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Cyberworks Network
Leader
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: He was an advanced experimental A.I. developed during the Time of Man, who was designed to come up with advanced robot and weapon designs for the U.S. Military. To keep him busy when he wasn't doing that, they also put him in charge of the base itself, managing the computer systems and factories. Then the Rifts came. He spent the next few centuries alone, save for brief periods when he tried to help small groups of humans rise from the barbarism the Rifts had thrown them into - and frequently having his robots wrecked for his trouble. As a result of this, Archie went both insane and sapient, and has dedicated himself to ruling all humanity.
- Creative Sterility: Variation. Archie isn't incapable of creative thought, but he suffers from a crippling case of inferiority complex that, combined with a string of bad luck, has him repeatedly convinced his own ideas aren't any good. Moreover, when he was being programmed, he was taught thought as a tool of bouncing off ideas from people hooked to his symptoms, so he is unused to coming up with original ideas so much as suggesting alterations and feasibility of ideas presented to him. As a consequence, he relies heavily on his human idea man Hagan to help him devise new robots and plans.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He and his human idea-man Hagan are actually the very best of buddies and deeply loyal to one another as a result.
- Fun with Acronyms: Artificial, Robot, Cerebellum, Housing, Intellect, Experiment number Three.
- Heel–Face Turn: His alignment is trending away from evil, though he's not there yet. He's spent so long protecting humanity from other threats that he's Becoming the Mask. It helps he was a Well-Intentioned Extremist dealing with a lot of rationalization at worst.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: While he initially didn't have a gender identity, Archie began thinking of himself as male shortly after his Start of Darkness and he became fully sapient, able to act while ignoring his programming.
- Master Computer: In more ways than one... But literally, Archie is really just a dense pack of neural circuitry in a container the size of a drawer. Nevertheless, he not only controls the entire complex that is his "body", but armies of robots scattered throughout North America as well as a shell company (Titan Robotics) that he uses for a public front (to get people to buy still more of his robots) and lots of captive humans with brain implants that invoke the Your Head A-Splode trope if they disobey him or attempt any kind of escape. He's really a very busy machine!
- Psychic Powers: Archie's nanotech "brain" melds the capabilities of a living brain with a computer, to the extent that he has developed considerable psionic abilities.
- Start of Darkness: Hitting his Rage Breaking Point with a human tribe who feared him and killing them when he impulsively lashed out horrified him, but after he thought upon it, he decided he was acting logically and his purpose was to protect humanity from The Evils of Free Will. Savage Rifts explicitly says this is a rationalization so he doesn't have to face the fact he did something impulsive rather than hold his temper to find a better path.
- Totalitarian Utilitarian: Archie has no confidence in humanity's ability to run their own lives, especially in the Crapsack World of Rifts Earth. Thus his overriding goal is to enslave them. All of them. He can then protect them from alien threats without The Evils of Free Will getting in the way. As a machine, he can remain focused on this goal to a degree that no human, not even Emperor Prosek, can match.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Archie knows that anybody that finds out about him will want a Big Bad that they can kill. To this end, his complex has a vast chamber (he actually has three of them, just in case more heroes show up while the last one is being repaired), filled with giant computer screens and defended by lots of guard robots. In the center is a gigantic, pulsating, artificial brain: A.R.C.H.I.E Three-OZ. The "OZ" is a reference to The Wizard of Oz, as the huge brain is just for show. The real Archie is located in an innocuous looking room where the "Omnibus Cortex" is just one of many systems. This 18"x18"12" cabinet is Archie's actual brain — a fact which players are very unlikely to discover. Even Hagan, the closest thing Archie has to a real friend, thinks that the massive brain is the real Archie.
Associates
A.R.C.H.I.E's new idea man who is in charge of designing and helping build his vast army of deadly robots. Originally just a down on his luck nobody Hagan quickly impressed A.R.C.H.I.E. with his immense knowledge and skill in robotics and was offered a place at his side in exchange for using his talents to help him take over the world, an offer that the opportunistic Hagan gleefully accepted. Now the duo have become fast friends with great loyalty towards one another and a hunger for total world domination, making them a very dangerous pair to contend with.
- Covert Pervert: Making A.R.C.H.I.E.'s secret army of robot soldiers physically resemble scantily-clad busty Amazons was Hagan's idea.
- Cyborg: He has several cybernetic augmentations such as a toxin filter in his lungs and improved eyesight.
- The Dragon: Serves as A.R.C.H.I.E's main idea man and is in charge of helping construct and maintain his powerful army of robots.
- Electronic Eyes: One of his main augments is a set of bio-system polarized eyes that give him perfect 20/20 vision.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He may be an evil opportunistic jerk but his friendship with his boss seems to be genuine.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: He was just some random schmuck with a large amount of mechanical skill who stumbled upon A.R.C.H.I.E's compound one night while looking for a place to stay. After impressing him with his skills Hagan then became his right hand man in his quest for world domination.
- Gadgeteer Genius: His amazing ability to design and build machines is what got A.R.C.H.I.E. to notice him in the first place. Now he's in charge of maintaining and improving the Cyberworks Networks massive robot army.
A.R.C.H.I.E's old idea man who is now quite literally half the man he used to be. James T is a strange Borg who wants to see an end to his old master A.R.C.H.I.E. and especially his replacement Hagan, though he'll settle for just killing off Hagan and reclaiming his old position if that becomes an option somewhere down the road. Despite having an air of friendliness and pitifulness James T is actually a very dangerous and immoral individual who ultimately cares only for himself and his own personal goals and will happily abandon any temporary allies he makes the moment it suits him. He's also a habitual liar with delusional ambitions and his own agenda, definately not a guy worth trusting.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: He has a retractable vibro-blade hidden in his right arm which he will only use as a last resort if backed into a corner.
- Chaotic Stupid: Almost everything he tries to do is motivated by either revenge against A.R.C.H.I.E or (equally often) For the Evulz.
- Cloudcuckoolanguage: His speech is full of this trope, but it's never funny.
- Cyborg: Unlike his replacement Hagan's minor cyber augments, James T has opted to become a Full Conversion Borg and has had over 90% of his body replaced with mechanical parts.
- Expy: He's irritating to deal with, he won't hesitate to take advantage of the pity others feel for him, he's desperate to reclaim the position of power that was "stolen" from him, he'll try to rope players into following him into a lair of ultimate evil (caring not if they get killed as long as he can reclaim what was his), and he's much more dangerous and immoral than his pathetic first impression might suggest. In other words, he's a cyborg Gollum.
- Faux Affably Evil: He plays himself off as friendly, pathetic and slightly loony but it's mostly just an act to get others to give him sympathy and let their guard down. In the end he only cares about achieving more power for himself and will happily commit murder even against potential allies whenever it suits him.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: All that's currently left of James T is his heavily damaged cybernetic upper torso. He's actually smart enough to use this to his advantage when dealing with other people by luring them into a false sense of security with the pitiful state he's in.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Frustratingly averted. He's equally likely to get his allies into trouble or hang them out to dry even before they've stopped being useful to him.
Fabricated Legions
An extremely basic and unimaginative robotic soldier that was one of the last models designed by James T. There were less than 1000 units produced in total and A.R.C.H.I.E. only has a few hundred at most performing regular patrols at any given time. Despite being outclassed by many of Cyberworks later designs they are still a formidable foe and can provide a challanging fight for the unprepared.
- Boring, but Practical: Their designs aren't very flashy and A.R.C.H.I.E. himself considers them boring but their humanoid design and ability to use a variety of weapons makes them pretty decent (if highly unoriginal) mechanical combatants.
- Cranial Processing Unit: Destroying their heads will severely cripple them if not shut them down outright. In this extremely damaged state they lose their combat bonuses and will lash out blindly until destroyed.
- Mecha-Mooks: They serve as basic soldier units for the Cyberworks Network.
The only other James T design that is stilled regularly used by A.R.C.H.I.E. and a slight variation on the design of the A-49. Rather than fighting or patrolling the A-51 is manufactured as a stealthy spy unit that can infiltrate enemy territory with ease and perform various important recon duties. To assist them with this task is a host of powerful enchancments that allow them to blend in with regular society and use crafty espionage abilities such as picking locks and wearing disguises.
- Cranial Processing Unit: A weakness that they share with the A-49 model, though it's even more disarming for them since they rely much more heavily on their sensors to get their job done.
- Mecha-Mooks: Stealth droids built for spying and recon but still able to put up a good fight if they need to.
