Go beyond the boundaries of the fantastic, award-winning Numenera setting.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
A Lot of Bang for Your Buck!
over 10 years ago
– Fri, Sep 04, 2015 at 09:48:16 PM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
There are only five days left. A Kickstarter campaign’s end-game is often a mad, fantastic time, when hundreds of new backers flock in and the stretch goals really stack on. It wouldn’t surprise me if that happened over the next few days, but only if we keep reaching out to gamers who haven’t backed it (or even heard of it) yet.
Here’s how you can help: Share this graphic. It tells the story pretty well, don’t you think?
And while you’re at it, here’s a little something cool: We’ve just posted the video of the Instant Adventures event at Gen Con—have a look. You will laugh out loud—many times—at the antics of Bruce and Shanna, along with Jen Page and Tom Lommel, and be amazed by Monte’s incredible creativity and off-the-cuff GMing skill. Feel free to share it as well!
Remember the #NinthWorldKS hashtag. And don’t be afraid to share—there are still thousands of gamers who haven’t heard about what an awesome deal this campaign has become. Some of your friends are probably among them. If they back the campaign, they get an incredible deal on some incredible books—and you get one step closer to more stretch goals added to your reward!
Iadace! —Charles
Another Achievement Goal Unlocked!
over 10 years ago
– Fri, Sep 04, 2015 at 05:27:46 PM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
Well, that didn’t take long! Yesterday we took the wraps off some new achievements, and you’ve already nailed five of them—taking us over the top for yet another achievement goal!
Having hit 36 achievements (yes, that’s 36!), you’ve unlocked a sample chapter of The Poison Eater. Shanna’s an incredible writer, a creator of fascinating characters that move through a vivid, compelling vision of the Ninth World. (Check out her stories in Tales from the Ninth World and More Tales from the Ninth World to see what I mean!) Although The Poison Eater is a ways away, Shanna will start into it in the months to come, and we anticipate making the first chapter available before the end of the year.
Your Character Sheet on Paper or On Screen!
So, here’s what’s next: We just recently released the character sheet for the Cypher System Rulebook (you can download it for free from the MCG shop). As an experiment, we made it form-fillable, meaning you can print it out and fill it in by hand, the old-fashioned way, just fine. But you can also open the PDF in a compatible viewer, and enter your character information on your computer or device. And then print it, use it on-screen, or save it to edit later when your character goes up in tier or otherwise changes!
We’re really happy with the result of this little test—super easy to use, looks great, and just handy all around. So, get us to 40 achievements, and we will do the same thing with the Numenera character sheet. And not just one version of the sheet—we’ll make the original form-fillable, and do the same thing with the Into the Ninth World alternate character sheet you unlocked as a stretch goal way back when. AND the character portfolio we’re currently working toward as our next stretch goal!
Speaking of Stretch Goals. . .
Just a reminder: When we get to $300,000, we’re going to add another book to the All the Ebooks and All the Print Books packages. And not just any book—a 160-page hardcover, the Ninth World Bestiary 2. It’ll feature cool creatures themed to this campaign, along with dozens and dozens of creatures you might encounter throughout the Ninth World.
That’s not our next stretch goal, though. We’re currently closing in on the character portfolio at $255,000. And while we haven’t taken the wraps off it yet, I mentioned that the one after that will be another book in print and PDF! Think about it: If we hit $300K, a pledge that originally got you three books and a deck will now include (at no extra cost):
Into the Night
Into the Deep
Into the Outside
Artifact Deck
The Poison Eater
Character Options 2
Exclusive Map Book
Another book we haven’t disclosed yet
Ninth World Bestiary 2
Plus all the poster maps, PDF supplements, deck expansions, music, character portfolios, and other awesome things we’ve added through stretch goals!
Wow. I don’t know about you, but I really want to get there! So, please, keep spreading the word. Remember to share and retweet:
Use the #NinthWorldKS hashtag on your own posts and tweets. Someone you know hasn’t heard about this campaign yet—don’t let them miss it!
