THE NINTH WORLD BESTIARY

THE NINTH WORLD BESTIARY

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CREDITSWriters/Designers Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell

Additional Writing Shanna GermainLead Editor Shanna Germain

Editor and Proofreader Ray ValleseLead Artist Kieran Yanner

Graphic Designer Sarah Robinson

ArtistsChrom, Dreamstime.com, Jason Engle, Guido Kuip, Eric Lofgren, Patrick McEvoy, Jeremy

McHugh, Brynn Metheny, Michael Perry, Roberto Pitturru, Scott Purdy, Lee Smith, Matt Stawicki, Michael Startzman, Keith Thompson, Cory Trego-Erdner, Shane Tyree, Kieran Yanner

Monte Cook Games Editorial Board Scott C. Bourgeois, David Wilson Brown, Eric Coates, Ryan Klemm, Jeremy Land, Laura Wilkinson, George Ziets

Kickstarter Creature Contributors Chris Avellone, Leslie Balazs, Clint Barkely, Henk Birkholz, Cameron Corniuk, Steven Dengler, Daniel Knoop, Mike Loftus

© 2014 Monte Cook Games, LLC

NUMENERA and its logo are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. All Monte Cook Games

characters and character names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC. Printed in Canada.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: CREATURE FEATURE 4

DESIGNING NUMENERA CREATURES 5

ECOLOGY OF THE NINTH WORLD 11

CREATURES OF THE NINTH WORLD 16

Understanding the Listings 16

Random Encounter Tables 18

Creatures 20

Characters 139

People of Renown 142

CREATURE INDEX 159

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INTRODUCTION: CREATURE FEATURE

When I was a kid, there was a show on the local TV channel on Saturday afternoons called “Creature Double Feature.” It played old black-and-white science fiction and horror movies. That might have been the beginning of my fascination with monsters. Or you know, maybe it was that red-haired thing that wore white sneakers and chased

Bugs Bunny around. (Its name was Gossamer, by the way.) Or the monsters on Sesame Street. Regardless, I’ve been a fan of monsters and creatures for as long as I can remember. Which means that, of all the kinds of RPG

books out there, the ones filled with creatures are my favorites: bestiaries. And there are a lot of them. I’ve written a few, in fact. That means, of course, that I spent a lot of time thinking about how this bestiary would be different. I thought of a lot of

ideas, but they were all very gimmicky. Finally, I realized that it was a waste of brainpower. Why? Because Numenera takes care of it for me. Numenera is weird. Numenera creatures are one of the best ways—if not the best way—to characterize and personify that weirdness in one single thing.

I knew that The Ninth World Bestiary would be different and great if we just stayed true to that ideal. If we focused on the weird and took it even farther than we did in the corebook, we would have an amazing bestiary.

I’m proud and happy to say that I think we pulled it off.In these pages you’ll find the jurulisk, a creature from another reality where geometry works differently. You’ll find the silver

orphans, left over from an ancient aeon, their original reason to exist now long gone. You’ll also find the Nibovian companion and Nibovian child, each more horrific and weird than the Nibovian wife. (Who are these Nibovians, anyway?) And of course, there’s the latos, which is a creature, a location, and an entire adventure in one package. And that’s just the beginning.

We referenced a lot of source material while creating this bestiary. A small sampling of these sources includes:All Yesterdays, John ConwayCabinet of Natural Curiosities, Albertus SebaCodex Seraphinianus, Luigi SerafiniFrankenstein’s Cat, Emily AnthesFuture Evolution, Peter WardThe Future Is Wild, Dougal DixonMan After Man, Dougal DixonThe New Dinosaurs, Dougal Dixon

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Designing creatures for Numenera is intentionally very easy. At its most basic, a creature—like any NPC—is just a level.

That tells you all you need, and then you just layer in the description. That’s kind of the amazing thing. You can describe a terrible slavering beast with three clawed limbs, a mouth like a sphincter, and some kind of blue jelly covering its flesh, but “behind the screen” (so to speak) all you have is “level 5.”

The key, as with everything in Numenera, is making it weird. A standard bear or wolf isn’t really going to cut it in this setting. But a twisted thing with a bearlike head, a four-legged frame like a wolf (oh, make it six legs), a magnetic-resonating metal plate where its eyes should be, and an extraneous sac of poison to spray? Now you’ve got a Numenera creature.

The Numenera corebook gives a brief discussion on designing new creatures in Chapter 21 (page 339). Basically, all a Numenera GM really needs to know is that creatures can work however you want them to. But for those who would like more details, suggestions, guidelines, and food for thought, this chapter is for you.

Creatures, of course, don’t follow the same rules as the player characters. They don’t have stat Pools, don’t use Effort, and aren’t as strictly

limited in what they can do in an action because their form, size, and nature can vary so wildly.

LEVELA creature’s level is a measure of its power, defense, intelligence, speed, and ability to interact with the world around it. Generally, it is an indicator of toughness in combat, although it’s certainly possible to have a lower-level creature be a tougher opponent than a slightly higher one, particularly in certain circumstances. Level isn’t an abstract tool to match up NPCs to PCs for “appropriate” encounters. Instead, it’s an overall rating of the creature to show how it fits into the context of the world. There is no rule that says a certain ability should be given only to a creature of

DESIGNING NUMENERA CREATURES

COREBOOK CALLOUTSThroughout this supplement, you’ll see page references to various items accompanied by this symbol. These are page references to the Numenera corebook, where you can

find additional details about that item, place, creature or concept. It isn’t necessary to look up the referenced items in the corebook; it’s an optional way to learn more about the Ninth World and provide additional information to your players.

Designing creatures, page 339

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a certain level, and there is no rule dictating how many abilities a creature of a given level should have. But keep the spirit of the system in mind: lower-level creatures are less dangerous.

Obviously, a creature’s level is its most important feature. For some creatures, it is the only feature. If you know only the level, you have everything you need. Level determines how hard it is to hit, how hard it is to dodge or resist, how much damage it does, and even its health (typically its level times three). It tells you how hard it is to interact with, fool, or intimidate, and how well it can run, climb, and so on. It even tells you how fast it acts in terms of initiative.

Of course, you’re free to modify any of this as fits the creature, either for what you want it to do in an encounter or—even better—to try to ensure that it makes sense in terms of its place in the story and in the world. A really big creature should have more health but be easier to hit in combat, for example.

But in general, level becomes the default stat for the creature, with pretty much everything else

being an exception. So when determining a level, figure out an appropriate rating (on a scale of 1 to 10) for the creature for most things. Don’t base its level on the one thing it does best because you can portray that as a modification. Level is the baseline.

HEALTHSince creatures don’t have stat Pools, you have to determine how much damage they can take, and that’s health. Health should make sense. Really big creatures should have lots of health, and tiny ones should have very little. You can also “cheat” a bit and give a creature that is really good in combat more health than its physicality might suggest to represent the fact that it is no pushover and not easily defeated.

Although there are many, many variables, it’s safe to think—as a baseline—that a group of four low-tier PCs is likely to dish out about 10 points of damage in a round. This figure assumes a nano with Onslaught, a glaive and a jack with medium

“The largest and most impressive specimen I was ever able to fully dissect was a cragworm. Obtaining that specimen was a task that gives me nightmares to this day.”

~Jarash, well-known naturalist

Cragworm, page 236

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