Dungeonskull Mountain

Perhaps the most hazardous aspect of nexus points is the likelihood of there being an active dimensional rift in such a place. Rifts are not merely doorways -- they are rips in the fabric of space-time itself, and who can predict what might occur?

01 A demon, supernatural intelligence, malevolent god, or other monstrous entity is attempting to emerge from the rift, but is stuck or otherwise unable to break through fully. Perhaps it is out of phase with our reality, or ancient wards placed on the nexus point might prevent its crossing the threshold, or perhaps it is simply too large to fit. At any rate, it is displeased, and will lash out (physically, psychically, magically, or otherwise) at anything in view or reach.

02 Shifters have cast a powerful enemy through the rift and are trying to close it before they can re-enter our world. GM's choice whether the Shifters are good or bad, and whether who- or whatever it was they're trying to seal off deserved it.

03 A seasoned, well-equipped Coalition force has known about this rift for some time, and has set up a sort of base nearby. They will attack anything emerging from the rift, and will likely do the same to anyone trying to enter or otherwise interact with it.

04 This malformed rift constantly expels weird mutagenic energies into the surrounding area. Anyone exposing themselves to it must roll for strange effects. GMs, pick your favorite mutation or insanity tables (or both).

05 Gateway to Hell.

06 Raw magical energy spews forth from this rift at certain times -- if there is a pattern, no one has yet been able to discern it. At any given time, there is a 20% chance that a bolt of pure magical energy will surge forth, granting whomever it strikes 5d100 points of P.P.E. (determine target randomly). However, there are potential side effects, including (at the GM's option) physical damage, insanity, mutation, etc.

07 Time rift! A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop, or other temporal disturbance. These have an unfortunate tendency to lead back to the time when the first rifts were triggered -- in other words, the dawn of the Apocalypse itself.

08 A stable rift that leads to the world of another role-playing game (or other fictional property, if you're feeling daring), possibly beyond the Megaverse itself. Pick something from your collection.

09 This rift leads to a "mirror universe" version of Rifts Earth, where bad is good (baby) and vice versa. 100% chance of the player characters encountering bizarro versions of themselves.

10 Not technically a rift, but a dimensional vortex that actually sucks in and swallows bits of the surrounding reality until some sort of threshold point is reached, at which point it vomits forth chunks of another dimension entirely. There is a high likelihood of this extradimensional binge and purge having gone on for some time, which means the surrounding environs will be a jigsaw puzzle of otherworldly elements.

The original Rifts core rulebook included an optional table where one could roll up their "family origin". A high roll would result in your character being an "Earth Mutant", a D-Bee (extradimensional being), or an alien.

"Earth Mutants", also referred to as "mutoids" (which I much prefer) are supposed to humans that were changed by the weird energies of the rifts -- and possibly by other means as well. Mutoids have largely been ignored in the game other than a few mentions here and there in early sourcebooks. (I'm told that the Dinosaur Swamp and Mad Haven books include mutoids, but I haven't read them.) The Rifts Ultimate Edition rulebook doesn't mention them at all, though this was supposedly an oversight.

D-Bees got the most attention in later books, with numerous new PC races introduced to the game in nearly every supplement. These races are usually quite different from humans, though, rolling different numbers of dice for attributes and possessing other special abilities. I kind of miss having characters of extradimensional origin that are pretty close to human.

Aliens were never really mentioned again, and it was fairly quickly established that Rifts Earth was effectively sealed off from outer space. Once, I thought it was a bad idea to limit the game in that way, but I'm actually okay with it now.

The table in the original Rifts rules is fun, but pretty abbreviated. I thought I'd try my hand at an expanded table. Like the original, this table can also be used to generate mutoids or humanlike D-Bees whose differences from normal humans are primarily cosmetic. I've tried to avoid anything that duplicates powers or races found elsewhere in the game.
___________________________________________________

Roll 1D4 times on the following table, re-rolling redundant or contradictory results. (Note that results which grant skill bonuses give a base skill rating at the percentage listed if the character lacks training in the skill.)

01 Has a long tail, similar to that of a (roll 1D8): 1 cat, 2 dog, 3 horse, 4 lizard, 5 rat, 6 monkey, 7 devil, 8 kangaroo. Tail is 2+1D4 feet long. +10% to Sense of Balance.

02 No body hair. 50% chance of no hair on the head, either.

03 Body is covered in (roll 1D8): 1 short fur, 2 long hair, 3 scales, 4 loose skin, 5 wrinkles, 6 blotches, 7 stripes, 8 sticky substance. 50% chance of unusual color*. 25% chance of being limited to a particular area or part of the body (e.g. forearms, lower legs, back, face, etc.)

04 Has armored skin. Texture is (roll 1D8): 1 chitinous, 2 leathery, 3 lumpy, 4 metallic, 5 rocky, 6 rubbery, 7 scaly, 8 woody. Add 3D6 to S.D.C. 50% chance of unusual color*.

05 Body is unusually (roll 1D6): 1-2 short and squat (reduce height by 1D6+10 inches), 3-4 tall and thin (increase height by 1D6+10 inches), 5-6 broad and stocky (increase width by 1D6+10 inches).

06 Has an animal-like lower face or snout, similar to that of a (roll 1D10): 1 bat, 2 bird, 3 cat, 4 dog, 5 insect, 6 lizard, 7 monkey, 8 pig, 9 rabbit, 10 rat. Can bite for 1D6 S.D.C. damage.

07 Has animal-like eyes, similar to those of a (roll 1D6): 1 cat, 2 frog, 3 insect, 4 gecko, 5 owl, 6 rat. Has 60ft nightvision.

08 Has animal-like ears, similar to those of a (roll 1D8): 1 bat, 2 cat, 3 cow, 4 dog, 5 horse, 6 pig, 7 rabbit, 8 rat. +1 to initiative.

09 Has ornamental growths on the head, namely (roll 1D10): 1 antennae, 2 feathers, 3 knobs, 4 ridges, 5 scales, 6 small horn(s), 7 leaves, 8 quills, 9 tendrils, 10 long spikes. 75% chance of lacking hair on the head. 50% chance of ornamentation continuing down the shoulders and/or back.

10 Has a horn, horns, or antlers that can be used in combat, similar to those of a (roll 1D6): 1 bull, 2 deer, 3 goat, 4 ram, 5 rhinoceros, 6 unicorn. Can gore for 1D8 S.D.C. damage.

11 Cranium is unusually (roll 1D8): 1 angular, 2 broad, 3 flat, 4 oblong, 5 pointed, 6 spherical, 7 squarish, 8 tall.

12 Has facial features (roll 1D4): 1 eyes, 2 nose, 3 mouth, 4 ears of an unusual size (roll 1D4): 1-2 half normal size, 3-4 twice normal size. 50% chance of unusual color* for eyes.

13 Has digitigrade legs. Add 3 feet to all jumping distances. 50% chance of feet terminating in hooves.

14 Has unusually shaped ears (roll 1D6): 1-2 small and pointed, 3-4 long and pointed, 5-6 webbed/fan-shaped.

15 Unusual number of digits on each hand (roll 1D6): 1-2 1D2 additional fingers, 3-4 additional thumb, 5-6 1D2 less fingers. 75% chance of same number of digits on the feet (if "additional thumb" is rolled for the feet, character is capable of manipulating objects with the feet).

16 Has pigmentation of an unusual color* in the (roll 1D6): 1-2 hair, 3-4 eyes, 5-6 skin. 25% chance of a pattern/mix of two colors. 25% chance of luminosity.

17 Has 1D4 features similar to those of a primitive hominid (roll 1D4 to determine how many primitive features, then roll 1D4 again for the type, re-rolling duplicate results): 1 brow ridge/sloping forehead, 2 prognathous face, 3 bowed legs, 4 stooped shoulders/long arms.

18 Has unusually (roll 1D4): 1-2 short, 3-4 long body parts (roll 1D6): 1 fingers, 2 arms, 3 legs, 4 toes, 5 torso, 6 neck. Increase or reduce length of the body part(s) by 50%.

19 Has a long, extendible, sticky tongue, similar to that of a (roll 1D4): 1-2 anteater, 3-4 frog.

20 Has redundant "backup" organs. Add 2D6 to hit points.

21 Has an anomalous brain structure. +2 to save vs. psionics. 25% chance the brain is visible.

22 Has the outward appearance of an individual of the opposite sex.

23 Face apparently lacks one or more of following (roll 1D4 times to determine how many features are missing, then roll 1D4 again to see which features are missing, re-rolling duplicate results): 1 eyes, 2 nose, 3 mouth, 4 ears. The character inexplicably functions as a normal human in all ways.

24 Has claws (rather than nails) on fingertips, capable of inflicting 1D6 S.D.C. damage in combat. 50% chance of being retractable.

25 Hands and feet have (roll 1D4): 1 small claws, 2 fine scales, 3 tiny hairs, 4 suction pads that assist in climbing. +10% to Climbing skill for non-sheer surfaces.

26 Has hyperflexible joints. +10% to Escape Artist.

27 Exudes pheromones that are effective on most humanoids. +10% to invoke trust, charm, Seduction skill, etc.

28 Has an unusual number of eyes (roll 1D6): 1-2 cyclops, 3-4 triclops, 5-6 four eyes. 50% chance of unusual color*.

29 Has a voice with an unusual quality (roll 1D6): 1 reverberating, 2 shrill, 3 guttural, 4 musical, 5 monotone, 6 scraping.

30 Has webbed digits on the hands and feet. +10% to Swimming skill.

*Unusual color (roll 1D8): 1 white, 2 red, 3 orange, 4 yellow, 5 green, 6 blue, 7 violet, 8 black.

I think big fans of pretty much any property eventually find themselves fantasizing about being in charge of whatever it is that they're into. Most people probably do it for their favorite sports team. I'm a big nerd, so I do it for things like comics and RPGs.

It's virtually impossible that I would ever find myself running Palladium Books. It's literally impossible that I would find myself doing so with unlimited funds. But let's suppose I did. What would I do?

Revise the Palladium System. Note that I didn't say I'd do away with Palladium's much-derided house system. I'd revise it -- clean it up, reorganize it, streamline it, speed up play, make it more logical and consistent -- all of those things, but I wouldn't switch to an entirely new system. I'd want at least a semblance of backward compatibility, because there's a massive amount of material using that system, and there's next to no chance of being able to revise and republish all of it.

Encourage fan-made material and conversions. Palladium already have their own print magazine, The Rifter, in which they publish fan submissions as well as "official" material. However, they have the most restrictive online policy in the industry, and aggressively threaten those that publish anything that converts Palladium material to other game systems or vice versa with legal action. I'd reverse that stance. I'd also encourage people to post conversion guidelines for whatever system they like and to make them widely available, with the hope that if these conversions are available, people will be more likely to pick up Palladium products and run them with the system of their choice.

Focus on Rifts.Rifts is almost certainly the most popular of Palladium's RPGs, so I'd devote most of the company's energy to it. Play up its central role in the Megaverse. The other games, like Heroes Unlimited, Palladium Fantasy, Dead Reign, and the rest would get updated to the new system as well, but I'd place a lower priority on reissuing every single supplement for those games. Make sure that characters from those games are usable in Rifts with as little fuss as possible, without just powering them up to Rifts' level. Include easter eggs from those other games in Rifts' setting, and (maybe) vice versa. Edit: On second thought, I'm not so sure about this. Palladium tried something like it with Palladium Fantasy, 2nd edition, and it ended up being inferior to the original in almost every way.

Take Rifts seriously. I don't mean that I want a grim, hard sci-fi take on Rifts. It's a "gonzo" game in many ways, and that's okay. But it's also okay to think about the hows and whys of the setting, and to try to suspend disbelief within the constraints of that setting. I know it's a game where giant mecha can throw down with dragons and gods, but that doesn't explain how the New German Republic is able to deliver goods across the Atlantic to North America in a demon-infested world with no infrastructure (for one example).

Stop the EPCOT approach. Early on, Rifts was a game with some truly wild ideas, like Mexico being ruled by vampires, or a re-arisen Atlantis being a base of operations for an interdimensional slave trade. Subsequent books took a lazier approach -- too often, they took a region of the world (Japan), took the most superficial/stereotypical aspects of it (ninjas), and slapped some Rifts trappings onto them (resulting in Ninja Juicers and Ninja Glitter Boys). If there isn't a compelling, original idea for a part of the world, wait until there is one. Don't rush Rifts Greenland into print just because it's a blank spot on the map. Loosen editorial control and get more talented freelancers with distinct voices working on the game.

Make nicer-looking products. Palladium Books has a long track record, only recently interrupted, of having some of the coolest artwork in the industry. Unfortunately, the layout and graphic design is uninspiring, or worse. I'd like to see Palladium continue to publish primarily black-and-white, softcover books, since they have a lower price point, but that doesn't mean they can't have attractive, modern interior layouts and cover designs. Re-use only the best older artwork for the new versions of the games, invite some of the best artists that Palladium has worked with in the past to contribute new pieces, and track down fresh new artists. There are tons of them online looking for work.

Get into other media. The most successful thing Palladium has been involved in recently was the Robotech Tactics minis game on Kickstarter. A Rifts game along the same lines seems worth pursuing. Also, give up on the Rifts movie and instead try to start an animated series -- something that might appeal to the adolescents that were once Palladium's core audience, but that would be smart enough to interest adults as well. Robotech did it in the 80s, and shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender have pulled it off more recently.

Is all of this stuff possible, or even a good idea? Probably not. At the end of the day, most of this is just fanboy ramblings. But I like to think that at least some of it makes sense.

I've written at some length about the complex nature of Rifts Earth as a setting. Rifts has elements of the cyberpunk, fantasy and superhero genres, but doesn't fall neatly into any of those categories. It has a "points of light" setup and takes place after an apocalyptic event, but it's not a post-apocalyptic game in the traditional sense -- especially because the setting has a number of assumptions that don't fit into the standard post-apocalyptic framework.

No doubt, many people will shake their heads when I say that I take Rifts relatively seriously as a setting. This is a world where a mutant ninja flamingo in a suit of power armor can stab the Greek god Zeus with a soul-drinking magic sword. An extreme case, to be sure, but given that my example is completely possible in the game (though probably a bad idea), "making sense out of Rifts" sounds like an exercise in futility. When I say that I take it seriously, I mean that I like to think about how the setting works. Obviously, Rifts Earth contains a vast number of concepts that are impossible or outlandish, especially when combined without restraint, like in my earlier example. Still, I find it fun to try and figure out the hows and whys of all of these disparate elements within the fictional confines of that setting.

It's usually enjoyable for me, but there are some questions that I find maddening. I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept the basic premise of Rifts: a far-future world trying to rebuild itself in the wake of an apocalypse that tore the fabric of reality. I get frustrated, though, when I come across things that still don't make sense even after accepting that wild idea. Here are a few of those things:

Universal Credits. Like a lot of other far-future RPGs, Rifts has "credits" as a standard currency that is accepted pretty much anywhere you go. In most of those games, that's not a completely crazy idea, because there's some sort of organized infrastructure in place, whether that's an interstellar empire or a global banking system. In Rifts, there's no such thing. Sure, there are the Coalition States (which is really more like a network of city-states) and a few other small "nations", but most of the continent is still a wilderness crisscrossed by magical ley lines and infested with monsters, dinosaurs, dragons, and worse. Palladium Books' official line is that credits are a debit card-based banking system based in the Coalition States, with competing credit systems offered by the Manistique Imperium and the Black Market, but it's tough for me to believe that such a system would be possible in demon-infested North America. There can't be a continent-wide computer network with monsters stomping any place that isn't a city or fortified town to dust, and satellite-based communications are impossible (see Mutants in Orbit). Even if there was a way to set up a banking network, why would your Coalition or Manistique credits be of any worth to the interdimensional alien slave traders in Atlantis? Why would they be usable in another dimension (like Phase World), for that matter? I understand the need to suspend disbelief sometimes, but the explanation Palladium has belatedly advanced is pretty weak.

Intercontinental Trade. Triax, an arms manufacturer based in the New German Republic, is somehow able to transport its goods to North America. Keep in mind that the oceans and skies are (presumably) as full of monsters as the land, that the NGR is fighting a prolonged, full-scale war against an empire of gargoyles, and that there is now an entire continent full of evil alien slave traders in between Europe and North America. I have a hard enough time understanding how one could get items from one part of North America to another, let alone across the planet (though they did introduce armed hovertrains in the recent Northern Gun supplement). Rifts is a game where a lot of crazy things are possible, and there's probably a way that this kind of cross-Atlantic arms trading could conceivably happen, but if it's ever been explained, I haven't heard about it.

Precision Manufacturing. There are multiple corporations churning out ultra-high-technology items. Things like giant mecha, artificially intelligent robots, laser rifles, cybernetic implants, and portable computers would (presumably) require large-scale manufacturing facilities, not to mention precious limited resources like rare earth minerals. Are there assembly lines where these things are being put together? Where are they getting the raw materials, considering that intercontinental shipping is now incredibly difficult? Is it all scavenged and recycled from salvaged pre-apocalyptic wreckage? What if your Samson power armor needs repairs and you're hundreds of miles away from the lone city-state where it was manufactured (which is exceedingly likely)? Remember, this is a "points of light" setting. Maybe small-town Operators have something like a 3-D printer that can make a new servomotor for your busted mecha or bionic arm? There are interesting possibilities here, but there has been no attempt to explore them, to my knowledge.

Other Infrastructure Stuff. Most of my headaches stem from the basic lack of any plausible sort of infrastructure on Rifts Earth. For example, you can get classic "headjack" cybernetic implants that allow man-machine interface with computer networks, but I can't see how those networks would exist, except for maybe within a single well-developed city or settlement. In North America, there are "Black Market" criminal organizations that have spread their influence across the continent, but given that travel is incredibly perilous -- monsters and ghosts and evil wizards all over the place, remember? -- I can't for the life of me imagine how. (To be fair, there's a Black Market sourcebook I've never read that might answer these questions.)

There's more, much more, but I can't remember it all right now. Have I allowed any of this stuff to bother me to the point where I don't enjoy the game? Hell, no. But these are the little things that bug me when I'm otherwise having a nice time daydreaming about one of my favorite imaginary places. I'd like to figure out solutions, so if you have ideas, comment below.

Rifts is a game with a lot of strange rules. Some are just old. Some are poorly explained. Some really don't make sense. One part of the rules that is probably mocked more than any other is the concept of Mega-Damage.

Mega-Damage first appeared (to my knowledge) in Palladium's licensed Robotech line of RPGs. The idea was that regular damage couldn't do justice to the scale of destruction that the giant mecha of the animated series were capable of dealing out. Enter Mega-Damage, one point of which was equal to one hundred points of regular damage (or "Structural Damage" in Kevin Siembieda's parlance), but with the caveat that attacks that dealt regular damage would never have any measurable effect on a Mega-Damage structure.

