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.
- Aian, the City of Merchants or the City of Beggars, is barely part of Milave. It is ruled by an elected senate, but some say that it is truly ruled by wealth. There are rumours that the senate is planning to cut what little ties bind the city to Milave and to set up as an independent city-state. Some believe if that happens, though, Aian will become a tempting target for raiders at the very least.
- Ghianche, sometimes just called ganch, is a herb grown in Milave, one that is a mild relaxant but can also be a powerful hallucinogenic. The herb is smoked, in pipes, and made into cigars as well. Ganch is difficult to grow and maintain and requires the use of a large workforce of numenera machines, but the ganch farmers have been running into problems of late. Sometimes the machines are sabotaged; sometimes the workers are hassled. These attacks seem to stem from a group that objects to ganch usage.
- In recent years a tent city has grown around the southern gate of Orrila in Milave, covering a place that is now known as the Field of Voices. Some of Orrila’s inhabitants are getting increasingly tired of the tent city, blaming its inhabitants for all manner of problems. Some think the tents should be made into proper buildings whilst others would be happy enough to see the entire place burn to the ground.
- Orrila, the nominal capital of Milave, is where the ruling council comprised of representatives of all the factions in the country meets to, in theory, run the country, though in practice they accomplish very little of this. There’s a rumour that someone has been assassinating the representatives of a number of factions with seats on the council. It can’t be to disrupt the country, for doing such might make the council more effective at coming to decisions.
- Ossam’s Traveling Menagerie and Soaring Circus mostly travels through Milave, providing entertainment for the watchers, in exchange for money, of course. The entertainment is said to be enjoyable to watch, but there are darker rumours about the circus. Some claim that its passage through an area can be linked to various disappearances.
- Someone claimed to have found proof that the Order of Truth was working with the Beggar Queen in Aian in Milave, something that some have suspected for some time. The individual disappeared shortly afterwards, and it’s thought that they were killed by the Beggar Queen’s biomechanical hybrid lieutenants. That would suggest that the rumour is true and that whatever was discovered was more than just evidence that the Amber Papacy was working with the Beggar Queen.
- Tarvesh is a warlord of Milave that has the support of many of the country’s citizens and, it’s rumored, of the Amber Papacy as well. There are rumours, though, the Tarvesh has been using the terrifying numenera war machines under his control to slaughter villages who refuse to support his forces. Some say, though, that these rumours come from the Pytharon Empire, whose empress would love to reintegrate the former province back into the empire, and therefore seeks to undermine any potentially unifying forces.
- The All-Speech in Orrila in Milave is a device that automatically translates any language spoken in the city, and some distance outside it, into a language that is understandable to the listener. There are rumours, though, that sometimes the All-Speech alters what is being translated as well. Not even close to every time, and never in a major way, but sometimes what is spoken doesn’t have the same meaning as what is heard. This might just be an occasional glitch, due to the differences between languages, or it might be something else entirely.
- The floatstone quarries east of Orrila in Milave are where workers dig up the remains of what look like former monuments of some time from a previous age. Tarps are spread to catch the floatstone as it rises, but there’s a rumour that recently something that was uncovered did not merely rise but shot up into the air, still intact, and disappeared from sight.
- The Sadara River forms the southern border of Milave and normally functions well as a protective barrier against various kinds of raids and attacks from the southern lands. Recently, though, villages along the northern banks of the Sadara have reputedly been attacked on many occasions by forces who seem to cross the river as if it wasn’t there, suggesting that the raiders are using numenera.
Want some items that could be used as oddities? Check out 100 Xenoarchaeological Finds.