The Earliest Rifts Adventures


The First Foray into Rifts Territory

First adventure, Erik GMing. Mark and I play two characters apiece to make up for our lack of numbers. I was a CyberKnight and a borg, I think. Don't really remember too much about this one. Had just gotten introduced to the setting, which I thought was uber cool. I remember one of my first conclusions, "I bet Prosek is really a psychic or something like that." This struck me as being something they would pull.

The actual adventure was the group running into trouble with some armored misanthropes who had been terrifying a local community? Only scene that stands out in my mind was chasing the antagonists through the woodland. A lot of our Rifts adventures seemed to take place in the wilderness, now that I look back on it. But it was a post apocalypse setting, so...

Frustrated at my poor memory, I decided to go straight to the source for the nitty-gritty details. That's right. The Gambler himself.

Jim: Well then, remember anything at all about the very first adventure? At least the one I played. Like I wrote, I just remember fighting some fools in the forest.

Erik: Was that the one with Xiticix? yea, that's the one

Jim: We fought Xiticizsasdfaz in that adventure?

Erik:Yea in the forest... I think so at least.

The Second adventure was the Sourcebook One ARCHIE module.

The first section was when Aaron and Max joined us. I had gone from two characters to one. I stuck with the borg. Max was a Vagabond (A character class that he eventually became synonymous with) Aaron was a headhunter and Mark was a CyberKnight. Don't recall too much of the beginning until we went wilderness trekking and came upon the ruins of a caravan we had spotted earlier on. It appeared as if they had been wiped out by some unknown, but hugely destructive force.

That's when the rhino buffalo burst out of the forest and we engaged in one of the best fight scenes I have every played in. This was in spite of the fact that we did everything incorrectly.

Highlights:

-My borg charging the monster head-on for a game of chicken. "I extend my vibro claws and rush to meet him!" I think I scratched some of its horn before I was flung hundreds of feet into the air.

Erik sez: If you would wish to add one note to the first encounter, is that when you charged the rhinobuffalo, and it charged you, it got a critical hit.

-Max speeding up in his junker of a car and diving out at the last second before it crashed into the beast. The automobile just wrapped around one of its front legs.

-Various shots from our long range weaponry.

-Aaron lassoing his grappling hook around its leg and getting dragged to and fro as it ran around the clearing. He eventually got trapped under its foot.

-Mark shooting it with his laser rifle and causing a sizable explosion after the shot ignited the gasoline that had leaked from Max's car. This had the dramatic effect of damaging the rhino buffalo to the point that we could see parts of a mechanical under structure. Twas no mere d-bee monster we were battling. It also lost a leg, I think. Oh and Aaron took some significant damage from the blast too, as a result of still being pinned under its foot.

-My borg managed to leap on top of the thing and slice a hole into its back. He dropped a grenade inside before leaping off. That was cool.

-This whole time we were constantly getting pissed off at this creature's apparent invincibility to our attacks. Until it lost a leg, it showed no signs of slowing down. The revelation that it was a robot more fully explained this.

-Finally it fell down and we rejoiced. "Looting," Max declared almost immediately afterwards and his vagabond proceeded to shift through the remnants of the caravan in search of valuables.

-Erik later chastised us for our strategy, "You should have just kept your distance and shot it a bunch of times! I didn't even send in the other half-damaged rhino that was supposed to show up after the first because you guys were too weak."

Erik sez: An addendum to my chastization at the end there might be me thinking later "What kind of maniacs enter into melee combat with a rhinobuffalo?"

-Despite that critique by the GM, I recall everybody having a great time playing out that encounter and I attribute that to people doing stuff that was fun rather than taking the conventional approach.

When I prompted the original GM for even more info he added...

Erik sez: Uh.... Max's character almost died, I think.