Hey there Backers!

It’s been almost a month since the last update and navigating the separation between Eldritch Automata and our previous publisher. You may notice that this update isn’t Update 23, in support of wanting to further emphasize a fresh start. I’ve penned this as Update #1 to recognize the different chapter that Eldritch Automata is entering. I’ve been in discussions with Gehenna Gaming and slowly going through the process. Paperwork has been sent from my end, so now we play the waiting game.

Thankfully, we’re not waiting for everything. I am proud and excited to say Titans of the Deep will finally release sometime next week (first week of March) published digitally independently by myself and teaming up with a publisher to get a print run for conventions (and eventually for online orders as well). The sales from Titans of the Deep are earmarked to fund the development of the core rulebook while we wait for the full process of BackerKit funds to be sent from our former publisher to us. But that’s not all! Titans of the Deep has been expanded from a simple adventure to a starter set that now includes the new updated rule tweaks. These tweaks were directly made from the feedback you all submitted.

Titans of the Deep is a 90-page book which includes: 

Moving away from Titans, I want to talk about what future development is looking like. Two adventures written by our convention GMs will be entering into clean up and production and will get a similar treatment to Titans. Depending on how sales of Titans go, we should be seeing these with fairly quick turn-arounds. The aforementioned solo rules should also be ready to go fairly soon and I’ll be writing a companion adventure to accompany that. We’ll be running playtests for those adventures in the coming months that you’ll be able to sign up for. I’m also happy to announce that an upcoming online gaming event will include purchasable tickets to play in one-shot variants of Titans of the Deep. When that event goes live, I’ll make an announcement in the official Discord promoting that. If you are going to PAX East, we have a few GMs running under third-party organizations games of Eldritch Automata including Titans of the Deep and some of their own original scenarios!

That’s the short and sweet of everything! Have a good March, and let’s ride out the end of winter together!

- Nick

Official Mailing List: https://eldritchautomata.net/

Question of the Update?: If we were going to do another lore drop what would you want to know about, comment below. 

This is Nicholas Francia, the lead designer and creator of Eldritch Automata. I’ve written a decent amount of the updates you’ve seen, and most likely we’ve talked if you posted in the community section or on Discord. We have some important news regarding the future of Eldritch Automata that Ian and I want to share with you today. Moving forward, Eldritch Automata will no longer be published by Gehenna Gaming. I’ll hand things over to Ian for a brief explanation of what is going on with Gehenna.

Ian here. As some of you may know, I started Gehenna Gaming over five years ago, and have had a lot of major life changes since, including moving across the country, becoming a father, and taking over as primary caretaker for my partner due to the sudden onset of a long term health issue. Over the last six months, I have come to the realization that I no longer have the time, energy, or means to keep up with Gehenna Gaming and everything that is needed to properly support a project like Eldritch Automata at this time. In order to do what is best for E//A and Nick, and make sure that the game you’ve all been supporting continues to get the time and attention it deserves, I am working with Nick to split Eldritch Automata off from Gehenna, and separate Gehenna from further development of the game and fulfillment of the Backerkit campaign. Nick and I are working behind the scenes to properly hand off all assets so that Nick can fully take over and finish production and fulfillment.

For Gehenna, I’ll be taking an indefinite hiatus while I focus on my career and family. If you’re a member of the Gehenna community, I will share more there at a later date regarding my plans. But back to Nick for now to talk about E//A.

We’ve slowed down on development of the final bits of art and editing until we get this settled, and I’ve separated E//A from Gehenna. All additional supplements we’ve announced or discussed are also paused, as trying to separate these things afterwards provides another layer of complexity. As soon as Ian and I have all the paperwork signed and in place, I will move forward with the release of Titans for digital distribution. 

Writing Progress: 100%

Editing Progress: 50%

Art Progress: All Automata, Horror, and Pilot art is complete, including BackerKit Horrors and Pilots. 

What happens next?

My commitment to finish Eldritch Automata remains our top priority. Ian is working with me to ensure we have a smooth transition. Once the remaining assets controlled by Gehenna have been transferred in my name, we’ll ramp back up to finish the book. Thankfully, as with PAX Unplugged this past year, we will still be running games at various conventions throughout the year through third-party organizations thanks to the dedicated group of GMs we’ve had running Eldritch Automata. Once things are more set in stone, I’ll be happy to show a roadmap to PDF and eventual printing release. All in all, the aim is to release within 2026, the sooner the better. 

