GURPS March Harrier GM's Campaign Retrospective

Introduction

Now that the GURPS March Harrier campaign is over, here's a quick retrospective of what went right and wrong, and whether I'd like to run another GURPS Traveller campaign.

As a high level overview for people who haven't read this whole blog, I ran The Traveller Adventure using GURPS 4th Edition, with a group of players recruited over Discord.  We played weekly for 13 out of 14 weeks, using Foundry VTT for dice and maps and Discord for voice and text communications.  We had three consistent players for the whole campaign, plus a fourth player who joined a few weeks in and then played consistently.  We also had a few other players who dropped out after playing zero to one sessions.

Why GURPS?

One question is why I ran a Traveller campaign with GURPS, rather than Classic Traveller or MegaTraveller or Mongoose Traveller or T5.  The short version is that I think GURPS has far superior character generation, skill resolution, and personal combat rules to any other Traveller system, with the possible exception of Traveller Hero.  And there's a lot more GURPS Traveller stuff than Traveller Hero stuff.  But the drawback of using GURPS is that it's a huge system with way too many possibilities, so it's a challenge to constrain what the the players can use to keep the game from getting out of hand and turning into a rules quagmire.  Also it's probably harder to find players who like both GURPS and Traveller than players who just want to play Mongoose Traveller 2E.  There were a bunch of GURPS Traveller books for 3E, but there's only the one book (Interstellar Wars) for 4E, and that book is aimed at an earlier time period in the Traveller timeline, so adapting it to the year 1105 of the Third Imperium was a bit of work.  Anyway, I think the GURPS Traveller career templates from GTIW worked well.  One challenge was equipment, as GTIW doesn't have much, and GURPS Ultra-Tech has too much, so the GM needs to filter down to what equipment fits Traveller.  Also, GURPS has several possible systems for space combat; I ended up picking the one in GTIW just to try to be consistent and use as much as possible from one book.  Similarly, I used the trading rules from GTIW rather than the ones in GURPS Traveller Far Trader.

Why The Traveller Adventure?

First, nostalgia. I bought this adventure in paperback when it was new and I was in middle school, but never got around to running it. It was the first really large campaign in a single book I ever saw, and I always regretted not finding the time to run it when we were kids and had whole summers of free time.

Another reason I liked this adventure was I wanted to see if players could work together as a full merchant crew. I basically said that we needed a captain and a first officer, and that we needed a pilot and a navigator and a steward and a medic and an engineer, and let the players run with it. We ended up with a pretty well-rounded initial starship crew, though they were somewhat weak on other useful abilities like combat and thief/spy skills. The other challenge was that a few players made characters but then dropped out, but a starship needs a pilot, so sometimes the GM needs to run some characters as NPCs rather than just removing them.

Adventure Review

I'd like to briefly review The Traveller Adventure.  It was written by Games Designer Workshop (Chadwick, Harshman, Keith, Miller, and Wiseman) back in 1983.  You can get it (along with all the other Classic Traveller books) for $35 from farfuture.net.  It was re-released by Mongoose as The Aramis Adventure for Mongoose Traveller 1E, and you can get that version from drivethrurpg.  (The Mongoose version is pretty much identical to the original with a new cover.  I don't see any reason to prefer one over the other.)

If we're grading in a historical context, TTA definitely gets an A.  There weren't a lot of adventures this big available in 1983, and it was the first big self-contained campaign released for Traveller.  So for a lazy GM who wants a whole campaign in a box, it's a great start.  Drawbacks would be that you don't really get a fully ready-to-run campaign.  You get stats for the Aramis subsector, descriptions (in varying detail) for its worlds, some maps (but not as many as you want), descriptions (but not stats) for major NPCs, etc.  There's still a ton of work for the GM to do.  Furthermore, because of the scale of the adventure, it's really not possible to pre-prep everything in advance.  For example, you might have maps for one part of the surface of Aramanx, but what if the players steal a car and drive through another country that you didn't map?  At some point the players are going to do something the GM didn't expect, and the GM will have to wing things.  So you have to think of TTA as a campaign framework that the GM adds to, rather than a paint-by-numbers adventure.

One real issue with the adventure was that the whole plot depends on the PCs helping Gvoudzon (who may be a PC or an NPC) on Aramis.  If Gvoudzon is a PC then they probably will, because most PC's tend to help PCs because they're PCs.  (Also, if it's GURPS, and I say "Sense of Duty (adventuring companions) [-5] doesn't count against the disadvantage limit" then every single PC will usually have it, which is a way to bribe the players into cooperating with each other.)  If he's an NPC that they just met, then why are the PCs motivated to help this random Vargr break into a museum to steal back his stolen brooch that he alleges a pawnshop stole from him after he pawned it?  I was lucky enough that my players were game, but probably should have engineered some additional motivation, like Gvoudzon being an old friend of one of the PCs.  (In my defense, Gvoudzon was supposed to be a PC, but his player didn't show up.)

Another issue was that the Anolas' psionic drawbacks can really mess up the PCs (cumulative -1s or -2s to intelligence is no joke) over time, and it's not easy to find the Psionic Institute to fix the problem.  I chose to reduce the severity a bit and only have Gvoudzon (an NPC at that point) be severely affected, as he spent the most time with the anolas, so the rest of the crew could successfully operate the ship while looking for help.

The Zilan Wine chapter was basically navigating a bureaucracy, which would not be to every group's taste.  I was ready to start fast-forwarding through the details if the players seemed to hate it, but my group was up to the challenge and actually roleplayed talking to dozens of bureaucrats.  Again the prep challenge here was that the adventure has 47 Zilan bureaucrats, but none of them have names or sexes.  Fortunately random name generators exist.  Unfortunately most of them don't give you a nice mix of Solomani and Vilani names with the occasional Vargr name thrown in.  Also the different government buildings are in different places on Zila, but there's no map of Zila, or of its capital city Crescence.  Like I said, the GM has to do a lot of prep.

The adventure was fairly light on combat, which is a good thing in a high-tech setting because guns kill PCs.  We had a couple of gunfights, the standoff with the kidnappers on Aramanx and the attempted hijacking of the March Harrier on Junidy by Llellewyloly-rights activists.  We also had one melee fight, with Gani's morph axe taking down a feline pouncer on Pysadi.  The Aramanx fight resulted in a dead Captain Wilder, which was thoroughly deserved because the Captain had been abandoned by two players and I was sick of running him as an NPC.  (Some of the the players suspected that I rigged the combat to kill Wilder.  In practice, the rigging was limited to Wilder being automatically chosen as the sniper's target.  The to-hit roll and damage rolls were legit.  Again, guns kill PCs, so if there has to be a gunfight, have some disposable NPCs around.)

There was also one session featuring space combat, the space ambush of the March Harrier and a free trader and a patrol cruiser against various Tukera-affiliated freighters and scouts.  In theory the March Harrier was mostly a decoy and the patrol cruiser did most of the fighting, so a lot of the combat could be handwaved.  In practice I felt like it was necessary to actually run the fights (though the fights started with a morale check so the outgunned freighter captains could surrender), and the March Harrier actually got shot up once, so it was a reasonable mix of danger and quick resolution.  We used the space combat system from Interstellar Wars, which seemed to work okay in this limited instance.

Finally, the showdown on Jesedipere at the end of the adventure was the March Harrier crew plus a few Vargr refugees against the crew of a Tukera landing station plus two Kforuzeng corsairs, two Kforuzeng freighters, a Tukera patrol cruiser, and lots of Tukera and Kforuzeng bodyguards.  I think this was a very difficult fight for the PCs to win, with the only real chance being to turn Tukera and Kforuzeng against each other and mop up the depleted winner.  The PCs instead recorded the presence of the stolen Imperial Navy meson guns and then blew up the meson guns (using stolen Tukera Air/Rafts as improvised missiles), which I thought was a pretty good solution to mostly spoiling the bad guys' plans while also not dying.  They then told the Navy what had happened, which was a very Good Citizen thing to do, but which cost them a big reward from Oberlindes, who really wanted to keep the secret to blackmail Tukera.

With those nitpicks, I think it's an excellent adventure overall, with a nice mix of trade and following a couple of major criminal plots and exploring most of a subsector.  You just want to read it several times and then read multiple reviews before running it, so you can flesh out the weak parts.

Recruiting Players on the Internet

Finding reliable players is hard.  I advertised this game on this blog, on the biggest GURPS Discord, on the biggest Traveller Discord, and on a few smaller IRC and Discord servers where I knew people.  That got about a dozen interested players, one of whom I knew and the rest of whom I did not.  Making GURPS characters is a lot of work, which some players love and some players do not, so I made a bunch of pre-generated characters in case anyone wanted one.  Some players made characters (including one amazingly detailed character) but then didn't play.  Some players agreed to use a pre-generated character but didn't play.  One player played once but then dropped out.  It happens.  Free time evaporates and not everyone enjoys every game.  My plea to players would be that if you're going to drop out, be a grownup and tell the GM you're dropping out, so the GM can start working on replacing you rather than wondering.  Don't just disappear.

Anyway, amidst all the chaos, we actually got three starting players who played every week or almost every week, and one more replacement player who played almost every week after he joined.  So a pool of about ten players winnowed down to four reliable players.  Kind of like a Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel.  One suggestion I would have for GMs recruiting random players on the Internet is to use adventures where the early sessions work for a lot of players, later sessions work for fewer players, and it's not a huge deal if some players drop out.  Adapt to the reality of the player pool and make it work.  This particular adventure was not really that kind of adventure, because the PCs were owner/operators of a merchant ship and some continuity was required, but the crew recruited two new members (one plot-critical NPC and one new PC) and lost two members (one to a bullet head wound and one because he fell in love with the captain of another ship while in prison) and it mostly worked out.

Things I Did Wrong

In the first session, on Aramis, after the PCs tried to meet Roet Bannerji at the Travelers Aid Society, Commander Eneri Giilaan of Imperial Naval Intelligence was supposed to overhear them mentioning Bannerji's name and then later try to meet with them and gather information about Bannerji.  I totally forgot to do this encounter.  I later moved Giilaan to Aramanx so the PCs could still have a contact with the Navy.

