The Strange

418 Pages·2014·17.351 MB·English

by  Monte Cook Games

CREDITS
Writers/Designers Bruce R. Cordell and Monte Cook
Rules Developer Monte Cook
Creative Director and Lead Editor Shanna Germain
Proofreader Ray Vallese
Editorial Assistance Miranda Horner
Cover Designer and Lead Artist Matt Stawicki
Graphic Designer Sarah Robinson
Artists
Brenoch Adams, Reece Ambrose, Nicholas Cloister, Dreamstime, Brandon Leach, Grzegorz Pedrycz, Mike Perry, Q-Workshop,
Joe Slucher, Lee Smith, Matt Stawicki, Cyril Terpent, Tiffany Turrill, Chris Waller, Cathy Wilkins
Cartographer Hugo Solis
Monte Cook Games Editorial Team
Scott C. Bourgeois, David Wilson Brown, Eric Coates, Ryan Klemm, Jeremy Land, Laura Wilkinson, George Ziets
© 2014 Monte Cook Games, LLC
THE STRANGE and its logo are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. All Monte Cook Games characters and character names, and the
distinctive likenesses thereof, are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC. Printed in Canada.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 2 3 4
WORLDS OF WONDER PART 5: Creatures & Characters 255
SOME STRANGE IDEAS 4 Chapter 16: Creatures 256
SOMETHING WONDERFUL 5 Chapter 17: Nonplayer Characters 302
PART 1: Getting Started 7 PART 6: Running the Game 309
Chapter 1: Welcome to the Strange 8 Chapter 18: Strange Cyphers 310
Chapter 2: How to Play the Strange 10 Chapter 19: Using the Rules 332
Chapter 20: Building a Story 359
PART 2: Character Creation 15
Chapter 21: Running a Strange Game 376
Chapter 3: Creating Your Character 16
PART 7: Adventures 385
Chapter 4: Character Type 25
Chapter 5: Character Descriptor 45 Chapter 22: The Curious Case of
Chapter 6: Character Focus 51 Tom Mallard 386
Chapter 7: Equipment 85 Chapter 23: Adventure Ideas 399
PART 3: Playing the Game 95 Part 8: Back Matter 401
Chapter 8: Rules of the Game 96 Appendix A: Resources 402
Chapter 9: Rules of Translation 125 Appendix B: Kickstarter Backers 403
Glossary 409
PART 4: The Setting 133
Index 410
Chapter 10: Recursions 134 Character Creation Walkthrough 412
Chapter 11: Earth 147 The Strange Character Sheets 414
Chapter 12: Ardeyn 160
Chapter 13: Ruk 190
Chapter 14: The Strange 212
Chapter 15: Other Recursions 234
5 6 7 8
SOME STRANGE IDEAS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the making of
this book, we received T
he Strange is the second game from Monte Cook Games, and it’s the second game
invaluable assistance—
directly or indirectly—from created utilizing the Cypher System. The first was NumeNera™, a science fantasy game set
the following people, places, in the far, far future. The STraNge™ is a different animal altogether.
and things: When creating the Cypher System, I knew that it was open-ended enough to handle a wide
variety of settings and genres. I imagined, for example, that we might create a Cypher System
Phil Athans game that had a straight-up fantasy setting. What I wasn’t prepared for was a setting that would
Batgirl (Torah Cottrill)
push the entire system to its limits—at least not right away.
Stan! Brown
But then along came The Strange. Bruce proposed an idea to me involving Earth and Ardeyn
Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Coffitivity and this crazy, alien-crafted side universe (called the Strange network) that connected them.
Erin Evans This was an amazing, exciting idea. I realized pretty quickly that we had to make this happen
Google Hangouts as a game setting. As we talked, the idea of more worlds—recursions—lying out in the Strange
Gravity soundtrack
network, like islands of sanity in a sea of chaos, came to us. I proposed that there be not one
Kickstarter
but two main recursions and began formulating ideas for Ruk. By that point, the ideas were
Kivu Coffee
flying fast and furious. In other words, it was a great time.
MCG Kansas Bunker
Moto X I think it’s always pretty much a sure-fire indicator that you’re onto something good when
Peppermint Mochas the cool ideas flow like that. When everyone who’s exposed to the concepts gets really excited
Susan Morris by them, that’s a great sign. And that’s what happened at MCG. We all got really excited by the
Brandon Ording
game, and it all fell into place quite quickly.
Pandora
But like I said, the game really pushes the system to the limits. In one manual, we needed
Planetary Radio
Roll20.net to provide all these concepts plus the rules for magic, modern technology, wildly advanced
Charles and Tammie Ryan technology, psychic powers, and, well, pretty much anything and everything—because The
Carl Sagan Strange knows few limits. It was a challenge, but a good one. We wanted to arm game masters
Salted licorice with the ability to create their own recursions, or adapt their favorite fictional settings and
Lex Starwalker
characters. This big book you hold in your hands is merely the beginning. With The Strange,
Jeff, Stacey, Edward, and
characters can go anywhere and explore anything. This is a setting that doesn’t just allow you to
Adam Tidball
Tilly and Gozer take your adventures into your favorite story; it begs for it.
Tron: Legacy soundtrack Take this book and make characters from Earth. Have them translate to Ardeyn or Ruk for
The Walking Dead an interesting scenario or two. But while they’re doing that, make preparations for the next
Waywords at the Wayward
step that only you can create—a recursion based on your favorite movie, novel, or game. Like
David Wilson Brown
Numenera before it, The Strange exists to inspire you and ignite the fires of your own creativity.
And a special thank you
to all of our Kickstarter
backers (see Appendix B,
page 403, for the
complete list)
4
WORLDS OF WONDER
CREATING YOUR CHARACTER
