Designer(s) Kevin Siembieda Publication date April 1981 (1981-04) Genre(s) Science fiction | Publisher(s) Palladium Books Years active 1981–1988 | |
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Illustrator(s) Kevin Siembieda, Michael Gustovich, William Messner-Loebs, James A. Osten | ||
The Mechanoid Invasion (and its source books, supplements and sequels) was the first role-playing game from Palladium Books, conceived and written by Kevin Siembieda, with contributions from Erick Wujcik.
The Mechanoid Invasion centered on a powerful, malevolent, and numerous race of bio-driven machines that had come to invade a planet called Gideon E that was colonized by humans. In its original edition, published in 1981, the game was published as a series of three comic-book sized sourcebooks:
- the first, The Mechanoid Invasion, dealt with the eponymous invasion of Gideon E
- the second, Journey, dealt with human survivors living within a mechanoid mothership after the destruction of the Gideon E colony and introduced "minor magic and some psionics",
- the third, Homeworld, dealt with the Mechanoid homeworld itself.
The first book was revised and republished in an expanded form in 1985.
In Spring 1991 Caliber Comics also produced a 3-book series called "The Mechanoids" which adapted the RPG into comic book stories.
In the early 90s "Sourcebook Two" of Rifts (role-playing game) was released, titled The Mechanoids, and it included MDC conversions for the Mechanoids for use in a Rifts Earth setting, along with a storyline on how they got there.
In Winter 1998 a Collected Mechanoids RPG was released. By 2001 all 3 books were compiled as the Mechanoid Invasion Trilogy which is still available.
Mechanoids Space, a complete RPG first announced in 1993 for release the following year, was last promised for publication in December 2002 as late as September 2002. As of 2016 it is still available in the store labelled "coming soon".