Ah Rifts, a world of so many possibilities. It will be interesting to see which way the characters choose to take this game. This is my first time as a GM to run Rifts, and I want to shape the story to what the players are interested in. I am willing to allow a wide variety of characters, powers, gear and other fun things, as time will show. So lets meet our fun cast of characters, these names may be subject to change. Most of the players were in my D&D game; the name in parenthesis is their character from that game.
Smiley is a grackle tooth mechanic. A grackle tooth is a 9 and ½ foot tall lizard like humanoid. They have a sunny disposition, an innate fascination with mechanical devices and a love of big guns. They are also mega-damage creatures with supernatural strength. He is a Rifts native and was born somewhere in the magic zone. (Sandra)
The Borg is a full conversion cyborg, albeit one designed to look human. Like the terminator he has actual flesh growing on the outside so he looks fully human, at least until he sticks his repair arm out of his chest. His face is modeled off the ancient pre-rifts actor named Brad Pit. He has a cybernetic stomach and programmable taste buds, so it’s a bad idea to let him do the cooking. A friendly enough if private fellow whose avoids rifts and lay lines whenever possible. He has some training as a medic and mechanic. He is also a Rifts native, although he has yet to tell anyone where he hails from.
Doc will probably soon revive her old nicknames of mind squeegee woman and the Teflon princess. She is a mindmelter and doctor with some skill in cybernetics. This is the second character of this type the player has played in a rifts game, and she wants to stay with what she knows. She is friendly and easily bored, which explains why she wants to travel with this jokers. She is also native to rifts, from somewhere in the Coalition territory, although she didn’t stay there long. (Daniel)
The Fan Lady is a latent psychic from the modern day world. She fell into Rifts by accident and is still somewhat confused about what this place is. It’s not clear whether she comes from an alternate earth or simply from the past. She is adapting pretty well to her new circumstances, although her friends are trying to break her of the habit of trying to mind read everyone she comes across. Most of her powers are not only not under her control, but actually completely unknown at this point. She earned a living before coming to rifts by making a variety of arts and crafts. From paintings to leatherworking she can make quite a few things with her hands. She is also a practitioner of the martial art Lian Moa, The art of the Beautiful Devil. (Serine and The Journalist)
The Goblin Pilot is a goblin from a world peopled mostly by fae creatures. His world has achieved technology equivalent to that of Rifts and he is feeling right at home. Like Fan Lady he also stumbled through a random portal and is trying to pick things up as he goes along. He pilots a Sampson power armor that he picked for it’s looks and to which he wants to add a chainsaw arm. It will be interesting to see how he pimps out his ride. (Logan)
Our story begins with Smiley and The Borg. They had ended up at the edge of coalition territory being hunted by patrols. With their armor damaged and their guns beginning to run low on ammo they were forced to flee into the magic zone. They had finally lost their pursuers and had time to stop and gather their thoughts when they heard a loud tone echoing through the woods. They headed over to investigate.
Coming around the trees in the way they saw that a pre-rifts vehicle had crashed head on into a tree. The tone was some sort of horn that the vehicle was equipped with and the driver lay across the steering wheel unconscious. The Borg immediately rushes up to try and check to see if she was injured and bring her around with smelling salts. Fan Lady comes to find what seems to be a medic who looks like Brad Pit checking to see if she is okay. At first everything seems like what you might expect to see after waking up from an accident. That is until a huge scaled hand reach under the damage hood of her car and cut off the horn. As her eyes traveled up the arm her panic grew until he was face to face with a huge scaled mouth. This was more than enough to cause her to flip out. Despite her frantic struggles the seat belt kept her from going anywhere or injuring herself further.
A very confusing conversation left her realizing that she was not in her own world, or maybe was, but at least was not in her own time. She watched in shock as Smiley lifted her car with ease and then set it down again after straightening a bent axel with his bare hands. The motor was trashed, but after shifting the car into neutral and rigging a harness from seat belts the trio now had a handy grackle tooth drawn wagon. Of course now the question becomes where to go in it. Both Smiley and The Borg want to get out of the Magic Zone as fast a possible. Eventually they settle on attempting to reach a city named Magister that they’ve heard about in he NE section of the Magic Zone. If they travel north before turning east they can avoid most of the laylines and nodes, but not all of them.
