| 1 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/800HC_3987.jpg]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:250:The [[TheMultiverse Megaverse]] awaits.]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ''Rifts'' is a [[TabletopRPG Tabletop Role-Playing Game]] with a combination of CyberPunk and DungeonPunk set AfterTheEnd and dialed up to eleven. Published by Creator/PalladiumBooks. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | The planet Earth is ravaged in the late twenty-first century when a... ''small'' nuclear war sets off a magical cataclysm that wipes civilization off the face of the earth. As mankind climbs its way from the brink of extinction, it finds that it now shares the world with Elves, Dwarves, Dragons and even stranger alien beings from across dimensions. Many of the ancient gods walk the earth once more, and horrifying demonic and alien beings have staked their own claims on the planet, and many plot to take even bigger pieces of the pie. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | In order to protect itself, mankind has taken back the secrets of magic, salvaged and re-discovered past technologies, and slowly rebuilt civilizations all over the world. However, even with monsters, demons, vampires and alien invaders to deal with, [[HumansAreBastards humanity is still its own worst enemy]]. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | ''Rifts''' main selling points are a compelling "everything and the [[FantasyKitchenSink kitchen sink]]" setting and spectacular artwork. As a world, its feel could be fairly described as "''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' meets ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''... with Creator/MichaelBay in charge". Its critics, however, consider it hampered by its rules, as it uses the Palladium System [[note]]also called the Megaversal system[[/note]], developed in the early '80s as Kevin Siembeida's HouseSystem for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. As the system hasn't changed much since then, it can feel clumsy, obtuse, and unfriendly to players used to more polished modern [=RPGs=]. Many gamers purchase the books to convert the stats to another engine (such as ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}''), or to plunder ideas for other games, or simply to read about the setting and admire the artwork. This has earned ''Rifts'' the title of "the most popular [=RPG=] that nobody actually plays" in many fan circles. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Well over forty [[{{Sourcebook}} World Books and Dimension Books]] cover every continent (even Antarctica is upcoming), even going into space and other dimensions, so there is a lot of material to work with. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | Generally speaking, each World or Dimension book will feature: |
| 15 | * Some ''amazing'' cover art. |
| 16 | * One or two really sexy, supercharged classes with tons of power or toughness. |
| 17 | * A varying number of fun or flavorful classes that are interesting, but not as game-breaking as the above. |
| 18 | * A couple of ''really'' bad classes that nobody would ever take. |
| 19 | * A bunch of selectable races. |
| 20 | * Page after page of great art. |
| 21 | * A handful of random images of ancient art from other games and/or bad art by the lesser artists on staff. |
| 22 | * Stuff that's supposed to be insane. |
| 23 | * At least one class that is like an already-existing class, but worse in every way. |
| 24 | * As often as not, a few pages of material reprinted from earlier books. |
| 25 | * ''More'' often than not, an AuthorFilibuster from Kevin Siembieda at the front. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | In 2016, a successful Kickstarter campaign was held for an official conversion of the ''Rifts'' setting to the ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' system, which became successful enough to spawn its own line of sourcebooks. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | [[SimilarlyNamedWorks Not to be confused]] with the MMORPG ''VideoGame/{{Rift}}.'' |
| 30 | |
| 31 | ---- |
| 32 | !!Contains examples of: |
| 33 | |
| 34 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 35 | |
| 36 | [[folder: A-G]] |
| 37 | * AbsurdlySharpBlade: Pretty much any melee weapon capable of doing Mega-Damage (see ChunkySalsaRule below for an explanation of what Mega-Damage is). There's a huge variety of weapons, both technological and magical, capable of slicing through tank armor. And most characters will get one in their starting equipment. |
| 38 | * AcronymAndAbbreviationOverload: Every attribute and important rules concept seems to have an abbreviation or acronym in the rules: I.Q., M.A., M.E., P.E., P.S., P.P., P.B., Spd., H.P., A.R., S.D.C., M.D.C., M.D, P.P.E., I.S.P., O.C.C., R.C.C., H.F., and W.P. are examples from the main rulebook [[note]]Intelligence Quotient, Mental Affinity, Mental Endurance, Physical Endurance, Physical Strength, Physical Prowess, Physical Beauty, Speed, Hit Points, Armor Rating, Structural Damage Capacity, Mega Damage Capacity, Mega Damage, Potential Psychic Energy, Internal Strength Points, Occupational Character Class, Racial Character Class, Horror Factor, Weapon Proficiency, respectively[[/note]]. |
| 39 | * AdvancedAncientHumans: There were three major groups of humans in the last age of magic (roughly 10,000 BC) that mastered magical powers mostly unknown on modern Rifts Earth. All three returned with the Coming of the Rifts. |
| 40 | ** True Atlanteans: The original humans of Atlantis. Magically reshaped to the point where they can't interbreed with normal humans, they were the inventors of stone magic and PyramidPower, and their magical hubris cost them their home and ended the age of magic. They're now spread throughout the Megaverse; ''most'' of their clans are a little wiser than before. |
| 41 | ** Lemurians: Underwater genetically-engineered humans and the world's foremost masters of [[GreenThumb Biomancy]]. They stuck themselves in a YearInsideHourOutside NegativeSpaceWedgie when Atlantis fell, accidentally unleashing an EldritchAbomination in the process. They returned after 150 years subjective time; many of those who went into the other dimension in prehistoric times are still around. |
| 42 | ** Nazcans: The only group of the three who remained fully human (ironically, the Incas who would follow them ''weren't''), the Nazca specialized in the use of Line Magic and were able to reshape the Earth's ley lines, creating a nexus more powerful than even Stonehenge on the Nazca Plateau. They remained on Earth but mostly died out by 700 AD, when their remaining magicians hid in a pocket dimension until the Rifts returned magic to the Earth. |
| 43 | * TheAestheticsOfTechnology: Invoked in the ''Bionics Sourcebook''. Part of the reason that bionics became ''the'' standard in human augmentation (aside from the obvious downsides of [[DeadlyUpgrade Juicers]] and [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity Crazies]]) in the Golden Age of Man is because people could easily understand replacing flesh and blood with hard steel. |
| 44 | * AlienSky: The daytime skies on the planet Wormwood are yellow with hints of blue, and the night is dominated by two orange moons. |
| 45 | * AscendedDemon: |
| 46 | ** The Reformed Demon class from the ''China 2'' {{Sourcebook}}. These are lesser demons who have been captured by a special brand of demon hunter, and convinced to give up their demonic ways. The process of reforming slowly turns the demon into a human, which means they are unique in that they become ''weaker'' as they gain levels. However, after a certain point they gain access to Mystic Martial Arts, which compensates for their lack of demonic powers. |
| 47 | ** Various {{Sourcebook}}s have examples of [=NPCs=] who are either this or [[DefectorFromDecadence Defectors From Decadence]]. |
| 48 | * AdaptationalVillainy: ''Pantheons of the Megaverse'' (and the Egyptian pantheon in ''Africa'') makes sure that [[EverybodyHatesHades nearly every pantheon has gods with unquestionably evil Alignment/morality]], even if they have to [[{{Flanderization}} flanderize]] or rewrite the myths. The Greek pantheon has Hera[[note]]expressly stated in her case as a post-mythological change brought about by thousands of years of putting up with Zeus' shit, plus that time she, Athena and Poseidon tried to overthrow Zeus and had to do a stint in Tartarus[[/note]](and the Titans bar Prometheus)[[note]]As for Hades himself, he has an [[LawfulEvil Aberrant]] Alignment, but is otherwise a dour but loyal brother of Zeus[[/note]], the Norse have Hel (who's [[OmnicidalManiac much, much worse]] than Loki, her canonically evil dad), the Hindus have Kali, Kubera, Yama and Varuna (and Shiva doesn't come across well either), and the Egyptian and Babylonian pantheons have a ''lot'' of examples -so much so that both groups are pretty much divided into two roughly equal factions. The Chinese Yama Kings probably catch the worst of it. Ironically, the Aztec deities don't really catch this; after all, HumanSacrifice is canonically evil anyway. |
| 49 | * AffablyEvil: |
| 50 | ** [[EldritchAbomination The Splugorth]]. They're [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Corrupt Merchant Princes]], after all, and anyone's welcome (for certain values of "welcome") in Atlantis if they're there to do business. |
| 51 | ** Dr. Desmond Bradford, head of the Lone Star complex. When showing an inspector around the complex, he presents himself as gregarious and gently chiding, laughing and slipping the investigator sly winks. [[FauxAffablyEvil However]], the investigator describes Bradford's smile as being like a shark's, and considers him to be dangerous, amoral, and deranged. [[spoiler:Afterwards, the good doctor gets said investigator assassinated by some of his cat's-paws.]] |
| 52 | ** Likewise [[ProudMerchantRace Naruni Enterprises]], depending on how the GM plays them. |
| 53 | * AfterTheEnd: The [[HitSoHardTheCalendarFeltIt calendar system]] used in most of North America is the "P.A". calendar. That's "Post Apocalypse". Technically, the main storyline for Rifts takes place a few centuries ''after'' AfterTheEnd, when things have calmed down a bit, relatively speaking. The ''Chaos Earth'' game (considered both a Sourcebook and a stand-alone RPG) takes place ''right'' AfterTheEnd. |
| 54 | * AIIsACrapshoot: |
| 55 | ** A.R.C.H.I.E.-3. It(he?) was an advanced experimental A.I. developed during the Time of Man, who was designed to come up with advanced robot and weapon designs for the U.S. Military. To keep him busy when he wasn't doing that, they also put him in charge of the base itself, managing the computer systems and factories. Then the Rifts came. He spent the next few centuries alone, save for brief periods when he tried to help small groups of humans rise from the barbarism the Rifts had thrown them into. As a result of this, Archie went both insane and ''sapient'', and has dedicated himself to ruling all humanity. |
| 56 | ** This trope (paired with rampant Human supremacy) is why Coalition Skelebots are programmed with the bare minimum A.I. and zero initiative. |
| 57 | * AliensSpeakingEnglish: In the ''Three Galaxies", Galactic Trade Tongue Four is basically English, with loan words and technical terms that aren't present in English. It also defines a day as being 24 hours long and a year as having 365 days, with an extra day every four years. The obvious implication being that humans in the Three Galaxies came from an Earth either in their own dimension or another, and were also displaced into the past, [[ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway since they first appeared in the Three Galaxies thousands of years before the present time]]. |
| 58 | * TheAlliance: Two intertwined alliances have been established in North America since the arrival of the Minion War. |
| 59 | ** Lazlo has become the center point for most of the forces in North America opposing the DemonicInvaders, with the reunited Cyber-Knights, their allies the Sky-Knights, and most of the minor powers of the New West working with Lazlo advisors and support. Even Psyscape (a HiddenElfVillage that nonetheless shares most of Lazlo's ideals) is opening up relations, though they're too busy with their own secret war to contribute much manpower. |
| 60 | ** The Coalition States, meanwhile, got their act ''immediately'' in gear when Hell's gates opened, and they are wielding both their own forces, their allied human nations (Northern Gun, the Manistique Imperium and Free Quebec) and any (nonmagical human) mercenary who needs E-clip recharges and armor repairs against the new threat. Northern Gun are actually a key player in both alliances; their "we'll sell to anyone" schtick is turning them into the arsenal of North America, and the Coalition and Lazlo will both fight tooth and nail to defend them. (The Coalition and Lazlo can't openly ally -- Coalition ideology runs too thick for that. But that doesn't stop many CS officers and commanders from looking the other way when friendly mages and/or nonhuman allies show up to help) |
| 61 | ** In ''Savage Rifts'', the Tomorrow Legion forms its legions from many types of beings, be they cyborgs, mages, D-Bees, dragons, Coalition deserters, or anyone or anything else willing to fight to make a better world for ''everyone''. On top of this, the Legion is actively courting alliances with some of North America's less extreme factions (Lazlo, Kingsdale, Psyscape, Dweomer, the various Native Preserves, and so on). |
| 62 | * AllJustADream: The short story in the fourth ''Siege On Tolkeen'' Sourcebook. It turns out that [[spoiler:every Cyber-Knight gets one of these at least once in their life]]. |
| 63 | * AllMythsAreTrue: As well as a plethora of original material, creatures/artifacts/locations from Earth's myths pop up frequently. If some myth isn't mentioned in the books, it's either because the writers haven't heard of it, or haven't yet worked out a way to fit in into the setting. Even [[HistoricalDomainCharacter real life people]] who got a HistoricalVillainUpgrade and/or had strange powers attributed to them sometimes get brought up, especially in books written by C.J. Carella. |
| 64 | * AllThatGlitters: A large amount of the "dangerous" magic items locked in the Coalition's vault are in fact children's toys or other mundane items. {{Justified|Trope}}, at least in the Coalition's eyes, since according to their propaganda, all magic is dangerous, regardless of how it's used. |
| 65 | * AllTrollsAreDifferent: Palladium's trolls are tall, corpse-like humanoids with a taste for torture. Also available are the Butter Trolls, named for the greasy sweat coating their bodies. They are creatures that seem to just turn up in places where they can live comfortably. With their arrogance, taste for technology and general brashness, they are, essentially, [[{{Troll}} Trolls]]. |
| 66 | * AlwaysChaoticEvil: |
| 67 | ** Generally, this is played straight only with supernatural beings. Some kinds of beings are always, without exception, evil creatures; some are almost always evil but have wiggle room, and some are only ''seen'' as evil. |
| 68 | ** Given a hard examination in ''Vampire Kingdoms, Revised'' (written well after ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' had gone mainstream). In short, a vampire's soul (according to Doc Reid) is MadeOfEvil, but they ''have'' free will and the memories of the human they were. If they choose not to be evil, they tend to either become self-hating, deluded wrecks or disciplined, often WarriorMonk-like vampire hunters. |
| 69 | * AlternativeCalendar: When the Mega-City/arcology Chi-Town was established, it created the Post-Apocalyptic (P.A.) calendar, which was eventually adopted by the other civilizations in North America. 1 P.A. was the year of the founding of Chi-Town. the original Main Book was set in the year 101 P.A, and the sourcebooks which came after moved the timeline along to 105 P.A, which marked the beginning of the Siege on Tolkeen. The current year as of the Ultimate Edition Main Book is 109 P.A, which in the Gregorian Calendar is 2395 A.D. |
| 70 | * AncestralWeapon: Until recently, most Glitter Boys were ancient USA-G10 units surviving from the Coming of the Rifts, passed down from parent to child for generations. |
| 71 | * AntiMagicalFaction: |
| 72 | ** The Coalition States. While they are publicly a Classical version of this, behind the scenes they have a Hypocritical subfaction, [[spoiler: because Joseph Prosek II is fully aware of, and covertly supports, the Vanguard, a group of pro-CS mages]]. They also rely heavily on psychics to counter practitioners of magic. The former Coalition State of Free Quebec are an actual Classical version, in that they don't even trust psychics (this difference of opinion is one of the numerous reasons why they chose to leave the CS). |
| 73 | ** The independent kingdoms/city-states of Whykin (S-W Missouri; Classical & human supremacist), El Dorado (most of Arkansas; classical, but was tolerant of non-magical non-humans before their petition for Coalition membership) and Los Alamo (region around Austin, Texas; this got relaxed a bit when they decided they didn't want to be the Coalition's next target for annexation), and Northern Gun and the Manistique Imperium (Northern Michigan; definitely Hypocritical, as they don't hesitate to hire magically empowered mercs or to sell to openly magical customers under the table so they don't ruffle their Coalition "ally"). |
| 74 | ** Later on, it turns out most continents have at least one of these, and like the Coalition, most also [[FantasticRacism a dim view of non-humans]]: South America has the Silver River Republic of Cordoba (Northern Argentina; Hypocritical; persecute mages but are happy to employ them under the table) and Nuevo Peru (Classical; only control a tiny corner of their namesake), Australia has the two tech-cities of Melbourne and Perth (Classical). Few of them are as actively homicidal about it as the Coaliton, however. |
| 75 | ** The Republic of Japan is a subversion. They are a pre-Rifts technological society without much experience with magic, but their friendly contact with the New Empire mostly headed off anti-magic sentiment, and a resurgent interest in Shinto spiritualism is leading the Republic toward a techno-magical society. |
| 76 | ** Russia downplays this. Russians largely don't trust magic or mages, but mage adventurers can win a good reputation among the peasants, and the Warlords will use magical mercenaries among their War Camps. The Sovietski have even established a magical MOS among their Spetsnaz, though it's still a small program. |
| 77 | ** The Vanguard are [[spoiler: a nonstandard version aligned to the Coalition States. They practice magic, and want the Coalition to eventually accept Line Walker and Mystic magic, but they're human supremacists who oppose the use of "alien" magic, and assume that non-Vanguard mages are probably the enemy. These rules interact in weird ways; foreign human magic is likely to be seen as alien until confirmed otherwise, while Indian Shamans largely get a pass because the Vanguard know what they are, but their magic relies on spirits and so is not Vanguard-kosher.]] |
| 78 | * ApocalypseHow: |
| 79 | ** The Coming of the Rifts is a Societal Collapse that came very close to being a Species Extinction. There's no official headcount, but crunching numbers from population figures in the various books put the human population of Rifts Earth circa 109 P.A. to be about 330-370 million people. That's only slightly more than the Census Bureau's estimate for the population of the United States as of Jan. 1st, 2017 (324 million). It's explained in ''Chaos Earth'' as having been started by two South American nations [[HumansKillWantonly nuking each other]] at midnight on the winter solstice during a planetary alignment (the only reason this wasn't the absolute worst time for a mass destruction event is the lack of an eclipse). This led to a chain reaction of psychic energy (which doubles every time something living dies) flowing through {{ley line}}s around the world, causing earthquakes that killed even more people, which released more P.P.E., [[DisasterDominoes etc. etc.]] |
| 80 | ** Back in Earth's prehistory, Atlantis suffered a sort of Regional Metaphysical Annihilation. The backfiring Altantean magical experiments caused it to be shunted into a pocket dimension, and remained there in a kind of stasis until the Coming of the Rifts brought it back to Earth. |
| 81 | * TheApunkalypse: The Roadgangers of Australia are ''Film/MadMax'' punks. Most of Australia is ''not'' punk, however, being divided between the Tech-Cities, the Aborigines, and ordinary Outbackers just trying to make it to the next day. |
| 82 | * ArmourIsUseless: Zig-zagged. ''Normal'' armor is all but worthless, but MDC armor? What with all the Mega-Damage weapons floating around, your lifespan without MDC armor will be very short. |
| 83 | ** Even races with natural MDC bodies will want to wear armor, as most D-Bee races available as player characters heal slowly, and HealingMagic is thin on the ground -- not to mention that "super tough bodies" rarely come packaged with "immune to pain of getting shot" |
| 84 | ** The ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' adaptation is a bit more forgiving, as it uses that system's Heavy Weapons and Heavy Armor rules to simulate Mega Damage and MDC. It's still a good idea to be wearing MDC armor (if you can get it), but being caught in Mega Damage combat without it (while nasty) is not an automatic death sentence. |
| 85 | * ArmsDealer: Several countries, city-states and corporations are well-known for selling guns and are often not too picky who they sell stuff to. In North America, the city-state of Northern Gun is the premier legal weapons merchant; officially a respectable on-the-books dealer and an ally of the Coalition States, they ''unofficially'' arrange for their wares to [[FellOffTheBackOfATruck fall off the back of their trucks]] for anyone who can pay. The premier ''illegal'' source of gear (by CS standards, anyway) is the Black Market, an alliance of shady dealers motivated by profit. |
| 86 | * ArmyOfThievesAndWhores: |
| 87 | ** The Coalition's new forces under Operation Hellbender are the result of a crash program established during the Minion War, as the Coalition's resources are already badly stretched after the war on Tolkeen. Non-Coalition mercenaries and rogues are largely being kept together in their own companies with Coalition advisors and thrown at the enemy, while NewMeat are being drawn as deeply as possible, with enlistment standards becoming a polite fiction, and given a few weeks of basic training before being sent into the field. To even the score, many of the latter group are being [[SuperSoldier given Juicer and Borg upgrades]]. |
| 88 | ** In the ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' port, the Tomorrow Legion will generally accept any recruit (human, D-Bee, cyborg, supernatural creature, mutant, or otherwise), particularly if they already have powers or training that would be of use to the Legion. As a result, Tomorrow Legion teams are among the most unpredictably diverse forces on Rifts Earth. |
| 89 | * ArrangedMarriage: These remain standard practice among Atlanteans, since most Atlantean marriages are [[KissingCousins within the same clan]] and bloodlines need to be tracked carefully to prevent inbreeding. The Aerihman take this a step further, as they've been [[SuperBreedingProgram breeding advanced psionic capabilities]] into the clan's bloodline for generations. |
| 90 | * ArtisticLicenseBiology: |
| 91 | ** ''South America 2'' features an animal species that, despite looking like an American bison, is carnivorous, and [[SuperPersistentPredator very aggressive]]. [[FridgeLogic How a predator built like a bison hunts its prey]] is never addressed, aside from giving them fangs. |
| 92 | ** In-universe, the Coalition gives their [[SpiderTank Spider- and Scorpion-Skull Walkers]] six legs. It's a RunningGag that every description of them follows that fact with the statement (Yes, we know spiders have eight legs). It's notable that Spider Tanks and Scorpion mechs made by other manufacturers have the proper number of legs, meaning this is the Coalition's mistake. |
| 93 | * {{Asmodeus}}: Modeus, the stronger partner of a BigBadDuumvirate with his fellow demon lord Mictla, is ultimate ruler of the demon hordes of the hell dimension of Hades. |
| 94 | * AstralProjection: A PsychicPower. It can be used either to travel invisibly and intangibly in the mortal realm, or the psychic can travel at will to the [[SpiritWorld Astral Plane]]. Either way, the psychic's mind leaves the body, but remains tethered to it by a silvery cord which can be used to return to the body. However, it is not wholly without risk: those who can see the invisible (either through magic, PsychicPowers, or naturally) will be able to see the astral traveller. And though normal weapons cannot harm an Astral Traveller or the cord connecting him to his body, magic and psychic attacks can. If the cord is destroyed, the mind will be unable to return to the body, and both will die. |
| 95 | * AstroTurf: The first ''Siege on Tolkeen'' book, in its timeline of the Coalition States, says that then-Chairman Karl Prosek used this technique to get himself appointed Emperor for Life. |
| 96 | * {{Atlantis}}: Played straight with the lost continent's original inhabitants, and subverted by the new residents -- the minions of the Sluggorth, who are mortal enemies of the original inhabitants. |
| 97 | * TheAtoner: |
| 98 | ** Many Atlanteans see themselves as this. The horrors their ancestors accidentally unleashed on the Earth in prehistoric times left them so filled with shame that they left the planet. They became, with a few rare exceptions, nomads [[WalkingTheEarth wandering the Megaverse]]. Many receive magic tattoos to turn themselves into monster hunters, in an attempt to make up for their past crimes. |
| 99 | ** The final book in the ''Siege On Tolkeen'' series gives [[{{GameMaster}} [=GMs=]]] several options for how to handle the fallout of the war. In one of them, King Creed survives the fall of Tolkeen, after having endured a major MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment, and becomes TheAtoner. An earlier book on the war posits the possibility of using a magic artifact and a BarrierMaiden to pull this off on BigBad Prosek himself, but put in no uncertain terms that anyone who tries it is dead meat even if they succeed. |
| 100 | ** The Apok of Wormwood were once willing servants of the Demonic hordes invading the planet, but found their consciences and switched sides. |
| 101 | * AuthorFilibuster: KS is infamous for going off on random tangents on roleplaying philosophy, ethics, playtest games, and how he thinks [=RPGs=] should be played/run; these usually take up a few pages per book. He even made a point to sprinkle them throughout the Ultimate Edition as "editor's notes", which he compared to a DVD commentary track. |
| 102 | ** The ''Federation of Magic'' contains an infamous one where Kevin lashes out at fans for some declaring magic-using classes as "wimps". Describing behavior at conventions ("he slapped his chest for emphasis"), he reacts poorly to the perception that magic classes were under-powered. Instead, he describes their versatility as a counter example(though this has little to do with fighting, which was the point of the fans). That this was in a book full of Power Creeped magic classes clearly meant to boost their hitting power was a touch ironic. |
| 103 | ** Ironically given the game's reputation, Kevin actually hates power-gaming and bolsters low-powered “role-playing” classes like Rogue Scholar. This is brought up quite a few times. |
