Arion 1-08: Big Jim

Big Jim were a worm, were a great big worm,
Were a great big, bright red, bloody red worm
- The Fivepenny Piece, Big Jim

Hollis Badlands, 1105 Week 45

Arion, Ganzfeld and Mr Osheen turn in horror towards the giant worm erupting out of the sand before them.

"Fall back to the ship," Arion orders, and raises his trusty Karakush 12.5mm caseless at the beast rearing up over them; the others do likewise, and everyone opens fire on it - or at least the others do, the dust has got into Arion's pistol and it jams. The worm shrugs off multiple assault rifle rounds and laser bolts as it easily keeps pace with them, and raises the front third of its body off the ground before slamming it down on them; fortunately the same size which makes it so dangerous if it does hit means they just have time to dodge.

They pick up the pace, running across the scree, and Arion is thankful this is not dune sand where they would sink up to the ankles at each step. Arion manages to holster the Karakush and draw his backup piece as they go, and even hits the worm; it takes no more notice of his pitiful 10mm round than it does of Mr Osheen's follow-up laser bolts. Ganzfeld, unable to aim while running, misses the beast entirely; it takes exception to that and with a sudden burst of speed lunges forward and bites her. It lifts her bodily into the air, screaming, but her weight is unbalanced by her coolant pack and its attempt to swallow her whole fails. She falls to the ground and lies still, her left arm at an unnatural angle.

Time seems to slow down for Arion. He estimates how far they still have to go, and decides they don't need their packs any more; before they can overheat, they will be inside either the ship or the sandworm. He pulls the emergency quick release on the pack and runs to Ganzfeld to pick her up. Mr Osheen sees what he is up to, and follows suit; he was bringing up the rear, and by the time he gets to Ganzfeld and drops his own pack, Arion has managed to fumble her pack off her. Picking her up between them, they make the best time they can back to the ship.

The worm doesn't think as a human does, but it has evolved to minimise water loss. Faced with the choice between continuing to chase the three fleeing figures or consuming the water-filled coolant packs, it goes for the packs, as the return on investment is better; and by the time it has dealt with those, the juicy bipeds are back inside their whatever-it-is. The worm approaches cautiously; it can smell water inside, but this is another one of those unfamiliar metallic objects it comes across from time to time. While it is still puzzling over what to do next, the object rises into the sky at a frantic pace. They do that sometimes. There is nothing left worth staying in direct sunlight for, so the worm starts to bury itself under the scree again.

Arion lifts for orbit at two gravities, declaring a medical emergency and calling for a crash team to be on hand when he docks.

To be continued...

GM Notes

A very tense session for me this time; we nearly lost Cori, and it's a bit early in the campaign for that. When everyone on the crew is a Wild Card, not only is it a lot more work to run, but there's much less tension during a session - Wild Cards are really quite difficult to damage seriously. Extras, not so much, and they're much less effort, especially if you don't let them advance.

So, here we had the Usual Suspects vs a Giant Worm, whom we shall call Big Jim. Big Jim is lying in ambush, so our heroes must make Notice rolls to be dealt cards in the first round; Big Jim is automatically On Hold but I draw a card anyway as he could get a joker. Rolls of 4, 4 and 6 means everyone notices Big Jim - he is, after all, fifty feet long. Big Jim explodes out of the ground at melee range, so everyone is rolling to hit at Parry of 5 rather than straight 4s.

Round 1. Arion is the only PC (Mr Osheen and Cori are Extras) so all the heroes go on Arion's action card. Arion Spade 9, Big Jim Club 7. Arion has his usual Karakush 12.5mm, Cori as usual is packing an assault rifle, and Mr Osheen has a laser SMG.

Arion rolls a critical failure; the dust has jammed his gun. Cori fires three shots and hits once, but with a raise; she scores 20 damage. Mr Osheen flips his laser SMG to overcharge and fires it at full ROF at the worm, managing a creditable three hits. He rolls 3d6 damage for each; 15, 12, and 15, thanks to a couple of Aces. The worm has Toughness 21 and shrugs it all off. The team falls back 6" towards the ship, which we will say is 24" away for no good reason. Big Jim follows up 6" and uses his Slam attack; as I'm playing this Theatre of the Mind, I use the Templates Without Miniatures sidebar (p. 97) and decide each hero gets one of the small templates; opposed Athletics vs worm's Agility to dodge the slam. Arion rolls 11 vs 5 and dodges, Cori rolls 9 vs the worm's 2, Mr Osheen and the worm tie on a 3; the worm is the acting character and fails as he did not get at least a basic success.

Round 2. I'll speed up a bit now. The heroes win initiative, run for the ship (-2 to all actions), now 18" away; Arion moves 11", Cori 12", and Mr Osheen 9". They also blast away at the worm. Arion holsters the Karakush and pulls his backup piece as free actions, then fires at the worm; he hits it by sheer luck, but 4 damage won't do anything. Cori misses with every shot. Mr Osheen hits twice, but 4 and 12 damage are inadequate. There's nothing to say the worm can't "run", so it does, moving 12"; looks like it's going for Cori, and as the Slam did no good, it will Bite. A roll of 9 would be a hit with a raise, but as it "ran", the attack is at -2; a straight hit. It does 16 damage, 11 over her Toughness; Shaken and two Wounds. Hmm. Can I spend a GM Benny to Soak that? I decide not, since she is not Arion's opponent - if I allow that, there's no point in Arion taking Common Bond later. Cori is down.

Round 3. The heroes win initiative again, just as well, drop their packs, pick up Cori and run for the ship. Hmm. The average human female weighs about 170 lbs, so let's say with all her gear on she is what, 200? That's 100 lbs each, which is fortunately less than three times the 40 lbs they can carry unencumbered, as then things would get really awkward; but they are still both Encumbered. This gets complicated. At the start of the turn, Cori is 6" from the ship, Arion 7", and Mr Osheen 9". In SWADE, one can split-move and act. So, Arion drops his coolant pack (free action), runs to Cori, drops her pack (I'll say that's an action but doesn't need a roll) and waits for Mr Osheen. Osheen drops his pack, helps pick up Cori, and the two of them run for the ship with her.

Arion rolls 5 for running (11") and moves 1" to Cori. Mr Osheen rolls 6 for running (12") and moves 3" to Cori. The two are now encumbered as they pick her up, and have a maximum of 9" movement left as they're moving together. Their pace is now reduced to 4, and their running die score by 2", so they now have 5" left, and they're 6" from the ship.

Arion's player (me) spends a Benny to influence the story (SWADE p. 90), and argues that the giant worm is obviously after their water, and the three coolant packs they've dropped where Cori fell are full of water and leaking it from the pipes, so the worm will go for the packs and the team can get away. The GM (also me) decides to allow this, because I'd allow it in group play, and I see no reason to be any harder on myself than I would be on one of my players.

