Retrospective: Alien Module 7: Hivers

By the time Alien Module 7: Hivers was published in 1986, the Traveller role-playing game was approaching its tenth anniversary. Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW) already had a great deal of experience in producing sourcebooks to the major alien races of the Third Imperium, producing some of the line’s most inventive and distinctive supplements. The Hivers, among the most enigmatic of Traveller’s aliens were a natural fit for this deep-dive treatment. Their inscrutable nature and radical departure from humanoid norms demanded a module that could capture their alien essence while expanding the possibilities of the game itself.

Unlike the Vargr, with their wolf-pack dynamics dressed in science-fictional trappings, or the Aslan, who embodied the archetype of the "proud warrior race," the Hivers defied easy categorization. They were, in a word, strange – non-humanoid, non-violent, intellectually aloof, and relentlessly meddlesome. Their radial, starfish-like physiology and their communication through color changes and body posture evoked a biology more akin to deep-sea creatures than traditional sci-fi aliens. Their penchant for subtle, centuries-long manipulation of other species felt like something drawn from the cosmic visions of Olaf Stapledon or the surreal imaginings of Cordwainer Smith (even though the book openly admits the debt owed to Larry Niven’s Pierson’s Puppeteers and Outsiders). Despite this, the Hivers were a wholly unique creation, their oddity amplified by a psychology that prioritized intricate social engineering over direct action.

The success of Alien Module 7: Hivers in giving shape and substance to such an unconventional species is a testament to the talents of its principal authors: William H. Keith, J. Andrew Keith, Loren Wiseman, and Traveller creator Marc Miller. Structured like its predecessors, the module is divided into sections covering history, physiology, psychology, society, technology, along with rules for generating Hiver characters. Yet what immediately sets it apart is how bizarre its subject matter is. The Hivers are not “rubber suit” aliens defined by a single cultural quirk. Their biology is profoundly non-human: they reproduce almost accidentally without pair bonding or even emotional investment, communicate via mechanisms no human could intuitively grasp, and perceive the universe through a lens shaped by their intense curiosity. Their society, too, defies familiar models. Rather than being organized around governments or hierarchies, Hiver civilization is a loose tapestry of individuals pursuing esoteric, often opaque "topics" – long-term investigations that might span centuries and often involve subtly steering entire civilizations toward particular ends. One cannot help but draw comparisons to the Bene Gesserit of Dune, with their millennia-spanning schemes or even Lovecraft’s Elder Things, with whom the Hivers share a faint physical resemblance, though without the malice or cosmic horror.

What further distinguishes Hivers from earlier Alien Modules is its refusal to reduce its subject to easily digestible tropes. The Hivers are not warriors, traders, or pirates; they are manipulators, schemers, and architects of destiny. Their commitment to nonviolence is not a weakness but a cornerstone of their civilization, shaping their every interaction. They are not pacifists in the conventional sense but they are deeply opposed to overt conflict, preferring to neutralize threats through careful, almost surgical social redesign. The module provides a vivid example of this approach in their centuries-long maneuvering against the K’kree, their militant, herbivorous neighbors, a species almost as alien to human eyes as themselves. 

As presented, a campaign involving the Hivers is unlikely to revolve around the familiar beats of firefights, starship chases, or planetary exploration. Instead, it gestures toward something slower and subtler: espionage, cultural subversion, and interstellar diplomacy of a particularly insidious kind. However, this is also where the module falters. While it does provide broad advice on running Hiver-centric adventures, it rarely offers the kinds of concrete examples that would help a referee bring these high-concept scenarios to life at the table. The included adventure, “Something Stinks!,” is brief and unmemorable, more a sketch than a scenario and one that never quite demonstrates how to make the Hivers’ unique qualities matter in play. This is a common flaw in the Alien Module series: strong ideas paired with underdeveloped tools for implementation.

That said, one of the book's more subtle successes lies in how it situates its subject within the wider Traveller setting without dulling their strangeness. The Hivers’ influence on the Imperium is indirect but pervasive, shaping events from the shadows through trade agreements, cultural shifts, and strategic nudges – at least, that’s what they’d like you to believe. This ambiguity is where the module’s potential becomes most intriguing. The Hivers are not just another species; they are potentially a vehicle for a different kind of science fiction roleplaying, one that rewards speculation, inference, and even conspiracy-minded thinking. The fact that they remain difficult to grasp even after 48 pages of focused attention feels less like a failure and more like a feature, though one that may frustrate as often as it inspires.

In the end, Alien Module 7: Hivers is an ambitious but uneven entry in the Traveller canon. It introduces a compellingly alien species with a richly imagined culture and worldview, yet it struggles to translate that material into content easily usable in play. The ideas are strong and the writing imaginative, but too often the referee is left to do the heavy lifting. Still, for those intrigued by the prospect of a campaign built around manipulation, subtlety, and long-term consequences, the module offers a tantalizing foundation. Like the Hivers themselves, it prefers to hint and suggest rather than declare outright. Whether that is a strength or a weakness will depend on the kind of game you wish to run.

