Rifts World Book Two Atlantis Review

Heres an old review of Atlantis I did. kinda funny

RIfts World Book Two: Atlantis

Atlantis. Just the name brings up many ideas, this place is not one of Palladium’s creation. With that in mind, lets look at how this mystical place is brought into Rifts.

First off, I’d like to say that this book has the possibility for more adventures and plots than many of Palladium’s others. It is simply filled with information and ideas that can keep a GM drooling for months. The Splugorth, their minions and conquered lands/dimensions, and the True Atlanteans are both great examples of the excellent quality of this book.

Atlantis is covered in enough detail to make it playable, there is plenty of good alien technology, magic, and rune weapons. The relations of many of the new peoples with the already existing people of earth is also covered.

The book’s art is pretty damn good. This is one place where the alien looking stuff applies, and a good job is done with the Kittani equipment. The many new races are also finely depicted. My personal favorites are Long’s Splugorth drawing, and the Rune weapon pictures.

Like most of the older books, this one is definitely an old-standby. The things in Atlantis do pop up in later books. Most players today have probably already heard of or used this book too. Do you really need it? No, it’s not needed, but man does it give a lot of great information! One of those books that you just get because you know it’s cool, even if you don’t necessarily *need* it.

My only misgiving with this book? Well, it was published in 1992. Back then it gave many tantalizing ideas, but Palladium has never really focused anymore on this great place!!! I mean, this book has plenty of places where Palladium could have done a lot more explaining. I almost felt they left to many possibilities and didn’t focus enough on giving actual information written in stone. Oh well, it’s still a great book anyway.

Noticable Picture, Quote, or Stat:

Frankly, this book is FULL of them, but after close consideration I picked out the cool idea of Bio-Wizardry. An interesting way to pump up characters, it can make them quite powerful but is very expensive and sometimes has negative side-effects. Also great for NPCs, now that “normal” looking gurgoyle isn’t so normal after all…

Noticable Lame Picture, Quote, or Stat:

Those odd looking Hawrk-whatevers. I guess the idea is sort of interesting, but I just can’t shake the fact that the second one looks like an angry chicken. It’s just not frightening at all…

Thull Durgis Corn Farmer turned Borg

steampunk gunslinger by ~DarkMatteria on deviantART

Thull Durgis, Person of the corn

4th Level Full Conversion Cyborg ex Wilderness Scout

Thull has lost all 4 of his limbs and 80% of his skin other than his neck and head region was was mostly spared. He how has been rebuilt by Hughbot as a CSLNGR Mark I Frame (p 190 New west) Full Conversion Cyborg. Thull knows that harvesters piloting a Titan Combat Robot were responsible for the missile volley that took out the chop shop Thull was hiding out in, costing Thull much of his humanity.

Borg Body Stats:
PS 20 PP 22 SPD 132 90mph
Main Body 450SDC

Original Body Stats:
HP: 15 SDC: 78

IQ 15
ME 8
MA 11
PS 19
PP 16
PE 14
PB 11
SPD 12

Borg Combat Stats:
Hand to Hand: Expert
# of Attacks: 6
Initiative: +4 amp hearing+combat computer
Strike: +10 hth expert + targeting sight + borg pp/ +3 with bow +2 knife
Parry: +11 amp hearing + borg pp/+13 with knife or sheild
Dodge: +13 amp hearing + borg pp + combat computer


Character Skills:
OCC:
Language: Candian 98 (native)
Language: Dragonese 80
Language: Euro 80
Athletics
Cooking 65
Climbing 75
Fishing 70
Horsemanship General 72
Identify Fruits and Plants 60
Hunting
Land Navigation 74
Pilot Motorcycle 86
Prowl 62
Radio Basic 70
Track & Trap Animals 60
Wilderness Survival 70
WP Knife +1 parry
WP Archery/Target +3 strike
WP Energy Rifle +2strike/+4 aimed
WP Sheild +2 parry

OCC Related:
Boxing
Gymnastics
Pick Pocket 50
General Repair & Maintenance 55
HTH Expert
Holistic Medicine 55
Carpentry 60 has successfully whittled 2 peg legs

Secondary:
Skin and Prepare Hides 45
Pilot Auto 66
Brewing 40
Auto Mechanics 40
WP Auto Pistol Learned at 4th Level


OCC Skills:
Cartography 55
Trail Blazing 40
Cross Country Pacing 50
X1 TBD OCC SKILL

Bionics:
Stock CSLNGR Mark I Frame

Gear:
500 10mm rounds
500 ramjet 10mm rounds
6 smartlinked Ares Predator II Auto Pistols 15rd 10mm clips, 4d6SDC PV4 1200ft range
Narunui N-F50A Force Field MDC 160 / 320 SDC 2 eclips 6hr/clip



History:

From the wilds of Alberta, riding on a rusty motorcycle he comes. Thull has since settled down in Corn Row area farming corn.

