Dust of the Cold Wind

Environmental GM Intrusion

A character ingests the Dust of the Cold Wind and contracts a potent poison that rides on the particles and debris that are blown around the The Cold Desert . 

This poison has no effect at first, other than a nagging cough. The next day a difficulty 4 Might test is required.  If the test is failed the PC is wracked with a horrific cough as the toxic particles affect their lungs. All Might and Speed tasks have an Initial Cost of 1 until the sickness can be cured.  All actions involving Stealth are increased by two steps, as the PC finds it nearly impossible to stop the cough.

The affected character can attempt a difficulty 4 Might task every day to fight off the condition. A capable healer can act an asset, reducing the task from 4 to 3.

A healer, shaman, or mystic can attempt to cure the malady as a level 4 Intellect task.

Ovoid Portal

Artifact

Level: 4


Form: A 6" flat oval substance about three feet in width and five feet tall. The Ovoid has four protrusions that look like teeth, two on the top and two on the bottom.

Effect: When activated, the portal will unfurl and attach itself to a wall via its toothy protrusions. Once attached, the ovoid portal gives a violent shudder and takes on the appearance of rippling water. Afterwards it offers access to any open space on the other side of the wall, up to 40' away.

The portal can only offer passage through materials that are level 4 and lower.

Depletion: 1 in 1d6

Dreet

Dreet   

2 (6) 

The Dreet are an intelligent race of feline like creatures who's numbers have dwindled to near extinction levels.  They dwell exclusively along the banks of the Tithe River and Araand Rivers, near Navarene and the Cloudcrystal Skyfields. A very specific form of plant called Dreetus grows along the shallow banks of these rivers. For reasons unknown to even the Dreet only the nutrients found in the Dreetus bulb can sustain them.

Over the millenia Dreet have developed an ability to shift the color of fur to match their surroundings, making them experts and hiding from predators.  The strange  feline creatures stand about four feet high and have extremely long ears that are excellent at picking up even the smallest of sounds.

Dreet can communicate with just about any creature that can speak, using its superior intellect to puzzle out the proper linguistics needed for communication.

Over the years, Dreet have become quite skilled at finding Numenera and identifying their uses.

Motive: To survive
Environment: The Tithe and Armand Rivers
Health: 8
Damage Inflicted: 2
Armor: None
Movement: Long
Modifications: Knowledge of Numenera as level 6, Defends as level 5 due to camouflage, Percieves as Level 6
Combat: Dreet rarely engage in combat unless absolutely needed.
Interaction:
Use: When the PCs are traveling across the Tithe River they come across a herd of Dreet that are moving as fast and quietly as possible away from an errant Herder that has decided the creatures need to moved further away from the river, away from the vital nutrients that sustain their lives. The Dreet can offer sage advice on Numenera devices, or perhaps point the PCs towards a complex that is controlling the Herders.
Loot: The shores of a Dreet haunt are sometimes littered with 1d6+1 cyphers.

GM Intrusion: A PCs stumbles across a Dreet, accidentally exposing its hiding place to a predator that was stalking it. The Dreet is extremely angry with the PC.

Sopoforic Pollen

Environmental GM Intrusion

While exploring a strange looking forest, the PC causes an exotic plant to emit a toxic pollen that has a soporific effect. The character's aggressiveness is greatly decreased, causing any Might task that the PC spends Effort on to have an Initial Cost of 1. The effect lasts for 1d6 hours. During that time, the PC must consume twice the amount of food that they normally would.

The Doppelganger Effect

Glimmer

The PCs are traveling along a road, or even in a city when they come across two people fighting, one savagely mauling the other.

A quick level 2 Intellect task quickly reveals that the two people are twins. Not only are they twins, they are exact duplicates, down to every article of clothing.

If the PCs are able to break the fight up (the person that is being attacked will die without their help, after which the doppelganger dies as well), they find that the aggressive person has strange white eyes, and becomes violently enraged when they see their twin.

To make matters worse if the PCs harm the strange doppelganger any damage they inflict they upon the doppelganger will also be inflicted on the person who's form it assumed.

When questioned about how this happened the original person that was copied points the PCs to a strange device that he found nearby. After touching the device, the doppelganger appeared and became enraged upon seeing him. It chased him until it finally caught up with him.

The doppelganger will not speak or communicate with the PCs, or anyone else for that matter. If left to its own devices, it will continue to seek out its twin.

Important Questions

• What, if anything, can be done about the doppelganger? 
• How will this effect the person that was copied?
• Could the original device help undo this?
• Could this device be used as a weapon, or should it be destroyed?

