Overview

Ruins are everywhere in the Ninth World. That cliff over there? Its wide expanse is the edge of a million-year-old complex. The bald hill where camp was set? That weathered curve traces an ancient domed city. Even the soil under your feet isn’t natural—it’s the remnants of accumulated artificial structures ground into dust over a billion years. Characters don’t have to go far to find ruins, and in such ruins, PCs can find amazing salvage, including cyphers, artifacts, and, for those who know where to look, building blocks of the future.

IOTUM

As part of a regular game of exploration and discovery, characters already explore ruins looking for oddities, cyphers, artifacts, and other useful items left behind by previous, inscrutable civilizations. However, characters can do even more. They can look for essential crafting ingredients called iotum. Iotum are special components that can be used to fashion unique objects, repair broken artifacts and cyphers, and craft installations, artifacts, vehicles, and more. Iotum comes in a wide variety of forms, including slivers of scrap, tiny motes trapped in force, silvery canisters filled with colorless goo, or bubbling fluid contained within etched stronglass canisters the size of small houses. Regardless of form, iotum can be salvaged from oddities, cyphers, artifacts, and other ancient devices that characters find. Working devices and installations are more likely to be good sources of salvage, but characters may also salvage iotum from scrap that was once part of such machinery. Iotum can also sometimes be purchased or at least traded for iotum of equal or greater value. Using iotum for crafting requires a set of directions called plans. Plans allow crafters to build powerful installations, weird devices, inscrutable automatons, amazing vehicles, and more.

PARTS

Many crafters view iotum as an ingredient so special that each one is essentially a piece of magic. Thus, iotum is held as a class apart from everyday components like iron screws, synth casements, wood struts, glass panes, and so on. But fashioning numenera devices usually also requires simple parts like struts, screws, plates, casings, spars, conduits, cables, frames, bolts, fasteners, and more. It’s relatively easy to find these parts (or purchase them in large communities), though it’s somewhat more burdensome to lug them around.