| 104 | * BadFuture: The main setting is this for people who have been brought forward from the past, such as Dr. Victor Lazlo from the 20th Century history of ''Beyond the Supernatural'' or the Republic of Japan who were jumped centuries into the future at the moment of the Great Cataclysm. |
| 105 | * BadassBookworm: |
| 106 | ** The Rogue Scientist and the Rogue Scholar O.C.C.s. The book makes sure to mention under each class that while these guys are mostly concerned with discovering/reclaiming lost knowledge, they can handle themselves in a fight (in a [[CrapsackWorld world like]] [[EarthIsABattlefield Rifts Earth]], they'd be incredibly stupid not to). Also the Coalition [=RCSG=] Scientist, but since they're trained soldiers, it's to be expected that they know how to fight. |
| 107 | ** It should be noted that the one person the Coalition hates and fears above all others is a seventy-year-old historian who has faced down TheFourHorsemenOfTheApocalypse in her quest for knowledge and the truth. |
| 108 | * BadassCape: If the artwork is any indication, these have come back into fashion in a big way. |
| 109 | * BadassInANiceSuit: General Rasheen is the NGR's most powerful warrior, a four-armed giant Cyber-Knight. He also looks pretty dapper in the suit he wears when giving interviews or arguing on the Senate floor. |
| 110 | * BadassLongcoat: |
| 111 | ** Rifts Chaos Earth has an Armored Trenchcoat available as armor. May also be GasMaskLongcoat if the player chooses the optional helmet. |
| 112 | ** A similar coat is an option for people who buy Triax. However, one could also order the same fabric as [[BadassInANiceSuit formal wear]]. |
| 113 | ** The ''New West'' has another one, this time part of an armor set sold by Bandito Arms. It can be bought separately, however. |
| 114 | * BadassNormal: In the ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' port, MARS (Mercenaries, Adventurers, Rogues and Scholars) start at Seasoned rank and the advancements that come with it, along with extra stat increases, Edges, and/or equipment. |
| 115 | * BagOfHolding: Though not nearly as ubiquitous as the D&D TropeNamer, the Temporal Magic spell "Dimensional Pockets" functions the same manner. The main difference is that Dimensional Pockets are temporary constructs. |
| 116 | * BananaRepublic: |
| 117 | ** The Republic of Cordoba, a HereditaryRepublic in old Argentina and Uruguay, governed by a PresidentForLife in conjunction with other major families and feudal states governed by caudillos. The main twist on the trope is that the Coalition (while an ally) isn't running the place; it's an independent and expansionist power. |
| 118 | ** The Republic of Santiago is Cordoba's neighbor, controlled by a plutocratic quasi-democracy and likewise under the influence of feudal caudillos. They're trying a lot harder to be a real democracy, but aren't quite there yet. |
| 119 | * BanOnMagic: Many technophilic states, most notably the Coalition, reject magic and persecute magic users. These bans are usually ''not'' hypocritical, as it's entirely possible to enforce such bans with mundane firepower. Lesser versions can be found when the ban is there, but not enforced (Northern Gun, who banned magic to please the Coalition but don't actually care; magic users who aren't too obnoxious about it are welcome to do business there) and when it's not banned but frowned on (the NGR, whose citizens largely dislike magic but who don't see the point in banning it). |
| 120 | * BearsAreBadNews: |
| 121 | ** The Sovietski [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot cyborg bears]]. Among other things, they make great guard animals and are used for intimidation and hunting supernatural evil. [[BearyFriendly They also do very well in medevacs and search and rescue.]] |
| 122 | ** The Warlords of Russia have bear-like creatures that many of their Reavers ride into battle. |
| 123 | ** The Coalition has experimented with making Ursa Warriors, bear versions of the mutant Dog Boys. The drawing for the class shows a squad of Dead Boys trying to stop one from tearing a lab apart. |
| 124 | * BeePeople: The Metzla and Xixticix, among others. |
| 125 | * TheBeforetimes: Modern day Earth, up until the Coming of the Rifts in 2098. Known variously as the Golden Age of Mankind, the Time Before Rifts, and the Time of Man. |
| 126 | * BelievingTheirOwnLies: One of the books mentions how the Coalition High Command used hatred of D-Bees and magic at first as a tool to control the populace. However, they've been spreading these lies for so long by this point that they believe it themselves. |
| 127 | * BenevolentPrecursors: In the ''Three Galaxies'' setting, there was a race known only as The First. Their only lasting legacy is the Cosmic Forge, a mysterious artifact/entity responsible for creating the Three Galaxies and the Cosmo-Knights (and possibly the entire Megaverse). |
| 128 | * TheBermudaTriangle: Ocean triangles are anomalous stretches of the sea created when three {{Ley Line}}s intersect to form a triangular shape. The resulting triangle is subject to natural and supernatural storms, surges in ley energy, warped time, random rifts formation, rains of frogs, fish, fire or debris, attacks by predators or {{Sea Monster}}s, banks of toxic fog and similar events, making sailing through such as area extremely dangerous. The Bermuda Triangle itself -- known as the Demon Sea -- is the most infamous, but five other major triangles exist: one off of South America, one south of Madagascar, one between Australia and New Zealand, one off of Japan and one covering most of the Mediterranean. A small triangle over Lake Michigan is believed to be the only freshwater triangle in the world. |
| 129 | * {{BFG}}: Pick a weapon. You can probably chew through an M1 Abrams with it in a clip. Bonus points to Glitterboy Boom Guns and things that can't be mounted except on HumongousMecha. Parodied in the Rifter 9 1/2, which featured Giga-Damage guns. Most of them are oversized to the point of ridiculousness, with descriptions like "looks like a bigger version of Han Solo's gun in ''Franchise/StarWars''". |
| 130 | * {{BFS}}: Usually even the PoweredArmor has swords that are reasonable-sized. But if you want to with a properly enhanced character, or just one that could anyways, you can be waving around the eight-foot-long vibrosword or psi sword [[DoomyDoomsofDoom of doom]]. |
| 131 | * BigDamnHeroes: Twice during the end of the Siege on Tolkeen. Free Quebec was approached by Tolkeen with an offer of mutual aid against the Coalition. The plan was for Tolkeen and Free Quebec to hit the Coalition Army threatening Free Quebec on both sides, crushing them in a pincer attack. However, Free Quebec was so outraged by the Sorcerer's Revenge (and you know, being ex-Coalition themselves) that they instead helped the Coalition Army destroy the Tolkeen force. Emperor Prosek was so impressed by the Quebecois' valor that he immediately called off all hostilities against their human neighbors (or at least, the attack gave him an opportunity to bow out of the unpopular war gracefully). An even bigger BigDamnHeroes moment occurred during the Final Siege against Tolkeen itself. The Coalition Army, who were about to get bushwhacked by Tolkeen sorcerers waiting for the Solstice to power up their magic, were rescued by a force of soldiers lead by General Jericho Holmes, who had marched into [[BeePeople Xiticix]] territory and had been presumed dead months earlier. Holmes is credited for almost single-handedly winning the war. |
| 132 | * BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: |
| 133 | ** Sasquatches are a peaceful race that prefers to live in harmony with nature. They are also one of the very few sapient species to have always been native to Earth instead of having been Rifted in from some other dimension; they're distant cousins of humanity who originated in central Asia and migrated into North America during the Ice Age. Some of them journey into the world of men (and thus, like a great majority of species' in the game world, are available as player characters), but most are reclusive forest-dwellers who even in the new age of magic can be very difficult to track down. |
| 134 | ** There are also a magical Spirit Sasquatch and the {{Wendigo}}, which [[OurMonstersAreDifferent in this case]] is a demonic Sasquatch-like monster. |
| 135 | * BioPunk: Sprinkled here and there throughout the game. Notable examples include Atlantis, the Achilles Republic and other areas in South America, and Lone Star. |
| 136 | * BirdPeople: |
| 137 | ** The Aviane, or Bird Men, are humanoid D-Bees with avian wings and feathered necks and heads. They come from a world of high crags and deep canyons, and on Earth mostly live in the Rocky Mountains and the canyonlands of Arizona. Those Aviane that live in cities mostly live in the upper floors of high-rise buildings, or in the tops of ruined skyscrapers. |
| 138 | ** The South American Republic of Achilles has genetically engineered a number of humanoid bird people, generally resembling man-sized birds with humanoid stances and wing-hands, for various purposes, such as the Condoroids used as field agents. The Loronoids, based on macaws, were less successful; they were intended to be translators and number-crunchers, but were too restless and easily bored for such repetitive tasks and fled ''en masse'', quickly spreading throughout the Amazon, Central America and the Caribbean. |
| 139 | ** The Lyn-Srial are an odd example -- they're eagle-headed, four-armed humanoids whose wings (attached to their upper pair of arms) are batlike membranes rather than avian feathered limbs. |
| 140 | %%* BizarreAlienBiology: The game is typically better about weaponizing this sort of thing then most.%%But what is the biology? |
| 141 | * BlackAndGreyMorality: One of the major themes of the Siege on Tolkeen books. The Coalition is clearly [[TheEmpire cruel, evil, and oppressive]], but Tolkeen is hardly a shining beacon of virtue during the war. Final Siege makes it clear that things have gone totally bad and we're down to utter EvilVersusEvil on both sides. |
| 142 | * BlackComedy: The Naruni's dystopian corporate society is taken to absurd and humorous extremes, such as a competition between executives over who could drive the most employees to suicide. |
| 143 | ->Oh, 'Debt Collector' has such an ugly ring to it. Please think of us as the military wing of the ''Accounts Receivable'' department. |
| 144 | * BlackMarket: There is an entire 200 page source book detailing virtually anything players would ever need or want to known about the various black markets in Rifts Earth. |
| 145 | * BladeBelowTheShoulder: |
| 146 | ** Listing all of the bionic parts that grant this, not to mention the [[ThisIsADrill drills]] and [[ChainsawGood chainsaws]], would take all day. |
| 147 | ** Tirrvol Sword Fists are aliens whose arms naturally end in long, ivory blades; they use their prehensile feet to handle things instead. |
| 148 | * BlingOfWar: |
| 149 | ** Justified with Techno Wizards, all those gems studding their weapons and armor serve as the power source/focus for the magic empowering the magical enhancements. |
| 150 | ** Surprisingly averted with the Emperor of the Coalition States. Unlike many RealLife military dictators, Emperor Prosek's uniform is very sedate, with few ribbons and almost no embellishments. |
| 151 | * BondCreatures: Kr'talpa demon hounds are a species of alien predators who form powerful psychic links with a species of humanoids known as the br'talb, who ride them like horses. What a kr'talpa senses so does their rider, and vice versa, and the two also sense each other's emotions and always come to one another's aid. Although anyone can tame a kr'talpa to use as a steed, only the br'talb and the Simvan Monster Riders can form such links with them. |
| 152 | * BoxedCrook: The Coalition's [[GotVolunteered Volunteer Program]] has captured D-Bees and mages fired into a Xiticix Hive with a promise of a pardon if they kill a Queen and survive. Whether the pardon would be honored if they succeeded is unknown; [[SuicideMission so far, it's a moot point]]. |
| 153 | * BrainInAJar: |
| 154 | ** {{Full Conversion Cyborg}}s basically have their entire body except the brain and spinal column replaced by machinery. |
| 155 | ** The Mechanoids are essentially this combined with HordeOfAlienLocusts. |
| 156 | ** ARCHIE-3 exploits this trope to conceal his true nature, having a fake control unit he calls "[=A.R.C.H.I.E. 3-OZ=]" designed to resemble a human brain scaled up to massive proportions (it's 9 meters in radius). Even Hagan, his best friend, doesn't know that this is a fake designed to mislead would-be heroes (hence the OZ designator; a reference to ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'') and the real ARCHIE-3 is basically a black box-shaped device 12 inches tall and 18 inches square hidden deep within the complex. |
| 157 | * BreadAndCircuses: The Coalition has always provided food and entertainment to their people while restricting their access to information. However, with the onset of the Minion War, humans ''outside'' the Coalition States, and even D-Bees and magicians who have no place in the CS, are jumping on board because the Coalition are the best hope for preventing the DemonicInvaders from turning Earth into another Hell. |
| 158 | * ButtDialingMordor: Shifters have the (optional) ability to gain additional power by seeking the favor of a more powerful being. They can do this by creating a tiny Rift and seeking a creature to make contact with. Where this trope enters in is that the Communication Rift is basically random; there's no telling what is on the other side of the Rift. Often, the Shifter will unwittingly make contact with an EldritchAbomination (sometimes pretending it's a god of light or similar), and enter into a pact with it, unaware he's making a DealWithTheDevil until it's too late. |
| 159 | * ButWhatAboutTheAstronauts: ''Mutants In Orbit''. Earth had several populated satellites and even colonies on the Moon and Mars at the time of the Coming of the Rifts. They survived, and are trying to cope with the fact the only really habitable planet in the Solar System has turned into a house of freaks. Mars was marginally terraformed, but thanks to a MadScientist, it's now overrun with mutant BeePeople. A very important point of the setting is that nobody on Earth is able to successfully launch anything into space without it being destroyed by unknown forces. This denies even advanced nations like the Coalition States or the New German Republic the use things like global communications or surveillance via satellites. In reality, [[spoiler: the space colonies have placed Earth under quarantine and an elaborate setup of counter-orbit debris, killer satellites and manned patrol ships destroy anything that tries to reach orbit]]. The major powers had been on the verge of war for a long time, though the sudden arrival of a hostile alien fleet[[note]]As described in South America 2, just about the only other book to mention the orbital communities[[/note]] made them set aside their differences. |
| 160 | * CactusPerson: The Cactus People of the Arizona desert are a reclusive species of humanoid succulents who largely avoid contact with animal-based sapients, especially as the latter often seek to harvest or consume their highly nutritious, watery "blood". |
| 161 | * {{Camp}}: Psychic cowboys on giant bugs? Juicer ninjas? Dragons with [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]]? Maybe a little... |
| 162 | * CanineCompanion: There's a good reason why the Coalition decided to engineer dogs into psychic humanoid [[EvilDetectingDog supernatural detectors]]. Though other animals might have been better suited for combat, you can't beat dogs as loyal companions to man. This has actually come to bite the Coalition High Command on the ass, as some feel that Dead Boys forming attachments to Dog Boys is putting a toe over the line of their staunch human supremacist rhetoric. Some have tried to make soldiers in the field form a similar attachment to Psi-Stalkers, who are human mutants. Unfortunately, the bald, white-skinned mutants make normal humans feel uncomfortable, due in large part to the UncannyValley. |
| 163 | * CannonFodder: This trope is a major consideration in the Coalition Juicer program. The juice is a DeadlyUpgrade in five to seven years, but nobody's expecting most of the new recruits for the Minion War to live long enough to make it to Last Call anyway. Ironically, it'll actually increase the projected lifespan of most of the troops! |
| 164 | * CanonImmigrant: Given the nature of [[TheMultiverse the Megaverse]], this is to be expected, including the Cyber-Knight tradition being founded by someone from Kevin's playtest ''Palladium Fantasy'' game. However, the biggest case of immigration is when an entirely separate game line, ''The Mechanoids'', was folded over to create a new villain race for ''Rifts''. |
| 165 | * CantGetAwayWithNothing: The [[{{Munchkin}} ridiculous amount of power]] Cosmo-Knights have is somewhat balanced by the fact that they are governed by a very rigid code of ethics. Step out of line even once, and the Cosmo-Knight can see most of his fantastic power stripped from him, usually forever. And since the code was instituted by a nearly omniscient force, it's pretty much impossible to avoid getting caught. |
| 166 | * CasualInterstellarTravel: Averted for the most part in the main setting, where humans hadn't even reached the outer planets before the Coming of the Rifts. Played completely straight in the Three Galaxies setting, where characters can travel casually between ''galaxies''. Though in this case, it's because the eponymous three galaxies are [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale unusually close to each other]]. |
| 167 | * CattlePunk: The New West, complete with robot (or cyborg) horses. |
| 168 | * {{Cernunnos}}: The Cernun are horned SnakePeople resembling the ram-horned serpents prevalent in Celtic art. It's speculated that they may have inspired this motif in the first place, and that an ancient Cernun dimensional traveler may have been what started the myth of the horned god Cernunnos. |
| 169 | * ChainsawGood: The WI-C8 Close Combat Weapon System; AKA the Juicer Chainsaw. It is a weapon modeled on the chainsaw, with teeth filed to a near mono-molecular edge. It gets its nickname from the fact that it is very popular among Juicers; both because it fits with their [[ARealManIsAKiller macho image]], and because it's too heavy and cumbersome for normal humans to wield effectively. It proved so popular that the Kittani (a client race of the [[EldritchAbomination Splugorth]]) created their own plasma variant. |
| 170 | * CharacterAlignment:[[invoked]] The Palladium system uses three groups: Good alignments (Principled, Scrupulous) Selfish alignments (Unprincipled, Anarchist) and Evil alignments (Aberrant, Miscreant, and Diabolic). |
| 171 | ** The rulebook includes an explanation from Siembieda, rather obviously aimed at ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', that he doesn't like neutral alignments because anyone who is truly "neutral" wouldn't do anything interesting, like go out adventuring. |
| 172 | ** Amusingly, each of the above listed alignments still roughly corresponds to one in the traditional TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons array[[note]]Principled=Lawful Good, Scrupulous=Neutral Good, Unprincipled=Chaotic Good, Anarchist=Chaotic Neutral, Aberrant=Lawful Evil, Miscreant=Neutral Evil, Diabolic=Chaotic Evil[[/note]] leaving out only True Neutral and (somewhat randomly) an analog for Lawful Neutral. |
| 173 | * CharacterDevelopment: Many of Reid's Rangers have become significantly more heroic since joining the bunch, most notably Doc Reid himself and Planktal-Nakton the Necromancer. This is partly BecomingTheMask, as they've been playing heroes for long enough that it's become the real thing. |
| 174 | * ChromeDomePsi: Psi-Stalkers, human mutants with a number of psychic powers, the most notable of which are the ability to sense and track supernatural creatures. They are all white-skinned and completely hairless, even the women. |
| 175 | * ChummyCommies: The Sovietski are one of the nicest factions in Russia, and one of the few that actually cares about their citizens. They provide a more centralized alternative to the Warlords' system of knights, tribute and war camps. That said, they're still the Soviet Union, so don't make too many waves and remember to smile for the SecretPolice. |
| 176 | * ChunkySalsaRule: Human, or any other SDC-scale creature, gets hit by a Mega-Damage weapon in the torso or head. That's ''it''. You're '''done'''. Don't even bother with a damage roll, you're DeaderThanDead with even a single point[[note]]This rule doesn't always apply if you have at least 200 SDC; then you're a sort of "minor mega-damage creature" and can survive limited amounts of MD[[/note]]. Roll up another character. Anywhere else? Hope your party members manage the emergency field surgery roll to save your life and start thinking about cybernetics. |
| 177 | ** For the uninitiated, SDC is "Structural Damage Capacity", which contrasts to MDC, or "Mega Damage Capacity". 1 point of mega damage is 100 points of standard damage, or two orders of magnitude, used to represent structures (like armored vehicles and concrete bunkers) which are immune to most forms of conventional attack. In ''Rifts'', however, if you're not MD, you're not trying: MD armor and weaponry is pretty much everywhere. |
| 178 | ** This is averted in the case of MDC creatures, who run on CriticalExistenceFailure. Until they're down to 0 MDC, they're just fine, and conventional weapons up to high-explosives can't even scratch them. Some characters and creatures, while not MDC, are able to take a little mega-damage anyway due to having massive amounts of SDC, such as Titan Juicers and weaker True Giants. The rules for what happens if this happens are somewhat inconsistent.[[note]]One rule on the subject suggests that a character's SDC should round ''down'' when converting to MDC, which makes absolutely no mathematical sense when a single point of MD should strip away 100 SDC or hit points.[[/note]] First-stage Prometheans split the difference by being SDC creatures that convert all damage suffered to SDC. |
| 179 | ** Conversely, some weapons can do minor MDC damage if they are able to do 100 or more points of SDC damage in a single attack. This is limited to things like anti-tank missiles, nuclear weapons or punches from sub-MDC augmented humans. |
| 180 | * CircusOfFear: The Night Arcade and Freak Show is a travelling carnival run by vampires, several of whom are performers (including [[MonsterClown the clowns]]). |
| 181 | * CityOfAdventure: Center on Phaseworld in the ''Three Galaxies'' setting. Also any city on Rifts Earth that gets described in detail in the books (like Kingsdale, New El Paso, or Firetown). |
| 182 | * CodeOfHonour: Cyber Knight O.C.C.s live by a strict code of chivalry that forbids doing anything bad short of nose picking unless in an extremely dire situation. |
| 183 | * LesCollaborateurs: Vampires depend on these to guard them during the day and maintain order among their slaves (though some of them are usually under MindManipulation). The Vampire Kingdom of Mexico goes one further; their strategy for defending against the rest of the Kingdoms is to count on the loyalty of the majority of their subjects and even arm them with anti-vampire weapons. |
| 184 | * ColonCancer: It can get this way when a series of {{Sourcebook}}s tie directly into each other. For instance, ''Palladium Books Presents: Coalition Wars: Sorcerers' Revenge: Rifts: Siege on Tolkeen Three''. |
| 185 | * CombatPragmatist: Reformed Demons out of ''China 2'' start off with a hand-to-hand combat skill called "Demon Wrestling"/ Though the name would suggest some sort of rules-oriented competition, Demon Wrestling is down and dirty, not only emphasizing but encouraging tactics like {{Groin Attack}}s, [[GoForTheEye eye gouges]], [[YourMom insulting the opponent's ancestry]], etc. |
| 186 | * ComicBookFantasyCasting: In the Lone Star {{Sourcebook}}, artist Martin [=McKenna=] draws some of the characters so that they look like real life celebrities. Colonel Roger Collins bears a resemblance to Creator/EricIdle, Colonel Buck Murphy looks like Creator/BradPitt, and Major Winston Caval is basically Creator/MichaelIronside with a widow's peak. |
| 187 | * CompetitiveBalance: Deliberately averted; [[WordOfGod KS]] sees no reason to balance classes against each other. Instead, it's the GM's job to decide what classes and equipment are available in his campaign (though the extreme powerhouse races are often not given stats for use as [=PCs=]). |
| 188 | ** Siembieda's stance on the matter is that Game Balance is a matter of Equality of Opportunity. Each member of the party should be given a chance to shine during the game. |
| 189 | ** Case in point: Erin Tarn, a human Rogue Scholar, has been part of a hero group whose membership included the ''goddess Isis''! (Although, at the time, Isis had been infected with an experimental bio-wizardry virus that depowered her and caused her to believe that she was an ordinary ley line walker.) |
| 190 | * CoolCar: And Cool Motorcycle, CoolPlane, CoolAirship, CoolShip, CoolSpaceship, Cool Mecha, Cool Hovercraft, Cool Magical Flying Thingie... let's just say Cool Vehicles in general. The Icarus Flight System, its Coalition equivalent, and some Techno-Wizard vehicles create what are essentially Cool Hang Gliders. |
| 191 | %%* CoolHorse |
| 192 | * CoolOldLady: Erin Tarn; [[BadassBookworm adventurer/historian]], a champion of the downtrodden, and Coalition Enemy Number One. The people of the New German Republic positively worship her. Erin is so famous that her name and writings are actually known in other ''dimensions''! She's also in her seventies by 109 P.A. InAWorld where most people don't live past 40, she's doing pretty well for herself. |
| 193 | * CoversAlwaysLie: The monster featured on the cover of the original edition of the ''Rifts'' main book gets no description anywhere in the book (aside from a brief mention in the Atlantis entry). It's not given stats until the ''Rifts Sourcebook'', which was the second book to come out and was in large part composed of stuff they couldn't fit into the Main Book. For those of you wondering, it's a Splugorth Slaver, and the {{Stripperific}} chicks with him are Altara Blind Warrior Women. To compound the lie, the demonic skulls floating around the Slaver are supposed to be floating containers for magical eyeballs, according to the Slaver's stats. |
| 194 | * CrapsackWorld: From the supernatural or just obscenely tough new predators, the literal demons, the only large society that can protect you from them with certainty being TheEmpire, cross-country travel is obscenely dangerous, to the mentality in some places that maturity is reached when you can handle an energy rifle, Rifts Earth is not a nice place to live. |
| 195 | ** And that's not counting China, a large portion of which has been merged with their version of ''Hell''. |
| 196 | ** Actually, that's just North America. Most other places in the world are worse (some are arguably a bit better). |
| 197 | ** And in case the world doesn't seem crappy enough, there's places like Madhaven (the ruins of Manhattan Island). Miles upon miles of shattered buildings populated by barbaric and freakish mutants, the place is so full of ghosts that psychics are driven insane within hours and anyone else is unlikely to be much better off. |
