Jacks are intrepid explorers. They are jacks of all trades—hence the name—although the word also hearkens back to fables involving a wily, resourceful hero who always seems to be named Jack. Used as a verb, “to jack” means to steal, to deceive, or to get out of a tight scrape through ingenuity or luck.
Jacks don’t use one skill or tactic exclusively; they use whatever weapons, armor, esoteries, or anything else might help them. They are hunters (particularly treasure hunters), con artists, skalds, rogues, scouts, and experts in a variety of fields.
Jacks in Society: Jacks are crafters, entertainers, leaders, and thieves. They’re architects, engineers, con artists, salespeople, and teachers. This diversity doesn’t mean that the Jack is the archetypal everyman—that kind of simple categorization would diminish the character type. Jacks are remarkable in that they can do so many different things, and some do multiple things. If one Jack is an artist and another is an explorer, there’s likely a third who is both at once. Skilled and learned Jacks who share their gifts with others are prized members of society, well respected for what they know and can do. A village might be protected by warriors, but it’s the Jack who makes everything run smoothly by repairing or building whatever is needed, handling disputes, investigating mysteries, and so on. On the other hand, Jacks who use their varied abilities to benefit only themselves are distrusted at best and reviled at worst. The murderers and thieves of a community are likely Jacks.
Jacks in the Group: Jacks fill in the space between the extremes of Nanos and Glaives. They frequently do a little of everything and know a little of everything. They can fight alongside a Glaive or have a scholarly talk with a Nano. There are no right or wrong places, actions, or roles for Jacks. They can hold their own in combat or other dangerous situations, but they excel at many assorted tasks like searching for clues, using diplomacy with the locals, or repairing a piece of broken gear. The drawback, of course, is that Jacks are rarely the best fighters in combat or the best numenera handlers. They might, however, be the best at more specialized skills. They’re the most likely characters to know how to climb, how to stand watch effectively, how to jimmy a lock, and how to jury-rig a makeshift shelter or snare trap.
Jacks and the Numenera: Jacks gravitate toward cyphers or artifacts that expand their array of options even further. An enhanced piece of armor might be fine for a Glaive, but many Jacks would rather have an object that allows them to communicate at a distance, walk through walls, or put foes to sleep.
Advanced Jacks: Jacks are the most flexible of the character types, and advanced Jacks are no different. Some learn esoteries, as Nanos do. Others hone their combat abilities. Some Jacks do both, gaining more skills and improving at, well, a little bit of everything.
You might hear people say that a Jack is just the typical everyman (or everyperson), but don’t believe it. You aren’t like anyone else. You can do things that no one else can do because you do so many things. You’re a warrior, you’re a thief, you’re a diplomat, you’re a sage, and you’re a spy.
When you choose Jack as your character type, come up with an explanation for how you learned your wide variety of talents. Choose one of the three options described below. It will provide the foundation of your background and give you an idea of how you can improve. The GM can use this information to develop adventures and quests that are specific to your character and play a role in your advancement.
You seem to be better than most people because you are. Your ancestors were part of a genetic experiment, and your genes are superior to those of the average human. You’re smarter, stronger, more dexterous, and able to learn mental and physical skills more quickly. Folks might call you charismatic, blessed, divinely gifted, or just plain lucky. They probably said the same thing about your parents, their parents, and so on. Some of your genetic advantage might even grant you low-level psychic abilities that greatly resemble the “miracles” performed by Nanos.
Advancement: You might be a superhuman, but you’re still limited by what you learn and experience. Therefore, you must continue to train and study. Practice is the key—it just comes easier for you than it does for others.
When you improve, it’s because you have honed your natural abilities or unlocked heretofore unknown genetic traits.
You learned things the hard way—on your own. Adaptive and canny, you express the true strengths of humanity in your ability to adjust quickly to circumstances, pick up new tricks to succeed, and ultimately survive when you probably should be dead.
Most likely, you grew up on your own, perhaps on the streets, in the wilderness, or amid ruins. The details don’t really matter. What’s important is that you taught yourself how to overcome whatever challenges came along.
Advancement: Just keep on keeping on. You got to where you are by observing, learning, adapting, and adopting. To advance, you need to do more of the same. Constant wariness coupled (somewhat paradoxically) with constant curiosity allows you to hone your skills and new capabilities.
You’re the product of generations of eugenics, bolstered by minor cybernetic enhancements, a few small psychic abilities, and the lessons of secret masters. In other words, you don’t have one source of power or one explanation for your abilities—you have many, and as far as you’re concerned, that’s the best formula for success. You don’t put all your eggs in a single proverbial basket. To really get ahead, you must rely on multiple strengths.
You’ve always got an unexpected trick up your sleeve or a fallback contingency. For example, you might have subdermal implants that make you more resilient, your training might let you sense a foe’s attack before he strikes, and your psychic abilities could allow you to push your enemy’s blade slightly to the left so you can just barely dodge it. In the end, you’re simply hard to hurt.
Advancement: You have chosen every path, so you must travel each of them. Training and drugs fuel your body and mind, brain implants grant you additional skills, and devices hidden in your palms give you fresh abilities. Advancement means new teachers and technicians, strange substances and radiations, and an ever-increasing need to discover the secrets of the past that will prove essential for your future.
