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BENEATH THE MONOLITH CREDITS Designer (Original Numenera) Monte Cook Designer (5e Conversion) Bruce R. Cordell Additional Design (5e Conversion) Sean K. Reynolds Creative Director Monte Cook Managing Editor Shanna Germain Editor Jeff Quick Proofreader Chris S. Sims Art Director Bear Weiter Layout Javier P. Beltrán and Bear Weiter Cover Artist Kieran Yanner and Lie Setiawan Cartographer Christopher West Artists Samuel Araya, Bruce Brenneise, Richard Burgess, Chrom, Biagio D’Alessandro, Jason Engle, Luke Green, Josu Hernaiz, Guido Kuip, Kezrek Laczin, Eric Lofgren, Raph Lomotan, Anton Kagounkin Magdalina, Jeremy McHugh, Federico Musetti, Irina Nordsol, Mirco Paganessi, Mike Perry, John Petersen, Michael Phillippi, Roberto Pitturru, Riccardo Rullo, Sam Santala, Lie Setiawan, Lee Smith, Matt Stawicki, Allison Theus, Cory Trego-Erdner, Shane Tyree, Jordan K. Walker, Ben Wootten, Kieran Yanner, Kirsten Zirngibl © 2020 Monte Cook Games, LLC. ARCANA OF THE ANCIENTS and its logo, and 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. Printed in Canada Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, place names, etc.), new rules, classes, items, virtues, backgrounds, places, characters, artwork, sidebars, and trade dress. Open Game Content: The Open content in this book includes material taken from the Systems Reference Document. No other portion of this work may be reproduced in any form without permission. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1: GETTING STARTED 5 Chapter 1: How to Use This Book 6 Chapter 2: Welcome to the Ninth World 9 PART 2: THE SETTING 13 Chapter 3: Living in the Ninth World 14 Chapter 4: Equipment 22 Chapter 5: The Steadfast 28 Chapter 6: The Beyond 72 Chapter 7: Beyond the Beyond 120 Chapter 8: Organizations 127 Chapter 9: Visitants 134 PART 3: CREATURES AND NPCs 141 Chapter 10: Creatures 142 Chapter 11: NPCs 150 3 ARCANA OF THE ANCIENTS 4 PART 1: GETTING STARTED Chapter 1: How to Use This Book 6 Chapter 2: Welcome to the Ninth World 9 BENEATH THE MONOLITH CHAPTER 1 HOW TO USE THIS BOOK eneath the Monolith is a 5E campaign 5E CHARACTERS IN setting based on the groundbreaking, THE NINTH WORLD Baward-winning, far-future setting Arcana of the Ancients and Beneath The known as the Ninth World, first presented in Monolith provide a new world for 5E characters the standalone hardcover, Numenera. to explore. And by 5E characters, we mean To begin, read through this chapter. characters created using the standard 5E The material here covers a few high-level ruleset. Players can roll up a wizard, fighter, concepts related to bringing characters— or starting new ones—from a fantasy 5E setting to the science-fantasy setting of the Ninth World. This is relatively straightforward, but a little guidance ARCANA OF THE ANCIENTS can’t hurt. To get the most out of this material, Next, turn to Chapter 2, which introduces you’ll need a copy of Arcana of the the broad concepts of a setting located a Ancients, which provides stats for the billion years in Earth’s future, replete with strange devices—including cyphers, strange people, mysterious organizations, relics, and iron flesh—plus many and feuding kingdoms surviving in a land inscrutable Ninth World creatures. formed by the remnants of multiple fallen Arcana of the Ancients also offers high-tech civilizations. a wealth of information on how to Then it’s on to Part 2: The Setting. implement the material in adventures, Everything you need to run a campaign and for creating a science-fantasy setting in the Ninth World is provided, from of your own. languages, equipment, and currency to Arcana of the Ancients, in turn, descriptions of villages, kingdoms, and all assumes you have access to the 5E kinds of weird locations, strange machines, ruleset, which you need to get the most and incomprehensible ruins that make up out of this material. In both Beneath the landscape. the Monolith and Arcana of the Ancients, Part 3 offers a glimpse at the many people terms occasionally appear in bold. These that inhabit the Ninth World, as well as a few terms refer to relevant game stats that creatures supplementing the array of those can be found in the 5E SRD or other already described in Arcana of the Ancients. source of 5E rules. Sometimes you’ll come across names like calterflies, splicer beetles, ester trees, and others without any additional explanation other than what’s provided through context. Usually, that helps deepen the weird of setting. Plus, your personal interpretation is better than a lengthy digression for something that might be fairly minor. 