The tragic truth behind the D-Shifters...?

[Glistam]

A good friend of mine played a D-Shifter in a Rifts campaign a few years ago. We bounced ideas back and forth one day about the origins of the D-Shifter and why they disappeared after a few hundred years. Very quickly, a possible answer revealed itself. I know we'll never know the actual canon truth but the more we thought about this idea the more we liked it. Here it is, I present to you now (one possible) "truth" behind the D-Shifters - I placed it in a spoiler tag in case you wish the mystery to remain:

Spoiler:

The coming of the rifts sent ripples throughout the Megaverse. Some of those ripples traveled through the layers of the Astral Plane and reached the Void. These mystic shock waves impacted the Void, creating a brief link between the Void and the violently transforming Earth which sent fragments of the Void to that world. There, these fragments touched select humans and gifted them with strange powers.

How? Why? Was it just random happenstance as to who was chosen? Maybe just the right place, right time? Was it individuals with certain psychic potential who drew in these fragments? No-one can say with certainty. What is known are the effects these transformations had upon those people. They became empowered by those fragments of the Void. They became D-Shifters.

D-Shifers feel such a connection to the Megaverse because the Void touches all places of the Megaverse. This is also why D-Shifters feel so uneasy in the Astral Plane. While there, they are closer to the Void, and the Void longs to be whole.

Eventually, however, the Void wins.

For some they only last days or weeks. Others last years. A lucky few even survive centuries. But eventually every D-Shifter shares the same fate - they return to the Void which made them. The only thing which keeps them tethered to the Megaverse and out of the void is their ignorance about the real truth of their existence.

Because D-Shifters are just shadows of their former selves. When these fragments of the Void touched them they effectively died, becoming nothing more than empty husks which were then filled by the that fragment - that piece of the nothingness of the Megaverse. This is why D-Shifters seem to brighten and glow when within the Blue Zones - the magical energy fills this nothingness within them and resonates. When outside the Blue Zone the nothingness within reveals itself. A D-Shifter outside of a Blue Zone is dark and shadowy, with specks of white moving within those shadows. The same description which daring explorers have given of the Void itself.

Subconsciously the D-Shifters know this. At some level - the same instinctual level where they understand how to duplicate magic affecting time or space, and where they understand how to traverse the dimensions - at that level they know they aren't real. Instead though they continue to remember the lives they once lived and explore the new worlds which are now open to them. Despite their new found resilience they wrap their bodies in comforting blue robes (the color of the magical energy which fills them with life and peace) and hide behind masks, unknowingly trying in vain to hide themselves from a truth they just can't face.

It is at the moment they realize they are shadows of their former selves when they disappear forever. When they consciously make that realization which they've always known deep down is when the Void finally claims them utterly. The D-Shifter then disappears and the Void is made just a little more whole. Their existence ends not with a bang, but with a

[RockJock]

I like it. It adds a new flavor to the magic/class.

[G]

...their world is going to hell in a handbasket. And they have a load of unique abilities which include:

1.
They have the ability to tell where rifts on their line are, avoid monsters, and know whats on the other side. So when a great destination comes along they can reopen it safely, then hop through and live happily ever after. Their ability to copy dimensional magic on the cheap, means they can cast spells that are otherwise very ppe expensive....thats got to have value on phase world and other happy places.

OR
2. Ability #8 astral travel to other realities. Yes thats what it says...in this reality the rifts never came and I can live happily ever after. OR I can take items with no value in reality A to high value in reality B... going shopping to return with food, medicines, etc.

OR
3. Power#5, They can go explore the astral plane. I hear psyscape is a nice place to live...

OR
4. They were created by the mass energy surges as the world died. They are unique beings in the multiverse, but they are NOT immortal. After a few hundred years, they will die of old age. I believe the book said the standard was 300 years during the golden age. A sub idea of this is that only genetically modified humans were turned into d-shifters, with the coming of the energy surges...or even more rare, perhaps they had to accidentally be on a nexus or ley line to become one. Only being created by genetically modifications, while on a ley line/nexus during an apocolypse could be a good reason more aren't around!

OR
5. They can only have kids with other DSHIFTERS, which were rare to begin with.

Sleep calls,

[Trenas]

Personally, I always figured that they were kind of "Proto-mystics". The initial burst of energy that CE has from the ley lines just means that like the early psychics, they havn't settled into their "Final form" so to speak, and are kind of super charged until things settle down. Since the energy levels decrease over time and the surges calm down, no more are created after a certain length of time into the Dark Ages, and their mystic decedents take over their niche

[testitout8mm]

I like it.
It reminds me of something like a juicer. great power but you know there is an end coming. I'd add some kind of chart, instead of roll for insanity when something big happens I'd have them roll for sanity- or reality at 1% plus 2% a decade. --Poof-