NUMENERA: JIHAD, "CASTLE AVENTUR"

In the central part of the kingdom lis the unassuming castle of Anatrea, a noblewoman who has traceries of light running just beneath her skin in elaborate patterns...Anatrea has a fascination with the numenera and dreams of one day fusing herself entirely with a machine, ascending to a type of godhood, as she believes the people of past aeons once did...

CASTLE AVENTUR, NUMENERA page 151

One of the usual tricks I use in running a campaign is to set aside a few sessions to focus on each of the characters, something I learned from watching TV shows with large ensemble casts.  The session involves everybody, but the focus that week is squarely on one of the protagonists.  Basically I take cues that the players give me--either from choices in play or character creation--and run with them. On a few occasions, such as when one player in Unknown Armies told me he wanted to play a reincarnated Roman soldier, entire story arcs emerge from this.  In the second episode of Numenera: Jihad, "Castle Aventur," I singled out the Jack, "Beatrix."  His Focus is "Fuses Flesh with Steel" and he chose to leave it open-ended how that happened to him.  How could I resist such an invitation?

THE STORY BEGINS right where we left off.  The Wasteland visionary, Lugar of the Marked Name, bought time for the escape of his comrades from the Shadow Table by turning to confront the pursuing shadow wraith alone.  They make the portal that the shadowy numenera-broker Drakoven opened for them, and Lugar braces for a fight.  It never comes.  The wraith encircles Lugar and prepares to devour him...until suddenly recoiling and fleeing with an unearthly screaming sound.  Something about Lugar scared the thing, and badly.  More on that later. (Hint: It has something to do with HIS Focus, 'Knows Too Much,' from the 'Celestial Wisdom' sourcebook)

Back in Qi the others check into an inn and wait to see if Lugar survived.  The as-yet-unnamed Nano Who Works Miracles (hint to his player...get a name STAT) notices that Beatrix has gone missing.  There are signs of a struggle in his room, but no trace of him.

Half-way across Draolis, in the shadow of Castle Aventur, Myrna--a Graceful Jack Who Fights With Panache--is fleeing a pack of weird Broken Hounds fused with numenera under cover of darkness and in the pouring rain.  She has recovered a powerful numenera artefact from a ruin on the lands of Lady Anatrea, and the noblewoman believes the device rightfully belongs to her.  Despite a valiant effort she is captured, and brought to the cells beneath Castle Aventur.  

Much of the action takes place in this cell block, so we should take a moment to describe it.  There are six cells, three on each side of the hall, labelled "A Matrix," "B Matrix," "C Matrix," etc.  The doors have no bars but approaching them causing severe weakness, nausea, and collapse.  Myrna has been tossed into the A Matrix cell, which has yet another occupant.  This is the girl, Ama, an unfortunate creature who has been the subject of hideous experiments.  (Ama 2(6), a mad deformed thing of putrescent flesh and sticky, oozing metal)  Sometimes she screams herself hoarse in agony, while much of the time she is just catatonic.

The cells have another guest.  Across the way in B Matrix is our missing Jack.  He and Myrna are able to speak across the corridor and he reveals he has been here before...in fact, he spent years on that cell and the laboratories nearby.  In her quest to fuse herself with machine, the Lady Anatrea experimented on Beatrix and his sister, Ama, as well as their other siblings...none of whom seem to have survived.  He escaped a few years back but she has found him and brought him back.

Back in Qi there is a division in opinion how to find Beatrix.  Lugar wants to return to Drakoven, whose information network and teleportation portal could be valuable.  But his Nano companion is against this; he distrusts the shadowy Drakoven and questions his motives.  He decides instead to reach into his own past; though now his is something of a wandering charismatic, part con artist and part faith healer, for years he studied to be an Aeon Priest.  He goes to the Order and his old mentor, Elder Jansen.  Jansen promises to help, and warns him against Drakoven, who is believed to be connected to the Convergence.  

Lugar, meanwhile, goes straight back to Drakoven...who is indeed able to help.  His intelligence tells him Beatrix is back in the dungeons of Aventur, and he sends Lugar there via his portal device.  His arrival is timely.  Myrna and Beatrix had been working together to escape, and Lugar is able to help them do it.  The Nano arrives independently as well; the Order was able to "hack" the dimensional tunnel Anatrea used to abduct Beatrix in the first place and send him through to the source of the transmission.

Their attempt to escape the dungeons fails, and trapped in Anatrea's laboratory they confront her guards.  Hovering in the centre of the room is the Silverite Womb...a blob of protoplasmic silvery liquid 2-three meters in diameter that hovers off the floor.  This numenera fuses any living matter thrust into it with machine.  It was used on Beatrix successfully and Ama less so.  Anatrea hopes to some day use it on herself.

As they confront the guards the lady herself makes an entrance, and we learn the final truths.  Beatrix (whose name comes from his designation, B-Matrix) is not only Anatrea's experiment...he is her son.  Ama is her daughter.  In her obsession, Anatrea used her own children to explore the possibilities of fusing flesh and machine, believing what would work on them should work on their mother as well.  As the others defeat the guards, Beatrix confronts his mother, and tosses her into the Silverite Womb, throwing whatever numenera and random detritus is lying around the lab inside as well.  The Womb seems to overload, it collapses into a puddle on the floor with no trace of Anatrea...as if it digested her.  Beatrix scoops up as much of the silverite liquid metal as he can.

Upon returning to Qi, Beatrix tosses the liquid at the feet of Anatrea's ninth husband, Beleth, who sits on the Council of Spheres.

Missed Episode One?  Look here.

NUMENERA: JIHAD, "THE SHADOW TABLE"

This is the first chapter of the Numenera: Jihad campaign.

It starts with the "Numenera Main Theme," the fantastic "Restart" from DigitalRepublic.

Then, in the back alleys of Qi, two strangers sit in on a game of Triads.

