The 2nd Extinction: How have you changed the setting?

[Akashic Soldier]

Long story short, a while ago I ran a game called Rifts: Deluge in Dinosaur Swamp where a cabal of necromancers had uncovered a crashed Valanx spaceship that had been rifted through. Reanimating the dead aliens the Necromancers used their magic to have the aliens produce a powerful bomb that would use the energy from conjoining ley lines to trigger an explosion that would level much of Dinosaur Swamp. The Necromancers would then (using the P.P.E. released during the explosion) complete a massive ritual that would allow them to resurrect all those killed as an army of the undead. Obviously, the long-term goal of which being to conquer North America with an army of undead dinos.

Now, the way I'd imagined it the players would've found the villains before the next full moon which was a month away and then disrupt/vanish their plan by intercepting the Necromancer's minion's and stealing the parts they needed to construct the bomb (which needed to be salvaged from Pre-Rifts weapon caches) or they would've been able to defuse the bomb (because two of the players had the demolitions disposal skill).

However, things did not go that way and in the end although the players were able to breach the protective shield of the Valanx ship and create of enough of a ruckus that not ONE of the twelve freaking Necromancers could succeed in the computer operations roll to deactivate the bomb last minute, the Everglades were leveled. Immediately following which the players were killed, the Necromancers killed, and virtually everything in Florida consumed in a blinding wave of destruction. On the upside, the players did get to "flip the bird" to the Necromancers as everyone died in the end and that has been bought up to me as an "awesome moment" by a couple of them, so that is something I guess.

Anyways...

Now in my gameverse there is no Dinosaur Swamp (which actually really sucks because I love Dinosaur Swamp) but, its gone (well over 80% of it anyway).

So, how about you?

What is the biggest change to the setting that has occurred in your game and was it planned?

[Glistam]

Long story short: Our group detonated a small nuclear device at ground zero of the Calgary Rift, destroying a good part of the city and ending the Demon occupation of the place. On our second visit to the remains of the city being slowly rebuilt by surviving mortal refugees, we unleashed a destructive P.P.E. storm of such intensity that it killed all the survivors and razed the countryside around the city for hundreds of miles.

The first act was (semi)-intentional. The second act was an unintentional consequence of our curiosity. Calgary has been wiped clean off the map - or so we've been told. Our characters actually fled to Russia in the wake of that devastation and haven't been back yet.

The long story for the first time we destroyed Calgary can be read about here and the long story for the second/last time we destroyed it can be read here.

[sub]Edited to update the two links.[/sub]

[Ravenwing]

Destroy Dino Swamp?

BEST IDEA EVER!

[Akashic Soldier]

Hey! Isn't that basically the exact plot of Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence??? -- You plagerizer.

I am actually unfamiliar with that (book?) and author. I thought of the story after planning a Dinosaur Swamp game when one of my players came to me with "a necromancer that hunted necromancers" and I thought "Undead Dinosaurs! Why the hell not! Rifts rocks!!!" and then I dreamed up how that could make it happen. For a while I'd wanted to use the aliens from Juicer Uprising but I had players familiar with it and I wanted to keep them off their toes, so... that is sort of how it all came together. Any simularity to Lady Chatterley's Lover is entirely coincidental.

I put the island of Hokkaido, Japan in another dimension (similar to the Yucactan Peninsula). From the air, it doesn't exist. It can only be reached by sea, and then only during the summer and winter equinox.

I actually really like that idea. I might (with your permission) borrow that for my own use in a game in the future.

I got rid of the Inland Sea in central Australia.

I've heard a lot of people didn't like the inland sea in Australia but I remember being taught in primary school that if the ice caps melted that is exactly what would happen and we would need to be evacuated to the east coast (I'm Australian). So, when I saw that in the Rifts book I was like ZOMG! "That is so COOL!" and actually laughed out-loud that someone had put that little detail in.

Long story short: Our group detonated a small nuclear device at ground zero of the Calgary Rift, destroying a good part of the city and ending the Demon occupation of the place. On our second visit to the remains of the city being slowly rebuilt by surviving mortal refugees, we unleashed a destructive P.P.E. storm of such intensity that it killed all the survivors and razed the countryside around the city for hundreds of miles.

The first act was (semi)-intentional. The second act was an unintentional consequence of our curiosity. Calgary has been wiped clean off the map - or so we've been told. Our characters actually fled to Russia in the wake of that devastation and haven't been back yet.

The long story for the first time we destroyed Calgary can be read about here and the long story for the second/last time we destroyed it can be read here.

[sub]Edited to update the two links.[/sub]

Sounds interesting, but my little brother (just this minute) showed up from Central Australia so I have to jet but I will check them out later and give you feedback. Looking forward to it! Smart idea with Calgary, can't wait to find out where you got the bomb!!

Destroy Dino Swamp?

BEST IDEA EVER!

