Pyramids and the extra ley-line PPE limitation.

[Shark_Force]

having a range limit on the lockdown (and being able to selectively apply the lockdown within that range limit) and making it possible to turn on and off would go a long ways towards making pyramids worthwhile. at that point, a pyramid lets you make sure enemies can't use it against you if you're being attacked, but it doesn't actively hinder your own town's ability to use the resource they decided to establish a town next to in the first place. it also means that you don't have a bunch of random ley lines that can't be used all across the planet.

(also, if the ley line storm and random rift protection are not unlimited range, that also means that the ley lines in, say, the bermuda triangle, which are supposed to be plagued by such things constantly, would actually fit with the setting because the atlantis pyramids wouldn't control those ley lines that far out).

so adding in more control on the pyramid would probably be one of the easier ways to make pyramids into something magical societies would actually want in their communities. i could get behind that. it certainly does a lot more to make stone mages into the high-demand commodity the setting claims them to be.

[Blue_Lion]

As they are Pyrmids are worth having as they reduce most random rifts. Limiting places you need to defend from random invasion.
Have access to a stock pile of PPE.
Preventing ley line storms that can be bad for cities.

Is drawing from a ley line really needed in a city full of people?

[eliakon]

1) yes, but the pyramid boost is pretty bad, and also if you use it you don't get to use all of the other abilities.

I don't follow... you argue that losing the PPE is bad... but you don't lose it?

2) most societies don't. most magic societies are crawling with them. oh, sure, there's a whole lot of nonsense about how it's a new thing, and not everyone has it. except, you know, everyone actually does have it. japan has techno-wizards. atlantis has techno-wizards, and they're all over the megaverse. the palladium world has a guy who can do TW stuff that blows the minds of rifts earth techno-wizards (from the SB 1 adventure, upgraded lord whatsisface). the 3 galaxies has an entire organization of hundreds (thousands?) of planets that use TW all over the place. even unintelligent or low tech places have them... the xiticix have techno-wizards, and there's some group of primitives in australia that have techno-wizards. south america has techno-wizards, too. europe has access to a bunch of techno-wizardry devices.

TW though ISNT super common
It IS new, it IS not universal.
It is used by the UWW, and on Earth... and a few other races yes. But it is NOT some universal magic that is in every society. Heck it only shows up a few hundred years ago in the UWW. Which considering the time scales of the societies involved means that yes, for tens of thousands of years Pyramids WERE the go to solution.

3) tolkeen has a TW one. many powerful beings can prevent them. and who's negating the spell? you have dozens of random people wandering around the wilderness with nothing better to do with their time than troll random villages?

Which beings can prevent them? And Tolkeen had a unique one of a kind system of technological devices that were said to be unduplicated... that is not exactly something that you can use as a model for everyone.
And spells can fail from all sorts of causes (there is for example wild magic effects from scroll conversion that can cause the wrong spell to occur. Unless you plan on banning scrolls from your city...)
Not to mention that as I pointed out, it is a pretty exotic spell, with a limited duration. Not exactly a strong safety net for a city.

4) eh, how many times have we seen random attended rifts be a problem?

False answer. The claim that simply because a problem has not showed up in an adventure that it doesn't exist is bunk. It would be like claiming that because we have not had a discussion about how diseases are a problem... that no one gets sick.

i mean, rifts where there is *nobody* to deal with the immediate problem, sure those can get bad (the xiticix say hi. or are they supposed to have been summoned by someone also? i can't remember if i read something, or if it was just speculation). but do we really have a lot of examples of rifts where there was an actual organized group at a nexus, and something horrible came through that was immediately going to kill hundreds or thousands of capable soldiers or magic users? we actually have explicit statements that rifts keep environments from passing through as well, so no stars or super-pressurized water from the marianis trench. the st louis rift and the azlum rift are not random. and there is no actual plane of the dead.

Actually, there IS, it is specifically mentioned in PF further adventures in the Northern Wilderness

supernatural intelligences don't need a random rift to get places, they usually either have specific rules for how to get to other worlds, or can just dimensional teleport, with or without a random rift. practically speaking, world-ending threats don't come through rifts fully functional. if they did, there would be no rifts earth (the several hundred years of random rifts would have destroyed the planet or made it uninhabitable) and rifts earth would, instead of being valuable megaversal real estate, be a barren wasteland that nobody wants to even get close to.

The books seem to disagree with you though. They talk about threats from random rifts all the time. The tables talk about them, the fluff talks about them, the histories talk about them... it would appear that the game universe is set up to consider random rifts to be a serious danger and not just a minor inconvenience.

frankly, i think the great majority of the world-ending threats have come from deliberate rifts. the atlanteans borked the magic of the entire world. archie let in the mechanoids with the help of some random shifter (RIP random shifter). the apocalypse demons were invited a raving lunatic in egypt. mrr'lynn got himself to rifts earth, without needing any random rifts at all. we have lots of examples of *planned* rifts that went disastrously wrong. far more than we have examples of random rifts creating end-of-the-world scenarios. so far as i can tell, random rifts have primarily been responsible for things that are a threat to a bunch of random unarmed people, but to an actual group that has a significant portion of the population being magically active? not so much.

Which is small comfort if you lose your city to a million Xixtic (you know... the bugs that showed up via random rift?) flying in through a mile high rift. Or a god monster shows up. Or one of the VIs moves in...

[glitterboy2098]

keep in mind.. what seems like a random rift on earth might not be as random on the other end. the warnings about random rifts is earth specific.. that rifts will open and you won't know what things are like on the otherside, or what might come out. is it truely random? or is it actually the receiving end for some heavily planned transdimensional invasion? you can't tell from the earth end.

given the megaverse is infinite, and each universe in it has billions + possible places a rift could open up in, the odds of a truly random rift unleashing anything is pretty darn remote. but by the same factors, any organized group with access to rift travel abilities/magic/tech could easily open up a gate on their end that connects to a semi-random point on rifts earth. they don't have to be picky, just narrow the target down to a single world and whatever rifts open up there when they try.

[Axelmania]

Also worth pointing out that the stone-master created ley line storm is much better than the one you create via the ley line spell introduced in Sedition.

The spell version lets you move the storm around and throw ley bolts, sure...

But the stone master OCC power allows you to control ALL aspects of it... meaning you can actually choose any of the otherwise random effects at-will...

Like doubling the effects of magic in one area, or completely negating magic in another.... or the GIANT ley energy bolts.

[Blue_Lion]

keep in mind.. what seems like a random rift on earth might not be as random on the other end. the warnings about random rifts is earth specific.. that rifts will open and you won't know what things are like on the otherside, or what might come out. is it truely random? or is it actually the receiving end for some heavily planned transdimensional invasion? you can't tell from the earth end.

given the megaverse is infinite, and each universe in it has billions + possible places a rift could open up in, the odds of a truly random rift unleashing anything is pretty darn remote. but by the same factors, any organized group with access to rift travel abilities/magic/tech could easily open up a gate on their end that connects to a semi-random point on rifts earth. they don't have to be picky, just narrow the target down to a single world and whatever rifts open up there when they try.

Is there not a % chance that random rifts happen on ley lines and nexus at certain astrological events such as an eclips or equinox?

Personally I would rather have the rifts happen in a kill box (inside a pyramid for ambush) than any where along 2 or more lines running through my city.

Things can and do get deposited by random rifts. Now sure not every rift is random but there are quite a few truly random ones caused by the high magic in Rifts.

[kaid]

1) yes, but the pyramid boost is pretty bad, and also if you use it you don't get to use all of the other abilities.

I don't follow... you argue that losing the PPE is bad... but you don't lose it?

2) most societies don't. most magic societies are crawling with them. oh, sure, there's a whole lot of nonsense about how it's a new thing, and not everyone has it. except, you know, everyone actually does have it. japan has techno-wizards. atlantis has techno-wizards, and they're all over the megaverse. the palladium world has a guy who can do TW stuff that blows the minds of rifts earth techno-wizards (from the SB 1 adventure, upgraded lord whatsisface). the 3 galaxies has an entire organization of hundreds (thousands?) of planets that use TW all over the place. even unintelligent or low tech places have them... the xiticix have techno-wizards, and there's some group of primitives in australia that have techno-wizards. south america has techno-wizards, too. europe has access to a bunch of techno-wizardry devices.

TW though ISNT super common
It IS new, it IS not universal.
It is used by the UWW, and on Earth... and a few other races yes. But it is NOT some universal magic that is in every society. Heck it only shows up a few hundred years ago in the UWW. Which considering the time scales of the societies involved means that yes, for tens of thousands of years Pyramids WERE the go to solution.

3) tolkeen has a TW one. many powerful beings can prevent them. and who's negating the spell? you have dozens of random people wandering around the wilderness with nothing better to do with their time than troll random villages?

Which beings can prevent them? And Tolkeen had a unique one of a kind system of technological devices that were said to be unduplicated... that is not exactly something that you can use as a model for everyone.
And spells can fail from all sorts of causes (there is for example wild magic effects from scroll conversion that can cause the wrong spell to occur. Unless you plan on banning scrolls from your city...)
Not to mention that as I pointed out, it is a pretty exotic spell, with a limited duration. Not exactly a strong safety net for a city.

4) eh, how many times have we seen random attended rifts be a problem?

False answer. The claim that simply because a problem has not showed up in an adventure that it doesn't exist is bunk. It would be like claiming that because we have not had a discussion about how diseases are a problem... that no one gets sick.

i mean, rifts where there is *nobody* to deal with the immediate problem, sure those can get bad (the xiticix say hi. or are they supposed to have been summoned by someone also? i can't remember if i read something, or if it was just speculation). but do we really have a lot of examples of rifts where there was an actual organized group at a nexus, and something horrible came through that was immediately going to kill hundreds or thousands of capable soldiers or magic users? we actually have explicit statements that rifts keep environments from passing through as well, so no stars or super-pressurized water from the marianis trench. the st louis rift and the azlum rift are not random. and there is no actual plane of the dead.