SOMETHING WONDERFUL
D
id you ever see the movie 2010? It’s the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space
Odyssey, based on Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2010: Odyssey Two. The movie 2010 came out in
1984, but I think it still holds up well to this day. If you’re a science fiction fan and haven’t
seen it, I recommend you do; you’ll thank me later.
During the movie, on three separate occasions the “evolved” avatar of Dave Bowman tells
the other characters that “something wonderful” is coming. (Dave tells the news to his wife, to
Heywood Floyd, and to the rebooted and reformed HAL 9000.) The “something wonderful” Dave
refers to is the arrival of a brand new world, to be born on Jupiter’s moon Europa. This whole new
world with implied intelligent life meant that we on Earth would no longer be alone. The movie
also introduced an elder alien species who could blithely ignite new suns and fashion new worlds.
All these concepts were superlative—not to mention strange.
2010 opened twenty years ago, but it sticks with me. In the time between then and now, I’ve
had the great good fortune to become a creator of stories myself. Thanks to TSR and Wizards
of the Coast, I had the opportunity to write alongside and learn from talented, creative, and
innovative game designers, novel authors, and probably more important, editors. Every project
and novel was a chance for me to learn something new and hone my skills. I was given the
opportunity to indulge myself by telling stories, and I gained the ability to share those stories with
the world.
Some of those stories were literally just that: novels. I wrote nine of them, and in so doing
learned a love for that craft equal to what I have for game design. I owe a huge debt of gratitude
to all the folks in the novel publishing department of that time for helping me along. I owe the
same to the Writing Circle critique group we developed then, as well as a huge thank you to
thousands of people who bought and read what I wrote.
5
My desire to write more novels was a factor that helped me decide to step away from full-time
work at Wizards. I wanted the freedom to pursue writing a kind of novel that isn’t in vogue at a
company that focuses on fantasy properties: I wanted to write a science fiction novel.
So I left and began working on my sci-fi masterpiece. I just wasn’t sure exactly what it was
going to be. Torah Cottrill set a challenge before me: “Create a science fiction character who’s
as interesting and complex as any of your fantasy novel characters.” When explained so simply,
I couldn’t disagree, and I started on an outline. It wasn’t long before I developed the concept for
both a character and a plot that excited me. In my novel, I was not only going to tell a great story
with memorable characters, but I was also going to provide a unique answer to Fermi’s famous
The Fermi Paradox
question that asks why human beings seem all alone in the universe. My answer wouldn’t be
is the juxtaposition
runaway self-replicating robots, scarcity of life, self-limiting civilizations, or some other obvious
of high estimates
for the existence zeroing factor. No. My answer was to point at the increasing velocity of universal inflation itself,
of extraterrestrial and call it evidence. Dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe isn’t a fluke, I
civilization with the lack posited in my sci-fi novel outline. Rather, it’s a massive artifact, an alien data web designed for
of any evidence for such something far different than what it has become today.
civilizations anywhere in
And so my concept for the Strange was born. I began writing the novel from the point of view of
the universe.
Carter Morrison (later called Carter Strange, the Maker). In the back of my head, I toyed with the
Fermi Paradox and the idea of maybe even crowdfunding the thing, after the first draft was written.
Dark Energy Network, Around this time, I told my friend Monte about my idea. He liked it. He liked it so much that
page 220 he suggested that maybe there was a game property somewhere in my sci-fi imaginings. I agreed
instantly. Of course there was! And once I finished the novel...
“How about,” Monte said, “you and I write that game now?” His offer sounded like a fabulous
idea to me. Nor could I think of a better person than my lifelong friend (and by all accounts, a
talented game designer in his own right) to co-write The Strange RPG. Indeed, along with Shanna
Germain and the rest of the team at Monte Cook Games, we could assemble a product with story
content and production values far beyond what I could imagine or achieve on my own.
And that’s exactly what we proceeded to do. You hold the result in your hands.
For an overview of what we’ve done, check out Chapter 1: Welcome to the Strange, which
Welcome to the Strange,
page 8 introduces you to the setting in a very story-based way.
After that, read Chapter 2: How to Play the Strange, and you’ll come away with what you should
How to Play the Strange, know and what you can teach others about the essentials of the game. The rest—character
page 10 creation, the full rules, the setting, the creatures, and so on—are added details, although we hope
they’re fun and interesting ones. Use Part 3: Playing the Game as your reference tool when you
Playing the Game,
have questions.
page 95
If you’re going to be a game master, read Part 6: Running the Game carefully after reading the
Running the Game, rules. We’ve done our best to convey what the game’s all about, and Monte provides some of his
page 309 secrets to running a great game.
Please enjoy what you find in the following pages, which we’ve done our best to fill with

amazing art and fantastic ideas you can use to inspire your own stories—stories and games we
fully expect to be “something wonderful.”

6
Part 1:
G E T T I N G S T A R T E D
Chapter 1: Welcome to the Strange 8
Chapter 2: How to Play the Strange 10
WELCOME TO THE STR ANGE
FROM THE DESK OF LEAD OPERATIVE
KATHERINE MANNERS
Welcome. You’re here because you’ve sworn to defend the Earth
from all threats of the Strange. For that, you have the
organization’s heartfelt gratitude. Now it’s time to get down to
business.
As an operative of our organization, you’re expected to commit
certain critical and confidential pieces of information to memory.
That information includes what you’ll find in this briefing dossier.
Please read the entire docLumYent, then read it again. You know
N
what to do with it after that.
O

S
ThYankE you for your prompt attention,
E

E
T
A
T Katherine J. Manners
S
E
STRANGE PRIMER to Earth can be made, either accidentally
or purposefully. Finding or constructing
The Strange is a network created by
such a bridge seems to be the main goal
[redacted] aliens several billion years ago.
of all planetovores and their intermediar-
Estate researchers believe the Strange
ies. Preventing that from happening, by
was built to allow intergalactic travel. It’s
whatever means necessary, is the Estate’s
unknown at this time what went wrong, but
primary mission.
the builders lost control of their creation.
In the course of passing aeons, the Strange
became something wild, chaotic, and with- RECURSIONS IN THE
out rules or laws (which is why we also call
STRANGE
it the Chaosphere).
Stable regions called recursions exist with-
in the Strange. Recursions are like tiny,
NATURE OF THE STRANGE
self-contained universes. Each one oper-
Think of the Strange as its own boundless ates under a particular set of rules, which
realm—as a separate universe underlying means that planetovores have almost as
our own. The Chaosphere has no direct re- difficult a time entering a recursion as
lationship to matter and space as we under- they do entering Earth. In fact, a recursion
stand it: There is no up or down, there is can act as a barrier for preventing a plane-
no ground beneath a visitor’s feet in most tovore from getting to Earth, thanks to the
places, and merely gazing into its lawless presence of the recursion’s rules.
void damages the human brain (“alien- Earth and the visible universe operate
ation” is the preferred term for the pain under a familiar set of rules, called Stan-
and derangement most operatives experi- dard Physics. But different recursions
ence upon visiting the Strange). often operate under alternate sets of rules.
The Estate has classified the following ad-
PLANETOVORES ditional laws under which recursions oper-
ate: Magic, Mad Science, Psionics, Substan-
Creatures live in the Chaosphere. The
dard Physics, and [redacted].
worst of these are called planetovores.
They thrive on the fact that no rules bind
them within the Strange. We call these ARDEYN
creatures planetovores because a) the Ardeyn is a recursion where magic works,
Estate has good evidence that one tried to dragons live, and creatures that might as
consume our planet when Earth first dis- well be demigods exist. Ardeyn’s creation
covered the Chaosphere; and b) because was the unanticipated side effect of com-
they [a whole long sentence that should be puter researcher Carter Morrison’s dis-
redacted goes here]. covery of the Strange, and the Estate was
Planetovores can’t normally reach areas founded in his memory. Carter Morrison’s
where natural laws restrict the environ- whereabouts are unknown at this time.
ment, such as on Earth. But bridges up
8