A list of BTS material in the Rifter
Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:06 pm
Due to a few recent replies discussed in some of the topics and a request or two sent to me asking for this info, I thought this topic that would be useful on the BTS forum. As a collector of the Rifter since issue #1 I’ve always tried to keep tabs on the various articles written for specific games over the years, and with my exclusive running of BTS since its release back in 2005 I’ve pulled and kept the Rifter issues with BTS material aside for reference.
Rifter books with BTS material are as follows;
(Note: until stated otherwise, the following issues all used BTS1 rules, but are all easily adaptable to BTS2)
#1 - The Bard OCC, the Cursed Psychic PCC, the Priest OCC, the Pseudo-Psychic PCC and the Transcendent PCC.
#2 - The Imp, Supernatural Rumormonger and the Traditional Hacker (part of the “Hacking, Cyberjacking & supernatural Data Theft across the Megaverse” submission
#4 & 5 – The “Tribes of the Moon” are all about were beasts in the Nightbane world, but are adaptable to BTS. Coincidentally I have used them as well as the Vampires from the Nightbane book and they work well with little adjustment, although the Nightbane storylines mentioned are obviously not to be used here.
#8 - The Charonis and the Laughing Man
#10 - Trouble in the Midwest and Dark Consequences adventures scenarios
#13 - the Lucky Charms and Superstitions optional rules, the Cursed PCC (designed for Nightbane but easily adaptable), the Arcane Archeologist OCC, the Occultist OCC, the Cryptozoologist OCC, Living Numbers and Curses and the Fayfield Inn adventure scenario
#17 - Last Street scenario setting
#20 - A Last Street Adventure (this is use in conjunction with the Last Street setting from Rifter #17)
#25 - “Guns for Hire” –optional rules, skills for modern day military characters. Its was designed for Ninjas and Superspies, but I’ve used this info as reference material for ex military characters (along with the Spook Squad OCC’s from Nightbane World book one “Between the Shadows”.)
#28 - The Soul Tree, a supernatural creature
(Note: from here on all submissions use BTS2 rules)
#32 - The Squatter adventure scenario and the Gormaglut, a Supernatural monster
#34 - The Skin Thief, a Supernatural creature
#36 - Nain Rouge, the Red Dwarf (supernatural being), the Hoarse Whisperer (supernatural creature) and The Dark Brotherhood adventure scenario
#39 - La Llorona and La Mort Venus, two supernatural creatures
#40 - The Devil Muse, a supernatural creature
#44 - The Scaring Crow, a new supernatural creature
#45 - The Court of the Tarot, an elitist group that's a rival to the altruistic Lazlo Agency. This issue also includes alternative zombies and demons that were part of the original "Dead Reign" setting (which itself was originally planned to be a BTS sourcebook).
#46 - The Scurry Scree and the Scurry Talus, they are both equivelents of supernatural "watchdogs" to their summoners and masters.
#47 - "The N.O.R.A.D. Duology" offers BTS-2 stats for five new supernatural creatures presented throughout in the adventure (pg. 83) while "The Chain Letter" offers us a new spirit to deal with (pg.87)
#51 - "Mundane Doesn't Mean Boring!" This was written for all game systems, but favors BTS-2 heavily. Highlights include Anthropologist/ Archaeologist & Forensic Criminalistics in greater detail, New Occupations, New Skills, GM tips, Using skepticism & debunking in investigations, Making a BTS-2 team, skill modifiers, contested skills and new Armor and trauma notes.
#53 - "The Lucky Psychic" offers a new P.C.C. who's specialties include altering his luck and others around him.
#56 - "The Tainted Martyr" P.C.C is a truly unique and tortured hero for the world of Beyond the Supernatural. Includes background and information, their origins, and introduction adventures.
#57 - "The Beyond the Supernatural Creature Feature" is a listing of five new supernatural beings, including the Grave Larva (a Minor Supernatural creature), The Brawling Joe (Demonic Servant & Lesser Being), The Kroguar (Supernatural Predator), The Hafoot (Prankster & Minor supernatural being), and the Geode Golem (Demonic Servant and Lesser Demon). Each one provides unique features and aspects that adds new intrigue and adventure opportunity to BTS.
