Hey, hey, Nick here! Wanted to touch base with our monthly update of what’s going on in the Automata shop as we continue to work on the game line. Before we jump in, I want to stress the importance of the feedback form again. We are making small tweaks to address some of the your input, but we won’t be tackling all of it until we do another full round of editing. And if you want to tell us about your experience playing that isn’t specific to the mechanics, such as the feel of the game, praises, concerns, hop into our Discord! Anything we can to keep moving the game forward. It really helps us out in the long run to deliver a kick-ass product.

Location modules are about down, I’m currently finishing up on the Academy and the Pegasus right now. It is always interesting to see how my ideas have evolved from the framework that I originally set out to see how much more has been added to those. I look forward to getting the maps started for the location modules so people have some cool blueprints to work for. The Pegasus I am particularly happy with just for being one of the many concessions I made in my creative process for making something that is so much more inexplicably sci-fi than anything else while still retaining the horror aspect that we’ve come to love from Eldritch Automata. I’ll leave you with a little preview:

The Pegasus has the ability to maintain indefinite flight due to an unorthodox technology dubbed the “Prometheus Engine.” At the core of the engine is an Automata, the eponymous ‘Prometheus,’ that has been fitted to act as a massive power source. This Automata uses its Ego Chamber to funnel the power of the Anathema into powering the ship. Further, a Manufactured operates Prometheus, permanently built into the Automata itself. Not only does this “pilot” serve as the conduit to channel the Anathema, they also act as the neural personality unit for the ships onboard AI. The Manufactured is hooked up to life-sustaining machinery to keep it capable of powering Prometheus.

In other news, Heart of Entropy is officially wrapped, alongside Operation: Open Arms, completing the Guest Operations chapter of the core rulebook. This chapter is currently the longest in the book, coming in at a whopping 20,000 or so words, and we’re excited for players to run both of these operations!

Pilot Archetype art is in the works and we’re excited to bring you the first looks, mostly likely in the next update. Plus some of the prototypes of some other cool art we have going in the book as well! We may even possibly share a layout spread so you can get a preview of how the book is going to look. We’ve gone through a lot of iterations of what we think the book should look like, and while the Quicklaunch has given us some solid direction we do want to make it a little more stylish so you can occasionally oooh and aaaah while still able to use it as a reference book. But we won’t leave you hanging till next update, here’s another sample of some of the new Automata art! Introducing… The Overload.

Now it’s time for another lore drop.

Currently, the Liminal Fall refers to the time between the current Age of Automata and Advent Day. You might be asking what is the “Age of Automata?”

Simply put, the Age of Automata begins with the first confirmed kill of a Seraph, showcasing the powers of the Automata against the most powerful beings in the Architect’s army. From that point forward, all nations still standing, in an agreement under the Automata Accords, began sharing research with one another and start the rapid stockpiling of Automata. With this, the defense of humanity truly begins. All scenarios take place in the Age of Automata by default, although there is nothing stopping you from playing back within the Liminal Fall.

Three weeks after the discovery of the Anathema, a group of survivors in the remains of then-Turkey stumbled upon a massive chasm that ripped itself across the ancient complex of Göbekli Tepe.

When we last touched on the Gehenna Institute they had just discovered and had begun experimentation on the Anathema, a powerful force of reality-rejecting energy. Now in the ruins of one of the biggest Neolithic monuments, a discovery was laid bare for them. 

In their initial investigations, they discovered something had been left there, a skeleton of a creature on a colossal scale.

These dead gods would become the templates for the Basel Experiments and framework upon which the Gehenna Institute would build their new war machine.

We’ve always discussed how Automata came to be and how they were built on the blueprints of once-lost primordial beings, but never really delved into how that came to be. The core rulebook will include the full prose sampled here, but as for where these “dead gods” came from, that will be something to explore in a later book.

Some of you were asking for more enemies to use in their games since it wasn’t a part of the Backer pre-release, so here are two new enemies to use in your Eldritch Automata games.

Description: Resembling a bloated mass, this Horror spouts various external intestinal tracts that feed from various parts of its hunched form. Covered in corrosive fluids, this Horror dissolves its foes with acidic projectiles launched from its distended maw.

Health: 8, Ego Field: 3

Attack: Acidic Spew

Tags: Light Damage, Long Range, Damage Over Time 

Attack: Wicked Maw

Tags: Medium Damage, Close Range, Grappling

Talent: Swallow: Targets that are currently Grappled, the enemy can spend a Slow Action to engulf the grappled target removing them from the battlefield. While inside the victim suffers ongoing damage equal to the enemy’s Threat Level each round at the beginning of the Target’s turn. The swallowed target can attempt to escape by making a successful opposed Close Combat roll. If successful the target is expelled from the enemy's stomach into the same zone.

Description: A stealthy Horror that embodies darkness, unable to be perceived against the night, this manifestation of dread steals the victim's shadow before consuming them into the abyss of its bottomless stomach.

Health: 9, Ego Field: 5

Attack: Umbral Strike

Tags: Light Damage, Close Range, Stealth, Swift

Talent: Ambush: The enemy exceeds in the art of surprise, often lying in wait for the perfect chance to attack its target. When attacking from a stealthy position, the enemy gains a +3 bonus to its attack roll.

