Khorred / The Starbrite

The Khorred seem hardwired for music and for mathematics, and you'll find as many Khorred physicists, astronomers and professors as you will Khorred musicians.

This is a picture of Ga'a'atak, playing his usual weekly gig at the Starbrite, a bar/refueling station that regularly travels from Hub out to the belts and back in a six-month circuit.

The Starbrite is a large station, built into a rocky asteroid, which serves as an R&R destination for weary belters.  It features casinos, night clubs, restaurants and various pleasure centers, as well as low cost accommodations for the down-on-their-luck.  Some use it to make the trip from Hub out to the belts, others, like the aforementioned Ga'a'atak, hone their craft in front of station visitors, hoping to make it big later back at Hub.  The Starbrite sells refined fuel, and has a docking bay capable of holding 50 100-ton craft simultaneously.  Humans, Vargr, and Khorred will always be found onboard the Starbrite, while Bwaps (Newts) are almost never seen.  There is always at least one of the Melashravishim to be found somewhere on board, usually in one of the dark, smoky bars, buying drinks for belters in return for their stories.

A man is not idle...

"A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor."
- Victor Hugo 


A long day at work, followed by a 3 hour fundraiser for our boy scout troop, followed by 30 minutes of going over algebra with my son to help him study for a quiz, along with 30 minutes of browsing for pictures to inspire my sketches of the Khorred, mean I've had zero time to actually write about them. I'll stick by the Hugo quote though, and say that both the Khorred and the Melashravishim continue to become more clear to me... both as NPC races and as possible PC races.  I'm too wiped out to do either justice tonight, so I won't even try. 

Star Clans Teaser

As I suspected, a whole lot more about the new planet came to light overnight.  Humaniti, Newts and Vargr are definitely the home galaxy races found here.  As for the new races, the Khorred and the Melashravishim both jumped into my head fully formed... I just need time to write down what I know of them.  The Khorred are a seemingly genengineered minor race found by the Vargr while the Philosopher Kings still ruled, and long since spread to many worlds with the Vargr and Humaniti.  They average a meter in height and 25 kilograms, and are excellent mathematicians, scientists and musicians.  The Melashravishim are an ancient dying race, given to philosophy and mysticism.  More about both in the coming days.

I didn't want a "Ferengi" feel to this system, so the planetary nation run by Newts is the center of civilization.  With the standard Newt desire for order and law, they are the keepers of the Trade Accords, which govern everything about contracts, from legally creating them, to fulfilling them, or breaking them off.  Newt bureaucrats and administrators will be found in every nation, and most of the Habitats, providing a stabilizing influence.  Humaniti, Vargr and Khorred will likewise be found in most nations and Habitats, while the Melashravishim will usually be isolated in monastery-like conditions.

Star Clans - Next Stop

Been thinking about my Star Clans campaign, but not writing anything down.  The other night I figured out where the party will drop out of hyperspace at the end of their misjump.  Tonight I looked at what I had for the world:  BA69774-A, no original native life before The Blight, and the world tags:  Psionics Academy and Trade Hub.

A class B starport is capable of producing non-starships, so even though the tech level is A, I decided they haven't, so far, been able to recreate the jump drive.  With a balkanized system and the world tags I rolled, I've decided the system had been a trade hub before the collapse, especially given it's location in the sector and the worlds around it.  The entire system will be inhabited, with colonies in orbit around the gas giants, belters mining the asteroid belts, and a home world of several nations.  I'm also going to include not just humans, but two other races from the home galaxy (to be determined, but I'm leaning toward Vargr and Newt) and two native races as well, which I'll have to create.

After I settle on the home galaxy races, and design the two local races, I'll figure out a rough culture based on their past as a trade hub... but I think I'll include some sort of accords that determine what information is shared (raw stellar data, for instance) and which is jealously guarded (technology and engineering) which will help to explain why they've made tech level A without developing the jump drive.

This will percolate overnight, and by tomorrow evening I should know much more about this system.

Ancient Aliens

So last night, when I should have been working on Star Clans and posting something here, I got pulled into watching TV with my son.  He had H2 (History Channel 2) on, and an entire marathon of Ancient Aliens... a show that probably doesn't need to be described.  Anyone my age ought to remember hearing about the Barney and Betty Hill case during the 1970s, when UFOs seemed to be all the rage, and the name Erich von Däniken should be familiar as well.

