Hero Club is an immersive D and D actual play anthology series created and hosted by Nick Williams and George Primavera. Each self-contained story arc is called a season, and usually have wildly different genres. Beyond their podcast works, they have done live play campaigns on their Twitch channel. Besides George and Nick, regular cast performers have included associate producer Dylan McCollum, associate producer and series artist Marty Abbe-Schneider, series composer Matthew McCollum, and Jack Quaid. They also have brought on special guests, such as Matthew Mercer, Nolan North, Karen Fukuhara, and P. J. Byrne.
Their podcast content consists of:
- It Never Sleeps: A Hank Blackstone Mystery: a Fantastic Noir Cosmic Horror story released in March 2018. Set in an alternate 1920's New York City, Hank Blackstone and Big Charlie "Chuck" LaPorta own a magic shop by day, and are P.I.s of the unexplainable by night. Hank might be a good shot and Chuck is a rock golem, but the case given to them by the Museum of Natural History throws them into a mystery beyond any they've faced.
- Adversary: a Weird West action/horror story released in July 2018. Christian preacher Elias Craig, demon hunter Mary-Elizabeth "Ember" Craig, and gunslinging outlaw Jeremiah "The Gentleman" Finch are chosen by God Himself to band together, and kill Satan.
- Santa's Little Helpers: a Christmas themed action story released in December 2018. Set in 1960's America, an elite team of toys are sent on a mission by Santa himself. Alpha Team Tinsel- tin soldier Cuthbert Buchanan, marionette milkmaid Helga Attentater, toy robot S.W.A.P.R., and teddy bear Tiberius "Tubs" Huggins (TM)- have to find Timmy Calloway, nice list child who's vanished on Christmas Eve
- Here There Be Monsters: a Swashbuckling pirate tale released in April 2019. It follows Captain Drake Muldoon and his daring crew. The world is one of anthropomorphic animals, similar to works like Redwall. Drake the otter, Bastien the elephant, Lilia the spider monkey, and Vivien the mouse steal treasure and stay one step ahead of the Empire of Emporia's navy, but stumble upon a cursed prize that puts them in the crosshairs of dark forces.
- The Rift Rats: A two-fisted tale sci-fi tale released in August 2019. Set in the future of 2219, after Earth becomes a member of the Galactic Coalition of Civilizations. Outlaws Reagan Cross and "C. B." Cheeseburgers (yes, that's his name) get captured and given a offer they can't refuse: serve decades for their crimes, or take on a GCC escort, investigate a strange space-time rift, and save the GCC soldier who vanished into it: Reagan's sister.
- The Wild Hunt: a Supernatural Horror tale, released in October 2019. Set in 1930's Virginia, following Sheriff John B. Darrow's raid of Barlowe Reed's bootlegging operation. Things take a dark turn in the aftermath, and the pair of former friends have to band together for a chance to survive the supernatural threat.
- O Holy Knights: a Christmas themed Fantasy season released in December 2019. Young child Adelle Little must seek out the help of the Yuletide Knights to save the vanished citizens of her town before Christmas arrives.
- Paid Back In Spades: A Hank Blackstone Mystery: a Fantastical Noir Cosmic Horror sequel season to It Never Sleeps, released in March 2020. Hank and Charlie are continuing to investigate the dark horrors in the shadows, but a past ally goes missing and the case brings back some old threats bent on revenge.
- Pom Pom Bloodbath 3: Killer Dismount: a B-movie styled Slasher Horror episode released in October 2020. Set in 1987 Ohio, the Bobcats cheer team's fall break goes wrong, as their venue brings them all into the territory of the Red Bend Slasher.
- The City of Mirrors: a globe-spanning Action/Adventure tale released in April 2021. Set in an alternate 1909, disgraced English explorer Sir Theobald Darringcroft assembles an international team, to embark on a quest to save his name and find the fabled City of Mirrors.
