Pyramid Review: Archangel: The Story of God and His Angels

Pyramid Review

Archangel RPG

Written by David Baxter

187 pages; $18.00 as book, or $10 as CD-ROM

Archangel: The Story of God and His Angels, written by David Baxter for Visionary Games, is a Christian roleplaying game set during the fictional "prophet war." It is a secret war, occurring in a 400-year window of time in which, according to the author, the Bible remains silent. God has empowered both angels and human prophets with powers to fight the fallen angels and their followers, until the coming of the Messiah.

It is obvious that the author has carefully researched the source material, especially the history and culture of the time. While his additions to history are imaginative, and intriguing, they are well grounded in history. The religious elements are as carefully designed, and in keeping with events chronicled in the Bible. As a Christian myself, I found nothing to offend me, and was pleased with the respect that the author handled the material.

A short story starts the book, and serves to introduce the reader to the setting. It reads just like a retelling of the climax of an adventure, but without the game mechanics. It is useful in explaining, by example, what the players can expect from the game.

Following the story is 11 pages of history and culture, including a map of the area and a list of languages. After that follows a description of the various types of supernatural beings and the various types of human characters, in a plain English, . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: September 21, 2001

Copyright © 2001 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.