Greetings and welcome to my webpage. My name is Michael Surbrook, and I'm the sole owner and operator of Surbrook's Stuff. I was born in Sanford, Florida in 1967, and presently make my home in Columbia, Maryland. I am a Macintosh computer technician, currently working at Food and Water Watch as an Assistant Systems Administrator. I first got on-line in 1994, and have been maintaining this webpage since around 1996 (or there about). My interests are varied, and include art, anime (i.e. Japanese animation), manga (i.e. Japanese Comics), Hong Kong action films, role-playing games (specifically Hero System/Champions), and the Society for Creative Anachronism (now retired.)
I first started playing Champions in 1985, when a friend of mine taught me the basic rules so that he could start his first campaign. I went on to play my first character, a sorcerer by the name of Avalon, for almost eight years. After a while, I tried my own hand at Game Mastering and ran a very successful campaign of my own for close to five years. Eventually though, I grew tired of the campaign and ended it, before burnout and boredom destroyed my enthusiasm. At this point, I had discovered something that was to change by gaming perceptions considerably: anime.
"Anime" is what the Japanese call their animation industry (and all other animation). In it I found a new world that quickly replaced my interest in most Western comics. I rapidly became hooked on both anime and "manga" (Japanese comic books). Unable to resist the temptation, I began to craft a new campaign, one that combined elements from some of my favorite anime and manga series, and thus, "Kazei 5" was born.
"Kazei 5" (a.k.a. "Small Military Force Five" -- doesn't that just sound like an anime series?) is an anime-based campaign that draws heavily from the "anime-cyberpunk" genre. It has proved to be rather successful and has been released as a Hero System Campaign Sourcebook (cool!) Want to know more? Click on this link: Kazei 5. For a time, I ran a Kazei 5 PBEM game, and much of the material you can find there is official "canon" for the setting. In the spring of 2010, Kazei 5 was released as a 320-page sourcebook for HERO Sytem 6E.
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Surbrook's Stuff is maintained by webmaster Michael Surbrook. If you like what you see, please send him your comments about the page.