- Johnny Pineapples In: Trouble on Vacation Island: a Fantasy/Comedy episode released in December 2021. When Johnny Pineapples, satyr and famed resort owner hears his nemesis has risen from the dead, he has no choice but to send four of his employees to face him down and serve him a cease and desist.
- Brand's Bargain: a Swashbuckling prequel season to Here There Be Monsters, released in March 2022. Infamous Emporian navy captain Wayland Brand saves some of the world's most dangerous criminals from their death sentences, to press-gang them into the most dangerous hunt of their lives
- ClusterMuck: a violent Action/Sci-fi season set in the same universe of Rift Rats, released in August 2022. Inspired by the work of Quentin Tarantino, the planet of Aromatica is a grimy place of dark deeds, and a epic conflict begins once the solution to everyone's problems lands in one of its backwater swamps.
- Chains of Atlantis: an Action/Adventure sequel season to The City of Mirrors released in February 2024. Sir Darringcroft and his team have managed to find The Lost City of Atlantis, but they find something within that threatens to rip the team apart and doom them all.
- Members Only: a behind-the-scenes podcast that first released in 2021, and transitioned to their Patreon in 2024. The show creators talk about their work, interview cast members, and sometimes play a chaotic one-off adventure with their guests.
Their live-play Twitch campaigns are:
- King of Tides: a swashbuckling tale in the world of Here There Be Monsters and Brand's Bargain. Released in 2021, and concluded on Sept 16th, 2022
- PairOfSocksLost: a Fantasy tale based on fairy tales and the D and D 5th Edition adventure The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. Released in November 2022.
Hero Club's website, Youtube channel, and Twitch channel can be found here[1]
, here[2], and here [3]. Hero Club also collaborates with the D and D 5th Edition homebrew group Mage Hand Press, who can be found here [4]
Unmarked spoilers ahead!
Hero Club contains examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: O Holy Knights has Sir Oren the Peaceful, Sir Dane the Good, Lady Holly the Joyful, and Grumplinus the Harsh. It also has Lady Holly's steed Goosey, Sir Oren's animal companions Beth the moose and Dave the bear, and Grumplinus's greed troll minon, Kevin.
- Big Eater: Sir Oren from O Holy Knights, and Jade Pickett from The City of Mirrors and Chains of Atlantis. Sir Oren eats whole hams regularly, and was caught by a plate of meat under a box and a stick trap when we first meet him. Jade wolfs down all Theobald's food every time she gets a chance, and when she has a fairly small but expensive meal during an important meeting in Chains of Atlantis, she eats her food, Theo's, and another guest's portion!
- Character Catchphrase:
- Cuthbert Buchanan: "Buchanan!", shouted whenever he charges into battle or performs a daring deed, which is often.
- Theobald Darringcroft: "This is, without a doubt, my favorite part", said whenever something exciting or adventurous happens. Planning an ambush, fighting off villains, solving mysteries, doing a rousing speech, etc.
- The only time he subverts it is in the aftermath of the expedition in Chains of Atlantis, when he's badly hurt, cursed with horrible visions that won't let him sleep, and his team's broken up in large part because of his actions
Theobald Darringcroft: [exhausted, staring up at a cloudy sky in his bed] The morning after a grand adventure. Dividing up the spoils, seeing the team off... This used to be my favorite part.- Jeremiah Finch: "As the tailor said to the naked man, suit your fucking self."
- Gorn: Excluding the many examples in their horror material, George and his players often describe messy violence and the sound effects used can be visceral. A housecat foe in Santa's Little Helpers gets its nose badly cut, Flintbeak from Brand's Bargain bleeds and electrocutes himself whenever he uses his powers, and Rift Rats has an alien bloodsport fight that the heroes win by blasting holes in their opponents or ripping a hole in a giant creature's throat
- ClusterMuck has more examples than many other seasons, with characters getting blown up, shot, and stabbed in great detail. Phil, a Valdivian mercenary, dies by getting messily eaten by the Snapdragon and its children, a huge dragon turtle combination. Another Valdivian named Glyph also uses its psychic powers to make a Delilah McGurk see a moving, talking vision of her brother Dirk's corpse during a fight, and the results of his fatal fan-blade accident are not glossed over.
