Shadowcaster (SHADOW.WAD)

From 2000 to 2002, Stephen Clark (aka The Ultimate DooMer) had created an episode for the original Doom and then converted it to Doom II (Operation: Lightning) and crafted his epic, 21st-century Doom II megaWAD (Fragport). His next target for his own brand of experimentation and modernization was everyone's favorite Doom clone, Heretic. Shadowcaster is an episode 5 replacement for Shadows of the Serpent Riders, released in September of 2002. I'm not up on my Raven Software lore but I don't think that there were any major engine changes between the original release and the free expansion that would have necessitated using the E5 slot. Presumably, this was more of an aesthetic decision where the author could avoid having to contend with a clashing intermission screen.

Blackness (BLKNS.WAD)

Samuel Villarreal kicked off his career with two sizable releases. DSV was a megaWAD that could be played back in each of the then-popular source ports. A sizable portion of its levels were based on Doom 64 maps, ever near and dear to Kaiser's heart. Blackness was released at the exact same time in 2000 and appears to have been intended for a bigger run. This second installment of the DSV series, however, only came out to a five-level hub with a final boss map. The author described it as "abandoned" and a parody of Hexen. I can agree with the first statement but I doubt whether it was initially intended to satirize or poke fun at Hexen. If so, then it would be amusing considering how much of Hexen is woven into Doom 64's DNA. This set was explicitly designed for ZDoom; owing to its relatively early place in the port's history, it is not compatible with later versions of (G)ZDoom. Jumping is absolutely required.

Heart of Fire (HOF.WAD)

HEART OF FIRE

by Pablo Dictter

Pablo was one of the more prolific authors to emerge during the source port boom. Much of his output consisted of small, straightforward levels with a hefty amount of detailing. Today Dictter is probably remembered for his sole contribution to Alien Vendetta, "One Flew Over the Caco's Nest" (MAP21). The stringy layout is emblematic of his style back in the early '00s. He also indulged in level design for the Raven branch of the id family. Heart of Fire is an E1M1 replacement for Heretic, originally released for what appears to have been something like a limit-removing port - wHeretic. Published in 2001, it is a sequel to the similarly-titled River of Fire which was stamped back in May of 2000.

The River of Fire (RIVERF.WAD)

THE RIVER OF FIRE

by Pablo Dictter

Pablo made a good number of Doom / II levels that are no longer publicly available before he started uploading stuff to /idgames. The confusingly titled They Will Repent (House of Pain Part Two) was his archival debut. The quasi-E4 styled map pointed pretty strongly to the level design that he would be infamous for in Alien Vendetta. As it turns out, though, he also dabbled in making levels for Heretic. The River of Fire is the first of these irregular morsels to find their way to broader publication. It wasn't uploaded until 2001 but it was available elsewhere circa 2000. It was made for a now-defunct source port called wHeretic but as far as I can tell the engine did not have any special features, primarily existing to bring the game from DOS to Windows.

Gestalt666's Town of Heresy (666TOWN.WAD)

GESTALT666'S

TOWN OF HERESY

by John "Gestalt666" Bye

By mid-1997, John was pretty much done with Doom. He would still contribute a few maps to The Darkening E1 but he had gone over to the Quake side after seeing Black Star Coven's first team release, The Talosian Incident. When the time came to open a relief valve, then, he opted to design something for a different idtech game - Heretic. Thus became Gestalt666's Town of Heresy, an E1M1 replacement. It's Bye's final solo release and caps off a career characterized by atmosphere more than anything in its level design. He also had a wild, unpredictable streak with bits like the computerized domain of CyberDoom and "The Living Maze" from Cygnus IV. 666TOWN is - for the most part - unlike any of these things.

Max Saga: The Doom Dragon (MAX2.WAD)

MAX SAGA

THE DOOM DRAGON

Impie is now best-known for his impressive portfolio of mods and TCs but his career circa 2014 had him playing around with standard Doom II gameplay. The plots still drew on other properties, of course. They just didn't mess around with "advanced" engine features. Three of these releases ended up as part of Strange Aeons's fifth episode and this one is no different, appearing there as "The Vaults of Zin" (E5M3). The Doom Dragon is unique because it is actually an E1M1 replacement for Heretic, of all things. As far as I know, any limit-removing port that supports it ought to be able to play MAX2. If not, well, then I can personally vouch for ZDoom.

Samsara (SAMSARA-V0.3666-BETA.PK3)

Samsara allows you to play as a formidable complement of classic FPS heroes and either duke it out in deathmatch or slay monsters alone and in co-op. The intent was to provide something like Marvel vs. Capcom for Zandronum. Term eventually discontinued development when he moved on to a new project to drive all the Doom players crazy - Demonsteele - but Kinsie of Reelism fame eventually took up maintenance of the mod so that you can use the same package in both GZDoom and Zandronum just as easily as you can use all of the heroes in any of the idtech1-derived games.

Candy Choppers (PC_HERT1.WAD)

CANDY CHOPPERS

by Paul Corfiatis

1999 was a really big year for pcorf. After releasing a veritable glut of levels including The Twilight Zone II as well as Death Tormention and its sequel, he released three individual levels (the first-created entries of his Selfish series) in 2000 and cranked out a handful of submissions for the 10 Sectors contest. Four of them made it into the runoff compilation, 10SECTO2, uploaded in 2001. Candy Choppers, published later in the year, takes things in a completely different direction. It's Paul's token Heretic level! It presumably works with its vanilla executable and occupies its E2M1 slot.

Templum Dormiens Dei (TEMPLMDD.WAD)

TEMPLUM DORMIENS DEI

by "Stormwalker"

While Heretic gets considerably less love than Doom or Doom II there exist a number of authors still carrying a torch for its dark fantasy action. Stormwalker, who also goes by Vordakk, is one such individual. While he hadn't done anything Corvus-related since 2011 that year saw two releases, an episode titled Call of the Apostate and a one-off adventure named Dark Deity's Bastion. Templum Dormiens Dei, a single E1M1 replacement for Heretic published in late 2016, is a sequel to the latter. TEMPLMDD requires a source port from the ZDoom family (specifically, version 2.8.1) as it uses a few features including DECORATE monsters and some nominal room-over-room geometry.

Elf Gets Pissed (ELFGP.WAD)

Everyone loves Doom. Sadly, Heretic user levels are few and far between. Is it because of the bestiary? The colorful but muted impact of its weapons? Or does juggling an inventory get in the way of fantasy run and gun? Whatever the reason, Heretic faithfuls such as myself are so blessed that Doomworld Forum superstar RottKing has been nursing his Heretic fetish over the past few years. The end product, released in 2015, is Elf Gets Pissed - a Heretic episode one replacement to be played in ZDoom. RottKing's last big dance was his 2011 duet with Ralphis, Double Impact. But, uh, I can't really compare DBIMPACT with ELFGP as Heretic's gameplay carries certain inalienable elements that prevent it, for better or for worse, from being a mere fantasy reskin of Doom.

Quake: Descent into Heresy (QUAKE-DIH_1.PK3)

QUAKE
DESCENT INTO HERESY
by "osjclatchford"

Do you love Quake? Do you like Heretic? Then do I have a mod for you! Descent Into Heresy is an unusual combo for the ZDoom engine that will no doubt have some players rattling their chains due to the mixture of fantasy and... Quake. The flipside is that people inured to the mixture of Gothic horror / fantasy and gunpowder are probably more ready to accept a mod that throws shotguns in Heretic than the Hexen crowd was at the genesis of The Ranger. This rev of the mod was stamped mid 2015, and in some aspects, it brings the gunplay of Quake to the world of Parthoris.

Chaos, Uprising (RSLCHAOS.PK3)

CHAOS, UPRISING
by "Richard Smith Long"

It's time to settle down, and where would any weary inter-dimensional traveler rest his or her laurels but at Parthoris? Once Corvus slew the serpent rider and fixed that business with the insane Seraph, trouble was all but forgotten, and technology and magic was free to advance with the inexorable march of time. That's why "The Newcomer" picked the Sidhe homeworld, anyway. Pity that all good things must come to an end. After only a couple years of retirement, a horrible plague engineered by the rejuvenated Serpent Cult grips Parthoris, and your happy ass is the only one that can stop them. Maybe the combined forces of science and magic can put an end to this bullshit once and for all.

The Indespensible T_DUNNxx.WAD Series - For Heretic (T_DUNN03.WAD)

THE INDISPENSIBLE
T_DUNNxx.WAD SERIES
- FOR HERETIC
by Travers and Alister Dunne

Travers Dunne has had a long mapping career; his T_DUNNxx.WAD Series encapsulates the various scraps of his work from 1994-7. The Definitive T_DUNN01 was for Doom, and the Authoritative T_DUNN02 was for Doom II. Interestingly enough, T_DUNN03 isn't for Final Doom or any of that, but for Heretic. Yes, Travers Dunne has a Heretic level to his name, and he even preferred it to his Doom levels from around the same timeframe! T_DUNN03 is a single map in the E1M1 slot that has no real attached story beyond Travers bemoaning the fact that he couldn't stay interested enough with Heretic mapping to make any more levels.