A Triads board

Triads is a strategy/card game popular throughout the Steadfast.  Two to six players sit down at a hexagonal board divided into triangles.  Each player begins with 20 stones of a single colour.  In the first round, a coloured stone is placed at each of the corners of the twenty four triangles.  The colour of the stone is determined by each player drawing a numbered card, and the lowest card wins.  Once all the stones are placed on the board, play begins.  The object is to take control of as many triangles as possible by having your stones at each corner of it.  To seize control of a corner from another player, a wager is made and five cards are drawn.  Three cards are selected to create the lowest total possible (lowest always wins).  Once initial wagers are made, the opponents each have the choice of raising up to three times.  At the end of the final raise, both must show their hands or the loser surrenders.  Surrendering loses the initial wager and the corner, matching the final wager and losing costs the final wager and corner.  The game is player until one player controls the entire board or the other players run out of Shins to bid.

The game comes down to Jaxon Piaxxi (Level 2, Triads 3) and Beatrix, an Impulsive Jack Who Fuses Flesh and Steel.  When Piaxxi runs out of Shins, he wagers an acorn-sized crystal of pale blue, claiming it contains a map leading to treasure.  This is quietly confirmed by another player--Emerson, a Learned Nano Who Fuses Mind and Machine.  Emerson spots Beatrix the Shins to match Piaxxi's wager and the Jack comes out on top.  He collects the crystal and he and the Nano leave together to discuss how to settle their joint custody of it.

In the back alleys they are ambushed by Piaxxi's men, eight street thugs (Level 2, light weapons, no armour).  Outnumbered they start to fight.  Luckily for them, two passersby leap into the fray to assist them.

They are Lugar of the Marked Name, a Wasteland Glaive Who Knows Too Much and an unnamed Charming Nano Who Works Miracles.  The Wastelander had met the Nano just days before and enigmatically declared the Nano to be "the one I was sent to serve."  He has been following the Nano about since.  When the Wastelander spies Beatrix, he calls him by name (though they have never met) and jumps in to aid him.  

The thugs are defeated and introductions made.  The Wastelander, plagued by prophetic visions, has seen the others in his future.  Intriguingly, the acorn crystal responds to him as well, changing colours.  The Nanos analysis it, and discover it projects a hologram of an inverted pyramid, with coordinates spinning around it.  It lies somewhere off the coast...and 3000 meters above the surface of the sea.  It is called "The Shadow Table." They decide it might be worth seeking out.

As they head for an inn to plan, panic electrifies the streets.  The sky overhead darkens as if by eclipse, while bright flashes of heat lighting flicker and dance.  A smell of ozone fills the air, and static electricity seems to trickle over everything.  A voice speaks, simultaneously in both ears...to every man, woman, and child in Qi.  Possibly even the Steadfast...

I am in Truth he that is called Durranet VI, Keeper of the Keys of Saint Calaval, who Sought and Found the Truth.  I am the Father of the Steadfast, who has ascended to the Throne.  Let all who would Speak the Truth and Seek the Truth know me, and witness the Truth of these words.

O my Sons and Daughters, I am in fear.  The Eidolon of Those Who Went Before has shown me the Storm.  I have seen the Lightnings and heard the Thunders.  I have been torn by the howling Winds.  It rises in the North, O my Steadfast, across the fields of Cloudcrystals, it grows in the black hearts of those who reject the Truth.  It is a seed, a cancer growing in the minds of the Barbarians who cling to superstition and deny that great and glorious First Truth, the words that bring solace and comfort to all Mankind...Nothing Cannot be Understood.  The spirit worshippers, the Gaians, those who deny the Eidolon who raised Men from the Drit, they sharpen their swords, yea verily even now they sharpen them!  They assemble their legions, and they are coming for your children, your lands, your blessed Order of Truth.  Like a living darkness exhaled from the jaws of the Traducer they spread across the sky, blotting out the Light, the Sun, the Truth.  I say unto you, my Steadfast, they come out to extinguish that Holy Flame Saint Calaval returned from the Dying and Reborn Sun.

They come!  They come!  But to all of you I say in Truth, NOT ON MY WATCH.

O ye Nine Rival Kings, from Navarene to Milave, from the Sea Kingdom to imperial Pytharion, all of you who make your habitation between the Black Riage and the Secret Seas, lay aside all differences and be as One in the Truth!  One Body, One Spirit, One Kin, holy and pure and True.  Hear the call of the High Father Above to defend what is right and real.  Arm and armour yourself for the Crusade!  Raise your armies, ye Princes of Men, lift your weapons ye Knights, gather and form O Soldiers!  For night falls and the Sons of the Light must rage against it.  The Jihad is upon us for the sake of Truth!

The skies lighten, the words fall silent.  Life returns to normal, but all is changed.  The Amber Pope has never before spoken to the masses this way.  Who are these Gaians, these enemies of Truth?  

The characters ponder this, but also how to pursue their quest.  Are the two connected?  It would seem a stretch, but the Wastelander's strange visions urge him to think so.  They debate whom to turn to for aid...one of the Nanos has contacts in the Order of Truth, and they are always keen to sponsor investigations into new numenera.  And yet, under the laws of the Steadfast, the Order has the right to select any numenera recovered for itself from any expedition it sponsors.  This leads to the other alternative.

The Jack knows of a collector, an extraordinarily wealthy and reclusive man in Qi by the name of Drakoven.  The story goes that he sponsors expeditions for numenera all the time, and charges only one price.  Anything recovered must be given to him and "scanned" by a strange machine in his possession.  It is then returned unharmed to those who recovered it.  Darkoven seems interested in knowledge only.  

They go to him.

(This will turn out to be one of those choices that shifted the entire direction of the campaign)

Drakoven (Level 6, 7 regarding numenera) is a quiet, still man in simple black, neither overlarge nor imposing, but radiating a chill nonetheless.  He meets them and after examining the crystal reveals a portal in his possession.  He sets the coordinates to those in the crystal.  They have but to prepare and step through...

Once ready they find themselves on the base of a smooth, black, inverted pyramid, high above the seas.  On the centre of the the monolith is a door that opens every 39 seconds and stays open exactly 13 seconds.  They jump through.

The gravity reverses, so now down is up and up is down.  They are in the centre of a black metal labyrinth.  

Once inside they find a fearful anomaly...the interior will not conduct sound of any sort.  Not a word, not a tap, not a scream.  Navigating the maze to its centre, they find a large round room filled with smoky black quartz crystals, some are several meters high, others litter the ground.  It is a treasure trove.  They find several Mass Nodules, Disrupting Nodules, and Invisibility Nodules.  They even recover a Thought Storage Sphere.  Strangest of all, in the bones of a long dead explorer, they find a curious cube or carved brass the size of a fist.  Before they can investigate, the horror within the Shadow Table descends....

It is a Wraith, a thing of tenebrous shadow devouring living matter to exist in this dimension.  Level 5, Armour 2, Damage 4.  They must defeat it to survive...

  

  

  

NUMENERA: JIHAD (An Introduction)

Numenera: Jihad is a campaign set against the backdrop of the Amber Pope's call to war against the Gaians.  It follows the adventures of a group of Ninth Worlders at a time when politically and culturally the Steadfast is going through upheavals around them.  The campaign is constructed to follow the players' lead; in other words, though the Crusades are building up around them, the characters are not necessarily forced to get involved.  They are free to join the Holy War or to ignore it, to side with the Order of Truth or against it.  All choices have consequences.

And if you have no bloody idea what Numenera is, look here first.

For months leading up to the first game session, I have been dropping hints on my Facebook page.  Most of them concern the key players in the coming struggles; the pseudo-religious Order of Truth, the animistic Gaians, the shadowy Convergence, and the Angulan Knights.  Some of those teasers follow here;

THE ORDER OF TRUTH

I added one thing to the Order...a quasi "god."  In my conception, when Calaval entered the Amber Monolith it brought him to "the Throne," a citadel in the heart of the Sun.  There a disembodied intelligence, "the Eidolon," revealed itself to him.  It taught Calaval the language known as Truth, and claimed to have been a servant of the Men Who Went Before, the human masters of a previous world who were godlike masters of time and space, matter and energy, life and death.  The Eidolon further claimed to have raised the current, Ninth World humanity "from the drit," from genetic traces the First Men left behind.  It intends to help humanity reclaim its birthright, and sent Calaval back as the first Amber Pope to teach Truth and the core message, "Nothing Cannot Be Understood."

Go ahead, click to enlarge

THE GAIANS

In the lands of Lostrei, beyond the Cloudcrystal Skyfields north of the Steadfast, people follow a radically different faith.  They believe the Earth is alive and aware, they believe the inhabitants of the previous worlds all ascended into a state of "pure spirit" and merged with the Earth and Nature.  The Amber Pope and the Order of Truth have tried, unsuccessfully, to convert them.  Now they have declared a Jihad.  The question is, "why?"  Are the Gaians a genuine threat, as the Order claims, or is this merely a bid for power over the Nine Rival Kingdoms of the Steadfast?

THE CONVERGENCE

Depending on your philosophical outlook, they might be the Bad Guys or the ultimate Pragmatists, but the Convergence is a shadow fraternity of Nanos and sorcerers that shares the Order of Truth's vision of human ascension...but for themselves alone, not everyone else.  A secret society, they study the numenera and comb the ruins for the secrets of lost worlds, and are deeply suspicious of the Eidolon and the message it is selling.  

THE ANGULAN KNIGHTS

A warrior order of the Steadfast, they have taken the Order of Truth's teachings one step further.  The Men Who Went Before were like gods...not the abhumans, the mutants, or the Visitants.  Among the first to answer the call to Holy War, the power of the Angulans will wax strong as the Jihad progresses, and their quest to purge all genetic impurity from the world to prepare it for the Ascension of Man will reach frightening proportions.

In the next post, I will be putting up notes on the first scenario, a brief summary of play, and some other goodies.  Stay tuned.

NUMENERA IDEAS VOLUME 1: THE EIDOLON

The Eidolon is an optional element for Numenera campaigns, best suited for groups whose games lean towards medieval fantasy or quasi-feudal science fiction like Herbert's Dune.  It gives the quasi-religious Order of Truth (p. 222) something it didn't have before.  A god.  The degree to which this new element changes the Order is left entirely up to you.

One is the Eidolon and

One is Its Emissary,

One is the Path of Ascension.

One is Reality and

One is Truth,

One is the Mind which seeks it.

- from "The Litany of Truth"

What is it?

When Calaval entered the Amber Monolith (pp. 6-10) he found himself transported to an orbital station the Order now refers to as "the Throne."  He was not alone there.  Housed with the Throne was a powerful sentience field, a disembodied intelligence that immediately began trying to communicate with him by linking its consciousness with his.  The two minds were so alien to one another that communication seemed impossible.  In order to fulfill its function and establish contact, this intelligence had to completely rewrite its mental structure...and Calaval's as well.  The man Calaval was obliterated that day, as was the sentience he stumbled upon.  What emerged from the Joining were two entirely new beings; the Eidolon and the Amber Pope, each a mixture of the other's "programming."

Whatever the Eidolon's original function had been, it was now driven by a single purpose ripped from Calaval's extinct personality; Humanity must be bettered.  It returned the Amber Pope to the Ninth World, a human vessel that was now little more than an avatar of Itself.  Through this instrument It formulated and spread the teachings that eventually became The Way of Truth, a massive compendium of philosophy, language, and psycho-physical exercises meant to perfect the human organism.  Around these doctrines, the Amber Pope built his Aeon Priesthood and Order of Truth, and the movement spread like wildfire through the Nine Rival Kingdoms, uniting them through a common tongue and belief system.  And all the while, the Eidolon had Its Order scour the land for any numenera that could serve and improve the species.

The Eidolon recalled the Amber Pope at the end of his lifespan, operating now through the Priesthood and the Pope's successors.  For four hundred years it has pursued its goals down a variety of experimental avenues, including cybernetic, biomechanical, and genetic modification (The Cyrosian Circle), yogic and dietary practices (The Brotherhood of Rhun), and eugenics (The Miscegenites).  And, of course, throughout the Steadfast the instructions in The Way of Truth have provided an effective program of self-improvement and development for those who fully embrace them.  Regardless of its methodology, the Eidolon and the Order have always been consistently focused on finding ways to advance humanity.

