Numenera is set on Earth approximately one billion years in the future. The setting is called "The Ninth World" due to the fact that eight civilizations have risen and fallen prior to the current era.
Character creation has been simplified by having players fill in the blanks to the statement: ;"I am a __________ __________ who _________s."
The first blank, the adjective in the sentence, is filled in by a character's "Descriptor", a way to describe the character's strongest characteristic.
The second blank, the noun of the sentence, is filled in by a character's "Type", which is a "Glaive", a "Nano", or a "Jack".
The third blank, the verb of the sentence, is filled in by a character's "Focus", or what the character is most known for or their special talent.
Technology
The name "Numenera" is a reference to the bits of technology left over from past civilizations. The word "numen" is a Latin root word meaning a "pervading divine presence" and "era" refers to the period in which this universe takes place. The world is utterly filled with "nanites" that some beings in this universe can tap into and control. With a nod towards Clarke's Third Law, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", the setting treats technology with much the same approach as magic in a fantasy setting. The native tech level is roughly medieval.
Launch
Numenera was launched via a Kickstarter campaign, that set a record for "most money raised for a tabletop role-playing game" at $517,255 by 4,658 backers, surpassing the previous record set by the Kickstarter for Traveller 5th edition. Originally intended just to fund the initial Core rulebook, the campaign more than doubled its fund goal within the first 24 hours. "Stretch-goals" that were announced as the level of funding grew increased the output of products, ending up producing an entire game line.
Numenera 2
Numenera 2 is a revision of the original game to increase emphasis on exploration, discovery, and building. It also incorporated a few revisions from the Cypherrule system that had been released subsequent to the original Numenera release. Numenera 2 also used a Kickstarter campaign for initial funding obtaining $845,258 from 4,185 backers. The campaign ran in Fall of 2017 with first deliverables scheduled for Summer of 2018. Numenera 2 has two core rule books titled, Numenera: Discovery and Numenera: Destiny. Discovery is essentially a revision of the original Numenera core book. The Jack character type was substantially revised to be more distinctive compared to Nanos and Glaives. Also added are player intrusions, a mechanism allowing players to alter the environment by spending an experience point. Destiny is nearly completely new material offering three new character types: Arkus, Delve, and Wright, new descriptors and new foci. The book also emphasizes crafting along with community protection and development with these character types taking lead positions in such an endeavor. A major section on crafting mechanisms and a major section on communities are provided. The manner of running a community game can be described as treating the community as an NPC in the game with stats that the player characters enhance. New monsters, NPCs, and settings are also offered in the Destiny core book. As part of the Numenera 2 Kickstarter campaign several other supplemental materials are scheduled for production. As of July, 2018 only the Numenera 2 core books had been released in PDF format for Kickstarter backers.
Products
Core books
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Adventures and Glimmers
Glimmers are short, PDF-only publications. There are also some adventure collections that have appeared in print:
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Game aids
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Fiction
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Related products
There have been several announced tie-ins to the brand:
Thunderstone Advance: Numenera by AEG, an expansion to the Thunderstone deck-building card game, set in the world of Numenera.
by inXile, a spiritual successor to by Interplay. This computer game was also launched by Kickstarter and was itself a record setter for Kickstarter, being the fastest to $1 million up to that time.
