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[Kadzar]

You know what I am going to take the plunge and actually TRY to design a setting (or pieces of a setting) based entirely off African history and African nations... HOPEFULLY ignoring the whole White Slavery thing MOSTLY (mostly because... that is so cliché that not doing it actually gives you originality points)

Africa is so fascinating and yet I learned almost NOTHING about it other than "White people enslaved Africans here be" (Though... a group of people who start and end as victims with little-no other defining features is typical school history affair... Like Women's history!)

I kind of wonder if Spears of the Dawn is close to what you're going for. Though even if it is (I haven't read it myself), your idea is still worthwhile, since there is a dearth of good African-themed fantasy settings.

[Jimmy]

Depends. The Pathfinder Osirion nation is a very Egypt themed setting. There's also the Mwangi Expanse, an African jungle themed area. There's plenty of adventures set in these settings too. Does that count as African-themed?

[Rolan7]

Incidentally, I love the power glove.  It's so bad.

Meanwhile a special someone drove up to the security gate.  He passed a special RFID card to our Decker (still working the gate).  She had him wait while we [figured out the decking rules] copied the data off, then gave it back.  Mission technically accomplished.

Much laughs and such were had over a job well done.  Until someone drove up to the gatehouse with a note, which I received (I took hir place).

The game had changed.

The previous Johnson was a dumbass.

The note explained that we actually needed to *take* the datacard...  and also, replace the owner.  AKA... disappear him, and *become* him.  It also said the previous Johnson was fired.
Sounds like a blatant ploy, right?  We thought so.  We called Mr Johnson.
"Hey, how's the mission going"
blah blah blah, "Also you're apparently fired?"
"Really?  ...Huh, I am!  *click*"
If this was a ploy, it was good enough to justifiably play along.

Anyway, problem solving time:
Target is in a tall corp building.  We're on hire, but only to hang out outside.  We actually don't know what floor he's on, or even his job.

Decker took care of that.  Fairly public knowledge, even what floor he'd work on.
For further reconnaissance, our rigger (offsite drone-operator) sent "trashbot" (a walking cylinder vaguely resembling a smart trash can, but actually a skilled medic).
Guy's floor has like 5 other people.  Most of the area is a Japanese Garden in the MGS:R sense.  We didn't know at the time, but the actors had real katanas.

So... how the hell do we disappear someone with 5 witnesses?  Considering we have to plausibly impersonate that person later, IE people need to think he's alive!  We are "veteran" (default) shadowrunners, but still...

We come up with a plan, of course.  It goes from "trigger the fire alarm on every other floor" to "trigger it on that floor".
And as it happens, we have a canister full of CS gas in our van.
Were you waiting for shit to get horrible?  Here's our plan:

Trashbot will enter the elevator.
Decker activates the fire alarm on that floor only.
Everyone files into the elevator (no stairs) which contains trashbot.
Trashbot releases CS gas hidden in his "bin" cavity.
BLACKGUARD pattern (custom) battlebots file in the front door from our van, parked right next to the entrance for stealth.
When trashbot reports all targets have been rendered unconscious from horrid stun damage, we open the elevator.
BLACKGUARDs pull people out as fast as possible, load into van.
...
Profit?

So here's what actually happened:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Basically, no hitches.
There was a cleaning lady, but I tazered her into unconsciousness and she joined the pile.
As we sped off, we decided to use the pile of basement-grade novacoke we took from trolls' car.  We left the survivors in various alleys, probably waking up just in time to feel the crash of the drugs.  Whatever they remembered would be highly suspect.
The target didn't survive, which was kinda a shame for us.  We were one bot short.  I would have liked to interrogate him, but I will make do.
See, my character is a master of disguise (constantly pretending to be an elf, major character trait) and even has a supernatural adept power to perfectly imitate voices.
My costume-crafting is kinda shitty, but I spent several days to produce a decent (rating 3) one.  I think this'll work.

One thing I said, paraphrased:  "Be sure to record their screams.  I'll need to study them." (To fake call in sick)

Of course, the next mission was *way* grislier, but more of a shootout.

[wierd]

Overly dramatic, leaves too many questions unanswered, will trigger an investigation into who caused the fire alarm to be tripped by building security/HR, etc.

