I got a chance to play in a brief Numenera game several years ago, and I was very intrigued by it all. Sadly, for various reasons, the game didn’t last. And I never ended up picking up the core books. I know there’s a new edition coming soon, being released as a plug-in for the new edition of Cypher. But to be totally honest, as cool as some of Monte Cook Games’s releases are, Numenera is really the only one that particularly interests me. So, I’m still hoping to grab the slipcase with Discovery and Destiny. Maybe one of these days. Additionally, I wasn’t really aware of the computer game, Torment: Tides of Numenera. I was vaguely aware that there had been a computer game. And I’d heard of the old computer game, Planescape: Torment. I had no idea they were connected, behind the scenes at least. I just had some credit at a used book store, and used it to pick this book up.
When I got it home and started looking at it, I noticed it was a tie-in to the computer game, and was bummed, thinking it wasn’t going to end up being much use at all. Thankfully, I was proven wrong when I read it. This ends up being an absolutely packed sourcebook, exploring a region separated by exceptionally harsh terrain from the core region covered in the mainline game. You don’t have to have played the computer game, or frankly know anything about it, in order to enjoy this. You do probably have to have some basic understanding of the greater Numenera game. And if you want to make full use of it, you’re going to need the core rules and all of that. But the book is absolutely brimming with cool ideas that you can harvest for whatever game you might want.
The Science Fantasy is off the charts, as you have lots of strange people and places to explore. Much of the book is taken up with the region called Greater Garravia, looking deeper at eight specific parts of the region, from the formerly dominant Sagus Protectorate to the Tempest Wastes, a place that makes being inhospitable its whole personality. Throughout, you’ll also find plenty of weird and useful NPCs and factions to populate your games, intrigue and torment your PCs.
The last few chapters cover things like numenera and artifacts to give your PCs, as well as a few player options, new creatures, and optional rules. A lot of this, though not all, is more system reliant. This includes a new mechanic for the titular “tides,” and I’m really not sure about that. My cursory reading made me think they were a needless bit of mechanical fluff. But I would be willing to be proven wrong. I think this book may have been for the first edition of the game anyway, so a few things have changed since then.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. It’s been a while since I read a setting book as dense as this. It makes me really want to try Numenera again, as so much about it seems up my alley. But I also took a bunch of notes to use for inspiration in the sandbox I’m throwing together (for Shadowdark, probably). Is this a “must have” for Numenera players or game masters? No. But I don’t think a GM would regret picking it up and giving it a read, even if they didn’t want to take their game to the new location.
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