Numenera is a game in which player characters explore the ruins of aeons past to gather amazing treasures and help build a new future for a world struggling in darkness. Since the launch of Numenera in 2013, we have delivered well on the first part, but we’ve always wanted to do a more thorough job exploring that second part. That desire has led us to Numenera Discovery and Numenera Destiny.
Numenera Discovery will be a book that covers familiar territory; it is basically a revision of the original Numenera corebook. Next summer, we will allow the original corebook to go out of print, and Numenera Discovery will take its place. In Numenera Discovery, you’ll get some revisions to make things clearer and more fun, and to increase the options available to players. Nanos, Jacks, and Glaives will get an overhaul. Many foci and some of the descriptors might see some reworking. You’ll have more options, clearer rules, and perhaps a bit of expansion to the regions of the Steadfast and the Beyond that are covered in the existing corebook.
As excited as we are about Numenera Discovery, we may be even more excited about Numenera Destiny. This title will enable characters to truly become a part of the setting—to help shape the future of the Ninth World. The people of the Ninth World are locked in a medieval-like state, a world of struggle and danger and often suffering in the shadow of the prior worlds’ wonders. Numenera Destiny allows you to build adventures and campaigns in which players don’t just explore the wonders of the past—they utilize them to help lift the Ninth World out of darkness.
You can make the world a better place. Help a community defend itself from abhumans or the iron wind. Create centers of learning or trade. Innovate, build, and protect. Manage an entire community and help it prosper and grow—or simply create a cool base or vehicle for your adventuring group. Numenera Destiny will allow you to take what you discover and make your mark on history as someone who elevated the Ninth World into the future.
Adventuring—exploring the weird and wondrous remnants of the prior worlds—remains, of course, at the core of Numenera play. Numenera Destiny will give you new things to do with your discoveries, along with entirely new and epic ways to structure your campaigns. You’ll discover materials, power sources, and treasures that you can utilize in an entirely new, robust crafting and building system. And perhaps best of all, Numenera Destiny will offer three new character types and a number of new descriptors and foci geared toward this innovative style of play.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Another Book: Priests of the Aeons Is Unlocked!
over 8 years ago
– Mon, Oct 02, 2017 at 09:42:33 PM
Great news: We’ve unlocked another stretch goal, and Priests of the Aeons has been funded! This book, which explores the Order of Truth, contains loads of new character options, and makes it easy to integrate Aeon Priests into your campaign—even letting player characters join the priesthood! It’s now added to the lineup of titles unlocked so far:
Building Tomorrow
The Numenera Player’s Guide
Slaves of the Machine God
Priests of the Aeons
And of course The Trilling Shard, Discover Your Destiny, and the two Numenera corebooks
All of these books are included in the rewards of any backer level that gets all the titles in print or PDF.
So what’s next? Let’s add another product to your rewards!
The Ruin Deck
When the characters start plumbing the depths of a prior-world ruin, the GM needs as much help as they can get. This deck allows GMs to generate an exciting, vivid and—of course, since it’s Numenera—weird set of ruins to explore. The idea of the Ruin Deck grew out of the usefulness and fun of Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds. That book has an extensive mapping engine, and we thought it would be cool to utilize and expand on that with a deck that can be used to generate random prior world complexes and installations with the turn of a few cards. The Ruin Deck can be used on its own or in conjunction Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds. Limitless adventures in one deck of cards!
We’ll add this 100-card deck, in the appropriate format, to the rewards of everyone getting all the titles in print or PDF, if we reach $470,000.
This is going to be an exciting week for this campaign, so stay tuned for word from Ellomyr and additional cool campaign news.
Iadace! —Charles and the MCG Team
Rebuilding Ellomyr
over 8 years ago
– Mon, Oct 02, 2017 at 12:40:27 AM
Ellomyr survived the margr attack, and weeks have passed, the survivors busy rebuilding and burying the dead.
Meanwhile, we are very quickly approaching the stretch goal of Priests of the Aeons, which will be a can't-miss-this-one kind of supplement, part sourcebook for the setting and part book of new foci, descriptors, cyphers, and artifacts for PCs. Everyone backing at one of the "all the books" levels will get it automatically. It will also be available as an add-on. Remember that the sooner we reach this goal, the more likely it is that the campaign overall will reach more goals before it ends, so every goal is important. We can reach it if everyone helps us spread the word either on social media or great places where people talk about games, like rpg.net, ENWorld, and reddit. Remember too that the campaign has a low-cost entry level for people who are new to Numenera or even to RPGs altogether. The Numenera Starter set is a great introduction for anyone.
