In the seventies and early eighties, Traveller had it's own, dedicated, magazine. The magazine was called after the society in the original Traveller universe which aided wanderers across the galaxy with low-lost hostels in starports, and by providing a sort of Hitchhikers guide.
24 issues The magazine was started by GWD. In total 24 issues were made. After the 24th issue, and the demise of GWD, the magazine continued as Challenge. The magazine featured new rules, adventures, fiction, background materials and Traveller news (see the free table of contents for a complete overview).
Online magazine Currently, Steve Jackson Games publishes a bi-weekly online Traveller magazine, also called the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society, or JTAS for short.
Reissue as PDF The complete run of the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society can be found at RPGnow
The year is 2162. 150 years ago a scientific experiment conducted in Geneva, Switzerland went terribly wrong. This event would be known as The Big Mistake. Instantly, all possible parallel worlds were condensed into one single reality.
In a series of posts, Behold the Dice will sketch a vision of what is left of Europe in Gamma World
The big changes The costal regions of north-western Europe have fought a battle against the invading sea for centuries. In the events following the Big Mistake, the sea got the upper hand and claimed vast stretches of land. This has changed the coastal line of western Europe dramatically. In addition, several large cities, in particular the cities of Amsterdam, Hamburg and Berlin are nog submerged some 10 to 30 meters below sea level.
Temperature Gradually over the past 150 years, temperatures have been rising as a result of the more corrosive atmospheres on some of the merged worlds. Seasons still hold, with hot and damp tropical summers, and bleak and wet winters. Autumn and fall are not well defined. Both are a periods of 1 or 2 months in which the weather slides from chilly to hot and vice versa.
The landscape With the loss of a substantial part of society, nature has taken back control again in Europe. The costal region consists of mixed forrests and plains. In central Europe, vast pine forrests, ranging from the German western border to well within Russia have become dark and dangerous places.
Islands The changes in coastal line have produced a series of new islands. Ireland has split into two islands of equal size. In addition, Bretange has become an island, and the south of Sweden has become an island. The most important new island is the city of London that is surrounded by seawater. The suburbs of the city have been taken by the sea, but the majority of the city rises proud above the waves.
Mountain Ranges On the peaks of Europe not much has changed, apart from the glaciers, which are by now almost extinct. The cooler climate high in the Alps and Pyrenees have drawn several clans.
Space: 1970 is an excellent blog that features artwork, photo's etc. from science fiction shows and films from the 1970's. Take a look at this wonderful picture of a capital ship.
The picture is from the 1979 science fiction film The Black Hole. The film tells the story of the crew of the Palomino that boards the long-lost ship Cygnus. Here they have to stand up to faceless robots that have unhealthy plans for the visitors.
It's Link-sunday again here on Behold the Dice. Reading the gaming blogs so you won't have to.
Adventure Design Deskbook The Underdark gazette takes Mythmere's Adventure Design Deskbook Volume One for a testdrive. They show how an adventure is made using the random tables from the book. I'm really curious about the book! Link
Thousand Suns James Maliszewski talks on Grognardia about his Sci Fi RPG Thousand Suns. It's a game with limited background information. He talks about the challenges you have to face as a DM running an open ended sandbox campaign in the SciFi genre, while your characters have their own starship. Link Thousand Suns can be bought here from RPGNow and here from Rogue Games themselves.
Languages Kobold Quarterly has a great post on the working of the Speak Languages skill. The skill doesn't work as a skill, since you either know a language or you don't. In the blog, the skill is modified to work as a skill, with examples of DCs for different tasks etc. I never really thought of this one, bu I like it! This will be employed in our campaigns. Link
Traveller inspitation The Zhodani base links to 5 free ebooks from the project Gutenberg to use as inspiration for your Traveller game. It's old stuff, but good stuff. Link
Some of my own books for Traveller inspiration:
Gamma World adventure Sly Flourish has an exciting Gamma World adventure on his blog. Go check it out! Link
Pole arms You think you know your weapons, right? Especially the pole arms hold no surprises for you. You know your halberd, glaive, spear, even the exotic naginata. Well, think again. Do this test at Wizards to see where you stand. My score? An 8 out of 22 Link
Artwork from MERP Tales from the tower http://iguanaslair.blogspot.com/ regularly publishes artwork and maps from the Middle Earth Role Playing game (MERP). Look at this wonderful collection of drawings: Link
Space 1889 Frank Chadwick started a blog on Space:1889, and the steampunk genre in general. In the first posts he talks about France in the world of Space:1889, and on the position of steam punk in the pubishing industry. Link
How to survive a gaming convention Sly Flourish http://slyflourish.com/ Has a funny and insightful post on how to survise a gming covention. Link
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 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.
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
In the First Sauerburgh session, the adventurers sneaked into the armory to steal 3 helmets of the city guard. During that trip, Boriz managed to see part of the armory from the inside. Clever as he is, he quickly drew a map for future reference.
