# [Traveller d20] The Traveller Adventure:Memoirs from the Crew (updated 1/12!)



## Broccli_Head (Feb 20, 2003)

_I am running the Traveller Adventure from classic Traveller and it really works well with T20 rules. Improvisation is very easy. I also started the adventure 9 or 10 years from when it is supposed to start (1114 v 1104/5) after the 5th Frontier War. _

So now, on with the tale!

* from The Traveller Adventure:*_ Memoirs of a Merchant 
Captain...and His Crew_
         ---Traveller's Aide Society Press, 1116

*Leedor on Aramis: 001 to 013-1114*

_All our trouble began with that stupid Vargr!

You know, I just wanted to spend a quite two weeks on Aramis while our fat trader, the _March Harrier_ underwent her annual maintenance. The Doc and his wife were taking a vacation from the rest of us surly louts to catch up on their marriage. Kigu' was overseeing the work on the ship. The rest of the crew were on holiday--paid of course. Looking back, maybe I should have made myself unavailable as well. 

You would think that grown men could stay out of trouble, but what do you expect from a bunch of ex-grunts. The two weeks would have been uneventful and even boring, even with the spectacular crash of the Akerut freighter _Mammoth_ and the subsequent villification of their very incompentent engineer, Jelika Chan, and even with Holiday celebrations with the Marquis waving to us from the balcony. The excitement would have been Lou, Tito, and I gambling at TAS. Of course, I am sure we are now blacklisted.

It all would have been routine, but then Gvouzdon walked into our lives. About day two, Vincent and Tito first saw our troublesome friend. He was getting kicked out of the local museum for causing a stir like most Vargr are apt to do when they don't get their way. Later that evening my heroic crew intervened in the break up of a mugging. Surprise! It was the Vargr! 

I would have walked on or at least called the authorities. Ex-military takes things into their own hands, I guess. Doc tells me that he was pretty messed up when they brought him in. Vincent suffered some cracked ribs, but the thugs got away. Predictably, Doc wasn't too upset. I'm sure Rani was. I would have been. He's always been a sucker for a lost cause. The rest of us, thanks to the events that occured, have joined the club.

Even after he bit Lou in some weird Vargr power play. Even after Al smacked him across the snout with the but of his ACR, they didn't throw him out. So much for the captain being the authority on his ship. Lou and Al, amidst my protests, even broke into the museum to steal this brooch that the Vargr said belonged to him. So now we're in a heap of trouble, and we're not (rather we can't) going (go) back to Aramis anytime soon. It gets worse.

The last day Lou, Tito, and I were relaxing at TAS. Gvouzdon tagged along. Bad idea. I was lucky to get out of there with my life!

Tito saw the trouble at the entrance to the lounge first and informed Lou. We checked for the Vargr. He was missing. Lou rushed to the fresher. I heard two BANGS! and a howl or growl, and then a blood-curdling scream. 

It was surreal: Baron Tito rises to his full height and brandishes his pistol. The thug at the door runs with Tito chasing after him. Lou comes out with a bloody Gvouzdon in his arms. The Vargr's mouth drips blood...(Lou later told me that Gvouzdon had torn out the thigh of thug #1 before passing out). I gagged. Then I heard two more gunshots from outside. 

Lou said something like, "Let's get out of here!" 

I radioed Kigu and Al back at the ship to start prepping for a quick take-off. Fortunately, the transfer and cargo loading had gone smoothly and my crack crew had already gained permission to leave etc, etc. As if they had predicted trouble...

Anyway, we ran out of TAS. I saw Tito drop some heavy creds on the cowering maitre d' and we took off towards the shipyards. Outside, I saw a heavyset, older gentleman standing over the body of thug #2. Two holes had been blasted in his chest. I made a command decision. 

"Need a ride offworld?" I motioned to the body. 

Mr. Atari (that's what he said his name was) shrugged his shoulders.

"Let me just get my things."

"Meet us at Berthing A17!" 

Then I hustled after Lou and Tito.

**

Dude met us and we took off, placing the Cause-or-all-our-trouble in a low berth. I really, really thought seriously about jettisoning him into space once we headed towards 100d, but I think I was too stymied by the other surprise. 

Rani, at first to my joy, had found a high passenger to add 10K to our coffers. She said he was an old friend of her's and the Doc's. Great, I thought, another Vargr. It was worse. 

Epetlatl is his name and he's a ******* Zhodani! I haven't taken my psionic shield helmet off since I found out. 

I think I'm losing control of my crew!_
======

_First officer's addendum: 

The captain had to be sedated shortly after take-off. Apparently, the events at the TAS hostel, our new high passenger, and the dialog with the custom's cutter, which Baron Tito handled splendidly, was too much for Captain Lenard. Dr. Chevalier gave him something to calm down.  _

*All place names, world data, etc  are borrowed from _The Traveller Adventure_ by Marc Miller for inspiration in this campaign log; copyright 1983 by Game Designer's Workshop


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## wsclark (Feb 20, 2003)

Man, this brings back memories. I ran this adventure monthly for years, torturing my players all the way through it. It was probably the best adventure campaign we ever had. I'm glad to see someone else running it and am looking forward to seeing a lot more.

There are some interesting articles over on the Freelance Traveller pages, including nasty things to keep in mind especially on Pysadi  Look for stories by Ken Bearden.


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## Broccli_Head (Feb 20, 2003)

wsclark said:
			
		

> *nasty things to keep in mind especially on Pysadi  *




Was the pun (my italics) intentional!? 

Thanks for the encouragement. One thing I love about Traveller is the load of web resources out there...and the gearheadedness!

I will definitely browse that stuff. 

