Remember these guys? Darkseid, or close enough? Go back and read page 2. I'll wait.
Back? Good.
Fleets of the Three Galaxies expanded on the Dominators. It seems that at the tail end of the Second Age, some source they trusted implicitly foretold that the other races would unite and destroy them. Since the Dominator language contains 17 words for removing your head from your torso, but none for "self-fulfilling prophecy" they set out to conquer and/or straight up genocide the rest of the universe, with predictable results.
Now their homeworld is gone and there's only a few hundred survivors, but as far as most of them are concerned, there was nothing terribly wrong with the plan and they'll keep at it. Hey, it helps that the races at their tech level are all gone, except for the Prometheans, who seem content to stay on their one planet. If their objectives seem arbitrary and random, it's just because they're effectively immortal and playing the long game.
Anyways, I mostly meant to discuss their ships. A Dominator is linked to his ship and can control it mentally, the ship itself being a metal sphere 30 miles in diameter. The outer hull is incredibly tough, regenerates and takes half damage from explosives and kinetic weapons. If you were to breach it, you'd see the ship is hollow with a 10 mile diameter core connected to the outer hull by a vast web of cables, pipes, and the odd crackling lightning bolt. The ship is powered by a Boiaw, energy/cloud creatures who were the first conquest of the Dominators, the only survivors are confined in these power cores. The ship self-destructs automatically if the Dominator dies, which can be a serious problem even if he leaves the ship. Kill the tyrant, liberate the people, and trigger an Endor Holocaust.
Dominator ships use a wormhole drive similar to the Mechanoids, but far more advanced. 300 LY/hour, easily the best FTL in the Three Galaxies. Shields are based on some kind of temporal distortion principle, and degrades living pilots and AI that pass through it. Sensors have better detection ranges than younger races', while visual detection is usually the first warning enemies get of a Dominator.
The main armament is 3 antimatter cannon. They aren't the Death Star, but can casually level cities and mountains from orbit, and easily one-shots any known class of capital ship. However, each can only fire once every 8 minutes. The secondary batteries use cosmic energy, there are 100 guns spaced evenly along the hull and each is almost 10 times as powerful as a normal capital ship's weapons. But unless a ship stays far out and fighting at max range, only one or two can be aimed at a single target. Finally, because "fighter" meant something else in the Second Age, there are 5000 cruiser-power point defense turrets. The ship can also vent plasma in the form of a shockwave every 5 minutes, effectively clearing the area 300 miles around it;s hull of annoying fighters and/or Cosmo-Knights.
Star Hives
Because it just wouldn't be cheesy sci-fi without a Bug War. The Star Hives were probably Rifted in to the Three Galaxies, but might have evolved on some backwater. They roam around in hollowed out planetoids consuming everything in their path, metallic reources, frozen water, sometimes venturing down to a planet to strip it of anything useful or tasty. There are at least five distinct subspecies, and one raging debate is whether the Hives are true Hive Minds, or if the Queens mentally control the others with their demonstrated considerable psychic powers. It's an academic distinction for most purposes, but at least two varieties have been known to develop sentience when separated from the Hive (even becoming player characters) but they can't seem to remember anything of their time with the Hives, nor can they explain the behavior of the Hives. Also, being a former member of the bugs eating everyone can be pretty rough on the social life, and many eventually wind up with criminals, pirates or the first ragtag bunch of misfits to show them any kindness. Distinct Hives have been known to fight each other.
There's been a story going around for a while about a Mother Hive the size of a star, that overwhelms planets before they can organize a defense or even call for help. It's left to the GM and players whether this is a campaign or an old spacer's story.
Anyways, all the distinct types in a Hive are named for the insect they look the most like. Beetles are the warrior caste. They're 10 ft tall and long and actually have 10 legs, 6 for walking and 4 with rending claws (Sorry, they look like them and they carve up MDC armor. What am I supposed to call them?) Anyways, they can regenerate limbs overnight, their vision sees infra-red, UV and even radar. They can sense psychically when something isn't of the Hive, and attack on sight. They can fire off these nasty tank-scale TK energy bolts, get see aura, see invisible, sense magic and auto-mind block. Finally a special variant of telepathy that has extra range and no ISP cost, but only works with others of the Hive.
Vacuum Wasps are the first variety to turn sentient if removed from the Hive. Normally they act like aerospace fighters, and seem to be the sole space weapon of the Hive. They can also regnerate limbs overnight, sense non-Hive, see aura, see invisible, sense magic, auto-mind block and also get the free telepathy and wide visual spectrum. It;s sort of the basic Star Hive power package. What other bugs can't do is fly at Mach 6 in atmosphere, Mach 10 in space. Oh, and firing bioelectric blasts from their stings, other bugs can't do that either. Vacuum Wasps are 12 feet tall when standing erect on their hindmost pair of legs.
Termites are "engineers" and have all the basic power package, plus Super TK and the ability to secrete a really sticky substance that hardens in moments into a sort of MDC concrete. This seems to be what the spacegoing Hive planetoids are made of. Not sure if they're built that way from scratch or if they infest a planetoid and then build over and through it until nothing original is left. Termites are 7 feet tall on their hind legs, and are the other type to develop sentience when removed from the Hive, many becoming interested in science and technology.
Ants are the worker caste. They look exactly like man-sized (6 feet long, 4 feet tall) ants and have no powers except for the Hive telepathy and recognition, oh and a watered down regen. Not sure what more I can say.
Hive Queens are hideously bloated, 30 feet long. They can think and speak with outsiders, it's just that killing them is the first, last and most middle choices for dealing with anyone outside themselves and their Hives. Hive Queens can live to be 50,000 years old. They have the standard package, plus the Beetle's TK blasts, all sensitive powers, mind wipe, mentally possess others, telekinesis, TK forcefield, bio-manipulation, and empathic transmission. The Queen can see through the eyes of each member of the Hive, and speak through some of them, those that can manage the sounds.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Question: What, if anything, makes an effective weapon against planet-sized opponents like Demon Planets and Star Hives? What do the big heavy hitters of the setting use for strategic demolitions?
Simon_Jester wrote:Question: What, if anything, makes an effective weapon against planet-sized opponents like Demon Planets and Star Hives? What do the big heavy hitters of the setting use for strategic demolitions?
Overwhelming numbers.
Seriously, Three Galaxies doesn't seem to have much in the way of casual planet-busting capability. Cruisers and Cap Ships can do orbital strikes that do nuclear-level damage, but to a much smaller area. I suspect this is a deliberate design choice, either to limit collateral damage or to provide a more focused bunker-buster effect. In any case, a Cruiser can level a city from space, but will have to blast it away one or two blocks at a time, a proper DBZ would take weeks or months to execute.
There's no super-laser or virus bombs. Nukes exist in-setting but are largely tactical-scale, meant for asteroid mining. Against a Mechanoid Mothership, Dominator, Star Hive or Demon Planet the major powers can just throw the biggest fleet they can find at the threat and pray.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Today I'd like to discuss some of the minor powers, governments and organizations that struggle to field fleets a tenth the size of the CCW, TGE or UWW, but are still powerful enough they can't be easily crushed or ignored.
Tri-Galactic Military Solutions (TMS)
The last open war between between the Consortium and the Kreeghor (the Transgalactic War) was bitter and hard-fought, resulting not in victory for either side, but a stalemate and the present state of cold war. And afterwards the CCW, which has never glorified war, was flooded with a few million veterans, some of them traumatized or now missing a homeworld. Violent crimes spiked, tensions rose, and for a bit there was serious debate over segregating the Vets in Re-Education Camps. Then stepped up General Angus Try-Ell, decorated war hero and Noro outcast. Try-Ell pooled his considerable financial resources with some of his wealthier officers and founded TMS as a mercenary corporation to hire up the people who couldn't leave the war behind. Try-Ell approached the human colonists of Norrelgo-5, offering security for their world in exchange for a thousand-year lease on their southern desert continent.
These days, TMS is the most powerful and organized mercenary group in the Three Galaxies. Try-Ell instituted a military law broadly similar to the Consortium UCMJ, and all contracts with TMS include an escape clause if the client tries to order acts contrary to their code (no atrocities or war crimes.) TMS has a fleet of 340 starships: 200 Frigates, 120 Cruisers and 20 Cap ships. It's said that most of their Cap ships are carriers, implying a couple are battleships, and many thousands of fighters, mostly Naruni design. TMS has half a million infantry in ~50 Divisions, and substantial Armored Divisions. Those who don't want to fly all the way to Norrelgo-5 will find they have a mission and recruiting office on Phase World. The old guard who first signed on have all been retired or promoted up to desk jobs like Try-Ell (company policy is to do this after 10-15 years) but they now have a population of several million in 3 cities on Norrelgo-5, and a few succeeding generations have already done their time.
There are two divisions that truly stand out as elite formations. The 3rd Light Infantry "Supernatural Division" consists entirely of 5,000 psychics, mages, superhumans and aliens with exotic powers. Plus a few full-conversion 'Borgs to protect the (non-draconic) traditionally squishy wizards. Most Divisions have a few mages or psychics, but the 3rd really stands out for combining power with subtlety and creativity to achieve wonderful, horrifying things. 5th Armored, "the Golden Horde" doesn't roll out in tanks or mecha, but in 1200 Glitter Boy suits colored a reflective gold instead of silver. They're the serious incarnation of "when it absolutely, positively, has to be destroyed overnight." Once upon a time, they destroyed a mountain with 10 hours of bombardment to bring it down on the bunker beneath.
Gun Brothers
TMS' main rivals for the spot of top mercs in the Three Galaxies. The Gun Brothers are a warrior brotherhood that's never been shy about collateral damage, or doing whatever it took to get the job done. We actually know very little about them, in comparison to TMS, nothing like numbers. We do know a number of the best Gun Brothers get bio-mancy augmentation, implants or magic tattoos, because what only a handful at the top of the ladder know is that the Gun Brothers are a front for a Splugorth rival of the 4 already in the Three Galaxies, his way of testing the waters and starting to horn in without being obvious.
Central Alliance
On a spiral arm of Anvil, well away from the major powers and their trade routes is a seriously balkanized part of the Galaxy, where tech has backslid in some cases so badly that hundreds of systems have lost FTL entirely. But one of the many warlords rose up against the local techno-barbarians, conquered his homeworld and in his bid for control created the Space Marines spent a fortune to get himself and his army, the CyberHawks, the most expensive and tricked-out off-world full-conversion 'Borg bodies. His name was General Ogor Noldek, and his nearly superhuman size and toughness allowed them to go even more all out on his conversion... somehow. Anyway, starting with just two FTL troopships, Noldek conquered 100 worlds through a combination of brilliant strategies, and challenging as many warlords and tribal chieftans as he could to single combat.
Now these worlds are bound into the Central Alliance, a military dictatorship ruled by Noldek. Each world has a cyborg military governor, collectively called the Mechanism. Each member of the Mechanism has a pretty free hand with five conditions/rules laid down by General Noldek. 1.) no pogroms, no mass crackdowns, no curfews without the express permission of the General. Apparently pogroms have been a thing, and Noldek wants to be absolutely sure no gets treated like they're in a police state until and unless there is widespread rebellion and/or lawlessness. 2.) Each planet must be economically productive. 3.) Each planet must raise a PDF. 4.) Every member of the Mechanism is subject to a vote of no confidence every 4 years. This is a straight "should X remain in charge, y/n?" and if he loses he is stripped of his implants and position, dishonorably discharged from the military, and banished in disgrace from the Alliance. No military man can vote, this is purely a civilian control. 5.) General Noldek reserves the right to dismiss any member of the Mechanism, at any time, for any reason. This doesn't necessarily include a discharge or banishment, but can be accompanied by one if the offense is bad enough. The appeals process is single combat with General Noldek, aka the toughest and meanest Cyborg in the setting. Good luck.
The Central Alliance alone in the Three Galaxies has embraced cybernetics at every level. Getting your first implant is a rite of passage, most adults have 1-4, and full conversion is considered the ultimate enhancement of social station, perhaps because it's generally only military officers and the obscenely rich who can afford it. The Alliance is sort of the Three Galaxies in microcosm, most species can be found there, and a love of cybernetics handily equalizes most disparities between physical abilities. The Alliance believes an armed society is a polite society, but carrying concealed is sneaky, dishonorable, and just plain wrong. In much this spirit, the government and courts only exist to prosecute crimes, civil suits are settled by honor duels. They're also probably the only group in Anvil that doesn't believe in the Cosmic Forge and doesn't see what all the fuss is about.
Altess Dynasties
The Altess are a race of humans that believe they are special, the descendants of the few survivors of the First and the Chosen People who will find the Forge. A belief that's shared by 75% of the Three Galaxies. What's different is the Altess believe a thousand generations ago there was a great epiphany as every one of them had a fragment of a map to the Forge psychically downloaded into their brain. The Altess believe these fragments were inheritable, so all they had to do was develop the ability to link everyone's mind together and boom! Ultimate cosmic power. It all makes sense.
Only, after a thousand generations of social engineering and hardcore eugenics specifically to give them the ability to link up into a group mind, they got zilch. Maybe they lost it somewhere along the way, perhaps when the maniac Jurgo Kilter murdered 99.98% of the Altess 9,000 years ago, on the assumption their map fragments would be redistributed among the population until one survivor had the complete map? Or maybe they never had it in the first place? Nah, they remain confident that they are special and far closer than anyone to finding the Forge. Besides, now they're all Captain bloody America, perfect in every way, all congenital conditions and disease wiped out. With their (Altess specific) medical technology, they are effectively immortal. And all that comes with an attitude that has even the Star Elves (hell, especially the Star Elves) rolling their eyes.
The vast majority of the 100 million Altess on 11 worlds (they worked very hard to achieve zero population growth, Kilter helped) are spoiled nobles. There isn't really poverty with the Altess, they are technologically advanced beyond the common level, and don't really have most of humanity's hang-ups about AI and robotics, so they have robots to do all the menial and technical stuff, freeing up 85% of the population for a life of leisure. Of the 15% who feel compelled to do something with their lives, the majority join the Royal Academy of Sciences to enjoy the world of pure research with an unlimited budget and no time pressures. The average Altess is worth more than a planet's GDP.
The Altess Armoria has just a million officers (what? Of course each Altess is an officer) but since they're willing to have entire automated frigates, and cruisers with just one or two living overseers, they're still one of the more powerful fleets around. Altess military doctrine is euphemistically called "hereditary victory." Short version is, if you attack the Altess once they'll beat you back, and unless you perform some stunning atrocity they'll be inclined to count your losses as an idiot tax and let the matter rest, holding no grudge. If you're stupid enough to perform an atrocity or attack the Altess twice, they will annihilate everyone involved, their families, bosses, allies and anyone else who might be inclined to take revenge. If that means taking down a government, wiping out a planetary population or even a species, so be it.
The Altess Intelligence Service is thrice the size of the Armoria and far more prestigious.
The Altess have managed to piss of roughly everyone with their condescending air of superiority. The Kreeghor are degenerate barbarians they'd feel inclined to wipe out, if they didn't think the dumb lizards would off themselves just fine on their own. The Consortium is a bunch of lesser powers huddling together for the safety of the herd, which hasn't stopped the Altess from joining twice for economic advantage and leaving peacefully a few years later. Pretty much only the Consortium and UWW maintain embassies on Altess, and that is mostly a pro forma courtesy to a trading partner and nominal ally.