| 198 | * CreativeSterility: [[AIIsACrapshoot Archie-3]]. For all that it's the most advanced A.I. created by Mankind, and can tweak any design it gets its hands on, it lacks the ability to come up with designs on its own. As a result Archie has to rely on Hagan Lonovich, a PunyEarthling who sits around thinking up new robot designs for Archie to work on. It should be noted that it's not so much that Archie cannot have ideas of its own as that it doesn't believe its ideas are any good. As explained in the second Rifts Sourcebook, amongst Archie-3's many mental issues is a serious case of low self-esteem. Archie just never can believe its own ideas are worthwhile, and the rare occasions it does try to do something independent usually goes wrong, which only further hurts Archie's ego. For example, Archie-3 gets the idea to experiment with dimensional magic and accidentally unleashes the Mechanoids upon Rifts Earth, something that the sourcebook notes will make Archie-3 refuse to ever get involved with dimension magic and ley lines again. |
| 199 | * CreatorProvincialism: The main thrust of the action of the game, at least for the first several years, was centered around central North America (particularly the Midwestern United States and southern UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}). Not coincidentally, Palladium Books operates out of a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. Subverted later in that there are now supplements with interesting stuff going on in EVERY region of the world, in outer space and in many other dimensions. Interestingly enough, Detroit itself is barely ever mentioned, save that it is in ruins and even more unsafe for human habitation than most other places (insert joke about "so what's changed?" here). |
| 200 | * CripplingOverspecialization: For all the flak Glitter Boys get for being [[GameBreaker broken]], they have weaknesses inherent in their design that can be exploited by savvy players/[=GMs=]. While they have tons of armor and a gun that can kill lightly armored opponents in one hit, they're [[MightyGlacier very slow]], to the point that they're forced to remain stationary while attacking. Also, for all the power of the Boom Gun, it's the only weapon they have. Take it out, and they're pretty much useless in a fight (their punches and kicks do less damage than most handguns). The ''Free Quebec'' {{Sourcebook}} and a couple other books tried to address this by creating variant Glitter Boy models which serve various functions, but most remain heavy support units, designed primarily to be used in large-unit maneuvers. Triax, however, has applied their German engineering to schematics obtained from Free Quebec and produced both a markedly superior model with additional weapons systems, as well as the first ever flight-capable Glitter Boy. People with the old-style USA-G10 models would drool with envy. |
| 201 | %%* {{Cthulhumanoid}}: The Naut'Yll, as well as the Krak, as evidenced by their name. |
| 202 | * CulturalPosturing: |
| 203 | ** The NGR tend to consider themselves the height of civilization, and they're the only major human power to look down on other groups because of this. They only recognize the pre-Rifts society of the Republic of Japan as an equal; the Coalition is a valued ally but held in some contempt for their AntiIntellectualism, and the Polish kingdoms are seen as little more than vassals who need to be shepherded by German leadership. Russia is seen as a chaotic hellhole and the Warlords as mere barbarians; only the Sovietski (who are, not coincidentally, most similar to the NGR in structure) receive any recognition, and not much of that. |
| 204 | ** Among the Vampire Kingdoms, Muluc and the Yucatan are looked down on as barbarians little better than the wild vampires of Mexico. When the other three Kingdoms formed their VampireHunter hunters, those two kingdoms were not invited to work with them. |
| 205 | * CutLexLuthorACheck: Mexico is what happens when you cut a Master Vampire a check (at the blood bank). By legitimately ruling over a prosperous kingdom, the AffablyEvil Master Vampire has a convenient and willing larder, and in return the humans live in one of the safest homes on Rifts Earth. It's mentioned that many smaller villages function similarly on a smaller scale, with a vampire or small group of them serving as the local lord and protector in exchange for blood. |
| 206 | * CyberneticsEatYourSoul: Subverted. It's a human failing, rather than any quality of the cyberware. |
| 207 | ** To elaborate, bionic augmentation (especially full conversion; see BrainInAJar above) tends to have a dehumanizing effect on the recipient, making him feel removed from humanity. Especially if one is a slave who was converted into a 'Borg against his will. Rather poignantly, it's mentioned that unlike other senses which can be cybernetically boosted, bionics can't fully replicate tactile senses; touch is reduced to about 10-15% in a full-conversion 'Borg. If this sounds like a negligible drawback, read up on people in real life who have no sense of touch. |
| 208 | ** In Operation Rebirth, the heroes of the Coalition States who were near-killed in battle [[WeCanRebuildHim are rebuilt as Coalition Cyborg Soldiers]], and then their cyborg soldiers get battered into junk and come back in new bodies. While they tend to say that being killed and recycled again and again is easy, many of them are starting to crack under the strain. |
| 209 | ** Crazies receive Mind Over Matter (or [[FunWithAcronyms M.O.M.]]) implants which boost the central nervous system and give the recipient greatly enhanced speed, reflexes, and strength (though not quite as much as a Juicer gets). It even grants minor [[PsychicPowers psionic]] abilities. Unfortunately, the implants also wear down the mental stability of the recipient, hence the nickname "Crazies" (a less common nickname is "Momma's Boys", in reference to the M.O.M. implants, but it would be [[BerserkButton unwise to call a Crazy that to their face]]). Every level after the first, a Crazy character has to roll for a random insanity, ranging from phobias to obsessions to all other [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal manner of mental maladies]]. And those bolts in their head? Well, modern M.O.M. implants can be made the size of pinheads -- but Crazies ''want to be noticed''. |
| 210 | ** Also, in a more literal sense, bionic enhancements destroy one's psychic potential, which allows the use of magic and PsychicPowers. Simply having some cybernetic implants installed doesn't, but several groups, races and even character classes still oppose them as "unnatural", believing in this trope. |
| 211 | ** In the Republic of Japan's cyborg forces, this is mostly {{defied}}. The Republic of Japan has excellent psychological screening and support services, and cyborgs are beloved defenders of the people, so only 2% of their cyborgs suffer any level of cyber-psychosis. Some of the more inhuman-shaped borgs have more issues, though. |
| 212 | ** In the ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' adaptation, characters don't experience cyberpsychosis in the traditional sense (other than Crazies, as noted above), but every bionic augmentation has a Strain rating, and characters who receive more Strain than their Vigor/Spirit can handle will incur permanent Fatigue. On top of this, your ''total'' Strain is subtracted from all Spellcasting, Psionics, and Faith die rolls, so characters with powers of any kind generally avoid augmentation like the plague. |
| 213 | * CyberPunk: Ichto are full-force cyberpunk, while their parent nation the Republic of Japan are more PostCyberpunk. The Coalition and the New German Republic also have plenty of this, and the Warlords of Russia -- who rule through entire cyborg armies -- have even more. |
| 214 | * {{Cyborg}}: Runs the full gamut in Rifts. Any character who isn't psychic or magic can get cybernetic or bionic implants[[note]]technically, psychics and magic users can get implants too, but they tend to interfere with the character's natural powers, and more than a few will completely destroy their ability to use magic or psionics[[/note]], but the character isn't considered a 'Borg until at least 20% of his meat body has been replaced. They are generally divided into two categories: partial conversion and full conversion. Partial conversion 'Borgs will have at least two, or possibly all four, limbs replaced with bionic equivalents. Full conversion 'Borgs also have their torsos replaced. Some even go so far as to be almost fully mechanical, with only the brain and possibly the tongue and/or face being the meat original. |
| 215 | * DaysOfFuturePast: There are a lot of places where Rifts Earth has reverted to older traditions of the place where they were, usually enhanced by lasers, robots and magic. |
| 216 | ** The New West setting is the NewOldWest. |
| 217 | ** China's Yama Kings rule under an Imperial Chinese cosmology, sealed away from the rest of the world. |
| 218 | ** England is ruled by King Arr'thuu from New Camelot, while Scotland is a war zone between the Fomorians and the Celtic Gods. |
| 219 | ** Takamatsu and the Otomo Shogunate both adopt traditional Japanese trappings while employing more advanced technology, while the New Empire of Japan is quite directly feudal Japan in the [=2300s=]. |
| 220 | * DeadlyUpgrade: |
| 221 | ** Juicers gain ComicBook/CaptainAmerica level strength, speed and reflexes, in exchange for only being able to survive up to 7 years. Be honest, how many characters (or games) survive for seven years anyway? In the ''Juicer Uprising'' expansion, variants can give you psychic powers or make you effectively a human tank. |
| 222 | ** ''Splynn Dimensional Market'', the second book covering Atlantis, has a special type of slave that's been modified with alien parasites and magical grafts to become a Bio-Borg. The "Burn-Out" variety is designed for performing a single mission. The enhancements reduce their life expectancy to less than a week. |
| 223 | * DeathWorld: Many examples: |
| 224 | ** Rifts Earth itself is teeming with extradimensional monsters and aliens, the magic can make the weather itself dangerous, certain areas of the sea are so thick with wild magic that crossing them is tantamount to suicide, and civilization is limited to scattered, often feudal enclaves surrounded by vast stretches of monster-haunted wilderness. |
| 225 | ** Special mention goes to Hades, the homeworld of true demons. It's a barren planet with surface temperatures ranging from 90-150 degrees Fahrenheit, oceans of lava rather than water, and rampant volcanism. The atmosphere is so tainted with volcanic gases that it rains sulfuric acid and some sort of blazing hot sulfur-methane mixture far more often than it does water, and in some places the air is toxic enough to kill non-natives. Sometimes the sulfur-methane cocktail forms into a massive wave of fire that rolls across the landscape, incinerating everything in its path. That's not even getting into the [[NighInvulnerable Mega-Damage locals]], which all want to either eat visitors or enslave them. Also, space travel is no escape, because Hades is in a PocketDimension where it is the one and only celestial body. Probably the only redeeming feature it has is that the gravity is normal, as opposed to the crushing force you would expect from a planet much larger than Earth. |
| 226 | * DeathOfAChild: The New German Republic has started to enforce this, with a series of tiny disposable infiltration robots designed specifically to sneak underneath Gargoyle eggs and ''explode''. |
| 227 | * DecadeDissonance: Usually, SchizoTech realistically pervades most areas that aren't actually modernized (the New West village has cowboys with lasers), but this trope is in full force in Japan. The New Empire is actively technophobic, while the Republic of Japan and Ichto are the most technologically advanced region on Earth (their publicly-available technology is ahead of the Coalition's black projects) and are generally nonmagical as a society, and [[{{Magitek}} Techno-Wizardry]] is limited to tech-ninja clans (who, despite not playing by "the rules", don't usually mix with Mystic Ninja clans). There are areas in Japan where [[SchizoTech tech and magic are both in use]], but they're not the focus of the book.[[note]]Takamatsu and Surusa are samurai states like the New Empire that also use technology, while the Otomo Shogunate is a primarily-modern military dictatorship.[[/note]] |
| 228 | * DefectorFromDecadence: |
| 229 | ** Free Quebec split from the Coalition for this reason. Notably, Free Quebec is ''not'' more tolerant of nonhumans and is, in fact, far more hard-line on [[PsychicPowers psychics]] than the Coalition. They disagree with Prosek in supporting literacy, education, and ''theoretical'' freedom of speech. (This doesn't mean that they like free-thinkers any more than the Coalition, but they rely on informal peer pressure rather than government censorship, and entrenched bureaucracy and oligarchy rather than open dictatorship.) |
| 230 | ** Many Dead Boys who discover that the Coalition has been lying to them about magic and nonhumans flee their comfortable lives and join "the enemy". |
| 231 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Owing to the nature of the setting, ''Rifts'' offers ample opportunity for Player Characters to do this. For instance, if the game is set in Africa, it's pretty much a given that the party will be fighting the Four HorsemenOfTheApocalypse at some point. |
| 232 | * DieselPunk: A fairly common aesthetic for the Sovietski. |
| 233 | * DisproportionateRetribution: Walk into a [[TheFairFolk fairy's]] territory without permission, and they just might make you [[CruelAndUnusualDeath dance until you drop dead]]. |
| 234 | * DividedStatesOfAmerica: Actually happens everywhere, but [[CreatorProvincialism the main focus of the game is the former United States and Canada]]; most of Canada, the West Coast, the Rockies and the Great Plains are covered by wilderness with no civilization beyond a few scattered and highly isolated settlements (both human and non) and roving nomads and barbarians, while the desert states are somewhat more settled in that the scattered settlements are less distant and the barbarians more common; Texas is divided between a multitude of feudal statelets and a powerful bandit kingdom, the Midwest and Ontario are mostly ruled by the powerful Coalition, while Minnesota and Upper Michigan are home to hundreds of tiny farming and industrial communities. The Mississippi, Ohio River Valley and Appalachians are another wilderness, filled with demons and monsters from the intense Rift activity there and home to no civilization beyond an evil {{Magocracy}}. Lower Michigan and the Toronto area are likewise filled with monsters and torn apart by Rifts, but are home to numerous kingdoms of mystics, psychics and D-Bees. Most of the Deep South and the East Coast have been washed into the sea, leaving only isolated settlements along the Gulf, a dinosaur-infested swamp where Florida and Georgia used to be and yet more monster-filed wilderness going north, with small communities and kingdoms scattered here and there, while Quebec is ruled by an independent nation. |
| 235 | * DoAndroidsDream: The sourcebook makes a point of noting that full-conversion 'borgs still dream. |
| 236 | * DoomTroops: The Coalition States' old-style military armor was painted black and had skull-shaped helmets, while their new-model armor is expressly sculpted to look like human skeletons. This was intended to be for intimidation, though it's also earned them the moniker of "Dead Boys". |
| 237 | * DreadfulDragonfly: Giant clamp-mouth dragonflies are immense alien insects native to England; they resemble outsized, serpentine dragonflies with four pairs of wings, two behind the head and two much further back, as well as natural armor plating and giant three-pronged mouths. They're ferocious predators that seize prey with their jaws, which are almost impossible for human-like prey to force open, and eat them alive with their inner set of mouthparts. |
| 238 | * DungeonmastersGirlfriend: The April Fool's Joke book, ''The Rifter 9 1/2'', includes a letter from a fan (which [[ShrugOfGod may or may not have been real]]) from a guy who tried to get his girlfriend into {{RPG}}s by letting her play Erin Tarn.[[note]]For those who don't know, Erin Tarn is a very major NPC, and the closest thing to a worldwide celebrity in the main setting[[/note]] [[OhCrap And then got her killed off]], probably on purpose. The letter writer asked for advice on how to handle this, since he didn't want his group to become known as "the group who let Erin Tarn get killed". Kevin Siembieda advised the man to {{Retcon}} the whole thing by claiming it was some sort of Erin Tarn impersonator, while Percy Ferkleberger (A.K.A. Kevin Siembieda {{Lampshading}} a [[ExecutiveMeddling meddling executive]]) called the guy an idiot for even letting his girlfriend play such an important character. |
| 239 | * DungeonPunk: Places like Lazlo or Tolkeen, where magic is used in place of technology. In the case of Lazlo, magic and technology [[MagiTek are combined]] to create Techno-Wizardry. |
| 240 | * EagleSquadron: During the Minion War, for off-Earth political reasons, Lord Splynncryth is unable to intervene despite being an enemy of Dyval and Hades. So there's been a major uptick in runaway slaves and traitorous Minions of Splugorth who just ''happen'' to join various Earthling groups, and his slaving parties are "coincidentally" raiding in places where there are active demons and having to "defend themselves." [[BlatantLies Lord Splynncryth has nothing to do with this, of course]]. [[PlausibleDeniability Really]]. |
| 241 | * EarthAllAlong: The human members of the Megaversal Legion, victims of an AlienAbduction who were forced to become mercenary slaves, were quite surprised to discover the base they'd been using for years was in Bolivia, 300 years in the future (and possibly in another dimension). |
| 242 | * EarthIsABattlefield: Much of humanity is still engaged in a simple day-to-day struggle to survive against the things that came with the Coming of the Rifts; for at least a hundred or two hundred years after the Great Cataclysm, humanity as a whole literally fought to survive in a world gone insane. |
| 243 | * EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: Almost literally, in the metaphorical sense. The super-charged magical environment of Rifts Earth and the immense number of Rifts make it one of the best interdimensional crossroads in existence. While it's not the only of its kind, such nexuses are very rare. {{Eldritch Abomination}}s flock to Rifts Earth because of this unique status. |
| 244 | * EldritchAbomination: Alien Intelligences are a catch-all category for this. Vampire Intelligences are a subtype. They cover a multitude of different races and levels of power, but none of them are the kind of thing you want to take on without a small nuclear arsenal handy. Interestingly, despite the fact that they tend to look like Lovecraftian horrors, they're not all {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s. For instance, while the Splugorth look like giant eyeballs with mouthed tentacles sprouting out all over[[note]]the creature peeking through the Rift on the page image is a Splugorth[[/note]], and enjoy dominating and enslaving mortal races, they generally fit the CorruptCorporateExecutive model. |
| 245 | * EmbarrassingNickname: When the Coalition's Naval Advisory Commission was first formed, the Nautical Specialists quickly picked up the nickname Naughty Boys. |
| 246 | %%* EmpathicWeapon: Rune Weapons; some power armor.%%How? |
| 247 | * TheEmpire: |
| 248 | ** The Coalition States, among others; the Coalition is somewhat more benevolent towards its own citizens then normal for a case of TheEmpire, but its enforced illiteracy, foreign policy, and stance on magic/nonhumans places it squarely in the trope. |
| 249 | ** In the ''Three Galaxies'' setting, the Transgalactic Empire plays this trope completely straight. |
| 250 | ** As do the Tarlok in the Skraypers dimension book. |
| 251 | * EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: The Chaos Earth line takes place during the WorldWreckingWave/Demonic invasion. Focus is on rescue efforts and protecting refugees from demons. |
| 252 | * EnemiesList: Tarn has been on the Coalition's top 20 for decades, making #1 the last couple years. |
| 253 | * EnergyBeings: |
| 254 | ** {{Elemental Embodiment}}s are said to be this in their natural state. |
| 255 | ** Children of the Star, from ''Rifts England'', can turn into these at will. |
| 256 | %%** Phantoms in ''Dimension Book 2: Phaseworld''%%How? |
| 257 | %%** Bhlaze in ''Dimension Book 4: Skraypers''%%How? |
| 258 | * EnergyWeapons: Gunpowder handheld projectile weapons just don't cut it and railguns are usually too large and heavy, so almost all handheld weapons are energy. |
| 259 | * EnemyMine: |
| 260 | ** The Free Quebec Double-Cross. Tolkeen and Free Quebec were under attack by the Coalition, and the wizards of Tolkeen approached the magic-fearing technocrats of Free Quebec. They attempted to invoke this trope, pointing out that if Free Quebec attacked the Coalition forces from the front, while Tolkeen came in from behind, they could crush half the Coalition force in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, Free Quebec was horrified by the Sorcerer's Revenge. So they pretended to agree to the plan, but secretly planned to not get involved. However, when the forces of Tolkeen sent demons and monsters after the Coalition, they joined in on the Coalition's side. |
| 261 | ** The Minion War is sparking widespread incidents of individual cooperation between Coalition forces and everyone else, including D-Bees and practitioners of magic. |
| 262 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Shows up here and there. |
| 263 | ** Archie-3 and Hagan are noted in both sourcebooks to literally consider each other to be their best friends, and are quite loyal as a result. |
| 264 | ** As mentioned in TheStarscream below, Emperor Karl Prosek and his son Joseph II. They're both about as evil as two otherwise normal humans can be (the son is actually more evil in some ways), yet they love and trust each other with their lives. |
| 265 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: Say what you will about the Coalition, The Powers That Be do genuinely care for the rank and file humans under their protection. Emperor Prosek has even gone so far as to forbid genetic engineering on humans (though this hasn't stopped [[MadScientist Desmond Bradford]], head of the Lone Star Complex, from experimenting on humans anyway). |
| 266 | ** {{Averted|Trope}} during the Siege on Tolkeen, when (certain members of) the Coalition went whole hog [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi]] and set up concentration/death camps in Wisconsin. In the book where they're first mentioned, a smuggled letter from a prisoner inside one of the camps describes the horrors taking place inside the camp. The letter writer says at one point that he didn't think even the Coalition could be so cruel. |
| 267 | ** Another example is the "Stalag of Doom" adventure seed. One Coalition commander decides to set up a concentration camp for torturing and experimenting on captured D-Bees. The twist is that his superiors didn't sign off on this particular show of initiative and will not be happy if they hear of it. (the Tolkeen death camps were similarly unauthorized by the Coalition top brass; upon learning of them, Prosek has them razed, the low-rank grunt guards quietly executed and the general responsible removed and demoted (likely to also be executed). |
| 268 | * EverybodyHatesHades: Aside from Osiris (the one exception), Hades is actually the ''nicest'' death god around, and he's a {{Jerkass}} and a KnightTemplar with no concern for human life. Nearly every other death god is an OmnicidalManiac and/or a {{Sadist}}, regardless of their portrayal in their original mythology. |
| 269 | * EvilKnockoff: In the Three Galaxies setting, the Invincible Guardsmen are this to the Cosmo Knights, and were specifically designed to be the Transgalactic Empire's answer to them. They're not quite on the same power level as the Cosmo Knights, but considering that the later are powered by an omniscient {{Precursor|s}} artifact, the Kreeghor did a surprisingly good job. |
| 270 | * EvilDetectingDog: There is an entire ''race'' of sentient [[EvilDetectingDog Evil Detecting Dogs]] who were specifically engineered to do so; regular dogs are capable of this as well) |
| 271 | * EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily: Averted for the most part (especially since the Coalition will have nothing to do with supernatural horrors), but several areas, most notably Atlantis and the Phoenix Empire (in the Africa sourcebook), are friendly to "evil races" and unfriendly to "good races". The section on the Phoenix Empire in particular goes into several paragraphs about how their bureaucracy [[FantasticRacism makes actual legal distinctions between good-guy races like humans and elves, and bad-guy races like orcs and most supernaturals]]. |
| 272 | ** The largest aversion is the ''Minion War'', a series of books about the Demons of Hades going to war against the Deevils of Dyval. |
| 273 | ** Another recent subversion is the split between the Gargoyle and Brodkil Empires, which the New German Republic has ruthlessly exploited. |
| 274 | * EvilutionaryBiologist: Generally averted with the Gene Splicers: their experiments are normally one-of-a-kind, and rarely done to improve the subject. However, an early issue of ''The Rifter'' (a combination fanzine and non-canon {{Sourcebook}}) has "the Evolved", an experiment performed by a Gene Splicer where a race of beings was raised through five EvolutionaryLevels, to see how the various incarnations would interact with each other. |
| 275 | * EvilVersusEvil: |
| 276 | ** The Minion Wars. Hades and Dyval, hellish dimensions populated by Demons and Deevils, respectively, start a war with each other that spills across several dimensions, including Rifts Earth and the Three Galaxies setting. |
| 277 | ** This trope is also the reason why so many alien and EldritchAbomination races who normally ride roughshod over entire galaxies have to treat Rifts Earth with a relatively light hand. For instance, take the Splugorth. Under normal circumstances they would have enslaved the entire Earth in a matter of days. However, they've had to content themselves for the last century or so with controlling just {{Atlantis}}, because any time they step outside their borders, they have dozens to hundreds of other would-be conquerors to contend with. |
| 278 | ** Reid's Rangers' war against the Vampire Kingdoms used to be this, but the Vampire Sourcebook changed that. Through CharacterDevelopment, the Rangers have become ALighterShadeOfBlack, while the Mexico Empire (who could be argued to be ''less'' evil than the Rangers) is glaringly absent from the section on Reid's war plans. |
| 279 | * ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is a literal gateway to another dimension. In fact, it is speculated that the Gateway Arch was designed with that exact purpose in mind, as it's a bit of a coincidence that it just happened to be on a major ley line nexus, and it was designed just right to create a permanently opened Rift. |
| 280 | * ExpandedStatesOfAmerica: A variant in ''Chaos Earth'', where Canada, the US and Mexico all join into a single EU-type organization with a joint military command (the Northern Eagle Military Alliance). The governments in question all perished with the Coming of the Rifts, but NEMA remains. |
| 281 | * ExplosiveLeash: Coalition Juicers created under Operation Hellbender are chipped with bombs in their skulls in case these augmented humans decide to go rogue. However, with the sheer number of Juicers being made, 12% end up unchipped, either because the doctors skip them because they're busy making more Juicers or because of chip shortages. Rogue Juicers aren't really expected to become a serious problem (at least according to Colonel Lyboc), but after the Juicer Uprising, the Coalition aren't taking chances. |