Hahaha, naw. Thank you though. Stick around Raven ya jerk. I've missed having ya around buddy!

[Zamion138]

What is the biggest change to the setting that has occurred in your game and was it planned?

It's been a few years...

1) The City of Manoa is a hub for True Atlantean (all clans) and connected at designated times (not all the time) through dimensional portal to Lazlo and Alexandria (Phase World).

2) Spell books are much more common than what is hinted at. I would say spell books are about as common as gems

3) Necromancers are not bad and can even attain a scrupulous alignment or an alignment I made up (which I'm not listing); the view being that Necromancers are not necessarily bad-they just have a different view on death/magic and how it applies to morality.

There are more, but I can't recall right now.

we have almost always ran necro's this way. i personaly and most people i play with fail to see how using the dead for something constructive is all that bad......deffintly see the not my mom aspect of it but a strangers corpse and all isnt that weird.

[Alrik Vas]

I'll let you know when something develops. I've just started this game but there's a chance my players will get caught up in something very serious and world changing. Though they'll probably ditch it for more booze.

[Pepsi Jedi]

The level of the illiteracy in the CS in my games is not the sillyness that is written in the books. The populace, by and large have a reading level of 5th to 8th grade with about 33% of the population having higher. Including officers in the military, their elite scientists and such. This is about what it'd need to be to maintain their society. So while it's technically a canon change. I don't really think of it as such.

The CS perform and act like a Military. Not a silly 60s comedy of 'Evvvvil Villains" who couldn't find their butts with both hands and a map, which they seem to be portrayed as about half the time. (Conversely they're said to be smart and dangerous, yet are portrayed as silly charactitures half the time in the book)

I use Dead Boy's CS stuff in our games.

The "Airline" from Merc Town doesn't exist

New York is not 'Madhaven" as presented in the book. I've not gone deep into it (That book still angers me) but short version is, New York is there. It's just almost in a constant state of DShifting. Minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day. You never know. Could Dshift 5 times in 5 minutes or not shift for 5 weeks. Either way it's dangerous and that's why people stay out.

We've not played in Australia (In rifts) but it's not as the book is either.

The CS/Tolkeen war happened, but was more..... smart? On both sides. Each side played to it's strengths. That being said, Tolkeen lost. And pretty bad. Still have the Refugee problem, but as Tolkeen just wasn't that big, it's not as bad as some of the new books have made out. (This goes along with the CS acting like a real military. Tolkeen didn't do some of the stupid stuff they 'did' in the books either).

Atlantis is present but we play up the "Earth is used as a Dimensional Cross roads, so the 'powers that be' don't allow anyone to get a monopoly" thing is even more enforced. The head Splooge on Atlantis rules Atlantis for sure but it's not as comfortable that is played out in some of the books. He knows he's there by the leave of those megaversal powers and doesn't screw around with it too much, least they get tired of him and wipe him out. So he's sort of like.. An African warlord that rules his little part of his area with an iron fist, but always looking over his shoulder in case the US or NATO decide enough is enough and come to squish him like a bug." In his own neighborhood he's top dog! But not in the Megaverse. This isn't really a change from the books. It's mentioned as that's how it is, but then.. pretty much ignored afterwards. Our groups just don't ignore it.

Not really a 'change' but 'Wild' populations of Mutant animals are more prevalent. I'm not saying they blanket the earth, but those animals that were formed at Lone star, and escaped or were purposefully released have bred eagerly with their own kind and florish. Not millions of them but there are communities of 100s or a few 1000 you can find all over NA and a few beyond. This increase is largely due to my own love of RPing mutant animals and my first game ever being Mutants Down Under/ TMNT/ ATB.

I've taken a concept from ATB and 'rifted' it to earth as well. Dinosaur Swamp holds an organization that was "Started" by the "Gang of Four" and proceed to this day with one of the founding four still alive, very very old. very ancient, more than a bit touched. Think... Yoda... but with a shell... and sai. The organization is a school of ninja, but they don't advertise like that. Mutant animals train there and some humans and dbees. They range out sort of like Cyberknights, but in secret. Righting wrongs and helping the people. Often disguising themselves as various types of mercs.

There are some others but this was getting a little long.

[Alrik Vas]

Dinosaur Swamp holds an organization that was "Started" by the "Gang of Four" and proceed to this day with one of the founding four still alive, very very old. very ancient, more than a bit touched. Think... Yoda... but with a shell... and sai.

[Zamion138]

Lone star is gone, not went underground not broken, but gone.
The team set off the machine the bowls of the system and basicly wired it to blow but used some magical goblin nades for most of it. With all the deaths portal and magic explosions the whole place went straight to some other diminsion.

The cs nuked the crap out of it hearing this for fear of something comming through to earth. All that is left is an iron door that leads to a random time foward or backwards in earth.........no player has step though yet in any game so they dont know this
st

[Pepsi Jedi]

Have you guys seen the Vamp Sourcebook? Pertaining to Necromancers?

