Category Archives: Adventures

Adventures and Scenarios.

Adventures, The Base, Traveller

The Musician

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Patron: Artist
Required Skills: None
Required Equipment: Starship
Locations: Urnian, Gotylu

Players’ Information:
The characters are enjoying some downtime at a starport establishment on Urnian, which includes a live performance of Gotylu folk music by Voh Rahl Shu. After the performance, one of the characters is delivered a hand-written note, asking him or her to meet with the musician backstage.

When the character arrives at Shu dressing room, the musician is sporting the beginnings of shiner around one eye and is dabbing at a bloody nose with a handkerchief. Shu explains that he is ending a highly unfavorable performance contract with his manager – one where she and her cronies kept most of the money he earned. His injuries are a result of him refusing to sign an extension. Shu says he cannot go to the local authorities because his manager, Eboni Blayz, has connections with the local and planetary government.

Shu says he has one more performance tomorrow evening to fulfill his current contract and then wishes to return to his home on Gotylu (3 parsecs away). For payment, he offers up his toku’omo, the Gotylu instrument he has played on the tour, easily worth four times the cost of his passage to a collector. Shu wants to depart Urnian as soon as possible after his last performance.

The Musician
The Musician : Picture from wikimedia. Public domain, copyright has expired.

Referee’s Information:
Due to the laws on Urnian, breaking even the smallest terms of a contract entails severe financial penalties, including a period of indentured servitude to the injured party or organization. Trying any legitimate means of getting Shu off-world before he completes his contract will bring the full force of Urnian law enforcement down upon the characters and Shu.

The toku’omo is a fairly bulky and fragile instrument which could very easily be damaged or even destroyed with rough handling, thereby reducing its value (possibly to the point of worthlessness), even if is the signature instrument of a noteworthy performer. If any profit is to be had in the enterprise, considerations will have to be made for the transportation and storage of this item.

Eboni Blayz and her company, Blayz Entertainment, represent over a dozen off-world performers on Urnian, though Shu is by far the most noteworthy (and profitable) to date. His departure will be a serious blow to her operation’s bottom line. While there have been allegations of contract improprieties with past performers, no charges have ever brought against Eboni or Blayz Entertainment.

Outcomes:
1. All is as presented. Immediately after Shu’s final performance the next night, Eboni and three of her cronies (all armed with body pistols and cudgels) will attempt to forcibly “escort” Shu away from the venue.

2. Shu is fibbing a bit. He actually has been romantically involved with Eboni for the past year and has only recently discovered that she is pregnant. He doesn’t want to live up to his parental responsibilities and using the “contract difficulties” as a ruse to elicit sympathy from the characters. Eboni’s “cronies” are actually disgruntled family members who are upset that Shu isn’t going to marry Eboni.

3. Shu is an out-and-out liar. Shu is attempting to smuggle a small stash of anagathic drugs off-world in special space inside of his toku’omo. He gave a private performance at a wealthy noble’s home a few nights before meeting the characters and stole the drugs. He was visited by the noble’s personal guard who gave Shu his injuries. To buy time, Shu said he would have the drugs at his next performance. The guard will be there with three reinforcements (armed as the combatants in Outcome #1).

4. Eboni is working an angle. Eboni has taken out a standard life insurance policy on Shu. Since he is reluctant to sign a contract extension under her “generous” terms, she intends to collect by killing the performer and framing the characters for it. She will be waiting with her cronies (see Outcome #1) for the characters to make their move after the show, moving in to create the incident and kill Shu in the process. The secret space in Shu’s instrument contains a stash of contraband hallucinogenic drugs to further sell the story.

5. Shu and Eboni are working an angle. This is similar to Outcome #2, except that both Shu and Eboni are working together to smuggle the anagathic drugs off-world before the noble discovers the stash is missing. Shu’s story about the abusive manager is a ruse, with the injuries inflicted by Eboni needed to sell the story. Both Eboni and Shu plan to meet up on Gotylu later to split the profits of the venture. However, the noble’s men will catch up to Eboni during the show and be waiting for Shu and the characters afterward to reclaim the stash. (These guys will be armed the same as Outcome #1, but will also be wearing Jack armor as well.)

6. Shu is working a double-cross. This is similar to Outcome #5, with the twist that Shu is intending to double-cross Eboni and keep the sizable profits from the sale of the anagathic drugs on the black market. During the planned distraction, he will shoot Eboni with a poison-tipped body pistol round to make sure she is out of the game.

