So, I'm firing up a Savage Worlds Rifts game and I'm looking for Rifters out there with more knowledge about the lore than myself. But this thread is open to all Rifts (and therefore Palladium settings) and any other setting that could potentially fit into a Rifts game.

My campaign is set in Arzno months after the fall of Tolkeen. I have some players that have never played Rifts before. She's playing a Dragon hatchling (which fits since like her hatchling, she doesn't know jack shit about Rifts) that was an egg picked up by another player, an Anti-Monster from South America, who is traveling back to Arzno with a Arzno AMC team that was doing work in South America. The other players are a local Techno-Wizard from Arzno, and two newly knighted Cyberknights that are going to Arzno to look for fallen CK's that are hiding in the region to see if they can be rehabilitated or be brought to justice (and largely to suss out rumors of what precisely happened in Tolkeen). My last player is... *still deciding* - all I know is he wants to be a True Atlantean-something.

Setting Conceits
I'm playing it straight up the middle but giving myself some elbow-room to play with established lore. So Arzno is Arzno as written (I'm using all the Palladium books as deeper reference) but the events of Tolkeen I know are contentious, as I'm still plowing through the Coalition Wars books. But I'm interested in hearing people's opinions about the following:

1) Tolkeen. What are your thoughts about Tolkeen and pre/post Coalition Wars. What do you all think about what actually happened and if you have a different take or rather have a more nuanced view in your head-canon of what happened?

2) What do you think the Federation of Magic's views are on the *actual* things that went on in Tolkeen towards the end? Do you guys believe that Tolkeen would have went that hard on going to the Dark Side vs. just bailing the fuck out?

3) The Cyberknight Schism - I couldn't help but feel this feels a LOT like Knights of the Old Republic but uglier. Like it? Hate it? I find it very compelling for anyone playing a CK to deal with. 47% of the CK's went to defend Tolkeen.

4) Anyone got some cool Old West ideas I could mine for my campaign?

5) Music suggestions? Thematics you use to convey Rifts in general?


Lastly - feel free to toss in any ideas an concepts based on Rifts you like/dislike or lore-traps that I might not have sussed out yet. This is not a thread just about system (but feel free to talk about them here), I'm a little more interested in the lore. The caveat here is I *am* using Savage Worlds which has a lot of stuff converted, but there is a several metric shit-tons of OCC's and RCC's that haven't been touched yet. So if you have a pet Palladium Rift thing you want to geek out on - go for it.

Not a major Rifts expert by far, but I have friends who are and have talked a little about the Tolkeen stuff.

Probably the number one reason it's so contentious is the books detailing everything took for fucking ever to come out, some were unnecessary, and some even came out in an order that was less than helpful. So like, the maps of what the city of Tolkeen looked like came out in the last book, after it had already been destroyed. There was also a ton of major Retcons with how magic worked (Suddenly spell failure being a thing) and what the Cyberknights were even about.

I think a few years now that it's all happened you can make the actual fall make more sense. But getting away from that, these are the details as I understand them.

From what I understand, Tolkeen *WAS* the gleaming, shining, city on the Hill. It was Camelot, Minis Tirith, ect. It was the Magic and Humans all working together for the greater good...

From a design perspective, I can see why destroying it is a good move. It serves as an excellent rallying cry, gives lots of motivation against those who destroyed it, and for PCs to potentially establish something even greater.

I know lots of people loved Tolkeen, but I think a perfectly functioning Tolkeen doesn't lend itself to a lot of Drama. That's the problem lots of people don't see, a super happy functioning area with no threats isn't a great place to adventure.

Now the corruption of Tolkeen is contentious for these very same issues, but from a design and story standpoint I see why it was done. If the Shining City on the hill can fall to corruption, than anyone can. It's a nice cautionary tale that no one is above or beyond reproach, but more importantly....there are certain things not worth doing no matter how desperate you are..

Storywise, it seems the *right thing* to do for Tolkeen was to flee. That under their own power they never stood a chance against the massive army of the Coalition. Which is what made them desperate and start calling up Demons to fight on their behalf. Tolkeen was 'blinded by hatred' is the word used... and fell to the Darkside... Again from what I understand storywise... it stopped being about saving themselves and became more about killing as many of the Coalition as they could.

So I think in a post Tolkeen world... You do have the many refugees that did survive and remember how it used to be... and then you also have the cautionary tale of *why* it fell... Rather than using all their magic to flee and rebuild, they wanted to fight an impossible battle and used spite that caused them to fall to darkness.

And in a way it helps further Coalition propaganda, "This magical city everyone thought was good and tolerated DBs? Look at them, they were demon worshippers in the end."

There's a lot of fertile ground to mine there for things in the background..

