to his banner by paying them generously with spoils taken from
small Coalition villages, raided military depots, and other acts of
banditry. Attracted by promises of loot, Juicers and other des
peradoes, including Crazies, 'Borgs, Headhunters, a renegade
mutant Dog Pack, D-Bees and even some normal humans all
joined the growing band.
The Coalition has depicted the JAL as "terrorists" and "in
sane murderers," depending on which propaganda message one
is listening to at the time. Although the JAL try to avoid injuring
and killing the innocent (Coalition Soldiers are not considered
"innocent"), their crimes have been greatly exaggerated and
common people live in fear of the day the band of murderous
Juicers will descend upon their towns or villages.
The Grim Reapers
Surrender to Death, and Live Forever.
- Graffiti found on slum walls across North America.
The first rumors and tales about this mysterious and feared
cult started appearing during the 80' s P.A., at such Juicer havens
as Ishpeming, Los Alamo and Kingsdale. The rumors spoke of a
cult of Juicers who worshipped Death itself. Some of the wilder
tales claimed that some Juicers had attained immortality by un
dergoing a dark magical ritual. Although these stories were
never as widely believed as the Prometheus Treatment (for one,
they didn't have the Coalition States ' propaganda machine sup-
95
For the last few years, the JAL has conducted operations in
small, highly mobile bands of 6-20 people, darting in and out of
the Coalition' s territories and taking refuge in the western wil
derness. Most raids have occurred in the Missouri area, although
the more daring bands venture as far as Iowa and a few have
even made it as far as Chi-Town. Coalition patrols have always
managed to kill or capture raiders who penetrated into Chi-Town
territory before they could do much damage. It has become the
unofficial CS policy to terminate all JAL groups whenever they
are encountered.
Note:
The aftermath of the Prometheus incident would have a
profound influence on the JAL; see the
Uprising section
for
more details.
porting them), they have remained a persistent story for over two
decades. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of Juicers try every year to
make contact with the
Grim Reapers
and find out if the rumors
of professed immortality are true. Most of these Juicers are in
their fifth or sixth year of service and feel death approaching.
These desperate men and women are ready to do anything to
forestall their impending doom.
Juicers who desire to join the cult must venture into the worst
slums of Juicer frequented cities and try to find somebody who
knows something about the Grim Reapers. Most of them (the
lucky ones) find nothing, or are deceived by con-men, slavers, or
fanatical cultists who have no direct connection with the real
Grim Reapers. The unlucky few who succeed are met one night
by a group of cloaked men, hiding their faces beneath skull
masks. What happens afterward is a mystery.
A Juicer mercenary called Ramon Doodles tried to infiltrate
the organization. He was found in an alley in Ishpeming, horri
bly mutilated, but miraculously still alive. Mortally wounded,
his last whispered words to the soldiers who found him is the
only information people have about the Grim Reapers. Accord
ing to the soldiers' s account, Ramon said the cultists practiced
human sacrifices and worse in hidden catacombs outside several
cities. He insisted that their numbers were in the hundreds and
that they were evil incarnate. They worshipped Death itself, and
from the descriptions he gave of statues and drawings, some oc
cult scholars believe their "deity" is none other than the fear
some leader of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse ! Ramon
warned that Juicers who died in the service of the Grim Reapers
were raised as undead warriors (see the Murder-Wraith Juicers).
Monstrous mockeries of once human Juicers answering to insane
cult leaders. He died without telling the soldiers the location of
the catacombs.
The Ishpeming authorities took Ramon' s last words seri
ously. Yet try as they might, they could not locate the cult or any
subterranean lair. After several frustrating weeks without discov
ering a clue, the investigators finally decided to close the case
and officially declared the Grim Reapers to be a minor cult of
evil sorcerers with little or no presence in their territory. Nothing
to be worried about. Whether thi s official declaration is true or
not remains unknown. Rumors of undead Juicers continue to
surface, especially near the Federation of Magic, Kingsdale and
other non-aligned cities.
96
Aramis Knight
Necromancer, Leader of the Grim Reapers
During the day, Aramis Knight is known to be a kind-hearted
herbalist and alchemist in Laramy, a town associated with the
city-state of Kingsdale. This middle-aged human opens his shop
every day at 1 0:00 a.m., plies minor potions and medicinal
herbal concoctions, and is considered by most to be a pillar of
the community. Whenever somebody enters the store, Aramis
walks out of the back with a smile and a kind word. Everybody
speaks highly of the man and his soothing voice. Everybody, ex
cept for a handful of people who claim to have felt scared or un
easy in his presence. Those tales are always dismissed as sour
grapes from people who envy the quiet success of the gentle
herbalist.
At night, Aramis Knight closes up his shop, goes to the back
and opens a secret passage leading to an ancient cavern beneath
the town ' s foundations. He dons a black robe and a skull-shaped
mask, and descends into the darkness. In the black depths of the
underground catacomb, he leads a coven of seven cultists and
three Murder-Wraiths in a dark ceremony dedicated to the Lord
of Death. Later that night, he uses magic to communicate with
his other minions. Aramis is the leader of the Grim Reapers,
pulling the strings of the cult from the anonymity of the small
town.
Very few people outside the cult have heard Aramis ' story,
and of these, only one is still alive. This survivor is
Ishmael
Lord,
an Elven mystic now living in Lazlo, who thinks the man
he knew as Arthur Night is dead and gone. If anybody showed
Ishamel a photograph or video of Aramis Knight (very difficult
to do, as the shop owner will always politely refuse to have his
picture taken), the mystic would recoil in horror. The story he
would tell would explain a great deal.
During the years 1 2 - 1 4 P.A., the Chi-Town armies under
Joseph Prosek I (Karl Prosek' s father) conducted a systematic
campaign of genocide against the Federation of Magic (a brief
account of the war can be found in the Rifts® RPG). Thousands
of people, most of them innocent D-Bees, were massacred and
entire towns and villages were laid waste by the relentless Chi
Town forces. Ishamel and Arthur were teenagers back then, ap
prentices to a mystic who had nothing to do with the Federation
of Magic or their ill-advised attack on the Coalition. This did not
save him, nor his pupils. Ishmael just barely managed to run into
the forest when a Chi-Town patrol swooped over the magic
school. Arthur, his teacher, and twenty other young men and
women were taken out into a forest clearing, forced to dig their
own graves, and mowed down by machine-guns. From his hid
ing place, the horrified Ishmael stood as the lone witness to the
massacre.
The mystic remained in hiding the entire day. At nightfall, he
walked over to the site of the mass grave, wishing to say good
bye to his friends before fleeing into the wilderness. As he was
praying over the grave, a hand clawed its way out of the freshly
dug mound ! Although he was terrified at first, Ishmael resisted
his superstitious fear and helped pull out the survivor.
Arthur had survived that horrible night. A bullet had just
grazed his head, knocking him unconscious. The young man had
awoke found himself buried alive, and surrounded by the
corpses of his fellow students. It had taken him hours to claw his
way to the surface. He emerged a changed man - most likely
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