Retrospective: BeltStrike

Traveller was released in 1977 in a digest-sized box, mimicking the format of OD&D, published just three years earlier. During its first few years of existence, Game Designers' Workshop released several other similarly sized boxed sets to support the game, starting with Mayday in 1978. For a lot of people, myself included, Traveller is strongly associated with digest-sized books, so much so that many of the 'zines and licensed third party support released for the game were similarly sized. (Judges Guild's books were the primary exception to this.)

Beginning with The Traveller Book in 1982, GDW began a shift away from digest-sized books and toward more traditional 8½" × 11" books for the game. I'm not entirely sure why the company chose to do this, but, whatever the reason, there were soon no more digest-sized books to be had. The Traveller Adventure, the various alien modules, and even the Starter and Deluxe editions of the game were all published as standard-sized books – a size every subsequent version of Traveller has used up to the present day.

Around the same time, GDW released new versions of Mayday and Snapshot that made use of the larger size. These were the versions I owned, though I've long since lost and replaced them with the earlier digest-sized versions, because I'm silly that way. These games paved the way for additional boxed sets for use with Traveller, like Tarsus, which appeared in 1983. Then, in 1984, BeltStrike appeared in the same format – two 12-page, staple-bound booklets, four 4-page adventure folders, a fold-out map of Koenig's Rock, and some perforated cards containing the write-ups for a dozen pregenerated characters. Like most Traveller products, there's not much in the way of art beyond David Dietrick's box art.

Like Tarsus before it, BeltStrike devotes itself to the description of a single star system in the Spinward Marches, in this case the Bowman Belt, a planetoid belt located in the same subsector as Tarsus, District 268. As its name suggests, District 268 has not yet been fully incorporated into the Third Imperium, but is instead a colonial territory being developed in preparation for eventual inclusion within the empire. This gives its worlds, including the Bowman Belt, a distinctly "frontier" feel to them – which is saying something, as the Spinward Marches sector itself is something of a backwater sector located on the fringes of the Imperium. 

The first 12-page booklet is the Bowman System Reference Book. It lays out the basic facts of the Bowman system, as well as its major points of interest. There's also a map of both the entire system and of Bowman Prime (a gas giant) and its satellites, so referees and players alike have a good idea of where all the major astronomical bodies are located in relation to one another. Information about Bowman's history and place within the Marches takes up much of the booklet's page count, followed closely by library data and a key to Koenig's Rock, a planetoid settlement with a reputation for lawlessness and vice.

The second 12-page booklet is the Belter's Handbook. As its title suggests, it focuses on creating and playing belter (asteroid miner) characters. There's not only a full career for such characters (which had previously appeared in Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium), but also many practical details on asteroid mining, like the ins and outs of prospecting, claims and profits, encounters, and the effects of zero and low gravity. None of these details are exhaustive – the booklet is short, after all – but they're solid enough to provide the referee with sufficient guidance that he could pretty easily make use of them in his campaign. 

Finally, there are the four adventure folders – really just two double-sided pages – each of which presents a different situation that might involve the player characters within the Bowman system. The first one, "Lodes of Adventures," is really just an introduction to the system and its sights. The second, "On the Rock," takes place on Koenig's Rock and its shady inhabitants. Adventure three, "Claimjumpers," deals with fending off rival belters. Finally, there's "Archeology," which allows the characters to find a high-tech base of an alien civilization that's been lost in the belt for centuries. Like everything else in BeltStrike, the adventures are more sketches than fully fleshed out scenarios. While this is fairly typical for Traveller, this might prove frustrating for inexperienced referees.

In my youth, I wasn't a big fan of BeltStrike for precisely this reason. I felt there was too little information to fully exploit its potential. After all, asteroid belts are inherently interesting locales in a sci-fi setting and I simply didn't think the Bowman Belt was interesting as I had hoped it would be. Now, I look on it a little more charitably. I made good use of it during my Riphaeus Sector campaign by repurposing bits and pieces of it in my own non-Third Imperium setting. Both Koenig's Rock and the ancient alien base made great additions to the continuing adventures of the characters as they made their way across the sector. It's far from the best thing GDW ever released for Traveller, but I'm still fond of it (and it inspired me when I took my own stab at presenting an asteroid system for gaming).

Retrospective: Duneraiders

My look at classic Traveller adventures and supplements continues this week with 1984's Duneraiders, a scenario I ranked as number 8 on my list of the top 10 scenarios published for the game. Like last week's Nomads of the World-Ocean, Duneraiders was written and illustrated by the Keith Brothers (with William H. Keith credited as its primary creator) for Gamelords. That's not the only similarity between the two adventures, as I'll soon explain. 

Before getting to that, I'd like to take a moment to talk briefly about Gamelords and its place in the history of both roleplaying and the hobby. Headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland (a suburb of Washington, DC), the company is probably best known today for Thieves' Guild fantasy products. For me, though, it was their many excellent Traveller releases that most captured my attention. 

