The Spy Game: A Roleplaying Game of Action & Espionage takes the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition into the very modern world of international espionage and intrigue, of stealth and superscience, and of maladjusted masterminds and doomsday devices in which spies, hackers, assassins, femme fatales, and suave secret agents set out to save the world in the name of freedom and democracy! Published by Black Cats Gaming following a successful Kickstarter campaign, The Spy Game casts the Player Characters as Agents, members of a spy agency, whether a real-world agency like the USA’s CIA, the United Kingdom’s MI6, or India’s RAW, or a fictional one included in its pages or of the Game Master’s own creation, and undertake assassination, capture, obtain, sabotage, or surveillance missions—or a combination of any five of them. They will attend briefings, gather intelligence, and conduct fieldwork, all before attending mission debriefings. The rules in The Spy Game allows the players to create interesting characters from a diverse range of backgrounds who engage in a range of espionage activities including infiltration and hacking, equipped with a wide array of equipment, and the Game Master to create agencies, missions, enemies and threats. In bringing espionage and modern action to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition’s mechanics, The Spy Game notes that anyone who comes from that roleplaying game will find a lot of familiarity, but also that it adds Infiltration to combat to expand upon the element of surprise and detection, gadgets which replace magic items—and which have to requisitioned, and hacking which works like magic, but only on computer technology.
Like any good, modern roleplaying game, The Spy Game includes advice on the use of safety tools. Not just on the use of the X-card and lines and veils, but also advice appropriate to The Spy Game and its genre. This includes advice on taking care when involving real world events and politics in the game, and be careful when involving torture as a means of acquiring information. Ideally, if it is used, it would only be a grittier type of game and even then a veil be drawn over it. The Spy Game also notes that whilst sex and seduction have always played a role in espionage, whether fact or fiction, there is no Seduction skill in the roleplaying game and again, all of the players will need to agree to its inclusion in a game.
The Spy Game: A Roleplaying Game of Action & Espionage is a Class and Level game. It has eight Classes—Face, Hacker, Infiltrator, Martial Artist, Medic, Ranger, Soldier, and Technician, each one of which has its own three archetypes, Proficiencies, abilities, and more. Backgrounds such as Academic, Athlete, Civil Servant, Con Artist, Criminal, Diplomat, Motorist, Outdoorsman, and Scientist, all add bonuses in terms of attributes, languages, and equipment, as well as special advantages, proficiencies, and a Feature. Each also gives options for an Agent’s Double Life, Secret—which is initially kept just between the player and the Game Master , Ideal, and Bond, all of which can be used in play to gain Inspiration as per the roleplaying mechanic introduced in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. For example, the Motorist increases an Agent’s Dexterity and Wisdom by one, grants Mechanics as a skill proficiency, grants him Advantage on Dexterity Saving Throws when driving or piloting a vehicle, gives special proficiency on motorcycles, cars, heavy goods vehicles, and mechanic’s tools, and provides the ‘Home Behind the Wheel’ Feature, which lets him regain control of a vehicle if he loses control of it as a Bonus Action. This can only be done once before requiring a short or long rest to use again.

To create a character, a player selects a Class and a Background, generates his character attributes—either by rolling or using the point buy option, and adds all of the finishing details you would expect. Multiple dice rolling options are given, but The Spy Game suggests that a player choose his character’s Class and Background first before rolling, or preferably, using the point-buy option. This varies from the ten points of a Gritty campaign to the twenty-five of one involving Super-Spies, but the standard is fifteen.

Rachel Rosen
Nationality: British
First Level Hacker

Str 10 (+0) Dex 12 (+1) 1 Con 10 (+0)
Int 15 (+2) Wis 10 (+0) Chr 16 (+3)

Hit Points: 6
Hit Dice: 1
Armour Class: 13

Class Abilities: Hacking, Personal OS
Skills: Acrobatics (+1), Athletics (+0), Deception (+5), Espionage (+4), Infiltration (+2), Infotech (+4), Insight (+0), Intimidation (+3), Mechanics (+2), Medicine (+0), Perception (+0), Persuasion (+5), Slight of Hand (+4), Stealth (+1), Survival (+0), Tactics (+2)

Proficiency Bonus: +2
Proficiencies: Charisma Saving Throws, Deception, Espionage, Hacking Tools, Infiltration, Infotech, Intelligence Saving Throws, Languages—Spanish and Russian, Light Armour, Motorcycles, Persuasion, Simple Melee Weapons, Simple Ranged Weapons, Sleight of Hand, Thieves’ Tools

Advantage: Dexterity Saving Throws
Feature: Escape Notice
Equipment
Laptop, taser, padded armour, investigation pack

Background: Criminal
I steal as a form of activism, targeting the ruling classes and the corporate machine (Double Life); My plans for a heist could bring down all the major banks (Secret); I only steal to help the poor, with 50% of the world’s wealth in the hands of the top 3% of people – it’s time to there was some redistribution (ideal); I have a unique relationship with the detective who wants to take me down (Bond)

Mechanically, The Spy Game uses the same ones as Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, although there are changes. The first major addition is that of infiltration to combat. This expands upon the rules for surprise and detection, accounting for the Agents’ actions round by round whilst they remain hidden from the view of any enemy NPCs. This adds a degree of tension to play prior to combat itself breaking out. The rules for vehicles also cover chases—treated as contests, but complete with manoeuvres like ramming or weaving, and combat, including targeting parts of a vehicle.

One of the major additions to The Spy Game consist of rules for Hacking. Primarily the purview of the Hacker Class who can Bypass protected operating systems or password protected software, Modify software, or Attack. The Hacker can use hacking tools which he can install as executable slots in his operating system, which like physical tools and gadgets have a Calibre rating. Operating Systems have their own Calibre rating, Armour Class, and Hit Points, and thus their own executable slots, and when a Hacker attempts to infiltrate an operating system, his aim is reduce its Hit Points to zero and so corrupt its programming and security features. Although the rules for hacking do feel like another combat subsystem, they are not intrusive in the sense that they do not impede play in the way that they do in other roleplaying games which have rules for them at their core, plus not all of the hacking tools are designed to just do damage. Others map or copy a network, deny access, and so on.

A fifth of The Spy Game is dedicated to equipment. It includes just about every item, device, or gadget that the players and their characters can imagine—and probably more beside. If not given , then the Technician Class can actually build more as gadgets as well as boosting those already in the Agents’ possession. The equipment list also includes Equipment Packs, like a Diplomatic Pack, Investigation Pack, and Wetwork Pack, as well as individual items. Unlike some of the source fiction, The Spy Game does not use brand names, makes, marks, and manufacturers in its descriptions, for example, genericising its weapons. It avoids the designers and the roleplaying game getting bogged down in real world detail, but on the other hand, it does mean that the game loses a degree of verisimilitude.

The list of equipment also encompasses the gadgets beloved of the genre. So it includes Exploding Gum, Palm Flamethrower, Bladed Boots, Garotte Watch, and more, all the way up to close air support! Vehicles are added too, such as drones and buses, all the way up to tanks and ground attack aircraft. Gadgets themselves have a Calibre rating, from one to five, and do need to be requisitioned. The maximum Calibre of the gadgets available is determined by the Mission Calibre, a factor itself based on the average Level of the NPCs the Agents will face and the number an Agent can carry is determined by his Level.

The Spy Game’s ‘World of Spies’ focuses on spying in the early twenty-first century and how espionage has changed from the late twentieth century. Several real-world agencies are detailed, but it really gives space to new and fictional agencies, including their primary locations, agents and activities, and signature devices. These are the Operations Executive, a ‘deep state’ international organisation committed to global co-operation, co-ordination, and contentment; Taga Bunot, a Philippines-based agency which specialises in date recovery and prevention of blackmail, extortion, and smear activities; Streetworks, an agency whose agents consist of those who have been fired or forced into early retirement from other agencies due to injury, incompetence, or office politics, and operate on a lower budget; the Caledonian Spy Group or CSG, the spy agency established in Scotland following a successful bid for Scottish independence; Zodiac, an agency which responds to threats detected by data sifting by artificial intelligence; and the Hive, an organisation of highly distributed digital mercenaries. Some of these agencies do wear their influences on their sleeves, almost literally in the case of the Operations Executive, a very Kingsman-like organisation, whilst Streetworks feels like Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series of novels. My favourite though is the Caledonian Spy Group, a delightfully parochial agency whose creation feels all prescient.

For the Game Master there is solid advice on creating missions and mission types, and running not just the game, but also portraying and roleplaying the Handler, the Agents’ case handler or control. Campaign themes—technology, cyber warfare, and the effects of globalised economies—are discussed and options are given for running The Spy Game during earlier periods, from the Great War and World War II to the Cold War and the War on Terror. However, the roleplaying game does not go into too much detail about those here. Safety tools are again discussed, but backed up here with examples, which are useful inclusions, but a favourite section is ‘The Moscow Rules of Game Mastery’ inspired by The Moscow Rules said to be followed by spies in the Moscow of the Cold War. These are very nicely done and would apply to almost any roleplaying game. There is good advice too on designing traps and encounters, especially to highlight the particular roles of the different Classes, so the Hacker, Medic, and Technician will want to face technical challenges, combat Classes like the Soldier and the Martial Artists combative challenges, and so on. This also gives them time in the spotlight. When it comes to traps, the advice is also to build in vulnerabilities.

Along with really big vehicles like aircraft carriers and space shuttles, The Spy Game includes rules for creating villains and masterminds. These are backed up with both standard NPCs, including stats for the Head of State(!) and Survivalists along with their bunker, and fully detailed villains and masterminds. These include a pair of sisterly assassin, each of whom uses different methods; ‘The Con’, an incredibly lucky conman who fomented war between Andorra and Lichtenstein for profit, though thankfully no shots were fired; and ‘The Count’, a classic European supervillain! Both ‘The Con’ and ‘The Count’ have their own Legendary Actions with which they are likely to thwart any Agents’ attempts to stop them.

Physically, The Spy Game is for the most part, cleanly and tidily laid out, and the artwork excellent. If there is an issue with the layout it is that the section on equipment and gadgets is simply in the wrong place. It comes after the descriptions of the roleplaying game’s eight Classes and how to create a Player Character, but before the roleplaying game’s rules. So there are sixty pages of gear between an explanation of the ability scores and their modifiers, the Proficiency Bonus, skill explanations, and more. Which impedes Player Character creation. And surely the rules for vehicle combat should be in the combat section?

The Spy Game is very much an espionage roleplaying game which focuses on the here and now as well the tomorrow of the spying world in which its Agents are really designed to be capable or super cable. Although it can do campaigns set in the past or ones which are gritty in tone and mechanics, these are really asides and switches which the Game Master will have to make and research and develop on her own. Perhaps for either option, gadgets and equipment could have been listed along with indications as which type of campaign they would be suitable for. Similarly, a bibliography could have included for reference and inspiration—the equivalent of The Spy Game’s Appendix N. That said, the rules of The Spy Game could easily be used to run a game in the style of Leverage or Hustle.

The Spy Game: A Roleplaying Game of Action & Espionage takes the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and adeptly adapts to an entirely different genre, successfully providing new character types and Classes and unobtrusive genre mechanics. The result is a pleasing slick and modern approach to the high action, Spy-Fi genre.

 So, my 1/144 battletech game needs a good city terrain.  there are tons of great paper model options for free online, but This Akhibara diorama 

is a perfect starting place...but I wanted to pump it up with textures and lots of signage like you see in Hong Kong  so I've been retexturing/recoloring the model, Once that's done I'll resize it from the Z scale it's native to into N scale.  Z is great for standard Battletech minis, but I like the 1/144 model kits...anyhow, here are some pages;

and here's the "base plates" for same.






 
 I haven't finished this project, there are a LOT of pieces left to retexture, but this is a great sample, and it's in the normal Battletech/Renegade legion 1/300ish scale.

Conan the Thief is a supplement for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is the first in the ‘Conan the…’ series of supplements which focus on and take their inspiration from Conan himself at various stages of his life and what he was doing. Over this series, the supplements will track our titular character’s growth and progress as he gains in skills and abilities and talents. Thus this second supplement, following on from Conan the Barbarian, looks at Conan as a young man and his life what he did after he left his homeland, at the beginning of his career which will take him from barbarian to king, essentially the equivalent of a Player Character having taken the first steps in his adventuring career. Yet whilst the stats for Conan himself at this stage of his life do appear in the pages of Conan the Thief, they are more a side note than a feature, for the supplement is an examination of the countries of the centre, where East meets West in the Hyperborean Age—Brythunia, Corinthia, Nemedia, and Zamora. It includes new archetypes, talents, backgrounds, and equipment to help players create more varied Thief characters and Game Masters more varied Thief NPCs; a gazetteer and guide to the waning lands where the rule of law and civilisation force the poor and the needy, the greedy and the driven to steal and trade in what is not theirs; an array of detailed NPCs and monsters, including unique nemeses; and mechanics to help bring thievery and other activities and attitudes to your game, including burglaries, heists, assassinations, and more.

Conan the Thief opens by introducing new options for the Thief type character, building upon the content in  the core rulebook for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. This includes the Outlaw, a new Caste, which gives numerous reasons why a Player Character turned to thievery, such as ‘Nobility in All But Name’, ‘A Victim of Justice’, and ‘An Example Must Be Made’, and presents seven new Thief Archetypes: the Assassin, the Bloody Right Hand, the Fence, the Highwayman, the Master Thief, the Relic Hunter, and the Spy. In addition, there are Thief Educations, like Burglar, Rustler, Lock Breaker, Quack Physician, and Thug, enabling a Player Character Thief to specialise or to add thiefly elements to another character type. To these are added themed War Stories, Thief Talents, and kits and weapons. The latter includes the punching dagger, the katar, the duelling sword, and the garrote, along with the typical tools of the trade such as marbles, tripwires, smoke bombs, and more. Augmenting the core rulebook, this enables a player to create an interesting character or the Game Master interesting NPCs.
Supporting these new character options is a gazetteer of the lands between the East and the West—Brythunia, Corinthia, Nemedia, and Zamora. Zamora is famed for its thieves and for the city of Shadizar the Wicked is infamously home to the most notorious of all assassins’ guild, The Black Hand; Corinithia for its merchants and economic power, as well as its fractious cities cannot agree anything more than mutual self-defence, paying for their mercenary armies; Nemedia for being dominated by the Church of Mitra and being obsessed with the ancient cultures and ruins it is built upon; and Brythunia for being a backwater with its fractious clans, one of which could easily turn on the other at a moment’s notice or slight. The fortunes of all four have fluctuated over the centuries, being both conquers and the conquered. In the main it focuses upon the cities in each of these lands, typically the site of Conan’s adventures. So ‘The Tower of the Elephant’ in the city of Zamora in the land of Zamora and ‘Rogues in the House’ between Zamora and Corinthia (here given as Magyar, the Red City), for example. In each case, the content of Conan the Thief is set before the events of Conan’s stories, enabling the Game Master to run them as adventure for her Player Characters, but there are notes for adjusting them to be used after their events too. The emphasis is firmly on the cities in detailing Zamora, Nemedia, and Corinthia, if not least for the fact that the city is the natural home of the thief, and also because they are on major trade routes which the cities’ thieves can prey upon. However, Brythunia is different, suggesting that the fractiousness between its four kingdoms can be scaled down to the village level, and using ‘Brythunian Village Design’ table, to create a rural campaign which might build into something more political.
If the gazetteer explores the cultures and places where thievery is rife, ‘Events’ goes into the types of occurrences that might beset the Thief or that the Thief might instigate. These include Personal, City and Town, and Kingdom-level events, so go from Rivalries, Framed or Set, and Debt, to Wars and Rumours of War, Steal the Heir, and Plague and Other Such Chaos via Gang War, Watch Crackdown, and The Prince of Thieves is Dead! These joined by Unnatural Events like Just Another Snake Cult or Obtainer of Rare Antiquities, and there are notes on combining them too. Effectively all of them work as potential story hooks.
‘Myth & Magic’ discusses the myth of the thief and thievery, in particular, the myth that all thieves hold to, and that is ‘Honour Among Thieves’. It quickly dispels the notion that it is actually practised, thieves typically owing loyalty and friendship, but being fundamentally selfish. It makes clear that thieves do not necessarily worship a thief deity, but rather their local gods, although several gods of thievery and darkness are given, including Bel, the God of Thieves, and the Cult of the Spider God. Potential boons are given for worshipping both, for example, Bel grants a thief who takes him a patron an extra Talent, but expects the thief to leave stolen goods somewhere where they may be easily stolen on a regular basis, whilst the Cult of the Spider God gifts its followers tokens that will poison any non-believer who touches it, a ghastly object used as a means of assassination. There suggestions here too, for the purposes to which the body parts of thief can be put once he is dead, like the Hand of Glory or rope woven from the hair of dead women. A few examples would have been useful here.
‘Encounters’ details a good mix of generic NPCs, like the assassin or the watchman, and named individuals. Several of these come from Howard’s stories as you would expect, thus Yara from ‘The Tower of the Elephant’ or Demetrio, the Chief of the Inquisitorial Council of Numalia from ‘The God in the Bowl’. There are a lot of nemeses here. They are joined by fearsome creatures like the Giant Rat and the Giant Skeleton Warrior, and worse, Yag-Kosha, from ‘The Tower of the Elephant’. These again enable the Game Master to have her Player Characters encounter then if running her campaign before the events of Conan’s stories.
Rounding out Conan the Thief is ‘Hither Came Conan…’ which places our titular hero in the context of the supplement and provides a playable version of him early in his long career. Thieving and criminal campaigns are explored in ‘The Way of Thieves’, which examines how campaigns built around thieves will be different to other campaigns for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. It notes that Conan himself was a thief for just two or three years, that thief campaigns should avoid descending into farce as thieving is serious business, and whether the city authorities or the head of the guild, there will be checks and balances on the activities of any Player Character thief. There is solid advice here and it is supported by guidelines and rules for joining and running a thieves’ guild, along with descriptions of the guilds of note in the cities described earlier in the supplement. The ‘Heists’ chapter presents a chapter of tables with which the Game Master can generate potential jobs and targets and then develop to run for her players and their characters. It comes with a fully worked example. Lastly, ‘Heroes of the Age’ add a trio of potential Player Characters NPCs developed by backers for the Kickstarter campaign for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. Of the three, ‘Jamil the Thieftaker’ is a great addition to any campaign set in Zamora, whilst the boastful ‘Inarus’ feels out of place, being more pirate than thief.
Physically, Conan the Thief is a slim hardback, presented in full colour, illustrated with an excellent range of fully painted artwork. It is well written, is accessible, and comes with a reasonable index.
Conan the Thief switches in emphasis and feel from Conan the Barbarian, exploring thievery and civilisation at the heart of the Hyperborean Age in lands which though often rich—for some, at least—are in decline. Both depict worlds of cruelty, one of the rough, frontier lands, the other of inequality and poverty in great cities. The advice for running a thief-based campaign is excellent, though perhaps a campaign outline for taking a band of thieves from their lives on the street into the guilds and onwards, encompassing a similar two or three-year period to that spent by Conan himself, would have been useful. Similarly, the advice on adapting the stories which the supplement directly draws upon, such as ‘The Tower of the Elephant’, could have been stronger and done with an outline or something similar to help the Game Master, especially given how pivotal these stories are in the Conan oeuvre.
Conan the Thief opens up whole new possibilities for running and playing Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. It expands upon the options in the core rules for the player who wants to create a Thief character, and thus also for the Game Master to create interesting NPCs  for the Player Characters to encounter in a city, perhaps if they are just passing through on the way to somewhere else, However, what the content of Conan the Thief really lends itself to is entirely city-based campaigns built around thieves and thieving, where the Player Characters can all be different types of thieves and have different roles in the campaign. Such that a whole Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of campaign could almost be run without ever leaving that city or even going anywhere near the background and information presented in its other supplements. It is actually a pity that such a campaign does not exist for the roleplaying game.
Conan the Thief is a solid supplement for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, which really comes alive as a campaign supplement. In fact, Conan the Thief would make a good supplement for any Game Master wanting to run a Swords & Thievery style campaign. It is an excellent sourcebook.

