(From page 5, author's notes) Age of Ruin forces you back to basics. It strips away most of the gadgets and gimcracks, even down to taking the shirt off your adventurer’s back. Your strength is in your will, your ability to gain the support of others, and quite literally your ability to change yourself to meet new challenges. Your adventurer is often someone else’s adventure. Even though you will lack starships, rayguns or magical fireballs, you’ll manage without them. There are still plenty of cool ways to kick ass and take down names, which is of course, just as important as all that philosophical crap in the first paragraph. Even though the history of the Age of Machines is forever lost to you, in your hands is the ability to shape the future, to find a way to turn the Age of Ruin into the Age of Rebirth.