introduction: Cascade Failure is a roleplaying game set in a post-apocalypse future. The game occurs in 2614 CE, twenty-eight years after a massive war now referred to as the Great War, in which the majority of human and intelligent alien life was destroyed. The economic systems that sustained interstellar civilization were crippled in this war and in the years immediately following it were completely destroyed, a period now referred to as the Collapse. Where the Great War was dominated by extreme acts of violence, the Collapse period was defined by supply shortages, mechanical breakdown, hardship, starvation, and ultimately death. The game occurs in the aftermath of these events. There are some people around who were old enough to remember the apocalypse, but they are few and far between. The populations that survived these events are small, growth is slow, and information on the universe as a whole is severely limited. Technological systems that made interstellar civilization possible have fallen into disrepair. Replacement parts are extremely difficult to acquire, as the manufacturing processes required to produce them require their own inputs that are rare or must be transported in from distant star systems. Cascade Failure is a game about survival in the face of these extreme conditions.