Quote from: tenbones on June 28, 2024, 11:49:20 AMSetting Conceits
I'm playing it straight up the middle but giving myself some elbow-room to play with established lore. So Arzno is Arzno as written (I'm using all the Palladium books as deeper reference) but the events of Tolkeen I know are contentious, as I'm still plowing through the Coalition Wars books. But I'm interested in hearing people's opinions about the following:

1) Tolkeen. What are your thoughts about Tolkeen and pre/post Coalition Wars. What do you all think about what actually happened and if you have a different take or rather have a more nuanced view in your head-canon of what happened?

Like a lot of Rifts and Palladium Books, there's a lot of great ideas, poorly executed. I take the "lore" as broad ideas. Tolkeen used magic to counter the tech advantages of the Coalition. They had a strong start because the Coalition forces were used to small scale police actions. During the war, the Coalition toughened up and got smart and ruthless. Tolkeen, already tempted by various "evil" forces, fell to demonic sources in their desperation. The Coalition won, but at a huge cost in resources and manpower.

Quote2) What do you think the Federation of Magic's views are on the *actual* things that went on in Tolkeen towards the end? Do you guys believe that Tolkeen would have went that hard on going to the Dark Side vs. just bailing the fuck out?

The Federation of Magic is kept in check by it's fractured nature. So the idea that they stayed out and watched their rivals fall is in synch with this. Dunscon is using the fall of Tolkien to grab more power and unite the various faction within the Federation. The threat is that with the fall of Tolkien, it's going to be far easier to unite people against the Coalition. And Dunscon is just as much of an asshole as the rulers in the Coalition. If the Federation wins, Dunscon is just going to set up a magic based empire in it's place.

Quote3) The Cyberknight Schism - I couldn't help but feel this feels a LOT like Knights of the Old Republic but uglier. Like it? Hate it? I find it very compelling for anyone playing a CK to deal with. 47% of the CK's went to defend Tolkeen.

Good part of the Siege of Tolkeen storyline. All the fallout should make for great RP scenarios. Fallen knights, bitter Knights, and the order trying to put itself back together.

Quote4) Anyone got some cool Old West ideas I could mine for my campaign?

5) Music suggestions? Thematics you use to convey Rifts in general?


Lastly - feel free to toss in any ideas an concepts based on Rifts you like/dislike or lore-traps that I might not have sussed out yet. This is not a thread just about system (but feel free to talk about them here), I'm a little more interested in the lore. The caveat here is I *am* using Savage Worlds which has a lot of stuff converted, but there is a several metric shit-tons of OCC's and RCC's that haven't been touched yet. So if you have a pet Palladium Rift thing you want to geek out on - go for it.

First, I'd play into the Coalition being depleted by the war. I like my Rifts to lean into the post-apoc side of things, and any nation state in the world should be leery of a big war like this. Their existence is precarious and they have limited resources. This should be a time of consolidation and rebuilding for the Coalition for years if not decades to come. Giving other factions a chance to react to the war and plan for future Coalition aggression. Any big events like the Xiticics problem or the invasion from Hell storyline should be handled mostly by other factions. The Coalition should have their hands full just keeping the monsters off their lawn, and not be in a position to make any big moves. More likely they'll send out special forces units to tip events against the threats. If they wind up helping D-Bees and wizards in the process, well it's a situation of lesser evils for now.

I can't tell if the idea of Tolkeen running instead of standing and fighting is a good idea or not. Whenever I read the parts in the sourcebooks about Erin Tarn talking about moving Tolkeen, I just think to myself that this ceeds territory to the Coalition and makes them stronger. Eventually the enemies of the CS will fall, one by one, instead of facing a united resistance. I have a mental image of the day when Plato and Erin and everybody will be standing with their backs to the ocean while the Coalition advances to literally push them into the sea where the Splugorth are waiting to scoop them up and turn them into slaves.
But it's an intentionally contentious situation, like most of the setting, designed to generate adventures.

One thing I really like to lean into is the idea that the world is crazy. I mean literally insane. Putting skulls on your robots is the least nutty idea in a world full of magic and demons and aliens and time travellers. You can meet the actual Billy the Kid, the actual Merlin, and a host of pretenders and con men. This is a world that bases it's societies as much on TV shows and movies recovered from the previous civilizations as real history. A world where turning yourself into a cyborg or juicer or crazy may be the only viable option to save your town from demons. This is not a sane and rational world, and players shouldn't expect that. Or be pleasantly surprised at moments of sanity.

Oh, and here's a rules bugaboo that I like to nip in the bud. A lot of complaints not just in Rifts but any system with teleportation in general is the Scry/Teleport/Smite argument.  My solution is Edna Mode, "No teleporting!". Not as a quick and easy mode of transportation. Keep it super rare, super hard to execute, and give it lots of limitations and restrictions.

