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Added Sharna-Gorak to Tier 2. The Atlantean Age is categorized in the store as a Fantasy Hero book, but Sharna-Gorak is relevant enough to Champions lore that he belongs on the tier list. In addition to his place in the ancient history of CU Earth, Sharna-Gorak is the one whose powers Luther Black stole. I would say characters from HG books for other genres who have a similar level of CU lore prominence belong here too. The only characters from the future I know of are from Galactic Champions, but if characters appearing in Star Hero books are tied to the CU's future they qualify for the list. On a related note, if Luther Black's ascended form as the Edomite was ever written up, that would certainly deserve a spot. He appears in a partial version of this form (he does not complete the ritual to steal the powers of the avatars of the Kings of Edom) as the final boss of CO's Demonflame adventure pack. I'm assuming that, like SD's Eidolon form, this never made a true appearance in the TTRPG. FWICT he's presented in the books as a powerful but decidedly non-combatant master manipulator who relies on his DEMON cronies like the Left Hand and Demoiselle Nocturne for direct confrontations, which is why he's not on the tier list while those two are.

Added Arvad the Betrayer to Tier 3. Has a writeup/character sheet for Sharna-Gorak been published? Based on your suggestions, I edited the OP with the follow changes: - Promoted Menton to Tier 2 - Added Hecate to Tier 2 - Added Arvad the Betrayer, Demoiselle Nocturne, Geothermal, the Left Hand, Rashindar and Taipan to Tier 3. As mentioned in the OP, individuals from teams/organizations like Viperia and Dark Seraph who are powerful combatants in their own rights qualify for the list. I'm not familiar at all with the non-Champions material published by HG. Since this topic was posted in the Champions sub-forum, I think restricting the list to characters who appear in Champions books makes sense. Or could you make the case for certain characters to be included based on some direct-ish connection they might have to Champions lore?

What would a tier list of the most powerful combatants in the sourcebooks look like? This is on the basis of power in direct battle, most personal resources included, unlike the Superhuman Survey which takes into account other factors like motivations and organizational coordination abilities (formulating and executing dastardly plots) for its threat level assessments. Allies and powerful henchmen are not taken into consideration, so the placements for characters with teams/organizations don't take into account their various compatriots. I want to focus on individuals so organizations like VIPER and teams like the Crowns of Krim are excluded, although individual members like Viperia and Dark Seraph are not. Characters like Dr. Yin Wu who mostly relies on summoning a personal army of monsters qualifies. I want to keep this restricted to characters with published writeups. There are many powerful characters, mostly cosmic/mystic entities, that are stated to be powerful on a multiversal scale, but serve more as plot devices/elements, not combatants, and most don't even have character sheets AFAIK, so I don't think including them makes much sense. Characters like the Four Zoas, Chrono, Lord Entropy, Mortalus, etc. will therefore not be included. This also goes for characters from Earth that are stated to be very powerful but never got writeups published for them, like Vanguard and Hyperion. I'm only familiar with some 5E and 6E material, so characters from prior editions that never got updated do not appear. Champions 5E and 6E taken together seem to form the established modern setting and continuity of the CU, so let's restrict it to this canon. If there are any characters from 5E/6E that deserve placements, don't hesitate to bring them up. The listings within tiers are not ranked. As a CO player who is, at least for now, only interested in the lore of the sourcebooks (and of course I only have a few of the many that HG has published), I'm not that familiar with the TTRPG and how these characters would perform in actual gameplay. This tier list is really just something I threw together to get the ball rolling and hopefully experienced, knowledgeable players can chime in to iron out the kinks and add characters I missed or am unaware of. I also haven't looked over all the character writeups thoroughly, so there's bound to be some over/underestimations. Champions NPC Power Tier List Tier 1 Astron the Living Asteroid Belt, Galaxars with character sheets (namely the Examiner, Lawbringer and Warmonger from Champions Beyond), Istvatha V'han, Mechanon 3000, Skarn the Shaper, Tyrannon the Conqueror, Xarriel Tier 2 Dr. Destroyer, Dr. Yin Wu, The Dragon Incarnate (from the Mystic World, true form would be Tier 1), Hecate, Mechanon, Menton, Shadow Destroyer, Sharna-Gorak, Takofanes, Tezcatlipoca ("avatar" character sheet presented in CV3, would likely be Tier 1 at full power), Vulshoth (weakened state presented in Arcane Adversaries, would be Tier 1 at full power) Tier 3 Arthon, Arvad the Betrayer, Black Paladin, Borealis, Bromion, Celestar, Dark Seraph, Demoiselle Nocturne, the Drifter, Eclipsar, Firewing, Galaxia, Geothermal, Gravitar, Holocaust, Incubus, Josiah Brimstone, Kigatilik, Kinematik, the Left Hand, Li Chun the Destroyer, Mordace, Necrull, Rashindar, Shadow Queen, Sovereign (Galactic Champions), Sunburst, Supernova (GC), Tetsuronin (Champions Worldwide), Taipan, Therakiel (as presented in the Vibora Bay sourcebook, seems to be more powerful in CO), Valak the World-Ravager (weakened state presented in CV3, would likely be Tier 2 or 1 if restored to full power), Viperia, The Warlord Notes: - It definitely feels like I could be over/underestimating entries in Tier 3. Some of the listings might make you go "If he/she made it, X should be there too." Could move some entries up to Tier 2 and/or remove some from Tier 3 to tighten it up. - At first glance, one might think this is a tier list of CU villains, but there are a few heroes, all in the last tier. There are multiple reasons for this, such as players needing more villains than they need allies for campaign purposes, the need for villains powerful enough to challenge entire teams and instigate crisis-level threats, NPC heroes are designed such that they don't overshadow PCs who might want to be made the greatest heroes in their campaign world, etc. I also might not have access to sourcebooks with other powerful NPC hero writeups. - An official writeup has never been published for Vanguard, but based on descriptions he was probably Tier 2. Hyperion would likely be in Tier 3. - Eclipse (Kim Culhane) from CV3 is built on over 2000 points and is designed to steal the powers of other superhumans. It seems like she could potentially be in Tier 3 if she were to absorb/steal the abilities of a powerful enough target, but her dependence on such targets, potential inefficient use of powers due to unfamiliarity and the requirement for the powers to be innate/natural have convinced me to exclude her from the list. The same reasoning applies to Echo from GC. - I really wanted to include Grond in Tier 3 but CV3 says he's meant to be just "cannon fodder" for a tough fight. He also has some glaring weaknesses and shortcomings. Based on his sheet, I think he would fit into a Tier 4 if there was one but way too many characters would probably qualify for that tier, some with better claims for it.