Iadace! —Charles
Another Stretch Goal—and the Last Week is Upon Us!
over 10 years ago
– Fri, Sep 04, 2015 at 02:23:21 AM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
The Into the Ninth World Kickstarter campaign ends one week from today. Can you believe this is already our 25th update, announcing the unlocking of our 18th stretch goal? I’m willing to bet we’re far from over—things often get very exciting in the final week of a campaign like this. We can probably hit several more stretch goals, and add a lot of cool stuff to your rewards, if we keep pushing out the word!
Another Print Book?!?
In the last update, I mentioned that we’re looking forward to adding the Ninth World Bestiary 2 to the lineup, if we make it to $300,000 before the end of the campaign. In a minute, I’m going to talk briefly about yet another print book—which we might hit even sooner! But first:
Two-Sided Poster Map for Into the Outside!
Overnight we passed the $240,000 mark, making the double-sided poster map for Into the Outside a reality! Like the poster maps in Into the Deep and Into the Night, this second side will be designed as if it’s actually from the Ninth World—you’ll be able to use it as an in-game prop.
Next Up: A Character Portfolio
We love the Numenera character sheet. It’s a real work of art—one of the most beautiful character sheets ever designed for an RPG, in our humble opinions. And it’s not just lovely—it’s practical and well designed.
It’s worth noting that earlier in this campaign we unlocked an alternate character sheet design themed specifically around the Into the Ninth World books. We’re looking forward to designing a character sheet that’s every bit the worthy alternative to the original in beauty and functionality.
But we’d like to go a step further. In our own campaigns, we’ve found that the current character sheet fills up quickly, especially if you enjoy taking copious notes about your game, or as your character grows through the tiers. It doesn’t take long to get crowded. We often find that our own character sheets develop a posse of supporting documents—pages of notes, sketches, details on additional abilities, artifacts, oddities, NPCs, and other things we pick up as our campaigns grow. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a purpose-built way to keep track of all this stuff?
So that’s what we want to do. We’ll make a character portfolio: A multi-page version optimized for recording, tracking, and maintaining your character and all the ancillary notes that accrue around him or her over the course of your campaign. This will be as beautiful and functional as the existing character sheet, but give you a lot more room. If we reach $255,000, we’ll add it as a PDF for every backer (at the JUST A PDF or higher level, which is virtually everyone). And we’ll make a print version available as an add-on!
We don't have an image for the character portfolio yet, so here are some friends from Into the Night instead.
Looking Ahead
As we head into the final week, it’s a good bet the pace will start picking up—if we keep spreading the word, we could still hit many additional stretch goals. To wet your whistle, here’s a sneak peek: The next stretch goal, after the character portfolio, will be another print book! And I’m not talking about the second bestiary—this is yet another print title. Let’s get to $255,000 quickly, so we can take the wraps off this one!
Achievement Unlocked!
I was away at PAX for five days, and was super-busy with the show (we had activity in the MCG room for almost 14 hours a day). I wasn’t able to keep up with Kickstarter quite as closely as I’d like during that period, but fortunately you guys kept at it. We’ve hit another achievement, which means you’ve unlocked another goal! I’ll have all the details on that in another update a bit later today.
In the meantime, as we head into this final week let’s make the most of all the great momentum you have helped build. Share this campaign on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever you do the social media thing—and don’t forget that face-to-face conversations are a great way to spread the word, too! We can do great things in the week to come, and add a lot more cool content to your reward! #NinthWorldKS
Iadace! —Charles
The Artifact Deck (And How You Can Be Involved)!
over 10 years ago
– Fri, Sep 04, 2015 at 02:00:23 AM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
One of the great things about a Kickstarter campaign is that it lets us involve you, the players and fans, in shaping the future of our games. Of course, just in the act of funding the initial products you help make them real—and when you start pushing us into the realm of stretch goals, it lets us expand and improve products, creating features and even whole new titles that wouldn’t be practical through traditional funding methods.
But more than that, a Kickstarter campaign is a conversation. As I write this, there are well over 700 comments on the main comment thread, many of them discussing ideas for content or whole new titles. We’re active in that conversation, and we note everything you suggest.