Omegan Order
In the last 50 years, the number of Cosmo-Knights to fall and lose their power has tripled from the expected rate. Around the time this started, a group emerged in the core of Anvil called the Omegan Order. It consists largely of fallen Cosmo-Knights, plus a large number of pirates, mercenaries and general ne'er-do-wells and a few renegade Invincible Guardsmen. No one really knows exactly what they want, or if they're behind the upsurge in falling Knights. In a move thankfully rarely repeated, Siembienda gives a laundry list of rumors to spread around the story and lets the GM and players decide as they go what's true.
A few of these: the Order is the Tenth Heresy, a cult based around finding the Forge, and they're close. The Order already found the Forge, and it burned out a long time ago. The Order already found the Forge and started a chain reaction that will eventually destroy the universe. If the Order finds the Forge, they will be restored to power and glory. The Order has a magic ritual that suckers the Forge into reinstating 6 of them and prevents it from ever removing their powers again, but it can only be performed once a century. The Omegans are only the visible portion of a vast conspiracy controlling all governments. The Omegans are the only visible portion of a vast conspiracy controlling all governments and suppressing technological advancement so when they set out to conquer the universe, no one will be able to stop them. There is a cap on how many Cosmo-Knights can exist at one time, the Fallen are included in this and by organizing and protecting each other, the Omegans are capping the number of Cosmo-Knights that can exist. The Omegan Order control all habitable planets in the Core. The Omegans are responsible for the disappearance of most ships to enter the Core. The Omegan base is a rouge moon they've turned into a Death Star. The Omegans have a superweapon that more than off-sets the powers they've lost. In the Omegan base is the preserved body of the First Fallen Knight, a relic of such potent evil it corrupts whoever touches it, and they use this to recruit from Cosmo-Knight and Invincible Guard alike. The Omegans keep raiding the same 30 worlds in the CCW and TGE, and no one knows what they're after. Only human Knights fall from grace. All Knights will one day fall, and the Omegans will be waiting to recruit them. It is pointless to interrogate an Omegan, they all suicide, some by implanted nuke.
Some of these are mutually exclusive, most aren't. I can pretty easily buy the last one, about not interrogating Fallen Knights. The only things that can be said and be objectively true for all campaigns is that the Omegan order exists, is based in the Core of Anvil, and consists of superhuman Fallen Knights and Invincible Guardsmen, plus their vast army of cut-throats.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
I wish I could remember the details, but there are workarounds for the whole "Wormwood is terrible for crossovers" thing. For starters, there's a city in one of the South America books that's essentially a D-shifted chunk of Wormwood that still counts for keeping symbiotes and the like alive. I seem to recall there's some sort of spell that permanently enchants a symbiote to be able to go other places, but I have no idea what book that was in. And I could have sworn an Apok's mask was automatically an exception just as part of the class's awesome/brokenness.
Fun fact about the Seljuk: same max strength as adult Great Horned Dragons.
The fluff text for the TGE Smasher Cruiser describes a typical orbital bombardment thus, a cruiser pops up with 3 frigates escorting, defeats the local defenders then spends an hour or three (however long they think they have before a response force can arrive) taking out the most obvious infrastructure, industry and military installations. Then the Kreeghor ships retreat, and people climb out of their shelters and move on with their lives. A bit more like the Battle of Britain (In Space!) then the world ending in orbital fire.
On the other hand, it turns out there the Three Galaxies does have mass drivers for orbital bombardment, delivering 10 ton projectiles to the ground. They do about a hundred times the damage of a cruiser or basic nuke for a 5 mile radius of the blast, normal nuke damage for another 5 miles, and the last ten miles does a firestorm with serious anti-tank level damage. So 20 miles of effect. If you think it's better calculable, the weapon is described as leaving a crater 4 miles across and a thousand feet deep. Bit odd the crater is smaller than the super-nuke damage radius.
The CCW bans mass drivers, and requires ships passing through to disable them. No other government is mentioned as taking any sort of precaution, but I assume this must happen just because no one's an idiot.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
The fluff text for the TGE Smasher Cruiser describes a typical orbital bombardment thus, a cruiser pops up with 3 frigates escorting, defeats the local defenders then spends an hour or three (however long they think they have before a response force can arrive) taking out the most obvious infrastructure, industry and military installations. Then the Kreeghor ships retreat, and people climb out of their shelters and move on with their lives. A bit more like the Battle of Britain (In Space!) then the world ending in orbital fire.
Actually, that sounds like a credible version of World War III. Kiloton-range impacts landing on all major industry and so on leaves a planet suffering from famines, mass death from splash damage caused by strikes on urban targets (blowing up the offices that headquarter companies and so on, if Kreeghor intelligence knows where they are)...
About the only part that MAY not be in play, depending on what kind of weapons the Kreeghor use, is the radioactive fallout.
On the other hand, it turns out there the Three Galaxies does have mass drivers for orbital bombardment, delivering 10 ton projectiles to the ground. They do about a hundred times the damage of a cruiser or basic nuke for a 5 mile radius of the blast, normal nuke damage for another 5 miles, and the last ten miles does a firestorm with serious anti-tank level damage. So 20 miles of effect. If you think it's better calculable, the weapon is described as leaving a crater 4 miles across and a thousand feet deep. Bit odd the crater is smaller than the super-nuke damage radius.
By "normal nuke damage," you mean... what, exactly?
I think that in the other Rifts thread, we decided that the outer limit of MDC damage from a nuclear blast roughly coincides with the edge of the zone where things get smacked with 5 pounds per square inch of blast overpressure (enough to destroy almost all non-hardened buildings, but not tough bunkers or tanks, and curiously NOT enough to instagib humans in the open, blast is funny like that).
If so, using the site's nuke effects calculator, that is roughly consistent with a 100-megaton warhead. Or, for a ten ton kinetic impactor... well, I like to note that 0.01c translates as one kiloton per kilogram. On a ten ton impactor, that's ten megatons, so we need to dial it up to around 10,000 km/s impact velocity to get the indicated effect.
Ouch.
On a ground impact there's a roughly three mile-radius fireball for an event like that; the interior of a nuclear fireball is about as damaging an environment as we can readily create by quasi-Earthly means.
By the way, the crater size isn't totally unreasonable. For example, an asteroid impact produced this... and that was a ten megaton impact. Creating a four-mile crater would be quite reasonable, if anything an overestimate, for something the size of what you describe.
Actually, checking up on the other thread I may overestimated 'standard' nuke. Again, an apology is owed, and I am sorry. So let's try the orbital bombardment thing with the numbers showing.
100 KT nuke does 2d4x100 MD for a 1000 ft. radius, and 5d6x10 for 3 miles.
200 KT nuke from a strategic ICBM does 3d4x100 MD for a thousand feet, and 1d4x100 for 3 miles.
Orbital strike from a cruiser's main battery does 1d4x1,000 MD to everything within 40 ft. of the target, another 300 ft. gets a firestorm that does 3d6x10 MD and may spread further (Smasher cruisers sometimes start wildfires to destroy crops.)
Battleship (or twin shot from a cruiser) does 2d4x1,000 MD for 40 ft. and 5d6x10 MD as part of the firestorm.
Mass Driver does 1d4x100,000 MD for 5 miles, 1d4x1,000 out to 10 miles, and 6d6x10 out to 20 miles.
On the plus side, we've finally found something that can one shot a supernatural intelligence. Most of the time. A few of the oldest Splugorth, and the SI called Apsu are tough enough they could survive a low roll, though they'd be grieveously injured and almost certainly forced to flee.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Ahriman238 wrote:Actually, checking up on the other thread I may overestimated 'standard' nuke. Again, an apology is owed, and I am sorry. So let's try the orbital bombardment thing with the numbers showing.
100 KT nuke does 2d4x100 MD for a 1000 ft. radius, and 5d6x10 for 3 miles.
200 KT nuke from a strategic ICBM does 3d4x100 MD for a thousand feet, and 1d4x100 for 3 miles.
Those "times 100" damage radii are roughly consistent with the size of the fireball. So within that radius, that's roughly the kind of environment you're dealing with; 500-1000 Mega-Damage is comparable in sheer 'ohmigod factor' to conditions inside a nuclear fireball.
Orbital strike from a cruiser's main battery does 1d4x1,000 MD to everything within 40 ft. of the target, another 300 ft. gets a firestorm that does 3d6x10 MD and may spread further (Smasher cruisers sometimes start wildfires to destroy crops.)
The firestorm is a non-factor. The interesting point here is that this is much much more directional than the nuclear bomb, to the extent that the actual weapon yield required to make it happen decreases. So this is still within the range of what kiloton-sized weapons can do.
[A 10-50 kT nuclear shaped charge would be an interesting weapon in Rifts, I bet. Small enough to be carried in by a juicer, about as deadly as a nuke to a single stationary target. The "wire Cthulhu for demolition" version, of course, has to be carried in by giant robots]
Mass Driver does 1d4x100,000 MD for 5 miles, 1d4x1,000 out to 10 miles, and 6d6x10 out to 20 miles.
Now THAT is well beyond nuclear yield. Figure on a fireball radius more like 15 kilometers then... call it around two gigatons. OUCH. Then yes, the size of the crater is a bit unambitious. Also, increase my estimate of the weapon's muzzle velocity by about a factor of 4.5, to something more like 45 thousand km/s, or roughly 0.15c.
Then again, the size of craters a huge impact leaves in reinforced concrete or other artificial materials might be smaller than what a meteor leaves in natural rock, and most things worth shooting with these giant bombardment guns will be on or around ground tougher than natural rock.
Back to FTL a moment, for a serious look. As with most technology in the Three Galaxies, the ability to produce or at least purchase the technology is virtually universal, the main limiting factors seem to be cost, space and (for FTL anyway) power. Anyone can buy an antimatter powerplant, but fusion is a lot cheaper and just as good for most uses, etc. Well, cost is the only one specified, but little things like fighters and shuttles that have FTL always having class A suggests the others to me.
Anyways, 80+% of the Three Galaxies uses CG, contra-gravity drives that generate a powerful enough gravity field to warp space-time, sort of like Star Trek Warp Drive. Below is the class, given speed-speed as a multiple of c and price in UTC (universal Trade Credits.) For reference, the GDP of an average colony world is ~20 million, though the prices can go up to 50% higher or lower, depending on supply. Class F is the highest rating available to civilians in any form, Class G drives being classified military hardware.
CG Class A 1 LY/hour- 8,760 c, 5 million UTC
CG Class B 2 LY/hour- 17,520 c, 10 million UTC
CG Class C 3 LY/hour- 26,280 c, 15 million UTC
CG Class D 4 LY/hour- 35,040 c, 25 million UTC
CG Class E 5 LY/hour- 43,800 c, 40 million UTC
CG Class F 6.5 LY/hour- 56,940 c, 75 million UTC
CG Class G 7+ LY/hour- 61,320+ c, 150 million on the black market
CG * 12 LY/hour- 105,120 c, not for sale
*Mechanoid Cruiser
So it's class A for fighters and shuttles, class D or E for frigates. Actually, D seems to be the limit for the Kreeghor, while half the Consortium's cruisers and capital ships have no FTL data listed. We do know Protector Battleships can do 6/LY hour (52,560 c) as do Explorer Cruisers, but the latter can boost into Class G performance for up to 6 hours.
Phase Drive works a bit differently, the ship is moved somewhat out of phase with the rest of the universe, and speeds along oblivious to the laws of physics. They're quite a bit more effcient than CG, and can usually be pushed harder. They also have the benefit of a much smaller hyper-limit, so they can jump in and out closer to planets. The downsides are that they're expensive (supply has never really come close to matching demand) and if you break them, they can only be understtod or repaired by a Promethean. Also, every 12 hours the drive needs to be shut down and recalibrated to keep you on course, a process that can be done in 7 hours by an experienced crew, but can easily take up to 12.
Phase A 1.5 LY/hour- 13,140 c, 10 million UTC
Phase B 2.5 LY/hour- 21,900 c, 15 million UTC
Phase C 3.5 LY/hour- 30,660 c, 20 million UTC
Phase D 4.5 LY/hour- 39,420 c, 30 million UTC
Phase E 5.2 LY/hour- 45,552 c, 50 million UTC
Phase F 6.7 LY/hour- 58,692 c, 100 million UTC
Phase G 7+ LY/Hour- 61,320+ c, 200 million UTC
Of course, these aren't the only ways to get around. The UWW uses Rift Drive, similar to nBSG jumpdrive in that the ship seems to teleport a certain distance. For most ships, that distance is 20 light years, and the ship can make just 5 jumps in one day, many hours being needed for onboard spellcasters to recharge the PPE batteries for the Rift Drive. Plus, on the whole 100 light years a day is roughly what the other powers can expect to make. Recently, UWW battleships have been equpping an enhanced Rift Drive that can do 40 light years in a jump, though the limit of 5 jumps a day and several hours between them remains. Intruders have a fold-space drive that also makes jumps, but can cover 100 light years a leap.
There are structures in space that can facilitate travel. Phase World's SPace Gates can teleport any ship with a special transceiver right to them, but they exist only at Phase World. The transceivers themselves are phase-based real-time comms that inform Phase World control a ship wants to come through, and sends scans of the ship and contents. The UWW has space pyramids that ships fly in and are teleported to other distant pyramids, just like terrestrial pyramid magic. This was to be expanded on in the UWW sourcebook that was written but never released.
The Holy Grail of any of the present Three Galaxies powers (at least regarding FTl, the Cosmic Forge and Book of Heroes serving as more literal Grails) is the ability to create wormholes, something that happens very, very rarely in nature, can be triggered by a spell (takes a rare and powerful caster, mind) or in some cases in laboratory conditions. The problems are twofold, first it takes insane amounts of energy, more than 100 cruisers could generate to create a wormhole. Second, none of the younger races have the technology to control where the other mouth ends up, it's a random trip. Now, we know it can be done because the Mechanoids and Dominators both use this form of travel. Mechanoid Motherships make a heady pace of 20 LY/hour (175,200 c) but Dominators really take the cake at 300 LY/hour (2,628,000 c.)
In short, if some inscrutable alien were to pluck a CAF Discovery Corps ship to the far side of the galaxy, it would take the ship about 18 months to make it back to where it started, less if the captain was willing to push the ship, and the first messages would be reaching 'home' in about two weeks. A pissed-off Dominator would be back in a week. They're not quite up to Star Wars FTL, but they're not that far behind.
Demon Star
Don't worry, unlike Demon Planets, a Demon Star isn't a celestial body that wants to eat you. Rather, it's the tiniest Chaos Destroyer to ever escape from Battlefleet Gothic. These ships full of demons and depraved madmen want to rampage across space, just like the big boys.
Demon Stars vary a great deal in size, but most are in the vicinity of 2,000 feet long by 400 wide and tall. It's armor is normal, perhaps a touch on the weak side for a cruiser, but it regenerates helluva fast and has decent shields. Demon Stars can do Mach 9 in space, can't touch atmo, and have a dual FTL drive, Rift Drive and Phase Drive (4 LY/hour or 35,040 c.) In addition to normal antimatter and PPE batteries, Demon Stars run on human sacrifice, with dozens of altars scattered throughout the ship for convenience. Hells, they need to feed the main cannon 13 people a day to keep it running. Said main gun wires a 'dark energy' that turns any material it hits really brittle. The ship is also armed with 3 cruiser-scale laser cannon to a broadside, 2 anti-ship missile tubs at the prow (which also has a spiked ram) and 8 point defense turrets that disable any fighters they hit for 5 minutes or so. The ships can also generate concealing 'nebulae' 5 miles across, dispel magic forcefields like Armor of Ithan, shut down techno-wizardry with a large scale anti-magic cloud or hop to another dimension (or up to 30 LY away in this one) with an overcharged dimensional portal. All of these abilities require sacrifice.
