Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

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Ace, TW
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Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by Ace, TW »

Is there a playable “lich”-like RCC anywhere in Rifts?

The closest thing I have in my books ( and I have almost all of them) is a Nightbane with a hand picked Morphus with a skeleton look.

That, or we just kitbash one up ourselves.

The player wants to RP someone who has no memory prior to just waking up one day as a minor MDC undead skeleton Ley Line Walker.
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by taalismn »

I did create an SDC species of fungoid beings who resembled skeletons...I can dig that out(maybe) if there's interest.

A little adjustment and it could be made MDC....
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by drewkitty ~..~ »

There is a alien race in the HU2:AU book that sort of look skeleton-ish.
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by Killer Cyborg »

Ace, TW wrote:Is there a playable “lich”-like RCC anywhere in Rifts?

The closest thing I have in my books ( and I have almost all of them) is a Nightbane with a hand picked Morphus with a skeleton look.

That, or we just kitbash one up ourselves.

The player wants to RP someone who has no memory prior to just waking up one day as a minor MDC undead skeleton Ley Line Walker.


HU2 has rules for making an Undead Mega-Hero, I believe.
That might help.

You could also just go with "experiment by a mad necromancer or god" and make up your own thing.
Might use zombies or mummies as a base for physical stats, but then allow the person full mental attributes rolled as normal, and go with some low-level MDC base instead of SDC.
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ShadowLogan
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

Oni (WB8) have random chance to have skeletal features, though you won't have much in the way of magic options. Phaseworld and Heroes Unlimited (IIRC) have skeletal options in their alien tables.

Land of the Damned 2: Eternal Torment (PF2E) has the Bone Fiend (and a few other undead) that might fit the bill (I don't recall if they are NPC only or not), and even if they do not there is always the Mortification Curse (it is in play for a Skeletal Fire Dragon). You don't necessarily have to use the Mortification, you could use a Deific Curse that turns someone into a skeletal being.

Necromancy (WB5/BoM) has a spell to transfer essence into a skeleton (and one to turn you into Vampire), but you have issues of duration and the spell cuts off magic/psionic access.

PF has the Mummy Immortalus (Monsters & Animals, might be elsewhere to) which sounds like it would fit the bill and is based on a Necromantic Spell of Legend.

Scarecrow (CB1r) isn't really skeletal, but it can take a magic OCC. There is also the Shale Bogle (sp?) found in DBoNA (WB30) that might fit the bill for looks, but are limited in magic OCC selection.

There are several undead races I can think of in various World Books for Rifts, but they are for NPCs only. Insectoid races might also fit the bill in giving them that Skeletal look, but off hand I can't think of any (check the previous tables mentioned along with WB30), so would rogue experiment with the Robot RCC and transferred intelligence or proper selection of Bionic parts/body-frame (magic/psionic powers are an issue).
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Kraynic
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by Kraynic »

Not sure if it exists in the 2E version, but the 1E Monsters & Animals book has the Syvan which is a half-zombie (the left half if I remember right). It would definitely take some tweaking to fit your purposes though, since it is primarily psionic in the original form.
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ShadowLogan
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

Kraynic wrote:Not sure if it exists in the 2E version, but the 1E Monsters & Animals book has the Syvan which is a half-zombie (the left half if I remember right). It would definitely take some tweaking to fit your purposes though, since it is primarily psionic in the original form.

I don't know about PF books, but the Syvan does appear in Rifts Conversion Book 1 Revised (RCB1r).
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by drewkitty ~..~ »

Ace, TW wrote:Is there a playable “lich”-like RCC anywhere in Rifts?

The closest thing I have in my books ( and I have almost all of them) is a Nightbane with a hand picked Morphus with a skeleton look.

That, or we just kitbash one up ourselves.

The player wants to RP someone who has no memory prior to just waking up one day as a minor MDC undead skeleton Ley Line Walker.

*puts on my OCD Grammar Nazi Hat*

I am pretty sure you are really asking: Is there a playable “lich”-like Race anywhere in Rifts?
RCCs are a class that is specific to a race or is a class all individuals of a race have to have at start of play.

