This little patch of intolerance is notable both for its dueling banjos of extremism-- embodied within two opposing theocracies that control ten thousand earth instances each, and the ‘great wall’ lying in between, of non-believing don’t-give-a-fuck earths that refuse to ascribe to either orthodoxy. In The Rift, you will find not an ounce of respect for any religion or the powers-that-be, opinions which they display proudly due to the fact they control the only portals that link the two cults. Briefly visit the propaganda palaces on either border, but otherwise stay away from the Rantarian and Thin Order worlds (they don’t want you there anyway), and visit the ‘crazy atheists’ on the front lines of The Rift instead.

Once upon a time, when science was still magic and thousands of religions still swarmed over the earths of the Ten Million Seas, two groups rose to prominence by siphoning off the many believers that remained. The Rantarians, who yelled a lot, and the Order of the Line, a quiet, ritualistic bunch that took passive-aggressive warfare to levels undreamt of by regular folk, controlled a thousand earths each, and absolutely despised each other. The only solution, of course, was to permanently block all direct portals between earths of the opposing lunatic fringe, then to pretend that they don’t exist.

Meanwhile, there are always a few back doors that only the locals know about, leading to earths that didn’t believe in any of the dogma. Sodom and Gomorrah, to Las Vegas and beyond, but in most ways these were the best people of the lot because they accepted all and judged none, and were the only places where people from the sides mingled. Dopps often formed teams to cover each other when they wanted to steal away, then they’d all get-together and raise hell. Good times.

Eventually tensions eased after a couple of hundred years, and the once-seedy underbelly grew into massive resort destinations that everyone enjoyed but could never admit to having visited.