Numenera is a game published by Monte Cook Games. Its setting is the Ninth World, and this list has ten rumours for that setting. The rumours, which are similar to the Hearsay that can be found in the official books, can be used as adventure hooks or as simple misinformation.
- Enthait is built on the ruins of a more ancient complex, and it’s rumoured that there are strange things buried beneath the city’s streets, things that the Aeon Priests who live within the settlement are tasked with ensuring remain buried where they currently are.
- Few of Enthait’s poison eaters survive all ten offerings of poison provided by the Eye of Enthait; the Orness is the only one who ever has and is the current ruler of the city until someone else takes her place. Som whisper that the Orness ensures that no-one else ever survives all ten poisons, making sure her position is never threatened.
- In Enthait, the poison eaters eat poison in order to connect to the all-knowing entity called the datasphere, which can reveal any and all dangers threatening the city. It’s rumoured that some of those who eat the poison become, in truth, nothing more than appendages of the datasphere, part of why it is so knowledgeable.
- Some claim that some of the poisons produced by the Eye of Enthait are in truth not poisons, but other substances that merely happen to be toxic as a side-effect. However, this seems like a pointless distinction to most, though those suggesting it believe that the more toxic substances just need eating in lower quantities.
- The city of Enthait, for some reason, is a magnet for danger. drawing everything from malign influences to sentient diseases to abhuman tribes. Some think that this is connected to the ancient ruins it is built on, and that these ruins either draw such influences to the city, or perhaps create them out of the whole cloth.
- The deadly vallum of Enthait contains all manner of dangerous devices, some functional, some not, waiting to hurt anything that attacks. It’s rumoured that the Aeon Priests do not know just what every device was capable of, and that some buried there are far more dangerous than suspected.
- The greyes are the ten highest-ranked members of the zaffre, the defence force of Enthait. Every greyes has some kind of unique talent, and when a poison eater makes a threat known, a team of greyes with the right skills is sent to deal with it. It’s very rare for the entire force of greyes to be sent to deal with a threat, but it’s rumoured that has become more common over the years.
- The Orness is the putative ruler of Enthait, as she’s the only one who has managed to survive all ten poisonings. Some wonder if in truth she has survived all ten, or whether she, in some way, faked at least one of the poisonings in order to establish herself as the city’s ruler.
- The poison that the poison eaters of Enthait consume comes from a device called the Eye of Enthait, and there are ten different poisons that the Eye provides. Or, at least, there are ten known poisons provided; some claim that, every now and then, others are produced.
- The zaffre are Enthait’s defence force and guard the community from both external and internal threats. Given that they serve the wishes of the Orness, some claim that the zaffre also tackles threats to her leadership, even if such threats don’t risk the community as a whole.
Want some items that could be used as oddities? Check out 100 Xenoarchaeological Finds.