The year is 5633 AD, which is Year 1115 on the Imperial Standard Calendar. Mankind owns the stars. Well, about 10,000 of them anyway. For over a thousand years of relative peace and prosperity, the Third Imperium has ruled a vast swath of the sky. On the power of jump technology, and the might of the Imperial Marines, Strephon Alkhalikoi rules the Imperium from afar, as it takes nearly a year with typical jump technology merely to cross the expanse of the Third Imperium. The Emperor allows his hereditary nobles, the dukes in particular, to run the day to day affairs of their own worlds. Beneath the nobility, local politics and customs may, by and large, do what they like, so long as they pay homage and taxes to the Imperium.
Which explains part of why you’re doing out here beyond the fringe of the Imperium. The thing is… You’re not supposed to be this far out. You and your partners were on a routine trading run aboard the Osman, the only thing in the world you can claim to own. Well, own a piece of anyhow. Osman is one of the most common type of starships, publicly or privately owned, plying the trade routes of the Imperium a Suleiman-class Type-S Scout/Courier.
Times are tight, and scheduled maintenance is often more of suggestion than an actual guideline, right?
This otherwise routine trading run has become anything but routine. After an uneventful week in jumpspace en route to your next destination, Osman returned to Newtonian space in an unfamiliar void, not at all where you were supposed to be on the edge of the Solomani Sphere, rimward of the Aslan Hierate. Based on your scans of the surrounding sky, you are somewhere on the other side of the Great Rift, probably somewhere near the Spinward Marches or Zhodani Consulate. You think.
In any event, you are weeks at maximum acceleration from the nearest system. Food and other luxuries will be in short supply when you arrive. Unfortunately, your tiny cargo hold is full of relatively low margin crystals this run. You thought you were doing a friend of a friend a favor. Anything is better than jumping an empty hold, right? Maybe the crystals interfered with your jump? That’s what the engineer would have you believe anyway.
You only hope there will be somewhere to refuel and resupply when you get there…
Will you make the long trek home? Will you start a new life out here? Whatever you do, it’s clear that it’ll be something different and unexpected.
A PhD in Traveller canon is not required to play in this game, although it will be a challenge for you if you don’t know the difference between Solomani, Vilani, and Zhodani. Or how to distinguish an Aslan from a Vargr. I strongly recommend visiting http://www.farfuture.net/ to round out your roleplaying library with some quality retro scifi gaming materials.
In order to complete the crew of Osman, we need something like the following:
=> Captain/Pilot/Merchant
=> Astrogator
=> Engineer
=> Muscle
For those familiar with Traveller (any edition), crew may be drawn from any career path or service so long as they are now members of the Scout Service (or the University of Terra faculty) and have the requisite “skills” for their role on the crew roster. [Yes, for those keeping score, several crew members will be hot-bunking or sharing quarters on a tiny ship with only four staterooms.]
Feel free to customize any cards you like, so long as they fit within the spirit of the Traveller canon.
These adventures will take place on the edge of the Spinward Marches.
We’ll begin when we’ve got at least four characters, and double up the other roles as it makes sense.
Story expectations are pretty open. Aim for a PG-13 rating, plus or minus, and we’ll be fine. We can make it as humorous and light-hearted as the group likes, or as dark and blue as the group decides to take it. It’s your story.
Hosted by:
David Reed (JudgeNerd)
Narrated by:
Loup-de-Lou Valentine (Valloup)
Completed 07/29/17.
Scenes played: 15
License: Community License
