Into the Night - Random Aliens, part 3

    Welcome to the third and final part of my Random Alien tables for Numenera. This section has tables for generating random alien planets. As you are more than likely creating this planet with a specific usage in mind, these tables are probably the most subject to individual finagling. If you are trying to make a homeworld or colony for a specific alien species and you roll some results that make no sense, don't be afraid to just pick one that's better suited.

Random Alien Tables

1. Biology
2. Culture
3. Planet - You are here.

Planet

Table 16 – Size
1d6	Size
1	Tiny. Equatorial circumference <15k miles. Light gravity.
2	Small. Equatorial circumference 15-19k miles Light gravity.
3-4	Near Earth-like. Equatorial circumference 20-30k miles. Normal gravity.
5	Large. Equatorial circumference 31-35k miles. Heavy gravity.
6	Huge. Equatorial circumference >35k miles. Heavy gravity.

Table 17 – Temperature		Table 18 – Moisture
1d6	Average Surface Temperature	1d6	Percent surface water
1	Freezing. < 48 °F	1	Dry. No surface water
2	Cool. 49-53 °F	2	Parched. <30% water
3-4	Temperate. 54-62 °F	3	Moderate. 30-60% water
5	Warm. 63-73°F	4-5	Earth-like. 60-80% water
6	Scorching. > 73°F	6	Drowned. +80% water

Table 19 - Landmasses
1d6	Landmasses
1	Supercontinent
2	2-4
3-4	5-7
5	8-10
6	Countless islands

Table 20 – Atmosphere
1d6	Atmosphere
1	None/Thin. Bring air or risk suffocation.
2	Unbreathable. The atmosphere is inert, but unbreathable. Bring air or risk suffocation.
3-4	Breathable.
5	Thick. Special pressure mask needed, or take 1 Might damage per hour.
6	Poisonous. Take 1 Might damage per round of breathing this atmosphere.

Table 21 – Biosphere
1d6	Biosphere
1	Dead. No life worth noting.
2	Simple. Bacteria and algae.
3	Diverse. Plants, animals, etc. Earth-like.
4	Fecund. Extreme diversity, like the rainforest.
5	Hybrid. Mixture of multiple alien ecosystems.
6	Artificial. Carefully engineered for a desired effect.

Table 22 – Habitation		Table 23 – Traffic
1d6	Habitation	1d6	Traffic
1	Uninhabited. Possibly a few hermits.	1	Isolated. Nobody ever comes here.
2	Sparse. < 5 billion.	2	Rare. Once every few years.
3	Moderate. 5 to 10 billion.	3	Occasional. A few arrivals/departures a year.
4	Populous. 10 to 20 billion.	4	Often. A few arrivals/departures a month.
5	Congested. 20 to 50 billion.	5	Daily. People come and go every day.
6	Super-Metropolis. > 50 billion	6	Bustling transit hub. Constant coming and going.

Table 24 – History
1d6	History
1	Virgin. The people living here have always lived here.
2-3	Fresh. One or two previous worlds.
4-5	Used. Three to five previous worlds
6	Venerable. Several previous worlds, like Earth.

What's Next

    With these tables completed, I feel as though the only sensible thing to do would be to test them out. I think my next post will be some example aliens and their planets created with these tables, polished up and ready to go. Aside from that, I've got plenty of ideas just related to Into the Night:

• Expanded spaceship rules
• Rules for mass-produced technology
• A Galactic Federation-style organization
• A Mos Eisely-style shadowport
• Factions in space
• Homeworlds of established visitants

    If there's something else that you want to see, leave a comment and let me know. If I like your idea, I just might do it.

Into the Night - Random Aliens, part 2

    Welcome to part 2 of my Random Alien tables for Numenera. This section gives you the tools to create a random alien society, including technology, government, religion, and psychology. These tables are mostly system agnostic, so they could be used for just about any game. Anyway, here's culture:

Random Alien Tables

1. Biology
2. Culture - You are here.
3. Planet

Culture

    Once again, roll at least once on each of the tables below to determine an alien civilization's culture and level of advancement. 

