Editing RIFTS (section)

==Setting(s)==
As noted before, the primary setting of the world is Earth, specifically North America (mostly Eastern-to-Middle America and Canada). A few other dimensions got looked into from time to time as well. On top of that, compatibility between Palladium systems means that every other game, from ''Heroes Unlimited'' and ''Ninjas and Superspies'' to ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' and ''Robotech'' are also part of the Palladium Megaverse, copyright permitting on those last two (but if you got the books, who's gonna stop you?).  

One of the most important new old features of the transformed Earth are the ''Ley Lines'', lines crisscrossing the Earth that act as a network of magical energy. In the supercharged magic levels of Rifts' Earth, Ley Lines appear as huge walls of energy miles long, and half a mile wide, that glow blue-white in the night. Where two ley lines meet, they form a ''Nexus'', a powerful font of magic power that sometimes open into Rifts leading to other dimensions, where monsters and peoples can enter the world, sometimes whether they want to or not. Where three ley lines crisscross each other like a triangle, things get even weirder. Bermuda Triangle-weird. 

But if one wants to save this broken world, you need the right tools. Rifts is a world of both technology and magic, so naturally, you get to chose from both. The most common weapons are or course guns, with the standard being laser weapons. There are also Ion weapons, which are typically slightly more powerful than lasers, but at the cost of range. For those who prefer close-in combat, there's a wide range of ''Vibro-blades'', knives, swords, and other weapons covered by a powered field that vibrates the blade at a high frequency, allowing them to slice through even Mega-damage alloys and hides. Since there's a plethora of large targets in Rifts, from Dragons and Elementals to Tanks and Giant Robots, there's also a need for heavy weapons. These usually take the form of Plasma or Particle Beam cannons and missile launchers. For heavy-duty anti-personnel work there are railguns, which in Rifts are almost universally used as mega-damage machineguns. 

Then there is Techno-Wizardry. Magic focused through and/or powering technology. This is your primary source of magic weapons. Overall attitudes in Rifts aren't quite Style over Substance, but definitely lean towards Substance with Style. So you almost never get a simple "+1 Sword". Instead, you will be getting a lightsaber-style hilt with a Sapphire on one end that when activated creates a blade of pure magical ice. Guns can be made to shoot fire, ice shards, lightning, healing energy, or invisible bolts of pure force. Your truck can be made to drive in the air, turn invisible, call lightning from the sky, or generate a magical force field. With time, skill, and a handful of gems, nearly any spell in the book can be applied through technology. The only true drawback is that said magic runs on the same PPE(magic energy) that magic users use. So it does eventually run out, and will need to be recharged by either a mage, a stone pyramid, or on a ley line.

===Coalition States (North America)=== 
The former United States is completely broken, with a few new kingdoms and empires clawing their way out of the Post-Apocalypse. The largest of these is the '''Coalition States''', a Nazi-like state that keeps its people illiterate, lies about history, and is genocidally vehement against Magic and non-human beings. If you didn't get the memo about them being bad guys before, their soldiers also wear all-black Stormtrooper armor with a skeleton motif, and they like putting skulls on the front of their vehicles and mechs whenever possible. The Coalition States are: 
* Chi-Town: Claiming Iowa and parts of Illinois, Chi-Town is a massive fortress-city near the haunted ruins of actual Chicago that is the capital of the CS. Around Chi-Town (and many other fortress cities) are a scattered collection of communities and shantytowns known as '''The 'Burbs''', full of mutants, gangs, D-Bees (the fact that any D-Bee is willing to live so close to the powerbase of the dudes most eager to exterminate them should tell you how shit the rest of the world generally is), and many, many people hopeful to earn a place behind the safety of the city's walls. 
* Missouri: Located in the eponymous state. Mostly farm and empty land earmarked for future development. Also notable for two independent city-states in its south, Whykin (mostly human, tech-based and getting cosier with the Coalition States all the time) and Kingsdale (melting pot of D-Bees, magical beings, wizards and sympathetic humans, probably next big target on Coalition's shit-list but a bit too close to Federation of Magic for immediate annihilation).
* Iron Heart: In southern Canada immediately north of Lake Huron. An industrialized state that cozies up to Chi-Town actively. Very happy that Free Quebec is on the outs.
* Arkansas/El Dorado: Most of Arkansas is forest wilderness, with scattered Human and D-Bee towns. The primary exception is the City-State of El Dorado, which was friendly with the Coalition for years, ultimately joining during the Tolkeen war. 
* Lone Star: While the CS claims the entirety of the Lone Star State, in truth they only run the Panhandle and some the area south of it. The main reason they do so is the '''Tex-Am Complex''', a Pre-Rifts compound of Genetic Engineering labs, where the CS clones their army of Dog Boys. The man running the place, a Doctor Desmond Bradford, is a bit of a Mad Scientist. 
* Free Quebec: Laying claim to the Canadian state with a legion of Glitter Boys (like, tens of thousands of them, plus unique variants they developped). Quebec is... well, it's ''Quebec''. Very French and very arrogant, they eventually split off from the Coalition, sparking a civil war (then kissed and made up with them due to a hilariously poorly thought out attempt at alliance by Tolkeen, [[FAIL|dooming themselves]] since after that the Coalition had only the one major military front left, which was the Western Front to Quebec's Eastern Front if Hitler had the resources of the US, Great Britain wasn't an island and Stalin had been less of a fucktard).