Encrypter (ENCRYPT*.WAD)

Encrypter is something of an oddity, a short total conversion for Heretic released in 2013 by Doomworld Forum superstar Fenriswolf, to be played in ZDoom. It truly is a total conversion, with a bunch of new assets, though the quality of the new textures and sprites does not necessarily compare to the game it is building off of...at all. But that's okay, because they're all pretty much from the same fountain, combining to give Encrypter its own distinct aesthetic. Encrypter isn't really an action game like Heretic; there's action, to be sure, but the actual feel is something of a little role-playing module in first-person shooters' clothing.

Herian 2 (HERIAN2.WAD)

Ian Wilson published Herian in 1998; about a year or so later in 1999, we saw the release of Herian2, its sequel, and to date the last entry in the series. Like the original, H2 is a thirty-two map replacement for Doom II that features a number of sprite replacements for Doom II enemies culled from Heretic. There are some differences, though. Herian2 actually features a story, first of all. It makes more sense if you use Wilson's TC package (this download bundled by the late, great Jive), which replaces all inappropriate enemies and the weapons with stuff from Heretic and Hexen. Essentially, it takes place pre-pre-pre-Doom, and post-Herian. It turns out Herian was the player character's war against infernal powers, back when the forces of Hell and the Serpent Riders were united. He thought he had won, but when he prepares to settle down, there's another assault that he must fight off.

Masters of Chaos (MOC11.WAD)

Hailing from Poland, Caleb260 and Doom_Warrior dumped Masters of Chaos on the unsuspecting populace back in May 2012. It's an unusual beast, a Heretic megaWAD for ZDoom totaling thirty-one levels. That's two episodes of ten maps and one of eleven, in case you were wondering. Masters of Chaos takes place five years after Corvus got home, whenever that happened. Apparently there was a fourth Serpent Rider waiting in the wings, "Mighty Voltrog". Well, he was originally part of the band, but the gigs got to his head and he went solo, and now he's using things called chaos crystals (not to be confused with emeralds) to drain the life from the worlds he conquers. It's up to you, of course, to put this pretender down and save the universe.

Ye Olde Smudge (ChrisK for Heretic) (SMUDGE.WAD)

Chris Klie's known for his Master Levels and other megaWADs. BF_THUD! carries the subtitle "ChrisK for Doom ]["; Ye Olde Smudge is, similarly, "ChrisK for Heretic" (the original ChrisK being for Doom). Smudge enjoys the same kind of level composition as its sister, BF_THUD. The levels are small, packed into tight square areas with low-tier monsters coupled with puzzles. There's no given plot – they're just presented as the complete collection of Chris Klie's Heretic levels. Like BF_THUD, they are loosely themed on the map names whose slots they occupy.

Recant (RECANT.WAD)

RECANT
by John "Dr. Sleep" Anderson

John "Dr. Sleep" Anderson is mostly known for not finishing his immaculate Inferno series, much of which was released as part of id's Master Levels for Doom II. His single Heretic level, released mid-'95, is a lost gem (along with practically every other great Raven-game map). Recant replaces E1M1 of Heretic and comes with no given story, just some notes from Anderson and the sentiment that he would have liked it to be larger, but really didn't like enormous levels anyway. Obviously, RECANT derives its title from the game it was meant for.

Torture (TORTURE.WAD)

TORTURE
by Christopher Lutz

Torture is a single map for Heretic released by Christopher Lutz in 2001, though it bears a 2000 time stamp. It's a replacement for E2M3, with a pretty simple story. You're infiltrating some kind of underground dungeon to exact revenge on the beasts that have been tormenting your peers. As such, it's a mostly underground map with the sole exception being the opening balcony, from where you enter the installation.

Reclamation (RECLAIM.WAD)

RECLAMATION
by Christopher Lutz

Christopher Lutz, one of the patron saints of Heretic, published Reclamation back in 2001, though it bears a 1999 time-stamp. It's a nicely sized adventure for Corvus, clocking in at ~200 beasties, replacing E2M1. It's not nearly as crazy as his more recent (2011) Icebound, instead feeling comfortably close to vanilla Heretic, both in special effects and difficulty. The plot is pretty simple. Evil has inhabited an ancient sanctuary, so you've set out to slay them and reclaim the cathedral. The journey covers a variety of gorgeous locales, including dripping caverns, subterranean ruins, and an island in a lake of fire.