The Ultimate Gamer's Toolkit

Widely regarded as the best roleplaying game system ever created, the HERO System has become even better with this Revised version of the 5th Edition rules!

Unlike any other roleplaying game, the HERO System provides you with unfettered flexibility, allowing you to exercise your own creativity without hindrance. Build any character, power, gadget, skill, weapon, ability, or vehicle you can think of! It's the ultimate gamer's toolkit, allowing you to do what you do best: create great characters and games.

Whatever you want to do, in any genre, time period, or setting, the HERO System lets you do it!

The HERO System Vehicle Sourcebook is a comprehensive resource on vehicles for all HERO System games. No matter what genre, setting, or time period your campaign takes place in, the HSVS has just the vehicles you need! In addition to full HERO System writeups for the vehicles, the Vehicle Sourcebook contains fascinating historical, technical, and performance information for the cars, planes, and watercraft it describes.

The Wonders of Magic

Magic, spells, and mystical beings are one of the most popular elements in most roleplaying games - in fact, they're so popular that gamers often introduce them into genres where they don't normally exist! The Ultimate Mystic is a comprehensive guide to using mysticism in your HERO System campaigns, whether they're magic-filled Fantasy games or games that don't usually feature spells and spellcasters.

If you're looking to put a little magic into your characters and campaigns, The Ultimate Mystic is just the book for you.

From genre to genre, one of the most popular and intriguing types of characters you can play are metamorphs — characters who change some aspect of their shape, form, or being. Ranging from supervillains who can copy anyone’s appearance or powers, to werewolves and other lycanthropes, to robots with adjustable body parts, to free-floating minds that “change shape” by possessing living beings, metamorphs exist in fascinating variety and can add a lot to your game.

The Ultimate Metamorph is your guide to creating and playing shape-changing, form-altering characters and powers in the HERO System.

Has your character ever been on an adventure and found himself without just the right weapon or tool for the situation? That won't happen again if you've got The HERO System Equipment Guide, a comprehensive collection of gadgets, weapons, devices, gizmos, and tools for your HERO System games. Within this virtual equipment locker you'll find:

THE GLORY OF BATTLE

The HERO System rules are designed to handle any type of combat - whether it involves two groups of gun-wielding gangsters on a grimy inner city street, caped superheroes using energy bolts and super-strength in a fight in outer space, Fantasy warriors and wizards wielding swords and spells against trolls and dragons, a blaster duel in the corridors of a starship, or even stranger forms of conflict. The basic rules in Chapter Two of the HERO System 5th Edition, Revised rulebook, combined with the more advanced or genre-specfic rules in various HERO System books, allow you to fight just about any type of battle you can imagine.

Every character has to walk, run, swim, or fly at some point. But some characters specialize in movement - they're incredibly fast, able to run at hypervelocity and do things in the blink of an eye that take other characters hours, or they can move in ways other characters in the campaign can't. The Ultimate Speedster is your guide to creating and playing movement-based characters and powers in the HERO System.

Few things fascinate gamers as much as mental powers - the ability to read (or control) minds, to move physical objects with just a thought, to foresee the future, to fight entire battles in one's mind. But while intriguing, psionic abilities can also prove difficult to handle in a gaming context, due to the potential for overwhelming power. Creating and playing a mentalist character can be a real challenge.

The Ultimate Mentalist is your guide to mental powers and characters who use them in the HERO System.

Jason Walters’s popular Digital Hero column profiling famous, unusual, and intriguing people from world history makes the leap to hardcopy in You Gotta Have Character, Vol. I. Featuring the best selections from the first three years of Digital Hero, it includes character sheets, complete biographical information, and campaign use suggestions for multiple genres for two dozen amazing people as Lord Byron, Calamity Jane, John Gotti, and Miyamoto Musashi.

No matter what genre you choose or setting you use for your HERO System campaign, one constant is Skills. Virtually every character, from the most powerful superhero to the weakest peasant, has at least a few Skills, and some characters depend on them every adventure to get things done and keep themselves alive.

The Ultimate Skill is your guide to Skills in the HERO System, with advanced, expanded, and optional rules covering every aspect of Skills and Skill use.

One of the most popular archetypes in roleplaying games is the energy projector

One of the HERO System’s greatest strengths is its character creation rules, which allow you to create any type of character you can dream up and to define his abilities as precisely as you need. The basic rules in Chapter One of The HERO System 5th Edition, Revised rulebook, combined with the more advanced or genre-specific rules in various HERO System books, provide the most detailed and flexible character creation rules available.

To help your game run as smoothly and enjoyably as possible, The HERO System Character Creation Handbook compiles the character creation rules from The HERO System 5th Edition, Revised rulebook with key character creation rules from supplements like Champions and Fantasy Hero to create a comprehensive HERO System character creation reference. Additionally, The HERO System Character Creation Handbook supplements that material with new rules, expanded and clarified rules, and other information so you have all the character creation rules you need right at your fingertips!

Champions Battlegrounds is a collection of five adventures for Champions, each focusing on a particular location that you can use repeatedly in your campaign. You can run the scenarios individually, or as part of a single story arc. Do your heroes have what it takes to survive.

When the deadliest villains of two universes - Dr. Destroyer and Kreutzritter - team up to threaten both realities with their evil schemes, it's up to the heroes of both worlds - The Guard and the Champions - to join forces and stopthem... but they need your heroes' help if they're going to succeed! Reality Storm presents this pulse-pounding superhero adventure for two game systems - Champions and Silver Age Sentinels - with enough action and adventure to satisfy any campaign!

Reality Storm includes:

The United Nations Tribunal on International Law has been the UN's peacekeeping and law enforcement arm for several decades. Among other things, it investigates supercrimes, pursues supervillains, and helps to protect Humanity from alien invasion. This organizations book describes it in detail, including its policies, powers, leaders, other prominent NPCs, divisions, technology, vehicles, and superheroes.

From within the heart of the insidious organization VIPER, a new evil has arisen... one that wishes to conquer both VIPER and Earth! Can your heroes survive the challenges to come and save humanity from the clutches of King Cobra and his minions of COIL?

In Showdown At Snake Gulch, the heroes receive word that all is not as it seems at a tourist attraction in New Mexico. Investigation uncovers a VIPER Nest where a fiendish plot has been put in place to cripple VIPER and launch a scheme of world conquest.

Uses characters from Champions Universe and Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks. The VIPER sourcebook is helpful, but not necessary.

AN ARSENAL OF GADGETS

Superheroes (and villains!) are famous for the super-science gadgets they use - everything from blaster pistols, to flying platforms, to armored capes, to super-handcuffs... and more. Gadgets And Gear brings you thousands of such amazing devices for Champions!

Take you Champions game to the stars - and beyond! - with Galactic Champions, a sourcebook covering the high-powered, hard-hitting heroes who protect entire galaxies and realities. Galactic Champions heroes are cosmically powerful, with abilities that dwarf those of standard superheoes... but the villains they fight are just as tough!

Welcome to scenic Vibora Bay! One of the Gulf Coast’s largest and most exciting cities, it’s a center of commerce, culture, tourism... and strange goings-on.

Vibora Bay details this fascinating city, which maintains unusual traditions of mysticism and religion alongside modern technology and habits. With its eclectic inhabitants and frequent paranormal incidents, it holds a lot of attraction for superheroes — and supervillains.

VILLAINY MOST FOUL!

Among the thousands of adventures Champions GMs run, a few favorite types — classics from the worlds of comic books and the movies — stand out. They get run in nearly every campaign, and sometimes multiple times within a single campaign. But if you don't watch out, these beloved classics can become stale and routine.

Enter Villainy Amok! This book looks at several of the most exciting "classic" types of scenarios and provides suggestions, options, and resources for using them in your campaign. That way you can keep them fresh and exciting even after repeated use.

SECRET LANDS OF DANGER

The Champions Universe contains many places and races hidden from the sight and attention of everyday people. Whether they’re benevolent or evil, each of them may create peril or trouble for your heroes.

"I can't fight Dr. Destroyer now - I've got to study for tomorrow's exam!" Fighting supervillains is a tough job. It can be even tougher when you're in high school and have to worry about finishing your homework, finding a date for the prom, and sticking to your curfew while you're doing it! Teen Champions covers this comic book subgenre for Champions, providing character creation and campaign advice for awesome teen hero gaming fun. TC also includes complete details on Ravenswood Academy, the super-students who study there, and other teen heroes of the Champions Universe.

