In the Traveller5 Book and in the Traveller5 CDROM we can read about a few interesting things that will expand the current “Charted Space” of the OTU to a galactic scale. There are a few hints that we can expect some epic adventures. If we look at the image of The GALAXY (p. 417 or in the CDROM) we can see many interesting things. In the map in the book these are called Scattered Hydrogen Societies. I have added these on the Milky Way map below.
Milky Way with information from Traveller5 added. Map from NASA. Public Domain.
From the top there is first Dushis Khurisi. Searching the interwebs I found it in Eaglestone’s Vilani Dictionary. The meaning is “poem“. This made me suspect that this was something from The Galaxiad. And there it is! Dashus Khurisi (slightly different spelling) is a Vilani Empire on the other side of the Galaxy.
In the Galaxiad Intro, the Abyssals, the Barren Worlds and the Essaray are also mentioned among many other interesting things. But there is no answer to what kind of Scattered Hydrogen Societies the SRAL and Denizens are. There are some notes about the Black Fleets that we remember from the Kickstarter Project (at the $ 25 level and above).
The first time I heard about the Barren Worlds was when Clifford Linehan was mapping the Zhodani Core Route. (His site is now offline.) He then discussed this with Marc Miller. That was 13 years ago. Marc must have been planning this a long time.
I got Traveller5 from Marc Miller today. I have looked through it. It is huge! The rules seem clearer on some points than in other versions. There are lots of help for both experienced traveller players and for new. But new players may get scared since the book is so huge and some rules are quite complex.
The Charted Space that we know is used. I thought the book would have been more generic since I have read about the extended tech-level tables and sophont generation. But I still want to create my own ATU for Traveller5.
One thing that I just had to check was the planet creation rules. Was is like Book-3, T4 and T20 or like Book-6, MT and TNE. It’s on page 433. It is like Book-3, T4 and T20, Hydrographics = 2d-7+atmosphere. But in T5 a concept called Flux is used.
A quick competition. A $10 prize at DriveThruRPG for the winner. Design something (e.g. a character, a ship, a patron, a system) for the St. Patrick’s Map. The most interesting entry will win.
Send Your entries by e-mail. Please use plain text format and attach any images. Word files will not be accepted!
The competition starts now and ends 16 March 2013.
By entering the contest You allow your entry to be posted at the Zhodani Base. All entries might also be posted in PDF format as a free down-loadable file at the Zhodani Base.
Cirque, a 160 page campaign source book for Traveller5 (T5) at familiar worlds in the Spinward Marches. This sounded like a good idea to me. I am backing it and getting a print version.
The idea of a circus, instead of the usual gang in a Free Trader is quite an unorthodox idea. But it sounds interesting and this is not the first time we have seen an unorthodox idea like this. Remember the rock-band Veedback in an amber zone adventure in JTAS 23. That was a cool adventure in only 3 pages. Cirque will probably be just as cool and requires a lot less work for the referee since it will be 160 pages.