Every morning on his way to the school, he walked down the Road of Remembrance. It never got easier to see the items laid out along its ruined stretches--beloved devices, outfits, playthings, notes to loved ones--and that was fine. Most would disagree, but he thought it was good to be reminded of everything and everyone they'd lost, it was good to hear the memoried voices of the missing and the dead in his ears. It reminded him of why he'd been working so hard every day for months, side-by-side with the others, to rebuild Ellomyr.
The school was one of the last buildings to be completed. They'd built community gardens, a healing center, a makeshift library. So many members of the community pitching in--those from Ellomyr and those from away who'd brought their hands and help and skills--all working together.
As he came upon the site of the school, he caught the sound of laughter rising over the hill. As soon as he drew close, some of his students ran up to him, clamoring for his attention, asking him questions, showing off the devices they'd built for today's class. Children--he thought, as he kneeled before them and held each device in his hand, marveling--were more resilient than adults, already moving into the future, leaving the past behind in a way that he couldn't, didn't want to. He was so grateful to be here, after everything. So grateful to those who'd gone. To those who'd come and helped. To those who'd stayed. He didn't want to forget a single one of them.
"Let's go inside," he said to them. "We have so much to learn and remember today."
--The MCG Team
Ellomyr in the Aftermath
over 8 years ago
– Sun, Oct 01, 2017 at 01:17:11 AM
Hello, defenders of Ellomyr—
The battle is over. The community survived. How did we do it?
We built strong walls (with the help of 1950 backers, plus ten pieces of great fiction and art).
And then we listened to you. We asked you to prioritize the various options and based our story on what you chose. Thus, we sent an expedition to the Valley of Sins. They made it back (due to hitting another 200 backers) with an extraordinary haul of useful numenera items (as a result of your Valley of Sins fiction).
And then a funny thing happened. You voted for the second highest priority to be calming the villagers, and we almost had enough backers at voting time to do that as well, but we didn’t. However, by the time Monte was writing the story of the battle, we did. So we incorporated that very thing. The villagers who panicked and fled returned to help turn the tide!
To all the wonderful fiction you’ve created, we added an additional something extra: A short video from the datasphere, via the trilling shard. It was live on the Kickstarter page as the battle raged, but you can still watch if you missed it. Perhaps this isn’t the last time aeon priests or their acolytes will be able to use the trilling shard to communicate via the datasphere?
And speaking aeon priests, all your efforts have brought us very, very close to unlocking Priests of the Aeons, a 160-page hardcover that will be added to the rewards of anyone getting all the books in print or pdf. It would be awesome to unlock that stretch goal this weekend, and unveil the next one!
“Are you well?” came a voice behind him.
Jarent realized he’d stopped in the street, his gaze caught by the collapsed watchtower. Several people scrambled among the broken timbers and stones. What were they doing?
He turned. Calistina, the woman who breathed flames, stood by. She was one of the many strangers who’d come to town to help with the defense in the months since the margr threat had come upon them all.
“Look at what those beasts did!” he yelled. Defaced and tumbled walls, collapsed roofs, and burned detritus was scattered everywhere in unrecognizable clumps. The margr did this. Crail, but he hated them! If he could, he’d skin every last—
“We pushed them back. It could’ve gone much worse.”
Jarent wanted to grab the woman by her shoulders and shake her until she understood. Remembering the blaze of orange and white fire that Calistina could hurl as easy as shouting, he thought better of it.
Instead, he said, “Gone worse? Everything is ruined. People died. And my . . . my books are gone. All of them. Burned up in the fires the margr started.” He wiped fiercely at the moisture at the corners of his eyes.
She inclined her head. “I’m sorry. But we're rebuilding. Look!” She pointed to the figures he’d seen on the watchtower. He realized that they were raising it back up.
He continued to follow the woman’s hand as it swept across the whole village. She was right. Everywhere people worked, digging, hammering, sawing, and collecting debris. New walls were going up, and new structures he didn’t even recognize. He’d been so caught up in his own loss that he hadn’t understood that a future for Ellomyr was possible.
