Darren Watts was born in Maine in 1969, and was introduced to roleplaying games (First Edition D&D, of course) by an older cousin at a tender age. He received a copy of Champions for his twelfth birthday and was irretrievably hooked on the Hero System. After working for years in traditional publishing (for companies like Publishers Group West and Chronicle Books) while doing the odd review and magazine article, he joined a group of fellow-minded fans in purchasing Hero Games in 2001, originally as a consultant and winding up as President. Since then, he's written or edited several books for Hero, including "Champions Universe," "Millennium City" (in which he destroyed and rebuilt the city of Detroit,) the Origins-Award-nominated "Champions Battlegrounds," "UNTIL," "Reality Storm" (the first inter-company superhero game crossover, with Guardians of Order) and "Galactic Champions."