SALVAGING IOTUM, PARTS, AND OTHER NUMENERA

Any time characters are exploring ruins of the prior worlds and have a chance to find cyphers, artifacts, or oddities, they also have the opportunity to discover sources of iotum and parts to salvage.
Applicable Training and Abilities: Training in salvaging numenera (often simply referred to as salvaging) helps anyone looking to find parts, iotum, cyphers, artifacts, and shins. But as is true for all tasks, anyone can attempt to salvage numenera, assuming they know to look in the first place. (Characters who don’t know to look for iotum can find shins, parts, oddities, cyphers, and artifacts, but usually not iotum.)
Training in understanding numenera doesn’t directly help with salvage tasks; however, a successful understanding numenera task could identify a potential salvage source in the first place (as could a successful salvage task itself). Other skills can also be useful on a caseby-case basis. For example, someone trained in breaking objects might provide an asset to some salvage tasks when the salvage source is protected by a metallic casing or a synth sheath or when it has been melted into a pile of weird slag.
The Nano’s Scan esotery works similarly to the understanding numenera skill; if used, it identifies a potential salvage source (though not specifically what kind of iotum might be there). When used in conjunction with a salvage attempt, the Scan esotery eases the task.
Salvage Sources: Sources include machine scrap and old machines, functioning and dead installations, integrated machines, workbench supplies kept by a wright, crashed and working vehicles, caches of chemicals and other materials set aside by a delve, automatons, and similar objects and structures. Sometimes iotum, parts, oddities, cyphers, and artifacts can also be salvaged from creatures, especially creatures that are part machine. Even scrap and debris of the right kind could contain valuable components, though they might seem worthless at first glance. A source can range in size from a small pile of random junk to the entire bulk of a crashed vehicle. Size doesn’t equate to the potential value (in components, cyphers, and artifacts) that scrap might yield.
Salvage Time: It’s ideal if characters can devote at least fifteen minutes poring over a suitable source with light tools in hand—opening up access panels, taking apart devices, and otherwise accessing the source’s interior. On the other hand, if the character is salvaging from a discrete installation or defeated automaton, the salvage attempt requires only about a round. If the PCs want to rush through salvaging an area, they can get it done in one minute instead of fifteen minutes, but the task is hindered by three steps. The more time PCs spend in one area, the greater the chance they’ll attract potentially dangerous attention. If they spend an hour or more to fully investigate a potential salvage source, that’s an ideal time for GMs to introduce tension via GM intrusions and unexpected encounters with creatures and NPCs.
Salvage Task: Once a potential salvage source is identified, a character—or several characters working together using the helping rules—can attempt to salvage it. Doing so requires using light tools. The difficulty of the task is equal to the level of the source, though in some cases that difficulty might be adjusted due to the nature of the source. For example, a level 6 integrated machine or installation might be crafted in such a straightforward fashion that salvaging tasks are only level 4. On the other hand, a level 2 mass of junk and cypher scrap might be so burned out and corroded that salvaging tasks are level 5 or even higher.
Salvage Success: To a large extent, what characters are looking for determines what they find, assuming their salvaging numenera task is successful. If they’re looking for iotum, a successful salvage task likely means they’ve recovered iotum (and some parts), usually worth one or two rolls on the Iotum Result Table. If the characters are attempting to find a specific variety of iotum, refer to the section on Looking for a Specific Kind of Iotum. If PCs are looking specifically for cyphers, they find them. The GM can either determine ahead of time how many and what kind of cyphers might be found in the area or roll a d6 to determine how many cyphers are found and randomly determine which ones. If salvaging cyphers, a successful task often includes manipulating what is found to cobble together something that works. For example, the PCs not only find something of interest but also figure out that, if they hook it up to a nearby power cell, open a small panel, and fiddle with the workings, they produce the cypher’s effect (which might not be the device’s original use at all). Finally, if characters are just looking for whatever they can find, the GM determines what is found either randomly (using results suggested on the Random Salvage Result table, for example) or based on the context of the situation. For example, if the salvage source is an integrated machine or installation that was built by a wright or similar NPC, the PCs are more likely to find iotum. If they’re scavenging the carcass of a weird biomechanical creature, they’re more likely to find cyphers or possibly an artifact. In most cases of successful salvage, PCs can also find a few shins.

Shins and Iotum: Salvaging numenera for shins usually doesn’t degrade the possibility of iotum being salvaged from that same source.

Cyphers, Artifacts, and Iotum: A salvage source that has already been successfully salvaged for cyphers and artifacts might still contain iotum. However, all associated salvage tasks are hindered by two steps. Likewise, attempts to find cyphers and artifacts in a salvage source that has already been successfully salvaged for iotum are hindered by two steps.

Parts: In addition to iotum, crafters also need parts. Any time a character successfully salvages iotum, cyphers, or artifacts, they also find parts, which are tracked in units. When a character salvages shins or oddities, they also find 1 unit worth of parts. If they salvage iotum, artifacts, or cyphers, they find a number of units of parts equal to the combined levels of the items salvaged. For instance, if a character salvages a level 3 cypher, a level 4 cypher, and a level 5 iotum, they also find 12 units of parts.
Parts come in all sizes and weights but can be abstracted for the purpose of tracking how much a character can find and carry. Generally speaking, 10 units of parts weigh about 1 pound (450 g) and fill a volume of space equal to a 1-foot (30 cm) cube. So a character with 400 units of parts probably keeps a workshop with at least 40 cubic feet (1 cubic meter) of storage.

Salvage Failure: If the initial salvage attempt fails, the source the PCs are attempting to salvage turns out not to contain iotum (or it did contain iotum, but the PCs ruined it in the process of trying to extract it). Even if iotum can’t be salvaged, characters can still extract 1 unit of parts.

Additional Salvage Attempts: Each time characters locate a potential salvage source, a subsequent attempt to search the same area for another source is hindered by one additional step. What constitutes an “area” depends on the situation. If salvagers are in a place that’s thick with the numenera, an area might be one wall of one room. But if they’re in a place that’s already been well picked over or otherwise isn’t amenable to containing components (such as where a single automaton has corroded into scrap), an area could be the entire site.