How can we keep updated?

To ensure you receive future updates and news, please join our new communications channel. I’ll still be updating through the BackerKit, but if you’d like multiple avenues for discussion and engagement.

In closing this update, the current situation is not where I’d imagined we would be. This is not the outcome any of us envisioned when this journey began. Please understand that as an independent creator, I am navigating this situation alongside you. Despite these setbacks, I remain dedicated to finding a new publishing partner that will be eager to bring the high-quality TTRPG we all deserve to life.

Thank you for your continued patience and support.

Sincerely,
Nicholas Francia, Creator of Eldritch Automata

Nick here to give you the latest on Eldritch Automata. Ian is under the weather, so he couldn't check my update or edit it. So if the grammar sucks, I apologize. We’re keeping things fairly light after our meaty previous update but still want to wet the whistles of those who are chomping for more Eldritch Automata content. We’re going into my favorite month of the year and saying goodbye to Automata summer and saying hello to the fall season. Before we get to the updates; pre-orders are now reopened!

Finally we can say that the manuscript text is 100% complete. The last bits of writing that we were waiting on finally came in from our writers and I can finally call this bird cooked and done in that aspect. It’s exciting to see it all finally together into a single cohesive folder of documents as it’s being tossed to the art director to put the initial layout together. The layout is looking stellar, and we’re hovering around 330 pages for the finished product. Editing for the main book is firing on all cylinders, and it should take us little time to update the layout with the edited text once all is said and done. Once editing is done we’ll have a few of our content readers give it a look over to ensure we haven’t written in potentially inflammatory or exclusionary language. As a writer and a designer, my job is currently done now on the main book. Now I leave it in my art director’s hand to help finish the fight. Currently all art has been allocated space and planned for, so we have no new surprises, no lack of artists. Everything is on the table and we’re turning things up to 11. Our Stress is at a 10, and we’ll need to make a Trauma roll at the end of this encounter. But such is the life of an Automata Author. 

A lot of talk has been discussing when the PDF will finally be released and right now we are on controlled sprints to release the PDF by end of year hitting that 2025 release window with the PDF going to printers right after. So if everything goes to plan, we’ll be looking at a physical release in Q1/Q2 of 2026 with the additional BackerKit items like the Equipment Deck and Dossiers going to print fairly soon after. The soundtrack will be released sometime in 2026, with writing for the campaign book from Storyteller’s Forge and Homecoming beginning in 2026 as soon as Eldritch Automata Core Rulebook goes to printers and we can breathe a little easier. Titans of the Deep is undergoing some finalizations and last minute polish but should be available some time this month. Truly an Operation I am proud of, it will be available for PDF purchase with a print run planned for the future. Titans of the Deep, Homecoming, and Storyteller’s Forge Campaign makes up what’s tentatively called Season 1 of Eldritch Automata, and may include even more projects in the future. With the core rulebook being out, it means we can start working on smaller releases that use the Core Rulebook as the central heart of E//A has a whole.

Thanks to the Backers on the Discord and some of the playtest forms, I've gone ahead and cleaned up and clarified a lot of the languages behind certain Talents and Tags that might have left too many things up into the area for interpretation. Here are specific changes due to revisions of the manuscripts before our final edits.

Danger Close: There has been no gameplay mechanic in this game that has not been combed over as much as the Area tag and the rules for general Explosion. In it's original form, Area was too powerful of a tag and in our pre-release nerf we may have traded off too much damage weakening it severely. As one of the only Cost 3 tags, Area should feel powerful but not game breaking. We have made a slight edit, that will ease the concerns over Area's damage which in turn has changed Explosion. Originally Blast Power had a set dice pool to roll for damage (either 5 or 7), now Blast Power is a static damage (still cannot be improved via Stunts) so that your damage is consistence and fierce even against foes with Ego Fields.

Slowing Down the Arms Race: Weapon balancing has been adjusted, normally your weapons are built with a maximum of 5 points worth of Flaw Tags. Now, your Flaw Tag are set a maximum of 5 for Signature Arms and 3 for Side Arms, lowering the amount of power a Side Arm can do in conjunction with a Signature Arm. This also serves as an indirect nerf to the Legion's power, curtailing them a bit.

