SHORT ATTENTION SPAN VERSION: Big book, many bad guys, good buy for HERO System GM's!
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****** Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks
233 pages, Trade Paperback, Perfect Bound, Black & White
Retail: $24.95
Authors: Steven S. Long
Artists: Greg Smith (cover), various (interior)
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First off, this supplement is for the Hero System and does not include any d20 material. However, there are dozens of character ideas in here suitable for conversion into other game systems if the HERO System isn't your cup of tea.
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"CKC" as it is typically called is 3/4 of an inch across the spine and is cover to cover write ups of characters and some notes on established villain organizations/teams.
The purpose of this book is to provide supervillain character sheets (and related goons and mooks) for the default setting of the HERO System Superhero line, aka the Champions Universe (but usable with some background tweaks in other settings). The back cover blurb very accurately summarizes the contents; almost 100 villains, including six "master villains", five teams, four dozen solo/freelance villains, a range of power levels and options for tweaking individual characters, plot seeds, and a summary chart for ease of reference.
What this book isn't:
* Not a Rulebook
* Not a Setting
* Not a How-to for Character design
* Not a piece of radioactive moon rock that will give you superhuman powers with which to fight crime!
What this book is:
* A roster of interesting comic book villains
* A glimpse at pieces of the Champions Universe via the backgrounds of the villains
* A flavorful and stylistic rouges gallery in keeping with the traditions of 70 years of comics
* A almost priceless resource to GM's running Champions Universe campaigns
* A wordy coloring book for your crayon-clutching inner child
General Use: This book is most useful to GM's of Champions Universe games. It's really not appropriate for players, and being mostly mechanical it's of very limited use to non-HERO System GM's.
Cover Art: A very comic-booky cover depicting Istvatha V'han, Empress of a Billion Dimensions reaching out to clutch the planet Earth from space. I'm not fond of this cover personally. It's executed well enough, it just doesn't evoke the flavor of the book for me. Istvatha is a cool character, kind of a Nebula--Kang cross to my mind, but I thought there were other characters in the book who would have been better choices to grace the cover. Also, the space theme of the cover is more appropriate to a Star HERO Product IMO; a fast glance across the game store shelf wouldn't indicate to me "this is a book full of comic book style villains" -- I'd likely think it was for a SciFi line.
I think Dr. Destroyer would have made a much better choice for the cover considering both his obvious comic book villain appearance and the characters history as the preeminent villain of the Champions Universe through multiple editions of the product line (he was even in Champions New Millennium for crying out loud). His stern visage would a) communicate the orientation of the book b) maybe catch the eye of a new generation of comic geek/gamers, and c) be recognizable to one time Champions players and perhaps rekindle some lapsed players interest. But alas, it is what it is.
Interior Art: The HERO System books are frequently dinged for sub-par illustrations and a dry, almost corporate look to their interiors. Being a roster book of characters, this product has a lot of interior art, one per character, so sub-par work would be particularly impacting in this book. However, I'm happy to report that the artwork in CKC is generally pretty good. One of the artists in particular is extremely talented; unfortunately I cant find any signature to figure out which one it is, but the artist that did the Dr. Destroyer section is really top notch. Aside from a few less well executed pieces, overall the book does well on the interior art front.
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Introduction: The book starts off with a serviceable ToC, followed by a page depicting Dr. Destroyer, Dark Seraph, and the Cheshire Cat (three of the villains depicted later in the book), each with a flavorful quote. I'm not sure exactly what the purpose of this page was, save perhaps to communicate the idea that this is a supers book, or to fill an otherwise blank page. The Intro itself is just a one page heads-up giving some basic data, such as what base points/disadvantages totals are in effect in the write ups (200/150, FYI), and pointing out that the proud owner of the book has free licence to change background, names, and powers on individual characters, reorg groups rosters and so on for use in their own campaigns.
A few paragraphs essentially say "while some of these characters bear the same name and likeness as characters that have appeared in previous editions of the Champions Universe, they may not be exactly the same." Finally, a sidebar entry explains some of the character notation used in the character write ups.
