Numenera: Jade Colossus - Session 4

I’m going to put a bit more effort this time into explaining what I’m doing, both with Mythic GM Emulator and with the Numenera rules.

Recap So Far

A billion years in the future, Draven and his companions explore the mysterious Jade Colossus, a shifting ruin filled with prior-world technology and dangers. In their initial venture, they learn of a missing woman and the Heritors’ desire to locate the Eye of Transcendence, a powerful relic. Upon entering the Colossus, they discover the woman’s body and face off against a deadly insectoid, barely escaping with their lives (but not the body).

In their second expedition, Draven’s group returns to the Colossus, now with Erish, an Aeon Priest with her own agenda. They manage to retrieve the woman’s remains and return them to her father, Tharad, and Kuran, the innkeeper, both of whom exhibit varied and conflicted reactions. Tensions and secrets among the NPCs hint at deeper undercurrents within Ballarad.

By the third session, the group is focused on finding the Eye of Transcendence. As they delve deeper, they encounter bizarre phenomena, such as metallic spheres that react to spoken questions and a deadly trap that swaps minds. Amidst this chaos, Draven’s party uncovers more barely-comprehensible technology and faces the perils of the Colossus, exploring to find their goal.

Resources and Notes

• Game: Numenera (Monte Cook Games)
  • Designed by Monte Cook, Bruce R. Cordell, and Sean K. Reynolds
  • This and other books from MCG are TM and © Monte Cook Games, LLC. Material is cited here in accordance with the MCG Fan Use Policy.
• Additional Resources:
  • Numenera Discovery and Destiny corebooks (Monte Cook Games)
  • Jade Colossus: Ruins of the Prior Worlds [Jade Colossus] campaign sourcebook (Monte Cook Games)
  • Technology Compendium: Sir Arthour’s Guide to the Numenera supplement (Monte Cook Games)
  • Ninth World Bestiary [Bestiary] (Monte Cook Games)
  • Mythic GM Emulator 2e [Mythic] (Word Mill Games, written by Tana Pigeon)
  • “Wizard Dad: Solo Cypher System Hacks” (retrieved 2024-08-28)
• Notes:
  • Solo play relying on the Follower rules from Numenera Destiny p. 17, modified by the Wizard Dad hack
  • Using the 2d10 Fate Check method from the Mythic GM Emulator

The main character is Draven (he/him), a Graceful Delve who Taps the Void. He has three followers:

1. Xanthia (she/her), a Rugged Glaive who Masters Defense (level 4, 12 health, 3 Armor, Sword-staff heavy weapon)
2. Thorn (it/its), a dritch (Jade Colossus p. 135) as a pet (level 4, 15 health, inflicts 4 damage)
3. Erish (she/her), an Aeon Priest who Controls Gravity (level 3, 9 health, 1 Armor, inflicts 2 damage)

I will use a d12 Usage Die (similar to what is used in The Black Hack and Ker Nethalas) to determine when they’ve reached the keyed location for the Eye of Transcendence from the Jade Colossuss sourcebook. (Previously, I actually used a d20, which was just a mistake.)

Session Log

As I get started, I look back to the previous session to see that my Chaos Factor is at 4. This is a mechanic from Mythic:

The Chaos Factor is a value tracked throughout the adventure that represents how much control the Player Characters have over current events. The more out of control Scenes get, the higher the Chaos Factor will climb; the higher the Chaos Factor, the greater your chance of getting a Yes response to Fate Questions. The Chaos Factor also determines the frequency of Random Events and how often Scenes begin as expected.

• Mythic, p. 19

The group recently dealt with dangers in an interstitial cavity within the Jade Colossus:

Within structures as vast as the Jade Colossus and many other Ninth World ruins are many hollows, voids, and liminal locations that probably were never meant for prior-world creatures to use directly, but exist rather as gaps, cavities, and empty regions normally hidden behind walls. These areas are often difficult to navigate (or in some cases, survive) because they weren’t built with normal use in mind.

• Jade Colossus, p. 112

Scene 1: Leaving the Interstitial Cavity

• Expected Scene: Leaving the cavity via one of the nine exits
• Testing the Expectation: Expected Scene

(This works by rolling a d10. If it’s greater than the Chaos Factor, the scene starts as expected.)

