[FOCI]
Numenera Character Options 2
You were not born of the Ninth World. Yet now you find yourself living in a place layered by the ruins of prior civilizations, peopled mostly by oddly ignorant yet strangely potent and sometimes compassionate humans. This magnificent spectacle may have been what drew you, though it's more likely it was an accident of s fate that brought you to this alien planet.
Whether you came from another world, another dimension, or another time, you must make the best of it and try to succeed. Even if you seek to find your homeworld or want to make a new life for yourself on Earth, you must cultivate friends, knowledge, and experience to survive in the present. Because that's what humans do. Some aliens look incredibly strange, while some look exactly like humans. Most fall somewhere in between.
Some aliens, of course, are going to have different abilities than those listed here. Some might be more subtle. Some might be far more dramatic. The GM and player can work out potential substitutions for the tier 3, 5, and 6 abilities from other foci, if desired.
Your latent power for telekinesis sporadically kicks in, making your foe drop its weapon.
Your latent power for telepathy kicks in stronger than ever, mind-jolting your foe so that it loses its next turn.
You unsettle humans and other creatures that haven't met a person of your heritage before. You can capitalize on that reaction and use it as an asset in most social interactions, whether you're able to persuade someone because they give undue credence to your oddness, intimidate someone for the same reason, or deceive someone who can't read your tells.
You're trained in one esoteric knowledge skill; that skill could be the numenera or something related to higher math, the history of your world, the mechanics of time travel, and so on.
You finally locate your missing companion, which also hails from your home. It might be an animate glop of ooze, a tiny duplicate of yourself, a glimmer of hard light that follows you around, an insectlike creature you keep in your extra stomach, or some other perfectly normal companion for your world, but one which draws occasional comments in the Ninth World. You and the GM must workout the details. Your companion is a level 2 NPC who is completely devoted to you. You'll probably make rolls for your companion when it takes actions. A companion in combat usually doesn't make separate attacks, but helps you with yours. On your action, if the companion is next to you, it serves as an asset for one attack you make on your turn. If the companion dies, you gain a new one after at least two weeks and some effort on your part to find, reanimate, or regrow one.
Your species' latent ability for telepathy manifests. By touching a living creature or a thinking machine, you gain access to its surface thoughts.
The base level for your companion rises to 3 instead of 2.
Your species' latent ability for telekinesis manifests. You can target a creature or object (up to twice your mass) within short range. The target is caught in your telekinetic grip, and you can move it up to a short distance in any direction each round that you retain your hold. A creature in your grip can take actions, but it can't move under its own power. Each round after the initial attack, you can attempt to keep your grip on the target by spending 2 additional Intellect points and succeeding at a difficulty 2 Intellect task. If your concentration lapses, the target drops backto the ground. Instead of applying Effort to decrease the difficulty, you can apply Effort to increase the amount of mass you can affect. Each level allows you to affect a creature or object twice as massive as before. For example, applying one level of Effort would affect a creature four times as massive as you, two levels would affect a creature eight times as massive, three levels would affect a creature sixteen times as massive, and so on.
Action to initiate.
Your species' latent ability for long-distance teleportation manifests. You instantaneously transmit yourself to your homeworld or home reality. You can also travel back to the Ninth World, returning to the exact spot you left. You can use this ability to travel to other worlds besides your homeworld, though this might increase the difficulty by one step. Instead of applying Effort to decrease the difficulty, you can apply Effort to bring other people with you; each level of Effort affects up to three additional targets. You must touch additional targets to transmit them.
GM Intrusions: Prejudice against non-humans makes life difficult. An NPC of the character's same race arrives and causes trouble for the character.