Tuesday, June 30, 2015

System of the Week, Requena

Our next "System of the Week", is Requena.

Requena (Aragon 0104) is a pre-stellar technology system in the Vice Royalty of Aragon.

The starport is a Class C facility.  While able to perform major repairs, the Requena Downport cannot construct new ships, nor sell refined fuel.  There is a Travellers Aid Society facility, but it is limited.

Requena is medium sized.  With a diameter of 7,300 Kilometers.  The atmosphere is a type 4 thin-tainted atmosphere, that requires a filter mask for outdoor activities.  The Hydrosphere is 52%.

Map courtesy of the map generator at http://donjon.bin.sh/scifi/world/

With a population of 10,000, the Government is a captive government, controlled directly by the Vice-Royalty itself.   This results in a impersonal buraucracy running the system, with very little local input.  The Law level of 3 reflects a lack of tight control by the Vice-Royalty.

Technology level is 6 - Atomic era.

Requina is in the process of being colonized by the Vice-Royalty.  Only minor terraforming is in progress at this time.  The tainted atmosphere is one of the side effects of attempts to thicken the atmosphere and create a garden world.

The colonization effort had been larger, but during the last war with The People's Republic of Burbank, the Vice-Royalty reduced the workforce drastically.  This pushed back the terraforming schedule, and has resulted in the atmosphere getting worse.  There have been calls in some circles to re-prioritize the project, but they have not been answered.  Meanwhile, the small population continues in caretaker mode.

The roughly cretaceous-era fauna on Requena necessitate a lighter control on personal weapons than the Vice-Royalty might otherwise wish.  Some off-world visitors do come here for hunting safaris.  Some of them even return off-world...but they system is not classified Amber Zone, as the single major settlement is defended by a dedicated security team.

This world is classified as Non-Industrial, due to the lack of high-tech manufacturing.

For the Referee -

Requena       0104 C546463-6  S Ni                 113 Ar
Starport – Class  C
Size –  5 - 7,200-8,7Kms
Atmosphere – 4 – Thin and Tainted
Hydrosphere – 5 – Wet world 45-54% Water coverage
Population 4 – Moderate 10,000 to 100,000
Government – 6 Captive government or colony
Law Level – 3 Low law level.  Automatic weapons prohibited
Tech Level –  6  - Atomic era
Scout base, Non-Industrial world
Population Modifier –  1, 10,000 people on planet
One Planetoid belt
3 Gas Giants
Per Capita gnp = 4,000x0.08 = 3200 Cr
GNP = 32 Mcr
Military budget = 960,000

Sunday, June 28, 2015

System of the Week, Quintanarde

The first in the mis-named "System of the Week" series.  This will be an ongoing attempt to flesh out the various systems of the Andalusian Reach.

Quintanarde is our first stop. 

Quintanarde (Aragon 0103) is a primitive planet in the Vice-Royalty of Aragon.  Located on the fringes of the Vice-royalty, this system is not a bright spot.  

The Starport is a Class E starport.  There is a area marked out, and there are blasted spots that are bare to the bedrock from starships landing and taking off.  Navigation Aids are limited and primitive.  Fuel is available.  There is a wooden flume that brings water down to the starport.  Starship crews are advised that they need to bring their own hoses to get water from the flumes to their own fuel tanks.  Then the fuel will need to be cracked and refined from this water.

Quintanarde is about 12,000 Km in diameter.  The atmosphere is a standard, tainted atmosphere.  The hydrosphere is 87% water.

(Map courtesy of the map generator at http://donjon.bin.sh/scifi/world/)

 The population of 500 Million is ruled by an impersonal buraucracy which tightly regulates all aspects of life.  

The technology is TL2 - "The Age of Sail".  Most Quintanardians live in a world of sailing ships, without electricity or internal combustion engines.  

The people live either on the various islands, or in one of the shallow-water cities.  Trade via sailing ship is vigorous, and checked only by the buraucracy of the planetary government.

This world is classified as a "Non Agricultural" world by most trade organizations.  There have been some attempts to export fish or other products, but the local luxury market hasn't opened up for these exports yet.

For the Referee -

1. What are we doing here?  500 million people in a Horatio Hornblower-esque world is not a problem.  Requiring them to wear filter masks outside of their environmentally sealed homes IS a problem.  I need to figure out how to reconcile this minor issue.  I'm being stubborn and using the randomly generated system info as much as I can.  I could go for the dodge that "the people here are used to/adapted to the atmosphere, and the travellers are not"... but that feels like cheating to me.

