Numenera and its logo are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. All Monte Cook Games characters and character names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC. Content derived from Monte Cook Games publications is © 2013-2019 Monte Cook Games, LLC.
The Infinite Construct’s Unofficial Guide to Getting Into Numenera in 2021
- Playing Numenera with Free (Legal) Resources
- What’s Next?
- Stuff to Watch (Inspiration and Information!)
1. PLAYING NUMENERA
a. Download Ashes of the Sea
“Ashes of the Sea” was released by MCG for free in 2018. It contains an adventure and the basics of the game’s mechanics. Your next steps depend on whether you’re a GM or Player, so follow appropriately:
GMs and Players: Download both Ashes of the Sea and the pregenerated Characters; read the sections: “How to Play Numenera” and then “Understanding Your Character.”
GMs: After getting a sense of the rules and what players can do in the game, prepare to run “Ashes of the Sea!”
Players: Choose among the pregenerated characters for the adventure. Consider skipping the “Wright” for beginners as it has some extra rules.
Play “Ashes of the Sea”
After the adventure:
GM: If everything was a hit, consider cataloging all the cyphers listed in the pregen character sheet for their records. Use this to populate future adventures with cyphers. Do the same for creatures mentioned in the adventure.
b. Download the (free) Legacy Content!
There are a handful of things from the original 2013 core set of rules that didn’t make it into the updated Numenera Discovery & Destiny books. MCG offers this material for free here.
This is mostly a GM resource, but players might find reading about the town of Fasten interesting!
GMs: The Legacy Content contains a couple of new creatures to add to your DIY bestiary that you can start building from “Ashes of the Sea.”
IMPORTANT FOR GMs: The Legacy Content is likely to refer to something called “anoetic and occultic cyphers.” This distinction has been made obsolete. Just ignore it; Cyphers are just cyphers. Period.
The Legacy Content contains four adventures to run:
- “The Beale of Boregal”
- “Seedship”
- “The Hidden Price”
- “Three Sanctums”
Run these adventures in any order either as a continuing narrative thread using some creativity, or as “episodes” of interesting stories happening in the Ninth World.
c. Download The Spire of the Hunting Sound
“The Spire of The Hunting Sound” is another free adventure, with some pregens and a mini-bestiary, available at DriveThruRPG. (It is technically listed at the MCG store, but the download link for that currently doesn’t work.
GMs: It appears that “Spire of the Hunting Sound” builds mostly off of the legacy rules. Good news: not much was changed. As with the legacy content, ignore terms like “anoetic” or “occultic” cyphers and any armor rules that relate to a “speed pool reduction” should also be ignored.
Read up on and run “The Spire of The Hunting Sound” for your party!
Players: Pick from the provided pregenerated characters if you want something different from what was on offer from “Ashes of the Sea.”
Note: The version of the “Jack” type here has been likely built using a set of options that have been refined since Numenera Discovery was released.
2. WHAT’S NEXT?
With these three steps, you have approximately 6 adventures, 9 pregenerated characters, a good chunk of creatures, over a dozen cyphers, a handle on the mechanics, and a sense of what it’s like to play Numenera! GMs should grab a copy of the Cypher Shorts booklet and “retheme” the adventure “Trapped in Flames” to take place in the Ninth World–use the creatures, cyphers, and overall feel of what you gained from playing in the provided adventures above to get a sense of how to really take ownership of this setting. You could also just write your own adventure with the material provided from these resources, but eventually, you’re going to want to really jump in. The next step then is looking at Numenera Discovery & Destiny as they are, as of the time of this writing, the “core rules” of the game.
This guide does not cover purchased material at this time, but if you feel that after all of this you want more of the Ninth World, then Discovery & Destiny are literally the next place to look: they’ll give you a more comprehensive overview of the setting and the “narrative theory” that goes into running a game in this setting, with all the resources needed to make characters with six different types and a whole bunch of descriptors and foci, some added rules for more functionality, more creatures, more cyphers, oddities and artifacts, and seven new adventures across both Discovery & Destiny.
If it is the case that you really dig the system (the math, the difficulty level system, character construction, effort, edge, etc.) but aren’t as much into the Ninth World as a setting, the Cypher System Rulebook is worth checking out after this.
3. STUFF TO WATCH
If you don’t have a sense of what Numenera is about, the following videos will prepare you well for the setting and the rules:
Official:
From THE INFINITE CONSTRUCT:
Numenera and its logo are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. All Monte Cook Games characters and character names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC. Content derived from Monte Cook Games publications is © 2013-2019 Monte Cook Games, LLC.
THE INFINITE CONSTRUCT 