Double the Mecha: this campaign is for Emberjack and DEBT MERC: two TTRPGs spanning time and genre, combined into a single book. 

The furious final assault on the Manifold Throne ground an entire generation into dust, and left the continent permanently scarred. With gunsmoke and steel, an army of millions charged a labyrinth of arcane horror and eldritch abominations, and bled for every meter. When the smoke cleared, destiny had been clawed back from the Ten Above All — and humankind inherited a wounded world.

The Ten transformed you, and with your wretched rebirth bound you to a abominable war machine: your Emberjack. You were the backbone of their armies, dispatched to be the iron fist of empire and to subdue the terrible entities that their foul experiments sought to shackle.

Both you and your Emberjack are sustained by souls. They grant you physical power, mighty magic, and — when consumed — provide the spark needed to fuel your Emberjack. Run out, and risk becoming a rent in the fabric of the world yourself, through which all manner of horrors may breach reality.

So. There's that.

A decade after the siege ended, The Ten are gone, but their legacy haunts the survivors. Brittle alliances crumbled in the rush to secure the godkings’ holdings, and paranoia runs rampant in the fledgling halls of
power. Abandoned cadres of Hollows and battalions of hardened freedom fighters have turned to banditry, taxing the fragile authorities beyond their means.

Amidst this fray stand the Hollows, no less fractured and conflicted than those around them. They look to you to fight the remnant terrors of the Godkings. And they wonder what will happen when you are the only monsters left.

Ready to jump in? Check out our brief How to Play video below!

The Midnight Paradigm spent two hundred and thirteen years in the black.

An industrial starship the size of a continent, this leviathan set out packed with millions of dormant minds, vast manufacturing arrays, and a governing matrix of the most advanced, specialized artificial intelligences humankind could produce.

The Paradigm was to crawl through the void to the Cyclopea system, furnish her sleeping crew with with specialized bodies, and use the resources found there to construct a stargate terminal that linked Cyclopea to the rest of humanity's growing civilizations.

That was five centuries ago.

Forget the plans of broader humanity, the fate of its empires, or its progress across the stars. They have never come for us, and would not recognize what they found.

Cut off, with no hope of completing their mission, and with the technology to reshape worlds ineptly meted out by the rampant A.I. of the Paradigm, the society of Cyclopea has splintered from its intended trajectory in numerous ways. Creation, destruction, and commerce are the catalysts of an ever-morphing interplanetary landscape, a system populated by syth-organic minds piloting bespoke, manufactured bodies that run the gamut from human baseline to truly alien.

The debts you’ve incurred have placed you in a precarious position. To avoid having your neural core repossessed, you find yourself teaming up with other Debt Mercs to tackle the most dangerous but highest paying gigs in a system of constant strife. Each job incurs further debt for top-tier equipment, ammunition, access, information...but the payout might be worth it. The Mercs who make it clear — who survive years of certain death until they work themselves free and retire — are the stuff of legends. But for every one who succeeds, a legion of their peers falls into true death, neural re-interment, or repossession.

Development of DEBT MERC and Emberjack is still ongoing. Playtesting will be divided into several phases (that will overlap somewhat).

Pre-launch: internal testing. 'Merc and Emberjack sessions are already happening in Storyteller's Forge and Houndsong Games circles. We're having fun playing them (which is really the key thing) and we'll continue to run test games for new features and content before they hit the public.

Launch: quickstart released! Below is a quickstart packet for you to get a taste of what it's like to play DEBT MERC and Emberjack.

Post Funding: Beta Testing. Through Backerkit updates, backers will be notified as we organize playtest sessions through various platforms during development. This will take several forms! Sometimes we will release materials for backers to test and and submit feedback during a given time window, and periodically we will run online game sessions for backers with CD and other Storytellers. We'll release the details on how to apply for these as we get closer to each game -- space is obviously limited, so we're going to make an effort to spread them across time zones and platforms to ensure that interested folks get a fair chance and snagging a seat!

PAX Unplugged! CD will be personally running games in Philadelphia during PAX Unplugged 2026, along with a team of professional game masters! If you'll be attending the con, be sure to sign up for a session!

In a word: cost.

In more words:

Both games use the same core rules system, which has allowed them to share a lot of development resources as we build them both in parallel. Combining them into a single book further reduces the cost of printing, shipping layout, and a bunch of other overhead that would get doubled if we did them separately. 

At the end of the day, this means you get two very distinct ways to play a mecha-focused game in the Relict system, for the cost of one book/one crowdfunding instead of two.  

Also, we think it's neat.

Relict RPG is an open-source TTRPG system developed by CD Corrigan (hi it's CD writing this). The first public build of Relict went live in 2023, and it's received continual updates and new content from myself and 3rd party developers ever since.

