Factions of the Ninth World - The Cult of Nomothet, part 1

    Okay, time now for something different! The Ninth World Bestiary page 112 details a creature called a scrivener, a bunch of human parts Cronenberged into an abomination made to serve as the perfect scribe.
    A much more interesting point, however, are the scriveners' creators, the so-called Flesh Priests of the god Nomothet, worshiped in the Cathedral of Form in Qi. As far as I know, this remarkable group of flesh-sculptors is mentioned only here and nowhere else, given no further detail. In this post, I will remedy that, and detail:

The Cult of Nomothet

    In the lands of the Steadfast and the Ninth World in general, very few religions are known outside of the region of their origin. The cult of Nomothet, God of the Flesh, was once one such religion, virtually unknown outside of southwestern Draolis.
    However, unlike most shamans and holy men, the miracles purported by the priests of Nomothet were genuine. The Flesh Priests' quasi-ritualized surgeries and edifications were actually capable of instilling permanent change on the bodies of animals.
    That was before the Order of Truth discovered them. Despite being a religion, in some sense, for the sake of diplomacy the Order of Truth rarely makes definite statements on the issue of theology. As such, they enjoy great rapport and communication with many lesser faiths. The Cult of Nomothet is just one such religion.
    Impressed by the cult's mastery of flesh-warping, the Order of Truth helped them refine their techniques, and even paved the way for the construction of the Cathedral of Form, the seat of the modern Cult of Nomothet's power in the city of Qi.

The Flesh Priests

    The worshipers of Nomothet are relatively few, and the vast majority of them also revere the teachings of the Order of Truth and other religions. Nevertheless, they all pay some homage to the teachings of Nomothet.

    The religion has its own creation myth, portraying Nomothet as a cosmic being who sculpted the world into the flesh of his own head. The wise men credited with founding the religion are said to have traveled to the edge of the world, and walk down Nomothet's face. Upon finding Nomothet's eye, they realized the truth of the world, and Nomothet rewarded them by bestowing upon them some of the secrets of flesh. As the wise men walked from the top of Nomothet's head to his eye, the eye they way was upside-down, and thus the Upside-Down Eye is their holy symbol, which adorns all of their creations.

    Like most "deities" in the Ninth World, there is no particular reason to believe Nomothet exists, and obviously the world is not on a giant living creature's head. Even in the priesthood there is debate over whether or not it is to be taken as allegory.

    Practically speaking, the most important aspect of Nomothet's teachings is the "edification of flesh." Flesh, the cult claims, is sacred, and a sign of Nomothet's craftsmanship. To that end, worshipers are expected to "edify" their flesh by attending to its wants and needs and cultivating it into something greater. The classical method is surgical improvements, but interpretation of this creed is broad, and often includes healthy living, bodybuilding, ritual tattooing, piercing, and/or scarification, and/or bacchanalian  indulgences in sex, food, and drugs, with or without moderation or precautions.

    The Flesh Priests themselves generally practice moderation, so as to extend their lives and not distract from their work. In the laboratories and operating theaters of the Cathedral of Form, and dozens of other temples scattered throughout the western Steadfast, the Flesh Priests work to improve upon living flesh, develop new healing techniques, and create wholly new forms of life.

    The hierarchy of the Cult of Nomothet is simple and loose. Acolytes are priests-in-training, with the priests themselves above them. "High Priest" is a title that simply means authority over priests in a certain assigned district. Authority is based not just on rank, but seniority and number of successful operations performed. All priests recognize the absolute authority of the Receptacle, a council of four priests who govern the cult's activities from their sanctum in the Cathedral of Form.

    Member Benefits: Becoming a full-fledged Flesh Priest requires years of training, much like that of an Aeon Priest. However, Flesh Priests often experiment on each other to beneficial effect. Pick one beneficial mutation (Numenera Corebook, page 124). You now enjoy the benefits of this mutation as the result of an experimental surgery.

Using the Cult of Nomothet in Your Game

    In theory, the Flesh Priests of Nomothet are much like the Aeon Priests, just rarer and more narrowly focused. They're wizard types often found at the center of communities serving as quest givers and weirdness makers. PCs could have adventures performing tasks for them or cleaning up their messes.

    I deliberately omitted any particular details about how the cult looks and operates. The Cathedral of Form could be a hygenic and orderly hospital and research facility well ahead of its time or it could be a nightmarish abattoir like something out of MtG's Phyrexia. The Cult of Nomothet could be villains or allies, as the GM decides.

Adventure Hooks

1. A Flesh Priest requires a live specimen of a dangerous creature for his experiments, and is hiring armed thugs to catch one for him.
2. An inexperienced yet arrogant Flesh Priest created a monster beyond his power to control. It slipped its bonds and fled from his laboratory. Now it haunts the countryside, preying on the innocent. The priest is desperate to have his creation destroyed before his peers find out.
3. A nobleman's beloved daughter has died from an accident. Overcome with grief, he approached the Flesh Priests for a solution, but was told resurrection was impossible. Undeterred, the nobleman now seeks to find a less scrupulous Flesh Priest to try a more drastic means of resurrection.
4. Just recently, a prominent Flesh Priest was excommunicated for unethical experiments. No one has seen or heard from the priest in weeks, but there have been a rash of disappearances in the slums of Qi.