Better plan:  With only 5 people on the floor, the odds of them all being in the bathroom at the same time are negligable, except during breaktime.  Slip him a diuretic in his coffee. This will make him "really need to pee", and head outside of normal break times. When in the bathroom, perform the replacement. Needs assistant posing as a janitor. Sneak unconscious body out of the building in the janitor's trash bin.

Easy peasy.

[Shub-Nullgurath]

Autarch are doing the Heroic Fantasy & Barbarian Conquerors Collection: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/heroic-fantasy-and-barbarian-conquerors-collection/description

[Rolan7]

What fire alarm?    Our Decker (despite some failings) did manage control of those records, and cameras, digital-wise.
As for the people...  After the shitty coke we stuffed in them, even they won't believe their stories.

Your plan is pretty good, to be fair.  The only problem is that three assistants were waiting in the lobby (next to the bathroom which technically wasn't mapped, but would have been added).  They would have seen the director walk in, the janitor walk in, and the janitor walk out with a large "trashbot" (best container we had on site).

Better to subject them to a nightmarish experience, then drug them to all fuck.  Hey- that's showbiz, right?

[Arx]

One of the big things about any kind of 'fantasy' Africa, is the low population density tends to prevent the formation of large political entities (yes, there have been large entities in Africa's past, but most of them failed rather quickly.)  This would probably make it difficult to define anything other than generalized 'cultural regions'.  It also makes 'higher learning' and 'developed industry' extremely rare, Dark Sun might have some useful pointers for you.

Axum stood from the 2nd century until the tenth; after about three centuries of kerfuffling, the Solomonic dynasty ruled the Ethiopian Empire until the Cold War era. It was considered a major power on a level with Rome, Persia, and Carthage in the classical era.
The Ghana Empire stood from the 5th to the 13th.
The Mali Empire only stood from the 13th to the 17th or so, but it produced some significant architectural wonders and the Timbuktu University, a major centre of learning for centuries. Mansa Musa is a pretty well-known figure as a result of his diplomatic ties to nations all over the world.

African history is a fascinating subject that far too many people ignore completely or have only misinformation on.

-Zulu

The Zulu Kingdom was hardly ancient. Shaka, the founder, was born in 1787. The kingdom was more-or-less fully formed in terms of territory by about 1825. Then colonisation happened, of course.

Note that Sub-Saharan Africa is practically a different continent to North Africa because of the difficulty in crossing the Sahara, IIRC. I don't think any major empires formed in that region, not on a level with something like Mali. There's stuff like the Great Zimbabwe ruins, but I don't think very much is known of their precise history.

[wierd]

You misunderstood the plan.

The accomplice is the janitor.  The janitor smuggles people in, and out of the bathroom. He is how your replacement enters the bathroom, and how you get the body out again.

The replacement is in the janitor's trash bin, fully dressed for success, and ready to replace the mark.  He exits the bin once inside the bathroom, and hides inside one of the stalls. The janitor stays in the bathroom, doing janitor things. This is a transparent/invisible activity in an office building.

The mark enters the bathroom, and goes to the urinal. The replacement gets him from behind with something like chloroform. Once the mark is unconscious, the janitor puts him into the trash bag, covers him up with some wadded up paper towels, and waltzes out of the bathroom. The replacement washes his hands, straightens his tie, whatever-- then goes to the desk.

The men outside suspect nothing.

[Rolan7]

That's the thing:  We had to do this on-site, the plan changed mid-job.  My character's a master of disguise, but obviously (supposedly) an elf.  Target's a human.  No time to fabricate a disguise (as I've done now).

We had a bot that could hold a body, but it would have caused so many questions if the guy just disappeared.  And while 3 people were in the outer area, like 2 people were in the inner area with him.  And they would have been missed.

No...  To properly replace this person would have meant either tailing him home (still risky) or discrediting all the unavoidable witnesses.

Edit:  And taking off my elf-ear prosthetics would have been... unfortunate, in that the actual elf in the party (the Decker, other person on-site) is very loudly anti-poser.

[Rolan7]

Oh shoot I was unclear about the time period involved.

We needed to disappear him now, and have nobody suspect for *days*, then impersonate him.
We were well paid, but yeah it was a job for extreme subtlety as I understand it.

We've had an unrelated mission since, and might have another tomorrow, almost a week in game where we have to make like he's alive and well...  Then impersonate him for some undisclosed purpose.

