The year is 2073, and Africa's people thrist for Merode Ngobobo's blood after he has gone a step too far by not only unleashing enough Ringu to blanket a large agricultural town, but has been discovered to possess much more Ringu and insists on using it on anyone who does not agree to his demands. Unfortunately, Merode decided to do the smart thing and vanish shortly after claiming resonsibility. All known hiding places, including his personal fortress atop mount Nyiragongo according to moles within his army, have turned up dead ends, people suspect he could be anywhere in Africa.

Wishing to know how he managed to produce such a ridiculously complex nerve gas in the alleged volumes he has, as well as where all his caches are located, the powers-that-be have placed a 50,000,000¥ bounty on his head for his live capture, with half offered for a corpse. Obviously, this has caused a huge rush of mercenaries and other such private soldiers to come into Africa wanting to take the prize. Africa, however, is a very big place with lots of ground to cover, and Merode could be hiding within any given meter of land.

The players will be one small group of mercenaries amoungst the vast ocean that flooded into the continent since the bounty went public. While your characters should certainly have their own reasons for pursuing the bounty and working in Africa, one thing that everyone can agree on is that taking Merode would net the company a huge bankroll and a boost in publicity that would easily put them on the easy path to the top.

Info on Africa and it's various nations can be found in the following pages of the Sixth World Almanic:

Asamando, pg. 102
Azanian Confederation, pg. 104
Egypt, pg. 106
Kenya, pg. 108
Kingdoms of Nigeria, pg. 110

Not listed as far as I can tell:

Algeria
Angolia
Asante Nation
Anyl
Baatonum
Baule Empire
Congo Tribal Lands
Ethiomalian Territories
Gold & Ivory Coast Tribal Lands
Kingdom of Benim
Liberia
Madagasgar
Mauritania
Mali-Faso
Morocco
Sheba
Tunisia
Nation of -oh thank god there are no more!

Those other places are not accounted for in 4th Edition as far as I can tell. My guess is that not only did they run out of space in 6WA, but they felt that The Heart Of Darkness within the Congo was completely indescribable by human means. So why do I list every nation in the whole country? Because that's the entire area you get to play around in, all 30,221,532 kilometers squared. The geography is all a lovely mix of dry savannah, scorching desert, humid jungles, high mountains peaks, and densely packed urban landscapes. Adding to that, every enviroment has it's own critters and assorted armed groups who may or may not like the PC's very much.

Expect the game to be half action-packed combat, and half heavy roleplay-oriented. The other thing I want to advertise is freedom; once you are finished with the opening bit, you are pretty much free to accomplish the main goal however you wish. Or you could say fuck that shitbother that nonsense and pursue your own goals for a while. There are no 'wrong' ways to go about doing things, I'm not the type to get all huffy when you don't do something discrete so long as you do it successfully and intelligently(of course, that's probably why I'm running a Merc campaign).

Chargen Boundaries
Looking to start with 5-6 players. Recruitment will still be open after that, but anybody else who joins will be stuck in the Reservist spot until someone drops out. Seeing as this is a pbp, reservists oughta expect to be able to join every month at the latest.

Characters are to be generated at the standard 400bp limit, and get bonus BP for the sole purpose of purchasing contacts equal to their Charisma x 2. There isn't much more to chargen then that. It should be stated though that while I'm not going to force it, characters should be able to hold their own in a firefight even if they are not focused on combat, otherwise they'd be a unnecessary liability in a group of otherwise professional(hah!) soldiers-for-hire. Key phrase here being 'hold their own'. I don't demand everyone dominates with 24 dice for Automatics, that can be left to actual combat focused characters. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I suppose I should do as most other GM's and outright say no to all the silly things in Runner's Companion like AI's, Drakes, Changlings, Infected, Sapient Critters, and Free Spirits, but I'd allow those anyway so long as they make for good characters as opposed to shameless constructs made soley to get high dicepools or other weird benefits(I'm looking at all of you people who get SURGE qualites for attribute bonuses and little else).

Aside from that, I expect people who join to be somewhat dedicated. I can handle people vanishing for a few days at a time as that's what pbp games are for, but if you're going to disapear until the end of time I'd highly appreciate some warning beforehand.

Oh yeah, and don't bother paying for lifestyles. I doubt you'll be getting much use out of them, and there are more effective money sinks besides. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)