The Dunes Kickstarter is highly likely
to go live before Thursday. As a mental palate cleanser I've treated
myself to thinking about something other than D&D which means a
return back to Classic Traveller.
Some readers might have followed the
Traveller Coupbox mini-campaign that I ran around last year's
holidaze. It was centered around the players being members of a
mercenary cooperative (a bolo) who have been contracted launch a coup
against an autocratic micro-state on a civil war-wracked moon.
The scenario was intended to be an
open-ended experiment in presenting a grand-tactical situation and
basically going for it. I developed some big battle rules, the
players created some beautiful chaos that I could never have planned
for and we worked up to a nice climax—and then promptly never
finished the endgame session (thanks a lot Christmas).
The new mini-campaign, Coupbox II, will
basically let me (and the players that have been bugging me about it)
get some closure on that.
The Set-Up
Major “Polo” Hurloj Tousant, former
leader of the internal military opposition in the Kral has
consolidated control of the moon micro-state. His six-month regime
has been only a shade less authoritarian than that of the deposed
Autokrator and in recent months he has even begun to himself “The
Demokrator.” Indeed the former Major's lack of his predecessor's
batshit insanity and token efforts for the dogoid minority such as
his Friday Kong Treats program have only increased the efficiency of
Kral's state apparatus. There is even talk of a purchase of a Ettin
IX mega-tank from an off-world tank-bolo.
On the far side of Freedonia, once
again the belabored old joke “In Autocratic Kral, state reforms
you” rings sadly true.
Now return ye to this desolate shithole
once again as there are good credits being put up on the table for a
group of desperate Travellers willing to arm, train and lead a ragtag
column of dogoid and other oppositionists barely holding on in the
cactus wilds of the north.
If that Ettin ever makes planetfall, I have a few ideas for playing out any resulting combats ....
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