Terrans
Terrans are the names of human descendents of the first explorers to leave Earth near the end of the Golden Age and colonize the planet Terra. They have no contact with Rifts Earth and believe their home world was destroyed by some terrible, mysterious power. Earth is off limits, as the entire Sol System is unstable and unsafe to approach with FTL drives.
Terrans have spread extremely fast, having been fortunate enough to sit on the gateway to a wealth of systems with habitable or easily terraformable worlds and resources.
The Terran species is flexible, curious, and expansion-minded as a whole.
Terrans, generally, live in two regions: The Terran Protectorate, and the Free Colonies. Some can also be found scattered among the Xintrin Merchant Guild and the Empire of Many Suns.
Rolling
up a Terran player character
Rolling up a Terran player character is, for the most part, exactly like creating a human in Rifts or most of Palladium’s other games. They have the eight primary attributes, hit points of 1D6 per level, and use the same bonuses chart as in Rifts Ultimate Edition.
However, Terrans are a special breed, genetically selected to excel. As a result of this, player characters should pick one attribute and roll an additional 1D6. If this roll puts them over 16, they do not get to roll additional dice as usual. It’s best for GMs if they choose the attribute BEFORE rolling their stats, so GMs can avoid player characters min-maxing their attributes if they wish (if, however, you want your player characters to be able to stack their favorite attribute, by all means, allow them to roll that die afterwards, however…as long as you’re having fun).
They should also choose a Creche Clan heritage from the list below.
Starting S.D.C. is detailed under each character class.
Terrans reach adulthood at 16, have graduated high school, and at this age generally either decide on going to college or the military. Most first-level player characters will be between the ages of 16 and 20.
Terrans can live to be about 200 years of age due to the high level of medical achievement in the Protectorate, but are generally inactive in public life after about 120-150 years old.
The Crèche Clans
One of the most important distinctions in Protectorate society is your crèche clan. Every human in the Protectorate is a descendant of someone raised and trained in one of the 10 original crèches, which were like large boarding schools that were responsible for the well-being and education of every child brought along on the original mission. The crèches operated for three generations, until all the frozen embryos were awakened and raised to adulthood.
Since there was no true family heritage, people separated themselves by crèche. The crèches competed fiercely in sports, academic achievement, and later, in politics and success in society.
Today is little different, except the crèche clans have more power than ever. Many people prefer to marry from within their clan, work with or under those of their clan, and most colonies and even fleets are generally dominated by the population of one clan or another.
The ARCHIE A.I. that distributed the frozen embryos to each crèche for care and revival decided to sort them by common genetic markers that it believed would group people together by like aptitudes and temperaments. As such, there are some common traits noticeable in each member of every clan. Ethnicity is neither a factor in clan membership, nor in Protectorate society at all.
There are a few without a clear clan heritage by either birth or trait. These are known as the Clanless. While not second-class citizens by law, the lack of a protective clan to look out for their interests makes them second-class citizens in practice. No bonuses or penalties. Roll up as a normal human.
Those characters, and there are many, with parents from both clans generally show traits for one or another at an early age and choose one before reaching maturity.
Player characters creating a Terran character should choose one clan from below as their clan heritage.