Dungeonskull Mountain

17.06.2014 by Beaver-Skin

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 Fifth:

(The following is a sampling of known settlements and hazardous locales in the greater Cascadian region.)

Ape Canyon and the surrounding volcanic slopes of Mount St. Helens are home to tribes of Sasquatch. Those that have chosen to remain in the canyons and caves, rather than joining the Sealth Chieftaincy, are a reclusive and dour people. They typically avoid contact with visitors, but will drive out those that outstay their welcome.

Devil's Lake, located on what was once the coast of Oregon, is infested with particularly troublesome -- some would say uncharacteristically hostile -- faerie folk that torment anyone foolish enough to dare enter their realm. Rumors persist that they are guarding some sort of invaluable treasure.

The Ochoco Conjunction is an unusual ley line nexus located roughly 20 miles to the northeast of the Barony of New Bizantium. It is unusual in that it is often inactive -- practically nonexistent -- but sputters to life at apparently random intervals. When inactive, the nexus is virtually bereft of psychic energy, undetectable to any but the most sensitive. When active, the nexus always opens a rift, and always to the same dimension: the fantastical world of Palladium. (However, the rift seems to connect to different points on the Palladium world each time it opens.)

The Olympic Rainforests have been colonized by an unknown, technologically advanced race of D-Bees that appear to be using the region as a sort of greenhouse for bizarre, off-world plant species, which apparently can be grown only in a temperate rainforest ecosystem. Very few individuals have interacted with these D-Bees and lived to tell the tale. They are said to be heavily armed and uniformly aggressive, and are thought by some to have some sort of connection to the Splugorth. It has been suggested that their entire operation may be part of an interdimensional, Megaversal drug trade.

The Red Shoulders Horde, a large Simvan tribe, herd dinosaurs and other creatures throughout the Cascades region. Their herds are comprised primarily of grazing animals, such as small ornithopods, which are sold to various Cascades settlements for slaughter or as beasts of burden. The Red Shoulders are considered to be relatively peaceful (for Simvan), but they occasionally raid travelers when they come across them, making sure not to leave any survivors lest they inform potential customers.

Smithville. (Former population: 7,000.) Located in the far northern reaches of the Cascades, in what once was British Columbia, the reclusive settlement of Smithville magically contacted the NCC member state of Weirminster almost immediately after the Combine's formation, practically begging to be accepted into the organization. When King Oswald sent his envoys to Smithville via TW biplane, they found it obliterated -- every single structure completely reduced to ash, with no survivors anywhere in sight. Smithville had a reputation as an out-of-the-way but politically stable and well-protected town. Its ruling Smith family were viewed as somewhat backward and xenophobic, but fair to their citizens. What happened to Smithville is a mystery, and the town's destruction has been kept a secret from most of the NCC's general populace thus far.

Triune Junction. (Population: 1,000.) A rough-and-tumble place located in what was once southeastern Idaho. Triune Junction serves as a crossroads between the Pacific Northwest proper and neighboring territories, including the Pecos Empire and tribal lands of the Rockies, and is generally regarded as more of a checkpoint or trading post than a full-blown settlement. Under the watchful eye of Boss Hewitt Greene, Triune Junction caters to the tastes of its often rambunctious clientele, with a surprising array of services readily available despite the town's small size. Notable among its businesses (in addition to the expected saloon and gambling house) are a fully operational Body Fixer/Cyber-Doc medical clinic and Operator workshop. Triune Junction is reputed to be the only place for miles around that is capable of Crazy and Juicer conversions.

Ulterior City. Recently, wild stories of "living robots" that have claimed a ruined city somewhere in the Canadian Cascades have begun to circulate. The story says that a group of adventuring mercenaries stumbled across this so-called "Ulterior City" while exploring some ruins, when they were accosted by machines that "talked and acted like people". The mercs' leader, a Glitter Boy pilot, was supposedly challenged to a duel by a robot "General", who told the pilot that he and his "army" would pledge their service to the young human if bested. The story goes on to say that this mechanical General was impervious to harm, and destroyed the pilot and his mecha in seconds, but let the rest of the mercenaries go in peace. Whether there is a nugget of truth to this tall tale, which grows wilder with each retelling, is unknown, but the Mount Hood Banate seems interested in finding out.

Jellyhead by Kurunya

I mentioned in the last recap that we were considering switching to a newer system with which to run our Rifts campaign. Having realized that the Palladium system was perhaps a bit too time-consuming for the style of play we tend towards these days, we decided to give running Rifts with Fate a spin last session. We're still getting used to the system and probably made many mistakes, but it was good fun regardless. Take a look at the recap of last session if you wish.

The Roster (with Fate "high concept" aspects, followed by traditional Rifts O.C.C.s)

Arisis Solstice, Radiant Daughter of Atlas (female titan Cyber-Knight), played by Felix

Max Parkinson, Runaway Teenage Mystic (male human Mystic), played by me

Valerie Cain, Amazon Cyborg Wildchild (female Praxian Headhunter), played by Kent

Session Recap

Not long after the helicopter that stole the cargo our heroes were hired to help transport escapes into the night sky, Havanan police arrive on the scene and demand that Arisis, Max, and Valerie come with them. They are told that the governor wishes to speak with them. The three acquiesce to la policía's orders, and pile into a police truck in which Captains Ramos and Dixon (of La Fantasma and Big Rusty) are already waiting. Despite an understanding that the mercenaries had been dismissed and told to take shore leave, there is some tension between our heroes and their employer, Captain Ramos.

Max begins to explain to Ramos that he regrets their failure to stop the theft, but Arisis voices her opinion that their time would be better spent putting out the fire that is now spreading across the city. Ramos seems nonplussed, saying that they need to speak with the governor first and leave it to Havana's Techno-Wizard firefighter brigades. Valerie apparently disagrees, as she abruptly blurts out "fuck this" and jumps off the back of the truck (playing to the Wildchild portion of her high concept aspect). Max, who has an aspect called Always There For Val, follows without hesitation. Arisis considers grabbing Ramos and running after her friends, but Ramos' look of exasperation makes her rethink that plan. She leaps after her compatriots regardless, heading towards the center of the conflagration firebomb-hurling raiders started earlier.

Max casts a spell (inspired by two incantations he had in the original Rifts system, Orb of Cold and Wind Rush) that creates a great magical sphere of ice that blasts the burning buildings with freezing winds, transmuting the crackling flames they touch to rapid-forming crystals of ice. His spell works beyond even his own hopes, completely dousing the fires throughout the city and barely straining his own reserves of energy. Cries of confusion and panic turn to cheers of gratitude as the icy orb dissipates and snow falls on the streets of Havana.

Arisis, Valerie and Max don't stop to bask in the appreciation of the Havanan populace. They head for the Governor's palace in haste. Arisis encounters considerable difficulty in squeezing her giant frame into the human-sized palace, which does not endear her to the Governor's personnel. Nevertheless, the trio are led directly to the executive office, where a heated exchange is already underway between Governor Eugenio Milan, his nephew (the city's Fire Chief), Captains Ramos and Dixon, the Chief of Police (a severe-looking woman named Luska), and various other parties. It quickly becomes apparent that a game of "pass the buck" is in progress, where each party blames another for the failure to stop the raid. Max speaks up (in fluent Spanish) and makes a passionate appeal for calm and cooperation, which is largely usurped by a smooth-talking local shaman, presumably an advisor to Governor Milan. The shaman takes the floor and explains that even though Max is very young, there is wisdom in his words -- a backhanded compliment that plays on Max's insecurities. Max retreats, contributing little other than translating for Arisis for the next several minutes. Valerie and the titan Cyber-Knight are able to pick up the slack, however, as they make their case with judiciously applied flirtation and righteousness, respectively.

When a man (somewhat dismissively) introduced as Borega, Prince of Red Moon Water Village, makes his entrance, Max recovers. The Prince claims that the bandits that stole Governor Milan's shipment of power armor were in the employ of a neuron beast. The young mystic realizes that Borega is referring to the creature he saw in his clairvoyant vision aboard La Fantasma -- the demon that carried off Nysa's sisters, Annejah and Asha, in its thrashing tendrils. Max insists that Borega must lead him and his friends to the beast, but Captain Ramos suggests that their responsibility is to recover the lost cargo. Governor Milan, asserting his authority, echoes Ramos' claim, and essentially bullies Ramos into promising that Valerie, Max, and Arisis will return his stolen property intact. Regardless of the Governor's arrogance, the group agree to work to reclaim the lost Samson suits as they track down their quarry.

Borega agrees to lead the trio to his village the following morning, guided by a canny Wilderness Scout named Calvo. Even with the titan Arisis blazing the trail, the journey into Cuba's jungle interior is treacherous, and the group has to navigate numerous threats, including a burial ground haunted by restless ghosts (whom Max convinces to depart for the world beyond). Arisis, for her part, rescues one of Borega's retinue from a mudslide and manages to avoid offending the powerful spirit of an ancient banana tree (!) as she chops her way through the underbrush with her Psi-Sword. Arisis also proves instrumental to the group's success in an attempted ambush: as they prepare to cross a river, Max's Sixth Sense is triggered, and he alerts his friends to impending danger. A band of neo-Taíno painted warriors and lizard men, led by a shaman with a birdlike familiar that appears to be blend of quetzal and phoenix, soon emerge and threaten the party, but Arisis, as the Radiant Daughter of Atlas himself, cows them all with her innate, near-mythical glory, warning them that she has no desire to take their lives, but will if they force the issue. The strange bird-creature takes to the skies, and the tribesmen lay down their weapons and are taken prisoner by Prince Borega and his men.

Late in the night, party arrives at Red Moon Water Village, which has been built around a derelict, inoperable armored personnel carrier. Atop the hulk is a formidable-looking machine gun turret, which Borega explains has been restored to working order and is used to defend against the neuron beast's minions. As the neo-Taínos are detained under guard, Borega ascends to a stilted hut, saying that he must speak with his father, the King. Arisis realizes that the wrecked APC's turret is aimed at the center of the village, and that Borega's men are moving into an attack position: another ambush. As the titan shouts a warning, the three suits of Samson power armor that had been stolen from La Fantasma the evening prior clumsily emerge from their hiding places. Borega reappears and mentally seizes control of the scout, Calvo, commanding him to attack our heroes. To make matters worse, the gargoyle mage that had overseen the raid on Havana bursts forth from a pit in the earth, scorching Valerie with its fiery breath.

As Borega's men open fire on the group with energy weapons, Arisis notices that the inexpertly piloted Samsons have been activated without their sound-dampening equipment being engaged. Taking advantage, she claps her titanic hands directly next to the helmet of one of the power armors, rupturing its pilot's eardrums. In a panic, the pilot ejects from the suit and flees into the night. Max takes Arisis' lead and hexes the audio sensors of a second Samson, filling its pilot's ears with the sound of a demon breathing down his neck (a riff on a fear-causing spell from Rifts called Heavy Breathing). The terrified pilot follows his deafened compatriot, running from the battle. Valerie viciously slashes the gargoyle mage's wings with her mecha's CADS-1 sabers, crippling the demon, as Max dodges laser fire from another of Borega's henchmen.

Suddenly, the bird-creature that the trio had earlier encountered returns, accompanied by a number of neo-Taíno tribesmen, who immediately set about freeing their captured brethren. In the confusion, Max turns his attention to his betrayer, Prince Borega, telepathically penetrating his mental defenses and convincing the Prince that "I am you... you are me."His perception mystically twisted, and now convinced that he is standing in Max's position and vice versa, Borega mentally commands Calvo to fire his crossbow at the young mystic. Calvo, still entranced, has no choice but to obey, and buries a bolt in Borega's neck, killing him. Yet Max does not realize that the attack he dodged earlier was merely a feint to set him up for a clear shot, which Borega's henchman now takes, blasting Max with such force that his TW Mystic Power Armor malfunctions, sending him careening into the dense jungle surrounding the village and knocking him unconscious. Valerie cries out after Max, blocking a bolt of lightning called down from the sky by the gargoyle mage with the energized blades of her Saber Cyclone mecha, then brutally dispatching the demon. The third and final Samson, now having powered on its dampening gear, attempts to grapple Arisis, a course of action which proves ill-advised: the titan breaks the power armor's hold, grasps it by the legs, and "whiplashes" its pilot into unconsciousness. With the neo-Taínos making short work of the remaining resistance, Valerie and Arisis rush to check on Max.

Mercenary Team Black Fortress, more often simply called "Black Fortress", is a travelling company of soldiers of fortune that have recently made Serendipity their base of operations. Unlike some of the city's other mercenary militias, the group is large -- over 100 members strong -- and well-equipped. Black Fortress is widely assumed to have the unofficial backing of important individuals in the Coalition States, or possibly even the CS government itself.

