Sylea

Our third episode of our Milieu Zero Traveller campaign, the Travellers are heading to Sylea, the capital of the new Third Imperium. With the first scenario out of the way, it was time to finish off character generation.

Firstly, I’ve added the Luck characteristic to everyone. I’m not going to use it in the way described in the Companion, but instead more like Stress in Blades in the Dark. It can be used to pay for flashbacks – if a player decides that their character should have previously done something, then if it makes sense then can retcon events. Realise in the middle of a combat that you should have planned an exit strategy? Sure, spent some Luck to say that you all planned a route out and a meeting point.

Luck is regained by relaxation. So rather than spending time between jumps studying for XP, or working on ship maintenance, you can recover spent Luck.

It was also time for the group to choose their skills package. This is a feature in Mongoose Traveller 2e where at the end of character generation, the group selects a package of extra skills to round out their characters. This ensures that someone in the group has a Pilot skill, or Gun Combat or Recon or whatever it is that they feel that they are missing. They chose the Starship skill package, mostly to ensure someone had Engineering. It also allowed for a backup Pilot and Gunner.

After that, they reached Sylea. I used the opportunity to explain about coming out of jump 100 diameters from the planet, and also about ship Transponders. They were almost immediately contacted by traffic control, and headed in to dock at Azure Heights – one of the orbital space stations around the planet. Not the largest, but the one where ‘Traveller Types’ are most likely to hang out.

I’d made a quick render of the station – mostly for my own benefit. I’ve actually done very little design of space stations, so it was good to get an idea of exactly how big they are. Azure Heights is a 100,000t station, so small as things go, but big enough for docking plenty of ships, and having hotels and commercial districts.

After docking to the outer ring, they were met by customs, and offloaded their freight, which netted them some Cr200,000. Irian Repeauzuualo also tried to sell her speculative trade, but her initial attempts weren’t successful.

Dr Agardur Durunarar took his samples of strange alien animals to the university campus, where the biology department were happy to pay him for, since they were in good conditions.

I had a number of roll tables prepared with rumours (for both successful and unsuccessful checks), news broadcasts and advertising. I was planning on feeding these to the players, but they didn’t quite fit into the flow of the session as I’d expected, so they didn’t get used much. But I have several D66 tables, a mix of stuff from the Milieu 0 campaign book, some hints from Gemini plus my own ideas. So it’s not something I can make available. But one example:

Crime figures for the last year have fallen sharply. Emperor Cleon has increased funding for the Capital Police Services. This has allowed a crack down on criminal elements within the Underbelt. At the latest count, five of the major criminal gangs have been dismantled and their leaders are in gaol.

Critics say that a grass roots effort to improve the living standards within the Underbelt, by opening up the empty apartments for habitation, has had a larger impact on crime, by bringing prospects for jobs and housing back to the area.

After a few days, it was time to head to KGG Corp and work out the agreement for the purchase of their new ship – a Frontier class Laboratory ship. This is a modified version of the Lab ship, better designed for wilderness exploration. They met a Bwap, and signed the papers for the purchase, mortgage and monthly payments. They would have most of their costs covered – up to Cr400,000 a month – as long as they agreed to a two year voyage of discovery.

It would start with a six system shakedown cruise, to give the players an opportunity to figure out how the system worked and the type of things they wanted to do, the characters an opportunity to try out the ship and make sure it worked, and the company fronting the costs a chance to make sure the team were competent.

I’d set up a scene with the deck plans of their ship (which was named the Big Sphincter, or simply the Big S), with walls and doors plus teleport points to move between the various levels and from one end to the other. I don’t expect this to be used much, but it hopefully gives them an idea of where their characters will be living for the next two years, and allows them to claim rooms and other things.

The main mission will take them into Fornast sector, but the initial shakedown will take them to Shaaak, Khishnar, Miium, Iirkkhu, Medishvlaas, Nirinirk and then back to Sylea. I have a small map set up in a scene, which allows the players to click on worlds to bring up their details.

I’m hoping that the shakedown cruise will provide an opportunity to try different types of scenarios to give me an idea of how they react to them. It will also (I hope) give them some direction on what their options are for dealing with different scenarios. Though these worlds are more civilised than the ones they may encounter in Fornast, the principles should be similar.

There was time for the Travellers to do some shopping, and find out a bit about the worlds. I’m trying to provide a number of options for each world, and working in the Travellers’ contacts from their past into it as well. But now was a good place to stop for the evening, so the start of the mission can begin next week.