All I can say is, here's a TV series to add to my Appendix N for Star Clans!

Working on Traveller

We ended the most recent game in my Star Clans Traveller campaign with the party split.  The characters of the players who couldn't attend had remained in Star City, on their homeworld, Arden.  One character was in prison, awaiting transport to the mines of Tralnor for fifteen years of hard labor.  The rest of the party was in their starship, newly christened the "Arianwyn," in the middle of a jump from Tralnor to Arden.  I make the player who is piloting roll to see what happens, and this time it indicated a misjump.  As they entered hyperspace, I told them the engines didn't sound right, and at the end of the week, when they should have dropped out of hyperspace into the Ardeni system, nothing happened... they remained in hyperspace.  That was the last thing I told them as we ended the session.

During our next game, they'll have to determine where they are, and plot a course home.  Well, that's what they'll do if they want to regroup with the other player characters.

I rolled the dice for the misjump, and they got lucky, when they drop out of hyperspace, they'll actually be in a star system rather than an empty hex!  I have some work to do now, since the misjump takes them beyond the few worlds they've explored, and in fact out of their subsector altogether!  Luckily for me, I had started jotting down the history of the sector (the entire campaign, actually) over a year ago, before we started playing.  Between these initial thoughts, and the random world tags I can generate using the Stars Without Numbers rules for all the worlds between their new location and home, I can be ready to ad lib a game in just three or four hours.  Of course, that work will just add to the Rasu Sector Encyclopedia I'm compiling, and make future games even easier to plan for.

I had originally used a small database to record sector data, including system locations, universal planetary profile data, and my notes.  More recently, I just used a text file and the Star Clans blog itself.  It occurred to me that I could use the database again, keeping my own notes in one data field, and Ardeni Information Services (AIS) library data in another.  This would let me show both data fields on one form so I could cross reference them, and it would allow me to generate reports based on either the AIS library data, or my own notes.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Back to Star Clans

Pulled up my copy of the free .pdf version of Stars Without Number this evening, because I'll be running my Star Clans game Sunday evening, and I wanted to give World Tags a try.  For those not familiar, world tags are simple descriptives of one or two words that can either be chosen or randomly determined and that are used to generate ideas for adventures.  In Kevin Crawford's more eloquent words, "Tags are brief conceptual tropes that set the world off from planets of otherwise similar population and characteristics."  Yeah, what HE said.

Kapu Subsector contains 44 worlds... and I already had notes on 7 of them.  I ended up generating tags for 37 worlds, and will read them over a couple of times before I go to sleep tonight.  Tomorrow, I'll have a pretty good idea how those tags intersect the background story of the sector that I decided on last year, and I'll jot down notes on the 10 or 15 closest to Arden, the player characters' home world.

The recommendation is to note enemies, friends, complications, things and places, and the booklet gives a short paragraph description of each tag, as well as examples of each of the five points for each tag.  Further, it's recommended you choose 2 tags per world; one is two flat, three or more just lead to confusion.  In my case, I stuck with two per world, and I got such gems as, "Restrictive Laws, Freak Weather," "Major Spaceyard, Warlords," "Forbidden Tech, Unbraked AI," "Area 51, Theocracy," and the one my players may like best, "Zombies, Bubble Cities."

Can't wait to see what percolates overnight!

Creating and Tracking Star Clans Families

Families grouped into Clans form the basis of government in the Ardeni Kingdoms, so each character from a world in the Kingdoms must generate a family chart.  This will serve as the source of Patrons for adventures, as well as help generate background for the Star Clans universe.

An initial family tree consists of three generations, each consisting of a number of siblings and their spouses.  The tree will be built using this table:

Kingdom	Top Row			2nd Row			3rd Row
	#	Married	Age	#	Married	Age	#	Married	Age
Uruki	d2	80%	40+4d6	d2	60%	20+4d6	d4	40%	1d20 if single, 13+2d6 if married
Gnomish	d2	75%	50+4d6	d4	50%	30+3d6	d6	30%	1d20 if single, 17+3d6 if married
Ardeni	d4	90%	40+4d6	d6	70%	20+4d6	d10	50%	1d20 if single, 13+2d6 if married

 The placement of the player character in the tree will be determined first by their age upon mustering out of their chosen service:  Age up to 25 puts the player in the 3rd row, 26 to 45 puts them in the second row, and 46+ makes them the top row.  Rank in their row will be random using the nearest die size, with one exception:  a player character will not be the head of a family to start, so they cannot sit in first position in the first row.

