Decyphering Dionosaurs

One-hundred-and-fourteen years ago, the Time Machines screamed and self-destructed. In the process, they trapped twenty-thousand Commuters sixty-five million years in the past in the Cretaceous Period. Worse, at some point in the future, the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event will kill everyone and almost everything on the planet. In the century since the ‘Last Commute’, the survivors of the ‘Gre-Vakian c trials’ mission have adapted to their world, cut off from their homes in the twenty-fourth century and no longer able to rely upon their employers, the interstellar conglomerate, Space and Time, Interglobal (SATI). Their home, Grevakc, is spread out over two continents, Laramidia and Appalachia, divided by the Western Inner Sea, on what would be one day be the North American continent. They now breed dinosaurs, many people taking them as companions often controlled via cybernetic implants, whilst dinosaurs in the wild still remain a threat. A wide range of technology is used, a mix of that developed in the Cretaceous from leather, scales, fur, and bones, and future advances such as smart fluids, wetweave, piezotextiles, and more. Advanced arms, armour, and technology remain the province of SATI, suspected of holding caches in its bases across Grevakc, some of which are known, many of which are hidden. SATI dominates the few cities and many of the towns that have arisen since the ‘Last Commute’, its membership dominated by descendants of original SATI employees, working to maintain its grip on advanced technology whilst also trying to restore the ability to time travel and either go home or make contact with the corporation in the future. However, they opposed by the ‘Butterflies’, a guerrilla group, inspired by Ray Bradbury’s short story, ‘A Sound of Thunder.’, that is staunchly anti-technology and opposed to any use of time travel technology, working to ensure that Humanity in the Cretaceous Period dies out in the upcoming Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event and thus preventing them altering the evolutionary time path. A more recently founded organisation is the ‘Genesix Fellowship’, a religious group that openly preaches about its desire to find the ‘Garden of Eden’, seeing the destruction of time travel technology as God’s punishment for Humanity’s failure to find it, believing that the secret to its location can be found in dinosaur DNA, and knowing that when it is found, God will repair the time machines. One of the side effects of the destruction of the Time Travel machines—or perhaps the attempts by scientists to restore it—are ‘Time Anomalies’. Appearing as glitches or flickering mirages, they can last from a few hours to even years and are known to drop technologies, objects, and information from the future in the form of cyphers, artifacts, and remnants, and these are a steady supply of things from the future.

This is the set-up for Predation, a Science Fiction campaign involving dinosaurs, time travel, dinosaurs, cybernetics, dinosaurs, post-apocalypse, dinosaurs, and dinosaurs. Published by Monte Cook Games, it is a setting for use with Cypher System, first seen in Numenera in 2013. This is a setting which gives the players new character options, a new paradise to explore, secrets to discover, potentially a mystery to solve, and most fun of all, dinosaur companions! Or of course, it could be used as a means to add dinosaurs to other Cypher System roleplaying games and settings—in fact, The Way of the Dinosaur: Converting Predation for Numenera and The Strange is a complete guide to that—and it could be used as world that the Player Characters or ‘Recursors’ could visit in The Strange. In general though, this is a setting that stands alone, primarily because it presents a world that that is genuinely different and original.

In terms of character options, Predation makes multiple changes to what a player can play, whilst still adhering to the standard format that the Cypher System uses describe and encapsulate a Player Character. This is “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a Descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. There are four Types—Karn, Tec, Pteryx, and Osteon. These roughly equate to the Warrior, Adept, and Explorer respectively, whilst the Osteon fulfils the social role. Plus, unlike the Adept, the Tec deploys science rather than magic. The Karn is also capable of fighting dinosaurs as well as other threats. There are only five now Descriptors—‘Daring’, ‘Empirical’, ‘Savage’, ‘Slick’, and ‘Volcanic’. These are mostly self-explanatory and it is easy to tie these to particular Types, such as an Empirical Tec, a Slick Osteon, or a Daring Pteryx. The exception is ‘Volcanic’, meaning a character who bides his time and then acts big or explosively, giving up actions to inflict greater damage when he does attack, but is always slow to act.

Similarly, there are four new Foci. These are ‘Plays God’, ‘Predates’, ‘Self-Evolves’, and ‘Walks with Dinosaurs’. ‘Plays God’ means that the Player Character employs genetics and cloning to grow, develop, and engineer dinosaurs; ‘Predates’ means he grows claws and teeth and more to hunt and fight more like a dinosaur; ‘Self-Evolves’ enables him to make a better version of himself through bioengineering and cybernetics; and ‘Walks with Dinosaurs’ means that he prefers the company of dinosaurs and can communicate with them. In addition to a list of Foci appropriate to the setting, Predation lists several Foci that are problematic and ways around them. For example, ‘Builds Cyborgs’ replaces ‘Builds Robots’ because there are no robots in the setting (they did not travel well from the future); ‘Moves Like a Raptor’ replaces ‘Moves Like a Cat’ as there are no cats—traditional pets—in the setting; and ‘Sees Through Time’ is adjusted to take account of the Time Anomalies so that a Player Character can see through time rather than travel through time.

The ‘Walks with Dinosaurs’ Focus highlights another feature of the Predation setting. Effectively, it effectively replaces the ‘Control Beasts’ Focus. Beasts, and dinosaurs in particular, play a big role in the setting and further, every Player Character has a dinosaur companion. This can be a Tyrannosaur, Raptor, Ornithomimid, Ceratopsian and Ankylosaur, Pterosaur, or even an Early Mammal type and stats and abilities which will develop as a Player Character does. Each has a personality trait, like Clever, Curious, or Intimidating, which grants their Player Character an asset when attempting certain tasks, but comes with its downsides too. For example, a Timid Companion grants an asset on all stealth actions, but is likely to runaway and hide from danger. The dinosaur companion is treated like another Player Character rather than an NPC, but instead of it being roleplayed by the player whose character it is companion, it is roleplayed by the player to his left. So every dinosaur companion is a player character, but roleplayed by someone else.

This has its challenges. It is not a new idea, originally appearing in White Wolf’s Wraith: The Oblivion with another player roleplaying a Player Character’s dark side, his Shadow, and then seen more recently with John Wick’s WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha. It doubles the number of Player Characters at the table, though of course, the actual Player Characters dominate play with their dinosaur companions getting time in the spotlight. A dinosaur companion though does not simply take orders as if it is an adjunct to the Player Character, but instead a player must interact with the player roleplaying his dinosaur companion and he must roll to see whether his dinosaur companion agrees to his request. This need not be for every action and it does get easier as both Player Character and dinosaur companion gain experience. This changes some of the dynamic around the table and increases the amount of extra play and effort that a player has to put into the game. Not only is he roleplaying his character and understanding what he is capable of, he has to roleplay and understand what another Player Character’s dinosaur companion is capable of, he needs to know what his own character’s dinosaur companion is capable of. Plus, the need to persuade a dinosaur companion to act can slow play. The last challenge is that this is a style of play rarely seen and unfamiliar to most roleplayers and, even there is an example of it in play, it will take some adjusting to.

In terms of equipment, Predation is underwhelming. There is a good discussion of the materials available, a mixture of future technology brought from the future and developed since as well as that adapted from what can be harvested from the now. The future technology includes smart fluid and piezotextiles, wetweave produced from genetically modified orb weaver spiders, and solarium, an artificial biofilm that absorbs solar energy to heal itself, whilst shrilk film is made from shrimp shells and spidersilk proteins to create, a thin, clear material as strong as aluminium , but biodegradable. Anything made from furs, scales, and leather is cheap and easy to find, but advanced technology can be very expensive, especially if it came from the future. Included are body upgrades, augments, and enhancements, such as nightvision, cybernetic limbs, and cybernetic limb or tail, but the list at just five entries is disappointingly short. The Game Master may want to consult the Cypher System’s Cyberpunk supplement, Neon Rain, for further ideas. Another issue is that the gear is a bit bland when it really could have done with some branding.

