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Numenera 2: Discovery and Destiny

Created by Monte Cook Games

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:

Thank You!
over 6 years ago – Tue, Nov 07, 2017 at 11:11:32 PM

Well, after an exhausting and exhilarating five or so weeks, I think the team at Monte Cook Games has recovered thanks to some restful days of playing games, watching Stranger Things, and eating too much Halloween candy. Now that we’re all upright and functional again, I just wanted to take the time, on behalf of everyone here, to express my gratitude to all of you that helped make Numenera 2 the second most successful RPG Kickstarter of all time, far surpassing even the original Numenera Kickstarter of five years ago.

I can’t find words adequate to express the outpouring of support not only for the project but for the narrative that we created in the course of the campaign. Backers and gamers wrote fiction, drew illustrations, crafted poetry, and even recorded audio and video pieces to flesh out the events around our Ninth World village of Ellomyr and the chronicle of events that led to its development into a sophisticated city despite horrendous threats and dangers. 

In a way, the support is indicative of the gameplay we want to explore with the Numenera 2 books, Discovery and, in particular, Destiny. In the same way that backers joined together to make Numenera 2 such an astounding and record-breaking success, player characters can use the new rules to combine their skills, knowledge, discoveries, and bravery and work together to build a new future.

This week marks what we call the MCG Fall Summit for 2017, where all the scattered members of the team gather in one location for planning, discussions, and—of course—gaming. We’ll spend this year’s summit not only planning the steps to deliver all the great products unlocked in this campaign but reflecting on the support, feedback, and contributions you provided to Numenera 2. 

Monte

The Campaign Has Reached Its Amazing Conclusion. Now What?
over 6 years ago – Sat, Oct 28, 2017 at 01:53:03 AM

Thank you for your amazing levels of support in making Numenera Discovery, Numenera Destiny, and all of the other books we unlocked a reality. This has turned out to be the biggest Kickstarter campaign MCG has ever run, and one of the biggest RPG Kickstarters ever. We could not be more pleased and humbled.

I’d like to thank everyone on the MCG team who helped make this happen: The design team, obviously, for their awesome vision: Bruce, Sean, Shanna, and of course Monte. Bear and Zoa for the great imagery and beautiful products that help define that vision, and for their tireless work on the graphics for this campaign. Tammie, for keeping the wheels on the company while this was all going on. Darcy for interfacing with you, our wonderful community, here and everywhere gamers congregate online. (Actually, everyone did a little bit of everything, so this is by no means a comprehensive list of contributions!)

And of course to the many backers who contributed to the vision and narrative of Ellomyr. You really brought the community and its people to life, and are an enormous part of the excitement that drew so may people to this campaign. We can’t wait to get started on writing The Trilling Shard!

So thank you, really and sincerely. You’re the best.

Here’s what you should expect going forward.

This Evening and the Next Few Days

Running Kickstarter campaigns is rewarding on many levels, and we have greatly enjoyed interacting with you through these updates, the comments, social media, and so on. But it’s also a brutally hectic challenge to administer it all. And most of the MCG staff has been keeping up with our regular duties throughout. We even got Invisible Sun, perhaps the most ambitious RPG project ever made, off to press during this campaign. So I don’t think you’ll be surprised when I say that we’re taking a short break.

Don’t expect to hear much from us this weekend, and it may be quiet even into next week. If you have questions, feel free to send a Kickstarter message, but don’t be concerned if you don’t get a response until next week. Work on these rewards will be going on for the next year and beyond, and there isn’t anything that can’t wait for a few days. But don’t worry—we WILL get back to you.

The Next Few Weeks

Kickstarter began collecting pledges the moment the campaign closed. But it takes Kickstarter a full two weeks to release those funds, along with the data on our backers.

In the meantime, we will get BackerKit fully set up so we can open it when we have that data. BackerKit is a third-party platform that lets you confirm all the information we need to fulfill your pledge. If there are add-ons you’ve missed, or if you decide to increase your reward level, you can do that through BackerKit as well. You’ll be notified when we open BackerKit.

