BASILISK STATION - A TRAVELLER BLOG

President Rica Breson Carcharoth (C630776-B) was invaded in the early hours of 1089.134 (Imperial) by the the People's Supremacy's crack 35th Drop Ranger Battalion. In accord with the People's Supremacy doctrine, numerous psionic agents were infiltrated into the governmental and military structure months and years in advance. However, President Rica Breson, aware of the People's invasions of Jora and Uryuom, had taken some measures to protect the government. Widespread use of psionic-shields and rigorous recruitment of loyal psions provided a thin line of defense. In this case, it was enough to allow Breson and the members of her cabinet to evade capture in the openings hours of the invasion. Nonetheless, the People's Army and Navy smashed the Carcharoth defense forces. Remnants of the army now form the nucleus of the Carcharoth Freedom Army (CFA), the primary resistance movement on Carcharoth. Breson and her cabinet found refuge in Blerreon (B547524-7) in the Piah ...

Perseus Molecular Cloud  Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech If you want to start at the beginning.... Rules for this referee-less, play by post game. Chapter 1 Part 10 Krenshawz The Count takes a step forward. "Captain Banks, this is Count Hertwig of the INS Deimos . I believe you received our message and we are glad you decided to engage in a civilized manner. Are you open to discuss the terms of your surrender?" Zernov's shoulders tighten. The Deimos can lean real hard on a couple traders and an old rock... Would be a shame if our first act of diplomacy is to execute these pirates. If Banks starts popping off and forces our hand who knows how that word will spread.  Looking to Lt. Robert's screen it's clear she already has the gunners acquiring a firing solution in case marines aren't an option. Checking again at the marine biometrics, heart rates of our bravest are above normal but steady.... The Deimos is ready.  Zernov looks to the command...

Credit:  CHART32 Team If you want to start at the beginning.... Rules for this referee-less, play by post game. Chapter 1 Part 8 Krenshawz Zernov, back aboard the Deimos, is setup in CIC speaking directly to the teams has always felt better to him. Team work has to be one of the most inspiring things about humanity. We're not hive insects with no free-will. Everyone is here because their paths brought them here, and they're on this bridge because they were good enough to be. Akai Aneh is a team too. they have people that are good at what they do. The Deimos is a team, and it comes with a lot of infrastructure. What the Akai Aneh possess in total wealth would barely feed the Deimos for a month. But the small can be fierce and they can surprise you. He follows up with HUMINT on Banks' and the Akai Aneh one more time. This Banks person doesn't fit the pirate story. He took over Akai Aneh and it just doesn't compute. Well trained in weapons and recon, Ba...

If you want to start at the beginning.... Rules for this referee-less, play by post game. Chapter 1 Part 5 Krenshawz Scene in government hall begins: we have 2 days to RP with each other and the Krenshawz delegation. This is the first round of negotiations, feeling out what each side wants, needs, etc. The Krenshawz delegation sits in a semicircle at an elegant, dark wood table with a high gloss sheen. Lero can see the rankings of importance by the height of the people. Despite being tall for a Krenshawz, Premier Norman sits only slightly higher than Morrissy, for the seats have been set at specific levels. It gives the Krenshawz delegation an odd appearance...a perfect and even dropping of height from Norman to the various secretaries of the government agencies. The aides who set up the seating for Lero, the count, and the XO apologize profusely for not knowing their height or rank. Lero accepts their apology and sits down. Glasses of water and what looks to be a t...

Note, we made an adjustment in how we're doing scenes because the three of us playing realized we wanted to advance the story more quickly. Hence, we're inserting "start of scene" lines, with a timeline to finish the role-play along with the basic goal or tone or idea of the scene. You'll see those represented here. If you want to start at the beginning.... Rules for this referee-less, play by post game. Chapter 1 Part 4 Krenshawz Lero watches as the Count approaches the President, who takes two steps forward to greet him. The commander also sees a frown—small and quick—creep across the face of Premier Norman. The Count steps back and waves his hand at Lero, who steps forward and smiles. Morrissy bows slightly but keeps eye contact. Lero returns the bow, noticing her eyes are colored green with flecks of silver. Morrissy says, “We, the people of Krenshawz welcome you and your crew.” Lero, following the advice of Hertwig, says,  “We thank you for you...

Given the nature of the campaign that this will be—referee-less and driven by diplomacy as a prime motivator—I wanted to ensure I had some random element to help differentiate various diplomatic motivations, desires, and needs. After searching a bit, I did not find any random tables that might assist with this. Traveller has long used D66 tables to help generate any number of things (e.g., encounter tables, cultural differences, etc.), so I decided to create my own. The table is below. I may replace them if other ideas I like better occur to me. If any one knows of any existing tables or has suggestions, comment on this post. I’d love to hear them. Roll Result 11    An Imperial noble is held prisoner, complicating negotiations. Roll 1d6. On a result of 1-4, the noble was detained for political reasons. On a result of 5-6, the noble is legitimately believed to have committed a crime, up to and including being convicted. 12    The local gove...

NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) [Public domain] After talking to my friends at High Shelf Gaming Podcast , I've decided to shift the game a tad from a solo campaign to a play-by-post campaign with two other players. I'll introduce them in good time, suffice it to say, I'll play the commander and captain of the ship, and they'll play the XO and the diplomat. This will still be referee-less, and it's an interesting experiment for the three of us. Speaking of referee-less, I was reviewing a number of Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society , and in particular the GURPs/Steven Jackson Games articles. In there, I found Matt Smith's articles on the various government types. In these, he describes in some detail the nature of the government types and then provides a series of tables for rolling up how that governing body primarily operates. This will help keep some randomness and variation in the many feudal technocracies that I've a...

The basic world generator in the Traveller core rulebook includes tables for factions and cultural differences (pgs. 219-223). In rolling up my Foreven sector, I have not determined those particular elements. Because factions can change pretty rapidly as their power grows or diminishes, I will be rolling--again randomly--for these characteristics when the ship enters the system. I think this will be important because it can greatly affect the diplomatic efforts of the Imperium in its effort to sway the local government to ally with it should war break out. Perhaps the rulers in the primary government of the planet want to eliminate a faction before offering to sign a neutrality statement or mutual defense agreement? Perhaps the culture of the planet has elements anathema to the crew and diplomat and they need to find some way to "work around it." Or--perhaps one of the factions is willing to ally itself with the Imperium in the hopes of rising to power. The nature of the...

Made at  https://zhodani.space . Playing referee-less means you need to have ways of randomizing encounters, events, and so on without the specific knowledge referee would have in the game. One of the great things about Traveller is its rich, long history of random encounters and events and rolling up worlds and animals. So I'm going to make use of those tools. That said, since I've never played referee-less before, so I'm going to feel free to adjust my practice as I move along. But here are some of the books I'll have for random events, etc., along with the basic rules. Traveller Core Rulebook High Guard Central Supply Catalogue Vehicle Handbook Traveller Companion -- I'll be using this for supplemental rules related to the environment, toxins, gravity, etc. 760 Patrons , 2nd Edition -- One source of NPCs. 1001 Characters -- One source of NPCs. Starports Animal Encounters -- particularly the animal creation rules. The Great Rift -- Book 4, specifi...