Part 1: The Ninth World | Starter Kit - Numenera

Welcome to your starter kit. I'm Jason Charles Miller. Some of the most fun moments of my life have been spent with my friends playing role-playing games, rolling dice, slaying a few monsters, and most of all, telling stories together. I want to bring that same satisfaction of collaboration and discovery to other people and that's why I created starter kit. Today we'll be learning to play Numenera. Numenera takes place on a far future earth a billion years from now. Civilization has risen to dizzying technological heights and collapsed into dust eight times over the millennia and a ninth civilization is struggling to rise amid the mysteries and dangers those previous eight left behind. Numenera is the brainchild of Monnie Cook, a longtime influential voice in the world of role- playing games and one of the architects of Dungeons and Dragons third edition. Monnie will be our game master, leading our journey through the ninth world and teaching us the elegant cypher system that powers Numenera. Monnie Hey, come on in. Have a seat. So tell me about the world of Numenera. So after all these great civilizations have fallen in the distant distant future what we have is the ninth world and in the ninth world the people there have about a medieval level of technology but because there's all the leftovers of these prior worlds they look at that stuff as though it's magic right so it's like a science fiction setting that feels like a fantasy setting. So you created a whole new gaming system for this game tell me a little bit about that. What I wanted to do with the cypher system is create something that is not necessarily as focused on combat as some games but is focused more on exploration and discovery. Okay. And I wanted to make something that was really easy to be the GM. I wanted the GM to focus entirely on telling the story. That's why the GM doesn't roll dice in this game at all. The players do all of that. And I also really wanted to focus on what I call just the weird right and because you've got all these prior civilizations and these things that are left over and to our characters some of that stuff gets really really weird and kind of incomprehensible but in a kind of a majestic way. Well I can't wait to play and we're gonna meet our party soon. The table's yours. Thanks. I'm Monty Cook creator of Numenera and this is your starter kit. The ninth world is built on the bones of the previous eight. Life hears about struggle about discovering the wonders of the worlds that came before it but not for their own sake but as the means to improve the present and to build a future. Most people in the ninth world are simple farmers or laborers but there are those who risk mysterious dangers to recover the relics of the past. So let's meet our players and build those characters. Hey. Hey Tara. I'm Monty. Monty it's so great to meet you. So I'm to understand that you have not played a role-playing game before. I've never played a role-playing game before. I've never watched a role-playing game before. I really know nothing about this but I'm very excited about it. It's it's gonna be great. You're gonna be fantastic. Okay. All right. So this is your rulebook. Okay. And this is your starter kit. That's your character's name. My name. Cool. So we talked a little bit about your character. Why don't you tell me what you've kind of decided on as far as what you want your character to be like. Okay. So Bix is a kid and I don't want anyone to know their gender. Bix was always very helpful around the house around the farm and was following the footsteps of the dad and some sort of marauders or somebody came in and was ravaging the town and the whole family was killed while Bix was sort of away from the house a little maybe nearby in a cave and they saw it happen from a distance but they weren't there so Bix was saved but their entire family was killed. So a tragic background. Yeah. And then that's kind of shaped Bix a little bit. Yeah so Bix doesn't really speak. Bix can speak but doesn't. Okay that will make for some interesting challenges. Okay. But I think it'll be really fun at the table. Yeah I think this sounds like a great character. So now based on your character description we've already kind of decided that that the noun the type is going to be a jack. Yes. Now jacks are the kind of people who are they're a little bit good at everything and and you know sort of they can be sometimes kind of sneaky they can be you know eloquent they can be all kinds of different things and you can shape that however you want. I think that the focus that's the verb part of the sentence should be maybe explores dark places. Does that sound like something that fits Bix? Absolutely. I think that Bix probably feels the safest. Okay. In a cave or maybe in a dark place. Okay. Because that's almost a comfort. So that gets us two parts of the sentence but we still need a descriptor. This is the adjective part of the sentence and I'm thinking maybe for Bix we want to go with stealthy. That really kind of fits the rest of it right. Yeah. Which would mean that you are a stealthy jack who explores dark places. Stealthy jack who explores dark. Do I need to write this down? Yes. This is where we bring out your character sheet and that is in the book. Okay. And now if you open that up the first thing that we're going to talk about are your stats. Now these are kind of what makes your character you. Okay. And in Numenera we have three stats. There's might which is like strength and toughness. There's speed which is quickness but it's also dexterity and then there's intellect which is what