Each of these outcomes may have further opportunities for resolution, depending on the level of morality in your game – such as the victimized noble hiring the characters to locate the stolen stash of anagathic drugs and the persons responsible…

Adventures, The Base, Traveller

Flight of Orphans

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Required Skills: None
Required Equipment: Starship
No. of Players: 2-6

Players’ Information:
While between jobs on a world still recovering from a devastating global conflict, the group is approached by a representative of Flight of Orphans, a charitable organization dedicated to placing some of the thousands of war orphans with loving foster families offworld. The association wants to charter the PCs’ ship to transport a group of orphaned babies one jump away to waiting families. There is little money involved (ship captains usually just accept the price of fuel and some life support reimbursement), but as the charity is highly respected, the PR rewards are great.

The cargo
The cargo : Picture from wikimedia. Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-12915. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.

Referee’s Information:
The passengers consist of 4D babies, their necessary provisions and supplies (taking up about a ton of cargo space), and one nurse for every four children. The PCs may partition off part of the cargo bay to act as a nursery at minimal cost and effort.

1. All is as represented. The nurses are good at their jobs, and the babies are mild-mannered for the most part. No help will be needed from the PCs.

2. Whether it’s some subtle discomfort upon the transition to jumpspace, something in the baby formula, or just plain unluckiness, the babies are especially fussy and colicky throughout most of the flight. The overburdened nurses ask the team to help care for the children. Sleep will be a luxury as the kids’ cries echo throughout the ship.

3. Unknown to the group, one of the nurses is in on a plot to get the young son of the world’s ruler offworld before his father’s enemies can make good on several threats to the child’s life. She is actually a trained bodyguard, and carries not only false identity papers for the lad (identifying him as an ordinary citizen he has been switched with) but also important state documents intended for remote government agents. She will let this fact slip or be recognized by someone who frequents the world on a throw of 9+, once a day.

4. As 3, but the nurse is joined by several representatives of the government who insist on “monitoring” the boy throughout the flight to preserve their own political interests. They will be a constant presence, watching closely as the boy is fed and clothed, insist on analyzing his milk before he drinks it, ask the PCs all kinds of intrusive and annoying questions, getting in the way of caring for the other children, and otherwise making a titanic nuisance of themselves. Any mistreatment of the representatives will reach the ears of the planetary ruler.

5. As 3, but the nurse is actually an agent of the father’s enemies, with orders to kidnap the boy as soon as soon as possible after landing and deliver him to enemy agents. If she is found out beforehand, she will first try to lie about her role, then resort to killing witnesses.

6. As 5, but the nurse will instead try to kill the child and make it look like an accident or a disease was responsible. She will try to kill the PCs if she is exposed beforehand or once she completes her evil mission.

The referee must determine the flow of subsequent events.

Adventures, The Base, Traveller

Custom Build

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Patron: Scout Pilot
Skills Required: Technical skills, Administration
Equipment Required: tools

Players’ Information:
The PC’s are contacted by a detached duty Scout, who is looking for help o a building project. He has acquired a starship hull, which is sound but lacking some key components. The Scout has borrowed against the selling price of the ship to purchase or build the required parts. He offers the party a share of the selling price, initially 30% to him and 70% split amongst the group. The Scout claims to have a buyer already lined up.

Custom Ship
Custom Ship : Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest, “LIBERTY SHIP, 1943. – A Liberty Ship Under Construction At The Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard In Baltimore, Maryland. Photograph, April 1943.”, accessed 23 Aug 2012 . (rights-cleared image)

Referee’s Information:
The situation is as the Scout has explained it, the hull is legally his, and he has secured funding. Referee can choose the size of the ship based upon the size of the PC group and their skills. Any starship, even a rebuild should be worth several MCr. The ship sits on a paved area that used to be a warehouse floor, outside of the local metropolis, and he has rented some heavy equipment necessary to lift large components. The referee must determine the number of parts still needed and their cost. It is suggested that the referee consult the Traveller Book, p. 78 ‘Repair parts’, the Starship Operator’s Manual page on Maintenance, under Other Tasks, the JTAS article Starship Malfunctions, (JTAS 15 p. 16), and ‘Refitting Ships’ and ‘Repairs’ in Adventure 5: Trillion Credit Squadron.

Complications:
1. The buyer has only a limited time in which he is able to purchase the ship. The players will have to work very fast to meet the deadline. After that date the PC’s will need to find a new buyer.

2. The buyer is a crook, and is planning to forge payment then skip the system with the ship.

3. There are some components which cannot be gotten locally. Someone will have to travel to another star system to find them, buy them and have them shipped back.