#60 - "Trust and Intimidation: A Way of Life": This article adds some much needed rules and methods for characters with a High Mental Affinity. Also includes "Strange Things in the Bootheel", which is a short story that came from the Lazlo Society Board.
#61 - "Charm and Impress: The Key to Success": This article adds some much needed rules and methods for characters with a high Physical Beauty.
#62 - "Climbing, Expanded": This is an article written by a 20 year palladium veteran who's taken up Rock Climbing as a hobby. And in the process of learning to climb (rock walls and mountains), he's come to realize that there is a LOT more to it than anyone would realize. To that end, he's created an expansion to the climbing skill, including a good look at the grading system of climbing, the tools used (both old and new), climbing aids, protection, skill penalties, and turning the climbing skill into a Secondary Skill level and a Professional skill level (which includes bonuses) and % bonuses from the Athletics or Aerobics skills. I see this as useful information for making an entire scene or two out of climbing places and locations in a BTS adventure.
#63 - "The Handy Dandy Random Adventure Generator". This is the published, printed version of "Gallahan's" favored topic on this forum. The artwork by C. Walton is a nice touch.
#64 - "Gleaners": While it wasn't advertised, there is a new OFFICIAL supernatural predator for BTS available in this book, called the Gleaner. They appear on Devil's Night (the night before Halloween) captures prey (which includes children, lots of them)while it builds enough energy to exit the planet on All Saint's Day (the day after Halloween)taking all of its captured prey with it. This only gives the player characters 1-3 days to find and deal with it before its captured prey disappears forever.
There is also several new character occupations for Dead Reign following the Gleaners, but as the professions work the same with BTS characters, they can be used with little change.
#65 - "Hollow Road": This is an Beyond the Supernatural adventure written by Anthony Uyl (with Steven Dawes guest writing and content editing). The group will visit a small town, investigate rumors and stories, and deal with multiple evils, including the "Soul Merchant" and his dreaded "Soul Hounds".
#68 - "Brulyx?": This is a giant Beyond the Supernatural adventure, centered around a clandestine cult, a cemetery, an underground lair, traps, a zombie apocalypse, and of course zombies! Uses the zombies from the "Dead Reign" book as well as "Another World of Zombies" article from Rifter #45.
#71 and #72 - "Yokai of Japan": This article presnets a host of Monsters from Japan for BTS (but works for any modern day setting). Includes the Funa-yurei, Hanadaka-tengu, Kappa, Karasu-tengu, Kitsune, Neko-mata, Nue, Nure-onna, Oni, and Tanuki.
#79 - "Flashing Blades of Horror": Do not sell history short. There are epic events, battles and mysteries throughout history that would make amazing RPG campaigns. Create adventures that are, in effect, parts of our unknown history. Hendrik Härterich shows you how with a wonderful set of guidelines, rules and ideas for using characters from just about any modern RPG to create settings and adventures from Earth’s past. Suitable for use with any Palladium RPG.
#83 - "Operation Minotaur" by Hendrik Härterich. “Think Indiana Jones meets The Dirty Dozen on a horror trip and you are in the right frame of mind to GM this adventure. Follow me back to the war-torn 1940s with an evil greater than many supernatural enemies, dark secrets and a mystery worthy of a tall tale”. Operation Minotaur was conceived as a 4-6 hour gaming one-shot for the Palladium Open House 2012 and designed to showcase one of the many options of how to play Beyond the Supernatural (“BTS”). Contrary to the far more frequent mystery or detective type BTS game, this adventure offers an action packed and epic fight of good versus evil against the historical backdrop of World War II.
That being said, Hendrik -the writer of Operation Minotaur, an honored house guest, and a dear friend of the Host- took the time to design some very nice looking handouts to give to the players during the adventure. Due to space constraints the handouts were printed only in a small version. However, by the good graces of the people of Palladium Books, all the handouts are now available for download in the House of BTS, in their “full version”! Click here to get them!
#84 - There are two BTS related articles in this issue! The first is "All Quiet on the Western... What?" An Adventure for Beyond the Supernatural™ by Kyle Osterberg.
The second article is "The Dimma", a short story and new monster for Beyond the Supernatural™ by Steven Dawes.
Note: For those who have access to “The Magic of Palladium Book” Time Capsule (or have the original article for you old school players), on Page 12 there is a great BTS1 article; a “Freddy Krueger” supplement and his BTS creature type, "The Nightmare" that I encourage you to consider using in your game. Like the other BTS1 items, its easily convertible to BTS2 settings.