Quote from: Orphan81 on June 28, 2024, 01:17:30 PMNot a major Rifts expert by far, but I have friends who are and have talked a little about the Tolkeen stuff.

Probably the number one reason it's so contentious is the books detailing everything took for fucking ever to come out, some were unnecessary, and some even came out in an order that was less than helpful. So like, the maps of what the city of Tolkeen looked like came out in the last book, after it had already been destroyed. There was also a ton of major Retcons with how magic worked (Suddenly spell failure being a thing) and what the Cyberknights were even about.

This is a thing. For a long time there, Rifts was all over the world and then the multiverse before finally settling down in North America. Siembieda should have focused on one region and the region with the most work put into it was North America. But we got decades of Africa and Undersea and South America, some of them fine books by themselves, but it meant, like you said, that a lot of important areas like Tolkeen never even got a world book before important events set in them.
We still don't have a gorram book for Lazlo despite it being a pretty important place.

The only thing I would suggest is to go full on B5/DS9 with the campaign and have the Mechanoids invade in such overwhelming force that the Players must gather the nations together that hate each other into an uneasy alliance to beat the Mechanoids back.

I play and GM a lot of Savage Rifts including doing a little playtesting for Pinnacle. 

Ratman_tf gave a good overview of Tolkeen and the Federation of Magic.  Sorcerer's Revenge from the Palldium Tolkeen War series gets into Tolkeen's dealing with demons to turn the tide in the war against the Coalition.  Tolkeen is tired of fighting a defensive war and this is kind of like a nuclear option.  There are some internal factions pushing for it and it comes down to the Dragon Kings not really caring who gets hurt and revealing they have the power to fracture themselves into 'shadow' versions of themselves to wreak havoc without really risking themselves and causing them to really take a 'scorched earth' approach.  This is what results in the Cyber-Knights fracturing.  The more war-like sticking with Tolkeen while the rest attempting to walk away.  Might be fun to explore since you have a Dragon Hatchling. 

As far as other ideas, the Coalition had  the 'Dirty Thirty', a division of spec ops who hunted and killed D-Bees with Uranium rounds and had free reign to do whatever they wanted.  You could totally do a Bleeding Kansas style post war campaign with these guys still active.

Since you mentioned Arzno, you can always default to vampires.  Vampires are rampant even though no one wants to believe it.  Operation Night Owl is the Coalitions undercover ops to keep them in check and there is very little information on it.  You've also got Reids Rangers in Fort Tombstone not to far away with their version of a nuclear option with a zombie army.  On a smaller scale, a campaign playing off John Carpenter's Vampires seems like a lot of fun to me. 

Even if you don't focus on vampires, Arzno does big business with TW stuff.  Gun running stuff for the Black Market or having your TW get in debt with the Black Market could be fun.  TW gems are expensive, easy to get indebted that way. From a mechanical standpoint, consider giving some of the Gizmoteer/TW edges for free to your TW.  It won't hurt anything and they need the boost I have found. 

Finally, I highly recommend Terror on the Dark Frontier.  It's modular enough to pick and choose what you want and full of good ideas.  But I am a little biased here. 

Quote from: Chainsaw Surgeon on June 28, 2024, 05:15:46 PMSince you mentioned Arzno, you can always default to vampires.  Vampires are rampant even though no one wants to believe it.  Operation Night Owl is the Coalitions undercover ops to keep them in check and there is very little information on it.  You've also got Reids Rangers in Fort Tombstone not to far away with their version of a nuclear option with a zombie army.  On a smaller scale, a campaign playing off John Carpenter's Vampires seems like a lot of fun to me. 

Vampire Kingdoms is a really strong World Book, one of the best for Rifts, and not using Vampires in some capacity for an Arzno campaign would be a shame. Not all the time, don't want to burn out on any single threat, but they should be in the campaign somewhere.

I still have all the unfinished illustration work we did for the ill fated and never released Rifts: Arctic Circle book the designer just handed off to me and quit gaming after dealing with Kevin.

This is contrary to what you may be doing, but I just ignore the whole war thing ever happening and base the setting as it was in the very first RIFTs book.  I do not love meta events and I really think having a massive full scale war for the Coalition is beyond stupid.  Teleportation/magic/dragons who can appear in your bedroom are not the sort of opponents you want to declare open and total war against.  That makes zero strategic sense.

Quote from: oggsmash on June 29, 2024, 02:07:06 PMThis is contrary to what you may be doing, but I just ignore the whole war thing ever happening and base the setting as it was in the very first RIFTs book.  I do not love meta events and I really think having a massive full scale war for the Coalition is beyond stupid.  Teleportation/magic/dragons who can appear in your bedroom are not the sort of opponents you want to declare open and total war against.  That makes zero strategic sense.