[Zamion138]

Lone star is gone, not went underground not broken, but gone.
The team set off the machine the bowls of the system and basicly wired it to blow but used some magical goblin nades for most of it. With all the deaths portal and magic explosions the whole place went straight to some other diminsion.

The cs nuked the crap out of it hearing this for fear of something comming through to earth. All that is left is an iron door that leads to a random time foward or backwards in earth.........no player has step though yet in any game so they dont know this
st

I really like this idea; I think I'm going to steal it.

Feel free i describe the door like the ones inchronotrigger for lack of a better refrence. If you or your players catch the refrence it makes visualization alot easier.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Lone star is gone, not went underground not broken, but gone.
The team set off the machine the bowls of the system and basicly wired it to blow but used some magical goblin nades for most of it. With all the deaths portal and magic explosions the whole place went straight to some other diminsion.

The cs nuked the crap out of it hearing this for fear of something comming through to earth. All that is left is an iron door that leads to a random time foward or backwards in earth.........no player has step though yet in any game so they dont know this
st

That'd have to be one -heck- of a team to make it into the bowls of a subterranean golden age military base past the .. quite literal noses of 1,000s of psi hounds, not to mention the kill hounds and all the other mutant animals and the Human CS forces and, camera's, 100s of locked security doors, blast doors, locked elevators, patrolling skelebots that never sleep, and gods knows what other kind of stuff, --with magic--, Magic strong enough, mind you to --harm-- the golden age military base that survived a global catastrophe, on the scale which the planet has never seen, tectonic movement, tidal waves, tornadoes, volcanoes erupting around the world. Nuclear winter, and demon plagues for 100s of years, not to mention an entire continent of monsters appearing out of nowhere, and everything else, for 300 years with out a scratch, those are some amazingly strong grenades and get deep enough to pull that sort of maneuver. Desmond isn't stupid (IQ 27), after that rat episode in Machinations of doom you can bet he closed the back door, fer sure! lol. And that's not counting all the extra security and stuff in that section of the base, and the fact that... noone alive really knows about it, except Bradford.

Pretty heck of a team to figure out how to wire a machine that guys with IQ's of 27 can't figure out. Carrying magical explosives through the base of 100s if not 1000s of magical detecting trained, and armed combat troops must have been a heck of a trick too.

Not trying to be nitpicky but that sounds like going "Chi town's gone in my game. Our group of 5 guys got in past all the tens of thousands of troops and Dog boys and skelebots and ISS, undetected, with some magical bombs and blew it up and there's just a crater now"

Clearly I don't know the details but that doesn't sound remotely plausible. At least in any games I've run or played.

I'm not trying to rain on your game. The logistics of it just seem..... exceedingly difficult.

The GM must be a very "Space Oprah" Type. The kind that would build a space station able to blow up planets and move at warp speed, yet can be 100% destroyed by a guy with one missile up the exhaust pipe. As if no one building this space station the size of a moon, ever went "you know.... this exhaust port, leads straight to the core.. one farm boy with a lucky shot and hokey religion could kill Millions of our troops and destroy trillions of dollars and decades of work. Maybe we should, you know.. put a few kinks in the exhaust route. Just in case someone tries that tactic. You know, so their missile blows up at a dog leg or something. Kills a dozen or so techs, instead of blowing up the entire moon sized battle station?"

[Brayon]

Lone star is gone, not went underground not broken, but gone.
The team set off the machine the bowls of the system and basicly wired it to blow but used some magical goblin nades for most of it. With all the deaths portal and magic explosions the whole place went straight to some other diminsion.

The cs nuked the crap out of it hearing this for fear of something comming through to earth. All that is left is an iron door that leads to a random time foward or backwards in earth.........no player has step though yet in any game so they dont know this
st

I really like this idea; I think I'm going to steal it.

Feel free i describe the door like the ones inchronotrigger for lack of a better refrence. If you or your players catch the refrence it makes visualization alot easier.

I know of at least one group of players that have a space transport ship, and had plan to nuke the place from orbit. While the mage repeatedly uses Meteor Invocation to rain, well, meteors down upon it. Think Babylon 5, and what the Centari did to the Narn homeworld.

[Pepsi Jedi]

That'd have to be one -heck- of a team to make it into the bowls of a subterranean golden age military base past the .. quite literal noses of 1,000s of psi hounds, not to mention the kill hounds and all the other mutant animals and the Human CS forces and, camera's, 100s of locked security doors, blast doors, locked elevators, patrolling skelebots that never sleep, and gods knows what other kind of stuff, --with magic--, Magic strong enough, mind you to --harm-- the golden age military base that survived a global catastrophe, on the scale which the planet has never seen, tectonic movement, tidal waves, tornadoes, volcanoes erupting around the world. Nuclear winter, and demon plagues for 100s of years, not to mention an entire continent of monsters appearing out of nowhere, and everything else, for 300 years with out a scratch, those are some amazingly strong grenades and get deep enough to pull that sort of maneuver. Desmond isn't stupid (IQ 27), after that rat episode in Machinations of doom you can bet he closed the back door, fer sure! lol. And that's not counting all the extra security and stuff in that section of the base, and the fact that... noone alive really knows about it, except Bradford.

