Double trouble with Nick & Ian here to talk to you about the exciting new huge status update we have for Eldritch Automata. With this, we are coming up on one year out from this campaign launch and in the second half of 2025! This update will be massive, but I think you’ll appreciate what we have for you. We’ll share some new art, including pilots and horrors, some layout spreads, go over where we’re at in development, and a lot more.

Just to give a little update on the tariff as it gets ever closer to printing, there is a decent chance that the tariffs may stabilize a bit more. It feels like watching a plinko machine where there are ups and downs, and no one knows really where it’s going to land. We’ll keep you updated, and hopefully by the time we go to print (which is looking like very soon), things will be in a much better spot than they were when we made that last update.

We have a LOT to share about upcoming events. Gen Con just around the corner, a mere month away, and we have a ton happening there, including 74 4-hour and 2-hour sessions of E//A to play in, including one run by Nick himself, and a phenomenal Live Play of E//A on that Sunday!

Eldritch Automata: The Annihilating Angel is a Gen Con exclusive event, featuring Ify Nwadiwe, Cate Osborn, Jacob Burgess, and Persephone Valentine! Nick will lead the cast through a ruined Philadelphia, and while hailed as heroes upon their arrival, not everything is what it seems…

Tickets are still available, so grab them today!

In addition to all the great E//A events, we’re running a plethora of games of Liminal Horror, Trashumanism, Call To Power, Paragons, Horror D&D, and more! We’re also hosting several panels, so check the full events schedule for our sessions.

Beyond Gen Con we have quite a few events coming up in the second half of the year. We’ll have sessions at PAX West and Dragon Con, as well as Quest Con Orlando, NYCC, LUG Con, and PAX Unplugged before the end of the year – many of which we’ll also have a booth at. And don’t forget, if you want to attend a show and run E//A or another horror game of your choice, we’re always looking for more GMs to fill our ranks!

Our big update for this month is the art. We have a lot to show you, including some pilot art, some page spreads, and even a little piece of Horror art. Currently, we are sitting at about 65 percent of the art plotted out & finished, with the rest allocated to an artist and being started. It took a little bit to find the right artists for cohesiveness in the art style, and locking down who we wanted to build our art team as they freed themselves up from other projects. Now we have a full team of artists, each dedicated to different facets of the book, and we are moving full steam ahead. In the past 2 months, we’ve accomplished more art than we’ve been able to in the prior 10, and our estimates are showing that we’re only going to be accelerating from here on out. Our art director, Paladin Mendelhall, has been doing a great job of taking the reins of art direction for this book and establishing communication with our artists to get everything moving in a timely fashion. With the special Backer tier art already on the slate for production, we are in good shape to hit our goals. Our current focus is still on getting the pilot art, including key background characters who have vastly changed the world of Eldritch Automata.

We’ve also started getting finished Horror pieces in, and are excited to share the final direction some of these took. Establishing the tone of the Horror art, and how gory/body horror-y it would be, took some time, and we’re thrilled with the outcome. Below is a sample of the Sinful Sight… “A floating balloon mass of a horror, the surface writhing with a network of pulsating veins. Countless eyes surround this Horror, each with a milky orb and piercing gaze. A single gaping maw splits the underside, lined with razor-sharp teeth that drip with ichor.”

And another - The Fleshripper.

Finally, we’re excited to share that we’ve made a key change to the brand of Eldritch Automata. When we launched the Backerkit campaign and started working on the book, the E//A logo was a placeholder, never originally intended to be the final version. As time went on, though, we were focused on other aspects of the game and didn’t find time to swing back to the logo.

Today, we’re sharing the final version of the Eldritch Automata logo! We hope you love this version as much, if not more, than the original placeholder!

On to the layout! We’ve been plotting out the layout and art hand in hand as a way to judge how much filler art we’ll need and where. Currently, we have 13 out of 16 chapters (81 percent) laid out and ready for art. Our art director, Paladin, has been doing an excellent job with the layout, which is why we’re excited to show you some of the spreads we’ve been working with. In their words, “I want this layout to win awards.”

The layout has required an interesting balance as we addressed how we wanted the core rulebook to feel, making sure it could be read through without issue while also making it feel like it had that sort of gravity and punch you expect from a highly-produced TTRPG product. Despite being a game with darker tones and themes, we’re happy to say that the book isn’t all dreary with washed-out colors. With a healthy dose of striking colors and visuals, we’ll be sure it’ll be fun to flip through and keep on your coffee table for when party guests come through and you want to let your horror flag fly. We can’t fully give the page count yet, but it looks like it’ll be a whopping 350+ pages of art, horror, and mecha action.