it sounds like but it's also like how well you are interacting with people. Now as a jack you start with a base in 10 but you get to customize that and add up to six points in any way you want. So Bix would probably have more dexterity. You might want to just have 16 speed. Oh I do have 10. I'm adding additional to that. Exactly. So you can just fill that in. Now there's also a concept in the game called edge. Edge is the thing that you are best at because it's like a discount. Every time I'm going to ask you to spend points out of a pool if you have an edge in that pool you spend one less. Oh it's one of these things. Yes exactly. It's a numerical value. It's just a one that you would put and I would recommend speed. So add it to speed. Yeah just where it says edge. Oh that. I see where I got there. Okay. All right. The next thing that we would do for your character is figure out what your skills are. That's what Explorers Dark Places does. It gives you a bunch of these sort of stealthy kind of you know operate in the shadows kind of skills. So you're already good at a lot of those things. Okay great. But as your stealthy descriptor figures in it actually kind of doubles down on that. Okay. And it's going to make you even more so. The first thing that stealthy does is it's going to add two more points to your speed making that actually 18. Okay. And then so it'll make it so that your hiding skill there is actually so what the little t's mean is trained. Okay. That means that. So I have some skill in. You're some skill but the s's mean specialized. Oh. She'll actually be specialized. You can black out that little circle there next to hiding because you'll be really good at that. Okay. There is a drawback however to being stealthy. Okay. You know you're really good at kind of moving around kind of you know silently and quietly and so people can't see you but when it comes to like more dramatic movements like climbing a cliff or running really fast you're not so great at that. Okay. And so we call that an inability and it's kind of like a negative skill. Okay. Really. Now as a Jack again you're really good at a lot of things that gives you the the flex skill ability. We'll get to that in the in the game itself. So really the only other things that we need to talk about are the things that Bix carries with them. I thought maybe like not not like in a sense of getting into a fight but more is more like tools might carry like a knife or a hatchet or something like that. Because you could get something in the space out of something. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Right. And so under attacks if you do have to get into a fight for damage that's what that is each one of them does two. So the last thing that we need to do is get you your Jack tricks of the trade. These are the special things that you can do that because you're a Jack. I think that because of Bix's nature you know they're a kid they're small they're probably kind of fast and quick. Maybe it should be hard to even get a hold of them. So let's have you have as your trick of the trade as one of them it's called Skilled Without Armor you're fast as long as you're not encumbered. So that protects me because I'm not being able to be caught. Right. Okay. Right. Another another good sort of kind of defensive thing if Bix is down in caves and whatnot they're probably for a kid at least kind of tough right they probably run into some scrapes and whatnot. So let's have Bix be skilled with defense specifically might defense and that's kind of what that means is that gives you resilience. Okay. So I think that that's you're done. I think that's you've got a new Monara character. Thank you. All right and we will gather together in a few minutes and get started. Great. Thank you so much. Yeah. Hi. Hi Nicole. I'm Monty. Nice to meet you. So we didn't talk about this before but what role-playing game experience do you have? I have some I've played a D&D. I'm a little I'm like I play more than the average person I guess. Yeah. We have worked out a little bit about your character why don't you tell me exactly what you've decided on. I wanted a character that was strong and fierce and independent and maybe just a little too impulsive and doesn't think things through and just kind of like acts before thinking about things. Do you see yourself as more like a warrior type character or? Definitely warrior. Yeah. Definitely getting in there fighting as much as she can. Okay. Okay. We have a character sentence in Numenara that makes everyone sort of a blank blank who blanks. Now warrior type is called a glaive and that's the middle part of the sentence. We have already kind of worked out what the latter part of the sentence is too. Why don't you tell me a little bit about the fuses flesh and steel part? Because my character is the sort of impulsive type. She's gotten in some scraps before and one was really bad where she kind of she was injured probably mortally and was brought back to life by being fused with like metal and the computer parts and all that stuff. Awesome. And I understand that in this world like it's kind of something to be ashamed of. It can be but you can you know you can own it too if you want. Yeah. Right. No I think she's definitely the type that that owns it and resents people for like looking down on her type. I like it. Yeah. Very very cool. Okay so here is your Numenara rule book. Cool. And here is your Sturger kit. Oh boy. Oh nice. Got my character's name. Name plate. In there you'll find the dice that you'll be using. Oh yeah. Love it. And a notepad and paper that I'll definitely need. Okay so let's take a look