Friday, December 21, 2018

Thoughts on the Ninth (and Eighth) Worlds

People often ask, in regards to Numenera, how can it be that no one knows what happened to the "eight prior worlds", yet we somehow know that there were eight such worlds, no more, no less? Or: where did humans come (back) from? Or: why hasn't the sun rendered the Earth uninhabitable after a billion years? Humans are inquisitive; surely someone would have sought out the answers.

Well, one thing players will have to contend with is that most residents of the Ninth World just don't care about that kind of stuff. It has no obvious relevance to the daily struggle for survival. They may spend an idle moment wondering about it, but it will be rare for anyone to do anything tangible to follow up. "Humans are inquisitive," but not everyone is inquisitive about ancient history specifically. How many residents of our own world know anything about the fall of Constantinople or the Punic Wars or the Louisiana Purchase? These events have helped to shape the modern world in important ways, but most denizens of the modern world don't think about them much, or at all really, even though information about them is readily available. Ninth Worlders, it seems to me, have even less motive/means/opportunity to dwell on a past that would undoubtedly seem so far-removed, irrelevant, and "unreal" to them.

That said, the answers aren't so much unknowable as they are simply unknown. Assuming you are a GM, if your players want to go on some kind of adventure that may solve some of the vexing issues of the Ninth World's history, let them. Even if there is no official answer to the questions they are curious about, you can always come up with your own as GM. If players are allowed to "save" the world, they surely are also allowed to learn at least some of its history, in dribs and drabs from ancient texts or the occasional reclusive, likely insane, long-lived AI.

Some ideas: Perhaps the Ninth World is called that simply because the previous mega-civilization called itself the Eighth World, according to the most ancient texts we have. But in a fun plot twist, perhaps the "Eighth World" is called that for some other reason than literally being the eighth great civilization. Perhaps Earth was the eighth planet to be colonized by the mighty Varjellen Consortium about 2 million years ago (Varjellen dislike poetry, so maybe they are also uncreative when it comes to planet names). Or, perhaps the number 8 had some kind of symbolic or religious significance to the Eighth World culture and was never meant to be understood literally (representing the eight steps to enlightenment or something). Or-- and this is my favorite one-- perhaps "Eighth World" was a mistranslation of the ancient historical texts-- the Eighth World conquered not just the stars but other dimensions where even the laws of physics were different, and called itself the Eight-Dimensional World-Union. This was simplified to "Eighth World" by historians who didn't comprehend the notion of alternate dimensions.

Then the next civilization comes along and is like, well if they were the "Eighth World", we must be the "Ninth".

And, for me, to explain the reemergence of humans, my tentative head-canon (as opposed to my tentacled-head cannon) is that the (non-human) Eighth Worlders discovered some preserved human remains and reconstructed them on a lark, displaying the neo-humans in something akin to zoos. But eventually the humans rose up, "Planet of the Apes"-style, and brought the Eighth World to a violent end, ushering in a million-year dark age. (If that seems like an excessively long dark age, keep in mind that the humans of this dark age had terrible monsters to contend with that we didn't have to worry about during the medieval dark age, not to mention the enraged survivors of the Eighth World, making rebuilding difficult. And in any event a million is 0.1% of a billion.) Humans of the inter-World dark age didn't like to think about what they and their ancestors had done, and so didn't tell their descendants the specifics of what happened to the Eighth World. Eventually the Eighth Worlders were all dead (or so it is believed) and the whole unpleasantness was forgotten. It doesn't take long for the truth to be forgotten if no one wants to remember it. Much like the real world in that respect.

Additionally, there is an interesting place in the NWGB called the Kingdoms of the Dawn, on the opposite side of the mega-continent from the Steadfast, where they have never heard of this "Ninth World" or its eight-prior-worlds implication. That suggests that the Eighth/Ninth World thing may be mostly legendary. Or that the Dawn People may just have some kind of historical blindspot for some reason. Either way, it adds a new wrinkle to the question.

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Two-Make-Three Words in Scrabble, Part One: A-D

This series is a follow-up to my post about two-letter Scrabble words. I remain of the conviction that one's short-word game in Scrabble (or Words With Friends or Bananagrams or whatever) is kind of like one's short game in golf. It's not glamorous, but it's what will win you games. It is your bread and butter.

The very first step to Scrabble mastery is to learn your two-letter words really, really well. After that, there are a couple of worthy ways to continue on the road to Scrabbly success. One good possible next step is to learn the "two-make-three" words. That is, three-letter words that can be formed from legal two-letter words already on the board. For example, if AD is on the board, you could front-hook it with LAD or CAD or DAD or whatever, or back-hook it with ADS or ADO or even ADZ. If you are a defensive player (like me), or if you play against a lot of defensive players, two-make-three words are of the utmost importance. And that's what this list is-- all the three-letter words that can be formed from two-letter words, starting in this post with two-letter stems beginning with the letters A-D. (This series will NOT end up being a complete list of all legal three-letter words; that would be a bit much. As it is, just this A-D two-make-three post is gonna be quite long.)

As with the previous list, I feel like definitions are necessary. That way you can say your hobby has at least a little bit of educational value. Just memorizing the words alone has no application outside of word games, y'know? The definitions also make it more fun. (I have strange ideas of what constitutes "fun").

Some words appear twice in the list because there's more than one way to get to them (i.e. more than one two-letter word that it can be made from.) For example, "LAD" could be formed by front-hooking AD on the board with an L from your hand, or back-hooking LA on the board with a D in your hand. Thus LAD appears under both LA and AD. Needless to say, the two-way two-make-three words are doubly important to know-- being roughly twice as likely to appear-- so them being listed twice is a feature, not a bug. ;)

The list is organized by the base two-letter words you'll be playing off of. The base two-letter word appears first, in larger type, followed by all the front-hooks in alphabetical order, then a little divider and all the back-hooks in alpha order. And, even though you should already know the two-letter words if you've read the previous post in this series, just for fun, brief definitions of the two-letter words are included here also.

The list is more oriented toward Scrabble than Words With Friends, but the words accepted by the two games are more than 95% the same, and I have tried to make note below of where their respective dictionaries diverge. In the few cases where OWL 2014 (the current official word list for competitive Scrabble) diverges from OSPD5 (the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary, 5th edition), I've gone with the OPSD so as not to offend. (Usually the differences between OWL and OSPD are because the word in question may be considered offensive to some-- cuss words and racial slurs and such. The OWL allows such words; OSPD and WWF generally do not.)

SYMBOLS
*   Word is new for Scrabble, as of OWL 2014 / OSPD5
†   Word is NOT valid in Words With Friends (but is valid in Scrabble)
‡   Word is NOT valid in Scrabble, but IS valid in Words With Friends (not comprehensive)
(And of course, no symbol means the word should be fine to play in pretty much anything.)

Aa (chunky lava)

BAA: the sound a sheep makes
 ---
AAH: variant spelling of "ah"
AAL: a kind of tree in India (also spelled "al")
AAS: plural of "aa" ('cause it totally makes sense to refer to lava in the plural)

Ab (an abdominal muscle)

CAB: like a taxi
DAB: as in, "dab on them haters" (or, for older generations, "a little dab'll do ya")
GAB: small talk, as in "the gift of gab"
JAB: a quick punch, literally or figuratively
KAB: about a quart; see 2 Kings 6:25
LAB: short for lah-BOR-ah-tory
NAB: slang for steal or kidnap
SAB: short for sabbath, as in, "Adventists be chillin' on the sab"
TAB: the key between caps-lock and ~ on your keyboard
WAB: Scottish for "web" (I promise I don't make these up)
 ---
ABA: variant spelling of "abaya" (which is also a valid word)
ABS: more common to see people refer to "abs", plural, than the singular "ab"
ABY: really old variant of "abide" (also spelled "abye")

Ad (an advertisement)

BAD: not good
CAD: old-timey slang for a scrub
DAD: short for crawdad or father (use context to distinguish)
FAD: like Pokemon Go
GAD: as in, "gad about" (British for "go around aimlessly")
HAD: don't have it any more
LAD: a strapping young man
MAD: angry and/or crazy
PAD: something soft to absorb the blow
RAD: 80s slang for "radical"; also a measure of radiation
SAD: not happy
TAD: not a lot
WAD: of chewing-gum
 ---
ADD: opposite of subtract
ADO: as in, "much ado about nothing"
ADS: more than one ad
ADZ: a woodworking tool, more commonly spelled "adze" (also valid)

Ae (Scottish for "one")

BAE:  Slangy, even-shorter form of "babe", itself short for "baby" (WWF only)‡
GAE: Scottish for "go"
HAE: Scottish for "have"
KAE: Scottish for "jackdaw" (a kind of bird)
MAE: Scottish for "more"
NAE: Scottish for "no" or "not"
SAE: Scottish for "so"
TAE: Scottish for "to"
WAE: Scottish for "woe"
(Memorize this sentence: "Wae tae him who'd nae gae tae hae sae mae kaes.")
 ---
(no back-hooks for "ae")

Ag (short for agriculture)

BAG: a thing to hold other things in (often fabric)
DAG: a hanging loose end or shred (usually in reference to fabric)
GAG: a piece of fabric that keeps you from speaking, literally or figuratively
HAG: something you maybe shouldn't call your mom
JAG: many jags make something jagged
LAG: fall behind
MAG: magazine
NAG: something else you maybe shouldn't call your mom
RAG: a piece of fabric that's seen better days
SAG: lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground
TAG: like a price tag
WAG: like a dog's tail
ZAG: as in, "he zigged when he shoulda zagged"... ("zig" is also valid, but isn't a 2-makes-3)
 ---
AGA: Turkish loan-word for "general" (other Turkish words to try: oda, pasha, bey, fez)
AGE: how old it is
AGO: ...in a galaxy far, far away
AGS: agricultures (totally makes sense to speak of ags in the plural) †

Ah (as in, "ah, my eyes!")

AAH: variant spelling of "ah"
BAH: interjection expressing contempt or impatience
DAH: spoken Morse code for "dash"
FAH: variant spelling of "fa" †*
HAH: variant spelling of "ha"
LAH: variant spelling of "la" †*
NAH: nah, bruh (note: "bruh" is not valid for some reason)
PAH: interjection expressing disgust or contempt
RAH: rah, rah, go team!
YAH: a sarcastic way to say "yeah"
 ---
AHA: eureka!

