James Kundert did an article on the Llellewyloly it’s for TNE (hay can’t have everything). Apart from that there are snipets of stuff (two paragraphs or so) all over the place which don’t say much more than the same thing over and over again. There are slight variations so I’m sure you could pick out about five or six paragraphs of everything in cannon about them.

 

Contact! Llellewyloly

The Llellewyloly of Junidy

 

The Llellewyloly (LEL-uh-wi-Low-lee) are a non-humanoid minor race,

originating on the planet Junidy (3202  B-434ABD-9) in the Spinward Marches.

They are known throughout the Imperium for their fancied resemblance to a

Terran weed, the Dandelion.  Little else is known about them outside the

Domain of Deneb because Llellewyloly do not travel extensively.  There has

been renewed interest since the Rebellion, however, due to the occupation of

Junidy by invading Vargr in 1116.

 

Background

 

Junidy occupies the fourth orbit around June, an early F7-V star.  June's

companion star, July, orbits June at 19.6 AU (Orbit 8), and is an old red

dwarf star (M9-D) with a long term irregularity in luminosity.  The current

cycle of irregularity caused a decrease in the hydrosphere of Junidy, which

led to the rise of land animals, and eventually, the Llellewyloly.

 

As July moved into the cooler portion of its cycle, Junidy's mean temperature

dropped, bringing on an ice age.  As the polar caps expanded and the sea level

dropped, many marine forms were forced to adapt to shallow water or land.  The

mobile forms were first, eventually leading to a large proportion of the

ecological niches on land being filled by bilaterally symmetrical, furred

animals.  The radially symmetrical animals (most of them five-limbed) were

last, having been only semi- to non-mobile as marine forms.

 

Most of the radials were Trappers or Pouncers, and were equipped with poison.

Because of this advantage, the radials survived.  Several developed greater

mobility and actually hunted, developing insulating fur from their protective

spines.  The most successful of these mobile hunters were the proto-

Llellewyloly, who hunted by waiting for prey to come close to the standing,

immobile hunter, then whipping out with a tentacle and strangling or crushing

the prey.

 

The crude heat sensing ability of the radials developed further in the

Llellewyloly as an analog of vision, and during the peak of the ice age,

became true vision.  The increasing scarcity of game during this period caused

the final push to intelligence and an omnivorous diet.  Most of the other

radial forms died out during the later stages of the ice age, leaving the land

dominated by four- and six-legged furred animals.  On land, only the

Llellewyloly and a few animals retain the five-limbed, radially symmetrical

form.

 

Society

 

Cooperation between Llellewyloly arose during the ice age, as increasing prey

size led to the inability of an individual to hunt effectively.  This led to a

tribal structure, where those most skilled in a given task, such as hunting or

later, foraging, performed that task for the good of the tribe.  If an

individual was of inferior skill in some area, then he would be under

supervision.  As there were a number of necessary survival skills, and no

individual could master them all, specialization was the norm.

 

As their culture and intelligence developed, the earlier specialized

cooperation grew into a complex social structure.  A skillful hunter, forager,

farmer, or warrior gained respect, and was defered to in his area of

expertise, but might be ignored if not skilled in the task at hand.  This

attitude remained dominant with the rise of civilization, and spread to all

areas of expertise.

 

As the volume of knowledge expanded, so did the social system regarding

expertise.  Formal titles came into usage, and ignoring these titles was as

bad as giving advice outside ones own fields of expertise.  As education

improved, individuals could and did become experts, and therefore titled, in

more than one area.  This led to social confusion, as addressing a stranger

incorrectly could bring execution, despite the relative standings of the two

involved.  From this the modern system evolved.

 

A Llellewyloly who is improperly greeted will usually "go to flower," that is,

stand on one leg and draw the other four into akimbo.  A Llellewyloly can

remain in this position for a very long time, as it comes from their prefered

hunting technique.  This social response is not reserved for humans, as it

grew out of the violence response mentioned above.  It is a Llellewyloly's way

of ignoring an annoying person in a very obvious fashion.  Llellewyloly also

sleep and think in this position, so having a "flowered" Llellewyloly ignore

you is a rather common occurence.

 

When Llellewyloly meet for the first time, they will exchange names and

Titles.  Once this has been done, forgetting to use the correct Titles and

forms of address will result in the insulted Llellewyloly "going to flower."

This is the Llellewyloly equivalent of a pout.  Only long, formal apologies of

great length, or news of great import will get a "flowered" Llellewyloly to

emerge from his pout.

 

When the offender is Human, responses vary with individual Llellewyloly.  All

Llellewyloly have a tolerance level with regards to humans, and once that

level is passed, the Llellewyloly will "go to flower," and not stir until the

offensive Human goes away.  Some few Llellewyloly go to flower at the first

hint of human attention, but most will give a human a minute or two grace

period.  This is not always sufficient, as most humans have trouble

distinguishing individual Llellewyloly.

 

The humans of Junidy have learned to duplicate the pout reaction for occasions

when a Llellewyloly forgets a human title.  Because Llellewyloly vision is not

acute, the humans of Junidy use sound to indicate annoyance:  they whistle.

Llellewyloly find human attempts to whistle abominable, and society on Junidy

has adjusted to this human parallel to "going to flower."

 

Physiology

 

The Llellewyloly are a five-limbed, radially symetrical race evolved from

marine creatures analogous to Terran starfish or anenomes.  When standing

still, Llellewyloly are between two and three meters tall.

 

Having adapted to life on land, Llellewyloly walk on their limbs, which double

as arms when needed.  Llellewyloly are ungainly walkers at best, looking to a

human observer like a large arthritic spider.  The number of limbs a

Llellewyloly uses to walk depends on the weight he is carrying.  The more

weight carried, the more limbs used as legs.  Each limb is about two meters

long and has two elbows/knees in addition to the hip/shoulder and wrist/ankle

joints.  At the wrist, each limb splits into three smaller "tentacles," which

are also jointed twice in opposite directions.  The first joint of the limbs

and fingers bends in towards the center.  The second joints bends outward.

The fingers also have a segment about 6 cm long beyond the bones which serve

as fine manipulators.  The shoulder joint has enough freedom to allow about

180° of rotation.  The outer elbow also has some rotational freedom, allowing

fingers from different limbs to just touch across the top of the body.

 

Llellewyloly skin and body fur come in a wide variety of colors, with skin

ranging from blue-grey through grey and pink into deep red.  Fur is either

white, black, or both.  No Llellewyloly has ever had yellow fur as a natural

color, though some have been known to dye their fur to imitate blond humans.