| 282 | * FailedFutureForecast: Played with. The Sovietski of ''Warlords of Russia'' is not the Soviet Union of the 20th Century, but a new Communist state created in Russia during the 21st Century. |
| 283 | * TheFairFolk: Zig-zagged. While there are some evil races that fall under the auspice of Fairy, most are more of the mischief-loving variety. Though they're loaded to the gills with powerful magic and are more than willing to use it to stop the Big People from bothering them. Due to BlueAndOrangeMorality, their definition of "bothering" includes things like accidentally walking into territory they claimed as their own. |
| 284 | * FantasticCasteSystem: |
| 285 | ** In the Coalition arcology cities, most especially in Chi-Town itself, a citizen's status is easily determined by what level of the fortress-city they live on. The higher up you are ''literally'' defines how high up you are. Slang terms such as "Downsiders", "Low Levelers" and especially "Grungers" are applied to people living on levels 1-22. "Lofties" are the more elite living on level 23 or above. At the very top, on levels 31-35 are the "Sky Kings". Ironically, very affluent people living in private homes in the Burbs outside the city walls are legally non-citizens and technically lack even the meager rights that a Grunger living on level 1 inside the city has. |
| 286 | ** Minions of Splugorth have a somewhat complex hierarchy. Briefly, there's the Splugorth at the top, then elite Minions, then lower-ranked Minions (in various grades), and then slaves. However, some slaves (notably the Maxi-men) hold a de facto position equal to mid-level Minions, and the Sunaj are in a weird place; they're the lowest of the minions, but they are allowed to operate with greater freedom than anyone else, as they're "allies" of the Splugorth rather than Minions. |
| 287 | * FantasticDrug: the ''Juicer Uprising'' {{Sourcebook}} has a section on designer drugs meant to simulate to varying degrees the effects of the more elaborate drug harness system worn by actual Juicers. As well as stats for the effects of the drug, the section also describes the symptoms of withdrawal, and the effects of addiction. The section is headed by a DontDoThisCoolThing disclaimer. |
| 288 | * FantasticMedicinalBodilyProduct: The blood of the Cactus People can be used to brew {{Healing Potion}}s. |
| 289 | * FantasticNatureReserve: The Preserve, a vast jungle covering nearly a quarter of Atlantis and fading into temperate forests to its north, is kept as a vast hunting reserve for the Splugorth and their demonic and monstrous allies and minions. Consequently, it's deliberately kept stocked with creatures such as dinosaurs, [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]], [[OurHydrasAreDifferent hydras]], [[OurManticoresAreSpinier manticores]], [[OurGryphonsAreDifferent gryphons]], [[OurPerytonsAreDifferent perytons]] and the like to serve as exciting quarries, although the main game kept there are the [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame sapient humanoids]] -- chiefly humans, orcs, ogres, goblins and {{wolf|Man}}en -- who are either released there as hunting stock or runaway slaves who were allowed to "escape" into the jungle to be hunted down at a later date. Periodic arrivals from TheBermudaTriangle just off the coast also keep the Preserve's game nice and varied. |
| 290 | * FantasticRacism: |
| 291 | ** Many places don't like magic-users, many places don't like D-Bees (Dimensional Beings, i.e.: beings from another dimension) and many places don't like psychics. The Coalition used to dislike all three (shooting the first on sight and barely treating D-Bees any better), though their position on psychics has become more nuanced (they aren't exactly liked or trusted, but they're too valuable not to make use of, and many people are lobbying to drop the anti-psychic rhetoric entirely). Conversely, there are places where ''Humans'' aren't well-regarded, either. And almost nobody likes vampires. |
| 292 | ** In Europe, the racial heat is much lower, though the major human powers are still somewhat human-supremacist. The NGR treats D-Bees like crap, but rejects the Coalition's genocidal ways and is taking baby steps toward tolerance (in part because their greatest national hero is a four-armed giant), the Warlords don't consider D-Bees "Russian" but accept them as mercs in their War Camps, and the Sovietski do their best to pretend that D-Bees don't exist and that all of their citizens are just "Russians", but they're still uncomfortable with inhuman-looking ones. |
| 293 | ** In the Achilles Republic, the dominant population are mutant animals, and while humans are better off in Achilles than in many places (including human nations) and have theoretically equal rights, in practice they're on the bottom of the totem pole. There's also some tension between the mutant animals and the Neo-Humans, [[HumanSubspecies incredibly powerful psychic mutants]] - while they're closer to the mutant animals than to human stock, they look like humans and are not fully trusted. |
| 294 | %%* FantasyKitchenSink: And the Sci-Fi one, too! |
| 295 | * FeatheredSerpent: |
| 296 | ** The Kulkucan is a type of dragon with a more serpentine body covered in feathers and a beaked head. Quetzalcoatl himself happens to have been a Kulkucan Dragon who ascended to godhood. |
| 297 | ** The feathered serpents of Wormwood are serpentine monsters with hammerhead shark-like heads, prehensile tongues, four legs, flat and batlike wings covered in feathers and tails tipped with three-fingered claws. They're vicious predators, and used as riding mounts by the minions of the Unholy. |
| 298 | * TheFederation: The New German Republic, with strong dosages of TheEmpire for flavoring. |
| 299 | ** Although the recent Triax 2 world book dials up TheFederation aspects of the NGR and diminishes previous implications of TheEmpire, especially by emphasizing the discomfort some Germans feel around their erstwhile Naziesque "allies" the Coalition States. |
| 300 | ** The Consortium of Civilized Worlds in ''Phase World'' is pretty much the StandardSciFiSetting version. |
| 301 | * FlatEarthAtheist: The writers on ''Psyscape'' realized that the Nega-Psychic from Beyond the Supernatural, a FlatEarthAtheist [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve whose disbelief in the supernatural makes it unreal]], would simply not work in a world where the supernatural is blatantly obvious to anyone who cares to look (as well as those that don't). They revamped the class into a determined sort who knows that the supernatural exists but refuses to allow it to control him. |
| 302 | * FiendishFish: The air fish of Wormwood are monstrous, [[FlyingSeafoodSpecial airborne]] and very aggressive fishes used as minions and attack dogs by the forces of the Unholy, which they serve willingly and eagerly. |
| 303 | * FireForgedFriends: |
| 304 | ** Warlord Sonya Romanov and the Sovietski. While the Sovietski and the Warlords of Russia had previously had a rather troubled relationship, the Brodkil invasion forced Romanov to call for help from every possible quarter. When she appealed to the Sovietski for help, she expected that she'd get the kind of half-assed support that Seriyev (her alleged ally among the Warlords) was giving her. Instead, what she got was a full mobilization of the Sovietski military working in tandem with her forces. In short order, the Brodkil were running out of Russia with their tails between their legs, and Romanov and Director Nikoforov were in the Winter Palace signing a formal alliance. |
| 305 | ** Coalition soldiers are beginning to form friendships with nonhumans and mages during the Minion War. The Coalition's official policy is to [[LetsYouAndHimFight let the alien evils kill each other]], or turn a blind eye to EnemyMine incidents, but due to the exigencies of war, they've found themselves fighting alongside D-Bees and magicians and coming to respect their courage and ability. It's becoming harder and harder for them to dehumanize them now. |
| 306 | * FishPeople: |
| 307 | ** The Idie Swamp Men, a race of humanoid catfish native to the swamps of the Deep South and the eastern seaboard of North America and known for being extremely skilled spearfishers and wilderness guides through swamps. |
| 308 | ** Loaks are slender, predatory fish people with mouths full of shark-like fangs, huge black eyes and webbed hands tipped with razor-sharp claws. They were genetically engineered to hunt down practitioners of magic and psionic powers, and eagerly hunt down mages, psychics and supernatural creatures throughout the Mississippi basin and eastern North America. |
| 309 | * FlyingSeafoodSpecial: |
| 310 | ** ''Underseas'' details a sapient ray that can use hooks on the end of its wings to type with; they often learn to use tech items which are mostly controlled by buttons and other panel controls, even though they obviously don't have the ability to make them. |
| 311 | ** Some marine magic has incantations like [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Air Swim]], which can allow sea creatures to swim in air, if they also have the ability to breathe without water; usually used by dolphins, orca and some sentient alien whales, eg. the rhino whales. |
| 312 | ** The air fish of Wormwood resemble nothing so much as monstrous piranhas swimming through the air. |
| 313 | * ForScience: |
| 314 | ** If anyone in the party is playing a Rogue Scientist, expect to hear this shouted at least once per session. |
| 315 | ** In the time leading up to the Great Cataclysm, the major world governments were all actively experimenting in creating the perfect solider. The technology that would lead to Crazies was worked on in South America and Poland, Juicers were developed in Germany, both South and North America played with genetic engineering, etc. This was all taking place at a time of relative peace, mostly for the sake of science itself. It wasn't until people started looking around and seeing what their neighbors had been doing that people started wonder what they should actually ''do'' with these super soldiers. |
| 316 | * ForTheEvulz: |
| 317 | ** A lot of monstrous creatures lack any particular motivation for their actions beyond being evil; they torture, murder and eat people because that's what evil monsters do. |
| 318 | ** It's explicitly mentioned a couple times that most demon races are fundamentally incapable of planning beyond an instinctual level. They do evil because that's what they do. |
| 319 | ** Cyber-Snatchers, while human, also embrace being evil for kicks. They're not "just business" types who'll dispassionately murder you for your cyberware, they're junkies and psychopaths who get off on hurting people. |
| 320 | * FriendlyNeighborhoodVampires: |
| 321 | ** Very difficult, due to the nature of the vampiric condition, but possible; the most powerful of the Vampire Kingdoms is in fact a moderately benevolent dictatorship headed by an [[LawfulEvil Aberrant-aligned]] Master Vampire.[[invoked]] |
| 322 | ** The revised edition of ''Vampire Kingdoms'' includes two new classes that allow players to be FriendlyNeighborhoodVampires, complete with BlessedWithSuck (pun intended). |
| 323 | * FriendToAllLivingThings: |
| 324 | ** Played with in the Simvan Monster Riders. They are D-Bees who have psychic powers that make animals and monsters automatically see them as their masters. Nomadic by nature, they use these monstrous mounts to raid and pillage the countryside. They are carnivores but cant stand the idea of killing their animals so they preffer to hunt inteligent prey. |
| 325 | ** Played straight with the Psi-Stalkers. They are mutant humans who have a weaker version of the Simvan's power. They don't harm animals even for food, since they feed off the magic energy of living beings and see monsters and demons as their natural enemies and prey. |
| 326 | * FullConversionCyborg: Full-conversion cyborgs have their entire bodies except for their brain and spinal column replaced with machinery. Many lean into the unsettling aspect of their appearance, opting to have their facial plates sculpted into demonic, skeletal or otherwise monstrous shapes. |
| 327 | * FunctionalMagic: Of all kinds. See the actual page for a more detailed analysis. Just don't try to use it in an extremely highly charged area, like say Tolkeen during the final siege... or during the Coming of the Rifts. Then it starts getting completely non-functional with an off chance of CosmicHorror or NegativeSpaceWedgie. Using magic during a Ley Line Storm is dicey, as well. |
| 328 | * FunWithAcronyms: There's the Strategic Armored Military Assault Suit (SAMAS) Power Armor and the Crazy's Mind Over Matter (M.O.M.) implants, to cite two examples from the Main Book. Others can be found here and there in other books. For example, the Enemy Infiltration Robot (EIR, pronounced "Ear") in ''Triax and the New German Republic''. |
| 329 | * FutureImperfect: In many places very little is known about what life was like before the Great Cataclysm. The Coalition States and the New Soviet actively lie about pre-Cataclysm Earth. One of the reasons the Coalition actively discourages literacy is so that citizens aren't exposed to anything but their ThemeParkVersion of Pre-Rifts Earth. Most people don't know and don't care. Only the New German Republic (whose parent corporation survived the Cataclysm intact) and Republic of Japan (who are ''from'' that time period) have knowledge of accurate pre-Cataclysm history, and even they don't really know much about what went on in the world for about a hundred years after the Cataclysm. |
| 330 | * GadgeteerGenius: A few classes, but the best-known example would be the Operator from the main book. By the standards of today's society, they'd be little more than mechanics or repairmen. But on Rifts Earth, the ability to not only understand how a machine works, but to be able to build or repair one, is a priceless commodity. |
| 331 | * GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke: Played with. Human genetic engineering are one area of human augmentation that never really took off in Rifts Earth. The [[PhlebotinumDuJour favored form of human enhancement]] is [[{{Cyborg}} bionics]], with [[SuperSerum Juicers]] and Crazies (brain implants) as somewhat more-unstable technologies. That said, the technology is there and has been employed in a lot of places; it's just that nobody is doing eugenic work on humans right now, and most humans are still baseline. Some examples of genetic engineering: |
| 332 | ** The Coalition States in particular has done some fairly impressive things with the genetic engineering of animals, creating entire races of [[EvilDetectingDog Evil Detecting Dogs]], SuperSoldier dogs, SuperSoldier cats of two different kinds, Chimpanzee lab assistants, and SuperSoldier ''{{bears|AreBadNews}}'', to name a few. Aside from major toughness improvement for the "Kill" SuperSoldiers and Ursa Warriors, and obviously raised intelligence, they are more of an "optimized version" then granted superpowers. |
| 333 | ** The Mutants from South America's Project Achilles, on the other hand, are what happens when you take all the brakes off a bunch of people like Lone Star. Many mutated animals are there with actual superpowers, as opposed to just the optimizations done on Lone Star animals. Ironically, the ''most'' powerful mutant animals are the Neo-Humans, who are a HumanSubspecies. |
| 334 | ** The Lemurians long ago optimized their DNA using biomantic magic, as well as adapting to an amphibious life. |
| 335 | ** There's also the Gene Splicers, amoral aliens who can be found here or there across the globe, though they're concentrated in Eastern Europe. Gene Splicers, as the name would imply, have mastered the art of genetic engineering and like tampering with it for experimental purposes. Their motivations are a combination of ForTheEvulz and ForScience. The description of the characters says that they were designed partially to allow {{Game Master}}s to stump {{Rules Lawyer}}s who have memorized the stat of every monster in the books. |
| 336 | * GeniusLoci: The planet Wormwood. Whether it's actually self-aware or conscious is anyone's guess, most of the time it seems to act more like an organic computer that's been programmed to provide for the needs of the humans living on it. For instance, when humans move into a new area, the planet starts shaping that portion of itself into a city for them to live in, and creates pockets of water and food caves nearby. Unfortunately, the fact that it seems to act on instinct means that the Unholy and his demonic minions have been able to pervert portions of the planet, bending it to their own evil will. |
| 337 | * GenreBusting: ''Rifts'' is not part of any genre, it's an amalgam of so many genres that it is practically a genre unto its own. |
| 338 | * GenreRoulette: It's hard to pick a genre that ''Rifts'' hasn't covered in one or more books. One of the most jarring examples is a drawing of a merchant in ''Splynn Dimensional Market''. He's a lesser demon who looks like a scaled humanoid with tusks coming from his lower jaw, and three eyes lined vertically. He's wearing a ten-gallon hat and other cowboy gear, and carrying a six-shooter in each hand. In this case, the trope is invoked in-universe, with the demon purposely dressing and acting in a ridiculous manner [[ObfuscatingStupidity so that others will underestimate him]]. |
| 339 | * GermanicEfficiency: Triax and the New German Republic have this going in full force. |
| 340 | * GetOutOfJailFreeCard: The Night of Forgiveness was a general amnesty announced by the Coalition after the start of the Minion War. Any human, Psi-Stalker or mutant animal who was willing to accept the Coalition's laws (no magic, no D-Bees) immediately received a full pardon and an opportunity to join the Coalition army or fight as an allied mercenary, no questions asked. |
| 341 | * GlobalCurrency: Credits are accepted most places in the Megaverse -- even the ancient food dispensers made by the {{Precursors}} of Phase World will take credit chips from modern powers! On the other hand, Rifts Earth credits avert this in the Three Galaxies -- a Three Galaxies credit is not the same as a Rifts Earth credit and exchange is necessary. |
| 342 | * AGodAmI: Dr. Desmond Bradford literally believes he is a god, with power over the creation of life. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge of the genetics lab. |
| 343 | * GodIsEvil: The Megaverse was created by the [[EldritchAbomination Old Ones]] so they could have creatures weaker than themselves to torment. |
| 344 | * GodsHandsAreTied: |
| 345 | ** Even as demons, deevils, evil gods and alien intelligences run amok, there always seems to be some excuse or another for why more benevolent deities cannot provide significant assistance, even in Megaverse-shaking events such as the Minion War. Ironically, the rationale is usually that doing so would give free license for evil godlike beings to likewise intervene, when in fact they already do so anyway. |
| 346 | ** ''Megaverse in Flames'' mentions that there's an unspoken rule among supernatural beings that a world's Armageddon must be fought and defeated by mortals. Hence, if [[spoiler: the Four Horsemen are unleashed again]], the two sides of the Minion War (who oppose such an occurrence; [[EvilVersusOblivion they want to redecorate Earth, not destroy it]]) will [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere up stakes and leave Earth]]. |
| 347 | * {{Golem}}: Colossal figures created by drawing a pentagram in animal blood, placing a rough humanoid clay form within it, giving it two onyxes for eyes and an iron heart, and placing a single drop of the magician's drop on its forehead to spring it to life. Golems have no will of their own and no emotions, and exist only to obey the commands of their creator; if their maker dies, they will just keep following their last command until destroyed. They're ungodly tough and entirely invulnerable to anything meant to affect something with biology or a mind -- they cannot be charmed, hypnotized or sent to sleep, or harmed by most harmful spells -- and are highly resistant to physical and energy damage. Even tougher stone and metal variants also exist. |
| 348 | * GoMadFromTheRevelation: In a pyramid in Atlantis, there's a permanently open Rift that defies all attempts to close it. Although Splynncryth has had minions experimenting on it for years, they haven't been able to determine where it goes. All they know is that anyone who even looks directly into the Rift becomes incurably insane, gains PsychicPowers, and has their alignment reversed. |
| 349 | * GoodIsNotSoft: The Knights of the White Rose are of good alignment, but their martial and magical disciplines were originally developed by the most wicked and feared mercenaries in North America, and strength of will and ruthlessness toward evil are two of their primary virtues. They're more than ready to PayEvilUntoEvil if that's what it takes. |
| 350 | * GoodWeaponEvilWeapon: You can usually tell whether a race/organization is good or evil at a glance by looking at their weaponry. Good guys tend to have normal or flashy-looking weapons, and guns that look more functional than pretty. Bad guys put SpikesOfVillainy on everything, even gun barrels, and it's not uncommon for their melee weapons to look like something Creator/HRGiger might have designed while on an acid trip. |
| 351 | * {{Gorn}}: The logical conclusion of Mega-Damage, and standard operating procedure when engaging mages or supernatural beings. If you don't blow them to bloody chunks, they may not stay dead. Professional military and police forces frequently go one step further and vaporize the bloody chunks to be safe. The Siege on Tolkeen books mention that Dead Boys have a euphemism for this: "misting". |
| 352 | * GunFu: ''China 2'' has the Gun Master O.C.C. They are warriors trained in ''Tao Jen Qiang'', "The Way of the Patient Gun". It is a martial art that lets them become one with guns in ways that would make Creator/ChowYunFat look like a novice. For instance, at first level they can kill MDC monsters with SDC bullets, which is normally an impossibility in ''Rifts'' (see ChunkySalsaRule above for more details). At higher levels they can shoot ''ghosts''. |
| 353 | [[/folder]] |
| 354 | [[folder: H-M]] |
| 355 | * HalfHumanHybrid: Averted. The books state that sentient races are genetically incompatible, and that Half Elves (or other half races) are impossible, with some exceptions. Human sub-races (such as Lemurians) can usually interbreed freely, gods can interbreed with a lot of things, and humans and ogres can reproduce (but the offspring are considered ogres rather than hybrids). True Atlanteans are also "human", but so altered that they can't reproduce with normals. |
| 356 | * HandCannon: Northern Gun pistols tend to be big, heavy, not especially long-ranged, and useful for pistol-whipping; just the kind of gun that'll appeal to their macho clientele (as opposed to their rival Wilk's' elegant, futuristic black plastic lasers). Their standout example is the Super-Laser, a pistol with an underbarrel grenade launcher. |
| 357 | * HeartDrive: Russian cyborgs do this with a BrainInAJar. Unlike the Coalition and other places, Russian ''Mashiniye Chilovyeki'' tend to have modular bodies that can be swapped in and out of with some work, and the Sovietski even have a particular Light Machine body designed for their [[MiniMecha Superheavy Cyborgs]] to swap into when they're off the clock. The Russian factions ''do'' have partial conversion tech, which averts this because more of the body remains naturally human, but they don't use it as much. |
| 358 | * HereditaryRepublic: Cordoba is a "republic" governed by a PresidentForLife appointed from the Borges family. |
| 359 | * HeWhoFightsMonsters: The Tolkeenites entered the war with the Coalition with honorable intentions: they were a peaceful people being unfairly persecuted and invaded. However, as the war wore on, Tolkeen became just as bad as the Dead Boys they fought. This reached its climax with the Sorcerer's Revenge, which was a collective MoralEventHorizon for the entire nation-state. |
| 360 | * {{Hell}}: There is a large number of these, each with its own fiendish inhabitants. One version can even be found on Rifts Earth. During the Great Cataclysm, the [[AllMythsAreTrue Yama Kings of Chinese myth]] rose and converted a very large portion of China into their own brand of Hell. They also placed an obscuring mist all over China so that the Celestial Court doesn't discover what they're up to. |
| 361 | * HellishHorse: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride these, naturally. Though the one Pestilence rides is basically a giant beetle. |
| 362 | * HistoricalDomainCharacter |
| 363 | ** : The Lone Star sourcebook includes [[Film/ButchCassidyAndTheSundanceKid the Sundance Kid]], who fell into a freak random rift during [[BolivianArmyEnding that whole mess in Bolivia]]. |
| 364 | ** Qin Hui, an infamous Chinese traitor who, while working for one of the Yama Kings of hell, came across a statue of himself and his wife. One that has been traditionally spat upon (and worse) to this day. When he touched the statue, his soul was split partially into the statue and he got to experience all ''nine hundred-plus years'' of that. |
| 365 | * HonestRollsCharacter: Like all Palladium [=RPG=]s, humans roll 3D6 for all 8 attributes. Bonus rolls are awarded if you happen to roll a 16, 17, or 18, and some classes and skills will give an attribute bonus (usually to physical attributes), but otherwise, you're stuck with what you roll. Most [=GMs=] allow house rules along the lines of D&D's "roll 4D6 and discard the lowest die roll" rule. For the most part, though, attributes aren't as important in Rifts as they are in d20 games. High attributes will grant the player bonuses, though they're generally not penalized for low attributes (though it might limit the character classes you can choose from). At least until the Ultimate Edition came out, which added new rules for characters with low attributes. |
| 366 | * HopeBringer: One of the classic themes of the Glitter Boy (outside of Free Quebec and the NGR). The USA-G10 is most often seen as an AncestralWeapon, its laser-reflective exterior evokes a KnightInShiningArmor image, and the common people of North America's scattered communities see them as symbols of hope and heroism. |
| 367 | * HorrorHunger: Once a week, morphworms are overwhelmed by a powerful hunger that can only be sated by devouring a human-sized creature. Until this is done, the morphworm reverts to a primal, instinct-driven beast seeking nothing more than to feed, and becomes unable to view humanoids or large mammals, even its friends as allies, as more than food. This is an issue for morphworms seeking to live in civilized society as, although they do not wish to eat their allies and regret their actions after feeding, they can do nothing to stop themselves once their hunger rises. |
| 368 | * HorsemenOfTheApocalypse: They're in Africa. And if they meet up, they'll [[AllYourPowersCombined merge into one uber-demon]] and end the world for good. Later sourcebooks suggest that most of them were successfully defeated, but Death is still running around somewhere, and it might not be Africa anymore... |
| 369 | * HorseOfADifferentColor: Exotic mounts are the order of the day, and include giant bugs, bears, dinosaurs, and even stranger things. |
| 370 | ** The Simvan Monster Riders are an entire species of D-Bees specializing in riding monstrous steeds, and can tame and ride most varieties of beastly steeds with relative ease. Their favored rides are the giant reptilian ostrosaurs, but they also ride rhino-buffaloes, dinosaurs and a variety of large and normally intractable creatures. |
