Take what's been printed and junk it. This is the opinion of a man that lives in the real world location where Tolkeen resides, and I am not afraid to say that I have a better idea about this.
The Coming of the Magical Kingdom
When the Rifts came to the Twin Cities, it hit weirdly. According to the Tolkeen Archives, the founder of the kingdom was a forward-thinking mystic in the right place at the right time. In truth, he was a dreamer and a loser that got into a group of other dreamers and losers that frequented the occult shops and studied all of the books on magic and the occult that they could fine (and, as one of the big publishers--Llewellyn--is based St. Paul, that's a lot)- he was a scenester and hipster that practiced ritual magic with his pals in large part to get laid by impressionable college freshman looking for some way to rebel. For the most part, it worked so he stuck with it.
One of the girls he smooth-talked into becoming a fuck-buddy, however, had a bit more to her character than the usual conquests. Her father was in the military, specifically in Special Operations, and spent time in the black ops community. (If you've seen The Men Who Stare At Goats, think of the guy that Clooney played.) Some of what he learned rubbed off on her, and she in turn got her hooks into him and became his girlfriend. She taught her sexy loser how to do Remote Viewing, and once he did it and had it work he got the idea that this girl--despite her freaky old man--was a keeper. This is how the founder of Tolkeen got his ass kick-started and began to take very seriously what he was doing.
By the time that the girlfriend got her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Minnesota, she'd wiped her man into the leader of a serious magical practice group (and cut out several of the sexy loser hipsters) and got him (with her father's help) a book deal with Llewellyn. She got a job as an editor at the same place, and that's how he became known as a mystic of any credibility. Soon thereafter, her parents moved into the Cities- after his folks died in a freak car crash involving a truck full of chickens and his sister disappeared after going overseas. (Note: This is actually a sacrifice by the associates of the girl's father, done without her knowledge, to maneuver her into a desired position.)
By the Coming of the Rifts, the founder of Tolkeen and his girlfriend finally got engaged. They decided to marry on December 21st, 2012 as part of a magical ritual meant to wield the positive power of a loving act of unification (marriage) and creation (consumation) in a specific place (the very center of the hundred-line nexus point) intended to not only counter-act an intuitive feeling of disaster. Their magical partners and her family were to act as the witnesses and co-celebrants. It didn't go exactly as planned.
Oh, they got through the conflagration of azure flames just fine. Being high on psychdelics as well as amped up on various naturally-produced chemicals at that moment created a massive magical event that caused the entirety of the Twin Cities to transform into a magical crystalline city along the lines of what real world claims of Atlantis was supposed to look like. The influx of raw magical power combined with their altered state of mental awareness to make them all full-powered Mystics, Warlocks, etc. (as defined by the Rifts and Palladium rulebooks) with a lot of high-powered intuitive knowledge of specific spells and rituals.
When it was over, they emerged into an empty city. The new wife told the group that not only had they successfully preserved Humanity, but that she was now with child- the first child to be born after the Great Event (as they called it then). Then around the corner came a handful of other people, all dressed like Greeks and speaking an antique dialect of that language. They soon shifted to English, introduced themselves as Atlantians and said that they heard of the return of Lost Terra (i.e. Earth) to their dimension and that they were the vanguard of a returning diaspora.
Centuries passed, with little intermarriage between the Atlantian and Terran populations, but the survivors did locate others out there over time and thus the Terran faction did become numerous while the Atlantian (really just one household of a single Atlantian House, "We're the Roberts of Glencoe, part of Clan Robert." as it were) faction slowly assumed control of the emerging city institutions- with the initial cell of Terrans, and then their descendants, kept on for appearances. Magical traditions of a distinctly scholarly or Atlantian mode--Line Walkers, Shifters, Stone Masters, Tattoo Masters, etc.--are their speciality. Intuitive modes, including Techno-Wizardry, are Terran and "taught" by them.