Along with pre-Battletech, pre-Shadowrun FASA, Gamelords was a GDW-approved licensee, given a region of the Third Imperium setting to develop through their scenarios. This region included the Reavers' Deep sector, a frontier bounded by the Imperium, the Aslan Hierate, and the Solomani Confederation. The Deep features mostly independent worlds, some of them joined together into about a half-dozen small interstellar states that contend with one another and the aforementioned larger powers. It's a great setting for Traveller campaign, especially the particular style of Traveller campaign in which the player characters work primarily as mercenaries and agents provocateur.

In the case of Duneraiders, the characters find themselves on the backwater world of Tashrakaar, a desert planet in the Drexilthar subsector. While hanging out at its primitive, class-D starport, they witness a firefight on the loading dock. Duneraiders – human inhabitants of the open desert – are attacking a massive orecrawler with the obvious intention of destroying or at least severely damaging it. This is noted by bystanders as unusual behavior. Though the Duneraiders have no love for the mining companies that extract minerals from "the Flats" region of Tashrakaar for sale offworld, nearly all of their attacks are against the companies' operations, not permanent settlements. 

The adventure assumes the characters will inevitably intervene against the Duneraiders. In doing so, they also rescue a young woman, Arlana Jeric, whose father, Gill, is the owner and operator of Jericorp Mining, a small resource extraction business. It doesn't take long to realize that the "Duneraiders" are, in fact, goons in the employ of Jericorp's bigger and better capitalized rival, Dakaar Minerals, who are attempting to mask their involvement by disguising themselves as the desert dwellers. Unfortunately, the goons are successful in damaging the orecrawler, which was one of several owned by Jericorp. Without it operating, Jericorp may be unable to prove its claim on a stretch of the Flats believed to hold a motherlode of minerals.

That's when Arlana suggests that perhaps the characters would be willing to hire on as freelance troubleshooters for Jericorp, providing security for another orecrawler as its crew desperately attempts to locate the rich veins of ore they suspect are there. If the characters agree, this is where the adventure proper truly begins. The bulk of Duneraiders' 60 pages are devoted to describing the Orecrawler (with deckplans) and its 12-man crew, Tashrakaar and its ecology, and, of course, the titular Duneraiders and their culture. It's a very impressive package, providing the referee with everything he needs to run many sessions on this single planet of the Reavers' Deep sector.

If this sounds familiar, it is, because, in broad outlines, Duneraiders is another example of a very common classic Traveller scenario: the characters involve themselves in coprorate shenanigans on a backwater planet whose environment and native inhabitants are equal parts challenges and assets – just as we saw in Nomads of the World-Ocean. There's nothing wrong with this; it's a very fun set-up for an extended adventure. Furthermore, the Keith Brothers are very imaginative and each of the worlds presented in their work is genuinely unique. However, I suspect that a Traveller referee would be wise to avoid using too many of these scenarios in his campaign, lest they seem overdone. 

Duneraiders is a very good adventure about which I have fond memories playing rather than refereeing. That partly explains why I think so highly of it. The other is that there's something inherently compelling about the characters fighting against an exploitative corporation, aided by locals who better understand the hostile environment in which the battle must be fought. Unsurprisingly, Frank Herbert's Dune series was probably a major inspiration for this adventure, but I also expect the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia also influenced the Keiths in imagining Tashrakaar and its inhabitants. Though not quite as good as Nomads of the World-Ocean, Duneraiders is a fine example of classic Traveller adventure design and well worth a look.

Retrospective: Nomads of the World-Ocean

I recently mentioned that I'd be devoting more space on this blog to coverage of Traveller. I thought a good way to start making good on that pledge is using my weekly Retrospective to draw attention to some of my favorite Traveller products, since Game Designers' Workshop published a large number of excellent adventures and supplements for the game. They're not all winners, of course, but I do think that Traveller had a higher ratio of good to bad support material than many of its contemporary RPGs.

A good example of what I'm talking about is 1983's Nomads of the World Ocean, written and illustrated by the incomparable Keith Brothers. I'd previously mentioned this adventure, the ninth published for Traveller, in my list of the Top 10 Classic Traveller Adventures, where it ranked as number 4. I still think that's a fair judgment, because, while very well-done, Nomads of the World-Ocean is also a very specific kind of scenario and, therefore, might not hold a wide appeal.

The adventure takes place on Bellerophon, a world in the Solomani Rim subsector. As its title suggests, Bellerophon is a water world whose only dry land are a few scattered islands and reef-flats exposed at low tide. Despite this, the planet boasts a population of over 2 billion humans, most of whom live on magnificent pylon cities that rise from the ocean shallows, thrusting two or three kilometers into the sky. There are also sea-bottom complexes and free-floating raft cities, as well as a considerable population of the titular nomads, who live aboard large ship-cities that follow herds of marine creatures called daghadasi that provide them with a livelihood.

Like many classic Traveller adventures, the characters come to Bellerophon as agents of an outside organization, sent to investigate the activities of a corporation that operates on the planet. In this case, the corporation, Seaharvester, is culling the population of daghadasi in order to obtain a chemical produced by the animals in their pre-reproductive phase. This chemical has proven to be the basis for an entirely new family of drugs that have the potential to wipe out bacteria, viruses, viroids, and even cancer cells. Unfortunately, a daghadasi carcass weighing a million tons yields only a few grams of the chemical. Worse, only about 10% of all slaughtered daghadasi produce more than trace amounts of it, necessitating massive, indiscriminate slaughter to procure this valuable new chemical.

