Once More With Feeling

Equipment, Background, Character Generation

This is the list of standard equipment. If you gained any money while creating your character, you can purchase equipment from this list prior to the start of the game.
This is a description of the ship, Nighthawk.
This is the layout of the ship.
This is the information Skrit's research on the Ancients produced.
This is a very sketchy outline of the story so far. I'll do my best to keep it fairly up-to-date.
This is a comprehensive list of the player characters. It's based on my notes. Should you have anything you'd like to add, let me know. Also I encourage you to flesh out your character's public description on Rondak's Party Roster.
This is a key for the big Spinward Marches map I have on Rondak's. I'm posting it here by request. While most of it is probably well-known to the Traveller fans among you, this particular map has neat planet illustrations for which I don't seem to have a key. If you happen to know the site it originally resided on out there, please drop me a line so I can get those decoded too.

Background Information

The campaign takes place in the canonical Traveller setting, the Third Imperium. The year is 1105, and the Emperor is Strephon, of the Alkhalikoi dynasty. It's a typical human-dominated space empire, set about 3,500 years in the future. There are various alien races, a system of nobility, and huge megacorporations. There are robots, AI's and androids. There are people with mysterious mental powers ("psionics"). The tech level is an interesting mix. There aren't any blasters, phasers or laser pistols, no light sabres or transporters. Tech levels from planet to planet can run the gamut from sticks and stones, through swords and crossbows, pistols and machineguns, up to air rafts, gauss pistols (needlers), laser carbines, grav belts, combat armor and plasma guns. Average-sized ships can be armed with missles, lasers and sandcasters. Large military vessels can have fighters, spinal-mounted meson guns, black globe generators, and so on. Starships "jump" through space from point to point, each jump taking about a week. That's also the speed of interstellar communications. In other words, there is no "interstellar radio." Communications packets are shipped between star systems via express boats ("Xboats").

The Major Races are those that independently developed jump drive. The generally-accepted list includes:
- Humaniti (Solomani, Vilani and Zhodani; there are Minor branches of Humaniti as well)
- Aslan (humanoid lions)
- Vargr (humanoid canines)
- K'kree (herbivorous centauroids)
- Hiver (giant starfish)
- Droyne (small winged reptiles)
- Ancients (unknown super-race)
There are numerous Minor alien races as well.

The campaign will take place in the Spinward Marches, a sector that is mostly under the control of the Third Imperium. It borders on the Vargr Extents and the Zhodani Consulate, and is not too far-removed from a collection of Aslan border states. There have been four "Frontier Wars" in the past between the Imperium and the Zhodani Consulate. Aslan and Vargr forces fought on both sides of those wars. Currently there is "cold war" between the Zhodani and the Imperium.

Additional Information:
- The Ancients. Many many years ago, a super-race ruled the stars. This race is gone now, but left a few ruins and artifacts behind. For unknown reasons, the Ancients visited Earth in prehistoric times and took samples of the life there. They seeded humans throughout known space, resulting in the three Major and multiple Minor branches of modern Humaniti. The Ancients also bioengineered the Vargr race from Terran canine stock, and seeded them in the area now known as the Vargr Extents.
- Humaniti. Those humans who were left to develop on Sol are now known as Solomani. The branch known as Vilani founded the First Imperium. The Vilani encountered the Solomani, resulting in war, collapse and the eventual establishment of a combined, Second Imperium. It collapsed in turn and was ultimately followed by the present Third Imperium. The Solomani Confederation fought for independence from the Imperium during the Solomani Rim War. The Imperium now occupies half of the Confederation worlds including Earth, and there is an uneasy detente. The humans of today's Imperium are mostly of mixed Vilani/Solomani blood. The Zhodani, who created the Zhodani Consulate, embrace the use of Psionics, and retain control of their separate domain. The Imperium, in general, mistrusts Psionics, who often get in trouble with the law.

Characters

We will be using the Classic Traveller rules set that was released in the 1970's. The game is played using six-sided dice.

I will need the following information from each player:
- Do you have any of the rulebooks (it's OK if you don't)
- What adventures have you read/played/run, so that I may avoid them
- Do you have any kind of character concept (although sometimes it's easier to generate a character without a prior concept). Please give me an idea what kind of world you're from (or let me know to decide for you).
- How would you like to get a character created (see options below)

Race - Here are your choices (if you’re interested in something else please let me know):
- Humans may be generic Imperial (mixed blood), Vilani, Solomani or Zhodani. You may also elect to be one of two different minor human races, either Darrian (an extremely high-tech border state) or Sword Worlder (another border state, very feudal, with a strong warrior ethic).
- Aslan have a society similar to that of Japan during the Shogunates. The males are usually warriors, and are each driven to acquire their own territory. The females mainly run the society, as the males can be rather single-minded.
- Vargr are considered impulsive, and they often play dominance games. Their area of space consists of many small domains with shifting borders.
- Droyne have physically/mentally divergent castes, each performing specific functions in society. Players would come from the caste that most closely approaches the independence and flexibility of humaniti.

