Scourges Of The Galaxy is a short volume of enemies and adversaries for a Star Hero campaign. The default setting assumed is the Hero Terran Empire Setting, this is done simply to give character backgrounds some context to work from. Changing out specifics is pretty easy, and transplanting the characters themselves to another setting is also easy. The book contains about forty characters in it.
Chapter One - Master Villains. Five different master villains, and their immediate underlings, are presented here. Each one approaches the Campaign Arch Nemesis from a slightly different angle. Archimandrite Lanzol Callixtus is a good example of a villain who looks immaculate on paper, a high standing member of a planetary religious group - with a dark underbelly that controls the criminal underground and the government. His reach isn't galactic, and is probably best used as the main adversary of a Planetary Romance style campaign, as he can get into any aspect of life within his reach. He has two lieutenants and a generic follower write-up with his.
Geiger Cray is at the top level of the Mind Police in the Terran Empire, and the leader of a conspiracy to boot. This allows him to be used in two different ways, the first is simply the head of a massive Empire Wide psionic police force that can be used to chase down the PCs. Putting a face to the organization and making it a more personal threat. The second is his conspiracy, which can be the focus of an entire campaign to uncover and stop (or help!). Three of his co-conspirators are written up with him, each of various powers and danger levels.
Leopold D'Estaing is another government level master villain, only this time he's a high standing member of the Imperial Senate, from a system that was a Power before the Empire formed, and wants to become a free standing power again. The senator is also a xenophobe in the truest sense of the word. If you need someone to hound a group of alien PCs, or want to focus a campaign around groups that want to break a star empire apart into "kingdoms" again this is a good choice of top level villain. His bodyguard and personal agents are written-up with him.
King Narch is both a pirate and an ancient enemy. The Xenovores are the main enemy in the Alien Wars Setting, and in the Terran Empire Setting are nothing more than a scattered species doomed to extinction. Enter King Narch, trying to bring his species back together, and reform the Xenovore Empire, while under the banner of a pirate king. If you're playing a campaign where the PCs are members of the Empires military you can focus it on hunting down King Narch and his many followers. Three pirate captains of different motivations are written-up with him.
Tateklys is, to put it the most simply, a Plot Device master villain. He also heads up one of the Empire's most spread out and entrenched criminal organizations. You can use him either as a catalyst for adventure - since he's a bored immortal with access to time travel - or more simply as the Boss Of Bosses for the Hzeel Outfit. His bodyguard, a Hzeel Underboss and one other Hzeel are written-up to use with Tateklys.
None of the Master Villains are serious combat threats themselves, and really represent massive widespread organizations that can become the focus of an entire campaign. By the time the PCs actually get to these characters personally things are probably coming to a climax. All of them are imaginative and different enough that you could ambitiously place all of them into one campaign without any overlap.
Chapter Two - Organizations. Four organizations are presented, unlike master villains, parts of the organization could conceivably live on even if you 'cut off the head' by removing the top guy. You can use these either as the focus of entire campaigns, or easily as shorter adventures within a campaign (having remnant constantly coming back to haunt the PCs).
The Church Of The Infinite Dark, for those campaigns that want to introduce a bit of a horror element, and Things That Should Not Be, to it there is The Church. This isn't so much a single organization as a collection of organizations that have a similar veneer. Each faction is trying to bring through a particular Ancient God type being, reminiscent of Chthuloid Mythos creatures. Any given faction is a separate entity making it easy to insert the Church into a campaign for a short lived time, destroying a faction effectively removes that faction completely. Four factions each get written-up, and their specific agendas.
The Clone Mob, one of my favorite concepts from the Terran Empire setting gets fully detailed here. One man, hundreds and hundreds of bodies. The Clone Mob is a group of one man who cloned himself again and again. This is a case where cutting off the top man does nothing, because everyone is the top man. And they are everywhere. You can introduce them in one adventure, and just have them keep reappearing as a recurring villain anywhere else.
Pelga's Fist is a pirate ship. Complete with crew, this is an example of a good recurring group of villains that are on the same power level as the PCs, or just ahead of them. They could be competitors in a smugglers campaign, villains the PCs are trying to chase down in a galactic police campaign, or just a thorn in the side of the adventurers.
The Psindicate is another widespread criminal organization, this one made up of psionic criminals instead of mundane (or cloned) criminals. If you're focus is a psionic campaign this is a great organization to place into it. The entire organization is made of up cells, each controlling a specific start system, only one such cell is written up but it provides a good example of how other systems would be set up with this group. Placing them in a campaign with Geiger Cray and the PCs in the middle could make for a lot of fun.
Chapter Three - Solo Villains. This is where the book falls a little short of being a Really Great Book. There are only nine different individuals that are presented to be on the same power level, or just higher, than the PCs. Still, we get some very interesting personalities than can be used in a pretty good range of campaign types. Two of them (Lucas Bellair, Grogan Cartagena) are explorers and archaeologists, good for Pulp Science or Exploration games - Bellair especially reminds me of an Indiana Jones nemesis set in space. Four of them (Fast Eddie, Double H, Darryl Revok, Blackjack Thorson) are simply criminals of some nature; pimp, smuggler, psionic assassin, mercenary/assassin respectively. A good set of villains and one off adventures for any Sci-Fi campaign. Two more (Dr. Landau and Dr. Moreau) are good higher level villains for extended story arcs. Dr. Moreau is exactly what you would think - only scaled up for science-fiction monsters instead of man-beasts. The last Solo Villain (Lord Zorn) could easily be made into a Master Villain, and I wonder why he was placed here. He is a political villain from an Alien Empire that is neither an ally or an enemy of the Terran Empire, he could be used as a foil to a campaign involving Leopold from Chapter One, or as an arch-nemesis himself involving the alien empire.
More solo villains would probably be variations on a theme - as a good range is presented - but sometimes more of the same can be a good thing if you need NPCs to put into your campaign. Especially if you're wanting to create impromptu groups of like minded adversaries.
Overall, this is a good wide range of NPCs for a Star Hero campaign. A few nice touches in the book should be noted. First, each NPC has three plot seeds that give ideas on how to introduce the character to a campaign, or just a game session. These are standard for Hero Games NPC books and I'm glad to see they're still around. A new addition to the NPC book is the "What They Say" breakout box that most of the write-ups in the book have. These are quotes, thoughts or similar entries that give a different NPCs perspective on a character. From "galatic database entries" to commentary by other characters, it's a pretty cool little item that does a little more to bring each NPC to life.
The Downside:
As I said, the only thing I might want to add more of is Solo Villains in Chapter Three. Nine seems to be too few, but it's hard to find the balance between Just Enough and Repeating Yourself.
The Otherside:
If you need some NPCs for your Space Opera campaign this is a good collection. It's strong point is really setting up large groups or powerful enemies for full campaigns or long running story arcs, it comes up a little short on throw-away villains for a single session or two though. If you don't use the Hero System you can still easily use the book - especially the full histories and motivations of the Master Villains and Organizations.
I'd definitely recommend this collection for anyone needing some ideas or adversaries in a Star Hero campaign.
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