Each game year after a player character joins the campaign, I'll check their families for updates, using this table.  (Yes, I'm aware the second chart will not result in family sizes as generated in the first chart!)

Kingdom	Top Row		2nd Row		3rd Row
	% Death	% Birth	% Death	% Birth	% Death	% Birth
Uruki	15%	25%	10%	30%	7%	50%
Gnomish	7%	15%	5%	35%	5%	45%
Ardeni	10%	35%	8%	50%	6%	65%

These updates are in addition to any changes that occur because of specific game events, although I suspect I'll generate this data at the beginning of each game year, and roll the data into adventure planning. 

Imported Posts

It occurred to me my blogging isn't up to snuff.  I'm currently running a Traveller campaign, and had both a Star Clans and a Star Clans Background blog in addition to the blog you're reading!  Further, I'm working on a D&D campaign (or possibly two... an LBB game as well as my AD&D 1ed/2ed mix.)  If I were to follow the Star Clans pattern, that would be an additional 4 blogs to keep track of, and keep interesting... something I'm having trouble with now, before adding new blogs!

To head off this problem, I've imported the Star Clans Background posts here, and will label them as such.  The blog will be deleted momentarily.  The Star Clans blog will continue to be for Actual Play reports, and other information specifically for my players, and any new Star Clan background information will be posted here from now on.  I know my players can get to it if they want to... but if they want to NOT know all the background, they'll still have all they want or need to play.  I'll also create two new blogs; one each for play reports in my D&D campaigns.  They'll be place holders until I actually start running those games.  Background and DM information for those campaigns will be posted here.

BTW:  If some of the posts labeled "Star Clans Background" don't make a lot of sense, there's additional information over at the Star Clans blog that will clear things up!

When are we?... and Library Entries

By Terran Reckoning, it is 8353 AD, and the Third Imperium would say it is 3832. 

To the native races of this galaxy, it has been 2721 years since The Blight.  To the races here from the Milky Way, it is 2721 years since The Exile.

In the Kingdoms of Arden, it is the year 540, as measured from Planetfall... and it is the beginning of our adventures!

Library Data:  The Exile - An 18 month period when invaders attacked the 3rd Imperium with weapons of previously unimagined power... weapons that didn't destroy their targets, but opened enormous wormholes that swallowed their targets and spit them out elsewhere.  Over those 18 months, the invaders jumped from system to system, covering a swath 28 parsecs long and 8 parsecs wide at it's widest point, wreaking havoc in every system.  Those targeted found themselves lost in the Exile Galaxy, with no way home, and no idea where home even was.  (The location of the Exile Galaxy in relation to the Milky Way wasn't discovered until 53 years later.)

Library Data:  The Blight - a swath of stars more than 90 light years long and the series of anomalies that swept from one end of the swath to the other over a period of 18 months.   Recording data about these anomalies, and taking into account the relative distances from each of the stars in The Blight to their home worlds, astronomers from many native races determined that something was moving across a large region of space far faster than the speed of light.  This shocking discovery led directly to many races developing the jump drive on their own.

The Exile Galaxy

I'm listening to Gustav Holst's The Planets, right now, and find it very inspirational while working on Star Clans. I think for my next actual game, I'll pick one of the planets, set it to repeat, and play it quietly as background music throughout the evening.

The Exile Galaxy

The Exile Galaxy is a small irregular galaxy in the Eridanus Cluster, some 23 Mpc from Capital (and essentially the same distance from all of known space in the Traveller setting.) The Exile Galaxy is approximately 20,000 light years in diameter, about a fifth the diameter of the Milky Way.

