Character Creation

TIME DILATION NODULE (OFFENSIVE)
Level: 2
Usable: Crystal nodule affixed to a melee weapon
Effect: For the next 28 hours, the attacker moves at almost instantaneous speeds when they swing the weapon, easing their attacks by two steps (three steps if the cypher is level 6 or higher).

VISUAL DISPLACEMENT DEVICE
Level: 1
Wearable: Belt or bracelet
Usable: Handheld device
Effect: Projects holographic images of the wearer to confuse attackers. The images appear around the wearer. This gives the wearer an asset to Speed defense actions for ten minutes per cypher level.

Oddity: Metallic jar that maintains the temperature of liquid inside indefinitely

IMAGE PROJECTOR
Level: 6
Wearable: Headband with device on forehead
Usable: Handheld device with glass panel
Effect: Projects the following immobile image in the area described for one hour. The image appears up to a close distance away (long distance if the cypher level is 4 or higher, very long distance if the
cypher level is 6 or higher). Scenes include movement, sound, and smell.
Scene: Food that looks delicious but may not be familiar (10-foot [3 m] cube)

INFRASTRUCTURE DRILL
Level: 2
Usable: Large sphere with a thick screw protrusion
Effect: The user attaches this cypher to a wall or other structure. On the following round, it drills into the object and keeps going beneath the surface for the next hour, creating a series of tunnels that weaken the integrity of the structure and connecting structures. This decreases the level of all commonplace structures connected to the initial structure within long range and inflicts 3 points of damage to a ranked community’s infrastructure.

Oddity: Tiny toy ornithopter made of a solid piece of material that seems indestructible

DETONATION (SONIC)
Level: 3
Wearable: Wristband projector (long range)
Usable: Explosive device or ceramic sphere (thrown, short range) or handheld projector (long range)
Effect: Explodes with terrifying sound, deafening all in an immediate radius for ten minutes per cypher level.

DECEPTION FILTER
Level: 1
Internal: Pill, ingestible liquid
Wearable: Badge
Effect: User cannot knowingly tell a lie for one hour.

INSTANT WALL
Level: 6
Usable: Handheld device
Effect: With the addition of water and air, the small device expands into an immobile plane up to 10 feet (3 m) tall, 30 feet (9 m) long, and 2 feet (60 cm) thick. It is made from a form of shapestone and is permanent and immobile once created.

Oddity: Metallic mask that fits perfectly on your face and changes expression when you do

INSTANT SERVANT
Level: 4
Usable: Handheld device
Effect: Small device expands into a humanoid automaton that is roughly 2 feet (60 cm) tall. Its level is equal to the cypher level and it can understand the verbal commands of the character who activates it. Once the servant is activated, commanding it is not an action. It can make attacks or perform actions as ordered to the best of its abilities, but it cannot speak.
The automaton has short-range movement but never goes farther than long range away from the character who activated it. At the GM’s discretion, the servant might have specialized knowledge, such as how to operate a particular device. Otherwise, it has no special knowledge. In any case, the servant is not artificially intelligent or capable of initiating action. It does only as commanded.
The servant operates for one hour per cypher level.

SLASH-RETARDANT SPRAY
Level: 8
Usable: Bulky handheld device attached to large tanks and a wide hose
Effect: For the next 28 hours, walls and structures sprayed with these repairing nanites are treated as if 1 level higher. If an hour is spent spraying down the outer walls and defense structures of a ranked community, that community gains +1 Armor during any conflict that happens over the next 28 hours.

SHAPEMETAL
Level: 6
Usable: Canister containing a silvery,
shapeable clay
Effect: This metallic clay can be shaped and
greatly expanded to create individual tools
or objects such as a hammer, a ladder, or
a basic structure such as a wall, bench,
floor, staircase, and so on, as long as the
total volume created could fit in a 10-foot
(3 m) cube. Once formed, the structure or
objects are permanent

Oddity: Crystal that shatters easily but then instantly reforms
Oddity #2: Cape that billows as if blown by the wind when worn, even in still air

You have delved too deeply into subjects humans of the Ninth World were not meant to know. You are knowledgeable in things beyond the scope of most, but this knowledge has come at a terrible price. You are likely in questionable physical shape and occasionally shake with nervous tics. You sometimes mutter to yourself without realizing it.