They are trying to avoid trouble, but predictably trouble finds them. The Borg walks alongside the car keeping a look out while Smiley drags it and Fan Lady steers, so unsurprisingly it’s The Borg that spots movement in the bushes. He immediately turns and fires a warning shot, which attracts Smiley’s attention. Fan Lady is unfortunately to preoccupied with trying to understand her situation that she doesn’t notice the action. Unfortunately the warning shot doesn’t deter the five strange creatures that come bounding out of the foliage. The creatures have the body of a dog, although one the size of a great dane, but they are hairless and have long snake necks and narrow vicious looking heads. Four of them charge Smiley and The Borg, two at each, biting fiercely, although not for significant damage. The fifth however goes for the car, and the rather squishy Fan Lady inside. She is surprised as the snake like head punches through the door of the car as if it was of paper. Moving back as much as she can leaves her just barely out of reach of the powerful jaws.
While The Borg tries to hose his two attacks with his laser cannon, Smiley brings his railgun into play as he tries to rescue the Fan Lady. Fan Lady pulls out one of the fans she has been trained to use as a weapon, but it merely bounces off the creature trying to reach her. The creature tries push further forward after this tasty morsel and shoves its shoulders and forelegs through the door, only to be frustrated in its attack by some sort of invisible force field that springs up between Fan Lady and it. It doesn’t get a second chance as another blast from Smiley’s railgun cuts it in half. Only one of the creatures actually manages to run away alive.
Earlier that day Smiley noticed a small tanning and leatherworking kit in Fan Lady’s car, so at his suggestion she sets about trying to skin the creatures with a vibro dagger he provided. After several hours of work she had a small jacket that could protect her at least a little, very little.
From here the trio continued their travels further north until they came across the first lay-line they would have to cross to get where they were headed. The Fan Lady found the glowing ribbon of light an incredibly sight, but her two friends looked more worried than awed. To the surprise of all three as they started to cross a small town simple appeared beside them. This was one of the fade towns that Smiley and The Borg had heard rumors of. It proved to be a friendly enough place, although not without it’s dangers. They met one individual who had gotten trapped in the town for six weeks when it faded out. This was one of the reasons they decide to limit their stay to only one night. The other reason was a surprising find by The Borg. It turns out that one person in the town had a mostly intact skelebot. It was an old model, but apparently had only sustained damage from a single shot that disabled it. He traded a gun worth far, far less than the damage robot for it along with a map of the nearby area. Despite this Fan Lady was not about to leave the town until she had had a shower and gotten to sleep in a real bed for the first time in weeks.
They made it without trouble for the next day or two until an unexpected cliff blocked their path. Rather than trying to scale the three-story cliff face they decided to follow it east until it got lower. When they finally decided to try and get over the now 7-foot embankment they can see that it is a large clearing in the surrounding woods. The clearing is filled with bright purple and yellow flowers similar to orchids. Thinking this a harmless enough place Smiley simply lifts up the car and places it in the field at the top of the low cliff. To his shock there is a set of four popping sounds and the car rapidly begins to settle lower. To the trio’s dismay the flowers seem to be literally eating the tires off the car. Needless to say Smiley grabs the car and pulls it back down as quickly as he can. They try cutting the flowers off with a vibro dagger, which seems to work until they notice that the stems are rapidly regrowing and the fallen blossoms are growing roots that sink quickly into the group. Since they do not have any sort of napalm or plasma the party simply detours around the clearing and marks the location for later pyrotechnics.
Our happy trio was well on their way to Magister, but just as they were about to turn east they ran into a little encounter that changed their plans drastically. The Borg was keeping an eye on the path ahead, which let him spot someone hiding in the trees. He fired a “warning” shot with his ion cannon at its lowest setting. Fortunately his target was wearing armor, unfortunately said armor was metal. He fell to the ground screaming and then swearing as the shoulder of his armor turned cherry red with heat from the blast.
