[Free RPG Day 2026] Things Go To Hell

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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One of the perennial contributors to Free RPG Day is Paizo, Inc., a publisher whose titles for both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game have proved popular and often in demand long after the event. The emphasis in these releases have invariably been upon small species. Thus, in past years, the titles released for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game have typically involved adventures with diminutive Player Characters, first Kobolds, then Goblins, and then with the release of A Fistful of Flowers for Free RPG Day 2022 and A Few Flowers More for Free RPG Day 2023, it was Leshies, where as for Free RPG Day 2024, it was the turn of toys with The Great Toy Heist! However, for Free RPG Day 2025, The Scourge of Sheerleaf switched things up by increasing the scale of the adventure and making the villain of the piece even bigger! Although the situation and the villain is very different for Things Go To Hell, the entry for Free RPG Day continues to do things on a bigger scale!

Things Go To Hell is designed for four Seventh Level Player Characters and makes use of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Player Core, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game GM Core, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Monster Core. Barring the fact that the Player Characters are Seventh Level which means that they are quite complex in terms of what they can do and are capable of, especially the two spellcasters in the pre-generated quartet, the scenario is fairly straightforward, easy to prepare, and easy to run.

The scenario opens with the Player Characters suddenly awakening—a Halfling animating to life after being posed as a statue, the spark of life returning to the eyes of both a berobed automaton and an armed and armoured skeleton, and a human male being spat out of a strangely organic pod—to find that a lot of time has passed since their last memories and that they are still in Fanespire, a foul tower owned by the archmage, Ydris Veloch. All four realise three facts. The first is that Ydris Veloch is dead; the second that each of them was treated as an object by the late wizard; and the third is that the tower is no longer where it was. The latter is confirmed when they look out of the windows at the top of the tower and see a literal hellscape. Working their way down several floors, they encounter what is very obviously a devil. This is Gosterion, a ‘phistophilus’—a contract devil—who is quite happy to chat to the Player Characters. He will also explain the situation. Ydris Veloch had a contract with Dispater in the city of Dis which gave him possession of Fanespire in return for his soul and with his recent death during the Hellfire Crisis, and so he is currently searching the tower for the late wizard’s soul. Worse, since Ydris Veloch considered all four Player Characters to be property and at the time of his death were in the possession of the wizard, they are actually part of the contract that Ydris Veloch had with Hell and thus owned by Hell.

The good thing is that the Player Characters get to argue their case and potentially come to some kind of arrangement. Gosterion will let the Player Characters go if they can find Ydris Veloch’s soul for him. So ideally, the Player Characters will return to searching Fanespire for the soul of its former master. Unfortunately, it is not so much of search as the scenario only has three locations, but it will see the Player Character confront their former gaoler. Then once done, Gosterion will send them home, bearing in mind that the Player Characters will be making a deal with a devil.

The four Player Characters are interesting in their variety. They consist of Hila, a genderless Automaton Cleric and healer for hire who was under contract with Ydris Veloch; Klixi Halfstep, a female Halfling thief who was robbing Fanespire; Tiberius, a male Skeleton Fighter who was the head of Ydris Veloch’s security; and ‘Ydris Veloch’, a male Human Wizard and a clone of Ydris Veloch who regarded him to be a failure. All distrust each other, but given the current circumstances must work together. All four are given a two-page spread each and each includes his background, a guide to playing the character, with notes on whet he will do in combat, exploration, and when healing is required, as well as what he thinks about the other characters. The four Player Characters are very well done and easy to read, and also include references for the various abilities.

Physically, Things Go To Hell is professionally presented. The artwork is excellent and the writing is clear. The map of three of the levels of Fanespire are also decent.

Things Go To Hell has a very likeable set-up which throws four unlikely Player Characters together and forces them to work hand in hand whereas that would be unlikely to happen. Yet after the entertaining interaction with Gosterion and the legal ramifications of the situation that the Player Characters are in, the scenario cuts to a climax with a fight. The fight makes sense, but the Player Characters are not expected to do anything else because all of the rooms on the other floors are shut up. So, the Player Characters never get to explore them and never actually get to look for Ydris Veloch’s soul. There is huge potential here for roleplaying and exploration here, given that one Player Character was the head of the wizard’s security and another was robbing him, but it is ignored in favour of cutting to the chase. All it would have to develop the story and play a little more is two or three smaller encounters in the tower to take advantage of those opportunities. It does not help that each Player Character is given a two page spread which effectively presents more information than is really needed for a short one-shot like Things Go To Hell. If they could have been shortened, then perhaps room could have been made for more scenes and locations.

Ultimately, the set-up to Things Go To Hell is sophisticated and the pre-generated Player Characters in Things Go To Hell are sophisticated, but the plotting and the story potential is unsophisticated. Fortunately, an experienced Game Master should be able to detail two or three floors for the Player Characters to investigate and give the players the opportunity to roleplay and explore the search for Ydris Veloch’s soul more fully.