    Okay, that does it for this blog post. I've got more material yet for the Cult of Nomothet, so check back tomorrow for some crunchier stuff.

Noteworthy NPCs - Bethias the Many

    Here we go, noteworthy NPC number three:

Bethias the Many

    Loef Bethias was a recluse and eccentric who lived alone on the outskirts of a village. In his early life, he lived as an Aeon Priest, but left them as he could not stand the close quarters with the other priests, the ignorant villagers he was called upon to help, or the elaborate ceremonies which he vehemently decried as frivolous.

    After leaving the Aeon Priests, he traveled alone for many years collecting numenera and stealing to survive. Ultimately he settled down, owing to his numerous old injuries and brushes with death, and became yet another subsistence farmer on the outskirts of a remote village.

    Bethias's neighbors found his behavior suspicious. For the many years he lived there, he rarely ever ventured forth from his farm, and when he did he wore an enormous wide-brimmed hat and high-collared coat, regardless of the weather. Rumors circulated that he consorted with demons, with whom he held counsel all night.

    In truth, one of Bethias's old items of numenera turned out to be the receptacle for a powerful nano-spirit named Flastor. Flastor had been imprisoned in the data receptacle by a rival datasphere god eons ago, and desired release. In exchange for release, Flastor offered Bethias a boon of his choosing. Bethias asked for companions that would understand him, and Flastor was all too happy to oblige.

    Over the next several years, Flastor instructed Bethias in the construction of a machine that would make cloned replicas of himself and program their brains with his memories and personality, making more or less physically and mentally identical copies of himself. The locals remember with awe and horror the day that a run-down farmhouse disgorged fifty identical copies of Bethias, each carrying a piece of numenera equipment.

Insulum

    Bethias and his duplicates dismantled the machine and carried all of its components and various other supplies out into the wilderness. There they established a crude settlement they dubbed Insulum, to be populated solely by Bethias and his duplicates.

    Effusively thankful of Flastor for help achieving this dream, Bethias asked how he could free the trapped spirit. Again, Flastor instructed Bethias to build yet another machine that he claimed would project his consciousness into the aether. The machine was built, but Flastor had double-crossed Bethias. All of the duplicates had been engineered with a brain implant that allowed Flastor to seize control over them, and he used them to imprison Bethias in his new home.

    The region surrounding Insulum is now given a wide berth, as the many bodies of Bethias the Many, as Flastor calls itself when dealing with mortals, are known for their violent hostility towards outsiders. As Flastor can make any number of duplicate bodies, those that encounter trespassers are suicidal in their effort to defend their town.

    Those who succeed in approaching Insulum will find simple wooden shacks built in a radial pattern around a large central building, from which extends a transmitting antenna. Bethias-clones move about on their assigned tasks, utterly silent. The central building was the original Bethias's home, and now houses the cloning machine and the transmitting machine, both of which are essential to Flastor's plans of revenge against his invisible rivals.

Using Bethias the Many in Your Game

    Bethias the Many and Insulum can be located anywhere off the beaten path, so long as it is a few days travel from another village or community. Players might hear of Bethias the Many and the region's evil reputation from the inhabitants of Bethias's old village. Depending on how the PCs came to that village, Insulum could be a site of adventure or a dangerous obstacle between them and their destination.

Adventure Hooks

• The Amber Papacy's resurrected computer banks have suffered datasphere attacks recently. They have been able to track the source of the attacks to a region of remote wilderness, which they believe to be deserted from their outdated maps. They need someone to travel there, find the source of the attacks, and shut it down.
• An aging nobleman craves immortality. He has heard the rumors of Bethias the Many and his cloning machine, and seeks to hire adventurers to retrieve it for him.
• Bethias the Many requires a specific item of numenera to further his plans, but lacks the ability to get it himself. Fliers advertising the job appear in every town and city throughout the region.
• Nanos and a few other people throughout the region have been experiencing repeated glimmers of a haggard old man begging for help and offering a glorious reward. This is in fact a distress signal from the original Loef Bethias, who is still alive and trying to call for help from a jury-rigged transmitter.

Stats

    The original Loef Bethias is an old man at this point, and is a level 2 NPC with skill in numenera and farming as a level 5. The following stats represent the bodies controlled by Flastor, a.k.a. Bethias the Many.

Bethias, Single

    The following stats represent a single instance of Bethias the Many. He, or it, rather, appears as a pale, thin man with lank black hair anywhere between the ages of 20 and 35, indistinguishable from any other hermit or farmer. Bethias the Many destroys bodies that age past this threshold.

Level: 4 (12)

Motive: Revenge against unknown other nano-spirits

Environment: Insulum and the surrounding countryside

Health: 12 hp

Damage Inflicted: 4

Movement: Short

Modifications: Lying and persuasion as level 6, numenera as level 10

Combat: A single instance of Bethias the Many who encounters intruders in the vicinity of Insulum will first attempt to verbally warn them away. If they refuse, it will attack with a sword or a club, and will fight suicidally in an attempt to stall the intruders while reinforcements arrive.

