Destiny 2 as Inspiration for Numenera, Part 1: Heir Apparent
It kind of confirmed something I’ve been thinking for a while: the exotic weapons and armor from Destiny & Destiny 2 make great inspiration for Numenera. Not just as items, either! As characters, either for players or as NPCs.
Let’s take the three “Gun Girls” drawn by Jonathan Ying, and see if we can make both fun weapons for players to use in Numenera. We’re not stopping there though – after that, let’s see if we could figure out how to turn each of these three exotic weapons into either playable characters or into fun NPCs!
I’m splitting this up into multiple posts, mostly because writing about these things is fun and so I end up writing a lot.
Heir Apparent #
The Heir Apparent is a fun machine gun that has to be spun up before it can fire. If you’re at full health when you spin it up, you also get an over-shield for some extra protection. You can see it in action in a bit of this trailer for the 2021 Guardian Games, or in this video from Mr. Fruit.
Anyways, this is the machine gun:
As A Weapon #
Of the three, this one is the most straight-forward. At least, I think it is. It’s obviously a heavy weapon that needs two hands to operate, so that takes care of how much damage it does.
As for the “exotic” special sauce, there’s a few ways we can handle it.
Let’s break down how the weapon works in Destiny 2:
- You can’t fire until the weapon is “spun up”
- Spinning up takes a few precious seconds
- Spinning up makes you loud ( easy for enemies to pinpoint where you are )
- While spun up, you move slower.
- If at full health, once spun up you get a protective shield
- Taking damage destroys the shield
- The shield comes back if you heal back to full health
And that’s pretty much it. So how would we translate this into Numenera?
Well, I think we have to tackle three things: translating “spinning up”, slower movement, and the over-shield to the table.
The slower movement bit is probably the easiest thing to tackle, so I’m going to do that first. So for this I don’t want to restrict the players movement all the time, just when they’re using the weapon in combat. So I think the weapon only restricts movement when it’s “ready” – all the barrels are spun up and it’s ready to fire. How do we make that work when players could move, then fire?
One way would be to reducing the weapons’ effectiveness if fired after moving! Basically, taking a page from the Warhammer 40k rules for Space Marines. Their bolters can fire 24 inches on the tabletop normally, but if they charge they can only fire 12 inches1.
We could crib that by saying that normally the gun can fire up to a long range, but if fired after moving it can only fire an immediate distance. Or firing after moving more than an immediate distance is hindered by one ( or two? ) difficulty steps.
Something I think would work better though, is requiring an action to prepare the machine gun. The reason for this is point #3 in that list above: this machine gun is noisy. When you’re ready to fire, everybody knows. Folks in this room know you’ve got a machine gun, and folks in the next room over know too.
So readying the weapon now does two things: the player is able to fire, and anybody trying to listen for the player has that task eased. If the player moves more than an immediate distance the gun is no longer ready, and will require another action to get ready to fire. This way players still move, it just becomes a bit more tactical – do they dash to that cover and prepare to fire, or do they prepare to fire now out in the open and trust their shield will protect them?
Which brings us nicely to the shield! Much easier to stand still when you get some protection, right?
So the shield needs two things: the trigger for turning on, and the trigger for turning off. I think the trigger for turning on is pretty straight-forward: once the weapon is ready it creates the shield. Easy!
What about the shield going away? I think that should be tied to what the shield is providing. Is it providing armor, or is it easing defense tasks?
If the shield provides armor, I think it should provide enough that standing in the open to take some shots is worth it. So let’s say it provides the same as medium armor: 4 points of damage protection. If they take more than 4 points of damage the shield soaks that damage but breaks.
If we’re easing defense tasks instead, let’s give them a tempting reason to stand in the open to unload. If we go the “ease defense tasks” route, I think the shield should count as two assets on the defense roll. In other words: if a player activates the shield, they automatically get two assets on any Speed defense task. In this version, taking any hits removes the shield, regardless of how much damage is done ( or negated, if they’re wearing armor ). Basically, getting hit at all means the shield had to break; if they fail the Speed defense task the shield is gone in addition to dealing with the hit itself.
I think at this point we’ve already sorted out how the “spinning up” mechanic works, so let’s take a look at what the stats for this weapon looks like. I’ve put together two different versions, one where the shield provides extra armor, and one where it provides assets to Speed defense. Which do you like better?
Heir Apparent (Armor Version) #
Form: A large and heavy machine gun with rotating barrels.
Damage: 6 points
Effect: Cannot be fired until readied. Takes a full action to ready.
While in the “ready” state, Heir Apparent is very noisy. This hinders any actions related to stealth, and eases any actions related to finding or perceiving you.
Once readied, the weapon creates a spherical shield around the holder. This shield provides 4 points of armor. If the wielder takes more than 4 points of damage, the shield is broken. The shield reforms the next time the weapon is readied.
Instead of firing normally, you can fire this weapon in a spray. By spending 3 Speed points, you can fire the Heir Apparent at up to three targets who are all within immediate distance of one another. Make a separate attack roll against each target. Each attack is hindered.
Characters with the “Arc Spray” ability can use that to augment this ability by spending an additional 3 Speed points. When augmented by the Arc Spray ability, you can fire at up to 3 additional targets, for a total of up to 6 total targets.
