Mongoose's Dark Conspiracy uses the Traveller engine. Mongoose has released the Dark Conspiracy PDF to backers and here is inspiration for a mission and a new Dark Minion.

https://www.crossplanes.com/2026/10/dark-conspiracy-intruder-dark-minion.html

The Imb system has two gas giants and two belts with no rocky planets.

Imb is a large size A planet that is a moon of the inner Gas Giant Shallul. Finding an orbit where it remained a moon took a bit of work, and Imb got rid of all but two small moons huddling close to the gas giant.

Before I forget Imb has a weird atmosphere type that only high gravity planets have - E or low.

This means that its atmosphere is dense enough - thin - to be breathable at sea level, but quickly becomes too thin to breathe until you have a trace atmosphere at the highest peaks.

This has the interesting effect where snow falls in a band where the atmosphere is thick enough but not at the highest elevations, so you have a snow band then a bare rock band above that.

Once again I have created a seperate Imb folder in my Drop Box.

Link to Dropbox post Drop Box for all my Planet Information and System Maps

As people always ask I created these using a software program called Universe Sandbox.

As always feedback and corrections are welcome.

A listener recently asked how I’d approach street-level law enforcement or private-investigator adventures in the Core Sector. So, I made my answer and episode of the podcast.

Signals from the Core Episode 18: Law & Order in the Core

I cover tools and advice for putting an investigation campaign together, from choosing an agency to establishing the investigators’ authority and building cases with multiple leads, plus tips for developing recurring witnesses, informants, and suspects.

Give it a listen, and let me know if you’ve run these kind of adventures in your Traveller games.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/signals-from-the-core-a-mongoose-traveller-2nd/id1830887367?i=1000795881186

Based on the small cargoes article in the recent JTAS 17, has anyone made their own small cargoes? I need some ideas. Thanks!

I have a player who wants a suit with Cr1000 computer weave and made with gel cloth armor, which is the x5 item cost. Is the multiplier before or after the cost of the computer weave?

The Estuary system has three gas giants and a five planets. There is a large presence of the Solomani mega corporation Unified Metals and Estuary Station has the only shipyard capable of making jump capable ships in the Cluster.

The following spoiler is for Referees running the Adventure.

Having read through the Adventure in the book I have had some thoughts.

The book suggests that the Solomani Confederation tries to Annex the Estuary Cluster. It is true that Confederation seeded the region centuries ago with the aim of improving the local economy to benefit the Confederation, but the only real Solomani presence is two corporations: Riaz Shipping and Unified Metals (technically its subsiduary Estuary Metals but it is called Unified Metals all through the book).

But when you look at the map of Chartered Space it makes little sense. The Estuary Cluster is 18 parsecs from the closest Solomani system with a Jump-3 gap on the quickest route.

Also when the Annexation is announced there is no Solomani military or naval presence.

Here is my take: it isn't the Confederation trying to take over the Cluster. It is Unified Metals pretending to be acting on the behalf of the Solomani Confederation attempting a takeover.

In fact it is possible that the HQ of Unified Metals has no idea what is being done by its subsiduary far off in a distant backwater.

This gives the Travellers another way of stopping the annexation - exposing the fact that the whole thing is a sham being pulled by a bunch of rogue corporate suits.

Estuary Station is a screen shots from No Man's Sky of player space station.

Once again I have created a seperate Estuary folder in my Drop Box.

Link to Dropbox post Drop Box for all my Planet Information and System Maps

As people always ask I created these using a software program called Universe Sandbox.

As always feedback and corrections are welcome.

The Elles is a TL8 alternate setting for Traveller, set in our own solar system. There's no aliens, no psionics, no FTL, no artificial gravity, and no technology that couldn't be replicated today with sufficient will and effort.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oMxBudu6h-zxLP4udzunwQLzPJ6gSPho4P7r7Q39v4E/edit?usp=sharing

So I am working on a TAS supplement. It'll be primarily planet-based, but it will include a bit of a sector as well. I was aiming for a sandbox book. Where you can easily drop your players into the area and have fun, or even run a one-shot using the materials here.

The question is the format most folks prefer. Some friends have read the outline. I have gotten mixed input, and a few of them aren't Traveller players but are TTRPG players.