Had this been the only ambusher the party would have had no trouble at all. Unfortunately they quickly realized they were surround by at least a dozen people all armed with bows. The spokes woman for the group stood up where the group could see her. She was clad in a close fitting metal armor and glowing translucent sword sprang easily to her hand. To the two more experienced members of the party the immediate though was “cybernight,” from Kalyn (aka Fan Lady) the though was “how can I do that.”
After some very nervous words were exchanged it was established that the trio were simple travelers trying to find safety, while their ambushers was a guard patrol for Ripton’s Landing, a small town nearby. The party was quickly escorted to the two where they would be able to get lodgings with someone named Billy.
Billy as it turns out was an entrepreneur who ran the local armor smithy, inn, bar and bathhouse. They parked what was left of Kalyn’s car in his garage and then went into the bar to meet Billy himself. Billy was a huge individual with a massive beard and a pronounced Russian accent. Only Kalyn actually recognized what the accent was, since her two companions had never even heard of Russia. Billy himself was shocked to find out that she not only recognized his origins (she was the only person to do so for the entire time he had been on this continent), but also was from the past and knew of Russia’s great golden age. The two would end up having many longs talks on the subject, especially once she started working at the bar for a little while in exchange for him crafting her a suite of armor and a magical fan.
This town provided a well-deserved rest for our heroes and they lingered here for several weeks. During that time Smiley worked as a robot mechanic, while The Borg worked on the few computer programming and repair needs the village had. The Borg also made friends with the local cyberdoc, a lovely young woman who was also a powerful psychic. Eventually they were offered citizenship in the town, which required them to contribute to its defense each year, either with money or guard service. They declined, but were declared friends of the town and given the recognition words to be recognized by the guard patrols.
Eventually they decided it was time to end their stay and move on. The Borg and Smiley wanted to get out west, and Kalyn was reluctant to be left behind by her friends. Doc decided to tag along with them, which was fortunate since she was the only one of the four with a working vehicle. From here they were determined to head north to New Lazlo, then turn west and cut between what was left of Tolkeen and the Coalition. Since they were headed to New Lazlo one of the guys in the Ription’s Landing offered them very good money to deliver a strange wooden box marked with symbols drawn in chalk.
Most of the trip to New Lazlo was uneventful, at least until they were ordered to pull over by a coalition patrol. They decided to try and avoid trouble, so they pulled over. The officer in charge was, frankly, a prick. With him was a very grizzled sergeant, and five dogboys. One of the dogboys was apparently a wolf breed and very twitchy. Everyone except Smiley climbed out of the Doc’s wilderness rover, although the Doc took time to disguise her psionic abilities before climbing out. The Borg decided that brown nosing the officer was the way to go, and it worked wonders. They officer was ready to let them head on their way when the wolf insisted that some very, very powerful magic was onboard the vehicle. The officer’s reply of “Hell, fido” proved to be a grave mistake when the wolf calmly shot him in the head.
At this point all hell broke loose. The wolf sprinted for the vehicle door while the sergeant dove for cover behind a tree. The wolf stopped at the door of the vehicle to open fire on his fellow dogboys. Smiley stepped to the doorway, tossed The Borg his weapon and then the pair also opened up on the dogboys. Doc cut loose with her psionics, but Kalyn was too confused to do much of anything. The fight was very, very short and everyone was surprised when the sergeant himself finished off the last dogboy. From his hiding place the sergeant offered them two options. First they could grab Butch (the wolf-bred dogboy) and leave, or two they could try to kill him and flee before he could call in backup from the SAMAS patrol that was in the area.
Wisely the party decided it was in their best interest to head out. Butch proved to be a very quiet companion, although he very much enjoyed Kalyn scratching behind his ears. They made it to New Lazlo without much further incident. The security around the town was pretty high and they were not able to bring in their vehicle or most of their gear. They weren’t question too closely as it turned out that The Borg and the security guard shared a love of pre-Rifts movies, there was even a theater in town that played them. The package when they delivered it turned out to be a very impressive techno-wizard sword commissioned for a dangerous looking man dressed in some sort of scaly hide armor.
