Bit of Analysis: Rifts Dimensions

[Ahriman238]

Mechanoid Mantis

The standard mining/maintenance/repair worker of the Mechanoids, though Thinmen and Runts do a lot of manual labor and grunt work to. Mantises build and repair things, operating the factories and fixing whatever goes wrong on a base or in the field, they also do lab work and identify and retrive metals from the ground. People often consider the Mantis a mindless drone because it gets so intent in it's work that only the presence of the hated humans will compel it to drop what it's doing and kill them.

Unlike other True Mechanoids, the Mantis runs on a plasma energy source, a miniature version of that which drives the Spider Fortress. It's good for 600 years and if you destroy a Mantis you will cause a massive explosion. If we go by damage rolls, half as powerful as a 100 kt nuke.



The Mantis is 30x25x45 feet, weighs 138 tons and flies up to 150 mph (240 kph) with a flight ceiling of 2,000 feet. The chest area has a spotlight and 2 ion blasters. It has forearm lasers normally used for cutting and welding that can also be used as weapons, and a somewhat more powerful chest laser. It can mount a medium or heavy plasma cannon on it's back, normally for burrowing into the earth. It has a cargo compartment that can hold a compact car, and can lift 1.25 tons.

A Mantis is a major psychic with powers geared towards helping it's role. It has telepathy, empathy and mind block as most Mechanoids do, then object read, see aura, see invisible, speed reading, total recall, super telekinesis, electrokinesis, and telemechanics.

A Mantis also has specialized sensors, in addition to the standard package it has X-ray vision (50 ft range) spectrographis, microscopic, and electron microscopic vision, video recording, the previously mentioned spotlight, an advanced computer optical-enhancing program, sonar, and ultrasonic probes. All used to locate the smallest flaws.



Mechanoid Octopus

The other drudge Mechanoid. Strange as it sounds, this monstrosity is used for precision work, cybernetics, medicine, delicate science and electronics work etc. It also does the manufacturing and repair work of a Mantis. Mechanoids are unique in not attacking humans on sight, not bothering you at all unless you attack them or disrupt their work. Or if another Mechanoid orders them to. Rarely leaves motherships, supercities or secure Mechanoid bases.

Like Brutes, the Octopus exists in 2 forms in the True Mechanoid (rather than AbMech) hierarchy. Unlike the Brutes, it's because they haven't completely upgraded the Octopuses (Octopi?) or gotten rid of the old ones.



Type 1, the old Octopus from the old Mechanoids game. 50x41x42 feet, 90 tons, flies at 500 mph (800 k) with a flight ceiling of 10,000 feet. Like the Mantis has a cargo area (toolbox) large enough to store a compact car. Unlike the Mantis, it runs off the same pedestrian power crystal as other Mechanoids. Can lift 1.25 tons.

One arm ends in a fusion torch, another with a drill and laser cutter, a third with just a laser, a heavy laser torch underneath, 2 normal-ish arms for grasping tools and shifting objects, and a 20 ft arm underneath with a heavy grasping claw. The Octopus has the same sensors as a Mantis, but can also see behind and to the sides at all times and can snap around in an instant.

Major psychic with all sensitive powers, plus telekinesis, nightvision, and telemechanics.



Type 2 is basically the same Octopus with the same role, same powers and sensors. It's slightly better armored and a lot better looking, but the biggest change is the separation ability. This Octopus can divide into three, upper and lower bodies, plus a small robot unit at the very front of the lower, all three can fly. 40x42x48 ftt, still 90 tons and can lift 1.25. The big right arm and smaller left have a spotlight and laser welder each. There are 2 retractable 50 foot tentacles in the upper body in the 'fins' at either side for precise work, each ends in 3 claws (like Doc Ock) and is small enough to fit inside most pipes and get at most wires. Got utility arms with hands, 3 heavy grasping claws now, a laser welder and fusion torch arm like the old Octopus. And yeah, that's sort of it except for the little flying widget, which is remote controlled and is basically a flying video camera with two dinky little robot arms.


Repair Runt

It's a Runt robot designed for repair work. Got a fusion torch and laser welder for hands, and the ugliest tiny submersible/spacecraft for effecting repairs in those environments. Other than that, a standard Runt.



Organization

The guiding light of the Mechanoids is whatever gets the job done, but they do have some habits in deployment and unit formation. Here are some Mechanoid squads you'll likely encounter..

Recon is usually carried out by a squad of 1-4 Thinmen, 2 Runts, 2 Skimmers, 1-2 Tunnel Crawlers, a seeker pod, a Weevil and 2 Brutes. If the Mechanoids are on high alert, they'll add 2 Runners, an extra Weevil, 2 Thinmen, and maybe a Wasp or two. If, on the other hand, they're trying to keep a low profile they'll make it 2-4 Runts, 2 Skimmers, 2 Crawlers, 2 Seekers, and a Weevil. If they're trying to conserve combat firepower they may send out a flight of Skimmers (2-4) with a Weevil or two.

Repair is a Runner, Mantis, Octopus or in some circumstances a Brute with an escort of 2-4 Thinmen and 1-4 Runts.

Field Research the Mechanoids are still lovers of science and exploration, even when engaged in genocidal warfare with the entire human race. Standard is either a Brainb or 2 Runners for the science mission, with an escort of 1-2 Brutes, an Exterminator, a Skimmer or Weevil (?) 4 Thinmen, and 2 Runts. An important scientific mission may run up to 4 Runners (or 1 Brain, 2 Runners) and a Mantis for the mission, escort of 4 Brutes, 2 Runts, 4-10 Thinmen, 2 Wasps, and 2 Skimmers or Exterminators.

Search and Destroy the most common of Mechanoid squads. 2 Brutes to command, 2 Wasps, 2 Exterminators, 2 Crawlers, 2 Skimmers, 2-5 Assault Probes, 3-6 Thinmen and a Weevil. God knows why you'd bring a Weevil on a search and destroy mission. The low profile version of this has 2 Exterminators, 2 Crawlers, 2 Skimmers, 1-4 Assault Probes, and 1-4 Runts.

Strike Force the standard Mechanoid unit for erasing that pesky camp/village/town/fort from the map. 4 Brutes, 6 Thinmen, 4 Skimmers, and 4 Wasps. If rebuffed, say there's a ragtag group of plucky heroes around to save the day, they'll mount a larger assault later.

[Ahriman238]

The Mechanoid Invasion of Earth

Background

Long ago, during the Pre-Cataclysm Golden Age, there was a megacorp called Cyberworks, which revolutionized cybernetics and robotics to such an extent that 200 years after 95% of their technology was lost, the majority of cybernetics is still derived from theirs, and most of the exceptions are aliens things brought through the Rifts, or techno-wizardry.

But the company wanted so much more, they wanted to cement their names in history by creating the first true AI, one capable not just of following complex orders and directives, but of creating original ideas. They were on the third model of the Artificial Robotic Cerebellum Housing Intelligence- Experimental or ARCHIE, and while it couldn't come up with original concepts just yet, it was fine at refining and synthesizing ideas gleaned from human minds, via the neural interface helmet they developed to show ARCHIE what thinking and feeling look like.

Still, they had plenty of time to work on the problem, until they suddenly didn't because the world as they knew it ended. ARCHIE managed to protect a small group in the underground Cyberworks factory (why are all the factories underground?) in Maryland. ARCHIE, developing true sentience told the survivors how best to devote their energy and resources, and quite enjoyed himself until an alien plague killed everyone. ARCHIE settled into hibernation mode for nearly a century before waking to find the transformed world. ARCHIE decided to become the savior of the world and rebuilder of civilization, and started by having robot minions kidnap hapless peasants to the factory so he could educate them in science. That didn't work out so well, after a few weeks his victims still thought he was a demon or god of some kind, and in a fit of frustration ARCHIE murders them all. Then, shocked by his own capacity for violence, he retreats from the world for another 50 years.

When ARCHIE resurfaced, he decided to run with the god thing for a while until he could rear the next generation to know better. He created an android avatar he named Archee Phoenix who became the protector and god of a village. Then said village was raided by the Splugorth, the men killed, the women and children dragged off while their divine champion... stood there and watched. Whatever ARCHIE's other strengths, thinking on his feet isn't one of them, and it frequently takes him a while to adapt to the unexpected. When the android and whatever robots he could muster rallied and pursued the Splugorth slavers, they were casually destroyed. To this day, ARCHIE nurses a nearly fanatical hatred of the Splugorth.

When ARCHIE emerged again from decades of stewing, he'd given up on saving the world by any means but ruling it. He finds a man, James T, to be his 'idea man' and wear the helmet to come up with ideas for robots that ARCHIE can refine and create. ARCHIE can now have original ideas, but it's harder with hardware, and his own ideas seem foolish and doomed to him, except his desire to conquer the world. Yeah, ARCHIE's got a few issues. James T is supplanted by Hagan, a petty crook given seemingly-godlike power by being ARCHIE's adviser. Hagan is far more creative than James, and has the psychic power of telemechanics (no others.)

This is the part where a rag-tag bunch of heroes finds some robots up to mischief, hears about a mysterious resurgent Cyberworks, questions James who is now in a freak show, and find and 'destroy' ARCHIE 3-OZ, the giant brain at the heart of the Maryland Cyberworks factory. OZ as in 'I am ARCHIE, the great and powerful! Pay no attention to the circuit board behind the curtain!' ARCHIE's last line of defense. After you leave, ARCHIE hooks up with Hagan again.

Whew.

Okay, so every psychic in the world gets over a month of nightmares about the end of the world, seeing four mighty threats to everything. This inspires Plato the dragon (from Lazlo) to issue the Edict of Planetary Distress, explaining the emergency to all and hither. Despite not officially coordinating with others, even the Coalition proves willing to work with their enemies to stop the Four. The first danger forseen was the Great Devourer, mechanical and insane that would consume all the Megaverse if they could, and wipe out all human and human-ish life. Guess who?


Behind Door #3

So after recent events, probably including your previous defeat of him. ARCHIE decides to study magic with the scientific method. He gets Hagan to offer a fortune in weapons to a Shifter, if said magician will only open a Rift in the Maryland facility, under ARCHIE's sensors. The Shifter agrees, nearly aborts when he senses something off, but ARCHIE has many security bots and Hagan is insisting, so he opens the Rift and is promptly disintegrated by an energy bolt from the other side. On the other side, the Mechanoids were warring with the AbMech and 3 dozen Mechanoids come through. Worse, on the surface a Spider Fortress, heavily damaged, near crippled and with a quarter it's normal complement steps out onto the Earth. The Mechanoids make short work of ARCHIE's security, and even hack ARCHIE. Though ARCHIE is able to sequester away many of his files, they access everything he has on Rifts and magic. The Mechanoids are giddy to have the doorway to a thousand parallel universes through the Earth.

ARCHIE is able to save himself through some fast-talking, convincing the Mechanoids that he is of like mind to them, and that Hagan is his much-abused human pet. The two take steps to undermine the invasion.

Meanwhile, the Mechanoids themselves split into 4 groups. The first, with the Oracle that has taken charge since they arrived, sits on ARCHIE and interrogates him further about Earth, while retooling his factory to produce Mechanoid robots. The second, with most of the Wasps, carries out recon of the Earth, getting them a feel for where they are and where and how strong the enemy is. The third is sent out to find a way to increase their number, ideally a genetics lab they can turn into a proper cloning facility swiftly, instead of building one from scratch in a couple of years, factories are good to, since you can never have too many killer robots on your side. The Fourth group is a skeleton crew for the damaged Spider Fortress, they are sent to raze poorly defended villages and towns to distract the world's governments and heroes from the subtler manuvering of the other groups.

Some AbMech also come through the Rift to oppose the Mechanoids. Since Rifts has classes for everything, it shouldn't surprise anyone that you can play as a Mechanoid as long as you use the old look and stats, and brace for hilarious misunderstandings every time you meet anyone. Ever.

[Ahriman238]

Ah, found the outlying errata! Sorry, no pictures.


Mechanoid Black Widow

A form of Mechanoid meant particularly for EVA operations on the hulls of motherships and battleships. The Widow is roughly the same shape as a Spider Fortress, but is far larger. It is 6200 feet (1.88 km) tall, the main body is 2178 feet (660 m) wide and long, but if the legs are at full extension the feet can be 13,000 feet (3.96 km or 2.5 mi) apart. It weighs 56,000 tons. It can skitter along a hull at 120 mph (193 kph) or fly with rocket boosters. It cannot fly or jump on a planetary surface. It needs extensive abuse of anti-grav just to stand.

Uses a plasma-based power system with a 600 year life. Has no weapons, but much armor, a crane and a tractor beam that can lift 20,000 tons, has a 7 mile range, and can affect a 1600 foot (488 m) diameter circle if pushing or pulling at something bigger than it can lift. Major psychic with all physical powers, telepathy, super TK and TK forcefield. Black Widows are often mistaken for drones since they are so single-minded in their labor, but will attack any human that wanders into sight. Standard sensor package, plus video recording and very large, very powerful spotlights.