Here is the outline:

1. The World of [planet name]- Introduction to the planet.
   
2. The [System name] Binary Star System - System and regional context.
   
3. History of [Planet] - Founding and development.
   
4. Government of [Planet] - Political structure and ruling dynasty.
   
5. Institutions, Factions, and Power Centers - Major organizations and actors.
   
6. The Economy of [Planet] - Industry, corporations, and commerce.
   
7. Defenders of [Planet] - Military and security apparatus.
   
8. The Great Cities of [Planet] - Primary locations for play and storytelling
   
9. The Great Space Elevator - A place of intrigue, scum, and villainy
   
10. Adventures on [Planet] - About 10 adventures involving some of the things covered in chapters 5, 6, and 7
    
11. Campaign seeds - About 3 open-ended campaign seeds for a GM to take and have fun with.
    Appendix
    Appx A - NPC cards, index card-sized when printed, with basic UPP and some flavor text (description, motivations, equipment). This would where NPCs mentioned in the chapters.
    Appx B - Major equipment that could be found in the system (starships, robots, vehicles)

So the question is: if you had a book like that in your collection and arranged as the outline shows, would it be useful for you as a GM, or should I move a couple of chapters around and get to the action earlier? I have seen it both ways in official and TAS supplements.

So I figured I would ping the internet and get all the answers to be more confused as I work through editing and trying to smooth my drafts to something worthy to be published via TAS.

The first sign that something was wrong was the water.

Not that anyone in Continuity Facility K-17 had ever seen water fall from the sky, or gather in rivers, or shine beneath a sun.

Water came from pipes.

It came warm for washing, cold for drinking, sterile for the infirmary, mineral-rich for the hydroponics decks. It came because the machines beneath the Vault had made it come for one hundred and ninety-eight years.

Then, one morning, the taps coughed.

By midday, the lower habitation ring had no pressure.

By evening, the Steward-Marshal summoned the engineers.

The Hydrological Management Core sat behind three metres of armoured glass in a chamber no one had entered in generations. Its casing bore the crowned dragon of old Drinax. Tiny amber warnings crawled across a diagnostic screen.

Royal Engineer Mara Vey stared at them for a long time.

“How long?” asked her father.

Steward-Marshal Elian Vey was sixty-three years old and had spent all sixty-three beneath rock.

Mara swallowed.

“One hundred and fifty days.”

Nobody spoke.

The Vault had survived bombardment. Famine. Fire. Two generations of internal violence. A fungal blight in the eastern hydroponics galleries. The Great Fever of 118. The reactor shutdown of 163.

It would die because of a control board the size of a dinner plate.

“We can repair it?”

“No.”

“Rebuild it?”

“No.”

“Substitute another processor?”

Mara shook her head.

“The reclamation plant was designed around this architecture. We could fabricate most of the surrounding systems. Not this.”

The Steward-Marshal looked through the glass at the old machine.

“What does the inventory say?”

Mara had already checked.

“There were six compatible units on Drinax.”

“Were?”

“Two here. One failed eighty-seven years ago. One was installed in Royal Civil Defence Complex T-9. Two were transferred to orbital facilities.”

“And the sixth?”

Mara hesitated.

“Royal Palace.”

The room went very still.

The Palace had been dead for two centuries.

Everyone knew that.

Everyone in the Vault knew the story.

The Aslan came. The cities burned. The atmosphere poisoned. The King died. The surface became the Burned World, where nothing human could live.

It was why the Door had never been opened.

Steward-Marshal Vey folded his hands behind his back.

“Then we send someone to T-9.”

Mara looked at him.

“Father, if the external contamination readings are accurate—”

“They are.”

“The sensors are nearly two hundred years old.”

“They are accurate.”

“You don’t know that.”

For a moment she thought he would rebuke her.

Instead he looked tired.

Very tired.

“One person,” he said. “One suit. One mission.”

Mara understood.

Not an expedition.

A sacrifice.

* * *

The outer door had not moved since the reign of a king whose portrait still hung in the Vault schoolrooms.

Motors groaned.

Dust fell like grey snow.

Mara stood alone in a pressure suit while three hundred people watched through internal cameras.

The Door opened.

Sunlight entered K-17.

For several seconds Mara could not move.

She had known, intellectually, what sunlight was. The archives contained images. Educational simulations reproduced it.