If teleportation is the issue, then any anti-magic faction of sufficient size and belligerence would be wiped out long before they became a threat. Rifts would be a world of competing magic kingdoms and no Coalition as we know it would be able to exist.

Honestly, I think the main problem has been, all along, that Kevin didn't keep a tighter lid on CJ Carella's mind numbingly bad power creep. I honestly prefer the original concept hinted at that the 'Skeleton Warriors' (souped up CS Armor) were CS troops from an alternate reality that was part of the 'Coalition Conspiracy Theory' put forward in the Rifts Index & Adventures Book One (from way back in 1996). They fit perfectly with the original concept of Chaos Earth from The Rifter #7 (when it was going to be a Dimension Book instead of the past of Rifts Earth). I basically ignore the Tolkeen war since moving the timeline forward did nothing but make things worse.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 29, 2024, 04:33:18 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on June 29, 2024, 02:07:06 PMThis is contrary to what you may be doing, but I just ignore the whole war thing ever happening and base the setting as it was in the very first RIFTs book.  I do not love meta events and I really think having a massive full scale war for the Coalition is beyond stupid.  Teleportation/magic/dragons who can appear in your bedroom are not the sort of opponents you want to declare open and total war against.  That makes zero strategic sense.

If teleportation is the issue, then any anti-magic faction of sufficient size and belligerence would be wiped out long before they became a threat. Rifts would be a world of competing magic kingdoms and no Coalition as we know it would be able to exist.

  That would be IF you forced the magic users to work together. A huge war of aggression creates that scenario and would be a poor strategic move.  Now if the CS used magic/mages themselves as hard counters to that sort of thing...it makes a good deal more sense.  I keep expecting to see the world book where we find out the ruling family are high level ley line walkers and that is how they have dodged getting murdered in bed for all these years.  It would be the issue though, outright fights its a toss up/on the tech side insofar as raw power.  However assassination being a thing the tech side would never have any leadership last more than a few weeks or months.  It also made no sense to paint the coalition being full of illiterates operating and producing extreme volumes of high tech weapons and gear.  You would not have to make a population illiterate to be against having aliens around after roughly a quarter of the population knows or is related to someone killed by inhuman monsters or by humanoid aliens.  People would be pretty anti alien(dbee) quite on their own no matter how well read they were. 

  I also like the approach of the first book where they allowed Coalition PCs.  This seems heavily discouraged in the current meta where the Coalition are full on the worst totalitarian nazis imaginable waging war everywhere (which logistically would be impossible) and are painted as being horribly evil for championing...humans as the inheritors of the Earth.  I think having tech bad guys is a great idea...but "Human Supremacists" as being a bad thing...in a world where aliens and monsters constantly raid, invade and kill humans?  It seems he was going for a WH40k vibe but wanted to be extra special sure the reader knew the CS MUST be the baddies so he made them "nazis" (which the imperium of man sort of is as well in 40k) the players MUST oppose.  The problem is the setting also presents that the CS is the only reason there are substantial human populations still on the continent. 

   I guess the problem for me is its pretty obvious KS really wants to paint a political picture that makes zero sense with the conditions of his setting as some representation of people who want fewer immigrants as bad and people who are antimagic as some sort of zealot place holders for Christians (I get strong vibes he was around for the satanic panic and still has a jack chick grudge).

The really interesting thing though, is the rules for SW make the CS survival and odds much, much greater IMO as a game system for surviving things like those assassinations. 

In any event I always run a Rifts game as a sandbox and I did use the current meta assumptions of Savage Rifts.  I just have the players more in the vein of AD&D 1 characters and here in the world making their way across it and really being fairly ignorant of continental events. 

    My issues with the presentation of the CS I resolve by more or less treating them as a less effective version of the WH40k Imperium of man.  They are more shaded grey for purposes of entering their territory (as well as their actions...no reason for them to hate blue people who look and function as humans otherwise) and whether players should interfere in their affairs or not.

Quote from: oggsmash on June 30, 2024, 08:23:43 AMThe problem is the setting also presents that the CS is the only reason there are substantial human populations still on the continent.

No, there is another...

This is Savage Rifts. In Savage Rifts, the Tomorrow Legion takes up the roll of the 'good guys' without being human-exclusive. They are very clearly a 'progressive' band out to oppose the 'conservative' CS. That isn't necessarily a bad thing except that the (relatively small amount of) material on them gushes too hard on them being just so damn goody-goody (and the same material emphasizes that the CS are oh so nasty).