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I wish I had the spare cash to pick up both of the new Vamp books. Kev needs to do a Drac-Pack where you can buy both at a discounted price or something.
Oh...
I have a question....how does the old Vamp Kingdoms book compare to the revised edition? Content-wise I mean, I know the artwork is different. Is the old version worth having if you have the new one?

The old vamp kingdoms book is probably less than half the size of the new combined vamp books. Overall the new vamp kingdoms/vamp source book appears to add quite a bit still not finished with the new book first read through but even what I have gotten through so far is really good. And no wasted space on yet another reprint of the traveling circus stuff or floopers/shapers.

One thing I really like is there are some nice lil template upgrades that can be used in the new vampires source book to upgrade many existing OCC to vampire hunting varients with abilities similar to the vampire hunters in the vampire kingdoms revised book.

The upgrades to the native american shaman classes from spirit west are nice in that they give them some extra pop which they most of them could use. I was always a fan of paradox shaman and holy cow they do NOT like vampires and are really good at tracking them down and finding where they are at now. Also they added the ability for the legendary spirit bow they use to shoot wood arrows and not just the magic energy arrows for devastating effect vs vamps.

I was just starting to read the soulmancy stuff this morning and the write up seems really interesting if totally EBIL. I can see necromancers wanting to get their paws on them.

I do like that there now is cannon a force of 10k lemurians active in mexico fighting along side the reids rangers. Gives a nice easy way to introduce lemurians into more mainstream campaigns without having to go out of ones way to run an underseas campaign.

Wait... TEN THOUSAND Lemurians???? Gee.. I guess the explination in Lemuria of them not revealing themselves largely to the planet yet went out the window....

Also I hope they made Doc Reid and the Rangers a bit more fleshed out. I like the idea but Anyone can see just how batty reid is and the Rangers as described in the original WB were ready to self-destruct as it was. With the Lemurians involved... the second they see a Necromancer in 2nd command... forget it.. I can't see the Lemurians teaming with them at all..

Kaid wrote:I do like that there now is cannon a force of 10k Lemurians active in mexico fighting along side the reids rangers. Gives a nice easy way to introduce lemurians into more mainstream campaigns without having to go out of ones way to run an underseas campaign.

To be honest, this is one thing I will erase from all of my campaigns. It is so sad that the Lemurians could not be left alone for a little while longer as it said in the Lemuria book that they are just about to start moving on the surface. Revealing themselves as this force will make their enemies alert that they exist. Apparently their king was not as wise and a clever military strategist and tactician.

I was hoping that Lemurians would be something exotic for at least until underseas 2 comes out where we will see more of them.


Though I hope to see a good review of the book soon, aside from this, it looks quite interesting and might find its way to my book case.

Hound wrote:Wait... TEN THOUSAND Lemurians???? Gee.. I guess the explination in Lemuria of them not revealing themselves largely to the planet yet went out the window....

Also I hope they made Doc Reid and the Rangers a bit more fleshed out. I like the idea but Anyone can see just how batty reid is and the Rangers as described in the original WB were ready to self-destruct as it was. With the Lemurians involved... the second they see a Necromancer in 2nd command... forget it.. I can't see the Lemurians teaming with them at all..

Well in the lemuria book they say they are looking into reports of the vampire kingdoms of mexico/central america. Well this is apparently the response to those findings. Sounds like they are still being cagey about who exactly they are and where they are from but they are aiding and supporting people in the area and a large force is there to assist in reids planned assault on the vampire kingdom. One must remember lemurians HATE vampires and once they realized there were multiple kingdoms of them growing almost unchecked this response is a logical one.

Hound wrote:Wait... TEN THOUSAND Lemurians???? Gee.. I guess the explination in Lemuria of them not revealing themselves largely to the planet yet went out the window....

Also I hope they made Doc Reid and the Rangers a bit more fleshed out. I like the idea but Anyone can see just how batty reid is and the Rangers as described in the original WB were ready to self-destruct as it was. With the Lemurians involved... the second they see a Necromancer in 2nd command... forget it.. I can't see the Lemurians teaming with them at all..

They do flesh out fort Reid and the rangers are all updated and the info is pretty interesting. When the sneak peek said they are making some use of necromancers willing to fight vampires they were NOT kidding. While gruesome it is a pretty effective force multiplier having stock piled mummies and zombies. While individually not much of a threat having enough of them running around with wooden/silver weapons and they are a good expendable assistance.

Ewww...mummies versus vampires? I've GOT to get this book.

Finished reading it today very good book lots of interesting stuff. I think I may be a very bad man but I really enjoyed the soulmancy stuff that is some seriously dark magic but very interesting.

This plus arzno, the vampire kingdoms book and the new west and maybe throw in lone star really fleshes out the whole texas/mexico/central america areas very well with a lot of interesting game hooks to work with.

It is also really nice that they have some nice vampire hunting upgrade templates to help flesh out other OCC that may want to focus on undead slaying.

