Palladium Books was founded in April 1981 and the first official game release of the
Company was the Mechanoid Invasion followed by Th Palladium Roleplaying Game (which we
now more commonly call Palladium Fantasy) and my personal favorite, Heroes Unlimited
in 1984.
Many people will instantly recognise the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but not know it was
a fantastic roleplaying game before it was a globally syndicated cartoon series which
went very mainstream and is popular to this day.
Palladiums books are usually softcover, perfect bound and have black and white interior print
with pretty good artwork and a lot of solid, crunchy game resources packed onto every page.
These books have lasted the distance despite often being a lower cost than the usual hardcover
books printed by other publishers.
Palladium created what is called their 'Megaversal rule system' which was highly innovative at
the time and allowed players to combine all the different game titles and settings as
they saw fit, thanks to all the books sharing a universal rule system, the system has seen
changes and expansions over the decades but it was perfectly workable 20 years ago as
it is today, however, now the company has introduced a version of their popular post
apocalyptic science fantasy setting, Rifts, which uses the Savage Worlds rules system,
which adds more options for people who love the settings but find the rules difficult
to master.
Compared to other popular, well-known Roleplaying rule sets, Palladium is fairly advanced and
more closely matches a realistic style of play, rather than a very stylised and simplified
rule set.
Today, I am going to go into some detail on how magic, psionics and the supernatural are
handled by the rules, and the theories behind the rules which inform adventure building
and game play.
So settle back, grab yourself a tasty beverage, we are about to get Deeply Nerdy.
Also, hello!
My name is AJ Pickett, I make videos about monsters, aliens and other fantastic stuff,
I also cover a lot of different roleplaying games in some detail and am known for doing
my research, answering comments and questions and promoting the roleplaying hobby to new
players whenever and wherever I can, this video is mainly for folks who have never heard
of or played the game before, but big hugs to all the palladium grognards like me who
are watching the video, spread the word, let them know you are still playing the game in
numbers and love it like I do!
In terms of how the system handles magic and psionics, both are treated as distinct and
separate types of abilities, with their own unique rules and mechanics.
Magic is generally viewed as a more traditional form of spellcasting, involving the use of
rituals, incantations, and magical ingredients to cast spells while psionics, also point
based, handles the use of mental powers and abilities, such as telekinesis, telepathy,
and clairvoyance.
Psionic powers are often more subtle and versatile than magical spells and can be used in a wider
range of situations.
Overall, the Megaversal rule system offers a flexible and dynamic approach to magic and
psionics, allowing players to create an infinite variety of characters with unique and exciting
abilities.
The base concept for magic is firmly inspired by real-world folklore, occultism and mysticism,
so closely does it match up with real legend and lore that each of the Palladium book titles
features a warning declaration at the start, which states the company view that magic,
psionics and other extraordinary abilities are purely fictional, not meant to be taken
too seriously.
This is a game, not a magic instruction manual.
The base point value for any living being, in this case humans, is Potential Psychic
Energy, a neutral, supernatural energy that is abundant in children, grows to a peak in
adolescence and then by the time a person is an adult, they have used up this energy
reserve in dedicating their focus on specific skills and abilities they have mastered in
their training and transition into adulthood, psionic power, for those who have it, is one
such specific focus for their potential psychic energy, turning it into actual psionic powers.
But, this energy is not restricted to living creatures, it also represents cosmic forces
and tends to flow across the worlds in distinct patterns of ley lines and ley line nexus points.
I will read directly from my 30th anniversary, numbered and signed edition of the Revised
second edition of Heroes Unlimited, though I think the second edition of Beyond the Supernatural
has a more comprehensive description of potential psychic energy, as the theme of that setting
book is more like the x-files, ghostbusters or Stranger things, anyway, turning to page
315 of Heroes Unlimited and I quote..
"On Earth, magic energy continues to ebb and flow as it has always done for eons.
As a result, magic has become a sort of science that is used to create, build, control the
weather, summon, protect, enslave and destroy.
Like any resource, it can be used for good or evil; For the benefit of others, or pure
selfishness.
It is up to how the user decides to channel and mold the energy that will determine how
this incredible force is used."
Which is to say, magic itself has no sapience or influence, unlike the force from star wars,
potential psychic energy in Palladium is just that, an energy current, as indifferent as
electricity, it doesn't pick and choose how it works and for whom it does.
"So-called 'Magic' energy is normally invisible, like a lot of forces of nature.
It is also constant and ever present energy.
Parapsychologists of the 20th century have named it Potential Psychic Energy or P.P.E,
because everybody seems to possess a little bit of it, but only a few are able to learn
to use that energy in a magical way."
"PPE runs in natural rivers and streams of energy in straight lines across the planet,
like an invisible web of mystic energy.
These streams are called Ley Lines.
Where two or more lines cross over each other is called a ley line nexus point.
