Fantasy Hero is a role-playing game book originally published by Hero Games in 1985 that allows gamemasters to plan and present fantasy role-playing games using the Hero System rules. Several revised editions of the book have subsequently been published. Description Fantasy Hero uses the rules of the Hero System for character creation and combat, adapted for the fantasy genre by adding rules for magic items, spells, and fantastical creatures. The first edition published in 1986 also includes two short sample adventures, as well as rules for converting other role-playing games to Fantasy Hero. Magic The first two editions of Fantasy Hero ("3rd" and "4th" edition) include a series of theme-oriented magical colleges, and a specific mechanical basis for spellcasting. In the 5th edition supplement the concept of colleges is removed, replaced by twelve different magic systems. Publication history Hero Games originally published the superhero role-playing game Champions in 1981, using a set of rules for character creation, skills and combat that came to be known as the Hero System. This system was further refined in a second edition of Champions (1982) and again in a third edition (1985). In 1986, Hero Games released Fantasy Hero, a 160-page softcover book designed by Steve Peterson, and illustrated by Brian Hamilton, Denis Loubet, Patricia Moriarity, Scott Ruggels, Carolyn Schultz-Savoy, and Patrick Zircher, that included the Hero System without the superhero rules, but with relevant fantasy rules. As other editions were published, this edition became known as Fantasy Hero 3rd edition, since it used the 3rd edition of the Hero System rules. About this time, Hero Games ran into financial difficulties and was taken over, becoming a subsidiary of Iron Crown Enterprises (I.C.E.). In 1990, I.C.E./Hero Games released the 4th edition of the Hero System as a stand-alone generic rules system, without the Champion superhero rules. They also published a new edition of Fantasy Hero, a 256-page softcover book that did not contain the basic Hero System rules, only the fantasy rules; this required players to have the 4th edition Hero System book in order to play Hero Fantasy games. In 2003 Steven S. Long designed a new edition of Fantasy Hero for the 5th edition of Hero System, a 416-page softcover book. In 2009, a new edition of Fantasy Hero, a 480-page hardcover book, was published to be paired with the new 6th Edition Hero System. Reception Phil Masters reviewed the original edition