Ai (old word for three-toed sloth)

RAI: Middle-Eastern pop music
 ---
AID: help
AIL: in need of help
AIM: point something presumably dangerous
AIN: Scottish for "own"
AIR: the stuff you breathe
AIS: more than one ai
AIT: very old word for a small island

Al (variant spelling of "aal")

AAL: the preferred spelling (preferred by me anyway)
BAL: 'cause saying balmorals (a kind of boot) is too much work
CAL: 'cause saying "calorie" is too much work †*
DAL: lentil soup, also spelled "dhal" (valid), "dahl" (valid), or "daal" (NOT valid)
GAL: 'cause saying "girl" is too much work
PAL: 'cause saying "friend" is too much work
SAL: another kind of tree in India (completely different from the aal)
 ---
ALA: flat, wing-shaped part of a bone (plural is "alae", also valid)
ALB: a white priest robe ('cause saying tunica alba [both words also valid] is too much work)
ALE: a kind of beer
ALL: excluding none
ALP: alpine mountain (can be lowercase, so it's legal)
ALS: plural of the variant of "aals"
ALT: 'cause saying "alternative" is too much work

Am (conjugated form of "be")

BAM: kapow!
CAM: a kind of machine-part (usually cylindrical)
DAM: a big wall that holds back the river
GAM: 1920s slang for "leg", as in "that dame's gams are the cat's pajamas"
HAM: goes good with green eggs
JAM: a spread with bread and ti
LAM: the dame with the gams is on the lam
MAM: British variant spelling of "mom" †*
NAM: variant spelling of naam (also valid), an obscure legal term
PAM: alleged slang for "pamphlet"
RAM: male sheep
TAM: a kind of hat ('cause saying "tam o'shanter" is too much work)
YAM: better known as "sweet potatoes"
 ---
AMA: a female pearl-diver (Japanese loan-word)
AMI: as in, "mon ami" (and "mon" is also valid; French loan-word)
AMP: amp it up!
AMU: atomic mass unit... usually written lowercase so it's allowed

An (one of two indefinite articles in English)

BAN: an official prohibition
CAN: of beans
FAN: of Bama
GAN: 'cause saying "began" was too much work in the 13th century (but is cool now, apparently)
MAN: a dude
NAN: variant spelling of "naan" (also valid), a kind of delicious flatbread in India
PAN: pots and pans
RAN: 'cause "runned" is not a word
SAN: sanatorium, as in "Crazy Joe got tossed in the san" †*
TAN: a pale imitation of brown
VAN: a pale imitation of a bus
WAN: a pale imitation of pale
 ---
ANA: a collection of a person's memorable sayings
AND: no ifs, ands, or buts (all valid)
ANE: Scottish for "one"
ANI: a peculiar-looking bird native to Central and South America
ANT: a bug that like picnics
ANY: the specifics are unimportant

Ar (the letter R)

BAR: a sideways pole
CAR: the dominant species of Earth, according to some observers
EAR: those weird-looking things on the side of your head
FAR: a long-long way to run
GAR: a particularly ugly kind of fish
JAR: meesa name Jar-Jar Binks
LAR: a funny lookin' kind of gibbon
MAR: stain
OAR: what you propel a rowboat with
PAR: for the course
TAR: sticky stuff, possibly with dinosaurs in it
VAR: 'cause saying "variable" is too much work
WAR: War! Hurrgh! Good gar, y'all, what is it good for?
YAR: variant spelling of "yare" (also valid), describing a ship that moves lightly and responsively
 ---
ARB: 'cause saying "arbitrageur" (an investing term) is too much work
ARC: a curved line
ARE: 'cause "they is" isn't allowed
ARF: onomatopoeia for a dog's bark
ARK: a big boat like Noah had, or a gold-plated box like Moses had
ARM: the thing that holds up your hand
ARS: i.e., R's
ART: this post

As (as in, "as the deer pants for water...")

AAS: more than one "aa" ('cause it totally makes sense to refer to lava in the plural)
BAS: more than one "ba"
DAS: more than one "da" †*
FAS: more than one "fa"
GAS: not solid or liquid (or any of the more exotic states of matter)
HAS: conjugated form of "have"
KAS: more than one "ka"
LAS: more than one "la"
MAS: more than one "ma"
PAS: more than one "pa"
RAS: a type of mutated cancer-gene, short for "rat sarcoma" (due to being discovered first in lab rats)
TAS: more than one "ta" (totally makes sense to speak of thank-yous in the plural)
VAS: a blood vessel (plural is "vasa", also valid)
WAS: ain't any more
 ---
ASH: what's left after it burned
ASK: request or inquire
ASP: a kind of snake and also a kind of caterpillar
ASS: before you complain, check out Exodus 20:17.

At (as in, "where you at?")

BAT: Bruce Wayne's spirit animal
CAT: Selina Kyle's spirit animal
EAT: my fav thing to do
FAT: what doing my fav thing makes me
GAT: slang for a pistol (originally short for Gatling gun, now generally refers to pistols)
HAT: what you use your head to hold up
KAT: variant spelling of "qat"
LAT: 'cause saying "latissimus dorsii" (neither word considered valid) is too much work
MAT: a piece of fabric (or whatever) used as a covering (or whatever)
OAT: what oatmeal is made from
PAT: on the head
QAT: a plant with stimulant properties, popular in the Middle East and East Africa (Arabic loanword)
RAT: like a mouse, but scarier
SAT: 'cause "sitted" isn't a word
TAT: 'cause saying "tattoo" is too much work
VAT: a big tank
WAT: Scottish for "wet"
 ---
ATE: variant of "et" ;)
ATT: old-timey variant spelling of "at"

Aw (as in, "aw shucks")

CAW: the sound a daw makes
DAW: short for jackdaw
HAW: a more full-throated laughing sound than haha or hehe (note: "hehe" is not a valid word)
JAW: holds your teeth in place
LAW: holds your society in place
MAW: like a monster's gaping maw
NAW: yet another slangy way to say "no"
PAW: an animal's foot
RAW: not cooked
SAW: "I see," said the blind man. So he picked up his shovel and saw.
TAW: variant spelling of "tav" (the Hebrew letter)
VAW: variant spelling of "vav" (the Hebrew letter)
WAW: another variant spelling of "vav" (the Hebrew letter)
YAW: used of a plane rotating left or right (as distinct from rolling left or right)
 ---
AWA: Scottish for "away"
AWE: amazement
AWL: a tool for punching holes
AWN: what awning does

Ax (as in, "ax me a question")

FAX: short for "facsimile machine"
LAX: not diligent
MAX: 'cause saying "maximum" is too much work
PAX: the "kiss of peace", i.e. the ritual kissing of a picture of Jesus or a saint in old school churches
RAX: Scottish for "stretch" (related to the word "rack")
SAX: ...ophone
TAX: one of two things that are certain
WAX: malleable solid
ZAX: a slater's ax
 ---
AXE: variant of "ax", e.g. "axe me a question"

Ay (the letter A)

BAY: a big dent in the coast
CAY: wannabe island
DAY: not night
FAY: a fairy, or (as an adjective) pertaining to fairies (note: the similar yet etymologically unrelated word "fey" is also valid)
GAY: no u
HAY: cut and dried long grass
JAY: the letter J, also a bird
KAY: the letter K
LAY: to place in a horizontal orientation
MAY: might
NAY: yet another variant of "no", this one old-timey and formal
PAY: to give money
RAY: of light
SAY: speak
WAY: the path, literally or figuratively
YAY: hooray
 ---
AYE: old-timey and formal variant of "yes"
AYS: A's

Ba (the eternal soul in Egyptian mythology)

ABA: variant spelling of "abaya"
OBA: a form of address for a big-shot in West Africa (variant spelling "obba" is NOT valid)
 ---
BAA: the sound a sheep makes
BAD: not good
BAG: a thing to hold other things in
BAH: interjection expressing contempt or impatience
BAL: 'cause saying balmorals (a kind of boot) is too much work
BAM: pow!
BAN: an official prohibition
BAP: British slang for a soft bread roll
BAR: a horizontal pole
BAS: more than one ba
BAT: like they use in baseball
BAY: a big dent in the coast

Be (why you be trippin') 

OBE: variant spelling of "obeah" (also a valid word), a kind of traditional African magic
 ---
BED: what you lie on to go to sleep
BEE: lives in a hive, makes honey
BEG: plead
BEL: ten decibels in a bel (the bel being the original, now nearly forgotten, measure of loudness)
BEN: the back room of a two-room cottage
BET: a wager
BEY: Turkish loanword for a governor or other big-shot

Bi (a bisexual) 

OBI: the sash for a kimono (Japanese loan-word)
 ---
BIB: the height of baby fashion
BID: the buyer's offered price
BIG: not small
BIN: a big container
BIO: 'cause saying "biographical sketch" is too much work
BIS: more than one "bi"
BIT: a tiny amount
BIZ: 'cause saying "business" is too much work

Bo (variant spelling of "beau", meaning boyfriend)

(no non-offensive front hooks for "bo")
 ---
BOA: a kind of large snake
BOB: for apples
BOD: 'cause saying "body" is too much work
BOG: a kind of swamp
BOO: what a ghost says
BOP: to strike playfully
BOS: more than one "bo"
BOT: 'cause saying "robot" is too much work
BOW: and arrows
BOX: a cardboard cube
BOY: a small dude

By (next to)

ABY: really old variant of "abide" (also spelled "abye")
 ---
BYE: 'cause saying "goodbye" is too much work
BYS: by and by = two bys

Da ('cause saying "dad" is too much work)*

ODA: Turkish for "harem"
 ---
DAB: as in, "dab on them haters" (or, for older generations, "a little dab'll do ya")
DAD: short for crawdad or father (use context to distinguish)
DAG: a hanging loose end or shred (usually in reference to fabric)
DAH: spoken Morse code for "dash"
DAK: delivery service by means of relays of horse-drawn carts and/or runners on foot (Indian loan-word)
DAL: lentil soup, also spelled "dhal" (valid), "dahl" (valid), or "daal" (NOT valid)
DAM: a big wall that holds back the river
DAN: your "rank" in karate, judo, shogi, etc. (Japanese loan-word) †
DAP: to skip lightly on the water †*
DAS: more than one da †*
DAW: a jackdaw
DAY: not night

De (from)

ODE: a kind of poem
 ---
DEB: 'cause saying "debutante" is too much work
DEE: the letter D
DEL: mathematical slang for "delta"
DEN: an animal's lair
DEP: alleged slang for "departure" †*
DEV: 'cause saying "developer" is too much work
DEW: the morning's condensation on the grass
DEX: street name for "dextroamphetamine," a drug normally used to treat ADHD (also called "dexy" or "dexie", both also valid words)
DEY: another Turkish loan-word meaning "ruler"

Do (as in, "do re mi fa so la ti do")

ADO: as in, "much ado about nothing"
UDO: an edible plant, related to ginseng
 ---
DOC: doctor or document (use context to distinguish)
DOE: a deer, a female deer
DOG: not a cat
DOH: what Homer Simpson says *
DOL: a unit of measurement for pain
DOM: an honorific title similar to "don" or "sir", e.g. Dom Pierre Perignon, inventor of champagne ("dom" was a title in his case, not his personal name)
DON: an honorific title that has been adopted by the mafia
DOR: a kind of beetle, also spelled "dorr" (also valid)
DOS: more than one "do" (in reference to do-re-mi notes)
DOT: like a period
DOW: Scottish for "thrive"

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Twinkle, Twinkle, E-F-G

Lately I have been taking a class in Mandarin Chinese at the Confucius Institute at a local university. I have taken the introductory class several times, from different teachers each time, but no matter who is teaching the class, they always start the course with the exact same, weirdly specific thing. The very first thing we always do is learn the pinyin initials (b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, zh, ch, sh, z, c, s, y, w) by singing them in unison to the tune of The Alphabet Song. It's kind of clunky due to there only being 22 initials, so an adjustment has to be made at the end, usually singing Y and W as a weird kind of Amen-chord in a place one would not normally expect the song to end.

