The Terran Trade Authority, Traveller, and Setting Greebles

When I was a kid, one of the big retail stores near my house (maybe Kmart?) had a bargain bin for books. I was particularly drawn to the disorganized piles of large, glossy, science fiction books. I killed a lot of time there gawking at color illustrations of starships, space battles, and weird aliens. Eventually I was able to acquire a few of these titles, which were mostly from Steven Caldwell’s Galactic Encounters series.

Caldwell would use repurposed sci-fi paintings to illustrate a classic space opera setting of his own creation. I spent an enormous amount of time reading and re-reading these books, and my two favorites were probably Aliens in Space (1979) and Worlds at War (1980).

I particularly loved that the books were all written from an in-setting perspective—for example, Aliens in Space is presented as a “real” product of the Federal Data Bureau “to provide a comprehensive service for space travelers.” Even “Steven Caldwell,” as described by the dust jackets, “joined the Federation Security Force in 2393, and quickly rose to the rank of Group 1 Battleforce Commander. During his 15 years of active service he travelled to all parts of the Federation, and was awarded the Andromeda Star for his part in the settlement of the perimeter words.”

This commitment to the in-setting perspective helped foster an immersive experience—the Federation setting felt real and deep—while also leaving open a great deal to the imagination. Because the books were written for in-setting readers, they don’t spend a lot of time providing definitions or explanations of terms or concepts. You are just dropped into this unfamiliar milieu and have to puzzle out what these things mean.

The Galactic Encounters books helped foster my interest in science fiction at a time when the genre was still a bit niche and underrepresented in popular culture. Although science fiction has now thoroughly permeated television and the movies, once upon a time a fan had to look hard for decent science fiction material. So I was a bit surprised to realize, many years later, that the Galactic Encounters series was actually a knock-off of an earlier, much more influential series written by the very same author. Steven Caldwell, it turns out, was a pseudonym for Stewart Cowley, who was the author of the Terran Trade Authority books. 

In an interesting interview, Cowley explains how the TTA series came to be:

I was working as a graphic designer when I had the idea. I was doing work with an illustration agency [that] happened to represent a new generation of brilliant artists working in the SF arena, and I was really excited about their work. The only outlet for their illustrations at the time were paperback covers, but I felt convinced more could be done with the amazing images they were producing.

I persuaded them to loan me file transparencies of art samples and had them stuck on my lightbox for a couple of weeks. I'd look at them every day, trying to think how they could be utilised. Then one day I remembered a book I'd had seen as a child. It was Jane's Fighting Ships—a survey of the world's navies—and it hit me. Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD was born. Being a designer rather than a writer, I tried to find someone to author the project but couldn't find anyone with the same vision as I had. I wanted someone who could not only create specifications for the spacecraft shown, but set them in a believeable historic context.

I was surprised to read that Cowley and many fans consider my beloved Galactic Encounters books to be inferior to the TTA books. Both series have been out-of-print for many years and tend to be fairly expensive, but recently I was able to get my mitts on a good copy of Spacecraft 2000–2100 AD (1978), which was the first and generally considered the best of the TTA line. It’s quite good, and clearly shares plenty of genetic material with the setting described in Galactic Encounters. 

But it also seems to share a lot with the Traveller RPG.

I’ve been unable to find an interview or essay that discusses any relationship between Traveller and the TTA. Certainly both TTA and Traveller draw heavily on a common space opera framework: the TTA war with Proxima, for example, has many echoes with the Traveller Interstellar Wars. Both fictional histories are pretty standard space opera fare: Earth unites to fight off a technologically superior alien invader with determination and innovation

Similarly, if Jane’s Fighting Ships influenced Cowley it obviously influenced Traveller’s supplement 9, Fighting Ships. But I have to wonder if, given the timeframe, perhaps the TTA books had a more direct influence on Traveller designers. The T4 line, for instance, certainly used a lot of Chris Foss art for its covers.

Many Traveller books are at least partially written from an in-setting perspective. Several Traveller game constructs such as the Universal Personality Profile neatly double as in-setting artifacts as well. 

One technique used effectively by both Traveller and the TTA books is what I’ll call Setting Greebles. In modeling, a greeble “is a prominent detailing added to the surface of a larger object that makes it appear more complex, and therefore more visually interesting. It usually gives the audience an impression of increased scale.” 

Think of all the little widgets and doohickies that pepper the hull of the Nostromo or an Imperial Star Destroyer. These things don’t necessarily have a function but look cool and create an illusion of complexity.

Both Traveller and the TTA books are filled with these little setting greebles—small bits of specificity salted into the text to create a sense of verisimilitude. An effective greeble might drop a particular date, or model number, or manufacturer, or world name without any explanation. And I think the more casually and confidently these greebles are presented, the better. Of course the DeVrass Generator opened the road to the stars. Of course the Sylea-class is an Imperial 100,000 ton battleship.

The beauty of a good greeble is it forces a reader to stop in the face of an unfamiliar term and imagine what it might actually denote. The old DGP book Solomani and Aslan (1991) for example, contains an illustration of human variant races that include a “Cassilldan,” an extremely tall figure in loose garb with a sword. No other details are provided and many Traveller fans have speculated about this race over the years. Where are they from? How tall are they really? Why does he have a sword?

An awful lot of Traveller canon has sprung up from writers extrapolating or interpolating details from just a handful of greebles. Sometimes these exercises produce really interesting or innovative material, but sometimes these additional details actually give us too much of a good thing. Part of the magic of a good greeble is its ambiguity: it creates the illusion of a deep and textured setting while simultaneously remaining open and undefined. We can murder this with too much explanation, like a butterfly pinned to a board.

Any published RPG setting has to navigate an inherent tension between giving too much or too little detail. A great setting book should establish what is unique and interesting about the setting and provide tools for a referee to run their own adventures. Too little detail, and the referee may have difficulty understanding the setting well enough to use it in a game: why buy a setting if you are making up everything yourself? But too much detail may overwhelm the referee and be overly constraining.

As demonstrated by TTA, setting greebles can be a highly effective technique for Traveller and other RPG settings. Good setting greebles help readers understand the milieu and instill a sense of verisimilitude—but do not restrict the referee with data dumps of canon.

A Guide to Tralp

The Tralp mainworld. Planetary data courtesy of the Solomani Ministry of Information (1099).

Travellers should carefully weigh the risks before entering any system held by the Reformed Dootchen Estates and in particular the high population world of Tralp. The Travellers’ Aid Society urges Imperial citizens to treat any Confederation world as an Amber Zone and has issued a specific advisory bulletin for the Estates due to its racial purity policies. Non-Human sophonts and non-Solomani Humans may be subject to harassment, detention, and even violence while within its borders. —The Savage Main: Dark Nebula and Magyar Sectors, 3rd Ed. Farstar Publishing (Marlheim: 1095).

Tralp (Magyar 1913 D968998-8). Pre-Rich, High Population. Member of the Reformed Dootchen Estates, a member-state of the Solomani Confederation.

One of the most polarizing worlds in all of Charted Space, Tralp is revered by its admirers and reviled by its critics in almost equal measure. The world is the cultural heart of the Reformed Dootchen Estates, one of the few remaining polities to openly engage in chattel slavery, a practice explicitly outlawed by Article VI of the Imperial Warrant of Restoration. Militaristic and expansionistic, Tralp is championed by racial purity factions of the Solomani Party while condemned as a pariah state by the Imperium.

