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I cant find any reference about whether the city of Arzno survived the vampire general ass-hat and his 1000 strong vampire army. Has anyone seen or heard anything about it?

Probably one of those things like the Xiticix War where is gets setup and most of it left to the GM and players to work out in-game how is pans out.

slade2501 wrote:I cant find any reference about whether the city of Arzno survived the vampire general ass-hat and his 1000 strong vampire army. Has anyone seen or heard anything about it?

That army isn't even remotely a threat to Arzno. Every house in the city has TW water weapons and almost all the adults have armor.

Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:

slade2501 wrote:I cant find any reference about whether the city of Arzno survived the vampire general ass-hat and his 1000 strong vampire army. Has anyone seen or heard anything about it?

That army isn't even remotely a threat to Arzno. Every house in the city has TW water weapons and almost all the adults have armor.

I want bigass area of effect weather control...bring on day-long deluge rainstorm to swamp vampires and wash away minions.....

taalismn wrote:

Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:

slade2501 wrote:I cant find any reference about whether the city of Arzno survived the vampire general ass-hat and his 1000 strong vampire army. Has anyone seen or heard anything about it?

That army isn't even remotely a threat to Arzno. Every house in the city has TW water weapons and almost all the adults have armor.

I want bigass area of effect weather control...bring on day-long deluge rainstorm to swamp vampires and wash away minions.....

Also likely possible given that they have a pyramid on a nexus, IIRC.

remember that the vampire plot as presented is not a short term one.. at the time of the book they were still in the "covert building up of power and gathering intelligence" phase, and any kind of open and direct conflict is years if not decades away.

glitterboy2098 wrote:remember that the vampire plot as presented is not a short term one.. at the time of the book they were still in the "covert building up of power and gathering intelligence" phase, and any kind of open and direct conflict is years if not decades away.

This too.

Ill stand by my statement that the current forces are no threat to Arzno at all. With how well-equipped the town is to deal with vampires in particular, theyre going to need a lot more guys before they become a threat.

Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:[

Ill stand by my statement that the current forces are no threat to Arzno at all. With how well-equipped the town is to deal with vampires in particular, theyre going to need a lot more guys before they become a threat.

Vampires have the time.

Armorlord wrote:Probably one of those things like the Xiticix War where is gets setup and most of it left to the GM and players to work out in-game how is pans out.

As it was basically the set up of the writers home game and intended to be the theme of any local games there wasn't supposed to be a resolution. Instead it was designed to be the source of the local overarching metaplot for adventuring in Arizona allowing a GM to simply plug and play with out having to write up their own massive meta-plot.

taalismn wrote:

Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:[

Ill stand by my statement that the current forces are no threat to Arzno at all. With how well-equipped the town is to deal with vampires in particular, theyre going to need a lot more guys before they become a threat.

Vampires have the time.

Arzno has the beer.

Just checking to see if anyone here is as old, or older, than I am.

Arzno has got the money, honey.

Who's bringing the bourbon and the scotch?

Khanibal wrote:

taalismn wrote:

Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:[

Ill stand by my statement that the current forces are no threat to Arzno at all. With how well-equipped the town is to deal with vampires in particular, theyre going to need a lot more guys before they become a threat.

Vampires have the time.

Arzno has the beer.

Just checking to see if anyone here is as old, or older, than I am.

Miller.

eliakon wrote:

Armorlord wrote:Probably one of those things like the Xiticix War where is gets setup and most of it left to the GM and players to work out in-game how is pans out.

As it was basically the set up of the writers home game and intended to be the theme of any local games there wasn't supposed to be a resolution. Instead it was designed to be the source of the local overarching metaplot for adventuring in Arizona allowing a GM to simply plug and play with out having to write up their own massive meta-plot.

I actually played almost none of my games back in the day in or dealing with Arzno. Here and there, and some playtests of material, but mostly it was original to the book.

But yes, you're pretty much correct. The conflict is an overarching setting, and is prolonged without a set resolution. The main goal of the book, which I hope it achieved, was too create a distinct city and region for gaming that had a non-CS conflict. I wanted a mapped city with tons of adventure, and a unique enemy who was fun and challenging.

