Numenera
Numenera is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) set in the far distant future, written by Monte Cook.[1][2][3] It has been translated into Italian,[4] German,[5] Spanish, French and Portuguese.[6]
 Numenera Corebook | |
| Designer(s) | Monte Cook |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Monte Cook Games |
| Publication date | 2013 |
| Genre(s) | Science Fantasy |
| System(s) | Cypher System |
| Playing time | Varies |
| Random chance | Dice rolling |
| Skill(s) required | Role-playing, improvisation |
| Website | Numenera.com |
Game
Setting
Numenera is set on Earth approximately one billion years in the future. The setting is called "The Ninth World" due to the fact that eight civilizations have risen and fallen prior to the current era.[7]
Character creation
Character creation has been simplified by having players fill in the blanks to the statement:
- "I am a __________ __________ who _________s."
- The first blank, the adjective in the sentence, is filled in by a character's "Descriptor", a way to describe the character's strongest characteristic.
- The second blank, the noun of the sentence, is filled in by a character's "Type", which is a "Glaive" (a warrior type), a "Nano" (a technology adept type), or a "Jack" (as in jack-of-all-trades).
- The third blank, the verb of the sentence, is filled in by a character's "Focus", or what the character is most known for or their special talent.[8]
Technology
The name "Numenera" is a reference to the bits of technology left over from past civilizations. The word "numen" is a Latin root word meaning a "pervading divine presence"[9] and "era" refers to the period (1 billion years in the future) in which this universe takes place. The world is utterly filled with "nanites" (the divine presence) that some beings in this universe can tap into and control. With a nod towards Clarke's Third Law, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic",[10] the setting treats technology with much the same approach as magic in a fantasy setting. The native tech level is roughly medieval.[11]
Launch
Numenera was launched via a Kickstarter campaign, that set a record for "most money raised for a tabletop role-playing game" at $517,255 by 4,658 backers,[12] surpassing the previous record set by the Kickstarter for Traveller 5th edition.[13] Originally intended just to fund the initial Core rulebook, the campaign more than doubled its fund goal within the first 24 hours.[14] "Stretch-goals" that were announced as the level of funding grew increased the output of products, ending up producing an entire game line.[15]
Numenera 2
Numenera 2 is a revision of the original game to increase emphasis on exploration, discovery, and building. It also incorporated a few revisions from the Cypher rule system that had been released subsequent to the original Numenera release. Numenera 2 also used a Kickstarter campaign for initial funding obtaining $845,258 from 4,185 backers. The campaign ran in Fall of 2017 with first deliverables scheduled for Summer of 2018. Numenera 2 has two core rule books titled, Numenera: Discovery and Numenera: Destiny.
Discovery is essentially a revision of the original Numenera core book. The Jack character type was substantially revised to be more distinctive compared to Nanos and Glaives. Also added are player intrusions, a mechanism allowing players to alter the environment by spending an experience point. Destiny is nearly completely new material offering three new character types: Arkus, Delve, and Wright, new descriptors and new foci. The book also emphasizes crafting along with community protection and development with these character types taking lead positions in such an endeavor. A major section on crafting mechanisms and a major section on communities are provided. The manner of running a community game can be described as treating the community as an NPC in the game with stats that the player characters enhance. New monsters, NPCs, and settings are also offered in the Destiny core book.
As part of the Numenera 2 Kickstarter campaign several other supplemental materials are scheduled for production. As of July, 2018 only the Numenera 2 core books had been released in PDF format for Kickstarter backers.
Products
Core books
| Title | Authors | Date | Pages | Formats | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Numenera Corebook | Monte Cook | August 14, 2013 | 416 | Print, Deluxe, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-00-1 |
| The main rulebook for the game | |||||
| Numenera: Discovery Corebook | Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell, & Sean K. Reynolds | October 17, 2018 | 416 | PDF, Print | ISBN 978-1-939979-78-0 |
| The main rulebook for the game, revised | |||||
| Numenera: Destiny Corebook | Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell, & Sean K. Reynolds | October 17, 2018 | 416 | PDF, Print | ISBN 978-1-939979-77-3 |
| The auxiliary main rulebook for the game | |||||
| Numenera Player's Guide | Monte Cook | August 14, 2013 | 64 | Print, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-01-8 |
| Book focused on the player characters; subset of content from the Corebook | |||||
| Numenera 2 Player's Guide | Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell, & Sean K. Reynolds | October 31, 2018 | 96 | Print, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-76-6 |
| Book for Numenera 2 on the player characters; subset of content from Discovery & Destiny. | |||||
| The Ninth World Bestiary | Monte Cook & Bruce Cordell | February 2014 | 160 | Print, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-09-4 |
| A collection of Numenera creatures | |||||
| Numenera Character Options | Monte Cook | May 2014 | 96 | Print, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-14-8 |
| A collection of more descriptors and foci | |||||
| Technology Compendium: Sir Arthour's Guide to the Numenera | Monte Cook | August 2014 | 160 | Print, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-20-9 |
