Rifts: "Haven"
For possibilities about the future of the rifts game, see Like Rifts, But Better.
Some portions of the Rifts Soundtrack remain posted here.
A synopsis of the game so far follows.
Contents |
Book I: Ancient Gods
August, 101 PA – March, 102 PA
Chapter 1: Old Bones
The cyborg citizen-soldier Honoris of Tidee, while on patrol, has seen a man with a shoebox-sized piece of metal, and developed an inability to control his bionic arms and legs. Our heroes, encouraged by their mentor Adrian, volunteer to take him to Old Bones to get his bionics repaired. On the way, they are waylaid by Coalition soldiers, who take the money they would have spent on a cyber-doc. They meet a supposed cyber-knight calling himself Sir Balder Mantis, who offers to pay all their expenses and asks in return that they fetch from a nearby crypt an artifact called the Medallion of Night. They agree.
Chapter 2: The Medallion of Night
While Honoris is getting repaired, our heroes go to the crypt. They see a number of dead soldiers who were also trying to enter the crypt, and one dying one who tells them he was sent by “Lord Diamond.” They advance through the crypt and retrieve the medallion and a book written in indecipherable hieroglyphs, both decorated with the same closed-eye sigil. Upon returning to Old Bones late at night, they are accosted by a tall and thin D-Bee who calls himself Callid. Callid tells them that the medallion is a tool for creating undead monsters and Balder plans to use it for evil, and that they should give it to him instead. Leukos that night has a (apparently prophetic) dream of Balder and Adrian at the head of an undead army. The next day they meet Balder, who tells them that Callid was correct about the medallionʼs function, and that they can keep the medallion if they want, so long as they donʼt give it to Callid. After much deliberation, they decide to give the medallion to Balder. Balder also says he has never heard of the book.
Chapter 3: Homecoming
The party returns south to Haven, tailed all the way by an unsettling crow with orange eyes. On the outskirts of Haven, they see the bandit who attacked Honoris, and the metal box he was carrying. They capture him and take the box, and learned that he got it from someone named Davis. The box itself seems to Mikhail to contain an intelligent entity in a way that he finds eerily familiar. They report all this to Adrian, who appears to recognize the item and the name Davis and is troubled by the news. He takes it into his locked study. While in Haven, they research the closed-eye sigil and find it is associated with Canon, a Mayan god of darkness, often opposed with a sun god Arkhon, whose sigil is an open hand with eyes attached to the fingers. That night, all dream of the conquest of Haven by the undead army of Adrian, created using the box. Upon waking, they head to Adrianʼs study, where they find his daughter Karin has had the same dream and has already stolen the box. They help her hide it in a supposedly safe place. Upon their return, Adrian wakes and tells them to go look for the box where they left it; they find it gone. He relates the story of Callid and Arkhon and reveals the box to be Alexa's Mirror.
Chapter 4: The Hunt for Lord Diamond
Adrian announces his intention to leave to find his former companion, Jezerec. The party decides to follow the only lead they have, which is the name and sigil of Lord Diamond. Mikhail splits from the party and journeys north to pursue secrets from his past. The rest of the party returns by boat to Old Bones. They describe the diamond sigil and are told of a boat with that symbol on its shield. They follow the trail up the St. Lawrence River and into the Great Lakes. Along the way, Leukos meditates on the book, and discovers that he can speak to an intelligence inside it, which identifies itself as a “God of Darkness” and asks whether Leukos wants to become a god of darkness himself. The party finally catches up with Diamondʼs ship in Queenstown. There they meet Diamond himself, who explains that he is a mercenary who was hired to retrieve the Medallion of Night by a strange unsettling man with a distant look in his eyes. Waylon finds the description familiar. Diamond reveals that he was hired to transport another object, and the party convinces him to let them come along. They pick up the object from red-cloaked cultists wearing the open hand sigil of Arkhon, and identify it as probably Lane's Casket. Back at Queenstown, they steal the Casket from the red-cloaked cultists who are supposed to pick it up.
