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Nile Empire starts off with a grayscale copy of the cover. Next page is used to show what is private content and what is OGL. Next up, the good old Table of Contents. When page four rolls around, we get to a brief introduction about this product. Set in the Eighteenth Dynasty, the sourcebook allows players to face off against “armies of foreign lands and the gods of the Desert Ennead”.
It starts off with a history of this area. Here, the size of the book and their format work against them. I’m no history scholar by any means, but I’m pretty sure that to get some detail in a culture as ancient as this, it’s going to take more than the eighteen or so pages devoted to it. This is especially true as there is a lot of public art used to buff up the already widely spaced material.
For instance, the image of the Sphinx that takes up over a quarter of a page or the sarcophagi, front and back, taking up about a page worth or material. All of this means you get vague, general details.
For instance, while there are charts for equipment, weapons and armor, there’s not a lot of explanation or materials unique to the setting. While it’s good to see the prices for chickens, cows, and pigs, are there any forms of wildlife native to this setting that are perhaps a little different than those that need further explanation?
Some of these are quick and useful though like the Egyptian Glossary. It’s less than a page long but it does provide a quick run down of some common words like Ba, a person’s soul, or Ren, a person’s name. I find that it’s easiest to use such information, in table format, like the Egyptian Measurements, because it’s not hidden in the text. For example, instead giving the reader a table with all of the gods and their domains and favored weapons, you have to read through each entry. Workable but not really reader friendly.
When looking over the character creation guidelines, there are some considerations made that may seem a little strange. For example, while barbarians are allowed if they hail from outside countries, monks are druids are not. While clerics get to chose a specific deity to this setting, no mention is made of wizards and sorcerers, who are apparently allowed into this setting with no alterations. Psionics? Forget about it, not even mentioned.
Those looking for the crunch can look over new core classes like the Nomad, a desert survivalist very similar to the ranger but focused less on wiping out a racial enemy than surviving the day-to-day toil. The Scribe is a master of history and has contacts throughout the empire with lots of skill points to spend. The Trader helps keep the flow of merchandise running throughout the empire. Overall the classes seem aimed at a lower powered magic world than the standard d20 system and should be easy to fold into the campaign with a minimum amount of tweaking.
For Prestige Classes, there seems to be some confusion right off the bat. For example, the Avatar PrC is a specialized one. Each god can only have one avatar and if that avatar is killed, the god is destroyed as well. Now the 10th level ability of this class is that the avatar is only able to die by the patron god’s will or be killed by a Godslayer, another PrC. Remember, that ability comes into play at 10th level now. The Godslayer, a PrC that specializes in killing a specific Avatar, gets Lesser Divine Hunter, able to kill an Avatar up to 5th level. Now since the immortality ability doesn’t come in till 10th level of the Avatar, what good is this ability? Seems like an editing mistake either in the initial description of the Godslayer or the Avatar being linked to the god and only suffering death at a Godslayer’s hands.
The Pharaoh PrC is a ruling class that has some strict requirements on establishing your right to be Pharaoh. This being is invested with powers relating to the divine and to law and good. For instance, they gain protection from evil, shield and holy aura.
The section covering the gods does an okay job. It provides the name, background information, primary ability (of use to the Avatar PrCs), Sacred Animal, Domains, and Special Ability. It’s not a bad little section, about as much information on the gods as is provided in the Player’s Handbook. Like I’ve mentioned elsewhere, too brief.
Of some interest though, some of the gods are statted out. For example, Amun-Re, Osiris, Isis, Horus, and others have full stats. They’re considered outsiders with lots of hit points and special abilities, capable of taking on some epic characters at the very least. Ironically enough, this is one of the sections where the art used is fresh and innovative and brings the gods some personality.
For those looking for something to do with the setting, we’ve got some brief linked adventures to throw the characters into. New Monsters are also introduced in this section like the Bennu, a proto-phoenix and the hydrus, a three headed snake. Illustrations here are okay but the funky borders used to designate open content and waste a lot of space surround the stat blocks.
When wrapping up the adventure seeds, we get a page of advertising and a page for the OGL. Interior covers are not used. Now normally, a 64 page book goes for around $12.95-$14.96. This book outbeats the competition at $16.95.
In the end, the book has a hard time deciding what it’s trying to do. Is it trying to recreate a historical Nile or is it attempting to create a fantastic version of the Nile in d20 terms? If it’s the former, why are there no restrictions on the spellcasters of d20? If it’s the latter, where are the artifacts, magic items, new spells and other vital elements to such a cinematic experience? In trying to straddle the line, it fails in both areas and is probably only of use to a fan of the genre or a d20 collector.
