Savage Rifts -Phase World Adventures!

Character Creation

CHARACTER CREATION Standard Build and Rolls except you will not be rolling on the Narrative Hook as you are not joining Team Tomorrow or going to be from Earth (you could be though). Instead you were part of a group that recently gained a prize ship and now its you own. This ship was a former slaver ship and they had a few slave crew members so you could also have been one of those new freed and now a full member.

The most common races of the United Worlds of Warlocks are Humans, Dwarfs, Elves, Orcs, D'Norr and Grachle Tooth. Most others found in the Rifts books are also around just not common. Dog Boys are instead Wolfen, but built the same way as their are many subspecies of this group. Magic is more common then psionics but there are still plenty of psychics in the society.

• As D-Bees don't suffer the same social stigma in this setting Humans are going to get 6 attribute points for their stats instead of 5 to help comp for this (along with their bonus edge).
• Cyber-Knights are probably going to be called Psychic or Star Knights and replace the Cosmic Knights as defenders of the innocent and servants of the Cosmic Forge.
• There are also a new MARS which are going to be called Arcane Mechanic. They are very similar to Psi-Operators but replace their psionic abilities with Arcane Background (Magic) and power Mind Link plus two other powers of choice, skills of Spellcasting d6, Electronics d6, Repair d8 and Machine Spirits edge (this works just like Telemechanic edge but with spellcasting), Gadgeteer Edge with Spellcasting skill and normal PPE for creation. Instead of Master Psionic they gain their choice of one of the following - Concentration, New Powers, Power Points or Soul Drain.
• If someone whats to play a Robot Pilot I think I am going to allow it to operate in space with a flight speed of its base Pace x5. This is the Starship Space speeds (see below) and only works in Space. In an atmosphere and even low gravity the best the flight engine can handle is lowering your falling speed. It will not even help with jumping, etc. As most Robot vehicles are almost as big as starships themselves (at least the ones the characters start with) they will have a specially built docking port for the vehicle to attached to the ship when not in use.
• Juicers are probably not going to be playable without a great explanation on how you found your way into the wider galaxy but you can play a Dragon Juice if you desire.
• Sapient robots and androids are created via the 'Intelligent Construct' rules found in Empire of Humanity. Other races I would prefer to build with the player, depending.

Backstory of the Game and Setting

The heroes have recently acquired a ship from mercenary Splugorth Slavers - a Kittani built techno-wizard Kraken-class raider called 'the Wraith'. With their prize ship the heroes have become hero/mercs for the United Worlds of Warlocks and heading to one of the colonies in the Thundercloud galaxy to help against more Splugoth slavers and a possible Death Cult(s) dedicated to one of the Elder Races that was suppose to be from this region.

The UWW only has a few dozen colonies in the Gaelra Outer Arm with their main port of call Gateway Prime as this system contain the Star Gate Portal which allows almost instant teleportation between the Thundercloud and Corkscrew Galaxies and another important port of call in the UWW.

There are three galaxies that are fairly close to each other that have been settled by a number of species and stellar civilizations. The three Galaxies are the

Corkscrew Galaxy, the oldest and most heavily populated and the location of the three main stellar powers (see below).

The Anvil Galaxy fairly large and settled by most of the three groups and lots of independent systems and empires.

The Thundercloud Galaxy one of the smaller galaxies and newest settled by the big three. It has a number of small empires that were already here but most are focused on the outer galactic arms. The inner part of the galaxy are dead worlds that were once settled by a number of extremely technologically advanced and destroyed themselves thousands of years ago.

The three main ones are called The Consortium of Civilized Worlds (CCW) which is made up mostly of Humans, Nero (a Psychic races) and a few others; The Transgalactic Empire (TGE), dominated by the evil Kreeghor. Both of these are technology based although the CCW also use a lot of psychic powers and tech.

The United Worlds of Warlocks (UWW) is more dominated by magic users and is dominated Techno-Wizard corporations, a stellar magic using Elves and another techno-wizard base Dwarfs Clans. They still use normal technology they just use a lot of magic and techno-magic equipment.

There is a small Splugorth Empire in the Thundercloud galaxy and they raid a number of the governments around them for slaves etc.

Starship Updates for Adventure Edition and Rifts Setting

Star Ship Updates for this setting and Savage World Adventure Edition.

