The titular world of Life on Eden is regarded by many inhabitants of the Heavy Gear universe as an almost-mythic world, where the inhabitants want for nothing and possess amazing technology. This book informs us that Eden’s golden age is over, the planet having experienced its own private Apocalypse, and the survivors possess a quality of life that is less than what they had before, though still better than many others in the HG universe. Life on Eden contains a plethora of useful information; unfortunately, the enjoyment of this information is marred by a large number of spelling and grammar errors, and some things that can only be described as odd.
Chapter One, appropriately labeled Introduction , quickly introduces the reader to Eden and the system it occupies. Eden’s time as the paradise world is long over, a Gatedrive experiment having led to a worldwide disaster called the Apocalypse for good reason. In the years since the survivors have rebuilt their society into groups of kingdoms and privateers, their lifestyles a far cry from the lives their predecessors lived.
The CEF has avoided Eden, fearful of it due to the legends of advanced technology, and Terra Nova has recently made discreet contact with one of the factions that dominate Eden. Meanwhile, some on Eden fear the Apocalypse was a prelude to a much bigger disaster, and struggle to find a way to move the populace of the planet to a new world.
The first chapter does an excellent job of drawing the reader into the world of Eden. It also details the Sol System, of which Eden is a part, and which holds the potential for some gaming that is as interesting as the possibilities found on Eden. There are a number of facilities, shipyards, and autofacs around various planets, some abandoned since the Apocalypse, and others having been discreetly reactivated by various groups from Eden. The other planets of the system also lead themselves to adventures involving scientific exploration.
Chapter two covers the history of Eden, from its initial discovery to the Apocalypse to the present day. Here we are first introduced to the two social classes of Eden, which consist of Roh’im (those with a greater interest in technology, who become the equivalent of royalty after the Apocalypse) and the Gleanei (who use technology, but prefer a simpler lifestyle, and who end up as the peasant class after the Apocalypse). Bother are succinctly described, allowing the reader to understand all that is to come regarding the two groups in later chapters.
I was pleased both with the amount of data in this chapter and how easy it is to use in a campaign. Unlike the Atlantis colony book, the historical information in this volume is written so that the GM can easily run a game in Eden’s past without worrying that every action his players take will disrupt the way events play out in the planet. Also, many events described here can be used as the seeds for modern-day adventuring on Eden.
The kingdoms of Eden are covered in the third chapter, and there is a vast amount of information packed into here, so much so that the reader may have to go over it a few times to take everything in. In addition to the kingdoms and the lands they control a fair number of important individuals are detailed as are various “minor” groups, such as doomsday cultists and the elite forces contracted by various kingdoms. I really can’t begin to detail all that’s covered here. I can honestly say that with the info in this chapter an Eden-based campaign could be run for years based simply on exploring and interacting with the various civilizations described here.
The next chapter is devoted to those who depend on the seas of Eden to survive. This chapter isn’t as extensive as the previous one, but that doesn’t stop it from being a useful and fun part of a campaign. There is great variety among those whose livelihoods involve the sea in some manner, with not only merchants, vigilantes, and pirates being given coverage, but also those who make a living laying transoceanic cabling being described. It would be very easy to run a sea-based campaign with this chapter, even one in which the land-based kingdoms are nothing more than something interacted with “off-camera” between gaming sessions.
Chapter Five details the shared customs of the civilizations covered in the previous chapters, along with a look at some of the technology that is rather unique to Eden. Among the more interesting information to be found here concerns the Divine Spirim, a belief system in which god and worshiper are considered one, and every member of the faith has their own unique method of worship. The technological portion of this chapter is a fascinating read, detailing, among other things, the Edenites use of nano-genetics and their hive systems, which allow a single human operator to control multiple drones at once, for purposes both mundane and combat related.
The sixth chapter is the gamemaster resource chapter, and contains the usual items found in this section of the colony book series: advice on how to properly portray the world of Eden, character templates, random adventure tables, and the like. Additionally, the chapter also contains detailed descriptions and stats for some of the more notable individuals on the planet. In a nice touch, while the characters are fairly powerful players in the campaign world, none of them are untouchable characters against whom PCs are powerless.
The last chapter of the book is devoted to vehicles, APES, and bug drones. They seem okay, but I haven’t had the opportunity to playtest them, so I don’t know how they’d hold up in actual play.
As I hope you gathered by this point, I like what was presented in this book a lot. The information is detailed and well thought-out, and I can see many good gaming sessions coming out of this book. But this Eden has several serpents running through it, and they unfortunately bring the book’s level of quality down a fair deal.
My main problem with this book was the spelling and grammar errors. In my review of Utopia I commented on the number of such errors in that book, and that I accepted them under the idea that English may not be the primary language of the authors. With Eden, however, the sheer volume of errors goes beyond me being able to write them off as a translation problem. In Utopia there were many places where commas were lacking; in Eden it seems that the authors were trying to make up for that error by placing commas at any place they could fit them in, making for some very odd reading. Additionally, at times where a comma was necessary the authors decided to use a semi-colon instead, again making for some peculiar sentences. Even with the apparent plethora of commas available to them there are a few places where they are not used, leading to run-on sentences.
Then there are the moments in the book that are just odd. I can figure out that on page 32 the author did not mean to say “semi-domesticated therapists,” but rather “semi-domesticated therapids.” And I can figure out what the author means when he uses “except for accept.” But would someone please explain to me the statement “...where the person’s body is exhumed, typically by burial,” from page 73 of the book?
Combined with the number of spelling errors in Eden I sometimes found it very hard to continue reading due to tthe sheer number of mistakes.
Another problem that popped up repeatedly throughout the book was that almost all events were given the same amount of emphasis. For example, on the matter of the Apocalypse there’s a rather small amount of information on the exact details on the Apocalypse, with a fair amount of detail on the aftereffects of the event on Eden, from attempts to explore space to move people off Eden before such a disaster can happen again, to the doomsayer cults that have popped up with Apocalypse-based philosophies. However, the punch of the writing on this subject is no greater than when I was reading about a group’s habit of sticking the severed heads of its enemies on pikes or a doomed love affair between two prominent individuals; these events seemed to be viewed as just as important to the authors as the near-end of the world. Similarly, the covert contact between parts of Eden’s society and Terra Nova is a major event with major implications for the entire planet, but again it suffers from apparently being seen as no more important than the fashion styles of the various Eden cultures, based on the amount of space devoted to it. If this book was being read aloud I imagine the speaker would use a monotone as he went through it.
The last oddity to me was the way that things that would seem to be rather important to running a campaign on Eden are barely described, while minor details are highlighted. The most prominent example of this is with regards to the Gleanei and their ability to purchase a place in Roh’im society. At various points in discussing different cultures on Eden it is mentioned that Gleanei are able to buy a place among the Roh’im. However, it is unclear if this is a worldwide thing or specific only to the cultures that it is mentioned in. It is also left unsaid exactly how much it costs to buy this upgrade in status; additionally, some descriptions describe it as a lump sum payment, while at one point its mentioned it’s also possible to take (undefined) jobs, the wages of which are put toward purchasing citizenship. The only time it is definitively explained is for one culture, which trades terms of service in the military for increased status How those born into the higher social structure react to those who have purchased it is never mentioned, which is odd, given the emphasis on the importance of which social group you belong to. In contrast to this details are given to such things as a list of phrases peculiar to Eden cultures, and the costs of various foods and drink.
So, do I recommend Life On Eden? If you’re looking for a highly detailed sourcebook and are willing to put up with the problems I described, then go for it. But if you cringe at repeated errors that a spell- or grammar- check could easily have found, then stay away.