Bethias, Mob

    These stats represent the coordinated attacks of ten or more Bethias clones. Use the stats for a single Bethias except where noted below.

Level: 6 (18)

Health: 36 hp

Combat: A mob of Bethias clones will attempt to surround a group of intruders to attack from all sides and keep them from fleeing. A mob can make up to three attacks per round against all creatures in immediate range, and a character who attempts to move outside that range must succeed in an opposed Might or Speed check.

Fiction Inspirations - Dancers at the End of Time

    Hello again, and welcome to the second installment of Fiction Inspirations. This time I will tackle another book from the Numenera bibliography:

    Dancers at the End of Time is a trilogy by Michael Moorcock, consisting of An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands, and The End of All Songs. It is set in the distant future where the only inhabitants of Earth are debauched, decadent immortals who can conjure up anything they desire with the use of power rings. They spend all their time constructing elaborate edifices of poorly remembered past events, having wild orgies, and collecting aliens and stranded time travelers like animals in their "menageries."
    The story focuses on one such future inhabitant, Jherek Carnelian, and his relationship with Mrs. Amelia Underwood, an accidental 19th century time traveler. To amuse himself and his peers, Jherek vows to "fall in love," with this woman, romance apparently having fallen out of fashion in favor of wild orgies. What begins as a stunt turns to genuine love, and Amelia learns to forgo much of her 19th century English prudishness and realize Jherek is much nicer than her own awful husband.
    Various time-travelling shenanigans occur; Amelia and Jherek are separated, the other inhabitants of the future play merry hell with the time stream, all the while the universe of the future is collapsing in on itself. The story is not Moorcock's best work, and I found it aimless and maudlin.
    However, the picture of the future that it paints is an excellent model for a prior world in Numenera. The people of the end of time live in a complete material utopia, capable of altering their environment and themselves with little more than a thought. As such, they want for nothing but entertainment, an enterprise to which they devote all of their attention.

How to Use It in Your Game

    The people at the end of time did not make a great many permanent structures, but if they are used as a model of a prior-world society, then a huge and impressive structure made of non-native materials that serves no practical purpose could have been created by just such a society purely for the purposes of entertainment.

    A more interesting idea might be to use the end of time as a model for the future of the Ninth World itself. The debauched society described by Moorcock is the result of humans or human-like creatures having their every whim satisfied, after all. By tampering with some time-related Numenera, the players might find themselves flung into the future and held prisoner in the name of entertainment.

    Time travel in this setting is persnickety, as well. Moorcock's solution to the time paradox dilemma is to endow time itself with a sort of animal sentience, so that it seems to intentionally re-locate time travelers who cause paradoxes. This also means that someone who has visited the future might find themselves brought back at any time, if they spread to much paradox-generating information.

   With that in mind, the end of time, or something like it, might just be one stop on an entire time-travelling campaign or adventure path, with the idea of "You're causing a paradox" as a versatile GM fiat to jump to a new setting if things get too dull.

Ideas

    Future or past, you should be able to use these ideas in your game right away.

Adventure Hooks

1. After tampering with a numenera device, the characters find themselves in a strange place and an item of interest for alien beings. Mercurial and all-powerful, their strange hosts seem to regard the PCs as entertainment. They'll have to find a way to distract them and/or establish contact in order to find a way back to their native time/dimension/planet.
2. A powerful nano requires a numenera device available only in a prior world. His solution? Hire someone to go get it, using his time machine. The only catch is, the people he hires must act exactly as if they were natives of that bygone time. Failure to blend in could cause a paradox, which would result in them being hurled through time to god knows when.
3. The PCs acquire a powerful artifact, only to discover that it is powerless and inert. The only practical means of activating it require them to travel into the ruined city where its energy banks are stored and coax the dilapidated wireless power transmitter back to life.
4. A bizarre alien creature armed with powerful numenera has appeared in a major city, and has begun robbing other stores of numenera. In truth, this creature is a time traveler from a prior world, trapped in the dilapidated future of the Ninth World and desperately seeking a way home.

Weird Details

1. An enormous palace of lapis lazuli and gold stands in the middle of the wilderness. Its doors and windows are purely decorative, and there seems to be no way in. Further, its walls are freakishly tough, despite being paper thin.
2. A wealthy nobleman's estate features enclosures for various human, quasi-human, and alien individuals, all housed in radically different settings and technology levels.
3. A ruined, prior-world city boils with vibrant, multi-hued chemical vapors and pools, all of which are totally harmless to humans despite their noxious appearance.
4. A circus sideshow features a captive alien who does nothing but desperately warn onlookers about the impending doom of the world.

Coming Soon...

