We have some great insight into Numenera types from Shanna and Sean, so grab your favorite Ninth World brew and read on!
One significant change in the new Cypher is that we sped up and simplified character creation by giving each type three specific abilities, instead of making you choose from a list of options. As we started updating the six types from Numenera Discovery and Destiny (Arkus, Delve, Glaive, Jack, Nano, and Wright) in the new Cypher rules, this led to some interesting design choices. This design is an early draft and may change as we work on the rest of the book, but here’s a peek under the hood at what we’re thinking so far.
Glaive:
The word “glaive” is what people of the Ninth World call an elite warrior. We wanted the iconic Glaive type to be familiar with all kinds of armor, excellent with weapons (training in one kind or category of weapon; +1 damage with either melee or ranged weapons), and dangerous when wounded (gaining a free level of Effort if they have a certain number of wounds). But there are also many glaive-style types in the Cypher Character Rulebook that are appropriate for the Ninth World, like the Archer, Axe Fighter, Monk, and Swashbuckler. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel and make new versions of those, all they need is a little update about inabilities in the three numenera skills and they’re ready to go.
Nano:
Nanos are the characters who wield the strangest powers of the numenera. In this case, we’re including two nano-style types, called the Nano and the Aeon Priest. You read that correctly, you can start as a PC who is already a member of the Order of Truth—after all, in a fantasy game you can play a cleric who is already a member of an organized religion or a noble who belongs to an established influential family, so it’s okay if your character concept is that you’re already an Aeon Priest. Both of these types have slightly different abilities. Also, you get to choose which one of the three numenera skills you’re trained in, instead of defaulting to being trained in understanding numenera and having inabilities in the other two.
Jack:
Characters known as Jacks have a really diverse selection of abilities—they’re the “jack of all trades,” after all. For this type, we had a hard time paring that selection down to a specific set of three. After all, some jacks are slick talkers, some are sneaky and hard to kill, and some are especially dangerous in combat, and we don’t want someone who wants to play one kind of jack to get shoehorned into a different theme. So we made three different kinds of jacks—the Slyjack who changes their face and can hide things, the Spiderjack who is especially stealthy and good at overcoming obstacles, and the Shukkerjack who uses poisons and is dangerous when wounded. All three of these kinds of jacks have the flex skill, too, so they’re adaptable to many circumstances. (And like the many kinds of glaives, you could still choose a type like Burglar or Rogue, add in the numenera inabilities, and be ready to explore the Ninth World.)
Arkus, Delve, and Wright:
There are precedents for all three of these kinds of characters in the Cypher Character Rulebook, and we’ve built a custom Ninth World version of each of them that really captures the gist of what they’re all about. And for the Delve and Wright, they’re like the Nano and Aeon Priest—you can choose which of the three numenera skills is your good one.
We’re also going to reiterate to the player and the GM that it’s okay to swap some abilities between types so you can play the character you want to play. For example, if you like the special abilities of the Archer and the “dangerous when wounded” Glaive ability, the GM can let you mix and match a bit. Plus, there are some miscellaneous abilities that haven’t yet landed in a particular type—these might end up on bonus list of abilities that any character can take at tier 1, perhaps by swapping out a type or focus ability or in exchange for something else. We’re still in the early stages and expect to experiment a bit before we lock anything down. And we’re still a ways away from working on the setting content, including the Steadfast, the Beyond, the Datasphere, and other strange places!
The design team is turning their eye to the Ninth World…
We've had some fantastic team discussions about what we want Numenera to look and play like. They're incredibly fun conversations because Numenera was, of course, our very first game! So we've had more than a decade to play it ourselves, grow our game design skills, and listen to player input.
As of this week, Sean and Shanna are finishing up their current big projects—Invisible Sun's Electric Sun and Predation for Cypher respectively—and are turning their attention toward the upcoming Numenera goodies. Sean is jumping into the work of Numenera design, starting with new types. (You can see an early preview of them if you play the updated Shadewalker adventure at conventions this summer!) And Shanna is toying around with the solo game and is going to run the first team playtest for next month. Check back in future updates to hear how it goes!