Siembieda's argument was that nothing that wasn't heavily armored could survive a direct hit from a tank cannon. Furthermore, you would never be able to inflict any serious damage to that heavily armored tank with something that wasn't specifically designed to do so. No matter how much of a badass you were, you could beat on that tank with a baseball bat all day, but you'd never do much more than scuff the paintjob. You could spray the tank with an Uzi and get similar results. But break out an anti-tank weapon, and you might be getting somewhere.

Mega-Damage, as I've mentioned before, is a much-lampooned concept, but I don't really understand why. (I think it must be the name, which is admittedly a bit goofy.) I think it makes a lot of sense. I certainly think that it makes a lot more sense than the extremely abstract concepts of "hits" (which aren't always hits), "damage" (which isn't always damage), or "healing" (which isn't always healing) in Dungeons & Dragons, a game which hundreds of thousands of people still play and enjoy without apparent confusion. At any rate, objections to Mega-Damage were apparently common enough that Siembieda provided guidelines on using removing Mega-Damage from the game in the Rifts Conversion Book, fairly early in the line's long life. We never used them.

Still, there are areas where the concept of Mega-Damage breaks down, or has what I think were probably unintended consequences. For one thing, the widespread availability of Mega-Damage weaponry in Rifts means that characters tend to walk around in full environmental body armor at all times. Even tools like laser torches used for welding can inflict Mega-Damage, which means that a street thug with a dinky laser pistol has the ability to level a city block or wipe out your lovingly crafted character with a single hit. For another, by the rules as written, even a glancing hit from a Mega-Damage weapon will almost certainly kill your character instantly -- you're either armored and okay, or you're dead and turned to a fine mist. A good GM can work around these issues, but they remain nevertheless. (There was an attempt to address the "either you're okay or you're bloody mist" problem in Rifts Ultimate Edition, but its so-called "GI Joe Rule", where you always survive the hit that depletes your armor, but are now unprotected and presumably running for your life, actually is the cartoonish joke Mega-Damage has been made out to be, and has just made matters worse.)

For the upcoming Rifts campaign in which I'm participating, my GM is experimenting with reviving an older Palladium system, Armor Rating, which by the book works similar to D&D's Armor Class: if you roll over the Armor Rating, you've bypassed the armor and damaged the person inside. That seems potentially promising, but I'm not sure how it will work for something like a fully enclosed vehicle (like the vast majority of the mecha in Rifts) or for living creatures that are Mega-Damage structures, which are plentiful in the game. I know that he's using AR in a different way, however, and I'm interested to see what he does with it.

Today, I want to talk about magic in Rifts. Don't worry, I'm not going to drone on about what magic is like in the Rifts setting, or complain about how it doesn't "feel magical" (a criticism aimed at any number of RPGs' handling of the concept). The Stabilizing Rifts blog has already done an excellent series of posts on the various types of magician characters in the game, as well as exploring the greater implications of magic upon the Rifts Earth milieu. (If you're somebody that wants to see the idea of magic in a post-apocalyptic science fiction setting taken seriously, I can't recommend these posts strongly enough.) Instead, I want to talk about the role magic is supposed to play in the game.

Magic is an integral part of the Rifts role-playing game, or at least, it's intended to be. It's essential to the game's backstory, in which what is initially a nuclear apocalypse accidentally triggers a magical, reality-rending devastation. Its presence in the setting is a large part of what sets Rifts apart from other science fiction or post-apocalyptic games. It's equally important to the North American setting the game originally presented, in which the (comparatively) technologically advanced Coalition States struggle to survive against malevolent practitioners of magic and supernatural beings. Or, if you prefer, it's a setting in which practitioners of magic and supernatural beings struggle to survive against the xenophobic and totalitarian Coalition. Or maybe it's the evil Coalition vs. the evil Federation of Magic...

The point is, the first major conflict laid out in the setting is fundamentally one of technology vs. magic, and it's not the only one -- Triax & the NGR would introduce a similar struggle (mecha vs. demons) in Europe. While the typical group of player characters is likely to include high-tech men of arms, practitioners of magic, psychics, and supernatural creatures, the backdrop is one of super-science vs. sorcery.

The funny thing is, magic isn't very powerful in Rifts. It's meant to be very powerful indeed, since it apparently poses a threat to a nation that fields thousands of skull-faced killer war machines on the battlefield. There are plenty of supernatural creatures that can put a hurting on an armored vehicle. But in play, it's hard to imagine even a group of magicians throwing down with mecha in a direct fight. Even after the introduction of nastier combat spells in Federation of Magic, the fact remains that high-tech weaponry does more damage, isn't limited by spell points (or P.P.E., in official Palladium parlance), and perhaps most importantly, can be used to attack many more times in a combat round than a magic spell can.

Kevin Siembieda has acknowledged this discrepancy several times. He argues that the true "power" of magic is in its unpredictable nature -- not that it's difficult for a practitioner to control, but the threat that somebody with the power to hurl energy bolts (without carrying a weapon) or to control people's minds would pose to a society obsessed with control like the Coalition. In terms of the setting, that's a strong case for magic as a scary thing. In practice, at the game table? Well, not so much. So you have to play smarter, says Siembieda. Magic spells in Rifts are often vaguely defined, so you have some leeway. Think outside the box, old school style!

Siembieda's argument for intelligent play makes sense, to a point. I have played a Mystic in Rifts for years, and quickly learned that a mage trying to go toe-to-toe with a mechanized foe in the firepower department isn't long for the world. The raw damage just isn't there, and in the rules as written, you're only going to be able to cast two Fire Ball spells per round, tops. Meanwhile, the man in the robot suit gets to fire at you four to six times, and if he hits you, you have to start over. (It's no mistake that one of the most popular house rules in Rifts, the "channeling" spellcasting system originally presented in an issue of The Rifter, dramatically speeds up magician characters' number of spells per round.) The key, for me as a player, was to pick spells that penalize, terrify, control, or otherwise "nerf" your enemies (and then either shoot them in the face with a laser rifle, or have your buddies do it) rather than to try to slug it out them.

The idea of magicians taking down these mechanized shock troops with low cunning and sneaky tactics has a certain "Empire vs. Ewoks" appeal, I suppose. However, at some fundamental level, it's kind of annoying that it's so hard to have a wizard striking down power armor-clad foes with fireballs and lightning in Rifts. I'm mostly okay with Rifts mages not being "the artillery" like they often are in D&D, but it still feels a little bit like a bait-and-switch.

A Queen's Respite by Robaato

Last Sunday, I was finally able to play Rifts again, after a roughly 20-year hiatus and with the original characters my group ran in high school. People seem interested to know how it went, so I thought I'd post a recap. First, some introductions (and explanations on character races and classes) for the uninitiated:

The Roster

Arisis Solstice, female titan Cyber-Knight, played by Felix
Titans are a race of noble giants, originally from the world of the Palladium Fantasy RPG. Cyber-Knights are cybernetically enhanced warriors errant that adhere to a strict code of conduct. They are trained to use psionic abilities and do battle with blades of pure psychic energy called Psi-Swords. Most have cybernetic armor grafted to their bodies, but Arisis did not undergo this process, since her titan heritage lends her incredible resilience and the ability to regenerate damage.

Max Parkinson, male human Mystic, played by me
Unlike other practitioners of magic, Mystics have an intuitive grasp of sorcery, and gain their spells through insight rather than learning them from books. They also have access to powerful psionic powers. Many use their abilities to heal wounds, commune with spirits, sense the presence of the supernatural, and foresee the future to act as shamans or advisors. Humans are apparently native to Earth, though they also exist on numerous other worlds. (In fact, Max's mother was a human from another dimension.)

Valerie Cain, female Praxian Headhunter, played by Kent
Headhunters are high-tech mercenaries and bounty hunters that use every tool of destruction available to them to capture or otherwise bring down their targets. The vast majority, Val included, have undergone partial cybernetic conversion. Although she was born and raised on Rifts Earth by her human father, a fighter pilot from another dimension, Valerie's mother was a Praxian, a genetically engineered alien amazon warrior woman from the same reality. (Apparently, Praxian chromosomes pretty much squash human DNA.)

So, to sum up, you've got a giant Jedi-paladin lady, a teenaged wizard/shaman kid, and an amazon woman bounty hunter.

(Though each of us was running multiple characters by time the original campaign fizzled out in the late 90s, these are the core of our high school campaign. We played Rifts almost every weekend for years. As a result, most of these characters have a bit of a reputation and are of a high level of experience at this point. Max and Valerie, who have been adventuring the longest, are 10th and 11th level respectively, which is nothing to sneeze at in a game where characters top out at 15th level. We've changed some details and thrown out a ton of what were, in retrospect, really stupid events in the characters' lives, but at the end of the day, we're essentially just picking up where we left off over 20 years ago.)

Session Recap

Our heroes, a wandering team of mercenaries and do-gooders, have arrived in the settlement of Serendipity, located at the mouth of the Mississippi, in the hopes of establishing a permanent base of operations. One of their number, the Psi-Stalker Kat, has left town to meet with the numerous local wild tribes of her kind. The remaining three are staying in a hotel while trying to find an appropriate locale to set up shop.

After another fruitless day of real estate hunting, Val suggests hitting the town. The road-weary headhunter has become increasingly enamored of the fancy drinks and loud music offered at Serendipity's downtown clubs. She's heard of an exclusive one called the Serendipity Social Club, suggests that Arisis and Max check it out with her, and won't take no for an answer.

