Saturday, February 9, 2013

Rifts 2112: From Atlantis to Atlanta

Game Date: 2/9/2013
Campaign: Rifts 2112, Session 4
System: Savage Worlds
DM: Rusty   

Characters:
Emma Snow (Star): Medic
Jim Bagg (Cliff): Military Reserves
Sgt. Malcolm Reynolds (Ted): Active Military
Terri Bolton (Matt): Mechanic

Previous Sessions:
Session 1 Session 2 Session 3

The Story So Far...
One night in late 2012, the world was suddenly plagued by a plethora of natural disasters.  Our FEMA team was dispatched to help where we could.  We soon discovered that the world was being invaded by several species of evil aliens.  These creatures have abducted a large number of humans.  We have also befriended yet another species of aliens, insectoids who have been rescuing the stragglers not captured by their enemies.  These friendly bug-people showed us what may have caused of the devastation:  Apparently the evil invaders have been shifting landmasses to create a new continent for themselves.

Todays Session:
At the end of our last session, we all got healed, rested, restocked, and advanced.  Mal received some cybernetic implants, and our insectoid benefactor assigned us a mission. We were to take a spaceship to a new landmass that had appeared in the Caribbean.  It wasn't exactly clear what we were supposed to do once we got there, but we didn't sweat the details.

"Express elevator to Hell, going down!"
The ship was run by an AI interface.  The main screen showed a human head named Doug, who carried out our commands and answered our questions.  We gave him the order to take off, and our ship dropped straight down towards the Earth below.  Shortly before we reached the ocean, the ship leveled off and proceeded straight towards our destination.

Half an hour later, we arrived at the new landmass, which Doug informed us was the lost city of Atlantis.  There island was covered in jungles, and Doug detected several concentrations of life forms.  We sought out one of the smaller concentrations, and landed our craft in the woods.  As quietly as possible, we peeked out from the trees, and saw four armored gorillas ordering around a bunch of human slaves.  Most of the humans were wearing typical modern clothing, but a few of them were in togas.  The slaves were loading rocks and crystals into wagons.

Still smarting from our last battle, Mal was antsy to kick some gorilla butt.  He tiptoed up behind one gorilla and slit its throat.  While trying to drag the body back to the treeline, he failed a stealth check and alerted the rest of the gorillas.  It wasn't a difficult battle, though, and soon the other three apes were dead.  The human slaves scattered in all directions, but four of them (including one toga-wearer) came with us.  We knew more apes were approaching, so we gathered up a crystal and an ape's translator, and led our rescued humans back to our ship.

On the flight back towards the insectoid ship, we learned more about Doug, our craft, and those we had rescued.  Doug scanned our crystal and told us that it was basically a large diamond.  The aliens had come here to mine precious minerals, and were causing worldwide cataclysms to bring the crystals they needed closer to the surface.  The toga-clad slave identified himself as Cyrus, a "True Atlantean".  According to him, Atlantis had vanished thousands of years ago when it was teleported to another dimension, and the aliens transported it back for mining purposes.

Cyrus told us that the evil aliens we'd encountered so far were servants of a greater race called the Splynn.  We had yet to see a Splynn, but his description of them sounds like D&D beholders.  They are few in number, but very powerful.  Our insectoid rescuers were called the Xiticix.  The Xiticix and the Splynn were rival traders, and neither one was to be trusted.  So much for going back to the mothership. 

Doug told us that he used to be a live human being, until a building fell on him during the cataclysm.  The Xiticix put his mind in the ship because it needed a neural interface that could communicate with humans.  We explored our craft a bit, and found a couple of empty rooms and the engines.  We did not find any bathrooms, so we have to make sure we always go before we take off.  Otherwise we'll have to boldly go where no man has gone before.  ...Sorry.

Much more inconspicuous.
No longer wanting to go back to the Xiticix ship, we had Doug scan for a safe spot to land.  We wanted to find a city somewhere far enough from disasters that we could set up a relatively-safe base.  Not metagaming at all, we finally settled on Nashville, Tennessee.  We wanted to go to the Capitol Building, but didn't want the people there to shoot us upon seeing us climb out of a spaceship.  So we landed in Centennial Park instead. 

There were a lot of people in the park, but they didn't try to kill us.  Some jeeps took us to the Capitol, where we were debriefed by military and FEMA personnel.  We told them everything that had happened to us, and they filled us in on what we didn't know.  The city of McMinnville had committed mass suicide, thinking this was the rapture.  The explosion in Atlanta had been caused by one of several mis-launched Soviet nukes, but there were survivors.

We also learned that 17 different alien races had been seen in the Southeast alone,  including some demon-like creatures in St. Louis.  The humans here had allied with a race of four-foot tall Dwarves.  We spoke to the Dwarven leader, Mortigan of Clan McTartan.  He told us that a "blue hole" had opened in his world, and they had walked through it.  The Dwarves were handy with old-style firearms, so Mal introduced them to modern guns.  Hopefully their shooting skills will prove useful to us in the future.

We are planning to head for Atlanta next, to learn more of the situation there.

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