That's how you would run the Lone Star base. Don't mistake your personal vision for that of the world.

Edit:

Perhaps you might want to refresh your memory of the Lone Star book. Such is not my personal vision, but what is shown in the book and write up for the place.

[Brayon]

I know of at least one group of players that have a space transport ship, and had plan to nuke the place from orbit. While the mage repeatedly uses Meteor Invocation to rain, well, meteors down upon it. Think Babylon 5, and what the Centari did to the Narn homeworld.

I like that idea, too. Good reference, BTW.

Thanks. I just recently went back watched all 5 seasons of B5.

As for the original post, only major changes we've done in our group is:

1. Combined the Star Wars Galaxy with Rifts. It's in its own gal, not the Milky Way, accessible by a very long Hyperspace trip, or through a space based D-Rift. (House rule of Stellar Ley Lines around certain magic rich planets.)
1.B. Some of our old players were hard core D&D fans, so we have visited the Forgotten Realms settings, among others, while in a HU style campaign.

2. The world was originally a HU world, but due to Magic and Mishap with Hyperspace, the Milky Way Gal just underwent a 300+ year time lock over the course of 3 standard days for everyone else (not in MWG), and is now the RIFTS Earth. We have a deep immersion style of play, and some of the characters lost their whole family. Its been a major plot twist, with lots of repercussions.

3. Key West, FL survived as a wasteland island, along with New Orleans, LA. Inverness, Scotland, and Urquhart Castle are still around in Scotland.

4. The Russian Space Station has been destroyed. The Killer Debris field is being removed.

5. Blackfoot Native Americans in Montana, are not war like. Aggressive, but not the whole "kill everyone" they are portrayed to be.

6. Psyscape picked up some Tolkeen Refugees, and were trying to create Dragonriders. Mystics who along with good Dragons would defend the astral city.

7. Added some elements from Sci/Fi and Fantasy shows. Like the Companions from Firefly, and different races from B5, and of course SW Gal.

Other little changes, but are escaping me currently. Our party includes:
1. HU Mutant with Karma Power and Healing Factor. Trained in Martial Arts.
2. Full Conversion borg, with Human appearance.
3. HU:PU2 - Spiritual Being (Astral Ghost, something).
4. Mage - Modified the HU Mage class.
5. and if you read some of my other posts, the Holy Warrior style PC, which will be mine.

[Akashic Soldier]

I am going to have to butt-heads with you on this one L.S., it does seem somewhat unusable (but that said we don't know the specifics!).
Its not about being a CS supporter, its that they give us a details about what is in Lone Star and its not easy to infiltrate. Animal Psychics are (in my opinion) the most powerful (or at least one of the most powerful) sensitive psychics in the Megaverse. Have you had an opportunity to look at After the Bomb? Its hands down my favorite RPG setting following Rifts. Its awesome.

To add further strangeness... one of my players wanted to play a mutant chicken with the ability to hypnotize his enemies (plunge them into a nightmare realm from which there is no waking). He would call himself King and believe that he was the King of the Chaken people (ordinary domestic Chickens). His origin story was that one day the fox tribe (a group of ordinary foxes) broke into his Kingdom of Good Chakencoopia and ate his people. Fleeing the massacre of his people (he has prey brain), King fled and... yup you guessed it... trained as a Black Ops Head Hunter (I know I was huh??? too). Since then he has roamed the land protected by a force field kicking butt and collecting bounties. Why, just to make it through another day?

Well, since the character (as absurd as it is) and he adhered to my character creation rules I agreed. Without their knowing, I adapted his origin from being a random and unexplained mutation to a by product of the experimentation of a long-time villain of the game Doctor Bastardstro a lunatic Mindwerks scientist with an I.Q. of 35 who went rogue and had (previously in the game) been proven to be an associate of Desmond Bradford and experimenting in animal mutation. It is important that I re-iterate that he is completely insane (and not in that funny way, he is a mentally unstable genius). Well, King's "secret origin" is that his egg slipped through the cracks during the collection process and he hatched as normal and grew up with the other normal chickens. Without other intelligent beings he constructed a fantasy for himself in which he was the prince/king of the chicken people until which time where they were killed.

Well, during the first session King and the other players (an Elf named Qwinleigh and a young human pilot of an alien jet fighter that he had recovered and had repaired from a rift) encounter a group of Mercenaries called the 103 who were cashing in on a small wilderness settlement (drawing their attention while one of their members broke into their houses and stole their belongings). Well, King encountered the thief and dispatched him. Seriously, how the heck do you respond to a chicken dressed like that carrying a vibro-knife and a laser knife. They assumed he was a shapeshifter messing with them or it was some sort of joke. Ironically, the Merc crew (they were only about 5 guys and a giant robot) were slaughtered by this chicken while the other players just sat there dumbfounded saying "I-I don't know what I am seeing here."

