Enhancing Africa and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2020 6:04 pm
Fellow Rifts fans, I'd like to submit for your judgment and commentary:
My goal is to enhance the setting of Rifts Africa and the Four Horsemen campaign in three ways:
1. Make Africans the key players and front line against the Four Horsemen.
2. Establish more civilizations and organizations in five key regions of Rifts Africa.
3. Create a framework for an epic campaign in Africa that progresses from secret investigations and skirmishes to epic, climactic battles with huge stakes.
These first few posts will be "living posts" that I will edit and build on as I go. I will add replies mentioning new content as I go. Please let me know what you think and especially how you think I might improve what I write here.
In the decades leading up to the Coming of the Rifts, Africa came to dominate the world in space exploration, agriculture, and bio-technology. Politically, the continent's many cultures and nations joined their economies and governments together, forming the African Union. This power bloc allowed free trade across the continent and established Africa as an influential superpower of commerce, technology, and culture. Africans enjoyed decades of uninterrupted growth and development, and Africans' lifespan, quality of life, education, wealth, and power skyrocketed. As their population expanded, Africans built colossal arcology-cities to house them. These arcologies towered over the rivers, lakes, and coastal waters of the continent as shining symbols of progress and harmony with Africans' environment and each other. The success of these arcologies inspired other countries to develop their own arcology programs, including what has become Chi-Town.
As the Golden Age ended across the rest of the world and the great arms races began, the African Union's Golden Age continued, as they enjoyed trade and mutually-prosperous relations with most of the world. Lacking any military rivals, the continent continued to flourish and develop even more as many other nations shifted their efforts into making powerful weapons and soldiers. While other powers squandered their wealth on weapons, the African Union became the wealthiest, happiest, and and most advanced civilization on Earth.
Then the Rifts came.
The Coming of the Rifts
Africans suffered more than most during the Coming of the Rifts. Tidal waves drowned the great African megacities along the Atlantic coast. Earthquakes toppled the great arcologies and leveled most cities further inland. Storms and extended winter wrecked the tropical crops. Even worse, debee invaders rampaged across the continent with few humans capable of challenging them. Having gone entire generations with no internal or external wars or conflicts, and without significant stockpiles of weapons or armor, humans fell in droves at the hands of demons and supernatural hordes. The African Union and almost all its member nations collapsed.
The coastal arcologies that had united Africans with each other now only served to isolate them from the rest of humanity. Their broken remnants littered the seabeds outside Africa, forming dangerous shoals that surround much of the continent. Many of these ruined arcologies have leaked toxic materials into the surrounding coastal seabed, rendering much of the African coast unsuitable for fishing. While a few have braved the ruined arcologies for salvaged technologies, this rarely ends well, as most are infested with entities, ghosts, and other nasty supernatural threats that are all too happy to prey on intruders to their turf. This has made getting in or out of Africa extremely difficult by sea, and the powers who can safely bypass these hazards usually do so only to raid the continent for slaves.
In the centuries since, most of Africa has reverted to wilderness, and the human population has shrunk to a small fraction of its former size. Still, as the P.A. calendar began, humanity managed to rally and organize itself in four regions, adapting the legacy technologies of its golden age or discovering new, supernatural approaches or allies. Across the continent, humans still spoke the unified language of the African Union as a common trade language, still shared legends of their former glory, and still dreamed of driving out the demons and monsters that plagued them. As the 100th year of the P.A. calendar approached, these four regions began to coalesce, and the people began to speak openly of uniting again into nations and a continent-wide alliance. Then it all went to hell.
A sudden surge of suffering and death has arisen across the continent. Death cults have sprang up all over the pockets of civilization, whispering of dark days to come, sowing dissent, sabotaging infrastructure, and corrupting any who would heed the harbingers of Armageddon. Demons, witches, and necromancers walk the land, murdering and pillaging. As each region grapples with these new threats, psychics and clairvoyants warn that the worst is yet to come: four apocalypse demons with the power to annihilate all life across Africa and far, far beyond.