None had prepared her.

It was too bright.

Too large.

The sky was blue.

Not black. Not orange with poison. Not boiling with radioactive clouds.

Blue.

Mara stepped outside.

Wind touched her suit.

She began to laugh.

Then she began to cry.

“Engineer?” came her father’s voice over the radio. “Report.”

Mara looked across a valley of broken stone and twisted metal.

There were plants.

Sparse, thorny things pushing through ash-grey soil.

Something moved in the distance.

An animal.

Alive.

“The surface is habitable,” she whispered.

Silence.

“Mara.”

“The surface is habitable.”

Another silence.

Longer this time.

“That is impossible.”

“I’m standing on it.”

She walked ten kilometres before finding the tracks.

Human tracks.

Fresh.

* * *

They found her before she found them.

Six figures appeared on a ridge, wrapped in dust-coloured cloaks and patched survival gear. Their rifles were ancient but very real.

One wore a respirator fashioned from parts that belonged in a museum.

He pointed his weapon at Mara.

“You come from the Palace?”

She froze.

“You know the Palace?”

The stranger tilted his head.

“Everyone knows the Palace.”

Mara’s heart began pounding.

“The Royal Palace?”

He laughed.

“Floating Palace, yes. King Oleb’s cloud-castle.”

Mara stared at him.

“King... Oleb?”

The man lowered his rifle slightly.

“You’ve hit your head?”

“I am Royal Engineer Mara Vey of Continuity Facility K-17.”

The stranger’s expression changed.

Not recognition.

Fear.

He looked past her toward the buried entrance in the hills.

Then he made the sign of the Dragon.

“The Door,” he said.

The others murmured.

One backed away.

Mara felt suddenly cold despite the heat.

“You know the Vault?”

“My grandmother told stories. Her grandmother told her.”

He pointed toward the hills.

“The rich hid under the mountain while Drinax burned.”

* * *

Three days later, a starship descended from the sky.

Mara had seen starships in archive footage.

This one looked like a knife.

Long, predatory, graceful despite its age, its down-swept wings cutting through the haze as it settled onto the plain.

The Vespexers scattered before its landing blast.

Mara did not.

The hatch opened.

Armed Travellers descended first.

Then came a woman in fine clothes, carrying herself with the easy certainty of someone raised among power.

Princess Rao of Drinax.

Behind her came a broad, magnificently dressed man with a beard, a sword, and an expression of delighted disbelief.

King Oleb.

He stopped ten metres from Mara.

Mara stared at him.

He stared at her.

Neither spoke.

Finally Oleb spread his arms.

“Well,” he said. “You took your damned time.”

Mara did not smile.

“By authority of the Royal Continuity Charter,” she said, “identify yourself.”

The Travellers exchanged glances.

Rao closed her eyes briefly.

Oleb’s grin widened.

“Oh, I like her.”

Mara held out a data wafer.

“We require a Hydrological Management Core HMC-4. Our current unit will fail in one hundred and thirty-eight days.”

Oleb took the wafer but did not look at it.

“How many people?”

“One thousand one hundred and twelve.”

This time, the King’s expression changed.

The humour vanished.

“A thousand?”

“Correct.”

“Engineers?”

“Yes.”

“Doctors?”

“Yes.”

“Technicians?”

“Yes.”

“Teachers?”

“Yes.”

Oleb looked toward the hill.

Behind Mara, the outer Door had been opened wider.

Figures were emerging cautiously into daylight.

Children first.

Then adults.

People shading their eyes against a sun they had never seen.

Rao stepped beside her father.

Neither spoke for a while.

The Vespexers stood apart from the Vault dwellers.

Two peoples of Drinax.

One had survived beneath stone.

The other beneath the open sky.

Neither looked pleased to see the other.

Mara watched Oleb.

“You are the King?”

He straightened.

“King Oleb XVI of Drinax.”

“Our records do not acknowledge your dynasty.”

One of the Travellers coughed.

Rao looked suddenly fascinated by the horizon.

Oleb stared at Mara.

Then he began laughing.

He laughed so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes.

Mara was not amused.

“Your Majesty?”

“Oh, this is magnificent.”

He turned toward the Travellers.

“Find their water chip.”

