Classic Traveller - Pulling Rank

Thinking of my Dark Nebula setting for Classic Traveller, here is something I had in mind for characters with military backgrounds to make their ranks more interesting. While I am writing this with the militarist Maadin Confederation in mind, one may use such rules in any setting involving ranked military characters, such as those generated by Classic Traveller character generation.

People tend to treat military officers, including reserve or retired ones, with respect. The fact that a military force saw fit to promote someone says something about that person. In militarist societies, this goes even further, as the social elite often includes many high-ranking officers, active and retired alike.

This, of course, is not as universal as the Social Standing (SOC) characteristic. The latter represents connections, including family connections. In some places, it also represents one's social station in a more formal manner (such as castes or a feudal system). Despite the above, civilians do not always respect military veterans, and some may see "pulling rank" - requesting preferential treatment thanks to one's military rank - as faux pas.

In civilian or semi-civilian situations where characters try to get preferential treatment (above and beyond what their SOC signifies) due to military rank, use the following rules.

Throw 8+ on 2D to successfully "pull your rank"

DMs:

DM+Admin, Carousing, Liaison, or Streetwise skill, as appropriate*

DM+2 in militarist societies
DM-2 if holding a foreign human military rank (relative to the local polity)

DM-2 when dealing with "Proud Warrior" aliens (such as Aslan)

DM-4 when dealing with other aliens (such as Desertborn or Droyne)

* The relevant skill depends on the situation at hand. Bureaucratic situations would call for Admin; high-society social occasions call for Carousing; diplomatic or commercial situations call for Liaison; and criminal (or similar) milieux call for Streetwise. For the sake of this throw, treat the character as having Skill-0 in the relevant skill - no "Unskilled" penalty applied to the roll.

A successful throw allows the character to use the following "Apparent SOC" instead of their own Social Standing characteristic score:

Rank O1 - Apparent SOC 8

Rank O2 - Apparent SOC 9

Rank O3 - Apparent SOC A

Rank O4 - Apparent SOC B

Rank O5 - Apparent SOC C

Rank O6 - Apparent SOC D

Of course, if the character's original SOC score is higher than their rank's Apparent SOC, use the original one.

The effect lasts for the current scene. At the Referee's discretion, this may be a permanent effect towards certain NPCs impressed by the officer.

The above implies to ranked military careers in Traveller Little Black Book 1 or The Traveller Book: Army, Marines, and Navy. At the Referee's discretion, merchant ranks may serve here as well, especially in commercial situations.

When using Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium, eligible military careers include Sailors and Flyers. At the Referee's discretion, Diplomat or Bureaucrat ranks may apply as well. In certain criminal situations, a Pirate's rank may even apply!

Optional Rule - Civilian Honorifics

The above assumes societal respect for military rank. However, certain civilian titles also inspire respect in people. At the Referee's discretion, use the following Apparent SOC scores:

Doctor (Medic-3+) - Apparent SOC 10

Professor (EDU 12+) - Apparent SOC 10

A Short History of the Dark Nebula

Click HERE for a full-res starmap.

Below is the history of my Dark Nebula variant-OTU setting for Classic Traveller.

Disclaimer: The Traveller game in all forms, including the OTU (Third Imperium) setting, is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright 1977 - 2014 Far Future Enterprises. See sidebar for details.

Note that this setting is strictly non-canonical, and should not be interpreted as  official Canon of a violation thereof.

Ancient History
Approximately 300,000 years ago, the Dark Nebula was at the Rimward edge of Ancients space. Colonized by one of their many factions towards the end of their reign, the Nebula never saw intensive Ancients development. The Ancients colonized Karpos (Maadin 0610), with secondary sites at Changha (Maadin 0708), Salia (Maadin 0205), and Drax (Kuzu 0610). For an unclear reason, they steered clear of the Dark Nebula itself. This frontier faction of the Ancients did not posses human or canine subjects, nor did it intervene much with the evolution of the two local proto-sentient species, the Aslan and the Desertborn. The Final War of the Ancients soon followed, and their sites fell. A small population of Droyne did survive, however, on the main colony Karpos itself - despite widespread orbital bombardment.