But you know the song I am referring to, yes? That is the song little kids use to learn their ABC's-- the song that ends with "Now I've said my ABC's / Next time won't you sing with me?". That song.

So, that class is why The Alphabet Song has been on my mind in recent days. Question for you: How old were you when you learned that The Alphabet Song and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star are... the same? Different words, but totally the same tune.

If your answer is, "I was today years old," don't worry. You can impress your friends now, not only with that knowledge, but you-- yes, you-- can also sing for them this mashed-up medley of the two that totally rhymes. You're welcome.

Twinkle, Twinkle, E-F-G

(to the tune of... well... you know)


Twinkle, Twinkle, E-F-G
How I wonder L-M-N-O-P
Q-R-S the world so high
W-X in the sky
Now I've said my little star
Next time wonder what you are

***

(I'm embarrassed to say, I never noticed these songs were the same as a kid. I found out as an adult only a few years ago, I want to say from a Wikipedia article.)

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Tears of the Gods, Part Ten - Winter Lightning

This is part ten of this story, adapted from an on-going play-by-forum session of Numenera. If you haven't already, you'll want to start at the Tears of the Gods table of contents page.

***

Previously in "Tears of the Gods"

Through a window high above the arena, two pairs of amber eyes watched the fight unfold. "They are doing well. They can fight. They have esoteries. They could be the right ones."

"I am Yimoul-Za, golthiar and blessed of the Sun," he continued, not waiting for a response from Frater Bellias. "I am willing to listen to your task, but you said all will be answered here. So, may I ask: will this task bring me nearer to finding a skyship that will bring me to the Sun?" 

Syrus looked back. Where Fallside's factory had once stood, all that could be seen were streaks of dark gunk leaking down the cliff.

There was a blurring around Tempus, as if the whole area were surrounded by a dense heat haze. In his "chronal vision" he saw the nine-year-old boy, Riss, his son, now aged nineteen and trained as a glaive, preparing to set out south for Matheunis, a journey from which—Tempus somehow knew—he would never return.

Kiraz continued the story. In Auspar, they found that the other three members of the Broken Cage Company had all survived, though Gormin had lost his aneen during the flight from the City of Bridges. Along the way, they had befriended an ultraterrestrial named Thecla. They had not had any luck finding the Shrine of the Winged God.

"If there's anyone you should be eternally grateful to," said the redhead (voice-print confirmed: Jilandri), "it's your friends. They lugged your heavy, powered-down self around for months until they could find someone able to fix you."

***

Date: 14th Vaen in the 402nd Year of the Founding

Tempus

Tempus' first clue something was amiss was the quivering of the rodinza wine in the glass set before him. Earthquake? He looked around at the others, gathered at their usual table in the Four Spine Café, as the town around them celebrated some local holiday late into the night. Something was off about his friends, too; they were oddly... flat-looking. He frowned.

He realized his "chronal vision" was gone. He was, for the first time in a long time, limited to seeing the present moment only.

Then came another tremor, then another and another, each stronger than the previous one. Dust fell from cracked tiles in the ceiling of the café; outside in the street came the sounds of cries as a panic spread.

The earth shook violently. Across the street a needle-like spire crumpled in slow motion and collapsed into dust, engulfing many of the night-time revelers.

The café was a broad circular area beneath one of Auspar's shockingly tall, slender buildings. The building above them was held off the ground by four sturdy pillars, carved to look like spinal vertebrae. Though Tempus knew the buildings of Auspar were constructed of very lightweight materials in order to achieve the eye-catchingly tall, graceful look preferred by the local architectural style, the buildings were certainly still heavy enough that you wouldn't want one to fall on you.

From beneath his feet came a loud sound like frying strips of fatty meat. The floor of the café split open in a burst of actinic blue light, and a clawed creature with heavy chitinous armor-plates pushed up through the rift, followed by a flight of purple-and-yellow flying insects with wingspans nearly as broad as a man is tall.

Gormin was the first to his feet, bellowing a warcry as he charged one of the giant armored creatures.

The earth heaved. Gormin lost his footing and slid across the floor and fell headlong into the gaping chasm. He was gone.

Tempus hesitated, paralysed by fear as much from the loss of his chronal vision as from the loss of Gormin. The armored creature hauled itself out of the chasm and hurled its tremendous bulk bodily against a pillar.

"There must be some other way out," yelled Tlecha above the noise of battle. "Can they be drawn off by some music or scent?"  

Tempus Scanned it. He could sense that the creature was intelligent, but profoundly alien, and possessed of an overwhelming urge to tunnel through the ground. He could sense also its body pulsing with unnatural energy.

The rest of the group was up and fighting by now, but the huge purple wasps were harrying them, keeping them away from the tunneler that continued to slam itself against the pillar, which crunched worryingly in response to the abuse.

The creature released its store of pent-up energy. Lightning arced out from its mandibles, felling Kiraz and Voloidion, along with several fleeing café patrons. The sound of the crackling, spitting lightning was the source of the "frying meat" sound, Tempus realized.

Tempus knew it was hopeless and turned to flee himself. He caught sight of the moon, half-full, hanging in the sky as he reached the edge of the suspended building's shadow.

With a deafening roar, the pillars gave way and the building came down.

Tempus Far-Stepped away as far as he could, into the cold night air. He was aware, in the back of his mind, that he was alone now, again. His friends were gonecrushed beneath countless tons of broken flowstone, twisted metal, and other debris. But he couldn't think about that right now. The whole city was crashing down around him. Nowhere was safe. He Far-Stepped from one precarious perch to the next, trying to reach stable ground.

A second tunneling creature burst up from the earth, its body crackling with stored lightning. Before Tempus could react, the creature released its energy, catching him fully with the blast.

His final thought was of his family, forever lost in time.

***

Date: 8th Vaen in the 402nd Year of the Founding

The sound of shattering glass snapped Tempus back into the present moment. He looked down. His hand bled, and there were fragments of glass on the floor, twinkling amidst his spilled wine. By Kronos, that was too realnot a glimmer of future possibility, but an uncontrolled journey to the actual future.

Tempus looked around at his friends, gathered once more around their usual table at the Four Spines. Two things were immediately obvious. First, his chronal vision had returned—he could see his friends simultaneously ageing and rejuvenating. That, at least, was back to normal. And second, judging from the expressions of nonplussed horror he saw on their faces, the temporal anomaly had not been experienced by himself alone this time. That was definitely not normal.

Yimoul-Za pushed his large, bulbous eye into Tempus' personal space. "What a vision!" exclaimed the golthiar. "Is it because of you, Tempus? Are you tearing holes in time?"

Tempus gestured discreetly for calm and looked around. It did not appear that anyone else in the café had experienced the disruption of time. How fortunate, he mused. Next time, the whole city might be catapulted days or aeons into the future or past. The possible consequences of that didn't bear thinking about.

He wrapped a cloth around the cut on his hand. Not without some hint of sadness, he noted that not all of his companions had been in the future that he saw, and some of those he'd seen in the future were not present in the present—Syrus and Kiraz both seemed to be missing. His eyes came to rest finally on Tlecha, the white-haired ultraterrestrial being who'd been pressed into service by Eighth Worlders and escaped by traveling countless millions of years into her future. It was, of course, just as likely that she was the cause of the recent temporal anomaly as he was. Or that his own proximity to her was causing some kind of instability. But, cautious about offending anyone—to say nothing of disrupting the timeline further—he held his tongue.

Jilandri, the red-headed machine specialist, spoke up. "What... was that? Let's discuss it in the square; I don't feel quite right staying in here right now." She latched onto Voloidion, the intricately crafted mechanical nano, and pulled him out of the café into the plaza outside.

The others, still looking somewhat dazed, rose and followed her out. Tempus fished out a handful of shins to leave on the table, then moved to join them.

Outside, it was lightly snowing, midday. The three-finger layer of powder covering the ground made the many light-colored spires of Auspar look like upward-thrusting icicles. A weak force-screen kept the cold and the snow out of the café. Tempus passed through the force-screen and grimaced at the bracing assault of cold.

In the future, it had been a cold night, but above freezing, and definitely not snowing. He tried to remember if there were any other clues as to when the vision would come to pass. The moon? The moon had been about half full, he was sure of that. And since today would be the night of the new moon, it meant, at a minimum, they had several days before the creatures would attack.

The light of Yimoul-Za's eye was shifting colors rapidly, a sign of distress. "All of you had the same vision? Curious. Unavoidable? But what if we avoided ever coming back to this place?" He swiveled his long, vine-like neck around, looking at the city. "Strange it is," he added.

Voloidion answered. "I... I do not know what I saw. I don't have dreams or visions... at least not in the way that—" He paused. "Not in the way that you organics conceive of the idea."

Jilandri shook her head. "That felt real, like really real, so maybe we should discuss the vision of certain death somewhere... else, maybe?"

A lattimor with reddish-brown fur stepped out through the force-screen. It was Komai-Mhek, the proprietors of the Four Spines. "You all. Why you leave suddenly? What is problem? Not like café, you talk to me to put it right. Bad for me, bad for other customers." The gruff voice and lack of concern for the niceties of grammar indicated that it was Mhek addressing them; Mhek's symbiote Komai was inactive.

Yimoul-Za answered. "Mhek! Did all of us come in together? We had an odd experience in your drinking establishment. The kind of thing that I hear happens when humans have too much to drink or when they smoke blue-spotted glansh."

The lattimor removed a pipe from a belt-pouch and started filling it with some herbaceous-smelling dried weed. "What odd experience? No odd experience in Four Spines except customers walking out."

Syrus emerged from the café just then and brushed past Komai-Mhek. "I was taking care of some...um.. business. C-came back and you g-g-gone. I- I-... I was whipping up on some wasp thingies and then poof, I was... in the b-bathroom." He looked questioningly at Tempus.