BTW, I haven't heard from you for a while. I was really enjoying your  Kalamar adv log. I saw that it hasn't been updated since _August!_


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## Broccli_Head (Feb 20, 2003)

*from The Traveller Adventure:*_ Memoirs of a Merchant Captain...and His Crew_
---Traveller's Aide Society Press, 1116

*Astrogator's Log: Aramis*

_My shoulder is still sore from where Gvouzdon bit me. Poor Vargr. Even though he is a bit rash, I still like him. 

I have to document for my own records the strange case of Roet Bannerji captain of the _Wolbutn_. I have a very strong feeling we'll run into him again. Call it good old Vilani Intuition. Algesh' and Kigu' agree. We found his wallet. It had the strangest itinerary. We returned it and then he leaves offworld right away leaving us hanging at dinner. It gets stranger. The next day some Naval Intelligence guy trying to be all slick tries to hire me to spy on B. I saw right through his cover story. I have run into too many Intel in my time especially on ?????.

I recall saying to him:

--Mr. Giilaan, the Imperial Navy might still sign your paychecks, but it doesn't sign mine. Make me a better offer. 

Fortunately, unlike most Naval Intelligence, he was quick. So now we see if we run into Bannerji again. 

Also, unlike the rest of the crew, I believe the brooch that Gvouzdon wanted so desperately to recover, is more important than it seems. Tukera was looking for it. Algesh' and I found a note stating such. Not even Kigu' could figure out if there was more to the jewelry than what was obvious, however. While Gvouz' recovers, I am holding on to the brooch.

Next stop Natoko.  _


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## wsclark (Feb 21, 2003)

The absolute best place to start for Traveller resources would be The Traveller Web Portal. You can find the Freelance Traveller Pages from there as well as a wealth of other sites.

As for my story hour, I am way, way behind. I was writing them up at lunch time at work, but work got so busy that it fell to the wayside. The group is still playing and we are on the verge of finishing the trilogy of adventures. Actually, the group is at the point where they are going to confront the evil wizard Daresh to destroy the Coin of Power she has.

The only problem is she has taken over a castle and all the lands belong to the owner. She is in the process of conquering the adjacent lands using gnolls, hobgoblins and flying hobgoblins (she created). The castle that need to assault lies about a half mile from a large woods, which is where the group is. It is also on a plateau, covering the entire 200 x 300 feet of the top. The plateau is 550 x 450 feet in size and rises up to 75 feet to the flat area covered by the castle. The is a camp to the east of the main gate that has an estimate of 400 gnolls. There is a shanty town to the south that has hobgoblins in it (they don't know there are 200 women and children there). There are 12 guards at all times patroling the ramparts between the 8 towers. They have seen 2 patrols of 10 gnolls each come from the west gate (opposite the woods where they are and the only other gate into the place) about every hour or two.

What they don't know is each tower contains another 10 gnolls and there are a total of 200 gnolls inside the castle walls (including the towers). They are at the point (the 6 of them) of planning what they are going to do. We have been playing on Thursday evenings for about 3 hours each session. I have arranged with everyone to perform this climatic battle on Sunday March 2nd. We will be starting about 10AM and going to the finish (probably around 5 or 6PM)

I am planning on this being a really special event. We usually play in our dining room on the table there. I am not going to allow them into the room when everyone arrives because I'm am building the castle to scale from paper models from worldworks (which I found mentioned in the General forum). The castle itself will be as wide as the table (42") and almost as long (62"). Also, the keep itself inside the castle walls will be built from my collection of Master Maze dungeon pieces, all four floors as well as the roof and dungeon below. This will all be sitting on top of a green flock mat from geohex as the base. I have 36 pre-painted minis of orcs from Dwarven Forge that I'm using as gnolls for the setup as well. All of this will be in battle scale, 1" = 5'.

Now, as I mentioned, I'm not letting them see this at first. I want to surprise them. When they first arrive, they need to finalize their plans. So, in addition to the above setup, I am making another scale model of the entire area around the castle, including the castle on a 36" round table in my den. This is where they will plan their assault. I will have the plateau shown as well as the castle, the shanty town, the gnoll camp and trees. I'm going to use my kids lego bricks to build the castle. The scale will be 1" = 32'.

I'm really looking forward to doing this, I just hope I can finish it in time. I will get back to the writeups soon as work has finally calmed down and I'll have time again to write them up.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to more of this adventure.


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## Broccli_Head (Feb 21, 2003)

Bill that all sounds great!

 You gotta share how it all goes down.  

You wouldn't happen to have a digital camera to take pictures and then attach them, would you?


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## wsclark (Feb 21, 2003)

No, I don't. But some of my players do and I'm going to ask them to bring the cameras with them. I also have another friend who can do photo touch ups so that a few of the minis that are not painted can be.

I'm going to be real busy this coming week. In order to build the castle, I need 64 pages of print-outs, cut and glued together. I would love to do it behind my wife's back (since she is one of the players) but I don't think I will be able to  Maybe I'll enlist her help as well as my son and daughter. At least I have most of the planning done at this point, now I just have to put everything together.

It should be great, especially since this campaign has been running so far for about a year and a half. Well, enough about me, I'll return you to your story hour.

I really want to see how the engineer is played. My best friend played him in our campaign as a scottish man (not like Scotty from Star Trek!) who happened to have a fetish with sheep. He managed to get into lots of interesting trouble from time to time.


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## Broccli_Head (Feb 21, 2003)

the engineer is an 'ol crusty...you gotta read his bio in the Rogue's Gallery (check out the sig!)

Kigumishi Mamu is his name. Fixin' Jump drives with duct tape (TL-9) is his game!