Eons passed; the Aslan and Desertborn began using more advanced stone tools and engaging in primitive herding. A new starfaring species, however, appeared - around 12,000 BCE. Dubbed the Pyramid Builders by Solomani scholars, these star-travellers spread through space using slower-than-light sleeper-ships and generation-ships. They were, however, biochemically alien, adapted to live in what humaniti considers to be insidious atmospheres. On such hellish worlds, they built their edifices - pyramidal structures covering deep underground tunnels. These travelling carnivores brought their prey with them, seeding life in inhospitable environments. They even "terraformed" some of their worlds, namely Enjwa (Kuzu 0510), Omoro (Maadin 0402), and Irbev (Maadin 0606) - to suit their atmospheric preferences and ecosystem.

Solomani and Aslan Colonization
Narrowly escaping total nuclear war, the new Aslan Hierate - established in 2481 CE - began expanding into space in earnest. With their homeworld of Kuzu (Kuzu 0209) fully divided between Aslan clans, young Aslan ihatei - non-inheriting second sons - found an outlet for their territorial urges in space. Jump travel soon developed, as early as 2520 CE. The Aslan, however, lacked a centralized government. The Hierate was the closest they could get to having one - but each clan founded its own interplanetary and interstellar colonies. The main expansion was along the Aslan Main - with a long "tail" to the Rimward beyond the Kuzu Subsector. Limited by Jump-1 drives, for the time being, the Aslan were confined to their main, which they colonized in the usual haphazard ihatei ways. Then, the Solomani came.

The Ziru Sirka - the Vilani Grand Empire of Stars - never reached the distant Dark Nebula. Its successor-state, however - the Rule of Man - did. Aggressively expanding to the Spinward-Rimward in search of resources to feed this ailing empire, the Rule of Man set its first scout base on Maadin (Maadin 0702) in 2600 AD. Exploring this base's stellar environs yielded further colonization of the Maadin Cluster, especially the mineral-rich Mechane Belt (Maadin 0703).

Unlike the Aslan, however, the Solomani - as the Rule of Man's people were called here - had far advanced technology. Exploration and colony ships usually had Jump-2 drives, and sometimes Jump-3 ones. Able to cross significant interstellar gulfs, the Solomani soon expanded across the Maadin Subsector and into the Kuzu Subsector. Expansion, however, was slow given the limited number of ships and colonists coming from their Empire's core. Eventually, in 2641, Solomani scouts encountered the Desertborn - who by then already had an industrial civilization on their homeworld of Rim (Kuzu 0602) - and traders soon followed. By the late 27th century, the Desertborn already built their own spacecraft and began exploring and colonizing their own star-system, though their small and fragmented population base precluded rapid technological advancement and interstellar colonization.

In 2659, a misjumped Solomani scout dropped out of jump space in Kuzu orbit. While the ship was boarded and inspected by the Aslan, the scout captain, Minerva Amlaris, is forever lauded for her diplomatic skill - and besting an Aslan male in one-on-one blade against dewclaw combat, gaining the boarders' respect and allowing fruitful first contact. Soon after the scout crept back to Solomani space - carrying a female Aslan ambassador - Human traders learned of the potential of Aslan markets. Superior Solomani technology fetched a high price in Aslan space, enriching a few Human merchants, most notably the Stempfer family of Mizah. With the Rule of Man's government's notorious inefficiency, the Solomani did not prevent advanced technology with military applications from reaching Aslan hands. Soon enough, these aliens had Jump-2 capabilities and weaponry rated at TL11.

Twilight and the Accelerando
The Rule of Man was aptly named the "Ramshackle Empire". Unstable and inefficient, its collapse was inevitable. By the dawn of the 28th century, its gradual collapse led to a curious socio-technological phenomenon - the Accelerando. With little or no governmental oversight, and with rampant corruption, scientists with good connections could appropriate massive budgets to projects never even contemplated in less distressed times. Such projects grew like parasites on the Empire's dying body, creating a false spring of strange flowers - accelerated technological development along unorthodox lines.

One such project was Unit #72, initially from Maadin. Appropriating billions of desperately-needed funds, they chose five stars within the previously unexplored Dark Nebula itself as their abode, far from the prying eyes of whatever remaining Imperial authorities. There, they tried to develop technologies which will - so they claimed - save the ailing Rule of Man from its inevitable collapse - artificial intelligence, cybernetics, genetic engineering, and, especially, new technologies for interstellar travel and, theoretically speaking, communications.