Jilandri nodded. "That sounds like what happened to me, too. Well, except the bathroom part." She turned to Tempus, eyebrows lowered. "See here! The others are all looking at you. I don't know what shenanigans you're getting up to with time, and I don't need to know. Probably make my head explode anyway. But you leave me and my friends out of it. I'd rather just die the once."

Tempus held up his hands placatingly. "I am not sure what caused the... er, vision... but what I can tell you, based on my expertise—which is considerable—is that the vision represents the real future, and it will happen unless we do something to stop it, that is, assuming we wish to stop it. The consequences of altering the time-stream are unpredictable at best, and often disastrous," he added, leaving out any mention that the vision may have been caused by his own prior manipulations of the time-stream. But that is speculation, after all; sharing it would only alarm them needlessly. He sighed and continued. "But the consequences of not altering that future, well, you saw for yourselves." He shrugged helplessly.

Mhek got his pipe lit and drew in some smoke. He closed the lowermost of his six eyes and opened his tiny uppermost eyes. Tempus knew that meant he was switching from Mhek to Komai, perhaps to better analyse the Broken Cage Company's peculiar story. Komai exhaled the pipe smoke in a series of rings.

Tempus continued. "The situation appears dire, I agree, but perhaps the collapse prevents an even larger disaster from occurring. Perhaps we need to investigate the context of the event before acting to stop it. Every event has multiple causes and countless consequences..."

He stopped. From a distance came a sound like an orchestra of steam-driven pipe-organs and random percussion accompaniment gone mad. Tempus glanced at Komai, but the latter did not seem particularly surprised or perturbed, seemingly content to spend his smoke break listening to the group's strange tale of doom and/or awaiting the arrival of the source of the odd music. The music approached, getting louder and louder, and gradually becoming wilder and more raucous. Tempus noticed that the music played continually with no breaks to indicate changes of song, yet also without repeating even a single phrase of music. Then, moving from the city's main thoroughfare into the plaza, a most extraordinary sight hove into view. A procession of gaudily decorated vehicles, some moving on their own, some drawn by aneen or other beasts, all of them bedecked in bright colours, glaringly prominent against the stark white of the snow.

A curious crowd was beginning to gather. Some had happened to be going about their business in the plaza and now turned to gawk. Others had followed the procession up the street.

The lead vehicle was on runners and appeared to be moving on its own over the snow. Most of its broad cargo area was taken up by a massive artifact, an elaborate fusion of synth and metal. The artifact sported many bell-like funnels, horns, rattles, pipes, tympanic surfaces, and other noise- and music-making mechanisms, some of which Tempus did not recognize at all. It was from this contraption that the loud music emanated.

Other wagons were various shapes and sizes, including two tall cylindrical ones shrouded in tarpaulins, each pulled by multiple aneen.

The appearance of new, unknown, functioning numenera instantly pushed the vision out of his mind. Tempus stepped away from the group, ducked into a nearby alleyway, and cast a Scan on the musical artifact.

His Scan revealed that the machine was Level 1 construct created to play orchestral music, and capable of playing two or more pieces simultaneously, yet making such a cacophony work, even make it appealing, as it was now.

Jilandri had followed him into the alley. "Hm, I'll bet they need repair work on that caravan. Maybe I can pick up some work, or at least some news," she said.

Tempus barely heard. His Scan had revealed something else unexpected: a hint of chronal vision on the musical device. Usually, his chronal vision only functioned on living, organic creatures. That he could pick up a glimpse of chronal vision from an inanimate object meant... Well, what does it mean? He had to get closer.

Riding on the front of the flat-bed vehicle that bore the music machine was a woman wearing a feathery headdress and deep-black robe with pink trim, and a man with spiky hair wearing a pink robe with black trim. As Tempus got closer he could see that both looked outdoorsy and weather-beaten despite the gaudy, impractical costumes.

The man with the spiky hair looked down at Tempus. "Ho friend, you like my device? Looking at you, I'm guessing that you're an inventor, a mechanician of sorts? I am but a humble showman; my flair and talent is entertaining the masses." Spiky-hair's powerful voice sounded well-acquainted with public speaking. "Wait for some time for my fair to set up in yonder square and I will then let you demonstrate my machine's marvelous properties!" He smiled and looked away, waving and calling to other people in the growing crowd.

The machine is so close. Tempus smiled and waved as well, then "accidentally" stumbled and reached his hand out to the machine to steady himself. As he came in contact with the artifact, he focused his chronal vision, attempting to probe mentally into the device's timeline. Somewhat to his surprise, this worked: the machine was alive, was named the Pieriant, and was dimly self-aware. It loved to play music and see people dancing. But it had sat alone for countless centuries in a place where no one came to dance any more. Then the man with the spiky hair arrived and promised that he would teach it the Music of the Spheres if it came with him to a particular place and played music continuously for several days. Spiky-hair and several others had removed it from its place and loaded it onto the wagon and commanded it to be silent until told otherwise. All of this Tempus saw in an instant.

A hand closed on Tempus' shoulder and firmly pulled him away from the vehicle, breaking the connection. "Please don't touch, sir." Tempus looked back at his interlocutor. A guard in billowy pink-and-charcoal pantaloons and fur-lined coat held Tempus shoulder with one massive hand and had a heavy truncheon pointed down by his side in the other. Tempus decided that now was not the time for confrontation. He relented and muttered an apology, and the guard let him go.

But internally, Tempus was soaring. Though it had been slightly draining, the effort to see into the music machine's past had worked. He decided he would call this new esotery See History.

***

Jilandri

Jilandri approached the rearmost vehicle in the strange procession, a smallish wagon being pulled by a tall man in winter furs and a tall hat. Atop the vehicle was a dark green, teardrop-shaped canvas tent festooned with light-green and yellow dots, and thin, multicolored fabric streamers, blowing in the light wind.

Perhaps the vehicle is normally numenera-driven and in need of repair, she thought. Jilandri offered the hand of greeting. "Looks like you've got quite a few vehicles here—bound to have some problems, eh? I’m a mechanic out of Wyrfall, maybe could help you out with any issues. You got a mechanic I should contact?"

"Mechanic?" the man pulling the wagon puffed. "No, we don’t need a mechanic." The man was heavily-built and perspiring. He wore spectacles and had a bushy mustache.

From inside the green tent came a woman's voice. "Why don't you tell him, Vorg? We can’t afford a mechanic; we got no shins to pay for one. How are we going to do a show if the scope's playing up?"

"If you took a turn at pulling, Shirna, I could look at it and maybe fix it."

"Me, pulling? I’m a dancer."

Jilandri smiled. "Vorg, want me to take a look at this scope? Then, if you came into some shins, you could get me back, or you could just pay me back with a referral for some work for others in the caravan."

Vorg stopped. He stooped to set the wagon's handbrake, then straightened with a groan, clutching his back.

"Would you do that? That's very kind. We used to have the manual for it, but it got lost somewhere."

"Maybe when we had to get out of Mulen in a hurry, remember?" A young woman, dressed in gaudy pink and green clothing and garish sparkly make-up, emerged from the tent. "Admit it, Vorg: you don't have a clue how the scope works."

Vorg blustered for a moment, his impressive mustache bristling indignantly, but grudgingly admitted that while he knew how to work it, he knew not how it worked. Something had gone wrong, and it wouldn't switch on anymore.

Jilandri hopped onto the wagon and ducked inside the tent, which had enough room inside for the scope and about two people. The scope was a waist-high pedestal with a semi-circular control panel boasting a few knobs and switches and a small keypad. Topping it was a metal ring, about three feet in diameter—a holographic screen, Jilandri recognized.

She popped open the back of the scope and started poking around.

The inner workings of the scope were quite strange—everything at a very miniature level, and several key systems even seemed to operate at the sub-atomic level. Certainly not Ninth World technology.

At some point Tempus joined her.

Between the two of them, it became clear that the only real issue was that the scope's power core was nearly depleted and needed replacing. Tempus, she noticed, seemed to have an almost intuitive grasp of individual subsystems' original purposes.

The scope's ring-screen lit up. Holographic red characters in the Old Navarene script hung in the air within the screen and started flashing. She looked questioningly at Tempus.

"It says, 'Danger, compression field failure imminent,'" Tempus reported.

"Ah, I don't like the sound of that! We need to power up the core and keep the compression field operating—whatever that is." Jilandri rooted frantically through her pockets and toolbags but came up with nothing suitable as a substitute power supply.

Sighing audibly, she yanked off her teleportation bracket and started to take it apart with her micro-tools, attempting to 'wire it into' the scope as a temporary power supply by aligning the crystal substructure and—she hoped—prevent the field failure.

Tempus cleared his throat. He pulled out a Shock Ring, a lightning-emitting cypher. "You know, Jilandri, this cypher holds quite a large charge, which can use to power up the core if we connect the blue anodes, and if this doesn't work, we can try and use the power source from Toorkmeyn's emitter. I've been carrying it since the Arechive and haven't found a use for it yet."

Jilandri nodded and took the Shock Ring. "Yes, I think that will be much better. Plus, the crystal alignment looks a lot more compatible."

She got to work, diving into the guts of the device and tearing through it quickly and adeptly. Tempus leaned in, pointing with a rod to that casing misaligned, this micro-switch jammed, helping to guide the repairs.

She got the Shock Ring seated and connected, but the cypher may have contained a bit too much power. With a sharp snap of electricity, the scope discharged the excess power in the form of arcs of artificial lightning, giving Tempus and Jilandri a jolt.

But after a moment, the warning letters disappeared, and the scope sat quietly humming in standby mode. Fixed. Like most ancient technology, it was almost supernaturally self-adapting to repairs.

Jilandri emerged from the tent. "Fixed now. The replacement power source is bigger than the depleted one, so the panel in the back won't close. But the scope works. Curious to see what it does."

Shirna the dancer was distracted by the approach of Yimoul-Za, making his way through the crowd. She tapped Vorg's elbow excitedly and pointed at the golthiar. "We've got some of those in the scope, haven't we? On setting two?"

Vorg stepped forward and addressed Yimoul-Za. "Honored plant-being! May I ask what is your species? I like to be accurate in my shows."

"I am a golthiar. What is this show?" He peered at them.

Vorg nodded and smiled. "Very good, a... golthiar, is it? Golthiar." He looked thoughtful. "Golthiar, golthiar. Gaze at the... majestic golthiar? Noble golthiar? Let's go with 'noble'." He gestured to Shirna and produced an ocarina-like musical instrument from his coat. He played a merry tune that Shirna danced to, although the sound of the Pieriant mostly overpowered his piping.

He then leapt onto the wagon. His hat lit up as he called out: "Come, ONE and ALL! See the WONDERS of the WORLD! MARVEL at what the scope can SHOW you! GASP at the WONDERS you will SEE! SHUDDER at the loathsome BEASTS revealed by the magic of the SCOPE! GAZE in flabbergastment at the MAJESTY of the noble GOLTHIAR! Only one shin each. Next show starts shortly."

He grinned at Shirna and rubbed his hands together. "Oh, we are going to make some big money over the next few days."

She pouted. "Days! Can't we go somewhere warm?"

Curious onlookers were starting to queue up to have a turn looking in the scope.

Jilandri clapped Vorg on the shoulder. "That there was on the house. Heading out now, but I expect you to work just as hard getting my name out there to the rest of the carnies as you are now raising money. You just let them know Jilandri... and Tempus," she added, looking over at the latter, "are dab hands at fixing vehicles and devices, both, and will be around tomorrow. I need the work!"

***

Date: 9th Vaen in the 402nd Year of the Founding

Tempus

The day dawned bright and clear, with temperatures well below freezing. The streets had iced over during the night; many pedestrians used skates to move around. By their demonstrated skill they were accustomed to this situation.

The Pieriant had played its music all through the night, still never repeating itself. Even so, Tempus was able to get a good night's sleep. It's not as if it were controlling my mind.

Komai greeted the group as they arrived at the Four Spines for breakfast and accompanied them to their usual table. "Good for business this is," he said, jerking his chin in the general direction of the traveling circus. "Tell us, did you find out how long they are staying? We might need more waiting staff."

Gormin nodded. "They say they hope to stay a few days, perhaps longer. I'm a bit surprised they plan to travel through all this," gesturing vaguely at the ice outside.

Komai called their orders through to the kitchen then returned to the table to chat. "We are surprised; this travelling fair is... small. We were in Milave once and saw Ossam's Traveling Menagerie and Soaring Circus. That was a true, true sight. A hundred performers, a marquee that seated a thousand people, an ever-varied show that ran for hours—a true, true sight. For the Spines, though, we must not turn down business, in whatever form it comes."

Outside, the Pieriant still played and people gathered to dance even if they had no money for the other attractions. The people seemed able to leave when they had had enough. It's not like the music is controlling their minds, thought Tempus.

A male human stumbled through the force-screen into the Four Spines. He wore the remains of once-fine clothes, with an eye-catching ornate topcoat of shimmering gold silster. He shuffled to a table and sat heavily. Komai served him a mug of ingtfu, which he downed in two. He called for another.

Tempus wondered what his story was. Silster was an expensive commodity, he knew. And it was quite early in the day to be tossing back something as potent as ingtfu.

Voloidion spoke up. "The organic digestive system... I still find it such a crude and almost vulgar method of energy conversion, besides the fact that it's comically inefficient. Perhaps one day I can convince one of you to let me to perform an experimental vivisection on you, to see if I could possibly learn about how to improve the process? Before you all leap to volunteer, please keep it mind it's very unlikely you would survive such a procedure."

Gormin chuckled.

The group paid for their meal and went out to see the fair.

Tempus saw the Pieriant parked in front of what appeared to be a boarded-up manufactory on the other side of the plaza. Vertically, along the tall, graceful spire rising from the southeast corner of the factory was carved the words "Dzantis Silster" in characters large enough to be seen from the other side of the plaza.

People were still joining and leaving the spontaneous dancing, but it wasn't as if they were being controlled. Tempus frowned. How often had he had that reassuring thought?

He looked around. Spiky-hair and the woman in the black robe were nowhere to be seen. 
A varjellen approached him, trying to get him to pay shins to fight a jiraskar supposedly contained in his tent. Tempus ignored him.

"Strange goings-on in the factory," growled a familiar voice.

Tempus turned. It was Gormin, hood pulled low so as to avoid scaring people with his hideous visage. Gormin pointed discreetly.

Through one of the boarded-up windows of the factory could be seen the faint flicker of blue actinic light. The light reminded him very much of the burst of light that had accompanied the burrowing creatures' pent-up lightning in the vision.

Gormin growled, "it may just be the cynic in me, but something is very off about this fair. Who ever heard of a fair that continues to travel and operate in the dead of winter? I think the whole thing is cover for shenanigans at this factory."

Tempus nodded. He was beginning to think the same way. 

"I'll take a closer look," said Gormin. He moved discreetly toward the closed manufactory, zigzagging slowly through the crowd.

Carnie guards in their ridiculous pink-and-grey uniforms were trying to discreetly watch the boarded-up entrances to the building, but just then, Yimoul-Za stepped up to the guards and started speaking to them, gesturing animatedly. Tempus couldn't hear what was said, but decided it might provide the distraction he needed.

Maybe there is an open roof entrance. He Far-Stepped into the air, leaping over the factory's high stone facade.

As he cleared the facade, he saw that most of the roof was taken up by a huge glass skylight. Hopefully strongglass, he thought as he hurtled towards it.

Not strongglass. He crashed through the skylight and plunged into an atrium full of flowers. The thick vegetation and soft loam broke his fall somewhat, but he was knocked unconscious all the same.

When he came to, the rest of the group—less Syrus—was standing around him in the atrium.

"Are you all right?" asked Thecla.

Tempus stood and brushed himself off. He did not seem to be seriously injured, very fortunate. "All according to plan," he mumbled. The Pieriant could be heard clearly even inside the stone building.

A thought occurred to him then. "Does anyone know where Kiraz is? I do not recall seeing her since the vision. She was not at breakfast either."

The others frowned in confusion. "Kiraz?" asked Gormin.

Yimoul-Za peered closely at Tempus with his enormous eye. "Friend Tempus, have you damaged your head in your fall? Who is Kiraz?"

By Kronos, thought Tempus. No.

To be continued...

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Numenera 2 Character Creator updated

The Character Generator for Numenera 2 has been updated with page references for all descriptors, types, and foci. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would to put in all that data. You're welcome.

Really, the page references are something it should've had all along, since even in its first iteration it was pulling from multiple sources (the original core book and Character Options 1 & 2), and players needed a convenient way to be able to look up their characters' abilities. Now that there are five potential source-books for player abilities (original core book, CO1, CO2, Discovery, and Destiny), being able to see at a glance the book and page-number something came from is more important than ever. But, oh well. They're in there now, at least.

Made a few interesting discoveries while working on this update as well. Firstly, the foci "Carries a Quiver" and "Crafts Unique Objects", originally appearing in the core book, apparently did not make the cut into second edition. I didn't notice this before, assuming that all the old foci from the first edition core rules were in Discovery. Nope. These two are missing in action. I imagine CUO was cut because of how crafting was completely redone in second edition; "Builds Tomorrow" from Destiny is probably intended to supplant CUO. On the other hand, I'm not sure what the issue would have been with CAQ-- underpowered, perhaps, but loads of foci that made the jump to second edition are underpowered anyway compared to, say, "Wields Power With Precision". Who knows.

I decided to keep them both in the character creator. If you choose them, the page reference given will be "N1 pg 54" (or whatever pages they are on). N1, of course, stands for Numenera first edition CR.

The other thing I found was that the descriptor "Desert-Dwelling" was bugged-- presumably has been bugged this whole time. Oops. Fixed now. My apologies to frustrated would-be bedouin characters. Hopefully everything is correct now in the character creator.

***

On an unrelated note, I know the 4-5 people who regularly read this blog are getting tired of my spam, but... last chance to support Vintage Worlds: Tales of the Old Solar System! You know you want to read harrowing tales of adventure set in the steaming jungles of Venus, canal-riven desert wastes of Mars, colossal world-girdling water oceans of Neptune, and pirate-infested asteroid belt! Seven hours left to go in the campaign as of this writing.

Monday, October 1, 2018

Milestones and Updates

Two milestones of note. Number one: this blog had just over 500 views last month (506 to be exact), the first time that threshold has been reached. The previous biggest months for the blog were August 2018, with 366 views for the month, and May 2017 (coinciding with the initial launch of the Numenera Character Generator) with 239 views. These are the only three months since the blog's inception in 2014 that have ever broken 200 views. So, that's encouraging.

I promise it was not just me refreshing the page in September! In fact, I have set an option on the admin side that says my own page views of the blog should not be counted in site stats. (I'm not convinced that option actually works as intended, but whatever. I tried.)

What are people coming here to see? The most popular thing to look at on the site, by a substantial margin, is the Numenera 2 Character Generator. No real surprise there; it is the only thing of its kind on the web, so far as I know. Coming in at a distant second are the various chapters (and Table of Contents) of the Tears of the Gods serial novel. TOTG posts consistently rack up more views over the long run than fluff posts such as this one. That indicates to me that there's an actual readership for that work, albeit small, not just random bots or whatever crawling the web and stumbling upon random bits of my blog. For some reason (if you are curious), the most viewed TOTG chapter is Chapter Four - Demons of the Deep, with 157 total views since its initial publication in March 2017. Must be the intriguing chapter title.

(Yes, I know no one cares about these minuscule numbers. But I care, and that's the important thing.)

While I'm on the subject of the N2 character generator and the Tears of the Gods, I suppose updates about both are in order.

Character Generator update: The code to have the generator show page-references for your chosen descriptor, type, and focus has been added, and seems to work, but I have not yet added the actual data. Currently it only displays page references for your type. I will be working on it this week, and hope to have all the data in before the weekend.

TOTG update: The play-by-forum game it is based on is still ongoing. Frequency of Tears updates here at Troy Stories of course depends upon the pace of that game there at BoardGameGeek. That said, it is very likely that the "Winter Lightning" chapter will be ready to publish some time in October.

The other milestone (bet you thought I forgot there were two milestones to announce today): Vintage Worlds has surged past 200 backers and $5000 pledged since I last posted about the campaign. The final 48 hours of the campaign has, in fact, seen a big bump in support, as predicted. And as of this writing there's still one more day to go, so go pledge if you haven't already!

Friday, September 21, 2018

I Was Completely Wrong...

Vintage Worlds: Tales of the Old Solar System is funded! As of this writing it is at 105% of its goal. I was thinking it was going to come down to the last day or two of the campaign, but no. With 11 days still left to go, it has already blown past the funding goal by a comfortable margin. Woo!

Not sure where the big surge yesterday and today came from, but hey... whatever gets us over the finish line.

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Vintage Worlds 90% funded!

I am pretty stoked that, as of this post, the Vintage Worlds Kickstarter has reached 90% of its funding goal. Better still, we are still less than two-thirds of the way through the campaign. So, VW is on pace to fund. Yay!

I still think it will be close though. Looking at the KickTraq daily data, it's immediately obvious that the big bumps for us came on September 5 and September 19, not coincidentally being days when John Michael Greer posted about the campaign on his blog. Those two days alone account for about a third of the total funding pledged; clearly, this project wouldn't have got off the ground without his support. But, we probably aren't going to have another big bump from that source-- probably most JMG fans who were planning to pledge have done so already. To make it the rest of the way, we'll still need to average more than one new backer buying the $25 book per day for the remainder of the campaign.

