Aslan Route: Retrospective

"The focus of the players is the centre of the campaign, and everything else in it simply exists to give them meaningful choices and interesting things to catch their attention." - Kevin Crawford, Red Tide

So ends The Aslan Route.

How It's Made

After completing The Pirates of Drinax, I found I had a number of scenarios left over that I wanted to play, so picking The Borderland Run as the spine for the campaign, I slotted the rest of them in around that. There are one or two I'd still like to play, although they're not location-specific and can just be slotted into a future campaign; and a number I don't think would be fun for me or the group, so we just won't play them.

I had intended Islands in the Rift to be a future campaign, but on a detailed reading I realised that given the way we play, it would only last a handful of sessions, so I bolted it on by way of Deepnight Endeavour.

By the Numbers

The campaign has been more or less normal for one of my games in terms of party size (4-5), duration (1-2 years), and advancement (a few steps into Legendary Rank).

• The campaign began on 2nd November 2024 and ended on 4th April 2026, so that's 39 sessions over 74 weeks; we tried for weekly sessions, but wound up averaging a little over one session every other week, mostly because of my lengthy summer holidays.
• The PCs acquired 19 Advances, taking them 4 Advances into Legendary; not only is that normal for my games, but it's also what there is room for on the official character sheet, so maybe it's a common duration. Or maybe it's just what they could fit in. Either way, it's a good length.
• The party consisted of four PCs, and usually had 1-2 NPC hangers-on. Towards the end, these were replaced by Sidekicks, and if we had run longer, I think there would have been a group of Followers too.

Unlike D&D, where PCs have a narrow niche and get much better at filling that niche as they level up, Savage Worlds PCs gradually expand beyond their starting niche, so the party relies on NPC support less and less as they advance. You might expect the PCs to start treading on each others' toes as their niches overlap, but I find they use the Support and Test rules to buff each other instead.

Having run both D&D and Savage Worlds over long periods, I'd say that D&D is optimised for a four-person party, while SW is aimed at three. I have four players though, so we have a four-person party. 

I don't see a need to change any of these factors for future games.

• We gain more by deepening our understanding of one game system than we do by switching to one which is theoretically "better" for a given campaign, so we'll stick with SWADE.
• We've got four players, so we have four PCs.
• Running a few Advances into Legendary Rank lets the PCs play with the cool toys on top of the mountain without turning into gods.
• Aiming for one session per week averages out at half that, which is fine for aging grognards such as ourselves.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The good (what worked):

• Session zero. The PCs were designed as a team with a specific goal in mind, so they meshed together well from the outset.
• Grown-up conversations about undesirable behaviour, resolving it amicably.
• Aligning the PCs with a faction early on, which could then act as a source of missions; giving the PCs an external reason to stick with that faction.

The bad (what didn't):

• PCs taking Hindrances the player didn't want to play (Enemy) or I didn't want to engage with (Cautious, Greedy). There have been so many Cautious Greedy PCs these last few years that I'm seriously considering banning those Hindrances.
• Trying to extend the rules set beyond the core SWADE rules. Except for The Scheme Pyramid, nothing else I tried to add was worth the effort of doing so. Half a century into the hobby, the core rules for RPGs are pretty solid, and cover what comes up in play without needing much else.

The ugly (challenges for me as a GM):

• Balancing Rex's desire for bloodshed with everyone else's desire to avoid it.
• Generating story arcs that the players were interested in following.
• Generating or selecting aslan names which looked credible, but which could also be remembered and pronounced by all of us.

Coda

There were more stories to be told on Tyokh about the Psionics Institute and the aslan crime syndicate, and I could have spun off a number of adventures using the adventure seeds and world tags in Stars Without Number (I'd say Tyokh has the tags Trade Hub and Ritual Combat); but I'm starting to feel tired and burned out on the campaign, so I quit while I was ahead. Leave 'em wanting more, as they say.

I think I've exhausted the possibilities of the Trojan Reach now. There are two more campaigns which could be run there using elements from The Pirates of Drinax, one venturing deep into the Hierate, and one about pirate-hunting naval officers, but I don't think I or the group would enjoy either, so let's not.

I can see myself returning to Charted Space eventually, but for now I shall let it lie fallow while we turn our attention elsewhere.

Aslan Route 39: Stepford Sister Wives

Previously, on the Aslan Route: Returning from adventures in the Islands Cluster, the Macavity arrives at the Clan Iuwoi landhold on Tyokh to find it in turmoil. The clan are delighted to see the crew back safely, but the head of the clan is at death’s door and Prince Hteleitoirl has taken up with a new female who looks set to become his second wife; while polygamy is the norm among aslan, Elehasei is not impressed with her proposed sister wife and asks to meet with the legally female crew members, Dr Matauranga and Vila, while the males pay their respects to the Prince and his father...

Tyokh, 1109 Week 52

The first step is for the crew to pay their respects. Elehasei meets with Vila and Dr Matauranga; she is not jealous of the potential new wife, Alea, but is concerned that her only assets are youth and beauty - her clan, the Weseah, is a low-class rural one with nothing to offer and no stronger patron clan, but has recently produced a batch of pretty but empty-headed young females who are marrying above their status. Elehasei can't see a pattern in the marriages; some are better than others, some are advantageous and others less so. She wonders if this might be part of a plot to manipulate the Prince and damage his reputation. Perhaps the crew might look into it? Dr Matauranga wonders privately if this is the Rea’a Hrilkhir re-integrating their members into legitimate clans; they tried to persuade the Prince to do that a few years ago, but the Macavity's crew talked him out of it.

Meanwhile, Mazun and Rex are talking to the Iuwoiko and his now-heir apparent, Prince Hteleitoirl. The clan head is in bad shape and not long for this world; Dr Matauranga is summoned to examine him, and determines he is dying of natural causes. Realising that it would be dishonourable to extend the ko's life when his time has come, the Doctor instead focuses on a treatment regimen which will allow him to pass with dignity.

Attempts to probe the Prince and Alea are stonewalled; Mazun thinks the Prince is embarrassed about how they met ("at a social function") while Vila concludes that Alea is out of her depth and has decided the best way to avoid a social gaffe is to say as little as possible. Elehasei has had cubs in the Macavity's absence, but they are all female, so maybe the new wife wants to usurp her position by producing a male heir; there is still everything to play for.

The crew persuade Elehasei to host a gathering for Alea and her relatives. Dr Matauranga collects genetic samples from all of them and disappears back to his laboratory to analyse them, but the crew are already suspicious as the females look surprisingly similar. Vila offers to mentor Alea, arguing that he has recently integrated into the clan as an outsider himself, and she accepts.

Meanwhile, the males - including Kharrosh, Rex and Mazun - are hanging around outside swapping yarns. One of the bodyguards suggests Kharrosh's story is less than accurate, and Rex uses this to manufacture a duel ("Are you calling my friend a liar?"). Rex cuts him down in a flurry of claws and fangs, and he and Mazun carry the fallen off to Dr Matauranga, who is well-known to be an excellent doctor.

Dr Matauranga has established that the females are clones, and that someone from Tech-World has meddled with their appearance, agility and visual cortex; he recognises the handiwork of a former rival. The crew immediately jump to the conclusion that they are sleeper assassins, but before they can act on this Rex and Mazun arrive with a gutted aslan for the good Doctor to repair. Naturally, the Doctor shoots him full of truth drugs as well as antibiotics, and Mazun charms him into revealing that he is indeed a member of the Rea’a Hrilkhir crime syndicate, and now also a member of Clan Weseah. It seems obvious that the isolated and impoverished rural clan has taken the deal the Prince refused. Putting together the clues they have so far, it also seems the syndicate has paid Tech-World to generate attractive clone females and is using Clan Weseah as a toehold, marrying the females off to gradually higher and higher-status clans to gain land, power and influence; an aslan version of money-laundering.

Dr Matauranga - who is now growing catgirl clones in the ship's expanded medical bay - wants to make the visual cortex changes to the next batch to see what they do, suspecting some kind of hypnotic gaze, but there isn't time. Reluctantly, therefore, he oversees Mazun and Vila in hacking the register of births, marriages and deaths, maintained to ensure correct inheritance of land; it turns out that the females all appear fully grown and marry quickly, but that their integration into aslan society is facilitated by Bridget Harris and her Port Authority contacts. Dr Matauranga suspects, but cannot prove, that Harris is associated with the Psionics Institute, so the crew decides not to tug on this particular thread as it may result in biting off more than they can chew.

They present their findings to Elehasei and ask what she wants to achieve. She asks that they break up the romance and take down the conspiracy; any other outcome besmirches the Prince's honour, and by association that of his clan and hers, as either he was taken in (and therefore incompetent) or complicit in covering it up (and therefore dishonourable). The first part is easy; no formal promises have been exchanged, so the Prince just dumps his new girlfriend, not without regret as she is rather pretty, but the knowledge that she was deliberately and dishonourably designed to appeal to him rather takes the shine off things.

The crew next ponders how to end the conspiracy without dragging their own names or the clan's through the mire. Fortunately, Vila "knows a guy" in the Port Authority, so they present him the case which will make his career, with all evidence neatly tied up with a bow on top. Conscious of social niceties, and not wanting to spend the rest of his life duelling, this contact gives the various clans involved some warning, giving them time for damage limitation, before bringing the ceiling down on the Rea’a Hrilkhir.

Epilogue

Fast-forward a few weeks. The Iuwoiko dies and Hteleitoirl is installed as the new ko. He promotes his former boon companions to full clan membership as a reward for their many services.

Elehasei persuades her husband that the crew of the Macavity can best serve the clan by continuing to trade along the Aslan Route, and so they do.

Unknown to everyone else, Mazun continues to report back to his IISS handler on Cordan every time they get that far coreward.

GM Notes

This campaign has run its course now, but it was fun while it lasted. For the final session, I rolled a random adventure seed (number 96) from Stars Without Number, then tried to tie up as many loose ends as I could with it. Perhaps because of that, the group worked out fairly quickly what was going on and who was responsible, the problem was how to prove it and resolve the situation without causing social problems for themselves and their patrons.

Aslan Route 38: Herzenslust

Previously, on the Aslan Route... The Macavity is headed for Herzenslust to recover backup copies of the lost data cores from the Perfect Stranger.

Sturgeon’s Law, 1109 Week 22

Sturgeon’s Law is closed for business; both ships are refused landing permission and warned off on pain of being shot down. No reasons are given. Consequently, they need to refuel at the gas giant; normally this is uncomfortable but not especially dangerous, however during the first skimming run they get an alert for a sensor lock-on, shortly followed by a two-missile strike. Vila dodges the missiles by the skin of his teeth, then backtracks them to a launch position which Kharrash and Rex obliterate with the lasers of both ships. Reasoning that any resources must be spread thinly to cover a whole gas giant, the two vessels rapidly conduct wilderness refuelling and jump out again, heading to Herzenslust via Elysee.

Herzenslust, 1109 Week 26

Upon arriving at Herzenslust, sensor scans show a force of gunships defending the world, operating out of a space station built from a decommissioned freighter.

The economic and industrial heart of Herzenslust is its capital city, which enjoys greater technological and social sophistication than the rest of the world. The capital has its own Class C starport but this is off-limits to all vessels other than those coming from New Colchis. Everyone else, including the Macavity and the Perfect Stranger, must make do with a rudimentary port over a hundred kilometres away.

The bonded warehouse is part of a starship graveyard at the main port, which turns out to be a fenced compound owned and operated by a company called WrekYard. WrekYard charges a Cr 10 fee to enter the yard, mainly to deter gawkers and idiots who want to climb around the starships, and has a make-an-offer policy on components extracted from the wrecks.

A bored-looking WrekYard employee checks the team's (forged) papers, points out a few details they got wrong, and lets them into the bonded warehouse anyway after they slip him a few Credits to 'correct their papers'. The warehouse appears to have a storage system based on stuffing things in as they arrive with no attempt to sort them and a hashing algorithm of gravity, so it takes some time to find the data cores and extricate them from under a pile of more recently-delivered detritus. They are in fairly good shape, considering.

The employee wanders off to the warehouse office, apparently so that he won’t get roped into helping load up the data cores. While Dr Matauranga, the designated bureaucrat, goes up with him to sort out the paperwork, and Vila stands watch with his stun pistol at the ready, Rex and Mazun get the cores loaded and tied down. Just as they’re finishing this, Vila points out a bunch of local thugs approaching, and the captain and the vargr go out to reason with them.

Mazun explains that the team are a hardened trader crew, the thugs are not really a threat but they could be a nuisance, and he is prepared to buy them off if the price is reasonable. The thugs’ leader says they have been promised money to beat the crew up and kidnap a couple of them, but cash in hand beats promises that could be reneged upon. A price is agreed, and Mazun proposes that they escort him and Rex to the handover – if they play their cards right, they could get paid twice. So it is that he and Rex are led to a sleazy motel on the outskirts of town and handed over to a pair of armed offworlders, while Dr Mataurange and Vila follow in the air/raft.

The thugs are paid off and disappear; Mazun and Rex are dragged into a motel room; and Vila stealthily sneaks up to lurk outside the room in case the two inside need help.

“Who are you people?” one wants to know. “And what the hell are you up to?”

Mazun trots out the usual story, he is repossessing the Perfect Stranger for non-payment of mortgage and has no knowledge of what it might have been doing beforehand, or why.

“This is above our pay grade,” the other offworlder says. “Let’s hand them off to head office.”

Before that goes any further, Rex pops his surgically-implanted forearm claws and lays about him. Those watching on his bodycam from outside see nothing but fountains of blood; it’s over in seconds, one captor down and bleeding out, the other sliced and diced beyond repair even by Dr Matauranga.

While Mazun shoves Rex into the shower cubicle to hose off the worst of the gore, Dr Matauranga stabilises one of the offworlders and he and Vila bundle the man into the air/raft. The other two emerge dripping wet, but at least not bright red, and everyone makes their way back to the ships and lifts off as soon as practical.

Fast Travel, 1109 Weeks 27-51

The two ships return to Zuflucht via Elysee and the Serendip Belt. The captive is unable to hold out against Dr Matauranga’s wide range of illegal drugs, and reveals that his boss told him to impede the Perfect Stranger’s new crew and if possible capture them for interrogation. He thinks he is working for Neubayern intelligence, but Mazun theorises that whoever recruited him would have told him he was working for whoever he most sympathised with, so that doesn’t necessarily make it true.

Considering all the clues the team has to hand, however, the most likely explanation is that Neubayern noticed the Perfect Stranger nosing around, assumed it was working for one of the other factions in the Cluster, and put a stop to it.

The team return to a heroes’ welcome at Zuflucht, and are paid the agreed amount and carried as cargo aboard an outbound Imperial ship back to the Imperium at Cerebin, from where it is only a couple of jumps back to the Aslan Route. Vila’s friend comes with them as far as Cerebin – the whole team are Persons Of Interest to Neubayern intelligence now, which could cause trouble for anyone who stays – then leaves the company. Dr Matauranga busies himself during the trip conducting the kind of experiments on his captive that led to so many disagreements with the Ethics Committee in his former career.

Tyokh, 1109 Week 52

The Macavity arrives at the Clan Iuwoi landhold on Tyokh to find it in turmoil. The clan are all delighted to see the ship and crew back safely, but the head of the clan is at death’s door and Prince Hteleitoirl has taken up with a new female who looks set to become his second wife; while polygamy is the norm among aslan, Elehasei is not impressed with her proposed co-wife and asks to meet with the legally female crew members, Dr Matauranga and Vila, while the males pay their respects to the Prince and his father.

To be continued...

GM Notes

Thus ends Great Rift Adventure 1: Islands in the Rift. I could probably have got another couple of sessions out of it, but this is a group that prefers to avoid interstellar trade and combat - the PCs are deeply involved in trading, but that doesn't mean the players have to be. Traveller is a slice-of-life game where you immerse yourself in the detail of the PCs' lives, but we are not a group that plays that way, and consequently skip through scenarios at a brisk pace.

Rex's player loves fights, and thus has invested the thick end of 20 Advances in becoming the ultimate melee combatant; paradoxically, this means that if he ever does get into a fight, it ends in one or two combat rounds, so the better Rex gets at melee, the less session time we spend on it.

This session brings us to the PCs' fourth Legendary Advance, and it feels like the campaign will wrap up in the next one or two sessions.

Aslan Route 37: Meet the Navy

Previously, on the Aslan Route... The Macavity is on Acadie to repossess the far trader Perfect Stranger for Hortalez et Cie as she is in arrears with her mortgage. The Port Authority is delighted that someone has come to get the ship off their pad, but first they must repair what seems to be deliberate sabotage. They find that the crew hurried to a nearby mining settlement but were shot down on the way back. And someone is watching them...

Acadie, 1109 Week 12

Returning from the mining settlement at Houillon, the crew of the Macavity stop off first at the junkyard where the Perfect Stranger's wrecked air/raft was brought. Dr Matauranga and Vila search the air/raft and find a well-hidden compartment with a data crystal inside, while Mazun talks to the proprietor - a friendly, buck-toothed woman called Kate - and agrees with her that the air/raft should be considered an insurance write-off. Mazun takes carefully selected photos to support this idea, and Dr Matauranga and Kate collaborate on a convincing damage report. Hortalez et Cie are unlikely to send anyone to check up on this.

On the way back to the starport, the team visits the site of the wreck, now perhaps six months old. Despite the length of time that has passed, several more clues are found, the most intriguing of which is a scrap of a note in German; apart from that, the clues simply confirm what they already know, and they return to the starport to work on the Perfect Stranger, ignoring Rex's suggestion that they storm the control tower and kill and/or interrogate everyone inside.

The data crystal proves to be a 2FA key which unlocks access to an extra layer of data in the Perfect Stranger's flight computer; it transpires that the crew periodically took off-site backups of the data cores and stored them in a bonded warehouse at Herzenslust starport. They will be somewhat out of date, but if the original cores can't be recovered, they would be the next best thing.

Repairs take several days, during which time the crew confirms that they are still under surveillance, investigates but rules out the starport staff, and glimpses their watchers often enough to be sure who they are. Once both ships are ready to lift, Mazun tails the current watcher back to a suburban house. After much debate, the crew decides that they could snatch and interrogate one of these people, but that the likely gain of information isn't worth the risk, so both vessels lift for Amondiage.

The evidence so far suggests that the Perfect Stranger was intercepted, and her crew killed, by Neubayern agents, but it's not clear why; perhaps the crew stumbled on a plot by Neubayern to destabilise Acadie, and were killed to silence them?

Fast Travel, 1109 Weeks 13-19

Earlier, the crew had identified the salvage company which removed the data cores which are their main concern, and also the people sent to appraise the ship and the liner they travelled on. Using a combination of this information, boyish charm, and judicious bribes, the team follows the breadcrumbs to determine where the data cores went, taking them to Amondiage, Achille, St Genevieve, and finally the Schlesien Belt.

The team is split across the two vessels, with Mazun, Vila's friend, and Rex aboard the Macavity, while Vila, Dr Matauranga, and Kharrash crew the Perfect Stranger. Cynical, suspicious people might infer a certain lack of trust on Mazun's part towards Vila and his friend. Surely not.

Schlesien Belt, 1109 Week 20

While the others refuel and replenish the two ships, Rex and Mazun go to the Port Authority and trot out their well-rehearsed story; they have repossessed the Perfect Stranger for Hortalez et Cie for non-payment of her mortgage, and are now taking her back to Zuflucht. However, another salvage company has removed part of her last cargo - some data cores - and Mazun wishes to buy them back.

This innocent tale leads to separate interviews for them with Neubayern Navy officers and some bulky marines. Mazun sticks scrupulously to the truth and can back it up with solid evidence, so despite the Navy's keen interest in the past history of the Perfect Stranger, they have nothing on him and are forced to release him. Rex, spoiling for a fight and definitely the crewbeing with the worst interpersonal skills - unless you count intimidation - is much less convincing, but the Navy decide that anyone who was a genuine spy would have a better cover story than a litany of enemies killed over the past five years in other jurisdictions, and let him go as well, with a somewhat more bemused expression.

The team decide that first, the data cores are probably on Neubayern, and they're not going to get them back with the tools at hand, and second, the Neubayern Navy has an unhealthy interest in the Perfect Stranger and the longer they stay in the Belt, the more likely it is that the Navy will invent a plausible story connecting them to her past exploits, which will result in uncomfortable interviews for them which culminate in twenty years' hard labour.