Table 9 – Tech Level
1d10	Tech Level
1	TL 0 – Stone Age. Hunter gatherers with no agriculture. Little to no metal tools.
2	TL 1 – Agrarian Age. Agriculture discovered, permanent civilization and metal tools common.
3	TL 2 – Industrial Age. Steam powered automation discovered. Mass production begins.
4	TL 3 – Electrical Age. Electricity discovered and widely used for lighting, machines, etc.
5	TL 4 – Information Age. Large scale use of computation. Global telecommunications network present.
6	TL 5 – Space Age. Slower-than-light space travel common. Other planets and moons in the star system colonized.
7	TL 6 – Interstellar Age. Faster-than-light space travel common. Multiple star systems explored/colonized.
8	TL 7 – Immortal Age. Biological immortality discovered and all disease eradicated. Unlimited free access to physical needs.
9	TL 8 – Cosmic Age. Travel between galaxies common. Matter and energy harvested on a cosmic scale. Society free of all material want.
10	TL 9 – Transcendent Age. Travel between realities and through time well-established, if not common. Engineering new universes and altering the laws of physics possible.

Table 10 – Government Type
1d10	Government	Details
1	Anarchy	No formal government. If there is any society at all, it is perhaps based on an informal code of ethics and personal vendettas.
2	Autocracy	All power is in the hands of one individual, such as an emperor or dictator.
3	Confederacy	Any society formed of multiple semi-independent governments united under one central government.
4	Democracy	Citizens vote to determine policy and/or elect leaders.
5	Feudalism	All land owned by multiple minor lords who pay fealty to a sovereign.
6	Military dictatorship	A military dictator and/or military party rule society by show of force.
7	Plutocracy	Society governed by only the very wealthy.
8	Socialism	Wealth and means of production jointly owned by all citizens, distributed evenly or in accordance with individual need.
9	Technocracy	Only those with technical skill or access to certain technologies hold political power.
10	Theocracy	All societal decisions made by the dominant religious institution. Likely includes a privileged priest caste, a despotic head theocrat, and repression of other creeds.

Table 11 – Religion Subject
1d6	Subject
1	Monotheism
2	Polytheism
3	Animism (worship of spirits, minor deities, elemental forces, etc.)
4	Ancestor worship
5	Worship of legendary heroes/prophets
6	Worship of a concept (death, war, love, etc.)

Table 12 – Religiosity
1d10	Details
1	Anti-theism. Religion poisons everything.
2	Outspoken atheism. Religion dismissed as absurdity.
3	Atheism.
4	Doubtful. Skeptical, but rarely make definite statements.
5	Apatheism. Few strong opinions on religion.
6	Spirituality. Mainly superstitions and feel-good platitudes.
7	Moderate observance. Religion is observed, but only loosely obeyed.
8	Conservativism. Religious rules, often backwards, held up as law.
9	Fanatacism. Religion influences every aspect of life.
10	Total Fanaticism. Death to the heretics!

Table 13 – Vices and Virtues
1d10	Vice/Virtue	Opposite
1	Education	Simplicity
2	Faith	Skepticism
3	Individuality	Community
4	Indulgence	Self-denial
5	Material wealth	Charity
6	Politeness	Honesty
7	Pride	Humility
8	Sexuality	Chastity
9	Sloth	Industry
10	Violence	Harmony

    I think this table requires some explaining. All cultures have something that they hold sacred, so much so that they don't even question it. To them, the idea that this thing is sacred or profane is as self-evident as the color of the sky.

    The middle column lists certain values while the right column lists their rough opposite. Roll two or three times on this table and pick the entry of one column or another. These are your species' cardinal virtues. Their opposites are abhorred.

Table 14 – Prominence		Table 15 – Reputation
1d6	Prominence	1d6	Reputation
1	Single star system.	1	Feared/Hated
2	A few star systems.	2	Ambivalence
3	Dozens of star systems.	3	Adored
4	Hundreds of star systems.	4	Liked
5	Thousands of star systems.	5	Unknown
6	Multiple galaxies.	6	Opinions are mixed. Roll twice.

Final Notes

    Okay, no further reading here. I pretty much got that all out of the way in the first post. However, it has been brought to my attention that Numenera uses only d6, d10, d20, and d100. I hadn't noticed that before, so I used other standard dice, like d4, d8, and d12. I do not intend to shorten or lengthen the previous tables, but from now on I will try to stick to these.

    However, if you want to use these tables but do not have the required dice, I recommend you to the Dungeons and Dragons Dice Roller, which not only has all the standard dice of D&D, but has an option for generating random numbers of any range. It is an indispensable tool and I use it to this day. I'll put a link to it in the first post as well.

    Up next, random planets.