Monte Cook Games Announced Its 5E Project: Arcana of the Ancients

Following up from the D&D 5E hints included in recent Numenera shipments to customers, Monte Cook Games has just announced its new project coming to Kickstarter in March: a 5E-compatible sci-fantasy setting which allows you to play in settings like the Barrier Peaks or Numenera!

Following up from the D&D 5E hints included in recent Numenera shipments to customers, Monte Cook Games has just announced its new project coming to Kickstarter in March: a 5E-compatible sci-fantasy setting which allows you to play in settings like the Barrier Peaks or Numenera!

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Here's the full press release:

Since the very early days of tabletop RPGs, gamers have experimented with mixing a bit of science fiction into their fantasy. From Empire of the Petal Throne to Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, early adventurers into the realm of RPGs saw the amazing promise that mysterious and weird science-fantasy elements could add to their campaigns.

Nowadays, who knows science-fantasy better than Monte Cook Games?[h=2]Introducing Arcana of the Ancients[/h]Arcana of the Ancients will be your comprehensive guide to bringing science-fantasy into your 5th-edition campaign. This hefty, hardcover book will be filled with creatures, devices, character abilities, technologies, tips, advice, and adventure. All fully compatible with 5E.

Starting with a series of adventures that introduce the idea that there were previously unknown, incredibly ancient civilizations in the game world, the PCs themselves will discover first-hand the relics of a past so old that even the elves and the dragons know nothing of it. These ancient peoples wielded powers beyond comprehension, and the things they left behind harness those strange powers for the PCs to find and use—but they also present dangers and entirely new challenges. Once the secrets of the ancient past have been unlocked, weird new creatures and bizarre beings arise and only the greatest of present day champions will be able to defeat them—and only if they wield the arcana of the ancients.

What else might you do with Arcana of the Ancients? Advance (or create) your character with skills and abilities that take advantage of mysterious ancient technologies. Mystify your PCs with a one-off adventure that explores a crashed alien ship, an ancient high-tech outpost, or a portal to an amazingly advanced world. Convert the compelling Ninth World setting of Numenera to 5E and run adventures in a world replete with mysterious ancient works as powerful, unknowable, and weird as any magic. Build a new campaign world, or region within your setting, that includes ancient high technology as mysterious to your PCs as the magic they wield. Or simply use the many science-fantasy creatures, items, and abilities detailed in this book to give your campaign a new and interesting dimension.

Adventures, ways to integrate ancient civilizations into your campaign, new creatures, new items, new character abilities—Arcana of the Ancients will give you everything you need to integrate mysterious high-technology science fantasy into your game.

[h=2]The Ancient Worlds of Numenera[/h]Numenera is Monte Cook Game’s flagship tabletop roleplaying game. Set a billion years in Earth’s future, in Numenera the denizens of the Ninth World are surrounded by the ruins of prior civilizations whose technologies were so advanced they are indistinguishable from magic. It’s a game of exploration and discovery in a setting that combines science-fiction elements with a fantasy feel. Launched in 2013, with new revised Numenera Discovery and Numenera Destiny corebooks released in 2018, Numenera has sold over 80,000 corebooks (plus tens of thousands of additional corebooks in nine foreign languages), and spawned dozens of supplements chock full of amazing creatures, items, adventures, and setting elements. It is a top-selling RPG and the definitive modern science-fantasy tabletop roleplaying game.

The wonder and mystery of the Ninth World of Numenera is coming to your 5E game with Arcana of the Ancients.



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dave2008

Legend
To use Numenera with 5e, will it be enough to just own Arena of the Ancients or will the Numenera core book be required?

I'm pretty sure just the Arena of Ancients is needed. The core book as the mechanic for a different game system that would not help with a 5e conversion. The whole point of this project is to brong the world of Numenera to 5e.
 

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Reynard

Legend
The whole point of this project is to brong the world of Numenera to 5e.

I don't think that is necessarily true. it looks more like a genre book for 5E, of which Numenera is an example of that genre and of course MCG's flagship, but I think an actual attempt at a "Numenera 5E" would be called just that. I don't think MCG would want to cannibalize their own Numenera core book sales. Rather, they probably want to promote the sale of various Numenera books to 5E players with a big, extensive genre and conversion guide. But I could be misreading the press release.

What I am interested to know is if this is an OGL product or something licensed. I really hope it is full of awesome Open Content.
 

dave2008

Legend
I don't think that is necessarily true. it looks more like a genre book for 5E, of which Numenera is an example of that genre and of course MCG's flagship, but I think an actual attempt at a "Numenera 5E" would be called just that. I don't think MCG would want to cannibalize their own Numenera core book sales. Rather, they probably want to promote the sale of various Numenera books to 5E players with a big, extensive genre and conversion guide. But I could be misreading the press release.

What I am interested to know is if this is an OGL product or something licensed. I really hope it is full of awesome Open Content.

Yes, that was basically my thought - you just said it a lot better than I did!
 




Reynard

Legend
I don't know if it would be a problem financially--at least, Cubicle 7 seems to be doing all right with both The One Ring and Adventures in Middle-Earth.

True enough, though I wonder if the fact the C7 is dealing with a licensed setting might impact that decision.

We shall see. Maybe if AotA does well they will do more actual Numenera books. Or, quite possibly, I am inferring the wrong thing and this is really a Numenera 5E book.

Which is fine. I just want it to be OGL so I can use it for my own work.
 

ProphetPX

First Post
HOLY COW this is the BEST NEWS to come out of the gaming world in a LONG TIME!!!
(NOW the only thing left that i really DO want to hear is: if my BELOVED Krynn / DRAGONLANCE will finally come back as an "official setting" to 5E or Pathfinder... SIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!! I KNOW there are fan-made conversions but i'd better appreciate a real official published work instead ... that i can hold in my hands and ... actually read offline ;) )

Anyway, I never really caught on to how the Cipher system worked (i honestly just did not like it) and so this is great news since i do like 5E ... but can anyone tell me how easy or difficult (when this source book DOES come out) that it would be to convert anything from the new 5e content down to 3.5 or Pathfinder? Because that is what i really want ... I am not as big a fan of 5E as i am of those (older) systems instead. Thanks.

And yeah i am SUPER EXCITED HERE TOO!!!!! I LOVE NUMENERA!!!!
 

oni no won

First Post
HOLY COW this is the BEST NEWS to come out of the gaming world in a LONG TIME!!!
(NOW the only thing left that i really DO want to hear is: if my BELOVED Krynn / DRAGONLANCE will finally come back as an "official setting" to 5E or Pathfinder... SIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!! I KNOW there are fan-made conversions but i'd better appreciate a real official published work instead ... that i can hold in my hands and ... actually read offline ;) )
MWP put out a ton of Dragonlance books for D&D 3.x so I doubt that WotC will put out anymore on the series except for the occasional Dragon Magazine articles. Besides, You can do a ton of adventures with what MWP put out. They covered like 3 different eras!
 

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