Cyphers, artifacts, and remnants are also something that is changed for the Predation. Cyphers are vestigial remnants of far-future technologies, sciences, and information storage systems that have slipped into the past and can be found in the Time Anomalies. When he walks through a Time Anomaly, Cyphers map themselves onto the Player Character’s DNA and when activated erase themselves afterwards. For example, a ‘Biological Plait’ releases a compound that weaves itself into the user’s blood, brain, and musculature for effects such as temporally increasing his Might, Speed, or Intellect Pool, training him in a skill, and so on. ‘Dinosenses’ enhances his senses when it comes to dinosaurs granting an asset when studying, understanding, and communicating with dinosaurs. ‘Timeseeker’ enables the use to detect Time Anomalies nearby, determine their intensity, and know how they will last. Artefacts can appear with greater abilities, but also have limited use and same can appear that not working at all. Many carry the SATI logo, which marks them as company property, but if not in the possession of a SATI employee, then such marks will be erased. Examples include the ‘Bibliotheca’, a disk that when embedded under the skin enables the user to download a digital book that works as an asset on an area of knowledge for twenty-four hours; ‘Microbial Mood Ring’ which reads the user’s gut bacteria and changes colour if there is an environmental hazard nearby; and a ‘Sky Map’ that provides an augmented reality version of the night sky to grant an asset when predicting the weather, navigating the world, and astronomy.

Remnants are items spat out by the Time Anomalies that have no actual game effect or use as they are neither weapons, armour, or devices. In general, they can be anything from a ‘Broken mug with MARS LANDING ’21 written on it in English’ to a ‘Hollow rubber creature that squeaks when compressed’. They can be sold, but in the main, they enforce the idea that not everything coming out of the Time Anomalies is useful, simply adding flavour and detail to the setting rather than anything else.

The setting of Predation is richly detailed with a good overview, and a gazetteer that covers both Laramidia and Appalachia, its factions and its secrets, societies, and more. Of course, in terms of the setting, what we are really here for the dinosaurs. The bestiary describes many new additions, many of which have or can have upgrades like physical armour, sharper claws, electrode brainwiring, subvocal speech systems, and even cybernetic limbs. In general, the Game Master will probably want to refer to the Cypher System core rulebook for dinosaurs unaugmented, as most here do have some cybernetics or have been genetically altered or bred. The Acroplocerex (ankylosaurus or Euoplocephalus) is typically heavily armoured with hydraulic armour to serve in SATI convoys; the Argoraptor, trained to operate in packs by SATI; Nerezza are gliding raptors using as scouts and silent thieves; Supersauri, composite dinosuars derived from numerous genetic materials and planned as SATI superweapons, but are fearsome whether in the wild or under control; and Teslasaurus, ankylosaurs injected with electric eel genetic materials in the hope of creating docile bioelectrogenesis hosts to biologically power base facilities, but made aggressive by the process and they are used for mobile energy defence and offence. All of these dinosaurs reflect the changes in scientific knowledge about them, so that many are brightly coloured and have feathers. This does not mean that they are strictly scientifically accurate, and they do not need to be, the point being that this is a Science Fiction roleplaying setting and the nod to scientific accuracy is still present. Combine these with dinosaur entries from the Cypher System core rulebook and the Cypher System Bestiary and the Game Master has a lot to play with.

The advice for the Game Master covers the nature of time travel in the setting and how strong the Science Fiction should be, as well as giving some campaign seeds in addition to the ‘Reading the Bones’ boxed sections with gives numerous adventure seeds. It makes clear that the setting focuses primarily on mission-based play rather than simple exploration as in other Cypher System settings. The advice also expands greatly upon the secrets of the setting as they pertain to SATI—something not accorded to ‘Butterflies’ and the ‘Genesix Fellowship’, although SATI and what its plans were for the ‘Gre-Vakian c trials’ mission underpin the setting as a whole, whereas the other two factions are more straightforward. However, the explanation given in ‘SATI’S Big Mystery: A Guide For GMs’ only gives part of the mystery as definitive, leaving parts of it for the Game Master to decide. The supplement makes clear that the ramifications of whatever discoveries the Player Characters make—and there are big ramifications—lie outside the scope of Predation. However, it leaves the setting with big questions that the Game Master is very likely going to have to answer in the long term because they are questions that the players and their characters are going to ask and want answers to. Why did the Time Travel machines break down? What was the purpose of the ‘Gre-Vakian c trials’ mission? Can the Time Machines be repaired? Can the people of Grevakc escape to the future and what happens if they do? Or is Grevakc doomed to be destroyed by the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event and become lost footnote in history like the Roanoke colony? In some ways, what Predation really describes is a richly detailed campaign set-up with the endgame very much in the Game Master’s hands.

Lastly, the Game Master is given an introductory adventure, ‘Promised Land’. It takes place in a town best known for its dinosaur wrestling and has the Player Characters looking for a top-ranking dino-wrestler for a mutual friend of theirs. The clues lead them out into the nearby jungle and the discovery of a Time Anomaly and other secrets. It is a decent scenario.

Physically, Predation is well written, well presented, and accessible. The artwork is as good as you would expect for a book from Monte Cook Games and the writing is engaging.

There is a lot about Predation that just makes you go, “That’s cool.” A great set-up of being trapped in the past, dinosaurs and dinosaur companions, augmented dinosaurs, and mysteries—big mysteries. Yet as enticing and as entertaining as this setting is, it is the big mysteries where it leaves the Game Master and her players wanting more. A sequel, a whole campaign, something that pushes the setting forwards towards the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event, but in the process gives answers and explanations and perhaps closure. Instead, it leaves the Game Master to really develop that and that is a lot of work and it might not lead to answers that everyone is happy with. (To be fair neither would a commercially published campaign, but it is less likely.) This makes Predation sound like a bad product, but it is definitely not. It has everything for the Game Master and her players to start playing and exploring the setting and potentially for the Game Master to write a campaign.

Predation is great setting. It is fresh and exciting and original. It is the Planetary Romance genre done in the past where the players and their characters get to have exciting adventures with dinosaurs and explore a verdant paradise. Whether there is hope or an end is ultimately up to the Game Master.

A Gaggle of Genres

One of the problems with generic roleplaying games is trying to work out quite what you can with them. The obvious answer is anything and everything, and whilst this is true, that might not be enough of an answer. Advice and tools which will help a Game Master do that anything and everything will always be useful. And whether it is GURPS, the HERO System, or Savage Worlds, there are a lot of supplements which address particular genres and settings. The Cypher System from Monte Cook Games is no exception. The Cypher System was introduced in 2013 with Numenera, the award-winning Science Fantasy roleplaying game of exploration and adventure in the very far future, which introduced new ideas in terms of roleplaying, such as player-facing mechanics and Game Master Intrusions, a new way of narratively increasing tension and awarding Experience Points. It also offered numerous options in terms of Player Characters, expressed in a way that clearly described what each did and which was also exciting. Since it first appeared, it has gone on to cover numerous different genres and even be used as the rules for roleplaying games based on a podcast or two. For example, High Noon at Midnight explores the Wild West, Neon Rain explores the Cyberpunk genre, and Stay Alive! dives into the horror genre. And this in addition to specific settings within these genres.