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## Broccli_Head (Apr 16, 2003)

*story thaw-out*

*from The Traveller Adventure:*_ Memoirs of a Merchant Captain...and His Crew_
---Traveller's Aide Society Press, 1116


*Natoko to Patinir: 021-039:1114*

(Due to the continued deterioration of the Captain Lenard's sanity during these last few weeks, 1st Officer Algeshshakirkhi Khudelamishikhar has taken over log duties and together with  Luudakirurikek Gaakhir have assumed joint command of the ship)

_First Officer's Log:

Well it looked like a good deal, but it was not.  If I return to Natoko, I will certainly have a conversation with that broker. Luu talked me into upgrading our ship so that we could have "longer legs". In effect, we purchased a poor man's jump-2.  Those fuel tanks even take away cargo space!

To use the old Solomani expression, "He played us."  to haul cargo for free in exchange for "giving" us these tanks. The result: we had to buy twice as much fuel with a nearly empty hold.

On this last trip from Natoko to Patinir we lost 120,000 Imperial credits! 

And we made dire enemies.  

I am beginning to agree with Captain Lenard. All our trouble started with Gvouzdon. I can not overstate what has become an irrefutable fact. As we head towards the Trojan Points here in the Patinir Belt, we are only a jump or two ahead of Tukera. We have learned thanks to the incredible help of our new Ship's Security Officer, Mr. Atari, that Tukera have sent the Vemene on our trail.  We learned that the men we killed on Aramis were household guards for the Marquis of Aramis. The Vargr is a wanted being probably throughout the subsector.

Atari and Dr. Chevalier are proposing to do all they can to change transponder codes and signals once we reach port, but that will only delay. Vincent reported that on Natoko, a Tukera fast courier _Wasp_ was brimming with Tukera agents. Fortunately, he did not engage. Atari caused a ship and station shut down as we left, but again that will only delay the inevitable.  They also tried to infiltrate my ship....

[a pause]

I had to use extreme prejudice to stop the invader. Kigu' has promised me that all trace and evidence has been incinerated, but we had to scrub the lounge for nearly a week to remove all the blood.  By the Great Mountains of Khushan! This just adds to my list of worries. Thank the Maker for the shugilli!

Even though he has pushed my buttons and tested his abilities at our expense, Epetslatl has "joined" the crew. Like Baron Tito, he is a paying passenger and apparently has the wealth to continue on board, like the Baron. 

The incident happened in the lounge, which is fast becoming action central on board. Epetslatl tried to cause me to fear, a concept foreign to my people. Fear is a disease! Instead, his experiment encited an adrenalin rush. I was in the Zhodani's face in no time. No wonder their commando's feared us!

Vincent was there by my side, quickly drawing his cutlass. Epetslatl, with a thought tore it from his grasp and buried it into the bulkhead. Mr. Atari, who had quickly become the Zhodani's friend, pulled Epetslatl back and Baron Tito calmed me down. I gained a respect for the mind-controlling Zhodani noble that day. 

Thus, the lastest incident has gave me tremendous pause.  The faulty calculations of our astrogator, Luudakirurikek Gaakhir caused us to misjump. It was a horrible, gut-wrenching experience that gave all of us uncontrollable nausea and many of us vomited and wretched the whole time.  In the daze and confusion, Epetslatl barged into the bridge crying, "She'll kill us! She'll kill us all!" 

Then he shot Luu. Fortunately, the laser blast only tore into his shoulder (and not the one that the Vargr had bitten). We quickly subdued the Zhodani and placed him in a low berth. When we exited jump, fortunately within the Patinir system, the chronometers reset and Luu proclaimed that his brilliant plot had save us three days. Wiping the meal of the day from our vacc suits and instrument panels, we all glared at him. 

It is a good thing that Luu does not get lost in real space also._


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## Zen_Pollo (Apr 17, 2003)

*Woot!*

Mr. Atari indeed...I wonder who that is...


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## Broccli_Head (Apr 17, 2003)

edited the post from yesterday...actually adding some story


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## Dawn (Apr 18, 2003)

Reading this brings back many memories.  It has been looonnngg time since I’ve played Traveller.  Whoa, 18 years actually.  All those little black books are stored somewhere upstairs.

It’s good to read about it again.  Keep posting!


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## Broccli_Head (Apr 18, 2003)

Hey Dawn! 

Nice to have you on board....I am wanting to post Epetslatl to the Rogue's Gallery soon.

The players have left Patinir after a very interesting encounter and have gotten into even MORE trouble in the next planetfall...

I love your sig quote. I told it to my girlfriend (who is a redhead) and she got a great kick out of it!


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## Dawn (Apr 18, 2003)

I’ve spent the morning following the links mentioned in the previous posts.  I had totally forgotten about playing Fifth Frontier War.  God, that was long game!  I remember starting to play Traveller in eighth grade.  I got the deluxe boxed set so I would have the entire map of the Spinward Marches.  On the cover of the box was the distress call from the trader Beowulf.  That was the same time my English teacher (my mother at the time) was having us read the epic Beowulf.  

Amazing at what memories come back looking through the links.....


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## Broccli_Head (May 22, 2003)

Haven't played T20 for some time as one of our principles (the player who runs Epestlatl) is in Iraq. 

However, I have been promised a log from the events in the Patinir Belt and then the Pysadian Escapade....where we halted. 

Can't promise anything soon, however....


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## pogre (Jul 1, 2003)

Good stuff - man I really enjoyed Traveller! With Bloomington, IL just down the road we used to snatchup everything that came out of GDW! Hope you guys resume soon.


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## Broccli_Head (Aug 20, 2003)

Well Epetslatl is back...so I'll have to post his stats in the Gallery...but here's an idea I stole from Morte. The Subsector Map where our adv's are taking place...


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## Broccli_Head (Aug 25, 2003)

Note: I also posted *Epletsatl* to the Rogue's Gallery!

_from *The Traveller Adventure: Memoirs of a Merchant Captain...and His Crew*_
---Traveller's Aide Society Press, 1116


*Patinir System: 039-048:1114*

_Medical Officer's Log:

I am ashamed if I ever had a doubt about the nobility of Baron Tito von Moonwalker.  I have seen too many so-called 'nobles' in my day abuse their position and lord over the weak. On 045:1114, the Baron showed what _noblesse oblige_ truly means.... 

