City of Wonder

Six years ago, your humble host wrote about Chaosium's 1982 Worlds of Wonder product.  We return to that product because a reader has informed me that he (or she or they) purchased Worlds of Wonder on eBay; however, the 'A Portion of Wonder' pamphlet was missing.  This, of course, is unconscionable and I cannot sit idly by while a lone voice cries out in the wilderness.  In this post, I provide the requested scan.  Some concern was expressed over copyright.  I am certain that this is covered by one or more 'fair use' provisions (particularly the 'obscure blog' & 'material that has been out of print for nearly four decades' provisions – but you should consult with a lawyer before relying on said provisions for your own purposes).  Anyway, what good are laws when justice has been trampled in the dirt?

The pamphlet consists of four pages.  The front cover briefly describes the city (usually referenced merely as 'Wonder') and supplies a price list.  The interior two pages present a map of part of the city (i.e., the Magic World, Superworld, and Future*World sections).  The back cover provides a 'Short Guide to the Avenues', with brief descriptions of places shown on the map (e.g., All-Beings Hospital and Piglar Megalessar's Stage Show and School of Cunning).

Please note the reference to Apple Lane in the lower left area

 

The reader also requested “any suggestion for a multi-genre crossover rpg.”  It seems several such games have been published over the years, but it would be inconsiderate of me not to suggest Chaosium's own Basic Roleplaying, the natural evolution of Worlds of Wonder.  It has a System Reference Document that has been out for almost a year.

A Super-Powered Science Fiction Role-Playing Game

Art by Albert Deschesne

In 1987, 21st Century Games published two editions of Enforcers (“A super-powered science fiction role-playing game”).  Pictured above is the cover of the second edition, although the copyright page states “First Edition / August 1987.”  The 'super-powered' aspect of the game is clearly evident in the cover illustration, but what makes Enforcers a 'science fiction' game?  Here is what the back cover text discloses:

Welcome to L.A.

The year is 2046, and the world has changed.  The pace of
evolution has been accelerated a thousandfold by a
combination of man's pollution and fallout from alien weapons.
Humans are evolving and changing into new and different
forms with incredible powers and abilities.

Federal, state and local governments are having a difficult time
coping with the crisis and have resorted to letting the super-
beings police themselves.  This has created a world where
good battles evil, where superpowered mercenaries line their
own pockets while helping to stave off a greater evil, and
where mechanical geniuses hatch plots to force society to
conform to their own warped views.  This is the world of

ENFORCERS

This setting would seem to have potential.  Unfortunately, Enforcers barely touches upon this setting; providing only two-and-a-half pages of background.  Gary Bernard, the primary author, explains why in an article he wrote for White Wolf Magazine #11 (August 1988).  In “THE ENFORCERS UNIVERSE: The Untold Story,” Bernard states:

It was our original intention to include in the Enforcers rule book 10 pages of background information on the compaign (sic) universe in which our modules are set. After we finished writing the rules, we discovered that the book was almost 20 pages longer than was originaly (sic) planned. Because of this, we were faced with the choice of going ahead with the background information and raising the price of the book, or scaling it back publishing additional information later. In the end the economic concerns won and the background information was drasticaly (sic) reduced.

Here's how that situation should have been handled:  Dump the setting altogether and sell the book as a set of generic 'superhero' rules.  The 2½ pages devoted to the setting could have been used for material that was sorely needed.  Then publish a sourcebook for the setting, ideally getting permission to include statistics for super-hero games not affiliated with licensed properties (like Champions and Superworld ).  This would expose the game to a larger audience and avoid what is essentially false advertising.

The limited setting information begins with a timeline that starts in 1991 and goes only to 2003.  We then have the following paragraph to take us through the remainder of the time:

The years from 2004 to 2056 (sic) are exciting for many different reasons.  Colonization of the inner solar system begins in earnest with permanent bases established on Mars, Venus, Titan, and the Moon.  Great advances are made in medicine and in genetic research.  Contact is made with several peaceful alien races and trading relationships are established.

No information is given on how there could possibly be a base on Venus (or why anyone would want one).  No information is given about the alien races, not even the Entcir, whose attempt at invasion in 1997 brought an end to World War III.  Evidently, the “fallout from alien weapons” is a result of the Entcir invasion, but that is never discussed.

“The World of 2046” section of the rule book addresses two main subjects, neither of which is an alien invasion.  We get a paragraph about the reality of lycanthropes; as a result of “a civil rights crusade. . . relations between humans and lycanthropes are fairly good.”  Also, the EPA conducted a study that concluded, “the continuous accumulation of mutagens in the environment. . . has accelerated the rate of genetic change in all plant and animal species, including man.”  As a result, “high-level officials” make the following policy decisions:  not to tell the public (because that would cause panic), engage upon a “worldwide environmental cleanup,” protect the rights of mutants, and have law enforcement and intelligence agencies recruit super-powered individuals.

In White Wolf, Bernard states, “This article contains some of [the] information that didn't make it into [the] book.”  Surely, the article divulges fascinating and useful details about the Enforcers setting?  In a word, no.

The article offers almost two pages of text (when one discounts a portion which essentially amounts to an advertisement).  A separate page is devoted to a map (shown below).

Map by Albert Deschesne

The only features on this map that would not appear on a contemporaneous map are (1) Kern County (for reasons unknown) has been changed to Mojave County and (2) there is a space port near the bustling metropolis of Mojave.  Actually, a space port has since been established at Mojave; so prognostication props to the author, I guess.  Seriously, were maps of Southern California difficult to obtain in 1987?  This map – which must have taken all of three minutes to make – does essentially nothing to enhance the game setting.  There's no legend, no Catalina, no 10 freeway, no hills, etc.  The author ought to have directed the reader to consult a map rather than foist the above scrawl upon his audience.

The author doubtless thought that a map – even a crude one – would enhance comprehension of the article since he emphasizes real estate.  No, really...

Riverside/San Bernardino Conties (sic):  These arid conties (sic) are home to people who can't afford the ridiculously high housing costs in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.  The western portions of both counties are heavily developed with the population dropping off farther inland.

Remember that time when the Silver Surfer bought a condo?  You don't?  That's because details about real estate are not germane to superhero adventures.

The author seeks to overturn the supposed “New York bias” of super-hero games.  Ultimately, he uses the excuse that he and the other two authors reside in the Los Angeles area.

Otherwise, Bernard discusses the monetary system of 2046:  “...most transactions are processed electronically through the use of intelligent bank cards.”  We learn, “stealing existing money already in an account is easy, however, trying to embezzle additional money from a stolen bank card is almost impossible.”  This sentiment might provide some insight into what happened during Enforcers playtesting.

Finally, the article provides a table of reaction modifiers regarding various law enforcement agencies in Southern California.  Only the LAPD and Orange County police departments offer positive modifiers; the “Ventura County Sherriff (sic) Department” comes off the worst with a whopping –60%.  There has to be a story behind that.

Book Review: War-Gamers' World (spoilers)

Map by Helmut W. Pesch

In 1978, DAW Books published War-Gamers' World having the subtitles of “Magira I” and “From the chronicles of the world's longest existing fantasyland.”  According to the back cover copy:

The Fellowship of the Lords of the Lands of Wonder!  That is the name of the select group who control the struggles and marvels of the world known as Magira – a fantasyland planet created years before war-games were known in America.  It was the members of FOLLOW who built up Magira, city by city, island by island, crown by crown, created its continents and oceans, and continue to this day to bring ever greater sword-and-sorcery reality to its misty shores.

Foregoing the contradiction of “sword-and-sorcery reality,” we are introduced to the notion of an early “fantasyland” curated somewhere other than the United States.  The “Lands of Wonder” portion of FOLLOW refers to a German fanzine of fantasy literature.  One might wonder why Germans would use English words to name their fanzine (as well as their organization).  Jon Peterson, in his Playing at the World, explains:

There existed no native German tradition of sword-and-sorcery fiction, nor much by way of translations of the major American works, and thus Lands of Wonder is littered with English and Anglicisms, as any reader familiar with the genre surely commanded a reasonable grasp of the language in which it was written.