Ironically, after slaughtering everyone but the thief (who had narrowly managed to escape on a motorcycle) and the robot pilot who was in a frenzy after watching the chicken kill all his friends in just under two minutes, King's prey brain kicked in and he panicked fleeing, leaving the other players to clean up the mess he had made (the Robot Killer 'bot from Titan was devastating the town trying to shoot at this chicken zigzagging between buildings in its panic).

Thankfully, once the day was saved by the robot pilot and his strange transformable fighter jet robot (of the M2 series not the RT one for those who have cottoned on) the players did exactly what I hoped they would do and they stole the Mercenary's jeep (no one had an automobile.). Only, they didn't check in the glove box. In fact, other than dumping the guns they stole from the dead mercs in the back tray, all they've done is drive it around. Even when I said... "You guys don't have a map of the local area but your I.Q. is high enough that you'd realize the Merc's must have!" they just said "Oh well, we're not going to go back to double check their bodies" and took off into the wilderness. Leaving me to silently facepalm.

Because... of course (bringing this full circle) in the glove box is a digipad and Broodkil DNA in vials that the Mercs had been sent to recover for the mad Doctor, for whom they had been working.

What is the point of this long-winded but oh-so entertaining story?

Well, as it turns out Mutant Animals (even chickens!) can be mad-dog killers with phenomenal powers and I think people overlook just how effective they actually are sometimes. We see a Dog Boy and think "Oh yeah, its a mutant dog person" but we don't realize just how useful/powerful they can be.

Wait!? It's an After the Credits Teaser!: Upon returning to Doctor Bastardstro without the DNA samples and explaining that he and his team had been killed by a chicken (and confirming that the story was true by probing his brain with psionics) Doctor Bastardstro thrust the young merc into a gene-tube and transformed him into Turk so that he would be bigger, stronger, and faster than "the Chacken" so he could recover the DNA and sensitive information he requires being kept in the digipad. Needless to say, when the young merc begged for a chance to take his revenge on the killer of his team he ASSUMED that the Doctor would just turn him into another Crazy with M.O.M. technology like the rest of his personal entourage, he didn't count on having to live through an agonizing metamorphosis into a horrible human-turkey hybrid.

[Akashic Soldier]

No...Do tell.

They've got rules for good-aligned necromancers in there.

[dragonfett]

That'd have to be one -heck- of a team to make it into the bowls of a subterranean golden age military base past the .. quite literal noses of 1,000s of psi hounds, not to mention the kill hounds and all the other mutant animals and the Human CS forces and, camera's, 100s of locked security doors, blast doors, locked elevators, patrolling skelebots that never sleep, and gods knows what other kind of stuff, --with magic--, Magic strong enough, mind you to --harm-- the golden age military base that survived a global catastrophe, on the scale which the planet has never seen, tectonic movement, tidal waves, tornadoes, volcanoes erupting around the world. Nuclear winter, and demon plagues for 100s of years, not to mention an entire continent of monsters appearing out of nowhere, and everything else, for 300 years with out a scratch, those are some amazingly strong grenades and get deep enough to pull that sort of maneuver. Desmond isn't stupid (IQ 27), after that rat episode in Machinations of doom you can bet he closed the back door, fer sure! lol. And that's not counting all the extra security and stuff in that section of the base, and the fact that... noone alive really knows about it, except Bradford.

That's how you would run the Lone Star base. Don't mistake your personal vision for that of the world.

Edit:

Perhaps you might want to refresh your memory of the Lone Star book. Such is not my personal vision, but what is shown in the book and write up for the place.

Perhaps I am reading something else into it, but what I personally read from his changes are that when Dr. Bradford messed around with the technological rifts device (I can't remember if it was given a name or not), it unleashed something into the base and the CS High Command found out and they decided to obliterate the base.

[CyCo]

I got rid of the Inland Sea in central Australia.

I've heard a lot of people didn't like the inland sea in Australia but I remember being taught in primary school that if the ice caps melted that is exactly what would happen and we would need to be evacuated to the east coast (I'm Australian). So, when I saw that in the Rifts book I was like ZOMG! "That is so COOL!" and actually laughed out-loud that someone had put that little detail in.

I was taught a similar thing as well, being an Aussie. Don't forget that Ben, the author of Rifts Australia is also an Aussie. And to top things off, his dad is a professional sailor/author/cartographer. I believe, from memory, he said that if for what ever reason the sea level rose, the inland sea would come back because there is a point along the coastline of north Western Australia (I think, the discussion was some time ago), that is not that high above the sea level. And that area of the country actually drops away from the sea, and leads towards inland Australia.

