Stage 1A of The Dead Marshes makes you reveal an encounter card and add it to the Staging Area. The card I drew was "Through the Mist" which, when revealed, the first player must make an Escape Test with two cards from the encounter deck. I assume that you must immediately do the test, exhaust whichever characters you want. My question is then, do those heroes/charaters refresh before the "first turn" -- my thought it no, so that's a crappy card to pull right off the bat.

you are correct- the first refresh of the game happens after the first round