Stellar Hero

Current & Deceased Heroes

Rufus Valentine, 1st-level Expert: Alive

Rufus Valentine

• Expert 2
• XP: 1510/3020
• AC: 4
• HP: 14
• Fray Die: D6

Attributes

• Str 18 (+2)
• Int 14 (+1)
• Wis 8 (-1)
• Dex 12
• Con 16 (+1)
• Cha 14 (+1)

Languages

• English
• Hindi

Skills:

• Athletics 0
• Combat/Primitive 0
• Combat/Gunnery 0
• Computer 0
• Culture/Spacer 0
• Culture/Terran 0
• Culture/Traveller 0
• Exosuit 0
• Navigation 1
• Perception 0
• Persuade 0
• Stealth 0
• Survival 0
• Tech/Postech 0
• Tech/Astronautic 0
• Vehicle/Grav 0
• Vehicle/Space 0

Equipment

• Readied 7/9
  • 1,265 credits
  • Laser Pistol (1): -1 to hit, 1d6 damage.
  • Monosword (1): +2 to hit, 1d8+3 damage.
  • Type A Power Cells 5/5 (1)
  • Armored Undersuit
  • Metatool (1)
  • Dataslab (1)
  • 4 Glowbugs (0)
  • Compad (0)
  • TL4 Backpack (0)

• Stowed 7/18
  • Vacc Suit (2)
  • Survival Kit (1)
  • 1 day rations + water (2)
  • Combat Field Uniform (2)

• Owned
• Finances
  • First Bank of Terra: 112,951 credit savings account.
  • 1 Year membership in the MMA, as of February 3203.

Background:

• Rufus (who desperately wants a cool nickname) signed up for a spacer crew as soon as he was old enough to legally do so. He's spent the past few years working as a survey scout, technician, and eventually assistant navigator on a number of small exploration and free merchant craft. Having come into possession of a ship, he intends to go as far and as fast as he can. (It is possible that Rufus is running *from* something.)

Likes

• Uncharted worlds
• Being cool
• Spaceships
• Damsels in distress

Dislikes

• Stock components
• Bosses
• Bankers
• Being tied down

Goals:
1. Visit an uncharted world.
2. Strike it big with a lost treasure. Done.
3. Outrun somebody. Done.
4. Earn 6 figures on a contract before reaching level 4.
5. Reconnect with an old friend, and do a significant deal with them.

Notes for eventual reputation system

• Terra Prime +
• Shogun Pact -

Contacts

Silverlight Clan – Gambling

Natsu Fujiwara (Japanese)

Female, Young, Very tall

You met Natsu when she was a passenger on a Free Merchant you were working. She was headed to Sirius to assist in the licensing of a new casino. She noted that the Clan was expanding their operations in the colonial worlds and could use a man like you for odd jobs. She gave you her card. You distinctly remember two things about Natsu: she's very attractive and she's missing the pinky finger on her right hand.

Colonial Alliance – Projectile Guns

Johar Chauhan (Indian)

Male, Young, Tall

Johar is a drinking buddy you met on Tau Ceti. He's an arms dealer, for lack of a better term. Mostly small arms but he always gave you the impression he could find bigger guns if he needed to. You remember him always having a cold, always sniffling. He would always bitch about the crappy atmo-scrubbers on the traders he'd take around the sector.

Frontier Group – Plastics

Bohai Cui (Chinese)

Male, Young, Average height

Bohai is the CEO of the Frontier Group, the company that owned the last Merchant you worked before you decided to go solo. He was unhappy you were leaving his employ, as you had established a rep as a dependable worker. He told you to feel free to look him up if you ever needed a job. Bohai has distinctive features, specifically long hair and a long wispy beard. Despite his young age, he reminded you of a martial arts sensei.

Imani Outfit - Security

Adesegun Adeniyi (Nigerian)

Male, Old, Average height

Adesegun is the Captain of the Obula, a Free Merchant you worked a year or two ago. Adesegun has been around a long time, and has seen it all. You could call him a friend. You and he often drank while on leave, and you'd listen to his stories about his travels across the sector. Working for a security outfit, he had some very interesting stories.