Heir Apparent (Asset Version) #
Form: A large and heavy machine gun with rotating barrels.
Damage: 6 points
Effect: Cannot be fired until readied. Takes a full action to ready.
While in the “ready” state, Heir Apparent is very noisy. This hinders any actions related to stealth, and eases any actions related to finding or perceiving you.
Once readied, the weapon creates a spherical shield around the holder. This shield provides 2 assets to any Speed defense task. If the wielder is hit by any attack, the shield is broken. The shield reforms the next time the weapon is readied.
Instead of firing normally, you can fire this weapon in a spray. By spending 3 Speed points, you can fire the Heir Apparent at up to three targets who are all within immediate distance of one another. Make a separate attack roll against each target. Each attack is hindered.
Characters with the “Arc Spray” ability can use that to augment this ability by spending an additional 3 Speed points. When augmented by the Arc Spray ability, you can fire at up to 3 additional targets, for a total of up to 6 total targets.
As A Character #
Okay, taking an exotic weapon from a video game and turning it into a weapon in Numenera isn’t that hard. As game masters, we’re probably used to doing that kind of thing already!
But what about your players? How could they use an item from a video game as inspiration for a character they want to play?
Well, let’s take a look at the lore attached to the Heir Apparent in Destiny 2.2
“The Red Legion will march again.” —Caiatl
Caiatl stands in her war room.
Her nation, which she has always loved, reeks of failure. The scent is strong. When she was young, she would watch the feedings in her father’s zoological gardens. Live creatures from the lands beyond Torobatl, wounded, left in the middle of the landscaped enclosures. She’d seen how the smell of blood brought the larger, hungrier creatures out of the undergrowth. The same will happen to the Empire if she lets it.
But she will not.
She won’t fail where her father failed. He was led astray by his vices, corrupted by frivolity and pleasure. He was never meant to be Emperor; he was too weak. But Ghaul was destroyed by weakness, too. His fixation on the machine god was stupid. It embarrasses her to think of him.
She has always had a vivid imagination. Ironically, it’s her father she can thank for that—all of the stories and songs he made her study, the insufferable plays. But she repurposes that arsenal of thought toward a new goal: imagining a better future for her people. A future where they rule the galaxy once again; where foreign ships fall under their fire and rival nations fall to their knees. This future will be different.
This future will be hers.
As a side note, Caiatl is a member of the Cabal species – Destiny’s “Space Rhinos”. She’s one of my favorite characters in Destiny 2, honestly. Check out these cutscenes if you want to see more.
To me, a character based on Heir Apparent is the embodiment of the video game “tank” – a character built to soak up punishment and deal out twice as much. They’re the big scary person on your team all the enemies focus on so that the jack can get into position, the nano has time to prepare some magic, and the other glaive can get close enough to start doing damage.
So let’s create a character that would embody the Heir Apparent machine gun. For type I’m obviously going to choose Glaive. I’d probably take Aggression as my first fighting move; any of the others would work fine for the second but I’d probably take Impressive Display. Some of the fighting moves I’d focus on acquiring would be:
- Second Tier: Successive Attack
- Third Tier: Spray
- Fourth Tier: Capable Warrior
- Fifth Tier: Arc Spray
- Sixth Tier: Spin Attack
For descriptor, I’d choose Strong or Tough. For foci, Masters Weaponry would work great.
To me, this is a brash and confident character. Almost too willing to throw down in a fight, because they’ve learned they’re usually able to soak up whatever their opponent can dish out. If they can’t find a weapon that can shoot lots of bullets ( or lots of some kind of projectile ), they’ll be just as happy with a big-ass sword or mace.
You know.
This guy:
As An NPC #
For an NPC I’d basically take the Heir Apparent weapon we built before, the character I built above – and then squish them together.
We’ve already got most of the building blocks, so lets just jump into a stat block, shall we?
The Heavy 7 (21) #
A wandering glaive who is never without his trusty “Bertha”, a huge machine gun he carries at all times.
- Motive: Keeping Bertha “fed” and happy.
- Health: 21
- Damage Inflicted: 6 points
- Movement: Short
- Modifications: Speed defense at level 8
Combat: The Heavy relies on the shield provided by Bertha to protect him, and when that fails, he relies on the overwhelming firepower he’s able to bring to bear.
Can attack twice on a turn when using Bertha.
While using Bertha, is protected by a shield that provides 3 points of armor. This shield is broken when The Heavy falls below half health. When this happens, The Heavy becomes enraged.
While enraged, the heavy can attack three times on his turn with Bertha.
Interaction: A jolly man who loves to drink and tell baudy jokes. So long as nobody touches Bertha, everything is fine.
Loot: Carries many empty shell casings that are worth 2d6+10 shins, as well as Bertha herself. Bertha is the “Heir Apparent” artifact weapon.
Wrapping Up #
So. We’ve created a weapon that mimics the in-game abilities of Heir Apparent. We’ve talked about how we could create a player character based on the weapon, then we built an NPC.
It’s kind of funny, but I never realized before that The Heavy from Team Fortress 2 is basically a literal tank in human form.
Anyways!
I think we’ve covered Heir Apparent enough.
Next up: Malfeasance!