Mongoose Publishing return to Kickstarter to bring us a box set of Traveller goodness. The Great Rift & Deep Space Exploration Box Set will give us a load of information on the sectors of The Great Rift as well as “providing a comprehensive guide to deep space exploration and the mysteries that can be found far from the shipping lanes”.
The Great Rift box set will contain:
· Two full colour, 96 page books covering Corridor, Reft, Riftspan Reaches and Touchstone sectors.
· Two gigantic (28" x 48") two-sided, full colour sector maps.
· The Deep Space Exploration Handbook, a 32 page book featuring all the rules needed to conduct deep space exploration, plus the specially designed ships needed to traverse the void.
EXPLORING THE RIFT
We have done 'sector books' in the past but, with the new edition of Traveller, we wanted to kick things up a notch. You will first see this in the forthcoming Pirates of Drinax campaign, which details the Trojan Reach, and we are bringing forward the same approach to the sectors of the Great Rift.
As well as the histories and worlds of the explored systems, each sector includes rules on its own unique vehicles, spacecraft, aliens, animals and diseases. While you read about the great agricultural-transfer ships that service the population of Oleiros, you will also see complete High Guard statistics and deck plans for them. As you discover the vicious meteor swarms of R'Bak, you will be provided with the rules to inflict them upon passing ships.
In a nutshell, you are not only getting four sectors in the Great Rift, you are also receiving everything needed to incorporate them into actual game play.
But that is not all.
The Great Rift provides us with an opportunity to turn away from civilised space and begin exploring the truly dark corners of the Third Imperium universe. This box set allows Travellers to tune their sensors to empty regions of space, identify anomalies of interest, and then begin huge multi-jump voyages to truly uncover the unknown.
This is where the Deep Space Exploration Handbook comes in.
We really like this book!
It begins by showing Travellers how to investigate an otherwise empty 'hex' on sector maps, by the use of sensors, scouring astronomical data, voyaging into deep space, and even listening to veteran spacers in the local starport. All this is taken into account when the Travellers attempt to find out what might lie then.
The Handbook then takes you on a journey through what may be found in the depths of space - anything from fully-fledged systems, proto-stars just forming, nebulae and, of course, black holes (and yes, we have rules for what happens to your ship in all these places!).
An expanded star creation system takes the referee through the process of generating brand new worlds, from the central star(s) to the furthest planetoids, complete with guidance on assigning orbital positions.
Finally, the book is rounded off with a selection of spacecraft dedicated to investigating the unknown and supporting deep space expeditions, including the Armstrong-class exploration vessel featured on the front of the box, a rugged and reasonably priced 1,000 ton ship that will be perfect for Travellers to begin their own expeditions.
DEEPER AND DEEPER
We were always going to do a sourcebook for the Great Rift, as part of our mission to produce maps and background for every sector in the Third Imperium universe (a mission that may never be completed, but we are aiming for you to be able to plaster a very big wall with our new sector maps!). However, a Kickstarter allows us to push the boat out a little further - how far we can push it now depends on you!
Doing the Great Rift as a Kickstarter immediately means we can cover four whole sectors and create a proper box set with giant sector maps, which we can then fill with goodies.
And there is a lot we can put into this set.
Depending on how popular this Kickstarter project is, we can add more pages to the existing books so new sectors can be explored - we can begin following the Great Rift down past Touchstone and into sectors only really seen by the Aslan. As we add new sectors, new poster maps for them will also be included.
We have outlines for Great Rift Adventure 1 and Great Rift Adventure 2, a new series of adventures that feature the Great Rift as their stage.
We also have an idea about a new adventure featuring a gigantic exploratory ship that was lost and, once found, referees will be able to make use of another giant poster map that features its deck plans.
These can all be included in stretch goals and, best of all, you the backers can help guide us to create the final product you really want to see. Will it be adventures that are most useful to you in the Great Rift, or would you prefer to see more sectors, more virgin territory for your Travellers to explore so you can create our own adventures? Perhaps you will want something else - let us know what you want to see and we will float your ideas among the rest of the backers! You will get to choose the stretch goals in this campaign.