I know, you must not have seen this comment I posted afterwards.

If all of my suggestions above were to be included in similar capacities, the book would pretty much become Tokusatsu Hero. Tokusatsu is the technique-cum-genre encompassing live action movies/series featuring kaiju, mecha and Japan's unique brand of superheroes. All three can overlap in a given tokusatsu show. Outside of Japan, tokusatsu's super robots (as opposed to real robots) and superheroes have much less prominence than kaiju, which have experienced a modest rise in popularity in recent years. There's probably a decent amount of interest in "realistic" mechs, too. Given that this is the case, I would suggest: 1) Writing a good deal of material for kaiju, a moderate amount for realistic mechs (since this could be a book of its own) and maybe throw in a small segment for super robots and tokusatsu superheroes. 2) Designing the setting for kaiju-centric campaigns while including suggestions for modifying this setting to accommodate the inclusion of the other stuff, to varying degrees and combinations. Super robots and tokusatsu heroes could probably be excluded entirely without losing much, if any, potential interest. Most HS players would probably prefer to use Champions-style supers anyway and already have enough material to transplant. Still, there's the chance that a not-insignificant portion of HS players are fond of super robots like Voltron and Transformers and/or flashy heroes like the Power Rangers, so the inclusion of such material might get some appreciation. In a small capacity, it certainly wouldn't hurt either.

For CO players who want to dig deeper into the lore, your threads are a boon and could get some of them, like myself, interested enough in the source material to check out the TTRPG system and sourcebooks. But, to be honest, I'm more drawn to the lore than I am to the actual RPG. Especially the cosmic lore, which distinguishes itself from other superhero setting cosmologies with its esoteric sources of inspiration like the Kabbalah and William Blake's poetry. Props to the writers who managed to flesh out such a complex world structure while keeping things just ambiguous enough to imbue it with a sense of mystery.

A Kaiju Hero book could include: - Kaiju, of course. - Mecha kaiju, naturally. - Heroes like Ultraman who grow to giant size and fight rampaging kaiju. - Heroes like the Super Sentai/Power Rangers who pilot giant robots to fight kaiju. - Benevolent kaiju like Gamera (as he eventually became) and sometimes Godzilla. - Heroes (and villains) who can transform into kaiju (the recent Kaiju No. 8 manga, and even more recent anime, is an example of this). - Maybe an alternate universe Japan setting where kaiju are very common and the country has adapted to life with kaiju. This could mean fortifying cities due to regular kaiju attacks, as well as accommodating friendly kaiju and people who can become kaiju as they coexist with the rest of the population. Just some suggestions.