You gain the following characteristics:
Knowledgeable: +4 to your Intellect Pool.
Fits of Insight: Whenever such knowledge is appropriate, the GM feeds you information although there is no clear explanation as to how you could know such a thing. This is up to the GM’s discretion, but it should happen as often as once each session.
Erratic Behavior: You are prone to acting erratically or irrationally. When you are in the presence of a major numenera discovery or subjected to great stress (such as a serious physical threat), the GM can use GM intrusion that directs your next action without awarding XP. You can still pay 1 XP to refuse the intrusion. The GM’s influence is the manifestation of your madness and thus is always something you would not likely do otherwise, but it is not directly, obviously harmful to you unless there are extenuating circumstances. (For example, if a foe suddenly leaps out of the darkness, you might spend the first round babbling incoherently or screaming the name of your first true love.)
Skill: You are trained in numenera knowledge.
Inability: Your mind is quite fragile.
Whenever you try to resist a mental attack, the difficulty is increased by one step.
Initial Link to the Starting Adventure: From the following list of options, choose how you became involved in the first adventure.
1. Voices in your head told you to go.
2. You instigated the whole thing and convinced the others to join you.
3. One of the other PCs obtained a book of numenera knowledge for you, and now you’re repaying that favor by helping her with the task at hand.
4. You feel compelled by inexplicable intuition.

Wrights are builders and crafters. When something special is required, a Wright can make it. When strange instructions are found in the ruins of the prior worlds, Wrights can decipher them and, using special components
called iotum, craft their own cyphers, artifacts, or installations. In a way, Wrights are especially good at understanding and stealing the fire of creation that burned so brightly in the civilizations that rose to unimaginable heights before the Ninth World. Wrights are the rarest of the already rare numenera scholars; they aren’t afraid of weird or incomprehensible tech—they try to take it apart and learn how to make more.

Wrights are especially skilled in the many tasks related to crafting. They need to be at least a little skilled at a lot of things. They want Intellect to help them decipher and develop numenera plans, identify components, and craft amazing items.

Wrights are not afraid to explore, especially ecause the iotum they need to make their wondrous items can usually be found only by
salvaging it from places where physical danger is certain. They’re happy to don heavy armor to protect themselves from danger, even though it slows them down a little. Though such armor can be restrictive, Wrights can usually rely on allies or followers to help them search out a particularly difficult-to-reach or tight spot.

Wrights in Society: People are usually very accepting of Wrights since the things they craft are often useful or even necessary, whether that means a wagon, a wall, or an installation that can light up a small community. When Wrights begin to dabble in more exotic installations, automatons, or vehicles, public concern can creep in. A Wright with an automaton servant might be seen by some as a sorcerer who has infused a demonic spirit into crude matter, giving it life like the automatons that litter the landscape and that most people have enough sense to avoid.

But a Wright can be a vital part of any community, especially one that has special needs that can’t be met any other way. With
enough time and resources, a Wright can provide clean water, nutrition, defense, and of course, comfortable homes for people to live in.

Wrights get along well with Glaives and Delves. They rely on the former to protect them while they focus on creative tasks, and they trust that Delves will find and return fresh plan seeds and iotum that Wrights need to conduct their basic craft. Nanos can be friendly, but Wrights sometimes find themselves in competition with Nanos who want the same iotum, possibly for their own inscrutable tasks or even as an ingredient for their own crafting. Arkai often come to Wrights asking for the creation of particular structures or installations. As long as they’re asking and not ordering, the alliance remains on good terms. Wrights are friendly with some Jacks and sour on others; it depends on the Jack in question.

Wrights in the Group: While an Arkus might naturally assume some authority in a newly founded settlement or allied community, Wrights can also fulfill that role because they tend to remain in such locations for extended periods of time. On the other hand, a Wright is usually happy to let others make the hard decisions so they can focus on making interesting things. In a straight-up fight, Wrights rely on their creations to aid both themselves and their allies; an established Wright might even have created defensive or offensive installations in the group’s base or newly founded settlement.