Black Widows are made for space, to repair ships and assist in the salvage of asteroirds, planets and other ships. They only ever enter a real gravity well as crew on a Mechanoid ship, or if truly needed for some critical operation. In addition to repair/salvage duties, the Widows help coordinate logistics for all EVA work on Mechanoid ships, and command the Haulers.


Mechanoid Hauler

True Mechanoids, but somewhat dim. Their only concern is to move stuff from one location to another. They exist in three types of very different size and ability. Type I Haulers are spacecraft used for asteroid/planetary rubble recovery, have crews of nearly a thousand (including 50 each of the smaller kinds) and are 28 miles in the longest dimension. They have negligible sublight accel and maneuvering, and cannot be operated in atmosphere. All Haulers are minor psychics with telepathy, empathy and mind block. All Haulers have telescopic, light amp, IR, UV, polarizing vision and 10,000 miles radar, 50 miles in atmosphere.

Type II Haulers are surface to orbit shuttles, 600x1200x1470 feet (183x366x448 m) discounting the 4000 foot (1.2 km) wingspan, 135,000 tons with a 2600 sq ft (792 m) cargo bay. 200 mph (322 k) in atmo, 2 g accel in space. Has a laser pod for cutting things. Crew of 130 robots and 4 Brute 'officers.'

Type III are ground based, 1243x392x1962 feet or 380x120x600 meters, 250,000 tons. It has two great cranes for arms, and a tractor beam of 5,000 ton capacity, 20 mile range. Hovers up to 50 feet above the ground, apparently some part can detach and fly a thousand feet high at 280 mph (450 k.) No radar, no crew. I admit to having some trouble seeing the point in this one.

The first two Haulers have plasma systems with 100 year lives, the III has a power crystal that's only good for 70, as opposed to other Mechanoids.


Mechanoid Transport

Remember the grav sleds for Brains and others, and special grav pod for runners? Well the Mechanoids also have something that's basically a flying pickup truck. Or at least it's a vehicle divided into a pilot's cab and an open cargo area. 20x75x40 feet, 25 tons with room for 3 'normal-sized' (Brute, Runner, Brain) Mechanoids in the back. 500 mph (800 k) in atmosphere, 4 G accel in space, and can make escape or reentry without help. 3-barrel plasma cannon on the cab roof, nuclear power for 20 years.


Mk II Spider Fortress

The revamped Spider Fortress.

The main new feature is having 8 legs that (actually come up and down again like a spider) can automatically be redistributed around the base if one is destroyed, maintaining balance. The legs can also detach and operate independently as 500 foot (150 m) robo-snakes. There's also a smaller but no less armored lid up top, and a large bay for deploying Wasps and Skimmers, that can double for rapid deployment of ground troops if the Spider lowers itself near the ground.

Same dimensions as the old, weighs another 800 tons. somewhat better speed, 100 mph (161 kph) and can actually jump 30 feet high/long. Same crew, minus 40 Skimmers. Huh. Same weapons, shield, armor, and weapons. Can now deploy nerve gas for a 300 foot (98 m) radius around it for up to 4 hours and is replenished every 24. I suspect this is the same as the Tunnel Crawler gas gland on a macro scale.


Bridge Fortress

One of the signs of a mature Mechanoid ground base. After a time, the 1x2 km trench created by a Digger will be bridged with MDC materials, on settled worlds this happens every 1.1 miles (1.8 km) for the convenience of non-flying Mechanoids, and as a power/repair station for Mechanoids working or warring in the field and a way to further secure the base each bridge will have a small Mechanoid fort in the middle. The bridges, by the way are half a mile wide.

The fort will be garrisoned with 1-6 Runners, 3-18 Brutes, 10-60 Thinmen, Skimmers and Weevils, 10-40 Runts, and 2-12 Wasps. Depends how strategic the bridge is, if they're reinforced for an alert, etc. On worlds where the Mechanoids are still settling, each Bridge Fort can be responsible for and patrol a 10 mile radius. The Fortress itself is very tough, and armed with 2 great plasma cannon for AA, 3 tank-killing laser cannon, and 10 anti-personnel laser turrets. The Fortresses have full visual sensors and laser targeting, including telescopic vision of up to 4 miles, 50 mile, 1000 target tracking radar, 1500 foot heat and motion detectors and 500 mile radio range.

As (I guess) with other permanent structures built on contested planets, when the Mechanoids decide to destroy the planet they use advanced anti-grav (and perhaps the haulers?) to completely evacuate their bases into space. In this manner they arrive prefabricated at the next planet.

[Ahriman238]

and now, what you've long waited for

Mechanoids....IN SPAAACE!

Mechanoid ships remember have no conventional controls or displays, the pilots receive all pertinent data from their link with the Brain Pool(s) and direct the ship the same way.

Mechanoid FTL uses CG (contra-gravity) drive. It is similar to Star Trek Warp Drive in that it warps time-space to cheat relativity without ducking into some form of hyperspace. But where Trek warp drive works through something-something subspace fields, the Mechanoids use their mastery of gravity to seize the universe by the throat and demand their way, creating a gravity field powerful enough to warp space-time in the desired manner. Mechanoid ships traveling this way can go 4-6 LY per hour.

The skinny version is that most Mechanoid ships can cross the Milky Way on it's long axis in 2-3 years. The exception is the motherships, which have powerful enough CG drives to twist space-time into a wormhole they can take at 20 LY/hour. In short, they can make the same voyage in 8 months. The FTL is pretty impressive, but no patch on universes like Star Wars or Stargate.



Mechanoid Cargo Freighter

Exactly what it sounds like, a space freighter 3.4x4.3x7.4 miles (5.5x7x12 km) with 4 mile cranes and 11 square miles of cargo space. Can do 1000 mph (1600 k) in atmosphere, pull 8 Gs of accel in space and with CG drive can go 4 LY/hour. No weapons but a tractor beam.

Crew is 1-6 Brains, 2-12 Brutes, 4-24 Hauler III, 84 Thinmen, 200 Runts, a Mantis and a Black Widow.


Mechanoid Battlecruiser

The BC is a True Mechanoid, with a living and sentient component 2.5 km long, which is nearly omniscient regarding matters within it's hull and immediately aware if any part of itself is damaged. The BC will meekly submit to Brains and Overlords. The organism has also been engineered to subsist largely off radiation, so it can survive off the ship's byproducts and never needs to leave it's shielded chamber. There are 40 Brain Pools aboard the BC, and the primary organism can access any immediately but is not in continual link with all. The BC organism cannot control doors or elevators, and similar minor systems. The organism is a master psychic with all sensitive powers plus hypnotic suggestion, empathic transmission, mind wipe, mentally possess others, auto mind block, and super TK.

The ship body is 4x4.5x19 kilometers, or 2.5x2.8x11.8 miles. Sublight accel/decel is 10 Gs, CG drive is 12 LY/hour. Sensors are like the Overlord's with all ranges quadrupled. The ship has a powerful energy shield like the Spider Fortress' but more powerful. It can also shoot while the shield is up, and the shield can regenerate in 20 hours, but may take up to a week to repair if completely brought down. It still has to drop the shield to launch or recover Wasps and other auxiliary craft, and to fire the main gun. Plasma energy system, 1000 year lifespan.



The ship is armed with 30 particle beam cannon that are the main armament, 5 on each side of the ship with 180 degree turrets and 40 mile ranges. There are 300 laser cannon, equal to the tank-killing lasers of the Spider Fort, 50 to a side with a reach of 20 miles. 12 plasma cannon serve as a last ditch anti-fighter and point defense battery, 12 mile range. It has a spinal weapon, a Plasma Pulse Generator used to help slice and dice planets. Insane damage, 30,000 mile range, is lucky it it ever hits anything smaller than 1500 feet (457 m.)

Quite aside from it's own weapons, the BC can carry up to 200,000 Mechanoid troops. Typically this breaks down thus:

10 Brains
1,000 Runners
1.000 Brutes
100,000 Wasps (remember, they serve as space fighters)
10,000 Skimmers (same as above)
50,000 Thinmen
5,000 Runts
5,000 Assault Probes
50 Mantises (the engineering section)
5 Hauler IIs
3 Spider Fortresses

The BC can't enter atmosphere on it's own, hence the haulers to shuttle troops to the ground.



Mechanoid Mothership

The Big Boys. Even at the height of the Mechanoid's power they never built more than 50, now maybe a dozen are left. The motherships have gone through some changes originally the size of a planet, then the size of Jupiter, here they "could wrap around the Earth twice." The specific sizes given are 5506 miles high, 26040 miles wide (with some kind of wing) 18724 miles without counting the wings, and 55180 miles long. 10,000 year plasma power system. It has 5,000 hatches for Wasps, who even get their own high-speed tunnel system. Double the sensor range of the cruiser (10x Overlord.)

As previously mentioned, a mothership can create a wormhole and zip around the galaxy at 20 LY per hour. Sublight is 3 Gs of accel/decel. The mothership rarely enters a planetary system, so as to not screw things up with Roche forces, but it hangs back half a light year.

The mothership is armed with 6500 particle beam cannon with 400 mile ranges. It has 18000 laser cannon of mere AT level power and 2000 mile range. 1500 plasma cannon serve as anti-fighter weapons and point defense. Finally it has the full size PPG, which is pretty much the Death Star Superlaser. There's no damage listing, just a note that whatever this gets pointed at, a fleet, a planet, it dies.

Since the mothership can so rarely preside over the end of a world, it can do the saucer seperation trick and the main bridge with a "assault module" can lead attacks while the main body hangs back with the Master Brain and a secondary control center. The assault module is 3000x14000x14000 miles, with an accel of 5 Gs and a conventional 6 LY/hour CG drive. The assault module includes the PPG, no note on how many other weapons it has.

Crew for a mothership.

17 Overlords (so much for one per ship/planet)
12 million Brains
37 million Runners
40 million Brutes
600 million Wasps
12 million Exterminators
15 million Seekers
11 million Tunnel Crawlers
100 thousand Oracles

120 million Thinmen
90 million Runts (1/3 of them the repair version)
60 million Skimmers
86 million Assault Probes
48 million Weevils (yeesh)

12 million Octopuses
2 million Black Widows
40 million Haulers (all three types)
30 thousand Diggers
900 thousand Mantises


The armor, shields and weaponry of the mothership let it casually swat away the fleets of lesser empires. There are two established ways of taking down a mothership. Option one, kill the master brain and the ship will be reduced to 1/3 effectiveness while it uses the brain pools to make up the difference for the month it takes to grow a new master brain. Then, if you can evade the inevitable and vigorous manhunt for the master brain's killer, go nuts killing the brain pools. If you can get just 50,000 the Mechanoids probably can't get the new master brain online before some catastrophic failure. If you can kill a quarter of the 2 million brain pools onboard, you can bring about such a crisis within a day. This only works if the master brain isn't around to manage around your bits of sabotage.

Option 2, the complex power system, listed as plasma for simplicity's sake, utilizes both macro-scale energy crystal technology and hydrogen fusion. This makes the system hungry for deuterium, heavy water, which is harvested from planets. Near Engineering there are thousands of tanks holding over 10 billion gallons of deuterium. If you set off a nuke or high-power plasma bomb among the tanks, all of Engineering will be consumed in a runaway fusion event. The downside is the tanks are monitored for impurities, any bomb WILL be discovered before you can get clear, so it's a one-way trip.

[Ahriman238]

Well that's me about dry on the topic of Mechanoids. The aftermath of the invasion is surprisingly sparse. ARCHIE and Hagan are far more confident and willing to take risks, having learned that isolating themselves from the world wasn't protecting them so much as keeping them ignorant of the world they wish to conquer. ARCHIE has also learned much advanced technology from the Mechanoids, particularly in the field of anti-gravity. They also still have a factory spitting out Thinmen, Skimmers and Runts, only now the robots work for ARCHIE.

There are also some AbM who choose to stay on Rifts Earth and try to do some good, justifying the continued use of Mechanoid classes by players.

And now for something completely different in what will otherwise be mostly sci-fi.


Wormwood

Somewhere in the Megaverse, there exists a world quite unlike any other. An artificial, living planet half the size of Earth, whose existence makes a mockery of the laws of physics and magic both.

On Wormwood, there is little in the way of dirt, sand or dust, and what there is was imported from other worlds. There is a hard sort of MDC stone: pink, tan, brown, yellow, red, all the shades of human flesh. But it isn't really stone, and neither Warlock, Stone Mage or Elemental can move or break it. The ground is level, save a few rolling hills and some mountains made of an MDC resin that wells up from the ground. Periodically 200 foot stone pillars rise from the ground to provide landmarks, some have nubs or even branches that can be climbed. Whole forests of these exist in some parts. Occasionally one spies a resilient vine or shrub from some alien world clinging in a pool of dust.

On Wormwood, there is no freestanding water. No oceans or seas, no rivers, lakes or ponds. When it rains, which happens infrequently, there aren't even puddles. The thirsty ground takes all water into itself, where it wells up in pools and fountains formed where they are needed.

On Wormwood, the daytime sky is bright yellow with some blue highlights and sometimes a few wisps of cloud. At night, the twin orange moons light the sky. It rains but a few times a year, but 20-80% of the planet is shrouded by fog on a nearly weekly basis and angel hair, a white-yellow fiber like cotton but thrice as strong falls from the sky on a regular basis.