LOOKING FOR A SPECIFIC KIND OF IOTUM
Often, PCs will be looking for specific kinds of iotum rather than just whatever they can find. After all, numenera plans have specific requirements. Any time a character wants to salvage a particular kind of iotum—such as responsive synth—they must attempt two salvage numenera tasks. The first salvage task is described above and determines whether the salvage source contains iotum. Then, instead of rolling on the Iotum Result Table, the PCs can attempt a second salvage task whose difficulty is equal to the level of the soughtafter iotum. For instance, if PCs are looking for responsive synth (a level 2 material), the second salvage task is level 2.
Salvaging Failure: If the PCs fail the second salvage task, they end up finding no iotum, either because they ruin what they’re attempting to salvage or because they were wrong and there was nothing to salvage in the first place.
Iotum Level Limits: A salvage source can never contain iotum of a higher level than the source itself. If the level of the cypher the PCs are salvaging is less than the minimum level of the iotum on the Iotum Result Table, reroll on the table.

IOTUM RESULT TABLE

*Instead of iotum, sometimes a PC discovers the seeds of a numenera plan embedded in the salvage source.
†Protomatter can’t be salvaged from cyphers, artifacts, automatons or other objects, scrap, or ruins of the numenera that are smaller than 40 feet (12 m) on a side because 1 unit of protomatter is almost that massive (unless some sort of extradimensional space to house the protomatter unit is involved). If this result occurs in relation to a source that’s too small, thaum dust is salvaged instead.

IO AND IOTUM ECONOMY

Most iotum are priceless if assessed in shins. The average NPC simply doesn’t have the resources or economic network to pay what it’s worth. PCs are likely to have more success in bartering for other components. In fact, trade and barter in iotum is becoming more common. Io, the most commonly salvaged component (from which the more general term iotum comes), is used itself as a currency for valuing other kinds of iotum. Thus, io is both a specific kind of iotum and a currency. Io is not compatible or exchangeable with shins or similar currencies, because it is at least ten times more valuable. If characters want to buy, sell, or barter iotum of various kinds, they can value that trade by its relative io value. In some communities, characters might be able to use io as currency to buy cyphers or artifacts.

IOTUM DESCRIPTIONS

Hundreds or perhaps even thousands of kinds of iotum can be found in the ruins of the prior worlds. The following list is only a fraction of the special components that crafters could find a use for when building numenera devices.

Io: Found embedded within most numenera objects and structures, io is a sort of catchall term for a variety of basic kinds of iotum. As such, it comes in many forms, but each can easily be held in the palm of the hand—smooth shards of muddy crystal in which a glimmer of gold light gleams, tiny green metallic boxes with etched lines that form strange patterns, cylindrical tubes of a soft but resilient material that sparks with static electricity, and so on. At a basic level, io provides or stabilizes energy to power crafted objects. It is also used as a currency in its own right for valuing other kinds of iotum.
One unit: About 1 pound (450 g)

Responsive synth: Though scrap synth is everywhere, a rarer variety of synth exists upon which instructions can be etched. It’s durable but not a particularly strong material. It can be worked into nearly any conformation and still retain its durability.
One unit: About 3 pounds (1.5 kg)

Apt clay: This brittle clay has a blue-grey, metallic luster and is usually salvaged from the forms of disabled and broken automatons. When used as an additional component in a crafting task, 6 units of apt clay ease one task that the object or structure is built to perform. For example, adding 6 units of apt clay to a lightning turret eases attack rolls made with the turret. Apt clay can also be eaten. It is a difficulty 3 task to choke down 1 whole unit, and it gives the consumer an upset stomach (subtract 1 point from your Speed Pool), but it also restores 1 point to your Intellect Pool.
One unit: About 3 pounds (1.5 kg)