Both ships lift for Sturgeon's Law, arriving in 1109 Week 22, with the intention of recovering the backups from Herzenslust.

GM Notes

And thus the clue I'd forgotten to give them was reintroduced.

As the scenario is written, the Travellers are supposed to identify and track their watchers (which they did) and then capture them for interrogation (which they considered, but decided against) before travelling towards Herzenslust to recover the backups (which they completely ignored, heading off in the opposite direction for several months). It all made sense at the time.

The interrogation at Schlesien Belt was a hard-fought duel of words between Mazun and his questioner, but Mazun said nothing that was untrue and nothing that he couldn't prove, so while the Neubayern Navy is deeply suspicious of the Perfect Stranger, they have decided that Mazun is an innocent catspaw. This means that they stand to learn more by letting him go and watching what happens.

Rex, on the other hand, has a d4-3 in Persuasion and was actually hoping for a fight to the death with his interrogator. He rolled a -2, and it looked like he would get his wish... and then the interrogator rolled a critical failure. You just can't get the staff these days.

Aslan Route 36: Repo Men

Previously, on the Aslan Route... Captain Ashran has been reactivated and asked to find a missing spy ship and recover its data, and if possible any surviving crew.

Zuflucht, 1108 Week 44

Mazun explains to his crew that he knew Sunita when he did his short stint in the Scouts, they were in the same intake. Obviously she stayed on, whereas a wealthy uncle died leaving Mazun shares in an oxygen manufacturing business, which he sold, using the cash as the down payment on a merchant ship.  The rest as they say is history.

Sunita has, he says, engaged the Macavity to repossess an Imperial vessel - another Far Trader - last seen on Amondiage, in response to the Imperial banking and insurance company Hortalez et Cie foreclosing on the mortgage for non-payment. This will allow the crew to claim salvage rights on the vessel, which even after expenses should be enough for a decent payday. Clearly, Imperial personnel on Zuflucht wear many hats, credible as there are only about a dozen of them.

The team debate whether to take the Macavity (takes longer and gives them crew problems, but they can have all their toys) or travel by liner (no toys, enough crewmembers, faster) and opt for the former.

Fast Travel, 1108 Week 45 to 1109 Week 09

The Macavity uses the spare collapsible fuel tank intended for the Perfect Stranger to jump to Gloire, then travels more normally to Serendip Belt, then Topas, Berlichingen, Neubayern, Schlesien Belt, St Genevieve, Achille, and finally Amondiage, taking 18 weeks due to an extended stopover at Serendip Belt for their 1108 annual overhaul.

En route, Rex is persuaded to let Dr Matauranga implant retractable claws in his forearms.

Amondiage, 1109 Week 10

The Macavity's crew present themselves to the Port Authority, and since they are on a legal repossession mission and have the papers to prove it, they discover that the dead crew arrived here in low berths from Acadie, and that the Perfect Stranger had filed a flight plan to Acadie, Colchis, and New Home. It seems their quarry is on Acadie, which they are warned is currently wracked by unrest. Fomented among the honest miners by offworld agents, no doubt.

Acadie, 1109 Week 12

On Acadie, the same open approach backed up by official paperwork has the Port Authority leading them directly to the missing ship, which the starport is keen to see removed as it's been tying up one of their few landing pads for months. They discover that the crew left in a hurry, using the ship's air/raft, and that later someone ransacked the ship, copied the flight logs, stole the data storage drums which are the Macavity's primary objective, and disabled the flight controls. They demonstrate the broken safe and empty cargo hold to the Port Authority, befriend them, and use this to extract further information; some "officials from Amondiage" have visited the ship on several occasions, the PA think they represent a salvage company. The PA also knows that the air/raft filed a flight plan to the mining town of Houillon, currently the site of clashes between imported riot police and rioting miners. The crew's new friends in the PA also helpfully look in their records and find that the air/raft crashed on the return flight due to "pilot error" after a "firearms-related incident".

Rex realises they are being watched from the traffic control tower. Innocent curiosity? The crew are unconvinced. Mazun reasons that someone running a spy ship will have contingency funds hidden somewhere aboard, and Vila finds these hidden in a machinery space in Engineering. Vila - of course - "knows a guy" who can be hired as an engineer to give them the full crew they need, and they leave him cleaning and repairing the ship while they fly to Houillon themselves and present their papers for a third time at the police station, schmoozing the desk sergeant into showing them the incident report; initially unhelpful, his interest is piqued by how sparse the report is, and he invites them to wait until the officer concerned comes off shift. Plying the station staff with coffee and doughnuts further improves their attitude.

Rex can smell fear on Officer Hughes when he returns, which escalates to terror as he is questioned. By carefully phrasing things to give him deniability, they extract the contact details for the local company which removed the wreckage of the crashed air/raft, while Dr Matauranga gains access to the autopsy report and notes that it overemphasises the crash-related injuries on the two bodies recovered from the wreck, and (in his opinion) under emphasises the headshots from a laser weapon which he suspects were the actual cause of death.

Mazun has some signals interception gear in the air/raft alongside Vila's concealed stunners ("Never go anywhere without it, it's every day carry for a trader captain,") and the team intercepts Hughes' panicked call to an unknown number at the starport, which immediately hangs up.

All clues point to the starport, but since they have to fly past the wreck site anyway, they decide to talk to the company which removed the wreckage first. In particular, Dr Matauranga wants to examine it for signs that the full crew of four were aboard at the time of the crash.

To be continued...

GM Notes

As written, Great Rift Adventure 2 supposes the PCs have no ship of their own and enter the Islands Cluster at Amondiage; mine are coming in from the other side as it makes more sense for my campaign, but the only adventure on the route from Zuflucht to Amondiage is at Gloire, and it makes more sense on the way back.

The adventure flowed very nicely through the initial investigation stages, with the crew now having a good idea what happened and when, but not yet understanding who is responsible or why. I had the Space Corsair and Fantasy Names generators open in a couple of tabs as we played, with the result that I could spray the PCs with credible names whenever they became interested in someone or something, obfuscating which ones are actually important. This didn't really slow them down much but did add a feeling of verisimilitude. I did forget to give them one of the essential clues, but it will be easy to introduce it next time as they continue to investigate.

The session was dominated by Mazun as a character and Persuasion as a skill, so I must shift the spotlight away from those for the next session, which will be in two weeks' time.

Aslan Route 35.5: Islands in the Rift

Previously, on the Aslan Route... Escaping the wreck of the Deepnight Endeavour, the Macavity finds herself in the Zuflucht system, on the extreme edge of the Islands Cluster. While her cargo of emergency low berths is unloaded, the local Imperial officials (such as they are) invite the crew aboard their orbital station to debrief them on recent events...

The next few posts contain spoilers for Great Rift Adventure 1: Islands in the Rift, but as it was published in 2018 I won't hold back.

Zuflucht, 1108 Weeks 43-44

The Macavity's crew are met at the airlock by a woman in Scout Service uniform and a (non-regulation) headscarf, who Mazun knows as Sunita Hamed; he remembers her from his deep cover training in the Covert Survey Bureau, always reliable and polite, and – if he remembers correctly – unusually religious for a citizen of the Imperium, who are by and large a secular lot. They were in the same group of trainees, but ordered off in different directions.

“Mazun,” she smiles, “Good to see you again! What are you doing this far out in the Rift?” And to the others, as an explanation: “We knew each other on Batav! What are the odds? Once we’ve finished the debrief, I hope we can catch up socially.” Mazun notes she carefully doesn’t specify exactly how they knew each other, leaving that open for whatever story they concoct between them.

She addresses the crew more formally, with Mazun translating for Kharrash, who stands blinking dumbly throughout.

“I’m afraid this will take some time, we’re short-handed so I need to do all the interviews myself. Let me reassure you, you’re not under any suspicion of wrongdoing, but… well, when you turn up with this many survivors in low berths and you say some of them have some kind of unknown disease, we need to give you a complete physical and do some detailed interviews. Debriefing you will take a few days. There are reports to make, statements to clarify, and the ship’s logs will need to be looked over. Then, you should expect a second round of interviews to answer any supplemental questions.”

“I’ll start with Captain Ashran, and his interview is likely to be the longest; I tell you that so you won’t think anything is wrong because of that.” She gestures around her.

“As you can see, this is a small station; officially we’re a naval base, but actually we have one docking berth and a dozen or so people, mostly Navy men, but with myself and another Scout as cultural liaison. I must ask you to stay on the station while we work through the formalities, after that you’ll be free to go.”

Once Mazun’s debriefing is over, Hamed opens up a new discussion with him in private; she needs help.

She explains that the Islands Cluster is important because it is one of the main crossing points for the Great Rift; trouble here could cause undesirable delays to Imperial communications. So, the Imperium maintains intelligence assets in the region. One such asset is the Perfect Stranger, a Far Trader like the Macavity, crewed by a mixture of undercover Navy and Scout personnel; like the Macavity, her mission is to embed herself in the local culture and observe, gathering raw data, analysing it, and sending it back to the Imperium. None of this is illegal, as such; but it must have trodden on someone’s toes.

A few months ago, two members of the crew arrived on Zuflucht. They were dead, apparently shot by a laser weapon. The bodies were shipped in low berths aboard a civilian vessel transiting the Rift; there were no personal effects, and the documentation simply gives their names and the point of origin: Amondiage.

Hamed sighs.

“I’m afraid I’m transferring your activation under Scout Service Directive 119 section 12.” She goes on to outline the mission:

• The primary objective is to take possession of the Perfect Stranger and return her to Zuflucht with her data cores intact. If absolutely necessary, the ship is expendable, but the data cores are not.
• The secondary objective is to discover the fate of the crew and render assistance if possible, but this must not be allowed to compromise the primary objective.
• Mazun will be given paperwork proving that he is entitled to take possession of the ship, as well as passcodes and so forth, including those for a line of credit with the government of Amondiage – using this will clearly signal to Amondiage that he is connected with the Imperium, and abusing it will eventually result in it being withdrawn. It is monitored.
• Operating expenses will be paid, and there is a sizeable payment for each crew member on successful completion of the mission.
• There is a spare collapsible fuel tank for the Perfect Stranger at Zuflucht, which as it was designed for a ship of the same class, will fit the Macavity. This will be needed for the jump from Zuflucht to Gloire, and the extra range will be useful in the Cluster.
• At the end of the mission, Hamed can arrange for the Macavity to be transported back to the Imperium, or the crew can stay in the Islands if they prefer – she can find work for them. Meanwhile, she will send messages to anyone they need to explain their absence to.