Slippery Hands: Grappling is a powerful tag giving a player the ability to lockdown from afar and we believe that setting it at 1 cost might be too low for this. We're upping the cost to 2 to keep it's power at a decent trade off.

Limiting the Ceiling: We never anticipated that someone might take certain tags multiple to an exorbitant amount, so we're giving Accuracy, Ego Degradation, Piercing all now have their tags capped at 3, to stop them from being abused in-game. 

Installing Ego Limiters: Ego Conversion is an incredibly powerful tag for keeping your Ego Field up, and in conjunction with tags such as Swift, we have seen some Automata being able to keep their Ego Field up at max indefinitely with ease. We've now changed this so Ego Conversion instead of redirecting full damage back into your Ego Field now only does a static 1 Ego Field recovery for every successful attack piercing a target's Ego Field.

Sheltered: Put on a Smile can only be used once per scene, you can't infinitely stack your Empathy for Stress.

Empty: Unfeeling has been changed, it now restores all Ego after a Shift of rest. Bad Influence now correctly states Manipulate and Command.

Hedgehog's Dilemma: Growing Pains now only exhausts a Strand instead of breaking it.

Puppeteer: Dark Secrets now says a significant secret.

Forgotten: Blank Space is now properly listed as a required talent. 

Alicia Aguilar exemplified and later would create the concept of what a pilot was. A middle ground between experiencing significant hardships while also being incredibly headstrong. Aguilar had lost her family during Advent Day and had survived multiple encounters with Horrors, within events since Advent Day pushing her towards isolation. Aguilar managed to achieve unprecedented synchronization in the initial tests. When she interfaced with Genesis, the system roared to life. The Anathema was able to connect the two and the first connection with the Automata was established. We understood that Aguilar was able to succeed not despite her trauma but partially because of it. She had experienced the past dissolution of everything she knew already and when it came to merge her consciousness and reject reality all-together she had already healed her scars in exactly the right way. To understand loss but to have been able to move with loss still in tow. They needed not healthy psychological profiles but resilient ones. The unofficial motto of the pilots soon became “The broken become gods”. Not spoken with pride but understanding. 

With a pilot successfully chosen, Genesis was ready for a test drive. The world governments stood at a standstill as their first anti-Horror weapon had been developed. But now it was time to test man-made infinity against the world. Aguilar could only interface for short periods of time, initial merges only allowing her three minutes before the stress on Ego got to be too much. But with each synchronization attempt within the Ego Chamber, Aguilar was able to push the past records of her time more and more. Seven minutes, then twenty, and finally even a full hour before collapsing from exhaustion. Aguilar reported feeling a distinct “other” connected to her. She could only passively glean its emotional state and intentions but surmised that whatever it was. It felt caged and wanted to be let out. Soon Genesis made its first movements with thick steps of metal it cascaded outside into the desert declaring its existence Aguilar and Genesis roared. Each outing in Genesis it was observed that Aguilar had begun experiencing different effects of the strain. Strange dreams, becoming more highly reactive and malleable to the Anathema, feeling sick without daily exposure to Genesis. The concerns of Aguilar and Genesis were noted but it couldn’t be helped. What the world needed to see was a dead Horror. 

Aguilar piloted Genesis in the first battle among several Horrors. The combat capabilities of Genesis were admirable, but Automata was bulkier, it was slower, and more vulnerable to being overwhelmed than a faster vehicle. Genesis sustained significant damages but had successfully managed to clear out a small Horror nest all by itself. 

Operation Crescendo would be most of civilization’s first time hearing about the Automata project. Deployed among a major hub of civilization, Genesis was set to engage a large Horror that had nested within a largely abandoned Santiago, Chile. The intention was to clear the Horror presence out completely and return civilians and government to the city. This major deployment revealed both the peak of the Automata Project but also its shortcomings, Aguilar piloted with record high Ego Synchronization rates. Genesis engaged into a drawn out engagement with the skyscraper sized Horror and a small pack of Horrors. Genesis took heavy damage but scored a decisive victory over the Horrors, wrenching the nest’s alpha into two and sending the pieces of its corpse hurdling into the nearby mountain range.
 