    This is the second of hopefully many Fiction Inspirations posts. As I will only use those materials I have experienced personally, the next one will come from this list:

At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft

 Dancers at the End of Time, by Michael Moorcock

The Dying Earth, by Jack Vance

The History of the Runestaff, by Michael Moorcock

Pump Six and Other Stories, by Paolo Bacigalupi

Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Viriconium, by M. John Harrison

Noteworthy NPCs - Lady Calaxa

    Here is another Noteworthy NPC for your Numenera or other weird science-fantasy game. I'm still playing with the format a bit, so bear with me. The last one was Jalliford the Soundsmith, and this one is:

The Lady Calaxa

    Lady Calaxa is a decorated military veteran and minor noblewoman of one of the Steadfast's many kingdoms. She appears as a tall, thin woman of indeterminate age, either dressed in finery or in the fitted clothing of a dance instructor. She possesses a few striking, non-human features, such as cold, deathly pale skin, faintly glowing red eyes, and shoulder-length hair that glows in bands of varying intensity, making it look like a curtain of lava.

    That she is not human is common knowledge, but few know the truth of her background. Calaxa is an extraterrestrial, engineered to serve as a living weapon by a more advanced race of aliens. Thousands of years ago, Calaxa was able to circumvent her obedience programming and desert her post. She has spent the time since then traveling across the Orion Arm of the galaxy, laying low and avoiding her brethren.

    Her last bolt-hole was discovered, on a floating world orbiting Canopus, and she fled to Earth. A shapeshifter, she adopted a semblance of humanity and offered her services as a mercenary to ingratiate herself to the local authorities. Calaxa's intervention won many battles, and she became a decorated knight and adviser to the rulers of her adopted land.

    Calaxa, however, detests violence, as it is a constant reminder of the horrible life of slavery she left behind. She only fights when absolutely necessary, and to support her true passion: dance.

Lady Calaxa's Universuum of Dance

    On the floating world of Canopus, Calaxa discovered a passion for the art of dance, as she found it simulated the coordination and technique of battle without the violence she abhors. In her early years on Earth, she fought for her adopted kingdom to win herself a fortune and a small land grant, with which she founded her dance school.

    Lady Calaxa's Universuum of Dance is a large, manor-like building in a major city in the Steadfast, one with a large opera house or theater. Lady Calaxa's students live here and undergo daily classes and rehearsals. Most of her students are the spoiled children of wealthy businessmen, nobility, and politicians, and Lady Calaxa's demanding curriculum and short patience for laziness mean there is a large turnover.
    The Universuum also houses a lab and library where Calaxa spends most of her time when not training students, performing at the opera house, or attending an obligatory social event. Calaxa has little interest in numenera itself, but she collects and maintains a vast array of monitoring devices and weapons, all in preparation for the dark day when, Calaxa fears, her comrades will discover her location and she will have to flee again. The devices do not just detect Calaxa's brethren: if anything of potentially national or planetary importance should develop, chances are good that Calaxa will know about it, even if all she does is warn her government contacts.

Using Lady Calaxa in Your Game

    The first thing to decide when using Lady Calaxa is where exactly she is located. The kingdom and city that hosts the Universuum is deliberately left ambiguous, but ideally it should a major city and a known cultural center. Charmonde, in Navarene, is a good choice, as is Qi, in Draolis. Wherever it is, it must also have a large opera house and/or theater scene. Calaxa is pragmatic enough to know that nobody would attend her school without an opportunity to become a professional dancer.

Adventure Hooks

• A great danger threatens thousands of lives, and the PCs are commissioned to seek out the aid of Lady Calaxa in resolving the issue. She will not be happy to see them, and in fact will likely run them off if they directly ask her to fight for a cause.
• The PCs need to know where to find a particular piece of numenera. When an artifact dealer cannot supply the item, he informs the PCs that one of his clients is a wealthy dame who buys almost nothing but monitoring and scanning equipment.
• A pair of androgynous, pale humanoids with glowing red eyes and hair have been travelling from town to town asking around for a person matching Calaxa's description. These are indeed members of Calaxa's species, come to collect her. Calaxa would pay dearly to have someone either kill them or trick them into thinking that she is not here.
• A local chapter of Angulan Knights has recently begun calling for Calaxa's execution, as she is openly a non-human. The truth is, an unscrupulous Aeon Priest is manipulating the Knights for a chance to examine Calaxa's remains, which he believes should contain valuable numenera. As the Knights are locally venerated by the public, Calaxa needs somebody with no connection to her to find a solution, through violence or otherwise.

Stats

Lady Calaxa
Level: 6 (18)

Motive: Desires peace

Environment: In the Universuum of Dance, in a major city

Health: 30 hp

Damage Inflicted: 8 points melee, 6 points ranged

Armor: 3

Movement: Long, walking, flying, or swimming

Modifications: Military tactics, cosmology, history, numenera, dance and Speed tasks as level 8; pleasant social interaction, lying as level 4

Combat: Lady Calaxa detests violence, but when sufficiently pressed, she is swift and deadly on the battlefield. She is capable of moving, flying or walking, long range in a full action or a short range as part of another action.

    Calaxa's primary weapon is a yard-long retractable monoblade concealed in her index finger. This weapon is virtually unnoticeable retracted or extended, and deals 8 points of damage.

    She also has the ability to project bolts of energy from her eyes. These bolts have a long range and deal 6 points of damage.

