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Recently I re-read the Communication Rift for Shifters (RUE p122) "the Rift transcends space AND TIME to open".

Wait? Really? So they can send messages into the past or the future? Pretty sure the Coalition just lost the war...

My personal favorite is that Sir Prrcyvel in England (page 107) has
Simple Weapon: Silver Knife
Simple Weapon: Silver Sword

Galahad has
Simple Weapon: Four ordinary wooden arrows
Simple Weapon: Wooden throwing stick.


So you can make your ectoplasm be silver, or wood... or presumably uranium (depleted or not) or what ever else.

I always wanted to put together a "Biggest Cheater in the Megaverse" contest to find the N.P.C. with the most egregious violations of character creation rules. This thread is a nice surrogate for that.

It would be easier to do with the PF books because their canon core book is much 'out of date' with it's most currently published books.

Rifts South America 1:
Manoan techno-wizard weapons are powered by a TW-Cell: "Flamer" pistol and "Fireball" gun, p91-92. I'm assuming that's the "TW-energy cell" described as beyond PC replication on p91.

The stun weapons mention an E-Cell, but those are the only two mentions of it in SA1. ETA: The stun weapons are based on the Agony spell. Is E-Cell defined somewhere else, is it a typo for TW-Cell, or is it just hanging out there?

Want an actual oasis of peace, prosperity, openness, magic, and technology? Try The Kingdom of Tarramore?The City of Stone (Dublin), Rifts: England, p134-136.

thorr-kan wrote:Want an actual oasis of peace, prosperity, openness, magic, and technology? Try The Kingdom of Tarramore?The City of Stone (Dublin), Rifts: England, p134-136.

My favorite location in Rifts Europe but not sure if it is a weird find.

Warshield73 wrote:

thorr-kan wrote:Want an actual oasis of peace, prosperity, openness, magic, and technology? Try The Kingdom of Tarramore?The City of Stone (Dublin), Rifts: England, p134-136.

My favorite location in Rifts Europe but not sure if it is a weird find.

It was weird to me. No rampant discrimination. No secret alien intelligence. No looming magical threat. Good relations and an open line of credit with the nearest superpower. No imminent plans for hostile expansion. It's like...the inhabitants are acting like cautious, thinking adults. Is...is that allowed?!

Psi-Warriors have "Replenish P.P.E.". This isn't described anywhere (and they only have 2D4 PPE - what good is this psionic?).

This seems to be a common thing in Triax 2 - "2D6 M.D. per single shot or 1D6x10 M.D. per quadruple pulse blast".

Hotrod wrote:I always wanted to put together a "Biggest Cheater in the Megaverse" contest to find the N.P.C. with the most egregious violations of character creation rules. This thread is a nice surrogate for that.

Here's something vaguely cheaty: If you look at the Necromancer Vampires made by the "Return from the Grave" spell on page 105 of Mystic Russia or page 199 of the Book of Magic, it turns a Necromancer into what is basically a Master Vampire with Necromancer powers, fewer vulnerabilities than regular vampires, no connection to a Vampire Intelligence, and the ability to create more vampires via Slow Kill.

Seriously, reading the text it's a water-immune Master Vamp with no boss that can create more of it's own kind.

Want to get accused of cheating? Have a Necro-Vamp roll in as the villain with a vampire posse of his/her own creation.

Everybody's gangsta until a gang of vampires attack your boat on jetskis during a thunderstorm.

thorr-kan wrote:

Warshield73 wrote:

thorr-kan wrote:Want an actual oasis of peace, prosperity, openness, magic, and technology? Try The Kingdom of Tarramore?The City of Stone (Dublin), Rifts: England, p134-136.

My favorite location in Rifts Europe but not sure if it is a weird find.

It was weird to me. No rampant discrimination. No secret alien intelligence. No looming magical threat. Good relations and an open line of credit with the nearest superpower. No imminent plans for hostile expansion. It's like...the inhabitants are acting like cautious, thinking adults. Is...is that allowed?!

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts."

In the case of Ireland, given the fact that the entire island is overrun with faerie folk, I think there are plenty of looming magical threats. Even if you write off the threat of the nicer faeries (which I don't), the nastier ones are pretty darn nasty.

There's also the fact that they're right by the sea, where Atlantis and the Horune like to raid.

