Traveller: Summary of first five chapters

• You are in the backwater Inchin system, in the Spinward Marches. Inchin is a poor desert planet owned by a guy named Iarl Rowri, an exentric rich guy who bought his own planet, sure he could make a lot of money there. He has met a lot of setbacks and has not succeeded as of yet. Inchin now has a kind of totalitarian regime. Rowry apparently lives in a palace (!) at the only town on Inchin, called Rowri's Folly by people off planet.


• Takeda Station orbits Inchin. It used to be a mining/industrial base, but Rowri sold it to Takeda beacause he needed the money. This was 15 years ago. You have no idea who or what this Takeda guy is.
  


• You've all arrived at Takeda station, killed some rats, bought a weird ship (without a jumpdrive) named Beetlejuice of an old geezer named Finkle.
  


• You don't really have a purpose here, but are bound to the system because you have no transport. The only one with a purpose here is Max. His research was stolen, and after some investigation it appears the assignment came from the Inchin system. He has no other clues.


• You did some mining runs for an independent group of miners, opposing the League of Miners and prospectors and a trader named Bachus, who owns a 500 ton far trader "The Predator".


• Security Inspector Reichmann of the Inchin Police asked you to check out Bachus, because he appears to deliver weapons to the Inchin resistance.
  
  


• It turns out your ship belonged to an alien (Aslan) named K'syah. He found the ship right there in the system, a dangerous place he refers to as the "Galactic Dragon". He doesn't want you to know where it is, because it's a dangerous place. You did discoverer this Galactic Dragon must be a large vessel.


• This K'syah person was murdered about 10 years ago, after he hid the ship. It's unclear who murdered him or why, but he was very paranoid just before he was murdered, saying he was being followed because of something that had to do with the ship.
  


• K'syah had a girlfriend who might still be on the station, but she's employed at the upper section, which is off limits to lower section folk. Maybe she could lead you to the location of the Galactic Dragon.


• You broke into The Predator to discover a small ships boat inside, which could be used for smuggling runs. You planted a tracking device with a range of 1000 miles. Maybe that way you can catch Bachus red-handed.

Sessions so far:
Chapter 1 - Rat Hive Exodus
Chapter 2 - Beetlejuice
Chapter 3 - Spacetruckers (in Dutch)
Chapter 4 - The Lion and the Dragon (Dutch)
Chapter 5 - Deadly Choices

Traveller: From the files of Max Adler

The laboratory was in shambles. Max just stood there, perplexed. His papers were all over the place. His set-ups lay on the ground, shattered. Geiger-counters were ticking like mad. He didn't have to look to know that it would be gone. The object of his research, the thing he affectionately called his "marble of wonder". And sure enough, the container lay on the ground, taken from the freezer. It had been opened, and both the marble and the protective box it came in were gone. Years of research... all in vain. He had been so close to unlocking it's secret. Who could have stolen it? Who even knew it existed, besides a few members of the university? It had disappeared just as mysteriously as he had received it.



Isis
Isis was her name, a beautifull black physicist working on the university, who he had never spoken to before. They had a brief relationship, and she asked him to take a look at an object with strange magnetic properties. She had received it from a friend, she said, and apparently someone had been murdered for it. It wasn't the only victim the object would claim. Isis had not been careful enough during her first contact with the quicksilver-like liquid, shaped like small sphere. She contracted strange radiation sickness and died two months after Max had met her. He had retained the object and examined it ever since.

Max spotted something on the container the marble and the box had been in. Some sod had taken the thing from the freezer with his bare hands! These must have been dumb ruffians, working for somebody else, who had no idea the container would be extremely cold. Small patches of skin stuck to the metallic cylinder. At least he had some DNA to go on...



From the files of Max Adler:
"Topological states with non-Abelian anyons describe a new phase of matter. When there are excitations in the topological quantum liquids, there are gaps between the excitations and the ground state. The topological origin and the gap protect the anyons from environmental decoherence." ~Max Adler


Love, Max

Traveller: Chapter V - Deadly choices

Friday night was our group's monthly Traveller night. We're playing the fifth session.