Baseru cheated us. I have no doubt about that, but while he was a crook and the Answerin has declared vengeance, his contact on Trojan Alpha, Ghan Siverens, is a man of integrity. As a shareholder aboard the _Harrier_ even I could feel the pinch and the tension from our heavy loss taking the cargo from Natoko to Patinir. I have talked to Luu about consulting the board next time before he makes such deals. In any case, Siverens bailed us out by brokering for us, free of charge, while we ran some of the mining supplies for him to the belters further in the asteroid belt. His supply shuttle was overdue. 

It took us four days to haul it in real space to its destination. The asteroid miners were very greatful and, Rani, Eps and I even ran physicals for the forty or so inhabitants and their families.  The belters were very grateful and did not even mind the Zhodani helping out. On the return, we found the shuttle.  

From the outside, we could see that it had run across some trouble.  Al', Gvoudzon, and at first to my surprise, Baron Tito, volunteered to board the wreck.  We detected severe levels of radiation and as they explored the ship, their uplinks showed us severe battle damage. The drives had been compromised and were showering the ship with uncontrollable dirty emissions. At first we thought that the shuttle maybe had been powered by a primitive fission reactor, however, Luu and Kigu' determined after a quick analysis of the electromagnetic spectra, that whatever pirate had attacked the unarmed shuttle, had used particle accelerators, fusion guns, or illegally, a nuclear missle at very close range.  

With their vacc suits, our crewmembers would not last long at those levels. We told them to tread carefully and hurriedly. Al and Gvouzdon soon returned, afraid of the lack of structual integrity as well as the radioactivity.  Gvouzdon had already taken more rads than was healthy. It was here where the Baron shined. He refused to leave until the ship had been thoroughly searched.

For a short moment we lost contact as stray EM interfered with his commlink. Al was about to jump back across when Tito chimed in, his breath ragged as he staggered out from the air lock of the damaged craft.

"Found a live one," he declared, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. 

The Baron soon passed out as we rushed him and the survivor to sick bay.

Unfortunately, the survivor passed away on the return trip. He already had extensive tissue and cellular damage. It was beyond repair. How he had hung on for so long, on mimimal life support is a miracle. Perhaps he held on with just enough will so that he could communicate to us, who had attacked him and his ship. 

Before he died  he muttered one word: *Wolblutn*.

================

First Officer's Log:

Add another enemy to our ever growing list. 

Roget Bannerji is now being hunted by the crew of the _March Harrier_ even if there is no bounty. 

Declare it througout the Marches! 

The Maker help him if we catch up to him in the near future. 

Siverns vouched for us as we were debriefed by Port Authority over our find of the derelict shuttle and the good broker had found us a hefty cargo to make up for Luudakirurikek's bad decision.  We soon jumped to our next destination: Pysadi, ladden with cargo. Hopefully it will offset our need to purchase a double fuel load for our "Jump-2". We need to upgrade our drives as soon as possible...

At Patinir, I gained a deep respect and admiration for Baron Tito. The Imperium is in good hands if all Scouts feel the same way as the Baron. He did not show fear in a situation where death was possible.  As he recovered I asked him why he had done what he had. 

He replied: "There is an old Antarean saying: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one."

Then he smiled as Dr. Chevalier administered another cocktail of healing serum and nanites to his dosage-damaged body. 
_


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## honorwolf (Aug 26, 2003)

Outstanding.  I cannot wait to play again.  This time we make more profit and none of this "pro bono" stuff.  I am tired of picking up "another pathetic lifeform."  Or so to speak.  We need more paying passengers and high profit cargo.  Man, the captain needs to call in a few favors and get us some more profit.  
Now if we can just keep Luu from gambling so much and just stay on friendly terms with the port authorities, then we can stay a head of the game.


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## Broccli_Head (Aug 26, 2003)

Here's a great picture I found on line of a Subsidized Merchant...the "Cargo Van" of space that is the _March Harrier_

You can imagine that this is the _Harrier_ heading out towards 100 diameters from Aramis...

Here's the Legal stuff:

Copyright © 1999 Vision Forge Graphics, All Rights Reserved.  Steve Jackson Games, Gurps:Traveller, and any of their titles are Copyright © 1999 by Steve Jackson Games, All Rights Reserved.  Traveller is Copyright © 1977-1999 by Far Future Enterprises.   Some images on this site are Copyright by artists other than myself.  No infringement is intended.


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## Morte (Aug 26, 2003)

For a cargo van, it looks kind of mean... 

They should paint a couple of rows of teeth under the "eyes".


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## Broccli_Head (Aug 27, 2003)

*March Harrier Logo*

So I also made a Logo for the crew using Corel Draw. 

On the ship is is painted on the rear just above the wings, and there is a smaller one on the launch. I post the badges next!


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## honorwolf (Aug 28, 2003)

Man, oh man!  That merchant ship looks cool.  I know we repainted our ship. we should add teeth to it, and a few more weapon pods,and upgrade to Jump 3,and we are rocking.  I look forward to exploring the space lanes again.  We need more profit.  The captain needs to work harder.  We are going to make a profit on our wood, but still we need better merchandise to hawk around.  We shall see, if our next endeavor is successful.


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## Broccli_Head (Aug 28, 2003)

Oops! Trouble with boards...and unable to place attachment


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## Broccli_Head (Aug 28, 2003)

Now for the badges!


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## Hatchling Dragon (Sep 2, 2003)

[*Edit:* Ok, so the new format confused me. I miss-took the 'user joined' date as the post date'. Doh!] 

Hatchling Dragon


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## Broccli_Head (Sep 2, 2003)

Hatchling Dragon said:
			
		

> [*Edit:* Ok, so the new format confused me. I miss-took the 'user joined' date as the post date'. Doh!]
> 
> Hatchling Dragon




But at least I got a BUMP out of it!


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## Broccli_Head (Dec 8, 2003)

*we finally played again!*

* from The Traveller Adventure:*_ Memoirs of a Merchant 
Captain...and His Crew_
         ---Traveller's Aide Society Press, 1116


*En Route to Zila System: 72:1114*

_First Officer's log:

We have been on the run for some time and I am continuing to regret taking on the Vagr as a shipmate.  But a shipmate he is and therefore me must continue to protect and support him.  Still, Captain Lenard is right.  He is nothing but trouble.  Run-ins with Tukera are multiplying in spades.  Assuredly, they are only a jump behind us, despite all of the work Mr. Atari, our security chief, has done to derail their pursuit. I still do not know what the megacorp is after but I know that they are up to no good.  Luudakirurikek suspects they are after Gvoudzon, (the aforementioned Vargr), and his enigmatic brooch. 

The crew are coming together just fine.  Our morale has been even higher with the addition of Mr. Atari as Security officer and Epetslatl.  He and the Zhodani have hit it off very well as if they had been lifelong friends. Epetslatl is always smiling and cheery, though he has no official position and keeps paying his High Passage he is our defacto morale officer. As for Mr. Atari, I respect his paronia and skills but he is a little callous at time, in regards to human life.  He and Dr. Chevalier have made an amazing disovery, however. In attempting to hack into and change the ship's transponder to further confound our pursuers, they found that the chip houses a "low sapient AI" [Dr. Chevalier's term]. They have dubbed it "Hal" and tell me they are programming it to lie. "It has the equivalent intelligience of a dog," says Mr. Atari, "but slowly we are 'teaching' it."  Then he smiled sinisterly.

Anyway, on to more recent events. We have escaped Pysadi with our 2nd officer and navigator.  Lt. Luudakirurikek Gaakhir.  It seems that for all our efforts in getting cargo in Pysadi, we will still take a loss.  Initially, there was no cargo to be had.  We lost out once again to another Tukera subsidary. However, We managed to organize an expedition to the interior to  to harvest some rare woods on the planet that could fetch a high price off-world. The people were friendly, cooperative, and deeply religious worshipping something they called the Great Mother. 

On the final day of harvesting the wood, Luudakirurikek and I were camping out at the site.  Several primate-like creatures that the natives called anolas began hollering and raising a ruckus, and for a brief second it was as if they were talking to us. I almost swear I heard a voice in my ear saying, "Look out! Predator!"  (Incidentally, these creatures had been hanging out with us for the week or so that we had been harvesting the exotic woods.) 

Within seconds, some sort of large, native, forest cat had pounced upon Luudakirurikek. It began to maul him severely, and it would have ate the both of us if it was not for my training and the Answerin battle call.  Long story short:  Forest cat versus Imperial Marine + Cutlass = Cat stew and an nice floor rug.  The great cat was quick and agile and strong.  Luckily I had my cutlass and managed to slay the creature.  I wish it did not have to come to that, but it sure did taste good if not a bit tough.  Somehow the family group of  anolas calmed  Luudakirurikek and stabilized him, preventing him from going into shock.  It was strange. They had descended for the trees, and had calmly put there little paws on him and were humming.  I kid you not.  After that, even with Luudakirurikek saved, things just got much worse.  We stayed up there a day more to let him recover while I managed some basic trauma care.  

When we came down from the mountain back to the village, with the anolas in tow. (They seemed quite attached to Luudakirurikek, so they came with us.  Why would we not want them with us.  After all, the anolas had saved our lives!)  The people who had been friendly to us before were now staying away from us as if we had contracted some disease.  When we confronted Jamuss ( a native whom we had befriended).  He warned us away and said , "If you were ever our friends get away now."  So we left and took the train back to the main settlement, Itzeny.  

There, we were surrounded and threatened. Apparently, the anolas were sacred animals of the Great Mother. Only a priest could touch them. The sentence for a lay person who broke that law was death. However, they gave us a choice. Luudakirurikek who had bonded to the anolas, could chose to be a holyman of their faith. He would remain on Pysadi where he would live the rest of his days. 

At gun point (they had a total of three revolvers among them) they told us to leave.  When we resisted, they removed our filter masks and we all quickly succumbed to the tainted atmosphere and passed out.  When we awoke we were on a train back to Sadi and the main starport. Mr. Atari was inscensed. He wanted to go back and wipe out the village. Even our cargo-bus could do that, he told us. These were peaceful people I reminded the crew and especially Mr. Atari.  True, we could have killed them and left with Luudakirurikek but it would have been a slaugther.  "Soldiers deserve soldiers."  

In defense of the Pysadian people, they were fair. The harvested wood that we had worked so hard to collect was shipped with us by train and even loaded onto our ship. The favor did come with a stern warning to "Never come back to Pysadi." But not liking the idea of leaving one of our own behind, coupled with the fact that only the starport had any means to stop us or even detect us, we decided to do a night op.  

We left planetside with our cargo, cleared starport and used the Launch to sneak back onto planet.  Epestatl, Atari, Vincent, and I landed near Itzeny. Epstatl and Atari, with tranq rounds in their firearms proceeded stealthly into the main compound of where Luudakirurikekwas being kept a gilded prisoner.  The Op was a success and we recovered our willing and able navigator with no trouble 

(note: Lu seemed drowsy and drugged when we recovered him.  I am wondering if the natives had given him a healthy dose of their atmosphere to keep him sedated and affect his memory.  He insists that it was the after-effects of the tranq rounds that Atari had pumped into him when he questioned wanting to leave.  This I doubt. Dr. Chevalier has assured me that here are no lasting side-effects from tranq rounds.)

