Too many transitions to bizarre dimensions can warp a normal human’s mind and body, creating something terrifying.
Dimensional bleed, page 27
GM Intrusion: The victim is grabbed. Each round that the character does not escape, they suffer 12 points of damage, as the cannibal focuses all its attention on its victim.
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OROBAN
3 (9)
Orobans are wretched abhumans who have only a single arm and clawed hand that also serves as their face. They constantly murmur and mutter, which might be a language, though, if so, it is one that communicates only concepts of hunger, hunting, and threat. Orobans are few in number and usually live alone, but that weakness is compensated for by a knack they’ve learned for drawing parallel versions of themselves out of nearby dimensions at need. Orobans are divisive enough that they soon turn on even versions of themselves. This is why a lone oroban’s crude domicile is often decorated with several corpses of itself. But more than they hate themselves, they hate other creatures.
Motive: Hungers for flesh
Environment: Almost anywhere, alone (but with the transdimensional ability to summon five or more parallel versions in moments)
Health: 9
Damage Inflicted: 3 points Movement: Short
Modifications: Perception as level 5.
Combat: As part of another action, an oroban can draw at least five parallel versions of itself to participate in an attack. This might grant them surprise if the target of the attack didn’t realize what was about to step into existence. Either way, the five orobans can attack a single foe using their clawed face-hands, making one level 5 attack that inflicts 6 points of damage.
Instead of dealing damage, a group of orobans can hold a target in place. Next round, one of the orobans can dismiss the others back into the alternate dimensions from whence they came. This tends to pull the victim in painful directions that don’t actually exist, inflicting 6 points of damage that ignores Armor, though at least it releases the victim.
Interaction: These creatures seem interested only in interacting with alternate versions of themselves, and even then, not for long. Use: Orobans are somewhat new to Earth, having apparently stumbled
out of a portal that briefly opened near the city of Delivar.
Loot: If found, a lone oroban lair has 1d20 shins, other miscellaneous gear or goods, and probably a cypher or two.
Delivar, page 9 GM Intrusion: The character is grabbed by a group of orobans that disperse into various parallel dimensions, and is deposited in a dimension that is like, but different than, the base dimension.
PARIALL
4 (12)
Parialls hide in plain sight, usually in flat pieces of art, as chalk drawings, or as scratches on dritor stone. A pariall reveals itself to lone victims, taking on full dimension and substance in order to physically attack. When hiding, a pariall mimics its surroundings. For instance, if hiding in art, it might appear as a kindly old scholar, a child, or an animal in a landscape. But when one takes on dimension, its true form is also revealed, which is a horrible fusion of flesh and limbs as of many, many dissimilar creatures.
Like a snail with its shell, a pariall takes its two-dimensional curled-up pocket plane with it when it moves, though unlike a snail, the curled-up dimension is not visible.
Motive: Hungers for flesh
Environment: Almost anywhere, but more likely near artistic displays Health: 18
Damage Inflicted: 5 points
Movement: Immediate when disguised, short when fully formed Modifications: All tasks related to disguise and stealth as level 6.
Combat: Parialls move imperceptibly along flat surfaces, preferring to appear disguised as pieces of art as they do. When one attacks, it reveals its full form. A target damaged by a pariall must make a Might defense roll or be pulled into a curled-up pocket plane of two dimensions.
Victims pulled into a curled, two-dimensional space find it wholly unsettling if they haven’t visited a similar space before. Out of their element, their only course of action is to attempt a Might task or Intellect task to drop back into three dimensions.
Interaction: Parialls are intelligent creatures, and a few speak the Truth. A defeated pariall might choose to bargain rather than lose its life. Parialls have an expansive knowledge of other dimensions, since they slide along planar edges like people walk along roads.
Use: In order to use a gate leading to an area of interest, the characters must pass through a gallery of paintings. One or more of those paintings is infested with parialls.
Loot: Parialls keep belongings of past victims with them in their curled- up dimensions, and defeating one might cause the entire pocket dimension to empty out, revealing a few cyphers amid the bones and garbage. Drit, page 411
GM Intrusion: The character thinks they are leaning against a solid wall with some strange scratches on it. Instead, they fall into the curled- up two-dimensional plane of a pariall’s tiny personal dimension.
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RIVEN
2 (6)
Riven are echoes of creatures that perished in timelines extinguished by disaster. So in a way they are like ghosts, but ghosts that physically haunt parallel worlds after their own world is no more. They sometimes resemble blurred images of familiar creatures, such as seskii, though in most cases the bodies appear more skeletal and often glimmer with transdimensional energies. Riven act as if always threatened, and constantly lash out, or run from, everything and everyone around them.
Motive: Destruction
Environment: Almost anywhere Health: 6
Damage Inflicted: 4 points Movement: Short
Modifications: Defense as level 5 due to transdimensional skipping.
Combat: A riven’s exposure to transdimensional energy that caused its change benefits it in combat, because it’s hard to predict exactly where a riven will be from moment to moment. Riven attack with the ferocity of the crazed and desperate. When they’re encountered together, four of them can concentrate on one foe and make one attack as if they were a level 4 creature, inflicting 8 points of damage. Each riven must still be attacked individually, as normal. If their numbers are reduced to fewer than four, they retreat into a parallel dimension. Attempting to follow a fleeing riven could strand a character in an alternate reality, or forcefully knock them back into their own reality when the riven returns to a dimension that no longer exists.