We’d like to answer a great question we saw in the Comments section: Will this edition also encompass rules for settlements à la Destiny/prior editions of Numenera?
It's really early in the design process, so we haven’t had an in-depth conversation about the community rules in the new book, but it is likely that anything relating to that will interface with the Resource Points rules in the new version of Cypher.
We'll have lots more news and art to share going forward, as we dig deeper into the design process. Stay tuned! If you have a burning question to ask, feel free to drop it in the comments—and be sure to check future updates to see if it’s been answered!
The Numenera Libraries have been fulfilled!
As of last week, all three Numenera Libraries—the Adventure Collection, Sourcebook Collection, and Ninth World Collection—have been fulfilled to backers. That’s thousands of pages of content waiting for you!
If you backed at the THREE BOOKS level, expect to see the Adventure Collection waiting for you. If you backed AMAZING CAMPAIGNS, you’ll see the Adventure Collection and the Sourcebook Collection in your MCG Account. If you went ALL-IN, you’ve received all three collections—over 4,500 pages!
Redeeming Rewards
If you haven’t completed your pledge manager survey, please do so as soon as possible!
It’ll be a minute before we start shipping the new rewards we’re currently designing and producing—including Numenera, Beasts of the Amber Archive, The Catechism of Lore, Iadace, You Beast!, and all the other great things you’ve unlocked—but we’ll post regular updates to keep you in the loop.
Please pay attention when you get communications from us. Our emails and updates include critical information about your rewards. We pinky promise not to spam you with unnecessary messaging.
Every time a reward is ready for you, we’ll contact you 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, because you’ve already paid for it through this campaign), 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 thousands of backers getting rewards, it's amazing how many people will change their address over the fulfillment period.) You'll pay for shipping at that time.
Please pay 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.
In the following months, you should expect to hear from us every few weeks with an update detailing where we are on the design, production, and fulfillment process for each product, as well as anything Numenera-related our team is up to!
After nearly two days in Overtime Mode, this campaign has reached an amazing conclusion. What a fantastic result for Numenera and the storied Ninth World setting—the setting that launched MCG and is so very dear to our hearts. Thank you so much for your enthusiastic support!
We didn’t quite make it to 3900 backers, but in celebration of this amazing Overtime Mode result, we consider the stretch goal unlocked. We will make What the Bones Know, and it will be available as an add-on and added to the rewards of all backers at the ALL-IN pledge levels.
Please Read On!
We want to tell you a bit about where things go from here, but first let’s give credit where credit is due.
While this campaign has been running, Shanna has been laying the groundwork for all of these new products, while also finishing up her design work on the new edition of the awesome Predation setting. Bruce and Sean have been hard at work on titles such as Cypher Character Options and Electric Sun (for Invisible Sun), with Dominique editing this year’s Gen Con convention adventures while supporting this campaign.
Bear and Javier designed stickers, imaged new products, and handled graphic design for this campaign, while looking ahead toward future projects and working on layout for Come Hell or High Water and the Cypher Character Rulebook. With Teri, they’ve also been shepherding titles like The Darkest Woods and Make Your Statement through their production phases.
Jen, Olivia, and Kate have answered your questions (and are always available to provide support to you, our wonderful community). We also attended the GAMA Expo trade show during this campaign.
Tammie has been steering the ship and keeping the logistics moving through all the challenges of our era. And Charles planned and ran this campaign (and is writing this update!).
And as for Monte: he’s been working on another project, which we’ll tell you about in just a minute!
We are a small team, but we work hard to keep all of our products coming while also running this campaign. All of us thank you very much for backing Numenera. The Ninth World is so important to us, and we never lose sight of the fact that it was Numenera backers who, back in the original 2021 campaign, put enough faith in us to bring both this world and Monte Cook Games, the company, to life.
