Alaska on Rifts Books

[SolCannibal]

Pretty much what says in the title - got this weird bug of an idea of russians crossing from Siberia to Alaska once more during the centuries of chaos and maybe settling an extra warlord/sovietski-lite territory in the area, but would like to know if the books say anything on Alaska or neighboring regions like British Columbia & Yukon, first.

I'm guessing Warlords/Mystic Russia and Canada might be the books to check first for anything, but if people can point out any other less obvious references, cool.

[Jorick]

Canada, as you say, is what you want for information about Alaska in the books. Lot's of the facts are presented as "in Northern Canada and Alaska..." or something like that. The presence of and movement of organizations and creatures, etc. The Inuit have a strong presence in Alaska. The Cyber Horsemen of Ixion are the cool thing in BC with some wandering into Alaska.

Canada mentions that Russian demons are present in northern North America (pg. 170, 173), so your idea that there is movement between the two continents has support (and the Russia books are therefore useful). GM Guide also states that a few Russian Weapons "make heir way to Alaska," pg. 159.

Pg. 176 has a short "story idea" about True Atlanteans (a clan that may or may not have arrived there after the original destruction of Atlantis, and possible related plot hooks).

Here's some other stuff.

Spirit West: Arctic, Subarctic and Northwest Tribes, pg 19-21. Totem Warriors can be found there, pg. 42 (though I assume the northern tribes are as outfitted as any other, so any other class could be found there too). "Fort Alaska," pg. 208-- the only Alaskan population center described in the books, very briefly...but it has art!

DBees of North America: Aviane, pg. 31. Blucies, pg. 36. Cyber Horsemen again, pg. 51. Kraks, pg. 109. Mastadonoid (also from Canada), pg. 134. Sasquatch (Canada), pg. 173. Shale Bogles, pg. 179, are rumored to live there.


It was fun looking for Alaska stuff. I like Alaska.

[SolCannibal]

Thanks a bunch Jorick for the references - i'm going to have a real hell of a time with all this stuff and then some.

[Jorick]

Thanks a bunch Jorick for the references - i'm going to have a real hell of a time with all this stuff and then some.

No problem. You really just need Canada and the Russia books for your idea. Spirit West gives a bit more you cold use, but there's plenty of Inuit info in Canada.

There really isn't much about specifically about Alaska anywhere, other than that it's even more demon infested than most places nearby due to more frequent demon storms (ley line storms that puke out demons, detailed in the Canada book). You could make a whole new Warlord empire and not mess with canon much, or at all.

[SolCannibal]

Thanks a bunch Jorick for the references - i'm going to have a real hell of a time with all this stuff and then some.

No problem. You really just need Canada and the Russia books for your idea. Spirit West gives a bit more you cold use, but there's plenty of Inuit info in Canada.

There really isn't much about specifically about Alaska anywhere, other than that it's even more demon infested than most places nearby due to more frequent demon storms (ley line storms that puke out demons, detailed in the Canada book). You could make a whole new Warlord empire and not mess with canon much, or at all.

Or accounting for it as a demon-infested place due to demon storms, a monster-kingdom sort of like Calgary, or even both of these, warlord and demon forces struggling against each other and a whole bunch of more nomadic groups as allies, enemies or both depending on occasion.

[Zer0 Kay]

Pretty much what says in the title - got this weird bug of an idea of russians crossing from Siberia to Alaska once more during the centuries of chaos and maybe settling an extra warlord/sovietski-lite territory in the area, but would like to know if the books say anything on Alaska or neighboring regions like British Columbia & Yukon, first.

I'm guessing Warlords/Mystic Russia and Canada might be the books to check first for anything, but if people can point out any other less obvious references, cool.

Ther is no land bridge. It is deeper under water than it was before.

[Zer0 Kay]

Pretty much what says in the title - got this weird bug of an idea of russians crossing from Siberia to Alaska once more during the centuries of chaos and maybe settling an extra warlord/sovietski-lite territory in the area, but would like to know if the books say anything on Alaska or neighboring regions like British Columbia & Yukon, first.

