Rifts World Book 4 : Africa

First I must in all fairness say that this is one of my least favorite Rifts books. That said, let's get down to business.

Rifts World book : Africa, is actually mislabeled in my humble opinion, rather than being an accessory it's more of a gigantic munchkin adventure for god-like players. Let me explain, the main premise is : The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are scattered across Africa and if they unite , well you don't want to know. The deal is you have to stop them! Say Whaaat! yep, and mind you a single Horseman has about 6,000 M.D.C. (1 MDC=100 hit points) You're supposed to join up with all kinds of powerful NPC's; Isis, Elminster (whoops wrong game).. Well you get the drift.So what's this got to do with Gamma World?? Well here is what I could get out of it. The Apocalypse was the original organization credited with making the world go Boom! What if some of their doomsday devices have been dormant and the Four Horsemen (robots, super Death Machines or whatever) have just activated to finish off what their creators started long ago. This would still be a very HIGH level GW campaign, but it is an option. Later in the book the Gods of the Nile are mentioned in depth. Ruling over anew empire in Egypt, the Phoenix Empire. I can envision several NA ruling over an enslaved human populace. Anubis (mutant Jackal) anyone? There is a section on Minions of the Gods, all could be variations of mutant animals ;Crocadillians (mutant crocs),Ramen (mutant cats), Tautons (mutant crocs with scorpion tails), Phoenixi (mutant birds), there is some rivalry between the various beings, (*note* ShivasHand's Memfiz campaign ideas could be helpful here). There is a section on various African Rainmakers and Priests but I didn't find them to be very GWish. Believe it or not there is not a lot of data on Africa in this book. I can envision a really awesome GW setting all the various NA kingdoms and societies could really be awesome, this book just doesn't capture that feeling for me. Two additional items in the book are worth mentioning however, The MindBleeder and the Necromancer. This is probably one of the best versions of the Necromancer's that I have found. Problem is it really doesn't fit in a GW setting without some major changes. The Mind Bleeder is another matter. This is a psychic race of beings (mutants) they can "bleed" away thoughts, knowledge, psionic energy from others! A truly nasty race. Feared throughout! I see this as more of an NPC race, but to each his own. With old GW some new mutations might be necessary to truly capture the feel of this race, with Alternity/Gamma it shouldn't be to hard to convert.

Well that's about it for Rifts Africa.

til next time, Brutorz Bill