I made Relict to be hacked! Relict | TECH is the first "official" splinter system built off the core Relict rules. It streamlines certain aspects of the core rules in order to put more emphasis on vehicles, mechs, and devices that impact moment-to-moment play.

In DEBT MERC, this manifests in the "everything-is-disposable" relationship players have with their equipment, mechs, vehicles, limbs, upgrades, and even bodies. In Emberjack, the rules are bent towards a long-term relationship between Hollows and their Emberjacks, where our aberrant anti-heroes become more attuned to their chosen machine and better able to harness its power over time.

If you're new to Relict, Relict | TECH is an excellent entry point. TECH is designed as a faster pick-up-and-play experience compared to Relict core, and both DEBT MERC and Emberjack are written with an eye towards making shorter, easy-to-fit-into-real-life campaign arcs feel narratively satisfying.

If you're a returning Relict fan, TECH is an exciting expansion on what's possible in the system. Since the underlying structure of both systems is the same, clever GMs will quickly find ways to fold TECH content into core games and vice versa — an effort we plan to support fully as events unfold!

Relict | TECH stands alone and does not require any additional sourcebooks in order to be played.

In Relict | TECH, players navigate the world while jumping between "modes," whether that means slotting your neural core between a hulking melee mech and a stealthy face-changing infiltration body in DEBT MERC, or transitioning from your powerful-but-fragile Hollow to your terrifying-but-ever-hungry 'jack in Emberjack.

In DEBT MERC, players start by creating their neural core. This is the heart (well, brain) of your character, and can be customized with modules and upgrades during creation and over time. During play, players will acquire, upgrade, trade, and destroy bodies for their cores to inhabit, and they'll grab vehicles, mechs, drones, and equipment for those bodies to use in turn. Players explore the Cyclopea system, delving into all facets of post-human society in search of the highest-paying heists, hits, or gigs they can find. It's all in service to their ever-mounting team debts. Whether they play it safe, to try to break the cycle, or go rogue and try to outrun the repo man (or out-fight them in a blaze of glory) is entirely up to them.

DEBT MERC is a fast paced experience where nothing is expected to last once the plan falls apart. Every item has a price tag, every piece of gear can be damaged or destroyed, and there's always an upgrade available to help with that next mission (for a few easy payments).

Emberjack players take on the role of Hollows — think "ring wraiths" with a battle mech instead of a horse. You were regular people, once, but the tyrant godkings turned your soul inside out. (They were real jerks).

Players form a cadre of Hollows and set off into post-war Vinterstill ten years after the fall of the final godking. Squabbling factions seek to control you, exterminate you, hire you, or befriend you — and if you're very lucky, someone might even start to trust you.

There is work aplenty for Hollows willing to parlay with mortals. Bandits, warlords, and mad mages haunt the hinterlands. Conflict brews as post-war alliances crumble and resources wear thin. But above all else, the godkings cast a long shadow. Delve into their ruined sanctums in search of answers, hunt their escaped experiments and unshackled fiends, and plumb the mysteries behind their ascension. Perhaps, in the depths of the Manifold Throne, there are answers. Perhaps, if you dare to hope, there is even a future.

Emberjack players enter a world running on borrowed time. Horrors, intrigue, and skullduggery abound, and players must navigate a society barely holding itself together while contending with eldritch terrors, rampaging beasts, and more, all in a bid to determine their own destiny before it is decided for them. 

Make running your games a cinch with this tarot-sized deck of monster & enemy reference cards. Included in all hardcover and higher tiers, and available as a standalone add-on.

The base deck will include 40 key cards split between Emberjack and DEBT MERC. This will number increase as we hit stretch goals!

When we found out our friends at Nat19 were also running a BackerKit this month, we asked if they'd be willing to jump in on a cross-collab bonus bundle. And the 19 crew came through in spades!

Backers who pledge to Nat19's The Depths of Charity and Emberjack/DEBT MERC can snag a bonus bundle of delicious indie RPG digital goodness after both campaigns fund. This digital bundle includes PDFs of:

Sound good? We thought so. But you've got to hurry. The Depths of Charity campaign ends on November 1st! 

Since rates fluctuate constantly, shipping costs and information for physical goods will be collected through BackerKit once the books are ready to head out. Be sure to follow the project page for updates and to fill out your shipping when it gets sent out! (That's when you tell us where to send your stuff). 

This is the fifth crowdfunding effort for Storyteller's Forge and the second for Houndsong Games/Relict -- all of which have been delivered to backers. So long as we hit our funding target, we are extremely confident in our ability to produce this project and get it into your hands. 

Global shipping volatility has been our biggest wildcard in past projects. Supply chain issues can cause delays and headaches, but ultimately should not stop DEBT MERC & Emberjack from being completed.