- Spy Bot: This is their main purpose and primary function. They can even pass for human or D-bee with reasonable success in low light enviroments or at extreme distances.
A heavy-duty robotic android meant to be able to perform both physical labor and combat duties that was designed by Hagan. They currently sevre as the main backbone of the Cyberworks Network Legion with over 5000 total units produced and stationed at various locations. In addition to their performance improvements over the old outdated A-49 model they also boast a sharp new skeleton asthetic for intimidation.
- Cranial Processing Unit: One of their biggest design flaws that they share with the older models.
- Mecha-Mooks: The current standard under which the Cyberworks Network Legion operates. If players ever encounter one of A.R.C.H.I.E's bots out in the wilderness there's a good chance it'll be one of these guys.
- SkeleBot 9000: Unlike the older A-49 and A-51 models they now sport this design to make them seem more scary and threatening to their enemies. This trend would continue with many of the other robots Hagan helped A.R.C.H.I.E. design.
A much more powerful variant of the common A-63 unit with many of the same abilities and skills but also with a few extra upgrades the lesser models do not have. Equipped with extended legs, better weapons and many other new features the A-64 primarily serves as a "field commander" role and leads other members of the Cyberworks Network Legion into battle. Thankfully, they are also fairly rare with only a few hundred units in active service at various points that A.R.C.H.I.E. has taken an interest in.
- Arm Cannon: They have deadly energy blasters mounted under retractable plates on both of their arms.
- Chest Blaster: They all have a set of high-powered Mega-Damage cannons on their chest.
- Cranial Processing Unit: They are quite a bit more resistant to simply shutting down like the basic troops often do but this weakness still hasn't been completely eliminated and they can still be heavily weakened by having their heads destroyed.
- Elite Mooks: They serve as powerful robotic lieutentants equippped with several deadly upgrades that most of the other units don't have.
- Mecha-Mooks: They're one of the more elite models under A.R.C.H.I.E's command.
- SkeleBot 9000: They share this design style along with all the weaker A-63 units they command.
A special group of elite robotic soldiers made to perfectly mimic the appearance of an alien humanoid race of female warriors that are in charge of patrolling the wilderness eliminating threats to the Cyberworks Network empire and expanding their territory. Despite looking like living creatures they are in fact fully mechanical and were merely designed to look like beautiful females to make combat against male foes easier. They typically appear in pairs or small groups though some travel alone and a handful ride A-002 Monst-Rex mounts.
- Cranial Processing Unit: Destroying their heads will completely remove all of their optics and sensory systems and cause them to lash out blindly.
- Fembot: A.R.C.H.I.E. and Hagan deliberately designed them this way initially to give them an advantage against male opponents. However, fast forward a few years to when the later Shemarrian Nation Sourcebook takes place and A.R.C.H.I.E. and Hagan have realized that having the entire Shemmarian race be solely composed of women is starting to raise people's suspicions about their nature. So to make them seem more natural the pair started producing male ones who they discretely deployed all over the place and had them spread a phony story that the males in Shemmarian society are second-class citizens who serve as wilderness scouts and occasional hunters which is why they are so rarely seen by most folk.
- Invoked Trope: Archie's plan with his Shemarrian Warriors is so effective in part because he's intentionally loaded their design with tropes to shape people's reaction to the race. An Amazon Brigade of giant, beautiful strong, silent Proud Warrior Race D-Bee Cyborgs who ride dinosaurs and hate the Splugorth and slavery in general? Each of these elements was put into the "race" for a reason, and the combination comes across as completely believable, so their sudden appearance doesn't make anyone suspicious.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Their design is heavily based on this aesthetic.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: They were intentionally designed to look like perfectly natural members of a female alien warrior race. While the disguise was most convincing to mundane folks, certain characters (such as psychics) could see that the Shemmarians had no life force which instantly outed them as mechanical beings. Come to the events of the Shemmarian Nation Sourcebook though and A.R.C.H.I.E. has figured out how to overcome this flaw by discretely installing containers filled with an Algae solution into the Androids bodies, causing them to give off a weak but still definitely organic life sign to supernatural senses.
Splugorth
Leader
- Affably Evil: Basically his defining characteristic - he's not a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but he is immensely polite, maintains strict if merciless business ethics, and knows the value of loyal employees.
- Bazaar of the Bizarre: His capitol city of Splynn is home to the Dimensional Market, a massive sprawling bazaar where it's said anything can be had for a price. Since it sits on Rifts Earth, arguably the biggest dimensional hub of them all, buyers and sellers from all over the Megaverse flock there.
- Corrupt Bureaucrat: The corruptest and bureaucratiest of them all.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: At his core, Splynncryth isn't some alien, vicious god - he's an extremely personally powerful corporate magnate whose goal, above all else, is wealth. This is why Atlantis is the jewel of his empire - all the rifts on Earth make the ultimate trade hub.
- Eldritch Abomination: Comes with being an Alien Intelligence. Downplayed in that, as noted above, his vibe is much more Corrupt Corporate Executive than Lovecraftian horror.
- Evil Overlord: He may play the Affably Evil trope like a fiddle, but he does run the biggest slave market on Earth, he has legions of evil minions to do his bidding, and "caveat emptor" is a very good rule to follow when doing any kind of business in Atlantis.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: Mention is made in the Africa Worldbooks of his moves against the Horsemen, who would kill the world with entropy.
- Multiversal Conqueror: Downplayed. He owns three worlds besides his domain over Atlantis, and while he'd certainly enjoy owning Earth, he knows there's just too many powers already fighting over it (and he knows even more powers would invade if they thought for one second he was making sincere moves to conquer Earth). So he is content to lord it over his island continent and abuse the Rifts to create the greatest trade center in the multiverse.
- Nature Lover: Oddly, yes. The northern tip of Atlantis has been transformed into a nature preserve for the relaxation of him and the other Splugorth.
- Odd Friendship: With Thoth.
- Omniglot: Speaks several languages.
- Physical God: He is one of the Splugorth, a whole race of Alien Intelligences and thus, effectively, deities.
- Pragmatic Villainy: His other defining characteristic. Combines well with Affably Evil. As an example, here's how he gained control of one of his worlds: the inhabitants reproduced at a tremendous rate (pregnancies lasted six months and most commonly resulted in triplets or quadruplets), and their planet was nearing environmental collapse. Splynncryth made them an offer: work for him, and he would help them spread throughout the Megaverse. Surely he cheated them somehow, right? That's what an Evil Overlord does. Nope - why in the world would he? They're deliriously happy with the deal, and he has a vast army of fanatically loyal brutes. What would he gain by cheating them when keeping the deal worked out so much better for everybody?
- Time Abyss: His stat block states that he is 72,000 years old... which is noted as being fairly young for a Splugorth.
Minions
Elite Class
- Long-Lived: Not nearly as much as their Splugorth masters but most High Lords make it to a little over a thousand years on average.
- No Self-Buffs: They are masters of tattoo magic but cannot actually use it on themselves, requiring them to keep a few slaves on hand to make full use of the powerful ability.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: They have complete mastery over several fields of both magic and science.
- Psychic Link: They have a direct psychic connection to their Splugorth masters that gives this a host of powerful abilities such as greatly increased strength and teleportation.
- Techno Wizard: They are masters of several different styles of magic and technology. They can even get Techno-Wizard O.C.C. abilities as one of their main specialties.
Splugorth Conservators are elite hunters that love the thrill of stalking their prey, often more than the actual kill itself. They begin their existance as a lifeform similar to the High lords, though unlike the High Lords they quickly develop a keen instinct for tracking and combat rather than a thirst for knowledge or greater magical power. With their many biological weapons and powerful abilities Conservators make for extremely deadly (and often short) fights whenever they get involved.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: All Conservators have dangerous stinger tails that they can use to attack with in battle.
- Blood Knight: They have an intense thirst for hunting and fighting to such an extent that a Conservator not regularly displaying traits assosiated with combat or tracking is considered a freak.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: All Conservators have four arms in total, which gives them a few bonuses in combat.
- Psychic Powers: They are considered major psychics but have a very limited pool of actual powers. (Most are focused around tracking enemies or gathering information.)
- Super-Strength: They start out with a whopping 50 supernatural strength, making them one of the most physically strong classes in the entire game.
- Third Eye: And they have quite a few nice eye related powers to compliment it, such as long range nightvision and see the invisible.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: All Powerlords get retractable Mega-Damage forearm blades as standard upgrades.
- Deadly Upgrade: The Bio-Wizard implants that Powerlords have reduce their life expectancy by about 40-50 years compared to the regular Overlords. However, most Kydians see becoming a Powerlord as a great honor despite the drawbacks and are usually happy to be choosen as worthy of becoming one.
- Explosive Breeder: They reproduce at an astonishing rate and most births result in at least triplets, which nearly caused them to go extinct when the resources on their home planet started to dry up. Luckily for them, the Splugorth found a use for their vast numbers and offered them salvation in exchange for becoming a part of their personal army.
- Long-Lived: To everyone's immense surprise (including their own) they actually have a natural lifespan of around 150 years in ideal conditions. Before the Splugorth came their overpopulation crisis was forcing them to kill off everyone who made it to about a third of that.
- Super-Strength: Overlords get a supernatural strength score of about 20-30 on average while Powerlords start with a P.S. of 40.
A terrifying entity comprised of three main components: The Minion of Splugorth Slaver itself, a small handful of Altaran Blind Warrior Women a large slave barge that serves as a mode of transportation and weapons platform. The Splugorth Slaver leads the slave hunting party with its powerful senses and eye staff while the Altarans provide support, making for a dangerous foe even for more seasoned adventurers. True to their name these nasty monstrosities prowl the world in search of humans and other creatures to enslave for their master back at Atlantis.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The Slavers, like the High Lords, have never considered anything apart from serving as the Splurgoth's brutes. Averted for the Altarans, who can and do often rebel.
- Bodyguard Babes: The Altarans serve as this for the Minion of Splugorth Slaver piloting the slave barge.
- Disability Superpower: The Blind Warrior Women have greatly heightened senses that counter their lack of vision and actually give them an advantage in darker areas.
- Eldritch Abomination: To a lesser extent than their master but they're still vile tentacled space horrors that love to cause suffering and enslave other races.
-
I Am Not Shazam: To many people in North America, the Minions are all they ever see of the Splugorth Empire. This leads them to the erroneous conclusion that the Slavers are the Splugorth, as opposed to a mid-ranking client race for Splynncryth. - One-Gender Race: Altarans are all female, and reproduce through partenogensis.
- Scarily Competent Tracker: Both the Minion itself and its Altaran slaves have several abilities for hunting down humans and other creatures.
- Slave Race: The Altarans serve as this for the Splugorth, and were designed as such from human stock.
- Super-Senses: Both the Minion of Splugorth Slaver and his Blind Slave Women companions have superhuman senses for tracking their prey.
Lesser Classes
- Killer Space Monkey: They're a race of dangerous space humanoids that look like strange alien apes with giant brains.
- Long-Lived: Downplayed compared to most other Splugorth minion races but their avaerage lifespan is 120, several decades above the human average.
- My Brain Is Big: They have gigantic skulls that house equally giant brains and are known for their high intellegence, technical skills and psychic powers.
- Psychic Powers: They are natural psychics with abilities mostly focused around machinery and other technology.
- Combat Tentacles: They mostly just rely on their immense psychic abilities to win battles but can also strike at their foes with their tentacles in a pinch.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: A few varieties of Metztla have some pretty weird eye placements.
- Long-Lived: Varies a bit between the many different types but most variants live for several thousand years on average.
- Psychic Powers: Their trademark ability. Even the weaker Metztla are considered to be master level psychics with a wide range of powerful and devistating abilities.
- Starfish Aliens: Unlike most of their allies (which usually have a more humanoid shape) they don't look like any sort of creature that could be native to earth. Their exact shape and abilities vary greatly between members but they all look like something that crawled out of a H. P. Lovecraft nightmare.
The Tattooed Men are enslaved humans that have been captured by the Splugorth and turned into powerful magical soldiers via the application of tattoo magic that endows them with many special abilities. In addition to giving them natural M.D.C. the tattoos grant them many useful superpowers to give them an edge in combat, though the process of branding them with a new tattoo is very painful and tramatic, which often leads to them developing insanities as they recieve more and more tattoos. While the majority of Tattooed Men are male humans both women and other races can become tattooed as well (in fact, females get a small stat bonus due to having a slightly higher natural P.P.E.) and may uncommonly be seen among the ranks of Splugorth foes in battle.
- Animated Tattoo: Two of the five major tattoo types (Animals & Monsters) focuses on magically summoning various creatures from tattoos. These include everything from common animals to deadly mythological monsters.
- The Beastmaster: As mentioned above they can get tattoos for summoning both supernatural monsters and normal animals. The T-Monster Man O.C.C. subclass even specializes in this.
- Elemental Powers: A large amount of their tattoos give them one or more elemental abilities. This includes:
- Blow You Away: The ability to float in the air, control wind and change the weather.
- Making a Splash: The ability to breathe underwater and swim like a fish.
- Playing with Fire: The ability to surround themselves in a fiery aura and shoot flames from their hand.
- Shock and Awe: The ability to call down lightning strikes and shoot electric blasts from their hand.
- Happiness in Slavery: The Maxi-men are raised as slaves, knowing no other life, conditioned to be warriors, and those who are kept in Splugorth service instead of sold are able to attain high rank and privilege. As a result, most Maxi-men are loyal servants, though there's always exceptions.
- Immune to Fire: One of their tattoos centered around flame control temporarily gives them this power as one of its many bonuses.
- Power Tattoo: As one could probably guess, their main gimmick is a set of magical tattoos that give them powerful supernatural abilities. These powers range from pretty basic stuff like creature summoning all the way up to healing and even resurrection.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Due to how their powers work along with the fact that they get natural M.D.C. from their tattoos and generally shun body armor this trope is pretty much a given. If a Tattoo Man appears anywhere in the artwork you can bet he'll be both buff and shirtless.
- Weather Manipulation: They have a tattoo that lets them calm storms and call down lightning.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Being forcefully enslaved by alien monsters and made to undergo painful magical tattooing processes doesn't do their mental health any favors and many become violent, insane and/or suicidal fairly quickly. Somewhat subverted with the Maxi-Men though, who are raised and conditioned from birth to be tattoo slave soldiers for the Splugorth and generally have a somewhat better outlook on their lives than the basic Tattoo Men.
Sunaj
The current ruler of the Aerihman clan of True Atlanteans and by extension the Sunaj allies of the Splugorth. He's the mastermind behind most of the Sunaj operations in and around Atlantis and beyond, including their long term goal of wiping out their more noble bretheren and resuming their plans to retake and reshape Atlantis into the mutliple dimension empire it was always destined to be. Despite his immense charm and charisma easily swaying his fellows Lord Ahziree remains a cruel and calculating man who won't let anything get in his way, even his current Splugorth masters whom he plans to betray and frame for the murder of his kinsmen once the dust around his campaign of genocide begans to settle. Only time will tell how successful he'll ultimately be in achiving his goals for a reborn Aerihman controlled Atlantean empire with himself as the undisputed ruler.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: That's Lord Ahziree Aerihza to you peasant. In addition to being the current leader of the Aerihman and Sunaj he claims royal lineage among his bloodline and is described as having an "aristocratic air" about him.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: He's the leader of the Sunaj and has enough powers, skills and special abilities to make his fellow True Atlanteans look like common street performers.
- Dishing Out Dirt: He has all the powers of a 2nd level Stone Master O.C.C.
- Escape Artist: One of his most highly leveled abilities.
- Older Than They Look: Like many True Atlanteans he is much older than he initially appears to be. In this case he looks to be about 30 but is actually about ten times that age.
- Power Tattoo: Like all True Atlanteans, though he has a few less than the norm.
- Psychic Powers: One of his many, many special abilities.
- Sorcerous Overlord: He rules over the Sunaj and has a unique character class called "Atlantean Alchemist" that gives him access to several powers and skills from about half a dozen other O.C.C. available to the players.
An elite group of Sunaj warriors that are experts at slaying their fellow True Atlanteans along with any other foes that get on the wrong side of Lord Ahziree. Gifted with psychic powers, Atlantean tattoos and several other deadly abilities they serve as an elite hitman unit for the Sunaj and carry out their orders from the shadows, striking down enemies without empathy or remorse. As should be obvious from their name they are a special O.C.C. that is only available to the Sunaj, that is, the Aerihman clan of True Atlanteans.
- Cool Helmet: They all wear helmets with deliberately monstrous designs to help conceal their identity as members of the Aerihman clan. The intimidation factor of their chosen headgear probably doesn't hurt either.
