KERNEL: A Tiny Mech Story

Kernel is about playing as a tiny person piloting a slightly less tiny mech. Your Rig will give you all the strength you need to explore a huge world, haul loads of cargo, and fight off massive bugs. 

Kernel is a Mulitplayer Tabletop-Roleplaying Game that focuses on longterm play and resource management. Keeping your Rig fixed up and fueled up is only one plate you'll be spinning. There are people counting on you. You'll be responsible for bringing home the grub.

 

Le Canard, Le Pardaillan, et L'Acridien. Three common Rig models.

In Kernel you are about 1 centimeter tall. In a world where a raindrop is an atmospheric bombardment, you'll need a bit of machinery to catch up. Rigs tower over humans and buildings, rivalling the size of most insects. The strength of a Rig is several times its size, think of the mighty ant, this is the nature of this machine. When the great beetles block out the skies over your village step forward and throw them back with your metal hands.

There are 8 Rig Models in this material. Each with their own visual style, stats, flavor, and unique gameplay options. Once you have your Rig you'll be able to augment it further with upgrades from the various Companies that distribute technology across the woodland.

Your Rig's abilities will constantly play with physics. As a tiny creature the material of the world is built a bit differently. You won't be firing big guns, you'll be hurling water droplets and burning bugs with magnified rays of light. Even though you're piloting a big, hefty robot, leaping great distances or floating over the surface of water is all possible with the right build.

In Kernel you'll need to use what's in your Tank. You get dice by Revving your engine, each time consuming fuel. Once you have these dice they'll be allocated to things your Rig does like Attacking Foes, Doing Work, or Blocking Damage. As a result of using fuel for everything you will also be on the hook for a lot of raw materials. Your Rig burns Kernels, organic material you gather from food and plants. PEOPLE NEED TO EAT THIS. So whenever you boldly charge into a battle against all odds just remember, your machine isn't the only one hungry.

Deciding when to burn hot isn't the only choice you'll make. Your Tank holds almost everything for you, things like Cargo and Breaches also take up space. You'll need to choose how much you carry and keep your Rig tuned up to stay at the top of your game when Threats show up.

The long term motivator in Kernel will be your Community. The Kernels you collect and the Minerals you mine will go towards building a healthy community. If you fail to keep people fed you won't be able to address community concerns in a timely matter. If you let debts pile up Discontent in the community will follow. 

The information on this map will depend on your game. (also some of the details are out of date)

• Kernel is played with a Game Director (aka GM) and usually two or more players. Playing with just one player is possible but not recommended.
• You will need Six-Sided Dice (preferably a lot), a means of recording rolls and character information, and a way to record your progress as players and community members. Several sheets have been provided to help record information, it is highly recommended you play with these.
• Play sessions of Kernel will usually last at lease one hour depending on the preparedness of players. It is highly recommended to build a campaign around your singular play sessions.
• IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT IF YOU ARE THE GAME DIRECTOR YOU INQUIRE WHAT TINY ANIMALS MAKE YOUR PLAYERS UNCOMFORTABLE, THIS IS PERTINENT INFORMATION.  If your players don't like bugs, arachnids, or rodents I have good news; There's always other tiny robots to fight. 

This page and Kernel the roleplaying game uses the Dicier font by Speak The Sky

Dicier is available under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Readers can find the font at https://speakthesky.itch.io/typeface-dicier

Kernel is made available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License