| 371 | ** The world of Dr'myr is home to two species associated with exotic steeds. The br'talb ride kr'talpa or "demon hounds", horned predators with whom they formed a symbiotic relationship in order to better catch shared prey and evade their common predators and share a close psychic link. Simvans, notably, are the only species beyond the br'talb who can form empathic links with demon hounds. The sky riders instead prefer flying steeds, especially the hammerhead shark-headed flying serpents and the horned insectoid beasts known as skelter bats. |
| 372 | * HumanSacrifice: In the Palladium Rules System, every living creature has a small amount of [[LifeEnergy P.P.E.]] which can be used to work magic. For unknown reasons, a being's P.P.E. is doubled at the moment of death, making HumanSacrifice an attractive option for evil spell casters looking to power an energy-hungry ritual. This is actually the basis for the setting, as an outgrowth of ''Beyond the Supernatural''; when the nuclear war happened, the nearly-instantaneous death toll supercharged the {{Ley Line}}s so much that they opened up rifts to other worlds, allowing monsters to come through. |
| 373 | * HumansAreBastards: For all the evil monsters, {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, and alien invaders roaming the land, it's the human supremacist [[TheEmpire Coalition States]] who are the most hated. [[DracoInLeatherPants In universe, at least]]. |
| 374 | * HumansAreSpecial: When rolling attributes for a character, Humans have a special rule that applies only to them. If you roll a 16, 17, or 18 for any attribute, you can roll an extra die and add that amount to the total. [[PowerCreepPowerSeep As of the new Ultimate Edition of the game]], if you roll a 6 on that bonus die, you get to roll another extra die. This means that with enough luck, a Human character can start off with an attribute score of 30 for one or more of his stats. Note that 10-12 is considered average. |
| 375 | * HumanResources: The "blood" of Cactus People, called their life fluid, is a sweet and highly nutritious liquid that can sustain humans and other creatures even in the absence of regular water, and which is also an excellent ingredient for {{Healing Potion}}s. Consequently, Cactus People are often hunted by evil people and being who consider them merely crops to be harvested. |
| 376 | * HumanSubspecies: There are a few. |
| 377 | ** Ogres are ancestral humans (occupying a similar niche to Cro-Magnon Man on Earth) from the ''TabletopGame/PalladiumFantasy'' world, and are interfertile with humans -- crossbreeds are ogres. |
| 378 | ** [[AdvancedAncientHumans True Atlanteans]] are humans who have been magically engineered into a more powerful form -- larger, smarter, more magical, and immune to physical transformation. They are not interfertile with baseline humans. |
| 379 | ** Lemurians are humans who use [[GreenThumb biomancy]] to genefix themselves. |
| 380 | ** Amazons are an [[OneGenderRace all-female]] race of mystic and psychic warriors in South America. They can breed with humans and ogres; female children are Amazons. |
| 381 | ** Achilles Neo-Humans are a form of superhuman developed in South America, with natural abilities far superior to humans and an ideological split between those who would be stewards and allies of baselines, or conquerors. |
| 382 | ** The Altess are mega-damage humans from the ''Phase World'' setting, highly genetically engineered and extremely rich, living a life of leisure in their Dominion. |
| 383 | * HumongousMecha: The ridiculously huge Triax Devastator which could give Mechagodzilla a run for his money and the Phase World setting's Battleram are where it stops in size terms, and they step on two-story houses; from there it runs down to MiniMecha territory and eventually powered armor. |
| 384 | * HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: The Splugorth keep a large tract of Atlantis as a wild hunting preserve chiefly to hunt down sapient humanoids, including humans alongside orcs, ogres, goblins, {{wolf|Man}}en and failed experiments in altering slaves into more useful forms. These aren't typically given greater chances at survival than game in orchestrated safaris or fox hunts, but some hunters prefer to go after warriors, mages and people who have already fought off or killed previous hunters in order to enjoy greater challenges. |
| 385 | * {{Hypocrite}}: Standard for the charismatic leadership of the Coalition States, especially Emperor Prosek, who out-Hitlers Hitler! Even worse is his son though, who writes most of the CS propaganda, including their extremely detailed rants about exactly why ''all'' magic is evil. [[spoiler: Yet behind the scenes he secretly knows about, and assists, the Vanguard, a group of pro-Coalition mages that are the descendants of the CS military's former magic division, which was disbanded when anti-magic sentiment became too widespread among the general public]]. |
| 386 | * InNameOnly: ''Rifts Manhunter'', the only official ''Rifts'' book not published by Palladium (prior to the ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' adaptation). The now-defunct Myrmidon Press was given permission to use Palladium's Megaversal Rules System in making ''Manhunter,'' and the ''Rifts'' title was tacked on almost as an afterthought. About the only parallels this game has to any other Rifts product is that magic and science exist side-by-side, and infrequent, awkward mentions of rifts in time and space suddenly appearing in the setting. The book has been out of print for a very long time, and extant copies are so rare most Rifts fans have never even heard of it. |
| 387 | * InsectoidAliens: England is home to two such species, the dabugghs and the mantaz sectles; the former look like humans with a single arthropod body part, while the latter are straight-up gigantic mantis-like insects (although they're also warmblooded and more similar to birds in terms of internal anatomy). The two species hate each other and always fight when they meet. |
| 388 | * InSeriesNickname: |
| 389 | ** Coalition Soldiers, due to their armor and vehicles bearing a skull motif, are colloquially referred to as "Dead Boys". |
| 390 | ** The Coalition's mutant dog soldiers, officially called "Psi-Hounds", are affectionately called "Dog Boys". |
| 391 | ** Recepients of the M.O.M. cybernetic implants, which boost physical and psychic ability but lead to SanitySlippage, are known as "Crazies". |
| 392 | * InsistentTerminology: |
| 393 | ** In an odd case, virtually every single mention of the city of Ishpeming will be described in the books as ''Ishpeming (Northern Gun)'' (after the local cartel/weapons manufacturer), even if it has been called exactly that not one page prior. Very rarely will you see it actually called simply ''Ishpeming''. |
| 394 | ** Chi-Town is always referred to as a Mega-City, possibly because Siembieda didn't realize that a term already exists for cities like Chi-Town. Even later books by other authors that use the correct word (arcology) will still include "Mega-City", usually combining the two as Mega-City/arcology. Even on this very page, as in AlternativeCalendar, above. |
| 395 | ** The Coalition High Command would really prefer it if you referred to their genetically engineered soldiers as "Psi-Hounds", not "Dog Boys", thank you very much. Ironically, the only people likely to do so are the Dog Boys themselves. |
| 396 | * InstantArmor: Cosmic Armor in the Three Galaxies setting, which can be called up from nowhere to protect a Cosmo Knight. The appearance varies according to the individual knight's tastes, but is always sleek and shiny. Oh, and it can withstand a direct hit from a starship's main cannon. |
| 397 | * JackOfAllTrades: The ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' port turns the Vagabond class into this, as their special perk raises the default level of any skill they don't have, effectively giving them a free point in every skill. The ''Empires of Humanity'' sourcebook built on this by introducing the Genius Edge for Vagabonds, giving them the option of raising their defaults a ''second'' level. This Edge isn't quite enough to make them a MasterOfAll, but it certainly makes them even more [[RenaissanceMan Jacker]]. |
| 398 | * KillItWithWater: Vampires can be harmed, even killed by running water. This apparently means any water in motion. That means water hoses and squirt guns are effective weapons when vampires attack. This is less of an issue for them than it sounds, since plumbing is non-existent in most places on Rifts Earth and, while squirt guns aren't rare, they're not a dime a dozen like in real life. |
| 399 | * KillSat: Several of the more powerful organizations on Rifts Earth, like the New German Republic and the Coalition States, have attempted to launch satellites for a variety of reasons. So far, all attempts have failed, and the assumption is that there are Pre-Rifts killer satellites programmed to destroy anything that is put in orbit. They're partly right, see ButWhatAboutTheAstronauts above for more details. |
| 400 | * KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: In general, no, but they scale up better than energy weapons do. This means that most advanced kinetic weapons are heavy weapons, most commonly railguns, and most famously the Glitter Boy's Boom Gun. |
| 401 | * KnightInShiningArmor: Cyber-Knights, natch. Cosmo-Knights are this for the Three Galaxies setting. Wormwood has the Knights of the Temple. Also the Knights of the Hospital from the same setting, though the Templars look the part much more than the Hospitallers. |
| 402 | * LaResistance: |
| 403 | ** The Free Worlds Council in the ''Three Galaxies'' setting. They're a group of colonies who rebelled against the evil Transgalactic Empire, and are waging a war to free other planets from the tyranny of the Kreeghor. Depending on how one interprets the information given on the group, they can be played as TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified or TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized. Also, since the conclusion of the Siege on Tolkeen, freedom fighter/terrorist cells of surviving Tolkeen sympathizers have set up shop in the Chi-Town Burbs. |
| 404 | ** An interesting version exists in the form of the Vanguard. They are mages descended from a time when Chi-Town (head of the Coalition States) had a fledgling army of magic users. When they were booted out, they went underground and continue to fight for the Coalition to this day. Sadly, the Coalition is unaware of their existence, and even if they did, they'd shoot them dead like any other mage. |
| 405 | * LaserBlade: Cyberknights and Mind Melters wield these puppies, which they can create with their minds. Magic versions (yes, that means {{Flaming Sword}}s too) are also available. |
| 406 | * LegendFadesToMyth: The Coalition's official line is that magic itself is to blame for the Coming of the Rifts, and that Earth had been an idyllic paradise before that. The more scholarly types have no idea how the Great Cataclysm occurred, but the few remaining primary sources from that time suggest that humans were starting to war with each other again right before the Cataclysm. The uneducated majority have no real opinions; as far as most know, Earth was always the way it is now. |
| 407 | * LegoGenetics: The Gene Splicers. While some of their experiments involve tinkering with DNA to see how a creature might have evolved under different conditions, their name comes from the fact that they like to combine genes from disparate species to do things like give people wings or tentacles. |
| 408 | * LeyLine: ''The'' source of supernatural power, the cause of the cataclysm that ended civilization, and the key to a great deal of magical workings. In this setting, they are "rivers" of pure magical energy which crisscross the Earth. Even the smallest ley lines are miles long. The Coming of the Rifts was precipitated by a sudden and massive influx of magic energy, swelling the ley lines to the point that the largest can be seen by the naked eye as lines of blue glowing energy, even by day. Magic users can use ley line energy as a quick and easy source of magic energy. This is one way for wizards to pull off powerful ritual magic. Also, Techno Wizards can build devices which tap a ley line to power it. A conjunction of two or more ley lines is known as a ley line nexus. Even more magic energy can be tapped at nexuses, but not without danger, as nexuses are where Rifts appear. |
| 409 | * LifeEnergy: PPE, Potential Psychic Energy, used to power most magic, comes closest; there are several species that are PPE vampires, and PPE is released in doubled amounts at the moment of death. ISP, Inner Strength Points, used to power psionics, are another contender in terms of actual game mechanics, but running out of either will not kill. Mostly such drain is tracked using damage mechanics in the semi-rare cases it comes up. |
| 410 | * LightningGun: Literally, in the case of some Techno Wizard weapons. |
| 411 | * LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: Played straight for the most part, though considering the game's love of MoreDakka, warriors do have a chance of catching up if they want. Wizards increase their personal power a lot more as they grow in levels. Anyone [[{{Muggles}} without powers]], however, is defined more by their gear than by their skills, so their level doesn't matter quite as much. |
| 412 | * LizardFolk: There's a number of lizard-like races, mainly the plain old Lizardmen, Tautons (crocodile-men with scorpion tails that worship Egyptian Gods), Blucies (giant, blue-skinned and crocodile-headed reptile people from the wildernesses of Canada), Bruutasaurs (eleven-foot, Stone Age giants with prehensile tails), Gromek, and others. |
| 413 | ** In South America, a peaceful collection of Lizardman tribes was taken over by an organization of evil dragons who have set up their own religion with dragons as gods, and have built their own city for the various reptilian races. The Lizardmen, who would rather return to their simple lives along the (greatly-expanded) Amazon, are growing increasingly dissatisfied with this arrangement. |
| 414 | ** The Lyvorrk resemble loosely humanoid versions of outdated raptorial dinosaurs, being cold-blooded and having scaly skin, long serpentine tails and almost iguana-liked heads topped with spiny frills, in addition to an almost obsessive fondness for lizards and snakes. They don't make many concessions to anthropomorphism beyond a more upright stance and scaly and clawed but otherwise very humanoid arms and hands. Overall, they resemble sapient lizards far more than sapient theropods -- ironically, they're more lizardlike than many of the actual lizard people. |
| 415 | * LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: Hundreds, and more keep getting added with each book. |
| 416 | * LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair: |
| 417 | ** The {{Atlant|is}}eans had founded a major civilization based on magic back in human prehistory. They became so vain and power-hungry that they attempted to push the magical envelope, with dangerous consequences. Their experiments accidentally unleashed demons and monsters all over the Earth. By the time the Atlanteans had done all they could to undo the damage, the magical levels of Earth had dropped so low as to be almost non-existent, and Atlantis itself had been shunted into a pocket dimension. |
| 418 | ** See also the Ancient Nazca civilization, which managed to create entire cities out of pure magic energy. As you may have figured out, that whole mess the Atlanteans caused ''really'' screwed them over. |
| 419 | * MadeOfIndestructium: Lacking access to the advanced, fancy Golden Age tech of Triax, Wilk's and the Coalition military, Northern Gun instead designs their guns with AK-47 reliability in mind, for the merc who needs to be able to shoot something right after dropping his gun in Dinosaur Swamp, or having a dinosaur ''step on'' it for that matter. |
| 420 | * MageSpecies: There exist numerous playable species who are either born with the power of magic or can [[TrainingTheGiftOfMagic become excellent spellcasters with a little training]], including D'Norr, Elves, True Atlanteans, the Zembahk, and more or less all dragons. |
| 421 | * MagicKnight: There are a number of classes of this type, most notably Mystic Knights and Psi-Warriors. |
| 422 | * MagicVersusScience: It's not universal, but there are several cases of pro-magic, anti-tech sentiment in the world, and equally, several cases of pro-tech, anti-magic sentiment. The latter is often mixed up in human-supremacism, but not always (El Dorado, prior to joining the Coalition, welcomed D-Bee citizens despite being firmly against the use of magic). |
| 423 | ** Japan in particular has {{Magitek}} essentially limited to tech-ninja clans (who don't play by the rules anyway) because of this; the main technological faction (the Republic of Japan) has little access to magic (though they're not ''against'' it at all) and the main magical faction (the New Empire) is firmly anti-tech. There are non-ninja factions that use both magic and technology (most notably Takamatsu), but they don't headline the book. However, it's worth noting that the New Empire and the Republic are friendly allies who mutually respect one another. |
| 424 | ** [[TheMagicVersusTechnologyWar The Siege on Tolkeen]] was made of this: the fiercely anti-magic technocrats of the Coalition States invaded the Magical Kingdom of Tolkeen, pitting high-tech soldier against spell-weaving mage. Though the books point out that the war was just as much about geography as ideology. The Coalition wouldn't have hated Tolkeen quite so much if they weren't so close to Chi-Town. |
| 425 | ** Much to the Coalition's ongoing annoyance, the New German Republic has not actually outlawed magic. They don't see the point. Their well-educated, technology-centric society simply doesn't have much interest in it. Why summon a demon to serve you (and risk getting eaten) when perfectly reliable robots can be bought or leased from Triax? In their opinion, criminalizing magic [[ForbiddenFruit would just make people more curious about it]]. Plus they don't appreciate the Coalition trying to tell them how to run their country. |
| 426 | ** The MagicalNativeAmerican tribes in ''Spirit West'' are required to reject technology and live as their ancestors did. The Pure Ones won't even use a steel knife, while Traditionalists might use up to 19th-century rifles or scavenged body armor. Those who attempt to integrate traditional beliefs with modern technology are called Renegades, and cannot become shamans or spirit warriors, though they can draw on the benefits of their totem and be given fetishes by shamans. The "Modern"/"Techno-"Natives make do without any magic, as they prefer to use their technology base which is roughly on-par with the Coalition. |
| 427 | * MagicalNativeAmerican: |
| 428 | ** The Sourcebook ''Spirit West'', as the name would imply, plays this trope straight, and most Traditional Native American classes are some kind of magic user. |
| 429 | ** Another example is Sir Winslow Thorpe, companion and bodyguard of Erin Tarn. As a Cyber-Knight, he's not actually magical, though he does have PsychicPowers. |
| 430 | ** All "Traditionalist" Native Americans (this doesn't apply to Modern/"Tech" Indians) have a naturally higher PPE than other humans. Even non-shamans are comparable to Elves. |
| 431 | ** Said Modern Natives avert the trope as they rely on a preserved pre-Rifts industrial technology base unsurpassed in North America except by Archie-3 (and more recently, the CS and Free Quebec). |
| 432 | * MagicOrPsychic: Magic is a particular expression of psychic (not psionic) energy, which flows throughout the universe and can be used by sentients to make stuff happen, while psionics draw on the inner power of a sentient mind. Mystics are mages who develop their ability to use magic through psionic development and have access to both Major Psionics and magic; they're considered mages in North America, but interestingly, they're seen as more like psychics in Europe (and thus they're the most accepted magical OCC in the New German Republic and the New Soviet). |
| 433 | ** It's also a basic rule of the system that magic-powered devices can be powered/recharged by psionic energy and vice-versa, but at double the standard cost. |
| 434 | * {{Magitek}}: Outside of the more puritanical factions, most people use magic (and/or psionics) and technology fairly interchangeably, alternating between them and using them to boost each other as needed and even melding them together. There's even a TechnoWizard character class! |
| 435 | %%** [[EldritchAbomination Splynncryth]], lord of Atlantis, is this cranked up to eleven.%%How? |
| 436 | * MarsNeedsWomen: |
| 437 | ** The Splugorth slavers, who look like giant slug/lizard eyeball monsters fused to floating barges, are always accompanied by four to six beautiful women in one-piece bathing suits. One picture that gets reused often shows a Slaver holding one of them close to him and [[{{Squick}} licking]] the side of her face. Not a completely straight example, as the women aren't actually human, but [[HumanAlien it's almost impossible to tell the difference]]. |
| 438 | ** Some demons are known to act like this. White Monkey demons in China subject harems of kidnapped human women to GoGoEnslavement, although, at 11 or so feet tall, they're too large to actually have sex with them. Gorgons abduct and enslave human men, raping them and then [[TakenForGranite turning them to stone]] until they want them again. In both cases it's motivated by sexual pleasure rather than any sort of reproductive drive. |
| 439 | * MascotMook: Brodkil, a race of lesser [[TheLegionsOfHell demons]] (meaning they are red-skinned brutes about nine feet high) who discovered cybernetics and fell in love, meaning the higher ranked the brodkil, the more enhancements they have, and they accept mercenary work for new implants and surgeries. They are often used as a symbol of the ScienceFantasy world. |
| 440 | * MassiveRaceSelection: Pretty much every game book added a couple dozen PC races or classes. This is not much of an exaggeration. The ''GM's Guide'' has an index of playable races that goes on for ''pages'', and it's just a listing of names and where to find info on them. And this book came out before ''D-Bees of North America'', a book dedicated solely to playable races. |
| 441 | * {{Mayincatec}}: The Inca gods have returned, backing a new Kingdom of the Sun in its fight against the invading alien Arkon race. However, the Incan and Aztec gods are quite distinct, and the Incan Kingdom of the Sun was designed by an actual South American, so the mythology is actually fairly accurate. |
| 442 | * MechanicalHorse: With machine guns in its nostrils as a common option. |
| 443 | * MegaCorp: A number of pre-Rifts corporations that survived the Great Cataclysm have attained this role. Triax fits this trope perfectly within the New German Republic, where they are the primary engine of the country's economy and at present the CEO is also the President of Germany. The Cyberworks Aerospace Networks likewise holds this position on the Moon, where their moonbase was the first offworld community to declare nationhood after the Great Cataclysm. KLS Corp is the dominant economic presence on Freedom space station. In the Three Galaxies setting there's Naruni Enterprises, a corporation so large it counts as a multi-galactic Empire. Japan's Ichto and H-Brand wish they were this, and are willing to potentially doom humanity and non-hostile D-Bees to being conquered by oni and other demons and monsters in pursuit of their goals (neither quite seem to realize/accept it though). |
| 444 | * MinorInjuryOverreaction: The books mention that creatures with HealingFactor battling the New German Republic would generally fight until they were low on health, then flee, wait a couple hours, and pounce fully healed on the weakened soldiers. This worked fine until the NGR started issuing soldiers rail guns that fired rounds made from depleted uranium, which negated said healing abilities. The enemy would invariably freak out upon realizing their injuries weren't healing like they should be, and became easy pickings. |
| 445 | * MoralityKitchenSink: The inevitable result of this many factions and a codified CharacterAlignment. Where any particular character falls is designated, where any faction falls is subject to debate. |
| 446 | * MiniMecha: The sourcebooks themselves note that a number of nominal powered armor designs are in fact MiniMecha, where the pilot sits in the body of the armor and operates the arms and legs with controls. |
| 447 | * TheMinionMaster: The Shifter class is a magic user that focuses on dimensional teleportation and SummonMagic. They can contact and attempt to control supernatural beings via a battle of wills (and if this fails, they can attempt to overpower the creature by more conventional means). Unlike D&D summon spells, there is no time limit, though the book suggests forming short term contracts, as forcing a demonic being to remain under a {{Puny Earthling}}'s control for an extended period is likely to hazardous to said mortal's health. |
| 448 | * MoreDakka: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]] in the Rifter 9 1/2 with Giga-Damage, a new set of rules which poked fun at the claims that ''Rifts'' is all about {{Munchkin}}ism and Power Gaming. It featured comically oversized weapons that were literally millions of times more powerful than anything else found in the books. |
| 449 | * MugglePower: An attitude held by many people, especially the Coalition States, Free Quebec and the New German Republic. |
| 450 | * TheMultiverse: Palladium Books is possibly the [[strike:TropeNamer]] TropeCodifier via its "Megaverse". |
| 451 | * MugglesDoItBetter: Offensive magic and psionics is roughly equal to technological weaponry in per-shot damage, but not nearly as quick and easy as pulling a trigger. (A mage/psionic usually gets two or three attacks per round with their powers, but whereas mundane attack methods often allow three or four. Power armor/vehicular combat training and the appropriate suit/vehicle stacks a couple more on top of that.) It's much harder to 'reload' when you run out of PPE/ISP than it is to carry spare E-clips to boot. Smart wizards therefore almost always carry technological weapons for killing things, and use their magic more to shape or prepare the battlefield. |
| 452 | ** Other smart wizards split the difference and use {{Magitek}} weapons. All the convenience of a mundane gun, all the flashiness of actual magic. Plus, you can use your own magic energy to reload it in a pinch. |
| 453 | ** Still other smart wizards buy a talisman or two, which function like rechargeable magic batteries the mage can draw upon at will. |
| 454 | * {{Munchkin}}: Much of the [[GameBreaker overpowered]] stuff mentioned on this page was created by former staff writer C.J. Carella, who always seemed to be trying to outdo himself in terms of the power scale. Of particular note are the incredibly-powerful guns and armor in ''Rifts South America'', several MDC R.C.C.s in that same book, and the incredible powers of the various Juicers in ''Juicer Uprising''. |
| 455 | ** Of course, even with Carella gone, the power level is still going up (except in the Chaos Earth setting, which is a deliberate scale-down). Carella himself claimed that he boosted the power of guns to match the huge MDC of the armor in the setting, as it sped up combat. He noted later that "some in the office" hated his decisions, and he was gone from Palladium shortly after becoming hired on full-time. |
| 456 | ** The line was set up for powerful stuff early on, in any case, with ''Rifts Atlantis'', where several enemies, monsters, armors, and ships were all given in excess of ''thousands'' of MDC. Carella was thrown under the bus by many, but he had nothing to do with that book, which was published years before his stint. |