System Data

The Tralp system is located in the Tralp Cluster, a small astrographic grouping of five stars located in Voyager (G) subsector of Magyar. The Cluster is located only a few parsecs from the Third Imperium, within the borders of the Solomani Confederation.

Primary Moderster. Spectral Class K5 V. Mass 0.65 M☉. Stellar Radius 0.715 R☉. 100 Diameter Limit 0.67 AU. Luminosity 0.17 L☉. Absolute Magnitude +6.65.

Tralp System Navigation Data

Orbit	Name	UWP	Remarks
Primary	Moderster	K5 V
0	Skroi	YBC1000-0	Tz
1	Grood	FC55665-2	Fa Ho Tz
2	Tralp	D968998-8	Hi Pr
	Aitan	F311665-9	Sa
3	Stort	Y9A5569-8	Pe Co
4	Koe	Y000100-7
5	Roi	Size V LGG
6	Gron	Size M SGG
7	Gris	Size P IG
8	Verwerld	H101331-7	Fr
IS Form 11		Star System Data

In addition to the mainworld, the Tralp system features several notable secondary worlds. Grood is a hot, tidally-locked, high gravity farming world orbiting the primary at 0.25 AU. Tralp’s only moon, Aitan, has a Class F spaceport that actually sees more traffic than the primitive Class D downport on the mainworld surface. Stort is a cold, large world with a very thick nitrogen-helium atmosphere, orbiting at 0.77 AU. Tralp uses the world as a dreaded penal colony and Solomani Security is rumored to maintain a black site somewhere onworld.

Planetary Data

Mean Orbital Radius 64.3 million km (0.43 AU). Period 195 days. Rotation Period 35h 47m 24s. Axial Inclination 14° 51′ 66″. Diameter 14,011 km. Mass 1.41 M🜨. Density 5.9 g/cm³. Mean Surface Gravity 1.17g. Escape Velocity 12.722 km/s. Surface Atmospheric Pressure 1.19 atm. Composition standard oxygen-nitrogen. Hydrographic Percentage 84%. Mean Surface Temperature 21.56° C.

The Tralp mainworld is sometimes described as superhabitable: slightly older, larger, wetter, and warmer than Terra, the planet supports a vibrant native ecosystem that is broadly compatible with Terran life. Most of Tralp’s landmass is concentrated in a single supercontinent divided into four distinct subcontinents: Ooslin, Hartlan, and Weslin are generally located in the northern hemisphere, while Berglan is primarily located in the southern hemisphere. Two large islands in the southern hemisphere are often classed as small continents: Dane, located south of Osslin, and Laurika, located south of Weslin. The great, deep Gevarlik Ocean stretches from pole to pole and touches all six continents. The smaller, shallow Hawin Sea lies along the eastern coasts of Hartlan and Berglan and the western coasts of Ooslin and Dane.

All native life on Tralp is water-based, dominated by a diverse and abundant range of plant-like forms that occupy ecological niches similar to Terran plants. Most of these plants utilize a form of photosynthesis and are notable for the vibrant red and purple coloration of their leaves, which give Tralp its distinct appearance. The fertile plains of Hartlan have a variety of grasses, including the iconic savannas of tralpstalk. The equatorial canopy jungles of Dane and western Berglan teem with life.

Tralp has only one phylum of animal life, viervoetia, strange four limbed creatures most closely resembling the Terran starfish. They have hydrostatic skeletons and relatively simple anatomies; many utilize defensive neurotoxins and so are inedible to Terran life. The phylum has proven astonishingly adaptable, producing entire families of burrowers, crawlers, and swimmers. And while Tralp does not appear to have evolved any true fliers, some viervoetia are gliders, able to soar through forested areas.

World Map Grid
World Name (and UWP) Tralp D968998-8	Subsector and Sector Location of World Voyager/Magyar
Date of Preparation 223-1102	Hexagon Scale (km) 1,005
IS Form 8-J	Size 9 World Map Grid

History

Timeline

Year	Event
-2408	The Interstellar Wars begin between Terra and the First Imperium.
-2348	Terrans survey Tralp system.
-2323	Terran Confederation émigrés establish a colony on Tralp.
-2219	End of Interstellar Wars era and defeat of First Imperium.
-2204	Military coup replaces Terran Confederation with the Rule of Man.
-2000	Scattered Terran colonies now well-established throughout Magyar.
-1850	Long Night begins in Magyar as contact is lost with Rule of Man capital.
-1700	Aslan explorers out of Dark Nebula venture into Magyar.
-1690	Terran Mercantile Community established on Terra.
-1500	Long Night deepens. Reaver and Aslan fleets raid throughout Magyar. Tralp seizes Giiri Cluster.
-1400	Tralp institutes racial caste system on its occupied worlds.
-1200	Terran Mercantile Community withdraws from Magyar.
-1120	Aslan Border Wars begin.
-1100	Reaver activity slows and eventually stops.
-500	Tralp establishes a pocket empire. Aslan begin seizing spinward Magyar worlds.
-242	Aslan expansion is checked by Tralp and other Magyar states.
0	Foundation of the Third Imperium.
150	Imperial scouts reach the coreward regions of Magyar.
180	Old Earth Union recontacts Magyar worlds.
212	Magyar states drive many Aslan clans out of the sector. Treaty of Dark Nebula is signed.
374	Four major and 16 minor Aslan clans declare war on Old Earth Union, Tralp, and additional Magyar states.
378	Third Imperium signs Peace of Ftahalr with major Aslan clans, ending Aslan Border Wars.
400	Many worlds in Magyar are abosorbed by expanding Third Imperium. Tralp resists pressure to join.
704	Solomani Autonomous Region formed.
850	Solomani political theory becomes increasingly racist and chauvinistic. Tralp’s influence grows.
871	Solomani Confederation founded with its capital on Terra.
920	Tralp pocket empire reorganizes as the Dootchen Estates.
990	Solomani Rim War begins.
1001	Imperial forces raid Estates and sack Tralp. Estates collapse.
1002	Solomani Rim War ends with defeat of the Confederation. An armed insurgency emerges on Tralp.
1007	Dootchen Estates reform.
1016	Tralp security forces crush onworld insurgency.
1065	Estates seize Last Pine but withdraw after Imperial Navy captures Tralp. Estates capital moved to Dreesen.

Tralp was first colonized during the Interstellar Wars by cultural dissidents who refused to assimilate into the Terran Confederation. The initial settlers, consisting of some 500 families, envisioned Tralp as an agricultural world: they divided the planet into separate estates. The colonists employed a crude slash-and-burn technique to clear land for Terran crops, which had difficulty competing with native Tralpean plants. Combating the native flora created an incessant economic drive for additional land and labor as well as regular chemical supplements and pesticides.

As the Rule of Man collapsed and technology levels crashed, the population of the Tralp exploded and the world began preying on neighboring systems, seizing technological resources and laying claim to entire worlds. The first worlds to fall were located in the Girii Cluster, nine systems centered on the high-population Vilani world of Girii, now known as Ownes (Magyar 1917). By -1400 the Tralpean occupiers had stripped the Vilani inhabitants of their property and instituted a cruel racially-based class structure that grew only more stratified as the Long Night deepened.