4. The hull has a secret compartment, containing a Macguffin. The referee must determine the nature of the Macguffin, and what parties may wish to buy or steal it.

5. The local shipyard manager objects to the competition and is using his connections to hold up the project by requiring permits, inspections and lots of red tape. Local police may be called in if the permits are not in order. If pushed to extremes, the manager may employ yard workers to attempt sabotage.

6. The buyer backs out unexpectedly, leaving the group with a very large debt. Then they find out that the money came from loan sharks, not a bank.

Adventures, The Base, Traveller

Nothing Here Is As It Seems

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Patron: Scavenger, Agent
Required Skills: none
Required Equipment: J-2 Starship

Players’ Information:
The group while on Wutubole (Pieplow/0819) are contacted by a salvage company to deliver a hold of supplies to Belt Maginum (Anika/1218) for Cr 200,000. The J-2 route takes them through the Zhodani Consulate. They are advised to skim gas giants and use water in the absence of gas to avoid contact with the Zhodani officials as much as possible.

Milky Way
Milky Way, seen from the Foreven Sector : Picture from wikimedia. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Referee’s Information:
1. The captain and/or any ex-Scouts in the group are advised this is a cover. They need drop a load of probes in each system. These probes will check each system for a lost Scout Cruiser that misjumped and vanished some months previously. They are stored in the cargo and another ship will collect the telemetry some months in the future.

2. As above but in Clamp (Anika/1317) system the players arrive on the very edge of the system and sensors show dead a ship nearby. A large blocky ship of Hiver origin. The cargo bay is open and an exploration team will find 3 low berths smashed into a corner by open hatch as well as some yellow painted metal parts similar to open frame cargo haulers used on space stations and belter ops. The Hiver crew are dead throughout the ship. There are two dead humans aboard in vacc suits one has standard helmet, the other a Zhodani clamshell on deck near them. The non-Zhodani corpse has a dead chronometer indicating date is 1199 Imperial. Dated articles in their staterooms are about a year old.

3. As above but one low berth is on battery power. If opened safely a young lady named Mei Ling is recovered. She was a steward on a large passenger/freighter liner en route from the far Imperium to the Consulate via Fessor. She states the ship was jacked by a large group of men who gassed the passengers and packed them into the low berths they had in cargo bay of liner. After being forced to assist she was put in a berth too. The men were mixed race humans.

4. As above, when the ship lands to water they are contacted by Miriya a deep cover agent of the IISS and Hiver expert from the Rim. She is the only survivor of the liners’ passengers who were lost in the crash of the cargo sled. She was rescued by a Traveller who witnessed the landing in the hills. She is an expert Gunner and will request working passage. She keeps her IISS ID secret.

5. As above. On arrival in Belt Maginum they deliver the cargo and are paid by the contracted factor there. He advises that Miriya and Mei Lings’ ship left some days ago and picked up cargo and no passengers as was booked full, rare coming from the Consulate. There is an archeologist and a Universal Exports agent needing passage to Fessor at double rates.

6. As above, on arrival at Fessor the missing starship is in port. Mei Ling and Miriya would find no familiar crew and a look at passenger/crew list would tell both are still aboard. The crew and most passengers tend to be tall and swarthy.

Referee’s notes:
The Hiver ship were just used by the Zhodani to move the passengers into storage. But a misjump (temporal) accident destroyed the Hiver ship, the instant aging is why two human corpses appear aged. The crew were taken to a camp for holding. The hijackers were plain pirates. The liner is being used to infiltrate agents into the Imperium.

Adventures, The Base, Traveller

Product Launch

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Patron: Scientist (actually a media star)
Required Skills: Engineering, but not above -1; Pilot; No-one may have science above -1
Required Equipment: none

Players’ Information:
While the party is visiting a high-tech starport, they are approached by an attractive middle-aged lady, Professor Hara Ren. She explains that her corporation has just patented a new device, which when coupled to an existing jump drive, and using a special jump program, can ensure that the jump is made in three to five days!

She explains they are ready to make a product launch, but require an experienced, professional crew to make the first public jump – which for public relations issues will only be to the system’s limit, where a tender is already waiting to greet the triumphant crew. The good Professor herself will be coming along, and of course, a host of sub-sector media will be waiting at the other end to cover the event (said PR issues).

