Hellbrand Review

As of the writing of this article, Jay Libby's AlphaVerse: Hellbrand is available for download from RPGNow for $1.00.

Please note that Dilly Green Bean Games provided me with a complimentary copy of Hellbrand for review.

Presentation

I downloaded Hellbrand as a small (about 1.8 megabytes), 24 page Adobe Acrobat (.PDF) file. Overall, the presentation of this digital document is very clean and easy to read. The few pieces of artwork present are appropriately themed, but are generally too dark to print well on an inkjet or laser printer.

Summary

As stated above, Hellbrand consists of 24 pages:

• Cover Page - Artwork of a bald Hellbrand crouching in the rain (1 page)
• Game Fiction - Tale of how a serial killer was chosen by Lucifer to become a Hellbrand (1 page)
• Hellbrand Character and Setting Information (1.5 pages)
• Hellbrand Education Pack (0.5 page)
• Statistics for 7 generic Hellbrand adversaries (1 page)
• Paper Hellbrand miniatures (1 page)
• Jay Libby's Basic V system (15 pages)
• Basic V Power Generator (3 pages)

Hellbrands are powerful creatures responsible for harvesting sinners for Hell. Once the Hellbrands have killed enough, Lucifer will lead his army of wicked souls to conquer the Earth. Ironically, the majority of Hellbrands were notorious sinners in their mortal lives. Some genuinely believe they are doing good by ridding the world of evil, or are dupes in a game they don't understand.

Hellbrands hunt the slums and ghettos for their prey. If they do not send at least three dark souls to Hell each week, they in turn will be hunted and killed by other Hellbrands. Hellbrands are stalked by Angelic Defenders, and sometimes also draw unwanted attention from the citizens and criminal element of their chosen hunting ground. These are their typical adversaries.

Unfortunately, the two paragraphs above detail just about everything this supplement tells one about Hellbrands. It doesn't explain if there are different factions of Hellbrand, or what their cultures or beliefs might be like. It doesn't explain the default cosmology of the game world, which would have been nice considering this game is essentially about a conflict between Heaven and Hell. It doesn't explain why there's a conflict between Heaven and Hell in the first place. It doesn't provide any sample characters, plot ideas, or detailed non-player characters. Essentially, Hellbrand provides me with an interesting new 'race' for my players - but provides little to no advice concerning how to run Hellbrand-centric stories and campaigns. In summary, I like the glimpse into the world of Hellbrand that this supplement offers - but that's all it is: a glimpse. I would like to see these basic concepts fleshed out much more.

The Hellbrand Education Pack seems to emphasize combat-oriented characters, but closer examination revealed that more subtle or devious Hellbrands could be created with little effort. Unfortunately, two of the inherent Hellbrand powers are annoyingly vague:

Regeneration states that Hellbrands may instantly soak 30 points of damage, but doesn't clearly state its limitations. Is this damage absorption ablative? Does it apply to multiple damage sources, or only one?

Dimension Jump states that Hellbrands may travel back to Hell by jumping into any large flames. What sort of welcome are they likely to receive when they arrive there? What happens if the flame they jumped through goes out? Can they jump out of large flames in other places? If so, how does a Hellbrand target these other locations? Since HellFire does 100 points of damage per round to non-Hellbrands, what - if anything - prevents them from grabbing a powerful enemy and dragging them into Hell? I would have liked the Hellbrand Education Pack to be more specific because these are the exact kind of questions my players ask during gameplay.

Hellbrand is built upon Jay Libby's Basic V system. My in-depth review of this mechanics system is available elsewhere on this site.

Conclusion

Hellbrand seems conspicuously derivative of Todd McFarlane's Spawn comic books. Like the digital offerings of many small game companies, Hellbrand is a generally good concept that falters in execution. This book, especially the opening fiction, would greatly benefit from a skilled editor. More importantly, I would like to see many of the ideas touched upon in the scant two pages of setting material detailed and expanded upon.

Substance: 2
Style: 2