You asked this question in another thread, but I'll reiterate that Champions is the superhero genre setting designed to be played with the Hero System. There are others, like Fantasy Hero and Star Hero, designed for running campaigns in other genres using the Hero System. If you want one book that probably has everything you need to start playing a basic superhero campaign, Champions Complete might be what you're looking for:

Hi, Liaden. I've seen some of your posts on the Champions Online forums! The playerbase (and devs) are fortunate to have a lore expert like you to convey the wealth of information found in the sourcebooks, especially the good deal that was never adapted to CO. I personally found that the most interesting lore was barely touched on, or not mentioned at all, by CO and their adaptation of the Qliphoth really didn't do the place justice. The Qliphothic Horrors group of enemies aren't much different from generic infernals and their take on the Shining Darkness as representing the entirety of the Qliphoth robs the place of much of its mystique and true horror. Your thread on the Qliphoth and the strange creatures that dwell in it is a great resource for those interested in learning more about the true Tree of Death. This makes a lot of sense. Beings who originate from Briah might not be all that interested in the goings on of the lower realities, at least not enough to directly interfere with what transpires down there. But if they were former denizens of Assiah, like an Ascended Progenitor, then their attachment to their former home reality might sometimes draw them back to it. And beings with the power and knowledge to ascend to a higher reality would really have nowhere else to go, given that Yetzirah would probably seem rather mundane to such an entity since it doesn't take all that much effort to access the Astral World. Still, I think the Gods Celestial could be a mix of such ascendant beings and natives of Briah. Those originating from Briah might be more likely to interact with the material plane "whenever whimsy takes to them" like capricious gods who sometimes enjoy toying with lesser beings and get a kick out of the events they can set into motion. Their lack of connection to Assiah could lead them to develop such an impersonal attitude towards its denizens. Then you have the ascendants who are more likely to appear when a crisis threatens a part of the material plane to which they have some kind of sentimental attachment. Given their ambiguous nature, Gods Celestial of either origin could have these or any other reason for showing up in Assiah (and even Yetzirah, if they felt like it). The sentients of the material plane would probably not have the knowledge to differentiate between them, especially given how mysterious and sparse their appearances are, and would only know as much as any individual of the Gods Celestial is willing to share, which likely isn't much at all. This could mean the term Gods Celestial is a classification for such immeasurably powerful entities that, to our knowledge, do not belong to any other known cosmic groups. It might even include individuals of unrelated origins, such as beings who are neither ascendants to nor natives of Briah, making Gods Celestial a blanket term for unidentified nigh-omnipotent entities. Your speculations are more than welcome, and I'm quite interested in reading them myself! If another meaty sourcebook is ever published, however unlikely this prospect may seem now, your involvement would benefit it greatly. I should also mention that page 122 of Galactic Champions isn't the only place they've been mentioned, as I just noticed they were included in Champions Beyond on page 48. The two paragraphs remain mostly the same (the second paragraph is slightly altered, but without any new information), except for the addition of the following sentence at the end of the first paragraph: "If they have motivations and personalities, they are not apparent (or at best can be glimpsed only dimly) by lesser species such as Humans." I guess that counts as an expansion on the concept, even if it is just another statement on their enigmatic nature. At least we know they're still relevant to the latest edition of the CU. A small oversight that I'm glad I caught myself.

You can find character sheets for Marvel and DC characters in the Downloads section.

The Gods Celestial are briefly mentioned in Galactic Champions (hey, they have the same initials!) as mysterious entities who are powerful beyond measure and hold the status of gods worshipped by the gods themselves. I find the concept of such entities very intriguing and, to make it even more tantalizing, we get all of two paragraphs vaguely describing them on page 122 of GC. Presumably, the idea behind this ambiguity was to give players the explicit freedom to shape the Gods Celestial as they see fit to suit their own campaigns. It's one of those "something that's there if you want to use it" pieces of lore that also adds a layer of mystery to the cosmology of the CU. So, I think I get the idea behind the Gods Celestial and the purpose of their seemingly cursory inclusion in GC, but it got me wondering, have there been any expansions upon the concept in other Champions sourcebooks? As far as I know, these two paragraphs are the single instance of them ever having been mentioned. Maybe there's another book I haven't read where they show up in more detail? Have any of the authors presented explanations for them elsewhere? If they haven't been mentioned at all in 6e books, which seems like it might be the case, they might have been so unimportant as to have been intentionally removed from the cosmology or simply forgotten. Here's my first interpretation of their place in CU cosmology. Given that the Gods Celestial are worshipped by gods, which I assume refers to the deities of the Imaginal Realms and possibly cosmic beings like Galaxars and even Corelords, I suppose they could originate from Briah. One might think they could be aspects/avatars in the material plane of named entities like the Four Zoas, the Trickster, Kryptos, etc., but the text states that "each is an individual, with his own form and powers." This leads me to believe they are lesser Brialic entities, below the Prime Avatars and other powerful archetypal entities like Death, and perhaps denizens of the domains of such entities, who have some degree of free will. That's just one possible explanation that could be used for a hypothetical cosmic campaign. They could also "simply" be the next step above Corelords in the Assiatic hierarchy, as beings responsible for controlling/monitoring/observing their respective dimensions and who might also take occasional trips to the dimensions of their fellow Dimension Lords (or whatever you might call such beings). Sort of like a more laidback version of the Monitors from the old 52 DC multiverse, since they reveal "themselves to lesser beings only in times of great crisis or when whimsy takes them." If you've used them in your campaigns, how did you go about fleshing them out (if at all)?