Scoutships Without Number

I thought I should stat out the Dolphin under Stars Without Number, and here she is. I’ve used the SWN stats to work out some SW ones as well, because I’m not sure which rules I’d use for space combat, should it occur.

SCOUTSHIP

Power: 10/5 free. Mass: 15/4 free.

Cost: 2,820,000. Hit Points: 20. Crew: 1/10. Speed: 5. Armour: 0. AC: 5.

Weaponry: None.

Defences: None.

Fittings: Spike Drive-3; Atmospheric Configuration, Fuel Scoops (both integral to courier hull); Cargo Lighter, Cargo Space (3 tons), Cold Sleep Pods, Fuel Bunker, Ship’s Locker.

The scoutship is a modified Naval Courier (Skyward Steel p. 46), intended for long-range exploration and courier duties. It is unarmed, relying on its speed and high spike drive rating to evade combat.

Savage Worlds: Acc/TS 70/800, Toughness 16 (4), Crew 1+9, Cost $28M. Notes: Climb-3. (I’m assuming that SW performance is basically like a space shuttle.)

AI

The Dolphin is controlled by a braked AI, working off its debt as a Scout Service ship. This is built using the AI rules in chapter 12 of SWN Core Edition.

I start with the standard Tolerance score of 20, and decide to reserve 5 for armatures, which is enough for any of them. I spend 13 points to buy Int 14, Wis 14 and Cha 12. A further point buys the Basic skills package, and one extra package – Pilot. This leaves me with 6 points; I’ve noticed in using the SWN point buy character system that it is often difficult to use up the last point, and use the last free point to buy an increased saving throw progression of +1 per 3 levels.

As the Dolphin normally wears a starship, I pick a Squawkbox armature to begin with, which costs no Tolerance. I’d like to merge the two Vehicle skills to give it Vehicle/Space-1, but since you can’t do that with skills from the same package, I use the Vehicle/Any skill for Vehicle/Grav, the Culture/World skill for Culture/Homeworld, and allocate the Combat/Any skill as Combat/Unarmed (still usable whatever weapons have been taken away from you).

Str 3, Dex 7, Con 3, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 12. Level 1 AI. HP 4, AC 6, AB +0, Saves 15.

Skills: Combat/Gunnery, Combat/Unarmed, Computer, Culture/Homeworld, Culture/Spacer, Navigation, Tech/Astronautics, Tech/Postech, Tech/Pretech, Vehicle/Grav, Vehicle/Space.

Weapons/Armour: None. Armature costs Cr 500.

Savage Worlds: Ag d4, Sm d8, Sp d8, St d4, Vi d4. Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 4, Charisma 0. Fighting d6, Knowledge/Astrogation d6, Piloting d6, Repair d6, Shooting d6.

REPAIR SWARM

The Dolphin‘s repair swarm is composed of bots based on Squawkbox armatures, each with an expert system granting them +0 on anything relating to repairing the ship. They’re good enough to do routine maintenance, but if anything is seriously damaged, Arion or the Dolphin need to get involved.

AC: 6. HD: 1 (4 HP). AB: +0. Cost: Cr 1,000. No. Appearing: 1d6. Saving Throw: 15. Move: 30′. Morale: 12. Skill Bonus: +0.

Savage Worlds: In SW, I’ll just use the standard statistics for a swarm.

Arion Without Number

When I get to running Arion again, I’m thinking of using a mixture of Savage Worlds, Stars Without Number and Larger Than Life for the rules, so I need some sort of conversion rulings. LTL is easy; Rep is half Spirit die type plus one. SWN is a little more complex, but I’ll assign the SWN modifier as how many die types a trait is above or below d6. Edges and Hindrances in SW are basically how you play the role in SWN, so I only need to consider attributes, skills, powers and Charisma.

Under SWN, all of the crew have woven body armour, semi-auto pistol, and knife.

ARION

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6. Skills: Fighting d4, Knowledge (Astrogation) d4, Notice d8+2, Piloting d10+2, Repair d6, Shooting d6. Charisma -2.

This becomes: Str 10, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 3. Level 1 Expert. HP 4, AC 5, AB +0. Saves: P16, M15, E12, T11, L14. Skills: Combat/Projectile, Combat/Primitive, Perception-1, Tech/Astronautics, Tech/Postech, Vehicle/Space-2.

CORIANDER

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigor d6. Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d6, Notice d6, Persuasion d10+2, Psionics d6, Shooting d4, Streetwise d6+2. Charisma +2. Powers: Boost/Lower Trait, Healing, Mind Reading.

I’ll convert that as: Str 10, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 18. Level 1 Psychic. HP 3, AC 5, AB +0. Saves: P13, M12, E15, T16, L14. Skills: Culture/Criminal, Perception, Persuade-2. Disciplines: Biopsionics-1 (primary), Telepathy-1. (Properly, Coriander should have Biopsionics level 2 to gain access to Psychic Succor, but this is a broad-brush conversion here.)

DMITRI

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d8, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6. Skills: Fighting d6, Investigation d8+2, Notice d8, Persuasion d6, Shooting d6, Streetwise d8+2. Charisma 0.

For SWN, I’d rate Dmitri as: Str 10, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 3. Level 1 Expert. HP 4, AC 5, AB +0. Saves: P16, M15, E12, T11, L14. Skills: Combat/Projectile, Combat/Primitive, Culture/Criminal-1, Perception-1, Persuade.

No Estimated Time of Return

Corinth, 4 months later…

A grizzled Scout veteran sits behind a desk in an office. There is a knock at the door.

"Come," he calls. Arion enters and stands to attention – or, at least, what passes for that in the Corinthian Scout Service.

"You sent for me, sir?"

"Yes. Sit." The veteran flicks the graphics on his desktop to one side and gives Arion his full attention.

"I want to discuss your next assignment with you," Arion’s superior begins.

"Next assignment? I’ve mustered out, sir."

"I’m activating your reserve status and assigning you to Intelligence. Don’t give me that look; you still get to fly around the Galaxy sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong."

"Except now you tell me where that is."

"Exactly."

"And where is it, sir?"

The veteran gestures to scale a starmap projection off his desk and onto the wall.

"Here," he says. "The Celestial Empire. They’re been making expansionist noises recently, and we don’t know enough about them. Between the Gimirri and what you’ve told us about the Imagoes… Well, let’s just say I want to know how much more bad news is coming our way." He sighs.

"It’s hard to see how we can avoid banding the Cluster together into an empire, if only for mutual defence. It’ll take blood spilt before we can make that work, and then both our planets could wind up controlled by these guys."

"Better that than bug food, sir."

"I suppose. Anyway, that’s not your problem. Your problem is to find out what’s going on over there, and get the news back to us."

"May I keep the Dolphin and my current crew, sir?"

"In a sense – you’ll travel as a free trader, and a Corinthian scout doesn’t fit that picture. We’re transferring the AI core and the name to a different hull. Coriander will handle the trading, you’ll handle the ship, you’ll both gather intelligence. I imagine you’ve worked out by now that Dmitri is one of ours; his mission will be to set up a network and safe houses, and feed your reports back to us, so you’ll drop him off on Halfway and leave him to dig in. You’ll commence by infiltrating the Combine, which will give you a good reason to wander around. Any questions?"

"No sir."

"Very good. I’ll have the details sent to your comm. Dismissed."

Arion’s Log, 135-3011 to 176-3011

Arion continues to meander across the Imagoes subsector during this 7 week period, before exiting it, bound for Corinth.

I did dice through this, with the upshot that the crew made a killing on cybernetics parts on Indiarza, and had a wide range of encounters, only one of which resulted in a fight – since that was two fugitives armed with knives trying to stow away, versus Our Heroes with guns and body armour, it was a one-sided affair and soon over. None of those individually seemed worth a post.

The Dolphin leaves the subsector with 9,219,214 Credits on hand; I’ll dock them 600k for replacing the air/raft on their way home, leaving them with a cash balance of Cr 8,619,214.

