Introductary T20 Adventure for D&D players

[TKalbfus]

I recently had an idea about a Traveller Adventure that begins on a TL 1 World. At first glance the world resembles a D&D world, but magic doesn't really exist. All the D&D classes are there and are made compatible with Traveller, but there are no real spells. Instead there are people who pretend to be spell casters such as wizards, Sorcerers, or Clerics, using Traveller high technology disguised as magic and presenting themselfs as spell casters to an ignorant TL 1 population. The PCs start out at first level just as in D&D, and there are plenty of monsters and a dungeon full of traps, monsters, and treasure. But some strange magic items such as a wand of bullets, a wand of magic missiles with a trigger at the base and a cord connecting it to a power pack worn by the user. Then there is the Grav bike that is disguised to look like a broom stick. None of the natives really think the broom of flying looks like a broom that you would sweep the floor with. There's the "flying chariot" used by an evil wizard to terrify the local population as he fires his "wand of magic missiles". Then there is the weird metal monster that only flies when the "Wizard" climbs into its mouth. How does this sound as an adventure?

 

[Nightshade]

Sounds cool. You must be an Arthur C. Clarke fan.

 

[Elliot]

Cool

Where does it go from there?

 

[TKalbfus]

Basically the PCs would go through a dungeon, defeating monsters and collecting their treasure. I'd use the D&D treasure tables substituting Traveller technology for the magic items that would normally appear. The Wizard is trying to take over the local community using the technological items he has, he is an offworlder from a high tech society, his ultimate goal is to take over the planet, but impressing the locals with his "magic". He is just getting started when the PCs discover him. The Wizard may have a Scout ship or a Free Trader, and he has some off-world prisoners who know how to fly it. One of the goals of the adventure would be for the PCs to free his prisoners and expose the wizard for the fraud he is. There are other D&D creatures here as well, they are of the non-magical variety such as orcs. The world the PCs start on is a lost human colony, it might even have been a terraformed world, because much Earthlife exists here. Alot of genetic experimentation was going on here involving the creation of various humanoids from human genetic stock. There are even Dragons, although they don't breath fire and they can't fly, they don't talk or use spells, although they come in a variety of colors and metalic sheens, they are basically carnivourous beasts with animal intelligence. When the "Long Night" fell in -1526 (2992 AD) the society on this planet never recovered. The original scientists who settled this planet were too specialized in their fields to maintain their basic high tech society, so they were stranded on the planet and over time the tech level was reduced to 1. as survival instincts took over. The planet was lost and never rediscovered until the "Wizard" found it. He hired his crew on a scouting expedition and then betrayed them when his plans didn't coincide with theirs. Now the wizard has a bunch of props with him, he set up a bunch of spy satellites orbiting the planet, and he controls them with a device thats disguised to look like a crystal ball. The Crystal ball provides 3-dimensional satellite images of anything he wishes to "Scry" upon that can be seen from space. He has a number of "orc" henchmen, but he keeps his high technology to himself, using it instead to awe the orcs and keep them in line rather than distributing it among them to make them a more effective fighting force, he basically doesn't trust them, that is his main flaw and the opening the PCs need in order to take him down.
Once the Wizard is defeated, they be able to gather his equipment together and discover his starship. The Prisoners know how to fly the ship, but they don't know where in space they are. Their goal is to get back to Charted space and the Third Imperium. The offworlders offer to hire the PCs and give them rudimentary training in high tech weapons, they get on the starship and basically explore the surrounding star systems to get their bearings and find out how to return to Imperial space. The discover of the PC's planet is a valuable find for them, and they want to take that knowledge back to the Imperium with them and gain the credit.