All Things Vargr

[Condottiere]

Vargr: ... from my cold, dead paws!

Vargr characters can draw from a wide variety of traditions and subcultures, such as there are and that they can remember.

I remember from watching old Westerns, that the Indians loved to personalize and decorate their weapons. Gamewise, that's fine.

Vargr armour is very individualized, and outside of an organized military, let's not worry about a well regulated militia, unlikely ever to match anyone else's in the pack or unit. This isn't a problem, and probably works out for the armourer as well, as he can incorporate any protective piece he has available to the ensemble. Probably also fits like a custom made suit and in theory should actually make it less cumbersome for the character.

The same applies for blade weapons, since all they need to do is keep them sharp, not find suitable ammunition for them. Blades can be customized to suit the preferences and fighting style of a Vargr, as well as any particular aesthetic quirks he wants to incorporate, compared to armour, where pragmatism rules, a melee weapon can be indulged.

The Vargr here could enjoy a Samurai aesthetic, with sharp curved swords and individualistic armour. They certainly like spears, not to sure on bows and crossbows.

Their aristocracy could come from the Samurai tradition, their pirates from the Viking one, preferring the battle axe, and liking to clump together in shieldwalls.

The only one for whom a wide variety of non standard calibres works out is Carlos the Jackal, and hat's because they are optimized for each assassination he contracts for.

Just because we know that there are more optimal weapons that the Vargr can use, doesn't necessarily mean that they want to. The guild of gunsmiths could standardize the calibres at least on a local level.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: ... upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well

There are three positions in Traveller you really want certifiably competent professionals performing, Astrogation, Engineering, and Medical Doctor. Surgery, too.

So without the stats appearing in HUD of our Google Glass, how do we know that Vargr is a competent physician? While Vargrs might be inclined to take a chance for themselves, chances are they'd be a lot more paranoid when it comes to their offspring.

Vargr surgeons are likely to have gotten a lot of practice.

 

[kilemall]

Vargr: Ship Design Philosophy

The Imperium has alphabet drives and power plants.

I was going to make it a separate post, but the question does occur to me as to what the corsairs are raiding for? It would have to be stuff they can't get, make, or want to make themselves. And those corsairs holds really aren't so large that they can just chuck in whatever they find or takes their fancy.

The Vargr are after rare metals or minerals that have an industrial usage, and high tech stuff that they can use themselves or easily sell in their home markets. It's probably easier and takes less time just to grab a small starship, and make tracks, than to get the welders out and cut out all the engineering in the middle of hostile space.

If you have to assume that there are enough of instinctual engineers and mechanics in Vargr society that they can piece or fit almost anything together, and it should work, most of the time.

My take on the Solomani is that once they've found an engine that works really well, they don't spend either time or money on further research and development, and just add as many as is necessary to get a desired performance from any sized hull.

The Vargr aren't that interested in funding R&D if they don't have to, nor have the patience to wait for results, and prefer to steal the IP. Or better yet, steal the actual finished product.

This may be less of a problem for smaller sized hulls, sine there probably are factories around that can manufacture the engineering for those sizes, but anything really large may be beyond their cap0acity, or pragmatically, they'll want money to expand, plus that for the materials and labour in advance.

So shipbuilders are inclined to use what they have, and that's usually not uniform across the board, which results in a very careful selection of parts that will work together, possibly by individually tuning them to synchronize with each other. which in my opinion, is very important when dealing with that mad six minutes when the power plant overclocks, and the jump drive punches a hole into another dimension.

Just a side note, this whole mechanic informs my piracy and Oort Cloud interactions- water and therefore oxygen and hydrogen too are relatively plentiful out there, but metal is rare, shipyards moreso, and alphabet drives are prized for capture precisely because they are designed to fit together.

 

[Condottiere]

It suddenly occurred to me, why are the Vargrs avargring?

They are genetically inclined to it, and it sounds like fun, but just shooting stuff up doesn't pay for the bullets and the cost of maintaining their ships.