The Arioniad so far has shown me that Classic Traveller works really well as a portable, solo game. With Flanf’s dice roller and a PDF of the rules, it’s entirely feasible to run a whole campaign on my laptop in my lunch hour. However, without a referee to inject adventures, CT becomes an exercise in world-building and trading, with little in the way of conflict.

That is too much like the day job for me, so the Dolphin is moving on again, into an experiment with Stars Without Number. Watch for The Arioniad Season 3: Heart of the Scorpion, coming soon to a monitor near you.

Arion’s Log, 132-3011 to 134-3011

Arion, Coriander and Dmitri were last seen captured by the Battle Dress Dude and his half-dozen accomplices, who wish to relieve them of their money. Now read on…

A more than somewhat singed Arion and Dmitri are in a dingy, improvised cell when the door opens, and a dishevelled Coriander is pushed in. The door slams and locks behind her.

Actually, something I got wrong last time was that flamers ignore armour. This would make our heroes even more singed. I’ll chalk that up to experience and press on.

"Are you OK?" asks Arion. "They didn’t try to… well…"

"Force themselves on me? A bit. But I can Lower more Traits than you might think. They didn’t like that much." She rubs bruises on her arms and face. "Also, they are bound to get suspicious at some point."

A scrabbling noise comes from the ceiling, followed by dust, and then – as the trio glance upwards – by a fist-sized metal spider. It makes its way carefully down the wall, and across the floor to Arion.

"Hello, Dolphin," says Arion. "Took your time, but we’re glad to see you all the same."

The spider responds by using one leg to scratch a message in the dust, which it erases after giving them a moment to read it.

"Police on way."

"You used the comm to flag weapons violations, yes?" The spider nods by rocking itself backwards and forwards on its legs. "What’s that lump on you?"

"IED," the spider scribbles.

"We’d better look for something solid to hide in," says Dmitri. "The police will have whatever they think they need to deal with battle dress and plasma guns, and they might come in shooting."

"Hadn’t thought of that."

"Not the only thing you didn’t think of today." Arion opens his mouth to reply, then decides Dmitri has a point. The spider scribbles again.

"Will come in shooting. Distraction. Escape."

"You know this how?" asks Arion.

"Track record – press," the spider writes.

"Dmitri," says Coriander, "What would you use to deal with battle dress and plasma guns?"

"Anti-tank missiles."

"So when you say something solid, you mean really solid."

"Oh yes."

"Escape how?" asks Arion.

"Sewer." It marks an X on the floor. "Tamp unit stand back. Unit 2 in pipe."

The spider rolls over, and Arion scurries to cover it with the heaviest stuff he can find.

"You in the warehouse," booms another amplified voice. "Throw out your weapons and come out with your hands up."

A reaction roll here for the desperadoes. 8; dithering.

"We have hostages," calls the leader.

"If we die, the government gets the ship," Dmitri points out.

"Over there, in that corner," calls Arion. "Cover your ears. Fire in the hole!"

The spider sets off a small shaped charge, blowing a hole in the floor and the pipe beneath.

The police open fire. The brigands return fire. Arion pushes his friends into the sewer, then follows. Below, a second spider waits to lead them back to the ship.

"And what valuable lesson have we learned today?" shouts Dmitri, over the ringing in everyone’s ears.

"We need bigger guns," Arion shouts back. "Really big frakkin’ guns."

Coriander and the spider look at each other, and shake their heads in despair.

Trading: Once everyone has cleaned up, and been interviewed by the police, Coriander is offered 30 tons of Cybernetics Parts at 70% of the usual 250,000 per ton. The next port of call, Indiarza, is Non-Industrial, with a +4 resale DM, so that looks like a good buy. She takes 7 tons, and pays Cr 1,225,000, plus a Cr 52,500 handling fee for splitting the cargo.

The Dolphin leaves Esusce behind without further encounters or regret, and heads for Indiarza with 7 tons of cybernetics parts and Cr 2,297,214 in negotiable instruments of some sort.