By -500 Tralp and its subject worlds formed a pocket empire strong enough to push back against the Aslan and the neighboring Neoslavic Bloc. While never a true naval power, Tralp maintained formidable ground armies to seize and hold new worlds. The fabled Azlaantroepe were elite armored units said to have been specifically created to combat Aslan raiders.

The arrival of the Third Imperium represented a significant threat to Tralp as surrounding worlds clamored for Imperial protection. The case for intervention was strengthened by the Tralp’s brazen use of chattel slavery, anathema to Imperial sensibilities. By 400 most of the surrounding worlds joined the Imperium while Tralp stood alone.

Tralp was encouraged by the creation of the Solomani Autonomous Sphere in 704 and became a strong advocate for formation of the Solomani Confederation in 871. This new government allowed Tralp and its subject worlds to join the Confederation as a powerful member-state. Tralp’s unsavory racial politics and enthusiasm for military intervention soon made the Estates the darling of more radical elements within the Solomani Party, and the Estates enjoyed an unusual degree of influence within the larger Confederation.

During the Solomani Rim War the Dootchen Estates were specifically singled out as an example to other Confederation worlds. The Imperial 9th Provisional Battle Fleet destroyed Tralp’s Class B starport and left the capital city of Tralpstad a smoldering ruin. After razing Tralp the 9th Fleet then harassed other Dootchen worlds until the Estates collapsed at the end of 1001. The Estates reformed in 1007, but were much diminished.

Tralp spent the next decade combating a tenacious onworld insurgency that had been initially encouraged by the Imperium. However, by 1016 the Imperium had abandoned the remaining insurgents, who were ruthlessly crushed by Tralpean security forces.

Over the next 50 years the Estates rebuilt and slowly regained influence within the Confederation, but not before one final setback. In 1065 the Estates invaded and occupied the Imperial system of Last Pine (Magyar 2312). In retaliation the Imperials dispatched the 413th BatRon and 105th AssaultRon to Tralp. The Imperial force quickly overcame system defenses, destroyed the newly rebuilt Class B starport, and stood off in high orbit above the mainworld. The Confederation was unusually slow to mount a response: within a month the Estates withdrew from Last Pine and the Imperials pulled out of Tralp. Shortly thereafter the capital of the Estates was moved to Dreesen (Magyar 1916).

Socio-Political Data

Total World Population 2.69 billion. Primary Cities Rodolph, 6.6 million; Magdalena, 3.9 million; Tralpstad, 2.3 million; Koen, 1.6 million; Mirte, 1.3 million. World Government Impersonal Bureaucracy (Tralpean Assembly). Law Level High (blade weapons controlled, no open display). Tech Level Pre-Stellar (8). Primary Trade Goods Agricultural, Minerals, Manufactured Goods.

Dootchen (Language)

The primary language of Tralp, where it originated, Dootchen is a distant variant of ancient Terran German with many Anglic loanwords. Dootchen is the official language of the Estates, where all other languages beyond Rim Anglic are strictly prohibited. Dootchen is common within Voyager subsector but rarely spoken outside it.

Low Dootchen is a spoken dialect used exclusively by bondmen, marked by syntactic fluidity as well as the preservation of numerous ancient Vilani words.

As of 1100, Tralp clings to its odious caste system despite intense criticism from outside the Estates. Tralpean society is divided into three hereditary classes, with virtually no upward movement and only occasional downward movement between the classes.

Approximately 60% of Tralp’s population are bondmen (slaf), who are considered the personal property of their owners. Bondmen, primarily descended from Vilani, lack the fundamental rights normally accrued to sophonts and can be bought, sold, or traded. Bondmen are generally used for menial labor, typically on vast agricultural estates.

Approximately 30% of Tralp’s population are freeman (vriman), who have rudimentary rights but do not own land and thus have no political representation. Most Freemen are found in urban areas, often employed by industrial or mercantile concerns.

Finally, some 10% of Tralp’s population belongs to the landowner (grondinar) class, who are exclusively of pure Solomani ancestry. Land is the fundamental measure of wealth and influence on Tralp: only landowners are able to own land and bondmen; only landowners are entitled to participate in Tralp’s government. Tralpean culture is not simply racist, but also deeply sexist: land can only be passed to male heirs and distinct gender roles are strongly enforced.

Tralp is governed by an Assembly of Landholders, which is headed by Secretary-General Henrik Peerts. The Secretary-General oversees the ministries and also appoints planetary representatives to the Dootchen Estates Senate on Dreesen.

Tralp also has an independent court system, expressly designed to validate, enforce, and perpetuate the caste system. As the landowner class lives in constant fear of a violent uprising from the bondmen, Tralp law gives considerable deference to landowners but imposes strict limits on bondmen and freemen. Only landowners, for example, are allowed to own personal firearms and enjoy freedom of movement between different provinces.

Although offworld activists have long dreamt of rekindling an insurgency on Tralp, the Ghenzi, the Dootchen Secret Police, are a highly effective internal security force with a counterintelligence program that rivals Solomani Security. Ghenzi agents are feared for both their ruthlessness and brutal interrogation techniques.

Despite the oppressive law levels imposed upon its own citizens, the Estates openly flout interstellar law. Technologies, products, and practices outlawed by neighboring systems can often be purchased at the starports of the Estates, which are rumored to be havens for pirates operating in Imperial space. The Estates mint their own currency, the Dootchen Stater: platinum coins worth approximately Cr1200. Although illegal in the Imperium, the stater is favored by criminals on both sides of the border due to its portability and easy conversion.

Tralp’s extremist racial policies draw sympathetic tourists from throughout the Solomani Sphere, including disaffected Imperials. All are drawn to a romanticized world that defied the Imperium and has embraced a destiny of racial purity. Tralp and the Solomani Party actively encourage these travellers if they are genetically pure Solomani.

Although not classified as an agricultural world, Tralp’s identity and primary economic products are closely associated with agriculture. Tralp settlers required centuries to domesticate any of the native plants, but the primary crops now are a native sugar grass (sukregrass) and starchy tuber (gronbeet). Other important agricultural products are the rundlebeast, a Terran beef cattle bred for Tralp, and Tralpean shiraz, a highly regarded wine.

The mountains of central Berglan contain significant mineral resources and the mines, some of which have been worked for hundreds of years, continue to produce tremendous wealth for the landowners. Large factory complexes ring all of the large cities and towns of Tralp, churning out inexpensive and relatively low quality consumer goods.

Tralp has only a high pre-stellar tech level but the state-owned Koenwapen corporation is renowned for its personal slug-throwers and combat armor. Koenwapen products such as the EON heavy assault shotgun or the KW-8 bullpup SMG are favored by mercenaries throughout Magyar sector.

Miltary Data

Dootchen Armored Units

A mainstay of the Estates’ ground units are Renoster V heavy grav tanks, TL14 monstrosities manufactured by Cloete Systems on Dreesen. This model, introduced in 1088, is a little heavier and better armored than the Sartorius, the standard heavy grav tank of the Solomani Confederation Army. A Renoster V is equipped with a rapid-pulse 74 MJ fusion gun and is expected to stand up against the new Imperial main battle tank, rumored to be entering service some time before 1110. Renoster Vs are direct descendants of the famed Renosters used in the Solomani Rim War and said to share the same resilience and reliability as their predecessors.