And it's been pointed out that gold is very plentiful, and if Imperium Credits are transferable, they're probably also traceable.

The easiest way is to cannibalize marginal Vargr settlements, but there you have diminishing returns, the more prosperous are better defended, and a very good idea who you are and where they can find you for a return engagement.

That leaves the clueless humans. Who actually have lots of great loot.

Lindisfarne monastery would be warehouses full of high value tech products, champion bull studs, and advanced types of corn (assuming they like cornflakes).

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: Canine the Librarian

Librarians are a Vargr secular order committed to the preservation of knowledge amongst the Vargr Diaspora.

They tend to set up shop by creating a data centre, and if none is available, or not accessible to the majority of the inhabitants, a public computer network. They then support their activities by donations, or charging a nominal fee for access.

They also sell their services as consultants.

Librarians are dedicated to their order and committed to spreading knowledge to the Diaspora, and maintaining uncorrupted databases. They take oaths of obedience, poverty, chastity, and packlessness.

At their sanctuaries, they undertake to certify individuals as to their degree of knowledge and competence, in critical callings such as history, astrogation, engineering and medicine.

Many sanctuaries come into conflict with local rulers, especially regarding the issue of history and monitoring of the computer networks they run, usually resulting in a violent resolution.

The legendary founder of the order supposedly established a sector wide empire that achieved tech level seventeen, and as his offspring started squabbling amongst themselves as to precedence, resulting into subsector wide conflagrations that destroyed planets, he disappeared, taking with him a huge cache of the most valuable items his empire had produced, including very high tech weapon systems to protect it. This is one of the holy grails of the Vargr Diaspora. The high tech weapon systems, of course.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: Fighter Jocks, or ... I feel the need, the need for speed!

Pilots are a breed apart, and then you have Vargr.

A Fighter Pack is a little difficult to figure out, because it's a solitary profession, and everyone in it wants to be the leader. Basically, you have a bunch of Alpha Alpha Alpha Pack Leader males, all of whom want to be Pack Leader.

I don't think one size fits all, but what follows is what I believe works best for Vargrs.

First of all, very few Vargrs can afford to buy their own fighters, so they're flying them on behalf of someone else, usually an organized military, because logistics is really going to be a pain, and expensive.

They have to fly as part of a unit, and usually in formation. Current tactics indicate a wingman boosts your chances of survival substantially, and I rather doubt that changes in the future. No Vargr Pack Leader will voluntarily want to be the wingman.

There's no fixed size for a Vargr fighter squadron, or bomber squadron, for that matter. It's not going to be anywhere near fifty, because the squadron leader is not going to be able to exercise that much oversight, as the chances are he's going to be expected to lead the squadron on their missions at least half the time, to justify his position; he'd also want to.

You'd have to put up at least two flights, so squadron size is likely a minimum of six, to maybe a maximum of twenty four. Most likely the number shifts between, as strikecraft are constantly undergoing maintenance, and if there are spares, someone would be flying them.

Even if all the fighters are the same model, and come from the same production batch, after the first series of maintenance and repairs, their performance and appearance start to differ to a greater or lesser extent, as each crew tries to squeeze out the optimal performance of their charge, outside the fact that replacements parts aren't always been manufactured for that model.

Fighter pilots are pack leaders in their own right; they have their own crew that maintains their strikecraft.

A lot of strikecraft squadrons evolve into composite squadrons, as the squadron starts to acquire different types of craft, these conceivable could expand to fifty craft.

There's not much incentive for a Vargr fighter jock to disappear with his strikecraft, or even to defect, since it doesn't have a jump drive, and he would leave his crew behind.

Vargr militaries, usually because of the expense, maintain a hi/lo formula, maintaining a large ratio of cheap light fighters to expensive heavy fighters, at least three, possibly as high as nine, to one; the elite pilots invited to join the squadrons flying the more sophisticated craft.