During this time Genesis had pushed Aguilar to their limit before the boundary between Aguilar and Genesis gave way, completely revealing the true devastation of the Automata. Genesis ignored all orders instead tearing through the city and annihilating with extreme measures every Horror it could find. When the battle was over Genesis had bathed most of Santiago into a rubble filled inferno. Not only was the city not fit to hold a proper population anymore, but Aguilar fell deep into a coma. Yet, even still the Automata arms race was underway to create more of these unstoppable Horror killing machines. 

Ok, so this is going back on something I stated previously. I didn’t think that a Solo Mode was possible in Eldritch Automata, I didn’t think it fit the themes of the game especially with Strands. To be honest, it really doesn’t. A big part about Eldritch Automata is about levying your personal relationships to push yourself beyond limits and I felt like a solo mode really took away from that. I recently read Free League’s new Alien Evolved Edition, and saw the Lone Survivor mode they’ve added for solo play. There are some decent bones there to start as a base, so with my writing duties done on the main book I’m throwing myself into writing a solo-option mode that’s loosely taken shape in my head. This is by far one of the most requested features for Eldritch Automata and for the people who don’t have a full party, this is for you. The additional ruleset will most likely be released sometime next year alongside a compatible adventure I’d like to write for it specifically. Right now the working title is Lone Wolf mode which is partially inspired by the apt mentioned Lone Survivor mode from Alien Evolved Edition and Halo Reach’s final mission also titled Lone Wolf which gives the last stand vibes I want to evoke with this mode. Lone Wolf is a mode meant for short and gusty dives into Eldritch Automata, their about the final mission and the last stands of being an Automata Pilot. As of right now that also means there is no planned support for the Operations Admin in the Lone Wolf mode and strictly working with the pilots. 

My principles of writing for Lone Wolf are laid out as such; 

Look forward to more information on Lone Wolf mode in 2026. 

Due to our commitment to finish the book amidst other important changes, Gehenna Gaming has decided not to do PAXU or any future planned events currently. There are a few online events with former Gehenna GMs running games of their own volition that I have given my blessing that will be running at the end of the October month, so please if you haven't gotten to play the game stay tuned for those events being announced very soon. 

Hello Backers! It’s Nick once again for your BackerKit update. We have heard your desire for a meatier update game-wise and some new content that’ll help you keep the game going while you wait for the final book. July was a hectic month with preparation for Gen Con and wrangling art updates, so we have an extra-long one for you today. Let’s end Automata Summer with a bang! We’ve got a bunch of lore and mechanical previews below, plus some exciting news for people who haven’t been able to make it out to the cons but still are looking for a group to play Eldritch Automata.

You’ve been asking for more enemies to show off to use for your game, so here we are with a special look at four new Horror stat blocks (plus an existing one with art!) for your Automata enjoyment. Hope you enjoy the new Horrors to mess around with, and they’ll get some use out of the games you’re running now.

(Note: This is not the style of how they’ll appear in the book, just something I cooked up for the Backer previews.)

 - CP Recruitment Operative Five-One-Six, to Gehenna Institute Researcher Samael Rivera

Established long before humanity was first exposed to the designs of the Architect, the Chimera Project – or simply, “the Project” – is merely the latest iteration of a long-standing truth. There will always be those who value knowledge over ignorance, strength over safety, and ends over means. Founded in the 1930s with the guiding mandate of advancing humanity toward its next evolution, Project research teams have conducted experiments in almost every controversial branch of fringe science known to history, as well as several that have never left its facilities. Initially backed by wealthy entrepreneurial dynasties – and eventually by governments scared of being left behind – the Project enjoyed nearly a century of unchecked and unsupervised scientific inquiry prior to the catastrophic events of Advent Day.

During the early days of the Liminal Fall, the Chimera Project suffered only marginal losses, retreating to isolated bunkers deep underground. The Project’s sequestered and clandestine nature served it well in avoiding the rush of Horrors that befell major population hubs. With its main facilities undamaged and its operatives ready to infiltrate and integrate with the then-emerging nations, the Project quickly began to lay the groundwork for new avenues of experimentation. Resources and intelligence were reallocated from pre-Advent-Day endeavors to studying new phenomena brought on by the Architect, with different divisions tackling Horrors, Seraphs, and the environmental alterations brought on by the Architect’s presence.