Striker Organization – Xenotech

Irina Litvak (Russian)

Female, Middle aged, Short

Irina is a tough, smart-mouthed buyer of artifacts and technology from Armada races. She's very vocal about her dislike of offworlders, having never left the Holy Roman Union on Terra. You struck up a friendship after helping her fight off an unwanted suitor in a bar (though it was unclear whether she needed the help). Her firm, the Striker Organization, is very active on the edges of Terran Sector space.

Terra Sector Map

Terra Sector system details

Many planets are generated with the Donjon Star System Generator. These systems will list a system seed, and whether or not you should check the box for "force this system to include a terrestrial world." While I am including a picture of the system to let you make sure you get the right one, additional information is available if you actually go to the site and click on a given world.

Sol system

Eight planets and a substantial asteroid belt. Original home of the Terran race.

• Mercury - Rumor has it that the Mandate had a couple of bases on Mercury, deep in the bottom of craters at the poles so as not to be exposed to direct sunlight. The research was supposedly into fusion-based weaponry, harnessing the power of Sol. No one knows if the bases are still operational, post-Scream.
• Venus - Home to a couple thousand scientists and atmo-miners in orbital bases, Venus' atmosphere is too hostile for colonization. Note: Atmo-miners collect rare chemicals from the upper atmosphere of the planet.
• Terra - Earth is a shadow of her former self. Global warming, due both to the effects of 19th-22nd Century industry and a series of nuclear exchanges right after the discovery of the spike drive, has caused the complete meltdown of the polar ice caps. Flooding, subsequent loss of arable land, warfare, and a mass exodus of colonists off-planet has left the global population at about one billion. Once you leave Terra, the Mandate rules, but on Terra, there are five major political entities.
  • Pan-African Confederacy - Main language is Bantu, multiple political parties dominated by Nigerians and Egyptians, control all of Africa.
  • America, Inc. - Main language is Spanglish (formal combination of English and Spanish), corporations are the government, control all of North, Central, and South America
  • Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere - Main language is Mandarin Chinese, government is a bureaucracy with Emperor at its head, control all of China and eastern Russia, plus the remnants of Japan and Asian island chains.
  • Holy Roman Union - Main language is German, government is a theocracy with the Pope at its head, controls eastern and western Europe, including European Russia.
  • United Council of India - Main language is Hindi, government is a democratic republic, controls south Asia from Thailand to the Middle East, and north to Kazakhstan.
  • Luna (aka the Moon) - Home to roughly 20 million colonists. Most of the civilian cities are at the poles, where lunar ice deposits make permanent colonies possible. The Mandate has a number of military bases on the dark side of Luna.
• Mars - Home to about 50 million colonists. Pre-Scream terraforming (and before that, atmosphere-forming) enabled Martian colonists to live on the surface of Mars without vacc suits and actually grow food in Martian soil. The massive engines, powered by heat captured from rising magma, are mostly self-healing, which is good since they are of a pre-Scream tech level and no one really understands how they work or how to build more. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos
  • Phobos has a couple hundred miners.
  • Deimos has a Mandate military base and is off-limits to civilians.
• Jupiter - Being a gas giant, there are no colonists on the planet itself.
  • Each of its Galilean moons, however, have small settlements with populations numbering in the low thousands.
  • Europa, in particular, seems the most promising due to its extensive ice layer.
• Saturn - Like Jupiter, there are no colonists on Saturn itself.
  • There is a sizable atmo-miner community on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and rumor has it that the Mandate is conducting experiments on creating life in Titan's methane lakes.
• Uranus - The coldest planet in the system, there are no known settlements on Uranus, although it's suspected that the Mandate has some sort of early warning system installed on one or more of its 27 moons.
• Neptune - An ice giant like Uranus, Neptune is also barren of human colonization.
  • Triton, Neptune's largest moon, has a Mandate military base where civilians are forbidden.

Alpha Centauri system

First system colonized by Terrans, contains four planets, all naturally capable of supporting human life.