    Calaxa is a shapeshifter, and can assume any conceivable form larger than a cat or smaller than an elephant. This does not grant her any additional special abilities, but this can give her an asset in certain situations, such as stealth, or disguise. She cannot, however, conceal her glowing red eyes or hair. Changing shape is an action for her.

    As an engineered being, Calaxa does not require food, drink, air, or sleep, but she is also unaffected by chemicals, including healing cyphers.

    Calaxa is also capable of unaided spaceflight. This requires her to fly out of the planet's atmosphere, and spend a few minutes shapeshifting and optimizing her form. She is capable of spaceflight at roughly 5 light years per hour.

A Trip to Stone Mountain, Part 2 - Hevoth's Rock

    In my last post, I began to adapt my experiences at Stone Mountain into usable material for Numenera, or another weird RPG. I described the vanquished nation of Strathar, and how Hevoth's Rock came to be. In this post, I will discuss the landmark known as Hevoth's Rock as it stands in the Ninth World of the present.

Hevoth's Rock

    Hailed by many as the cultural mecca of the northeastern Pytharon Empire, Hevoth's Rock is a monument to the vanquished nation and people of Strathar. The massive rock, covering nearly a square mile, marks the site of the Battle of Rockfall, where the Stratharian Grand Chieftain Hevoth crashed his floating island into the Pytharon Legion, roughly 280 years ago.
    Although the Stratharians are effectively defunct, those who claim Stratharian heritage organized themselves into a group known as the Sons of Strathar, and declared Hevoth's Rock a holy site. A massive likeness of Hevoth was carved into the face of the rock, and pilgrims flock to the cite to worship at the carving and scale or circumambulate the rock.
    The Pytharon Empire does not approve of these activities, seeing the Stratharians as rightly destroyed savages, but they do not interfere, lest they cause a rebellion.

Map Key

1. Fort Vigilance: This squat stone fort serves as a garrison for 200 Pytharon soldiers. When the Sons of Strathar came to prominence, this fort was constructed to keep an eye on the activities of the pilgrims and ensure that they were not planning rebellion. The commander of the fort is Commander Bellaropha (level 4, 20 hp, armor 1, attacks as level 5), an austere, judgmental Pytharon woman from a house of minor nobility. She considers the Sons of Strathar and all other pilgrims here to be disgusting savages. She keeps an eye on them to ensure there is no rebellion, but also does as little as possible to help against the dangers of the region.
2. Hast: This ramshackle village is comprised of semi-permanent wooden huts and tents, generally housing about twice as many pilgrims as permanent residents. Merchants sell memorabilia and religious icons, and cooks shout out their cheap prices from open air kitchens. The town has no official leader and basically no laws, but almost all permanent residents are members of the Sons of Strathar, and can rouse a mob to pummel troublesome strangers.
3. The Great Carving: Up the hill east of Hast stands a long, stone temple known as the Grand Lodge of the Sons of Strathar. Here the most esteemed elders of the Sons of Strathar live and hold counsel. There word is taken as holy writ by the other Sons of Strathar. Behind the Grand Lodge is a wide portico an a lawn that slopes down into a natural amphitheater before ending in a small pond. The rock face above shows the Great Carving, depicting Grand Chieftain Hevoth in full war regalia astride a brehm (Numenera Corebook page 163), with a flock of Stratharain war moths flying in the background. The blue-and-gold banners of Strathar line the amphitheater, and the elders conduct ceremonies, religious services, athletic games and military drills before the Carving.
4. Margr Camp: A band of opportunistic margrs (NCB pg 244) holes up in a copse of trees just a bit southeast of the path between The Great Carving and Sklar, preying on pilgrims. Their tribe remembers the Battle of Rockfall somewhat differently, and views Hevoth's Rock as an abomination and an affront to their gods, that allegedly dwell up in the mountains. The Pytharons in Fort Vigilance know of the margr presence in the region, but do not care enough to intervene.
5. Sklar: Another ramshackle village, similar in many ways to Hast, but with a generally less jovial and more meditative atmosphere. Here, pilgrims prepare themselves, spiritually and physically, for the climb up to the summit. There is a drab wooden temple that doubles as a hospital, and it is run by the Aeon Priest and Sklar's de facto leader, Father Loredo (level 3, Numenera and social interaction level 5). Loredo is a tough and weathered middle-aged man and the veteran of many climbs and circumambulations. In addition to being an Aeon Priest, he is also a proud Son of Strathar.
6. Imelith's Palace: To the northeast of the Rock, beside a lake, there stands a magnificent palace of white marble, with a gilt dome. This is the home of the nano-witch Imelith (level 5, armor 1, numenera as level 6; capable of flight and limited control of war moths), formerly a scion of a wealthy merchant company and a disciple of the mystical practices of the plain folk. She seeks to recreate the "miracles" of the nano-witch Gatalla, by restoring the Rock to flight and once again taming the Stratharian war moths. She is not herself a Son of Strathar, however, and only wishes to do so for her own gratification. In her palace, she has laboratories devoted to the study of counter-gravity and the moths. She is capable of anti-gravity flight, but cannot turn it off, and floats weightlessly even at rest. She has also built a scale model of the Needle, and can control two or three war moths at a time, but her control is tenuous at best. She is self-centered, paranoid, and a bit mad, and is not above violence if it will advance her goals.
7. Lerin's Hut: A small wooden hut stands on the western tip of the Rock, and is home to the hermitess Lerin (level 4, hunting, climbing, survival, geography as level 6), who survives by hunting and fishing in the lake. For a price, she will also lead pilgrims up an alternative pathway to the summit. Called the Accuser's Path, this path is much longer, steeper, and more arduous than the main path up from Sklar. Many pilgrims seek it out for just this reason, believing it is a better test of spiritual rigor. Secretly, Lerin is actually a mlox (Ninth World Bestiary, page 86), who keeps up the act of a spiritual hermitess to avoid suspicion.
8. Chirog Village: A tribe of chirogs (NCB pg 235) have built a permanent settlement of burrows into a muddy hill. They swim and hunt in the depths of the lake, and sometimes swim all the way down to Hast to drag pilgrims away to eat. Like the margr, the Pytharons know of them, but do nothing. The chirogs do not care about Hevoth's Rock, aside from the fact it has brought variation to their diet. They are also deathly afraid of the hermitess Lerin from area 7. They know she is a mlox, or rather, they simply know of her strange and deadly powers from an earlier encounter, and steer well clear of that area.
9. Temple of Human Excellence: At the summit of Hevoth's Rock is a grand stone temple built through cooperation of the Aeon Priests and the Sons of Strathar. The Temple of Human Excellence serves as a rest area to weary pilgrims having just made the climb, and holds religious services celebrating not only their achievement in climbing, but the human achievement of lifting an moving such a massive rock, which they hold as proof that humanity will one day regain all the secrets of the prior worlds. The head of the temple is Father Kedorian (level 4, numenera, history, social interaction as level 5, deception as level 6), a robust, handsome man in his mid-thirties who knows how to work a crowd. In truth, Kedorian is as devious as a politician, and secured himself this post to better study the Needle and rake in donation money.
10. The Needle: Believed to be a transmitter to boost the signal controlling the war moths, the Needle is a nearly 100ft high tower of white metal struts, yet is only a few feet in diameter at its base. Despite the fact that the signal generators were crushed long ago along with Hevoth's castle, Stratharian war moths (NCB page 261) are still drawn to the site, and can be seen circling around it endlessly. At the base of the needle is a hole, intended as a loading hatch for deploying or retrieving moths. It leads down into the labyrinthine tunnels of the prior-world facility, but the abundance of moths makes approaching the area dangerous.