The Traveller RPG: The Great Rift & Deep Space Exploration Kickstarter is running until Saturday 5th August 2017.
The Great Rift box set will contain:
· Two full colour, 96 page books covering Corridor, Reft, Riftspan Reaches and Touchstone sectors.
· Two gigantic (28" x 48") two-sided, full colour sector maps.
· The Deep Space Exploration Handbook, a 32 page book featuring all the rules needed to conduct deep space exploration, plus the specially designed ships needed to traverse the void.
EXPLORING THE RIFT
We have done 'sector books' in the past but, with the new edition of Traveller, we wanted to kick things up a notch. You will first see this in the forthcoming Pirates of Drinax campaign, which details the Trojan Reach, and we are bringing forward the same approach to the sectors of the Great Rift.
As well as the histories and worlds of the explored systems, each sector includes rules on its own unique vehicles, spacecraft, aliens, animals and diseases. While you read about the great agricultural-transfer ships that service the population of Oleiros, you will also see complete High Guard statistics and deck plans for them. As you discover the vicious meteor swarms of R'Bak, you will be provided with the rules to inflict them upon passing ships.
In a nutshell, you are not only getting four sectors in the Great Rift, you are also receiving everything needed to incorporate them into actual game play.
But that is not all.
The Great Rift provides us with an opportunity to turn away from civilised space and begin exploring the truly dark corners of the Third Imperium universe. This box set allows Travellers to tune their sensors to empty regions of space, identify anomalies of interest, and then begin huge multi-jump voyages to truly uncover the unknown.
This is where the Deep Space Exploration Handbook comes in.
We really like this book!
It begins by showing Travellers how to investigate an otherwise empty 'hex' on sector maps, by the use of sensors, scouring astronomical data, voyaging into deep space, and even listening to veteran spacers in the local starport. All this is taken into account when the Travellers attempt to find out what might lie then.
The Handbook then takes you on a journey through what may be found in the depths of space - anything from fully-fledged systems, proto-stars just forming, nebulae and, of course, black holes (and yes, we have rules for what happens to your ship in all these places!).
An expanded star creation system takes the referee through the process of generating brand new worlds, from the central star(s) to the furthest planetoids, complete with guidance on assigning orbital positions.
Finally, the book is rounded off with a selection of spacecraft dedicated to investigating the unknown and supporting deep space expeditions, including the Armstrong-class exploration vessel featured on the front of the box, a rugged and reasonably priced 1,000 ton ship that will be perfect for Travellers to begin their own expeditions.
DEEPER AND DEEPER
We were always going to do a sourcebook for the Great Rift, as part of our mission to produce maps and background for every sector in the Third Imperium universe (a mission that may never be completed, but we are aiming for you to be able to plaster a very big wall with our new sector maps!). However, a Kickstarter allows us to push the boat out a little further - how far we can push it now depends on you!
Doing the Great Rift as a Kickstarter immediately means we can cover four whole sectors and create a proper box set with giant sector maps, which we can then fill with goodies.
And there is a lot we can put into this set.
Depending on how popular this Kickstarter project is, we can add more pages to the existing books so new sectors can be explored - we can begin following the Great Rift down past Touchstone and into sectors only really seen by the Aslan. As we add new sectors, new poster maps for them will also be included.
We have outlines for Great Rift Adventure 1 and Great Rift Adventure 2, a new series of adventures that feature the Great Rift as their stage.
We also have an idea about a new adventure featuring a gigantic exploratory ship that was lost and, once found, referees will be able to make use of another giant poster map that features its deck plans.
These can all be included in stretch goals and, best of all, you the backers can help guide us to create the final product you really want to see. Will it be adventures that are most useful to you in the Great Rift, or would you prefer to see more sectors, more virgin territory for your Travellers to explore so you can create our own adventures? Perhaps you will want something else - let us know what you want to see and we will float your ideas among the rest of the backers! You will get to choose the stretch goals in this campaign.
The Traveller RPG: The Great Rift & Deep Space Exploration Kickstarter is running until Saturday 5th August 2017.
