GDW Land Grants

[Vargr]

From what I have read I'm aware back in the old days GDW granted entire Sectors and regions on the OTU starmap for 3rd-party companies to develop.
I also heard some of the "land grants" were latter revoked and became non-canon.

My question is, exactly what sectors/regions were developed by third parties (regardless of how much or how little they wrote for it), and which became non-canon latter?

 

[aramis]

Ley Sector, Crucis Margin, Glimmerdrift Reaches, and Maranatha-Alkahest sectors (a domain sized chunk) were done by Judges Guild. They were explicitly overwritten on purpose with the release of Atlas of the Imperium.

 

[BlackBat242]

Vanguard Reaches and The Beyond by Paranoia Press.

The Atlas of the Imperium does not cover these.

AM-1 Aslan mentions their PP names (along with Trojan Reaches, which IS covered by AotI) in parenthesis, while listing their sector Aslan names... and AM-4 Zhodani does the same but with the Zho sector names.

I liked them both, along with Merchants & Merchandise, Scouts & Assassins, and Sorag, and ignore the decree that de-canonized all PP material.

 

[Hemdian]

• Ley Sector: Judges Guild - Full sector released plus numerous adventures. Decanonised.
  
  
• Maranantha-Alkahest: Judges Guild - Full sector released plus numerous adventures. Decanonised.
  
  
• Glimmerdrift Reaches: Judges Guild - Full sector released plus numerous adventures. Decanonised.
  
  
• Crucis Margin: Judges Guild - Full sector released plus numerous adventures. Decanonised.
  
  
• The Beyond: Paranoia Press. Full sector released plus some supporting supplements. Decanonised.
  
  
• Vanguard Reaches: Paranoia Press. Full sector released plus some supporting supplements. Decanonised.
  
  
• Old Expanses: High Passage Group (co-produced magazine with FASA). Sector overview and 6 subsectors released. Canon status unknown.
  
  
• Reavers Deep: FASA (later Gamelords). Sector overview and 2 subsectors released through FASA magazine. Later, 2 more subsectors released by Gamelords as supplements. Canon status unknown.
  
  
• Far Frontiers: FASA. Numerous adventures released (one of which included a subsector). Later rimward half of sector released by author via Dragon Magazine. Canon status unknown.
  
  
• Theta Borealis: Group One. Full sector and numerous adventures/supplements released. Canon status unknown.
  
  
• Spica: Wrekt Enterprises. Advertised but never published.

 

[Starviking]

• Old Expanses: High Passage Group (co-produced magazine with FASA). Sector overview and 6 subsectors released. Canon status unknown.
  
  
• Reavers Deep: FASA (later Gamelords). Sector overview and 2 subsectors released through FASA magazine. Later, 2 more subsectors released by Gamelords as supplements. Canon status unknown.

These two are included in AotI, so absent any solid decanonisation they should be considered canon, IMHO. The same goes for the Far Frontiers.

The Old Expanses also were central to GDW's TNE setting, with 5 subsectors being featured in GDW TNE products. Added to this, all of the Old Expanses were included in the GDW-licenced Traveller Navigator program from Planet 3 Software. If the OE aren't canon, then the canonicity of the whole Imperium is uncertain.

 

[aramis]

Only the JG materials were explicitly decanonized.

 

[Vargr]

Thank you for the input folks.

Anyone know the reason why JG's stuff was explicitly decanonized?

 

[aramis]

Here's the text from AOTI:

Atlas of the imperium
Copyright 1984, Game Designers' Workshop.
All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

No part of this game may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permision by the publisher in writing.

The Atlas of the Imperium was designed by Marc W. Miller.

Old Expanses sector was designed by Jim Cunningham and Gordon Sheridan, Portions of Old Expanses sector originally appeared in High Passage Magazine.

Reaver's Deep sector was designed by J. Andrew Keith. Portions of Reaver's Deep sector appeared in High Passage Magazine, and in Far Traveller Magazime. Additional data and adventures set in Reaver's Deep sector is published by Gamelords, Ltd.

Two subsectors of Reft Sector were designed by John Harshman, and appear in Traveller Adventure 5, Trillion Credit Squadron.

Solommi Rlm sector was designed by John Harshman and appears in Traveller Supplement 10, The Solomani Rim.

The Spinward Marches were designed by Marc W. Miller and appear in Traveller Supplement 3, The Spinward Marches.

Two subsectors of Trojan Reach sector were designed by Bob McWilliams and appear in Traveller Adventure 4, Leviathan.

Especially appreciated was the assistance of Leroy Guatney for providing names for star systems, and of John Harshman for providing Aslan, Yargr, and Vilani names for star systems.

Ley Sector and Glimmerdrift Reaches were originally sectors published by Judges Guild. The sectors in this atlas retain the names, but are entirely newly generated. They effectively supercede the Judges Guild products.

This atlas is designed and intended for use with Traveller. Traveller is Game Designers' Workshop's registered trademark for its science fiction role-playing game.​

If you look, most of the stuff absorbed into AOTI was from guys who did lots of stuff for JTAS.