Greetings Backers, Nick here! We’ve received some feedback in and out of the form from people who have taken a deeper look into the released manuscript. Once, again, please submit any errors, issues, or suggestions from your playtests in this form. This is the best way to assist us in tuning up the game even more, as it lets us review the feedback in the most actionable manner and quickly review if something has already been submitted or addressed. We cannot stress how important this can be in getting your thoughts out there – we look at every bit of feedback we get and consider it heavily.

Automata Archetypes Art is 100% done and we are awaiting more commissions and art to come through. We can’t wait to show you some pilot art soon, and we’re about to start on the special backer tier for people’s original horrors and pilots! A big focus in the art process we’ve been working on and taking painstaking steps toward is consistency – getting artists who match the themes of the game with similar styles.

The second half of the book is 90% complete, with one or two organizations that still need a bit more writing. I’m currently working on finishing the Location Modules that unlocked from the stretch goals, the guest operation Heart of Entropy is in final reviews, and Operation: Open Arms is going to editing. And Ian is wrapping up the final chapter of the core rulebook. I anticipate will be locked in by the end of the month and shifting the second half to initial editing. It’s been a journey for sure and what is nice is that the book feels complete in its content, I don’t think we’ve had to cut anything out (content-wise) and while printing might tell us otherwise, as of right now we haven’t had to compromise on our vision or additions to Eldritch Automata.

Let’s take a look at something we haven’t really had a chance to talk about yet.

The Enemy Codex is a bestiary I’ve written that was a lot smaller in the first inception, initially just a high-level addition at the tail end of one of the GMing sections with examples of how to create your own enemies. It is now expanded into its own chapter, armed to the teeth with 20 different Horrors, 12 Seraphs, and 13 Automata & Human Combatants. With loads of special enemy-only talents and a simplified Threat Die system for determining what to roll, I am pretty proud of this chapter and what it evolved to. Eldritch Automata has always felt like, mechanically, it’s a toolkit to give GMs the ability to shape what they want, but as we proceed we realized that having more concrete examples and ready-to-go mechanics helps achieve that goal.

So some people have been asking for more lore and we want to share it, but not all at once. So here’s my attempt at summarizing a particular section of the lore without copy and pasting multiple paragraphs and pages of the core rulebook. In this update, we’ll take a look at the Gehenna Institute, with some choice excerpts from the manuscript. The history of the Gehenna Institute truly begins five years after Advent Day, with some areas of the world affected by a slow moving nuclear winter, and full on devastation in others. 

The Gehenna Institute main task was to study signs of the Architect in an attempt to find a reason or way to turn around the extinction of humankind. What they found was that wherever the Architect had manifested, strange things would begin to happen in those areas – time dilation, gravity, and even loss of memories. 

With this discovery, the surviving United Nations (which has since collapsed in the current time of the game) decided to bankroll the Gehenna Institute’s research in hopes of finding a weapon. Spoiler alert: they find something even worse.

I know you’re already asking “What is the Liminal Fall?” Next update, pilots. So, then the Gehenna Institute conducts these tests known as the Basel Experiments.

I’m sure you can guess what is coming next…

A few of you have let us know that you didn't receive the Backer release of the first eight chapters. If this is the case please either email us at [email protected] or join the Discord to ping Ian or myself.

In order to continue expanding playtesting and generate more hype for E//A, we're going to be publicly releasing the ashcan as well, via Hedron. Not only will this give the Hedron userbase the chance to play and give us feedback, but it will provide a VTT platform for all of you to run games through! We have already partnered with Hedron to digitally release E//A and make it accessible on the VTT, so this gives us early access and the ability to start building out assets for the game there.

All backers will receive access to the E//A Beta Manuscript on Hedron FOR FREE. You just need to create an account on Hedron, then let us know what email address it's associated with so we can grant you access! You'll be able to access to manuscript in the same state it was released in as the PDF, along with Hedron's tools for character creation, game scheduling, a virtual tabletop, campaign management, and setting up and sharing your own homebrew items (looking at you racs333).

The manuscript will become available next week with the public release of Hedron V1, and we'll roll out Backer access shortly after!

And don't worry, we're still working on the Alchemy release, which will have a different set of assets and release date! We'll have more news there soon.

While we are hard at work finishing up E//A to get it to print, we’re also psyched as hell to announce that we’re partnering with the multimedia artist Le Destroy to publish Trashumanism - a new Tabletop RPG from Le Destroy and E//A contributor Chris Handley (Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory, Iron Kingdoms)! Released first as a full-length album in May 2024, then as a graphic novel later in the same year, Trashumanism has evolved into a multimedia project focused on society’s regression and the impact of technology and media on humanity through themes of consumerism, feminism, body autonomy, sexuality, and technology’s overthrow.

We’ll be publishing the TTRPG and supporting Le Destroy in development of the book, with initial playtesting and demos beginning later this Spring! We’re super excited to be working with Chris again, and can’t wait to show off more about Trashumanism soon. Rest assured this will not impact our timeline for Eldritch Automata, with two different teams working on each project.