I wanted to avoid too much railroading and let the players decide what to do, so I decided that any starting PC with Merchant Rank 1 or higher was a co-owner of the March Harrier and any other starting PC or any PC that joined later was just hired crew.  I also said that the captain had to have Merchant Rank 3 and the First Officer had to have Merchant Rank 2.  This was probably excessively complex.  In practice the crew never voted themselves any dividends from the March Harrier's operational profits, so it would have worked just as well if I made everyone hired crew.  I could have also provided an NPC captain to railroad them around the subsector, but I really wanted players to have more agency.  Of course the player who was playing the captain dropped out so they ended up with an NPC captain for a while anyway, until he got shot and the players promoted a PC to replacement captain.

I spent a bunch of time making a spreadsheet with all the March Harrier's passengers and cargo and fuel expenses and stuff.  Ultimately, other than the ship generating enough cash that the PCs got their monthly paychecks, I don't think it mattered.  So I probably should have handwaved more there.

One of the PCs was looking for a Psionic Institute and actually found the (illegal, undercover) Psionic Institute on Junidy but was so paranoid that he was afraid to talk to them for fear they were going to narc him out to the Imperium.  I thought that was kind of funny but probably should have sorted it out better so the player could play with psionics.

Two Vargr NPCs, Gvoudzon and Gharukh, had a complicated interpersonal relationship.  I don't think the PCs really figured out what was going on, so I probably should have either cut that out or made it simpler.

I never managed to get the crew to do the Yebab alien side quest, which I think would have been a lot of fun.  They just always seemed to avoid Yebab, until the very end of the campaign, where they were in too much of a hurry to take any charters.

Things I Think I Did Right

I entered all the character templates from GTIW into gcs (gurpscharactersheet.com) so nobody else ever has to do that again.

It was a low-combat campaign, with only one melee fight, three gunfights, and one protracted series of 3-on-1 space battles.  Combat is very slow to resolve and tends to kill PCs, so I think this was a good choice, and explained why we finished in 13 3-hour sessions.

I gave out a reasonable amount of character points (4 per PC per session if they played up for the whole session, less if they arrived late), and a reasonable amount of cash, which seemed to keep the players happy.  In a long campaign, giving out too many rewards can eventually lead to a power explosion problem, but in a short campaign it's fine.

I tried to say yes to player requests, like figuring a way out mail-order stuff from high-tech Rhylanor, or letting a PC have a secret power, or letting one PC surgically install a hidden compartment in another PC, or letting PCs quickly train each other in various starship skills during jump, or letting a PCs set up a food truck on a remote planet to make some extra cash during a layover, or letting the PCs steal a ground vehicle and avoid a long hike through a combat zone, or letting the PCs turn Air/Rafts full of chemical fuel and fertilizer into missiles.

I didn't say yes to extreme player requests though, like stealing Bannerji's Far Trader and having an extra starship to play with.  (The adventure specifically warned against that one.)

I decided to handwave some rules that didn't look very fun, like the large amounts of maintenance that starships in GTIW need.  A jump in GTIW requires four skill rolls, but I decided to only do that a couple of times: the first time they jumped after annual maintenance in case something was broken, and when they jumped in a big hurry to evade pursuit.  Otherwise I tried to make routine starship operations routine.

Will I run GURPS Traveller Again?

Maybe.  There are two other large Traveller campaigns available, Pirates of Drinax and Deepnight Revelation.  Drinax seems to be super-popular (because everyone wants to be a space pirate?) and maybe it would be hard to find players not already familiar with it.  Deepnight is more of a long exploration campaign.  Both would require a lot of prep, but both are so large you can't thoroughly prep everything.

I could also run something smaller, like the crew of an active duty Scout/Courier doing small scale exploration, or a detached duty Scout/Courier and his friends bumming around doing whatever they felt like, or the crew of a noble's yacht doing whatever Sir needs, or The Love Boat In Space aboard a luxury liner.  I would probably avoid another trading campaign, just because it's a lot of random cargo and passenger rolls and spreadsheet work to little effect unless the players really love that kind of thing.

GURPS March Harrier Session 13: Blowing Up The Meson Guns

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Arrlanroughl, VP, Oberlindes Lines

Gharukh, Vargr Cryptography Researcher

Vuzuege, Vargr Refugee Camp Leader

Sedge, Vargr Corsair Gang Leader

Aran Ashkashkur, Aramis Subsector Head, Vemene, Tukera Lines

Roald Bulolo, Director of Operations, Aramis Subsector, Tukera Lines

Dhurgeng, Vargr Starship Captain, Kforuzeng

Leonard Bolden-Tukera, Marquis of Aramis

Jelika Chan, Vemene Agent

Eneri Giilaan, Commander, Imperial Navy Intelligence

Dates: 

251-1106 to 86-1106

Worlds:

Jesedipere/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3001)

Yebab/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3002)

Nasemin/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3003)

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

On Jesedipere, Gani was spying on the Tukera trading facility, where Aran Ashkashkur and his bodyguards had landed.  A few days later, two Kforuzeng corsairs and two Kforuzeng freighters jumped into the system.  A modular cutter from one of the Corsairs flew down to the Tukera site and Dhurgeng got out, accompanied by at least eight bodyguards.  Gani watched Dhurgeng meet with Ashkashkur.  The two then went into the warehouse where the stolen Imperial Navy meson guns were believed to be kept, though there were enough Tukera and Kforuzeng guards around that Gani couldn't see exactly what was happening inside.

Gani called back to the March Harrier crew to formulate a plan.  Initially they considered an attack on the Tukera site, but they were outnumbered in terms of starships five to one, and they guessed that they were outnumbered in terms of ground combatants about forty to twenty.  Everett suggested instead blowing up the meson guns or one of the freighters.  Gani considered hiding inside one of the crates to get inside a freighter and sabotage or hijack it, but Everett thought this was suicidal.  Gani eventually agreed with Everett, and they decided to load up two Air/Rafts with explosives and send one at the warehouse to blow up some meson guns, and the other at a freighter to try to destroy its engines.

Arrlanroughl and Gvoudzon went back to the Vargr refugees to look for explosives, and managed to buy a few.  Meanwhile John and Everett went into Downport and bought some explosives, some fertilizer, and some low-tech chemical fuel.  Nobody in the crew was an explosives expert, but their hope was that if they loaded enough high-energy things into an Air/Raft and flew it into something at high velocity, something might go boom.  Gharukh started hacking the Air/Raft autopilot to override the safety controls.  Meanwhile Gani, in his camouflaged cybersuit, snuck back into the warehouse and sabotaged a few crates of mason gun components, so that if the attack failed, the Kforuzeng might still have problems getting the meson guns to work.

The crew flew an Air/Raft with Gani's valet bot on board, to serve as telemetry to witness the attack.  Gani used his grav belt to fly back to the Air/Raft, and then took the Air/Raft back to the March Harrier.  The crew then loaded up both Air/Rafts with the explosives, boarded their ship, flew to the 100-diameter jump point, and hit the go button for Gharukh's hacked autopilot.  Both Air/Rafts flew toward the Tukera base, with one targeting the freighter's maneuver drive and the other aiming inside the warehouse.  The one aimed at the freigher struck a glancing blow, damaging the drive, destroying some meson gun crates being loaded, and killing some Tukera workers doing the loading.  The Air/Raft aimed at the warehouse was more accurate, flying right inside the open cargo doors and slamming into the unloaded crates, causing a large explosion followed by a huge fire.  After filming the evidence of their attack, the crew jumped out of the system for Yebab before the Tukera or Kforuzeng ships could give chase.

After reaching Yebab, the crew, without discussing it with Arrlanroughl, sent xmails with evidence of the stolen meson guns to the Imperial Navy on Junidy and Aramanx.  The March Harrier then jumped to Nasemin, where the crew sent more xmails since Nasemin was on an xboat route and fast delivery was more likely.  They finally jumped to Aramanx.

Reaching Aramanx, the crew met with Marc Oberlindes.  He announced that he had met with Roald Bulolo and the Marquis of Aramis and made the claim that Aashkashkur had stolen the meson guns and that Tukera needed to end the tradewar.  However, he only had circumstantial evidence and really needed proof to force the settlement.  He expressed his appreciation for the additional evidence that Gani's recordings in the warehouse provided.  During the meeting, Oberlindes got a message in his ear.  He left for a minute, then returned and said he had just heard of an Imperial Navy cruiser entering Jesedipere and dropping some Imperial Marines on the Tukera landing site.  Apparently someone had tipped off the Navy, which would weaken his ability to blackmail Tukera into ending the tradewar.

Gani took the blame for telling the Navy.  Whether Marc Oberlindes believed it was only him was not clear.  Oberlindes paid the crew for the full use of the ship during the mission to Jesedipere, but did not add an extra reward.

Eneri Giilaan met with the crew the next day.  He thanked them for telling the Navy about the stolen meson guns.  He told them that each would be eligible for a reward from the Navy, in return for signing a non-disclosure agreement to never talk about the stolen meson guns.  He indicated that a Navy-cleared lawyer could be made available to discuss their rights before signing.  Gharukh and Everett asked to talk to the lawyer.  The lawyer indicated that he didn't know the exact details of what secrets they knew, but that the Navy could compel them not to reveal secrets with or without a reward, so he recommended signing the NDA and taking the reward, rather than not signing the NDA and not getting the reward but being effectively bound by it anyway.  Everyone signed, and received KCr 100 each.

GM's Notes:

Everett was correct that a straight fight against the combined Tukera and Kforuzeng forces would have been a bad idea.  Even if the PCs (with help from the Vargr refugees) won the fight on Jesedipere, 2 Corsairs and a Patrol Cruiser in orbit would have definitely blown the March Harrier out of space.  The only way to win that would have been to turn Tukera and the Kforuzeng against each other then mop up the winner, and that would not have been easy to pull off.

Gani's idea of hiding inside a meson gun crate and sabotaging the freighter from the inside would have quite likely worked, but also probably would have gotten him captured or killed.

The plan of just blowing up the meson guns (using stolen Tukera Air/Rafts turned into missiles) was a reasonable approach, as it denied the weapons to the Kforuzeng.  It also meant that the Kforuzeng didn't pay for them, and both Dhurgeng and Ashkashkur had time to escape, so it wasn't a total victory.

Finally, telling the Navy about the meson guns was the patriotic thing to do, and did garner a reward from the Navy, but it cost the crew a potentially much larger reward from Oberlindes, and reduced the trust that Oberlindes had in them.  Tradeoffs.

That's the end of the campaign.  Thanks to the players.  I'll have a followup blog post about GURPS Traveller and this adventure later.

