The following was intended as a short adventure seed for a simple Traveller adventure, but grew a little in the telling. It is based on the (largely improvised) game that I ran at Festival Draconis in October 2024, but has been formatted to match the style of the Freelance Traveller Active Measures.
It is suitable for starting a campaign with or as a one-shot, but should a Referee wish to introduce the adventure into an ongoing campaign, it should work fine, although note that it takes place at the opening of the Fifth Frontier War.
Editor’s note: The following is an extract from partially burned papers from the church of St Almat. They seem to be from the notebooks of one Magister Garius Kal. They may prove to be of use during our current predicament.
[Werewolves] are misunderstood. Our folk do not change their form to some sort of bestial wolf during the fool moon. That is how one makes orcs, and it appears to be irreversible once the rage has taken the poor souls.
The Clacks and Post - a Magical not-Victorian Matrix Game Welcome to the city of Endon: greatest city in the world. It is a dynamic, go-getting city that is moving with great velocity into the Century of the Fruitbat. While a great many things are changing, the speed of communication is not one of them. Until now. The New Clacks Company is looking to change that with the power of engineering.
Dramatis Personae:
S, playing Padraig - Irish actor, formerly linked to drug running. N, playing Yannis - Belgian hacker who got recruited by the ADIV/SGRS a while back. An, playing Cooper ‘Coop’ - All-American patriot. In an overwatch position. Al, playing Petros - The Dogfather. Tailing the folks outside (player not available) Recap 09 May 2011
The previous session had the PCs watch some intruders waltz into their own intrusion. They took this poorly, and prepared to jump them.
Dramatis Personae:
S, playing Padraig - Irish actor, formerly linked to drug running. N, playing Yannis - Belgian hacker who got recruited by the ADIV/SGRS a while back. An, playing Cooper ‘Coop’ - All-American patriot. In an overwatch position. (Player not available) Al, playing Petros - The Dogfather. Recap 09 May 2011
After returning from Scotland, the agents took a bit of downtime to look into some of the things that they had found.
Background I do not really use any VTT tools for running games, but folks running Traveller of various kinds often like having deckplans, at least for the ship owned or used by the PCs. While there is no shortage of deckplans out there, sometimes you just need a new, custom one. A fairly common source for making one’s own deckplans is the set of Starship Geomorphs created by Robert Pearce a few years ago.
Dramatis Personae:
S, playing Padraig - Irish actor, formerly linked to drug running. N, playing Yannis - Belgian hacker who got recruited by the ADIV/SGRS a while back. An, playing Cooper ‘Coop’ - All-American patriot. Al, playing Petros - The Dogfather. Recap 06 May 2011
Being so close to the last known location of HMS Proserpine, as a shore base at Lyness, Scapa Flow, the agents decided to nose about a little.
Dramatis Personae:
S, playing Padraig - Irish actor, formerly linked to drug running. N, playing Yannis - Belgian hacker who got recruited by the ADIV/SGRS a while back. An, playing Cooper ‘Coop’ - All-American patriot. Former Marine, pulled into the CIA as a wetworker. Al, playing Petros - The Dogfather. Asset-sitting Cassandra (player unable to attend) Recap 04 May 2011
Since Cassandra Irving is clearly someone of interest to some organisation, the agents decided to use her as bait.
Dramatis Personae:
S, playing Padraig - Irish actor, formerly linked to drug running. N, playing Yannis - Belgian hacker who got recruited by the ADIV/SGRS a while back. An, playing Cooper ‘Coop’ - All-American patriot. (Asset-sitting, player unable to attend.) Al, playing Petros - The Dogfather. Recap 05 May 2011
The agents passed through St Pancras without stopping for long and went straight up to Inverness. They had records from Johnson & Co that a refrigerated cargo was flown from Wick Airport in Scotland to the London Heliport, where it was picked up and delivered to ‘Carfax’, with the address of the Institute.
Dramatis Personae:
S, playing Padraig - Irish actor, formerly linked to drug running. Currently working at a cleaning contractor (player unable to attend) N, playing Yannis - Belgian hacker who got recruited by the ADIV/SGRS a while back. Currently working at a cleaning contractor (player unable to attend) An, playing Cooper ‘Coop’ - All-American patriot. Former Marine, pulled into the CIA as a wetworker. Al, playing Petros - ‘Ambiguously Balkan’, openly works for the dog/horse racing rings that the various Balkan mafias are involved with.