While in theory, squadrons would qualify more as bands, they are considered more like superpacks. A group of squadrons would be under the supervision of a band commander, who'd be more involved in the administrative, coordinating, and planning aspects.

 

[maksimsmelchak]

Vargr: Fighter Jocks, or ... I feel the need, the need for speed!

Pilots are a breed apart, and then you have Vargr.

A Fighter Pack is a little difficult to figure out, because it's a solitary profession, and everyone in it wants to be the leader. Basically, you have a bunch of Alpha Alpha Alpha Pack Leader males, all of whom want to be Pack Leader.

I love this thread. I think greater psychology definitions for all of the races would be very cool.

Thank you!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[SanDragon]

Would the program be called "Top Dog."?

 

[The Pakkrat]

Vargr: Fighter Jocks, or ... I feel the need, the need for speed!

Pilots are a breed apart, and then you have Vargr.

A Fighter Pack is a little difficult to figure out, because it's a solitary profession, and everyone in it wants to be the leader. Basically, you have a bunch of Alpha Alpha Alpha Pack Leader males, all of whom want to be Pack Leader.

No where do I read that Vargr are male-dominated. Females can be just as dominating and Alpha-ish as males, bitchy even. To assume that Vargr are male-dominated is to give in to the Solomani Hypothesis completely and be stereotyped by Humaniti as canines and wolves. Save that Alpha male gibberish for the Aslan.

A pack, led by some den mother Alpha, can be just as successful in military, business, social circles (e.g. Imperial Vargr) and family as any male. No where does it say that the Ancients made sure that Vargr are sexist.

So lope along carefully, sir, for those that serve have a prime view of your backside and tail. Jus' sayin'.

‘Aekh kfaegzoukhin zersakha Vargr; kfaegzoukhin zersakh kuvargr.’

‘A Vargr without charisma is no better than a rock; a rock with charisma is better than an entire pack.’

from Alien Module 2: Vargr, p. 47

Live from the Situation Room on Serue (Knoellighz 1221), this is the Pakkrat for Net-7 News

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: Puppy Love, or Soft pawed and fertile

Someone has to look after the pups, wash your socks, and microwave dinner.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: That's not a starship. This is a a starship.

While was trying to remake the Solomani Navy and fooling around with my hundred tonne Venture class, I came to the realization that trying to run a hundred tonne starship isn't really economically viable, in the normal course of business, unless you can figure out to cut construction costs and have a better net profit.

It's unlikely that Vargr will bother to build hundred tonners, for one thing, the chances are you're gong to get outgunned, and too many compromises are involved in the design, since you can't fight, and you can't run.

And you can't pack your pack into it, not without a mutiny.

I don't recall if a hundred tonner is more difficult to spot than a two hundred tonner, but if Vargr wanted stealth, they'd send a smallcraft or a drone to check things out and report back.

Okay, that's basically the same conclusion I came to with the Solomani, but the Solomani have more money/resources/coordination.

If you come across a Vargr operated hundred tonner, the chances are that it's originally a pimped out Imperium scout. Or some other alien race that they liberated it from.

And if you thought I was stretching things with the Solomani maintaining legacy warships from before the War of Imperium Agression, you'll find that a lot of Vargr ships are positively ancient, the parts that haven't been replaced over the course of ages.

Vargr don't really have ship mortgages, more like loans for home improvement.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: Shipwreckers, or What? A ship down!

Generally speaking, a starship is worth more in tact than in it's component parts, but an intact starship is also able to defend itself, especially against a mob without the necessary weapons to disable it and batter down the airlock.

However%

Looks like the post got halfway digested by the internet. Now, let me see ...


However, even in it's component pieces, a starship represents years of income to the Vargr packs of marginal settlements, and are owned and crewed by strangers.

These packs would set up fake beacons, and beam out welcoming messages to any starship that happens to transit through their system, while setting up a fake downport, where the landing pads are rigged to collapse and/or be mined, sufficiently enough to cripple the ships, though one variant would be to try and jam the sensors and have them crash into some prominent piece of geography.