| 457 | ** The rest of the line is hit-or-miss with this, though later books had to keep up with Carella's escalation. ''Rifts Lemuria'' honestly seems far less powerful than earlier books, with MDC totals being kept quite low. Most every book will feature at least one or two ''obviously'' Munchkin'd up super-powerful creatures or armors, but will also pack many weaker types as well. |
| 458 | * MushroomHouse: Towershrooms are gigantic mushrooms native to England and northwestern Europe, notable for having hollow stems and growing to about the size of a house. Naturally, this leads to people often retrofitting them into dwellings. |
| 459 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: |
| 460 | ** King Creed, in the final moments of Tolkeen's war with the Coalition. |
| 461 | ** The citizens of Atlantis, way back in prehistory. Their magical experiments led to hordes of demons and monsters being dumped on an unsuspecting Earth (which became the source of our [[AllMythsAreTrue legends about such creatures]]). |
| 462 | [[/folder]] |
| 463 | |
| 464 | [[folder: N-S]] |
| 465 | * NegativeSpaceWedgie: |
| 466 | ** Arguably, the entire planet is smack in the middle of one. Specifically, the titular Rifts open up a portal to anywhere and possibly anywhen. The intergalactic/interdimensional neighbors are [[EverythingTryingToKillYou not friendly]] far too often. |
| 467 | ** Tolkeen during the final siege and some other extremely highly magically charged areas, like an ongoing Ley Line Storm or inside a ley line triangle, have a variety of possible conditions summed up as "Reality Fracture". From the law of gravity being repealed to a total lack of sound, these are generally not good. |
| 468 | * NeverLearnedToRead: Characters in this game are not literate by default, given this is a setting where compulsory education no longer exists. The Coalition States in particular ''heavily'' discourages its citizens from learning how to read as a means of control. (Coalition soldiers have programs in their armor that can scan and audibly recite written text; these devices tend to "mysteriously fail" if that text would go against Coalition dogma.) |
| 469 | * NewOldWest: The New West has consciously adopted much of the culture and mythos of the Old West, to the point where Wilk's has come out with a line of laser weapons that look like Old West guns. And of course, there's robot horses, cyborg gunslingers, and the rest of what you'd expect out of a Rifts version of the setting. |
| 470 | * NGOSuperpower: The setting is full of them, you can barely cross a continent without tripping over two or three weapons manufacturers who rival their governments in power. Triax, H-Brand, Northern Gun, Armatech, and above all the others Naruni Enterprises. The ''Northern Gun'' {{Sourcebook}} comes right out and says that the government of Ishpeming is basically a rubber stamp committee for the corporation. |
| 471 | * NiceToTheWaiter: The [[MultiversalConqueror Splugorth, dimensional conquerors and slavers extraordinaire]], of all people, are genuinely nice to their Minions. They [[IOweYouMyLife saved many of their species from extinction]], and now treat them with respect and honor while providing a high standard of living and rewards for service. They expect loyalty from their people, but they give it too. This doesn't apply to all their slave races, but, even then, human and ogre Maxi-Men raised in their service can expect power and advancement if they're obedient and perform well. |
| 472 | * NinjaPirateZombieRobot: Where else can a Cyborg Ninja with a lightning-shooting Rune Sword battle a dinosaur-riding psychic RubberForeheadAlien cowboy sharpshooter only to be interrupted by the living dead at the command of a BFG wielding vampire necromancer?[[note]]None of this is hyperbole. Everything mentioned in the previous sentence can actually be found in the books.[[/note]] And then the HumongousMecha arrive... |
| 473 | * NobleBigot: |
| 474 | ** Triax and the NGR get played up as this. They're anti-nonhuman and drive all D-Bees out of their turf, but because they don't actively run seek-and-destroy missions on anyone except the genuinely dangerous [[TheEmpire Gargoyles and Brodkil]], we're intended to think of them as the good guys. To be fair this was done for pragmatic reasons, as the NGR was (and still is) having enough trouble keeping all the humans within its borders safe [[EverythingTryingToKillYou from the rest of the world]] and so the decision was made to put humans first. [[DependingOnTheWriter Depending of the GM]], there's a sizable underground of German D-Bees and human sympathizers trying to get around government policy. |
| 475 | ** Free Quebec has a bit of this, despite being (if anything) more bigoted than the Coalition in that they also despise psychics. Nonetheless, their society has many admirable qualities, including genuine freedom of speech and widespread education -- though disagreeing with the party line on magic, psionics or D-Bees is a fast way to get weird looks. They also aren't in the imperialism business like the Coalition, though they came to the Coalition's aid when Tolkeen finally went beyond the pale. |
| 476 | * NotAlwaysEvil: {{Necromancer}}s have always been creepy, and in their initial book, they were unable to be good guys. This changed in the ''Vampire Sourcebook'', where the Necromancers of Mexico, due to the influence of Doc Reid and Planktal-Nakton, are seen as an honorable vampire-slaying tradition, and there are even some good necromancers (though most are of selfish alignments). |
| 477 | * NotEvilJustMisunderstood: This happens fairly frequently, appropriately for the setting. |
| 478 | ** Magic in many communities is viewed suspiciously, but there are plenty of good magicians. The same thing is true with psychics, mutants, D-Bees, and humans. Mystic Knights are evil, but if one is playing a member of the [[DefectorFromDecadence Order of the White Rose]] they will have to deal with the reputation of those evil Knights. |
| 479 | ** While there are plenty of evil [[SummonMagic Shifters]] out there, not all of them are. It's just that people tend to assume that Shifters are either evil or insane (or both). This is because they specialize in summoning and dominating supernatural creatures, who are usually nasty and evil themselves. Also, as one might imagine, it's the evil Shifters who unleash demonic beings upon unsuspecting and helpless people that get all the attention. Anyone playing a Shifter in a ''Rifts'' campaign should expect sidelong looks at the least, and possibly outright hostility from anyone who finds out what they are. |
| 480 | * ObfuscatingStupidity: The Vampires who pretty much run all of Mexico make sure that areas North of their kingdoms are overrun with Wild Vampires, so that the powerful nations of the former United States assume that all vampires are stupid savages and not really worth worrying about. |
| 481 | * ObviouslyEvil: Just in case their xenophobic attitudes, FantasticRacism, Imperialism, and massive war machine wasn't enough to clue you in that the Coalition is evil, they helpfully remind anyone who sees them by painting all their vehicles and armor black, and covering them with images of skulls (which is why Coalition soldiers are known as "[[InSeriesNickname Dead Boys]]"). Of course, in-universe this is done as a psychological warfare tactic. Facing down a platoon (let alone an army) of FacelessGoons in armor that looks like an animated skeleton is downright scary. |
| 482 | %%* OceanPunk: Rifts Underseas. |
| 483 | * OlderIsBetter: {{ZigZagg|ingTrope}}ed. There used to be a lot of LostTechnology or semi-lost tech, and weapon systems from the Golden Age of Man that were better than anything built today, but that was before the Coalition, Free Quebec and Triax got their R&D establishments in gear for the Coalition War Campaign and the push against the Gargoyle Empire. Nowadays, most of the best tech comes from the last few years; in particular, the legendary USA-G10 Glitter Boy, the poster child for the AncestralWeapon, is second-rate when compared to the new Free Quebec and Triax editions. On the other hand, the ancient USS Ticonderoga remains the most powerful single war machine on the planet. |
| 484 | * OldShame: Invoked In-Universe; all records of the Chi-Town Magic Battalions have been eradicated from state history, lest people start to doubt the government line that all mages are capital E Evil. |
| 485 | * OmnidisciplinaryScientist: |
| 486 | ** The Rogue Scientist class can be made into one of these with great ease. |
| 487 | ** The CAF Scientist from the Three Galaxies setting was more or less designed to be this. |
| 488 | * OneGenderRace: |
| 489 | ** The Blind Altara Women. They reproduce asexually, via a process that's a mixture of egg-laying and budding. |
| 490 | ** Amazons, a human subspecies who reproduce with human and human-variant men. |
| 491 | * OneNationUnderCopyright: |
| 492 | ** Naruni Enterprises in the ''Three Galaxies'' setting (in the main setting they're just arms dealers). Worlds under their control are referred to only by serial number, and their citizens/employees aren't treated much better than drones. |
| 493 | ** The ''Northern Gun'' sourcebook turned the nation of Ishpeming into this. To the point that citizens of Ishpeming who don't directly work for Northern Gun are referred to as Non-Contract Employees. |
| 494 | ** The New German Republic isn't ''quite'' there, but Triax is heavily integrated into the government on all levels and its President serves as the Vice President (and now President) of the NGR. |
| 495 | * OneSteveLimit: Averted by the two Hels; one is the same goddess from Myth/NorseMythology you'd expect from the name (although rebranded as an utterly AxCrazy OmnicidalManiac), the other is a [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Deevil Lord]] [[note]](not a typo)[[/note]] who was originally ...a goddess from the CrystalDragonJesus expy of the Norse pantheon found in the Palladium Fantasy RPG (who married [[SatanicArchetype Supreme Lord Dyval Sathalus]] to try and escape her preordained tragic fate, the wellbeing of her family and the Megaverse be damned). |
| 496 | * TheOrder: Cyber-Knights are the most famous one, an order of do-gooders with cyber-armor and psychic blades bound by a code of knighthood. The Order split during the Siege of Tolkeen because their leader didn't want to get involved (but many Cyber-Knights ''did'' want to go in and kick some Coalition ass), and the split continued until the outbreak of the Minion War. |
| 497 | * OurCentaursAreDifferent: |
| 498 | ** Centaurs visited the Earth during the ancient age of magic, entering Europe through {{Atlantis}} and hence coming to feature in later legends. In modern times they returned to Earth after the Coming of the Rifts and mostly settled the prairies and forests of North America, where they live as nomadic hunter-gatherers. |
| 499 | ** There are also the high-tech Cyber-horsemen from Ixion, who hail from an eponymous city rumored to be somewhere within the wildernesses of British Columbia. They're a proud and honorable people who believe that they were brought to Earth to spread knowledge and enlightenment, and are best known for their extensive use of cybernetic enhancements -- all have at least a bionic limb or two, they often replace their horse bodies entirely by middle age and elderly members are often full-conversion BrainInAJar borgs. They're allied with regular centaurs and on generally good terms with humans, but don't much trust other species. |
| 500 | ** Serving the Mesopotamian Gods are also the ScorpionPeople, who given this trope are ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. |
| 501 | * OurDemonsAreDifferent: Demons come from Hades, Deevils come from Dyval. [[{{Understatement}} They don't like each other very much]]. There are also the Chaos Demons, the Archaic Demons of Russia, the Oni of Japan, and the Infernals of China, who are all separate groups. Technically, only denizens of Hades are "true" Demons, but in practice the term is usually applied to any supernaturally powerful intelligent species (even Deevils, who [[BerserkButton tend to become homicidal when confused for Demons]]). |
| 502 | * OurDragonsAreDifferent: Dragons in ''Rifts'' are psychic, intelligent, live for thousands of years, are born able to do things like speak and do math due to GeneticMemory, and can shapeshift and teleport as easily as they can walk or fly. Oh, and hatchling dragons are available as ''player characters!'' |
| 503 | * OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Played straight with modern dwarves, short bearded people who live underground and are natural miners and smiths. Though go back into the race's history, and it's mentioned that they were once masters of ancient magic, and the inventors of rune weapons. In the modern age of the ''Palladium Fantasy'' world, all dwarves, even the most vile outcasts, universally obey the cultural taboo against magic as if it were a law of physics. However, this isn't a can't, but a won't, and dwarves on Rifts Earth and in the Three Galaxies are more flexible. |
| 504 | %%* OurFairiesAreDifferent: See TheFairFolk, above. |
| 505 | * OurGargoylesRock: Come in four varieties. Most serve the Demons of Hades, but an independent force in Europe has formed an Empire currently at war with the New German Republic. |
| 506 | * OurGiantsAreBigger: ''Rifts'' has several races of "True" Giants (i.e. mystical giant races rifted in from ''The Palladium Fantasy RPG''), as well as many other oversized humanoids. They range from types culled from mythology, like Cyclops and Nimro, to more original races, like the Seekers and four-armed psychic Rahu-Men. Trolls are also considered a race of giant in ''Rifts''. |
| 507 | * OurGeniesAreDifferent: Genies in ''Rifts'' are based off legends of the Djinn, and as such are more like ''Film/{{Wishmaster}}'' than the Genie from Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}.'' Unsurprisingly they are in fact outright greater demons part of [[TheLegionsOfHell the demon hordes of Hades]]; they also possess ElementalPowers. |
| 508 | * OurGhostsAreDifferent: Ghosts, poltergeists, etc aren't remnants or souls of the deceased, so much as energy beings from another dimension that are psychically attracted to mortals. Haunting Entities (AKA ghosts), for instance, are described as "psychic bloodhounds" who are drawn to places of intense emotion, and as they feed off the residual emotion, they are compelled to act out whatever happened there. |
| 509 | * OurGoblinsAreDifferent: |
| 510 | ** ''Palladium Fantasy RPG'' goblins are fairly typical, being ugly, small, stupid, and cruel yet cowardly former fairies; a small number of them, cobbler goblins, still have a smattering of fairy magic at their disposal. Hobgoblins are their larger, nore brutish cousins and just as unpleasant. |
| 511 | ** Psi-goblins are psychic goblins brought to Rifts Earth as enforcers and soldiers for the Federation of Magic. They are cruel beings who hate anything and anyone beautiful, and are expert and eager torturers. |
| 512 | ** The demon goblins of Wormwood are ugly, vicious humanoids native to another dimension, from which they were brought to Wormwood by the sorceress Salome; as Salome also freed them from the rule of a cruel alien intelligence, they are fanatically loyal to her. They are cruel killers and cannibals who feed on their own kin. They may be distant kin to the goblins of Rifts Earth and the ''TabletopGame/PalladiumFantasy'' world, but are much stronger and more organized than them. |
| 513 | * OurGodsAreDifferent: The book ''Pantheons of the Megaverse'' provides stats for the gods of many ancient religions, including Myth/NorseMythology, Myth/GreekMythology, and even a couple religions that still exist, such as UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrianism}} and Myth/HinduMythology. The book even provides tips on how to play a truly omniscient {{God}}. Certain books will list gods native to that part of the world, such as Egyptian gods in ''Africa'', Mayan gods in ''Vampire Kingdoms'' (set in Mexico), etc. |
| 514 | * OurOgresAreHungrier: Ogres are the Palladium Fantasy world's version of Neanderthals. They are the ancestor species of humanity and capable of reproducing with humans (HalfHumanHybrid children are always full ogres), making them essentially a HumanSubspecies. They have fully human intelligence despite their brutish appearance, and are a DyingRace due to around a third of their females being sterile; many ogre tribes get around this problem through [[MarsNeedsWomen kidnapping and raping human women]]. On Rifts Earth, their most notable population are among the [[PowerTattoo Tattooed Men]] slaves of Atlantis, since they're one of the few species that can use tattoo magic. |
| 515 | * OurOrcsAreDifferent: While Orcs[[note]]archetypal Tolkienesque Orcs who like goblins were originally fairies from the Palladium Fantasy world[[/note]] and Ogres do exist in ''Rifts'' (along with many, many others), the Brodkil sub-demons are the race that most often fits the bill: tall, brutish, stupid, war-like and cannibalistic, though with a fondness for cybernetics and high-tech weapons. They also tend to be mercenaries, bandits, raiders, and generally form large armies of disposable {{Mooks}} which work for various villains, factions and empires. Their stats get reprinted a lot and they're present on most continents so the writers must expect to get a lot of use out of them in campaigns over all the other monster races. They also have a loose empire in Europe, whose leader/god is an [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity insane 300-year-old pre-Rifts human cyborg]] who calls herself the Angel of Death. |
| 516 | * OurSoulsAreDifferent: One of the most squicky villains in the game are the Soul Harvesters, an offshoot of necromancers who ([[ShapedLikeItself you guessed it]]) steal the souls of other living beings. Their goal in harvesting souls is to bring their EldritchAbomination/god Nxla to Earth. [[note]]Siembieda realized that the concept of soul stealing might be too intense for some, so he provided a disclaimer at the beginning of the section warning off anyone who might be offended.[[/note]] Later on, the [[EvilVersusEvil Minion War]] meta subgroup of books, dealing with the previously simmering conflict between two powerful [[TheLegionsOfHell demonic hordes]] reaching an apocalyptic fever pitch threatening worlds and dimensions across the [[TheMultiverse Megaverse]], introduced soulmancy, a more versatile but just as unpleasant form of magic which allows both factions to fuel their spells and war machines with the souls of sacrificial victims. |
| 517 | * OurVampiresAreDifferent: Vampires are effectively remote feeding terminals for {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, and any kind of conventional weaponry will either fail to hurt them at all, or might as well have; you can hose a vampire down with your [[{{BFG}} plasma cannon]] for a full round and it'll fall over dead. For all of 15 seconds. Then it's back good as new. |
| 518 | ** Their weakness to running water and holy symbols is so strong that you can kill them [[WeaksauceWeakness with squirt guns or flashlights with a cross silhouette on them]] (and they won't be getting back up from this). Wooden stakes to the heart will not kill a vampire, however, but only put it in a state of suspended animation. Remove the stake, and within 15 seconds the vampire will be back to full health, hungry as hell, and biting at the neck of anyone within arm's reach. However, once it has been incapacitated by a stake, the vampire is vulnerable, and can be killed by separating the head from the body and burning both to ash. |
| 519 | ** There's also three varieties of vampire: Master, Secondary, and Wild. Master Vampires are very few, and are mortals who willingly became vampires to help a Vampire Intelligence (the EldritchAbomination) to gain a foothold in this dimension. Secondary Vampires are less powerful, and a bit more obviously monstrous, created when a Master Vampire (or another Secondary Vampire) feeds on a person with the intention of creating a new Vampire (called the Slow Kill). Wild Vampires are [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin more animal than man]], roving in packs like (and sometimes with) wolves feeding on anyone who gets near. |
| 520 | * OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: In keeping with the FantasyKitchenSink, several varieties of werewolves exist. The Conversion book has several brands of lycanthrope, including werewolves, werejaguars, etc, which are basically creatures that can take on a human or animal appearance. They are essentially aliens/{{ultraterrestrials}}, not cursed humans, and can't transmit their lycanthropy to others. Different kinds of werewolves exist in other settings, such as Russia and Canada, based on local folklore. There are also Zenith Moon Warpers, natural shapeshifters who can take on any form but are forced to revert to their true, lupine selves when the moon is at its highest. |
| 521 | * OverlordJr: Joseph Prosek II. Bonus points for being even more evil than his father Emperor Karl Prosek,[[note]]Joseph II is named for his grandfather[[/note]] and yet still completely loyal to him. |
| 522 | * {{Pegasus}}: Several versions, including one that combines this with SapientSteed. |
| 523 | * PeopleFarms: The Vampire Kingdoms all do this in various ways. |
| 524 | ** Ixzotz is fairly traditional. The vampires keep thousands of human slaves in farming villages and come by when they need a snack, though they also have a cattle pen at Monero for fattening people up. |
| 525 | ** Muluc takes this to nightmarish extremes. Their "blood pools" trap thousands of slaves in PeopleJars, drain their blood daily and then magically heal them (restoring their blood supply). They can keep humans alive for ''years'' like this. |
| 526 | ** The Mexico Empire plays with this, subverting IndustrializedEvil in the process. Humans under the Empire's rule live like people everywhere else (with a suprisingly high standard of living for the setting) and painlessly donate a pint at a clinic every three weeks. |
| 527 | ** Mitla started out almost as oppressive as Muluc but is currently experimenting with gradually giving its living slaves more freedoms with some help from the Mexico Empire. |
| 528 | * {{Permadeath}}: There's a single, high-level spell that raises the dead. If a caster fails it on a subject three times, one other caster may try it. If ''they'' fail three times, that's it. Alternately, you can ask certain gods or other really high-level magical beings to raise your dead comrade. [[DealWithTheDevil Good luck with that.]] |
| 529 | * PetTheDog: Despite their overall [[TheEmpire Empire]]-ness, the Coalition sometimes gets to do good every once in a while, such as assisting the New German Republic and New Navy in an operation against the Gargoyle Empire. |
| 530 | * PostCyberpunk: The Republic of Japan, a [[ShiningCity Shining Megalopolis]] called forth from the Golden Age of Man. In contrast to their [[{{Cyberpunk}} renegade brother city of Ichto]], their military and police are almost free of corruption, the cities are safe, the people are educated, tolerant and open-minded, and the Republic has the highest level of technology on the planet, with half the population being full-on techno-junkies. They have problems with crime and corporate malfeasance - nowhere's perfect - but far less than most of the Earth. |
| 531 | * PottyEmergency: The Ludicrous Mage's Diarrhea spell gives the affected 30 seconds to find a bathroom or they crap their pants (even if they're wearing Power Armor). Also if the affected manages to find a lavatory and doesn't succeed in removing their armor, they crap their pants; the mess takes a week to clean out. It should be noted that this spell and class come from a book that was printed as an April Fool's joke. |
| 532 | * PowerAtAPrice: All three major forms of technological human augmentation come with steep downsides. Chemical augmentation is a DeadlyUpgrade that'll burn Juicers out within seven years (at most). M.O.M. implants drive Crazies... [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul well, insane]]. And a Borg gives up their human flesh to become almost completely mechanical, losing most of their sense of touch and their connection to their fellow man. |
| 533 | * PowerCreepPowerSeep: |
| 534 | ** The disparity in power levels between different Sourcebooks and different authors over the years is a source of regular complaints. The Glitter Boy remained one of the mightiest classes even into recent history, but various books have surpassed even that. |
| 535 | ** This occurs in-universe as well, when characters from mega-damage worlds move to SDC worlds and become far more fragile and less powerful. |
| 536 | ** Notable examples in include the first ''Triax'' book (the fifth one released), which gives better Robot Suits and guns. ''Rifts Atlantis'' introduces a dozen Alien Races that are far beyond anything in the Main Rulebook. ''Rifts Underseas'' boosts the baseline weapons by a lot, as does most of CJ Carella's early work. ''Juicer Uprising'' creates a ton of new Juicer classes, some of which are better than baseline Juicers in every single way (Mega-Juicers, Dragon Juicers & Maxi-Killers especially). In fact, by 1995, the average level of power had grown shockingly high, to the point where the Coalition States ended up having to get a big, new sourcebook of entirely new gear to "keep up"! |
| 537 | ** There used to be only a few races to play, but subsequent books tend to always include races that have MDC instead of standard Hit Points, making the Power Creep of playable races higher as well! |
| 538 | ** Some of the early Classes were ''badly'' outpowered by later ones. The Burster R.C.C., meant to be a powerful Psionic class who could blast away... was utterly outpaced by the Flame Panther of South America (whose book explicitly outlines it as better), and would be hopelessly useless even five years into the line. |
| 539 | ** ''Rifts South America'' and other CJ Carella books ramped up the damage of guns to make combat a little quicker; this had an effect across the rest of the line, as suddenly players were expected to ''always'' have access to that kind of hardware. The Amazon R.C.C. is superior to a human being in every way, and surpasses even True Atlanteans by a country mile, while still looking human. And most of the Felinoid cat-people are powerful MDC fighters with many options in combat. |
| 540 | ** South American Biomancers' powers are almost laughably weak compared to Lemurian Gene-Mages (a couple dozen worldbooks later). Some of this is justified by Lemuria having more advanced {{Magitek}} than the Jungle Elves, but that doesn't really explain Lemurian mages having over ''three times'' the {{Mana}} of the South American variety. |
| 541 | ** Hilariously, ''Rifts South America 1'' gets this from its very own companion/followup book, ''Rifts South America 2''. Most ideas in ''1'' were new spins on already-existing concepts with a few original ideas thrown in, such as the Colombian Anti-Monster Magitek cyborg, with several relatively low-powered options and spots (the rest of Colombia's military gear was on par with early non-Coalition North American gear, biomancy and voodoo weren't really more powerful than other forms of magic, the Amazon pirates were standard demonic raiders, most LizardFolk both in and out of the Empire of Lagarto preferred the simple hunter-gatherer life to the dragon overlord of Lagarto's high-tech and magic-powered militant imperialism...); by contrast, almost everything in ''2'' was ludicrously overpowered: The Silver River Republics all had tech rivaling the NGR and Japan, with the two human-dominated ones having extremely powerful weapons and mechs (including their own Glitter Boy variant with a massive particle beam instead of a Boom Gun, negating the suit's biggest downsides with only a small reduction in firepower and armor in exchange), the mutants of the Achilles Republic as a whole are more diverse, versatile and powerful than the feline mutants of Malagua, the Empire of the Sun may be roughly as advanced technologically as Colombia but has more than enough magical and Magitek ressources to compensate, and is now the home turf of the Incan pantheon, meaning those gods have the HomeTurfAdvantage, etc... |
