Library Data:Informational data stored on shipboard computer systems as a research aid to it's crew. Most starship computers come pre-packaged with a current Library Data file and subscription services, such as the Imperial Encyclopedia or the TAS Overview, provide updates with the latest information. Almost all starports of C Class or above provide a free Library Data download supplement to all arrivals, with key information on the planet in question such as legal codes and starport services. ** It also lets you leave comments for your own records, like this one - Dor **
As an aide to my players, this is one of possibly a series of posts where stuff we've confirmed/invented/expanded for our campaign will appear. I don't think we're going to play Traveller enough to justify a campaign wiki, but I do think there's enough weird stuff happening to warrant something the players can read between sessions.
Bwaps: Full name Bawapakerwaa-a-awapawah, a Minor race of sophonts native to Marhaban in the Lentuli subsector. Also known colloquially as Newts or by the racial slur "towel head" - evolved for 95% humudity, survival in Human standard environments require that they have to wear specially treated full-body robes to keep their skin moist.
Bwaps are upright bipeds of reptilian origin, albeit warm-blooded. A variety of scale colours exist, determined by both genetics and diet of mother during pregnancy - green, brown, yellow and blue hues are most common, usually in the form of alternating dark and light stripes. Bwaps are duosexual who lay one egg at a time and the female possesses an egg pouch - after an egg hatches, the infant resides therein for the first few weeks of their life.
Bwaps are dominant on only a dozen or so worlds, but can be found throughout the Imperium working in administrative roles. Their culture emphasizes ritual, order and the greater good, with lying considered a major social faux pas and criminal behaviour a mental illness since it suggests considering ones own needs above the group. To a human viewpoint, Newt culture seems obsessed with order and minutiae and their reptilian mannerisms can make them seem cold and aloof. They can be found in Kline working as bureaucrats, officials, mathematicians, bookkeepers, scientists, and historians.
Da Kline Bond: Bondsman organisation operating out of CapDome, Kline. Facilitates loans covering bail payments for accused criminals - failure to attend court sees their bounty hunters deployed to recover the person. Due to the closed workforce on Kline, many employees are off-worlders. **My former employer! This is where I got my bounty hunting license - Bekhap**
Droyne: One of the Major Races of Charted Space, the Droyne are unique in not having a known home-world. They are scattered far and wide on many different worlds but have no major polity of their own. In the Kline sector they make up half the population of the planet Sterchi.
Droyne are upright bipeds, shorter than human average and with avian features including a small pair of wings. Born sexless, in adolescence they become one of six different castes: Worker, Technician, Drone, Warrior, Leader and Sport. Each caste experiences different physiological changes to complement their role - Warriors increase muscle mass, for example, while Drones develop sexual characteristics.
Droyne religion is built around a fortune telling device known as the Coyns - a set of thirty six metal discs, each with a distinct image on them. By randomly drawing them from a pot, Droyne believe they can predict the future in the fashion of a Terran tarot deck. The ritual for determining which caste an adolescent Droyne will take up is determined by this process. ** These Coyns seem to occur on multiple Droyne worlds, suggesting a culture existed before their mass scattering - Nandi **
Gravball: Popular team sport on Imperial vid-casts. Play involves two teams of eight, all equipped with grav-belts, who attempt to score point by throwing or dropping the anti-grav ball into their opponents goal area. The goals are mounted into the far walls of the play area, three and a half meters above the ground. Players who leave the perimeter of the play area, including by touching the floor or ceiling, are removed until such time as a goal is scored. The game is very physical and injuries are common.
Kline (Planet): Planet in Kline sub-sector, sector co-ordinates 3012. Universal World Profile A541987-E. Kline is the subsector capital and a major hi-tech industrial force, with a population of one billion living in domed cities and producing many of the manufactured goods found in the local area. Half the planet's population lives in CapDome, home to a Class A Starport. The government is a civil service bureaucracy which runs a managed economy - each dome specializes in certain industries and personal employment is a matter of placement by government officials rather than a free market.
Domes are required due to the harsh conditions on the planet - the atmosphere is sulfur rich and the hydrosphere is negligible. The majority of food has to be synthesized or imported as native flora & fauna is rarely edible by Humaniti. Animal life has evolved a common defense mechanism, with most species possessing with bodily fluids that have caustic properties.