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Chapter 1: Master Villains. What makes a villain a "Master" you ask? The obvious answer would be sheer power, and there is some measure of that involved. However there are other powerful baddies that don't quite measure up to "Master Villain" status so that's not all there is to it. The book doesn't really spell it out for you, but it can be inferred from the characters offered up in this category that Master Villains are essentially Villains that the Heroes are not assumed to be able to definitively defeat. Though they can deter, interfere with, perhaps even detain them ultimately these villains will always be a threat; even if they fall off the map for a long time they will rise again bigger, badder than before.
This is a classic Comic Book shtick. It's the difference between Magneto, Dr Doom, and Darkseid as opposed to run of the mill villains that pop up and are smacked down summarily by the heroes. Master Villains are the Whack-a-Moles of a supers universe; no matter how hard you club em, they keep popping up somewhere else.
Leading off this Chapter is the nefarious Doctor Destroyer. Well known in basic concept to Champions players from several prior editions/version, the CU Dr. D is not all that different than the Marvel Universes Dr. D -- DOOM that is for non Marvel readers. Normal but brilliant euro type in a bad ass suit of powered armor, with tech far more advanced than is available in the mainstream. His purpose? Simple, to rule the world of course. Destroyer has been around since 1917, was born in Bavaria, was involved with the Nazis, and pulled an Odessa then a Paperclip and ended up briefly making atomic bombs for the US during the Cold War before defecting to South America to build a vast world spanning criminal network. When he was ready, in his mid-60's, he made his first bid to take over the world. It was at this point that he constructed his trademark power armor to aid him in his conquering. Of course he was stymied in this and many subsequent attempts by superheroes.
Despite some set backs he always rose again with some ever more insidious plot, only to yet again be foiled. He did have some successes along the way however, perhaps most notably the destruction of Detroit, during which he disappeared and was thought dead for a decade before recently popping up yet again to pursue his ongoing agenda of supremacy.
Destroyer is a potent and dangerous character. His write up is very "uber", clocking in at a staggering 2516 points (starting heroes generally have 350 total points). He has three separate Power Frameworks (two MP's and a fair sized VPP for gadgets), and 489 points in statistics alone. He is trivially capable of mopping the floor with any small group of starting heroes; even experienced 500 or so points characters would have to think carefully before tangling with him. He does have a couple of chinks that could be exploited, but they are nominal for the most part. So, in short, from a pure beatdown aspect, Destroyer is not to be denied his due. From a more conceptual pass on the character, his abilities are inline with his background, including flavor bits like PS: Doll maker (his father was a doll maker, mentioned in his background),and KS: Wine (he's oh so cultured). Also provided is a list of sample gadgets that might be used in his VPP at any given time. All in all, a solid write up.
However, we aren't done with Destroyer yet! He also has some lieutenants, henchpersons, and robots!
First off is Gigaton, the 678 blast your character into next week and then kick your face in heavy. This guy alone is enough to take on most hero groups and makes a great "level boss" type character for heroes going after Dr D. This character can easily be used as a proxy/stand in for the main man himself in GM's plots, allowing them to include the Destroyer agenda in their plot lines without having to worry about the fact that there is no way the PCs can handle Dr D themselves. Gigaton serves as a very viable focus for their aggressions. He is the head of Dr D's Security so he very well might show up to swat some pesky PC's disrupting operations somewhere. Gigaton is a superstrong blaster. Kind of like Nuklo or Reignfire.
Next up is Rakshasa, one of Destroyers top spies and a shifty, immoral, sneaky type of character. Not much of a combat character, Rakshasa has a number of powers that make him good for plot element fodder. I don't want to go into details due to the spoiler factor, but the character serves to empower a GM to get a plot moving. Rakshasa can get in and out of places and provides a convenient explanation for how something beneficial to Destroyer may have come to pass. Mechanically, this character doesn't do it for me as much. The character seems like kind of a cross between movie Mystique and Mastermind, but seems to be pretty buff physically for his shtick. I would have preferred to see him be better at his specialty instead. Still, the character can do what it's supposed to be able to do so it's a successful write up on its own merit.
