Despite the chest hair, this is pretty much the least creepy use of Super Psionics.
There are some people who just simply should not have superpowers. Generally speaking, if it has ever crossed your mind to set a puppy on fire just to hear the sweet sweet sounds it makes, we're all probably better off if you can't do that with your mind. At the very least, a trip to the hardware store should be required.
YOU WILL SELL ME PAINT THINNER
Unfortunately, on Rifts Earth, it seems like the sadists are almost always the ones that get the superhuman powers. Juicers are dickhead jocks, Crazies have paranoid schizophrenia and a knife fetish, and don't even get me started on the anti-social tendencies of your average spellcaster.
I can haz 8 P.P.E.?
But if the augmented humans are the jocks and cutters, then the Mind Melter is a grade A sociopath. Think John Wayne Gacy with the ability to see through walls. A telekinetic Jeffrey Dahmer. Charles Manson with mind control pow... Charlie Manson. This is the archetype at work.
"You want to make me a sandwich."
And I know this sounds like an unfair characterization, but this is the reality we're working with. The abilities available to a Mind Melter, specifically those that they have sole access to (in the core book anyway), aren't the province of mentally stable, socially adjusted individuals. This is the kind of stuff that Stephen King writes novels about.
Carrie, Rifts Special Edition
For the uninitiated, what I'm talking about here is Super Psionics. Big, flashy (and usually expensive) powers that do all sorts of crazy things that just really aren't available to other characters. Not necessarily stronger than the options other classes have, since psionics in general is quite a bit weaker than magic or even just making normal attacks in terms of mechanics, but far better for exercising your inner demons. Exercising, not exorcising. This is the stuff that lets you take your inner demon on a nice, long walk through the waking nightmares of everyone unlucky enough to share a zip code with you. We'll be covering the specifics later, but suffice it to say that someone with access to Super Psionics would have been worshiped as a god in the ancient world, probably one of the gods that required human sacrifice.
Killing through the power of interpretive dance.
In the core book for Rifts, the Mind Melter was the only character class that had access to these powers. That would change in later books, but at the beginning they were the only game in town. They also got a metric ton of ISP to power those powers with and a wide selection of non-Super powers that do more normal stuff like heal others and see auras and such. But really, the prize here is the ability to dominate someone else into pouring gasoline on themselves so you can light them on fire with your brain while simultaneously turning off all their nerve endings so they get to experience dying in a fire in a completely lucid state. For them it's a horrifying fiery death, for you it's Tuesday and your shows aren't on yet.
"Slow down, Sex In The City doesn't start for another 40 minutes."
The single creepiest power available to the Mind Melter was Mentally Possess Others. It went through a lot of revisions through it's various incarnations in Palladium RPGs (since it was the go-to psychic sociopath power in the system), but the basics remained the same; one target gets a single save to avoid you controlling their actions for 5 minutes per level at the cost of around 30 ISP. There's a mass possession version floating around somewhere, but this is the classic one. 30 ISP, and I get your body for long enough to do some serious damage, either to you or others (or more likely both). This doesn't confir skills or trained abilities (like spellcasting), but if you possess a dragon you're probably not going to care whether you get his ability to speak Euro while you're torching that village that kicked you out for creepily oogling the mayor's underage daughter.
"I have come for the little girl."
Just to add to the creepy serial killer mystique, Mind Melters can take powers that blind, paralyze or mute targets (Bio-Manipulation), implant mental triggers or subvert good sense (Hypnotic Suggestion) and remove all memory of any weirdness (Mind Wipe). Sure, they get Psi-Sword and the ability to control water, but compared to turning people into puppets, that stuff is really kind of lame. Telekinesis (Super) isn't bad, but you're probably better off just shooting someone than trying to use it in combat.
More badass looking, way less effective.
Of course, there are other ways to use their vast powers of the mind. A Mind Melter that focuses on Healing powers can be a first rate healer. In a setting where anyone that might require healing is either not taking damage or vaporized instantly. Or they could concentrate on being a telekinetic powerhouse, hurling debris and enemies at yet more enemies. For S.D.C. damage, before those enemies stand up and shoot their M.D.C. weapons.
You present those options to your average roleplaying gamer (uselessness vs ineffectiveness vs creepy superhumanity) and you'll get the same approach 90+% of the time. Not necessarily because we're a creepy people (though we can be at times), but because we know indirect power when we see it. There is more problem-solving value in blinding an enemy than hurling a park bench at them when the bench isn't going to do any actual damage. That the path to power merges with the path to serial-killerdom is an unfortunate reality of how the system works.
That doesn't make it any less creepy.
Of course, the turnabout here is that a Mind Melter is still physically human. They aren't hopped-up super combatants like Juicers, or mega damage weapons platforms like cyborgs. They're just normal people, and fairly squishy ones at that.
Robot smash puny human!
Sure, they can put on armor just like anybody else, but that's not much help when they don't get any special combat bonuses (outside of a few odd psionic powers that give situational bonuses). Really, unless they're acting like something you'd see on a Law and Order: SVU/X-Files crossover, they're probably being massively overshadowed by some other member of the party.
Ah, Psionics. Always appreciated the idea, but the execution left something to be desired (like so much in Rifts). Took it upon myself to revise much about the way certain abilities worked--in particular, Super TK.
I mean, come on! Anyone who's seen Akira knows how awesome that power should be. Granted, I just upped the damage on things a bit so that it wasn't completely worthless. No exploding heads. But if you throw something (or someone) with enough force, I don't care what kind of armor they're wearing, it's going to hurt.
In fact, that was another problem I had with the way armor works in Rifts: kinetic force/damage was never really accounted for except in extreme cases like falling from a great height. Wouldn't a 30 foot robot stomping your face do more than maybe 1 to 4 MD to your armor? I thought so, so I introduced rules for determining what might carry through (in SDC) to the wearer. Can't remember off-hand what they were now, but I felt it a nice addition to things. Particularly when you figure that Super TK had some use as a result. You know, aside from just straight up stealing the weapons out of people's hands and using said weapons against their owners. Tee hee.
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
edited July 2011
Hmm.
Mildly interesting to note, at least that, well, endgame X-Com from the first game, or the aliens?
They would be devastating in Rifts. Which is... interesting.
I mean Rifts, the first thing you notice is that everything is crazy broken in power and you work with that. Then you start side-by-sides with other things, some of them get, well, odd.
I mean, pulling the Akira stuff? That's not on the field, which is weird.
I mean, Akira,
post apocalypse
is exactly what I'd want Rifts to be.
Meanwhile, X-Com, which feels way too ordered and normal military for Rifts, could roll in and crush everybody (Tac nukes, tankbusting pistols, FTL starfighters that can burst suns, super psychics that not only mind crush their enemies, but they have jetpacks and can blow someone's head off from a mile away with their high powered rifles. Power armor that has to be MDC, and on and on)
Basically, what I'm saying is that looking closely never makes Rifts less of a mess. Fun times.
I think that distinction is shared fairly equally between Mind Melters and Bursters. One can take control of your body to bypass security and the other can straight up slaughter unarmored civilians without any warning. Both are pretty big deals in terms of danger to the state.
In case it hasn't been covered yet, the world has gone to hell. In some cases that hell is metaphorical, formerly-urban wastelands stalked by all manner of nigh-invincible predators, and in other cases it is very, very literal. This isn't really our planet anymore, mankind is akin to the rats that survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, and we're just starting that process of evolution that will allow us to retake the planet some day assuming we aren't crushed underfoot by our betters before then.
That evolution has taken the form of reclaimed and repurposed technologies. Bionics, juicer and crazy augs, power armor and even magic are our methods of rapid evolution as a species now. The goal is to become stronger and tougher than the things that are trying to eat us, and we're having mixed results.