Baccus' request
There we were, hanging out in Murphy's again. Hank Williams was playing on the jukebox, and we were enjoying our beers. "You boys and girls want a drink", Baccus asked. "Sure, anytime. Sit down", our reply was. It turned out Baccus needed us to make a run. Apparently, he was double booked for this week. Yeah right! As if it had nothing to do with making smuggle runs to the planet. I guess he is feeling Reichman's heat, and doesn't want to burn himself this time. What he doesn't know, or seems to know, is that, for the time being, we are in the same ballpark as Reichman. Anyway, a gig is a gig, and this baby would earn us 10.000 credits in a day, half up front. Perhaps we find some useful information to sell back to Reichman as a nice bonus. If we're real lucky we can even nail that bastard Baccus, we'll see.



Making the run
For 10.000 credits we have to deliver two 250 kg heavy crates to some predefined coordinates on Inchin. With the crates loaded Jack can't hold his curiosity any longer, and has to try the activation code of Baccus' ship, 5382, on the lock on one of the crates. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, and the light display on the crate seems to indicate that attempt one of three has been used.
We decided not to meddle with the crates any longer. The run into Inchin's atmosphere was a smooth ride, thanks to the excellent flying skills of Jol Nar.



At the delivery point, no one was waiting for us. We decided to drop off the crates and to fly the beetle juice to a nearby mesa were we could spy on the spot without a too large change of being spotted in return. After a while we see a raft approaching the crates. A group of X, presumed rebels pick up the crates and leave in the direction they came from. We had our own raft ready, and pursued the rebels to see if we could learn something interesting.

Steel plate
Going 140 km per hour through a narrow canyon required the full attention of Jol Nar. We came across a crossing with a second canyon, but did not give it much thought, and went straight ahead. Just around the corner of a slight curve in the canyon a big steel plate, the size of the canyon, was blocking our way. Jol Nar managed to stop the raft just in time before getting crushed on the surface of the plate. All of a sudden we heard the familliar buss of gun turrets targeting. Jolnar took the raft in full reverse while Ed and Charles were emptying their combat riffles on the turret muzzles.

Contacting Reichman
Back at Takeda station we contacted Reichman. The information we told him was not necessarily new information, but we did manage to get a new assignment. Even if this amounts to nothing, we still have our backs covered as far as the authorities are concerned.




Going back
We took the beetlejuice back to Inchin and got the raft out. following the exact trail as the first time, we arrived at the junction between the two canyons. Instead of going straight to the metal wall again, now we decided to take a turn for the left. Here we found an enormeous loader. Figuring this might come in handy when approaching the steel wall, we tried to start is. Alas, the power cells were drained. Next session we have to look for a way to power the loader. But, with Max and Stacey combined, that shouln't be too much of a challenge.



The sessions we played so far:
Chapter I - Rat Hive Exodus
Chapter II - Beetlejuice
Chapter III - Spacetruckers
Chapter IV - The Lion and the Dragon
Chapter V - Deadly Choices

Links week 12

Sunday-links-day here on Behold the Dice. It's been a slow week, link-wise. Still we managed to present you with three links that caught our attention this week.

Developments in Old School Gaming
There's Dungeons Down Under brings a nice review post of three interesting developments in old school gaming. As regulars here will know, I'm a big fan of old school gaming. Every time I see news that the old school community is alive and kicking, I'm thrilled.
Link



Pulp Characters
We linked to the previous posts a few weeks back. Campaign mastery again delves into the pulp genre and provides some interesting ideas:
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Steve Jackson Games
MTV Geek interviews Steve Jackson and Phil Reed about... well, Steve Jackson Games. Go check it out!
Link


Dave's Mapper
David Millar, the creator of the wonderful mapping tool we linked to earlier, mailed to tell us the new location of the mapper. Thanks Dave! Here is the new link:
Link
Facebook page

Traveller D66-list: Takeda's Lounge

Situated on the top of Takeda Station is Takeda's Lounge. This is the hangout of the elite of this system. Although the lounge is unreachable for the uninitiated, a service engineer managed to smuggle a data tape from the place's jukebox to the lower levels.



