The ION Heart Universe has always been one where fighting isn’t always your only answer.

The Encounter System

• Peaceful: This can be anything from helping a farmer herd his megafauna home, to solving a relaxing puzzle. Quite often these problems can be resolved through player discussions, roleplay, and a little bit of dice rolling. 
• Protective: You could be exploring new worlds, keeping convoys safe during storms, protecting settlements from wildfires, or saving settlements in the wake of disasters. You can’t fight the ways of the universe, but you can help keep people safe. 
• Dangerous: Remnants of the Nephilim, settlements under siege, and thrilling Mech vs Mech battles. This is where you face off against threats that make the universe a risky place.

Battle Maps or “Theatre of the Mind”?

All the things you will encounter can take place on a hex map to represent the world, or by using the “theatre of the mind” playstyle. Like with most things in ION Heart Multiplayer, we want you to have good flexibility, and the tools to guide your own experience in the Aegeic Galaxy.

Your Story Unfolds

There is no right or wrong path in ION Heart Multiplayer.

POLL: What Do You Do?

1. Use your Mech to support the structure of the facility, to aid in fleeing citizens. You risk your own safety, but you’ll make sure some will get out alive.
2. Fly out to try and take down as many meteoric projectiles as possible before they hit the station. You can’t get them all, but you can certainly try.
3. Coordinate the evacuation efforts. Keeping your cool and trying to help others find a way to help the evacuation efforts - if you have the nerve for it.

Make sure to vote and let us know what you'd do!

Projects We Love!

Legends of Akeroth is a brand new TTRPG from our friends over at Crossed Paths Press, inspired by the blue sky adventures & stories of the SNES era JRPGs such as Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy & Fire Emblem. If you love JRPGs and high fantasy fun, this game is 100% going to be for you.

Last but not least, we have Murder and Mischief flying in from Critical Kit! This multiplayer game has you playing as dimension-hopping corvids which sounds like an insanely good time to us. We are big fans of their solo game Be Like a Crow, so this multiplayer black-feathered follow-up is sure to be a real treat.  

Followers Can Get the QuickStart Now From the Main Page or At The Bottom of This Update!

Gameplay in the ION Heart Multiplayer RPG vs the ION Heart Solo RPG

• An Easy to Learn Ruleset - Both games use six-sided dice (D6s) to play. They’re recognisable, and all maths is kept to a minimum. The better your character is at a skill, the more dice they get to roll, and each 4+ rolled counts as a success. We want your first experience with ION Heart to be as easy to get into as possible.

• Guides to Making Your Own Stories - ION Heart Solo uses Story Circuits to show you how to tell your own stories, and ION Heart Multiplayer has a new Encounter system following in the same basic story-focused structure. Both games use the same easy-to-understand ranking method for the type of adventure you’ll get from Circuits or Encounters: Peaceful, Protective, and Dangerous.

• Rich and Free Character Design - The world of ION Heart has so many species and cultures, that the designs of Mechs are only limited to your imaginations. Each game provides examples, but the final choice is down to you!

What’s New in ION Heart Multiplayer?

1. The Heart - Our gamemaster, the one keeping the story moving and placing challenges before the players. The Heart is very much a player, too, and we’ve worked hard to create a simple and clear rule system that adds to game night, and doesn’t take away from it.
2. Sync Bonds - We’ve expanded on the Sync system. A representation of how close your Pilot and Mech are becoming, this mechanic lets you show that friendship off in all kinds of epic ways. Heroic Actions, synchronised actions, or even just allowing the re-rolling failed challenges! We’ve also added Team Bonds, which represent different players' ability to work together, and the strength of the bond that their collective journey has forged between them.
3. Maps - We’ve worked on a simple map system to enhance not only combat, but also interactions with the world around your characters. Whether it's a local culture festival to explore, a rescue operation to undertake, or an epic-scale Mech battle, you get to see that unfold before you and your team.

An Example of ION Heart Multiplayer Gameplay (transcribed)

Charlie (The Heart): The building begins to crumble down, making rescue look very difficult.

Matt (Daro Blackwing): My Mech is going to try and stabilize the building, and my Pilot is going to help by shouting out structural weak points. Does that count as a synced roll?