- House Rules: George and Nick have used material from Mage Hand Press on the show such as classes, races, magic items, and used their supplement books High Seas, Weird West and Dark Matter as inspiration for seasons. George also uses a severity table to figure out how badly a natural one "botch" roll turns out.
- It's Personal: In The Wild Hunt Barlow Reed chooses to go after the the Talbot gang for killing and turning his son Miles into a werewolf. Sherriff John B. goes along with it for the same reason, as well as the fact werewolf Miles killed his deputy Saul Tucker.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Rift Rats's King Thor's-beard-ravens-wolf. His name involves Norse myths and powerful mystical animals, and rules over all Plutonians. These aliens eat and might be made of plutonium, snort giant killer insects for fun, and routinely kill and enslave people they come across. He also captains a very big and powerful spaceship, and is an arch-enemy of the Flash Gordon-like hero, Bravus Boss
- Our Demons are Different: Silas and Sidecar Soup. They are called demons from the underworld in It Never Sleeps, and are shown reassembling their bodies after being brutally "killed". They and their names also appear in other seasons of wildly different times and places like the Wild West, Montana circa 1910, in a space ship in 2219, and even as birds in Here There Be Monsters. They usually keep their personalities as two vaudeville performers trying to put on an improv performance, likely under the influence of drugs. Each time they appear, their last name is spelled differently, from Soup, Sciouxp, Sooulp, Zoop, to Swoop (with a silent W).
- Overly Long Name: It Never Sleeps and Paid Back In Spades: Count Jessica Michelangelo Aldus Vanderhorn.
- The City of Mirrors and Chains of Atlantis: Sir Theobald Cedric Plimpton Darringcroft.
- Retirony: Played for Laughs with the cabbie in It Never Sleeps. As he drives Hank, Chuck, and Professor Courtland to a potential crime scene, he announces they are his last fare after 25 years. He then says he wants to make up for lost time with his wife and 6 kids, and shows a family photo. He also mentions his first thing to do tomorrow is get his will notarized, as his family gets nothing if it isn't. He spends his time parked outside thinking aloud of ways to make the world better, like how to keep plastics out of the ocean and use wind power over coal. When the team chases the monster they find outside, it attacks the cabbie, and his last words before it rips out his eyes and hands are him failing to say his full name and social security number.
- Shout-Out: ClusterMuck draws from the work of Quentin Tarantino, and includes things like a goblin gang called "The Unkillable 8", and has violent mercenaries fighting over a mysterious box with something valuable within like Pulp Fiction.
- Some Call Me "Tim": Skillet from Adversary. His actual name is Erasmus Jessop Lindsey Stillman, but Skillet is easier for people to say and references his amazing cooking abilities.
- Sophisticated as Hell: Jeremiah "The Gentleman" Finch. He got his nickname because he enjoys using large words and long sentences, wearing fashionable clothes, and a good bourbon. He also swears often, especially when angry or insulting people he doesn't like.Jeremiah Finch: [Holding some unexpected guests to his home at gunpoint] Well, why don't y'all come inside, nice and copacetic-like with your hands held fast where I can gaze upon them so you may elucidate an old man over a drop of bourbon on the particulars of your visit, this auspicious fucking morn!
- The Stinger: Nearly every episode of Hero Club ends with a short scene. It's usually a blooper from the episode, like a flubbed line reading.
- Too Dumb to Live: The Deputy in Killer Dismount's introduction. When investigating an abandoned government medical facility, at night, by himself, he goes through a door that's clearly been barricaded. He also doesn't see "God Have Mercy On Our Souls" written in blood on a wall, and a bunch of strung up corpses literally dripping with maggots in a later room. While he lives longer than his sheriff, the Red Bend Slasher kills him fairly quickly.