GURPS March Harrier Session 12: Rushing to Jesedipere

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Arrlanroughl, VP, Oberlindes Lines

Gharukh, Vargr Cryptography Researcher

Vuzuege, Vargr Refugee Camp Leader

Sedge, Vargr Corsair Gang Leader

Aran Askkashkur, Aramis Subsector Head, Vemene, Tukera Lines

Roald Bulolo, Director of Operations, Aramis Subsector, Tukera Lines

Dhurgeng, Vargr Starship Captain, Kforuzeng

Leonard Bolden-Tukera, Marquis of Aramis

Jelika Chan, Vemene Agent

Dates: 

215-1106 to 250-1106

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

Nasemin/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3003)

Yebab/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3002)

Jesedipere/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3001)

At Aramanx Highport, Gharukh went with Gvoudzon to fetch his brooch, then borrowed a computer to exploit a known backdoor in the brooch's security and decode the message inside.  The message was from Aran Ashkashkur, head of the Vemene, to someone in the Kforuzeng.  It indicated that Ashkashkur had two 1000-dton Type J Ling Standard Products meson guns for sale, which were being shipped to Lablon, where Ashkashkur would meet with Thane Dhurgeng of the Kforuzeng to exchange the meson guns for cash.

The crew met with Marc Oberlindes and Arrlanroughl, bringing along the contents of the brooch and the Tukera xmail archive that Gani had filched on Lewis.  The totality of the information seemed to indicate that Ashkashkur had stolen the meson guns from the Titan on Zila, put a fake cargo on the Mammoth, then had Jelika Chan sabotage the Mammoth and crash it into Aramis.  He had then sent the meson guns to either Lablon or Jesedipere.  Arrlanroughl argued that the messages indicating Jesedipere were more recent, and thus more likely to be the actual location of the meson guns.

Marc Oberlindes argued for a two-part strategy.  He would go to Lewis, where Roald Bulolo was meeting with the Marquis of Aramis, and reveal that the Ashkashkur had caused the crash of the Mammoth and try to blackmail Bulolo into ending the tradewar.  Meanwhile the March Harrier and Arrlanroughl would go to Jesedipere and try to collect evidence of the stolen meson guns, and preferably stop the sale.  He agreed to charter the March Harrier's entire cargo and passenger capacity for the mission.

The March Harrier fueled up and then double-jumped to Nasemin.  On Nasemin they quickly refueled from the ocean then jumped to Yebab.  They actually picked up a couple of middle passengers on Yebab, then jumped to Jesedipere.  On Jesedipere, Arrlanroughl and Sacha met with Vuzuege to try to recruit help from the Vargr refugees.  Vuzuege introduced them to Sedge, the leader of a corsair gang, who appeared willing to do whatever Arrlanroughl required in return for cash.

Meanwhile the rest of the crew talked to contacts at the starport to try to find the Tukera base, then took the launch up to find it from orbit.  It was a small site well away from the starport, with a landing pad, a control tower, several warehouses, and a quarters building for the staff.  Gani and Everett took an Air/Raft to the general vicinity, then snuck in closer using grav belts and camouflaged cybersuits.  They spied on the site for a while to observe movement patterns, then Gani flew up to the roof of a warehouse and then broke in through a service door.  There was nobody inside, so he spent some time looking at the various stacks of crates until he found a large lot of crates labeled as electronics equipment, which appeared to be about the right size for the meson guns.  He opened a few crates and found various electronics and fiber optic components, then went back out, apparently undiscovered.

Gani and Everett returned to the starport, when the crew came up with a plan.  Gani, supported by Gvoudzon, Sacha, and Gharukh in the two Air/Rafts, would keep an eye on the Tukera site.  Meanwhile the rest of the crew would stay at the starport and use their ship's sensors and contacts at the starport to watch for the arrival of Tukera or Kforuzeng ships.

A 400-dton Tukera Patrol Cruiser, the Black Saber, entered orbit over Jesedipere.  It sent a Ship's Boat down to the Tukera landing site.  From a distance, Gani observed a man he assumed was Aran Ashkashkur, a woman he thought was Jelika Chan, and six other armed men emerge from the craft.  Over the next day, the members of the group visited all of the buildings on the site.

Two days later, four Kforuzeng ships, two large transports and two corsairs, arrived in orbit over Jesedipere.  We stopped at that point.

GM's Notes:

At this point the players think they've figured out what's going on.  The question is whether they can get enough proof to stop the tradewar, and whether they can actually stop the transfer of the meson guns to the Kforuzeng.

GURPS March Harrier Session 11: Undercover on Lewis

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Arrlanroughl, VP, Oberlindes Lines

Quala Carthen, Oberlindes Broker

Ranate Zaitsiik, Inselberg New Hire Orientation Leader

William Irani, Inselberg Head Chauffer

Quill Steward, Inselberg Chief Mechanic

Nyx Bentzen, Inselbert Chef

Sir Orson Tukera, VIP at Inselberg

Lady Thalia Tukera, VIP at Inselberg

Gharukh, Vargr Cryptography Researcher

Dates: 

164-1106 to 214-1106

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

Zila/Aramis (Spinward Marches 2908)

Lewis/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3107)

The crew started on Aramanx Highport, where laser damage to the March Harrier was being repaired.  Marc Oberlindes had another proposal for them.  Data from the captured Tukera courier Nebula had indicated the presence of a secret Tukera research facility on the interdicted world of Lewis.  Baron Marc said that they couldn't get away with directly attacking the base like Tukera had to the Oberlindes facility on Nasemin, but it might be possible to infiltrate it to gather information.  He said that Tukera hired servants for the Inselberg estates on Lewis using Central Hirings SA on Zila, and that a manager at Central Hirings had been influenced to hire whoever Oberlindes wanted.  He also said that payment would be similar to the previous mission: the idle March Harrier would be paid for its full passenger and cargo capacity.  The crew agreed to the terms, and set out for Zila aboard the Oberlindes courier Inside Information.  On the way, Everett cut a small Flesh Pocket in Gani's leg, which could be used to hide a communicator.

Arriving at Zila Starport, the crew met their Oberlindes contact Quala, who assigned them Zilan aliases and fake backgrounds and identify cards.  Quala told them that an Oberlindes trader with fake papers would be landing at the Tukera lanthanum mines on Lewis in about a month, and would be their ride home.  The crew headed over to Central Hirings SA in downtown Crescence, where they were all hired and given tickets to board a Tukera far trader in a few days.  They hung around the starport for the interim, since it was the only place on Zila safe from random police harassment.  Then they boarded the Far Trader Pegasus, where they were loaded into double-occupancy staterooms, given the starport safety dance, and then introduced to their trainer, "Lady" Ranate Zaitsiik.  She instructed them in the use of a tablet computer, then subjected them to aptitude tests.  Each crew member was then assigned a week of personal computer-based training for their prospective position.  Gvoudzon was slated to be a house servant, Gani a cook, John and Sacha to work as grav vehicle drivers or mechanics, and Everett to be a groundskeeper.  Each was also issued a combination filter mask and respirator and warned not to go outside on Lewis without it, as the atmosphere was both very thin and tainted with carcinogens.

The Pegasus was passed through the Navy interdiction on Lewis thanks to a Tukera family exemption, and then landed at the estate of Inselberg.  An enclosed grav vehicle was waiting by the landing pad to carry them to the main estate on top of a plateau.  There the crew was split up, with John and Sacha sent to the vehicle garage, Gani to the kitchens, Everett to the dome enclosing the main house, and Gvoudzon to board another air/raft to fly to the outlying Retreat.  The group spent the next couple of weeks in training, with John and Sacha learning basic grav vehicle operation and maintenance, Gani working on his large-scale cooking and food delivery skills, Everett learning to care for plants, and Gvoudzon being introduced to Gharukh, the cryptographer he would be serving.

After the initial training period was over, the crew started getting time off, and were able to arrange occasional meetings.  John and Sacha had some access to grav vehicles.  Gani had access to the main house to deliver meals.  Everett had access to the pressurized dome around the main house, but wasn't supposed to go inside much.  Finally Gvouzon was serving at the Retreat, which was set up as a Tukera research facility, though Gharukh was closely guarded there.  Each of them attempted to explore a bit and find information, but lacked access to much.

Gani discovered that another nearby plateau hosted a Tukera corporate site, and found an excuse to deliver food there.  The Tukera workers there had company-networked computers, and on his second visit he managed to steal a password and grab and email archive.  Sacha found another nearby plateau had a warehouse, and managed to break in and poke around, but didn't find anything interesting.  A young VIP, Lady Thalia Tukera, wanted to be driven around by grav vehicle to see various plateaus and also some squatter settlements, which gave John and Sacha a chance to explore the area.

On one of his trips back to the main estate, Gvoudzon reported that Gharukh was a prisoner and wanted out, and also that she was a genius scientist who probably knew important things, and finally that she had a brooch similar to his.  He proposed taking her with them when they made a break for the Oberlindes ship.  The crew was on board with the idea.  A few days later Gani's hidden communicator received a message from the Oberlindes ship, which had landed at the lanthanum mines.  The plan for the escape was pretty simple: John and Sacha would rig the charge gauges on most of the grav vehicles to read full even when empty, then would discharge all but two of them, and take the working ones.  Then Sacha would fly around as a decoy to distract the guards, while John flew over to the Retreat to grab Gvoudzon and Gharukh.  Finally everyone would meet at the Oberlindes ship.

The first part of the plan went well, though the Tukera guards already had a few grav vehicles out of the garage.  Sacha led some guards toward the squatter settlements.  John took another air/raft to the Retreat, where Gvoudzon and Gharukh had snuck out past the guards and hid in a cave on the side of the plateau.  They grabbed the Vargr and then flew straight to the mines and into the cargo hold of the Oberlindes ship.  Sacha followed up a few minutes later, and the ship took off for the 100-planetary-diameter limit at top speed, with the crew, Gharukh, and two incidentally-stolen air/rafts.  They made it there without trouble from Tukera ships or the Navy, and then jumped for Aramanx.

GM's Notes:

This session was almost all roleplaying, with each PC having to use their alias, fake incompetence at high-tech skills, and spy without getting caught.  Their die rolls were solid and they didn't press their luck too often, so they managed to not around suspicion from the Tukera guards until they were ready to escape.  They didn't manage to steal much information, other than the one email archive that Gani found, but they did get Gharukh.

