This article is written with Absolute Tabletop’s The Mecha Hack in mind but it should be relatively easy to convert to other mech games.

The Setting

30 years ago, an asteroid was spotted by the ISRO’s AstroSat2 space telescope. This asteroid was on a direct collision course with Earth. After these findings were verified, the nations of Earth tried to deal with the problem. An exploratory probe, the Hawk-1, was sent to examine the asteroid. Its cameras revealed that the asteroid was made of a strange, crystalline material. Hawk-1 attempted to take a sample of the crystal for analysis, but a power surge burned out its electronics on contact. The asteroid was christened “Damocles” by the English-speaking media.

With time running short, the nations of Earth settled on building a gigantic railgun and using it to pulverize Damocles. This railgun was named Swordbreaker by the Asteroid Defense Committee, who picked the name over suggestions like “The Tower of Babel,” “Le Grand Chekov,” and the internet poll winner “Raily McGunface.”

Swordbreaker’s first shot was a partial success, striking just right of center on the long axis of Damocles. This shattered a large portion of the asteroid and caused the remainder to spin wildly. Unwilling to chance an impact from the remaining bulk of Damocles, a second shot was fired while it remained in Swordbreaker’s firing arc. This shot struck the asteroid side-on, shattering most of the remainder.

The largest remaining piece of Damocles is roughly a third of its initial mass measuring some 30 kilometres wide at its widest point.

Unfortunately, humanity’s problems had only just begun. Over the following days, shards of Damocles began to enter the atmosphere, and then falling to the ground with the rain. This rain is incredibly acidic, burning skin and melting many materials. Early reports gave this rain a number of ominous names, but eventually “Ash Rain” stuck.

Larger pieces of Damocles’ crystals fell to earth as well. These became known as “Vitracite,” named for their glassy appearance. Vitracite is a highly energetic material, dangerous to the touch, but can be used as a potent power source.

This was seen as a bright spot by the international community. The Ash Rain was becoming a real problem, but perhaps VItracite could be used to power water purification facilities, and it would be a net positive for the world.

Damocles had one last surprise in store: Strange creatures began to appear in areas that had received heavy rain. They had an unearthly, crystalline appearance, and attacked humans on sight.

That was 20 years ago. Now, what remains of humanity lives in armored shelters, drinking treated water and venturing out in small mechs known as “Rigs.” All Rigs have two pilots: A human and an Auxiliary.

Auxiliaries

The easiest way to tell an Auxiliary from a human is to check for interface ports on their neck, where a human’s spine would be. Beyond that, each Auxiliary has a unique identifying barcode inscribed into their irises. If neither of these options are available, you can always use a metal detector.

A few shelters still produce new Auxiliaries, but they are few and far between. Not only does it require a lot of precision machinery, but the V-Crystals that power every Auxiliary are also needed for, well, everything else.

Among non-pilots, views on Auxiliaries are mixed. Some see them as blasphemous, some see them as a necessary evil, others see them as friends and allies. They are commonly referred to as “Auxes,” for short. They have few rights, and are seen as roughly equivalent to pets, legally speaking.

Functions

Auxiliaries each have a Function, a purpose they were designed for, beyond the standard pilot assistance. Weather forecasting, hacking/decryption, and weapon control are the most common Functions, at least in Auxiliaries partnered with Pilots, but many more esoteric ones exist.

Forecast: When drawing for weather, six cards are drawn instead of three. In addition, at the start of the mission, these cards can be rearranged once by the player.

Cracker: When attempting to interface with a hostile computer system, roll with advantage.

Deadeye: You can reroll your ranged weapon’s damage, but must take the second result.

Sample Auxiliaries

Emil-E

Emil-E is a weather forecasting Auxiliary with blonde hair, which turns red near the tips. She is generally quite cheery, and enjoys being out in the field. She wears a shiny blue PVC jacket that she’s quite fond of.

Max

Max is a fire control Auxiliary, designed to analyze targets and control weapons. Max is quiet and cold. He has black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin, and he carries a knife in a sheath on his hip. In his downtime, he likes throwing it at targets.

