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- Jan 30, 2026
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Ok so Rifts.
And
This is the what the hell is this game post. The other thread is the actual table. Read this first if you have never touched it. If you have, still read it because I am running a specific slice and not the whole toybox on night one.
Earth used to be a golden age tech world. Flying cars, mega cities, all the usual future crap. Then the ley lines woke up and ripped the planet open. That event is the Coming of the Rifts. Most of the old world died in storms, monsters, and holes in the sky. The calendar now is P.A. Post Apocalypse. We are a couple hundred years later and the place is still not okay.
Ley lines are rivers of magic energy running through the ground. At night a lot of them glow blue. Where two or more cross you get a nexus. A nexus can tear a Rift. A Rift is a hole to some other world, some other time, or some other kind of hell. Sometimes a wizard opens one on purpose. Sometimes a bakery oven sits on a weak spot and starts humming. Both count.
Magic runs on P.P.E. Potential Psychic Energy. Psychics run on I.S.P. Same idea, different battery. Tech never left. So you get laser rifles, rail guns, power armor, cybernetics, and robots standing next to guys who throw lightning because a line in the dirt said so. That mix is the whole joke of the setting. It is not D&D with guns. It is not Fallout with a wizard hat. It is both of those and a demon arguing over a parking lot.
What comes through the holes is not one thing.
D-Bees are dimensional beings. Aliens. Some look almost human. Some do not. A lot of them are just people who fell in and now live here. Some are trouble. Most of them are trying to eat and not get shot.
Demons and the actual supernatural are a different pile. Not the same as a D-Bee. Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers can smell that difference. If it is a hungry thing from a bad world it does not get the same benefit of the doubt as a guy with extra eyes who pays rent.
Then there is leftover human war gear from before the end plus all the new ugly toys people built after. Glitter Boys. SAMAS. Borgs. Juicers who burn themselves out on drugs to move like a nightmare for a few short years. Crazies with metal in their heads. Cyber-Knights with psi swords trying to act like knights in a slum.
Mega damage is the ugly math. Normal people are still meat. A hunting rifle does not mean much to a demon or a guy in Coalition armor. Mega-Damage weapons and Mega-Damage armor are how you stay in that fight. Street level still matters because most of the Burbs is meat in a coat. You can be dangerous without being a walking artillery piece. If you stand in the open like an idiot you still get deleted.
North America in one pass.
The Coalition States are the big human empire. High tech. Human first. They hate magic. They hate D-Bees. They keep psychics on a leash if those psychics work for them. Soldiers wear black skull armor and people call them Dead Boys because of the suit and because they shoot first. Capital is Chi-Town. It is a fortress city the size of a mountain in old Illinois. Inside the walls it is lit, powered, clean, and safe if you are the right kind of human. Outside the walls is everybody else.
ISS is Coalition internal security. They kick doors in the slums when they want mages, unregistered psychics, D-Bees, or a body for the report. Dog Boys are mutant human dogs they bred to sniff the supernatural. Some desert. Psi-Stalkers do a similar job without being dogs. City Rats are the locals who know which roof you can run and which cop takes a bribe.
Other map pieces exist. We are not starting on them.
Federation of Magic to the east. Wizards and worse.
Lazlo and places like it try to make humans and D-Bees live together.
Mexico has vampires.
The New West has cowboys, dinosaurs, and guns.
Atlantis came back and it sucks.
Bugs up north.
Gods, dragons, and alien machines wherever a Rift feels like being funny.
If this table slaps we can leave town later and go hunt vampires or dinosaurs. Not day one.
Chi-Town is the mountain. The Burbs are the slums stacked against it for miles. Shacks. Old concrete. Black market stalls. Apartments on apartments. Millions of people. No official rights. The Coalition treats Burb rats as squatters. You can wait years hoping they let you into the city. Most people die still waiting. Old Towns in the Burbs try to look respectable and kiss Coalition ass. Shanty towns do not ask your real name.
That is the world. Now the kind of game I want.
I do not want the war for the continent. I do not want a prophecy. I do not want you opening a Rift in post three and dragging your cousin in from Hades. I want local messes in a dirty square of the Chi-Town Burbs.
FIREHOUSE NO. 4
Supernatural pest control.
The party inherits, steals, or gets dumped with an old firehouse in one of the slummier Burbs. Last owners left a sign that still works.
FIREHOUSE NO. 4
RIFT, PEST AND PROBLEM REMOVAL
We do demons, D-Bees, hauntings, leaking nexuses, and my neighbor is a vampire. Sliding scale. No Coalition questions asked.
You are not heroes of the Megaverse. You are who a City Rat calls when faeries stole the baby teeth, a ley line burped in a bakery oven, or a Dog Boy deserter is hiding in the cistern and ISS is circling the block.
Local jobs.
Local problems.
Fun first.
If people like it we go bigger later.
Power level for the start is street to veteran merc.
City Rat.
Headhunter.
Scout stuck in town.
Rogue Scholar.
Body Fixer.
Vagabond.
Cyber Knight if you can stand being the decent one.
Juicer.
Psi Stalker or
Dog Boy.
Low level mage or psychic. Operator if you want the building to keep standing.
No Glitter Boys on night one. No dragons. No full conversion borgs. No I am the weather.
If you really want something loud and overpowered, say so and we can work it out. I am not the fun police. I am the guy who has to make a bakery job still matter if you show up in a ten foot chrome suit. We can get there. We are not starting there unless we talk.
How the forum game runs when we get to that thread.
Play by post.
I call the rolls.
Use the built in dice.
Write what your person does.
Do not solo the whole scene in one post.
Combat is one action unless I say you get more.
Vanish for a week with no word and you are on cistern duty.
If you have never played Palladium, you do not need the books in your hands to start. I will teach the math when it comes up. If you have played, cool. Do not rules lawyer a slum firehouse into a tournament.
That is Rifts as I am running it. Giant broken world. Tiny ugly building. Tickets on the board.
If that sounds like your kind of time, go to the game thread and post a concept.
Two sentences of personality or more you do you. Whether you have actually played this before. Don't get too min max. The firehouse needs a body who will answer the sign.
And
This is the what the hell is this game post. The other thread is the actual table. Read this first if you have never touched it. If you have, still read it because I am running a specific slice and not the whole toybox on night one.
Earth used to be a golden age tech world. Flying cars, mega cities, all the usual future crap. Then the ley lines woke up and ripped the planet open. That event is the Coming of the Rifts. Most of the old world died in storms, monsters, and holes in the sky. The calendar now is P.A. Post Apocalypse. We are a couple hundred years later and the place is still not okay.
Ley lines are rivers of magic energy running through the ground. At night a lot of them glow blue. Where two or more cross you get a nexus. A nexus can tear a Rift. A Rift is a hole to some other world, some other time, or some other kind of hell. Sometimes a wizard opens one on purpose. Sometimes a bakery oven sits on a weak spot and starts humming. Both count.
Magic runs on P.P.E. Potential Psychic Energy. Psychics run on I.S.P. Same idea, different battery. Tech never left. So you get laser rifles, rail guns, power armor, cybernetics, and robots standing next to guys who throw lightning because a line in the dirt said so. That mix is the whole joke of the setting. It is not D&D with guns. It is not Fallout with a wizard hat. It is both of those and a demon arguing over a parking lot.
What comes through the holes is not one thing.
D-Bees are dimensional beings. Aliens. Some look almost human. Some do not. A lot of them are just people who fell in and now live here. Some are trouble. Most of them are trying to eat and not get shot.
Demons and the actual supernatural are a different pile. Not the same as a D-Bee. Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers can smell that difference. If it is a hungry thing from a bad world it does not get the same benefit of the doubt as a guy with extra eyes who pays rent.
Then there is leftover human war gear from before the end plus all the new ugly toys people built after. Glitter Boys. SAMAS. Borgs. Juicers who burn themselves out on drugs to move like a nightmare for a few short years. Crazies with metal in their heads. Cyber-Knights with psi swords trying to act like knights in a slum.