We left with Lu explained to the captain it is not kidnapping a holy man but we were rescuing member of our crew.  It was in fact they the natives who were kidnapping.  I am sure interstellar law will see it our way on this one, but just to be safe, we will not be returning to Pysadi in the near future.  

Despite all our precautions we were noticed. Fortunately, we were already in orbit and en route to 100d for jump, before any action could be taken, and to delay any pursuit even further, Gvoudzon proved his usefulness in talking down one of the Vagr traders in the starport who were being pressured by the local government to come and get us.  The other Vargr captain wanted compensation to not chase us, but sometimes you have to know how to talk to them. I blustered and rose to my full height on the screen, getting the captain of the trader to tuck his tail between his legs. How is that for diplomacy?

With this accomplished we set our jump coordinates to Zila. Despite it being an amber zone, it was the only choice.  The other system in range was the interdicted Lewis system, owned by Tukera.  Fuel is expensive and without cargo to sell we are losing money. We will have to start dipping into our shadow fund, if things do not start to turn around.  That would delay neccesary upgrades. Soldiering was so much more simple.

According to Rani kai Lani's books we lost 20 KCr in that last venture. I doubt we will be able to unload our 36 tons of exotic wood in Zila, another backwater world, but hopefully our luck will change. _


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## Broccli_Head (Dec 8, 2003)

above post edited for clarity...


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## Morte (Dec 9, 2003)

B_H, you're updating less than me. Shame on you. Still, it was fun.


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## pogre (Dec 9, 2003)

I agree, update more often Broc - this is a ton of fun!


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## Broccli_Head (Dec 9, 2003)

Thanks for the encouragement. We played for the first time since before the Iraq War last weekend. One of our players (Epetslatl) was sent to Kuwait and now he's been back. Cool thing is, everyone forgot how fun Traveller was... so it looks like we will be playing again soon. Got one more Port of Call to write up. 

Incidentally, I posted Mr. Atari in the Gallery


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## Broccli_Head (Dec 10, 2003)

* from The Traveller Adventure:*_ Memoirs of a Merchant 
Captain...and His Crew_
         ---Traveller's Aide Society Press, 1116

*Port of Call: Zila*

_Captain's Log:

Missed me? I know that I have been away, but I feel so much better now. We made some money!

Did I ever mention how much I love my crew? All of them are experts in their field and could be teaching at a prestigious university or military academy or leading some Imperial megacorp's subsector or even sector's interest. How I got them to join the _Harrier_, only Dieux knows. However, they do have a knack for attracting trouble, but this time that trouble seems to have become a blessing in disguise. The turn of events gave me such a warm feeling that I even smiled at the Zhodani. He's not so bad after all. And those anolas are kinda cute, too. 

On Zila, we had to land onworld where the best fuel they had was water from a nearby lake. I can't believe that they charged us for this, but with the law level so high on that planet, it would have been supremely foolish to do some wilderness refueling. Even with their low technology, I'd heard that a far trader was blasted with some type of long range projectile without warning, and the suprised crew were thrown in prison for nearly a year until the parent company could come and bail them out. So, we paid. 

I stayed on board trying to find cargo from this backwater, but guess what? There was none. Their principal export, fine Zilan wine, was shippped exclusively by Tukeran subsidary Akerut. We were out of luck with a partial hold full of petrified wood. I warned them, but Mr. Atari, Vincent, Al and Epestlatl went out on the town--a prescription for disaster if you ask me. 

Atari, Vincent, and the Zhodani came back. Al had been incarcerated for starting a brawl. Fortunately, they had all paid to keep a law firm on retainer (a neccessity on a world that restricted most of your personal freedoms), so hopefully, Al would get out the next day, but he would have to pay some fines. Atari related that the fight had been between Akerut employees and the crew of the slow hauler _Margin of Profit_ owned by Oberlindes, Inc. Like us, Oberlindes was trying to gain inroads in the region amidst a near-monopoly by Tukera, LIC and its subsidaries. Al apparently took offense when they insulted our ship and jumped in on the side of Oberlindes. Vincent smiled as he told me that his fellow marine had knocked in more than a few heads. I shook my head. The last thing we needed was more bad PR with anything Tukera. 

But here's where it gets good. Apparently, the _MoP_ was giving old man Oberlindes himself a lift to Aramanx. He and his chief assistant were moving their subsector  offices to a more populated world and the ship that they were on had broken down on this backwater world and was grounded for at least another five weeks waiting for parts. Because Al helped out his employees, the old man bailed him out, paid his fees, and then asked if we could accomodate him and his assistant and 50 tons of equipment and data. He also said that he would pay for the whole cargo hold (150 tons!).  I said yes right away even when I found out that his assistant was another Vargr. I even gave him my stateroom.  We had to reshuffle the crew a bit, but we've gotten along so well the last few weeks, that the cramped conditions will be no sweat. 

Marc hault-Oberlindes wants us to get there fast, and Aramanx is three jumps away. Lou suggests that we can refuel at one of the gas giants in the Carsten system and then jump out. I hope this goes without a hitch. We've already gotten back in the black with the old man's up front money, and on Aramanx we can finally get rid of that wood $$$! Finally, we will get to a world that actually has an economy. I think that our luck is finally turning around._


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## honorwolf (Dec 11, 2003)

Righteous of the Captain to start smiling again.  I feared we were going to drive the oldman into a catatonic state.  WE ARE IN THE BLACK!!!  Whopee.  The brawl was worth it.  Imperial Marines lead the way!  Hoah!!!  By the way, no one insults my ship, with out paying the price!


