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 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 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, 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.