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Due Vigilance- Black Chapter $10.99
Average Rating:4.9 / 5
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Due Vigilance- Black Chapter
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Due Vigilance- Black Chapter
Publisher: Vigilance Press
by David F. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/12/2014 18:46:31

Another great product from Vigilance Press!

I got the Black Chapter after I bought the Oktobermen. I enjoy the characters and like how they are linked to the Oktobermen.

The Library section is a great source for creating an 'agency' that the characters can work with or against, depending on how you use the book.

More Hero Lab files! Always a bonus... Just wish they had put the artwork into the Hero Lab files and completed the Personal Tabs.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Due Vigilance- Black Chapter
Publisher: Vigilance Press
by DT B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/07/2013 16:47:16

Looking for something a bit different? Look no further. Black Chapter gives off a nice "B.P.R.D. meets Midnight Sons, with a dash of The Librarian" vibe. Each character is well presented with a great background, well rendered art and a clean graphic design that makes it appealing to the eye. The Library, as an organization, can easily be adapted as Patron or Hunter with few tweaks, and the inclusion of the organization's basic information (including rules for benefits, locales, and some gear) makes this PDF a steal at 10.99! If you haven't gotten it yet, do yourself a favor and snag a copy!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Due Vigilance- Black Chapter
Publisher: Vigilance Press
by Marc P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/03/2013 08:00:25

Last year I reviewed the first product in the Due Vigilance line The Oktobermen. Within that was mention of a organization dedicated to sequestering dangerous magics known as the Library. Well Black Chapter picks up on that and provides a high level overview of the Library and then dives deep for a character portfolio of Black Chapter, the Library's top "wet works" team. These guys are the ones who go after the worst of the worst, the most dangerous of the dangerous.

After the cover and credits we jump right into a brief history of the Library and the Special Collections branch. This covers three pages plus two more to stat out the director of Special Collections. The text here is good providing a well planned out high level overview of the organization while leaving plenty of room for GM interpretation to fit the Library into their games. I found this especially useful as it will allow a person to place the group into their game as they see fit without needing to make wholesale edits. In the case of RPG setting expansions like this less can often be more.

After this we get directly into the core of the book: Black Chapter. We get two pages that run down through the group's dynamics and tactics (as well as sub-groups that are commonly deployed for specific mission types), followed by eight members of Black Chapter (or maybe seven members and one provisional member). Each character is given two pages including a portrait, background write-up, and a fully rendered character build. Those characters include:

• Cabaellero - a young man guided by Fate and wielding a mystic sword • Elizabeth Tower - a woman who has a score to settle with the Oktobermen's Bookbinder • Lockleann Sheeramanneth - the spirit of a dragon locked within the body of a (possibly?) brain dead young woman • Mirka - an enlightened yeti armed with mastery of martial arts • Sister Hyde - an alchemist with a dark side • Talespinner - the resident mage, who's powers are all tied into books • Weaver - a disciple of an Arachne worshiping cult on loan to the Library as a "consultant" of sorts • The Mad Monk - a former member of the library who is now an inmate and a weapon of last resort

That's fourteen full pages and eight fully detailed and usable characters all with art (nine if you count the write up of Special Collections direction Oracle Sphinx). Generally the artwork is on the good to great side, though I did feel that Weaver's simple bodysuit clashed with the more "layered" and complex wardrobe of the other characters. Their write ups all present thoughtful and thematically strong power sets often with a number of interestingly built powers.

The last eight pages are given over to four pages of story hooks and second tier characters, two pages of standees for use at your table (if that's your thing), and then the OGL and a back cover.

Closing Thoughts With strong artwork, solid writing, and well designed and executed characters Black Chapter is a very solid mini-expansion if you are looking to deepen the supernatural and magical communities of your game's setting. The premise is well wrought and even if (like myself) you find that the character's are too high a PL for your own use (without modification) the Library and its plots and sub-groups will serve well as a launch-pad for more PL-appropriate allies, or foils, for your characters.

Rating: 90% - A solid third party offering for games featuring a more supernatural bent.

Author's note: A review copy of the product was provided to me by Vigilance Press for the purposes of this review.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Due Vigilance- Black Chapter
Publisher: Vigilance Press
by Jae C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/03/2012 15:03:44

I first got interested in the Library when I was listening to Vigilance Press' podcasts of Beacon City and began to think how I'd use the concept in my own game... However this is even better than I thought it would be. What you get is some excellent and well-written characters, nice illustrations, a full set of hero lab files and a set of cardboard figures. The concept of The Library is well thought out with plenty of adventure hooks. The characters are interesting and look fun (there is some nice humour too - Talespinner's blurb "I suppose I could have used Fifty Shades of Grey, but there are regulations against that sort of unnecessary cruelty…" sort of sums it up for me.

Overall this is a fun addition to your M&M game, especially if you like the idea of having a mystical thread running through your whole campaign - there is enough vagueness to allow for easy adaption to most campaigns, the gismo's are well thought out and actually beneficial (Communications by library card anyone?) the background elements are sufficiently universal and the characters gathered from a number of nations that it will easy slot in whether you're running a campaign set in America, Britain or Estonia.

In my personal campaign, welcome to the Library of St Catherine's located in the Stacks deep beneath the British Library... Overall it's already one of my favourite add-ons and I can't recommend it enough.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Due Vigilance- Black Chapter
Publisher: Vigilance Press
by Eric D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/01/2012 10:48:45

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.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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