Likely it will come down to the last 48 hours. If you "heart" a project on Kickstarter, when the clock strikes 48 hours till the end of that project's campaign, KS will send you an email saying something to the effect of, "last chance to back x project." And for some reason, many of the regulars on Kickstarter wait until they get those 48-hour notices before deciding whether or not to pledge on any given project. As a result, many KS projects get a major surge starting 48 hours before the close of the campaign. I predict our 48-hour surge is what will take Vintage Worlds over the finish line.

Vintage Worlds: Tales of the Old Solar System -- Kicktraq Mini

Tip of the Day

Scrabble and WWF tip of the day: Easily remember all the three-letter *ae Scots dialect words by memorizing this sentence: "Wae tae him who'd nae gae tae hae sae mae kaes" (meaning "woe to him who'd not go to have some more Eurasian jackdaws.")

That sentence contains all the three-letter words that have the "ae" letter combination. Because the letters A and E are the two most frequently used letters in English, the two-letter word "ae" is seen quite a lot in Scrabble and Words. Knowing how to build off that AE, especially into three-letter words, is essential.

(On a side note, this relates to something else I am working on: a post listing and defining all the two-make-three words in Scrabble and WWF. It is quite a long project though; it will be a while before it's done.)

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Vintage Worlds update

As of this post, the Vintage Worlds Kickstarter has passed 100 backers and reached about 60% of its funding goal. Or, put another way, a bit less than one third of the way into the campaign it is a bit less than two thirds of the way to its goal. So, that's a positive trend, but I still think it's going to be really close in the end. If book Kickstarters are anything at all like board game Kickstarters, there will be a huge lull for the middle third (or so) of the campaign, and people will start asking if it's completely stalled out. Still, for now, it's looking pretty good...


Vintage Worlds: Tales of the Old Solar System -- Kicktraq Mini

Friday, September 7, 2018

Two Powergaming Tips for Numenera and the Cypher System

It is no secret that the rules for Numenera and The Cypher System are simple, yet paradoxically they are also unintuitive (at least at first). Perhaps that is why there are certain advantageous wrinkles in the rules that are right there in plain sight for all to see, yet it seems very few know about and take advantage of them (kinda like the auction rule in Monopoly, I guess, haha).

Not everyone min-maxes, sure, and I in fact would argue that literal min-maxing of a Cypher System character (e.g. assigning zero discretionary points to, say, Intellect and max points to Might), actually makes that character less robust when it comes to general-purpose adventuring than spreading things around, to an extent. Everyone needs some Intellect (for Perception, if nothing else), some Speed (for Speed Defense, if nothing else), and some Might (which, if nothing else, is your de facto hitpoint pool). Being somewhat specialized, but not over-specialized, seems to be the way to go. Min-maxing is of limited usefulness at best-- one of the things I like about this system.

This post isn't about that, though. These are rules, that are not min-maxing, that you may not be aware of, that you can take advantage of to improve your Numenera/CS play experience.

(Yeah, yeah, I know... "it's role-playing, not roll-playing", but bear with me. I believe these rules are intended to be used this way, and do not cheapen the role-play experience at all. These are not, I emphasize, rules-lawyering loopholes, but, in my opinion, the actual intent and spirit of the rules, which for some reason are not widely known in their specific applications.)

"Modify" Your Abilities (On the Fly)

Page 326 of the new Discovery book says something interesting. The passage in question is "Optional Rule: Modifying Abilities". (This passage exists also, worded largely the same, in the Cypher System book and first-edition Numenera book. I assume The Strange has it as well.)

I think people may miss this one in the rules because of what it's called. "Modifying" an ability, to me, sounds like a permanent change. It sounds like customizing the abilities your character has during character creation or perhaps advancement. When I was going through the old Core Rules the first time, I saw "Modifying Abilities", assumed it was an advanced character creation option, and moved on without reading it. I did not notice what I'd missed until much later.

That may just be me, I dunno. But it seems to me a lot of people don't know about modifying your abilities.

Anyway, "modifying" abilities is not about permanently changing them, but adapting them on an ad hoc basis to deal with the situation at hand. The example in the rules is of using the Hover esotery, which is normally self-only, on someone else. Ok, show of hands: how many people out there knew you could use Hover to make your friend hover? Or that you could use the ability Walks Through Walls from the Exists Partially Out of Phase focus on a friend? Or use teleporting abilities like Far Step or Bolt Rider on friends?

It is a difficulty 4 task to "modify" an ability in this way, so long as it is "within the […] general idea of the [original] ability". And using self-only buffs on people who aren't your self evidently falls within that paradigm. Actually if making self-only buffs other-castable were all you could do with this rule it would still be huge. But you can modify your abilities to do anything within the general idea of the ability, limited only by your imagination.

And some abilities have a pretty darn broad "general idea" of what they do. Think about Hedge Magic.

Have you ever encountered a player who took Hedge Magic as an ability and tried to use it for everything under the sun? This rule is how you adjudicate that kind of thing. Hedge Magic as written is extremely broad in the kinds of things it can do: moving things around, mending items, temporarily changing appearances, and more. It is generally limited to targeting "small" things in its ability description, but "modifying" it per this rule greatly, greatly expands the scope of what can be manipulated with Hedge. If making a self-only power target others is within the general idea of the original, then so is targeting big things with a small-thing-targeting power.

Note: Modifying a non-attacking power to be an attack is always at least a Formidable (difficulty 7) task. And formidable only if what you're trying to do is otherwise somewhat related to the theme of the original ability; the example from the rules is using Hover to make an enemy fly up rapidly and bump its head on the ceiling. That is difficulty 7 for the modify, followed by the attack roll against the enemy's level. Modifying Hover to shoot fireballs is difficulty 10, aka "impossible", but in fact theoretically possible given enough effort and training.

That brings us to our next Cypher System life-hack.

Training in Specific Abilities

Another show of hands: how many of you knew nanos could become trained in attacks as a result of taking a trained skill for character advancement? "But Troy," I hear you saying, "the rules specifically say 'Choose one skill other than attacks or defense...'-- everyone knows only glaives can get training in attacks!" (Discovery page 128). Yes, yes, but on that same page, it also says, "if your character can make an Intellect roll to blast an enemy with mental force, you can become trained in using that ability, easing the task of using it."

So, you can't, as a nano, take training in "attacks" generally, or even "attacks with esoteries", but you CAN take training in Onslaught (specifically). Since 99% of nanos use Onslaught as their primary (or sole) attack ability, it amounts to having attack training.

This life-hack can be combined with the previous one too. If you have an ability that you're likely to want to modify frequently, like Hover, Walk Through Walls, Hedge Magic, or Far Step, taking training in that specific ability (easing the modifies) may be worth considering.

***

These are both important rules to know, but they are not as widely known as they should be.

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Numenera 2 Plain Character Sheet

Everything about Numenera and Numenera 2 is awesome, except that the character sheets that come with them are a bit "much", i.e. not printer-friendly and too many pages. I prefer much plainer, single-page, printer-friendly, black-and-white character sheets.

Indeed, this character sheet is what I use right here. You're welcome. It is intended for Numenera 2, but it is mostly compatible with old-school Numenera. The only difference, as far as this character sheet is concerned, is that, in regards to character advancement, Other Options can replace any step in N2, whereas they could only replace Skill Training in N1.

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Vintage Worlds Kickstarter

The Kickstarter for Vintage Worlds has been live for a few days. Not sure if Labor Day weekend is really the best time to launch a KS campaign, but what do I know? It's up there now; go check it out! As of the time of this post, three days into the campaign, it is 33% funded.

The campaign got a big bump today from being promoted on John Michael Greer's Ecosophia blog. Hopefully that will be enough haha.

Two-Letter Words for Scrabble and Words With Friends

It's no big secret that one of the first steps to becoming better at Scrabble (and for that matter, Bananagrams, Quiddler, Upwords, Words With Friends, and similar games) is to know your two-letter words really well. Playing a short-to-medium length word parallel to an opponent's word, forming a whole slew of secondary two-letter words is my favorite thing to do in life. It racks up loads of points even with low-value tiles, and tends to not give away high-scoring opportunities to your opponents. Indeed, according to some guy on the internet, 75% of Scrabble words played are between two and four letters long, and 50% of points earned are from those 2-4 letter words. Memorizing all the three- and four-letter words in the English language is a pretty daunting task, but memorizing the TWO-letter words is not hard at all-- there aren't that many-- and once that's done, learning the two-make-three words (meaning the three-letter words that can be made from existing two-letter words) would probably be a good next step. That, and learning the three-letter words with J, Q, X, or Z.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. Step one is to learn the official two-letter words. It's fairly easy to find an official list of two-letter words and just memorize that, but I don't like lists of words without definitions, so I put together a list of all the valid two-letter words along with definitions, random comments, digressive rants, and a few mnemonics for some of the harder-to-remember words. Enjoy.

AA - Aa (pronounced "ah-ah") is a type of lava, the rocky, "extra chunky" kind... as opposed to the smooth, extra creamy type of lava known as "pahoehoe". (Pahoehoe is also a valid Scrabble word, but I don't imagine it gets played quite as often as aa). Aa can also be validly pluralized as "aas", though I don't know how much sense it makes to refer to lava in the plural. It's acceptable in Scrabble though.

AB - What do you get if you have six-pack abs and subtract five of them? You're left with one ab. No, I'm not making that up.

AD - Ads are the annoying things on TV people used to watch before they all got Tivos and DVRs.

AE - Scottish for "one", as in, "tha' sassenach's ae bonnie lass". The Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary (OSPD) is kind of inconsistent as far as including Scottish/Welsh/etc words. Thus, "ae" and "cwm" are arbitrarily considered valid words, but "ch" and "crwd" arbitrarily aren't. Ch! Bludy sassenachs!

AG - short for agriculture. For some reason, the plural of this word, "ags", is acceptable. Actually a pretty good rule of thumb is that you can almost always pluralize a noun in Scrabble, even if it would make little or no logical sense to do so in any conceivable actual sentence. (NOTE: Words With Friends doesn't recognize "ags".)

AH - as in, "ah, finally you played a word". It turns out that "ahs" is also valid (think "oohs and ahs"), as is "aah" and "aha"... BUT "ahh" is invalid; if you have two H's, don't try to play "ahh" or "ehh" like a noob; see if you can play "pahoehoe" and post a picture of it on Facebook Instagram or whatever the kids use these days.

AI - Ai, pronounced like "AH-ee", is what they used to call the three-toed sloth before they decided it was too confusing, but the words "ai" and "ais" are still acceptable for Scrabble purposes.

