Antagonists...

[rat_bastard]

Other than the Splugorth and the Coalition, who do you guys like to use as the primary antagonist in your game?

The (Non-Dweomer) Federation of Magic, the Vampire Kingdoms, The NGR, the Eternal order of Mystic Knights.

Oh and Northern Gun, Manisique Imperium, Golden Age and Wellington Industries.

[runebeo]

In our game we battle a rouge Night Lord in Germany and a elite branch of Mystic Knights called the Dark Templars in Ontario and New York State. The Templars main goal is to control the main Ley Lines in this region and set up a criminal empire in Lazlo.They also perform a Night Lord ritual where the sacrifice noble heroes like Cyber Knights, Undead Slayer and even Angels to form an alliance with the Demon Lords from the Nightlands sourcebook.

[Natasha]

I've always wanted to run a Xictix campaign.

The longest Rifts game I played in had no primary antagonist.
Our f-bots were hunting for gemstones in old mines in the Urals and encountered some odd undead miners who had dug themselves out from the collapsed mines and were roaming the Urals. As we explored the great Siberian plain we floated across a lost cyborg programmed to kill. While on the run we came across a village of humans and d-bees when we picked up a couple of other players for the game. We tracked down the cyborg and the miners once we had some fire power and destroyed them.

If that sounds like a short game, it was. But it was a lot of fun.

[Balabanto]

Well, when I run games, it doesn't matter what the system is. The PC's don't need enemies. They have each other!

Seriously, though, in one of my games, the big bad is the conflict between the Coalition and the Federation of Magic, and the heroes are caught in the middle. The GMPC is the magical granddaughter of the affair between Joseph Prosek and a mysterious magician.

In another of my games, the villain is a family of Clan Aeheriman whose wayward daughter chose the path of the Cyberknight, and they're desperately trying to hush it up because it's an embarassment to their superiors. Of course, forty Sunaj is a pretty tough group of people, but you know, they really shouldn't be fighting them all at once. (The oath of non-interference says you can't openly TELL anyone about the Sunaj. The oath does NOT say that you cannot SHOW other people by proxy if you share a common enemy with them. )

In another of my games, the villain is a C'ro Demon Mage who's taken up Residence in the New West. Well aware of psynetics and the large Brodkill population, he's cut a deal with the Angel of Death halfway across the world, and is busy testing things for her while building an army of Brodkil, Monster Brodkil, and Crazies to crush the Barony of Hope and Silvereno beneath his stingery heel. Sadly, this guy's not friendly, and has his very own Naruni Sun Chariot Power Armor. Nothing like blowing up a suit of power armor to discover a Cro Demon Mage underneath!

In still yet another, the current enemy of the PC's is Guktar Tagos, an Ogre Mind Melter. With his small group of hired juicers, after being defeated by the PC's and arrested, currently he seeks to acquire the bounty that will presently arrive on their heads. Sentenced to death, he modified the memories of his firing squad with his hired Delphi Juicer, and now everyone believes he's dead. Unfortunately for them, he's alive and kicking. (See favorite moments in Rifts on another thread for information about this bounty.)

So who's my favorite villain? The secret Banking Consortium of Robert Holcroft, Assistant Director of the First Bank of the Coalition, Gazmir Thraztikkar, an influential Great Horned Dragon in the GDSL, and Skeebo Runthrait, an assistant to the Naruni Banking Consortium. Together, these three gentlemen manipulate everything that goes on, from the price of weapons to the very existence of the JA-12. Using the JA-12 as a profit base, plus the profit from juicer conversions, they use this money to move and manipulate vast sums of cash, alter the course of wars, and make the three of them all filthy stinking rich without the knowledge of their respective banking organizations.

Talk about a bunch of bad guys.

[Balabanto]

Sadly, I started running Rifts about 10 years ago. These guys were always there.

[Balabanto]

The players should not know who Archie is unless they encounter the appropriate NPCs, start as a Republican (Possible) or start as a non-free willed Shemarran (Disallowed)

My players don't know who Archie is, of course, none of them have ever been to Pennsylvania, per se, and they've only had one (Hostile) encounter with two Shemarrans. Sadly, the Shemarrans were killed by plasma, so they really didn't find anything out, either.

[Elthbert]

In the main rival petty kiingdoms, pecos bandits, rival mobsters, and general bad guys/monsters/ demons etc. the coalition has been the random good guy ( flybuy patrol attacks rampaging monster kind of thing) as often as the bad, though we did have a long conflict between the petty kingdom the characters where beholding to and a Coalition client state. It was interesting.

[Seneca]

My current game based in the hermit kingdom of Korea has three major bad guys. Two open and one hidden.

My ad-hoc group of Japanese and Chinese PC's have wandered into a small town that caters to pirates and bandits including the Horune. While in town they have been approached separately by various factions about the local gang war going on behind the scenes.

Madam Chow, the aging local madam of the best brothel/tea house in town, has asked for help from the Chinese PC's. A Blind Mystic and his Enlightened Demon body guard, a Monkey Spirit, and a Geo-front Robot pilot masquerading a a mercenary. A series of murders of some of her best girls and a few wealthy patrons has lead her to believe that she is being targeted by one of the local gangs. Secretly, the woman is a Night Witch, who purchased her girls from slavers, and uses them to gather information on the juiciest targets for her own band of bandits. A group lead by demons bound to her.

Jiang Yin, a small prostitute in Madam Chow's brothel, has been turned into a secondary vampire by one of Madam Chow's jilted ex-lovers. Himself a Master Vampire. While originally he simply hoped that his new servant would kill the woman, she has crafted a far more devious plan to break the witch once and for all. Using her own skills and her new found powers she has taken revenge on the worst bullies to ever darken the door of Madam Chow's tea house. While secretly mind controlling the son of the head of the Matoshuko Yakuza clan. Using the young man she has twisted the clan into a tool of revenge against the witch and as a base in which to hide her fellow vampires in plain sight.

Dr. Lazar Belolvskiye, a Russian cyber-doc on the run from his native lands for consorting with forbidden powers. Secretly the good doctor has studied magic and is a cybermage (from Through the Glass Darkly). A wanted man in Russia he has fled south, not stopping until he reached Korea. Here he has set up shop, using the Horune to provide him with a bounty of subjects to experiment on. His activities drew the attention of the Sodeptan clan of bandits. Seeking greater power and wealth, the gang has convinced the good doctor to upgrade a number of the gangs enforcers into heavy machines. Their power grab has upset Jiang Yin's plans and their mystically enhanced super cyborgs are immune to the mind control of the vampires.

This gang war has brought hardship to the legitimate businesses in town, as all sides seek to gather allies and supplies from the locals. Shakedowns and protection rackets are bleeding the business dry.