She guarantees celebrity status, and payment of Cr 15,000 for every crew member. The party may not take any weapons (they will be scanned thoroughly) as a security measure that they will not steal the device. All party possessions, vehicles, and ship (if they have one) will be stored by the starport authority, and are properly bonded. They will be using the corporation’s vessel.

If the party investigates any of this story, it all checks out. The Professor’s corporation is indeed known to be researching a breakthrough technology, and all the scientific data she provides checks out, including the secret jump tests they have successfully carried out.

The party are expected to shuttle up to the ship in orbit tomorrow morning.

The Professor
The Professor : Picture from wikimedia. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Referee’s Information:
The Professor is not of course in any way genuine. She is in fact a media star from several years ago re-launching her career with a new reality-holo show, called ‘Dupes In Jump‘.

The ship the party are to use is, in fact, a super-sophisticated fake, which to all intents and purposes seems like a real ship on a real mission. The deception would be discovered by characters with high skills, indeed they would know the theory is bunkum – hence the low skill limits.

The ‘ship’ is super luxurious with a stateroom for every person, an excellent galley, holographic controls, lots of luxurious extras, J-1, M-1, P-2… And the device, which calculates the hyper-dimensional mathematics that enable the ship’s computer-2 to use the custom jump software that folds jump-space nearly in half, shortening the time taken to transit the jump. There is no ship’s locker. And in reality it is just an orbital holo-studio.

Everything will apparently go smoothly, as the ship apparently thrusts out to a safe jump point and enters J-space, and continues to until halfway through the first day of the jump. Then weird things start to happen. First, the computer crashes… Then after an hour somehow rights itself. The Professor is mystified, and looks worried, but everything checks out and seems to be going to plan.

Then a couple of hours later, weird sounds are heard – snatches of shouted conversations, arguments maybe – in some alien language. This is followed a few hours later by the ship’s computer reporting that an unauthorised life form is on board! The Professor is beside herself, and believes that a rival corporation has an infiltrator on board. No search or scan can reveal anything.

After this there will be various mechanical and electrical problems that manifest themselves for a couple of days – all easily repairable by the party, but none explainable. Meanwhile the occasional alien shouting is still heard. Then, on the third day, a party member sees an ethereal waist-high blue and orange quadruped gallop through their stateroom. Within the next two hours the Professor disappears, and can be found no-where on the ship.

For the fourth day, the ship rocks and shudders, and whatever the party try to do to fix it fails. The alien shouting becomes more frequent, and is now joined by the wailing of the Professor’s incorporeal voice!

When the, presumably by now, panicked and paranoid party drop out of jump space they immediately pick up the welcoming party on the ship’s comms! Whatever else has happened it appears they were successful and they dock with the recovery ship… Where they are greeted by the Professor – actually Stacy Costs, an ageing holo-model – and a horde of media, holo cameras, and clapping, cheering people! The party will be debriefed on camera and the whole scam explained to them. They will indeed be celebrities in this sub-sector for a while… Celebrity dupes! At least they get paid Cr 50,000 each instead of the Cr 15,000 they were initially offered for being such great sports.

The options to modify this outline are:
1. Vanilla – use it as it is written.

2. The party are actually hired by another corporation because of rumours of a breakthrough by this fake (but well-documented) corporation to seek out the Professor and steal the technology. They provide kit form body pistols that can be smuggled through the security.

3. The party are hired by a rival media network that got wind of the show and wants to ruin it, briefing the party before they embark on the mission so they can expose it on live holo.

4. A rival corporation is duped by the fake information embedded in library data etc. They get an agent onto the ‘ship’ to steal the technology. It is up to the GM on whether he/she works out what is going on or not, and what his/her reactions to events are.

5. One of the show’s producers has become mentally unstable and has begun to believe that the fantasy is real. He has decided to ‘stow away’ with a few weapons, and intends to kill everyone on board and steal the technology for himself.

6. Any two options from two to five combined for maximum chaos!

Adventures, Aliens, The Base, Traveller

Angry Tweeties

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The ship’s broker is approached about transporting a consignment of newborn Iptetean Tweeties, a species of genetically-modified pets that are increasing in popularity throughout the Foreven sector.

Iptetean Tweety
Iptetean Tweety : Picture from wikimedia. GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later.

1. Unbeknownst to humaniti, the Iptetean Triapus, from which the Iptetean Tweety is modeled, is sentient. This sophont has a subsonic language and once had some measure of technological civilization before humaniti invaded its homeworld. Due to the species’ psychology, it went into hiding at the first sight of humans, abandoning their towns for the forests, their ancestral home. Explorers eventually captured them and made some into pets, and as these creatures were taken into space, they’ve seen that the humans have also created a technomagically-modified version of themselves, the Iptetean Tweeties, which if caught at a sufficiently young age can be taught the language and history of their unmodified kin.