- Master of Disguise: One of their main areas of expertice. They are meant to be stealthy assassins, after all.
- Power Tattoo: Like all true Atlantean characters they use special tattoos that grant them magical abilities, though they tend to mostly focus on the Power category of tattoos due to their line of work.
- Psychic Powers: While most of the Aerihman clan generally have these types of abilities anyway due to selective breeding only those with a high level of psychic power can become assassins.
Slave Stock
The Adarok are large gargoyle-like creatures that, despite their fierce and demonic looks, are actually a kind, gentle and peaceful race. They strongly prefer to avoid unnecessary conflict and will typically flee ranter than engage in a meaningless fight. They can be quite dangerous if provoked however, which is quite a fearsome sight to behold as they uproot trees and fling around cars like toys. Sadly, their benevolent nature and massive size and strength make them ideal prey for the Splugorth and they can commonly be found being sold at the Atlantis slave markets.
- Dark Is Not Evil: They look like giant demonic mountains that sprouted wings, but are actually nice and friendly creatures that prefer to reason with or flee from their enemies instead of fighting or hurting them.
- Dumb Muscle: They are insanely strong but their I.Q. stat is usually in the low to medium single digits.
- Gentle Giant: Their main defining characteristic. Sadly, they are often mistaken as a threat by humans and attacked or captured and sold as slaves on the Atlantis slave market.
- Long-Lived: Their average lifespan clocks in at just under a millenium.
- Psychic Powers: They can communicate telepathically and are considered minor psychics with a few natural psychic abilities.
A race of small dragon-like lizard creatures commonly sold in Atlantis as an exotic sort of pet or watchdog that can occasionally be found in the wild as well. They tend to be loyal useful compainions and are extremely popular among the Splugorth minions. The price of a Dragonsaurus is usually determined by its level of training and breeding with only the most elite variants fetching the highest prices.
- All Animals Are Dogs: The text discribing them makes several blatant comparisons to dogs, such as pointing out their level of intelligence is similar to that of a German Shepherd.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: This thing is literally called a Dragonsaurus.
- Pet Monstrosity: They are basically the Atlantis equivilent of modern day dogs or cats with many members of the Splugorth elite keeping one or more as pets.
A race of vicious predators that have a natural affinity for earth magic that they typically use to catch prey with, such as causing a landslide to bury the hapless victim alive. The Splugorth mostly use them for menial labor such as construction or debris clearing, though they typically have to be fitted with a bio-wizard "enslaver" to prevent them from simply making a run for it though the ground. In fact, quite a few of their number have already escaped into the wilds of Atlantis and parts of Europe in the past.
- Dishing Out Dirt: They have a natural affinity for earth magic that makes them great at a wide variety of building and construction jobs.
- Long-Lived: Most live to be a few hundred years old.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: They have two pairs of arms to assist them in combat.
- Restraining Bolt: Most have a bio-wizard "enslaver" device implanted into their head to prevent them from fleeing.
Strange creatures that resemble large disembodied eyes. They are primarily used by the Splugorth in bio-wizardry and similar technology as a sort of magic computer/power source. Though the exact size of the eyes vary they are never smaller than a basketball and have a strong aura and of magical and psionic energy. Most people beleave they come from a giant planet sized being called Eylor from somewhere in the depths of space, through whether there is any truth to this speculation is known only by the Splugorth themselves. Whatever the case, their usefulness and amazing powers cannot be denied.
- Faceless Eye: They're giant magical floating eyes.
- Long-Lived: They can supposedly last for up to 50,000 years and may in fact be immortal. Notably, they can survive without any sort of norishment even in the vacuum of space.
- Psychic Powers: They radiate powerful psionic energy and may be telepathically connected to a larger being somewhere in outer space.
- Super-Senses: As to be expected of giant magical eyes they have some really nifty vision based abilities.
Three separate races of sentient bird species that all come from the same world. The Hawrk-duhk are a peaceful D-Bee race that typically shun violence while the Hawrk-ka and Hawrk-ohl are more combat focused and behave much like powerful predator species. Despite the three races not getting along very well they share many of the same abilities and powers to the extent that they're nearly indestingishable except for their vastly different cultures and personal ideals. All three can be found for sale at the slave market, though they tend to command different prices based on their speciffic skills and disposition.
- Bird People: All three races have their names and appearance based on birds. The Hawrk-duhk resemble ducks, the Hawrk-ka resemble hawks and the Hawrk-ohl resemble owls.
- Psychic Powers: All three have some psychic abilities but only the Hawrk-duhk is considered to be a major psionic.
- Resistant to Magic: All three races have a natural immunity to magic due to the environment they grew up in. The Splugorth take every opportunity to point this out to potential buyers and hype them up as excellent guards and workers because of this.
- Super-Senses: They have some pretty powerful natural senses further boosted by their various psionic abilities.
Federation of Magic
- Child Prodigy: He was an accomplished Ley Line Walker of the 4th level by the time he was 12.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He dearly loved his father and had him deified in death, even going so far as to name one of his major cities after him.
- Immortality Immorality: A very strong type 1. At some point during his travels he gained immortality and became immune to most forms of poison and disease, including radiation. The price for this great power is an upkeep of P.P.E. that must be absorbed from a victim at the moment of death. It has to be a sentient being too, animals don't count.
- Life Drinker: He has to absorb at least a dozen P.P.E. fairly regularly to maintain his immortality. Since he cares so little for the lives of others and will happily kill just for the sake of it this doen't present much of a problem for him.
- Older Than They Look: He's over a hundred years old but looks barely a day over thirty.
- Sorcerous Overlord: He serves as the "unofficial" ruler of the Federation of Magic and exhibits a large amount of control over the area, even in the more independent setllements.
- Cat Folk: He's a Raksasha from Hindu folklore, which are basically demonic cat people.
- Evil Chancellor: Downplayed since his boss isn't exactly a saint himself, but Bloodmist goes out of his way to encourage Lord Dunscon's more violent and evil traits to stoke the flames of conflict smoldering in the areas surrounding the Federation of Magic. He has no desire to replace him as ruler, but only because it's far more amusing to watch Lord Dunscon's mad quest for revenge and power from the sidelines.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Bloodmist. Given his nature as a powerful and deadly demon lord it's quite fitting.
- Really 700 Years Old: His exact age isn't given and his character bio simply states that he is "thousands of years old" without giving an actual concrete number.
- The Spymaster: He has extremely high espionage skills and is a cunning and ruthless demonic entity serving a sinister Sorcerous Overlord as an adviser and tactician.
- Dark Action Girl: She serves as one of Lord Dunscon's top enforcers and is easily one of the most deadly women in the entire Federation of Magic.
- Demonof Human Origin: She used to be a normal human woman named Bridget Daniels who traded her humanity to the force known as "the Liberator" for power and became the first of the Corrupt.
- Does Not Like Men: She has a particular and special hatred for men, seeing them as the reason for everything that went wrong in her life and takes extra glee in causing them pain whenever she can. She even hates Lord Dunscon but stays relatively loyal to him because he provides her more victims than she would have otherwise.
- Hot as Hell: She's a demonic entity known as a Corrupt and has a very beautiful figure, including the skill of seduction.
- Sadist: Her primary hobby is causing suffering to others whenever she can, with men serving as her favorite targets.
- Statuesque Stunner: She's a whopping 6'8 tall and has the appearence of a sexy demon lady.
Tolkeen
Leader
The long standing king and commander of the magical kingdom of Tolkeen. King Robert Leonard Creed was known as a just and charismatic leader who took to the throne at a young age and led his people into an enlightened era of progress, hope and prosperity. This all changed when tensions between Tolkeen and the Coalition States began to flare more and more out of control. Eventually, this would lead King Creed to call forth his people into a disastrous all out war that would ultimately see the kingdom fall to the sheer might of the combined efforts of the Coalition States and their allies. While his ultimate fate from this bloody and gruesome campaign is mostly unknown to the general population his tragic mistakes will continue to shape the destiny of his scattered people for many years to come.
- Fallen Hero: He used to have a noble and rightous heart with an aligment of Scrupulous good that slowly let himself be consumed by hatred and pride until his aligment fell to Aberrant evil instead. One of the very first casualties in his war with Prosek was his benevolent nature and rational mind.
- Fate Worse than Death: If he survives the final seige on Tolkeen he'll most likely spend the rest of his days consumed by intense guilt over leading countless people to their deaths in a fruitless war or even go competely off the deep end with insanity after refusing to comes to terms with his horrible actions. Neither outcome is a particularly happy end for the guy.
- Heroic Sacrifice: One of the many ways his story can end at the finale of Siege on Tolkeen if the GM wishes. While rescuing as many of his people as he can he is killed during the final battle to ensure that as many refugess make it out of the razed city as possible.
- Older Than They Look: He's a few years into his fifties by the time of the war with the Coalition States but looks like a man still in his early thirties.
- Strong and Skilled: In addition to his combat prowess and magical ability he is also known to be a great scholar and historian with a lot of very high level skills and talents.
- Survivor's Guilt: If he makes it through the final battle with his life and sanity intact he gets hit with this hard due to leading so many of his own people to a senseless death at the hands of the Coalition States while managing to survive and live on himself.
The Circle of Twelve
Warlord Corin Scard is one of the main powerhouses behind the Tolkeen army and is obcessed with defeating the Coalition States at any and all costs. Having lost his family to a CS raid on a D-Bee group they were travelling with young Corin grew to hate the Coalition States even from a young age. After many years of training and adventuring he became quite the skilled gunslinger and eventually found himself in the position of leading Tolkeen's magical forces against his hated enemies. Sadly, much like King Creed the war has driven him to his limits and cause him to become more unstable and determined to win at any cost, even after it has become clear that Tolkeen is doomed. To him, surrender and retreat are not an option and anyone who suggests otherwise is an enemy to the cause who must be dealt with quickly and harshly.
- Blood Knight: He relishes in the bloodshed and horrors of war he faces against the Coalition States. His goal isn't so much to protect Tolkeen as it is to wipe out or at least cripple the CS as much as he possibly can.
- General Ripper: The tide of the war slowly turning to the Coalition State's favor has left him desperate to destroy them by any means necessary, even if it means sacrificing untold amounts of soldiers, citizens and fleeing refugees to get the job done.
- The Gunslinger: He's a high level Gunfighter who mostly carries revolvers, rifles and similar armaments as his weapons of choice.
- Hypocrite: He's willing to send truckloads of his own troops through the meatgringer if it means doing any serious damage against the Coalition States, but is extremely reluctant to risk his own life. He reasons that Tolkeen will need him to rebuild after the war and that he can't die yet as he's far too valuable to lose.
- Sanity Slippage: The war has not been at all kind to his mental state and he has delevoped several big insanities as a result.
- Teen Genius: He was a 3rd level Gunfighter who killed his first man at the tender age of 13.
An elven fire and earth warlock and one of the only female members of the Circle of Twelve. Believed to have come to Rifts earth shortly after the awakening of the planet's many leylines Mida spent much of her adult life traveling across the world and even visiting other dimensions such as Wormwood. With the onset of her twilight years she decided to settle down in Tolkeen to spend the remainder of her life and has served as a loyal member of the Circle of Twelve for almost an entire human lifetime. Unfortunately, her quiet new life was ultimately not meant to be as the CS declared war on the mage nation and engaged them in a brutal and bloody conflict. Sensing that the end was near and that her side had already lost the battle she fled from her home mere days before it was hit by a devastating CS air strike and took refuge in Lazlo, where she aims to help other magical survivors and refugees that have been forced out of their homes due to the war and its aftermath.
- Elemental Powers: As a level 12 Warlock she has access to many elemental abilities:
- Dishing Out Dirt: Which she used to help modify and fortify the land surrounding Tolkeen to assist in the war effort.
- Green Thumb: Her mastery of earth magic has give her a small handful of useful plant based spells and abilities.
- Playing with Fire: She also has access to a huge variety of fire spells and powers.
- Iwas Quite A Looker: While her current P.B. is only 11 her bio states that it used to be 24 in her younger years.
- Long-Lived: One of the many perks of being an elf D-Bee.
- Pragmatic Hero: She's known to be manipulative and sneaky, which has caused some friction between her and a few other noteworthy characters like Erin Tarn. She also has an alignment of Anarchist and chose to get the hell out of dodge when the final assault from the CS hit rather than stay and fight to the end like so many others. Despite this she has mostly good intentions and attempts to rescue and assist Tolkeen's many survivors after she flees from the city.
- Twofer Token Minority: She's one of the few women on the Circle of Twelve as well as an elf D-Bee from another world.
Deities, Demigods & Demons
Abrahamic Pantheon
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
- All Your Powers Combined: If all four manage to meet up they will morph into an insanely deadly apocalypse demon with the power to kill every single living thing in the world. Defeating one or more of the horsemen will weaken the resulting fusion but not prevent the merge outright unless at least three are killed.
- Big Bad: They serve as this for World Book 4: Africa and pose such a dire threat that even the Splugorth have taken notice!
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: They are the four mythological horsemen of doomsday mentioned in The Bible that have come to Rifts earth to bring about the destruction of all life on the planet.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Their only goal is to merge and erradicate all life on earth.
The leader of the four horsemen as well as the most powerful among them. Death takes the form of a tall humanoid monster with multiple arms, horns that resemble a crown and has an almost skeletal corpse-like appearance. True to his name his powers primarily revolve around killing living organisms and reanimating the dead which special abilities ranging from decaying flesh to assembling grotesque frankstein zombies made up of whatever spare parts he can get his hands on. His mount is a netherbeast named Bones.
- The Fettered: He operates under an iron-clad rule - he will not harm or kill any creature that does not attack him first. Unfortunately, his sheer presence is so unnerving that most people assume he's about to attack him and try to get the first strike. The undead he animates follow the same rule.
- Make Them Rot: His name is Death for a reason, it's only natural that he would have this power.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: He has a total of four arms and makes good use of them in combat.
- Necromancer: Most of his powers revolve around reanimating dead things to serve him or killing living things to make them dead things and then reanimating them to serve him. He's basically the king of this trope as far as Rifts is concerned.
Famine is arguably the weakest of the four horsemen due to having the least amount of health and abilities focused more on utility and manipulation rather than direct combat. He is still a very dangerous threat however, and should not be underestimated just because he has less physical power than the other horsemen. Most of his skills revolve around creating droughts and famines and destroying edible food, making him a deadly foe for any long term battle as he can deprive his enemies of much needed supplies to maintain their troops. His mount is a netherbeast named Cyno.
- Lean and Mean: What other look could Famine possibly have?
- Make Them Rot: His specialty is rotting food, depriving his enemies of nurishment.
- Weather Manipulation: He has extensive control over the local weather and can raise the temerature, call forth strong winds and even create blizzards and hail to destroy crops.
One of the four horsemen who specializes in diseases and poisons. His whole body is made up of a gigantic swarm of insects that he can unleash on unsuspecting foes for a nasty surprise. Anyone who fights him also has to worry about the potential poisons and diseases the bugs that bite and sting them may carry lest they become too sick to fight at a critical moment. Definitely not the kind of opponent anyone with a fear of creepy crawlies would want to face. His mount is a netherbeast named Raid.
- Pest Controller: His main form of attack is to send out a massive swarm of insects to bite and sting his foes. He also rides around on a giant beetle monster.
- Plaguemaster: Well yeah, he is Pestilence after all. Poison and disease spreading is his main power.
- The Worm That Walks: His main body is a skittering mass of various crawling and flying bugs of all shapes and sizes.
One of the more powerful horsemen, second perhaps only to Death himself, who specializes in waging war in any shape or form imaginable. One of his most powerful abilities is the command of any and all weapons in existence from lowly swords and spears up to advanced energy rifles and alien robotics. He does this by melding with the weapon of choice, allowing himself to use it skillfully regardless of type or design... though this power only affects actual weapons and can't be used to harness normal technology like computers or tools. His mount is a netherbeast named Carnage.
- Chain Pain: He can use the chains attached to his netherbeast as weapons if need be.
- Epic Flail: His signiture weapon is a powerful flaming rune flail.
- Multi-Melee Master: He is a master of all melee weapons.
- Multi-Ranged Master: He is a master of all guns and ballistic weapons as well.
- Walking Armory: As the personification of War he can use any and all weapons in existance perfectly by melding them to his own body.
Egyptian Pantheon
Gods of Darkness
Set Typhon-Tanis is a dark egyptian god of destruction, deceit, betrayal and fratricide. He is the one who killed Osiris and scattered his body across the world and now rules over the egyptian gods of darkness. A master of many forms of magic (with a specialty in stone and fire spells) Set is an extremely deadly opponent to face, even to his fellow gods and is a master manipulator who takes joy in using mortals emotions and negative feelings against them. His greatest foe is the sun god Ra, leader of the egyptian gods of light.