Law level is comparatively high, with all lethal firearms prohibited without special licenses. The government justify this due to the growing presence of a Solomani Movement on the planet, seeking to return the world to Solomani Confederation rule. The planet's economy is very strong, keeping the populace content for the most part. Inevitably a criminal element has grown up in this galactic hub and trafficking of goods to and from the rest of the subsector is a notable black market.
Kline (Sub-Sector): Sub-sector H of the Magyar Sector and one of the most spinward/trailing borders of the Third Imperium, bordering the Solomani Confederation. The Kline subsector contains 31 worlds with a total population of over 25 billion. The subsector capital is at Kline. The highest population is 20 billion, at Fornorb.
The subsector was originally known as Walpurgis when under Solomani rule. This area was formerly part of the Solomani Sphere but was reclaimed by the Imperium during the Solomani Rim War. Populations retains a high ethnic Solomani percentage.
The Kline Subsector is defended by 109th Fleet.
Newts: See Bwaps
Re-Entry Clubs: Extreme sports clubs founds on high-tech Imperial worlds. Practicioners are flown into orbit and then leap from the craft. Once out the craft an ablative landing shield is filled with foam while thrusters and parachutes are used to slow descent. Re-Entry clubs are expensive to take part in and not without risk, but it is popular with young and wealthy Vilani.
Reformed Pansophontic Ennonite Church: A monotheistic faith formed from the introduction of conservative Vilani thinking to puritan Solomani Christianity, the Ennonite faith expects its worshippers to avoid indulgence and live simply. Clothing should usually colourless, hair should be unstyled and sustenance is plain. Sex should always be in wedlock and contraception is considered immoral.
The RPEC are more liberal than some branches - they view use of technology including starships and robots as completely within their tenets, so long as they are used industriously rather than for frivolous reasons. They are happy to offer membership to all sophonts and give their blessing to inter-species relationships, believing that all intelligent life owes its origin to God.
Salamount: Animal lifeform native to Sterchi, the name is a nickname from early settlers which stuck. Amphibious in origin, adult Salamounts are large and intelligent enough to be trained as mounts - a Terran might compare them to a salamander with the size and proportions of a horse. They are air-breathers, evolved for a high concentrations of oxygen but capable of surviving at human standard ranges. Their flesh is not digestible by humans.
Wild Salamounts live in packs, though they are now farmed for use in agricultural and recreational purposes. Salamount racing is a popular sport on Sterchi, with courses designed for both land and water movement by the beasts. Duosexual, female Salamounts give birth after gestating by spraying out a jelly into water in which thousands of Salamount tadpoles live - these tadpoles grow and live in the water for two years before emerging as young adult Salamounts.
Sapphire People: A religious minority in the Kline subsector, related to the old Terran religion of Judaism. A monotheistic faith, Sapphire People believe they are the chosen people of God and all children of a Sapphire Mother are members of their faith. Conversion by other humans is possible but very rare and little missionary tradition exists. All males over eight are required to wear a blue skullcap in public.
Solomani Movement: Political ideology of the Solomani Confederation, which espouses that life that evolved on Terra is superior to all others. Other branches of Humaniti are considered second class citizens with lesser blood and non-Terran sophonts like the Droyne should be subservient. Uplifted Dolphins, because of their origin on Terra, are considered privileged non-humans and loyal soldiers of the Solomani cause.
Factions of the Solomani Movement can be found on several worlds in Kline due to the large Solomani-descended population. Sometimes these are peaceful if radical political parties, others violent terrorist organizations who seek to overthrow the current government. As many wish their planet to secede from the Third Imperium and return to Solomani Confederation rule, they are often proscribed organizations.
Starborn: Human cultural group noteworthy for living and working almost entirely in space. A nomadic people, they have no home-world per se but instead can be found on a variety of tramp freighters, mining vessels and scavenger craft across Charted Space. Working deep in space at the bottom rung of Vilani society, they are often accused of and victims of criminal activity including piracy. ** Goddamn pirates - Cat**
Sterchi: Planet in Kline sub-sector, sector co-ordinates 3212. Universal World Profile B697663-A. AMBER CLASSIFICATION. The population of this agricultural planet is two million of which half are Droyne, who have resided here for thousands of years before Humaniti arrived and still live in their own communities. The human government is a military junta, though the Droyne live in city-states on their own "reservations" which are heavily devolved to their own rule.
