Customer Reviews

Armageddon (Armageddon Roleplaying Game)

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This and Terra Primate are the two games Eden Studios has done and not heard many sung praises for. The premise for Armageddon is simple: a near-future World War 3 setting involving demons and angels, because something else threatens to destroy reality. Armageddon is the first Eden game to have a massive power scale, going from normal humans right up to godlike beings. In fact, I think it's the most diversly spread Unisystem power level to date. This game uses Classic Unisystem, of Witchcraft, All Flesh Must be Eaten, Terra Primate, and Conspiracy X 2.0 fame

In this way, it reminds me of Nobilis (search books for that one, you can't miss it), save the baddies are basically Cthulu with the serial numbers filed off (great tentacled beasts from beyond). In fact, I initially discounted it because I already had Nobilis, and let my prejudice cloud my judgement.

I was wrong. While Nobilis fits at the demigod level exceedingly well, Armageddon sets this toward more "realistic" war action. I say "realistic" as a genre in this sense, not as an actual nod toward true realism, which would take much more math than this 350 page book could contain. That said, it does it's job admirably.

Several different races are listed in the game, all with pulpy overtones (norse gods, atlanteans, immortals, etc). There's also another big difference from Nobilis: humans.

In Nobilis, humans are playthings of the gods. In Armageddon, humans are (as the good book says) made in the likeness of the creator. While Angels and Demons are more powerful physically and spiritually, both will not adapt or evolve, unlike humankind which will advance to near the power of the creator.

And here's why I think Armageddon has been put under wraps. It could bother people who think the game is mocking a real world faith. CJ Carella (the author) has a disclaimer proclaiming that it, like all RPGs, is a complete work of fiction, not meant to be taken as "an occult manual or religious work". While it may contain many elements of real world religions, anything it says about them it claims upfront are completely bogus when placed next to their real world counterparts. CJ looks like he did his homework when writing the setting, but never once does he claim to be a theology scholar or any other type of expert in the field, and never once does he claim that anything he says is a fact. Quite the reverse, actually.

Anyway, with that unpleasantness out of the way (it had to be said), I'll continue on to another merit of the system in my eyes: mechanically, it treats Angels and Demons as the same thing: Seraphim. While they may have fallen, Demons still are basically the same beings. They have wings, holy fire, and can weild a blazing sword. The only difference is the power source (divine or infernal).

The other great element is free will. Nephilim are half-Seraphim, half-humans. While socially looked down upon, they are more and more a great asset in the war, as they have human's spirit, and angel's blood. Another step I like: Nephilim aren't just watered down Seraphim. While at a lesser power level, Nephilim have unique powers all their own, and unique differences as well. Seraphim can learn magic, while Nephilim are practically immune to it's application (and for obvious reasons may never learn it).

The fast and loose Unisystem mechanics shine like always, bleeding into the background. There's even a section on Cinematic Combat which takes the game a step toward Cinematic Unisystem, the version of Buffy, Angel, and Army of Darkness fame, which happens to be my favorite version as of this moment.

The artwork is of average quality throughout, save the cover, which is quite good.

Overall, I think a person could look to a much worse place than this to start his Eden Studios collection, and a fan without this game should get it right away.