Grimlock wrote:1) Are some planets simply not magical or do all planets have the potential to become P.P.E. rich?
ALL Planets have the potential to become as "hot" as Rifts Earth (currently the most magically powerful world in Palladium Games by far), or as "cold" as the world/setting of "Splicers" (currently the least magically powerful one, by far).
The determining factor seems to be location; if the Splicers world was somehow switched in time and space with Rifts Earth, then we'd soon start seeing a whole bunch of "Techno-Wizardry Splicers."
2) If 1 is true, could factors be manipulated to spark magical activity on any given planet?
For example: Could some powerful beings find a planet with ideal astronomical properties discussed in the previous thread, kill the entire population from orbit, recreating the factors that made Rifts Earth the magical crossroads that it's become?
Only if the planet was Earth, or another planet transported to where Earth is now.
Note that it's not JUST the levels of magical energy present on Rifts Earth, it is also the fact that Earth is currently "sitting on top of" the largest number of Megaversal Dimensional Nexuses anywhere. In a manner of speaking, it is literally at the metaphysical center of all Palladium Universes.
If somebody waited for Earth (or any planet in the same place) to once again fill up with billions of people, and then killed millions of them on midnight of another 7-planet conjunction, then it could be done again here.....but probably not anywhere else even if all the other conditions were met.
At least, not until such time as another Planet comes to be the Celestial Axis (early Books state that the Earth will someday move out of this "alignment").
3) If 2 is true, who could possibly oppose the powerful beings for such a heinous act?
Most beings, even if they knew how, would NOT try to do such a thing.
Virtually NOBODY besides Ahriman -not even the most evil of the Alien Intelligences -wants to risk opening up the prison of the Old Ones....and even he doesn't want to try until he finds a way to control them.
On the other hand, if you want Lo Li, aka Rama Set, to give it a try (he is absolutely insane and wants the whole Universe to die), then give it a go. Off the top of my head, he is the ONE being who has enough brains and resources and drive to make the attempt.
(Yes, the Four Horsemen are also interested in universal annihilation, but they're not exactly the patient type.)
a) Champions of good, yes, but would Cosmo Knights intervene if the act occurs outside the Three Galaxies?
b) The Pantheon of the Gods of the massacred people and their allies? Or would the loss of followers have potentially weakened them too much to enact revenge?
c) Anyone else I may be forgetting?
Just have Thoth tell everybody of the importance of stopping this act from occurring, and you can use him as a plot device to gather together absolutely anybody you want, in virtually any numbers that you want.
Thoth is respected by SO many people of all types, good AND evil, that he can almost certainly get even Brahma and Zurvan to intervene, much less anyone else.[/quote]
P.S. Here's a possible Plot Twist for you:
Why don't you have your Main Baddie whip up a MacGuffin spell (which only he knows, of course), that requires planetary levels of blood sacrifice in its own right, and which mystically does the equivalent of "cloning the MAC address*" of Rifts Earth so that IF such a sacrifice occurs somewhere else with the same conditions, that it has the same effect of a Great Cataclysm!!
*For our less computer-savvy friends, there is a means by which one PC can be made to appear to be THE EXACT SAME COMPUTER on the Internet; normally, every single PC ever made -or at least their Networking Hardware -is absolutely unique. That unique value is the computer's MAC Address, and the process is sometimes referred to as "MAC Cloning."
