Back to Classic Traveller and the Coupbox

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.