Retrospective: Alien Module 1: Aslan

As I usually do, let me begin this retrospective by proclaiming my enduring love for the late, great GDW's Traveller, which stands alongside D&D and Call of Cthulhu in the trinity of RPGs that have retained my affections for decades. I first discovered Traveller in 1982 or thereabouts, when The Traveller Book was first released and it's been my a favorite of mine ever since (even my own Thousand Suns is a loving homage to Traveller).

My fondness for Traveller isn't founded solely on its rules, as much as I adore them. No, a big part of my affection for it lies in its Third Imperium setting, whose minutiae I can still recite from memory even now. My first professionally published writing was in support of the Third Imperium setting in the pages of GDW's Challenge magazine and then, later, for Traveller: The New Era and GURPS Traveller. A delightful pastiche of the great sci-fi literature written between World War II and the 1970s, the Third Imperium also includes a number of genuinely imaginative elements, most especially its aliens.

Starting in 1984, GDW initiated a series of modules that fleshed out the major alien species of the Third Imperium setting, starting with the Aslan. As originally described, the Aslan, as their name suggests – owing to first contact with Turkish-speaking humans – are vaguely leonine in appearance, though their actual physiology is not at all like that of Terran lions. Nevertheless, the description stuck, reinforced no doubt by their reputation as Traveller's obligatory "proud warrior race." 

Reading that, one might well expect the Aslan to be unimaginative and stereotyped creations, but that's not the case at all. As presented in Alien Module 1, there's a surprising amount of depth and creativity in the details of the race and their society and culture. For example, the Aslan are not a unified species, being divided into innumerable clans arranged in feudal alliances with one another. Their interstellar government is actually a coalition of the 29 greatest clans, each of whom govern certain sectors of space and are given great autonomy within those regions. The acquisition of land – planets – is of great importance to male Aslan, who consider it the only currency of any value. Females, meanwhile, handle trade and commerce as humans typically understand it, such business being of little interest to males. These and other details paint a species ripe with possibilities for adventure and indeed roleplaying.

Because players might wish to play Aslan characters, either within their own space or as subjects of the Third Imperium, Alien Module 1 includes rules for generating them, in both the basic form (found in Book1 of Traveller) and advanced form (found in Book 4 and beyond). In addition to providing lots of options for characters – both player and non-player – these rules expansions provide additional insight into Aslan society and culture. Thus, the prior service tables are segregated according to sex, with males and females having access to different careers and even skills. Later sections of the module detail Aslan-specific equipment , starships, world generation (with new planetary government types), language, and history, among other things. Taken together, these do a great job of painting the broad strokes of these nonhuman aliens in the Third Imperium setting. There's also an adventure that takes into account some of the new information and rules presented herein.

While I (of course) have some quibbles about the material in the module, I generally think very highly of this product and the others that followed in its wake. I made great use of them in my youth and, even now, when my Traveller gaming takes place in a setting of my own creation, I look on the alien modules for inspiration. From the vantage point of decades, what still strikes me is how Alien Module 1 balances imagination and practicality. There aren't dozens of pages devoted to fleshing out every detail of the Aslan as a contemporary product would probably do, but it nevertheless provides more than enough material for both players and referees to hang their hat on. Likewise, there are only new rules where needed to distinguish the Aslan from human beings; otherwise, the module works seamlessly with the basic Traveller rules. As I say, it's fine balance and makes me all the more wistful about Game Designers' Workshop, one of the truly great RPG companies.