Authorship of War-Gamers' World is attributed to Hugh Walker, pen name of Hubert Strassl, the Austrian who started Lands of Wonder.  Strassl wrote the story in German and it was first published in that language in 1975.  The original title was Reiter der Finsternis which translates as “Rider of Darkness.”  In fact, the first page excerpt is provided under the words “Rider of Darkness.”  Given the back cover copy and the change in title, it seems an effort was made to market to the war-gamer demographic.  At the time, the distinction between war-games and role-playing games was something of a gray area.  Anyway, “Magira I” implies further volumes.  Only two more books were translated into English and both of these retained their “. . . of Darkness” titles.  By the time War-Gamers' World was published, Magira served as a setting for an actual role-playing game, but for the first decade or so, Magira was more of a shared narrative universe which served as a backdrop for a continuous wargame campaign.

As Walker/Strassl indicates in the preface to War-Gamers' World :

Now, after eleven years of continuous playing (the players getting together once or twice a year), many of the original dreams have been realized.  Many of the battles that took place have become stories.  Empires have grown up and fallen.  Legends, myths, heroic figures, kings, warriors and sorcerers have sprung up.  What pleasure there has been in dreaming a little and, as it were, “stage-managing” the dream.  The reality of such a barbaric and warlike world would surely be less than desirable, but I find it highly amusing occasionally to leave reality behind and to play some entertaining game or to read some entertaining book.

Peterson describes the 'board' that was used:  “Strassl and his collaborators favored a board shaped like a circle rather than a rectangle; for a game of four to seven players, they preferred a massive board, roughly two meters in diameter, with hexagons of 1.8 centimeters to a side for a total of around 3,500 hexes on the board.”  Hexagon imagery is prevalent in the story.  As befits a tessellation of hexagons, Magira has six cardinal direction instead of four.  These are indicated in the compass of the map presented above and are also presented below.

The plot involves a 'real world' player named Franz Laudmann who finds himself in the 'game world' which he had previously assumed was a product of his imagination.  Usually in such a story, the player is the protagonist and becomes a hero.  War-Gamer's World subverts this trope in that Laudmann is thrown into a dungeon for committing heresy and is later scheduled for sacrifice.  In the prelude, Laudmann is the point-of-view character but other characters assume that role for most of the remainder of the story.

About half-way through the story, the player – who chooses to be called Frankari in the game world – encounters the otherworldly “creators.”  The creators are opposed to the Mythanen, the bad guys responsible for summoning Frankari into the world of Magira.  The Mythanen – Adepts of Chaos – come from the “ancient sorcery kingdom!”  The creators inform Frankari, “The rider of darkness is on his way” and “He will find you and show you the road you must take.”

However, Frankari meets an Adept who tells him that the Rider of Darkness is in the service of the Adepts.  The Adept has taken Frankari's place in the real world.  We learn that the (almost) titular Rider of Darkness is the Magira avatar of death (also called “The taker of souls”).  Eventually, Frankari dies and the Rider of Darkness appears from a void in the sky, taking the “lifeless body” away.

So, at the conclusion of the 160 page book, the player – the ostensible reader identification character – is dead and a small group of native Magirans have banded together (much like an adventuring party) to find their destiny.  So, in the subsequent books, there are two storylines:  one where the Adepts attempt to replace real world players and one with the continuing adventures of the natives.

Timemaster Screen (spoilers)

Many role-playing games of the early 80s offered a Gamemaster Screen as an accessory and TIMEMASTER™ is no exception.  However, in its case, the proper name is Timemaster Screen.  I guess they thought 'Continuum Master Screen' had too many syllables.  The screen itself is three panels of cardboard.  The CM's side has a black & white Action Table and various tables of movement and combat modifiers.  It conveys pertinent information capably.  How may wound boxes does a medium horse have?  13.  Helmets have what Immunity Type?  B.  How many rounds does it take for a specialist to reload a crossbow?  10.

The players' side is not as fulsome.  On one panel is displayed the skills chart which is useful when creating characters.  However, in the Travellers' Manual, the skills chart extends over two pages.  To condense the chart to one panel, some information was removed; specifically, the 'Date Avail.' column is absent.  Yet the Notes related to that column are still displayed:

Date.  The earliest time period in which the skill was available.  This affects the skills available to newly created characters.
Any non-American.  This skill is not available to newly created characters born in the Americas before 1521, when the Spanish introduced the horse to the continents.

This is somewhat simplistic.  It's not as though horses were immediately available throughout the Americas as of 1521.  What about places other than the Western Hemisphere?  Horses weren't in Japan until the late Yayoi period and they didn't reach Australia until 1788.  This defies the notion of “any non-American.”  Sometimes it's better to forgo detail and prevail upon common sense.

The other two panels of the players' side are actually the front and back covers of the product.  Some of the back copy reads:

The TIMEMASTER™ Screen puts the important charts and tables from the TIMEMASTER game right at the CM's fingertips.  Inside you'll find four blank character sheets and MISSING: PT 109 – a high-action mini-adventure that features new rules for combat at sea.

As usual for Gamemaster Screens, a “mini-adventure” was included as an additional feature.  Design of the mini-adventure is attributed to TSR veteran Carl Smith, who is also credited with 'Additional Design and Development' in the Travellers' Manual.  Smith's name appears on the front and back covers.  The top of the back cover reads, “TIMEMASTER™ SCREEN by Carl Smith.”  Presumably, this refers to the mini-adventure, not the screen itself.  A significant portion of the back cover is devoted to a map (shown left).  Unfortunately, it's not needed for the adventure and lacks important details like 'scale' and 'north'.  Otherwise, the back cover has some teaser text describing the Amagiri - PT 109 incident.  This is followed by a notice that Nixon was elected in 1960, suggesting some sort of cause and effect relationship.

The 16 page booklet packaged with the Timemaster Screen contains the mini-adventure as well as the “four blank character sheets” mentioned above.  Each character sheet has on its reverse an Action Table and essential combat details.  The four character sheets comprise the eight center pages of the booklet.  They are perforated so that they can be easily separated from the booklet and one another.  Other than the material on the reverse, the Timemaster Screen character sheet differs from the Travellers' Manual version by having nine additional lines on the “Skills” and “Times Visited” columns.

The much vaunted “new rules for combat at sea” are attributed to Mark Acres and they occupy one entire page.  As opposed to the scale for land combat, naval combat has hexes of 300 yards and each turn represents a minute of time.  Of note are rules for new weapons (like torpedoes) and naval vessel damage (one possibility is “Hull hit; ship will sink in 2d10 hours unless repaired”).

Two-thirds of the last page of the booklet is devoted to credits and two pre-generated characters:  Timothy O'Malley (an Irish veteran of World War I) and Michael Whitehorse (a Native American of the 19th century).  This leaves 6⅓ pages for the mini-adventure.  A special rule for Stealth is included “that is not a regular part” of the TIMEMASTER™ rules.  “Throughout the adventure,” we read, “characters may use this skill for the benefit of the entire party, not just themselves.”

In the Time Corps briefing, the player characters are informed that John Fitzgerald Kennedy died in 1989 and was an “Oil magnate whose dealings with Third World countries contributed to the decay of the Western economies.”  They also learn, “The Sentinel reports that Kennedy's life is pinpricked with a slew of Demorean contacts.”  Apparently, the Sentinel determines that the “Demorean penetration occurs on Olasana Island, just before the crew of PT 109 arrives.”  So, the player characters – in the in the guise of U.S. Navy personnel – go to “the Soloman (sic ) Islands” on August 4, 1943.  “Another Time Corps team has left a PT boat” for the player characters to pilot to Olasana Island before Kennedy and crew encounter the natives that will bring about their rescue.  Supposedly, “under the most likely conditions [the player characters] will have one day” to disrupt the Demorean plot.

The point of having the player characters use a PT boat is so they will engage in combat encounters (using the new naval combat rules) against the Japanese.  This allows the mini-adventure to be “high-action.”  I mean, if the player characters operated a medical vessel, they could avoid combat.  Female characters could plausibly be on a medical vessel, but certainly not a PT boat.

The Demoreans have established a faux Japanese POW camp on Osalana Island.  If the player characters are defeated in the combat encounters, the Japanese will take them to this camp.  How do the Japanese know about this camp given that (1) it was established “just before the crew of PT 109 arrives” and (2) it is not a legitimate Japanese facility?

