Mechanics Archives

Long ago there was a world full of magic. An elder race ruled this world of beauty and comfort through esoteric magics and invisible servants.  But the comforts and ease of existence made the rulers of this world bored, and so they built themselves adversity by turning some of the servants in the air into […]

So, I’ve really been interested with and inspired by the fact that people seemed to really like the Jinxed Descriptor I came up with a while back. Last time I checked it was the highest rated one on this site.  This is fascinating to me because by choosing an ostensibly negative Descriptor it might seem […]

During the Numenera playtest last year the first little adventure I received included a single enemy monster:  The Murden. My players went up against these guys quite a few times after that and I came to really fall in love with them as monsters.  I love their mild psychic abilities, their misunderstood nature, and their […]

It’s easy to get writer’s block when making monsters for Numenera.  It’s hard to really keep it weird when there’s pressure to keep it weird.  Sometimes you need a little help. Here’s my system for coming up with on-the-fly or randomly strange creatures and people. Step 1:  Inspiration The best source of inspiration is good […]

Jacks can be kind of a mixed bag. Glaives and Nanos both have their own strong identity, with a focus on combat and esoteries respectively. Jacks have very few abilities of their own, mostly gaining ones that Glaive and Nanos of the same tier already had from previous tiers. Jacks are intrepid explorers and adventurers. […]