“Now then,” she says, “What are we going to tell your crew, so that I can back you up?”

GM Notes

No session last Saturday because it was Valentine's Day; some of us are married, and would like to stay that way. So rather then spend half the next session on an info dump, I wrote an introduction (above) and a handout summarising the Islands Cluster (not shown) and circulated that to give the players something to mull over during the break.

The group's last adventure was Great Rift Adventure 2: Deepnight Endeavour. This is Great Rift Adventure 1: Islands in the Rift, which has merit, but won’t occupy them for more than a few sessions. In the adventure as written, the Perfect Stranger is a Type R subbie, but another Far Trader works better for this campaign.

Putting the handout together revealed that the Traveller Wiki is diverging from Charted Space as I know it, and the Islands Cluster canon (Classic Traveller Adventure 5 and Mongoose Great Rift Adventure 1) as previously published. I'm starting to think I'd be better off with another setting, the Official Traveller Universe is starting to make me feel cramped and constrained.

Still, that's a decision I don't need to take for a year or two yet.

Aslan Route 35: Deepnight Endeavour, Part 2

Previously, on the Aslan Route... Misjumping into deep space, the crew of the Macavity find the wreck of a huge survey vessel, where factions of the surviving crew compete for resources and an alien infection is gradually turning them all into zombies. But they have a plan...

Spoilers ahead...

Void 8, 1108 Weeks 40-42

Mazun decides the first order of business is to issue an all-hands call on the internal PA system, explaining that his ship is here to rescue the survivors and there is room for everyone, but it will take some time so please be patient. As the point of this is crowd control, he carefully doesn't tell anyone where the ship is, and given where the Macavity docked and where the survivors are, none of them can actually see it, though Mazun suspects the bridge crew knows where they are. He does, however, explain the plan: The engineers of both ships will work together to fashion a drop tank for the Macavity and recover a sufficient number of emergency low berths to hold all survivors. These will then be frozen in small groups, and the low berths thoroughly disinfected and moved to the Macavity's hold. After that, the Macavity will make a multi-stage jump to Zuflucht, that being the closest system.

The Captain of the Deepnight Endeavour agrees to reinstate the Chief Engineer's command privileges for the purpose of refuelling their rescuers, and while she will still have to answer for mutiny, they are both pragmatic enough to defer that until they land somewhere civilised.

While Vila supervises the Endeavour's engineering crew in building a drop tank, Rex and Kharrash lead other engineers into the bowels of the ship to select and recover the most promising emergency low berths. This leads to a firefight with zombies during which they lose a couple of engineers and Kharrash suffers bumps and bruises.

While that's going on, Mazun notices a battered figure with a laser rifle setting up an ambush by the airlock bay the Macavity is docked to, which has a small circulation space and access to both personnel and cargo locks as well as a lift to the Endeavour's starboard PSM. They start talking using the airlock comms, and the figure explains that it's nothing personal, but given how dangerous the infection is, she simply cannot allow anyone to leave the wreck, for the survival of the species. Mazun patches the camera feed through to Doctor Matauranga, who deduces from a remote examination that the poor woman has gone psychotic under the stress of the situation. The Chief Engineer identifies her as the ship's Weapons Officer, who blew up the fuel cache - that action now makes sense, and Mazun and the Doctor hypothesise that in the early stages of infection, victims go insane in a way directed to make use of their skills; the astrogator caused a misjump, the weapons officer blew up the fuel cache, and this makes them deeply suspicious of what the Chief Mission Specialist might be up to in the science pod.

However, Mazun manages to keep the woman talking long enough for Vila to sneak up behind her, get The Drop, and zap her with his stun pistol. While she's processing that, Kharrash rappels down the lift shaft and zipties her, and before she can deal with that, Dr Matauranga places her under heavy sedation.

They now settle into a risky but straightforward execution of their plan. The drop tank is plumbed into the cargo bay and filled. The crew is called forward, twelve at a time, to be checked over by the good Doctor, frozen in low berths, the berths disinfected and loaded into the cargo bay. The science crew bring lots of data, records, and some samples of the alien life form. A few of the crew are infected, and these are diverted into separate and easily-identifiable low berths. The Chief Mission Specialist gives Mazun and Matauranga a bad feeling, so she gets her own low berth. Twice, groups of zombies try to join the party, but they have to come through a carefully-prepared kill zone in a single corridor, and any that get past Rex's dual-wielded laser SMGs are cut to pieces by Kharrash.

Mazun takes Vila and Kharrash aside; Vila he asks to make completely sure that nothing is getting out of those sample containers, and Kharrash he orders to move into the cargo bay for the duration of the trip, with permission to take lumps out of anyone - anyone - who tries to get at them.

As their final acts before abandoning ship, the Captain and Chief Engineer are persuaded to open the ship to space and shut down the power plant, to deny any possible comfort to the infection.

Jumping into deep space, the Macavity refuels from and then jettisons her drop tank, then jumps again, and staggers out of jumpspace at Zuflucht.

Zuflucht, 1108 Week 43

Dr Matauranga has spent the time in jump poring over the records from the Deepnight Endeavour, which may or may not come in handy later. The crew as a whole spent much of the time debating what to tell the authorities once they arrived; they settle on a cut-down version of the truth.

"We misjumped, and found ourselves near a wreck. We rescued the crew in low berths; some of them are infected, those are in separate marked low berths. Be very careful when you open them up."

If pressed, they decide they will reluctantly hand over the coordinates of the wreck, which Vila wants to sell to potential salvagers, and admit that there used to be a fuel cache there but it's gone now, in case the Navy jump there confident that they can refuel and become stranded themselves.

Zuflucht has an Imperial Navy "base" which is actually just a few offices with liaison and intelligence personnel; these explain that as per normal procedures, they would like to debrief the Macavity's crew in person aboard the orbital station.

The Macavity docks, and the crew disembark.

To be continued...

GM Notes

I did not see the PA call coming, but having established that the PA was still working and checked the motivations for each faction, it did in fact bypass a lot of the potential conflict in the scenario. Having established for other purposes earlier in the campaign that low berths can be transferred between ships without having to defrost the occupants, the players sacrificed their cargo to get everyone off the wreck; that wouldn't have worked otherwise.

The data dump to Dr Matauranga would've happened anyway in game, since he has Curious as a Major Hindrance; but it also allows me to establish the crew as experts on this infection, which gives me a lead-in to the larger campaign Deepnight Revelation later.

I'm not sure we want to do that; Deepnight Revelation is one of the few Kickstarters I regretted backing - if you can create stories of Man vs the wonders of the Universe, Star Trek style, week after week, then you don't need the campaign, and if (like me) you can't, it doesn't help you much.

However, Deepnight Endeavour is a nice little adventure, good for a session or two, with a good balance of combat, NPC interaction, and puzzle-solving; I commend it to the House. In hindsight, I should have made more use of the survival horror aspects, but the players seemed happy to avoid those and had solid plans for doing so. Likewise, I could have run more combat - that would have extended play time quite a bit - but the only combat-loving player couldn't make the relevant sessions, so such combat as there was we handled with Dangerous Quick Encounters.

Onwards to Great Rift Adventure 1: Islands in the Rift.

Aslan Route 34: Deepnight Endeavour, Part 1

Previously, on The Aslan Route… The Macavity has misjumped into deep space, with no star system nearby. However, a sensor scan reveals a large power plant ticking over nearby, and with no other options, the crew set course towards it...

This contains spoilers for Mongoose Traveller Great Rift Adventure 2: Deepnight Endeavour, but it was published in 2017, so I regret nothing.

Void 8 Subsector, 1108 Week 40

The Macavity quickly closes on the source of the neutrino emissions and discovers a starship, apparently of human manufacture, tumbling gently. She is broadcasting a low-powered transponder signal and has some energy emissions suggesting that at least some parts of her hull are still powered. However, all is clearly not well. The ship is heavily damaged and is at the centre of a slowly expanding debris cloud. She has no radar or other sensor emissions, and does not respond to communications. The slow tumble would make docking difficult, but not impossible.

Analysing the debris pattern reveals the debris was scattered from two points of origin, one the ship itself, centring on one of the ventral pods but with hits scored elsewhere on the hull. The second source was about 500 kilometres away, and appears to have suffered a catastrophic explosion scattering wreckage at much higher velocities.

The ship herself looks to be around 40,000 tons, prompting Vila to note that even if the fusion plant is running on fumes, fumes for a ship that size represent more fuel than the Macavity will need.

Mazun is easily able to reach, and fly around, the ship; the name Deepnight Endeavour is painted on the side in the usual places. Mazun admits that he did his national service in the Scouts, and heard of a corporation called Deepnight Exploration LIC which specialised in exploring rifts and other hard-to-reach places.

While the crew discuss what to do next, Dr Matauranga refines his location data and announces Macavity is three parsecs from Zuflucht in the Islands Clusters; the ship’s Library Data says there is an Imperial enclave there, with diplomatic, Navy and Scout representation, although neither of the latter can be called a ‘base’. This is an issue as even on full tanks the Macavity can only jump two parsecs, but they know it is possible to carry extra fuel, refill the tanks in deep space, and then jump again, so this makes things harder but not impossible.

The docking ports on the starboard Primary Structural Member are the obvious entry point, and with assistance from Vila, Mazun is able to dock the Macavity to one. Vila can see that it is intended as a docking cradle for fuel shuttles, but also quickly establishes that some inconsiderate soul has locked out the pumping station, so boarding is necessary. There are lights on and the power plant is operating on ‘hotel load’, i.e. just enough power to keep the ship habitable, suggesting there is someone aboard to ask for fuel, who would probably agree in exchange for passage out.

Leaving Mazun behind on watch, the rest – Rex, Kharrash, Dr Matauranga and Vila – don vacc suits, or in Rex’s case a pressurised infantry battle suit, and head up in the lift. Rex has two laser SMGs, Kharrash an automatic shotgun, Vila a stun pistol, and Dr Matauranga his sampling and medical kits. Once the lift stops and the doors open, Vila dismantles the panel and starts hacking the ship’s systems, muttering to himself “Any exploit is a total exploit”. He is unable to gain access, as the systems have been deliberately locked down and show evidence of cyberwarfare being waged inside the ship. There’s nothing for it but to emerge and look around.