Expanded Worlds provides numerous options for Player Characters, an introduction to numerous genres, and a range of monsters, creatures, and NPCs that work with the previously explored genres. For Player Characters, there is a selection of new Descriptors and Foci. These fit the Cypher System’s means of defining a Player Character with the statement, “I am an adjective noun who verbs.” The noun is the Player Character’s Type, the adjective is a Descriptor which describes the character, and the verb is the Focus, or what the character does. For example, using the new Descriptors and Foci in Expanded Worlds enables player to create characters such as “I am a Meddlesome Adept who Changes Shape”, “I am Lawful Warrior who Collects Bounties”, “I am an Earnest Speaker who Governs”, and “I am a Chaotic Explorer who Drives Like a Maniac”. Several have extra details. For example, ‘Fell Through A Rabbit Hole’ has a ‘Nonsense’ table rolled on to create a random effect drawn from the surreal realm the character is connected to, such as ‘Unexpected Trapdoor’ or ‘Because I Said So’, that the player can then choose spend Intellect points to use. The Foci are a mix of the generic and the genre-specific. For example, ‘Descends from Nobility’, ‘Explores’, and ‘Figures Things Out’ veer towards the generic, useable in any setting, whilst ‘Hacks the Network’, ‘Is Haunted by Moths’, ‘Keeps a Magical Ally’, ‘Resides in Silicon’, and ‘Sailed Beneath the Jolly Roger’ have stronger or more specific requirement in terms of their setting and genre. The supplement does list the Foci by suggested genre. Nevertheless, there are a lot of Foci here and it is easy to go through them and package them into genres and settings of the Game Master’s own design.

Expanded Worlds explores seven genres across two chapters. The Fantastical Genres consist of ‘Post Apocalyptic’, ‘Mythological’, ‘Fairy Tale’, and ‘Childhood Adventure’, whilst the Gritty Genres consist of ‘Historical’, ‘Crime and Espionage’, and ‘Hard Science Fiction’. In each case, there is an overview of the genre, which includes suggestions as to what the players and Game Master might like to read or what, guidance on both creating and running the genre, followed by technical details that list threats, character types, Foci, and creatures all appropriate to the genre. Extras then add details specific to the genre. For the Post Apocalyptic genre this is a guide to scavenging, tables of junk and useful stuff, suggested artefacts like Enviroscanner and the Military Exoskeleton, and two Racial Descriptors in the form of the Morlock and Roach. For the Fairy Tale genre, it discusses the nature of Fairie, adds ‘Fairy Tale Wonders’ and ‘Fairy Artifact Quirk’ tables, and the Changeling Racial Descriptor. Notably, the ‘Childhood Adventure’ chapter gives an optional rule for playing young characters in the Cypher System without resorting to the Young Descriptor and so retaining flexibility in terms of options for the Player Characters. Of the four entries in the Fantastical Genres section, the ‘Mythological’ chapter feels just a bit too small, just not capable of handling its big subject. The inclusion of the Spear of Fate, Sword of Death, and Thunderbolt and Hellborn and Giant Racial Descriptors just hint at the possibility of the genre and really do leave the reader wanting more.

If the ‘Mythological’ chapter feels all too small for its subject matter, then too many of the entries in the ‘Gritty Genres’ section are all broad for what they are trying to cover. The ‘Historical’ genre chapter races through thousands of years of history in three pages and just cannot do it justice. The thumbnail descriptions of the different periods are just enough to intrigue the reader, but without helping in terms of what to read next or how to set adventures there. There is mention of some books, but simply not enough. Oddly, the ‘Crime and Espionage’ chapter works in one way, but not another, the problem being that it encompasses two different genres in one. What this means is that whilst all of the technical details—suggested character types, Foci, creatures and NPCs, and items—work with both genres, the advice does not as it means it is just too broad. Fortunately, the ‘Hard Science Fiction’ chapter more than makes up for deficiencies of the previous two chapters. Whether covering the effects of gravity on combat, survival in the vacuum of space, the unlikelihood of the Player Characters having their own spaceship, and so on, the advice here is to the point and useful.

For the Game Master, there is a selection of creatures and NPCs. Many of the creatures will work across more than one of the genres detailed in Expanded Worlds. For example, the Bogeyman and the Fairy can be used in the Fairy Tale and Childhood Adventure genres. Some genres are better supported than others. The ‘Mythological’ genre is particularly well supported with the Cambion, Cerberus, Hydra, Minotaur, Satyr, and Typhon, and similarly, the ‘Post Apocalyptic’ genre is solidly supported with the Abomination, Devolved, Fusion Hound, Gamma Worm, Glowing Roach, and Mad Creation. There are oddities though, such as the Killer Clown and the Night Gaunt, which seem to have wandered in from other genres. The most entertaining entries are the Erlking, an animated morass of woodland debris which loves to hunt and eat children, a former fairy noble stripped of his title and lands and exiled into the plant body, and the Shoe Thief, which hides under the bed and in other dark places in the home stealing single shoes and socks, pens and paperclips, gathering in groups and building up the courage to steal books, pets, and your little brother! The NPC descriptions are drier in comparison, serviceable and functional rather than inspiring.

Physically, Expanded Worlds is decently written and well written. The illustrations are excellent.

Expanded Worlds is hit and miss in terms of its content. Some of its genre write-ups are woefully underwritten because conceptually, there is too much to write about and not enough space to do it in, meaning that the book cannot do them justice. Indeed, it would take whole supplements the size of Expanded Worlds to do any one of its genres proper justice—and it has. Yet at their best, some of the write-ups do work as solid introductions to their respective genres and as introductions they are given good support in terms of playable, useful content. In that, the Fantastical Genres are better treated than the Gritty Genres, and both are given solid support by the Foci and Descriptors. Expanded Worlds is a good, but not perfect introduction to a variety of genres for the Cypher System.

Community & Coup D’état

Slaves of the Machine God is not one, but two campaigns for Numenera, the Science Fantasy roleplaying game of exploration and adventure published by Monte Cook Games, set billions of years into the future after multiple, highly technological and advanced civilisations have risen and fallen. It can be played through in one, not two, but three ways. The first is to play each campaign separately. The second is to play the individual parts of either campaign as separate scenarios that the Game Master can drop into her campaign. The second is play both campaigns not separately, but together as an interlocking whole, switching back and forth between the chapters in each campaign. The first campaign is ‘Relics of the Machine’, a more typical adventure campaign for use with Numenera Discovery, the first of the core rules for the second edition of the Numenera, which presents the setting of the Ninth World with everything needed to play including character creation, rules, Cyphers, a bestiary, advice for the Game Master, and some ready-to-pay scenarios. The second campaign is ‘Amber Keep’, a community building, development, and defence campaign for use with Numenera Destiny, the second of the core rules for the second edition of the Numenera, which expands the setting with new Player Character archetypes, salvaging and crafting rules, numenera, scenarios, and more, all designed to facilitate campaign play in which charting the future of the Ninth World is part of that play.

Slaves of the Machine God includes notes for the Game Master on running the campaigns together, separately, piecemeal, or even as a shortened version. A flowchart shows the order in which the parts of the two campaigns should be run together. If run together, the combined campaigns will take the Player Characters from Tier 1 all the way up to Tier 5, and that is without adding any adventures, although there is room between some of the chapters to do that. The setting is the Steadfast of the Ninth Age, the primary settled area, and so either part of Slaves of the Machine God is easy to slot into the Game Master’s own campaign. There are no specific Player Character requirements for either campaign. All three Character Types from Numenera Discovery—the Glaive, the Jack, and the Nano—all have abilities that work with Numenera Destiny and thus with the ‘Amber Keep’ campaign. Of the Character Types that will be useful from Numenera Destiny in the ‘Relics of the Machine’, the Delve is probably the most useful. Lastly, any Player Character able to interface or communicate with machinery, robots, and numenera, will also prove to be an asset.

‘Relics of the Machine’ requires a little set-up in that the Player Characters need to be friends with Radius, a mercenary with a metallic body, and done some work for the Amber Gleaners, a group of scholars and explorers. Radius remembers little of its background, but after an encounter with some mud-birds using a memory-stealing device, begins to recall some previously hidden memories. Following this a few weeks later, he disappears, and when they find him again, a Prophet of the Machine God is torturing him. She states that the Machine God is on the rise and seeks the loyalty of all robots and automata; that she has been instructed to find the Machine God’s ‘fallen angels’, each of whom has a divine key that will fully empower the Machine God; and that Radius is not the only one sought by the Prophet of the Machine God. The focus of the campaign moves to finding the other ‘fallen angels’, discover who or what Radius is and where it is from, and just what the Machine God and its minions are working towards. At the same time, other ‘fallen angels’ take an interest in Radius and Player Characters, but as the campaign progresses, together they will discover a strange society of hidden robots and automata that will be on the frontline when the Machine God does rise and the identities of the remaining ‘fallen angels’. Penultimately, they will learn the identity of the Machine God, Ciszan, and go in search of him on and in the Howling Pyramid.

