Roleplaying: Rifts TGE Act 1 Session 1 Summary
I ran the first part of the Rifts TGE game tonight. We only had a couple of hours to play due to starting late. There are four in the group:
- A Crazy who left his farm for a better life as a borg, but who got suckered into become a Crazy.
- A mutant 4 foot tall pigeon trained in military espionage and combat.
- A Cyber Knight with a penchant for being a complete rule stickler.
- A wizard who got sucked through from another world to the world of Rifts and who is looking to get back home.
I started the game by having the players having flashes of darkness, pain and bursting light before being able to hear other voices in their head. After this happened a couple of times, they woke up in a lab, all of them strapped to tables and being introduced to a Coalition scientist who told them they have been "acquired" for a mission, or at least phase 1 of it. Special nanotechnology had been used to insert a microtransmitter/bomb in their brains which allowed them to communicate non-verbally. The bomb was tamper-proof and set to go off if the nanotech was interfered with at all. The group was required to perform a mission for the Coalition: to go through a rift and retrieve a specific artifact. They were given special wrist computers that included a tracking device as well as a mini encyclopedia about the world they were being sent to. (Yes, it’s railroading, but it’s going to serve an important part of the arc later.) They have 7 days to complete the mission or the nanotech will allow the bombs in their heads to go off. Any interference with the bombs would trigger them. If they failed to return with the Crux Malefactant, then they were dead men.
They were taken to a special rift, one that seemed especially powerful and that was grounded by being controlled by what looked to be a gyroscopic gate control. This is uncanny technology. The rift was centered on a particular world, and they were sent through to it with an escort group that would ensure that the rift on the other side wasn’t tampered with. The group landed in a dense primeval forest that stretched for miles around. They were about 200 miles away from their target, which was a city to the northwest, which had a huge rift in the middle of it. After working out that it would take too long to travel there on foot and to get back in time to the gate before they explode, the wizard uses his ley line walking ability to allow them to travel along a ley line so they could get there faster. As they traveled, there seemed to a giant dog/wolf keeping pace within the woods, which left after they noticed it. Eventually they came to the end of the forest, which ran into a deforested clearing about 25 miles across. At the other end of this clearing lay a huge walled city. They continued on their way and noticed about a half dozen very large wolves standing at the edge of the clearing watching them. The wolves were about 3-5 times the normal size of wolves.
As they approached the city on the ley line, they noticed that it was somewhat Depression-era looking, apart from the giant obsidian ziggurat-style structure in the center of it, the crenellations along the outer wall and the manned sentry stations at regular intervals. The ley line ran through the wall and into the center of the city. They approached the nearest city gate to be met with what looked like anti-aircraft guns being deployed in the sentry towers. The gate opened and a single man, dressed in a cross between knight’s armor and Vatican-style religious outfits with a tabard with a circle on it came to meet them. He asked what they wanted, and when they told him they wanted into the city, he told them to leave. Their wrist comps told them that they had just encountered an Inquisitor of the Via Novus. They decided that the yshould leave and go back to the clearing to decide what to do next. They needed to get into the city, but it was clear that they weren’t going in the front door.
Standing at the edge of the clearing was what seemed to be a Native American chief/shaman who asked them who they were and what they were doing here. The players explained, and the chief said that he may help them. With a signal, a half dozen warriors, dressed in buckskins and carrying tomahawks and another traditional weapons came out of the forest. The chief told them that to explain properly, they must return to his village. The group was taken along the length of the ley line for some short distance before the chief performed an incantation to reveal a hidden pathway into the forest. Following that, the group went down into an earthen burrow that ran as a tunnel for about another half mile before opening up within a village bustling with a few hundred men, women and children. The chief called a village meeting and had the players explain to the entire village what they were looking to do: to retrieve an object from within the city: the Crux. At the mention of the object, the villagers became agitated. The chief explained that for him to be able to help, he would have to call on some "friends". These friends operated within the city walls as "Shadows" and could get in and out of the city, but it would take some time for them to get there. While they waited on the friends to arrive, he told them a little of the history of their world:
After Christopher Columbus discovered America, he returned to Europe. The Via Novus, the dominant religious organization of the time, sent settlers to America and put down roots on the east coast. Since then, the Via Novus have been encroaching on territory and building their city sprawl further into the forest and land. However, the natives and their friends have been fighting back. The Via Novus are vampires, and bleed their population, using special crystals to do so. The Crux Malefectant is one of the seven Objects of Power that the Via Novus use to help them do this, and it is held in the city called Redemption, in the ziggurat. The natives have tried to get to the Crux in the past but cannot enter the city without being detected, which is why they need to call upon their friends.
The players lay down to rest as night falls, but are awoken in the middle of the night by lots of animal noises in the surrounding forest. They ask what’s going on, and are told that their friends are arriving. They step into the middle of the village to see a giant wolf like the one they saw before arrive in the village. Quickly following it is a giant bear. Both wolf and bear stand to the side, shimmer and change into native warriors. Between them strides an immaculately groomed man dressed in shining armor and a white tabard with a red cross in the center of it. He steps forward, smiling, and introduces himself as Simon, a Knight Templar.
And that’s how the session ended. I thought it went well, although we’re not as far along as I thought we were going to be, so I’ll need to revise my plans for the arc. This was the first game I’m game mastered in person for many years though, but it was great to be behind the dice again. I can’t wait for the next installment, which will take place in 3 weeks. For a game of Rifts, there was no combat so far, but they haven’t got into the city yet. And when they do, things will get a little more complicated.
Tags: rifts, rpg, tge, american indian, vampires
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