After a short while, a shambling humanoid figure comes into view; it has the rough shape of a human being, but seems to be made of some combination of fungus, vegetation, and alien protoplasm. On detecting the boarders, it breaks into the closest thing to a run it can manage and charges. Vila’s stunner has no effect on it, so Rex cuts it into chunks with his lasers.

It seems to be alone, so Rex and Kharrash cover Dr Matauranga as he examines the body and takes samples. Under the outer fungal layer, the thing is wearing a jumpsuit with a nametag: STERLING. Mazun advises that the decontamination protocols he will enforce on return have just gone up a notch, and he orders everyone to stay in their suits.

The boarding party hears sounds from one of the nearby compartments and moves towards it. Kharrash opens the door and Rex lines up his lasers, ready to deal with whatever is inside; this proves to be a white-haired human male in a dirty lab coat who raises his hands and asks not to be shot. Rex decides he must be a scientist so calls Dr Matauranga forward, and the Doctor asks for information.

The survivor says he is Trennance Zedehlale, a research assistant, and explains what he knows or suspects happened; crewmembers investigated an alien ship, then fell ill, and soon afterwards, others did too. While heading for home, the Deepnight Endeavour misjumped - Trennance thinks that was deliberate - but the captain said he would get them home somehow and headed for a deep space fuel cache. By the time they arrived there were strange growths, a lot of sick crew, and zombies shambling around. The weapons officer blew up the fuel cache, and the surviving crew have split into factions and are competing for resources. Sooner or later the power plant fuel will run out or the zombies will get everyone.

In turn, Dr Matauranga explains to Trennance that Macavity has also misjumped, but if she can refuel she can make it to Zuflucht, and Trennance can go along in exchange for his help. He readily agrees, and suggests talking to the captain (who is in the command section somewhere) or the chief engineer (who is in engineering).

The Macavity's crew decide to begin with the engineering section, so leaving Trennance to shelter in place until the Away Team gets back, and under tactical direction from Mazun, they move through the starboard hull towards engineering. En route there is a minor firefight with several zombies; one of them makes it into melee range, at which point Kharrash’s casual lethality clears any remaining queries about why the Captain chose him as a bodyguard.

Not far into Engineering, they encounter an armed foraging party, and at first things are tense; but one of the engineers has the presence of mind to notice that the Away Team includes an aslan, and the Deepnight Endeavour’s crew does not. This buys enough time for Vila to explain that the Macavity has misjumped and needs fuel, and as a consequence there are a number of opportunities to Be His Friend and win an all-expenses paid trip Anywhere But Here. This is going out on a limb, as he has no idea how many engineers there are, but it sounds good to them, and they advise the Macavity's crew should meet the Chief Engineer.

Chief Engineer Dakh Moralder is a female vargr; pragmatic, if not as good at delegation as she might be, and focussed on saving what’s left of her engineering department – all 17 of them. She quickly agrees to the deal of helping Macavity refuel in exchange for a way off her own ship, and says the problems are that the relevant control circuits have been physically cut in the Operations Module, and her command authorisation has been revoked. This leads to a long discussion of how to overcome those problems, with Vila leaning towards either hacking the control systems on the pumps locally, or hacking the HR system and re-instating Dakh. The captain would notice either approach, but it’s not clear how he would respond.

Dakh says the suits aren't necessary, her section of the ship is free from infection. Dr Matauranga – never one to take anyone else’s word on medical matters – checks this personally, and agrees with her.

Mazun is reluctant to allow potentially infected people aboard the Macavity, but does want to save as many as he can, so proposes low berths as a solution which reduces risk and also increases the number of people who can be rescued. Dakh tells Vila that there are several dozen emergency low berths scattered around the ship – when you need one, you don’t want to travel far to get to it – and they can be demounted like ordinary low berths, making rescue easier and faster, and ensuring revival can be delayed until proper facilities are available.

So, it’s agreed that Dakh’s people, under Vila’s instructions, will fabricate some kind of fuel pod to carry extra fuel, allowing Macavity to reach Zuflucht. Once the ship is fuelled, people will be frozen by Dr Matauranga aboard the Deepnight Endeavour, and the berths then transferred to Macavity’s cargo hold.

Dakh doesn’t know how many people the bridge faction has; more than her, she thinks, but maybe not many more. Trennance said earlier he thought there were less than a hundred people left alive, and wondered why there weren’t more shamblers – there should be a couple of hundred. Nor is it clear how many people are left in the Mission faction.

The next step is to contact the Mission Specialists in the forward science pod. Dakh says that they are completely isolated in there, and she thinks their foraging parties get in and out using vacc suits to spacewalk to other pods.

Vila, Matauranga and Mazun compare notes on the art of the possible. They will need to fashion a 20-ton drop tank for extra fuel. If they abandon all the cargo that will leave enough space for forty emergency low berths, each of which can hold four people; that should be more than enough. The limiting factors will be how many berths and survivors they can recover.

Overall, they decide, it will be challenging, but doable.

To be continued...

GM Notes

Although I often berate myself for not having a better grasp of the detailed combat rules, after the initial battlemat fight with the zombie to show the players how they work, we shifted to a Dramatic Task for exploring the ship and a combination of discussion and basic Trait rolls for everything else, and you know what, that worked just fine and it didn't seem to be any less fun than any other approach. Maybe I should lighten up about this.

The next session should see some intra-party conflict. Mazun is Heroic, so will want to save everyone. Dr Matauranga has Curiousity as a Major Hindrance, so is itching to learn more about the fungal infection. Vila is Cautious, so won't want to run any risks.

The gun bunnies - Rex and Kharrash - have historically done whatever Mazun tells them, so my money is on him.

Aslan Route 33: The Most Valuable Thing

“That is not dead which can eternal lie.” – HP Lovecraft, The Nameless City

Iroioah, 1108 Week 38

The Macavity is associated with Clan Iuwoi, which is a vassal of Clan Ahroay’if, and the latter clan thinks of its crew as trustworthy after the incident at Torpol, so when they ask Macavity to deliver some despatches and minor cargo to Iroioah, one jump away, the crew sense opportunities to gain honour and cash, so they agree. Kharrash signs on as Mazun’s bodyguard, which is both practical and a sign of growing status in Clan Iuwoi. He’s not the sharpest tool in the box, but Rex tests his mettle and declares him competent enough.

The delivery itself goes off without a hitch, but that night everyone except Kharrash has the same nightmare: Being buried alive out in the deep desert. On learning everyone had the same nightmare, Vila draws his psionic shield helmet from the ship’s locker and starts sleeping in it.

The following night, the nightmare returns, with a psionic message from the self-styled Most Valuable Thing; it gives Dr Matauranga rough directions to its location, a temple in the deep desert, and asks that he re-open the temple so that it can drive the meddling aslan from the tombs of Iroioah.

Asking around the starport reveals that the 80 or so inhabitants of Iroioah mostly work at the starport, which serves as a transport hub linking Tyokh to Vorito, Hleakhayes and points rimward. However, there are a couple of small archaeological teams working on two of the three closest ruins.

Officially intent on trading with the archaeologists, and unofficially trying to find out what they are meddling with, the crew visits them in turn.

The first team is happy to order some comforts from home and show the crew around the dig. They explain that these are tombs of the Kursae people, who once ruled a large empire colonised with slower-than-light ships. They have left remarkably little evidence of their presence, and no depictions of them have been found to date.

Dr Matauranga knows that theories about the Kursae are questionable, and better suited to action-adventure holodramas than serious scientific research. Inside his skull, the Second and Third Most Valuable Things (sulking, presumably because they now have to cede precedence to the Most Valuable Thing) explain that this is a memorial to a politician who has exaggerated their own importance and wasted resources on a cenotaph which could have been better used in expanding the empire.

Vila, the team’s aslan expert, advances the theory that just as human archaeologists tend to assume anything they don’t understand has a religious purpose, aslan – who venerate their ancestors but have no religion in the human sense – tend to assume anything they don’t understand is a memorial.

The second team is somewhat more brusque; the good Doctor thinks they believe they have found something and don’t want to share it, as the teams must compete for research funding. Matauranga returns to the first group and they spend a happy hour or two gossiping and complaining about their academic rivals.

Having gleaned what they can locally, the team sets off towards the Most Valuable Thing’s temple, concealed in a valley some hours’ flight away. This proves to be psionically concealed, with Dr Matauranga able to see it clearly through his MVT goggles, Kharrash unimpressed but recognising it as some sort of building, and the others unsure whether it is a building or just a hill.

Rex is left guarding the ship, while Kharrash is ordered to keep watch outside the temple, mostly in case the rest of the crew needs to do something dishonourable inside. Mazun and Vila don their psionic shield helmets, but Dr Matauranga wants to be able to hear the MVT clearly so leaves his off – not that it would fit over the goggles, anyway.

The temple has six hexagonal towers or entrances, evenly spaced at ground level around the outside. Each seems to have a ramp down to a lower level, and the six are connected by a ring corridor running around the inside of the building.

Dr Matauranga, convinced that the MVT has asked them here (true) and will therefore guide them inside and protect them from any dangers (debatable), marches firmly up to the closest entrance, where an electrical discharge shows something is shorting out. Vila points out this is the power circuit for operating the door, and he can repair it.

Going right on the same level, they encounter some kind of psionic presence which asks Dr Matauranga what his purpose is.

“Knowledge,” he replies confidently, and is told to continue, but warned he will face challenges ahead to prove his worth.

Continuing clockwise around the ring corridor, the explorers enter a featureless chamber; once everyone is inside, the doors slam closed and the ceiling begins to descend. While Vila scrambles to find some way of jamming the ceiling, Mazun notes that the door closing the ramp is having trouble, apparently due to debris in its track. Everyone dives through that and rolls down the ramp before they’re completely trapped, with Vila trying to block the door with whatever he can find in the room.