• Tiberius - The first planet settled by Terrans outside of Sol system, Tiberius is home to about 1 billion Terrans. It is the breadbasket of the system, supplying the vast majority of the foodstuffs for all Terran settlements. Domestic issues are handled by a democratic republic system of government, while the Terran Mandate supersedes any local authority when it comes to issues of security and space travel. The official language is English, which is not coincidentally the official language of the Mandate.
• Crohn - The second planet settled by Terrans outside of Sol system, Crohn is the industrial backbone of the Mandate and the ex-Sol colonies. Here you will find the only shipbuilders capable of making military-class warships, as well as the Mandate's central HQ. You'll also find a number of "company towns" dedicated to this manufacturing enclave or that mining company. On Crohn, the Mandate runs the domestic gov't, which can be somewhat accurately described as a enlightened dictatorship. Fleet Admiral Viktor Kurnikov is the current Director of the Terran Oversight Board, making him the most powerful man in the galaxy. Hindi is a popular second language on Crohn, due to the number of original colonists having arrived on ships launched from Indian base stations.
• AC Gamma - The third planet discovered in the system, AC Gamma (or just 'Gamma') is currently unoccupied. The atmosphere is notoriously unpredictable, with the land constantly ravaged by storm systems hundreds of kilometers wide. There are rumors of ruined alien cities planet-side that pre-date even the Armada races but few have risked the trip and even fewer have returned. The Mandate strongly discourages civilians from making landfall but it's not actually prohibited.
• AC Delta - The fourth planet discovered in the system, AC Delta (aka 'Delta' or 'D-Train') is officially unpopulated but there are a number of small settlements led by Terrans who wanted to avoid the control of a central government. They are a mix of cultists, religious extremists, mad scientists, and adventurers (think 'extreme outdoorsmen'). The Mandate also uses the planet for training some of its more elite troops. While no exhaustive guidebook has been written on the planet, its native flora and fauna are notoriously unfriendly, if not outright lethal, to the unprepared visitor.

Tau Ceti system

Five planets, two capable of supporting Terran life. A dust disk around the star 10 times the size of Sol’s Asteroid Belt.

• Zumurrud (Emerald in Arabic) – Only 0.1 AU distant from Tau Ceti, Zumurrud is uninhabited.

• Ahmar (Ruby) – Only 0.2 AU distant from Tau Ceti, Ahmar is also uninhabited.

• Azrak (Sapphire) – Roughly the same distance from Tau Ceti as Mercury is from Sol, Azrak is another uninhabited planet.

• Maas (Diamond) – Orbiting Tau Ceti at a distance of roughly 0.55 AU (between Mercury and Venus, by comparison), Maas is a hot jungle world. It receives about 60% more light than Terra does from Sol, but its thinner atmosphere keeps the temperatures at a tolerable level. The planet is 1.8 times the size of Terra.
  • Breathable mix atmosphere
  • Hot temperature
  • Hybrid biosphere
  • Population of 375 million
  • Tech Level 4b
  • Tags: Desert World, Rigid Culture
  • Government: Theocracy

• Lu'luah (Pearl) – Orbiting Tau Ceti at a distance of roughly 1.35 AU (comparable to Mars), Lu’luah is 2.3 times the size of Terra. It gets only a quarter the light that Terra gets from Sol, but its dense atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect that keeps the planet cold but capable of supporting life.
  • Breathable mix atmosphere
  • Cold temperature
  • Human-miscible biosphere
  • Population of 97 million
  • Tech level 4c
  • Tags: Sectarians, Trade Hub
  • Government: Technocracy

• Al-Mouakket Belt – a dust belt, roughly analogous to Sol’s Kuiper Belt. Orbiting Tau Ceti at a distance of 35-50 AU, it’s quite distant from the terrestrial planets in the system but still poses a danger when larger asteroids and comets are drawn toward the inner portion of the system on collision courses. The Al-Mouakket Belt has more then ten times the amount of debris than the Sol system’s belts have.

Epsilon Eridani system

Four planets, one capable of supporting Terran life, two gas giants.

• Victoria – 0.65 AU from Epsilon Eridani (EE), Victoria is almost exactly the same size as Terra, with one of the largest Terran populations in the Mandate.
  • Breathable mix atmosphere
  • Temperate temperature
  • Microbial life
  • Population of 8.3 billion
  • Tech level 4a
  • Tags: Xenophiles, Local Specialty (Mineral, Reflects Heat)
  • Government: Technocracy
  • Cosmopolitan world (-2 Cultural, -1 Military, +1 Luxury, +2 Pretech)

• Medlock Belt - An inner asteroid belt roughly 3 AU from EE.

• Elizabeth - 3.4 AU from EE, Elizabeth is a barren rocky planet. Constantly pummeled by asteroids from the Medlock belt, it is currently uninhabited.

• Irwell Belt - An outer asteroid belt roughly 20 AU from EE.

