Factions of the Ninth World - The Cult of Nomothet, part 2

    In yesterday's post, I introduced a new faction for Numenera, the Cult of Nomothet. Today, I will detail some more mechanical stuff for the Cult, or for elsewhere in your Numenera game.

Optional Rule: Organic Technology

    Some of these new artifacts are considered to be living, organic technology vat-grown or surgically made by Flesh Priests or other knowledgeable individuals. As such, the idea of a "depletion roll" may not accurately describe the way they work or require maintenance. If desired, replace an artifact's depletion roll with the following:

Food

    As living things, organic artifacts need some source of nutrients. Roll on the following table or pick one that is appropriate:

1d100	Food Source
1-5	Drit
6-10	Garbage/Excrement
11-20	Blood
21-30	Flesh
31-50	Food; basically anything fit for human consumption
51-100	Pablum; specially prepared nutrient paste costing 4 shins a week

    Generally speaking, an organic artifact requires a half pint/half pound of this material every day. At the GM's discretion, this can be scaled up to account for mass. Failure to provide this material reduces the artifact's effective level by one for each day it goes without.
    It also forces a number of depletion rolls equal to the number of days missed. For example, if you fail to feed an artifact for three days, it makes one depletion roll on the first day, two on the second, and three on the third.
    When food is provided, lost levels return at a rate of one per day. If an artifact's level is reduced to zero, or if its depletion roll fails, it dies and is rendered useless.

New Artifacts

Artifact List

• Muscle Suit
• Vampiric Sword
• Revealing Tablet
• Bag of Freshness
• Sensory Mask

Muscle Suit
Level: 1d6+2
Form: A full-body suit made of living human muscles
Effect: When worn, the muscle suit grants 1 Armor, but does not hinder movement in any way. Further, it increases the wearer's Might and Speed pools by 2 each.
Depletion: 1 in 1d100

Vampiric Sword
Level: 1d6
Form: A sword with a porous blade made of bone
Effect: The bone blade of this sword houses living tissue that feeds on blood. This counts as a medium weapon, and when used against a creature with blood, it deals an additional 2 points of damage.
Depletion: --

Revealing Tablet
Level: 1d6
Form: Synth panel with a screen and buttons
Effect: When activated, the revealing tablet hovers over a creature's body and reveals a live view of its internal organs. By using the buttons and tapping on the screen, the user can zoom in or out and toggle which organs to display. It remains activated until the creature moves outside of immediate range. Using the revealing tablet reduces the difficulty of any healing or surgical task by one.
Depletion: --

Bag of Freshness
Level: 1d6
Form: Person-sized black synth bag with a zipper and strap
Effect: Anything placed into this bag will be kept fresh indefinitely. Food, corpses, tissue, etc. will remain in the exact same condition they were in when placed in the bag. The bag is intended to hold one human-sized corpse. Conceivably two might fit, but it would be a squeeze. Roll for depletion any time a new perishable object is placed in the bag. Note, this cannot be used to increase the number of cyphers carried.
Depletion: 1 in 1d20

Sensory Mask

Level: 1d6
Form: A box full of living tissue, worn over the face like a mask
Effect: When worn, the tissue in this mask bonds with the wearer's nervous system and greatly amplifies his sense of smell and sight. He can effectively see and smell for artifact level * 1000 feet in any direction, assuming there are no obstructions. He also gets an asset on ranged attacks, tracking, and any other tasks based on perception. However, the mask amplifies stimuli so much that if a particularly strong visual or olfactory stimulus is within 1000ft (a rotting corpse, an extremely bright light, etc.) the difficulty of all tasks is increased by one. Roll for depletion every time the mask is put on and every day thereafter.
Depletion: 1 in 1d20

New Cyphers

Cypher List

• Gut Snatcher
• Replicator Pod
• Corporeal Exploder
• Cerebral Transmigrator
• Lizard Juice
• Fallback Vest

Gut Snatcher
Occultic
Level: 1d6+4
Usable: Handheld device covered in a dizzying array of buttons, indicator lights, and screens.
Effect: This sinister device is coveted by unscrupulous Flesh Priests and other surgeons. If the user succeeds in a melee attack and the device exceeds the target's level, the user may select one internal organ to rip from the target's body. If the target does not have the desired organ, the device fails and is wasted. If it succeeds, the organ is ripped out and the cypher transforms into a vessel that preserves the organ in stasis. Depending on the organ selected, the effect on the target varies:

• Absolutely vital (e.g. heart, brain, etc.): Victim dies instantly.
• Quasi-vital (e.g. lung, liver, intestine): Victim's hp/Might pool permanently reduced by half.
• Non-vital (e.g. kidney, reproductive organs): Victim takes cypher level damage.