I still think Arzno is the Palladium gold standard for setting presentation (maps, adventure hooks, and a balance between usable detail and GMs having room to work), though I may be a bit biased.

I think y'all are selling the vampires short, though. Xavier is a smart dude.

If you're going to be at the Open House, my game is called Fall of Arzno. Not canon, of course, just a fun scenario.

At a previous open house I ran a game in the future where Onra had gone insane with power and the players had to kill him and his acolytes.

To my knowledge only meta plots that have been officially finished are SOT and minion war. All others seam to have not yet happen.

Jason Richards wrote:

eliakon wrote:

Armorlord wrote:Probably one of those things like the Xiticix War where is gets setup and most of it left to the GM and players to work out in-game how is pans out.

As it was basically the set up of the writers home game and intended to be the theme of any local games there wasn't supposed to be a resolution. Instead it was designed to be the source of the local overarching metaplot for adventuring in Arizona allowing a GM to simply plug and play with out having to write up their own massive meta-plot.

I actually played almost none of my games back in the day in or dealing with Arzno. Here and there, and some playtests of material, but mostly it was original to the book.

But yes, you're pretty much correct. The conflict is an overarching setting, and is prolonged without a set resolution. The main goal of the book, which I hope it achieved, was too create a distinct city and region for gaming that had a non-CS conflict. I wanted a mapped city with tons of adventure, and a unique enemy who was fun and challenging.

I still think Arzno is the Palladium gold standard for setting presentation (maps, adventure hooks, and a balance between usable detail and GMs having room to work), though I may be a bit biased.

I think y'all are selling the vampires short, though. Xavier is a smart dude.

If you're going to be at the Open House, my game is called Fall of Arzno. Not canon, of course, just a fun scenario.

At a previous open house I ran a game in the future where Onra had gone insane with power and the players had to kill him and his acolytes.

I find Arzno to be a great "Kingsdale" home base setting for the New/Spirit west area of books, and use it as such. Far enough from Chi-town to have some real fun without the CS breathing down your back. unfortunately its also a tougher area for monsters and such, more evil nature n stuff. and vampires are damned scary. If Kingsdale got its own book, I would be so very happy. and I think the setting in general needs more cities as well.

Honestly I am fine with there being cities the GM can flesh out to suit their needs. Not every thing to me needs to be highly mapped out leave it a dot on the map and as a GM I can fill in the rest.

slade2501 wrote:I find Arzno to be a great "Kingsdale" home base setting for the New/Spirit west area of books, and use it as such. Far enough from Chi-town to have some real fun without the CS breathing down your back. unfortunately its also a tougher area for monsters and such, more evil nature n stuff. and vampires are damned scary. If Kingsdale got its own book, I would be so very happy. and I think the setting in general needs more cities as well.

Problem with Kingsdale is it doesn't make a lick of sense. It's now literally INSIDE claimed CS territory.

Kingsdale made a lot of sense in the context of the original vision of Rifts (vast stretches of wilderness with the occasional bastion of civilization), but that has been extinct since about The CS War Machine book. And the entire concept of the fact there are vehicles that can traverse this "huge wasteland" in a matter of hours from one end to the other with ease.

I actually like Arzno because it is a taste of what Kingsdale was, and most World Books should have been - small bastions of civilization in a wilderness. Anything outside of the far western portion of the New West, though, and you're never more than 3-4 hours travel from a major settlement. Ever. So im not sure that "the setting needs more cities" is a tack i'd take. Id go more with "the setting needs to do away with quick travel, and then have more things like Kingsdale and Arzno and less things like the CS, Lazlo, FQ, etc etc etc..".

Jason Richards wrote:

eliakon wrote:

Armorlord wrote:Probably one of those things like the Xiticix War where is gets setup and most of it left to the GM and players to work out in-game how is pans out.

As it was basically the set up of the writers home game and intended to be the theme of any local games there wasn't supposed to be a resolution. Instead it was designed to be the source of the local overarching metaplot for adventuring in Arizona allowing a GM to simply plug and play with out having to write up their own massive meta-plot.