March Harrier Session 10: Deep Space Ambush

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Arrlanroughl, VP, Oberlindes Lines

Lars Svelberg, Captain, Oberlindes Patrol Cruiser Guardian

Karla, Diirgiirii, Captain, Oberlindes Free Trader New Horizons

Dates: 

118-1105 to 163-1106

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

Deep Space between Aramanx and Feneteman (Spinward Marches 3105)

The crew was invited to a meeting with Marc hault-Oberlindes at Oberlindes Subsector Headquarters on Aramanx Highport, but when they arrived, they were met by Arrlanroughl instead.  Baron Marc was busy leading an investigation into an attack against the Oberlindes freighter Bottom Line.  Arrlanroughl reviewed the recent attacks against Oberlindes ships and bases, and concluded that Tukera had started a tradewar to push Oberlindes out of the Aramis subsector.  He said they had an idea to get Tukera to back down, and would like to hire the March Harrier to carry out the plan.  Arrlanroughl said that the March Harrier would not be carrying passengers or cargo for a few weeks, but Oberlindes would pay them for the equivalent of a full load, plus expenses, plus 10% of any profit from the venture.

Arrlanroughl turned to Captain John, who spoke with his crew, and when there was no dissent he agreed to the venture.  Arrlanroughl then called two Oberlindes captains into the room, and went into detail.  Oberlindes had acquired the coordinates of a deep-space breakout point, used by jump-1 Akerut freighters when traveling between Aramanx and Feneteman.  They would like to disguise March Harrier as a Tukera or Akerut ship, using an (illegal) reprogramable transponder and a new coat of paint.  The March Harrier would find freighters when coming out of jump and vulnerable until they had transferred fuel and plotted course for their next jump, then distract the freighters while a heavily armed Oberlindes Patrol Cruiser would induce them to surrender or, if necessary, attack them.  The ships could then be searched for information, their crews captured and interrogated, and prize crews could take any intact ships to a rendezvous point.  Arrlanroughl said that a Hercules-class freighter could be briefly crewed by four people, and that the March Harrier, the Patrol Cruiser Guardian, and the Free Trader New Horizons could be packed with a total of 48 extra crew at double occupancy, thus allowing the capture of up to 12 ships.  Arrlanroughl said that the operation could continue for up to 3 weeks, since it would take a week to notice the first missing ship, maybe up to a week for Tukera to get suspicious and organize a response, and then a week for the investigators to jump.

Arrlanroughl asked if the March Harrier needed anything before the mission, and said that Oberlindes would pay half (as half-owner of the ship), with the crew's half coming out of the mission profits.  Gvoudzon noted that the ship's two turrets could each use a third beam laser.  There was some debate among the crew, with Everett mentioning that missile racks or sandcasters could also be useful, but eventually they agreed with Gvoudzon that triple lasers were the simplest.  Arrlanroughl arranged for the extra lasers, the new transponder, and plenty of paint.  Meanwhile Gani stocked the ship with enough provisions for an over-sized crew for several weeks, and John asked for ammunition resupply for the crew's personal weapons, just in case.

The March Harrier took on its extra crew, and then flew past the 100-diameter limit of Aramanx.  Before jumping, the crew and some of the Oberlindes extras put on their vacc suits and went outside to do some deep-space repainting.  The March Harrier then jumped to the deep space point, where they communicated with the Guardian and New Horizons to set up positions, and then switched their transponder to the Tukera setting.  The next day, they picked up their first prey, the Akerut freighter Colossus.  March Harrier sucked them in with a fake distress call, then mentioned that the Patrol Cruiser would be launching a volley of missiles.  The captain immediately surrendered.  The Patrol Cruiser launched its 20-ton Assault Craft full of marines, who boarded the ship and then radioed that the ship was secure.  Most of the March Harrier crew then flew over, interrogated the captain, and dug through the computer.  When they were satisfied, the Akerut crew were locked in their staterooms and the prize crew brought over to jump the ship to a rendezvous point.

The ambush worked successfully three more times the first week, with the Titan, Sauropod, and Elephant all captured.  The Titan had some interesting data in its logs, about the meson guns that had been transferred to the Mammoth, and Jelika Chan's tour as chief engineer.  There was also an xmail from the ship's captain to Vemene subsector head Aran Ashkashkur about the need for Vemene agents to also be competent in their cover duties so that they don't destroy any starships.

In the second week, the ambush induced four more freighters to surrender: the Megalodon, the Galaxy, the Rhino, and the Mongo.  Unfortunately, two captains resisted, which meant the Mondo and the Amazon both perished to volleys of missile file.  The Mondo damaged March Harrier with its lasers pretty significantly.

The captains of the three ships agreed to keep going for a third week, during which they captured a Type S Scout, the Nebula.  Logs indicated that the Nebula was a Vemene courier and had been moving records of a scientific base from Pretoria/Pretoria to Lewis/Aramis, an interdicted planet.  Apparently Tukera had land on Lewis, and was allowed exceptions to the interdiction.  In addition to the computer records, the Nebula had carried one VIP passenger to Lewis, a female Vargr scientist named Gharukh.  The Nebula's logs also contained a poorly-encrypted xmail from Sylvie Mobutu to Aran Ashkashkur.  The xmail said that the March Harrier had been watched carefully since it was discovered that Gvoudzon and the brooch were on board, and that it was apparently working for Oberlindes.  Mobutu suggested that a Vemene ship ambush the March Harrier, under the pretext that it was a routine tradewar ambush.

After capturing the Nebula and sending it off with a prize crew, the ambush bagged two more freighters.  The Albatross resisted and was blown to bits, though its pinnace survived and was captured with two crew aboard.  The Whale surrendered.  After three weeks, with a total of nine freighters and one scout captured and three freighters destroyed, the captains of the three ambushing ships agreed that it was time to return to Aramanx.

After reaching the Aramanx system, the March Harrier crew repainted their ship back to its original colors, and then flew to the starport.  They they met with Marc Oberlindes.  He congratulated them on the successful mission, told them the captured cargo had been appraised and their 10% was being deposited in their account, listened closely to the news about the Titan and Lewis.  He then suggested possibly infiltrating Tukera's base on Lewis to learn more.  The crew was receptive to the idea, so Oberlindes said he would have his people gather more information, then they could meet again in a few days to make a plan.  Oberlindes also agreed to repair the remaining damage to the March Harrier's hull.

GM's Notes:

This session involved the campaign's first space combat.  The Patrol Cruiser Guardian seriously outgunned the Akerut ships, so their captains needed to make morale checks to surrender, but three of them were a bit too brave for their own good and decided to fight.  March Harrier sustained significant hull damage once, though, showing that maybe the tactics used weren't the best.  Perhaps the more heavily armored Patrol Cruiser should have been the only one within laser range of the freighters.

Was having ten starships captured and three more destroyed enough for Tukera to call off the tradewar?  We'll see next time.

March Harrier Session 9: Tradewar Brewing

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Lisa Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Gustav Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Lars Dagiran, Professor of Psychology, University of Junidy

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Harlan Jann, Professor and pyramid researcher

Vuzuege, Vargr Refugee Leader

Dates: 

341-1105 to 108-1106

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

Nasemin/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3003)

Towers/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3103)

Junidy/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3202)

Marz/Pretoria (Deneb 0201)

Rugbird/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3102)

Jesedipere/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3001)

After rescuing Lisa Fireau from Tukera-sponsored kidnappers, the March Harrier's crew found a parting gift from the Fireaus: 60 bottles of rare Eiswein.  Most of the crew kept theirs for trade, but Gvoudzon drank a bottle.  The crew decided to head towards Junidy, but first Gani made an xmail-order of some high-tech goods from Rhylanor.

They picked up Professor Harlan Jann and some freight for Towers, refueled from the Aramanx ocean, and double jumped for Nasemin.  At Nasemin, they picked up more passengers and cargo heading for Towers.  They also got an xmail that gave more information about the Oberlindes Cargo Carrier Grand Tour, which had been attacked in the Aramanx system while they were there.  The crew had been boarded by pirates impersonating health inspectors, then forced to help the pirates destroy their cargo of bulk plastics.  Three crew had resisted and been shot.

At Towers, they helped Jann search for pyramids, didn't find any, but found some passengers for Junidy.  At Junidy they had their annual maintenance done, which meant the crew had two weeks off.  Gani wanted to visit the University of Junidy again, to look into possibly studying there.  Gvoudzon and Everett tagged along to visit the anolas.  The group managed to get an appointment with Professor Dagiran, who let them see the anolas and also interviewed Gani and Gvoudzon about their experience with the anolas and Gvoudzon's mental issues caused by close proximity to them.  (Everett once again was not interested in being interviewed.)  Everett ran into a police officer who thought he looked a lot like a suspect and asked him to help out by standing in a police lineup.  Everett reluctantly agreed and nothing bad happened as a result.  Professor Jann also looked for pyramids on Junidy, but found none.  Another disturbing xmail reached the crew on Junidy: the Oberlindes Far Trader Llewellyn had come to the aid of a ship's boat being attacked by a patrol cruiser, at which point both craft had turned their weapons on the Llewellyn.  The Llewellyn had defended itself ably, at which point the ship's boat had boarded the cruiser, which jumped outsystem.

With maintenance done, the crew decided to leave the Aramis subsector briefly and double-jumped to Marz, carrying several passengers and some cargo.  They then returned to Junidy and picked up Professor Jann again, then proceeded to Rugbird then Jesedipere.  Two passengers headed to Jesedipere were medics, heading there to help at a refugee camp of Vargr who had fled from Kforuzeng attacks in the Vargr Extents.  The situation on Jesedipere was getting bad, with a small group of Imperial Interstellar Scout Service personnel trying to help out.  Sacha visited with the Scouts to see if he could help.  A Vargr named Vuzuege approached the crew and said she needed a ride to Junidy to try to get more help from the Scout leaders at the Way Station there, but could not afford to pay for passage.  The crew decided to take her to Junidy for free.  Meanwhile, another disturbing xmail came in: the Oberlindes trade station on Nasemin had burned, with no casualties but over a megacredit in damages.

Meanwhile Professor Jann wanted to search thinly-populated Jesedipere for pyramids.  He convinced the crew to fly him around the planet in the launch, and they eventually scanned some promising-looking structures and landed for a closer look.  Jann excitedly said that they were clearly artificial in origin, and he would be staying on Jesedipere to continue his research.  At some point Everett did some research on Jann and found that he was a legitimate Professor Emeritus of Literature (not Archaeology or anything else related to pyramids) at the University of Rhylanor, and that his brother was the Duke of Rhylanor.