They took some time here to do a little work for extra money and something usual cropped up when The Borg was working on the city’s computers. In a very old and outdated file he stumbled upon what appeared to be the algorithm used by the New Lazlo city security system to determine it’s daily password. This program changes the password needed to turn off and bypass the cities main defenses and detection systems. By itself it isn’t any good, but with this program and knowledge of the password used on a specific day, it would be possible to determine the current password, no mater how long ago the other password was in use.
Realizing both how valuable and illegal this information would be The Borg went about attempting to sell it very carefully. He used his skill in cryptography to hint at what he had on a trading message board. He did get a contact, but was a bit clumsy in responding, and so end up scaring off his buyer. Of course he still has the information.
Since money is always a good thing, before leaving they checked to see if anyone had any jobs that needed doing out west. After a little negotiation they were hired by Doctor Pada Windbird (a former character of the Doc’s and a Native American, Doctor, Mindmelter) to deliver a cargo of medicine to some relatives of hers out in what used to be Wyoming. At least they now had a destination besides “west”.
Before our heroes could head out west there was a little hiccup in their plan. Doc was called away on an emergency and they would have to leave without her (actually the player hasn’t been able to make the game recently for personal reasons). This was a big problem since they had been relying on Doc for their transportation. So there was a quick scramble to see what was around that they could afford. Smiley was very, very tempted by a refitted vehicle from pre-Rifts. The dealer referred to it as a “hippy van.” The Borg vetoed that idea since Smiley would need to stick his head out of the sunroof. Instead he settled on a pre-Rifts duce and a half, which he paid to have converted to mega-damage in a quick and dirty installation. It had an electric engine installed that ran on E-clips.
Well our intrepid band was now ready out head out towards the wild west. Of course there was still a bit of an obstacle in their way, namely the Coalition. Since a duce and half doesn’t fly they couldn’t head over lake Michigan, which left them having to spend at least some time in Coalition territory. They decided to spend as little time there as possible and then cut through the unclaimed territory between the Coalition and what used to be Tolkeen.
They had two usual events as they headed through the coalition. The first was a Rift opened a few feet in the air and a suit of what appeared to be Sampson power armor stumbled through. They tried to drive on past without slowing only to have the much faster suit of armor run ahead of them and then stop and wait. As they approached they could see that the pilot had the main compartments open and was smoking a cigar, waiting for them to arrive. The pilot was a four foot tall green humanoid, not the usual pilot for a vehicle like that. After a little discussion and him finding out a bit about what happened, he left with the party.
The second complication on their trip through coalition territory was when three Super SAMAS flew overhead and called for them to halt. The Borg and Kalyn were staying up front while Smiley and the Goblin Pilot road in the back. The Borg immediately pulled over and got out with his hands over his head, while Kalyn just looked confused. The pilots told them that they were about to enter a secured area and to immediately change direction and get the hell out of here. Unbeknownst to our heroes the coalition new that a major rift was about to form nearby and had soldiers out to stop anything that might try to come through. Since as far as the power armor pilots could see the only people in the vehicle were humans, they simply sent them on there way as fast as possible. Of course if Smiley had stuck his head out things might have turned out differently.
Either by luck or some other force traveling the area between the Coalition and Tolkeen was pretty easy, at least for them. At one point the party was set upon by nine people on some sort of dirt bikes. The party tried to simply drive away, but one of the attackers pulled out some sort of small pistol and fired it at the truck. Everyone in the truck was more than a little surprised when the truck stopped dead. Of course the moment of the passengers didn’t disappear at the same time. Kalyn and The Borg were in the front seats and went flying out the front window, while Smiley and the Goblin Pilot crashed into the front seats.
The ensuing firefight was brief but intense. After a few second the surviving attackers fled in terror. Their leader tried to get away using an invisibility spell. Unfortunately The Borg’s thermal vision saw him perfectly fine and was able to cut him in half. Surveying the remains of the fight the party scrounged up several sever motorbikes, half a dozen pistols and one TK Carpet of Adhesion gun. One of the motorcycles was quickly broken down for parts and used as a new steering wheel, front seat and speedometer. The crash plus a few grenades had made rather a mess of the front compartment. The only saving grace was that the engine, driver train and axels were new and minor mega-damage devices.