—oOo—


Modiphius Entertainment will be at UK Games Expo which takes place from Friday, June 3rd to Sunday, June 5th, 2022.

After coming to comics with You Are Deadpool, the solo adventures of the ‘Merc with a Mouth’ switches to the traditional format of text paragraphs with You Are (Not) Deadpool. This is the first entry in the ‘A Marvel: Multiverse Missions Adventure Gamebook’ series published by Aconyte Books and unlike almost every other Solo Adventure book it promises not to put you at the centre of the action. As the title suggests, you do not play as Deadpool in You Are (Not) Deadpool. Instead you are an innocent bystander approached by Deadpool who identifies you as ‘Six’ and asks you to help him. In effect, whereas you are not Deadpool, the character you play could actually be YOU THE READER if you were in New York when Deadpool bounds over to you like a happy puppy. With no mention of what happened to One, Two, Three, or Four, let alone Five, you find yourself accompanying Deadpool on his mission. For the most part he follows your suggestions, where to go, what to do, acting as both sidekick and conscience, much like his best friend, Weasel, or Dopinder the taxi driver from the film. However, there are moments where you shine and Deadpool definitely handles the fights—with relish, often his own—whilst you huddle in the corner, having rolled the dice to determine the outcome.

The plot in Deadpool in You Are (Not) Deadpool is this. Daredevil gives a Deadpool a mission. Alien guns—Chitauri guns—are flooding the city and Deadpool has to find the source and stop them. The investigation will take the pair of Deadpool and Six above, below, and across New York, meeting Bob the Hydra Agent along the way, up and down the USA’s eastern seaboard because the budget does not extend as far away as Hawaii, although it does take them somewhere else… As Six, you and Deadpool will also play the worst game of Jenga in the Marvel Universe, fight a Psychic Octopus, lie about having found a sledgehammer, and a lot more besides. They might even jump book to the next entry in the series—She-Hulk goes to Murderworld!

Mechanically, You Are (Not) Deadpool is more sophisticated than the average solo adventure book. Standard six-sided dice are required, no more than three. Deadpool has three stats—MERC, MOUTH, and FOCUS, which are to do with physical, social, and mental stuff respectively. Initially, they are rated two each with the reader increasing the value of one of them by on, but they do change over the course of the adventure. They come into play whenever you want Deadpool to take an action. This typically involves rolling a single six-sided die and adding a stat to beat a target equal to five or six. This varies though. Sometimes, the reader will need to roll two or three six-sided dice and beat a higher target to see if Deadpool succeeds, and even then, this may not be enough. In certain challenging situations, the reader will need to roll another round or two other rounds to succeed. In addition, Deadpool can acquire Qualities such as GUARDS, GUARDS, RESOURCEFUL, and CHAOS, but never, ever KUMQUAT. Really. Not KUMQUAT. Not once. Each enters play with a value of one, and again, can fluctuate in play. Deadpool can also carry up to five objects, some of which, occasionally, can be used to improve his stats. Along the way, there games and puzzles too, such as decoding a lock in an underground base or playing the slot at a crummy casino in Atlantic City, and both Six and Deadpool can pick a wide array of achievements. 

You Are (Not) Deadpool is well written, with lots of in jokes and nods to Geek culture (especially Lovecraftian Geek culture), but beyond the cover, it does lack illustrations bar entry ending silhouette clipart. As a consequence of being all text, You Are (Not) Deadpool lacks that dual sense of wondering what situation a piece of artwork illustrates and how to get there via the numbered paragraphs, but on the other hand, it does retain much more of sense of mystery.

In the comics and the films, Deadpool is known for breaking the fourth wall (and the Marvel Universe if truth be told), but in You Are (Not) Deadpool he never does that. There is the interaction between Deadpool and Six throughout, but since you as Six are directing Deadpool’s actions, there is a gap between the two, as if you are directing or roleplaying the actions of someone who is directing or roleplaying the actions of someone else. In this case, Deadpool. It might not be breaking the fourth wall, but it is breaking the immediacy of the roleplaying if you think about it. So do not do that. It would spoil the fun.

You Are (Not) Deadpool has three hundred entries, so there is lot to explore and multiple plot threads to follow and investigate, plus some tough challenges, puzzles, and fights to overcome. Deadpool is definitely going to need more than the one run at this—unless he/you/Six are really lucky, and if all three of you fail, then at least Deadpool can come heal and comeback. As for Six? Just cross out his name wherever it appears in the quest and write Seven (or Eight or Nine or…) instead. No one will notice. 

Not quite the traditional Solo Adventure Book—but than what did you expect, this is Deadpool, after all, You Are (Not) Deadpool is an entertaining often ridiculous romp alongside the infamous ‘Merc with the Mouth’.

Well, that was a good recovery weekend, but now it’s time to get back to work. The first of the 2022 Porch Sales starts on Saturday from 10 am to 3 pm (all the better to avoid the afternoon heat), … Continue reading →

It's Friday the 13th! Something of a holiday here at the Other Side.  

May is SciFi month and for the first two weeks here I have dedicated it all to Classic Traveller. I find myself at a bit of a crossroads.  Do I continue with the Classic Traveller OR do I go along to the progression from Classic to Mega Traveller and beyond?  Choices. Choices. 

In the mean time since today is the scariest day outside of October 31st (well, than and Walpurgis Night) let go to a discussion you all know I LOVE and that is horror in Space.  In particular, the Mythos flavored Cosmic Horror of Lovecraft AND the exploration of Space ala Star Trek.