Black Fortress does little to dissuage this perception. Much of their arsenal consists of decommissioned and repainted Coalition weapons, mecha, and vehicles, equipment to which no other mercenary company seems to have as much access. Many Black Fortress troops wear the infamous old-style "Dead Boy" armor of the Coalition States, but even those that opt for the (nominally standard issue) modified Urban Warrior body armor typically personalize it with CS-esque skulls and similar insignia. Though these motifs are never identical to the standards used by the Coalition, they are close enough to make a connection clear, at least in the eyes of Black Fortress' critics.

These critics say that the "Mercenary Team" is little more than a clandestine wing of the CS military, a deniable private army used to carry out black ops missions in which the Coalition cannot be openly involved or implicated. In truth, the situation is slightly more complex: Black Fortress is sponsored by a single powerful Chi-Town family, the Espinozas, who can boast of more than a few Coalition war heroes in their family tree. While not a household name to their nation's general populace, the Espinoza family is well-regarded by the Coalition's upper echelons, who tolerate (and in some cases, even tacitly support) the existence of Black Fortress. This tolerance is dependent on their ignorance of the lengths to which the Espinoza family are willing to go in order to secure what they see as the greater goals of the Coalition, however. Unlike most of the CS elite, Meyer Espinoza, the family's patriarch, is an idealist who believes that the Coalition has lost its way. In his eyes, the Imperial family's drive to take control of a horrendously chaotic situation has slowly ossified into a zeal for totalitarianism. Meyer believes that Emperor Prosek is more concerned with consolidating power for himself and his family than with helping humanity recover from the apocalypse.

Black Fortress never accepts a contract that would work directly against the interests of the Coalition. However, they regularly bend or break rules that would restrict their operations. For example, while they are much more tolerant of psychics and mutoids than any official Coalition organization would ever allow, the company of Black Fortress does not accept non-humans or practitioners of magic into their ranks. However, they have much more nuanced, inclusive policies than the Coalition when it comes to interacting with these groups. In other words, they are willing to work with them when it would advance their objectives (and generally not a second longer). Perhaps most intriguingly -- and dangerously, since the Espinoza family courts treason by condoning it -- among Black Fortress' various subdivisions is a clandestine paranormal research unit dubbed Grey Gate, which works to scientifically study magic and extradimensional phenomena, a practice which was banned by Imperial proclamation decades ago.

Black Fortress' recent relocation to Serendipity has been a cause for unease in the community, and was vociferously opposed by more than one organization (the Quang family among them). Serendipity's D-Bee and mutant animal populations, in particular, are fearful of the company. Thus far, however, Black Fortress' mercs have caused minimal disruptions -- in fact, with a few exceptions, they have behaved with a level of professionalism and restraint that puts the bulk of the city's other militias to shame.

Notable members of Mercenary Team Black Fortress include:

Brigadier Omar Espinoza is the leader of the Black Fortress mercenary company and a former Coalition special forces operative. Once a gifted soldier, Omar was badly injured in an encounter with a Thornhead demon in the ruins of old Chicago, and although ostensibly restored to combat readiness thanks to a full bionic conversion, he seems to have yet to become accustomed to his new body (possibly because of the trauma he experienced). He nevertheless expects the best from those in his command and drives them to excel, tolerating nothing less than excellence and upstanding behavior from those in his employ. Never a strategic genius, Omar takes his marching orders from his his father, Meyer Espinoza, and his trusted advisors in Ivory Tower, Black Fortress' strategic unit. He is curt, guarded and reserved. Omar lacks much of the fiery idealism that drives his father and sister, and while he believes in their objectives, he is secretly uneasy with his role, and increasingly disturbed when asked to order his men to violate the code by which he lived during his military service. He is also displeased that his sister, Quinn, has joined Black Fortress, and firmly believes she does not belong there.

Omar is a heavily modified and customized cyborg whose design is patterned after that of Free Quebec's FX-320C Dervish; a towering, four-armed combat unit. Though he was once regarded as a handsome man, is said that the Brigadier's face is now horribly scarred, and he is never seen in public without his olive drab exterior armor (including a faceplate) in place. He wears oversized military-style formal uniforms or fatigues that fit his cyborg frame.

Specialist Noa Quintanilla Espinoza is a young Rogue Scientist, highly driven but brusque; a transwoman and sister to Omar. Technically the second-in-command of the Grey Gate paranormal research unit, "Quinn", as she prefers to be called, is for all intents and purposes in charge of Grey Gate's research efforts (by dint of her enthusiasm if nothing else). Both fascinated and frightened by the supernatural, Quinn is a major psionic, and possesses the power to sense magic and dimensional disturbances as well as an ability to cloak her own psychic nature from detection -- abilities which she uses to aid her research. Like her father, Meyer, she believes strongly in humanity as the rightful inhabitants of Rifts Earth, and in the core ideals of the Coalition. She is deeply disturbed by the atmosphere of enforced ignorance in which her countrymen live, however, and enamored of the freedom that being away from Chi-Town affords her in her studies. At this point, Quinn would likely be unwilling to return to the CS.

Quinn is tall and thin, a striking young woman with dark skin and hair. She is a child of privilege, with an expensive, if unorthodox, sense of style. Her appearance does not conform to the stereotypical image of the bookish scientist: she has numerous tattoos and is fond of gold jewelry and piercings (even her universal headjack ports are gold). Quinn has a cutting sense of humor many find insulting, and her professional obsession with accuracy carries over into her social interactions. She often comes across as confrontational or overly critical as a result. Despite her annoyance with being assigned a subordinate position in Grey Gate by Omar, she is devoted to her brother, and is concerned that he is not adjusting to his new form.

Master Sergeant Jesse John Ross heads Red Rampart, the military operations wing of Black Fortress, and personally manages the company's battlefield actions as well as training and screening new recruits. An ex-Coalition Psi-Stalker from Lone Star with the Stetson and the drawl to prove it, Ross is rarely seen without the company of his two loyal Dog Boys, Barb (a female Labrador Retriever) and Bree (a female Boston Terrier). Though neither are legally Ross' property in Serendipity, both are extremely subservient to him, and always refer to him as "Master" -- a fact which disturbs many (particularly Serendipity's free mutant animal population), and which Ross relishes.

Ross is perhaps overly fond of food and drink -- things which he barely requires to survive, yet indulges in regularly. He is a paunchy, heavy-set man, something that is highly out of the ordinary for a Psi-Stalker, but has the lightning reflexes, chalk-white skin and pointed ears common to all his kind. A deeply unpleasant individual who finds fulfillment only in violence and excess, and disdains those he perceives as weak, Ross somehow manages to keep his brutal drives and vices in check when in Omar's presence, maintaining a disciplined veneer around him.

Technical Sergeant Kanuka Kladivo is the Operator in charge of The Keep, as Black Fortress' garage and supply division is known. A native of Ishpeming who relocated to Serendipity several years ago and was only recently hired by Black Fortress, Kladivo prefers Northern Gun technology, regularly (and loudly) reminding her superiors that the Coalition surplus that comprises over half of their armaments is "shabby Chi-Town shit". She does her best to keep everything in working order, but isn't above declaring something "unfixable" and procuring a non-CS-manufactured substitute. Kladivo is uncomfortable with Quinn -- especially her research into the supernatural -- but for once hasn't openly voiced her opinion thus far.

Boisterous and brash, the Technical Sergeant of Black Fortress is not an unattractive woman, but seems built for power rather than grace. She has shoulder-length, reddish-brown hair which is generally kept pulled back under a baseball cap, and stunning, piercing blue eyes (not natural, but bionic implants). Kladivo is a mutoid with several redundant internal organs and an anomalous brain structure, but is unaware of this fact. She is also an alcoholic, but insists that she "can control it".

Max (Commission) by Precia-T

I am a fairly obsessive player when I'm engaged, and I'm fully engaged in our current Rifts campaign. As evidence of this, have a look at something I wrote up a few weeks ago: background for my player character, Max (and his family, and the North Cascades Combine a little), written as a timeline.

Do you care? I dunno... maybe?

A lot of things that happened in the original high school campaign have been forgotten (or, more often, thrown out for being dumb). But we've definitely established that our characters were recently part of the so-called Gathering of Heroes against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, so I've assumed that the current year in-game is around 103 PA. I'm getting that date from this site.

In the original campaign, each of us ran many more characters than the "core" ones we've chosen to use in the current one. Some secondary characters have made brief cameo appearances in play, and some others are assumed to have worked with the core ones at some point in the past (possibly during the aforementioned Gathering of Heroes). I'm not mentioning any of these characters in this timeline unless we've explicitly established where and when we met up with them.

(Oh, this makes more sense if you read about Max's hometown, the Barony of New Bizantium, first. But probably only a little.)

41
David Feng Parkinson is born in Iron Heart.

59
David joins the recently organized Coalition States military and shows great promise.

62
David begins a secret relationship with one of his superior officers, a Psi-Stalker woman named Millicent Reece.

David begins to experience terrible headaches after coming under psionic attack from a Mystic. He soon manifests powerful surges of psychic abilities. Millicent agrees not to reveal his developing Mind Melter powers to their Coalition superiors.

64
When Millicent becomes pregnant, she and David are forced to go AWOL and into hiding. Shortly thereafter, Millicent gives birth to a daughter, also a Psi-Stalker, but dies during childbirth. David names his daughter Alison Sarah Parkinson and flees Iron Heart with the infant, killing several Coalition soldiers in a botched attempt to sneak over the border.

Artha Kesmai Serris is born in the Barony of New Bizantium.

76
David and Alison arrive in the Barony of New Bizantium after living a bandit’s existence for over a decade. David quickly finds favor as a hired assassin for the Baron, the kobold Chulgrem Shran.

79
David Parkinson is now the Baron’s right-hand man, officially in his employ as his top enforcer. He is given a luxurious home in Hightown.

81
David, now 40, marries Artha Serris, a psionic teenage girl, at the urging of his employer, the Baron, and with the approval of the Serris clan.

Marcus Itomas Parkinson (nicknamed Rex), the first of David and Artha’s children, is born in the Barony of New Bizantium. The spitting image of his father, Rex is a master psionic. He can do no wrong in his father’s eyes.

83
Scott Rowmock Parkinson, the second of David and Artha’s children, is born in the Barony of New Bizantium. Scott possesses minor psionic abilities, but is intellectually disabled and requires constant attention. David begins to physically and mentally abuse Artha, who offers only token resistance despite her powers.

87
Maximillian Arksam Parkinson is born prematurely in the Barony of New Bizantium. He struggles with poor health for most of his childhood and shows no evidence of having inherited his parents’ psychic abilities. David's behavior grows increasingly erratic and violent.

90
David breaks Artha’s leg in a physical altercation. After being threatened by the Serris clan and reprimanded by the Baron, David’s emotional outbursts and physical abuse of Artha largely cease. Artha walks with a cane from this point on.

The Barony of New Bizantium is attacked by mecha from Mount Hood for the first time.

97
With the support of the Serris clan, Artha becomes a Congregat in the Church Tolmeti and is seemingly being primed for the priesthood. The Church reveals to Artha that it engages in the sacrifice of the old and infirm; a fact that disturbs her. Frightened of what the Serris clan will do if she leaves the Church, Artha feels she has little choice but to participate in these rituals.

The Kingdom of Weirminster and the Barony of New Bizantium make a pact of mutual defense against the Pilots of Mount Hood.

98
David Parkinson discovers that the Church Tolmeti is engaged in human sacrifice. He accuses his wife of planning to hand Max over to the Church's clutches and soon resumes his old pattern of abuse.

Artha reads her husband's mind and learns he is plotting against the Baron and the Church.

99
Torn between her loyalties to her family, her clan, and her religion, Artha Serris-Parkinson flees the Barony of New Bizantium for parts unknown. She attempts (but is unable) to bring Max with her. David is enraged.

Realizing that their family home is now completely unstable, Alison escapes into the Barony's Undercity with Max in tow.

100
Chulgrem Shran, the Baron of New Bizantium, dies. David Feng Parkinson, secretly his assassin, becomes the new Baron and immediately enacts a bloody campaign against the Church Tolmeti.

Max and Alison go into hiding in the Undercity, avoiding their father's operatives, who are hunting down Tolmetians and practitioners of magic (and also searching for Max).

Max and Alison are assaulted by Undercity thugs they had believed to be friends. Max is left for dead, but is taken in by Chenoxl, a D-Bee Mystic. Max quickly displays considerable psionic and magic potential. Alison disappears.