 

The body of the Llellewyloly is about 60 centimeters across and is

approximately round.  Unlike the limbs, the body is covered with thick fur,

which insulates it from the extemely cold nights.  The fur exudes an oily

substance which aids in insulation and serves to keep predators larger than

the Llellewyloly away.  The poison glands of the original marine animal

developed to this form as the proto-Llellewyloly became mobile hunters on

land.  The oil causes an allergic reaction in all native lifeforms and in

about 10% of Solomani-descended humans.  Native animals suffer an immediate

burning skin reaction, giving even a lone Llellewyloly significant protection

in the wilds of Junidy.  The allergic reaction in humans is very similar to

that of Poison Oak or Ivy:  a red, irritating rash in areas of direct contact

with the oil, which is spreadable by scratching.  The reaction, assuming no

further contact, abates in about a week.  About 1% of Vilani or Zhodani are

affected, and Vargr are normally immune for the same reason that Poison Oak

doesn't bother Terran canines: their fur.  If Vargr attempt to bite or closely

handle a Llellewyloly, their chances of being affected are one-in-ten.

 

Most of the major bodily functions of the Dandies are in the body, including

hearing, speech, smell, digestion, reproduction, and the brain.  Vision is

divided between the limbs.  The skin of the Llellewyloly is much more

sensitive to heat variations than human skin.  This sensitivity approximates

crude infrared vision, with a range of about ten meters, depending on the heat

source.

 

As an aid in catching prey in the oceans, the skin at the junction of the

fingers of the proto-Llellewyloly was light-sensitive.  Once they moved onto

land, this gradually developed into true vision, though the distance at which

a Llellewyloly can focus one set of eyes is about one meter.  Using the eyes

from two or more limbs allows focus out to about six meters, which is almost

human norm.  Thus Llellewyloly are near-sighted by human standards.  This

handicap does not extend to the detection of motion.  Llellewyloly can sense

motion much better than most humans, and to a greater degree of accuracy.

Using only the set of eyes in one limb, a Llellewyloly can pluck a thrown coin

(or flying prey) from the air.

 

Speech, hearing and breathing share a set of five orifices set between the

bases of the limbs, with the arrangement similar to the human throat and

mouth.  Each orifice uses its own set of "lungs" as well.  Because of this

arrangement, a skilled Llellewyloly performer can sing a four-part harmony and

still listen to the audience.  Because their lungs and speech organs developed

in a near vacuum, Llellewyloly are capable of deafeningly loud whistles in a

human-normal atmosphere.  The complexities of human languages prevent them

from yelling much louder than a human when using Galanglic or Vilani.

 

Llellewyloly, having evolved in a Very Thin atmosphere, have trouble breathing

in Standard and Dense atmospheres.  They suffer from over-oxygenation, and can

literally cook themselves alive because of an overload of oxygen.  They are

capable of breathing Thin atmospheres, and can aclimatize to Standard

atmospheres with the "Low Oxygen" taint, but Llellewyloly cannot exist in a

Dense atmosphere without mechanical aid.  A filter system for Llellewyloly

costs five times normal, as it must cover all five orifices.

 

Faced with this problem, the humans of Junidy began a selective breeding

program among the Llellewyloly in 672.  Their goal was to produce a strain of

Dandie that could more readily handle high concentrations of oxygen.

Solomani-trained genegineers were brought to the project in 721, and by 750

announced limited success.  A racial equality crisis in 764 undid most of the

project, however, as the city-bred Llellewyloly fled back into the wilds in

protest.  When the crisis was resolved in 765, very few of the city-bred

returned and nearly all had bred with the rural populations, spreading their

high pressure tolerance to most of the next generation at the cost of diluting

it's occurence. Currently, some 1.5% of all Llellewyloly are capable of short-

term (several hours) exposure to Standard atmospheres (or to Dense atmospheres

with a Low Oxygen taint) before oxygen overload sets in.

 

An opening at the base of the body serves for both feeding and waste disposal.

The sense of smell is concentrated in five short fronds hanging around the

mouth, which contact food and detect airborne odors.  The Llellewyloly have no

independent taste sense, depending on their sense of smell entirely.  As

compensation for this, the stomach lining is very sensitive to irregular

foodstuffs, making this race one of the most finicky in its eating habits.

The Llellewyloly are discrete about waste disposal, having found human

household plumbing to be one our most useful inventions.

 

Reproduction

 

All individual Llellewyloly are bisexual, and can function in both male and

female roles simultaneously.  The original water-borne reproduction system has

not truly adapted to land, so Llellewyloly communities always have water

nearby.  The young develop in a ring of pouches around the mouth, then later

crawl into their parents' fur.  Because of their fine sense of balance, no

parent can ignore or forget its children, who are ready for solid food as soon

as they emerge from their pouches.  "Toilet-training" young Llellewyloly is a

tedious job, and adults with dignified professions will often pass their

children on to some more tolerant and less important adult.  A newly conceived

Llellewyloly spends three standard months in its pouch, and about a standard

year in the fur of its parent, after which it can walk and feed itself on the

ground, and is too heavy to carry.  Adult size is attained in five standard

years.

 

Llellewyloly have no institution of marriage as such, but do engage in

protracted courting routines for many of the same reasons as humans.

Potential parental partners go through lengthy self-inflicted compatibility

tests before actual reproduction, and many find the process so humiliating

that they effectively pair for life, but this is not universal by any means.

Multiple "marriages" and "orgy groups" are not uncommon (and became more

popular after the Dandies learned about Hiver "Ambassadors" and the reasoning

behind them).

 

While many Dandies have a "biological clock" which affects their urge to

reproduce, and most Dandies attach a fair amount of emotion to reproduction,

the act itself lacks the physical aspects common to mammalian reproduction.

Touching is optional, in fact, so long as the parents-to-be share a pool.

 

Playing the Llellewyloly

 

The native culture of the Llellewyloly has created a race of strong orators

and good listeners.  In his area of expertise a Dandie can talk

authoritatively for hours.  Similarly, a Dandie who needs to listen will do so

for as long as needed.  The humans who settled Junidy quickly discovered that

Dandies could absorb information with astonishing accuracy and make use of

that information just as quickly.  Early attempts at a human-run government

failed due to the fact that the Llellewyloly were absorbing technological

information so quickly that they couldn't be kept out of things.

 

In some ways, getting to know a Dandie is like getting to know a Vargr.  If he

has been informed of your "Titles", a Dandie will treat you with respect in

those areas, automatically take the initiative in the areas where his Titles

are superior, and be neutral otherwise.  Because of this, Vargr are terribly

confused by Llellewyloly, who accept low Charisma in some situations, demand

high Charisma in others, and speak as equals the rest of the time.

 

Beyond the reactions determined by Title, Llellewyloly are as varied as humans

in their personalities.  This includes their reactions to the universal

nickname "Dandie."

 

Llellewyloly NPCs

                Llellewyloly NPCs encountered away from Junidy will always have high-

pressure-tolerant genes, as these are able to function more readily away from

the homeworld.

 

"Barbarian"

 

"Scientist"

 

Llellewyloly Player Characters (TNE)

                All Llellewyloly are born on Junidy.  Any Llellewyloly PC is assumed to be

high-pressure-tolerant, though a normal Llelewyloly may be played if so

desired.