Bio-circuitry: Resembling a fine mesh of veins and living nerves embedded in a flexible sheet of skin-like gel, bio-circuitry is partly alive and, when fed the proper instructions as part of a larger device (or organism), can grow and develop to take on many different kinds of characteristics. When used as an additional component as part of a crafting task, bio-circuitry can be substituted for responsive synth on a unit-perunit basis. It can also be substituted for smart tissue, but 3 units of bio-circuitry are needed for each 1 unit of smart tissue.
One unit: About 2 pounds (1 kg)

Synthsteel: Similar in appearance to synth, this somewhat misnamed substance is harder and tougher than synth, making it stronger but far lighter than steel.
One unit: About 9 pounds (4 kg)

Pliable metal: This material retains the strength and durability of steel but is pliable enough to make bags, boots, or similar objects. As iotum, it can be used in far more complex cyphers, artifacts, vehicles, installations, or true automatons. Sometimes pliable metal temporarily molds to the shape of whatever is pressed against it, similar to 21st-century memory foam.
One unit: About 9 pounds (4 kg)

Azure steel: This bluish metal is not steel and may not be from Earth at all. While somewhat lighter than steel, it is at least ten times harder and tougher.
One unit: About 9 pounds (4 kg)

Mimetic gel: In its inactivated state, mimetic gel is usually salvaged in fist-sized, silvery canisters filled with what appears to be a colorless, translucent goo. When used as an additional component as part of a crafting task, mimetic gel can be substituted for any other required iotum of up to level 5 on a unitper-unit basis. Mimetic gel can also be used for other purposes. If an object of up to level 5 is submerged in 4 units of gel, the object is potentially duplicated (an Intellect task with a difficulty equal to the level of the object being duplicated). If the duplication effect fails, the mimetic gel (and anything submerged in it) explodes as a level 5 detonation cypher. Either way, the 4 units of mimetic gel are used up.
One unit: Between 9 and 90 pounds (4–40 kg)

Quantium: This type of iotum is glittering points of light that are almost always confined inside an opaque synth box. One box represents about 1 unit of quantium. In addition to being a needful crafting material, 3 units of quantium can be used to attempt to move the user one round back in time, a difficulty 5 Intellect task. On a success, the user can relive the previous round, and even change what action they took. On a failure, the user instead hops forward about a minute. For the user, no time passes, but for everyone else, the user is simply gone for about a minute. Either way, the attempt uses up the quantium.
One unit: One box, which weighs about 3 ounces (85 g)

Amber crystal: This component resembles its name, but it is twenty times harder and tougher than steel. It also enjoys a self-repair capacity, which means that cyphers, artifacts, vehicles, installations, or true automatons made with amber crystal can last for thousands or even millions of years. Finally, it tends to cancel out its own weight when energy is applied. Amber crystal can also be used for other purposes. When properly joined with a detonation cypher (an Intellect task with difficulty equal to the level of the cypher), the cypher’s effective level is increased by 1 per unit of amber crystal connected when it detonates (destroying the crystal in the process, of course).
One unit: Between 9 and 90 pounds (4–40 kg)

Protomatter: Normally found within etched stronglass canisters the size of small houses, protomatter appears as a chaotic soup of thick, bubbling fluid. Protomatter is dangerous in that it tends to dissolve and erase anything it comes into contact with if not handled properly. Of course, this very quality can be used intentionally to destroy a solid object of up to level 6 that is doused in protomatter. Failure indicates that the protomatter boils or surges unexpectedly, dousing everyone nearby, all of whom descend one step on the damage track. Either way, the protomatter is used up.
One unit: One canister 30 feet (9 m) long and 15 feet (5 m) wide, weighing about 8 tons (7 t)

Thaum dust: This sparkling material, which is sometimes visible and sometimes not, is usually salvaged within clear synth receptacles. When used as an additional component as part of a crafting task, every 2 units of thaum dust reduces the time to craft by half. In addition, 1 unit of thaum dust can be used as part of another action to gain one additional action (for a total of two actions on the round the thaum dust is used). However, this burst of quickened time inflicts 3 points of Speed damage (ignores Armor) on the character. It also uses up the unit of thaum dust.
One unit: One clear synth receptacle, which weighs about 7 ounces (200 g)