“The village isn’t going anywhere,” said Calistina. “Ellomyr is rebuilding. You should do the same with your collection.” She reached into a satchel, rummaged about, and withdrew something she offered to him.
It was bound in leather and stamped with symbols he didn’t immediately recognize. But he knew what it was. Fresh moisture blurred his vision as he reached out with trembling fingers and accepted the book.
Iadace! —Bruce and the MCG Team
Look How Ellomyr Has Grown
over 8 years ago
– Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 12:56:11 AM
Iadace, defenders of Ellomyr—
The good folk of Ellomyr have been working hard on their defenses. Look at how much the village has changed since word of the margr horde first reached the community:
(If you don’t remember what this sleepy settlement looked like beforehand, check out this update.)
The horde is just hours away. And we’re just (as of this writing) 19 backers away from enabling any two of the three extra defense options the people of Ellomyr are attempting. You can help. Do one (or all) of these things:
Tell a gaming buddy, by IM or text or in person, about this campaign. Tell them how you’re shaping Ellomyr, and the backing for even $1 lets them help too—and gets them a copy of Discover Your Destiny, even if they don’t back for any other reward.
Oh, and let’s not forget about Priests of the Aeons! We’re closing in on this stretch goal—if we can wrangle those 19 more backers, we’ll be that much closer to unlocking it! This is a 160-page hardcover with in-depth information on the Order of Truth and loads of character options, including the possibility of joining the Aeon Priests.
If you haven’t voted to help the village prioritize their defense, there’s still time! Voting is open until 5:00EDT today. That’s cutting it close—at that point, the people of Ellomyr will have mere minutes before the margr horde descends upon them!
Iadace! —Charles and the MCG Team
The Margr Horde at Ellomyr’s Gates
over 8 years ago
– Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 12:56:06 AM
Worse than we were told.
Worse than we saw in the nightmares that had woken us, night after night these last few weeks.
Worse than even than what Kelem the carpenter had predicted in fevered shouts when he and those who followed him left Ellomyr a week ago.
The margr horde was worse.
They seethed across the farmlands like dark floodwaters. The tips of their spears glistened in the flickering light of the torches they bore, flames hungry for our homes and even the new fortifications we had built. The sound they made—not a bloodthirsty roar, like we expected—was a chittering moan. Only later did I learn that they made that sound by clattering their teeth and clicking their tongues. The margr hungered just like their flames, but they hungered for us.
How do you characterize a conflict when one side fights for their lives and the other only to crush and devour those lives? It made us feel less human, and more like beasts in the wild. And we were the prey.
They crashed upon our newly built palisade like a torrent, all flames and spears and gnashing. But we fought. Everyone who could hold a weapon or throw a stone fought back against the horde.
Acel and the others swooped overhead on the windriders and dropped deadly explosives one of the wrights cooked up. The abhumans screeched and howled in surprise. Likely, it seemed to be the first time they’d ever been attacked from the air.
But it was really the weapon that those brave souls brought back from the Valley of Sins that changed everything. While they had found many useful devices—at a high cost, as only half the expedition actually returned—the large thing that they set up at the main gate was terrifying. It terrified us, and the nano controlling it was on our side. Spewing forth fire and ice and lighting all at once, even as the margr broke down the gates, the weapon blasted them away like a fierce, deadly wind.
Even then, things were still in doubt. The margr came in numbers were weren’t expecting. Too many to count. But then the unimaginable happened. The tide was not turned, nor the battle won, ultimately by strange magic from the past, but by stout hearts of the present. Humans from the north mounted on aneen, howling for battle, drove into the horde. At first, we thought it was aid from Othmar, but no. Kelem and those that had fled Ellomyr days ago returned. They attacked the margr’s flank with unexpected fury. Who knows what changed their minds? Perhaps the wise words from Gurner and the others spoken as they left needed time to take root. The mysteries of the human heart will always be greater even than the mysteries from the world’s past.
The sudden appearance of Kelem’s people married with the deathly blasts of the numenera weapon were too much for the beasts. Howling and screeching like birds, those that remained ran off into the night. The fires they left continued to burn. The glaives and defenders they had slain lay scattered around the breaches in the wall, but Ellomyr as a whole remained.
Our little town survived to see another Ninth World sunrise.