• Adelaide - A gas giant about the size of Jupiter, 40 AU distant from EE.

• Caroline - Another gas giant, 150% as large as Jupiter, 60 AU from EE.

• Brigantes Belt - A large dust belt, created possibly by collisions between planetoids, comets, and the like. Spread out in a range between 60-75 AU from EE.

Excelsior Sector

Notes about the Excelsior sector

Systems in red are Terran, ruled by the Mandate government.

Systems in yellow are in the Armada DMZ (technically Mandate space, no Armada ships allowed, but also no Mandate Navy ships larger than a Frigate allowed).

Systems in blue are Rehpani (Terran civilian ships allowed to enter but no Mandate Navy ships at all).

Alien Races

• Think of Maedar as silicon-based humanoids. Physically very strong and resistant to damage due to tougher skin but, on average, not all that smart.
• The H'sst are very similar to the Vrusk from Star Frontiers or Thri-Kreen from Dark Sun. Kind of upright praying mantis types.
• The Rehpani are humanoid and strongly resemble humans with a few exceptions. The outwardly obvious ones are dusky red skin, red eyes (irises only), and only four digits on their hands and feet.

Salvage

Anyone with Culture/Spacer 0 or higher knows that the law is:

• Mandate Navy ships can never be salvaged without prior Navy permission unless A. title has been relinquished by the Navy or B. there's imminent danger to Mandate lives and/or property if the ship is not salvaged (e.g. a reactor core about to melt down, or a hulk that's on a collision course with a station in orbit).

• The Navy maintains a Salvage List of private ships reported lost. If a ship on this List is salvaged, there are legal details to be ironed out but generally the salvage is split 50/50 between original owner and salvager.

• Any private ship not on the List is abandoned and can be freely salvaged for 100% recovered value. There is no "waiting period" for lost or missing ships to be declared on the List so most owners tend to put their ships on there as soon as they leave the system (Sol or Alpha Centauri), just to be covered.

• The salvager must report any attempt at salvage as soon as they dock at any Navy port or encounter any Navy ship. Otherwise, they run the risk of being accused of piracy.

If this ship turns out to have "intelligence" value, as is most likely if it's an Armada ship, the Navy will confiscate it under existing law. There's a reasonable chance you may receive a finder's fee if this occurs but there are no guarantees.

The Navy will attempt to identify the ship to see if A. it's on the List and B. if it has "intelligence" value.

The salvage law extends to all Terran Mandate systems. The law hasn't yet evolved to cover Armada systems.

Communication between Systems

There's no stand-alone FTL communication between systems. Messages have to be carried by ship.

In most Mandate systems, there is a system-wide comm network that holds a database with every message. When mailships enter the system, their copy of the database is compared to the one existing in the system. New messages are uploaded and messages known to be delivered are deleted. The mailship's copy of the database is similarly updated.

When end users enter any system, they can check the local copy of the database, download new mail meant for them, and upload new messages for delivery.

Mailships run every day, and a message can be delivered from one end of the sector to the other, as well as every system in between, in less than a week.

Tech Level

There are three subsets of each tech level that further delineate the progress of technology within a certain planet or system.

• Subset "a" is the most advanced sub-level. Access to multiple public, private, military, and government networks is ubiquitous. Audio and visual monitoring (e.g. cameras, sensors, microphones) is commonplace. Entry to nearly all vehicles and buildings is via remote control and/or biometric locks. The highest levels of tech are available to the general public.

• Subset "b" is the mid-range sub-level. Access to networks is ubiquitous within developed areas but may not be available in remote areas. Audio and visual monitoring is common within cities but rare elsewhere. Most vehicles lack remote control and/or autopilot capability. Mechanical locks are more common for vehicle and building entry. Tech is commonly available to military, government, and some private citizens but cost is a limiting factor. Spaceports may not support the largest ships.

• Subset "c" is the lowest sub-level. The majority of citizens, and even some government employees, have only TL3 tech available. Only the wealthy and the military (Mandate only, not local) have full access to TL4 tech. TL4 items are rare and are noted as such by most citizens. Access to the wider networks outside of the largest cities is unknown.

Merchant Marine Association & Lifestyle Costs

• Starting with the new month, I'm going to charge Rufus for monthly lifestyle costs. I handwaved the first month so whatever extra Credits you invested after the Mars adventure can go back in your pocket.

