Oh my word!This is a first. Questions on one of my efforts.Not sure if that's "best day ever" or worst nightmare (if plot holes etc were found!) I'll go with best day and have a go at the answers (though bear in mind I wrote this some years ago now so the creation process is getting fuzzy except for what I've recorded in Freelance Traveller).
On 29 January 2018 at 08:48, Caleuche <xxxxxx@sudnadja.com> wrote:-------- Original Message --------On January 27, 2018 11:28 AM, Timothy Collinson <xxxxxx@port.ac.uk> wrote:On 27 January 2018 at 18:31, Caleuche <xxxxxx@sudnadja.com> wrote:I haven't finished reading through the adventure yet,ok, won't spoil the plot then... ;-) (although it has been round for a bit so I kind of talk about it freely in general assuming those who care have seen it)Finished. It was good reading and looked like fun.Glad it was good reading. Definitely fun to play the 5 times I think it is I've taken players through it. I don't recall ever hearing that anyone else has run it. So maybe it's more fun to read and imagine.
The Spinward Charters was apparently only Jump-1, and the reason that they didn't attempt to return home after the misjump is that none of the systems within Jump-1 range looked like a place they could refuel from, yet at the end of the game the players ship as well as Spinward Charters are likely to be returning home. What changed that allows them to return to civilization? Did the scout base appear Jump-1 away between the original mishap and now?Good thought - and I quite like the idea the of a scout base or some such. IIRC my idea was in the 100 year or whatever gap, technology had improved regarding what they knew was out there and detecting it reliably but also that civilization has grown closer as the empire expanded outwards (which I describe only very generally). So the scout base idea works well. No one, till now, has ever asked but it's the explanation I'll most likely give from here on out. :-)
You do indicate that the birds are migrating, and (so far as I know anyway) migration happens during a change in the seasons, which this world really doesn't have. Was the migration hinting at something, or was even the mild change of seasons enough to trigger the migration instinct?OK, confession time. There were a few things going on here that weren't strictly adventure related.I was keen to get something of the sense of wonder about nature into the whole thing - new world, new flora and new fauna etc rather than just "on with the plot" which can characterize some Traveller games.I was trying to think on a 'big scale' - what would be seen from orbit for example and IIRC had been struck by some tv programme about *very* large flocks of migrating birds.The link to one of the PCs was really just to give a connection for one of them and some personal interest rather than any specific hint, but yes it did give the idea that something might have been imported from Charted Space.I'm pretty sure the birds were only supposed to be 'like' something the player recognized rather than exactly the same. Although I suppose you could posit a bird cage with some breeding pairs being carried by one of the crew or one of the kids; they get loose; they breed like mad with no predators; and are in vast numbers by the time the PCs arrive.But the other thing to note is that just because the area where the villagers landed (and why the original crew put down there) is fairly even in temperature and unaffected by seasonal variations those in the US/UK/Australia/New Zealand are very familiar with, doesn't mean the entire planet is. I was drawing directly on my experience in Nigeria - much nearer the equator the temperature was even (although the rainfall wasn't). I'm pretty sure if you went a fair ways north or south of the village you'd find 'seasons' (though without checking the book I think the axial tilt was much smaller than Earth's so not as pronounced perhaps).
Also, what's going to happen to all of the other life on the planet when the brown dwarf starts flaring? Is it all going to die or were the flares particularly dangerous for human being specifically?I never got into this and was humming and hawing about which way to go. The initial idea was that *all* life would be wiped out but that did seem a bit miserable in a Noachian sort of way, so if push had ever come to shove I might have said it was just humans for some <technobabble> reason. (Or maybe humans and mammals but not plants and much other life.) One sequel I thought of was to follow up on the rescued folk and their integration into the Imperium where it wouldn't have mattered, but another was to have the PCs as among the first colonists to come back and set up on the world. So it would have been a shame to have made it totally desolate!
Further, the original population were all deaf, but were subsequent generations deaf?No. Well, not outside the normal chances of being born deaf or made so through some bug (like my sister) or accident. All of the rescued villagers can hear perfectly well and could learn to speak if taught. Though I might guess that coming at it in later life they might not speak quite as clearly as those born to it. In fact, I think the adventure has them interested in and responding (via mimicry or bird whistles) to the PCs talking. One game at least spent enough time in the village that they had begun to get at least some of the villagers - like Blue Sky - learning some Galanglic rather than relying on sign language communication.
A population that did have to deal with periodic winters would have had to learn to manufacture clothes and therefore would be less likely to be naked even during the mild seasons, so the nudity did imply that the population never had to deal with dramatic changes in climate.Funnily enough, pretty much like the savannah region of Nigeria I inhabited for a year. Temperatures pretty even throughout the year. Shorts and shirt sleeve hot (naked would have been comfortable too although it wasn't culturally appropriate at the school I was teaching at.) Rainy season and dry season. All the former meant was that for a few months it would rain (heavily) for some two hours in the afternoon every third day. Dry season, no rain at all. I have several photos of the same spots 6 months apart. Green as you like in the rainy season, brown earth in the dry (well, save for the tree we 'watered' instead of using the hole in the ground in a low tin lean to for a latrine - it wasn't very pleasant).I do wonder how quickly a population like that - stranded Vilani or Solomani - would change from clothing being absolutely necessary for social reasons to doing without it completely.Jerry has answered this as I would think too.The ship I was on in Asia spent two months I think it was in Papua New Guinea and it was remarkable how quickly guys on the ship adopted the local laplap culture (sarongs) - even by those that saw them as 'dresses'. Worn smart and long with a shirt and tie or worn short and casual with t-shirt and flip flops, there were few that didn't succumb to buying one or two and wearing them. I still have mine at home. The 10 day long voyage to Auckland in New Zealand saw them worn about the ship still. But as soon as we docked you never saw them worn again... ;-)The additional pressure to 'go native' on the villagers was that they had no real means (equipment or material) for making clothing. So together with no need, I figured nudity would be the obvious solution. Had I not been a (young) teacher in a school environment, I might possibly have "fitted in" in local villages by adopting whatever undress they exhibited. I don't suppose it's revealing much to admit that in school holidays when the kids weren't there and I was pretty much by myself in the middle of the bush with a couple of other expats, I wouldn't carry a bucket of water from the stream a mile away just to wash [1] back at the house in the little stone room we had (no taps, bath or sinks or anything) but would just take a towel and bathe at the stream.Thanks again for your interest!