Actually, there IS, it is specifically mentioned in PF further adventures in the Northern Wilderness

supernatural intelligences don't need a random rift to get places, they usually either have specific rules for how to get to other worlds, or can just dimensional teleport, with or without a random rift. practically speaking, world-ending threats don't come through rifts fully functional. if they did, there would be no rifts earth (the several hundred years of random rifts would have destroyed the planet or made it uninhabitable) and rifts earth would, instead of being valuable megaversal real estate, be a barren wasteland that nobody wants to even get close to.

The books seem to disagree with you though. They talk about threats from random rifts all the time. The tables talk about them, the fluff talks about them, the histories talk about them... it would appear that the game universe is set up to consider random rifts to be a serious danger and not just a minor inconvenience.

frankly, i think the great majority of the world-ending threats have come from deliberate rifts. the atlanteans borked the magic of the entire world. archie let in the mechanoids with the help of some random shifter (RIP random shifter). the apocalypse demons were invited a raving lunatic in egypt. mrr'lynn got himself to rifts earth, without needing any random rifts at all. we have lots of examples of *planned* rifts that went disastrously wrong. far more than we have examples of random rifts creating end-of-the-world scenarios. so far as i can tell, random rifts have primarily been responsible for things that are a threat to a bunch of random unarmed people, but to an actual group that has a significant portion of the population being magically active? not so much.

Which is small comfort if you lose your city to a million Xixtic (you know... the bugs that showed up via random rift?) flying in through a mile high rift. Or a god monster shows up. Or one of the VIs moves in...

Then there is the example from the three galaxies of the In'valians who had a rift open that let lose a giant creature that cause a lot of damage until they killed it. Then after it died a giant eye appeared in the rift of the creatures mother that screamed and basically cursed their entire population into withering decay.

[kaid]

I think for atlanteans though the big selling point of pyramids is transportation. They are a multi dimensional culture and pyramids allow the safest and most accurate way to easily generate rifts to a specific desired location in a specific dimension with high degrees of accuracy and almost no chance of it failing as long as they go pyramid to pyramid.

Also inter world travel you can move from one side of a planet to another instantly as long as you jump pyramid to pyramid something only the most powerful mages/shifters could do via spells and only to well known locations with any accuracy. With the pyramids you basically have to know that pyramid exists to jump to it. Giving up ley line flight for instantaneous planetary/extra dimensional travel seems a pretty reasonable trade off.

[glitterboy2098]

keep in mind.. what seems like a random rift on earth might not be as random on the other end. the warnings about random rifts is earth specific.. that rifts will open and you won't know what things are like on the otherside, or what might come out. is it truely random? or is it actually the receiving end for some heavily planned transdimensional invasion? you can't tell from the earth end.

given the megaverse is infinite, and each universe in it has billions + possible places a rift could open up in, the odds of a truly random rift unleashing anything is pretty darn remote. but by the same factors, any organized group with access to rift travel abilities/magic/tech could easily open up a gate on their end that connects to a semi-random point on rifts earth. they don't have to be picky, just narrow the target down to a single world and whatever rifts open up there when they try.

Is there not a % chance that random rifts happen on ley lines and nexus at certain astrological events such as an eclips or equinox?

Personally I would rather have the rifts happen in a kill box (inside a pyramid for ambush) than any where along 2 or more lines running through my city.

Things can and do get deposited by random rifts. Now sure not every rift is random but there are quite a few truly random ones caused by the high magic in Rifts.

my point is that given the sheer number of places the other end of a rift could be connected to makes the odds of one opening to a random point in the megaverse and just happening to have stuff nearby to come through is absurdly small. considering your looking at an infinite number of universes, each with billions of places a rift could open from on that end. remember that the odds are one value divided by al lthe other values.. so infinity divided by billions.. pretty small number results. it is above zero, but only just.

the percents we are given is the chance a rift will open on a given nexus. this does not mean that the rift is random. it could be random, at which point nothing is likely to happen, since the vast majority of places a rift could link to are going to be empty or harmless. if you have demons/monsters spilling out, it is likely the rift was not random, that it was created by someone or something on the otherside, and they just didn't or couldn't pick a specific destination on earth, instead allowing a rift to form naturally wherever the energy levels met requirements. thus there are more accurately defined as "unguided" or "semi-random".. they appear random to us on earth, but that is only because we cannot see the actions of the people on the other end prior to it opening.

[Blue_Lion]

keep in mind.. what seems like a random rift on earth might not be as random on the other end. the warnings about random rifts is earth specific.. that rifts will open and you won't know what things are like on the otherside, or what might come out. is it truely random? or is it actually the receiving end for some heavily planned transdimensional invasion? you can't tell from the earth end.

given the megaverse is infinite, and each universe in it has billions + possible places a rift could open up in, the odds of a truly random rift unleashing anything is pretty darn remote. but by the same factors, any organized group with access to rift travel abilities/magic/tech could easily open up a gate on their end that connects to a semi-random point on rifts earth. they don't have to be picky, just narrow the target down to a single world and whatever rifts open up there when they try.

Is there not a % chance that random rifts happen on ley lines and nexus at certain astrological events such as an eclips or equinox?

Personally I would rather have the rifts happen in a kill box (inside a pyramid for ambush) than any where along 2 or more lines running through my city.

Things can and do get deposited by random rifts. Now sure not every rift is random but there are quite a few truly random ones caused by the high magic in Rifts.

my point is that given the sheer number of places the other end of a rift could be connected to makes the odds of one opening to a random point in the megaverse and just happening to have stuff nearby to come through is absurdly small. considering your looking at an infinite number of universes, each with billions of places a rift could open from on that end. remember that the odds are one value divided by al lthe other values.. so infinity divided by billions.. pretty small number results. it is above zero, but only just.

the percents we are given is the chance a rift will open on a given nexus. this does not mean that the rift is random. it could be random, at which point nothing is likely to happen, since the vast majority of places a rift could link to are going to be empty or harmless. if you have demons/monsters spilling out, it is likely the rift was not random, that it was created by someone or something on the otherside, and they just didn't or couldn't pick a specific destination on earth, instead allowing a rift to form naturally wherever the energy levels met requirements. thus there are more accurately defined as "unguided" or "semi-random".. they appear random to us on earth, but that is only because we cannot see the actions of the people on the other end prior to it opening.

Irrelevant because the books do say it happens and there is a % table in either Atlantis or undersea for the chances of something being deposited.
Rifts have a strange way to pull things in almost like Raven Loft. Now then not every random lift lets something in but it does happen fairly often, it just is not always dangerous.

[eliakon]

I think what GB is saying is that "random rift" does not mean truly random.
Put another way.
If you cast "dimensional portal" and don't specify a location, where do you think it is going to open up?
The fact that you and your buddies caused the portal to open, does not make it less of a random portal. It was random, in that your destination was random... but it was not random in that you and your dimensional raiding buddies with you expect it to go someplace.

The point of the fact is that we know that Random rifts, regardless of how random or not they truly are have a few features
1) they are hard to close once open (with out rituals, permeant PPE or exotic rare magics)
2) they have a high statistical chance of having something come through
3) they can appear anywhere on the affected area
4) they can appear at any peak energy time

So, if you have a town on a nexus
every peak day, every HOUR, there is a chance of a rift on each ley line and on the nexus. The lowest chance is 20% per hour of daylight. It goes up drastically from there.
10% of those rifts by the way will be Exploding rifts which translate portions of the landscape... (so ummm don't build ANYTHING on the actual line, or near it..)

Hmmm... that "no rifts" thing is starting to look good.

And don't forget, for MORE fun, that Ley Line storms can happen "at any time on any ley line" and that every 30 minutes you roll an effect... 20% of those effects are "random rift opens" (hope its not and Exploding or Cascading Rift)

[Shark_Force]

- i'm saying that the PPE reserve you get for a pyramid is not very large, and that if you actually use itas a PPE reserve all of the things a pyramid is supposed to do that actually have any significant value become impossible because they are explicitly powered by the pyramid's PPE.

- yeah, they keep saying it's super rare. except it isn't. it's ubiquitous. just about every damn place on rifts earth has techno-wizardry devices unique to their area, most areas are largely unconnected to north america, and a few of them explicitly represent parrallel development. the splugorth have been using tw devices for who even knows how long. we have examples of creatures that instinctively create TW devices. other palladium settings may or may not have techno-wizardry, but either way they generally have something extremely similar. it isn't rare. it isn't unique to north america. it is all over the megaverse in mass quantities.

- don't have my books on me atm, but i know various supernatural intelligences (not all of which are evil) can regulate ley lines. millenium trees as well, of course. and of course, anyone with the time and the need to develop a magical device to do so. i don't know why anyone would be stupid enough to ban scrolls from a city, though. just because the conversion might not work, doesn't mean you can't have scrolls. just make sure the conversion worked first, then cast the scrolls. there really aren't a lot of ways to keep spells from working, and you don't need the spell up 24/7. you only need protection from ley line storms when there is a ley line storm.

- doesn't need to be an adventure. we have a megaverse. we have entire galaxies full of planets with powerful magic energy. seeing as how those planets are not primarily uninhabitable wastelands that routinely get devastated by rifted-in solar flares or city-destroying monsters, and they would be if there was any significant chance of such a thing being rifted in randomly and the potential for random rifts lasted for any substantial length of time. is it a theoretical possibility? maybe. but for every time that it has happened there are billions of times where it didn't happen. frankly, if you can't handle those kinds of odds, you should probably worry that your house is going to get swallowed up by the earth just as a meteor lands on top of it while being struck by lightning just as a herd of wild buffalo comes stampeding through, or something.

