Get the careers HERE.
Something I want to run in "strict" Books 1-3 + Supplement 4 Classic Traveller. Maybe later in Barbaric! or The Sword of Cepheus.
The elevator pitch is: Grays abducted humans (and other aliens?) to a colony in a tropical part of a planet inhabited by xenoreptiles. The Grays are now gone, leaving behind their former captives and tech. Now, heroes (and villains!) must adapt and survive on a hostile world using barely-understood Xenotech (TL15-16 alien tech) and psionics.
Think a less "kitchen sink" Gamma World meets X-Com meets various Lost World stories, all using ProtoTraveller rules.
Another feature of this setting would be Godlings - powerful unique alien creatures with "eldritch"/miraculous-level psionic abilities. Such as healing/regenerating people, having vast arrays of esoteric knowledge, turning people into monsters, influencing the weather, influencing land fertility, etc.
Classic Traveller is a highly versatile role-playing game, capable of
simulating a wide range of exciting and gritty scenarios. While the rules were,
of course, written with science fiction in mind, they can serve for other
genres as well. One such genre is modern gaming, which herein I define as
taking place between 1923 to 2023 – and most likely a bit beyond that.
Prohibition-era gangsters, World War II, the Cold War, and various tales of
adventure, warfare, and espionage in the 20th and 21st
centuries. This also include science fiction scenarios involving modern-day
humans, such as X-Com - special operatives vs. an alien invasion, The Thing,
and other thrilling tales.
So, I have created 12 careers, using mostly Classic Traveller Book 1 and Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium, to generate modern-day characters for the aforementioned scenarios. They use the Classic Traveller Book 1: Characters and Combat and Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium rules as written.
An otherwise marginal colony, Melqart housed an Imperial Naval Station before the Collapse, with a Scout attachment. When the Star Empire fell, Melqart’s population retained both the advanced starport and a few naval assets, which they still maintain, albeit at a partial level. Their fleet, however, is aging, and they can only manufacture replacement small craft locally. Melqart lacks the industrial might to become even a regional power, but its strong martial roots and remaining advanced facilities permit it to repel foreign intervention and keep pirates away from their system. However, this still leaves Melqart as a prime target for technological larceny.
Themes: vast decaying starport and naval yard; jury-rigged, patchwork technology; strong martial culture.
A dry but otherwise hospitable world, Anu was devastated by a pandemic - potentially a bioweapon - during the Collapse. The few survivors live in three isolated, tiny tribes in the ruins if past civilization. Developing an effective vaccine for that pandemic would permit re-colonization, and several neighboring worlds are developing such technologies to open up Anu for their own colonization.
Themes: vast ruined cities; biohazard; zombies???
Suen is a small, remote, but active, mining colony. While it lost part of its population to migration during the Collapse, it did retain its technological base and starport, and was thankfully not a frequent target for raiders. Suen has a well-known Antediluvian site, which was already excavated and explored centuries ago during Imperial times, but rumors persist of further, untapped sites deep within the local cavern systems.
Themes: heavy mining; heavy equipment; hidden alien ruins?
Tammuz is a “breadbasket” world, a prime agricultural technology with a population of 80 millions. While its technology partially regressed following the Imperial Collapse, it still aggressively exports food and other agricultural products. Its main weakness, however, is its balkanized nature, with three agricorp-dominated “trading blocs” vying for control over their market shares. So far, violence was kept at the tolerable level of petty border skirmishes, but tensions are slowly increasing in the past few years, opening the possibility of all-out war.
Themes: agriculture; cold war; espionage and sabotage. Potential open warfare.
The jewel of the subsector, Asherah is a pleasant, well-managed rich world boasting the highest living standard in the Subsector - or so its government claims. Originally ruled by a self-proclaimed Emepror who cited continuity-of-government rules to declare himself the true ruler of the (dead) Star-Empire, such regime was short-lived. Following a successful coup, and a short-lived Revolutionary Council, Asherah developed a stable civil-service bureaucratic government. However, while the so-called Emperor is long dead, rumors have it that his family still plots to regain control of Asherah and build a new Empire funded by this world’s wealth.
Themes: comfort; sleepy but friendly bureaucracy; plots and intrigue under the surface.
Milkom is a minor transit station on the Main going to the Trailing from Melquart. The government of Melqart operates this station, maintaining a starport crew of approx. 500 people on-site. The station can produce lower-grade (unrefined) liquid hydrogen fuel (and water) by chemical means from Milkom’s soil, but lacks the equipment to refine it. Melqart also permits the Scout Guild to operate a small base on Milkom for the benefit of interstellar communications. One must note, however, that Milkom was overlooked and held a small transit station even at the height of the Star Empire, so much of its extensive cave systems are barely mapped. Who knows what may await deep in these caves…
Themes: loneliness; close-knit community of professionals; caves; hidden alien ruins?
