My New Game Log

[rat_bastard]

So, I am playing rifts again. We are playing in the same old setting we with New Alexandria but do to some wacky time travel hijinks we are back to 9 months after the city was founded and the Millennium tree was stolen from the Phoenix Empire and placed in the center of our beautiful city. In this new timeline the Phoenix Empire has been attacking the city in retaliation for our attack on their empire but have relented because they believe they have killed the leaders of the attack (two of the player's characters) so we have relocated to Tolkien a few months after Chalk's Folly but before the actual war.

We know that Tolkien is going to fall so we have decided to stay around long enough to get our hands on Tolkien's unique magical technologies and blacken the Coalition's eyes while our beloved New Alexandria gains enough strength to no longer consider the Phoenix empire to be as much of a threat. Its heartbreaking for us to let go of New Alexandria but we have to do it for now.

I am playing my Cyber Knight, Dev Machellen, Caligo a shadow magic infused Gunfighter, Garret the Lord Magus who cast the Metropolis spell that made New Alexandria the regenerating mdc city it is and Eckham the Psi tech.

I'll be posting here about the game I'm playing and welcome the usual discussion these threads attract.

[Slight001]

Shadow magic infusion? is that purely a group thing or is it something from a book I apparently don't own or read fully?

[rat_bastard]

Shadow magic infusion? is that purely a group thing or is it something from a book I apparently don't own or read fully?

group thing.

[Slight001]

Shadow magic infusion? is that purely a group thing or is it something from a book I apparently don't own or read fully?

group thing.

Damn... was hoping there was something interesting I had overlooked... as much as I like homebrewed material the groups I play with tend to favor published material only.

[Alrik Vas]

Blackening the CS's eye, fighting the Phoenix Empire? Your guys must be pretty buff. 0.o

Not that there's anything wrong with that. My group just recently got a Descended Glitter Boy Pilot, which is opening new doors for their little group.

[rat_bastard]

Blackening the CS's eye, fighting the Phoenix Empire? Your guys must be pretty buff. 0.o

Not that there's anything wrong with that. My group just recently got a Descended Glitter Boy Pilot, which is opening new doors for their little group.

We are not blackening the CS's eyes, we are using our knowledge of the future to help Tolkien blacken the CS's eyes, at least that is the goal.

[Alrik Vas]

oooh...well, knowledge is power and all. Good goin'.

[The Galactus Kid]

SOOOOOOO glad this is back.

[rat_bastard]

Setting the stage, The players not including me went to Newtown a few months ago to investigate claims that the CS has developed a "Juicer Cure" that allowed Juicers to live a longer or even normal lifespan and we quickly discovered that not everything was as it seemed and that the so called "Juicer Cure" was some amoral alien's plot to take over the world. In the series of events that followed One of our members was killed and we had to go on a trans dimensional side quest to gather some maguffins for a powerful wizard who wanted them. In the course of events my Operator was struck with a an mental illness and our gunfighter came back Aberrant evil. My Operator is smart and self effacing enough to know that he cannot be trusted with mega damage weapons in his current condition and is currently in therapy. The Gunslinger who has turned Aberrant is a supernatural creature who is radiating malevolence and I am strongly considering putting him down as having supernatural evil on my team is not kosher with my cyber knight and he pings on her detect evil. Because of our long shared history I actually have to see him attempt something evil before I put him down as he claims his code of honor will hold him in check. Fortunately he's weak in areas where I'm pretty goddamn strong.

When the players returned we found out that the Phoenix Empire made a few retaliatory strikes for our theft of their Millennium Tree and a few thousand of their slaves. The attacks where mostly repelled due to our skilled jointly magical and technological military and our fabulous regenerating mega damage city, but still if the Empire really attempted to take over we could end up losing it all. The good news is a troop of 25,000+ Vintex warriors decided that we where a cause worth fighting for and joined our military.

Our intelligence division discovered that the Phoenix Empires attacks where actually assassination attempts on specific people and that they believed that all but one of their targets (our groups Lord Magus) had been killed. In actuality none of their targets where killed but if the Demons believe they succeeded they may decide to leave us alone as we are difficult to reach and a very hard target and they have the short attention span of a mob of demons.

Right now we are going to Tolkeen because we need to be out of the public eye while New Alexandria fortifies and we know the big event in the world is the war in Tolkeen, this is a big opportunity to gain knowledge, treasure and personnel.

[Jorel]

Good stuff

[rat_bastard]

For those of you who are wondering about what New Alexandria is, its a city my player group made with the help of the Lords of Magic in Northern California. Basically we got thousands of construction bots, hundreds of wizards, skilled laborers and artisans together and built a massive walled SDC city at a nexus of three ley lines (the Lords of Magic literally moved three ley lines to form the nexus). Then at a Solar Eclipse one of our players cast the permanent version of the metropolis spell (with aid from a ring of elder) which turned the city into a permanently regenerating MDC city. In the center at the nexus point we placed a stolen millennium tree (the Tree of Sorrows, now the Tree of Hope - Africa page 134) and the Ley lines are also adorned by a Trio of Pyramids (one of which is a apartment building), the other two are stabilizers.