Roll a d20 or choose from the following list to determine a specific fact about your background that provides a connection to the rest of the world. You can also create your own fact.
| Roll | Background |
|---|---|
| 1 | You come from a large family and had to fend for yourself from an early age. |
| 2 | Your older sister is a skilled nano. You weren’t able to follow her path, but the numenera is not unknown to you. |
| 3 | You’re a member of a guild of explorers who specialize in uncovering ancient mysteries. |
| 4 | You worked alongside your father, who was skilled in many things, until he disappeared one day with no explanation. |
| 5 | You grew up on the streets and studied at the school of hard knocks. |
| 6 | You remember little of your past, which has always seemed strange to you. |
| 7 | You came of age in the wild and are used to living rough. |
| 8 | Your family is wealthy but earns little respect from the locals. |
| 9 | You’re friends with many people in the community and are generally well regarded. |
| 10 | You have an annoying rival who always seems to get in your way or foil your plans. |
| 11 | You’re in love with a local shopkeeper, but that person shows little interest in you. |
| 12 | Several expeditions preparing to explore old ruins and odd mysteries would like you to join them because you seem like a promising addition to the team. |
| 13 | Your best friend from childhood is now an Aeon Priest. |
| 14 | You come from a nearby community, but the locals consider the folk of your hometown to be untrustworthy rivals. |
| 15 | You’re close friends with a local married couple, both of whom are experienced nanos. |
| 16 | You’re drinking buddies with a number of the local guards and glaives. |
| 17 | You once saved the child of a local noble from a fire, and she is very grateful. |
| 18 | You once saved the child of a local noble from a fire, and she is very grateful. You used to work with a troupe of traveling minstrels and performers, and they remember you fondly (as do people in the places you visited). |
| 19 | You’re wanted for a crime you didn’t commit. |
| 20 | You have a friend with an extensive library, plenty of food and drink, and a comfortable home—and the door is always open to you. |
When playing a Jack, you can spend 1 XP to use one of the following player intrusions, provided the situation is appropriate and the GM agrees.
Familiar Insight: You know this person (or heard about them somewhere) well enough to give insight about their motives or intentions and how best to convince them to see things your way. You know the right words, posturing, inflection, amount of emotional manipulation, or even what sort of joke or agreeable complaint might sway them. This can convince a neutral person to take your side, or a hostile one to hear you out for a little while longer.
Inspirational Recall: You recall an important detail from a previous encounter (perhaps something you don’t even remember noticing at the time) that suggests a successful course of action for your current situation. This might be recognizing a password hidden in an innocuous code or riddle, realizing you saw a suspicious individual near a crime scene, overhearing an important conversation between two NPCs, or understanding that an NPC’s subtle glance or gesture had additional connotations indicating what you should do.
Lucky Break: Something unexpected happens that is to your advantage. A rope your opponent is hanging from might snap, the person you’re debating in front of an influential Aeon Priest might trip or forget what they were going to say, or something that was supposed to last only a round or two lasts a little while longer.
Stat Pool Starting Value
| Stat | Pool Starting Value |
|---|---|
| Might | 10 |
| Speed | 10 |
| Intellect | 10 |
You get 6 additional points to divide among your stat Pools however you wish.
FIRST-TIER JACK
First-tier Jacks have the following abilities:
Effort: Your Effort is 1.
Jack of All Trades: You have an Edge of 1 for one stat of your choice: Might, Speed, or Intellect. You have an Edge of 0 for the other two stats.
Cypher Use: You can bear two cyphers at a time.
Weapons: You can use light and medium weapons without penalty. You have an inability with heavy weapons; your attacks with heavy weapons are hindered.
Skills: Choose one skill (other than attacks or defense) in which you aren’t already trained. You are trained in this skill.
Flex Skill: At the beginning of each day, choose one task (other than attacks or defense) on which you will concentrate. For the rest of that day, you’re trained in that task. You can’t use this ability with a skill you’re already trained in to become specialized.
Community Fixer: While you are present within a community, and actively and personally working on behalf of that community, the community’s effective rank for health or infrastructure is increased by +1. You choose which is modified during any given community action. Enabler.
Starting Equipment: You start with clothing, two weapons, light armor, an explorer’s pack, a pack of light tools, two cyphers (chosen for you by the GM), one oddity (chosen by the GM), and 8 shins. Before selecting your weapons, armor, and other gear, you might want to wait until after you’ve chosen your tricks of the trade, descriptor, and focus.
Default Starting Cyphers and Oddity: Your GM may provide you with starting cyphers and an oddity. Otherwise, you begin with the following.
Tricks of the Trade: You have a wide range of abilities that keep people guessing. Some of these tricks of the trade are technically esoteries, using the numenera, while others are more mundane. Some tricks are constant, ongoing effects; others are specific actions that usually cost points from one of your stat Pools.
Choose two of the tricks described below. You can’t choose the same trick more than once unless its description says otherwise.