Sterchi's atmosphere is 70% oxygen, 20% Neon and as such is a long-term risk for Humans not wearing filter masks. (The Droyne, however, are unaffected by the unusual atmosphere.) Buildings are usually pressurized with their own atmosphere Native life is predominantly amphibious in nature, with the Salamount being the most noteworthy example - in spring and summer the waterways are teeming with the spawn of a host of different species.
Previously ruled by a civilian government, Sterchi saw a military coup twenty years ago after claims of Solomani sympathizers infiltrating the civil service. It has remained under martial law ever since, though the law level is surprisingly relaxed in many regards. The government in exile are believed to still exist and in their name protests and terrorist attacks take place. An Imperial Navy Base and Depot are situated in the outer system as part of the Coreward Forward Defence Program
Unfried: Planet in Kline sub-sector, sector co-ordinates 3214. Universal World Profile B577355-C. Despite its key position on the jump routes between Kline and the Solomani Rim, Unfried is "flyover country" and mostly unpopulated with a collection of farmsteads representing just two thousand permanent inhabitants. The government imposes tight controls on off-world visitors, with almost all ships instead docking at the Class B Highport and never entering the atmosphere.
Unfried's atmosphere produces a high greenhouse effect and large chunks of the world have swamp or tropical terrain, producing a muggy atmosphere. Fifty meter high atmospheric processor units are dotted around the world, carrying out the slow work of making the tainted atmosphere breathable to humans without filter masks. Major animal life tends towards avian or aquatic forms and can be safely eaten so long as they are correctly processed and cooked to remove the parasites that abound in the ecosystem.
Robotics are a major part of the planet's workforce, allowing the minimal population to survive by subsistence farming. Most inhabitants are members of the Reformed Pansophontic Ennonite Church and believe an austere life is a spiritually fulfilling one - this faith also explains their reticence to allow off-worlders free reign on their world, believing they would bring illicit temptations to the masses. The placement of the world on a major trade route means this world is a hub for many starships and the Highport is always full of passengers and freight requiring onwards transport.
Vallence: Planet in Kline sub-sector, sector c-oordinates 3219. Universal World Profile A6B4598-E. AMBER CLASSIFICATION. Off the beaten track of the sector, Vallence's main claim to fame is holding the only sophont species to have evolved in the area. The Vallenci are a large, quadrupedal race whose hundred thousand population is ruled by a Vilani colonial administration.
Vallence is not especially hospitable to human life - the atmosphere is corrosive and the surface liquid emits alpha radiation. The Vallenci and other native life are evolved to cope with this so they are mostly left to run the planet themselves, the colonial administration remaining at the capital.
Vallenci: See Vallence
Vargr, Imperial: Major race native to Lair and with populations scattered across Charted Space. While they possess their own polities, they have been integrated into the Third Imperium for centuries including one of the six Arch-Dukes of the Empire being a Vargr. Almost all worlds with a sizeable population will possess a Vargr enclave, though they rarely rise to high social status - more commonly employed as manual labourers, mercenaries or petty crime.
Vargr are upright bipeds of canine stock, believed to have been uplifted to sentience several hundred thousand years ago by the Ancients. Their physiology and psychology retains many traits from their wolf forebears - they have sharp teeth, furred bodies and are uncomfortable being alone for any length of time. Omnivores, they prefer to eat meat and especially meat that is only lightly cooked. They are duosexual and the females go into a fertile heat once a year, during which they can produce litters of four or more pups.
Vargr packs constantly in-fight to establish who is dominant - this is not considered impolite but the natural order. Vargr are happy being in a pack and knowing their place, with lower members taking great pleasure from the compliments given to them from dominant members. Vargr governments are therefore very fluid arrangements and struggle to work over large distances - making Vargr respect the authority and laws of people they have never met and never seen fight for their leadership is a struggle. Many Vargr therefore run into problems with Humans who believe them confrontational and disrespectful. **Confrontational? Moi? - Bekhap** * Perish the thought - Cat **
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