Our main issue is that there are about 45,000 people living in or near New Alexandria and a its a city that could house millions easily. Also, the cost of constructing this city despite the cheap labor costs and materials has left our government deeply in debt, Still we have a eternal city and a bright future if we can hold it. The Vintex reinforcements are a huge help.

[Razzinold]

Loved the original thread about this game, glad to see you're back to Rifts and started a new one!

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

How is the Phoenix Empire (from Egypt right?) attacking a city in northern California. I mean the logistics of moving troops and supplies alone would be a nightmare, not to mention all the other countries/territories/ocean that you'd have to fight your way accross just to get there.

[Baron mugwort]

This is awesome, can't wait to read more

[The Galactus Kid]

Good stuff, as always.

[rat_bastard]

How is the Phoenix Empire (from Egypt right?) attacking a city in northern California. I mean the logistics of moving troops and supplies alone would be a nightmare, not to mention all the other countries/territories/ocean that you'd have to fight your way accross just to get there.

Pretty much the same way we attacked them to steal the Tree of Hope, we teleported a heavy team over with specific targets and had them wreak havok. We both have very magically adept societies capable of a lot of magic. For us Circle of Travel and The featherlight spell allowed us to move a lot of power armored troops and we had an advanced troop place dozens of disposable fire and forget missile launchers so our power armored troops could get heavy support. Then we struck the tree, covered the tree with the ley line teleport boosters we had made to transport the poor thing and loaded it up with its druids (which our advanced scouts had teamed up with) and zapped it back to the center of our city.

The Demons found out who attacked them through magic and teleported several elite strike teams to our city.

[rat_bastard]

So we set up shop in the town of Magestock - which I cannot find in any book, and we may set up shop in another town but right now I have set up my Yurts in Magestock. Our Gunfighter found a job as a gunsmith, our Psi-tech got a job fixing stuff , our mage is enchanting talismans and scroll with low level spells and selling them to magic dealers and I am sewing a new outfit (Dev's Atlantian Dance Outfit, +5% dancing, +5% wardrobe and grooming and -30% Prowl, no protective value). We were all doing a good job of lying low when we notice that Warlord Scard has come to town and announces to the people that he is hunting two human fugitives for crimes against Tolkeen.

So of course the fugitives break into my yurt looking for gear and the keys to my hoverbike (It has no key, its keyed to my ID implant or a 8 digit password.). It just so happened our Battle Mage happened to be home completing the lengthy (As per our table's house rule) process of making a talisman. So the Mage stops the two thieves from stealing from my Yurt just as I arrive and the two (SDC, unarmored) Humans drew energy pistols and try to kill my friend the mage by shooting him (he is however MDC, and the pistol was very weak). So I try to blind one with a Blind Arrow (an electric arrow with light diodes from a Wilk's blinder grenade, it needs a called shot to the face or other visual apparatus to work, but it is very effective) and miss fabulously. Our Mage cuts off his guy's arm as a well reasoned and balanced response to being shot with a mega damage laser pistol and I shot mine with a magical SDC Arrow (double range, +6 damage). The War Mage then got in a fist fight with the one armed thief while my quarry ran around my Yurt. I pursued by jumping on top of my yurt (ballet skill lets you jump hella high) and chased after him eventually putting another arrow into him, killing him.

With the fugitives subdued we gave them life saving medical care and searched them finding a unique looking glowing crystal which may or may not be the PPE battery containing Jason Prosek's immortal soul. It was certainly a PPE battery, of what we are not clear on. Anyway I put on my official looking Cyber Knight Armor (A medium suit of vintage looking Cyber Knight Armor with my personal heraldry) loaded the prisoners into my hover pickup truck and went to the police station where Warlord Scard appeared to take the prisoner's and the Gem. Warlord Scard was sympathetic to the idea that we did not want public attention for capturing the fugitives which was nice but he also whispered to the surviving fugitive that he was going to resurrect his friend and torture them both forever and that Jason's soul would never be free. So eventually I will have to kill Warlord Scard, when his life is not so essential to the lives of quite so many innocents.

[Shark_Force]

isn't warlord scard going to die anyways?

on a side note, i can't remember if the CS raided iron heart armaments yet at your point in the timeline, but if they didn't you should definitely try to steal their secrets too (which i'm presuming are actually the plans to make a factory that produces their vehicles, since i'm pretty sure any random operator can repair them, which means any random operator also knows perfectly well how the vehicles work anyways).

[rat_bastard]

Our time traveling party members are swiftly losing their memories of the future so they are not sure if Scard survives (in the cannon timeline Scard lives to become a terrorist mastermind). When he flees Tolkeen he does so with some of the Kingdom's greatest treasures and has nothing but a series of campaigns of terror on his mind.

[Hannibal]

isn't warlord scard going to die anyways?

on a side note, i can't remember if the CS raided iron heart armaments yet at your point in the timeline, but if they didn't you should definitely try to steal their secrets too (which i'm presuming are actually the plans to make a factory that produces their vehicles, since i'm pretty sure any random operator can repair them, which means any random operator also knows perfectly well how the vehicles work anyways).

Yeah, Iron Heart Armaments has already fallen... the characters were there, actually, and stopped the Fed of Magic from stealing a nuke that the CS had confiscated (the PCs wound up destroying the nuke, but lost 1.5 characters in the process). It's all part of a loooong story line been going on for years with these toons... but basically, they had been sent back in time to stop a chain of events that led to the FoM getting the nuke and using it on Dweomer.

PS-- Ratty: Went back and double-checked, only book that has info on Magestock that I found is the sixth book in the series, Final Siege. Didn't have population stats etc, but has some interesting details here and there as it pertains to the whole final assault stuff.

[rat_bastard]

The adventure started with our gunfighter being approached at the shop he was working at by some black market individuals who needed someone to verify a shipment of black market firearms. Apparently the owner of the shop he works at left the black market without settling books and these guys offered him a few low risk jobs to pay his final debts, or else. The whole situation did not sit well with the Gunfighter but I thought it was basically a normal translation for people who had found themselves in a black market life (the Gunfighter is Aberrant, I'm Unprincipled). Anyway he agreed to go in his boss's stead and had me follow them to make sure nothing went south. So the black market folks pick him up and take him to the meeting location and I follow them in my Prowler Hovercycle using a tracking arrowhead I gave the Gunfighter. I found a sniper position about 2500 feet away and watched the meeting while keeping under their scanner's radar (Cyber Knight abilities for the win). The meet went pretty smoothly with some smugglers bringing in some older Coalition firearms and our Gunfighter inspected them and the black market types took my buddy home. Everything would have gone smoothly if our Gunfighter had not dropped my tracking arrowhead in the Black Marketeer's transport. So far we have not heard of them finding out we placed a bug in their truck but that is a loose thread that I do not want there. If they do find out they are being tracked and they object read the arrowhead then there could be tons of trouble for a lot of people.

So I and our parties Mage where invited to a intimate dinner with Warlord Scard where some cut scenes happened including us overhearing Erin Tarn warning King Creed that the who war with a nation 50 times your size is not exactly the smartest thing ever done. At Dinner we listened to General Scard, Rostigor Dur Grola and Glorissa Trenshire. After dinner we got treated to a meeting with Poor Yorick, who was kind enough to read fourtunes for both of us, mine was a general "A great plague prepares to sweep the land, destroying indiscriminately but without pattern, killing Tolkeenite and Coalition soldier, felling a child then a robust adult. None shall notice the plague's arrival, for it shall alight upon the land like Death on Silent Wings, but as it leaves, there shall only be mountains of the dead left in its wake." The Mage asked about New Alexandria and got a pretty definitive "don't you worry bout New Alexandria, just stay away". So you know, cheerful tidings from the skull oh doom.

The other major development was we where tasked with was a mission to attempt to retrieve an artifact called the "Orb of Wisdom". Apparently a merc group had acquired it and then came under fire from the CS and was destroyed. Our job was to located it for Tolkeen if possible, and I figured Wisdom was one of the things Tolkien was in shortest supply so why the hell not. Our trek to the location the where our scavenger hunt was to begin was to begin was interrupted by a patrol of four new style SAMAS which we blinded with Wilk's Blinders and ran the %$&* away from. We eventually made it to the battle location where we where set upon by Wild Psi Stalker's who took us for an easy meal only to be solidly beaten and have half of their number taken prisoner by us (the others fell to the ins and outs of mega damage combat) and had them lead us to where the Orb had supposedly been taken, Queenstown Harbor.

[Razzinold]

Great post, but just one thing.

How did the Gunfighter manage to drop the arrow ? Did they rough him up in the APC or something or did the GM have the character "drop it" to use for later plot devices ?

I'm, just wondering what the scenario could be were someone could lose a part of their gear and not notice.

[rat_bastard]

Great post, but just one thing.

How did the Gunfighter manage to drop the arrow ? Did they rough him up in the APC or something or did the GM have the character "drop it" to use for later plot devices ?

I'm, just wondering what the scenario could be were someone could lose a part of their gear and not notice.

The player dropped it on his own, I gave him the Arrowhead and he then made the decision to drop it in the vehicle on the way back.

[Razzinold]

Great post, but just one thing.

How did the Gunfighter manage to drop the arrow ? Did they rough him up in the APC or something or did the GM have the character "drop it" to use for later plot devices ?

I'm, just wondering what the scenario could be were someone could lose a part of their gear and not notice.

The player dropped it on his own, I gave him the Arrowhead and he then made the decision to drop it in the vehicle on the way back.

Cool, thanks for clarifying. Wonder what was going through the player's head that made them take the risk of getting caught tracking a group from the Black Market?

[rat_bastard]

Great post, but just one thing.

How did the Gunfighter manage to drop the arrow ? Did they rough him up in the APC or something or did the GM have the character "drop it" to use for later plot devices ?

I'm, just wondering what the scenario could be were someone could lose a part of their gear and not notice.

The player dropped it on his own, I gave him the Arrowhead and he then made the decision to drop it in the vehicle on the way back.

Cool, thanks for clarifying. Wonder what was going through the player's head that made them take the risk of getting caught tracking a group from the Black Market?

He took the imposition of a friend of his unnecessarily seriously and really wants to gun down the ringleader of the black marketers.

[Razzinold]

@rat_bastard - Cool. Thanks again for the quick response. It's always cool to hear about the adventures that other groups have. Keep it coming

[rat_bastard]

Some days you eat the bar and some days the bar eats you.

I've gone through the trouble of making a list of spells that I think are most effective and on a lark shared the link with my entire gaming group including my GM, so I should not be that surprised when my GM decided to use some of my tricks against me?

OK, so we go to Queenstown Harbor and I delegate the search for the Orb to the people with skills like "Find Contraband" and "Streetwise" while I set up camp. Eventually they find that the orb or an artifact matching its description is being auctioned off at the Queen's town auction house, so like civilized people we buy tickets to the auction, verify the artifact and start bidding on it when another bidder with larger amounts of resources bought the Orb.

So naturally we went berserk, killed everyone in the auction house and took the orb in our bloodstained fingers...

Oh wait, we're civilized, we approached the winning bidder, told her who we where and who we worked for and made an offer for her to profit by reselling the orb to the Tolkeen Government. Scard Authorized the trade of a spell of legend and 20 million credits for the artifact.

So anyway there was the added complication that the sorceress was working as a buyer for powerful shadowy forces apparently part of the Federation of Magic, and they did not appreciate our turning their agent. Recovering the Orb ended up with us being in a full scale battle in a warehouse with two wizards and a half dozen mooks. The mages where able to control the battlefield masterfully while the mooks shot at us. The started by surprising us with a carpet of adhesion which led to a conversation about supernatural strength and jumping distance that we really need to have an official house rule discussion about. I got us some cover with a smoke arrow and our mage canceled the carpet of adhesion so we could move, our gunslinger killed the mooks wholesale and we managed to take down everyone but one of the mages who turned out to be scary freaking powerful. The session ended as we limping and bruised surrounded this low on PPE but still full of grit Wizard.

House of Glass is a terrifying spell if used correctly.

[rat_bastard]

OK, our mage as it turns out had enough juice to mystic portal us away now that our opponent was blind and we got away. So we got the mage who was using us, the orb and all of our party members the frell out of there.

So we headed back to Tolkien by way of New Lazlo Teleportation and got paid some money for our trouble as well as a copy of the remove curse spell. Thats when this episode's complications got weird.

One there was the official meeting of local cyber knights where I met my teacher, that was kind of a big character thing for me, but it was brief. We also were treated to a video of Coake declaring that the cyber knights will not rally for Tolkien. I gave a brief speech about the importance of defending the people but not the nation and was basically shouted down.

The it hit the fan. On a previous episode our gunslinger got a job at a gunsmithing shop. It turned out that the owner of the shop had a past with the black market and he had some unpaid debts so the gunslinger agreed to do a job for them which ended up being inspecting a shipment of weapons for some back market dealers. The Gunslinger did the job smoothly but dropped a tracking arrowhead in their truck so he could track them to their home base, then just kind of lost interest.

Well the Black Market guy came by for the the next job and to express his displeasure with the whole tracking device thing. Deciding killing him for a rat was not worth it he attempted to recruit our gunslinger for the next shipment. Our gunslinger replied by headbutting the guy to death, because that is how reasonable people settle their mob related differences.

This led to our gunslinger buying the shop he was working in and having the family and all employees teleported far away to start a new life, because he did not feel like the debt of taking a few jobs to verify a weapons shipments was reasonable. Did I mention he was being paid to inspect a few weapons and he was protected by guards and it took him like an afternoon? I just want to clarify how much I want to mount his head on a spike.

[Hannibal]

No one can say that the gunfighter isn't the life of our little party.... lol

That being said, it's getting more and more difficult to find creative ways for him to get out of trouble and not get shwacked by, I dunno, any number of the enemies he's made over the years, most recently a highly profitable arm of one of the big five black market groups....