Some thoughts on worldbooks

[Bood Samel]

There are two basic themes I think to writing a rifts world book. Try to think of what the area will be like in 2098. Fragments of that era will be the basis of the material and technological culture of the region if humans are still a dominate group. Second what is either the mythical past of the area, or does the area have anything to do with modern marginal elements of culture that border on myth. What I mean by that are places that are reputed in say conspiracy culture to have crazy underground military bases, local crytozoological creatures of the region, or anything that is from modern culture that borders on myth.

Rifts has used places like area 51 which are shrouded in enough crap to might as well be myth. The dulce base, the montauk project and the philadelphia experiment would cover the same ground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_Base
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montauk_Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment

Also rifts has a bunch of folkloric and cryptozoological creatures already in it, so that relationship has already been established.

Rifts often assumes the pre-industrial religious views of a region return, though usually with a weird slant. We see this with the use of pagan gods, druids, voodoo,native americans, etc. though in a very light hearted and usually literal way. Though their tends to be a sort of regionalist approach to it.

The pre-rifts world of 2098 never seems like its given enough consideration. America by then will be more Hispanic and Asian then white or black by then. Given that it seems 2098 was a cyber-punk culture most of the cities were most likely massive archologies. All of Boston to Richmond had to be one solid sprawl.


2098 Europe would be more Arabic and Muslim then white and Christian. The English people in rifts would be closer to some one like Dizzee Rascal then king arthur- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dizzee_Rascal

[DocS]

The pre-rifts world of 2098 never seems like its given enough consideration. America by then will be more Hispanic and Asian then white or black by then. Given that it seems 2098 was a cyber-punk culture most of the cities were most likely massive archologies. All of Boston to Richmond had to be one solid sprawl.

2098 Europe would be more Arabic and Muslim then white and Christian. The English people in rifts would be closer to some one like

True Dat! Took over ten years for there to be a single 'non-white' person in the CS, in general the CS looks as monochrome as The Empire in Star Wars.

My little thing, if I were the artist for the CS, I would portray them as the gender-blind, race neutral utopia that we'd all love America to be.... pity about the whole 'genocidal' thing, though. Genocidal, but not hypocrites!

England and Africa put little or no thought into the "pre-apocalypse" areas. They seemed much more excited about putting in gods. However, Madhaven is an exception. The New Sourcebook coming out seems to be another one, it's begining to look back on track.

But when The Vatican was wiped out without a trace.... I found it a little hard to believe. The Vatican has weathered apocalyptic level events before, to have it simply "Disappear" is kind of, a blatant omission.

[MASTERMIND]

The one good thing about the CS in my game (and probably in a lot of games) is a human is a human. The CS does not care what ethnicity you are. If you are human then you one of them. All forms of racial discrimination or prejudice are 100% gone.

As long as you aren't a D-Bee that is.

[Greyaxe]

The one good thing about the CS in my game (and probably in a lot of games) is a human is a human. The CS does not care what ethnicity you are. If you are human then you one of them. All forms of racial discrimination or prejudice are 100% gone.

As long as you aren't a D-Bee that is.

Human is human for sure but not a mutant, so no tails and not psychic, which 25% of the population is, and defiantly not from outside the city cause you could be corrupted by d-bees, and most defiantly if you aren’t a spell caster of any kind.

Still pretty prejudice to me, color blind maybe but prejudice nonetheless.

[Library Ogre]

Anyone else tend to draw a bit on 3001: The Final Odyssey? I figure there's very few "pure" whites, blacks, Hispanics or Asians left in North America or Europe... lots of racial mixing in the time after Rifts when you married your daughter to the people who were strong, healthy, and human, never mind black, white, or yellow. Given the immigration trends in both Europe and North America, that's going to result in a lot of people who are medium-dark skin (cafe au lait is the non-PC term), dark eyes, and dark hair. Green or blue eyes and natural fair hair are going to be extremely exotic, and I wouldn't doubt that they'll frequently be associated with psychic or magical powers (Rightly? Wrongly?).

[Bood Samel]

I've said to before in the past that I thought voodou would play a heavy cultural role in rifts. The Voodou based religions that all spring from the west african religion of Yoruba are already now in north america far more predominate then people tend to realize.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_mythology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodun

Given that their already is a voodoo OCC there is room for developing the idea further. I think in the south and south west in would be the dominate religion. Also given voodoos hodge-podge make-up it could easy adapt to and absorb any D-bee influence.

[Library Ogre]

well according to scientist in like another 500 years there will only be one race of Humanity. Caucasoids, Negroids and Monogoloids will all breed togather to create just one race. for the love of the Megaverse i cant remember what they called them. anyhow well all be dark haired, dark eyed and tan skined. all others (pure whites, pure blacks and pure asains) will make up about 3% or less of the worlds population.

Maybe. I don't know if I buy the 500 year number; I think conservative forces are stronger than that, but I may be over-estimating them (after all, 500 years ago is about the time that we found a stable route to the continent I'm sitting on, and before we really got a handle on steam power... so I'm willing to admit that I'm being a really short-sighted in this).

As for what they called them, I imagine it was "Tiger Woods."

[Mech-Viper Prime]

sure it would make sense but you forgot one thing important.

Humans are completely stupid as a group, the days after the coming of rifts (or chaos earth) hate crimes would be on the rise for many different reasons.

as far as religion goes who you thinks the demons and monsters are going after for first a handful of well defended people or a bunch of folks in a place of worship with no weapons.

then let's not forget the rifts them who might have been drop off.



the name of them are Unihumans duck-foot. link

[Prince Cherico]

Guys the one problem your ideas have is that they ignore basic
mendelian genitics. Genes dont work in a blending fasion, mass
interacial marrage would result in more varity not less. differences
in skin color, differences in eye color, and differnces in hair color
isnt going to disapere every now and then the deck will reshuffel
and recessive genes will pop up.

There are asian people with naturally red hair
many Austriallian aberigonals have blond hair

[The Galactus Kid]

Thats a lot more than one word

[MASTERMIND]

The one good thing about the CS in my game (and probably in a lot of games) is a human is a human. The CS does not care what ethnicity you are. If you are human then you one of them. All forms of racial discrimination or prejudice are 100% gone.

As long as you aren't a D-Bee that is.

Human is human for sure but not a mutant, so no tails and not psychic, which 25% of the population is, and defiantly not from outside the city cause you could be corrupted by d-bees, and most defiantly if you aren’t a spell caster of any kind.

Still pretty prejudice to me, color blind maybe but prejudice nonetheless.

I never said they didn't have problems with psychics, mutants and D-Bees. Based on the conversation already in the thread I stayed within the context of races that exist today. In that context my statement still stands that there is no racial discrimination in my game.

[MASTERMIND]

Guys the one problem your ideas have is that they ignore basic
mendelian genitics. Genes dont work in a blending fasion, mass
interacial marrage would result in more varity not less. differences
in skin color, differences in eye color, and differnces in hair color
isnt going to disapere every now and then the deck will reshuffel
and recessive genes will pop up.

There are asian people with naturally red hair
many Austriallian aberigonals have blond hair

So? Traits come and go, that's fine. But if I am a descendent of all the races I am everything. That is what the statistics are talking about. Now in a case by case basis certain traits may become more dominant but that doesn't mean the genetic material of each race isn't in that person.

[Bood Samel]

Well I hope anyway!!

As for the context of rifts, well I'm glad that we're all thinking about the 2098 world more and in depth.

What about the 2098 architecture and the extent of it?