Under the supervision of the Solomani Confederation, the Estates control the combined Home Guard forces of all member worlds. Frequently activated for call-ups, Solomani Party propaganda touts the fearsome reputation of the Army of the Reformed Dootchen Estates. Most sons of the landowner class are sent to Dootchen military academies at age seven for ten rigorous years of education. Some of these academies, such as the Mirte Institute, are so prestigious that Party members from across the Confederation pay dearly to have their own sons attend. All male landowners are expected to provide at least five years of military service before their 30th birthday, and many volunteer for even longer terms.

In reality, Tralp is severely constrained by its low technology level: a punishing amount of the planetary economy is diverted to the support of its military aspirations. Tralp also depends heavily upon subsidies from the rest of the Estates as well as the Confederation in order to field units that could compete with Imperial forces.

The Estates and Confederation navies provide most naval support to Tralp. The closest Confederation base, at nearby Namedih (Magyar 1713 B300430-D), hosts the 231st FleetRon and the 456th PatRon. The Estates Navy stations the Dootchen AssaultRon in-system at a small naval base in orbit around Aitan. The AssaultRon can quickly transport an entire division of ground forces to hot spots across the Confederation. The base also supports Tralp’s wing of system defense boats, made up of venerable TL9, 500-ton Skild-class SDBs.

The Tralp planetary defense forces include ten TL11 lift infantry armies not suitable for off-world deployment as well as three TL13 lift infantry armies and two TL13 grav tank armies. The most frequently deployed ground force unit is the Tralpkorps, a TL14 armored infantry corps.

The Estates stations on Aitan the storied Eerste regiment of the Azlaantroepe. This elite TL14 unit includes three lift infantry battalions and one grav tank battalion. During the Rim War the Eerste regiment fought in several major engagements in the Solomani Rim but was recalled just prior to the Battle of Terra.

The infamous Gidea Kommandos are a “foreign legion” military unit consisting of three battalions of assault infantry. Any genetically pure Solomani volunteer may join the Kommandos and receive a full pardon for any crime as well as freeman status upon discharge. The regiment is reserved for the most dangerous and desperate actions, such as the 1001 defense of Sinott.

Dootchen mercenary units are notorious for their no-questions-asked willingness to take on the dirtiest, most difficult tickets—missions no other unit would accept. Such units are sometimes encountered in Imperial space working for criminal organizations, unscrupulous nobles, or corporations. Mullen Security is a successful TL12 company-sized unit composed largely of veterans from the Gidea Kommandos. In 1097 contractors from Mullen were accused of participating in a massacre during a brushfire war on Higdon (Magyar 1818 C999775-9). To date no charges have been filed in the matter.

Copyright Information

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2020 Far Future Enterprises. Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises. Far Future permits web sites and fanzines for this game, provided it contains this notice, that Far Future is notified, and subject to a withdrawal of permission on 90 days notice. The contents of this site are for personal, non-commercial use only. Any use of Far Future Enterprises’s copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. In addition, any program/articles/file on this site cannot be republished or distributed without the consent of the author who contributed it.

Materials produced by Digest Group Publications (DGP) are copyright © Roger Sanger. Any use of Digest Group Publications’ copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this Web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights. Usage is intended to follow the guidelines announced by Roger Sanger on the Traveller Mailing List for preserving the overall Traveller milieu.

Superhabitable Worlds and Traveller

The superhabitable world of Hesselgrave (Magyar 2939 CA98696-8).

A recent article in the journal Astrobiology has reignited interest in superhabitable worlds: exoplanets that might represent the best opportunity for harboring extraterrestrial life. While many researchers have assumed that alien life would be most likely found on planets most closely resembling Earth, others have proposed that slightly older, larger, and warmer worlds would be even better candidates for extraterrestrial life.

Following this logic, a K dwarf star might be more likely to support the development of extraterrestrial life than our own G-dwarf type star. Although cooler, less massive, and less luminous, an orange K dwarf star has a much longer lifespan and may have a wider habitable zone.

Translating the superhabitable parameters into Traveller⁵ terms, we get a set of criteria something like this: 

• K-dwarf primary
• Orbit 2
• Size 89A
• Atm 6789
• Hydro 678

A few other superhabitable parameters—for example, the presence of a slightly larger or nearer moon than Luna—are not detailed in standard Traveller world generation, but can be determined during extended system generation.

[There] is life everywhere. Worlds naturally spawn their own life forms, and many produce intelligent species —MT Referee’s Manual 7.

The Third Imperium setting assumes that extraterrestrial life is fairly common within Charted Space, though no one game mechanic has been consistently used across editions to determine the presence or absence of native life. 

DGP’s World Builder’s Handbook (1989) has a nice, simple system for indicating native life: a 2D roll of 10+, modified by primary type, orbit, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. A garden world (Size 678, Atmosphere 568, Hydrosphere 567) orbiting in the habitable zone of a G or K dwarf could have a total DM of +6, meaning native life would have developed on 83% to 92% of the worlds meeting those criteria. In contrast, a desert world (Atmosphere 23456789, Hydrosphere 0) orbiting a type F star would have DMs ranging from -4 to +1, with odds of native life ranging from 0% to 28%. That’s quite high for my personal tastes, but seems roughly consistent with the published OTU. 

GURPS Traveller: First In (1999) provides a different determination method in which the age of the primary star is a fairly large variable. If we assume a K dwarf system might be anywhere from 1 to 12 billion years old, the modifier could range from +1 to a whopping +24! An ocean world (in this context, a world with some surface water and oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere) orbiting a 6-billion-year-old K dwarf star in the habitable zone would have a +14 modifier. Such a world has a 100% chance of harboring native life, the nature of which which breaks down to a 2.77% chance for protozoa, 5.55% for metazoa, 8.33% for simple animals, and a 83.33% of complex animals. A desert world would have no chance for harboring native life.

Traveller⁵, surprisingly, does not have an analogous mechanism—perhaps because that edition seemingly assumes any planet with an atmosphere of 2+ and a population of 7+ in the habitable zone has not just native life, but Intelligent Native Life. That's way too much for me. I'm not looking to Traveller for super hard sci fi, but not the Star Wars cantina either.

In any case, superhabitable worlds as we defined them above should be very strong contenders for native life in the OTU, if not total locks. In Magyar sector, three worlds meet the superhabitable criteria:

• Nosret (2807 A897477-D). This world was within the Vilani Ziru Sirka, so has potentially been inhabited for thousands of years. It's got a class A starport, is on the Xboat route, but only a population of 4. Perhaps it has native life, but that life is incompatible or inimical to Humans. Maybe the dense atmosphere is tainted with microbes or spores.
• Tralp (1913 D968998-8). This world has some canonical history: beyond the Ziru Sirka, it was settled by Terran emigres by -2204 and grew into the Reformed Dootchen Estates. Probably the native life was compatible with Terran life.
• Hesselgrave (2939 CA98696-8). Also beyond the Ziru Sirka, this world may have been incorporated into the Terran Confederation and/or the Rule of Man, but might not have been settled until after the Long Night. Like Nosret, the native life may not have been really compatible with Terran life.

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The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2020 Far Future Enterprises. Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises. Far Future permits web sites and fanzines for this game, provided it contains this notice, that Far Future is notified, and subject to a withdrawal of permission on 90 days notice. The contents of this site are for personal, non-commercial use only. Any use of Far Future Enterprises’s copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. In addition, any program/articles/file on this site cannot be republished or distributed without the consent of the author who contributed it.

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The Age of Worms has Passed!

In 2013 I had not run a regular, ongoing D&D campaign for a few years. I was a player in a pretty fun monthly game, and DMing some kids through a mini-campaign, and running semi-regular installments of the Great Dungeon. But no real campaign as such.

It was a weird time: although I had played a ton of Third Edition, I was a little adrift. Fourth Edition had been out for five years, but I had been so turned off by WotC’s handling of the edition switch that I had admittedly never given it a chance. Fifth Edition was coming, they said, but I really didn’t have much interest. Instead, I’d just kept running 3.5e with occasional forays into Swords and Wizardry and Pathfinder. The latter seemed fine, but I had never completely embraced it, even though I had high regard for the Paizo team.

Several of my regular players were hankering for a new campaign, but everyone seemed really busy. And we were scattered across the state. I was hesitant to commit.

But part of me was missing a regular game, and even more so, my gamer friends. I was also hearing good things about the Roll20 virtual tabletop. So on May 2, I sent out a faithful email with five different campaign pitches, including Red Hand of Doom and the Savage Tides adventure path. The players chose my first pitch:

Age of Worms develops from a small town of Diamond Lake, leads to intrigue in the Free City of Greyhawk, and then on to a mysterious cult that serves as a front to bring about the events leading up to the Age of Worms. As the players encounter the various architects of the plot, they uncover the nature of the coming age, and battle the ultimate masterminds behind it.

AoW was only the second Paizo adventure path, published in twelve monthly installments of Dungeon magazine from July 2005 to June 2006 and covering a classic zero to hero arc: characters could go from 1st all the way to 20th level, and maybe further. Although written for 3.5e, I adopted it to Pathfinder, where it provided my first (and as it turned out, last) stress test of the system.

We convened a weekly Roll20 group later that May, the Tuesday Night Casual Encounterists, but not before I gave them all fair warning: “This campaign,” I wrote, “is supposed to be a real motherfucker.” We had five PCs: Braan Amher, a half-orc ranger, Greylen Stahl, a human cleric, Garrett Moore, a human fighter, Melvin the Helvin, a human half-elf rogue, and Fingolfin the elvish enchanter. The players were a good mix of role-players and min-maxers, and all of us had played together in several different games over the years.

Roll20 was a huge revelation: not very fancy and occasionally clunky, but serviceable and easy to use, making it convenient to meet a weekly 3-hour commitment every Tuesday night. You get a pleasant rhythm in a weekly game that you never quite achieve in a monthly or even bi-weekly one. And we did pretty well playing most weeks.

We played a little over two years—through almost 10 of the 12 installments—when the wheels finally fell off. It was a combination of different life events all at once, some really good and some really not. Most games end like this, with a whimper: you start skipping more and more weeks until finally you just sort of stop.

In 2018 we ran a face-to-face session to finish up the 11th AoW installment, “Kings of the Rift,” in an attempt to bring some closure to a campaign I think we had all enjoyed.

But this spring we were all sidelined with COVID-19. I had dusted off my Roll20 account and was running some Traveller and 5e games. But a couple of players suggested we finish off Age of Worms.

And so we did.

All told, it took 94 sessions and maybe something like 240 hours of Roll20. All of the players stuck with the whole campaign. At about the halfway point, Fingolfin retired and the same player introduced Herr Hexenmeister von Formen, an evoker. A few of the player characters were killed but restored with resurrections or wishes. In the end, AoW didn’t prove nearly as lethal as billed—though I did my level best!—but the adventure path was fairly entertaining. A high level Pathfinder game came with a pretty steep learning curve both for myself as well as the players, but by the end I think we did fairly well contending with artifacts, deities, and 9th level spells. (Roll20 macros and character sheets were probably a godsend here.)

For me, the promise of Age of Worms was the opportunity to finally use many iconic D&D elements that I’d never had a chance to use before. During the course of the adventure path the PCs were expected to visit the City of Greyhawk and collect several classic artifacts, some of which go all the way back to the Eldritch Wizardry supplement (1976), such as the Rod of Seven Parts and the Hand of Vecna. The central villain, Kyuss, goes all the way back to the original Fiend Folio (1981) and the loathsome Sons of Kyuss, a creation of Michael MacDonald: “Truly horrible creatures in appearance, these ghastly undead appear as animated putrid corpses with fat green worms crawling in and out of all their skull orifices.” Another major antagonist of the Age of Worms is Dragotha the Undead Dragon, who originated in a memorable Erol Otus map from the revised Module S2, White Plume Mountain (1981). In some ways, the Age of Worms reads like a D&D bucket list.

The execution of the adventure path, though, is a bit uneven. Some of this was likely due to Paizo’s relative inexperience coordinating such a large and complex adventure on a monthly deadline, working with different authors, and fitting it all into a limited page count. More than once you can see some slips that likely arose from the frenetic development pace: a continuity error here, a bum statblock there. Nifty ideas are raised but never really developed: for example, in “Kings of the Rift” the PCs are charged with finding Dragotha’s phylactery, with many hints that this fell item might prove a useful bargaining chip with the dracolich. But “Into the Wormcrawl Fissure” does nothing with this premise: the phylactery has no real benefit, and the PCs might as well destroy it as soon as they get their mitts on it. (Which is what my group did anyway.)

Similarly, the adventure path introduces some new mechanics like Fate Points or authority points but then does relatively little with them. Also, in the course of the early adventures the PCs can find some minor items that seemingly play no part until the very last adventure.

Some of the problems with Age of Worms, though, are fundamental problems with Third Edition, particularly high level play. Back in 2008 Merric Blackman wrote a tough assessment of the adventure path: How Paizo Made Me Hate 3e. Although the title is a bit tongue-in-cheek, many of his criticisms are dead on. Particularly at higher levels, 3e suffers from a huge disparity between classes, enormous modifiers to attacks and saves, and overly complicated mechanics. Each PC has multiple different actions each round that allow them to swamp many solo monsters just with action economy. 

The infamous 15 minute day, in which high level PCs can go nova in one encounter and then retreat to safety to recharge, is endemic to the later installments. Some of this might have been remediated through tighter adventure design: “Into the Wormcrawl Fissure,” for example, is supposed to be a harrowing race to confront Dragotha before Kyuss can emerge from his prison and unleash the Age of Worms. But there’s no real sense of urgency: in fact, the adventure encourages the PCs to complete a series of fetch quests before they face the dracolich.

One critique that Blackman had is somewhat ameliorated by the Pathfinder system. The adventure path relies too heavily on undead monsters, which are immune to sneak attacks in 3e, greatly limiting the rogue class. In Pathfinder, though, rogues can sneak attack undead, allowing our Melvin to shine in combat—particularly when he and Garrett could get into flanking position. But while the Pathfinder system makes a few of these problems better, it also makes many problems worse by adding new layers of complexity. High level play still remains a chore to run.

The most frustrating problems with Age of Worms, though, were ones completely out of the hands of Paizo: here I mean interference from Wizards of the Coast, which had to review and approve all of Paizo’s licensed work. One can occasionally spot WotC’s hand in the insertion of game elements pulled straight from the newest WotC books. Perhaps the most awkward example was a derro warlock riding a wyvern with levels in some weird aerialist prestige class, something that really didn’t make much sense within the context of the adventure. When I ran that encounter I simply substituted the halfling vampire that appears to have been the author’s original intent.

