Welcome to the Cannibal Halfling Weekend Update! Start your weekend with a chunk of RPG news from the past week. We have the week’s top sellers, industry news stories, something from the archives, and discussions from elsewhere online.
Continue reading Weekend Update: 4/13/2024Tag Archives: Traveller
Traveller: Drinaxian Companion Review
I’ve previously written about the The Pirates of Drinax, and I believe that it’s for good reason. It is one of my favorite published campaigns, and I would argue that it is the best I have ever seen in terms of being a true sandbox. It begins with a promise that the players are being brought in to take a miniscule star nation operating between two behemoths, and to make it an Empire in its own right and not only is it possible, it offers a chance to have the players take an active stance in the government that is formed. The campaign is not only flexible enough that it offers the ideas that players might want to spurn their patron and carve out a kingdom of their own, but it actively sets rules for how to go about it. There is a story seed for virtually every planet, for which there are multiple populating each of dozens of subsectors. You could likely make an entire campaign about dealing with the Pirate Lords of Theev, a group of politically insulated pirates that operate out of a planet is a surprisingly open secret. All of this is on top of a ten module progression of the campaign as players take a single ship and try to form a pirate flotilla.
And as much as I love it, I do not think I will ever run another session using the rules as written. So, it was with a bit of hesitation that I picked up the Drinaxian Companion. Yet, as a result, I have found my interest rekindled.
Traveller: Behind the Claw Review
Exploration has been baked into humanity from our earliest history. It has inspired epic journeys, discoveries and legends that have shaped us. So, of course it would seem natural that our wanderlust and thirst for the unknown would lead us deep into the reaches of space. However, with that discovery has always come an immediate complication: who owns what’s newly discovered. It wouldn’t be humanity without quarreling over it, and with an entire sector of recently settled space, you better believe that there is room to move that petty bickering to a (literally) astronomical scale, and with Mongoose’s newest splatbook, Traveller: Behind the Claw, there is material for a resourceful GM to build for years.
Adventure Log: The Flight of the Albatross Part 4
Now, safely back onboard the Albatross after the adventure with the Chimax, the crew was able to interrogate Krrsh. It didn’t take too much prompting to get him to spill the whole story: he had been the Captain of one of the ships that attacked Clarke, onboard an S-class Scout ship. He wasn’t part of the job on Toprol, so he had decided to stray off to make a bit of side money. On his trip he had stumbled across a merchant vessel, one that he thought would have been an easy kill. As it turned out, he was mistaken in his assumption: the trader held a set of concealed guns, and when Krrsh had ordered the ship to cut thrust and prepare for boarding, the merchant ship and opened up a broadside at almost point blank range. Krrsh had managed to get the ship out of the firefight and held it together long enough to make a jump to the next rendezvous point. However, the other two captains, Ferrik Redthane and Miria Silverhand were none to happy at his misadventure, which had rendered the Scout ship useless for pirating and as a punishment had marooned him on the ancient station as a warning to the others.
Continue reading Adventure Log: The Flight of the Albatross Part 4
Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 3
The Albatross came out of the jump into a crowd of debris, pinging against the hull. For a moment, it seemed as if their deductions had been off, but as they regained their bearings they realized that they were being pelted by starship debris. Wolf immediately began a sensor sweep, and managed to pick up a weak distress signal. Oddly enough, it seemed to be one designed for a personal Vacc suit, only it was operating far out of its standard range. The Albatross followed the signal to a rickety old space station orbiting Borite. Unable to resist their curiosity, and hoping for clues regarding the pirates they were chasing, our pirates elected to dock along the manual airlocks, to a region of the ship that had been breached, counting on the protection of their own Vacc suits.
Continue reading Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 3
Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 2
Now, we rejoin the adventures of the Albatross crew!
Continue reading Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 2
No Place Like (The Party’s) Home
When someone says the word ‘adventurer’, the picture of a steady home life is not often one of the images called to mind. The dusty road, the shadows between the megascrapers, the space between the stars, these are most often the places that adventurers spend their time and make their fortune – or lose everything. While being an adventurer, or really any type of player character. almost universally involves going where others won’t either physically or mentally, I think there’s something to be said for breaking the mold and giving them a tavern, a ship, a base, a business, a home. While it might not be the one they were all born to, a party of adventurers with a place of their own can certainly turn it into a place that makes them feel like they belong.
Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 1
I have previously written about my interest in the Traveller setting, more specifically the Pirates of Drinax as a Beta Campaign, and over the past few months I have actually managed to get it off the ground! I am a more inexperienced GM, and this campaign has marked the first time I have gotten a campaign to two whole sessions! As such, I’ll keep up the tradition of our other CH GM’s and offer a bit of a “Lessons Learned” post-mortem.
Continue reading Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 1
Traveller: The Pirates of Drinax
Yar! Yo ho, me hearties yo ho! Today, we are going to be exploring Pirates of Drinax, a supplement and campaign for Mongoose Traveller (we’ve previously done a Meet the Party), where the party is brought in to be privateers…and then allowed to do whatever they want, so long as they are willing to pay the consequences for it!
Meet The Party: Mongoose Traveller
A fallen aristocrat who hunts for renewed glory for her family at the edges of space. A meek corporate citizen who watched his life ripped away. A wounded vet, once marked for greatness, who looks to find her purpose once more. A wealthy artist, looking desperately rekindle his creative spark and renew his fame’s upward trajectory. A talented scout who is looking to turn his abysmal luck around, and might have found a family along the way. Meet the Party strives to create ready-to-play characters for a variety of systems and settings, both for your use and to inspire you in making characters of your own. This week, we will be taking a look at a recent update to a classic with an impressive number of die-hard advocates: Mongoose Traveller!
Cannibal Halfling Gaming 