Career (if you’re interested in something else, please let me know): This concept takes the place of the "character class" from D&D. Characters are run through a career path prior to actual play. Here are some of the careers. These five are more detailed than most, and thus offer more opportunities to acquire skills.
- Army
- Marines
- Navy (space navies)
- Scouts (space explorers)
- Merchants (with starships; not shopkeepers)
Depending on the race you play, you may have some other career options that are just as detailed as these first five. There are less-detailed career paths that offer fewer opportunities to learn skills. I will increase the number of skill-rolls that are normally available to these careers if you choose to play one.
- Pirates
- Belters
- Sailors (wet navy)
- Diplomats
- Doctors
- Flyers (air force)
- Barbarians
- Bureaucrats
- Rogues
- Nobles (dilettantes)
- Scientists
- Hunters
- "Other" ("trades, ne'er-do-wells, and the underworld." Basically you decide after you roll, based on the skills, what the character's background is.)

For the most part, careers cycle through four-year "terms of service."
- Enlistment vs the draft. If you fail your enlistment role for a particular career, you are subject to the draft and will be assigned to a career.
- After each term of service you may attempt to re-enlist. If you are rejected, then you are basically done with character generation and are ready to start the game. On the other hand, if you choose not to attempt re-enlistment, there is a chance that the service will insist that you serve one final term! Go figure.
- The longer you stay in the service (prior to play), the more skills and rank you may acquire, but the older your character will be.
- The character has a chance of dying (!), although we'll use the following optional rule. If you so desire, instead of dying the character is wounded near-unto-death, and is discharged after a prolonged recovery period. This way you have the option of keeping the character, or dumping him.
- There is a chance that your physical characteristics will degenerate as you get older. This can be counteracted with anti-aging drugs. "Anagathics" are expensive, rare and even illegal in some places.
- The longer a character stays in the service, the more rolls he gets for "mustering out" benefits. These include money, gear and even starships!

Character Stats:
Strength
Dexterity
Endurance
Intelligence
Education
Social Standing

Stats are rolled on 2d6. The first three physical characteristics are your "hit points." If you're going to play an alien then we'll go into any changes that may be necessary. Social standing of eleven or greater indicates hereditary nobility in the Imperium. Stats may increase or decrease during the character creation process. As a House Rule, I will allow you to rearrange the stats you roll in order to get a character you like. This will need to be done at the very beginning of character creation, prior to any adjustments (such as for race).

Traveller does not have experience points as many other games do. Traveller envisions that your character does most of his learning in school and in his career. He has already learned the majority of his skills by the time the player campaign begins. The rules do allow for increasing skills and stats during the player campaign, but at a reasonable rate. If you'd like to increase either stats or skills, then designate a stat and/or a skill that you'd like to work on. We will settle on a rationale for how your character is increasing this score, and as game time progresses, so will your score. (Please note that I reserve the right to modify the official rules in this area.)

Skills are listed with an associated rank, ie Handgun-1 or Navigation-2. Skills normally range from one to six. Player characters sometimes have certain skills at a rank of zero. This is different from not having a skill at all; rather it indicates a very basic level of proficiency. For instance, Wheeled Vehicle-0 would indicate the very basic training necessary to drive a car. Vacc Suit-1 indicates a professional level of competency. Einstein had Physics-6, Mozart had Music-6, and so on.

There is a cap on the total number of skill levels your character may acquire. This total is equal to your Intelligence plus your Education. Total up the skill levels at the end of character generation. If you have acquired too many skill levels, you may selectively reduce them. You should retain any skills that were granted automatically as a result of your career. For example, Army Basic Training gives you a Gun Combat skill at rank one. You cannot reduce that skill below rank one.

Part of the character creation process is designating the character's homeworld. This can have an effect on what career options are available to you. Were you born on an asteroid belt or a huge, high-gravity world? Did you go to school every day through a poisonous atmosphere, wearing a filter mask? Or did you grow up with dolphins on a water world? Did your planet have a Class A starport, or just a scorched field where the occasional tramp freighter would set down? Come up with a concept, and we'll settle on which planet it was. We'll need to do so before you actually begin character generation.

If you have a character concept in mind, I'd like to hear about it before we go through the whole process. While I've been flexible in the past, I'd prefer not to have to rationalize how the famous pirate, the enemy diplomat, the son of the Marquis, the spy and the slutty rock star all ended up on the same adventure.

We have a few options for creating characters.
- If you have the appropriate rulebook, you can create a character and email it to me. (After we've discussed the concept and the homeworld, along with any other special procedures that might be applicable.) Then I'll let you know if we need to change anything.
- I can send you a pre-made character after discussing with you what you might like.
- We can email back-and-forth, walking through the process and creating a character.
- I can email you a character generator after discussing with you what you might like. It won't create a character exactly the way I'd have done it, and you won't have much control over the results. But you can use it to create a character quickly, without having to wade through rulebooks. Of course, given that rationale, I could just as easily run the generator here and give you a pre-made character that approximates what you're looking for.