Finally the section wraps up with a couple of Agent write ups, the Destroid bots, and the "Black Talon" mecha suits. All good stuff. Its little touches like this that make CKC such a great book. The Agents come in 200 and 300 point increments and the Black Talon suits weigh in at 576 points while the Destroids are 618 points. Basically, a GM could easily challenge almost all groups of PCs with some combination of these goons.
Also, as noted earlier, the art in the Destroyer section is top notch.
Moving on the next Master Villain we have is Gravitar, a 1000 point Gravity Manipulator. She is powerful in terms of a slug-a-thon, but I just don't see her as a Master Villain. She's kind of Magneto like in the way her powers work, and she is a mutant intent on world conquest, but she doesn't really measure up to any of the other Master Villains in the book.
Personally I think Holocaust, a 900 point mutant megalomaniac with powerful eye beams and a smorgasbord of various powers listed later in the Solo Villains section, would have been better suited for this role with some extra points for bases and other background elements, and a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants style coterie of minor toadies who wouldn't require a full write up (just a name a brief note on their powers, or a basic Agent style write up and a listing of power sets to tack on to make various mutant mooks). Gravitar is well written and potent, but I don't see anything to warrant "Master Villain" status.
Our next Master Villain is Istvatha V'han. I really like this character (and in fact have used her in several NPCs and a PC's background stories). The background is interesting, and alludes/infers an interesting extension to the normal CU. Her powers are simple and straight forward, and her actual points are a "modest" 716 points, making her the "weakest" of the MVs provided herein in a standup fight. Her power is more of the plot-driven variety, and the fact that conceptually she can have endless armies of unusual opponents.
However, while the character is very cool, its not really fleshed out as well as it could be IMO. A sample "D-Soldier" goon is provided, along with a Hovertank, but this character has so many limitless possibilities that some more hooks, ideas, and maybe a summary listing of various followers that might be at her beck and call would have been well served. I don't know, maybe they plan to do a separate book for her one day (maybe a reprise of Champions in 3-D, the multidimensional source book from the previous edition of the CU), and didn't want to give up the goods yet.
Our next Master Villain is a 1412 point mentalist, aptly named Menton. A product of Destroyer's machinations and with the same megalomaniacal "does not work or play well with others" mindset, Menton is billed as the most powerful human around when it comes to psionics. This character is dangerous both in a stand up tussle and as a plot element. However, novice GM's should probably not use him IMO; his blend of insidiousness and Mind Control could be mishandled easily and result in some very upset players.
Menton is a lone wolf, and due to his ability to puppeteer can be inserted into just about any scenario. He's also the brother of Mentalla, one of the members of Eurostar (a villain group covered later in the book). Additionally he has past history (read bad blood) with Dr D, and will act to disrupt the plans of Destroyer on occasion out of spite. While Dr D. has the facade of genteel civility, Menton is more of a lip curling eurotrash hedonist of a villain, making him easily hateable (and thus motivating players to go after him) with little GM effort.
Our next MV is Takofanes, The Undying Lord. A lich from Earth's fantastical proto-history (in the CU metaverse that is), this 1,943 point monstrosity has everything you would expect an evil necromantic lich to have, and a write up is also presented for a Demon Servitor. Personally I'm not fond of this character and have carefully avoided mention of him in my own CU; the jury is still out whether or not he actually exists in my version of the CU. This character just doesn't feel comic booky, and seems out of genre to me.
Finally the last MV in the book is The Warlord. A power armored mercenary leader, he sells arms and mercs to the highest bidder. I like this character overall, though I would tweak his background and personality a bit for my own use, as he provides a welcome change from the other world domination oriented MVs provided. The Warlord is in it for the money, and his operations are much more practical than diabolical.
He provides several very reusable plot elements and they are not of the earth shaking variety. Thefts of useful new tech, sabotage of competing tech, and corporate espionage are all possible ploys for the Warlord. A security company, government contractor, or even a local heavy industry plant could all be Warlord fronts, which could lead into various plots. Just about any 3rd world unrest type hook could involve the Warlord. And of course the PC's might run into members of his mercenary corps which lead back to him.