I mentioned earlier that the adventure path clearly suffers from a frantic pace of development. The original plan was for Paizo to release a hardcover “director’s cut” compilation edition that could have smoothed out some of these rough edges and added material that landing on the cutting room floor. Instead, WotC denied Paizo the opportunity.

But my biggest critique of WotC here was how they hamstrung the use of the Greyhawk setting. So many of the iconic D&D elements I wanted to see used in Age of Worms originated in Greyhawk and are tightly connected to that world. Many of the Paizo principals were unabashed Gryhawk fanatics: I first “met” Erik Mona on the old AOL Greyhawk boards back in the early 90s.

But despite this, for some inexplicable reason WotC severely curtailed the ability of Paizo to utilize the Greyhawk setting for Age of Worms. For example, WotC insisted that instead of using Tenser the Archmage, Paizo was forced to use an ersatz Tenser named “Manzorian.” Likewise, Greyhawk City becomes just “the Free City.” The result is a very unsatisfying, uncanny valley version of Greyhawk. It is a great credit to the Paizo team that they got as much authentic Greyhawk content (including several nifty Easter eggs) into the adventure path as they did, but overall this was a tremendous wasted opportunity.

These weaknesses aside, this is a damned good adventure path that could have easily been made great in a compilation edition. And if a few of the early installments are forgettable, the back six adventures are suitably epic and really pick up a load of steam. These final adventures feature some fantastic set pieces: the haunted jungle city of Kuluth-Mar, the Lost Island of Tindalos, the besieged giant city of Kongen-Thulnir, the Tabernacle of Worms, and the Spire of Shadows. As promised, I finally got to see the Hand of Vecna, the Rod of Seven Parts, even a sphere of annihilation in play! To say nothing of Dragotha or Kyuss himself.

I had never run a group all the way to 20th level in any edition, and had never had PCs fight a god, or even a demi-god. In the end, my players prevailed. They played smart, got a little lucky, and pulled out all the stops for the final confrontation with Kyuss. The Wormgod really didn’t know what hit him.

I’ve been blessed to have a few very fun, long-running campaigns that we were able to run to completion. But I’ve probably had just as many campaigns that either never took off or sputtered out well before their time. You don’t often get a chance to finish an abandoned campaign, and I’m so glad we had a chance to do so with Age of Worms. Well done, Braan, Garrett, Greylen, Hexenmeister, and Melvin!

Hexenmeister, Greylen, Braan, Garrett, and Melvin round on Kyuss.

The Abyssal Gorer

I have written previously about action economy and monster design. Essentially, a group of PCs can easily overwhelm a single, more powerful monster simply because they get so many more actions per round than the monster. Although the fundamental issue was more-or-less understood much earlier, the term “economy of actions” may have been coined by Wizards of the Coast designer Rodney Thompson in an influential, but long lost Gleemax post from 2007 or 2008. 4e tried a few different mechanisms with varying levels of success to address this problem, most notably creating minion, normal, elite, and solo categories for monsters.

The 5e solution is the legendary action mechanic, which gives powerful monsters bonus actions each round that can be taken on the players’ turns. This solution actually harkens all the way back to the 2003 Miniatures Handbook, which introduced the mechanic of swift and immediate actions to 3.5e. These actions also allow monsters to take extra actions each round—even outside their own turn.

Pathfinder Battles horned demon miniature.

Although later 3.5e monsters occasionally incorporated swift and immediate actions, the implementation was inconsistent. Other designers tried other mechanics to address the action economy problem, and the “horned demon” from Paizo’s Dark Elf Sanctum (2005) is a good example. Sanctum was part of Paizo’s short-lived Compleat Encounter line: each installment contained a short, stand-alone encounter along with cardboard map tiles and unpainted miniatures. Sanctum was written by Mike Mearls with art by Wayne Reynolds. The miniatures were sculpted by Neil McKenzie.

The horned demon is a tough, physical brute with one very interesting trick: it wears a magical belt containing the souls of trapped evil spellcasters. (Is that metal or what?) While the demon engages in melee the belt casts spells, essentially given the monster bonus actions each round. This is a classic Mearls design, featuring an elegant, flavorful solution to a knotty mechanical problem.

But the horned demon has a few classic Mearls quirks, as well—such as a profound disinterest in setting logic or mechanical consistency. The demon, for example, has none of the special features of the demon subtype. And in a game system that quantifies everything, there’s no indication what happens to the belt once the demon is killed, how much such a belt is worth, or how one is created.

Paizo brought the horned demon into the Pathfinder game as the Kalavakus demon in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 2 (2010). But this is a rather different monster, now a conventional demon without its signature belt and sporting a new enslave ability: a much more mechanically complete—but also much less interesting—monster. (Fortunately, the WizKids miniature of the demon included the three-faced belt.)

For this conversion, I’ve gone back to the original design and embraced the problematic belt. The following text is Open Game Content.

Abyssal Gorer

This hulking, muscled beast has four long, fierce horns sweeping back from its skull and similar bone structures along its forearms. It wears a leather belt and loincloth set with three metal disks, each with a humanoid face carved upon it.

Fell Advisors. Each abyssal gorer wears a belt of the coven, a demonskin belt imbued with the souls of three evil spellcasters. These villains speak to the gorer and provide counsel in battle.

A Bloodthirsty Abandon. In combat an abyssal gorer lunges toward the nearest target. The coven trapped within the belt lend their arcane power to its efforts, blasting its foes with spells or enhancing its efforts with support spells.

0e

Abyssal Gorer CL 11 (1,700 XP)

The belt of the coven worn by an abyssal gorer acts as an intelligent sword and can cast spells as a 6th level magic-user (4/2/2). A common spell list is: level 1: hold portal, magic missile x2, shield; level 2: strength, web; level 3: lightning bolt x2.

HD 9; AC 4 [15]; Atk 2 claws (1d6), gore (2d6); Move 12; Save 6; AL C; Special: Spells.

3.5e

Abyssal Gorer CR 11

Always CE Medium outsider (chaotic, evil, extraplanar)

Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Listen +18, Spot +18

Languages Abyssal, Common

Defense

AC 25, touch 11, flat-footed 24 (+1 Dex, +14 natural)

hp 126 (12d8+72 HD); DR 10/good

Fort +14, Ref +9, Will +11

SR 22

Offense

Spd 30 ft.

Melee 2 claws +16 (1d8+4), bite +14 (1d6+2), gore +14 (1d6+2)

Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Special Attacks aligned strike (chaos, evil), horns, powerful charge 2d6+6

Typical Sorcerer Spells Known (CL 6th)

3rd (3/day)—lightning bolt (DC 15)

2nd (6/day)—bull’s strength, spider climb

1st (7/day)—jump, mage armor, magic missile, shield

0 (6/day)—acid splash (+13 ranged touch), arcane mark, daze (DC 12), detect magic, ghost sound, resistance, touch of fatigue (+16 melee touch)

Statistics

Str 19, Dex 13, Con 22, Int 15, Wis 17, Cha 15

Base Atk +12; Grp +16

Feats Combat Expertise, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Disarm, Multiattack, Power Attack

Skills Climb +19, Intimidate +17, Jump +19, Knowledge (arcana) +17, Knowledge (the planes) +17, Listen +18, Search +17, Spellcraft +17, Spot +18, Tumble +16

SQ belt of the coven

Ecology

Environment any

Organization solitary or patrol (2–9)

Treasure standard

Advancement 13–18 HD (Large); 19–24 HD (Huge)

Level Adjustment +6

Special Abilities

Belt of the Coven (Su) The three souls bound within the belt are spellcasters charged with directing the gorer and providing it magical support. In addition to the abyssal gorer’s normal actions, each of these faces is an intelligent creature. An abyssal gorer somehow separated from its belt has Intelligence 6, Wisdom 8, and Charisma 5. 