The March Harrier flew back to Rugbird and then to Junidy.  Sacha, as an ex-Scout, agreed to help Vuzuege get a meeting with the Scout leaders.  They did not manage to meet with the actual commander of the Way Station, but they met with several fairly senior Scouts, who agreed to send some more aid to the refugees on Jesedipere.

Gani found a tour group who wanted to book high passage for themselves and middle passage for their bodyguards to Towers, so they could learn to swordfight.  There weren't actually enough staterooms for all of them, so Gani convinced them to have most of the bodyguards fly low passage.  On towers, the crew received another disturbing xmail, that the Oberlindes Merchant Wallen Bar was overdue and suspected lost due to hijacking.  Another xmail to Captain John indicated that Oberlindes was worried that the large number of recent violent incidents indicated that either Tukera or Akerut had started a tradewar.  From Towers, the crew continued to Nasemin, where they got a mail contract for Aramanx.  As they reached Aramanx, they got a local xmail from Oberlindes Lines.  Marc hault-Oberlindes himself wanted to meet with the crew at Aramanx.

GM's Notes:

This was a session of travel and trade, with the March Harrier visiting a lot of worlds and even leaving the sector.  The main events were helping Professor Jann search for (and eventually find) pyramids, helping Vuzuege and the Vargr refugees on Jesedipere get some help from the Scouts, and hearing a lot of disturbing news about attacks on Oberlindes Lines ships and facilities.

March Harrier Session 8: Raid on the Villa

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Navigator

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and Temporary First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Dale Conan Wilder, Captain

Significant NPCs:

Lisa Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Gustav Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Boris Dree, Fireau et Fille Employee

Lorn Denveldt, Tukera Lines Employee

Jelika Chan / Arion Jamail, disgraced Akerut Engineer / kidnapper

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Commander Eneri Giilaan, Imperial Naval Intelligence

Detective Carter Voight, Imperial Starport Authority

Lord Magistrate Vernor, Klavisur politician

Harlan Jann, Professor and pyramid researcher

Dates: 

325-1105 to 332-1105

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

While waiting for Boris Dree to return from Zila, Gani went carousing in Aramanx highport's bars, looking for anything interesting.  He met an older man named Professor Harlan Jann who was looking for evidence of pyramids on many worlds throughout the Spinward Marches.  He said he had finished surveying the Rhylanor and Regina subsectors and was starting on the Aramis subsector, and was looking for a ship that would let him take long-term middle passage and explore various worlds along the way.  Gani got the Professor's contact information and said he'd run the idea by the Captain and get back in touch before they left Aramanx.

When the Oberlindes Lines fast courier returned from Zila, it had Gustav Fireau, Lisa's father, on board.  Gustav had the MCr 20 ransom, secured by a short-term loan against the winery.  He insisted that the group pay the ransom and try to recover Lisa, rather than immediately resorting to force and possibly getting his daughter killed.

The kidnappers contacted the March Harrier again and instructed that Gvoudzon should take the public shuttle, alone, to Ulfrey, the capital of Klavisur, and then await further instructions.  Before Gvoudzon left, he gave his brooch to John for safekeeping, and Gani made a copy of the brooch in the March Harrier's workshop.  Gvoudzon also swallowed a small tracking device, so that the crew could find him if something went wrong.

Gvoudzon took the shuttle down to the surface, then waited for a phone call from the kidnappers.  Meanwhile, most of the crew piled into the launch and flew above the ocean, outside of Klavisur waters, to attempt to track Gvoudzon, using both sensors and the tracking device.  The kidnappers called Gvoudzon and instructed him to go to a certain warehouse just outside the spaceport.  Gvoudzon complied, then someone snuck up behind him and hit him over the head.

When Gvoudzon stopped responding to communications, the crew started tracking him.  They saw that his phone was no longer trackable (because the kidnappers had smashed it and left the pieces behind), but his tracking device was headed east at high speed, probably aboard an aircraft.  They used their sensors and eventually found the aircraft, which landed at Ulrach on the east coast.  Sacha flew the launch up to orbital altitude to avoid infringing on Klavisur airspace, then over to the east coast.  At that point Gvoudzon was removed from the airplane and placed on a high-speed boat headed to Zenfalen Island.  The crew tracked the boat and got some fuzzy pictures of it docked at a private dock on the northeast corner of the island, near the villa.  They then tracked Gvoudzon being taken to the villa, where they already suspected Lisa was held.

At that point, Gustav Fireau agreed that the kidnappers were unlikely to return Lisa and that a rescue operation to recover Gvoudzon, Lisa, and the ransom was the best option.  Everett suggested contacting Detective Voight of the SPA and Commander Giilaan of the Navy, but neither could render any direct assistance.  So the plan was to put the crew and all their weapons in the launch, fly down to the villa at night, and rescue both kidnap victims.

The launch descended slowly in the dark, with all lights out.  Sensors showed one guard in the courtyard and a couple outside the villa's wall.  Sacha put the launch down in the tree-lined courtyard.  Unfortunately, he hit one of the trees.  Fortunately, the damage to the launch was fairly minor.  The crew all piled out of the launch.  The nearby guard got on his radio, yelling for help, as he started shooting at the crew with a machine pistol.  He missed, as Gani (wearing a grav belt) flew right up to him.  Gani and John closed in on the guard from the east and south and shot him in the leg, crippling it and knocking him down.  Sacha went south into a door and found a kitchen. 

Gani checked his scanner and saw that Gvoudzon was to the west.  There was a doorway in that direction.  John and Gani headed west into the villa, with Captain Wilder right behind them.  Then another guard they hadn't seen took careful aim at the Captain and put a bullet in his forehead.  Wilder collapsed to the ground immediately.  Everett grabbed the Captain and dragged him back into the launch then started first aid.

Gani flew right at the attacker, firing gyroc rounds.  John followed up, firing his shotgun.  A gyroc round hit the guard in the arm, destroying it.  The guard collapsed in pain.  There were two locked doors.  John and Gani each took one.  The first one had Lisa behind it, so Gani told her to stand back then shot the lock with a gyroc round.  Lisa came running out and grabbed the guard's gun.  Meanwhile, John got no response behind the other door, so bashed the lock open and found an unconscious and beat up Gvoudzon lying on a bed inside.

The crew carried Gvoudzon into the launch and herded Lisa inside too.  Everett relieved Lisa of the guard's machine pistol, so Lisa grabbed another one from the other disabled guard.  Someone interrogated one of the guards as to where the leader was, and he indicated that the woman Arion Jamail was the leader and her quarters were to the north.  The crew headed that way quickly, with Sacha breaking into the eastern door while John broke into the southern door.  In her bedroom, they found Gvoudzon's bag, which Sacha quickly checked to verify it still contained (at least most of) the ransom money.

One of the guards' radios was squawking with chatters from other guards, so at that point the crew decided to grab both wounded guards, pile into the launch, and take off before reinforcements arrived.  As they prepared to take off, a jet fighter flew over the villa.  Everett got on the radio and told the fighter that they were doing a medical evacuation and to stand down, while the fighter pilot told them to land their vehicle and get out.  Sacha basically blasted off straight up at maximum speed.  1G isn't much for a starship, but it's much faster than a low-tech fighter plane, and the launch escaped Klavisur airspace before anything faster came after it.

Approaching orbit, the crew debated going back to the March Harrier with its small med bay, or just taking the Captain straight to the (hopefully better equipped) hospital at the highport.  They went to the highport, first making a radio call to announce that they were inbound with three gunshot casualties, one a life-threatening head wound and two with serious limb wounds.  They were given clearance to dock near the medical facility, where a team with grav stretchers awaited.  Captain Wilder was immediately whisked off to surgery.  Unfortunately, he did not survive.  Both guards were also treated, and both survived their wounds.

Lisa told the crew that she had been treated well during her captivity.  Gvoudzon, on the other hand, had initially been treated well (other than being knocked unconscious), but after the kidnappers realized the brooch they'd taken was a fake, they had beat him up to try to find where the original brooch was.  Arion Jamail (who appeared to be the same person formerly called Jelika Chan) had been the main questioner.

Detective Voight was alerted to the incoming combat casualties and questioned everyone.  The crew told him the truth, that the kidnappers had taken the ransom and kidnapped Gvoudzon, so they had no choice but to launch a rescue mission.  One of the kidnappers refused to answer questions, but the other one believed Voight's talk about a murder charge for shooting the Captain, and said that the kidnappers were working for the Vemene, Tukera's covert security service, and that Arion Jamail was in charge.

After the crew was released, John used an override code to look through the Captain's records and found his will.  He had a lawyer named Ezraa Foxwell on Aramis who needed to be contacted.  His cash and minor possessions were to be divided equally between his two children, except that Cr 1 was to go to his ex-wife. His share of the March Harrier was to be divided equally among the active crew.  This raised John and Everett's ownership to 20% each, with Gani, Gvoudzon, and Sacha each becoming 3.3% owners, and the Duke of Rhylanor's Aramis Trace Commercial Development Trust, LIC owning the other 50%.

Gustav and Lisa Fireau met with the crew before heading back to Zila.  Gustav indicated that in gratitude for rescuing Lisa and recovering the ransom money, he would give the March Harrier an exclusive export contract for five years.

Marc hault-Oberlindes contacted the crew with a message of condolences on the loss of their captain, and a note that they should contact him about a business matter before leaving Aramanx.  When the crew met with Oberlindes, he informed them that he had recently purchased their subsidy contract from the Duke of Rhylanor.  He thought the March Harrier was clearly a great venture to have a half interest in, based on their recent run of profitability.  He clarified that he couldn't change anything in the subsidy contract without the crew's permission, but that he was willing to expand the subsidy area from the Aramis Trace to the entire Aramis subsector, giving the crew more freedom to wander.  Oberlindes also said that Gustav Fireau had told him that he was giving the March Harrier an exclusive license contract, and Oberlindes offered to have Oberlindes Lines handle the Zila wine exports for them, in exchange for a 1% royalty.  The crew discussed this and ensured that they got to keep the whole 1%, not give half of it back to Oberlindes as the subsidy holder.

The last order of business was picking a new captain.  The two qualified candidates were John and Sacha.  John had more seniority, so it was agreed that John would become Captain and Sacha would be (permanent) First Officer.  Gvoudzon asked if as a co-owner he could be promoted to Chief of Security, and the title bump was approved, though this didn't change his actual duties.