Nightbane....there are two ways to see what NB are, and both are very much exclusive of each other. They are ether the wraiths of the formless ones as implied in the 1st four NB books. Or they are just Human Mutants as implied in the NBSG and later books. However, calling them an RCC is not in line with what RCCs are: ether a Race or Mutant Humans. The classes they have to take are RCCs.
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*takes off OCD Grammar Nazi hat*

As to the 'undead wizard' idea, the closest thing in the PB canon to this "Idea" is the life-force wizard. While not "Undead" they do feast off of the life force of others
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by Curbludgeon »

Thanks for reminding me the word kitbashing exists, Ace! I have a soft spot for terms which incorporate blunt force.

One could base something off of the Dead and Damned of the Chinese Yama Hells. While most are terribly prone to distraction it's not necessarily the case, and on page 15 of China 1 it talks about some Damned being systematically defleshed. The rare examples that aren't S.D.C. convert the sum of HP and S.D.C. into M.D.C..

An "optional" approach would be to have the character the amnesiac victim/subject of a Necro-Tech, as detailed in Rifter 13. The class is a cross between a Technowizard and Necromancer and creates, among other things, Necro-Tech Bionics which for the most part don't impede magic or psionics. While only limbs are given examples this character could, essentially, be a Full Conversion Necro-Tech Cyborg Ley Line Walker. Note that they would be giving up some amount of P.P.E. and/or I.S.P., but they do have the advantage of being arguably not susceptible to effects affecting the Animated Dead or beings like the Chinese Damned. The potentially lower level of P.P.E. could be offset with Talismans or the "official" Necromantic equivalent Siphon Component (Rifter 62 page 43), with the latter being suggestive of the character perhaps temporarily jamming organs within themselves, or their bones having onboard capabilities. For example, their left ulna could be enchanted as a removable Bone Scepter.

Assuming the spell Fragile Bone to M.D.C. Bone was used (in addition to Shape Bone to perhaps hide any wires or other components involved in construction, and Bone & Joint Bonding) the 'Borg character would have ~80 M.D.C..
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by AceTW »

ShadowLogan wrote:Necromancy (WB5/BoM) has a spell to transfer essence into a skeleton (and one to turn you into Vampire), but you have issues of duration and the spell cuts off magic/psionic access.


This is probably where we would go with this.

After doing some more reading there is also a Life Essence Crystal in the Wormwood dimension book which lets someone transfer their intellect and any psionics into a replacement body. Our play group allows Wormwood artifacts to exist off of Wormwood itself. This method is somewhat thin about retaining magic casting abilities after a transfer though.
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ShadowLogan
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

AceTW wrote:
ShadowLogan wrote:Necromancy (WB5/BoM) has a spell to transfer essence into a skeleton (and one to turn you into Vampire), but you have issues of duration and the spell cuts off magic/psionic access.


This is probably where we would go with this.

After doing some more reading there is also a Life Essence Crystal in the Wormwood dimension book which lets someone transfer their intellect and any psionics into a replacement body. Our play group allows Wormwood artifacts to exist off of Wormwood itself. This method is somewhat thin about retaining magic casting abilities after a transfer though.

The necromancy option could be made permanent via a Permeance Ward from Diabolisim, removing the duration limit. Perhaps used in conjunction with a Ward phrase to allow access to magic/psionic?

There is an NPC mage presented in the SoT series (#6 pg103-5, Denwyn Ironheart) series that transferred into a Golem and still retained their magic casting abilities (at penalty due to it being an Iron Golem), and to boot he is/was a Ley Line Walker. No one is quite sure how this happened (Warlocks can do this with appropriate Spell). So theoretically you could have a Golem shaped body that is skeletal in appearance, and via some means was transferred into the Golem (a TW working with the appropriate Warlock could do it, maybe with memory loss as a side effect).
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by drewkitty ~..~ »

If you are going to make a custom alien race for yourself....

There are the humanoid Aliens making tables in HU1, HU2, and HU:AU.

And the random monster tables in PF2: LOTD 1.
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Re: Sentient Skeleton “RCC”?

Unread post by Curbludgeon »

In lieu of a Permanency Ward Soulcrafting has a Permanency ritual, which in this case can be used on a Pseudo Life skeleton before a Transfer Soul effect. Alternatively, while a Flesh Golem has flesh in the name nothing in the spell description suggests an animate skeleton wouldn't suffice.
Note that this method requires more than a little blood sacrifice.
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