101
Max continues to train under Chenoxl's instruction, shielded from his father by his master's magic.

The Kingdom of Weirminster shoots down a Coalition reconnaissance plane.

102
Chenoxl releases Max from his tutelage. Max rides south through the Pecos Empire with an assortment of mercenaries and petty warlords, hoping to find one that will make good use of his powers. (This does not work out well for Max.)

Hathli seizes power on Mount Hood and reaches out to Weirminster and the Barony.

A disillusioned and dejected Max meets Valerie Cain in El Paso. Privately vowing to serve as her advisor, he agrees to travel to Ciudad Juarez (and then further into Mexico) to hunt vampires alongside her.

[Other Max & Val adventures happen]

103
The North Cascades Combine alliance is formally declared.

Smithville requests membership in the NCC, but emissaries from Weirminster find the town obliterated.

Max and Val travel to Atlantis to save a True Atlantean mage's daughter from slavery in Splynn. They join up with Katrina Mansfield and Arisis Solstice in the process. Max receives a magical tattoo (Phoenix Rising From the Flames) as a reward for the successful rescue.

Max, Val, Kat, and Arisis travel to Africa and participate in the Gathering of Heroes, joining other warriors (including Reez and Mian Feng) and destroying the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The Sealth Chieftaincy is accepted into the NCC. Shortly thereafter, the Cougar Mountain Holdfast requests membership.

[More adventures with Max, Val, Kat, and Arisis]

As the new Baron's purge continues, Rex Parkinson is killed in action against followers of the Church Tolmeti. His body is never recovered.

["Rifts Misadventures" begin]

Max, Val, Kat, and Arisis arrive in Serendipity. Kat leaves to meet with wild Psi-Stalker tribes. The other three meet Nysa and agree to head to the Caribbean to find her sisters.

Max, Val, and Arisis meet Gia and Arim in Havana.

["Rifts Misadventures" continue...]

Blurry action shot hastily taken while fleeing the store

During my blogging hiatus a couple of months ago, I was traveling in Asia, including Japan. I didn't get a chance to do any gaming while I was there, but I did manage to visit Tokyo's famous Akihabara district. So, here are some brief thoughts on Roll & Role Station, probably one of the best game shops in Tokyo:

There were tons of "replays". These look like manga tankobon (collections or trade paperbacks), complete with glossy covers of cool-looking characters. The interiors are just text recaps of game sessions, more or less similar to the "actual play" session reports I and many others post online. I knew that these replays existed, but had no idea how many were being published. There were dozens and dozens of the things, so obviously somebody is buying them. I found this oddly depressing, in that I wish there was something like these replays available here in the US.

There were D&D Encounters posters (which looked exactly like the US versions, but in Japanese) everywhere, but the most popular games appeared to be Call of Cthulhu, Sword World (an indigenous fantasy RPG) and GURPS. All of the CoC and GURPS stuff seemed to have no stateside equivalent. Most of it looked very impressive.

I didn't notice any Western RPGs for sale other than the ones I just mentioned.

There were many, many Euro boardgames translated into Japanese. Boardgames are not really my thing, but I found it interesting anyway.

There were several tables of people excitedly playing CCGs, boardgames, and RPGs, D&D among them.

About a third (!!) of the customers in the store were female. That's... not how it is here, which I think is a shame.

There were homemade D&D t-shirts that looked really cool and (from what I could understand) seemed to have been made by store regulars. They were monochromatic prints (like white on a blue shirt, etc.) and had anime-style illustrations of each of the four basic classes as well as English explanations of what they were about. I would have loved to have been able to buy them all. They were out of my price range, sadly.

It looks like I will probably visit Japan again in the not-so-distant future. Next time I will do my best to fight off the sensory overload that is Akihabara and get a clearer picture of what was going on there.

Flea by distritopapillon

Last week's session was our first using Fate to run the Rifts setting, which was a lot of fun. (Refresh your memory of the previous session here.) This week, we spent at least half of the session tweaking our characters and fleshing out their "extras" (Fate Core's term for special powers), so we weren't able to get in as much actual play as usual. Much of this session's play was taken up with a big "set piece" battle, which we tried very hard to run 100% by the rules. This meant that we ended up looking at the rulebook much more often than we normally would, and so the fight took us a while to resolve. We still had a great time and learned a lot about how Fate works, and I expect that future sessions will go much more smoothly now.

The Roster (with Fate "high concept" aspects, followed by traditional Rifts O.C.C.s)

Arisis Solstice, Radiant Daughter of Atlas (female titan Cyber-Knight), played by Felix
Max Parkinson, Runaway Teenage Mystic (male human Mystic), played by me
Valerie Cain, Amazon Cyborg Wildchild (female Praxian Headhunter), played by Kent

Session Recap

Having overcome an ambush at the hands of the duplicitous Prince of Red Moon Water Village, Borega, Arisis and Valerie get to work cleaning up: Arisis drags the now unmanned Samson power armors into a heap and guards them, and Val recovers a dazed and apologetic Max from the trees he crashed into. Max and Val return to find the neo-Taíno tribesmen conferring with their shaman, who they recognize as the one that attempted to attack them in the jungle earlier.

The shaman introduces himself as Osorio, and there is a brief moment of tension as the young man insinuates that our heroes were in league with Prince Borega, a man who Osorio says killed their rightful king and seized control of the village. Max points out that Borega attempted to murder him and his comrades, and that Max turned Borega's magic against him. "Your prince told us where we could find some property that was stolen from our employer," Max explains, gesturing to the power armors. "We were tricked by Borega, and when he showed his true intentions and tried to ambush us, I killed him," he says, with apologies to Calvo, the Wilderness Scout that Borega had entranced during the fight. This explanation satisfies Osorio, who agrees to Max's request that he and his friends be allowed to reclaim the Samsons. "They are not our property," the shaman says simply. Valerie suggests contacting the authorities in Havana by radio to come and recover the mecha, but Osorio explains that communication in the jungle is difficult, and that the only equipment that can reach Havana is located in a nearby cave.

Arisis and Max trade some professional quips about the cave ("Hmm, I wonder if there might be something in the cave. Something that doesn't like us.""Like a bear, maybe."). Before the group can set out for the cave, however, Max senses impending danger and immediately warns Calvo, telling him to get the villagers to safety. Before the Scout can react, however, an assault begins. Three heavily armed boats are roaring down the river that flows next to Red Moon Water Village, followed by a giant, four-legged walker mecha that appears to be homemade. As if that weren't enough, five bandits riding makeshift flying craft attack from above.

Max quickly casts a hex upon the riverbank. As a dozen armed humans and lizard men disembark from the gunboats, they find that the sand erupts into adhesive tendrils as soon as they set foot upon it, ensnaring them and preventing them from moving or attacking. Two individuals manage to avoid being trapped in the Carpet of Adhesion, however -- one, a man in dark, tight-fitting garb that Max immediately recognizes as a fellow practitioner of magic; the other, a human with ghastly neuron-like growths limned in electric fire erupting from his head and forearms.

Val springs into action. The chest-mounted mini-missile launchers of Valerie's Saber Cyclone mecha open and launch a Missile Circus of crisscrossing explosive death at the flying bandits, who are forced to take evasive action, firing at the missiles rather than their intended targets. The Praxian Headhunter then takes to the skies, her booster jets positioning her above and behind the bandits, whom she quickly dispatches.

Though the armed grunts are temporarily incapacitated, the dark-clad mage moves to threaten the fleeing villagers. Max moves to intercept him, but momentarily loses track of his foe in the tumult when a beautiful neo-Taíno woman stumbles to the ground in front of Max, begging for his help. The young Mystic's Raging Hormones get the better of him, and he stops to help the woman, who is suddenly revealed to be the dark mage himself, cloaked in a spell of deceit. Barbed tendrils of shadow lash out from the arcanist, and Max tries to absorb their blows, rather than avoid them and potentially endanger the escaping villagers. One of the black tentacles finds a crack in the plates of Max's crystal armor, however, and wounds the young man badly.

Max, angry both at the deception and his own susceptibility to it, taps into the sensation of pain he feels and transfers into a psionic assault on the shadow mage, relaying it to his opponent's nervous system and flooding it with pure agony. The mage howls and doubles over, but his shadowy attack continues. Max ducks out of the way, and still clutching at the deep cut in his side, he blasts the dark magician with a blazing Fire Bolt generated by the twisting, glowing crystals of his armor. The mage, immolated, screams and dives into the river, carried away by its current.

Meanwhile, Arisis has found herself the target of grenade launcher, plasma ejector, and high-powered "scribble" laser attacks from the gunboats and the walker mecha they escorted to the village. The mythic resilience of her race has proven too much for their weaponry, however. Despite being knocked into the water and swamped in the muddy riverbed, the Cyber-Knight giantess has methodically been breaking the boats' arsenal to pieces with the Sword of Baragor, her Psi-Sword, and even her bare hands. The bizarre, neuron-augmented humanoid attempts to halt her determined assault, but while he is able to harm Arisis to some extent with the unearthly, flaming electricity that engulfs his grafts, in the end the titan is victorious, handily defeating the neuron-thing.

The group now turns its attention as one to the jury-rigged walker vehicle. As the human and lizard man bandits retreat to the gunboats, their weapons still mired in the tarry riverbank, Max uses his armor's ability to Call Lightning and strikes the walker. Arisis damages one of its legs badly (spraying herself with coolant in the process), and Valerie leaps atop it, slashing at its hatch with the forearm blades of her Cyclone. When she manages to pry it open, Max sends another lightning bolt crashing down on the mecha. While the team hammers on the walker, the gunboats power up their engines and beat a hasty retreat upriver. Realizing that the tide has now turned completely against them, the pilots of the walker surrender. The triumphant but exhausted trio barely have time to catch their breath before they spy another squadron of flying enemies -- helicopters, bandits, and winged monsters -- on their way to intercept the retreating tribesmen, and realize they must make haste to the cave.

Perhaps you're wondering what the characters featured in the "Rifts Misadventures" session recaps look like. Well, wonder no more:

Rifts by EUDETENIS

Front left: Max Parkinson, runaway teenager, Human Mystic
Center right: Valerie Cain, Amazon cyborg wildchild, Praxian Headhunter
Center: Katrina Mansfield, Psi-Stalker (who I've mentioned but hasn't shown up yet, in-game)
Top: Arisis Solstice, radiant daughter of Atlas, Titan Cyber-Knight

The artwork of our GM, Kent Bonifield, will always be the definitive take on our Rifts characters, but I still get a kick out of seeing other artists' interpretations of them. This particular version is a piece I commissioned from the Brazil-based manga-kaEUDETENIS that I'm very happy with. I love the "big happy family" vibe emanating from her artwork.

I've commissioned one other Rifts piece -- a character design sheet by the Polish animation artist Precia-T -- which depicts Max in the olden days, shortly after leaving his hometown (i.e. in the original, pre-reboot campaign). It's a lot of fun for me to see our characters interpreted in a style that is so heavily influenced by manga and anime, since I was myself very heavily influenced by those media when I started playing Rifts.

Anyway, sorry for the lack of content (besides eye candy) today. It looks like I will be serving a short stint in the DM chair to kick off a D&D 5E campaign soon, so if you're sick of Rifts posts and want me to get back to the dungeons already, you're in luck. Stay tuned.

Although my last attempt at running Dungeons & Dragons was ultimately unsatisfying, I can't stay away from D&D for long. I've picked up every official edition of the game since the arrival of AD&D 2nd Edition, and the latest iteration is no exception. One of the two local gaming groups I play with, being well-acquainted with my love-hate relationship with D&D, started to bug me about running it as soon as the 5E Starter Set was released, and I quickly caved to their demands. Although the angst of the defunct Demon Verge campaign that I ran via Google Hangouts still weighed heavily on me, I comforted myself knowing that I was only committed to running an introductory scenario, after which a rotating cast of friends would be occupying the Dungeon Master's chair, with the option for me to return if I wished.

I ended up purchasing the Starter Set because it was ridiculously cheap, despite being leery of running a published module. After all, the Demon Verge campaign had taught me that modules and I aren't always the best of friends. Besides, what I had heard about the introductory adventure, which bore the unpromising title of Lost Mine of Phandelver, didn't exactly set me on fire: it sounded like the standard "small town in trouble / goblins in the caves" setup. As much as I like D&D, I've been down, down to goblin town more times than I care to admit. As it turned out, that description does apply to Lost Mine in practically every meaningful way. It also turned out not to matter, because I and my players had a great deal of fun playing our first session of D&D 5E with it last weekend.

The Good:

Combat moves fairly quickly again. I found 3E combat very slow, and 4E combat murderously, unbearably slow, so this is a huge improvement.
I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanics, supposed mathematical problems be damned. Likewise the proficiency bonus stuff, which I think is really slick, elegant design.
I like traits, bonds, and flaws, and handing out inspiration for showing them off in play. My recent experience with games like Fate Core has given me an appreciation for touchy-feely mechanics that reward people for playing in character even when it's not tactically sound.
Backgrounds are fun, even when multiple players take the same one. (There are no less than three nobles in the PC party.)
Speaking of which, nearly all of the player characters seem to be at least a little shady, if not downright smarmy. This makes a boilerplate scenario like Lost Mine much more interesting. I'm usually very much in favor of shiny heroic characters in fantasy stuff, but I love that many of these heroes also happen to be jerks.

The Stuff I'm Not So Sure About:

Characters still felt fairly fragile despite their inflated HP totals, but I'm not sure if this version is lethal enough for me. It seems like it's relatively easy for characters to be knocked out of a fight, but unlikely that they will die. They're probably not as unkillable as 4E ones, in my experience, but I'm used to death coming a bit more easily in D&D.
In 5E, if you can cast spells, you've almost definitely got a magic zap attack power that never runs out. I didn't find these "zonks", as one friend called them, to be overly powerful, but the image of magicians tearing into enemies with at-will magic beam attacks all day, every day has never really sat well with me. It's purely a matter of personal taste; I'm well aware that being the zapper is what many people expect out of spellcasters. I'm probably just out of touch on this.

So, when you total it all up, I'm pretty happy with the way things are going with this game. Honestly, any session in which I get an opportunity to act out a speak with animals spell cast on a couple of hungry, semi-tamed wolves is going to be a good time for me. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had as much (or more) fun than the players did, and I am legitimately looking forward to running the next session.

That cape from the ending scene... by kawacy

Our third session using Fate to run Rifts was a relatively short one, though you might not be able to tell from reading this recap. Our GM hadn't had much time to prepare, and so we ended up spending a decent chunk of the session just catching up and shooting the breeze. Good times either way.

The Roster (with Fate "high concept" aspects, followed by traditional Rifts O.C.C.s)

Arisis Solstice, Radiant Daughter of Atlas (female titan Cyber-Knight), played by Felix
Max Parkinson, Runaway Teenage Mystic (male human Mystic), played by me
Valerie Cain, Amazon Cyborg Wildchild (female Praxian Headhunter), played by Kent

Session Recap
The inhabitants of Red Moon Water Village flee in the face of an aerial assault, with our heroes bravely bringing up the rear, protecting them from the neuron beast's minions. Several valiant (but hopelessly outgunned) warriors from the village attempt to engage the enemy, but Max and Arisis convince them that while their valor is admirable, their people would be better served if they ensured that they reached the cave alive. As they make a run for it, Valerie draws the fire of the flying bandits, nimbly dodging their attacks, but the group faces several challenges from the ground.

Max finds himself under mental assault from a slimy, serpentine psychic presence. He wards off the attack, but nearly stumbles and falls in the process. Arisis helps him to recover, but an elite squad of soldiers loyal to the neuron beast -- including an earth Warlock, a super-powered merc with gravity-manipulating abilities (presumably from the Heroes Unlimited reality), a supernaturally strong D-Bee, and a flower-sniffing bishounen samurai (!!) -- attempt to stop Arisis in her tracks. Briefly, it seems as though they will succeed, as the super-merc traps Arisis in a gravity well while his allies rush in to finish her off. But the titan knight draws on her memories of her father, the legendary Atlas (in Fate terms, invoking her Weight of the World aspect) and shrugs off the attack, knocking the boulder the Warlock magically hurls at her into the super-merc with an uprooted tree she wrests from the D-Bee's grasp. The samurai attempts to trip her up with his sword, but Arisis is unaffected, and soon sends the group scattering into the jungle.

As our heroes near the cave, Max notices that a hill they are passing is, in fact, alive -- a rocky, plant-covered beast that is preparing to pounce on the fleeing villagers. The young Mystic overpowers the creature's will before it can act, commanding it to sleep, and soon he, his friends, and the inhabitants of Red Moon Water Village are inside the cave tunnels, safe for the time being.

The village's shaman, Osorio, leads them to the communications array he had earlier spoken of -- in reality, little more than a ham radio set up in a grotto with a vertical "chimney" fissure that opens to the sky, with a tall, makeshift antenna reaching all the way to the surface opening. A neo-Taíno operator starts to activate the equipment. Valerie, mentally exhausted from the bandits' attack and frantic chase, seems to "check out" for a moment as she takes in the cool, lush splendor of the cavern. Max notices that she seems distracted and gently reminds her (in a Zen koan sort of way) to stay on her toes. He lets his own guard down in the process, though Arisis spots the shadow-caster Max faced back at Red Moon Water Village, partially cloaked by a Chameleon spell and calmly walking down the passage as if its surface were horizontal.

Arisis alerts her allies and leaps upward, delivering a glancing blow to the mage with the Sword of Baragor. Max, still in his techno-wizardry-powered armor, summons his Psi-Sword and soars up the shaft. As Max flies past his opponent, he lances him with his Psi-Sword, wounding the shadow mage, but not badly enough to stop him from slicing the radio antenna with his own dark energy blade. The radio operator cries out that he has lost power, but Max reassures the neo-Taínos, saying that he has other ways of contacting Havana. Arisis, who has been leap-climbing back up the tunnel, now tries to grapple the enemy spellcaster, but finds herself tackling a straw effigy instead. The mage has escaped, again.

Having discovered the opening, the neuron beast's air forces initiate another attack. Val tears out of the cavern on her Cyclone in motorcycle mode, zipping past the walkers and picking off the weaker, less heavily armored soldiers. Max finds a corner of the cavern and begins to enter a meditative trance, guarded by the vigilant Arisis. The young Mystic projects his consciousness into the astral plane, and Arisis uses her own psychic sensitivity to accompany him, as do the warrior villagers the pair had reassured earlier.

With the tribesmen and the titan piggybacking on his jaunt, Max's astral form swoops out of the cavern and high into the sky, a thin silver cord connecting him back to his unconscious body. As an artifact of techno-wizardry, Max's armor is still usable in the astral plane. From his vantage point, Max sees several of the jury-rigged walker mecha similar to the one he and his friends fought at the village, as well as the astral forms of the neuron thrall Arisis had bested earlier and the demon-serpent that had psychically assaulted Max on the way to the cave.

Max telepathically contacts Valerie, warning her of the incoming mecha. He also relays the locations of the neuron thrall and demon's physical forms, since they too are bound to their bodies by astral silver cords. Seeing that the serpent-thing is preparing to lunge at Max from below, Arisis slashes at its slithering tentacles with her Psi-Sword, but does not dissuade the demonic creature from attacking. Its tendrils lash out at Max, intent on violating his psyche, but they are blocked by Max's mental shielding. The neuron thrall moves to intercept the Mystic, but bolstered by the psychic presence of Arisis and the neo-Taíno warriors, Max blasts it with bolts of astral fire, destroying its silver cord and sending its consciousness hurtling into the sky, out of control.

Valerie reaches the slime-encased body of the serpent demon, but before she can slay it with the vibro-blades of her mecha, Max uses the psychic capabilities of his armor to encase the demon's astral self in a crystalline shell, which he then shatters with the force of his will. The demon's soul, or whatever black thing serves as one in its place, is obliterated, and the foul being is slain.

Arisis' mind returns to the physical world as Max's astral form speeds toward Havana at the speed of sound. She and Valerie defend the cavern while Max contacts Governor Milan's shaman, informing him of the attack on the village and requesting Havanan aid. The young mystic's consciousness returns to his body, and along with the scout Calvo and a ghostly cadre of fallen Cubano warriors from throughout history (summoned by the shaman Osorio), the group manages to hold off the neuron beast's forces until Milan's reinforcements arrive two hours later. Eventually, the attackers are defeated when Havanan forces -- a mix of conventional troops and techno-wizards in flying machines -- join our heroes and drive off the enemy.

The Havanan troops escort the neo-Taínos back to Red Moon Water Village, set up camp, and recover the power armor that had been stolen from La Fantasma. Though Osorio offers his sincere thanks to the team for rescuing his people, our battle-worn heroes realize that his village is now effectively under the control of Governor Milan, and Max silently wonders if he and his friends have been manipulated.

We Are Mercenary by madspartan013

Here, have some more (mostly antagonistic) mercenary teams for Rifts. Many of these are a bit tongue-in-cheek, which I suppose might not work for some people. I had a little help from people in my Google+ circles in coming up with several of these. Some were heavily reworked by me, but I've given credit where it's due, regardless.

Wild Hurricane. In many ways a typical Juicer mercenary company, Wild Hurricane are worthy of mention due to their membership (over 130 members at last count) as well as their reputation as completely amoral adrenaline junkies. Wild Hurricane have no qualms about accepting virtually any job from any employer, as long as they are allowed to execute it in their trademarked fashion (which typically involves flying in on jetbikes equipped with colored smoke exhaust, blasting pre-Rifts stadium rock and jock jams at maximum volume). All members use outlandish monikers like "Duke Raiden", "Blacules", "Velocity Maxx", "Slam Atoms", etcetera (exemplified by the current leader of the organization, "Chief Administrator Golgo Superior") and tend to wear brightly patterned workout clothing. Now based in Puerto Rico, the Wild Hurricane organization's membership is constantly shifting, thanks to combat casualties and Last Call, but they have surprisingly consistent success in attracting new recruits. Company legends say that Wild Hurricane's founder was once a member of a rival Juicer outfit called Happy Jo's Funtime Adventure Club, who supposedly "doctored their prescription" to create a more relaxed, "blissed-out" state of awareness -- something that is seen as an abomination by Wild Hurricane. (It has been speculated that Wild Hurricane uses a similarly variant combat drug cocktail or injection rig that produces tenser, more violent Juicers.) It is unclear whether the Funtime Adventure Club ever actually existed, but mercenaries in southern North America sometimes speak of a strange group of Juicers that traveled in a rainbow-colored APC called "the Bus". Wild Hurricane members are known to deride those deemed "not extreme enough", including more well-adjusted Juicers or those that detox before Last Call, as "Happy Jos" or "Funtimers". (Some example Wild Hurricane member names by Cole Long and John Carr. Happy Jo's Funtime Adventure Club concept by Benjamin Baugh.)

The Great Volunteers are a highly professional and competent group of soldiers of fortune that operates primarily in the Magic Zone and its surrounding regions. They were so named by their benefactors because they arrive unexpectedly and volunteer their services to anyone who requires them, particularly if they are having some form of conflict or disagreement with the expansive forces of the Coalition States. The Great Volunteers' commander, Dana Roskos, assures the prospective client that a long-term payment plan can be arranged afterwards. If the clients decline -- which they often will, if they are familiar with the company's reputation -- the mercenaries simply leave. If they accept, the Volunteers engage (and drive off) the enemy, then exact their payment under threat of force. The Great Volunteers are backed by the sorcerers of the Federation of Magic, and their masters expect to paid in human slaves (who are usually later sacrificed in their black rites). The mercenaries return repeatedly, over a period of many years, to collect their dues. The majority of the rank and file of the Great Volunteers do not necessarily relish this duty, but much like their sworn Coalition enemies, they are hardened soldiers who regard their activities as a necessary evil. (Concept by me.)

Providence Express Protection is a mercenary company led by a clairvoyant psychic known only as "Melgren", who directs his compatriots to pre-emptively eliminate major threats he detects with his precognitive abilities. His predictions are almost never incorrect, but the issue of securing payment for PEP's services is often a sticky one. Fortunately, none of them are above extorting their fee from those they insist that they saved from a terrible fate. (Concept by Cole Long.)

Pascal's Rascals. A wildly unpredictable, but mostly heroic mercenary team that debuted recently, Pascal's Rascals have met with a rate of success disproportionate to their small size (five members), poor equipment and unorthodox fees. Many of their clients suspect that something strange is going on with Pascal and his compatriots, though none have yet realized that they are, in fact, a clutch of hatchling Thunder Lizard dragons that have taken up the mercenary life (and human form) as a lark. (Concept by me.)

