There have been eight previous worlds.
You may refer to them as ages, aeons, epochs, or
eras, but it’s not wrong to think of each as its
own individual world. Each former world stretched
across vast millennia of time. Each played host
to a race whose civilizations rose to supremacy
but eventually died or scattered, disappeared or
transcended. During the time that each world
flourished, those that ruled it spoke to the stars,
reengineered their physical bodies, and mastered
form and essence, all in their own unique ways.
Each left behind remnants.
The Ninth World is built on the bones of the
previous eight, and in particular the last four. Reach
into the dust, and you’ll find that each particle
has been worked, manufactured, or grown,
and then ground back into drit—a fine, artificial
soil—by the relentless power of time. Look to
the horizon—is that a mountain, or part of an
impossible monument to the forgotten emperor
of a lost people? Feel that subtle vibration beneath
your feet and know that ancient engines—vast machines
the size of kingdoms—still operate in the bowels of the earth.
Each of the prior eight worlds, in its own way, is
too distant, too different, too incomprehensible. Life
today is too dangerous to dwell on a past that cannot
be understood. The people excavate and study the
marvels of the prior epochs just enough to help
them survive in the world they have been given. They
know that energies and knowledge are suspended
invisibly in the air, that reshaped continents of iron
and glass—below, upon, and above the earth—hold
vast treasures, and that secret doorways to stars and
other dimensions and realms provide power and
secrets and death. They sometimes call it magic, and
who are we to say that they’re wrong?
More often, however, when they find leftovers
of the old worlds—the devices, the vast machine
complexes, the altered landscapes, the changes
wrought upon living creatures by ancient energies,
the invisible nano-spirits hovering in the air in clouds
called the Iron Wind, the information transmitted
into the so-called datasphere, and the remnants of
visitors from other dimensions and alien planets—
they call these things the Numenera.
~ ]Numenera Core Rulebook
To say the Ninth World is weird, would be to say
humans are carbon. The technology (or magic) left behind
by the denizens of the previous epochs is as alien to any
Ninth Worlder as it is to us. Thus, the strange and unexpected
are commonplace in the Ninth World. Grass and flowers are just as
mundane and 'natural' as the floating mirror in the center of town
that reflects different points in time. The dreadful Iron Wind, a storm
that deconstructs and transforms everything it touches on the
molecular level is no stranger than the storms that bring only
foul smelling breezes Most don't understand how and none understand why.
The technology level of the Ninth World is roughly parallel
to our history's 100 C.E. (A.D.) But the Numenera allow Ninth Worlders
to control beasts, people, the elements, time, space and the very particles
that make all of it up. The challenge is understanding how any of it works.
Numenera allows you a very special level of freedom with character
creation. Do you want to be a human ranger type with a giant yellow
slug as a companion? Perhaps you'd prefer to be a practiced psionic
with an artificial brain, and a third eye. Have your fingers be one
foot long tendrils if you'd like. Maybe you prefer a good old fashioned
thief...with green skin and a mouth on your stomach. The Ninth World is
weird enough for you, are you weird enough for the Ninth World?
Feel free to ask if you are unsure of anything. (Reply or PM)
I'm looking for a minimum of three, no maximum. Who's Interested?
ALL PLAYERS WELCOME
Note: Knowledge of the setting IS NOT NEEDED to enjoy this RP.
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