The only other encounter on their trip through the no-man’s land was when they came across a convoy of refugees heading out west. The convoy was guarded by a number of tough looking individuals including a few Cyber-Knighs, Battle Maguses and Native American warriors. They turned down the convoy’s offer to travel together, but did manage to sell the extra motorbikes to one of the Battle Maguses for a decent price.
Now at last they were out in the wild west. Ahead of them lay what used to be South Dakota, now a lonely almost deserted country side, but one offering plenty of opportunities.
As always comments, complaints, complements and shout out are always appreciated. I find it's no fun to write when no one seems to be reading. Hope you all are having fun with the thread and your own games.
Your journal post above has been stricken with lots of funky extra thingies at points that ordinarily would be occupied with other punctuations and/or the board's BBCode tags.
Makes it a mite hard to read El Capitan' :-P
Your journal post above has been stricken with lots of funky extra thingies at points that ordinarily would be occupied with other punctuations and/or the board's BBCode tags.
Makes it a mite hard to read El Capitan' :-P
Damn, that's the second time that has happened. The first time I caught it in time and went back and corrected things. Anyone know why this happened. I copy and pasted from word, and usually that works just fine.
I appologize to whatever readers I may have for the absence. I variety of real life complications including an office move and a car crash have kept me from updating this for a while. I hope get up to date soon as there have been some very interesting things going on. In the meantime enjoy the new posts.
Moving into South Dakota was pretty easy for our band of heroes, since there seemed to be almost no one there. They were most of the way through the state before they noticed anything like an inhabited town. As it turns out one of the smaller pre-Rifts towns was now inhabited by dwarves. They had set up a mining operation there after scavenging all the metal they could from the remains of the town. This seemed like a good place for our heroes to spend a night indoors rather than camping under the stars.
There was a human weapons dealer in town who had a few interesting goodies, including a rifle that fired mini-missiles. Smiley was so enamored with the guy that he offered two of his guns in trade, as well as his services as a mechanic for a while. Eventually one of the two guys was left as a down payment, and once their current job was finished he would come back and work off the rest of the price of his new gun. Smiley also decided to drop by the local brothel to see what dwarf lovin’ is like. He was more than little dismayed to find out that dwarf women look almost identical to dwarf men.
The only other incident that disturbed their trip south was when they came across a destroyed caravan. The lone survivor was a pretty young woman that the Borg immediately went and checked over. She seemed fine, and surprisingly enough shouldn’t have been knocked out by the injuries she received. Kalyn decided to deploy one of her favorite psychic powers at this point and tried to read the woman’s mind. What she found there was little surprising; apparently the young woman was hatching some sort of plot for when they camped. Being the soul of tact that she is, Kalyn looked right at her replied to some uncomplimentary thoughts the woman had directed her way. Realizing that her cover was blown the woman reverted to her true form and revealed herself to be a succubus. Unfortunately for her, she was gunned down in very short order.
A further search of the caravan revealed a hidden compartment with a small strongbox in it. After carefully popping the lock our heroes found two small Faberge Eggs in the well-padded strong box, planning to simply sell them later.
After reaching their destination and dropping off the good, they decided to stop by the nearest decent sized town before heading on their way. It was a fairly wild and lawless place, and there were several people only too willing to dispose of the extra guns our heroes had acquired on their travels. The Faberge eggs on the other hand were a little more difficult to find a buyer for. Eventually the Borg located someone willing to pay 50,000 credits for them. This deal might have gone down, exept that one of Kalyn’s powers kicked in. Once in a while she finds herself able to read auras, in this case the ability told her that the eggs actually had a powerful magical aura around them. Our heroes decided to hand onto the eggs and try to find a better buyer for the. That would have to wait though as Smiley was very anxious to head back north to get a hold of his new gun.
Faberge eggs, dating some centuries prior to the coming of the Rifts ... yeah, I'd have laid odds that they would be some ... interesting items.
Do a Google search on 'em some time, they're rather fascinating items IRL and destined to be even moreso in a Rifts setting.
Before our heroes headed north, the stopped to earn a few quick bucks down here. Apparently several caravans traveling south from here never made it to their destination, and a bounty was offered to anyone who could eliminate whatever was causing the problem. So our heroes tried the simple tactic of heading down the caravan route and hoping something would attack them.
