Review & Commentary Cepheus Atom By Omer Golan-Joel For The Original Traveller rpg & Cepheus engine rpg

 "The bombs fell. Nations wielded varied and monstrous weapons against one another. Fires, clouds of poison, and worse have swept the world. Now only the savage Wastes remain: haunted by mutants, deranged robots, and genegineered monstrosities. But from the fire, heroes and villains rise: tribals, survivors, mutants, all the warped remnants of Humanity. Armed with primitive weapons, pre-Collapse artifacts, and afflicted by strange mutations, they set forth to conquer the wastes, or at least to survive them. By spear and laser, they shall prevail – or die a horrible death."

There are times when I look at my poor book shelves & wonder if their gonna take another post apocalyptic rule book. Look  Omer Golan-Joel is a master of his design & so this rule book takes the Original  Traveller rpg & Cepheus engine rpg into the realm of post apocalyptic gaming. 

And it does it with style & system gravitus of the 2d6 systems & their OGL which makes everything independant. This means that the entire book has everything you need to take your games into the wastelands. 
Cepheus Atom has everything from the ground up from bare bones equipment,mutations, and even a complete mini mutant manual all within forty nine pages. Everything to get a group of players up & running into the wastelands. And that's not all. 
There' a complete feeling of a Fifties Atomic monster movie fest with the feel of the mutations & the whole cloth of the system. Think 1953's 'Them' & your on the right direction in the wasteland. 





The entire system works together as an organic post apocalytic wasteland whole. And it takes the Traveller game into another direction. The   "Contamination" stat (the cumulative  sum of radioactive and biological fall out that your PC get's is a simple yet highly effective way of keeping track of the horror of mutation that the PC has. Simple, easy, and highly hackable. And if there is any take away from Cepheus Atom its the fact that its a very hackable system. 

And this is where Cepheus Atom shines, the fact that its an easily unlockable system & works like a dream when it comes to creating the type of wasteland that the dungeon master wants. 
And then we get a robotic & wilderness set of encounters that reminds me completely of Fallout. But remember Fallout sto erm borrowed quite a few things from the old school games such as Gamma World & Metamorphis Alpha first edition. 
Clocking in at a very dense fifty pages Cepheus Atom has everything that a DM needs to get their post apocalytic on without a lot of fuss or muss! Highly recommended! The players can dive right in & get to cracking mutant monster heads in the wastelands!