This is a massive space, much larger than regular chambers, because it’s a liminal area within the structure, not necessarily intended for regular traffic. Waves of energy pass over them periodically, almost like an oscillating fan but not physical.

They’ve already defeated a shadow killer, sort of a “stealth assassination suit” given life by someone, probably long ago, complicated by the fact that those energy waves occasionally cause mind swaps between creatures in it. Due to that, of course, they’re ready to leave this area behind and get closer to their goal.

Draven has identified nine separate exits from here, so he’ll pick one nearest the entrance they used and lead them that way. We’ll call that Exit 1.

(Note that the following rolls come from the “Numenera Ruin Mapping Engine” from the Jade Colossus sourcebook.)

• Main Feature: 84 Rupture
  • Nature of Rupture: 4 Area through which the rupture passes was once a vault; roll on the Vault Table to determine the ruined, inactive remains that are scattered through this area
  • Vault Contents: 2 Four fluid-filled canisters each hold what seems to be a human spine grafted with metallic wires and modules.
  • Vault Size: 50 feet across (Chamber Table)
  • Vault Shape: 8 Rectangle (Chamber Table)
  • Exits: 7 (1 additional exit)
• Eye of Transcendence: d12 does not step down

Rupture are unplanned gaps, voids, and hollows found within a prior-world installation. Unlike interstitial cavities, which were purposefully constructed by the builders even though they were not meant to be directly inhabited, ruptures are the result of events that occurred in the millennia since the installation was created. Earthquakes, detonations of strange energy, erosion and weathering, unchecked biological growth, and similar destructive effects create hollows and ruptures that intersect with regular rooms and corridors.

The walls of the cavity are torn, whether by the energy waves, the kinetic forces exerted when the Colossus emerged from underground, or some other past event. Through the torn walls, there’s a long chamber, approximately 50 feet by 100 feet. There are several ruined canisters, some of which still have a bit of fluid in them. Each contains what looks like a human spine, but modified with technology. There are likely bits of numenera in here, but they have more than they really need right now anyway.

(I’m not changing the scene until some event occurs, either from the Ruin Mapping Engine or from something in Mythic.)

In any case, there’s another exit from this ancient vault. The droplets from Draven’s belt bag will help them find their way back starting about a day from now, so they’re not worried about getting lost. Draven leads his little group of explorers through this other exit.

• Main Feature: 78 Interstitial Cavity
  • Nature of Cavity: 04 Empty and echoing, but contains vast outlines of what must have been immense machines or machine components that have since been removed.
  • Exits: 16 (1 additional exit + 1 sealed exit) … +1d10=9 exits
    • Total of 10 exits plus one sealed exit
• Sound: 47 Indistinct (from the Mythic GME “Sounds” table)
• Eye of Transcendence: d12 does not step down

As they leave the vault, they find themselves in a large space, apparently another “behind the scenes” locale with indistinct sounds echoing through it from elsewhere in the ruin. The synth floor has outlines indicating that once this place held huge machines, possibly some kind of infrastructure to maintain the Colossus. Almost a dozen exits lead out from here, although one is sealed off. They don’t have too many indications of which way to proceed, so they’ll again pick the nearest one and head that way.

• Main Feature: 81 Accessway
  • Specifics: 10 Accessway extends a short distance; roll again
  • Specifics: 4 Accessway runs parallel to previously generated chamber(s) or corridor(s) for a short distance, with hidden openings into each of those spaces; roll again on this table
  • Specifics: 2 Accessway runs parallel to previously generated chamber(s) or corridor(s) for a short distance, with hidden openings into each of those spaces; roll again on this table
  • Specifics: 20 Accessway runs a short distance and comes to a T intersection; roll on this table for each branch

An accessway is similar to a corridor but is generally far smaller, apparently never intended for regular traffic. Some explorers guess they were used to provide maintenance for the structure, but others argue they served as the primary passages for much smaller creatures that built the structure.

Generally speaking, an accessway is composed of synth and metal and is about 3 feet wide and tall, though they can become much narrower.

(My map is getting really messy and is rapidly becoming a node diagram.)