Now, for the first time we see what king of bleak, nihilistic music the jet set is swinging their hips to:

• 11 - Sarah Brightman - I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper


• 12 - Zlad - Elektronik Supersonik


• 13 - David Bowie - Space Oddity


• 14 - Daft Punk - Derezzed


• 15 - Joy Division - She Lost Control


• 16 - Tubeway Army - Gary Numan - Are Friends Electric


• 21 - Wolfsheim - A New Starsystem has been Explored


• 22 - Welle Erdball - Monoton + Minimal


• 23 - 8bitFanatic - Space Traveler


• 24 - M|A|R|R|S - PumpUpTheVolume


• 25 - Air - All I Need


• 26 - Duran Duran - Wild boys


• 31 - Geoff Love - Barbarella Theme


• 32 - Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Round


• 33 - Depeche Mode - Just Can't Get Enough


• 34 - Soft Cell - Tainted Love


• 35 - Kraftwerk - Das Model


• 36 - Welle:Erdball - Ich bin aus Plastik


• 41 - Welle:Erdball - Es geht voran


• 42 - Front 242 - Headhunter


• 43 - Skinny Puppy - Smothered Hope


• 44 - Ministry - Everyday Is Halloween


• 45 - Ministry - I Wanted To Tell Her


• 46 - Ministry - Effigy


• 51 - S.P.O.C.K - Never Trust a Klingon


• 52 - The Prodigy - Firestarter


• 53 - Nine Inch Nails - Down In It


• 54 - Front Line Assembly - Plasticity


• 55 - KMFDM - Anarchy


• 56 - The Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination


• 61 - Billy Idol - Power Junkie


• 62 - Sabrepulse - Skyfire Ace


• 63 - New Order - Blue Monday


• 64 - Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart


• 65 - The Smiths - Panic


• 66 - Joy Division - Transmission

Links Week 11

Sunday is links-day here on Behold the Dice. We read the gaming blogs so you won't have to. Enjoy these best links of last week!

The Underdark Gazette
The Underdark Gazette is one of my favorite sources of old-school gaming information. This week they featured another great links collection.
Link



Sword & Sworcery
The new tagline for the blog is "99.9% unplugged". I'm a big fan of retro-style RPGs and in particular retrographics with modern games. I'm very much looking forward to the Sword & Sworcery, a new adveture game in an old styling. Take a look at the wonderful artwork they have on their site:
Link

Walk in the Woods from Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery on Vimeo.

Printing on Demand
Over at Stargazer's World they have a piece on the printing on demand (POD) of RPGnow. The book that is printed on demand is Stars without numbes, the link to which was featured on the linksfest a few weeks back. In all, Stargazer is very positive about printing on demand. With RPG sales to a (very) low, at least here in the Netherlands, and brick and mortar stores having to make shelf space priorities, it is good to see that this innovation in the publishing industry is working well. In the near future I plan on doing some experiments myself. reports to follow
Link

Dragon deseases
I love the idea of a dragon catching a cold, though I hate to be in the neighbourhood when he sneezes. Kobold Quarterly had the third post in a series of five that describe diseases that can strike a dragon.
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Maps
A mapper to make beautiful old-school maps.
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Alignment
Dungeons and Dragons alignments explained with muppets characters
Link

Party
Over at Kobold Quarterly they have an anniversary. It's been five years since Open Design, the parent company of Kobold Quarterly started. This pary is celebrated with massive discounts on their products. Go check it out:
Link

Traveller AR: a MMORPG for iPhone

Fight... Trade... Explore... Those three key words will describe the gameplay of the new Traveller AR iPhone game. I already linked to Traveller AR in the link collection of last week, but I'm so excited I decided to write some more on this upcomming MMORPG. The game will be available on iPhone in the summer of 2011. I will keep you posted on news. For your own Traveller AR fix, visit the links at the bottom of the post.