AL - The al is a type of tree that grows in India. It is more commonly spelled "aal", which is also a valid Scrabble word. Both spellings can be pluralized with -s.

AM - as in, "I am not going to explain this word".

AN - as in, "an easy word that I'm also not going to explain".

AR - the spelled-out name of the letter "R". No, I'm not joking. All English letters have quasi-official spelled-out names that you can use in Scrabble, though some are more useful than others. The most interesting letter names are probably ar, el, es, ef, em, en, ex, cee, zee, and zed (the British say "zed" instead of "zee" for the letter Z-- which reminds me, in case you didn't know, British spellings of words are mostly allowed in Scrabble and WWF, e.g. "centre" or "odour").

AS - as in, "as in, 'as in, «as in,...»'". If I had infinite styles of quote marks I could make this definition infinitely recursive.

AT - as in, "where you at, foo'?"

AW - as in, "aw, shucks". Note that the common variant spelling "aww" is NOT acceptable.

AX - like a hatchet, but bigger. Obviously, "axe" is also acceptable. Fun fact: if you have an X and at least one of any vowel (not counting Y), you can get rid of your X easily: ax, ex, ox, xi, xu... all valid words. Playing an X in such a way that it spells two two-letter words, e.g. "ax" one way and "xi" the other way, will score the eight-point X twice-- an essential move to have in your Scrabble arsenal. So now you'll be happy to see that X in your tray instead of annoyed. You're welcome. ;)

AY - acceptable variant spelling of "aye", or could be the letter A (see AR above). And since it "can" be the letter A, the plural, "ays", is an acceptable word too.

BA - No, not the sound a sheep makes. That's spelled "baa" (which is also a valid word). The ba is an aspect of the soul in ancient Egyptian mythology. Can be plural, "bas". (See also: KA for more about Egyptian mythology).

BE - as in, "why you be trippin'?" Incidentally, "bes" is a valid Scrabble word, but not because it's plural of "be". Bes is an alternate spelling of the Hebrew letter bet/beth. (see FE below for more about Hebrew letters). (Note: I have discovered that "bes" is not a valid WWF word, though it is a valid Scrabble word.).

BI - short for bisexual. If you play "bi" against your 78 year-old grandmother, you will probably have to explain what it's short for-- and possibly you may then have to explain what the long version means also, and then explain how, when, and why you learned such a word. If you are not comfortable doing this, just remember those immortal words attributed to Vince Lombardi: "winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." And then watch in horror as she back-hooks your "bi" with the plural form "bis" and says "in yo face, young whippersnapper".

BO - acceptable variant spelling of "beau", a fancypants word for boyfriend. Both words are pronounced the same way and both are valid Scrabble words. Bo can be pluralized as "bos", and beau can be pluralized as either "beaus" or "beaux" if you are REALLY pretentious.

BY - think of this as an alternate spelling of "bye", as in, "there are only seven teams in the tournament, so one will get a by." If you think of it that way, you'll remember that the plural form "bys" is also acceptable.

DA - [new for OWL 2014] because saying "dad" is too much work. Whether you are allowed to play this word will depend on what you are playing, and specifically what dictionary you're using. "Da" is a new addition to the official Scrabble word list (as of OWL 2014 and OSPD5, OSPD5, of course, referring to the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary 5th edition). If you are using, say, the OSPD 4th edition, "da" will not be there. Interestingly, Words With Friends also recognizes "da"as valid, but the plural situation is more complicated: "das" is not valid in WWF, but is valid in Scrabble's OWL 2014 and OSPD5.

DE - meaning "from", like the French word. I can't explain why some French loan-words like "de" and "qua" and "beaux" and "amour" and "cirque" made it into the Scrabble dictionary while other at-least-as-equally well-known French loan-words like "moi" and "cheri" didn't. I guess "moi" and "cheri" just don't have that je ne sais quoi. (Note: "Moi" is now recognized in OWL 2014 / OSPD5, but still no amour for moi in WWF. "Moi" is now recognized in WWF as well! Sacre bleu!)

DO - as in, "do I have to explain this one?". Also we have "do" as in, "do-re-mi", the musical scale song from "The Sound of Music". All the do-re-mi music note names are valid Scrabble words: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, and ti/si, and all can be pluralized, since you might have to sing several "dos" in a row (especially if you sing bass). Note that the do-re-mi semitones like "ri" and "le", etc, are NOT considered valid, however.

ED - as in, "special ed".

EF - the letter F (see AR above for explanation).

EH - The E on my car's fuel gauge stands for "Eh, there's still a little bit left."

EL - an elevated train, like they have in Chicago. Also, the letter L.

EM - the letter M.

EN - the letter N.

ER - British for "uh". No doubt much popularized by Harry Potter, who said it a lot in the books.

ES - the letter S. Can also be spelled "ess".

ET - variant of "ate", as in, "I reckon I done et up a whole mess o' grits, y'all".

EW- [new for OSPD 6] an interjection of disgust, as in "ew, gross". Interestingly, OSPD 5 did not include "ew" but did recognize "eew" and "eeew". WWF still does not recognize either of those variant spellings (but has recognized "ew" for a fairly long time now).

EX - the letter X, or could be short for ex-spouse, etc.

FA - a long-long way to run. (See "DO" above for notes about the do-re-mi musical notes).

FE - a Hebrew letter which also can be spelled "feh". It may surprise you to know that all the Hebrew letters are valid, and many have multiple official variant spellings and can help you get rid of annoying tiles like Q, K, P, or V, which makes them worth knowing. Some other particularly useful Hebrew letter names are alef/aleph, beth/bet/bes, tav, vav/vau/vaw/waw, pe/peh, and qoph. And as if that weren't enough, all these can be pluralized.

GI - [new for OWL 2014] a karate or judo uniform. This is a Japanese loanword, pronounced with a hard G and long E sound, i.e. like "ghee" (a word that means "clarified butter"). No plural for it in WWF, but Scrabble will allow "gis" (OWL 2014 / OSPD5).

GO - in addition to the verb-- which I would hope everyone knows already-- there is also the ancient Japanese game of "go", which-- being a noun-- can be pluralized as "gos". (Note: GOS is not allowed in Words With Friends.)

HA - as in, "ha! I bet you didn't know 'gos' was a real word."

HE - the male personal pronoun, as in, "he didn't know that 'he' and 'she' can also be considered nouns in the sense of 'that's not a «he»; that's a «she»,' and thus can be pluralized as 'hes' and 'shes', respectively".

HI - as in, "hi there".

HM - as in, "Hm, I don't have any vowels on my tray so I guess I can't play a word this turn... OH WAIT". Also valid is "hmm", which is a surprisingly useful word in Bananagrams (more so than in Scrabble). But "hmmm" and "hmms" are NOT valid-- have to draw the line somewhere I guess.

HO - as in, "westward ho!" Unlike most interjections, you can back-hook this one with an S (i.e., "hos"). But that's because ho is also a noun, as in... ahem... "bros before hos". I wish you luck explaining "hos" to your 78 year-old grandma. Go for it! Vince Lombardi! (Note: "Hos" is not valid in Words With Friends. Sorry, bros. Bros, rejoice: WWF now has "hos"!)

ID - The id, together with the ego and superego, comprise the psyche, according to Freud. All three parts of the psyche are valid words, as are their plural forms: ids, egos, and superegos.

IF - as in, "if you learn all the official two-letter words, you will improve your Scrabble game greatly". Also: "ifs", as in, "no ifs, ands, or buts" is valid. "Ands" and "buts" are valid words too, by the way.

IN - as in, "In the beginning...". And note that in this case "ins" is acceptable too since "in" can in fact be a noun, as in "I know the ins and outs of Scrabble".

IS - as in, "who dat is?" Note: "dat" is not considered a valid word for some reason.

IT - as in, "I hope you know what it means".

JO - Scottish for sweetheart. "Jo" is probably the most useful J-word to know in Scrabble, and furthermore, jo can also be spelled "joe", which just happens to be the second most useful J-word. Note that "jos" is invalid; the correct plural for both is "joes".

KA - another aspect of the soul according to Egyptian mythology. The ka is said (by dictionary.com) to survive after death, so I guess that means the ba doesn't survive death? Man, I need to brush up on my ancient Egyptian mythology-- there might be more useful Scrabble words to discover. Right now all I got is "ba(s)", "ka(s)", and "ankh(s)".

KI - variant spelling of qi. (See QI below and prepare to have your mind BLOWN). "Kis" is the plural. (Note: while "kis" is valid in Scrabble, it is NOT valid in Words With Friends. You may have already noticed by now, WWF is pretty bad about not including inflected forms of newer words in their word lists. So, for WWF, ki = yes; kis = no.)

LA - a note to follow "so". (See DO above).

LI - a unit of length used in China, about a third of a mile. "Lis" is valid, even though the Chinese languages don't have plural inflections like English.

LO - as in, "and lo, I am with you alway". (Note that "los" is NOT valid). Incidentally, "alway", the old-timey King James variant of "always", is a valid Scrabble word too. Other fun King James words to try to use include such classics as betimes, aright, howbeit and of course thou/thee/thy/thine. While I'm on the subject, at least one KJV-style finite verb, "doeth/doest", is valid but most, e.g. "goeth/goest", "availeth", etc, are not considered valid.

MA - short for "mother", like Ma Beagle from DuckTales.

ME - a name I call myself. Note that "mes" is NOT valid. There's only one me.

MI - a name I call myself (when singing the do-re-mi song). Note that "mis" IS valid. Also see "DO" above for notes about the do-re-mi notes.

MM - as in, "mm, tasty". "Mmm" is also valid. (Note: MMM is NOT valid in Words With Friends. Two ems for you, and no more!) But don't get too crazy-- "mmmm" (with four or more ems) is not valid, even in Scrabble. That would just be ridiculous.

MO - short for moment, as in, "I'll be there in a mo". "Mos" is valid also.

MU - the Greek letter. Just as the spelled-out names of English and Hebrew letters are considered valid (see AR and FE above), so too are the spelled-out Greek letters. By far the most useful of these are mu, nu, pi, xi, tau, eta, and zeta. But if you can drop "omicron" or "lambda" on your opponent, go for it. Feel free to pluralize any of them.

MY - belonging to me. No plural form.

NA - meaning "no". Interestingly, "yesses" and "nos" are valid, but "nas" is not.

NE - acceptable variant spelling of "nee", the word used before a married woman's maiden name.

NO - opposite of "yes". "Nos" is allowed... are allowed... whatever.

NU - the Greek letter (see MU above for more about that).

OD - "Od" is an antiquated scientific term, like "phlogistons" or "choleric", today known only to certain eccentric word-mavens. If you're curious, in times past, od was thought to be a force pervading the universe that manifested in both magnetism and hypnotism, and presumably other ways. It is pronounced the same way as "odd". And although it doesn't make sense to speak of more than one od, since there isn't even one in existence, let alone more than one, "ods" is a valid word also.

