Jolly Green Giant

Five years ago, a great structure of translucent green crystal thrust itself up, or was expelled, out of the earth. In doing so, it smashed its way through a part of the city of Ballarad. The inhabitants of the city were in shock, but that changed over time. Some simply accepted its presence as part of the city and some became fascinated by it—especially once entrances were discovered in its side, whilst many saw it as an opportunity to make a living catering to the thousands who came to the city, wanting to explore the ruin. The ruin, just one more from the past Eight Worlds, became known as the Jade Colossus, and its reputation grew as discoveries were made by those venturing inside its labyrinth of tunnels, corridors, shafts, rooms, vaults, and more. Void Miners search the Jade Colossus for the mysterious, greenish-black Midnight Stones containing void energy that does not always obey the laws of physics—they can power other Cyphers (or drain them), they might contain a secret, they can heal a user, and they can even alter or mutate a user… They can also temporarily energise the great artefacts that can be found within the Jade Colossus. The Mouth of Exaltation is a giant, ten feet diameter mouth that constantly utters a stream of arbitrary verbiage—numbers, names, recipes, repair instructions, phrases, and terms—in a variety of languages known and unknown, and all seemingly answers to questions. The Hand of Fury is ten feet high and rotates through a series of gestures which appear to be fighting techniques, but could be more. The Eye of Transcendence is nine feet in diameter and looks into the viewer as much as the viewer looks into it, giving glimpses of the past, the present, and the future, granting knowledge, and even enhancing the intellect, but beware it blinking, for when its vision disappears, so do the viewers. These are the only known artefacts of the Jade Colossus, and they are closely guarded and watched over, whilst much of the rest of the structure remains unexplored.

Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds is published by Monte Cook Games and is a campaign supplement for Numenera. Specifically, it is written for use with the first edition of Numenera, but apart from page references, it is quite easy to run it using the second edition of Numenera Discovery and Numenera Destiny. As a supplement it does things. The first is to provide a campaign starter and setting that the Game Master can run in which the Player Characters explore a relatively recently appeared prior-world ruin and not encounter some of its already discovered mysteries and secrets, but go delving for more. For this, it provides new character options, either to be used at the start of a campaign or adopted later in the campaign as the Player Characters explore the Jade Colossus; details the city of Ballarad, its locations and inhabitants and factions, and their motivations; plot seeds designed to draw the Player Characters into exploring the Jade Colossus; and lastly, the major locations discovered within the Jade Colossus and the wonders and dangers of examining them. The second consists of descriptions of ten other great prior-world ruins that the Game Master can develop herself, and lastly, the ‘Numenera Ruin Mapping Engine’. The latter is a set of tables designed to help the Game Master map the interior of prior-world ruins, whether that is Jade Colossus, one of the other ten prior-world ruins described in Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds, or one of the Game Master’s own devising.

There is good advice on to use Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds, whether as campaign starter or a location to visit and explore, and several suggestions—or ‘tall tales’—as what the Jade Colossus actually is, all of them theories and ideas told and discussed by the inhabitants of Ballarad. These include the various body parts having been separated and the Jade Colossus used as a prison or that they are actually the first of several, multiple body parts not yet discovered, because the Jade Colossus is a factory that manufactures them. There are rumours too as what the known body parts are. Twenty campaign threads, from a young Aeon priest wanting to collect Midnight Stones to blast an easier way into the Jade Colossus rather than using an entrance controlled by one of the factions to a disagreement between a faction and Ballarad over whether or not to bring a disarticulated limb artefact out of the Jade Colossus to be the centrepiece of Emergence Day, the annual celebration of its appearance. These can be used to both start a campaign or worked into an existing campaign, giving the Player Characters multiple and ongoing reasons to interact with the people of Ballarad and explore the Jade Colossus. Combine these with the handful of opening scenes and the Game Master numerous options for opening set-ups.