at your character sheet which is in your in your rule book there. All right so right at the front here we've got your name which is? Devalu. Devalu. All right that's that's a very cool name. Thank you. Now remember I said every character has a sentence you're a blank blank who blanks. So there's still one thing that we have to determine right and that's the descriptor which is sort of the adjective in the sentence. I'm keying off of something that you said you said you wanted to be strong. Yes. We could just use strong as your as your descriptor. Devalu would be a strong glaive who fuses flesh and steel. Great. So if you open that sheet up what we get to are the stats and as a glaive you've already got some base figures for these plus you've gotten enhancements in both your might and your speed because you fuse flesh and steel right you've got cybernetic parts that are making you faster and stronger than most people. You do get six more points to divide up among those three stats however you want to kind of customize your character further. I think I'll add three to might and speed. Okay that makes sense. So that'll be 17 and 16. So next we want to take a look at your skills and some of this is going to come from your descriptor. So first of all well we I forgot that it adds plus four to your might. Wow. Four which you are really strong but you know that makes sense right you've got metal arms and whatnot you can crush things with your bare hands. So that'll be 21. That's amazing. Wow. That's a great starting set. So you'll also have two extra skills for being strong. One is just you're good at breaking things right which sort of makes sense. Great. So you can write that down with your other skills you're trained in breaking things and then also in jumping. So each one of those would be you'd use the T for trained. Great. Now glaives are really good with weapons and whatnot. What do you see as your weapon of choice? I don't picture her having a weapon I picture her like fighting hand to hand and because like she's so enhanced that's a good enough weapon. That's great. So one of the glaive abilities that you can choose is called no need for weapons. Great. You just punch people. Yeah. So you can write that down under special abilities and you get to choose one other ability. I might recommend something kind of defensive maybe like you could use your speed to be you know better able to dodge incoming attacks. We would call that speed defense. Sure that sounds great. You can write that down as well. For most people your fist would do two points of damage but because of your you know metal hand and whatnot you'll do four points of damage. You can write that down. Great. So the only other thing really to talk about is your equipment. I thought maybe you should probably wear like some kind of armor if you wore like a leather jacket or something like that. Sure. That would give you some protection but it wouldn't be encumbering at all. And it would look badass. It would look badass. Yeah. Yeah. And because you're already partially metal you get one point of armor for that and then the leather gives you a total of two points of armor. Cool. All right. I think we are finished with your character. You're ready to go. Thank you. Can't wait. Ready to launch your business. Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand marketing tools that get your products out there integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time from startups to scale ups online in person and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you sign up for your one dollar a month trial at Shopify dot com slash setup. Of the Regency Era you might know it as the time when Bridgeton takes place versus the time when Jane Austen wrote her books. The Regency Era was also an explosive time of social change sex scandals and maybe the worst king in British history. Vulgar history's new season is all about the Regency Era the balls the gowns and all the scandal. Listen to vulgar history Regency Era wherever you get podcasts. Hey Jeremy. Hey Monty nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Yeah. All right. Love this. How familiar are you with role playing games. Definitely a rookie. Yeah. This is Saigah's The Sundry Madness was my first game ever. All right. Which was awesome and I'm like I'm hooked now. So you want more. I want more. All right. Well welcome to it. Yeah. Awesome. All right. This is your rule book. Cool. And this is your starter kit. Yeah. Look at that. Yeah. It's beautiful. There's like somebody jump out of it. I'll hold it open for you here. Wow. Nameplate with your character. Very cool. Could you pronounce that for me. Ajna Ajna. And there's your dice. Oh yeah. Do a roll here. Oh yeah. Look at that. Very cool. So we talked a little bit about the character that you'd like to play. And I know that you've kind of referenced the vision from Marvel Comics. Yeah. Tell me about your character. Well Ajna was it's the other name for the third eye chakra which is you know like the pineal gland and all that. Mm hmm. Kind of helps the you to go into other dimensions when you're meditating and things like that. Okay. And also the vision because not only is the vision awesome but I like the idea of you know having that those mental powers and being able to command mental powers. Also I thought about like maybe it was something that made me feel a little bit vulnerable. Okay. And like I don't really want others to know I have this power. Oh okay great. We could make that work. Yeah. So let's let's turn this in this idea into a numinary character. I love it. All right. Based on the things that you'd already