In Msg#7082 (Bun#564), George Herbert [email removed] wrote:
> For those who haven't seen previous discussions, TNE-Pocket is developing
> a couple of subsectors of Reavers Deep sector as a set of Pocket Empires
> for TNE, which GDW approved. The current status of when we can publish
> the stuff is up in the air, which Guy Garnett could (should? 8-) send an
> update about, but it is approved by Dave Nielsen @ gdw.
Well, that looks like my cue to jump in and explain what's going on.
TNE-Pocket is a discussion group which is developing 4 subsectors of Reavers'
Deep as a pocket empire and general setting for New Era adventures. In our
humble opinions, this location represents the best mix of a rich history
(which we have taken considerable care to preserve and expand upon) combined
with unique adventuring possibilities in the New Era.
However, it is not accurate to say that our work is GDW "Approved" - it's not
official background material. However, Dave Nilsen (Traveller product
manager at GDW) is aware of what we are doing, and GDW has no plans to
explicitly invalidate or contradict anything we write about Reavers' Deep in
the New Era. J. Andrew Keith (who, along with his brother William H. Keith,
was responsible for creating Reavers' Deep for Classic Traveller) is also
aware of what we're doing, and has no objections.
The overall tone of the background is considerably different from that of the
official "Reformation Coalition" campaign. As always in Reavers' Deep,
things are a little different from that of the (former) Third Imperium. The
empires are smaller (typically only one or two worlds), the tech levels are
lower (TL-9 is "average" for starfaring cultures in the region), and the
political situation is very different. Alien cultures abound: Humans
(Solomani, Vilani, and human minor races), Droyne, Aslan, and several other
races are found in the area.
Initially, player characters are Humans (or optionally Droyne, if the referee
has the Classic Traveller materials to support Droyne PCs) from the Gralyn
Union, a small (two star system, three inhabited worlds) pocket empire at one
end of one of the major mains in the region. The initial theme is
exploration - there's been no offworld contact for the last 70 years; the
players are equipped with partial library data and full starmaps (all of it
70 to 100 years old), and get to explore the New Era firsthand.
Material generated for TNE-Pocket is publishable, should we find a Traveller
magazine willing to print it. Some of this material should start appearing
in The Traveller Chronicle (hopefully beginning with #4; several articles
have been submitted) and possibly other magazines in the future.
Currently, most of the available resources are in the form of background
material, outlines, and a set of adventure ideas that need development work.
Complete UWPs (pre-Rebellion, Hard Times, and New Era) are available for the
area, as is a set of library data entries, and a number of short world
descriptions. History write-ups for the major worlds are also available, as
is a players' introduction. This last was written for one of the two
"playtest" campaigns. These campaigns are currently being run by TNE-Pocket
contributors are in progress using the available background. I expect these
campaigns to generate adventure material which will be used to fill out the
resources available.
Almost all of the material that has been generated to date is available for
anonymous FTP from the archive site at typhoon.berkeley.edu in the
\pub\Traveller\TNE-pocket directory (note the capitalization, it's important)
and it's subdirectories. I just checked, and the archive is up to date as of
about a month ago. You may have to sort through the archived messages (the
files List.*) to find the most recent stuff.
The current plan is to pull together sufficient background and adventure
material, once it is all generated, and make a sourcebook for New Era
adventures in Reavers' Deep that we can then make available on the archive
site. There is, however, a considerable amount of work that needs to be done
before that will happen.
Guy Garnett, aka ...
[email removed]
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Science-Fiction Adventure
In Reavers' Deep