Content Warning: Body horror and violence. Rift Raiders does pull a lot of inspiration from Lovecraft and cosmic horror.
What is Rift Raiders?
Rift Raiders is a story that spawned from multiple sources. The first was from a dream I had several years ago about jumping between parallel worlds, which is where the title and a key subplot came from.
The second is when I went a little bit crazy on DnDBeyond.com with creating characters and thought it might fun to take some of those characters and give them a story. Several of those characters were very influenced by Lovecraftian horror.
Thus, Rift Raiders came to be.
While out excavating some old ruins, Colden discovers an ancient relic. As soon as he touches it, he disappears, moments later reappearing covered in a cold slime, bearing a strange marking on his arm. Soon after, a mysterious man shows up, taking the relic from him and murdering his partner Dareau.
Six months later, Colden is approached by a trio of strange ladies who tell him that his world, Zephym, is one of four mirror worlds, and the relic he found is a Nexus, a key to keep these worlds separated and protected. The man he encountered, Othronis, is attempting to collect them all to unleash a powerful evil upon all four worlds.
The ladies lead Colden to a rift between his world and the next, where the last Nexus remains hidden, to find it before Othronis can. Colden must make a leap into the unknown, to find the last Nexus, and discover more lost secrets than he ever imagined.
The Characters
COLDEN
Colden comes from Zephym, the mirror world representing wind. He was hired by Dareau to be her gun-for-hire protector when out on excavations. But through their time together, they became incredibly close, and Colden fell hard for her.
We he lost her, he fell into a downward spiral, which was not at all helped by the strange change his body went through after discovering the Nexus. The odd relic seemed to have given him eldritch abilities. He can see horrifying monsters that no one else seems to be able to. He can craft weapons from shadows. And the voices. He keeps hearing whispering voices.
DAREAU
The first Dareau we meet is the one from Zephym, who is an archeologist and Colden's partner. Unfortunately she is killed by Othronis when he steals the Nexus relic from Colden.
Then, much to Colden's surprise, we meet her mirror counterpart in Terral, where she is the curator and head researcher at a museum called the College of Curiosities.
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