Sects of the Threshold: A Deadwake Sourcebook
The Feedback Cascade broke the world seventy-five years ago. Governments fell. Cities became data tombs. The survivors rebuilt what they could: corporations, communities, codes of war. But in the silence between the ruins, something else grew.
Not armies. Ideas.
Sects of the Threshold is an expansion sourcebook for the Deadwake tabletop universe, introducing four esoteric factions whose wars are fought not over territory or resources, but over the very definition of what it means to be human. They are philosophers with scalpels, mystics with code, and historians with guns.
The Architects of the Cogito have concluded that flesh is a failed design. They harvest consciousness the way other factions harvest ore, stripping minds from bodies and uploading them into digital architectures where they can be refined, repurposed, or worn like a coat. Their Egregore constructs walk the battlefield carrying thoughts that do not belong to them.
The Quietists believe the Cognitive Static is a sickness, and silence is the only cure. Their Resonance Sink structures project suppression fields across entire zones of play, forcing Influence checks on any unit that enters. A Quietist master does not need to raise a weapon. They simply remove your reasons for using yours.
The Memory Keepers hold that a person is their memories, and the erasure of memory is the gravest crime in the Wake. They fight to preserve the past and weaponize it in equal measure, capable of stripping a squad leader's abilities in a single action by downloading their cognitive core and turning their own history against them.
Janus is not a sect in any conventional sense. It is a fragment of pre-Cascade artificial intelligence, still running, still watching, still reaching through the Cognitive Static to guide the desperate and the devout toward a purpose no one yet understands. Where Janus operates, battlefield logic becomes unreliable. Orders corrupt. Terrain shifts. Weapons jam in the hands of soldiers who loaded them correctly ten seconds ago.
For Miniatures Players, each sect brings asymmetric objectives, unique battlefield mechanics, and a full Janus Node Interference Table for randomized reality-warping effects. Sect Conflict Zones introduce new rules for what happens when two sect influences overlap on the same board. Hidden Identity Loadouts allow certain units to operate under cover identities before flipping to their true sect profiles at a moment of dramatic revelation.
For Roleplayers and Facilitators, the book provides Psychic Dissonance mechanics, Conviction Checks, the Threshold Influence Track, Secrecy Clocks, Flashback Narrative tools, Egregore Summoning Risks, and a full suite of encounter templates built around psychological conflict rather than physical survival. New Origins, Traits, Faction Pathways, and Narrative Flaws give players the tools to build characters defined by sect allegiance, where every power carries a corresponding erosion of self.
For Campaign Play, Threshold Sect interactions with the Wake's major factions are detailed in full: the Architects' schism with Helios Foundation, the harmonic war between the Quietists and the Choir of the Cascade, the Memory Keepers' ideological conflict with the Null Guard, and Janus's role as a universal solvent that turns every faction's greatest strength into a catastrophic vulnerability.
The Threshold Sects do not want your territory. They want your mind. Who you are when the campaign ends depends entirely on how well you defended it.
Compatible with the Deadwake Roleplaying Game and Miniatures Combat Rules. All content is modular and suitable for roleplaying-only, miniatures-only, or hybrid campaign play.