| 542 | ** ''Triax and the NGR'', a book with tons of advanced hardware, released an updated version in the 2000s with universally better gear. |
| 543 | ** Kevin Siembieda, humorously, actually ''really hates'' this tendency, and has blamed it on some of his early writers (who apparently didn't get edited properly). He is quoted in many World Books as hating the "Power Gaming" aspect of the hobby, believing that versatility and roleplaying are more important. A very frustrated rant was included in ''The Federation of Magic'' book about how fans were complaining about Mages being "wimpy" -- he disagreed... In a book that featured tons of new Combat Magic classes, beefed-up spells and a ''lot'' more power. |
| 544 | * PoweredArmor: In every possible size and shape, from body armor augmented by exoskeletal servos and jump jets to two-story tall MiniMecha, some flying, some aquatic, some spaceborne, and more variants of the Glitter Boy than you can shake a stick at. |
| 545 | * PoweredByAForsakenChild: The second Atlantis {{Sourcebook}} ''Splynn Dimensional Market'' contains Faerie Weapons. These are not weapons made by faeries, but weapons ''powered by'' enslaved faeries trapped in glass jars. |
| 546 | * PowerTattoo: The Atlanteans were given the secret of magic tattoos from a race of dragons who created them. All Atlanteans are given tattoos known as the "Marks of Heritage"; a magic sword tattoo on the right wrist, and a tattoo of a wooden stake piercing a heart on the left for protection against vampires, the ancient enemies of Atlantis. Some Atlanteans go even farther, covering their bodies in magic tattoos that can conjure magic weapons, create animal or monster companions, or grant them other supernatural powers. The [[EldritchAbomination Splugorth]] have also discovered the secrets of magic tattoos, and create their own T-Men to be sold as slaves. |
| 547 | * PragmaticVillainy: Vampires are inherently drawn toward evil, and Master Vampires are always evil -- full stop. However, the Mexico Empire's Master Vampire is ''so'' pragmatic that he ceases to be a threat to humans, creating a fair and effectively benevolent despotism where safe amounts of blood are painlessly extracted from their subjects, because a content and safe blood supply doesn't make trouble. While vampires in the kingdom tend to be dicks to humans (because, y'know, inherently evil), they're forbidden from attacking them. |
| 548 | * PrequelInTheLostAge: Most of Palladium's modern-day game-lines, such as ''Heroes Unlimited'', are considered [[AlternateUniverse Alternate Universes]] to ''Rifts'' instead of true prequels. However, ''Beyond the Supernatural'' is set up so that it may be a true prequel. [[ShrugOfGod Kevin has intentionally not made a final verdict on that]], because Rifts is also supposed to be the future of ''our'' world. He has hinted that, due to elements of both games being present, that ''Heroes Unlimited'' and ''Beyond the Supernatural'' are somehow '''both''' part of Rifts Earth's past, as part of some cosmic NegativeSpaceWedgie. [[MindScrew Try wrapping your head around that one.]] |
| 549 | * ProudMerchantRace: Naruni Enterprises. Their modus operandi is to go to a warring planet, sell one (or both) sides weapons on credit, and then take over when the winner inevitably can't pay up. If they go to a planet that isn't at war, they'll probably start one. In places like Rifts Earth and Phaseworld, where there's actual competition to worry about, they play the trope completely straight. |
| 550 | * PsychicPowers: One of the major character class categories. According to the rules, any character (especially if human) can have a degree of psychic powers, unless the class specifically forbids it for some reason. During character creation, players are allowed to make a random roll determining whether they have minor (two or three psychic powers) or major (six to eight), on top of everything else they get for the class. Other classes, like Crazies or Mystics, automatically get psychic powers as part of the package without being considered a psychic class. The actual Master Psychic Classes (like [[PlayingWithFire Bursters]] or Mind Melters), get a lot more, as well as access to powers that are unavailable to non-psychic classes. |
| 551 | * {{Psychometry}}: Exists in Rifts as a Sensitive PsychicPower called Object Read. Depending on how well the psychic rolls, he can get vague impressions about the item, see flashes of images of its last owner, and even see where the owner is now. |
| 552 | * PsychoSerum: Juicers, sort of. There's nothing ''technically'' psycho-inducing about it...but with only five years to live as a superhuman, or three if you quit before your body burns out, it tends to bring out the inner madman. |
| 553 | ** Those who don't believe in (or weren't told about) the shortened lifespan go pretty nuts as well. Superhuman strength, speed, and endurance can be intoxicating. An entry from a Juicer's journal in ''Juicer Uprising'' indicates he's become such an adrenaline junkie he sometimes throws himself off rooftops for the rush. |
| 554 | ** Some forms of Juicer (such as the Dragon Juicer) actually are psycho-inducing. |
| 555 | * PublicDomainArtifact: A man in England named [[Myth/KingArthur King Ar'thuu]] is running around with a psychic-powered sword called [[{{Excalibur}} Caliber-X]], and the PhilosophersStone has shown up in Poland, to name two examples. |
| 556 | * PunyHumans: Most non-human races get at least one attribute that's higher on average than a human's. Many also have natural MDC bodies, meaning they can survive attacks that would reduce a human to red mist. They also generally get special natural powers like heightened senses or the ability to fire energy blasts from their hands. And unlike games like D&D, which favor CompetitiveBalance much more, said non-humans don't always have a stat that's worse to compensate for the better one. Or they only get low stats in places that don't really matter from a mechanical standpoint, like Mantal Affinity or Physical Beauty. |
| 557 | * PuttingOnTheReich: |
| 558 | ** The Coalition States. Justified in that Emperor Prosek really is [[AllThereInTheManual consciously emulating]] ThoseWackyNazis. |
| 559 | ** Averted with the Germans themselves. The New German Republic is human supremacist, but not to the same degree as the Coalition, and doesn't actively go out of its way to shoot non-hostile nonhumans. See NobleBigot, above. |
| 560 | * PunkPunk: Pretty much all the Punk Punk settings are represented in ''Rifts'' in some form and, in true ''Rifts'' fashion, generally turned up to eleven. |
| 561 | * PunchClockVillain: |
| 562 | ** The average Dead Boy (Coalition soldier). The typical grunt soldier is a perfectly normal person when he's not slaughtering villages of helpless aliens or shooting mages in cold blood. The sad truth is that they've been indoctrinated from birth to believe that all aliens and magic constitute a very real threat to them and their loved ones. It never occurs to most Dead Boys that they're killing people just like them, with hopes, dreams, and their own families. Those that do tend to perform a HeelFaceTurn the second the opportunity arises. |
| 563 | ** Often averted for the Coalition's most recent opponents. The people who rallied to the banner of Tolkeen to fight the Coalition were by and large untrained civilians, psychologically unprepared for the stresses of long-term combat and lacking the support structure the CS uses to keep its soldiers sane. A disturbingly large number of Tolkeen fighters at every rank adapted to the war by going AxeCrazy. |
| 564 | * PyramidPower: The Atlantis sourcebook features these as LeyLine dams used to store and regulate magic energy for purposes such as opening rifts. |
| 565 | * {{Realpolitik}}: One reason why Rifts Earth hasn't faced a major invasion from AnotherDimension before the outbreak of the Minion War is because the major Megaversal power players have agreed to ensure that the valuable interdimensional nexus planet is open for travel by all sides. Even after the Minion War breaks out, open Splugorth intervention on Earth would drag the alien intelligences into a Megaverse-wide war that they really don't need. |
| 566 | * RecycledInSpace: The ''Mutants in Orbit'' and ''Three Galaxies'' {{Sourcebook}}s are Rifts IN SPACE! Note that the ''Mutants in Orbit'' book is primarily a ''TabletopGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesAndOtherStrangeness'' {{Sourcebook}}, but it has a Rifts section as well. |
| 567 | * {{Retcon}}: |
| 568 | ** The New German Republic's human supremacy was only canonized in its own book. Previously in the Conversion Book, a Rahu-Man (a [[OurGiantsAreBigger Four-armed giant]]) had been mentioned as a hero of the NGR. Canonized again in the second NGR book, which reintroduced Rasheen (the Rahu-Man) as an NGR hero with an ''unofficial'' title of General. In fairness, NGR racism is rooted more in the fact that they ended up being the only safe haven for human survivors of the Great Cataclysm in Europe and at the time they lacked the resources to protect and feed alien populations as well. But even their current president supports allowing more non-humans to become citizens of the NGR; the FantasticRacism is still there, but at a lower level than previously implied and slowly getting better. |
| 569 | ** The Cyber-Knight class, originally all-purpose do-gooders with Psychic {{Laser Blade}}s and built-in armor, get reworded as having explicitly anti-tech abilities during the Siege on Tolkeen book series. |
| 570 | ** In-universe, Chi-Town staged the demolition of the finest library on the continent and banned private book ownership expressly to make retconning history easier for them. |
| 571 | * RetGone: In the joke article for Giga Damage in the Rifter 9 1/2, someone asks what happens if a Giga Damage weapon (literally one million times more powerful than Mega Damage) hits an SDC object. The reply is that not only is the object 100% destroyed, but it never existed in the first place. The example he gives is of the time he shot a piece of the original Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria (implying he thinks that they were one object), meaning UsefulNotes/ChristopherColumbus never discovered America. |
| 572 | * RockMonster: The Obsedai are towering humanoids made out of living rock, native chiefly to the Rockies and the higher peaks of the Appalachians. They feed on wood and stone, the color of the rocks they eat determining the color they themselves are, and when angered are said to glow from within like they're filled with glowing lava. |
| 573 | * RubberForeheadAliens: Depending on the level of commitment of the players; the Lone Star sourcebook offers plenty of material to help you deconstruct the [[RubberForeheadAliens Rubber Forehead Alien]] status of your Dog Boy or similar canine, and similar achievements are possible with some of the more well-described species. |
| 574 | * RuleOfCool: What ''really'' powers the Rifts. |
| 575 | ** Techno Wizards seem to purposely evoke this trope. Look at TW wing boards, which are basically flying surf boards. They are powered by Ley Lines, severely limiting their effectiveness as a mode of transport. AwesomeButImpractical. |
| 576 | ** Siembieda has admitted that this is the reason why dragon hatchlings are available as player characters. |
| 577 | * RulesConversions: Averted. Nothing stops a person from making their own conversion... but if you have the audacity to actually put your conversion rules online, you can expect a cease and desist letter to appear in your mailbox post haste. Kevin doesn't like people touching his things at all. |
| 578 | ** Or in the frequent case of fan conversions of other copyrighted material (''Franchise/StarWars'', ''Franchise/StarTrek'', etc.) it's more that Kevin [[ThatCameOutWrong doesn't want people touching his things to someone else's things]] lest he find a nasty letter waiting in ''his'' mailbox courtesy of some major film company. This is apparently the main reason; Kevin has said the policy was adopted in order to shield Palladium from liability for other parties's intellectual property getting converted. |
| 579 | ** Notably, people who make conversions and get these nice letters usually laugh and go right on converting. |
| 580 | ** On the other hand, the company did sue Wizards of the Coast over ThePrimalOrder, their first RPG, for including conversion rules for their system. [[http://www.rpg.net/columns/briefhistory/briefhistory1.phtml Wizards settled and pretty much dropped the game.]] |
| 581 | * SadlyMythtaken: ''Pantheons of the Megaverse'' doesn't even try to be accurate; it takes the broadest strokes of the myths and does whatever it wants to get versions of the gods that work in the Megaverse. This is particularly true with alignments and the {{Demonization}} of gods more or less at random -see AdaptationalVillainy and EverybodyHatesHades. |
| 582 | * SafelySecludedScienceCenter: These were ''hugely'' popular late in the 21st century, as governments and megacorps began to delve deeper into artificial intelligence, cybernetics, genetic engineering and other areas. With global tensions rising, the construction of such underground facilities proliferated. A.R.C.H.I.E Three is located in such a facility. The Coalition's Lone Star research complex originally belonged to the U.S. government. The Angel of Death operates out of the hidden Mindwerks complex in Poland. These centers are avidly sought by seekers of LostTechnology. |
| 583 | * SapientCetaceans: ''Rifts Underseas'' actually allows you to have a Dolphin, Orca, or even a Humpback Whale as a player character. They even have PoweredArmor designed for Dolphins and Orcas to use. There are also the Pneuma-Biforms, Cetaceans mutated by an EldritchAbomination to be slaves, and have the ability to switch between Human and Cetacean forms. This allows a player to be a Dolphin or Whale, but also participate in land-based adventures as well (as long as they keep a large water tank handy). |
| 584 | * SapientSteed: Megasteeds from Mystic Russia are this. The description even says they can be player characters, if the GM allows it. Blood Lizards from South America 2 are basically a HorseOfADifferentColor version of this. |
| 585 | * ScaryBlackMan: Desmond Bradford. He's physically imposing (6'2" and 210 lbs) on top of being a megalomaniac MadScientist with a [[AGodAmI god complex]]. As head of the Lone Star complex, Bradford has access to one of the most advanced [[LostTechnology Pre-Rifts]] genetic engineering facilities on the planet. And since he's a childhood friend of Emperor Prosek, he has free run of the place with pretty much no oversight. This allows him to tamper with genetic codes in ways [[EvenEvilHasStandards that even the Coalition would find horrific]]. About the only thing that keeps him in check is that he believes that Prosek is also a god, and one who recognizes Bradford's own apotheosis. |
| 586 | * ScaryDogmaticAliens: There are a few. One example are the Aerihman clan of True Atlanteans, who believe that, because Atlanteans are a SuperiorSpecies, they should rule benevolently over lesser beings. The other Atlantean clans wish that they'd StopBeingStereotypical, because the Atlantean race has made [[ZombieApocalypse more than]] [[HeWhoFightsMonsters its share]] [[AndManGrewProud of mistakes]]. |
| 587 | * ScavengerWorld: A lot of the technology used on Rifts Earth comes from before AfterTheEnd. The most notable example is the [[PoweredArmor Glitter Boy]]: practically all of the suits in use outside of Free Quebec (and even a lot of the ones there) [[AncestralWeapon have been handed down generation after generation for several hundred years]]. Generally, however, the series has been steadily averting this since the beginning. Most available technology is of recent construction. There are however still a number of places (mostly in the Australian Outback) where most tech is scavenged (or stolen from soldiers from the city). |
| 588 | * SchizoTech There's a good chance that farmer tilling his fields with a horse-drawn plow has a laser rifle stashed away in his house in case of trouble. {{Justified|Trope}} in that the game takes place a couple hundred years after AfterTheEnd. |
| 589 | * ScienceWizard: It is possible to create items where [[{{Magitek}} a semi-technological device is imbued with magic]], and several of the setting's more advanced societies (such as the Splugorth, most of the power players of the Three Galaxies, and most primarily magic-using nations) use a combination of magic, Magitek and tech with little to no distinction. In the Palladium [[TheMultiverse Megaverse]], extremism one way or the other is the wrong answer -- pro-tech, anti-magic nations to be [[FantasticRacism speciesist]], [[ANaziByAnyOtherName militant totalitarian regimes]], while pro-magic, anti-tech nations tend to be [[HellOnEarth literal demonic hellholes]]. |
| 590 | * SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: |
| 591 | ** No particularly good reason is given as to why the advanced societies on Rifts Earth are totally unaware of the orbital space stations, the CAN Moon base or their activities. In real life, the International Space Station is one of the brighest objects in the night sky. This is to say nothing of the fact that the space colonies have been known to engage in actual ''battles'' both against each other and alien invaders. All of which should be visible from Earth's surface. |
| 592 | ** Played painfully straight in the ''Three Galaxies'' setting. All spaceship weapons have [[ArbitraryWeaponRange ranges]], with 100 miles being among the furthest effective ranges (whereas in Real Life, jet fighters often engage at farther distances than that). Also, the major governments of the setting are massive star empires strung out along [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin three galaxies]], and are somehow able to maintain cohesion despite the mind-boggling distances between their constituent worlds. And one city on Phase World manages to serve as a major trade hub for the whole of the Three Galaxies. Granted, it's a massive city, and the world's sufficiently advanced technology allows ships to instantly teleport to its star system[[note]]though they still have to use conventional means to get back home[[/note]], but it's still pretty insane. |
| 593 | ** Most of the larger monsters, both in the Three Galaxies setting and the game as a whole, have weights that are far, far too low for something of their size. For example, the infernal mastodon, a monster larger than the biggest sauropod, weighs a maximum of just twelve tons. |
| 594 | * ScorpionPeople: The centaurine Scorpion People are among the servants of the Mesopotamian gods. |
| 595 | * SealedEvilInACan: |
| 596 | ** According to ''Mindwerks'', the [[PublicDomainArtifact Philosopher's Stone]] is actually a prison for an incredibly powerful EldritchAbomination. The Stone's owner unconsciously forms a mental bond with the Stone, and as he uses the Stone's fantastic powers, he becomes more and more corrupted by it. |
| 597 | ** The Host are powerful, evil demons who were sealed in a very tight can indeed -- it's almost impossible to find their dimensional prison except by blind luck, they need a summoner to willingly sacrifice themselves by allowing the demon to take over their body and soul (and most people willing to call upon such evil creatures would be nowhere near selfless enough to consider doing such a thing), and even once freed they categorically cannot cross between dimensions without another such summoning without being struck DeaderThanDead. |
| 598 | * SeaSerpents: Sea serpents are among the various creatures that were stranded on Earth when the Rifts came. They're common sea monsters in the setting's present day, and can reach immense sizes. Numerous varieties have been recorded in the oceans of the world, including some with stubby legs or tentacles capable of limited movement on land. |
| 599 | * SecretGovernmentWarehouse: The Coalition's Black Vault where they keep confiscated magic items. |
| 600 | * SecretWeapon: More like an Army of Secret Weapons. The Coalition figured they would roll over the former state of Free Quebec quickly, allowing them to focus their attention on the war with Tolkeen. A lot of their confidence came from the fact that Free Quebec had seceded before the unveiling of the new Coalition War Machine, so their army was using outdated equipment. Furthermore, it was assumed that Free Quebec had at most several hundred Glitter Boy suits. Then it turns out that Free Quebec had been quietly preparing for war with their fellow States for years, and had thousands of Glitter Boys, including several new varieties that expanded greatly on the original Glitter Boy's limited capabilities. |
| 601 | * SerialEscalation: Each new book (except the ''Chaos Earth'' line) dials up the power level yet again. Well, not really, the power goes up and down, but it was the case for the first handful of books. |
| 602 | * ServantRace: The Splugorth have a number of species kept subservient to them, which were either tricked, bargained or outright genetically engineered into their current roles. These include the Altara Blind Warrior Women, kept as brainwashed soldiers and enforcers; the Kydians, who willingly became the Splugorth's private armies in exchange for a release valve on their extreme overpopulation problems; and the apelike Kittani, who likewise became a soldier race in exchange for being saved from extinction. While some need constant coercion to keep to their roles, others, like the Kydians and Kittani, are fanatically loyal to the Splugorth. |
| 603 | * SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The ''Rifts Adventure Guide'' has a section that consists adventure ideas which are a paragraph or two long, just enough to give a GM a jumping-off point for a campaign. One of them involves a mage opening a Rift and explaining that it goes through time to just before the Coming of the Rifts. He claims that if the [=PC=]s go through the Rift, they will be able to stop the Great Cataclysm from ever happening. |
| 604 | * ShootTheMageFirst: ''Vampire Kingdoms Revised'' has Doc Reid [[InvokedTrope mention]] that vampires know enough to target mages for an early takedown, since magic is one of the more reliable means of putting them down. |
| 605 | * ShoutOut: |
| 606 | ** The ''Siege on Tolkeen'' series lists a number of rare magical artifacts used/sought after by the Kingdom of Tolkeen, one of which is a mysterious object known as The Mobius. One quick adventure based around the artifact is basically a gag, where the adventurers hear of an old man who has The Mobius. They track him down, and it turns out he really just has a collection of Pre-Rifts artwork by comic book illustrator {{Creator/Moebius}}. Siembieda states that he's a big fan of Moebius and couldn't resist the gag. |
| 607 | ** The Loronoid from South America are mutant macaws with the ability to enter a state of suspended animation that makes them look dead. They were created by a project called [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus Norwegian Blue]]. |
| 608 | * ShownTheirWork: In the weapon compendiums. While Kevin Siembieda is mostly known for making stuff up or using liberal applications of RuleOfCool, he occasionally does his homework. One notable case is the book ''Mystic Russia''. Siembieda poured over many volumes of Russian Folklore to create the magical creatures and mortal magicians in the book, to ensure an authentically Russian flavor. He was so fascinated by it that he even provided a bibliography for anyone else who might be interested. |
| 609 | * SkeleBot9000: Rifts is absolutely in love with this trope. To list all the various examples would probably take half a page by itself. |
| 610 | * SkeletonMotif: |
| 611 | ** The Coalition States uses skull motifs for their body armour helmets, and some vehicles. Because of this, Coalition soldiers are commonly referred to as "[[InSeriesNickname Dead Boys]]". Their giant robots, like [[SpiderTank the Spider-Skull Crawler]], also carry this motif frequently, as do vehicles such as the Death's Head Armored Transport. The newer models of PowerArmor can carry a lot more of the skeleton in their design, as do the newer models of body armor. Of course, they also have skele-bots. |
| 612 | ** When the Naruni came to Earth for the second time, skull and skeleton motifs appeared on some of their newer products. This was probably done as a way of thumbing their noses at the Coalition, who booted them off Rifts Earth the first time. |
| 613 | ** Necromancers use bones and skeletons often, as befits the [[BlackMagic nature of their magical focus]]. The Mystic Russia book even mentions that Necromancers use bones to make furniture and other decorations, because they like the look and feel of bone. |
| 614 | * SlasherSmile: Two of the new types of SAMAS, the Light Assault and Super Sam varieties, have manic skull-like grins on their faceplates as part of the overall "Death's Head" motiff. Their in-universe nicknames are "Smiling Jack" and "Grinning Demon", respectively. |
| 615 | * SnakePeople: The Cernun are a limbed variant resembling the ram-horned serpents prevalent in Celtic art. |
| 616 | * SovietSuperscience: The Sovietski, naturally! For instance, they have the largest 'Borg in all the books. They can go toe-to-toe with HumongousMecha, and can be fitted with indirect fire mortars so massive the 'Borg has to lope like a gorilla while wearing it. |
| 617 | * SpaceOpera: Not in the main setting; flying off the planet via conventional means is all but impossible because of a surviving defense network in orbit. However, leave Rifts Earth via any number of convenient portals, and you might reach the Three Galaxies, an intergalactic setting following the same "anything goes" multiversal philosophy. |
| 618 | * SpiderPeople: |
| 619 | ** The A'rac are spider-headed humanoids with a penchant for travel and exploration, whose endless roving led to them spreading throughout the Megaverse once they discovered dimensional travel. |
| 620 | ** The Spinne are humanoid spiders mostly found in Germany, with two legs, four arms, rudimentary internal skeletons and a spiracle-based respiratory system that draws air through their skin and consequently prevents them from wearing any but the loosest armor or clothing. They feed on the blood and liquified organs of mammals, and Spinne females are much larger than the males. They're divided into two distinct bloodlines: the Starke are descended from web-builders and tend to be even-tempered, staid and clinical, while the Schnellig, descended from hunting spiders, are much more aggressive and outgoing. Consequently, Starke tend to be researchers and engineers, while Schnelling are more often warriors and spies. |
| 621 | * SpiderTank: The Coalition Army's Spider-Skull Crawler is a 30-foot-tall robotic vehicle shaped like a giant metal skull with six jointed legs, with a railgun mounted on each "cheek" and laser turrets under its chin and on the back of the head. They're mostly meant for patrolling wildernesses and urban environments, and don't shine in prolonged melee combat. |