After the battle, Cori rolls Vigour (d6) to survive; luckily her die roll aces, she scores a 10, success with a raise; so she'll be fine. I roll for an Injury (left arm useless), but note it goes away when her injury heals. Wow. That could very easily have killed her; as it is, she gets a Vigour roll every 5 days to heal, and Major Sheng can Support her. Rolling the dice off-camera, that takes 15 days, call it two weeks.

End of episode 8; Bennies refresh, Wealth dice reset, and Arion gets an Advance - I'm not going to bother with Advances for the others. I think Notice d6 and Shooting d6. Since we failed this second scene, we still have 1 VP and the bad guys now have 2 VP (there are 2 at stake when you fight an enemy Wild Card).

What next? Mechanically, we haven't done a Quick Encounter yet, so let's do that. Narratively, while Cori is healing up, Mr Osheen and Arion will have another crack at that abandoned hut.

Arion: Interlude - Statblocks

"Consider this Game Master’s Rule #1 when it comes to Extras: Don’t “build” them! Don’t create your Extras with the character creation rules. Just give them what you think they ought to have in their various skills and attributes and move on. The game is supposed to be easy for you to set up, run, and play. Don’t sit around adding up skill points for Extras when you could be designing fiendish traps and thinking up nasty Special Abilities for your monsters!" - Savage Worlds Adventure Edition Core Rulebook

This is a rule I struggle to abide by, especially in solo play. As a GM in group play, I am quite happy to allocate everything on the fly, thinking things like "Hmm, this NPC needs to make a Fighting roll now, a d8 feels about right, let's just roll one." In solo play, I feel compelled to generate the complete statblock. This is partly out of not wanting to be accused of favouring the solo PC unfairly, which has never happened in 17 years of sharing these little vignettes on my blogs, and partly wanting the NPC to be consistent each time they are encountered, which actually matters a lot less than you would think, not least because there are very few "series regulars", and what you remember, whether the game is group or solo, are their personalities, not their statblocks.

When I first started playing solo, not just my PCs but all their companions were Wild Cards with full statblocks, as if they were full-fledged PCs themselves; but what I have realised is that I need to keep them simple, not just to reduce my workload as both player and GM, but also because it's actually quite hard to kill a PC in Savage Worlds, and while I'm happy for my central PC to have a level of plot immunity, if all the good guys have it, that makes it hard to maintain tension in the game.

Likewise, if I have half a dozen PCs and allied NPCs all earning Advances willy-nilly, my solo game will eventually collapse under the complexity of tracking all that. So these days, I say that only the central PC gets Advances, and everyone else stays where they start.

Anyway, there are bound to be fights in the future, and Arion's close friends need statblocks, even if they are Extras now rather than Wild Cards. So far, I've used a different approach for everyone; that's complicating matters, but I tell myself it's an experiment and I'll simplify things eventually. Let's look at the major friendly characters in increasing order of complexity...

Aksunar Karagoz

Karagoz has been around for well over a decade and has yet to roll any dice. So not even I think that generating a statblock for him is a good use of time, and also it helps keep him mysterious. Who knows what he's capable of? Not me, that's for sure. The dice will tell me when I need to know.

Mr Osheen

Originally a 5150 grath, Mr Osheen is a grey-skinned alien mercenary of undetermined ancestry. Rather than work him out in detail, I just grabbed the zombie statblock from the core rulebook, issued him a laser SMG, and left it at that. Close enough for government work. What's memorable about him are his fish-out-of-water attitude and his, umm, dietary habits.

Officer Karen Muhammed

By the time I thought Karen needed stats, I was using Interstellar Rebels as the solo oracle, and that has what it calls NPC Variants; most NPCs don't have full stat blocks, instead they are basic or advanced variants of civilians, warriors, or psychics. Mulling over the statblocks, I decided Officer Muhammed's role in the game best suited a Basic Civilian, quote:

"Basic civilians have d6 in all attributes, d4 in all combat skills, and d6 in any skills appropriate to their concept. They usually inflict Str+d4 damage (knife) or 2d6 damage (blaster), and have Parry 4, Toughness 5." - Interstellar Rebels

Blasters in IR are lasers, reskinned with a different trapping; in the Traveller setting, ordinary firearms are fine, and the game stats are unchanged.

Coriander Ganzfeld

This incarnation of Cori was built while I was in my "all NPCs are either Soldiers or Experienced Soldiers" phase. I started with the Soldier Ally statblock on p. 112, bumped the Smarts to d6 so she had the right number of attribute points for a PC, used the extra skill points that frees up to buy Psionics d6, and swapped out Soldier for Arcane Background (Psionics), taking what I consider to be the three most useful Powers for her; boost/lower Trait, empathy, and healing.

Now that I look at her through the lens of Interstellar Rebels, I see that she is essentially a Basic Psychic, and there's no need to do any more than that. I think if she survives until Arion reaches Veteran Rank, I'll promote her to an Advanced Psychic; such a character will have taken three attribute increases over a Basic Psychic, so if we were counting points - which we're trying not to do - she would be at least Veteran.

I thought about experimenting with the Psyker background in the SF Companion, which looks like a good match for Traveller psions; I'm especially intrigued by the Scan Edge. However, I do try to stick to the core rules where I can, the added complexity of the Companions isn't necessary for my solo games.

Major Evelyn Sheng

Major Sheng is Army character #2 from Classic Traveller's Supplement 1: 1001 Characters; I took that decision because she was the only NPC of the team that Arion knew at the start of the current story arc, and it was established in the narrative they were friends and knew each other well. Therefore, Arion had to know her statblock, and converting a CT character meant she would not be one of my usual cookie-cutter NPCs.

Her statblock is: 478658. Army 4 terms, Major. Brawling-3, Medic-1, Tactics-3, Fwd Obsv-1, Rifle-1, SMG-1. Oh, and Cr 25,900, not that it matters.

My usual conversion rules for CT characters are these:

• Attributes are the closest die type to the CT characteristic value minus one. However, Education becomes Common Knowledge and Social Standing converts to an appropriate Edge if it's extreme enough. CT Endurance has aspects of both Vigour and Spirit, so they both come off that. If Wealth is in play, it comes off Social Standing.
• Expertise levels start at d4 for level-0, and go up a die type each level after that. Skills convert to the one with the most similar description if there is one, otherwise it's folded into Common Knowledge; Forward Observer, for example, doesn't have an equivalent in SWADE, but Sheng obviously knows how to do it, so it becomes Common Knowledge for her. All characters get at least a d4 in the SWADE core skills.
• Army and Marine characters get the Soldier Edge from their basic training. Other Edges and Hindrances to taste, based on established narrative if any.