Dr Matauranga pulls everyone up short, and explains the floor and walls of this new chamber are being patrolled by spiderlike beings of little apparent intelligence, since their patrols follow a simple and easily-understood pattern. Lacking his goggles, the others can’t see them. However, Matauranga gets through them easily enough and reports that he can see chambers around a central shaft, connected by ramps and walkways but all opening onto the shaft. There are three chambers on this level, two on the next, and finally one.

Matauranga attempts to guide his crewmates through the spiders; he succeeds with Mazun, but Vila is briefly mobbed by a swarm of them before he can break free.

The level below has one chamber with a wide crack in the floor, so they take the other one, where they are again challenged, this time by something visible: A large amoeba-like being which appears to be made of quicksilver and has an unstable surface given to extruding fractal branches like those of a Christmas tree. Dr Matauranga talks his way past it, and the team proceeds downwards.

Here, three more silver amoebas lie in wait, and challenge them again, explaining that they guard the entrance to the Most Valuable Thing, and the crew must pass by them to reach it. One of them always tells the truth, one of them always lies, and the third one shoots people who ask smart-ass questions; the last one helpfully extrudes a silver barrel to identify itself.

Dr Matauranga opts for the traditional question of “If I were to ask your colleague how to get past what would they tell me?” but twists it slightly to precipitate an argument among the three about whether this question is sufficiently smart-ass to allow the third one to open fire, and while their attention is distracted, the humans sneak past and open the door to the inner sanctum.

The MVT itself, a larger and more impressive silver amoeba, welcomes them and asks for help in repairing its generator, a pool of silver fluid which it points out. Vila sets to work, following the MVT’s instructions, while Dr Matauranga questions all three Valuable Things about the nature of the vanished empire. They confirm it was very large and settled using sublight travel; they knew of jumpspace, but chose not to use it as it is full of “spiky things that don’t like them”. The MVTs are unable to agree on whether the empire had one species, or several, but do agree that when they first discovered jumpspace the spiky things came to them and tried to kill them.

At this point, Vila concludes his tasks, and the MVT immediately tries to dominate all the humans psionically. Mazun resists, and Dr Matauranga barely manages to fight it off thanks to support from the other Dr Mataurangas and the Chicken (which has been a gibbering wreck since the first nightmare but is now roused by terror of what might happen otherwise). Vila, however, is completely dominated. The MVT, so far unfamiliar with human physiology, grants him enough autonomy to maintain his flesh shell in an operational state.

Dr Matauranga draws his stun baton (which uses an electrical discharge for its effects) and thrusts it into the generator pool. Discerning his intent, Mazun pushes the MVT, rolling it into the generator, while Vila stuns himself to ensure he can’t be used to stop them. Dr Matauranga triggers his stun baton, incapacitating the MVT and blowing out the generator.

Taking stock quickly, Mazun and Matauranga grab the unconscious Vila and run for the exit, pursued up ramps and through corridors by silver amoebas, swarms of spiders, and other things they daren’t stop to identify. Gathering up Kharrash, they dive aboard the ship and lift for orbit.

Much to their surprise, the temple doesn’t explode behind them.

Void 8, 1108 Week 40

In jumpspace, Mazun grows concerned that the exit timer is showing an unusually long countdown, which often presages a misjump. Questioning Dr Matauranga, who among other things is the ship’s navigator, reveals that while he believes he entered the correct coordinates, he has no memory of what he actually did; he seems to have blacked out.

Further, the Second and Third Most Valuable Things are no longer in residence in his head; just the various versions of himself, and the Chicken. The goggles remain, but it’s not clear if they still function as he has nothing to test them on.

At length, the Macavity steps out of jumpspace and Dr Matauranga takes the usual bearings on assorted pulsars; it transpires they are not at Tyokh at all, but somewhere in the Void 8 subsector, chiefly notable for the total absence of star systems.

A joint effort on the ship’s sensors reveals that there is an active fusion power plant somewhere relatively near by, at least by interstellar standards.

With no other option, they lay in an intercept course and move towards it.

To be continued...

GM Notes

That started as the adventure seed The Nameless Keeper in The Pirates of Drinax, then I built the temple using the extremely useful and flexible SWADE supplement The Scheme Pyramid, then I just started making stuff up on the fly with occasional reference to the Mythic Game Master Emulator when I got stuck. I was constantly nervous that the whole session would fall apart, but people seemed to enjoy it, and total prep time was under 30 minutes.

Kharrash is the Sidekick Mazun took on reaching Legendary Rank; tough enough to add to the party's combat strength, honourable enough to be useful as an aslan liaison, and dumb enough not to notice when the crew stretches the boundaries of the aslan code to breaking point.

As Matauranga's player has been so creative and such a good sport about his PC effectively having multiple personality disorder, I allowed the PC to support himself during his fight to avoid psychic domination. Rolling the MVT into the generator and blasting it with the stunner was so in-genre that I let them get away with it (for the cost of a Benny to gain narrative control.)

I want to run Islands in the Rift for this group, but having re-read it I don't think there is enough there for what I think of as a full campaign, which left me with the problem of getting the PCs there; I opted for a forced misjump, leaving them a few clues as to what actually happened. I try not to do that more than once every few years.

I'll bridge the gap with Deepnight Endeavour, so that's up next.

Aslan Route 32: The Lions of Thebus, Part 2

Previously, on The Aslan Route: The crew of the Macavity are looking for a missing aslan ihatei called Ftaheas, and believe they have found his ship on Thebus...

Thebus, 1108 Week 26

Vila is absolutely confident he has found the missing aslan ship, but when the Macavity flies over it, in a forest clearing and refuelling from a lake, it narrowly misses with a potshot from one of its heavy lasers, and they jink away. Thinking it possible the aslan are just a bit trigger-happy, they stick a low range of hills between them and the other ship, intent on approaching stealthily by air/raft, but in doing so notice a groove through the forest of the kind made by ships that crash into it.

They decide the first order of business is to look for any survivors, and leaving Mazun in charge of the Macavity, they follow the trail of wreckage in their air/raft, discovering that the crashed ship will never fly again, but the crew and passengers appear to have survived and retreated in good order to a nearby ruined building, taking with them everything of utility or value. Dr Matauranga fortunately had the foresight to bring with him a database of part numbers for the missing ship, and is able to match part numbers from the wreckage to it, thus learning that the wrecked ship is the one they want.

Circling the ruins at a safe distance, Vila, Rex and Dr Matauranga approach on foot from what they hope is an unexpected direction, and at length discover Ftaheas holding court in the ruin with his followers. Running low on oxygen and filters for their respirators, they are confused, irritable, and struggling to concentrate in the thin air; despite their (well-founded) concerns that Rex's irascible and impulsive nature might lead to bloodshed, he is the one best suited to make contact, and to everyone's surprise manages to negotiate civilly with the aslan, offering them new respirators and inviting them to join him aboard the Macavity for a meal and medical treatment for those who need it. They accept upon learning that Macavity's crew know Ftaheas' father and were asked to deliver a message from that worthy.

Once restored to full capacity, the aslan explain that they were ambushed by cowardly Oghman raiders and shot down, since when they and the pirates have been hunting each other in the forest. While Dr Matauranga is patching them up and taking medical samples for his collection, Vila uses a small drone to scout out the ship in the clearing, which proves to have a number of Oghman raiders relaxing around it, totally oblivious to his observation. The Macavity's crew explain to Ftaheas that his father would like to see him, and say they don't know why to minimise loss of face for Ftaheas himself; it would not do for anyone to think his father had to send monkeys to rescue him from a botched ihatei expedition.

Ftaheas and Rex are now of one mind: The raiders must pay for their insolence. Vila declines to take part in the assault (after all he is legally female) but Dr Matauranga says he will follow to provide medical help as needed. Ftaheas gathers his retainers, and following a plan concocted by Mazun and supported by a berserk Rex lasering everything that moves, the aslan assault the Oghman vessel.

Taken completely by surprise, the Oghmans' morale breaks quickly, and they flee to their ship, intended to lift off and escape in it; unfortunately, Rex and Ftaheas scramble up the ramp as it closes, followed by the other aslan males, and the carnage continues aboard the rising vessel. Having lost their advantage in numbers and with nowhere left to run, the Oghmans surrender to the boarders.

Rex restrains himself from massacring them, and leaves their fate in Ftaheas' hands. It is decided that the raiders will be stuffed into low berths, and Ftaheas will travel back to Tyokh in company with the Macavity aboard his new prize. Their story will be that his original ship suffered minor damage, and lacking enough skilled crew to fly both vessels, Ftaheas has returned with prisoners and a new ship to see what his father wants of him; after paying his respects, he will return to repair his own ship.

Dr Matauranga suggests that there is plenty of room for Ftaheas on Sink, but the crew agrees this needs to be discussed with Prince Hteleitoirl and the Abbot before it's mentioned to Ftaheas.

Tyokh, 1108 Week 36

Leaving Ftaheas and his father to their reunion, and Dr Matauranga to his customary date with Bridget Harries, the rest of the crew settle in to one of the starport bars on Tyokh to discuss options for their next voyage.

GM Notes

This was a modified version of the adventure in The Drinaxian Companion; I replaced the hunters intended as the main antagonists with Oghman raiders on the fly, as it suited the flow of play better. It turned out to be a more enjoyable scenario than I'd expected on first reading.

I have never seen so many Critical Failures so close together. The session began shortly after Vila had critically failed his Electronics check to find Ftaheas' ship, and had thus directed the Macavity to the Oghman raider which had shot it down. He quickly handed over the baton to the Oghmans, who critically failed their attempt to notice the PCs surveilling them and then went on to critically fail every roll of importance in the ensuing combat.

You just can't get the staff these days.

Aslan Route 31: The Lions of Thebus, Part 1

“You all know how beastly tigers are
(Out in, out in, out in India)
They bite; they scratch; they make an awful fuss
It’s no use stroking them and saying puss puss puss”
– The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Hunting Tigers Out in India

Tyokh Highport, 1108 Week 14

Macavity's crew accompany Troisei back to the Clan Aftei landhold where she reports in. The Afteiko reviews her accounts and the stories from herself and her companions, and declares himself satisfied with her performance.

Later that week, Dr Matauranga again meets with Bridget Harris. He passes her a list of his requirements for Project SPANC, asking her to acquire them for him in her role as a cargo broker, and she notes that they range from incomprehensible to unethical to downright illegal. She is also somewhat taken aback by his new ensemble and they part on a slightly sour note.

A few days later, Troisei introduces them to a business acquaintance, Ftahkaiw, who has a proposition for them. His second son Ftahteas took a ship and some like-minded ihatei off towards the dustbelt in search of land and glory, and is missing in action. Ftahkaiw has made certain rash statements about how well his son is obviously doing, which will rebound badly on him if they turn out to be untrue; and he is also concerned for his son's safety. After some spirited negotiation the crew agreed to keep an eye out for him on their travels, and return him and if possible his ship, ideally alive and in an honourable condition. They trade their way to Torpol, where Ftahkaiw thinks the boy was heading, and start looking around.

Torpol, 1108 Week 22

Since Clan Ahroay'if dealt with Drinax again, somewhat more permanently this time, Torpol is no longer a xenophobic fascist state bent on eradicating all aslan, but is under new management. Specifically, there are Ahroayh'if marines everywhere, looking for trouble and hoping they find it.

"Don't worry," says Vila, "I know a guy." The guy turns out to be a starport engineer who worked on the relevant ship as it passed through, and can give the next few stops on the itinerary (Marduk and Thebus) as well as details on the weapons fit and what supplies it had loaded. Vila buys him a few drinks, and the Macavity heads off towards Thebus.

Thebus, 1108 Week 26

Networking around Thebus Highport, the crew confirms that the missing aslan ship was here, that it landed on Thebus, and wasn't seen leaving. Refuelling and replenishing their stores, the crew complete their trading and likewise head for the surface, pausing to run a sensor scan to find the ship. Vila, who is now the ship's best sensor operator, is convinced he has found it, and the Macavity thus descends nearby. However, wary of trigger-happy aslan who are not responding to their hails, the Macavity lands a short way off, and - donning respirators to protect them from the very thin air - the crew head for their quarry in the ship's air/raft.

To be continued...

GM Notes

This session was low on play, as we got sidetracked discussing rules for the next proposed campaign, Dune: Fall of the Imperium. I'm relaxed about this, because to my mind the purpose of these sessions is to spend time talking with each other, the game is merely what we talk about.

Lions of Thebus is one of the adventures from The Drinaxian Companion which we never quite got around to in our Pirates of Drinax campaign, despite the PCs spending most of the game in the Dust Belt. I could've run Gods of Marduk on the way there, but it didn't grab me when I read it, and they can always hit that up on the way back.

Troisei's first trading voyage is now over, and as we've ignored how well she did so far, I decided to give her a Persuasion roll with Support from the PCs to resolve that; critical failure - discharged in disgrace, failure - held back for more training, success - sent back out as results were indecisive, raise or better - promoted. The last of these is what happened, and the crew breathed a sigh of relief as they can now return to their normal somewhat elastic moral code.

The meeting with Harris was submitted by Matauranga's player as ongoing backstory, in the form of a report from Harris to her boss, which I encourage as it gives me more plot thread ideas. SPANC of course refers to the Steve Jackson Games card game Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls.

The players show no interest in their mission from the IISS on Torpol, so I think the Ahroay'if will decide to stay there and take a cut from the starport fees and tariffs.

Vila got to use his new Edge, I Know A Guy from the Rifts players' handbook, which I liked enough to import. He also critically failed his Electronics roll to find the missing aslan ship, and what he found instead was... well, more of that next time.

Aslan Route 30: The Church of the Mycorrhizal Brotherhood

All fungi are edible.
Some fungi are only edible once.
- Terry Pratchett

Umemii, 1107 Week 42

C521877-7 Na Po

Dr Matauranga has been conducting genetic research on the relatively isolated human population of this vargr world, but he has now completed it. He and his samples are welcomed back aboard.

Cordan, 1107 Weeks 44-46

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It’s about time for the ship’s annual overhaul, so the Macavity stops over at Cordan to attend to that, and Mazun checks in with Kenneth Prasad and requests a bodyguard be assigned to him; Prasad says he’ll see what he can do. Vila keeps a keen eye on the ship.

This is the point at which the news that the Fifth Frontier War has broken out reaches them; the usual  Outworld Coalition – Zhodani, Sword Worlds, assorted Vargr states – has invaded the Spinward Marches. It seems like something not very important to them, happening a long way off. Prasad cautions them to expect a reduced Imperial presence in the Reach as assets are relocated to support the war effort, and therefore an increase in piracy; and to stay away from Imperial space for a while in case the Macavity is commandeered as a fleet auxiliary to haul supplies.

Exe, 1107 Week 48

B300101-A Lo Va

While refuelling at Exe, the crew are contacted by Laro Smith, who has been directed to them by the highly corrupt station staff who know them – and their interest in wealth – of old. Smith explains that there is a mushroom on Inurin called Sarna, which he believes can be made into a highly profitable recreational pharmaceutical; but his previous attempt at stealing the secret of the fungal caves from the priests resulted in him fleeing the planet, pursued by a torch-wielding mob. The Inurini now consider him to be the Prince of Lies and he cannot return to the planet. He wants Our Heroes to sneak into the fungal caves, learn the origin of Sarna, and if possible bring out some samples. He offers a share in any profits, and naturally wants to come along to protect his interests. He cannot be seen on-world, but can stay in the ship and offer advice by commlink.

Troisei is dubious about this at first, especially the Prince of Lies part, but Mazun talks her round, saying that religions do some weird stuff, and priests are not all there as a rule.

Inurin, 1107 Week 50

E668776-5 Ag Ri

Given the local tech level, and the fact that Smith has been here before, the Macavity has no trouble in penetrating Inurin airspace undetected and landing in the remote hills where the Church of the Mycorrhizal Brotherhood has its group of villages and – Smith believes – perhaps a hundred thousand suspicious adherents. While they are mostly independent, they do find it more efficient to import shotguns and ammunition than make their own, and by trading those for agricultural produce Smith was able to gain access to a village. He knows that the fungi are grown in caves by a priesthood; only the priests are allowed inside, not the general populace. Priests are generally, but not always, accompanied by what he thinks of as bodyguards – muscular fellows who the peasants give a wide berth. On feast days, the peasants consume the mushrooms, and see things and do things they don’t normally see or do; this gave him the idea to sell the fungi as recreational drugs. Alas, he doesn’t know when the feast days are, and he will admit that in hindsight, bopping a priest on the head and stealing his robes was not the best idea he’s ever had.

After discussing a number of possible options, the team use the ship’s sensors to scan the cave system, discovering a rear entrance and the general layout. They manage to sneak up to the entrance undetected, then go spelunking into the caves below. Once safely inside, Mazun hands out filter masks and gives orders to put them on; this precaution will prove to be a literal life-saver later on. Dr Matauranga busies himself taking readings of atmospheric composition and temperature as well as air and soil samples.

At length, they enter a cave where a group of priests in decaying robes are sitting cross-legged in a circle, facing each other. They appear not to have noticed the intruders, and each has a white organic-looking spike protruding from the top of his head. Dr Matauranga approaches cautiously, observing that they appear to be dead, and he thinks the white spikes are fruiting bodies for some kind of fungus.

“Cordyceps,” mutters Mazun, who whatever he tells people was once an Imperial scout.

The good Doctor cuts off the end of one spike and stuffs it into a sample bag which he seals, and prepares to take an arm off the corpse as a further sample. It’s at this point that they hear people approaching cautiously; Vila quickly emplaces a camera and everyone takes cover as half a dozen bodyguards with shotguns enter the cavern, led by a priest.

To Vila’s disappointment, they immediately discover the camera, and as they come closer, it’s obvious they have detected everyone except Mazun; he went south, Vila went north, and Rex and Dr Matauranga went east – the way they came in.

Matters are not helped by Rex leaving his tail sticking out and giving an unconvincing cry of “Oh no, they've seen me.”

The priest calls out in an unknown tongue, moving towards Rex with three of his men while two peel off and move towards Vila. Rex subvocalises on the crew channel “Can I kill ‘em, skipper?” Mazun agrees, going for positive reinforcement – Rex actually asked this time before opening fire, which is an improvement, so he is rewarded.

Rex steps out of cover with a laser SMG in each hand (paw?) and blazes away, wounding the priest, dropping two of the guards, and blowing the top off a fruiting body with a stray shot. The cave begins to fill with spores. Dr Matauranga draws a stunner, but fumbles and shoots Rex in the back by mistake; Rex growls at him. Vila ducks out of sight, intending to lie in wait and shoot the guards as they round the corner in front of him. Mazun, hidden until now, fires a couple of shotgun rounds at the guards he can see, killing one and wounding a second.

Rex's Reward. Fiery Dragon tokens on Loke Battlemat.

Rex shakes off the stunner bolt and opens up into the guards again, starting with the ones going for Vila and working his way south. Another fruiting body explodes as it is pierced by a stray bolt, but Rex kills the priest and all but one of the surviving guards. Dr Matauranga aims his stunner at a third fruiting body, deliberately exploding it, but is shot and grazed by the surviving guard. Mazun blasts him, and with all of the opposition down, the crew have possession of the battlefield.

Vila emerges cautiously as Dr Matauranga directs everyone to grab one of the infected priests’ bodies and run; they can already hear pounding boots getting closer. Escaping back through the caverns is no real problem, although Vila picks up bumps and bruises from trying to run through the tunnels without touching anyone else, especially the dead priest, who is shedding spores everywhere.

Between Mazun (ex-Scout) and Dr Matauranga (mad scientist) they manage to decontaminate themselves, stuff the dead priest into a body bag, decontaminate that, and lift for orbit, pursued by the obligatory torch-wielding mob.

Troisei says she trusts they will explain fully when the opportunity presents itself – she stayed aboard with Smith to ensure he didn’t get the idea of running away with the ship.

Fast Travel, 1107 Week 52 – 1108 Week 14

A busy few weeks follow. Dr Matauranga quickly determines that the fungi contain a suitable hallucinogen, but while he could synthesise the active component, it wouldn’t be cost-effective; growing it in human bodies is. After discussing where they could get a steady supply of dead bodies, or indeed living ones, and the ethics of using them as fungus hosts, they hit on the plan of ordering blank clones in bulk from Tech-World and having them farmed for fungus and processed by the Android Liberation Front on Ergo – they are not at risk of infection, being robots. The finished product will then be shipped to Exe where Smith will pick it up and handle distribution.