In recent years, however, the Order of Truth has been taking an increasingly religious tone.  There are stories from the Beyond--apocryphal surely--of Aeon Priests leading villages in worship ceremonies, praying for abundant crops, fertility, and protection from disease.  There are even some stories of sacrifice, both animal and human.  In the Steadfast, meanwhile, Pope Durranet VI has instituted weekly Masses where Aeon Priests deliver sermons and lead the congregation in recitation of the Litany (part of The Way of Truth originally recited alone by devotees, at dawn and dusk, as a prelude to meditation). Further, the Amber Pope has founded a new organization, the Order of True Observance (also known as "Inquisitors"), charged with making sure the teachings of the Aeon Priests are being correctly followed.

All of this, along with the Holy War the Pope has called against the animistic Gaian sect, suggests a radical shift in the Amber Papacy's priorities.  Compliance, obedience, and uniformity seem to be replacing the search for truth and the collective betterment of humanity.  Is this the Order straying from the Eidolon, or has the Eidolon itself begun to regard itself as a god?

Who knows about it?

One of the first things a Gamemaster needs to decide before incorporating the Eidolon into a Numenera campaign is how widespread knowledge of the Eidolon's existence is.  Consider the following options;

Only the Amber Popes know.  The first Amber Pope had the "Throne  Portal" moved from the Amber Monolith to the Papal palace at the Durkhal.  Those in the Aeon Priesthood who know of its existence, and have seen it, have no idea what its function is since it is keyed to the Amber Popes alone.  Upon anointing his successor, the first Amber Pope secretly brought the Pope Elect through the portal with him, where his personality was reconfigured and slaved to the Eidolon just as his predecessor.  This has been done with each Amber Pope, making each and everyone of them an extension of the Eidolon.  However, because it is a two-way exchange, the personality of the Eidolon has mutated as well, its function and purpose altering over the centuries. As it acquires more and more human weaknesses, it is becoming increasingly paranoid, power-hungry, and jealous.

The Aeon Priesthood knows.  Part of the investiture of priesthood in the Order of Truth is revelation of the Eidolon's existence.  It is revealed as an incredibly ancient and immensely powerful sentience guiding the human race.  But the revelation comes with an oath of silence on the issue.  Most Aeon Priests regard the Eidolon as little more than a symbol; after all, an "eidolon" is by definition "an unsubstantial image or phantom; an ideal."  Those at the highest levels, especially within the Durkhal, know it is something more.  There is even a cabal, or conspiracy, that fears this alien being has too much influence over the Papacy and plots to do something about it.

The Aeon Priests are part of It.  As above, but investiture with priesthood opens a low-level link with the Eidolon.  The Aeon Priests are not, as their Popes are, avatars of the Eidolon, but this being is able to scan their thoughts and memories or use their eyes and ears to see what is in their vicinity.  This gives the Eidolon--if not omniscience--a kind of multiscience.  Further, the Eidolon may be able to implant ideas and suggestions into their heads.  Priests may even be able to manifest the Presence (see below).

Everyone knows.  This option is probably only viable for new campaigns, and not for GMs dropping the Eidolon into pre-existing ones.  In short, everyone knows about the Eidolon.  It is part of the Litany.  It's name is used to swear oaths ("By the Eidolon above!"), curses ("Eidolon turn its sight from you!"), and in greetings ("Eidolon be with you.").  It is universally acknowledged as the source of Steadfast language, law, and civilization.  This does not necessarily mean It is actually believed in; many seen the Eidolon as nothing more than the "ethos" of the Order.  Nor does it mean It is worshipped.  The degree to which It is worshipped and feared may depend on how you use the Presence (see below).

What can it do?

How powerful is the Eidolon?  What is it capable of? Here are a few options.

Manipulate.  With this option, the Eidolon is an incredibly powerful consciousness, able to think and plan at a level far beyond human comprehension, and it controls the leader of the Ninth World's largest socio-political organization.  Though the Eidolon wields no direct power, through the Order of Truth's immense influence it drives Ninth World humanity to accomplish its goals for it.

Empower.  Aside from being an incredibly powerful consciousness, able to think and plan at a level far beyond human comprehension, the Eidolon is able to focus its Presence around its followers.  Depending on your choices above, only the Amber Pope can manifest the Presence, or the Pope and the Priesthood can, or anyone in the Order of Truth can.

The Presence is nothing less than a local manifestation of the Eidolon itself, focused through Its conduit.  The Presence is always accompanied by a build-up of static electricity in the air, the scent of ozone, and an eerie sound just on the very edge of audibility that sounds like thousands of voices whispering, humming, or singing.  Enemies of the Order have reported the voices gibbering and screaming instead.  People describe a sense of awe and a pricking of the skin.

With the Presence comes the ability to perform miracles.  The most common sorts come from Foci like Bears a Halo of Fire, Focuses Mind over Matter, Rides the Lightning, or Works Miracles.  Others are possible.  NPCs can essentially manifest any Focus abilities up to a Tier equal to their Level - 1; for example, a Level 4 Aeon Priest could manifest Tier 1, 2, or 3 abilities.  It is important to note they cannot just do this whenever they like; they must call upon the Eidolon, have a desperate need, and must be using the power to further the Eidolon and the Order's interests.  In game terms, any invocation of the Presence and use of its miracles is a GM Intrusion.

Player characters can only call upon the Presence with the GM's permission (she is, in essence, playing the role of the Eidolon).  Depending on who can call upon the Presence in the GM's campaign, if the character is an Aeon Priest, or a faithful follower of the Eidolon, he can invoke the Presence with an Intellect roll against the level of the miracle he wants to invoke.  If successful, he may use the ability at double the pool cost.

For example, Hadrik is a Mystical Glaive Who Works Miracles, a sort of paladin loyal to the Order of the Truth.  On a mission for an Aeon Priest, he needs to use the Tier 4 "Flameblade" ability from the Foci Bears a Halo of Fire.  To do so he must roll Intellect 12 and spend 8 Intellect points from his pool (double the standard cost).

Smite.  The Eidolon is an Old Testament god.  Aside from the powers and abilities presented in the two options above, the Eidolon has access to powerful numenera--orbital satellites, nanomachine swarms, psionic talents, etc--that allow it to affect the weather, unleash plagues, or rain fire from the sky.  For whatever reasons It cannot do these things often, and relies on human agents most of the time, but when necessary the Eidolon can bring these powers to bear.

How can I use this?

There are several ways to use the Eidolon.  Here are some ideas for the different "flavors" of Numenera.

Post-Apocalyptic.  The planet should be dead.  One of the previous Worlds designed and built the Eidolon to maintain it, an intelligence overseeing swarms of nanomachines monitoring the ph of the soil, controlling weather satellites to ensure rains, keeping the planetary core active, etc.  But now the Eidolon has been reconfigured after joining with Calaval, ignorant of its previous duties, and one by one the control systems are failing.  Droughts are becoming more common as artificially verdant land changes back into desert, crops fail and wither.  Can the Eidolon be rebooted?  How can the planet be saved?

Quasi-Medieval.  The Eidolon has come to believe Itself to be a god.  Slowly it is retasking the Order of Truth into a true church, making certain the peoples of the Ninth World will obey and worship It.  The crusade against the heretic Gaians, and the Inquisition of the Order of True Observance, are just the start.  It has spent centuries infiltrating the Datasphere, weather control systems, the great machines at the planet's core, and now can unleash horrific disasters if not obeyed.  On the other hand, it does watch over and care for those who kneel before it.

Weird Horror.  The Eidolon is not what it seems.  How long this ultrarerrestrial has been imprisoned in the Throne, and by whom, none can say.  Perhaps millions of years.  It wants nothing more than to be freed.  The Amber Popes are merely mindless husks, their consciousness devoured...a fate that awaits the planet if It escapes.  It uses them as extensions of Itself, leading the Order to scour the world for the numenera that will unlock its cell.

Hopeful New World.  The Eidolon is essentially all that it seems.  It truly is obsessed with the betterment of humanity, and has been amassing knowledge of the numenera to help mankind survive.  Orders like the Miscegenites (aka the White Sisterhood) keep careful track of human bloodlines, arranging marriages to breed better and better people.  Meanwhile the Cyrosian Circle uses numenera to make people stronger, healthier, and more enduring.  These groups might even be close to producing a true Messiah, the first of a line of supermen who will ensure the destiny of the race.

NUMENERA; A REVIEW

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke, "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination"

TOWARDS THE END OF THE 1960s, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov were sharing a New York City cab.  Alongside Robert Heinlein, both were considered part of the Holy Trinity of science fiction writers, and often asked which of them was the best.  In the back of that taxi, the pair found an elegant solution, and the so-called "Treaty of Park Avenue" was drawn up between them.  Clarke would ever after insist that Asimov was the best, while Asimov would always insist his superior was Clarke.

Despite this, the two had their differences.  Asimov, for example, drew a firm line between "science fiction" and "fantasy."  The first, he insisted, was grounded in science and dealt with the possible.  The latter, centred purely in the imagination, dealt with the impossible.  But Clarke, perhaps in part as a play on Asimov's famous "Three Laws of Robotics" issued Three Laws all his own.  The first of these, I like to think, was a tongue in cheek jab at his friend and rival;  "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."  He finished with the famous and oft-quoted assertion that "sufficiently advanced technology" was indistinguishable from "magic."

No other role-playing game has ever embraced Clarke's point-of-view as deeply as Monte Cook's Numenera.

A bit like Clarke, by 2001 Cook found himself in a Holy Trinity of RPG designers.  Alongside Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams he was tapped to design the d20 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons, writing the Dungeon Master's Guide.  If you weren't familiar with his name from Champions or Rolemaster, or from his days at TSR writing books for the Planescape line, you couldn't be a gamer and escape it in the wake of the d20 system's ubiquity.  Despite my own antipathy for the system, I liked Cook's work in it.  His translation of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu might have been (to me) completely unnecessary, but he pulled it off brilliantly.  Likewise his take on White Wolf's "World of Darkness" was inspired.  By the end of the decade he was bit of an RPG "rock star," and it was no surprise that when he turned to Kickstarter to generate capital for a new project called Numenera, he raised more than 25 times his goal of $20,000.  Cook has that sort of name recognition and fan base, and Numenera is the perfect example of why he deserves it.

Depending on whether you lean towards Asimov or Clarke, Numenera is either a fantasy or a science fiction RPG.  Set a billion years from now, Numenera is about the peoples of the Ninth World.  At least eight previous worlds have risen and fallen back into obivion, each over a cycle of hundreds of millions of years.  Some of them left behind orbital satellites to bathe the world in a massive datasphere.  Some of them terraformed, and then re-terraformed, the planet.  Some of them were the centres of vast, interstellar empires.  Some of them mastered the fundamental laws of physics and played with them like toys.  Some of them created the nanotechnology that now invisibly swarms across the planet. Some of them explored other dimensions.  Some bioengineered new forms of life.  And several--if not most of them--were not even remotely human.

Now, inexplicably, humans have returned to the Ninth World, though no one can say from where.  Spread thinly across part of the planet in a quasi-medieval patchwork of kingdoms known as the Steadfast--and some in a wilder region known as the "Beyond"--the humans of the Ninth World dig through the ruins of the ancients collecting "numenera," a catch-all term for any and all of the wonders of the past.  They are guided by the Order of Truth, a "church" of sorts led by the Amber Popes and dedicated to improving the human condition by learning the secrets of the old worlds.

If you close one eye and look at Numenera from the right angle, this is all pretty generic fare.  Medieval kingdoms built on the bones of ancient, wondrous empires, bold adventurers combing dangerous, monster-filled ruins for treasures...we've seen this a thousand times before.  Even the three core character classes--the Glaive, the Nano, and the Jack--look pretty much the same as the Warrior-Mage-Rogue archetypes from other games.  Numenera looks the same as any fantasy RPG.  But shift a few steps an take a look again.  Suddenly Numenera starts to look like a post-apocalyptic future.  Move a bit further and it looks like weird horror.  From another angle, an almost Roddenberrian game of hope, wonder, and exploration.  It can be used any of these ways.  It is at its best when used in all these ways.