But enough of that for now. Today, we're going to talk about the state of the world we are struggling to survive in. Starting from the top. Note that this is the state as of the second printing of the main book. Later World Books would make substantial changes via metaplot.
Alaska/Northern Canada: Cold, barren wasteland that supports no real life. Pretty much like the real world.
Canada, circa 2011.
Alberta/Saskatchewan: Criss-crossed with ley lines. Calgary is a nexus point, ruled over by demon lords. Again, pretty much like the real world.
American West Coast: Major seismic disturbances wiped out all civilization here via earthquakes and tidal waves. Entire cities washed out to sea, leaving no trace. Sub-tropical forests all the way up into what used to be British Columbia, very sparsely explored.
Arizona/New Mexico/Nevada/Utah: Looks like old westerns, with the occasional ruin of an old city. Quite a few settlements that have been built in still-standing buildings from before the apocalypse. Got its own book in Rifts: New West, definitely worth checking out if you like your magical sci-fi with a soundtrack by Morricone.
Sister Sarah's back, and this time she's out for blood.
Mexico: Ruled by vampires. Making it either the scariest place in the world or the most awesome, depending on how much silver you're packing in that rail gun. Rifts: Vampire Kingdoms is, to this day, one of my favorite books ever put out for the setting. A nice change from "I launch all my long range missiles at it as soon as it comes on radar, then I go get lunch".
These aren't the sexy kind of vampires.
Wyoming: Full of fairies. So not much has changed.
Montana/Idaho: Unexplored, but right next to Wyoming and Alberta, so the assumption is that if you go there something will rift in and eat your face. Supposedly there's a central Cyber-Knight training ground here, but since no one has ever made it in past the rifting face-eaters, this is unconfirmed.
The central corridor (Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma): Humanity is rebuilding as a series of loosely-aligned villages. Defense amounts to militia with the occasional laser rifle and wandering Cyber-Knights that may or may not be set loose out of Montana. One of the few places where people are making a go of it independently, instead of as part of a larger nation like the Coalition. Idyllic and boring, filled with heavily armed yokels. Some things never change.
"Get the wimmin folk inside, that dang dong demon's back!"
Minnesota: Home to Tolkeen, one of the few home bases for the real good guys. The city-state stands on what used to be the city of Minneapolis, and it is rather heavily focused on magic. A large percentage of the population actively uses magic, and virtually all of them use techno-wizardry items on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this city of awesomeness is right next to Chi-Town, making it a prime target for Coalition aggression. The rest of the state is dotted with flourishing multi-species communities that integrate technology and magic to a high degree. Which, again, means it's a great place to go to make your bones if you're Coalition.
Chi-Town: The central state and biggest power base for the Coalition States. The state of Chi-Town officially covers most of Illinois and all of what used to be Iowa, most of which is used for agriculture and patrolled by CS forces. The actual city of Chi-Town is not, somewhat unexpectedly given Palladium's propensity for on-the-nose-ness, built over old Chicago. This is the seat of Coalition government and basically the last place you want to be if you aren't 100% homegrown, non-psychic human. Besides maybe Iron Heart.
But it looks like such a welcoming place.
Old Chicago: Dozens of ley lines run through the ruins of old Chicago, which is probably why it's a crumbling ruin at this point. All manner of monsterous wierdness stalks the bones of Chicago, which is probably why CS citizens are forbidden from going there on pain of death.
Missouri: A satellite state of the CS. A ton of money and manpower has been dumped here to build up agriculture infrastructure and provide a buffer to the south against suspected hordes of demons in Mexico.
Arkansas: A forest ruled by Fort El Dorado, an independent state that has repeatedly told the CS to go shove it. Tons of oil, some dinosaurs, and part of the infamous Magic Zone can all be found in what used to be Arkansas.
Texas: Now the Coalition state of Lone Star. Pretty useless for the most part (kind of like today, zing!) as far as the CS economy is concerned, but is home to the cloning facility that produces Dog Boys and sundry other mutant animals to shore up the Coalition's military forces. Otherwise, it's basically the old west with energy weapons.
The Magic Zone: The center of the Magic Zone is reported to be the ruins of East St. Louis. For hundreds of miles in every direction ley lines are as thick as mosquitoes in the swamp. Rifts are literally opening and closing every few minutes, and offenses to god are stumbling out hungering for human flesh. The old gateway arch in St. Louis is home to The Devil's Gate, a permanent rift to a not-so-nice dimension.
Psi-World: A seemingly mythical place filled with powerful psychics. Rumored to be somewhere in the Ohio Valley (which itself is in or near the Magic Zone). Kind of the El Dorado of Rifts, at least until they gave it it's own book.
Kentucky and Tenessee: Vast forests with weird supernatural phenomena. Like spontaneous dimension shifts. Probably best to avoid.
For your health.
The Deep South: Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are gone. Just straight gone. Under normal circumstances, this is probably cause for celebration, but they were destroyed when Atlantis showed back up, making it something of a mixed blessing.
Georgia and Florida: In true Rifts form, this entire area is now known simply as "Dinosaur Swamp." I'll let you fill in those details.
The East Coast: Lies in ruin. North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Delaware and New Jersey are all at least partially under the ocean. Every city that could have been remotely considered coastal has been pulverized by tidal waves and seismic activity. The destruction isn't as thorough as in California (here there are at least still ruins), but it's not pretty.
Washington DC: Above ground is mostly destroyed, but if there's one thing shadow governments know how to do it's build underground complexes. A power group is emerging here that calls itself "The Republicans", focused on human augmentation and psionics. As far as I know, they were never fleshed out any further than that.
Led by full-conversion Borg Shawn Hannity and ageless supernatural being Gordon Liddy.
Michigan: Lots of hopping little 'burgs and a revitalized center of industry. Post-apocalyptic Michigan actually seems to be doing better than real-world Michigan. Home of the Northern Gun weapons manufacturer, famous for heavy duty merc gear and solid power armor. Seimbieda and company are from this area, so there's a ton of detail here when compared to Kansas ("grassy, with scattered small communities") or Manhattan ("mass of rubble").
Detroit: Went from being an economic hellscape to being a magical AND economic hellscape. At least now they can field an entire platoon of Robocops.
Detroit PD; Supernatural Blight Task Force
Ann Arbor: Otherwise known as New Lazlo. Small community of scholars and mages that is kind of the clubhouse for the would-be Jedi Knights of Rifts Earth. Attached to the city of Lazlo, and realistically the next place to get curb-stomped by the CS military when Prosek's approval rating starts to dip.
Lazlo: Built on old Toronto, this is a city dedicated to the power of magic and science. Most of the really cool techno-wizard items you'll see in the game were developed here, and there exist facilities to mass produce them. Lazlo is a center of industry and commerce because of their mastery of the various technologies at their disposal. Lazlo represents one of the few true threats to CS supremacy in North America, but that threat is real enough that the CS doesn't have the will to test them. At least not for now.
Canada: Is now the Coalition State of Iron Heart. At least the habitable parts, so we're looking at a 20 mile strip along the Montana border. Staunch supporters of the CS, and even more brutal in their crackdowns against psychics and magic users. These guys make Chi-Town look like an artist commune. This gung ho attitude leads to some friction with Quebec.
Quebec: Now the Coalition state of Free Quebec. Pretty on the nose with the naming, it's a wonder Prosek didn't see this coming. Probably the most independent of the constituent states, as evidenced by their stockpile of unreported Glitter Boys that they will eventually use to rebel from the CS. This is the place that gave us the Glitter Girl, show some respect.
The junk in her trunk could level your hometown.
And that's basically North America. Next time I'll be (briefly) covering the haps in the rest of the world.
What about Colorado?
Or should I just assume we're lumped in with the Wyoming fairy thing?
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AssuranIs swinging on the SpiralRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
To be fair, in the updated Rifts timelines:
Arkansas is now a Coalition state (El Dorado).