Since I am going to look a few ways to do this I am going to put it under the banner of Plays Well With Others.

My "Star Trek meets Cthulhu" campaign is known as BlackStar and I have detailed the ideas I have had here.  

The game started out as a combination of various OSR-style games because that is what I was playing a lot at the time. But as time has gone on I have given it more thought and explored other RPG system options.  Every combination has its own features and its own problems.   Let's look at all the options I have been considering.

Basic Era/OSR

The first choice was the easy one really.  I went with the two main books for their maximum compatibility, Starships & Spacemen and Realms of Crawling Chaos.  Both are based for the most part on Labyrinth Lord.   This gives me a lot of advantages. For starters, and the obvious one, there is just so much stuff for this.  If I don't like the Cthulhu monsters from Realms, I can grab them from Deities & Demigods, Hyperborea, or so many more.  The Lovecraft/Cthulhu stuff is covered.  The "Weakest" link here is Starships & Spacemen.  Well, it's not weak, but it is not my favorite set of Trek-like RPG rules.

Given the rules, I could add in bits of Stars Without Number. That *might* fill out some of the rough spaces (for me) of S&S.  There is a lot, I mean really a LOT I can do with all of this.

It would also make running The Ghost Station of Inverness Five much easier. 

D20 Systems

I'll admit it. I like d20. I enjoyed d20 games. There are LOT of options if I want to go 3.x d20.

Pathfinder, Starfinder, d20 Call of Cthulhu, Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos.  All of these are great and at least 90% compatible. Again, I am sick with riches when it comes to Cthulhu/Lovecraftian materials here. Starfinder is good...but it is not Star Trek.  In fact my preferred Sci-Fi d20 game is the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars.  I know. I am strange.  

Certainly, the d20 Cthulhu books would be easily converted to OSR, but they already have analogs in the OSR world.   But having all of these is certainly helpful.

Since my weakest link seems to be Trek-like rules, maybe what I need is a good set of Trek rules.

Star Trek RPGs

Currently, my two favorite flavors of the Star Trek RPG are the classic FASA Trek and the newest Mōdiphiüs' Star Trek Adventures.  Both are great. Both are really fun. AND there is even a Mythos/Lovecraftian game using the same system, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20.  Now this game is set in WWII, but that is not a problem. 

Here I have exactly the opposite issue.  There is a LOT of great Trek material and limited on Cthulhu/Lovecraft material.   I could add in material from Call of Cthulhu as needed. Also, I have the PDFs for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 but none of the physical books. The 2d20 system is also much newer for me and I don't know it as well as some of the others.

Traveller

I have been talking about Traveller all month long and it would remiss of me not to try something with that.  Thankfully things are well covered there.

So I have not even touched ANYTHING yet regarding the Cepheus Engine or new Traveller, but to jump ahead a bit there is a game setting for Traveller Chthonian Stars. It takes place in 2159 (a date I can use!) and there is a lot to it, but the basic gist is Humankind has begun to explore the Solar System and that is about it.  Then we introduce Cthulhu Mythos material to that!  Sounds a bit like BlackStar: The First Generation.  I'll get a proper review up later in the month, but there are a lot of great things in this setting.  Reading over it it really makes me want to try this using just Traveller.  They really make it work well.  Plus I could still use the Classic Traveller system, more or less.

This provides me with a solid sci-fi game with great mythos support too. The publisher has since updated this game to their more inhouse version called The Void. Not sure if it uses the same system as their Cthulhu Tech RPG or not. 

AGE System

I really love Green Ronin's AGE system. I also LOVE the Expanse.  So I grabbed their Expanse AGE-based RPG and am hoping to do a lot more with it.  So imagine my delight when they ran a Kickstarter for Cthulhu Awakens an AGE-based Mythos game.   The Solar System spanning of the Expanse is nowhere near the Galaxy spanning of Star Trek, but maybe I could run it as a "Prequel" game.  Get a ship out to Pluto to discover something protomolecule-like but instead make it mythos-related.  A prequel to my Whispers in the Outer Darkness.  A Star Trek DY-100 class pre-warp ship would fit right in with the ships of the Expanse.  I should point out that the Expanse takes place in the 2350s, the same time frame as my proposed BlackStar campaign in the Star Trek timeline. 2352 for the launch of the Protector and 2351 for the Expanse RPG.

Maybe this "First Mission" might explain why Star Fleet is building its experimental ships at Neptune Station and not Utopia Planitia.  There is something they discovered on Yuggoth/Pluto that makes the Warp-13 engines work. There is my protomolecule connection!

It is possible I could retweak my "At the Planets of Maddness" for this system/setting. Though in my heart I really wanted Shoggoths and Elder Things for that adventure.  Pluto and Yuggoth clearly imply the involvement of the Mi-Go.

--

I have all those choices listed above and that is also not counting games like Eldritch Skies that also combine space travel with Cthulhu/Mythos.

Chthonian Stars might have an answer for me.  What if this story is not being played out over a single campaign, but multiple lifetimes?

I could do something like this.  Note, this is only a half-baked idea at this point.  

Victorian Era:  Scientists work out the means of travelling the Aether to the stars. (Ghosts of Albion*, Eldritch Skies, Space: 1899. Using Ghosts to make the Protector connections a little clearer).

1930s: Scientist found dead with brain "Scoped" out. Investigate. (Call of Cthulhu)

2150s: Travel to Yuggoth discover an advanced civilization was once there.  Items from 1890s and 1930s are there. (Expanse, Chthonian Stars, Cthulhu Awakens)

2290s: Star Trek Mercy (this one is pure FASA Star Trek). Maybe this can be the one with the Klingon Skelleton ala The Creeping Flesh.

2350s: These are the Voyages of the Experimental Starship Protector. (OSR or Mōdiphiüs 2d20)

I could even do an epilogue in the far future of the Imperium.  

And some other stuff to include all my BlackStar adventures.

Maybe all of these are tied to the "Black Star" an artifact that makes space travel possible and is at the core of the Asymetric Warp-13 engine?  Some was found on Earth but there is a bunch of it on Pluto.

Too many ideas, too many systems.  Gotta narrow it all down at some point.  But one thing is for sure, the system used will depend on what sorts of adventures the characters will have. Mōdiphiüs 2d20 is best for adventures and exploring. OSR games are good for monster hunting. FASA Trek does a little of both.  AGE would be suit the New Adventures in Space theme well.

Conall Yellowclaw is on an urgent quest. The son of King Erin has been kidnapped and the king laid the blame firmly on Conall’s three adult children and locked them up in the royal dungeons. King Erin has also granted one chance to prove their innocence and buy their freedom: venture beyond the kingdom’s borders and acquire the famed brown horse belonging to the mysterious King Lochlann. Now he has heard of this King Lochlann—and hopes that most, if not all of the terrible stories he has heard about him are untrue, but he has no idea where he can be found and certainly no idea that he even had a horse—brown or otherwise. Worse, Conall is just a simple tenant farmer, getting on a bit and probably past the age when he should be going off on adventures—even if it is to fulfil a quest given to him by his king. Fortunately, he is persuasive and he is pretty sure that he can talk someone, or rather more than someone, preferably a party of younger, more capable adventurers, into accompanying him and fulfilling the quest on behalf of King Erin. Since time is short, he approaches them directly and asks for the Player Characters’ help.

Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest: A folkloric adventure for Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons is an adventure designed for play with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition using roughly five Player Characters of Fourth Level and should offer between two and three good sessions’ worth of play. Inspired by the tale ‘Conall Yellowclaw’ from the 1892 collection, Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest is intended to be a fast-paced and light-hearted adventure, one which can easily be run as a one-shot or added to a campaign—the latter especially if the fey play a significant role in the Dungeon Master’s campaign. It will require access to the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything as well as the core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

If the Player Characters agree to help Conall, they have a few hours or so to conduct a little investigation in the Kingdom of Erin—a very minor kingdom, so easily added to the Dungeon Master’s own setting if necessary—and learn not only the route to Lochlann, but also possibly a clue or two which suggests that not all is as it seems. Then they are ready to set out, the road to Lochlann twisty, overgrown, and little used. Nevertheless, there are encounters to be had on the way, some pre-written, others requiring a little development once rolled on the encounter table. Some of these encounters have the potential to be quite fun—an agitated blink dog who appears and wants help because there are children stuck down a well, two fey arguing about who is the best dancer and are about to come to blows, and a young man planting beans in a field—although he does not know it, they are of course, magical beans. In fact, it would have been nice to have seen these developed and used as a means to give the Player Characters clues as what the might be found at Castle Lochlann, a boon perhaps, or if the encounter goes wrong a bane. Further, some of these encounters have more potential for roleplaying and interaction than the written ones—first with a Band of Bandit Cat Bards who all known the ‘Song of the Empty Food Bowl’ and a Hill Giant Goatherder, who is very hungry. These feel much more confrontational than the others and do not lend themselves quite as well to roleplaying as the others do.