We stopped at that point, with the March Harrier ready to leave Aramanx and in search of passengers, freight, and cargo.

GM's Notes:

Don't get into a GURPS gunfight without Luck or a very strong helmet.  Preferably both.  One bullet to the brain can ruin your whole day.  RIP Captain Wilder.

The March Harrier no longer needs to return to the Aramis Trace in six months.  It does need its annual maintenance soon, as it's been almost a year since the start of the campaign.

Ownership of the March Harrier

The subsidy contract complicates things, but to a first approximation, the March Harrier is owned half by the subsidy holder and half by the crew.  (Any crew members who bought Merchant Rank 1 or higher at the start of the campaign were part owners.  Any crew members without Merchant Rank, and any crew members who joined later, were just employees.)

At the start of the campaign, the March Harrier's ownership was:

• Aramis Trace Commercial Development Trust, LIC (Duke of Rhylanor) 50%
• Captain Dale Conan Wilder: 12.5%
• First Officer Randal Dorsainvil: 12.5%
• Second Officer John Matrix: 12.5%
• Engineer/Medic Everett de Clisson: 12.5%

After Randal Dorsainvil left the crew (to get married and join his new wife's crew), the other crew owners split his shares evenly, resulting in revised ownership:

• Aramis Trace Commercial Development Trust, LIC (Duke of Rhylanor) 50%
• Captain Dale Conan Wilder: 16.7%
• Second Officer John Matrix: 16.7%
• Engineer/Medic Everett de Clisson: 16.7%

After Oberlindes Lines bought the March Harrier's subsidy contract from the Aramis Trace Commercial Development Trust LIC, ownership was updated to:

• Oberlindes Lines 50%
• Captain Dale Conan Wilder: 16.7%
• Second Officer John Matrix: 16.7%
• Engineer/Medic Everett de Clisson: 16.7%

After Captain Dale Conan Wilder died (of a machine pistol bullet to the forehead while attempting to rescue Lisa Fireau and Gvoudzon from Vemene kidnappers) and his will (pending completion of probate or any other legal challenges) divided his share of the ship evenly among the surviving crew, ownership became:

• Oberlindes Lines 50%
• Captain John Matrix: 20%
• Engineer/Medic Everett de Clisson: 20%
• First Officer Sacha Bright: 3.3%
• Steward Ganidiirsi Ashran: 3.3%
• Chief Security Officer Gvoudzon: 3.3%

March Harrier Session 7: Island Stakeout

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Navigator

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Temporary First Officer and Pilot

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Dale Conan Wilder, Captain

Significant NPCs:

Lisa Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Boris Dree, Fireau et Fille Employee

Lorn Denveldt, Tukera Lines Employee

Jelisa Chan, disgraced Akerut Engineer

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Commander Eneri Giilaan, Imperial Naval Intelligence

Detective Carter Voight, Imperial Starport Authority

Lord Magistrate Vernor, Klavisur politician

Dates: 

325-1105 to 332-1105

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

After the ransom note arrived, there was no longer any doubt that Lisa Fireau had been kidnapped.  Detective Voight was handling the investigation for the starport, but had no jurisdiction planet-side.  He indicated that extradition from Klavisur would be difficult, as Klavisur was not a member of the Imperium and women had few rights there.  However, he was willing to share some information.  He had security footage of Lisa Fireau unsteadily boarding the a shuttle to Ulfrey, Klavisur along with Lorn Denveldt, a woman who Gani was sure was Jelika Chan, and other two large men.  He was also willing to let the crew talk to the pilot and steward of the shuttle.  The steward remembered that Fireau had appeared wobbly when boarding, and that she hadn't said anything.

Boris Dree advocated for getting in touch with Lisa's father Gustav Fireau on Zila, and seeing if he was willing and able to pay the random. Zila was 3 parsecs away, so Boris wanted to find a fast ship to get there and back quickly, before the kidnappers got impatient.  Marc Oberlindes contacted the crew, indicating that he had heard of the kidnapping and offering to help.  Boris asked if there was any way Oberlindes could get him to Zila quickly, and Oberlindes agreed to make a fast courier available.  Boris boarded the courier, and asked the crew not to try anything rash until he got back, unless it appeared to be the only option.

Captain Wilder's Navy contact Eneri Giilaan told him that it appeared Lisa might have been taken to Zenfalen Island, a small fishing island off the coast of Klavisur, owned by Lord Magistrate Vernor, a powerful Klavisur politician.

The kidnappers contacted the March Harrier again over a video feed, with the only person visible being Lisa Fireau, who was sitting in a sunny formal room, alive and apparently unharmed, holding a copy of that day's Ulfrey's Daily Truth newspaper.  (Aramanx was at the tech level where paper periodicals were still popular.)  The captain called the crew to the bridge to watch and try to find clues.  A disguised female voice indicated that the kidnappers would wait 3 weeks, not a day longer, to hear whether the MCr 20 ransom would be paid.  Then the sound muted for a minute.  The female voice returned, saying that the Vargr emissary must be the one to deliver the ransom.

The crew decided to check out Zenfalen Island and see if they could find Lisa.  They left Gvoudzon on the March Harrier, thinking the Vargr might stand out too much on the small fishing island.  First they went looking for a grav vehicle, but they only found one Air/Raft listed for sale on planet of Aramanx, for about double the usual price.  Deciding not to spend that much, they instead boarded a commercial shuttle to Ulfrey, then took a jet aircraft to Ulrach on the coast.  They then nosed around the docks looking for a fishing boat who could take them to Zenfalen.  The first captain they found indicated that he would indeed be going that way in a couple of days.  The crew offered to pay a lot more to leave immediately, and the captain was motivated to find a couple of crew members and leave within an hour.

The ride to Zenfalen on the low-tech fishing boat was mostly uneventful, with the highlight of the voyage being Everett actually catching a fish.  The crew disembarked and went looking for a hotel.  There were two on the island: the Grand Zenfalen Hotel (expensive) and the Fisherman's Rest (cheap).  They chose the cheap option, then visited a general store to buy some local clothing.  They walked around the island a bit, seeing the main docks, the town of Falenza, the dormant volcano, the star-shaped Klavisur Army fortress, and a few outlying villas and farm houses.  

The crew decided to split up and snoop around the island at night.  The most interesting thing they found was that a large villa in the northeast of the island had unexpectedly heavy security, with a high wall and a circling guard.  Gani scoped out the villa from a distance with his night vision gear, but avoided risking detection.  The next day, the crew watched the road to the villa and saw a couple of men with gun bulges under their clothing returning from the villa to the Grand Zenfalen Hotel, and then an older man with a cart bringing supplies to the villa.  

Further investigation showed that there were four men staying at the hotel and working at the villa in shifts.  Searching their hotel rooms found a high-tech tablet (locked) and some clothing.  Following the delivery man to a bar and buying him drinks gave some information: the villa belonged to Lord Magistrate Vernor himself, but he was rarely there, as he spent most of his time at the capital.  Besides the guards, at least one female guest was staying at the villa, but the delivery man didn't know her name.  She did not match Lisa Fireau's description.

The crew used their long-range laser communicator to contact the March Harrier in orbit, so that Gvoudzon and Captain Wilder could do some research for them.  Gvoudzon found video of Lord Magistrate Vernor giving a speech in the Klavisur Parliament in Ulfrey the day before.  The crew waited until night and then Gani used his grav belt to spy on the villa from above.  He saw a guard outside the wall, a guard inside the wall, and a guard inside the villa's central courtyard.  Most of the windows were closed.  He threw some rocks at a shuttered window, and a few minutes later the shutters opened and a man who looked like Lorn Denveldt stuck his head out, as a guard came over to investigate and Gani hid on the roof.

The presence of Lorn Denveldt was enough that the crew thought it was likely that Lisa Fireau was held nearby, but they were out of ideas for safe information gathering, so the next day they got back on the fishing board back to the mainland, then took a jet back to Ulfrey and a shuttle back to the highport.  They still had about 11 days remaining until Boris Dree's return and the deadline for paying the ransom.

GM's Notes:

This session ended up being mostly medium-tech information gathering on a low-tech planet.  The crew had night vision capabilities and a grav belt, which were helpful, but they did not manage to find Lisa Fireau.  However, they found Lorn Denveldt, one of her kidnappers, which they thought was close enough.

March Harrier Session 6: Bureaucratic Infighting

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Navigator

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Temporary First Officer and Pilot

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Dale Conan Wilder (Phil), Captain

Significant NPCs:

Lisa Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Boris Dree, Fireau et Fille Employee

Chelsea Vilchis, Receptionist at the Department of Commerce

Lorn Denveldt, Tukera Lines Employee

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Dates: 

286-1105 to 325-1105

Worlds:

Zila/Aramis (Spinward Marches 2908)

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

The March Harrier landed on Zila.  The crew spent a couple of days at the starport, doing their best to keep out of trouble after their arrest last time on Zila.  But they did not quickly find any passengers or cargo, and Gvoudzon got bored and went looking for something to do.  He found that Fireau et Fille, a renowned winery, had a free wine tasting at a location in the suburbs of Crescence, near the starport.  Free wine sounded good to the whole crew, so they renewed their Zila standby legal insurance and then took the train out to the winery.

The wine was excellent, though the small winery was a bit crowded.  A woman eventually approached the crew, saying she's overheard they had a starship, and wondering if they were interested in work.  She was Lisa Fireau, the "Fille" in FIreau et Fille, and she said that the winery's exclusive interstellar distribution agreement with Tukera Lines was about to expire, and that Tukera was buying up land on Zila and looked to be making a play to take over the wine market, so she and her father wanted to end the agreement with Tukera and go independent.  However, they were worried about Tukera's response, as Tukera had stockpiled a lot of Zilan wine and could possibly flood the market and put Fireau out of business.  Fireau had one advantage: a large and fine vintage of eiswein, a very rare wine that should sell for a large profit.  Lisa asked the March Harrier to get the eiswein to Aramanx without Tukera finding out, at which point she should be able to auction it for enough money to keep Fireau solvent.  She offered 10% of the sale price, and said it was important to leave within two weeks, to get the payment in time to make a tax collection deadline.