This is where PPE is the strongest.
Many of these nexus points and some ley lines have been marked with stone circles, giant
totem poles and towering standing stones, known as megaliths, to indicate places of
power.
Some places of power have also been seized by powerful practitioners of magic, clergy,
creatures of magic and demon lords who have build pyramids, towers, churches, temples
and secret lairs at or near a nexus or ley line.
It's these places that practitioners of magic are at their most powerful along such ley
lines."
"Many places of magic are reputed to be inhabited by faerie folk, spirits, elementals, godlings
and even dragons, or haunted by ghosts and wraiths, or plagued by monsters."
Palladiums megaverse presents this ebb and flow as a cosmic system, a common demoninator
of all worlds, some of which, like the modern parallel reality of Heroes Unlimited Earth,
where super powers, super science and alien visitors are all quite real, is said to currently
be in a low magic state, the flow is weak, therefore, magic and the supernatural are
rare, restricted mainly to such concentrated sites of magic energy and most importantly,
the world at large is ignorant of the fact this stuff is actually real and not just fairy
tales, ghost stories and folklore.
Anyone claiming that it is real is considered to be a crackpot, a few cans short of a full
pantry, fake, a charlatan, even dangerously psychotic, drugged to the eyeballs and thrown
in a padded cell by the nice folks in the white coats.
Everyone loves to read about myths of the times gods walked the earth, playing merry
havok in the lives of ancient greeks and such, but nobody thinks that stuff really happened,
its all allegory and moral tales wrapped in fireside stories and ancient religions.
Palladium's megaversal rules take the opposite position and we have wonderful opportunity
to roleplay in a reality where this is not the case, actually this stuff is real, there
were ancient periods of high magical activity, and thus, magic and the supernatural fits
snuggly into any world setting you like, if you decide to include it.
So Ironman, the Hulk, Dr Strange and Iron Fist all make perfect sense in the palladium
megaverse, but what if such a time of high magic energy was taken to the logical extreme,
what if Earth became what is known as a planar nexus?
A location so super charged with magical energy it was actually visible as massive walls of
glowing power coursing across the planet and where those lines met, the energy was strong
enough to spontaneously tear open gateways to other dimensions, some of which, like Phase
World in the Three Galaxies has been artifically controlled by an ancient species known as
the Promethians for eons and is a well known dimensional hub where transdimensional species
travel as casually as though it was LA international airport, connecting so many locations and
alternate realities; Pretty much anything goes.
There is the Phaseworld and three galaxies setting and resource books for exactly that
style of game play, and the Rifts rpg setting presents a not so distant future where a limited
nuclear war actually kicked the planet into Super high magic mode and turned it into a
dimensional hub with no control what so ever.
In order to understand how that happened, lets go back to the book and hear how potential
psychic energy is actually generated and used by people to create magic effects, starting
with why megalithic structures are commonly found in magic rich locations.
"Some megalithic structures have astronomical significance, often indicating the dawn of
winter and summer solstice, planetary alignments, and other astronomical occurances.
The reason for this is these occurances cause the potential psychic energy to dramatically
increase for a brief period of time, lasting a few minutes to several hours.
During these power surges, a magic practicioner can use the sudden burst of energy to create
powerful magic, open a portal to other worlds, or draw on increased energy.
This can also be a dangerous time that attracts dark forces seeking the mysic energies for
evil purposes.
The opening of random dimensional portals can unleash all sorts of strange and horrible
things, and even alternate Earths from the past and the future"
Practicioners of magic clearly need a lot of mental discipline in order to not only
tap into this powerful super natural force, but they also need to master the potential
psychic energy within themselves.
Still, though they develop meditation to quickly recover spent PPE points compared to regular
people, they are just individuals, not creatures of magic, and their natural resources are
limited when not at the right moment and time to risk encounters with wild magical phenomena
as they harness increased magic energy flows, what they need, is the energy of other living
beings to draw on, like the arificial life forms who took over an alternate dimension
earth ended up breeding humans as living biological batteries to power their civilisation in the
Matrix movies.
Practicioners of magic do this several ways, in the end it just boils down to three factors.
First, when a living being dies, its pool of magic energy doubles, so sacrificing living
creatures or even people is a very evil, but viable method of harnessing external potential
psychic energy for the magic practicioner, this is reflected in mythology and the concept
of modern cults and human or animal sacrifices.
Second, if the mage is not killing the creature, it is a matter of how much PPE the creature
or people have and if they are aware of the mage drawing the energy from them as part
of creating a magical effect.
Those beings who refuse to donate their PPE to the mage can simply block the mage from
doing so, the only way the mage can get their PPE if that is the case, is to murder them
and get that double PPE boost in a vile act of sacrifice.