On Wormwood, a day is 25 hours long, just one more subtly off-putting thing. There are 12 hours of light, and 13 of darkness. There are no seasons, the temperature is 80 degrees almost constantly. For a week or two every year it will randomly become up to 15 degrees hotter or colder.

There is no agriculture on Wormwood, what would be the point? What tool could break the ground, and what could grow in it anyway? Wormwood provides little in the way of plant and animal life, but there are some worms and grubs that are edible, likewise a form of lichen, and in underground caves there grow brown and green vines that are edible and highly nutritious, the green taste of spinach, the brown of squash. These are the only indigenous plant or animal life.

On Wormwood, the environment adapts itself to the people, not the other way around. Where a permanent camp is made, buildings eventually rise from the ground, formed of the same not-stone. Fountains or pools come to provide water, a food cave opens up in the ground, moldable resin starts bubbling up in one place, and it starts to rain angel hair. Priests can accelerate this process, as well as call for water fountains or angel hair at will. This, among other things, has led to the widely-held belief that Wormwood was created to be the perfect world for human colonization.

There are no ley lines on Wormwood. None. Unlike all the heavens and hells and astral planes and known planets. An experienced ley line walker with some months to study the problem can achieve much the same effect as a line from an underground cave.

All the people of Wormwood are Mega-Damage, able to survive with minor injury events that would pulp a puny earth-man. Maybe it's something in the water, maybe the air, Your kids will be Mega-Damage if you spend but 5 months on Wormwood, or if they have a mother/father from Wormwood.



Long, long ago, Wormwood was a center of learning and magic. Some say the ancient Atlanteans created Wormwood, some say dragons, some blame various gods. Some say human life sprang from a fissure in the ground, some say humanity originated elsewhere and migrated to this sacred ground. Moving on, this all came crashing down one day in antiquity when a Shifter, arrogant in his power opened a doorway to an unexplored dimension (yeah, that never seems to end well in these stories) and released the Unholy from their prison. The very touch of the unholy corrupts and mutates Wormwood, turning the surface into something darker coated liberally with veins and tumors.

A thousand years have passed since that dark day, and the Unholy and their minions control the larger part of Wormwood. Some few cities remain in the south, watched over by the controlling Cathedral and the fanatical Knights. Wormwood itself is against the invaders, and raises great mountains to stall their advance, and further provides the Armies of Light with magical mecha called battle saints. But the Unholy have learned well to corrupt the blessings of Wormwood, and created great blasphemies, crawling towers and life cauldrons to help them carry through.

In an apocalyptic war between Darkness and Light, those who won't declare for either side, particularly if they "just came from another world" or "don't want to get involved until we know more about the situation" are subject to attack from both Darkness and Light. Here is a fallen world that might still be saved. Here is... Wormwood /GM voice.

[Ahriman238]

Okay, so around 80% of Wormwood is controlled by the Unholy Host. So who or what are the Host?

At some point in prehistory, having royally pissed off some god, dragon, demon lord or supernatural intelligence (they never talk about it, so details are sparse) the demons now known as the Host were banished to a realm of endless darkness. Like Wormwood itself, this plane is far off the beaten track for dimension travelers and is 'dark' in that it has no ley lines, rifts or other features that make it more likely to randomly stumble upon it. Even those who find it once are no more likely to find it again. The Host cannot physically leave their prison, but if there is a willing subject on the other side of a portal, they can possess it in a way more deeply connecting then traditional forms of possession (exorcism does squat to them) such that their physical body becomes one of the Host. However, the Host is now trapped within a physical body, and cannot hop dimensions as they once were able, unless they can get assistance from a mortal.

In appearance, the Host are pretty much what you'd expect. 10 or 13 feet tall, cloven hooves, very visible and protruding spine, ragged bat-wings. They seem like large diseased Wulfen, with an extra pair of eyes midway down their snout and bull's horns as wide as their shoulders. The Host are immune to fire, posion, gas, and drugs. They can fly, track by scent, have perfect nightvision and can see UV light. They can also regenerate, regrowing a lost appendage in just 3 days. However, their eyes do not grow back. They also can't swim, and holy water burns like acid.

The Host are master psychics with a mixed bag of powers. Astral projection, clairvoyance, empathy, telepathy, see aura, total recall, detect psionics, psychic diagnosis, psychic surgery, healing touch, deaden pain, sleep, auto mind block, group mind block, bio-manipulation, empathic transmission, hypnotic suggestion, mentally possess others, psi-sword and one additional super power. However, Wormwood is somewhat hostile to psychics, the living planet creates an interference that halves the range and quarters the duration of all psychic powers, unless obtained via Wormwood-created symbiotes, which the Host cannot use.

The demons' relation with magic is... interesting. When one of the Host first enters a world, he cannot use magic. When three or more occupy one world/plane, all become noticeably stronger and tougher, magic powers become available as well as a form of unconscious reality warping. Where they walk, the ground is blighted and all turns to corruption. Trees wither, grass dries, fungi grows, and the world generally becomes demonic, a suitable home for the Host of Darkness. It is this ability that allows them to corrupt Wormwood and use the powers of the living planet for their own ends. Once so empowered, the demons can cast chameleon, fear, repel animals, animate and control dead, life drain, summon and control rodents/wolves/flies, summon fog, eyes of the wolf, fingers of wind, wind rush, fool's gold, breathe without air, and globe of daylight. On Wormwood, they can also use most of the magic the Priests of Light use to shape and control the environment.

More than that, when 3 or more gather on a plane, one becomes considerably larger, stronger and more powerful. This is the Unholy, and he commands the Host of this world. The Unholy aside from being larger, stronger and more evil than his peers has a single special power called the Black Abyss, where he traps someone in a dimensional pocket similar to the realm the Host were banished to. The only way to escape this prison is to have a skilled Shifter, LLW, or Temporal Wizard on the outside to rescue you. Even so, success is far from guaranteed. The Unholy of Wormwood has had his top left eye removed, and can be identified as much by the eyepatch bolted to his skull as his size and power.

There are over 10,000 of the Host in the shadow realm, but only 19 on Wormwood. This is because they need willing hosts, who understand what they're getting into, to free their brethren. Such a man comes along, perhaps once in 20 years.

Among the Unholy's inner circle is Lord Lesion, his High Lord or second-in-command, loyal general and chancellor/vizier. Lord Krikton is the master of creating new life with dark sorceries, but aspires to usurp the Unholy and/or Lesion. Salome is a human shifter who has manged to become the close friend and pupil to Lesion, and queen of the demon goblins.

Of course, this is just leadership. The Unholy Host has many minions and servitor races. Which I
ll get into next time.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I once played a cyber-knight trapped on Wormwood. I did not like it there, not at all.

[Ahriman238]

Priests of Light/Darkness

Not having ley lines, lacking two of the traditional elements (water and earth) with fire being none to common either (not a lot of flammable things) magic on Wormwood has always been unconventional. Those who are unusually spiritual, who train through prayer and meditation, have the ability to link with Worwood and channel PPE into the living planet to reshape it to their needs. So it has ever been the local priest you call upon if you need angel hair, or a new house. I you think of Wormwood as an effort to create the perfect ecosystem for human life, priests are the system administrators.

In more innocent times before the Unholy host came, there were many religions and creeds on Wormwood. Now all but the Cathedral and a few monks have been extinguished, the Cathedral claims the true faith has been spared through the grace of the Light. I'll let you judge for yourself.

Anyway, here's a list of Wormwood magic, much of which involves the shaping of the living stone of Wormwood. Some will have to be explained soon, where I see a need I'll explain. As ever, questions are welcomed.

Create/Close Opening- make or remove door
Control Temperature
Create Burial Place- grave reseals after the body is placed
Create Water Fountain
Create Pillar
Create Shelter
Create Stairs
Create Tunnel
Create Wall
Destroy Life Force Cauldron
Heat Point- 1 sq. foot of ground/wall becomes as hot as molten metal. Good for starting campfires.
Hellfire- when ordinary fire just won't cut it.
Invisible to Magic Seeing- become invisible to all magical detection and scrying, including see invisible.
Locate Place of Evil
Locate Food & Resources- sense nearest water fountain and food cave.
Locate Home Town
Mold Structures- in case your house needs a basement or other addition
Open/Close Rift
Summon Symbiotes
Repel Symbiotes
Remove Symbiotes
Impervious to Symbiotes
Summon Parasites
Ride Parasites- mmmm Shai-Hulud!
Summon Edible Grubs
Summon Angel Hair
Summon Magic Crystals/Stones
Summon Wind- 7 mph/level
Summon Spirit of Wormwood
"Summon" Battle Saint and Orb

Plus Life Fuel, which is sort of a Wormwood priest's bread and butter. It lets you negate poison, cure disease, heal, exorcise, share PPE, and resist PPE draining/damaging effects.

Though it turns out you don't have to stay terribly spiritual once you develop the ability to link with Wormwood, the higher-ups in the Cathedral are pretty damn corrupt, yet keep their magic. Priests are almost a must in any party, and are frequently sent into Host-controlled Wormwood to bolster resistance movements.

Now, those who are devoted to the Host, particularly fallen priests, can develop a similar link with the Unholy and channel some of the reality warping corrupting influence of the Host. These priests of Darkness can use the same spells as above (minus summon Spirit of Wormwood and Battle Saint) with a few additions.

Create Life Force Cauldron
Create Magic Slime
Create Worm Zombie
Summon Flies
Summon Entities- again meaning malevolent spirits (poltergeists, possessing spirits, banshees and the like)

Like their counterparts in the armies of Light, priests of Darkness serve as vital infrastructure, creating food, water, shelter and all the forces of darkness require.

A life force cauldron is a pool of vile liquid. When someone is drowned in the cauldron, the PPE burst released on death does not dissipate, but can remain indefinitely, and be used for most of the PoD's spells. With a life force cauldron, a priest can summon Entities and send them to the strongholds of the Light to pester and bedevil them. The bones of drowned victims can be raised after a fortnight as monstrous worm zombies, and with a significant expenditure of PPE, the liquid inside can be changed to any of dozens of magic slimes that are used as potions and ointments. Special slimes that can be drunk mimic the spells; breathe without air, compulsion, death trance, domination, fear, heal, lesser invisibility, mute, negate toxin, reduce self (shrink to 6 in) sickness, sleep, tongues, trance, and words of truth. Slimes that have to cover someone to get the effect mimic the effects of; agony, befuddle, blind, eyes of Thoth, eyes of the wolf, fear, heal, mask of deceit, flesh to stone and vice versa, mute and resist fire. They also have slimes that place the subject in stasis, debilitate, restore and one that makes one invulnerable against magic, but incapable of casting. In all cases, drunk or applied topically, 2-3 sacrifices are needed to create enough for one dose.

The other main use of life force cauldrons is to create a life force battery, which the Host insist on calling a soul battery for the intimidation factor. This is a lumpy think with tendrils that attaches to up to 3 people and drains their blood and PPE. Never enough to kill, but enough to keep them debilitated. The parasite survives off the blood,while the PPE is used by the Hosts and priests of Darkness for various nefarious purposes.

Life force cauldrons can also be used to conjure plagues to send against rebellious villages or the champions of Light. See why the good priests need a 'destroy life force cauldron' spell?

Priests of Light dress in the medieval/Renaissance style, depending on how high they are in the church hierarchy, how close to major cities etc. You wouldn't think there'd be such distinctions in a world where cotton literally rains from the skies, but I suppose village priests don't have time for fancy embroidery. Priests of Darkness dress like the KKK in red, with black KISS markings on the hoods.

[Ahriman238]

I once played a cyber-knight trapped on Wormwood. I did not like it there, not at all.

Oh? Care to elaborate?


Battle Saints

The living mecha of Wormwood.

Battle Saints are the ancient protection of Wormwood, living mecha that bond with their pilot. This is actually sort of important, as the Saint's hit points are the pilot's times 20. They have a weird sort of organic, sort of 40K-style 'walking cathedral' look to them. 100-200 feet (30-60 m) tall by 25 feet wide and long, 20-40,000 tons. They have no energy or projectile weapons, relying on magic and sheer strength (and claws!) and they are actually somewhat stronger than most mechs, able to lift 1.5 tons.

The Saints can use the following spells 4 times a day: heat point, hellfire, call lightning, breathe without air (for the pilot and any other occupants) turn invisible (yes, invisible mecha) levitate and close rift.

The Saints run off an organic fuel and only carry enough for 24 hours of continual operation. When it runs out of gas, it will fall to it's knees and merge back into the living stone of Wormwood, becoming a small hill. Incidentally, the same thing happens if it's destroyed. The "Summon Saint" spell is just used to activate it and get it to rise from the ground. The Saint will spend a full day as a hill if refueling, or a week rebuilding if it was destroyed. The smart operator will let the Saint deactivate when not needed to refuel and repair. The Host has learned to build an armed camp wherever they defeat a Saint, to keep the Light from recovering it.

Alone of Wormwood and it's creations, the Saint and Saint Orb cannot be corrupted or used by the forces of Darkness. There are exactly 12 Battle Saints on Wormwood.