Unfortunately, after having Tukera handle all their exports for decades, nobody at Fireau knew the exact process to legally ship their own wine off-planet.  Furthermore, she didn't think it was safe to ship the wine from the main winery 2000 km away to the starport, as she feared Tukera intercepting the shipment.  So she was counting on the crew to handle all the legalities to let the March Harrier land at the winery, pick up the wine, and fly it to Aramanx.  She helped out by identifying five forms that she thought were required.  Form 117: Special Landing Permit, would allow landing the March Harrier to land at the winery.  Form 82a, Customs Declaration/Export Authorization, would allow shipping the wine offworld.  Form 29, Waiver for Pre-Launch Inspection, would allow taking off again after landing away from the starport.  Form 106, Local Landing Permit, was required to allow landing in Polykarp  Province, where the winery was located.  Finally, form 11/2, Application for Visa, was required to let Lisa Fireau and her employee Boris Dree leave Zila and return.

Lisa also knew of a few government and non-government organizations that might be able to help.  The Zila Trade Authority (ZTA) in Crescence dealt with imports and exports.  The Bureau of Offworld Affairs (BOA) in Crescence worked with offworld corporations and individuals.  The Department of Commerce (DoC) in Crescence was in charge of all commercial and economic affairs.  The Zila Port Authority (ZPA) at the starport was the Imperial Starport Authority (SPA) office on Zila, in charge of the starport.  The Polykarp Provincial Government Administrative Offices (PGAO) in Amali was in charge of local affairs in Polykarp.  The Imperial Consulate (IC) in North Crescence was the Imperial diplomatic center on Zila.  Finally, the Merchants' Guild (MG) at the starport was an association to help offworld merchants.

Given five forms to procure and a large number of possible offices to visit, the crew split up.  The Captain stayed at the starport and prepared the March Harrier for travel.  The others alternated between telephone calls and visits to the five offices they thought might handle the appropriate forms.  First they called the ZPA, and the receptionist there said their organization handled Form 29.  They also tried calling the PGAO, but didn't manage to talk to the clerk who knew about Form 106 before the office closed.

The next day Gani called the PGAO again, who said they had Form 106, but it required a local visit.  Sacha volunteered to take a plane trip to Amali in Polykarp Province to deal with that office.  Everett called his lawyer to see if he or any other lawyer at his firm could handle the forms, but they appeared to only do criminal work.  The crew visited the DoC in person and Gani met a very cute receptionist named Chelsea, who referred him to several officials who might be able to help, and also agreed to have dinner with him.  One clerk named Ditha was no help.  However, they also talked to a more helpful clerk named Randy, who extracted a small "cash only expediting fee" and produced a blank Form 17, but said it took 1-6 weeks to get approved through channels.  Told the crew needed it faster than that, he referred them to a supervisor named Lee.  Gani and Chelsea had dinner at a Vargr restaurant, which was not very authentic.

On the third day of the job, Gani called the BOA to get information about forms and scheduled an appointment with a supervisor named Joshua.  John met with the supervisor Lee at the DoC, who got him a meeting with Eneri, the Assistant to the Administrator, who could sign Form 17.  Sacha got on a jet airliner and flew to Amali in Polykarp Province, near the main winery.

On day four, Gani met with Joshua, who referred him to Zebulon, the Trade Relations Coordinator.  Meanwhile, in Polykarp Province, Sacha met with a receptionist named Lo, who got him a copy of Form 106 and a meeting with District Administrator Kynon, who could sign it.  That afternoon, Gani and John also managed to get Form 29 signed by Tamsin, a supervisor at the ZPA.

On the fifth day, the crew met with Zebulon "call me Mr. Askvig", who signed Form 82a, after they visited the receptionist Lizab to get the form.  Lisa Fireau called the crew to tell them she had been threatened by an anonymous person.  The Captain appointed Gvoudzon to take charge of ship's security in case of sabotage or hijacking attempts.

On the sixth day, Gani thought he was being followed by a couple of suspicious individuals.  He called his lawyer, who directed him to their nearby office.  While in the office, he took a photo of one of the followers, then went out the back door into a waiting taxi, which took him back to the starport's XT line.  Back on the March Harrier, Gani tried to find out who the tail was using the ship's databases, but didn't get a hit.  He and Gvoudzon used the ship's computer to make some wanted posters accusing the man of various crimes, and then printed out a bunch of copies, which they could later dump out the hatch before leaving the planet.

Sacha's appointment with Kynon happened on the seventh day, at which point he got Form 106 signed.  On the eighth day, the crew got another signature from General Supervisor Verrill at the DoC on Form 82a, and at that point they thought they were legal.  Lisa was getting nervous and asked to meet the crew in person on the ship.  She asked that they fly to the winery, load the cargo, and leave the planet as soon as possible, before the threats of violence escalated further.  The Captain agreed to leave the next day, and the crew called Sacha and asked him to meet them at the winery.

On the ninth day, Sacha took a taxi from his hotel to the winery and started working with the Fireau employees on a cargo loading plan.  Meanwhile the Captain got the ship fully fueled and then the March Harrier took off for the winery, taking a rather roundabout route required to avoid all commercial air corridors.  After landing, the crew and the Fireau employees loaded 150 dtons of wine onto the ship as quickly as possible.  Some police showed up outside the winery just as the loading finished, but Lisa had her local employees deal with them while the ship took off.  The March Harrier got off Zila without further problems.

Getting to Aramanx first required a double-jump to Carsten, which went smoothly.  Since they wanted to reach Aramanx quickly, the ship just refueled from the ocean on Carsten (because it was closer than the gas giant) and then took off again and jumped for Aramanx.

Arriving at Aramanx Highport, the crew found that all the long-term berths were full, so the ship would have to park in orbit near the port and take the launch back and forth to the port, except when actually unloading the cargo.  Still worried about security, the Captain asked Gvoudzon to keep an eye open for trouble.  Meanwhile, Lisa and Boris, with Sacha helping, started setting up a wine auction.  Lisa invited multiple merchants, but not Tukera, to bid at an auction for the wine in three days.

When the auction started, Lorn Denveldt of Tukera showed up, despite Fireau's attempts to exclude the company.  He was representing three merchants who did have invitations, and the auctioneer ruled that he could stay.  Bids started at Cr 150 per bottle (KCR 22.5 per dton) and rapidly rose to Cr 225 per bottle.  At Cr 250 per bottle, it appeared that Tukera might win, but then a new bidder appeared in the back of the room.  It was Marc Oberlindes, and he escalated the bidding all the way to Cr 310 per bottle.  At that point Denveldt asked for a hold on the auction while he got authorization to bid higher, but the auctioneer denied the request.  The total load went for a bit over MCr 8, leaving the March Harrier's 10% share over KCr 800.

The crew attempted to use the March Harrier's sensors to see if the Wolblutn could still be seen on the surface of Aramanx, at the mining camp in Renitza.  They failed to find it.

With the initial sale completed and enough money raised to keep the company afloat, Lisa stayed at Aramanx Highport setting up future wine deals.  Still concerned about security, she stayed on the March Harrier and took the launch to the starport.  However, one evening she failed to appear for the trip back to the ship.  Her employee, Boris Dree, indicated that it wasn't like her to not show up or answer calls, and asked the crew to help look for her.  Some investigation showed that Lisa had gotten on a shuttle to the nation of Klavisur, along with two men and a woman.  A few hours later, a message was sent to the March Harrier, saying "If you wish to see Fireau alive again, arrange payment of Cr 20,000,000.  You will be contacted."

We stopped at that point.

GM's Notes:

The Zilan bureaucracy paperwork challenge was one of the more annoying quests I've run in any RPG, but the players handled it well, using reaction rolls, Streetwise, bribery, and Sex Appeal.  After the profitable charter to Paya followed up by a profitable wine run, the ship is doing very well financially.

Interstellar Mail Order in Traveller

I haven't seen Traveller rules for interstellar mail order.  What if you don't have time to visit a high-tech or low-law-level world where the gizmo of your dreams can be found?  Can you get a merchant there to ship it to you?

The trivial case is same-world mail order.  On any world high-tech enough to have a datanet (TL8+) or at least a telephone system (TL6+) and with enough population to have a reasonable number of merchants (Population code 4+, or at least 10000 people), there should be mail order businesses, selling any products that are legal on that world.  Cost should be roughly the same as that of visiting a store, possibly with some additional shipping costs, especially for larger items.

But it gets more complicated across interstellar distances.  The customer needs a copy of the store's recent catalog.  This should be relatively easy to find, at least for larger merchants who broadcast xmail out their catalogs to all nearby systems regularly.  The customer then needs to send an xmail to place the order, along with sufficient funds.  If the customer's current location and the merchant's world have a bank in common (which should be the case for any high-TL high-population worlds within a subsector or so), then the customer can deposit their Imperial credits at the local bank and send an interstellar money order along with their order, typically for a 1% fee.  (If the buyer actually has an account at that bank, they might reduce or even waive the fee.)  The xmail costs the typical Cr 10 / parsec, and typically moves at around Jump 2, faster along xboat routes and major trade routes, slower between backwater planets.

Once the merchant receives the order and the payment, they can ship the goods, assuming they're still available and the price hasn't increased.  Shipping for large items runs at the rates given in GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars: Cr 700 per dton per parsec on minor trade routes or better, or Cr 800 per dton per parsec on branch routes.  Shipping for smaller items runs into minimum fees: Cr 100 per parsec.  Freight typically moves at about Jump 1, as most cargo ships are Jump 2 but spend about half their time in-system rather than in jump.

That assumes the recipient will be staying put on a known planet.  If they expect their cargo to chase them down, there will be extra time and expense.  First, they'll have to send periodic xmails to update their own location, so their goods can be forwarded.  Second, they'll have to pay for any extra hops their cargo takes, at the usual price.  Third, if they want to be updated on the current location of their items, they need to pay for more xmails, from the item's location to all the worlds they might be.  It all adds up, so it's probably simpler to ship to a world the buyer visits regularly, and pay for storing the item there.  Storage fees for large items can add up: the standard rate at starports is Cr 2 per dton per day, with a Cr 1 per day minimum for small items.

