Rifts World Book 5: Triax & the NGR

Rifts as a whole is just a huge blockbuster concept for a Campaign and World setting where in a Post Apocalyptic world, magic and technology co-exist or just exist along side each other as Humans struggle to reclaim earth from hordes of Demons and Monsters that have come through the fabric & tears of Space & Time called Rifts.Of course, the concept idea then behind each of the World Books is to provide information about a particular part of Rifts Earth for players & characters to explore and adventure through. Admittedly, WBs 1-4 did just fine with that concept of providing more world information, descriptions, monsters inhabiting those regions, new magic, new psionics, new O.C.C.s and all of that. In comparison, you had a lot of the new magics and psionics... or with Atlantis, alien technology that may not necessarily fall into the hands of players.Triax broke ground for Rifts with providing a whole slew of new Technology in the way of equipment, body armor, power armor, weapons, Robots and tech. This was the first big book since the Main Book and Sourcebook 1 to provide any high end technology in the hands of humans. That's actually the intial impression of this book, a huge catelog of new equipment and weapons. 121 pages of scores of new tech toys.Beyond that, you've got a page for new skills to cover what was realized should have been in the mainbook with Lore: D-Bee for example or new skills for life & characters over in the NGR. For those going at Rifts from a military game and angle, there's lots of O.C.C.s for the NGR army and then Gypsies. The Gypsies come across a bit as flat and not fully realized.The NGR's biggest threat and enemies in the way of The Gargoyle Empire and Brodkil are discussed. The Gargoyle R.C.C.s and equipment they have are given. The Gargoyle Empire is given a compartively large section.As far as providing a feel for Germany and the rest of Europe in Rifts Earth, I feel the book falls short. At best you've got 7 pages for World Overview of Europe and scant information at that. You get about 10 pages for the NGR with their history, foreign relations with the Coalition and society. It feels like more could have been given for places within the NGR, not just their military. There's a couple of comics within the book that can serve to give a military feel for this book and it'd work if Palladium was going to implement that style of story in future books and not just a one time deal.For a Weapons and Technology book, Triax & The NGR is great. Far as providing more world setting and information or just even new D-Bees and Monsters, this book really falls short. It's good to see Gargoyles fitted into Rifts, making use of old familiar or a monster such as Brodkil brought over and shown they exist elsewhere is fine. But that causes a feeling of not really stretching and trying to show new, strange and alien things from the Rifts and how it's effected Europe.

Mostly NGR military, but excellent!

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This book was still in very good shape, in the future, I may try to find a cleaner copy, however, the inner material is conceptually good and I like the BFR/Mecha concept in my game campaign, so I like this book. I can not concur whether I like the order of the layout, or whether it contains enough basic/beginners' info.This book makes a fantastic addition to any GM's reference library.

Great! Thanks

loved it

The problem with the Atlantis supplement was that Palladium didn't give us the level of description for the the cities of Atlantis like they did for the Vampire Kingdoms. Yes, there were more cities to keep track of, but the magic continent had much more promise.The NGR supplement redeems Palladium. They don't give you layouts of cities like Ciudad Juarez, but you get a fat ol' book stuffed with information on the technologies, strategy, and culture of the NGR and Gargoyle Empire, with notes on the rest of the city.If you like big high-powered toys and high adventure, get this supplement and loose your PCs on some gargoyles and Brodkil. If you are more subtle, there are a lot of cool espionage or political possibilities in this book. But whatever you are, if you are a big Rifts fan, this is one of the best books you could get.

RIFTS is a great tabletop game. Yes it has Dice and yes it involves some meth but you get to use your imagination. This book is the perfect fuel for you and your gaming needs. Enjoy it there are plenty of Rifts books out there

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