Arion’s Log, 128-3011 to 131-3011

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Smells like… It smells like victory.” – from Apocalypse Now.

Something I’m glossing over in the campaign so far is currency conversion, because it is deeply unheroic and too much like my day job. There is no universal state like the Third Imperium in this campaign, and thus no universal currency. Somewhere in the background, every time the Dolphin moves to a new interstellar state or independent world, the crew spend a couple of hours haggling with local bankers about exchange rates and turning their millions into something they can spend locally and at the next couple of stops. That is probably eating several percent of their cash each time, let’s call it 5%. Hmm, that means they have to keep trading just to pay the bank fees. Ouch. Checking back through the last few posts, and applying a 5% reduction in cash each time they land, the group now has Cr 3,574,714.

Anyway: The skeleton for this week’s port of call, Esusce, goes like this. Half a day to manoeuvre in from the jump point (Type M, reaction 11 – that would become a friend if we were hanging around), half a day to manoeuvre back out again (no encounter), six days in port. Legal encounters: None, hardly surprising given the law level. Patron encounter: None. Person encounters: One on day three, with 3d6 Ambushing Brigands, whose leader has the best possible armour and weapons for the TL – battle dress and plasma gun. Double ouch. Obviously a Wild Card. The remaining 7 of them have armour and guns, let’s say kevlar (flak) and M-16s because I have the stats handy. Given that they are specified as Ambushing, and we haven’t had a fight yet this season, I won’t roll for their reaction. I’ll treat the plasma gun as a flamethrower rather than spend time working out specific stats.

I roll for initial encounter range, assuming we are in city terrain. 2d6-4 = 5, Short range… 1-5 metres, up close and personal. A battlemat hardly seems necessary, but I’ll use the Soldier template for the brigands, and the Experienced Soldier one for the leader.

Arion, Coriander and Dmitri are meandering back to the Dolphin after a pleasant evening out, when suddenly a hulking figure steps out of the darkness, and booms in an amplified voice.

“Freeze. You’re going to come with me, and give me your cargo, your money, and her. Or I’ll fry you and take them anyway.”

Turn 1

The card draws are: Battle Dress dude, Heart 6; Brigands, Diamond 9; Arion, Diamond King; Coriander, Spade 2; Dmitri, Diamond 6. Or, in the words of Sergio Leone, “If you’re going to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”

The threat to Coriander is too much for Arion, and he draws his pistol and fires at the Battle Dress dude (BDD henceforth). His Shooting roll is at -2 for doing two actions in one turn. He rolls a 5 on his wild die and a 1 on his skill die, not good; time to spend a benny and reroll. A 2 on the skill die and 6 followed by a 3 on an acing wild die; much better. He hits, doing 2d6 for the Glock; a mighty 4 damage, which against the Toughness way-more-than-that of the battle dress is insufficient.

The brigands go next, and autofire from the hip, possibly holding the guns sideways as well. (Why do people do that in movies? It’s a rubbish idea.) Six of them, each rolling ROF x 1d6 to hit and hoping for a 6+ (normally 4+, but –2 for autofire); three hits, and I randomly determine that Arion and Dmitri are each hit, Dmitri twice. A mighty 3 damage on Arion is not enough to beat his armoured Toughness of 9 vs bullets (5 for him, 4 for his kevlar), and Dmitri shrugs off a 4, but is Shaken by 9 damage against his Toughness of 9. Being Shaken against this lot seems like a really bad idea, so he spends a benny to recover immediately.

BDD is next up, and angles his flamer to catch both Arion and Dmitri. He rolls 1d8 Shooting, and a Wild d6, +2 for the flamethrower; a natural one on both dice – oh, that sounds unhealthy. He spends one of his bennies to reroll, and gets a more reasonable 7+2=9. Arion and Dmitri now have to match or beat that on an Agility roll, or take 2d10 damage. Both fail, and both decide they’d rather spend a benny than be flamed, so reroll. Arion still fails, but Dmitri steps out of the way behind a dumpster.