The latter technology reached a place that even the great scientists of the much later civilizations were unable to replicate, but at a price. On November 3rd, 2747 CE, The Event occurred. Experimental stationary jump-transmission coils on the world known today as N3 (Maadin 0208) fired as part of a planned experiment. However, they caused an unexpected effect. In an instant, all five star-systems of the Dark Nebula were torn from their place in the Space-Time Continuum, and hurled, through space and time. For a whole year of local time - 145 years in real-space time - these systems were in limbo - disconnected from our universe. For that time, the Nebula was a dead zone - an area of space where no solid bodies could be seen, and where anomalies in the Space-Time Continuum endangered any ship entering that space.

The Maadin Imperium and First ihatei War
Later historians will mark 2744 CE as the beginning of the Long Night proper. 30th century Maadin, however, lists its beginning on 2780 CE, when the Last Ship from Terra arrived. It was clear, at this point, that the Solomani colonies in the Dark Nebula Sector were on their own. No communications, let alone help, would come from Terra or any other Rule of Man center. Technology slowly regressed to locally-sustainable production - rated at TL11 rather than the Rule of Man's TL12; and even that - on a few worlds. Many colonies deteriorated much farther.

In 2785 CE, citing "Continuity of Government" laws, Maadin's governor, Armando Abbas, declared himself Emperor. Using his remaining naval assets, he moved to consolidate his rule over the Maadin subsector. His success, however, in such imperial endeavor was limited. Lacking the resources of a proper empire, he met stiff resistance from various colonies. Particularly, the governor of Mizah (Maadin 0304), a prominent colony, declared himself King of Mizah and used his own naval assets to push back against Abbas' invasion.

As the dust settled, the Maadin Imperium ruled nine worlds and began rebuilding its economy and military using local resources, as did its smaller rival - Mizah. When Emperor Armando I passed away in 2812 CE, his son, Emperor Alfonso I, took the throne. In 2820 CE, Alfonso attempted to invade Mizah, starting a three-year interstellar war and ending in failure, further souring the relations between the two states. After he passed away in 2843 CE, Armando II inherited the throne. By that time, the Maadin Imperium was in decline. Corruption ran rampant; favoritism within the armed forces filled the top rank with incompetent nobles, weakening them and enraging the lower-ranking professional officers.

In 2862 CE, however, the Maadin Imperium received what would later be known as its death stroke. The Aslan ihatei, or "second sons", turned their attention to the Trailing and invaded independent colonies en masse. Within two months they controlled Pasar (Kuzu 0507), Godoro (Kuzu 0606), and Simsek (Kuzu 0505), with harsh fighting continuing on Enjiwa (Kuzu 0510). Within a year, they went as far as Salia (Maadin 0205), threatening Mizah and the Maadin Imperium directly. Faced with a common threat, Maadin and Mizah quickly signed an unease mutual defense pact and launched a counter-attack.

Fighting was bloody. While the Mizahn units showed great bravery and skill, the Maadin Navy suffered several humiliating defeats at the hands of the ihatei, losing two battle-cruisers and facing disastrous defeat in their ground invasion of Godoro. When both sides reached a cease-fire agreement, in 2866 CE, the Maadini military was in shambles and the Maadin Imperium lost its credibility in the eyes of its own citizens. The Aslan retained their conquests of Pasar, Godoro, Simsek, Astek, and Daanari and the Solomani forces retreated to lick their wounds and rebuild their navy.

Coup, Confederation, and the Second ihatei War
Failure in war bred popular discontent and unrest on Maadin and its subordinate Imperial worlds. When mass demonstration erupted in 2870 CE, Emperor Armando II ordered troops to fire on them. This was a fatal move for the Emperor. With the situation deteriorating into street fighting and wholesale slaughter of civilians, middle-ranked Naval and Marines officers declared their support for the dissidents and mutinied, killing their noble admirals and launching a coup against the Imperial state. Within three weeks, the Emperor was dead; the Military Presidium was in power.

The Presidium - a seven-member "head of state" - then moved to re-consolidate the former Maadin Imperium into the Maadin Confederation. The limited rate of communication, even over such small distances, prevented full centralization and allowed local governments to replace the old Planetary Archdukes of Imperial times. Maadin and the Military Presidium, however, held much power compared to the other colonies.

