Aesheba is a 96pp supplement produced by New Infinities comes with Gary Gygax's "personal promise". David Cherry's evocative cover art of a Hellenic-Zulu warrior certainly fits the setting. The rest of the artwork and maps within are quite acceptable, as is the the justified three-column text. The style isn't exactly chatty and the text can be a little dense at times. The table of contents and index is a little spartan. The book contains a B4 colour map of the continent of Aesheba which bares only the most superficial semblance to Africa and contains less than requisite number of geographical improbabilities common to all fantasy cartography.
The basic premise of Aesheba is a campaign setting. The enormous continent of Africa has been shrunk ("a little" they say) significantly and the Nile has been removed, so the inconvenience of the Egyptian civilisation is removed. Four Greek city-state colonies have been placed in the northern half, namely Ios, Kythera, Milios and Tegea. Further south, on the west coast, is the native kingdom of Gloriosus, and on the east coast, New Grecia.
The opening chapter discusses magic in Aesheba, and particularly that of native Aeshebans. This is expressed on the sound anthropological principles of medicine, homeopathy, contagion, spirits and the distinction between Witches, Sorcerers, Diviners and Detectors. Four different systems of magic of increasingly complexity are also provided. The end of the chapter is a brief bibliography, which includes classics of anthropology such as Evans-Pritchard's study of magic use among the Azande.
The idea of using "anthropologically correct" magic systems is highly appealing, however the execution in this instance is not particularly well executed in terms of applying it to a game system. For example, the same effect could have been achieved by simply explaining the four professions as magic use as different grades of power (which they are) of the same profession. Also, for playability purposes, it is strongly recommended that the four different systems of magic are used as cultural implementations rather than at a meta-game level. Finally, as impressive as the research is, some actual examples of relative abilities would have been very useful.
The next chapters discusses the Greek colonies of the north and the Kingdoms. In true ancient Hellenic fashion the early city-states were established by rogues and vagabonds who crushed and sought tribute from the natives and then engaged in various acts of hubris that brought their downfall. The lesson taught, over and over again, still is; don't insult Posedin. The second wave of colonists were more successful (and pious) and once their cities were established, turned the most important task of going to war against each other. Before describing the cities proper, the chapter also discusses the geography, flora and fauna, architecture, trade and social mores.
The four cities and two kingdoms are provided an overview and main features, sketch map, a key and description to the main locations and most important NPCs. These are appropriately sized with tiny Tegea receiving four pages and the mighty New Grecia (a strangely romanised name) receiving seventeen. These are just sufficient for PCs on a continent-traveling journey but, with the exception of New Grecia, would require more work if they intend to use one as a base of operations. The most interesting is redoubtably the multi-cultural kingdom of Gloriosus.
The next chapter is supposed to describe the homelands of the native peoples, a somewhat unusual placement given their magic description is the first main chapter. However only two main "races" of Aesehba, the Pygmies and the Bushmen are detailed. The authors explain, in an utterly unforgivable cop-out: "The negroid peoples who inhabit most of the continent are not described; consult your local library for information". Not surprisingly this contemptuous excuse for a "chapter" is a mere two pages, and generates an automatic -1 on Substance.
The final chapter discusses the Wilderness areas, including their various small settlements. A couple of fantasy elements are also given space, such as the Shadhavar (carnivorous antelopes) which has horns that play music, the Leotine (half-human, half-lion, like a centaur), the arachne (giant spiders), the monkey people, the sand demons (very big lizards), the lullubas (malevolent river creatures), the renegals (horned, yeti-like apes), the unique pheonix, and for that special "lost worlds" adventure, pterodactyls. As interesting as these might be, one is perplexed at why the authors didn't do the research to include genuine mythic creatures from African legends, especially given the research on the magic system.
Aesheba is an annoying supplement. The setting concept is excellent and the cities, maps and NPCs make the document well worth using and the essay on magic-use in African cultures is a reasonable summary. After all, it would be very difficult to write a 96pp supplement in such density that did not have a significant quantity of good material. However there are far too many contradictions and omissions in matters of substance which hamstring what could have been a very good document into a very average one.
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