Each round, one of the three faces can cast a single spell as a swift action. The spell must be cast with a standard, move, or free action for the belt to use it in this manner. The belt has the casting ability of a sorcerer with half the abyssal gorer’s HD as its caster level (typically resulting in caster level 6th). The belt uses the gorer’s attributes, attack bonus, and all other relevant data when using its spells, such as touch attack bonus. The gorer acts as the spell’s caster for purposes of determining line of effect, targets, and so forth. Using spells in this manner does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Horns (Ex) The long, sharp horns that run along the gorer’s arm allow it to disarm its opponents with greater ease. It catches a weapon in the gap between its arm and the horn and yanks the weapon away from its opponent. It gains a +2 bonus on all attack rolls made to disarm an opponent.

Powerful Charge (Ex) When an abyssal gorer charges, its gore attack deals 2d6+6 points of damage.

Typically, a coven uses shield and mage armor to leave the gorer invulnerable to most attacks. It then either follows up with bull's strength if the gorer faces a tough foe, or picks off the gorer's opponents with magic missile and lightning bolt.

5e

Abyssal Gorer

Medium fiend, chaotic evil
Armor Class 13 (natural armor)
Hit Points 142 (15d8 + 75 HD)
Speed 30 ft.
Str	Dex	Con	Int	Wis	Cha
19 (+4)	13 (+1)	20 (+5)	15 (+2)	15 (+2)	16 (+3)
Damage Resistances cold, fire, lightning; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages Abyssal, Common
Challenge 10 (5,900 XP)
Spellcasting. The abyssal gorer is a 6th-level spellcaster. Its spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 15, +7 to hit with spell attacks). It requires no material components to cast its spells. The abyssal gorer has the following sorcerer spells prepared: Cantrips (at will): acid splash, chill touch, mage hand, minor illusion, prestidigitation, shocking grasp, true strike 1st level (4 slots): jump, mage armor, magic missile, shield 2nd level (3 slots): enhance ability, spider climb 3rd level (3 slots): lightning bolt
Magic Resistance. The abyssal gorer has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Actions
Multiattack. The abyssal gorer makes three attacks: one with its gore and two with its claws.
Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) piercing damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d8 + 4) slashing damage.
Charge. If the abyssal gorer moves at least 10 feet straight toward a target and then hits it with a gore attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 9 (2d8) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 16 Strength saving throw or be pushed up to 10 feet away and knocked prone.
Legendary Actions
The abyssal gorer can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The abyssal gorer regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Claw attack. The abyssal gorer makes one claw attack.
Gore attack (Costs 2 Actions). The abyssal gorer makes one gore attack.
Cast a Spell (Costs 3 Actions). The abyssal gorer casts a spell from its list of prepared spells, using a spell slot as normal.

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15. COPYRIGHT NOTICE
    
    • Open Game License v 1.0a, Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
    • System Reference Document, Copyright 2000-2003, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, Andy Collins, David Noonan, Rich Redman, Bruce R. Cordell, John D. Rateliff, Thomas Reid, James Wyatt, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
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    • Swords & Wizardry Core Rules, Copyright 2008, Matthew J. Finch.
    • The Abyssal Gorer, Copyright 2020, R. Dorman.

End of Summer Update

It’s been a strange summer with COVID-19, and although this blog has fallen fallow I’ve actually been gaming as much as ever. I’ve been running two weekly Roll20 games so most of my spare time has been spent prepping and refereeing those campaigns. And I’ve even had a chance to play a bit, which I always enjoy. A quick recap of what’s been going on:

Age of Worms. Our 1e Pathfinder conversion of the classic Dungeon adventure path, explicitly set in Greyhawk, is drawing near its end. The PCs are all 20th level and have only a few final encounters before taking on the dreaded Wormgod, Kyuss. This game has been a lot of fun: I’m so glad we picked this back up and are finishing it out. But that said, high level 3e/PF is just brutal to run, even for the players. The experience has been a good reminder of all the things I loved—and hated—about that edition.

Rage of Demons. This 5e adventure path has been a really good contrast to Age of Worms, though I sometimes feel a bit of whiplash moving back and forth between ultra-complicated high level 3e and lower level 5e. The group is almost halfway through the campaign; a couple of months ago Wizards began offering a Roll20 module of the book, which has made prepping and running the game much easier.

Lost Mine of Phandelver. A friend of mine ran this 5e module about a month ago and we had a blast. It’s a very nice introduction to the game, with an exciting mix of wilderness, town, and dungeon adventuring. All the players opted for character classes they had never or rarely played, so I had a chance to play a bard—which is actually a very versatile and effective class in 5e. 

The Ruined Tower of Zenopus. Speaking of nice introductions to the game, I recently bought Zach Howard’s 5e conversion of the sample dungeon from the 1977 Holmes’ Basic Set. Howard carefully updated and expanded his brief source text into a very nice adventure, brimful of iconic D&D encounters.

Into the Interface. Unfortunately, all of the D&D games crowded out my Mongoose Traveller 2e game set in Magyar sector, which fizzled in early May. I’ve got some thoughts on what worked and what didn’t, so I would like to take another run at this game after Age of Worms wraps up.

Miniatures. I’ve really had no time to paint much of anything over the summer, which has left several very cool models sitting on my workbench gathering dust. It will probably be a few months more before I will get back to any of them. 

That is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie. On another note, it’s been a pleasant surprise to see the revival of the Grognardia blog, which has been sorely missed since its last entry back in 2012 (!). I think it’s great that James Maliszewski has just quietly resumed blogging without any fanfare, in some cases picking up on topics as if he never left. So much has changed in the last eight years and I’d really like to read his take on 5e, which incorporated many of the OSR philosophies he championed.

The Price of a High Passage: Passengers in Traveller

Further off and to one side, on some high ground well away from the danger of the field and the smell of the camp, sat a prim collection of prefabricated huts and inflatable tents. There sat the money and the comfort money could provide—the tourists who travelled High, doped with quick-time so that a day seemed an hour, a week a day. Those in the camp had travelled like Dumarest—Low. Those who rode Middle stayed with the ships which were their home.

—The Winds of Gath.

E.C. Tubb was a British science fiction novelist and a primary influence on the Traveller game through his long-running Dumarest of Terra series. The Winds of Gath (1967), the first Dumarest novel, uses familiar Traveller terms, starting with the word traveller itself as well as concepts like High, Middle, and Low passage and the low lottery. An important subplot concerns travellers stranded on a backwater planet trying to scrape together enough funds to buy passage offworld.

My PCs’ ship, the Starjammer, is a packet, which as described in Traveller⁵ provides unscheduled passenger service. (In historical use, packets provided scheduled mail service, but that niche is covered by x-boats in the OTU.) Based on this, I took a quick look at how passenger service has worked across different editions of the game.

Passengers

The basic procedure for taking on passengers is consistent across all editions. Once a captain has determined a destination for the starship, checks are made for the number of passengers interested in traveling to that system. One check is made for each type of passage—High, Middle, and Low—modified by the population of the world of departure and crew skills. A good ship’s steward, for example, can help attract lucrative High passage travellers.