Darven enters some sort of maintenance duct; he squats down and explores a bit of a way down. He can see down into the vault and the first interstitial cavity (with the energy waves) as well as many other chambers.

This is a fairly uncomfortable route, however. He’d rather use a route that isn’t quite so cramped, because if they run into danger, they won’t have any room to maneuver. He decides to back out and try another exit from the echoing cavity.

• Main Feature: 67 Creature
  • Location: 02 Corridor
  • Corridor Specifics: 7 Passage extends a short distance
  • Exits: 11 (1 additional exit)
  • Creature: 58 Rurtalian

The rurtalian—at least the one that most people see—is a squat, 4-foot (1.2 m) tall creature with two limbs and a massive, pulsating sensory apparatus surrounded by a wreath of smaller sensory organs and seemingly little else. These things are a strange combination of eyes, ears, and olfactory apparati. They can project destructive rays that render matter into paste. If it is organic paste, the rurtalian can then feed on it through its skin. It does not otherwise need to breathe, drink, or sleep.

• Bestiary, p. 110

• Rurtalian. TM and © 2014 Monte Cook Games, LLC.

The creature immediately turns to them and begins emitting destructive rays!

• Round 1:
  • Initiative: The creature is level 4, so everyone must make a Speed roll at a target of 12 or better to go before it. Only Xanthia succeeds; the rest of the group will go after the creature’s turn.
  • Xanthia positions herself between the creature and the others, then attacks with her sword-staff. That will be a level 4 attack, eased by one level due to her role as a Glaive, so she needs a 9 or better. Unfortunately, she rolls a 4 and misses.
  • Rurtalian “can fire up to six rays of energy at long range from its eyes as a single action”, so all four of them are targeted. They’ll each need to make a level 4 Speed defense roll.
    • Draven is trained in Speed defense, lowering the difficulty to 3 (target 9). He rolls a 5 and fails, taking 4 damage. Since some of the matter is turned to paste, his armor only offers half as much damage reduction, so his 1 armor doesn’t help and he takes all 4 damage, reducing his Might pool to 7.
    • Thorn has no training in Speed defense, so he needs a 12 or better. It rolls a 13 and dodges successfully.
    • Erish isn’t trained either, so her 11 is not enough and she takes 4 damage, dropping her to 5 Health.
    • Xanthia Masters Defense, so I will treat her as Trained in all defense tasks. She needs a 9 or better and rolls a 14, dodging the attack.
  • Draven activates his Midnight armor, costing him 2 Speed points but increasing his Armor by 1 (to 2) for the next hour.
  • Thorn spits up a glob of void matter at the rurtalian. Because they’re both NPCs, that will mean that the dritch pet makes a level 4 attack, eased by one level due to its dritch-ness. It rolls a 17, succeeding, stunning the Rurtalian for a round.
  • Erish uses her gravity powers to try to damage the creature and makes a level 4 attack, eased by one level due to her role as an Aeon Priest. She rolls a 9, which is exactly what she needed, and the rurtalian takes 2 damage (down to 16 Health).
• Round 2:
  • Xanthia has seen what this creature can do and realizes that they could be in a lot of danger. She needs to take it down quickly, making a spin attack while wielding her sword-staff. She rolls a 1, though, which is a GM intrusion!
  • The rurtalian is actually an “artificially engineered bio-construct for psychic explorers to tie themselves to.” Normally, the mental aspect is fairly inactive, as the consciousness is elsewhere while the physical form explores. But in this moment, “the psychic aspect of the rurtalian retuurns and assails the character with a psychic attack that inflicts 4 points of Intellect damage and ignores Armor.” Xanthia needs to make a level 4 Intellect defense roll, and she succeeds with a 12. But this separate psychic creature is present now!
  • Rurtalian is stunned for this round and does not act.
  • Draven activates his the wrist-mounted sprayer, which emits a Deadly Mist (the name of the cypher). To do so, he’ll need to make a level 4 Speed roll, and he’ll spend a level of effort (2 Speed points), and the target being stunned will give him an asset, so the target on a d20 is 6. He rolls a 6 and succeeds, so the mist condenses on the rurtalian’s physical form, gathering into a liquid that extrudes barbs, needles, and spikes into the creature. This deals 4 damage, dropping the rurtalian to 12 Health, and will do another 2 damage on the next round.
  • Thorn tries to bite the rurtalian, making a level 4 attack roll, but rolls a 9 and fails.
  • Erish uses her gravity powers again and rolls a 13, which beats the target of 12, so she deals another 2 damage to the rurtalian, leaving it at 10 Health.
• Round 3:
  • Xanthia realizes they’re all in danger and activates a small explosive device (Detonation), tossing it at the rurtalian. She needs to make a level 4 Speed roll, which succeeds with a 15, and the device explodes with a cell-disrupting blast, dealing 8 damage to the creature. It’s down to 2 Health.
  • Rurtalian recovers from its stun and fires its energy rays at all four of its targets again. They must each make a level 4 Speed defense roll.
    • Draven needs a 9 or better due to his training, but rolls a 2 and fails. His armor is reduced in effectiveness by half, so he takes 3 of the damage, dropping him to 4 Might.
    • Thorn needs a 12 or better, but its 2 fails. It takes 4 damage, dropping it to 11 Health.
    • Erish also needs a 12 or better to dodge, and her 16 does the trick.
    • Xanthia is trained in all types of defense, so she’ll only need a 9 or better; she rolls an 11 and dodges the attack.
  • The psychic explorer that really is in control of the Rurtalian doesn’t want to lose the meatsuit, so it heals the physical form for 4 Health, bringing it back up to 6.
  • Draven attacks with his forked sword (“verred”). He leaps into the air gracefully, using his skills in the physical performing arts to ease the task from difficulty 4 to 3, as well as spending a level of effort (2 Speed points), so the target roll is a 6. He rolls an 8 and deals 4 damage, undoing the healing from the psychic explorer and dropping the rurtalian to 2 Health.
  • Thorn tries to bite the rurtalian again, succeeding with a 14 and dealing 4 damage, which is enough to take it down.