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## Broccli_Head (Dec 11, 2003)

*from The Traveller Adventure: *_Memoirs of a Merchant 
Captain...and His Crew_
---Traveller's Aide Society Press, 1116


_Security Officer's log stardate 5.635.75*

< It seems strange to be writing this... Me in the employ of a ship run by ex imperial marines. If someone had told me this even a year ago I would have laughed and had them put under survelliance as a possible subversive element. Times were so much simpler then, I almost wish I hadn't discovered "them".> 

Well, the past aside, this is where I have found myself for the moment, best to focus on the tasks at hand. The one bright spot is that wherever the _ Neptune**_ goes she seems to attract trouble, heh. On Pysadi we were gathering rare wood to try and lighten the losses of an otherwise fruitless stop over when the natives got an eyefull of Luu with some strange little lemur-like creatures climbing all over him... The natural conclusion of course is that Luu must be sacred and they should lock him up in a monestary for the rest of his natural life. Doesn't make any sense, does it? It didn't to me either. 

Needless to say when it came time to rescue Luu (he is apparently the only one among the crew who can calculate jump co-ords) the crew were rather indecisive. My original plan was to fly the ship in low over the village and flash the thrusters to flatten the nearby buildings, disorienting the locals. Al and I would then drop down while the Vargr and Vincent lay down supression fire from the ships guns and grab Luu. Bing! Bang! Boom! My calculations told me we'd be in and out less than 120 seconds. Al felt this was to extreme, it seems he didn't want to hurt any of the local populace. < I shake my head in wonder at how the Imperial scum ever subjugated the proud people of the Solomani with such obvious weakness towards one's foes, I believe it will be the Achille's heel that will one day allow my people to escape the wicked yoke of the Third Imperium. > 

Eventually we decided to take the skiff down to the village from orbit for a night-op. Al and Vincent stayed at the skiff in a clearing a few clicks to the east of the objective as Epestlatl and myself made our way to the monastary where Luu was being held. It seems that my dear friend is extremely talented being able to affect and read minds as well as being able to teleport oneself and a companion < if we had had even one of his kind on our side in Sol-Sec we could have changed everything  >. We quickly made our way to the target, Epestlatl scanned the building and with some effort determined that Luu was in fact beign held in a room on the first floor not far from us. I quietly climbed the courtyard wall and positioned myself outside the outer door leading into the hallway nearest Luu's room. Briefly, I considered just opening the door and rolling a H.E. grenade down the hall to clear out any unwanted visitors. Only the uncertainty of whether the walls inside could withstand such a blast and the thought of having to listen to Al ramble on about "Soldiers deservin' Soldiers" <sentimentalist Imperial dogma. > But I digress, I decided that the best course of action was to just tranq the guard and rescue Luu. As always with this group though something had to go wrong. In this case it was that drunkard Luu. He decided that maybe the life of a monk was in fact his true calling. After mayhaps 6 seconds of his crazy talk I put a group of four tranq darts into his forehead. After that things went much smoother and the rest of the extraction was actually rather enjoyable. I decided to bring the lemur-like creatures along as they had become rather fond of our navigator and I'm sure the Doctor would be most appreciative. The funniest part was once we returned with Luu back to the Neptune he began to ramble on still half drugged about how I had shot him, heheh.  I told them he was merely suffering ill effects from his brief exposure to the planets atmosphere, I think that he even believes it. He even claims that he was instantly transported by the Zhodani to the ship. Heheh...I think that the combination of the tranq rounds and the planet's atmosphere caused him to hallucinate. 

The only other item of note worth reporting from a security officer's perspective, aside from Al's drunken bar brawl, is the mysterious incident with the Tukera ship that was docked there along with us and the Oberlindes vessel. It seems that while they were insulting our ship and assaulting our 1st Officer they should have been paying more attention to their reactor core. Luckily, the spaceport's computers detected the problem before it was to late. The station ordered the ships reactor taken offline untill a replacement part could arrive, though that will seemingly take weeks and cost them thousands of credits in lost income. The irony of it struck me as humorous though. I mean the same thing that had happened to old man Oberlinde's ship happening to Tukera? Especially when animosity between the two was already running high. Well, needless to say I informed Al of the unfortunate situation with our Tukera-friend's ship, and told him that I expected my "irony bonus" to be included in my next check. He just smiled, it's nice to be appreciated, heheh.

Also, will have to go over the  holovids of the _Mammoth_ incident when we get to Aranmanx. Learned from local spaceport personnel on Zila that apparently, the same engineer was on another ship _Titan_ that also had engine problems which led to a transfer of some "secret military cargo" to _ Mammoth_. Maybe that engineer also got some sort of "irony bonus". 

End of Security Officer's log stardate 5.635.75*_

< > Text inside is encrypted 

*Mr. Atari uses the Solomani calendar for dating his entries (5.635 = 1114 IY; -.75 would be day seventy five of that year)
**Dr. Chevalier and Mr. Atari have changed the name of the ship. Visually, the markings on the ship read _Neptune_. However, a hardwired read of the transponder (i.e physically tapping into the ship's computer) would show that it is still the _March Harrier_, but the two computer brains have taught the ship to send out a _Neptune_ signal. Obviously, this is highly illegal, but when being faced with the menance of an Imperial Megacorp...perhaps the readers (and authorities) can give the crew of the _March Harrier_ a break.


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## honorwolf (Dec 12, 2003)

Most excellent post from ship's security.  Glad he is on our side... for now.   I would like to reiterate that we did try to have a peaceful outing, and that prior to that Al and Mr. Atari just wanted to play chess.  Considering how repressive the law is on the backwater port that is basically Tukera owned.  Well anyway it was a cool post I like Ship's Security Officer point of view.


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## Broccli_Head (Dec 15, 2003)

honorwolf said:
			
		

> Glad he is on our side... for now.




Heheh...one of the many subplots in the game!


