Dead Reign/Minion Wars tie-in question. SPOILER ALERT!

[DtMK]

I'm currently running a 'beta' Dead Reign game for friends, there's enough from the Rifter #40 I can use as a template, but make it a different experience until the core book comes out. However, I was wondering if there might be a possible tie-in with the Minion Wars books?

Case in point, and SPOILER ALERT! If you are looking forward to Dead Reign and don't know about Rifter #40's preview and don't want to spoil it for yourselves, stop reading now.

Are they gone? Ok. The zombie apocalypse is brought upon thanks to gene therapy and a spell supplied by Brulyx, a demon lord who tried to enter Earth, but was locked out. However, in Dead Reign, Brulyx's forces can come in with the heightened magical nature for that Earth, not to mention energy given to Brulyx by his followers.

From what I can gather, Brulyx is as large a potential threat as the Nightlords as to be dimensionally locked out thousands of years ago. And I also look at the fact that he's a Demon Lord. Being a demon, I imagine him having some loyalties, or at least connections to the demons of Hades in the Minion War. After all, there are supposed to be numerous nether realms, including one featuring the demons in the Nightbane series. What if the entire world, and Brulyx's demonic forces could be an important Megaversal power that, if combined with the Hades forces, could alter the course of the Minion War with two demonic realms against Dyval?

And yes, I know that from LotD 1: Chaos Lands covers other dimensions, including the other natives being used on either the Demon or Deevil sides. I'm sure that these other dimensions will be tapped, and used for reinforcements as well, but could Brulyx and his forces be a pivotal force that could swing the tide of the Minion War? This is the way I'm running my game for now. I was just wondering if anyone else had any thoughts or input on this possibility.

[DtMK]

Thank you Josh, now you both made my anticipation for the Minion Wars and DR book all the greater, and happy to know I'm on the right wavelength. I was already planning on a few Hades tie-ins, as well as the monster creator in Chaos Lands to help me make some unique baddies until the books come out.

I've also looked at the FRIGHTENING possibilities of any kind of Mega-villain combined with Brulyx turning them into Damned Immortals a la Mystic China. The first ability is HP tripling, and SDC multiplying X5. Make them a Mega on top of that...you have a dangerous human minion! And until Armageddon Unlimited comes out, I can only improvise the kinds of things they're talking about. Hint hint Palladium, FEED OUR FANBOY NEED! Please?

[Spinachcat]

DtMK, you got your Hilden in my Gleba!

This is the most interesting discussion of Dead Reign I have seen. Please keep us updated about your home campaign. And Josh, DR is sounding quite cool and I am looking forward to the release. I have been wondering how DR is going to be more than just "another zombie RPG" aka how will it compete vs. All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

BTW, when the game is released, someone should do a AFMBE vs. DR review on the various RPG boards so people can see why DR is worth a look. Not something that puts down AFMBE, but simply a "If you like zombies and AFMBE, here's why DR is worth your cash"

[Danger]

Interesting...very interesting...

[DtMK]

Thanks for the interest guys, although my game currently deals with mature subject matter. Nothing with sex...well, there IS the thing about Supernatural PS and such, but that's minor. I'll post about it later, but it IS safe to say that my version and dimension of Dead Reign is a single world in a MUCH larger scope of conflict!. I'm using my game as filler until both the Minion Wars and DR books come out. In the meantime, some of the characters are getting visions of the scope. In my game, the Hells are having an easier time at war, because so too are the heavens.

Things hinted about in Pantheons of the Megaverse have come to pass in my game. Freya, goddess and wife of Odin has been discovered in a dimension adjacent to Hades. Drugged with a strange concoction, her mind addled and seething with a hatred of men. After months of confinement in Asgard, the truth has been discovered. Freya and Zeus have had an affair, and Hera was the one that had attacked Freya, taking her mystic necklace as well. And what's worse, whether by enchantment or by some twisted desire for revenge, Hera has apparently fallen in love with...a Splugorth.

Asgard and Olympia prepare to wage war. Ragnarok looms imminent on the horizon, as the calendar counts down to the end of 2012. It is a time of change, death, rebirth and new legends to fill the voids of heroes and new immortals. The Earth of Dead Reign is but a small cog in the Megaversal machine. And as the heroes in my game advance, other legends are whispered of. In Japan, there is a vision of a child of the Gods arriving to answer their prayers. But will he be well received when he arrives in a starship, and looks like the alien race known in the Three Galaxies and not on Earth as the Oni?