Tolkeen is gone. The Coalition destroyed it. Lazlo and New Lazlo kinda shuffled their feet and looked the other way as the CS was curbstomping Tolkeen.
Free Quebec is now an independant country, briefly at war with the CS, before a truce was called.
The Michigan city states all are aligned with the CS, more or less.
I'll look up Colorado later, I can't remember what they did with it.
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TurksonNear the mountains of ColoradoRegistered Userregular
What about Colorado?
Or should I just assume we're lumped in with the Wyoming fairy thing?
Obviously our state made it through the Apocalypse just fine. I mean, dimensional horrors from beyond still want to go skiing and sample one of our 80 billion microbrews.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
Wyoming has had to put up with years of rooting for your crappy sports teams
What about Colorado?
Or should I just assume we're lumped in with the Wyoming fairy thing?
Obviously our state made it through the Apocalypse just fine. I mean, dimensional horrors from beyond still want to go skiing and sample one of our 80 billion microbrews.
Colorado got lumped in with the "New West" as lawless frontier dotted with farming/ranching communities. With the exception that it is one of 6 or 7 states where maybe there's possibly a Cyber-Knight monastery potentially. But that's about all the detail they give. Even in Rifts: New West it gets a two paragraph blurb covering geographical stuff that I could google in three seconds. Another casualty of not-Michigan-syndrome.
What about Colorado?
Or should I just assume we're lumped in with the Wyoming fairy thing?
Obviously our state made it through the Apocalypse just fine. I mean, dimensional horrors from beyond still want to go skiing and sample one of our 80 billion microbrews.
Colorado got lumped in with the "New West" as lawless frontier dotted with farming/ranching communities. With the exception that it is one of 6 or 7 states where maybe there's possibly a Cyber-Knight monastery potentially. But that's about all the detail they give. Even in Rifts: New West it gets a two paragraph blurb covering geographical stuff that I could google in three seconds. Another casualty of not-Michigan-syndrome.
Oh well.
Made out better then Australia though, right? Entire country's probably a blasted hellscape inhabited by viscous man-eating spiders, ultra-toxic snakes and mutant jelly-fish that can kill you by accident.
Ok, so maybe not much has actually changed.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
I'm guessing that when the rifts opened in Australia, the demons looked around, saw the wildlife, and promptly ran back to their home dimension.
I've said it many times before--everything in Australia can kill or at least seriously maim you. Even koalas go straight for the baby maker when they're fighting. And have you seen their claws man?
I'm genuinely excited to see what has happened to Europe in the post rift-pocalypse.
Given the lack of detail that went into areas of the author's own country that were too far away to bother thinking about, and already having been told that England is somehow thrown back into faeries and Arthurian legend, I am expecting stereotypes aplenty.
My bets go on:
Giant mutant frogs take over france.
Techno-Viking bad asses in Scandanavia.
Some kind of Holy Roman Empire thing going on around the Med. Possibly run by cat people.
Communist death machine robotic empire in Russia.
Japan becomes Power Rangers-esque giant robots and monsters.
Vampires and ghouls and ghosts in eastern Europe (surprised mexico nabbed them actually).
Robo-mutant-ninja-monster-demon-Nazis rise in central europe, lead by a reanimated Hitler's head in a jar.
And then for all those countries the average American youth has never heard of. Blanket dinosaur/demon/dino-demon invasion.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I'm genuinely excited to see what has happened to Europe in the post rift-pocalypse.
Given the lack of detail that went into areas of the author's own country that were too far away to bother thinking about, and already having been told that England is somehow thrown back into faeries and Arthurian legend, I am expecting stereotypes aplenty.
My bets go on:
Giant mutant frogs take over france.
Techno-Viking bad asses in Scandanavia.
Some kind of Holy Roman Empire thing going on around the Med. Possibly run by cat people.
Communist death machine robotic empire in Russia.
Japan becomes Power Rangers-esque giant robots and monsters.
Vampires and ghouls and ghosts in eastern Europe (surprised mexico nabbed them actually).
Robo-mutant-ninja-monster-demon-Nazis rise in central europe, lead by a reanimated Hitler's head in a jar.
And then for all those countries the average American youth has never heard of. Blanket dinosaur/demon/dino-demon invasion.
If by giant mutant frogs, you mean Gargoyles, you'd be right. Germany is under the control of the New German Republic and is a pretty nice place actually. Russia is mostly broken up into territories controlled by various warlords and a big chunk is held together by the remains of the USSR. Japan is a whole other ball of wacky.
Japan is a mix of high-tech and feudal--corporate espionage meets samurai and ninja. It's... interesting. They have their own Japanese versions of demons and dragons, too.
And I've been thinking about what material everything in Rifts has to be made out of for it to have "MDC" like strength like it does. Here's my best guess:
TL;DR? “Our research establishes graphene as the strongest material ever measured, some 200 times stronger than structural steel,” Hone said. “It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap.”
What about Colorado?
Or should I just assume we're lumped in with the Wyoming fairy thing?
Obviously our state made it through the Apocalypse just fine. I mean, dimensional horrors from beyond still want to go skiing and sample one of our 80 billion microbrews.
Colorado got lumped in with the "New West" as lawless frontier dotted with farming/ranching communities. With the exception that it is one of 6 or 7 states where maybe there's possibly a Cyber-Knight monastery potentially. But that's about all the detail they give. Even in Rifts: New West it gets a two paragraph blurb covering geographical stuff that I could google in three seconds. Another casualty of not-Michigan-syndrome.
Oh well.
Made out better then Australia though, right? Entire country's probably a blasted hellscape inhabited by viscous man-eating spiders, ultra-toxic snakes and mutant jelly-fish that can kill you by accident.
Ok, so maybe not much has actually changed.
Post-Rifts Australia is trippy as fuck.
You could easily do a page by page Let's Read through that book all by itself.
Just an update: Now that the forums are somewhat stable (and they gave me back my dummy buttons) I hope to have a new post up in the next couple of days.
Unfortunately, my laptop, which houses all my scanned images, still can't access the forums. So this process may take a little while to work itself out.
Unfortunately, the links in the OP don't work anymore either. Glad to hear about an upcoming update tho! This thread's been a blast to read.
Oh Jebus.
That is going to be a pain to fix.
Edit: And it looks like I'm going to have to stop renaming the thread to signal updates. Since the URL seems to change with renaming. I'll have to test this out.
Yup, the new forum software seems to use the thread name as part of the url (page number too). I think you can get links for individual posts by clicking the link icon on the left next to the post date.
Edit: Toying around with it, yeah, you can link to individual posts; but links to the OP seem to just link to the thread.
I'm going to be going back and relinking everything over the next little bit. For now, though, it looks like I'm stuck with the same thread title as long as I want links to work, so it won't be as easy to advertise updates. Oh well, moving on.
With North America covered, let's head into the wilderness. There are more than 30 world books (though I don't have some of the latest ones), so this could take a while. I'll be skimming over all but the major details, as this isn't meant to be an in-depth runthrough but simply a taste of the globalization of weirdness. I'm also not going to jump into mechanics with this, just setting and the goofiness/awesomeness thereof. If there's call for it, we can go back to these places and talk about the silliness that is the bio-borg or wearing a mega-damage leaf poncho with nothing underneath it.
Druids can even turn going commando into a hippie thing.
I'm just going to go through these in order of the World Book they appear in. Which will make it disjointed and confusing, which is pretty much perfect if we're going for capturing the "feel" of the setting. There is a ton of this stuff, so it's going to be a multi-part series. We've already covered Central America, which is World Book 1, so let's start with WB 2.