                Llellewyloly vary less than many races in certain areas.  STR is not rolled

in the usual fashion, but is rolled using a rounded-down d3 like that used to

generate Initiative, with a modifier of +2.  This produces results between 3

and 5.  AGL and CON are generated normally on 2d6-1, with no modifiers for

homeworld.  INT and EDU are also generated normally, with an EDU score of 4 or

less indicating a "barbarian" upbringing.  CHR is generated normally.

                No Llellewyloly has ever shown signs of Psionic Potential.

                Social Standing among Llellewyloly is a complex and variable thing, changing

more rapidly than even Vargr are used to.  Each Dandie has a permanent Social

Standing equal to his highest Skill (not Asset), and a "situational" Social

Standing equal to its score in the Skill most useful in that situation.  In

addition, a "Barbarian" will have an effective permanent Social Standing of

half its normal level while in a city, as will "Scientists" in the country.

Only if one of these "out-of-place" Llellewyloly proves to have the Skill for

the situation will it be accorded its full Standing.

                Llellewyloly may follow nearly any of the standard Careers listed in the TNE

rulebook, subject to the normal characteristic and homeworld prerequisites.

Being of "barbarian" birth does not affect career choices.

                Because of their unique breathing requirements Llellewyloly acquire

Environment Suit skill more slowly, treating 2 levels acquired as only 1 level

of skill.  All Llellewyloly start with Acrobat-2 as one of their Background

skills, with the others being determined by upbringing. Rural ("barbarian")

Llellewyloly have a TL 3 society, while the city Dandies are TL 10.

                Llellewyloly may choose, either as a Background skill or as part of the

Interpersonal cluster, the "Patience (CHR)" skill.  This skill represents the

Dandy's tolerance for and patience with aliens, and is rolled whenever a human

or other alien fails to observe Llellewyloly social conventions of Title

(Llellewyloly have no patience with their own species). Llellewyloly

characters with a Patience Asset of 10 or higher are sufficiently cosmopolitan

and self-assured that they may ignore violations of Title completely while

among aliens.

                A Llellewyloly's body has CONx4 hit points, but suffers from firearms just as

the human head does (double damage; stunning; etc.). Each limb has points

equal to CON, which suffer as do human arms. If three or more limbs are

incapacitated, the injured Llellewyloly will be immobile, as well.

 

- -----

Copyright 1994, James Kundert

 

 

 

From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: 02 March 2020 14:54
To: Tml <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Subject: [TML] TTA - XXIII

 

The Traveller Adventure – part XXIII

 

[If you don’t want my Referee ramblings, skip to the adventure proper in the paragraph beginning ‘Well, I say that, but maybe not.’  But fair warning: you won’t escape further ramblings thereafter. :-) In general, the square brackets mark them out.]

 

[tl;dr – we played Annic Nova as a side-adventure in TTA on the way to Yebab after a poor Astrogation roll.  TC made use of 16 NPCs he’d created just beforehand and four miniatures that had arrived that day.  The players had fun; TC had some questions…]

 

My little gaming group always meets on a Thursday.  I (usually) have Wednesday off now I’m on a four day work week.  We meet every other month.  So with two months between sessions and a day at home the day before we play, you’d think I was always making the most of having plenty of time to prepare and making sure I was ready to go.

 

You’d think.  Like many of my students I’m just as capable of leaving what needs to be done till the very last minute.  Not getting my books and notes out till the end of the day before.  Reading what’s necessary on the bus to work, grabbing a few minutes at lunchtime to knock up a character/animal/scene and spending the last half hour before departure to the pub trying to make sure I’ve put everything in my bag(s) and have printed out the perfect handout/deck plan/map.

 

This time for once, I seemed to get my act together.  I had a week of holiday last week which I knew would be a wet and windy sojourn in a Newquay apartment watching the surf come in.  The plan was for family to go on walks and outings while I sat with the view and rested.  Maybe get on with some writing.  To that end I took with me all my TTA notes – now bursting out of two ring-binders to a) write some more of my attempt at a novelization and b) tidy them all up and reduce what was needed for a game evening to a minimum.  Or at least a carriable weight.  On the whole, that went well.  I managed 5000 words.  I’d have written more except the view was so distracting!  I managed to at least get all my notes in chronological order and get rid of some irrelevance.

 

I’d also decided last time that really wanted to fit in Annic Nova as a ‘side-adventure’ so I needed to reread that as it was three months since I’d last looked it over.  I should add that it wasn’t completely out of the blue.  Way back when Jonathan had joined us for a few sessions before getting a job in Vietnam, he’s played Kunal the pilot.  Planning ahead and as I was giving each of the players present a ‘note’, his was in the form of ‘Notices to Starfarers’ and mentioned the sightings of the unknown craft in systems not too distant from those the March Harrier is visiting.  Of course, Kunal is back to being an NPC now, but it would have been a nice link!

 

On the Wednesday before we played I actually managed to bounce out of bed with a ‘let’s get to it’ attitude.  Well, once I’d done three vital chores, waved farewell to a visiting mother-in-law, and spent an hour hosting the gas man on his annual maintenance inspection/checks/fixes.  It was getting on towards lunchtime.  I reread my write up for you guys on TML to remind myself what happened and to into the right frame of mind.  [I do write a lot of rubbish, don’t I?!  But it was funny.  Or at least made me laugh being reminded of the humour.  I appreciate it may not be the same for readers who weren’t there.]  I started a ‘notes for this session’.  I read up on the Patron encounter I had in mind for Yebab (A Point of Law).  That required reading up on Yebab (not that there’s much to read) and of course the Ebokin and making sure I had reference sheets for myself and handouts for players.  (Thank you wiki.traveller and travellermap)  I refrained from doing a word by word comparison of Annic Nova in JTAS #1, Double Adventure 1 and Compendium 2 to see if there were any worrisome/interesting differences.  Tempted.  But I knew it would consume the day.  I compromised by making all my cut up deck plan scraps were still all present and correct; and I reread all the text descriptions of the rooms.  I even thought it might be fun to have a little more idea about the 16 Middle Passengers they’re carrying.  I figured I’d use the handy Supplement 1: 1,000,001 Characters

(http://members.ozemail.com.au/~jonoreita/SupplementOne/Cepheus_Engine_1001_characters.html) to save lots of time and make it a five minute job.

 

Hah!  Once I’d taken the first sixteen of a completely ‘default’ set of a 1001 and removed (but saved!) their Event logs, I decided I might as well convert the Cepheus skills to Mongoose.  Then of course, I prefer the ‘high skills’ first ordering rather than straight alphabetic order [1].  And I might as well remove the hyphens in front of the skill levels while I’m at it.  So much for a five minute job.  Ah well, even if I don’t use them on the night, I thought, I can probably recycle them for another project.  But that reminds me to write to Mr Sherlock asking if there could be ‘options’ for the above.  I think he’s also thinking about a Mongoose version.  In any case, I was pretty convinced I now had an A3 sheet (the reverse of my A3 sheet of notes on a rough plan for the evening, the stats for Yebab and the recap of last session), which I wouldn’t even need.  How wrong I was.