I'm guessing Warlords/Mystic Russia and Canada might be the books to check first for anything, but if people can point out any other less obvious references, cool.

Ther is no land bridge. It is deeper under water than it was before.

[Zer0 Kay]

Canada, as you say, is what you want for information about Alaska in the books. Lot's of the facts are presented as "in Northern Canada and Alaska..." or something like that. The presence of and movement of organizations and creatures, etc. The Inuit have a strong presence in Alaska. The Cyber Horsemen of Ixion are the cool thing in BC with some wandering into Alaska.

Canada mentions that Russian demons are present in northern North America (pg. 170, 173), so your idea that there is movement between the two continents has support (and the Russia books are therefore useful). GM Guide also states that a few Russian Weapons "make heir way to Alaska," pg. 159.

Pg. 176 has a short "story idea" about True Atlanteans (a clan that may or may not have arrived there after the original destruction of Atlantis, and possible related plot hooks).

Here's some other stuff.

Spirit West: Arctic, Subarctic and Northwest Tribes, pg 19-21. Totem Warriors can be found there, pg. 42 (though I assume the northern tribes are as outfitted as any other, so any other class could be found there too). "Fort Alaska," pg. 208-- the only Alaskan population center described in the books, very briefly...but it has art!

DBees of North America: Aviane, pg. 31. Blucies, pg. 36. Cyber Horsemen again, pg. 51. Kraks, pg. 109. Mastadonoid (also from Canada), pg. 134. Sasquatch (Canada), pg. 173. Shale Bogles, pg. 179, are rumored to live there.


It was fun looking for Alaska stuff. I like Alaska.

Newest print (present at POH) still had reference to preserves but had section removed

[Zer0 Kay]

I've been trying to write a manuscript for it since 2009 when Kevin said he'd be interested in seeing it.
Have:

Fortress J-Bear with cryo stored soldiers.
Elemental Lords (creature greater than greater elementals)
Elemental war
Elemental Storm
Auroras being atmospheric leylines and rifts
Urayuli
Spell weaving on the fly magic
Fort Alaska actually named Fort Alyeska by native discoverers, who only gained access to top 1/3 of base, is actually a base ship for a multinational military alliance (rather than NEMA's paramilitary alliance) comprised of USA, Germany, England, Japan and Israel and is the construction site of the Ticonderoga. Still contains contains 4 sister ships.
Elemental Bears... not the care bears
Tectonic entity possessed glitterboy manufacturing plant
Coalition golden age technology recovery unit
2 heavy aircraft
gunship
attack AV
Orbital dropship
Nanite armor suit
2 Mobile Tank Suit (giant robot)
Transformable Sub attack fighter
Transformable Sub fighter
Modular loadout transformable transatmospheric supercav fighter
Orbital cargo transport
Skinwalkeresque class
Transfered intelligence nanite mass artificial skinwalkeresque class
Insane Transfered intelligence nanite mass artificial skinwalkeresque class
Mostly for flavor an a man made leyline that follows the pipeline within can be seen dinosaurs walking the line.
A natural archeology made by an elemental lord to protect the natives from which the spell weavers come.

Problem is I'm hanging difficulties writing up the fluff which, in a few cases, is causing me problems with writing the crunch.

[Incriptus]

Non-Canon

My Mercenary Group originated in Alaska. They had a nice little city/state going on until they got over-run by a group of demon/monsters that were immune to energy. The cities defenders had to fall back on old mothballed tech, in particular the equivalent of Golden Age Weaponsmiths and Wellington Industries. Eventually the defenders were able to defeat the invaders but the city was lost. With nothing left they decided to travel to the old american empire to see what was happening back home ...

That said I kind of like the idea of a relatively low M.D. tech human enclave, with one particularly unique technology. I went with Endoskeletal Replacement [See HU Power's Unlimited 2]. As the Russian's went heavier and heavier into combat bionics, the American's decided to go the exact opposite way [Likely out of spite] and started to work on a fully covert 'borg. This technology was being pioneered out in Alaska.

[Curbludgeon]

The Kezel, depicted in Rifters 42, 58, & 59, are described as living in Alaska. It's not listed as official, for whatever that's worth.