All that said, it is a little weird that they don't have any built-in internal problems. That said, Rifts: England is a bit of an odd book, and the second half of it feels less deliberate and less focused than the sections on druids, mystic herbology, and the whole Camelot thing.

Hotrod wrote:

thorr-kan wrote:

Warshield73 wrote:

thorr-kan wrote:Want an actual oasis of peace, prosperity, openness, magic, and technology? Try The Kingdom of Tarramore?The City of Stone (Dublin), Rifts: England, p134-136.

My favorite location in Rifts Europe but not sure if it is a weird find.

It was weird to me. No rampant discrimination. No secret alien intelligence. No looming magical threat. Good relations and an open line of credit with the nearest superpower. No imminent plans for hostile expansion. It's like...the inhabitants are acting like cautious, thinking adults. Is...is that allowed?!

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts."

In the case of Ireland, given the fact that the entire island is overrun with faerie folk, I think there are plenty of looming magical threats. Even if you write off the threat of the nicer faeries (which I don't), the nastier ones are pretty darn nasty.

There's also the fact that they're right by the sea, where Atlantis and the Horune like to raid.

All that said, it is a little weird that they don't have any built-in internal problems. That said, Rifts: England is a bit of an odd book, and the second half of it feels less deliberate and less focused than the sections on druids, mystic herbology, and the whole Camelot thing.

Tarramore doesn't really need internal problems. They've got an island full of faeries to deal with, if they had major internal strife, they'd probably have long since fallen as a kingdom.

Plus, they likely have Splugorth raids to deal with along with the dangers of being cheek by jowl with faeries all the time since faeries are a major ingredient in some of the most horrifying Bio Wizard gear.

MadGreenSon wrote:

Hotrod wrote:

thorr-kan wrote:

Warshield73 wrote:

thorr-kan wrote:Want an actual oasis of peace, prosperity, openness, magic, and technology? Try The Kingdom of Tarramore?The City of Stone (Dublin), Rifts: England, p134-136.

My favorite location in Rifts Europe but not sure if it is a weird find.

It was weird to me. No rampant discrimination. No secret alien intelligence. No looming magical threat. Good relations and an open line of credit with the nearest superpower. No imminent plans for hostile expansion. It's like...the inhabitants are acting like cautious, thinking adults. Is...is that allowed?!

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts."

In the case of Ireland, given the fact that the entire island is overrun with faerie folk, I think there are plenty of looming magical threats. Even if you write off the threat of the nicer faeries (which I don't), the nastier ones are pretty darn nasty.

There's also the fact that they're right by the sea, where Atlantis and the Horune like to raid.

All that said, it is a little weird that they don't have any built-in internal problems. That said, Rifts: England is a bit of an odd book, and the second half of it feels less deliberate and less focused than the sections on druids, mystic herbology, and the whole Camelot thing.

Tarramore doesn't really need internal problems. They've got an island full of faeries to deal with, if they had major internal strife, they'd probably have long since fallen as a kingdom.

Plus, they likely have Splugorth raids to deal with along with the dangers of being cheek by jowl with faeries all the time since faeries are a major ingredient in some of the most horrifying Bio Wizard gear.

Whenever I have used Tarramore I have always had minor problems with Horune, moderate problems with Natyll and near constant raids from the Splugorth and that was just the known threats. I have also had Myrlyn use cat's paws to try and weaken them for his own purposes. It is a beautiful and internally peaceful city with most of its problems trying break in.

Warshield73 wrote:Whenever I have used Tarramore I have always had minor problems with Horune, moderate problems with Natyll and near constant raids from the Splugorth and that was just the known threats. I have also had Myrlyn use cat's paws to try and weaken them for his own purposes. It is a beautiful and internally peaceful city with most of its problems trying break in.

Sounds about right to me. Though I have had to completely reformat the Camelot stuff because it grates on my soul due to my lifelong love of Arthurian stories and legends.

Here's another weird find: apparently barley, hops, and yeast are rare in the Megaverse other than on Earth. So nowhere else has beer. (See Triax 2 page 58)

Earth is the only source of beer in the infinite Megaverse.

Also, Earth is the one of the only places to get bread leavened with yeast.

MadGreenSon wrote:

Warshield73 wrote:Whenever I have used Tarramore I have always had minor problems with Horune, moderate problems with Natyll and near constant raids from the Splugorth and that was just the known threats. I have also had Myrlyn use cat's paws to try and weaken them for his own purposes. It is a beautiful and internally peaceful city with most of its problems trying break in.

