Witch Doctor

**Key Features** | »»»»»

*"Magic is just a word for that which you do not understand."*

-  Witch Doctor Albert Gnonlonfoun, during an interview
## Tactical Analysis

* **Oo ee oo ah ah:** .

* **Say the Magic Word:** .

* **Bad Mojo:** .

* **Friends on the other side (of the globe):**

## Background

The cultural hegemony pushed by the Allied Nations, either unwittingly or rather consciously, is undeniable. Unlike the harsh, shocking ways of the Soviet Union, the Allied Nations truly seem to subtly push for their style in doing things, backing them up with statistics and promoting their culture and society as “the way things should be”, scientifically and sociologically tested. While this is usually for the best in the raising of standards of living at a constant level across the board, it undoubtly also brings unexpected problems, for sometimes it simply doesn’t know, or can’t acknowledge the traditions, needs and folk solutions that may appear in places that they sometimes are simply uncapable of understanding.

A clear example of this is the debacle when interacting with Witch Doctors worldwide, particularly within Africa. Dismissing their efforts and ad-hock solutions as pure superstition and quack medicine that couldn’t possibly compete with the triumphs of western medicine, many were simply dismissed, ignoring the knowledge of powerful antidotes found in the very territory they inhabited, extensive knowledge of which herbs were or weren’t poisonous, symptoms to the rare afflictions that only manifested in locals and the best treatment for the bites of the local fauna.

Worse yet is the feeling that western medicine just seeks to cure the ills of the body, leaving the spirit, the souls, unattended, a great error in their eyes. A person needs not only care for the wound of the body, but leaving the spiritual needs unattended can make for empty individuals, people without purpose or worse yet, who can fall to the temptations that offers the hollow life in the Sprawls, which is not only a shame, but a direct betrayal to all the values the African League stands for.

The African League, indeed, does believe in how valuable are Witch Doctors, but they also acknowledge that folk medicine just won’t work anymore in a world plagued by engineered pests and the terrible reality of modern warfare, this, however, is no contradiction to their eyes. Medicine can perfectly find harmony, a balance between the tools that heal body and mind and the Witch Doctors fielded by the Panafrican League are a pure reflection of this line of thinking, trained in the finest universities of Africa, and beyond, these brave volunteers act both as healers and spiritual councilors of their brothers in arms, an act that has drastically increased the morale amongst the troops in service, many have made mockeries of the oddly dressed individuals that are oft sighted in campaign amongst the soldiers on the battlefield, the Syndicate in particular slandering and using these images as proof that what they are fighting are just primitive bands of insurgents who just refuse to welcome the aid and the benefits of modernity they are bringing to their continent, not the organized and coordinated effort made by what’s almost half a continent.

However, they are not the only ones who’ve noticed, for there’s someone else in the world who’ve paid attention to the efforts made by the League, and agree on their methods, the Empire of the Rising Sun, who’ve also had to deal with not only the ails of the body, but of the mind, in particular after being broken, both figuratively and literally, in a devastating war they waged across the world. There’s many areas were the both parties have exchanged knowledge, weapons, various luxuries, but perhaps were they are the closest is in their approach to medicine, the strangest herbs being easily accessible to the Japanese public at large and the latest advances in medicine brought back to Africa. Philosophy and counseling has also found common ground, the animistic tradition being as common to the Japanese populace to most of the territories with a heavy tradition in Witch Doctors, nowadays it’s as common to see Gabon Masks hanging in an office located in Kyoto as it is to find nanoswarms finding new and incredible uses in the most remote corners of the Congo.