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What locales are usually seen as the best places to go on Rifts Earth to find dimensional rifts or experts in d-shifting, especially for someone starting out in North America?

I was thinking of a character who's a D-bee or even just plain human from another dimension. One not normally visited by the rifts, so they know next to nothing about how they work or how to use them. They just want to get home but don't know how to locate their home dimension, leading to them adventuring to get the wealth and knowledge to find it.

Depends a little on your timeline:

Tolkien (if it still exists)
New Lazlo
Old Detroit (if you want to search ruins for more "unusual" practitioners)
Federation of Magic (I get the impression this is a kind of keep your hand on your wallet kind of place - but keep your hand on your soul might be another way to put it)
Psyscape

Further afield, if you are more ambitious:

Atlantis
South America

But best bet ask your GM and work with them to include your character's story into where they are planning to run the game.

hup7 wrote:Depends a little on your timeline:

Tolkien (if it still exists)
New Lazlo
Old Detroit (if you want to search ruins for more "unusual" practitioners)
Federation of Magic (I get the impression this is a kind of keep your hand on your wallet kind of place - but keep your hand on your soul might be another way to put it)
Psyscape

Further afield, if you are more ambitious:

Atlantis
South America

But best bet ask your GM and work with them to include your character's story into where they are planning to run the game.

Thanks. Am I mistaken or is there some massive rift in an African city as well?

The nice thing about rifts is that they can form nearly anywhere, anytime, for any duration, and for any reason. There's also plenty of (semi-)permanent rifts as well, and still more rifts can be intentionally created through the use of magic and other supernatural abilities to boot.

With that in mind I suggest just picking a World Book that interests you, thumbing through it until you find a location that looks fun or interesting, and then picking that. It seems like it's just a background element, after all, and it will either be a collaboration or strictly up to the GM to decide how you wound up with the other characters anyway. I personally like to use amusing or paradoxical situations for things like that myself. Say you were being chased by Something Scary™, saw a rift form in front of you, and opted to run through it... only to find yourself smack dab in the middle of a flooper wedding ceremony that's now being interrupted by not only you, but the Something Scary™ that was chasing you. Hilarity ensues.

But that may just be me.

Crimson Dynamo wrote:The nice thing about rifts is that they can form nearly anywhere, anytime, for any duration, and for any reason. There's also plenty of (semi-)permanent rifts as well, and still more rifts can be intentionally created through the use of magic and other supernatural abilities to boot.

With that in mind I suggest just picking a World Book that interests you, thumbing through it until you find a location that looks fun or interesting, and then picking that. It seems like it's just a background element, after all, and it will either be a collaboration or strictly up to the GM to decide how you wound up with the other characters anyway. I personally like to use amusing or paradoxical situations for things like that myself. Say you were being chased by Something Scary™, saw a rift form in front of you, and opted to run through it... only to find yourself smack dab in the middle of a flooper wedding ceremony that's now being interrupted by not only you, but the Something Scary™ that was chasing you. Hilarity ensues.

But that may just be me.

Yeah. Those random rifts are a wonderful source of utter chaos.

My idea was more of some D-bee who was already randomly rifted/wandered into the wrong Fadetown/whatever, and was taken away from their home dimension. Now they're looking for a way to get back home, but they have no idea how to do it. Leading to them adventuring in the hopes they meet someone or find something that can find their home for them.

I also had the idea of them being pursued by agents of the various cross-dimensional powers like the Splugorth, Vampire Intelligences, other random horrors, etc. Because their network of dimensions has gone unexploited by any of these powers before now. And if they can return this poor fool home, they can follow them to their homeworld and invade and enslave it or just set up the new local branch office of Honest Splynncryth's Used Slave Dealership. They just have to let them find their home first.

Ardashir you could also try to get membership in an occult or mages guild. You may also try asking around magic shops.
The question of timeline makes all the differences. Tolkeen would be the place of choice. If after the fall I would try Lazlo, and The Federation Of Magic.
HOPE this helps,
If you need more advice please let us help,
Boxee

ardashir wrote:What locales are usually seen as the best places to go on Rifts Earth to find dimensional rifts or experts in d-shifting, especially for someone starting out in North America?

I was thinking of a character who's a D-bee or even just plain human from another dimension. One not normally visited by the rifts, so they know next to nothing about how they work or how to use them. They just want to get home but don't know how to locate their home dimension, leading to them adventuring to get the wealth and knowledge to find it.

Not in North America, but there's a corrupted Millenium Tree in Europe that has portals do various dimensions on different branches.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

ardashir wrote:What locales are usually seen as the best places to go on Rifts Earth to find dimensional rifts or experts in d-shifting, especially for someone starting out in North America?

I was thinking of a character who's a D-bee or even just plain human from another dimension. One not normally visited by the rifts, so they know next to nothing about how they work or how to use them. They just want to get home but don't know how to locate their home dimension, leading to them adventuring to get the wealth and knowledge to find it.

Not in North America, but there's a corrupted Millenium Tree in Europe that has portals do various dimensions on different branches.

Having just re-read Rifts Sourcebook 3, I imagine you mean the one in the Black Forest of Germany?

You could also have the players randomly rifted to another dimension and then have to learn how Rifts work to get home. World Gate on Wormwood is a good spot for this as is Center on Phase World or the Plain of Mist also mentioned in DB2.

Nothing focuses your attention on a subject like survival.

ardashir wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

ardashir wrote:What locales are usually seen as the best places to go on Rifts Earth to find dimensional rifts or experts in d-shifting, especially for someone starting out in North America?

I was thinking of a character who's a D-bee or even just plain human from another dimension. One not normally visited by the rifts, so they know next to nothing about how they work or how to use them. They just want to get home but don't know how to locate their home dimension, leading to them adventuring to get the wealth and knowledge to find it.

Not in North America, but there's a corrupted Millenium Tree in Europe that has portals do various dimensions on different branches.

Having just re-read Rifts Sourcebook 3, I imagine you mean the one in the Black Forest of Germany?

Sounds right!

Warshield73 wrote:You could also have the players randomly rifted to another dimension and then have to learn how Rifts work to get home. World Gate on Wormwood is a good spot for this as is Center on Phase World or the Plain of Mist also mentioned in DB2.

Nothing focuses your attention on a subject like survival.

Yeah, that would work pretty good too. Though it's not like Rifts Earth is particularly safe either.

ardashir wrote:

Warshield73 wrote:You could also have the players randomly rifted to another dimension and then have to learn how Rifts work to get home. World Gate on Wormwood is a good spot for this as is Center on Phase World or the Plain of Mist also mentioned in DB2.

Nothing focuses your attention on a subject like survival.

Yeah, that would work pretty good too. Though it's not like Rifts Earth is particularly safe either.

Never underestimate what be in an alien place can do to you. No matter how weird Rifts Earth is it is home for your players.

Take them to a place where they don't know anyone and may not even speak the language you have something entirely different. One of my biggest regrets from my early years of running Rifts was not making use of the Rifts themselves for adventure but now with so many dimension books and especially the Dimension Bulder there is just so much you can do.