Very useful plot driving character in other words. Mechanically he clocks in at 1069 points and is pretty much your quintessential "military guy in bad-ass power armor" type character. Lots of skills, some martial arts, boosted stats, and a plethora of built in guns.
The Warlord also has his own powered merc group, essentially a villain team but they don't necessarily have to work together. They are more like lieutenants and field commanders to Warlord's Commander In Chief. The characters are a mixed bag however.
Warbird is a armor suited flying blaster that reminded me of the Cardinal from Marvel; he's a serviceable 350 pt villain.
Warcry is a 350 pt sonic blaster; kind of weedy but usable. One of my players dubbed him "The Warbler", so he gets no respect around here.
Warhead is a 350 pt Killing attack laden flying blaster with a 'tude -- your typical testosterone laden gun freak -- kind of the dark mirror of Warbird. You can imagine what kind of rude epithets are attached to Warhead by potty-mouthed players.
Warmonger is a 350 mind controller that incites violence in people; a theoretically useful ability, but I don't see it being used for much real effect from a practical perspective -- more of an annoyance character.
Warpath is a 350 pt archer chick (and of course is an Indian; saw that coming right?); maybe its because I'm not a big fan of comic book archers, but this character just doesn't appeal to me and I have some issues with her build -- she only has 32 total arrows (4 each of 8 different types of trick arrows) which is really limiting.
I was kind of surprised to not see a Warchilde, a Warbride, a Warbred, Warhorse, or even a Wargoyle, but there you have it. I guess "Warcorrespondent" with mindlinking clairsentience would have been too cheesy.
Also provided to round the War Machine out are a Flying Fortress and a sample goon in Warlord's private "Shadow Army" of mercs.
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Chapter 2: Team Villains. Like Master Villains but usually less powerful and less reoccurring (but more social apparantly), Team Villains are like dark mirrors of PC groups. At their worst they are examples of the campy excesses of the genre (in the form of "themed" villain groups), and at their best they are the darkness against which the heroes light is contrasted. What would the New Mutants be without the Hellions, what would the X-Men be without the Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants, and so on.
In keeping with it's adherence to comic book mores, CKC presents five villain teams. They are the Crowns of Krim, Eurostar, GRAB, PSI, and The Ultimates.
The Crowns of Krim are a mystically oriented group of individuals changed into superhuman monstrosities by six magical artifacts, the eponymous Crowns of Krim. Each of the different crowns has a different shtick. The individuals of the group are powerful, with their leader "Dark Seraph" weighing in at 816 points and serving as a 2nd tier Master Villain in his own right. The group also functions together without backstabbing and treachery thanks to mystic controls built into the crowns.
Its a serviceable and interesting group for higher level characters. My only complaint about them is that their goals are kind of vague and yet very niche all at the same time. They are involved in "crimes with an occult theme".
Next we have Eurostar, another powerful six member group. This one is from Europe, as the name suggests. Their leader Fiacho is kind of an oddball character with a pretty long list of Martial Arts maneuvers, some guns that could have all been in a Gadget VPP for greater flexibility, and a long list of skills clocking in at 742 pts. Other members of the group include a pretty straight forward "brick" named Durak, a Human Torch like fire villain named Feuermacher, Menton's less powerful but still scary at 538 pts sister Mentalla (winner of the most provocative costume award), a kind of uninteresting female ninja named Scorpia, and a guy with a sonic generating suit called Ultrasonique who is also the weakest member of the team at 384 pts.
I'm not particularly excited by Eurostar. From a design standpoint the characters are pretty uninteresting to me, and with a pretty wide point spread it's a little trickier than normal to decide when to use them. Also their very specific euro fixation also limits their use, and they just don't evoke any urge in me to put them into play. On the plus side, at least they aren't a collection of insulting stereotypes like some comic book regional/national themed villains. We aren't subjected to the Matador of Barcelona or the Angry Mime of Marseilles, or Big Ben the British Brick and other such cornball characters.
Next up is GRAB, a group of villains who use their powers for a higher calling than mere world domination -- like burglary and grand theft. Composed of a surprisingly effective brick named Black Diamond, the Blue Jay, Hummingbird, and an irrepressible teleporting martial artist called the Cheshire Cat, all four member are 350 points and generally non lethal. Their purpose is profit, not pugilism. They are very suitable for use against a starting group and are a lot of fun, particularly Cheshire Cat.