6 HOW TO USE THIS BOOK rogue, or some other class normally, but keep HANDLING PLAYER the following caveats in mind. CHARACTER “RACE” Established 5E characters might discover Generally speaking, standard character Chapter 4: Equipment, the Ninth World through a portal leading species in the Ninth World do not include page 22 into a parallel dimension. Alternatively, new the fantasy “races” common to 5E. So, Shin to Gold Piece (GP) characters can be created. In either case, elves, dwarves, halflings, and similar fantasy Exchange Rate, page 22 refer to Chapter 4: Equipment, specifically fare aren’t viable options for starting new General Equipment the sections Shin to Gold Piece (GP) characters native to the Numenera setting. Purchase, page 23 Exchange Rate (shins are the basic currency (If established 5E characters fall through a Starting Equipment, of the Ninth World), General Equipment portal into the Ninth World, then of course page 22 Purchase, Selected Starting Equipment, PCs come as they are.) Acquiring Treasure: and of importance to the GM, Acquiring Ultimately, humans are the default choice Shins and the Numenera, page 23 Treasure: Shins and the Numenera. for PC character species. However, if new characters are being created, two additional HANDLING CHARACTER CLASSES new species options are available: lattimor Lattimor, page 138 If player characters (PCs) are transferred and varjellen. Varjellen, page 134 directly from a 5E world, they’ll probably still call themselves fighters, wizards, rogues, and so on. But if PCs make up new characters MAGIC IN THE that are part of the world from inception, SCIENCE-FANTASY they may use the following terms instead SETTING OF (though the other terms are also sometimes THE NINTH WORLD used by people of the Ninth World). The Ninth World is a science-fantasy setting, not a fantasy setting. The difference can be SUGGESTED CLASS NAMES subtle. Like any 5E setting, the Ninth World FOR NINTH WORLD seems to have magic, but unlike those Ninth World Other Worlds settings, there’s a technological explanation Glaive Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, for the weird phenomena. Paladin, Ranger That said, the default for the Ninth World is that magic and numenera are Default Option: Magic Nano Bard, Cleric, Druid, equivalent, because magic is numenera. and the Numenera Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Equivalence, page 252 So, to the extent that a PC-cast dispel magic Jack Rogue spell would work on a magic effect in a standard fantasy setting, it would work on a The limitations of dispel numenera effect in the Ninth World. magic remain in the Ninth World; dispel Essentially, it comes down to how you magic doesn’t have any verbally adapt specific descriptions of effect on the properties regular magic in a science-fantasy setting. of a numenera item that Throughout this book, you’ll see page don’t specifically cast a references to various items accompanied spell, or on the non-spell Magic Use by Characters and Creatures: by this symbol. These are page references abilities of a creature. The default assumption is that “magic” has to Arcana of the Ancients, where you can its source in the same fundamental extra- find additional details about that rule, dimensional or cosmic energy that prior- ability, creature, or concept. Often, it will world technology uses. So spells used by be necessary to look up the referenced a wizard (or nano) in the Ninth World are item to find information you need for manifestations of this same energy source gameplay. Other times, it’s not necessary that powers the numenera. to look up the item, but doing so can The same is also true of a cleric or deepen your experience of the game and warlock who believes they are channeling the setting. spells from a higher being. Though in some cases, they probably actually do; a character may call their patron a god or demon, but it 7 BENEATH THE MONOLITH could well be an energy entity that orbits the Once you start down the science-fantasy world in a metallic satellite, connected via path, it becomes second nature. Though the datasphere and the microscopic nanites many non-player characters (NPCs) and that suffuse most solids, liquids, and gasses even PCs may still just think of it all as of the Ninth World. magic, because it’ll forever be beyond their comprehension. Technology Instead of Magic: In truth, the gap between fantasy and science-fantasy Magic Items in the Ninth World: Arcana can be a distinction without a difference. of the Ancients provides a slew of cyphers, And by that, we mean that 5E PC wizards relics, and instances of iron flesh, filling the in the Ninth World can still cast fireballs, same role as magical items in a standard clerics can cast healing, druids can speak fantasy game.