Setting
As the name suggests, the setting in which the game is taking place is the Traveller universe, in particular the Third Emperium. This should mean that the game comes with a very rich background and a huge universe to play in. The hexagon space charts imediately feel familiar. The game will offer the majority of the classes found in the pen and paper RPG, including traders, belters, Scientists and diplomats. The artwork of available ships look inspiring.



Augmented reality
A cool feature of the game is the use of augmented reality. In augmented reality game graphics are added to the real world environment, integrating the two. Imagine your iPhone working as a pair of virtual reality goggles, registering the real world with it's camera and adding a layer of 3d objects to those images for game play. According to the website, augmented reality enambles you to:

• Paint the ‘real’ sky around you as our game canvas.


• Remove the constraints of gaming on a phone, a monitor, or even a BigScreen, and let you “wave your phone around” in real space, and see fully rendered 3D objects drawn on top of what your camera sees.


• Use your iPhone’s Compass and Accelerometers to let you “look around” you in full 360 degrees by 360 degrees of freedom (just as if you had a huge window in your ship’s cockpit or bridge).


• Use your iPhone’s GPS to detect your location and help you connect with other real players near you physically as well as virtually.
  Use your iPhone’s Camera to bring forward the real world and let it interact with the objects in the game.

Previews
As you would expect from a company aiming for a new MMORPG, ingZ Inc, the developers of the game, are well connected in the social media. Their Youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/TravellerAR features preview of the game.




Links
Traveller AR
Traveller AR's Facebook page
Traveller AR's twitter account

De verdwenen acolieten - 11 maart 2011

Campaign:

• Forgotten Realms: Night Below

Avonturiers:

• Phonz: Dwarven thief


• Aden: Human cleric of Kelemvor


• Gladwin: Elven fighter-mage


• Zull: Human necromancer

Als helden onthaald
Na het succes van de vorige sessie worden de avonturiers nu als helden in het dorp onthaald. In de locale herberg hoeven ze niet meer in hun eigen onderhoud te voorzien. De waard is trots dat hij hen onder kan brengen. Daarbij verdient hij genoeg aan de extra inkomsten die hij binnen krijgt van iedereen die een keer de hand van de avonturiers wil schudden en hen een kroes bier aan wilt bieden.

Semheist, priester van Tyr
Na een paar dagen in de herberg geleefd te hebben worden de avonturiers benaderd door Semheis, de locale priester van Tyr. Er zou in de laatste dagen een party van Tyr accolieten bij hem op visite zijn gekomen. Nu deze ruim 4 dagen te laat zijn maakt hij zich zorgen, helemaal gezien de recente ontvoering en de activiteit van humanoids. Semheis vraagt de avonturiers hem te helpen. Hij kan ze niets bieden qua geld. Als tegemoetkoming kan hij wel twee potions of cure light wounds meegeven. De acolieten van Tyr zouden, samen met hun begeleiders, vanuit het noorden over de high moor getrokken zijn. Ze waren op weg vanuit Duesbarr, waar een groter Tyr-klooster staat.



Naar de High Moor
De avonturiers nemen de uitdaging snel aan. Ze maken hun uitrusting op orde, pakken genoeg eten, dekens en fakkels om een tijdje in de wildernis te kunnen overleven. Bepakt en bezakt begint dan de weg naar de high moors. Phonz leidt de weg, constant op zijn hoede voor naderend gevaar. Na enig zoeken ziet Phonz iemand op de weg liggen. De party duikt het hoge gras in en sluipt naar de plek waar de man ligt. Hier zien ze dat het twee mannen zijn. Eentje is duidelijk overleden, de andere ademt nog raspend. "Overvallen" weet hij nog uit te brengen. "Mensen en goblins. Samen. Naar de bergen gingen ze.... Vuurrood haar, de aanvoerder....". En daarmee blies hij zijn laatste adem uit.