- yes, there are threats from random rifts. they aren't city-destroying, as a rule. they are designed to be dangerous to a group of players wandering around in the wilderness and coming across a nexus, not for a city.

- the xiticix showed up by random rift. but they didn't show up a million at a time. you know what a xiticix queen looking to start a new hive has with her? because it isn't much compared to the resources of a city that can build a pyramid in anything like a reasonable amount of time. vampire intelligences don't show up by random rifts, they show up when a group of several thousand vampires are assembled and very deliberately and purposefully call the intelligence into the world. and if you think a god monster is going to have a hard time creating a deliberate rift if they want to get somewhere, you and i have very different ideas of what a god monster is.

billions to one odds in your favour doesn't mean it's time to panic and build a large expensive structure that is going to take years to make. it means that no rational being is going to worry about that thing happening (and if it does happen, then as i've said, some stupid pointy triangle building isn't going to stop a godlike being from showing up if they want to).

if you build your city on a nexus, the whole point is to get access to the nexus. setting up a building that denies access to the nexus is counterproductive. if you want basically safe access to a nexus, you can build your city near that nexus, but not on it, for free. if you want to also control the nexus, you just need your city defenses to cover the area (considering even medium range missiles can reach 50 miles for the most part, and WW II era artillery could more than reach across the area of even a large nexus, that should be pretty easy).

[Axelmania]

given the sheer number of places the other end of a rift could be connected to makes the odds of one opening to a random point in the megaverse and just happening to have stuff nearby to come through is absurdly small. considering your looking at an infinite number of universes, each with billions of places a rift could open from on that end. remember that the odds are one value divided by al lthe other values.. so infinity divided by billions.. pretty small number results. it is above zero, but only just.

the percents we are given is the chance a rift will open on a given nexus. this does not mean that the rift is random. it could be random, at which point nothing is likely to happen, since the vast majority of places a rift could link to are going to be empty or harmless. if you have demons/monsters spilling out, it is likely the rift was not random, that it was created by someone or something on the otherside, and they just didn't or couldn't pick a specific destination on earth, instead allowing a rift to form naturally wherever the energy levels met requirements. thus there are more accurately defined as "unguided" or "semi-random".. they appear random to us on earth, but that is only because we cannot see the actions of the people on the other end prior to it opening.

Random doesn't necessarily mean all possible outcomes have equal possibilities. 2D6 is random, for example, but there's only a 1 in 36 chance of getting 2 or 12 while there's a 6 in 36 chance of getting a 7.

Rifts might, for example, more often randomly open to other ley line nexuses, and there can tend to be life gathering around ley line nexuses compared to the void of space.

The percentages of rifts opening build upon the initial text about there being a chance of a rift 'tearing' open. That doesn't sound like an intentional dimensional portal to me. Random rifts are talked about elsewhere, if not this then I don't see what else could tell us about how random rifts form.

yes, there are threats from random rifts. they aren't city-destroying, as a rule. they are designed to be dangerous to a group of players wandering around in the wilderness and coming across a nexus, not for a city.

There is no rule saying ALL threats from random rifts can destroy cities.

But there is also no rule saying NO threats from random rifts can destroy cities.

the xiticix showed up by random rift. but they didn't show up a million at a time.

I'd say at least a thousand came in at once based on the RMB artwork. That was probably one of those 'garguantuan rifts' which have an 88% chance of opening on every single ley line nexus on the planet 3 times per 20 years (1 per 10 Partial Solar Eclipse, 1 per 20 3-planet-lineup)

Let's HOPE those things only stay open for 2 to 8 minutes... but I guess if they lasted indefinitely they would be priorities for traveling dogooders to come along and seal (since Close Rift doesn't seem to cost any different no matter what size something is)

I for the most part don't know how long all these rifts stay open... a solstice-dawn nexus eruption 70% rift (higher than the base 40% per hour chance between dawn anddusk) stays open 3-12 hours... it doesn't mention how long the 55% chance rift that opens at sunset stays open though... possibly just the 5 minute flare which isn't as bad.

The 30%/hour equinox rifts don't list an specific periods... so I'm not sure if it maybe lasts an hour... or maybe the entire length of the equinox, or maybe it just stays open forever until someone comes along and closes it?

The 77% lunar eclipse rifts hopefully (for humanity) only stay open for the 90 minute period of the eclipse... if they stayed open indefinitely then 77% of every single nexus on earth would produce a permanent rift annually until someone came and closed it. Given the centuries gone by, each unattended nexus would have over a hundred rifts on average.

if you build your city on a nexus, the whole point is to get access to the nexus. setting up a building that denies access to the nexus is counterproductive. if you want basically safe access to a nexus, you can build your city near that nexus, but not on it, for free. if you want to also control the nexus, you just need your city defenses to cover the area (considering even medium range missiles can reach 50 miles for the most part, and WW II era artillery could more than reach across the area of even a large nexus, that should be pretty easy).

The building doesn't deny access to those on/in the pyramid, and pyramids don't have any size caps, so you could expand it indefinitely. As I explained above, you could actually build a pyramid larger than the nexus itself and actually expand the distance you could tap into a nexus' power.

Missiles are expensive... a stone master can build a lot of town for very little and the MDC 'soup up your healing' plus being a combat-god with their BEST ley line storm control is a good deterrent.

[kaid]

One note is a lot of atlantean clans are not that big and it large pyramids could house much if not all the population of many clans. Most of their manufacturing such as it is and laboratories/hospitals basically anything you would want large PPE usages for are based inside the pyramids. So their crystal/TW workshops have full access to all the PPE from the pyramid. It is not locking up the resources so nobody can use them. You just need to go to the pyramid to do so. Most atlantean cities are going to have multiple pyramids and the smaller towns are probably just going to be A pyramid with everybody in the town living/working in that pyramid.

If a caster really needs the boosts from being on a ley line/nexus they would just need to go to the pyramid into one of the rooms setup for such rituals.

Honestly I think most towns if they could do it would prefer to restrict large scale ritual magic to areas they control/can defend. In case of being attacked they can deny magic attackers any real advantages magic wise from the leylines/nexus while the defenders still have access to that resource from the pyramids as well as being able to actively use the ley lines/nexus against any attackers.

[Shark_Force]

defense wise, the range on spells means that you're not using the ley line from the pyramid to defend yourself unless you've already lost the majority of your city. so practically speaking, it denies the ley line to everyone in the fight.

and if you've looked at how much actual open space there is inside a pyramid... yeah, you aren't fitting much in there. a few people might live in there, but not remotely all. and the flavour text is pretty clear about how the stone masters typically keep most of what rooms there are (hidden to the general populace) for their own personal use, as i recall.

you could certainly have the pyramid get used for rituals and such, but the simple fact of the matter is, if you settled on a ley line or nexus it was so that you could access it all the time. if you only want occasional access, you don't need to spend years building a pyramid, you just live nearby. then, just like you could go to the pyramid, you can just go to the nexus. except you didn't need to spend years building a giant paperweight that takes up all the space in your town and block off the use of the resource you specifically built your community to take advantage of unless they are physically on the pyramid to get that advantage, you just built your town, village, city, whatever, normally. and as i said, if you want to deny use of it, you just set up defenses that can deny the use of the area (and if you can't deny the use of the area, you couldn't have kept your enemies from just taking your pyramid anyways, so a pyramid wouldn't have helped any).

[kaid]

defense wise, the range on spells means that you're not using the ley line from the pyramid to defend yourself unless you've already lost the majority of your city. so practically speaking, it denies the ley line to everyone in the fight.

and if you've looked at how much actual open space there is inside a pyramid... yeah, you aren't fitting much in there. a few people might live in there, but not remotely all. and the flavour text is pretty clear about how the stone masters typically keep most of what rooms there are (hidden to the general populace) for their own personal use, as i recall.

you could certainly have the pyramid get used for rituals and such, but the simple fact of the matter is, if you settled on a ley line or nexus it was so that you could access it all the time. if you only want occasional access, you don't need to spend years building a pyramid, you just live nearby. then, just like you could go to the pyramid, you can just go to the nexus. except you didn't need to spend years building a giant paperweight that takes up all the space in your town and block off the use of the resource you specifically built your community to take advantage of unless they are physically on the pyramid to get that advantage, you just built your town, village, city, whatever, normally. and as i said, if you want to deny use of it, you just set up defenses that can deny the use of the area (and if you can't deny the use of the area, you couldn't have kept your enemies from just taking your pyramid anyways, so a pyramid wouldn't have helped any).

These are not the great pyramid which was never designed to hold much for space. There is quite a bit of space available if you have both magic users specialized in moving huge quantities of stone and molding it to their will + the PPE infused pyramid being a major mega damage structure so it can be a lot more hollowed out with a lot more rooms than anything constructed of normal stone could.

With a handful of stone masters + ley line or nexus + appropriate quantities of materials a pyramid is not a thing that takes years to build but probably on the order of weeks-months depending how fancy you want it to be and how large you want it. I won't spoil the RAW secrets of atlantis stuff but a lot of the splugorth type statue defense mechanisms powered by the pyramids have atlantean versions as well to help both offense and defense of cities.