Strange Black Ships and flying ships with a great skeletal maw have been found at sea, and rumors have been reported of a strange port for these ships, a city that is partially submerged within the Japanese Triangle. Bizarre demons have been reported in China, and mystic sensitives have had visions of a young child as their target. Is it possible this child is not only a Living Spell, but a Pathway to the interdimensional city of Shambhala? And what is the rumor that this mystic city may have a plant that could cure the walking dead, a White Rose?

And what of Manhattan? This city has become overrun as the rest of the world, with some reports telling of strange ghosts also filling the wireless web. But the most recent and strangest report comes in from the Greek communities of the Boroughs...Have the Olympians come to answer their prayers? Hades looks frightening and looming, drawing the life out of the zombies with a touch. Could they really be the gods of old, and why do they keep asking about the Federal Reserve as payment for their services?

Still other reports seem to contradict one another. Many report that the Z-Virus only affects humans, but new, stranger forms of the undead have begun to manifest, and some reports say that there are indeed animals that are becoming infected in the heartland of the U.S. Is this sorcery, or someone playing god with Eugenics?

More to come later, but I have a HUGE scope in mind for this game. My players are probably the only superhumans on the planet, so their mission is a large one. And all this until the books come out to fill the Megaversal gaps. Hint hint!

[DtMK]

I've had an interesting idea of one demon, working with a Japanese dragon, I believe the name is Shidome Kido-Mi, who can train beings in martial arts powers. Imagine one working with a Deathless One demon from Mystic China, training him and an unusual following of lesser demons in exchange for services...Rabblers! Imagine a more confident, militarized group of Rabblers trained in Chi-Gung, so they're tougher and more bold than their usual caste. Should be interesting when encountered.

[DtMK]

It's been a while since I've updated this post, and with the release date of Dead Reign finally announced at the end of this year, I can't wait to see not only the undead and rest of their world, but the forces behind the Z-Virus revealed. My heroes are currently having their hands full. Let's just say for lacking of time right now that my zombie apocalypse game is turning into a look into the cosmic scope of this world's events. More to come later.

[AlexM]

The majority of the zombies are not quite your typical type. What I really found fascinating is that the book will give readers a zombie-eye view of the world. There will be a small number of other types of Zombies, making it far more varied and challenging. The death cults and Retro-Savages also factor into the mix. Zombies have taken over the world but the reason(s) they came into existence are not 100% certain, although hints and clues are given. There are no plans to give a final definitive answer.




Alex Marciniszyn,
Editor

[DtMK]

Just curious, how much of this is what you've decided to do with your game, and how much of this is what is "canon" for the Dead Reign game? Interdimensional beings, demons, "Brulyx", etc.

Dead Reign sounds cool, but I'd rather have a zombie game without an elaborate back story or supernatural elements all spelled out- I say leave the reason for the zombies up to the GM. Could be supernatural, but could also be a plague, mutation, etc.

I'm not a rifts players. Who is Brulyx?

Good questions. Basically I've been running with what was published in the Rifter #40. My friends came to me wishing to have a game where they explored and eventually made their own nation, either by stringing together oil rigs and salvaged ships into a floating island, or finding their own islands, or even finding a lost place like Atlantis or Lemuria. When they told me, that, I had what I thought was an interesting setting to start them on.

Inspired by things like Mutants in Orbit or the USS Ticoderoga in the Rifts timeline, these stated that these vessels and players were already underway when the cataclysm happened. And with things at sea with a loose synopsis of the world to play with until the main book came out, I decided to go on a scale much larger than was originally foreseen.

The characters were Arthur Connelly, a Natural Genius(Powers Unlimited 2) who had converted a floating oil rig into a floating power station. See http://forums.palladium-megaverse.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=89330&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=rpg+green for my idea. Also on board is Jing Mei, a young lady from China who is incredibly sharp for her age, a master of linguistics and holistic medicine. In actuality, she is a hatchling Chiang-Ku who acts as the ship's translator and doctor.

The next parts get a little more mature in content. Not of a sexual nature, but where religion is involved. Cesar Cross is a man who trained in seminary, and knows his way around guns. Cody Sullivan, a young martial artist and friend to Arthur both act as the core of security. They were preparing to disembark when Cody returned from getting supplies, but on that day, the Wave hit. And aided by a man named Dr. Po, Cody reunited with his crew, and a few of them were given a special alchemical potion(see Mystic China) that helped to bring about their true potentials.