Second-tier Jacks have the following abilities:
Skills: You are trained in one task of your choosing (other than attacks or defense). If you choose a task you’re already trained in, you become specialized in that task. You can’t choose a task you’re already specialized in.
Tricks of the Trade: Choose one of the following tricks (or a trick from a lower tier) to add to your repertoire. Instead of selecting a trick, you can select a lower-tier Glaive fighting move or Nano esotery. In addition, you can replace one of your first-tier tricks with a different first-tier trick.
Third-tier Jacks have the following abilities:
Expert Cypher Use: You can bear three cyphers at a time.
Skills: You are trained in one task of your choosing (other than attacks or defense). If you choose a task you’re already trained in, you become specialized in that task. You can’t choose a task you’re already specialized in.
Improved Community Fixer: A community continues to modify its health or infrastructure by +1 rank. However, you do not need to be constantly present in and actively working on behalf of the community for it to gain this benefit; it gains it merely because of your past efforts on the community’s behalf. Whichever stat you modified last remains active until you return and modify it to something else. Enabler
Tricks of the Trade: Choose one of the following tricks (or a trick from a lower tier) to add to your repertoire. Instead of selecting a trick, you can select a lower-tier Glaive fighting move or Nano esotery. In addition, you can replace one of your lower-tier tricks with a different trick from the same lower tier.
Fourth-tier Jacks have the following abilities:
Skills: You are trained in one task of your choosing (other than attacks or defense). If you choose a task you’re already trained in, you become specialized in that task. You can’t choose a task you’re already specialized in
Tricks of the Trade: Choose one of the following tricks (or a trick from a lower tier) to add to your repertoire. Instead of selecting a trick, you can select a lower-tier Glaive fighting move or Nano esotery. In addition, you can replace one of your lower-tier tricks with a different trick from the same lower tier.
Fifth-tier Jacks have the following abilities:
Adept Cypher Use: You can bear four cyphers at a time.
Skills: You are trained in one task of your choosing (other than attacks or defense). If you choose a task you’re already trained in, you become specialized in that task. You can’t choose a task you’re already specialized in.
Tricks of the Trade: Choose one of the following tricks (or a trick from a lower tier) to add to your repertoire. Instead of selecting a trick, you can select a lower-tier Glaive fighting move or Nano esotery. In addition, you can replace one of your lower-tier tricks with a different trick from the same lower tier.
Sixth-tier Jacks have the following abilities:
Skills: You are trained in one task of your choosing (other than attacks or defense). If you choose a task you’re already trained in, you become specialized in that task. You can’t choose a task you’re already specialized in.
Recruit Deputy: You gain a level 4 follower. They are not restricted on their modifications. Enabler
Tricks of the Trade: Choose one of the following tricks (or a trick from a lower tier) to add to your repertoire. Instead of selecting a trick, you can select a lower-tier Glaive fighting move or Nano esotery. In addition, you can replace one of your lower-tier tricks with a different trick from the same lower tier.
James wants to play a Jack. He likes the idea of being crafty, sneaky, and maybe a little devious. He puts 4 of his additional points in his Intellect Pool (raising it to 14) and 2 points in his Speed Pool (raising it to 12). This leaves his Might Pool at 10. He decides to have a Speed Edge of 1, but it was a hard choice—he was tempted to put his Edge point in Intellect. As a first-tier character, his Effort is 1.
James chooses a quarterstaff and a dart thrower for his weapons. The staff is a medium weapon that inflicts 4 points of damage. The dart thrower is a light weapon, so he eases attack rolls with it, but each shot inflicts only 2 points of damage. The dart thrower comes with 12 darts.
He wears a leather jerkin that gives him 1 point of Armor, so James subtracts 1 from all damage he takes. This type of armor normally increases the cost of using Speed Effort by 1. To compensate, James chooses Trained in Armor as one of his tricks of the trade, which reduces that cost by 1 (meaning it becomes 0). For his other trick, he chooses Face Morph. James likes the opportunities this gives him to trick and confuse people.
He also chooses a skill to be trained in. James decides to go with stealth so that whenever he tries to hide, move quietly, or slip something into his pocket unnoticed, he eases the task. In addition, his flex skill lets him choose another skill each day, so he has many options.
His character can bear two cyphers. The GM decides that one item is an injector that gives James a temporary +1 bonus to his Speed Edge for one hour, and the other is a belt-mounted device that projects a force shield around him for ten minutes and grants +3 to his Armor.
James still needs to choose his descriptor and focus. For his descriptor, he picks Clever to complement his “devious” theme, so he adds 2 to his Intellect Pool, raising it to 16. The Clever descriptor also means he is trained in lies and trickery (which is fitting for his character), defense rolls against mental effects, and identifying or assessing things. Basically, his Jack is good at figuring out whatever situation he lands in. Conversely, he doesn’t excel at reading books, studying, or remembering details. Finally, the descriptor gives James some extra starting money— probably from being so clever.
For his focus, he makes a choice that’s devious but overt: Crafts Illusions. At first tier, he can spend 1 point from his Intellect Pool to create minor images. The focus also grants him a strange oddity that involves images in a piece of glass. James will use these abilities to create a con artist character who is careful and clever and backs up his lies with illusions.