Let’s review the main aspects Rifts world book 4 Africa brings to the Rifts Earth setting. The prior book Rifts England was mostly all pretty trees and rainbows, while Rifts Africa is the opposite of death and destruction. Or at least that’s how I kind of visualize the two books after years of not reading them, here’s why.
Rifts Africa brings the most frightening threats to Rifts Earth yet: the four horsemen of the apocalypse. In addition to Death, War, Pestilence, and Famine, the book also describes gods of darkness, and the Necromancer OCC. So it is rather unpleasant if not downright demoralizing. Let’s move on to what’s in it for Gms.
Rifts® Africa outlines key places, people, customs, and societies located in the wilderness of Rifts Africa.
The demonic Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse threaten to destroy all life on Earth. Once life has been obliterated on Earth, the monsters will use the dimensional Rifts to carry their destruction throughout the Megaverse®! If they can be defeated one at time, the Earth and the entire Megaverse may be spared. Failure means oblivion.
Gm Material Rifts world book 4 Africa
Rifts Africa is an epic setting and setup for cataclysmic forces seeking to destroy all life. The setting gives a Gm 4 regions of Africa and their people, empires both good and bad, plus a larger overall threat.
Some of the empires are ruled by an Egyptian god, while others are ruled by powerful spell casters. With all the different legions of troops, undead, and the like in each city, it is very easy to come up with adventure options. That being said it would be no easy task as a good-aligned character or group to defeat the injustice, decadence, death, disease, and destruction committed upon other good people.
Also, GMs get an actual look at Erin Tarn and Victor Lazlo’s stats. Fully written out so there’s no confusion or vague understanding of what they are capable of.
Rifts world book 4 Africa Player Material
Have you ever wondered what a necromancer can do? Well, look no further than Rifts world book 4 Africa because it lays it all out. It combines really well with any vampire campaign or evil alignment game. Which, if you’ve never played it can be a very different game style to try and create a character for. The motivations, desires, interests, and personalities can be a challenge to connect with.
Africa has a large selection of new rccs and Africa-specific OCCs for players to look into. Outside of this though there isn’t much in the way of new equipment for players to look through. Some of the OCCs do bring new magic spells but they are very niche to the setting and don’t translate well into other areas in my opinion.
Story material Rifts world book 4 Africa
I want to keep it light here. I think this is one of those books that you should pick and read to understand the true threats lurking within and the adventure options available. From an overall perspective though, you have the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, death gods and their minions, plus powerful death mages with nasty plots that all need foiling.
rifts world book 4 Africa originatlity
We’ve all heard about the 4 horsemen legend but I never would have envisioned them in the fashion that was done in this book. They were done in a truly horrific way that is totally fitting for their namesakes. I think it was incredibly original in scope even if it was taken from existing ideas.
Game-breaking aspects from rifts world book 4 Africa
Yes, the apocalypse beast is utterly world-shattering.. literally. The chances of dealing with the 4 horsemen can be a really daunting task but an epic game can be created from their use. Deal with the threats head-on, how and in what way? What sort of characters would you need to make to be able to deal with the likes of War, or Death, much less the Apocalypse Beast? Or what kind of plans would work as normal adventurer classes to be able to defeat Death and his plans?
Rifts world book 4 Africa How good are the occs
For the setting, most are made for they are understandable but I would not say they are “good” at all. The Necromancer is probably the only one that I would want to use in other settings, and most likely is the only one that you could arguably say exists outside of Africa. The Mind Bleeder RCC is possibly the 2nd option but it’s a strong maybe. The priest, rainmaker, and medicine man are very much central to the beliefs and cultural aspects of Rifts Africa that wouldn’t find a foothold elsewhere.
Niche OCCs and RCCs like this often don’t see much play for the simple reason that when taken out of their native environment lose much of their strength. They become disadvantaged and flounder to find their footing. For character creation often what I find is that a campaign being created is often not finalized before players start making a character so they often opt for something that could fit many settings.
How well does Rifts Africa mix with the core book
I want to give this a 5-star rating simply for the fact that the 4 horsemen create an awesome epic threat. In addition, there are a lot of other threats in the setting that could have henchmen doing things outside of Africa that could draw players to it. The downside of the 4 horsemen is that they are truly legendary in stats, and abilities, eclipsing almost everything a player character makes or does. So it is a group threat, most likely a LARGE group.