So that gives Major Sheng this SWADE statblock; she gets what the above guidelines would indicate, plus Attractive because Arion thinks she's pretty:

• Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d4, Vigour d8, Wealth d8.
• Skills: Athletics d4, Battle d10, Common Knowledge d4, Fighting d10, Healing d6, Notice d4, Persuasion d4, Shooting d6, Stealth d4.
• Pace: 6; Parry: 7; Toughness: 6.
• Hindrances: None identified.
• Edges: Attractive, Soldier. 

Looking at Sheng from a points perspective, which I shouldn't do, I can see that even if she had the full amount of Hindrances, she has to have taken at least one Edge, possibly two, and two Advances worth of skills. So she is at least at the top end of Novice, and possibly edging into Seasoned.

That all looks a bit complicated, but I know both systems well enough that I can do the conversions either way in my head, on the fly, during a game. All the same, what would I lose if I said Sheng is an Experienced Soldier Ally (SWADE), or an Advanced Warrior (IR)? Not much, I think.

Arion Metaxas

Arion's statblock is currently this:

• Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigour d6, Wealth d6.
• Skills: Athletics d4, Common Knowledge d4, Electronics d6, Fighting d4, Notice d4, Persuasion d6, Piloting d8, Repair d6, Science d6, Shooting d4, Stealth d4.
• Pace: 6; Parry: 4; Toughness: 5.
• Hindrances: Heroic, Impulsive.
• Edges: Ace, Alertness.

If he's still alive at the end of the next episode, he'll get an Advance, which I think should boost his Notice and Shooting to d6.

However, he was originally built on the Savage Worlds Deluxe pilot archetype, which converted to SWADE looks like this:

• Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigour d6
• Skills: Athletics d4, Common Knowledge d4, Fighting d4, Notice d8, Persuasion d4, Piloting d8, Repair d6, Shooting d6, Stealth d4, +1 additional skill point
• Pace: 6; Parry: 4; Toughness: 5
• Hindrances: 4 points.
• Edges: Ace, Alertness.

I ran him on that for years without bothering to give him any Advances, and I was very happy with him. I'm often tempted to say "Hang the SF Companion!" and roll him back to the original statblock; the only reason I changed his skills was that according to the SFC, he should have Electronics and Science to operate the Dolphin. The SWADE core rulebook says Electronics is required to operate missiles and sensors, and page 32 suggests it would be acceptable to use it for astrogation as well, although the SFC uses Science for that last one. I could've used the spare skill point for Electronics - I tend to give people d6 in skills they need to do their job, but a lot of the SFC archetypes get by with a d4.

Still, one more Advance and he'll be where he would have been if I'd started him with the archetypical build.

I guess the key message from this post is: It's not about the statblocks.

Aslan Route 17: Ferro Mansion Heist

I know something about opening windows and doors
I know how to move quietly to creep across creaky wooden floors
I know where to find precious things in all your cupboards and drawers
- Peter Gabriel, Intruder

Cordan, 1105 Week 51

Previously, on the Aslan Route: Prasad calls Mazun to a meeting, where they look at surveillance footage of Baron Ferro's guards and agree that they look Zhodani trained. Prasad asks Mazun to get his team to burgle Ferro's mansion and look for evidence of Zhodani connections. "Make it look like a robbery," he says.

In real-world time, this happened after episode 16 for scheduling reasons, but in game time it happens before episode 16; think of it as a flashback.

Planning

Mazun has told the rest of the crew that this is a score planned by a local criminal gang who have been arrested, and he has taken over at the last minute. Pre-mission research has gained the team a copy of the plans and the following information:

1. There’s a keypad lock on the outer gate.
2. There is an escape tunnel. A flyby of the area finds a suspicious ruin with a tunnel and extra large cellar, but no electronic signatures.
3. There’s a fire drill every month – one in a couple of days. Everyone leaves the house and meets at a rally point. The fire brigade are local service, not part of Baron’s household; semi-serfs, beholden to him but lack status, only go inside if the headcount shows someone is missing.
4. There are motion trackers.
5. The Baron has a bodyguard who looks competent.
6. What they’re looking for is probably in the Baron’s private office. This is at the centre of the layers of security.
7. The mansion has several dozen staff, probably no more than half a dozen armed at any one time (probably with ACRs).

Execution

Mazun uses all of Rex’s remaining money to bribe the starport guards so that Rex can take his laser SMGs with him. Vila has a stun gun. Everyone takes care to anonymise the ship’s air/raft, and they sneak to the abandoned ruins by night. Examining the concealed door reveals it is rigged somehow, so they park the air/raft in a nearby copse, throw a camo net over it, and wait for the fire alarm next day; the theory is that while that is going off, no-one will notice the door alarm for the time it takes them to cut the wires.

As they force the door open, they trip the alarm, but Vila has the wires snipped in seconds and they don’t think anyone heard it over the noise of the fire alarm and evacuation. Moving quietly but purposefully, they follow the escape tunnel to an outbuilding on the main estate, and sneak past the courtyard where the staff are mustering to be counted. The external door takes only seconds to bypass, and then they’re inside, moving quickly towards Baron Ferro’s office; as they have the architect’s plans for the building, they know exactly where they’re going. As Vila and Mazun turn a corner about 10 metres into the building, they see a trio of armed and masked men coming the other way, and Vila recognises kindred spirits; there is a second group of would-be burglars in the mansion.

Calming gestures are misinterpreted, and the thieves draw their guns – locally manufactured rifles. However, they are clearly not very good, as two of them manage to shoot each other before they can line up on the Macavity’s crew, and the third one misses his mark in the excitement.

While the burglars are swearing and bleeding, Rex steps around the corner and guns them down with his laser SMGs.

The elements of surprise and stealth have been lost, so the crew speed up and run for the office, with the noise of the fire alarm only partly masking shouts and the thud of boots on expensive marble flooring from the south. Mazun and Vila pause to snatch up a couple of rifles as they pass the bodies, while Dr Mataranga – who thoughtfully prepared several thermite bombs before the mission – stuffs one into a laser hole in one wall.

Rex moves on ahead, gets to the corner of the office and peers around it into the corridor. Clattering up the corridor towards him are a pair of medical staff with first aid bags, clearly aiming for the Baron’s office.

Rex can hear several things of interest – people in the office are shouting to be heard over the noise. First, what sounds like a group of guards call in by radio that they have found three incapacitated intruders, hit by a mixture of rifle and laser fire. Second, Dr Matauranga’s improvised thermite bomb goes off. Third, someone inside the office calls “Get the Principal out, now!”

The rest of the team form up on Rex around the corner, with Vila bringing up the rear as he is sweeping everything valuable he can fit into his haversack as he goes.

Sticking the smallest possible part of his snout around the corner, Rex watches as the Baron, his guards, and his medics leave via the rear door. Then, he waves the others forward and crouches on overwatch, checking back the way the team came since the radio message makes it clear there is a group of guards in that direction.

Rex notices that the head bodyguard looks like a Zhodani.

Dr Matauranga flicks a 3D scanner drone into the air and it begins recording a 3D image of the room for later investigation. Meanwhile, Vila takes the safe, and Mazun takes the Baron’s PC, which fortunately he forgot to log out of in the excitement.

Everything that can be grabbed having been grabbed, Dr Matauranga lobs a couple of thermite bombs into the room as the others scuttle out with their prizes. 

The crew decide to head back the way they came in, and begin sneaking back that way. By this time one member of the guard patrol is cautiously sticking his head around a corner, and Rex blows it off with his lasers while Vila, Mazun and the good Doctor make good their escape, aiming to circle around behind the surviving guards.

Mazun is the first to reach the door behind the guards, and leans out to shoot one with his borrowed rifle. The guard notices him, and is equally quick on the draw, so they fire simultaneously; Mazun misses, and the guard shoots his buddy in the back by mistake. The subsequent review of the bodycam footage is not going to be fun for anyone. However, before the last surviving guard can worry about that, Rex moves up behind him and blasts him with a laser SMG.

The team leaves the building.

Debrief

While Vila stops off at the local representative of the Shugaka Family, Mr Laarbak, to buy an extremely expensive fake ID proving once and for all that he is definitely NOT Vila Restal, Mazun goes to a slightly awkward debriefing where he is asked to explain shooting half a dozen people and setting fire to the Baron’s mansion.

“I wanted to make it look like the work of an amateur local group,” he explains.

It’s clear from what has been recovered that Baron Ferro is being subsidised by the Zhodani Consulate, and his guards trained by them. In exchange, he owes them a favour, which someday they will call in. The records also make it clear that while not psionic, the Baron’s head guard is a member of an elite Zhodani unit.

None of this is illegal, but the Imperium is not pleased all the same.

GM Notes

Only one of the players really likes fights, but all of them seem to enjoy heists, so I wanted to run a heist this time. I started with the idea that Mazun's handler might have noticed one of the barons had Zhodani-trained guards, and that he would then want to check out said baron's mansion for evidence, making it look like a robbery. The Macavity's crew are good for that, as unlike anyone he has on hand at the starport, they can skip town without arousing suspicion.

I used The Scheme Pyramid for the overall structure of the heist, and Modern Traps and Obstacles for the outer layer of sensors, guards and whatnot. I didn't use Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master this time, nor did we actually stick to The Scheme Pyramid scenario once they got inside the mansion. So long as a fun time is had by all, it doesn't much matter how you come up with the adventure.

Since they had full plans of the building, there was no fog of war; the opposition was therefore represented by PEFs, an idea I picked up from Two Hour Wargames. PEFS are little markers which move around the map according to dice rolls, and once a PC got line of sight on them, I rolled an event meaning in Mythic to determine who the PEF was and what they were up to. That worked very well.

As to the 3D scanner drone, I can't be bothered with long lists of equipment, so the players tell me what they want, and if I think it will be fun, they can have it. If I'm dubious but they really want it, they can spend a Benny to have one. It would be possible for players to abuse that, but this group doesn't.

Actual play was characterised by NPC thugs and guards repeatedly rolling 1s on their skill dice and so shooting innocent bystanders, usually each other. Rex did that a lot too, but people are wise to this now and stand well back, which means he usually shoots actual enemies, just not necessarily the ones he was aiming at.

The next adventure starts on Sink, so I'll fast forward play to 1106 week 07, when they arrive there.

Arion 1-07: Bar Crawl

"In vino veritas." - Pliny the Elder

Hollis Highport, 1105 Week 45

It's been a pleasant couple of weeks for Arion, and has involved more than one dinner with Officer Muhammed. He has grown used to the pre-dinner ritual where they are both offered a small glass of water, thank the waiter for the gift of life, then drink it slowly. It has the strange total lack of taste that speaks of obsessive recycling.

His standards of attractiveness adjusted by familiarity and several glasses of imported wine, Arion is starting to think being strip-searched by Officer Muhammed might be a pleasant way to round out the evening when Ganzfeld, now dressed in a Scout Service uniform with a rank which comfortably exceeds his own, drops into a seat at the table, eyeing Muhammed with some distaste, an emotion which the latter returns in spades.

"You're not answering your commlink," she accuses Arion.

"Well, no. I'm on leave, and as you can see, I'm in the middle of dinner with our Port Authority liaison officer."

"No, you're not, not any more. Follow me, and take two of these; I need you sober enough to fly." Arion apologises to Officer Muhammed with his eyes, and adds a promise of catching up later, then taps his commlink on the table's payment terminal.

Outside, Ganzfeld fidgets with the left cuff of the uniform and the rank badges blur and shift into a rank lower than Arion's.

"That feature is supposed to be locked," says Arion, who has eyes like a hawk.

"If you haven't worked out that Karagoz and I are spooks by now, you're dumber than you look. Which would not be easy. Now, first step; we're going on a bar crawl..."

Ganzfeld explains that by pure chance, a Navy system defence patrol intercepted an encrypted tight-beam transmission from the surface of Hollis. Karagoz wants them to go down there, find the source, and investigate. They have a rough idea of the general area the message came from, and before the actual descent, it seems prudent to ask around a little first; Cori notes acidly that Arion is well known in the local bars by now, and will draw less attention, so he should lead. He asks for some extra money to buy a few rounds and is rebuffed, but decides to buy them anyway.

He begins his enquiry by asking who lives on the surface.

"Nobody," answers a grizzled scout with a capacity for alcohol which strains Arion's credit rating. "Not permanently, anyway. The plant life is lethal. The sandworms, too."

"So nobody down there at all?"

"Well, nobody permanent. There's usually one or two scientific expeditions down there; they use drones for most of the field work, live in crawlers. And I think there's some sort of cult living in the lava tubes up near the north pole. But I mostly fly scientists there and back, drop off drones, pick up samples they collect. You know the kind of work."

"I hear all sorts of stories about what's down there. You ever see anything unusual?"

"I did come across an abandoned container base a few weeks back, you know the ones - portable quarters for a small team. It was smashed flat, sandworm maybe. I did poke around it a little in case there was anything worth taking, but I didn't find anything." Another couple of beers gets a location out of him, and it's in the area of interest.

"Karagoz and Sheng will stay up here," Ganzfeld tells Arion. "Get Mr Osheen for backup. The three of us are going down there."

Hollis Badlands, 1105 Week 45

"Definitely looks smashed flat," Arion says. Like all of them, he is wearing a face mask with a commlink and a small oxygen cylinder, every square centimetre of flesh is covered against the glare and the spores, and beneath the outer layer is a thermal control garment the ship's fabber printed for them overnight, covered in tubes with coolant water flowing through them. It had started off uncomfortably cold, but after only a few minutes it is already warm despite the best efforts of the refrigerating backpack. Arion understands now on a visceral level why nobody lives down here, lava tubes or not.

