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.

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.

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 planet's mystical energy has added untold numbers of alien beings from other dimensions, who continue to arrive through the Rifts both accidentally and deliberately.

To cope with these natural, supernatural, and alien menaces, the human race has adapted in a variety of ways, many of them borrowed from the technological developments of the lost Golden Age.

Others form pacts with alien intelligences or deities in exchange for great magical knowledge, risking becoming a pawn of the beings they dared turn to for power.

The governing body of the Coalition States is based in the arcological city of Chi-Town and lays claim to northern Illinois (the southern part being controlled by the "Federation of Magic") and all of Iowa.

At one time it was a Coalition State, but constant disagreement with Chi-Town over issues like Glitter Boy production, education level of the populace, and use of mutant animals, led to secession and eventually a short civil war.

North of the Rio Grande, west of Texas and roaming most of the American Southwest are large nomadic bands/tribes of bandits who collectively form the "Pecos Empire" which incorporates the cities of El Paso, Los Alamos (formerly Austin) and "Houstown", its unofficial capital.

Though the nation is not part of a cohesive power structure or political organization, "Emperor Sabre Laser" is attempting to unite the city-states under his banner.

The pockets of civilization include the "Colorado Baronies", Hope, Testament, Wilmington, and Charity, a collective of small and a few large towns, founded by the survivors of the Denver area.

The Manistique Imperium and Northern Gun in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, both Coalition allies, are among the biggest weapons manufacturing areas on the continent.

However, Missouri's southern half, home to the city-states of "Whykin" (Poplar Bluff) and "Kingsdale" (West Plains) are in constant opposition to the CS and claim independence.

The return of Atlantis has caused the Amazon River basin to flood most of the western part of South America, giving it the nickname "The Land of a Thousand Islands".

Much of the rest of the continent is a wide collection of states ranging from democracies, corrupt oligarchies, and communist guerrillas known as Shining Path, to Mutants, Amazons, Aliens, Transdimensional Mercenaries, pre-historic creatures and dozens of others.

Despite their ardent anti-technology sentiments, one of the New Empire's closest allies is the Republic of Japan, an alliance centered on three pre-Rifts cities (Hiroshima, Iwakuni, and Kure) accidentally rifted off the planet at the exact moment of the Great Cataclysm, and sent hundreds of years into their future.

Much of Africa has gone back to nature, making the land a wild, mysterious Dark Continent again, where only those foolhardy enough to ignore the cautionary tales would willingly go.

Techno-Wizardry also encompasses the creation of more traditional magic weapons, so a Techno-Wizard can make both a flaming sword or a plasma cannon, often with many of the same components and spells.

Rune weapons are capable of communicating with their wielders, animating and fighting by themselves, casting magic, and may harm potential users if they don't like their motives and personality (based on the RPG tradition of assigning an "alignment" to a character of good, selfish or evil), and can bind themselves psychically to those they do.

This means someone shot by such a laser pistol would be literally cut in half without protective armor and trees, bystanders, or anything else in the line of fire would meet a similar fate.

As Rifts has no systematic method of designing weaponry, the game is criticized frequently for severe power escalation;[citation needed] often magic, equipment, and character classes from new books are more potent than those from an earlier one (sometimes even with the same character class), with the result of many thinking they are thus required to buy the most recent supplement to keep up with the power curve (This is parodied in an 8-bit Theater episode fittingly titled "Glitter Boy"[6]).

Rifts Conversion Books are designed to help facilitate the transition of magic and psychic characters and creatures from other Palladium game lines into this new landscape, for which many automatically gain increased benefits due to the magic-rich environment.

[14][15] The game is set 300 years in the future where dimensional anomalies called "rifts" have beset the world and through which aliens, demons, gods, and magical forces invade Earth.

[25] Titles released in the series include: Adventures: In Issue 48 of Challenge, Lester W. Smith found the information about rifts and the new Earth gave both players and referees a good base of knowledge.

Those who are into bleak worlds, hi-tech magic, twisted rituals, fascist empires, brutal weaponry, mind-boggling power armor, and fantastic stories should really give it a try.

"[36] In Issue 13 of Arcane (December 1996), Lucya Sachnowski was disappointed in the Rifts World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign, saying that "There are just five pages of short adventure ideas which are usable and versatile - providing a good mixture of combat and moral dilemmas - but they aren't enough."

Fantasy-style creatures are a bit less common, and tend to be rather conventional elves and orcs - although it's perfectly possible to play a baby dragon.