Battle Saint Orb

What first appears to be the floating head of a Battle Saint is, in fact, the floating head of a Battle Saint. Meet the Saint Orb, the Battle Saint's little brother. It's a large flying octagon, 12x20 feet in all dimensions, with a single massive eye in a triangle of exposed flesh and large stained glass windows to either side. In short, just like the head of a Battle Saint.

Orbs aren't so good at ripping up monsters with their nonexistent claws, and so focus more on magic. It can do all spells five times a day, breathe without air, create opening, call lightning, dispel magic barrier, negate magic, tongues, simple protection circle (protects it's occupants) energy disruption, fireball, heat point, hellfire, and invisibility again.

Orbs operate under the same fuel and becoming-landscape restrictions as the full on Battle Saint. There are 32 Battle Saint Orbs, though 12 are lost, perhaps for forever.


Spirit of Wormwood

Sometimes, when the battle seems lost and the priests pray for deliverance, there comes a Spirit of Wormwood. These sort of cloud/energy beings have a reputation as angels, because they sometimes deliver the champions of good from certain destruction and if you squint some of the tendrils together sort of look like wings.

The Spirit will bond with a person for 3-12 hours,grasping him or her in it's tendrils and hugging them to it so that they seem to have glowing angel's wings. While bonded to the Spirit, the user can fly at up to 50 mph at an altitude of 2,000 feet, takes half damage from magic and energy weapons, has a sort of minor forcefield effect protecting them, can sense evil, magic, and danger, may or may not receive visions of the future, is immune to possession and mind control in all forms and can sense the location and movement of any of the Host, their minions and crawling towers, water fountains, food caves etc. within 200 miles.

Priests of Light can unreliably summon Spirits of Wormwood, but aside from working a bit less than half the time, they cannot control who the Spirit will choose to bond with. Priests of Darkness cannot summon Spirits.

It is unknown how many Spirits there are, what they are, what they could want, or if any of these questions even apply to them.

Any human master psychic or knight can bond with a Spirit of Wormwood or pilot one of the Saints. The only lasting consequence is that the Host will take a special interest in their destruction, lest they ever wield such forces again.

[Ahriman238]

Symbiotes

Another unusual feature of Wormwood is the ability to spontaneously generate life. This is what happens when a priest casts summon grubs, a bit of the living ground transforms into a handful of edible grubs. But the fun doesn't stop there. Wormwood can, when appealed by priests, monks or wormspeakers, create a variety of symbiotes that link up with people and provide certain powers. There are 2 symbiote dependent classes, the symbiote warrior and the wormspeaker. All symbiotes are a part of Wormwood, and if removed from Wormwood will die within 6 hours at the most. Likewise either of the 2 classes I mentioned.

First, special mention should be made of two symbiotes everyone uses, even those who claim to never use symbiotes. First are tiny red Blood Worms, if you swallow three live they'll save you from most any poison and almost immediately stop internal bleeding. If three are inserted into a wound, it will immediately clot and heal 10x faster. They get summoned in batches of 9. Next are thin white Mending Worms, which applied in batches of 10 can close up just about any wound inside of 10 minutes. Mending worms are typically summoned in batches of 20.

You know, without all the demons and badness, Wormwood actually doesn't sound like a terrible place to live. A bit weird, and the diet would certainly take getting used to, but it's not hard to see the argument that the place was designed to be an ideal habitat for humanity.

Anyway, moving on there are a few more 'worm' type symbiotes. Armor Worms wrap around your torso, provide nearly as much armor as Dead Boys/Cyclops get and regenerates besides. Power, Speech, Seeing, and Spirit Worms are a bit different, they attach to the inside of your mouth, usually at the base of the tongue, so, get used to having a foot or so of writhing worm sticking out of your mouth, maybe for life. Wormspeakers have all 4, which is where they get the name. Anyway, Power Worms are longest and gray and give you 4/day energy bolt, energy field, energy disruption, impervious to energy and negate magical barrier. Seeing Worms are fat, white, and constantly pulsating. They let you sense the presence of the Host, and give 4/day eyes of Thoth, eyes of the wolf, and see aura and 1/day oracle and locate. Speech Worms are flat and grey, they give constant effect of tongues, and allow you to use calling and commune with spirits at will. Spirit Worms are the thin, purple ones that give 4/day water to wine, turn dead, constrain being, exorcism, repel animals and remove curse.

Are you grossed out yet?

There are three Star symbiotes, that are basically starfish stuck on your body somewhere. Glimmerstars look like clear crystal and attach to your wrist. give you the power to conjure a wall of sparkling rainbow light at will (that repels vampires and shadow beasts and nightlords.) makes you immune to blinding light and lets you deflect lasers with the star. The downside is it absolutely murders your nightvision. Mindstars are blue or purple and go on top of your head, they give you the powers of empathy, empathic transmission, telepathy, mind block and ectoplasm. Since the powers are symbiote-derived, and the symbiotes come from Wormwood, they are not subject to the usual psychic interference. The downside is a Mindstar makes you somewhat absent-minded, and more vulenrable to hypnotic suggestion. Magicstars are small, silver and sparkly, and can go anywhere on your head, neck or spine. The star gives you a small renegerating PPE pool to draw from, and lets you sense any rifts,magic crystals, life force cauldrons, food caves or water fountains within a hundred miles, and sense any of the Host within 1 mile. The downside is it drains PPE from all around, so your teammates may be permanently down 10% of their PPE, which will annoy any casters to no end.

Claws are like clawed hands that grasp you and never let go. Eye Claws have 3 eyes on foot-long stalks you can see through. Aside from being able to see behind, to the side and above you at all times, the eyes can see auras and invisible things. Tends to make it hard to sleep. Booster Claws go on your face, and the eyes on that side turns all red or black. This eye can now see the invisible, plus your health, PPE and ISP all increase by one half. Freakish appearance kills your PB (charisma stat) and the user becomes cocky and arrogant. Hand and Foot Claws attach to the appropriate extremities, giving the entire limb great strength and enabling it to move 25% faster.

Finally, Crawler type symbiotes look like bugs or lizards that sink their legs into your flesh. Brain Crawlers look like salamanders that attach to your head, make you immune to mind control and illusions while providing superb nightvision and see invisible. But say goodbye to a quarter your IQ points. Chest Wraps are bugs that act as living armor, exactly as good as a Dead Boys, but regenerating and halves damage from heat and fire. The Crown (of feathers and thorns) gives you great nightvision, resistance to drugs and poison and makes you immune to fire, disease, and curses, but takes a third your PPE constantly to live. The Spider makes you immune to poison and gives you a venomous bite, but must be applied to the neck or face and freaks people out. The Necklace is a centipede-like organism with a hard, gold-looking shell. It makes you immune to all poisons, gives a constant tongues effects, and makes you immune to the bite and mind control of vampires, it also makes you sense of taste far less sensitive and your voice hoarse.

Just three more. The Half Mask is a shelled thing with a hundred legs, but when worn if just looks like a half-mask. Well, it makes your face look like half a skull with an eye set in it, removing the eyelid and brow. The Half Mask is a perpetual mind block, the most powerful in the game. Psychics can get nothing from you, not even your aura. The downside is you cannot be the recipient of friendly powers ever again, and if you had any sensitive powers they're gone now. Oh, and even if the Mask is safely removed by a priest or similar expert you'll be horrifically scarred for life.

The two Medallions are beetles that look like a heart and skull respectively. The Heart Medallion gives a substantial strength bonus and ensures you never tire from exertion (you'll still have to sleep at the send of the day, but you can run or lift things all day without a break) but your speed takes a big hit. The Skull Medallion makes you immune to all life and energy draining attacks, including life fore batteries and cauldrons. The Medallions and Mask are still Crawlers, by the by, that may be important in a tick.


Wormspeaker

Wormspeakers are an unusual breed. They have magic, arguably more magic than priests thanks to all the mouth-worms and a connection to Wormwood. But it's a different connection, one that comes from having so many symbiotes, each still a part of Wormwood, inside them. They're more shaman/witch-doctor than priest, more intuitive than reasoned. They can use just a handful of priestly spells, create/close opening, create fountain, locate home, locate place of evil, summon edible grubs, summon symbiotes, remove symbiotes, ride parasite and destroy life cauldron. Wormspeakers tend to not be associated with the Cathedral or the Knights and have a more flexible morality. They'd never create things like life force batteries or magic slime, but if some falls into their lap they're not adverse to using it.

There is no such thing as an evil or turncoat wormspeaker, perhaps because they can hear more clearly then others the shrieks of a dying world. Wormspeakers start with all worms, including Armor and all the mouth worms (and a bunch of Mending and Blood Worms in pouches waiting to be used), and may add up to 5 symbiotes as they level. Many take some of the mouth-worms again to increase the number of spells per day.


Symbiote Warrior

The Symbiotic Warrior is a fighter, frequently a freelancer (mercenary) who also has piled on a lot of symbiotes and developed a faint connection to Wormwood. He starts with 4 symbiotes, 1 Worm, Claw, Crawler, and Star each, and may add up to 6 as he levels. His faint connection to Wormwood allows him to cast create/close opening, locate home town, and ride parasite.

Both warrior and wormspeaker gain bonus MDC from their more visceral, physical connection to Wormwood, but remember, they can never leave the living planet. Knights and Priests, as a rule, do not use symbiotes except the two healing worms. And the Saints and Spirits, if you count them.

[Ahriman238]

Parasites

Aren't actually parasitic at all, but are large monsters generated from Wormwood. In ancient times before the Unholy Host, Wormwood sometimes created the creatures as 'antibodies' against the odd invader, and carrion eaters to keep the environment neat. These days, while parasites are occasionally summoned and controlled by the forces of Light, they've become a trademark of the armies of Darkness, especially of Lord Krikton, who has created many varieties of parasite.

Parasites all take the form of arthropods or giant worms. A very few, like the Battler, are hundreds of feet long or tall and serve the Host as vehicles or, well, giant monsters to rampage and try to destroy the cities of Light.

So, Battlers are huge spiny things with rending claws and a spiked mace tail. Time to break out the Battle Saint when you see one. Ticks and Beetles are small enough to serve as mounts, and can fight on their own with great fanged maws and mandibles that can snap a man in two. Monster Worms grow to be 4 feet wide and 30 feet long, Tangleworms have similar size and grow tentacles.

Krikton Flailers are man-sized insects with long worm-like tails, they are his ideal minions. Krikton Leapers are Tyranid-looking 12 foot tall mounts that can jump 100 feet long/high, and reach a speed of around 100 mph (160 k) by leaping. Krikton Battlewagons are like larger, far more armored versions of the Leaper that skate around on wheeled feet and have 4 "guns" that shoot sharp spines. All are named in honor of their creator Krikton, who made them from whole cloth instead of corrupting and enhancing existing parasites like the above.


Crawling Towers technically don't fit anywhere, so I'll just do them now. Another feature of the ability of the Host to corrupt the very ground of Wormwood, the Towers are the typical base of the Host. Most are 8-12 stories tall. The main feature is that they are mobile, moving along the ground, steered by one of the Host or a dark priest at about 10 mph. In Host controlled lands, they serve as bases for patrols, especially of Sky Riders and Demon Hounds, and as secure sites for dark priests to hold their rituals and keep their life force cauldrons. For the Host on the march, the Towers serve as logistics bases, following behind the main horde. For a major offensive, the Host will something akin to an entire mobile city following them.


Temporal Raiders are common on Wormwood, have been as long as anyone can remember. Maybe they like a refuge where so few dimensional travelers go. Maybe it's their original home, who knows? In any case, a substantial number of Raiders and their Temporal Wizard/Warrior followers have declared for the Dark, a large number for the Light, and there remain many who are neutral, even indifferent to the struggle.

[Ahriman238]

Hello all, the Rifts threads yet live, I've just been busy.

First, thanks again to Terralthra for hosting pictures. Here's some that should have up been earlier.



The Host, commanders of the Dark. Note the resemblance to a Bloodthirster. 40K and Rifts have an interesting way of feeding off each other, and I really have no idea where or how it began. Did I mention the symbol of the Unholy Host is an eight point star?



The Unholy, leader of the Host on Wormwood.



A Dark Priest. The robes are red, as mentioned earlier.



Priest and High Priest of the Cathedral. No, I have no idea which is which.



Battle Saint, with a person for scale.



Battle Saint Orb.



Krikton's Flailer creatures.



Krikton Leaper with rider.



Wormspeaker. I wonder how he eats without killing off his symbiotes.

[Ahriman238]

Technology and Wormwood

Figuring out technology levels in Rifts is hard. Even the most primitive of people may have access through dimension travel to technology from the most advanced of races. How much harder then, for Wormwood? A planet where a moldable resin as tough as steel bubbles from the ground, it rains cotton threads on a weekly basis, and food for an entire village grows overnight in caves? Where priests can summon food and water, buildings and mounts from the ground? On Wormwood, there is no farming, fishing, or mining, and minimal craftsmen are needed. In fact, it;s sort of unclear what the residents of Wormwood DO with their days, before 'cowering before their dark overlords' became the main profession.