I won't go into the specific numbers involved in the game mechanics as that is about as
interesting as watching someone play Soduku, but you get the basic idea of how it works
and I assure you, there are specific guidelines for exactly how much energy can be drawn,
down to how much energy specific animal types have and even what influence being near a
powerful energy source like a ley line does have on spell casting, even what influence
to expect during those rare moments of astronomical events, it's a well developed and very consistant
system that works equally well across many world settings.
I should note, you can modify and simplify the system quite a lot if you want to, even
ignore PPE cost requirements if you want a very rules light gaming experience, but its
nice to know that if you want to have a really detailed magic system, Palladium has you covered,
the system never dictates how complex or simply you have to be.
Something detractors of the palladium megaversal rules always fail to mention when griping
about rules complexity, is that its all entirely optional, you can ignore what you don't like,
and dive deep into stuff that you do.
That is why the game designer describes what is going on, not just in statistics, but from
the perspective of the world building and the experience of the player characters within
the game setting.
Being drained of PPE has no real negative impact on most people, for practitioners of
magic, it certainly curtails their ability to cast spells, but, there are other means
of using PPE, for instance, there do exist rare talismans and amulets that can store
PPE, and very rare magic items that can even replenish their own battery of magic energy,
a mage will go to some lengths to get hold of as many of those sort of things as they
can, and you often see heavy practitioners of magic adorned with all manner of little
trinkets for just that purpose.
So, now we know why sacred sites exist, and cultists gather circles of followers to hold
hands and chant along to help them cast more powerful spells, but what about other sorts
of magic, like wards and circles?
Ritual magic, basically.
'Ritual or ceremonial magic tends to apply to the more powerful magic invocations and
usually require several participants, components and the drawing of a circle or other mystic
symbols.
Any spell of a high level can also be cast as a spell or a ritual, the high level spells
take a randomly rolled number of minutes to cast and the saving throw, where potential
victims get to try and avoid the magic effect, increase in difficulty the highly the level
of the magic.
Tons of other magical techniques and styles exist, with a lot of knowledge from past magical
surges on the planets being lost or hidden away or only passed down to a select few,
in Palladium you will often see references to the Time of a Thousand magics or some such.
Magic can also be combined and manipulared via high technology or natural talent, they
call this techno-wizardry.
All that being said, now we have a much better understanding of what combination of elements
resulted in a tremendous cosmic and humanitarian disaster that led to the Rifts Cataclysm.
So now I will quote directly from the Rifts wikipedia page and you will have a much better
foundation for understanding how the cataclysm happened.
"Rifts begins with two future-historical premises: first, a golden age of humanity occurs, with
tremendous advances in science, technology, military, and society.
Humanity as a whole is at peace as a majority of Earth's nations decide to cease world war
and begin to share ideas and technology freely.
Much of the solar system is conquered, humanity's wars will end, and harmony will reign.
Second, that this golden age is followed by an unknown cause near the winter solstice
and a rare planetary alignment, causing a disaster that cascades into tremendous destruction
via a ripple effect.
The cataclysm begins with unprecedented storms of all kinds, earth quakes and tsunamis, and
volcanic eruptions including the Yellowstone Caldera.
What is already a huge release of mystical energy is multiplied as a result of several
special conditions: a rare multi-planetary alignment, occurrence during the Winter Solstice,
and all at midnight.
The deaths of millions at this time amplifies these already high psychic energies, triggering
many powerful natural disasters across the world, including the return of Atlantis.
The energy release from the deaths of millions more in turn releases even more mystic energy,
causing more disasters in a vicious cycle.
Ultimately, the total destruction brings an unprecedented energy release of billions.
Ley Line networks that crisscross the globe are energized as never before, causing rifts
to open both on Earth and throughout the Megaverse.
Untold numbers of alien beings are pulled from their own home worlds, while Great Powers
of the Megaverse are alerted of a new and valuable planet to conquer.
For hundreds of years after the holocaust, many creatures, both mythical beasts and alien
beings, come through the Rifts – some of them now permanently opened – to wreak additional
havoc.
The old world gone, a new Dark Age dawns and humanity's shrinking population is reduced,
due to catastrophe and domestic failure, immeasurably.
This period is covered in Palladium's Rifts Chaos Earth spin-off series.
Rifts initially takes place in 101 P.A., P.A meaning Post Apocalypse (equivalent to the
year 2387) 289 years after this event.
The "Post-Apocalypse" calendar was established by the formation of the Coalition States in
2286, centered in a huge arc city compex called Chi Town."
And there you have it folks, I hope this proves useful to you and sparks your interest in
playing this epic RPG system with its wide range of genres, still very actively supported
by the Palladium Books company, now with the option of using the Savage Worlds RPG system
to play the same settings, my name is AJ Pickett, your guide to Aliens, Monsters and Roleplaying
Games, thanks for listening and as always, I will be back with more for you, very soon.