 

Meanwhile, arriving at work on Thursday morning the post [mail] had brought four 25mm Grenadier miniatures all the way from the 80s.  I’ve known they exist since forever (they’ve been in my bibliography thanks to Steve Hudson since ’99 if not before.  Sadly, just four individuals rather than one or more of the sets, but its great to see them in the flesh, as it were, at last.  Better yet, three were painted.  (I’m never going to have the time, patience or skill to even begin to tackle learning to do that.)  My thanks to Shop on the Borderlands for finding them.  Small thread here if you want to see them: https://twitter.com/timpaa/status/1232978884146192385

 

As I looked at them, it occurred to me that if there is a bit of a complaining mob of passengers whinging at Captain Loyd about all the delays (they were 8 days in Jump, they suffered an electrical brown out, and on arrival discover they’re five+ days out from Yebab), then three of the miniatures at least might be just the thing to plop onto the table.  Which is why we came to have Claudia Winkleman [2] playing a Navy Lt Cdr leading a search of the Annic Nova.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

 

Anyway, having trimmed down my bulging folders considerably and just about got myself ready to depart for the pub in time, it was time to head in the direction of Old Portsmouth.  If you think it’s been a while since our last session, you’d be right.  We met a bit early last time to avoid the Christmas pubs, so it had been early November, just after Halloween (which is relevant), so three months between sessions rather than two.  Once again, we were at the Duke of Buckingham.  We found a nicely separated spot by the salad bar (which was great for feeling we weren’t disturbing others but on the other hand we were disturbed by some pesky little (fruit?) flies presumably from the salad bar.  I missed a trick in not including them in the exploration of the Annic Nova.  They would have fit perfectly.  Once again, it was just the four of us.  Tess playing Tess the risk averse engineer, Carl playing Loyd the Captain, Jane playing Fred the gunbunny-cum-Steward.  And myself taking on Gvoudzon (vargr emissary), Lily (explosive archaeologist taken on as crew to help the Captain with his, ummm, admin), Egon (the still slightly out of it gunner) and Adma (the medic with sleep apnoea and possibly a squeedle in his pocket [3]).  Oh, and Phlo the Dandelion employed since Aramanx as a stevedore.

 

While I’m thinking about Phlo, I should also note that despite having encountered her two sessions ago, I now actually had some stats and background for her.  In the time since our last session, Mongoose have published Behind the Claw which is rather nice in many ways.  It even includes some ‘character generation’ for long neglected races such as Llellyewyloly [is that right?!?!  If so, after some years, I may have learned to spell it without looking it up!].

[Nope.  Still not got it.  That first ‘y’ shouldn’t be there.  I’m sure I spell it differently every time I write it.]

 

The snag is that as char gen goes in Behind the Claw the notes are very brief and then when you read, for example, the Dandy one, it seems to leave something to be desired.  I mean, I don’t mind the 2D3 for STR and END although there’s a bit of me that dislikes the “imperfection” of not using the normal 2D6.  In my plan for Dandy char gen I’d done similar: 2+1D6.  [So my range is 3-8, theirs is 2-6.  Mathematically limited though I am, I am aware mine is a flat distribution and their’s is a (probably better, if a bit low) small bell curve.]  BUT with all those arms, and to balance the lower STR & END, surely Dandies should have a bonus for DEX?!  Plus, I’d have liked a *little* more on their food?  interests?  culture?  But at least the lack of the latter gives me a free rein.

 

So, the 17^th character from my 1,000,001 set became Phlo.  I changed all the high tech skills to low tech as befits their culture.  Oh, and I gave her Galanglic 1 or things might be really tricky, or at least tedious, for our on-going adventure.  I tweaked the UPP till I was happy and adopted (with some adaptation) the back history.  Turns out the reason she was so easy to sign onto the crew of the March Harrier may have been because she’s somehow disgraced herself amongst her island community and either needs to make herself scarce for a period or has been banished for a period.  I’ve not worked out the details, but I’ll start alluding to it if I can think of a way of doing it.  The crew of course didn’t bother to actually find that out or anything.  She’s also younger than I maybe thought at just 20.  Although how old that is for a Dandy I’ve no idea in terms of their average lifespan.  I really do need a bit more detail about the race if I’m going to run her as a more full-time NPC.  Anyone know of a decent treatment?  I can’t think of a published one.

 

So, we meet, we chat, we eat, we chat up the Bulgarian barmaid again.  She remembers instructing the crew NOT to investigate the derelict alien ship last time, so it amused her that they’re aiming to do just that this time.

 

Well, I say that, but maybe not.  I run the recap notes I’ve prepared and it all starts coming back to everyone.  We fondly reminisce over the wonderful moment when Loyd has decided he wants some sparring practice with Fred and manages to break his wrist in the very last of three bouts they fight (a double 1 roll) and then Gvoudzon steps up to show the Captain how it’s done and on the very last of three bouts also rolls double 1 and injures his tail.  (But that’s all handy later, as you’ll see).  We laugh over the Captain having to use his charm offensive on the passengers – or is that offensive charm? – to calm them down as they get increasingly delayed and discomfited.  We remember that we found the Annic Nova (although I’ve not used those two words ever despite putting the JTAS image of the ship and the words on the table both last session and this session), they discussed just ignoring the ship altogether but eventually boarded her and explored the bridge.  I reminded them that they refrained from flicking the large and obvious power switch.   This, by the way, is the A team of Fred, Tess and NPC Phlo.  There was a B team of Lily, Gvoudzon and Egon (all NPCs) who are ready on the March Harrier in case of problems.  Loyd, with NPC Pilot Kunal, is taking charge of the exploration from the March Harrier’s bridge via video/comm link.  NPC Adma is standing by in case medical assistance is required.  That seemed quite a good way of keeping my PCs ‘active’ rather than just observing and was all their own decision making.

 

I’d also downloaded to my tablet some online images of the Annic Nova including a fabulously atmospheric ‘green screen’ image that everyone was quite taken with.  Although it would be nice to have at least one image with the accumulators closed as they are at present in our universe.  Every time we look at the picture, I remind them.  I then managed to drop my tablet on the pub floor and feared that I might have broken it but it survived and lives to write these very notes.

 

In low emergency lighting and Zero-G (and leaving Fred in a couch because he’s not dealing with the Zero-G well), up they went (or more strictly ‘down’ as the ship was orientated differently).  On the next deck (Quarters), Phlo was first out of the lift shaft and attacked by what I called a monkey like creature – and despite all Phlo’s arms it took a couple of tries to stab the critter with her knife.  Meanwhile, it had managed to rip a gash in her vacc suit shoulder – well, one of five shoulders presumably.  Turns out the crew’s vacc suits reporting that the atmosphere is ok to breath are quite right.  Phlo suffers no ill-effects from the breach in her suit.