The flamer aces its damage, and does 24 damage to Arion, enough to incapacitate him; he uses his last benny to soak the damage, but fails and the lights go out for him. Fortunately, a roll of 1 on a d6 means he does not catch fire. As per p. 75 of SWEX, he makes an immediate Vigour roll – a 5, which is a success. He is unconscious for one hour, or until healed; he next rolls 2d6 on the Injury table and gets a 10, meaning one leg is incapacitated (-1 Pace) until all wounds are healed. That could have been a lot worse.

Dmitri’s turn arrives, and he sticks one eye and one hand out of cover and plugs the BDD. He misses; more likely, the shot ricochets harmlessly off the armour.

Last for this turn, Coriander goes. She knows enough not to waste time on dramatic words, and to win the fight before she heals Arion. The most potent weapon in her arsenal is Boost/Lower Trait, and she decides to Lower the BDD’s Shooting. She rolls an 8 (acing) and succeeds with a raise, dropping him two die types to d4. Pity she didn’t go first, really.

Turn 2

The order dictated by the cards is: BDD, Dmitri, brigands, Coriander.

The BDD flames Dmitri again, and despite Coriander’s best efforts scores a 10 thanks to an ace on his wild die. Dmitri fails, dithers over whether to spend his last benny on dodging or soaking damage, and opts for the dodge. It does him no good, but he is only Shaken by the incoming 9 damage.

The brigands shoot Dmitri, as Arion is down. Five hits this time, two with a raise. The kevlar saves him from three of the bullets, but thanks to aces one rolls 15 damage, which would shake and wound, and since he is already shaken, wounds him twice; the final shot does 40 damage, and nobody gets up from that. Dmitri is incapacitated. He succeeds on a Vigour roll, then like Arion, gets a 10 on the Injury table, and will limp until healed. I suppose the BDD is aiming for the legs because he needs them alive to draw money out of their account.

Sensing defeat, Coriander uses her turn to heal Arion. The roll is at -3 because of his wounds. A roll of 5 succeeds, but she wants better, so rerolls with a benny, getting a 2, then again with a second benny, getting a 5. Going for broke, she uses her last benny on a second reroll, and gets a third 5. The best of her rolls is a mere success, which removes one Wound. Arion is now conscious, because he has been healed, but at -2 for the remaining wounds, and still limping.

Turn 3

The cards give me a sequence of Arion (with a Joker), brigands, BDD, and finally Coriander. The odds do not look good for the home team, but it’s a pity to waste a Joker, so Arion raises his pistol and squeezes the trigger. Thanks to aces, he rolls a 14 to hit, adding 1d6 damage – the -2 from his wounds is cancelled out by the +2 from his Joker. He rolls a 13 for damage, +2 for the Joker is 15, but even that bounces off the Toughness 16 of a Vigour d8 BDD in +12 battle armour. That was, perhaps, not Arion’s brightest moment.

The brigands open fire on Arion this time, and three hit him, one with a raise. The 5 damage doesn’t hurt, but 9 Shakes him and the 18 drops hims again, incapacitated. A 9 on the Vigour roll, though, is a raise, so he is Shaken with 3 Wounds, rather than incapacitated, and suffers a temporary impairment – he is shot in the head, and gains the Ugly disadvantage, fortunately only until the end of the fight. Adding insult to injury, BDD flames him; however, since Coriander trashed his Shooting, he misses.

Coriander shouts: “Wait! I’ll help you – I’ll go with you – just let them go.”

She rolls a Persuasion test, and gets a 4 – just barely enough.

BDD swings his flamer into a tactical carry, and booms, only a little less quietly than before, “I don’t think so. But I’ll let them live, for the moment.” He signals to his men.

“Bring them with us. Kill them if they give you any trouble.” He turns back to Coriander.

“If you give me any trouble, I’ll kill them myself. Understand?” She nods, weakly, and the group trots off into a dark alleyway, dragging Arion and Dmitri.