• 450 cr for Common lifestyle quality.

• You can also renew your membership in the Merchant Marine Association (but now you have to pay yourself). Membership in the MMA comes with a few perks. Most relate to assuring safety while serving on a licensed Merchant vessel, as well as cheap life and health insurance, but relevant to the game is access to MMA facilities in the larger spaceports.

• I need to define which ports have a MMA facility but think Class A or B, roughly, from Traveller. Alamo has one. New Mexico City has one. New Juarez didn't have one.

• MMA facilities essentially give a member access to food, shelter, gym, and training. It's about the same as a Poor quality lifestyle, (better food and shelter but no clothing).

• The two real benefits are:
  • One free steerage ticket on a spaceship, destination can be anywhere in the current sector, each month. This is typically 500 cr per hex so the value can be upwards of a few thousand credits, depending on your destination. This is one passenger and personal luggage only, no cargo allowance.
  • Facilities access essentially gives you the ability to train for "free" in any of the MMA related skills. These are:
    • Bureaucracy
    • Exosuit
    • Navigation
    • Tech/Astronautic
    • Vehicle/Any

• PCs can only train up to skill level 2 at a generic MMA facility. Training for skill level 3 and higher requires finding an expert. The MMA can help in finding such an expert in the MMA-related skillsets, but the training won't be included with membership.

• A monthly membership is 2,000 cr. An annual membership is 20,000 cr.

A Bunch of Stuff About Starships

Cutter class ships

New class of spaceship. It's called the Cutter. There is one hull within the Cutter class right now: the Scout.

Stats on the Scout are as follows.

• Cost - 250k
• Speed - 4
• Armor - 2
• HP - 15
• Crew Min/Max - 1/2
• AC - 5
• Power - 5
• Free Mass - 8
• Hardpoints - 1

The Scout is limited in its fittings to the same list as the Fighter class. Free Mass requirements are the same as Fighters. Costs are multiplied by 5.

The only exceptions are that a Ship's Locker and a Survey Sensor Array can be fitted. The Ship's Locker costs 5k and contains only one of each item. The Survey Sensor Array costs 50k and has the same Power and Free Mass requirements as the Frigate-class version.

Corvette hulls

A Corvette is a Frigate-class ship, a cross between a Free Merchant and a Patrol Boat.

• Cost - 400k
• Speed - 4
• Armor - 5
• HP - 20
• Crew Min/Max - 1/6
• AC - 6
• Power - 10
• Free Mass - 10
• Hardpoints - 2

Starship Maintenance

• I'm going to ignore Crawford's comments to you and stick with the rules as written. Maintenance costs only come into play annually. The monthly costs should come from paying for the ship and its crew. However, once the food, water, and oxygen run out, they're out. I have no trouble with players manually restocking the larder with food but the ship is equipped to reload water from a spaceport. You'll need to jury rig something to pump (a lot of) potable water from somewhere else. It's not as easy as filling up a few jugs of water and pouring them into the tank.

• Water is key for oxygen as well. The ship uses some of the water onboard for oxygen by way of electrolysis. Once the water is split into hydrogen and oxygen, the ship scrubs out CO2 from the air and chemically combines it with the stored hydrogen to magically create more water. Yeah, you waste hydrogen in the form of methane but you can get hydrogen from stars or gas giants. Look up the Sabatier Reaction for more details. This process works well enough but sooner or later the water runs out, and so does the oxygen.

• What I will say is that you still have to do maintenance on all parts of this process. Once you reach the end of the Stores' life, even if you've manually added more food and water, the equipment can still fail. If the CO2 scrubbers go, or the electrolysis components, then we're talking major disaster. I'm not going to tell you the chances of that happening but you can ask around a spaceport and get people's opinions. In any event, if you're out there by yourself, your Stores will last six times as long so you've got more wiggle room.

Training and Upgrading Skills

• Characters gain double skill points on leveling. Please note the separation between class and non-class skills!

• When a character gains a level and spends skill points, they must deal with the training time and cost. They should consult the table in the character advancement chapter, and add together the training cost for all skills they are training. Spend this amount. For every five hundred credits so spent, training takes one week. Training must be done at a venue where training of that type and level is available. When leveling, players should post their advancement plans and I'll inform them of any skills that will require time at different venues.