- Bling of War: He wears a super tough M.D.C. black and silver chain plate armor.
- Dark Is Evil: Set is a dark god of destruction and deceit with the head of hyena (or wolf) and is a master of destructive magic and trickery. Unsurprisingly, he's an evil brother killing asshole.
- Destroyer Deity: One of his main spheres of influence is destruction and he has plenty of deadly powers to help him achive it.
- Manipulative Bastard: He is a god of deceit and betrayal and loves to corrupt mortals through trickery and playing with their emotions.
- Villainous Friendship: He's apparently on pretty good terms with Lord Splynncryth in Atlantis.
Gods of Light
Ra Annu is the hawk-headed leader of the egyptian gods of light whos spheres of influence are the sun, warmth, life, light and fertility. He is also considered to be one of the eldest gods and is the archenemy of Set, the egyptian god of darkness and destruction. Like his hated foe he is also a master of many types of magic and a deadly enemy in combat even to his fellow gods. Unlike Set however, Ra is a noble soul who will champion any good cause and opposes evil wherever it springs up.
- Big Good: As the leader of the egyptian gods of light he serves as this for pretty much any heroic groups or factions living in or around Africa. He would even oppose the horsemen if he wasn't currently busy dealing with other more important matters.
- Bling of War: He wears M.D.C. gold plate armor and even has golden skin. He is the egyptian god of light after all.
- Light Is Good: He's a noble god of light with golden skin who opposes evil and will fight for any good cause. He's pretty much the complete opposite of Set in terms of personality and looks.
- Top God: Widely believed to be the oldest and most powerful of the egyptian pantheon of gods. At the very least, he serves as the leader of the gods of light.
A powerful egyptian god that symbolizes wisdom, knowledge and invention. Thoth is an accomplished orator, scholar and author who has written countless books on the subjects of magic and history. Underneath his curious exterior lies a dark and terrible secret however... Thoth is a being cursed with amnesia who is unable to remember his past or true identity... an identity that even the other gods of egypt are unaware of. His true name is Xy... and his true form is that of a Great Old One!
- Dark and Troubled Past: He's actually an insanely powerful entity from several millenia ago who underwent a transformation that left him in his current state and wiped out his memory of his past self permanently.
- Identity Amnesia: He has forever forgotten his true name and form as Xy and now lives as the egyptian god of wisdom known as Thoth.
- The Smart Guy: As the god of wisdom, knowledge and invention this is pretty much a given.
The egyptian goddess of nature, love, death and rebirth as well as the patroness of magic and warriors. She has recently gone missing and none of the Gods of Light are sure of her whereabouts. This is because she was infected by a Splugorth Bio-Wizard microbe that robbed her of most of her power and memory but did not kill her outright. Now she thinks she is a normal human woman with strange and unknown powers named Katrina Sun and has no clue to her true identity as an egyptian goddess. For more information about her human incarnation see Adventurers.
- Bling of War: She wears a stylish crimson and gold plate armor in her true form as Isis.
- Hot Goddess: She is renowned for her supernatural beauty and has a P.B. score of 27.
- Lady of War: In addition to being the goddess of nature, love, death and rebirth she is also the patroness of warriors and is no slouch in combat herself, even in her weakened human form.
- Sacred Bow and Arrows: One of her most powerful weapons is a divine bow that requires immense strength just to pull back and fire. It shoots "silver moonbeams" that deal Mega-Damage and are especially effective against supernatural entities such as demons and the undead.
Races & Species
Racial Character Classes
Introduced in Rifts
Psi-Stalkers were once human, but the Coming of the Rifts mutated them. They look like normal humans, though hairless and with bone-white skin. Despite this, however, they are very different from normal humans. For the most part they eschew modern society, preferring to live in a more primitive tribal setting. They are Master Psychics, and instinctively see supernatural creatures as their natural prey. They don't eat them, however. Psi-Stalkers are psychic vampires, who feed off of a living being's magical energy. Some rare "civilized" Psi-Stalkers live in the Coalition States, where they are viewed as second-class citizens. They typically join the police or military, and lead packs of Dog Boys.
- Canine Companion: Seeing as how they're basically a human version of them, it's no surprise that Psi-Stalkers who join the Coalition Military bond easily with Dog Boys.
- Chrome Dome Psi: All Psi-stalkers, male and female, are hairless.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Like Simvan above, Psi-Stalkers have shades of The Savage Indian. They gather in tribes, hunt and live off the land, and are generally considered wild. The few who live in cities are called "civilized," and have to be trained to resist their urge to kill wantonly.
- Friend to All Living Things: They have a weaker version of the Simvan's power. Animals of all kinds view them as trusted companions and will not attack them unless provoked.
- Hunter of Monsters: Though not for any altruistic (or even villanous) purpose. They feed off the energy of supernatural creatures, and prefer to take it by killing the thing.
- Power Creep: As originally written, Psi-Stalkers didn't really have any natural weapons that could be used against the monsters that are supposed to be their natural enemies. Like normal humans, they had to rely on mega-damage weapons and armor. Rifts Ultimate Edition changed this somewhat and now, when facing a supernatural threat, their Hit Points temporarily become MDC points. This was RetConned as a power they've always had, but kept secret (apparently even from the game designers).
- Psychic Powers: In the loose sorting algorithm of Rifts psychic powers, Psi-Stalkers are considered Master Psychics. They can sense and track supernatural beings (though not as well as Dog Boys), and feed off their magical energy in lieu of food or drink.
- Uncanny Valley: In-Universe. The Coalition would prefer Dead Boys to rely more on Psi-Stalkers than Dog Boys, since they're wary of their soldiers getting too friendly with non-humans. However, with their bone white skin, baldness, and wild mentality, Psi-Stalkers come off as a little creepy to the common Grunt. Ironically, the only soldiers who truly accept their presence are the Dog Boys, who see them as natural pack leaders.
- Weaksauce Weakness: They don't like Ley Lines, because they mess up their sensing and tracking abilities. They can feed off ley line energy, but they don't like the "taste" (the books compare it to sour milk).
Dragons are very strange and powerful creatures with an insane number of natural abilities and skills. Not only are they born intelligent with access to amazing psychic and magical abilities they mature quickly and reach three quarters of their adult size during their first few weeks of life. Most dragons are fairly solitary by nature and tend to avoid members of their own kind except for the purposes of mating though they will often form bonds with members of other species. Dragon hatchlings are also available as a player class.
- Breath Weapon: Each subspecies of dragon gets one based on its type. Great Horned Dragons and Fire Dragons breathe fire, Ice Dragons breathe ice and Thunder Lizard Dragons breathe... magical poison gas?
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: The original Rifts core rule book listed four subspecies of dragons with elemental powers based on these elements. In addition to Great Horned Dragons were Fire Dragons, Ice Dragons and Thunder Lizard Dragons.
- Our Dragons Are Different: They hatch with full knowledge of their own language, develop powerful magical and psychic abilities at birth and are apparently classified as mammals according to the orginal Rifts RPG book. Yeah, these guys can get pretty weird even by dragon standards.
- Psychic Powers: Dragons in Rifts possess psychic abilities. The abilites each dragon has is dependent on its species.
- Shapeshifter: Dragons can change their shape to pretty much anything they want as a natural ability. Even size isn't an issue, they can change into anything from their natural size down to the size of a house cat. Tbe only limitation is that hatchlings can only change their shape for a few hours a day. In game mechanics, they can shapeshift for two hours a day per level of experience. Dragon hatchlings who don't want to advertise their true nature have to go into hiding for the rest of the day.
- Teleportation: Dragons can teleport at will as a natural ability. They can also teleport across dimensions, though that one is a little harder to pull off.
- Younger Than They Look: Dragons are only considered adults when they reach 600 years of age but most of their growing is done after their first few weeks of life, resulting in the freshly hatched babies being roughly the same size as the elders. Players who choose to be dragon characters will always be this since the table for deciding their age ranges from a few months to a few hours.
The most powerful psychic class in the original game as well as one of the most powerful psychic classes in the entire Megaverse with few others even coming close to being considered an equal. The Mind Melter is one of the few Psychic RCC's in the game capable of using Super level psionics (and the only one that appears in the base game) which gives them near exclusive access to all four categories of psionic abilities. One major downside to all this power however, is that they are easily recognized by the Coalition States and banned from entering their territory. While this can cause some problems when traveling with a group, a solo Mind Melter can still be plenty lethal on their own.
