Credits

aka 'Who's to Blame?'

History

Here There Be Monsters is an offshoot of Demon Hunter: FBI, whose original form appeared in print as a Haymaker! APAzine submission many years ago (Issue 21), and later cleaned up a bit and re-printed in EZ HERO (Issue 10). Inspired by diverse sources ranging from Beyond the Supernatural, movies like The First Power, and the X-Files, Demon Hunter: FBI was focused on super gritty street level crime and violence with a supernatural twist.

The original content was developed over a weekend by Killer Shrike and T-Rossi and then fleshed out over the course of a campaign run by T-Rossi. The two original characters were Special Agent in Charge Jeff Chen played by Killer Shrike, and the Suppressor Special Agent Jared Kole played by Shad aka Shazoey.

The campaign and setting flourished and was further detailed over a couple of long adventure arcs, but then stopped as we turned our attention to other games.

Some others used the material for their own spin off games, most notably a version Dave Mattingly published as an EZ HERO article, re-interpretting Demon Hunter: FBI into the form of a TV show pilot with characters as portrayed by real actors. A more comic turn, this approach still captured the essense of the material and was at the very least a creative and amusing riff.

Fast forward a number of years, Urban Fantasy is quite popular in media. After reading the Monster Hunter International books WilyQ expressed interest in playing a campaign either based on or inspired by the books. Killer Shrike decided to take a broader approach and revive the Demon Hunter: FBI material but with a focus on the larger setting and on freelance Hunters rather than on FBI Agents.

Rather than do all the work himself, Killer Shrike instead turned to the HERO System Forums and invited interested parties to collaborate on the project. Many participated in the ongoing discussion and gave feedback, but a few stepped up with significant contributions that shaped the growth and improved the quality of the Here There Be Monsters content.

Both Manic Typist and The Rose contributed iconics, as well as insights into cool concepts and the early growth of the setting.

5lippers contributed the core of The Trouble With Banshees vignette.

Panpiper contributed a large fraction of the available iconics, somewhere around 1/3, the entirety of the Zombie Apocalypse vignette, and a tremendous amount of design feedback, error checking, errata, and critique across all the Here There Be Monsters content.