Chapter 5: Jezerec
The party runs away from the cultists up the shore of Lake Erie. They decide to make their way towards Jezerec, who lives in the ruins of old Detroit, hoping to meet Adrian there or catching up with him. They eventually find Jezerec, who informs them that Adrian has not yet arrived there, and was probably captured by the Coalition or some other force along the way. Upon hearing the story of what happened in Haven, Jezerec urges the party to find Karin immediately, since she, having proven vulnerable to Callid once, will be targeted again. When asked about Canon and shown the closed-eye sigil, he presents the party with a black rune sword named Nyctopher (“night-bringer”), which Miranda takes. When asked about the bookʼs offer, he relates the story of Loki's Army. The sword, in communication with Miranda, also says it is a god of darkness, and makes Miranda the same offer the book did. Through communication with the sword and the book, it is established that one who becomes a god of darkness pledges his soul for eternity to fight for the cause of darkness (which does not, however, appear to mean evil; at any rate, Nyctopherʼs intelligence is good-aligned.) In return, he gains unspecified godlike powers. It is also established that the book somehow serves as a register of those who have taken this pledge.
Chapter 6: The City of Magic
The party heads back towards Haven, by way of Laszlo. In Laszlo, Snoil meets some of his former companions from the Laszlo army and recovers some of his memory and former personality. He searches for news of his brother George, and discovers that George went off in search of him and was himself captured by the Coalition. The party locates the prison where George was held and finds it abandoned. On the wall of one cell is scrawled a note from George addressed to Snoil, saying that George can be found in the Yucatan. At the prison, they meet up with the mercenaries Bishop and Jake. They were hired in Queenstown by a mysterious shadowy figure who also identified himself as a god of darkness and told them to meet the party at the coordinates of the prison, lead them to another set of coordinates, help them free someone imprisoned there, and then bring them to yet a third set of coordinates to receive their payment. Together with the mercenaries, the party continues towards Haven.
Chapter 7: Toy Soldiers
The party returns to Haven and finds Karin, and Leukos sets the protection of Apollo over her. While in Haven, the party puts some more effort into trying to figure out the history of the book. They head from Haven to the location the mercenaries were directed to. There they find Mikhail, who has been imprisoned by a mad child techno-wizard named Erik, who makes very sophisticated humanoid automata. The techno- wizard Davis, mentioned earlier by Adrian, has been imprisoned there with him, making techno-wizard devices out of Arkhonʼs artifacts. The party frees Mikhail and Davis, who is carrying his latest device, Corbin's Crystal. They are then attacked by Callid, who manages to get his hands on the Crystal. The three artifacts (Corbinʼs Crystal, Alexaʼs Mirror, and Laneʼs Casket) appear to interact and begin to radiate an aura of supernatural evil; the players see a vision of a hand with eyes on its fingers, three of which are opening; and Karin clutches her head in pain. Leukos reads an incantation from the book, and the sky goes dark and Callid begin to scream and then drops the Crystal and vanishes. A few seconds later, the sky flashes gold, Karin falls unconscious, and the artifacts stop glowing. Leukos finds he can no longer feel the presence of Apollo. Ultimately, the party is left in possession of all three artifacts, and Davis returns to the custody of Erik. The mercenaries then take them to their next directed set of coordinates, where the same shadowy figure gives them their payment and gives Mikhail a card that reads, on the front, “I am a god of darkness,” and on the back, “Black ice comes from frozen blood. The power of the mind will prevail, even in the havens of the mad.” After some consulting with the book, it is decided that this is an instruction to find the writer in Madhaven.
Chapter 8: Homecoming, Again
The party returns, yet again, to Haven. On the way, they pass by a column of Coalition soldiers apparently on the march towards Haven. In Haven, they are unable to convince anyone in the government to mount a defense, apparently due to the influence of Callid. They inform some of the lower-down soldiers about the problem, and then head back north and attempt to divert the soldiers away from Haven and get them to attack Erik. It is unclear how successful they are, but if nothing else they delay the attack on Haven. Along the way, they return to the abandoned Coalition prison where Snoilʼs brother was held and stock up on supplies. Back in Haven once again, Waylon and Bishop decide to stay behind to help prepare in case the Coalition attack is still coming; Mya heads west to try to mount a rescue of Adrian; and Jake, his contract completed, leaves to find more work. The remaining four party members decide that they will head south, first to Madhaven to investigate the message Mikhail received, and then to the Yucatan to find Snoilʼs brother.