Note: I encourage anyone else who uses other submissions in the Rifter for their BTS game to post the details below.
Rifter books with BTS material are as follows;
(Note: until stated otherwise, the following issues all used BTS1 rules, but are all easily adaptable to BTS2)
#1 - The Bard OCC, the Cursed Psychic PCC, the Priest OCC, the Pseudo-Psychic PCC and the Transcendent PCC.
#2 - The Imp, Supernatural Rumormonger and the Traditional Hacker (part of the “Hacking, Cyberjacking & supernatural Data Theft across the Megaverse” submission
#4 & 5 – The “Tribes of the Moon” are all about were beasts in the Nightbane world, but are adaptable to BTS. Coincidentally I have used them as well as the Vampires from the Nightbane book and they work well with little adjustment, although the Nightbane storylines mentioned are obviously not to be used here.
#8 - The Charonis and the Laughing Man
#10 - Trouble in the Midwest and Dark Consequences adventures scenarios
#13 - the Lucky Charms and Superstitions optional rules, the Cursed PCC (designed for Nightbane but easily adaptable), the Arcane Archeologist OCC, the Occultist OCC, the Cryptozoologist OCC, Living Numbers and Curses and the Fayfield Inn adventure scenario
#17 - Last Street scenario setting
#20 - A Last Street Adventure (this is use in conjunction with the Last Street setting from Rifter #17)
#25 - “Guns for Hire” –optional rules, skills for modern day military characters. Its was designed for Ninjas and Superspies, but I’ve used this info as reference material for ex military characters (along with the Spook Squad OCC’s from Nightbane World book one “Between the Shadows”.)
#28 - The Soul Tree, a supernatural creature
(Note: from here on all submissions use BTS2 rules)
#32 - The Squatter adventure scenario and the Gormaglut, a Supernatural monster
#34 - The Skin Thief, a Supernatural creature
#36 - Nain Rouge, the Red Dwarf (supernatural being), the Hoarse Whisperer (supernatural creature) and The Dark Brotherhood adventure scenario
#39 - La Llorona and La Mort Venus, two supernatural creatures
#40 - The Devil Muse, a supernatural creature
#44 - The Scaring Crow, a new supernatural creature
#45 - The Court of the Tarot, an elitist group that's a rival to the altruistic Lazlo Agency. This issue also includes alternative zombies and demons that were part of the original "Dead Reign" setting (which itself was originally planned to be a BTS sourcebook).
#46 - The Scurry Scree and the Scurry Talus, they are both equivelents of supernatural "watchdogs" to their summoners and masters.
#47 - "The N.O.R.A.D. Duology" offers BTS-2 stats for five new supernatural creatures presented throughout in the adventure (pg. 83) while "The Chain Letter" offers us a new spirit to deal with (pg.87)
#51 - "Mundane Doesn't Mean Boring!" This was written for all game systems, but favors BTS-2 heavily. Highlights include Anthropologist/ Archaeologist & Forensic Criminalistics in greater detail, New Occupations, New Skills, GM tips, Using skepticism & debunking in investigations, Making a BTS-2 team, skill modifiers, contested skills and new Armor and trauma notes.
#53 - "The Lucky Psychic" offers a new P.C.C. who's specialties include altering his luck and others around him.
#56 - "The Tainted Martyr" P.C.C is a truly unique and tortured hero for the world of Beyond the Supernatural. Includes background and information, their origins, and introduction adventures.
#57 - "The Beyond the Supernatural Creature Feature" is a listing of five new supernatural beings, including the Grave Larva (a Minor Supernatural creature), The Brawling Joe (Demonic Servant & Lesser Being), The Kroguar (Supernatural Predator), The Hafoot (Prankster & Minor supernatural being), and the Geode Golem (Demonic Servant and Lesser Demon). Each one provides unique features and aspects that adds new intrigue and adventure opportunity to BTS.
#60 - "Trust and Intimidation: A Way of Life": This article adds some much needed rules and methods for characters with a High Mental Affinity. Also includes "Strange Things in the Bootheel", which is a short story that came from the Lazlo Society Board.
#61 - "Charm and Impress: The Key to Success": This article adds some much needed rules and methods for characters with a high Physical Beauty.
