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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 2011009" data-attributes="member: 2209">War in Heliopolis is a 3.0 d20 mini campaign setting for ancient Egypt. It is set historically in the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom period of ancient Egypt (1547 BC). Mythologically the setting is placed after Horus' triumph over Set and Osiris' return from the dead.Ancient Egypt is a popular theme for FRPs. Among d20 games Green Ronin's Testament develops biblical era Egypt (along with three other cultures), Necropolis is an Egyptian themed mega-adventure, and both WotC's Deities and Demigods and Bastion Press' Egyptian Gods provide material on the deities of the mythos. The Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft campaign settings have kingdoms of Egyptian dimensional transplants and even settings like Twin Crowns have an Egyptian knockoff kingdom.War in Heliopolis provides historical based information on Egypt, some d20 mechanics for playing in historical/mythical Egypt, information on the gods and some monsters, and a series of mini adventure outlines tied into the divine meta-plot.The historical overview of the various kingdom eras provides a concise breakdown of the empire background and what we know about the various periods from archaeological discoveries. For those unfamiliar with Egyptian history it will be sufficient to place the reader with a light historical perspective on the internal politics of the empire. The overview of Egyptian culture provides a number of details on the peasant, scribe, and pharaoh levels of the society with tidbits about building and writing materials, typical diet and modes of transportation.Due to the intensive nature of learning a pictographic (hieroglyphics here) writing system, literacy is not automatic but requires a feat. In addition, the feat only provides the basics of writing. Formal religious writings and other complexities require a skill roll in addition to fully understand the writing. While the skill roll seems excessive, requiring a feat for literacy is a reasonable requirement for a game based in a predominantly illiterate society.Being a Bronze Age culture there are limitations to the equipment that is available (no mechanical clocks, for example) and the weapons and armor available. There are new armors introduced, going as high as +4 AC. For weapons the softer nature of bronze compared to steel is represented by reducing the damage of some of the weapons a die category so a short sword does 1d4 damage (as much as a dagger). This seems an inferior system to the Bronze Age weapon modifications presented in Avalanche's Twilight of Atlantis where bronze weapons simply had less hardness and hit points compared to steel but did as much damage.In addition to weapons and armor, certain core classes are not suitable for Egyptian characters including druids, bards, monks, and paladins. Three new core classes are introduced, nomads, scribes, and traders. These new classes are somewhere between NPC and regular PC classes in power level. Nomads are halfway between warriors and desert focused rangers, and traders are somewhat halfway between experts and rogues. Scribes are nonspellcasting wizards who can use scrolls at 7th level, gain a network of bureaucratic fellow scribe contacts, and some odd monk feats.The prestige classes tie into the setting of the book and have neat conceptual ideas but do not fare well mechanically. Pharaoh, avatar, and godslayer all fit in as divine champions but for the most part straight clerics fit the role better mechanically with more impressive divine powers than the 1/day specific low level domain spells most of the prestige classes get as the bulk of their special powers. While the idea for gods to empower specific powerful followers as divine champions is a good one, as is the idea for that link to be a vulnerability for the gods, there is little incentive for a god or follower to use the avatar mechanism presented here.The gods themselves are presented as 25-35 Hit Dice outsiders who each can transform into their sacred animals, have one unique ability, and can at will cast the spells from the domains they grant. The unique abilities range from killing any mortal no save with a touch to proficiency in all weapons to using summon nature's allies IX at will for crocodiles only. The gods are unkillable except by certain specific methods. It states the gods cannot manifest on the world directly, but this is contradicted by the mythological background legends presented about Isis wandering the world and interacting with people as she tracked down Osiris' murdered body.There is a little discussion of the changing pantheons and importance of the gods over time as well as why the current set up for the three Egyptian pantheons is the way it currently is for the campaign setting. The original creator gods are fundamental aspects such as the sky, the earth, etc. and do not interact much with current divine events except for Apophis who tries to destroy Amun-Re the sun every night in an attempt to bring about the end of the world. The rest of the gods are split between the Nile and Desert Enneads, the Nile consisting of Osiris and the forces of law, order and Maat, and the Desert consisting of Set and those who he convinced to secede with him after Osiris returned from the dead to reclaim rulership of the gods. The mechanical presentation of gods as straight outsiders works on a certain level for portraying the gods as different from men (no class levels) and is an alternative from the models presented in Avalanche's Ragnarok! (gods as mid to high level characters), Bastion Press' Lore of the Gods series (avatars as 20th level characters with lots of D&D magic), and Wizards of the Coast's Deities and Demigods (20HD outsiders with lots of class levels, and lots of divine magic abilities).Following the gods are four new monsters including a proto-phoenix, a three headed snake that hunts crocodiles, a snake-headed lion, and gnoll-like beasts with a vicious grapple and claw combination.Finishing off the setting are ten half page adventure outlines for plots involving threats to the empire from the desert Enead god machinations. While they start out shaky with a monster that must be defeated by one means which the heroes will not have a clue about and which the game provides no rule mechanic to accomplish, and then followed up by an obscure riddle and trap scenario, they quickly get much better. The last eight adventures build one after another with one plot being a distraction or set up for the next one as Set manipulates gods, men, and events in multilayered plans to overrun the empire and regain his rulership. The challenges are varied and develop many of the flavors and themes of the setting as well as the various gods involved; and presents them on a level the PCs can appreciate. The short rules provided for heroic PC event situations in the middle of a war battle are quite well done and provide a good way to run PCs through a mass battle.While the classes are disappointing War in Heliopolis' main qualities are in providing a different model for gods, some interesting information about ancient Egypt, and providing a good set of themed adventure outlines.</blockquote>

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