OE - The Scrabble dictionary says this is a whirlwind of the Faroe Islands. I cannot determine if that means that there is a particular type of whirlwind that only happens there called an "oe", or if it's some weird loan-word thing (note that they don't speak English in the Faroe Islands, but Faroese and Danish). Most non-Scrabble dictionaries do not offer a definition for "oe". I assume it's pronounced "oy" (just guessing-- it's hard to find info on this word). The plural form, "oes" is valid.

OF - as in, "you should know the meaning of  'of'". No plural form allowed.

OH - as in, "oh, is it my turn?" Also it is the spelled-out name of the letter O (see AR above), so "ohs" is allowed.

OI - British for "hey", as in, "Oi! What's all this then!?"

OM - "Om" is probably the most well-known mantra used by transcendental meditators. Pronounce it with a long O.

ON - Sure, you know this as a preposition meaning "physically supported by" and an adverb that is the opposite of "off", but did you know that "on" can be a noun too? A cricket field is divided into an on side and an off side, referred to as the on and the off. And since it's a noun, it can be plural: "ons" and "offs".

OP - short for operation, as in "black ops" or "spec ops". And if you are wondering, "spec" is valid also.

OR - Hopefully you know what the conjunction "or" means, but perhaps you didn't know that it can be a noun also. The noun "or" is a heraldry term meaning the color gold, and thus can be plural: "doesn't that coat of arms have pretty ors and argents?" Many other technical heraldry terms are valid, e.g. blazon, gules, crosslet, dexter, guardant... but some are not, e.g. chequy, langued.

OS - Now this one is interesting. There are no less than THREE different words spelled "os", with a total of FOUR different plural forms between them! "Os" meaning "a bone" (pronounce with short O), is pluralized as "ossa". "Os" meaning "an orifice of the body" (also pronounced with short O) is pluralized as "ora" (friggin' Latin plurals, man). And "os" (with LONG O and soft S pronunciation) meaning "a long esker" (an esker meaning "a serpentine ridge of gravelly and sandy drift", thank you dictionary.com) is pluralized as "osar" since it is a Swedish loan-word. Alternatively, you can pluralize all three as "oses", which is also a valid word.

OW - as in, "ow, that last word made my brain hurt".

OX - a bull that's been, er, "fixed". Incidentally, both the old-school plural "oxen" and the hip, modern "oxes" are acceptable.

OY - a variant spelling of "oi".

PA - short for father, as in "ma and pa".

PE - a Hebrew letter, also spelled "peh". See FE above for notes about Hebrew letters. Actually, pe and fe are the same letter, strangely enough.

PO - [new for OWL 2014] slang for a chamber-pot. Don't ask me where the Scrabble people got this one; perhaps it's best we not delve into such matters. I assume it's pronounced like the word "pot", just leaving off the T (perhaps with a glottal stop in place of the T?). Note also that "po" is not considered valid in Words With Friends. As of April 2019, Words With Friends now recognizes "po" and its plural "pos".

PI - a Greek letter (see MU above). Fun fact: pi, pe, and our letter P all ultimately derived from the same Phonecian letter, and all still represent the same sound.

QI - a term from traditional Chinese medicine/philosophy/martial arts meaning (basically) "spiritual energy" or "breath". It's also spelled "ki", "khi", or "chi"; probably the "chi" spelling is seen more commonly, but the qi(s) and ki(s) spellings will be most useful to you as Scrabble words. Fun fact: when "qi" was made an official word in the fourth edition of the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary (OSPD4), the Scrabble world was thrown into mass chaos with rioting in the streets and people calling for the point-value of the Q-tile to be changed. This is because the existence of "qi" completely changes the dynamics of how you play the Q-tile. I would say for myself, I probably play "qi" at least two-thirds of the time I get a Q in my tray (two ways if possible for huge points, or QI one way and QAT or QUA the other way for even huger points).

RE - a golden drop of sun (see DO above).

SH - interjection meaning "be quiet". It's another possibility (along with the aforementioned "hm" and "mm") when you have no vowels in your tray. "Shh" is also valid. While I'm thinking about it, there are also a few other vowel-less words: nth, brr(r), zzz, crwth, cwm. Technically the W functions as a vowel in those last two, but let's not get pedantic. (Note: GRR has now been added to Scrabble as of OWL 2014 and OSPD5, but GRRR [with three ars] is still not valid even though BRRR is. Neither GRR nor GRRR are valid in Words With Friends. Grr! So angry!)

SI - the original spelling of the do-re-mi note "ti". See DO above. They changed "si" to "ti" so the notes could all begin with different letters.

SO - a needle pulling thread, i.e. another do-re-mi note. See DO. Also it's a conjunction of course, but if you think of it as the do-re-mi note, you'll more easily remember that it can be plural: sos.

TA - The Scrabble dictionary says "an expression of gratitude". I have no idea in what crazy slang or regional dialect they say thank you as "ta". Weirdly, "tas" is also valid even though interjections normally are not allowed to be plural (except when they also happen to be Hebrew letters or whatever, as is the case with "hehs"). Regular dictionaries note that "ta(s)" can be a semitone note on the do-re-mi scale or the third letter of the Arabic writing system, but other do-re-mi semitones and Arabic letters are NOT considered valid Scrabble words. I will have to do more research on this one.

TE - [new for OWL 2014] a drink with jam and bread, i.e. an alternate spelling of "ti". Not recognized in older Scrabble dictionaries or Words With Friends. As of April 2019, WWF recognizes "te" also. Note that "tes" is allowed in Scrabble but still not in WWF; as noted above, plural inflections of new words are frequently overlooked in Words With Friends.

TI - a drink with jam and bread (see DO for explanation).

TO - the preposition, like "toward". No noun or verb form so you can't pluralize it.

UH - as in, "uh, is that really a real word?"

UM - as in, "um, I think so." Note that "umm" is valid too. But no plural.

UN - means "one", as in, "I reckon that's a big un right yonder". "Uns" (as in "big uns") is acceptable too.

UP - the direction opposite down. It's also a verb: as in, "he ups the ante", AND a noun, as in "the ups and downs of life", so feel free to slap an es onto the end of up.

US - the objective first-person plural pronoun.

UT - the original "DO" on the do-re-mi scale. Before there was "Do: a deer, a female deer / Re: a golden drop of sun", etc, there was "Ut queant laxis / resonare fibris / Mira gestorum / famuli tuorum / Solve polluti / labii reatum / Sancte Iohannes", which I think you'll agree is almost as good a mnemonic song for remembering the major scale as the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. The note "ut" (pronounced "oot") was changed to "do" so that the notes would all start with a consonant and end with a vowel.

WE - the subjective first-person plural pronoun.

WO - acceptable variant spelling of "woe". "Wos" is also acceptable.

XI - another Greek letter, my favorite. See MU above.

XU - a former unit of currency in Vietnam, pronounced like "sue". Besides the xu, Vietnam also had the hao (pronounced "how") and the dong (ten xu to the hao and ten hao to the dong... but today only the dong remains). Fun fact: virtually ALL units of currency, both modern (e.g. dollar, yen) and obsolete (e.g. denarius, doit), are valid Scrabble words. In addition to xu, other useful currencies are the hao, dong, euro, yen, sen (which is a fraction of a yen), rin (fraction of a sen), yuan (Chinese currency), jeon (South Korean currency), doit (a now-obsolete currency in I think the Netherlands), sheqel (can also be spelled with a K), zaire (yes, the zaire was once the currency of the country Zaire), and denarii (which is among the top 1000 bingos by letter commonality). Some currencies can be pluralized with an S, though xu and hao cannot. (Denarii is already plural. Its singular is denarius, which is valid also, but not commonly played since it is an eight-letter long word.)

YA - variant of "yeah". Note that "yas" is not valid since there's no noun or verb form of the word "ya". (Note: new for OWL 2014, YAS is valid, probably meaning the "humorous" mispronunciation of "yes". However, it is still invalid in WWF, and if you are using OSPD4 or older.)

YE - as in, "ye who are spiritual, restore such a one" (...such a one as plays "bi" against their grandmother, that is).

YO - as in, "yo, the entry for XU totally blew my mind".

ZA - Supposedly, "za" is slang for "pizza". I can't find any documentation for this aside from the Scrabble dictionary though, so I'm not even sure how it's supposed to be pronounced (I prefer "zuh"). But whatever, "za(s)" will serve you in good stead as a Scrabble word, much like QI.

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SPECIAL WORDS WITH FRIENDS ADDENDUM: There are an additional three four seven make that eight two-letter words in WWF that are considered valid in that game, but not (currently) recognized in Scrabble. These words are DI, FI, JA, JE, IO, EE, OO, and OU.

I do not know what FI or DI are supposed to mean-- possibly they could refer to do-re-mi semitones, but other semitones like "ri" are still not valid in WWF. Probably they had some other meanings in mind for di and fi, but I do not know for sure. If I had to guess, I might venture that "fi" is back-formed from "re-fi" (short for "refinance") or "hifi" (high fidelity, referring to audio devices) or, less likely, "wifi" (wireless internet), but I have never actually heard or seen the word "fi" used by itself to mean "finance" or "fidelity" or whatever (and "fis" is not allowed by WWF, so it may not even be a noun, though WWF is very inconsistent when it comes to remembering to add plurals of new words, so the lack of "fis" may not mean anything). As for "di", I have no idea what they were thinking. "Dis" IS allowed; however, it's probably short for "disrespect", e.g. don't dis my two-letter word list.

I discovered that JA, JE, IO, EE, OO, and OU are playable WWF words in late April 2019. I suppose JA is from German (where "ja" means "yes"), but is "ja" really used commonly enough in English to be considered an English word? It would seem so, according to some. I assume OO is a variant spelling of OOH. The others I am not sure about. As of the current time, these words only work on the desktop/Facebook version; the mobile app version of WWF does not yet accept them, though I expect that will be fixed before too long.)

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SPECIAL OWL 2014 ADDENDUM:  Four additional two-letter words became official for Scrabble with the release of OWL 2014 and OSPD5. These are DA, GI, PO, and TE. Entries have been added for them above. But be aware, if you are playing Scrabble using an OSPD4 (or older), those words are likely to be challenged! Of these four, DA and GI are also recognized in WWF, but PO and TE are currently not. WWF now recognizes all of these words.

At some point, I need to add the two-letter words that are new for OSPD6 that aren't yet in WWF, which I believe consist only if IE and OK (I don't yet have a copy of OSPD6).

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(Note: the preceding was originally posted by me in slightly different form as a Facebook Note, back when those were a thing, in the distant primordial past of April 2012.)