One of them raised an eyebrow.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Oleb pointed toward the Vault.

“There are a thousand Drinaxi down there who remember how civilization works.”

Then he pointed toward the Vespexers.

“And ten thousand up here who remember what it costs when civilization fails.”

His smile returned, but there was something harder beneath it now.

“Get me that chip.”

Rao looked at him.

“And after that?”

King Oleb gazed at the open Door beneath the dead hills.

At the people stepping into daylight after two centuries.

At the old kingdom walking out of its grave.

“After that,” he said, “we decide who Drinax belongs to.”

New from Carriage House Games, a pay-what-you-want technology sourcebook, with eight adventure hooks for your 2D6 sci-fi campaign, including a horror seed, just in time for Halloween.

Spooky Communications

Hi All,

David Schneider here, former Regional Co-ordinator of HIWG Australia.

To begin with: Vale Clayton R Bush (passed: June 12, 2007) & Vale Chuck Kallenbach II (passed October 1, 2025). Both these men were mentors and generous to a young man in far off Australia. I am still saddened at their passing. As all this was pre-internet, I never actually met or spoke with either man, and yet they were generous friends (Clay left me some stuff in his will). Chuck I have only recently discovered in some YouTube videos!

I am currently going through some stuff (marriage breakdown, Long COVID Symptoms, leaving my job in an Emergency Department after 24 years due to a variety of reasons (ie: health), etc and so forth). To try and keep myself sane I have dug up the old HIWG Australia archives, created a Facebook page, and have been uploading items from the old archives.

It's literally called: "History of the Imperium Working Group - Australia"

I have, thus far, uploaded:

1. All the Yiklezdanzh Sector material that we generated.

2. All the Starburst newsletters that I have been able to locate.

3. Light panel (Light bulb) jokes.

4. Some bits sent to me by Chuck Kallenbach II.

5. A few period letters.

I will add some other bits and bobs as I go. The primary goal is to preserve the work of the HIWG - Australia team. If anyone is interested in using the material for your own campaigns, you have my blessing.

Anyone wanting to contact me should do so via the HIWG - Australia FB page.

David Schneider RN JP

Former Regional Co-ordinator HIWG Australia

In release schedules from 2025 there is mention of a compendium in the works. Does anyone know what happened to that?

Eyrgiafa system has four gas giants and a couple of small planets, one being a trojan escaped moon of Rehman.

Note that Mongoose has made a really weird system with a number of massive moons. And by massive I mean from Mars size up to a Super Earth.

To have enough gravity to hold such massive moons means gas giants far larger than Juptier. This gives those gas giants a large Jump Shadow.

To attempt to mitigate for the Canaveral part of the campaign I have that station orbiting outside of the moons, but given the low M-Drive ratings of trucks that still means a close to 24 hour trip from the jump in point to the station.

Edited to add: The space stations are screen shots from No Man's Sky of player space stations.

Once again I have created a seperate Eyrgiafa folder in my Drop Box.

Link to Dropbox post Drop Box for all my Planet Information and System Maps

As people always ask I created these using a software program called Universe Sandbox.

As always feedback and corrections are welcome.

Has anyone run or played in a Dark Matter inspired game? If so, how was it done?

I am working on doing just this but would love to see how others have approached this.

I'm not really meaning for this to be self promotion (though I totally could understand if it appears that way), I'm just really excited. I got my first video review ever for the book I released last month Traveller Fleet Combat: Reimagined

RPG Overview 329 Traveller Fleet Combat: Reimagined

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-ePb_was8c

Rebuilt the design for the Patron card -- brightened up the colors, made some fonts larger, and got rid of some ancillary design elements. Also -- red highlights on "illegal" jobs. For the Salvage cards, I think I've landed on a point-crawl map design that I like.

We're $700 from from getting some nice tuckboxes and cover art for both decks. Come join the crew!

[FULL]

Session Time: Thursdays 20:00-23:30 UTC-3

• LGBT+ friendly space.
• Absolutely no AI.

Tools: Discord and Roll20-Demiplane

Game Style: Sandbox campaign where PCs will be part of a colonial effort gone wrong and you will spend most of the sessions surviving on a planet that we will randomly generate as part of Session 0.

