Blood Druid Capital

Notre Dame's collapse into the Paris Metro caused those metro tunnels walls to burst and get flooded by the Seine. If you delve deeper underneath these ruins of Notre Dame you will eventually get to the Blood Druids Citadel. From the outside it's a gargantuan macabre copy of a castle cathedral, terrifying to behold. Inside it is a confusing labyrinth of innumerable rooms and twisting corridors.

This structure pulsates and oozes with an all-encroaching malignant life and is known as the Basilica. This is literally the bleeding heart of the Blood Druids on Rifts Earth and where their hierarchy resides. Safe in the knowledge that no one has any idea of their existence or the extent of their influence. Even if someone thinks something is a miss, everyone puts it down to the Gargoyles, who so far have played their part on the surface admirably.

It may take a moment for travellers to realise that they have moved from the hewn underground tunnels and into the Basilica. It seamlessly merges with the tunnel network. The first signs of this will be the Gargoyle Empire guards guarding some of the major tunnels leading to the Basilica and afterwards a lack of gargoyle empire activity, though that does not mean it is not guarded and under surveillance. When you get closer to the Basilica you may notice the tunnel turning from solid rock to an organic structure, or that is what it feels like. Those of quick wit and sound mind may think that this process is spreading outwards from the Basilica, and they will not be wrong. Like a cancerous growth the Basilica is growing and spreading out into the world, few realise the extent of this growth of the building in the last few years. It has amalgamated many of the old metro tunnels into its own structure, because of this many visitors are inside the Basilica, long before they even think they have reached it, a fatal mistake for the enemies of the blood druids.

In the Basilica you will see many creatures in various stages of sacrifice, kept alive and suffering for as long as possible, stuck in a moment of excruciating pain, strengthening with their own life force, those who are inflicting this unimaginable torture on them. Blood from these victims is "milked" for that is what best describes this process for as long possible or for as long as the blood druids "enjoy" the moment and method used to extract the blood, before they move onto other victims. They leave the victim on the edge of death, helping him to recover, and then inflicting him with other forms of torture, and more mystic blood is withdrawn. This process endlessly repeating itself for the victims.

Sometimes the disembodied head of the Cardinal Lords will appear somewhere in the Basilica and just take a bite out of someone, who isn't a blood druid, usually done to someone who is a captive or in the sacrificial ritual. In other rooms you can see sentient beings spit roasted alive. Elsewhere sentient meat is exquisitely prepared in exotic dishes and eaten by the powerful blood druids in great banqueting and feasting halls inside the Basilica.

Inside the Basilica its walls may seem normal, and suddenly are covered in dripping blood. Elsewhere you will see what can only be described as veins and arteries running through the walls, floor and ceilings. You will hear the room breathing or suddenly feel the rooms getting smaller and claustrophobic. You may find it hard to breathe. The tunnels and rooms may seal or open themselves, this is like watching a wound heal up or open up in front of you.

In some areas of the tunnel network you may see crudely drawn eyes, ears, noses, to some drawings that are extremely realistic and appear to be a sculptor of an eye or an ear. All these on closer inspection by a rogue scientist or other academics performing forensic tests will reveal that the drawings are done in blood. These will become far more frequent and more elaborate, as well as more life like the deeper you travel into the Heart of the Basilica. Other things in the wall maybe skeletons and bodies in various states of decay of various creatures glued or embedded into the walls of the tunnels and rooms of the Basilica.

Sometimes you may walk into a room, and find yourself in a forest or a library, on a mountain, anywhere but be where you expected to be inside the Basilica.

(GM Note: these and other affects are defensive/offensive methods of the Basilica. Use the equivalent spells or psionics, whichever you deem appropriate, for the effects these have on characters in the Basilica. Treat each effect as the equivalent spell/psionic cast by a 3D4 level mage or psychic. Remember this level of attack/defence by the Basilica is on the outer edge of the Basilica or when it isn't in danger or it could simply being playing with its prey. Closer you get to the heart of the Basilica or it is in danger, the more powerful these defensive/offensive methods will be.

The eyes, ears, noses, tendrils and other such drawings are in fact magical surveillance devices, the cruder the drawings the simpler the surveillance or defensive system is. The more realistic are drawing in blood is, the more powerful the surveillance and defensive system in place. So an Egyptian hieroglyph type drawings may only give human like vision to the area that it covers, and its coverage will be line of sight only, to a sculptor array will give better surveillance, than the most advanced technological optic and sensor systems. The skeletons and decayed bodies that peel will be defensive warriors, who will fall out of the ceilings or of the walls and rise out of the floors to defend the Basilica. Depending on their realism, some will be the same as the spells to the more realistic ones, which will boosted versions of this. Some of these things will be Golems- a special creation of the blood druids created using their enchanted blood. These are far more powerful and versatile than the standard Golem that is normally prepared by the spell found in the various Rifts books.

If characters do find themselves in a forest or on a mountain, they may think it is an illusion, which it could easily be. It could also be a pocket dimension.

GM note: it isn't just that there are illusions and pocket dimensions found in the Basilica, But the entire inside of the Basilica is a different dimension to Rifts Earth. When the characters enter the Basilica, they are in fact entering another dimension, and it is this dimension that is spreading in the old metro network and eventually the whole of Rifts Earth. The fairies know the structures like the Basilica as Caers or mystic forts. These Caers allow you entry into the dimension known as Otherworld because it is linked to it.

These Caers link to each other on Rifts Earth and even to other dimensions. A frightening prospect when you consider this one is under control of the blood druids, who at a moments notice can travel from Paris and emerge out at a Megalith in Carnac or Stonehenge or what used to be the Prerifts countries of Turkey and Spain.

The Stone Megaliths, remnants of the second age of magic on Earth are doorways to each other on Rifts Earth, as well as to the dimension known as Otherworld and to numerous other dimensions. Numerous Caers maybe linked to Carnac, Easter Island and to the Gulf Coast of Mexico, just to name a few of the hubs on Rifts Earth of Otherworld.

It is this safe, stealthy method that the Blood Druids have used to spread their tendrils across the Rifts world. Sending emissaries as far afield as the Magic Zone and East Coast of North America, and to the jungles of the Indian Subcontinent. The NGR have no idea of how quickly the Gargoyles on their western front could move forces to their southern, northern and eastern fronts, if the blood druids wished it. The NGR will not get a warning of this. Only multiple mass dimensional teleports of armies into the heart of their territory may be a more frightening and dangerous prospect for the NGR, but luckily only Supernatural Intelligences' have that kind of readily disposable power at the tip of their tentacles.

The Basilica like many of these Caers is under the control of its masters, in this case the Cardinal Lords, it is quite clearly far more powerful than normal Caers and the Cardinal Lords exert a greater influence on the Basilica than is normal. This manifests itself by them opening pocket dimensions of forests, mountains, libraries and so on. Sometimes they make themselves and the blood druids inside impervious to certain weapon types', or their enemies more vulnerable to their attacks. One of the things characters have to watch out for in the Basilica is the travel of time. What may seem like a day in the Basilica may well be weeks in the real world, that is if the Basilica wanted it to be that way. Time is said to stand still in the Basilica and it may well do.

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