At the door of the Social, the three are asked to "check their weapons". Arisis swears on her honor as a Cyber-Knight not to cause any harm. Valerie's bionic weaponry is restrained in various ways, including binding her extendable vibro-blades. Max is asked to "dump" his magical energy into a P.P.E. battery and is assured it will be returned, plus interest, when he leaves the establishment -- a request with which he complies, after some token objections.

The Social turns out to be surprisingly accommodating to the party. The building itself has unusually high ceilings, giving Arisis (who is twice the size of a human) free rein. Shortly after Max orders a round of drinks, the group is escorted through a VIP area and into a private room by a trio of attractive "handlers" to meet the Social Club's owner, Nysa. Val's restraints are removed, and Max's energy restored.

Nysa, an eight-foot-tall, statuesque beauty (who Max senses is of supernatural lineage) introduces herself as a local entrepreneur, but deftly avoids questions regarding her origins. She is, however, quite familiar with Arisis, Max, and Valerie, and says she invited them to meet with her in order to personally thank them for their role in the African conflict against the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, referring to them as "champions of light". Interestingly, other adventurers are present in this private room, including Reez and Mian Feng, a pair of young women who fought alongside our heroes in Africa. A happy reunion ensues, followed by drinking, dancing, and further attempts from Max to ascertain Nysa's motives and nature.

Nysa invites Val, Max, and Arisis to stay in the penthouse suite of her hotel, which they accept. The three settle into their new and opulent (albeit temporary) digs, then decide to take a look around downtown. They visit an electronics workshop, where Max looks into buying a custom sensor rig that would allow Arisis to interact with the others when they're in small spaces.

On the following day, the group explores the outskirts of the city for real estate -- Max on his Wastelander motorcycle, Valerie on the Saber Cyclone mecha-motorcycle she inherited from her Praxian mother, and Arisis on her custom robotic mount. Their search is interrupted by a radio distress call from some truckers who are being attacked by strange predatory monsters. It turns out that our heroes are closer to the action than any of the local militias, and Nysa soon radios the group to tell them the truck is one of hers, and asks for their aid.

The trio springs into action, chasing down the truck with the intent of picking off the pack of bizarre beasts with their blades, guns, and spells. Max casts a Wind Rush spell, literally blowing away two of the monsters and immobilizing most of the rest. Before his companions can finish the creatures off (Valerie with the CADS-1 blades of her mecha, and Arisis with her Psi-Sword in one hand and the magical Sword of Baragor in the other), more of them burst forth from the underbrush. Nysa again radios the group, to tell them that the cargo must be protected at all costs, placing it at priority even above the truckers' lives. Our heroes make fairly short work of the remaining monsters (with the help of one of the truckers, who happens to be a full-conversion cyborg), but not before one of them tears open the back of the truck, revealing its cargo: several terrified mutant animals in poor shape. Max's suspicions are again aroused.

Arisis, Valerie, and Max follow the now-damaged truck to a palatial plantation estate, where they again meet Nysa. The enigmatic woman informs the group that she runs an "underground railroad" to rescue uplifted animals from the Coalition territory of Lone Star and find them new homes in Serendipity. In the process, she had uncovered a secret (and illegal) operation in Lone Star, where mutant animals were being sold as livestock to D-Bees ("dimensional beings", a blanket term for humanoids native to other dimensions) that savor the flesh of sapient creatures. Furthermore, it appears that Nysa's twin sisters, who were involved in the railroad operation, have disappeared, and may be in the clutches of ogre pirates that engage in this repugnant trafficking. Nysa asks our heroes to help. Arisis is the first to accept, followed by the others.

I don't know how many people get a chance to return to their favorite characters and their favorite setting with the GM and some of the players from their childhood gaming group, but I don't expect that many do. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity, and I can't express how happy it made me. Though we've made some welcome changes to the rules and to our characters, we nevertheless were all able to pick right up where we left off, figuratively speaking. This session had all of the best qualities of our high school campaign and none of the weaknesses. Everybody was completely engaged, and it felt great.

Along with the presence of magic, one of the big things that sets Rifts apart from the rest of the far-future, post-apocalyptic RPG pack is its inclusion of mecha. The game itself never uses the term "mecha", preferring the more unwieldy nomenclature of "robot vehicles" and "power armor". It seems that Palladium has reserved the word "mecha" for the Robotech RPG (and its related games, Robotech II: The Sentinels and Macross II, both long out of print), which is a shame, because it's a lot easier to write than having to say "robot vehicles and power armor" over and over again.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah: giant robots. Rifts has them. Lots of them, in fact. I'd say that at least half of the vast amount of books published for the game have a back cover blurb that proudly announces that yes, this one has new mecha in it. It's fairly unusual for game set in a post-apocalyptic world to emphasize mecha as strongly as Rifts does. Since Rifts is a setting where almost any enemy you encounter is able to deal incredible amounts of damage, armored vehicles (including the robot kind) are a basic necessity for most human characters, if they expect to survive.

Don't get me wrong: I love mecha, and I love that Rifts includes them even when it doesn't always make a ton of logical sense to have them stomping around all over the place. My problem is with the way the game handles them; more specifically, they generally have a ton of M.D.C. (Mega-Damage Capacity). They slow combat down tremendously, because the only way to take them down is to whittle away that M.D.C., which usually takes many, many attacks, most of which are actively and individually defended against.

In other words, Rifts mecha have too many "hit points". There are optional rules that cause malfunctions once 60% of a particular piece of the mecha's M.D.C. has been lost (did I mention that they have M.D.C. by location?), which is a nice thought, but also means that you have to crunch numbers during play to figure out, say, what 60% of this particular mecha's right arm M.D.C. is. It's fiddly, clunky, and overall quite unlike the fast-paced mechanized action that I think the game needs. The worst part is that I don't have any good ideas on how to fix it, because I don't want the mecha to blow up too easily. Just more easily.

There are 88 books for Rifts.

That's my unofficial count, obviously. (Palladium Books places the count closer to 95.) 88 books! That's not including extraneous stuff like novels, coloring books and art portfolios, and also not including the 65 issues of The Rifter published to date, practically all of which incorporate official and semi-official material for the game. It's worth noting that some of those 88 books, like the Book of Magic, the Vampire Sourcebook or the Game Master Guide -- which might more accurately be called an arms and equipment guide -- collect or reorganize material that was previously published. (That number also doesn't include the out-of-print oddity known as Rifts Manhunter, the only book made for the game that wasn't published by Palladium Books.)

Especially for those of us that tuned out some time in the late 1990s, the fact that Palladium has been (more or less) steadily pumping out Rifts material for almost a quarter-century, all for the same edition of the game, is surprising. However you feel about the game or the company that publishes it, 88 books has got to be a record for sheer number of gaming materials published for a single iteration of a roleplaying game.

Before you ask, no, I don't have all 88; I have closer to 10 these days. Still, there is some small part of me that wishes I could "catch 'em all".

"What do the player characters do?" It seems like in recent years, this is the first question that designers of a roleplaying game ask themselves. They then go on to design the game system around the answer to that question. This results in laser-focused games like the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, which placed that focus squarely on heroic characters kicking a lot of monster ass with cool powers. (Which is fine.)

Rifts dates from an earlier era of game design philosophy that was popular in the 1990s; one that places emphasis on the setting concept. While a typical mode of play revolving around traveling mercenaries fighting villains emerged fairly quickly in Rifts, it initially wasn't entirely clear what player characters were meant to do in this wild, high-concept new world that Kevin Siembieda had dreamed up -- probably because there wasn't intended to be one way to play.

The original Rifts rulebook devotes a considerable chunk of its page count to describing the Coalition and the ways in which it controls information in order to control its citizenry. We're told that at least half of the population of the Coalition States is functionally illiterate, and intentionally kept that way in order to avoid them learning anything that might contradict the official version of reality. We're told that the Coalition elite live in the arcology-city of Chi-Town, with lesser folk dwelling in the dangerous 'Burbs (or worse, in the smaller towns and villages that dot the demon-haunted wilderness that comprises the bulk of Coalition territory). We're given details on occupational character classes like the Rogue Scholar, the Rogue Scientist, the Body Fixer, the Cyber-Doc and the City Rat, the very names of which sound like something from Cyberpunk 2020.

There's an entire alternate take on the Rifts milieu hiding in plain sight, right there in the original book. A Rifts about seeking forbidden information -- either by hacking computer networks or literally unearthing it -- while a fascist regime demonizes you, hunts you, and will certainly kill you if they catch you. A game about paranoia, information, and helping people in need in the face of a military and a bureaucracy that never stopped to question whether its goals were right. (And maybe its goals are right, because sometimes the books you find really can summon terrors from beyond time and space.) A strange intersection between 70s science fiction (with its totalitarian futures, domed cities and focus on social awareness), cyberpunk, and horror. It seems a shame that Palladium has spent so many pages detailing new skull-encrusted Coalition vehicles and so few on playing the sort of campaign that the first rulebook sketched out.

Still, there's nothing stopping anybody from running one.

Last week, I discussed a style of campaign that was suggested in the original Rifts rulebook, but has been largely ignored since: one based around seeking knowledge forbidden by the Coalition. There are plenty of other opportunities that don't involve giant robots duking it out with dragons, though. Here are a few more that are implied by the material presented in that book:

Exploration and Survival. Most of North America -- heck, the entirety of Rifts Earth -- is supposed to be trackless wilderness, filled with dangerous entities from other worlds. O.C.C.s like the Wilderness Scout, Vagabond, and even Warlock are tailor-made for a campaign in which the players are trying to help civilization regain a foothold... or stop it from re-despoiling nature.