Sar-4

Sar-4 is a tall, feminine Aux with brown, curly hair. She was designed for mechanical analysis, a talent that she now uses to analyze enemy Rigs. She wears a black motorcycle jacket with red plastic armor plates.

Klee-O

Klee-O is a tall auxiliary with black hair and sharp features. She is designed for electronic warfare, which she largely uses for jamming enemy communications or bypassing electronic locks. She wears a black long coat with silver highlights.

Rigs

While there is some variation, the average Rig is a 17-foot-tall machine with two legs, two arms, a cockpit for the human pilot in the front, and a link-up recess for the Auxiliary in the back. Drilling tools and weapons are often carried by or stowed somewhere on the Rig.

Rigs with four legs, treads, or wheels exist but are less common than the vaguely humanoid configuration. The standard configuration allows traversal of a wide variety of terrain, as well as making it easy to load a Rig on another vehicle for transport.

Rigs predate the Damocles crisis by a few years. They were initially used as logging machines. The common “Chain-Blade” arm weapon was originally made for felling trees, and a Rig’s log-fingered hands and strong arms made it useful for loading and moving logs. The very earliest Rigs did not use Auxiliaries in their operation, and as a result they were much more limited in their speed and maneuverability.

The chassis of a pre-Damocles Rig is not worth much unless you can find a collector. Their armor is designed to withstand a falling tree, not bullets or rockets, and they rely on glass instead of screens and headsets for seeing out of the cockpit. The arms, legs, and chain blades of pre-Damocles Rigs are perfectly useful, however. Pre-Damocles Rig parts tend to be either red, green, or yellow, depending on their manufacturer.

Most Rig weapons were taken off of military vehicles and re-engineered with a trigger assembly a Rig can use (The most common examples of this include the M2 Browning machine gun and Stinger missile quad-launchers. Using a tank howitzer in this manner requires a lot of work but can be done.) but some enterprising junk-hounds have begun manufacturing purpose-built weaponry. Most of these are simply scaled-up versions of infantry weapons.

Haulers

“Hauler” is a colloquial term for any vehicle capable of carrying a Rig. These can take a wide variety of forms, from semi-trucks with flat-deck trailers to river barges, depending on the needs of the Pilot. Owning a Hauler vastly increases a Pilot’s operational range, and allows them to move more cargo than a Rig itself can hold.

Shelters

The last bastions of humanity are the Shelters, armored settlements built to keep the Ash Rain out and keep their populations alive. These come in a variety of forms, from above-ground glass and concrete fortresses to underground cavern complexes.

Living in a Shelter isn’t cheap: For an adult, about ⍼50 (fifty Luka) per week is needed to cover food and shelter. Most people pay this by working a normal job: Guarding the town, construction, and so on. Others run shops, leveraging their business savvy to make their living. Others still, like (presumably) your players’ characters, venture outside to scrounge up resources to keep the Shelter going.

Renting enough space for a small shop or a basic garage costs ⍼50. Garage space is usually the second major investment of any serious Pilot, after the Rig itself. The storage space and machinery make maintenance much easier.

Some people live outside the shelters, hiding in old buildings and using portable water refiners to purify rainwater. This is not a good life, but for those who can’t stand life in a shelter’s confines, or those who were exiled from their homes, there may be no other choice.

The Weather

Weather is even more important in the dark future than it is now: Ash Rain is dangerous for people and machines alike. The only materials that are truly impervious to it are either too heavy or too fragile to be mounted on a Rig, so pilots use automatic sealing foam dispensers to patch up leaks or damage.

Whenever the party begins exploring a location, draw three cards from a standard playing card deck with the jokers removed. Place them on the table in draw order. Each of these cards represents ten minutes of weather: 2-10 represent rain of varying intensity. The number on the card halved and rounded down is the amount of damage done to the Rig during that period, if it is outside.

Aces and face cards represent clear weather, a welcome break from the dangerous rain.

Automatic sealing systems generally keep toxic rain out of a Rig’s cockpit, but need to be regularly replenished. Rigs start with 5 Seal Points (SP), and can replenish this amount with a Short or Long rest, or the use of a Sealant Canister.

Mining Crystals

Strewn across the landscape are large pieces of Vitricite embedded in the ground. These are too large to carry, and must be broken up with a drill which is usually mounted on the arm of a Rig.

Each crystal mined produces 1d3 Shards, worth the appropriate die below. Mining during rainfall seems to increase the purity of their shards, increasing their value die by one step per point of damage being dealt by the rain. One step beyond d10 is 2d6. If in doubt, refer to Pathfinder’s Damage Dice Progression Chart for increasingly valuable crystals: https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9t3f

Small: d4, 3-5 feet tall. This is the smallest crystal worth picking up, but it’s better than nothing.

Medium: d6, 5-7 feet tall.

Large: d8, 7-10 feet tall.

Huge: d10, 10-13 feet tall. These are the largest crystals regularly seen. Anything larger tends to shatter on impact.

As you mine crystals, put the dice representing their value in a bowl or a specific zone. Do not roll them until you return to a Shelter where you can sell them. Add up the dice and multiply the result by 5 to find out how much your haul will sell for.

Looting

Unlike V-Crystals, it’s fairly easy to gauge the value of loot. This can change based on events in a Shelter, but is largely static. When you spend 10 minutes searching an area, roll a d20 and reference the chart below. If you roll 11 or higher, cross off that result. If you roll a crossed-out result, you find nothing of note.

Residential

The classic single-family residential suburb is not a motherlode of resources, but there are still things worth taking here. The “basic” resources here are worth less, to represent how time-consuming it is to get them compared to the quantity acquired, but the “big ticket” items (11+) are worth a lot to certain types of people.

Roll 1d20
1. Furniture, ⍼5
2. Decorative Weapons, ⍼5
3. Wood, ⍼5
4. Scrap Metal, ⍼5
5. Electronics, ⍼10
6. Tools, ⍼15
7. Canned Food, ⍼15
8. Automotive Parts, ⍼20
9. Audiovisual Equipment, ⍼20
10. Various Appliances, ⍼30
11. Cache of Ammunition, ⍼75.
12. A Really Comfortable Mattress, ⍼100, or you could keep it for yourself.
13. Home Alcohol Distillery, ⍼100
14. Well-Preserved Comic Books, ⍼150
15. Blacksmithing Equipment, ⍼150
16. An Authentic English Longsword, ⍼150
17. A Vintage Bottle of Chateau Boloise, ⍼200
18. Flying V Guitar, ⍼200 to the right person.
19. Car Lift, ⍼300
20. Framed Poster of an Iconic Sci-Fi Film, Signed by Cast, ⍼1000 if you can find someone willing to pay.

Industrial

Rail yards, industrial areas, ports. These areas were the lifeblood of pre-Damocles society, and still hold many of its treasures. This loot table reflects the large quantities of items you can find here: You won’t find a bag of cement mix, you’ll find a pallet of it at minimum. Much of the equipment of an Industrial Sector can be useful, too.

Roll 1d20
1. Clothing, ⍼5
2. Cement Mix, ⍼10
3. Wood, ⍼10
4. Scrap Metal, ⍼10
5. Electronics, ⍼20
6. Fertilizer, ⍼20
7. Tools, ⍼30
8. Canned Food, ⍼30
9. Medical Supplies, ⍼50
10. Automotive Parts, ⍼50
11. Pre-Damocles Industrial Rig, ⍼50 (but can be upgraded into a proper spare Rig with ~⍼100 of metal and electronics)
12. Acetylene Tanks, ⍼100
13. Canned Peaches, ⍼130
14. Cache of Military Munitions, ⍼150
15. Semi-Truck, ⍼150
16. Heavy-Duty Tow Truck, ⍼200
17. Remote Control Collapsible Crane, ⍼200
18. Scientific Equipment, ⍼200
19. Drums of Hydraulic Fluid, ⍼200
20. Container of 12 Auxiliary bodies, ready to be programmed, ⍼1500

Exploration

Much of a Pilot’s life is spent in pre-Damocles ruins, digging through the wreckage with the Rig’s hands, searching for anything worth taking.

While in an explorable area and not in combat, time is tracked in 10 minute increments called Exploration Turns. Each Exploration Turn can be spent moving, searching or sheltering from the rain.

At the end of every turn spent in an area, a value called the Alert Level increases by one. Then, roll 1d20+Alert Level and reference the table below.

Roll 1d20+Alert Level
1-10. Nothing! Yet.
11. Party+1 Boars
12. 3 Butterflies
13. 1 Bear. It’s angry.
14. Three Boars and two Butterflies
15. 1 Devil
16. 1 Bandit Hunter
17. 2 Bandit Hunters, 1 Bandit Disabler
18. 4 Bandit Hunters, 1 Bandit Disabler
19. 1 Bandit Tank
20. 1 Bandit Boss, 1 Bandit Hunter, 1 Bandit Disabler
21+. 1 Bandit Boss, Bandit Hunters equal to Alert Level.

Enemies

The weather isn’t your only obstacle. Strange crystal creatures prowl the land, attacking anything that gets too close to them. Bandits of various sorts— from lone Pilots who think it’s easier to steal than to work, to organized gangs of killers and raiders— wander the highways looking for prey. This is not an exhaustive list, of course. Cultists, hostile militaries, bears, and more are out there as well.

The longer you stay in an area, the more likely you are to be attacked, and the more likely that attack is to be severe. Just because you haven’t been attacked yet doesn’t mean you haven’t been noticed, after all.

Creatures

Bandits

Bandit Disabler / HD 2
Rig armed with a gun that looks like an old TV antenna with a sight and a trigger.
Thick Plating: Reduce incoming damage by 1.
Fryfle: Attack: System, 1 near or far target, 1d4 damage and roll reactor die.
Foam Gun: Attack: Mobility, 1 close target, lose next turn.

Bandit Hunter / HD 2
An intimidating Rig with a bolt-action rifle and a loudspeaker for telling you to surrender your goods and your ride.
Thick Plating: Reduce incoming damage by 1.
Sniper Rifle: Attack: Mobility, 1 near or far target, 1d6 damage.
Pile Bunker: Attack: Mobility, 1 close target, 1d8 damage.

Bandit Tank / HD 4
“Where the hell did they get THAT?”
Manual Loading: Both the HEAT Round and Canister Shot attacks use the same Recharge condition. If the tank fires a HEAT Round, they cannot fire either a HEAT Round or Canister Shot until they roll a 5 or 6 on their Recharge roll
Thick Plating: Reduce incoming damage by 3.
HEAT Round: Attack (Recharge 5-6) Mobility, 1 near or far target, 2d6 damage
Canister Shot: Attack (Recharge 5-6) Mobility, 1-2 close targets, 1d8 damage.

Bandit Boss / HD 5
A Rig with a unique paint job, shoulder-mounted weapons, and a nasty can-opener on its right arm.
Thick Plating: Reduce incoming damage by 2.
Submachine Gun: Attack: Mobility, 1 close or near target, 1d8 damage
Guided Rockets: Attack (Recharge 5-6): System, 2 near targets, 1d10 damage.
Chain-Blade: Attack: Mobility, 1 close target, 1d10 damage.

Replace Guided Rockets with “Hack: Attack (Recharge 5-6): System, all close or near targets, roll reactor die” for a more tech-savvy bandit leader.

Afterword

A note on design: An earlier draft of this article included a more substantial inventory system, but it was scrapped to stay in line with The Mecha Hack’s design philosophy.

This article was written after playing in the Open Network Test of a mech game that I was unsatisfied with. I decided that making this was more productive than complaining about it on Reddit, and I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write.

We do have a sample region in the works as well, so if you want to know when that goes live, subscribe to our newsletter!

-Garm

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