NOTE: Signing into BackerKit is vital to getting your rewards. Kickstarter does NOT provide us with the information we need to fulfill your rewards; we HAVE to gather it from you after the campaign. If you don’t respond to your BackerKit survey, we can’t send you any rewards!

The Next Few Months

Once you’ve done your BackerKit survey, we won’t need anything else from you to start fulfilling rewards. We’ll be busy crafting the products and rewards that you will be receiving next year and beyond.

At times during this period, you won't hear from us, maybe for a couple of months. Please, do not panic—we've delivered hundreds of rewards on time in the past, and we'll be working diligently on yours.

But at the same time, please pay attention when you do get communications from us. Our emails and Kickstarter updates include critical information about your rewards.

When Your Rewards Ship

Every time a reward is ready for you, we’ll contact you again by email to begin the fulfillment process. Generally, we’ll direct you to the MCG shop, where you’ll log in, “buy” the product (for free with a coupon, because you’ve already paid for it through Kickstarter), and check out. This is an important part of the process because it ensures we have accurate delivery information for every item we send out. (With over 4,000 backers getting rewards, it's amazing how many people will change their address over the fulfillment period.) If you're an overseas backer or want to upgrade shipping, you'll pay for it at that time. Make sure you're paying attention to communications from us—don't let our updates or emails go to your spam folder, or otherwise ignore them, because if you do you could miss out on some of your rewards.

This was a grand endeavor, and we are very happy you chose to be a part of it. Thank you all for your support, and for letting us continue to make the sort of products we really love.

Thank you for all your support!
—Charles and the MCG team

Ellomyr: The Aftermath and the Future
over 6 years ago – Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 11:55:06 PM

 

Thanks to you, the raging automaton has been stopped! Despite the machine’s strength and power, the people of Ellomyr, using bravery and skill, face this final threat head on. The automaton is deactivated before the damage it wreaks goes too far.

Years later, the children of Ellomyr’s defenders, and their children, live in a city of prosperity and wonder that their forefathers could not have imagined. Those who started Ellomyr on this path built a better future for all those who came after. With more brave souls like that in the Ninth World, who knows what the future’s future might be?

Thank you for all your support!
—The MCG team

 

We Did It! The Deck Box Is Happening!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 10:47:07 PM

This is MCG’s tenth Kickstarter. We've been around the block with Kickstarters once or twice, but I don't think any of us have seen an ending quite like this one. It came right down to the wire, but we did it—we made the deck box a reality!

If you’re backing at ALL THE BOOKS IN PRINT AND PDF or higher, this is now part of your rewards. We’ll also make it an add-on in BackerKit.

Thanks so much for taking us over the $840,000 mark—this has been a ground-breaking campaign for us and for RPG Kickstarters in general.

Look for an end-of-campaign update in just a few minutes!

Thank you for all your support!
—Charles and the MCG team

 

Creature Deck 3 Is Happening—Is the Deck Box on the Way?
over 6 years ago – Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 09:56:53 PM

Wow! Am I seriously writing the third stretch goal update of the day? I am! We’ve hit the $810,000 goal to make the Creature Deck 3 a reality, and we did it record time. So quickly, in fact, that I’m more hopeful than ever that we’ll make our way to adding the deck box to that goal!

If you’ve just joined the campaign, when we announced the Creature Deck 3 stretch goal, we also announce a bonus of sorts: Get us to $840,000 and we’ll sweeten the pot with this beauty:

We make a lot of decks (three funded by this campaign alone), and they’re super useful—but not always easy to keep organized. This will be a perfect system for storing and organizing your decks—and also for easily accessing and using them at the game table. These images are just concepts, and the final design may change a bit, but we’d like to give the box these features:

  • The box holds all the existing Numenera decks, plus some useful extras like the Cypher System NPC Deck, with some extra space as well.
  • It’s sized to sit perfectly on your bookshelf, alongside your RPG books.
  • And it has a small footprint, making it convenient to use at the gaming table.
  • The decks are super easy to view and access during play or prep.
  • And, of course, it will be durable and beautiful, with thoughtful design features like magnetic closures.

We have almost two hours left, but we’ve been tearing it up all afternoon—this is totally doable if you keep spreading the word!

Thank you for all your support!
—The MCG team