Smart tissue: This skin-like material possesses the strength and durability of synthsteel but can be induced to grow to cover an area many times larger than the original amount over time, making it an ideal material for construction. Smart tissue can also be used to reinforce a mundane object or area up to 20 feet (6 m) on a side. If properly applied (a difficulty 4 Intellect task), the tissue rapidly expands over the course of ten hours and increases the ability of the structure to withstand harm or be broken by force by 1 level. On a failure, the object or portion of a structure up to 20 feet (6 m) on a side is destroyed instead.
One unit: About 1 to 9 pounds (450 g to 4 kg)

Psiranium: When salvaged, psiranium usually takes a thick, disc-like form about 10 inches (25 cm) across that is surprisingly light in heft. Psiranium reacts to hopes and desires, as well as specific mental instructions. When used as an additional component in a crafting task, 2 units of psiranium ease the assessed difficulty of the task.
If a unit of psiranium is pressed to the user’s head, the user can attempt to telepathically communicate with a creature within long range that the user knows about. The difficulty of the task is equal to the creature’s level. Contact lasts for up to a minute but damages the user’s mind, inflicting 3 points of Intellect damage (ignores Armor). Using the psiranium in this way destroys it.
One unit: One disc, which weighs about 4 ounces (100 g)

Kaon dot: These tiny, glowing blue specks are vortices of concentrated force that can organize themselves and constituent iotum into many different forms, making them a wondrous crafting material. When used as an additional component in a crafting task, a kaon dot can be substituted for any other required component of up to level 7 on a unit-per-unit basis. Kaon dots can also be used to perfectly preserve objects, creatures, or areas up to 10 feet (3 m) on a side. The difficulty of applying a unit in this fashion is equal to the level of the kaon dot or the creature or object, whichever is higher. If successful, the affected subject or area goes into stasis. Stasis lasts for a specified period or until another kaon dot is used by an external agency to break it. Utilizing a kaon dot in this fashion destroys it.
One unit: One speck of glowing blue light with negligible weight

Monopole: Often appearing as metallic cylinders with flat ends about the length and width of a human forearm, monopoles are useful iotum for any cypher, artifact, vehicle, installation, or true automaton that requires energy production or utilization. When used as an additional component in a crafting task, 1 monopole unit can increase the expected depletion range (see the Standard Depletion Ranges) by one step, making it less likely that the object created will deplete as quickly.
One unit: One cylinder that weighs about 1 pound (450 g)

Midnight stone: This component is usually salvaged as mottled black-and-green lumps of a solid, stone-like material, as smooth to the touch as river rocks or eggs. Midnight stones are highly reactive because they contain a volatile substance called void matter. Although they could be induced to provide a myriad of cypher-like effects, those effects are almost always random and as likely to be dangerous as helpful. So crafters usually focus on midnight stones’ utility for growing and selfmending, allowing them to create immense structures that can last almost indefinitely. When one stone is used as an additional component in a crafting task, the resulting object is treated as 1 level higher for the purposes of resisting attacks and damage. Midnight stones can also create a variety of other effects, but it’s difficult to control such outcomes. See the Midnight Stone Effect Table.
One unit: One mottled black-and-green stone, which weighs about 4 ounces (100 g)

Oraculum: Snow-white and cold, oraculum doesn’t melt in the heat. When etched into a cypher, artifact, vehicle, installation, or true automaton, oraculum provides hints of self-awareness and the ability to react to the environment. When 3 units are used as additional components in a crafting task, they inject a limited sentience into any cypher, artifact, vehicle, installation, or true automaton being crafted, even something that normally wouldn’t have it. This sentience has the capacity to control the cypher, artifact, vehicle, installation, or true automaton of which it is a part. In addition, oraculum can be used to invest mundane objects with a hint of consciousness. Successfully applying the material to an object is a difficulty 3 task, after which the object can psychically sense its surroundings but can’t interact with anything that doesn’t have some means of telepathic communication.
One unit: About 1 ounce (28 g)