Time to power up!

Following on the heels of The UNTIL Superpowers Database, and created in part with contributions from numerous HERO System fans, The UNTIL Superpowers Database II contains hundreds of all-new superpowers to help you create just the sort of Champions character you want! It features:

Not everyone can have superpowers and fight crime. But the guy selling newspapers down on the corner, the woman working as a receptionist for a superhero team, a lawyer specializing in defending supervillains, and a superhero's kid brother - all these are important characters, too, with stories of their own to tell and lots of flavor and adventure they can add to your Champions games. Everyman takes a look at these unsung, ordinary, but all too important people in ways that can add depth and excitement to any Champions character or campaign.

SUPERHUMANS AROUND THE WORLD

The United States may have a major share of superhumans in the Champions Universe, but it's not the only place you can find heroes and villains. Every continent has plenty of costumed criminals and crimefighters of its own, ranging from people with trivial abilities to those with the power to shake the world.

Champions Worldwide is your guide to superheroes and supervillains from outside the United States. Featuring over seventy new characters, plus information on the current state of the Superhuman World in each continent or region.

No matter where your Champions campaign takes your characters, Champions Worldwide has plenty of exciting new adversaries and allies for them to meet!

EVIL WITHIN YOUR GRASP!

As every Champions fan knows, you can never have too many great villains! But with so many Champions books in print, sometimes it’s hard to find just the villain you’re looking for without a lot of page-flipping.

That’s where Evil Unleashed comes in. It saves you the effort of carrying a lot of books to the gaming table and the time needed to look through them for the particular villain you want. It collects the villains from nearly a dozen supplements:—

- Champions, Champions Battlegrounds, Champions Universe, Millennium City, Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth, the Ultimate series, UNTIL, Vibora Bay, Villainy Amok

and puts them between two covers so you only have to refer to one book when you’re searching for a superpowered bad guy. And for a little added fiendishness Evil Unleashed includes five all-new villains: the supervillain team Merc-Force 1; the mysterious, demonsouled supermage Josiah Brimstone; and Vixen, a swift and seductive cat burglar with other goals on her mind than just robbery.

So you’d better make sure your heroes out on patrol tonight keep their eyes open! Some evil’s about to be unleashed on your campaign....

It’s been five years since the publication of Champions Universe, and a lot’s happened since then. Villains have come and gone, hero teams have gone through all sorts of changes, and more than one master villain has tried to take over or destroy the world. Champions Universe: News Of The World takes a look at the current state of the Champions Universe setting and lets you in on everything that’s taken place.

It includes:

Villains, Vandals, And Vermin introduces sixty new villains for Champions campaigns, ranging from low-powered costumed crooks to villains powerful enough to singlehandedly threaten the world. It includes:

Most superheroes and villains may live and fight in the United States, but America's neighbor to the North is no stranger to superhuman activity. Champions Of The North is your guide to the Champions Universe in Canada. Written by native Canadians and edited by Americans, it's the perfect resource for superheroic campaigning and adventure in the Great White North!

Not every organization in the Champions Universe is as big and powerful as VIPER or DEMON... but that doesn’t mean they’re not every bit as dangerous! Crews, Cops, And Cabals provides complete information about several organizations suitable for any Champions campaign. It includes the mutant-hating Institute for Human Advancement, bounty hunters who specialize in superhuman prey, the Metahuman Activities Response Squad of the Millennium City Police Department, laboratories dedicated to studying supertechnology, and many more.

SCHOOL IS IN SESSION!

Welcome to PS238, the world’s first school for metaprodigies — children with superpowers! They have to learn how to be superheroes along with their math, history, and social studies, and PS238 is where they do that... and occasionally get into an adventure or two.

The PS238 Roleplaying Game brings you the fun and touching world of PS238 from Aaron Williams’s acclaimed comic book. Using the award-winning HERO System rules, it lets you create and play your own metaprodigy character. It’s fun for children of all ages!