[guardiandashi]

defense wise, the range on spells means that you're not using the ley line from the pyramid to defend yourself unless you've already lost the majority of your city. so practically speaking, it denies the ley line to everyone in the fight.

and if you've looked at how much actual open space there is inside a pyramid... yeah, you aren't fitting much in there. a few people might live in there, but not remotely all. and the flavour text is pretty clear about how the stone masters typically keep most of what rooms there are (hidden to the general populace) for their own personal use, as i recall.

you could certainly have the pyramid get used for rituals and such, but the simple fact of the matter is, if you settled on a ley line or nexus it was so that you could access it all the time. if you only want occasional access, you don't need to spend years building a pyramid, you just live nearby. then, just like you could go to the pyramid, you can just go to the nexus. except you didn't need to spend years building a giant paperweight that takes up all the space in your town and block off the use of the resource you specifically built your community to take advantage of unless they are physically on the pyramid to get that advantage, you just built your town, village, city, whatever, normally. and as i said, if you want to deny use of it, you just set up defenses that can deny the use of the area (and if you can't deny the use of the area, you couldn't have kept your enemies from just taking your pyramid anyways, so a pyramid wouldn't have helped any).

These are not the great pyramid which was never designed to hold much for space. There is quite a bit of space available if you have both magic users specialized in moving huge quantities of stone and molding it to their will + the PPE infused pyramid being a major mega damage structure so it can be a lot more hollowed out with a lot more rooms than anything constructed of normal stone could.

With a handful of stone masters + ley line or nexus + appropriate quantities of materials a pyramid is not a thing that takes years to build but probably on the order of weeks-months depending how fancy you want it to be and how large you want it. I won't spoil the RAW secrets of atlantis stuff but a lot of the splugorth type statue defense mechanisms powered by the pyramids have atlantean versions as well to help both offense and defense of cities.

while the great pyramid was built pretty solid (partially because it was a tomb, and an ego thing for the Pharos) especially with modern construction techniques there isn't any inherent reason you couldn't have a lot more properly supported and reinforced chambers inside.

the thing I can't remember right now is do the stone masters have the capability to "fuse" blocks of stone? because if they do then I could see them moving blocks into place shaping as desired then fusing the solid pieces together so essentially the major portions of the pyramid are all one enormous piece of stone. and that doesn't even factor in if they can insert sections of "framing" that are either metal, or stronger stone, like granite vs sandstone.

[glitterboy2098]

Also recent archeological investigations into various shafts in the great pyramid have revealed it likely has rooms and shafts we didn't know about prior. Some of which actually appear to have actual writing in them, something the main chambers and shafts we have explored do not. The main delay in exploring them is the need to do so without causing damage. Which meansd we will require special robots and the like

[Nightmask]

defense wise, the range on spells means that you're not using the ley line from the pyramid to defend yourself unless you've already lost the majority of your city. so practically speaking, it denies the ley line to everyone in the fight.

and if you've looked at how much actual open space there is inside a pyramid... yeah, you aren't fitting much in there. a few people might live in there, but not remotely all. and the flavour text is pretty clear about how the stone masters typically keep most of what rooms there are (hidden to the general populace) for their own personal use, as i recall.

you could certainly have the pyramid get used for rituals and such, but the simple fact of the matter is, if you settled on a ley line or nexus it was so that you could access it all the time. if you only want occasional access, you don't need to spend years building a pyramid, you just live nearby. then, just like you could go to the pyramid, you can just go to the nexus. except you didn't need to spend years building a giant paperweight that takes up all the space in your town and block off the use of the resource you specifically built your community to take advantage of unless they are physically on the pyramid to get that advantage, you just built your town, village, city, whatever, normally. and as i said, if you want to deny use of it, you just set up defenses that can deny the use of the area (and if you can't deny the use of the area, you couldn't have kept your enemies from just taking your pyramid anyways, so a pyramid wouldn't have helped any).

These are not the great pyramid which was never designed to hold much for space. There is quite a bit of space available if you have both magic users specialized in moving huge quantities of stone and molding it to their will + the PPE infused pyramid being a major mega damage structure so it can be a lot more hollowed out with a lot more rooms than anything constructed of normal stone could.

With a handful of stone masters + ley line or nexus + appropriate quantities of materials a pyramid is not a thing that takes years to build but probably on the order of weeks-months depending how fancy you want it to be and how large you want it. I won't spoil the RAW secrets of atlantis stuff but a lot of the splugorth type statue defense mechanisms powered by the pyramids have atlantean versions as well to help both offense and defense of cities.

while the great pyramid was built pretty solid (partially because it was a tomb, and an ego thing for the Pharos) especially with modern construction techniques there isn't any inherent reason you couldn't have a lot more properly supported and reinforced chambers inside.

the thing I can't remember right now is do the stone masters have the capability to "fuse" blocks of stone? because if they do then I could see them moving blocks into place shaping as desired then fusing the solid pieces together so essentially the major portions of the pyramid are all one enormous piece of stone. and that doesn't even factor in if they can insert sections of "framing" that are either metal, or stronger stone, like granite vs sandstone.

Considering it says they can fuse rock chips together into a single rock I would imagine they could make perfectly seamless pyramids where all the rock is fused into a single unit.

[Shark_Force]

according to the rifts setting lore, the pyramids of ancient earth aren't just random things that happen to look exactly like the pyramids that control ley lines. they *are* the pyramids that control ley lines. so actually, we should expect that the rifts earth pyramids are to a large extent pretty danged similar to egyptian pyramids.

and you could quadruple the amount of room inside the pyramids, you still aren't going to get enough space to put a city inside them.

(also, not exactly sure how you think these things are built, but they don't become MDC until they're done. which means, they need to be able to support their own weight as normal stone, not as a magical MDC structure which frankly doesn't really even have that much MDC for its size, and in fact probably has less MDC than the equivalent SDC a non-magical pile of rock would have)

and they shouldn't be built in no time at all. stone magic is described as being so rare that practitioners can pretty much name their price, and lord it over everyone else by basically claiming large parts of the pyramid as their own private property. i don't care if a stone master can lift heavy stuff, if it's one person building the danged thing alone, it is taking years of labour to shape every block (yes, even with their ability to shape it like clay), transport it, and arrange everything perfectly (the pyramids are made by placing perfectly shaped blocks in the perfect place, after all). that kind of precision doesn't come quickly, and none of this stuff is coming pre-fabricated.

[Blue_Lion]

Yes you may build on a ley line for access to its resources but that dose not mean you want any joe smoe using the resources. A pyramid gives the founding guild control over who can use the ley line.(mages guilds in rifts are about control of who has access to magic) It prevents attackers from using the ley line PPE to attack you. It means approved mages to access the pyramid can do high level magic easier than Tim the enchanter.


You actually get more PPE to use for high level spells from a pyramid than you do from a ley line.

Think about it the most PPE you can get from a ley line is to increase your PPE to 3X your base for PE minutes. So lets say your mage had a high base of 225 PPE three times that is only 675. The minimum PPE on a nexus for a pyramid is 500(200 for a ley line) that is in addition to normal ley line drawing of power available inside the pyramid. So the mage on a ley line or nexus has 675 ppe or at a pyramid on an nexus would be 1175 ppe or 875 at a ley line pyramid.

As to loss of ley lines power for defense to your mages. Mages are suppose to be rare that means what like 90% of your troops are not using there PPE the mages could use normal troops to recover PPE to keep casting low level combat spells. In non combat you can go to some crowded place in town steal PPE from mundane people for spells. at an averge of 7 PPE for adualt that would be 3 PPE per person sure not as fast as a ley line but you are not in a time crunch.

Now as to what spells you would use a Pyramid to cast to defend your city.
Rift triangular defense system cost 840 PPE range every thing inside the triangle of ley lines is protected.
Swallowing rift 300/150 PPE range 1 mile of a nexus.
Summon and control Storm 300 PPE range up to 10 miles of the caster. stops all air travel and limits ground movement with a rainstorm 1 hour per level of caster.
Use of circular walls around town to create a protection circle: superior 300 PPE to create 20ppe to activate. Good way to keep most super natural threats at bay.
Note most spells you would need the pyramids boost for are not primary combat spells.

That means with a skilled radar operator you could detect incoming air transports such as death head and set up a barrier to slow down attackers and any reinforcements to them at a range of 10 miles while allowing your troops to move in an area not covered by the storm to set up. Giving the fact that this buys time to respond to a CS attack and or evacuate your people before they are slaughtered I would say it is worth it for most magic cities in North America.
Note you could place secondary pyrmids at bases around your city on the ley lines to increase the range of such a defense.

[Axelmania]

defense wise, the range on spells means that you're not using the ley line from the pyramid to defend yourself unless you've already lost the majority of your city. so practically speaking, it denies the ley line to everyone in the fight.

Again: this depends on the size. A ley line is half a mile wide. A mile being 5280 feet that means ley lines are 2640 feet wide.

The largest class of pyramid is a minimum of 1100 feet high. Think of the base you could expect from that. The Great Pyramid of Giza was 481 feet high and has a 756 foot base. Based on that ratio you'd expect a base of 1728. But you could always go for a squatter pyramid with a wider base, or keep proportions and do a 2200 foot height and a 3457 foot base, at which point you are bringing access to 'on a ley line' class energy outside of the ley line itself, which is beneficial.

This is of greater benefit to a nexus which has a limited 2640x2640 area of benefit, while a ley line covers benefit its entire length which is lost... but that's good if it's lost to your enemies who might use the ley line against you.

and if you've looked at how much actual open space there is inside a pyramid... yeah, you aren't fitting much in there. a few people might live in there, but not remotely all. and the flavour text is pretty clear about how the stone masters typically keep most of what rooms there are (hidden to the general populace) for their own personal use, as i recall.

You have no idea how much open space exists inside an MDC pyramid. We can't make assumptions based on the designs of SDC pyramids which by their nature had to have more space dedicated to load-bearing.

