ghat: A flight of steps leading down to a river.
Also, the hex descriptions are in a light font, close together, and written in hex order (which for some reason I kept struggling to figure out). And the middle hex isn’t mentioned, but I think its the one’s the players start in? I’m not entirely sure.
One of my biggest complaints is that it’s really hard to describe to the player’s what they can see. These are fairly small hexes and there’s plenty of hills to look out from. They could probably see the whole world from on top of the abbey. But because which ones are hilled and/or have landmarks aren’t marked easily, I found it very difficult to describe the world around them.
Conclusion: “Read and reread the tales of the abbey, the dragon, and the giant”
If you study this hex-crawl before you run it, if you take notes and ensure you have a great understanding of it before you even start, this is an amazing adventure. I wish I could recommend it more, but that usability aspect really is an issue.
I’m definitely going to include it in my next few campaigns. Great stuff, Sam.
Thank you for reading!
Until we meet again,
GOOD LUCK ON YOUR ADVENTURES
Ward Against Evil 
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