Speaking of page count…we’re about to start the second round of editing in the next month or so. This is the last step toward being print-ready, and we’ll be able to release the second half of the manuscript to Backers as soon as it’s done!

At Origins last week we revealed a few new pieces of merch, including a collab with The Roasted Crow Coffee! Check out Mech Fuel, a Pecan Cream-flavored Cafe Cubano-style dark roast! We worked directly with the folks at The Roasted Crow to develop this blend, and we absolutely love it. Ian has already gone through an entire bag in a week. Head over to The Roasted Crow to purchase a bag, and use the code "GEHENNA" at checkout to get 10% off your order!

We also are moving a few new pieces into production, including an Omamori, designed by a Japanese friend of ours, and more! All of these will be available on our website for purchase soon, and available at all of our upcoming events.

Currently, at the time of writing this, Eldritch Automata has one published item: the Quicklaunch. Beyond the core rulebook, the two supplements (Eldritch Automata: Homefront and the unnamed Eldritch Automata Operation Campaign from Storyteller’s Forge) are planned but not currently in development and will not go into development until Eldritch Automata is ready for digital release. But despite the two big supplements planned, we know that people are chomping at the bit, so we’re proud to confirm that alongside Dark Passenger (from the Quicklaunch) and Open Arms & Heart of Entropy (from the core rulebook), we have three new Operations coming to you in the near future to fill out the current product line. This includes Renegade Base Alpha, a convention scenario written by one of our very own GMs, Jay Gellerman, Violence Against Nature, written by another one of our GMs, Kyle Knotts, and Titans of the Deep, written by Nick himself. Titans of the Deep will be the first release, and we’re looking at having it out in PDF and print by Gen Con!

Titans of the Deep will also come with some new additional game rules, like underwater combat, the dangers of extreme deep water pressure, and some new equipment. Titans is an Operation and a zine-sized supplement all in one, meant to add a little more flavor to your Eldritch Automata games. 

Finally, as requested by our community on Discord, I’m also dropping a new stat block below – an example of an Automata enemy that can be used against your players.

Description: A sleek and agile Automata built for high-speed combat. Its frame houses experimental plasma weaponry, with a distinctive red and black paint scheme marking it perfect for the frontlines.

Health: 10

Ego Field: 5

Attack: Plasma Blade

Tags: Heavy Damage, Close Range, Charging

Attack: Plasma Overdrive

Tags: Medium Damage, Close Range, Area

Talent: Skirmisher - When this enemy makes a successful attack, it can immediately move to an adjacent zone as a Free Action.

Hey there pilots, Ian AND Nick here! We’re tag-teaming our monthly update/newsletter because we have way too much to share this month. But first things first, let’s tackle the elephant in the room.

To get the hard discussions out of the way, the tariffs are raging through the TTRPG industry, jacking up prices, and hitting major printers out of China with unpredictable tariff expenses. Right now, much of the industry is in a weird holding pattern. You may have heard that some TTRPG products are exempt from the tariff and additional taxation, and the only answer we can provide is maybe, but not really. While books were said to be exempt, TTRPGs are technically classified as games, which aren’t. And that’s a slippery slope. Plus, with no firm percentage, we can’t lock down a solid quote for printing, because no one knows what the actual cost will be once it gets ready to ship, and we might end up with another 50% to pay once it hits ports before we can collect our product.

Okay, but what are WE doing to address it? Right now, we’re checking out several US-based printers and getting quotes to see how they compare to our original. Printing the Quicklaunches through these US-based printers will give us a good litmus test and understanding of what to expect from the future. In order to make sure we don’t get screwed by these shifting costs and uncertainties, we have removed the option to pre-order Eldritch Automata from Backerkit. We simply don’t know how much book printing is going to cost us right now, and because of that, we may have to adjust the retail price of our core rulebook and other offerings to cover it. For anyone who has pledged, pre-ordered, and paid, this Does Not affect you. This will only affect new orders going forward. 

So we thank you for being patient with us as we navigate this industry shake-up; we’re not the only ones going through it, and we’re all sticking together to weather the storm.

Second, and equally important, however, is that this has delayed our timeline. Right now, we are unsure when the book will go to print, nor are we sure when we’ll be able to move forward with dice manufacturing, as there are no large-scale dice manufacturers in the United States. We are still on track to finish the book and will do a full digital release when it is ready, but we have to delay printing, and we cannot give a firm timeline on that at this time.

