This month we take a look at two of Osprey Publishing's latest books from their Dark Osprey and Myth series. Nazi Occult gives a fact based alternate history that details the Nazi's attempts to harness occult power, and how in this alternate world they managed to do so. Want some Ancient Egyptian inspiration, look no further than The War of Horus and Set.

Nazi Occult

I have been told that my games tend to be very pulpy in feel, and it doesn't matter if I am doing historical action, action horror, or sword and sorcery fantasy. Thus, this book fits right in my wheelhouse and I really wanted to love it. First off, what Nazi Occult is not. Its not a complete campaign, there are no game system elements, and it does not purport to include a how to run this as a role-playing game chapter. Nazi Occult is a narrative of the occult research of the Nazi regime that mixes fact with fiction and wild speculation. The whole thing is presented as fact with nothing to denote the fictional elements. Real people, real organizations, and real events are blended together with Hite's own creations. While this makes for an interesting and entertaining read, it does present some problems for those planning to use Nazi Occult as a resource for their own games. However, the approach I recommend is to treat this comprehensive alternate history as background and set your campaign after the war, but during a suggested (at least in the text) mystical cold war.

If you would prefer to run through this alternate history as it happens, and this is a viable option, Osprey publishes a wide array of WWII books. Along with Nazi Occult they sent me the following titles, all of which I can heartily recommend: Italian Navy and Air Force Elite Units and Special Forces 1940-45, Kill Hitler, Operation Valkyrie 1944, Office of Strategic Services 1942-45, World War II Tactical Camouflage Techniques, US Special Warfare Unites in the Pacific Theater 1941-45, and World War II Winter and Mountain Warfare Tactics. These titles are all straight historical and written more for the amateur historian than gamer. They should provide plenty of fodder for nearly any WWII themed campaign, and the tactics books provide useful tips for players and GMs.

The story of Nazi Occultbegins decades before the war with the late nineteenth and early twentieth century German occult movements, and ties these into the back to the land folk movements of the day. Historical figures from occult circles of the time are name dropped here and there, as are real world societies and political issues. From there the narrative explodes across the face of the planet, hitting Tibet, Mongolia, North Africa, the Mid East, and parts in between and farther off. Nazi Occultis a whirlwind of information, a loaded data dump of possibilities that is so immense I cannot even begin to summarize it here.

The central thesis is that the Nazi's pursued and managed to engineer occult machines. These tended to run along techno-magical items and techniques that could be mass produced or mass taught. However, it seems that this goal was never fully achieved. True, some things such as the vril-powered saucers were created. However, much like the real world super weapon programs, political intrigue within the Nazi party, poor funding, and the inept pursuit of unrealistic dreams kept the Nazis from creating an arsenal of occult weapons.

A large part of the Nazi's efforts were dedicated towards acquiring tomes and artifacts of occult significance, such as the old favorites of the Grail, Ark, and Spear of Destiny. They also tried, and often failed, to forge alliances with spirit beings of various types. This worldwide hunt, and back in Germany bungling, sets the stage for the Fourth Reich. At the end of the war, several U-Boats disappear, as does the fleet of saucer ships. These turn up in the Antarctic at a base established in the later years of the war. Here, at Point 211, supplies, aircraft, fuel and the working devices (such as Marconi's death ray) were stored. After the war, the surviving Nazi occult structure, now freed from the interference and manipulations of its more politically minded leaders, establishes the Fourth Reich. The US Navy attempts to quash it, fails, and the cold war takes on a new dreadful facet.

Like any Osprey book, the artwork is simply amazing. Most of the pieces were crafted for this title, and show events ranging from a firefight between US GI's and werewolves (Operation Werewolves had real werewolves) to a handy guide to the uniforms of the occult divisions of the SS. Interspersed throughout the text are historical photographs and other artifacts that lend a feel of authenticity to the fictional narrative, As a whole, the artwork and photographs combine to give a very solid impression of awesome mystical goings on.

Sadly, the awesome is often buried under the faux history and mundane nature of the writing. This is largely in part because the book is presented as a historical document. Also, much like writing for role-playing settings, the author had to write in a non-fiction manner about fictional things. In addition to this, a large amount of the information is written as if the reader is already aware of what vril is (the description in the glossary was somewhat vague), the capabilities of the saucer ships, and other such standards of conspiracy and occult circles. As a person with only a passing interest in these things, and whose knowledge of them comes from only a few sources (oddly enough, largely Kenneth Hite's wonderful "Suppressed Transmission" articles) this made Nazi Occulta bit confusing. I would not recommend it to someone new to the field, but a person who is well versed in this sort of pseudo-historical mumbo jumbo would likely find Nazi Occultof greater utility. As is, I used it as a background document for a mini-campaign.

