tim_manley
SOC-12
aka -- Tim's work killing brain virus.....
Campaign: The Darkening Skies
Why the codename?
I’ve been gaming since ’77 and have covered a hell of lot of ground with games. So I’m borrowing liberally from a lot of places.
I started his exercise as a resurgence to my addiction that I call CT. While I haven’t done Traveller in a while I do game – I’m running my 14 year old and his friends in a Pathfinder game.
The bug caught me while driving. I was day-dreaming and recalled back when I bought my first set of Traveller books. I think it was ’79. I got the 3 LBB’s and was hooked. So this thought had me – max ship size would be the 5,000 tonnes per LBB2. I'd follow the rules to the letter (with the caveat of the char gen thing I posted in the CT board).
The thought started with that… and grew from there.
So, I have 4 empires:
+ The Holy Empire
+ The Confederation
+ The State
+ The Tribes
I have a plethora of sub races that I’m pulling from D20 humanoid monsters and making them sentient species in Traveller. I may make them playable… don’t know yet.
The Holy Empire is a Theocracy. It’s run by a Pope and has a different set of Noble Titles based on that. They practice slavery still. And in fact The Tribes are a collection of slaves that fought for their freedom and the peoples they came from. The Empire likes their shops big. They focus on the 5,000T ships loaded with beam lasers. Their weapon of choice is the beam laser and their ships have a very gothic style design.
The Confederation is short for Confederation of Allied Worlds – or Confed for short, or just Feds. Each world joins in and keeps its independence somewhat, giving up part of its GDP to the Confederation as a whole. The Confederation in turn owns protecting all the worlds and the shipping lanes via Star Fleet. The ship philosophy is multi-functional – and their weapon of choice is the missile. Their ships tend to be smaller and of larger number. Also, not all of them have jump drives, giving them more flexibility. The reason is the Jump Tube described below.
The Confederation also has something called the Jump Tube. This was technology developed by a lizard sub species (Kobolds) on one of their worlds. The jump tube is a large structure that creates a jump field inside its massive space. All things inside the tube are jumped to the target system but the structure doesn’t move. It’s a one way trip.
The tubes are generally 5,000T in size and can jump ships up to 3,000T in size max (or any combination thereof). The jump tubes have a max distance J3. Rumor has it that they’re working on tubes that can reach farther. But the only ones deployed are J3. Deployment of the Jump Tubes is via three ships called the Jump Tube Tenders – all 3 are 3,000T in size and can be sent by the Jump Tube itself, or by its own engine at J2. These 3 use themselves as the parts to build the Jump Tube – destroying themselves in the process. Jump Tubes must be fed with fuel on a constant basis and generally is surrounded by fuel silos and a fleet of cutters. A favorite tactics is to send a squad of x10 300T Jumpless Missile Ships through a jump tube to deploy a rapid attack. This way they can get a fairly quick combat presence up to J3 from the Jump Tube.
The State is a Military Industrial Corporation. It’s actually a collection of a wide number of Corporations. The group is war-like, they don’t practice slavery, but they do focus on personal combat. Their weapon of focus is the fighter and their giant ships are carriers.
The Tribes are a collection of people referred to as the Gilgaden. They are humans, but some were slaves of the Empire, and some free. They use whatever the hell they can find as ships. Their worlds tend to be lower tech than the rest and they rely on guerilla tactics to win the day. They are also suspected of being notorious pirates.
The Empire and the State have an alliance.
The Confederation and the Tribes have an alliance.
Each Empire has its own subsector. There is a subsector between all of them known as the Wildlands because no one as yet owns it nor have they fully explored it.
The last major war was the Campaign of Freedom (per the Feds and Tribes) aka the Rebellion (per the Empire & State). It’s been over for almost a hundred years. Currently there is a cold war that at times flares hot but there has been no formal declaration of war between the empires. But tensions run high.
Generally ships in the Wildlands are fair game for anyone. So travelers beware!
Toss into this mix are a space faring race of Mind Flayers that are now travelling into the system. They have 10,000 ton ships that all have J1 capability. They don’t need fuel. Instead they jump, then spend 100days waiting for the engines to recharge. They enter a system and deploy fighters and landing ships (their weapon of choice is the pulse laser for fighters and beam laser for the ship). They land on a world and take it, eating the minds of the inhabitants, turning them into either slaves, zombies, or mindless hulks. They begin purging the system of all sentient life and once they’ve fed they move on.
They have a slave species that fights for them (Orcs) and they are just now entering on the Fringe of space that is the border of the State and the Empire.