The player characters' PT boat has three combat encounters.  The first encounter is with a destroyer.  Although it is not specifically named as the Amagiri, the historical changes chart at the end of the adventure implies it.  If the player characters sink the ship (or continue to damage it after it is disabled), they are penalized significance points.  The second encounter is with two Japanese patrol boats.  The commander of one of them is named Lt. Fubuki.  (The Amagiri is a Fubuki-class destroyer.)  The player characters are penalized significance points for each death they cause among the crew.  The last encounter is with a Zero.  The player characters lose significance points “if they shoot down the Zero after it has begun its retreat.”

Kennedy is unconscious in the POW camp as one of the Demoreans attempts to “Dominate” him.  Domination is one of the Demorean paranormal talents.  “To use this PT,” the Travellers' Manual states, “a Demorean must first spend one full day near his victim...”  If the Demorean successfully uses the talent, then domination over the victim progresses in stages.  At Stage 5, “The victim follows any suggestions or plans the Demorean gives him.”

If the player characters fail their mission, history is altered in various ways.  One possibility is that “Japanese domination of the world automobile market is delayed five years” because one of the soldiers killed “would have become a top automotive engineer.”  In the worst possible outcome:

The end of World War II is delayed by six months, allowing the U.S.S.R. to enter the war.  Soviet expansion in the Pacific is checked during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy, but proceeds apace after his death in 1963.  A major war over Pacific holdings erupts in 1969; the nuclear holocaust of 2054 occurs in 1970 instead.

Wait, wasn't the whole point that JFK doesn't become president?

The (A)D&D Adventure That Michael Moorcock Wrote (Spoilers)

Map by Paul Ruiz

Published from 1983 to 1985, Imagine was TSR's official organ in the UK.  Issue #22 was a Michael Moorcock Special Feature including:  an interview with him, a short story by him (“1st UK magazine publication”), an AD&D adventure by him, and a three page publication history of the Eternal Champion by someone other than him.  In the interview, Moorcock tells us what he thinks about people who partake in role-playing games:

...I know a lot of people who are actively involved.  It's certainly very popular.  If you look back to the 20s and 30s, the people then were enjoying the popular magazines, they contained the same types of fantasies but they weren't so formalized.  It's also linked to the times we live in.  Large numbers of people feel disenfranchised, and if people haven't got any effect, or feel that they haven't got any effect in the real world, they go into religion – or perhaps role-playing games.  Both are substitutes for the person who feels that he has no effect on anything.

Perhaps writing Sword & Sorcery stories about an albino also counts as a substitute.

Anyway, the eight page adventure is written by Michael Moorcock and Michael Brunton.  So, it's a collaboration.  How much did Moorcock contribute?  In the interview, when Moorcock is asked if he will write for role-playing games, he replies, “I'll write the odd scenario, such as the outline I did for IMAGINE.”  So, Moorcock's contribution was limited to an outline.  The credits at the end of the adventure attribute “Inspiration” to Moorcock and “Perspiration” to Brunton.  Using the Edison criteria, I suppose Moorcock was responsible for ten percent of the adventure.

In the Table of Contents, the “mini-module” is called “The Iron Galleon.”  When the adventure is presented on page 25, it has the title “Earl Aubec and The Iron Galleon.”  The scenario turns out to be a “one-on-one adventure” where the player assumes the role of a Moorcock creation, Earl Aubec of Malador, previously appearing in a 1964 short story.  In AD&D terms, Aubec is a twelfth level fighter with a +3 two-handed sword.  Actually, there is provision for a second player character – Jhary-a-Conel, an incarnation of the Eternal Sidekick.  Jhary is a seventh level fighter who “can use magic items and scrolls as though a magic-user.”  He also has a flying cat, Whiskers, that “should be treated as a magic user's familiar.”  In the absence of a second player, Jhary can be used as a non-player character.

A half-page section, The World of the Young Kingdoms, is intended to be read by both the DM and player.  While the section briefly describes Moorcock's setting, mostly it reveals Aubec's history.  We learn:

At Kaneloon he fought and defeated creatures from his own imagination.  In rising above the darkness of his own mind Aubec won the right to go beyond the world's boundary and carve new lands from the Chaos-stuff that existed beyond.  Here too, he first encounters Myshella, the Dark Lady, and refuses the 'rights' that she offers him....

This is an impressive accomplishment for someone with a Wisdom of 9.  There is also a section of Dungeon Master's Notes.  The section begins with six paragraphs of background information.  There is also a sub-section about alignment in Moorcock's setting; mainly, “the classifications of 'Good' and 'Evil' have no real relevance.”  (Perhaps the adventure should have been presented in terms of BECMI rules instead of AD&D.)  Also, some Dungeon Master advice is presented regarding one-on-one play:

In a one player module it is always possible to 'kill off' the one and only character with ease.  The DM must resist the temptation to see the adventure as a personal confrontation, and his or her duty in that confrontation as 'getting' the player.  This doesn't mean that the player character should be given an easy ride, but the DM should remember that the character is supposed to be a hero and win through.... most of the time.

The adventure presents a couple of house rules:

Yielding to tradition, the scenario begins in a tavern.  While enjoying a repast, time seems to stand still except for Aubec and his cat.  “From the shadows” appears Myshella, the Sorceress of Kaneloon.  Aubec's nameless cats purrs, so we know the sorceress intends no harm towards Aubec.  (“Aubec's cat is not a familiar, but it is sensitive to danger.  The DM should make a point of mentioning (subtly) what the cat's reaction is to the various characters and situations in this module.”)  She reveals the premise of the adventure.  There's an Iron Galleon which “sails not only the seas of the Young Kingdoms, but the waters of other worlds as well.”  Somewhere, the Captain of the Iron Galleon acquired the Horn of Fate, “a treasure of incomparable power” capable of “bringing about the ruin of everything.”  Myshella wants Aubec to obtain the Horn and deliver it to her so she can send it “out of Aubec's world...”  Myshella provides some money so that Aubec can hire a ship to travel to a given location.  If Aubec does so, “Within five days [he] will meet the Iron Galleon.”  Myshella departs and time resumes.

“If Aubec decides not to obey Myshella's instructions” within two days, he is attacked by hirelings of an old enemy.  Such attacks will continue daily until Aubec (literally and figuratively) gets on board.  Before encountering the Iron Galleon, “The DM should use at least one” preceding encounter.  One such encounter is attack upon the ship by an ildriss (air grue).  The other possible encounter is an attack by “a Pan Tang slave raider looking for fresh victims.”  Regardless of which preceding encounters are employed, eventually the Iron Galleon collides with the ship Aubec is on and destroys it.  Aubec is supposed “to grab the anchor chain of the Iron Galleon as it passes, and climb up it to 'safety'.”

The captain of the Iron Galleon is Dyvim Ka'aand, “a Melnibonéan outcast, doomed to wander the seas between the worlds...”  In true Melnibonéan fashion,  “He maintains a pretense of bored, tolerant amusement towards the world, beneath which he is haughty, noble, sophisticated, and amoral.”  Dyvim Ka'aand is not given a character class; however...

Dyvim is the equivalent of a 12th level spell caster when casting his memorised spells.  Unlike normal magic users or illusionists, Dyvim does not have to 'memorise' other spells.  His spell grimoires and tomes contain details of spells that are functionally identical to all the magic user and illusionist spells of 6th level and below.  After studying these spells for a period of (4d4 ⨯ spell level) minutes, Dyvim Ka'aand is able to cast them.  There is also a 17% chance that Dyvim Ka'aand will be able to cast any spell from memory.  In this case, there is a 5% chance he will do so incorrectly and the casting will prove to be a waste of time.  However, there is a limit to Dyvim Ka'aand's spell casting capability.  He cannot cast more than 35 levels of spell in a single day – for example he can cast up to 2 ⨯ 1st, 1 ⨯ 2nd, 4 ⨯ 4th, and 3 ⨯ 5th levels.