Typical crew complement is 400 or so minor demons for crew, with 40 or so Baal-Rogs as junior officers or section chiefs, 30 or so more intellectual demons as senior staff (Djinn, Raksashas, Demon Locusts and Night Owls) and 50 or so evil mortal spellcasters.
There have been stories about demonic 'ghost ships' approximately forever. Most people came to accept the existence of the Demon Stars 500 years ago, when a UWW fleet and a large contingent of Cosmo-Knights defeated a fleet of 200 of the ships. Mind, this victory left them short on prisoners or useful information, and trying to have psychics object read the ships just drove them crazy. Now the stories of ghost ships are kicking back up again...
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Ok, I'll be taking a break from the Three Galaxies for a while. Mostly because I've gotten the low-hanging fruit, the easily accessible books. I'm only about half done, if you count the canceled UWW sourcebook, and 3G is the lion's share of the Dimension Books, which all the others tie into to a greater or lesser extent so rest assured I will get back to it.
For now, new dimension books. Starting with Skraypers.
Skraypers
Planet Seeron in the Charizolon system (which is actually in the Corkscrew Galaxy, just a dozen light-years from Phase World) as far as the locals are concerned, the birth-place of humanity, and it's subspecies; homo sapiens sapiens, homo sapiens talus, and homo sapiens oculeris, the humans, talus and seermen. For several decades, the Seeronians had been in radio contact with Planet Talveras, which at it's closest is just 20 million miles from Seeron. In time, a manned mission was sent to Talveras, and greeted warmly.
A decade after that first mission, the bulk of Talveras died in a plague, a bio-weapon sent by mysterious alien invaders called the Tarlok. There's about a dozen sentient species in this system, deal. It seems the bio-weapon had been dormant and spreading for a long time, because the first astronauts to visit Talveras brought it home with them. Luckily it didn't kill many Seeronians, all but 0.5% were immune and developed through it a general immunity to Tarlok bio-warfare. But, it gave about 12% of the population superpowers. The next 8 years are a chaos of all the usual comic book drama, civil unrest and even an outright civil war while the Seeronian world government tries to arm up to repel the Tarlok, who spent this time solidifying their hold on Talveras.
And in the 9th year since superpowers became a thing, a Tarlok battle fleet filled the night sky.
They held out almost two years, but the Tarlok were too advanced, too powerful, too brutal, too indiscriminate in dropping rocks. Their population was a fraction of Seeron's 17 billion, but every Tarlok was a warrior. Only the superheroes kept the Seeronians in the game, and that ended fairly early on, when the Tarlok captured the moon-prison holding the worst supervillains and turned those who would serve them loose.
Seeron surrendered.
The world government did have a contingency plan. The effects of the Talveran Plague were still spreading and it was estimated that in 4 or 5 generations ALL Seeronians would have superpowers. Though it grated, the government decided to put their hopes in the superheroes and set up supplies and lines of connunication for a superhuman resistance to the invaders, that could last until they were actually strong enough to see the Tarlok off.
In the meantime the resistance, the titular Skraypers, keep hope alive as they have for more than 20 years. And the Tarlok-run Bureau of Control and Registration tries to track and control all superhumans who might threaten the Tarlok Empire. The Tarlok control all the solar system, but have never tried to occupy a people so populous or advanced as the Seeronians, or a superpowered population, and while the Tarlok retain nominal control over the situation billions of slaves across the system see the thriving resistance and ask if they too can't stand up to the Tarlok.
So roll up a set of superpowers and pick a side.
Out of universe, Skraypers exists because Palladium Games has a long-running superhero game, Heroes Unlimited, and RIFTS sort of inherited a superpower system from that game. This will sound odd, but superheroes feel really out of place in RIFTS. I don't know why that one element from a grab-bag mega-crossover like RIFTS is should stick out, but it does. RIFTS characters are just generally too pragmatic to wear flamboyant colors (outside of Crazies, obviously) there are too many ways for a secret identity to be compromised, you move around too much and really no one is going to buy into HU's morality system. In RIFTS, if someone threatens your party, you kill him or flee for your life, no beating them up and leaving them for corrupt or nonexistent authorities.
So, Siembienda and Co. were left with rules for superpowers no one was using except for obscene power-gaming, and decided to use the existing Dimension Book frame to create a superhero setting, connected to the existing settings but removed enough to be easily self-contained if you want. And because they can't resist playing with the mix of things, we have a healthy dystopian cyber-punk setting, with potential for space adventures, and a grim resistance almost like one of those comic books showing what the world will be like in 20 years (you know the ones, Injustice, Future Imperfect, Kingdom Come, Old Man Logan, Spiderman: Reign.)
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Okay, let's talk about the Tarlok, since they're the default villains and driving force in Skraypers.
The Tarlok are big lizard-men and yes, a Proud Warrior People. I do at least appreciate the effort made to make them less like cardboard cutout Klingons, that gets dull fast. They evolved on a planet called Vuulok, which is sort of like a mashup of the various dinosaur eras if everything was a lot smarter, tougher and meaner. For one thing the D'arnu (remember the raptors from Jurassic Park? Them.) traveled in packs of up to 800, and would sometimes form armies 18,000 strong for... special occasions. Cracking open a walled city to get at the meaty goodness inside, for instance.
Not that the Tarlok had cities or walls for most of their history, they were cave-lizards. But they were enslaved by the Lonara, a species of presumably the same genus only twice as large with a Bronze-age tech level, and used as janissaries to keep the Lonaran cities safe and the D'arnu and other predators under control. Time passes, the Tarlok are increasingly integrated into Lonaran society, learn math and writing and all the trappings of civilization while hunting, fighting and working for the Lonara. The Tarlok were impressed with the strength and wisdom of the Lonara, while the Lonara bore no grudges as the Tarlok eventually outbred them, wiped out all the predators and became masters of their own destiny. The Tarlok held great reverence for "the civilization givers" until the death of the last, just 600 years ago.
It is a point of serious pride to the Tarlok that they have had a continuous civilization for 50,000 years, with only two civil wars in the entire span. The Tarlok achieved spaceflight almost a thousand years ago (970, if you're feeling pedantic) and have expanding out to conquer and colonize the Charizolon system ever since. They've even sent sleeper ships (lacking FTL) as far as Phase World, and hope to eventually purchase FTL and dimension-traveling technology so they can expand ever onward. Sadly, they have little of value to trade, but the Splugorth are intrigued by the Tarlok's apparent desperation and capacity for violence...
Anyhow, the Tarlok are pretty militarized, at any given time 80% of the male population is under arms, no clue how they can sustain that. Military spoils are divided using a complex system, where effectiveness and seniority are both major factors.
The basic Tarlok infantry grunts are called "Lokdogs." Non-coms are Bosses, field officers are Leaders, command officers are Warlors. With some internal divisions, a Warleader outranks a Broodleader, etc. At the top of the heap are the 8 Chiefs who each oversee a bracnh, like the Tekchief who oversees all military research, the Bloodchief in charge of infantry, the Starchief who commands the Fleets, etc. The highest military rank a Tarlok can aspire to is to be... the Master Chief (fill in your own Halo joke, too easy for me.) Oh, and somewhere in there's an Emperor who hands his throne down not to a biological heir, but to whichever Chief he feels is most deserving.
Biologically, the Tarlok are MDC creatures that gain 3 MDC for every year of life until 270. A Tarlok can live to 350, though only about half make it to 200, and less than 15% live to 270 where they start losing their strength to age. These Prime Elders are revered for their wisdom and strength. Females generally only live to 250, but are fertile from age 20-200, so a Tarlok female could theoretically have almost 200 children over the course of her life. Most have only about 100 kids. Tarlok are monogamous, with an infidelity/divorce rate slightly less than 1%.
But moving on, Tarlok are armored, their heads are covered with spines and ridges to make it difficult for predators to attack their faces, and their eyes are deeply recessed for protection. Their skull is very thick, and their brain suspended in a gelatinous membrane making it very resistant to impact damage, plus they have a spine to deflect blows to the head. Their armor continues to develop through life, becoming tougher and more mobile, and they gain a number of spines and elbow spikes at the age of 16. The weakest Tarlok adolescent is as fast and slightly stronger than the greatest human athletes, their best are twice as strong and 25% faster than humanity's best. In case the physical divide wasn't enough, Tarlok continue to improve over time up to the point of decline, gaining +2 strength and speed and +1 endurance every 30 years. A Tarlok in his prime (the last decade before rapid aging sets in) is effectively the same as a Mega-Juicer from the main setting, but with a hair more MDC (810) than a Glitter Boy, a tank made of flesh.
Tarlok have small nostrils on their chin for scent, though their sense of smell is barely better than humans. It can get them by if they don't move much, but primary respiration is done through a pair of blowholes located at the base of the neck. These holes are large enough to jam a baseball down (or a grapefruit, if it's a really big Tarlok) and are protected with leathery flaps between breaths. This plus the double heart makes their endurance the most insanely jacked-up stat. A Tarlok can engage in any given vigorous activity 10 times longer than a human before needing a break. A break 5% as long as a human would need, for a tenth the the exercise. This isn't even counting the age bonuses.
When injured, a Tarlok will start uncontrollably drooling or frothing at the mouth a blue liquid that looks a bit like antifreeze. This is called sleg. Sleg is an antibiotic coagulent that hardens in seconds when exposed to air, serving as a sort of liquid bandage. It also promotes healing, taking care of burns, rashes, lacerations, bruises and minor stab wounds in a few days. Most serious injuries can take a week to heal, but full immersion in a sleg tank can fix everything short of death, brain damage or limb loss inside 4 days. Male Tarlok have a gland that produces and stores up to a gallon of sleg a day, but need to be seriously wounded to access it. Females get 4 gallons of sleg, and can spit it out at will. The healing properties of sleg apply only to Tarlok, to aliens the substance has no use beyond that of a sterile liquid bandage.
What else? Tarlok females serve the military, but never in combat roles, they are expected to be breeders and happy homemakers. Males are usually 30% bigger than females. Females produce more sleg as just mentioned. Males are born with a small nub on their 3-fingered hands, between the two fingers that aren't the thumb. This grows into another finger that females lack, called the King Finger. It keeps growing throughout life, as long as the others at 70, then much longer, and is considered a symbol of strength and wisdom. Traitors get their King fingers sawed off, combining ritual emasculation with communal rejection, and an enduring mark of one's treachery.
A cloaca prevents examination of further gender differences.
Gear-wise, most Tarlok prefer modified versions of traditional weapons. Thus, a wide variety of axes, clubs, maces, short swords, spears, pikes and scythes exist that can be charged with energy to burn/cut or blast/smash through most things and can fire MD energy blasts exist. They have a bit less range and accuracy than many weapons the Tarlok could use, but are nice and traditional, and serve the Tarlok's preferred tactic of suppressing the enemy with fire while charging into melee. A few standouts include the highly traditional double-headed Byomer Ax which is just a vibro-weapon, no energy blast, the Skullbasher 80-lbs. spiked warhammer, and a sickle with a laser built-in called a Slayzer.
As backups when the enemy is more than a hundred yards away, they have some conventional ion guns that some troops even use as their standard arms. A tribarreled semi-automatic rifle and a pistol with a ridiculous sort of bayonet. Capture missions and Control Agents frequently use tranq guns. The only heavy weapon commonly used is the Sidewinder Plasma Cannon (pictured above) which is double barreled, so it can shoot strong anti-personnel damage twice as fast, or a double blast for anti-tank damage. 1600 foot range, 60 rounds to an E-clip.
The Tarlok have armor slightly more advanced than Rifts Earth, called a Loksuit. 115 MDC, or 230 MDC for the heavier model. The suits have a HUD that can show the viewpoints of up to six other suits, can interface with Tarlok computers systems, have nightvision, thermal-imaging and telescopic zoom, even a microscope, albeit one with just 6x mag. Advanced targeting system with laser rangefinder. The right arm has a retractable vibro-sword, the left usually has a tri-barrel laser, but can be swapped out for a much bulkier arm with a laser, ion gun, big metal fist spike and a grappling hook. The armor is full environmental, rated for space and underwater, and can be used with a jetpack or large battery pack for the ion rifle or plasma cannon. It also has a series of tiny tubes to immediately carry sleg from the mouth to anywhere it's needed. Naturally, the Tarlok hate the Loksuit and will never use it if they can avoid it.
Okay, that last is a bit of an exaggeration. But by the time a Tarlok turns 70 he has almost twice as much MDC naturally as his armor does. That extra hundred still counts, but it increasingly counts less as a Tarlok ages, until he has to ask himself if the extra hundred or two MDC is worth the encumbrance, the discomfort, taking the armor off, putting it back on, not being able to type, not being able to smell or to hear right. Some stick with their armor to the very end, most doff it around the age of 80 and never look back, unless they need to fight in space or other conditions where an environmental suit is needed. It's a very short road from "armor is only practical til you get old and experienced" to "armor is a crutch for novice warriors" and most Tarlok walked that road a long time ago.
The again, it may be a good thing. The armor is reminding me of Halo again.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
I should get this out of the way early on. There are superpowers in this setting, yes, psionics too. But Charizolon is as magically dead as Pre-Cataclysm Earth, more even. There are no native mages in the system, though a sorcerer who comes from outside can still use magic, he cannot refill using ley lines, and so recharges much slower. Opening portals or dimensional teleporting to any point in the system takes 4 times as much PPE as normal.
The Tarlok aren't just an army of faceless goons, they're an Empire that covers a star system with almost a dozen vassal races. More to the point, they have varied forces all their own.
Tarbulls are their own division apart from the regular Tarlok infantry, an elite force comprising a third the Tarlok's ground forces, led by the Bloodchief. The Tarbulls are a warrior brotherhood with a death grip on the traditions and Warrior's Code of the ancient Tarlok. You can usually identify them by looking for the biggest, most aggressive Tarlok in the room. Fortunately, the Code has a strong pragmatic streak. There's room for personal honor and glory, but not at the cost of unit effectiveness or the chain of command. You can challenge a superior for his position, but never in the field or anywhere combat is a real possibility. Until you can get to a secure base, you grit your teeth and do as told. Tarbulls love a melee battle, particularly with their signature byomer axes (pictured above) and certainly don't mind a short charge to get among the enemy, but the moment that's impractical they'll pull out ranged weapons and use them to great effect.
Tarbulls train relentlessly night and day. The only recreation they are allowed are contests of strength and skill, making little Tarlok with their wives, and feasting after battle. "Fight hard, party harder" is an unofficial Tarlok motto. Politically, Tarbulls are extremely conservative/reactionary. They employ torture and brutal retaliation for any resistance, such as decimating a Seeronian city because the Skraypers achieved some notable victory.
Tarbulls are normal Tarlok with some serious physical bonuses and skills from their training. They are literate, unlike most Tarlok, and highly familiar with military history and tactics, thanks to being formally trained. At 3rd level of 50 years of age (whichever comes first) a Tarbull develops limited psychic powers for reasons Tarlok science is unable to explain. These include meditation to restore ISP, mind block, psi-sword (80% of them look like the damn ax) and psi-shield. Despite the dearth of powers, Tarbulls are considered major psychics with good saves against psychic attack and lots of ISP to throw around.