The highly popular Presidium abolished noble titles and established a republicanist, if militarized and authoritarian, regime. In the 2870's, its priority, however, was military reconstruction to compensate for the losses in the First ihatei War. Taxation was heavy, as it still is thirty years later, to support naval construction. The Confederation christened its first Heavy Cruiser, CNV Gilgamesh, in 2874, alongside a fleet of lighter patrol craft. The first Heavy (Division) Troop Transport, CNV Baal, left the shipyard in 2875. Despite heavy taxation, the "clean" and competent image of the new administration and its dedication to restoring Maadin's military might maintained its popularity among the civilian population and military ranks.

In 2882, however, the Aslan tested the Confederation's mettle in battle, and tasted its renewed military vigor. Launching a massed attack on Hasara (Kuzu 0804), Taanga (Maadin 0105), and Salia (Maadin 0205), the ihatei swarmed into Human space, threatening Mizah and declaring the aim of conquering the Confederation as well. A very reluctant alliance with Mizah saw the Confederate fleet, bolstered by Mizahn squadrons, launch a counter-attack, pushing the Aslan back to Daanari. By 2884, Aslan lines collapsed under the combined Human attack, liberating Pasar, Godoro, Simsek, Astek, and Daanari and forcing back the Aslan to old Hierate space - at a stiff cost to Solomani military assets. Signing a ceasefire in 2885, the Aslan agreed to relinquish their former conquests in return for the Solomani forces' retreat to Mizah and the Confederation - far from the Aslan border.

Present Day and the Return of the Nebula
Following the Second ihatei War, the Confederation engages in massive military construction. Militaristic and authoritarian, it wishes to exert its will across the two subsectors, and openly declares so. Meanwhile, a new generation of non-inheriting Aslan males are itching to grab new lands - and the Confederation and its rival/ally of Mizah stands in their way. While the Military Presidium enjoys great popularity thanks to its success in the War, taxation is high to finance military development, and the population begins to chafe under this burden. Rivalry with Mizah is also brewing, with the more radical members of the Presidium dreaming annexing it to the Confederation, though another Aslan war will force yet another alliance with such rivals.

In August 2892 CE, suddenly the N4 star of the Dark Nebula appeared on the horizons of Taida Na, re-lighting the old cloud. By the present days of 2900 CE, these stars appeared in the skies of Osa, Salia, and Kov as well. Soon enough, rumors have reached both Solomani and Aslan ears that the worlds of the Nebula, hinted upon in legend, are back. And now, their technological treasures are ripe to the plucking. Or so the Solomani and Aslan think...

The year is 2900 CE. At the dawn of the 30th century, the Hierate and Confederation rattle their sabres. This time, both powers aim to establish dominance over the two subsectors once and for all. War is inevitable. Soon enough, the secrets to be revealed in the returned Dark Nebula will threaten to tip the balance towards whoever exploits them back. The Nebula, however, will not yield its secrets so easily...

Elysian Empire Redux

I have redone my Elysian Empire setting for ACKS, focusing on the "Early Dark Ages"-inspired version of the setting rather than the "Early Modern" variant. I have also changed the map so that (almost) all the Elysian Empire will fit into a single ACKS "Campaign Map" (i.e. 960x720 miles).

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Lysandrus of Elysia conquered the many city-states of old and defeated the Sorcerer Kings in the name of the Conquering Sun. He founded the Elysian Empire and crowned himself, by the Grace of Sol, the first Emperor. 517 years later, his empire lies in ruins.

At its height, the Elysian Empire stretched from coast to coast, unifying the continent under the Emperor's might. It was a civilization of Law. Some say it was the greatest civilization since the dawn of Man. Its wealth, beyond any dream, streamed from the many provinces to the shining city of Elysia. Its magnificence is now a matter of fables. Fought over by pretenders, claimants, and would-be Emperors, it is now a dead, burnt-out shell of its former glory. In the place where one Emperor ruled, now several compete. In a land once shepherded by a single Bright Pontifex, five Pontiffs claim the title, each endorsing his own usurper to the throne.

The Empire is dying. It can barely rule the Imperial domain of Elysia, let alone the provinces. Many aspiring tyrants fight over its throne. In the outer provinces, the locals have not seen an Imperial Legion - or tax collector for that matter - for decades. Local Tribunes and other officials now became de-facto sovereign lords. Their armies are depleted by years of war. Beastmen and bandits besiege their impoverished domains. Some would say that the land calls for heroes - but politics calls for another thing.

Conquerors.

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So here is the work-in-progress map and geographical overview.

Primary provinces:

Inner Kvenland - cold, forested land. Known for its fierce warriors and expertise in seamanship. (inspiration: Germania or Denmark). Now under Chaos control.

Camalynn - once a fertile province on the Empire's northern border. Now mostly borderlands with the forces of Chaos coming from the west. (inspiration: Arthurian Britain).

Rayanes and Leoneis - twin breadbaskets of the Empire; two rich lands where the vast forests of the past were cut down in favor of bountiful fields and light woods. (inspiration: late Roman Gaul/Iberia).

Nysa - mountainous land dominated by the Nysan Peninsula. Land of seaman and mountainside farmers. Known for mineral and fish exports. (inspiration: Roman Greece).

Elysia - seat of the Empire (inspiration: Rome and Roman Italy).

Tamaskyra - a fertile, if mountainous, land. Known for olive and wine exports and has a long warrior tradition. (inspiration: Greece and Asia Minor).

Qedem - an ancient, if somewhat dry, land. Has a flat, fertile shore and a hilly and mountainous "back country". Civilized for millennia; played a pivotal role in the Slave War. (inspiration: Judea and Syria).

Erida - Swampy, hot land of rivers and marshes. Alongside Kemet, this housed the first post-Mu civilization. (inspiration: Mesopotamia).

Kemet - a dry desert dominated by the Eternal River, which allows extensive agriculture on its banks. The oldest civilization on the mainland once Mu sank beneath the waves. (inspiration: Egypt).

Non-Imperial lands:

Outer Kvenland - savage mountainous and wooded, cold land. Known for brutal warriors worshiping gods of war and sea; now under Chaos control. (inspiration: Nordic countries).

Muspeland - the dwarves' old homeland, now mostly controlled by beastmen and worse. Used to be the seat of the great Dwarven Empire; now dwarven vaults control only its southern tip.

Valakurask - cold, forested land. Its superstitious peasants live in fear of their fickle Fey overlords. Never conquered by the empire thanks to Fey sorcery. Most elves come from this land - changelings born to human parents but with Fey souls. (inspiration: Slavic lands).

Irem - land of sand and rock. Most of its population are nomadic herders. (inspiration: Arabia and other Near East deserts).

For a high-res map, look HERE. Again, the map is work-in-progress. (mapped in Hexographer).

Dark Nebula 2900 AD: new map!

I have created a new starmap for my Dark Nebula quasi-OTU setting.

It is based on Ian Stead's wonderful Blank High Resolution Starmaps (which he designed for Stellagama Publishing), with the stars, borders, routes, polities and other content added by myself in Paint.NET.

Click HERE for a full-res starmsp.

Some of the main differences between Cepheus Engine SRD/Core and Cepheus Light

People often ask me what is the difference between the Cepheus Engine SRD/Core and Cepheus Light.

The Cepheus Engine SRD/Core is quite faithful to the old Mongoose SRD. Cepheus Light is a re-write of the rules for greater speed and ease of play. I will list some of the differences.

• The CL skill list is shorter and more consolidated. There are no cascade skills, and no specializations.

• CL task resolution divorces skill DMs from characteristic DMs. For example, in CE SRD you modify your to-hit throw in combat by both, say, Gun Combat and Dexterity. In CL, only Gun Combat.

• CL character generation has no Position/Commission throws

• CL personnel combat uses simple ranges (effective/maximal) rather than the SRD's more complex range bands.
• Weapon statistics are different, with "Aspects" governing their unique features.

• CL vehicles and starships don't have Hull/Structure, only hit locations.

• CL vehicle and starship combat is mapless and uses a "chase" mechanism. In general, CL ship combat is very different from the SRD one

• CL merges Sensors into the Computers.
• CL drive TLs determine drive size, not maximum jump numbers, so, for example, you can have Jump-3 at TL9 on small ships.

• Cepheus Light provides ample game-play examples to make the rules more accessible.

Note that this is a non-exhaustive list; there are many other, less prominent changes.

Hard Space is taking shape!

Over two years ago I wrote an outline for a near-Earth, near-future setting called Hard Space.

Since then, Stellagama Publishing has published These Stars Are Ours! our premier space opera setting. More important to the current discussion, however, is another Stellagama product - Near Space. It uses abstracted (“flattened”) real space with some hypothetical brown and red dwarfs added for better gameability. The latter allow Jump-1 travel from Sol to other worlds. They also create a “Solar Main” allowing slow Jump-1 ships to travel quite far, albeit at a snail’s pace.

So I'm working, intermittently, on Hard Space as well.

Hard Space, which I worked on in the passing year along other projects, is a setting explicitly using the Near Space data. Right now, I post here it as a series of blog-posts for Classic Traveller and the Cepheus Engine. If there will be enough interest, I might consider making this a commercial product for the Cepheus Engine, though Ashes of Empire, a sequel to #TSAO, is also in the works.

All map locations and physical world stats in Near Space exist verbatim in Hard Space. Some colonized by humanity and some waiting to be explored.

This does not come at the expense of my main sci-fi universe, These Stars Are Ours! (#TSAO). As in my 2016 post, I have resolved to write three paragraphs of TSAO-related (or Sword of Cepheus-related) content for each paragraph I write for Hard Space.

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The elevator pitch for Hard Space is:

Cyborg Smugglers Fight Cthulhu in Space!

What does that mean?

Cyborg - this is a hardcore cyberpunk setting. Major chrome, significant upgrades of the human machine, hacking, and of course the cultural aspects of cyberpunk, such as individual vs. corporation and style being important. Think Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Smugglers - Player characters (PCs) are, at best, in a legal “grey area”, that is - bounty hunters, mercenaries, and private eyes. At worst, they are criminals and outlaws. Again, this fits the cyberpunk themes, where protagonists are often dealing with all sorts of shady business or existing on the wrong side of the law. Think Firefly.

Fight - life is cheap, and so are bullets. There are no major wars, but there are brushfire conflicts, covert operations, and police actions. Combat is by no means the center of the setting, but violence is common. Think Ghost in the Shell.

Cthulhu - the one place where the setting eschews hard-ish science is in the element of cosmic horror. Space itself is deadly; some things which dwell in it are deadlier. There will be a sanity mechanic for use in CT and/or CE as part of this setting. Jump drives and shipboard gravity, by the way, belong here. Think Event Horizon.

in Space - this is a (near future) hard-ish space interstellar setting. Space is hard. Apart from the cosmic horror element mentioned above, science is pretty hard. No grav-cars, no compact fusion power plants making your life easy - you use vector-thrust and fission. Ships have fusion-torch reaction drives. And space can definitely kill you. Think The Expanse.

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Anyhow, the premise of Hard Space is this - the year is 2170 AD. Humanity has only recently reached out to the nearby stars, but limited technology does not allow for rapid interstellar expansion. Space is dangerous, ships are small, and even seventy-three years of faster-than-light exploration and settlement have only carved out a small, sparsely populated colonial region around Sol. As the old national governments on Earth have been bled dry financially and politically by the events of the mid-21st century, space is the domain of the private sector - of the larger corporations. Once you leave Luna's orbit, Earth governments are little more than flags-of-convenience to private-sector investments and facilities. Competition among t interstellar corporations is tense and quite cutthroat, leading to a great degree of underhanded actions and industrial espionage.

Most of humanity still lives on Earth, followed by Luna and Mars. As Earth is highly polluted, extremely crowded, and suffering from an unstable climate, many people - especially from the lower classes - are willing to take major risks to move to the colonies, where living conditions are often somewhat better, and where corporate jobs abound, even if they are mostly low-level jobs. To get away from the urban blight of Earth, many would even accept the risk of travel by Low Berth. Moving to Luna or Mars is easier, but the jobs on the extrasolar colonies pay better, and some of them have actual open-air environments.

This is a time of outward expansion and adventure among the stars - and also of great, mortal danger. Going into the Unknown is a particularly risky endeavor, as the Unknown as teeth, and claws, and tentacles and even the slightest malfunction in a ship's drives or in a spacer's vacc suit could spell disaster to the hapless explorer. Corporate and government marines battle vicious pirates, desperate rebels, and nasty xenomorphs on many worlds, facing a bloody attrition rate; explorers and couriers on the frontier and beyond - colloquially called "scouts" - go among unexplored stars, and in many cases do not return from their missions. The rewards of interstellar exploration are staggering, but so are the risks...

"Going out", into interstellar space, is relatively "cheap". A wealthy cult or rich madman can charter a starship and start their own "utopia". Engage in immoral research, dabbling in the occult, and so on.

Meanwhile, very old, alien things slumber on countless worlds, awaiting the hapless explorer or greedy colonial corporate exec to stumble into them...

Sources of inspiration - literature
Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Call of Cthulhu, Shadow over Innsmouth, and other works by HP Lovecraft

Sources of inspiration - film and television
Alien and Aliens
Apollo 18
Event Horizon
Firefly/Serenity
Outland
Pandorum
Stalker
Star Hunter
The Expanse
Ghost in the Shell

Sources of inspiration - video games
Alien Legacy
Dead Space
Descent
Metro: 2033 and Metro: Last Light
Red Faction and Red Faction: Guerrilla
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Shadows of Chernobyl
System Shock 1 and 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution


WIP Map
The two veteran players in interstellar colonization are the UN - led by Switzerland, Britain, Russia, and some Asian countries; and the International Commonwealth, which is mostly African and Chinese. The American Federation - where Brazil, Argentina, and the former US hold sway - are latecomers to the interstellar scene. However, they are aggressively expanding into further stars using cutting-edge ships with long-range jump drives.

The default setting is the UN Arm, which is mainly British and Swiss in culture, with some strong elements of Southeast Asian culture as well. The biggest corporations around the UN Arm are the Royal British Interstellar Company (RBIC), the Russo-Chinese Zhang-Markov, and the Swiss biotech giant Sanapharm.

For the full-res map - click here

Rusted Lands

I haven't posted in quite a while - almost two months. My workload was massive, and I had little time for game writing. I had, however, time to teach myself the Scribus  layout software and do a new layout for Cepheus: Faster Than Light, which, hopefully, will allow me to publish it through DriveThruRPG, which is more visible to Stellagama Publishing's prospective customers than Lulu. This is because DriveThruRPG PoD works with Lightning Source, which is far more demanding in terms of layout than Lulu. Fingers crossed, this will clear Pre-Media in a few weeks; if this will work, Cepheus Light: Pocket Edition is next!

Anyhow, I have been thinking about an ACKS post-apocalyptic steampunk-magitech setting. I have toyed with the idea of post-apocalyptic ACKS before, but it was a "modern" or "futuristic" apocalypse, demanding specialized classes and technology rules. However, a steampunk-magitech apocalypse means that I can use existing ACKS rules with significantly more minor modifications: ACKS already has steampunk-ish machinists and automaton rules, as well as Magical Engineering. Most magic will be ACKS-type, especially after the War, with pre-War magic being more common and automatons being much cheaper before the War.

Pre-War society had industry, steam power, and clockwork automatons as the basis for an advanced society. Then, civilization blew itself apart in total war. Now, as the industrial infrastructure lies in ruins, building machines is expensive, as per the automaton rules in ACKS' Player's Companion, and magic is less common (that is, as common as in ACKS Core).

This will use ACKS Core rules for the most part, rather than the Heroic Fantasy Handbook. Pre-War magic was flashy and wondrous; in the War itself, it was highly destructive. Imagine how destructive the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil War, and WWI would have been with ritual-level spells combined with massive mecha in addition to the usual guns, artillery, and flamethrowers.

I see the WWI aesthetic as appropriate to this setting: ponderous machines (as WWI tanks were), chemical weapons and gas masks, and a long, futile, murderous trench war. Imagine how it would have looked if steampunk technology and magic existed on Terra. Imagine how deadly this would have been.

This is how the Rusted Lands came into being.

Civilization is dead, save several surviving pockets and enclaves. Huge wrecked war machines and industrial edifices stand rusting among the old battlefields. Technology regressed to an almost Dark Ages level - as per ACKS core ("late antiquity" - but I always imagined it as a bit later, along the lines of the early Dark Ages). However, matchlocks are still around - two steps down from the flintlocks (and beyond) of the War.

So, among the ruins, the survivors lead a feudal existence. And you can conquer them and restore a piece of the past's Glory.