The Iron Galleon is mapped out and each numbered location is described like a proper dungeon.  One location is the hold, containing “the Iron Galleon's collection of trinkets” from a plethora of worlds.  Such trinkets include:  “lengths of ship's timbers; oil barrels (for the lamps); mold-covered grain sacks; chests full of tea, raw cotton, white marble, pottery, and black powder (which is so damp as to be useless); wine amphorae; five life preservers marked HMS Graf Spee and perched on top of one heap is a what appears to be a giant, misshapen arrow – a Phoenix AIM 54A air-to-air missile, which is armed and ready for firing.”  (Elsewhere on the vessel is “the ejector seat from a Mig-31 Foxhound.”)  There are a few locations with 'monsters' (e.g., stirges and rust rats) but, mainly, the Iron Galleon serves as a venue for interacting with non-player characters.  Aside from Dyvim, other intelligent denizens of the ship include:

          Jeroaz :  A Dwarven jester with a +1 slapstick that causes extra damage because it “is tainted with unclean Chaos-stuff.”  (6th level assassin)
          Master Smiles :  “He is simply a dissolute sybarite who actively enjoys the life of contemplative cruelty and barbarity that he indulges in aboard the Iron Galleon.”  (5th level fighter)
          Kateriona van Hjeok :  Last survivor of a group of pirates who assaulted the Iron Galleon.  She has an “eye patch and steel prosthetic hand.”  (7th level fighter)
          Miriame :  A refugee from a slave galley, “Dyvim has amused himself by feeding her a powerful hallucinogenic drug which makes her totally compliant to his will – the withdrawal symptoms are extremely painful.” (non-classed)
          Windlos of Heuliss :  A “flying man” trapped on board the Iron Galleon.  (non-classed, but 7+1 Hit Dice)

The Horn of Fate – appearing to be a drinking horn – is in Dyvim's study.  Dyvim knows the Horn is special, but evidently does not realize its true nature.  What Aubec does to get the Horn is up to the player.  Aubec can attempt to recruit non-player characters as allies against Dyvim.  “Aubec need only obtain a positive reaction (DMG p63) to apparently enlist the aid of any of the NPCs.”  Aubec's cat is useful in determining which non-player characters are trustworthy.  Aubec and his allies can make use of “a small wooden sailing boat” on the Iron Galleon.  There is also a way to destroy to Iron Galleon.  If Aubec gets away without killing Dyvim, the Melnibonéan will send an invisible stalker against Aubec.  If Aubec does not repair to Kaneloon with alacrity, the DM may have Aubec attacked by his old enemy's hirelings “as an extra incentive to Kaneloon and safety with minimal delay.”

Don't Let A Dralasite Lick It...

Art by Vincent Di Fate

The admonition above is good advice generally.  Specifically, it relates to the stamp on a self-addressed envelope one should send to TSR regarding “comments and questions about the Knight Hawks Game.”  Said admonition appears on the inside front cover of the “16-page board game rules book” included in the Knight Hawks boxed set.  As the back of the box states, Knight Hawks is “Playable as an expansion to the STAR FRONTIERS™ ALPHA DAWN role playing game or as a separate boardgame.”  The board game rules are actually the starship combat rules for Star Frontiers.  These rules can be presented as a board game since they are largely distinct from the role-playing rules of Star Frontiers.  (The 64-page Knight Hawks Campaign Book includes approximately two pages of Special Combat Rules that supplement the 'board game' rules.)

The title page of the board games rules book reads, appropriately enough, “Basic and Advanced Boardgame Rules.”  However, the unillustrated cover reads UPF Tactical Operations Manual.  “UPF” means United Planetary Federation (which is completely different from the United Federation of Planets).  The military arm of the UPF is called Spacefleet (which is absolutely not Starfleet – Why would you even think that?).  The board game rules include four scenarios, two for the basic game and two for the advanced.  All of these scenarios represent incidents in the Second Sathar War.  (Given that Sathar are evil, worm-like aliens, it is to be expected that their ships have names like Carrion, Faminewind, Doomfist, and Venomous.)  Of course, “Players can make up an endless variety of scenarios on their own.”  Additionally, “Other conflicts (involving pirates, rebels, dictators or other interstellar ruffians) certainly are possible, and players are encouraged to experiment with new forces and situations.”

Included in the boxed set are 285 counters.  These are used to play out starship combat on a 22½” × 35” map sheet with a tessellation of hexes.  However, the inside back cover states, “Players interested in expanding their Knight Hawks games can use miniature metal spaceships instead of the cardboard counters included with the game.”  As one might expect, there's a plug for “TSR's STAR FRONTIERS Spaceship Miniatures, available where Knight Hawks is sold.”  With miniatures, players can forgo using a map.  If so,

Planets and moons can be cut out of cardboard and colored however the players like.  These planets can be cut to reflect their real size, unlike the counters in the game.  For example, the Earth would be 1.3 inches in diameter.  The moon would be .3 inches in diameter, 38 inches away from the Earth.

Of course, the Earth and moon are not part of the Star Frontiers setting and no comparable information for the planetary systems actually in the setting.  Regardless if a map is used, “space” is treated as if it is a flat plane, succumbing to the Khan Fallacy.  To be fair, according to the box cover, Knight Hawks is intended for “beginning to intermediate players, ages 10 and up” and a three-dimensional starship combat system would likely be too complex for the target demographic.

The basic game offers seven types of spaceships and also describes space stations.  Weapons systems are limited to lasers, rockets, and torpedoes (or “torpedos” as the rules sometimes spell it).  The described defensive systems are reflective hull (“mirror-like paint that...will often cause a laser beam to bounce off the ship...”), masking screen (“created when a ship releases a cloud of water vapor into space...”), and interceptor missiles (“small missiles that can be fired at incoming torpedoes, assault rockets and rocket battery barrages”).  Weapon type is indexed against defense type on a Combat Table to find the percentage chance of causing damage.  When a target vessel has more than one defensive system, “an attack's chance to hit is calculated against the most effective defense.”  If an attack is successful, damage dice are rolled and the result is subtracted from the target's hull points.  We are informed, “When all of the ship's hull points are gone, the ship is destroyed and the player removes it from the map.”

The advanced game introduces minelayers, light cruisers, and civilian craft.  Offensive capabilities include mines, proton beam batteries, electron beam batteries, disruptor beam cannon, and seeker missiles.  Screens are available as defensive systems in the advanced game.  A proton screen “is a field of charged particles which surrounds a ship,” an electron screen “is the opposite of a proton screen,” and a stasis screen is evidently some sort of field with an “electrical pulse.”  Each screen type happens to attract certain attack types.  A proton screen attracts electron beams, an electron screen attracts proton beams, and “a stasis screen allows missiles and rockets to home in with increased accuracy.”  When a ship with a given screen is attacked by that screen's 'nemesis' attack, the screen is used as the defense instead of the most effective defense the target may otherwise have.

Damage effects are more detailed in the advanced game.  In addition to the hull hits a weapon inflicts, the Damage Table is also consulted.  Some example results from the table include 'weapon hit' (a particular weapon system is destroyed), 'hull hit' (“double normal damage”), and 'navigation hit' (“loose maneuvering control”).  In the advanced game, crews can attempt repairs during combat.  (A combat turn lasts ten minutes and repairs may be attempted after every third turn.)  Each ship has a Damage Control Rating which can range from 30 to 200.  When attempting repairs, the Damage Control Rating is divided among damaged systems.  The amount allocated to a given system is the percentage chance that the system will be repaired.  Hull repairs can restore 1d10 hull points.

There is a section of the Knight Hawks Campaign Book titled The Second Sathar War.  This section offers “rules for a strategic level boardgame about the second Sathar attack on the Frontier.”  These rules employ the Frontier Deployment Map, an “abstract representation of the Frontier” (depicted below).

The rectangles are “transit boxes.”  For the most part, the number of transit boxes between star systems equals light years of distance as shown on Frontier map from the Expanded Rules.  However, Athor is eight light years from Araks even though there are only seven transit boxes between them on the Deployment Map.  Also, K'Tsa-Karis is five light years distant from K'aken-Kar, but only four transit boxes are shown on the Deployment Map.  Normally, ships can travel one transit box per day; however, by “risk-jumping,” they can travel up to three per day.  When a ship risk-jumps, there is a percentage chance it “will be lost for the duration of the war.”

When opposing forces are in the same system at the end of a day, there may be a battle.  Depending on the number of ships involved in a battle, different rules are suggested.  If there are more than fourteen ships, the basic rules are recommended.  When there are five to fourteen ships, the advanced rules with “no skill modifiers” are recommended.  With fewer than five ships, it is suggested that the advanced rules with “average NPC skills” be used.  Among the spaceship skills introduced in Knight Hawks, there are 'gunnery' skills that can improve chances for attack success.  Essentially, each level in a skill increases the chance for success by five percent.  However, when skills are applied to starship combat, the base chance for success is usually reduced between five and fifteen percent.  For example, against an electron screen, the base chance of success for an assault rocket is 60%; when gunnery skills are in play, the chance is 50%.