As the little dritch sinks its teeth into the strange creature, the rurtalian collapses to the ground with a shudder. The psychic explorer lets out a scream as it returns to its form somewhere in another dimension.

At the end of the combat, the group’s pools are as follows:

• Draven has 4 Might, 10 Speed, and 8 Intellect.
• Xanthia has her full 12 Health.
• Thorn is down to 11 of 15 Health.
• Erish is at 5 of 9 Health.

Before moving on, they’ll take a few minutes to recover.

• Draven recovers 3 points, all of which go to his Might pool (now at 7).
• Xanthia doesn’t need to recover.
• Thorn recovers to full 15 Health.
• Erish recovers to her full 9 Health as well.

They’ll continue down this corridor.

• Chaos Factor increases to 5.

Scene 2: Exploring the Corridors of the Jade Colossus

• Expected Scene: Traversing the corridors
• Testing the Expectation: Expected Scene

They’ll continue down the corridor, passing by the additional exit to see where the corridor leads.

• Corridor Specifics: 12 Passage comes to a dead end
• Eye of Transcendence: d12 does not step down

Or… not. They’ll try out that additional exit.

• Main Feature: 66 Creature
  • Location: 87 Interstitial Cavity
  • Nature of Cavity: 45 Metallic pyramids of all sizes, some as small as a thumbnail, others as tall as buildings, are jumbled in this space.
  • Exits: 2 (no additional exits) + 1d10=8 total exits
  • Creature: 06 Colostran
  • Eye of Transcendence: d12 does not step down

Colostrans are intelligent masses of coral that can move and swim, though slightly more stiffly than regular animals and fish. Normally they remain beneath water, but they can emerge and move about on land for periods of an hour or more before they must return to the sea. Colostrans vary in size, and the oldest ones are enormous, reaching dozens of feet or more in diameter. Their shapes can vary, too, but many adopt a body plan consisting of a central flattened core surrounded by three or more limbs. Over a period of several hours, a colostran can modify its shape to whatever its needs might be. Large ones can even split into separate smaller beings.

• Bestiary, p. 132

I’ll check with the oracle to flesh this out a bit.