Is back. Unfortunately, it's now the home base of an inter-dimensional slaving empire that wants to use Earth as a distribution/acquisition hub. Unfortunately for them, the reappearance of the land mass swamped the south-eastern coast of what used to be the United States, cutting them off from billions of credits in potential octogenarian-powered technowizardry. The Splugorth, the ruling species, hate humans, utilize bio-technology, have tons of servitor races (particularly from those found in the first Conversion Book) and are pants-wettingly terrified of dragons. The Splugorth are really, really bad guys.
And generally pretty ugly, too.
Their leader, Splynncryth, is an alien intelligence (this will come up alot, see Vampires from our last installment) and virtually impervious to harm. He also has his tentacles in virtually every political war that is going on anywhere on Earth, particularly in the Americas and Europe. Atlantis is known for selling arms to anyone who can pay for them, so it's not at all uncommon to find tribes of raiding Simvan carrying Kitanna weapons and wearing power armor that were provided under the assumption that they'd be used against enemies of the Splugorth.
Meet the new boss, way way worse than the old boss.
The current rulers of Atlantis are not to be confused with the "True Atlanteans", which are basically awesomer humans with magical tattoos and an immunity to any sort of polymorphing. They also practice an odd form of geomancy and know how to build pyramids that channel magical energy. This is going to come up again, the pyramids thing. It's a really popular trope in the World Books.
So is the tattoo thing. It's everywhere.
True Atlanteans are basically good guys, though they can be a little aloof to lesser beings, like other people. These Atlanteans were responsible for the development of tattoo magic and are typically covered with bizarre images that have some effect tangentially related to their appearance. The Splugorth also utilize this technology, though, so it's best not to assume that all T-men are good guys.
But can they levitate rocks with their minds? Probably. Forget I said anything.
Atlantis is home to the Splynn dimensional marketplace (which would eventually get its own book) and acts as a transport hub for the Splugorth. As long as you don't look human, you can find just about anything you want there, particularly if it is powered by the souls of orphaned kittens. Or fairies. They really like subjugating fairies for some reason. This is also a prime location for scoring some of that pimptastic Kitanni power armor, assuming your GM was dumb enough to let you purchase or steal it.
Just in case you weren't getting enough D&D in your Rifts.
Camelot has re-emerged (complete with robo-horses and plasma lances) and the island has reverted to a courtly knight style of feudalism. Or, if you prefer, you can seek out the tree huggers that jump dimensions using (actually) magical mushrooms and worship trees that give them magical items and protect them from ley line storms. Which is nice, because the British Isles are the most magically active place on the planet outside of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Stonehenge is, rather unsurprisingly, home to the biggest nexus point on the planet. It is also connected directly to 6 other major nexus points (Figsbury Ring, Arbor Lowe, Long Meg, New Grange, Tara and The Dragon's Grave; I have no idea if these are real places) and is home to all manner of faeries and spriggans, which isn't that bad when you consider that the alternative could eat you skin first from across the room.
This is a famous English dragon. No, seriously.
Mrrlyn (that's right) has built himself a pyramid to help channel some of this copious magical energy to his own purposes, which may or may not be incredibly sinister or revolve around the death of every man, woman and child on the British Isles. But let's not speculate, he seems like such an upstanding dude what with inhabiting that dead body as a shard of an(other) alien intelligence. Nothing to see here, folks. The Lady of the Lake and Guinevere are both extensions of the same intelligence, in case Arthur (oh, I'm sorry, "Arr'thuu") wasn't screwed enough by one psionic/magical powerhouse with 2000 M.D.C. in his court watching his every move.
Speaking of Arr'thuu, he's put the round table back together, filled it with robot pilots and tattooed men from Atlantis, and rules Camelot to the extent that Mrrlyn allows him to. This guy is an honest-to-whatever-god-happens-to-be-in-the-room good guy, with good intentions and a knack for uniting people. He's also proper fucked if he ever steps out of line, since he's advised by one piece of the malevolent alien intelligence, was "chosen" by another (the lady of the lake) and is currently sleeping with a third. And about half his knighthood is composed of other shards of the same intelligence. But he gets to play techno-knight in the meantime, so I guess that's cool. New Camelot is kind of a big deal, occupying basically the entire island of England, or at least what's left of it. It's not a bad place to live as long as you don't cross Mrrlyn.
See what I mean about the tattoo thing?
London: A Splugorth (the dudes from Atlantis) outpost now known as "London of Splynn". From here, the minions of the Splugorth conduct raids and operations into France and Belgium. Apparently the density of faerie folk in Europe has made this a very profitable location, providing many, many fey to be imprisoned and tortured to power various magical items.
Wales: Is populated by ogres. Situation Normal. (I have no idea how people from Wales are, I'm sure they're lovely.)
Aw, be nice.
Scotland: Is covered with Millenium Trees, which are basically the druidic tree-gods that support entire societies of tree-huggers and provide worthy individuals with magical items made of their branches and leaves. It's all very strange, but they show up all over the place, as you'll see. The Highlands are full of nexus points and widely considered uninhabitable. A number of Fomorians have moved in and set themselves up as gods, modeling their pantheon after ancient Celtic legends. These demons can't go within two miles of the Millenium Trees without dying horribly, so the good word hasn't spread much beyond the hills. Of course, some of the old Celtic deities have come back, which means there's a rumble a-brewin'.
The Scottish are basically Keebler Elves at this point.
Ireland: Land of pixies, orcs and harpies. All they need is an occasional soccer match and things are back on track. Dublin is now Tarramorre, a rather rich city considering that it can't even support itself economically or militarily. They've amassed quite a bit of power promising the trade of ancient artifacts from the Dublin Museum that are now magical, allowing them to live pretty high on the hog on the backs of New Camelot and New German Republic citizens.
France: The northern coast has been completely deforested and abandoned because of some sort of odd plague that destroys all plant life. Paris is in ruins, but it's still there unlike most French cities. Filled with goblins, trolls and other subhumans though, which some might consider a step up from the pre-Rifts version. The rest of the country is controlled by the Blood Druids, who are your typical faceless NPC villain sect that goes around killing people randomly and senselessly instead of for their tasty, tasty P.P.E. as befits a proper druid. There's more on this in World Book 5, so we'll pick it up then.
I have to imagine that living on Rifts Earth is a lot like being at a 24 hour GWAR concert.
Is home to the Apocalypse. No, not that one, the other one. The BIBLICAL one. Complete with the whole horsemen thing. And also the ancient Egyptian gods are back. Africa has Millenium Trees as well, and they're pretty useful against that whole "Death comes on a grey horse" thing. Also, there is a NEW pyramid in the south, a breed of Mind Melters who literally steal your soul, and necromancers. Africa is a scary, scary place.
Just ask this guy, if he manages to survive that zombie gorilla.
There is also a strong tribal and magic component to the portrayal of post-Rifts Africa. Technology is pretty sparse (there is little new technology introduced, even in the form of energy weapons or armor, everything is magical or necromantic), but the people of the savanah make up for that by leveraging their ancient spiritual traditions into actual magical power. Medicine Men, Raincallers and African Witches (so named to avoid confusion with the other half-dozen forms of Witches that are floating around) wander the plains and jungles, either fighting back against the oncoming darkness of the Horsemen or gleefully aiding its approach.
If you had to wear this, you'd want the world to end again, too.
The real action, though, is around the Four Horsemen. They were a big meta-plot thing, which was eventually put down by a Justice League International-style force composed of "Champions of Light" from around the world. Otherwise, Africa is pretty much how a lot of Westerners think of it now, to debatable degrees of accuracy; a place full of deserts and jungles with heavily armed warlords and primitive tribesmen. Just add crocodile men with laser rifles and shake.
Or trample with your horned puppy of death.
And that takes us through World Book 4. Of 37. And that's not counting Dimension Books or random sourcebook stuff, and not even touching crossover material. Hoobus, this is going to be a long trip. But that seems like a good stopping point for now. Next time we'll start back in Europe and probably jump to the Southern Hemisphere assuming I don't take up too much room waxing poetic about the situation in Germany.