The strategic game includes rules for supply lines and enhanced repair.  There are optional rules for replacements (“available at the end of every 20 days”) and shatter drones (“A shatter drone is essentially a ship that has been turned into a huge bomb”).

A Space Odyssey (spoilers)

It's 1984.  You know what would be great?  Connecting Star Frontiers to a popular science fiction franchise.  This would bring attention to the game and drive its future success.  Let's see...FASA has the rights to Star Trek and The Last Starfighter.  The third film in the Star Wars trilogy was released in '83, so public interest will probably wane...  Perhaps it would be best to get in on the ground floor of an upcoming film and ride its coat tails.  How about Dune ?  It's set to be a merchandising bonanza.  Also, Herbert's series is specifically listed as suggested reading on the inside back cover of the Star Frontiers rules.  But wait... MGM is releasing a sequel to 2001.  Never mind that it's not really space opera.  Never mind that many of the game's target demographic had yet to be born when the original film was released.  Kubrick's cinematic masterpiece is timeless; surely it can be easily adapted into an engaging role playing experience.

Such may as well have been the thought processes of one or more persons at TSR.  Regardless, we have been gifted with 2001 A Space Odyssey – “A Special Star Frontiers® Adventure Module.”  The task of writing this special module fell to Frank Mentzer.

The module is presented in four chapters, roughly analogous to the segments of the film:  Dawn of Man, Lunar Excursion, Jupiter Mission, and Through the Star Gate.  The Introduction provides an overview of the module's narrative:

At critical points in Mankind's history, an alien device, a monolith, appears and provides a key to the future.  Through this adventure, the player characters are present each time a monolith appears.  In each case, whether or not Mankind successfully enters the future offered by the monolith depends on how the player characters react and how much they learn about themselves and their universe.

Obviously, the standard game setting is not used.  “If you put this adventure in your STAR FRONTIERS® game, place it back in time before humans contact the other races.”  However, the adventure can be modified for the other intelligent races of Star Frontiers.

For example, in a dralasite version of chapter one, the monolith might teach cooperation to primitive, independent dralasites.  In a Yazirian version, the monolith might instigate the custom of life-enemies.

We are informed, “This special STAR FRONTIERS® module requires both ALPHA DAWN and KNIGHT HAWKS box sets.”  In reality, the Knight Hawks set is only needed for the Piloting skill and to provide an assortment of counters.  “All spaceflight in this adventure takes place in chapters 2 – 4,” the Introduction states, “Those chapters explain when and how to handle the necessary spaceflight.”

North is to the right

In chapter one, player characters control man-apes in the African wilderness of four million years ago.  Each has the same ability scores.  Events occur in three phases:  Survival (2 game days), Changes (2 game days), and Conquest (3 – 5 game days).  During the Survival phase, the man-apes cope with carnivores and an enemy tribe while trying to obtain sufficient food and water for survival.  A day without water reduces Stamina by 1d10; a day without food reduces Stamina by 1d5.  In the Changes phase, the monolith appears.  On the second day, “each PC man-ape visiting the monolith gains one skill” determined on the Skill Chart (at left).  Man-apes can learn skills from one another.  Player characters achieve the goal of the Conquest phase “when (1) they have slain a carnivore, and (2) the enemy tribe has surrendered.”

Chapter two takes place in 1994 and we learn, “The mega-corporations (which will eventually evolve into Pan Galactic, of the normal STAR FRONTIERS® game setting) dominate the quality of life.”  Players create original characters that reside “on Station One, the largest of three orbital cities floating above the Earth.”  Unlike the usual character generation procedure, a player may allocate a total of twelve Skill Levels among up to five skills (“with a maximum of 5 in any one Skill”).  The Computer and Technician skills are required and “at least 2 of [the skills] must be from the character's PSA.”  Each player then distributes forty additional points among the character's abilities.  “Finally, each player should secretly choose a nationality:  American, Russian, Chinese, or Other.”  Players are informed, “there has been a standing reward of 1,000 CR for anyone able to produce an item created by an extra-terrestrial life form.”

The player characters are recruited by American authorities to locate a presumed extraterrestrial artifact on the moon.  There are nineteen magnetic anomalies on the Lunar map, one of which is randomly determined to be caused by the artifact.  (Although the module refers to squares on the Lunar map, the map itself displays hexes.)  Time is of the essence since the Chinese will arrive in sixty hours to perform their own explorations.  One player character is secretly approached by a Russian agent and another by a Chinese agent.  Respectively, the agents offer 50 credits “to openly claim [the anomaly] in the name of his country, instead of the U.S.A.”  Whether or not the characters accept this generous offer, several NPCs will be working for the Russians or Chinese.  Player characters – either individually or in teams – explore the various anomalies using provided equipment.  “After the large anomaly is pinpointed, all characters involved in the search are detained,” we learn, “The characters never learn the reason for the secrecy...”  Outside the presence of the player characters, “a group of experts and technicians excavate around [the monolith].”  Then the monolith “emits a series of five electronic shrieks.”  One wonders what the players could learn about themselves and their universe via this chapter.

The third chapter takes place on board the USS Discovery and each player controls one of the crew members from the film (Dave Bowman and Frank Poole).  If there are more than two players, one or more of the hibernating astronauts should be used (Kaminski, Hunter and Whitehead – I don't know where Whitehead came from, in the film it was Kimball).  Any additional characters should not be created randomly; we are instructed, “Design the characters to be useful.”

Two new skills are described:  Astronomy (“a new STAR FRONTIERS® technological skill”) and System Navigation (“a new spaceship skill for use with this module only”).  According to Knight Hawks, the Piloting skill can only be acquired by characters with six levels of Technician and two levels of Computer.  Yet this requirement is overlooked in 2001, William Hunter has Piloting 1 but only Technician 3.

As in the film, the HAL 9000 computer works to eliminate the crew and we are advised, “Play HAL very cleverly.”  The module supplies examples of what HAL can do against the characters.  Before HAL attacks, player characters can use a Psycho-Pathology subskill to have HAL “remain calm for another 1 – 6 hours.”  Ultimately, the player characters will have to disconnect HAL.  Afterwards, player characters will need to handle the shipboard tasks manually.  To this end, ship operations and equipment repair are described in thrilling detail.  There are five paragraphs explaining how doors work.  Eventually, the characters watch a briefing tape relating that a monolith was found in the crater Tycho (or “Substitute the name of the crater in which the monolith was found in your game”) thirteen months previously (even though chapter two took place in 1994 and the Discovery was launched on May 14, 2002).  At the conclusion of chapter three, the player characters encounter a giant monolith.  They have the choice of investigating the monolith (and proceeding to chapter four) or staying with the ship (and ending the adventure).

Most of the fourth chapter consists of the referee reading about a page of boxed text.  One of the passages is:

You are above a world of incredible size – much larger than Earth.  But there must be no atmosphere; all the surface details are clear, to the remote and flat horizon.  The surface is marked in huge patterns, probably miles across, of squares, triangles, polygons...and in them, here and there, gaping black shafts, much like the chasm from which you just emerged.
The sky is disturbing.  There are no stars, nor even the blackness of space, but only a milky whiteness.  But no; there are tiny black dots, here and there, scattered across the sky.  They seem oddly familiar – and then you realize that it looks like a photographic negative of the Milky Way.

Eventually, the characters arrive “in a place nearly identical to a hotel suite in the United States of America.”  The referee is instructed to provide “map E, the Hotel Suite Layout, to the players.”  Sadly, no such map is included with the module.  “The entire hotel suite is a creation of the mind of an alien being, created to reassure, but not deceive, the characters.”  Upon falling asleep, each character has a dream wherein he encounters “an alien being – a flickering flame of light, about 7 feet tall.”  Via an undescribed means of communication, the alien presents a range of five options:

1. The character may return to the Dawn of Man, and help to teach the man-apes the basics of survival.
2. The character may return to Earth's Moon, in the year 2015, to be rescued.
3. The character may immediately return to the Discovery, to await rescue, but with no memory of the passage of the Star Gate.
4. The character may become a higher form of life, an energy being, with no use or concern for material form.
5. The character may go to an alien planet where another race faces a critical juncture, much live the Dawn of Man the crossroads of knowledge or extinction and help that race along the path to survival.