Virtuon particle: It’s hard to pin down a virtuon particle, which is sometimes there and sometimes not. Normally found locked in stronglass prisms, virtuon particles provide a wide range of useful, though difficult to articulate, properties of cyphers, artifacts, vehicles, installations, or true automatons. When a virtuon particle is used as an additional component in a crafting task, it eases the assessed difficulty of the crafting task by two steps.
One unit: A stronglass prism that traps one virtuon particle, weighing about 4 ounces (100 g)

Tamed iron: Is tamed iron really a tamed cloud of the iron wind, as some claim? If so, it would pay to be cautious with the glittering, drit-like substance. Tamed iron can be instructed to become a self-organizing tool in whatever is being crafted, making it an essential building component in many high-level numenera objects and structures. When used as an additional component in a crafting task, 1 unit of tamed iron can be substituted for any other required iotum of up to level 8 on a unit-perunit basis. Tamed iron has one additional use: if a unit is tossed into the howling front of an iron-wind storm, the iron wind is potentially quelled for several minutes in an area a short distance across.
One unit: One handful of the drit-like substance, weighing about 4 ounces (100 g)

Philosophine: This diaphanous, colorless material usually appears trapped within a translucent synth cube studded with transdimensional nodules. Philosophine brings that which is being crafted closer to its intended ideal, overcoming obstacles of mere physical law by fusing multiple dimensions together and then synthesizing a local reality where the high-level cypher, artifact, vehicle, installation, or true automaton is realized more perfectly. A unit of philosophine can also be used exactly like a level 9 artifact that returns 9 points to a character’s Pools and has a depletion roll of 1 in 1d6.
One unit: One synth cube that weighs about 7 ounces (200 g)

Data orb: These extremely rare but amazing spheres are usually about 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter and composed of etched amber crystal. The etchings contain rafts of condensed information, a quantity beyond understanding. Installing a data orb into a crafted object provides it with a host of potential additional qualities, up to and including a link to the datasphere. A data orb can also be used exactly like a level 9 artifact that allows the character to ask the datasphere a question and receive an answer and has a depletion roll of 1 in 1d6.
One unit: One amber sphere that weighs about 7 ounces (200 g)

Scalar boson rod: This extremely rare iotum contains a flux of scalar particles that affect fundamental fields and transdimensional applications. A scalar boson rod appears as a rectangular metallic case about 3 feet (1 m) long and 8 inches (20 cm) wide and deep, in which countless tiny particle rods shimmer. Scalar boson rods don’t usually contribute directly toward a numenera device’s function; however, each one used as an additional component of a crafting task reduces the reactive field produced by installations to one-tenth its normal size.
One unit: One metallic case holding tiny rod-shaped units of particles or energy, which weighs about 13 pounds (6 kg)

Cosmic foam: More conceptual than physical, cosmic foam is difficult to see directly. It is said to be the foundation of reality, a component of the fabric of existence itself. When salvaged, cosmic foam is contained in matrices of multicolored hard light bounded by strips of tamed iron to create a complex, many-sided solid about 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter. As a foundational component of reality, cosmic foam is an ideal component when crafting objects that can transcend time, dimension, space, and other constants of physical law. One unit of cosmic foam can also be used exactly like a level 10 artifact that allows the character to immediately take five turns in an instant. When this happens, time stands still for everything else, but the cosmic foam has a depletion of “automatic.”
One unit: One polygon of light in a tamed iron frame, weighing about 4 ounces (100 g)

MIDNIGHT STONE EFFECT TABLE

To activate a midnight stone’s void matter, a character must hold the stone and concentrate, a difficulty 4 task. If successful, a ribbon of greenish-black energy coils out of the stone and produces a random effect, such as one of those in the table below. A character can try to channel the energy to achieve a specific effect—either one on the table or one of the character’s own choosing (with the GM’s permission)—but this requires a second and more difficult (level 8) task. On a failure, the stone becomes somnolent once more and isn’t activated. When used successfully, a midnight stone crumbles, turns to ash, and is gone.