[Pepsi Jedi]

LS: "That's how you would run the Lone Star base. Don't mistake your personal vision for that of the world."

Perhaps you might want to refresh your memory of the Lone Star book. Such is not my personal vision, but what is shown in the book and write up for the place.

You're a CS supporter, so you interpret the base as being impregnable. But I can tell you for a fact that not everyone interprets it the way that you do.

Obviously - from this thread.

If that's how you personally want to run Lone Star, that's fine, but don't crap on someone else's game because they don't see it the way that you do.

Not impregnable. Most bases can be impregnated. .

There's a difference between sneaking in, killing a few guards, maybe stealing some information or busting out some mutant animals...... and being able to wire a machine that people with IQ's of 27, can't figure out, to explode, a machine mind you that noone knows about, and using a few 'grenades' even magical ones to take out an entire base that can house thousands of troops, built with MDC Materials from the golden age of man that survived the coming of rifts with little to no damage.

It's like using that one torpedo to destroy the Death Star. That's all.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Have you guys seen the Vamp Sourcebook? Pertaining to Necromancers?

No...Do tell.

Long story short, the Necromancer with Rieds' Rangers has pioneered "Good Necromancers" and they watch over each other, and any sign of falling to the dark side, they kill the offender, but yeah. "Good Necromancers" are a thing now, and they use their undead to fight the vampires.


Not saying I condone it.

It -is- canon and in the books now.

[Pepsi Jedi]

That'd have to be one -heck- of a team to make it into the bowls of a subterranean golden age military base past the .. quite literal noses of 1,000s of psi hounds, not to mention the kill hounds and all the other mutant animals and the Human CS forces and, camera's, 100s of locked security doors, blast doors, locked elevators, patrolling skelebots that never sleep, and gods knows what other kind of stuff, --with magic--, Magic strong enough, mind you to --harm-- the golden age military base that survived a global catastrophe, on the scale which the planet has never seen, tectonic movement, tidal waves, tornadoes, volcanoes erupting around the world. Nuclear winter, and demon plagues for 100s of years, not to mention an entire continent of monsters appearing out of nowhere, and everything else, for 300 years with out a scratch, those are some amazingly strong grenades and get deep enough to pull that sort of maneuver. Desmond isn't stupid (IQ 27), after that rat episode in Machinations of doom you can bet he closed the back door, fer sure! lol. And that's not counting all the extra security and stuff in that section of the base, and the fact that... noone alive really knows about it, except Bradford.

That's how you would run the Lone Star base. Don't mistake your personal vision for that of the world.

Edit:

Perhaps you might want to refresh your memory of the Lone Star book. Such is not my personal vision, but what is shown in the book and write up for the place.

Perhaps I am reading something else into it, but what I personally read from his changes are that when Dr. Bradford messed around with the technological rifts device (I can't remember if it was given a name or not), it unleashed something into the base and the CS High Command found out and they decided to obliterate the base.

That's not what he said at all. He said his team got in there and wired the thing to blow and used some goblin grenades. Then when it went off, all the deaths from the explosions, the portal and 'magic explosions' from the goblin grenades, the entire base went to another dimension then the CS Nuked the site. (( I guess ignoring the Mega city of Lone Star nearby))

[Pepsi Jedi]

Have you guys seen the Vamp Sourcebook? Pertaining to Necromancers?

No...Do tell.

Long story short, the Necromancer with Rieds' Rangers has pioneered "Good Necromancers" and they watch over each other, and any sign of falling to the dark side, they kill the offender, but yeah. "Good Necromancers" are a thing now, and they use their undead to fight the vampires.


Not saying I condone it.

It -is- canon and in the books now.

Sucks to be behind the times, thanks Pepsi-
Quick confirmation: scrupulous or unprincipled now?

To quote

"Under normal circumstances the vast majority of Necromancers are evil or selfish. However thanks to the efforts and iron fist of Doc Reid and his Rangers, Necromancer Vampire hunters of good and selfish alignments are the norm in Mexico: Scrupulous (20%) Unprincipled (30%)Anarchist (30%) Aberrant (10%) and others. Note: Heroic Necromancers often run off Villainous Necromancers because they ruin their good reputation"

So there's mostly Unprincipled, Anarchist, and Scrupulous but there is 10% "others".

Now these ones were specially developed and exist in Mexico/The Vamp kingdoms, using their undead against the undead scourge of vampires. It's a regional thing, but of course this opens it up for one to simply form there and travel elsewhere.

Thing is, out side that geographical area. "No no I'm a GOOD Necromancer" Is likely still to be met with plasma rifles and anger.

[nilgravity]

So far the main difference in my campaign is that Bethesda Mercenary Enterprise was started by the players from a HU type universe in the year 100 PA (the head of the White rose is from HU so there was a kinship). Because this was actually a spin off of a Marvel RPG campaign Set had the Serpent Crown brought to Rifts earth so he can use it's reptile controlling powers to take over the reptile city in South America. Mephisto being of both Marvel and Rifts helped the players at least delay this from happening.