When evidence of Seaharvester's actions became known, public opinion turned against them and its parent company, SuSAG, one of the Imperium's megacorporations, placed limits on their culling of the daghadasi. However, there's evidence that Seaharvester has been skirting these limits and it's now up to the characters to prove it. The adventure presents two options to involve the characters. One assumes they're working for an environmentalist group, the Pan-Galactic Friends of Life, while the other assumes they're employed by SuSAG itself, looking to save its reputation. 

What makes Nomads of the World-Ocean special isn't this set-up but the world of Bellerophon itself. Everything about it is described in loving detail, with plenty of hooks for interesting encounters, side adventures, and exploration. The Keith Brothers give us information on the pylon cities, Seaharvester's factory ships, the lifecycle and ecology of the daghadasi and, of course, the nomads themselves. As one might expect, the nomads receive the greatest amount of detail, since they hold the key to proving the continued malfeasance of Seaharvester. 

The nomads live on wandering ship-cities of 1000-5000 people. Their society and indeed livelihoods depend on the kilometers-long daghadasi, whom they sustainably hunt to provide not just food but also materials for the manufacture of other items that they trade. The nomads are a highly technological society. Their ship-cities, for example, make use of fusion power, as do the various smaller craft they use in the hunting of the daghadasi. Though they share a common language and culture, the nomads are divided into factions, based in part on their attitudes toward outsiders and the traditional ways of their people, which is now under threat from Seaharvester. A significant portion of the scenario involves the characters having to navigate nomad politics to achieve their own ends.

Nomads of the World-Ocean is a great example of something classic Traveller did very well: present a single world out of the 11,000 that make up the Third Imperium and showing that it alone is more than sufficient to occupy the characters' attention for weeks or even months of gameplay. One of the paradoxes at the heart of Traveller is that, as its name suggests, the characters are assumed to move around a lot from world to world and even sector to sector, never staying in one place for very long. Yet, each and every world they visit is – or can be – a setting in itself. Balancing the characters' ability to travel easily across Charted Space with giving each world its own unique appeal isn't always easy, which is why I so highly regard adventures like this one. Nomads of the World-Ocean is a terrific example of Traveller at its best.

Retrospective: Alien Module 2: K'Kree

Traveller's Charted Space setting, home to the Third Imperium and its interstellar neighbors, is one I know very well. It's also one that I rank as my favorite imaginary setting – a testament to its near-perfect blend of originality and pastiche. Charted Space is a setting that's expansive enough to contain almost anything you can imagine in a space opera while still feeling distinctive. That's a more impressive feat than one might imagine, especially when one considers how often others have failed in the attempt. 

One of the many ways by which Game Designers' Workshop achieved this was by subverting expectations. I mean that as a genuine compliment, not as a bit of nonsensical marketing speak. Very often, GDW would take a commonplace element of science fiction and ring a change or two on it so as to give it a different complexion, one unique to Traveller. Though they employed this technique throughout the game's product line, I feel as if they put it to best effect in their series of Alien Modules, beginning with Aslan in 1984. 

Aslan is a solid reworking of the "proud warrior race" trope, but I don't think anyone who reads it is going to be blown away by its content. That's not a knock against by any means, just an acknowledgment that it treads ground familiar to anyone who's a longtime sci-fi aficionado. From the Dorsai to the Klingons and Kzinti, the genre is replete with such races and cultures. Though I happen to think the Aslan are an interesting and well-done example of a proud warrior race, proud warrior races are a dime a dozen in both SF and fantasy. If you really want to impress me, you need to do something genuinely different.

That's exactly what GDW did with its second alien module, devoted to the "enigmatic centaurs" known as the K'Kree. Written by J. Andrew Keith and Loren Wiseman, this 40-page book was published the same year as its predecessor, but it's much more interesting. As you might notice from the cover image above (provided by the ever-awesome David Dietrick), the K'Kree are six-limbed beings, hence their nickname of "centaurs." That alone sets them apart, not just from humans or Aslan but from most alien races presented in science fiction. Of course, that's not the only thing that makes them unique, as I'll explain.

The K'Kree are the descendants of herbivorous grazers – like horses or cattle – that evolved to intelligence and eventually came to dominate their homeworld. The Alien Module explains that the K'Kree were not the only intelligent species to have evolved there. At least one other, known as the G'naak, also did so, against whom the K'Kree fought during ancient wars that also served to accelerate their technological development. The G'naak, unlike the K'Kree, were carnivores and were thus seen as an existential threat that demanded nothing less than genocide. With the G'naak wiped out, the K'Kree continued to develop, both culturally and technologically, until they eventually discovered jump drive and made their way to the stars.