The Howling Pyramid is where the campaign switches gear. Up until now, the Player Characters, accompanied by an increasingly grumpy Radius, have mostly been travelling back and forth from their base, often to far distant locations, to follow up on rumours and names. The Howling Pyramid is a massive pyramid floating and spinning in a black void, marked with deep, ravine-like striations and inverted natural laws in which sound imparts negative gravity and threatens to thrust anyone on the surface upwards and into the rough windstorms which whip across the upper surface. This is a weird and deadly dungeon—in true Numenera fashion—that will take multiple sessions to fully explore and for Radius to find its siblings before Ciszan can be confronted. There are multiple access points to the Howling Pyramid, but the starting point for the Player Characters’ exploration is likely to be decided randomly and the complete (or near complete) exploration of all five sides is likely to take at least three or four sessions in comparison to the one or two needed for the earlier chapters. Such a change of pace may well need some adjustment upon the part of the players given the speed of the earlier adventures.

One downside to the campaign is that it revolves around the actions of the NPC, Radius, and the Player Characters’ attachment to it. The players need to make that investment in it from the start and although that investment is strongly coupled with the imminent rise and threat of the Machine God as the campaign progresses, that need for investment never really lessens. That said, the campaign comes to close with not one, but two big clashes. Both are surprisingly personal and do not necessarily rely on combat prowess to overcome.

The other campaign, ‘Amber Keep’, also requires some set-up, though this is again, a connection to the explorers and scholars, the Amber Gleaners. It is a community-based campaign and like ‘Relics of the Machine’ before it, it consists of eight chapters. They are shorter than the chapters for ‘Relics of the Machine’ and in some cases, are less immediate, playing out over several months. At the start of ‘Amber Keep’, the Amber Gleaners ask the Player Characters to help set up a new settlement in the wilds. The campaign presents the Player Characters with opportunities to defend it—potentially against those who come looking for Radius if it settles in Amber Keep, deal with disasters natural and unnatural, confront ambition and nativism, and ultimately develop it, adding new facilities and buildings. One of the chapters specifically deals with the Player Characters getting involved in the development of the settlement over the course of several months. It would have been useful perhaps to be given some sign as what the settlement’s leaders want to see done or built, as that would added further opportunity for roleplaying. This being a campaign for Numenera, the threats to the settlement do get weirder as the campaign progresses, including needing to explore a mile-long tree floating freely in a pocket dimension and discovering a dangerous cloud chamber under the settlement site.

Of the two campaigns, ‘Amber Keep’ is the more flexible. In between its shorter chapters and the months-long when the Player Characters are engaged in long term problems, there is space for the Game Master to add her own content, whether that is to add short adventures or develop content based on what one or more of the Player Characters might want to do outside of either of the two campaigns. It also serves as change of pace from ‘Relics of the Machine’ campaign, not always necessarily relaxing, but different nonetheless and when the Game Master can show the effects of their actions in ‘Relics of the Machine’—one aspect of the campaign which could have been stronger. In addition, ‘Amber Keep’ gives the Game Master the opportunity to showcase the rules from Numenera Destiny and the players to try out the Character Types from that rulebook.

Physically, Slaves of the Machine God is generally well done, as you would for a book from Monte Cook Games. It does need a slight edit in places, though otherwise it is well organised and bookmarked, with references in the sidebars not only to other sections of the book, also Numenera Discovery and Numenera Destiny. The maps are in general, easy to use and read. The map of the Howling Pyramid is a notable exception, being murky and indistinct. Fortunately, a poster map is included of both it and another location, though not one of the Amber Keep settlement and its potential growth. In the long term, that would have been useful.

Although Slaves of the Machine God can be run piecemeal, it would be a shame to pull it apart, and to be honest, it would be almost as bad to run ‘Relics of the Machine’ and ‘Amber Keep’ separately. Both stand on their own as serviceable campaigns for the two modes of play in the second edition of Numenera, but together they are simply better, providing contrast in terms of both roleplaying and what the Player Characters are expected to do. Overall, Slaves of the Machine God is a solid combination of adventure and community roleplaying, showcasing the core play of both Numenera Discovery and Numenera Destiny.

Time & Tide

For three hundred years, the floating city of Naviri has been a beacon of comfort, co-operation, and community. Located in the shallow waters of a tropical lagoon, it consists of a number of large, permanent islands—or docks—as well as many floating ones, hence its nickname of the ‘Floating City’ or ‘Floating Islands of Naviri’, that together make up a warm and welcoming home under azure skies dotted with the fluffiest of white clouds. Despite their differences, numerous species live and work together in the city—Betalods, Chameleons, Crocs, Cuttlebeards, Frogs, Golfins, Humans, Iotas, Magnafrons, Nag’i, Salamanders, Turtles, and Tyros. Yet despite Naviri being a tropical paradise, it is sandwiched between two great threats. Behind it is the endless of expanse of the Droskani Desert, home to desert raiders and fiends, but also the grey-haired Human traders who make the twice annual journey from their home in Stoen on the far mountainous side of the continent to Naviri. Before it looms the Fold. A great storm that has been calcified into a glacier of apocalyptic weather and monsters. Naviri has always suffered from storms, but the city weathered them and the sea monsters that followed in their wake, protected by the Tidal Blades, elite guardians of the Floating Islands. For centuries, the Tidal Blades protected the city from both the storms and the monsters, as well as helping the community and helping to keep order. Fifteen years ago, the city was threatened by the biggest storm in recorded history. The Tidal Blades were no match for its ferocity or that of the monsters that invaded the reef. The city’s leaders asked the Tidal Blades to deploy an experimental piece of technology developed by Arcanists of the Citadel of Time called the Fold that would halt the storm and the sea monsters. Answering the call, in what became known as the Great Battle, the Tidal Blades successfully activated the Fold. It worked, but at a cost. The Fold stopped time. It trapped both storm and monsters in time, but also stopped the Tidal Blades in time. Now, the Fold has begun to weaken. Sea monsters are slipping through. How long until the Fold fails and who will protect the city now and then when it does? For there no Tidal Blades any longer…

This is the setting for two board games published by Druid City Games. In Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef, the heroes undertake a series of challenges across the island and in three arenas as part of the Tournament of Heroes in an attempt to be acclaimed one of the Tidal Blades. In its sequel, Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders, the Tidal Blades are entrusted with the Nexus, a device that will enable them to enter the Fold, unfreeze time, discover its secrets, and hopefully recuse the Tidal Blade heroes of the Great Battle. It is also the setting for Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game, published by Monte Cook Games. It is set roughly at the same time as Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef, but can be set before or after, and although mechanically different, the board game could be used to play out the Player Characters’ efforts to become the new Tidal Blades. Or that can be played as part of the roleplaying game, which suggests several paths—or story arcs—that a Player Character can participate in to eventually become a Tidal Blade. In addition to being a roleplaying game, along with its rules for creating Player Characters and playing the game, Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game provides details of the world, making it a gazetteer of the setting, and two scenarios. It is a roleplaying game of hope and adventure, community and duty, exploration and heroism. It is an aquatic Science Fiction setting in which advanced Michronic technology enables Michronic Loops, or time jumps, often moments into the past to change the present.

As with other roleplaying games from Monte Cook Games, Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game uses the Cypher System, first seen in Numenera in 2013. A Player Character in the Cypher System and Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game has three stats or Pools. These are Might, Speed, and Intellect, and represent a combination of effort and health for a character. Typically, they range between eight and twenty in value. Might covers physical activity, strength, and melee combat; Speed, any activity involving agility, movement, stealth, or ranged combat; and Intellect, intelligence, charisma, and magical capacity. In game, points from these pools will be spent to lower the difficulty of a task, but they can also be lost through damage, whether physical or mental. A Player Character has an Edge score, tied to one of the three pools. This reduces the cost of points spent from the associated pool to lower the difficulty of a task, possibly even to zero depending upon the Edge rating.