Load-bearing may not be required at all if it is built by a magical community with access to 'Decrease Weight' spells and permanence wards. A pyramid may possibly be entirely hollow but for thin layer of brick forming the outside layers.

In fact... it should be entirely possible to cast a levitation or flight spell on a pyramid made weightless this way, allowing you to move it along a ley line as needed.

according to the rifts setting lore, the pyramids of ancient earth aren't just random things that happen to look exactly like the pyramids that control ley lines. they *are* the pyramids that control ley lines. so actually, we should expect that the rifts earth pyramids are to a large extent pretty danged similar to egyptian pyramids.

Pyramids built in ancient times didn't necessarily have MDC stone to rely on, so we shouldn't assume new-built pyramids must be built as solidly.

and you could quadruple the amount of room inside the pyramids, you still aren't going to get enough space to put a city inside them.

There are temporal wizards among Atlanteans. Think about how much apartment space you could save with the 'Dimensional Envelope' spell.

(also, not exactly sure how you think these things are built, but they don't become MDC until they're done. which means, they need to be able to support their own weight as normal stone, not as a magical MDC structure which frankly doesn't really even have that much MDC for its size, and in fact probably has less MDC than the equivalent SDC a non-magical pile of rock would have)

The pyramid could be stabilized through other means, like for example MDC ironwood planks, which you could then re-use to build the rest of the city once the pyramid is finalized and they can be removed.

and they shouldn't be built in no time at all. stone magic is described as being so rare that practitioners can pretty much name their price, and lord it over everyone else by basically claiming large parts of the pyramid as their own private property. i don't care if a stone master can lift heavy stuff, if it's one person building the danged thing alone, it is taking years of labour to shape every block (yes, even with their ability to shape it like clay), transport it, and arrange everything perfectly (the pyramids are made by placing perfectly shaped blocks in the perfect place, after all). that kind of precision doesn't come quickly, and none of this stuff is coming pre-fabricated.

They can start off with a small 200ft height pyramid and then expand it over time, rotating the inner blocks outward.

[Shark_Force]

if you can't keep people away from the ley line near your city, you also can't keep them away from your city. if you can keep them away from the ley line near your city, then you don't need a pyramid.

i don't give a crap how wide the ley line is. i care how wide the city is. if your city is big enough for you to handle a 1000 foot tall pyramid (and the effort involved in making one), it is big enough that the pyramid base is not remotely near the city's outer edge, and is therefore useless until your enemies are inside the city's boundaries. thus, until you've already lost your city, all you have accomplished is to deny the resources to everyone, including yourself.

once again, i must emphasize: those SDC pyramids ARE the MDC pyramids, in the rifts setting. we know exactly what an MDC pyramid will look like, because it looks exactly like the ones that exist in our real world, which are the pyramids that are used to control ley lines in the game. there is no distinction between SDC and MDC pyramids, with the exception of the time period during which the pyramid is being built and after it is finished. if the real life pyramids have only a tiny amount of open space, then that is what we should expect of the pyramids built in the rifts setting.

and the sheer absurdity of enchanting an entire pyramid with permanance wards is hilarious. are we supposed to assume the people bankrolling these things could afford to buy the entire CS nation several times over (if it was for sale) but instead would rather throw all their money into a hole in the ground because they don't want to walk to a ley line that cost them nothing to build, and instead would rather walk to a giant pointy building that costs them some unfathomable sum of money?

a dimensional envelope is tiny. i have a bathroom in my house that is probably bigger. the amount of space you can save by using dimensional envelopes is probably negligible, because people aren't going to spend their entire life in a walk-in closet where if they close the door for more than 2 hours they will die of suffocation (less if they want to actually have multiple people in the envelope, as an actual family).

there is no mystery about what the pyramids built with stone magic look like. because in the game, that's how the pyramids were built. pyramids built with stone magic look like the real life pyramids, because that's how the real life pyramids were built according to the game setting. there is no difference.

[Blue_Lion]

if you can't keep people away from the ley line near your city, you also can't keep them away from your city. if you can keep them away from the ley line near your city, then you don't need a pyramid.

i don't give a crap how wide the ley line is. i care how wide the city is. if your city is big enough for you to handle a 1000 foot tall pyramid (and the effort involved in making one), it is big enough that the pyramid base is not remotely near the city's outer edge, and is therefore useless until your enemies are inside the city's boundaries. thus, until you've already lost your city, all you have accomplished is to deny the resources to everyone, including yourself.

once again, i must emphasize: those SDC pyramids ARE the MDC pyramids, in the rifts setting. we know exactly what an MDC pyramid will look like, because it looks exactly like the ones that exist in our real world, which are the pyramids that are used to control ley lines in the game. there is no distinction between SDC and MDC pyramids, with the exception of the time period during which the pyramid is being built and after it is finished. if the real life pyramids have only a tiny amount of open space, then that is what we should expect of the pyramids built in the rifts setting.

and the sheer absurdity of enchanting an entire pyramid with permanance wards is hilarious. are we supposed to assume the people bankrolling these things could afford to buy the entire CS nation several times over (if it was for sale) but instead would rather throw all their money into a hole in the ground because they don't want to walk to a ley line that cost them nothing to build, and instead would rather walk to a giant pointy building that costs them some unfathomable sum of money?

a dimensional envelope is tiny. i have a bathroom in my house that is probably bigger. the amount of space you can save by using dimensional envelopes is probably negligible, because people aren't going to spend their entire life in a walk-in closet where if they close the door for more than 2 hours they will die of suffocation (less if they want to actually have multiple people in the envelope, as an actual family).

there is no mystery about what the pyramids built with stone magic look like. because in the game, that's how the pyramids were built. pyramids built with stone magic look like the real life pyramids, because that's how the real life pyramids were built according to the game setting. there is no difference.

How long is a ley line? I was under the impressions they can be of different lengths some 10s of miles long. So even if you can keep them away from your city you may not be able keep them away from the ley line.

Looking at the pyramid as solely a military asset is wrong. I pointed out spells that could be used from the pyramid to defend a town or city. They are not for direct combat support and controlling access to high level spells is a good thing. A pyramid will not stop a mage from casting most combat cast spell. A ley line is not the only source of PPE in a community. What the pyramid does for casting is allow a single mage to cast spells that normal require several do to PPE involved.

Most likely the towns mage guild will control the Pyramid and who has access to it. Uses for the PPE may varry but some non pyramid abilties could be enchanting and TW. TW devices can have PPE cost well above what a mage normally can have access to but still be within the range of what a pyramid provides. The lay out of Tolkeen was said to be fairly average for a magical kingdom and they made use of hybrid TW pyramids. (some things like the iron juggernots where said to be exclusive but the town was suppose to represent what you might expect.)

[Axelmania]

if you can't keep people away from the ley line near your city, you also can't keep them away from your city.

I'm not sure why you keep saying that. It is possible for me to secure a pyramid while not being able to secure an area of leyline miles away from it.

If you don't de-activate the ley lines then you could have people ley-line phasing right into your nexus base, building a pyramid on the nexus prevents that, and also prevents enemies using ley lines to boost the range of their attack spells as they approach from a distance, while you get the full benefit of the boosted range from your attack spells attacking from atop/within the pyramid.

i don't give a crap how wide the ley line is. i care how wide the city is. if your city is big enough for you to handle a 1000 foot tall pyramid (and the effort involved in making one), it is big enough that the pyramid base is not remotely near the city's outer edge

What's stopping you from building your city on top of the pyramid? Just use it as the ground. If people are having trouble walking up the incline you can make it a very low-angle pyramid, which would also cut down on the supplies needed to build it and how much weight you would need to support prior to its turning MDC.

We aren't actually told what the angle of the pyramid must be, no minimum or maximum. That gives a lot of design flexibility. We can get some ideas from existing pyramids (the Red Pyramid is 43°22') but you could probably design a pyramid with a 5 degree slope too, giving you an incredibly wide base compared to a 200 foot height pyramid with a higher slope. A pyramid with an 80 degree slope for example wouldn't be very wide at all, and very hard to built on or climb.

once again, i must emphasize: those SDC pyramids ARE the MDC pyramids, in the rifts setting. we know exactly what an MDC pyramid will look like, because it looks exactly like the ones that exist in our real world, which are the pyramids that are used to control ley lines in the game. there is no distinction between SDC and MDC pyramids, with the exception of the time period during which the pyramid is being built and after it is finished. if the real life pyramids have only a tiny amount of open space, then that is what we should expect of the pyramids built in the rifts setting.

Untrue, the SDC pyramids we know are the ones which were thick enough to survive while SDC.

If magic turned stone MDC back in the previous time of high magic the Atlanteans lived in (before their experiments wrecked it) they could have built pyramids differently, more spatiously, thinner walls, less support, because the MDC would have held up under much more abuse...

Then once the magic left, those pyramids would have promptly collapsed as the stone reverted to SDC, and the rubble probably would have been collected and recycled to make other buildings. There would not have been much rubble since it was built with little material to begin with.

and the sheer absurdity of enchanting an entire pyramid with permanance wards is hilarious. are we supposed to assume the people bankrolling these things could afford to buy the entire CS nation several times over (if it was for sale) but instead would rather throw all their money into a hole in the ground because they don't want to walk to a ley line that cost them nothing to build, and instead would rather walk to a giant pointy building that costs them some unfathomable sum of money?

There is only a cost if you rent out the service. An Atlantean clan only needs 1 summoner and 1 diabolist to get it done for free. A single ward can keep multiple spells on the same object active, so use it on 1 very large block you've stacked Reduced Weight spells on, now the block is weightless forever with a tiny demon bone in it.

a dimensional envelope is tiny. i have a bathroom in my house that is probably bigger. the amount of space you can save by using dimensional envelopes is probably negligible, because people aren't going to spend their entire life in a walk-in closet where if they close the door for more than 2 hours they will die of suffocation (less if they want to actually have multiple people in the envelope, as an actual family).

I was thinking they could be used where you would normally have clothes closets, dressers, perhaps bathrooms. You make a good argument against using it as a place to sleep in, unless you sleep in 1.5 hour shifts.

Then again: who says these people even bother with sleep? Meditating gives you twice as much rest and better PPE regeneration, and you can choose how long you do it for, so you could simply do it in an envelope and come out every hour to air the place out.

there is no mystery about what the pyramids built with stone magic look like. because in the game, that's how the pyramids were built. pyramids built with stone magic look like the real life pyramids, because that's how the real life pyramids were built according to the game setting. there is no difference.

We don't necessarily know that EVERY pyramid in the world was built with stone magic. They can be built the old-fashioned way too. Which pyramids explicitly were built that way in the book?

Looking at the pyramid as solely a military asset is wrong. I pointed out spells that could be used from the pyramid to defend a town or city. They are not for direct combat support

I think the ley line storm is a great direct combat support thing. As a stone master I think I'd prefer doing that to wrecking expensive gems.

[Blue_Lion]

What is the point of the quote on what I said. A ley line storm is not direct combat support as it does not attack or protect specific, It is a indirect area denial obsitical. But please tell me what you said has to do with not looking at a pyramid solely as a military asset. Most uses for it are not going to be done in a fight.

[kaid]

if you can't keep people away from the ley line near your city, you also can't keep them away from your city. if you can keep them away from the ley line near your city, then you don't need a pyramid.

i don't give a crap how wide the ley line is. i care how wide the city is. if your city is big enough for you to handle a 1000 foot tall pyramid (and the effort involved in making one), it is big enough that the pyramid base is not remotely near the city's outer edge, and is therefore useless until your enemies are inside the city's boundaries. thus, until you've already lost your city, all you have accomplished is to deny the resources to everyone, including yourself.

once again, i must emphasize: those SDC pyramids ARE the MDC pyramids, in the rifts setting. we know exactly what an MDC pyramid will look like, because it looks exactly like the ones that exist in our real world, which are the pyramids that are used to control ley lines in the game. there is no distinction between SDC and MDC pyramids, with the exception of the time period during which the pyramid is being built and after it is finished. if the real life pyramids have only a tiny amount of open space, then that is what we should expect of the pyramids built in the rifts setting.

and the sheer absurdity of enchanting an entire pyramid with permanance wards is hilarious. are we supposed to assume the people bankrolling these things could afford to buy the entire CS nation several times over (if it was for sale) but instead would rather throw all their money into a hole in the ground because they don't want to walk to a ley line that cost them nothing to build, and instead would rather walk to a giant pointy building that costs them some unfathomable sum of money?

a dimensional envelope is tiny. i have a bathroom in my house that is probably bigger. the amount of space you can save by using dimensional envelopes is probably negligible, because people aren't going to spend their entire life in a walk-in closet where if they close the door for more than 2 hours they will die of suffocation (less if they want to actually have multiple people in the envelope, as an actual family).

there is no mystery about what the pyramids built with stone magic look like. because in the game, that's how the pyramids were built. pyramids built with stone magic look like the real life pyramids, because that's how the real life pyramids were built according to the game setting. there is no difference.

You seem to ignore the fact that the pyramids on earth are mostly designed as simple tombs with limited number of rooms and not designed to ever be accessed again after the internment happens. The tombs could have had a great deal more rooms than they actually have but they don't because that was not their intended purpose. They were not designed to be lived in/used/accessed on a daily basis they were portals to the afterworld and really gigantic tombstones for pharos.

Also for stone masters the initial creation of the pyramid and it being energized is simply step one. For stone masters the cutting/shapping/setting up of the basic pyramid would not take very long. Most of the work would come after with all the fiddly bits and setting up rooms/internal features. If they wanted to given how stone masters work they could set the whole thing up as totally solid initially and then make all the rooms/tunnels after the fact when the stone is now fully MDC which could allow for some interesting structures.

In a game landmark which is a building game I had some fun doing weird pyramids. One design that can work if the exterior stone is strong enough is basically set it up and then totally hollow out the inside. Where the walls basically are one or two layers deep. It made for very airy open structures inside that had a ton of room for multiple levels/rooms. You could never do that with normal stone because it simply would never support the weight but once it is transformed into MDC it is very possible.

The outside of the pyramids will look like the pyramids of egypt but due to the function and uses atlanteans put their pyramids to do not expect the insides to look anything like them.

[kaid]

Also remember most of the pyramids we see on earth would not have been the original atlantean ones. Those were on their continent and the other people to have the tech the lemurians still have theirs in their cities. The pyramids we see were either remnants after the magic began to fail or had failed trying to do what they could with regular stone and physical labor to open a door to get out. What you can do without stone magic and pyramids turning into MDC structures when powered up and what you can do if that is not possible are pretty different.

[Library Ogre]

I'd also say that the pyramids of Rifts Earth are not the pyramids of real Earth, simply because the pyramids of real Earth aren't magically created beacons which control ley line nexuses, but tombs for dead people. The Pyramids of Rifts Earth are magically created ley line modulators that happen to have been turned into tombs.

[kaid]

One other note is as per rifts Atlantis the pyramid palace of splyn has thousands of inhabitants in addition. To handling thousands of visitors per day as well as having the chambers of one really big splugorth

[Axelmania]

What is the point of the quote on what I said. A ley line storm is not direct combat support as it does not attack or protect specific, It is a indirect area denial obsitical. But please tell me what you said has to do with not looking at a pyramid solely as a military asset. Most uses for it are not going to be done in a fight.

OCC ability 8 on page 105 of Atlantis

The mage can then control and direct the storm's movement (limited to traveling along connecting ley lines) and all of the storm's effects/powers/damage (can turn them on and off, select specific effects, and direct energy blasts at specific targets/individuals)

The section on Ley Line Storms on Atlantis page 12 has a lot of stuff I would consider useful in combat. For example:

1. denying PPE to enemies at connecting ley lines
2. choosing how to distort ANY magic cast within the storm (normally a random roll) ...
a) completely negating any magic used by enemies, or making it go 'completely wrong' so the GM chooses a different effect
b) inflicting 2D6 dmg and losing an action when enemies use magic
c) doubling the range/damage of magic used by allies
3. throw 'massive ley line energ bolt':
a) normal victims lose 3 actions/4-24 PPE/ported 40-240 yards away
b) true creatures of magic like elementals and alien intelligences lose all attacks for the round/10-60 PPE/take10-40MD
4. Open dimensional rifts at will (81-00, last option on table)
5. inflict Euphoria (31-55) no save, won't attack until attacked (take them out one at a time), half combat bonuses, lose an attack
6. strand non-fliers in the air (01-15)
7. make 60mph Rolling Thunder, makes anyone lose all actions in the round and fall down
8. all existing portals close (great if enemies are invading by portal)
9. all illusions vanish (goodbye invading Warrior Horde)
10. halve all psionics (nice if there's more psychics in the enemy than you) and they're all -1 to strike making it harder for them to called shot you behind the cover of your pyramid

One other note is as per rifts Atlantis the pyramid palace of splyn has thousands of inhabitants in addition. To handling thousands of visitors per day as well as having the chambers of one really big splugorth

page 37, true, although I guess you could argue that this could mean 2000 Lasae.

It's also unclear if he inhabits the top in his 12 foot tall 25 foot diameter form. He has the natural ability to possess others, the psionic ability to mentally possess others, and 'all spells' means he could metamorph into a human or other small creature to visit the pyramid. He certainly has the PPE for it.

He's also not THAT big... I think we tend to exaggerate his size in our minds due to the awesome pictures and how strong he is. For contrast, a Glitter Boy Killer power-armor is 2 feet taller than him.

They don't list a height that I can see but do mention ti's the tallest in the city so if we can find some other building's height we'll at least know a minimum to work from.

[kaid]

What is the point of the quote on what I said. A ley line storm is not direct combat support as it does not attack or protect specific, It is a indirect area denial obsitical. But please tell me what you said has to do with not looking at a pyramid solely as a military asset. Most uses for it are not going to be done in a fight.

OCC ability 8 on page 105 of Atlantis

The mage can then control and direct the storm's movement (limited to traveling along connecting ley lines) and all of the storm's effects/powers/damage (can turn them on and off, select specific effects, and direct energy blasts at specific targets/individuals)

The section on Ley Line Storms on Atlantis page 12 has a lot of stuff I would consider useful in combat. For example:

1. denying PPE to enemies at connecting ley lines
2. choosing how to distort ANY magic cast within the storm (normally a random roll) ...
a) completely negating any magic used by enemies, or making it go 'completely wrong' so the GM chooses a different effect
b) inflicting 2D6 dmg and losing an action when enemies use magic
c) doubling the range/damage of magic used by allies
3. throw 'massive ley line energ bolt':
a) normal victims lose 3 actions/4-24 PPE/ported 40-240 yards away
b) true creatures of magic like elementals and alien intelligences lose all attacks for the round/10-60 PPE/take10-40MD
4. Open dimensional rifts at will (81-00, last option on table)
5. inflict Euphoria (31-55) no save, won't attack until attacked (take them out one at a time), half combat bonuses, lose an attack
6. strand non-fliers in the air (01-15)
7. make 60mph Rolling Thunder, makes anyone lose all actions in the round and fall down
8. all existing portals close (great if enemies are invading by portal)
9. all illusions vanish (goodbye invading Warrior Horde)
10. halve all psionics (nice if there's more psychics in the enemy than you) and they're all -1 to strike making it harder for them to called shot you behind the cover of your pyramid

One other note is as per rifts Atlantis the pyramid palace of splyn has thousands of inhabitants in addition. To handling thousands of visitors per day as well as having the chambers of one really big splugorth

page 37, true, although I guess you could argue that this could mean 2000 Lasae.

It's also unclear if he inhabits the top in his 12 foot tall 25 foot diameter form. He has the natural ability to possess others, the psionic ability to mentally possess others, and 'all spells' means he could metamorph into a human or other small creature to visit the pyramid. He certainly has the PPE for it.

He's also not THAT big... I think we tend to exaggerate his size in our minds due to the awesome pictures and how strong he is. For contrast, a Glitter Boy Killer power-armor is 2 feet taller than him.

They don't list a height that I can see but do mention ti's the tallest in the city so if we can find some other building's height we'll at least know a minimum to work from.

Actually I don't think you could assume 2000 laseea as it pretty clearly talks about the security forces of for splynn being high lords/power lords and the like for troops. Also as showing it is clearly not like an egyptian pyramid it clearly references that Splynns chamber is at near the top of the pyramid. Spluggorth are not small so even a room just barely big enough to hold him indicates a very large chamber near the smallest part of the pyramid.

Actually we know he does physically enter the pyramid because it talks of him taking up residence specifically in a few areas.

Even if the chamber is just barely big enough to hold him and only one single room because clearly a giant alien intelligence would not want more than one room in his palace that he could go into that is still a pretty sizable room in an area no earth pyramid has rooms of any size.

[Blue_Lion]

What is the point of the quote on what I said. A ley line storm is not direct combat support as it does not attack or protect specific, It is a indirect area denial obsitical. But please tell me what you said has to do with not looking at a pyramid solely as a military asset. Most uses for it are not going to be done in a fight.

OCC ability 8 on page 105 of Atlantis

The mage can then control and direct the storm's movement (limited to traveling along connecting ley lines) and all of the storm's effects/powers/damage (can turn them on and off, select specific effects, and direct energy blasts at specific targets/individuals)

The section on Ley Line Storms on Atlantis page 12 has a lot of stuff I would consider useful in combat. For example:

1. denying PPE to enemies at connecting ley lines
2. choosing how to distort ANY magic cast within the storm (normally a random roll) ...
a) completely negating any magic used by enemies, or making it go 'completely wrong' so the GM chooses a different effect
b) inflicting 2D6 dmg and losing an action when enemies use magic
c) doubling the range/damage of magic used by allies
3. throw 'massive ley line energ bolt':
a) normal victims lose 3 actions/4-24 PPE/ported 40-240 yards away
b) true creatures of magic like elementals and alien intelligences lose all attacks for the round/10-60 PPE/take10-40MD
4. Open dimensional rifts at will (81-00, last option on table)
5. inflict Euphoria (31-55) no save, won't attack until attacked (take them out one at a time), half combat bonuses, lose an attack
6. strand non-fliers in the air (01-15)
7. make 60mph Rolling Thunder, makes anyone lose all actions in the round and fall down
8. all existing portals close (great if enemies are invading by portal)
9. all illusions vanish (goodbye invading Warrior Horde)
10. halve all psionics (nice if there's more psychics in the enemy than you) and they're all -1 to strike making it harder for them to called shot you behind the cover of your pyramid

One other note is as per rifts Atlantis the pyramid palace of splyn has thousands of inhabitants in addition. To handling thousands of visitors per day as well as having the chambers of one really big splugorth

page 37, true, although I guess you could argue that this could mean 2000 Lasae.

It's also unclear if he inhabits the top in his 12 foot tall 25 foot diameter form. He has the natural ability to possess others, the psionic ability to mentally possess others, and 'all spells' means he could metamorph into a human or other small creature to visit the pyramid. He certainly has the PPE for it.

He's also not THAT big... I think we tend to exaggerate his size in our minds due to the awesome pictures and how strong he is. For contrast, a Glitter Boy Killer power-armor is 2 feet taller than him.

They don't list a height that I can see but do mention ti's the tallest in the city so if we can find some other building's height we'll at least know a minimum to work from.

So basically indirect combat support area denial.

[eliakon]

What is the point of the quote on what I said. A ley line storm is not direct combat support as it does not attack or protect specific, It is a indirect area denial obsitical. But please tell me what you said has to do with not looking at a pyramid solely as a military asset. Most uses for it are not going to be done in a fight.

OCC ability 8 on page 105 of Atlantis

The mage can then control and direct the storm's movement (limited to traveling along connecting ley lines) and all of the storm's effects/powers/damage (can turn them on and off, select specific effects, and direct energy blasts at specific targets/individuals)

The section on Ley Line Storms on Atlantis page 12 has a lot of stuff I would consider useful in combat. For example:

1. denying PPE to enemies at connecting ley lines
2. choosing how to distort ANY magic cast within the storm (normally a random roll) ...
a) completely negating any magic used by enemies, or making it go 'completely wrong' so the GM chooses a different effect
b) inflicting 2D6 dmg and losing an action when enemies use magic
c) doubling the range/damage of magic used by allies
3. throw 'massive ley line energ bolt':
a) normal victims lose 3 actions/4-24 PPE/ported 40-240 yards away
b) true creatures of magic like elementals and alien intelligences lose all attacks for the round/10-60 PPE/take10-40MD
4. Open dimensional rifts at will (81-00, last option on table)
5. inflict Euphoria (31-55) no save, won't attack until attacked (take them out one at a time), half combat bonuses, lose an attack
6. strand non-fliers in the air (01-15)
7. make 60mph Rolling Thunder, makes anyone lose all actions in the round and fall down
8. all existing portals close (great if enemies are invading by portal)
9. all illusions vanish (goodbye invading Warrior Horde)
10. halve all psionics (nice if there's more psychics in the enemy than you) and they're all -1 to strike making it harder for them to called shot you behind the cover of your pyramid

One other note is as per rifts Atlantis the pyramid palace of splyn has thousands of inhabitants in addition. To handling thousands of visitors per day as well as having the chambers of one really big splugorth

page 37, true, although I guess you could argue that this could mean 2000 Lasae.

It's also unclear if he inhabits the top in his 12 foot tall 25 foot diameter form. He has the natural ability to possess others, the psionic ability to mentally possess others, and 'all spells' means he could metamorph into a human or other small creature to visit the pyramid. He certainly has the PPE for it.

He's also not THAT big... I think we tend to exaggerate his size in our minds due to the awesome pictures and how strong he is. For contrast, a Glitter Boy Killer power-armor is 2 feet taller than him.

They don't list a height that I can see but do mention ti's the tallest in the city so if we can find some other building's height we'll at least know a minimum to work from.

So basically indirect combat support area denial.

combined with an artillery attack that is deadly to spell casters.
Oh, and they can open rifts at will, and since they are in control by extension they can open them to where they want... like to places with reinforcements.

Sounds like a pretty potent strategic weapon. But yeah, it doesn't do much for the 1v1 duel... but if your fighting a war, you want strategic weapons and tactical weapons not just some infantry plinkers

As for size... the body itself is about the size of an average house...

[Axelmania]

Actually I don't think you could assume 2000 laseea as it pretty clearly talks about the security forces of for splynn being high lords/power lords and the like for troops.

The Pyramid's security need not reflect the trends of the rest of the city. "Splynncryth's minions" is pretty open-ended, the hierarchy on page 43 mentions below the Elite Classes that dragons are on the next rung, and 'supernatural allies' below that. Splynncryth might feasibly employ dragon hatchlings shapeshifted into cats to patrol narrow corriders in his pyramid.

Also as showing it is clearly not like an egyptian pyramid it clearly references that Splynns chamber is at near the top of the pyramid. Spluggorth are not small so even a room just barely big enough to hold him indicates a very large chamber near the smallest part of the pyramid.

Splynncryth can shapeshift into a smaller form with his magic if he wanted to, but even in his natural form, a 12 foot ceiling on that room is going to give some widening space to reach the needed diameter.

Plus his personal chambers are only "near the top" so he might actually have other rooms above his for smaller minions to do stuff.

Looking at the Kevin Long illustration on 36 'near the top' could simply mean his chambers are above the height parallel to the top of that statue of a guy on the right building holding a ring in his left hand.

So basically indirect combat support area denial.

No, you could kill people with the free ley line bolts alone if you needed to. At the same time you're waylaying them and making them more vulnerable to allies, but a stone master could do the job alone if they needed to.

[kaid]

So we are going with splynn can only inhabit his pyramid transformed into a mouse with his elite polymorphed cat guards. I agree that clearly makes the most sense given the descriptions of the pyramid palace in two different source books.

