Rifts: Spirit West is a kind of odd-ball add-on to the game but could
play a massive role in any North American campaign. The book is
well-written and devoid of any typos (at least that I know of.) At
first, I was impressed, then I was a little depressed when I realized
that in order for a campaign to include the stuff in the book, it had
to be almost exclusively from Spirit West.
My initial feelings about this stemmed from the main premis of the
supplement. The magic of the Indians in Rifts Earth is dependent on
following of their gods' rules of non-technology. Some of this even
prevents Indian player characters from participating in other party
members' activities (like riding in a modern vehicle.) Fortunately, I
realized that there is a great opportunity for an incredibly epic
adventure. I'll get to that later.
The book starts out telling the story of how before Columbus made it
to America, a faction of the Native American pantheon hid away a
number of their people in a sort of happy hunting ground dimension.
There, they lived out their lives in their and maintained their
culture, unimpeded by the white man's conquest. Generations later,
they return to Rifts Earth, where they gather up their modernized
decendants and reteach the ancient ways.
These ancient ways turn out to be quite powerful, as the details show.
Every Traditionalist or Pure One character has a totem animal that
gives him or her rather nice attribute, skill, and other bonuses. The
replacement for technology and "white man's magic" is mostly in the
form of fetishes. These are magically charged items that have a wide,
wide range of effects.
There are some very useful character classes presented in the book, as
well. There are several Warrior type classes that are quite balanced
against each other and vary in skills, magical power, and psionic
power. The book also contains a long list of shaman classes, which I
found equally appealing, as well.
Some monsters and strange beings are given, though I was mostly
unimpressed by them. In lieu of the critters, however, there is a
massive section about the gods of the Indians. These were actually
useful, as I used one of them in a campaign... twice! In this
section, you learn that there sure are a lot of random spirits
wandering the wilds of Rifts North America, but they could be very fun
to include into a campaign, especially the Great Little Ones.
There is a minor section of the book devoted to the technology
developed and dug up by the "Renegade" Indians, and it's mildly
fascinating. While there were no Glitter Boy varients, there were two
new SAMAS varients, only one of which is post-Rifts. The one piece of
technology that I found amusing was the Laser Bow, a plunger powered
by manual archery action that doesn't require an E-Clip. The weapon
mostly sucks, but the concept was silly/amusing.
After some thought, there are three main ways that the book can be
included into a multi-worldbook campaign. The first is the obvious,
don't worry about the anti-tech stuff so much. Just restrict the
character a little and find some reason that he or she would be
assisting a bunch of low-life technological white people. Rather
boring, but the range of character classes included makes this worth-
while.
The second is blending Native American characters with some other
anti-technology characters from other areas, like the New Empire of
Japan or the Jungle Elves of South America. Put them somewhere and
watch them get along. This could be amusing.
The third is part of a grand revelation that I had. After
play-testing two generic level 1 Totem Warriors against a squad of six
modernly equipped Coalition soldiers, I realized that the Indians
could probably seriously hurt the Coalition States if they could put a
hold on their in-fighting and move in for an attack. The two almost
wiped out the whole squad. While they might have trouble with giant
robots, the extreme guerilla tactics the Indians have could seriously
dent the CS infrastructure.
I'd recommend this book to any Rifts game master interested in putting
together a strong North American campaign.
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