I really like this group and have enjoyed them from both sides of the GM's screen. CC and Black Diamond in particular have good shticks and are generally memorable.
Next up is PSI, a group of mutant psionics that function in the shadows. A larger group than most of the others, PSI has a large roster including many unnamed members that aren't notable enough to stat out. Lead by (wait for it) the mind controlling 416 pt Psimon, who wishes he was Menton no doubt, the groups other "combat capable" members include another mind controller named Hypnos, a psychic blaster named Lancer, a mind locker called Medusa, a telekinetic called Mind Slayer, and another psi blaster called Torment (who is also a Muay Thai practitioner).
A sidebar names 4 other members with a brief synopsis of their salient abilities (Deuce, Inquisitor, Soulfire, and Teke). Also, for those interested in the organization, the Millennium City sourcebook from HERO Games, which details the high tech modern city built on the ruins of the Dr D destroyed Detroit (notice the D theme?), includes a section on additional PSI members including the sidebar-referenced Deuce (an Astral projector), Soulfire (a pyrokinetic), and Inquisitor (an aggressive telepath); other members in the MC sourcebook are Bodyjacker (a possessor), Edward Cummings (a charm based character similar to Empath from Marvel), and Trace (psionic detector).
PSI is kind of goofy IMO, as it doesn't seem to have any real organization or unifying element aside from its basic theme of "bad psionicists". Its pretty much a comic booky "don't look under the hood" arrangement, like most themed groups are. However, PSI is actually useful for several reasons, and thus it's worthwhile to iron out or gloss over the weakness of it's basic premise. Due to its extended size, its aggressive recruitment of psionics into membership, and the overall low point totals of the various stat'd members, PSI makes for great fodder in psionic based PC's back stories; both as hunters and as catalysts for realizing their powers. The organization is also ideally suited for street level and teen supers campaigns, both in the normal Champions and the grittier "Dark Champions" tone. An inventive GM could base an entire arc or mini-campaign around PSI in fact.
Last up is the Ultimates, another 6 member group of technology oriented villains. Kind of the Frightful Four to the Champions Fantastic Four, the group even includes a Paste Pot Pete aka Trapster homage named Binder, a 393 pt Entangle specialist complete with glue gun. The rest of the team is composed of Blackstar (400pt density increaser brick), Cyclone (430 pt flying blaster), Radium (381 energy body blaster), Slick (546 pt speedster/entangler), and Thunderbolt (I) (425 points energy body flying blaster).
This is another group I'm not personally crazy about for a variety of reasons. For starters, the group composition is kind of repetitive; how many flying blasters and entanglers does one group need? Also, Slick is just better than every other member of the group, period, and steps all over Binder's shtick. Also from a powers basis Blackstar totally doesn't fit in with the other members of the group and seems like a 5th wheel.
Also conceptually, this groups is supposed to be reoccurring villains for the Champions (the default iconic hero group of the CU) but there is no way the Champions could win against this group without loaded dice -- they are just outclassed. Finally it's not real clear to me what this group would be useful for as antagonists.
In my version of the CU they were defeated and mostly captured by the Millennium City 8 (a group that appeared in the HERO Games periodical Digital HERO) as a background blurb in the news and were not heard about otherwise.
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Chapter 3: Solo Villains: This Chapter is half the book, and contains almost 50 solo villains of various purposes, uses, and power levels. Obviously the sheer number is too many to review each one, so I'm going to focus on the highs and lows.
Overall this section is very good; there are a lot of characters provided and it's a lot of fun just reading thru the background stories of the characters. Some authors might have gotten bored or burnt out and skimped on the details in a rush to get them done and over with, but Steven Long does not seem to have succumbed; the write ups are pretty uniformly good and some are pretty amusing, like the Grond write up.
Some villains worth checking out include Anubis (Egyptian themed mystic), Black Harlequin (a Joker like character), Firewing (powerful alien ala Firelord), Herculan (alien warrior), Holocaust (aforementioned near-1000 pt megalomaniacal mutant), Mechassassin (gadgety martial artist mercenary), Shadow Dragon (a shadow manipulating martial artist kind of similar to Midnights Fire from the New Warriors rogues gallery), Utility (gadgeteering merc & planner), and Zorran the Artificer (kind of a Dr. Strange style villain, with several secondary follower write ups).
There are plenty of other villains worth a look see, by all means, but each of these characters standout as useful and/or different to me on a quick scan
Some villains I didn't care for and why:
Slug is some kind of worm alien come to Earth for some reason. The whole elder worm thing just seems to Cthuloid to me, and the character doesn't fit the genre in my opinion.
Leech is a strange mystic pawn transformed into a melding of Leech and Man for some inexplicable reason to act as a servant to some unnamed mystic. Uh...call me unimaginative, but I can't conceive of a reason that a Leech-man would make a better servant than some more "cool" combination of man and something else would, or that even just a normal shmoe would for that matter
Lazer is a gadgety sniper. There is nothing wrong with this character per se, I just found it to be kind of redundant with Mechassassin, Utility, Mirage, and Thunderbird (all vaguely similar tech using mercs) also in the book. The other characters all have some kind of shtick or are pointed at a range to make them useful solo villains to challenge but not overwhelm a group with, but Lazer is just a 350 point sniper/gunner. According to his background he has a Rivalry with Mechassassin as to which of them is better; sorry son, bad news -- Mechassassin is at least two times better. Not a bad character, just kind of unnecessary IMO.
Blowtorch is a psychopathic pyromaniac and is extremely lethal. I don't have an issue with the character being lethal per se, but that's _all_ the character is. With the primarily Silver Aged sensibility of the CU the character stands out from the almost 100 other characters in this book as just kind of out of place to me.
The next section of the book is a 2 page treatment on how to adapt characters to suit a particular whim, and as an example adapts Anubis the Egyptian dude into Lei Kung the Thunderer, and Warpath (of the War Machine) into Guan Di, the Chinese God of Archery! Good section, and it squeezes two more characters into the final tally.
Finally the book closes with two landscape oriented tables; a Master Reference marking what general archetype a character falls into (Brick, Blaster, Gadgeteer, Martial Artist, etc), and any other notable attributes (Alien, Greedy, Mercenary, Mutant, etc), and total Points in alphabetical order. The second chart is a summary table listing STR, DEX, CON, BODY, Defenses, SPD, REC, STUN, OCV/DCV, Movement, main attacks, and most importantly a page reference. These are both quite useful, and high marks for including them.
A one page Index is included, but since this book is just a roster its not much different from the ToC aside from noting a few setting elements that appear in background stories, such a the AIM like organization in the CU called ARGENT, which is mentioned on pages 71, 81, 97...and so on. Handy for GM's skimming to assemble a plot involving setting elements of that sort.
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In summary, CKC is an extensive collection of super villains sure to have something for just about everybody. More specifically most of the adventures set in the Champions Universe, such as Shades of Black and Champions Battlegrounds reference villains found in CKC and thus not having the book is a bit of an annoyance to those who want to use them.
All in all, while there are a few villains I didn't care for personally, the copiousness of the material more than compensates. I have used many villains from the CKC in my Champions games, both in their printed form and variations based upon them.
Holocaust in particular, though only appearing in one session and beefed up a bit by me, made quite an impact on the group. Black Harlequin was instantly hated (but was slain trying to escape -- the group didn't realize how frail he is in person) for his crazed mocking and fiendishly clever killer toys. Several of the CKC characters, from Shadow Dragon and Thunderbolt to Gravitar were chosen as Hunteds by PC's in the group. One of the players of the group even ran a short arc inspired in part by The Warlord. Overall the CKC has enriched my Champions Universe games and is well worth it's sticker price in my opinion.
I highly recommend it to all GM's interested in running a game in the Champions Universe. Due to its almost pure game mechanics nature I can't really recommend it to non HERO System gamers unless they are intent on converting the many cool characters into some other game system and are interested in the concepts and comprehensive back stories.
