Daikaiju DIE! — Print Edition

Giant monsters are tearing the world apart. Humanity answers with Ridders.

It is around the year 2100.

Catastrophic climate change, ecological collapse, resource shortages and mass displacement have transformed the world. Humanity has taken steps towards international cooperation, but rivalry remains between powerful economic blocs, independent states and competing interests.

Then the Kaiju appeared.

These enormous monsters embody the scale of the crisis facing humanity. Conventional forces struggle to stop them, leaving the world dependent upon equally enormous mechanical defenders.

They are called Ridders.

Daikaiju DIE! is a FATE game kit about mecha pilots, support crews and the destructive battles fought against giant monsters.

Fight in the Shadow of Giants

Players take the roles of Ridder pilots and the people who support them.

They will:

• Fight Kaiju in enormous mechanical war machines.

• Establish rivalries.

• Confront villains and other antagonists.

• Uncover conspiracies.

• Deal with threats at both human and colossal scale.

• Lead humanity’s resistance against what appears to be a world in rebellion against it.

Mostly, they will smash giant monsters to pieces in epic, destructive fights.

A World Under Pressure

The setting presents a future shaped by environmental catastrophe and the political responses to it.

The book covers:

• The transformed world of the early twenty-second century.

• Energy and power.

• Major economic megablocs.

• Independent states.

• Political and ideological antagonists.

• Future technology.

• The rise of the Kaiju.

• Humanity’s increasingly militarised international response.

A strengthened United Nations helps coordinate resistance, but national interests, political tension and differences in wealth and technology have not disappeared.

The Kaiju may be humanity’s greatest threat.

They are not its only problem.

Design Your Own Kaiju

The game provides rules for building original giant monsters.

Kaiju are defined through FATE mechanics including scale, Aspects, Skills, armour, attacks and Stunts. Their immense size affects how they interact with humans, vehicles, tanks, aircraft, ships and Ridders.

The construction rules allow the Games Master to create new creatures with their own capabilities and vulnerabilities rather than relying upon a fixed bestiary.

Build a Ridder

Ridders are gigantic humanoid machines comparable in scale to supercarriers.

They use advanced technology and neural interfaces to control bodies of extraordinary size and power. They are immensely expensive, immensely destructive and still only capable of holding back the continuing Kaiju threat.

The book provides rules for designing Ridders with:

• A central Concept.

• A Trouble.

• An additional Aspect.

• Stunts.

• Skills.

• Armour.

• Weapons.

• Physical Stress.

• Single or multiple pilots.

A Ridder may be controlled by more than one pilot, while other players can take the roles of support crew, technicians, scientists and assistants.

Several example Ridders are also provided.

Pilots and Support Crews

The relationship between a Ridder and its pilots is part of the system.

A machine possesses its own abilities, but its performance is affected by the people connected to it through the neural interface. Cooperation, personal relationships and pilot skill can improve—or impair—the Ridder in combat.

Characters outside the cockpit remain important. Support personnel can create useful Aspects, repair and modify Ridders, provide technical assistance and deal with human-scale threats while the pilots confront the Kaiju.

Destroying the monster is only one part of the battle.

Somebody must keep the machine functioning long enough to do it.

The Arms Race

Kaiju and Ridders are locked in a continuing struggle of adaptation and counter-adaptation.

New monsters emerge with traits shaped by earlier encounters and humanity’s known defences. Ridders deteriorate, suffer damage and require repairs, upgrades and new tactics to remain effective.

The Arms Race rules represent this ongoing process between battles. Technical teams must work to counter degradation and prepare their machines for whatever the Kaiju develop next.

Every victory buys time.

It also teaches the enemy.

Inside the Book

Daikaiju DIE! includes:

• A future setting shaped by climate catastrophe and Kaiju attacks.

• Major powers, economic blocs and independent states.

• Antagonists and future technology.

• The history of the monsters’ emergence.

• Rules for scale.

• Rules for designing Kaiju.

• Rules for designing Ridders.

• Guidance for creating pilots and support personnel.

• Neural-interface and pilot-relationship mechanics.

• The continuing Arms Race between monsters and machines.

• Adventure seeds.

• A complete introductory adventure.

• Artwork by Gennifer Bone, LPJ Design, Black Hand Art, Garu Dupuis, Jeremy Hart, Scortched Urf, Purple Duck and Rick Hershey.

Launch the Ridder

The oceans are rising.

The old political order is straining.

Another Kaiju has emerged.

Conventional weapons will not stop it, and the next line of defence is several thousand tonnes of machinery held together by advanced engineering, hurried repairs and the people connected directly to its artificial nervous system.

Enter the cockpit.

Bring the support team online.

Try to keep collateral damage within politically acceptable limits.

Daikaiju DIE!

This listing is for the physical print edition of Daikaiju DIE!, written and designed by James “Grim” Desborough. This is a game kit containing additions and modifications for the full FATE Core rules; FATE Core is required and FATE Accelerated alone is not sufficient. Dice and other ordinary gaming materials are not included.