I just made a StarShip font from the StarShips at the SpaceShip Counters Rendering Machine at the Zhodani Base.
Starship Font
State of the Base
What has happened at The Base in 2019? A lot of things, but not as much as I had hoped!
Highlights
The Zhodani Base now has reached over 920 fans at facebook.
Posted a few new maps.
Started playing face-to-face with a new group, from the Traveller RPG Sverige facebook group.
Lowlights
All the things I didn’t have time to write or finish.
There were only 3 reviews.
I didn’t finish season-3 of the Adventures of the Starship Notorious.
Site Stats
The Zhodani Base has about 4400 proper visitors each month (plus about 500 each month at the Amber Zone website). That is a lot worse than last year. (It may have something to do with the move to a new domain and that a lot of links and bookmarks doesn’t work correctly, and that my SEO at google not yet have catched up.)
The 5 most popular posts on the blog were:
- Spinward Marches upside down (new)
- Cepheus Engine (1)
- Traveller Memes (new)
- Create Your own Hex maps (new)
- Spherical Space Ships (5)
The 5 most popular pages on the blog were:
- Free pdf-files (2)
- Random Subsector Generator (1)
- Generators (3)
- Maps and Data (4)
- Amber Zone (5)
The 5 most popular search words/phrases for finding the blog were:
- traveller rpg blog (2)
- zhodani base (new)
- traveller rpg (1)
- traveller rpg pdf (4)
- free traveller rpg pdf downloads (new)
To-do List
- Run an Amber Zone contest this year. (Let’s do this again.)
- Write reviews of Science Fiction books and Traveller Products. (I have a huge backlog.)
- Repost some more stuff from the defunct Traveller Freeport website.
- Post season 3 of the The adventures of Starship Notorious.
- Publish the Cepheus Sector.
- Preparing new adventures to run as a Referee.
- Change theme to make it look more like the Amber Zone website.
- Do something when the number of facebook followers reaches 1000.
Zhodani Base Awards 2019
Welcome to the Zhodani Base Awards 2019! 2019 has been another amazing year for Traveller products. Lots of new stuff from the small publishers (and Mongoose).
The first category is “Best Cover“. The nominees are:
- Gold Rush! : from Old School Role Playing
- The Frozen Watch : from Mongoose
- Crew Expendable : from Zozer Games
- Lance-class Gunboat : from Independence Games
The winner of the “Best Cover” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2019 is: Crew Expendable from Zozer Games
There were lots of Traveller products with nice covers this year. Lots of love for all nice covers. A cool gritty starship image and an otherwise well designed cover with a really good looking font was what won this year.
Next category is “Best Fanzine or Online Magazine“. The nominees are:
The winner of the “Best Fanzine/Online Magazine” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2019 is: Freelance Traveller
Freelance Traveller has once again proved that they are the best fanzine by publishing bimestrial issues with lots of good contents for free.
Freelance Traveller has won this category every year since 2011!
But the competition was quite tough this year. Zine Quest at Kickstarter will be back in February, so maybe there will be some more good Traveller fanzines in 2020.
Next category is “Best Adventure“. The nominees are:
- Reach Adventure 6: Exodus : from Mongoose
- A Shot in the Dark : from Old School Role Playing
- Naval Adventure 2: Showing the Sunburst : from Mongoose
- The Zhodani Candidate : from Stephen J. Ellis
The winner of the “Best Adventure” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2019 is: The Zhodani Candidate from Stephen J. Ellis.
There were lots of fine Traveller Adventures for different settings published. This year The Zhodani Candidate was the most interesting one.
Next category is “Best Ship or Deckplan“. The nominees are:
- Far Encounters Micrond Staryards Ship Compendium 1 : from FSpace Publications
- El Cheapo Deck Plans Vol. I: Danifred Light Trader : from El Cheapo Products
- Liberty Ship : from Stellagama Publishing
- Lance-class Gunboat : from Independence Games
The winner of the “Best Ship or Deckplan” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2019 is: Liberty Ship from Stellagama Publishing.
There were lots of fine ships for Traveller published this year. I found the Liberty Ship very inspiring since I am planning a naval adventure for my new gaming group.
Next category is “Best ATU Product“. The nominees are:
- Dirtside : from Zozer Games
- Cepheus Modern : from Stouthearted Games
- Vehicle Design Guide : from Moon Toad Publishing
- Outlaw: Crime in Clement Sector : from Independence Games
The winner of the “Best ATU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2019 is: Dirtside from Zozer Games.
This category always make me happy since you can always find so many cool ideas and useful books.
Next category is “Best OTU Product“. The nominees are:
- The Zhodani Candidate : from Stephen J. Ellis
- Reach Adventure 6: Exodus : from Mongoose
- Behind the Claw : from Mongoose
- Naval Adventure 2: Showing the Sunburst : from Mongoose
The winner of the “Best OTU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2019 is: Behind the Claw from Mongoose.
Mongoose continues to churn out good quality products for the OTU.
A final bonus category this year is “Best Free or Pay What You Want Traveller Product“. The nominees are:
- HOSTILE Technical Manual : from Zozer Games
- Cepheus: Faster Than Light, Editable Version : from Stellagama Publishing
- Wallwichen: Three Clusters World Book 01 : from Baggage Books
- Kosmos 68 : from Zozer Games
The winner of the “Best Free or Pay What You Want Traveller Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2019 is: HOSTILE Technical Manual from Zozer Games.
There were a lot of great free products this year. The HOSTILE Technical Manual was the most useful for me.
Now, go and download all of the free Traveller Products. Why? They are free!
Spinward Marches rotated 60°
What happens if you rotate The Spinward Marches 60° ?
To make a rectangle we have to add bits of Deneb, Foreven , Trojan Reaches and Gvurrdon Sectors.
For an adventure like The Traveller Adventure set in Aramis Subsector, it looks like we now have more options.
Dune – House Corrino
I first read Dune in 1984. I liked it a lot and later read and enjoyed the five sequels.
I love the way the noble houses are described in the original books. I love how well Dune/Arrakis is described. When I read Dune and the following novels by Frank Herbert I could see where the ideas for the nobles in Traveller has got (some of) its inspiration from.
Now I have read the last one of the Prelude to Dune trilogy prequels, called House Corrino by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. This was an interesting book written in the same style as Frank Herbert’s Dune novels. This book focuses a lot on the Tleilaxu occupied world of Ix, where the Tleilaxu is trying to produce synthetic spice for the Emperor (from House Corrino). It is an interesting book, but I think that the other two prequels, House Harkonnen and House Atreides were better.
Original image from wikimedia. License Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
Intercept space combat
Intercept space combat is a combat system for spaceships. It is designed by Anders Backman. The rules uses vector movement, blind moves and you can use Traveller starships.
Yesterday, Anders demonstrated the game for me and Mike. Anders then helped us with the rules in a small game where Mike used a Free Trader and I used a Far Trader. It was a great game, and I would recommend these rules if you want to play small space battles in great detail.
You can read more about Intercept at the Vector movement blog. There you can also download the rule for free.