| A collection of Numenera cyphers, oddities and artifacts | |||||
| The Ninth World Guidebook | Monte Cook & Shanna Germain | January 2015 | 256 | Print, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-24-7 |
| A setting book about the Ninth World, its locations and denizens | |||||
| Numenera Character Options 2 | Monte Cook & Bruce Cordell | September 2016 | 96 | Print, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-55-1 |
| A collection introducing two new character types as well as more descriptors and foci | |||||
| Numenera Priests of the Aeons | Sean K. Reynolds | 2019 | 191 | Print, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-89-6 |
| Details on the Aeon Priesthood with new character options. | |||||
Adventures and Glimmers
Glimmers are short, PDF-only publications. There are also some adventure collections that have appeared in print:
| Title | Authors | Date | Pages | Formats | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Devil's Spine | Monte Cook | October 2013 | 96 | Print, PDF | ISBN 9781939979025 |
| Three 32 page adventures, "The Devil's Spine", "The Mechanized Tomb", "The Other Side of the Maelstrom" | |||||
| Weird Discoveries: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera | Monte Cook | April 2015 | 96 | Print, PDF | |
| Ten fully developed adventures that can be run with little preparation time. | |||||
| The Nightmare Switch | Monte Cook | August 14, 2013 | 32 | PDF Only | |
| A Kickstarter exclusive adventure | |||||
| Vortex | Monte Cook | September 4, 2013 | 18 | PDF Only | |
| The Numenera launch adventure at Gen Con 2013. | |||||
| Slaves of the Machine God | Bruce Cordell | 2019 | 144 | Print, PDF | ISBN 978-1-939979-86-5 |
| Campaign book. Two story arcs, each containing eight separate adventures. | |||||
Game aids
| Title | Date | Pages | Formats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Numenera GM Screen | August 14, 2013 | N/A | Print, PDF |
| Four-panel, landscape format vinyl GM's screen | |||
| Numenera XP Card Deck | August 14, 2013 | 30 cards | Print, PDF |
| Cards representing a character's XP points | |||
| Numenera Cypher Card Deck | August 14, 2013 | 120 cards | Print, PDF |
| Cards representing cypher Numenera available in game | |||
| Numenera Cypher Card Deck 2 | 2014 | 120 cards | Print, PDF |
| Cards representing cypher Numenera available in game | |||
| Numenera Creature Card Deck | February 2014 | 100 cards | Print, PDF |
| Cards representing Numenera creatures | |||
| Numenera Cypher Chest | 2014 | 250 cards | |
| Contains the XP, Cypher and Creature decks. | |||
| Numenera Character Sheets | 2014 | 104 (print) | Print, PDF |
| Blank character sheets and a character generation walkthrough. | |||
Fiction
| Title | Authors | Date | Pages | Formats | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Amber Monolith | Monte Cook | August 2012 | 18 | PDF Only | |
| Introductory short story to the Numenera setting; included within the Corebook | |||||
| Tales from the Ninth World | Monte Cook | June 2013 | 79 | epub, mobi, PDF | |
| Collection of short stories set in the Numenera setting | |||||
| The Poison Eater | Shanna Germain | January 2017 | 320 | epub, mobi, print | ISBN 978-0857666352 |
| The first full-length novel set in the Numenera setting | |||||
Related products
There have been several announced tie-ins to the brand:
- Thunderstone Advance: Numenera by AEG, an expansion to the Thunderstone deck-building card game, set in the world of Numenera.[16]
- Torment: Tides of Numenera by inXile, a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment by Interplay.[17] This computer game was also launched by Kickstarter and was itself a record setter for Kickstarter, being the fastest to $1 million up to that time.
- Reaper Miniatures released a boxed set of 28-mm scale miniature figures for Numenera.[18]
Awards
Awards Numenera products have received include:[19]
- 2014 ENnie Award silver:
- Best Game: Numenera Corebook
- Best Interior Art: Numenera Corebook
- Best Cartography: Numenera Corebook
- Best Monster or Adversary: The Ninth World Bestiary
- Best Podcast: Numenera: The Signal
- 2014 ENnie Award gold:
- Product of the Year: Numenera Corebook
- Best Setting: Numenera Corebook
- Best Writing: Numenera Corebook
- Best Production Values: Numenera Corebook
- Best Aid or Accessory: Numenera Creature Deck
- 2014 Origins Award:
- Best New Roleplaying Game: Numenera
References
- Webb, Travis. (4 May 2013). "Tylerpaper.com: Kickstarted; "Crowdfunding" continues to change face of gaming". Retrieved 15 May 2013.
- "Nerdluster: Numenera RPG Kickstarter". 14 August 2012. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
- "Tech2: Monte Cook GenCon Panel". 19 August 2013. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
- "Announcing the Numenera box set".
- "Crowdfunding campaign for German translation of the corebook".
- "Crowdfunding campaign for Brazilian Portuguese translation of the corebook".
- "Transmissions from the Ninth World:A Billion Years in the Future!". Retrieved 15 May 2013.
- "Transmissions from the Ninth World:Creative Characters!". Retrieved 15 May 2013.
- http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/numen
- "The Sorcerer of Rhiannon", Astounding February 1942, p. 39.
- "Transmissions from the Ninth World:Eponymous". Retrieved 15 May 2013.
- "Kickstarter "Discover / Games / Most Funded"". Archived from the original on 30 April 2013. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
- "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-04-30. Retrieved 2013-04-24.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- "KickTraq: Numenera Pledges & Backers by Day".
- "Rich Howard: Numenera".
- "Thunderstone Numenera: Two Games Enter, One Game Leaves". Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
- "Kickstarter: Torment:Tides of Numenera".
- "Reaper Miniatures: Numenera". Archived from the original on 15 December 2013. Retrieved 15 December 2013.
- "Official award list".