The fictional worlds of Palladium Books® are violent, deadly and filled with ...
Lazlo, Lazlo Agency, Lazlo Society, Heroes Unlimited, Powers Unlimited, Ninjas
...
Warning! Violence and the Supernatural
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The fictional worlds of Palladium Books® are violent, deadly and filled with supernatural monsters. Other-dimensional beings, often referred to as “demons,” torment, stalk and prey on humans. Other alien life forms, monsters, gods and demigods, as well as magic, insanity, and war are all elements in these books. Some parents may find the violence, magic and supernatural elements of the games inappropriate for young readers/players. We suggest parental discretion. Please note that none of us at Palladium Books® condone or encourage the occult, the practice of magic, the use of drugs, or violence.
The Rifter® Number 45 Your guide to the Palladium Megaverse®! 1
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First Printing – January 2009
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Copyright 2009 Palladium Books® Inc.
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All rights reserved, world wide, under the Universal Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced in part or whole, in any form or by any means, without permission from the publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews. All incidents, situations, institutions, governments and people are fictional and any similarity, without satiric intent, of characters or persons living or dead, is strictly coincidental. Robotech® and Robotech® The Shadow Chronicles® are Registered Trademarks of Harmony Gold USA, Inc. Palladium Books®, Rifts®, The Rifter®, Coalition Wars®, After the Bomb®, RECON®, Nightbane®, Phase World®, Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game®, The Mechanoids®, The Mechanoid Invasion®, Splicers®, and Megaverse® are registered trademarks owned and licensed by Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books Inc. The slogan “A Megaverse of adventure – limited only by your imagination,” and titles and names such as Dead Reign, Dyval, Warpath: Urban Jungle, Heroes of the Megaverse, Dimensional Outbreak, Armageddon Unlimited, Dark Woods, Wormwood, Minion War, Mysteries of Magic, Hammer of the Forge, Beyond the Supernatural, BTS-2, HU2, Splicers, Chaos Earth, NEMA, MercTown, Merc Ops, Tome Grotesque, Beyond Arcanum, Benford Group, Naruni, Mechanoid Space, Dinosaur Swamp, Arzno, Lazlo, Victor Lazlo, Lazlo Agency, Lazlo Society, Heroes Unlimited, Powers Unlimited, Ninjas & Superspies, Aliens Unlimited, Mutant Underground, The Nursery, Hardware Unlimited, Gadgets Unlimited, Three Galaxies, Void Runners, Gramercy Island, Skraypers, Atorian Empire, Land of the Damned, The Citadel, The Palladium of Desires, Wolfen Wars, Wolfen, Wulfen, Cosmo-Knight, Cyber-Knight, Eylor, Eylor Imp, Gargoyle Empire, Free Quebec, Xiticix, Xiticix Invasion, Fadetown, Siege on Tolkeen, Psyscape, Dweomer, ARCHIE-3, Morphus, Northern Gun, Coalition States, Erin Tarn, Emperor Prosek, Splugorth, Splynncryth, Splynn, Mega-Damage, Mega-Hero, Skelebot, SAMAS, Glitter Boy, Dog Boy, Dog Pack, Techno-Wizard, Ley Line Walker, Shifter, Bio-Wizardry, Psi-Stalker, Brodkil, Juicer, Crazy, ‘Burbs, ‘Borg, ‘Bot, D-Bee, Chi-Town, Triax, NGR, and other names, titles, slogans, and the likenesses of characters are trademarks owned by Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books Inc. Palladium Online www.palladiumbooks.com
The Rifter® #45 RPG sourcebook series is published by Palladium Books Inc., 39074 Webb Court, Westland, MI 48185. Printed in the USA. 2
Palladium Books® Presents:
#45 Sourcebook and Guide to the Palladium Megaverse® Coordinator & Editor in Chief: Wayne Smith Editor: Alex Marciniszyn
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Interior Artists: Nick Bradshaw Kent Burles Mark Dudley Stephen Fox Apollo Okamura Charles “Chuck” Walton
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Contributing Writers: James M.G. Cannon Scott Gastineau Travis Guerrero Josh Hilden Joshua Sanford Ian Schroen Kevin Siembieda Brian Weber
Cover Logo Design: Steve Edwards
Proofreader: Julius Rosenstein
Credits Page Logo: Niklas Brandt
Cover Illustration: E.M. Gist Typesetting: Wayne Smith Keylining: Kevin Siembieda Based on the RPG rules, characters, concepts and Megaverse® created by Kevin Siembieda. Special Thanks to all our contributors, writers and artists – and a special welcome on board to the artists and writers making their debut in this issue. Our apologies to anybody who got accidentally left out or their name misspelled. – Kevin Siembieda, 2009
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Contents – The Rifter® #45 – January, 2009 Page 6 – Art
Page 15 – 2009 Palladium Open House It’s fun. It’s intimate. It’s three days of role-playing games. And it is your chance to game with and chat with Kevin Siembieda, Jason Marker, Julius Rosenstein, Carmen Bellaire, Carl Gleba, and a host of other Palladium creators ONE-ONONE! Yep, you get to meet Kevin, the Palladium staff and dozens of Palladium writers and artists. Best of all, you get to game with them. The entire event is ALL Palladium role-playing games and you are treated like a long-time friend. Oh yeah, it is held at the Palladium warehouse! You should think about attending. How to do so is all on this page.