Replicator Pod
Anoetic
Level: 1d6+1
Usable: Palm-sized fleshy pod
Effect: Valued by kidnappers and assassins, the replicator pod can create an exact physical and mental duplicate of a person if soaked in their blood. The process of growing a person takes four hours, during which time the pod expands and becomes more defined. The replica is physically identical to the original, has all of the original's memories and personality, and genuinely believes itself to be the original. However, the replica is unstable, and it dissolves into slime cypher level days after being formed.

Corporeal Exploder
Anoetic
Level: 1d6
Usable: Injector, handheld device
Effect: When used against a creature, either by will, clandestinely, or with a successful melee attack, all of the creature's organs and tissues separate and float apart, still alive and functioning. In this state, the creature is unable to act and is unaware of its surroundings. Any attacks made against the creature in this state deal an additional 4 points of damage and ignore armor. If used against a conscious creature, this effect lasts only one round. If used against an unconscious creature, it lasts until the creature would normally wake up. In the latter case, the device reduces the difficulty of any surgery task by two levels.

Cerebral Transmigrator
Occultic
Level: 1d6+2
Wearable: Headband, disk that adheres to the forehead
Usable: Handheld device
Effect: This device can be used against a character in immediate range. If the target's level is lower than this cypher's level, the device causes the user's brain and the target's brain to swap places by means of teleportation. In essence, the user and the target swap bodies. The initial user of the device can reverse this effect at will, but it is otherwise permanent.
    While in each other's bodies, each character's respective hit points/Might and Speed pools change to reflect the condition of the new body. Obviously, the Intellect pool, skills, memories, personality, and any abilities deemed by the GM to be the result of mental aptitude or training are retained.
GM Intrusion: Upon using this device, some or all of the user's esoteries no longer function, as the new body does not have the necessary cybernetics/DNA/nanite colonies.

Lizard Juice
Anoetic
Level: 1d6+2
Internal: Ingestible liquid
Usable: Injector
Effect: So named for the uncanny ability for certain reptiles to regrow lost body parts, lizard juice heals its level in Might points. It also causes all severed body parts to regenerate, growing from stumps to fully usable limbs in an hour or so. This only applies to body parts that are missing when the lizard juice is consumed, not after.

Heartsafe

Anoetic
Level: 1d6
Wearable: Vest, pendant, sash
Internal: Subdermal implant
Effect: This cypher lies dormant as long as it is worn on the user's person. Should the user ever suffer sufficient damage to die, the device activates, restarting the heart with an electric shock and injecting healing nanites. Assuming the user's body is still mostly intact, this cypher has a level * 20% chance of restoring the user to life. A user restored in this way is debilitated and unconscious with 1 hp or a Might pool at 1 and the other pools at 0.

New Oddities

• A box that can print a copy of any organ fed into it
• Goggles that allow you to see living things as if they had no skin
• A coin-sized object that sticks to flesh and renders the surrounding area and/or limb completely numb
• A knife that cuts through flesh effortlessly, but nothing else
• A knife that cuts through bone effortlessly, but nothing else
• Calipers for measuring head diameter with a light bulb that glows with intensity relative to the subject's intellect
• Pen that painlessly draws real scars when applied to flesh
• A perfectly preserved still-beating alien heart in a jar of effervescent green fluid
• Set of 10 lifelike human fingers that bond to flesh and become alive and prehensile; become inert again when removed
• Wand with tiny display screen that objectively measures pain and pinpoints its source

Discoveries

    The following weird discoveries are the sort of thing that might be seen as the result of the Cult of Nomothet's activities. These might be found in any town or city where the Flesh Priests maintain a presence.

• Ship propeller screw turned by vat grown muscles in boxes
• Giant hollow flesh tower bellows out the time and weather every hour
• Living flesh blobs grown in vats are periodically carved up for meat
• Garden that is actually a single giant living animal plasm
• Condemned criminals have their brains replaced with synthetic brains
• Replacement human arms and legs grown like plants in a field
• Aristocrats surgically modified to have wings, tails, extra arms, etc.
• Constant surveillance performed by living eyes strung up like cameras
• Surgically made chimeras battle in the city arena
• Physically perfect children custom made in artificial wombs

    Okay, and that does it for the Cult of Nomothet, for now. I may have other ideas about them in the future, but this ought to provide you with a plethora of material for your game. Until next time, iadace.