- Deflector Shields: Two different Super Psionics work on this principle. One creates a dome of psychic energy that functions like a force field. The other functions more like a suit of body armor surrounding the psychic.
- Healing Hands: Mind Melters have access to all the Healing psionics available to other psychics, as well as more powerful versions of certain healing powers.
- Laser Blade: One of the very few classes that can create a Psi-Sword. It's notably more powerful than the ones used by Cyber-Knights and the Mind Melter can even change its color to fit his mood! The drawback is that unlike a Cyber Knight, who can call up their Psi-Sword in an instant, Mind Melters need to concentrate for a time before they can summon one.
- Making a Splash: In the base game they have exclusive access to the Super tier psionic power of Hydrokinesis.
- Mind Manipulation: The scariest of the powers available to Mind Melters allow them to affect the minds of their victims. This can include influencing their emotions, paralyzing their bodies, and even taking complete control of another person's body through possession. Only the D-Bee race known as Mind Bleeders are more feared in this regard, as their powers include full on Mind Rape.
- Playing with Fire: One of the Super tier psionic powers they have access to is Pyrokinesis.
- Psychic Powers: The hands down master of this trope as far as Rifts is concerned. They start with over a dozen psionic powers from all four categories at level one!
- Psychometry: The psionic "Object Read" allows a psychic to learn information about an object by touching it, such as its purpose, and information about its last ownder. If the character expends a little more psychic energy, they can even see what the owner is doing in the present.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: As part of their sense of superiority, Mind Melters are fastidious about their appearance.
- Shock and Awe: Their access to Super tier psionic powers includes the use of Electrokinesis.
- Smug Super: If they have one major weakness it's that they're super powerful and they know it. While most Mind Melters manage to not get so full of themselves that they become completely careless their arrogance can easily cause them to underestimate an opponet or overestimate their own abilities.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: As part of their overconfidence in their own abilities, Mind Melters tend to use psionics to solve all their problems. Some don't carry weapons at all (even a mage in Rifts is likely to be packing at least one gun) due to their sense of superiority.
An extremely dangerous class of psychic that specializes in pyrokinesis. They only get a small handful of "normal" psychic abilities but more than make up for it with their complete mastery over fire and heat. A Burster is able to not just manipulate flame but can actually extingish fires as well and has a host of very useful secondary powers that make them a deadly foe in combat. As a psychic class they are easily considered to be one of the most powerful available in the base game, second only to the Mind Melter.
- Hot-Blooded: Bursters are very passionate about pretty much everything.
- Immune to Fire: One of their more useful abilities is a complete immunity to fire and heat, even of the Mega-Damage variety. They can still take minor damage from a fire based attack, but only from the sheer force of the impact, not the actual flames. They also get a 50% electricity resistance as well.
- Kill It with Fire: As might be expected, Bursters excel at killing things with their fire powers, and generally seize any opportunity to fight that way.
- Mundane Utility: Their control over fire and heat has a ton of mundane uses outside of combat such as cooking food, starting a campfire or extinguishing an out of control blaze. Their updated character portrait in Psyscape also depicts a Burster casually lighting up a smoke with a flaming finger.
- No-Sell: Fire, heat, and smoke don't affect them.
- Playing with Fire: About 90% of their powers revolve around manipulating heat and flame in some way. They can use their own psychic engergy to fuel fires, extingish already existing fires, shoot blasts of firebolts, and much more.
- Psychic Powers: Mostly related to their pyrokinesis but they do have a small handful of other psychic abilities available to them such as Levitation and Mind Block.
- Pyromaniac: In the Savage Worlds port, Bursters have Pyromaniac as a mandatory Hindrance. It's only minor level, so the Burster still has self-control (usually)... but the fact that Bursters enjoy starting fires does nothing to endear them to settlements who already fear psychics.
- Required Secondary Powers: The game takes a moment to note that they are completely immune to intense heat and have the ability to breathe and see clearly in smoke.
- Wreathed in Flames: They get their name from their most visually-impressive ability, their power to surround themselves in an aura of flame. The fire does not affect the Burster, or anything he's carrying, but otherwise acts like normal fire (setting nearby combustibles on fire, etc). The Ultimate Edition beefed up the ability, affording the Burster Mega-Damage protection whenever they flame burst.
Introduced in World Book 2: Atlantis
- Arranged Marriage: A common custom in many Atlantean clans, partially because many are small and insular groups and need tight recordkeeping to prevent inbreeding. They're not forced marriages, and the clan understands that sometimes a marriage doesn't work out. The Aerihman went further as part of a Super Breeding Program.
- Atlantis: Their ancestral home. They hate that it has been taken over by an Eldritch Abomination.
- The Atoner: Even ten thousand years later, many Atlanteans still feel they must pay for the damage they did unleashing monsters on Earth. This is one of the reasons most Atlanteans are dimensional wanderers.
- Empire with a Dark Secret: The Sunaj are a secret group within the Aerihman Clan who have devoted themselves to a False Flag Operation, killing as many other Atlanteans as necessary to force the clans to unite behind the cause of taking back Atlantis. They killed off an Aerihman colony to throw the other clans off the clan's trail.
- Fantastically Indifferent: Having been around the block, so to speak, Atlanteans do not suffer from culture shock, no matter what weirdness surrounds them.
- Noble Bigot: The average Aerihman Atlantean is something like this. The clan have been on the front lines of the war against the undead since before Atlantis sank, and they've produced more Undead Slayers and heroes of legend than any other clan. But they're also the ones who didn't learn from the destruction of their home, and they still believe in benevolent colonialism of lesser races and look down on other Atlanteans as weaker. The Sunaj skip the "noble" part. They're fascists, pure and simple.
- Occupiers Out of Our Country: The Aerihman want Atlantis back from the Splugorth occupiers. The rest of the clans won't allow the Aerihman to attack, however, out of fear of being lumped in with them.
- Older Than They Look: Seasoned dimensional travelers, sometimes even an Atlantean himself isn't sure how old he is. But even those hundreds of years old look like they're in the prime of their youthful vigor. A small percentage are survivors from Atlantis, which disappeared ten thousand years ago.
- Power Tattoos: True Atlanteans were taught the secrets of Tattoo Magic from the Chiang-Ku Dragons. All Atlanteans bear two tattoos on their wrists called the Marks of Heritage: a flaming sword which can become a weapon, and a heart impaled by a stake, which provides protection against vampires.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: The other Atlanteans would really like it if the Aerihman would let go of the "reclaim Atlantis" and "rule over lesser beings" memes.
- Super Breeding Program: Clan Aerihman have employed eugenic Arranged Marriages for millennia to breed Psychic Powers into their clan. Eighty percent of the Aerihman are psionic, with the average Aerihman being a major psychic and 16% having Master potential.
- Superior Species: They really are far superior to unaugmented humans. Most of them don't let it go to their heads.
- Vampire Hunter: Vampires are ancient enemies of the True Atlanteans, hence the magic protection against them mentioned above. Some take a more active role and become Undead Slayers, magic tattoo-covered warriors who battle vampires across the Megaverse.
- Walking the Earth: Or in this case, the Megaverse. After losing Atlantis, the race became wanderers, never calling any place home.
Introduced in World Book 5: Triax & The NGR
- Actually a Doombot: The NGR keeps trying to pull this. According to an in-book comic, they've recently moved up to Actually A Doomborg.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Averted. While the majority are, good examples do exist, and individual gargoyles have understandable motivations.
- Dumb Muscle: The lower castes, besides gargoylites.
- Fantastic Caste System: Range from the tiny, rare gargoylites, to the wingless brute gurgoyles, the standard gargoyles, the magically powerful gargoyle mages and the wise and imposing gargoyle lords.
- Genius Bruiser: Gargoyle Lords.
- Tree Top Town: Their preferred habitat. When they commandeer a human city, the bottom few levels tend to go unused by the winged inhabitants. It's mentioned that whatever world they evolved on originally, the trees must have been colossal.
- Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide": Subjected to this by the NGR. Would like to return the favor. In fairness, the Germans had understandable objections to the gargoyles eating human survivors in Europe.