said I thought that your type your character type might be Jack kind of makes you a little bit good at everything. You're Jack of all trades basically. And sounds great. Very obviously for you the focus would be commands mental powers. We've already written that down in your sheet. But that's basically you can use telepathy right. You can talk to your friends. You can talk to strangers. Just exactly what it sounds like. Right. Yeah. And so all we need to do is determine what your descriptor would be. Okay. Now in the world of numinera there's kind of this dichotomy of the stuff left over from the prior worlds. It's called the numinera and some people think of it as magical but some people realize that it's actually technological. Okay. Do you have an idea of how you would see that? Well couldn't there be maybe a little bit of both? It could be both. Yeah. Absolutely. So what I'm getting at here is that we have a descriptor for you. Okay. It's got two names mystical and mechanical. All right. If you want you can call it both right. You can call it mystical mechanical. Mystical mechanical. All right. I like it. Very cool. Okay. So if you open up the character sheet to the inside then we have three stats. Now as a Jack you kind of start out pretty good at all of them. So your starting stats are 10, 10 and 11. A 10 and intellect but you get one for commanding mental powers too. You get to customize that a little bit further by adding six points to any of these scores in any combination. Well I think intellect would be high right? It sounds like that makes a lot of sense to me. So maybe three here. Okay. Let's add two to might. And then one and then mystical mechanical is going to give you two more in intellect so that's going to bring it up to 16. So that's pretty good. There's something called edge and we'll get to this more as we're playing but basically which of these three things that you really are best at that the one that you can really use a lot without kind of tiring yourself out. Sounds like maybe it's intellect. Yeah that's what I would go for. Yeah. This is the character not me personally. Right. Right. We always have to distinguish right? Because that would edge would be somewhere else. So I would just put one in edge for intellect. Okay. All right. So now next we're going to talk about your skills. I thought that might defense would be a good one. Might defense is sort of like how hearty you are and you know can you take poisons and diseases now well you can resist that kind of thing. Sure. And mystical mechanical also gives you some skills as well. Anything involving mechanical mystical stuff. Sure. Right. So we can just call that the numinera. So you'd be trained in using the numinera. Anytime you want to identify you know if you find something weird out in the wilderness or you come upon something you don't understand that that comes from these prior worlds you know you're better at that than most people. Okay. You have a little bit of knowledge in that. All right. Mystical mechanical also gives you a couple of cool special abilities. One is that you can kind of sense magic. Again in this context magic means you know the leftovers of the prior world. It's numinera right but you can sense when it's around. And then the other thing that I think that you'll kind of like it's called hedge magic. This is like little telekinetic kinds of things that you can do with the power of your mind you know moving little objects. That's on a special ability. Unfortunately mystical mechanical comes with kind of a drawback. People kind of sense that there's something not quite right about you. You know the hair and their arm kind of stands up when you get close. Like oh this guy's a little shady. Yeah. Even though you're trying to cover up your mental powers. Yeah. It you know it's almost like it bleeds out of you a little bit. Sure. You know. Jacks get these things called tricks of the trade which are little abilities like one might be that you're really good at just dodging attacks. Okay. And that would be we'd call that speed defense. Yeah. I like that. Okay. And then what kind of weapon do you see yourself carrying a weapon. Yeah. Definitely. Okay. What do you what do you see. I don't know. Like I want to think I could come out and just start shooting laser beams out of my hands. You'll get there. You'll get there. I want to jump the gun money. I want it now. I know. Okay. But yeah. So to start with though shooting something. Yeah. So in Newman era you know they're they're at about a medieval level of technology except they have a few things that they've picked up from this stuff that's around from the past. Right. So there are these things called buzzers and it basically magnetically projects a little razor disk so you could have a buzzer. If you wanted to is a jack ability you could have the ability called Pierce and Pierce allows you to do even more damage with that kind of an attack. I love all that. All right. Cool. Cool. So you want to write down Pierce under special abilities. Pierce. Then under attack you'd put buzzer. That just sounds dangerous. All right. Very cool. That I think wraps up our character. I'm excited. Thank you. Cool. This is going to be fun. Hi. Hi Erica. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. So you ready to play some new manera. I'm so ready. Do you do you have any role playing game experience. Yeah. But mostly just Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah. Okay. I've done like one shots of some other games but I haven't ventured out too far. That's a baseline I can work with. That's totally great. This is your rule book for new manera. Awesome. Thank you. And this is your starter kit. So cool. Oh nice. So your character's name is. Shonza. Shonza. Yeah. Very cool. Oh my gosh this box is so cute. Oh these are beautiful. Yeah those are the the dice that we'll be using today. Mostly be using the 20 sided. Is this a dice tray? Oh that'll be handy. I think cool. I'm so excited. We talked a little bit about your character ahead of time. Why don't you tell me what you've kind of decided on. Well she exists partially out of phase. So she is very ghostly transparent looking and that has caused her a lot of strife in her life. Yeah. She got it from one of her ancestors who was an exotic animal merchant. Okay. And so he came across this crazy like interdimensional creature that bit him. You know he led most of his life unaware but then eventually he just kind of like disappeared. And so somehow after generations they thought that you know. That fits into new manera perfectly. Oh good. Yes. That's great. And so what kinds of things do you do. Are you a more warrior more of a outdoorsy person. Outdoorsy person. She was sort of exiled. Sure. They thought she was like a cursed ghost. Probably spent some time out in the wilderness. Yeah a lot of time by herself. Yeah. Anytime she tried to interact with people they tried to excercise her and you know just. So you live by her wits and you're kind of on your own a lot. That sounds like a jack to me. Jack is kind of short for jack of all trades. You're kind of a little bit good at everything. So in new manera what we do is we have a character sentence that describes the character but it also sort of informs the game mechanics. So you're a blank blank who blanks. Now we've sort of already figured out that you're a jack who exists partially out of phase. Right. So we just have to decide what the descriptor is. What you're saying to me sounds an awful lot like you know Aragorn Ranger type person. So there's a descriptor in new manera called rugged which fits that perfectly. So let's take a look at your character sheet. So all we need to do is add the rugged part. Okay. Cool. You can open it up and all of the important stuff that will come up during the game is in the middle. We'll start with the stats. Now as a jack you kind of start out a little pretty good at all of them. You start out with a base score of 10 in each of them but you get to choose to add six points in any combination to those three stats to kind of customize how you see your character. Well I feel like as you said might and speed are pretty important. Yeah you could just kind of focus half in one and half in the other and yeah I don't need to be that smart. So what rugged does as a descriptor is it gives you a lot of skills and we've recorded most of those on your character sheet already but there are the kinds of things that you would sort of expect. You're really good at operating in nature and tracking and those kinds of things. The drawback is that because you're used to spending time alone in the woods you're not great at interacting with people. Okay. So this is called an inability and it's kind of like a negative skill. It's not that you can't do it it's just that for you it's a little bit harder. It's probably related to animals better than people. Yeah. As a jack you get some special abilities. They're called tricks of the trade. They're little things that you have picked up and you know for your character I think something maybe defensive to kind of you know you've had to keep yourself alive you know on your own. You could have skill with defense but you can kind of choose. Do you want it to be you know you're good at defending yourself physically like dodging or maybe you're good at resisting like if someone's trying to affect your mind with some kind of weird ability. Probably dodging. Yeah okay. Based on the life I imagine. Sure. So we just call that speed defense. Okay. Do you see yourself as you know you're pretty tough. Probably get into fights now and again. Do you want like a combat sort of ability. Yeah that would probably be a good idea. Yeah okay. You probably want to have like a bow or a crossbow something like that. Yeah a bow sounds more nature to me. Okay and then what about you know when you've got to get a little bit closer what sort of weapon do you see using. A glaive is the like long with the blade right. Okay that's what I see her using. Okay so there's an ability called thrust and it allows you to do more damage. You'll just want to note that thrust costs one might point. We'll get to what that actually means as we're playing the game. And so then under attacks you'd put your bow. Okay. You can just go and put four points of damage and the glaive that also does four points of damage. You'll just want to remember that if you use thrust it'll do five. Okay. Do you see your character wearing armor. Mostly like leather. Yeah like a jacket or a jerkin or something like that. Yeah. Okay great that's light armor and so you'd put one in the circle there for armor. Okay. Great and so the only other thing we've got is the exist partially out of phase. Yeah. That's the ability where you basically can move through solid matter. You kind of have to concentrate and so you can't move really fast yet right. You'll get better at it. Okay. And that should be everything that we need to get started. Okay cool. All right a couple minutes we'll just gather everyone together and we'll start playing. All right. Hey Jason. All right I have to dig in. Yeah yeah well so I know you've got some role playing game experience. Why don't you tell me a little about that. I started playing D&D when I was eight. I played that pretty