A Player Character can be summed up in a simple statement—“I am an adjective species noun who verbs.” The adjective is the ‘Descriptor’, describing how the Player Character acts or his manner; the species is one of the thirteen species who live in Naviri; the noun is one of the four character ‘Types’ in the roleplaying game; and the verb is the Player Character’s ‘Focus, that is what he does. For example, “I am an Exiled Human Speaker who Doesn’t Do Much.”, “I am Sea-Born Tyro Explorer who Sails the Howling Seas.”, “I am an Intelligent Betalod Adept who Conducts Weird Science.”, and “I am Vicious Croc Fighter who Fights Dirty.” The four Types are Adept, Explorer, Fighter, and Speaker. Besides Human, the Species include the pink, semi-aquatic newt-like Betalods who are telepaths and good at analysing their environment; Crocs are aggressive combatants, often with regard to their own safety; Cuttlebeards have face tentacles used as manipulators and to enhance their speech, who are sociable and read the histories of objects; Nag’i are mutant, aquatic humans known for doing everything with a flourish or a quip; and more. All of the Species have one inability as well several abilities to choose from, as do the Descriptors and Foci.

Creating a character is a matter of making some choices, assigning a few points here and there, and so on. It is a fairly simple process, but there are a lot of options to choose from.

Sepiella

“I am an Inquisitive Cuttlebeard Adept who Delves the Fourth Dimension.”

Background: “You used to sneak into the Atoll of the Crab Mystics when you were young and that’s where you became enamoured of becoming an Adept”

Arc: Uncover a Secret

Tier 1 Adept

Might 9 Speed 12 Intellect 19 [Edge 1]

Effort 1

Inability: Medium and Heavy Weapons

Hindrances: Hearing/Noticing Dangers, Initiative, Physical Labour

Abilities: Anticipation, Far Step, Michronic Training, Onslaught, Scan, See History

Skills: Geography [Trained], History [Trained], Learning [Trained], Light weapons [Practiced], Pleasant Social Interactions [Trained]

Mechanically, as a Cypher System roleplaying game, Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game is player facing. Thus, in combat, a player not only rolls for his character to make an attack, but also rolls to avoid any attacks made against his character. Essentially this shifts the game’s mechanical elements from the Game Master to the player, leaving the Game Master to focus on the story, on roleplaying NPCs, and so on. When it comes to tasks, the Player Character is attempting to overcome a Task Difficulty, ranging from one and Simple to ten and Impossible. The target number is actually three times the Task Difficulty. So, a Task Difficulty of four or Difficult, means that the target number is twelve, whilst a Task Difficulty of seven or Formidable, means that the target number is twenty-one. The aim of the player is lower this Task Difficulty. This can be done in a number of ways.

Modifiers, whether from favourable circumstances, skills, or good equipment, can decrease the Difficulty, whilst skills give bonuses to the roll. Trained skills—skills can either be Practiced or Trained—can reduce the Difficulty, but the primary method is for a player to spend points from his relevant Stat pools. This is called applying Effort. Applying the first level of Effort, which will reduce the target number by one, is three points from the relevant Stat pool. Additional applications of Effort beyond this cost two points. The cost of spending points from a Stat pool is reduced by its associated Edge, which if the Edge is high enough, can reduce the Effort to zero, which means that the Player Character gets to do the action for free—or effortlessly!

Rolls of one enable a free GM Intrusion—essentially a complication to the current situation that does not reward the Player Character with any Experience Points, whereas rolls of seventeen and eighteen in combat grant damage bonuses. Rolls of nineteen and twenty in combat can also grant damage bonuses, but alternatively, can grant minor and major effects. For example, distracting an opponent or striking a specific body part. Rolls of nineteen and twenty in non-combat situations grant minor and major effects, which the player and Game Master can decide on in play. In combat, light weapons always inflict two points of damage, medium weapons four points, and heavy weapons six points, and damage is reduced by armour. NPCs simply possess a Level, which like the Task Difficulty ranges between one and ten and is multiplied by three to get a target number to successfully attack them.

Experience Points in Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game are earned in several ways, primarily through achieving objectives, making discoveries, and so on. There are two significant means of a Player Character gaining Experience Points. The first is ‘GM In trusion’. These are designed to make a situation and the Player Character’s life more interesting or more complicated. For example, the Player Character might automatically set off a trap or an NPC important to the Player Character is imperilled. Suggested Intrusions are given for the four character Types and the Foci. When this occurs, the Game Master makes an Intrusion and offers the player and his character two Experience Points. The player does not have to accept this ‘GM Intrusion’, but this costs an Experience Point. If he does accept the Intrusion, the player receives the two Experience Points, keeps one and then gives the other to another player, explaining why he and his character deserves the other Experience Point. The ‘GM Intrusion’ mechanic encourages a player to accept story and situational complications and place their character in danger, making the story much more exciting.

There is the reverse of the ‘GM Intrusion’, which is ‘Player Intrusion’. With this, a player spends an Experience Point to present a solution to a problem or complication. These make relatively small, quite immediate changes to a situation, such as an old friend suddenly showing up, a device used by a NPC malfunctioning, and so on.

The other means of gaining Experience Points is the Character Arc. A Player Character begins play with one Character Arc for free, but extra can be purchased at the cost of Experience Points to reflect a Player Character’s dedication to the arc’s aim. Each Character Arc consists of several steps—Opening, two or three development steps, followed by a Climax and a Resolution. Suggested Character Arcs include ‘Avenge’, ‘Become a Parent’, ‘Enterprise’, ‘Finish a Great Work’, make a ‘New Discovery’, and so on, that the Player Character can follow and be awarded Experience Points for each stage completed. This formalises and rewards players for engaging in their characters’ objectives. he selection of the Character Arc during character creation signals to the Game Master what sort of story a player wants to explore with his character.

One of the aspects inherent to Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game and all Cypher System roleplaying games and settings are the Cypher System’s namesake—Cyphers. Again, first seen in Numenera, Cyphers are typically one-use things which help a Player Character. In the Science Fantasy world of Numenera, they are physical or Manifest devices and objects which might heal a Player Character, inflict damage on an opponent or hinder him, aid an attack, turn him invisible or reveal something that is invisible, increase or decrease gravity, and so on. They are effectively, one-shot Player Character abilities that are free. In the Science Fiction setting like that of Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game, Cyphers are parts of Tidal Blade relics which so broken that they can only be used once or fruits that can be harvested. Cyphers are always obvious, but not always obvious in what they can do. Plus only a few Cyphers can be carried at any one time, otherwise there are side effects which can be dangerous. Artefacts can also be found. These are rare, but do have multiple uses.

Intrinsic to the setting of Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game is Michronic energy. This powers the technology in and around Navri and can be manipulated to enable time travel. A Michronic Loop or time leap will only take a Player Character back a few seconds into the past, but will enable him to reattempt an action or do another action instead. This can have the side effect of a memory loss. Mechanically, it requires the expenditure of Experience Points to allow a reroll, but devices such as a ‘Time Stretch’ Cyber or a Shell Shield artefact, or the abilities of someone who ‘Delves the Fourth Dimension’ also allow it. Where changes can be made as a result of a time leap, it is considered all but impossible when travelling in hyperdimensional space as the past is fixed whereas the future remains a series of possibilities.

