RIFTS WORLD BOOK 19- AUSTRALIA (1999):
-So yeah, like I said, 1998 was a huge-ass year for
Rifts. We got the Wild West & Texas figured out, the Federation of Magic got focus, and we had Japan and Russia. So by 1999, most of the "big parts" of the world were laid out, minus China, South Asia & the Middle East... and the two nations that finally got focused on in this year- Canada & Australia. Both famously-large wildernesses, but with completely different climates.
Things were kinda looking iffy for the line, though, I gotta say- there were many strong books, but two utterly HORRIFIC Magic-themed books had come out, wrecking a lot of the goodwill from their tech-based siblings (Russia & Wild West: decent sci-fi books, AWFUL magic books).
Skraypers was fine but didn't matter much to the rest of the setting. CJ Carella had gone. We hadn't gotten to the
Coalition Wars yet. And now we were left with lower-interest things like
Rifts Canada and
Rifts Australia. A lot was hanging on whether or not they could make anything out of these.
Canada was fine, if a bit focused on "Bounty Hunter" stuff for whatever reason. You had Time-Tossed Sci-Fi Mounties, tons of talking 'Squatches, and some pretty good art. But what would Australia bring?
Australia is, largely, independent from the rest of the world. With oceanic & air travel nearly impossible because they don't know what's in future books yet... I mean, because of monsters & stuff... there is a lot of open territory and nobody goes there. And OF COURSE Because Rifts, it means the natives have gone back to the "Old Ways", while white folks are now... yeah, you had to know they were ripping off
Mad Max. This would mean more if they hadn't JUST ripped off
Mad Max for
Warlords of Russia and, like, half the
Rifts line thus far, but still, Australia pretty much HAD TO.
Only two cities remain on the continent, and both walled themselves off from others, desperately safeguarding what they had. Melbourne has become an island-state, while Perth also survived, and is smaller.
The book is written by an actual Australian, so at least has a hope of getting cultural stuff right. Ben Cassin Lucas has absolutely zero other RPG credits to his name, far as I can tell, which certainly bodes ill. He says it was inspired by his own game, where players went there and he was left having to make stuff up. So this might just be the practical "this ACTUALLY GOT PLAYTESTED!" kind of thing that the setting needs. Heck, for all I know, Lucas accidentally critiqued something Kevin once wrote and was blackballed from the industry, so he might be entirely competent! I mean, Kevin didn't give him the passive-aggressive "Well he needed LOTS of help, and of course I had to edit in my own ideas" junk here, so at least he didn't piss him off circa 1999.
It seems fine overall- a bit too much time spent on "Outback Communities" and Aborigines are treated exactly like Native Americans- a "Noble Savage" that lives with the land and is great at conservation over wasteful whites. You know the drill by now. Ramon Perez is on art again, and draws a bunch of gritty-looking frontier people once more. The classic Rifts-y "overdoing it" happens with a Bushman, BushRANGER, Guide & Jackaroo all being different types of the same thing (outdoorsmen), while there are a Merchant AND a City Trader O.C.C. (geez, no wonder Kevin liked this guy's manuscript- redundant classes nobody would ever play are BELOVED by him). The "Roadganger" is the same kind of
Mad Max evil motorcyclist we've seen a million times, but the "Road Sentinel" seems like a kind of Aussie Sheriff of sorts and seems kinda interesting. A "Songjuicer" and a mage revolving around faking his skills- those are pretty unique. There's a bunch of O.C.C.s based around the cities, giving us the exact same 4-5 classes that appear in every single "split-off setting" in the line- cops, administrators, soldiers & sailors. But then OH MY GOD YOU CAN PLAY MAGICAL SENTIENT KOALAS THIS BOOK IS BACK TO AMAZING.
Kevin promises that "this should be just the first of several Rifts Australia books", and promises one on the Dream Time among the "next books", but thankfully this never materialized and so we were spared from a horrible
Mystic Australia. Oh my god I just read a bit further in this book and they were ACTUALLY GONNA CALL IF THAT. I'm guessing piss-poor sales on other Mystic-related books killed that one. It was supposed to come out in late 1999 (the year this one came out), so obviously SOMETHING happened. HOLY FUCK THERE WAS GONNA BE
AUSTRALIA DREAMTIME, TOO!! Fall 1999! Man, something DEFINITELY happened.
From Fatal & Friends:
However, rumor has it that Palladium actually got two manuscripts from Ben Lucas for the next two Australia books that were then shelved by Palladium, to his chagrin. Another rumor says that Mystic Australia and Dreamtime were shelved by Siembieda, who felt it went too far and would likely offend people. (Which sort of people is less clear.) There's also talk that Siembieda made some last-minute changes, like changing the Molokoi from an S.D.C. race with acid guns to the terrifying (for the Australia setting) techno-wizards they became. But all that's - and I'll emphasize this - only rumors. It also could have been fan backlash on the lower power level and frog-based villainy that caused Siembieda to want to turn things back towards the Americas, or just generally low sales on the book. Either way, it's likely the last we'll see of Rifts Australia in the foreseeable future.