Charles Henry Moffit (Thijs) , SS Brownstone, admin, astrologer, navigator is zijn vak. Rookt sigaren.
Ltd.bd Jolnar (Stijn), Hotshot piloot èn koffie junk. Gediend op de SS Atlantis, naval tactics class
Jack Williams (Roel), Takeda station, manusje van alles briljante en klantgerichte handelaar, kent Charles nog van aanmelding bij scout opleiding.
Ed Ward (Martijn), SS Brownstone, marinier militaire operatie
Stacy Thrace (Gemma), Murpy’s Bar, in de entertainment branche, en engineer (Tim the toolman)
Max Atler (Vincent), Takeda station, heeft cash en is een dokter+.
Contacts
Rowry, Inchin planet, eigenaar en baron van Inchin.
Capt. Baccus, Inchin space, trader vliegt op Inchin en frequente bezoeker van Murphy’s.
Murphy, Tadeka station, eigenaar van de Bar, muziek is zijn passie, plaats waar je je “thuis” voelt.
Finkle, Takeda station, oom van Stacy (Gemma) vroegere eigenaar van “Beetle Juice” (Starbug SB class Multi purpose space craft)
Rajib, Takeda station, eigenaar van de S-mart.
Sandra, Takeda station, gezette vrouw maar doet alle administratie.
Habibi, Takeda station, eigenaar Galactic superdeals, oplichter komt van een oude en grote familie.
Takeda, Takeda station, oprichter van het station, leeft in weelde, geen idee hoe hij eruit ziet.
Jack, Bill and Henk, ergens in de buurt van Takeda station, domme gasten die ships en onderdelen inkopen/verkopen, hebben een eigen taaltje “brabbelen”.
Reichman, Inchin planet Inchin inspecteur (police) vermoeden dat Baccus illegale praktijken erop na houd.
Dynamite Bill - Miner waar we transportruns voor gedaan hebben
Places known:
Capital ship SS Brownstone
Docking station Class D bij planet Inchin groter dan nodig (admin office aanwezig)
Van alle markten in Sauerburgh is de markt in het Saraceens kwartier het meest vermaard om de exotische producten die er te krijgen zijn. Als je eenmaal op deze markt geweest bent is de winkel van Habibi niet zo bijzonder meer.
Sauerburgh is een stad met vele nationaliteiten binnen haar muren. Naast de vele nationaliteiten zijn er ook grote sociale verschillen. Daar waar de verschillende nationaliteiten elkaar kunnen verstaan wanneer zij hun "normale" taal gebruiken, is dit voor de sociale klassen niet het geval. Iemand uit een lage sociale klassen begrijpt (zonder intelligence check) maar weinig van een gesprek tussen mensen uit een hoge sociale klasse. Evenzo, mocht een lid van een hoge sociale klasse verzeild raken in een van de smerige en donkere kroegen waar het lagergeplaatste volk komt begrijpt hij in principe weinig tot niets van de gesprekken die hier gaande zijn.
Upper class De talen in de hogere sociale klassen kenmerken zich door de ingewikkelde en barokke uitingsvormen. Dit is de taal gemaakt voor salons. De taal onderscheidt zich van standaard taal zowel in vocabulaire als in zinsbouw. Daarnaast is een uitgebreide kennis van context noodzakelijk om de vele verwijzingen te snappen.
Lower class Aan de zelfkant van de samenleving worden straattalen gesproken. Deze talen zijn soms rauw en doeltreffend, andere keren juist van een ongekende schoonheid. Ook deze talen zijn onbegrijpelijk voor de niet-ingewijdde. De straattalen verschillen net als hun upperclass varianten van de standaard talen in vocabulaire en zinsbouw.
Huisregels voor talen in Sauerburgh
Taal leren Om een taal buiten je sociale klasse te kunnen leren gebruik je een nonweapon profficiency languages. De taal die je daarmee leert beperkt zich tot een doorsnede van nationaliteit en sociale klasse.
Untrained Untrained spreek je de taal niet. Je mag wel proberen om de standaard taal te spreken en daarbij je sociale klasse te verbergen. Hiervoor zul je een charismacheck moeten doen. Om een taal van de upper class te faken is kennis van de upper class onontbeerlijk. Wanneer je etiquette als proficiency hebt hoef je geen check te maken om je simpelweg te handhaven (iets waar je zonder etiquette al een check voor moet rollen). Je kunt echter geen uitgebreid gesprek aanknopen daarvoor is een charisma check nodig. Als een character daarbij ook local history, heraldry, of iets soortgelijks heeft telt een +1 bonus op een roll. Zoals dat gaat met checks met een sociale component: no retries!
(stukje aangepast nav discussie beneden)
Resources:
Bargoens Bargoens is de straattaal in de wijk Umsfeld, de wijk in Sauerburgh waar we beginnen.
