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Rifts® is a fascinating, pen and paper role-playing game that has delighted gamers for 15 years. It crosses and combines every genre – science fiction, fantasy, horror, the supernatural, super-heroes, dimensional travel, magic, monsters, and more – in a wild, post-apocalyptic setting limited only by the imagination of the players.
Over a million gamers have already played Rifts®, now millions more are about to discover Rifts® through videogames, film and a new edition role-playing game.
Rifts® will soon be a videogame for the Nokia N-Gage QD. The first ever videogame based on the world-renowned and much-loved Rifts® pen-and-paper role-playing game will be arriving on store shelves later this year. Rifts® Promise of Power™ will be a classic mix of real time movement, turn-based combat and a diverse party of adventurers in a variety of 3D environments for the N-Gage QD Game Deck. To get a glimpse of what this impressive game will offer, go to the web site:
www.rifts-promiseofpower.com
Rifts® may soon be a movie. For those of you who haven’t yet heard, Palladium Books has signed a film option agreement with Walt Disney Pictures to have Jerry Bruckheimer Films (Pirates of the Carribean, Top Gun, The Rock) develop a live action, major motion picture based on the Rifts® role-playing game. Writer, David Franzoni (Gladiator) is working on the Rifts® movie script.
The concept is simple and provocative . . .
Sometime in Earth's future, after a Golden Age of peace and technological advancement, the face of the planet is decimated by the return of magic and the Coming of the Rifts. Cities fall, civilization collapses, billions of people perish, and portals to a thousand alien worlds open across the face of the planet.
The story of Rifts® picks up 300 years later. Humankind has, at last, crawled out of a 200 year long Dark Age to reassert itself in the world. Only this world – Rifts Earth – is as strange as any alien planet. Reshaped by dimensional energies, inhabited by alien beings and changed by magic from the Rifts, humankind must learn to adapt to this strange new world.
The Rifts are tears in the fabric of space and time. They are found along ley lines – natural lines of mystic energy. Where two or more ley lines intersect, a Rift may form (or be opened) to create a dimensional portal to virtually anywhere and anywhen. Opening a Rift enables characters to travel from one end of the planet to the other in a heartbeat, and beyond, to an infinite number of alien worlds and dimensions.
The problem is hundreds, perhaps thousands, of alien, demonic, magical and superhuman beings have used the Rifts to cross into Earth. Wondrous and monstrous creatures reside alongside humans and often compete for dominance over the land and its people.
The Earth has become a place of contradiction and infinite possibilities. Alien and supernatural beings roam the planet. Ancient gods, vampires, faeries, dragons, and alien monstrosities co-exist with human cyborgs, androids, giant robots, high-tech mercenaries and dimensional raiders. Creatures of myth and legend, demons and aliens visit regularly. Some use magic to bolster their already formidable powers, while humans augment themselves with nano-implants, bionics, power armor, chemical enhancement, magic and alien technologies in an ongoing battle of survival.
Beyond Rifts Earth is the infinite Megaverse® – worlds without end, accessible through the dimensional Rifts!
Rifts® is a multi-genre role-playing game that captures the imagination unlike any other game setting. Elements of magic, horror, and the supernatural co-exist with science, high technology and the ordinary. The game spans countless dimensions, making anything and everything possible.
Players are truly limited only by their imaginations!
Rifts® Ultimate Edition is a completely rewritten and updated version of the popular, original game played and enjoyed by an estimated 1.5 million gamers.
The rules will be tweaked and clarified. The characters and setting expanded and defined. There will be more world information, tips on how to use the Rifts time-line and World Books, rewrites on Occupational Character Classes (O.C.C.s), and in some cases, expansions of, and more details on, O.C.C.s like the Cyborg, Headhunter, Ley Line Walker, Techno-Wizard, Shifter and others.
The information will also be better organized, the rules clearly explained, the writing crisp and compelling. The wonder and infinite possibilities of Rifts® all brought to pulse-pounding life like never before.
Our goal is to make Rifts® even more exciting and compelling, while at the same time making the rules better organized, clearer and easier to use. Of course, there will be a few fun changes and additions, but nothing so dramatic as to make the 40+ available sourcebooks obsolete.
August 2005 will be the release date! Appearing in stores and at Gen Con Indy around the same time, almost exactly 15 years to the day the original Rifts® RPG made its debut.
Collectors looking to snag a copy of Rifts® Ultimate Edition’s first printing should do so quickly, as we expect the demand to be heavy. Serious collectors may also want to get the signed and numbered Rifts® Ultimate Gold (available only from Palladium Books; taking pre-orders now).
The Rifts® RPG Ultimate Edition may be used as a stand-alone role-playing game or combined with characters and elements from the entire Palladium Megaverse®. Players can easily bring in characters from The Palladium Fantasy RPG®, Heroes Unlimited™, Splicers™, Nightbane®, Beyond the Supernatural™, Mechanoid Invasion®, or any of Palladium's RPG lines.
Note: See Palladium’s online catalog at www.palladiumbooks.com for more details about the limited edition Rifts® Ultimate Gold™ and other Palladium pen-and-paper role-playing games.
Rifts® Game Master Guide™ – 352 pages of weapons, equipment, body armor, robots, power armor, and vehicles from every Rifts® World Book #1-23, Sourcebooks #1-4 and Siege on Tolkeen™ #1-6! Plus maps, experience tables, psioncs, skills, O.C.C. and R.C.C. listings, Game Master tips, 101 adventure ideas and more. See Palladium’s online catalog at www.palladiumbooks.com for details.
Rifts® Book of Magic™ – Core Book – 352 pages of magic. Every magic spell and item from World Books #1-23, Sourcebooks #1-4 and Siege on Tolkeen #1-6. More than 850 magic spells in all! See Palladium’s online catalog at www.palladiumbooks.com for details.
Rifts® Adventure Guide is an excellent beginner’s reference for creating and running Rifts® adventures and campaigns. Sound suggestions, tips, information, creation tables, and more than 150 adventure ideas! See Palladium’s online catalog at www.palladiumbooks.com for details.
Big sourcebooks centered around specific places, cities and people of the world. Each offering information on the cultures, technology, monsters, villains and dangers of the region. Most include new Occupational Character Classes (O.C.C.s), alien races (R.C.C.s), monsters, weapons, equipment, and/or magic, as well as adventure ideas. Each typically range in size from 160-224 pages. See Palladium’s online catalog at www.palladiumbooks.com for details.
Some of the “most” popular Rifts® World Books include: Rifts® Vampire Kingdoms™, Rifts® Atlantis (One), Rifts® England, Rifts® Triax™ & The NGR, Juicer Uprising™, Coalition War Campaign™, Federation of Magic™, Rifts® Canada, Psyscape™, The New West™ and Rifts® Mercenaries, among others.
Sourcebooks are smaller, supplemental titles that offer adventures, new villains, equipment and other information for game play. Range in size from 48-124 pages. See Palladium’s online catalog at www.palladiumbooks.com for details.
The genesis of Rifts® came from designer, Kevin Siembieda’s desire to combine magic and technology, fantasy and science fiction, horror and adventure in one setting where anything was possible. The trick was making that setting seem plausible and balancing the many diverse elements. It took three years for Kevin to come up with the perfect blend and balance, and then six months of work writing, art directing and coordinating final production.
The Rifts® Role-Playing Game made its debut at the Gen Con Game Fair in August of 1990.
Everyone at Palladium Books had faith that Rifts® was something special and would be a big hit, but you never know how the fickle winds of the marketplace might blow. Our target number for success: Ten thousand in three months. We felt if the initial press run of 10,000 copies sold out in under three months, we had a bonafide hit.
Rifts® sold out in three weeks.
We could hardly keep it in stock and sold approximately 45,000 copies in the first year’s time; huge numbers for a pen-and-paper role-playing game. New sourcebooks also flew off the shelves by the tens of thousands, some, like Rifts® Vampire Kingdoms™, Atlantis, England, Conversion Book One and Triax™ & The NGR, sold over 100,000 copies each.
Over the last 15 years, Rifts® has sold more than 250,000 copies. We estimate 1.5+ million gamers have played Rifts® and many times that number have heard of Rifts®.
With the release of Rifts® Ultimate Edition, the N-Gage videogame and the advent of a major motion picture, it seems like the Rifts® saga is only just beginning. Soon an entire new generation of gamers will discover the infinite Megaverse® that is Rifts® through videogames, films and role-playing. A game universe that sets the imagination on fire, opens up infinite possibilities and is truly limited only by the imagination.
Isn’t it time YOU discovered Rifts® and the entire Palladium Megaverse®?
Copyright 2005 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.
Rifts®, The Rifter®, Megaverse® and Palladium Books® are registered trademarks of Palladium Books Inc. and Kevin Siembieda. Rifts® Ultimate Gold, Chaos Earth, Heroes Unlimited and all other titles, names and slogans are trademarks of Palladium Books.