2025 31 Day Character Creation Challenge: Beltstrike encounter table

[Black Vulmea]

Just like it says on the tin: I'm going to populate a random encounter table with non-player characters for Beltstrike for classic Traveller, a character a day for the month of January.

For giggles, I'm solitaire playing a Belstrike campaign set in the Reaginworld Belt from Judges Guild's Ley Sector setting. The module includes a random encounter table in Folder 2, "On the Rock," for the Koenig's Rock station.



I'm using this for Reagin's World, the main dwarf planet of the Reaginworld belt.

I am a classic Traveller gamer but I use a fair number of sources, some GDW, some not; I will mark anything not straight by the CT book with a [*HR] tag and cite the source, or note if it's just something I pulled out of my own prodigious behind. It should go without saying, but everything here is IMTU.

I love CT lifepaths, but because these are NON-player characters intended to fill pre-determined slots in an encounter table, I need to steer their careers a little bit. To that end, I will toss [*HR] an advantage/disadvantage die from time to time, to beat a particular throw or give myself an extra option on a table .

All clear? Here we go.

1 January: 11 Broker

Tassa Lakhani
664AD4 age 34 ex-Merchant Broker, IN Reserve Lieutenant (ex-Belter)
Steward-3 Trader-3 Broker-2 Vacc Suit-2 Computer-1 Engineering-1 Administration-1 Handgun-1 Streetwise-0 Basic Weapons-0
Sworat Line Merchant Academy, Sworat Line Business School

Tassa is a Reagin's World native; her parish priest recognized her talent early and saw to it she got the best education he could, but like many of her family's limited means, by 14 she was working on an ice hauler, making the quarterly run to the ice giant Slough Feg's Bright Ring. She was taken under the wing of the engine room gang boss, learned how to code and wrench the power and drive systems and at 18, that boss pulled her aside, handed her a bonus check, and introduced her to a Sworat Lines recruiter: "You're too smart for this life, kid. Go make somethin' of yourself." [*HR] "Filling in Skills," Dragon 55 - rules for switching careers

Hired by the sectorwide merchant line, the recruiter encouraged Tassa to test for the company academy and to her surprise, she was admitted. Despite spending four years knocking around the mining platform engine room, Tassa spent here time at the Academy preparing for a career in the cabin, learning in-depth about the care and feeding of passengers and crew. A diligent cadet with a voracious appetite for knowledge, she also obtained a reserve Imperial Navy commission as an ensign. [*HR] Merchants & Merchandise, Paranoia Press

In her second year aboard a Sworat liner, Tassa learned a bit about speculation, earning 20 KCr in the process and two years later, she was admitted to the line's business school and subsequently transferred to the factor side of company operations. She excelled, earning big bonuses, but a personality conflict with a station manager led to her sacking, whereupon she was hired by Tri-Star lines, a smaller line operating primarily in the nearby Guadix Drift and Nightmare subsectors. Tri-Star's inadequate security nearly got her killed when hijackers attempted to steal a cargo she was shepherding and Tassa'd had enough; she resigned and cashed out, then returned home to Reaginworld to open her own broker's office near the Imperial starport.



Tomorrow: Bud Souza, SPA cargojack.

 

[Black Vulmea]

2 January: 12 Worker

My worker was created using [*HR] the "Starport Authority" rules in JTAS 19 and 21.

Gaspar 'Bud' Souza
97A767 age 32 Cargojack
Grav Vehicle-2 Vacc Suit-2 Ship's Boat-2 Recruiting-1 Carousing-1 Brawling-1 Computer-0 Basic Weapons-0
Shuttle Service, XT Line

The Imperial starport is the largest employer on the dwarf planet Reagin's World and Bud Souza is a third-generation SPA employee. Like his mother and brother before him, Bud works the docks, driving grav skids and shuttles carrying ore hoppers and freight containers to and from the berthed starships. He's proud of his work and his family.

Bud married a dispatcher at the port, but he can still be found several nights a week alongside his fellow 'jacks in the pubs of The Crawl, Reagin World's startown, playing as hard as he works. His ambitions include becoming crew chief and eventually supervisor, and toward that end, he hasn't succumbed - so far - to the temptations of graft offered by his position.



Tomorrow? A nefarious con artist of many names

 

[Black Vulmea]

3 January: 13* Swindler

For this character, I used [*HR] the rules for Con Men from Scam: Rogues in Space Vol. 2 by Cargonaut Press. I don't use the extended UPP rules, so references to the new abilities are back-translated to their CT origins.

'Dark Matter' (possibly Gazo Vehn)
668C53 age 40 Con Man (ex-Prisoner)
Streetwise-4 Forgery-3 Computer-2 Bribery-1 Jack of All Trades-1 Recruiting-1 Dagger-1 Wheeled Vehicle-0 Basic Weapons-0

'Dark Matter' was a gamer handle for a kid on the gas giant satellite Tawdry, 'Gateway to the Lesser Rift,' but Dark Matter was more than a gamer, quickly learning how to create and sell false online identities. By the time he was eighteen, he graduated to business fraud, creating fake invoices for busy businesses and pocketing the payments. At twenty-two he moved to Aldernis, capital of the nearby Guadix Drift subsector and expanded his scams, becoming increasingly resourceful in the process.

At twenty-six he moved on to Helena but his luck ran out; he was arrested for online impersonation and sentenced to prison, under the name Gazo Vehn, spending the next seven years fighting to stay alive in stir but also planning his next crimes.

Released at thirty-four, Dark Matter moved on to Valisa and completed his first big score, a massive insurance swindle, pocketing 100,000 KCr then escaping to the Reaginworld Belt. Now thirty-eight, he's laying low on Reagin's World, studying the mining business and contemplating his next scam . . .



Tomorrow, meet Cpl. Mur Rizban, a rather tragic figure.

* edited to fix misprunt​

 

[Black Vulmea]

4 January: 14 Drunk

A classic Book 4 character with the [*HR] rules for military justice in JTAS 10 applied. (This guy makes me so sad . . . )

Neither physically gifted not terribly bright, army life offered Mur Rizban a chance that civilian life seemed unlikely to provide. Enlisting at eighteen on the advice of a family member, the young man volunteered for support, to gain skills that would serve him in his future after the military. However, Mur already suffered a burgeoning substance abuse problem that became particularly acute during the tedium of garrison duty. A first court-martial, at twenty-one, was dismissed and he succeeded in staying out of trouble, for a while, training to be a mechanic and electrician, completing protect forces training, and rising to the rank of LSGT. However, another court-martial, for drunk on duty during a counter-insurgency operation, cost him his stripes.

This proved to be the beginning of a downward spiral of accusations, treatment programs, and discipline that resulted in refusal of his re-enlistment four years short of his pension. Discharged from the Valisan Army, Mur traveled to Helena, to seek employment as a mercenary and served in security and striker missions in the Selwynis system beyond the Imperial border, but his demons continued to torment him.

Repatriated to Valisa at last, Mur, in a sober moment at 36, decided to try his hand at belting; he was good with his hands and comfortable in a vacc suit, so he obtained passage to nearby Reaginworld, but even the ice haulers, with their notoriously lax standards, wouldn't take a chance on the ex-soldier. Now Mur haunts the pubs of The Crawl, surviving on odd maintenance jobs in between bouts of drinking and drug use. Mur's an affable drunk, not a violent one, and many of the regulars look out for him, finding him a job when he's sober, making sure he doesn't walk out an airlock when he's not.



Next up, a Scout-turned-belter who rubs people the wrong way . . .