Wrights and the Numenera: Wrights wouldn’t exist without the numenera. To craft anything other than mundane objects and
structures, Wrights depend on iotum salvaged from scrap found in ruins and other locations, as well as fragments of information encoded in knowledge caches for millions of years or longer. So like Delves and Nanos, Wrights value any and all devices and discoveries related to the numenera and crave more.

Wrights usually craft items that help a larger community, but they can also craft objects to aid themselves, if they can find the plans
to do so. Artifacts and cyphers that provide protection, store knowledge, and extend their crafting capabilities further are the kinds of numenera items Wrights are most excited to find or fashion.

Advanced Wrights: As Wrights gain experience and become more skilled and powerful, they develop more plans for building numenera objects and structures, they can drastically reduce the amount of time required to craft complex objects or structures, and they can take direct control of objects and structures they’ve built to create amazing effects.

WRIGHT BACKGROUND: UNEXPECTED BRILLIANCE
Your mind developed early, way before your peers. Your parents realized it and delighted in challenging you with puzzles and projects. You could fix household items, and eventually you found your true passion: taking apart oddities, scrap, and depleted cyphers. You figured out how to make broken machines work again, and honed your ability to recognize what a jumble of parts could do if you put them together in just the right configuration. Most people respected and appreciated your talent, some tried to exploit you, and a few feared you, but your incredible mind made sure you always came out ahead—or gave you enough of a
head start to get away from serious trouble.
Whence did your brilliance spring? Just an accident of nurture and nature? Did you have a great-grandparent who was equally skilled? Or is your facility with objects and structures something inherent in you, such as a mutation in your brain that gives you insights that others can’t imagine? It’s a mystery, and one you’d like to solve one day. But only after you finish your current list of crafting projects.

Advancement: Even your amazing talents have their limits. Even when you have the perfect plan for creating an amazing new installation, you’ve had setbacks and failures.
This means you’re always looking for others like you, people with whom you can share your knowledge and they with you, so that
perhaps together you’ll all progress to new heights. That’s not always possible, so usually your stats improve and you gain new abilities because you’ve taken the gifts you were born with and pushed them to the next level.

WRIGHT STAT POOLS
Might 9
Speed 7
Intellect 12
You get 6 additional points to divide among your stat Pools however you wish.

FIRST-TIER WRIGHTS
First-tier Wrights have the following abilities. Add them to the appropriate place on your
character sheet, under Effort, Edge (in the appropriate stat Pool), equipment, and potentially skills and special abilities:
Effort: Your Effort is 1.
Inventor: You have an Intellect Edge of 1, a Might Edge of 0, and a Speed Edge of 0.
Cypher Use: You can bear three cyphers at a time.
Weapons: You can use light weapons without penalty. You have an inability with medium and heavy weapons; your attacks with medium and heavy weapons are hindered.
Skills: You are trained in crafting numenera. In addition, you are trained in a crafting skill in which you are not already trained. Choose one of the following: salvaging numenera, understanding numenera, engineering, woodcrafting, armoring, weaponsmithing, or another crafting skill of your choice. You have an inability in salvaging numenera and understanding numenera. Enabler.
Community Builder: While you are present within the community, and actively and personally working on behalf of that
community, +3 is added to the community’s infrastructure. Enabler.
Always Tinkering: If you have any tools and materials at all, and you are carrying fewer cyphers than your limit, you can create a cypher if you have an hour of time to spend. The new cypher is random and always 2 levels lower than normal (minimum 1). It’s also temperamental and fragile. These are called temperamental cyphers. If you give it to anyone else to use, it falls apart immediately, useless. Action to initiate, one hour to complete.
Numenera Plans: You start with two numenera plans of your choice. Enabler.
Starting Equipment: You start with clothing, one weapon, an explorer’s pack, a book about crafting, three cyphers (chosen by the GM), one oddity (chosen by the GM), a box of crafting tools, and 5 shins (coins). If you start with a ranged weapon that requires ammunition (arrows, for example), you start with 12 of that type of ammunition. Before selecting your weapons, armor, and other gear, you might want to wait until after you’ve chosen your abilities, descriptor, and focus.
Starting Iotum: In addition to your starting equipment, you start with 4 units of io and 4 units of responsive synth. You also have 6 units of parts.
Default Starting Cyphers and Oddity: Your GM may provide you with starting cyphers and an oddity. Otherwise, you begin with the following.
• Cyphers: crafter’s eyes, instant item, gravity changer
• Oddity: Piece of extremely strong and thin cable 8 feet (2.5 m) long
Inspired Techniques: You have a special talent for crafting and can create objects and structures that others can barely imagine. These talents are called inspired techniques. Some inspired techniques are constant, ongoing effects, and others are specific actions that usually cost points from one of your stat Pools. You gain some of your inspired techniques using special numenera tools. For instance, when you use Scan for Iotum, it’s probably from a device that you’ve either made, found, or been given.
Choose two of the inspired techniques described below. You can’t choose the same inspired technique more than once unless its
description says otherwise. You can keep track of these in the Special Abilities section of your character sheet.
• Additional Numenera Plans: You gain two additional numenera plans. You can take this ability multiple times. Enabler.
• Deconstruct (3 Intellect points): You take the time to closely study a bit of scrap, machine, cypher, artifact, or other numenera object or structure before attempting to salvage iotum from it. If the salvage source possesses iotum that can be salvaged (as determined by the GM), the salvage task gains an asset. In addition, you gain one additional iotum from the salvage attempt, which means one additional roll on the Iotum Result Table. Action to initiate, ten minutes to complete.
• Extra Use (3 Intellect points): You attempt to gain an extra use from an installation or artifact without triggering a depletion roll. The difficulty of the task is equal to the level of the installation or artifact. If you crafted the installation or artifact, you gain an asset to the task. On a failure, the depletion roll occurs normally. You could also try to use a cypher without burning
it out, but the task is hindered. A failed attempt to gain an additional use from a cypher destroys it before it can produce the
desired effect. Action.
• Natural Crafter: All commonplace objects or structures you craft are effectively 1 level higher than an average example of that object or structure. For instance, if you craft a defensive wall that would normally be level 4, its effective level is 5. Enabler.
• Right Tool for the Job (1 Intellect point + iotum): If you have at least 1 unit of iotum, you can fashion a temporary device that provides an asset to one physical, noncombat task, identified ahead of time.
For example, if you need to climb a wall, you could create some sort of climbing assistance device; if you need to break out of a cell, you can tune iotum in your possession to serve as a lockpick; if you need to create a small distraction, you could trigger an iotum to make a loud bang and flash; and so on. Once fashioned, the adapted iotum lasts for about a minute or until used for the intended purpose. This use destroys the iotum. Action to prepare the iotum; action to initiate.
• Scan for Iotum (2 Intellect points): Using a device or some kind of unique sense, you scan an area equal in size to a 10-foot (3 m) cube, including all objects or structures. The area must be within immediate range. The difficulty of the task is equal to the level of the object or structure being scanned. Scanning in this fashion grants an asset to initial salvage tasks in the area to determine if anything is worth salvaging. This ability doesn’t improve your ability to find a specific kind of iotum, only to discover
whether there is iotum within the salvage source in the first place. That said, many materials and energy fields prevent or resist
scanning. Action.
• Scramble Machine (2 Intellect points): You render one machine within short range unable to function for one round.
Alternatively, you can hinder any action by the machine (or by someone attempting to use the machine) for one minute. Action.
• Trained in Armor: You can wear armor for long periods of time without tiring and can compensate for slowed reactions from
wearing armor. You can wear any kind of armor. You reduce the Speed Effort cost for wearing armor by 1. If you choose this as
one of your starting inspired techniques, you start the game with armor of your choice. Enabler.
• Trigger Iotum Ray (1 Intellect point or iotum): If you have at least 1 unit of iotum, you can trigger it to release a shortrange ray of force that inflicts 3 points of damage. This does not destroy the iotum. Alternatively, you can choose to have this
destroy the iotum, in which case there is no Intellect cost. Action.

All the world is a vast puzzle, one you’re able to solve. Where others see junk, you see the shape of what all the pieces could be. Sometimes you combine objects to create something new, and other times you chip away everything that doesn’t look like the thing you want. The more you learn, the more you’re able to make, up to and including numenera devices. However, improvising a weapon from whatever happens to be lying around can be just as impressive when the unexpected happens and time is of the essence.
You probably wear a vest or coat with many pockets for your tools.
Connection: Choose one of the following.
1. Pick one other PC. That character seem
to disturb your concentration in a way that you can’t explain. If they are standing next to you, all your crafting and improvisation tasks prove one step more difficult.
2. Pick one other PC. For some reason that isn’t immediately clear, they are able to use all the weapons, armor, and tools you improvise as if practiced.
3. Pick one other PC. Recently, they accidentally (or perhaps intentionally) lost your previous set of tools. You’re not sure if it was a joke or an accident, but you’re wary of a repeat incident.
4. Pick one other PC. They dislike disorder and messes of all kinds, and refer to your knack for making something out of nothing as "playing with junk." You hope that crafting something beautiful for them will change their mind. It’s up to that player how their character responds to the experience.
Additional Equipment: A pack of light tools.
Minor Effect Suggestions: An item you improvise, jury-rig, or craft is of even better quality than you intended, and is one level higher than normal.
Major Effect Suggestions: An item you improvise, jury-rig, or craft has an additional ability, use, or effect. For instance, if you improvise a club from a table leg, a perfectly positioned nail means the weapon inflicts 1 additional point of damage.

Tier 1:
Improvise (3 Intellect points): When you perform a task in which you are not trained, you can improvise to gain an asset on the task. The asset might be a tool you cobble together, a sudden insight into overcoming a problem, or a rush of dumb luck. For example, you could improvise a weapon from a table leg to serve as a medium club, a shard of crystal to serve as a light dagger, a stone to serve as a light thrown weapon, and so on. If need be, you can even use your fist as a light weapon. Likewise, you can improvise a shield from a small table, a chair, or other object larger than a breadbox that you can hold. Enabler.
Craftsperson: You are trained in a crafting skill in which you are not already trained. Choices include, but are not limited to, the following: bowyering/fletching, leatherworking, glassblowing, armoring, weaponsmithing, woodcrafting, and metalworking. Enabler.

Tier 2:
Numenera Expert. You are trained in two numenera crafting skills in which you are not already trained. Choices include,
but are not limited to, the following: numenera crafting (chemistry), numenera crafting (electronics), numenera crafting (mechanics), and numenera crafting (transdimensional). Enabler.

Tier 3:
Brief Empowerment (4 Intellect points). You give enough power to a single numenera item to allow it to function once, or for one round, whichever is most appropriate. Action.
Depowering (4 Intellect points). If you can spend a round manipulating a powered numenera item, you can cause it to stop
functioning for one minute. Action.

Tier 4:
Jury-Rig (5 Intellect points). You quickly create an object using what would seem to be entirely inappropriate materials.
You can make a detonation out of a few oddities, a lockpick out of a few expertly snipped shins, or an energy-detecting device
out of some junk and a few shins. The level of the item determines the difficulty of the task, but the appropriateness of the
materials modifies it as well. Generally, the object can be no larger than something you can hold in one hand, and it functions
once—in most cases, it is a cypher and is limited by your normal cypher limit. If you spend one minute, you can create an item
of level 3 or lower. If you spend at least ten minutes on the task, you can create an item of level 5 or lower. In many cases, you
need to be familiar with the item you are creating—you can’t create a specific cypher without having had a cypher like that in the
past. You can’t change the nature of the materials involved. For example, you can’t take a rock and make it into water. Action to
initiate.

Tier 5:
Of My Own Design. When you use an object you’ve crafted, the difficulty is reduced by one step. For example, if you
craft a length of synth cord with a handle to use as a whip or strangling cord, or to tie someone up securely, the difficulty of that
task is decreased by one step. Enabler.

Tier 6:
Greater Jury-Rig (7 Intellect points). When you use your Jury-Rig ability, you can create an item of level 3 or lower in a round and an item of level 5 or lower in a minute, and if you spend at least ten minutes on the task, you can create an item of level 7 or lower.