Champions of the North is yet another Hero System 5th Edition take on Champions 4th Edition material. In the 4th Edition line, Champions of the North was written by a native Canadian, Vancouver's Jon Mattson, and it had a pretty good amount of detail on local history and a few good ideas for the national heroes. However, most Champions fans- including, or perhaps especially, Canadians- thought it was a bit bland overall. The new version is by Scott Bennie, whose RPG resume is (to understate) considerably longer than Mattson's. Bennie, a frequent Beaverpack poster, has a very long history with Hero indeed, and in the 3rd Edition Champions book Villainy Unbound, he basically invented the current format for describing NPCs in terms of complete histories, quotes, motivations, and detailed descriptions.
THE BOOK: Champions of the North is a thin book at 136 pages, but reasonably put together, barring a few typos and spaces of white with no text or illustrations. Several new artists do work in this book, including Sam Kennedy; I don't care for his work (it seems too chunky and messy to me) but his cover is certainly badass: Bodies are strewn about the field as master villain Borealis faces off against the remaining members of the hero team StarForce, led by Justiciar, a Canadian "flagsuit" hero with a gigantic cyber-cannon attached to his arm ready to fire. Groovy.
"Canadian history defeats attempts to construct traditional society-saving or society changing heroes." - Margaret Atwood
Chapter One- A History of Heroism is a real world-plus-Hero Universe history of Canada. Basically while explorers from several European powers discovered the territories (and learned the name 'Kanata', or 'the settlement', from one of the local tribes), it was the French who first made permanent settlement in the area of modern Canada. England, of course, settled areas further south and west of what was then New France. Wars between France and Britain left Britain in charge of eastern America, but to pay for these wars, Britain raised taxes on the Colonies, and to pacify the French colonists, the Quebec Act preserved many local French laws while giving the French settling rights to the Ohio Valley west of the Colonies. These were among the "Intolerable Acts" that spurred the Colonies to revolt, and once the United States of America won its independence, its relations with the British Empire (and thus Canada) remained heated. In the War of 1812, America invaded Canada, but the invasion was counterbalanced by British victories (including the sacking of Washington DC) and the Treaty of Ghent basically called it a draw.
However, as both Britain and America continued to move their common border to the Pacific, the growth of English-speaking settlements in British North America began to crowd out the existing French and Indian natives. The need for better government organization (and the need to defend against private-party American raids) led several politicians including John A. Macdonald to draw up plans of a Canadian government which was approved by London as the "Dominion of Canada." In addition to the American and Irish nationalist raids, which petered out over time, the new nation had to face other uprisings, in particular separate confrontations led by Louis Riel, a spokesman for the Metis (mixed French-Indian culture). Bennie depicts Riel as a deranged would-be messiah (Wikipedia notes that Riel 'became a naturalized American citizen and was actively involved in the Republican Party') but when he surrendered to authorities in 1885 and was found guilty of treason, Macdonald's government overrode the jury recommendation of mercy and had Riel hanged, which created intense division between French and English Canada.
Thus when Canada entered World War I for the British Empire, French Canadians viewed the war effort as unjust imperialism, especially when casualties forced the government to impose a draft. The '20s were generally not good for Canada, but the provinces (especially Quebec) did a brisk black market trade with American booze-runners during Prohibition (even though the more moderate Canadian alcohol regulation continues to this day). In discussing the Pulp Era, Bennie inserts the events of his Pulp HERO campaign into the official Champions history, and as history progresses further past the 20th Century (with the creation of Canadian citizenship after World War II, the bilingual reforms of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the rather chilly relations with America after 9-11), the book goes further in integrating Champions fictional history into the setting- for instance much of Canada's construction boom happened in the wake of Dr. Destroyer's disintegration of Detroit and the rebuilding of it as Millennium City.
Whereas Mattson's CotN (like Phil Masters' UK book Kingdom of Champions) was a rather dry, high-tech take on a superhero setting, Bennie's version of Canada is a mythic place; several beings, like Borealis, are technically mutants but were somehow triggered by the primal forces of the realm, usually "the Land" but sometimes "the Sea" or even "Ice." Bennie also makes frequent references to Champions Universe villain Teleios, even though he isn't a Canadian- he does however have his main base in the Canadian wilderness and uses it as a stage for his bio-experiments, which makes him a focal point for several Canada-based story ideas.