Thull had 5 brothers and 3 sisters to Wallace and Susan Durgis. Their names were Bob, Clarance, Thesman, Derek and Wallace Junior along with the beautiful Sue-Anne, Shirly and Selma. Thulls father is a raging drunk and his mother died after giving birth to Thull. Because of this they never got along and Thull always felt his father resented him. This caused Thull to have a rather disrespectful and angry attitude, he is Anarchist in nature and doesn’t expect anyone to be on his side, so why should he be on theirs. Thull does have unprincipled leanings mostly around strong mother like figures whom he only got exposed to as a child from his rather bitter aunt. She did teach him some things with hemlock and other poisonous plants that made his older brothers nervous enough to leave him alone…after Thull turned Wallace Juniors face into a giant rash.

Thull was trained by his clan and extended family to live off the land from a very early age. His family did not have much in the way of modern technology and many of their prized possessions had been handed down through the generations. Thull has only seen 2 energy weapons before coming to Kingsdale. When he was 15 his family was attacked by a tribe of Broadkill who killed everyone who resisted and enslaved the rest. Thull was driven out of his old home by them and dreams of revenge.

Thull is uneducated in the extreme, illiterate and very superstitious. That said his clan did have seers and shamans, so he does understand and respect these powers. He has a thick Canadian accent and often has grease and dirt under his fingernails, on his face and or on his clothing. He mostly jokes in analogies related to car or animal parts.

Thull is a rustic boy. His dream is to build a brewery, a garage, and have a decked out pickup truck.. He was the youngest of the brothers and because of this was beaten quite often by his older brothers. His oldest brother Clarance had a moonshine recipe that he shared with Thull the day before he was slain by the Broadkill. Because of this Thull is determined to build his own still and make a barrel in Clarance’s honor.

Thull’s other brother Bob taught him how to fix the family tractor and few working trucks. When Thull was old enough to ride he built himself a motorcycle out of broken parts from other vehicles. Due to the isolated nature of Thulls clan they were very good at Jury rigging things and often went searching ruins for salvagable machine parts.

The clan lived too far north to farm effectively so most of their food came from hunting and gathering. Thull learned holistic medicine, bow hunting, and trap track and skin animals from his Brother/Cousin Thesman. Thesman’s father is actualy Thulls Uncle Hank, who was a skilled tracker and taught the boys the woods around the Clan’s home.

Thull’s small clan had backwards customs including inbreeding , men have multiple wives if they can afford them, and bullets and energy clips are the most priceless of all possessions and to be used only in life or death situations. Otherwise ancient easily replaceable items are to be used if at all possible. Because of this Thull has an almost worshipful cargo cult style relationship to technology. He has no idea how it is made, nor does he know any of its proper upkeep. The Durgiss clan lived in complete isolation from the rest of civilization for many generations, its ancestors may have bought the few technological items but the current clan had no idea their true nature. They had many strange rituals and worshipful traditions related to technology. Thull’s motorcycle was actually partly built of wood, and his people had many vehicles stitched together from whatever natural and technological items could be used to survive better. He actually believes internal combustion is a form of magic where you “pray” to the firegods that live inside the moonshine he makes, to give the vehicle power. That is how the clan primarily powered its ragged fleet, using bio fuels made from distilled plant matter.
Because of this Thull adorns himself with any mechanical parts he can find, thinking they hold some magic power over the firegods.

Disbanded

Ronin stays with the babies and the survivors of the hospital boat.

Drago and Sparticus fly off to Kingsdale in newyork where they buy lots of stuff after meeting a strange man with a disabled hover car. After fixing it they are brought to a strange city near old new york. There they find alot of juicers and mercenaries and a store where drago buys a TW cannon and sparticus buys some armor, a new gun and a tw hover board.

Ronin and the Coyles find tracks and locates the remainder of the orcish force which laid waste to New Wilmar hiding out in a cave. Ronin kills a Gurgoyle that was prowling the area. Then the coyle go hunting and the rest of the survivors camp out and..wait? Will they be left abandoned?

Meanwhile Drago and Sparticus fly to Atlantis at about 100mphs, and after a few hours get to dragos lair on the western coast. The weather is calm…

XP

Drago +425XP +300email (52275 needs 80000)
Ronin (35250 needs 35521)
Sparticus +300xp +100xp finders fee (18300