You rolled a 1.. again? (Part I)

When preparing a Numenera adventure, I always write down a few intrusions that are relevant to the environment or story that I'm trying to convey to the players.   Before I started writing these ideas down, I would invariably forget to give a couple of players an intrusion, causing an inequitable distribution of experience points in the group.

Writing these intrusions ahead of time gave me more freedom to focus my creativity on conveying the world and interesting characters that the players encountered. I'm also pretty good at handling impromptu intrusions based on the characters actions.  I thought I was as prepared as a GM could be... until I encountered "that" player.  That player happened to be my son. On two separate occasions, he rolled five ones in one encounter. The first one was funny and I came up with something pretty fast. "Okay, your weapon flies free from your grasp and lands a few feet a way, it will take an action to get it back".. or.. "the last cypher injection that you took had some kind of strange effect on you, your next task has an increased difficulty of one"... "or you trip and fall"..  It can be taxing to dole out a high number of memorable or meaningful intrusions in one encounter.

There are a couple of ways to handle that many player created intrusions.  Monte Cook Games  recently released a fantastic GM Intrusions Deck. Having these cards at the table is like having an extra GM there helping you come up with ideas when you need a helping hand.

While the GM Intrusion deck is great, I have found another way to handle player rolled intrusions using Dungeon World's GM Moves list.  A GM Move is essentially an action that a GM can make in response to the player failing a roll. So basically, its just like a player rolling a one.

Dungeon World GM Moves

• Use a monster, danger, or location move
• Reveal an unwelcome truth
• Show signs of an approaching threat
• Deal damage
• Use up their resources
• Turn their move back on them
• Separate them
• Give an opportunity that fits a class’ abilities
• Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment
• Offer an opportunity, with or without cost
• Put someone in a spot
• Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask

As you can see, these moves are very much like intrusions. Print out this list and tape it to your GM screen and you will never run out of good ideas when your players roll too many ones!

Happy GM'ing!

Heals What Ails You

Heals What Ails You

You heal, but not through the supernatural. Your knowledge of medicine/injuries/trauma allows you to assist your allies even in the midst of combat. Sometimes it is disturbing how calm you remain in the face of gruesome injury. Your outfit is most likely cluttered with tools and poultices, and there is more than enough blood that stains your clothing.

A medic can be created in a number of different ways, but one factor should remain the same: they are not a normal doctor. They draw on something that puts them above the rest, whether that be intense training in trauma relief, or that they are a direct descendant of a race of peoples created with the innate ability for medicine, or even Nanites that surround them and guide their hands during procedures.

Connection:

1. Pick one other PC. This person is the only member of your party that you would ever let work on you.
2. Pick one other PC. This person is skeptical of your poultices, and sees you as a bit of a snake oil salesman.
3. Pick one other PC. You secretly believe that they are a hypochondriac, and you are never sure if they really need your help.
4. Pick one other PC. This person’s anatomy is seemingly foreign to you, even though they may be normal. You have an unnatural difficulty working on them. All healing task difficulties when dealing with this PC are increased by one step.

Minor Effect Suggestion: The target is healed for one additional point.

Major Effect Suggestion: The target is healed for two additional points.

Tier 1: Quick Stitch (1 Intellect Point)

With a stitch up or a rub of herbal poultice, you restore 1d6 points to one stat pool of any creature. This ability is a difficulty two task of whatever pool you are attempting to heal. For example, if you chose the might pool you might be trying to set a bone, or the speed pool clotting a fast bleeding wound, or the intellect pool soothing a failing courage or alleviating a headache with the right remedy from your bag. Each time you attempt to heal the same creature, the task difficulty increases by one step. The difficulty returns to 2 after that creature rests for ten hours. Action.

Tier 2: Search for a Cure (3 Intellect Points)

You attempt to scour for a cure for one malady (disease or poison.) This can be in the wild using herbs, or in a city at shops/apothecaries. Action.

Tier 3: Conjure Remedy

If given a week and the right tools, chemicals, and parts, you can tinker with one of your cyphers, transforming it into another cypher so long as the new cypher functions in a medical capacity. The GM and player should collaborate to ensure that the transformation is logical. Enabler.

Tier 4: Improve Health (5 intellect Points)

Once per day you may administer poultices or minor surgeries to improve the health and ability of you or any other creature. Doing so increases a stat pool of your choice by 1d6 for the day. Action.

Tier 5: Numeneran Medicine

Your expertise in medicine lends itself to an expertise in all things Numenera, relating to medicine. You can immediately identify any Cypher with a medical function, and they function at maximum level when you administer them. Enabler.

Tier 6: Perform Surgery

So long as a creature has not been dead for more than one hour, you may perform field surgery to restore them back to life with full pools. Action.