Fade town?

[Thom001]

Hey all, I was trying to look back through the books but cant seem to find it, so I'm asking here. What is a fade town?

[ShadowLogan]

Fade Town...

Can be found in WB16 (IIRC) and WB20. Basically they are communities/geographic spots that fade in-out of the world, it might be out of phase (essentially ghosts) or universe (think classic Star Trek Episode "Tholian Web" with the Defiant and Kirk).

[Eagle]

Like the old movie Brigadoon.

Most of the time, when you go to where the town should be, there's just an empty field (or a forest, or whatever the surrounding terrain is). But sometimes, when the stars align or whatever the particular conditions for that location happen to be, suddenly there's a town there. If you're in the town when the conditions end, you and the town go... somewhere else. Everything fades out and the town does not return until the next time it's supposed to be back. It will be in some other realm in the meantime.

So you and your buddies are travelling across Rifts Earth. You set up camp for the night, and you fall asleep looking up at the moon, which is almost full. When you wake up, there's a town in the valley below you. You didn't think you saw a town the night before, and you're pretty sure you would have noticed. So you go down and talk to the people. They seem pretty normal, and you're in the mood for some rest and relaxation, so you hang around town for a few days. You stay at the inn, drink at the bar, have relations with some of the town ladies, etc. After a couple of days, the people start asking if you're going to be leaving that evening or if you plan on staying a lot longer. They phrase the question a little weird and you're not really sure what they mean, but it makes you feel odd. Some of your friends want to get one more good solid drunk going that night, but you're restless and can't really sleep. You wake up early (like 3 in the morning) and you go for a long walk outside of town for a few hours. You watch as the moon begins to set, no longer full and now beginning to wane. As the sun starts to rise, you walk back to town and find merely an empty valley. All traces of the town are gone. Where the town (and your friends) went, you do not know. That's when you realize this was a fade town. You hope that the place will return in 30 days, with the next full moon. You hope it isn't tied to some other event (like reappearing once a century), because then it may be a very long time before you see your friends again.

That's a fade town.

[Thom001]

those sound cool, has any of you guys ever used/made one?

[drazool]

Well no, but now I'm gonna!

[eliakon]

those sound cool, has any of you guys ever used/made one?

Yes, I love them to bits.

I have used one as a form of "world jumper" for a game once. The party stumbles across an abandoned town, there are signs it was attacked and raided... but there is no sign of the raiders at all out side the town itself. Turns out that town was a fade town that shifted every night of the full moon at midnight. When it shifted it would go...someplace it hadn't been before. The party was in the town when it shifted the first time and the campaign was trying to figure out how to get back home, or deciding if they wanted to, while trying to unravel the mystery of the town and hopefully figure out the pattern of its jumps.
It allowed for adventures to be all over the place with out needing to have portals every where and people could bring their mounts and vehicles and what not each time... and then decide if they were going to use it this time or not.

It was a fun game and in the end the group ended up figuring out the secret, defeating the true raiders and settling down in the town with a bunch of NPCs that the party had accumulated from a dozen worlds to be the new towns inhabitants.

[taalismn]

I have the entire island of Martha's Vineyard as an effective 'fade island'. Most of the time, the community's out of phase with Rifts Earth, but can be accessed via dimensional gateways from other universes, but once a year, during the summer solstice, the island fades into place where there's usually open ocean off Cape Cod. During the 24 hours of vulnerability, the island security and resident mages go to high alert, because of the 'damned summer folk'...Splugorth, Horune, and other nasties, who might be lurking nearby, waiting.

[Thom001]

I have the entire island of Martha's Vineyard as an effective 'fade island'. Most of the time, the community's out of phase with Rifts Earth, but can be accessed via dimensional gateways from other universes, but once a year, during the summer solstice, the island fades into place where there's usually open ocean off Cape Cod. During the 24 hours of vulnerability, the island security and resident mages go to high alert, because of the 'damned summer folk'...Splugorth, Horune, and other nasties, who might be lurking nearby, waiting.

That is crazy, but basically what you are saying is as long as i stick to the guts of it I can alter fade towns to fit what I want?

[taalismn]

I have the entire island of Martha's Vineyard as an effective 'fade island'. Most of the time, the community's out of phase with Rifts Earth, but can be accessed via dimensional gateways from other universes, but once a year, during the summer solstice, the island fades into place where there's usually open ocean off Cape Cod. During the 24 hours of vulnerability, the island security and resident mages go to high alert, because of the 'damned summer folk'...Splugorth, Horune, and other nasties, who might be lurking nearby, waiting.

That is crazy, but basically what you are saying is as long as i stick to the guts of it I can alter fade towns to fit what I want?

Oh yeah....you can have time change rates when they're in phase, have them effectively 'on ice' as it were, or have them flicker between universes as you will. Have fun with the idea! Maybe the towns are used as refuges or the equivalent of timed-vault safe deposit boxes by people, or maybe bandits are waiting to pounce on a town when it fades back into reality, figuring the natives will have NO awareness of what's waiting for them and no time to prepare to defend themselves. Maybe the town is used as a prison, ala The Phantom Zone, or a supersecret thinktank for some magic kingdom.