March Harrier Session 5: War on Aramanx

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Navigator

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Temporary First Officer and Pilot

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Dale Conan Wilder (Phil), Captain

Significant NPCs:

Randall Dorsainvil, First Officer of the March Harrier

Fenna Song, Captain of the Margin of Profit

Cai Calula, Chosen of Cratersea

Lana Calula, Cai's sister

Celia Bailee, Lana's surrogate mother

Thoren Soner, Cai's bodyguard

Roet Bannerji, Captain of the Wolblutn

Jeffry Marte, Sternmetal Horizons employee

Kfouzorr, ex-member of the Kforuzeng

Eneri Giilaan, Imperial Naval Intelligence officer

Dates: 

192-1105 to 286-1105

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

Carsten/Aramis (Spinward Marches 2906)

Heguz/Aramis (Spinward Marches 2706)

Violante/Aramis (Spinward Marches 2708)

Paya/Aramis (Spinward Marches 2509)

Violante/Aramis (Spinward Marches 2708)

Zila/Aramis (Spinward Marches 2908)

Everett, Gani, John, Sacha, and Gvoudzon started the session in Seniek, the capital of the nation of Senled on the balkanized world of Aramanx.  Their goal was to reach the remote border city of Tavanix and find Captain Bannerji.  They considered renting a car or taking the train, but it would be a three-day ground trip, so they bought airplane tickets instead.  The plane was grounded for several hours due to reports of aerial incursions over the border, but eventually reached their destination.  In Tavanix, the crew looked for the Sternmetal Horizons party that Bannerji was with.  A solider in a bar told Gani that he'd seen the Sternmetal reps at the Provincial Governor's Mansion, which was the temporary seat of local martial government.  Sacha made a phone call and managed to get an appointment at the Mansion to meet with the Sternmetal party.  The crew rented a ground vehicle and headed to the Mansion.

While waiting for their meeting, the crew saw an argument break out.  A Vargr was yelling at a Senledi army officer, who was ordering soliders to take the Vargr prisoner.  Gvoudzon recognized the Vargr as his friend Kfouzorr, and the crew joined Gvoudzon in trying to get the officer to listen to Kfouzorr's story.  Kfouzorr had deserted from the Kforuzeng mercenaries serving the rival nation of Lanax.  He said that he had been on the staff of Thane Dhurgeng, a batallion commander, but had decided to leave rather than being subjected to further blows to his charisma.  He had come bringing information on the mercenaries' plans, in exchange for asylum and transport.  Kfouzorr continued that the mercenaries were about to launch a raid to try to capture the Sternmetal representatives and destroy the local Senledi forces.  He thought the Sternmetal group were to be bargaining chips in upcoming negotiations.  The officer decided to pass Kfouzorr's story to higher authority, and level to find his commander.

The crew, with Kfouzorr and some soliders in tow, went for their meeting with Bannerji and the other Sternmetal representative.  Bannerji looked surprised to see them, but before discussion started, sounds of machine guns and artillery fire could be heard.  The Mansion was under attack!  The soldiers hit the deck and the crew hid under the conference table.  Bannerji and the other Sternmetal employee were slower to react, and when the ceiling started coming down, both were pinned under rubble.  When the explosions stopped, Bannerji was screaming for help.  The crew and one of the soldiers worked together to unpin Bannerji, while the other soldiers left the room.  Everett began first aid, including splinting a broken leg.  The other Sternmetal employee was dead.  The crew asked Kfouzorr for more details of the attack, and he said it was a pincher with two armored columns trying to cut Tavanix off from the rest of Senled.  The crew decided to rush back to their vehicle and try to get out of the war zone.  Bannerji begged them to bring him along, which they were happy to do.  Everett inspected the other Sternmetal rep to make sure he was dead, and took his wallet, which contained a Sternmetal business card identifying him as Jeffry Marte.

Reaching the parking lot, the crew saw that all vehicles that had been there were gone except for two, both of which were badly damaged.  Their own rental car was upside down.  The crew took a quick look to see if it was repairable, but there was no chance without major parts and a lot of time.  They decided to head back to town and look for another vehicle, carrying Bannerji.  Kfouzorr asked for a minute to grab something from the Mansion, and came back with a bolt-action rifle and some ration packs.

After some walking, the group reached Tavinax, and saw a huge traffic jam, with all roads heading north out of town toward the rest of Senled completely backed up.  The crew approached a man in an off-road vehicle and said that they needed to take it for military reasons.  He didn't seem to believe them, but he was outnumbered and they had guns, so he abandoned his vehicle and ran away.  Bannerji said that his ship was hidden in a mining camp across the Renitza border, and if they could get him there, he could get them offworld.  The roads toward the border were clear, so the group headed that way, though they stayed off the roads as much as possible.  There were some primitive rotary-wing aircraft patrolling the area, but nothing took a shot at their civilian vehicle.

While heading toward the border, the crew started asking Bannerji questions.  He revealed what he'd been doing with Sternmetal: smuggling lanthanum to evade the Navy's price caps on domestic lanthanum.  He had been picking up lanthanum in Patinir, then bringing it to Aramanx and hiding, while forging documents to make it look like the Wolblutn had gone to Scangen in the Vargr Extents and bought the lanthanum there.  He said the missile attack on the shuttle that found his ship in Patinir Belt had been an accident: he had only meant to fire a warning shot, but had hit the wrong button and accidentally nuked the shuttle.

The crew reached the Renitza border and found the gates closed and guarded by Renitzan troops.  Everett and Banerji produced Sternmetal IDs and said they needed to get back to their ship in Renitza.  The story worked and the vehicle was let through.  However, once past the border area, Everett said that going to Bannerji's ship was a bad idea, as there might be an ambush waiting for them, and they should instead just head for a spaceport and get a shuttle back to the highport.  There was no spaceport in Renitza, but if they drove north far enough, they could then cross back into Senled away from the battle zone, and head for the spaceport in Seniek.  They stopped at a fuel station for directions, and the attendant there said that Senledi border guards were notoriously corrupt and demanded bribes of alcohol to cross, and he happened to sell the kind of alcohol they liked.  It was cheap, so the crew bought some, and then refused to give any to Bannerji.

After several hours of driving north, they headed west for Senled.  The border was closed except for citizens, but Sacha pulled out his fake Senled citizen ID and told a (mostly true) story about trying to get out of the war zone and back home.  The story combined with a bribe of alcohol worked, and they were back in Senled.  When they reached the nearest airport, they found it jammed full of people trying to get away from the border.  It would have been a long wait for a flight, but there was a long-distance communicator at the airport that could send a message to Captain Wilder at the highport.  He responded that he would try to get permission to come get them in the launch, and an hour later the launch arrived.  The crew plus Kfouzorr, Bannerji, and two random people who were willing to pay for the two empty seats piled into the launch.

Reaching the highport, the Captain discharged the two paying passengers and instructed the crew to keep an eye on Bannerji, then left to contact his Navy contact.  A bit later, the Navy officer appeared to collect Bannerji.  He later returned to question the crew members and Kfouzorr about what Bannerji had confessed.  A couple of days later, the Captain called a meeting of the crew and handed out some reward money to everyone involved, plus some cards with Imperial Navy logos identifying the bearers as good citizens.

A couple days later, the Captain called a meeting of all owners of the March Harrier.  The ship's First Officer, Randall Dorsainvil, had xmailed Captain Wilder letting him know that he was engaged to Fenna Song, the Captain of the Margin of Profit, and would like to remain on that ship permanently.  The Captain's suggestion was offering Randall KCr 100 for his share of the ship.  On the one hand that was a very low offer because the ship was worth a lot more, but on the other hand Randall would be leaving the crew, and his ownership share had been contingent on being a crew member.  So the Captain thought that would be a fair offer.  The other owners agreed, and the Captain sent off an xmail.

Cai Calula, the ship's VIP passenger, was ready to resume his trip to Paya.  However, Everett thought he saw an angle and wanted to meet with the Navy officer to see if there was any chance of going back to the surface, seizing Bannerji's ship, giving the lanthanum and evidence to the Navy, and keeping the ship as a reward.  The officer took the meeting but said that the matter was above his pay grade and it would take a few weeks to get an answer from the brass.  After some discussion among the crew, they decided to give up on grabbing the Wolblutn and resume their trip to Paya.  Kfouzorr stayed on Aramanx Highport, after telling Gvoudzon that he was going to use his reward money to find passage as far away from the Kforuzeng as possible.

The trip to Carsten was fairly uneventful.  While there, Gani found some ammo for his gyroc weapon.  The March Harrier then double-jumped to Heguz, a water world where two different colonies had mysteriously disappeared over the last few centuries.  The third group of colonists were inhabiting a space station and trying to investigate the planet from orbit before trying again.  With no gas giant in the system and no fuel for sale on the station, the March Harrier risked a trip to the surface to refuel from the ocean, and managed not to be eaten by any sea monsters.

The March Harrier then double-jumped to Violante, an estate world owned by a small number of nobles from Deneb sector.  While there, John finally found a decent price for the howood they'd been carrying since Pysadi, and Gani set up the March Harrier's ATV as a food truck and made a bit of money selling food outside the starport.

The ship then double-jumped for Paya.  On the way, Cai Calula announced that he thought the March Harrier was a quaint and fun ship and would be an excellent addition to his collection.  He offered MCr 250 for the ship, well above its value.  However, the crew did not actually have clear title to the ship, as the subsidy holders were also owners.  Also, Calula indicated that the crew would need to stay with the ship and become his employees, and nobody really wanted to work for him.  The Captain held a meeting of the owners, who decided not to entertain the offer.

The March Harrier landed directly at Cai Calula's spaceport at Cratersea, rather than at Paya's main starport.  Someone goaded Calula into flying the G-Carrier out of the cargo hold himself; fortunately he managed to do so without breaking anything.  The ATVs, ketch, and fighter jet were also offloaded, and the crew was free of their charter.  They headed to the orbital highport to look for other passengers and cargo, and did find some mail heading for Violante, but nothing else.

Jumping back to Violante, the pilot asked John and Sacha whether they should head for Heguz or Zila.  Sacha immediately said Heguz because he hated Zila after his bogus arrest, but John said that Zila had better commercial prospects and they just needed to be careful there to avoid getting arrested.  Captain Wilder agreed and said maybe it would be safer to just stay inside the XT Zone on Zila.  The March Harrier then jumped toward Zila, and the session ended.

GM's Notes:

The players surprised me by first carjacking a vehicle and then heading for a spaceport instead of for the Wolblutn, but their plans were solid enough, and their rolls good enough, that their plan worked out.  Of course later they regretted not taking the Wolblutn, but at least they got out of the war zone and off of Aramanx safely.

The charter with Cai Calula was quite profitable, putting enough money in the operating fund to try to buy out Randall and keep the ship going for at least a few more months.  It could have been even more profitable if they'd sold the March Harrier to him, but being a spoiled rich boy's personal crew didn't seem like fun to anyone.