Chapter Two - The Canada Gazetteer is a mostly "real" overview of prominent things in Canada. Among other things, several areas within the contiguous borders (Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories) are territories administered by the federal government and not provinces with their own laws. And while Canada's parliamentary system allows for more than just two parties, the regional differences are oddly parallel to America: The Maritimes are economically depressed due to conditions in the fishing industry, while the western provinces, rich in oil, lumber and other resources, are experiencing an economic boom, and are the home to many who resent how their taxes are being spent back east and advocate free-market policies, to the extent of contemplating secession. (So much for the idea that conservative-to-libertarian 'nutjobs' only exist in the US.) And then of course, there's Quebec, whose special status within the system was already confirmed during the colonial period.
After this is a review of government divisions, including package deals for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (along with a 'Steelhead' powered armor suit for the RCMP to address superhuman threats), brief mention of organized crime (much of it in Vancouver), commerce, entertainment (with an explanation of the 'Canadian Content' law) and sports, including a detailed description of hockey and its "honored place in the Canadian soul," which may be even more prominent in the Quebecois culture (I despise the term 'Quebecker'). The book concludes with a necessarily brief but useful primer on "The Aboriginal World" ('aboriginal' being the academic term; Canada now refers to its Indian tribes as 'First Nations bands'). This includes brief descriptions of the main tribal bands and their shamanic beliefs, along with capsule writeups for monsters and spirits of First Nations culture, built on a "heroic" level but with notes for upgrading to a superhero level of combat.
Chapter Three - Gamemastering Canada is a GM's advice chapter for conveying the right tone of a Canadian-setting campaign. First, the author goes over some stereotypes, mainly American stereotypes, about Canada, such as whether Canada is "Socialist" and the etymology of the term "hoser." Then the book mentions certain features of a Canada campaign, including an emphasis on local color (which would probably be easier if the GM is Canadian).
Bennie also brings up a certain superhero tradition that is relevant to the Canada-America culture clash: "The first time two superheroes meet, the laws of comicdom demand that (instead of sensibly sitting down at a Tim Horton's and discussing their shared trade) they must fight tooth and nail, usually because of some misunderstanding or mistake. This tradition makes perfect sense in a comic book- when you introduce a colorfully-attired superhuman who possesses fantastic powers, you want to see him show off his powers, not his diction. But roleplaying games aren't comic books, and PCs are contrary beasts who often have little respect for tradition." So there are several reasons listed for why a Canadian or American hero would be sent to a certain location in Canada to meet up with his opposite number (ranging from extraditing a captured criminal to attending a supervillain convention), which in turn leads to reasons for why they might end up fighting, which will lead to a reconciliation once it all gets worked out. That in turn leads to three pages of scenarios: "Ten Unusual Road Trip Scenarios For Canadian Superheroes In Canada", "Ten Ways For Bad Guys To Conquer Canada" and "Ten Interesting Canadian Locations And Legends"; the last list is also good for ideas in Pulp HERO and other genres.
Chapter Four - Canada in the Champions Universe starts with the "GM's Vault" section of hooks and secret history behind the things described in the previous chapters. There are then two pages reviewing the status of major groups, namely DEMON, VIPER, and VIPER's relationship with Teleios. Then Chapter Four goes straight to writeups of major Canadian heroes and villains. The writeups include the aforementioned StarForce, Borealis (who was actually first detailed in Villainy Unbound) and Necrull, a rather grisly master villain. Several of the heroes and villains are very high-powered, and there are also a couple examples of VIPER characters and a Quebec separatist villain whom Bennie describes as equivalent to an American "hippie" radical still trying to start a revolution (of course the hippies and the Yippies weren't at all the same thing, but hey...).
SUMMARY
Take off. To the Great White North. Take off, it's a beauty way to go. Take off- you hosers.
Style: 4
Thanks to the author's prose style, anecdotes and use of local detail, Champions of the North gives a good introduction to Canada in the Champions Universe.
Substance: 4
Champions of the North is not an especially thick book, but it has just enough relevant details for starting a Canadian superhero or historical campaign.
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