You know, boinking an alien intelligence posing as your female love interest, and is simultaneously your male mentor and a bunch of your knight buddies, can really, really complicate the "bros before ho's" theorem.
What Rifts is really going to need is a Psi/Cyber/Necro/Techno-Therapist O.C.C. "Please, have a seat on the couch and tell me about your trans-dimensional, vampire, mystical psychic mother who was also your alternate reality time-travelling father/son...."
What's kind of hilarious is that, despite Atlantis being pretty much the capital of awful, soul sucking, horrifically powerful slavers on Earth, Splynncryth is probably the most legit Splugorth intelligence anywhere in the multiversal setting so far. He's MERELY Anarchist, doesn't tend to actually do any tyranting, or even helping other terrifying tyrants on rifts earth, and mostly hangs out having fun with dragons and whatnot.
That England section gave me a massive grin. Those other nexus points are indeed real stone circles dotted about England.
Figsbury Ring is v near Stonehenge and is pretty much on my doorstep.
And as for Arbor Low:
(a) A pretty damn obscure reference to a little circle up in the peak district that even most Brits won't have heard of.
(b) Where I proposed to my wife!
Posts
Despite the chest hair, this is pretty much the least creepy use of Super Psionics.
There are some people who just simply should not have superpowers. Generally speaking, if it has ever crossed your mind to set a puppy on fire just to hear the sweet sweet sounds it makes, we're all probably better off if you can't do that with your mind. At the very least, a trip to the hardware store should be required.
YOU WILL SELL ME PAINT THINNER
Unfortunately, on Rifts Earth, it seems like the sadists are almost always the ones that get the superhuman powers. Juicers are dickhead jocks, Crazies have paranoid schizophrenia and a knife fetish, and don't even get me started on the anti-social tendencies of your average spellcaster.
I can haz 8 P.P.E.?
But if the augmented humans are the jocks and cutters, then the Mind Melter is a grade A sociopath. Think John Wayne Gacy with the ability to see through walls. A telekinetic Jeffrey Dahmer. Charles Manson with mind control pow... Charlie Manson. This is the archetype at work.
"You want to make me a sandwich."
And I know this sounds like an unfair characterization, but this is the reality we're working with. The abilities available to a Mind Melter, specifically those that they have sole access to (in the core book anyway), aren't the province of mentally stable, socially adjusted individuals. This is the kind of stuff that Stephen King writes novels about.
Carrie, Rifts Special Edition
For the uninitiated, what I'm talking about here is Super Psionics. Big, flashy (and usually expensive) powers that do all sorts of crazy things that just really aren't available to other characters. Not necessarily stronger than the options other classes have, since psionics in general is quite a bit weaker than magic or even just making normal attacks in terms of mechanics, but far better for exercising your inner demons. Exercising, not exorcising. This is the stuff that lets you take your inner demon on a nice, long walk through the waking nightmares of everyone unlucky enough to share a zip code with you. We'll be covering the specifics later, but suffice it to say that someone with access to Super Psionics would have been worshiped as a god in the ancient world, probably one of the gods that required human sacrifice.
Killing through the power of interpretive dance.
In the core book for Rifts, the Mind Melter was the only character class that had access to these powers. That would change in later books, but at the beginning they were the only game in town. They also got a metric ton of ISP to power those powers with and a wide selection of non-Super powers that do more normal stuff like heal others and see auras and such. But really, the prize here is the ability to dominate someone else into pouring gasoline on themselves so you can light them on fire with your brain while simultaneously turning off all their nerve endings so they get to experience dying in a fire in a completely lucid state. For them it's a horrifying fiery death, for you it's Tuesday and your shows aren't on yet.
"Slow down, Sex In The City doesn't start for another 40 minutes."
The single creepiest power available to the Mind Melter was Mentally Possess Others. It went through a lot of revisions through it's various incarnations in Palladium RPGs (since it was the go-to psychic sociopath power in the system), but the basics remained the same; one target gets a single save to avoid you controlling their actions for 5 minutes per level at the cost of around 30 ISP. There's a mass possession version floating around somewhere, but this is the classic one. 30 ISP, and I get your body for long enough to do some serious damage, either to you or others (or more likely both). This doesn't confir skills or trained abilities (like spellcasting), but if you possess a dragon you're probably not going to care whether you get his ability to speak Euro while you're torching that village that kicked you out for creepily oogling the mayor's underage daughter.
"I have come for the little girl."
Just to add to the creepy serial killer mystique, Mind Melters can take powers that blind, paralyze or mute targets (Bio-Manipulation), implant mental triggers or subvert good sense (Hypnotic Suggestion) and remove all memory of any weirdness (Mind Wipe). Sure, they get Psi-Sword and the ability to control water, but compared to turning people into puppets, that stuff is really kind of lame. Telekinesis (Super) isn't bad, but you're probably better off just shooting someone than trying to use it in combat.
More badass looking, way less effective.
Of course, there are other ways to use their vast powers of the mind. A Mind Melter that focuses on Healing powers can be a first rate healer. In a setting where anyone that might require healing is either not taking damage or vaporized instantly. Or they could concentrate on being a telekinetic powerhouse, hurling debris and enemies at yet more enemies. For S.D.C. damage, before those enemies stand up and shoot their M.D.C. weapons.
You present those options to your average roleplaying gamer (uselessness vs ineffectiveness vs creepy superhumanity) and you'll get the same approach 90+% of the time. Not necessarily because we're a creepy people (though we can be at times), but because we know indirect power when we see it. There is more problem-solving value in blinding an enemy than hurling a park bench at them when the bench isn't going to do any actual damage. That the path to power merges with the path to serial-killerdom is an unfortunate reality of how the system works.
That doesn't make it any less creepy.
Of course, the turnabout here is that a Mind Melter is still physically human. They aren't hopped-up super combatants like Juicers, or mega damage weapons platforms like cyborgs. They're just normal people, and fairly squishy ones at that.
Robot smash puny human!
Sure, they can put on armor just like anybody else, but that's not much help when they don't get any special combat bonuses (outside of a few odd psionic powers that give situational bonuses). Really, unless they're acting like something you'd see on a Law and Order: SVU/X-Files crossover, they're probably being massively overshadowed by some other member of the party.
Next Time:
As the world turns
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I mean, come on! Anyone who's seen Akira knows how awesome that power should be. Granted, I just upped the damage on things a bit so that it wasn't completely worthless. No exploding heads. But if you throw something (or someone) with enough force, I don't care what kind of armor they're wearing, it's going to hurt.
In fact, that was another problem I had with the way armor works in Rifts: kinetic force/damage was never really accounted for except in extreme cases like falling from a great height. Wouldn't a 30 foot robot stomping your face do more than maybe 1 to 4 MD to your armor? I thought so, so I introduced rules for determining what might carry through (in SDC) to the wearer. Can't remember off-hand what they were now, but I felt it a nice addition to things. Particularly when you figure that Super TK had some use as a result. You know, aside from just straight up stealing the weapons out of people's hands and using said weapons against their owners. Tee hee.
Mildly interesting to note, at least that, well, endgame X-Com from the first game, or the aliens?
They would be devastating in Rifts. Which is... interesting.
I mean Rifts, the first thing you notice is that everything is crazy broken in power and you work with that. Then you start side-by-sides with other things, some of them get, well, odd.
I mean, pulling the Akira stuff? That's not on the field, which is weird.
I mean, Akira,
Meanwhile, X-Com, which feels way too ordered and normal military for Rifts, could roll in and crush everybody (Tac nukes, tankbusting pistols, FTL starfighters that can burst suns, super psychics that not only mind crush their enemies, but they have jetpacks and can blow someone's head off from a mile away with their high powered rifles. Power armor that has to be MDC, and on and on)
Basically, what I'm saying is that looking closely never makes Rifts less of a mess. Fun times.