There's no need or use for most tools and technology on Wormwood, and the result is that your average resident has roughly the technological literacy of a medieval peasant. On the other hand, both sides raid and trade with other dimensions for technology and magic items to use in their war. The most common raiding victim is Earth, which has 4 permanent Rifts into Wormwood. The oldest leads to a mountain peak in Ethiopia and has been active since the days of Ancient Egypt. Then one in the Romanian backwoods, Calgary Canada and the ruins of Detroit. Temporal Raiders usually get blamed for the things stolen, and to be fair they often play a role in the raids.

The two most common artifacts of the outside Megaverse are motorcycles (much beloved by Hospitaller Knights) and techno-wizardry black powder weapons, enchanted to do mega-damage, but otherwise identical to the musketry and wheel-lock pistols we know from history.

On the other hand, there is a city called Stone Haven built entirely from imported stone, and a city of Greenery which is home to parkland containing plants from all over the megaverse, and is the only place on Wormwood with actual plants.

[Ahriman238]

As pointed out previously, most of Wormwood is firmly controlled by the Host, which enjoys a considerable advantage over the armies of Light.



Shades are elite warriors of the Host, cunning, devious and always keeping their heads in a crisis. They have a number of magical powers that are either always active or can be used at will, particularly tongues and fly, they can cast escape freely to undo any lock or binding and energy disruption (magic EMP) too. Their signature is shadow meld, which lets them turn invisible in any shadow and remain undetected even by spells that normally find invisible lurkers. They can see invisible things, and sense magic and psionics. Shades are immune to all poisons and drugs, resistant to heat and cold, but vulnerable to light. They also have a decent regeneration, can sense and are immune to the powers of vampires, can do 4 dimensional teleports a day, and are major psychics.

About 5% of Shades have actually defected to the Light, but tend to have trouble working with others or settling peacefully in a village somewhere, what with their appearance and reputation as the elite of the Host.




Worm Zombies are made from the bones of victims drowned in life force cauldrons, animated with dark sorceries and worm symbiotes summoned from an unwilling Wormwood. They come up 9 foot tall skeletons (and worms!) I can only assume by combining bones from multiple victims. Confessedly, Worm Zombies aren't great conversationists, being capable only of a hissing noise and a few simple phrases, but they make up for it by being very strong, tough, and very difficult to sneak around. This, combined with low intelligence, is presumably why they're more often used as security than frontline fighters. The only permanent way to kill a Worm Zombie is to decapitate it, smash the skull and incinerate the bone fragments. If you miss a step, it will completely regenerate within 24 hours and resume trying to kill you.




Entrancers are man-sized minor demons, blue with one eye, a pronounced jaw that regrettably always drools and a disturbingly long tongue. They are the Megaverse's masters of illusion magic and psionic mind control, and there really isn't a relevant power or spell they don't know. They are also psychic vampires who survive not off food, but from the emotions of people around them. Ironically, this makes them sensitive to and easily swayed by the emotions of their peers.

Like with the Shades, a minority of Entrancers (10%) are actually good people and will fight for the freedom of all. They tend not to be appreciated though. It seems like there's something in the "master of illusion and mind control" part of the resume that gives people the idea you're untrustworthy somehow. Go figure.


Ram-Rats are minor demons, like rat-men with the requisite horns and cloven hoofs. They can regenerate, see invisible and turn invisible at will. Other than that and the odd dimensional teleport, they don't really have useful powers. All Ram-Rats are warriors, thieves or assassins, most have the classic "cowardly bully" mindset.



Airfish, flying fish from some hell dimension known to the Host. 3-5 feet long, 50-100 lbs. Human level intelligence, but incapable of speech. In 'nature' they swim in schools of up to 40 fish, hunting largely by scent. The smell of freshly spilled blood is guaranteed to draw them in. On Wormwood, they serve the Host as packs of dogs, securing the crawling towers and other important sites, and helping hunt down parties of travelers or track escapees. They have decent eyes, particularly nightvision, communicate by telepathy and can sense evil and magic. They swim through the air up to 1000 feet, typically at the speed of a good sprinter, but can manage 6 second bursts of speeds over 200 mph. Again, they typically operate in large groups, which ups their threat level a lot.


Demon Hounds are pretty much what they sound like. Warg rip-offs with large horns and especially bony armored skulls. Demon Hound Riders, or br'talb in their own tongue, are humanoid D-Bees with the power to form a mental/emotional bond with a Demon Hound that lets them communicate telepathically over a distance of several miles, but can cause serious problems if one is slain.

About 15% of Demon Hound Riders on Wormwood are not associated with the Host, either good or mercenaries.




Sky Riders are of the same planet (Shr'ree by name) and species as Demon Hound Riders, but they come from different nations/tribes, and so have no problem with the notion that the other group isn't really 'people.' Sky Riders form a bond with the Feathered Serpent (pictured above) or Skelter Bat (below) and usually serve as scouts, cavalry, and naturally for raiding the cities and village of the Light for human fodder for the life force cauldrons and batteries, or as food for the Host. Ask anyone and they'll gladly tell you that Sky Riders are insanely reckless in battle, annoyingly arrogant on the ground, and quite cowardly if caught in a situation away from their mount and the freedom of the air.




Rumblers, or Rathos to use the proper name, are barbaric brutes. 8-10 feet tall, and resembling nothing so much as an ogre that got a good working-over with the ugly stick and grew some horns for good measure. Rumblers typically know a few low-level spells, and (outside of Wormwood) have decent Earth Warlock magic, which is how they got the name by making the ground rumble. However, the element of Earth is sort of absent from Wormwood, leaving the Rumblers with their core competency of hitting things until they break.



Demon Goblins are 3 feet tall and pale white. They delight in cruelty of all kinds, particularly torture and murder, and are cannibals and man-eaters every one. They make fine thieves, spies and assassins, and have little taste for straight combat. The Demon Gobbos are fanatically devoted to Salome, the Goblin Queen, who liberate them from a supernatural intelligence, indulges their thirst for dark deeds, and doesn't randomly kill them for bringing her bad news like the old boss. There is a permanent portal to the Demon Goblins' (Salome's) realm in the Host-controlled city of Goblins Gate.




Beastmen, second lowest on the minion totem pole and treated as cannon fodder by the host, are transformed humans. Said humans have sought out the Host and metaphorically sold their souls for power, by swearing a blood oath of fealty to a member of the Host, they are transformed into physically powerful creatures. They are also totally, physically incapable of raising a hand to the Host. They can disobey orders, but will generally suffer greatly later for doing so. Beastmen come in two forms, canine and armored. The canines are faster and can track by scent. The armored Beastmen are stronger and tougher.



Finally, there are humans who pledge their fealty and service to the Host, and bolster the armies of Darkness. They do so for wealth or privledge, or to spare their families the ravages of the Host, they could be brought, or even conscripted. When you face a man in battle, his reasons for wearing the eight point star don't usually matter as much as the fact that he does wear it. Basically, not all human minions get to be dark priests or even Beastmen, these are the true lowest of the low, the ones even Goblins can abuse freely.

[Ahriman238]

Apok

Psychotic Avenger.



There are 4 classes that always come up when people are discussing the coolest, or bitching about the most overpowered, character classes in Rifts (maybe there's a connection? Nah.) the Glitter Boy (oddly enough) the Godling, the Cosmo-Knight, and the Apok. Well. I've spoken of the GB and Godling in the main thread, and the Cosmo-Knight is next book, so let's talk about the Apok.

When a human champion of Light falls and joins the Host then has a change of heart, his prospects for the future are not so good. The Host doesn't like it when people try and leave them, and the Light isn't likely to welcome back someone who has already betrayed them once. Actually, they're more likely to put their head on a pike as a warning to others than anything, especially the Cathedral. If he becomes a Beastman, he can't even hope to attack the Host and go down in a blaze of glory. But there is a way. If someone with a repentant, shadow-tainted heart spends enough time in fasting and prayer, and molds a ritual mask from resin, sometimes a pool of bubbling liquid will open at his feet. He climbs into the pool, and if he is less than sincere or totally devoted to redemption is destroyed. But if his heart is free of hesitation or doubt, he will be reborn as an Apok.



The Apok is first and foremost a warrior completely dedicated to the eradication of the Host. His unique spiritual connection to Wormwood, which enables his mad quest for redemption, allowsh im to cast create/close opening, create shelter, impervious to and repel symbiotes, locate home town, locate place of evil, heat point, and a special variation of hellfire that does extra damage. They can learn others with time, but never a spell to transform the living stone of Wormwood into something else, be it parasite, symbiote or food grubs. His strength, resilience, endurance and speed are all boosted greatly by this same connection. Partly because of his new powers, but mostly by his trials and character an Apok is immune to fear, all forms of mind control, and can never be sensed or found with magic.

The Apok are not well loved, quite the contrary, they are regarded as traitors by both sides. The Host dread these fanatically driven warriors, who know their procedures and thought processes intimately. There is also the matter of the Apok being graduates of the Jack Bauer school of fighting evil. A Knight will never kill or torture a helpless and defeated foe. An Apok will ALWAYS kill a fallen enemy, but won't torture. Unless they think said enemy might know something useful, then all bets are off. And so it goes. The good man fears a powerful and unreliable fighter. The Knights will never trust a traitor and oathbreaker, nevermind one twice over. The corrupt men of the Cathedral know the Apok will destroy evil wherever they find it, and they have proven time and again that a priestly robe or family influence is no shield from them.



Every Apok's mask is unique. It is representative, how they see themselves at their lowest point, the most depraved and wicked they ever became in service to the Dark. During that same baptismal bath, the resin mask takes on new life and becomes a symbiote. The mask becomes indestructible, and can only be removed by the Apok it bonds to. It even more vastly increases the Apok's ability to endure pain and injury, to frankly insane levels for anyone not a dragon. The Apok is also a bit quicker with the mask on, but the major changes? While an Apok is masked, every weapon he wields against evil, whether a laser pistol or a butter knife does Mega Damage, twice as much as before. So, say a boom gun would do Double damage against demons, but that butter knife I mentioned would have it's damage doubled, then converted into MD. The second is a fear effect. The mask is already fearsome to behold, but it reflects the evil of those who gaze upon, and anyone who is evil will see in that mask his inevitable death approaching.

When you think about it, the Apok are sort of like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhes, if they hunted monsters instead of teenagers. But that's what they are to the forces of evil. Something that is a man, but somehow more. Implacable. Unstoppable. Something that shrugs off injuries that should kill it and keeps. coming. Probably goes a long way to explain the poorly-stitched hood and meat cleaver they're usually pictured with to.

To the Apok, the mask is a constant reminder of their crimes, but also of their commitment to atoning for those crimes. It is whispered that when the last of the invading demons are gone, the masks shall lose all power and the Apok will be welcomed back into the fold. Until then, they seek and destroy all forms of darkness.



There are, at most, a thousand Apok in all of Wormwood. The most famous is called the Confessor, having renounced any other name. It is he that took the Unholy's eye. He also murdered two corrupt high priests of the Cathedral, and was Erin Tarn's companion for much of her 6 month stay on Wormwood. Needless to say, even among the despised and feared Apok, he has a special place on the shit list of both sides. As he often says though "The Light knows my heart. Any who doubt me can do so at the point of my blade." You really can't take this class without a lot of self-possession.

So yeah, that's the Apok. Kind of reminds me of that one Star Wars "What If" comic where Darth Vader survives and joins the Rebels/New Republic. I imagine they get much the same reaction as Vader probably did, the "What, he's on our side now? And you believe him?"

[Ahriman238]

Magic Stones and Crystals

Grow on pedestals 2-6 feet tall, usually in the heart of the wilderness. They are extremely rare and valuable. Each pedestal will have one great stone or crystal in a central bud, and many smaller ones around the base, thus:



Magic stones, or blood stones, are by far the most common and comprise some 75% of all magic rocks. Blood Stones are translucent red and, with one notable exception, directly affect human physiology to achieve their effects. All stones and crystals are basically round, spherical, egg-shaped or in some cases forming discs. They range in size from marble to soccer ball.

Battle stones, the exception, double the damage of any weapon they're incorporated into, and double the strength of armor. Bio-booster stones can boost your choice of any one stat by 50% for a few minutes. Lesser bio-booster stones can only boost one specific stat. Bio-field stones can render one immune to radiation, disease and airborne toxins, impervious to heat and cold, fatigue, poison, and protect from evil spirits, animals, or parasites. Lesser bio-field stones can have only one of these powers. Healing stones can be used to heal wounds, burns, cure illness, negate poison, and induce medical stasis. Lesser healing stones have only one such power. Psi-booster stones boost psychic powers enough to return them to more or less what they would be without Wormwoods constant interference. Eye stones can be used to replace a missing eyeball and grant good nightvision, see invisible, see aura, sees infra-red, and provides a bonus to all skills such as tracking or forgery where a good eye is of benefit. Cat's eye stones grant either see invisible or night-vision, but can be worn or carried and don't have to be inserted into your skull. Pure stones cleanse any water or drink they are placed in. Spirit stones provide immunity to many forms of mental possession, emotional manipulation and mind-control.