much my whole life in one capacity or another. I played a lot of the other role playing games that came out at that time like Gamma World, Star Frontiers, stuff like that. Cool but you're not playing Numenera before. No and I've decided not to because I want to learn with everybody else. All right well here's a copy of the rules for you. This is great. And here is your starter kit. Whoa. All right. So we got a name plate in there. Yeah my name tag from a character. What character name did you choose? I came up with the name Edaron. Awesome. I thought that was kind of you know futuristic and medieval sounding at the same time. Some dice. All right this is awesome. I'm ready to play. Cool awesome. We have talked a little bit about the kind of character that you want to play. Why don't you tell me a little bit more about that. Some of the things that I was looking at was there was a trait I guess called rides the lightning where he can control electricity. Right. That was really fascinating to me. So you're going to be playing a nano and what a nano is is that it's someone who sort of understands the Numenera better than everyone else and so a lot of people think of them as like sorcerers or wizards but what they really are people who understand the past a little bit better. Oh okay great. And rides the lightning is a perfect focus for you. So we've already got your a nano who rides the lightning. We want to choose a descriptor for you. I can tell you right now I think what you're probably going to be interested in is a descriptor that's maybe like intelligent or maybe learned that shows that you have really kind of mastered the some of the lower. I think for him it's learned like maybe he spent his early youth discovering old books or finding you know looking for just thirsting for knowledge. Okay great great. DARREN is a learned nano who rides the lightning. Okay. Now as a nano intellect is going to be your strong suit right. We're going to start you with 12 in intellect but might and speed not as much your thing so you start with a 7 in might and a 9 in speed but here's the good news you have six points to divide up among those pools however you want. I think I'd like to spread it out okay actually to give him more of like a if he's got to get in the scuffle I don't want him to fall apart. Sure immediately. Okay so can I add two to each. Sure. Okay great. And as you're doing that I'll also tell you that your descriptor learned it is going to also add two more to your intellect. Oh great okay what's the edge there. So what edge is think of it as your employee discount. Okay. Anytime so each one of these stats you're going to be spending points out of those pools so you have an an edge of one in intellect that means that anytime you're going to spend intellect points the first one's free. Oh great. So the skills over here you'll see you've we've already got one and it's you're skilled in the numinera. Now the numinera is the word that we use to represent all of the past wonders and technology it's kind of the the general term that we use for anything from the prior worlds. Okay so it's not like an energy force or anything it's just. No no it's it's if you see a weird device that's the numinera if you see some kind of weird energy field that's numinera. Got it okay. As a learned character you're going to have three extra skills that you can choose but these skills need to be sort of intellectual lower knowledge skills so you could be trained in history or geography or you know anything that you think suits your character. Are they out of the book or they're just out of my head. There is no skill list. Okay great. They're they're they're customized to what you want your character to be good at. Well I think history and geography for sure. Okay rather than choose a third one you could double up on one of these including your knowledge of the numinera so you could be specialized in that. I'll take your advice and double up on the numinera. I think that's a wise move. So the only thing I need to inform you and this is this is the bad news of learned is that because you're learned you have spent so much time you know in libraries and focused on learning and everything that you're not really a people person. You have an inability with interaction. It's something that you're particularly not good at. You can still you can still try it but it's not your it's not your forte. Okay so as a nano you're going to get to choose two special abilities kind of cool powers that we're going to incorporate into your character concept of having devices sort of hidden around your on your on your person. Okay great. Now I'm going to recommend for sure based on your character description that one of the things you're going to want to choose is onslaught and onslaught is you shoot a blast of energy right and for you that's perfect because that would be the electricity right. The other one is is more up to you. Maybe you want something that is protective what sort of things do you have in mind. I feel like it would be protective and and maybe like party protective. Yeah so at first here the defensive power that you have available to you is just protects you it's called ward and the nice thing about ward though is that you don't have to activate it or anything it's just always on it always gives you a point of armor. You'll want to mark down a one in the little circle for armor. Great. So the only other thing that we need to do is take a look at your focus ability. Now you've already chosen rides the lightning and your focus ability at first tier is called shock. You activate this power you touch someone zap right. Great. So