Why I fear the ocean.
Melters are the reason why the Coalition hates Psychics, by the way.
nice going there you mind melting geniuses
play right into the hands of the man you friggin psychic genius morons
ruin it for us regular psychic morons why don't you
Mind Melters are just creepier when they do it.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The pale, blue, war-torn dot.
In case it hasn't been covered yet, the world has gone to hell. In some cases that hell is metaphorical, formerly-urban wastelands stalked by all manner of nigh-invincible predators, and in other cases it is very, very literal. This isn't really our planet anymore, mankind is akin to the rats that survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, and we're just starting that process of evolution that will allow us to retake the planet some day assuming we aren't crushed underfoot by our betters before then.
That evolution has taken the form of reclaimed and repurposed technologies. Bionics, juicer and crazy augs, power armor and even magic are our methods of rapid evolution as a species now. The goal is to become stronger and tougher than the things that are trying to eat us, and we're having mixed results.
But enough of that for now. Today, we're going to talk about the state of the world we are struggling to survive in. Starting from the top. Note that this is the state as of the second printing of the main book. Later World Books would make substantial changes via metaplot.
Alaska/Northern Canada: Cold, barren wasteland that supports no real life. Pretty much like the real world.
Canada, circa 2011.
Alberta/Saskatchewan: Criss-crossed with ley lines. Calgary is a nexus point, ruled over by demon lords. Again, pretty much like the real world.
American West Coast: Major seismic disturbances wiped out all civilization here via earthquakes and tidal waves. Entire cities washed out to sea, leaving no trace. Sub-tropical forests all the way up into what used to be British Columbia, very sparsely explored.
Arizona/New Mexico/Nevada/Utah: Looks like old westerns, with the occasional ruin of an old city. Quite a few settlements that have been built in still-standing buildings from before the apocalypse. Got its own book in Rifts: New West, definitely worth checking out if you like your magical sci-fi with a soundtrack by Morricone.
Sister Sarah's back, and this time she's out for blood.
Mexico: Ruled by vampires. Making it either the scariest place in the world or the most awesome, depending on how much silver you're packing in that rail gun. Rifts: Vampire Kingdoms is, to this day, one of my favorite books ever put out for the setting. A nice change from "I launch all my long range missiles at it as soon as it comes on radar, then I go get lunch".
These aren't the sexy kind of vampires.
Wyoming: Full of fairies. So not much has changed.
Montana/Idaho: Unexplored, but right next to Wyoming and Alberta, so the assumption is that if you go there something will rift in and eat your face. Supposedly there's a central Cyber-Knight training ground here, but since no one has ever made it in past the rifting face-eaters, this is unconfirmed.
The central corridor (Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma): Humanity is rebuilding as a series of loosely-aligned villages. Defense amounts to militia with the occasional laser rifle and wandering Cyber-Knights that may or may not be set loose out of Montana. One of the few places where people are making a go of it independently, instead of as part of a larger nation like the Coalition. Idyllic and boring, filled with heavily armed yokels. Some things never change.
"Get the wimmin folk inside, that dang dong demon's back!"
Minnesota: Home to Tolkeen, one of the few home bases for the real good guys. The city-state stands on what used to be the city of Minneapolis, and it is rather heavily focused on magic. A large percentage of the population actively uses magic, and virtually all of them use techno-wizardry items on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this city of awesomeness is right next to Chi-Town, making it a prime target for Coalition aggression. The rest of the state is dotted with flourishing multi-species communities that integrate technology and magic to a high degree. Which, again, means it's a great place to go to make your bones if you're Coalition.
Chi-Town: The central state and biggest power base for the Coalition States. The state of Chi-Town officially covers most of Illinois and all of what used to be Iowa, most of which is used for agriculture and patrolled by CS forces. The actual city of Chi-Town is not, somewhat unexpectedly given Palladium's propensity for on-the-nose-ness, built over old Chicago. This is the seat of Coalition government and basically the last place you want to be if you aren't 100% homegrown, non-psychic human. Besides maybe Iron Heart.
But it looks like such a welcoming place.
Old Chicago: Dozens of ley lines run through the ruins of old Chicago, which is probably why it's a crumbling ruin at this point. All manner of monsterous wierdness stalks the bones of Chicago, which is probably why CS citizens are forbidden from going there on pain of death.
Missouri: A satellite state of the CS. A ton of money and manpower has been dumped here to build up agriculture infrastructure and provide a buffer to the south against suspected hordes of demons in Mexico.
Arkansas: A forest ruled by Fort El Dorado, an independent state that has repeatedly told the CS to go shove it. Tons of oil, some dinosaurs, and part of the infamous Magic Zone can all be found in what used to be Arkansas.
Texas: Now the Coalition state of Lone Star. Pretty useless for the most part (kind of like today, zing!) as far as the CS economy is concerned, but is home to the cloning facility that produces Dog Boys and sundry other mutant animals to shore up the Coalition's military forces. Otherwise, it's basically the old west with energy weapons.
The Magic Zone: The center of the Magic Zone is reported to be the ruins of East St. Louis. For hundreds of miles in every direction ley lines are as thick as mosquitoes in the swamp. Rifts are literally opening and closing every few minutes, and offenses to god are stumbling out hungering for human flesh. The old gateway arch in St. Louis is home to The Devil's Gate, a permanent rift to a not-so-nice dimension.
Psi-World: A seemingly mythical place filled with powerful psychics. Rumored to be somewhere in the Ohio Valley (which itself is in or near the Magic Zone). Kind of the El Dorado of Rifts, at least until they gave it it's own book.
Kentucky and Tenessee: Vast forests with weird supernatural phenomena. Like spontaneous dimension shifts. Probably best to avoid.
For your health.
The Deep South: Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are gone. Just straight gone. Under normal circumstances, this is probably cause for celebration, but they were destroyed when Atlantis showed back up, making it something of a mixed blessing.
Georgia and Florida: In true Rifts form, this entire area is now known simply as "Dinosaur Swamp." I'll let you fill in those details.
The East Coast: Lies in ruin. North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Delaware and New Jersey are all at least partially under the ocean. Every city that could have been remotely considered coastal has been pulverized by tidal waves and seismic activity. The destruction isn't as thorough as in California (here there are at least still ruins), but it's not pretty.
Washington DC: Above ground is mostly destroyed, but if there's one thing shadow governments know how to do it's build underground complexes. A power group is emerging here that calls itself "The Republicans", focused on human augmentation and psionics. As far as I know, they were never fleshed out any further than that.
Led by full-conversion Borg Shawn Hannity and ageless supernatural being Gordon Liddy.
Michigan: Lots of hopping little 'burgs and a revitalized center of industry. Post-apocalyptic Michigan actually seems to be doing better than real-world Michigan. Home of the Northern Gun weapons manufacturer, famous for heavy duty merc gear and solid power armor. Seimbieda and company are from this area, so there's a ton of detail here when compared to Kansas ("grassy, with scattered small communities") or Manhattan ("mass of rubble").
Detroit: Went from being an economic hellscape to being a magical AND economic hellscape. At least now they can field an entire platoon of Robocops.
Detroit PD; Supernatural Blight Task Force
Ann Arbor: Otherwise known as New Lazlo. Small community of scholars and mages that is kind of the clubhouse for the would-be Jedi Knights of Rifts Earth. Attached to the city of Lazlo, and realistically the next place to get curb-stomped by the CS military when Prosek's approval rating starts to dip.
Lazlo: Built on old Toronto, this is a city dedicated to the power of magic and science. Most of the really cool techno-wizard items you'll see in the game were developed here, and there exist facilities to mass produce them. Lazlo is a center of industry and commerce because of their mastery of the various technologies at their disposal. Lazlo represents one of the few true threats to CS supremacy in North America, but that threat is real enough that the CS doesn't have the will to test them. At least not for now.