Coalition Military. I've never really seen the appeal of roleplaying a futuristic Illinois Nazi, but there's certainly plenty of Coalition material (and O.C.C.s) to work with, especially if you've got players that are willing to question orders. You could do much worse than to read Stabilizing Rifts' thoughts on how one might run a cerebral Coalition-based campaign.

Fighting Crime In a Future Time. Alternately, a campaign focused on the law enforcement wing of the Coalition military could be interesting. Again, Coalition O.C.C.s (including sanctioned Psi-Stalkers and Dog Boys) would be the ones to go with. A police procedural set in Chi-Town -- or, even more tantalizingly, the 'Burbs, where things are bit wilder -- sounds like it has potential to me.

Smash the System. The Coalition are easy to hate. Playing anti-Coalition ideologues and agitators could be either be straightforward violent fun (blow up the Nazis!), or (if one was so inclined) a rumination on themes of surveillance, resistance, patriotism, and terrorism. (Wait, can you do that with Rifts?) You could also do a "we're the badguys" campaign and play the evil psychics, sorcerers and demons the Coalition insist are hiding in every corner. Either way.

Repo Man Is Always Intense. These are by no means the only possibilities for non-"blow badguys up for money" campaigns. On Google+, Benjamin Baugh recently pitched me an idea he called Hard Repo, which puts all of my half-baked ideas to shame:

Dig it. There's room in Rifts to run all kinds of lowlife crime shit. Heists, scams, con-games, etc. You can't put three exclamation marks after shit like that, so it doesn't get much attention in the rules. But there's room for all kinds of shenanigans.

One of my great abortive games which never lived was Hard Repo. Repossessing robot vehicles, runeswords, mortgaged souls, cybernetics etc. It's the worst job in the whole world.

I have a feeling Benjamin intended Hard Repo to be somewhat parodic, but I love the concept. The big question would be "if we're repo men, who is hiring us to repossess this stuff?" You could have the player characters be unaffiliated specialists in re-acquiring goods that hire themselves out to anybody that can pay, but that skirts a little too closely to the standard "Mercs & Mages" setup. It would probably be more interesting to put them in the employ of the Black Market (a concept that was originally quite sketchy, but has recently been fleshed out). Or, if you were interested in a more exotic angle, the player characters could be working for one of the various Phase World-based factions (the arms-dealing Naruni, perhaps?) or even the most notorious merchants in the Megaverse: the Splugorth. An campaign idea like this almost writes itself, and it provides opportunities for interaction with practically every corner of the Megaverse, not just the starting playground of North America.

The point is that the Rifts setting provides the raw materials for adventures that are potentially much more interesting than the typical "wandering do-gooders/soldiers of fortune" template that is the default mode of play for so many roleplaying games. I hope somebody out there is using them.

So, real life has been intruding on my (and my friends') ability to play Rifts lately. This is a familiar story, I suspect, to most people that are into RPGs these days, so I won't dwell on it. Suffice it to say that with any luck, we'll get to play a second session soon.

However, I did hang out with a good friend who happens to be the GM of that Rifts campaign last weekend. Among the topics discussed:

Organic Circuitry. One of the things that has recently bugged me about Rifts is the juxtaposition of ultra-high-tech with a "points of light" infrastructure (or lack thereof). If you assume that there's something like advanced 3-D printing in use, those fiefdoms' ability to manufacture precision technology is a little bit easier to swallow. Still, you'd need access to rare earth minerals for some technology, which I previously said was difficult to imagine in a world without intercontinental shipping. But my buddy suggested something that is probably completely pseudoscientific, but still sounds reasonable enough for me to suspend my disbelief: organic circuitry. Even before the apocalypse happened, scientists had apparently mastered cybernetics, bionics, genetic manipulation, and cloning. They had even learned to artificially induce psionic abilities with the use of implanted technology. So maybe rather than using the rare earth-dependent processors (shut up, I don't know what this stuff is really called) we use today, Rifts Earth's engineers rely on ones made of organic materials. I'm not suggesting that all of the high-tech stuff in Rifts is "bio-tech" in the sense that the term is often used in popular science fiction -- it's not really "alive" -- just that it's organic in nature. (Though if you wanted to posit that this bio-circuitry creates a subtle man-machine interface effect like the alien plant-derived "protoculture" fuel source in Robotech, explaining why your character can use her physical skills and hand-to-hand training when piloting mecha, I wouldn't object.)

Ethnicity and Race. To his credit, Siembieda rarely mentions these things in Rifts publications. There's an offhand reference to some parts of the Chi-Town 'Burbs being less ethnically diverse than others, but that's about it, to my knowledge. But would the concepts of race and ethnicity even really hold much meaning to people in this setting? It's roughly 400 years in the future, and there's been an apocalypse that has destroyed virtually every nation-state in existence. North America has been (more or less) cut off from the rest of the planet for centuries. I like to think that survival probably trumped prejudice in the wake of the Coming of the Rifts (at least, until anti-psychic, anti-magic, and anti-mutoid prejudice emerged). Even the fascist Coalition would probably encourage all humans to recognize each other as kin when faced with literal inhuman monsters from other worlds running around. In North America, at least, racial distinctions would probably have largely broken down by the time in which the original core rulebook is set. There might even be a distinctive North American appearance that is effectively -- though I strongly dislike this term -- a "mixed-race" look. To me it seems likely that the "American" language described in the rules isn't strictly the American English we speak today, but a version that incorporates other tongues.

Old Time Religion. This actually isn't a topic we covered during our weekend rambling, but it's been on my mind lately nonetheless. Real-world religions, as far as I know, are practically never mentioned in Rifts products (likely an extension of the company's aversion to any potential controversy). Still, I've always wondered what religions might be practiced in the future post-apocalyptic world of Rifts Earth. Christianity, presumably, would still be around, but would likely have taken on a somewhat medieval character, considering the quasi-feudal state of affairs in much of North America and the fact that most people are illiterate. Would Islam have spread or shrank? (The Hajj would be a literal impossibility for the faithful.) Judaism, I'm sure, would survive and recover, as always. Religions that had their origins in Asia, like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism would possibly be more widespread. Certainly new religions, including fantastical ones based on the worship of demons, dragons, and the like, would have sprung up, and old, near-forgotten ones would begin to be reinstated with the return of ancient gods. Would new faiths that emerged in the time between our present and the Coming of the Rifts have managed to survive the apocalypse? And what of the Coalition States, who actively enforce illiteracy and obedience to the Imperial family? Would there be a North Korea-esque state of affairs, with an official "state philosophy" based around a pro-Prosek hagiography? I could easily see them encouraging a quasi-deified personality cult of "Prosekism", and closely monitoring other faiths, even censuring them for skirting too closely to "encouraging the spread of occultism".

Heavy stuff? Pointless blather? Offensive drivel? You decide.

p31 by HBDesign

My friends and I managed to play some Rifts this past weekend, after a long series of unfortunate (and unforeseeable) delays. It's been a while, so you may wish to refresh your memory before reading onward.

The Roster

Arisis Solstice, female titan Cyber-Knight, played by Felix

Max Parkinson, male human Mystic, played by me

Valerie Cain, female Praxian Headhunter, played by Kent

Session Recap

We rejoin Arisis, Max, and Valerie at the plantation-style estate of Nysa, their new benefactor. Having accepted the mission that she had offered them, our heroes set about collecting information. First, Max (somewhat surreptitiously) uses his Read Aura psionic ability on Nysa, in an attempt to ascertain her true nature. He learns little of import that he didn't already know. As he was already aware, Nysa is of a magical or supernatural nature, but he now senses that she possesses psychic abilities and is of a medium level of experience. When the statuesque beauty briefly steps away to oversee the arrival of a captured surviving monster from the attack earlier in the day (and the carcasses of those the trio slew earlier), Max informs his compatriots that he has "checked her out," which earns him a good-natured ribbing from Val ("yeah, we noticed!"). Somewhat embarrassed by how obvious his interest in Nysa now is, Max drops the subject.

Nysa returns, and Max asks her to provide him with an object that would have been handled by both of her kidnapped sisters (whose names, the group now learns, are Asha and Annejah). She guesses at Max's purpose immediately, and seems somewhat surprised that Max has psychometric abilities. Max informs her that all Mystics possess this talent, to which Nysa responds that she, too, is a Mystic, leaving the young man monetarily at a loss for words. Nysa suggests that they adjourn to her séance room, which is decorated with artwork and motifs Arisis recognizes as akin to those of both ancient Greece and Armenia. Nysa provides Max with a hat that both twins had been known to wear, but Max's attempt to use his Object Read ability yields only images of the pair having an argument over the hat at some point in the past. Even with his fellow psychics, Nysa and Arisis, boosting his powers by linking hands, Max is unable to learn anything of Asha and Anneja's current status or whereabouts.

The trio move on to interviewing one of the mutant animals that survived the monster attack on Nysa's refugee transport, an uplifted "mutt"Dog Boy called Toby. Toby, obviously shaken by his experience, informs them that he was created in the Coalition State of Lone Star only a few years ago. He served a master he calls "Dr. Stakes", who masterminded an illegal trade in sapient animals, selling them as food to cannibalistic D-Bees. Toby, who was created specifically to aid in this trafficking, eventually grew disgusted with Stakes' deeds. Nysa's organization secretly reached out to Toby, and soon he was helping to operate her "underground railroad" for Lone Star mutants. He tells the group that ships from Lone Star carrying refugees generally rendezvous with Nysa's ship, the Sunstar Aegis, in the Gulf of Mexico, where the mutants then travel to Serendipity, where they are resettled. But their last meeting went terribly wrong -- they were attacked by a pirate ship, the Grey Bones, crewed by ogres and assisted by a Coalition helicopter. Toby recognized the one chopper was piloted by one Lt. Reginald, a Coalition Psi-Stalker loyal to Dr. Stakes. The Dog Boy and a few other mutants managed to escape, but Nysa's sisters were not so fortunate. Toby and Nysa explain that they believe the Grey Bones is based somewhere in the Caribbean, and that they have likely managed to capture both the Sunstar Aegis and the twins. Toby urges, "If you find Dr. Stakes... kill him. Kill him."Arisis seems ready to ride straight to Lone Star and fulfill Toby's wish, but Nysa and the others manage to talk her down. The decision is made that the group will sail for the Caribbean.

Now more determined than ever to yield something of use with his mystical abilities, Max suggests returning to the site where he, Valerie, and Arisis earlier tussled with the bizarre-looking monsters. He retrieves his suit of crystalline power armor, a rare artifact of techno-wizardry, from the group's quarters and uses its helmet's magical Eyes of the Wolf ability to track the creatures. He is able to find their tracks with ease, thanks to the armor, but after following them through dense forest for some time, the group elects to return to Nysa's estate rather than waste additional time. There, Nysa informs Arisis, Valerie, and Max that her scientists have dissected the dead creatures and determined that they had cybernetic enhancements, and were most likely chimeric, gene-grafted mutants illegally created in Lone Star.

The crew then hit the streets of Serendipity to find a likely vessel on which they can book passage to the Caribbean, with the relatively nearby port of Havana in mind as the most logical starting point. Here, our GM, Kent, decided to try a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition-style "skill challenge" to represent our search. First, a Streetwise roll from Max leads them to a contact that only spoke Spanish. Val, who had the best handle on Spanish, learns that the person to talk to about quietly getting aboard a vessel is an individual named Novenious, a member of a D-Bee race called the Badril (whose features were generated on the spot with my handy dandy d30 Rifts Mutations table). None of the group are familiar with what the Badril are like, but it turns out that they only communicate by singing in the Dragonese language. Luckily, Max is both fluent in Dragonese and an accomplished singer, so Novenious tells him the name of a man who could help. That man turns out to be having a problem with a rambunctious cyber-horse, which Arisis is able to wrangle with her Horsemanship: Exotic skill. The horse's superstitious owner seems reluctant to discuss anything with Arisis, however (due to a failed Lore: Astronomy roll on her player's part), but a subtly intimidating lecture from Max on the history and proper use of blunt instruments (a WP Blunt "weapon quality" roll) convinces him to direct them to a certain Huey Ramos.

Captain Ramos turns out to be a remarkably reasonable man. Although he is not open to Max's request that the group simply book passage on his cruiser, the Fantasma, Ramos negotiates a deal in which he will pay them to help crew and defend the ship on his multi-stop trade run throughout the Caribbean, with bonus pay for each port they reach and a proviso that allows the group to terminate employment at any point if they can provide replacement crew members. With this agreement in place, the group retrieves their gear from Nysa's storage, then sets sail for the Caribbean the following morning. Nysa meets them at the docks to wish them luck, and accepts Max's request for a long talk -- alone -- when he and his companions return triumphant.

No combat, tons of in-character interaction, and investigation made for a really fun session that went from somber (failed psychic power use, Toby's interview) to madcap (the wacky "pounding the pavement" skill challenge). We're hoping to play again in a couple of weeks, so with luck, the next update will come much more quickly than this one did.

I'm going to take at least a month off from posting here at Dungeonskull Mountain.

For one thing, I'm going to be out of the country for a few weeks. Plus, I'm not currently running anything, and situations beyond my group's control continue to force us to play Rifts less often than we'd like.

All of the above is a long-winded way of saying that I've got plenty of enthusiasm for RPGs, but little of substance to say about them for the time being. It makes more sense for me to take a break than to force myself to make a bunch of vapid posts. I'll be back, but until then, take care and thanks for reading.

I'm back! Let's return to the subject of blowing up giant robots and speeding up combat in Rifts (and other Palladium games), shall we?

Earlier, I complained that in Rifts, power armor, robots, and other big armored things take too long to kill. I was thinking the other day that Dungeons & Dragons 4E had a similar problem, in that combat simply took forever, especially when fighting a big "boss" monster with tons of hit points. I didn't come here today to trash D&D 4E -- in fact, if you look back at some of the earliest posts on this very blog, you'll find some 4E content. But I will say that once we wrapped up our 4E campaign, it was the prospect of more lengthy combats that put the game on permanent hiatus for my group.

The "D&D in all but name" roleplaying game 13th Age isn't always my cup of tea, but it does some interesting things with its 4E-esque system. One of the best (and most easily stolen) ideas is the Escalation Die. The idea is basically that you put a big D6 on the table after the first combat round, with the "1" facing up, and turn it to the next highest number each round after that. The number that is facing up is added to attack rolls (and maybe damage, I can't remember). Oh, and there are some special abilities that are only triggered when the Escalation Die reaches a certain number, too.

I like this idea. It's simple and fun. Just taking it and plopping it into the Palladium system would be easy enough, but I feel like that wouldn't make a big enough difference. For one thing, most characters already have a pretty easy time hitting their opponents -- it's just that the opponents have a good chance of blocking or avoiding the attack with a parry or dodge. The problem isn't hitting stuff as much as making it fall down.

So, I propose making the Palladium Escalation Die a D10, and having it add strictly to damage. Also, the value on the die should be multiplied by 10, so you do +10 damage on the second round, +20 on the third, etc. (This means that those "tens place" percentile dice would work well.) I'm not sure what to do if your fight takes more than 10 combat rounds (where you're shelling out 100 extra damage on a successful attack). I'd advocate either keeping it at +100 until the fight ends or continuing to escalate (time to break out the D30?) because let's face it, by that point, with the number of attacks Rifts characters have, you will probably want that fight to be over ASAP.

Still pretty simple, right? I feel like this might speed combat up in a straightforward, easy-to-handle way, and might even bring out more of the sense of mayhem and "death, destruction, or worse" that I want from Rifts. I hope I will get a chance to try it out sometime.

OC - Rebecka by FrothTheStargazer

We got our Rifts on last weekend. The previous session is here if you need a recap.

The Roster

Arisis Solstice, female titan Cyber-Knight, played by Felix

Max Parkinson, male human Mystic, played by me

Valerie Cain, female Praxian Headhunter, played by Kent

Session Recap

Once La Fantasma gets underway, Max asks Captain Ramos to ensure that he is not disturbed for the next several minutes. The team retires below deck and Max sets about using his gift of prophecy, using the rhythm of the waves crashing against the ship's hull to send himself into a clairvoyant trance. Arisis tries using her own psychic powers to interpret and guide his progress, as Valerie stays well back, still somewhat unnerved by the young man's willingness to open himself to the supernatural.

Max relays his semi-surreal vision to his comrades, in which the twins they seek are dragged to Havana and beyond by an entity that appears as a vaguely humanoid mass of lashing, electrified neurons. Max pursues the being, having traveled across a series of islands and into a jungle, where it disappears into a circle of small, squat buildings. When Max attempts to follow, the circle transforms into a great toothy maw and encloses him in its bite. Abruptly, the Mystic's vantage point shifts, and he is watching himself watch a television set. A dancehall music video plays on the screen, with himself, Valerie, and Arisis appearing in it. The lyrics are exclusively in Spanish (but subtitled in American). Max gets the impression that the lyrics are giving him clues to the location of Nysa's twin sisters (who also appear in the video, apparently in some faraway mountains). Max watches himself rise from his seat and dive into the television. He flies past his comrades and over the mountains, where he sees a vast shallow sea filled with islands and archipelagos. His trance state ends.

As La Fantasma escorts the cargo container ship Big Rusty through the mangrove forests that have covered what was once New Orleans, Max considers the implications of the images he's conjured up. Arisis heads back to the upper deck and takes the opportunity to engage in one of her favorite pastimes: fishing. The patient titan is able to hook a prodigious catch of red snapper -- and, once the ships reach deeper water, a giant swordfish -- all of which is taken to the ship's galley and served to an enthusiastic and grateful crew.

After a short and uneventful sea voyage, the ships reach their first stop, the port of Havana. As containers of goods are unloaded from the Big Rusty, the group, which has been granted shore leave and rooms in a local hotel, heads ashore to explore Havana proper. The city is half dilapidated ruin, half vibrant, Techno-Wizardry-powered metropolis.

When it turns out that there is a sizable Havanan goblin population, Max decides to see if he can find some information that might clarify the details of his vision. He engages some of the locals in their native tongue of Gobblely and manages to greatly impress a group of young goblin women with his easy mastery of the language. (Max grew up speaking Gobblely as well as American in his hometown, the Barony of New Bizantium, where numerous immigrants from the Palladium world reside.) After Max asks about the Grey Bones and the ogre pirates that crewed the ship, a surprisingly attractive goblin named Gia offers to introduce the group to the only ogre inhabitant of Havana if they can make it worth her while. Max offers Gia a pair of pre-cataclysmic basketball shoes (child-sized and still in the shrink wrap, naturally), which she enthusiastically accepts.