Which brings us back to Clarke's laws.  That desert hermit, mumbling to himself?  With hand gestures and incantations he can bring a rain of fire out of the sky.  Is he activating the clouds of nanotech machines swarming through the air?  Is it some form of pyrokinesis caused by a mutation in his brain?  Does he channel extradimensional energies?  In the end it is simpler just to call it what it is; "numenera," the same as the Doctor's TARDIS, the Monoliths from 2001, or the "killing words" of Dune.  This is tech so far beyond us it looks like magic.

So what is the game about, then?  How does it work?

Numenera is a game of discovery, where experience points are handed out for uncovering wonders rather than killing enemies.  It operates around a simple d20 roll and a difficulty scale running from 1 (ridiculously easy) to 10 (practically impossible).  When a character wants to attempt an action, the GM assigns a difficulty, and the player needs to roll equal to or above that difficulty x 3.  For example, a chasm might require a Difficulty 4 Might roll to jump across it.  Multiplying by three gives us 12, and the player needs to roll that number or higher.

What then about Difficulties of 7, 8, 9, and 10?  You can't beat those on a 20-sided die.

Characters have three core attributes; Might, Intellect, and Speed.  They also posses special abilities and skills.  Skills can lower a Difficulty one or two steps, reducing a Difficulty 5 task to 4 or 3.  Certain abilities and pieces of equipment can lower a Difficulty as well.  Or, the player can chose to use "Effort," spending points from his attribute pool to lower the Difficulty.  This can be risky, because your attribute pools serve as your "hit points" as well.  The amount of Effort you can spend, and how much you must spend, is ruled in part by your Tier (level).  A lower Tier character needs to spend more Effort to lower a Difficulty by a single step; a higher Tier character can spend less Effort to lower a Difficulty a step, and can lower Difficulties by multiple steps.  It is a simple, flexible, and very elegant mechanic.

Combat, incidentally, works the same way.  Your opponent has a level from 1 to 10, which determines the basic rolls you need to strike and defend against it (again, level x 3 modified by unique NPC features).  In Numenera, the GM never touches the dice.  All rolls are made by players.  Damage is fixed by weapon type (Light, Medium, or Heavy) and reduced by armour.  A roll of 17 adds +1 to damage, 18 adds +2, 19 adds +3, and 20 adds +4.  19s and 20s can trigger special effects as well.  Naturally, a character's abilities affect combat and damage as well.

One of the finest features of the game is that it is "player-facing."  The GM, as mentioned, never rolls dice.  Instead, Numenera uses a mechanic known as "intrusion."  The GM is allowed to make things "happen" that normally would be handled by a roll.  Do the palace guards hear the sounds of the player characters breaking in?  Does the ancient bridge collapse under the character's weight?  Does the device the character is carrying suddenly malfunction?  The GM can invoke any of these effects--any effect she needs to further the plot or make things more interesting--but for a price.  The character affected by the intrusion is given two experience points immediately...one to keep for himself, and one to award another party member for any reason.  Or, he can refuse the intrusion, and pay an experience point back to the GM.  Between this mechanic, and the ease with which NPCs and creatures can be extrapolated using the simple 1 to 10 scale, Numenera eliminates the heavy lifting other games saddle the GM with and lets her concentrate on moving the story along.

Character creation is another excellent feature of the game.  It basically works out to a simple sentence in which the player picks the noun, the adjective, and the verb; "I am a (adjective) (noun) that (verb)."

The noun is the easiest; it's the three "classes" I mentioned above.  There are the warrior Glaives, the mage-like Nanos, and the roguish Jacks.  Each gets special abilities to chose from each new Tier, as well as a base pool of points for Might, Intellect, and Speed.  Each archetype comes with options to personalise the character choice.  

The adjectives are things like "Charming," "Graceful," or "Strong-Willed" that bestow a package of bonuses, skills, flaws, equipment, and connections to the setting.

Finally, the verbs are things like "Bears a Halo of Fire," "Controls Beasts," "Explores Dark Places," or "Masters Weaponry."  These are professions, super-powers, or character motivations that grant a suite of additional abilities that increase each Tier, as well as a wealth of character shaping details and extras.  

Thus, a Numenera character might be "a Clever Jack that Works the Back Alleys," "a Rugged Glaive Who Howls at the Moon," or "an Intelligent Nano Who Commands Mental Powers."  These three lenses come together to create detailed and interesting characters.

What Cook gives us then is a streamlined and very modern "D&D" with an Arthur C. Clarke twist.  Much of what characters do--explore ruins, discover treasures, fight hideous creatures, navigate local politics--happens in other RPGs, but Numenera's focus never leaves the theme of wonder, of weirdness, of discovery.  Whether it is science fiction or fantasy depends on how the group approaches it, and it's unique setting allows the GM and players to shape the world to their tastes.  Already with a strong line up of supporting products, Numenera is a far future game with a bright future ahead of it.

Go see the Numenera page here.

  

  

     

  

  

  

    

   

     

DOCTOR WHO AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

If you haven't watched Series 8 of Doctor Who to its conclusion, be warned.  Spoilers ahead.

At a time when kids are very likely to know a teacher--or relative--who has been to war, Doctor Who spends a series dealing with it.

Doctor Who has a lot in common with Harry Potter.  First and foremost, they are stories aimed at kids.  The Doctor was created back in 1963 to be "H.G. Wells meets Father Christmas," and has stayed fairly true to that formula ever since. Because of this, expecting Doctor Who to be Battlestar Galactica is a bit like expecting Harry Potter to be Game of Thrones.  It is meant to be whimsical, to have its absurd moments of wild imagination, and to the adults in the room, to frequently be unbelievable.  When I hear someone complain about Who's sillier moments, I wonder if they are the kind of people who also complain about the violations of basic physics in the old Warner Brothers Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons.