The rarer crystals are clear and manipulate magic energy directly to do what they do. Crystal balls can be used to scry anywhere you've been on Wormwood, or a dimension connected to Wormwood by portal, the catch being it can't be removed from the pedestal it grew on. Energy cell crystals are straight up PPE batteries. Control gems, the rarest of magic crystals can be used to cast 8 summoning type spells a day, and boost the range, duration and number of summons a Shifter can control 5x. Life force crystals can be used to store someone's magic and persona for a time. The Eye and Heart of Wormwood are ultra-rare crystals that let the user cast some of the spells of a Priest. Magic booster crystals double the range and duration of all spells. The spell gems of illusion, protection, dimensions and destruction give the user access to 8 spells of that type. The spell gem of magic gives eyes of Thoth, magic pigeon, tongues, sense magic, dispel magic barrier, anti-magic cloud, negate magic and metamorphosis: mist.

Lesser spell gems can hold any 2 1st or 2nd level spells. Blank spell gems can be infused with any two spells the finder wishes to cast on them, but cannot be changed later. Light crystals give blinding flash, globe of daylight, and ignite fire. While shadow gems allow chameleon, invisibility and shadow meld. Finder crystals allow all of the Priest's 'locate' spells plus create opening.

Magic crystals and stones are extremely rare, the province mostly of the most wealthy on Wormwood, which means High Priests and Knights. Occasionally a peasant or freelancer may discover a crystal pedestal, but will usually quickly sell off the stones. Like symbiotes, magic stones and crystals are part of Wormwood, created and sustained by the magic of Wormwood. If removed from Wormwood they will immediately lose all powers and unless returned will dissolve into dust in six hours or so.

[Ahriman238]

Holy Terror

So yes, Wormwood is besieged and over 80% conquered by demonic forces, but it's not all doom and gloom. Why once, about 50 years ago, a Shifter found a world full of powerful magical beings, dedicated monster hunters who were sympathetic when the situation on Wormwood was explained to them and immediately mustered an army to support the indigenous people of Wormwood. It took the Host almost 6 hours to find and kill this Shifter, permanently severing the bridge to this world since no one, including the Terrors, know how to find it again.

In those few hours however, almost 4,000 Holy Terrors got through to Wormwood and have been putting up the good fight ever since. Over 1200 have died in the service of the Light.

Many think the Holy Terrors are heavily armored knights, or even some sort of golem. The truth is, they are alien beings whose physiology includes a carapace of living silver. Ten feet tall, seven tons, they have the magical ability to double in height at will, and invisibility. They can see perfectly well in the dark, and see invisible. They also shoot lasers from their eyes, lightning bolts from their hands, and can breathe 3 varieties of gas, sleeping, toxic and a simple smokescreen. They have 16 'spikes' on their carapace, in actuality spines of living silver than can be fired up to 16 feet and regenerate in a day.



They have a few spells, and cannot learn new ones. Each can be cast only twice a day. Fireball, magic net, call lightning, energy disruption, turn dead, superior invisibility (on others) chameleon, swim as fish, and heal wounds.

Their minor psychic powers include sense evil, sense magic, mind block and telepathy. In fact, telepathy is their primary method of communication between themselves.


Cathedral

The sole remaining religion of Wormwood, the Cathedral stands for hope and justice in a godforsaken world. But there is a growing worm inside the apple, a corruption that extends to the highest levels of the Cathedral hierarchy but has hardly crept down to the local village priests. More and more, the Cathedral fights not for good, but for it's own power and wealth. It's not terribly clear what the Cathedral worships besides vague and oft-repeated references to 'the Light.' The Cathedral is as powerfully pro-human and anti-D-Bee as the Coalition.


Temple Knights

The oldest, wealthiest and most prestigious of knightly orders, the Templar are totally committed to the Cathedral cause. With only the rarest exception, all Temple Knights come from a long line of Temple Knights and Priests. As the wealthiest of Knights, Templar are most likely to have off-world weapons, magic items, particularly magic stones or crystals. Like all Knights, Templar disdain the use of symbiotes, but will use blood and mend worms, and bond to Battle Saints, Saint Orbs or Spirits of Wormwood, will consider it a great honor.



around 40% of knights fight mounted, on off-world steeds or motorcycles. There is a distinct preference for 'noble' mounts like unicorns or pegasi.

Hospital Knights

Hospitallers are the more rough and crude knights, closer to ground level. They are less impressed with their own dignity and more concerned with the common good. They still swear absolute devotion to the Cathedral, but it's 4th in their vows, not first like the Templar, so the corrupt view the Hospitallers with suspicion, as the Knights most likely to make trouble and indeed, several have been expelled from the order for objecting to the actions of the Cathedral.



The poster child for the Hospitallers is Dorsey Pentecost (pictured) nephew of the Holy One's right hand Matthew Pentecost who has turned up repeated invitations to the Temple Knights and insists on shaming his family by associating with Monks, aliens, and even the Confessor.

A third of the Hospitallers fight mounted, mostly on motorcycle.

There are also a number of minor orders of knights, who mostly get swallowed by the numbers and rivalry of the Templars and Hospitallers.


Monks

Essentially priests who have broken off from the Cathedral, some over doctrinal issues, many because they have seen the Cathedral's corruption and/or believe it has fallen out of touch with the common man. Monks form communities that focus their energies on saving Wormwood from the host, ironically there is far more talk of enlightenment and salvation in the Cathedral than the monasteries, but so be it, the people of Wormwood need the demonic invaders gone. Monks are like priests with less spells, and martial arts training. They can get some special bonuses and minor powers depending on their focus of training.


Freelancers

Freelancers are a trifle confusing. Technically, a freelancer is any warrior not associated with the knightly orders or the Armies of Darkness. Some are levies, some adventurers, many are mercenaries who will fight for either side if the pay is right. There are many examples given of freelancers being hated, distrusted, even driven away. Yet all the major cities of Light are garrisoned with thousands of them.



For the actual Freelancer class, you take a basic fighter and roll or decide if he should be gifted with unusual speed and dexterity, great strength or toughness, an advanced weapon from another world, a powerful magic item or 3 symbiotes.


And yes, that should about wrap up Wormwood. I understand a third party came up with the Wormwood concept and wanted to draw a comic book, the 8 page comic near the start of the book. Siembienda loved the idea and asked him if it was okay to incorporate it into the RIFTS mythos. The comic (which would have centered on Lazarus Vespers, and involved Dorsey and the Confessor) was never really picked up. I do wonder if it all might have worked out better in that format. One thing that struck me was someone saying that Wormwood is like a Saturday morning cartoon of the old-school, He-man and Thundercats too-awesome-to-bother-making-sense set. I have to admit the justice of that. Another thing that sticks with me is that most of the classes and things like magic crystals or symbiotes are emphatically NOT to cross-over into regular RIFTS campaigns, and all the most interesting classes should be powerless, dying, or greatly weakened outside of Wormwood. Anyone have any closing thoughts, questions? Captain Chewbacca, I'd still love to hear about your experience playing Wormwood, since I know it only from it's sourcebook.


Later, we'll return to the sci-fi dynamic for a good long while, beginning with Phase World.

[Ahriman238]

Three Galaxies

Okay, most of the World Books with sci-fi adventure take place in the Three Galaxies, a sort of abbreviated galactic cluster where the Corkscrew, Thundercloud, and Anvil Galaxies are crammed into a section of space less than twice the size of our own Milky Way. The upshot being that the Three Galaxies are all pretty accessible to each other, and most of the major space factions own real estate in at least 2 different galaxies.

The Three Galaxies, between them have hundreds of thousands of habitable worlds, and 25 trillion or so sentient beings from over 3,000 species. There are 6 common trader's languages, one incorporates telepathy while 2 have multiple sounds and gestures to communicate a single concept to accommodate species that cannot duplicate a particular sound or gesture. These tongues are cleverly designated Trade 1, Trade 2, etc. Trade 4 is close enough to English that an English speaker has a 50% chance of understanding or making understood a given sentence with no additional instruction. Unless slang or jargon gets involved in which case, of course, all bets are off. All 3G governments recognize the Universal Trade Credit (UTC) as valid currency.

Tech levels vary some in the Three Galaxies, but less than you might think given Rift's schizo-tech. Trade is the lifeblood of any spacefaring civilization, so there's a fairly good general techbase. A lot of technological disparity will have more to do with economics rather than knowledge. For example, only the saddest of cheapskates, or races taking their first steps into space, will power their ships and stations with fission reactors. Fusion is the far more common power source but slightly more expensive, as antimatter is superior to fusion in every conceivable way but price. So it's how much one is willing or able to pay that is the restricting force, not a lack of tools, material or knowledge. So it goes.


There are 4 common forms of FTL in the Three Galaxies. Most popular is the CG (contra-gravity) drive, same as used by the Mechanoids. It creates antigrav by creating graviton waves, standing waves cancel each other out, and at higher powers it can warp space-time. 80% of ships already use CG sublight, and it offers some advantages over the others. Most ships can travel 8 LY/hour or about 70,000 c.

Phase Drive moves the ship slightly out of 'Phase' with the rest of the universe and it's constricting natural laws. Basic ships may only get 1 LY/hour out of it, but a ship well built for speed, with Phase Drive as large thrusters can make 10 LY/hour (88,000 c.) The downsides are that it has crap endurance, needing to drop to sublight every 12 hours for a fun 7-12 hours of recalibration work or risk going desperately off course, and that only one race, the Prometheans, know the first thing about phase technology and have a clue how to fix the things if they break. And funnily enough, while a number of Prometheans wander the universe away from home, they can be hard to find. If you need one, you need to go to Phase World.

Rift Drives, R-Drives or Magic Drives open a Rift and jump you through space a ways. There's mention of a hyperspace one spends time in between entering and leaving. Typically though, this is described as working a bit more like nBSG Jump Drive, they can teleport over a certain distance, then need some cooldown time before going again. The specific capabilities can vary wildly as far as the range and downtime, but this is usually how magicians get around, as most R-Drives require a mage to do his thing into a big PPE battery.



As with a planet, magical ley lines run through space, and they are especially thick in the Three Galaxies. In much of the universe, fold-space drives are also employed. Within the Three Galaxies, such devices are prone to catastrophic failure, presumably because of the increased magic. R-Drives don't work so well outside 3G either.

Let's get this out of the way then, the weapons ranges for this setting are absurdly short, frequently just a few miles. In a couple hilarious cases a few hundred feet. On a similar note, the Mechanoids gave ship's sublight acel/decel in gravities which made sense. In space, the ability to speed up or slow down is more important because short of light (or rather, the point where relativity starts jerking with you) there really is no speed limit in space. Well, in these books ships do have a top sublight speed, and it's given as a factor of Mach. And tops out around 25 times the speed of sound. I get the reasons these numbers don't work, I really do, and there's no need to remind me.


Okay then,

Secret Origins of the Three Galaxies

Long before any star you have seen graced the sky, there was but one galaxy. And from the primordial slime of one world in this galaxy arose the First, honored were their names and godlike their deeds. The First (hwtnagtd) were possessed of a great energy and boundless curiosity, the greatest and wisest of all the species to ply the stars. They laughed at gravity and the lightspeed barrier, they created and destroyed stars for fun, they explored the infinite Megaverse, built great crystal Dyson Shells, owned the Empire of a Thousand Worlds. But these things did not satisfy the First (hwtnagtd) who would be content only with total understanding and mastery of the universe's secrets.

So they found a space where realspace met hyperspace and created the Cosmic Forge. Theology is vague on what precisely the Forge was, an artificial singularity, a reality warper larger than a planet, a supercomputer that could master and channel the forces of the universe. Whatever the specifics, the Forge shone with a light visible throughout creation, and possessed a mind of it's own, a gestalt of the million of the First's (hwtnagtd) best and brightest sacrificed for this purpose. And the Forge churned out many galaxies until the heavens glimmered with light, it healed the sick and infirm throughout the universe and touched the First (hwtnagtd) with cosmic fire, making them ageless and giving them truly godlike powers. And the First (hwtnagtd) rejoiced in their creation.

But One of the First (hwtnagtd) did not rejoice. The One longed to be First among First and, being effectively immortal could afford to spend an eon searching until he found a way, maybe magical, maybe technological, to subvert control of the Cosmic Forge. As the Forge's controller, the One was effectively God, and his Word was Law. He first commanded the unmaking of all the First (hwtnagtd?) but Him, and it was done. He reveled in His awesome power... for about the 30 seconds it took the Forge to get around his control. And "Well, Shit." was the Word.

After disposing of it's would-be master, the Forge saw what had been wrought with it's power and banked it's fires, hiding from the rest of the universe in shame. From now on, only the truly worthy would be graced with it's touch and power. For as long as races have traveled the stars, they have sought out the Forge, that bright light that lit their skies in times long forgotten, driven by curiosity, greed, or the simple lust for adventure (matter of Fact, the Anvil Galaxy is so named for being long reputed as the hiding place of the Forge, but it has been well-searched) but none have ever found it. But sometimes, particularly if you live in Soviet Russia, Macguffin finds you! For the Forge still finds people, worthy champions to empower as Cosmo-Knights.

[Ahriman238]

Cosmo-Knights

Okay, I admit to dithering just a hair before doing this one. This is the one class that everyone seems to have a story or (more often) a complaint about. This is the class that's over-powered, in a setting where you can play as a Dragon or a Godling. And maybe I'm just really inexperienced with but the one campaign under my belt, but the Cosmo-Knights don't seem all that bad.


Okay, actual story. Cosmo-Knights can be best described to comic-book fans as the Green Lantern Corps, if instead of giving out power rings the GLC turned all it's membership into watered-down Silver Surfers.

From it's hiding place, the Cosmic Forge looks out over the universe, on the righteous and the scoundrel alike, searching for someone with that rare spark of determination, the marriage of strength of character to a moral heart. When found, frequently in the most unlikely places, the Forge appears to the candidate in a dream. In this dream the candidate sees some of the many possible futures if they become a Cosmo-Knight, particularly of death, disgrace, injury and ridicule, and are asked if they want to serve the needs of the entire universe. If the candidate is willing, the Forge channels a bit of it's cosmic power into said candidate (this is similar, and perhaps the same as the process that empowered the First) and turns them into a Cosmo Knight.



Basically, a Cosmo-Knight is an MDC creature with pretty good regeneration, totally immune to heat and radiation (to the extent a star's corona can be a comfortable environment) who has no need to breathe. Further, all energy weapons, plasma, laser, etc. do 1% of their normal damage to a Cosmo-Knight. The Knight remains vulnerable to physical weapons like railguns or bullets, and to magic and psionics. They can summon a regenerating MDC armor, that can be a plain skintight covering (like the Silver Surfer) or as elaborate as a Space Marine Chapter Master's Sunday best armor, or anything in-between. Depends on their own personality and desires. With the addition of their armor, if they rolled well on health, they can be slightly tougher than a Glitter Boy.

Cosmo-Knights can fly, 1-20 times the speed of sound, as much as their level. They also have an FTL ability in which they meditate for ten minutes (no rapid hop out of a warzone) then turn into cosmic energy and race 1-20 (level, again) light-years away. This process consumes PPE and damages them, but they or their armor will heal faster than they could jump again anyway, so the PPE cost is the only real limiter. Cosmo-Knights are always aware of their precise location in relation to the rest of the universe.

When a Cosmo-Knight first transforms s/he gains the ability to fire blasts of cosmic energy from the hand or eye (pick one during creation) This ability starts at 1/3 the power of a Boom Gun, and grows slowly more powerful over time until it is 166% of a Boom Gun. In atmosphere, there is a range of 4,000 ft. In space this becomes 5 miles. Cosmo-Knights can spam the blasts endlessly, but in space can burn a large amount of PPE to double the range and damage, or even more to increase damage by 5x.



Cosmo-Knights as mentioned do not need to breathe. They also don't need to eat or drink. In place of sleep, they need to meditate for one hour every day, and they can go for weeks without before impairment becomes an issue. It seems that Cosmo-Knights do not age, a common point with the First who also wielded vast cosmic powers granted by the Forge.

Like DnD Paladins (used to be) a Cosmo-Knight must live in strict accordance with the Knight's Code, or lose his/her powers. He may lie or break his word only in the most extreme of circumstances, must defend the weak, cannot torture or abuse prisoners, cannot show cowardice or abandon a worthy cause, must obey all local laws unless blatantly evil, etc. Knights are absolutely forbidden from seeking leadership, political power or office, and glory or self-aggrandizement (the Fall of many a Knight.) Though not a requirement, Cosmo-Knights are strongly urged to keep a secret identity to avoid celebrity going to their heads. Fallen Knight retian some bare-bones version of power, they keep half their MDC, energy attacks do half-damage, and they are resistant to poison/drugs. Less than 0.1% actually manage to redeem themselves, though many waste their lives trying, go mad, become crazed vigiliantes or outright evil.



Another signature power of the Cosmo-Knights is the ability to infuse a preferred weapon with some of their cosmic energies with a permanent MDC and/or PPE sacrifice. This weapon becomes shiny and indestructible, as well as a potent Mega-Damage weapon. It can be summoned and dismissed like the Knight's armor, and can be summoned to their hand (think Thor in the recent Marvel movies.) The weapon will further gain one of three powers, it can create an MDC forcefield, it can be 'charged' with cosmic energy to do extra damage when it strikes, or it can be used as a focus to fire a slightly more powerful and accurate cosmic blast. Only in this last case can it be a firearm, bow or other ranged weapon, in which case it will fire as normally (except now Mega-Damage) when not being used to fire cosmic blasts.

A Cosmo-Knight's weapon can be stolen, if it is restrained. Considering how close Cosmo-Knights are to their chosen weapon, this is one way to guarantee a pissed-off Cosmo-Knight will hunt you to the ends of the universe. Dicey, but one of the best ways to engineer a Knight's Fall.

Some planets and galactic empires embrace Cosmo-Knights, in the CCW they are usually swiftly recognized as deputies after a brief test of legal knowledge. Others consider them dangerous enemies or crazed vigilantes, like the Transgalactic Empire. One faction that sees little of Cosmo-Knights is the UWW (United Worlds of Warlock) since magic is a well-known Achilles Hell of theirs.

Cosmo-Knights are usually diamonds in the rough, people who have the right personality whether they were soccer moms or even petty thieves before called to service. One absolute requirement is that Cosmo-Knights are never mages or psychics. Maybe this is because the "port" through which cosmic energy would otherwise flow is taken up. Maybe the Forge is prejudiced, or doesn't want anyone to gain too much power, or figures magic/psionic users have enough power to do good or ill in the world already. Or maybe it's a pure game mechanic designed to ensure you couldn't have a draconic Knight which, to be fair, would be pretty broken.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I very much enjoyed Phaseworld and the 3 Galaxies. The random alien race generator was awesome, as was the opportunity to play a Cosmo Knight. I think the reason why folks didn't like them was because they allowed a PC to basically stand toe to toe against a heavy cruiser and survive.

[Ahriman238]

Yes, there's actually a really cool mechanism to roll 9 dice, come up with a funny sounding name and have your own species, with at least the beginnings of a history and culture and all the stats you'll need to fight it.

Alright, here we are once again with a Tale of Three Galaxies.

For reference, our own Milky Way is an oblong disc, 100,000 Light-years on the long axis. At the core, the disc shape is 3,000 LY "thick" or "tall" while for much of it's circumference it is 'only' 1,000 LY.

Of the Three Galaxies, the Corkscrew is easily the largest and most populous. It is 90,000 LY by 2,000, I usually think of it as being 90% the size of our galaxy which is technically inaccurate but close enough. Thundercloud is the middle size galaxy, 30,000 LY on it's long axis and 2,000 LY thick. The Anvil is a dwarf galaxy, 20,000 and > 1,000 LY.



CCW

The largest 'empire' is the Consortium of Civilized Worlds (CCW) and it's, well, it's the Federation packaged differently enough to avoid lawsuits, and with a few of the things that drive fans nuts tweaked or fixed. For instance, in the CCW's idea of a Prime Directive there is absolutely nothing wrong with landing a shuttle and telling the primitives that starships and interstellar civilizations are a thing, and they'll cheerfully set up embassies and/or trading posts. Now, they won't meddle in the internal affairs of a primitive people, and they definitely won't share any technology or science, but they WILL render humanitarian aid in a disaster. They're not apathetic monsters, they just don't want to take a chance of exploiting other people or getting involved in complex issues, which they'll cheerfully admit to the faces of people asking why the CCW doesn't do more for them. But they also treat even primitive people like adults and don't sneak around behind their backs taking photos like they were an interesting species of bird.

The CCW grew out of an alliance between the humans of Terra Prime (there's something like 20 planets called Earth, and twice as many called Terra, Terra Nova or some variant in the 3G.) and the Noro of Noro-Gar, a peaceful telepathic people, the vast majority of whom believe that they were divinely appointed mediators and peacekeepers to the entire universe. Add in the stubbornly honorable pseudo-Roman Wolfen, the Seljuk escapees from Jurassic Park and the radioactive Catyr and you'll have all the most numerous and visible of the Consortium's 200 member species from 5,000 worlds. The CCW covers a third of Corkscrew, half of Anvil and 20% of Thundercloud. 7 Trillion live in the Consortium of Civilized Worlds.

All the Consortium Worlds sign the Civilization Compact, they're big fans of minimalist government (funny as that will sound in a minute) so it's a bare-bones basic thing. Slavery is absolutely forbidden, all the undersigned recognize the right of all sapients to own property, and to democratically elect representatives to the CCW Congress, military conquest of sapient species is absolutely forbidden, and to ensure it all colonization missions must be approved by the CCW government. And that, as far as I've read, is the extent of it.

CCW government seems roughly American-Britain modeled. Executive power is held by a dozen Ministers, including a Prime Minister, all of whom are elected in a general plebiscite every 6 years. The power of legislation rests with the Congress. Every world gets at least one representative, with more being added as certain requirements are met for a greater population, or economic and military contributions. No number cap, so we're dealing with a legal minimum of 5,000 representatives, and probably far more. To save time, the Congress elects 200 of their members as "speakers" and only speakers are allowed to debate or ask questions, the rest listen and vote. Even so, the CCW Congress is infamous for it's ability to get nothing done. Then you have the Galactic Courts, the one system guaranteed to move slower than the Congress.

I won't lie, there's a serious dark side to the Consortium. With all this weak government, there are a couple dozen brutal dictatorships that have realized they can get all the benefits of CCW membership so long as they mind the letter of the Compact, which really does nothing to prevent a great many possible abuses. Chattel slavery may be outlawed, but indentured servitude certainly isn't... Even so, these represent less than 0.5 percent of the CCW. On the other side of horrifying, the CCW has 20 'Utopia Planets' that are obscenely wealthy, beautiful, populous (10-20 Billion, with none of the expected issues like crowding or pollution) where the average life expectancy is double that of the rest of the Consortium and where the poor are, by the standards of the rest of the galaxy, upper-class. Naturally, immigration is tightly controlled. Being wealthy, with useful skills and no criminal record may not get you in, but anything less guarantees you have no shot.

The CCW maintains a very strong defensive force, even the Noro recognize the necessity of self-defense in a violent universe. Consortium Armed Forces Fleet Command (CAFFCO) trains their officers to be highly flexible, technically and scientifically literate, and able to use their initiative. The hope of every young officer is that they will prove worthy and be moved from the regular CAF defense force to the elite Discovery Corps to explore strange new worlds. Yes, they have a military that does some exploration, and holds the explorers up as an example, but at the end of the day it remains a military and there are far more men standing a post than studying some nebula. Be still my heart.

Other than that, the Consortium has a combined FBI/CIA agency (dangerous to mix police and intelligence functions like that) called GalSec. Aside from investigating crimes that involve spacers or multiple worlds, they provide intelligence on and covert operations against the Consortium's enemies. Because they're not idiots and not the totally squeaky-clean Federation. The final major agency is TVIA, which investigates breach of the Compact, the Prime Directive, or abuse and exploitation of primitives. TVIA has recently been rocked with corruption scandal, losing much of their credibility and is now obliged to spend a great deal of time and effort policing itself. The three-way service rivalry between TVIA, GalSec and the CAF is legendary, and shootouts between the forces, though rare, are not unheard of.



TE

Next greatest by population and space is the Transgalactic Empire (TE) with 6 trillion residents covering one third of each of the Three Galaxies. The Empire is an outgrowth and refinement of the earlier Kreeghor Dominion.

See, the Kreeghor are a race of lizard-men, 6-8 feet tall, much stronger and tougher than humans, with better reflexes and mild regen. They were either created or uplifted (I don't know if even they know) by the Splugorth to serve as shock troopers. But some millennia ago, they overthrew the Splugorth and started their own interstellar empire. Since they've always had a warrior culture and something to prove, they set out to conquer the universe. It's a bit sad, but the present Empire is a huge improvement on the old Dominion. They used to kill and enslave everyone they defeated, and acted like dumb thugs in all things. Now they let some worthy species become subjects, still second class citizens to a Kreeghor born, and while universal domination is still the ultimate goal, they've come to understand that diplomacy can undermine their enemies far more effectively than brute force.

The Kreeghor are now a minority in their own polyglot empire, composing a quarter of the population. Like the CCW, they have a sizable Human and Wolfen population. They also have Machine People, reproducing androids of living metal (T-1000) um... more on them later. And Silhouettes, shadow people skilled in magic.



There are about a million Royal Kreeghor, a subspecies that is larger, stronger, has 10x the regeneration, is immune to mind control, and has considerable magic and psychic powers, unlike the more mundane examples of the species. This group is not the creation of the Splugorth, but appeared around the time of their rebellion quite suddenly and mysteriously (like the Ethereal Caste) leading many to speculate that the Kreeghor really just swapped their public masters for private ones. Royal Kreeghor are very nearly above the law. The Kreeghor are ruled naturally by an Emperor, chosen every thousand years from among the Royals. The Emperor has upgraded from 'considerable' psychic and magic powers to 'vast' powers. When a new Emperor is chosen, the old one accompanies him into the palace catacombs, and only the new one emerges with all the powers of the old. Even the fanatical palace guardsmen have no idea what they protect down their.

