Numenera is a game published by Monte Cook Games. Its setting is the Ninth World, and this list has six 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.

1. Arch-purifiers are the leaders of the Guild of Purity, and are those who have destroyed many instances of machine life but have suffered too many injuries to continue. It’s rumoured that one of the arch-purifiers actually lost to a machine intelligence, which then took their place, and that intelligence now uses the Guild to attack those machines it considers its rivals.
2. Members of the Guild of Purity seek to eradicate intelligent machines before they can destroy the Ninth World like they have others. It’s rumoured that some of the tales that are spread about the horrors committed by intelligent machines are in fact fabrications of the Guild, who seek to undermine all positive tales of such machines with tales of what they consider the truth, even if it never happened.
3. Purifier Elistin is never seen out of her battlesuit artefact, not even removing the helmet when they speak. Though dew purifiers live up to Elistin’s ideals of behaviour, there are persistent rumours that the battlesuit is more than just an artefact but a sentient machine in and of itself.
4. The Guild of Purity maintains that those humans who befriend or serve machines have become corrupted and are part of the problem. It’s rumoured that some bands of Guild members have even wiped out entire small communities that they believed had become corrupted by machines, in order to prevent the so-called infection from spreading.
5. The Traitor is a former member of the Guild of Purity who turned on the Guild after falling in love with an automaton, and the Guild has issued orders that he be killed on sight. It’s rumoured that the Traitor, actually named Saleb, has managed to convince a few minor purifiers inside the Guild that the Guild’s policies are too extreme.
6. There is no central headquarters for the Guild of Purity, as the organisation has temporary camps scattered across the Steadfast. There are persistent rumours, however, that the Guild does have a secret base, one located well away from any site of civilisation, in a numenera ruin somewhere in the Beyond.

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