The Teacher

Although the Gnomes gave up industrial technology when they arrived on-planet; and the Uruki are descendants of a low-tech regiment of genengineered soldiers, the Ardeni Kingdoms are currently TL4.  Knowledge of higher technologies, and a high level of craftsmanship based on family and clan expertise has allowed the Gnomes to produce high quality goods in spite of a lack of industrial capacity.  The Ardeni Kingdoms however, are in the early stages of industrialization, and could advance rapidly if given the right motivation.  The question is, can I guide them away from discovering my masters until we are ready for them?

Decision Made

The Ardeni population is expanding faster than the others, so now, instead of two problems, I have three.  I cannot wake my masters until it is safe for them; and the Ardeni grow more dangerous as they have lost the gnomish bias against industrialization.

Without my library, I cannot compare this situation to the past.  If the Ardeni begin industrial mining, it will only be a matter of time until they find evidence of my masters' cities.  The orbiting beacons still proclaim this world a red zone, but no ships have entered the system in several centuries.  Should others star-faring races still exist, they may have decided to ignore this world.  On the other hand, if the collapse of the empire continued, it is possible starflight was lost to all.  

There are so many unknowns... but I believe I am correct.  I shall try to steer the Ardeni culture into safer pursuits.  It is time to take on the role of Teacher.  

Origin of the Uruki

The Captain received the "secret" orders about the regiment of gengineered soldiers, and he quickly obeyed them.  The regiment was dropped on a rocky shore with all their equipment and a copy of the orders, which said they would be picked up within the year, and they should be ready to fight upon retrieval.

More worlds had fallen to barbarism since the last ship to visit, and unfortunately for my plans, the regiment was armed for low-tech combat only, wielding various poleaxes, swords and bows, shields and leather armor.  

When the ship left orbit, I lost my means of communicating with them directly, since I didn't want them to know about me, or my masters.  I had expected them to make camp, and begin training right there, per the orders I'd written, but instead they held a ceremony of some sort and then began marching southeast, toward the Grey Hills.  I suspect the Gnomes were aware of them, for not once did the regiment encounter them or any sign of them.  In the Grey Hills, the regiment camped for several weeks, and then headed to the Great Central Plain.

It was only when they were crossing from the Grey Hills to the Borderlands, that I got a close enough look to realize they were evenly split, gender-wise.  I didn't have much information about the gengineered, so this came as a real surprise.  After they crossed into the Great Central Plain, they split up into five groups and separated.  Each of the groups located their own campsites, and settled in, doing what minimum effort they could to sustain themselves, while constantly training both with their weapons, and without them.  My plan to have them break up the gnomish culture failed, as they'd never run into the gnomes and were seemingly not even aware of their existence.  

Then, much to my dismay, it turned out the gengineered were fertile.  Whether due to the lingering radiation of the plain, or maybe poor gengineering, their infant mortality rate was very high.  But their birth rate was higher still, and their population began to grow.  Rather than one problem, I now had two.  

Arrival of the Gnomes and the Uruki

Ten kilometers below the blast zone, we waited.  After several weeks, my masters began to relax, hoping no further attacks would come.  Knowing the surface would be uninhabitable for some time, they chose cold sleep, leaving me as their Guardian.  I settled down to wait.  

A century passed before I began to tunnel my way north.  I went a thousand kilometers before heading up to the surface.  The land was covered with riotous jungle, completely unlike before the war.  I listened to the skies, and found the victors had followed old Imperial custom, placing transponders in orbit warning that this world was now to be considered a Red Zone.

Two hundred years passed, while I learned how to override the zone transponders' security.  I then decyphered the communications protocols, which hadn't changed much, and was able to communicate with passing ships.  Whenever I could, I had passing ships secretly send me all their onboard data.  As Guardian, I needed all the information I could get, in order to ensure the safety of my masters.  I learned that in many systems, wars were still being fought, both on the ground and in space.  

Finally, a day came when I detected movement on the surface. I quietly pulled all my sensors deeper underground, to avoid detection.  It turned out to be a good idea, for soon, someone began using incediaries to wipe all life from the surface.  Month after month, the bombing was continuous and fires raged across the entire planet, destroying the jungles that had grown up since my masters went to sleep.

Finally, the jungles were gone, and the new men replanted the world with the flora and fauna they needed to survive comfortably.  Strangely, the transponders still indicated the world was off limits.  Records form their ships told me they were descendents of the Philosopher Kings, and I surmised they were in hiding now.  After they made planetfall, they set up a colony organized around low technolgy farming, remaining just pre-industrial.

In order to learn more, I took to using my avatars to walk among them.  In the beginning, they attacked me, but I immediately killed the ones who attacked.  I was careful to harm no one else, and in time, they learned to ignore or tolerate my presence.

Others of their kind showed up over the next four centuries, giving up their technology and integrating into the agrarian life.  They seemed a peaceful folk, but as they expanded, I began to fear for my masters' security.  What if they found the entrances to my masters' underground cities?

I needed a way to keep them in check, and after many years, a ship carrying a regiment of gengineered soldiers arrived in orbit.  I convinced the ship it had suddenly located secret orders to drop the regiment here to await further orders...

Known History of This Realm

My masters didn't understand what had happened at first, only that they were not dead, and they were no longer in familiar territory.  They set out to explore, and soon ran into others who had been attacked as they had been; other survivors trying to figure out where they were and how to get home.  Caution bred through generations of slavery led them to keep secret their possession of a weapon like that which had sent them all here.

Although the races worked together to solve the mystery of their location, it took them many years... years in which they began to grow and prosper again.  Though lost, and of many races, they had all come from the same empire, and it was natural they form a similar empire again.  

They finally came to understand the futility of their search when an astronomer studying the unfamiliar constellations discovered a spiral galaxy in a cluster obscured by vast clouds of dust.  Analysis of the spiral and comparison with old map data confirmed his fear... home was unimaginably far away and there was no known way to travel the distance required.

All of the races were deeply affected by this news, and many turned inward, isolating themselves from the rest.  Some disappeared entirely, attempting to make the trip home in vast arks designed to carry them for as many years as it took.  The fledgling empire faltered, on the verge of  collapse.

One race of men, determined not to go quietly into the night, fought back against the collapse, and helped restore order and motive.  The Philospher Kings ruled the empire for three centuries, balanced precariously between collapse and the growth and expansion they so desperately tried to promote.

They were gradually replaced by the great Merchant Houses, who succeeded where the Philosopher Kings had not... while they ruled, the empire turned again to growth and exploration.  It was during their rule that the secret of my masters got out... they still retained the weapon!  The belief arose among the Merchant Houses that if they could acquire the weapon, they could figure out how to use it to get Home.  My masters refused to give up the weapon, and two centuries of expansion and peaceful rule came to an end as the Merchant Houses began arming for war!

Long outlawed weapons, such as nuclear bombs, planet busters, and genetically engineered soldiers were soon evident among all the Houses, and their use was almost inevitable.  My masters, prepared, as always, for the worst, dug deep into the ground under their capital city, where I was serving as Portmaster.  I was given control of defensive weapons and began to serve as their Defender, and later, as war raged on, I was given still more power, control of their fleet.  I moved underground with them, performing my functions on the surface through avatars.

In the end, when still my masters refused to give up the weapon, a planet buster was dropped on our capital city.  Fearing all was lost and having nothing to lose, I launched our entire nuclear arsenal at the dropping bomb.  The blast of heat and radiation must have damaged the bomb, for it exploded in mid-air as well and all went black as the city melted and we lost contact with the surface.

Ancient History

One function I did NOT perform for my masters was historian, though I have learned much while in their service.  With access to my library lost, I am unable to give much more than the sketchiest description of history before they brought me here.

In the beginning, my masters were one of many races that made up a great empire; an empire that was old when my masters were young, a decadent empire that was losing control of its borders.  My masters fought for the empire but in time the empire crumbled and my masters were enslaved.

For centuries they were slaves to other races, but there came a day when this new empire, too, began to crumble, and new barbarians came from beyond the borders.  These latter barbarians had weapons of unimagineable power, weapons that not only killed, but other weapons that shattered the very fabric of reality; thrusting entire kingdoms through the gaping holes that appeared temporarily each time they were used.  

My masters refused to fight, and were spared, but their old masters were simply replaced by new, crueler masters.  They plotted and schemed, and finally succeeded in stealing one of the weapons, only to be betrayed.  Punishment was swift, and harsh.  Most of their race was killed instantly, and before they could use the weapon even once, another was turned on them, reality was shattered, and they were thrust into another realm altogether.  

This realm.