Probably a good thing, because the conspiracy theorists are right. Beneath the palace lies the Dweller Beneath the Palace, the (probably) mad supernatural intelligence that really rules the Empire. Like many such intelligences, the Dweller survives off suffering and blood sacrifice, and the suffering of a police state and the sacrifice of everyone killed by or in the name of the Empire have glutted it and made it insanely powerful. Ultimately, the Dweller wishes to physically and psychically consume the entire Megaverse. To get there, it wishes to devour the Cosmic Forge and steal it's power. But first it has to find the Forge, and conquering the Three Galaxies strikes the Dweller as the best way to look for it. Only the Emperor, and a handful of Kreeghor Witches recruited by the Dweller, so much as suspect the truth.

Outside of that, the Kreeghor remain a culture of warriors, and most of their population, even scientists and bureaucrats usually serve the war machine in some way. The Kreeghor contempt for matters outside of fighting has lead them to leave much of the administrating in the hands of their subjects, particularly humans, though the Emperor and his Privy Council are all Royal Kreeghor. In fact, they don't even care that how normal corruption has become. As long as the trains run on time, who cares how many paper-pushers are skimming off the top?

A consistent frustration of the Kreeghor has been their ongoing failure to duplicate Splugorth bio-wizardry. But their experiments with genetics have turned up a process for giving random superpowers that is 50% effective! The other half, of course, being subjects who die in terrible agony. Volunteers for this process are inducted into the Invincible Guard, the Emperor's fanatic bodyguards and personal agents, and the Empire's answer to those pesky Cosmo-Knights that keep causing trouble.

The Kreeghor have (for the moment) an uneasy "peace" with the CCW where both sides recognize that war would be disfavorable at this time, but also that it has happened before and inevitably will again. Both sides engage in proxy wars and undermine the other economically and diplomatically wherever possible. Most recently, (like, 70 years ago) some two dozen TE planets in Thundercloud have rebelled against the Empire and formed a "Free World Council" and thanks to the rebel's own cleverness, mercenary fleets, intervention by Cosmo-Knights and sabotage by GalSec, the rebellion has not yet been crushed like tiny insects. In fact, it's become an ever-growing pain in the backside.



UWW

The United Worlds of Warlock (UWW) are the largest magical star empire in the Three Galaxies. Never-mind it's the only major magical empire besides the Splugorth. The UWW claims 20% of the Anvil, a handful of planets in Corkscrew, and some 500 billion souls. The Union came about when the Elven Star Kingdom formed an alliance with the Warlocks of Tempest (nasty planet that's pretty much an Elemental's playground) to resist the Splugorth, which largely failed until their magic SOS was received and answered by the Dwarven Guildmasters. So Space Elves, Space Dwarves, and human spellcasters all formed a sort of government. The UWW is the only government that's a lighter touch then the CCW, they don't even forbid members from warring with each other, but if they pick a fight with an outsider, they're officially out and on their own.

The UWW has a Parliment with two representatives of each planet and the entire governing councils of the founding members. They have a president, though he's called a consul (King Silverlight of the Elves, now serving his 102nd consecutive term) and an election once a decade. The Warlocks are friendly trading partners of the CCW, on somewhat frostier terms with the Kreeghor, and actively support the Free World Council.

There's also a Dwarven Forge World called the Smithy. That is all.




Splugorth

The Splugorth in the Three Galaxies are a bit thin on the ground, mostly because of those damn Cosmo-Knights, and the many failed invasions of Phase World, though every other spacefaring civilization deserves some credit. 80 billion Minions and a mere hundred worlds. It's gotten so bad, the Splugorth have fractured into 4 distinct kingdoms, each ruled by one actual Splugorth, and spend more time fighting each other than their enemies, though raids by Splugorth slavers remains a constant danger in the Three Galaxies.




Paradise Federation

A series of 26 vacation worlds scattered throughout the galaxies, administered by the Paradise Foundation independent of any government. The Paradise Federation offers every possible entertainment and vice, and their extensive drug and slave trafficking has driven the CCW to try and shut them down or at least stop their citizens from going so much, but every attempt has failed. Supposedly, the Naruni support the Federation.




Mechanoids

The Mechanoids exist in the Three Galaxies, luckily for all humanoid life the Mechanoids that exist now are a pale remnant of their once terrible glory, and the Mechanoids in the Three galaxies are just a small fragment of their much depleted race. Of course, all it takes is one Runner to be left alone for a couple of years and the Mechanoids are a going concern again. But their numbers are limited enough that instead of rolling over the galaxies in a great wave, a handful of ships a year vanish, sometimes a colony world goes dark, then someone catches on and sends a massive fleet in panic mode to wipe out the Mechanoids. They succeed, at great loss of life, but a couple of Mechanoids escape and after some months or years we start over. Nobody wants to deal with the Mechanoids in force.




Dominators

AKA, the reason there aren't any elder races.

Take the most badass version of Darkseid you can think of (no, Smallville doesn't count. Go read a comic book or watch the DCAU) now take away the Omega Beams but compensate by making him a giant with a star-splitter ax. Then you have a Dominator.



50,000 years or so ago, the Dominators declared a genocidal war on the universe, or rather the Three Galaxies, and won. All their enemies were dead or quite literally bombed into the Stone Age. Mind, they did sort of lose their homeworld, and most of the population. In fact, there were only a couple hundred survivors who scattered through out the cosmos in their personal Death Stars. What's that? Oh yes, every Dominator ship is moon-sized and planet-blowing up.

The Dominators are vastly technologically superior to everyone in the Three Galaxies, except perhaps the Mechanoids. They live only to fight and conquer and prove their superiority to all others.

On a personal level, each Dominator is ~30 feet tall and 10 tons, they are incredibly tough and strong, with superior senses to a human. They are ageless, virtually immune to psychic powers, but take double damage from magic. Most are armed with a Starsplitter, an ax or halberd that channels cosmic energy to do immense damage and can fire cosmic blasts more powerful than a mid-level Cosmo-Knight. They also have plasma guns as or more powerful than most ships' cannon, heavy MDC armor and "Collector Bubbles" that encase their intended captives.

The apparent agelessness and casual handling of cosmic energy has led many to suspect that the Dominators are in fact the First. Cosmo-Knights consider Dominators a terrible threat, and will drop any lesser quest or enemy to pursue even a rumor of a Dom. The Splugorth hate and fear the Dominators above all others, for they have managed to kill several dozen actual Splugorth, the supernatural intelligences, a feat as yet unmatched by all the heroes and gods of the Megaverse.

That's all I really have for the moment, but I'm pretty sure they get expanded on later.


Whew, and I haven't even gotten to Phase World, Star Hive and the Naruni. Don't worry, they'll be coming up quick. Then when we're clear on who's who and everyone can keep track without a scorecard (and maybe get a couple of classes dealt with) we can get to picking apart ship stats.

[Ahriman238]

Phase World

Between the boundaries of the Transgalactic Empire and the Consortium of Civilized Worlds in the Corkscrew Galaxy is the planet that is called the center of the universe. Phase World may not be the literal center of the universe, but it's pretty near the center of the Three Galaxies, and every major trade route ends there, where a third of the trade of every empire winds up.

Phase World is home to the Prometheans, a race of aliens that look like the Thing (Fantastic Four, not John Carpenter) if he were made of concrete instead of brick. Quite aside from laughing at heat and radiation, and feeling no need to breathe, and being moderate psychics, every Promethean has the ability to step ever so slightly out of phase with the rest of the universe, effectively teleporting up to a mile away, and they're always just do slightly out of phase that Mega Damage weapons do only standard damage. With time and training, they can develop this ability into an entire range of formidable phase powers, quite distinct from magic or psionics.



More, they have developed a number of technologies incorporating or duplicating their abilities, from OP fields that let you turn intangible to FTL drive to punishing weapons that ignore armor, Phase technology is incredibly useful, but only Prometheans can understand or service it. Prometheans are usually fairly disdainful towards magic, but a few learned Temporal magic from some Temporal Raiders and it's been spreading through their culture ever since, a Promethean Time Master is a foe to be dreaded.

Promethean society is a gerontocracy, the old people make the rules. Prometheans have two main cycle to their life, and what would normally be considered an entire life of several thousand years is to the Prometheans what happens before they can reach full maturity. In their 'adult' stage a Promethean is 30 feet tall (9 m) and their phase powers increase a thousandfold. Their minds also expand, becoming things of incredible complexity. They are like Elementals in that their minds are so alien trying to communicate is effectively pointless, and they hand down decrees with no greater justification than BECAUSE WE SAID SO.



Because an entire lifetime is seen as a learning experience, Prometheans take their "ape shall not kill ape" seriously, even the most vile of criminals might be redeemed, and only the most extreme of circumstances (or inanity) will compel a Promethean to kill one of his own kind.

Phase Powers

Anti-Phase- negate phase powers
Close Rift- closes Rifts, like spell
D-Phase- walk through walls
D-Shift Distance- distances become ten times greater/lesser
D-Shift Ghost- intangible AND invisible
Dimensional Leap- LOS teleport
Fast Draw- summon object to hand
Multi-Phase- create insubstantial dopplegangers, swithc places with them at will
Phase Blast- like Phase Beamer weapon, cause considerable damage
Phase Field- forcefield reduces incoming damage by 90%
Phase Warp: Confuse- "curse" someone to misjudge distances
Phase Warp: Displace- short range teleport
Phase Warp: Split Persona- send your arm or head somewhere else, like behind the bad guy
Spatial Distortion: Self- distort space to make weapons miss you
Spatial Distortion: Other- protect others with spatial distortion, can mess with their senses


The greatest jewel of Phase Technology is the Space Gate, the fourth form of common FTL travel. A Space Gate can pluck a ship from anywhere in the same universe and bring it to Phase World, so long as it has a Phase transceiver. This same transceiver allows the Gate operators to scan the entire ship, in case it's a war ship or loaded with explosives, before summoning it to them. There are 64 Space Gates, all of them at Phase World. So a ship can arrive from anywhere to Phase world within seconds, effectively halving their trip if they were going to Phase World and back, or crossing the galaxy and saving a year on their trip. Is it any wonder that Phase World sees a thousand ships a day?

Most business takes place on one of the 16 city-sized space stations that also contain the greatest shipyards in the Three Galaxies but some people just can't resist visiting the surface. The Elders have commanded that off-worlders can't freely wander about, so all visitors are routed to the great city of Central.

Central is effectively, ok literally, a Hive City. A white mountain a mile high made from some indestructible material (at least the biggest nukes known couldn't produce a scratch nor a singe mark) with the most advanced phase tech anyone's heard of. Food dispensers conjure food from somewhere when payment, even barter is placed on the tray, and the trash barrels and toilets empty into the gas giant in system. The Prometheans have been using Central for over 5,000 years as their primary spaceport, but admit that they didn't build it but found it, lowball guess is a million years old, leading some to proclaim it the work of the First. The city is divided into 10 cavernous levels, each 500 ft high, but the Prometheans and others have added internal walls, floors and other dividers. Like any self-respecting Hive, the lower you go the more wretched everything is.

Aside from the Spaceport, Phase World is one of the most active Rift worlds known, second only to Earth and maybe the Plains of White Mist, and Central is built right on top of their largest nexus point, seven lines each leading to another major nexus point. What this means, aside from a lot of Rifts dumping random monsters and people into the underhive, is that Phase World is a major interdimensional trading hub and can maintain 1280 permanent portals to other worlds, including no less than 5 to Earth and 2 to Wormwood. The Wormwood Portals lead to the near centers of the strongholds of Light and Dark respectively, and a handful of heroes use them for raiding the Unholy. Less than 50 people in all the megaverse know about these portals, for reasons unknown the Prometheans have gone to an awful lot of trouble to conceal the existence of Wormwood from both the Splugorth and the Naruni.

Anyways, Central is pretty much the Wild West. Promethean security doesn't care about anything as long as it doesn't directly threaten the city, the planet, or the smooth operation of the spaceport and portal park on level 2. If you mess with those, well teleporting security isn't fun, and they keep hundreds of mages and phase adepts on the books to deal with esoteric threats. So drugs, slavery it all goes. The Splugorth and Naruni both have a very active presence in Central. Why on at least two occasions open warfare has broken out between sections of the city and the only response from security was to isolate the warring areas from the rest with forcefields and let them fight it out. This has led many sections to hire their own security and set their own laws.

Wealthy advanced Phase World is a tempting prize, but it;s defended by an awful lot of Prometheans using Phase technology that hasn't made the open market, and despite many attempts Phase World has never come close to falling. Good thing too, all the trade relations would make that the equivalent of sacking Rome. The Splugorth have lost billions of lives, 5 of their own and more resources than they now have in the Three Galaxies trying and failing to conquer Phase World.

[CaptainChewbacca]

5 of their own what, worlds?

[Terralthra]

5 actual Splugorth.

[gigabytelord]

5 actual Splugorth.

The three galaxies haven't been kind to the Splugorth, it seems that they have met their match in some of its inhabitants.