When we sat down to do a table top test for this book, I decided to use the text for background and focus on the last part as the inspiration for my game. Nazi saucers operating out of Antarctica! Secret mystical cold war between the Allies and the Fourth Reich! Great stuff right there, and soon we had a mixed bag of spies, assassins, saboteurs, mystics, and whatever the hell Moxon Julian was playing (honestly, every group has that guy who you wonder why you let him at the table, but keep him because out of the game he's such a nice person). We used the BRP system with several tweaks, most notably the stunts system I developed for Bokors and Broadsides.

The mini-campaign started with the party responding to the Roswell Crash and trying to capture the Nazi pilots of the downed saucer. This had no bearing on the rest of the campaign, but served as a cold open and helped se the stage for the rest of the tale. After this cold open (or hot open as the vril powered ship exploded), it was back to Washington and the headquarters of the fledgling CIA. Their new mission, retrieve a defecting Nazi scientist who has escaped the Antarctic base of the Fourth Reich. Doctor Herta Sunde is one of the Fourth Reich's leading vril scientists, and her decision to defect is a great coup for the Allies. She will meet the party at the replica of the Santa Maria, in the Parque del Este in Caracas, Venezuela.

The party collected their briefing papers (when running any sort of secret ops campaign I recommend putting together a few dossiers on the NPCs along with photos) and headed off to Caracas. Wait, they forgot to build cover identities, backtrack and then head to Caracas. When they finally reached Caracas they declined to meet with their contact, a shady underworld figure named Enrique Martez. Instead, using their assumed identities as various world-class travelers, socialites, and businessmen, the party checked into the fanciest hotel in Caracas.

What followed was the worst spate of espionage role-playing I have ever witnessed. I shall spare the more gentle readers the details, and merely state that in a few short sessions the party had managed to get Dr. Sunde killed, instigate a shoot out in a public park, maim at least one innocent bystander, kill their only informant, start a gang war, get in a shoot out with the police, blow up a hotel, get the CIA's contact and fixer in Caracas arrested, murder a prostitute, and spend thousands of dollars on extravagant expense because "it’s the CIA's money, not ours", and "we are the reason for the National Deficit."

After all of this, they finally managed (largely through GM fiat) to discover that the Nazis and Dr. Sunde were in Venezuela to find a hidden temple in the jungle and loot it for mystical artifacts and lore. This led to a panicked scramble to acquire and outfit a boat to take them up the Rio Orinoco to the lost ruins of Makum. They made the trek with ease, dealing with local threats swiftly and surely.

Once at the ruins, they encountered a native tribe that inhabited the region and worshiped the statuary of the ruins as gods. The ineptitude resumed, negotiations failed, and soon the entire party was hanging upside down over a pit. After escaping, a firefight with the natives ensued, while one character decided she had had enough of all this senseless violence and went alone to investigate the temple. There, she found the artifact they were looking for, as well as texts carved and painted into the walls. Sadly, the texts could not be saved, nor easily transcribed as they were in Ancient Mayan. While figuring out how to remove the artifact from its resting place without setting off any traps, our intrepid agent did not notice that the rest of the party had set the village and surrounding jungle on fire.

After much effort on the part of the two players who were on the ball, our inquisitive agent and the team's mechanic, a total party kill was averted. Not only that, but the artifact was recovered and spirited out of Venezuela ahead of any pursuing Nazis. During their escape, one of the PCs asked the inquisitive agent what that thing was she was carrying.

Her reply, "The artifact we came here for."

"Really, I should pay attention during the briefings."

None of the above is to say that Nazi Occult is a bad book, on the contrary, it is an excellent and well researched example of conspiracy and occult weirdness. However, for both my players and myself it presented too much information with too little explanation of the things that were needed to grasp the concepts for a role-playing experience. Since Nazi Occult was not intended to be a role-playing setting book, this does not cast an unfavorable light on the work. However, it does limit its utility for those not already well versed in its source material. The above confusion on the account of those in the table top test no doubts stems in large part form the GM's confusion with regards to the subject matter, as well as the player's own spate of blood thirstiness (which showed up in several mini-campaigns the past spring).

The War of Horus and Set

From a fictional narrative of World War II, we move to the world of myth. The War of Horus and Set covers a central story in the Egyptian mythological cycle. Well, at least an interesting story, the body of Ancient Egyptian mythology is rather large and often contradictory. The War of Horus and Set begins with a brief overview of Egyptian myth and cosmology and a handful of the most important deities. Why only a handful? Well, in Ancient Egypt there were at least a thousand gods of various stripes, as well as lesser divinities, local spirits, and such. Most of these, and especially the most important, had multiple representations, avatars, and mythological cycles. One reason for this is that the priesthoods tried to establish their patrons as the most important deities in the pantheon, and if that meant taking on the aspects of some minor local god, then so be it. Additionally, the priesthoods were not unified, there might be a couple dozen temples of Ra, and although some were connected by hierarchies, others operated independently. Finally, any study of Ancient Egyptian mythology must cope with the extremities of time and the loss of primary documents.