The module ends with another section of boxed text, the last line of which is:

And now it comes, and it is time to go; to take the final step on this greatest of all journeys; onward, to complete your Space Odyssey.

If you choose to lose your memory, can it really be a journey?

Volturnus Apocrypha (spoilers)

Art by Larry Elmore

Almost half of the last page of Starspawn of Volturnus consists of “Theta Section: Suggested Additional Adventures.”  We are informed that, “There are many additional adventures which player characters could have on Volturnus at a later time in the referee's campaign.”

The first suggestion regards Sathar remaining on Volturnus after the retreat of their forces.  Of course, they cannot be allowed at remain at large.  “Who knows what evil plots they may be hatching?”  Player characters might have a difficult time against Sathar guerillas, especially since the Sathar have a familiarity with – and perhaps some degree of control over – various Volturnian fauna (such as quickdeaths, slithers, and cyboslugs).

The Star Devil is still at large and his organization is not yet extinct on Volturnus. (“There are undoubtedly a few of the pirates left...”)  I am not assuming the Star Devil's gender; the computer in Slave City One contains “a list of several planets on which he has operations.”

Another suggestion is...

Solving the mystery of Lizard Head rock.  This strange rock formation is shaped like a giant lizard's head.  The Eorna have always wondered about it, what it is, where it came from, who made it, etc.  They have heard that there are large numbers of Yernoids in that area, but have never investigated these reports.

Yernoids were introduced in Starspawn, inhabiting the same mound area as the Mechanons.  They “are man-sized bipedal dinosaurs which have developed a rudimentary intelligence, similar to an ape's.”  Their description in the Alien Creature Update File indicates they are “30% likely to be armed with clubs.”  The illustration shows a Yernoid brandishing a spear.  One might think that a tool using species would be an excellent prospect for the Eorna's evolution program.  Evidently, the Eorna do not think so.

The actual location of Lizard Head rock is not disclosed; however, a hex marked with an 'L' appears near the eastern edge of the Volturnus map (shown below).

Nestled in the Crystal Mountains just north of the Gas Mist Mountains, 'L' is within commuting distance to an “unusual rock formation.”  The line of mottled green hexes represents cliffs.  The reddish hexes are lava beds and the purple hexes are a techtonic (sic) area.

Last and probably least, we learn...

The Ul-Mor left the sea to live on the shore; they have legends of other peoples like themselves who did not.  There may be an entire race of sea-dwelling Ul-Mor who are as intelligent as their land living cousins.  They would be of enormous assistance in any deep sea mining operations...

Aside from the three Volturnus modules, TSR published one other book featuring that planet – Villains of Volturnus.  In 1982, TSR established its education department.  This department developed the Endless Quest™ series of gamebooks with branching-path plotlines.  Lake Geneva resident Jean Blashfield was education editor of this department and she wrote Villains of Volturnus, the eighth of the Endless Quest™ books and the first not written by Rose Estes.  The final pages of the book are advertisements for other Endless Quest™ books, the basic D&D set, and, naturally enough, Star Frontiers.

The second-person protagonist of Villains of Volturnus is Kyiki, child of the chief of the Universal Minerals company.  So as to accommodate reader identification, no gender is specified for Kyiki.  In Villains of Volturnus, travel to Volturnus from Kyiki's home world takes a matter of hours.  At the beginning of the book, Kyiki is aboard a Universal Minerals research vessel.  Also on board is Kyiki's tutor, a Vrusk named Jac (or perhaps someone impersonating Jac).  Unlike the with the modules, some information is known about Volturnus.  For instance, Kyiki has studied the Eorna:  “A few Eorna still live on Volturnus, but most were killed by the Sathar, enemy of all civilized planets.”  (No Eorna actually appear in the book.)

There are four groups of villains that can be encountered in the plot:  (1) pirates, (2) kidnappers, (3) surveyors, and (4) two Yazirians and a “large, fierce-looking human” in a skimmer.  The skimmer crew only appear to reunite Kyiki with Jac and, theoretically, they could be associated with any of the other three groups.  However, given that they leave Kyiki unguarded, it seems unlikely that they are with the kidnappers.

The research ship is evacuated not due to pirates but because it falls into the atmosphere of Volturnus.  Kyiki – with or without Jac – uses a Personal Safety Pod to reach the surface.  A hovercycle is stored in the pod.  If Jac and Kyiki ride the hovercycle, it is discovered that Jac is, in reality, a Dralasite using a holobelt to appear as Jac.  'Holobelt' is Blashfield's version of the Star Frontiers holo screen, even though the rules do not describe the holo screen control unit as a belt.  If Jac and Kyiki don't ride the hovercycle, then Jac is evidently not an imposter.

The so-called pirates live in a shanty town and their piracy consists of robbing a Universal Minerals cargo ship (once the ship lands and unloads the cargo).

The kidnappers reside in the remains of an underground Eorna city.  The kidnappers work for the Sathar, but the kidnapping endeavor is apparently something aside from their normal duties, whatever they may be.  The leader of the “kidnappers” is the aptly named Boss and only the Boss interacts directly with the Sathar.  One of his underlings claims, “Sometimes I swear he's a hologram and all we're seeing is lots of images of him!”  This suspicion is borne out when Kyiki discovers a holo disc of the Boss (or “holodisc” as Blashfield would have it).  Although the book does not suggest it, these facts are consistent with the Boss actually being a Sathar (or any number of Sathar).

The surveyors were employees of Universal Minerals who have decided to work for the Sathar.  The surveyors plan on advising the Sathar “to bring enough explosives to bring the desert down into these caves, so all they'll have to do is process the rubble.”

In one branch of the story, there is a time machine of unknown provenance.  (The Elmore illustration above depicts this time machine.)  Via the time machine, it is possible to enter into a narrative time loop.  Once in the time loop, it is possible to make a choice resulting in one of seven endpoints and there are two decision points that lead out of the loop.

Blashfield dutifully incorporates various Star Frontiers details in her book.  In terms of equipment, Kyiki has a vibroknife and a stunstick.  In terms of animals, Blashfield mentions lopers and rasties (and a quickdeath makes an appearance).  The alien fungus from Starspawn is also present in Villains of Volturnus.  Its hydrogen emitting properties are not addressed, but its quicksand consistency and nitrous oxide generation brings about one of the story's endings.  Blashfield even has a scene where the peculiar humor of Dralasites is addressed.

Through various choices, Kyiki can encounter the Ul-Mor, Edestekai, and Kurabanda.  While Blashfield presents the Ul-Mor and Edestekai much how they are described in the modules, the Kurabanda do not appear in their natural environment.  Instead, they are flunkies of the kidnappers and surveyors.  According to Planet of Mystery, Kurabanda resemble Tarsier monkeys.  The illustrations in Villains of Volturnus do a better job of conveying this than the illustrations in the modules.

Blashfield also provides some original details about Volturnus.  We learn that the Ul-Mor herd duck-like (but flightless) birds called kwidges.  Edestekai cultivate “morda and arbon” for food.  Other details approach the whimsical.  At one point, Kyiki has the option of riding “a giant leaf, perhaps three meters in diameter” as it is carried by the wind.  In a wooded area, Kyiki and Jac observe the following:

Before you is a patch a low-growing plants with large, dangling, blue crystals instead of flowers.  A small blue creature shaped like a box with legs trundles over to one of the plants and begins to nibble the crystal with a faint crunching sound.

Kyiki can also gain a pet named Pongo – “a green furry animal with skin-covered wings and a big mouth like a frog's.”

The Volturnus Trilogy (part III) (spoilers)

In the second part of The Volturnus Adventure – Volturnus, Planet of Mystery – the player characters meet the Eorna, a “gentle race of intelligent dinosaurs” nearly destroyed by the Sathar during “the Day of Doom.”  The Eorna inform the characters that the Sathar left an artifact on Volturnus “that would summon a Sathar battle fleet if space travelling beings are detected within the Zebulon star system.”  The appearance of the “pirates” and the expeditions would likely have caused the artifact to activate.  “There is a chance, however, that the device has not yet sent for the battle fleet.”  The Eorna ask the party to go to the artifact and “attempt to prevent it from calling the Sathar fleet.”  Apparently, destruction of the artifact isn't a viable option.  This would make more sense if the artifact sent a regular signal and discontinuance of the signal would be enough to alert the Sathar.  Due to their diminishing numbers, the Eorna are reluctant to stop the artifact “because it is almost certain to have both internal and external defenses.”