[SolCannibal]

The Kezel, depicted in Rifters 42, 58, & 59, are described as living in Alaska. It's not listed as official, for whatever that's worth.

Must admit i'm completely unfamiliar with them. what's their schtick exactly?

Ah, just managed to grab Rifter 42 and check it. I liked the Kezel, but the first thing that strikes me is that the background given for their people does not mesh well with Alaska - or Rifts Earth for that matter - actually.

It implies both their dispersal/dilution through a major human population, most of them hiding out their abilties, even from their mixed blood descendants, out of their diminishing reliability and a fear of native people's reaction to them. This on itself points out to a place far more settled than Alaska, northern Canada or Siberia, where it would be ridiculously simple for a group of Kezel to hide out on their own and maintain their comunity and traditions out of most locals' sight.

The other thing, the one that i think clashes with the idea of their presence on Rifts Earth, is the part about a recent upsurge of magic energies getting their abilities back in full swing and leading to the Bestowed communities starting a big search for the Lost mixed across the mass of humanity through the decades or centuries. That bit of lore would go pretty fine with a Chaos Earth, Dead Reign or Nightbane context and could be fit to one's version HU, BtS or even Palladium with a little tweaking (some region, not the world going through ley line upsurge or somesuch). But Rifts Earth? Really not meshing at all.

Will either completely cut that background or relocate them to some other area of my Rifts Earth, probably. Kind of tempted to make them into a servant race of Wothancrellyth, the rogue Splugorth from Pantheons of the Megaverse hiding out in Iceland, just because.

Though inserting them into HU (one manages to find a volcanic area with lots of ley lines and does a sort of "Magneto in Genosha" thing), Nightbane or BtS (a secret society of Bestowed seeking out the Lost, one of self-taught Lost that found each other and made up utterly ludricous ideas about their origins or possibly both) games does sound tempting too.

[Curbludgeon]

I largely agree, and since Alaska is only mentioned once in passing it's easy enough to ignore. Were I to use the Kezel in a game, I think I'd make them the descendants of Lemurians that didn't try to either escape after the fall of Atlantis or settle underwater. Rather, they adapted their available remnants of Stone Magic and Biomancy into maximizing personal PPE generation via sensitivity to and manipulation of natural phenomena, and came to terms with how their interactions with fauna would become necessarily more exploitative. I'd still keep them as a group somewhere along the Ring of Fire, both to go along with the volcanic origins and to allow interactions between Kezel and returned Lemurians, who would likely view the Kezel as dangerous and unrefined cousins.

[SolCannibal]

I largely agree, and since Alaska is only mentioned once in passing it's easy enough to ignore. Were I to use the Kezel in a game, I think I'd make them the descendants of Lemurians that didn't try to either escape after the fall of Atlantis or settle underwater. Rather, they adapted their available remnants of Stone Magic and Biomancy into maximizing personal PPE generation via sensitivity to and manipulation of natural phenomena, and came to terms with how their interactions with fauna would become necessarily more exploitative. I'd still keep them as a group somewhere along the Ring of Fire, both to go along with the volcanic origins and to allow interactions between Kezel and returned Lemurians, who would likely view the Kezel as dangerous and unrefined cousins.

That could work for certain, though the backstory as a whole makes me think of them as Chaos Earth recent arrivals, though fitting them anywhere else in time thanks to some momentary mass dumping through rift opening can certainly work - and should, for those fitting them as already in hiding in HU or BtS-style settings.

Oh yeah, After the Bomb too, specially Mutants in Avalon that has some magic among other stuff, would make another good locale to fit them into.

As an aside, Greenland and Iceland while not in the Pacific (the Lemurians' usual stomping grounds) per se, are large mostly uninhabitated landmasses with a climate similar to Alaska and high volcanic activity. Any one of these could become a second Atlantis in the right or wrong hands i think.

[SolCannibal]

Funny how things are, that in 4-5 months i would so completely forget a topic - one i started myself - it took a random search for unrelated stuff tto bring me back here to remember. Damn shame. Guess it's about to get these gears working again.