Wired Slinger Black Marketeers Template

In Particular, this is Space Time Kid's Crew Family in Tolkeen. But one would imagine the other families are similarly augmented. (Wired Slinger OCC, Power Armor given to crew leaders) Tolkeen outfit. They deal in markets, black. They all carry Triax weapons. Made men typicaly undergo wiring as a sort of right of passage into the Tolkeen family. It is considered a grave insult to refuse such a gift when welcomed into the outfit. They only choose people with the ME high enough to control themselves after the wireing and not threaten their marketing. See rob Shraab's Las Cosa Nostroid for their inspiring source. . Green Regular Veteran Elite IQ 10 12 16 18 MA 12 14 16 18 ME 14 16 18 20 PS 16 18 20 22 PP 20 21 22 24 PE 12 14 16 18 PB 10 10 10 16 Spd 25 39 45 47 SDC/HP/ARMOR Armored Tuxedo 200SDC PV7   Tux+150SDC Dermal Plating T-C20 1000SDC p41triax +500SDC Forcefield Tux +200SDC Dermal Plating&Bone laceing with titanium. Stolen Experimental Triax X-3000 Paladin 3250SDC +1000SDC Forcefield     PPE 5 6 10 20 # Actions Melee /guns/powerarmor 6/7 guns 6/7/9 7/8/12 9 Strike (sword/max*) +3 (+4 mace) +2w/guns +6 (+2baton) +6w/guns +7(+10baton/13*) +9w/guns +6(+12sword) +8w/guns Parry (with blunt/max*) +6 (+7) +10 (+12/14*) +11 (+14/18*) +8(+17) Dodge +6 +11/13 or 15 flying (auto) +13/17* 19flying +10 Initiative +4 +8/+10* +9/+11* +11 Vs. Magic/poison +2/+1 +3/+2 +4/+3 +5/+4 Combat Actions   x2 TX-26 PB Pistol 400ft 5d6MD 6eclips x2 .45's w/ 6 20rd extended clips ramjets 4d6 Triax XM-70 Covert Ops Pod Neural Mace       x2 TX-26PB Pistols 6 Long Eclips x2 Auto-mags w/ 6 10rd clips Smartlinked with hover-AIs & magnetic clamps for attaching to armor 3ata +1s +1d4 Dynabots realistic skin overlay, w/ railguns & Jetpacks   Combat Terrain Hopper 6 Plasma, 6AP minimissles Painted Black w/ 100MD experimental triax forcefield Energy Baton 2d6MD 1Eclip=10strikes x2 TX-26PB Pistols x2 Auto-mags w/ 10rd clips .50 cal desert eagles 7 shots 7d6 50 ramjet bullets 25 silver bullets Smartlinked with hover-AIs 3ata +1s 10 Long Eclips Crit 18+ +1d4 DV40 Hunter Killer Drones (p86 triax) w/ TX843 Particle Beam Cannons 2d4x10 3000ft & Light Railguns 6d6MD 200bursts Triax X-3000 Paladin vet handguns+ TX-550Glitter Boy ` ` 1st 3th 8th 12th OCCSkills: Speaks American and one language of choice at 95% efficiency. Find Contraband (+6%) Pilot Hover W.P. Revolvers W.P. Automatic Pistols W.P. Energy Pistols W.P. Blunt, WP Heavy Energy,WP Paired Weapons Pistols, WPSharpshooting Interrogation (+15%) Streetwise (+10%) Palming (+10%) Prowl (+5%) Recognize weapon quality (+15%) Hand to Hand: Expert Cook +25 (like mamma used ta make it...) OCCRelSkills: Boxing, Computer Operation+10, Prowl, Radio:Basic,Literacy English+10 Normal/Vetern/Elite Skills:Pilot Robots&PA /Robot Comba;Basic, Concealment, Sniper/ Robot Combat Elite, Gymnastics, Fencing Secondary Skills G/N/V/E:Athletics, Gambling , Radio:Scrambler ,Weapons Systems/Computer Programming/Computer Hacking,Art, Juggling Powers: Cyber:MNEMONIC ENHANCER (+1skill/+2skills/+3skills/+4skills AT ONCE!)MO Eye (+1s), ,HeadJack&Radio/ Normal Cyber: SmartLink +1 to Init once combat has begun, gives a +2 to strike, and allows the user to make called shots with bursts of 3 or less for each round, or a called shot for the burst fire. , Amp Hearing & Skeletal Reinforcement Vet Cyber: Reflex Enhancers II +3 to init, +1 to dodge, one extra attack , Bio Monitor, Equipment: Vehicle: /// WP Guns Strike: +1wp+1moeye/+1moeye+2wp +1 T-C20 +2 smartlink/+4wp +2paladin +2smartlink+1moeye/+6wp +2 smartlink +1moeye WP Blunt +1s/p / +2s/p /+3s/p / +5s/p     Strike Bonuses:+3pp+1mo eye/ +3pp +2hth+1e/ +2hth+4pp+1e+3bot/+5pp+2hth+1e Parry Bonus +3skills+3pp/+3skills+3pp+3hth+1amp hearing +2TC20/+3skills+4pp+3hth+1amp+4paladin/+3skills+5pp+5hth+1amp Dodge Bonus: Green:+3skills +3pp/ Normal: +3skills+3pp +3hth+2amp +2TC20or+TC204flying(auto) / Vet: +3skills+4pp+3hth+2amp+1reflex ench +4Paladin +6paladinflying/ Elite: +3skills+5pp+5hth+1reflex ench+2amp +4attacks