===Archie 3=== 
In the Aberdeen Proving Ground, the mega-corp Cyberworks created a powerful A.I. called A.R.C.H.I.E. Three. This A.I. was moved to the supreme headquarters of NEMA, an organization tasked with defending North America. On the bright side, the world ended before he went Skynet on us, on the down side, that didn't stop him from going crazy anyway. Archie has decided that the only way to make sense of this crazy world is to take it over, and he has command of a surprisingly well-preserved robot factory to do it. But rather than march across the country with an unending tide of tireless death machines, Archie has decided to be more subtle, starting with an army of [[monstergirls|hot]] [[robot]] [[Amazon|warrior women]] riding mechanical [[dinosaur]]s (the Shemarrians) as his front. 

But Archie has a few disadvantages. He has trouble coming up with ideas of his own, and as such needs a Human "Idea Man" to link up and help him come up with new plots and minions. This might or might not just be a function of his insecurities, but he does tend to bond with his Idea Men. When he first debuted in RIFTS, he'd basically fired his old Idea Man, a crazy cyborg who wasn't all that creative, and replaced him with Hagan Lonovitch; a very inventive scavenger (the robot warrior women were his idea) with limited [[psionics]], notably "machine empathy/telepathy".

One such idea was the hire a Shifter to help them exploit the possibilities of other dimensions. Unfortunately, the very first portal he opened up led directly to the universe of '''The [[Mechanoids]]''', a genocidal race of cyborgs with a mad on against Humanoid life (Basically [[Doctor Who|Daleks Lite]], and not all ''that'' Lite). A small force of them managed to come thought the rift before one of them killed the Human shifter and thus closed the door. The Mechanoids took over Archie's factory and set about retooling it with their technology and cloning facilities to make more of themselves, triggering the first large-scale crisis on Rifts' Earth. For his part, Archie feigned compliance and sent out his Idea Man, Hagan, to resist the Mechanoids and to gather heroes to destroy them. Needless to say, they succeeded.

Notably, the gigantic robot brain-core at the center of his base is just a feint, which is why having it repeatedly destroyed hasn't inconvenienced him much; his real core is in a desk drawer somewhere. Even Hagan doesn't actually know that Archie's real core is a little black box.

===Federation of Magic===
The eastern banks of the Mississippi River across from Missouri and Arkansas, encompassing all of Kentucky, and most of Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio and parts of Tennessee is an area crisscrossed by ley lines and saturated in magic energies. This it is known as the '''Magic Zone'''.  

When the Rifts opened, one big one opened right inside the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. This rift fused with the gate, rendering it indestructible, and never closed. The Coalition occupied the area around the gate (leaving the rest of the city in ruin), and use it as a Headquarters for the '''Rift Control Study Group''', a military division that seeks scientific means to control and close rifts.

