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Bonjourno My Fellow Palladiumaholics

I am planning on running a campaign Set in Rifts Africa and as I was developing my plot line, I started to run into a few quandaries and wanted to reach out to my fellow gamers for your advice, As I am sure many of you have either played in this environment, or ran games That utilized elements from the African setting

I'm going to list a couple of my questions, any advice and feedback would be greatly appreciated

1. I plan on having my player character's face off against 1 or 2 of the four horsemen of apocalypsE at the climax of the campaign, what level do you think I should have them at to Combat such a substantial Threat and make It challenging, the PCs will be playing a mix of magic users, and power armor Pilots, with a total of five players

2. besides the obvious EGyptian influence, are there any other themes or cultural elements you think might be interesting to intermix into the story

3. what minor enemies have you useD in the African setting or would you suggest, I was thinking of including like a cyborg scorpion Or desert worms like the lanmolas from Zelda: A link to the past , the Scorpion would have around 400 to 500 MDC, and the Lanmola's around 300 each with the party Encountering 3


4. I was thinking about having a pyramid dungeon crawl, just as a optional element, do you have any suggestions for potential traps, random encounters,or surprises you think would be interesting

thanks so much for your help!

As for level vs 2 horsemen...hmm...if they're near a ley line and the magic users have access to most spells, it might not matter what level they are bwahahaha...er...


I think a confusing meeting with desert raiders who fight the Phoenix Empire could be amusing. Mistaken identity is always fun. They might make allies, or they might make another enemy.

And if you're guys are PA pilots in flying armor, those critters won't provide much challenge unless it's in a low cave or something.

Alrik Vas wrote:As for level vs 2 horsemen...hmm...if they're near a ley line and the magic users have access to most spells, it might not matter what level they are bwahahaha...er...


I think a confusing meeting with desert raiders who fight the Phoenix Empire could be amusing. Mistaken identity is always fun. They might make allies, or they might make another enemy.

And if you're guys are PA pilots in flying armor, those critters won't provide much challenge unless it's in a low cave or something.

Great ideas

Thanks so much for your advice :0)

SmilingJack wrote:Bonjourno My Fellow Palladiumaholics

I am planning on running a campaign Set in Rifts Africa and as I was developing my plot line, I started to run into a few quandaries and wanted to reach out to my fellow gamers for your advice, As I am sure many of you have either played in this environment, or ran games That utilized elements from the African setting

I'm going to list a couple of my questions, any advice and feedback would be greatly appreciated

1. I plan on having my player character's face off against 1 or 2 of the four horsemen of apocalypsE at the climax of the campaign, what level do you think I should have them at to Combat such a substantial Threat and make It challenging, the PCs will be playing a mix of magic users, and power armor Pilots, with a total of five players

2. besides the obvious EGyptian influence, are there any other themes or cultural elements you think might be interesting to intermix into the story

3. what minor enemies have you useD in the African setting or would you suggest, I was thinking of including like a cyborg scorpion Or desert worms like the lanmolas from Zelda: A link to the past , the Scorpion would have around 400 to 500 MDC, and the Lanmola's around 300 each with the party Encountering 3


4. I was thinking about having a pyramid dungeon crawl, just as a optional element, do you have any suggestions for potential traps, random encounters,or surprises you think would be interesting

thanks so much for your help!

If you are doing worm like creatures, what about the worms from Tremors?

Also, as for a pyramid crawl, traps you could have scarabs (think The Mummy with Brendan Frasier), collapsing halls/rooms, rooms that fill with sand, Mummies (duh!) and other undead/animated dead/restless spirits, pit traps, pendulums (either bladed or blunt), and magic. I can't think of anything else at the moment.

I ran the Four Horseman campaign in 1994 or so, right after the WB 5 came out. To me it all depends on how big you want to run it. I did the whole Gathering of Heroes as a big Army of Light vs. Forces of Darkness thing. My players had just come off the Mechanoid invasion and they had accumulated a large number of allies including ARCHIE 3 and Hagan. I had thousands of heroes from all over the world and from other dimensions arrive in North Africa. Since there were so few books back then it was all very generic (lots of Robotech people, mutant animals and super heroes) but now with so many books you could go wild with the gathering.