Okay, on to good news, and I’ll keep it short and sweet. All our crowdfunding stretch goals that were intended for the core rulebook – the three additional location modules, the Eldritch Arms, the Eldritch & the Forgotten archetypes, as well as the two guest operations – are now completely done and added to the manuscript. We are JUST ABOUT at 99% done, waiting for three short sections to be submitted from writers. And once those final submissions are in we’ll send the rest of the manuscript to editing and get it ready to share with you all. But looking over the game, it’s in a great state to play, and with you all eating up the player section, we are excited to show you what comes next with the GM and setting sections of the core rulebook. With my (Nick) writing assignments complete, I get to move on to do some fun stuff for the gameline while we wait for art and layout to finish up. Speaking of…

Art continues to be our biggest focus. We have multiple Pilot Archetypes pieces completed, with the art for the special backers who wanted to immortalize their characters in our book as Automata pilots coming in the next few weeks. Getting the art done has been a challenge for us, but we are blown away every day with the art we’re receiving from some very talented artists. Currently trying to wrap up the Pilot Archetype chapter art, which, alongside the Automata Archetypes, has the most art out of any chapter before rapidly getting the rest of the player section of the core rulebook complete.

And here’s the full preview of that gorgeous Strainer art in the banner up above!

Of course, the book isn’t the only thing we’re working on. We have a massive convention lineup this year, starting THIS WEEKEND with PAX East in Boston. Check out the lineup and everything we have going on below…

Booth TT56, Game Room 052

We’re running a ton of sessions of Eldritch Automata, as well as one-shots of Liminal Horror, Call to Power, Horror D&D adventures, Our Brilliant Ruin, and a handful of World of Darkness sessions.

We’re running a handful of sessions of E//A, plus supporting our friends at Storytellers Forge to run Horror D&D adventures, and support their presence at the show.

Register for sessions here.

Ian will be a guest at MomoCon, speaking on several panels and running a special one-shot of Eldritch Automata to showcase some content we’re planning for the first supplement, Homefront.

 Schedule:

We also have GMs there running E//A, Our Brilliant Ruin, Horror D&D, Call to Power, Vampire: The Masquerade, Brindlewood Bay, Call of Cthulhu, and FIST!

Schedule - Register for Games on Warhorn

Booth #3A-658

Come meet E//A writer and the developer of our skirmish game, Edge of the Apocalypse, Chris Handley! Chris will also be running demos of Trashumanism, our upcoming bio-punk TTRPG that he’s leading development on.

Booth #735-737 (w/ Hedron)

We’re going to be working with our friends at Hedron to bring a unique experience to Origins Game Fair this year! Swing by the booth to play a demo of Eldritch Automata, Trashumanism, or Call to Power, try out the Hedron VTT, and explore character creation for these and other games using Hedron!

Booth #3054 (Entrepreneurs Avenue)

Finally, bringing us to August (before we take a pause to prep for Fall events) we have GenCon. Hold onto your butts, because we have a lot.

We’re working with City of Glass Games and Blank Bodies to sponsor a pre-show event – Power Word Resist – a charity variety show benefiting RAINN and GenderNexus at the Indiana Repertory Theatre, just two blocks away from the convention center, on July 30. Come see some great bands play, a drag show starring Juicy Garland, and a comedy set from Ify Nwadiwe. Tickets on sale soon. There will also be a Silent Charity Auction that we are adding more to each day in partnership with many popular TTRPG companies, titles, and independent creators.

Once the con gets started, we’re bringing you a Live Show of Eldritch Automata. Helmed by Nick, he’ll be joined by comedian Ify Nwadiwe, voice actor Jacob Burgess, producer and TTRPG performer Michelle Nguyen Bradley, and sex educator and disability advocate Cate Osborn for E//A: The Annihilating Angel. When a group of pilots responds to a distress call to rescue the nearby religious settlement of Arcadia and its neighbors, something immediately seems amiss. Arcadia is strange and under the holy protection of their leader, known simply as ‘Herald.’ Herald seems to exhume some miracle power akin to that of legendary messianic figures… but the source of their power is anything but holy.

We’re also hosting a handful of panels and workshops, including:

Plus, games. So many games. We’ve submitted over 150 game sessions for E//A, Call to Power, Horror D&D, Trashumanism, as well as new games like Paragons from Broken Door Entertainment and Sunset. Including an exclusive one-shot of E//A run by Nick! Just search the GenCon events schedule for “Gehenna Gaming” for the full list and don’t miss the registration window!

That’s a lot, trust us, we know, and we’re excited to be bringing E//A out to all these shows this year. Plus, we have PAX West, DragonCon, NYCC, QuestCon Orlando, Gamehole, LUG Con, and PAX Unplugged later in the year…

But for now, we’re working on getting the last pieces together for these shows, finalizing that manuscript, and getting a new print run on the Quicklaunch sorted. We’ll touch base in June with a new lore drop, updates on the timeline, and more.