Political conflict is along these lines, from the Council of Magisters (the ruling body) to the common people; Terrans tend to be of the working class, Atlantians of the professional or greater classes- and nothing so defines the split as the three issues of Atlantis (Terrans, by and large, do not give a shit due to the distance- and this is after noting that they do see instantaneous ley-line travel), the bugs (due to immediacy as well as proximity) and the Coalition (Terrans want to handle this second due to proximity). Tolkeen has a monarch, chosen from the Council's ranks in the same manner that the Catholic Church elects a Pope from the College of Cardinals (save that use of magic makes rigging things interesting- there is no Magic Deer here). It is tradition to call the monarch's throne "The Rock of Eternity", after the first monarch (the aforementioned sexy loser-turned-occultist author-turned-cult leader consort).
Technology is not unknown in Tolkeen. It's just that, in many cases, magic is easier and more convenient to accomplish the same task. However, those in charge are not stupid and thus use technology when this is no longer true (such as being far from a ley line, and having exhausted one's mana or have a Stalker--or similar entity--on their trail). Techno-Wizardry arose out of a few fortuitous fusions between the use of magic and the use of technology; the local trend is "dual-use" items due to this breakthrough, such as trucks that can run off ley lines when within range and shift over to electricity when off the grid (in an explicit adaptation of pre-Rifts fuel-cell technology).
Relations with nearby First Nations communities is overall positive; there are points of dispute, but at least they talk and trade. (The Warlocks are a very big help here.) The Cyber-Knights maintain a hostel here. Lazlo, Dweomer and New Lazlo all maintain embassies here. Atlantian operations against the Splugorth are not violent; they use financial scams and other forms of fraud to buy slaves and needed things from the Dimensional Market, yet victimize Atlantis through damaging its legitimacy as a cross-dimensional trade center. (The leaders know that this is not going to last; they're already at work on what to do when this scheme is no longer viable, which is why they are in contact with the Underground.)
Those dang hipsters!
So how are non-magical folks treated in Tolkeen? And how did the original founders decide on the name?
I think in this case I like the original Tolkeen better. It meant that in RIFTS north america you had basically three magical kingdoms: The Really Good One that was all heroic (Lazlo), the really bad one that absolutely proves the Coalition's point (the Federation), and the one that isn't exactly evil, but is basically full of dicks and isn't much better than anywhere else (Tolkeen).
Also, its true that Llewellyn is one of the biggest publishers of esoteric books around, but pretty much everything they publish is New Age bullshit. Though I guess that does fit with the whole "crystal city" vibe you were pushing there.
RPGPundit
neat take, bradford! where did i put my rifts books. . . . :hmm:
Quote from: RPGPundit;386632I think in this case I like the original Tolkeen better. It meant that in RIFTS north america you had basically three magical kingdoms: The Really Good One that was all heroic (Lazlo), the really bad one that absolutely proves the Coalition's point (the Federation), and the one that isn't exactly evil, but is basically full of dicks and isn't much better than anywhere else (Tolkeen).
Also, its true that Llewellyn is one of the biggest publishers of esoteric books around, but pretty much everything they publish is New Age bullshit. Though I guess that does fit with the whole "crystal city" vibe you were pushing there.
Yeah, that's pretty much the point. Tolkeen is the magical kingdom made by the occult community here, which is anchored around the University of Minnesota and Llewellyn. (The former because the biggest shop is located in the student-centric hipster area adjacent to campus, and thus is the pillar of the community- much of which is filled with losers and dreamers.) For all its gee-whiz facade, it really is just like everywhere else.
The Atlantian-Terran split reflects a certain trend in Minnesotan culture, one that often runs along cultural faults, where you have a small group aligned to an outside culture that's basing itself out of the Cities and a larger group of locals who's aligned to the Cities' and Minnesotan culture. You see this in our politics (one of the reasons that folks hate our governor is that he's seen as being aligned to a D.C.-based outside culture; former Senator Norm Coleman was openly decried as a carpet-bagger). This is nothing new: James J. Hill, the rail magnate of the 19th century, was sometimes a victim of this trend despite being a long-time St. Paul resident.
The specific idea of Atlantians operating out of Tolkeen to conduct operations against Atlantis is my shout-out to the O'Connell System of St. Paul that ran from 1900 to some time in the 1920s or so, when outside gangsters could freely move and do business in St. Paul so long as they did no crime or otherwise caused problems while here. (So named, by the way, for Chief O'Connell, the police chief of the day.)
Quote from: Rubio;386630Those dang hipsters!