SmilingJack wrote:1. I plan on having my player character's face off against 1 or 2 of the four horsemen of apocalypsE at the climax of the campaign, what level do you think I should have them at to Combat such a substantial Threat and make It challenging, the PCs will be playing a mix of magic users, and power armor Pilots, with a total of five players

Level doesn't matter so much as stuff. My PC's were all level 5 & 6 and they did just fine. What made the difference was the weapons, vehicles and spells they had. Some were mech pilots (Glitterboy, RDF Excalibur/Tomahawk, Titan Flying PA) one of the PCs was a Great Horned hatchling dragon and he had some serious spells. If your characters are too low level to take on one of the big bads then let them get some good magic stuff.

SmilingJack wrote:2. besides the obvious EGyptian influence, are there any other themes or cultural elements you think might be interesting to intermix into the story

My biggest regret from doing this is that I did everything Egyptian. Africa has a rich tribal history. I would look on Wikipedia. Lots of good monsters and spirits that you could use.

SmilingJack wrote:3. what minor enemies have you useD in the African setting or would you suggest

With all the books that Palladium has now you have the chance make this completely epic. If this a gathering of heroes then the minions of evil will gather too, from everywhere. Think a death cult made up of psychotic mystic ninjas, or a crazed Oracle Cat with visions from Death leading a group of South American mutants, a rival Splugorth who is jealous of Splyncryths hold on Earth deciding it would be better if the Earth just dies, and then of course you can just throw in demons and dyvals who just want to watch the whole thing burn down.

SmilingJack wrote:4. I was thinking about having a pyramid dungeon crawl, just as a optional element, do you have any suggestions for potential traps, random encounters,or surprises you think would be interesting

I have been working on a pyramid (or Ziggurat actually) dungeon crawl for a while. I have nothing new. Except to maybe put an artifact in there that is crucial to defeating the Horseman, but that isn't all that original.

Hope this helps.

Well if you plan on it being a full campaign I would actually recommend steering well clear of the 4 horsemen directly until, as the above poster mentioned, armies of allies or major mystic artifacts can be accrued. If I am remembering correctly there are:

--Orc, Goblin, and Ogre tribes, and dozens to hundreds of smallish or nomadic settlements of humans who haven't been enslaved yet
--The Phoenix Empire with all the territory, citizens, slaves, and soldiers
--Splugorth minions, envoys, and wealthy celebrities on missions, safaris, and killing time
--Gargoyle Empire ambassadors
--A Millennium Tree around there somewhere (a decent way to escape from or entrap a Horseman me'thinks)
--The full Egyptian Pantheon to avoid, pray to, plead with, fight, whatever...
--More zombies and mummies than you can shake ten thousand sticks at with enough Necromancers to keep it that way
--Mind Bleeders, spirit beasts, and supernatural predators which exist on multiple levels of reality
--Varied terrain from Congo Jungles to total Saharan Desert, to tall mountains, to grasslands and marshes along the deltas (i.e. basically any beastie from Conversion Book 1 can show up and be a supernatural badass who feels right at home)
--Potential for Star Wars-esque Pod Racing along desert race tracks
--Plus an awesomely flavored series of ruins or dungeon crawls which might turn up dragons in stasis, ancient vampires, or hell even a lost or rifted civilization of crocodile/serpent/lion people
--And finally the minions of the Horsemen themselves, be they possessed, cultists, or non-sentient (waves of pestilent demonic insects, etc.)

I will say that with how Africa was laid out (one major tech city with most everything else in ruins, primitive, or overwhelmingly dominated by the supernatural) it is the one world setting I might force my party to take some form of mage or the like so I could play with the ghosty and fantastical side of the setting. The Turn Undead spell is crazy good in parts of Africa. If the party were all Robot pilots for example they would run out of missiles very quickly and be somewhat limited in their travels to places close enough to the Phoenix Empire that they could make their repairs. A balanced party would fair better in Africa; at least the way I would run it.

i would go with nomads and tribal groups as well. also small petty kingdom wars fought between warlords.

its a rich country and the garden of eden could very well be there hidden somewhere and so arch angel guarding it. as suggest already do some research. and hav fun.

The other thing you have to keep in mind about Africa is all of the prehistoric animals that would come back. I mean if the American Southeast is now the dinosaur swamp what kind of prehistoric nastiness might be walking around Africa looking to make your PC its next meal.

Warshield73 wrote:The other thing you have to keep in mind about Africa is all of the prehistoric animals that would come back. I mean if the American Southeast is now the dinosaur swamp what kind of prehistoric nastiness might be walking around Africa looking to make your PC its next meal.

Also Consider some the older beasts and people may not be so primitive. Some might be more advanced or have lost magic that make them dangerous.