Using Hevoth's Rock

Adventure Hooks:

1. A terrorist of the Jagged Dream (NCB pg 224) fled from Jargolamis (NCB pg 162) when his cell was discovered. He has taken up refuge among the pilgrims of Hevoth's Rock, and is planning to bomb the sacred site and blame it on Pytharon nationalists. This man was a high-ranking member, and has a large outstanding bounty on his head.
2. Pilgrims have been disappearing from the northeastern edge of the circular path, and the Sons of Strathar would pay dearly to find out who is responsible. In truth, Imelith has been abducting them for use in her experiments.
3. Stratharian war moths have become more and more of a nuisance throughout the southern Steadfast as of late, and giant, overgrown versions of them have begun to appear as well. Empress Challadien III has offered a substantial reward to whoever can find a solution, and one might just be found in the tunnels within Hevoth's Rock.
4. The Angulan Knights have put out a bounty on a dangerous "mutant" that matches Lerin's description. If the players follow the trail here, they will find people who know of Lerin, but will have to deal with belligerent locals who consider Lerin a valued member of the community. Furthermore, the involvement of the Angulan Knights might be enough to rouse the soldiers from Fort Vigilance into action.

The Weird of Hevoth's Rock:

1. Despite only being exposed for a few centuries, patches of odd purple shrubs have sprouted all over the top of the Rock, growing up through solid stone as if it were soil.
2. A few years ago, an anonymous pilgrim who was walking up the eastern path of the Rock exploded for no apparent reason. To make matters even stranger, all of his strewn body parts maintained a semblance of life and continued to function. Those parts that were recovered had shrines built around them at the height where they were found.
3. Strange patterns of lights can be seen in the depths of the lake, some nights. Large orbs of green and blue flash periodically, before a separate cluster of red and green flashes elsewhere, as if they were communicating.
4. Some pilgrims have chiseled their names or other elaborate designs into the rock on the path up. On certain nights, these glow with an eerie red light.

Photo Gallery, mostly just for fun

Yes, I did climb all the way to the top.

Someone painted this stump as an eye.
I made a joke about a guy exploding, and thus, weirdness item 2.

A radio tower surrounded by vultures.
The inspiration for the Needle.

That is carved into granite. Charlie is certainly no quitter.
Inspiration for weirdness item 4.

A domed structure, taken from a scenic overlook about half way up.
The inspiration for Imelith's Palace.