[wierd]

Having worked at a fortune 500, I can tell you straight up. If you need to pee, you just get up to pee. Your co-workers will think nothing of it.  If you take awhile, they will think you just needed to drop a duce instead, and still say nothing.

The people outside the bathroom will be busy talking to each other, or doing whatever they are doing. They are not going to be too concerned about the bathroom, because bathroom things like pooping goes on in there.  That is why you use a silent method of taking out the mark, like chloroform. He gasps, and that's it.  If the janitor is noisily doing janitor things, they will hear nothing.

The need to include trashbot is artificial; the janitor has access to the janitorial closet, which has the really big trash cart in it. Pushing it around is part of his job when he cleans. (confession, my best friend is a janitor, so I know all about what janitor's have access to. If you want a guy to leave doors unlocked for you after hours in an inconspicuous way, janitor is your man. He has keys to every room, out of necessity. He gets monitored because of office paranoia, but he can conveniently "forget" to re-lock a door after cleaning.) The trashcart can EASILY hide a body.

Spoiler: janitorial trashcart example (click to show/hide)

You said you knocked down the cleaning lady in your raid-- she would have been perfect, as she has access to the janitorial closet (has the keys, it is always locked). You don't need the regular cleaning person; Fortune 500s replace janitorial people like they were toilet paper. It can be a different one every day of the week, and nobody will notice-- they tend to staff using a staffing service, and this very thing happens frequently. You just need to look like a janitor, which is easy enough to do.

But meh. Water under the bridge now.

Just keep janitor man in mind if you need covert access to offices after hours. He really is your man.

[Digital Hellhound]

Neo, I suggest looking into Timbuktu, Great Zimbabwe, Zanzibar, Mombasa and the rest of the eastern/Swahili Coast cities and their role in the Indian Ocean trade if you want inspiration for urban hubs outside North Africa. I can't recommend any books on the topic from memory, but such definitely do exist.

It probably doesn't need to be said that Africa is huge, encompassing a lot of environments, ways of life and cultures, some nomadic, some sedentary, some both. And a lot of wilderness - all these things make it pretty perfect for a DnD-ish setting. You've also got incredibly varied religion and myths to draw on.

Misconceptions about African history are everywhere. I can't personally vouch for the answers in this thread, but AskHistorians is generally fairly reliable and always has book and source recommendations for you to seek out yourself. Just checking into a (good, probably an university's) library will probably yield a whole bunch of African History books. Just don't pick ones written in, like, 1900.

[scriver]

One of the big things about any kind of 'fantasy' Africa, is the low population density tends to prevent the formation of large political entities (yes, there have been large entities in Africa's past, but most of them failed rather quickly.)  This would probably make it difficult to define anything other than generalized 'cultural regions'.  It also makes 'higher learning' and 'developed industry' extremely rare, Dark Sun might have some useful pointers for you.

Axum stood from the 2nd century until the tenth; after about three centuries of kerfuffling, the Solomonic dynasty ruled the Ethiopian Empire until the Cold War era. It was considered a major power on a level with Rome, Persia, and Carthage in the classical era.
The Ghana Empire stood from the 5th to the 13th.
The Mali Empire only stood from the 13th to the 17th or so, but it produced some significant architectural wonders and the Timbuktu University, a major centre of learning for centuries. Mansa Musa is a pretty well-known figure as a result of his diplomatic ties to nations all over the world.

African history is a fascinating subject that far too many people ignore completely or have only misinformation on.

-Zulu

The Zulu Kingdom was hardly ancient. Shaka, the founder, was born in 1787. The kingdom was more-or-less fully formed in terms of territory by about 1825. Then colonisation happened, of course.

Note that Sub-Saharan Africa is practically a different continent to North Africa because of the difficulty in crossing the Sahara, IIRC. I don't think any major empires formed in that region, not on a level with something like Mali. There's stuff like the Great Zimbabwe ruins, but I don't think very much is known of their precise history.

But both Mali and Ethiopia is sub-Saharan though

[Arx]

Aksum was sited more in modern-day Eritrea and Sudan than in modern Ethiopia, and the extent of the Sahara wasn't as great. Mali was more-or-less in the modern Sahara AFAIK, which makes it a bit confusing.

I think this map is alright, though, and you'll note the dearth of Sub-Saharan polities.

[SOLDIER First]

Poisonous Zanzibar Hamsters??