2. Here's the stats, as generated randomly.
Quintanarde   0103 E879899-2                       513 Na
Starport – Class E – Frontier Port
Size – 8 = 12,000 to 13599 Km
Atmosphere – 7 Standard, Tainted
Hydrosphere – 9 = 85% - 94% covered by water
Population 8 – Moderate Pop.  100 Million to 1 Billion
Government – 9 Impersonal buraucracy
Law Level – 9 Hi Law, No weapons allowed outside home
Tech Level – 2 “Age of Sail”
Population Modifier – 5, so Population =  500 Million
One Planetoid belt
3 Gas Giants

Quintanarde is a primitive world, with minimal infrastructure or technology.  Not much of interest to Travellers here.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

A Map of the Vice Royalty of Aragon

The Sector map for the entire Andalusian Reach is not as readable as I wanted here.  So, I grabbed the Gimp, and sliced out the part that is relevant right now.


Please note that the Vice-Royalty used to cover both the Aragon and Burbank sub-sectors.  However, at some point recently the People's Republic of Burbank fought a successful revolutionary war to break free of the Vice Royalty.  Which adds to the adventure and background potentials for our heroes.  A war about 20 or so years ago, and an ongoing cold war to keep things stirred up.

If you aren't familiar with the Traveller star mapping icons, The large letter is the starport type.  Class A is the best, with shipyards and repair facilities.  Class B has only repair facilities, Class C can sell you refined fuel, Class D can sell unrefined Hydrogen, Class E are cleared spots on the surface, and Class X are restricted worlds. 

Yes, I am simplifying.

A Star is a Naval Base, a triangle is a Scout Service base, a dot is a gas giant that can be used for frontier refuelling (Scooping up hydrogen gas for fuel).

A yellow circle about the system reflects that the system is under an Amber Zone travel advisory.  A red circle reflects a restricted system.

We'll be looking at Aragon for a bit.

The Vice Royalty of Aragon

The Vice Royalty of Aragon will be our first stop in the Andalusian Reach

The Vice-Royal Capitol of Aragon has a type 9 world government, an impersonal bureaucracy.  That seems like a good government for the Vice-Royalty as a whole.  Checking the Traveler wiki ( at  http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Government )gave me some more good ideas.  The government's power source is an oligarchy that is part of the bureaucracy.  In addition, the power structure of the government could be a hegemony, for governments of this type that span multiple systems.

An oligarchy?  Let's see...how about a small number of leading families that run the bureaucracy.  Not necessarily noble houses...these families just go to the right schools.  How about seven families.  That should also give us scope for some political infighting between them.

As far as being a hegemony?  Hmm...perhaps things are run from Aragon.  With little local control.

Some interesting things to think about.


So, Here's the color text for our guidebook to the Andalusian Reach.

 Vice Royalty of Aragon – a polity with a total of 36 systems.  The Vice Royalty controls the bulk of the Aragon subsector.  There are some worlds still disputed with the revolutionary People's Republic of Burbank.  However, hostilities have not broken out in more than two decades.

The Vice-Regal government is an impersonal bureaucracy presiding over the various worlds.  A oligarchic few control the area in a Hegemony led from the Aragon system.

The highest tech level is Jarandilla at E (TL 14)
The highest population Is Jarandilla at A ( with 30 Billion people)


Shipyards exist at the following locations 

Santander (TL C)
Aragon (TL B)
Valladolid (TL A)
Salamanca (TL 8)

Sunday, June 21, 2015

The Andalusian Reach :


The Andalusian reach is one of the few “Success Stories” of the ancient UN Office of Colonial Affairs. UNOCA took all transportees, involuntary deportees, voluntary colonists, and grouped them by language. In this area a large percentage of all colonists were Spanish speakers.
When the Homeworld War broke out, Carlists under King Carlos IX created the interstellar Empire of New Spain. This empire ruled the Andalusian Reach for 278 years.

Civil war and economic collapse caused the end of the Empire of New Spain. Currently the various Viceroys of the Andalusian Reach chart their own courses as they jockey for position and power within the reach.

 I used a couple of tools I found online.  First, I went to http://zho.berka.com/stuff/generators/random-subsector-generator/   and generated an entire LBB Traveler RPG Sector.  I don't like the random names that it came up with, but I've been (slowly...) going thru and changing the names to ones I like.

I then went to http://travellermap.com/make/poster and fiddled until I got the map to look the way I wanted it to.

Here's the Sector Map as it stands today...



Please click on the map to Embiggen it.  I've divided the area into eight Vice-Royalties of the Empire.  Each one will have it's own flavor.

So far I've been working on the first Vice Royalty.  The Vice Royalty of Aragon has some interesting stuff going on so far.

I also am working on some Economic stuff.  I've got some crazy idea that I want to use this as a sandbox for LBB High Guard/Trillion Credit Squadron, so I want to know what kind of naval production the various areas can crank out.

I also want to do some Striker / Striker 2 stuff here.  Possibly working up a couple of scenarios, and seeing what a couple of different armies at different tech levels would look like.

We'll see how this develops!
Yes, I have too many character sheets.  I'll share some of them, and some other ideas, with you here.