    Okay, and that does it for my trip to Stone Mountain! In hindsight, climbing it was a very bad idea. I swear to god, the next time I have family members in town, I don't care what anyone says, we are going to the god damn aquarium.

Noteworthy NPCs - Jalliford the Soundsmith

    Alright, so in this type of post, I'll detail a weird NPC, their home and/or business, and give ideas on how to use them in your game. With that, the first installment is:

Jalliford the Soundsmith

    Level 3, blacksmithing and numenera as level 5, blacksmithing as level 7 when using the Soundforge.

    Jalliford is a talented and intelligent young man, only 19 years old. He is lean and athletic, and has a mop of brown hair. His profession has left him partially deaf, so he has a habit of talking inappropriately loud.

    The youngest son of a modestly successful merchant, Jalliford was forced into an apprenticeship with a blacksmith. However, he hated his master so much that as soon as he was old enough he ran away to make his own fortune.

    He drifted around, doing odd jobs interspersed with starving and begging. Ultimately he found himself a cozy job as errand boy and factotum to a retired jack named Levez Leblack. Leblack was something a tinkerer, and taught Jalliford the basics of numenera, before mysteriously dying just two years later.

    Not to be discouraged, Jalliford took the house as his own and applied himself to all of Leblack's books and lab notes until he realized that he needed money. Loathe to return to the blacksmithing profession, he decided to find a way to incorporate his skill with his new hobbies.

The Soundforge

    Jalliford's solution was unorthodox, to say the least. The Soundforge stands in the middle of Jalliford's workshop, formerly the foyer. The Soundforge resembles a small, octagonal coffin set on a pedestal. Its top half lifts up with a hinge, revealing an interior coated with small black disks. The floor is coated in a nest of thick conduits that connect to half a dozen laser modules on the floor.

    To operate the device, Jalliford stands behind a control panel a safe distance away and wears a special listening helmet and haptic interface gloves. When an object is placed within the Soundforge and the correct buttons are pressed, the laser modules create a live, crude holographic image of the object in the air above the forge. Using a combination of the buttons on the control panel and the gloves, Jalliford can "sculpt" the object within. The helmet gives him a toned-down audio feed of the interior, allowing him to listen for feedback or cracking, signs that he is straining the forge and needs to slow down.

    The Soundforge is a level 7 device that grants two assets on blacksmithing (or smashing, melting, or destroying something, if used destructively). Jalliford covets his secrets, but if persuaded he can teach a character the basics of its operation in a few days. Alternatively, if Jalliford is killed or otherwise absent, a character can spend a week and make a level 7 Numenera check to figure it out themselves.

    The unique nature of the device allows it to smith exotic materials, such as azure steel, strongglass, synthsteel, etc. In addition to any material properties, weapons and cutting tools made in the Soundforge are exceptionally sharp, and deal 1 extra damage and/or provide an asset to cutting things. Jalliford knows his weapons are high-quality and exclusive, so he sells them for three times the price listed in the corebook.

Chateau Leblack and the Surrounding Environs

    Levez Leblack's home, now Jalliford's, is a squarish, two-story building on top of a hill, built in wildly clashing architectural styles, as if a pile of uneven cubes and cylinders were stacked together.   The interior is spartan, with crude, cheap furniture, and piles of tools, scrap, and numenera, as well as a small library full of useful books. Jalliford sold most of Leblack's fine furniture to fund his hobbies.

   The structure's odd appearance is a result of its construction. Leblack built his home using a cypher that stole parts of other structures throughout several time periods, but of similar materials, and grafted them together in the span of an instant. The danger of that cypher is why he built his home sufficiently far away from the village in the valley below.

    The distance from the village serves another purpose, now. When the Soundforge is active, it creates an awful cacophony that can be heard for miles around. The villagers, being mostly poor farmers, cannot afford Jalliford's services, so most of his customers are passing adventurers, army officers, mercenaries, master craftsmen, etc.

    The fact that Jalliford's services do not aid the community, the dreadful noise, and the Leblack's sudden and "convenient" death have made the villagers resentful and suspicious of the young man.

Using Jalliford in Your Game

    Jalliford makes for an interesting merchant/hireling, and aside from his skill as a blacksmith he is also capable with numenera. He could be a useful ally. Alternatively, Chateau Leblack has plenty of useful numenera, not to mention the Soundforge, if players decide to take it by force. 

Adventure Hooks

1. A PC looted a piece of ultra-hard metal from a destroyed automaton, with the intention of having it made into a sword. When a local blacksmith was unable to dent it, he referred them to Jalliford.
2. An Angulan Knight has spurred the nearby villagers into an angry mob, claiming that Jalliford made weapons for a band of mutant outlaws. Whether this is true, or if this is just an excuse to lynch a troublesome neighbor, is up to the GM. Joining the mob will surely allow ample opportunity for looting, but on the other hand, Jalliford would pay handsomely to hire three to six armed thugs to drive off the mob.
3. One of Leblack's old adventuring buddies shows up for a social call to find Jalliford in his house. The adventurer doesn't buy the kid's story of Leblack's sudden demise, but was reluctant to outright murder a possibly innocent man. Jalliford doesn't trust him, so the adventurer would gladly hire someone else to investigate for him.
4. Jalliford has made a crate full of high-quality weapons, on commission from a nearby warlord. The warlord paid extra to have the weapons delivered to his isolated wilderness stronghold, but Jalliford is no fool. He'd rather pay a party of thugs to deliver them instead.