Shertar are sort of the anti-Tarbulls. A scholarly caste and counterculture that arose almost 800 years ago during the reign of Emperor Gurlig. Gurlig's reign was a virtual renaissance of science and art, creativity and free-thinking, though most Tarlok if asked consider it something of a low point for the Empire. In any case, by the time Gurlig brought it, the Shertar had become a fixture. The Shertar are primarily scientists, though they have many artists as well, and technocrats. They are engaged in a great struggle to make Tarlok society more civilized, pushing for radical ideas like public education and women's lib. On the other hand, they still support slavery, conquest, and genocide, they just wish their peers weren't so inefficient and inelegant about it.
Shertar are mean mofos, but they're not warriors, and file down their spines and spiky bits to show their rejection of Tarlok conservative culture and tradition. They believe in strict discipline so their innate violence is leashed until it's actually useful, and follow rigorous programs of diet and exercise with the end effect that they're a lot less bulky than most Tarlok, but a lot quicker and more agile. Unlike most Tarlok, Shertar do not disdain the use of armor.
It is the Shertar, above all that are feared by slaves and rebels, for their medical experiments and mastery of torture. They are the ones who build weapons of mass destruction for the Tarlok, who advocated the use of bio-warfare to soften up the enemy. The Shertar make up roughly 10% of the Tarlok population.
When a Tarlok is crippled in battle he has three choices, seppuku, return home a toothless failure, or surrender himself to the Shertar to be turned into a cyborg Teklok. A few Tarlok warriors, the weakest, ask for conversion to be able to keep up, but this is really rare. Similarly some Shertar go for conversion so they can prove themselves. Though Teklok can live longer than most Tarlok, they can never be respected as elders, never command, never inherit, and must renounce the name of their father. All Teklok are second class citizens, with zero political power or voice and career soldiers. If the military life tires them they can request deactivation (death.) But they can still fight until then.
In deference to traditionalists, Teklok lack spines and spiky bits, showing they are not "true" warriors. Teklok are a fair bit stronger than most Tarlok, and a lot faster able to run at 120 mph (192 k.) They have "only" 200 MDC integral armor, but can wear a light 200 MDC armor or heavy 420 MDC armor on top of it. Teklok bodies are rated for the vacuum of space, up to a mile underwater, and temperatures between -100 and 600 F. All Teklok have enhanced hearing, a loudspeaker, radio, and multi-optic eye. Many elect to get a laser-eye too. The hands are modular and interchangeable with various weapons loadouts. Usually a weapon arm will have a melee, mid range and long range weapon, and all weapons arms have 3-4 2 foot tentacles so they can still be used to grab things. They usually try and give a Teklok one arm with a normal hand and some light weapons, unless the mission is specifically heavy weapons support.
And then there were Dreadlors. For most of their history, the Tarlok have dealt with disabilities "the Spartan Way" by killing off deformed or unhealthy infants. Then the Shertar were playing around with things Tarlok weren't meant to know, and stumbled onto a way to undo the last quarter million years of evolution, producing a physically superior Tarlok with only a bestial intelligence and a 20% mortality rate. Most weren't in a hurry to undergo the procedure, so the Shertar decided to apply it to the doomed castaway babies. Take an infant, tweak the DNA, and stick it in a pod for five years while bombarding it with exotic energies. Then out steps a Dreadlor, fully trained with simple tactics and command phrases.
What a difference time has made! Dreadlors have three fingers, none of them a king finger, spines on the neck. They're clearly running predators, with an extra joint in the leg, and their armor is thicker over vital areas than any other Tarloks' but much lighter overall. They are skilled climbers, good at swimming, tracking and sneaking around, and their reflexes are lightning-fast (auto-dodge.) 12 feet tall, where other Tarlok are 8-9 ft. Dreadlor are more than twice as strong as most Tarlok, and can run at 90 mph (148 k) and jump 40 ft. high, 60 feet long. They start with 300 MDC and gain 1 a year. In theory a Dreadlor can live as long as any Tarlok, in practice none has yet made it to 150.
For reasons the poor Shertar still don't understand, almost 50% of Dreadlors develop superpowers, which the Shertar are pretty sure aren't part of their evolutionary history. It is a matter of ongoing investigation, mostly so they can figure out how to empower the rest, and maybe generalize to all Tarlok. There are 10 powersets the Dreadlors can get a fairly even distribution among them. They are:
Teleporting
Invisibility
Sonic Powers
Disruptive Touch (blind, paralyze, inflict pain or kill with a touch)
Growth (max. of 70 feet/21 meters tall)
Energy Absorbtion (suck up electricity, then expel it at will)
Energy Resistance/Expulsion
Healing Factor and Nightstalking (increased strength, senses and stealth in darkness)
Extraordinary Speed (upgrade speed to 220+ mph)
Super-Energy Expulsion
Dreadlors are usually grown in batches of 20 and will bond on the first Tarlok they see as their handler/mother, called a Dreadmaster. Despite the relative successes of the Dreadlors, still 99% of Tarlok prefer the Old Ways to handle their unwanted cripples. You may have noticed they're a bit resistant to change.
For over 9,000 years, psychic Tarlok have been used as spys, assassins, saboteurs, interrogators and sometimes even as frontline officers. When the Tarlok decided to expand to the stars, they organized their psychics into the Dread Army under the Dreadchief, and they've served as the Tarlok special forces ever since. When the program that would eventually be called the Dreadlor project began, who better to oversee it? Especially since the test subjects really seemed to bond deeper to psychics. Indeed, Dreadlors and Dreadmasters bond so deeply, the beasts respond obediently not just to commands and hand-signals, but to the every thought of their master. While the master can sense the position of each of his "children," if they are in distress, injured or dead, or if they are being mind-controlled by another. Even if you manage to control a Dreadlor, you cannot make it harm it's master, but the rest of the pack are fair game.
Dreadmasters can bond with up to 40 Dreadlors at a time, though 10-20 is far more common and his range is roughly a mile. If a Dreadlor gets separated, they will return to a predetermined meeting point and wait, ignoring hunger and thirst. If the Dreadmaster never returns, only a third can be salvaged and bound to a new Dreadmaster, the remainder die. If a Dreadmaster is killed, a third of his pack go berserk, a third go comatose, and a third flee and eventually go feral. Dreadmasters understand they are the critical point of failure, and spend long months going over small-group tactics to ensure this doesn't happen. They will sacrifice a Dreadlor for their lives if need be, but for the sake of the group only, Dreadmasters refuse to treat their charges as cannon fodder or slaves.
Dreadmasters start with empathy, telepathy, mind-block, bio-manipulation, bio-regen, empathic transmission, and 3 sensitive, 2 super, powers of choice. Each even level plus level 5 a Dreadmaster may gain 2 ordinary (sensitive, physical, helaing) or 1 super power. Other than that they have all the normal physical prowess and abilities of a Tarlok.
Half a million psychic commandos and agents serve at the pleasure of the Dreadchief, but the universe holds only 2 million Dreadlors. Not all, or even many psychic Tarlok are picked to lead a pack.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
But what's the point in only knowing the bad guys?
Planet Seeron. We don't hear a ton of it's history, supposedly it's not relevant given the bleak present and future. What we do know is that civilization of one kind or another has existed on Seeron for 30,000 years, with some dubious artifacts dating back 200,000 years. There has been a single World Government for at least a thousand years.
The planet has moved so far past nationalism, in fact, that national and even continental divides do not exist on Seeronian maps. For administrative purposes, the planet is divided into 4 Sectors. North and South Sectors take up the third of the planet closest to each pole, and the dividing band between them is split evenly by East and West Sector. The planetary capital is the city of Rylor in West Sector, a city roughly the size of the state of Texas. There are 3 moons, Etopia, Texlor and Zeg. Etopia used to be a resort world home to the obscenely rich, but the Tarlok blasted it into ruin early on, and since have been building three cities of their own. Texlor is an airless, lifeless rock and home to the prison that used to hold supervillains, and now holds resistance fighters. Zeg is also airless, and lifeless, but was selected as site for the Tarlok's major fleet base.
Population is almost 20 billion, mostly evenly divided between the three human sub-species, but there are 2 billion less Seerman than the other two.
Tech-level roughly equivalent to Earth, immediately pre-Cataclysm. Laser weapons and aircars are common, all cybernetics from Rifts are known and available for the right price. Seeronian cities are marked by skyscrapers 100-200 stories tall, street-level can be rough in many cities, but the underhive is where all the damn dirty mutants are, naturally, with alien monsters and Dreadlor packs the Tarlok turn loose to discourage people from hiding underground too.
Humanity has demonstrably existed on Seeron for a very long time. What the Seeronians don't know is that they are descended from Atlanteans who tried to set up a new Atlantis in the immediate aftermath of losing Earth, before the 'no settling or building a new empire" rule really went into effect. With the passage of millennia, the Seeronian people have lost the Atlantean language, culture, magic, special abilities and all defining ethnic traits. Only a genetic or magic test will reveal the connection, and odds are the Seeronians, at least, won't believe it. Any Atlanteans who figure this out and hear of Seeron's plight will rush to their aid, though they'll probably be more than a bit freaked out by the Talus, Seermen and Bio-Freaks.
So yeah, basic humanity is basically humanity, with all the normal stats and abilities. When they get powers, they tend to get energy manipulating powers. There are plenty of exceptions to the rule, but it's a strong trend.
Talus are identical humans except they're usually a foot taller, completely hairless below the chin, and have prehensile tails. Talu are generally pretty physical, involved in sports and their particular tail-incorporating martial art, Talitsu, from a young age. Which means they're generally stronger and more dexterous then the other human variants. Sadly, this means the Tarlok have singled them out as a good workforce and janissaries. Talus are most likely to develop physical powers, super strength and speed, etc. They also look a lot more "normal" to us than Seermen.
Seermen are distinct from h. sapiens sapiens in a number of ways. They have tough, almost scaly tan skin, believed to be an adaptation to the acid rains of the South Sector jungles Seerman culture seems to have arisen in. Their cheekbones are a little to high, their ears are small, they have tiny bone ridges on their forehead, no facial or body hair, and 15% of Seerman males have protruding bony tusks or spines at the chin. They also have bony elbow blades, and basically look like Star Trek aliens. Oh, and every Seerman is psychic, almost 20% being Mind Melter equivalents master psychics. Seermen are the least likely humans to develop super powers, and have the narrowest range of powers, but since the plague minor psychics have become a minority, with powerful major and master psychics almost quadrupling.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
The Burning Scythe was already a figure of some repute in the East Sector underworld when a strange disease nearly killed him, but he got up with superpowers. This was years before anyone else got superpowers, which I suppose makes Scythe patient zero and most likely the source of the mutated, super-power granting plague. Anyways for several years (less than a decade, but not much more specific) Scythe was the only superhuman, and managed to parlay his gifts and brains into becoming THE crime lord of East Sector, and the wealthiest man on Seeron. When other superhumans started cropping up, he formed a group called the Epoch Riders to bring in a new age, and realize his dream of government of/by/for the super-people. In particular, he appealed to the Bio-Freaks, the third or so of superhumans who gained a monstrous form, and were shunned by the populi and arguably oppressed by the government.
He launched a coup attempt that became more or less a full civil war. Again, there aren't a lot of details, but it's clearly stated that the heroes and existing government won by chance rather than skill or force, roughly a year before the Tarlok invasion. Scythe and his surviving lieutenants were locked up in the Texlor prison until the world government passed a special measure, bringing back the ancient death penalty just for them. Three days before the executions, the Tarlok arrived, and Scythe got the other supervillains to agree to let him negotiate on their behalf, which amounted to agreeing to bend a knee and work for the Tarlok, help them sort out their superhero troubles, because they're the experts in superheroes and did so well the first time.
Not that it ever crossed Scythe's mind to actually work for the Tarlok, but in his months working with them, he managed to learn a lot about them, and send thousands of his people home on the guise of forming a fifth column. He also exposed dozens of high-ranking traitors in the Seeronian government before formally severing relations with the Tarlok, by blowing up their command ship, killing the Starchief and setting the invasion back six months. Then he vanished for thirty years, only recently resurfacing with a new band of Epoch Riders, now the largest, best organized and funded resistance group on Seeron. All this has earned him the number 2 slot on the Tarlok's Shit List, right below his heroic nemesis, Victor.
Not that Scythe is ever going to be a nice person. He's actively sabotaged any other resistance in East Sector, forcing the survivors to join with him and prodded the Tarlok and Control into cracking down on the Bio-Freaks, who also flee to Scythe's sheltering arms, remembering that he has always treated them with respect. He still wants to rule the world, or failing that be kind of an independent East Sector, but has accepted that a.) this isn't happening while the Tarlok are in charge and b.) he has a much better shot as the Hero who saw off the alien invaders.
Powers-wise, Scythe has decent super strength, can survive indefinitely without air, fires energy bolts from his hands that do solid anti-tank MD and generously out-range most energy-blast powers, can form scythes or sickle-blades of that same energy, and can fly at 400 mph. What only he and his right-hand man, Three-Eyes Klynt (the most powerful psychic on Seeron, until a dragon or Supernatural Intelligence visits) know is that he also has a tweaked and improved version of one of the 4 or 5 rarest powers, Immortality. The way Immortality usually works, you become an MDC creature unaffected by age, disease or radiation, with a bit of quick healing (no regen) who can be killed by decapitation or total destruction of the heart. Scythe's version has generous regen, the ability to completely recover any damage after 4 hours of rest, regrow limbs in three days, and while he can be beaten into a healing coma, he can only be truly killed by total incineration or disintegration.
Scythe has a reputation as a hard man to kill (too many "no one could have survived that." moments) that most people accept at face value. This makes Scythe very happy, because he doesn't want anyone to spend too much time thinking about why he never dies, what it would take to kill him, or how to imprison him forever or whatever alternative you can think of for immortal evil.
Scythe's organization, the Epoch Riders, has a high turnover rate. He and Three Eyes are the only survivors of the original Riders.
If the Burning Scythe can be seen as Seeron's version of Magneto, DangerDespair is the Joker. He's a ruthless serial killer and occasional assassin, when it occurs to him to charge money for what he'd do anyways. Nobody really knows what motivates him, just that he kills people, sometimes Skraypers, sometimes crooks or Control officers, Tarlok or ordinary people. He'll do a job he's paid to, but 50/50 he kills his employer later for kicks. He has a calling card but only bothers with it half the time, carving "No Hope" into his victim's flesh or writing it in their blood. Even his M.O. is inconsistent, he's been known to spend days, weeks, as long as two months once stalking his victims and playing head games before dropping the ax, but sometimes he'll take out a someone with a sniper rifle with zero advance notice. Sometimes he goes through his stalking routine, then leaves, and maybe comes back to finish up, or just play mess with the victim's head some more.
DangerDespair has a very scary set of superpowers for a serial killer. He has the same flight power as Scythe, but he's somewhat slower at 340 mph. He also has Intangibility and Disruptive Touch, which is basically the superpower version of Bio-manipulate, letting him inflict agony, blind, paralyze, or insta-kill anyone with a touch. Like Scythe, he has lucked into one of the rarest and most powerful abilities, Negate Powers, which lets him shut down any superpowers with a 200 foot radius. The only bright side is that his negation field goes away if you disrupt his focus.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
I apologize for taking so long. I believe I've mentioned that Skraypers, and the Three Galaxies, use the super power system from Heroes Unlimited, Palladium's superhero game. In the book's list of powers, half the entries have an asterisk standing for "insufficient space, look up in HU 2nd edition." Alright, fair enough, and as long as I had to look them up anyways, why not expand and include some of the powers from the supplement books? They're still canon for the setting, and it's more convenient to have them up in one place.