 

Now that’s how I remembered it and that’s how I reported it last time and that was the dun-dun-durr we finished on.  But both Tess and Jane remembered it differently and that Fred (Jane’s character) had, on hearing the attack happening, come racing up from the Bridge as best he could to help in the fight.  I really couldn’t recall that at all but they were adamant and it wasn’t a problem or anything.  But it’s a good reminder to any faithful readers that these write ups aren’t strictly ‘recordings’ of the play, but my best memory of the evening written a few hours or a day or two after.  And memory can play false.  Especially mine which seems addled at the best of times.

 

So, having left it there, that’s where we picked it up now.  Following the combat, the PCs decide to retreat to the Bridge deck when five more monkey like creatures are seen approaching.  Much smaller ones.  Preparing for combat the PCs are a bit surprised when the creatures attach themselves to the PCs’ ankles and cling on for dear life it appears.  Now until now the creatures have for no very apparent reason been referred to as vampire monkey bats!  :-)  It’s as if the players are paranoid or something.  The behaviour of these small ones surprises everyone and it gives them pause for thought.  They don’t seem to be attacking but having them clinging onto ankles is tedious even in Zero-G.  After Tess rather roughly patches up Phlo’s shoulder rip, Phlo gets a sack out of a pocket and bundles all the little critters in to it.

 

They return to the Bridge to make decisions and I mention again the power breaker they’ve thus far NOT tripped and Fred rather casually says that he does so.  Noooo, says Tess not happy at what might happen and they try to persuade me they were only discussing whether to do it or not, but it will simplify things and so I decree that as Fred said he was doing so, it was done.  An alarm starts up and they hear a voice saying: Hekarika: Gurut Vaka Sarna Tireejee.  Hekarika: Gurut Vaka Sarna Tireejee.  Hekarika: Gurut Vaka Sarna Tireejee.  Repeating.  The Bulgarian barmaid was fascinated as she passed.  [I’d piped a couple of phrases through Google Translate into – completely randomly – Telugu [4] before the session and had them ready to go (slightly adapted) on my deck plan room description booklet.  This one was ‘Warning: Gravity Returning’.]  Neither the PCs nor the players can understand it, but they notice that the lights are coming up and they’re beginning to float down to the deck as the clearly the gravity is (gently) being restored.  Tess (character and player) still looks as if I’m about to inflict something nasty on them!

 

In an effort to pacify the revolting passengers, all sixteen of them had been invited to watch the boarding via the screen in the Passenger lounge displaying the helmet cam feeds.  This they loved!  (And, I’ll admit it, I loved trying to be 16 people.)  All 16 – pretty bored to tears after a long week in Jump and the prospect of the best part of a week to Yebab still, are crowded around watching.  A diplomat on his way to Yebab, Minister Varun Patel, was acting as spokesperson (the Noble miniature!) and Sosen Hughes – a computer expert, technician, drifter was making his presence known as well (the Technician miniature!).  As the passengers were so much more ‘real’ thanks to my having names and descriptions for them (not to mention showing off the miniatures which paused us for five minutes while I explained their significance – i.e. old and rare and part of sets I’d never seen), it (finally?!) occurred to the PCs to make use of them.  Why not ask if anyone recognizes the creatures?  Or, for that matter, the style of the ship or its technology, or its language.

 

Now we’d established last time that as a group they weren’t overly bright (they’d bought the double talk that Tess has suggested the Captain use which was blatantly from some holovid or ebook romance she’d been watching or reading).  (To whit, if you recall from last time, something straight out of Star Trek).  So I’d made sure no UPPs had an INT of more than 8.  Anyway, for those three questions, it hardly mattered.  Nope.  No one recognized the creatures or the ship design.  Something occurred to me, however, and I made a quick decision.  As everyone (including the PCs) looked more closely at the images of the creature that attacked (and the smaller ones), I had bells ring in the PCs memory.  They look rather like…

 

… and as I said this, two around the table shouted ‘anolas’.  Yes, from back in the Pysadian Escapade chapter.  Carl had to have Loyd “reminded” as I don’t think he was playing with us back then.  Now this was rather a spur of the moment bit of (inspiration?) on my part.  I was a bit worried about the Annic Nova adventure being a bit unconnected from the events of TTA (well of course) and I thought it might be a bit fun to add further mystery to the ship which may never get explained.  I’m still not 100% it was a good idea, but it was fun and they enjoyed making the connection and feeling as if things were linked in some way.

 

The snag was that in my excitement I was about to go into the whole ‘feeling calm and relaxed and so on’ when I realized of course that in our universe that’s not the anolas but the squeedles!!  I realized mid-sentence so it must have looked as if I had had a stroke for a second while I just stopped speaking and worked out how to finish the sentence without saying what I was about to say and turning it into something completely innocuous.  Phew!  Just got away with it.  However, the players/PCs? had enough queasiness about the creatures that this rather unnerved them and as they discussed things via the comms, were on the point of setting up a salvage transponder and leaving the Annic Nova for ‘the authorities’ to explore.  (Or for said authorities to take the Hits not them as Tess pointed out.) 

 

Now, to be honest, I was still kind of keen to explore the ship but I was also determined to let the players have their own way on this.  And I’d sort of prepared the next ‘bit’ so I didn’t mind too much if I just binned those notes.  However, I thought I’d have one go at persuading them to continue in the voice of NPC Phlo.  Just about remembering to put on my Welsh accent – although it wandered off into Irish and Jamaican at various points in the evening – so they knew who was speaking and that it wasn’t their Referee, I said I was keen to keep going, the creature hadn’t hurt me after all – the vacc suit took the damage – and I was eager to explore strange new things…  The snag is, even as an NPC I fear that I have too strong a ‘voice’ given my players aren’t perhaps the most dominant characters.  If you see what I mean.  So, they were persuaded not to give up.

 

BUT, naturally risk averse that they are, they came up with a brilliant idea I had completely failed to foresee.  Stupid, stupid, stupid me.  It’s so obvious.  Why not ask for volunteers from amongst the passengers?!

 

Well, clearly all sixteen were wearing red shirts to a sophont.  Or they were very bored.  But as I looked over the list – and boy was I inordinately pleased with myself now having all their details (as well as relieved that I’d bothered) – I found there was a Naval Lieutenant Commander, a mercenary and a “soldier” amongst other possibilities.  If that latter didn’t have red shirt all over her details, I don’t know who did.  In fact, I think she was wearing a red vest under her red shirt.  Step forward Lt Cdr Bridie Takopa, Boots Aga and Sheila Blake respectively.  They’re soon tooled up and over on the Annic Nova and joined by Gvoudzon, Phlo and Fred to be a search party of six.  Just Fred as a PC amongst them, you’ll note!