Sounds about right to me. Though I have had to completely reformat the Camelot stuff because it grates on my soul due to my lifelong love of Arthurian stories and legends.

I did not have this reaction but I do understand it. But I have never been a huge fan of Arthurian legend so it was never going to bother me that much. That being said I never made changes to the material but I did add to it.
- I brought in Avalon and associated gods
- I brought in Morgana as the hero wizard switching the roles of Merlin and Morgana
- Had a major battle where Merlin was unmasked, Caliber-X was destroyed and Genevie was killed
- Arthur was injured and restored on Avalon, I hinted that he was combined in some way with the original but never actually worked it out
- PCs had to help Arthur kill the fake Lady of the Lake to allow the real one to return, she in turn gave Arthur the actual Excalibur which I heavily based on the one in Mutants in Avalon
- I then moved Merlin to Barwynmoore as sort of the enemy of Camelot with Arthur and Morgana

I only got about halfway through this with my player group before we got sidetracked with other stuff but I think it would have worked out OK.

MadGreenSon wrote:Here's another weird find: apparently barley, hops, and yeast are rare in the Megaverse other than on Earth. So nowhere else has beer. (See Triax 2 page 58)

Earth is the only source of beer in the infinite Megaverse.

Also, Earth is the one of the only places to get bread leavened with yeast.

It's worse than that. I am pretty sure that Rifts Earth may be the only place where alcohol may be available as I haven't seen any mention of them at all in Dimension Books

Warshield73 wrote:

MadGreenSon wrote:

Hotrod wrote:

Warshield73 wrote:

thorr-kan wrote:Want an actual oasis of peace, prosperity, openness, magic, and technology? Try The Kingdom of Tarramore?The City of Stone (Dublin), Rifts: England, p134-136.

My favorite location in Rifts Europe but not sure if it is a weird find.

Kevin once told me, "There are no utopias in Rifts."

In the case of Ireland, given the fact that the entire island is overrun with faerie folk, I think there are plenty of looming magical threats. Even if you write off the threat of the nicer faeries (which I don't), the nastier ones are pretty darn nasty.

There's also the fact that they're right by the sea, where Atlantis and the Horune like to raid.

All that said, it is a little weird that they don't have any built-in internal problems. That said, Rifts: England is a bit of an odd book, and the second half of it feels less deliberate and less focused than the sections on druids, mystic herbology, and the whole Camelot thing.

Tarramore doesn't really need internal problems. They've got an island full of faeries to deal with, if they had major internal strife, they'd probably have long since fallen as a kingdom.

Plus, they likely have Splugorth raids to deal with along with the dangers of being cheek by jowl with faeries all the time since faeries are a major ingredient in some of the most horrifying Bio Wizard gear.

Whenever I have used Tarramore I have always had minor problems with Horune, moderate problems with Natyll and near constant raids from the Splugorth and that was just the known threats. I have also had Myrlyn use cat's paws to try and weaken them for his own purposes. It is a beautiful and internally peaceful city with most of its problems trying break in.

Everybody's commentary about external threats is spot-on. Which doesn't make Tarramore really any different that way than ever other place on Rifts Earth.

But as a place to raise the kids? I'd be hard placed to pick a better place. Sure, the entire outside world's trying to kill you, but at least the neighbors aren't!

Warshield73 wrote:I did not have this reaction but I do understand it. But I have never been a huge fan of Arthurian legend so it was never going to bother me that much. That being said I never made changes to the material but I did add to it.
- I brought in Avalon and associated gods
- I brought in Morgana as the hero wizard switching the roles of Merlin and Morgana
- Had a major battle where Merlin was unmasked, Caliber-X was destroyed and Genevie was killed
- Arthur was injured and restored on Avalon, I hinted that he was combined in some way with the original but never actually worked it out
- PCs had to help Arthur kill the fake Lady of the Lake to allow the real one to return, she in turn gave Arthur the actual Excalibur which I heavily based on the one in Mutants in Avalon
- I then moved Merlin to Barwynmoore as sort of the enemy of Camelot with Arthur and Morgana

That works really well with some of the stories involving Morgan since if you look at some of the legends and stories she eventually did have a change of heart and even went on to do things like help the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne and other heroic or at least non-evil deeds.