Finally, the Player Characters arrive at the forbidding Castle Lochlann. The adventure suggests two means of gaining entry—through the front gates or sneaking in. If they try the direct approach, King Lochlann will be welcoming, but eventually and effectively show them the door to both castle and kingdom. Ultimately, the Player Characters will probably try the latter and get into the stables. Most of the castle itself seems abandoned and is given little description—here the Dungeon Master will need to improvise. When they find the famed brown horse (and perhaps something else, because after all, the scenario was never going to be just that and just that easy), King Lochlann gets to reveal his true self, give a monologue, and shout, “Stop them!” in true villainous fashion. A showdown ensues, which should be a challenging given that King Lochlann is a high-Level Sorcerer. If the Player Characters fail, the Dungeon Master will need to improvise a suitable. If they succeed, then they get to return to King Erin, with the mysterious Brown Horse (and more), and helped release Conall’s children. The scenario suggests several treasures which might be found in Castle Lochlann should the Player Characters go looking.

Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest is intended to be light-hearted adventure with a dark edge. It probably tends towards the latter than the former, in part because there is relatively little scope for levity as the scenario is written. There are humorous possibilities in some of the encounters and the Dungeon Master may want to develop those a bit more than the encounters already given. This is not the only possible scope for expansion in the scenario. There is the whole of Castle Lochlann to detail and there is the distinct possibility that in true villainous fashion, King Lochlann, will himself escape. So he could return in a sequel seeking his revenge!

Rounding out Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest is a full set of stats and maps for the adventure. Physically, Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest does require another edit, but the adventure is decently written and easy to understand. The publicly sourced castle map could perhaps be clearer, but the artwork, also publicly sourced, is much better handled and adds a certain charm to the whole adventure.

With its fey charm, Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest may not be suitable for every Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition campaign, but that fey charm means that it could be adapted to settings where that element is strong. Perhaps in King Arthur Pendragon or even Liminal for the modern day. Would be interesting to know why he is called Conall Yellowclaw though.

Conall Yellowclaw’s Quest: A folkloric adventure for Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons is a charming little scenario easy to drop into a campaign and easy to expand.

Far to the north of the continent of Ghelspad lies the frozen lands of Fenrilik, accessible just once per year. Its separation means that in comparison it was little touched by the Titanswar which beset the southern continents of Scarn, but refugees from the Divine War made their way north in its aftermath and continued trade between Ghelspad and Fenrilik means that certain practices have been imported, but not widely spread. The indigenous peoples of the frozen north, primarily the ice fey called the Eschek, are tribal, worship spirits rather than gods, rarely war with each other, and barter for goods and services rather trade away precious resources. Rent in two by the massive Torbor Gorge, the Roof of the World is not only dangerous due to the artic winds and temperature, ice and snow, there are many native species which are also highly dangerous to the unwary. These include the titanspawn known as Blood Gardners, whose haunting song lures victims into its clutches who are then kept alive to feed the Bloodfruit which the creature relies upon for survival; Frost Maidens, former Dryads whose trees were frozen and themselves turned into an icily undead version of its former self; and Crawling Glaciers, gargantuan oozes of solid ice which slowly scour the continent. There is another threat, as yet unknown, which lurks beneath the continent—the scorpion-men known as Skerrai, which surge up onto the surface to attack and capture victims they can implant with their larvae. Welcome to the Frostlands of Fenrilik.

Frostlands of Fenrilik is a supplement for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, which describes the northernmost continent on the world of Scarn, the setting for the Scarred Lands setting published by Onyx Path Publishing. Previously described in Strange Lands: Lost Tribes of the Scarred Lands, this supplement is available via the Slarecian Vault, the community content programme for the setting. It expands upon the history, geography, civilisations, and religions of Fenrilik, supported with rules for travel and survival in the arctic wastes, new races, subclasses, and spells, new monsters, and an introductory adventure designed for Player Characters of First to Third Level.

Frostlands of Fenrilik introduces the continent via the journal of Yenei Koneru, Vera-Tre researcher and adjunct of the Ganjus Vigil, who like the Player Characters has made the long, only once-a-year open journey to Fenrilik, first to continent’s ‘major’ port of Stasiam and from there to its only city of Kovokimru—and beyond. Yenei Koneru and her companions will also appear in the supplement’s scenario. It opens with descriptions and a table of Fenrilik’s weather, its major settlements, and tables for both encounters and environmental hazards. The latter in particular highlights how deadly Fenrilik actually is, from avalanches and thin ice to fissures and geothermal vents, whilst it is suggested that the encounters be used to imperil the Player Characters’ survival rather than being used as combat encounters. The culture and attitudes of Fenrilik’s tribes are described in quite broad detail, leaving the Dungeon Master to develop further specifics. If the opening chapter is missing something, it is a map of Fenrilik, although one is given at the end of Frostlands of Fenrilik. Unfortunately, the map is not all that interesting and should really have had a few more landmarks indicated.




Definitely detailed though, is the continent’s one city, Kovokimru. It receives a full chapter to itself compared to the thumbnail descriptions of the towns and villages detailed earlier. Mostly built using a mix of wood and the famed hardened icework of the Eschek over geothermal vents which keep the city warm, Kovokimru is inhabited by several tribes and includes a large market and trade hall, as well as a Mage’s Guild, which grew out of a personal lending library into a school and guild. Numerous NPCs and locations are described as well as the holidays and festivals which take place over the course of a year. The fact that Fenrilik is only accessible once a year means that the Player Characters will probably be spending that year in and around the city bas their base of operations, so these festivals are something that the Dungeon Master can develop plots and adventures around, helping to bring the setting further to life. This is in addition to the quartet of adventure seeds included at the end of the chapter, which although involving an entertaining range of combat, diplomatic, investigative, and magical challenges, will need a fair of development upon the part of the Dungeon Master. Three locations are also described and mapped—an inn, a tavern, and a flophouse. However, it is disappointing that no map of Kovokimru itself is provided.

One big cultural difference between Fenrilik and Ghelspad is the use of money. The tribes of Fenrilik value metal of its practical use rather than any monetary value. Consequently, any money the Player Characters arrive with will not be as valuable as it might be back home. Instead, they will find themselves bartering for goods and services—and being paid in kind! However, the peoples of Kovokimru accept most visitors as long as they contribute to city’s welfare, which can include menial jobs if anyone is down on his luck. Given how important this aspect of the city is, it is a pity that a few examples are not included in the supplement’s discussion of it. Nevertheless, this will force both the players and their characters to think differently when it comes trading and bartering, and the roleplaying possibilities that this lends itself to.

The other location described in detail in Frostlands of Fenrilik is Tobor Gorge, which divides Fenrilik in two and is hundreds of miles long and a mile deep. It has only one crossing point opposite Kovokimru and only one easy means of getting down—a rickety lift-and-pully system, which you need to be hooked into lest you be blown into the gorge. Alternatively, it can be climbed down, but that is perilous. The sides of the cavern are doted with caverns, most of which have yet to be explored, leaving the Dungeon Master to detail them and turn them into adventure sites. There are a couple of adventure seeds, although these are not as inventive or as interesting as those for Kovokimru.

Frostlands of Fenrilik also adds a number of new character options and new spells. The Eschek, inaccurately described as ‘winter gnomes’ are actually creatures of ice renowned for crafting ice into tools, furniture, and buildings. Those few who travel beyond Fenrilik require a frost ring to enable to withstand the high temperatures of the south. The Krampek are satyr-like, but their horns are antenna actually used as part their communication, with a disarming appearance which often gives them an advantage when attacking first. They are highly suited to living underground and most of them are slaves of the dreaded Skerrai. The third new race is the oddest and the most recent to appear. They are Taslenh, again creatures of ice, but created when an ooze known as an ‘ice warden’ imprints on a humanoid. They remain both humanoid and ooze, so a bit odd!

Although there are no new Classes in Frostlands of Fenrilik, it does detail four new sub-classes. These are the College of Hope for the Bard, who boosts morale and brings comfort across the frigid lands of the north; the Way of the Winter Soul as a Monk Tradition, who can direct cold or heat damage through his hands, become one with fog, steam, and snow, and so on; the Ice Walker Ranger Archetypes who can survive in the frozen north and even fashion arms and armour from ice; and the Ushada Marked is a Sorcerous Origin which draws from Fenrilik’s primal spirits. They also serve as spiritual leaders for some communities, often replacing Clerics, which opens up roleplaying possibilities for any Player Character. Overall, this a good mix of options.

