Matters of Castle & Space Piracy Using Dragon Magazine, The Best Of Vol. 4 & Independence Games Skull & Crossbones

 So last night was one of those night's where the Best of Dragon Magzine issue IV & came across a few articles that one think about the glory days of  Dragon magazine. Could it be that I miss Dragon magazine in its glorious print format?! This is espcially true of Section III Creative Campaigning. This is a wonderful section for any old school or OSR dungeon master. This is especially true of 'A PC and his money by Lew Pulsipher'. This is one of the semial article on dealing with 'treasure', money, and adventurers. 

'A PC and his money by Lew Pulsipher' purposes any number of ways in which circumstances, the state, politics, religion etc. will drain away all of that ill gotten loot of the PC's. Just look at the section on religion; "Religion: This should drain a significant sum from adventurers, staying more or less proportional as income rises. In most fantasy worlds the gods are real, and if not omnipresent, they at least affect the world through manipulation of followers and minions. Most adventurers will actively worship one or more gods, if only "just in case." Active worship entails contributions, if not tithes (10% of all income) or offerings of animals and goods of the worshiper. And if the local temple is destroyed, the wealthy worshipers (that is, the adventurers) will be expected to provide money to rebuild it." 
Simple, straight forward thinking DM advice that comes in really handy in the middle of a campaign or when those higher levels come. And money breeds greeds which attracts unwanted attention. 
But I can also see this coming into play in 2d6 rpg campaigns as well! That's right there's a deeper well touch stone here and that's using this information with other games as well. Yes, we're specifically looking at Stars Without Number & other Traveller derived systems especially when exoplanets are involved. an Earth analogy exoplanet. And its this idea that could well tie into Stella Gemma Publishing's Barbaric rpg. 

Imagine for a second here that the Wild West analogy is turned on its ear & in turn you've got a horde of space pirates descending from the stars onto a primitive society. Imagine if you will a horde of Clement sector space pirates deciding to raid a group of primitive worlds for slaves stock, artifacts, and especially nature resources. All of this to make a quick dollar on the open market and if worm hole gateways have been cut off for hundreds of years even better. Yes, we're looking at Independence Games Skull & Crossbones here. 

The idea here is that this is simply another investiment in the space pirates portfolio. To this nameless little primative world this could be the Apocalpyse. But what happens if the primatives turn the tables?! A primitive proto Germanic or European Viking style culture suddenly becomes an interstellar player on the sector scene?! 

Events & politic become a whole lot more complicated and this is something that early Traveller dealt with a lot. Even taking H. Beam Piper's Space Viking into account here. The implications of a Dark Ages society becoming an interstellar power one that echoes in the hearts of some Science Fiction fans. Sure it may take a century or two but those hordes could well be coming for your colony. 

And this same ideal could well be suited for taking the Demon-class lembus and the Ironbard-class longship and adding it to your hordes of Chaos in Adventurer, Conqueror, King. An idea that goes back to March 22,'s blog entry here. ACK's fanzine  Axioms Issue 2: Savage Swords of Chaos! has some excellent articles on doing exactly that!