 

Meanwhile, Tess had been fiddling with the computer and had made an excellent task roll on getting to grips with the user interface and/or installing a Galanglic one.  I then asked for a 1D roll and both Carl and Tess rolled at the same time.  He rolled a five, she rolled a 1.  They immediately declared the ‘5’ (assuming it was better) and it was then I realized I’d failed to mention that this was a time duration roll for the previous task (accessing the computer despite the language barriers).  I let them revert to the ‘1’ – mainly because I felt it would speed things up.  I really should have stuck with what they were calling, shouldn’t I?!  So, despite being ready to let them explore the ship and make their own ‘map’ as they went.  And despite having cut up plans of each individual deck so as they ‘cleared’ a deck they could have a better representation, in the end I allowed them to access a complete deck plan from the computer and served up a one sheet plan for them to make sense of directing the NPC search party.  Not quite what I’d pictured but it would speed things up and I guess rewarded their actions and rolls.

 

So, the rest of the evening was taken up with Captain Loyd commanding the search party (which was being led by the Lt Cdr – the Claudia Winkleman miniature!  Sorry, the ‘Adventuress’ standing in for the Cdr and the whole team actually), Lily chipping in where appropriate and Tess (with the Aslan miniature! as ‘she’ was wearing a kilt) [5] keeping an eye on the computer from the Bridge deck.  I had Bridie give her team a small briefing on the importance of the chain of command basically to ensure it was clear to the players that Captain Loyd, as a PC, was at the top of it and that it wasn’t me driving the action. 

 

I’d been tempted to keep to the spooky descriptions and flickering lights/shadows and all that kind of thing that I’d had ready last session because it was just after Halloween.  With the lights up and it now being the end of February there seemed little point in this now but I was rather gratified when they got to the hydroponics deck, all overgrown as described, and I’d kept the cobwebs and spiders and Tess spotted that I had gone ‘all in’ for the Halloween theme!  (I ratcheted back the spiders from being a real menace now, however, to just a bit of creepiness.)  (It would have been a perfect moment for the fruit flies we’d been swatting all evening!)

 

I won’t regurgitate all of Annic Nova which can be found in JTAS #1, Double Adventure 1, Mongoose’s old Signs and Portents magazine and their Compendium 2.  But I’ll mention the points of note, deck by deck.  Oh.  One mistake I made in case it saves someone else.  I’d printed out the deck plans from Double Adventure 1 as a) they fit onto one sheet; b) I think they look better; c) they don’t have idiotic typos like ‘Pinance’ for ‘Pinnace’ as the most recent ones do.  Aaargh.  But the DA 1 set (and JTAS 1) are keyed to a single numerical sequence through all decks.  The most recent ones (i.e. the Mongoose ones) renumber on each deck.  Not necessarily a problem but I’d also printed out the ‘key’ to the rooms from Compendium 2 because it is a little larger and easier to read.  I didn’t notice the difference until Captain Loyd is reading out the numbers from the old deck plans and I can’t cross reference to the rooms.  Fortunately, I had the other print out as well – no wonder my bag weights a ton – and I could just squint a bit.  All my annotations (such as language phrases, what’s different in low power/power on situations and Halloween ‘atmosphere’) were on the larger notes though… <sigh>.

 

Bridge deck – see above and last time.  Tess is here watching things on the screens while she monitors the computer and supervises the installation of a Galanglic operating system as per the book.

 

Quarters deck – I had one of the NPC passengers, Harry Sagakae claim to be something of an expert on alcoholic drinks.  He’s a doctor so I thought that could be nicely ironic – that he’s a great drinker.  Or perhaps he specialises in dealing with cirrhosis of the liver…  Or both.  He didn’t have a miniature as I was all out of them by then but I think he was the last passenger I actually named on the evening.  Anyway, he was able to deliver the recognition of the ‘excellent’ Galanglic bottle.  I had Gvoudzon slump into the chair opposite the visor as, when he was a PC he was playful like that and it was just the kind of thing he’d do.  The visor comes on and shows channel J (five) – the animated lecture on chemical elements – but despite Fred also finding the remote they are astonishingly uninterested in checking further and don’t even bother changing channels.  Maybe we’ll come back to that next time.  NOTE TO SELF: remember to report as the search party exit through the decks that the visor is still blaring out to itself.

 

#8 (or Quarters 3. Stateroom B) – they found the rings and the money.  Someone in the peanut gallery (back on the March Harrier) thought the rings might be worth a little bit.  Fred is creeped out by the mirror but decides not only to look into but reaches out his left hand to touch it.  Brilliant!  I thought!  I couldn’t have asked for more and I reach out my right hand to touch.  I wish.  That’s what should have happened.  In my dreams.  I actually, thinking mirror, reached out my right hand to touch Jane across the pub table.  Immediately realized my mistake and said, hang on, let’s do that again.  Jane (Fred) reaches out again and I use the opposite hand correctly.  Unfortunately, I think that rather gave the game away and they immediately twig to the ‘unreversed image’ that’s being shown.  Bother.  Ah well, it was still fun.

 

Fred then starts investigating the mirror, discovers the mechanism and this time asks Tess whether he should flick the switch or not.  Reticent Tess thinks not again but I can’t remember if she’s finally persuaded to let him or Fred just flicks it anyway.  He looks in the mirror again.  Reaches out again.  And this time I do the ‘mirror’ bit correctly.    I don’t think they actually make anything of that bit of business, however.

 

10. (or Quarters Deck 5. Stateroom D) – Gvoudzon is searching this one, everyone sees on his camera what the deal with the room is, he turns to leave and is immediately followed by the little robot.  (I had in my head something that looks like a 30cm high R2D2 so I said it was white and blue with a domed top, but no one seemed to pick up on that.)  I start ‘beeping’ at five second intervals or so and then complain because the text says ‘peeping noises’ and I don’t feel I can peep at a high enough range to be a peep and not a beep.  Jane immediately steps in and starts peeping.  Again, around one every five seconds at a guess.  I say “brilliant, now keep that up until I say stop”.  Dutifully she keeps going.  I reckoned she would do about twenty and then call it quits.  The robot starts following Gvoudzon around, they press on to other rooms, Jane keeps it up.  Good job we’re in a corner of the pub beside a pretty much unvisited salad bar.  Well, unvisited except for the fruit flies…

 

12. (or Q deck 6. Stateroom E) – no one makes any comment on the charred room

 

13.  Fred is in this one, as it happens, so we go through the mirror dance again.  This time just with the straight reflection and no ‘unreversed image’.  Fred’s onto it (into it?) this time and finds the retransmitter is missing.  He also finds the map box and in honour of our former Gvoudzon player who is the University map librarian I had a pretty clear image of a map box as something that would fit a wine bottle quite nicely.  I can only think I thought this because earlier in the day I’d printed out a map of Victoria (from JTAS #3 – although the text says JTAS #2) as directed and thought it would make a nice ‘scroll’ if I rolled it up.  [That was a mistake.  It was a real pain to transport it to the pub both secretly from Jane walking with me and so it didn’t get crushed.  If only I had a, well, map box.]  Anyway, from behind the flower decoration at the end of the pub table I produced the map with a flourish and presented them with that (and also the JTAS write up of Victoria as Library Data – although that was possibly a mistake as Tess set to reading it and was muttering about Referee type stuff.  I hadn’t read it at all recently due to time pressures.  I have no idea what it says – must read it! – but I knew it was essentially irrelevant to Annic Nova!).  So, they looked at the map for a bit and I tried to work out whether the text on it would be readable to the PCs.  i.e. the actual map in JTAS obviously is labelled in English, but would presumably be ‘actually’ in Galanglic.  But did the crew of the Annic Nova have an Imperial map or did they have their own one?  I gave up worrying.  No one was asking.  They seemed more interested in the rather evenly shaped (craters?) of the water/islands.  Finally, they thought to ask the peanut gallery if anyone recognized the world and I randomly determined that Boots Aga, the mercenary who was actually on the spot with them had done a tour of duty on Victoria and recognized it.  Not that even that set anyone wondering about anything.  So we moved on.

 

14. (or Q deck 8. Stateroom G) – Phlo found the camera and took a picture of the corner of bulkheads and deckhead by accident, they messed with the typewriter which was fun to describe and then watch them ‘recognize’.  Tess notes that Phlo’s typing is being echoed on the computer.

 

15. (or Q deck 9. Stateroom H) – as casually as I can I say the door is locked and there’s a child’s drawing on the door.  I describe it.  With no discussion at all and an instant dread, they all simultaneously decide they’re not going in there.  The Captain doesn’t order it and I certainly don’t press it with an NPC, but it did strike me as funny.  For once their paranoia is completely – although they don’t know it – justified!   [It’s at moments like those I wonder if they have, after all, recognized that it’s “Annic Nova”.  I’m convinced that Tess who is a grognard and even Jane who I know has bought the FFE classic Traveller CD are just being polite about not having ‘recognized’ it.  I know Carl won’t have a clue.  But as it happens, I’m pretty certain I was wrong on the first two counts.  Quizzing Tess later in the evening as she gave me a lift home, it turns out she may have been around Traveller a while but actually isn’t that acquainted with lots of the old stuff and certainly wasn’t acting that she didn’t know it.  Next day I mentioned the adventure by title for the first time to Jane and she slapped her forehead and said “oh, that’s what the lettering says!”  And at last twigged that that’s what we’d been doing.  Now I suppose she could have been acting, but I’m fairly sure that’s not the case.  I did tease her for having had the text in front of her the night before and the previous session and having not deciphered it.]

 

So, for the moment at least, no worries about the infection.  I’ll remind them of the unsearched room next time.  But there’s lots of red shirts who might be up for it!

 

It must have been about now that the peeping from Jane really did get irritating.  I was astonished that they’d not kicked the poor robot or beaten it into submission by now.  It was still dutifully tagging along behind Gvoudzon.  Someone had a bright idea.  Get Gvoudzon to go back to the playroom and then, after it’s followed him in, turn and nip out the door slamming it shut before it can follow him out.  I make him roll DEX.  Well, I make one of them roll DEX for him as he’s an NPC and he makes it quite handily.  Jane is obviously having far too much fun however and now she now produces a slightly muffled and very plaintive ‘peep’ and immediately she does so, every time, I thump the table as though it’s hitting the door.  Tess the player is rolling her eyes.  Carl and Loyd are rolling theirs but at that point the humour of it descends and we’re all laughing so hard that I for one can no longer read any text at all through the tears.  The peeping and thumping keeps up throughout this, however.  It’s this kind of stuff I could never have predicted and certainly isn’t there in the text, but is probably what draws me back again and again.

 

We eventually calm down and I think the rest of the deck passed without incident.  They find the grav switch in the common area (and deduce the game nature of the deck markings) but no one messes with the switch.  Shame…

 

Up to the: Cargo Deck

They poke their noses into the aft cargo bay and see what’s there, but then spread out down the corridors and don’t actually go into the forward cargo bay so no one sees the astrogation dome.  I have a feeling we may have got distracted by the large cargo bay doors as well, so I don’t recall checking out the turrets.  I’d better check.  Jane was taking some notes.

 

The other language phrase I’d translated into Telugu was “Full power must be restored for this function” with the idea that it would crop every time they tried something demanding like switching on grav plates and so on.  But as they’d restored full power, I never got to use this one.  Ah well.  For record and anyone that cares I’d rendered this as something like: “I fankson kosam purty saktimmy punarud darin kali”.

 

They did find the three small vacc suits in the aft cargo bay.

 

Engineering Deck (or Workshop Deck)

No messing here.  Tess has the skills to both identify the shops and use them if it ever comes to that.  Although the player did make a wry comment about maybe not being quite skilled enough thanks to the straight translation of the text from classic Traveller and the wide but shallow skills sets of typical Mongoose characters.

 

It must have been about now that Fred (or perhaps more realistically, Jane] wanted to know how Gvoudzon’s tail was doing.  They’d noticed that Loyd, back on the ship, seemed to be having little difficulty with or pain from his wrist (which if you recall was broken during melee training during Jump).  Gvoudzon, away from the Harrier, reporting his tail was still giving him some pain.

 

I should probably explain at this point that the players are fully aware that back on Junidy – out on the Aurora sailing vessel – when we had someone playing Adma the medic as a PC – he had declared that he’d kept one of the squeedles when the Psionic Institute took the rest away for study.  It was in a breast pocket last time it was mentioned.  The other players weren’t overly happy with this, knowing that the creatures had been responsible for the loss of INT over the weeks the squeedles had been aboard.  Despite knowing that I’d balanced this with faster healing which they’d benefitted from on more than one occasion.  Now Adma (or rather his player) had had grand ideas about coming up with some kind of ‘cage’ for the squeedles (or helmets for the characters?) whereby they could be protected from the detrimental effects and benefit from the healing.  Interesting as that might have been to explore and interesting as it might have been to explore the dynamics of the rest of the players not being convinced and just wanting to be shot of them entirely, we never got a chance to play that out properly.  The player had too many other things going on and decided not to come along any more (although actually being told that as Referee would have been kind).  I suppose I could carry on with the above as an NPC but I’m less happy to for some reason.  Feels a bit like railroading the players.  Not that TTA isn’t guilty of that itself.

 

Anyway, the practical upshot for our present purposes is that the players know about the squeedle but their characters don’t.  They (the players) are looking for some way of bringing this out into the open so the characters can discuss it/deal with it, which I think is fair enough but my lot are also kind enough to do it in character.  Hence Jane, sorry, Fred’s interest in Gvoudzon’s tail.  I thought this was a fair way of them tackling it hence I had Loyd (near the squeedle) finding his wrist is ok, and Gvoudzon (on the Annic Nova) not being pain free.

 

Their bright idea is to get Lily, while Adma is waiting with first aid to hand at the airlock, to do some investigation.  Fine I’m ok with that.  Rather than me come up with her actions (and have to think), this seemed like a good moment to get the players to tell me what they’d like her to do as an NPC.  I decide (did I roll?) that Lily is up for this.  Fred instructs Lily to search Adma’s stateroom which the medic shares with Egon; Tess suggests asking Egon about anything odd in Adma’s behaviour; Fred throws in quizzing Kunal as well.  Kunal hasn’t noticed anything beyond Adma’s usual propensity to fall asleep at the drop of a hat (which is a sign but tends to get lost in the fact that the player did so during sessions as well!) and Lily finds nothing in the stateroom.  However, her quizzing of Egon is more interesting.  He, if you recall, was the first/most affected by the squeedles way back and the reason – as he became comatose – that they suspected something was up and eventually went in search of the Psionic Institute.  Now in theory the psions have made sure everyone is ok, but of course Egon is still sharing a cabin with Adma who has one.  So I thought I’d roll to see how he might react to the question about how he seems.  A five.  Perfect.  He’s utterly non-committal and grunts a non-answer.  Lily (Tess) then asks about how he’s been behaving.  I roll again.  Another five.  Perfect.  I go through the same routine, but this time I tap my breast pocket a couple times as though rather absent-mindedly.  Discreet as I tried to be, Jane – perhaps more sensitive following the mirror incident – is on to this in a flash and has Fred put two and two together.  “If it’s what I think I is, I’m going to space the thing,” she declares.  “And if Adma’s not happy with that I’ll space him too!”

 

We pressed on.  [Though in retrospect, I’m not sure exactly when this happened.  It may have been a coda once we’d wrapped up the exploration, but my memory says that’s when we finished the evening.  Ah well.  Perhaps I should record these evenings…]

 

Drive Deck (or Engineering Deck)

[yes, for once I’m with the Mongoose changes to those last two deck titles.  Makes more sense to me.]

32. (or 4. Hydroponics Area)

I still had this area overgrown with vegetation even though – given they had full deck plans – it no longer concealed the access to the forward control area and two Jump pods.  But it was still fun to hack through.  I’d added spider webs but NOT like something out of The Hobbit.  They weren’t particularly difficult to traverse, just a bit creepy but I wasn’t really playing that up now.  I would have done so in the case of lighting being low still and/or with Halloween still close.  Thus, the creatures I’d statted up last time just scurried out of the way at the periphery of their vision.  [It’s not quite the same when it’s virtually all NPCs anyway.]  Besides, for a second evening running, I’d managed to leave the relevant sheet back in the office.  <sigh>

 

Now I’m not entirely sure why #36 (or 6.) Airlock is in Zero-G along with the cabinet rooms but they traverse this.  Fred struggles with this again so stays behind.  I didn’t mean for it to be a showstopper for him.  But his call.  They check out the cabinets and find the comms gear; they check out the observation deck and I reveal some online images of the Annic Nova that are rather gorgeous and show this angle of the ship quite clearly; they check out the pinnaces (or pinances!) fairly briefly.  By this time I know we’re getting to the end of the evening.  Tess is looking at footage from the drive pods and rolls well to establish one is Jump 2 (which she is impressed by) and then even more so when she rolls well again to identify the Jump 3 of the other pod.  It’s just about this time that Fred, mooching around in the area, leans on the switch (or is playing with them all?) to open the accumulator and that starts whirring into action.  Tess is horrified that he’s messing about with switches again.  They work out from Tess’ screen on the computer (and an Electronics roll time period of ‘1’) that it will be one week before the bars on her screen are ‘full’).  It’s at this point Tess (both the character and the player) starts musing on whether they are charging the Jump pods or just, say, ship’s power.  So, instead of a cliffhanger with combat action or some such we had an ‘engineering dun-dun-durr’ as Tess considers this and tries to work it out.  Phew.  That gives me a couple of months to make a decision as I’d not bothered to do that before.

 

So, if anyone’s read this far, what do you think?  IIRC this is the big ‘canon’ breaking bit of Annic Nova.  Fuelling Jump drives from ‘nothing’.  But is there, in this particular situation, really any problem with just letting that be the case?  Or shall I just keep it as supplying ship’s power only?

 

Having slotted (shoe-horned?) Annic Nova into The Traveller Adventure without a lot of thought really, just a desire to give it a whirl, I’m not quite sure where we’re going with the ship in the future.  It looks like they’ll head on into Yebab leaving a salvage transponder on it.  (Do Imperial ships carry these or is it just a rejig of a ship’s comms to broadcast a salvage message?)  But it seems to me that they have the sophontpower to actually crew it all the way to Yebab.  And is it salvage anyway if the bodies of its owners are still aboard?!  But even if they do take it to Yebab and claim it, I don’t necessarily see it as campaign wrecking because there’s bound to be some Imperial law that means that they can’t actually take possession officially until, say six months have passed.  That should give us time to finish the events of TTA.  Shouldn’t it?  You never know with my lot…  :-)

 

My final thought is simply to note that on paper Annic Nova has looked to me like a fairly simple, and possibly dull, dungeon crawl in space.  It must have been amongst the first things ever written/played for Traveller so that’s perhaps not surprising given the era it came into being.  But I had completely overlooked the fun that my players (any players, I presume) might have with it.  (Even the next day Jane was peeping and I was thumping a table at command as we envisioned the poor robot trying to get out forever more.)  I’m more inclined to think maybe I could take this to TravCon and run if there’s an emergency need for a game at some point.  It’s happened in the past that Andy has been in need of filling a slot at the last minute and there aren’t many who are prepared to run something at the drop of a hat.  Perhaps it’s not too basic for even experienced players…  I’m certainly really glad now that I squeezed it in. 

 

Now, we really ought to get on with heading towards the Trade War chapter.  It’s so long since I practised the ship combat in readiness for it, I’m going to have to start again.  Meanwhile, I say 'leka nosht' to the barmaid.

 

tc

 

 

 

 

[1] i.e. Broker 3, Pilot 1, Vacc Suit 1, Admin 0, Animals 0, Gun Combat 0…. etc rather than Admin 0, Animals 0, Broker 3, Gun Combat 0, Pilot 1, Vacc Suit 1.  (There are examples of both in the literature – even back in classic days.)

 

[2] For the non-Brits, she’s a celebrity TV presenter known for her black hair and heavy fringe.

 

[3] It’s a really long story.  Pay attention at the back.  There are 22 of these write ups (and some Freelance Traveller articles) you’ve missed if you’ve not been following closely.

 

[4] Well, not completely randomly.  I obviously didn’t want something immediately recognizable like a European language and nor did I want something that sounded vaguely familiar like, say, an oriental language.  Telugu seemed to fit the bill.  Especially if I refrain from an Indian accent.  And who is to say that the aliens don’t use that as some long lost descendants/servants/etc of a Terran colony?!

 

[5] This caused a slight pause (no pun intended) as we explained to Carl the Aslan gender divisions and that probably it was a male Aslan as it’s holding a laser rifle, but of course that’s just stereotyping so it could well be a female.  And I had to have that discussion because, I’ve learned through this and putting 2 and 2 together from a previous incident that one of our players is perhaps a little bit sensitive about what miniatures are representing her.  You can see why I have a tin of coloured plastic game pieces for emergency use.

 

 

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