This week, we get under the plating.

A Glitter Boy may be one of the most powerful and recognizable war machines on Rifts Earth, but even a legend needs someone who knows how to keep it walking. Armor gets blasted apart. Systems fail. Ammunition runs dry. Replacement parts can be impossible to find. And sometimes, surviving the next battle means doing something the original designers never imagined.

That is where The Riggers come in.

The Riggers are the builders, fixers, salvagers, Operators, pilots, and chrome-obsessed tinkerers of the Glitter Boy Brotherhood. Where others may see the USA-G10 as a nearly sacred piece of Golden Age technology, a Rigger also sees a machine that has to survive in the real world. They repair what is broken, replace what cannot be repaired, improvise when the proper parts no longer exist, and find ways to keep battered suits fighting long after another pilot might have abandoned them.

For the Riggers, knowing how to fire the Boom Gun is only part of understanding a Glitter Boy. You need to know the machine. How it moves. How it sounds. What breaks. What can be rebuilt. And just how far you can push it before something finally gives. Behind the famous pilots and gleaming suits are Operators, support crews, workshops, spare parts, and generations of accumulated knowledge that outsiders rarely see.

That practical streak gives the Riggers a culture all their own. They understand that keeping a Glitter Boy alive sometimes means ignoring what the machine was and concentrating on what it can become. Replacement armor, salvaged components, unconventional repairs, custom weapons, and field modifications are not signs that a suit has lost its glory. To a Rigger, every patch and replacement part can become another chapter in its history.

The Glitter Boy Brotherhood may have its legends, but the Riggers know those legends do not survive on reputation alone.

And perhaps no Glitter Boy wears that philosophy more proudly than Franken-Boy.

Franken-Boy is not the pristine Chrome knight people picture when they hear the words "Glitter Boy". It is scarred, patched, rebuilt, and unmistakably pieced together. Mismatched armor and replacement systems tell the story of a machine that has been damaged, repaired, modified, and sent back into battle again and again. Where another suit might hide its scars beneath polished Chrome, Franken-Boy practically wears them as badges of honor.

Every mismatched plate raises another question. Where did that piece come from? What battle destroyed the original? Who rebuilt it? How many pilots, Operators, battlefields, and desperate repairs have contributed to the machine standing before you now?

That is what makes Franken-Boy such a fitting legend for the Riggers. It represents something at the heart of their philosophy: a Glitter Boy does not have to be pristine to be legendary. Sometimes ingenuity, experience, spare parts, and sheer stubbornness are what keep a legend alive.
 

If Franken-Boy represents the Riggers’ refusal to let a battered Glitter Boy die, The Patriot represents the spirit of innovation that helped create the Riggers themselves.

The Patriot began as a stock USA-G10 recovered from a pre-NEMA United States Army depot, its original American and Army markings deliberately preserved by the Operators who maintained it. During the Dark Age, dwindling replacement parts forced those Operators to improvise with scavenged components and nonstandard systems. 

Eventually, necessity became something more. 

Innovation became habit.

After The Patriot suffered severe damage in battle, its Operators added a turreted particle-beam weapon above its left shoulder, powered by the salvaged autonomous brain of a pre-Rifts robot. The integration awakened a fiercely patriotic neural intelligence that became The Patriot’s robotic co-pilot – and gave the already unconventional Glitter Boy a personality every bit as loud as its Boom Gun.

Those modifications helped deepen a growing divide with more traditional Minutemen. Other pilots and Operators shared the same willingness to rebuild, modify, and reinvent their machines, helping forge what would eventually become The Riggers.

Today, The Patriot is their most famous Glitter Boy, regarded as one of “The Originals.” Minutemen traditionalists have another name for it:

“The first Franken-boy.”

And The Patriot doesn’t travel alone.

U.N.C.L.E. S.A.M. is an intelligent, eagle-shaped reconnaissance robot and companion to The Patriot. Where The Patriot is loud and theatrical, U.N.C.L.E. S.A.M. is quiet and observant – scouting from above, gathering intelligence, and working in concert with the legendary Glitter Boy.

The two artificial intelligences have become an unlikely pair: one built to bring the boom, the other to scout its targets. 

And this is where the Rifts® Glitter Boy Codex begins opening another part of the toolbox for players and Game Masters. The Codex isn't only exploring the history, factions, personalities, and legends surrounding the USA-G10. It is packed with Glitter Boy suit modifications, new and variant weapons, new gear, pilot options, and other ways to customize the legendary USA-G10 for your character and campaign.

Want a Glitter Boy that has survived decades of battlefield repairs? A suit adapted to the needs of a particular pilot or mission? New equipment? Different weapons? Field modifications born out of necessity?

The Riggers provide a look at what happens when pilots and Operators stop asking what a Glitter Boy was designed to be and start asking what they need it to become.

And this is just a glimpse.

The Riggers, Franken-Boy, The Patriot, and U.N.C.L.E. S.A.M. reveal another side of the Glitter Boy legacy. The Chrome may be iconic, but underneath it are machines maintained by people – people who improvise, rebuild, modify, and sometimes simply refuse to let a battered old warhorse die.

And before we close the workshop doors this week, we have one more piece of Chrome to show you.

And the reveals aren’t stopping here.

This Sunday, September 27 at 12:00 Noon Eastern, Kevin Siembieda and Sean Owen Roberson return to Legion of Myth on YouTube to talk all things Rifts® Glitter Boy Codex – including the unveiling of something huge coming to this BackerKit project.

This is more than another campaign reveal. It marks a historic moment for Palladium Books and the Megaverse®, and you’ll want to be there when Kevin and Sean unveil it for the first time.

They’ll also join the Legion of Myth crew for a fun dive into Palladium’s recurring themes of human augmentation and transhumanism in Rifts and our many other games. And as longtime viewers know, these conversations can go just about anywhere.

Tune in, join the conversation, and be there for the big reveal!

The Rifts® Glitter Boy Codex opens the vault on the factions, legendary suits, personalities, weapons, gear, modifications, history, and stories that have grown around one of the most iconic creations in the Palladium Megaverse – while giving players and Game Masters new ways to make the legendary Glitter Boy their own.

Follow for weekly reveals. It's time to suit up!