It wasn’t surprising that High, Middle, and Low passage appear in every edition of the Traveller game. But I was surprised by the consistency in pricing across editions, as summarized in the following table:

Passage Pricing (Cr) across Editions

Passage	CT, MT, TNE1, T4, T5, Traveller Hero, T20	GURPS Traveller2	MgT13	MgT23
High	10,000	3,500	6,000	8,500
Middle	8,000	1,750	3,000	6,200
Low	1,000	175	1,000	700
1 In TNE, Middle passage outside the Regency is Cr5,000. 2 Prices (per Far Trader) reflect a J-1 or J-2 free trader. 3 Prices reflect 1-parsec of travel.

Interestingly, the editions that have different pricing—GURPS: Traveller and Mongoose Traveller—scale their ticket prices based on the distance traveled, so in MgT2 a High passage ticket for 3 parsecs commands a price of Cr20,000. In all other editions prices are static regardless of the distance jumped. To me, it makes sense that a higher jump number, representing significant time savings, would command a higher price premium.

Most editions describe “Working Passage,” in which a Traveller pays for passage of up to three jumps with professional services during the journey. This can help a penniless but skilled PC travel to a more promising world, or help a captain with a crew shortfall meet his ship requirements.

TNE, Traveller⁵, and MgT also have a Basic or Steerage class that sits below middle passage but is much less risky than low passage. Basically, travellers in this class share a double-occupancy stateroom. This seems like a pretty reasonable extension of the classic three-tier structure.

Most editions—including CT, MT, GT, and MgT—assume that Middle and High passengers are berthed in the same basic staterooms, with High passage being distinguished by better food, entertainment, and privileges such as a larger baggage allowance. This allows liners to use the same staterooms for both types of passengers, bumping Middle passengers if a passenger traveling High shows up. MgT allows ship designers to include larger (x1.5 and x2.5) deluxe staterooms that increase the chances of drawing more lucrative High passengers, but it’s clear that High passengers can still be berthed in standard staterooms.

While ship design in Traveller⁵ also has much larger (x3) luxury staterooms as an option, it’s unclear from my reading whether these luxury staterooms are required for High passage or not. In Traveller⁵, High passage clearly requires specialized Life Support, though I’m not sure what that actually entails: extremely sensitive temperature controls? Hypoallergenic atmo filters? UV-free lights?

A passage ticket, presumably, is issued for one specific starship and one specific trip. Passengers may purchase tickets for a tramp ship directly from the ship’s crew: Traveller⁵ notes that the ship’s steward, normally the 4th officer, “sells tickets and arranges accommodations for passengers when in port” (Book 1, 161). GURPS Traveller: Far Trader also describes passenger agents and brokers who work (presumably on commission) to match up travellers with outbound ships.

But passage can also be secured with generic vouchers redeemable for specific tickets on any ship and destination. Most famously, a Travellers’ Aid Society membership provides one free passage per year. (The exact type of passage varies by edition.) Agent of the Imperium also mentions Imperial vouchers, presumably used to move government officials across the Imperium. I assume that a specific ticket takes precedence over a generic voucher unless the voucher is for a higher passage class, in which case the ticket-holder gets bumped.

Finally, Traveller⁵ introduces the StarPass, “a multi-use pass for Middle Passage valid for one year after first use” (Book 1, 68). This seems both a pretty logical thing for the OTU setting and fairly convenient Referee tool. A StarPass has a value of Cr250,000. Agent of the Imperium notes that a StarPass could put a passenger “on routed jumpliners when they had space available” (135).

Starship Charters

In addition to buying passenger tickets, another—and much more expensive—way for travellers to move between systems is to charter an entire starship. As GURPS Traveller: Far Trader points out, “Charters are an excellent mechanism for getting a group of traders involved in a different kind of adventure for a change . . . or for providing a framework for a related series of adventures“ (109).

CT, MT, TNE, T4, and T20 all have very similar rules around charters. The following language is from The Imperial Encyclopedia:

Charter price for a starship is computed based on that particular starship’s revenue-generating capacity. Starships are chartered in two-week blocks; the charge for chartering a starship is Cr900 per ton of cargo hold, plus Cr9000 per high passage berth and Cr900 per low passage berth. The owner of the starship being chartered pays all overhead expenses and supplies a crew for the trip (90).

The charges here are calculated using 90% of the standard per-unit price.

Strangely enough, Traveller⁵ does not include rules for charters, even though Book 2 has “Charter” as a mission type for Adventure Class ships (68), and describes at least two ships types that focus on this service: the Type K Safari Ship (38) and the Type U Packet (39). Given that Traveller⁵ uses the same pricing structure for passages as CT, one could assume CT costs for charters could be used in Traveller⁵ without modification.

Neither Mongoose Traveller 1e nor 2e mentions charters at all. Presumably one could use the basic CT formula for costing charters but apply MgT’s per parsec pricing, which is detailed on page 142 of the 1e Core Rulebook and page 207 of the 2e Core Rulebook. So that would be 90% of the price per ton of cargo hold, plus 90% of the price per high passage berth and 90% of the price per low passage berth.

Using that approach, here are the costs for a standard two-week charter for my PCs’ J-3 Pemami-class armed packet (Type UG-CA33).

Pemami Charter Prices (Cr) by Edition

Edition	1 Parsec	2 Parsecs	3 Parsecs
CT, MT, TNE, T4, T20	126,000	126,000	126,000
MgT1	82,800	151,200	241,200
MgT2	108,450	157,050	266,400

Note that with only 12 staterooms available, a Pemami charter is always more expensive than buying individual tickets regardless of edition, even if all of the passengers are traveling High. This strongly implies that travellers chartering this ship have both the means and the motivation to want a ship all to themselves. This limits the charter clientele to nobles, government agents, corporate types, or wealthy eccentrics, and the destinations are probably systems that—for whatever reason—do not enjoy scheduled liner service.

The charter prices appear pretty lucrative at first glance, but it’s important to look at this potential revenue against a Pemami’s expected monthly costs. As we have seen in our review of crew costs, these expenses can vary widely between editions. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve focused on Mongoose 2e costs:

Pemami Monthly Overhead (Cr)

	Low Cost1	High Cost2
Life Support	36,500	36,500
Fuel	6,000	90,000
Crew Salary	22,000	22,000
Maintenance	9,321	9,321
40-year Mortgage3	372,950	372,950
Total	446,771	530,771
1 Assumes two 1-parsec trips using unrefined fuel.
2 Assumes two 3-parsec trips with refined fuel.
3 Assumes purchase price of MCr111.885 and 20% down.

Based on this, it’s pretty clear that two-week Pemami charters, even at Cr266,400 a pop, aren’t going to easily meet the overhead, and it’s the mortgage payment that’s far and away the real crusher here. Even if a captain managed two 3-parsec charters a month, that’s only a 10–18% profit margin, and two a month is unsustainable for very long.

But let’s assume that our standard charter price represents only the absolute minimum charter price. The Traveller Adventure has a patron willing to pay 5 times the standard charter rate, and it makes sense to allow charters at anywhere from 2–6 x the standard rate based on special circumstances such as amber or red zones, cross-border excursions, special expenses, or just plain desperation.

With that in mind, a Pemami-class packet could potentially make a decent living off charters to and from dangerous or prohibited systems—just the sort of assignments that result in exciting adventures!

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