Canada: Is now the Coalition State of Iron Heart. At least the habitable parts, so we're looking at a 20 mile strip along the Montana border. Staunch supporters of the CS, and even more brutal in their crackdowns against psychics and magic users. These guys make Chi-Town look like an artist commune. This gung ho attitude leads to some friction with Quebec.
Quebec: Now the Coalition state of Free Quebec. Pretty on the nose with the naming, it's a wonder Prosek didn't see this coming. Probably the most independent of the constituent states, as evidenced by their stockpile of unreported Glitter Boys that they will eventually use to rebel from the CS. This is the place that gave us the Glitter Girl, show some respect.
The junk in her trunk could level your hometown.
And that's basically North America. Next time I'll be (briefly) covering the haps in the rest of the world.
Next Time;
Everybody has their own goddamn dragons.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
East Coast: Destroyed
West Coast: More Destroyed
South: Gone
Southwest: Cowboys
Michigan: Tons of detailed communities and societies.
Is there stuff about Quebec being hostile to non-french speakers? Are there Quebec-specific OCCs?
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Glitter Girls
Another Glitter Boy OOC
And a couple like Free Quebec spies.
also, they were probably u of m fans, if you happen to be from michigan.
I can't tell if you're making a bad joke or if you're serious...
RIFFFFTTTTTSSSSS!!!!!
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Or should I just assume we're lumped in with the Wyoming fairy thing?
Arkansas is now a Coalition state (El Dorado).
Tolkeen is gone. The Coalition destroyed it. Lazlo and New Lazlo kinda shuffled their feet and looked the other way as the CS was curbstomping Tolkeen.
Free Quebec is now an independant country, briefly at war with the CS, before a truce was called.
The Michigan city states all are aligned with the CS, more or less.
I'll look up Colorado later, I can't remember what they did with it.
Obviously our state made it through the Apocalypse just fine. I mean, dimensional horrors from beyond still want to go skiing and sample one of our 80 billion microbrews.
Colorado can suck on our fairies
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Made out better then Australia though, right? Entire country's probably a blasted hellscape inhabited by viscous man-eating spiders, ultra-toxic snakes and mutant jelly-fish that can kill you by accident.
Ok, so maybe not much has actually changed.
Given the lack of detail that went into areas of the author's own country that were too far away to bother thinking about, and already having been told that England is somehow thrown back into faeries and Arthurian legend, I am expecting stereotypes aplenty.
My bets go on:
Giant mutant frogs take over france.
Techno-Viking bad asses in Scandanavia.
Some kind of Holy Roman Empire thing going on around the Med. Possibly run by cat people.
Communist death machine robotic empire in Russia.
Japan becomes Power Rangers-esque giant robots and monsters.
Vampires and ghouls and ghosts in eastern Europe (surprised mexico nabbed them actually).
Robo-mutant-ninja-monster-demon-Nazis rise in central europe, lead by a reanimated Hitler's head in a jar.
And then for all those countries the average American youth has never heard of. Blanket dinosaur/demon/dino-demon invasion.
If by giant mutant frogs, you mean Gargoyles, you'd be right. Germany is under the control of the New German Republic and is a pretty nice place actually. Russia is mostly broken up into territories controlled by various warlords and a big chunk is held together by the remains of the USSR. Japan is a whole other ball of wacky.
And I've been thinking about what material everything in Rifts has to be made out of for it to have "MDC" like strength like it does. Here's my best guess:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/08/07/graphene.html
TL;DR? “Our research establishes graphene as the strongest material ever measured, some 200 times stronger than structural steel,” Hone said. “It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap.”
You could easily do a page by page Let's Read through that book all by itself.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Unfortunately, my laptop, which houses all my scanned images, still can't access the forums. So this process may take a little while to work itself out.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Which just proves I should be bookmarking this thread on my own I suppose...
That is going to be a pain to fix.
Edit: And it looks like I'm going to have to stop renaming the thread to signal updates. Since the URL seems to change with renaming. I'll have to test this out.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Edit: Toying around with it, yeah, you can link to individual posts; but links to the OP seem to just link to the thread.
As the world burns.
I'm going to be going back and relinking everything over the next little bit. For now, though, it looks like I'm stuck with the same thread title as long as I want links to work, so it won't be as easy to advertise updates. Oh well, moving on.
With North America covered, let's head into the wilderness. There are more than 30 world books (though I don't have some of the latest ones), so this could take a while. I'll be skimming over all but the major details, as this isn't meant to be an in-depth runthrough but simply a taste of the globalization of weirdness. I'm also not going to jump into mechanics with this, just setting and the goofiness/awesomeness thereof. If there's call for it, we can go back to these places and talk about the silliness that is the bio-borg or wearing a mega-damage leaf poncho with nothing underneath it.
Druids can even turn going commando into a hippie thing.
I'm just going to go through these in order of the World Book they appear in. Which will make it disjointed and confusing, which is pretty much perfect if we're going for capturing the "feel" of the setting. There is a ton of this stuff, so it's going to be a multi-part series. We've already covered Central America, which is World Book 1, so let's start with WB 2.
Atlantis:
Home of the creepiest bastards in the megaverse.
Is back. Unfortunately, it's now the home base of an inter-dimensional slaving empire that wants to use Earth as a distribution/acquisition hub. Unfortunately for them, the reappearance of the land mass swamped the south-eastern coast of what used to be the United States, cutting them off from billions of credits in potential octogenarian-powered technowizardry. The Splugorth, the ruling species, hate humans, utilize bio-technology, have tons of servitor races (particularly from those found in the first Conversion Book) and are pants-wettingly terrified of dragons. The Splugorth are really, really bad guys.
And generally pretty ugly, too.
Their leader, Splynncryth, is an alien intelligence (this will come up alot, see Vampires from our last installment) and virtually impervious to harm. He also has his tentacles in virtually every political war that is going on anywhere on Earth, particularly in the Americas and Europe. Atlantis is known for selling arms to anyone who can pay for them, so it's not at all uncommon to find tribes of raiding Simvan carrying Kitanna weapons and wearing power armor that were provided under the assumption that they'd be used against enemies of the Splugorth.
Meet the new boss, way way worse than the old boss.
The current rulers of Atlantis are not to be confused with the "True Atlanteans", which are basically awesomer humans with magical tattoos and an immunity to any sort of polymorphing. They also practice an odd form of geomancy and know how to build pyramids that channel magical energy. This is going to come up again, the pyramids thing. It's a really popular trope in the World Books.
So is the tattoo thing. It's everywhere.
True Atlanteans are basically good guys, though they can be a little aloof to lesser beings, like other people. These Atlanteans were responsible for the development of tattoo magic and are typically covered with bizarre images that have some effect tangentially related to their appearance. The Splugorth also utilize this technology, though, so it's best not to assume that all T-men are good guys.
But can they levitate rocks with their minds? Probably. Forget I said anything.
Atlantis is home to the Splynn dimensional marketplace (which would eventually get its own book) and acts as a transport hub for the Splugorth. As long as you don't look human, you can find just about anything you want there, particularly if it is powered by the souls of orphaned kittens. Or fairies. They really like subjugating fairies for some reason. This is also a prime location for scoring some of that pimptastic Kitanni power armor, assuming your GM was dumb enough to let you purchase or steal it.
In case you're wondering, that horse is built in.
England:
Just in case you weren't getting enough D&D in your Rifts.
