Numenera: Pale Horse

      

Pale Horse 7 (21) for Numenera

Motive: Thrill of Battle

Environment: Ninth World
Health: 24
Damage Inflicted: 7 points
Armor: 3
Movement: Short
Modifications: Might Defense 8, Speed Defense 8

Combat: Pale Horse bears five cyphers at a time and if not hired to assassinate a target will focus on the weakest enemy and work her way up to the most dangerous.

Interactions: When not on an assignment she can be found at the Edamame Bloom where she is a co-owner with Agnar Vex.

Pale Horse is the youngest child of the Bright Moon clan of nomads who lived in the Ka desert. When Pale Horse was eleven her clan was attacked by bandits and the only survivors were her and her adopted brother, Agnar Vex. Eventually, Pale Horse and Aganar made their way to the city of Redoubt and fell in with a gang of street kids who worked for Yolo Eberflus, a charismatic glaive who was addicted to the drug Zen due post-traumatic stress disorder from being conscripted into war at the age of fourteen. After Pale Horse and Agnar joined Yolo's Shinedown gang, she began training in unarmed combat and intrusion methods while Agnar began learning the art of the grift and pickpocketing. Yolo saw an emptiness as he looked into Pale Horses eyes and recognizing it, began to push her skills and started training her on the use of various weapons. Each challenge he put in front of her she overcame and soon she was attracting the notice of more powerful and dangerous people in the city. Two months before she turned fourteen she was approached by Throkmorton Mu, the new Death's Head of the Estate, an assassin guild that operated in Redoubt. He offered her and her brother a life of financial security and an outlet for her combat prowess, but she turned him down saying she had a family now. Mu, guessing she counted Yolo as part of it, asked her to offer him the choice between fleeing the city with her and her brother and 100,000 Shin or a three-month supply of Zen. Pale Horse was shocked and angered by Mu's proposition but decided to present the choice to Yolo certain that he was dead wrong. The last time Pale Horse cried was when Yolo snatched the supply of Zen from her hand and told her to, "Quit bothering me and Frak off." 

When Pale Horse contacted Mu she laid out her demands to him which consisted of making sure her brother was to be protected and he accepted them without any hesitation. Then he welcomed her to the guild, but as she left the room, he asked her, "How did you leave things with Yolo?" As she walked out of the room she informed him that her mentor had died from an overdose.

In the last fifteen years Pale Horse has become a whisper that strikes fear in the hearts of those in the know. She the Valley of the Shadow Death. She is the evil. She is the rod and the staff. She has no fear.

Two years ago, she and Agnar bought the Edamame Bloom and he runs the day to day operations. She is taking fewer jobs as most of her guild obligations have been attained and she is now a Master within its ranks. Several months ago, a small operation within the Westside of Syzygy began dealing Zen and word got back to her about it. Every member of that crew died in a very, very, painful manner that took them all several days. Pale Horse met with both Logriss and her wife Yrsula and an understanding between all three parties was worked out.

You can't find Zen in Syzygy any longer.

Numenera: Blue Sun Paladin

     

Blue Sun Paladin 4 (12) for Numenera

Motive: Freedom

Environment: Syzygy
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: 4 points
Armor: 3
Movement: Short
Modifications: Demolitions 5, Rabble rousing 5

Combat: The paladins of the Blue Sun use the anonymity  and extensive planning in their quest to free Syzygy from the Montessi and Von Carstein crime families and to make both pay for their many atrocities.

Interactions: Exeter, a Blue Sun cell leader or Chamberlain (Level 5 [15]) operating out of the fashion district on the Westside, has noticed the actions of the characters and decides to recruit them for a very special mission.

The Blue Sun was formed almost fifteen years ago after a deadly and bloody battle between the Montessi and Von Carstein crime families that lead to a plasma main break causing an explosion within the Blue Sun Elementary Education Center. Fourteen hundred children between the ages of 4 and 12 and one-hundred and eighty adults died due to the explosion and the Montessi family's blockade preventing emergency vehicles and first responders into the area because it was in the Von Carstein's territory. Rumors claim that over half of the parents who lost children that day created the first Blue Sun cell. 

Over the next four years the Paladins, who anonymously served the Blue Sun, did enough damage to both families to have them begin the initial meetings that would lead to the Concord. However, the Blue Suns have no interest in some mirage of peace as their final goal is the eradication of both families and the creation of a democratic government within Syzygy.

Every Paladin and Chamberlin that have answered the Blue Sun's call will not settle for anything less than freedom for their city and to prevent any further atrocities by either family.

Numenera: 20 Rumors in Syzygy

 

Inspired by Jeff's Gameblog, below are rumors circulating around the city of Syzygy, the setting for my Numenera campaign.  

Fair warning: Some of these may be true.

Roll a d20 or pick one:

1) The Edamame Bloom, on the upper Eastside, is co-owned by Pale Horse a feared assassin who is considered one of the best in the World. Those seeking to hire her should ask the bouncers if they can see "Dr. Bombay".

2) A large myocbiota of mi-go has grown up over the last thirty years in the depths of Lake Hadron on the upper Westside. 

3) Several citizens in the Karpeth neighborhood, on the lower Eastside, have contacted the Von Carstein family about strange encounters within the datasphere where an intelligence calling itself Jobe has offered them their wildest dreams in exchange for helping it find its "missing pieces" so it can enter the Ninth World physically.