#62 - "Climbing, Expanded": This is an article written by a 20 year palladium veteran who's taken up Rock Climbing as a hobby. And in the process of learning to climb (rock walls and mountains), he's come to realize that there is a LOT more to it than anyone would realize. To that end, he's created an expansion to the climbing skill, including a good look at the grading system of climbing, the tools used (both old and new), climbing aids, protection, skill penalties, and turning the climbing skill into a Secondary Skill level and a Professional skill level (which includes bonuses) and % bonuses from the Athletics or Aerobics skills. I see this as useful information for making an entire scene or two out of climbing places and locations in a BTS adventure.
#63 - "The Handy Dandy Random Adventure Generator". This is the published, printed version of "Gallahan's" favored topic on this forum. The artwork by C. Walton is a nice touch.
#64 - "Gleaners": While it wasn't advertised, there is a new OFFICIAL supernatural predator for BTS available in this book, called the Gleaner. They appear on Devil's Night (the night before Halloween) captures prey (which includes children, lots of them)while it builds enough energy to exit the planet on All Saint's Day (the day after Halloween)taking all of its captured prey with it. This only gives the player characters 1-3 days to find and deal with it before its captured prey disappears forever.
There is also several new character occupations for Dead Reign following the Gleaners, but as the professions work the same with BTS characters, they can be used with little change.
#65 - "Hollow Road": This is an Beyond the Supernatural adventure written by Anthony Uyl (with Steven Dawes guest writing and content editing). The group will visit a small town, investigate rumors and stories, and deal with multiple evils, including the "Soul Merchant" and his dreaded "Soul Hounds".
#68 - "Brulyx?": This is a giant Beyond the Supernatural adventure, centered around a clandestine cult, a cemetery, an underground lair, traps, a zombie apocalypse, and of course zombies! Uses the zombies from the "Dead Reign" book as well as "Another World of Zombies" article from Rifter #45.
#71 and #72 - "Yokai of Japan": This article presnets a host of Monsters from Japan for BTS (but works for any modern day setting). Includes the Funa-yurei, Hanadaka-tengu, Kappa, Karasu-tengu, Kitsune, Neko-mata, Nue, Nure-onna, Oni, and Tanuki.
#79 - "Flashing Blades of Horror": Do not sell history short. There are epic events, battles and mysteries throughout history that would make amazing RPG campaigns. Create adventures that are, in effect, parts of our unknown history. Hendrik Härterich shows you how with a wonderful set of guidelines, rules and ideas for using characters from just about any modern RPG to create settings and adventures from Earth’s past. Suitable for use with any Palladium RPG.
#83 - "Operation Minotaur" by Hendrik Härterich. “Think Indiana Jones meets The Dirty Dozen on a horror trip and you are in the right frame of mind to GM this adventure. Follow me back to the war-torn 1940s with an evil greater than many supernatural enemies, dark secrets and a mystery worthy of a tall tale”. Operation Minotaur was conceived as a 4-6 hour gaming one-shot for the Palladium Open House 2012 and designed to showcase one of the many options of how to play Beyond the Supernatural (“BTS”). Contrary to the far more frequent mystery or detective type BTS game, this adventure offers an action packed and epic fight of good versus evil against the historical backdrop of World War II.
That being said, Hendrik -the writer of Operation Minotaur, an honored house guest, and a dear friend of the Host- took the time to design some very nice looking handouts to give to the players during the adventure. Due to space constraints the handouts were printed only in a small version. However, by the good graces of the people of Palladium Books, all the handouts are now available for download in the House of BTS, in their “full version”! Click here to get them!
#84 - There are two BTS related articles in this issue! The first is "All Quiet on the Western... What?" An Adventure for Beyond the Supernatural™ by Kyle Osterberg.
The second article is "The Dimma", a short story and new monster for Beyond the Supernatural™ by Steven Dawes.
Note: For those who have access to “The Magic of Palladium Book” Time Capsule (or have the original article for you old school players), on Page 12 there is a great BTS1 article; a “Freddy Krueger” supplement and his BTS creature type, "The Nightmare" that I encourage you to consider using in your game. Like the other BTS1 items, its easily convertible to BTS2 settings.
Note: I encourage anyone else who uses other submissions in the Rifter for their BTS game to post the details below.