One of the passengers (or crewmembers), who has a pet triapus, notices that their pet seems to be drawn to the tweeties, which are in a large pen in the ship’s hold. This is made noticeable due to the fact that whenever the triapus and the tweeties get into sufficiently close proximity, they begin what appears to be a massive “purr-session” that is actually a pleasure to witness. The loud, “tribble-like” purring, once it stops being funny, is innately soothing to the human ear. It is apparent that even without being able to see each other, both the Triapus and the Tweeties appear to be able to hear each other, and they appear to be very pleased or possibly excited with each others’ presence.

In truth, they are calling out to one another. The Triapus wants to obtain the release of these young Tweeties, but there’s nothing that it can realistically do to make this happen, so it finally resigns itself to teaching them what little it can and otherwise accepting the situation, as at least it is being well-fed by an affectionate albeit hideously ugly, alien master.

2. As #1, but the tweeties are adolescents, and they can understand the triapus quite well, as many of have already learned the triapi language. The essence of their conversation is yet another reiteration the typical lecture on how they must prepare for the day when a savior will be born who will lead them in a Great Strangling against humaniti, and that wherever they are taken in the universe, they must remember their sacred homeworld and the terrible indignity that has been perpetrated upon them by their evil overlords. In the meantime, however, they are reminded that they must play the part of pets, for the time to strike is not yet. Hence, for all practical purposes, nothing remarkable happens, at least from the perspective of the ship’s crew.

3. As #1, but the tweeties are mostly adults, and many of them want to bust out of captivity and are actively trying to recruit the triapus to help them. The triapus, however, has been treated exceedingly well by its master, who takes time to play with it on a daily basis and who also generously feeds it table scraps rather than forcing it to eat some sort of bland, homogenized, pet food. Hence, it has grown genuinely affection toward this human and towards humaniti in general, and therefore it won’t help the tweeties, forever making excuses. Rightly or wrongly, it claims that there’s a technomagical, hidden surveillance system in the cargo hold, and that if it were to help its brethren escape, suddenly all humans would know that all Triapi, and by extension all Iptetean Tweeties, are intelligent, and this would permanently sever any hope of eventual freedom. No matter what they do, the triapus argues, they must guard this secret, each and every one of them, until the prophesized Great Strangling.

4. As #3, but the triapus feels mistreated and so it will help the tweeties escape. Hilarity ensues as many of them pile into an airlock and manage to escape into a very, very large space.

5. As #4, but one or more of the tweeties thinks it knows how to destroy the ship by causing some major system to malfunction.

6. As #5, but the primary goal is to strangle the crew and passengers and somehow seize control of the ship.

Supplementary Library Data:

Piolin Enterprises. A subsidiary of BeastMasters, LIC, specializing in the genetic modification of various animal species for the exotic pets market.

Tweety. A registered trademark of Piolin Enterprises, the term is also informally synonymous for any of a variety of genetically-modified pets, particularly ones that incorporate the color yellow into their modifications. Etymologically, the word comes from one of Old Terra’s first genetically-modified, pet species, an African Grey parrot colored yellow and given oversized eyes as well as expanded cranial capacity. Prior to this, the word “Tweety” can be traced to the name of a once-popular, animated character.

Iptetean Triapus (pl. Triapi). An omniverious climber/trapper/strangler of the planet Iptete (Foreven 2334), this creature resembles a small, three-legged octopus, except that it is purple with red splotches, similar to the branches of the Kokimovno trees which it chiefly inhabits, and its “face” resembles a large, green, Kokimovno leaf, which numerous smaller creatures eat. Despite being hideously ugly, they emit a calming, subsonic purr that can be felt more than heard, and so have made popular pets, but not nearly as popular as their genetically-modified variant, the Iptetean Tweety.

Iptetean Tweety. A genetically-modified variant of the Iptetean Triapus that has two of its three eyes hugely expanded, whereas the third, remaining at its normal size, is perpetually hidden behind a large yellow face that is generally more appealing to customers. This Tweety also has what looks like two large, yellow ears, but these are non-functional. Legal note: Piolin Enterprises holds an Imperium-wide trademark for the term “Tweety” in relation to the marketing of pets and the statement “They’re ugly, but they’re cute” in relation to the marketing of genetically-modified animals.

Inspiration: Featherless chicken