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I am wondering what preferences others have for settings/choices in creating Astral Domains for your PC. Do you feel it's worth it to get Restricted Powers (60 P.P.E. +) for your own Domain? What about Special Powers like Psionics (Bio-Regeneration = 30 P.P.E. Cost) or Spells (like Heal Wounds Spell)? Do you feel it's worth it to gain Special Powers in your Domain? Should I spend more of my points on active Defenses than Special Powers?

I seek your input for my eventual playing of an Astral Lord O.C.C. and want to make informed/intelligent choices. When I get to play one, I am looking to make my Domain as an Astral base of operations for the group. I know that I intend to make the Domain hard to find, defended reasonably well and plenty of room to store stuff.....I even have a name for my impending Domain: "Everhope".

Thanks,
GaredBattlespike

I have always preferred to have defenses beefed up first. Then, after you've gained a few more levels, you can decide to invest some more PPE to get the Special Powers or Power Restrictions. If you have some group members that are somewhat rich in PPE, you might also try getting them to donate to the group HQ, so that they get the benefits of the special powers and it's cheaper to get.

Build it with a bunch of others, make them spend all the PPE and only spend 1 yourself, and then kill them in their sleep. All features!

Astral Domain Worksheet

..I highly recommend the article in Rifter #7 by Todd Sterrett; It streamlines the creation rules and adds some much needed flavor, such as the Astral Junkie OCC.

..As I see it, performing a ritual that allows non-magic users to contribute PPE at creation or a later date allows you to not only grow your domain, but also add "creators" who can take advantage of the special powers granted. Think of this; an entire villiage of people in harms way, saved by the budding Astral Lord, draws most of their PPE in a ritual to create them a new homeland. The refugees can consider the realm heaven, never aging, and living in a virtual garden of eden for all eternity. Meanwhile, their town takes up a small corner of your realm...

..Or maybe every twenty or so years they send a couple back to the home world to have and raise a child, returing a bit older physically but bringing a new citizen and maybe their chosen mate as well...

..In a Heroes Unlimited campaign, I let a player create a character who was a british soldier lost in Russia during World War II. PTS brought out his psychic abilities and he took an entire villiage in this manner into the Astral Plane to create a new world. The time difference on that plane has allowed the realm to grow into a world, populated in the manner I described above. Citizens who pass a test resembling the worm ride from Dune are put through the ceremony to become creators and then become superhuman in the realm, defenders of their world.

..Food for thought.

-Mike >8]

MADMANMIKE, Excellent Creation Sheets! Did you make these youself? These will come in very handy. I'm going to have to pick up Rifter #7 for certain.

Thank you very much,
GaredBattlespike

..Yeah, pretty much used my original designs for the Mercenary Companies and Travelling Shows worksheets for Rifts and modified it to fit. I've been planning to work it into my landscape character sheet designs as linked in the sticky at the top of the G.M.'s Forum, Like I did with the Heroes Unlimited Agency worksheet, but I just haven't had the time to get back into it.

-Mike <8[

In making an Astral Kingdom(tm), I've generally gone for defense (Restricted Portal access while in the plane, teleport traps), size and quality (big, complex realm to impress the guests and be amusing through the centuries), Astral/Earth law blend (you don't glow, and there is an up and down, but can fly astrally with effort, no need to eat or age, no stuff that isn't configured) and one special magical aility: regeneration for all (it's a healthy place to be).

In all honesty...

I've never dones one on a PC level.

Closest thing I've done is create a planet sized one for a race I've created.

But, I did do-up a domain that was 1 cubic mile, and a third of it was "underground." Each one has been different, and has different features. However, I tend to include "real-world physics," and limiting tech higher on the tech tree than black powder, and restricting powers.

One more common feature is making it difficult to access.

Here is the Domain constructed by my 5th level Astral mage:
Size: Average
Hidden
Access: Forbidding
Portals: astral portal 1d4mel and 8isp/ppe (2 physical world portals, one was added during campaign, 1 in home one NB earth, 1 in house on Rifts earth)
Landscape: Multiple Buildings (has a castle and surrounding area)
Defenses: 4 alarms strategically placed (needs to upgrade now that he's higher level)
Physical Laws: same as Earth (you don't age when on the astral according to the WB 2 NB. no matter what)
Location: Innerplane Nexus (great since the char is a mage)
Special Abilities: Tap Ley lines (alllows him to get the power of being on a nexus)

Astral lords are quite possibly one of the most awsome charters in the
game. Most people don't play them right though. Remember as a astral
lord it is practically your job no your duty to scam PPE out of as many
people as humanly possible. First thing to remember is that you can
create any natural laws you damn well want. This means you can make
it so every one heals faster in your releam, you can make it so that
lead slowly turns into gold, and you can make it so that any orange tree
grows super fruit that gives people super powers when they eat it!
As a astral lord every thing you do has a price when people talk about
selling their soul to the devil for some thing guess what your that devil.
Build up your paranormal services so that you can make a ever greater
variety of deals. Once you got an intire organization like the spook squad
in your pocket the PPE will just come rolling in. Every body wins the spook squad gets its army of super humans and you get ever stronger with each
new deal made.

Actually Cherico alot of that depends on the alignment and personality of the Astral Lord.

CB2 and D&G be damned, Astral Realms are the true path to real godhood.

i seen astral realms as a way to make an untold amount of money. From that leads to more power & eventually a form of immortality(that can be sustained outside the astralm realm). What i pictured was an astral realm of a rather large size with alot of physical mobile portals. Main aim is to provide services to hundreds planets spanning several dimensions.

You have several city block sized areas that produces an unlimited supply of electricity. have capacitors(or whatever) transfer that energy(in cables) through physical mobile portals to numerious planets & undercut all the competition on selling electricity at the lowest price avaible. providing electricity to tens of billions of people will make you alot of money.


Set up supercomputers, digital memory storage facilities, & centeral internet nexus points(with a physical law in the astral realm that mechanical & electrical parts cannot break down or over heat) to allow instantanious internet access to alot of planets(the cables running through mobile portals & hooked up to a planets internet services).
Imagen hooking up hundreds of worlds, spanning thousands of light years( &/or spanning multiple dimensions), for near instantanious internet access.

You charge the government/people of the planet an additional fee to be hooked(like one additional dollar/credit per individual per pay cycle who is accessing the local internet network) up to a network that will have hundreds of planets hooked upto it.

Set up the spells greater healing, purge self, & restoration to be permenent fixtures in the astralm domain. bring in sick/dieing people into the realm(first having to be marked by a contributeor to prevent the astral realm defences killing said individual) to be healed. charging price based on how much healing is needed).


Make the spell Iron wood a permanent fixture in the astral realm. A physical law that all plants that are made of wood grow 100 times faster than normal than normal Bring in trees & plant them. harvest the wood, make them into whatever & then use Ironwood spell to transform the finished wooden product into MDC, then sell it on the market.

Setting up a physical law that makes a cetain types of stone turn into Gantrium & Xanthine(see page 56 of norther hinterlands), & other gems once they have been in the astral realm for a period of 1 week or so. Then proceed to sell then up on the open markets.

A large PPE pool(of 1000 to 5000 PPE) would be added to the astralm realm.



Naturally, when negotations are made with planets, a clause is made to allow those that seek death or are in the process of dieing to be allowed to come(plus a certain number of 'volunteers' must be sent every year/planet cycle, first being mind raped of all bad thoughts, then mind wiped for safty measures) to the astral realm. Once there they give over their magickal energy/PPE to further beef of the defenses of the astral realm(till the point where every intruider will suffer 500 to 1000 points of damage every melee round for a constant period of 1 to 6 months, assuming they are not automatically dimensionally shifted to a random dimension the moment they invade my astral realm), then followed by what ever is needed. Once that is done, the individual is quickly killed. 1 or 2 PPE is not much from a single person, but having several thousand people go through this process(about 20 to 100+ people arriving monthly/weekly from a collection of several hundred planets), that can add up alot of PPE added to the astralm realm.

In addition to this, there will be the best magickal & technological security/protection money can buy placed inside the astral realm to protect everything that is in there(& to expell indvaders). Talking about hundreds of magically created golems. Main defense being thousands of techno zombies(lobitimized criminals with an AI hooked upto their brain, that can recive commands from specified individuals), & thousands of highly advanced robots(onces that can make simple judgement calls on their own) guided by a centeral near sentient super computer( like ARCHIE on the moon base in rifts) who main job is to over see the technological defenses of the astral realm.