Saturday, June 3, 2023

ProtoTraveller Sword & Planet!

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.

They all are ageless but have physical localized bodies, and may be killed by mighty heroes, or negotiated with to use their powers on a mortal's behalf - usually for a price.

And have special combat abilities, such as unlimited Powerful Blows and multiple attacks per round. 

There is no "D&D Magic", or even Barbaric!/SoC-style sorcery in this setting, but rather a combination of tech, psionics, and "Godlings". A Sorcerer in this setting acts by combining salvaged Xenotech, psionics, and (roleplaying-based, rather than mechanics-based) deals with Godlings.

Rules would be ProtoTraveller with a few additions such as more TL16 tech, careers for "barbaric" people born on that forsaken world, rules for Godlings and rules for "barbarians" trying to use tech well above their own tech level. But, in general - ProtoTraveller by the book.

(Godlings being an idea I am exploring for other settings and rulesets as well).

I still have no name for such setting, but am toying with the idea quite widely.

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