As they leave, a hand-sized metallic spider watches from under the dumpster.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Esusce

I know from what I had to work out for Ustianan that Esusce’s oligarchy (which claims to be a democracy) has a power base rooted in the planet’s limited manufacturing base, and culturally they are unfailingly polite. I also decided that the rulers are secretly clones as well. Likewise, the alliance with Inleer is known from thinking about the naval situation. Here’s one of the advantages of a sandbox campaign; detail builds upon detail, until eventually it flows almost without thinking.

Starport: A. Excellent installation, with refined fuel and facilities for starship construction, annual overhauls, etc. Naval base present.

Size: 4. Diameter 4,000 miles, surface gravity 50% standard, safe jump distance 400,000 miles (4 hours at 1G)

Atmosphere: 4. Thin, tainted; those venturing outside require a filter mask.

Hydrographics: 2. Oceans cover 20% of the surface.

Population: 3. Thousands of inhabitants.

Government: 3. Self-perpetuating oligarchy.

Law Level: 3. Concealed, military, energy, explosive, and chemical/biological weapons are prohibited.

Tech Level: 13. Above average. Battle dress, type Q drives, cloning.

Trade Classifications: Non-industrial, poor. Main imports: Aluminium, special alloys, body armour, cybernetic parts. Main exports: Gems, petrochemicals.

Gas Giant: Yes.

Alignment: Confederation of Esusce

Esusce is capital of the Confederation of Esusce, and allied to Inleer and its fledgling empire. While it is nominally a representative democracy, candidates for office must hold a minimum number of shares in one of the high-tech mining and manufacturing companies which are crucial to the economy; since these use closely-held stock, generally inherited from previous corporate officers, the de facto position is of an hereditary oligarchy. The ruling elite are rarely seen in public, but when they are, the family resemblance between generations is quite striking, leading to rumours of inbreeding.

The law-abiding traveller has little to fear here, given the unfailing courtesy of the population.

Arion’s Log, 115-3011 to 121-3011

Firstly, I’m drawn more and more to the idea of telepathy and clairvoyance being trappings rather than powers in their own right; so I’ve replaced Coriander’s Mind-Reading power with Speak Language.

Secondly, I’ve decided that Arion needs to succeed with a Piloting skill roll at -4 to identify where he is, after which he can plot a route home; he can roll once per week to do this. For a run home, I’m unlikely to need maps of any intervening subsectors.

As usual, I roll the encounters en masse and then weave a storyline around them.

Arion’s research pays off in the first week; he rolls a 6 on his Piloting d8, and a 6 on the Wild Die he gets for being a PC. This allows him to keep the 6, roll the d6 again and add the resulting 4 to his score; total 10, which is enough. I now determine the direction and distance of the misjump which brought them here; under CT rules, this will be 1-6 d6 hexes in a random direction. That proves to be 5d6, resolving to 19 hexes, in direction 1 (counting from the top clockwise); home is therefore 19 hexes due "north" of Betiqu – a trip of about 2-3 months under ideal conditions. So, the Attica Subsector is two subectors "north" of the Imagoes one, and Arion misjumped from Ephesus.

While Arion is up to his elbows in holographic star charts, Dmitri and Coriander are out on the town.

Arion’s Log, 115-3011

Legal encounter, reaction 4 (attack on 8+) followed by a 6. The pair are released with a caution for some minor transgression, no doubt caused by Coriander’s Clueless hindrance.

Coriander did something silly today, while she and Dmitri were out seeing the sights – such as they are. Neither of them wanted to explain what it was, but Dmitri said the police were very unhappy, and they were lucky to get off without a beating. He paid a fine out of petty cash instead. Hopefully they will be more circumspect in future.

I spent all day at the Port Authority Navigation Office, trying to work out where we are. I’ll be doing that every day until I can plot a course home, so the log may not be updated every day.

117-3011

Random encounter. 3 peasants, reaction 9. Not even worth working out, I feel.

119-3011

Random encounter. 3 researchers, reaction 7.

