Greetings Pilots! We’re coming down to the wire with only 3 days remaining. We are so close to hitting our penultimate stretch goal of getting an entire campaign book created by Storytellers Forge (The Black Ballad RPG, The Red Opera: Last Days of the Warlock). Continuing our recent trend of doing some sneak peeks and revealing new information about the setting, today we’re covering the multiple conspiracies and organizations that serve as your central human-based antagonists for Eldritch Automata. While unknowable eldritch abominations and angelic reality-bending entities are horrifying enough, humans still tend to be the worst monsters, fighting against one another for even the illusion of control. This, plus we have a break down of last Friday’s live Q&A and more!

Organizations & Conspiracies

Live Q&A Recap

• Introductions: Nick briefly talked about how Homefront will begin development after the core rulebook and will be primarily led by Ian.
• Will there be a mech technical manual? This was referring to an in-game manual for GMs and players as a collectible piece about the Automata. While there are no plans for it at this time, it’s a really cool idea we’ll have to revisit one day. The core rulebook will have Automata lore-based chapters.
• Have you playtested Automata vs Automata combat? Yes! Funnily enough, though, not on purpose. While there are Automata enemy stat blocks to run as a GM, about 90% of our playtests have included some form of PVP combat either while another Automata was berserking or just through happenstance of the narrative during those playtests. It’s a lot of fun and works well. Berserking Automata have a leg-up in Automata combat due to their enhanced capabilities, but we see this as consistent with the tropes and identity of E//A as a whole.
• Variation: With now 13 Pilot Archetypes and 13 Automata Archetypes, you have 169 unique character combinations!
• What Inspired the Armory System? The Tag system for weapons was inspired by the likes of TriStat and Borderlands weapon generation. You can generate so many unique weapons!
• Will We Get New Archetypes in the Future? Briefly touching on the concept of new Archetypes – while we won’t say for sure, there will most likely be one or two more Archetypes to join the list during the game’s lifetime. A big thing will be about making sure every archetype feels thematically distinct from one another despite a lot of them coming close. There will always be an equal amount of Pilot Archetypes to Automata Archetypes. The core rulebook shipping with 26 archetypes is already an incredible endeavor, and we believe players won’t be starved for options even years down the line.
• Is there any way to play non-pilots? There is a very simplified way to do it in the core rulebook which basically consists of you not taking an Automata archetype. This style of gameplay will actually be a major focus of Homefront.
• Could you have a campaign where it starts with civilians eventually discovering Automata to pilot? Yes, this was actually the concept of the original novel (currently still in development) that eventually expanded into the TTRPG. We have done an expanded playtest around this very idea with a player with the Ancient Archetype discovering his Automata a few sessions in. Without giving anything away, this is a great opening hook and something we will explore in released content.
• Tell us more about Edge of the Apocalypse. Chris Handley shares the same vision as we do and has kept consistent to the game’s identity in designing the rules. We’re very excited to show off the side units that will accompany the Automata, as well as the process of turning a TTRPG into a miniature-focused skirmish game. 
• Can you tell us more about The Eldritch? Without giving too much away, disposing of Horrors is a dangerous and essential task, as even their corpses can induce Horror Toxicosis. The idea of combining that into an Automata is even more dangerous. Two words: Organic cockpit. 
• Are there any factions in the game that create one particular Automata or Pilot archetype over another? Such as the Manufactured, The Mass Produced, or The Other? Yes and no, we don’t like to tie Automata Archetypes to one organization or have an organization only use a single Automata Archetype. With that in mind, The Eldritch was designed by the Chimera Project, and One Government uses the Mass-Produced, while some surviving nations favor specific types of pilots...
• Tell us more about The Manufactured. We touch on the Manufactured and the ethics of creating a biological android that is just meant to live and die as a weapon. The Manufactured were created as an answer to saving human lives.
• Can one Automata become another through gameplay? You are able to buy talents with your experience that are not tied to your Archetype, but purchasing talents outside of your Archetype does cost more. So you can make cool mashups but there is no current way mechanically to completely switch your Archetype on the fly.
• Who doesn't like existentialism in a post-apocalyptic world? No one. Next question.
• Are there other Megaproject level constructs? Like Super Heavy Tanks and stuff like that? Or is the entire Military Industrial Complex dead and locked into just mechs? So they’re not dead or gone, but they are focused on making Automata. Automata aren’t the preferred design, they are the only design because they are the only weapons that can produce Ego Fields. Due to the Anathema, the Automata have been defined a certain way to do what they do. There is nothing on the level of the Automata that produces an Ego Field. But there are weapons and bases like the Pegasus or railguns.
• How Tall?! Automata average 80 meters tall. By comparison, Optimus Prime is 23 meters tall, Mechagodzilla is 50 meters tall, and Voltron is 60 meters, with the Jaegers from Pacific Rim being the most similar at 80 meters tall. 
• It'd be really wild if, like, this battalion was to find a way to get high off of Horror Blood, voluntarily allowing for some of the [disease] to take over them as they go buckwild in this world. Fun idea, but Horror Toxicosis would set in very quickly, and they would quickly turn into a Horror. We joked originally about having a Pilot Archetype that was a Horror, but it was deemed too PVP from the get-go. 
• Are there human sized-Horrors? Yes! It’s called the Fool Variant. 
• I wonder if a swarm of human-sized horrors could overrun an Automata? Could definitely be a “death by a thousand cuts” scenario for the Automata, especially if those Horrors rapidly started to form together and transformed into a bigger Horror. 
• Have you ever considered Automata that relied less on their own sheer strength but relied more on like a mesh drone network or something? There are multiple Automata Archetypes like the Junker or the Ancient that rely on things that aren’t just raw strength, like their durability, their intellect, etc. The Legion operates off the ability of having a drone-like army. 
• What is the Lore Bible? Nick talked a bit about the Lore Bible (aka Story Bible) that was given to all the writers and talked about the Manufactured since they hadn’t been touched on too much. 
• What is the Latest Update? Getting the last bit of our drafts and things written for the manuscript, getting our editors to help us assemble and proofread everything. Our art profiles and reference boards are all ready for producing art. And our game demos at GenCon are completely sold out! But you can come talk to Nick at GenCon, he’ll be around! And you will find us running E//A at PAXU later this year (follow us on socials or join our Discord for our latest convention news).
• What exactly comes in the plain $55 pledge? The physical core rulebook, the FLU items, the PDF for the core rulebook, and the Alchemy VTT Edition as well as all stretch goals. Most of the stretch goals will be contained in the core rulebook itself. Homefront will be released much later as a PDF with physical editions available to purchase.

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