Welcome to the RIFTS corner of Sentinel Productions! This is home base for The Sentinel, our in-character newspaper from the war-torn north, along with our house rules, custom O.C.C.s and a few tools for Game Masters.
The Sentinel has been serving the North American kingdoms since 95 P.A. Every issue brings the news from Chi-Town to Lazlo: crime, politics, the Siege on Tolkeen, JFL sports, and the Oddities classifieds, where half your next adventure is hiding. Pull up a seat, keep your head down, and stay off the ley lines after dark.
The Sentinel: Latest Edition
RIFTSSentinel
January 107 P.A. | Serving North American Kingdoms since 95 PA | Volume I Issue VI
The Tolkeen Front
Unit Alpha Bloodied in First Battle
By Kurian Randall. Sentinel Staff Writer. Information provided by Voice of Rights.
Coalition State News is calling it a victory. The soldiers who were there are calling it something else.
Unit Alpha saw its first action this month when Major Jacob Kincaid led three platoons into the Barrens. For the first hour, the operation went by the book.
Then the ley line storm hit. “The sky lit up blue and every one of them just dropped,” said a mercenary scout who asked not to be named.
No bodies, no villagers, and cattle somebody has been feeding. p. 1
Dark Law Protests Turn Ugly
Solstice Night leaves three blocks of Lazlo’s Anima Section in flames. p. 2
Tales From the Wastes: The Lantern of Split Rock
A lighthouse on Lake Superior that has never once gone dark. p. 3
The Profiler
Meet Tag, the Dog Boy who walked away from the Coalition. p. 6
Oddities
Kingsdale To the owner of the three-headed dragonsaur: please collect your pet. It ate the collar. And the kennel. And most of the barn. See Basalt, and bring a wagon.
Salvage Divers Wanted Cold water recovery job in Lake Michigan. Danger pay. No Tolkeen sympathizers. See the harbor master at Manistique.
Wanted, Dead or Alive Whoever tries to collect the bounty on Emperor Sabre. 50,001 credits. Inquire at any Pecos campfire.
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RIFTS is a role-playing game from Palladium Books, first published in 1990. It's set on our Earth, roughly three hundred years from now.
Around 2098, a nuclear war killed billions of people. All those deaths released a flood of P.P.E. (Potential Psychic Energy) that supercharged the planet's ley lines, and dimensional Rifts tore open across the globe. Magic came back. Atlantis returned from the sea. Monsters, aliens and things that think they're gods poured through from other worlds.
Two centuries of Dark Age later, humanity is clawing its way back. The Coalition States rule the Midwest behind skull-faced armor and a hatred of magic. Wizards, dragons and D-Bees (dimensional beings) carve out kingdoms of their own. In between, mercenaries, cyborgs, Juicers and Glitter Boys sell their guns to whoever is paying. One party can hold a Glitter Boy pilot, a dragon hatchling, a Ley Line Walker and a Dog Boy all at once. That's half the fun.
M.D.C. 101: One Mega-Damage point = 100 S.D.C. Your trusty pre-Rifts rifle won't scratch power armor. Plan accordingly.
A Short History of the End of the World
When
What happened
c. 2098 A.D.
The Great Cataclysm. Nuclear war and mass death energize the ley lines. Rifts open worldwide, Atlantis reappears, and earthquakes, floods and eruptions (Yellowstone included) wreck what the bombs missed.
2098–2286
The Dark Age. Two centuries of monsters, plague and invasion. Human civilization nearly disappears.
2286 A.D.
0 P.A. The Coalition States form around Chi-Town and start counting years "Post-Apocalypse."
101 P.A.
The world of the RIFTS rulebook. Emperor Karl Prosek rules the CS, Tolkeen prospers, and the elderly historian Erin Tarn is the dissident Chi-Town fears most.
105 P.A.
The Campaign of Unity. The Coalition marches on Tolkeen in the west while facing breakaway Free Quebec in the east.
The war years
Iron Juggernauts and dragons stall the invasion. Tolkeen's counterstrike, the Sorcerers' Revenge, throws the CS back across the Mississippi, while Tolkeen's leaders strike a bargain with the monstrous Daemonix. The Cyber-Knights split down the middle.
107 P.A.
Where The Sentinel's coverage stands. The siege grinds on. Palladium's Final Siege (Coalition Wars 6) came out in August 2001, but you won't find spoilers on this page.
Status as of 107 P.A., where The Sentinel's coverage stands. No Final Siege spoilers.
Power
Home turf
The short version
Coalition States
Chi-Town
Emperor Karl Prosek's human-supremacist empire. Dead Boys, SAMAS, Skelebots and Dog Boys. Currently fighting a two-front war.
Tolkeen
Old Minnesota
King Robert Creed and the Circle of Twelve rule a nation of mages, dragons and D-Bees. Winning, for now. Paying for it in ways it won't admit.
Free Quebec
St. Lawrence valley
Former Coalition state that broke away. Fields the biggest Glitter Boy legions on the continent.
Federation of Magic
The Magic Zone
A squabbling league of magic kingdoms. Lord Alistair Dunscon schemes from the City of Brass.
Lazlo & New Lazlo
Old Toronto / S. Michigan
Free cities of learning that welcome mages, D-Bees and now Tolkeen's refugees. Chi-Town calls them nests of subversion.
Northern Gun
Ishpeming, Michigan
Sells to everyone with credits. Business has never been better.
Cyber-Knights
Wherever they're needed
The order is split: half follow Lord Coake, half fight for Tolkeen.
The Xiticix
Hivelands, north
Insect hive-race spreading quietly while both armies look the other way.
Splugorth of Atlantis
Atlantis
Lord Splynncryth's slavers raid the coasts and sell their catch in Splynn's Dimensional Market. Avoid at all costs.
Campaign Hot Spots
The Minnesota Front Trenches, burned-out towns and ley line nexus points along the Mississippi. Daemonix on one side, Skelebot hunter squads on the other. Our main campaign setting.
Chi-Town 'Burbs Shanty sprawl in the shadow of the fortress city. Black-market cybernetics, D-Bee ghettos and Dead Boy patrols. Great for street-level games.
Ishpeming Northern Gun's home and the biggest arms bazaar in North America. Vibro-knife or robot tank, if your credits clear, it's yours.
New Lazlo A free city in southern Michigan that takes in anyone. Tolkeen refugees are arriving daily, and the Coalition is watching.
Our house rules, custom O.C.C.s, the Road Hazard table for the Minnesota Front, and the Sentinel Sourcebook: every NPC, gang, gadget and legend the Sentinel has printed, indexed for Game Masters.