De mijn
Aden bewees de doden nog de laatste eer door ze een fatsoenlijk graf te geven. Nadat de gebruikelijke rituelen voltooid zijn trok de party naar de bergen toe. Vanuit de weg die ze kwamen was een duidelijke mogelijke schuilplaats de mijn die ze in de verte zagen liggen. Zonder echte aanwijzingen om iets anders te onderzoeken trok de groep daar maar heen. Bij de ingang van de mijn werd duidelijk dat hier zowel mensen als goblins geweest zijn. Wanneer de helden de mijn inlopen herinneren ze zich ineens dat Old Gizzler, een van de oude mijnwerkers hen verteld heeft dat het verdacht tochtig is in de mijnen. Dat dit niet eerder het geval is geweest. Hierop besluiten ze zich te laten leiden door hun fakkels. Met de fakkels id de tocht namelijk makkelijk te herleiden.

Badgersbadgersbadgers
In de mijn vindt Phonz een nis die zijn aandacht trekt. Wanneer hij zijn hoofd om de hoek steekt wordt hij onmiddelijk aangevallen door een das. Dit beest weet hem gemeen te raken, en de eerste potions worden aangebroken. Nadat de twee dassen verslagen waren werd duidelijk dat ze alleen hun nest wilden beschermen. Maar ja, Phonz wilde alleen zijn baard beschermen.



De schacht
Niet veel later vindt Phonz een geheime deur, de oorsprong van de tocht. Na de deur grondig op traps te hebben onderzocht wordt de geheime deur geopend. Achter de geheime deur bevindt zich een richel van ongeveer een halve meter breed. Na de richel bevindt zich een diepe schacht, loodrecht naar beneden. In de schacht hangt een houten platform dat duidelijk als lift dient. Op de lift kunnen drie avonturiers mee. De groep besluit om twee aan twee te gaan. Eerst de thief en de fighter-mage, daarna de cleric en de mage. Phonz en Gladwin blijven dalen totdat zij een gang zien loodrecht op de schacht. Als ware opportunisten onderzoeken ze deze gang. Phonz bewijst zijn nut als thief maar weer eens door een trap op te ruimen. Aan het einde van de gang vinden ze een kistje. Phonz wrikt het open en ziet een enorme hoeveelheid aan goud en edelstenen hem toelachen.



Rampspoed
Terwijl Phonz en Gladwin de gang onderzoeken gaan Zull en Aden alvast naar beneden. Helaas voor hen zijn zij niet zo getraind op het ontdekken van vallen. De lift activeerd een schakelaar, Phonz roept nog, maar het is al te laat, en een pijl schiet. Gelukkig mist de pijl het doel en kunnen Zull en Aden verder naar beneden afdalen. De laatste paar meter op de lift moeten worden afgelegd zonder de steun van de schacht. Het is lastig om zo het evenwicht te bewaren. Gelukkig is dat geen probleem. De problemen komen echter uit een andere hoek. Wanneer de lift helemaal uit de schacht is gekomen worden Zull en Aden beschoten doot goblins met bogen. Om de afdaling te versnellen wilt Phonz via de touwen afgleiden. Hij trekt zijn thieve's gloves aan en gaat aan het touw hangen. Haastige spoed maakt dat hij van de twee touwen aan het verkeerde touw gaat hangen. Voor Aden, die het gewicht van hemzelf en van Zull droeg wordt deze last te zwaar, waardoor het platform de laatste meters naar beneden valt. Helaas voor Zull overleefd hij deze val niet. DM 1. Players 0. Phonz weet zich met een uitzonderlijk staaltje dexterity uit de brand te helpen, en na korte tijd staat de hele party behalve Zull klaar om de goblins te lijf te gaan. Een spannende battle volgt, maar uiteindelijk weten de helden de goblins te doden, of in het geval van 1 opportunistische goblin, te verjagen.