The artifact is pyramidal in shape, having a base of 40m × 40m.  It is controlled by a disembodied Sathar brain floating in a flask.  The brain controls nine slavebots, “cybernetic combinations of living beings and machines.”  The module describes them thus:

As you look into this chamber, you see three horrid-looking Eorna who gaze at you blankly for a moment.  You immediately see that there are strange assemblies of wires protruding from their heads, and that their flesh has a strange discolored appearance.

This is a nice touch of the macabre.  Anyway, the party finds that the artifact has transmitted its alert and they can extract from the artifact computer the following information:

Transmission received.  Attack fleet heading Volturnus at full operational readiness.  Attack on planet will begin in two weeks standard time.  Initiate standard procedures.

The module has two possible endings, one if there is an intent to continue with the final module and another if the adventure concludes.  In either ending, the characters can use technology in the artifact to communicate instantaneously with Truane's Star.  If the next module will not be used, “the Truane's Star battle fleet can reach Volturnus in time to intercept the Sathar.”  The good guys win.  The end.  If the final module will be played, “The government of Truane's Star will promise to send warships as soon as possible, but doubt that any ships can arrive before the Sathar attack begins.”

Just as Volturnus, Planet of Mystery has two possible endings, Starspawn of Volturnus has two possible beginnings:  one if the previous module had been played and the other if Starspawn is to be played by itself.  When the second module is played in isolation, events of the first module are read to the players as background and the characters are supposed to have participated in those events.  When Starspawn is played in isolation, the player characters “have been recruited by the government of Truane's Star and sent to Volturnus as government agents [to] render any assistance possible” against the Sathar attack.  It is not discussed how the government learned of this information, but the characters “are met by a delegation of Eorna...”

So, the final Volturnus module deals with an impending Sathar invasion; the “pirate” plotline is abandoned.  The Eorna present their strategy of countering the Sathar attack to the party:

The plan is to unite the races of Volturnus in a common effort against the Sathar.  Although the races are suspicious of each other, it is possible that you, as impartial aliens, could overcome these suspicions and help them to fight the Sathar.

This sort of undertaking is sometimes known as Flash Gordon diplomacy.  There are four sections of the module in which the player characters interact with the Volturnus races, one section for each race.  The Ul-Mor, Kurabanda, and Edestekai were introduced in the two prior modules.  The Mechanons first appear in Starspawn.  These four sections “may be played in whatever order the party decides to attempt them.”

The Mechanons are advanced robots, “loosely classified as an intelligent race.”  Starspawn explains their origin:

The Mechanons evolved from Eorna robots.  A large number of robots, including robot brains, survived the first Sathar attack.  Some were linked to self-programming computers.  Without Eorna guidance, groups of these robot brain/computer teams began building new robots.  Improvements were added bit by bit, and eventually a group of self-programming super robots evolved.  Over a long period of time, and with more and more refinements, these became the Mechanons.

Having no knowledge of their true origins, the Mechanons “believe that a machine god ...created them to do its will.”  In another instance of robot vilification, the will of the machine god “is to exterminate biological life and replace it with Mechanons.”  The Intelligent Alien Update File for the Mechanons claims, “It is entirely possible that at some time in the future, the Mechanons could present a tremendous threat to the Frontier Worlds.”

The Mechanons reside within some “strange mounds in the southwest of the desert.”  The mounds also house the controls of an “automated system of planetary defenses.”  The Eorna think that activating what remains of the system may be useful against the Sathar attack (although the system didn't seem to be especially effective during the original Day of Doom).  The structure of the scenario suggests that the player characters will fight their way through much of the Mechanon complex before they have an audience with the Council of Mechanons.  “If the party makes reasonable arguments for joining the alliance,” we are told, “the Mechanons will reluctantly decide to help fight the Sathar.”

The Mechanons have three prisoners – one each of the Ul-Mor, Kurabanda, and Edestekai – who “find it almost impossible to get along together.”  However, the three prisoners “will have heard of the player characters (if the players have played in CRASH ON VOLTURNUS and VOLTURNUS, PLANET OF MYSTERY) and will be eager to help the player characters and themselves escape.”  This illustrates an important point, a party that has participated in the first two modules will have an advantage in that they are known to the three races they are trying to unite.  Even if Starspawn is played in isolation, escaping with the three prisoners should facilitate acceptance of the party by the various races.  The module does not address this.

Three “elite Mechanon guard robots” act as sentries for the Eorna Planetary Defense Control Room.  The room has additional defenses and traps which the Eorna neglect to describe or even mention to the party.  Most noteworthy is “an Eorna hypnosis machine” that causes characters who fail a Logic check to...

...see an illusion of deep space, with galaxies far off in the distance.  Lunging at them out of the void of space will be a horrible beast the size of a huge dragon.

Panic ensues.  I would think that an illusion of an empty room, being more plausible, might be more effective at protecting the contents of the room.

To convince the Ul-Mor into cooperating with the other races of Volturnus, the party must participate in “the Great Game.”  This is an important event among the Ul-Mor tribes:  “The winner of the game has the coming New Year named after him...”  The Great Game is somewhat like combative polo played on an obstacle course – complete with a sand shark.  About two-and-a-half pages of the thirty-two page module describe the rules of the Great Game and the inner cover is devoted to a map of the field on which the game is played.  A player character need not win for the Ul-Mor to join the alliance, but at least one member of the party must “stay mounted throughout the Great Game” to impress them enough to gain their military support.

To enlist the Kurabanda into the alliance, the player characters must retrieve a “Sacred Idol.”  Said idol was “stolen” by a giant Volturnian eagle (considered a demon by the Kurabanda) and taken “to the Demon's Temple in the forbidden area.”  The “forbidden area” is a huge crater and “the Demon's Temple” is a pinnacle in the center upon which the eagle nests.  The characters must climb the pinnacle because random explosions of hydrogen occur in the air over the crater.  The hydrogen is emitted by an alien fungus brought to Volturnus via the meteorite that caused the crater.

Edestekai society is heavily influenced by religion; interaction is governed by elaborate rituals and the leaders are priests.  The Edestekai god of justice is embodied by a quickdeath, a type of mutated feline.  In the first module, player characters were required to slay a quickdeath.  To convince the Edestekai to join the alliance, the party must capture a live quickdeath.  (The quickdeath kept by the temple has recently died.)  At one-and-a-half pages, the Edestekai section of the module is the briefest.

The penultimate section regards the much anticipated Battle of Volturnus, a diagram of which is presented above.  The Sathar land ground forces and they march toward the Eorna center of power.  “It is clear that if the Sathar penetrate the Eorna complex below Volkos,” the module says, “Volturnus is doomed.”  Why the Sathar do not employ any sort of air support is not explained.  (The defenders have air support in the form of Kurabanda hang gliders.)  Given that the defense factions muster at the Eorna city, they must have known ahead of time what the Sathar planned.

Inserting player characters into a large-scale battle in a meaningful way can be a difficult prospect; Starspawn does a decent job of accomplishing this.  There are four 'encounters' in the battle, each a distinct skirmish in which the characters participate and which have a cumulative effect on the overall battle.  Each encounter focuses on troops from one of the Volturnus races.  If a given race was not recruited by the player characters, then those forces are not available for the battle and the associated encounter is automatically lost.  Encounter 1 regards the Mechanons attempting to destroy a Sathar cannon.  In Encounter 2, Sathar attack the Edestekai with a couple of quickdeaths.  (Because of the religious significance the Edestekai attach to quickdeaths, they avoid attacking them and they “must make a special morale check.”)  In Encounter 3, the Sathar attack with “cybodragons” that occasionally require replacement power packs during the course of the battle.  Encounter 4 has the Ul-Mor attempting to charge Sathar lines.  The player characters have specific goals for each encounter.  A 'Fortunes of War' table is consulted after every encounter.  If “All the player characters are killed,” the table helpfully informs us, “Do not play any more encounters.”

A percentile roll determines whether the overall battle is won or lost.  For every Volturnus race at the battle, there is a 10% chance of victory.  Since the Eorna will necessarily be present, there is at least a 10% chance of winning.  For each successful encounter, the chances of winning increase by 10%.  This means there is a 90% chance of victory if all five races fight in the battle and all four encounters are successful.  Even if the Volturnus forces lose the battle, it is possible for the Eorna to hold out in their complex until the Truane's Star battle fleet arrives.