Frostlands of Fenrilik includes a list of the spells used on the continent, and adds new ones too. Some have a cold theme, such as the Cold Snap cantrip which casts cold deep into the victim’s bones and Ice Shards which creates shards that float around caster, which can be used as an Armour Class bonus or expended to shoot at opponents and do damage. Particularly cruel are the Fracture and Rupture spells, the former snapping one of a target’s bones, the latter fracturing his skull. Most of the spells have been crafted by the Titans. For example, in response to an attack by his fellow Titans, Golthain the Faceless crafted Empathy of the Faceless One to ensure that his attackers felt the same damage they inflicted upon him. A Bard and Druid spell, it affects five attackers and if any are reduced to zero Hit Points or are killed, this rebounds on the caster as his player has to making saving throws to avoid being stunned for a Round. The spells are a good strong mix of interesting theme and flavour, though of course, specific to the Fenrilik and the Scarred Lands setting.

The bestiary, ‘Creatures of Fenrilik’, adds monsters particular to the frozen continent and its frigid environs. There is a slight predilection for the gargantuan in the dozen or so given, such as the aforementioned Crawling Glacier; the Fell Deer, great shaggy beasts whose tusk-like antlers curve down and are used to break up the tundra to get at the lichen and moss it feeds on, and which are used as beasts of burden, travel, and rarely war; and the Gelidiceph—an ice kraken! Perhaps more an immediate threat is the scorpionmen-like Skerrai, who may or may not be the artic version of the Sandmaskers from the far southern deserts, and who lurk in the tunnels beneath Fenrilik, allegedly for something… Even the immature Skerrai are deadly, perhaps too deadly for low-Level Player Characters and the Dungeon Master may want to use them with care lest they overwhelm her players and their characters. Their desire to implant their larvae in their victims adds an element of horror to any encounters with them. Also included here is the Ice Warden, flowing globs of dark blue water which imprints itself on hosts and creates the new player Race, the Taslenh.

Rounding out Frostlands of Fenrilik is ‘Into the Gorge’, a short introductory which takes the Player Characters into the caverns found in the wall of Tobor Gorge. It starts with them on the way to Kovokimru where they are offered employment—a matter of a certain missing anthropologist, one Yenei Koneru. Another job sees them explore some of the caverns in Tobor Gorge. Could the two be connected? This is primarily an exploration scenario in which the Player Characters will discover some of the secrets that lie below Fenrilik and encounter some of its strange inhabitants. Player Characters who rush in first, leaving questions for later, will be at a disadvantage and will likely have to do much to make up for earlier mistakes. However, their style of play will be rewarded with some tough—perhaps too tough—challenges towards the end of the scenario. Potentially, ‘Into the Gorge’ is a challenging scenario for First Level Player Characters, so the Dungeon Master may want to make some adjustments, but otherwise, the scenario does a decent job of introducing the setting and some of its secrets.

Physically, Frostlands of Fenrilik is generally well written and well presented. The artwork varies in style and quality, but some of it is very good. The maps though, are disappointingly bland, and again, the city of Kovokimru could have done with a map.

One aspect of Fenrilik that the supplement does not explore fully is that of survival and travel. Although the table for weather, encounters, and environmental hazards are useful, but there is no advice how travel is handled, important given that many of the tribes of Fenrilik are nomadic and that the Player Characters will definitely have to travel from Stasiam to Kovokimru. Some survival rules would have been useful.

Frostlands of Fenrilik does have some minor issues, but there is a lot to like in its pages. There are fearsome monsters and some nicely detailed locations in both Kovokimru and Tobor Gorge for the Dungeon Master; challenges for the players and their characters in terms of survival and interacting with the indigenous peoples, let alone those monsters; and then also for the players, there are interesting new subclass options and spells (which can also be used by NPCs to, of course). With a time limited means of access, Frostlands of Fenrilik is an excellent introduction to the continent of Fenrilik and a one-year campaign set in the frozen north.

And like that, it was over. Texas Frightmare Weekend has always been a blowout of a show, from the first Triffid Ranch table back in 2009 to now, but 2022 was far and ahead the most successful show to date, … Continue reading →

One of the many Triffid Ranch services that’s not exclusive to Texas Frightmare Weekend, but that gets a lot of use here, is the holding service. Essentially, a lot of customers want to purchase plants early on, but need to … Continue reading →

In all honesty, you have my wife to thank for this one.  

I was talking with her about Sci-Fi month (she is a huge scf-fi fan) and Traveller and how I learned of the game via Dragon Magazine.  She suggested that it was high time I did another "This Old Dragon" and focused on Traveller.  So I have spent this week going through some of the Dragons I left and some of the articles I have already "liberated" from various Dragons.

Remember that a lot of the Dragons I have water damage or are other wise in bad shape.  A few were so mildewy I dropped them in favor of the Dragon Magazine CD-ROMs.

There are a few Traveller articles, TSR/Dragon was very eager to embrace other companies' products more in the early days. This is good for me since I really wanted to focus on Classic Traveller. 

I am not going to hit *every* Dragon article about Traveller, but I do want to hit the big ones. I am, for obvious reasons, going to feature the ones I still have in my collection.

The Dragon Days

William B. Fawcett is up first with The Asimov Cluster in The Dragon #20.  This area of space is an attempt to emulate various Science Fiction novels while keeping everything within the scope of Traveller.  There are 10-star systems described here.  I have the feeling that if I had read more classic sci-fi I might recognize these worlds a bit better. 

The Dragon #25 has New Service Options for Navy Characters by R.D. Stuart.  Now the date on this is May 1979 so I am not sure what is happening with the Supplements at this time so no idea if this information had been rendered redundant at any point.  I will assume it had at some point.  But until then it is not a bad set of charts. If you are still using the 3 LBBs this is still good stuff.

We move on to The Dragon #27 and two articles from Gary Jordan. Up first he gives us another take on his Tesseracts article from TD #17 (and famously in The Best of Dragon II).  Where that article was used to confuse map mappers, here it is a boon in Traveller since the area is hyperdimensional.   What does that mean for Traveller characters? You can cram more into your hold.  This is followed by a Star System Generation system. 

The Dragon #35

This is the first of a couple of Traveller-themed issues.  This one comes to us from March 1980.  We get an article on the "Space FBI" from Kenneth Burke in IBIS: Profit and Peril. Alexander von Thorn, famous for his "Politics of Hell" article, is up with one of two articles on new skills.  The other is from Charles Ahner & Rick Stuart. More Clout for Scouts from Anthony Previte and Jame Cavaliere is next and establishes that this article, in particular, takes Mercenary into consideration.   The Traveller universe is growing!  In a switch from characters, James Hopkins is next with Block Holes! about, well, Black Holes.  This one would have been very welcome to me back then having just seen the Disney "Black Hole" movie at the "67 Drive-In Theatre" back in 79.  

This was 1980 though. I was firmly entrenched in my newest obsession, Dungeons & Dragons, and I barely knew other games existed, yet.

Dragon #51

The next, and also sadly the last, issue to have a Traveller featured section was Issue #51 from July 1981.  Though there is a lot here.  And a lot of that is quality.

The heading for this feature is "The Future is Here."  Trust me living in the 80s felt like the future was just right around the corner.  No wonder Traveller attracted me so.

Up first we have Dragon vet Roger E. Moore with Make Your Own Aliens. The Aslan and Vargr are still a bit off for Traveller fans at this point, but Moore takes Andy Slack's article series from White Dwarf #13 to #16 and expands on it.  The article is interesting and feels a little more like a "create your own monster" for D&D or mutant for Gamma World.  The rolls on the charts are d% and not d66.  On the plus side it would also work for something like Gamma World or Star Frontiers.

I do find it entertaining that the art for this article features what can only be described as "Dralasites."

Jeff Swycaffer is next with Plotting a Course for Choosy Players. This takes out some of the randomnesses of character generation by adding a Point-Buy system.  It looks like it could work well enough and I am sure something similar was added to future versions of Traveller. Point-Buy systems were all the rage in the 1990s.

Paul Montgomery Crabaugh is up with a few articles. First is New Ideas for Old Ships. The art and the article give this a full "Used Cars" feel to these ships, but to be honest this feels right.  Characters just completing their terms of service are not going out to buy a brand new Porsche 911 with the heated leather seats, heads-up display, and personal wifi.  No, they are getting an 11-year-old Honda Civic with all after-market parts and a rattle that no one can figure out.