It is a dark time of grave uncertainty, when the destiny of a continent, and indeed the Megaverse, hinges on the choices and deeds of a few. Your characters are those few. What will they do?
I've heard and read a lot of criticism of Africa over the years from people I respect. This is my attempt to address many of those criticisms while staying true to the themes of both Rifts in general and the campaign concept laid out in Rifts Africa. This project isn't meant to throw out what's in Africa or fix everything that I've seen objections to. Rather, it's to make the setting and central campaign of Africa more viable for both GMs and players.
The Gathering of Heroes will not be a central focus of this work. My concept is to use the Gathering in a reinforcing and supportive role, like an auxiliary, to support and back up the locals who know the land, culture, language, etc. Where The Gathering might take a more central role might be in larger battles after the early phases if/when a Horseman effectively destroys his region and unites with one of his brothers.
In general, I will also steer clear of shaman-magic and content built on cultural stereotypes. Players and GMs who want to use that content with what I create here still can; what I'm adding isn't incompatible with low-tech magic societies. That said, I intend to add enough content that a GM and party could play a complete campaign in Africa without using those aspects of the original book. Instead, I plan to use established magics and technology elements from other books or try to "look forward" in creating new content appropriate and specific to each region's themes based on my own imagining of a future history that could lead to and follow the Coming of the Rifts.
I also intend to develop the minions of the Horsemen and their secondary effects/tactics more. The Horsemen themselves are important, but they should be epic boss fights after wading through all kinds of nasty underlings, unraveling subplots, rooting out collaborators, et cetera. Each should have minions, death cults, and collaborators conspiring and fighting for that horseman.
Finally, I intend to present some optional outcomes for each region such that there is room for player choices and adventure outcomes to drive outcomes that include the prospect of one, some, or even all of the Horsemen laying waste to the regions in which they appear. My aim is to have any combination of these outcomes be compatible with the rest of the Rifts setting.
Rifts Africa and the Four Horsemen
A Supplement
My goal is to enhance the setting of Rifts Africa and the Four Horsemen campaign in three ways:
1. Make Africans the key players and front line against the Four Horsemen.
2. Establish more civilizations and organizations in five key regions of Rifts Africa.
3. Create a framework for an epic campaign in Africa that progresses from secret investigations and skirmishes to epic, climactic battles with huge stakes.
These first few posts will be "living posts" that I will edit and build on as I go. I will add replies mentioning new content as I go. Please let me know what you think and especially how you think I might improve what I write here.
History of Rifts Africa
The Golden Age: African Union
In the decades leading up to the Coming of the Rifts, Africa came to dominate the world in space exploration, agriculture, and bio-technology. Politically, the continent's many cultures and nations joined their economies and governments together, forming the African Union. This power bloc allowed free trade across the continent and established Africa as an influential superpower of commerce, technology, and culture. Africans enjoyed decades of uninterrupted growth and development, and Africans' lifespan, quality of life, education, wealth, and power skyrocketed. As their population expanded, Africans built colossal arcology-cities to house them. These arcologies towered over the rivers, lakes, and coastal waters of the continent as shining symbols of progress and harmony with Africans' environment and each other. The success of these arcologies inspired other countries to develop their own arcology programs, including what has become Chi-Town.
As the Golden Age ended across the rest of the world and the great arms races began, the African Union's Golden Age continued, as they enjoyed trade and mutually-prosperous relations with most of the world. Lacking any military rivals, the continent continued to flourish and develop even more as many other nations shifted their efforts into making powerful weapons and soldiers. While other powers squandered their wealth on weapons, the African Union became the wealthiest, happiest, and and most advanced civilization on Earth.
Then the Rifts came.