In terms of support, the advice for the Game Master is as good as you would expect for a Monte Cook title, expanding upon this advice with setting specific guidance, such as running challenges. In terms of setting, Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game gives a gazetteer of Naviri, a bestiary of both creatures and NPCs, notes on languages, and two scenarios as well as details of various Cyphers and artefacts that the Player Characters can scavenge. Notable locations in the city of Naviri include the Citadel of Time from where the city is governed and much of its technology is developed and manufactured, and the Chronosseum, the Lamara Stadium, and the Droska Ring where festivals and other events are held, such as challenges. Challenges are a major part of Naviri culture and seen as a way of proving oneself, ultimately preparing participants for the Tournament of Heroes. There are numerous different challenges, including races and battles, and each venue has its own. Challenges are not intended for beginning Player Characters, but like the Tournament of Heroes, something for them to aspire to. Other cultural notes include elements such as the fact that killing other people is frowned upon, unless in self-defence, which is more likely the further away you are from the city. The bestiary lists a wide range of creatures, including the legendary Akora, a creature so big, it can be seen from miles as it emerges from the water, the volcano on its back spewing lava and ash! There is a variety of crabs as well as things like the Dragonslime, which has a dragon-like head and an octopus-like body, its tentacles exuding a burning slime, and the Whirlpool Weaver, a manta ray-like beast that can detect, absorb, and even use Michronic energy. 

The first of the two scenarios is ‘Chef Surprise’. This is designed as an introductory scenario in which the Player Characters are asked to help out a restaurant by obtaining some special ingredients from a distant island. Once past finding and equipping a boat, the scenario is all about the trip there and what the Player Characters find on the island, an on-the-run band of thieves hiding out. It presents a moral dilemma for the Player Characters to sort out, but is fairly direct affair and there is advice for the Game Master on running it throughout. The second scenario, ‘A Dock of Their Own’ is more complex and broken into discrete tasks, meaning that it can be run is or spaced out as series of events over the course of an ongoing campaign. The Game Master advice suggests ways in which it could be tied into a Player Character Arc, but leaves some of the scenario set-up to the Game Master, specifically how Player Characters might get involved in the project at the heart of the scenario, which building a dock that they can freely use. It is not a bad scenario, but it is not as immediately useful and ultimately it really works better as a framework into which the Game Master can add her won content.

There is nothing missing from Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game per se. It contains everything that a Game Master and her players need to begin playing and set up and support the aims of their characters. It also serves as a good introduction to the Tidal Blades setting. Yet there still remains much that is unexplained and unexplored, most obviously the Droskani Desert and the Flow. Both deserve further treatment and adventures involving them. A more minor issue that the example of play is given at the back of the book rather than the front where it would have been more obviously useful, especially to anyone new to roleplaying as a hobby.

Physically, Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game is well presented and written. The artwork, much of it in a cartoon style, is good. The illustrations of both buildings and sea-going vessels in Naviri are excellent. Overall, the artwork does a great job of imparting the look and feel of the world of Tidal Blades, a mixture of anthropomorphism and anime.

Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game is a Saturday morning cartoon of a roleplaying game, bright and breezy and positive. This makes it suitable for play by a younger audience, but it is not written for them, so requires a more experienced Game Master. Further, although the Cypher System is not complex, the Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game is a still daunting prospect for any fan of the two board games it is based upon, but for the fan who does roleplay, the Tidal Blades: The Roleplaying Game is much easier to grasp, presenting the players with a wealth of character options and an interesting setting to explore.

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.

Weird Out West

The hunter rides the range, armed with a Sharps Model 1874 rifle in the .50-90 Sharps, a gun big enough to take down Nightcrawlers, the twenty-foot long earthworms that wear the skin of past prey and burrow out of the earth to take down their new. As the vampire-lord looms over her on the ground, the gunslinger loads her last Hellfire round that will surely send the undead monster and its soul into damnation. The inveterate gambler stands up from the table and points at Robo Doc, Joe Bones, of cheating and having a hidden card slot. At high noon, the duellists face off against each other, one ready to pull a Colt Single Action Army, but wondering how much of a threat his Kengu opponent is with its daishō, from which it will draw a katana. The Concord stagecoach rides along its regular route, the bearded veteran sitting alongside the driver, holding a shotgun in his lap, loaded with holy shot lest the vehicle lose a wheel or a horse throws a shoe and everyone be swarmed by the zombies that linger just off the trail. Secret Service agents fly the night skies in their black Zeppelin, ready to respond to descend on the latest threat to the United States. The US Marshal dukes it out with the Hex Gunner that raiding trains all along the transcontinental route, ducking and dodging as the servant of Hell snaps off one shot after another from its demonic six-shooter, the bullets smoking with necromantic energy and screaming with hellish fury when fired in search of more souls to collect and send to damnation! The Risen claws his way out of the grave, bearing a demonic brand on his chest and swearing to take vengeance upon his former comrades who put him in the ground. The frontier of the West might well have once been wild, but now it has definitely turned weird and horrifying. This is not the set-up for one game—though it could be, but a range of options, and more, presented in the pages of High Noon at Midnight.

High Noon at Midnight is a genre supplement for the Cypher System, first seen in Numenera in 2013. Published by Monte Cook Games as part of the Knights of Dust and Neon project on Backerkit, it is inspired by the films Cowboys & Aliens, Wild Wild West, and Back to the Future III, television series such as The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., West World, and Firefly, comic books like Jonah Hex and Preacher, and even roleplaying games such as Deadlands. It is interesting to see the inclusion of Deadlands mentioned in the list of inspirational reading and watching for High Noon at Midnight, since it is from a rival publisher and it is the obvious roleplaying game when anyone ever thinks of the term, ‘Weird West’. After all, Deadlands was the first to really coin the term—right in its very subtitle—and it has dominated the genre ever since it was published in 1996. So, the obvious question is, “Why even look at High Noon at Midnight when Deadlands is not only easily available, but also richly supported?” The simple answer is, ‘setting versus tools’. Deadlands is a genuinely great, genre defining, and iconic roleplaying game, it is its own thing and its own setting. High Noon at Midnight is not that, but rather offers the tools and means for the Game Master to create and run games in a weird west setting of her own devising. It can do magic, horror, advanced and even alien technology, steampunk, time travel, and so on in the way that the Game Master wants rather than is given. This is not to say that either option of tools versus setting is better or worse than the other, but rather that they offer different choices.

After some explanation of what High Noon at Midnight is, that it is a non-historical treatment of the period and the genre, combined weird, and what that Weird West could be through various other different media, the supplement really begins looking at the tools that the Game Master is going to need to create her own weird west. This includes borrowing from different sources, such as Deadwood or the James Bond films, creating a brand new series based on alternate history, and keeping a setting mostly historically accurate, whilst still being weird. It explores the classic themes of the Wild West, or Old West, genres, such as justice, vengeance, redemption, freedom, and survival, as well as weird themes like magic, magic versus technology, and horror. Throughout there are pointers and suggestions, and tables of options, and this continues throughout much of the book. For example, the ‘Weird West Game World’ table suggests ‘West Mars’, a “[S]parsley settled Martian frontier, six-shooters fire laser rounds, water is as valuable as gold, and terraforming gangs fight for primacy.” and ‘Camelot Gunslingers’ with “Law-sworn knights with long rifles pursue outlaw wizards, despot dragons, and malign fey beings.” Furter tables suggest inflection points when the West changed, how pervasive the Weird is, what the Player Characters do, and lots of plots seeds. The Game Master is free to pick or roll on these tables, or simply use them as inspiration.

The Game Master advice suggests that ‘A little Weird goes a long way’, but gives a lot of Weird for her to choose from. Instead of horses, the Player Characters might be riding water buffalo, lions, ostriches, or even stegosauruses, or ogres, griffons, or hellfire steeds, or jet packs, hover cycles, or motorcycles. There is discussion to, of other forms of travel, including train and aerial travel, and supported by lists of Intrusions—the means by which the Game Master can challenge a Player Character, make a situation more interesting, and the Player Character can earn Experience Points—that the Game Master can use. Options are suggested in terms of what groups might be operating in the weird west, including the law, outlaws, and indigenous groups. Traditional groups include US Marshals and train-robbing gangs, but added to this are weird west groups. For example, a weird version of the Secret Service might use advanced technology or magic to protect the president and other important people from assassination or harm, let alone protect the currency, whilst the Pinkerton Rail Agency which rides five rail cars to protect the railways, he Dawn Rangers, who wear grave-stone shaped badges inscribed with RIP and are known for their arrogance, hunt the undead, and the Skinless Six, outlaws who messed with the wrong treasure and now hunt and gamble for new skins! Guidance on the role of the Native Nations and including the indigenous peoples is also given. There is also a lengthy section on locations in the wild west, from uncanny saloons, alchemist’s shops, and uncanny jails to the Badlands, prairies, and mines, all also uncanny, which provides the Game Master with some great places to set her weird west campaign.