The K'Kree are one of Traveller's so-called Major Races – one of the six species that discovered jump drive independently and established mighty interstellar states. The K'Kree's interstellar state, the Two Thousand Worlds, exists to trailing of the Imperium. Under its Steppelord, the Two Thousand Worlds is a deeply conservative polity dedicated to stability and protecting its people from outsiders, particularly meat-eaters, whose scent reminds the K'Kree of the long-defeated G'naak (who are akin to bogeymen in their culture). Revulsion of carnivores is so great among the K'Kree that, for example, they demand that ambassadors from other species abstain from eating meat for months before they will even receive them, among many other idiosyncratic practices.

Like their ancestors, the K'Kree prefer to travel in large groups. Among them, a desire to be alone – never mind enjoyment of it – is taken as a sign of insanity. They likewise hate enclosed spaces. All K'Kree would, by human standards, be considered claustrophobic, which is why their spacecraft are large and feature wide corridors and high ceilings. Alien Module 2 makes a good effort of explaining the mindset of the K'Kree and how it affects both their everyday behavior and the diplomacy of the Two Thousand Worlds. The K'Kree are a very alien race and rather unlike most of the nonhuman aliens encountered in popular science fiction.

That's a big part of why I hold Alien Module 2 in such high regard. At the same time, there's no denying that the K'Kree aren't really suitable for use as player characters – at least not easily. The module includes rules for doing so, along with an adventure designed to be used with K'Kree player characters. However, in my experience, it's just not practical in the long term, since K'Kree travel in large numbers, saddling a group of PCs with lots of additional servants, followers, family, and hangers-on that can get in the way of ordinary play. 

Of course, that's the price for creating a genuinely alien species, with an unusual society, culture, and psychology. The K'Kree do, however, make for very memorable NPCs and in that role they're among the most interesting beings in Charted Space. The Traveller campaign in which I'm playing is set in a region of space not far from the Two Thousand Worlds and, while we've not yet run into the K'Kree directly, their presence is nevertheless felt. Indeed, the player characters have some trepidation about the possibility that these militant vegetarians might one day take notice of what's happening in our little corner of the universe. Good times!

Retrospective: Alien Module 4: Zhodani

A good villain is hard to find.

In the Third Imperium setting of GDW's Traveller, that vital role is played by the Zhodani, humans transplanted to another world by the mysterious Ancients some 300,000 years before the founding of the Imperium. On their new homeworld of Zhdant (or Zhodane, as the Imperium calls it), the Zhodani developed a unique culture and society, one characterized first and foremost by its open embrace of psionics, a practice the Imperium and its subjects consider morally, not to mention politically, abhorrent. Needless to say, this profound difference has fostered mutual suspicion and animosity between the two peoples and has led to five Frontier Wars. 

Alien Module 4: The Zhodani aims to lift the lid on Zhodani society, providing the reader with a clearer and indeed more sympathetic portrayal of "the Psionic Masters" than had previous Traveller materials. By the time of its publication in 1985, the Zhodani were already a well-established facet of the Third Imperium setting, having first been mentioned in The Spinward Marches in 1978 as practitioners of "the Psionic Heresy." Until the early 1980s, when an article about them appeared in the pages of The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society, the Zhodani were little more than mustache-twirling space opera villains of a somewhat Orientalist cast – the Sassanid Persians to the Imperium's late Romans. 

With the arrival of further information on the Zhodani came a more nuanced portrayal. Alien Module 4 is the culmination of that process and it's a generally excellent bit of science fictional speculation. Like previous Alien Modules, this one starts with information on the physical characteristics of the Zhodani homeworld and its solar system. Much more detail is given to the history of the Zhodani, including how they first discovered psionic abilities and the impact it had on their society. In short, the Zhodani learned that some humans are naturally gifted in these abilities and from them arose a noble caste. Those who are not naturally gifted in psionics but who, with training, could become so form the intendant caste. Those who lack psionic abilities form the prole caste. The interstellar state they eventually formed, the Zhodani Consulate, is a democracy with a franchise limited to psionically gifted nobles, making it an interesting mirror image to the feudal aristocracy of its rival, the Third Imperium.

Where Alien Module 4 really shines is in its treatment of Zhodani society and the impact that psionics has had on it. Compared to Imperial humans, the Zhodani is much more peaceable and conformist, in part due to the regular use of telepathy and other abilities to detect "deviant" thoughts and behavior before they become a problem. This is where the infamous – to Imperials anyway – Thought Police have a role. The Zhodani view the Tavrchedl' (or "Guardians of Our Morality") not as policemen but as firemen, whose job is to deal with depression, frustration, and disillusionment among the populace. That the Zhodani have developed advanced means, both medicinal and psionic, to deal with these conditions only makes the Thought Police even more effective.

All the Alien Modules strive to give their subjects their due, presenting them and their societies and cultures from their own perspective. This is very much in evidence in this one's treatment of the Zhodani. Though building on information presented in early '80s Traveller material, Alien Module 4 goes a very long way toward presenting the Zhodani not as stock villains but as solid antagonists with their own plausible point of view, given their starting premises. It does such a good job at this that, when I first read the module, I was somewhat taken aback. I'd spent several years seeing the Zhodani in one way – the Imperial perspective – that I never considered the possibility that there might be another legitimate portrayal of them.

