Within the Precipice, the greatest certainty is uncertainty, and dangers abound. Of course, some areas are more unstable than others, and the farther one wanders from the relative stability of one’s own world, the greater the distortions are likely to become.

The forthcoming Open Alpha v1.2 update will provide significantly more of this uncertainty and danger to the Enigma table, which represent the wide range of strange and perilous phenomena one might encounter. This table is broken up into several layers, and the specific cards (borrowed from a standard 52-card deck) that comprise the enigmas that one might encounter vary by layer. Closer layers tend to contain ominous curiosities, while more distant layers have more esoteric and deadly secrets.

But what are some of the enigmas we’ve seen in stories so far, as our protagonists have found themselves in the Precipice? And how might they be reflected in mechanics? In this fiction primer, we’ll find out!

“What’s the name of this village again?” asked Julien, idly strumming his gittern. 

“I don’t think it has a name,” replied my brother, not taking his eyes from the road. “My father’s manor maps only marked it with a number.” 

That’s not entirely true. I’ve spent many long hours in our father’s study, both before and after he disappeared, and I know his maps well. This village does have a number, sixteen, the same age I turned this winter when my older brother, Lohier, now Le Marquis du Bois de Bruiere, told me “Well, Ysolt. Now that you’re old enough to marry, you may finally be worth something to this family.” Ironically, this is also, in a way, what brought us here. The young King Roul was hosting a grand fête and tourney to mark the occasion of his first royal progress. My brother was invited, as were the heads of all the named houses, and it had become fixed in his mind that this was his opportunity to reverse our family’s fortunes in one fell swoop. 

From most worlds that it crosses, entering the Precipice is a bad gamble, at least for the people who actually have to set foot there. A world might be perilous to its inhabitants, but within the uncertain realm of possibilities are countless utterly uninhabitable realms, with elements or laws of physics wholly hostile to the life of other worlds. Even in those places where worlds safely overlap, there are others fighting their own battles to survive. Newcomers may be viewed as competition, rightly or wrongly, and are often met with hostility.

This fiction primer delves into three reasons one might enter the Precipice… and the reasons others might send them there. It also serves as a preview of the four categories of missions (each associated with a card suit) in the forthcoming Open Alpha v1.2 Update.

How do pilots communicate with others outside their mechs in the worlds of Precipice? Read on for the answers, and another breadcrumb about the next Precipice world to be revealed!

A fiction primer on powering the mechs of Precipice, with a small hint about our next featured world!

Now that the battle had ebbed, the oblates knelt in a semicircle around the harness’s feet, shadowed by the green nimbus light above. Orazia had gathered them from their hiding places among the wood. Orlondo did not blame them for scattering; they were sworn to pray for Premonta, not fight. As he swayed on his feet, the oblates’ cantor, Veltrus, rose to support him, and pushed a leather flask to his lips.

Orlondo drank it, tasting honey and mint, and felt a liquored rush of warmth through his chest. Hoofbeats echoed on the stone ruins and a horse snorted. Orlondo focused through his haze on its rider, seeing the taut face of Counselor Cante, his black gown powdered with road dust.

“Medicine is a poor toast for a victory. Even half of one.” Cante smiled thinly, then beckoned. “There’s wine and words to be had under my canopy. About all of this.” He raised a hand to gesture at the tear in the sky, still rising over the mountaintop above.

Precipice is a game that focuses on “Jumping into the cockpit,” and that means you need to have an idea of what the cockpit looks like. We’re asking you to imagine piloting the mech when you plot your inputs and execute your actions, and that means helping you build a mental image of what’s going on inside your mech.

If you’re bringing your own mech, you probably have a concept of its levers and throttles, mind-machine interface, or big display of red buttons. But for the original mechs appearing in Precipice, we knew that we’d need to flesh out these concepts. So today, we dive into the control systems seen in the mechs of Arbelos, Swarmworld Arcturus, and Harness!

Orlondo had half finished lacing his doublet when heard the trumpet blow. He blinked, and not just from the water running down his face. The orange blaze of the sunrise dazzled his eyes as it emerged over the marble-littered slope above him. 