Also gives a potential chance to work a necromancer into a party I always liked the way necromancy was done in rifts but trying to figure out a reason why one would work with a party and the party not try to wack him was a challenge.

The anti vampire hunter hunters section is a great way to change the pace of a vampire hunting campaign. Just going after vamps and werewolves would get a bet monotonus but things like having a borg with them designed to look like a vampire in a pack of vampires whose focus is unsteaking staked vampires and scampering off with heads if they cannot unsteak the body. Also the ability to hit players during the day time and hit them hard keeps everybody on their toes.

Any thoughts on the Additional Human Strongholds?

Those fell into the whole fleshing out the world in that area. They do a good job of filling things out so it would be pretty easy to make a good campaign in the area. One of the interesting things is this combined with the other western related world books makes the south west one of the best fleshed out and described parts of the rifts world.

After reading my initial post I decided it was too negative and really didn't add much to the conversation, so let me try this again...

For better or worse this is a Rifts book; new RCCS and OCCs, magic, gear, NPCs and villains. There are some really great ideas, and then there are some spots that are re-hashed from previous books. If you are already familiar with Rifts then none of this will come as a surprise to you. If this is your first book then this is pretty much the formula that all the books follow. Although I no longer play Rifts I do still collect Rifts books if nothing more for the nostalgia and great setting. If this was 1994 I would call up my buddies and tell them to get ready for Friday night Rifts. But since this is 2013 I'll read this book, put it on the shelf, and get ready for my game this coming Sunday.

kaid wrote:Finished reading it today very good book lots of interesting stuff. I think I may be a very bad man but I really enjoyed the soulmancy stuff that is some seriously dark magic but very interesting.

This plus arzno, the vampire kingdoms book and the new west and maybe throw in lone star really fleshes out the whole texas/mexico/central america areas very well with a lot of interesting game hooks to work with.

It is also really nice that they have some nice vampire hunting upgrade templates to help flesh out other OCC that may want to focus on undead slaying.

Also gives a potential chance to work a necromancer into a party I always liked the way necromancy was done in rifts but trying to figure out a reason why one would work with a party and the party not try to wack him was a challenge.

The anti vampire hunter hunters section is a great way to change the pace of a vampire hunting campaign. Just going after vamps and werewolves would get a bet monotonus but things like having a borg with them designed to look like a vampire in a pack of vampires whose focus is unsteaking staked vampires and scampering off with heads if they cannot unsteak the body. Also the ability to hit players during the day time and hit them hard keeps everybody on their toes.

Kaid sounds like your really digging in and that is awesome to read/hear! Your not a bad man at all for liking the Soulcraft additions, though I say you are indeed a risky one, I am so amped to see and hear the feedback on those who tamper with Iron Zombies and or Dark Guard, or any of the dark weapons created by the Craftsman. Even being caught in the middle of the vampire wars now gets really sticky if they are around. Certainly something players will never forget to say the least, especially if any of them actually get captured and are placed into a forge.

I also agree with you on the Vampire Hunter upgrades and looking at how much is going on in the area now, is going to be needed. Just when you think the hunters get a break however, ,the hunters hunters, Werewolves, etc., make it even more deadly to mix it up with Vamps, as you described above. Just nasty this war has become.

Can't wait to hear/read the great hunting stories of the newest apex predator OCCs, "Bone Jags..." Come on whats not to love, Supernatural lycanthropic alien Jaguar predatory species derived from being an apex predator on its home world with specialized hunting magic and Metamorphic weaponry? Make mines a melanistic Panther please and that order is to go.

I really want a heroic necromancer with a dark blade scythe that has the hurts things vulnerable to silver ability. In theory you could keep a soul forge running by having a shifter buddy feed lesser demons to it and if you have the ability feed vamps to it as well. Arguably I don't see it that much darker than rune weapons/bio wizardy. All of them are involving the torture/subjugation of living beings to power them. The dark blades at least are not invulnerable to damage so the essence trapped inside them has maybe some chance of being freed.

One thing I have a question about though with the bone jaguars weapons is does the bone weapon damage add on to the supernatural punching damage of the bone jaguars or is it just the listed damage. I have seen some weapons like xiticic stuff listed one way and other seems to indicate it is not added on so curious what the original intent for that is.

The metamorphic weapon damage is added to the supernatural punch damage. It's like putting a bat in a 4 year old's hands, verses Barry Bond's hands.

The essence isn't trapped in a dark weapon like rune weapons, it's incinerated slowly and brutally over a period of weeks.

I was not sure how much of the soul was imbued in the weapons proper. Frankly I would rather my soul be incinerated slowly over a period of time and then released/or at least be obliterated than to be trapped forever in a neigh indestructible weapon like rune crafting does.

Hehe I can see the minion wars now. Minion war flares up in central america with both demons and devils going after the soul forge after a conga line of lesser demons and devils have been summoned and kicked into the forge.

Seriously devils and demons are great targets for the soul forge as they all have a lot of useful traits to imbue in weapons/armor and are relatively easy to summon by shifters.

They were hinting that it might make it's way into the Minion War.