Curses of the Ninth World - RPG Blog Carnival Entry

    Hello! And welcome to my entry for this month's RPG Blog Carnival. The theme is curses; specifically, stories and ideas about curses or cursed items.

    Like most RPG enthusiasts, I cut my teeth in Dungeons and Dragons, specifically version 3.5. I have many fond memories of D&D, and I basically always played an evil wizard. In one campaign, I had the opportunity to play a yuan-ti pureblood wizard/monk/enlightened fist based off of the Alchemist (warning: nudity & weird gore) from The Holy Mountain, by Alejandro Jodorowsky. He was also the inspiration for the character Death in Adventure Time, but I digress.

    In the campaign in which I played him, I found myself walking down the fantasy equivalent of New Orleans' Bourbon Street, when I was accosted by an enraged drunk who insisted I had disrespected his girlfriend. I told him I was a wizard and he shouldn't mess with me, but he didn't listen. I decided to take this drunken oaf down a peg and also clear the street with one spell: bestow curse.

    Bestow Curse, the D&D 3.5 spell, allows you to greatly reduce one of an opponent's ability scores, give them a penalty to basically everything, make them miss half of their turns, or anything else you can think of that is comparable to the first three. Going with the snake theme, I picked item three, and framed it so the man would forever be cursed to vomit tiny snakes.

    This is how I discovered that Bestow Curse is my favorite spell. It's the perfect "fuck you" spell, not just because of its power, or that it's permanent until dispelled, but because of the versatility. Any sort of ironic troll you can imagine can be realized with Bestow Curse.

    But this is a brave new world, and Numenera is my new obsession. So today, I am going to try and recreate the almighty trolling power of Bestow Curse in a Ninth World appropriate format, and a few other, related aspects of cursing. Here we go:

New Esoteries

3rd Tier Nano

Execrate (4 Intellect Points): With a hand sign and an evil word, you inflict lasting harm on one victim you can see in short range. If you succeed on an Intellect attack versus your target, glittering circuit traces appear in a small patch somewhere on the victim's skin (hand, face, heart, etc., your choice), and you may inflict one of the following curses on them:

• Reduce one of their Pools or their hit points by 1/2, rounded down. This can never result in the victim's death; instead, it limits their ability to recover.
• All of the victim's attack and defense actions are reduced by one step to their detriment.
• Every round, the victim has a 50% of acting normally. Otherwise, they cannot act.
• Any other effect of equal or lesser detriment, subject to GM approval.

    This effect lasts indefinitely. It can be ended with a thought by the one who bestowed the curse, it c an be ended by any effect that ends a numenera effect, such as the countermeasures esotery or a deactivator cypher, or it can be ended by a lengthy and complicated surgery/ritual requiring first a Heal check and a Numenera check, the base DC being your tier plus two.

    A victim can only bear one curse at a time. Action.

Black Mark (4 Intellect Points): With a touch, you can put a black mark on an object that bears a curse. The mark is roughly 1" x 1" and can resemble anything you like, as long as it is black. Anybody besides yourself who tries to handle or use the object without your express consent is subject to a curse. This curse functions the same as that laid by the execrate esotery. A person already cursed by a cypher or the black mark or execrate esoteries cannot be subject to a second curse. The mark persists until you decide to disable it. Action.

New Cyphers

Curse Tablet

Anoetic

Level: 1d6

Usable: A 1' x 1' synth tablet covered in runes and circuit traces. 

Effect: This tablet is meant to be buried or hidden and laid as a trap. When another creature (aside from the one who placed it) steps on or comes too close to the place where it was buried or hidden (GM's discretion), they must make an Intellect defense or suffer one of the following effects:

     Roll 1d6:

1. The target is struck blind. (See Numenera pg 96 for rules on complete darkness)
2. The target is driven mad. When greatly stressed or in the presence of a major numenera discovery, the GM can make a GM intrusion without awarding XP. You also have an inability for social interaction.
3. The target has one of their stat pools reduced by 1/2.
4. All of the target's attack and defense actions are modified by one to their detriment.
5. Something weird happens (turned into another creature, forced to speak in rhymes, rendered sexually impotent, etc.)
6. Nothing happens (the effect was not applicable to you).

    The effect is permanent, but it can be ended by any effect that ends a numenera effect, such as the countermeasures esotery or a deactivator cypher, or it can be ended by a lengthy and complicated surgery/ritual requiring first a Heal check and a Numenera check, with the level being that of the cypher. A player who crafts a curse tablet chooses the effect it bestows. Once the curse tablet has activated against one target, success or failure, it is spent.