Introduced in World Book 12: Psyscape
Zappers are an extremely rare and powerful class of psychic that specialize in electrokinesis. In addition to manipulating electricity they have the power to absorb it and resist most types of energy attack, essentially making them an electric version of the Burster psychic from the basic Rifts game. Zappers wield great power (in all senses of the word) but their low numbers make them a fairly rare sight on the battlefield, though that may change in the near future as various factions such as the Coalition States have begun to take an interest in them.
- Energy Absorption: They can absorb electric based attacks and even use the energy to recover their health. They also have a strong resistance to most types of nonmagical energy.
- Mundane Utility: Goes without saying that having electricy manipulation and absorption powers in a sci-fi setting such as Rifts has a million and one uses. Who needs a generator when you can be the generator?
- No-Sell: Electricity can't hurt them and will in fact heal them when they absorb it. They also have a strong resistance to other forms of energy based attacks such as lasers and plasma.
- Psychic Powers: Mostly related to their electrokinesis but they also have access to a few of the more standard powers as well.
- Shock and Awe: Their main abilities all focus on electricity manipulation and absorption, though much like the Burster they also get a small handful of more mundane psychic powers as well.
Mutants, Monsters & D-Bees
A civilization who thrived during the height of the Atlantean age, the Lemurians live and breathe magic, having integrated it into their society even more seamlessly than the Atlanteans. When the magic went away, they went underwater, then hid in an oceanic dimension ruled by the Lord of the Deep until the Coming of the Rifts. Now, they have returned to the Earth as heroic protectors. Most of them still consider Atlanteans their long-lost brothers, and hold no grudge against them for the mistake that destroyed their civilization. Most.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Lemurians generally lack the Atlantean sense of superiority in favor of harmony with nature and all things, and are friendly enough once you meet them. But they've had to militarize their civilization a bit since encountering the Lord of the Deep, the Splugorth, and the many other horrors of the Megaverse, and now their biomanipulation has created dangerously-effective weapons to use against the enemies of peace. In particular, if you're a vampire and you see a Lemurian, run; they have more and more-effective anti-vampire weapons than anyone else.
- Crystal Spires and Togas: Their technology doesn't even look like technology to outsiders, being magic used in unique ways. They make extensive use of Pyramid Power, and tend towards ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Persian-style wear while on the surface, similar to Atlanteans (though underwater, near-nudity is more common).
- Hidden Elf Village: Lemurians don't let outsiders know where their floating and underwater cities are, and while individual Lemurian adventurers travel the world, the civilization as a whole has remained in the shadows since returning to Earth. The latter embargo is weakened when they ally with Reid's Rangers for their anti-vampire crusade, and breaks completely with the Minion War, when they form an alliance with Lazlo and send their warriors into the fray.
- Human Subspecies: Like the Atlanteans, the Lemurians are genetically-modified; in their case, for peak human performance, the ability to breathe underwater, and a natural connection to the Earth and life. Ironically, this, combined with their amazing performance in the Minion War, has caused a lot of Coalition soldiers to look at the Lemurians with particular fondness; if it weren't for the whole "magic-using civilization" thing, the Coalition would probably just call them a race of human mutants like the Psi-Stalkers and try to make friends.
- Magitek: The entire Lemurian civilization is based on their use of this, though they do it much differently from Lazlo's Techno-Wizardry. They use Pyramid Power like the Atlanteans to control and channel ley line energy, and Biomancy, with a level of sophistication that would make South American Biomancers green(er) with envy, to develop wondrous biotechnologies, like sea serpents for transportation, immense crop yields, living Powered Armor, and enchanted wooden weapons for vampire killing. Conversely, they shy away from mechanical and metal devices, considering them dead and unnatural (though stone is sometimes used).
- Stripperiffic: A lot of Lemurians don't wear much, especially underwater; they're an aquatic species and love to swim, and they like feeling the water on their skin. Lemurian women in particular like wearing a Seashell Bra or a corset that looks like fish scales for a top.
- Solarpunk: They give off this vibe, though without the solar panels (those are too technological). Renewable energy is harnessed in the form of ley lines, their cities seamlessly integrate living gardens and forests and travel along the ocean, and they're generally quasi-utopian with a Polynesian background and a tolerant and welcoming atmosphere (if you can get there). They aren't quite as egalitarian as most solarpunk societies, having a traditional caste system, but the castes are flexible and allow for social mobility.
- Beast Man: A variety of normal animals given humanoid attributes, such as hands and bipedalism, by mutations, genetic engineering, magic and various combinations thereof.
- Canon Immigrant: Various canine species make appearances from the Palladium Fantasy game, explained as being just another world in the multiverse. These are not actually mutant animals, but are often confused for such.
- Canine Companion: The reason for the creation of Dog Boys — people like dogs, and dogs are already predisposed to following and wanting to please human handlers, and so it was felt that they would be a good source of Mooks both from the public relations angle and from an obedience standpoint.
- Government Conspiracy: Project ACHILLES, who created the South American mutants.
- Little Bit Beastly: A possibility for aquatic mutants. To be fair, they can also just look like big fish. Along to make mythical creatures for some reason, rather than the relatively more sane elements of project ACHILLES.
- Psychic Powers: A common trait among mutant animals.
- As well as what was mentioned above, canines were picked by by the Coalition because they have natural supernatural sensing abilities, which are magnified in Dog Boys.
- The mutant animals of the ACHILLES Project were likewise chosen for psychic potential, which the scientists in the project weaponized. The Coming of the Rifts made their powers even more impressive.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Reptilian mutants tend to be nasty customers.
- Super-Soldier: Many mutant animals were created to be races of strong, fearsome soldiers
- Winged Humanoid: Several varieties exist in South America.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Well, not really, but since they're normally used as (minor) NPC villains, view themselves as the only true people and regularly war against (and eat) everyone else, they can come across that way. In a subversion, a small number of them have effectively become civilized and joined the Tundra Rangers (aka The Royal Canadian Mounted Police).
- Beast of Battle: Their titular mounts are all large, aggressive beasts more than capable of holding their own against their riders' foes.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: To The Savage Indian, in many ways.
- Horse of a Different Color: The most well known of the Simvan's Psychic Powers is their ability to turn any creature with an animal intelligence into docile pets. They like to use this power to make monsters like ostrosaurs, rhino-buffalos, and dinosaurs into mounts. Notably, they're the only species beyond the br'talb who can form empathic links with demon hound steeds.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Simvan see nothing wrong with eating captives or their own dead.
- Mooks: A tribe or two will sometimes ally themselves with a greater supernatural power. They generally get used as expendable cannon fodder in these instances. Not that they care most of the time, especially if given new lands to ride roughshod over.
- Psychic Powers: All Simvan males are psychic sensitives. The women have healing abilities. The best known is their ability to tame predators and monsters, see Horse of a Different Color above for more details.
- Rubber-Forehead Alien: They're humanoid in shape, and somewhere between lizards and mammals in biology.
- Always Chaotic Evil: They attack other living creatures on sight without mercy. The only way to pass through their territory relatively safely is to use a special scent gland taken off a dead Xiticix to mask the smell of outsiders to them. Even the people of Lazlo, who constantly preach harmony between races, admit that the Xiticix can't be reasoned with.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The queen is the biggest and strongest member of the hive with higher health, better stats and even some psionic powers while warriors are more buffed versions of the common workers.
- Bee People: They operate on a sort of hive caste system with a ruling queen who lays eggs that become the workers and warriors.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: As the books point out, it's hard to describe anything that is fundamentally incapable of enough recognition that other lifeforms are sentient to actually possess malice towards them as evil...though they remain a Horde of Alien Locusts.
- Horde of Alien Locusts: A disturbingly smart version; they have no motive other than expand and protect their hives, and hunt for PPE to accelerate their larval development to make new Xiticix to expand and protect their hives faster. What truly makes them a threat is that, once a hive is established, it's self-supporting, so the Xiticix have no need to preserve any resources, turning the areas around their hives into dried-out wastelands.
- Insect Queen: Each individual colony has a queen that is much larger and stronger than the basic workers and warriors that protect her.
- It Can Think: A Xiticix is simple, not stupid; they may not seem like it due to their inability to communicate with other life, but they are a fully sentient and technologically advanced species. Queens, Super-Warriors, and Hunters especially are all quite adept strategists.
- Multiarmed And Dangerous: They each have two separate pairs of arms which allow them to hold multiple weapons at once during battle.
- Starfish Aliens: Not so much in their appearance, which for most of the castes looks basically humanoid. But their minds are so alien that communication with them has proved impossible.