The last of the Shatters had just set, disappearing into the amethyst sky of the west horizon. He wished he’d stayed above last night to sketch the valley view now. He’d barely explored the Nave’s lower terraces, and he still wasn’t bold enough to remain after dark. Let alone take Gatewatcher up the winding, colossal steps to find out the truth about the peak.

The brassy blast was several short, sharp notes. He called over to Delphia without looking straight at her. She was still waist deep in the narrow river, taking her turn to bathe. “That doesn’t sound like your camprise tune.”

The scaffolding creaked around Orlondo as he climbed its steps. It didn’t matter how lightly or firmly he set his feet. The chilly air within didn’t help with his shakes either. The brightly-painted drapery around the platform’s exterior hid him from the pale, overcast sunlight. It also hid him from the plaza’s crowd, but he still heard their waiting clamor outside, rising as the herald on the podium above addressed them.

Finally, he emerged. He willed himself up the last step, through the platform’s opening, and into the open breeze. As he did, high, brassy clarions sounded on both sides of him. Then the herald resumed with her bellowing introduction, and his trembles rippled all the way from his fingers up his sides.

The Precipice intersects with countless worlds, but its interactions with each one are unique. Read on to find out more about the way the realm beyond manifests across a number of worlds!

Orlondo swept his right leg back and elevated his poleaxe’s butt end above his head in his overhand grip. As he did, his foot harness’ plates softly clanked together. His stance angled the weapon’s head toward the ground, rather than levelling it up toward his opponent’s throat. But he much preferred the poise’s other advantages—defense and leverage. It interposed his weapon’s haft between his open left side and her sword. It also kept his left hand forward at hip level, ready to pivot into several strikes.

What is the Precipice? Explore this strange interdimensional realm in today’s Fiction Primer!

If you haven’t yet had a chance to read these stories, now is a great time to get started! So, what has been going on in these two very different worlds?

Maris, safe in the control sphere at Komodo’s heart, surfaced a few moments after the faun’s head. The transition from murky ocean depths to stark, hazy light forced Maris to blink away the ghosts that had swum in her periphery, moving in the impenetrable black of the water.

She had never felt their direction change. Despite her efforts to coax Komodo to turn back, to return to shore or even just swim closer to the surface where she could connect to Deniz in Zilant, the faun had continued to descend, deeper, deeper. She’d tried pulling on the control gauntlets with all her strength, but they barely moved, and when they did, the faun did not seem to care.

Maris splashed through another shallow pool, submerged nearly to her knees. Grime and sweat matted her dark hair; the messy bun she’d started the day with was thoroughly compromised. Dirt from the nameless faun’s grotto streaked her pants and jacket. Water flowed in through the tops of her boots. Even after climbing out of the pool onto uneven, sharp-rocked ground, each step squelched and dragged with moisture.

Maris remembered the night after she’d found the nameless faun. The petals were slowly closing as Antillia drew toward nastic night. Each of the bloom’s five petals were a long ovate shape, narrow where they met at the central pinion, broadening several kilometers up-petal, then tapering to a point over several more kilometers.

The thump and tremor of the passing mechafauna rarely woke Maris anymore; once every week for five years gave her plenty of time to learn to tune out the noise.

“The trail that led me into the Icano Disaster Area was rough and bloody. I don’t think anyone who died on the way down there deserved it. Not Borread, not Vedos, not the enemies who we never identified.

Now that I know a bit more about what motivated the mission in the first place, I think maybe there are some other people who do deserve it. Regrettably, right then, none of them stood between us and survival. The people who deserve it usually don’t.”

-Excerpt from In the Serpent’s Maw: The Secret Conflict on the Icano Peninsula

“The things down there just aren’t accounted for. Not in our military doctrine, not in our legal framework, not in our laws of physics, and certainly not in our social contract. It’s all jagged and uncertain. But people still have to make choices, and I have to believe that I witnessed choices that mattered.”

-Excerpt from In the Serpent’s Maw: The Secret Conflict on the Icano Peninsula

“‘And there are monsters,’ he said. I didn’t know what Tahl had seen on his last trip in The Serpent’s Maw, and he didn’t elaborate that day. I thought he was trying to rattle me. Maybe he was. And maybe it should have rattled me more.”

-Excerpt from In the Serpent’s Maw: The Secret Conflict on the Icano Peninsula