Also, I approve of your choice of Excalibur since unlike what some anime would say, the best version of Excalibur is the unbreakable, ever sharp sword that needs no cute tricks like also being a gun or shooting lasers to be the symbol and weapon of the Pendragon.

Warshield73 wrote:

MadGreenSon wrote:Here's another weird find: apparently barley, hops, and yeast are rare in the Megaverse other than on Earth. So nowhere else has beer. (See Triax 2 page 58)

Earth is the only source of beer in the infinite Megaverse.

Also, Earth is the one of the only places to get bread leavened with yeast.

It's worse than that. I am pretty sure that Rifts Earth may be the only place where alcohol may be available as I haven't seen any mention of them at all in Dimension Books

I've seen mention of it elsewhere. Also Atlantis shows a brew the Splugorth provide for supernatural creatures which can kill mortal beings. While that particular Splugorth post may be on Earth, I don't think their demons-only booze was invented there.

thorr-kan wrote:Everybody's commentary about external threats is spot-on. Which doesn't make Tarramore really any different that way than ever other place on Rifts Earth.

But as a place to raise the kids? I'd be hard placed to pick a better place. Sure, the entire outside world's trying to kill you, but at least the neighbors aren't!

You raise a fair point.

narcissus wrote:Psi-Warriors have "Replenish P.P.E.". This isn't described anywhere (and they only have 2D4 PPE - what good is this psionic?).

The closest match might be "Restore PPE" from page 116 of Nightbane World Book One: Between the Shadows.

It allows you to use ISP to restore PPE for others.

Axelmania wrote:

narcissus wrote:Psi-Warriors have "Replenish P.P.E.". This isn't described anywhere (and they only have 2D4 PPE - what good is this psionic?).

The closest match might be "Restore PPE" from page 116 of Nightbane World Book One: Between the Shadows.

It allows you to use ISP to restore PPE for others.

"Restore PPE" is in RUE (Pg166) and in WB12 (pg36).

ShadowLogan wrote:

Axelmania wrote:

narcissus wrote:Psi-Warriors have "Replenish P.P.E.". This isn't described anywhere (and they only have 2D4 PPE - what good is this psionic?).

The closest match might be "Restore PPE" from page 116 of Nightbane World Book One: Between the Shadows.

It allows you to use ISP to restore PPE for others.

"Restore PPE" is in RUE (Pg166) and in WB12 (pg36).

ah true, I must've been thinking of REstore ISP as being the nightbane exclusive power

I'm not sure how weird it is, but here's something I've noticed that I thought was funny; The Republic of Japan has 88,920 illegal Juicers operating in their underworld. Seems like a lot, but apparently 6% of the population has ponied up the 80,000 credit fee for an illegal Juicer conversion there.

The criminal underworld in Hiroshima, Kure, and Iwakuni sure sounds like an exciting place.

MadGreenSon wrote:I'm not sure how weird it is, but here's something I've noticed that I thought was funny; The Republic of Japan has 88,920 illegal Juicers operating in their underworld. Seems like a lot, but apparently 6% of the population has ponied up the 80,000 credit fee for an illegal Juicer conversion there.

The criminal underworld in Hiroshima, Kure, and Iwakuni sure sounds like an exciting place.

A lot of juicers have their procedure paid for by somebody else, then they work off the debt.
Seems like something the Yakuza and such would do.

MadGreenSon wrote:I'm not sure how weird it is, but here's something I've noticed that I thought was funny; The Republic of Japan has 88,920 illegal Juicers operating in their underworld. Seems like a lot, but apparently 6% of the population has ponied up the 80,000 credit fee for an illegal Juicer conversion there.

The criminal underworld in Hiroshima, Kure, and Iwakuni sure sounds like an exciting place.

We noticed that too back when it first came out. The numbers for everything seemed kind of high but that many juicers made things in Japan kind interesting when my PCs were there.

Killer Cyborg wrote:A lot of juicers have their procedure paid for by somebody else, then they work off the debt.
Seems like something the Yakuza and such would do.

80K is actually on the lower end of the price range for the Juicer process. Everything worth having tends to cost a ton anyway, so 80k ain't bad.

What's shocking is that they have around eight times as many Juicers as participated in the Juicer Uprising in such a relative small area.

Warshield73 wrote:We noticed that too back when it first came out. The numbers for everything seemed kind of high but that many juicers made things in Japan kind interesting when my PCs were there.

Since there's a literal army of criminal Juicers I imagine "interesting" was the polite way of putting it.

Speaking of Japan! I was just now looking through it again and I found something both weird and valuable; page 37-38 the TW Fire Breathing Arquebus, 800' range, 5d6 MD, 3 shots per melee, no limit to it's payload, can keep being used as long as magic levels on Earth remain high

Heftyish damage, probably looks cool, and doesn't need to be reloaded at all. Three attacks per round isn't great, but the benefits far outweigh the disadvantage there.

I want to equip a small army with 'em and cosplay as Oda Nobunaga now...

"Black Market Cost: 36 million credits and up for a new, undamaged, full powered walker complete with full missile systems."

Maybe buy one without missiles it would probably be cheaper and exactly the same since the Spider Skull Walker doesn't have any missiles.

hup7 wrote:"Black Market Cost: 36 million credits and up for a new, undamaged, full powered walker complete with full missile systems."

Maybe buy one without missiles it would probably be cheaper and exactly the same since the Spider Skull Walker doesn't have any missiles.

they probably meant to change it to smoke canisters, and this being palladium editing, forgot.

Well, i don't know how much it applies but Rifts Japan dedicates a few paragraphs to telling us how Goblin spiders were once owned really hard by the True Atlanteans (along with some gods of light) and how the survivors have dedicated considerable effort to get revenge on the True Atlanteans and making their lives miserables since, with their enemies being fond of the world one of the reasons they have come to Rifts Earth, for more of their vendetta.

But then why are they concentrated in the Pacific, between Japan & China of all parts of the damn world?!?!?!

SolCannibal wrote:Well, i don't know how much it applies but Rifts Japan dedicates a few paragraphs to telling us how Goblin spiders were once owned really hard by the True Atlanteans (along with some gods of light) and how the survivors have dedicated considerable effort to get revenge on the True Atlanteans and making their lives miserables since, with their enemies being fond of the world one of the reasons they have come to Rifts Earth, for more of their vendetta.

But then why are they concentrated in the Pacific, between Japan & China of all parts of the damn world?!?!?!

Read the map upside down.

taalismn wrote:

SolCannibal wrote:Well, i don't know how much it applies but Rifts Japan dedicates a few paragraphs to telling us how Goblin spiders were once owned really hard by the True Atlanteans (along with some gods of light) and how the survivors have dedicated considerable effort to get revenge on the True Atlanteans and making their lives miserables since, with their enemies being fond of the world one of the reasons they have come to Rifts Earth, for more of their vendetta.

But then why are they concentrated in the Pacific, between Japan & China of all parts of the damn world?!?!?!

Read the map upside down.

"I told you we should have turned counterclockwise into that portal from Lalibela!"

"Yes, because that did not send us back to Wormwood or into the Asura Demon Realm the other two times...."

"Maybe if we tried something beside the elephant head in that Millenium Tree."

"Here be dragons. The local ones seem wingless & snakey enough - keep stalking them until we find a Chiang-Ku to guide us."

"Uh, i think the Chiang-Ku went extinct while we were stasis jail."

"Look those warrior masks and the guys blades, they look kind of Sunaj-ey to me - and Sunaj are atlanteans in disguise, or Splugorth minions made from cloned atlanteans, right?"

"Maybe both? Could be a cool way to trick the Spaghetti Devils at their own game."

"Damn, now i want to mess some Splugorth minions by trying to pass as Sunaj with just tall goblin form and metalic body paint."

"Guys, focus. Let's hit those local warriors for some Sunaj intel, fun comes later."

SolCannibal wrote:"Damn, now i want to mess some Splugorth minions by trying to pass as Sunaj with just tall goblin form and metalic body paint."

"Guys, focus. Let's hit those local warriors for some Sunaj intel, fun comes later."

Now I want to play a 'bumbling gangter monster campaign as the Spyder Brothers Meet the Piranha Brothers...

taalismn wrote:

SolCannibal wrote:"Damn, now i want to mess some Splugorth minions by trying to pass as Sunaj with just tall goblin form and metalic body paint."

"Guys, focus. Let's hit those local warriors for some Sunaj intel, fun comes later."

Now I want to play a 'bumbling gangter monster campaign as the Spyder Brothers Meet the Piranha Brothers...

Must admit that i kind of tempted myself with that dialogue too....