Review of The Confederation Guidebook

I was out browsing the shelves of my local bookstore when all of a sudden a name caught my eye, as it often does, you tend to home in on your fav authors. Anyway i stopped to investigate and lo and behold i found myself staring at Peter Hamiltons Confederation handbook. Did i think, 'hmm a shameless attempt to boost income through a quickly thrown together set of notes' ? Hell no, i was stood there in the middle of that shop thinking 'Hey, how many campaigns can i run with this!!!!'. So to my point, guidebooks to your favourite novel and tv series are a seriously underappreciated source of relativly cheap material. To prove it im gonna give a run through this handbook and what im thinking of doing with it.

WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE...

First i think a little history is gonna be neccasary for those who havent read the Nights Dawn trilogy. Dont worry i aint gonna spoil the plot, im sticking to the basic background. Now, Hamiltons trilogy is set in a human dominated confederation, described in the book in staggering detail. We've got two types of FTL travel, 'Adamist' ships built with spherical hulls to enable Ftl amd 'Edenist' bio-ships called voidhawks that can 'swallow' through wormholes. Both have comparable abilities, although voidhawks are considered more versatile. Starcraft combat is conducted mostly using 'Combat wasps' intelligent multi missiles, along with close defence masers and such. There are a variety of spacebound societies to play with, from the various independant colonies and asteroid settlements to the Kulu kingdom and Edenist sentient bio-colony cylinders called 'Habitats'. Added to that you've got the Kiint a VERY secretive highly advanced alien race, and the Tyrathca another race of slightly less developed aliens. Edenists and Adamists are human, divided along religious/technological lines; Edenists have 'affinity' kind of like a communal telepathy which can also link them to their biotech devices, whilst adamists rely on more standard tech. For combat maniacs and munchkins the Confederation( an organisation like our UN) space includes boosted mercs- mercenaries remodeled and upgraded via nanotech to fight more effectivly, best compared to Blue Planets biomods with full body reshaping. Also there are cosmoniks, astronauts whose bodies have been replaced with cyberware due to radiation poisoning and grav problems. This is but the most casual glance at the societies Hamilton created in the trilogy, the whole is easily as detailed as any RPG i've seen, and i've seen an awfull lot. Its also hard sci-fi so the devices used within are fully realised for the more technologically minded of you.

WHAT HAVE WE GOT HERE?

So on to the Handbook. The handbook is split into seven chapters, covering various facets of the Confederation. Its important to note that all information is based on stuff from the years just before the turbulent period ushered in by the novels, all such later period material is marked as such. This makes it really usefull for gamers as you can mess with the universe without having to work around the world changing plot. The various chapters gives us an overveiw of the confederation as of 2611. This overveiw does not expect the reader to know any thing about it allready so those of you who havent read the novels can still use this as a stand alone universe. The first two chapters concern the Adamist and Edenist cultures and include everything you need from education and government to technology and religion The next chapter covers spaceships, its pretty brief on adamist ships giving only basic tech data, but with this info you can dream up all sorts of hull types and such. Voidhawks and their mercenary cousins Blackhawks are given more space due to their unique nature. Next we have a selection of confed member worlds and habitats, its not an exhaustive list, covering twelve regions, but it is relativly detailed and has examples of each type of community your likely to find throughout the confederation. It also includes a section on the confed navy. This section is less detailed than your average sourcebook, as it has a lot to cover, but over a hundred pages worth of info is pretty damn good. Next up are sentient Xenocs(aliens), with comprehensive sections on the Tyrathca, Kiint and a short section on the Jiciro, a pre industrial society the confederation is observing till they reach a sufficient tech level to join the greater galaxy. The alien section covers pretty much everything, history, psychology, technology, its all here. The final section covers the main characters from the novels, but can also be looked at as a sample npc list or archtype list. As such its more usefull than it may at first look, something that is often overlooked by many RPG publishers. Finally we have a comprehensive timeline for the universe, includin all major events in human history (Xenoc history is covered in the Xenoc section.). Look over that again, cultures, locations, aliens, tech and npc list. Does the format remind you of anything?

SHAMELESS THEFT.

And now the fun part. The book has a lot of uses, first you could take this and info from reading the novels (Handy and enjoyable an excellent way to introduce players to the universe while retaining your own source.) and run a campaign set in Hamiltons confederation. Ideas which spring to mind include:

The p.cs are a confed navy crew (Adamist or edenist) on antimatter station intercept missions and get caught up in a conflict with the shadowy antimatter guild and its hired thugs! Pretty much standard sci-fi campaign really.

Another classic; the p.cs are independant traders, again adamist or edenist. An avenue explored well in the novels for those interested. A good twist on this might be the p.cs as boosted mercs troubleshooters, or explorers (see hamiltons short story anthology 'Second chance for eden for ideas on that one.)

Or for the intrigue minded the p.cs could be edenist Serpents (Evil edenists) or Kulu ESA agents trying to break the edenist He mining monopoly through sabotage and blowing stuff up.

For those who've read the novels they could be ordinary citizens or soldiers caught on a world fighting the possessed, or bitek constructs in the Morton ridge campaign.

Or for a superpowered campaign they could be Kiint biological observers impersonating humans in the confederation caught up in various events.

I could go on, but im keeping the really good ideas for myself and my forth coming campaign. Another option is that you could take the book itself and alter the various parts you dont like and take the good bits to add to your own campaign. This last one may be the most attractive to those of you who havent read the novels as there are a lot of really cool ideas here. One problem, albiet an interesting one, is what system to integrate the background with. Gurps is an obvious choice and works well (It was designed for this sort of thing after all) but i always find GURPs a little complex for fast play. My personal plan is to convert the Blue Planet rules, the biotech fits very well and its an easier system, plus i really like Blue Planet. Any great ideas? Then post them below, im sure someone out there knows the perfect system for this.

FINALLY.

So, after that i hope youre all ready to rush off and explore an alternative way of getting in background material for your campaigns. As to a final rating of the book, well i have to say its exhaustive in detail and full of ideas you can usein almost any sci fi campaign. Its got no pictures, which is its big failing as art would have raised this into the indispensible range, but as it stands i'd recommend it to anyone needing a new sci-fi background. Stuff like this may not be as cool as a whole rpg, no pictures for one thing, and no prospect of sourcebooks, another downer, but i geuss its time i got back into the habit of using my own imagination more anyway. So, go buy it!

Any industry guys out there PLEASE bring out a Nights Dawn RPG, i want source books and cool pictures...