He hands the binoculars to Ganzfeld; already there is grit in the moving parts, and adjusting them results in stiff movements. "Just how big are these sandworms?"

"Fifteen, twenty metres long."

"What do they eat?"

"No idea. Library data at the scout base says they haven't managed to keep a biology team down here long enough to find out. There were casualties. They decided it wasn't worth the losses."

"So probably not much more than a couple of metres wide. That hut was squashed by something bigger. Something that managed to avoid the solar panels and the transmitter array. Ship maybe?"

"Why would you squash it with a ship?"

"To make it look abandoned when it isn't."

"You have a nasty, suspicious mind. You'll fit in just fine. Okay, let's go check it out." The three lever themselves upright with some effort, unbalanced by the gently humming backpacks.

"Wait a minute... what's that noise?" Sand shifting in front of them.

Sand that suddenly explodes into a muscular tube, with a hole at the front ringed by fangs.

To be continued...

GM Notes

I usually struggle with fleshing out worlds, but Hollis has come together nicely; I think setting it up in multiple game systems really helped me there.

And here are the dice rolls for the long-promised introduction of Richard Woolcock's Interstellar Rebels as a scenario generator.

• The 'Fighting for a Cause' section seems unnecessary and inappropriate, as I already have PC motivations. So I skip this section.
• Rolling 3d6 on the Mission Generator I get three 5s - the dice are being a bit weird at the moment. Reading from the table: "The rebels decide to steal plans or intel, which leads them to a lawless colony, but they must also deal with a change of plans." They're already on a lawless colony, so let's keep the action on Hollis rather than creating a new world, and say they need to go down to the surface.
• Next, I roll two subplots on the twist table using a d66; 32 (the icon looks like a robot's head) and 22 (a battery plugged into a charger).
• Then, I'm supposed to pick a type of challenge, but let's roll for that, too; that tells me the first scene of the adventure will be Networking, which seems reasonable; that can only happen once per mission, though.

Networking is a Persuasion or Intimidation roll; Arion and Cori are both better at the former, and she'll Support him - one of my tenets is that if at all possible, the PCs should be the active characters in everything. Cori rolls first, Persuasion d6 and, thanks to an Ace, gets a 7, which is a +1 to Arion's roll. Arion next makes a Wealth roll as he is spreading a little cash around (d6 plus a Wild Die, or "d6w" in my usual jargon); a 5, success, so it works but his Wealth die drops to d4. He now rolls his Persuasion (d6w); 5, +1 for Cori's support, +2 for buying rounds; total 8, success with a raise. My usual rule is that each success and raise gets the PC a useful piece of information, so Arion learns two things, and gains a Victory Point for success in the scene.

At the end of the first (networking) scene, I describe what I expect to happen ("the team descend to the surface and explore the wrecked hut") then roll on the curveball table to see if events deviate from that. The curveball roll is 2d6, with what Mythic would call an Altered or Interrupted scene occurring if you roll doubles. I roll 5, 6 - that's not a double, so things go as expected.

Now, I select a challenge type for the next scene, and work it into the narrative. We haven't had a fight for a while, so I choose Combat. Who or what are they fighting? Well, there was talk of sandworms... but before we do that, I have statblocks for Arion, Mr Osheen and the worm, but I really should stat up the other NPCs if they're going to get into fights, so that's up next.

Experiment 5: Beasts & Barbarians Redux

“Literal translations of game mechanics from other systems usually just result in cumbersome sub-systems that don’t add one minute of fun to the Savage version.” – Savage Worlds Deluxe

I think that comment applies just as much to converting Savage Worlds settings between editions as it does to anything else.

By the time the Aslan Route campaign wraps, I will have been running SF or modern spies for 5-6 years, and I might well be ready for a change. If so, sword & sorcery up next, I think, and in the same way that I instinctively turn to Charted Space for an SF setting, my default fantasy world is Umberto Pignatelli's Beasts & Barbarians, written for Savage Worlds Deluxe and published by GRAmel.

I don't know if there will be another edition of B&B, but I can still use what I have. Any sword & sorcery adventure will fit into the Dominions, and Umberto wrote adventures faster than I could run them for years, so I still have some left that we never got around to playing.

Rules

Assuming we don't get a new edition of Beasts & Barbarians, I have a number of options here, each of which would need me to put in some effort.

• Savage Worlds Deluxe. The setting was written for this edition, which is probably my favourite version of SW; certainly it's the one I had the most fun running. However, I'm seven years deep in Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, changing to it was harder than I expected, and I'm committed to it for probably another two years because of various campaigns I'm running and playing; so rolling back to it looks like too much work for not enough benefit.
• Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, core rulebook only. This is fairly straightforward; Setting Rules are Dynamic Backlash, Multiple Languages, Unarmoured Hero, and Wealth, the only permitted Ancestry is Human, the only permitted Arcane Background is Magic (i.e., evil sorcery). I might unbend far enough to allow NPC alchemists who can make healing potions. The Bestiary needs a bit of pruning, but apart from that we're good to go. Definitely good enough for solo play.
• SWADE plus Fantasy Companion. This is probably the way to go for group play; Setting Rules the same as if just using the core rulebook, the only permitted Ancestry is Human, and permitted Arcane Backgrounds are Alchemist and Sorcery, although the Mystic Powers (Monk) Edge is also necessary for the Enlightened. Having looted the Arcane Backgrounds from the FC, I think we need to back away from the rest of it slowly without making eye contact.
• Tales of Argosa also works pretty much as is; as ever the Bestiary needs work, and possibly spells too, but the main changes needed are dropping artificers and demi-human races, and either dropping cultists or saying they can only be NPCs.
• Barbarians of Lemuria is attractive for its simplicity and should also work well. I'd have to swap out all the setting material, about half the book, as well as priestly and druidic magic (and sky pilots), but the core rules should be fine.

None of those have much in the way of detailed mapping for hexcrawls or dungeon crawls, so I might need to invoke Shadowdark for those. Mind you, B&B says you shouldn't do detailed mapping at all, but I have always struggled with mapless play, although SW seems intended for it.

Setting

There were three editions of Beasts & Barbarians, and I prefer the middle one, the Golden Edition; it's the one I had most fun running, and also the one most of the adventures were written for.

B&B's Dread Sea Dominions are essentially a fantasy mashup of Rome and her neighbours through the ages, and the part of it that calls to me the most is the Borderlands, which if you squint at it sideways looks a lot like Transalpine Gaul a little after the Legions pulled back. That's partly because it's where I started, thanks to the adventure Wolves in the Borderlands; partly because it was never fleshed out in much detail, so I'd have a free hand with the geography and factions; and partly because of Gundobad Games' series of posts on Merovingian Gaul as a points of light sandbox - I've been itching to try out that out since I read the series, and if Umberto can add Vikings, Mongols and Constantinople to early Imperial Rome, I can add Merovingians.