If your spacefaring Star Hero player characters want to explore strange new worlds, you need some strange new worlds for them to explore. Worlds Of Empire covers two dozen planets ranging from minor but intriguing worlds scattered throughout Human space to some of the most important planets in the Terran Empire. With Worlds Of Empire you can visit key Terran planets like Rigel, Adamant, and Hermetica; experience the strange cultures of planets like New Alexandria and the Tau Ceti worlds; explore such unusual worlds as frozen H’rotha, haunted Cybul III, archipelagic Trovatore, and war-ravaged Tetsuo; and even go beyond the bounds of Terran space to spy on the Ackálian throneworld of Ackál, trade with the Mon’dabi on Mon’da, mingle with the pirates and smugglers of Venwordien IV, or contend with the Thorgons for control of Ravanche.

Need maps, exciting locations, and scenarios for our Fantasy Hero campaign? Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds has just what you’re looking for. In addition to several scenarios (all linked together into a story arc, but each suited to be used on its own), it has maps and descriptive text for numerous locations suited to any fantasy world — castles, temples, wizards’ towers, village inns, alchemist’s shops, and more.

Every Fantasy campaign needs adversaries to challenge the PCs, whether those adversaries are the darkest-hearted of Evil beings, greedy dragons, or duplicitous nobles bent on using the heroes for their own gain. Nobles, Knights, And Necromancers details dozens of enemies for Fantasy Hero. Although the enemies it features are taken from Hero’s “Turakian Age” setting, they’re suitable for almost any Fantasy campaign.

Most gamers are familiar with the dragons, ogres, and vampires of European myth and legend - but not necessarily the Pennangalan of Malaysia, the Oni of Japan, the Ch'ing-shih of China, or any of dozens of other monsters from the lands of Asia. The Asian Bestiary provides complete details and character sheets for these wondrous beasts and demons for Fantasy Hero and Ninja Hero.

Every gamer’s heard of dragons, vampires, werewolves, and zombies — but how about kitsune, langsuir, aswang, nat, tokkaebi, penanggalan, or rolang?

The Asian Bestiary, Volume II is the second Hero Games guide to these and dozens more strange, eerie, and dangerous monsters, creatures, beings, and fantastic animals from the cultures and folklore of Asia. It includes monsters from:

Tuala Morn is a pseudo-Celtic fantasy realm of bold warriors, wise wizards, capricious faeries, crafty dragons, and a thousand different types of adventure! Travel the fields, forests, and mountains of the Ten Kingdoms in search of wonder and excitement.

In Dunrioga, the seat of the High King has sat empty for ten long years since the death of Davaine the Strong. While his queen Nuala tries to maintain a regency for their son, young Aillin, no one unites the people against the threat of Vulkring raiders from the north, or brings a halt to the longstanding feud between Crogher of Conhaile and Sitric of Seanclough. And without a High King, nothing stems the tide of the ambition of the Cormac of Mar Cormac, who wants a rulership he does not deserve and would sacrifice all the world to obtain it.

As if such conflicts were not enough, religious strife besets the land. As the druids who worship the Dronnach Lanva, the Hundred Children, continue to propitiate the spirits of stream and wood, the priests of the Golden Temple cry the ascendancy of their strange faith to the skies, seeking to win converts to their shrines. Some wise men whisper that such disputes on Earth must surely mirror a dispute in the heavens, and if the matter cannot be resolved, then surely only the dark gods of the witches will remain to rule over the Tualans.

Even worse, there are those who claim that these dark gods, or something akin to them, has already cast its shadow over the land. Of the source and power of this shadow, they know not, but its intentions are surely evil. Prophecy foretells that unless a true hero finds the Basilisk Orb, fabled talisman of the ancient wizard Coruch Crotha, the High King’s realm will fall to dust and ashes.

Even in Fantasy Hero worlds where magic exists and characters can rule kingdoms, sometimes a hero needs just the right equipment to get the job done. That means magical items — weapons, armor, staffs, and other objects with enchantments placed upon them to give them power.

Enchanted Items contains hundreds of pre-generated magical items for your Fantasy Hero games. They’re organized into thirteen categories:

Welcome to Hudson City, pal. Better watch your step. Only the smart and the lucky survive around here. Hudson City: The Urban Abyss describes the (in)famous Pearl City in all its gritty detail, from the glittering skyscrapers of Bankhurst to the grimy, sin-filled streets of the Strip. It's the perfect setting for your Dark Champions adventures!

