Editing Hollow Earth Expedition (section)

==The Books==
So far, HEX has five books and one booklet. All of them are currently out of print and reach astronomical prices, so be warned if you want to get your hands on the game in paper format. PDFs are readily available, both in shop stock and ready to pirate. The books are:

*''Hollow Earth Expedition: Pulp Adventure Roleplaying'': HEX's Corebook. Does the obvious thing of introducing the rules and character creation, has a bestiary, sample NPCs, and a solid variety of equipment. Gives insight in the broader strokes of the Hollow Earth as an adventure setting, as well as painting a picture of what the surface world looks like in 1936. It touches on a few secret organizations as potential adversaries.
** It came with a reprint, but unfortunately, it is in a different format, which messes up the page count, not aligning with the original print and the PDF version. It's also with a soft, paper-back cover, looking like a novel.
*''HEX: Addendum'': A booklet originally sold with official GM screen that covers alternative rules for combat order - Continuous Combat - that are only alluded to in the main book. Continuous Combat allows to flip the game into more "tactical" approach, replacing traditional initiative order into fluid speed counter, where faster characters and attacks can not only move first, but get their next move sooner than slower people. This in turn makes melee and martial arts far more viable and also allowing to disrupt more powerful attacks and spells that take aim/focus/extra time.
*''Secrets of the Surface World'': Splatbook that expands heavily on, as the name implies, things relating to the surface world of Earth and how they can interact with the PCs. SotSW introduces new character options and delves much more deeply into secret organizations like the Terra Arcana and the Thule Society. It has a pretty impressive expansion on vehicles and equipment, too, including a neat section of weaponry that specifically divides guns up according to which surface world military they are standard issue for. This book also introduces (finally) rules for psychic powers, sorcery, and mad science.
** This expansion is pretty much a must-have if you plan to play the game for the pulp and not the ultra-specific, super-narrow Hollow Earth setting. It also delves into various game mechanics that the source book barely mentions, so even if you stick to the prescribed setting, you should still read it anyway.
*''Perils of the Surface World'': A book containing four adventure modules that can all be linked together into an overarching story or used individually. The real reason to bother aren't the scenarios (they aren't bad, but barely hide what they've ripped off), but the sub-chapters ending each of them, as they supplement existing and add various new mechanics for martial arts, horror vibes, magic rituals etc. So if you are playing someone else than members of Challenger's expedition, you will need it.
*''Mysteries of the Hollow Earth'': Focuses much more on the Hollow Earth itself, introducing mechanics for playing as Hollow Earth natives, namely cargo cultists and Amazons. More prominently, MotHE intros playing as various beastman races (apemen, lizardmen, hawkmen, and a few more. [[Beastmen|Not these guys]]). Oh, and also [[Amazon|women]]. Beyond that, MotHE delves into some new locations inside the Hollow Earth, including El Dorado and even Atlantis itself. Includes rules for creating magic artifacts and expands the bestiary, as well.
*''Revelations of Mars'': Hollow Earth Expedition IN SPACE. Puts a planetary romance spin on HEX, a la Barsoom. Alongside describing potential ways to get to Mars, RoM shows us what Mars looks like and it ain't pretty, like putting John Carter on fucking [[Dark Sun|Athas]]; [[Grimdark|the planet is dying, the last bastions of civilization are squabbling city-states driven by slave labor, and you're probably going to bleed out in the Martian desert or a gladitorial arena before accomplishing anything meaningful]]. We learn a great machine (creatively called the Great Machine), is a terraforming device that makes Mars habitable but it's failing and has been slowly doing so for centuries. The book introduces several alien races, most notably the dheva, who are pretty much human but have four arms, green skin, a [[Slaanesh|penchant for hedonism]], and a [[PROMOTIONS|dislike for clothing]] (eat your heart out, Captain Kirk). Though there are some prebuilt alien races, Revelations has rules for building your own and specifically says there are others on Mars that aren't listed. RoM also introduces robot PCs, new psychic powers, and new weapons such as rayguns, blasters, and [[RIP AND TEAR|fuck-off big melee weapons specifically designed for species with more than two arms.]]