Campaign: The Darkening Skies
Why the codename?
I’ve been gaming since ’77 and have covered a hell of lot of ground with games. So I’m borrowing liberally from a lot of places.
I started his exercise as a resurgence to my addiction that I call CT. While I haven’t done Traveller in a while I do game – I’m running my 14 year old and his friends in a Pathfinder game.
The bug caught me while driving. I was day-dreaming and recalled back when I bought my first set of Traveller books. I think it was ’79. I got the 3 LBB’s and was hooked. So this thought had me – max ship size would be the 5,000 tonnes per LBB2. I'd follow the rules to the letter (with the caveat of the char gen thing I posted in the CT board).
The thought started with that… and grew from there.
So, I have 4 empires:
+ The Holy Empire
+ The Confederation
+ The State
+ The Tribes
I have a plethora of sub races that I’m pulling from D20 humanoid monsters and making them sentient species in Traveller. I may make them playable… don’t know yet.
The Holy Empire is a Theocracy. It’s run by a Pope and has a different set of Noble Titles based on that. They practice slavery still. And in fact The Tribes are a collection of slaves that fought for their freedom and the peoples they came from. The Empire likes their shops big. They focus on the 5,000T ships loaded with beam lasers. Their weapon of choice is the beam laser and their ships have a very gothic style design.
The Confederation is short for Confederation of Allied Worlds – or Confed for short, or just Feds. Each world joins in and keeps its independence somewhat, giving up part of its GDP to the Confederation as a whole. The Confederation in turn owns protecting all the worlds and the shipping lanes via Star Fleet. The ship philosophy is multi-functional – and their weapon of choice is the missile. Their ships tend to be smaller and of larger number. Also, not all of them have jump drives, giving them more flexibility. The reason is the Jump Tube described below.
The Confederation also has something called the Jump Tube. This was technology developed by a lizard sub species (Kobolds) on one of their worlds. The jump tube is a large structure that creates a jump field inside its massive space. All things inside the tube are jumped to the target system but the structure doesn’t move. It’s a one way trip.
The tubes are generally 5,000T in size and can jump ships up to 3,000T in size max (or any combination thereof). The jump tubes have a max distance J3. Rumor has it that they’re working on tubes that can reach farther. But the only ones deployed are J3. Deployment of the Jump Tubes is via three ships called the Jump Tube Tenders – all 3 are 3,000T in size and can be sent by the Jump Tube itself, or by its own engine at J2. These 3 use themselves as the parts to build the Jump Tube – destroying themselves in the process. Jump Tubes must be fed with fuel on a constant basis and generally is surrounded by fuel silos and a fleet of cutters. A favorite tactics is to send a squad of x10 300T Jumpless Missile Ships through a jump tube to deploy a rapid attack. This way they can get a fairly quick combat presence up to J3 from the Jump Tube.
The State is a Military Industrial Corporation. It’s actually a collection of a wide number of Corporations. The group is war-like, they don’t practice slavery, but they do focus on personal combat. Their weapon of focus is the fighter and their giant ships are carriers.
The Tribes are a collection of people referred to as the Gilgaden. They are humans, but some were slaves of the Empire, and some free. They use whatever the hell they can find as ships. Their worlds tend to be lower tech than the rest and they rely on guerilla tactics to win the day. They are also suspected of being notorious pirates.
The Empire and the State have an alliance.
The Confederation and the Tribes have an alliance.
Each Empire has its own subsector. There is a subsector between all of them known as the Wildlands because no one as yet owns it nor have they fully explored it.
The last major war was the Campaign of Freedom (per the Feds and Tribes) aka the Rebellion (per the Empire & State). It’s been over for almost a hundred years. Currently there is a cold war that at times flares hot but there has been no formal declaration of war between the empires. But tensions run high.
Generally ships in the Wildlands are fair game for anyone. So travelers beware!
Toss into this mix are a space faring race of Mind Flayers that are now travelling into the system. They have 10,000 ton ships that all have J1 capability. They don’t need fuel. Instead they jump, then spend 100days waiting for the engines to recharge. They enter a system and deploy fighters and landing ships (their weapon of choice is the pulse laser for fighters and beam laser for the ship). They land on a world and take it, eating the minds of the inhabitants, turning them into either slaves, zombies, or mindless hulks. They begin purging the system of all sentient life and once they’ve fed they move on.
They have a slave species that fights for them (Orcs) and they are just now entering on the Fringe of space that is the border of the State and the Empire.