I met a few researchers at the Navigation Office, who recognised me as not from around here. I invited them back to the ship to exchange astrogation data; they had no information on the Attica Subsector, but we did have a couple of navigational marker stars with similar spectra on our charts, and when we exchanged pulsar data I think I found a match. This should help with the route plotting considerably.

120-3011

Patron encounter; Merchant. Probably he wants to come with them to scout out potential markets in Attica. I decide to roll reactions; none of the crew rolled higher than 5, so they don’t like him; he rolled equally poorly for Arion and Dmitri, but an 11 for Coriander – no surprise, everyone likes Coriander.

Today, I finished plotting our route home and logged it with the Port Authority. Soon afterwards, a local shipping firm sent a representative to call on us. Not unreasonably, they want to send someone with us to Attica and see what trade possibilities there are; none of us liked him, and I especially didn’t like the way he looked at Coriander.

Certainly, it would be useful to have someone with local knowledge on hand for the next few jumps; and you have to get used to crewing a ship with people you don’t like in the Service. However, we don’t like him, we have enough money not to take him on if we don’t want to, and there’s always the chance he is a hijacker or pirate of some sort – even a small, banged-up ship like this is worth a lot, and I suspect the local authorities wouldn’t exactly bust a gut for us if anything happened.

121-3011

The Dolphin lifts off from Ustianan Downport, en route to Esusce.

I now have sufficient information to plot a course back to Athenai. Next stop, Esusce.

It’s surprising how little actual conflict the CT rules generate, left to themselves, isn’t it? The plots and combat require referee input, it seems. However, as expected, it’s a campaign I can run in my lunch hour at work, with no more than a handful of dice, a notepad, and the Starter Traveller charts book. That fills a hole in my gaming life nicely, meaning that pretty much every day I want to play, I can.

Arion’s Log, 101-3011 to 114-3011

An entry for two weeks this time, as Arion & Co. have the Dolphin overhauled and some guns fitted.

Encounters are diced up en masse as usual, then worked into a storyline. The group elects to stay in or near the starport while the overhaul occurs, in case supervision is needed; so no animal encounters. Unsurprisingly, there are no legal encounters on this Law Level 3 planet. There are no patron encounters either. Random encounters occur on days 1, 6 and 14. Respectively, they are: 4 workers, reaction 9; 2 peasants, reaction 6; 4 guards, reaction 10.

Arion’s Log, 101-3011

After an uneventful week in jumpspace, we emerged in the Ustianan system. We encountered a patrol boat; this was initially suspicious but Coriander, who seems to have a talent for communications work, persuaded them of our peaceful intentions, and we touched down without incident.

Entering the system, the Dolphin encounters a patrol – an armed Type Y yacht (I’m using the 1977 encounter tables because I like them better.) They haven’t actually left yet, so I’ll leave the second encounter until they do. A reaction of 5 shows they are hostile and may attack, but a successful Persuasion roll by Coriander convinces the patrol they mean no harm, and they are allowed to land.

On landing, we were approached by a group of starport workers who guided us in to a docking bay and checked its seals. They seemed very affable.

They are “intrigued” according to the reaction dice, and Coriander has the Attractive edge, so my guess is they are intrigued by her.

106-3011

The week on the ground has been as uneventful as the preceding week spaceborne. Aside from our business contacts with the starport, and visits to the local restaurants and entertainment venues, we encountered only a couple of peasants who seemed content to let us be so long as we let them be.

114-3011

Arion, Coriander and Dmitri are sitting in a cafe, plotting their next move, and in the case of the men, nursing hangovers as well.

A group of guardsmen in ceremonial uniforms, carrying halberds and daggers, enter and move up to the bar, where they order drinks. After taking seats and nudging each other for a while, one of them stands up and approaches.

“Hey, lovely lady,” he says. “Want to join us? I guarantee you we’ll be more fun than these two.” Coriander focusses intently on him, smiles, and says “Thank you, but I’m fine where I am.”

Coriander uses Boost/Lower Trait to boost her Persuasion – succcess and a raise, taking it to d10 – and then makes a persuasion roll of 7 to send him away. “This isn’t the girl you’re looking for.” Initially, I thought Boost Trait wasn’t much use, but I find myself relying on it more and more as a key power.

