Your Rifts Villian

[Ronin Phoenix]

Hello All:

I'm setting up to run Rifts again after a very long hiatus from the game (since the late 90s). For my upcoming gaming I've created a villain named Omega Khan, the back-story is this: a cabal of scientists from several of the major scientific disciplines predicted the coming of the Rifts and decided to pool together their resources to ensure their survival. As the world around them descended into chaos, the scientist were safe in their bunker preparing themselves for one last grand experiment; they would upload their consciences into a mechanical humanoid body. This body was built with the latest advances in nanotechnology and could shift from on form to another. There was only one hitch; the body and all of its advances could only be controlled by once conscience at a time. The cabal felt that they had enough time to work on this aspect and proceeded with the experiment...

My questions for you is this: do you have a homemade villain for your campaign that you would like to share? Of course nothing is entirely original but it's nice to see what others have created. Thanks for sharing!

[say652]

Oddly enough my players are the villians. Mercenaries and opportunists. And they never take prisonerd ugh.

[Akashic Soldier]

I've got a few, however the best are the one's the actions of the Player Characters create. Tim II for example.

[Blue_Lion]

Crazy Hetz.

Insane cross between a TW and Dr. Bradford with access to high level magic. Came from another dimension joined the True FoM and is arming them for war.

You might get ideas from this thread.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=142734

[Alrik Vas]

I'm trying to think of villains, but most of them really have a comic book type origin story. They're just people who believe different things, see the world a different way than the players and want to succeed.

[Dog_O_War]

"The Mage" or "The Being"

So Shifters (is it Shifters? I don't remember) can make pacts with otherworldly beings in exchange for power; they do this by opening up a small portal to another realm. Typically they choose whom to make a pact with, but sometimes, sometimes - things go awry.

A Shifter (a player's Shifter) opens a portal looking to make a pact with a god, finds himself peering through said portal and looking upon a mirror. That mirror reflects his likeness, but slowly, fades to silver, and begins to melt. Like mercury, it pours through the tiny pin-prick in reality. This is not supposed to happen - this is not what typically happens, but this is not typical. this mercurial mirror pours itself into our reality and, as if into a mold or glass, takes a shape. His shape.

The silvery likeness mirrors the stunned Shifter perfectly all the way until a moment after it finishes pouring; it then adopts a wicked grin and colour begins to show, until the once mirrored statue is as vibrant as the Shifter it reflected. Almost; those eyes. Those silvery mercurial eyes.

And then in an instant, it is gone. The Shifter wakes up cold, lying on the ground where he was opening a portal to make a pact, or where he thought he did - was it a dream? He tries again, this time through his tiny inter-dimensional window, he gets a great eye, which quickly pulls back to reveal the great being - the god he wishes to pact with.....

The Being is a tiny fragment of a malign alien intelligence which has worked its way into the reality of Rifts Earth. In many ways, it is a child. It seeks new experiences and wonders, but make no mistake, it is both incredibly smart and incredibly evil.

Its form, while mercurial, has a "default" shape, which is the shape of the Shifter it is imprinted with. It knows magic and is psionic. It has thousands of MDC and supernatural strength. Its general nature is that of a trickster. It is arrogant, and generates followers from the low-life rabel surrounding it. It has several unique abilities in addition to the standard spells and psionic powers listed within the books. It has a deep, irrational hatred of demons and daemonic entities; it has scoured clean the immediate area of all such beings.

Currently I have been using The Being as a kind of employer for a group of characters not associated with said Shifter. Thus far, it has given the PCs two jobs; this first one (completed) was that they were to investigate rumours of a stone roughly a foot and a half wide that bled a black ickor, emanated psychic energy and also acted as a kind of psychic heroin, as well as mind-control for those whom had a touch of psionic ability.

Currently they are investigating the rumours of a giant metal man having been sighted on the borders of Lonestar and Mexico; their goal is to retrieve the man, dead or alive.


The Being can cast a multitude of different spells and can use almost every psionic power there is; it favours force and lightning-type attacks over other kinds. It has the ability to create technowizard devices. It can teleport, but it cannot shift planes of existence itself ("rules"). It constantly has active Mask ISP/psionics, and a special form of Mind Block, which does not prevent it from using its own psionic abilities. It gives off no aura, which is different than even a basic human, which would have some kind of aura. It can shapeshift its form at will, turning into any creature (minimum size of a medium dog to a maximum size of about a Titan Juicer), though it always retains its silver, mercurial eyes.

[say652]

In my hereos unlimited game.
Spartan an Analytical Genius specializing in android tech and self destruct systems. Yea bad bad bad man.
For my riftd crossover Dark Olympus and an army of Mystically Bestowed canine aliens.

[Alrik Vas]

I think I'll come up with a villain. For the game I'm running now. I've got some stuff, yeah, but I can't expect my group to fight demon gods and live. So I think I'll develop an underling.

Hrm...how to not make them lame...

[say652]

Human looking and weighing nukes was a huge hit. Literally. Lol. "So I'm in line at the bank..BOOM!!