This proved a workable tactic as they were ambushed just a day or so out of town. Apparently a pair of mountain giants (New West) were robbing passing caravans, and out heroes looked like easy pickings. One with a very large gun was concealed in a hill, and he wasn’t spotted until he fired on our heroes. The other had a sword, and was somewhat less skilled at hiding. It’s too bad that his buddy didn’t point out that you can’t hide a 12 foot tall person behind a 4 foot tall boulder. The fight was brief but intense and fortunately for the party pretty one sided. After mopping up their opponents and tracking down their campsite they found only a crate of e-clips and some quadruple extra large camping gear. Wonder where 3 caravans worth of loot got to…..
So our friendly trio started back north to collect Smiley’s new guy. As they went Smiley and the Borg worked to show Kalyn exactly how the NG-P7 that they looted off the giant worked. Unfortunately they hadn’t had much time to instruct her before passing through one particular small town. They weren’t planning to stay long, but they swung by to get some recent in a decent bed and word about what was going on ahead of them. However, the sheriff of the town had an offer for them. Apparently bandits had been raiding nearby farms and fading into the woods in the area. If they could do something about the bandits the sheriff would do his best to see that it was worth their while.
Always eager for a little more money and excitement, our heroes readily agreed. They decided to strike at night, when the bandits would be resting. So that evening they started to creep into the woods. They started hearing the bandits much sooner than they had expected, and much louder too. The sound of singing drifted steadily through the woods, making it easy for the characters to locate their target. Smiley snuck a bit further ahead and was surprised to see a lot of women and children with the bandits, as well as a lot of bandages. At this point warning bells started going off in his reptilian skull. After very briefly talking, the trio decided to approach openly. The Borg turned on the charm and convinced the sentries to let them into camp. There they learned that these were the real inhabitants of the town. Our heroes had been duped and hired by bandits who had taken over the town, lock, stock and barrel. This made them more than a little pissed. They promised that the townsfolk would soon have their homes back.
By the time they got back to town it was nearing midnight, but that hadn’t stopped the bandits from partying it up. The quick thermal scan by the Borg showed that the town was almost deserted except for local saloon. Apparently most of the bandits were in the saloon’s main room drinking, or upstairs having their way with a few captive women.
Quickly the trio decided that simple was best when it came to plans. While the Borg hid in an alley across from the Saloon to provide support, Smiley and Kaylin simply walked in the front door. Of course Smiley tossed out a pair of grenades as they entered, and then started shooting anything that moved. Kaylin may not have had the grenades, but she was more than willing to shoot anything that moved as well, enthusiastically if not accurately. The leader was the only one wearing body armor, but he was not sticking around for this firefight. He immediately ran into the kitchen and dived through the back window. Smiley was in hot pursuit, but didn’t want to fit his huge bulk through a small window. Of course a single blast from his guy was more than enough to widen the exit. Unfortunately for the bandit leader the SDC wall did very little to stop the MDC railgun rounds, and the same blast that widened the window cut him in half.
Meanwhile back in the bar Kalyn was having fun mopping up the few remaining bandits until a magic net spell from a spell caster who managed to duck away from the grenade left her helpless. Apparently a juicer was also running with the bandits. He had been away from the grenade blast and he sprinted up the stairs in search of his weapons and body armor. Unfortunately the Borg’s infrared vision worked very well through wood, and not even a juicer can dodge a shot he doesn’t know it coming. The mage knew when it was time to cuts his losses and surrender, especially since his Armor of Ithan spell was nearly depleted.
The few remaining bandits were turned over to the women held captive upstairs. What the women did to the men is best not repeated to the squeamish. The lay-line walker was another matter. It turned out, confirmed by Kalyn’s telepath, that he was simply a traveler who had no idea what was going on. When asked why he fought with the bandits he pointed out that our heroes had run into the room throwing grenades, how would they have reacted in his place? He was pardon on the condition that he would teach his magic to anyone in the town who was interested.
Hope to update eventually, but may be a while. Between work moving, me moving, getting a new car, starting school and so on, it's a bit hecktick here.