Sympathetic though it may be, Alien Module 4 nevertheless paints a picture of a profoundly alien society, all the more so, I think, because it's peopled by human beings that are physiologically little different from us. The ubiquity of psionics and its effect on Zhodani society cannot be understated. The Zhodani, for example, have little concept of privacy and tend to view Imperial humans as inherently dishonest simply because they will not submit to routine telepathic scans. From their perspective, only someone with something to hide would be worried about such a thing. Likewise, their caste society, based on one's natural mental powers, runs counter to the reader's likely preference for some kind of social egalitarianism (even if the Imperium itself falls short of that ideal as well).

Alien Module 4: Zhodani is thus an excellent supplement for use with Traveller, one that not only provides insight into the Imperium's main enemies but also gives players and referees alike the ability to create and play Zhodani characters. I'm not sure how many people have ever attempted, let alone succeeded, at a Zhodani-focused Traveller campaign, but I doubt it would be very many. Still, the benefit of being able to understand better these antagonists is immense and the Third Imperium setting is richer and more believable because of it. 

My Top 10 Classic Traveller Adventures (Part II)

Without further ado, here are the final five entries in my list of my favorite classic Traveller adventures, concluding the post I made earlier this week. 

5. Divine Intervention

1982's Divine Intervention is one part of a double adventure (the other part entitled Night of Conquest) and is, in my opinion, the more interesting of the two. Interestingly, the scenario is written by Lawrence Schick, formerly of TSR, and marks, so far as I know, his sole appearance as a writer for Traveller (though he was one of the co-designers of the SF RPG Star Frontiers). Divine Intervention focuses on the efforts of the player characters, as agents of an offworld corporation to stage a "message from God" to the leader of a religious dictatorship on the planet Pavabid, said message supporting the corporation's desire to exploit Pavabid's mineral resources. Divine Intervention is an imaginative caper scenario, one that makes good use of the varying tech levels of Traveller worlds. It's also a rare scenario that talks much about religion in the Third Imperium setting, albeit in a very limited fashion. I have fond memories of refereeing this one.

4. Nomads of the World-Ocean

Another fine effort by the Keith Brothers, Nomads of the World-Ocean follows a well-worn pattern for both Traveller adventures generally and the works of J. Andrew and William H. Keith, namely the dubious activities of interstellar corporations on worlds in or near the Third Imperium. In this case, the world in question is Bellerophon, whose surface, as the title suggests, is covered entirely by water. That alone sets this adventure apart; there's lots of excellent detail about the planet, its ecosystem, and its native population, all of which really set the scene for the players. The local inhabitants are Turkish-descended people who dwell on immense seagoing vessels and travel across Bellerophon's oceans in search of its largest native lifeform, the vaguely whale-like daghadasi, which they hunt. Recently, it was discovered these creatures are also the source of a biochemical that might be useful in the creation of life extension drugs, hence the interest of corporate agents. Nomads is a rich, complicated adventure replete with not only great science fictional concepts, but also food for thought about economics, colonialism, environmentalism, and more – superb stuff.

3. Murder on Arcturus Station

Yet another fine scenario by J. Andrew Keith of the prolific Keith Brothers, Murder on Arcturus Station is, as its title suggests, a murder mystery scenario set aboard a space station in the Arcturus star system of the Solomani Rim. What makes it notable and worthy of inclusion on this list is the very flexible way that Keith designed it. Instead of a single, pre-defined murderer and motive, the referee has nine different options, each one of them detailed enough to make his job easier in presenting the chosen one as the killer. This gives the adventure a great deal of replayability, which is certainly a virtue. In addition, the referee is better able to tailor the scenario to his ongoing campaign. Like most murder mystery scenarios, this one depends heavily on the slow, methodical accumulation of clues through investigation and interviews with NPCs. Consequently, it might not be to everyone's tastes. I, however, have always had a great fondness for murder mysteries, particularly well written ones such as this.

2. Leviathan 

Leviathan is a very unusual Traveller adventure in that it was written by Bob McWilliams, a regular writer for White Dwarf, and therefore reflects a UK take on the Third Imperium setting. The scenario is set in the Outrim Void, a region of space rimward of the default Spinward Marches sector. The characters are part of a trading expedition to the largely unknown worlds of this part of space. Thus, a large part of the adventure is travelling from world to world, learning their details and determining the most lucrative sorts of trades one might make with them. In the process, the characters also learn more about the local political situation, including the activities of pirates, corsairs, and the ever-present threat of agents of the Zhodani Consulate. Leviathan is thus a bit like a hexcrawl in space, which is a style of scenario I've always found compelling. In the Traveller context, it works exceedingly well and I got great enjoyment from refereeing this over the course of many weeks in my youth.

1. Legend of the Sky Raiders

In selecting 1981's Legend of the Sky Raiders as my favorite Traveller adventure of all time, I'm actually using it as a surrogate for the entirety of the "Sky Raiders Trilogy," consisting of this adventure and its two sequels, The Trail of the Sky Raiders and Fate of the Sky Raiders. Though each one is theoretically a stand-alone adventure, they work best when used in conjunction with one another. The central conceit of these adventures is the mystery of the eponymous Sky Raiders, an ancient civilization of interstellar marauders who ravaged multiple worlds in a remote sector to spinward of the Third Imperium in the ancient past. Throughout the three adventures, the characters uncover details about the history of the Sky Raiders, leading them on an Indiana Jones-esque chase across many planets, with rivals also intent on learning these secrets hot on their heels. It's brilliant pulp sci-fi of the most engaging sort and, in my view, represents Traveller at its best. I cannot recommend it more highly.

Retrospective: The Free City of Krakow

As a child of the 1970s and '80s, the idea that there might one day be a thermonuclear war between the nations of NATO and the Warsaw Pact was easy to believe. Consequently, I had an immense fascination with post-apocalyptic stories and speculations. In the roleplaying realm, my earliest experiences were with TSR's Gamma World, which I adored (and still do). However, I think there's little question that Gamma World doesn't present a "realistic" version of the End, or at least not one that bears much resemblance to the likely outcome of the simmering Cold War tensions that formed the background of my early life.

That's why, when GDW released Twilight: 2000 in 1984, I didn't need to be convinced to pick up a copy. I was already a fan of GDW, but this game seemed to play to the company's strengths. Founded by wargamers, GDW seemed to me to evince the kind of hard-nosed, practical mindset I associated, rightly or wrongly, with military types. If I'd trust any gaming company to make a solid, grounded RPG about life after the Third World War, it was GDW. 

And, for the most part, my trust was well-founded. Twilight: 2000 was far from perfect – many of its rules were more cumbersome than they needed to be – but its presentation of a post-apocalyptic early 21st century was a compelling and, dare I say, believable one, given the parameters established in the game's setting. In addition, GDW thoroughly supported Twilight: 2000 with a wide array of supplementary modules, starting with The Free City of Krakow in 1985. This 44-page book was written by William H. Keith, one of the famed Keith Brothers, who had contributed so much excellent material to GDW's Traveller. 

The Free City of Krakow is a very interesting book. Though it does include outlines for multiple adventures, including one very significant one, the bulk of the book is gazetteer of the titular city, its inhabitants, and factions. According to the module's history section, Krakow declared itself a free city in late 1999, after its garrison, the Polish 8th Motorized Rifle Division, supported this declaration and its commander accepted the position of Police Prefect. Now, Krakow operates as a kind of "Casablanca of Eastern Europe," free from the control of the shattered remnants of the Warsaw Pact forces in the area, as well as the NATO stragglers that still survive. It's a pretty interesting set-up for a home base out of which player characters can operate, made all the more interesting by the presence of multiple plots, both large and small, in which they can participate.

The city of Krakow itself is described in detail, along with maps and information on each of the cities districts. Special attention is paid to the economics and infrastructure of the city, since these are the key to Krakow's continued survival. Equally important are the major NPCs who live here, starting with the head of the city council, known as the Dowodca (Leader) – a charismatic and self-aggrandizing fellow who views himself as a Man of Destiny. Pitted against him is the Police Prefect, a former major general in the Polish Army, who feels he would better run the city. Krakow also holds operatives of the KGB, CIA, and DIA, the Israeli Shabak, and other smaller groups, like crime syndicates. It's a cauldron of intrigue and duplicity – and the perfect environment for adventure.

Speaking of which, The Free City of Krakow provides plenty of adventure outlines for the referee to use, either directly or as seeds for creating his own. One of them is potentially quite significant, as it involves an invention that might enable microcomputers whose chips were destroyed by the EMPs of nuclear strikes and counterstrikes to function again. Needless to say, if true, this invention is something various parties would kill – or at least pay huge sums – for and it represents a major Maguffin with the potential to tip the balance of power in the post-war world. 

Re-reading The Free City of Krakow, what strikes me is how much emphasis GDW places on rebuilding civilization in the aftermath of World War III. Despite its reputation in some circles, Twilight: 2000 was not a game of ruthless murderhobo-ism. Yes, it could be played that way, but the supplementary material generally presented situations where the player characters could improve the lives of those they encountered. This is true of The Free City of Krakow too, which includes lots of detail on smaller settlements that exist in the shadow of the Free City and its bloodthirsty politics. Adventures and campaigns set in this region will inevitably present many opportunities for characters to use their skills to help pick up the pieces of the fallen world. It's precisely for this reason that I so like the module and the others that GDW published over the course of Twilight: 2000's run and why I look forward to one day playing the game again.

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.

Retrospective: Murder on Arcturus Station

Many people attribute Traveller's lasting success to the fact that it was one of the first science fiction roleplaying games published and there may be some truth to that. However, I think it had more to do with the fact that it was supported by many excellent adventures, starting with its first. With very few exceptions, Traveller had a larger selection of excellent adventures than almost any other RPG of which I can think, a terrific example of which is 1983's Murder on Arcturus Station by J. Andrew Keith.