[Tor]

What would Rifts Earth do if that AI with the 10+ mile diameter eye (and formerly a 500ft+ tall baby) the In'Valians encountered ever came knocking?

I don't think ANYTHING is that big except perhaps Eyelor or Kormal or Wormwood.

[Misfit KotLD]

Haggis, a Murder Wraith with a love of cooking. In the group of Death worshipers, he kept the undead well fed. Human was his meat of choice, which made him a logical candidate to become a Murder Wraith. He antagonized the party by trying to kill the weaker NPCs while the PCs tried to stop him. The party Undead Slayer developed a particular dislike of him for this tactic. His companions included a Murder Wraith named Wez, an undead Psi-Mechanic named Tinkerbell, an undead Biomancer, and a few others, all under the direction of a Necromancer. Tinkerbell loved to reprogram Skelebots and Thin Men and send them among the necromancer's undead forces.

[Jerell]

Oddly enough my players are the villians. Mercenaries and opportunists. And they never take prisonerd ugh.

Not all that odd. It is Rifts after all. Mercenaries and opportunists aren't all that rare is some groups.

As for my villains, I had a good run with Gorbad Onearm, my Orc gunslinger/bandit and his gang. Had some great shoot outs, chases, robberies and bush wacks in the New West with that villain. The Psi-Slinger in the party eventually got him though.

Currently I had three villains I had meant to be recurring. One is dead, and his name was Weiyun supervisor and public relation rep for Naruni in Thundercloud galaxy. In this case NE choose the wrong back water planet full of 'primitives' to push in on because after the players showed up and rounds of unsuccessful talks, they decided to go eco-commando on me. They were able to set an explosive device in his freighter... packed full of Killeryte. Weiyun was fun for me, because he was very diplomatic, and nice on the surface. He always put out a polite, friendly face for Naruni. But was all business underneath, he took complaints with a serious face but he was just there to run interference, and would direct anything that would shut down the destructive mining operations to the galactic legal system that would go nowhere.

Now in the way of a reoccurring villain I have a Nexus Deevil named Ex'zelgon known as Rift Dancer. We're pre-minion war 3G, so Rift Dancer is going around covertly strengthening the Infernals position and laying some ground work against the Demon's for when their attack kicks off. Currently trying to exploit some of Desslyth's minions with the aim to, first hijack some technowizard, magic weapons and armor and components, second 'nudge them in the right direction' against any Demon's schemes that pop up. Lastly when they're weak enough she'll probably ritually sacrifice a few to open a dimensional portal at the right time, then send some mortal slaves home, because they'll be needed for some Deevil rebirths soon enough. Finally exploit a little of the Splugorth transportation system for a sneak attack. Should make for a fun villain to run. That being said, I think my players are already planning to throw a monkey wrench into my plans. Thing is, I'm not sure which they hate more, Splugorth or Infernals.

I've also got a space pirate named Hondo. Who happens to be an escape artist, and is wanted on humanoid trafficking charges (was selling slaves to Desslyth's minions). He's showed up twice in campaign and I intend for him to cause no end of trouble when the players least expect it.

[Crucible]

Caesar

Actually is an ex-Coalition Special Forces operative with a bunch of guys of the same ilk. Not necessarily bad guys, but really hard core. Considered by the CS as terrorists as they are enemies of the CS and suspicious of anything alien except psionics. Took hold of an old NEMA base that had fallen beneath the surface. Not a lot of equipment as it was more of a science base. Dude found many willing scientists who had ideas outside of the norm and found they were able to create super soldiers, to them known as shock troops. The only fail safe is their patriotism to Old America. Caesar is bent on recreating the USA, no matter what that means. He does have some friends. Native Americans, he doesn't feel as though their ways are magic at all. He actually has figured them as some sort of psionics. He also has a whole crew of Psi Stalkers having sided with him for liberating them. Treats them as equals, same with Dog Boys.

[say652]

I'm trollin the 'vault I'll post it when it's up to my standards. I might need someone to play the lord of the deep as a character lol.

[Alrik Vas]

Well, I do have The Horned Death, who is a Baalrog demon general with the power to corrupt World Trees. He's kind of a bad guy, but I don't see him as much different than any other ridiculous force of nature out there.

I buffed him up a bit, rolled stats then added 10 to all the results, gave him +300MDC and all the Fire Warlock spells, plus a few other invocations, plus ritual spells to do his dirty work on those poor saplings.

Though honestly he's just a creature of corruption and mayhem. There are others, that are more than just evil for evil's sake.

[nilgravity]

I'm running a crazy campaign that uses a lot of random charts so it is basically everytime an enemy escapes they are upgraded and come back. Current menace is a Ogress Thief who stole a crown that allows her to control reptiles and is headed to Lagarto

[Misfit KotLD]

One of my recurring villians is Zodiar, a particularly nasty Temporal Raider who has been shadowing the party for two months now, but they never can see to catch him in time.

Nice.

[Shorty Lickens]

Mechanoid Motherbrain.
Lord Splynnkryth.