4) A strange arthropod known as bly'orn grows on the outer hull of the Craft, the downed starship that is home to the city. Apothecaries pay up to 5 Shins a kilo to use it for the treatment of abfluenza, several forms of cancer, epsilon sickness, and genital warts.

5) The Blue Suns seek to free the city from the control of the Montessi and Von Carstein families and have threatened to attack the High Night election results on 10th Anniversary of the Concord.

6) Ballarad Keep, 150 miles north of the city, was founded to observe the Colossus that stands within the Borderlands. Two weeks ago, the Colossus took a step toward the Keep causing a minor earthquake.

7) On the first Thursday of the month if you come to the back door of the  Bistro du Blaise on Kipper Street and ask for the "brunch special with three eggs and extra hot" you will be given a random cypher with a 10% chance of gaining an artifact.

8) A unicorn has been seen by multiple witnesses in the Theatre District in the last two weeks.

9) Even though the city shut down Eb'n'Bolht, a privately owned prison rife with claims of abuse to its inmates, those living nearby claim that when it rains they can hear a cacophony of terrified voices shouting "No, Byron, no more!".

10) A serial killer has murdered over sixteen proximans over the last fourteen months on the lower Westside. A reporter for Vox III, Ed mok Tuuurg, has just aired the story and claims they were threatened by the Montessi family to keep the case quiet.

11) Ajaxx Dross has been using several dentofiends to dispose of the refuse they collect on a daily basis, but one of them has escaped.

12) On the northern shore of Lake Hadron is a small house with a tidy yard and a bright white fence. The house has a baby blue door with a gold plaque and the message on it changes every morning at dawn.

13) Gurley Provost is running for City Council and his platform has a 50 year plan to repair the Craft, the crashed starship that holds the city, and return it to space.

14) There is a soothsayer, known as Flogging Molly, in front of Corven Imports on Pikipsey Street on the Upper Eastside who charges 1 shin for your fortune. The woman's eye color changes and when they are green her readings are always accurate.

15) The Craft, the crashed starship that holds the city, has six sub-decks that can only be reached from the Generator on the upper Eastside. The entrance is guarded at all hours by a kelursan.

16) Logriss Montessi has acquired the legendary black blade known as Stormbringer.

17) The Nitehawks operate out of a tinker shop on Jibroni Way and claim that the Montessi family are all vampires.

18) Yrsula Von Carstein, like her mother and grandmother, have a psionic link to the Craft, the crashed starship that holds the city, which is sentient. The Concord was its idea after Flogging Molly, the soothsayer on Pikipsey, read its fortune.

19) The Hex has been in the city for over two months and everything is going according to their plan.

20) Amity Montessi-Von Carstein is a clone of her mother Logriss and not her daughter with Yrsula Von Carstein.

Numenera: Syzygy

Syzygy is city of 700,000 souls sheltered within the remains of a titanic extraterrestrial ship that crashed during one of the prior worlds. It lies northeast of the Sagus Cliffs, along the Butterfly Coast, and is serviced by the wharfs of Kobalt Bay which have grown up around it. The city is coming up on the 10th anniversary of the Concord, which saw an end to a gang war spanning over a century between the Montessi and Von Carstein organized crime families. The Concord came about through the marriage of Logriss Montessi and Yrsula Von Carstein which formally split the city into two territories with the Montessi family running the Westside and the Von Carstein family running the Eastside. While versifiers spin yarns of true love at first sight between the two women that story is merely a fairy tale and couldn't be further from the truth. Logriss and Yrsula mutually agreed that their family's war was bad for business and no longer cost effective and realized a truce would be better for everyone, the fact that both women shared an attraction for each other was imply icing on the wedding cake.

While both families had members who were skeptical of the plan the last decade has proven more profitable than at any point in the war with the only rabble rouser left being Beowulf, Yrula's youngest brother, a suave, brilliant, and fierce sociopath who has his own designs on his sister-in-law. 

The Concord has also made the city safer since both family's are more focused on collecting their dues and providing their protections instead of almost daily battles erupting as some form of retribution. Even the oldest citizens have finally abandoned most of their skepticism about the Concord failing or simply being a ruse.

The 10th Anniversary of the Concord is going to be the first Election Day for Syzygy's City Council in twenty-five years. The feud between both families was so volatile and bloody that citizens weren't willing to gather at voting sites out of fear and didn't trust any of the results of those final elections from a quarter century ago. With the Concord in place, anyone was able to run for any of the Council's seven seats provided they had enough support. Eleven candidates have thrown their hats in the ring and, shockingly, only four of them are members of either family. Election Day has been made a citywide holiday and the new Council members are going to be announced in a gala celebration of the Concord at High Night (midnight). Neighborhoods have been planning for this day for nearly a year and there is newfound optimism that has spread over the city as the shadow of war recedes from the citizen's memory.

Election Day is going to be a new dawn for a city that has unprecedented prosperity and peace. Families no longer have to worry about having one of their children recruited into the war or worse, become innocent victims of a vendetta they had no part in. While many citizens, especially older ones, looked at the Concord with suspicion both the Montessi and Von Carstein families have lived up to their promises and Syzygy has become something more over the last decade. The city abounds with opportunity for those bold enough to seize it while still offering real stability for those who simply want to live their life and not become statistics of a bloody and fruitless war.

Welcome to Syzygy where dreams really can come true.