But something else Who and Harry have in common (other than David Tennant) is a keen awareness that kids live in the real world too.  Young people might have slightly larger senses of wonder, but they also suffer, feel fear, and grapple with life's darker realities.  Harry Potter was from the start a tale of loss, opening with an orphan boy just after the murder of his parents.  And Doctor Who, a program with the concept of "time" at its very heart, has never shied away from death.  Because of this, even the lightest chapters of Harry and the Doctor's lives (say, Philosopher's Stone or Matt Smith's first series) have shadowed moments...and sometimes, as with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or Peter Capaldi's freshman series 8, the darkness gets deep indeed.

There is a lot of chatter about how "dark" Capaldi's Doctor is.  He really isn't.  The Twelfth Doctor is no darker than the Seventh who manipulated Ace in both Ghostlight or The Curse of Fenric, or the Sixth whose first act was to nearly strangle his companion.  He is no darker than the First, who might have actually killed Ian and Barbara if his granddaughter didn't stop him in Unearthly Child.  Capaldi only appears dark if you joined the saga with Tennant or Smith, the two most cuddly Doctors to ever pilot the TARDIS.  If anything, Capaldi is simply a return to form.

The real darkness is actually the series itself.

Since its return in 2005, Who has relied on gimmicks to hold each series together (something the original program never bothered with, except for rarities like "Trial of a Time Lord" or the "Key to Time").  We had Bad Wolf in the first series and Torchwood in the next, Harold Saxon followed by Returning Rose.  Then came cracks in space and time, the Silents, and the Impossible Girl.  The dramatic journey in each series was that of the Companion, and how traveling with the Doctor changed her.  But series 8 did something we haven't seen before...the episodes were largely connected by themes.  Oh sure, we had Missy popping up from time to time, but for the first time, actual themes made up the connective tissue between episodes.

The loudest and clearest was the role of the soldier.  This is hardly surprising given the fact that Britain has been entangled in Afghanistan and Iraq nearly as long as Doctor Who's big new secondary market--America--has.  We have the character Danny Pink as the most obvious embodiment of the theme, an ex-soldier with a trauma in his past that, much like the identity of Missy, the show never really bothered to hide.  But Danny aside, we kept visiting soldiers (and the Doctor's dislike for them) over and over again.  Into the Dalek has the Doctor openly condemning soldiers, and refusing to take an otherwise viable Companion along simply because she is one.  Listen reveals a young Doctor terrified of being a soldier, and a young Danny inspired by a toy one.  The Caretaker is about an alien soldier that keeps killing because no one is around to give it the order to stop, and in case you hadn't noticed, Mummy on the Orient Express has an identical plot.  Both are resolved in nearly the same way; the Doctor assumes to role of commanding officer in one and surrenders in the other, letting both soldiers finally rest.  Soldiers are also at the heart of the series finale...but we will get to that in a moment.

The other re-occurring theme concerns the Doctor trying to understand who he is.  "Am I a good man," he asks Clara early on, and she has no answer.  Likewise we still don't know if the Doctor pushed the clockwork cyborg or if he jumped.  Episode after episode has Clara asking herself this question, wondering if the Doctor is still the man she knew or if she ever really knew him at all, and twice in the series, she actually borrows his identity.  Ultimately the show is asking us, the audience, this question in the wake of the 50th anniversary year.  If you have a broom and you replace the handle, the Doctor muses in the series premier, and then replace the brush and do it over and over again, is it the same broom?  Is the Doctor the same man, or is "the Doctor" really just an identity that gets passed on, an identity that even Clara can assume?   And further, is that identity a good man ("You made an exceptional Doctor," he tells Clara, "and 'goodness' had nothing to do with it") or Danny Pink's blood-soaked general who gets to decide who lives and who dies?

Both these themes come together, and are answered, in Dark Water and Death in Heaven.   While many rolled their eyes at Missy's identity ("What, the Master again?") the simple truth is a second string villain like the Rani doesn't get us anywhere near establishing the Doctor's identity.  It takes the Master, or now the Mistress, to remind us who the Doctor really is.  Both friends, both rogue Time Lords, both characters who play God and leave death in their wake, it is only by the Mistress trying to push the Doctor over the edge and into the shadows with her that we get to the truth.  That truth is a simple one; Doctors and generals are not so different.  Part of their job description is deciding who lives and dies.  But what the Mistress has never understood, and thus ends up reminding us, is that the Doctor plays God to help while she does it for her own amusement.  In a sense, she has a point; the Doctor's hands ultimately have more blood on them than hers do.  But Doctors and psychopaths bloody their hands for different reasons.

The Cybermen, of course, tie up the soldier theme for us, just as Missy's use of them answers the Doctor's theme.  In creating an army so the Doctor can rule the universe, Missy proves herself wrong and Danny Pink right.  Danny is right...the Doctor is an officer who uses others an occasionally sacrifices their lives.  But it is not a role he cherishes, but rather a cross he thinks he must carry.  And this, of course, is at the heart of his discomfort with soldiers.  They remind him of all the people he had led to their deaths.

In the end, the issue is not that the Doctor was darker this series, it's that the themes were. As I watched this, the fact that the finale aired so near Britain's Remembrance Day didn't seem a coincidence to me.  The entire series was an exploration of soldiers, of sacrifice, of death, and of why we still engage in things like wars.  It's heavy stuff, sure, but British and American kids very likely know soldiers who have served in the Middle East, and very likely question the purpose of war.  Doctor Who may not have the answers, but still its willingness to raise the questions is commendable.  The show stokes the childlike sense of wonder in kids, but often recognizes they have adult questions too.

ON FAIRY TALES

I am a firm believer in the Fairy Tale.

As an art form, I mean. That fairy tales are global and universal should probably tell us something about how essential they are to the human condition, but it is easy to overlook in a modern society where there is increasing pressure upon children (and adults!) to focus on “the real world.” There is also a very modern conceit that our ancestors were foolish because they believed in such stories, but this is a leftover of bad Victorian era scholarship. The truth is, pre-modern people told fairy tales for the same reasons we should; not because they believed them to be literally true, but because they knew them to be fundamentally true. To paraphrase G. K. Chesterson, the value of these stories was not in that they told people that dragons existed, but rather than dragons could be beaten.

