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====== Predators ======
|**Book Line:**           | Dark Champions     |**SKU:**          | 602            |
|**Book Type:**           | Characters/Enemies |**Formats:**      | Softcover; PDF |
|**Author:**              | Steven S. Long     |**Released:**     | August, 2005   |
|**Cost:**                | 29.99$             |**ISBN:**         | 1-58366-044-5  |
|**Page Count:**          | 235                |**Hero Designer:**| No             |
|**Common Abbreviations:**| DCP                |**Print Status:** | In Print       |

===== The Review: =====
//Reviewed By Gordon Feiner//

The Upside:

Predators is a Dark Champions enemies source book. The focus of the enemies is realistic modern day action, any powers that appear are within the realm of the heroic action genre normal, and a few touch on an X-Files-esque type weird mystery type stuff. The book is divided into three chapters and an appendix. The book gives us eighty-five complete character write-ups and backgrounds.

The focus of the book is to put these characters inside the Hudson City setting from Hero Games. But like with all things Hero removing them merely requires changing a few names here and there and maybe a minor detail or two to fit into your world. Each character comes with suggestions on making them stronger or weaker to suit your game as well as three Plot Seeds per character.

//Chapter One - Crimelords.// Sixteen major crime bosses and their underlings are detailed here. They range from a drug cartel centered around a cult to street thugs controlling large gangs. We also have a few above average pimps and a crimeboss who runs his empire like a business. If you're playing in the Hudson City setting this chapter gives you all the main Crimelords not detailed in either that source book.

//Chapter Two - Criminal Organizations.// Five organizations containing twenty-three character write-ups. First up is The Arsenal, a group of highly trained and specialized mercenaries, we get the six main leaders of the group, and some minor details useable to create the other twenty members. The Consortium is a secret group whose purpose centers around the 1942 Roswell Incident, giving us a perfect Conspiracy Theory Campaign group to pit the PCs against. UMBRA is another secret organization of political and business men, another conspiracy group type that doesn't involve alien spacecraft, also perfect for Conspiracy Hero games. The Victory Party is a neo-nazi group that's more organized than your average hate group, because you can never have enough Nazi's to beat up in you game. The last organization is called While Earth Burns and is a fanatical environmentalist movement, prone to violence if no other methods presents itself. This chapter provides some very good large organizations that can be put into a campaign as either the focus or as recurring antagonists to the PCs efforts.

//Chapter Three - Solo Villains.// The largest chapter of the book gives us forty-six solo villains and antagonists to fit into your campaign. The majority of villains fall into one of two categories: Thief or Assassin. There are also a handful of serial killers, enforcers and arms dealers of various types. We also get a few terrorists to add to the mix. Overall the chapter does a good job of creating a variety of villains to use in a game.

//Appendix.// The appendix gives you a number of very useful things for running a Dark Champions game. First up are thirteen generic write-ups. They are: Basic Cop, Experienced/Tough Cop, Gangsta, Basic Security Guard, Elite Security Guard, Basic Solider/Mercenary, Experienced/Tough Soldier/Mercenary, Special Forces Soldier/Mercenary, Cinematic Spy, Realistic Spy, Basic Terrorist, Experienced/Tough Terrorist, and Thug. We also have a short section describing Super Soldier projects that take place in the Hudson City Setting, but these are easily lifted out and placed in any Dark Champions campaign that has a flair for the cinematic. The very back of the book contains two tables. A Master Reference Chart which lists the basic roles and motivations of the villains. A Summary Table which lists their basic combat abilities and game information. Both are useful as a quick look to find the right villains for the right situation.

The Downside:

I'm going to touch on the artwork since many consider it an important aspect of a gaming book. Let me make it clear: I don't, and it has not affected my judgement of the book at all. But the art work is occasionally uninspiring.

The rest of the book doesn't seem to have much in the way of down sides, it's another solid offering of creative NPCs for use in your game. If anything as I was reading it I couldn't help but think "Oh, another assassin or mercenary." for a lot of it. But this is a Dark Champions source book, gun toting nuts is the order of the day.

The Otherside:

Use in other Non-Hero games is limited to the character descriptions and Plot Seeds, unless you want to convert the stats. Even then, the back stories and personalities are enough to get some NPCs into any modern action game.

Overall, I liked the book and would recommend it to anyone needing some adversaries for a Modern Action/Dark Champions game. If you're running the Hudson City setting this is the perfect compliment filling the city out with numerous unsavory types.