When the Gehenna Institute began its first forays into the research of Anathema, the Chimera Project stood quietly in the shadows nearby and learned from their discoveries. When the secondary applications of the Basel Experiments fell to the wayside in favor of the immediate necessity of developing weapons of survival, acquisition agents funneled neglected research documents into the Project’s own developmental laboratories. When the Nordic Dominions obtained the concepts for Project Skysplitter under the Automata Accords and sought to build massive airships, funding, materials, and knowledge of advanced technology were offered from Project assets in exchange for one of the finished iterations.

When the Automata clashed, Project cleanup crews swept in afterwards, obtaining samples and material data from battlefield surveys and discrete acquisitions from government research facilities. When nascent Automata resistance was blindsided by the arrival of the first Seraph, Project assets were on standby to suggest new armaments and curry favor. The Chimera Project’s conflict-forecast prediction models pointed to inevitable escalation on the combat front well before the first clash, and, when the next development in the war occurs, the Project will be there, pursuing the next iteration of its original mandate with single-minded intent: To use the influence of the Architect to guide humanity to the next step.

The true horror of the Chimera Project is that it does not view the Architect’s creations as monstrous, for it has long since been a monster itself.

The Automata Project was established with the construction of a base within the Atacama Desert, using its vast emptiness as a perfect location for humanity’s most ambitious project. Construction began and sprawled across the desert, away from civilization to minimize the risk of Horror detection and prevent the inherent risk of a widespread catastrophe from affecting the outside world. But while this construction was underway, the outside world was crumbling. Cities were wiped from the map, and many of the modern-day empires and civilizations fell or went underground, and the nations that still stood poured their resources into the Automata project.

With over 10,000 personnel on staff, construction on Genesis began with building the skeletal structure out of materials that had been deliberately exposed and tempered to Anathema. Regarded as “awakening” each component before installation, this process developed a pseudo-nervous system for the Anathema to operate within. Next, the Ego Chamber was designed to sit as the core of the Automata; the design had been restructured from the rough prototype of the Basel Experiments. The Ego Chamber had been modified to house the Anathema, as well as act as the cockpit, barely shielding the pilot (or rider). Derived from the research of consciousness synchronization from the Gehenna Institute, this new interface would allow for the pilot to interact with the Automata by using the Anathema as a living bridge. By keeping the Anathema connected to these two systems, scientists and engineers believed they could avoid the risk of an overload. Thanks to years of exploratory engineering, the Automata was completed surprisingly quickly. All they needed was the perfect pilot. 

When the time came to select the pilot for Genesis, a selection committee was formed to investigate which candidates would be the most ideal. They began seeking individuals with experience in piloting aircraft and other vehicles, but their minds shattered under the pressure of exposure to the Anathema, and they were seemingly unable to form a connection with Genesis. It was noted that it seemed like Genesis wasn’t “allowing” them to control it. Although they had not built Genesis with the concept of sentience or personality, it would appear that the Anathema had other plans for them. It was then theorized that more malleable minds could prove possible of interfacing with the divine architecture of Genesis. A wider net was cast, drawing candidates from military backgrounds and other psychological overviews formerly seen as unfit – especially those who had developed trauma from Advent Day directly. Initial results in connection showed adaptability to the Anathema and successfully accessing Genesis’ interface, albeit shy of direct connection.

The committee would soon come to an uncomfortable truth: The ideal candidates weren’t the mentally strongest or those who would be considered “peak performers.” The candidates best suited to connect to the Automata were often ones carrying deep psychological scars. This is not to say trauma makes better pilots, but those who have endured significant trauma have already experienced a fundamental shift in their understanding of reality. By cracking this prerequisite, we could test the Automata compatibility in a safer environment. It was also discovered that those with a lack of close personal relationships consistently performed better in tests measuring consciousness interfacing than those with strong family ties or deep social connections. However, those who had those pre-existing bonds had a higher possibility of skill than those without. There was no perfect profile of an Automata pilot; what we considered normal markers of being unfit to operate were advantages in context. The core of being a pilot is a strong but adaptable Ego, one that would not defend itself from the death of the self.

Out of 50 pilots chosen to test with direct interface with Genesis, only one managed to interface. A pilot who would become the ancestor to the Horror killing machine: Alicia Aguilar.