• StarCaster - this is a Techno-Magical Stardrive that can teleports a Starship many hundreds of lightyears. This requires a Science skill check with a -1 per 100 light years traveled. The Ship can teleport its base number of times (based on the engine and size of the ship) no matter the distance, including within a system. Other space civilization use different forms of Hyperdrives and FTL Travel.
• Top Speed - is MPH but only within an atmosphere. In space the speed is greatly enhanced. Generally divide the Top Speed by 100. That is how may AU a ship can travel in a hour. In game scale it is also the spaces it can move in the Space Combat Scale.
• There is no Climb speed. This modifier is now Handling via Adventure Edition vehicles.
• Shields: work a bit differently then in the SFC. You still gain the overall damage that a shield can absorb of the Size x10, but their is also a Threshold stat add. This is the Size x2 and is the maximum amount of damage that the shield can stop with each hit. A ship also only regenerates 1/2 its Size every round that it is not damage but a Repair check as an Action can boost this to full Size that round. A new roll is required every round to boost this and a Critical Fumble shuts the shields down until they can be Repaired but this requires at least an Hour of work.
• To fit in with Rifts setting I messed around a lot with Toughness and Weapons.

The Wraith

Picture [1]

(NOTE this ship is build from the ground up with Techno-Wizard tech. As such repairing the ship is at a minus for non-Arcane engineers. So Techno-Wizards and Arcane Mechanics and Psi-Operators are the best at it)

The ship has crew quarters for 12 and low-berth/slave stockades for 50. The ship standard crew was 6 (captain/pilot, co-pilot/tractor beam or torpedo operator, two gunners and two engineers) and 6 extra soldier types to capture slaves. With the ships A.I. it can get by on just two - a pilot and an engineer.

Size: Huge [base Wounds 6] (12); Top Speed: 400 (starship scale 4); Handling: +0; Toughness: 63 (20); Crew: 6 (+6) +50; Energy: 500; Life Support: 3,000 'man' days (food, water, oxygen; slaves generally receive half rations); Cargo: 60 tons. Mods (+5)

*AMCM [adds +2 to Electronics or Piloting check to evade missiles] (1)

*Armor 2 [adds +8 armor points] (2)

*A.I. [Artificial Intelligence which can operate all systems from piloting to weapons to opening and closing doors. Is an Extra with a d10 in all starship like skills] (0)

*Atmospheric [can enter and leave planetary atmosphere, includes landing gear and VTOL] (6)

*Crew Quarters [space for 12 standard and 50 low-berth/cramped] (6)

*Fixed Weapons (2)

*Reinforced Structure [adds +4 Toughness] (2)

*Sensor Suite, Galactic [Light, chemical, motion, and other active sensors allow detection of targets up to one light year away with a Electronics roll. Within 10K miles, the sensors add +2 to the roll] (2)

*Shields [Max 100 damage. Threshold 20] (6)

*StarCaster [base 25 jumps; Science -1 per 100 lightyears traveled. Plotting a course takes 1d4 hours, for -2 can reduce time to 30 minutes, for +2 increase time to 6 hours. Also uses 10 energy each time its used] (6)

*Stealth System [Radar-absorbing paint, heat baffles, scramblers, and other devices make the ship difficult to detect by vision or sensors. Those trying to spot, attack, (or lock on to) the ship subtract 4 from their rolls. The effect is triggered as a free action, but is negated any round in which the ship fires a weapon or emits some other non-cloakable signal such as radio signal or active sensor search] (12)

*Targeting System [eliminates up to 4 shooting penalties for movement, range, multi-action and the like] (1)

*Teleporter Pad [one system that can teleport up to six size 0 creatures or up to 1,000lbs of cargo up to 100 miles] (2)

*Torpedo Tube [can fire two light torpedoes a round. Storage for 8 light torpedoes] (2)

*Tractor Beams [Ships can only affect vessels of smaller Size. Their range is quite short (about 1000 yards), so they must get a Short Range result on the Chase table to use the weapon. This is an opposed Electronics roll at –4 vs the defender’s Piloting or Electronics. If the attacker is successful, the enemy ship is caught and pulled into contact in 2d6 rounds. A captive’s ship’s life support systems remain active, but all locomotion and weapons are shut down] (5)

*Turret Fire-Linked Weapons (6)

*Weapons

two Twin Fire-Linked Heavy Lightning-Bolter Cannons Turrets (Range 200/400/800 or starship 2/4/8, Damage 4d10+2, AP-16, ROF 1, Shots 100 each turret)

one Forward Fixed Heavy Mass Driver Cannon (200/400/800 or starship 2/4/8, Damage 9d10, ROF 1, Shots 15)

one Forward Light Torpedo Launcher (Range 300/600/1,200 or starship 3/6/12, Damage 5d12, AP-50, LBT [atmosphere only], ROF 1, Shots 8 torpedoes, 6 are EMP rounds)