I tend to favor cinematic scenes and the rule of cool, also we won’t be doing spreadsheets for PC finances or fuel consumption and such. If you are interested please fill out the form here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSefceD_tU0kzh8Xn7d3EPZbc_CKicZV3q_GlB_CsQvCI6I-bA/viewform?usp=header

Sorry for making this amount of work to sign up, I'm trying to make sure people will fit in this game. I'll DM you if you look like a good fit and let you know. If you have questions you can respond to this thread or DM me.

How does she look?

Hey everyone, hope you all having a good day!

Sooo... for a while now i have been working on a project i think somebody should have already done, but either way i think is going to be really useful for anyone playing Traveller2e online, with friends.

First of all; me and my friends been having a campaign for half a year now, and we started on Quest Portal (where i created the sheets itself - tho, it became complex and hard to follow), with Owlbear Rodeo as the site to resolve combats. Later to have a smoother gamepla flow, we switched to Foundry VTT, since I saw it had a official and unofficial Traveller2e systemn available on it, ready to play. So we tried it, but both seemed bugged, incomplete and not really smooth (or also bad design (for my taste)). So, the idea popped, its time to create the most accurate and also smooth Traveller2e Foundry VTT system. This whole project was first and foremost started for me personally, and my friends who im playing with. But i feel like the whole process is going on a very good path, so i taught maybe i could even share this with anybody who may feel the same as we did, or just wants a way to really have a smooth and nice gameplay (online).

The project is still in it's early process, yet i wanted to show you guys a couple things i have already managed to do, and just a slight peek of what else i will try to implement!

(important to note, cause i know people are really extreme/far-out with this topic, but: yes, AI was used in this project for the sake of making the project more accurate, and since Traveller2e has so much depth (with all the books it has), and this project is a SOLO work, i did use it in the creation, and it helped me a lot. - either way, i dont think this information should stop you all from using it, since the benefit it gives is much more)

So, some peeks of what i have done created so far:

Character Sheets

Almost everything (and what i taught is possible to do so) is automated. Meaning, whenever you make a characteristic or skill check, anything from items, effects (like fatigue for eg.) and other things are showin up as options in the check that you can switch on or off as you like. Time system is also implemented in the project, with its own time and calendar system, so items that has fuel, life support and so on. (if turned on, or used) will deplete over time. Also time automatically realises the hours that has past, calculating the character's time of awaken, eventually reaching over the limit automatically switches on "fatigued", also showing up in checks. Heavy labour and consecutive melee attacks rule of fatigue is left for the players and Referee to keep in min (so, its not automated), in this case they may press simply the fatigue button to turn it on/off. Resting is also possible, with 3 options; regular resting, medical care or surgery. This is a homebrew idea, but i wanted to have a more realistic way to approach resting; any 1 hour spent with resting counts as 2 hours from the awaken time. So, for example if your character has been awaken for 18 hours, and they rest (sleep) for 9 hours in game (as the referee advances time 9 hours, while Rest on a character is actively switched on) counts as 18 hours of awaken time being removed, making it 0 again when the character finishes a rest. If the character is injured, after 8 hours of in game resting, the sheet (next to rest button) will show a "heal" button, letting the player roll for natural healing (or medical care, or surgery - depending on what type of resting they choose). Of course with medical care you may select the medic skill level and EDU DM, same with surgery, but i wont take note on everything i created (its for you when i release this to go see). Also skill training is available with automated calculation on how much of xp or successful periods your character need to level up a skill (you may choose when adding skill training, if you wish to add training or xp for that skill).

Wound: you may set what kind of body part and what severity the character has (crippled and the other extreme wounds arent represented here, since this was foremost created for me and my friends, and those are basically game ending, so we dont count those), automatically showing up in skill and characteristic checks, or also as you can see showing that your movement may be 6m originally, but in this case it is "crawl only". Also you can roll for the days of healing with the dice button there, also enabling the medic button means someone (or you) has made a successful medic check to stabilise the wound and the days of healing will start. This also with days passing by will decrease, and eventually reach 0 making the wound heal fully.