The Manufactured has long been our most popular Pilot Archetype. With the ability to play a robot, android, or something not human in Eldritch Automata, the Manufactured offers a distinct playstyle that makes it fundamentally different from every other Pilot Archetype, much like The Operations Admin is to the Automata Archetypes. By the way, to those who are playing both at the same time, you are the true heroes.

Still, even with the release of the Backer-specific updates, the feeling was that the Manufactured was a great concept, but NOT perfect. Its special rules often made it clash with a variety of abilities, and it never felt like the special mechanics ever felt worth the investment and reward needed to really accompany the journey behind this Archetype. On a fundamental level, it always made every archetype start out in the same place in terms of “I am a thing, not a person,” when starting with Integrity over Empathy. 

So naturally, to fix these perceptions, we’ve done some major tuning to the Bio-Programming talent and the two talents for achieving the max in either Integrity or Empathy: Plaything of a Body and Overclocked. 

Bio-Programming has received a full rewrite. The Integrity/Empathy Stat now starts at 2, with the player choosing which side of the scale they initially fall on. This lets you start as a more emotional and human-like Manufactured, gaining Stress and playing as normal, to explore that journey to an emotionless and inefficient machine. Second, we’ve added the distinction that your maximum Ego Field can never be reduced below 2. This is to ensure that those wanting to embark on said journey aren’t penalized too hard in their Ego Fields. We often saw players not wanting to cross the threshold of the midpoint (0) because it rendered their Ego Field non-existent for combat. Third, the official trigger for moving toward Integrity has been changed to “Whenever you defy your own agency due to someone’s will or your programming…”. We did this because it was found to be much too easy to trigger Integrity movement in any situation, even where following an order was the human response. The last, but biggest change, is that Integrity and Empathy now go to 6 on their respective scales, allowing Manufactured to get to that high base Ego Field number. 

Plaything of a Body has been adjusted as such:
When you are at Empathy 3 or beyond, you become capable of truly feeling emotions. You gain a bonus die to all actions involving Empathy and can make a free push on an Empathy roll once per scene.

Overclocked has been adjusted as such:
When you are at Integrity 3, your code is working at optimal efficiency and calculates the most efficient method to execute the next action. Once per scene, you can ignore the Stress cost on a talent or from pushing a roll.

We rewrote these to keep with the idea that reaching Integrity or Empathy 6 should feel like a big achievement, but that there should still be some compensation for taking this talent on the way there, and adding secondary effects for being in the higher bracket of your bar. We hope that these changes will be a welcome addition, allowing more control in how you play your Manufactured while still feeling like it’s fair to play them at any given point in time.

With Titans of the Deep finishing up editing and about ready to go to print, the time to get this adventure formatted and laid out in a week has been a whirlwind. This is what happens when I’m left to my own devices. I just keep writing. Here is a special preview of a few pages, including some spoilers for those who’d like to experience Titans of the Deep without knowing any of the background and some of the twists and turns around it.

Titans of the Deep serves as a sort of testing stage for ideas for something grander down the line, but as I added more and more to it. It took on a life of its own and became an homage to some of my favorite fiction, with inspiration from media such as Underwater, The Abyss, and the Alien RPG’s Heart of Darkness. I wanted to write something in the style and structure of a zine, and about 60 pages later, here we are. This was a product that was never meant to be, and just kind of stumbled out of my head from a con scenario I wrote. Who would have thought? The visual style of this book is intentionally rough and “in the weeds.” I used a particular design technique to get the text and style how I wanted for extra grittiness, and sourced all of the art on my own, separately from our art direction on the core rulebook. It was kind of a litmus test to show that anyone can make their own product with enough time and enough guilt from internal capitalism. I discuss a lot about the scenario and give some things away in this next section, so if you’d like to avoid spoilers, I’d consider skipping it.

With The Dark Passenger and now Titans of the Deep, you might notice that I always put song lyrics at the beginning of all my splash pages for Operations. This has become sort of my signature that I like to put on every Operation. The song that the lyrics are ripped from is “Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd” and is one of the songs that I had on repeat while writing Eldritch Automata in the final stretches of preparing the Backerkit. Its relationship to Titans of the Deep might make this the most heroic Eldritch Automata Operation.

