Vampire Intelligences have always had access to the spell Dimensional Portal, a 15th level spell costing a thousand PPE.
Back in the BTS1 days (see pg 100) it took eight minutes to cast a spell levels eight or higher. Page 126 had it open for 30s/lvl as spell or minute/level as a ritual, but it was 2-way and unwanted stuff slips through.
Pg 184's version (actually relatively small bat-like things a mere 8ft tall with 25ft wingspan - smaller than the Vampire Demonic Familiar in Rifts!) knew all rituals 8-15 so they presumably could not cast the spell version of Dimensional Portal, only the ritual version, which took 90 minutes and was subject to interruption.
They would also know the ritual version of Talisman, but since Talisman can only store invocation versions of spells (not ritual verson) it was largely useless aside from storing spells 1-8 they knew in invocation version - per "lised under the master vampire" this was only certain metamorphosis spells but not anything that allows interdimensional travel. Vampire AIs at the time shared the master's ability to shapeshift into a bat or wolf so turning into other animals via a talisman wasn't as useful as it would be for the Rifts version which lacked the shapeshifting.
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FF to Rifts - they explicitly know Dimensional Portal and it is singled out and not specified as a ritual version so presumably the Rifts AI can actually cast it as a spell, meaning they can cast the spell version... and in Rifts you can cast high-level spells a lot quicker! Instead of eight minutes, level 15 spells cast in a mere 30 seconds (RMB pg 165) and the Ultimate Edition (page 189) made this even quicker, a mere three melee actions!
We are told Vampire Intelligences have a natural ability which is "tearing open a dimensional rift without the proper, lengthy, preparations"
This is strange though - what lengthly preparations? It used to take 8 minutes (spell) or 90 minutes (ritual) to do it in BTS, but even before the Ultimate speed-up, the spell version of Dimensional Portal was already faster than 1D4+2 minutes.
I think perhaps the Vampire Intelligence is only intended to know the ritual version (not the spell) which would explain this reference to "lengthly".
This would also perhaps explain why Create Magic Scroll (a spell Vampire Kingdoms gave them - it comes from PF and isn't in BTS) might not be an option here - because if you can put ritual-spells (instead of invocation spells) on a Create Scroll, then it's unclear how long it wuold take to read the scroll. I don't even know if you can do it in the first place since CSM (pg 140 of Book of Magic) does just say 'spell'. You can cast CSM as a ritual which does affect the savings throw of whatever spell the scroll casts, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can do a "Scroll of Create Zombie" or a "Scroll of Summon and Control Entity" or a "Scroll of Summon Lesser Being" etc.
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This ritual-only DP means no DP scrolls explaining why AIs can't mass-produce them using their own knowledge- only particular ones would have access to mass-produced DP scrolls via resourceful master vampires, trading with mages, etc.
Ultimate Edition did not massively reduce the casting times of ritual versions - page 187 says 11-15 are 1D4x10+15 minutes which is only potentially less on average/maximum compared to the 1D6x10+15 on RMB page 164.
Compared to that, an intelligence doing 1D4+2 makes a lot of sense. Plus there's the perk of it being the only thing which can pass through the portal - a bunch of stabby humans with stakes and silver swords would come along for the ride through a traditional dimensional portal (maybe finishing you off in your home dimension) whereas their natural ability brings just them.
PPE cost is another factor which incentivizes it. Originally we weren't sure of this: originally it was "most of the intelligence's PPE" and they had 2D6x100 so it's unclear whether that meant a bare minimum ("most" of 200 is 101 PPE) or maximum (most of 200 is 199.... most of 1200 of 1199...) but luckily the revised VK assigned it a fixed PPE cost of 300 PPE so most of them (save the 200 PPE losers) should be able to do it.
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The big downside to all this is "oops lost 80% of my minions" and I can't come back for centuries and they're all forced asleep for those centuries so they can be easily killed before I get back to protect them" so wherever possible a vampire intelligence should try and leave by other means which presumably does not cause this issue.
If it DID... if leaving by ANY means caused this issue - it wouldn't really make sense. If that were the case then this 80% shock would happen in any previous dimension it resided in as it abandons that dimension to visit Rifts Earth - would that be worth it?
If that were the case - could it send those minions ahead to Rifts Earth ("opening a portal and launching nine thousand secondaries through to back up my new master") to protect it from the shock, prior to its arrival? Most of them would die anyway, so it would make sense.
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An interesting thing about Forced Abandonment though - what happens to vampires created on Rifts Earth if they are off of Rifts Earth (ie visiting another dimension like Phase World or Dyval or Hades) when a Vampire Intellignece does a Forced Abandonment?
Are they still subject to the 80% fatality rate (wild and secondary) or 100% fatality rate (masters) ? Or would occupying a different dimension protect it?
If a vampire who's off-dimension did survive (let's say they were among the 20% even if they would normally be at risk) then would they still count as an anchor to Rifts Earth?
The 10,000 year ban (hundred centuries!) only applies if EVERY vampire is slain... but it's probably really tricky to slay a vampire that's not even on Rifts Earth anymore... could a Vampire Intelligence just do something sneaky like stash a wild vampire it made in a coffin at the center of the moon, launch it into orbit, put it in a pocket dimension, put them somewhere on Phase World, etc...
That could be a really sneaky defense mechanicsm, to stash them out of the way so the 10,000 rarely comes into effect - you'd need to quest and do a bunch of info-gathering magic and stuff to track down those backup "anchor vamps"
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A few other interesting notes about Forced Abandonment
1) only Masters died 100% of the time in the original WB, the revised version added 100% odds to the demon familiar
2) Masters aren't guaranteed to die in Nightbane - Shadows of Light said there's a chance of them surviving and resuming their old roles
3) the shadows of light version takes 1D6 minutes instead of 1D4+2 making it faster
4) in Nightbane the intelligence can use it to move between Earth/Nightlands without it triggering the deaths/sleep, making it largely without problems
Forced Exodus and the Vampire Intelligence - Dimensional Portal and avoiding the hundred-century ban
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