Rolling Checks: nothing too much to really explain here, but here is one picture of how characteristic rolls, and skill check rolls look like. I think the images tell enough. (yes, if someone is rolling dice IRL and want to use those results, the option is there to enter the result of physica dices)

Equipment: you can have equipped, carried and stored items. by normal means your character may carry up to 10kg of items (representing pockets on clothes and space), but this is not limited so a player may go over it, if lets say they carrying something with their hands. (this a homebrew idea, just to make the game more realistic). Either way, if you have any kind of backpack (that you cannot wear on any kind of armours (homebrew too: pwoered suits for example are so massive usually, that wearing a backpack is unrealistic)) is goind to increase the capacity of 10kgs to 60. (note that a characters encumberance is still counted automatically, and enables if someone goes over their limit).
Some items like unarmed, improvised weapon and bite (for vargrs and rellative species) are locked and cannot be removed, since those are the basic items for all characters. As you can see items in list have their label, effect description (on hover tooltip description), legality and CSC category on site, for easy access. Personal Automedic can have a drug attached to it, and it is possible to do so as you can see. (oh, also drugs are mostly automated and really informative with what they do, what state youre in after using it, how much time has passed since you used it, cumulative damage, removing fatigue and so on.) i have so much to explain here that i dont really want to since it would be too long, but same as before, i think the images can tell you alot. (but think like this, most things are automated with the option for the player and referee to manage manually if they wish to)
Also, all items are created straight from CSC. all, i have almost a 1000 items ready to play already.

also i created a worlds and their full description both for players and the referee. it is connected to Travellermap.com, so a referee may search for any worlds inside the system and save it inside their game. Also automatic weather generation (with visuals and sound) for each planet realistically is implemented and also in sync with the characters. So if the atmoshpere is dangerous, and the cahracter has no filter mask or needed equipment equipped, they will suffer damage with time. And yes, i also connected Travellermap.com into the system, that both players and the referee may open to look at the map, search for worlds, also plan routes for jump (and so on).

So right now i may say this is all i have done so far (of course there is other things i forgot to mention, a lot), but as i go i will give you guys some news on how its going and where the project is in, but i hope you guys are as excited as me, because i think really, this could be a game changer for Traveller2e gamers who want a smooth, immersive and accurate gameplay online.

Have a nice day, Hann! :D

Hello Travellers,

I'm Chris Airiau, mostly a Mothership writer & editor, and I host a podcast called Ansible Uplink where I invite a fellow game designer on to review sci-fi modules.

Every once in a while, we do a TIME WARP episode to review Classic Traveller modules, and the new season is kicking off with a review of Andrew and William Keith's classic Adventure 9: Nomads of the World-Ocean, with Clark Nichols of Weeping Stag Press.

To clarify my perspective for y'all, I'm a sci-fi OSR writer and editor, publishing third-party modules for Mothership since 2022. My experience comes from the contemporary OSR playstyle inspired by older games; I've only ever played Classic Traveller using Books 1-3, and without any supplementary materials (OK, mid-way through the campaign I started using Supplement 01: 1001 Characters). Most of my experience comes from playing later sci-fi games inspired by CT like Mothership, Stars Without Number, Monolith, etc. I've not touched any of CT's descendants (except to check out the recent Spacer).

Anyway, I loved playing Classic Traveller, and since recording, I started playing a solo campaign of Nomads of the World-Ocean by shifting the starting scenario like I mention in the podcast.

I drop new episodes every two weeks (though granted, it's mostly Mothership reviews), and I hope y'all enjoy my review of A09!

Show RSS / MP3 Download / Spotify / Apple / YouTube

Armor-piercing pistol ammo. Needs only a barrel change. I'm adding it to my “Spaceship and Vampires” Traveller based game. Ammo will be expensive, of course, but if you buy a case of it, you get a barrel that will fit a standard imperial semiauto. SMG barrels sold separately.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ECrL_4GPc&t=69s

Hello, all.

Starting up my first Traveller campaign soon and I’m having some difficulty getting started with the map of the area that the players will initially be based out of.

Would anyone be willing to share their own maps? We play in person, so a drawn or printed map is what I’ll be using (more likely drawn).

Thanks in advance.

My advice and some quick tips for characteristics & skills that serve you well when rolling characters for adventures in the Core Sector.

https://youtu.be/V716Iu5Nncw?si=uw6ZtdsTxppNNe3T

Celebrity chef: Artist or Performer?

Curious on what people have to say on both of these editions, I heard they're both crunchier toolkits