Elsewhere in the Magic Zone is a loose confederation of Magic-using states referred to as the '''Federation of Magic'''. The most dangerous of which are '''Dweomer''', a mysterious city-state ruled by three God-like beings, with magic automatons in lieu of giant robots, '''Stormspire''', a city devoted to the creation and sale of Techno-Wizard equipment, run by a Lizard Mage with a robber baron mindset, and the so-called '''True Federation''', a cult-like force that consorts with demons, shadow-beasts and worse, led by the maniacal Alistair Dunscon, lord of the '''City of Brass'''.

===Lazlo=== 
Where the city of Toronto once stood is now the city of Lazlo, a self-styled City of Learning. Named after a pre-Rifts scholar who theorized the existence of Ley Lines and other supernatural phenomenon that later turned out to have been right all along, Lazlo is one of the birthplaces of Techno-Wizardry, and one of the unquestionably "Good" places on Rifts' Earth. It is also home to adventurer Erin Tarn. Ruled (well, he's the head of an elected council, but he's never lost an election because he's Just That Good, what with millenia of experience) by an ancient dragon who calls himself Plato.

===Mad Haven=== 
New York City got pretty much wiped off the map during the Great Cataclysm. Sometime during this, Manhattan Island itself somehow got slammed into the mainland, making it into a peninsula. The ruins, only lightly overgrown despite the centuries, are haunted by spirits, madness, and mutants. 
[[File:Rifts ng downtown.jpg|thumb|Downtown Ishpeming]]
===Northern Gun/Manistique Imperium=== 
In that part of the northern half of the state of Michigan that kinda looks like a gun (get it?), The former Kingdom, now Republic, of '''Ishpeming''' is pretty much the bitch of the manufacturing giant Northern Gun. NG makes everything from tools and vehicles to guns, missiles, and giant robots, and is one of the biggest provider of weapons and gear to adventurers on the continent. 

Right next to Ishpeming is the '''Manistique Imperium'''. At the tip of Michigan's "gun", The Imperium is a friendly neighbor to Ishpeming, but has recently entered the manufacturing market as well with Wellington Industries. Fortunately for Northern Gun, MI focuses more on projectile weapons and explosives rather than lasers and other energy weapons, which is NG's stock in trade.

===Pecos Empire===
The Coalition says they own all of Texas, but these guys are the reason why that's not true. The "Empire" is really several small armies of bandits and independent states run by a variety of leaders, from a giant paladin to a wannabe Mafia Don to the actual, time-displaced, real-life Sundance Kid (as in, "Butch Cassidy and the"). Kinda Mad Max-y mixed with Wild West for flavor.

===Psyscape===
A community of powerful psychic warriors somewhere in the Ohio Valley. Their main city exists partially within the Astral Plane, with the physical part anchored by a living Ley Line Nexus known as Psynex. Engaged in a secret war with the minions of Nxla, a soul-eating Alien Intelligence that's even worse than most of its kind (both more powerful and more evil) that's attempting to cross over to Earth for use as a megaversal all-you-can-eat buffet.

===Tolkeen=== 
Another center of Techno-Wizardry located in Minnesota. Tolkeen (real original, Kevin) was a place of acceptance and magic much like Lazlo, but found itself mostly isolated and way too close to the Coalition States. This inevitably led to war, which took Tolkeen's leaders down a dark path that ultimately failed to save it. After Tolkeen's destruction, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled west, with help from the Cyber-Knights and Lyn-Srial.

===Vampire Kingdoms===
Mexico is almost entirely overrun by [[Vampire]]s, who have established their own kingdoms where Humans and D-Bees are either willing vassals or cattle.  The running water of the Rio Grande is the only thing keeping them from overrunning North America too.

===New Camelot(England)===
As it turns out, Merlin the Magician was in truth an Alien Intelligence tying to manipulate King Arthur into developing a kingdom that would eventually conquer the world. Unfortunately, the whole thing with Atlantis (well, aftershocks millenia after the facts, actually) happened before he could get to the evil parts. With the coming of the Rifts, he's giving it another try, complete with a new King Arr'Thuu and Camelot. And to make sure it goes off right, he's not only taking the role of Mrrlyn once more, but also the Lady of the Lake, and Queen Guinevere! Much of the rest of England has gone back to being like a medieval fairy tale as well (complete with Fairies), with Druids, giant insects, horned giant-controlling lizard-men, magical mountain-sized trees, and a Splugorth outpost in London for flavor. Oh, and the Formorians and Celtic Gods have come back to boot.