The Coming of the Rifts
Africans suffered more than most during the Coming of the Rifts. Tidal waves drowned the great African megacities along the Atlantic coast. Earthquakes toppled the great arcologies and leveled most cities further inland. Storms and extended winter wrecked the tropical crops. Even worse, debee invaders rampaged across the continent with few humans capable of challenging them. Having gone entire generations with no internal or external wars or conflicts, and without significant stockpiles of weapons or armor, humans fell in droves at the hands of demons and supernatural hordes. The African Union and almost all its member nations collapsed.
The coastal arcologies that had united Africans with each other now only served to isolate them from the rest of humanity. Their broken remnants littered the seabeds outside Africa, forming dangerous shoals that surround much of the continent. Many of these ruined arcologies have leaked toxic materials into the surrounding coastal seabed, rendering much of the African coast unsuitable for fishing. While a few have braved the ruined arcologies for salvaged technologies, this rarely ends well, as most are infested with entities, ghosts, and other nasty supernatural threats that are all too happy to prey on intruders to their turf. This has made getting in or out of Africa extremely difficult by sea, and the powers who can safely bypass these hazards usually do so only to raid the continent for slaves.
In the centuries since, most of Africa has reverted to wilderness, and the human population has shrunk to a small fraction of its former size. Still, as the P.A. calendar began, humanity managed to rally and organize itself in four regions, adapting the legacy technologies of its golden age or discovering new, supernatural approaches or allies. Across the continent, humans still spoke the unified language of the African Union as a common trade language, still shared legends of their former glory, and still dreamed of driving out the demons and monsters that plagued them. As the 100th year of the P.A. calendar approached, these four regions began to coalesce, and the people began to speak openly of uniting again into nations and a continent-wide alliance. Then it all went to hell.
The Time of the Horsemen
A sudden surge of suffering and death has arisen across the continent. Death cults have sprang up all over the pockets of civilization, whispering of dark days to come, sowing dissent, sabotaging infrastructure, and corrupting any who would heed the harbingers of Armageddon. Demons, witches, and necromancers walk the land, murdering and pillaging. As each region grapples with these new threats, psychics and clairvoyants warn that the worst is yet to come: four apocalypse demons with the power to annihilate all life across Africa and far, far beyond.
It is a dark time of grave uncertainty, when the destiny of a continent, and indeed the Megaverse, hinges on the choices and deeds of a few. Your characters are those few. What will they do?
What this is all about:
I've heard and read a lot of criticism of Africa over the years from people I respect. This is my attempt to address many of those criticisms while staying true to the themes of both Rifts in general and the campaign concept laid out in Rifts Africa. This project isn't meant to throw out what's in Africa or fix everything that I've seen objections to. Rather, it's to make the setting and central campaign of Africa more viable for both GMs and players.
The Gathering of Heroes will not be a central focus of this work. My concept is to use the Gathering in a reinforcing and supportive role, like an auxiliary, to support and back up the locals who know the land, culture, language, etc. Where The Gathering might take a more central role might be in larger battles after the early phases if/when a Horseman effectively destroys his region and unites with one of his brothers.
In general, I will also steer clear of shaman-magic and content built on cultural stereotypes. Players and GMs who want to use that content with what I create here still can; what I'm adding isn't incompatible with low-tech magic societies. That said, I intend to add enough content that a GM and party could play a complete campaign in Africa without using those aspects of the original book. Instead, I plan to use established magics and technology elements from other books or try to "look forward" in creating new content appropriate and specific to each region's themes based on my own imagining of a future history that could lead to and follow the Coming of the Rifts.
I also intend to develop the minions of the Horsemen and their secondary effects/tactics more. The Horsemen themselves are important, but they should be epic boss fights after wading through all kinds of nasty underlings, unraveling subplots, rooting out collaborators, et cetera. Each should have minions, death cults, and collaborators conspiring and fighting for that horseman.
Finally, I intend to present some optional outcomes for each region such that there is room for player choices and adventure outcomes to drive outcomes that include the prospect of one, some, or even all of the Horsemen laying waste to the regions in which they appear. My aim is to have any combination of these outcomes be compatible with the rest of the Rifts setting.