There’s so much Traveller goodness happening over here at the Great Dungeon it’s been hard to keep up. Here’s a quick recap of a few recent items.
Clans of the Aslan
I was pleasantly surprised to see this book has popped up on the Mongoose release schedule, where it is currently listed as “In Layout.” If the schedule holds the PDF could be ready as early as December with hard copies in April. Here’s the description:
Explore the inner workings of a clan, learn about the secret warrior schools, and see what life inside the Aslan Hierate is really like – insights rarely granted to outsiders. Clans of the Aslan provides tips and ideas on running a campaign set amongst the Aslan, along with new options for creating and playing Aslan Travellers. Furthermore, Clans of the Aslan provides rules for creating and running your own clans, as well as descriptions of important Aslan clans and worlds drawn from across Charted Space.
As always, the schedule is tentative and subject to the dictates of the Service, etc.
This is Free Trader Beowulf: A System History of Traveller
This is Shannon Appelcline’s deep dive into the game’s nearly 50-year long, occasionally convoluted history. Although I’ve had the PDF of this book for a while, the hard copy only landed a month ago. It’s a great looking book with plenty of nice art and an attractive layout: the “landscape orientation” is a nice change of pace that perfectly suits the material.
Shannon’s research here is truly impressive in its depth and breadth. Although I’ve poked around much of the source material myself, Shannon fills in many of my own gaps and provides a nicely objective perspective on some of the more . . . er, controversial . . . moments in the game’s history.
Every chapter has contained some intriguing nugget I didn’t know about—for example, Games Workshop had, at one point, planned for Andy Slack to produce a supplement on “The Riftspan Reaches” and Bob McWilliams on “The Trojan Reach.” The Great Dungeon’s post on Placing the Nebula in Dark Nebula even gets cited in the chapter on Traveller boardgames!
Journal of Travellers’ Aid Society 15
Mongoose has continued to put out issues of JTAS at a regular clip, with issue 15 arriving just a few weeks ago. I had several pieces that compliment material in the Deep and the Dark:
- “Rock Ape” (p. 33) - A conversion of an alien animal native to Roakhoi (Reaver's Deep 1224 C969543-5), which first appeared in Far Traveller 1. It’s great to see some nice color art for these weirdos.
- “Nymph Provincial Merchant” (p. 35) - A conversion of a common Reaver’s Deep starship described in the Keith Brothers’ Letter of Marque.
- “System Data in the Deep” (p. 38) - One hazard of travelling in Aslan space or the Buffer is the limited and unreliable nature of system data; this piece describes how to use that in a game.
- “The Saie” (p. 44) - A mysterious alien race developed by the Keith Brothers and described in several Reaver’s Deep sources.
- “Trade Pioneers” (p. 66) - A new career that blends elements of a Merchant and a Scout. The concept features prominently in several of the Keith Brothers’ Marischal adventures but the ultimate inspiration, I believe, comes from Andre Norton’s Solar Queen books, which heavily influenced Traveller.
- “Mercenaries of the Deep and the Dark” (p. 91) - An overview of merc companies using the system detailed in MgT Mercenary.
- “Syo” (p. 119) - A Kusyuan animal domesticated by the Aslan. I had been thinking that while humans breed animals for increased docility and consistency, the Aslan would probably have entirely opposite motivations: they want to eat animals with spirit and distinctiveness.
- “Providence Bulk Cargo Carrier” (p. 120) - Another starship conversion from Letter of Marque.
Journal of Travellers’ Aid Society 16
The latest issue landed just this week:
- “Starship Encounters in the Deep and the Dark” (p. 4) - A good sandbox game needs encounter tables, and this piece provides several different tables for Solomani, Aslan, and neutral systems.
- “The Lhshana” (p. 36) - A minor race from Reaver’s Deep, created by the Keith Brothers.
- “Type-CF Fast Courier” (p. 73) - A conversion of a starship described in Golden Age Starships 1: Fast Courier.
- “Terran Cultural Missions” (p. 91) - A bit of background from the Long Night period of Charted Space.
- “Type-SA Free Trader” (p. 97) - An MgT 2e conversion of a classic Solomani design that goes all the way back to the CT Alien module.