Next, he gives us In Defense of Computers and tackles the two biggest issues people had with computers then; they are too expensive and do too little. First I never felt the computers in Traveller were too expensive, at least not for what they are supposed to do on a Starship.  I do agree they do too little by today's standards. But anymore I of the frame of mind there are computers in Traveller and there are Computers. 

Crabaugh delivers two shorter articles. The first is Planet Parameters which details various features, mostly gravity, of an alien world.  It works...for the game, but actual stellar data is wildly different.  I think we are fine with the size, G, Vesc, and Mass columns, but the P (rotational period) we know can vary wildly.  Earth and Venus are roughly the same size (say Size 8 and 7 respectively). Earth's rotational period is 23 hours, 56 minutes, or one day.  Venus has a P of 116 days, 18 hours. Mars, a Size 4 or 5 planet has a P (day) of 24 hours, 37 minutes.   Jupiter, which is off this scale, has an M of 317 (the chart goes to 2.4) and a P of 10.  In his defense, he does say that rotational periods can be slowed due to gravity.  The Earth's is slowed by our relatively large moon, Venus by the Sun and Mars none really at all. 

Next, he deals with Masers, or microwave band lasers (and points out the lasers are really visible light masers, but hey).  

Lastly, we get an article from none other than Marc Miller. The Miller Milk Bottle is, I think, an attempt to be the Towel of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for Traveller.  Half a page on how useful the mundane milk bottle is.

The Jon Mattson Articles

Over the next several months we get a number of articles from Jon Mattson.  These are also usually longer articles and add more details to your Traveller game.

Filling in Skills from Dragon #55 does exactly that. This one details a "learning by doing" system of skill improvement. I never got to play enough games to know what my character would have done long-term. So I have no practical experience here. 

Moving on to February of 1982 in Dragon #58 we have Anything But Human, another attempt at creating aliens for Traveller.  Again this one is heavy on the d% rolls. 

Later that year in August we get Robots in Dragon #64, with some nice Larry Elmore art showing us where the VR-X9-4-M2 Galactic Probe, Government Issue Robot was made.  Like the Alien article above it has a lot of random tables.  Also it could be used with Star Frontiers if you wanted to. 

The Luna Series

In the early to mid 80s Dragon's Ares Section, which was devoted to Sci-fi, ran a series of articles on Luna, the Moon, and how it fit into various science fiction games.  I thought it was a great series and I loved reading all the different takes on it.  It had a side effect on my developing the moons of my D&D worlds in more detail.  But today we are looking at Dragon #87 and Luna: A Traveller's Guide by the first Traveller himself Marc Miller.   Note this article was copyrighted 1984 by GDW, so I imagine this is as close to official as it could get.  It is a library computer readout of Luna and it's place in the Imperium and to Terra. 

The Later Years

Post-1984 Traveller and all sci-fi began to see subtle changes.  These would be complete by the late 1980s and early 90s when Sci-Fi became darker and more cyberpunk.  I enjoyed the change myself, but also at this time I was drifting away from sci-fi and fantasy and more into dark fantasy and horror.

A sign of the times could be seen in Igor Greenwalds' Rogues of the Galaxy in Dragon #97 (May 1985).  Called a character "class" these are essentially characters who came up via organized crime instead of military, merchant, or other services.  It also features art from Jim Holloway, so maybe a sign of MegaTravller to come?

We get more Jim Holloway art in September of the same year (Dragon #101) with The Stellar Diocese from Michael Brown.  I know as a D&D player I talked about my Traveller Envy before. But I am getting some serious "D&D Envy" from the Traveller fans here.  Or...maybe these are the articles that Dragon printed since they knew they might appeal to D&D fans.

High Tech and Beyond from James Collins in Dragon #108 discuss some issues that were brought up all the way back to The Dragon #20 and that is that a lot of sci-fi media is much higher tech than the TL 16 depicted in Traveller. This article introduced some things that we take for granted in scifi like planet-destroying weapons, antimatter and transporters.

Michael Brown is back in Dragon #109 with The Double-Helix Connection or Mutants in Traveller.  Gamma World Envy? 

Put on "Bad Boys" because Terrence R. McInnes gives us Star Cops! in Dragon #113.  This article is also one of the reasons why I don't have a Dragon CD-ROM for issues past 250.  This article is copyrighted by McInnes, so likely there were never any second-run or reprintings allowed.   Anyway, this article deals with character creation for police forces. It actually looks rather fun.  This one also cites an earlier article from The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society #14.  That is an entire universe left unexplored at present by me!

So we have done Gamma World and D&D with Traveller, why not Top Secret?  John Dunkelberg, Jr. has Space-Age Espionage in Dragon #120.  This is presented as a new career (not class) for Traveller characters.  The article is in-depth and in my very untrained eye, it looks like it could work out well.  Interestingly enough the following article is from Douglas Niles about the new Top Secret game.  

This is also the last article in Dragon about Traveller until Dragon #270 (April 2000) and even then it is only to convert it to Alternity. 

1987 is my personal cut-off date for Classic Traveller.  I am sure others share that, but 87 was also the year I went to University and my tastes moved from Sci-fi to Horror.  I still LOVED Star Trek and that was the bulk of my sci-fi roleplaying.  These last two weeks have given me so much Traveller information that I honestly could stop right here and be very happy.  But I have to admit there is Traveller 2300, MegaTraveller, T5, T20, and more out there I need to learn about and figure out. 

This is going to be a fun trip.

One of the really nice things about being a vendor at Texas Frightmare Weekend is that there’s absolutely no telling who’s going to show up to say hello. I’ve had people I haven’t seen in thirty-odd years drop by (yet … Continue reading →

I’m asked on a regular basis by folks yet to experience Texas Frightmare Weekend “So what else is going on out there?” I have to be absolutely honest and admit “I have no idea, because I’m lucky to get out … Continue reading →

Yesterday I covered the first three Alien Modules for Traveller.  The three I was most familiar with.

For Part 2, I want to cover the next five.

Alien Module 4 - Zhodani

PDF. 52 pages, color cover, black and white interior art.

Ok, I have heard of this one, it just, at the time, didn't grab my attention as much as the first three.  The Zhodani are a race of psionic humans that established themselves on their homeworld about 300,000 years ago.  That is the same time period as the Vargr. No idea if there is a connection yet.

This Module is much like the first three save there is no comparative anatomy section.  The psychology is expanded and the character creation section is altered from the Traveller standard to deal with a race of psionic humans.  

There is a small section on the Zhodani "Thought Police" that I thought could have been larger, given their role in Zhodani society.  Still though, an interesting take on an "Alien" for Traveller.

Alien Module 5 - Droyne

PDF. 52 pages, color cover, black and white interior art.

We are getting into very unfamiliar territory for me. The Droyne are an ancient race that had Jump Drive technology long before (at least 50,000 years before) the other major races.  Though they tend to placid lives on pastoral planets.  They don't seem to have the desire to get out to other worlds like the races covered so far. 

They are a smaller race, standing under a meter tall, reptile/bird-like, with small wings.  The original homeworld of the Droyne is believed to have been a low gravity one to allow their relatively small wings to work.  Droyne are divided into six main castes and this affects their psychology and their physiology.  In one example the Droyne have three genders and all three are needed to gestate a clutch of fertilized eggs.  Certain genders belong to certain castes and rarely are there exceptions. Droyne can also be high psionic.

There are the typical sections on worlds, there is no longer a Droyne "homeworld", starships and service.  This includes a character creation section that also differs from Traveller standard to cover the unique qualities of the Droyne species. 

The biggest "Feature" to alien is where did they come from? How did they develop jump drive technology and why are they not spread out over known space more given their 50,000 year head start?

I can see where playing a Droyne character would be an interesting challenge.

Alien Module 6 - Solomani

PDF. 52 pages, color cover, black and white interior art.

This "alien" species has a familiar name and a familiar look.  The Solomani are space-adapted humans. Maybe "space-adopted" humans is a better term.  Like the Vargr and the Zhodani, the Solomani were from Terran stock, human in the case of the Zhodani and Solomani. While the Zhodani (and other humans) developed on other worlds, the Solomani or Terrans stayed on Earth and then went out to the stars on their own.   

This book has much more history and background details than all the other Alien Modules.  It also gives us some starting insight to the various other human races in the galaxy (45 total according to the internet).  There is also quite a lot on the Solomani Rim Sector of space.

Like the other Alien Modules, this covers some new character creation details, but is not too different than the Traveller standard which assumed human. 

We end with an adventure about a lost colony and the deaths of thousands.

Alien Module 7 - Hiver

PDF. 52 pages, color cover, black and white interior art.

Back to another very alien species and one I knew nothing about till I bought this.