Overnachten
De avonturiers besluiten om in de tunnel waar ze de kist vonden te overnachten om weer op krachten te komen. 's Nachts horen ze een vreemd gekraak en geritsel. Onderzoek de dag erna wijst weinig meer uit als een aantal sporen dat richting de tocht leidt.

Spinnen
Nu de hele party weer is opgekalefaterd vertrekken ze weer in de richting van de tocht. Na een uurtje of twee lopen horen ze weer hetzelfde gekraak als de dag daarvoor. Wanneer ze de hoek omlopen zien ze daar drie goblins die op enorme spinnen rijden. Heldhaftig wordt de strijd tegen de spinnenrijders begonnen. Phonz wordt in zijn schouder gebeten en mist zijn save vs poison. Gelukkig is het een langzaam gif, en weet hij door te vechten tot dat alle tegenstanders verslagen zijn. De avonturiers hebben nog moeite met de tactiek van de spinnen om zodra ze hun berijders kwijt zijn richting het plafond te klimmen. Een aantal goedgemikte werpdolken heeft toch tot gevolg dat de spinnen verslagen worden.



De trap
Na het gevecht met de spinnen lopen de helden verder, de tocht volgend. Na verloop van tijd wordt deze minder sterk en komen ze bij een trap aan. Net voor de trap zit een nis waar kan worden overnacht. Een optie waar de avonturiers dankbaar gebruik van maken.

Links week 10 (07-03 to 13-03)

Just like every sunday Behold the Dice brings you the best of the RPG blogs.

Government in your Campaign
The Campaign Mastery goes into details about what forces govern your city. They explore a series of ideas to make the government structure more interesting and more relevant for your campaign.
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Purple Worm
Go to Original Edition Fantasy for a wonderful early picture of a purple worm
Link

Ethan Gilsdorf
Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks describes his reconnection with Dungeons and Dragons. It's nice to see positive news on Dungeons and Dragons in such a mainstream news source. Also, the book is heartily reccomended.
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The Underdark Gazette
The Underdark Gazette has a terrific wrap-up post for old-school gaming links.
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Traveller AR
A new Traveller-based MMORPG for iPhone will be released in the coming months. Greyhawk Grognard posts a preview of the game. I'm looking very much forward to this game. Look at Traveller AR for more details.
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DnD Love song
Watch it, learn it, sing it
Link

Links week 9 (03-03 to 06-03)

This week was more interesting thn the last week on the blogs. So, without further adue, these are the blogposts and sites that I liked best.

On writing weird fiction
Rule of the Dice published the essay "On Writing Weird Fiction" by H.P. Lovecraft:
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Random generators
If you're a DM that has to improvise a lot, and you have a laptop at hand during your sessions, the following site offers a wealth of tools:
Link

NewbieDM's take on where dnd is going:
Link


Quest for the dungeon master
Currently, I'm watching all episodes of the Dungens and Dragons cartoon again. This cartoon had some merchandise, such as action figures, etc., but I have never seen this one:
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Fantasy mashup
For the DM that cannot choose in which setting he wishes to position his campaign:
Link




Signs & Portents magazine
Mongoose's monthly magazine Signs & Portents can now be downloaded from Mongoose's site:
Link


The history of Dungeons and Dragons
Stargazers world has a really nice infographic about the history of dungeons and dragons
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Judge Dredd miniature game
Judge Dredd miniature game, again from Mongoose Publishing, can be downloaded free of charge from the Wargame vault.
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Monday motivations
At roleplay geek they have a weekly feature that explores adventuring motivations for different character classes.
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Rest in Piece Gary
And last, but not least: my post in memory of Gary Gygax (in Dutch):
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