The Scabs are a fairly large and well-equipped mercenary team that has a wide operating range covering much of North America. "The Scabs" is, obviously, not the official name of the company -- they have been known to operate under many names, including Axon Syndicated, Elegant Assistance LLC, Kotter's Marauders, and Falcon Standard -- but they are known as such by their peers in the mercenary business. Scab troops move into a known conflict hotspot, find the most vulnerable settlements, and then undercut the prices of whatever companies are currently in operation there, driving them out forcibly if necessary. The Scabs then gradually raise prices to exorbitant rates. When the communities that employ them are unable to afford the Scabs' services any longer, the mercenaries typically ransack them, usually leaving them to the mercy of whatever it was that threatened them in the first place. The natures of the Scabs' operations prevent the formation of a strict chain of command, but a Manistique woman named Camilla Gold is believed to ultimately be in charge, and likely in league with some arm of one or another of the Black Market criminal organizations. (Loosely based on a concept by Benjamin Baugh.)

Zach & Suns are a group of vampire hunters active in the upper parts of the Southwest that are gaining notoriety for the flashy, sun-emblazoned, full-environmental golden body armor they always wear, and for their tireless crusade against the wild vampires that prey upon the rural communities of the region. "Father Zach", the group's leader, is secretly a master vampire named Armand Zacharias, who claims to have walked the Earth since before the coming of the Rifts. The other members are his secondary vampire "children", and the wild vampires they create are the predators they hunt down and "rescue" their clients from (though they rarely actually destroy them). Every community Zach & Suns "aids", regrettably, loses several members to the vampire attacks, and yet the mercenary company's ranks continue to slowly grow... (Based on concepts by Chris F. and Benjamin Baugh.)

Captain Jack's Daisies. Jacinta Hayson -- the "Jack" mentioned in the outfit's name -- is a rough-looking, tobacco-chewing, horse-riding, no-nonsense woman who looks every bit a part of the real Old West. She could not be more different from the dandily dressed, robo-steed-riding group of men that make up the rest of her group. Despite her employees' appearance, Jack's company is well-known for their skill, resilience, and professionalism. Their focus is on bodyguarding and long-range protection, expertly escorting clients across the entirety of the North American continent. "Famous last stands a specialty."(Concept by Matthew Adams.)

I've been busier than usual at work this week, and had kind of a dud session of D&D on Sunday, so I haven't had much time to think up a topic for a blog post.

So, um... maybe you're wondering what one of the characters mentioned in this post looks like. Well, wonder no more:

Artha Parkinson by K-Bonifield

This is Artha Parkinson (née Serris), a tough-as-nails woman who happens to be a powerful psychic (and also happens to be my Rifts PC's mother), drawn by my good friend Kent Bonifield (who happens to be the GM of our Rifts campaign). He nailed it. I love the strange mashup of "fantasy world" and "high fashion" that Artha is rocking -- particularly the purse.

I imagine that requesting artwork of your character's mom has to be pretty high up on the "RPG mental illness warning signs" list, but to hell with it. You can't argue with the results.

So yeah, no real gaming content for you, once again! Next week's will be a meatier post, I swear.

Max Chibi by Azu-Chan

With the missing player from our original gaming group -- my brother, Chris -- now scheduled to rejoin the campaign via Google Hangouts, the last few sessions of Rifts have involved almost as much planning as actual play, as we figure out how to get his character, the psi-stalker Katrina Mansfield (pictured here), back in the mix. We still managed to get into character and play a little bit. Check out the recap of last session if you need to.

The Roster (with Fate "high concept" aspects, followed by traditional Rifts O.C.C.s)

Arisis Solstice, Radiant Daughter of Atlas (female titan Cyber-Knight), played by Felix
Max Parkinson, Runaway Teenage Mystic (male human Mystic), played by me
Valerie Cain, Amazon Cyborg Wildchild (female Praxian Headhunter), played by Kent

Session Recap
Arisis, Max, and Valerie have successfully defended the people of Red Moon Water Village from several waves of vicious attacks, finally driving them off with the assistance of troops from the city of Havana. Osorio, the villagers' shaman (and now leader) advises our heroes to visit three other settlements on the island of Cuba as they continue their search for the elusive neuron beast, both to rest and to ensure that they have not suffered the fate intended for Red Moon Water Village.

Unfortunately, while they manage to complete the journey to the next village without significant incident, the group find it completely annihilated: burnt to the ground, with no survivors. Max surveys the carnage and wishes aloud that he was able to use his magic to restore the victims of the massacre to life. (This is something his teammates have witnessed firsthand in the past, but of which he is currently incapable, having "burned out" his ability to do so for the time being). Instead, Max supernaturally melds into his charnel surroundings in order to commune with the slain. The young Mystic fades into the ashes, asking the spirits of the villagers to explain what happened to them: "Tell me how you died." He effortlessly overcomes an astral servitor of the neuron beast that tries to interpose itself, and learns that the beast's armed forces destroyed the village and its people in retaliation for their defeat at Red Moon Water Village, then marched to another settlement that Osorio had mentioned, two days' travel away. The neuron beast's spirit minion takes physical shape and is instantly reduced to dust as Max returns to corporeal form.

Our heroes resolve not to allow another such slaughter to occur, and set out for the second village with haste: the Mystic uses the adaptive systems of his techno-wizard-constructed armor to maneuver through the canopy jungle, with the Cyber-Knight hurling the armored Max ahead ("fastball special" style) and cutting a path through the underbrush for the Headhunter to follow on her mecha-motorcycle. Along the way, Max and Arisis realize that their psychic sensitivity allows them to "pick up" communications between multiple beings that are apparently sharing information on the groups' activities. It does not take long to realize that they are inadvertently eavesdropping on the psychic network of several neuron beasts, considering that they refer to each other as "Neuron Beast Zaal", "Neuron Beast Tobril", etc. (apparently through a quirk of their mental "language").

The trio arrive at the settlement in one day rather than two, catching the neuron beasts' forces completely by surprise. The enemy, who were preoccupied with rounding up villagers and putting them in chains rather than preparing for an assault, are never able to organize an effective defense. Max disperses a unit of gunmen with a Fear spell and sets a "neuron thrall" (another of the human-neuron beast hybrids they've faced in the past) ablaze with a well-placed Fire Bolt. Valerie rips into a group of lizard men armed with melee weapons with a barrage of mini-missiles, and their leader, a lizard woman psychic, literally turns tail and runs. Arisis squares off with a cybernetically enhanced troll after her attempt to invoke her supernatural aura of awe is ineffective ("Trollborg does not understand human emotions", her opponent helpfully explains), but struggles to cause any lasting physical harm to the cyborg. Max opts to trade foes with Arisis, shutting down the troll's central nervous system via psionic Bio-Manipulation before things get out of hand, and Arisis overpowers the Gigantes (mutant giant) that had threatened Max. Valerie removes the threat posed by a walker mecha by nonchalantly decapitating the gunner perched atop it, sending his head tumbling into the cockpit below and terrifying the war machine's pilot.

The mecha pilot and Gigantes quickly surrender as the few remaining allies that have survived the trio's surprise attack disperse into the jungle. The team radios the Havanan forces they left behind at Red Moon Water Village and asks them to send a contingent to take care of the enemy captives. As Valerie severs the oversized bionic arms of the immobilized Trollborg with the CADS-1 blades of her mecha, Arisis and Max question the captured walker pilot. "Neuron Beast Zaal", they learn, is in charge, and has taken at least one of Nysa's twin sisters to Isla de la Juventud, to the south, where there is apparently some sort of prison facility in which she is incarcerated. The pilot also tells them that the third village Osorio asked them to visit is the domain of a bruja ("witch") and that Zaal's men take care to avoid it.

The pilot's tale turns out to be true -- when the group reach the third village, they find themselves unwelcome, and have little choice but to strike down the bruja and her harpy pets (a task which they complete without much difficulty). With the last village out of the way, the group head toward a pirate-run coastal town they have heard lies to the south, in the hopes of securing passage to Isla de la Juventud.

(If you're wondering, yes, that is another piece of commissioned artwork up there. This one is courtesy the illustrious Azu-Chan. I love it, and I imagine it's about as far from how the creator of Rifts imagines a typical character should be depicted as possible.)

Nope.

One thing I keep seeing online is people describing Rifts as "gonzo" and "kitchen sink". I have to admit that this rubs me the wrong way a little. Don't get me wrong: I think both of those terms are applicable to the game to some extent. However, I would hesitate to sum up Rifts with either of them. Why do I say this? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Why not make this feel like a bad college paper and start with a definition? Merriam-Webster defines "gonzo" as "bizarre" and "freewheeling or unconventional especially to the point of outrageousness". I know that the term probably means different things to different people -- what doesn't? -- but I'm surprised to see that the dictionary definition actually lines up with the way I see it used when describing RPGs fairly well. The picture I posted up there (found somewhere on the internet -- sorry, I have no idea what the source is) seems to encapsulate the "gonzo, kitchen sink", outrageously bizarre aesthetic so many associate with the game.

I can see what they're getting at. Even people that have a similar take on the game to mine have pointed out that it can be pretty wacky -- after all, my own Rifts campaign has been (fairly accurately) summarized as "a titan-sized Cyber-Knight, a teenaged Mystic, and a partial cyborg Headhunter working for a secret godling to help smuggle mutant animals out of the breeding pens of Texas Nazis". So, yes, there are lot of crazy things in the game's setting, even right out of the box: believe it or not, most of the elements mentioned in that summary are straight out of the original rulebook. (Those "Nazis" are among the elements I can most easily understand having a hard time taking seriously.)

The more books you include in the setting and make available to players, the wilder the world gets, particularly when you incorporate visitors from Palladium Books' other games. In Rifts, a robot, a catgirl, a wizard, and a ninja could very well team up and fight crime, more or less by the book. (That's got to be the textbook definition of "kitchen sink".) This game is sounding pretty damned "freewheeling and unconventional" at this point, right? So why don't I like it when people call Rifts "gonzo"?

The biggest reason is that I don't think it's tremendously more so than any number of other popular properties, particularly roleplaying games. For example, Dungeons & Dragons crams together practically every possible flavor of the fantasy genre, along with bits of horror and science fiction. It's been described as a game where Conan and Gandalf team up to fight Dracula, and I think that's an accurate summary in many ways. Particularly in the more recent versions of D&D, player character options are so diverse that if a DM is permissive, the robot, catgirl, wizard, and ninja team is every bit as doable in D&D and its derivatives (like Pathfinder) as it is in Rifts. Is D&D a "kitchen sink"? Granted, the setting backdrop of Rifts Earth might be harder for some to swallow than the fantastical milieux of D&D, since it's supposedly "our world" in the far future. But is harder to swallow than, say, superhero comics' version of Earth in the present day? Look at the bizarre combinations of characters and locales the Marvel Universe features. Does anybody describe The Avengers as "gonzo"? And what about the outright tongue-in-cheek, elbow-in-the-ribs, "get it?" nature of ostensibly "post-apocalyptic" games like Gamma World?

One could certainly play Rifts like it's a big "lol so random" joke, and more power to those who want to do that. It could probably be a lot of fun, but I think that the idea that it's the only way to play (or that there is an over-the-top level of wackiness that is baked into the game) is an exaggeration. Like most good imaginative properties, there's a fundamental earnestness (as well as an overarching aesthetic) to Rifts that I think makes taking the game at least a little seriously -- Illinois Nazis, Techno-Wizards, Mexican vampires, and all -- worthwhile.

Adventurers by Razuri-the-Sleepless

Our latest session of Rifts (still powered by Fate Core) featured the triumphant return of the missing member of our original player character team: the Psi-Stalker known as Kat, played by my brother Chris, who joined us via a (somewhat buggy) Google Hangouts feed. The band is now well and truly back together and it's hard to describe how good that feels. The previous session's recap is here if you'd like to catch up.

The Roster (with Fate "high concept" aspects, followed by traditional Rifts O.C.C.s)

Arisis Solstice, Radiant Daughter of Atlas (female titan Cyber-Knight), played by Felix
Katrina Mansfield, Mutant Psi-Stalker P.I. (female mutoid Psi-Stalker), played by Chris
Max Parkinson, Runaway Teenage Mystic (male human Mystic), played by me
Valerie Cain, Amazon Cyborg Wildchild (female Praxian Headhunter), played by Kent

Session Recap
Valerie, Max, and Arisis successfully make their way to Isla de la Juventud, also known as "Isla de Encanta" and "Treasure Island". Shortly after they reach the island, the erstwhile fourth member of their group, the Psi-Stalker called Kat, arrives at the docks, having earlier been summoned by Max via astral projection. Kat is warmly greeted by Valerie, who is openly thrilled to see the Psi-Stalker. Max, still haunted by the senseless deaths of the villagers back on Cuba proper, is somewhat more reserved, but glad to have Kat's particular set of skills on hand for what he anticipates will be a great struggle. Kat has arrived armed for bear, with much of her arsenal of mechanical combat drones, as well as Arisis' carnosaur-like robotic mount, in tow. (The Cyber-Knight is too excited about being reunited with her steed to properly greet her long-missing comrade.)