with your electrical powers you'll have a range attack with the onslaught or a close-in melee with your touch. Okay great. Now over on the other side of the character sheet we've got equipment as a nano you don't start with a lot of stuff. So my concept of a giant suit of electricity is not going to fly at tier one. Not at tier one but it's a great aspiration right. It's a dream. But what you do start with is some books because you're learned right. You start with a book on the numinera and you start with two other books. So book on numinera for sure. Right and then two others. See I thought maybe he might have found a book on Nikola Tesla and that's what inspired him for his a billion year old book. Well a billion year old book's probably not going to have survived right. But but having a book specifically about like electrical things and and what not totally a viable choice. Okay what might you suggest for the third one. You're probably going to be exploring weird new places you might be encountering weird new life or plant life or anything you might want like a reference for something like that. Flora and Fauna. Sure sounds great. You could also carry some kind of light weapon. I might have like a you know a walking stick or some some kind of item but I think he'll primarily mostly be zapping and charging. All right cool cool so I think that that gets you a finished numinera character you're ready to play. Okay. Thanks Jason. All right well I'm so glad you guys all have joined me here to play some numinera today. I think it's going to be a good time. So you all live in what's called the ninth world. The far far distant future. There've been all these prior worlds that have come and gone civilizations that have risen and fallen and they've left behind the remnants of their civilizations and the discoveries that they made and the incredible advances that they made. So you live amongst all of these ruins everywhere you look there's some reflection of this deep deep past. So even though you know you all come from a a society that we might describe as maybe medieval in in level of technology you've got all these remnants of things that they're basically just magic to you. Not all of these remnants are helpful or or good right. There are creatures there are weird diseases there are strange weather everything in this world from our point of view is a weird weird thing but nevertheless you all have decided to brave these dangers and go the step farther that most people in the ninth world don't take. Most people stay to their little village and and never go out into the world but there's just something in you that has has propelled you to go farther than most people. So with that in mind why don't we start talking about who you guys are and and introduce yourselves to each other. Jason let's start with my character's name is a Darren he's a learned nano who rides the lightning. He looks rather eccentric kind of like a cross between the professor in the metropolis movie and Nick Nolte's mug shot. You know his hair is just everywhere he wears like a mitch mass of different clothing he's got sort of wires running everywhere he's obsessed with lightning and he's obsessed with electricity. Very cool. 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Well if that's all I can just dispose of you. Wait what? All will be revealed in Sonic the Hedgehog presents the Chaotix Case Files. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Let's just go around the table. All right I'm Erica and I'm playing Shonda. Shonda is a rugged jack who exists partially out of phase so basically she looks like a ghost all the time. She's transparent but from what you can tell she has like short kind of like curly hair. If she wasn't transparent she'd be pretty like bronze skin and she's very slender and muscular. Cool I'm playing Davalu. She is a strong glaive who fuses flesh and steel so she is part cyborg basically but she's like a warrior. She's super strong think like Serena Williams or any of the women on the mascara but she happens to have like robotic parts so I am picturing like an arm is like that and it's circuitry that's running all throughout her body and yeah that's who she is. I'm Jeremy I'm playing Ajna as you can see I've got my third eye crystal here. Ajna is a mystical mechanical jack who commands mental powers kind of like the vision marveled vision but part vision part badass. I just love to get into the minds of people around me even though sometimes it gets me into trouble and it makes me a little vulnerable and it makes me a little bit like oh I kind of know what's going on but I don't know if I should really use that. So that's Ajna. I'm Tara I am playing Bix. Bix is a stealthy jack who explores dark places and Bix is a child. Bix saw their family killed in front of them and so is mostly mute and also doesn't want anyone to know their gender. Very cool. Very secretive. So the five of you you all know each other you've known each other for a little while you live in a place it's a little village it's called Aldervale and Aldervale is located in the foothills of a black mountain range dark tall massive peaks that is known as the Black Riyage. Most people just think of it as just impassable and the people of your village most of them are herders they tend to these flocks of these creatures called y'all that have long long yellow hair that they use for wool but you also you know use y'all for for meat as well. It's a fairly quiet tranquil place and there's one really unique thing about Aldervale and that is is that it was built around a remnant of the prior worlds and the locals all call this thing