Page 16 – The Rifter® Special Subscription Offer
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We encourage people to buy The Rifter® and other Palladium products at their favorite retail stores. However, if you have trouble finding The Rifter® in stores, or want the convenience of having it delivered right to your door, then you’ll want to check this out.
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I asked Mark Dudley to do a special illustration of “Baby New Year” to ring in the New Year. Instead, Mark gave us a “babe” and friends. I love the piece. It’s fun and funny, but it also represents the coming New Year for Palladium Books wonderfully. The angel represents the good, the hope and the big plans we have for a great New Year and getting Palladium completely on its feet. The devil represents some of the our fears about the economy (which are looking like they might be unfounded), our current cash flow crunch, and the challenges ahead. The wrapped gift symbolizes all the new books we want to give you in the coming year. Boy oh boy do we have one great sourcebook planned after another. We are very excited and we think you will be too. The hot babe represents, of course, the New Year, and since she is hot, it means Palladium is going to sizzle with excitement and new product all year long! Product and fun that will get the hearts of gamers everywhere pumping with excitement. The teddy bear is Palladium’s commitment to make 2009 the best year ever! (Or it could be that Mark Dudley has a thing for teddy bears, but we aren’t brave enough to ask him. Maybe you can ask him at the 2009 Palladium Open House this May 1-3, 2009.) And may all of you enjoy a happy and prosperous New Year.
new modern combat RPG, Warpath™: Urban Jungle™ too. Get your first glimpse right here.
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Page 17 – Another World of Zombies Optional alternative setting for the Dead Reign™ RPG
The Dead Reign™ RPG that saw publication is very different from what Josh Hilden and Joshua Sanford had envisioned. The sneak peek of the game in progress back in The Rifter® #40 with secret cults, conspiracy, betrayal of the human race, an Alien Intelligence who uses the risen dead and demons were all part of their storyline. Kevin Siembieda explains why he decided to take Dead Reign™ in a different direction, and presents some of Josh and Josh’s original material as an alternative time-line setting. This can be easily combined with the material in The Rifter #40 and the Dead Reign™ RPG to play a different kind of Zombie Apocalypse. The monsters could also be used in BTS™, Heroes Unlimited™ and Palladium Fantasy®. Enjoy. Introduction – Page 18 Brulyx Invasion Time Line – Page 20 Cult of Brulyx & The Benford Group – Page 22 The Supernatural – Page 25 Art by newcomer Stephen Fox, who knocked the illustrations out of the park on this job. Nice work.
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Page 7 – From the Desk of Kevin Siembieda
The Boss Man talks about our optimism and plans for 2009, the people who helped get us this far, Erick Wujcik, the good, the bad, and high hopes.
Page 8 – 2009 State of Palladium Books® It has been no picnic since the Crisis of Treachery. We’ve been working hard, dealing with whatever new problems came our way, faced disappointments and new challenges, had many small and spectacular triumphs, made great headway, and have high hopes for the New Year. You can read all about it in these pages. We just hope you are as excited about 2009 and the future of Palladium Books as we are. There are still issues and challenges ahead of us, but we are pumped up and full of ideas for new product.