• Is this one in a group (50/50) or solo? 12 Yes (group)
• Are they aggressive (very unlikely)? 10 No

A group of what looks like mobile coral formations are milling around some of the metallic pyramids, which likely contain aquatic environments. They don’t seem to be aggressive, or even really very interactive. In theory, Erish has a cypher that could enable mental communication with them, but unless the creatures evince some sort of desire for contact, it might be mistaken for something more aggressive. (I’ll check with the oracle to see what they’re like at the moment, if not aggressive.)

• Descriptors: 77 Partially + 99 Weak

They don’t seem to be doing well; perhaps they’re undernourished or have spent too long in this dry environment. (Or perhaps their slow movement just makes them seem that way to the group.) But the Heritors and the Aeon Priest aren’t here for that; they’re looking for the Eye of Transcendence. They’ll just move on via one of the other exits.

• Main Feature: 10 Corridor
  • Corridor Specifics: 11 Passage blocked by a corridor collapse
  • Eye of Transcendence: d12 does not step down

The way is blocked by a collapse, and unlike the other rupture, this one isn’t passable. But there are seven more exits to try.

• Main Feature: 90 Abhuman colony
  • Location: 55 Chamber
  • Chamber Size: 9 (30 feet across)
  • Chamber Shape: 6 Rectangle (60 feet deep)
  • Chamber Features: 2-55 Spatial flaw, held in place by tech in chamber, expands if machine is deactivated, risking sucking nearby objects and creatures into it
  • Exits: 7 (1 additional exit)
  • Route Marker Present?: No
  • Abhumans: 3 Murden
  • Colony Specifics: 6 Colony seems friendly

Given that the Heritors have generally positive relations with the abhumans that inhabit sections of the Jade Colossus, perhaps it’s unsurprising that these so-called “raven-folk” are friendly.

Murdens are abhumans. They walk upright but would never be mistaken for humans. Backs hunched dramatically forward, skin covered in shiny black down, huge black eyes perched above a sharp, dirty yellow beak—these things seem almost like enormous ravens with spindly arms rather than wings. Tattered leather cloaks cover their backs, and many carry a leather bag or wear one on a strap to hold the various objects they have collected.

Murdens don’t speak. They communicate with one another telepathically. However, their telepathy annoys other intelligent creatures. The presence of a living murden fills the minds of nearby creatures with a sort of mental static…

Although it is inadvertent, their inherent telepathic powers are irritating and harmful to nearby creatures, who perceive it as an annoying static that scrambles thought. Creatures within immediate range of a murden must make an Intellect defense roll; if they fail, all of their actions are hindered. This hindrance lasts until they leave the area of static influence.

• Discovery, p. 243

• Intellect defense rolls:
  • Draven succeeds
  • Xanthia (with an asset) succeeds
  • Thorn fails
  • Erish (with an asset) succeeds

The spatial flaw here vibrates with extradimensional energy, a tiny singularity that somehow has not pulled everything around it pas the event horizon. The bird-like abhumans maintain some kind of numenera that keeps it under control.

This is the right place to use that mental coupling. Erish puts on a glove and, accompanied by the actual members of the Heritors (who know the appropriate passphrases to get the murdens to trust them), she initiates a high-bandwidth telepathic connection with one of them. Meanwhile, Thorn whines a bit and cowers behind Draven, clearly not enjoying the “mental static” emitted by the murdens.

• Do the murdens know a route to the Eye of Transcendence (likely)? 17 Yes
• Is it nearby (unlikely)? 6 No
• Does the route involve the spatial flaw (unlikely)? 9 No

They can describe the route, but it’s not nearby. Fortunately, it also does not require traversing the spatial distortion. Fortunately, it just requires travelling through regular space.

(To represent this, I’m going to step down the d12 by two full steps to a d8. Also, I will reroll any results that seem to be a dead end.)

• Chaos Factor decreases to 4.

Wrap-up

I’ll award another point of XP to Draven for the discovery of the psychic explorer as well as the murden colony. That takes him to 4 XP, which is enough to take an advancement. I’ll take “Move Toward Perfection”, which is +1 to Edge; he’ll apply this to his Speed Edge specifically. That will allow his Midnight Armor to cost no Speed points at all when he activates it.

Next time, they’ll continue to follow the murden directions and likely encounter the Eye of Transcendence. If they can get all the way through it, that might even be the final session of this arc, or perhaps one more after it if that takes a bit.