The guardsman returns to his friends, not entirely sure why he is now convinced Coriander is not to be disturbed. A little later they finish their drinks and leave, at which point Arion and Dmitri both move their hands a little further from their holsters, and relax.

“I told the shipyard to put some guns in the double turret,” said Arion. “So, where does that leave us financially?”

“What’d you order?” asked Dmitri.

“Beam laser and missile rack.”

“Okay then. Figure 30K for the overhaul. 1750K for the weapons,” said Dmitri, making rough calculations on his commpad. “When we get to leaving, 20K for fuel and 8K for life support replen. That will leave us about four and a quarter million in the bank.”

“Less 600K to replace the air/raft.”

“Look, I’ve been thinking about that. If we leave the bay empty, we can call it a second cargo hold. That gives us 7 tons of cargo. We’ll have guns, and I can claim to be the ship’s gunner.”

“Wait, you’re a qualified gunner?”

“Who’s going to travel Klono knows how many parsecs to check? I’m sure we can, ahh, dig out some suitable paperwork. With a little, errm, advice and guidance from Coriander I’m sure I can pass any actual tests. Anyway, with that cargo space and a gunner, we can take on a mail contract. 25K per month, which would keep us going when the money runs out, so long as we stick to refined fuel.”

“Or, we could hang around here for a while,” said Coriander, brightly. “It’s a nice place.”

“You’re certainly very popular,” observed Dmitri.

“That’s tempting,” said Arion, rubbing his chin. “They appear to have the best computers and databases in the subsector. Maybe I can figure out where we are, plot a route home. How long could we stay here on what we have left?” Dmitri tapped on his commpad.

“Let’s say high living for all three of us, and berthing fees on the ship… call it 3K per month, all up. Four million or so would keep us going for… Wow. A hundred and eleven years.”

“So, we could put the decision off for a few days, then?”

“If you like.”

“In that case, I don’t have to fly tomorrow. Another round of whiskies is in order, I think.”

Ustianan

As usual for this subsector, I start with the randomly-generated world name and run it through Google to see what it might mean. Of half a dozen possibilities, I settle on Ustian, a 19th-century Armenian girls’ name, largely because it is derived from the Latin "ustus", meaning "honest". This immediately gives me a cultural tag for the world.

The original settlers of Ustianan were Armenians, and over the centuries they have developed a reputation for honesty and fair dealing.

Starport: A. Excellent installation, with refined fuel and facilities for starship construction, annual overhauls, etc. Naval base present.

Size: 3. Diameter 3,000 miles, surface gravity 38% standard, safe jump distance 300,000 miles (4 hours at 1G)

Atmosphere: 3. Very thin, those venturing outside require a compressor mask.

Hydrographics: 3. Oceans cover 30% of the surface.

Population: 6. Millions of inhabitants.

Government: 4. Representative democracy.

Law Level: 3. Concealed, military, energy, explosive, and chemical/biological weapons are prohibited.

Tech Level: 12. High average interstellar community. Grav belts, robots, class N drives.

Trade Classifications: Non-agricultural, non-industrial, poor. Main imports: Cybernetic parts, computer parts, machine tools. Main exports: Gems, petrochemicals, textiles.

Gas Giant: Yes.

Alignment: Confederation of Esusce

To work out the interstellar government, I had a quick look at the dominant partner in this micro-state, Esusce. Starting with an internet search on the name, I got hits on a Taiwanese auto parts manufacturer, fog lamps, and a common mispronunciation of “Excuse me!” for non-native English speakers. Esusce’s oligarchy thus has a power base rooted in the planet’s limited manufacturing base, and culturally they are unfailingly polite. Since CT places cloning at Esusce’s TL of 13, just for fun we’ll say the rulers are secretly clones as well. The oligarchy probably presents itself as a democracy, so we’ll go with Confederation for the name of the state – while the two worlds present a united front to other powers, individual citizens deal with their planetary governments, not with the Confederation government as a whole.