Traveller Sandbox: Sample Exploration Site Write-Ups...

Good Afternoon, All:

Before moving on to Lairs, I wanted to wrap up the Expedition Sites discussion with write-ups of our three example worlds. As always, each example is fleshed out in the form of Library Data entries on the three worlds in question. Note that the write-ups are written with a few specific goals: maximize the potential for flavor and adventure, yet remain concise so as to avoid overloading the reader with extraneous details.

Mudhava (Segin 2414 E526330-6): The early history of world of Mudhava paints a colorful picture of being a port of call for privateers, corsairs and interstellar raiders. Even now, several popular adventure holovid series refers to the world by its old nickname, "Mud Haven." Originally settled by followers of the exiled Asuran military commander Rajesh Mudhava, its markets became known throughout the Beta Quadrant as a site where anything can be bought or sold, if one is determined enough. Late in life, King Rajesh I, as Commander Mudhava had come to be known, contracted Mirandan Fever, which slowly drove him insane. Realizing his predicament, Commander Mudhava used his pirate fleet to capture several prominent medical researchers and set them to finding a cure. According to rumor, the researchers were nearing a success when the most senior captains under Commander Mudhava mutinied against their leader and slaughtered him and most of his supporters, including the researchers. In the end, privateers loyal to Mudhava overturned the mutineers, and returned leadership of the world to Mudhava's eldest daughter. The old pirate base lies abandoned on the outskirts of the Mudhavan colony, and is believed to be cursed by superstitious locals. Several efforts have been mounted to reclaim the base and its contents, but each have met with their own unusual series of deadly accidents, perpetuating the belief that the site is cursed.

Prishiboro (Segin 2810 E596568-5): Until three decades ago, the world of Prishiboro was called Izanagi, formerly a colony of the Koyone Shogunate. During the Jengu-Koyane War, the Jengu Fleet captured the planet after bombarding Izanagi's capitol city, Kojiki, from high orbit, and renamed the garden world Prishiboro. Today, only scavengers and off-world raiders risk travel into the irradiated and wartorn city in search of lost riches to recover. In recent years, nests of mizuchi, lethal parasitic creatures common to Prishiboro's jungles, have infested the ruins of Kojiki, making such excursions even more dangerous. The Emishi Faction, the current theocratic rulers of the Koyane Shogunate, once hailed from Izanagi, and only plotted and performed a successful coup against their psionic overlords after their world was taken by the Jengu and the former rulers known as Fujiwara Clan did nothing to recover their sacred homeworld. The Emishi have sponsored several small expeditions into the ruins of Kojiki that have returned empty-handed, but few know the object of their quest.

Tajimamori (Segin 2608 X410244-8 Red Zone): This star system is noteworthy for an astrographic hazard called the Tajimamori Effect. Early explorers to the system reported an unusual form of electromagnetogravitic (EMG) interference that causes significant disruption of unshielded and weakly-shielded electronic systems. Over time, the Tajimamori Effect has become increasingly stronger. Despite official claims by the Koyane Shogunate that this is a natural phenomenon, conspiracy theorists believe that the EMG interference is a byproduct of military weapon research conducted at a secret base hidden within the system. The planet of Tajimamori itself, which appears to be at the center of the disturbance, suffers from high levels of radiation, frequently attributed by scientists to the unstable anomaly. Referee's Note: This system is the home of an malfunctioning Progenitor portal device (known conveniently as the Tajimamori Portal), as well as a Progenitor Ansibular Star Chart (aka the Tajimamori Map), which experiences near-instantaneous updates despite the great distances involved. This requires data to be transmitted by some means that is far faster than that transmitted at the speed of light. The exact details of how this occurs has completely eluded scientists to this point.

Now that we are done with Exploration Sites, we are free to move on to the next stage of the Traveller Sandbox Experiment: Lairs! Soon, we'll know have a much stronger idea of what's terrorizing some of the outlying star systems, or at least Travellers who happen to be in the area. This sounds like fun to me!

With Regards,
Flynn