This all requires them to visit Ergo (week 52) to negotiate with the ALF, Tech-World (week 02) to pick up clones, Ergo (week 04) to drop them off, and Exe (week 06) to drop off Smith. At some point during this shuffling back and forth they encounter Captain Cash and the Cash Cow, and expand his ALF contract to cover a triangular route; Tech-World to Ergo to Exe and back to Tech-World.

Then, they return to Tyokh via Tech-World, Paal, and Sink, bringing Troisei home in 1108 week 14.

GM Notes

That was another unused adventure seed from The Pirates of Drinax, originally just a paragraph or so which expanded considerably under questioning from the players. I am usually concerned beforehand that the session won't work and I should cancel it, but experience teaches that once we get rolling it will all be OK, so I generally persuade myself to carry on.

Eventually, one of the players will look up what mycorrhizal means, and then they will realise how the priests knew they were in the caves. Some groups dislike metagaming; I consider it part of the fun, and love leaving little Easter eggs like this in the game.

It's quite intriguing how often my player groups wind up as drug runners. I never plan it that way, but it often happens.

Scheduling over Christmas and the New Year is too tricky, so we'll take a couple of weeks off and kick off again on January 10th, with the writeup following on the 13th. My current campaign plan is a few charters from Tyokh, followed by a forced misjump into the Islands Clusters and a mission there for the Imperial Navy, before returning to Tyokh to bid farewell to the Trojan Reach. That will probably take us to April next year, then we can discuss what to do next.

Aslan Route 29: A Vargr Named Grrrrshagrikrigggggrrsh

But ya ought to thank me, before I die,
For the gravel in yer guts and the spit in yer eye
'Cause I'm the son-of-a-bitch that named you "Sue".
- Johnny Cash, A Boy Named Sue

Cordan, 1107 Week 16

Mazun buys himself a laser rifle and discovers that, for this week only, the suppliers are giving away a free line projector with every laser rifle. Meanwhile, Dr Matauranga is now wearing both the Second and Third Most Valuable Things; in the hope of concealing the earpieces so that the red lenses might be taken for augmented spectacles of some kind, he has taken to wearing a deerstalker hat with the flaps as low down as they will go.

Wildeman, 1107 Week 18

While quaffing Tree Toad beers at the starport bar, the crew is approached by one Klim Gobbo, asteroid miner, who has seen them travel this route several times and has a proposition.

A century ago, this region was terrorised by the notorious pirate Tamby Dour, reputed to have stashed a fortune somewhere. The Imperial Navy eventually caught and vaporised him and his ship, and his treasure was never found. However, Gobbo accidentally found Dour’s hideout while prospecting; it has an obvious treasure vault, with a DNA lock – only Dour or a direct descendant can open it; they must be alive and present in person. He knows where the vault is, but there is no-one in the system descended from Dour, and he only has an in-system mining craft with no jump drive. If the crew can find a descendant, he will take them to the location, and they can share the contents of the vault, 50/50.

Vila is not having this, and a spirited argument over the exact split of the treasure breaks out. At length, the deal struck is 50% to the Macavity’s crew (10% to each of them and Troisei, who will have to fund operating expenses for the search), 15% to the heir, and 35% to Gobbo. Vila puts his head together with the Matauranga Collective (which now numbers six) and makes up a shopping list of things needed for breaking into a vault protected by a DNA lock; these items are not available locally at a price Vila is willing to pay.

Dr Matauranga digs into local records and discovers a number of Dour’s crew were vargr from Umemii, including a first mate whom Dour especially trusted, at which point Rex diffidently reveals that one of his ancestors was a childhood friend of the first mate; Rex knows the first mate’s real name and the area where he lived.

Vila thinks he has found out some useful data on Dour himself, but it turns out he has been researching the life of the actor who played Dour in a second-rate holofilm.

Off to Umemii!

Umemii, 1107 Week 20

The first thing to do on Umemii is visit Rex’s grandmother in Essfaiyr. Rex at first threatens her, then resorts to actually beating the old vargr, and extracts from her a number of useful names and addresses, as well as the fact that shortly after Tamby Dour died, his first mate came home with a young human in his care, and the vargr and human families have been close ever since.

Troisei is disturbed by Rex’s behaviour, but Mazun reassures her this is normal for vargr. Probably.

Rex justifies his approach by explaining that his grandmother sold his mother when he was quite young, raised him herself, and gave him his vargr name, which does not have a complimentary meaning and has caused him a good deal of trouble over the years.

Deciding that “least said, soonest mended”, they unleash Dr Matauranga on the planetary data net, and in a matter of hours he has provided extensive lists of names, addresses, family trees, medical histories, and other data which one would have expected to be private. This reveals the existence of one Glinnet Dour, great-great-granddaughter of Tamby Dour, and her contact details.

Mazun composes a carefully-worded and mostly truthful message, and requests a meeting. Glinnet agrees, suggests an expensive restaurant, and brings with her a vargr called Zalvou Gzargu, who seems to be somewhere between a business manager, a bodyguard, and an affectionate uncle. Negotiations are with Zalvou, as Glinnet is completely clueless and more interested in Troisei, who is the first aslan she has ever seen. However, a trip offworld with the promise of a fortune at the end of it appeals to both Zalvou and Glinnet, so they pack their bags, and the Macavity returns to Wildeman.

Wildeman, 1107 Week 22

Vila and Rex are suspicious when Gobbo suggests following him to the location in his beat-up mining ship, but so far as they can tell he is being truthful, so off they go.

Gobbo leads the Macavity to an asteroid, where there is an obsolescent but well-equipped base with parking, partially pressurised. Gobbo explains that he set up a pressure shelter while the Macavity was away so that the descendant would be able to take off their spacesuit; he didn’t see how they could work the lock while wearing one.

Glinnet operates the lock, but despite this being successful, the vault door fails to open. Vila states that his skills are now needed to get into the vault, and unless his cut of the proceeds is renegotiated, the Macavity will leave. (He mentions on a private channel that the ship can then return later and the crew can cut Gobbo and Dour out of the deal entirely.)

Gobbo counters that he only promised to bring them to the vault, he has done what he agreed and so the shares of the loot should stay as they were. Vila is about to leave anyway when he and Mazun both notice the problem is simple vacuum welding, and should yield to some mechanical engineering and brute force. While outwardly still determined to leave them to it, Vila shares helpful information with Mazun and Dr Matauranga. While they are still discussing how to do this, Rex kicks the vault door in frustration and it swings open.

Entering cautiously, the team see rows of empty shelves… and two empty bottles of cheap gin. Gobbo is swearing profusely and searching for the secret doors he is sure are there, but which in fact are not. Glinnet is sulking because she was promised jewellery and pretty dresses, which are nowhere to be seen. Troisei and Zalvou exchange a look and shrug; some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.

Vila and Mazun hack into the hideout’s computer system and discover that every generation or so since Tamby Dour died, someone has been coming here and opening the vault. The last such visit was 44 years ago, then nothing until it was opened today.

The crew hypothesise that Dour’s descendants have been coming here periodically, whenever they needed money, taking some, and leaving the rest safely in the hideout. Having spent a couple of weeks with Glinnet, they understand why she would not have been told any of this.

Whatever’s left of the money is probably still on Umemii somewhere, but Mazun seems to speak for everyone when he says Glinnet’s family has more right to it than the crew does.

Gobbo smashes one of the gin bottles in a fit of pique, but Troisei takes the other, with the team's joint permission. She will display it in her home on Tyokh, and whenever visitors ask about it, she will tell the story of how it is the last remnant of Tamby Dour’s fabled pirate treasure.

Fast Travel, 1107 Weeks 23 to 42

Troisei wants to visit Hradus, where there is a large population of aslan; but Glinnet wants to go home, and Dr Matauranga is uncomfortable in Imperial space – some trifling misunderstanding about ethics violations – so the Macavity first turns to Umemii (week 24) before following the aslan route to Wildeman (week 24) and Fist (week 26). After that, the ship meanders along the xboat routes from Fist to Imisaa (week 28), Hexx (week 30) and finally Hradus (week 32), where Mazun slips away to file a report and ponder the fact that everywhere they go, Vila seems to know someone useful.

Mazun is in a foul mood for the first leg of the journey, as he had hoped to inveigle Dr Matauranga to Batav and turn all his Ancient devices over to the Imperium for study. The good doctor, however, decided that Glinnet’s low intelligence was the result of inbreeding among the human population of Umemii, and stayed there to conduct field research.

By the time the Macavity has ambled back to Umemii to pick him up again, it is 1107 week 42, and news of the outbreak of the Fifth Frontier War is only one jump behind her.

Next stop: Inurin...

GM Notes

This session was built on one of the adventure seeds left over from The Pirates of Drinax, and it did its job, keeping us entertained for a few hours. As usual in Savage Worlds, most of the fun came from the extreme dice rolls, especially Vila's critical failure when researching Tamby Dour and Rex's ridiculously high roll on his Wild Die when trying to open the vault door. (We normally assume that if you succeed thanks to the Wild Die, it was due to some stroke of good luck.)

Riffing off each other, the players concocted a backstory for Rex which included a family more dysfunctional than I'd expected.

Reading, thinking, and discussing things with the players over the last couple of weeks, I’ve reached some decisions:

• I've set up the sequence of adventures until the end of the campaign, probably April 2026, including the secret of Most Valuable Thing. I'm just going to move the PCs from one to the next; in-game, the cargoes and charters they pick up just happen to lead them that way, but at the metagame level the players are aware they're on a railroad of sorts now, and they're happy with that; anyway, I'm the only one who knows where the stops are.
• We discussed changing game system for the next campaign, but there’s no real benefit in that. I’m not going to remember the rules of a different game any better than SWADE, and it’s good enough for what I need.
• The Traveller Wiki is back as a source of information. It has a lot of Traveller5 stuff we won’t use, but if you scroll down far enough, you get to the bits we do use. (When we were working through the Pirates of Drinax, it didn’t have world details for this region of space, but now it does.) Using it saves me a lot of work.
• I did look into replacing Roll20 with Fantasy Grounds, but the benefits from doing that are outweighed by the additional effort of setting it up and using it; FG is cool, and I like it, but it's a solution to problems I don't currently have.

TL:DR – no change except Traveller Wiki is back in play. As you were.