[Zamion138]

Lone star is gone, not went underground not broken, but gone.
The team set off the machine the bowls of the system and basicly wired it to blow but used some magical goblin nades for most of it. With all the deaths portal and magic explosions the whole place went straight to some other diminsion.

The cs nuked the crap out of it hearing this for fear of something comming through to earth. All that is left is an iron door that leads to a random time foward or backwards in earth.........no player has step though yet in any game so they dont know this
st

That'd have to be one -heck- of a team to make it into the bowls of a subterranean golden age military base past the .. quite literal noses of 1,000s of psi hounds, not to mention the kill hounds and all the other mutant animals and the Human CS forces and, camera's, 100s of locked security doors, blast doors, locked elevators, patrolling skelebots that never sleep, and gods knows what other kind of stuff, --with magic--, Magic strong enough, mind you to --harm-- the golden age military base that survived a global catastrophe, on the scale which the planet has never seen, tectonic movement, tidal waves, tornadoes, volcanoes erupting around the world. Nuclear winter, and demon plagues for 100s of years, not to mention an entire continent of monsters appearing out of nowhere, and everything else, for 300 years with out a scratch, those are some amazingly strong grenades and get deep enough to pull that sort of maneuver. Desmond isn't stupid (IQ 27), after that rat episode in Machinations of doom you can bet he closed the back door, fer sure! lol. And that's not counting all the extra security and stuff in that section of the base, and the fact that... noone alive really knows about it, except Bradford.

Pretty heck of a team to figure out how to wire a machine that guys with IQ's of 27 can't figure out. Carrying magical explosives through the base of 100s if not 1000s of magical detecting trained, and armed combat troops must have been a heck of a trick too.

Not trying to be nitpicky but that sounds like going "Chi town's gone in my game. Our group of 5 guys got in past all the tens of thousands of troops and Dog boys and skelebots and ISS, undetected, with some magical bombs and blew it up and there's just a crater now"

Clearly I don't know the details but that doesn't sound remotely plausible. At least in any games I've run or played.

I'm not trying to rain on your game. The logistics of it just seem..... exceedingly difficult.

The GM must be a very "Space Oprah" Type. The kind that would build a space station able to blow up planets and move at warp speed, yet can be 100% destroyed by a guy with one missile up the exhaust pipe. As if no one building this space station the size of a moon, ever went "you know.... this exhaust port, leads straight to the core.. one farm boy with a lucky shot and hokey religion could kill Millions of our troops and destroy trillions of dollars and decades of work. Maybe we should, you know.. put a few kinks in the exhaust route. Just in case someone tries that tactic. You know, so their missile blows up at a dog leg or something. Kills a dozen or so techs, instead of blowing up the entire moon sized battle station?"

Ok so to defend the players and me that was gming the assualt it was not a simple walk in and blow the base.the party had 0 idea how to use the rift machine, they turned it on it started making alot of noise and the lights started to flicker. So they assumed it was important and decided to blow it. they all died as they were bailing and as for the getting in they had infiltrated the cs about 10 games ago, one had a pendent that hid her magical aura she was the only magic user and the thing was an old item not planned to be used for this game. Anyhow they sliped in under fire from a combined strike by the jla and pecos (well a couple of them not like the whole mass of the empire.) They were in cs uniforms and had all the badges and in the pannic of the attack they made their way deeper . This was not a cake walk and it was not a blood bath well untill they made the escape through the sewers and got into it with the rat and bat mutations down there. Its not impossible to do what they did it wasnt easy and they paid with their lives.

but i enjoy the fact that you question why some one runs a game one way or anouther but sometimes to allow the pc's to do something epic you have to nerf it a bit other wise no one would ever get into the black vualt or or escape from archie. Did i run the security and army to the fullest and make them all tacticaly sound and have true to life survialice and dna locked doors ect. No i wanted them to have a chance in hell of winng, but had they tried to just loot the place or strong arm their way in yeah they would have failed .

in the end it was epic it was fun and it was challenging. It was not ment to be ultra accurate as ive said its like having some needed padding so the players can do the aamazing

123332te

[smashed]