Camelot has re-emerged (complete with robo-horses and plasma lances) and the island has reverted to a courtly knight style of feudalism. Or, if you prefer, you can seek out the tree huggers that jump dimensions using (actually) magical mushrooms and worship trees that give them magical items and protect them from ley line storms. Which is nice, because the British Isles are the most magically active place on the planet outside of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Stonehenge is, rather unsurprisingly, home to the biggest nexus point on the planet. It is also connected directly to 6 other major nexus points (Figsbury Ring, Arbor Lowe, Long Meg, New Grange, Tara and The Dragon's Grave; I have no idea if these are real places) and is home to all manner of faeries and spriggans, which isn't that bad when you consider that the alternative could eat you skin first from across the room.
This is a famous English dragon. No, seriously.
Mrrlyn (that's right) has built himself a pyramid to help channel some of this copious magical energy to his own purposes, which may or may not be incredibly sinister or revolve around the death of every man, woman and child on the British Isles. But let's not speculate, he seems like such an upstanding dude what with inhabiting that dead body as a shard of an(other) alien intelligence. Nothing to see here, folks. The Lady of the Lake and Guinevere are both extensions of the same intelligence, in case Arthur (oh, I'm sorry, "Arr'thuu") wasn't screwed enough by one psionic/magical powerhouse with 2000 M.D.C. in his court watching his every move.
Speaking of Arr'thuu, he's put the round table back together, filled it with robot pilots and tattooed men from Atlantis, and rules Camelot to the extent that Mrrlyn allows him to. This guy is an honest-to-whatever-god-happens-to-be-in-the-room good guy, with good intentions and a knack for uniting people. He's also proper fucked if he ever steps out of line, since he's advised by one piece of the malevolent alien intelligence, was "chosen" by another (the lady of the lake) and is currently sleeping with a third. And about half his knighthood is composed of other shards of the same intelligence. But he gets to play techno-knight in the meantime, so I guess that's cool. New Camelot is kind of a big deal, occupying basically the entire island of England, or at least what's left of it. It's not a bad place to live as long as you don't cross Mrrlyn.
See what I mean about the tattoo thing?
London: A Splugorth (the dudes from Atlantis) outpost now known as "London of Splynn". From here, the minions of the Splugorth conduct raids and operations into France and Belgium. Apparently the density of faerie folk in Europe has made this a very profitable location, providing many, many fey to be imprisoned and tortured to power various magical items.
Wales: Is populated by ogres. Situation Normal. (I have no idea how people from Wales are, I'm sure they're lovely.)
Aw, be nice.
Scotland: Is covered with Millenium Trees, which are basically the druidic tree-gods that support entire societies of tree-huggers and provide worthy individuals with magical items made of their branches and leaves. It's all very strange, but they show up all over the place, as you'll see. The Highlands are full of nexus points and widely considered uninhabitable. A number of Fomorians have moved in and set themselves up as gods, modeling their pantheon after ancient Celtic legends. These demons can't go within two miles of the Millenium Trees without dying horribly, so the good word hasn't spread much beyond the hills. Of course, some of the old Celtic deities have come back, which means there's a rumble a-brewin'.
The Scottish are basically Keebler Elves at this point.
Ireland: Land of pixies, orcs and harpies. All they need is an occasional soccer match and things are back on track. Dublin is now Tarramorre, a rather rich city considering that it can't even support itself economically or militarily. They've amassed quite a bit of power promising the trade of ancient artifacts from the Dublin Museum that are now magical, allowing them to live pretty high on the hog on the backs of New Camelot and New German Republic citizens.
France: The northern coast has been completely deforested and abandoned because of some sort of odd plague that destroys all plant life. Paris is in ruins, but it's still there unlike most French cities. Filled with goblins, trolls and other subhumans though, which some might consider a step up from the pre-Rifts version. The rest of the country is controlled by the Blood Druids, who are your typical faceless NPC villain sect that goes around killing people randomly and senselessly instead of for their tasty, tasty P.P.E. as befits a proper druid. There's more on this in World Book 5, so we'll pick it up then.
Be vewy, vewy quiet. We're hunting Owphans.
Africa:
I have to imagine that living on Rifts Earth is a lot like being at a 24 hour GWAR concert.
Is home to the Apocalypse. No, not that one, the other one. The BIBLICAL one. Complete with the whole horsemen thing. And also the ancient Egyptian gods are back. Africa has Millenium Trees as well, and they're pretty useful against that whole "Death comes on a grey horse" thing. Also, there is a NEW pyramid in the south, a breed of Mind Melters who literally steal your soul, and necromancers. Africa is a scary, scary place.
Just ask this guy, if he manages to survive that zombie gorilla.
There is also a strong tribal and magic component to the portrayal of post-Rifts Africa. Technology is pretty sparse (there is little new technology introduced, even in the form of energy weapons or armor, everything is magical or necromantic), but the people of the savanah make up for that by leveraging their ancient spiritual traditions into actual magical power. Medicine Men, Raincallers and African Witches (so named to avoid confusion with the other half-dozen forms of Witches that are floating around) wander the plains and jungles, either fighting back against the oncoming darkness of the Horsemen or gleefully aiding its approach.
If you had to wear this, you'd want the world to end again, too.
The real action, though, is around the Four Horsemen. They were a big meta-plot thing, which was eventually put down by a Justice League International-style force composed of "Champions of Light" from around the world. Otherwise, Africa is pretty much how a lot of Westerners think of it now, to debatable degrees of accuracy; a place full of deserts and jungles with heavily armed warlords and primitive tribesmen. Just add crocodile men with laser rifles and shake.
Or trample with your horned puppy of death.
And that takes us through World Book 4. Of 37. And that's not counting Dimension Books or random sourcebook stuff, and not even touching crossover material. Hoobus, this is going to be a long trip. But that seems like a good stopping point for now. Next time we'll start back in Europe and probably jump to the Southern Hemisphere assuming I don't take up too much room waxing poetic about the situation in Germany.
Because I love me some Terrain-Hopper.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
What Rifts is really going to need is a Psi/Cyber/Necro/Techno-Therapist O.C.C. "Please, have a seat on the couch and tell me about your trans-dimensional, vampire, mystical psychic mother who was also your alternate reality time-travelling father/son...."
Figsbury Ring is v near Stonehenge and is pretty much on my doorstep.
And as for Arbor Low:
(a) A pretty damn obscure reference to a little circle up in the peak district that even most Brits won't have heard of.
(b) Where I proposed to my wife!
Crazy.
Part 2: Character Creation Part 1; WTF is this coma table doing here? [By friend of the thread The Ender]
Part 3: Character Creation Continued: This Will Never End
Part 4: Who Says Palladium Doesn't Have Class?
Part 5: Cyborgs: Nipples Are For The Weak
Part 6: The Coalition; Savior? Fascist? Both?
Part 7: Crazies, Nature's Crazies
Part 8: Paladins Don't Have To Be Morons
Part 9: Disco Dancing Through The Apocalypse
Part 10: Superhumans Need Not Apply
Part 11: When Life Gets Rough, Turn To Drugs
Part 12: Please Stop Bleeding
Part 12: Utility Players Can Die Too
Part 13: The Cutthroat World of Academia
Part 14: Mercy Killing Is Really The Only Way To Go
Part 15: If It's Worth Knowing, It's Worth Sacrificing A Puppy To Cast
Part 15: Walking on Sunshine
Part 15: An Associates Degree In Magic
Part 16: Get Out That Fiddle
Part 17: SCIENCE!
Part 18: Futuristic Extra-Dimensional Space Lizards
Part 19: Braintripping
Part 20: Fire Safety
Part 21: Not Quite Vampires
Part 22: Where Orca Proclaims His Love For Gunfisting
Part 22.1: Wherein We Do The MiniMAC
Part 23: Did Timmy Fall Down The Dimensional Rift? Did He Girl?
Part 24: That Social Outlet We All Wish You Wouldn't Use
Part 25: State Of The Rapidly Crumbling World
Part 26: Trotting The Decimated Globe, Part 1[/quote]