Absent Gods Studios
Tabletop RPG / Narrative System / Identity Under Pressure
"Your character sheet is a biography.
Under pressure, that biography breaks."
Three protagonists at a dead drop in Night City. The job goes sideways. Corporate kill team closes in.
Art throws himself between gunfire and Echo. The bullet hits his shoulder and his protectiveness shatters first. That guardian identity he built for himself buckles under real gunfire. He's still standing, but there's less of him now, his mind sliding toward the animal within. And because the Guardian was the foundation his martial training was built on, his sword work dims with it. Fewer dice to roll when he needs them most.
Across the market, an enforcer gets Stitch in a chokehold. She has a knife and a memory of being twelve. She's been held down before. The violence is the same but she is not. More dice to roll because her rage and trauma are fueling her. She twists free with animal efficiency.
Echo fights to an alley mouth, bleeding, tased, aspects stripped away one by one until there's nothing left but survival instinct and the chip in her hand. She burns the last thing she cares about — stops needing to know what data is worth killing for — and shoves it into Art's grip. Sliding down the wall, she is nothing but animal now. The narrator takes control of what she does next.
The kill team flanks the alley. Art is on the ground with a shattered leg, diminished sword skill, and no right to survive this. The dice disagree. Twelve. Twelve again. The dice explode, chaining successes, and on the double twelves something that was broken clicks back into place — his Connection, the need to protect these people, flares back to life like a lit match in a dark room. A miracle. The monokatana finds the team leader's gap in his armor with an ease that has nothing to do with skill and everything to do with fate.
In the quiet milliseconds as the corpo agent slides to the ground lifeless, Art smiles at the remaining stunned opponents. Almost casually, he flicks the chip to his right.
Stitch, at a full sprint, catches the lateral pass. Mind more akin to a wolf than a human, she runs through the gunfire, vaults past the enemy, and into the neon-lit night. It would be the hardest thing she's ever done, if she were still thinking.
This came from an actual playtest experience.
Characters don't take damage. They lose complexity.
Every aspect on your character sheet is a layer of a life lived. Your origin, your wounds, your beliefs, your bonds. These fuel your dice pool alongside your skills. When you roll, you're not just testing competence — you're invoking the parts of yourself that make this moment matter.
When disaster strikes, an aspect twists. Your Need narrows to obsession. Your Wound reopens raw. Your Belief hardens into something brittle. You're still standing, but there's less of you now.
Under enough pressure, that biography gets erased backwards. The most recent aspects twist first. What's left is older, deeper, harder to kill. At the bottom is Survival — the animal will to keep breathing. When you're down to just survival instinct, you're not a person anymore. You're a cornered animal. And when even that goes dark, the next blow lands. That's the Fatal Mistake. Not death from accumulated wounds — erasure. The moment there's nobody left to fight.
This core rulebook is a foundation.
It gives you the cascade, the dice, character creation, the mechanics of pressure and recovery. The aspects, competencies, and gear here are broad on purpose. They work in any setting where people break under pressure.
World books build on that foundation. They add texture, specificity, detail. Paths that are abstractions here (the Guardian, the Predator, the Voice) become concrete roles in a world book. The street samurai. The gang lieutenant. The corporate fixer. Generic gear templates become detailed catalogs of weapons, cyberware, artifacts, vehicles.
If you want deep psychological play, the core book has everything you need. If you want to compare the stopping power of a Kagesu arms-link versus a Kaneda-pattern railgun, that's what world books are for. Most players want both. The inner world that makes the character feel real and the crunchy specifics that make the world feel real.
Character Creation
Characters built from layered biographical aspects — origins, wounds, beliefs, bonds, needs. Every element of your backstory becomes mechanically relevant under pressure.
Resolution Mechanics
Roll pools of d12s. 10+ succeeds. 12s explode infinitely. Every roll has five independent result axes — degree, breakthrough, miracle, complication, disaster.
Damage System
Strip characters down to raw survival instinct when pushed to their limits. Aspects poison bottom-up — what breaks first depends on how recently you gained it.
Mechanical Choice
The mechanically smart choice IS the dramatically interesting choice. Playing your damage gives you more dice. Optimal mechanics require authentic roleplay.
Voluntary Damage
Break a piece of yourself to guarantee success. Twist an aspect voluntarily. Let your Need consume you. Compromise the Belief you swore you wouldn't cross.
Narrative Focus
Every rule exists to serve the story. Mechanics amplify drama rather than replacing it. The dice tell you what happens — you decide what it means.
"Three years of design iteration. 100+ dice mechanics tried and discarded. This is what survived. The system rewards you for playing your damage — invoke your wound for bonus dice and you're channeling your trauma into action. The mechanically smart choice and the dramatically interesting choice are the same choice. That's by design." — Mike Howlett, Lead Designer
In active playtesting as of early 2026.
Core mechanics stabilized on the cascade-track model. Ongoing testing focused on action sequences and edge cases. The game will be published under ORC license through Absent Gods Studios.
Free core rules coming soon. The complete game will be available as a digital release with optional print-on-demand. Stay tuned for announcements.