Interaction: These desperate, crazed entities understand only destruction and fear. They cannot be reasoned with or calmed, not even those that look like humans or other intelligent beings. Use: After PCs visit what appears to be a dying parallel dimension, or view one through an
artifact, they are attacked by a riven that bears an uncanny resemblance to them. Loot: Riven that appear bestial never carry loot, but those that resemble warped versions of
humans may carry some shins and possibly a cypher.
Seskii, page 258
What is so powerful that it can extinguish whole dimensions? Possibilities include runaway processes that grew beyond their original creators’ intent, weapons wielded by godlike beings, and certain classes of predator that operate many magnitudes higher on the food chain than normal creatures.
GM Intrusion: A tooth from the riven breaks off in the attacked PC’s skin. Until removed (a Might action), the character suffers 1 point of damage per round.
SHATARAK
6 (18)
You can’t see it, not at first. But you can feel it, rumbling through levels of reality you never knew existed until this moment. Something is smashing the barriers that normally keep alternate realities separated, and when it finally appears, it is revealed as unbelievably massive.A shatarak—also called a realm crasher—stands about 30 feet (9 m) tall. Realm crashers usually appear only in areas where transdimensional effects are in use, including phasing. They seem intent on destroying the entity or device involved in creating the effect, though that may be a side effect of their true, unknowable purpose.
Motive: Destroying creatures and devices that allow transdimensional travel Environment: Almost anywhere
Health: 40
Damage Inflicted: 6 points
Movement: Long; can transition between dimensions as an action unless attacked Modifications: Speed defense as level 4 due to size.
Combat: A realm crasher attacks with an impressively large tail and can target up to four creatures with a single attack.
A realm crasher can also attempt to cut a furrow in reality that sucks up energy in cyphers and artifacts. When it attempts to make such a tear, it moves up to a short distance in a round, and anything it comes within immediate range of is attacked. Each target must make a Speed defense roll, or one
cypher (or, if they have no cyphers, an artifact) on their person is drained of power. Devices that have some kind of transdimensional effect are drained first. If the targets have no devices, this attack has no effect.
Interaction: Shataraks can sometimes be bribed with numenera items that have transdimensional effects, but they’re generally not interested in other kinds of interaction. They speak their own language of
subsonic whistles and clicks. Use: A Nano got lucky and captured a
realm crasher, and is using the beast as a subject in experiments related to crossing dimensions. Meanwhile, reports accumulate from nearby villages of a rampaging monster of enormous size that is there one minute and gone the next.
Loot: A shatarak may have a few cyphers and even an artifact, but usually only because it hasn’t destroyed them yet. GM Intrusion: The
character hit by the realm crasher’s massive tail is struck so fiercely that they are sent flying an immediate distance and lie stunned, losing their next action. Realm crashers are rumored to have once been peaceful creatures, but after the destruction of their entire plane in a dimensional mishap, they became vengeful, looking for something called “the Key.”
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STALKING SHADE
4 (12)
Stalking shades never fully appear in the dimension where they hunt, but instead project their shadow. Thus shades appear similar to the regular shadow cast by a nearby object or a creature being stalked, making shades hard to identify as anything dangerous. However, when someone observant notices that an object or creature has more than a single shadow, it might be because one or more stalking shades are about ready to pounce. Victims are pulled into the dimension where the stalking shade's true form resides and are consumed.
Stalking shades move across the dimensions, but are more drawn to locations where the fabric between worlds is thinnest.
Motive: Hungers for substance
Environment: Almost anywhere, alone or in groups of two to four Health: 18
Damage Inflicted: 5 points Movement: Short
Modifications: Tasks related to deception and stealth as level 6.
Combat: A stalking shade relies on its deception and stealth to attack a victim from ambush when possible. Once it attacks, the shade loses the shape of whatever shadow it was mimicking and takes on a horrific snakelike (or tentacle-like) silhouette. When a victim is hit by an attack, it suffers 5 points of damage and must succeed on a Might defense task or be partly pulled into the dimension where the stalking shade’s true physical form resides. A limb or some other part of the caught victim’s body seems to disappear when this happens. The victim takes 4 points of Speed damage (ignores Armor) each round it is caught, as whatever lies in that nameless alternate dimension gnaws on the victim, until the victim succeeds on a Might task to pull free. A victim who dies from this damage is completely pulled into the nameless alternate dimension, and is gone.
Unless foes deal transdimensional damage to a stalking shade, killing one merely dismisses the shadowy shape; whatever cast the shadow in the first place
remains unharmed, though it can’t cast a shade again into the same location for at least 28 hours.
Interaction: Stalking shades behave like clever, predatory animals, albeit ones with the ability to hunt using ultraterrestrial means.
Use: Weird shadows are sometimes seen dancing on the walls of the prior-world ruin located nearby. When locals investigate, the shadows slip away. Except for last week, when three local village children went to watch the shadows and never came back. Village elders are seeking someone knowledgeable about the numenera to investigate.