this big device that's just sitting in the middle of the village they call it the thing song because it occasionally just emits these chimes just makes music and everyone just thinks oh that's that's cool right there's we've got a little music everyone except for one person there's a young man in Aldervale and his name is Moro he's young but he's a prodigy everyone thinks of Moro as being wiser and and more knowledgeable about the numinera about the past or the remnants of things from the prior worlds more knowledgeable than anybody else and Moro has a theory Moro thinks that the chiming sound is a code and after quite a bit of study he has he thinks deciphered the code and he thinks that what the sing song is actually emitting is a series of coordinates for a place somewhere deep in the mountains so Moro has decided he's gonna go off and find this place he thinks that's his destiny the problem is Moro is kind of frail he's spent most of his time you know with his nose in a book he is not a physical person and everyone in the village has tried to talk him out of this they they don't want him to go everyone is pretty sure that he can't possibly survive this trip but he's determined because this is his destiny and so some of you have decided Moro needs an escort Moro needs someone to go with him when Moro learns of this you can see tears kind of begin to well up in his eyes and he looks at all of you and he says I can't even express how much this means to me that you would help me with this why why why are you coming with me you're the most knowledgeable guy I've ever seen in our in our village our small little village I mean I I I thirst for knowledge and and and you are knowledge there's no way I'm letting you go out there by yourself I appreciate that Shonza I believe you have answers to a lot of questions about the past worlds that I have and and I want to help you find these answers to what you're looking for as well thank you Davalou I was built to fight and there's no way I'm getting any fighting done in this town I need to get out of here and see what's out there I'm really going to be glad to have you along Ajna Moro I sense magic and I sense there's a lot in you and around you and I want to help you find the real magic of Numenera thank you so then he looks at Vix and he knows that Vix doesn't speak so Vix looks at Moro and holds up the pack because Vix has a little pack with all of Vix's things and Vix reaches out their hand Moro takes their hand and he nods and he says thank you I'm going to go try to get some rest I know it's a big journey but I'd really like to leave tomorrow morning and Moro leaves he goes back to his house um probably to gather his things and maybe get some sleep who knows um probably a stressful a stressful anxious night but nevertheless but you guys are all still here together man I'm ready to leave now I just want to go do you ever have to sleep by the way that's a rude question well do you do you go up to everybody just ask them for like half like machine or something I'm still trying to figure you out I'm still a person I'm going to go to Ben all right you've all decided to help Moro on Moro's quest and head out into the Black Riyage it's not going to be easy and we'll find out what happens on that journey next time on Starter Kit next time on Starter Kit it's an almost vertical cliff and that could be dangerous I got an idea we both take a shot Vix loses their grip Vix I'm coming for you Vix actually falls oh please not that music that music gives me nightmares from my childhood could we get something a little bit lighter some lighter music here are you a fan of true crime tv shows and what about Unsolved Mysteries the show that jump started all of our love of true crime I'm Ellen Marsh and I'm Joey Taranto and we host I Think Not a true crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime campy tv shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries baby you will laugh you will cry you'll think about true crime in a whole new way and you'll also ask yourself who gave these people mics new episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon and every Monday you can listen to our true crime rundown where we go over the top true crime the war is over and both sides lost kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight but in the shadow dark the darkness always wins this is old school adventuring at its most cruel your torch ticks down in real time and when that flame dies something else rises to finish the job this is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make this is what it felt like to play rpgs in the 80s and man it is so good to be back join the glass cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day see what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark hi this is rob benedict and i am richard spate we were both on a little show you might know called supernatural it had a pretty good run 15 seasons 327 episodes and though we have seen of course every episode many times we figure hey now that we're wrapped let's watch it all again and we can't do that alone so we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride we've got writers producers composers directors and we'll of course have some actors on as well including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers it was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible the note from kripke was he's great we love him but we're looking for like a really intelligent decovanie type with 15 seasons to explore it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes so please join us and subscribe to supernatural then and now