We wanted to go a step beyond that in this campaign, though. Check this out:
The Artifact Deck
Here at MCG, we take our decks seriously. Why? Because they’re incredible tools for inspiration and they save loads of time during game prep and during play. Who has enough time to prep their games the way they’d like to, and who wants to break the pace in an exciting game?... No one! Let these cards do the work for you. For my money, in terms of pure utility they’re often the best bang for the buck in gaming. Apparently I’m not alone in that thought: I just came back from PAX, where we were demoing and selling Numenera. Our decks were the first products we sold out of at that show!
The Numenera Artifact Deck will be a great way to generate random artifacts during prep or on the fly—or to inspire you when coming up with your own artifacts. Just draw a card, and you’ve got a fully described artifact ready to go. You can even hand the card to the player who found the artifact—much quicker and easier than having him copy the text out of a book. This deck will contain 100 all-new artifacts.
But here’s the best part: We want your input on this. We want your ideas to be part of the Ninth World—to contribute to the diversity of concepts that makes Numenera so cool and unpredictable.
If you back at the ARTIFACT PATRON level, we’ll build one of these artifacts around the idea you give us. That’s right: You tell us what the artifact is, and we’ll create a card for it. (There’s the possibility we’ll also use the artifact in one of the books, but no guarantees on that.)
Credit where credit is due: Your name will go right on the card, just like Darcy’s in the image. (And yes, Darcy is a real person, who really came up with this concept for us.)
There are a few caveats, of course, so check out the reward tier and the additional description on the Kickstarter page for details.
Remember to share—let’s bring in more backers and hit more stretch goals! #NinthWorldKS
Iadace! —Charles
Achievement Unlocked!
over 10 years ago
– Fri, Sep 04, 2015 at 01:52:10 AM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
Over the weekend you unlocked another achievement! The great thing about this is that you not only scored an additional upgrade to your rewards, but in so doing you helped spread the word about the campaign, brought in new backers, and helped reach new stretch goals to add cool new stuff to this campaign (and your reward)!
As Into the Ninth World enters its final week, there’s no better time to keep it up! So before I talk about what you’ve accomplished, let’s talk about pushing it forward. We’re adding two more achievements to shoot for:
This will help draw even more backers to the campaign—and more backers means more stretch goals and more stuff for you! And we’re adding some new achievement goals, too (see below)—so that’s another way spreading the word can really pile on the loot!
(And don’t forget: If you haven’t liked our Facebook page or don’t follow us on Twitter yet, do so! It’s another way to hit these achievement goals, and to keep up with all the news and info from MCG.)
A New Video—and Some Fiction!
Having hit our 32nd achievement, you’ve unlocked a new goal!
When Monte, Bruce, Shanna and friends gather for their weekly Cypher System game, they often tweet from the table about their adventures. Followers repeatedly ask if we'll record those games.
Having hit this goal, we’re gonna do it! Join the whole team as we get together and play Numenera—with Monte at the helm. The game will focus on content from the Into the Ninth World titles. Monte’s a heck of a GM, and it’s great fun watching him run—just ask anyone who was at our Instant Adventures seminar at Gen Con this year!
With those new links above, I bet you can knock out the next goal pretty quickly! If so, we will pre-release the first chapter of The Poison Eater, the flagship novel of the MCG fiction line, which was funded by this Kickstarter campaign a couple of weeks ago. If you’ve read Tales from the Ninth World or the recently released More Tales from the Ninth World, you know Shanna is an incredible writer with an awesome vision of the Ninth World. While we’ve tentatively slated the novel for release in late 2016, the first chapter will likely be out before the end of this year!
Our Final Week
There’s just about a week left in this campaign—and then the Kickstarter exclusives, and awesome deals your support has made possible, go away forever! Do you know a gamer who hasn’t backed this campaign yet? Of course you do—there are still tens of thousands of gamers who don’t even know it’s going on! If every backer currently participating in this campaign can draw in just one additional backer, we could literally double the stretch goals we’ve already hit. There’s a week left, and the final week of a Kickstarter is often wild and exciting. Let’s make that happen! #NinthWorldKS