Where the other books typically opened with a comparative anatomy/physiology this one opens with just an overview of the hiver physiology as there are no reference points for comparison. 

They are called Hivers due to their hive-looking cities, but they are not really hive-mind creatures (say like bees), they are cooperative and work together well but respect the individual (otherwise we could not have characteristics of them). 

This book follows the outline of the other Alien Modules, with details on the Hiver's homeworlds, their government, and technology.  Likewise, there is detail about their starships and the world they inhabit.

As expected there is a bit more on their psychology as a completely alien species.  The rules for character creation are present for both "Basic" Traveller (LBB and such) and "Advanced" (High Guard, Mercenary, and beyond).  Special attention is given to their unique physical and psychological differences.

There is an adventure included at the end to introduce these aliens to players.

Alien Module 8 - Darrians

PDF. 50 pages, color cover, black and white interior art.

Our last Alien Module of the Classic Traveller series and one of the last books before the big edition change.  The Darrians are of human-ish decent and would be a minor player in the game of Galatic politics save for two reasons. While the majority of the Imperium is TL15 (tech level) the Darrians are TL 16 and have been for a long time.  Also they have the knowledge of the "Star Trigger" essentially a weapon that causes a star to go supernova.  

For a major power player the Darrians only occupy a small subsector of space. So this make talking about their history into space shorter.  This Alien Module covers all the same basics as the previous ones. Again, as expected, since the Darrians (more on that) are from human stock seeded by the Ancients 300,000 years ago there is no comparative anatomy or physiology presented.

"Darrian" can mean many things, a gentic Darrian are the ones that were seeded 300k years ago and evolved on their own in their sector of space. It can also mean someone living in the Darrian Confederecy.  It can be anyone that is a citizen of the Darrian Confedercy. These details are explored more in the History and has an effect on Basic and Advnaced character creations.  Darrians are golden skinned, tall but slight of build and have pointed ears.  If you are thinking "Space Elves" then I am right there with you.

Darrians can be fairly described as the academics of the Imperium.  A "Darrian vacation" is going to the library. Or something in the pursuit of knowledge.  I kinda like these guys. 

We get the usual background information on their history, technology, starships, worlds, society and government. 

There is also an adventure, "The Secret of the Star Trigger", included at the end. 

--

So. For SciFi month this ends my little jaunt into Classic Traveller.  By my estimation there are over 300 Classic Traveller related products out there.  That is not counting anything published using the Cepheus Deluxe rules or the Mongoose rules.  I know in two weeks all I have done is (barely) scratch the surface.  I could spend the rest of this year talking about Traveller to exclusion of all other topics and still not get to everything.

While I might be done with Classic Traveller (for now) I am not done with Traveller AT ALL.  I have a couple of other posts coming up and then I want to get into the Traveller2300 vs MegaTraveller fray.

I’m regularly asked at shows “Could I watch a plant eat something?” As a general rule, especially with Venus flytraps, the answer is going to be a hard “no.” It’s for multiple reasons: digesting insect prey usually takes from three … Continue reading →

While this year’s Texas Frightmare Weekend was the first-ever event of its sort for a significant percentage of its attendees, the long-timers are reasons to come out to a show in their own right. By way of example, let me … Continue reading →

Before I get into the next phase of Traveller evolution I thought it behooves me to spend some time with the major Alien races we encounter in Traveller.  Indeed, it was the aliens and the ads for the first three books in Dragon Magazine that made me want to go back and check out Traveller some more.

All of these are available via DriveThruRPG and Far Future Enterprises.

Alien Module 1 - Aslan

PDF. 44 pages, color cover, black and white interior art. 

While not the first Traveller alien I encountered, this is the first module or data file for the various aliens Traveller has to offer.  This one seemed like a no-brainer to me at the time.  I had read Joan D. Vinge's "psion" earlier that year and between the Caitian and Kzinti (introduced to me by Star Trek) I was primed to want a Cat-like race in space. 

The book covers the basics. Aslan physiognomy, which includes some evolutionary details and how it plays into their current civilization. Their political structure (or almost lack thereof) is also discussed. While the Aslan (named such by the first human explorers to make first contact) are described as proud warrior race, they are not really a unified one. 

We are given a bit of their history and their forays into space and their encounters with the Imperium. We get a bit on their psychology, which includes the territorial nature of the males (explained the loose confederacy) and their ritual duels.  

The next large section is Aslan character creation. This covers the basic character creation going back to the 3 LBBs and "Expanded" character creation for other types of characters. 

We are also given background on the Aslan homeworld, worlds within the Imperium, and a bit on starship design.  There is even some detail on the Aslan language, at least in terms of names.

For 44 pages it is pretty well packed.  There is not a lot of "fluff" here, mostly all "crunch."  So no fiction from the point of view of an Aslan mercenary or a human living on an Aslan world.  Just the basics and enough to get you going on to your own adventures. Honestly, it is all you need. 

This was the Alien Module I wanted the most back in the day.  Researching it now I see that a lot of people did what I was going to do with it; mix in liberal amounts of Kzinti and some Caitian as well.  Plus I was going to have psionic ability be a bit stronger in Aslan women. A nod to a lot of the scifi I was reading at the time.  I also noticed just as many people complaining about others doing exactly what I wanted and described!  Yes, the Aslan are fine just as they are but I also like my ideas too.  Thankfully this book lets me do all of that.

Alien Module 2 - K'kree

PDF. 44 pages, color cover, black and white interior art. 

These aliens were very alien to me.  While I could relate to the Aslan and the Vargr, these centaur-like aliens were very different and thus pushed a lot lower on my "wish list."  I don't even think I had read any of this book until I picked up the PDF ten years ago.

This book is set up much the same as the Aslan book and the future books in the line. I found the bits on K'kree psychology most interesting. As herbivores, they tend to be peaceful (ETA unless you are a meat eater). This combined with the race's inherent claustrophobia goes to explain that while they had Jump technology they had not expanded as fast as other races.  

We do get the sections on history, politics and governments, space travel and starship design, and the language section on creating K'kree names. There is a section on character creation as well.

This Alien Module also gives a few pages on adventures with or about the K'kree.  So a little bit more background here than on the Aslan, but I think needed since this species is so different.

Reading this 10 years ago I was not overly impressed I think.  Today I am of a completely different mind and would like to see these guys used more.

Alien Module 3 - Vargr

PDF. 50 pages, color cover, black and white interior art. 

While I knew about the Vargr, they were the big three alien races GDW was advertising back in the day, my first *real* interaction with them was way back in the early 2010s when I was looking for new ideas for Ghosts of Albion adventures.  I stumbled on one from White Dwarf #62, "An Alien Werewolf in London" about a Vargr in Victorian London.  It was an odd adventure, but I gave it go for Ghosts and always wanted to try it again with Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space. 

This book is a bit larger than the previous two, largely because there is a lot you can do with these guys.  Also they are the most fun in terms of history.

Vargr look like Terran wolves because generally speaking that is what they are.  They were transplanted from Terra (Earth) to their homeworld by the Ancients over 300,000 years ago.  Now 300k years is not enough to evolve any stock into something like the Vargr so they had been artificially engineered for intelligence and survivability.  They share a number of physical characteristics of both humans and canine stock but have some minor differences as well.  They still have the psychology of pack hunters following a charismatic leader and working in small, but somewhat unstable, groups.  Pack membership can change and leaders can be followed or discarded at any time.  This has had two effects on the Vargr. One their history is a confusing affair with no one narrative of what happened.  Most of their 300,000-year history is largely unknown to them.  Also it leaves them with no central government nor even any type of government that could be considered "typically Vargr."   See why these aliens can be fun!

We get the now usual sections on character creation along with a brief language update for names. Some basics on the Vargr worlds and space travel.  

We also get a section called "Gvurrdon's Story" which is given to us from the point of view of a Vargr.

This makes up the "Big Three" in my mind.  I know more were introduced soon after (and I will get to them) but these are the ones I associate the most with Traveller.

One of the better surprises at this year’s Texas Frightmare Weekend involved something of which nobody had any control. Most years in the Dallas area, dormancy among temperate carnivorous plants is a holiday affair: no more temperate carnivore sales after … Continue reading →

Now that Texas Frightmare Weekend is over and the weather is getting stable, by North Texas standards, it’s time to start up the third year of Triffid Ranch Porch Sales while the gallery undergoes renovation and renewal. The first Porch … Continue reading →

To start off this story, let me introduce everyone to Danielle. Danielle started as a longtime Triffid Ranch customer, where we both first met at Texas Frightmare Weekend nearly a decade ago. She and her husband Sean own custom enclosures … Continue reading →