===The New German Republic=== 
Germany was one of the few nations of Earth not to fall in the Great Cataclysm, mostly due to the manufacturing might of the Industrial giant '''Triax'''. Arguably the most powerful Human nation on the planet, the NGR primarily struggles with the Gargoyle Empire that has laid claim to much of Western and Southern Europe. So yeah, for once having Germans roll over western Europe in an unstoppable tide of steel is a ''good'' thing. Somewhat Human supremacist, but more Apartheid than Genocide. Don't really give a damn about magic. 

===The Gargoyle Empire===
Gargoyles in this game are a type of sub-demon that comes in five types: 
* Your average Gargoyle stands about fifteen feet tall and is as tough as a suit of power armor. 
* G'''u'''rgoyles (note the "u") are slightly shorter (about twelve feet) and wingless.
* Gargoyle Lords are the leaders of the flock, bigger, tougher, and have the ability to turn their bodies into living stone. 
* Gargoyle Mages know some Earth Elemental magic, like a low-key Warlock. They can also turn to stone. 
* Gargoylites are small (three feet) creatures that are surprisingly tough. Can also get stoned. 

While most Gargoyles across the Megaverse (like those in Hades, for example) usually serve more powerful demons or mages, the Gargoyles of Europe have formed their own kingdom, stretching from the West of Germany (Belgium and Eastern France) and around the south (Austria and Northern Italy stretching down into the Balkans). They have also learned to use high-tech weapons and even manufacture their own mechs and power armor, which, along with a fast breeding rate, is why the Germans aren't anywhere near steamrolling them.  

===The Brodkil Empire=== 
Another race of sub-demons who have carved out a territory in the south of Poland (many also live in North America and Russia, but not nearly as successful). The Brodkil are mostly helped by '''Mindwerks''', a Pre-Rifts company that still sees itself as the main rival to Triax, and developed the Mind Over Matter conversion that makes Crazies. Their leader is an insane Cyborg researcher calling herself the Angel of Death. Once close allies to the Gargoyles due to their shared enemy, they recently broke ties after the Brodkil started getting a big head. This allowed the Germans to make a big push (with the help of the New Navy and Coalition States [playing the good guys for once]) that led to them taking France (purely out of habit, we assume) and cutting the Gargoyle Empire in half.

===[[Atlantis]]=== 
Atlantis was a continent (in the Atlantic Ocean, duh) housing a Magically-empowered utopian-ish Human civilization on Earth thousands of years ago. Then they fucked with a rift they shouldn't have. They managed to fix the problem, but in doing so trapped Atlantis in a pocket dimension and pretty much tanked magic levels on Earth for millennia. When Atlantis came back (helping raise sea levels all over the world), it was first rediscovered by the Splugorth, in particular an Intelligence named Splynncryth. He decided to basically turn the continent into his capital/personal mansion. 

Atlantis is a kingdom of Monsters. Populated by the Minions of Splugorth (Slavers, High Lords, Kydians, Kittani, Metzla, Gargoyles, etc.) and visitors from all over the Megaverse. But Humans and most "D-Bee" races are slaves at best, and food at worst. Atlantis is arguably the most powerful force on the planet, but Splynncryth likes using the Earth as his own personal Streaming service, so he has no intention of conquering/enslaving the entire world. This doesn't stop him from launching slave raids all over Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

===Japan===
Japan is a few Magical Girls and Kaiju short of going full-on Animeland. In the Kansai region, a '''New Empire''' has arisen in the shadow of a Milennium Tree, with the blessings of a new Emperor by Amaterasu herself. The Empire has deliberately gone back to their roots, a feudal Shogunate where technology from the Industrial Period onwards is forbidden. Instead, they depend on magic and the Ki powers of Monks, Samurai and Ninja to defend themselves. Meanwhile, most of the Chugoku region (particularly the cities of Hiroshima, Kure, Ichto, and Iwakuni) has been ''de''-displaced after the area disappeared because of a dimensional teleportation experiment that occurred at the exact beginning of the Great Cataclysm. Three days later, They re-appeared back on Earth, three hundred years into their future. Declaring themselves the '''Republic of Japan''', they attempt to make their own way in the changed world, defended by high-tech armies of soldiers, dragon-shaped cyborgs, and of course mecha (including Glitter Boys!). Ironically, despite their differences, the Empire and Republic are pretty close allies, even when they try to turn the other to their way of thinking. Sometime after this, the City of '''Ichto''' split off to form its own state, mostly so they could sell their mecha to wider markets around Japan. 