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## Malachai_rose (Dec 22, 2003)

Great post bud, Traveller is an awesome game. Now that Brian is back from the gulf and his honeymoon maybe we can get some playtime in. Oh.. by the way 


Bump


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## Broccli_Head (Jan 12, 2004)

*we played again!*

*from The Traveller Adventure: *_Memoirs of a Merchant 
Captain...and His Crew_
---Traveller's Aide Society Press, 1116

*Port of Call: Aramanx, 98:1114*

_Astrogator's Log:

Surprisingly, this garbage scow made it through the series of successive, intense jumps that we subjected her too en route to Aramanx. We did a double jump to Carsten, first precipitating out of jump near a comet in the system's Oort Cloud. Then we entered Carsten system 100d from the gas giant. This bus had to my amazement, fuel scoops, and it held up relatively smoothly during a skim of the giant's upper atmosphere. Good thing that we had the Baron on board to oversee the "wilderness" re-fueling op. I mean ship's that I was aboard did it, but you can't feel a thing in a 100,00 ton [????]-class Dreadnought when it skims a gas giant. Plus, we only did it during wartime. 

Good thing, old man Oberlindes is paying us well. The stress of the calculations was bad enough, but with his pet Vargr Arranlonghul looking over my shoulder, it was even worse. Fortunately, I had my family of anolas to calm me down in between jumps. I can't believe that Kigu' wants to space them! Crusty ol' Shugili....

Though, I have to admit the _March Harrier_, er excuse me the _Neptune_...no now, according to Dr. Chevalier and Mr. Atari, the _Kragu-mali_...curious an old Viliani god...is getting to be a veritable zoo. I think that's one of the reasons why the Baron took his leave of us on Aramanx. He said good-bye pleasantly enough, saying that he needed to book passage on a ship that would be travelling more towards Trailing, while we were stuck here in the Aramis subsector. I don't blame him. I've thought about it myself, but the mysteries that have arisen keep me here, and my anolas like it also....

Aramanx has multiple nations, each vying for a monopoly on interstellar trade. Because of that, and the low tech level of the world, Sternmetal Horizons constructed an orbital facility. We docked with no problem, dislodging cargo and passengers, and going through the customary inspections. Rani and Mr. Atari took care of all that business, while the rest of us went scrounging for cargo, more passengers, and fun. I hit the TAS hostel right away to get in a good game of cards. Once again Tukera and her subsidaries beat us to the punch. There was no cargo as Akerut had hauled it all off, and the rest of the bulk cargo was reserved for our new "friends" at Oberlindes. Captain Lenard speculated that it would be at least three weeks before we could load up and head out. So we got sort of a mini-vacation. From TAS, I made my way to  Concourse 3 and the Worldview: two drinking establishments that also had some good gaming tables. At Worldview, that evening we saw a report that got my hackles rising. Algesh' felt the same way. On a report about rioting in a border town planetside, I saw Rojet Bannerji, the captain of the _Wolblutn_. It was an impossible coincidence, and I for one praised my luck. The itinerary we copied from his wallet said that he was supposed to still be in the Vargr Extents. And we wanted to ask him about that destroyed shuttle that we had discovered in the Patinir system. 

Epeslatl and Mr. Atari were on it right away. The Security Officer told us that there was only a two-day old employment record of Mr. Bannerji, and that he was getting a pittance of a salary that did not equate to his being on the board of an important trade negotiation. Ep, with his diplomatic savvy, managed to get us a meeting with this trade mission. Unfortunately, we would have to go planetside into a country with martial law and enemy troops, including Vargr mercs, gathering at the border, but 'danger' is our crew's middle name...I guess.

I retired to my room to think about it, and ran into Gvouzdon suspiciously loitering in the corridor near my state room.

--You didn't eat the anolas, did you?
I asked him

Not answering, he proceeded to ask me about the brooch again. We should have kept him in low berth! I saw a sidearm in a holster hanging at his hip.

--Who gave you that?

--Al' says that I am a member of the crew now.

He smiled showing his teeth.

--I am not going through this again, Gvouzdon,
and I turned my back on him to get some rest. 

I checked to make sure nothing was missing, and comforted the anolas. I'll have to talk to the captain about keeping that mischievous Vargr on board...._


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## Broccli_Head (Feb 2, 2004)

Morte had asked me to post again, so here I go, but only to make an excuse. 

One of my players is supposed to give me a Security Officer's log, and then I get to edit it and post!


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## honorwolf (Feb 25, 2004)

Yes, the plot thickens.  I like the astrogator's log.  Soon the first officer will have to put his two bits in.  I for one think the Vagr is starting to become likable(we have a player to play him now.)  To think I was going to space him at some point.  But I think our astrogator is becoming more neurotic as we go on.  PTS is starting to get to him.  Well, he is Navy.  Lucky for him he has his Great Imperial Marine best friend to get him through trouble.  Besides he is the best astrogator in the entire sector if not this side of the galaxy.  A great astrogator needs a great pilot.  Even if that pilot is a great marine(Algesh) or AL.  Imperial marines rule!


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## Malachai_rose (Mar 18, 2004)

hey look what I found on page 3

bump


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## honorwolf (Mar 26, 2004)

WE need Broc to post more.  Besides our traveller game is alot of fun.  We need another brawl on another starport.  Imperial marines lead the way!


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## Broccli_Head (Mar 26, 2004)

It just so happens that we haven't played this game since this last session. Right now we're finishing a major thread in the FR game, so maybe this one will be next.


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## Pyske (Jun 10, 2004)

Just wanted you to know you had another reader.  I love the name "March Harrier"... very clever.

 . . . . . . . -- Eric


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## Broccli_Head (Jun 10, 2004)

Thanks...

I hadn't posted in so long I forgot this was mine...


As you can see we haven't played this for a while. Unfortunately, cuz I LOVE the game, there is not much interest in the group and crew cohesion due to the political leanings of some of the characters (i.e. the Security Officer) is minimal. 

I post more regular (yah, right!) on the Champions and FR threads. Haven't posted on the Hârn for a while either.


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