I actually played almost none of my games back in the day in or dealing with Arzno. Here and there, and some playtests of material, but mostly it was original to the book.

But yes, you're pretty much correct. The conflict is an overarching setting, and is prolonged without a set resolution. The main goal of the book, which I hope it achieved, was too create a distinct city and region for gaming that had a non-CS conflict. I wanted a mapped city with tons of adventure, and a unique enemy who was fun and challenging.

I still think Arzno is the Palladium gold standard for setting presentation (maps, adventure hooks, and a balance between usable detail and GMs having room to work), though I may be a bit biased.

Not sure i'd say "gold standard" but its definitely one of the better books released post CJ, if not the outright best. I really liked CJs fluff and i think he accomplished a lot of the same things with the books he wrote (South America, for instance, is well covered but theres a LOT of opportunity there for adventure and adding your own stuff, and Mercenaries and Juicer Uprising are my two favorite Rifts books, bar none. Now.. CJ's *crunch* on the other hand.. .yeah, thats a different topic altogether).

I think y'all are selling the vampires short, though. Xavier is a smart dude.

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I agree he's written that way, and i know you're the author, but no amount of smarts is going to let him take ~2000 vampires into Arzno and lead to a victory. Not the way you wrote Arzno. Pyramid. Rain-storm on demand. Every household has one or two anti-vampire weapons and 50% of the adults have MDC armor. Plus whatever is in the stockpiles, and the AMC. No way he wins in an assault on the city unless you plot-blunder-protect him and the good guys are morons.

Now, is he a viable long-term threat? Absolutely. Even as written. Eventually he can amass enough vampires to make an assault feasible, and in the meantime he can undermine and destroy or take over the communities around Arzno, leading to less or no support, and isolation. He can harass and destroy AMC convoys and patrols, etc.

But as written, at the "current" timeline (109-111PA)... an assault? No way man. He'd get (literally) hosed.

Yeah, there are some aspects of his plan as they appear in the book that are problematic as you describe. I always viewed it as a longer term threat. One thing a vampire should never be is "in a hurry."

Colonel_Tetsuya wrote:

I think y'all are selling the vampires short, though. Xavier is a smart dude.

I agree he's written that way, and i know you're the author, but no amount of smarts is going to let him take ~2000 vampires into Arzno and lead to a victory. Not the way you wrote Arzno. Pyramid. Rain-storm on demand. Every household has one or two anti-vampire weapons and 50% of the adults have MDC armor. Plus whatever is in the stockpiles, and the AMC. No way he wins in an assault on the city unless you plot-blunder-protect him and the good guys are morons.

Now, is he a viable long-term threat? Absolutely. Even as written. Eventually he can amass enough vampires to make an assault feasible, and in the meantime he can undermine and destroy or take over the communities around Arzno, leading to less or no support, and isolation. He can harass and destroy AMC convoys and patrols, etc.

But as written, at the "current" timeline (109-111PA)... an assault? No way man. He'd get (literally) hosed.

well he is a military man. i'd imagine the 200 vamps are "cadre" rather than assault troops.. he'll continue to recruit new vamps, train them, grow his ranks slowly. probably recruit non-vamps too, and infiltrate them into the city, long term deep cover agents.
when the time comes to attack, he has his vamp army start converting as may people from the surrounding villages as he can as fast as he can. use the Exponential growth potential of an organized vampire population to rapidly convert tens of thousands of villagers into disposable troops. then while doing the assault, his deep cover agents start sabotaging Arzno's defenses.

I think people underestimate the effectiveness of mind controlled servants and plain old paid mercs. Also the ability to stake vampires to keep them on standby. Especially wild vampires.

Armorlord wrote:Probably one of those things like the Xiticix War where is gets setup and most of it left to the GM and players to work out in-game how is pans out.

Oh, that whole book got negated by the Siege on Tolkeen thing... especially Aftermath.

less negated and more "left in limbo"

And then put on hold for the Minion War.
From which the Coalition will emerge stronger than ever, again. All their dead soldiers will have been burb conscripts, again. They will have doubled the size of their military, again and collected enough NE weapons from the dead demons to easily reverse engineer the technology.