Cypher Speak 9: Numenara’s Marine Factions — The Beach Episode

Under the sea. Darcy & Troy discuss two of Numenera’s delightful aquatic organizations, the piratical Red Fleet and the underwater city guardian-scientists, the Conflux. Both organizations inspire countless adventure hooks and can […]

Under the sea. Darcy & Troy discuss two of Numenera’s delightful aquatic organizations, the piratical Red Fleet and the underwater city guardian-scientists, the Conflux. Both organizations inspire countless adventure hooks and can be pitted against the party or in cahoots with the party with equal pleasure.

The Red Fleet:

Schtick: Pirate/explorers who eschew man-made/Numenera artifacts and seek out natural wonders of the sea with their mystiously-grown “submergines”
Described in the Numenera Core Book

The Conflux:

Schtick: Respected guardians and caretakers of underwater cities that hold breathable air, they seek Numenera to help them in this important duty.
Described in Character Options 2, and references the oceia (underwater cities) and races detailed in Into the Deepand the glimmer Octopi of the Ninth World.
Question to the listeners: What’s extra weird about the Brine Hierarch?! Is she a lich?

Shout-outs:

“There is no peace, there is only FASHION.” A take-off on the Sith Code, this sentiment echo’s Darcy’s strong assertion that the most important aspect of a faction is their fashion. The Mandalorians of Star Wars have cute-fancy armor, the Aeon Priests of Numenera have their silly orange robes, and bisexuals have their magical invisibility cloaks. It Is Known. This is a favored saying of Maddie Ray‘s, who is an amazing audio editor when she’s not literally being Rey from The Force Awakens or being a professional photographer or being generally amazing in every way. It is also a fabulous occasional segment on Never Tell Me The Pods, the best Star Wars podcast on the HoloNet and supportable on Patreon!
The Protector of Concord Dawn (Star Wars Rebels Season 2 Episode 13) is about trying to secure a hyperspace route for the Rebellion that is currently held by Mandalorians… via diplomacy!  Darcy gets a ton of inspiration for Numenera through the Clone Wars and Rebels animated Star Wars series.

Poddities

Troy: Blue Planet by Jeff Barber. Inspiring RPG worth reading even if just to steal for your Into the Deep Numenera games! It is also highly recommended by the subject of Darcy’s poddity….
Darcy: Rich Howard is my go-to expert in the RPG world on aquatic gaming, and frankly my go-to marine biology expert more generally!

Rich & Darcy chat about Aquatic Gaming on James Intracoso’s Tabletop Babble. Into the Deep gets rave reviews!

Related to this chat, Rich ran an AMAZING D&D 5e Aquatic Adventure for Tabletop Babble’s Youtube Channel. See his advice in action!

Rich writes a column for Tribality called From the Depths, which gives GM advice, mechanical builds of aquatic races and creatures for D&D, and much more! He has also written loads of award-winning material available on DriveThruRPG.

If you want to support these endeavors and get cool pdfs and writing, support his personal Patreon!

Rich also founded and co-hosts the amazing podcast Whelmed: The Young Justice Files about Young Justice, the DC Comics animated series about the “sidekicks” of superheroes, such as Batman’s Robin and Martian Manhunter’s Miss Martian. This show has broken my heart over and over again, and makes Aqualad one of the COOLEST CHARACTERS EVER and painfully Numenera. Watch it, and listen to Rich on Whelmed because he translates the byzantine world of DC comics and continuity and delivers impassioned, fascinating storytelling to flesh out the already great shot. They’ve also got amazing guests by voice actors and other creators related to the show! I can’t recommend it enough.

If you love Whelmed (and you will!), support its production on Patreon!
Keep an eye out for an Actual Play here with maybe me in it! As maybe one of my favorite characters!

Keep in touch & let us know your thoughts on the show!

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Edited by Casey Ross

Thanks for all the support so far!