Here's where it gets touchy. For the record, the following is NOT a knock at religions in any way, but used as a fictional topic for role play. When Po reveals he knew Cody in another life, he says he MIGHT have the key to helping people. This is when Cesar revealed that he was trained as a Dark Slayer of the Knights Templar(see Nightbane book 4: Shadows of Light), and was Cody's Watcher. Why? Because Cody was a member of a VERY special bloodline! If you check out the Da Vinci Code, you might get an idea. After taking the Liquid Light, he was artificially elevated to the status of Demigod, and given mutant powers, including Divine Healing, and being the ONLY person who could cure someone bitten by a zombie and not fully turned. Cesar was awakened as a Necrosis(once again, see Shadows of Light).

The crew have had other players, including an alien Super-Spy observing Earth and a human whose disbelief in the supernatural was accelerated by another Liquid Light dose and made into a Nega-Psychic, also among the few on Earth now impervious to the Z-Virus.

I've gone to some weird places, but these are the only beings that could count as superhuman heroes on the entire planet out to sea, trying to find answers and exploring, finding unthinkable things like ships being attacked by giant crabs(a school of 1-2 level Emperor Crabs from Nightbane book 2: Nightlands), helping a Thinker zombie smuggler captain of a ship with refugees from China, fighting demons, discovering curses on some of their bloodlines, finding out that magic isn't only real, but some spells could come ALIVE, helping Demon Quellers and Demon Hunters in Japan, fighting strange entities, bearing witness to a supposed god answering a prayer at Mt. Fuji, fighting waves of demons in Hong Kong searching for a young boy who was really a living spell(See Nightbane book 3: Through the Glass Darkly) that was a Pathway to the legendary city of Shambhala, undergoing spiritual trials and visions of possible futures, getting a bush and seeds of the legendary White Rose, the one possible cure for the disease if administered within a year of infection, told of a device of interest at the Randolph Family Mansion(See Beyond the Supernatural 1'st edition), and of a portal to another world that could have a special fertilizer that can accelerate the growth of plants a hundredfold. But this also leads to a connection of a being known as the One Who Sleeps in the Astral Plane, and Cesar believes that by making a deal with this force, he could make a place for both his human and Necrophim people(See Between the Shadows for more on the Necrophim and One Who Sleeps).

So yeah, I'm straying from canon here. But at the same time, I've shown the players that even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, there is still hope, still wonder, and there are more than one world, one dimension that is under siege. In my game, it is not only a time for heroes, but new legends to rise, and old ones to die, or be reborn.

The game is actually the wildest, and most successful I've ever ran, and one of the most epic in scope I've ever been involved with. While everyone else is struggling to survive, there are stories, legends at sea of Black Ships, and supposed heroes that sound like something out of a comic book. If they're real, where are they? Is there any real hope? Or are these just stories made up by people on the radio to take our minds off of the moaning outside your temporary places of safety?

Being at sea and traveling gave me a lot of wiggle room to play with until the main book comes out. At worst, I'll say it was an alternate Dead Reign world where Brulyx(see Rifter #40) is using that earth as a more active staging area, with more heavily demonic forces at work, and my current PC's having to stave off the possibility of things getting even WORSE than a zombie apocalypse.

I know it might sound crazy, and even overwhelming at first. But at the same time, it works. The scope is to show the players in my game that with great power not only comes responsibility, but consequences for one's actions. And that they have the greatest weight on their shoulders, the potential to save not only an entire world, but more than one. And to be beacons of hope in a time and place that needs it the most.

[Princedarkstorm]

Wow !Just waiting in Las Vegas for the game and I loved the info from the RIFTER sneak preview !
I want to see more !
Zombies do not creep me out !

[DtMK]

Just had another game session last night, I'll have to start posting about it in another thread. When I started this one, I was curious as to the demonic tie-in to the Minion Wars series. But yes, this game is HIGHLY anticipated by myself and friends!

[Princedarkstorm]

DtMK,Please tell us about your game ?

[DtMK]

Seeing as how the core game has changed from the Rifter #40, I'll post more about my game in another thread when I find the time. But MAN, it's gone into a whole new level! Demon planets, powers from Mystic China that could redeem its soul, aliens and Necrophim, a cataclysmic battle and the discovery of an astral kingdom, along with the time dilation of the plane compared to Earth. More to come soon, but I think Madhaven is no longer the largest source of the White Rose in the Megaverse....

[Princedarkstorm]

Cool!