Claim the Sky

Claim the Sky is a Cypher System genre book published by Monte Cook Games, released in 2021 as part of their Heroes of the Cypher System line. It requires the Cypher System Rulebook to use.

Authors include Monte Cook, Sean K. Reynolds, and Bruce R. Cordell. The book takes the flexible mechanics of the Cypher System and brings them into the superhero genre—offering many options, a setting, and adventures tailored for those who want supers with a storytelling slant.

⚙ What’s Inside — Contents & Structure

Per Monte Cook Games and product previews, Claim the Sky delivers a broad toolkit for superheroic campaigns. Core chapters and features include:

• Building a Superhero: Guidance on crafting heroes, choosing types/foci/descriptors, balancing power vs weakness. Helps avoid clichés while still delivering familiar archetypes.
• Superheroic Character Options: New descriptors, foci, rules for power shifts and power stunts; expanded options for strengths, speedsters, gadget-based heroes, size changing, etc.
• Superpowered Rules: Rules for higher tiers, resurrecting characters, high tech, enormous powers, balancing difficulty.
• Genre Advice & Tropes: What makes superhero stories tick—origin stories, teams, nemeses, secret identities, trick villains, etc. Helps GMs create narrative arcs, “issues” and “arcs,” and craft flair.
• Boundless Setting: A ready-use setting called Boundless, where heroes exist in a world very much like ours—but with high tech, aliens, magic, villains, and superpowered beings. It provides global threats, heroic organizations like BASTION, alien influences, etc.
• Heroes, Villains & NPCs: 50 fully-statted heroes and villains with powers and personalities.
• Superheroic Cyphers, Artifacts & Gear: New tools for powering heroes and creating drama, giving them more special gear, weird or magical artifacts, etc.
• Complete Adventures: Three adventures included, ready to use either in Boundless or inserted into your own campaign.

🎯 How It Plays at the Table

Claim the Sky leans into the narrative, cinematic side of superhero gaming. It emphasizes story arcs, character identity (flags, weaknesses, backgrounds), and how to handle the dramatic scale (from street-level heroics to alien threats). The rules for power stunts, power shifts, and balancing weaknesses help ensure that even high-powered characters have stakes and vulnerabilities.

Because it builds on the Cypher System, which already favors improvisation, narrative challenges, and flexibility, Claim the Sky often speeds up character creation, making it easier for groups to generate a “feel” for the kind of superhero stories they want. But with that power comes responsibility: GMs need to manage power scaling, ensure conflicts stay meaningful, and make sure villains or threats scale appropriately so the heroes aren’t trivializing challenges.

Players report the included NPCs and villains are colorful and useful; the Boundless setting gives enough color to inspire but enough flexibility to allow custom campaigns. The three adventures offer a range of scales—from smaller hero vs villain conflicts to more world-spanning threats—so groups can test both ends of the spectrum.

✨ Strengths — What the Book Does Well

1. Genre Richness: The book does an excellent job identifying and providing tools for superhero tropes—speedsters, gadgeteers, shape-changers, etc.—allowing lots of superhero types without forcing them into arbitrary bounds.
2. Power vs Weakness Balance: The addition of power stunt and power shift rules helps make heroes more dynamic and gives GMs mechanical levers to balance character power.
3. Boundless Setting Flexibility: Boundless is not overly prescriptive. It evokes superhero worlds but doesn’t lock you into a specific canon or style; you can run street heroes, cosmic threats, magical mutants, etc.
4. Art & Presentation: The layout, artwork, and design are solid. It looks like a superhero comic/graphic novel in tone; interface (chapter layout, call-outs, etc.) is generally approachable.
5. Value & Completeness: For what it provides—rules, setting, 50 statted supers/villains, three adventures—it gives a lot in a single volume. For groups seeking to run a superhero campaign, much of what you need is here.

⚠ Weaknesses & What to Consider

• Dependency on Core Rules: You must own the Cypher System Rulebook. Claim the Sky is not stand-alone. That means cost and complexity add up if you don’t already have the core system.
• Power Scale Management: Some adventures or NPCs are high tier; GMs will need to adjust for their own groups. Mismatched power or overly capable heroes can trivialize challenge.
• Learning Curve for GMs New to Supers: Though genre advice is good, the scale of choosing archetypes, balancing powers, vulnerabilities, and handling dramatic stakes can challenge newcomers—especially in superheroic settings where moral stakes, secret identities, and public perception matter.
• Adventure Variety: While three adventures are included, some GMs may want more variety or custom scenarios; inserting custom villains and adjusting difficulty may be required.

🗡 Final Thoughts

Claim the Sky is a strong, well-rounded supplement for anyone wanting to run superheroic stories with the Cypher System. It balances mechanics and narrative, giving tools not just for powers, but for the identity, themes, and storytelling styles that define good superhero tales. For groups already familiar with or interested in the Cypher System, this is one of the better superhero options: complete, polished, and inspiring.

If you want dramatic, trope-rich, power-balanced hero campaigns—not just “heroes punching villains,” but origin stories, moral dilemmas, flamboyant powers, team dynamics—Claim the Sky is a high-quality pick. If you’re more interested in low-power superhero stories, or don’t yet have the Cypher System core, it’s still worthwhile—but you’ll need to invest a bit more to bring everything together.