Curse Tablet (Memetic)

Occultic

Level: 1d6 + 2

Usable: A 1' x 1' iridescent synth tablet covered in weird, glowing lines and glyphs.

Effect: This cypher functions as the curse tablet, except that instead of coming too close, it activates on whoever sets their eyes on it. The tablet can curse a number of sentient beings who see it equal to one-half its level, rounded down. All victims must see it simultaneously. Once the tablet curses at least one person, it is spent.

Mystic Mirror

Anoetic

Level: 1d6 + 2

Wearable: Amulet, ring, bracelet, sash, vest

Internal: Implant

Usable: Carried charm

Effect: As long as this cypher is worn or carried on your person, it can reflect a numenera effect, such as the effect of an esotery, cypher, artifact, etc., back on its initiator, as long as the cypher level is equal to or higher than the effect's level. If the original user of the effect is dead or the effect is not applicable to them, mystic mirror nullifies the effect but the original user is not effected.

    Alright, I hope you all enjoyed that. And just to get into the spirit of things, *ahem*:

WHOSOEVER DOTH READ THIS POST AND FAIL TO RECOMMEND IT OR COMMENT SHALL BE STRUCK BLIND. SO MOTE IT BE BY THE GREAT NAMES OF GYGAX AND COOK.

Grand Theory of Oddities

    Listen now: when I first got into Numenera, the third-party works of Ryan Chaddock Games impressed the hell out of me. They still do, as a matter of fact. So I thought, "Hell, I could do that!"
    I had an idea for my own third-party supplement, detailing adventuring on other dimensions. I was going to call it Other Worlds than These, based off of some arc words from Stephen King's Dark Tower series.
    Being a college student, I soon felt as though my time was better spent trying to graduate, and I didn't finish it. Now it looks like ol' Monte beat me to it.
    Oh, well. I might as well use some of what I learned while trying to write a book to fill out some blog posts, I mean, share with the community. So in this post, I will be discussing my Grand Theory of Oddities.

What are Oddities?

    Admittedly, this one won't be super useful outside of Cypher System games. Oddities are random odds and ends that either are or do weird, random stuff. They can be just about anything, but the number one rule is that you should be able to describe an oddity without using the rules.

    Some of them are useful, some are just cool, some are pretty much useless, and hopefully all of them are weird. They make for more interesting loot than just a handful of coins. As I was looking through all the oddities described in the corebook for an idea of how to design a large body of oddities, I found that they fit into a few broad categories:

Toys

    This is my term for those oddities that don't serve any apparent function, but are fun. I found that roughly 15% of the oddities in the corebook fit this category. Some examples:

• Egg-shaped metallic bauble that occasionally spins and speaks in a language no one knows
• Box with a tiny group of musicians in it who play when it is opened and look horrified when it is closed
• Box filled with two dozen spherical magnets, each about the size of a pea

Curio

    A curio's main purpose is to be weird, get your players to think, or just look cool, like the sort of thing a wizard might have on his shelf. About 30% of oddities are these. Examples:

• Two-headed cat fetus in a glass jar
• Brass device with nested circular plates that rotate and click
• Glass cube that shows what seems to be a live aerial view of an unknown, ruined city

Utility

    These oddities serve some obvious, but minor function. In theory, some of these could provide an asset on a specific task, now and again. About 35% of oddities fall in this category. Examples:

• Plastic bottle containing a spray that cleans any stain and never runs out
• Metallic device that creates one sheet of new paper each day
• Powerful magnifying glass

Swag

    Swag improves your swag, in case that's not obvious. About 20% of oddities do nothing except make the character look cool. Examples:

• Metallic mask that fits perfectly on your face and changes expression when you do
• Cape that billows as if blown by the wind when worn, even in still air
• Scarf that appears to be made of silk but is virtually indestructible and cannot be dirtied or stained.

Vendor Trash

    Those of you who are paying attention will notice that the previous categories all add up to 100%. Well, the fact is, I like oddities that are cool or useful, and that informed my design philosophy. There are a few oddities in the list that don't seem to do anything, nor are they terribly interesting. By keeping my oddities in one of those four categories above, I got to avoid disappointing players with things like:

• Unknown musical instrument that plays only soft, unpleasant sounds
• Three silken gloves with six fingers each
• Metallic, pointed-toe boots designed to fit a horse or a similar creature

    And that does it for my Grand Theory of Oddities. Follow these guidelines, and I think you'll get a strong set of oddities for whatever you're designing. As for the oddities that came out this themselves, well...I think I'll save those for later. When Into the Outside comes out, I think I'll format some of my old material to fit that format. Until then, iadace.

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