In the Aichi and Gifu prefectures, however, they survived the hard way, and eventually formed the '''Otomo Shogunate'''. As this is RIFTS, the Otomo are assholes. They were the top dog technologically, with their company '''H-Brand''' (and if you know anything about modern Japanese Colloquialisms, you know how unfortunate that name is), and clans of Tech-Ninja. Then the Republic showed back up, knocking them down to number three. They are also really unhappy about the peaceful country of '''Takamatsu''', on the northern half of the island of Shikoku. Mostly because they have control of a rift that leads to an entire uninhabited planet (and the resources therein), that they have made bank supplying to everybody else. But Otomo has a plan, one that involves dealing with '''The Zone''', the Oni-ruled area of northwestern Honshu. This should end well.

===Australia===
As might be expected, Australia got even weirder. The interior of the country has become flooded by a shallow inland sea, with a magic projection of Ulluru (Ayer's Rock) visible in the middle right above it's location. Most of the technology has been knocked back to the stone age, which fits the Aboriginies just fine. But some tech remains, with the Whites split into three main groups: The paranoid residents of the two remaining cities, Melbourne and Perth; the Outbackers, which are the more "normal" people who both trade with and raid against the walled cities, and the Roadgangers, who are pretty much Mad Max with more giant carnivorous kangaroos. In the north of the continent, the '''Molokoi''', a race of magic alligator-men, have arrived, believing that the entire world is a gift from their gods. Won't ''they'' be surprised... 

===South America===
Arguably THE absolute craziest place in the whole damn setting, the two books covering it represent both sides of the power creep and crazy ideas ramping up to truly ludicrous degrees, and with a huge variety of stuff that looks like a schizo patchwork. The first book, covering the northeastern half of the continent, is derivative, a bit empty (lots of space between most nations) and kinda boring, if mostly sane in its power levels (though it's where you find the ridiculously strong Anti-Monster cyborgs, but their cool factor and Brom-illustrated visual design makes them one of the best things in the book) and themes, while the second one, covering the southwestern half, has more batshit and overpowered stuff crammed in than any two of the other continents put together, so much so that probably the only thing keeping them from venturing out and kicking the teeth in of everybody else that's not Splugorth-ruled Atlantis is the fact that they're all stuck fighting each other over cramped living space and limited ressources.

===Lemuria===
An underwater contemporary of Atlantis, the Lemurians rushed to escape the Earth as its magic levels fell, coming back during the Great Cataclysm. The Lemurians are masters of the magic known as Biomancy, using magic to grow and shape living creatures harmlessly to suit their needs. 

===The Lord of the Deep===
A.k.a. Kraken or Leviathan. An evil eldritch monstrosity with tentacles that can stretch for thousands of miles. It's slept at the bottom of the Marianas Trench for thousands of years, having been stranded there after it popped in to explore Earth right as the Magic levels tanked, and just in the right position for the fleeing Lemurians to run right into the rift leading to its home dimension and slam the door shut behind them. It naturally hates the Lemurians for that, but for now is content to reach out across the oceans and grab people to turn into minions or food.  

===Naut'Yll===
An aquatic race with three tentacled mouths, the Naut'Yll have come to earth's oceans to conquer it with Particle-wave guns and coral magic. In a rare case for bad guys, they're a little outgunned, but not to be underestimated. 

===The New Navy=== 
In the years before the Great Cataclysm, the United States Navy built a powerful submersible aircraft carrier named the ''U.S.S. Ticonderoga.'' The ship was so tough that it managed to ride out the Cataclysm, and made contact with two hidden bases, Salvation and Refuge, that had been developed to service the ship, and began rebuilding. Some time later, the son of the Ticonderoga's captain led an exploration team that got irradiated by the energies of a mysterious rift, which gave them (and their descendants) supernaturally-tough, seemingly immortal bodies (but since this isn't a comic book, no other superpowers). The ''Ticonderoga'' still sails to this day, commanded by Nemo Dobson, the leader of the original Sea Titans. Led by the ancient Super-ship, the New Navy continues to protect Humanity on the high seas.

===Tritonia===
A Pre-Rifts experimental floating city that survived the Great Cataclysm due to being far out in the ocean. Is home to a large number of Fish-based mutants due to some shady assholes in South America mutating people before the Cataclysm. 

===Whale Singers===
A society of Pneuma-Biforms, Cetaceans, Humans, and D-Bees that seek the destroy the Lord of the Deep. To this end, they have develop special Spell-songs to battle it. 

===Wormwood===
Wormwood is a living world. As in, the entire planet is a single biological organism, with Humans living on it like fleas on an elephant. Fortunately, the world seems to have been built for Human habitation, with food, water and shelter grown from the planet itself (hope you like bugs!). Unfortunately, the world is under attack by a demonic Host, who have the power to corrupt Wormwood's body for their own use. Protecting the world is a legion of brave knights, wormspeakers, symbiote-equipped warriors and living mecha. Somehow manages to be pretty boring by itself (apart from the living world gimmick everything else is mostly a bog-standard high fantasy/grimdark mix), plus most of the good stuff from there doesn't work on other worlds (living equipment and symbiotes die when away from the planet) so good luck using it elsewhere unless the GM says "fuck it" and houserules the problem away.

===The Three Galaxies===
For all your Star Wars needs. A Space Opera setting consisting of three galaxies; the '''Corkscrew''', the '''Anvil''', and the '''Thundercloud''', sitting oddly close together. There are three major power blocs, each controlling worlds in all three galaxies: The '''Transgalactic Empire''', your standard Evil Space Empire ruled by a powerful race called the ''Kreeghor'' and controlled behind the scenes by an evil Alien Intelligence; the '''Consortium of Civilized Worlds(CCW)''' a ''Star Trek''-like Federation of races allied for the betterment of all(and to protect their asses from the Empire); and the '''United Worlds of Warlock''', a collection of [[Eldar|Space Elves]], Space Dwarves, Space Minotaurs, and others who use magic and Techno-Wizardry. One of the central factors in the setting is the '''Cosmic Forge''', a legendary engine of creation that was built by the first race of sapient beings to ever exist, and used to create the entire Megaverse. The First were wiped out when one of their number discovered Evil, and tricked the Forge into unmaking the entire species. The Forge then wiped him out too in anger and hid itself away. Nobody knows where the Cosmic Forge is, but everyone wants to find it. Either for their own ends, or to keep any of the guys in the first group from doing so. And ever so often, it finds a Good person and calls them to fight evil as a Cosmo-Knight.
* '''Phase World''': The central planet of the setting. Phase World is the home of a race of powerful aliens known as the ''Prometheans'', who have master Phase Technology. The two most important parts of which are Phase Beamers and the Spacegate Jump system. The former are energy weapons that bypass all non-organic materials, meaning you can shoot a man right through his armor, or blast the crew of a starship through it's hull. The only thing that stops them are forcefields(which are admittedly semi-common) and your tender flesh. The latter are FTL drives that will instantly teleport your ship to Phase World from anywhere in the known universe. You have to be able to fly your own way ''back'', but hey, you just saved half your travelling time and fuel costs. This has made Phase World one of the major trade hubs in the Three Galaxies. On top of that is the city of '''Center''', a mile-tall arcology that features dimensional gateways to locations throughout the Megaverse, including Rifts' Earth.
* '''Charizolon System''': A dense and life-rich system with many worlds with nearly all harboring life. One race in the system, the Tarlok, has worked their way outwards, conquering the other worlds of the system and enslaving their peoples. Their latest conquest, Seeron, is a world with massive cities and three distinct subspecies of Humans. But the Tarlok may have made a critical mistake. A deadly virus they usually release to soften up a world's population for conquest has instead caused mutations, giving superpowers to a good portion of its people. Unable to fight the Tarlok through sheer military might, the government and Superbeings of Seeron have gone underground, fostering a Resistance and growing their powers until the day they can take back their world.