Also, since we're going with fantasy Rome and some of my potential players think Powers are overpowered game breakers, let's adopt Roman laws on magic; books of magic are to be confiscated and burned, and those found guilty of practicing magic are to be burned alive or torn apart by wild animals. As always, money talks, and a wealthy aristocrat could expect that sentence to be commuted to exile on a remote island.

The obvious part of the setting to use for open table episodic play is Jalizar, City of Thieves, which has multiple factions and plotlines already worked out. However, at least for solo play, I'm tempted to begin by exploring the Count of Felantium's black ops team. The Romans had people called speculatores, deployed singly or in small groups and used as spies, scouts and couriers. Sounds like an historical version of the Traveller scout service, doesn't it? Sign me up...

Arion 1-06: All the Single Ladies

"And this is where the story really starts." - The Highly-Esteemed Goon Show, Dishonoured

Hollis Inbound Drift, 1105 Week 43

Once the routine activities of emerging from jumpspace are dealt with, Arion has time to look at his message queue, and notices that his arrival at Hollis has triggered unsealing a new set of orders, which he reads with some interest. Twice.

The first step is to wake Major Sheng from cryosleep. That makes sense, as her medical skill is needed to wake the others safely. Before she does that, however, she needs to be fully recovered herself, so he helps her to the crew common area and sits her down, marvelling at how good she looks even straight out of the freezer.

However, during the trip Mr Osheen casually mentioned that she can take him two falls out of three, and given his casual attitude to violence and mayhem, Arion decides to limit himself to being politely solicitous. He pours her a half litre of tangy citrus liquid which supposedly contains all the nutrients needed to help her recover, but she grunts and pushes it away, croaking "Coffee". He obliges. Mr Osheen snakes out an arm and snags the liquid, which he consumes with apparent relish.

A little later, Sheng is awake enough to recognise him.

"It's good to see a friendly face," she says. "I don't know either of the others, and that's never a good start. Where are we?"

"Hollis," he says. "In the Foreven Sector. A few parsecs rimward of the Zhodani border. You didn't know?"

She shakes her head and inhales more coffee. "No. Sealed orders, get into the berth, protect the other two, do what the man says and forget about it afterwards."

"So he's a spook, huh."

"Yeah, I think so. What you don't know, they can't make you tell, and right now I only know what I've told you."

"Well... if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined." They share a smile at that.

"What about you?" she asks. "It'd be nice if there was a friendly face around for a while. Less lonely."

"Get the three of you to Hollis, get the ship overhauled, do whatever the man says and forget about it afterwards."

"This is stupid. If we're going to work together, we need to know each other."

"You and I know each other. We both know Mr Osheen. That may have been part of the selection process." There is silence for a moment, then Sheng takes a deep breath as if stepping forward out of cover in hostile territory.

"You know," Sheng says, not looking Arion in the eye, "I think this will be my last mission."

"Really? I had you pegged for career," Arion says, refilling her coffee and pushing what pass for cream and sugar aboard ship closer for her.

"Yeah, me too. But I'm thirty four subjective, Arion; the ol' biological clock is ticking. Finish this job, then figure a couple of years to find someone, couple more to settle down... I'm running out of time."

Arion makes a non-committal noise, and takes a slug of his own coffee. Behind him, he is aware of Mr Osheen surreptitiously emptying the coffee jug, drinking directly from it. Sheng continues.

"Of course, if there were somebody I already knew... already liked... who was... interested..." Arion freezes like a rabbit in headlights. Having planted that seed, Sheng changes the subject. "I'll take some gloop now, please. Then I'll take a shower. Then I'll wake the others. Then, we can ask them some questions. Which they probably won't answer."

"May I also have some gloop?" asks Mr Osheen, whom Arion privately suspects has hollow legs.

"Sure, why not."

Hollis Inbound Drift, 1105 Week 43

"I'm Captain Arion Metaxas. I don't know who knows what about Hollis," Arion says, once the other two passengers have been decanted, fed and watered, cleaned, and parked around the common area table, "But I am required by law to give you a safety briefing before you disembark."

"Hollis is, frankly, a bit of a dump. There's no free standing or subsurface water to speak of, it all has to be imported from the gas giant moons. So don't waste it. If you go down to the surface, do not go outside if you can avoid it, and if you can't, wear a full-face filter mask; the local life is desperate for water, and if you expose your face you'll get dust in your lungs and extremely aggressive microscopic windblown spores in your tear ducts. Soon after that, your lungs will start bleeding where the silicates have cut them up, and you'll have local plant life growing out of your eyes and all the way down your respiratory tract into your lungs. Also, the average surface temperature is 57 Celsius, so stay hydrated, stay in the shade, ideally indoors. Also also, atmospheric oxygen levels are on the low side, so you'll get stupid and cranky after a few hours. That's the point where you'll start to think taking your mask off is a good idea. It isn't."

"Further, the local law level is - shall we say - lenient. Mr Osheen, you'll have to leave the laser SMG in the ship's locker, but blades and slugthrowers are fine. I anticipate a lot of people with big guns and short tempers, so watch out for those." Mr Osheen smiles in anticipation.

"I'm going to stay in the highport myself, and I strongly suggest you do too. Any questions?"

There are none.

"Very well. My orders are to get the ship overhauled, which will take about two weeks, and then place myself at the disposal of one Aksunar Karagoz. That's you, sir, I take it?" Karagoz nods in confirmation.

"And your colleague is Ms Coriander Ganzfeld?" Two more nods, one each. "This is my gunner, Mr Osheen, and this is Major Evelyn Sheng, in case you don't know her. They are both my friends, and both capable of extreme violence, so please bear that in mind in your dealings with them. Given the nature of my orders, Mr Karagoz, I assume you won't tell me anything unless I need to know." Another nod.

Arion sighs. "We'll be docking at Hollis Highport in about three hours. It'll take another hour or two to clear customs. Then, Mr Karagoz, you can tell the rest of us what you want done."

Karagoz speaks for the first time. "Initially I'll need to meet a few people and review the most up to date information; what I think I know is a year and a half out of date. So you may as well take a few days to recover from the trip. I'll find you when I'm ready."

Meanwhile, Ganzfeld and Sheng are communicating in a silent language the men are oblivious to, one of subtle microexpressions and tiny gestures.

He's cute.

I saw him first. He's mine.

We'll see about that, old lady.

Hollis Highport, 1105 Week 43

Officer Muhammed is not especially attractive by Arion's standards, but she hums as she works and there is something infectious about her ready laugh.

And he has been in space a very long time, now.

She pokes at the commlink strapped to her wrist as she emerges from the hold.

"Well, apart from you being smoking hot in a built-up area, everything seems to be in order. Thumbprint here please," and as he complies, she contrives for her other hand to brush against his and linger, just a little.

"You're not worried about my gunner?" Arion points his thumb over his shoulder at the cockpit transparency, where Mr Osheen is watching stolidly. She smiles.

"Nooo. He's on your ship, so he's not in my jurisdiction. But if he does run amok, I'll need a big, strong man to protect me." She winks at him to confirm who she means, but Arion has noticed the worn handle of the 10mm pistol on her belt and suspects this is merely decorative flirting.

Arion spends the next few hours getting his passengers and cargo offloaded, arranging for an annual overhaul at the scout base, and getting the Dolphin transferred from its current hangar to the dockyard.

After nine months in each other's company, two-thirds of it in a hullmetal can not much more than twenty metres long, he and Mr Osheen are staying in separate hotels for a while.

As he emerges from the dockyard, spacer's duffle over one shoulder, he notes a figure waiting for him.

"Officer Muhammed," he says. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"As I said, you are smoking hot in a built-up area, and there is a fixed penalty for that."

"And what is the penalty, may I ask?"

"You take me to dinner. I can show you around on the way to the restaurant."

Arion hitches his duffle further up his shoulder to cover the slight hesitation while he thinks about this.

What the hell, he thinks. I have to eat anyway.

"Okay then," he says.

"Good. As this is a first offence for you, you can have dessert." She sticks out an elbow. "Put your arm through here."

"Umm, why?"

"It shows you're under my protection. The local gangs will be less likely to shake you down; it's one thing mugging a spacer passing through, it's quite another messing with the Port Authority."

As they stroll off, arm in arm, Officer Muhammed speaks again.

"I have reason to suspect you may be carrying contraband about your person," she says. "I will have to search you later. Thoroughly."

"Are you sure that's necessary, Officer Muhammed?"

"Call me Karen," she smoulders. "Now, tell me, how do you feel about handcuffs?"

GM Notes

I'd intended to start using Interstellar Rebels to generate the solo scenarios in this post, but I got carried away with the character interactions and settling the main characters in on Hollis, so we'll do that next time. It's easy to forget sometimes that the main point of all this is for me to have fun, not just show off the cool toys.

The change of venue for the campaign is a good chance to get more of the band back together, so I took advantage of it. Hollis is going to be the base world for a while, so it needs a 'face' NPC, and it's easiest if that's somebody who interacts with Arion each time he arrives. Enter Officer Karen Muhammed of the Hollis Port Authority, who rolled Happy for her Ally Personality. (On reflection, I think having distinctive NPCs at the starport on Sink is what hooked the Aslan Route players into picking that as their base.)

What I was not expecting was for all the female characters to roll so high for their reactions to Arion, and for the off-camera oracle rolls to lean into that so heavily.

Normally, the Arioniad is a dark, twisty espionage thriller, but the dice seem to be trying to tell me that this season is a harem comedy.

Experiment 4: The Perilous Void of Hollis

"No love for the Perilous Void?" - Sully

Actually, I'd forgotten I had it! So let's take a quick look at Hollis under that rules system. Turn with me to World Creation (Perilous Void p. 46) and let's work through that...

As a reminder, we're trying to match Hollis; A370642-C NS De Ni GG CsIm, and we have accepted the possibly canon statements from Traveller Wiki that Hollis has a high temperature, that water has to be imported and extensively recycled, and the locals speak both Anglic and Vilani, the two Imperial languages.

World Creation

Right away I get problems, because I already know I want complex life, but Hollis is a desert world. So I need to work backwards from whichever climate table will give me those; as is often the way, it's harder to match existing parameters than it is to just roll dice. The best I can do is to assume I rolled a mixed world type on the Temperate World table and give the place a mixture of Earthlike and Arid features, but it doesn't feel right.

The Perilous Void tables are more variable than the other games I've looked at, so I've tended to pick the most likely outcomes.

Position: Near. This is the most likely to give me the Mixed Temperate world I need.

Climate: Temperate, mixed Arid/Earthlike. (I'm going to skip over the surface features and whatnot on pages 64-71 as I have no need for them currently, I can always come back to them later, and one of the keys to avoiding burnout is to remember you don't have to do everything right away.)

World Feature: None of these seem appropriate, but that's OK, because no features is the most likely outcome.

Size: Small (Traveller says 4,800 km, so we'll call it 5,000).

Gravity: Low (the most likely for a Small world).

Moons: 0 (most likely).

Regions: 4 (most likely).

Resources: Average (most likely given the mixed world types).

Atmospheric Density and Type: Medium, nitrogen-oxygen.

Water: None (0%) - a straight lift from the Traveller hydrographics percentage.

Life: Complex. (I'm going to skip over the lifeform creation process on pages 74-85 because I intend to lift lifeforms straight out of the SWADE core rulebook.)

Society Creation

By Imperial standards, Hollis is out in the wilds, so we'll use those columns on the various tables if necessary. For the most part, the ratings here are pulled through from the parent society, the Third Imperium.

Tech Level: Current, Interstellar (TL 4).

Condition: Stable. 50% populated area.

Political System: Different from parent society, representative democracy. That's taken straight from the Traveller statblock, but note that the Imperium itself is a feudal trade protectorate. (I'm going to skip over Factions and Communities because I don't need them yet.)

Reach: System, I suppose. This is tucked away in the Factions rules, but I need it for the Society summary.

To summarise:

HOLLIS: Arid Earthlike planet, near, small, temperate, R average, G low, A medium (nitrogen-oxygen), W none (0%), L complex. (Description/details TBA.)

HOLLIS: Representative democracy, T 4, R system, C stable.

GM Notes

What do we learn from this exercise? Well, the more game systems you use, the harder it is to keep them consistent; like any mashup, it works best when the games don't overlap with each other. The more detailed the game system, the harder it is to retrofit it to the existing theme. Perilous Void is the fifth system I'm using for Hollis, and the most detailed.

Think of it as layering Swiss cheese, with each layer representing a game system, and the holes being the parameters you're trying to preserve. The more layers there are, the less likely you are to have a hole that goes all the way through. More detailed systems, like Perilous Void, have smaller holes to begin with, making the exercise even harder.

I don't think this has added anything useful to the previous experiment, but that is probably because it is coming so late to the party. If I'd started with using it on its own to replicate Hollis, things would probably have worked out better.

So, love for Perilous Void? Maybe, but I think it would work a lot better as a means of creating a setting from scratch rather than rating one that already exists. I also doubt I have the patience for the level of detail it uses in the long term, but that's a matter of personal choice, and YMMV as always.

Experiment 3: Hollis

"The referee has the responsibility for mapping the universe before actual game play begins. The entire universe is not necessary immediately, however, as only a small portion can be used at any one time. In unsupervised play, one of the players can generate worlds and perform mapping on a turn by turn or adventure by adventure basis." - Traveller, Book 3, 1977

In the next episode of the Arioniad, Arion will arrive at Hollis and we'll start using a new solo oracle. I picked Hollis because it was helpful to have a named world at the endpoint of his travel route, and to kickstart things once he arrived there.