[glitterboy2098]

something to keep in mind for those of you arguing about internal space. the Pyramids at giza are not our only examples in the rifts books. far more numerous are the mesoamerican style pyramids, which are of a completely different design, yet offer the exact same benefits as the egyptian style in the game.
(mesoamerican pyramids were built by the Aztecs, Mayans, Purépechans, Teotihuacan's, Toltec's, Zapotecs, and a bunch of others)

mesoamerican style pyramids are generally step pyramids, which indicates the outside shape is variable to a degree. (it is worth rememberign that underneath their smooth sided decorative cladding, the egyptian pyramids are "step" designs as well)

and mesoamerican pyramids are absolutely riddled through with passages, hallways, and large chambers, with a few exceptions. (the smallest ones tend to be solid. the big ones are filled with chambers and passages) they are practically hollow in some cases. the biggest ones take this to an extreme degree since they are often built over a succession of smaller pyramids, each that had their own passages and chambers. (which continued to see use after the bigger structure was built over them, in quite a few cases) and every mesoamerican pyramid has a completely different internal layout. (also worth noting that the egyptian pyramids all have different internal layouts as well)

given their outward similarities to the mesoamerican and egyptian step pyramids, the Ziggurats of the ancient mesopotamian cultures probably count as well.

so it is clear that Pyramids are not limited to copying the existing IRL buildings, but can be built with several different visual styles, at widely variable sizes, and with highly variable internal layouts. it is likely the only issue with interior spaces would be ensuring the greater structure of the pyramid isn't compromised. so if Splynncryth or another builder wanted a bunch of big halls in theirs, they could likely do it without ruining the powers of the pyramid. especially if they greatly expanded the size of the pyramid.

heck, you could probably fit an entire city into and on the slopes of a pyramid if you made the pyramid large enough. would look a bit like the city of Minas Tirath in LoTR most likely (and as i recall, this is practically what the Lemurians do with their flying cities, though they have additional smaller pyramids as well. and the UWW build's starbases inside theirs and puts them into orbit!)

[Axelmania]

So we are going with splynn can only inhabit his pyramid transformed into a mouse with his elite polymorphed cat guards. I agree that clearly makes the most sense given the descriptions of the pyramid palace in two different source books.

I'm only saying that's a possibility. Based on the artwork I'd say there's plenty of room for Splynncryth in a near-the-top room.

Even going with him at full size and stretching out his tentacles (50 feet each, expanding his main body diameter from 25 feet to being 125 feet across) let's consider a "pyramid inside a pyramid" situation when thinking about a large top room.

IRL the "Red Pyramid" is 344 feet high and has a 722 foot base. Plenty of room to stretch out!

Looking at the stats on page 104, this would merely be a "Medium" pyramid, 300-500 feet tall.

In all likelyhood, Splynncryth's pyramid is going to be the best possible, over 1100 feet tall, so he is guaranteed at least 200,000 MDC of protection from it, instead of a pathetic 10,000.

So that means, if Splynncryth's personal chambers were around the size of the Red Pyramid (let's say 400 high, taking into account some thick ceilings) with a 1100 foot tall pyramid (minimum height required for 'Huge' classification) he's still going to have over 700 feet worth of pyramid below him to let his minions use.

The Kevin Long illustration initially made me think the Pyramid was small because of the guy on the upper-right. Until I realized that wasn't a guy, it's a giant statue of a guy. The actual people are the tiny little shadow-specks on the ground below. That's being in the foreground too, they'd be even speckier if you moved them into the background where the pyramid is.

We also have a new illustration of the Imperial Palace of Splynncryth on page 43 of Splynn Dimensional Market (World Book 21). You can see some aircraft flying near it looking quite specky too.

Here's the terrifying thing I just noticed on 44's left column...It is a "tiring journey of nearly two miles" to get from the middle of the Pyramid the Dimensional Market outside of it.

Also, on page 10 we are informed that the SDM is 200 square miles or 520 square kilometers. Page 44's right column says "its shadow touches every corner" as time passes.

Page 42 specifies that the pyramid is located OUTside of the SDM. This means that we can't visualize this as the pyramid covering half the radius of the market at a time, the shadow actually has to span the entire diameter.

So plugging some stuff into http://www.convertalot.com/circle_solver.html an area of 200 means a Diameter of 15.957691216057308

So the pyramid is large enough to cast a shadow nearly 16 miles away...

Admittedly the physics of "how far do shadows go" is something I don't fully grasp... like in theory you go from casting a 0-length shadow with sun directly overhead to an infinite-length shadow with sun directly horizantal... but for a 'shadow' to exist light has to be cast on un-covered adjacent areas to contrast with it, and that ceases to happen once the Earth itself is blocking the sunlight from hitting the pyramid in the middle and going past it on the sides. At http://planetcalc.com/1875/ even a 5-height object projects a 10577.85 shadow length at 5:00 so maybe it's not saying much...

Except that we're not just talking length, but also the height of the market, but even then all that means is it's the tallest building, which we already know. In theory a 10 foot flatpole casts a shadow over every 9 foot building around it... except there has to be some kind of finite point where the concept of shadow no longer makes sense because of blurring light and light not curving with the surface of the Earth...

Like essentially you kind of add functional height to buildings for this purpose the further they get from the shadow-caster until they're functionally taller than the origin and don't get a shadow cast on them, because you actually need to surpass the height of both the building plus the earth it sits on with a horizantal angle.

I guess assuming the Market is circle-shaped could be wrong though. It could be ALMOST a circle (getting the benefit of being in shadow with less pyramid height) so long as it didn't completely enclose the Pyramid.

Using some unicode from http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode ... s/list.htm maybe the divide is something like ◴ between Pyramid and Market?

something to keep in mind for those of you arguing about internal space. the Pyramids at giza are not our only examples in the rifts books. far more numerous are the mesoamerican style pyramids, which are of a completely different design, yet offer the exact same benefits as the egyptian style in the game.
(mesoamerican pyramids were built by the Aztecs, Mayans, Purépechans, Teotihuacan's, Toltec's, Zapotecs, and a bunch of others)

mesoamerican style pyramids are generally step pyramids, which indicates the outside shape is variable to a degree. (it is worth rememberign that underneath their smooth sided decorative cladding, the egyptian pyramids are "step" designs as well)

Good point, I found myself instinctively thinking about a smooth hard-to-build-on surface, constructing a building to sit on top of a step pyramid would be much easier.

Speaking of orbital space-pyramids in the UWW, they'd probably be easy to move around in zero-gravity, just need to deal with inertia and momentum.

[kaid]

Given that pyramids give the extra ley line/nexus bonus if you are inside or on top of the pyramid makes me wonder why atlanteans seem to favor the more egyptian style smooth sided pyramids. The lemurians seem to favor the stepped ziggarut model and that seems like it increases the usable area a bit which are described in the lemuria book as having a lot of stuff inside them as well as using the terraces as gardens/work areas.

[glitterboy2098]

actually i'm not sure that we're ever told what the Atlantean's prefer. i'd have to read the different entries on the various communities to see if they mention which variety for each.

the Splugorth seem to prefer egyptian style, albeit of a more massive size, but that may be due to different use.. they aren't using them to support a city per se, rather to control dimensional traffic and who can use the ley lines.

and it is possible that the splugorth tendancy to put their activities inside the pyramid's in chambers means they go for the smooth sided design, which in theory would give you the most internal volume to work with.

[Axelmania]

I don't know if they would though, they're well-capable of establishing external magical barriers, I'd rather not rely on the pyramid's MDC (last resort) so you could use it as a tool.

[Blue_Lion]

The space on the inside of a pyramid does seam to be capable of being almost hollow, this can be proven in phase world where one of the factions uses space pyramids as space stations with high crews.

[kaid]

I don't know if they would though, they're well-capable of establishing external magical barriers, I'd rather not rely on the pyramid's MDC (last resort) so you could use it as a tool.

At this time currently no but *cough*secrets of atlantis*cough* that may be changing soon.

[eliakon]

The space on the inside of a pyramid does seam to be capable of being almost hollow, this can be proven in phase world where one of the factions uses space pyramids as space stations with high crews.

It does appear to be, quite literally the pyramid SHAPE that is important (that a structure with four sides that slope up to a single point and is flat on the bottom.) If you have the materials to make a stone pyramid with out having to be solid (like oh... you are not using stone age technology, granite and limestone) then there appears to be no reason to make a pyramid like that.

[Library Ogre]

The space on the inside of a pyramid does seam to be capable of being almost hollow, this can be proven in phase world where one of the factions uses space pyramids as space stations with high crews.

It does appear to be, quite literally the pyramid SHAPE that is important (that a structure with four sides that slope up to a single point and is flat on the bottom.) If you have the materials to make a stone pyramid with out having to be solid (like oh... you are not using stone age technology, granite and limestone) then there appears to be no reason to make a pyramid like that.

It's not unreasonable to make a pyramid like that when you have stone masters, and energizing the thing makes it MDC.

[Jorick]

CG and KS answered my prayers!

It wasn't in the raw edition, but the preview on DriveThruRPG for the new Atlantean book shows clarification regarding some aspects of pyramid ley line control.

Relevant to my queries: ley line use is limited only 5 miles from a pyramid. If a pyramid is on a Nexus, use of the Nexus is not limited ( though the lines are). This squares with the idea that magic cities are well served by pyramids, and the advantages of a Nexus are not lost to them. And the crazy long lines from mexico (or wherever) are not affected, for the most part, by the pyramid on them.

I'm super excited for the book in general!

[SereneTsunami]

I am as well. Thanks for the heads up on the prefiew being posted.

[kaid]

CG and KS answered my prayers!

It wasn't in the raw edition, but the preview on DriveThruRPG for the new Atlantean book shows clarification regarding some aspects of pyramid ley line control.

Relevant to my queries: ley line use is limited only 5 miles from a pyramid. If a pyramid is on a Nexus, use of the Nexus is not limited ( though the lines are). This squares with the idea that magic cities are well served by pyramids, and the advantages of a Nexus are not lost to them. And the crazy long lines from mexico (or wherever) are not affected, for the most part, by the pyramid on them.

I'm super excited for the book in general!

Also interestingly enough it looks like the crystal magic/stone magic/earth warlocks/earth fusionists are not impaired by even the five mile limitation and can use the line normally. Which would slant things towards the defender as well as atlanteans have more crystal magic users and stone magic users than most others.

[glitterboy2098]

interesting. seems like a decent compromise between WB2's "controlling the leyline" and the need to avoid setting-breaking side effects.