Transformers One Sourcebook

« Transformers One Sourcebook
Publisher	Renegade Game Studios
First published	September 2025
Written by	Jacob Blackmon, Carlos Cabrera, Ryan Costello, Kim Frandsen, Paige Leitman, Brandon Perdue, Mike Pohjola, Erin Roberts, and Jim Sorenson
Page count	112
Price	$45.00 USD

Transformers One Sourcebooks is an expansion sourcebook for the Transformers Roleplaying Game. Based on the animated movie, the book highlights settings and characters from the film, along with a new Origin to represent the film's cogless miners and seven new Influences.

It was released digitally in May 2025, with a physical release in September of the same year.

Contents

Character Options

• Origins
• Influences
• New Factions
• General Perks
• Equipment Options

Chapter 2: Your Characters, Your Group

• Family Play
• Teaching the Rules
• Ensemble Play
• Splitting the Party
• Playing Together
• Character Development
• Session Zero

Chapter 3: Threats & Allies

Main Characters B-127 D-16/Megatron Elita-1 Orion Pax/Optimus Prime

Antagonists Sentinel Prime Airachnid Darkwing Guard/Advanced Guard Quintesson Scout Ship Soldier/Elite Soldier Tracker/Elite Tracker

The High Guard Redwing Shockwave Skywarp Slipstream Soundwave Starscream Thundercracker

Notable Cybertronians Alpha Trion Arcee Brawn Chromia Firestar Ironhide Jazz Moonracer Prowl Sideswipe Sunstreaker Wheeljack

Common Cybertronians Archivist Commuter Miner Mine Overseer Politician

Cybertronian Surface Beasts Buzz-Boar Robo-deer Techno-Thylacine Vapor Squid

Chapter 4: Locations

• Archives
• Energon Mines
• Iacon 5000 Raceway
• Sublevels 41-50
• Train Station and Trains
• Surface of Cybertron
• Grave of the Primes
• High Guard Hideout
• Iacon Tower
• Well of Sparks

Chapter 4: Campaigns and Variations

• The Thirteen Primes
• Origins
• Alternate Allegiances
• Alternative Origin Stories
• Side Stories & Unanswered Questions

Notes

Continuity notes

• As a tie-in with Transformers One, the book (unsurprisingly) draws quite heavily from the characters, concepts, and mythology laid down the film—profiles include Sentinel Prime, the various members of the High Guard, cogless energon miners, and soforth. However, the book also takes some liberties with the fiction—for instance, some characters like Ironhide and Arcee are portrayed as seasoned warriors instead of inexperienced manual laborers. Where appropriate, these reimagined profiles are denoted with an asterisk, marking them as "non-canon" with regards to the events of Transformers One. However, there's not a lot of consistency with what's "canon" and what's not—for instance, both Prowl's and Brawn's profiles have no real basis in the film, but only Prowl's is marked as non-canon!
• The back half of the book shifts to a more multiversal focus, speaking broadly about the origins of the Thirteen, their exploits, and the history of the Cybertronian race across multiple continuities. To this end, the book includes profiles for seventeen Primes, and notes that what's true in one universe may not be true in another.