Page 10 – News & Coming Attractions As Kevin Siembieda states, we hope to make 2009 Palladium’s year to shine. We’re going to do that with a multitude of new product, many of which are already in some stage of development. And we plan to support as many game lines as we can, with books for Rifts®, Robotech®, Palladium Fantasy RPG®, Dead Reign™, Minion War™ series, Nightbane®, Heroes Unlimited™, and much more on the schedule. Oh yeah, and the
Page 32 – Of Bows & Arrows Optional source material for Palladium Fantasy RPG® Newcomer Travis Guerrero takes an in-depth look at the art of Archery in the Fantasy setting as well as three new Archer O.C.C.s: the Psi-Archer, Demon Archer, and Circus Bowman, each with special abilities and/or bows and arrows. Plus Hand to
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Hand: Performance Archery, Hand to Hand: Bow Combat, Archery Proficiencies Table, and Archery Combat. Easily adapted to Rifts® or Heroes unlimited™. Art by the irrepressible Chuck Walton.
The Cover The cover is by artist E.M. Gist, and presents a Crawler zombie unleashing its moan to summon other zombies. We love the twisted artistry of E.M. Gist and you can expect to see more his work on Dead Reign™ sourcebooks.
Page 45 – The Order of the Mystic Knights™ Optional source material for Rifts®
Optional and Unofficial Rules & Source Material
www.palladiumbooks.com – Palladium Online
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Page 72 – The Court of Tarot Optional material for Beyond the Supernatural™
Please note that most of the material presented in The Rifter® is “unofficial” or “optional” rules and source material. They are alternative ideas, homespun adventures and material mostly created by fellow gamers and fans like you, the reader. Things one can elect to include in one’s own campaign or simply enjoy reading about. They are not “official” to the main games or world settings. As for optional tables and adventures, if they sound cool or fun, use them. If they sound funky, too high-powered or inappropriate for your game, modify them or ignore them completely. All the material in The Rifter® has been included for two reasons: One, because we thought it was imaginative and fun, and two, we thought it would stimulate your imagination with fun ideas and concepts that you can use (if you want to), or which might inspire you to create your own wonders.
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Ian Schroen and Brian Weber present a tour de force about Mystic Knights, their history, their hierarchy, ranks, houses of the order, off-shoot groups and their plans of villainy. There is also an expanded and revised take on the Mystic Knight O.C.C. House Sigil – Page 55 House Brujo – Page 57 House Bregdan – Page 59 House Hiredmann – Page 60 House Isen – Page 62 House Isceald – Page 63 House Despeiren – Page 65 Wandering House – Page 67 Forbidden House – Page 68 Mystic Knight O.C.C. Revised – Page 69 Art by the indomitable Kent Burles.
First time contributor Scott Gastineau presents a very interesting group of investigators into the unknown, the Court of Tarot. More than that, they are rivals and competitors of the Lazlo Society. The organization, notable NPCs, and history are all here for your enjoyment. Art by Nick “the Brick” Bradshaw – cooler than a love child between Elvis and Fonzie conceived during an ice storm!
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The Rifter® #46
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More great source material, adventures and ideas for Palladium role-playing games of many different settings. Fun and excitement for every taste. · Material for Rifts®. · Material for Palladium Fantasy RPG® · Material for Dead Reign™ (tentative). · Additional source material not yet determined. · The next, epic chapter of The Hammer of the Forge™. · The latest on the 2009 Palladium Open House. · Latest news, coming attractions and fun.
Page 93 – The Hammer of the Forge™ Chapter 45: Montage – the latest installment of James M.G. Cannon’s epic tale set in the Three Galaxies. Art by Apollo Okamura.
The Theme for Issue 45 This issue the theme is one of secret organizations, secrets and villainy. You have the orders and houses of the Mystic Knights for Rifts®; the Cult of Brulyx and the Benford Group for the alternative Dead Reign™ world setting and time-line; and though they aren’t really villains, you have the secretive Court of Tarot for BTS-2. Heck, you even get a glimpse at the secret plans Palladium Books has for 2009! We think this is another fun-filled issue that provokes your imagination and inspires you to try new ideas and expand your gaming Megaverse®. Fledgling writers and long-time gamers who think they are decent writers should think about sending in your own ideas for articles, adventures and source material to submit to The Rifter®.
Palladium Books® role-playing games … infinite possibilities, limited only by your imagination™
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