Now, here’s what to expect as we move forward from here. Please read it—and remember, there’s a big announcement at the bottom of this update!
The Immediate Future
Running a crowdfunding campaign is hard work, so we’re looking forward to getting a bit of rest. You may not hear from us for a little while, but don’t worry. Shanna’s been at work on the new Numenera for some time, so things are already underway. We’ll post updates any time there’s news share.
The Next Few Weeks
BackerKit began collecting pledges the moment the campaign closed. But it takes them a full two weeks to release those funds, along with the data on our backers.
In the meantime, we will get the pledge manager fully set up. The pledge manager gives us the information we need to fulfill your pledge and lets you manage your add-ons and make any pledge upgrades you want. We’ll notify you when we open the pledge manager, which should be in about three weeks. Please look out for, and respond to, that notification!
The Next Few Months
Once you’ve completed the pledge manager survey, we won’t need anything else from you until it’s time to start fulfilling rewards. We’ll be busy making Numenera, Beasts of the Amber Archive, The Catechism of Lore, Iadace, You Beast!, and all the other great things you’ve unlocked, for many months. We’ll post regular updates, but if you don’t hear anything for a few weeks, don’t fret.
At the same time, please pay attention when you do get communications from us. Our emails and updates include critical information about your rewards.
When Your Rewards Ship
Every time a reward is ready for you, we’ll contact you 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, because you’ve already paid for it through this campaign), 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 thousands of backers getting rewards, it's amazing how many people will change their address over the fulfillment period.) You'll pay for shipping at that time.
Please pay 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.
Thanks for your support! —Team MCG
And Now a Peek at What’s Next…
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. A Paladin in Hell.Ptolus. Dungeon-a-Day. The Darkest House. Monte is one of the most storied and successful dungeon designers in the history of RPGs—and you know he never creates anything without a cool twist!
Journey with us as Monte takes us back into the dungeon with Jewel in the Sky. Check it out!
It is now fifteen hours since its scheduled end time, and the Numenera: The Amber Archive campaign is still going strong—and racing toward another stretch goal. A continuous stream of new backers overnight has kept the campaign going in Overtime Mode!
(Overtime Mode is a BackerKit crowdfunding feature: the campaign doesn’t end until there’s a gap of 10 minutes between new pledges. So as long as those pledges trickle in at least once every 10 minutes, the campaign remains alive.)
We’re Closing in on the Solo Play Expansion!
Our final stretch goal is another new product we’d like to add to your rewards: What the Bones Know, an expansion for the solo-play RPG Iadace, You Beast. (You can find more details about this expansion in yesterday's update about it.)
Will we unlock it? We’re in striking distance, with well over 150 new backers joining the campaign since Overtime Mode started, and just about 100 left to go now. If you have a bit free time this Saturday, can you give the campaign a little love online, and help push it over the top? We have lots of shareable posts on our social media accounts!
We’ve reached the scheduled closing time for this campaign—but it’s not over yet!
BackerKit has a feature called Overtime Mode: as long as new pledges keep rolling in, the campaign remains open. It ends when only when we hit a 10-minute stretch with no new pledges.
How Long Can We Keep It Going?
In our last campaign, Overtime Mode ran for a full 24 hours, and attracted well over 300 additional backers. That was pretty extraordinary, so who knows how it will go this time? But the key thing is that Overtime Mode isn’t some rounding error—it can absolutely impact the campaign in big ways!
We’re currently working toward a stretch goal that unlocks a whole new product—What the Bones Know, an expansion for the Iadace, You Beast solo play RPG for Numenera. As long as we’re in Overtime Mode, we can still unlock this goal!
So please go out there, share this campaign, and help spread the word!
Here’s a NEW image you can right-click to download, then share (along with the link mymcg.info/numenera).
You can also find loads of sharable posts and images on MCG’s social media accounts:
