The 12 Days of Rifts-mas: Day 9, Splicers

It is like Terminator, but with a nano-metal plague that attaches itself to humans and infects all metal we touch, and turns it into killer robots. To fight it, humanity engineers bioengineered MDC weapons and armor from bone, flesh, coral, and organic materials. Humans cannot get rid of the nano-bots in their systems and the world; they need to exist around them. All metal is death to the touch.

So it is humans in bio-war-suits versus nano-bots and giant robots.

Do you want to play an armored suit jockey who rides around in a naga-shaped snake-like armored suit with two plasma cannons for arms? I can't think of another roleplaying game that lets you do this, and Splicers is the only one.

This is one of the most imaginative non-Rifts settings Palladium Books has ever put out, and it is cool in ways I did not expect. You can be a flesh-meled supersoldier. You can be a samurai-like Dreadmaster in some of the most powerful bio-armor ever constructed. You can be a zombie-like Scarecrow and serve the great brain of humanity as an MDC creature. You can be a tentacled half-alien doctor known as the Saint.

None of this is Rifts, and it uses the MDC system. You could easily use Rifts' features like magic or psionics, just nothing mechanical.

It is like a strange 1990s comic book I wish had gone beyond 10 issues, since it has so many cool ideas and amazing art. I love the concept, and seeing MDC used in non-Rifts settings is also very cool.

This is another game I had never gotten into, but wow, do I want to. Riftmas is good this year.

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