So how are non-magical folks treated in Tolkeen? And how did the original founders decide on the name?
There's an unspoken system where magic-users are on top, psychics in the middle and mundanes on the bottom. This arose primarily out of the massive use of magic creating a feedback loop that favored magicians and psychics due to the massive power immediately and immanently available. The majority of the mundanes are not city-dwellers, but folks from the surrounding lands that live far enough away that you can actually be off (if still near) a ley line. As Tolkeen has 100 ley lines running through it, that's somewhat far. Of those that are, many of them are aliens traveling to Tolkeen from off-world or are ex-slaves of the Splugorth with desired qualities (such as the head librarian of the Archives). The effect is subtle, but noticeable, because you have to use magic or psychic powers to qualify for many senior positions or be able to fulfill the functions of an office- the mundanes are on the bottom for the sole reason that they lack the means to get to the top. (Which means that social-climbers either learn how to use magic, if they can, or get their kids on the bandwagon.)
As for the name...
Remember, the initial local group was high as a kite when the Rifts came. In addition to being primarily Llewellyn Publications regulars, they were steeped in the usual suspects of local occultists: Celtic Myth, Norse Myth, Greek Myth, Arthurian Myth and their pop-culture counter-parts. The couple that just got married took the names of Celeborn and Galadriel, being a pair of long-time fans of Middle-Earth, and named their first child "Gandalf".
(And yes, sometimes historical events are just this silly and embarrassing. It is part of the reason for why the Atlantians didn't quite take the Terrans that seriously.)
Weren't the Rifts originally spawned by a nuclear war?
Wouldn't it be a funny twist if these damn hippies were really the ones who cracked open the multiverse instead? :)
Quote from: Werekoala;386765Weren't the Rifts originally spawned by a nuclear war?
Wouldn't it be a funny twist if these damn hippies were really the ones who cracked open the multiverse instead? :)
My take is that it was both. There was a nuclear holocaust, but not a war as such. Instead, an international group detonated nukes at the 10 largest cities in order to implement a scare to finalize a world-state. At the same time, another group of mystics organized a world-wide ritual working to go off at the same time. The effects synergized and went out of control, causing the Rifts.
To be pedantic, Llewellyn is actually out in Woodbury now; IIRC they received some tax breaks from the city in exchange for creating a certain number of jobs. But that's still close enough to St. Paul for these purposes and wouldn't impact the setting at all.
I'm sorry, but my feeling about this is that if the RIFTS came, people who had based their "occult knowledge" on Llewellyn books would for the most part find themselves utterly powerless, and thus defenseless, because new agism is not real occultism.
It is not based on anything, it has no formulas, all it is amounts to "you create your own reality, and think happy thoughts about white light!"
In some game settings, that might end up manifesting into something. Not in RIFTS.
In RIFTS, its always felt to me that the guys who would have suddenly found themselves wizards after the apocalypse would have been the guys who'd spent their life reading Aleister Crowley and studying list of Goetic Demons and practicing hermetic magic.
The Llewellyn people: the wiccans, the new agers, the crystal-healers and white-lighters? One or two of them might have ended up spontaneous psychics who THINK they're doing magic, and the rest would have had fuck all, and the demons would have eaten them alive.
Which brings me to my next point: The Demons would have eaten your Tolkien alive.
I mean EVEN if collecting crystals and thinking happy thoughts and believing that calling yourself Lady Moonbeam or Lord Merlin WiseSpray and doing absolutely nothing that resembles real study and work EVER is all that it would take to become a true wizard after the RIFTS, and your city was full of new-agey wizards, Tolkeen would STILL have fallen to pieces in a matter of months!
Why?
Because its run by new agers who are all deeply mentally bankrupt and emotionally wounded individuals, that have a ridiculously disproportionate sense of their own self-importance, think existence should revolve around them, and, I repeat, don't want to have to do any work, ever.
They're fucked up people, and not the GOOD kind of fucked up that would let you survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. No, the BAD kind of fucked up, that would mean that if they had any real magic, they'd all be at each other's throat over who gets to be the grand high wizard, and by the time that was over, they'd all realize they have no skills, talent, intelligence or charisma to actually run a society, and five minutes later they're being eaten by YGongolac the Devourer of Souls after trying to tell It that they're actually very special people and should be treated specially by it.