As its title suggests, Murder on Arcturus Station is a murder mystery set on Station Three within the asteroid belt orbiting the star Arcturus. The murder victim is Ringiil Urshukaan, president of Lamarck Minerals, whom the adventure assumes has recently hired the PCs in order to discover the location of a missing ore carrier. The adventure takes as granted that the PCs succeeded in this prior mission, learning that the theft of the ore carrier was part of a plot by disgruntled employees of Urshukaan. As it turns out, there are quite a lot of disgruntled employees at Lamarck Minerals, thus laying the groundwork for the main adventure.

What sets Murder on Arcturus Station apart from other adventures of its kind is that it's actually a toolbox. Beyond the information noted in the previous paragraph, little else is set in the adventure. Instead, each referee is expected to decide for himself who killed Urshukaan, why they did it, and how they accomplished the murder. Consequently, the adventure is a little longer than most those published for Traveller -- 52 pages -- but those extra pages are put to good use, providing the referee with everything he needs to create his own unique murder mystery. Thus, there's a map of the station itself, along with details on 57th century forensic science, background on the victim and all nine suspects. Each of those nine suspects is given background of their own, as well as a possible motive, means, and alibi. This makes it possible for the referee to reuse this adventure many times, each with a different murderer, motive, and means.

Most intriguing of all is the fact that Murder on Arcturus Station allows for a tenth possible murderer, namely one of the player characters. It's an unusual possibility that I never had the opportunity to use back in the day and I regret that now. Naturally, such a possibility depends on planning beforehand between the referee and the player, but that's easily accomplished. The only real issue I have with this possibility is that, if the PCs are all pregenerated ones, the revelation that one of them is in fact a killer won't have very much impact, or at least it'll have far less impact than if it were a long-established PC who's revealed to be the perpetrator. On the other hand, I'll admit that the use of an established PC isn't very likely in my experience, not unless his player has either decided to retire the character in style or the referee intends to make another Traveller adventure, Prison Planet, the new centerpiece of his campaign.

Murder on Arcturus Station is a lot of fun for the referee. It does a lot of the heavy lifting in the creation of a murder mystery adventure while still providing enough options that the referee feels as if he's co-creating the situation he's presenting to his players. In addition, adventures like this are, I think, a big part of why Traveller succeeded so well. I don't mean the toolbox aspect of it, though that is indeed attractive. Rather, I mean that Traveller was never just about dogfights and shoot 'em ups with bug-eyed aliens. There was a depth and variety to its adventures, some of which offered up surprisingly complex issues as fodder for roleplaying. It's something I continue to admire about Traveller and that has continued to influence me as I write my own science fiction adventures.

Retrospective: The Legend of the Sky Raiders

When I think about Traveller, I almost always think of J. Andrew Keith and William H. Keith, known fondly among fans of the game as "the Keith Brothers" (which is only apt, since they were in fact brothers). The reason I think of them is that much of the best material written for Traveller during its Golden Age was the work of the Keith Brothers, often writing under pseudonyms. The reason for this is that they were so prolific that their publishers were concerned about the appearance of using these two authors again and again, but their material was so good that the publishers could hardly turn down their submissions. In addition, William H. Keith is an illustrator of some talent, so not only could the Keith Brothers produce high quality rules and adventures, they could provide the art for them as well!

I'd be hard pressed to choose a single Keith-penned adventure as my absolute favorite, but, if pressed, I'd probably pick 1981's The Legend of the Sky Raiders, published under license from GDW by FASA in their pre-Star Trek, pre-Battletech, pre-Shadowrun days. The first part of a trilogy of adventures, The Legend of the Sky Raiders has a terrifically pulpy feel to it. The characters are hired by a young archeologist looking to continue her father's research into the origins of the mysterious interstellar warriors known as the Sky Raiders. According to the archeologist, the Sky Raiders originated on the backwater world of Mirayn, where the adventure takes place, and she needs assistants and guards to aid her in proving her father's theories, thereby solving a great historical riddle. Of course, many dangers await the characters: from the harsh environment of Mirayn's Outback to the native sophont species to other humans who don't want the archeologist to proceed with her investigations.

The Legend of the Sky Raiders pretty much encapsulates everything I like in my Traveller adventures. There are equal parts action and problem-solving, set against a backdrop in which human greed and rivalries are every bit as dangerous as any alien obstacles the PCs encounter. The adventure also nicely mixes the low-key with the epic. The archeological expedition is a surprisingly modest affair, but the implications of what the characters discover are far from modest -- implications that are explored more fully in the next two adventures in the series. Keith Brothers adventures were what I'd call "slow burn" scenarios: it took a while for them to get going, but, once they did, you were in for a bang.

That's still my preferred approach to SF adventures. Much as I love wild, over-the-top craziness, it's hard to maintain for very long, which is why I prefer adventures that are willing to move slowly and save the big bangs until lots of details have been firmly -- and carefully -- established. Even back in the day, there were some who found the Keith Brothers adventures a little too sedate for their tastes, but I wasn't one of them. In a very real way, the look and feel they established through their many adventures, supplements, and articles was Traveller and I'll admit that I've often found it hard to accept other interpretations of the game in the years since. That's why I particularly treasure my large collection of Keith Brothers products. Even three decades on, they still inspire me in ways that few others do.