Black Chapter is a companion book to Vigilance Press' previous book the Oktobermen, but doesn't require you to own both to use this product. This book presents a mystic powered "response team".
It was written by Jack Norris (who contributed to the DC Heroes & Villains books, Emerald City Knights #4, Threat Reports compilation and Threat Reports for Ku Tu the Immortal and the Jade Spider), and was illustrated by Alex Williamson, Jesse Justice, Denise Jones and James Dawsey. It was edited by Nathan Kahler, and the art direction and graphic design was done by Ruben Byrd.
First thing that I noticed was the cover art, which I think is great. The art through out the book is well done, and carries out through out the entire book.
The writing is very well done, and there are many literary "easter eggs" or references presented through out the book (some not as noticeable on the first pass, such as the names of the weapons that the agents provided at the end of the book use, I hadn't noticed them on my first pass through, until they were pointed out to me), with my favorite reference being the quote provided by Tale Spinner!
I have learned that Jack Norris wanted to revisit the idea of the Oktobermen, and attempt to put a different spin on some of the characters in the Oktobermen (one example I can give with certainty is the Literay Magic used by Tale Spinner of the Black Chapter and Book Binder of the Oktobermen). I was surprised (in a good way!) to see that they were both similar in some aspects, but that their main power arrays were very different.
The book is a self-described "building book", meaning that it is easily portable into any existing setting/campaign with minimal effort. The book provides an organization, The Library which is a mystic storage/retrieval organization, which is an specifically labeled as good or evil, so it gives flexibility in using it. It goes on with the history of the organization, and gives some notable examples of "branches" of the Library that can be used as written, or as a model for your own game. To go along with this, features and equipment that a Library member could/would use are also provided.
The next section is the actual team of characters section. This has such information as team dynamics, which is helpful in fleshing out how the members of the Black Chapter actually interact with each other. This is somewhat similar to the flowchart that was in the Oktobermen, but there is no chart for the Black Chapter. This information could provide use to a GM who isn't familiar with the group, but wanted to use them in their own game.
It then goes into team tactics and sub-team make up for the Black Chapter. I really liked this, and the literary inspired names for each sub-team. As stated, it gives different tactics and strategies that each team could use and which members of Black Chapter would be suggested for different missions (i.e., diplomatic missions would have a different team structure than an assault mission). This gives the Black Chapter more uses than just the "bad guy of the week", but allows them to be a recurring ally/enemy, and provides for different usages.
The book also provides several different adventures hook ideas, and even another villain to use. The characters themselves have several different "built-in" hooks that are left intentionally vague so that players and GMs could build off the members of the Black Chapter, either as other characters or adventure plots. Caballero is an example of a "hook" that players could use, as it gives "companion" weapon ideas to his main weapon/power. And the character of Tower, an example of a literary vampire, provides a possible link to using Dracula himself (which would also relate to the Threat Reports pdf if one was interested in using him).
The team itself has a good mixture of power levels, allowing a more versatile use of the Black Chapter as heroes progress in power levels. The team itself also has a good balance of very different power structures and concepts, so none of the members of the Black Chapter feel redundant. The team members have a leader, who is a reincarnating sphinx, a swordsman who wields a magically created sword (and is linked to 6 other similar weapons), a "literal" vampire, a dragon in a human body, a yeti monk (who I like to refer to as the ninja yeti!), an alchemically transformed, psychotic powerhouse, the literary mage, an arachnid inspired infiltrator, and the team's secret weapon, an immortal, crazed monk.
Also provided are some Black Chapter specific standees at the back of the book, and the hero lab .por files are also provided. The only "negative" thing that I personally could find between the book and the hero lab files are that the character portraits and information were not put into the hero lab files, but that's just being picky at this point.
The Black Chapter is also an organization that can be used with the Oktobermen, as the back story of the Black Chapter is linked to some of the Oktobermen, but this does not mandate that you need to use both together.
Overall, Black Chapter is very good stand alone product, but is also a very good companion to the Oktobermen.
I would give the Black Chapter an overall rating of 5 stars. The layout and presentation is superb, the artwork (especially the cover) is great, the character design is excellent (with some being based on literary characters), and the writing is very well done as well.
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