So many worlds so may changes caused by characters.
In the Three Galaxies,
-The FWC is larger and more secure then ever, now fielding 5 Doombringer dreadnoughts, additional rebellions are now occurring across the TGE.
-The Mechanoids now have a large and growing presence in the Anvil Galaxies
-One of the Splugorth kingdoms has been overthrown
-The worship of the Old Ones has increased among the Dark Covens, coinciding with a consolidation and growth of their powers.
On Rifts Earth
-The capital of the Phoenix Empire has moved to the West since the rejuvenation of the Giza Millennium Tree and the destruction of the pyramids of Giza.
-Tolkien fell far earlier, mainly because they decided to abandon the city and evacuate it's citizens after a successful coup following the Sorcerer's Revenge.
-The Coalition State are now in a 2-3 side civil war between Jericho Holmes (now in control of Iron Heart), Free Quebec, and the rest of the Coalition State.
-Reid's Rangers is much weakened and more scattered since the death of Dr. Reid and many of the original rangers.
-Myrlyn is working on a backup plan to cement his control over Arther after the death of Guinevere.
On Palladium Fantasy
-Northwestern Timiro is now controlled by an Ogre kingdom
-The place if magic is now buried under lava and has a magic draining effect active through the area.
-The Wolven empire is now ruled by Dominus the Red
Throughout the Megaverse
-The Sunjai have been confirmed as Atlantean. The Armerhian clan is now hunted by the others. The clans are convinced that it might be time to end their nomadic existence, and eyes have been turned toward their ancestral homeland.

[dragonfett]

That'd have to be one -heck- of a team to make it into the bowls of a subterranean golden age military base past the .. quite literal noses of 1,000s of psi hounds, not to mention the kill hounds and all the other mutant animals and the Human CS forces and, camera's, 100s of locked security doors, blast doors, locked elevators, patrolling skelebots that never sleep, and gods knows what other kind of stuff, --with magic--, Magic strong enough, mind you to --harm-- the golden age military base that survived a global catastrophe, on the scale which the planet has never seen, tectonic movement, tidal waves, tornadoes, volcanoes erupting around the world. Nuclear winter, and demon plagues for 100s of years, not to mention an entire continent of monsters appearing out of nowhere, and everything else, for 300 years with out a scratch, those are some amazingly strong grenades and get deep enough to pull that sort of maneuver. Desmond isn't stupid (IQ 27), after that rat episode in Machinations of doom you can bet he closed the back door, fer sure! lol. And that's not counting all the extra security and stuff in that section of the base, and the fact that... noone alive really knows about it, except Bradford.

That's how you would run the Lone Star base. Don't mistake your personal vision for that of the world.

Edit:

Perhaps you might want to refresh your memory of the Lone Star book. Such is not my personal vision, but what is shown in the book and write up for the place.

Perhaps I am reading something else into it, but what I personally read from his changes are that when Dr. Bradford messed around with the technological rifts device (I can't remember if it was given a name or not), it unleashed something into the base and the CS High Command found out and they decided to obliterate the base.

That's not what he said at all. He said his team got in there and wired the thing to blow and used some goblin grenades. Then when it went off, all the deaths from the explosions, the portal and 'magic explosions' from the goblin grenades, the entire base went to another dimension then the CS Nuked the site. (( I guess ignoring the Mega city of Lone Star nearby))

I misread what he had said, which is why I had began my post the way I did.

[The Beast]

My first GM combined Robotech & Rifts.

[Tor]

Necromancers would then (using the P.P.E. released during the explosion) complete a massive ritual that would allow them to resurrect all those killed as an army of the undead. Obviously, the long-term goal of which being to conquer North America with an army of undead dinos.

Why do I think a certain renegade Time Lord is behind all this?

[Furoan]

Atlantis is present but we play up the "Earth is used as a Dimensional Cross roads, so the 'powers that be' don't allow anyone to get a monopoly" thing is even more enforced. The head Splooge on Atlantis rules Atlantis for sure but it's not as comfortable that is played out in some of the books. He knows he's there by the leave of those megaversal powers and doesn't screw around with it too much, least they get tired of him and wipe him out. So he's sort of like.. An African warlord that rules his little part of his area with an iron fist, but always looking over his shoulder in case the US or NATO decide enough is enough and come to squish him like a bug." In his own neighborhood he's top dog! But not in the Megaverse. This isn't really a change from the books. It's mentioned as that's how it is, but then.. pretty much ignored afterwards. Our groups just don't ignore it.

Wait that's a different implication than what your making out. I'm not arguing about its existance in your game, but the justification for Atlantis being what it was, well in WB2, was that nobody could take and HOLD the entity of Rifts Earth. There are just to many powers interested in it. Instead he took over a strategic position (powerful laylines he could control with Pyramids), and then basically made himself useful by having his giant market. The comparison to an African Warlord looking over his shoulder for NATO doesn't really work. Yes he can't go do whatever he wants, but he's in a very secure position at the moment mainly because he's worth more to to many interest groups than he is dead. More there doesn't actually seem to be a giant NATO element to contend with him, and he has the other Splugorth, Evil Gods, Demon Lords, Dyvell Lords, Evil Dragon's, Giants, Monsters etc to back him up (to a degree) if somebody came in talking tough. (Up to a point, many are in there as long as he looks good...).

I think the best qoute was "Yes I have millions/billions of minions....so what? So does everybody else. If I brought all my minions into Rifts Earth, so would all the other Inteligences/Gods/Demons. Better to show I'm powerful and not go grabbing more than I can defend."