If the weirdness of the artefacts within the Jade Colossus is not enough, the new foci for the Player Character is where is really gets weird. ‘Delved Too Deeply’ connects the Player Character to the void energy of the Jade Colossus, coiling underneath his skin, but leaves him unable to withstand any light; ‘Has Three Hands’ connects the Player Character to the Hand of Fury and gives him an extra hand, separate to his body, able to operate at his direction and perform various functions; ‘Speaks in Exaltation’ is gained by a Player Character after being humbled by the Mouth of Exaltation and grants him an extra mouth, that will sometimes speak for him, sometimes not; and ‘Taps the Void’ connects the Player Character to the Midnight Stones to enhance his armour, speed, and more. Whether taken at the beginning of a campaign or later, all four tie the Player Characters into the setting.

Both the city of Ballarad and the two factions that feud over access and control of the Jade Colossus are described in some detail. The Heritors are found across the Ninth World and seek to exploit prior-world ruins for betterment of society, but many see them as mere scavengers and thieves, whilst the Jade Protectors are a local group and want to keep the Jade Colossus safe from exploitation. Both are provided as employers and potential antagonists, but also organisations that the Player Characters can join. In comparison, the only parts of the Jade Colossus are fully detailed. They include ‘Wrenna’s Way’, a well known route to the Mouth of Exaltation mapped by a now missing explorer, all three sites of the artefacts, and the immediate rooms and corridors around them. Given that the Jade Colossus is the eponymous and primary focus of the supplement, this does not quite feel enough, but detailing the whole of the Jade Colossus is not the aim of the supplement.

Instead of detailing the whole of the Jade Colossus, what Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds instead gives the Game Master is the ‘Numenera Ruin Mapping Engine’. Linking off an exit in an already detailed location, such as ‘Wrenna’s Way’ or the area around the Mouth of Exaltation, the tables can be rolled on to determine main features, corridors, and rooms and their size, shape, and features—there are two lengthy tables for the latter. Further tables expand on the main features, so that the Game Master can create more detailed Abhuman colonies, accessways, energy discharges, explorer situations (or encounters), integrated machines, matter leaks, vaults and their contents, and more. Some adjustment is required to use the tables for other prior-world ruins, but these tables will very effectively expand the Jade Colossus and create adventure spaces for the Player Characters to explore.

Besides detailing the Jade Colossus itself, the supplement also describes ten other prior-world ruins of the Ninth World. They include the ‘Changing Road’, a cylindrical interdimensional corridor of varying width and character that potentially has exits everywhere; the ‘Dead City’ is an ancient settlement rendered uninhabitable by random shifts in gravity; and the ‘Fissure of the Crystal Angel’ is a wide chasm spanned by a transparent synth bridge and home to the entity known as the Crystal Angel who appears above the bridge to perform wondrous music at the apogee of a series of concentric tracks that it constantly rides. Some come with notes on how to use the ‘Numenera Ruin Mapping Engine’ with, for example, the locations of the ‘Changing Road’ only have one exit and that is always down the corridor, whilst the corridors and tunnels of the ‘Dead City’ should be renamed streets and roads. Any one of the ten prior-world ruins could easily be added to a campaign, but all require development to be fully usable.

Physically, Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds is very well presented as you would expect for a Monte Cook Games’ book. The book is engagingly written, the artwork is excellent, and the sidebars are effectively used to provide extra information, links, and stats.

If there are any issues with Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds, they are minor. One is that the supplement does not give the complete guide to the Jade Colossus and there is no beginning, middle, and end to its exploration. Yet it is not designed to be a complete adventure or campaign, a ‘techno-dungeon’ if you will, but a starter-kit that the Game Master can use to drive a campaign or simply have her Player Characters visit. Another is that there is no definitive explanation of what the Jade Colossus actually is, but again that comes back to the toolkit nature of the supplement. It is up to the Game Master to decide what the core mystery of the Jade Colossus is or if she actually wants to decide what it is. Even then, the Player Characters may never even discover what it might be or even want. Discovering some of its secrets might be enough.

Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds is several things. An introduction to prior-world ruins in Numenera, a description of one of these prior-world ruins and the town it dominates, a campaign starter, a location to add to a campaign, and a toolkit to generate the insides of prior-world ruins, whether those mentioned in the book, or one that the Game Master creates. It has an amazing versatility and provides the Game Master with everything to get started with all that the supplement is designed to do, which is, to delve into the future dungeons of the past.