Book II: The Corners of the Earth
March, 102 PA
Chapter 1: The Old Lady
After stocking up on supplies in Haven, the party heads out west and south, towards Madhaven, equipped with a Coalition APC driven by Snoil, a Coalition skycycle driven by Karin, an Earth Thunder automaton constructed by Miranda, and an Astral Golem summoned by Mikhail. Along the way, an old woman who introduces herself as Shartred appears along the side of the road. She convinces the party to let her ride with them to Madhaven. Once inside, she relates that she, like Mikhail, has been imprisoned in Erikʼs facility, and seems to show an inordinate familiarity with Mikhailʼs history and curiosity towards Karin. During the trip, she relates the story of The Curse of Kao Zi. In the course of telling the story, she mentions an artifact called Kao Binʼs Crystal, which appears by its name and physical description to be related to Corbinʼs Crystal.
Chapter 2: Madness and Fear
As the party approaches the outskirts of Madhaven, each member experiences a different amount of unreasoning fear. All feel uneasy and afraid; some seem to see ghosts and hear voices calling out in distress. Karin completely breaks down and has to stop flying and come inside the APC. Shartred mixes her an herbal concoction that puts her into a dreamless sleep. Over the next few hours, the party begins to really enter Madhaven, where they see increasingly bizarre foliage and a tribe of bug-faced mutants. Leukos develops a phobia of darkness, which Shartred attempts to soothe by giving him an orb of light. Snoil, Mikhail, and Shartred attempt to talk with the mutants to let them spend the night in this spot and get some information about the area. Aided by Shartredʼs mysterious knowledge of the mutantsʼ dialect and culture, they get the suspicious mutants to agree to escort them to the “Hardmen” in the morning. Once they are settled in for the night, Shartred tells the story of The Armies of the Schwarzwald.
Chapter 3: Black Ice
As was promised, the party is taken to the Hardmen, which turn out to composed of dwarf-like mutants with metal grafted onto their bodies and giant hulking mutants called Lummoxes. The party manages to defuse a potential conflict between the Hardmen and the bug-faced mutants, and learns from the Hardmen that the Black Ice is a day's travel over very difficult ground. They seem to think it is quite dangerous there, and when they realize that the party intends to kill the creatures that make it dangerous, they grudgingly agree to send two Lummox guides along with them. The party travels all day with the Lummoxes, facing various hazards of Madhaven — ghosts, faeries, monsters fallen out of rifts, and others — until finally reaching an area where the ground is covered in a layer of black ice. They discover that the cause of the phenomenon is an underground rift to a dimension of black ice, and face a group of ice demons, a sorcerer, and an ice dragon. In the process, Shartred reveals herself as Bao Xia, a dragon princess sworn to fight evil, which includes the ice dragon found inside the rift. The party defeats the monsters and closes the rift. Mikhail finds the being that sent the message, who convinces him to join the gods of darkness. He is killed and reborn as an undead psychic ghost, and his name appears in Leukos' register. The party receives their thanks from the Hardmen and proceeds to leave the city as quickly as possible.
Chapter 4: North and South
Mikhail and Snoil head south to the Yucatan to search for Snoil's brother. The rest of the party heads west to the Federation, hoping to eventually infiltrate Coalition territory to rescue Adrian.
Objects
Alexa's Mirror
(Discovered in Book I, Chapter 3)
Alexaʼs Mirror, in its original form, was a flat oblong piece of polished obsidian about three inches long by two inches wide. Davis has mounted it on top of a shoebox-sized metal box, studded with flashing lights. According to Adrian, this artifact has the power to animate the dead. Also according to Adrian, the functions of Davis' TW devices are all analogous to those of the original artifacts. This particular device, when targeted at an electronic device, apparently causes it to re-execute the commands previously given to it in reverse order.
Lane's Casket
(Discovered in Book I, Chapter 4)
Laneʼs Casket, in its original form, was a worn chest of grey stone about 10” long by 5” wide by 5” high, with a lid that could be lifted off. It is recognizable as an ancient Atlantean ceremonial vessel. Davis filled the interior with electronics and ran gold filaments loosely from the interior around the outside of both the body and the lid, preventing the lid from being completely removed. The TW device appears to cause electronic systems to freeze up; presumably the magical artifact has an analogous paralytic effect on humans and D-Bees.
Corbin's Crystal
(Discovered in Book I, Chapter 7)
Corbinʼs crystal, in its original form, was a tetrahedral blue crystal about an inch and a half on a side. Davis has left it almost entirely unmodified, except for running copper wires around its edges. The party does not currently know anything about its magical or technological properties.
Tales
Callid and Arkhon
(Related by Adrian in Book I, Chapter 3)
When Adrian was young, he wandered away from Haven and made his way to the Federation of Magic. There he joined a group of adventurers (including Balder Mantis) who wanted to find the ultimate weapon to use against the Coalition. They discovered legends of a set of five artifacts of mystical power, called Raeburʼs Medallion, Laneʼs Casket, Corbinʼs Crystal, Alexa's Mirror, and Micahʼs Orb. One of their companions, a genius techno-wizard named Davis, began to design TW devices powered by these artifacts. As they began to search for them, though, they quickly discovered that the artifacts were sacred to an ancient god named Arkhon, and that they were pursued everywhere they went by his undead servant, Callid. Callid was especially dangerous because he had the power to control peopleʼs dreams, and he was extremely skilled at using this power to control othersʼ actions. As a result, these adventurers quickly began to distrust everyone and assume that anyone and everyone was under Callidʼs control. After unearthing some of the artifacts, they felt the aura of evil on them, thought better of their decision to use them as weapons, and hid them back where they had found them. Evidently Davis has now started searching for them and creating his technological devices based on them again.
Loki's Army
(Related by Jezerec in Book I, Chapter 5)
In old Germany there lived a country priest named Loki. One day as he was traveling he met a band of soldiers, who tried to rob him. He fought them off, but they returned in greater force and arrested him. He stood trial before a local prince for assaulting the soldiers, and called on the god Baldur to prove his innocence; but Baldur was silent. The prince and his soldiers burned Loki at the stake, along with his wooden staff. All the while, Loki called on Baldur to stop the execution, and with his last breath he cursed Baldurʼs name and called on any who listened to avenge him. Neither he nor his executioners knew that his staff had been cut from an mistletoe tree that grew on the grave of a great warrior, and long after the fire had burned out that warriorʼs spirit rose out of the ashes and called his allies to join him. The fire blazed back up, and a great army of the dead stormed the castle and burned it to the ground. Those who escaped swore that they saw Loki himself, clothed in flame. Over the course of the next few months, all Baldurʼs temples were attacked and burned, one by one, and all of his priests killed. According to legend, Loki and his army of the dead ultimately stormed the gates of heaven, pulled Baldur himself from his bed, and killed him in sight of the whole heavenly court. Odin himself was so terrified that he set to constructing the heavenly fortress of Valhalla, which to this day is staffed by Odinʼs own army of undead soldiers and fortified against Loki.
The Curse of Kao Zi
(Related by Shartred in Book II, Chapter 1)
"In the time of the Emperor Hu, before the Great Cataclysm, there lived a farmer by the name of Kao Zi. Kao Zi worked from before dawn to after sunset, day after day, and yet could not make enough to feed his family. He borrowed large sums of money to make ends meet. When his debt came due he murdered his creditor in cold blood. His crime was never discovered, and he lived out the rest of his life with his family.
"When he was on his deathbed, he called his only son Kao Bin to his side. He told his son his horrible secret, and wept that he would descend to hell upon his death. But Kao Bin swore an oath that he would retrieve his father's soul from hell. The old man smiled on hearing this oath. His son was renowned for his cleverness and resourcefulness, and would surely find a way.
"On his 18th birthday, Kao Bin went to the court of Bian Zheng, the Sixth Yama King. Bian Zheng told Kao Bin that if he could deliver control over all the kingdoms of Hell to Bian Zheng, then he would return his father's soul. Kao Bin said he would do as Bian Zheng wished, and asked for control over nine demons of the Sixth Hell, and a stone to hold the power of the other Yama Kings. Bian Zheng kicked up a blue crystal from the pits of hell and handed it to Kao Bin, and nine demons knelt before him to swear allegiance to the crystal.
"Kao Bin journeyed to the First Hell to speak with Jin Guang, the First Yama King. He told him that Emperor Huang Di, in those days newly reborn, was attacking with his army of terra cotta warriors, and that the other nine Kings had all pledged their armies to the crystal. As proof, he presented the nine demons -- one, so he said, from each of the other nine Hells. Jin Guang believed him, and thinking that the other Kings would crush him if he failed to join, he pledged his armies to the crystal. Kao Bin went with the same story to Zhu Jiang in the Second Hell; and then to Song Di in the Third Hell; and again and again with each of the remaining Kings, until by the time he came to Zhuan Lun in the Tenth Hell his story was true.
"Before returning to Bian Zheng, he travelled to Anhui province in the Dragon Lands. He climbed to the top of the Yellow Mountain and buried the crystal there; then he climbed back down and bought an identical crystal in a nearby town. Then he returned to the Sixth Hell, where he presented Bian Zheng with the duplicate and explained how he had tricked the other Yama Kings. Bian Zheng took the crystal and laughed, saying that he would never release Kao Zi. But Kao Bin had anticipated this, and told Bian Zheng that he had given him a duplicate crystal, and that he must release Kao Zi or he would never learn the location of the real crystal. Bian Zheng's head steamed with anger, and he cursed the fake crystal, hurling it into the deepest pit of the Sixth Hell.
"Left with no other option, Bian Zheng released Kao Zi, and Kao Bin told him where the crystal was hidden. Bian Zheng marched as fast as he could to the top of the Yellow Mountain, but Kao Bin got there first. He summoned all the demons from all the Hells to fight Bian Zheng, and they quickly ripped him apart and devoured him. Only his horns remained, burning eternally with hatred for Kao Bin.
"Kao Bin ordered a fortress built atop the Yellow Mountain, and he himself descended to Hell to rule in Bian Zheng's place. He freed Kao Zi, who knelt by the Jade Emperor to serve him eternally. The fortress, so the legend says, still stands. In the middle lies Kao Bin's Crystal, guarded by demons from all the hells, so that none should ever again wield the power of all the hells.
"But alas, it is only a myth. I myself climbed the Yellow Mountain, and found the fortress quite abandoned and Kao Bin's Crystal nowhere to be found. But such is the fate of things that rest for all eternity."
The Armies of the Schwarzwald
(related by Shartred in Book II, Chapter 2)
"I wasn't always this old, you know. Once I was young and fit in my nano-fiber jumpsuit, an energy rifle on my back. I was a medic in the NGR army, special forces. I was in one of the first Vagabond Corps, our answer to the Atlantean Intervention. You see, demons are simple creatures. They were poorly organized, they would bicker between themselves, they were brash, easy to predict, easy to fool. We held lines, dug trenches, trapped them, flanked them, cut them down. We read Clauswitz and Sun Zi, Cao Cao, Tacitus and Caesar, we had central command, stratagem and doctrine.
"We had pushed the demons back to the Schwartzwald. We had dug trenches across the forest, North to South. Right in the middle we had left a hole two miles wide. A beautifully undefended corridor right into the heart of our supply. It was too good to resist. The mainstay of their elite force, which we had dubbed "The Balrog Regiment," came crashing through, ready to take our supplies.
"The forest erupted in flame. Seven gunships, the entire 4th artillery, the elite 24th Wurttemberg all opened fire. They were crushed. Sprays of blood and flame, the heartening sound of demons screaming in pain. With that trap we had won the war. The 13th armored pressed in from the South sending them on a brutal forced march into the North.
"Suddenly our ranks were overrun. An attack hit us from the South. Our entire force was there, we knew we had lost. But the attack made no sense. It was too organized, not the work of demons. We retreated through the enemy force, it should have been suicide. We were pushed back to our starting lines, then left alone. The demons had their position again, and we had our line.
"After a little intelligence it was clear that the attack had come from the Splugorth. They had restarted the war from square one. They were watching us for entertainment, betting on the outcome of each battle.
"Our response was to form the Vagabond Corps. We poured our resources into making small elite units, so we could always look as though we were vastly outnumbered. We trained to lose till the last second and to gain the aid of the Splugorth, then to turn the tides. Again and again we pushed them back, trapping them in the Schwarzwald; but every time we were overrun and pushed back.
"I urged the NGR to collect allies and face Atlantis itself, to bring together all the human armies. We argued bitterly before the Reichstag. Many were of my opinion, many were against me. Ultimately, there was too much pride; no-one dared to go to the Coalition or the human armies of China and beg for help. The council decided that we should try to go about our lives, constantly at war.
"And so a line was drawn across all Germany. We entrenched and fortified, and I took my leave. I have not been back since, though I'm sure I would be met with ... mixed reactions ....”
(Snoil and Miranda, having made successful Lore rolls, are aware that this story cannot historically have happened in Germany in Shartredʼs youth if Shartred is the age she appears to be. It must have either been either in a different place or a different time.)