Optional rules in High Noon at Midnight enable the Game Master to run Poker games with multiple NPCs as well as the Player Characters, including handling player versus character skill (necessary since not everyone plays Poker and it is not as commonly played outside of the USA) and resolving a game with dice rather than dice. The Hands of Fate actually adds a Poker mechanic to play, each player drawing a personal Hand of Fate, consisting of two cards, at the beginning of each game day. These cards can be combined with community Hand of Fate cards for various effects. For example, a Straight Flush earns the Player Character a point of Experience, whilst a Full House replaces any roll of the twenty-sided die with a roll of twenty. This enforces the wild (or weird) west feel, but the Game Master can go even further by replacing the need to roll a twenty-sided die to determine the outcome of a situation with a deck of cards. The two do complement each other, but do make play more complex and outcomes less obvious in comparison to the standard Cypher System.

As well as curses and the benefits of telling tall tales, High Noon at Midnight adds several Paranormal Vices that the Player Characters or NPCs can suffer. These are similar to curses, but provide both benefits and banes. Every time a Player Character uses one of the abilities associated with the Paranormal Vice, a Connection roll is made. If a one is rolled, the Connection is made with the Paranormal cause behind the vice and the Player Character suffers an associated Repercussion. The range also increases from one to one to two, and so on, each time the Connection is made, until it reaches six and the Player Character is overcome with the Paranormal Vice. For example, the Drinking Paranormal Vice grants Inebriate abilities of ‘Deadeye’, ‘Hair-Trigger Reflexes’, ‘Iron Liver’, ‘Mean Drunk’, and ‘Unflinching’, which might require a Player Character to throw back a drink or two, but Repercussions might be that the Player Character goes ‘Blind in One Eye’ or suffer ‘Retching Summons’ in which he vomits up a pile of gelatinous goo that animates into a horrid thing! Other Paranormal Vices are gambling and swindling, which either case, gives advantages, but not without dangers of their own.

Threats include environmental ones alongside a bestiary of new creatures and a list of entries from the Cypher Bestiary, which are given abbreviated descriptions in this genre supplement. Old NPCs from the Cypher Bestiary include Gunfighters, whilst the new here include Alchemist, Hex Gunner, and Forgeborn golem. New creatures include the Death Binder, alchemists risen from the dead who invest their souls in the bullets in their Soul Pistols, which have devastating effects, but if the sixth and final shot is fired, so is the Death Binder, so they use their Alchemical Pistol instead; Frostwalkers—compacted snow over amalgams of bone, antlers, limbs, and heads of men and animals who died in the cold; and the Hollowed Ranger, a travelling portal to ‘elsewhere’, formed from an innocent gunned down in cold blood and dumped into a shallow grave, and returned to wreak vengeance on all and everyone!

In terms of character options High Noon at Midnight suggests ways in which classic Wild West characters can be created by adhering to the standard format that the Cypher System uses describe and encapsulate a Player Character. This is “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a Descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. For example, “I am a Fast Warrior Who Needs No Weapons” or “I am a Clever Adept Who Commands Mental Powers”. Thus, a Lawman could be a Speaker with a combat flavour and a Swindler or Gambler could be an Explorer with a stealth flavour. Seven standard Descriptors and two Species Descriptors are added. The standard Descriptors are Grizzled, Laconic, Slick, Trailblazing, Trigger-Happy, Unforgiving, and Wily, whilst the Species Descriptors are Forgeborn and Risen. The Forgeborn is a figure of metal, reanimated flesh, or similar, often constructed by alchemists as guards, but since been emancipated or lost the desire to keep the alchemist safe. The Forgeborn is tough, but slow, hard to damage, but difficult to repair and knows its own kind well. The Risen has returned from the grave, bearing the sigil of a demon, tougher and able to comeback from the dead again, though not as supple and animals hate him.

Similarly, High Noon at Midnight provides new Foci as well as suggesting those suitable from the Cypher System. The new ones consist of ‘Blazes Paths’ (in the wilderness), ‘Collects Bounties’, ‘Gambles it All Away’, ‘Hits the Saloon’, ‘Rides Like the Wind’, ‘Spits Fire and Lead’, and ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’. ‘Spits Fire and Lead’ combines a love of fire (and possibly brimstone) with gunfighting, whilst with ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’, the Player Character has a supernatural connection to venomous snakes and applies that to his unarmed combat.

There is a full list of equipment in High Noon at Midnight, but more importantly it explains how Cyphers—the means by which the Cypher System awards Player Character one-time bonuses, whether potions or scrolls, software, luck, divine favour, or influence—can be brought into the Weird West genre of High Noon at Midnight. In this setting, there is no one way to handle Cyphers, but it depends how weird the Weird West that the Game Master wants to create and run actually is. Cyphers can either be Subtle, perhaps good fortune, inspiration, an occult or alien concept, a blessing, an ear worm, or the like, or Manifest, such as an alchemical potion, a clockwork device, a demonic scroll, and so on. A Weird West setting can use one or the other or a mix, and it is suggested that there is a geographical limit of Cyphers, Manifest Cyphers being harder to find in more remote locations rather than civilised ones. It also adds Power Words for one of the settings in the supplement as a memetic means of presenting Cyphers both Subtle and Manifest, and describes a range of different Cyphers, including a wide range of alchemical rounds and slugs, and Weird West Artifacts, such as the ‘Deck of Second Chances’, ‘Demon Pistol’, ‘Philosopher Gun’, and ‘Shadow Duster’. In fact, there are more Weird West Artifacts given than there are new Cyphers.

High Noon at Midnight details one setting, ‘The Ghost Range’. This is a Weird West setting, but not a historical one. Magic pervades The Ghost Range and demons, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures stalk its Badlands and beyond, whilst Dustfalls occur at night and can be predicted with some accuracy according to the almanacs owned by certain alchemists. Such Dustfalls are of Stardust, sometimes used as currency, but is mostly used by alchemists in their concoctions and designs. Where exactly Stardust originates and what it is, is the subject of much speculation, but prospectors go out of a night in search of it, knowing that its presence keeps demons away, though there is the danger of becoming mesmerised in an active Dustfall. In millennia past, two mysterious races, the Ilu and the Nihilal, warred with each other, and the Ilu left behind hollow cavities in the earth containing strange devices, weapons of war, and even prisoners still held captive. These are known as ‘Proscribed Zones’, and whilst access to them is not strictly prohibited, the indigenous peoples who on the range and beyond, even on the Moon, advise against it.

Midnight is the only city on the Ghost Range, notably home to the Trail’s End Cantina, where demons, vampires, and other supernatural creatures can be seen as long as they adhere to the Ghost Accords, which keeps them from being attacked. The city is nicely detailed as are the Outer Range and Otherlands which lie beyond its outskirts. In the latter can be found the Moon upon which can be seen a tribe of natives living there and the town of Perdition, populated by demons hiding behind a façade and which stands on Hell’s doorstep. Worse is the Tomb Moon, which rarely shares the same sky and never the same orbit, its appearance sparking off an outbreak of undead activity.

