			    TRAVELLER Digest 180

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Adventure Seed 2	by Mark Clark <markc@brahms.udel.edu>
  2) re: Adventure seeds	by Eric Nolan <ericno@microsoft.com>
  3) Re: Adventure Seed - Ark of Hope	by Stefan Matthias Aust <sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de>

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Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 14:53:15 -0500 (EST)
From: Mark Clark <markc@brahms.udel.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Adventure Seed 2
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.950201135208.2745A-100000@brahms.udel.edu>

PLAYER INFORMATION

-Classic Traveller-
The player group is hired by an ex-Imperial Navy Captain for an 
expedition.  He will tell the players that his father was an itinerant 
asteroid miner who was lost in a misjump when the Captain was young.  His 
father's ship was recently discovered, and the Captain has the records 
from the last jump.  His father and the crew came out in empty space, 
only to find a large asteroid-like body.  His father and several of the 
crew went to explore the asteroid, but never came back.  The one 
remaining crew member set the ship on course for the nearest system, but 
his low berth failed before the ship was found.  The Captain wants to 
travel to the asteroid and find out what happened to his father.

-MegaTraveller-
Set up will be much the same, but the father's ship was attacked when it 
returned to the system in the middle of a battle of the Rebellion, which 
killed the remaining crewmember (not the failure of the low berth).

-New Era_
The Classic Traveller set-up can be used in the Regency.  For the RC or a 
Pocket Empire, the Captain is looking for his grandfather rather than his 
father.

1) The situation is exactly as it seems.  The asteroid is plain rock.  
The Captain's father and his fellow crew were killed by faulty equipment.

2) As 1, but the asteroid has rich deposits of ore that can be worked.

3) As 1, but the Captain's father was abandoned on the asteroid on 
purpose by the crewmember.  The father left a message explaining what 
happened.

4) As 3, but the "Captain" is actually the crewmember who left the father 
for dead, and has returned out of guilt.  The players should be given a 
series of clues to this respect.  The asteroid contains nothing valuable.

5) As 4, but the crewmember has returned for valuables hidden on the 
asteroid.

6) The introduction is all a cover story.  The Captain is an active member
of a secret service appropriate to the setting and time of the campaign. 
The asteroid is a secret cache of fuel, parts and weapons maintained by an
enemy of the local political entity that the Captain learned about during
his service.  He plans to use the players to discover this and use the 
cover story to prevent the enemy from learning their codes have been 
compromised.

7) As 6, but the Captain has gone rogue and plans to kill the players and 
steal as much as he can from the facility for sale on the black market.

8) The Asteroid is a generation ship and the father is alive aboard.  He 
was abandoned by the crew member on the ship, who panicked when the father 
didn't return promptly.  The people on the asteroid are friendly and 
interrested in getting to civilization and in trade.

9) As 8, but the asteroid's inhabitants just want to be left alone.  They 
are not interested in trade, but they will return the Captain's father.

10) As 8, but the asteroid's inhabitants are violently xenophobic, and 
will fight to destroy the player's group.  They are technologically less 
sophisticated than players, however, so the Captain's father can be 
rescued if things are done right.


Note:  I would appreciate comment and criticism on this and the previous 
seed I posted.  I will continue to post these occasionally if folks find 
them interesting.


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Date: Thu,  2 Feb 95 11:43:46 PST
From: Eric Nolan <ericno@microsoft.com>
To: Traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: re: Adventure seeds
Message-ID: <9502021209.AA05515@netmail2.microsoft.com>

Mark,
  thanks for the adventure seeds and keep them coming, I like them at least.

With regards to the second seed, an 11th explanation struck me 
immediately.  Anybody played or seen a CD game for the PC called 
Creature Shock?

The basic plot is vaguely similar.  A survey ship complete with 
prototype fighter/weapon has gone missing in the asteroids and you have 
to find out what happened to it exactly.  The ships distress beacon 
contains footage of the disaster.  What actually happened is that when 
the ship passed close to the asteroid, tentacular pseudopods lashed out 
and arrested it's forward motion.  This caused an explosion in the 
drive section and supposedly the death of the crew.  The ship is now 
resting partially embedded in the asteroid.

The asteroid is vaguely alive and is under the control of a superior 
alien type.  It also contains samples of various dangerous life forms 
that have been collected including a polymorph which can duplicate the 
captain of the missing ship.

Integration of this idea into Mark's adventure seed could run along the 
following lines.

11)  The asteroid mining ship came out of jump near the asteroid.  
After a routine densiometer scan the crew noted the presence of heavy 
metals, unknown compounds and deep caverns in the rock.  All the crew 
bar one went over in vacc suits to investigate the possibility of this 
being an ancient artifact (or an abandoned military rock throwing 
project).  The interior had an atmosphere (lo-pressure, tainted).  They 
encountered hostile life forms, seemingly degenerated technological 
beings,  which the crew dealt with.  After a period of exploration the 
crew came under attack by a large creature of some sort and were 
quickly killed.  The remaining crew member on the ship engaged the jump 
drive and left.  After a period of six months, during which he prepared 
his story and gathered some cash, he contacted the PC's with his bogus story.

If you get a chance have a look at Creature Shock, it's very impressive 
visually, but you need to see section 2 and on to get a feel for this 
asteroid.

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Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 17:02:24 +0100
From: Stefan Matthias Aust <sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de>
To: pd82495@wapol.gov.au, traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Adventure Seed - Ark of Hope
Message-ID: <9502021600.AA10146@donald>

I just email to say that I like you ideas and I would really like to
see more of such ideas posted to the TML.  Do you have more
information about your pocket empire?  Where is it located? (please
excuse my question if you've already written that but I don't
associate anything with the named worlds) Is it set in a subsector
somewhere in the official Last Empire?

An alternative btw, would be a colony ship with some well equipped
unified people who have the definitive idea to conquer there target
world now where they find out, that it is not empty.  Of course, the
colonists welcome all deligations of Mirabil but they try to seed
distrust and start a war between them to have only conquer the
successor.

Mirabil's only hope is unity -- but that's nearly as difficult as to
fight the colonists...

bye
-- 
Stefan Matthias Aust // keep the soldiers gunning, keep the cameras running,
                    //  cause the rulers always laugh at the video bloodbath

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End of TRAVELLER Digest 180
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