When the Empire fell, Ashtoreth, an under-populated frontier world, was settled by the staff of its Scout Base, most of whom became farmers. Only a few still operate the old base, as well as the small starport. The local culture is informal, as is the government. The main threat to the locals’ way of life, however, is the sorry state the remnant fusion power plant is in; it was a TL15 model, so spare parts are rare. The locals are looking for such parts, and slowly building a fission plant as a failsafe.
Themes: rural anarchy; informality; decaying technology.
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| Public Domain Art |
The basic economic unit in my version of the gonzo apocalyptic future is the Trade Unit (TU). A TU is the worth of enough food for one person for one day. In the less-contaminated parts of the Slag Marsh, water drinkable by mutants who survived for generations on untreated water. In more arid settings, the water required by one person for one day is also worth a TU. Food for one day weighs 2 pounds.
Pre-Collapse vehicles, as well as jury-rigged post-Collapsed vehicles use fuel. I won't go as far as to differentiate the various kinds of petrol products, as an abstraction, a Can of Fuel weighs 10 pounds (just as a US "Jerrycan" weighs) and is worth 100 TU. (Fuel can also serve to create Molotov Cocktails, 10 per Can of Fuel.
Making bullets is relatively easy with certain mechanical tools and chemical supplies a post-apocalyptic town with access to pre-Collapse scrap. However, the standard dirty bullets, made after the Collapse, are inferior to advanced bullets, made before it with mass industrial technology rather than in a post-apocalyptic cottage industry. Dirty bullets are standard; they also jam the gun on a natural result of 1 or 2 on the 1d20 attack roll. The rarer advanced bullets never jam the gun and enjoy a +1 bonus to both attack and damage rolls. Bullets (as an abstraction) come as either handgun ammunition, rifle ammunition, or shotgun shells. 50 bullets of any type weigh 1 pound. 10 dirty bullets cost 1 TU; a single advanced bullet is worth 1 TU.
Most scrap left by the Collapse is not very useful for post-apocalyptic tinkering, such as repairing pre-Collapse tech and jury-rigging contraptions. 1 pound of useful mechanical parts is worth 5 TU, and 1 pound of useful electronic parts is worth 10 TU.
Food, Fuel, Bullets, and Parts may serve as "coinage". Of course, when finding a stockpile of fuel, the intrepid scavenger will have to be careful when carrying such valuable, but flammable, load back to "civilization"... Note that the most valuable "currency" compared to its weight are advanced bullets, at a worth of 50 TU per pound.
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| Public domain image by Burnt Pineapple Productions |
Now, why hack S&W for an apocalypse? After all, I have my own 2d6 post-apocalyptic game, Cepheus Atom, and there are several other prominent and excellent gonzo-apocalyptic games, most notably Mutant Future by Goblinoid Games and Mutant Crawl Classics by Goodman Games. However, Cepheus Atom is less suitable for the dungeon crawling I had in mind, and I find Mutant Crawl Classics to be a bit too random for my tastes; I am also less fond of some of the design choices in Mutant Future (such as the significant starting hit points).
So, here I am, hacking S&W: Core/Complete for gonzo-apocalyptic gaming, as a side project. Right now, this is a "hobby" project, but it may get published in the future.
What do I want from my hack?
Also, behold the tentative setting, the Slag Marsh!
I initially thought about creating a post-apocalyptic Bunker 23, but I had trouble choosing a post-apocalyptic dungeon crawl ruleset (I have certain reservations with using Mutant Future, and Other Dust is sometimes a bit too weird for my tastes). I did consider hacking Swords & Wizardry: Core to suit my needs, but that defeats part of the simplicity inherent in this setting.
So, back to my usual haunts! A Proto-Traveller sector rolled one world a day, with me writing at least one paragraph of descriptive text for each such world. Approx. 30 worlds per subsector. As a Traveller sector has 16 subsectors and a Terran year only has 12 months, I decided to add a rift - a (mostly) empty region of space to this sector, encompassing subsectors D, H, L, and P.
For the rest, before each month, I will prepare a "dot map" of star locations in the subsector, with a number of stars equal to the number of days in that month, then fill it in with actual worlds, one day at a time.
I'll write this up digitally, and gradually post here on my blog what I came up with.
Here is the "dot map" of Subsector A:
A few initial setting notes before I start rolling up worlds tomorrow:
Sources of Inspiration:
