Rifter sourcebooks available at Palladium Books

The Rifter™ #44

The Scaring Crow: This one is one of my articles, and its based on an original idea my daughter Bobbi had. Its a frightening, new demonic fiend that thrives on fear. It is not what you think it is.

Shameless advertising: I've still got a few copies of this book available for purchase. They are signed by both my daughter and I.
If interested, send me an e-mail for further details.

The Rifter™ #45

The Court of Tarot: The first contribution from writer Scott Gastineau (whom I'm proud to call a friend of mine). The "Court of Tarot" is an interesting group of investigators into the unknown. More than that, they are rivals and competitors of the Lazlo Society. Includes the organization, notable NPC's and history.

Alternative setting for the Dead Reign RPG: While not a BTS article, it includes plenty of monsters for the BTS setting (once upon a time, Dead Reign began as a sourcebook idea for BTS).

The Rifter™ #53

The Lucky Psychic: A new P.C.C. who's specialties include altering his luck and others around him. Also included are some cool ideas and a Non-Player Character Lucky Psychic example named Eddie "Bet da' House" Champman. This one is another one of my articles and thus far I've gotten more positive feedback on this one from people than any other article I've sent thus far.

Shameless advertising: I've got a signed copy or two of this book available for purchase. If interested, contact me for further details.

The Rifter™ #78

Modern Day Necromancer: Kevin added a note in the beginning of this article, mentioning that the rules, power levels or how Necromancy magic works are not applicable to BTS-2nd Edition as its a different, less over the top, setting who's magic system will more subtle and less moody that other games.

Still, the information provides new ways of looking at how a modern day necromancer works in a world like BTS.

The Rifter™ #79

Flashing Blades of Horror by Hendrik Härterich: Hendrik has not only been a house guest since the beginning of it all, he's my German brother from another mother! In this article he goes into gaming through history (in particular the 1500's through 1700's; during the age of swashbuckling in this article).

There's also a new monster in this article: The Blood Syphon,
an entity who inhabits and possesses living beings (preferably humans), enabling it to consume P.P.E. by forcing its host to drink the blood of its victims, otherwise the entity with drain the host of its own blood, turning him into a sort of zombie-vampire!

I'm proud to say that I offered Hendrik a bit of insight and advice while he was writing this article, but the vast majority comes from his brilliant mind. If you're looking for ideas on how to play BTS in different time periods, this is THE article to read!

The Rifter™ #83

Operation Minotaur by Hendrik Härterich

“Think Indiana Jones meets The Dirty Dozen on a horror trip and you are in the right frame of mind to GM this adventure”.

Follow me back to the war-torn 1940s with an evil greater than many supernatural enemies, dark secrets and a mystery worthy of a tall tale”.

Operation Minotaur was conceived as a 4-6 hour gaming one-shot for the Palladium Open House 2012 and designed to showcase one of the many options of how to play Beyond the Supernatural. Contrary to the far more frequent mystery or detective type BTS game, this adventure offers an action packed and epic fight of good versus evil against the historical backdrop of World War II.

That being said, Hendrik -the writer of Operation Minotaur, an honored house guest, and a dear friend of the Host- took the time to design some very nice looking handouts to give to the players during the adventure.

Due to space constraints the handouts were printed only in a small version. However,
by the good graces of the people of Palladium Books, all the handouts are now available for download in the House of BTS, in their “full version”! Click here to get them

The Rifter™ #84

This issue focuses on dark places, monsters, magic, and the supernatural, just in time for the Halloween season. So its no surprise that it contains not one, but two Beyond the Supernatural related articles! But first, an article that converts well to BTS...

Spellbound by Ian Herbert
While this one was written and designed for Nightbane™(which I'm a fan of), it would work well with other contemporary settings; BTS in particular.

The Spellbound is in essence an O.C.C. of ordinary people who work with the Seekers and have been infused with magic spells to help them in their various jobs / tasks / teams / missions / etc. I enjoyed this one a lot and found it inspiring enough to consider running a “Seeker” specific adventure one day (something I've not done before).

All Quiet on the Western... What? by Kyle Osterberg

  Two thousand, two hundred fifty men died every day on the western front in World War One. That is only the average. The British alone lost 19,249 men on the first day of the Somme offensive. This was a war that lasted over four years. All of that fighting creates a great mass of dead people.

  Unlike most other wars, most of the battles on the western front were mostly fought in the same place. There was very little ground gained by either side for the majority of the war. So much death in such a small space means a vast quantity of P.P.E. was being released. So much P.P.E., that it almost became solid and pool into holes like water before dissipating.

  At the moment of death the amount of P.P.E. being released is doubled. With so many people dying everyday, there would be an almost inexhaustible amount of P.P.E. to feed on for supernatural creatures. They would be attracted to it like a moth to a flame! True, it is risky. The creatures stood a good chance of getting killed themselves, but surely some would be willing to take the risk.

Playing soldiers in mission-based adventures during WWI, Kyle's adventure takes the players through the horrors of war... and the horrors of the supernatural!
Includes several confrontations with supernatural creatures and new creatures like the Trench Rats and the Life Force Drinkers. The article even goes so far as to add notes on WWI era weapons and The Citizen/Soldier occupational subclass.

Extra Bonus: Kyle O. has graciously sent the House all ten of the excel character sheets designed and used for this adventure! Click the links below to download them:
Eric Lufften/Charles LeJade/Richard Alto/John Pierce/Pierre Chouteau/Jasper Crowell/
Kevin Barbee/Elias Krendall/Giovanni Ravitonilus/William Darkhorse

The Dimma by Steve Dawes

  Movement at the corner of the outside passageway. A billowy cloud of mist rolled into view. It silently moved through and enveloped the books and shelving, but something about it was wrong.
It moved too fast, too direct, seemingly with purpose. It was coming right at him. The air was getting cold and clammy as the mist approached.

  Somehow Allan had the courage to stand his ground as the mist reached him. It was unnervingly chilly and that rotting, decomposing smell saturated it. Breathing heavy with fear, Allan fought back the urge to cough and wretch at the stench, putting his hand to his mouth to provide some defense against the offensive fog that now enveloped him.

  Putrid, hot air brushed against Allan’s face and the hand covering his nose and mouth like someone with foul breath had breathed on him. Within the fog, Allan could just make out something taking the slightest resemblance of shape. Something that was grinning at him. A sharp, toothy, malicious grin. It stood just above his height, its sickly yellow eyes leering back at his. Its nose was missing like it had fallen off, or was never there to begin with. Its skin grey and wet looking, covered in boils, warts, sores and other malformations. The last sane thought Allan had before panic set in was that this thing reminded him of some kind of ghoulish creature or goblin from one of the many monster movies he’s watched.

A short story and new monster for Beyond the Supernatural, the Dimma came from the Host's imaginarium as a response to the world needing a good fog/mist monster.
Its one of my better articles in my opinion, and includes two illustrations from from first time Palladium contributor Grae Steele; a friend and co-worker of mine.