Then my primary source (generously contributed by Crossroads) went on the fritz and hasn't recovered. My older secondary sources came up dry, and while I did get some tidbits from general searches, most of it came from the wealth of homebrew patches and new powers online. A few mostly complete lists, but none referencing PU 3 or with useful descriptions. I mean, I think I have a pretty keen idea what powers "Tractor Beam" and "Pause Time" do, even if I may be missing some of the specifics like range, duration and limits. But I can think of half a dozen possible interpretations of "Geothermal Energy" or "Gem Powers" before I even need to get creative.
So it took me two weeks of working on and off on the problem to just say "screw it." Here's the list of superpowers for the game, as complete as I can make it. I like to think I focus more on story stuff than rules, but I'll present those where it feels appropriate.
HU is an SDC setting, while RIFTS and Three Galaxies is MDC, Skraypers lets you choose. I'm assuming MDC for the sake of simplicity (really, it's simpler than the SDC armor system) and cross-compatibility with the other RIFTS games. Powers are divided into minor and major (and mega powers that only NPCs get.) The original edition of HU assumed you'd get 1 power, here 2-3 is average, with potential for up to 5 powers, 7 if you're a munchkin with a very forgiving GM. When I'm done, I'll include the random roll charts for determining powers.
I've decided to take a page from Skraypers and mark every power I don't have a solid reference for (mostly meaning they're in PU 1) with an asterisk thus *. So you can note any description I provide is speculative.
Minor Powers
Abnormal Energy Sense* one assumes it lets you sense energy, or perhaps just abnormal energy.
Adhesion- Spider-man's wall-crawling, basically.
Adrenaline Surge- temporary strength boost and double MDC
Alter Physical Body* no idea, some kind of shapeshifting?
APS- limb* APS lets you turn into a man of fire or rubber or somesuch, I presume this lets you partially transform.
Anatomical Independence- lets you yank off a limb and control it remotely
Animal Brother* makes animals friendly to you?
Antennae- double hearing/scent range, feel temperature and vibrations much better. Downside is having meter-long antennae.
Battle Rage- berserker rage with appropriate bonuses
Beastmaster- like the movie, control animals with your mind
Bend Light- a poor man's invisibility with lots of haze and air ripples, can spoof artificial sensors fine. Also radiate up to 70 watts of light, can create prism effect and parry/deflect lasers. UV and IF vision with short range.
Blur* make you blurry and hard to hit? Mess with perception?
Body Weapons- turn limbs or fingers into blades, hammers or other SD weapons
Bookworm* your guess is as good as mine.
Bubble Glue* Bubbly glue or a bubble made of glue? I believe the latter from forum search.
Charge Object with Explosive Energy- just like Gambit
Chemical Secretion* obviously secrete chemicals. Which? How much?
Claws* grow claws
Small Claws* see above
Clock Manipulation- not time manipulation, the ability to change the time display on any clock, computer or cell phone you touch. Good for timelocks I guess?
Color Manipulation* I really hope this isn't what I'm sure it is.
Conduct Electricity* Heck, I can do that. Or do they mean without hurting yourself?
Criminal Intuition* ???
Danger Sense- same as psychic power, a few moments warning before the ax falls
Density Walking* can't be intangibility, that's later.
Detonate* I assume it involves blowing things up.
Disintegrate* I assume it involves reducing things to component molecules.
Doorway* create doors? Portal to the other side of a wall or object? Something more metaphorical?
Earth Empowerment- grow stronger with more MDC when touching the ground
Energy Claws* claws made out of energy? Just spitballing here.
Energy Expulsion- the standard "blast 'em" ranged power. 1d6 MD per level, meaning at max level you can compete with a small nuke. 300 yard range, great fun at football games. Starting 3rd level you can hit two targets simultaneously, though each takes half damage, rounding down. Comes in many flavors; energy, EMP, electricity, electric field, fire, flame rings, cold, icy mist, force, light, plasma and ultrasonic screech. Collect them all.
Energy Resistance- ignore the first 30 MDC from energy weapons/attacks in a fight, then take half damage. Total immunity to the stun setting of energy weapons, which may not be a great thing for you.
Energy Shield* an energy shield? Not a ton else I can think of.
Energy Whip* for when the Living Laser is bad?
Enhanced Leaping* jump higher/further. Don't know how much.
Enlarge Body Parts* may make you very popular with the ladies, depending on how it works.
Exploding Spheres* I'm guessing good things happen if you touch them. Perhaps they dispense candy.
Extraordinary ________ - every stat can be made extraordinary. Both Charisma stats and Prowess (DEX for D&D players) are straight bonuses. Ex. Mental Endurance makes you very resistant to mind control, fear and drugs, like the stat normally does. Ex. Intelligence lets you pick two skills and boost them high enough to laugh off all but the most serious penalties. Ex. Endurance means you can do anything 10x as long and take really short rest breaks. Ex. Strength boosts the stat and makes it so you can now lift 200x the stat number in pounds, instead of the normal 20 for a strong man and 50 for supernatural/robotic strength. Ex. Speed is pretty much entry level for a speedster, run at 200 mph (353 kph) plus 20 per level (max of 500 mph/800 kph) get half an MD point to survive stress (get armor if you're actually going to run into things) and really good reflex saves. Fluff says your fist can accelerate up to 40 mph/64 kph in the time it takes your arm to fully extend into a punch.
Fabric/Cloth Animation* Teddy Bear Picnic for the hardcore?
Feral* I'm thinking stack of bonuses and increased senses
Flight- another power with a bunch of varieties. Hover lets you... hover. It's awesomely descriptive like that. Glide lets you jump off tall buildings and maybe do 50 mph/80 k but can't gain lift wihout lucking into an updraft. Winged Flight gives you bug/bird/bat wings (18 foot wingspan) and the ability to fly at 160 mph/256 kph plus 10m/16k per level. Plain Flight (sometimes called wingless flight) lets you fly at the same speeds as Extraordinary Speed. A version I don't know much about lets you fly on a conjured disc, and Major variants exist for supersonic/FTL flight.
Frequency Absorbtion* damned if I know.
Giant* is a minor power where Growth is major. I'm thinking more like Giant-Man and less like Kaiju
Glow Bug* I got nothing.
Gravitational Plane* tilt gravity a few degrees one way? Create a surface that ignores gravity?
Gun Limb* I'm guessing you turn your arm into a gun, and not that one is surgically implanted. Still, you never know.
Harden Skin* makes you tougher, how much I don't know
Healing Factor- heal 10x faster, with twice a day special use that recovers 4d6 health instantly. No scars, half effect and duration of drugs and poisons, half damage from heat and cold, bonus health, never fatigued. No regen though, you lose an eye or an arm and it's gone.
Healing Power* heal other people, dunno how much.
Heavyweight* increase your weight? Wander around all super heavy all the time?
Heightened Senses- including hearing (hear normal conversation across football field, 1 decibel within 100 feet) smell (track by scent) taste and touch. Plus heightened balance, recall and awareness.
Hold Breath* hold your breath for a long time.
Horror Factor- inspire fear.
Hyperdensity* hard to phase through? Tough and heavy?
Impact Resistant- shrug off a lot of damage from things like bullets or sledgehammers.
Impervious- to fire, cold, electricity, energy, fear, poison, mind control, sonics, lasers, magic or psionics.
Indestructible Bones* dunno if they're actually indestructible or just really hard to break.
Instant Wardrobe* costume change?
Instant Weapon* Hammerspace?
Iron Will* can't imagine what this does that Extraordinary ME didn't already do.
Life Sense- sense the living, where they are and if they're likely to stop living soon.
Lightning Reflexes* really quick reflexes
Line Transit- turn into energy and travel almost instantly through any conductive surface or cable. Cannot travel by radio/cell phone, still handy for reaching the top or bottom of buildings really fast.
Living Anatomy* it's alive? Survives vivisection? I don't know.
Longevity* aging gracefully, I assume.
Lunar Strength- extra strength and MDC when the moon(s) is out
Manipulate Kinetic Energy- gets you a KE forcefield, a chance to deflect projectiles, even bullets and rail gun rounds, and the ability to "charge" an object with KE before throwing it to double the range or damage or to program a flight path. This can be returning to your hand, or you can make it curve around an obstacle, jump a foot higher or lower at a predetermined distance from you, or have it stop and hover at a set point.
Mask: No Face No ID* A Faceless Man? I don't know.
Mechanical Awareness- skill with advanced technology
Mental Stun- kill someone's equilibrium and let them stagger around like they're drunk.
Motion Detection* at what range? It's a mystery!
Multiple Limbs- extra limbs. Who said all powers were photogenic?
Multi-tasking* again, good idea what it is, not so much exactly what it can do
Nightstalking- extra health, damage and slightly boosted speed after dark, plus great nightvision and bonuses to tracking, sneaking and navigating the environment. Can hide in the shadows with great skill, can see through shadow meld and similar abilities. Recognizes vampires on sight and cannot be turned (not really relevant on Seeron. Yet.) Knows always the exact time to the rising or setting of the sun.
Personal Forcefield- self-explanatory
Physical Perfection* I'm thinking the Captain America "idealized man" powers. Could be way off-base though.
Portals- create portals between two points, only line of sight and within 100 yards. So no popping across town, but you pretty much have a portal gun that no one can ever take away, and the game didn't let you form portals in mid-air.
Power Bands- dunno. Some kind of restraint, like the old GL comics?
Power Channeling- KE manipulation, it makes your punches Mega-Damage.
Power Weapon* I assume it's like the spell and charges a weapon with energy to do more damage.
Quills* like a porcupine? How many? Where?
Radar Sense- lets you see behind you and in the dark, 400 feet plus 100 per level (max of 1900 ft/580 m) though learning to judge speeds and distances can be tricky at first. Doesn't see through walls, and is easily fouled by rain, snow, sandstorms, weddings, New Years and anything else that fills the air with a vast number of tiny objects.
Resin* produce... a resin? I have no idea.
Seismic Power* I feel the earth move under my feet.
Sense Death* sense when people die and when they get close.
Sensory Orb* I'm thinking it's like the remote viewing orb Ley Line Walkers use.
Shadow Meld- like the spell, turn so totally invisible when hiding in shadows, even normal methods for detecting invisibility (including splashing around paint) won't work. Downside is that a flashlight will dispel the effect and now Nightstalkers can see through it.
Shadow Shaping* molding shadows into solid objects? Minor darkness control?
Shadow Stepping* I assume a teleporting through shadows thing.
Sleep Dust* not at all sketchy.
Sleeplessness* ignore the need to sleep, makes others unable to sleep?
Sliding* become slippery?
Solar Powered- extra strength, speed and MDC in daylight.
Sonar- echolocation for the win
Speed-Tasking* doing things quickly enough to move on?
Stench* skunk powers. I'm sure of it.
Super Bounce* for ease of travel and annoying other people
Super Burrowing- tunnel like you were born to.
Stasis Field* slow things down, maybe enough to fetch an ambulance and/or heavy machine gun.
Superhuman Strength- add to strength stat, can now lift 300 times the stat number in pounds.
Super Wind Blast* a bad wind, not really sure why it's a power in it's own right.
Advanced Sight- read street signs from 2 miles off and similar visual feats. Add one mile per level.
Circular Vision* shrug.
Nightvision- see without a night-light.
Paranormal Vision- see the invisible and the magical, hidden normally from sight.
Thermal Vision- see heat.
UV and IF Vision- a broader range of vision.
X-Ray Vision- is actually sketchier for being less useful for non-perving purposes. Sharp limits on what can be seen through and how long it takes, seems largely based on density. Less than 4 inches of fabric, flesh or wood can be seen through right away. A foot of such materials will take a long few (15) seconds. 30 seconds to peer through brick, concrete or metal of 6 inches or less, or 3 inches of MDC metal.
Swing Line* creating a swing line like Spider-Man? Presumably without the stickiness or range of utility.
Tentacles of Hair- the old Medusa power that requires never going to the barber.
Toy Control* god, I hope this isn't what I think.
Tractor Beam* attract things, I'm sure.
Ultra Hearing* is greater than/equal to/less than Heightened Sense of Hearing? Either way makes one a duplicate and a waste on this list.
Underwater Abilities- when in the wet, gain Extraordinay Strength and 10 MDC. Breathe underwater, endure depths up to 1.5 miles. Also swims as fast as Extraordinary Speed runs, whether or not you have that power.
Un-Noteworthy* One supposes this is like the TARDIS perception filter, the HP-verse Notice-Me-Not and, if you read Worm, like Imp. People never really notice or remember you.
Untrackable* leave no scent or footprint.
Venomous Attack* could be venomous urine for all I know
Warp Sound* is either incredibly useful, or totally useless.
Wave Rider* surfing powers?
Weightlessness* remove yourself from gravity's clutches or someone else? Or perhaps both?
Whip Attack* Bulbasaur? Is that you?
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Absorb Bio-Mass* to heal? To grow? Just for shits and giggles?
Adapt to Environment* I assume it involves limited shapeshifting into a form that can survive underwater/underground/in space etc.
Alter Facial Structure and Stature- the old Metamorph, shapeshifting restricted to the human form, so great for disguises, less so in a battle royale.
Alter Limbs- turn limbs into weapons or tools. Sacrifice 1 hit point for every 15 seconds of operating a motorized part (power drill, chainsaw) and 3 for every 12 bullets or 2 rockets/grenades created. Simple things like blades, morning stars or crowbars need no sacrifice, neither do simple metal shields. Limbs can also stretch to triple their normal length, but still only bend at the joints. Aside from increasing length, legs can sprout wheels, skies, springs or skates as needed. Motorized wheels or treads are also fueled by hitpoints. Can do rocket boots only if you have an energy expulsion power.
Alter Metabolism- keep calm, go long periods without food or drink (1 extra day/level) or sleep (2 days plus 8 hours/level) adrenaline rush on command, accelerated healing, accelerate metabolism for triple speed (doesn't apply to speedsters) or slow metabolism to limit bleeding and the spread of drugs or poison. Up to 4 effects (not accelerate and slow) can be up at one time.
Alter Physical Structure- any One Piece fans in the thread? No? Crap. APS lets you transform back and forth between a fragile body of flesh and blood and something else, chosen at creation. This new form is always a lot more resilient (to the tune of 200-600 MDC) because it's far tougher, or is made of liquid or particles that easily reform, or is normally intangible. Usually regenerates and, with a few exceptions (metal, stone) can generate a great deal more of the matter/energy it's made from. Past that, there's few hard and fast rules. Each has a long list of things it's invulnerable to or takes limited damage from, some APS forms can fly, two (light, electricity) have a short-range teleport power. Some APS forms (sand and water leap to mind) can incorporate more of their element to grow to multi-story monsters, while many more can slip through small cracks and escape down drains. There are no partial transformations (I assume that's what the minor power APS-limb is for) but the transformation is effectively instant. Immunities/invulnerabilities don't generally apply when not transformed, but energy APS types can never be harmed by their energy, fire APS doesn't burn even when human, etc. You can take APS multiple times, but can obviously only assume one form at a time. The list of forms includes Acid, Air, Ash, Blood, Bone, Coral, Crystal, Electricity, Energy, Fire, Foam, Forcefield, Fog, Gel, Goo, Glass, Ice, Lava, Light, Liquid, Lodestone (magnet) Metal, Mercury, Mist, Oil, Pebbles, Plants, Plasma, Plastic, Putty, Rag Doll, Rubber, Sand, Smoke, Sponge, Stone, Vapor, Vines, Void (vacuum,) Wax and Wood.
