Tag Archives: Cepheus Engine

Adventures, Starships, The Base, Traveller

Zhodani Base Awards 2016

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Zhodani Base Awards 2016Welcome to the Zhodani Base Awards 2016! 2016 has been another good year for Traveller products. Lots of new stuff from the small publishers (and Mongoose).

The first category is “Best Cover“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Cover” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2016 is: Fate of the Kinunir from GDW.

There were lots of Traveller products with nice covers this year. Lots of love for all nice covers. Fate of the Kinunir combined a classic Traveller cover with a nice image. I really liked that.

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 2016 is: Freelance Traveller

Freelance Traveller has once again proved that they are the best fanzine by publishing monthly issues with lots of good contents for free.

Freelance Traveller has won this category every year since 2011!

Next category is “Best Adventure“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Adventure” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2016 is: The Calixcuel Incident from Mongoose.

There were lots of fine Traveller Adventures for different settings published. This year Mongoose did a few really good ones. The Calixcuel Incident was in my opinion the best one.

Next category is “Best Ship or Deckplan“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Ship or Deckplan” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2016 is: Type S Scout/Courier from Moon Toad Publishing.

There were lots of fine ships for Traveller published this year. Moon Toad Publishing made the best one for this category and won.

I do love the classic Traveller ships.

Next category is “Best ATU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best ATU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2016 is: The Space Patrol from Stellagama Publishing.

This category always make me happy since you can always find so many cool ideas. This year The Space Patrol win. Not only because it is really good, but also because it could have been useful for one of my own campaigns. (Unfortunately it was published a bit too late to help me.)

Next category is “Best OTU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best OTU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2016 is: High Guard from Mongoose

Only products from Mongoose was nominated this year. I hope that will change next year. High Guard was the best one.

A final bonus category this year is “Best Free or Pay What You Want Traveller Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Free or Pay What You Want Traveller Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2016 is: Cepheus Engine from Samardan Press.

Cepheus Engine wins because it has enabled many other small publishers to produce cool Traveller products without being limited by the restrictions from Mongoose. Read my review here.

Reviews, Science Fiction

Cepheus Engine

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The Cepheus Engine. What is it? It is a new set of Traveller rules from Samardan Press that doesn’t say that it is Traveller. (But it is Traveller.)

Traveller

The rules look very much like a cleaned up version of Classic Traveller, book 1-3 plus supplement-4 and selected parts from book 4 (PGMP and FGMP) and 5 (small ships). You can also find some bits of Mongoose Traveller in it. So far there is no setting except that a few aliens are named as an example.

You know what this could be? The perfect proto-Traveller rules.

Since the Cepheus Engine is a refined set of CT rules, you will recognize most of the rules and can quickly start using them.

First, the character generation and skills are similar to what you already know. Then psionics (important to us at the Zhodani Base) is also what you would expect.

Next in the equipment list you find a tech-level overview table, with the same tech-levels as in Traveller. The currency used is Credits. You can find familiar Traveller items like Fast Drug, TDX, and Air/Raft. The first internal book ends with a combat chapter.

Next book is about Starships, Travelling, Trade and Space Combat.

The Final book is the Referee’s book. In this book are the rules for generating worlds. (It is interesting to see that hydrographics is generated as in CT book-6. That is the same as in MongTrav.) There are rules for all sorts of encounters, including the familiar animal encounter tables from CT. There are also some short help about refereeing and adventures.

Cepheus Engine
Cepheus Engine – Used with permission

This is really the new rule-set we didn’t know we needed. This is proto-Traveller Deluxe.

For the so called “Small Press” (that we like here at the base) this is another option for publishing new supplements without loosing half of their income to Mongoose.

Other reviews: