Arrival at Khash
The Travellers are at Sylea in our Traveller campaign. It is the first year of the Imperium, and having finished their shakedown cruise, they are heading out for a two year exploration of the Outback in Fornast Sector.
I had no idea which route the players were going to take, so I had to prepare some random things that could happen at any world. I’d also fleshed out some details on worlds I thought that the Travellers would be heading through.
Of course, they went a slightly different route. After last session‘s shopping spree, I did expect that we could leave Sylea and head off on the journey relatively quickly. As it happened, there was more shopping to do.
They have bought a lot of software, as well as armour and equipment modifications and even some robots. One purchased as Cr150,000 Crew Droid, and objected when the other Travellers assumed that it was a shared resource. So they bought another for the ship. They have six skitter robots for general cleaning, plus a smart probe bot. Not because it is good at exploring worlds, but because it has arms and anti-grav, so it can dust the walls and ceiling. Brain for exploring planets, and all it will get used for is picking up dust.
Eventually, they are ready. Due to some weeks spent in surgery getting skill augments fitted, as well as the time with layers working out salvage, shopping, buying supplies and everything else, it is day 193 when they finally set off from Sylea.
They have some passengers on-board, which gives some chance at interaction. The most exciting is a Bwap who has a fondness for chess. He’s not very good at it, but he does have his own chess set.
Their first destination is the world of Khash. It has an exotic atmosphere, which I decide is primordial. It is also unpopulated. This was not a world I was expecting them to go to, so I have to flesh things out quickly. Fortunately I had a bit of warning as to their route, so was coming up with ideas whilst they were finishing their shopping.
There used to be a civilisation here, during the Second Imperium, but it collapsed and everybody died or left sometime during the Long Night. Now it is a world of ruins. There are tours, but you are only allowed down to the surface as part of an official tour. They don’t want people looting the place. I could try to match things up to how things are in the 1105 campaign. However, we’re not likely to link up these two campaigns, so I’m not really bothered about keeping consistent with what is described in the Mongoose Third Imperium book about core sector.
There is a B class star port here though (for a population zero world). There’s just a high port now, mostly abandoned. Technically a B, but probably more like a C in reality. There is a population here, who are a group of volunteers manning the port because they like doing it. They make money from the ships that come through, and also because they host conferences here.
Some of the station is said to be haunted – there are residential regions in the spinning cylinder part of the station which are deserted and overgrown. But there are tours for haunted mansions and the like. Given the current real-world date, the players decided that they wanted a haunted mansion adventure, so I guess that is what they’re getting next week.
Now that I have an idea of the route they’re going, I can also flesh out the worlds along the route a bit more. I should also begin thinking about some interesting worlds in Fornast sector. The focus of the game is that the Travellers will be discovering old worlds with fallen civilisations, and helping to re-introduce them to technology and interstellar trade. So it should be lots of opportunity for strange cultures and societies out in the unexplored Outback region of Fornast sector.