The ogre in question, a Shifter called Arim, seems to have taken up residence in a local restaurant's enormous humidor, in which he and several other giant D-Bees are lounging (and smoking). Arim extends considerable hospitality to the team, and Max again impresses the locals (I was rolling really well for Streetwise checks that night) by ordering a traditional goblin dish heavy on the grubs and black fungus. After greasing Arim's palms to the tune of 1500 credits, the ogre provides the group with a good amount of intelligence regarding ogre pirates, even though he is unfamiliar with the Grey Bones or any pirate band associating with the Coalition. He indicates that most of the pirates hail from the lawless island of Hispaniola, and also maintain ports on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. (Puerto Rico is also the home base of a dangerous mercenary company dubbed "Wild Hurricane", he says.) Arim warns Max that most of the ogres in the Caribbean are not from the Palladium world, but are born sailors from another planet entirely -- one that is almost entirely ocean. Max's familiarity with the customs of Palladium's so-called "subhumans" will not earn him any favors with these ogres, Arim says.

Arim's offer to smoke a few cigars with the group is cut short by a series of explosions outside. The trio races toward the disturbance (but Max briefly doubles back to tell Gia how much he enjoyed her company, then promptly vomits up his earlier repast of larvae and mushrooms). The city is under attack by raiders in strange flying harnesses, who are setting fire to buildings and generally terrorizing the populace. Havanan law enforcement, despite being equipped with TW bicycles that transform into fan-powered flying machines, are badly outgunned. After they commandeer a truck (which Max pilots with considerable aplomb -- my dice were on fire, people) the team heads back to their hotel to grab their gear, only to find the structure in flames. They nevertheless plunge inside and, with a helpful boost from the giant Arisis, manage to rescue their equipment from their second-story lodgings and escape largely unharmed.

The team heads for the docks area, where they see a helicopter stealing cargo containers loaded with Samson power armor from Northern Gun, which the Big Rusty had unloaded earlier in the day. Arisis, with her ability to see the invisible, spies a gargoyle mage riding on a flying boulder, apparently protecting the chopper, and opens fire with her Starfire Cannon. Before any of the trio can take further action, the gargoyle swoops down and casts a Thunderclap spell, badly disorienting them (everybody failed their saving throws). The demonic creature then vanishes, teleporting out of sight. After firing a few rounds in protest, Arisis and her friends can do little more than watch helplessly as the helicopter escapes into the sunset with its ill-begotten cargo.

A good deal of this session was taken up by the three of us getting caught up. All of us have been living fairly eventful lives recently, so I'm happy we were able to do that. I had fun even though I felt like we could probably have accomplished more (and despite realizing in retrospect that I probably hogged the spotlight during this session). Afterwards we discussed making some rules changes that I think might help us move things along more quickly, and possibly even switching systems to something a bit more modern, both of which I think are potentially exciting moves.

CITY-STATES OF THE NORTH CASCADES COMBINE
Being a Series Outlining the Members of the Post-Apocalyptic Pacific Northwest's Preeminent Political Power, Part the First:

Weirminster. (Population: 65,000.) A vast wooden dam-city built on the north Willamette River, with associated settlements covering the ruins of Portland, Lake Oswego, and (appropriately enough) Beaverton. A significant percentage of Weirminster's populace -- including the Gomperses, its ruling family -- consists of mutant beavers of uncertain origin and with varying levels of humanoid characteristics. The beavers seem to have a knack for Techno-Wizardry, particularly when working with the timber of the wychwood, a type of giant magical tree that grows in the Willamette Valley.

The dam-city of Weirminster proper is a truly immense work of dizzying ingenuity, made almost entirely of wychwood lumber. Weirminster's small military fields similarly innovative war machines, including a variety of mecha, tanks, fan-powered patrol boats, and propellor-driven flying craft, many of which are handcrafted from (or fueled by) this magically-strengthened and enhanced timber. The inner workings of Weirminster-designed vehicles are incredibly complex, and historically most of them required multiple pilots, at least one of which had to be a Techno-Wizard. Recently, Weirminster has begun receiving a small amount of more conventional, nuclear-powered battle vehicles from Mount Hood in the hopes of increasing the city-state's military potential.

Weirminster, perhaps predictably, has an overall reputation as an industrious and harmonious community, though its ruler, King Oswald of Gompers, is a notoriously prickly and cantankerous individual. Weirminster was nevertheless the first city-state to join the North Cascades Combine (NCC) after its formation, as King Oswald's air force has shot down more than one Coalition long-range reconnaissance aircraft in the past several years. Like his neighbors to the Southeast, the Barony of New Bizantium, Oswald fears an eventual full-scale conflict with Chi-Town. Even though Oswald harbors distrust for many of his neighbors -- both Mount Hood and the Barony included -- he is willing to set those concerns aside for the moment.

The King's only child, Princess June, is young, pretty (if one is willing to overlook some castoroid features) and available. She is widely considered one of the region's most eligible bachelorettes, though she has declined the suitors her father has championed. Rumor has it that the Princess is a romantic, and is holding out for a hero.

CITY-STATES OF THE NORTH CASCADES COMBINE
Being a Series Outlining the Members of the Post-Apocalyptic Pacific Northwest's Preeminent Political Power, Part the Second:

The Barony of New Bizantium. (Population: 80,000.) A large walled city built from the ruins of both the pre-Rifts city of Bend and another settlement called Fulcrum (a border town originally located on the edge of the Palladium Fantasy RPG world's Old Kingdom and the Western Empire), which was dimensionally shifted on top of / into Bend during the apocalypse. A sporadically active rift is located roughly 20 miles east of the city, which when open seems "fixed" to the Palladium world. As a result, over half of the Barony's populace is descended from extradimensional refugees from the Palladium world, many of whom are non-humans. A large percentage of those citizens that do not trace their origins back to Palladium are human mutoids, psychics, practitioners of magic, or other D-Bees.

Though a far cry from the oppressive, segregated arcologies and "Burbs" of the Coalition States, old prejudices die hard, and some social stratification exists. The Barony's large so-called "subhuman" community, comprised primarily of goblins and orcs, inhabits the Undercity, a cramped, dangerous, yet lively collection of subterranean hovels constructed in the labyrinthine lava tube network that runs beneath what once was Bend. The upper rungs of the Barony's societal ladder, on the other hand, are largely occupied by human families of extradimensional (specifically, Western Empire) descent, who live in the city's pristine Imperial Quarter, better known as Hightown. The most prominent of Hightown's families, the Serris clan, claim a kinship to the Imperial throne and invariably possess psionic abilities; perhaps because of their prestige, psychics have traditionally been held in higher regard than other citizens.

The early history of the Barony, like much of what happened in the dark ages immediately following the apocalypse, is vague. It was apparently founded by a human of noble origins -- a Palladin or Cyber-Knight, according to some stories -- who hailed from the isles of Bizantium on Palladium; hence the Barony's name. This human's identity is lost to the ages, erased by the legacy of the Baron Chulgrem Shran, a ruthless and paranoid kobold who deposed the city's founder, instituted the worship of a Palladium death goddess named Tolmet as the state religion, and, with the aid of a police force that included evil Priests and pact-bound Witches in its ranks, ruled with an iron fist for more than a century.

Shran died slightly over one year ago with no heir. His former right-hand man and bodyguard, a Mind Melter named David Feng Parkinson, has ascended to the position of Baron. (Unbeknownst to the general citizenry of the Barony, Shran was in fact assassinated by Parkinson.) Parkinson, formerly one of the Coalition State of Iron Heart's most wanted criminals, escaped his native land, made his way to the Barony, and married a Serris clan woman roughly twenty-five years ago. Since assuming his title, the new Baron has joined his city-state to the North Cascades Combine, outlawed the Church Tolmeti, and created a specially equipped task force called ADWAT (Anti-Demon Weapons And Tactics), ostensibly to round up and combat remaining Tolmetian elements. (In reality, the ADWAT operatives seek out and destroy anyone and anything the new Baron sees as a potential threat -- especially practitioners of magic, who are usually "exposed" as Tolmet-worshippers before being executed.)

Baron Parkinson is seen as a harsh but comparatively reasonable and fair ruler by his counterparts in the NCC, though many Bizantines, the Imperial Quarter's families among them, resent his purge of the Church Tolmeti. The Serris clan, in particular, have little love for the new Baron, finding the sudden "disappearance" of Parkinson's wife, Artha Serris, shortly before his ascent to power deeply troubling.

The Barony of New Bizantium's small but relatively powerful military force doubles as law enforcement, and includes well-trained infantry and pilots. The Barony maintains an assortment of weapons, vehicles and power armor acquired from various North American manufacturers -- Northern Gun and Bandito Arms foremost among them, with shipments of Mount Hood armaments beginning to arrive. Citizens with psionic powers are encouraged to join the military police. Baron Parkinson regards most spellcasters with mistrust, seeing little distinction between them and the Priests and Witches his operatives hunt down, but is willing to allow the use of magic weapons as long as their wielders are loyal to him. Leaders of elite units, especially ADWAT operatives, are therefore often equipped with magical items crafted by alchemists in the Palladium tradition (rather than products of Techno-Wizardry).

CITY-STATES OF THE NORTH CASCADES COMBINE
Being a Series Outlining the Members of the Post-Apocalyptic Pacific Northwest's Preeminent Political Power, Part the Third:

The Mount Hood Banate. (Population: 25,000.) Atop this active volcano rests an enormous, geothermal-powered military base and weapons factory constructed from a rift-disrupted spaceship. Over the last decade, the now stranded crew have retrofitted their craft into a combination of fortress and factory which they call Tharna Ulthesse in their native language. Their neighbors, however, simply refer to the base as "Mount Hood" or "Pilot Mountain".