The final encounter is somewhat anticlimactic:  “This section contains no action encounters.”  The referee merely reads an epilogue.  The Truane's Star battle fleet finds “an ancient orbiter still revolving in a very wide orbit around Volturnus.”  The orbiter contains fifty thousand fertile Eorna eggs in cryogenic storage.  Thus, the Eorna race is saved.  These eggs are the titular Starspawn of Volturnus.  Admittedly, 'Starspawn' sounds neat, but the eggs have almost nothing to do with the module.  Something like Warlords of Volturnus would have been more apt.

Adventuring in Star Frontiers

The Star Frontiers Basic Game Rules booklet includes a glossary that provides a definition of role-playing game:  “A game that allows players to act out the exiting adventures of their characters, without being restricted by rules that limit what they do.”  I might be inclined to change the second part to “...without restrictive rules” or perhaps even “...where imagination is at least as important as the rules.”  Regardless, the term “reader” is also defined by the glossary:

A person who reads a programed adventure to the players as they play, rather than playing a character himself.  The reader is replaced by a referee in the Expanded Game.

In the two adventures detailed in the Basic Game Rules, the player characters are troubleshooters working for the Pan-Galactic Corporation (“The oldest and largest interstellar company” and “one of the most powerful organizations in the Frontier”).  The reader “controls the opponents the other players meet and reads the adventure to them.”  By default, the player characters are armed with “fully loaded” laser pistols.  In the first adventure, each player character also has a standard equipment pack that includes a doze grenade because...well, just because, OK?

At the start of the first adventure, “PAN-GALACTIC SECURITY BREACH,” the reader informs the players that their characters have been assigned to investigate 'raiders' of Pan-Galactic's research centers.  The reader then presents three options, each of which leads to different events and further options, much in the vein of a Choose Your Own Adventure® book.  An option is not necessarily a choice, but could be the result of an event beyond the control of the characters.  A diagram of the events and their connections is presented below.

The early portion of the adventure does not allow for meaningful variation; all paths lead to event #8.  Ultimately, the adventure results in one of three concluding events.  Each of these conclusions leads to the same endpoint – the player characters listen to a message that establishes that raiders are employed by the evil Sathar.

Then it describes the raiders' next mission.  They are to fly to a top secret military asteroid where research is underway on a special weapon that can reduce entire populations to mass hysteria.  They are to meet other agents who have already infiltrated the base and steal the device.

Obviously, this could be the basis of a further adventure, but one which the reader must develop.  The first adventure is replayable; different characters could be used and different options may be pursued.  Another variant allows characters to equip different weapons by allocating a number of points (e.g., needler = 4 points, gyrojet = 6 points, etc.).  There is also a competitive variant where some players control the troubleshooters and other players control the raiders.

In contrast to the first adventure's network of options and events, the second adventure is a simple situation.  In “ALIEN CREATURE ON THE LOOSE,” the player characters must stop an alien creature – a hydra – rampaging through Port Loren.  For purposes of replayability, there are rules that allow a reader to create a different alien creature (although it is still called a hydra).

To find its DEX/RS, roll d100, find the result on the ABILITY SCORE TABLE and add 5.  The creature gets 30 Stamina points and one attack per player character.  The person controlling the hydra then gets to select its movement speed, attacks, defenses, up to three special abilities, and its goal.

There are four possible attacks:  Acid Spray, Darts, Sonic Beam, or Gas Cloud.  There are four possible defenses:  Layer of Insulation (immune to needlers), Protective Shell (immune to gyrojets), Reflective Hide (immune to lasers), or Regenerates (“Reduces damage from each attack by 5 points”).  There are five possible goals:  “Eat enough to lay eggs,” “Find someone,” “Build a nest,” “Destroy the town,” or “Destroy all skimmers.”  (According to the glossary, a skimmer is “a five passenger vehicle that floats on a cushion of air” and it “can be rented for 10 Cr per day.”)  Special abilities are not chosen; the instructions say to “Roll 1d10 three times; roll again if ability repeats.”  The various special abilities are:

• Smashes Through Walls (Walls do not impair creature movement; destruction of walls results in rubble that causes characters to stop their movement before crossing)
• Shakes Ground (Characters limited to half movement)
• Teleport (Up to eight spaces every three turns)
• Spins Web (Can permanently block a square or detain a character for two turns)
• Doze Gas (“Same as doze grenade...”)
• Grows Stronger (“Gains 10 Stamina points if hit by a weapon it is immune to; if hydra has no immunity, it gains 20 points by damaging a monorail station”)
• Grows New Attack (“Gains one attack if hit by a weapon it is immune to; if creature has no immunity it gains one attack when hit by a skimmer”)
• Takes Extra Damage (When hit by a chosen weapon type other than that which the creature is immune, takes two points of additional damage; if no immunity, “takes 10 points of damage from each skimmer accident”)
• Loses 1 Attack (when creature suffers at least fifteen points of damage from a single attack)
• Changes 1 Ability (“...after being hit by a weapon it is immune to, the creature can change its attack, its defense, or one special ability...if it has no immunity, this happens when it damages a monorail terminal”)

The Basic Game Rules also provide a “step-by-step method” for “making up your own adventures.”  These adventures pit one team of player characters against another.  The six steps are:  Purpose (“pick a story outline to be the basis for your adventure”), Teams (“how many characters each team will have and what sort of equipment they own”), How To Win (“Set goals for each team”), Set-Up (“Choose the pieces and map you will use”), How To Play (“create any special rules needed”), and Rewards (“player characters can be rewarded for their actions”).  Pertinent advice is dispensed:

Notice that reader also can have characters run into events and obstacles as well as opponents.  Anything you can imagine can happen during a STAR FRONTIERS adventure.

There are suggested adventures that involve player characters stopping...

1. the carrier of a “strange alien disease” that causes victims to become “violent and destructive.” 
2. an “ancient alien artifact” that has taken over a Pan-Galactic base.
3. an assassin at a “special meeting of delegates from the United Planetary Federation Council on Frontier Law and Peace.”
4. an “abandoned alien city-ship...on a collision course with a colonized planet.”

Included in the Expanded Game Rules is a two page section on how to create an adventure.  Six steps are listed that differ from those in the Basic Game Rules.

1. Choosing a theme or basic story and the goal of the adventure.
2. Selecting the settings where the story takes place;
3. Designing the events that lead to the goal, and the obstacles that must be overcome to reach the goal;
4. Creating the non-player characters and creatures that the characters will meet, and deciding how they will affect play;
5. Writing any special rules that are needed for unusual events;
6. Writing a final outline of the adventure to guide the referee through the action.

The “final outline” is also called a script:

When you have decided the order of the events, you should write all the information you need to play in a script that shows when things should happen.  It is best to write down everything you need to know about each event so that you do not forget to give players important clues that will affect their decisions.  Number each event, so that you will know its order.  You can put the number of the event on a map so you can see where the event is to take place.  Each written event should include the following information:

1. A description of what the characters can see.
2. A description of what happens when characters enter the setting, including NPC and creature reactions.
3. Ability scores for any NPCs or creatures that will be encountered in the area.
4. Any special rules for the event.
5. Random event probabilities.
6. Notes about what the characters can discover from the event.
7. Notes on what should happen if the characters succeed, if they fail, or take some other course of action.

Read your script several times, putting yourself in the position of a player trying to move through the adventure.  Make different choices to see whether you accounted for the most likely possibilities.  Make sure your challenges are not too easy or too difficult.  Players should need to use reason and judgment to overcome the challenges.  However, you cannot think of everything before the game, so try to be flexible and make sure each event challenges the players.

Suggested themes for simple adventures include:  “Explore a New World,” “Obtain Information,” “Retrieve a Stolen Item,” “Catch Criminals,” “Rescue Someone,” and “Mad Scientist.”

There is a one page sample adventure wherein player characters are supposed to find a ship “believed to have crashed” as well as “rescue any survivors and find out why... [it] crashed.”  At the crash site, the player characters can rescue a “small Yazirian child.”  They may also discover evidence “that a bomb was planted in the cargo.”  Again, this can be the springboard for another adventure.

We are informed that, “A guide map typically has a scale of 1 to 20 km per hex or square.”  The scale for the above map (from the sample adventure) is not disclosed.