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.

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.

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.