Predators is a book of enemies for Dark Champions. It's filled with criminals, killers, terrorists, druglords, thieves, and every other sort of scum you can imagine, from the mundane to the bizarre.

DARK AVENGERS OF THE NIGHT

If you're eager for the thrills and adventure of crimefighting but don't like the guns and violence of regular Dark Champions campaigns, what you need is an "animated series" style campaign. Dark Champions: The Animated Series looks at the less grim side of vigilante crimebusting: caped crusaders with vigilante style but who refuse to kill; low-powered superheroes who fight street crime instead of world-threatening supervillains; "theme" villains with clever costumes and psychotic minds.

Become the ultimate Hero gamer with these super-cool, super-sleek Hero dice!

Each set comes with six 6-sided dice. Each face displays the STUN count as well as pips for counting BODY. And the "1" side proudly displays the Hero logo.

With these dice, you can now truly be a Hero!

THRILLING PULP ADVENTURE!

The Twenties and Thirties were a golden age of adventure as two-fisted heroes and daring explorers came to life in the pages of pulp magazines. Now you can create roleplaying games and characters set in this thrilling era!

Pulp Hero discusses and describes the Pulp genre for gaming, covering everything from masked crimefighters, to globetrotting adventurers, to daring pilots, to eerie menaces... and beyond! It shows how to create characters, campaigns, abilities, weapons, and other elements of the genre using the HERO System rules.

FIENDISH PULP MENACE!

What’s a good hero without a great villain to oppose him? For truly exciting Pulp Hero adventures, you need just the right villains, and that’s what Masterminds And Madmen gives you: over 80 Pulp villains ranging from world-threatening master criminals to petty crooks suitable for one-on-one battles with your heroes. No matter what type of Pulp Hero campaign you’re running, Masterminds And Madmen has just the villains you need!

Pull on your night-black cloak and slouch hat, strap on your gleaming twin automatics, and get ready for action! These sixteen never-before-published tales of uncanny mystery and strange adventure take you from the skies over the Mexican badlands, to the gritty streets of New York, and the secret-shrouded heart of the African jungle. Astounding Hero Tales presents original works by such critically-acclaimed and bestselling storytellers as Hugh B. Cave, Robert Weinberg, Ed Greenwood, Robin D. Laws, Thomas M. Reid, and Will Murray, as well as a newly-discovered yarn by Lester Dent, creator of the pulp icon Doc Savage!

Editor James Lowder has helmed more than a dozen critically acclaimed anthologies, with subjects ranging from Arthurian Britain to zombies, and has written several best-selling novels, including Prince of Lies and Knight of the Black Rose. He’s been a finalist for the Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award, and is a two-time Origins Award winner.

Pulp adventurers need places to adventure in! Thrilling Places provides them, with detailed information about exotic and amazing locations around the world for Pulp Hero characters to visit and explore: lost civilizations, secret islands, hidden temples, and many more.

FROM OUT OF THE RUINS... One of the most popular and enduring types of adventure fiction is the post-apocalyptic story, in which brave heroes struggle to survive in a world where mankind’s civilization has fallen. Rooted in ancient myths about the end of the world, these stories mix thrilling adventure with profound ethical issues.

Post-Apocalyptic Hero is your ultimate guide to the post-apocalyptic genre for gaming. It covers the genre in all its many forms, providing information and resources for both players and GMs. It includes:

“Gestalt” is Scott Bennie's unique world of superhuman archetypes. Superhero comic books contain worlds of Archetypes, individuals who represent important symbols. They are populated by characters who represent concepts such as Heroism, Strength, Speed, Cleverness, The Elements, Kindness, Cruelty, and Ambition. All fiction deals in archetypes or symbols, but comic books apply them more consciously than most fictional forms.

The Gestalt campaign takes the idea of "character as Archetype" one step further. In this campaign world, Gestalt-Earth, the characters are the symbols. A physically powerful superhero might not just be a strong guy - he could be an embodiment of Strength. A Gestalt martial arts master isn't just a superb fighter - he's also a human representation of his chosen art. The master lives its philosophy at all times, getting into situations where he demonstrates his art and its virtues, championing those who follow the art, and using the art to advance his or her personal fortunes.

While characters in the Gestalt-Earth setting look and act like superheroes, in many ways they fulfill the role of mythological gods, becoming the champion of concepts and portfolios.