Rifts: Rise against the Splugorth

Creating your character

This campaign opens with player characters as enslaved prisoners in the Slave Pits of the Splugorth. Slavery, captivity, dehumanisation, and the commodification of sentient beings are central to the setting premise and are not avoidable background elements. They are the starting condition. This material is handled with full seriousness and without glamorisation. This is not a content warning for atmosphere. It is a factual description of where the story begins. Players who do not want to engage with this premise should not book this campaign. Full content warnings are in the Safety section below. Session Zero is mandatory. The starting premise requires a full table conversation before a single character is built. We will establish together how your characters were taken, what they were before Atlantis, and what they want after. The connections between player characters matter from session one. You are not strangers thrown together by circumstance. You survived the pits together. That history is built at Session Zero. Available character options draw from the Savage Rifts core line and the Atlantis and the Demon Seas sourcebook. True Atlanteans are available and carry the full weight of their lore: the tattoo magic, the Millennium Trees, the grief of a people who came home to find their continent occupied. Dragon Hatchlings are available for players who want to engage with the draconic presence on the continent. All standard Savage Rifts Iconic Frameworks and MARS packages are open. The lore authorities at this table are Rifts World Book Two: Atlantis and The Splynn Dimensional Market sourcebook. The Savage Rifts Atlantis and the Demon Seas module is the mechanical engine. Where they conflict, the World Books are final. I own every Palladium Rifts World Book ever published, and it shows at the table. Bring a concept, a reason your character survived long enough to matter, and an answer to one question: what does getting out mean to you? The rest we build together.

Preparing for the session

Players need a Foundry VTT account and a Discord account. I pay for all Foundry hosting and provide every other material you will need. Savage Rifts runs on Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. If you have played any Savage Worlds game before, the core loop is familiar. The system uses a die-type ladder from d4 through d12 and a Wild Die that gives player characters a safety net in critical moments. Combat is fast, lethal, and rewards creative thinking over optimised builds. If you have not played Savage Worlds, it is one of the most teachable systems on the market and I will walk you through it at Session Zero. What Savage Rifts adds is the Iconic Framework system, which replaces character classes with archetypal power packages drawn from the Rifts setting. Your Glitter Boy is not just a character with a big gun. Your Ley Line Walker is not just a wizard. The frameworks carry setting weight as well as mechanical weight, and we will talk through what yours means in the context of Atlantis specifically. This campaign runs on Foundry VTT with Automated Animations for visual effects: Bio-Wizard technology, tattoo magic activation, Kittani energy weapons, Splugorth tentacles. The table looks like the setting feels. The campaign begins as soon as the table fills. Current session times are listed above.

What Yuthika 'Fey' brings to the table

A GM who has lived in this setting since it launched. I own every Palladium Rifts World Book ever published and have collected them since they first dropped in 1990. I have been running Rifts in various forms for decades. The Splugorth and the True Atlanteans are not setting research for me. This is a library I have lived in for decades. Voice acting across every NPC. I am a professional voice actress with anime and video game credits. Every Kittani arms dealer, every Blind Warrior Woman, every Splugorth intelligence your characters encounter has a distinct voice. The aliens at this table sound alien. Practical effects experience behind the body horror. I spent years as a costume designer and VFX artist on NBC's Grimm and taught foam latex, silicone prosthetics, and stage makeup blending on the convention circuit. When I describe what a Bio-Wizard modification looks like or what the Tattoo Masters leave behind, those descriptions come from someone who has built creature bodies with her own hands. A teaching GM with thirty-four years behind the screen. I hold a PhD in Psychology and work professionally as an educator. Savage Worlds is teachable and I will teach it. The setting is vast and I will navigate it. New Rifts players are welcome. A Foundry production built for this campaign specifically, because nothing purpose-built for Rifts exists yet. Custom animation work layers JB2A assets onto the Automated Animations stack, tuned to the Splugorth aesthetic. Base effects will be live by the first session, with new effects added as the campaign develops: Ley Line Walker workings, Glitter Boy railgun impacts, Bio-Wizard modifications, Rift energy tears. If you have seen a well-modified Lancer table, that is the standard Atlantis is being built to.

Homebrew rules

This campaign runs the Savage Rifts core line as written: Tomorrow Legion Player's Guide, Tomorrow Legion Field Manual, Game Master's Handbook, Savage Foes of North America, Arcana and Mysticism, and Atlantis and the Demon Seas. Where the Savage Rifts adaptation diverges from original Palladium lore, the World Books win. That affects setting detail, faction behaviour, and the specifics of Splugorth society, not player-facing mechanics. Your character sheet works exactly as the Savage Worlds books say it does. Homebrew character options are welcome, and Rifts fans can go wild here. Give me the World Book number and the OCC, RCC, or PCC entry you want, and we will convert it together before Session Zero. The bar is simple: it makes sense in the context of Atlantis and it does not break the table.

How Yuthika 'Fey' creates a safe table

Your safety matters. This campaign begins with player characters as enslaved prisoners. Slavery, captivity, coercion, dehumanisation, and alien exploitation of sentient beings are not background elements. They are the starting premise. This material is handled with full seriousness, without glamorisation, and with the understanding that it carries real-world weight that does not disappear because the context is science fantasy. The premise is captivity. The campaign is what you do about it. This is a story about defiance, not an exercise in misery. Session Zero is where we establish exactly how the table engages with this material. Hard limits set there are respected without question and without explanation required. If the starting premise is not something you can engage with even in a fictional context, this is not the campaign for you and I will tell you that honestly. Here is how we hold all of that: Session Zero and Lines and Veils before we begin. Hard limits respected without question or explanation required. X, N, and O Cards during play. An immediate, no-questions stop signal available to everyone at all times. Check-ins and Breaks. This campaign goes to dark places by design. I check in before we continue after intense scenes, and we pause whenever anyone needs it. Open Door Policy. Step away at any point. No judgement. Debrief at session close. Roses and Thorns plus Stars and Wishes: what landed, what didn't, and what you want to see more of. Aftercare and private follow-up. One-on-one check-in by message after each session, with space to process bleed if a scene followed you home. The Splugorth do not consider you human. The table always will. When in doubt, say the word. Content Warnings: slavery and captivity as starting premise, alien dehumanisation and commodification of sentient beings, body horror (Bio-Wizard modification, Splugorth biology, tattoo magic as physical alteration), dimensional horror and cosmic scale threat, graphic violence and combat lethality, coercive power structures, psychological horror of captivity, references to the Rifts Earth post-apocalyptic context including mass death and civilisation collapse. This game is 18+.