The group gets Kat up to speed on the nature of their predicament. They've learned that the island is home to a massive prison complex known as Bastille Impenetrable, which is operated by an extradimensional race called the Tisch. Grey-skinned and three-eyed, the Tisch (or at least, the ones running Bastille Impenetrable) are vehemently opposed to the death penalty, and will hold any criminal in one of their pan-Megaversal prisons (for a nominal fee, of course). Thus, they operate this prison out of both philosophical and profit-based concerns. The city surrounding the prison is under strict rule of law, and any infractions are punished with immediate arrest (and, presumably, imprisonment). The group believes that one of the twins they seek to rescue must be imprisoned in Bastille Impenetrable. Max wonders aloud whether it's Asha or Annejah, and under what sort of pretenses they could be held. The mere mention of their names apparently sets off some sort of psychic alert, which the team's psionics -- Arisis, Kat, and Max -- all detect.

Max links hands with the other two and attempts to trace the source of the distress call, expecting to find one of the twins requesting aid. Instead, the three sense another being entirely: one that is guarded by an ogre shaman. Their concentrated will easily thwarts the shaman's attempted mental interference, and they are surprised to find themselves speaking with a presence that identifies itself as the Sunstar Aegis -- the ship belonging to their benefactor, Nysa, which they were told had been seized by ogre pirates. Max, bewildered, admits that he's never telepathically contacted a ship before. He and his companions soon learn that the ship has a magically sapient control CPU, and it is with this artifact that they are communicating. The "rune-puter" (as Kat describes it) informs them that the Neuron Beast Zaal double-crossed the ogre pirates that captured the twins (and the Sunstar Aegis) upon arriving at Treasure Island, and that he has one of them in captivity now. Their conversation is cut short, however, when the ogre shaman that was guarding the Sunstar Aegis resumes control and severs communications. Max attempts to contact the ship again, but proves unable to. (In an interesting feature of the Fate Core system, I accepted a Fate Point in exchange for agreeing that Max would be unable to reach the ship again.)

Taking an alternate approach, Kat uses her inborn Psi-Stalker tracking abilities to home in on the residual psychic trail leading to the ship's location, but upon arrival, she and her compatriots are detained by an alarmed Tisch dock inspector. Max, often the voice of the team, attempts to appeal to the inspector's sense of justice by calmly explaining the nature of their situation, but the bureaucrat's insistence that the group lacks the proper permits and must leave the dock immediately quickly wears down Max's resolve, and his teenage distrust of authority asserts itself. While the Tisch continues indignantly babbling in legalese and prodding Max and associates with a clipboard, they notice that a group of unsavory-looking ogres are staring them down from where the Sunstar Aegis is docked. Max grows increasingly frustrated, and before long the young Mystic goes into meltdown, shouting that "somebody's in trouble and you want us to do paperwork -- this is why nobody bothers with the cops!" (I accepted another Fate Point here, for letting the GM compel Max's Raging Hormones aspect to his detriment.) The inspector angrily responds that he is "not a cop" but suggests that perhaps he should call for backup. The titan Arisis literally carries an infuriated Max away before the situation can get worse, and Valerie flatly informs her young friend that he is "blowing it." Kat steps in and tries to provoke the dock inspector into giving away something useful, with limited results, and it seems that things are about to escalate even further when Val finally takes control. She flirtatiously smoothes over the disagreement, but has little choice but to agree to an evening date with the inspector in order to stop him from calling in armed reinforcements. Max (somewhat sullenly) muses that at least something productive may have come from the group's efforts.

Our heroes, stymied, head into the city that has sprung up around Bastille Impenetrable. Kat and Valerie search for more leads, while Max and Arisis find themselves more distracted by the sights (and tastes) of the city rather than turning up anything useful. Over a strange delicacy known as a "corn dog", Max apologizes to Arisis for his disastrous outburst during the group's encounter with the dock inspector, but asks that she not pick him up like a doll in public again. As he is wrapping up his heart-to-heart with the titan, Max is surprised to see Gia -- the young, unusually attractive goblin he had met in Havana some days prior -- also enjoying a corn dog. (I spent one of my Fate Points to set a scene detail here, since the GM had already expressed an interest in having Gia show up again someday.) Evidently, she is a travelling folk healer who roams throughout the region, plying her trade. Max seizes the opportunity to ask Gia out on a date, which she accepts. Max, naturally, picks the same restaurant that the dock inspector chose for his date with Valerie, since (after all) it's the only nice place in town that he knows of.

That evening, Max spends a little bit too much of his date craning his neck to get an idea of how Valerie's is going, but Gia is apparently only slightly annoyed. Valerie's rendezvous, which the Headhunter is apparently unable to extricate herself from despite her best efforts, is still underway when Max and Gia leave the restaurant to meet up with Kat and Arisis. As they continue to explore the city in search of clues, a gruff-voiced, masked Tisch who introduces himself as "Objection" suddenly makes his presence known to the group. Objection knows that our heroes are in search of Neuron Beast Zaal and informs them that the creature is currently holed up in the embassy that it, as the ostensible ruler of an "empire" in Cuba, maintains in the city. Watched constantly by members of the band of ogre pirates that it double-crossed, the neuron beast is unable to leave his domicile. Zaal, we're told, has one of the twins in a "stasis box" and intends to sell her to a banker named Phket, who clandestinely launders money for human(oid) traffickers. (At this point, Max advises Gia that things are likely to get a bit crazy, and that he wouldn't object if she decided to bail, but she elects to stick around.)

Arisis, Kat, and Max agree to Objection's plan to draw the ogres away from Zaal's embassy. Arisis, no friend to ogres, is particularly keen on this gambit, suggesting that she and her comrades go the extra mile and lead the hulking humanoids all the way back to the docks where the Sunstar Aegis is held. Objection plans to break into the embassy during the chaos that ensues -- "I work alone" -- and insists that "no murders are going to happen in my city", an edict to which Max and Kat scoffingly agree. The group rushes back to the restaurant and rescues a grateful Valerie from her interminable outing with the dock inspector, and after filling her in on the details, she agrees to their plan: Val will head to Zaal's location while the others distract the ogres and withdraw with them in pursuit.

HAVE FUN, KID

Rod Ruth, illustrator of children's books like Album of Dinosaurs and Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures -- which I compulsively checked and re-checked out of any number of childhood libraries and public school media centers as a child -- is an unsung master. Everything he painted was filled with mad, vibrant energy and color (and often, terror).

If I could commission RPG artwork from anyone who has passed beyond the veil, this man would be near the top of the list.

(Yes, this post is laughably low on content. It's been an extremely busy week for me.)

In case it wasn't already obvious, I have been having a very hard time thinking of things to blog about recently. I find that I have increasingly less to say about RPGs these days. (Well, less substantive things to say, anyway.)

I think it might be because I'm having such a great time with them at the moment. The Rifts/Fate campaign I'm playing in is sincerely a dream come true. My other game (D&D 5E, which I currently run) has been a blast, a few hiccups here and there notwithstanding. Honestly, the games that I'm participating in at the moment are a personal all-time high in terms of sheer enjoyment, and there's nothing more boring than somebody who's just plain happy about everything, right?

So, I think I'll take a break from enforcing my "must post every Friday" rule for a while. It's mostly worked out well for me, and I'm proud to have managed to keep it up for over a year. I will still make posts when the mood strikes, and will certainly continue to post session recaps for the Rifts campaign whenever we play (though whether anybody still reads those or not is up for discussion, I suppose).

This isn't a break, a hiatus, or a shutting down. I'm just not going to force myself to post when I've got nothing interesting to say.

One thing I worry about when running a game is keeping momentum. In my experience, if a few weeks go by without convening to play, a campaign has a tough time getting back on its feet. Happily, that hasn't been the case with our Rifts campaign, which started roughly 20 years ago and has "died" several times, but always bounces back with everybody on the same page. The recap of our group's last session is here if you'd like to catch up.

The Roster (with Fate "high concept" aspects, followed by traditional Rifts O.C.C.s)

Arisis Solstice, Radiant Daughter of Atlas (female titan Cyber-Knight), played by Felix
Katrina Mansfield, Mutant Psi-Stalker P.I. (female mutoid Psi-Stalker), played by Chris
Max Parkinson, Runaway Teenage Mystic (male human Mystic), played by me
Valerie Cain, Amazon Cyborg Wildchild (female Praxian Headhunter), played by Kent

Session Recap
Our heroes meet with the Tisch vigilante that calls himself "Objection" to review their plan of attack. Realizing that a running battle is about to begin, Gia, the young goblin woman that Max has taken a shine to, excuses herself -- a decision which the young Mystic cannot fault. (Max, for his part, asks Gia to look him up if she ever visits Serendipity.) Kat and Arisis are looking forward to starting trouble with the ogre pirates that are hanging around outside the Neuron Beast Zaal's embassy, and Valerie confers with Objection: the Headhunter will pursue Zaal, and the vigilante will capture Phket, the middle-man whom Zaal has been using to smuggle his captive.

Though Max trusts his old comrade Valerie implicitly, he is apparently hesitant to leave the infiltration of the embassy in the hands of Objection. When Max proposes an alternate plan, in which he will use his transformation magic to shrink down and sneak into the embassy to gather reconnaissance, Objection shoots him down, assuring Max that his original plan will work. Max, still dubious, questions the Tisch on what he intends to do if Zaal and Phket don't fall for their ruse, and Objection stares Max down, insisting that he knows "his city". Max, who has seen and done more than his sixteen years might suggest, wordlessly locks eyes with Objection. After a long, tense moment, the vigilante turns away, muttering an apology. (Valerie silently mouths her approval of Max's refusal to back down.)

Kat decides to initiate the goosechase by walking up to a trio of ogres, asking who the toughest among them is, then knocking him out with a single punch. A high-speed chase through the back alleys of the city surrounding Bastille Impenetrable ensues, with Max maneuvering the twists and turns (though not always successfully) in his flying power armor, Arisis riding her giant mecha-mount, and Kat simply running full-tilt away from the ogres' motorcycles and ATVs. The trio successfully hit several known ogre hangouts with hurled garbage and insults, luring the bulk of the pirates back to the city docks and simultaneously avoiding being apprehended by the Bastille police force (who now on high alert). Valerie is in constant contact via encrypted radio, confirming that Objection caught his quarry: Phket, who had successfully turned the "stasis box" containing one of Nysa's sisters over to the Neuron Beast. She also informs her comrades that Zaal has left his embassy with the stasis box, and that she is in hot pursuit, heading towards the docks.

Arisis, Kat, and Max reach Nysa's stolen ship, the Sunstar Aegis, still chased by ogres and police. The ship is occupied by a number of ogre pirates, one of whom is the shaman that thwarted the group's attempt to reestablish contact with its sapient "rune CPU" earlier. As the trio race toward the Aegis, Arisis (invoking her status as the Radiant Daughter of Atlas) issues a stern, shouted ultimatum to the ogres: abandon ship, or forfeit their lives. All of the pirates, including the captain, decide that discretion is the better part of valor and flee -- with the exception of the ogre shaman, who moves to activate one of the ship's weapon turrets. Max, somewhat uncharacteristically, elects to engage the shaman physically, and (invoking the Golemite Vigorizing Frame aspect of his techno-wizardry power armor) hurls the ogre overboard with a suplex before he can open fire. A hover-truck carrying the Neuron Beast Zaal and several armed minions appears on the coast across from the docks, with Valerie giving chase. As Arisis, Kat, and a large number of ogre pirates rush to engage Zaal, Max heads to the Sunstar Aegis' bridge, where his magical power armor interfaces with the techno-wizardry-powered ship and starts its engines.

More of Zaal's troops appear, and a full-scale battle is soon underway on land, sea, and air with ogre pirates (using jetpacks, jetskis and small watercraft), minions of Zaal (on the ground and in flying harnesses), and our heroes all engaging each other. Before long, the chase has taken the combatants away from Bastille Impenetrable and into Big Heap, a settlement on the outskirts of an area known as the Pile. This part of the island is a literal dumping ground from some off-world war, with spent shells, wreckage, waste, and bizarre weaponry regularly disgorged from dimensional rifts.

As the chase weaves through half-submerged piles of extradimensional detritus, the Neuron Beast psychically influences all of our heroes (save Kat, who resists), filling their minds with doubt and resentment toward their comrades ("your teammates are always getting in your way"). Despite this distraction (and Max's constant badgering), Kat is able to remove the armed thugs guarding Zaal from the fight, creating an opening for Valerie to slice at Zaal's tendrils and wound the beast. Max opens fire at Zaal with the Sunstar Aegis' armaments, to no effect, but Arisis uses her peerless titanic strength to wrest the stasis box from the pain-wracked demon's grasp.

Almost simultaneously, a heap of alien wreckage explodes as a trio of mecha and a pair of individuals in strange, ectoplasmic armor burst forth. Zaal cries out that he'll let the newcomers have Nysa's sister for free if they can save his hide, to which one of the interlopers replies: "A bargain... I'd pay nearly any price for my aunt."

Zaal! by K-Bonifield

The holidays wreaked havoc on our Rifts game, but as always, we bounced back once we got some spare time. This week: FIGHTING and very little else. I got a little hot under the collar about the way Fate handles damage at a couple of points. But it was fun! It's been a while, so if you need to refresh your memory on what led up to this, go here.

The Roster (with Fate "high concept" aspects, followed by traditional Rifts O.C.C.s)

Arisis Solstice, Radiant Daughter of Atlas (female titan Cyber-Knight), played by Felix
Katrina Mansfield, Mutant Psi-Stalker P.I. (female mutoid Psi-Stalker), played by Chris
Max Parkinson, Runaway Teenage Mystic (male human Mystic), played by me
Valerie Cain, Amazon Cyborg Wildchild (female Praxian Headhunter), played by Kent

Session Recap
Having pursued the neuron beast Zaal into the outskirts of the interdimensional junkyard known as the Pile, our heroes have found themselves suddenly facing a cadre of mysterious individuals in strange, partially ectoplasmic armor. One of the armored figures agrees to allow Zaal to escape in exchange for the young women that our heroes have reclaimed from the neuron beast. He explains that the twins are his aunts, which prompts Arisis to engage him in parley. She informs the armored man that she and her friends are in the employ of a relative of the twins. If he is family, she says, he should reconsider. The vaguely non-human-looking man responds by drawing a sword and identifying himself as the Grand Imperial Almighty Prince Barrenton Bahren Chanestor Osange. Asha and Annejah, he declares, were taken from his family by the group's benefactor, Nysa, "a generation ago", and he has no patience for the likes of Arisis and her friends. (At this point, it became clear that the group's prior intelligence was faulty, and that both twins were in fact contained in the stasis box Arisis was carrying.)

Kat springs into action before the Prince can act, putting him on the defensive and allowing Arisis, who is still holding the stasis box that contains the twins, to break away and head for the Sunstar Aegis. She reaches the ship as the three mecha that accompanied the Prince and his companion open fire on her with javelin-like projectiles. The titan shrugs most of them off, but one spike lodges in her shoulder, dangling painfully. The unprepared inhabitants of the Pile frantically attempt to flee the carnage. Max, who still views Zaal as the primary target, casts a Carpet of Adhesion spell on the neuron beast from his vantage point on the Sunstar Aegis' bridge. It wraps the demonic entity in a mass of sticky sludge and Pile debris, but does not completely immobilize it as the young mystic had intended. Valerie engages Prince Osange's bodyguard, who (at his master's prompt) introduces himself as El Capitan Ko Strinick and appears to be a match for her fighting skills.

At this point, the ogre pirates that had also been pursing Zaal (and our heroes) catch up, with several of them, including the shaman Max had earlier engaged psionically, swarming aboard the Sunstar Aegis. Arisis, undeterred, barrels past them and stashes the stasis box in the ship's cargo hold. Kat invokes her Everyone Has Their Use aspect and maneuvers behind the partially entangled Zaal, hoping to use him as a shield, but before she is able to act upon her advantage, the neuron beast psychically dominates Max, forcing him to dispel his Carpet of Adhesion. Max is shaken by the ease with which Zaal overcame his mental defenses, then horrified to see Valerie, his closest friend, brutally -- almost effortlessly -- cut down by the man called El Capitan.

Kat directs one of her mechanized drones to swoop down and carry Valerie from the battlefield. Max, who is Always There For Val, bursts from the bridge of the Sunstar Aegis in his techno-wizard power armor and flies (perhaps needlessly) to the headhunter's rescue. The crystals of Max's armor grow jagged as his unrestrained emotions flood into its harmonite circuitry, strengthening its enchantments. (Fun fact: one of the armor's aspects is called Emoverload!!.) Max unleashes the energy, blasting El Capitan with magic lightning and cracking his ectoplasmic armor. Kat is likewise unable to restrain herself, and launches herself at the Prince, slashing at him in a berserk fury. In the meantime, Arisis has continued to protect the ship, weathering a combined mecha and ogre assault with barely a scratch. Even the Prince's mecha are unable to restrain the titan, as she permanently dispatches the ogre pirates' shaman with a single blow of her Psi-Sword.

As a chase which developed into a skirmish now threatens to engulf the Pile in full-scale battle, yet another faction joins the fray. A mutant bird of prey calling himself Sunifre Ortio Caracara swoops in and opens fire on the ogre pirates with an assortment of firearms that telekinetically float alongside him. The falcon-man directs the rest of "the Defenders of the Pile" to put a stop to the fight. Aside from Caracara, the Defenders are:

Grooma, a female dwarf techno-wizard piloting a ramshackle mecha built from Pile detritus
Nina, a young Latina in gothic attire, and
The Trashman, a tectonic entity that obeys Nina's commands.

The Defenders begin to turn the tide of the conflict, concentrating on the ogre pirates. Prince Osange evidently decides that discretion is the better part of valor, as he leaves the field, accompanied by his bodyguard and the three mecha that had engaged Arisis. Max, infuriated, points at El Capitan and shouts "Ko Strinick! I know your name!", swearing revenge for his fallen comrade, Valerie. He then turns to the escaping Zaal and uses his psionic Evil Eye power to temporarily freeze the neuron beast in its tracks. Kat, Arisis, and the Trashman turn their attention to the beast, wounding it badly before Max incinerates it with his armor's Fire Bolt spell, rendering it unconscious. The young mystic flies slowly towards Zaal, summons the Psi-Sword that Arisis taught him to manifest, and slices the neuron beast's head off. "From darkness to darkness," Max intones softly. As the entity's body blackens and shrivels, Max hurls the head into the Pile. The neuron beast Zaal is dead.

Max immediately raises his hands in surrender to the Defenders, which Caracara somewhat grudgingly accepts. Nina protests that Max singed the Trashman. She accepts the mystic's apology, but adds that the Trashman might not be as forgiving. The Defenders and our heroes begin to clean up the mess and aid bystanders.

Max soon finds himself returning to Valerie, who he restores to consciousness with healing magic. The pair embrace, though Valerie will not be at one hundred percent for some time. The psychic members of the group (Arisis, Kat, and Max) sense that the stasis box apparently does indeed contain both twins, and wonder whether to open it -- or if they even can.

V. Cain by K-Bonifield

Rifts was played last weekend! This session was the most fun I've had playing an RPG in years. Nice mix of combat, social interactions, and laughing our asses off at dumb jokes. I wish we could play every week, though I'll never feel like we get to play as often as I'd like, because I'm obsessed with these characters and this campaign. Catch up here.

The Roster (with Fate "high concept" aspects, followed by traditional Rifts O.C.C.s)

Arisis Solstice, Radiant Daughter of Atlas (female titan Cyber-Knight), played by Felix
Katrina Mansfield, Mutant Psi-Stalker P.I. (female mutoid Psi-Stalker), played by Chris
Max Parkinson, Runaway Teenage Mystic (male human Mystic), played by me
Valerie Cain, Amazon Cyborg Wildchild (female Praxian Headhunter), played by Kent

Session Recap
The group is confronted by the defenders of the scrapyard settlement known as Big Heap. Their leader, the mutant bird of prey Ortio Caracara, is vocally displeased with our heroes for drawing so much trouble into their community, but the other members are less confrontational. One of them, the dwarf woman Grooma, even offers to help repair the Sunstar Aegis and to try to unlock the stasis box.

They are soon joined by a group of Big Heap movers and shakers, led by one Mrs. Velasco, who introduces herself as the town's mayor and demands to know "what, exactly, have you brought to my town?" Kat speaks up and offers to help repair any damage, and (accurately, but rather rudely) points out that "this shitstorm was already headed your way". Max successfully smooths over the situation, explaining his team's mission and mentioning the devastated villages they found in Zaal's wake before arriving in Big Heap. He points out that Zaal, the Prince, and the ogre pirates would likely have wreaked even more havoc had he and his friends not been there. Having won her over, at least momentarily, he then tries to get more information out of Velasco, asking if Bastille Impenetrable might be coming after them, and if Big Heap is aware of any Coalition activity in the area. Velasco responds that in the wake of the chaos in which they were involved, it's likely that Bastille has issued bounties for all of our heroes, but is mystified by Max's question about the possible involvement of Dr. Stakes or his agents. The Coalition is a nation of which she professes only a vague awareness. The mayor seems more interested in what our heroes will do with the corpse of the neuron beast, Zaal. Valerie suggests sending his head back to Havana as a sign of a mission accomplished.

Caracara interrupts to insist that Max and his friends track down Prince Osange, lest he and his retinue return to menace Big Heap again. Arisis flatly refuses Caracara's demands, arguing that she and her companions have invested too much time (and blood) into retrieving the stasis box to even consider leaving it behind to blindly chase after the villains. Caracara, for his part, does not back down until Velasco suggests everyone reconvene at her mansion that evening to discuss matters in a more relaxed environment. Kat, for her part, quietly dispatches a catlike robot drone to try and hunt down the Prince and his men in the meantime.

Velasco's suggestion proves to have been a wise one, as tempers have cooled considerably by the time the two groups arrive at the mayor's "shabby chic" mansion. Max finds himself discussing the supernatural with Nina, one of Big Heap's defenders, who seems legitimately interested in what he has to say on the subject. Arisis is fascinated by the strange music played by Mayor Velasco's husband, though he shrugs off the idea of allowing the titan to record him. The topic of Prince Osange is hardly even raised until well after dinner, when Kat's drone returns and plays back surveillance video of one of the Prince's ectoplasmic-armored comrades, his mecha apparently badly damaged, heading toward a ravine. The defenders immediately recognize the locale, and our heroes consider leaving the mansion to investigate. Arisis remains reluctant to leave the stasis box behind, however. She seems dead-set on carrying the box with her into the scrapyard until Grooma volunteers to protect it. Max, who has been observing the Defenders intently all night, telepathically assures his titan compatriot that "we can trust this woman," and the mystic's word is enough for the cyber-knight.

Our heroes ride a giant elevator up to the top strata of the Pile and begin to follow the trail laid out by Kat's feline drone. Even here, where the detritus of an otherworldly war still rains down, humans eke out a living, and before long one of this blasted region's inhabitants flags down the group. The man informs them that a monster has occupied his home, and begs them to remove the beast. Though the group is concerned that the trail will go cold, they agree to help, and Kat climbs up to see what has taken nest in the man's ramshackle dwelling, which is built atop an inert walker mecha. She finds a strange hybrid creature, seemingly part lizard, part porcupine, with what appear to be "Crazy" implants in its head. The psi-stalker sneaks back and relays this information to the group. Max volunteers to try and magically entrance the beast, but is concerned that the cranial implants might interfere with his attempt to dominate it. Flying up to find the creature feasting on the contents of the man's freezer, Max soon finds that he was right to be dubious -- his Trance spell is a failure, and the creature is now aware of his presence. Luckily, he manages to slink away unscathed, and with Arisis immobilizing it, Valerie quickly puts it out of its misery with her CADS-1 blades. Max opines that the beast is similar to those he, Valerie, and Arisis faced in Serendipity earlier -- chimeric predators evidently created in Lone Star by the elusive Dr. Stakes.

Back on the trail, our heroes soon find the ravine they seek, in an area where the earth itself is steeped in malignant, necromantic energies; a place Max glibly describes as a "bad nexus." Here, the walking dead -- only some of them formerly human -- roam freely, preying on travelers and each other. It soon becomes evident that the area is haunted, as well, as strange visions of a young girl and an older man begin to invade the edges of the psychics' senses, and shimmer across even Valerie's electronic sensors. Max, uncharacteristically impatient with the cryptic utterances and vague warnings of the ghostly child, attempts to abjure and question the spirit, but learns little of use.

Max's frustration proves symptomatic of things to come. The Prince's ecto-mecha associate, but discover that he, like everything else in this part of the Pile, is zombified, mindless and aggressive. He is quickly destroyed by the group, but before they can decide on their next course of action, an immense undead dragon lunges forth, its body torn by unimaginable warfare, yet still animate. Kat stuns the group by slaying the ancient behemoth with a single stroke of her rune no-dachi.

Valerie, pumped up by Kat's display of prowess, asks out loud "what else you got?" As if to answer, our heroes now notice an odd, mirage-like disturbance of vertical lines, which quickly "unfold" into a somewhat ragtag assemblage of heavily armed men and women:

A pair of human(oid)s in full environmental body armor, decorated with unfamiliar insignia and indecipherable writing
A male cyborg with extensive (and badly mismatched) bionic enhancements, carrying a sniper rifle
A male psi-stalker, possibly of African descent, armed with a scimitar-like electrified blade
Two terribly attractive young women (one fair, the other with dark green hair and jet-black skin) who appear to be completely unarmed and unarmored
Nahar, an ogre juicer woman with whom our heroes have crossed paths with several times in the past, and whom they have counted as an ally, if not necessarily a friend

Nahar briefly exchanges tense greetings with the group, but it is clear that she has not come for a social call. She calls for our heroes' surrender, as one of the armored men reads off all of their names -- their true names -- and informs them that "Halcyon Reacquisitions" will be placing them under arrest and delivering them to Bastille Impenetrable. The name rings a bell to Valerie: she knows the organization under the nickname of "Hard Repo", which headhunter lore describes as a mercenary group that appears out of nowhere and muscles other mercenaries into giving up their most prized possessions. The amazon warrior has some choice words for HR, which seemingly amuses their patchwork cyborg sniper -- "that is such a Val thing to say," he chuckles, and attempts to shake hands with the Amazon headhunter, giving his name as Magnus Maddock. Max is thoroughly bewildered by the mercs' evident familiarity with him and his friends, but before he can articulate his confusion, Arisis squares off with Nahar, the titan towering over even the massive, chemically enhanced ogress, and successfully intimidates her into backing down somewhat. Nahar begins to rethink her strategy, but Valerie overplays her hand, overconfidently demanding that Hard Repo stand down and "strip."

The tension finally boils over, and both sides explode into combat. Kat and the silent psi-stalker lash out at each other, with neither one badly injuring the other. Valerie slashes wildly at Maddock, and he instinctively blocks -- with his non-bionic arm. He curses his own stupidity as he collapses, clutching the bleeding stump. Max, who has been hovering above the fray, has been unable to tear his eyes away from the pair of beautiful ladies (damn these Raging Hormones!) on the Halcyon Reacquisitions side. Unfortunately for Max, the young women seem less impressed with him, as they both take to the air (apparently under their own, unseen power) and attack. He avoids the fair-haired one's feint, but the dark-skinned one connects with a brutal kick that knocks the wind out of the mystic, sending him crashing to the ground. Arisis, unperturbed, lays out Nahar with a single haymaker punch to the ogre's face. As Nahar crumples, one of the armored Hard Repo operatives, realizing that two of their number are down for the count, frantically shouts a command into a communication device. The mercenary agents disappear instantly, seemingly flattening and folding into nothingness.

Now completely irritated, the group elect to return to Big Heap. They find the stasis box well-protected by the Defenders, though unfortunately still sealed. Grooma, it seems, has been stymied by the device, at least for now, and though each of our heroes attempts to determine how to open it, each of them fail. What next?

(If you've made it this far, thanks for reading Dungeonskull Mountain's 200th post!)

Max [Commission] by babyk00lz2010

RIFTS. PLAYED IT. FUN. If you need a refresher, click here.

The Roster (with Fate "high concept" aspects, followed by traditional Rifts O.C.C.s)

Arisis Solstice, Radiant Daughter of Atlas (female titan Cyber-Knight), played by Felix
Katrina Mansfield, Mutant Psi-Stalker P.I. (female mutoid Psi-Stalker), played by Chris
Max Parkinson, Runaway Teenage Mystic (male human Mystic), played by me
Valerie Cain, Amazon Cyborg Wildchild (female Praxian Headhunter), played by Kent

Session Recap
Our heroes, still stuck in Big Heap until the Sunstar Aegis is repaired, have tried to open the stasis box that contains the twins they were hired to rescue -- and failed. One of the defenders of Big Heap, the young woman called Nina, informs the group that a restless spirit is interfering with their attempts to release Asha and Annejah. Nina, a psychic spirit medium, asks Max about the ghosts that attempted to contact him earlier. Max recalls that the ghost of a small child that gave her name as "Maria" sought him out, and admits that he regrets being unable to help the girl. Maria, Nina informs Max, was the name of her older sister, who died "badly" when she was very young. She suggests that the two of them travel back to Death Gorge to resolve the issue. Max is initially reluctant, but Nina is an attractive, intelligent young lady, and her romantic interest in him is increasingly apparent. His Raging Hormones eventually get the better of him: he agrees despite his concerns about the encounter with the Hard Repo mercenaries earlier, and his focus on the group's mission (and eventual return to Serendipity). Nina happily links arms with him.

Valerie tells Max that she's confident he can handle his mission on his own if he feels up to it -- a vote of confidence which Max deeply appreciates. As he prepares to leave on his "date", the dwarf woman Grooma (the techno-wizard that has been repairing the Sunstar Aegis) asks if she can inspect Kat's no-dachi rune sword. The psi-stalker consents, and after a painstaking examination, Grooma informs Kat that the sword is a weapon of great importance in her home dimension, and tells Kat that if she ever wishes, she can take her (and the sword) there.

Max and Nina depart, and Arisis, Kat, and Valerie decide to hit the pavement of Big Heap in search on information on Hard Repo. Having learned that Bastille Impenetrable has posted a bounty on them, they eventually find themselves in an underground hookah bar called the Caterpillar's Cocoon, where various shady characters imbibe in substances both known and unidentified, the majority of them scavenged from the surrounding Pile. (Arisis' radiance is deeply out of place in this venue, and she is not received warmly.) Valerie notices the presence of two juicers in the colors of the notorious Wild Hurricane mercenary company. The pair, a married couple, soon wave our heroes over and introduce themselves as Mister Payne and Infinity Payne. They share a fairly jovial (if somewhat shouty) conversation with Valerie and her friends, repeatedly asking "where's the kid?" Valerie steers the discussion towards the subject of Hard Repo, and Mister Payne relates the story of "the time back in Iron Heart a blue guy and a Glitter Boy-lookin' thing" appeared out of nowhere and repossessed a jump bike that Payne admits was "ripped off from the Black Market". In the end, the group doesn't get much about Hard Repo from the Paynes that they didn't already know. Valerie evades the Paynes' question about her group's current base of operations, Kat avoids the Paynes' offer to "come home" with them, Arisis buys them another bowl of whatever they're smoking -- presumably something quite potent, to cut through their default combat-drug-enhanced state -- and the trio leave the Cocoon to find more concrete intel.

An unfortunately oily-looking local computer hacker named Jorge is able to provide them with data captured from Bastille Impenetrable's local "bounty board" using his custom hacking rig, assembled from pre-Rifts and interdimensional computer equipment. Jorge informs the group that the board connects to something called the Intergalactic and Megaversal Justice Network (or IMJN) -- apparently, some kind of information schema based in another dimension. He finds that the bounty on our heroes was a special type, where certain established groups have the opportunity to bid on the exclusive right to pursue it. The bounty in question, he finds, was claimed before it was ever posted to the general public. Interestingly, the wanted posters use only our heroes' professional aliases (not the "true names" that the Hard Repo agents used when they accosted them) and are clear that the group are to be taken alive. Their crimes against Bastille Impenetrable are enumerated, accompanied by images and video clips taken from their recent actions in and around Isla de Juventud, as well as supplementary files detailing "persons of interest": the young goblin Gia and the Tisch vigilante called Objection among them. Valerie, intrigued by the apparent existence of a headhunting network that extends far beyond Rifts Earth, asks if Jorge can provide any further information, but he demurs, saying that he's provided her with everything that he could translate from the alien language in which the initial bounty files were written.

Max, meanwhile, has taken to the air in his crystalline power armor, cradling Nina superhero-style in his arms (with her permission, of course). As the pair fly toward Death Gorge, they notice a number of partially cybernetic, chimeric beasts vaguely similar to those Max and his allies have faced sporadically since they arrived in Serendipity, which seem to be on the move as if they were migrating. A pair of flying hybrid creatures speed towards Max, intent on tearing him and his new female friend apart. Max barely avoids their attacks, weaving, spinning, and dodging in midair -- even having to let go of a startled Nina at several points. Eventually, he is able to outrun the monsters and recover his date from freefall, and he and Nina reach the apparent source of the ghostly disturbances that plague the Gorge: a small black stone etched with arcane symbols, presumably some sort of artifact disgorged along with countless others from the rifts that created the Pile.

At around the same time, Max notices that he and Nina are being followed: they have been tailed by Kat's feline drone, as well as Arisis' robotic T-Rex mount, both remotely controlled by their owners. Arisis, via radio, tells Max of her respect for him taking the mission on his own, which briefly flatters Max until Nina points out that they have essentially been chaperoned. Max doesn't have time to express his disappointment: the apparition of Maria soon materializes, joined by a chorus of other spirits, who insist that the pair should leave. Nina senses that the ghosts are anchored against their will to the strange stone, prevented from moving on to the afterlife. Max rebukes the ghosts with an octagonal mirror, which keeps them at bay long enough for Kat and Arisis' robots to shatter the stone after he discovers that his psi-sword has little effect on it.

Nina realizes that with the anchor stone gone, the spirits, who have been maddened by their long and tortuous linkage to it, will be free to haunt and otherwise wreak havoc across the land. Desperate to aid the spirit of her departed sister, she offers to tether them to her own soul and pledges to help each of them find peace. Max is both moved by Nina's selflessness, and saddened that she has shouldered this tremendous burden, which will surely overtake her life for a long time to come. Nina and Max's eyes meet, and they silently realize that whatever small romance might have been blooming between them is, at least for now, not to be. Nina quietly curses her decision, and kisses Max.

Valerie, Kat, Arisis, and Max return to Grooma's workshop and find the matter of opening the newly non-haunted stasis box much simpler. The apparatus soon opens, steam and fluid streaming forth, revealing the sleeping, nude forms of Nysa's twin sisters, Asha and Annejah. The machine slowly awakens them, and Max offers them blankets to cover themselves. After some brief introductions, the group explain that Nysa hired them to rescue the twins, which seems to relieve them. Our heroes' questions about Prince Osange are not answered in detail, but the twins assure them that they want to return to Serendipity and to Nysa.

The mayor, Mrs. Velasco, arrives to inform the group that she has visited Bastille Impenetrable's local outpost and bought them some time, but that they must leave Big Heap as soon as possible. Hearing this, they and Grooma work doubly hard to get the Sunstar Aegis seaworthy again, and succeed in doing so. Our heroes say their goodbyes to Big Heap and its defenders and set out for Serendipity.

The twins largely keep to themselves as they recover from stasis, the side effects of which prove beyond the capability of Max's minor healing spells to quell. The return voyage goes smoothly until the Sunstar Aegis finds itself simultaneously under attack from a band of ogre pirates and in the grip of a sudden, fierce D-storm. The group, now quite familiar with the ogres' tactics, handle them with aplomb, hurling them into the sea and blasting them from the lightning-wracked skies. When the battle haze and the dimensional tempest clear, however, they find themselves badly off course. After a brief moment of confusion, the group sights land, and by sailing around the small island, are able to triangulate their location. They learn that they are nowhere near Serendipity. Instead, they have found themselves off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula.

(For those who are regularly following these posts: if you are detecting a shift in tone in the last couple of recaps, that is probably because I have started GMing certain parts of the sessions. For example, the Hard Repo material is me setting up the conflicts that will be in play during my stint as GM. So, in this session, almost anything that didn't involve my character, Max, was at least partially GMed by me.)

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Rifts Misadventures: Session 4

Mercenary Team Black Fortress

Let Me Tell You About My Character: A Rifts Timeline

Role & Roll Station: A Tokyo FLGS

Rifts Misadventures: Session 5

Rifts Misadventures: An Artist's Impression

Down, Down to 5E Town

Rifts Misadventures: Session 6

More Mercenary Teams

Let Me Tell You About My Character's Mom (Sort Of)

Rifts Misadventures: Session 7

Is Rifts Gonzo?

Rifts Misadventures: Session 8

Baleful Beasts

Victory Lap

Rifts Misadventures: Session 9

Rifts Misadventures: Session 10

Rifts Misadventures: Session 11

Rifts Misadventures: Session 12