Chapter One: Crimelords - As with Hero’s earlier Conquerors, Killers & Crooks for Champions, this book starts with a section on “masterminds” who control organizations of criminals, although in keeping with the genre these crimelords are both smaller-scale and more realistic; some of them could have come right from the newspapers, while some have freak deformities or flamboyant themes that put them closer to the level of Bond villains.
Chapter Two: Criminal Organizations details organized teams- the Arsenal, a mercenary group with exactly 26 members (one for each letter in the alphabet, and each specialized in a particular weapon); the Consortium, which is based on the premise that the Roswell UFO crash was real, and there is a government conspiracy to control the aliens’ secrets; UMBRA, a secret “military-industrial complex”; the neo-Nazi Victory Party and its cadre of special operatives, and finally WEB (While Earth Burns) a radical environmentalist group and its “recluse” founder. The mercenaries can provide targets for pure combat stories, and the more business-oriented groups are good for more investigative scenarios, although the Consortium introduces the element of X-Files style SF, which would not be appropriate for purely “realistic” campaigns.
Chapter Three: Solo Criminals is self-explanatory. This section covers about half the book, and presents a fairly wide range of NPCs, not all of whom would be considered “villains.” Many of them have sidebar “plot seeds” giving hints on how they can be used. Some, mainly the serial killers, only have a single plot line: Investigate the criminal and bring him to justice one way or another. Again, some of these characters are 5th Edition versions of older material, but the emphasis on “heroic-level” rules makes for proper re-writes, such that the aged gentleman thief actually has the stats of an aged thief: not much in the way of physical ability but a lot of experience devoted to skills. There are a few characters (like Hecate and Brother Namaan) that have actual magic abilities, which violates the “realism” principle of Dark Champions, but then again so does the Consortium.
The Appendix is a useful resource, including short stat blocks for cops, gangstas, soldiers, etc. There is also a short article on the history of “super-soldier” projects in the Dark Champions setting, important given that several NPCs in the book have this origin (which parallels some of the real-world research by the US and the Soviets). Finally, it has the very useful Master Reference table listing villains by type (Assassin, Weird, Technological, etc.) and a Summary Table listing the characters in terms of their DEX, SPD, favorite attack, and other important combat data.
SUMMARY
The reader should be advised that the Dark Champions books, like this one and Hudson City: the Urban Abyss, contain a lot more “adult” situations and in-character language than other Hero Games books – while that language is not quite “R-rated,” it’s on the level of NYPD Blue if not The Shield. Moreover, Long’s scenarios are very adult indeed, and some of the sex traffickers and serial killers give new meaning to the term “sick freak.” I’m not going into details here, but let’s just say one of these write-ups includes the character’s recipe for chili. Still, if your DC game is inspired by The Shield (or even harder stuff like The Wire), the darker scenarios are not out-of-line for such settings, while the other characters are appropriate for a wide range of action-hero stories.
Style: 3
Average-at-best art and layout livened up by a few interesting character backgrounds.
Substance: 3
In my opinion, most NPC books are take-it-or-leave-it from the GM’s standpoint, but the characters in Predators provide a good, long list of starting points for the GM to build new storylines.
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