So no, sorry, everything else you've written I've found cool. But to me, Tolkeen just doesn't fly. Because I know the kind of people you're talking about, and I know that even with superpowers, they'd be pretty well the first to die if the civilization they think so little of were to fall to pieces.
RPGPundit
Your politics are showing, hard core, Pundit.
A lot of people I personally know from those scenes have magickal systems that are just as hard core and as complex as any sort of western hermeticism. What you're essentially saying is that western systems are objectively right. I've seen chaos magicians and wiccans who are harder core and Get Shit Done in a more disciplined manner than certain Thelemites, same goes for some eclectic folks who selectively combine system elements. I even know several 'white lighters' who are terrifying thorough in their work ethic.
Magickal system means nothing. The desire for personal transformation and ability to apply diligence, scrutiny and hard work is everything.
Brad's layout sounds entirely reasonable on an objective level, as opposed to your personal desires and biases.
Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;720783Your politics are showing, hard core, Pundit.
A lot of people I personally know from those scenes have magickal systems that are just as hard core and as complex as any sort of western hermeticism. What you're essentially saying is that western systems are objectively right. I've seen chaos magicians and wiccans who are harder core and Get Shit Done in a more disciplined manner than certain Thelemites, same goes for some eclectic folks who selectively combine system elements. I even know several 'white lighters' who are terrifying thorough in their work ethic.
Magickal system means nothing. The desire for personal transformation and ability to apply diligence, scrutiny and hard work is everything.
Brad's layout sounds entirely reasonable on an objective level, as opposed to your personal desires and biases.
Was that really worth resurrecting a 3-1/2 year old thread?
That said, I have a question for the OP, and anyone else who wants to answer.
The Atlantean population in Tolkeen uses stone magic, specifically pyramids, to control the city's ley lines, minimize the risk of random rifts, et cetera. However, "the energy and bonuses of increased power normally available from untapped ley lines is not available from ley lines or nexuses with a pyramid on them." (Rifts Atlantis pg. 104). Do you use this rule? If so, what are the consequences for the magical economy in and around Tolkeen?
I have my own thoughts, but I'd like to hear others' first.
Quote from: Dan Vincze;720789Was that really worth resurrecting a 3-1/2 year old thread?
That said, I have a question for the OP, and anyone else who wants to answer.
The Atlantean population in Tolkeen uses stone magic, specifically pyramids, to control the city's ley lines, minimize the risk of random rifts, et cetera. However, "the energy and bonuses of increased power normally available from untapped ley lines is not available from ley lines or nexuses with a pyramid on them." (Rifts Atlantis pg. 104). Do you use this rule? If so, what are the consequences for the magical economy in and around Tolkeen?
I have my own thoughts, but I'd like to hear others' first.
I don't buy that. My take is that, as these things exist as control technologies, the purpose is to eliminate control issues while enjoying the benefits; where the pyramid exists, you get the benefits with none of the risks so long as that thing holds (which makes the pyramid a strategic and logistical target; it stands to reason that one of the way that the risk gets mitigated into irrelevance is to find ways to syphon off excess energy into a safe alternative- if you want to fuck them over, you target that and force them to deal with it).
LOL, this post made me chuckle.
I feel the same way about the NY sourcebook. I felt it was poorly written and the ideas blew chunks. Being a NYC native, there were opportunites that were missed.
In my campaign, thats the one book that I don't use, nor count as canon.
Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;720933I don't buy that. My take is that, as these things exist as control technologies, the purpose is to eliminate control issues while enjoying the benefits; where the pyramid exists, you get the benefits with none of the risks so long as that thing holds (which makes the pyramid a strategic and logistical target; it stands to reason that one of the way that the risk gets mitigated into irrelevance is to find ways to syphon off excess energy into a safe alternative- if you want to fuck them over, you target that and force them to deal with it).
We might be misunderstanding each other, but as I see it the ability to monopolize the PPE supply is very much an advantage for whoever controls the pyramid(s), and a disadvantage for whoever does not.
This creates the potential for conflict within the city, and in my experience such conflict almost always improves the game. I find Rifts in particular benefits from a generous helping of systemic injustice.