Brushfire - Combat in 1960's Africa

Concept: 1963 - Gwunfa (fictional country, but same old story) was a French West African holding, known for its lush highland jungles and wildlife. As recently as the late 1950's, it was French-governed but, as the French began to pull out of Indochina and Africa, and fought a long, exhausting war in Algeria that ended in 1962, Gwunfa was prematurely given its autonomy and independence in short order. The only known resources at the time were agricultural, with largely coastal settlement by the colonial power and a very rugged frontier inhabited by native Africans along with a few commercial farming concerns that primarily grew coffee.

Gwunfa's post-colonial government would have perhaps succeeded if not for two things; the discovery of a huge deposit of uranium and rare earths that has the world powers suddenly sitting up and taking notice and a coup against the government as carried out by a certain Major Jacques Venda, a former NCO of the Colonial French Tirailleurs, influential commander in the post-Colonial Army and overnight convert to Marxism-Leninism; he used the same old rhetoric that painted the post-colonial government installed by the French as tools of the colonial power and communism as an ideology of national liberation. He managed to rally around his fellow Dandu to take power through sham elections and coercion. Already, a rival by the name of Gabriel Mshenge is gathering corporate support for a counter-coup. In the highlands themselves, Pierre Okodu prepares his Lemwe to fight against the Dandu pogroms and Mshenge's corporate sorts, while sitting on the prize itself.

Now, as the thunder starts to roll, men are being hired in places like London, Marseille, Johannesburg and other centers of the trade. All sides are grabbing people, in expectation of a need for technical and military expertise.

Where the PC fits In: This RP will involve the PC's as mercenaries, intelligence agents posing as mercs (or mercs selling intelligence on the side,) reporters, or spies posing as reporters and so on, aid workers, missionaries, arms traffickers, engineers and UN observers, all potentially spies, or perhaps as other sorts (depends on what you suggest and we'll see if it fits in.)

(One note: Back in these days, most nations had draftee national service, and the mercenaries were traditionally not too picky about letting people hook up. It's not like the modern era, with highly organized PMCs like Blackwater that recruit pretty exclusively from elite formations of the US Army. It's a much more informal sort of arrangement in a world where there are a lot more people who have gone to a boot camp before in their lives. In some colonial holdings, people just gave up the office job and took a jeep ride over to the nearest war and signed up, no questions asked.)

Odds are, the characters will have ties to the powers that be back home. The US, in 1963, is not as heavily invested in Africa as other powers happen to be, but are a presence. There are also, of course, commercial concerns. Much of the purpose of this storyline will revolve around the personal lives of the characters and the things they learn in their time in the civil war. It is a bit of a character development exercise. The characters' actions will have consequences, potentially international consequences.

Characters do not necessarily have to know each other, and can work for different factions as they please.

Structure: The degree of GMing will probably depend on how much someone could use the help in having someone else (like me) set the scene a bit. In many ways, I sort of intend to set the stage and let the players hang out to dry and make their decisions and then come up with consequences of those decisions in terms of the various events that can befall from there. I'll also stand by for advice on the technology, politics and so forth of the setting.

This will depend on the PC's to actively participate. Without them, this dog just don't hunt.

Mmm, I really like this idea and it sounds like you put a lot of thought into this. You can count me in, I'm already brainstorming some character ideas.

Cool beans, yell if you need anything off me. For some reason, my profile keeps throwing me errors when I try to update it, but my AIM is Huzbaz, and it's the fastest way to get me with questions.

I'm capping off the number of Americans to two; one reporter type and one mercenary, tops.

That's just a reflection of the balance of power in this era; the US is not strong out here, even if they are strong with the powers that are out here. The European powers are much more strongly involved, as they have an established toehold in the region. Of course, the South Africans also have their own, distinct, agenda as well.

Sounds good! I wasn't thinking of making an American character anyway. I'd like to have an Italian aid worker that is involved with the Red Cross, if that's okay.

Yep. It's definitely okay.

I'm contemplating the idea of setting things up now, and letting other people just join in as they happen to enter into it. In which case, your character would sort of be part of the establishment of the overall plot, perhaps from the angle of an aid worker trying to get aid through to...well, one of the interior regions.

Starvation and privation are a weapon in African warfare, so the immediate problem is Venda's own troops probably blockading food aid and medical aid. Your character will have to sort out some sort of way to get the food in.

If you're down for that sort of initial two-person RP, I'll get things rolling on my end.

That sounds awesome. I'll get the final touches of my character down and post a character sheet for you to look at and approve.

Right-o. The OOC thread is over here. We'll just move there.

OOC Thread.