Fiction Inspirations - A Roadside Picnic

    Greetings! This will be the first of hopefully several posts wherein I examine a work of fiction, be it a book, a TV show, a movie, or what have you, and how it can be used to inspire material for a weird RPG.
    Since this is primarily a Numenera blog, I'll be starting with the books in the Numenera corebook bibliography. However, I will limit myself only to those books or series that I have personally read.
    For today's post, I'll be covering one of my favorites:

    Yes, my friends, it's Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. In this book, advanced aliens visited Earth, but only briefly, leaving behind several "Zones," where the laws of physics are in turmoil and the ground is littered with strange alien artifacts. The story follows one Red Schuhart, a stalker, i.e. a person who makes their living sneaking into the UN protected Zones stealing alien artifacts to sell on the black market. As Red's financial, legal, and personal problems mount, he seeks out the artifact known as the Golden Sphere, rumored grants wishes.
    The parallels to Numenera are obvious: advanced aliens, now absent, strange artifacts, physics-defying phenomena, etc. The novel draws its title from the following exchange between two characters, which I find particularly haunting:

A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around... Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind... And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow.

    That is one character's analogy to explain his hypothesis for why the aliens came here and left all of their strange artifacts. The picture it portrays is fairly Lovecraftian, implying the existence of alien beings so vast and incomprehensible that they go about their business without evening noticing humanity. The aliens who made the Zones, just like the progenitors of the previous eight worlds, looked down on us as we look down on birds and insects.

How to Use It in Your Game

    The first and most obvious way to use this book would be as inspiration for a host of new artifacts, cyphers and oddities. This gentleman here was kind enough to compile all of the artifacts and anomalies that are mentioned in the book.

    You could take this concept further, and have your own "Zone" in the Ninth World, perhaps the site of an alien visitation or an interdimensional rift, but either way full of deadly hazards and valuable numenera.

    Another important aspect of Roadside Picnic is how the appearance of the Zones has influenced culture. The protagonist Red is just one of many desperate, hard-boiled men who risk life and limb to make their illicit living. Throughout the novel, Red struggles with despair over the people who have been hurt as a result of his actions.

    This is a pivotal idea in the novel, which is understated in the Ninth World: the idea that the strange artifacts you take out are dangerous and have serious long-term consequences, but so valuable and useful that people hunt for them anyway, contrasted with the general assumption that the numenera described in the game is ubiquitous and fairly safe, if totally enigmatic.

    It also paints the people who search for these artifacts in a very particular light. The only person who would seriously consider trying this would have to be desperate, crazy, stupid, and/or have nothing to lose. I'd say that suits a PC murderhobo to a T.

Ideas

    You can use these ideas in your game right away, and should be applicable however you decide to dress your "Zone."

Adventure Hooks

1. The PCs need a particular piece of numenera, but it is only found in an isolated Zone. Not only is the Zone deadly, but it and all of its numenera are claimed by a powerful gang/consortium/government who execute thieves and trespassers.
2. The PCs need to raise money, fast. Desperate adventurers can always find work prospecting in the Zone. The pay is extravagant, but only because prospectors don't live very long.
3. A rival gang has been sneaking into the Zone and stealing artifacts. The gang that controls the Zone is desperate to find and punish their rivals, but lack the manpower. If the PCs don't mind a little gang violence, they can be hired as mercenaries, and paid in both shins and numenera.
4. An esteemed but eccentric Aeon Priest was utterly convinced that he knew the secret behind the Zone, and led an expedition to its heart, laden down with valuable numenera measuring equipment. That was a week ago, and his clave would pay dearly to have him, his companions, and/or their remains brought back, not to mention the rare devices he carried.

Weird Details

1. Aeon Priests have devised a type of water-driven electrical generator that takes advantage of the gravity differential around graviconcentrates. (This one is particularly dear to my heart, since I actually used this one in-game.)
2. The gang controlling the Zone executes trespassers by slowly submerging them in a pit of witch's jelly.
3. A local cult believes that the Zone is a curse from an evil deity, and take pains to buy or steal artifacts and return them to the Zone, fearing that the curse will doom the world.
4. A showman has rounded up the returned replicas of the unwanted and anonymous deceased and put them in cages. He amuses crowds by using an electrical goad to make them "dance."

Coming Soon...

    I will only ever use books or other media that I have read/consumed personally, and I will prioritize those mentioned in the Numenera bibliography. Once those are exhausted, I have a list at least twice that long, not mentioned in the bibliography. You can expect the next installment of fiction inspirations to be an item from this list:

At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft

Dancers at the End of Time, by Michael Moorcock

The Dying Earth, by Jack Vance

The History of the Runestaff, by Michael Moorcock

Pump Six and Other Stories, by Paolo Bacigalupi

Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Viriconium, by M. John Harrison