But that's not the experiment. Something that has been itching in the back of my mind for years now is the idea of statting up a subsector for every SF game I might ever want to play. I don't know if it will work, but let's try it on Hollis and see if it's worth pursuing elsewhere. When I say every SF game I might ever want to play, that is actually quite a small set; 5150, Stars Without Number, SWADE, and Traveller. It might turn into a mashup where, for example, I layer SWN world tags on top of CT world profiles and call it a day; it might turn into glorious insanity with immense amounts of detail which I eventually discard as being overly complex. Meh, there's always another subsector.

So, what do we know about Hollis?

Traveller

Traveller first, as that statblock already exists: A370642-C NS De Ni GG CsIm. For those of you not familiar with Traveller, that translates as...

• Starport Class A; excellent facility, can build starships.
• Size 3. 4,800 km diameter, 0.38 G surface gravity. A bit light, but never mind, it's not often it comes into play.
• Atmosphere 7. Standard pressure, tainted. Hmm. That will need some thought; maybe the other systems will shed some light on it. For now, note that you need a filter mask to walk around outside.
• Hydrosphere 0. No freestanding surface water; desert world.
• Population 6 - millions. Specifically, three million, according to Traveller Map.
• Government Type 4. Representative democracy. This is the sort of politics most familiar to the players, so that's good.
• Law level 2. Portable energy weapons prohibited, but firearms and blades are fine. That's a sort of Wild West vibe, also good.
• Tech Level 12. Average Imperial. 10-12 is my favoured range for base worlds; high-tech enough to feel like SF, but low-tech enough to be understandable.
• NS: Imperial Navy and Scout bases.
• De Ni: Desert world, Non-Industrial world. Those are the Traveller equivalent of world tags, namely trade classes; Hollis has no free-standing surface water, and the lack of industry means it must import most of its finished goods. Ni worlds tend to be mining colonies, judging by the trade tables in Book 2.
• GG: Gas Giant. Traveller ships refuel either from the port, or by scooping hydrogen from oceans or gas giants. Traveller Map says there are three gas giants.
• CsIm: Imperial Client State. The only reason I can think of for the Imperium to have a presence so far out is to monitor Zhodani activity.

Checking the Traveller Wiki (because my players will), I learn that Hollis has a high temperature, that water has to be imported and extensively recycled, and the locals speak both Anglic and Vilani, the two Imperial languages. This data appears to come either from a fan project which I can ignore, or Imperial Lines magazine issue 1; not sure if that's canon or not. I'll roll with those for now.

5150

5150 is very easy to convert Traveller planets to, as the only real stats are Planet Class and Law Level.

Looking at the descriptions of p. 58 of 5150 New Beginnings, Hollis is Planet Class 2, Law Level 2.

Hollis is actually not a bad match for New Hope in the 5150 rulebook. A bit dry and lawless, but not a million miles out.

SWADE SF Companion

Here we turn to the World Maker, SFC pages 191-193. Working through the stats there in sequence, I look at the various descriptions and match them by eye.

• Planetary Gravity: Low. 0.38 G is about the same as Mars, too low to be Normal and too high to be Zero.
• Dominant Terrain: Desert. It is, after all, specified as a desert world; this gives it a base temperature of 85 F.
• Atmosphere: Hazardous. It says on the tin you need a filter mask, so "normal" (which would have the right pressure) doesn't feel right. We then roll separately for a temperature adjustment, and get +50 F; that leaves us at 135 F. That's 57 Celsius. Bit on the warm side, that; slightly above the record for Death Valley. Wear a hat.
• Population Density: Dense. This part of the World Maker makes very little sense to me; I've spent many frustrating hours trying to match it to other games and real-world statistics, and failed every time. The wording in the SFC suggests this is some form of "population weighted density",  i.e. the population density as perceived by an average inhabitant, in effect a measure of how urbanised a society is. Given the atmosphere and temperature, I expect people are living in some sort of climate-controlled habitat, maybe in orbit, so let's say Dense. (SFC 'Dense' is only 42 people per square kilometre, which isn't terribly dense in my book.)
• Dominant Government: Republic. That makes the most sense to me for a Representative Democracy.
• Authority: Lenient. This is the SFC equivalent to Law Level, and as long as you don't shoot up the starport with a plasma gun, Hollis is fine with you.
• Customs: Nothing obvious here, so I start by looking up "Hollis" on Wikipedia to find the word's origin and meaning, and I learn it was originally an English surname meaning "dweller at the holly trees", and is now a gender-neutral forename. Lots of towns are named Hollis as well. However, what I need to know is that it's culturally English, so whatever Custom I decide on needs to fit that culture. I roll d20 and get "specific ritual before meals"; something like saying grace, perhaps, probably related to water. I set that aside to stew on it for a while.
• Customs Groups: SFC p. 192 says "at your discretion, customs may apply only to a specific group". I think this one applies to everybody.
• Technology Level: Average for the setting, because it's "average Imperial".
• Spaceport: Extensive. The best you can get in either of the games that use this. A bit big for the population IMHO, but then we have all those bases to consider.
• Dilemma: Hollis is very close to the Zhodani border, so rather than roll dice, I select Diplomatic Dilemma, and add that to my notes to help explain Arion's passengers.

Stars Without Number

I'm expecting this one to be the hardest, so I saved it for last.

• World Tags: Desert World, Major Spaceyard. I read through all 100 tags and decided these were the best fit; a few others, Bubble Cities for example, would also have been plausible.
• Atmosphere: Breatheable Mix. It's the closest one. I decide that, as in Frank Herbert's Dune, people going outside wear a mask not just to keep contaminants out (although there is probably a lot of dust flying about), but also to keep water in. Flipping back to Traveller for a second, that means the taint could be an almost complete lack of water vapour. Without surface water, it could also be a low oxygen percentage.
• Temperature: Warm. That's the closest match if we compare descriptions, and this is definitely a "warm desert" world.
• Biosphere: Immiscible. The Traveller stats for Hollis could be made to work with any of the SWN biosphere types, but Immiscible would help explain the filter masks, and also lets me use Supplement 2: Animal Encounters if I feel like it later. (Remember, this is all about setting up a world so I can use it with multiple game systems.)
• Population: Several million. It says so on the tin.
• Tech Level: TL 4 is the standard for SWN sectors, so we'll go with that. It's also a fair match for Traveller TL 12.

GM Notes

Well, that wasn't too bad. Not as hard as I thought it would be, possibly because I had no preconceptions about the world. Maybe worth trying this for a few other worlds, but I'll generate them one at a time to avoid GM burnout.

Playing the various rules engines off against each other has given me a pretty good feel for Hollis, so let's introduce Arion to it and see what kind of adventure is up next for him.