Amphibious* I'm guess it's an upgrade to underwater abilities, but the details elude me.
Animal Abilities- gives powers and bonuses based on animals, including cats, wolves, bears, spiders and more I can't recall or look up, because no one seems interested in posting them.
Animal Metamorphosis: All- turn into any animal at will, change takes 5 seconds.
Animal Metamorphosis: Select- turn into a specific animal at will
Bio-Armor - conjure a 200-500 MDC (depends on level) armor of organic metal. Can be plain or fancy, like a knight or like a robot. Perfectly fitted, very flexible and resistant to heat and cold. Can be raised or dismissed in an instant.
Bio-Ghost* Got nothing.
Borrow Power* There's already a copy powers (Mimic) perhaps this has a shorter duration or deprives the person copied of their power? Maybe the power can only be offered willingly?
Bulletproof- your flesh absorbs bullets, missiles and RPGs. Whether or not you spit them right back out is your discretion.
Catastrophic System Failure* crash computers?
Chemical Secretion- yep, it's a major power. Apologies.
Chameleon- more like a pack of powers. Blending in for good stealth, Adhesion to scurry up walls. Holding your breath for 10 minutes and a faking death trance state.
Cloaking- invisibility to cameras, scanners, sensors, electric eyes alarms etc. Hard for people to notice too. Power is always on, so sucks to be you if you need to go to a hospital.
Control Elemental Force- for people who really wanted to play a warlock, CEF lets you pick a classical element (earth, air, fire, water) and use it to great effect. With CEF air, you can fling around increasingly powerful winds, ride the winds, and at higher levels use call lightning and control the weather to an extent, altering wind direction and speed, as well as humidity. Fire lets you ignite anything you see, extinguish or fuel flame or create flame walls and MD fire blasts. Water lets you shape water like having hydrokinesis, Earth lets you tunnel and shake the ground.
Control Density* Not really sure, already have intangibility and 2 or 3 similar powers.
Control Insects and Arachnids- because around the time I start doing this, I discover Worm. The world is interesting that way.
Control Kinetic Energy* presumably a refinement of Manipulate Kinetic Energy.
Control Others- mind control, naturally. The mind control victim has to be in the controller's line of sight when he uses his power, eye contact is ideal, and gets a save every 4 minutes, sooner if command to do something dangerous or against deeply cherished principles. Multiple people can be controlled at once, but every 4 people you add the duration between saves is halved and they get a bonus to escape your control. Animals, on the other hand, don't even get a save until there's four of them in your thrall.
Control Radiation* mentioned a few times on the web as an easy way to clear a room full of unpowered mooks. Details are few enough to make me wonder what precisely is meant by "clear out."
Control Static Electricity* It's inclusion in the major list suggests it's useful, but without details I can't really comment.
Copy Animal Attributes* partial shapeshift into animals? Best guess.
Copy Physical Structure- the Absorbing Man power, turn into a substance you touch, like APS but weaker and without immunities or generating powers. Lasts a bit more than an hour at max level.
Create Force Constructs* welcome to the green lantern corps?
Create Forcefield- a VAST improvement on Personal Forcefield, this one covers your friends and gets 100 MDC per point of Endurance you have, which can exceed 30. Even a weak PE score gives you a decent chance of surviving a nuking with your friends in your forcefield.
Darkness Control- conjure and shape a field of darkness so absolute, even vision powers and cybernetic optics are blind. Ordinary nightvision works just fine though. Powers of shadow meld and nightvision included in the package.
Dimensional Room* bigger on the inside? Or bring furniture and maybe people into your hammerspace?
Disruptive Touch- like I said, it's a super power version of the psychic power Bio-manipulate. Touch someone to blind, paralyze, torture or kill them. Probably hard to make it as a hero if that's your special power.
Divine Aura- a personal glow and charisma that makes most people stand in awe, and your enemies crap themselves. You also get an illusion ability to make yourself look twice as tall, and voice amplication so you never need a bullhorn. Oh, and you WILL get one dedicated minion or awestruck follower per level, whether you want them or not.
Divine Healing- the more grown-up healing power, well, this and Flesh Works.
Ectoplasmic Armor* another armor-conjuring power? Come on.
Ectoplasmic Webbing- Create sticky webs all over the place.
Energy Absorption- can't be hurt by energy weapons/powers, can drain power from batteries or wall outlets, store 1 gigawatt/level and expel it as electrical energy into anything you touch.
Energy Doppleganger- create a single double made of energy that can fire energy blasts. And explode.
Energy Weapon Extensions- like psi-sword, except the lightsaber-esque weapon is made of the generic "energy" from so many powers.
Flesh Works- power can be used to heal, torment, kill or mutate any living thing you get your paws on by re-sculpting their flesh to however you think it should look and work.
Force Aura- personal forcefield 200-350 MDC depending on level. Works a bit like power armor to provide boosted strength too.
Friction Control*- make things slippery or very resistant to movement
Gateways* the major version of portals, sans range restriction?
Gem Powers* I gave this as an example of powers I don't know.
Generate Fog & Smoke- makes it harder to see.
Geothermal Energy* no listing, but I know some people consider this the most destructive power in the game for the ability to create rivers of lava from nothing.
Grant Powers- one of the rarest powers. Give someone else superpowers that last up to 6 hours. They can't already have powers, and you can't pick, it's random every time.
Gravity Manipulation- you're probably imagining something pretty badass. Sorry to disappoint, but Gravity Manipulation just lets you lift weights 100 times heavier then you could without. You can throw them, but after half a ton they'll just fly 100 feet exactly. Mind, it does stack with super strength powers so the next time an SI visits you could use an 80-ton mecha as a billy club. Ok, I guess it's sort of cool.
Gravity Waves- send out sweeping waves of attraction/repulsion.
Growth- add 2 feet, 100 lbs. and 2 Strength for every point of Endurance, a stat normally in the 15-30 range.
Holographic Memory Projection- project images and sounds of things you've witnessed, basically become a human video camera with built in projector.
Illusions- create illusory people and environments.
Immobilization Ray- freeze your enemies in their tracks. Lasts up to 10 minutes.
Immortality- in the Highlander style. One of the rarest powers. Immunity to aging, disease and radiation. Poison and drugs have a third the effect and duration. You get a small MDC and healing factor (not regen) the point where other men die is where you're noticeably slowed down by your injuries, and if "killed" you enter a healing coma. Just don't lose your head.
Indestructible- not yourself, but you can make an inanimate object literally indestructible. Doesn't work on really light things, so if you want to look into armor to exploit this, plate is great, fabric is a no.
Intangibility- turn intangible, you can't turn anyone else intangible. Immune to most attacks as well as walls, but electricity, particle beams, sonics, gas and psionics still work fine.
Invisibility- turn invisible, can still be caught out by motion detectors, thermal vision, lasers, noise running into things and the bane of invisible people, closed doors.
Invulnerability- get 700 MDC and sweet regen, take no damage from heat,cold, lasers, sonics, electricity, bullets or most impacts. Supernatural strength does normal damage, still vulnerable to magic that effects the body directly (rather than say, magic fireballs) or illusions. Drugs have half the normal effect and duration. Poisons, radiation and disease can't kill an invulnerable man, but they can make him wish they could. Invulnerable characters can still be trapped or restrained, and they still need food, water and air to survive. Depriving them of any of these will eventually kill them, but it will take 4 times as long as for other men.
Item Reduction- shrink inanimate objects to 1/10th scale replicas with negligible weight (1% the original) for ease of storage and carrying. A touch and further application of your power restores their size. Can't shrink living things, or armor or vehicles that have people inside them.
Jinx Power- psychological, make people believe they're cursed so they self-sabotage.
Junkyard- make rubbish fly about and form around you into a sort of bizarre power armor.
Karmic Power- gain really good bonuses when performing a noble act, or give lesser bonuses to your allies by cheering them on. Get punished when you do selfish things, and less than scrupulous characters can't have this power.
Life Leech- drain life force for healing, temporary stat boosts, or to steal a superpower (temporarily.) That last takes several minutes to set up and won't last more than a couple of hours.
Liquefaction* liquefy yourself, or something else?
Lycanthropy- transform into a mutant animal with MDC (72-176). Specifically a bear, wolf, large cat, or small cat. Vulnerable to silver, will either uncontrollably physically transform or go feral and transform during the full moon.
Magnetism- move metal around, with a cap of about a ton and a half. Can deflect bullets and railgun rounds, and add generously to their range when using similar weapons.
Mechano-Link- form a mental connection, slightly deeper than telemechanics, with a machine. Lets you know if anything is wrong and where, and makes any vehicle 20% more responsive thanks to thought control. Can be used to mentally hack computers or figure out the workings of strange machines.
Mega-Tail*
Mega-Wings*
Metal Manipulation* duplicate of magnetism or something more?
Mimic- copying powers. You have to be within 100 feet, and the powers fade 2-8 minutes after leaving that range. Your other powers are suppressed and replaced with the other guys, you also get his strength and MDC. Can't say I recommend trying this on an enemy, unless you think you can use his powers more creatively and effectively than him, with none of his experience. Not impossible, but not a common circumstance either.
Mirror Mastery- enter/travel through mirrors, create duplicate from full length mirror, shoot energy blasts from mirrors. Make mirrors reflect energy attacks, and heal rapidly while in contact with mirror.
Molecular Compression* I'm thinking a shrinking power
Monstrous Form- gain a powerful evil/animalistic side, like the esteemed Doctors Jekyll and Banner.
Multiple Selves- form 1 duplicate per level (max 15) with all your powers, personality, skills, memories etc. except for the Multiple Selves power. You and your dupes will always know roughly each others' locations and emotional state. You can reabsorb your dupes at any time to gain their memories and to heal them, but you gain no XP for their actions. If a duplicate you dies, you are permanently minus one.
Multiple Lives* I guess you respawn if killed.
Natural Combat Ability- ability to adapt to and incorporate the style of anyone you get into a fight with, and do it better than they do because of bonuses,
Negate Powers- shut down superpowers within a 120-270 foot radius. One of the really rare powers.
Negative Matter- turn body into "negative matter" that experiences reverse gravity and is repelled by the ground, control over anti-gravity properties of self.
Petrification- turn people to stone, wears off after 2 hours.
Plant Control- Make plants triple in size for several minutes and animate, bending and grasping at your enemies.
Power Touch* no idea, too many ideas for things it reasonably could be.
Re-Channel and Expel Energy- catch energy expulsion attacks and throw them back. Less useful outside a setting where superpowers are common.
Reconstruction* of self? Of the buildings you wreck playing superhero? Something else entirely?
Regeneration: Ultima* boosted regen? Faster? Puts you back together stronger?
Rocket Charge- the king of speedster powers in-setting. Run at Mach 3-4, with a forcefield that makes you nearly invulnerable and interacts with the air and ground to produce a wave of fire. Your enemies will be pounded and roasted! Downsides involve leaving a trail of destruction whenever used, and the forcefield gets damaged by the friction and impacts it protects you from, forcing you to periodically stop and rest it. So Mach 3-4 for 2 to 40 minutes, depending on level and dice. I assume anyone who'd take this is serious about playing a speedster, so I'd suggest getting Extraordinary or Sonic Speed, depending on if you have a major or minor power left, so instead of the really fast speedster who needs long rest breaks, you're the pretty good speedster with a turbo mode.
Rocket Fists* maybe related to rocket charge, maybe not.
Self Explosion- blow yourself up, then reform 0.5-10 minutes later.
Shapechange* again, lack of detail
Shrink- total control over what size you go down to, to a minimum rolled up when you pick the power: 6 in, 1 in, 1/8 in and "minute speck." Retains weight and strength of full-size body.
Slow Motion Control* bullet-time or slowing down other people.
Sonic Powers- enhanced hearing, including a far broader spectrum of sound, sonar, a high-pitched whining noise that can disable people, and the ability to create a sonic boom noise.
Sonic Absorption and Reflection- absorb, deflect or reflect sound waves and sonic attacks. Comes with sonar and radar senses.
Sonic Flight- fly at the speed of sound (670 mph/340 kph) you become a minor MDC creature to survive the stresses.
Sonic Speed- run at the speed of sound (670 mph/340 kph) you become a minor MDC creature to survive the stresses.
Space Flight- fly at Mach 2 in Atmosphere, Mach 8 outside it. Adaptations to survive short stints in space, no more than a few hours and survive reentry. Landing zones may vary by up to a thousand miles from where you meant to set down.
Space Native- adaptations to survive space indefinitely, absorb radiation and solar energy for sustenance, do without air etc.
Spin at High Velocity* I know what it does. I'm missing the 'why.'
Superluminal (FTL) Flight- before you get all excited, FTL flight gets you 1 c per level, to a max of 15. Great fun if you decided you want to see Mars, not so much use getting around the cosmos, even the Cosmo-Knights FTL power is better. It also doesn't provide any ability to survive space, beyond deflecting particles while in flight, and provides no ability to navigate smaller distances, except the 2 seconds of accel/decel. Basically, you need a lot of secondary powers or gear to make this even semi-workable.
Stretching- weird power. Your torso can stretch 150 ft. your arms only 20, your neck to 15 ft. but your legs to 40. Oh, and your fingers, nose, ears and toes can all stretch out 1 foot. You can also inflate yourself like a balloon with a deep breath, flatten out your limbs to glide, flatten out all of you to fit under a door crack or form a super-bouncy rubber-like ball. You also become a minor MDC creature (60-160 MDC) and take half damage from projectiles and physical blows.
Super Consumption* of alcohol? Or of something else? Wasn't there a DC hero whose power was to eat anything, whether it was radioactive or this week's indestructible metal?
Super Energy Expulsion- EE's big brother. A normal blast is +2d6 MD on the normal energy expulsion with double the range, plus a super blast that does 11-180 MD, depending on level and roll. You can also absorb up to 80 MDC of any energy and fire blasts of that type, rather than your own. You can also ricochet blasts off of surfaces accurately and just hit everything in a 10 ft/3 m radius with your power. Oh, and your immune to your energy type and can make your hands and eyes glow as bright as a light bulb.
Supernatural Bite* Ok, I guess THIS guy is the "gnaw on titanium" guy.
Supernatural Strength- add 32-42 to base strength. You can now lift 500 times that number in pounds. If your strength was already high, now you can one-shot a SAMAS with a good-roll. Oh, and you fatigue at 10% the normal rate.
Spiral/Vortex* unknown
Swarm Selves- create up to 64 duplicates of yourself, 6 inches tall and eminently disposable.
Techno Form- turn from your normal self into a robot.
Teleport- self and up to half a ton of nonliving cargo. 5 mile range, you can teleport blind, but at a risk of materializing inside something and dying instantly, line of sight and familiar locations are much safer, but even a place visited just once has a 50-50 chance of going wrong, and anything going wrong has a 15% chance of killing you.
Tentacles- grow 2-30 tentacles, 6-20 feet long (level dependent, naturally) each with half your strength. Tentacles have 50 MDC and if severed grow back in six hours. Of course, you can manifest as many or as few tentacles as your feel you need.
Time Pause* pauses time, can't remember range and duration
Time Stretch* not 100%, think this was a 'slow time in selected area' power
Totem Energy Field* I have no idea.
Transferal Possession* I assume this is the full on possesion mind control, as opposed to Control Others. Perhaps your regular body is vulnerable when used, explaining why some might choose one or the other?
Transmutation- turn one inanimate substance into another inanimate substance. Not many restrictions besides that.
Vibration- generate shockwaves to shatter the ground, or fire concussive air-pressure blasts. Vibrate through solid objects, and to become intangible and avoid attacks. Sense motion within a 30-105 foot radius (you guessed it, level) through aerial vibes.
Vertigo Field- in D&D this would be called "Mass Mental Stun." Same power, just effects a lot of people now.
Weight Manipulation- alter your own or another object/person's weight, decreasing to weightlessness or increasing to a max of 5 tons. Takes several seconds to burn/add a hundred pounds, and normal weight will resume in exactly 6 minutes, which is a problem if you decided to try floating in the sky.
Zombie Flesh- pale, bloated, smelly and bleeding won't make you popular with the ladies. On the plus side, you get a zombie's immunity to pain and incredible resilience. You'll need it with everyone pulling a shotgun the moment they see you.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Here are powers, I know they're cannon but not what they do or even where they go. If I do have an idea what they do, I still don't know enough about their extent to drop them in one category or the other. Or they just fell through the cracks and are now in the errata category. Almost all of them from Powers Unlimited 3, which I read but can't remember in anything like it's entirety.
Absorb Matter
Aerodynamics
Animate Objects
Control the Void
Copy Energy Pattern
Defensive Immunity
Direct Force
Dismantle Machines- this one breaks any complicated machine the user touches.
Earth Possession
Energy Conversion
Energy Wings
Enlarge Objects
Force Manipulation
Inhabitation- sense where everyone in a building is and what they're doing, where repairs and maintenance are needed, and control the lights and plumbing throughout.
Machine Merge
Massive Damage Capacity
Matter Expulsion- like Energy Expulsion, allows you to launch solid projectiles or form blades of: bone, crystal, plastic, steel, stone or wood.
Merge Bio-Mass
Orbital Spheres
Personal Recognition
Pestilence- infect people with a disease of your choice by touch.
Polymorph
Prodigious Limbs- make your arms or legs huge.
Prodigious Multiple Arms- grow several huge arms
Rainmaker- make it rain, snow or hail, and make it stop at will. Combine with CEF air for total weather control.
Re-Channel Kinetic Energy
Shadow Manipulation
Shadow Trap- make a shadow incredibly sticky, so anyone who steps in it or touches the darkened surface is trapped.
Sidestep
Slime Generation
Spit Spikes- grow needle-like spikes inside mouth, can be launched at enemy. Combine with Chemical Secretion to create a delivery system for drugs/poisons. Probably Minor.
Sub Zero
Super Regeneration (okay, this one's probably major)
Swallowing Limbo
Weapon Melding
Weapon Manipulation
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
When you create a character in Skraypers, you start with race/alignment roll up stats and roll percentile dice to determine superpowers. A nice GM might let you pick from the options provided instead. Here are the tables.
By tradition, you can usually trade in a major power for two minors, even if it doesn't explicitly say so, or reverse it and give up two minor powers for a major. So if you get 2 majors and a minor, you can swap in both majors for 5 minor powers, or one for 1 major, 3 minors. GM has final call on all trades. Another way to play is "discovery" where you get one power you know about, and the GM determines what the others are and when you find out about them, allowing you to discover your powers as you go. GMs are encouraged to give out extra powers to persuade people to do this, up to 50% more, following the same 2-minors-worth-1-major rubric.
Oh, and every time I say major or minor, read that as "player's choice, from the major or minor category." Sometimes it pays to state the obvious.
Human
As mentioned, trending towards energy powers, but it's far from a hard rule.
01-07% Intangibility or APS (energy, light, electricity, forcefield or fire)
08-14% Manipulate Kinetic Energy and one major power
15-21% Energy Expulsion (any) Wingless Flight and one major
22-29% Super Energy Expulsion, Wingless Flight and a major or 2 minors
30-37% Energy Resistance, Wingless Flight and 2 Energy Expulsions
38-44% Energy Absorption and a major or 3 minor
45-51% Power Channeling and a major or 2 minor
52-58% Energy Weapon Extensions and a major or 2 minor
59-65% Invulnerability and a major or 2 minor
66-72% Supernatural Strength and a major or 2 minor
73-79% Healing Factor and either all Heightened Senses or all vision powers
80-86% Extraordinary Speed and a major or 2 minor
87-93% A major and 2 minor
94-00% 2 major and a minor
Seerman
All Seermen are psychics with meditation, sense evil, mind block and clairvoyance, plus a minimum of 3 more psychic powers. A third of Seermen are this, and that third seems to be the only group capable of developing superpowers, the others just get more powerful psychic powers from the plague. Almost half the Seermen are major psychics with 8 powers, and 20% are Master psychics equivalent to a Mind Melter. The Seerman table goes thus:
01-30% 4 minor powers and an extra (lesser) psychic power
31-60% A major and 2 minor
61-90% 2 major powers
91-00% 2 major and a minor
Seermen get a lot more choice, but since they double as psychics, they have to pick from a much shorter list of powers.
Minor:
Extraordinary MA (charisma)
Extraordinary ME (will)
Healing Factor
Heightened Senses
Mental Stun
Nightstalking
Radar
Super-Vision (any)
Major:
Adapt to Environment
Bio-Ghost
Cloaking
Control Density
Control Elemental Forces
Control Others
Control Insects and Arachnids
Control Kinetic Energy
Control Static Electricity
Control Radiation
Disruptive Touch
Divine Aura
Holographic Memory Projection
Karmic Power
Mimic
Negate Powers
Transferal Possession
Talus
The most physically capable Seeronians are them ost likely to develop super-strength and similar powers. They're also the most likely to be visibly mutated by the disease, only 20% retain their pre-powers appearance with the majority growing tail spikes, arm spikes, head spikes or bony ridges and/or developing blotches of darker skin. This isn't counting Bio-Freaks, as all of these features have become common sights, notable mostly in that they mark one out as a super.
01-05% Superhuman Strength, a minor, and either Invulnerability or Invisibility
06-15% Supernatural Strength and a major or 2 minor
16-25% Extraordinary Strength and Speed plus a major or a minor
26-35% Extraordinary Strength, Extraordinary (any) and a major
36-45% Energy Weapon Extensions and a minor
46-55% Alter Limbs, Alter Metabolism and a major or 2 minor
56-60% Superhuman Strength and a major or 2 minor
61-70% Supernatural Strength and a major or 2 minor
71-75% 4 minor, or 1 major and 1 minor
76-80% Energy Weapon Extensions and a major or 3 minor
81-86% 2 major, or a major and 2 minor, or 5 minor
87-93% A major and 2 minor
94-00% 2 majors and a minor
Bio-Freaks
Not every super is photogenic, roughly a third (12% of the total population) actually turn into Giger-esque nightmares, or just look like something that came out of a dog's rear. These Bio-Freaks have been pretty poorly-treated for as long as they've existed, most are homeless and jobless due to prejudice, disgust or naked fear and so gravitate to the Skraypers or criminal gangs just for safety and food. The Tarlok regularly crack down on the Bio-Freaks for slave labor or Shertar guinea-pigs, and anything that seems like a large gathering or organization of Bio-Freaks is sure to draw their attention.
01-05% Radar Sense, a minor and either Vibration or Sonic Speed
06-10% 3 major, or 2 major and 2 minor (no further trades)
11-14% Winged Fight and either 2 major or 1 major, 2 minors.
15-19% 5 minor or 2 major, 2 minor
20-24% Alter Physical Structure (any) and a minor
25-29% Stretching and either a major or 3 minor
30-34% Superhuman Strength or Power Channeling, plus a major or 2 minors
35-40% A major and a minor or 2-5 minor (roll dice)
41-45% Supernatural Strength, 2 minors and either Invulnerability or Bio-Armor (real no-brainer)
46-50% 2 major or 4 minor (no trades)
51-55% Tentacles and a major or a minor
56-60% Either Growth or Bio-armor, and a major or 2 minor
61-65% Shapechange or any Control power, and either a major or 1-4 minor (roll for it)
66-70% Either Invisibility and Cloaking, or Intangibility and a major (can trade for 2 minor)
71-75% Either Darkness Control and Nightstalking, or a major and 2 minor
76-80% Alter Limbs, Body Weapons and either a major or 2 minor
81-85% Multiple Limbs and either a major or 2 minor
86-90% Extraordinary Speed and either 4 minor or a major and a minor
91-95% Either Control Others or Karmic Powers plus either a major or 2 minor
96-00% 2 major or 4 minor
Immortals
Yes my friend, Godlings, Demigods, Dragons, Faeries, Vampires, Demon Lords and other immortal beings not native to Charizolon can also receive superpowers. Because fuck your sense of game balance, I want to play a dragon with superpowers, they'll neatly complement my existing psionic, mystic and physical superiority to man. Actually, super-dragons are specifically nerfed in the rules, taking -1 major and minor for being too awesome for words, and half of these are just extra psychic powers and spells, maybe with a couple superpowers mixed in. But the cheese remains strong. Very, very strong.
01-05% 4 minor powers (no trade up)
06-15% 30-120 ISP (roll) and take 2 psychic powers in each category and gain 2 (more) each time you level
16-20% A major and 2 minor
21-25% One major, but gain a major every 3 levels (to a maximum of 6)
26-30% Gain 70-120 more PPE (roll) and 16 spells level 12 or lower (10 must be level 6 or lower)
31-35% 2 major and a minor
36-40% Gain 60-120 ISP, 5-14 new psychic powers and either a major or 2 minor
41-45% Gain 50-80 ISP, a major and a minor, and 4-7 psychic powers from the same category
46-50% Gain 10 low level spells (lvl 5 or less) and 6-12 psychic powers, buttloads of PPE and ISP
51-55% A major and 4 minor
56-60% 3 major
61-65% 2 major, 2 minor
66-70% 2 major, 3 minor
71-75% A major, a minor, 40-100 PPE and 13 spells at or below level 9 (8 of those at or below 5)
76-80% Gain 21-30 psychic powers, and Master Psychic ISP
81-90% A major and 2 minor, plus 8-16 psychic powers
91-95% Gain 28-47 new spells (20 below spell level 10) and 120-360 PPE
96-00% Either 3 major and a minor, a major and 5 minor, or 7 minor superpowers
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Cosmo Knights aren't that broken. Railguns, grenades, missiles, magic and just getting beat on by a suit of powered armor all do full damage, they don't get autododge, and psionics hurt just as much as magic. They only seem broken because people keep using laser and plasma weapons against them. They can take a lot of punishment, and dish out the same, but still get hammered by a heavy weapons platoon or mage if they're not pants-on-head retarded.
I've seen a Cosmo Knight get the even living holy dogshit kicked out of her by a level four SAMAS pilot. Because that railguns hurts, an unlike the knight, the PA gets autododge. Which means that Juicers are a very credible threat once they pull their vibro-[whateverthefucks] out. And a Mega Juicer will just go the flying tackle route and start a bareknuckle fistfight, because they're juicers for fucks sake.
And all a magic user has to do is cast Carpet of Adhesion, then go to standoff range with Immunity to Energy up and start spamming lightning bolts.
Never underestimate the ingenuity and cruelty of the Irish.
After a few years, It stopped broadcasting, and a giant DEMON PLANET popped out of it and started slaughtering everybody. Turns out it was a trick by the Demons of Hades, to kick off their invasion of the Three Galaxies.
Yes, the Space Opera dimension is getting invaded by Demons. Thing is, it's just a small part of their big war against the Devils.
The demon invasion got it's ass stomped right quick, too. Kind of what happens when one pisses off Phase World, the CCW, the TGE, the UWW the Cosmo Knights and motherfucking Thraxus at the same time.
Never underestimate the ingenuity and cruelty of the Irish.
Skrayper's version of Paladins. The Blhaze (pronounced just "blaze") are aliens from outside the system, and the Corkscrew Galaxy, but probably originating from somewhere still inside the Three Galaxies. Blhaze are energy beings with the ability to produce and possess a sort of silicon environment suit to prevent dispersal outside their native habitat (implied to be a neutron star.) A containment suit can wind up feeling and moving like rubber, or latex or even smooth stone "with a bit of give to it." They can actually look pretty human, if they like and you ignore the light coming from their mouths, the strange eyes and feet, and the hairless, oddly textured skin. They can exude light from their heads as glowing 'hair' for asethetic reasons, or make their eyes or skin glow. Blhaze appear in colors across the spectrum but blue, purple, yellow, yellow-white and yellow-orange are easily the most common, with pure black or white being the rarest. Being energy, Blhaze have no use for food, water or air, but still need to rest for about 4 hours a day. Blhaze normally communicate through radio waves.
The life-span of a Blhaze is unknown, we can confirm lives of over 3,000 years, and their are in-story legends of over 30,000 year-old-Blhaze. It's quite possible that they're actually immortal. At some point in antiquity, another race of aliens tried to conquer the Blhaze, and when they could not destroyed their home. Ever since, the Blhaze as a people have wandered the Three Galaxies crusading against tyrants, slavers and bullies of every stripe at every scale. There are only 5-10 Blhaze on Seeron, but they are pretty much the most powerful and hated opposition to the Tarlok.
The casing has an MDC of 72-412, depending on endurance and level and regenerates. It's main purpose is to prevent the energy of a Blhaze's self from dissipating outside their native environment, which would be death, more or less. There is a small chance of reconstituting that increases incrementally with age, to a maximum of 50% but even if survived dissipation is an extremely traumatic event. When abandoned, the suit collapses, and disintegrates after a few hours. It takes a Blhaze 2-5 minutes of uninterrupted focus to form a containment suit, and they're slower weaker and generally vulnerable for 2-10 minutes as they adjust.
In energy form, the Blhaze can fly at up to light speed, can sense the power and direction of any light source, and can slip through the tiniest cracks. Their energy blasts are slightly more powerful, and gain a great boost in range. After three minutes without a suit outside a Blhaze ship or stellar environment, a Blhaze needs to make a check for control, against losing some or all of his energy to dissipation. This check must be repeated every 15 seconds until a point of safety is reached. The touch of a Blhaze, even in their insulated skins does significant damage.
Blhaze take half damage from energy weapons and attacks, and most physical impacts. Railguns, sufficiently powerful explosives and blows from someone with super strength (even Extraordinary Strength) do normal damage, as do magic and psionics.
In superpowered terms, each and every Blhaze can be thought of as having Space Flight, Supernatural Strength, all Super Vision powers, Energy Absorption, Control Static Electricity and Bend Light. They also have a tweaked Super Energy Expulsion (Light and Energy) with double the range in atmosphere and 5x the normal range in space. They further have a power unique to them, letting them machine-gun powerful energy pulses in a barrage that can do as much damage as a nuke in a minute's firing.