The exact nature of these former soldiers is unclear. They are fully human in appearance, but with some interesting deviations from the norm. They are typically left-handed, and careful examination reveals that their internal organs are in situs inversus; that is, they are located on the opposite side of the body than they would be in a typical human being (with the heart on the right, liver on the left, etc.). Additionally, though there seem to be multiple ethnicities among them, many have combinations of hair, skin, eye color, and other characteristics not seen on Rifts Earth prior to their arrival. Magic and psionics were apparently previously unknown to them, though a majority of them have a least a few cybernetic implants or bionics, which are often intricately crafted, even beautiful. (Indeed, some are known to have implants that are entirely cosmetic.) Their language has thus far proven completely unrecognizable to any inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest, as has their culture and religion. They are familiar with the planet's geography, though their detailed maps show several major differences -- Atlantis, for example, is absent from their charts.

That these people originated on a highly divergent parallel Earth seems likely. As is often the case, their arrival on Rifts Earth was an accident. Apparently, in their reality, much of the Earth had been conquered by an invading alien race, and their ship, the Ulthes, was part of an effort to reclaim the planet. Their enemy used an unknown weapon against the expeditionary fleet, which evidently snatched the Ulthes, a mobile base intended to be to planted on the Earth's surface as a sort of staging ground, from orbit (and from their universe entirely). The rift from which their spaceship-base emerged was many miles away from Mount Hood. Disoriented and confused, the Pilots attempted to leave Rifts Earth entirely, but the Ulthes was badly damaged by the orbital satellites and debris field enveloping the planet (something of which they were unaware). They managed to steer their massive craft back to the surface, selecting Mount Hood as the best location for them to regroup, since they would be able to tap into its magma chamber for their energy needs.

The crew found themselves stranded in a familiar world that was nevertheless beyond their understanding: a world where their language was unknown, aliens lived alongside humans, regular attacks by nightmarish creatures were commonplace, and magic, an impossibility, was real. Perhaps understandably, the Pilots reacted to the inhabitants of the region with aggression for several years after their semi-controlled crash landing. Early offensives led against the often-lawless local settlements in an overzealous attempt to "secure the area" and obtain food and basic supplies quickly degenerated into pointless aggression perpetrated by frustrated (and, ultimately, frightened) soldiers who had lost their purpose. Those that lived in the area surrounding Mount Hood were likewise terrified of the sudden appearance of strange-looking mecha, piloted by hostile people that looked human, yet unfamiliar, and shouted at them in an incomprehensible language.

Eventually, the Pilots, as they came to be known, started encountering determined resistance to their attacks, particularly from Weirminster and the Barony of New Bizantium, and even began to lose men and mecha in these military engagements. Soon afterwards, an officer named Hathli managed to convince many of her comrades that their leader, Sevna, had been rendered mentally unstable and unfit for command, and relieved him of duty after a brief and bloody coup. Hathli informed her troops that they were not going to be returning home without aid, and that they would concentrate on building alliances with their neighbors in the hope of doing so in the future. She declared herself Ban (military governor) of Mount Hood and the region around it, and arranged for a meeting with the representatives of the adjacent city-states. With the aid of a Tongues spell cast by a Weirminsterian Techno-Wizard, her overtures of peace were accepted, and the Northern Cascades Combine, an organization that had originally been proposed to defend the city-states of the Pacific Northwest against the Pilots, was officially formed.

In joining the NCC, the Mount Hood Banate (as it is now officially known) agreed to supply its neighbors with aid and weaponry, an obligation which it has begun to fill in recent months. Under the direction of Ban Hathli, the factory portion of the base has been named "Ulthesse Mechatronics" and has started to provide jobs and training to a select few non-Pilots, most of whom are humans that have chosen to live and work among their extra dimensional cousins and communicate with them via Weirminster-manufactured TW translation devices. These men and women live in a swiftly expanding shantytown set up outside of Tharna Ulthesse proper, and are derisively known as "Hood Rats" by those who still hold a grudge against the Pilots. (It is widely believed by their neighbors that Mount Hood was allowed into the NCC as a member state only because the others were either afraid of further conflict, or wanted access to their advanced armaments. Many Pilots, likewise, have not warmed to the idea of "settling down" on Rifts Earth.)

Ulthesse Mechatronics vehicles are large and somewhat ungainly in appearance, but their use of lightweight ceramic armor, supplemented by high-powered force fields, means that they are as agile as any war machines on Rifts Earth. In fact, most UM mecha, even the largest, are capable of short-term powered flight. The "reporting names" the feudalistic Barony of New Bizantium gave these war machines during their conflict with the Pilots have stuck, meaning that most of them have unusual nicknames like "Mantyger", "Yale", "Basilisk", or "Zilant", all derived from fantastical or heraldic beasts. Though they are not mandated to do so by the terms of their NCC membership, Ulthesse Mechatronics is also considering mass-producing and distributing their unique cybernetic implants and bionics.

CITY-STATES OF THE NORTH CASCADES COMBINE
Being a Series Outlining the Members of the Post-Apocalyptic Pacific Northwest's Preeminent Political Power, Part the Fourth:

The Sealth Chieftaincy. (Population: 20,000.) A collection of small settlements rather than a single city, the Sealth Chieftaincy was itself a multi-member polity when it became the latest state to join the North Cascades Combine. Located in the Puget Sound region, most of the villages and towns that make up the Chieftaincy operate at a subsistence level, maintaining small farms and fishing the Salish Sea that they surround. The Sealth Chieftaincy emphasizes an "anti-invasive" policy, meaning that they work to preserve native (non-extradimensional) species and expel or eradicate all others. As a result, the population is almost exclusively human, though not necessarily of Native American descent. Exceptions are made for the small groups of Sasquatch that live in the area, who are seen as a returned "lost tribe" and native species. This emphasis on nature should not be interpreted as an indication that the Seatlh people are low-tech -- their towns are small, but fairly modern, if not especially heavily protected. Though the Sealth communities are nominally each overseen by a chief, each of whom votes on important issues in a Chieftains' Council, the real power rests with the operators of the Vancouver Island fisheries.

In recent months, a new, invasive predatory species of aquatic invertebrate has begun to appear in the fisheries, gorging themselves on salmon and other important stock. These "serpent eels", as they are nicknamed, are relatively easy to kill but are a persistent problem. Soon after the fisheries began concentrated efforts to exterminate the serpent eels, huge flying creatures, dubbed "ramjets" after their habit of crashing into Sealth defenses at high speed, began to attack the fisheries. The ramjets were largely immune to conventional weaponry, and the Chieftaincy lacked the firepower to deal with their attacks. It is this new threat that has forced the Sealth Chieftaincy to apply for NCC membership, which was ratified only after the chiefs agreed to allow Pilots from the Mount Hood Banate to begin excavating and exploring the ruins of Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, and other previously off-limits ruins in search of lost technologies -- a move which the chiefs' Shamans and Mystic advisors have warned will have grave consequences.

The Cougar Mountain Holdfast. (Population: 2,000.) A primarily subterranean community built in what was evidently some sort of underground military installation during the Age of Man, located in the Issaquah Alps. Cougar Mountain is contested territory -- the Sealth Chieftaincy argues that the highlands region is part of the Puget Sound area and thus within their lands, but Kaaltong Sluntch, a gigantes who proclaimed herself "Warrior Queen of Cougar Mountain" over a decade ago, refutes that claim, insisting that "the spineless fish-eaters and their stinking man-animal friends" have yet to defeat her, and that she and her subjects will remain in their "Holdfast" until driven out. Sealth counters that Queen Sluntch and her followers, most of whom are D-Bees and mutoids, have survived by raiding their towns, poaching their hunting grounds, and pillaging their lands. The Warrior Queen has verbally requested membership in the North Cascade Combine for reasons that are not entirely clear. She has offered the NCC access to a supposed "vast arsenal" of pre-Rifts technology if they will accept Cougar Mountain and expel the Sealth Chieftaincy, whom Queen Sluntch insists somehow summoned the so-called "ramjet" monsters to destroy her and her people. Thus far, this request has not been formally considered, but Ban Hathli of Mount Hood has pushed for Queen Sluntch's bid be taken seriously, which has her counterparts from the other member states wondering if there is some truth to the giant's wild claims about the contents of the Cougar Mountain base. But if the mountain is full of relic weapons, why haven't the Holdfast's raiders used them in their attacks?

d10 Rifts Active Rifts

d30 Rifts Mutations

If I Were King

Fistful of Creds

In Defense of Mega-Damage

Rifts Magic In Practice

Rifts Misadventures: Session 1

The Roster

Session Recap

Blowuppability

Rifts: A Staggering Statistic

Beyond "Mercs & Mages": Part 1

Beyond "Mercs & Mages": Part 2

Brain Scraper Death Dive

Rifts Misadventures: Session 2

I Got One More Silver Dollar

Blowuppability II: The Explodening

Rifts Misadventures: Session 3

City-States of the North Cascades Combine, Part 1: Weirminster

City-States of the North Cascades Combine, Part 2: The Barony of New Bizantium

City-States of the North Cascades Combine, Part 3: The Mount Hood Banate

City-States of the North Cascades Combine, Part 4: The Sealth Chieftaincy and the Cougar Mountain Holdfast