Under “Fairy Tale” I would argue it is possible to lump the modern genres of horror, fantasy, and even comic book adventure so long as these conform to certain parameters. I would argue, for example, that Doctor Who, Dracula, and The Lord of the Rings are fairy tales while Battlestar Galactica, The Call of Cthulhu, and Howard’s Conan stories are not. Because it isn’t that fairy stories are aimed mainly at children—Draculacertainly was not—but because they all promise that no matter how dark, how horrible, and how terrifying the places they will take us into are, we will come back out into the light. You simply know, in a fairy story, that the dragon doesn’t get to win.

The dragon can’t win, because the fairy story is relentlessly humanist. The good guys beat the bad because this is how it should be, because it reaffirms our inate sense of justice. It doesn’t necessarily have to be easy, nor is it usually free. Stoker’s band of vampire hunters suffer horrific losses before defeating Count Dracula, and Frodo endures all manner of hardship in his quest to destroy the Ring. But there is never any doubt that Dracula will be dusted and the Ring melted down, and the reason people read such stories again and again and again is that they reinforce that most ludicrous and human of qualities…hope. When a child asks breathlessly to hear the same story again, it isn’t because he or she doesn’t know the fable word for word and line by line, but because taking the journey once more makes the world seem less random and impossible. It gives them hope.

As an intellectual I can extol the virtues of H. P. Lovecraft, because his horror fiction portrays an image of the world as it is. Not that nameless gods and unspeakable alien horrors surround us, but because Lovecraft understands that the universe is vast, mankind is impossibly small, and that the former doesn’t particular notice or care that the latter even exists. But as a magician I can never be satisfied by Lovecraft in the same way I can by Stoker, because Stoker is reaffirming the value of my humanity. This may well be an illusion, but it is an illusion we all need to get out of bed every day.

Mind you, not every fairy tale needs a happily ever after, so long as it affirms human standards and values. In the earliest versions of Red Riding Hood, the girl ends up eaten. But she was eaten because she willfully violated those two most sacred rules—keep to the path and don’t talk to strangers—and the message is still positive because it illustrates to the listener why these rules must be followed. Had Lil’ Red kept to the path, ignored the wolf, and been eaten anyway, it wouldn’t be a Fairy Tale…it would be a tragedy the likes of which fill the media everyday.

Perhaps because I am a cynic and a realist, I find fairy tales far preferable to the alternative. There was no doubt that the Bride would get her just revenge in Kill Bill, that Harry would eventually defeat Voldemort, or that the Doctor will defeat the Daleks every time. Joining them as they accomplish these things is both cathartic and healing, and I daresay even vital. Because if human beings did not—like Alice—dare to believe impossible things, we would all still be living in caves.

LOVECRAFT - A LOVE LETTER

"One can't write a weird story of real power without perfect psychological detachment from the human scene, and a magic prism of imagination which suffuses them and style alike with that grotesquerie and disquieting distortion characteristic of morbid vision. Only a cynic can create horror—for behind every masterpiece of the sort must reside a driving daemonic force that despises the human race and its illusions, and longs to pull them to pieces and mock them."

- H.P. Lovecraft

LIKE ONE OF THE CYCLOPEAN entities he so often wrote about, Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) towers over the landscape of 20th century horror fiction. None of us, who work in the genre, can escape his shadow. He is just that big.

He changed the entire game. Before Lovecraft, we had ghosts and demons and vampires, witches and werewolves, goblins and revenants. Horror was rooted in the old supernatural models of the ancient and medieval worlds. It came from curses by God(s), the sins and transgressions of man, the wickedness of devils after the human soul. As horrible as the vampire is, for example, he is also comforting. The fact that he is repelled by all that is holy proves the existence and superiority of God. Before Lovecraft, horror was a moral fable, a test of man's courage and goodness by eternal evil.

And Lovecraft dropped the H-bomb on it all.

You have to put yourself in his place, in the places of all those living in the dawn of the 20th century. Everything they knew was turning out to be wrong. Sure, they knew the sun didn't go round the Earth, but they thought the Milky Way galaxy was the entire universe. Then it became just one of billions of galaxies. The entire human race was reduced to a status smaller than microbes on a tiny speck of dust. Classical physics were being shattered by things like Einstein's theory of relativity, making the Enlightenment notion of God the Clock Maker look like a bad joke. And paleontology proved the world wasn't five thousand years old, wasn't created for us. It was millions of years old, and dominated by many other species before us. They came, they went extinct. Was there any real reason to believe we were destined for anything else?

If you can understand the psychic trauma of those decades between the Victorian and Cold War eras, then Lovecraft is easy to get.

His early fiction played around with the supernatural, but he rapidly discarded such causes for science fiction ones. You may never have read a Lovecraft tale, but if you saw Ridley Scott's Alien, you have experienced the kind of Horror Lovecraft created. In his fiction, there is no God, no cosmic forces of good and evil. Man is just a life form in a cosmic full of beings larger, older, and nastier.

And it wasn't just the scientific odor surrounding his creations; Lovecraft was a master of documentary fiction. He knew how to make you swallow it. He created texts, towns, and beings that showed up in dozens of tales, ideas that he freely allowed his imitators to borrow. He gave them rich and detailed histories. His infamous black book, the dread Necronomicon, appeared in so many tales, but so many authors, that people were looking for it in library card catalogues just a few decades after his death. Indeed, starting in the seventies, people started publishing what they claimed to be "real" copies of the book.

He died young. He died in poverty. He died alone. No one paid him any serious attention during his lifetime, except for a circle of ardent fans and imitators who understood the sheer--and pardon my French--fucking genius of what he was doing. His life was miserable and short, his fiction confined to weird tales magazines. By the end of the century though, his books sat alongside Twain, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck in collections of great American literature. And it belonged there. HPL changed the entire game.

There is a superb episode of Doctor Who in which the time traveling protagonist takes Vincent Van Gough to a museum in the 21st century to show the painter--who also died scorned and penniless--his legacy. I can't help but wonder how HPL would react to his. His new cosmic horror is everywhere, but what would he think of the affection his horrors are held in? What would he make of plush-toy Cthulhu (Lovecraft's Cthulhu here)?