While here events happened so far in the past that they've become part of Vargr folklore, it's said that the practice has never really died out, though Vargr captains and crews raised on these tales still remain wary of over fulsome welcomes in remote regions. Other races may not be aware of these fairy tales.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: Gender Neutral, or Where My Zarlkus At?

Optimally, the one at the teeth end is a fit disciplined well-trained young adult male, expendable to the needs of the pack. Everyone else make up the tail end, supporting the guys in the front, which is kinda hard, since everyone thinks they should be in front. The logical exception would either be a female who's an outstanding soldier, or during an existential fight.

For Vargr, most fights tend to look existential.

That doesn't remove the fact that females can't really cut it at the cutting edge of combat, though technology has narrowed that gap considerably, with the goal of many female combatants to pilot battle dress, the most famous of which is Xenophont, Warrior Princess, who leads an infamous but successful band of Vargr corsairs.

For a variety of reasons, infantry makes up the vast majority of the Vargr frontline
units, and females do make up a noticeable contingent, though very few amongst the
elite military packs.

Females are more represented in the armoured vehicle crews, but have a hard time breaking into the tight strikecraft pilot community, despite the fact that starship pilot slots tend to be equally representative.

 

[kilemall]

Given your criteria re: 100 tons ships, seems to me like the base Vargr adventure ship would be the A3 Fast Trader.

Corsair light, half the overhead, all the speed.

 

[Condottiere]

The bottlenecks tend to be minimums that eat up space, the bridge and the jump drive.

But a catamaran configuration could weld two hundred-tonner hulls together.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: Transported, or Fly Me To The Moon ...

Coming back to the hundred tonner starship, it's usually roled as as a scoutship.

Now, while Vargr are very cost conscious, a two hundred tonner is going to be more capable and useful to explore space, especially in areas that you have no idea what's there; it couldn't make that much difference to whoever is sponsoring the trip.

If someone chooses to use a one hundred tonner, it probably was more of a personaol choice, and he probably does want to be alone, which would tie in to the Loner career.

These are oddballs, and probably only those with a reputation of delivering the goods would get sponsored, or a lifetime of saving up for it in goods and favours, or they just stole it.

The reason there are so many copies in Imperium Space, is because the Scout Service just keeps producing them, and then giving them away. The Seeker model indicates, not just as loans, second hand ones must be dirt cheap.

The Vargr don't have the equivalent service, possibly because they don't have enough capable Loners, nor be willing to fund these ships, when they could assign a larger ship to survey the nearby neighbourhood, and then be repurposed for another mission.

On the terrestrial plains, the grav equivalent of a Formula One racing car has the addition of an extra seat, which seems to indicate that even on a temporary basis, Vargr don't really like to be alone, or they need to show off to someone. Probably both.

It might be the equivalent of convincing your girlfriend to watch a horror movie, and getting her really clingy and pumped up.

On a more pedestrian level, Vargr teenagers might spend a lot of time in the garage to pimp out their rides, a ground car convertible, 'cause I'm fairly sure that better than sticking out their heads from the window of a speeding car, they'd like the onrushing wind to just flow over the windscreen.

Pretty fly for a White Shepherd.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: Transported, or Let me play among the stars ...

Perusing through Mongoose's Vargr, I note that they actually don't have Scout bases, which sort of confirms my believe that they'll task an available starship for any reconnaissance or surveying.

The Vargr may actually have as much traffic between systems as the Imperium, though without any insurance policies, except what they can pack into their turrets. Also, Vargr are unlikely to come to a deadstop and then transition to their destination, they'll be relying on that accumulated velocity to blow past any pirates. They aren't going to rely on jump tapes, either, in case they are corrupted and position their ship for an (un)welcoming party. Unless they know that the jump points are heavily patrolled.

Because at least half of Vargr starships are going to ensembles of recycled equipment and lowest bid procurement, they might prefer to dock on the highport, without risking a re-entry. That's unfortunate, because most Vargr worlds only have extensive facilities at the Downport(s), since unless the local polity takes an active interest in maintaining the highport, it's slowly disintegrating, though kept in service by some of it's more innovative and stubborn service personnel, assuming they're still paid.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: Terminal Velocity, or I See The Bad Moon Arising

I think that the Vargr would set up a starport on a very low gravity, airless moon, or the more organized ones would arrange to put a largish asteroid into orbit.

With the moon, they could burrow down, and enlarge it organically.

With the asteroid, once they run out of room to burrow, they start attaching all sorts of modules on the surface.

Both have the same fundamental function, a foundation that they can build on, into, and over.

There are any number of downports dirtside, most of which would cohabit the same space as the regional airport. This has to do with regional competition, sometimes pragmatic for military and economic purposes, sometimes just as a prestige project. Most importantly, it allows the regional regimes direct control over these aspects. All compete for traffic.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: No Pain, No Gain, or Sports

We know hunting is a Vargr sport, though how extreme they want to play it, like only spears or bows or guns, hard to say. May be a very local preference.We know they like going in groups, and to show off their proficiency, or their non proficiency before their social superiors, depending how they read their characters.

So we come to golf. If each player brings along their respective entourages, it will be like a competitive championship. And how many players? It may well be that golf remains the preserve of the upper castes, where within their ranks, one Vargr upvargrship has less serious consequences, then if some lowly upstart shows them up.

How much strength do those spindly legs have? Cycle races seem to require packs in order for the pack leader to succeed, though I wonder if they're willing to pump and puff their way up into the Alps.

After that entry on fast cars, I wonder if they're that enthused with motorcycle racing? Probably not, since the navigator will have one hell of a time giving directions from the backseat. If they don't really like formal race meets for motorcycles, they certainly do like hanging out with other mounted Vargr.

Motorcycling lends itself easily to the agglomeration of similarly minded Vargr, though while they happen to be the lone occupant of their cycle, they move in packs. This later may turn into a gang. That's serious, because where you can leave a pack at any time, you usually can't voluntarily leave a gang, and the gang tends not to leave you.

Which raises an interesting question, is a Corsair pack a gang?

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr: Snatch and Grab, Not Bite and Hold

One primary difference between the Aslan and the Vargr seems to be the fact that they prefer to rob you, not dispossess you of your land.

For the Aslan, their honour may prevent them taking your possessions by force, but real estate is fair game.

Not that I've ever bothered to look into it, but I'n going to guess that their colonizing fleets are large enough to be able to fend off most planetary defences, whereas the Vargr tendency for more looser organizations tends to prevent them from coming together and taking over, which with their Viking analogy, would usually be a endgame strategy for the Vikings.

Or perhaps, the Vargr aren't really interested that much in real estate or fighting for it, preferring to just move to somewhere more congenial.

This may come about if the Vargr are principally interested in their own or immediate family welfare, and lack that really fervent nationalistic streak.

That's not to say, that if you corner them, or they really like to stay at a particular place, they won't stand their ground, but their instinct may be more to move on, if they don't like their chances.

So Vargr amongst themselves don't see each other as an existential threat, and the really large effort necessary to hold together a diverse set of packs big enough to conquer planets, may make this a rare endevour. They may think it's just better to milk the cow, than feast on it's remains.

And canonically, corsair crews are far smaller than a dragonboat's.

The expansion into the Vilani Imperium, with governors equipping and using Vargr mercenary bands may be an exception, rather than a rule, because with interstellar populations, you'd surely find enough candidates to fill your security forces ranks. Unless they had planned to use them as Varangian Guard, incorruptible and loyal. Which can't be right, since that would be the Aslan.

The Vilani must have been exceptionally weak, and lack the capability of self defence if the Vargr managed to overrun them, after which the Vargr should have been attritioned through any number of revolts and insurgencies.

So it could be, the Vargr can move if the situation demands it, they just don't like to once they've marked their territory.