‘The Ghost Range’ setting is further supported by three full scenarios and two Cypher Shorts. They include being formed into a posse and investigating a shootout outside the premises of Midnight’s preeminent alchemist and following the trail out of the city in search of the outlaws responsible; getting involved in a poker tournament at the Trail’s End Cantina and investigating a treasure map; and even travel to the Tomb Moon to prevent a notorious warlock from bringing about the end of the world! The two Cypher Shorts are within the genre, but more generic in nature, though they could easily be used in ‘The Ghost Range’. One sees an undead outlaw return from the grave for revenge against the Player Characters, whilst the other casts the Player Characters as outlaws attempting to rob a train. Both Cypher Shorts could also be run as one-shots or even demonstration scenarios.

Overall, ‘The Ghost Range’ provides High Noon at Midnight with a detailed example of a non-historical Weird West setting. It is an intriguingly different setting that enables the exploration of the genre without of the potential controversies of a more historically based setting. Now whilst ‘The Ghost Range’ setting is well supported with plenty of detail and three decent scenarios, it does mean that there is no space given to other possible settings, so that High Noon at Midnight does not fully showcase the genre with examples as fully as it could have done. This does not mean that it does not suggest other possibilities, in fact, it suggests a lot of them through its many tables of prompts and ideas, but it does not develop them. As a consequence, High Noon at Midnight explores some of the genres associated with the Weird West genre better than others. These are horror and magic, both closely associated with the Weird West genre, whereas steampunk, Science Fiction, time travel, and so on, do not get as much attention. Although ‘The Ghost Range’ is done well, this is nevertheless disappointing and it would be interesting to see these other associated genres given their due in an anthology of settings for the Weird West.

Physically, High Noon at Midnight is very well presented. It is also well written and the artwork and cartography are both excellent.

High Noon at Midnight does showcase the potential of its genre in a well realised and supported setting in the form of ‘The Ghost Range’, but not quite as fully as it could have done. Nevertheless, High Noon at Midnight is a solid introduction to the Weird West genre and its potential with lots and lots of ideas.

Immediate Idiosyncrasy

Weird Discoveries: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera does something interesting and it does it very quickly. In fact, it has been designed to do it quickly. It is a supplement for Numenera, the Origins Award-winning Science Fantasy roleplaying game of exploration and adventure in the very far future, originally published in 2013 by Monte Cook Games. What it does is set out to solve the problem of wanting to roleplay and not having time to prepare to roleplay. It wants to do what board games allow, which is easy set up and readiness to play straight out of the box—or in the case of Weird Discoveries, off the page. To do this, it presents scenarios that can be read through and set up in the same time as it takes to grab a board game off the shelf, open the box, and set everything up. Once done, each scenario will provide a single evening or session’s worth of gaming as a board game would. Or in this case, roleplaying. Now it should be noted that Weird Discoveries: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera is published for use with the first edition of Numenera, but the simplicity of the Cypher System, means that adapting or adjusting the supplement’s ten scenarios to Numenera Discovery.

All ten scenarios in Weird Discoveries: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera follow the same format. Each opens with a brief summary followed by the details and the scenario’s salient points, before describing the scenario’s starting point for the Player Characters and the wrap-up, how it can be ended. Also detailed are the scenario keys, the clues and the MacGuffins or objects, that the Player Characters need to find to push the scenario’s plot onwards. This is followed by the scenario itself. Each scenario is constructed around a map or a plot, which always has links to further details, such as location and NPC descriptions, as well as stats. They include descriptions of the possible GM Intrusions, the means by the Game Master challenges, imperils, and rewards the Player Characters.

Some of the locations or plot points are marked with symbols for the scenario’s keys. Depending on the scenario, these can be a set place or the Game Master is given the option to place them a choice of different locations. The layout is always simple, clear, and easy to use straight from the page. The scenario proper is followed by ‘More Details’. These are not necessary to actually run the scenario, but if the Game Master has time to read through them, provide her with extra information which enables her to expand the scenario. This is not just with details that will enliven her portrayal of the scenario, but advice on how to insert the scenario into an ongoing campaign, including a map of where it might be located in the Ninth World, and lastly, the Experience Awards for completing the adventure as well as possible further ramifications. The Experience Awards are the only thing that the Game Master needs for this section if she does not have time to read through this third section.

Further support for all ten scenarios comes in the form of ‘Show ’Ems’, twenty full colour illustrations designed to be shown to the players as they roleplay through each scenario. There is also a ‘Numenera Cheat Sheet’ for ready rules reference and a set of six ready-to-play Player Characters. The handouts help bring the scenarios to life, whilst the pre-generated Player Characters enhance the ready-to-play nature of the anthology. There is also a list of possible Cyphers—the devices and unguents and gases and concoctions—that the Player Characters can find to enhance themselves temporarily during a scenario. Further support comes in the form of an excellent introductory guide to improvised Game Mastering. Overall, the combination of format and support makes the scenarios in the anthology both easier to prepare and develop beyond the single session game play they are designed for.

The decade opens with ‘Beneath The Pyramid’ in which the Player Characters track down missing beasts to gigantic black pyramid floating over a ruined city and try find their way in from below. Simple enough, it is followed by the more complex, ‘Inside the Horror Pyramid’. These are the only two directly connected scenarios in the anthology, but the second is a much nastier affair, the Player Characters finding themselves trapped within the pyramid and stalked by dangerous energy creature with a penchant for eyes! The Player Characters need to find the means to get through a sealed door and then out of the Pyramid, hopefully eyes intact. ‘Natural And Unnatural’ places a village in peril when the device it relies upon for clean water disappears and the Player Characters have to find out where it has gone. Should the Game Master want to, the scenario has ways to expand by adding links to other entries in the supplement. Divine right versus divine reputation clash in ‘The Spider Knight’ when the Player Characters give aid to a young women who claims her throne has been usurped and potentially discover how far she will go to reclaim her family seat. ‘Please Help Us’ opens with the Player Characters being asked to help free a group of explorers trapped in a Cypher device, but doing so means angering a nearby group of religious Inhumans.

The sixth adventure, ‘Guilty!’ does something usefully far more complex, but in the two-page spread format of Weird Discoveries. It is a murder mystery set in a town divided by a river in which members of the Varjellen community from one side of the river are being murdered by humans from on the other side. Of course, there is more to it than simply that, but it is neatly presented as an elegant little plot flowchart with all of the various details in just the place both narratively and geographically. It is the most pleasing of all the entries in Weird Discoveries. A daughter has gone missing in ‘Lost in the Swamp’, but what if she does not want to come back? Whilst in ‘Mother Machine’, the inhabitants of another village are under attack, but nobody knows why. There is a surprisingly good reason though… ‘From Here To Sanguinity’ reveals the perils of worship in the Ninth Age, whilst in the last entry, ‘Escape from the Obelisk’, the Player Characters find themselves trapped in another floating object and have to find a way out. This time though, they are up against a deadline as they have been infected by a scientist to see how they react and need to find a cure before they can escape. It still feels a little like the second scenario, and perhaps actually setting in the Black Pyramid of ‘Beneath The Pyramid’ and ‘Inside the Horror Pyramid’ would have been a nice call back.

Overall, the scenarios in Weird Discoveries: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera are short and solid, rather than amazing or epic. That is not the aim of the anthology after all, which is to provide easy-to-prepare scenarios that showcase the weirdness of the Ninth Age in short sharp packages. Of the ten, ‘Guilty!’ stands out as the most interesting.

Physically, Weird Discoveries: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera is very well presented. The maps are clear and the artwork is excellent, whilst sidebars give links and notes for the Game Master to add further to the scenarios. Notably, the two-page spread for the scenarios—one two-page spread for the introduction and background, one for the scenario itself, and one for the extra content, keep everything handily organised and accessible.

Weird Discoveries: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera is exactly as advertised. A very serviceable, very useful, and superbly supported anthology that provides the means for the Game Master to bring a scenario to the table in mere minutes, but if he has the time, also the scope to expand each scenario and set it up in previous sessions. Overall, Weird Discoveries: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera is such a good idea that you wish more roleplaying game settings had a supplement like this.