Charlie: It does! Roll your Pilot Mind to see how helpful you are first.

Matt spends the 1 Sync Bond point he has, and checks his character sheet and sees that Daro has 3 Mind. He rolls three D6, and gets a 1, a 5, and a 4. He has one spare Sync Bond point, so he chooses to reroll the 1, getting another 4.

Charlie: That’s three successes! So make Mech your Mech Brawn roll, and add an extra three dice!

Matt checks his sheet again and sees that his Mech, Skreech0r, only has 1 Brawn. He rolls four dice, and luckily gets a 4, 5, 5 and a 6!

Charlie: The building is held together, giving more than enough time for the people inside to evacuate safely. They all look up to Skreech0r with a look of awe on their faces.

A Pilot and a Mech

Aside from the Heart, who is running the game, each other Player will take on the roles of both a Pilot and their companion Mech. When interacting with other players at the table in character, players will usually take on the character of their Pilot. Pilots come from all over the Astral Union, can have different cultures and personal backstories, but they all share a way of communicating, whether that be through common language or advanced translation devices.

Mechs are more complicated, as they are not fully autonomous living beings, but are instead considered "mostly sentient". This means that while they can develop "personalities" and build relationships with others, even developing their own jokes and stories over their lifespan, they cannot act with full autonomy for long periods of time, and are limited in their ability to coordinate with parties other than their Pilot.

The character of the player's Mech only comes out passively through interactions with their own Pilot, or directly to other players on occasions when the Mech is separated from its Pilot. When a Pilot is interacting with their Mech, no one wants to sit through a one-person roleplay show, so the player would quickly summarise what the interaction is like based on their Pilot and Mech's personalities and bond.

ION Heart Multiplayer's Solo Mode

Welcome, Pilots, to the world of Ion Heart. 

This may not be your first journey to the Aegeic Galaxy (shoutout to our Ion Heart Solo RPG players!), but we wanted to take the opportunity to introduce the world of ION Heart to potentially new players, as well as highlight the differences returning players might find in the world of the ION Heart Multiplayer RPG.

The story of ION Heart Multiplayer begins many years before the world of the Ion Heart Solo RPG...

60 years ago, in the Aegeic Galaxy 🌌 ...

The Emergence War finally came to a close - It was a conflict that spanned across the entire Aegeic Galaxy, uniting all societies against one terrifying threat: the Nephilim. These bio-mechanical monsters threatened to destroy, consume and absorb all life, but the cultures of the Aegeic Galaxy set aside their differences, worked together, sending their pilots in newly Mechs into the battle. The Astral Union, an alliance formed of many of the nations within the Aegeic Galaxy, stood against the Nephilim. After many long years of conflict, the war was finally won.

Much was lost, the damage dealt during the war to all sides left wounds that will take time to heal, but the galaxy was saved. In the wake of the war, the Astral Union has been slowly rebuilding itself through collaboration and governance, its separate nations still united under one banner. Without a war to fight and a common enemy to unify against, there are some who rally against the ideals of the Union, but many still welcome it with open arms.

The world of the Ion Heart Solo RPG takes place in the future, in a more stable and peaceful time for the Aegeic Galaxy.

The ION Heart Multiplayer RPG let's you undertake the journey to make that peaceful version of the galaxy.

The Pilots and their Mechs who fought during the war all face the same dilemma - the war is over, the fighting is done, so what is their purpose now? That is up to you to find out!

We're building on the world of the ION Heart Solo RPG to give new and returning players a different experience, while keeping the same heart of the world in tact. ION Heart is still a game filled with hope - and now you get to share that hope directly with your friends.

What should we explore next?

• Rules Overview: A discussion on the new ruleset, its evolution from the ION Heart Solo RPG, and sneak peeks of new exciting mechanics.
• A Stat Block For A New Enemy: See what foes threaten the fledgling Astral Union, as we dive into a new enemy design and talk about what makes them tick. 
• Encounters Preview: Explore the new encounter system inspired by the Solo games Story Circuits! Peaceful, Protective, and Dangerous Encounters all exist in the Aegean Galaxy - we'll discuss their differences and how fighting your enemies and dangers you discover isn't always the answer.