Transformers references

• Sentinel Prime's sword is referred to as the "Primax Blade", co-opting the name from Dark of the Moon Sentinel Prime's weapon of choice.
• The Reticulated Sprotchet, a doohickey from the Sticker Adventures book "Battle on the Junk Planet", is name-dropped as one of the many pieces of mining equipment in the book.
• The description of the Well of Sparks incorporates a few other religions from IDW's "Phase 2" comics—these include the Clavis Aurea from More than Meets the Eye, the Torchbearers from Robots in Disguise, and the City Speakers [sic] from Windblade.
• In addition to the standard "Covenant Thirteen"—Primus, Vector, Alpha Trion, Solus, Micronus, Nexus, Onyx, Amalgamous, Quintus, Liege Maximo, Megatronus, and The Arisen—Transformers One Sourcebook also includes a number of minor figures as potential candidates for a Thirteen roster. Three of these characters—Logos Prime, Autonomous Maximus, and Mortilus—had previously been tied to the Thirteen through Fun Publications' "Ask Vector Prime" column, written before Hasbro began aggressively marketing its "Covenant Thirteen" interpretation. Zeta Prime, of course, originated in Transformers One.
• Amalgamous Prime's profile deliberately conflates him and Adaptus, a member of the Guiding Hand from More than Meets the Eye. The blurb describes him as the "Grand Architect" of the Thirteen, and suggests that his disruptive nature may have led him to deliberately initiate the God War, all feats lifted from Adaptus's appearance in Lost Light.
• Similarly, Alpha Trion's profile notes that he is sometimes known as Solomus, another member of the Guiding Hand, and sometimes worshipped under the title of Arrius, based on half-remembered accounts of the "true" Solomus in Optimus Prime #10.
• The Arisen wields the Scepter of Sparks, an accessory that debuted with Power of the Primes Optimal Optimus.
• Autonomous Maximus wields a Viewtrex Staff, a material that originated in the The Transformers episode "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1"
• Logos Prime's profile incorporates a simplified version of his backstory from "Ask Vector Prime", noting that he was driven to madness after encountering a "creature beyond all understanding". Like several other profiles, Logos Prime's profile deliberately merges him with Epistemus, More than Meets the Eye's god of wisdom, and gives him the omniscient Magnificence as one of his relics.
• As with The Enigma of Combination, Nexus Prime's profile notes that he was originally known as "Nexus Maximus", a working name for the character that was hastily changed after an infamous mix-up.
• While Zeta Prime featured as one of the Primes in Transformers One, his profile here draws heavily from his "Generation 1" counterpart, ascribing him the vamparc ribbons used by his IDW counterpart while also describing him as an ambitious commander with a penchant for nation-building.
• The "Origins" section lays out a number of proposed backgrounds for the Cybertronian race. In addition to the well-known explanations—Primus, the Quintessons, and the AllSpark—the book also alludes to Cybertron's organic past from Beast Machines, and makes a veiled allusion to the ending of Tom Scioli's Go-Bots, describing a universe where mechanical lifeforms seeded the multiverse with mechanical worlds after evolving on Earth.
• "New and Expanded Transformers Groups" outlines a number of alternate conflicts for players who want to look beyond the traditional Autobot-Decepticon war, highlighting various subgroups and factions from across the Transformers multiverse. These include the Destructons from Transformers in 3-D, the Cybertronian Empire from Generation 2, the Functionists from More than Meets the Eye, the Acolytes of Unicron from the Marvel comic... and, of course, the Renegades from GoBots. (It wouldn't be a Jim Sorenson book without a GoBots reference!)
• A paragraph describing a theoretical Micromaster and Mini-Con-themed campaign uses the term "Bulks" to describe full-sized Transformers, a term that originated with the "Linkage" manga.
• "Alternative Origin Stories" lays out four potential campaign settings based on notable Transformers comics: The War Within, Megatron Origin, Shattered Glass, and Unicron.

Real-world references

• Tying back to a decade-old bit of lore from Fun Publications' "Ask Vector Prime" column, Transformers One Sourcebook revisits the idea that the Thirteen visited ancient Earth, inadvertently mythologizing themselves as various Greek deities. Transformers One Sourcebook reiterates this bit of lore, and invents some new identities for those Thirteen members who didn't appear in "Ask Vector Prime", which include...
  • The ever-shifting Amalgamous Prime went by the name Poseidon.
  • The heroic tale of the Arisen gave rise to the myth of Heracles.
  • The tragic Logos Prime adopted the guise of Demeter.
  • The diminutive Micronus Prime became known as Pan.
  • Nexus Prime, a powerful protector, was also known as Juno.
  • The intellectual Quintus Prime adopted the identity of Janus.
  • Zeta Prime's ambitious feats of nation-building were immortalized in the exploits of Romulus and Quirinus.

Errors

• On page 62, "Quintesson" is misspelled "Quientessons".
• On page 109, Gigantion is misspelled as "Gigantian".