Victor is the greatest hero of Seeron, the hope of the masses against the fierce alien invader. Victor is over 3,000 years old and only came to Seeron a few years after the Tarlok conquest. Still, the Seeronians adopted him as one of their own, awed by his power and LG/Superman character. In over 25 years of being a full-time pain in the backside to the Tarlok, hitting them all over the system and vanishing without a trace, his code has never wavered even as he encountered and defeated the worst barbarities a dozen species had to offer. But aside from all the bases destroyed and slaves freed, Victor is dangerous to the Tarlok as a symbol, his example has inspired countless Seeronians, superpowered and not, to join the resistance. This has bumped him above the Burning Scythe as the Tarlok's Most Wanted.
Victor has met Scythe, crossed blades with him a few times in his early years, before the two reached an unspoken agreement to handle the Tarlok first before settling their differences. Victor will never allow Scythe to become the King of East Sector while he lives. The prominent Skraypers and resistance fighters, and the Seeronian shadow government have made a far better impression with Victor.
7 years ago, a new Blhaze entered the scene, calling herself Lady Nebular (since shortened to just 'Nebular') Like other Blhaze, she passionately hates exploiters in any guise, and like Victor has toppled evil empires before. Unlike Victor, she was once zealous enough to destroy an aggressive race down to last woman and child, and she's made it clear that she wouldn't mind adding the Tarlok to that tally. This view of destroying evil over protecting good clashes rather violently with Victor's idealism and the two fight constantly over the issue. She's even considered throwing in with Scythe and the Epoch Riders, but ultimately couldn't bear to work with someone as manipulative and self-serving as Scythe.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Way back when the occupation was less than 5 years old, a group of 20 angry young men and women formed their own resistance team, with the colorful costumes and silly codenames of the heroes of yesteryear, now banned by the occupation government. These were the original 'scrapers. For a while they went on fine doing the superhero thing, dodging control and beating up Tarlok, robbing the Tarlok to feed the poor etc. Then Bloodchief Krynor said something about "scrapers standing tall and protecting 'scrapers" and "smashing 'scrapers into oblivion" (and who knew the Bloodchief had the soul of a poet?) and then he dropped a rock on the edge of Rylor where the 'scrapers operated, killing 7 million people. Reprisals against civilians weren't exactly new at this point, but the scale was and the original scrapers and those millions became martyrs.
Ever since, superheroes resisting the Tarlok have taken the name Skraypers, particularly if they work in a team. The altered spelling and pronunciation is a salute to acknowledge that no one can truly replace the originals. That or they seriously think the Tarlok Bloodchief is stupid enough that he honestly got confused about whether he was fighting the people or the buildings.
Half of Skraypers are independent heroes not affiliated with any specific resistance group, just people putting on costumes and helping out as best they can. About a third of the remainder are full-time resistance fighters, with the majority having secret identities, lives and jobs of their own.
Dragon Eye is one of the rarest and dying breeds, an actual superhero from before the invasion, who fought the Tarlok when they first came 30 years ago and has been fighting ever since. He's probably the second most famed and loved hero on Seeron, right after Victor. Quite a ways from the "freak" and "dangerous vigilante" he was when he started out. Rylor is Dragon Eye's home turf, and virtually no one knows as much as he about the city and how to navigate it unseen. Dragon Eye is leader of the largest resistance group in West Sector, and is almost as famous for his indomitable (many psychics have tried) will and charisma as for his sheer physical power. Has an annoying tendency to call everyone else "Kid."
Speaking of powers, Dragon Eye is Invulnerable (with ~1136 MDC) and has Supernatural Strength, enough to lift over 11 tons. There are perhaps 3 or 4 people on Seeron stronger than Dragon Eye. He also has Mental Stun and CEF: Fire, letting him incapacitate people with dizziness and nausea and throw around fireballs and conjure roaring walls of flame. Fighting-wise, Dragon Eye is both refined martial artist and experienced streetfighter, he doesn't mind fighting dirty and he has no problem using the Stun and Fire powers early and often but has never let himself grow dependent on them. Mentally, he is a Minor Psychic with the 4 standard Seerman powers (meditation, clairvoyance, mind block and sense evil) plus see invisible and empathy.
Spike Tail (which is an incredibly unoriginal name, by my estimate roughly 12% of Talus now have spiked tails) was a living stereotype, the angry young man. Born Rire Leenik, he got busted for joyriding at 17 and after some time in a juvie for Bio-Freaks was strong-armed into joining Control. Until he fled the group on his first field mission and went underground. The Tarlok executed his parents and little sister in retaliation, but Leenik didn't hear about it for 6 months. When he did find out, he went on a roaring rampage of revenge and fell in with a gang of supervillains. Then he turned on the group when two of their members tried to rape a woman, and probably would have died if Dragon Eye hadn't happened to see the whole thing and help him out. Dragon Eye sort of took Spike Tail under his wing, referring him to a group of Skraypers, helping him train and lay his revenge issues to rest. Spike Tail has since gone independent, but still considers Dragon Eye a friend and mentor. Around Rylor, he's known as a flamboyant, often cocky hero, who is nonetheless both skilled and compassionate.
Spike Tail's powers are Adhesion, Extraordinary Prowess (skill or DEX) Superhuman Strength and a Healing Factor. He is highly skilled in Talitsu and Boxing.
Truk aka Big T aka Black Mack aka Che Nyk was plucked off the streets and "volunteered" for a Shertar experiment in which they forcibly injected thousands of Seeronians with the mutated, power-giving strain of the Plague, in the hopes that monitoring someone while they gained powers would help explain exactly what was going on. Sound idea, didn't work out this time. The Shertar were going to sell the subjects into slavery when Victor freed them. Truk, now a hulking Bio-Freak, was inspired to begin his own superhero career.
Truk has Superhuman (not Supernatural) Strength and can lift 4 tons easy. He is 10 feet tall and Invulnerable with about 1186 MDC and a Healing Factor. He's not just a big brute though, and not just because of his intelligence, he has Adhesion and Extraordinary Speed, making him a low-grade speedster who can climb walls.
After a long career as a Skrayper, putting in his dues and becoming a respected leader, Truk has recently formed his own team. He's still recruiting (good opportunity for PCs) but right now he's got a 17-year old kid with Nightstalking, Lycanthropy (were-tiger) and Energy Resitance calling himself Night Tiger. Thrashmaster is a 23-year-old woman, a speedster with Sonic Speed, Extraordinary Endurance and Energy Expulsion (Energy.) Finally there's a 19-year-old Talu named Mad Melbone with Mimic (copy powers) and Control Others (mind control.)
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Personal story, I once saw a Lawyer's Thesaurus aimed at providing positive and negative connotations to every conceivable adjective that might describe a person, so you could praise a quality in your client and disparage that same quality in his accusers a few minutes later. "Open-minded" becomes "Flip-Flopper" and so on.
In this vein, it's generally considered gauche and unwise to refer to the people fighting against you just and benevolent rule as "freedom-fighters" however objectively true that may be. But the tarlok had to get picky, seeing even traditional titles for a resistance like "rebels" "gueriilas" and "insurgents" as legitimizing the opposition too much. So their office stationary and reports go with "criminals" "terrorists" "madmen" and "ruffnecks," an insult distinct to the Tarlok culture. Now pop quiz this is either because:
a.) Tarlok have rough surfaced necks before developing their spines and heavier armor in adolescence, so this is a patronizing phrase, treating them as defiant children.
OR
b.) Tarlok, being so sophisticated and refined, chose an epithet that implies their enemies are unwashed ruffians and low-lifes.
One of these options was written by Siembienda, and one I pulled from my rear just now. Can you guess which is which? Take 30 seconds. Spoiler
The official answer is, of course, B. Who could improve on that?
Anyways, the Tarlok call all the resistance Ruffnecks, but inside the group it's become the default name for people who don't have superpowers, but join up anyway in opposition to Skraypers, who are resistance fighters with powers. There are stats for playing them, look like an afterthought, in case anyone feels like being the one non-powered character in the campaign.
Control
The Bureau for Control and Registration (BCR or Control) is the agency created by the occupation government to track, monitor and if necessary arrest or kill superhumans. As the most visible and intrusive agents of the occupation, Control has become a focus of resentment even for people without superpowers. As the Resistance is built around superhuman Skraypers, so Control is at the center of all counter-insurgency.
Control is run by the Dreadmasters, even Dreadmasters totally uninvolved with the regular operations of Control get a courtesy rank of Warlor (Colonel.) The upper ranks are loaded with Tarlok, and some of their older vassal races and allies, Nazeer, Lashreg, and Tandori (I'll get to them, I promise.) Most human operatives are spies and stool pigeons, but superpowered Seeronians are special agents, and often leaders of field teams.
Yes, that's their badge, and yes that's a Tarlok skull. I understand what they were going for with the sword-and-skull motif, but you'd think that'd be a resistance symbol. Anyways.
Seeronian Control agents are interesting. Ask a random passer-by and they'll say these people are traitors. Ask them, and they're highly trained professionals pushing the limits of human abilities and technology to match and defeat superhuman menaces. Ask their alien bosses, and they're cannon-fodder.
Roughly 15% of Control Agents are unwilling troopers of the occupation, kept in line through threats and blackmail, while almost a quarter are brainwashed to be fanatic patriots of the Tarlok Empire, a process that still kills or breaks most subjects, the Shertar are still fine-tuning the process for humans. That said, the majority are willing collaborators and there are more than a few psychopaths in the organization.
Control Agents normally wear a 40 MDC body armor (pictured) while a heavier 90 MDC version exists for tackling stronger than usual opponents. They get an energy rifle and pistol with 11 e-clips and a Tarlok melee/energy weapon as backup. They really are highly trained, going by their skill-pick options. However, the pay for a BCR agent is crap, because the Tarlok consider upholding order and serving the Empire a serious job-perk and still mostly run on a spoils system that isn't great for rewarding the grunts.
Shortly before the Invasion, the government and capes busted a cabal of mad-science types to create Perfect Humans in contravention to genetics ethics. The 7 subjects were days away from full-term, so the government decided to see they were adopted by good families, in lieu of termination. Then the records were destroyed or intentionally purged during the Invasion and the Seeronian government's surrender.
Taru Naka never knew he was adopted, and though he was never sick a day of his life, he had no particular reason to suspect he was a super. He was always just a bit stronger and faster than the other boys, and never really got tired, so he took an early interest in sports. He played his way to a college scholarship, and by the time he was 27 was a 6 time World Champion at a vaguely lacrosse-like sport called Quikstik. The Tarlok really enjoy the sport, and have poured tons of money into it, seeing it as a bridge to understanding between themselves and humanity.
Anyway, Naka got bored with his easy sports successes and embarked on a life of crime, wielding two taser-equipped quikstiks and calling himself FightStik. He committed daring crimes to show he could, got into fights with Skraypers, villains and Control and then things went south. Dragon Eye casually curbstomped him, then Spike Tail fought him to a draw. Already unaccustomed to second place, he stumbles home to find a Dreadmaster and Control team waiting to discuss his nocturnal activities. They talked and came to a non-standard deal, Naka would join Control as a Special Agent and publicly unmask, saying he was always working with Control and his previous crimes were an infiltration mission. The Tarlok hoped having the greatest sports star on the planet endorse them and the occupation would win people over. Again, not a terrible plan. But the public turned on and rejected Naka, an experience that helped make him the bitter shadow of a man he is today.
Fightstik has two powers, Extraordinary Endurance means he can do anything 10x as long without tiring, and needs very short rest breaks before starting again. But he is perhaps the ultimate example of the terrifying strength and crippling limitations of his other power, Natural Combat Ability. NCA makes him a prodigy of kinesthetic learning, all the complicated physical skills it takes weeks and months of practice to learn, he can do in seconds. He can adapt to an opponents fighting style, learning as he goes until he can match you blow for blow, and his power also lets him mimic the strength and speed of his opponents if it's better than his. To go against Fightstik is to face someone every bit as fast, strong and skilled as yourself, except that he's better. He can hit just a bit harder, dodge just a few more blows, and thanks to his other power he never gets tired. Plus he's got 170 MDC body armor and electrified weapons. Every fight becomes a war of attrition, heavily stacked in his favor, and so he casually smacks down martial artists, speedsters and superstrong brutes.
On the other hand, speed and strength are the extent of his power mimicry. Let's go back to the fight with Dragon Eye again, I have an idea what happened. Fightstik squares off against Dragon Eye, copies his impressive fighting style and absurd strength, but not his invulnerability. Sure, he's now strong enough to do normal damage against invulnerable people (for now) but that extra 700 MDC means Dragon Eye can take a lot of hits, while Fightstik's armor and squishy innards can't. His normal battle of attrition favors Dragon Eye. Or, because DE doesn't believe in fighting fair, he hits Fightstik with Mental Stun, killing his equilibrium, then beats him like a red-headed stepchild while he's distracted trying to stand and not puke. Alternatively, Dragon Eye says "not this guy again." and engulfs the whole area in fire, ignoring the minor hits he takes to focus on fueling the fire, making it ten times hotter every few seconds. He doesn't mind any heat short of a star's, but FightStik might get uncomfortable at some point. Yeah, Dragon Eye is a terrible opponent for Fightstik.
Syrena Ely was a 17-year-old model when her hair first stood on end, crackling with electricity, which people assumed was part of her show, since she finished the walk. Then Control recruited and trained her to be a field agent, codename Shok. Shok is the new face of Control, a relatively idealistic young woman with no loyalty to the government that ceased years before she was born, but is a law-enforcement officer for the government that exists now. Well, that and she loves the limelight. Despite her general nature and attitude, she can be very efficient and merciless towards Skraypers, also petty, spiteful and arrogant in both her power and her belief that she's fighting for the right side. Has a bit of a berserk button for people calling her a traitor or a collaborator or otherwise treating her like one of the bad guys.
Powers-wise, Shok has Extraordinary Endurance (what is it with Control agents and that power?) and APS: Electricity. This last means she turns into a woman made of electricity, can fly and sort of teleport by arcing herself up to a mile away, and generate and throw around electricity ranging from a few joules/watts to full fledged lightning bolts. Yes, she can generate 2x10*10 joules of power every 5 seconds. Oh, and she takes half damage from heat, fire or energy weapons and, naturally, zilch from electricity. While in Lightning form, Shok is very hard to hurt, and has ~275 MDC.
Another thing the people have Seeron have really come to resent about Control is the constant fly-overs and aerial recon. For these missions, Control has a large number of Tarlok starfighters that come in two flavors. The Anihilator, pictured above, is a one-seat job with 350 MDC. There is no canopy or window, flying is by instruments only. 12x35x30 feet tall/wide/long and 20 tons. Flight is Mach 5 in atmosphere, but they generally stick to a cruising speed of 100-300 mph (160-480 kph) in their patrols, considered really agile. They can also hover and act as submersibles to a depth of 2,000 feet. Armament is a pair of pulse lasers that are just laughable by the standard of the Three Galaxies and can swivel 30 degrees in any direction, and 40 mini-missiles in concealed compartments.
The other Tarlok fighter is called a Killship. It's a two-seater, with more armor (600 MDC) and firepower than the Anihilator. Again, all flight is done by instrument, with no window or canopy. The Killship is 16x18x40 feet (5x5x12 m) and weighs 50 tons. Flight is Mach 6 in atmosphere, the ship can still hover and dive twice as deep underwater as the other, to 4,000 feet. Armament is 2 heavier lasers, low side of average for Three Galaxies, on a turret that swivels 360 degrees and can point at anything not above the ship. It also carries 100 mini-missiles and 4 real missiles on the wing.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
