Thursday, December 24, 2015

Oddities (Numenera)

  1. A cube that "rests" balanced on its corners rather than faces.
  2. A 2 inch (about 5 cm) diameter blue, semi-translucent egg that is not subject to gravity. It is subject to inertia and otherwise possesses mass, however.
  3. A small sphere that causes a creature whose skin it touches to take on a specific hue. This mild recoloring extends to their hair, eyes, and skin and creates a distinctive color shift but does not make them unrecognizable. The color shift immediately ends if contact ends.
  4. A small (3 foot/1 meter tall) painted statue made of solid stone. The figure is stout, bearded humanoid with rounded features, garishly bright clothing, and a conical hat that makes up about a third of the statue's total height. If the statue is not facing its owner and it is not observed the statue turns to face its owner. If the line of sight to its owner is obstructed and it is not observed it vanishes from its current location and appears in an unobserved location where it has a line to see that individual. If the statue has no current owner it becomes the property of the first individual to touch it. Giving up ownership of the statue requires whispering a command word specific to the statue though the statue itself has no indication what this command word is, where to find it, or even that it exists.
  5. A small ring that, when exposed to humming at certain frequencies, glows brightly as a candle. Different frequencies produces a different color to the glow.
  6. A small jar of drit that, if watered, grows a small plant producing a single beautiful flower of no recognized type within a ten minutes. Five minutes after blossoming the flower abruptly turns to dust. If the plant or flower are picked it also immediately turns to dust.
  7. A small jar of drit. If exposed to a strong magnet the drit forms into a 1 inch (2.5cm) diameter non-magnetic metal sphere. When the magnet is removed the sphere returns to drit.
  8. A set of contact lenses that, when worn, label seemingly random items in view with text in an unknown language.
  9. A transparent pyramid 3 inches (7.5 cm) tall that occasionally and randomly duplicates itself for about 10 minutes before the previously existing one vanishes. The duplicate is always unmarked and unmarred if the original exists in any state short of having been utterly destroyed.
  10. A small stone that buzzes loudly at a highly obnoxious pitch. If touched lightly it quiets for 10 minutes or if held for a few seconds it becomes quiescent for a day.
  11. A metallic object that takes the form of a regular solid. If turned (including being rolled) it morphs through six different types of regular solid randomly. The shapes it takes are tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, pentagonal trapezohedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron.
  12. A rectangular metal box (3 inches/7.5 cm long by 2 inches/ 5 cm tall by 1 inch/ 2.5 cm wide) that moves about under its own power. It has no limbs, and must remain in contact with a surface to generate locomotion. It behaves as a small, furtive animal, roughly like a mouse, seeking to remain close to anyone it touches, moving around and hiding amongst their clothing and peeking out.
  13. A sheet of synth (2 inches/5 cm on a side, less than 1 cm thick) which seems to be immune from any form of alteration, being immune to damage and even passing through Iron Winds completely unchanged.
  14. A life-sized replica of a human heart made from red crystal and stone. If a creature holds it the heart beats in time with their pulse.
  15. A life-sized replica of a human brain made from reddish quartz. Creatures who touch it "hear" an indistinct, wordless psychic muttering.
  16. A monocle which, if you peer through it, shows latticeworks of glowing lines connecting objects and people around you and, often, connecting those objects to things beyond your vision. Slowly turning the ring shifts the colors of the lines up from red through orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, then to white or (turning the opposite direction) down from white to red. Lines that are white or red disappear if the ring is turned further in that direction while different ones appear at the opposite end of the spectrum. These connections are related to no discernable relationship.
  17. A small metal mobius strip which has etched symbols that move slowly around it. The characters change at a point on the ring which is not observed. If all points of the ring are somehow being observed simultaneously the characters continue to move but do not change.
  18. A ring which makes the wearer feel disoriented and like their entire body is "buzzing" when worn.
  19. A ring which projects the wearer's consciousness into a small, circular, three tiered auditorium without any doors. Until they remove the ring they inhabit a semi-translucent hologram of their physical body which cannot effect anything in the room. The room is empty except for benches which line each tier and an unadorned, unused pedestal at the center of the "stage" area in the lowest level. The room is dimly lit with a grey light and never changes, not even showing dust or decay.
  20. A small, colored, semi-translucent ovoid which randomly "chimes" and glows until the sound fades away. If the object is being touched when this happens it is felt to vibrate as if struck to produce the sound.
  21. A sand clock which flows upward. When in the lower chamber the sand is black, but in the upper chamber it is white.
  22. A plate about 6 inches (15 cm) diameter of what appears to be obsidian which has been polished until it's reflective. Small, twinkling sparks of light appear from the surface and float drifting, random paths upward until they reach about 1 foot (30 cm) above it, at which point they vanish. The sparkles vanish if they come in contact with any solid object, and the cumulative light from all the sparkles active at one time is less than that of a candle.
  23. A fist-sized metal sphere that has electrical discharge patterns acid-etched into it from two points opposite one another. Touching the sphere produces a faint tingling sensation.
  24. A small stone that, if stationary, begins causing random unsecured objects of less than 1 oz (30 grams) within immediate range to float slowly upward. The floating of items is effected one at a time but, over the duration multiple, objects may simultaneously be effected. The stone never lifts more than about 10 objects and never more than 1 pound (1/2 a kg) of total weight. These items never reach more than about head height and immediately return to normal physics if touched, leave range of the stone, or after a few minutes of being effected.
  25. A 12 inch (30 cm) tall by 4 inch ( 10 cm) diameter pentagonal trapezohedron of blue-green metal which weighs about 1 pound (.5 kg). It "naturally rests" vertically aligned with gravity and about 3 feet (1 meter) above any surface which would support its weight (the ground, a desk, etc). Any attempt to move it from this position will be resisted by what feels like gravity, causing it to want to "fall" to that position and orientation.

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One of the fun things about Numenera is the proliferation of oddities, little devices that do nothing but suggest immense power and wonder. In that spirit of joy and wonder, my gift to you for Christmas are 25 oddities for your enjoyment.

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