What is RIFTs? Let's start with the basics... and no, Joe Veteran, don't turn your eyes away just yet. Everyone can stand to go over the facts once in a while, and there's a test at the end.

     The basics: RIFTs is based on Earth, somewhere between 450-500 years in the future. In that span of time, we went from a Golden Age of Man... to global warfare... to nuclear annihilation... to a new Dark Age... to the long crawl away from the brink of extinction... and finally, to a point of tenuous existence.

     But that's not all. With the atomic mass destruction of the planet's life, came a terrible paranormal energy disruption, and the ancient sources of magic were reawakened. This emergence was so violent and primal, it tore open holes in space and time, and wreaked a cataclysm that shook the earth and stirred the oceans into fury, all but finishing the job that the holocaust had started.

     Yet, a flicker of humanity remained, scattered in pockets around the globe, and plunged into the darkness and chaos of what the Earth had become. It had become the feeding and hunting grounds of dimensional races and predators. Magic, savage and supernatural, was now a reality, and the science and innocence of the past was forgotten or lost, as humankind became like frightened, maddened animals. It would be many years before human civilizations were once again erected out of the new Dark Age, but man is resourceful and passionate.

     In the next two and a half centuries, technology was re-discovered and re-learned, and progressed anew. In the magic-rich environment, man learned to harness the supernatural forces and become vessels of that energy. Genetic mutations resulted in a psychic breed, in whose minds the secrets of extra sensory powers were unlocked. And humans took baby steps away from the brink, many accepting the new world and the possibility of peaceful cohabitation with intelligent races, but many more hiding behind the banner of military aggression against the invaders.

     This is RIFTs Earth.