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In the year 1982, Earth’s destiny was forever altered by the swing of a hammer. A simple mining operation led to an unprecedented discovery: the Infinity Stone, a stone with an impossible number of facets, emanating an intense inner glow and inscribed in an unknown language. This beautiful, alien object changed everything, for it was a window to other realities, allowing glimpses of what might be or could have been. Years of exhausting--and sometimes disastrous--experimentation culminated in a discovery beyond imagination: the stone opened a portal to a mystical world teeming with life, full of clean air and azure skies. In this world, our fantasies were reality. Legendary creatures roamed the land and sky while elves, dwarves, and orcs inhabited the land in place of humans.

It is in man’s nature to explore the unknown, to know what lies beyond, and so blindly humanity plunged...

Welcome to the world of Emergence.

On Kython, multiple genres intermingle to create a world that is exciting, fresh, and yet strikingly familiar. Sections of Kython are nearly indistinguishable from the world in which we live. There are cars, houses, trains, cell phones, and even the internet. This creates a comfortable starting point to begin your explorations on this foreign planet. However, within this unassuming framework exist all of the elements of science fiction and fantasy that make those genres exciting. Magic, power armor, and advanced weaponry fill the world with new possibilities around every corner.

As you venture into the world of Kython, the line quickly blurs between science fiction and fantasy. Castles, wooded fortresses, skyscrapers, and industrial complexes cover the landscape, while smartphones, cybernetics, and flying beasts are part of everyday life. The world of Kython boasts a rich diversity of settings to satisfy nearly any game style preference. Whether you prefer gunfights while blasting down the highway at 100 mph, fighting demons in a corrupted ruin, battling savage hordes to defend a village, or storming a skyscraper fortress to defeat an evil necromancer, all of these adventures and more are waiting for you. On Kython, these traditionally separate game styles come together in a way that is exciting, intuitive, and fun. The only limit is your imagination.

Find additional information about the world of Emergence, including a history of the world, on the playemergence website.

Be sure to visit our UPDATES page, where we highlight the newest additions to our Kickstarter!

Want your hands on some awesome Emergence artwork FAST? We have  a new $1 pledge benefit! Receive a high-res desktop background by Dusty Crosley, the Kython landscape or fight scene, in November!  (Of course, this is part of all higher tier benefits as well.)

As a reminder, each backer at the “Tester” pledge level and higher will receive beta test materials, and we’re excited to say that the first of these packets will go out November 10th.  Beta testers will have access to a new packet by the 10th of each month, from November through May.

The first beta test packet contains Quickstart Rules and the Housecleaning playtest adventure, including maps and premade characters.  Future beta test packets will include a variety of additions to November’s release, such as rules updates and expansions, art and fiction previews, and additional adventures.  (Not every packet will include all types of updates.)  Once you have the packet, we greatly appreciate your feedback to help us make Emergence the best pen and paper RPG on the market.

What do YOU want to play?

Emergence uses a classless, point-buy, skill-based character creation system.  However, unlike a lot of games with similar formats where your character can quickly become a bland collection of numbers for your skills and weapon damage, Emergence uses a tiered talent system to help you further define your character and make it unique and fun to play.

Selecting from hundreds of available talents, you will construct a robust set of abilities for your character to use.  Think of talents as your class, spell lists, and feats all rolled into one.  Through these selections, you will create exactly the character you want to play.

Here are a few other examples of talents you might take:

• Withering Suppression (Automatics, Tier 3): When you use suppressing fire on an area that contains terrain features that provide cover, at the conclusion of the suppression you may choose to permanently reduce the grade of that cover by -1/-1.  Multiple uses of this talent on the same terrain feature will stack.
• Neck Snap (Wrestling, Tier 5): You gain access to the Neck Snap wrestling maneuver. Neck Snap (-20 Stamina): Overpower a vulnerable opponent, causing 3x normal damage. If the opponent is knocked unconscious by the damage, the opponent dies instantly.
• Mana Shield (Enchantment, Tier 3): You gain access to the Mana Shield spell. Mana Shield (-12 Stamina): Range personal; reaction cast.  When hit by an attack, make a conjuration effect check.  Increase all defenses by the amount listed in the Effect Result Chart until the end of your next turn.
• Brute Strike (Savagery, Tier 2): You gain access to the Brute Strike maneuver.  Brute Strike (-8 Stamina): Combat action. Make a melee attack.  On a hit, re-roll all 1s on your damage roll. You may continue to re-roll each die until there are no more 1s.  If your weapon is vicious, you may also re-roll a number of 2s up to the weapon’s vicious property rating.

For those of you a little less interested in full-feature customization, Emergence will also let you choose from a large array of templates designed to get you into the action faster.

Emergence uses a dynamic race system.  The humanoid races that inhabit the world are alternate evolutions of the Human, such as Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, and of course, from Earth, Humans themselves.  All races are capable of breeding with each other, and over time they have done so.  This means that you, as a player, can select from pools of racial traits that allow you to create exactly the race you want to play, be it a ¼ orc ¾ elf, ½ dwarf ½ human, and so on.  Remember, the character abilities are also dynamic, so you have the ability in Emergence to create a character that has never been played before or mimic one of your favorite characters from another role playing game.

When the time came to roll the dice, we decided to create a system that was unique and versatile, like the game itself. We are proud to introduce the Tri-Die System. Three six-sided dice are used for all rolls made in the game.

The Tri-Die system is the core mechanic for the Emergence roleplaying game.  In the Tri-Die system, all checks are made by rolling 3D6 (three six-sided dice). The reason we decided to use three dice instead of a single die is twofold.

Thank you for your support!

We look forward to bringing this game to life with you!