Fantasy

The Rifter® #53

The Rifter® is your doorway to unlimited imagination and numerous Palladium role-playing worlds. It offers new heroes, powers, weapons, magic and adventure for your games. It presents new villains, monsters and dangers to battle, and new ideas to consider.

The Rifter® #53 includes:
Ravages of Time, by S.E. Gibbons, is an interesting Rifts® article with tips for Game Masters and playing sprawling epic sagas like the Minion War™ and Siege on Tolkeen.
ARCHIE Phase Two, by Damon Sutton. This Rifts article takes a look at more machinations of our favorite mechanized menace, ARCHIE Three™.
On Faerie Folk, by Michael P. Yocom, offers up a menagerie of new Faerie Folk, cousins and animals for the Rifts® and Palladium Fantasy® settings.
Dawn of a New Era, by Corey Livermore, presents an adventure in a setting for Heroes Unlimited™ in which mutants and aliens are being forced to "register" with global governments, or else.
The Lucky Psychic, by Steven Dawes, presents a new Beyond the Supernatural™ psychic who makes his own luck.
A Dark Day™ Short Story, by Jeremy Hutchins, will keep you wondering what's next.
The next chapter of the Hammer of the Forge™.
Plus news and coming attractions.
96 pages.

The Rifter® #57

Looking for new ideas and material for your campaign? Then you want The Rifter®. The greatest value of The Rifter® is that every issue offers new and different ideas, and gets your imagination running in directions you might not have considered. It’s an idea factory that will help you generate new ideas of your own, and it also presents valuable source material you can drop right into your games.
The Rifter® is your doorway to unlimited imagination and numerous Palladium role-playing worlds. It offers new monsters, villains, characters, O.C.C.s, powers, magic, weapons, adventure and ideas for your games. It presents new villains, monsters and dangers to battle, and new ideas to consider. Every issue has material for Rifts® and at least two or three other Palladium game lines.

The Rifter #57 is an extravaganza of monsters and mayhem to surprise your players and spice up your games.
Rifts– new weapons and vehicles of the Coalition States.
Beyond the Supernatural– monsters and supernatural threats.
Palladium Fantasy– monsters and dangerous animals galore.
For all game settings– Genie bottles and dimensional pockets.
Rifts– The Brodkil War Machinist.
Rifts– NGR Anthropological Field Operative.
News, coming attractions, and more.
Cover by Charles Walton II.
96 pages.

Stronghold is a two-player game telling the story of a siege. Players take opposing sides: one has to defend the stronghold, and the other has to break into the castle as soon as possible. The game board represents the stronghold itself as well as the surrounding terrain, where enemy forces are placed and whence they proceed to the walls.

The defender has a small number of soldiers manning the walls, while the invader has an infinite legion of attacking creatures. A desperate fight takes place every single turn. The invaders build war machines, equip their soldiers, train them, and use black magic rituals to achieve victory. Meanwhile, defenders repair walls, build cannons, train soldiers, and do everything they can to hold the castle as long as possible.

If the invader manages to break into the castle before the end of seven rounds, they win; otherwise the defender wins.

This second edition of Stronghold features:

• Ten objective cards for the invader and ten hidden defense plan cards for the defender; each objective encourages the invader to consider a particular move, while each defense plan shows the defender different ways to surprise the invader
• Shorter gameplay than the first edition, with attackers being placed on the board during set-up
• Gameplay limited to two players only, replacing the team rules in the first edition
• Streamlined rules and an enhanced rulebook
• Improved components, such as a larger game board and new, drab, brown artwor

A complete role-playing game set in a unique realm of high fantasy and epic adventure that has thrilled fans for decades. All the fantasy elements you'd expect are there, but spun in ways that you may not expect. Magic has replaced science. The elder races of Dwarves, Elves and Titans have given way to the rise of humanity and the Wolfen Empire. Meanwhile the monster races - Goblins, Orcs, Ogres and Trolls - lay claim to the Old Kingdom, from which they launch their pillaging raids. And that's just the beginning.

13 different races available to player characters, from human to Wolfen, Changeling, Elf, Dwarf, Ogre, Troll, Goblin, and many others.
25 Occupational Character Classes to select from.

Magic unlike any you've ever seen before.
300+ Wizard and Warlock spells.
80+ psionic powers.
40 magic items plus magic potions, powders and fumes.
20 Curses and magical Faerie Foods.
The Summoner and the circles of power and summoning at his command.
The Diabolist and his Runes, Wards and Power Words.
The Mind Mage, Psi-Mystic, Psi-Healer and Psi-Sensitive.
Poisons, herbs, potions and magic components.
Men at arms with punch and power.
Holy Swords and Rune Weapons.
100,000 years of history.

A complete game with all the rules you need to play (additional sourcebooks, characters, abilities and settings optional).
336 pages.

Your last village was ransacked by barbarians. You barely had time to pick up the baby and your favorite fishing pole before they started the burning and pillaging. You wandered over a cruel desert, braved frozen peaks, and even paddled a log across a rough sea, kicking at the sharks whenever they got too close, the baby strapped tightly to your back.

Then you found it! The perfect place to make your new home. But as soon as you had the first hut built, you discovered a vast network of caverns underground, brimming with shiny treasures, rare resources, and untold adventure. How could you limit your new village to the surface? You immediately start organizing expeditions and building houses underground as well as on the surface.

With any luck, you'll build a village even stronger than your last-- strong enough, even, to turn away the barbarians the next time they come knocking.

Above and Below is a mashup of town-building and storytelling where you and up to three friends compete to build the best village above and below ground. In the game, you send your villagers to perform jobs like exploring the cave, harvesting resources, and constructing houses. Each villager has unique skills and abilities, and you must decide how to best use them. You have your own personal village board, and you slide the villagers on this board to various areas to indicate that they've been given jobs to do. Will you send Hanna along on the expedition to the cave? Or should she instead spend her time teaching important skills to one of the young villagers?

A great cavern lies below the surface, ready for you to explore-- this is where the storytelling comes in. When you send a group of villagers to explore the depths, one of your friends reads what happens to you from a book of paragraphs. You'll be given a choice of how to react, and a lot will depend on which villagers you brought on the expedition, and who you're willing to sacrifice to succeed. The book of paragraphs is packed with encounters of amazing adventure, randomly chosen each time you visit the cavern.

At the end of the game, the player with the most well-developed village wins!