Mega damage is the ugly math. Normal people are still meat. A hunting rifle does not mean much to a demon or a guy in Coalition armor. Mega-Damage weapons and Mega-Damage armor are how you stay in that fight. Street level still matters because most of the Burbs is meat in a coat. You can be dangerous without being a walking artillery piece. If you stand in the open like an idiot you still get deleted.
North America in one pass.
The Coalition States are the big human empire. High tech. Human first. They hate magic. They hate D-Bees. They keep psychics on a leash if those psychics work for them. Soldiers wear black skull armor and people call them Dead Boys because of the suit and because they shoot first. Capital is Chi-Town. It is a fortress city the size of a mountain in old Illinois. Inside the walls it is lit, powered, clean, and safe if you are the right kind of human. Outside the walls is everybody else.
ISS is Coalition internal security. They kick doors in the slums when they want mages, unregistered psychics, D-Bees, or a body for the report. Dog Boys are mutant human dogs they bred to sniff the supernatural. Some desert. Psi-Stalkers do a similar job without being dogs. City Rats are the locals who know which roof you can run and which cop takes a bribe.
Other map pieces exist. We are not starting on them.
Federation of Magic to the east. Wizards and worse.
Lazlo and places like it try to make humans and D-Bees live together.
Mexico has vampires.
The New West has cowboys, dinosaurs, and guns.
Atlantis came back and it sucks.
Bugs up north.
Gods, dragons, and alien machines wherever a Rift feels like being funny.
If this table slaps we can leave town later and go hunt vampires or dinosaurs. Not day one.
Chi-Town is the mountain. The Burbs are the slums stacked against it for miles. Shacks. Old concrete. Black market stalls. Apartments on apartments. Millions of people. No official rights. The Coalition treats Burb rats as squatters. You can wait years hoping they let you into the city. Most people die still waiting. Old Towns in the Burbs try to look respectable and kiss Coalition ass. Shanty towns do not ask your real name.
That is the world. Now the kind of game I want.
I do not want the war for the continent. I do not want a prophecy. I do not want you opening a Rift in post three and dragging your cousin in from Hades. I want local messes in a dirty square of the Chi-Town Burbs.
FIREHOUSE NO. 4
Supernatural pest control.
The party inherits, steals, or gets dumped with an old firehouse in one of the slummier Burbs. Last owners left a sign that still works.
FIREHOUSE NO. 4
RIFT, PEST AND PROBLEM REMOVAL
We do demons, D-Bees, hauntings, leaking nexuses, and my neighbor is a vampire. Sliding scale. No Coalition questions asked.
You are not heroes of the Megaverse. You are who a City Rat calls when faeries stole the baby teeth, a ley line burped in a bakery oven, or a Dog Boy deserter is hiding in the cistern and ISS is circling the block.
Local jobs.
Local problems.
Fun first.
If people like it we go bigger later.
Power level for the start is street to veteran merc.
City Rat.
Headhunter.
Scout stuck in town.
Rogue Scholar.
Body Fixer.
Vagabond.
Cyber Knight if you can stand being the decent one.
Juicer.
Psi Stalker or
Dog Boy.
Low level mage or psychic. Operator if you want the building to keep standing.
No Glitter Boys on night one. No dragons. No full conversion borgs. No I am the weather.
If you really want something loud and overpowered, say so and we can work it out. I am not the fun police. I am the guy who has to make a bakery job still matter if you show up in a ten foot chrome suit. We can get there. We are not starting there unless we talk.
How the forum game runs when we get to that thread.
Play by post.
I call the rolls.
Use the built in dice.
Write what your person does.
Do not solo the whole scene in one post.
Combat is one action unless I say you get more.
Vanish for a week with no word and you are on cistern duty.
If you have never played Palladium, you do not need the books in your hands to start. I will teach the math when it comes up. If you have played, cool. Do not rules lawyer a slum firehouse into a tournament.
That is Rifts as I am running it. Giant broken world. Tiny ugly building. Tickets on the board.
If that sounds like your kind of time, go to the game thread and post a concept.
Two sentences of personality or more you do you. Whether you have actually played this before. Don't get too min max. The firehouse needs a body who will answer the sign.
