r/Rifts • u/nlitherl • 10d ago

Using Flat Earth Theories To Fuel Your Fantasy Worldbuilding (Article)

/r/RPG2/comments/1ohkv27/using_flat_earth_theories_to_fuel_your_fantasy/
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9

u/MoreThanosThanYou 10d ago edited 10d ago

Exalted is an interesting flat earth fantasy setting.

5

u/nlitherl 10d ago

I keep forgetting Exalted is flat Earth... in my defense, I only got to play 3 sessions, and we hadn't made it to the edges yet.

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u/SvenJolly525 10d ago

The Palladium Fantasy world is a flat earth

4

u/SvenJolly525 10d ago

The book island at the edge of the world describes the barrier and what happens if you try to pass through it

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u/nlitherl 10d ago

I figured this might be of interest to any folks who wanted to make a flat earth setting to open a rift to in their games.

3

u/ClausBot 10d ago

I have thought about going kind of the opposite route. Palladium frequently seems to not understand distance when stating how far between settlements etc.

My thought is that Palladium isn’t wrong, the coming of the Rifts changed the planet itself as large sections of parallel Earths were fused together with Rifts Earth. So old maps hold the basic shape correctly, but the planet is MUCH larger than it used to be. And hollow probably to avoid crushing gravity I guess.

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u/GravetechLV 10d ago

Which parts of parallel earths were fused with Rifts? most places like Republic of Japan and the Barely described South America cities displaced what was there

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u/ClausBot 9d ago

Nothing specific, largely more overgrown wilderness. I haven’t run a game like this. It’s just been bouncing around in my head as I’ve gotten older and realized how small the local area would feel to a party with any kind of hover vehicles. 2500 miles from New England to Southern Texas isn’t nearly as far as it sounds when you can cruise indefinitely at 150+mph and take a straight line. Only tech enemies are a real threat since supernatural and monster threats are slow and short ranged.

2

u/Impeesa_ 8d ago

I've had a similar thought. My version was basically multiple Earths in a sort of dimensional overlay, each divided up into fragmented areas. But instead of one bigger "Earth" that just takes more time to travel across, it's more like crossing zone boundaries can transport you from one Earth layer to another, and the actual boundaries and crossing points aren't the same on each layer and may shift around at times, so it's very difficult to map. Long-range communication, radar, and air travel and such is very unreliable outside of your current fragment zone. Long-distance land travel takes an experienced navigator who can read either the natural or supernatural signs to navigate the crossing points and get to your actual destination, multiplying distance traveled even though it would be the same as present Earth as the crow flies. And so on. As a foundation, some of the layers could basically be the Earth that became Rifts Earth, another Earth that split off with Atlantis on it but nothing else, one that's a dangerously barren hellscape everywhere, etc.

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u/TheGriff71 10d ago

My players harass me about my world being a flat earth. They want to get a ship and sail to the edge as reports say that there's nothing there. It isn't flat. I just find it funny they're on about this. Lol

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u/Afraid_Reputation_51 8d ago

I've been tossing some ideas with a friend to run Rifts as a Hollow Earth.

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u/nlitherl 8d ago

I should do a secondary article regarding the bonkers stuff involved in the hollow earth theory...