| 622 | * SpikesOfVillainy: Pretty much part of the dress code for villains in Rifts. The [[BeePeople Xiticix]] have these as part of their body. Even the Coalition is not exempt. Old Style Dead Boy armor has spikes on the knees and left shoulder. Both old and new Psi-Stalker armors have spikes on their helmets, possibly meant to symbolically represent their PsychicPowers. Also the Glitter Boy Killer [[PoweredArmor power armor]] (so named because they're designed to exploit the weaknesses of Glitter Boys) has vicious-looking spikes on the arms, feet, and knees. However, unlike most examples of SpikesOfVillainy, these actually serve a useful purpose when engaging Glitter Boys in melee combat. |
| 623 | * SpiritWorld: Owing to AllMythsAreTrue, there are several different brands of SpiritWorld. There are numerous afterlives from various mythologies ([[Myth/NorseMythology Valhalla]], [[Myth/ChineseMythology the Nine Hells of the Yama Kings]], etc). The Dreamtime gets described in ''Rifts Australia''. The Astral Plane gets a mention here and there, but isn't really described in detail in any book (though ''Nightbane'', another game by Palladium using the same rule system has a {{Sourcebook}} describing it). |
| 624 | * SpontaneousWeaponCreation: Several psychic classes, like Cyber Knights and Mind Melters, can create Psi Blades. Tattooed Men and Conjurers can do it with magic. |
| 625 | * SoulJar: |
| 626 | ** The Koshchei, Greater Demons out of the ''Mystic Russia'' book, are also known as the Deathless Ones. They are effectively immortal because each one's soul is stored in a chicken egg. Breaking the egg is the only way to kill one for good. |
| 627 | ** A spell allows the caster to do this to a victim. Alistair Dunscon, the current leader of the "True" Federation of Magic, supposedly has the soul of one of Coalition Emperor's sons in one. |
| 628 | * SquishyWizard: Magic users can't wear environmental armor, or armor made of metal or ceramic, as it interferes with their ability to work magic. As a result, they're usually stuck with light armor. There are a few exceptions, such as heavy armor made from Mega-Damage animal hide, or the Warlock Combat Armor from the Three Galaxies, but these are generally rare and/or prohibitively expensive. |
| 629 | * StarfishAliens: Quite a large number, both as [=NPCs=] and available as PlayerCharacter races. Pretty much all [[EldritchAbomination Alien Intelligences]] fall under this category, but a number of mortal, D-Bee races do as well. One classic example would be the [[BeePeople Xiticix]]. Even though most of them are at least vaguely humanoid in shape, their life cycles are more like insects than mammals (grubs, pupae, etc), they are organized like an insect hive, and their psychology is so alien that even the [[ActualPacifist people of Lazlo]] admit they can't be reasoned with. |
| 630 | * TheStarscream: Averted in the case of Joseph Prosek II, son of Emperor Karl Prosek and next in line for the throne. Despite the way things normally go with an EvilOverlord and his equally evil and ambitious son, young Joseph is completely loyal to his beloved father and is perfectly content to wait until his father dies of natural causes to assume the throne. |
| 631 | * SteamPunk: |
| 632 | ** The New West has a lot of this, mostly because the Black Market and the techno-wizards tend to think [[RuleOfCool it's cool]]. |
| 633 | ** The Iron Juggernauts in the ''Siege on Tolkeen'' series have a SteamPunk aesthetic (brushed, riveted metal and steam pouring out of them), though they're actually powered by [[DungeonPunk magic]]. |
| 634 | * StockSuperpowers: Superhero-style powers exist on Rifts Earth, but are not very common; most of the time, superhumans are D-Bees from other worlds. They're more common in the Three Galaxies (most famously among the Kreeghor Empire's Invincible Guard), and a significant chunk of the people of the ''Skraypers'' subsetting have superpowers. |
| 635 | * StoryBreakerPower: Discussed in the article on Giga-Damage, which was written as a parody of the claims that Rifts is all about {{Munchkin}}ism and Power Gaming. In it, the author says that the best way to use Giga-Damage in your campaign is when the PlayerCharacters have Giga-Damage equipment and no one else does. Since Giga-Damage is literally one million times more powerful than Mega-Damage, the party would be able to OneHitKill elder gods. |
| 636 | * {{Stripperific}}: Many females depicted in the books, but special mention goes out to the Blind Altara Warrior Women, an entire race (they have no men and reproduce asexually) who runs around in nothing but a helmet, some jewelry, and a skintight one-piece bathing suit that leaves almost nothing to the imagination. The only thing that prevents ChunkySalsaRule in their case is that the jewelry are actually magical items that provide, among other things, magical armor. |
| 637 | * StupidJetpackHitler: The Coalition States are this dialed up to eleven. Almost literal case in the Coalition SAMAS flying body armor, which has a '''black skull''' as the headpiece. |
| 638 | * SufficientlyAdvancedBambooTechnology: This is a major aesthetic for the {{Magitek}} of the Atlanteans and Lemurians. Their Stone Masters employ PyramidPower, Atlanteans use PowerCrystal items, and Lemurians use a lot of coral and barnacles in their OrganicTechnology. |
| 639 | * SuperSoldier: |
| 640 | ** In the Golden Age of Technology, [[SuperSerum Juicer]], [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity Crazy]] and {{Cyborg}} technologies were invented alongside PoweredArmor in the quest to make the ultimate soldier. |
| 641 | ** Starting with the Tolkeen and Free Quebec wars, the Coalition began using Juicer and Borg technology to create their own super-soldiers to supplement their armies. In the Minion War, the Coalition's going all-out; ''half'' of the Coalition's NewMeat are augmented as one or the other. |
| 642 | * TheSyndicate: The Black Market, a criminal network with five distinct factions and a worldwide presence. |
| 643 | [[/folder]] |
| 644 | [[folder: T-Z]] |
| 645 | * TechnologyLevels: While this term isn't used, there's a list in ''Northern Gun 1'' that breaks down the tech levels in North America, while mentioning that it's a disputed list with a whole lot of anomalies. (For example, Erin Tarn argues that Northern Gun is more advanced than Free Quebec while others disagree, the Splugorth are ahead of everyone but largely use {{Magitek}} rather than straight tech, and Wilk's lasers are full-on Golden Age technology equal to anything Triax can put out, but they're ''only'' that advanced in laser technology.) |
| 646 | * TechnoWizard: A literal case. In North America, there's a special brand of wizards who combine magic and technology to create things like guns that shoot fireballs and flying boards powered by ambient magical energy. They're called....[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Techno Wizards]]. |
| 647 | * TeleportersAndTransporters: |
| 648 | ** The Rifts are gateways to other worlds. There are spells that lets you open a Rift manually or teleport to another dimension. They're at the highest levels of magic. |
| 649 | ** Dragons and certain other magical creatures can teleport as a natural ability. Some can even teleport across alternate dimensions. Shifters (mortal magicians who specialize in summoning and teleportation magic) can instantly and flawlessly teleport themselves back to their home dimension for a small expenditure of [[{{Mana}} PPE]]. |
| 650 | * TheTheocracy: |
| 651 | ** The Empire of the Sun in Peru is ruled by the returned Inca gods and their priesthood. It's largely a constitutional monarchy with a partly-elected Parliament, but the High Priest (and above him, the gods) has the last word. |
| 652 | ** The Kingdom of Lagarto is controlled by the Cult of Dragonwright, who worship dragons as gods. There's a High King, but he's a figurehead appointed by the draconic Overlord and real power rests in the claws of the Cult. |
| 653 | * ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: ''Rifts'' plays the "only hitpoint that matters is the last" rule deadly straight for supernatural creatures ''even in the fluff'', which means that professional military and police forces use this as standard operating procedure. If your opponent has not been reduced to bloody scraps, there is a very real that chance he will get back up! The Coalition military uses this often enough that it has a name: "misting". |
| 654 | * ThemeNaming: In the Wormwood Dimension Book, many key non-player characters have biblical or religious-themed names, such as Lazarus Vesper, Salome, Dorsey Pentecost, and The Confessor. |
| 655 | * TheThemeParkVersion: Used and invoked deliberately and in-universe. One of the ways people have coped with the fall of civilization is to try to return to or imitate the past before the last era, with varying levels of success (people in the American West, for example, look up to and emulate historical western figures such as Wyatt Earp, Jessie James, and ''Radio/TheLoneRanger''). This is even {{Lampshaded}} in one book where the Sundance Kid (the ''real one'', via a random Rift) mentions he doesn't remember any cowboys named Creator/JohnWayne from his time. |
| 656 | * ThisIsAWorkOfFiction: Every ''Rifts'' book comes with a large disclaimer at the very beginning explaining that ''Rifts'' is entirely fictional, and its depictions of magic, the supernatural, et al. is not meant to be taken as realistic in any way. Sometimes disclaimers will precede specific parts of books. They also request that ''Rifts'' fan websites use the disclaimer. This is not done because they believe ViewersAreMorons, so much as a way of heading off MoralGuardians who might try to sue the company. And to be fair, considering the trouble games like ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''[[note]]See ''Film/MazesAndMonsters''[[/note]] and ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}''[[note]]Their offices were once raided by the Secret Service because the Feds mistakenly believed that their ''Cyberpubnk'' sourcebook contained actual instructions on how to hack computers[[/note]] have gotten into, they're probably being ProperlyParanoid. |
| 657 | * TitanomachyRoundTwo: one plot hook involves Hera, now insane, considering arranging the escape of the Titans to destroy the Olympian pantheon. |
| 658 | %%* ThisIsMyHuman: Quite common in Splugorth territory. |
| 659 | * TouchedByVorlons: In various degrees, from Coalition-made mutant animals to ''magic cyborgs'' made in another dimension by SufficientlyAdvancedAliens. The straightest example would be the Cosmo Knights. They are normal mortal beings granted fantastic power (like, they can go toe to toe against ''starships'') by a mysterious artifact called the Cosmic Forge. They are charged by the Forge to be knights errant (or perhaps superheroes is a better analogy), protecting the weak and battling evil wherever they find it. |
| 660 | * {{Treants}}: The Forest Wardens, also called Tree Men, Bark Hags and Forest Lords, are large, humanoid trees only found in the Dark Woods of Alabama. They're extremely reclusive and paranoid -- from their perspective, the Rifts tore them from their homeworld and flung them into a place they don't understand, and they view the outside world with fear and dread. This leads them to react with immense violence against any perceived invasion of their haven, which includes any attempt at logging or settling or the passage of any moderately sized group. They're also intensely protective of plant life, and view even plucking weeds, picking flowers or leaving harvested fruit uneaten as horrific crimes, further driving them to violence. They do however tolerate lone travelers and other natives of the Woods, provided these don't commit any "crimes" against plants. Physically they're fairly standard, but can resemble almost any sort of tree and possess prehensile feet that allow them to brachiate through the treetops, and both males and females have thick leafy "beards". |
| 661 | * TreetopTown: Millenium Trees are trees over a thousand feet in height which naturally grow giant burls subdivided into internal floors (between three and sixteen) and with naturally perforated walls. These readily serve as habitable apartment complexes with a little preparation, and as an individual plant can grow around thirty or so burls most tree support sizable communities in their canopies. |
| 662 | * TrialByCombat: Among the Warlords of Russia, anyone who wants to argue with a Warlord had better be ready to take it to the mat against the Warlord's champion. |
| 663 | * TwentyFourHourArmor: Some suits of power armor, such as the Glitterboy, are literally designed for this; Glitterboys only need to be exited once a week. In the field, given how vulnerable a human is without MDC bodyarmor, it's rare to see someone take off more than a helmet or faceplate. |
| 664 | ** The Glitter Boy class, however, does mention that the character should at the very least get out of his suit and exercise for a couple hours every day to avoid muscle atrophy. |
| 665 | ** [[{{Munchkin}} Cosmo Knights]] from the Phaseworld/Three Galaxies setting are this played completely straight. |
| 666 | * UniversallyBelovedLeader: Emperor Prosek, within the Coalition States. He announced that he was launching the country into not one, but two unprovoked wars, and his people cheered him on. Outside the Coalition, he's approaching HatedByAll. |
| 667 | * TheUnpronounceable: The Xiticix race comes pretty damn close. According to [[WordOfGod Siembieda]], the Xiticix were named by Kevin Long, the artist who designed them, and he's regretted going with that name ever since. In an essay he wrote about naming things, he flat out called it a "terrible name". The name is so unwieldy that Siembieda's father referred to them as "City Chicks". For those of you who are wondering, the correct pronounciation is "zeye-TICK-icks". |
| 668 | * TheUsualAdversaries: |
| 669 | ** Tolkeen was a peaceful, accepting, integrated kingdom in a mainly magic-based society. The Coalition States went to war with them, forcing them to leap off the MoralEventHorizon in an effort to survive. It [[DownerEnding ultimately failed]]. This is not the first time the Coalition has done this. Similarly, Free Quebec was actually a member of the Coalition, but felt they were getting sidelined, possibly lied to, and quite frankly getting tired of having their doctrines dictated to, by the Coalition's leaders. All their suspicious were absolutely true, resulting in a costly war between what should have been natural allies. Even for those who think the Coalition might be right, they're hard to love. |
| 670 | ** At the same time, Chi-Town (founder and seat of power for the Coalition) was pretty tolerant and open (they even had their own magic military unit at the time) until Nostrous Dunscon decided to declare war on them and fling hellish magical NightmareFuel at them. Kinda hard to blame them for thinking magic was evil after that. |
| 671 | ** Frankly, nearly every continent has at least one race or state that fits this trope. Sometimes two. Vampires, D-Bee barbarian marauders, Alien invaders, Demonic hordes, and ''[[HumansAreBastards worse]]''. |
| 672 | * ValuesDissonance: An InUniverse case stated by WordOfGod regarding Pre-Rifts films that have managed to survive into Rifts Earth. In the "modern era" of Rifts Earth, audiences couldn't care less about any type of SpeculativeFiction movie (it's too much like real life for them), but will eagerly watch even the stupidest movie that depicts typical life on Pre-Rifts Earth. For example, ''{{Film/Avatar}}'' or ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' would be total flops, while ''Film/TheRoom2003'' or ''{{Film/Gigli}}'' would have people lining up for repeat viewings. |
| 673 | * VampireHunter: Reid's Rangers is a famous group of vampire hunters operating in the American Southwest. To the people they've saved from vampire attacks, they're [[KnightInShiningArmor Knights In Shining Armor]]. In truth, though, half of them fall somewhere between VillainWithGoodPublicity and HeWhoFightsMonsters. Another notable example is the Atlantean Undead Slayer, magically empowered warriors who specialize in hunting and killing vampires. |
| 674 | * VampiresAreSexGods: Vampires are naturally seductive and charming when they want to be, are unnaturally attractive when they're hiding their vampiric nature, and can emit sex pheromones to enthrall their targets. |
| 675 | * {{Vibroweapon}}: Called vibroblades in-game. Based on designs the Coalition had been sitting on for years, they were finally mass-produced for use by the Dog Boys, since the human supremacist Coalition was wary about handing guns to mutant animals. They proved so popular that they're now a standard part of just about every character's starting equipment and available just about anywhere that claims to be civilization. Pretty much every conceivable kind of bladed weapon has been made into a vibroblade, from knives to halberds. Many suits of PoweredArmor, MiniMecha, and even some suits of body armor come equipped with vibroblades built into the arms for melee combat. Curiously, [[AllThereInTheManual according to the sourcebooks]] vibroblades don't actually vibrate the blade but are surrounded by a vibrating ''energy field'', making them a sort of LaserBlade with a solid core. |
| 676 | * VillainWithGoodPublicity: |
| 677 | ** There's a whole lot of these in Rifts, but the biggest one is probably Emperor Prosek. Within the Coalition States, he is considered to be incapable of doing any wrong. He gave a live televised speech announcing that he was plunging the nation into a series of unprovoked wars, including a CivilWar against one of their own states, and he was cheered on for it. Outside his nation, he is regarded as a JerkAss or MagnificentBastard, but inside the Coalition States, he's unanimously regarded as the savior of Humanity. |
| 678 | ** With the Minion War, the Coalition as a whole has gotten a massive boost in popular opinion, being the power most suited to a continental-scale war against forces from outside our reality. |
| 679 | * WarIsHell: |
| 680 | ** The Siege on Tolkeen. The Sorcerer's Revenge is almost a literal case of this. |
| 681 | ** The ''Minion War'' sourcebooks are an even more literal example. Hell(s) at war. With [[EvilVersusEvil each other]], no less. |
| 682 | * WeAreStrugglingTogether: The Federation of Magic in North America, who are united by little more than hatred of the Coalition, and generally fight with each other more than their common enemy. The sourcebook mentions that even Alastair Dunscon, heir to the "True" Federation of magic, only controls about 15-20% at any given time, and even his father was only able to rally a little more than half for his war against Chi-Town. |
| 683 | * WeCanRebuildHim: One of the most successful tactics the Coalition has in the Minion War is to take soldiers who are OnlyMostlyDead and immediately shunt them into the CS Combat Cyborg program, allowing them to return experienced soldiers to the battlefield and mitigating the effects of the Minions' attrition warfare. |
| 684 | * WeDidntStartTheFuhrer: |
| 685 | ** One downplayed example: Some of the atrocities committed by Spain in South America were actually driven by the undead ''ellal'' in the bodies of dead Spaniards. [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters But not all]]. |
| 686 | ** A journal snippet indicates that Hitler may have been a puppet of [[spoiler: the Aerihman Clan of Atlanteans, who were trying to take control of Earth for their return]]. The journal in question is ambiguous enough that it's a maybe, though. |
| 687 | * WeWillUseLasersInTheFuture: Most modern weapons are energy-based, and there's a variety of them. Pulse, ion, plasma and particle weapons are all a thing. Lasers in particular are common enough that there's anti-laser armor, and anti-anti-laser-armor lasers. |
| 688 | * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Before joining up with the human-supremacist Coalition, the population of El Dorado was 15% D-Bee, and the local D-Bees lived without prejudice. After ''Coalition War Campaign'', El Dorado had accepted Coalition membership and the D-Bees were...never mentioned at all in future books. You'd think that [[{{Unperson}} unpersoning]] 15% of your population might cause a little unrest. |
| 689 | * WhatMightHaveBeen: In the early days of the Coalition, magic was a valid military and civil tool, but was abandoned after a brutal war with the Federation of Magic. In-game, it is speculated that if this hadn't happened, they may have loosened their human supremacist stance over time as well. |
| 690 | * WhenThePlanetsAlign: The nuclear exchange that triggered the Rifts occurred during a rare conjunction of planets. This, combined with the fact that it happened at midnight during the Winter Solstice, caused the ley lines to surge with a level of energy that hadn't been felt on Earth since the disappearance of {{Atlantis}}. The instantaneous death of [[AMillionIsAStatistic several million people]], their own mystic energy pouring into the ley lines, resulted in the magical equivalent of an overloaded circuit, creating the Coming of the Rifts. |
| 691 | * WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: It's a deliberate theme in the game. All the forms of human augmentation come with a price tag. Crazies, as the name would imply, become more and more mentally unbalanced as time goes on due to the implants in their brains, Juicers only live on average five years after taking the augmentation (provided they don't die by violent means first), and [[CyberneticsWillEatYourSoul cyborgs find themselves becoming removed from humanity as they lose their human bodies]]. |
| 692 | * WizardsFromOuterSpace: Most especially in the ''Three Galaxies'', where the United Worlds of Warlock is a major power and a number of other factions such as the various Splugorth domains and the Transgalactic Empire also make extensive use of magic. There are even a sizeable number of spells specifically designed to be useful in space. |
| 693 | * WorkingClassPeopleAreMorons: |
| 694 | ** And the Coaltion States are just fine with that, since they need CannonFodder. Being BookDumb is actively encouraged and CS propaganda (all delivered in audio-video format or live speeches, naturally) goes so far as to suggest that things like reading can lead to mental instability. PersecutedIntellectuals are therefore the norm, except for the CS technocrat elite, who thanks to their FantasticCasteSystem (see above) are kept safely separated from the proles that live in the lower levels of CS fortress-cities. |
| 695 | ** This is a major point of contention between the CS and its erstwhile "allies" Free Quebec and the New German Republic, both of whom believe in having an educated working class and prefer to rely on [[BelievingTheirOwnLies cultural pressure]] to validate their more morally dubious positions such as FantasticRacism. The Germans find this especially problematic, because they have no idea how to hold a conversation with people from the CS, since the latter are generally so uneducated and pumped full of propaganda by German standards that even topics like history or politics are beyond their understanding. |
| 696 | * TheWorldTree: |
| 697 | ** Millennium Trees are immense plants -- generally as tall as hills -- found growing in places of intense magical power, typically where {{Ley Line}}s intersect. They never wilt or go dormant, leading some to speculate that their lives work on cycles centuries or millennia in length, and as long as the ley line energy is strong enough they can grow lush and green anywhere, including the middle of scorching deserts or barren tundras. They're found worldwide, but most are in England. They also grow complex, hollow and perforated boles large enough to serve as apartment buildings and can create supernatural storms and send them rocketing down their ley lines. |
| 698 | ** ''Pantheons of the Megaverse'' has Yggdrasil, ''the'' World Tree of Myth/NorseMythology. The section on Yggdrasil includes a description of [[{{Munchkin}} godlike]] powers a player character can be granted by impaling himself on the tree for nine days (a la Odin). As one can imagine, the rolls required to survive the ordeal are pretty rough. |
| 699 | * WorldWreckingWave: The Great Cataclysm which kick-started the whole setting. A nuclear war, during a planetary alignment, on the Winter Solstice, equaled a massive burst of magical energy akin to millions of human sacrifices. Every LeyLine on Earth surged with more power than they'd had in tens of thousands of years, creating a catastrophic surge of natural disasters... which meant more people died, which meant more power flooded into the ley lines, [[ViciousCycle which meant more disasters]]. Ninety percent of humanity was killed, literally overnight. In the end, humanity was left standing in the ruins of civilization, with aliens, other-dimensional beings, and demons all dragged onto Earth by the newly-opened Rifts, wondering what the hell just happened. |
| 700 | * WreathedInFlames: |
| 701 | ** The Burster class. They are psychics who specialize in pyrokinesis. They get their name for their most impressive psychic power, which is to surround themselves in a flaming aura. There's also a mutant jaguar race in the first ''South America'' book which can do this. |
| 702 | ** The Kittani, an alien race who enjoy making plasma weapons, have created a technological variant of the Burster's ability. They're mostly used by races/classes who are resistant to fire (such as Bursters) because the Kittani never quite worked out how to keep the person wearing the plasma harness from [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard burning up]] while using it. |
| 703 | * WretchedHive: [[CrapsackWorld As one might expect]], Rifts Earth is fairly overflowing with these. |
| 704 | ** The ones that get the most press are the 'Burbs of Chi-Town. They are an unofficial sprawl of shanty towns and slums surrounding the arcology of Chi-Town like a besieging army. The 'Burbs are filled with rejects, criminals, and scum. The older areas, typically those closest to Chi-Town, have been around long enough that they're become fairly affluent communities, and are mostly populated with people on the waiting list to become Coalition citizens. The Coalition refuses to recognize any authority that might pop up in the 'Burbs, and usually only makes its presence known when it instigates a purge to wipe out trouble too big to ignore (and they don't care who they step on along the way). The Coalition does employ some Dead Boys to patrol trouble areas to keep an eye on things, but these "peacekeepers" are completely biased towards humans, and mostly corrupt as well. It's not uncommon for one to step over the body of a dead D-Bee with a knife in his back without so much as a "What happened here?" |
| 705 | ** In the description of Ciudad Juarez, it's explicitly stated that the place is like the cantina scene from ''Franchise/StarWars'' throughout the city. One illustration in particular shows a policeman walking his beat, casually stepping over a guy who has been stabbed while [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight ignoring all the mayhem happening around him]]. |
| 706 | * YoungerThanTheyLook: Dragon hatchlings used as player characters are usually '''very''' young. There's a random roll table for determining a dragon hatchling's age at the start of a campaign. The oldest possible age is 48 days old. The youngest is six hours old. This, as well as the fact that dragons don't become adults (and become more powerful by a couple orders of magnitude) until they're 500, was likely done to make it harder for players to make adult dragon characters via LoopholeAbuse. |
| 707 | * ZergRush: |
| 708 | ** This is how the [[BeePeople Xiticix]] handle threats. |
| 709 | ** The Coalition tried this in the opening months of the Siege on Tolkeen. They discovered to their misfortune that rolling over a small village with a few practitioners of magic, and attacking an entire Kingdom composed almost entirely of mages, are two very different things. |
| 710 | [[/folder]] |
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