It wouldn’t be an Operation without testing out some new rules and some new equipment. I considered, at one point, doing a full underwater rule set and campaign book, but it never had the right amount of meat. This may turn into an expansion for “Extreme Environments…” Either way, Equipment Degradation is super simple and not meant to be overly complicated. Every Shift in these extreme depths (but also you could do this in any environment that might degrade equipment at high speeds), you make a D6 roll for every bit of equipment you have, then you see the consequences. Sometimes the equipment can sustain minor damage, other times it can break. With that, I introduce three new items: a Sonar Mapping Device, Ballast Control Systems, and Deep Pressure Armor. I’d honestly not recommend giving your Automata the armor in this Operation, which is why they don’t start with it, because it makes the finale of the game more of a ticking clock with damage consistently building as the Automata start to break and bend from the ocean’s depth.

Titans of the Deep follows the same three-act structure I used in The Dark Passenger, although Titans will take you at least three times as long to finish if you’re doing every event. When running initial tests of this Operation, we found players spent an entire session or more on Act 1 to track down information, talk to people, and investigate. Whereas The Dark Passenger was designed for more on-rails guidance as a one-shot, Titans of the Deep gives a lot of choice back to the players, as it should. The tension doesn’t really kick in till Act 3, where the players are forced by a flooding station to attempt to get back to their Automata before the big-beastie lying in the trench wakes up. Act 1 takes place solely on Elysium, the above-surface research station, and can play out over multiple nights if you want to run that sort of slow burn for your players. If you want to run this in a single 4-hour session (which I did do at Gen Con), I’d recommend getting them through Act 1 as quickly as possible – even expediting them to skip it altogether, because they can spend a lot of time there. When the group arrives down in Tartarus in Act 2, it becomes a Dead Space-esque dungeon dealing with enemies, exploration, and just more messed-up things one after the other. Depending on if your players bee-line through the station or not, this can be the longest part of the scenario. I try to dissuade rushing to the end by locking the doors and planting keycards across the base. There’s also an NPC that’s out of the way in Act 2 that the players would do really well to eliminate to spare themselves an extra combatant in the final fight. At one point, our traitor pre-gen actually killed the NPC themselves and then took their secret Automata out for a spin and fought the rest of the party. It was a great experience.

Last, I want to showcase the pre-generated characters in Titans of the Deep. These are some of my favorites, and I think vast improvements over the pre-generated characters in The Dark Passenger. Not having an NPC like Kylie Summers in this Operation meant we really needed to step up the player characters themselves to be the driving force. Administrator Barath here is actually based on a friend’s LARP character from a mecha game we played for about three years (thanks Jax!) and was the first character I made for Titans of the Deep. I wanted to start with the Operations Admin because it’s one of my favorite dynamics that’s really unique to Eldritch Automata but felt too advanced for a “starter” scenario like The Dark Passenger. Here, not only does the Operations Admin have a reason to tag along and go down to Tartarus, we’ve given them a little drone that can scope out rooms. In the run of this I did at Gen Con, the Operations Admin acted as the initial scouting party. The drone, sadly, did not survive the mission…

Per our last update, we’re still trudging along with art direction. The horror showcase above includes some of our latest pieces, and we’re working on Seraph and environmental art as our final items. This will put us in place to finalize the PDF and start our second round of feedback before print! This still doesn’t give us a firm date for shipping, but it does give us a sense of when PDF distribution will start (before the end of the year).

Internally, we’re looking at our full Q4 plans for 2025 this week, including this timeline and when we’ll be pushing manufacturing on the rest of the accessories and extras, and we will have more information there in our September update.

We’ve been lucky that our team has been able to go to a bunch of conventions and run Eldritch Automata in person. But we also want to give everyone the ability to play and appreciate this game. While we can’t share any specifics yet (but very soon in the future), the team here at Gehenna is working to run some online organized play events in the next few months that will allow players who don’t have a gaming group a chance to play E//A (and some other great games). We’re working on a few ideas of how we can allow current Backers first choice on joining these games, and while it won’t be incredibly expansive, we’re hoping our initial test run of things will open more opportunities to do this in the future. Most likely, these will be ticketed events, but I’m hoping that these will be a great chance for people who haven’t been able to find a group to play the game, and also, yours truly might even be running a game or two.

That's it for this month. Stay tuned for our update in September after we get back from QuestCon Orlando!

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.