Now, on to The War of Horus and Set proper. After an introduction to Ancient Egyptian mythology, we proceed to the main narrative of the book. Set and his brother Osiris get into a heated argument, largely over Osiris bedding Set's wife. This kicked off a rebellion of Set and his allies against the pharaoh Osiris and his followers. Through trickery, Set overthrew Osiris and took over rule of Egypt.

This state was not to last, and Osiris's son, Horus, grew up with the plan to usurp his uncle (by the way, nearly all the major deities were related and both Set and Osiris were married to their sisters). As the two rivals vied with each other their allies joined in the ongoing battles. Notably, Set's allies included a large number of foreigners, especially from Ethiopia and Libya. To solve this struggle for the throne, the two gods were to face a set of tests and challenges. In each contest, Horus used trickery and outright cheated, while Set tended to play by the rules. Between contests they two battled openly in a war that is said to have lasted nearly four centuries. Eventually Horus bested Set in battle, and the uncle kneeled before the nephew and offered his loyalty

The next section of The War of Horus and Set looks at warfare in Ancient Egypt, with a focus on the more organized (and from a role-playing perspective more interesting) warfare of the later eras. This information is accompanied by excellent illustrations that really bring forth the chaos of swarms of warriors engaging in a mass melee. The book ends with an analysis of the tale, its ties to other mythological cycles of the Ancient world, as well as its more modern uses in science fiction and horror.

This tale, severely abbreviated above, gives a lot of information to use to put together a short campaign. The first thing I did was look at the two main protagonists, Horus and Set. Although the mythological cycle places Horus as the victor, and later Ancient Greek commentators built a corpus of work based on the assumption that Horus was the 'good guy' of the story, I feel that Set fits that role better. First of all, he is the brother who most faithfully attends his duties to Ra, that of keeping the world working and the sun revolving. Second, Osiris and Horus come across, at least to me, as a pair of liars and cheats who abuse their power and hereditary rights. Throw in Osiris's constant rising from the dead and eventual mummification, and you have the taint of necromancy (at least to modern eyes).

For our table top test, I chose the Pathfinder Fantasy Role-Playing Game as the system for a story of agents of Set combating the agents of Horus in an alternate reality steampunk Ancient Egypt. Too much of a mash-up? No such thing. Our heroes were tasked with beating the agents of Horus to a recently discovered lost pyramid and acquiring an ancient artifact that will be useful to Horus's cause. The PCs were a mixed group of native Egyptians and foreigners, as befitting Set's allies in the myths. As we had a person who wanted to try her hand at game mastering, I simply set the stage and the general outline and let her fill in the details.

The journey across the desert on steam powered mounts was interesting. We fought giant scorpions and bandits, likely set upon us by Horus's agents. After all, our patron was the god of the Desert, something had to be up if it had turned against us. Following a sandstorm (those pesky agents of Horus and their magic no doubt) we resupplied at an oasis before heading into the pyramid.

Inside we found a complicated maze filled with traps, undead guardians, and the remains of the agents of Hours. It seems these blackguards had beaten us there (they probably took a zeppelin instead of riding), but fell one by one to the dangers of the tomb. Hampering out efforts was that the pyramid was the resting place of a long dead pharaoh, Ramses the Confused, and his tomb lived up to his name. Upon reaching the final resting place of Ramses the Confused, we found the object of our quest, an ornate canoptic jar containing the mummified penis of Osiris. You read that correctly, for in the original myths Osiris was cut up into pieces and scattered, but his wife Isis managed to assemble all but one and reanimate the body. Here was the last piece needed to bring Osiris to full power.

Snatching the jar from its resting place, my character flung it to our fastest runner, Hawk the Libyan Ranger, who took off for the outside. Meanwhile, the rest of the party held off the risen mummy of Ramses the Confused and his undead guardians. After a tense fight, the agents of Set won through and returned to Thebes victorious with the wang of a god.

Next month follows the August tradition in this column of celebrating GenCon and my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana with a column on the history of the city as seen through the lens of Circle City Supers. Speaking of GenCon, if you are attending, why don't you stop by the Cubicle 7 booth and say hello, or better yet, purchase a copy of Rocket Age, my latest retro-sci-fi space opera RPG! If I don't see you there, tune in September for another Osprey review, Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, the O.K. Corral, and the Vendetta Ride 1881-1882, with King Arthur scheduled for October.