Star Without Number Revised Campaign - Mixing Trey Causey's Strange Stars & Terra Arisen rpg -Terrans & Reticulans -

So I've been thinking of the 'problems' of adapting the Terra Arisen campaign setting into Trey Causey's Strange Stars material. Which  consists of  Trey Causey's 'Strange Stars' campaign  setting & 'The Strange Stars OSR rule book'.  So let's make that distinct right off according to the author 'You need the setting book to maximally utilize the OSR rulebook.'

 

Strange Stars is like a smoke ring from the 70's or 80's from the fevered mind of its author, and its a graphic as well as artistic slight of hand trick of a laser sword of retro science fantasy gaming goodness. Terra Arisen is written from the perspective of a galactic sector that has recently thrown off the yoke of oppression from the Reticulan empire. Seems like these two would be incompatible right?! Wrong, the Zhuzzh are the insect alien race  who can mend these two campaign settings together. 

The Zhuzzh are a precursor interstellar race that has only recently on a galactic scale gained sentience as we humans know it. They are interstellar scavengers and collectors of technology which they trade among the other races. They move among the stars like interstellar tidal dwellers going where and when the hyper spacial trade winds take them.  And this might also include those cybernetically, & psionically modified humans who now count as technology to certain  Zhuzzh factions. Especially those factions who use the hyperspacial gateways of the Strange Stars setting. 

Away from the prying eyes of the Terran Federation  and the Reticulan clans the Zhuzzh are free to trade, buy, and modify these specimen humans to their hearts content.  Remember the Reticulans have been completely taken aback by the violence that humanity as a whole visited upon them. We talked about this last time on the blog here.  To the alien races of Strange Stars the Zhuzzh are simply another alien race of traders with some local sector issues. Their more then happy to buy cybernetically modified super soldiers & refitted humans who can fight their wars, explore, mine, and more. The events of the Scream and other intergalactic events of Stars Without Number are ancient history to the races of Strange Stars. The universe moved on and the aliens got on with life throughout the galaxy. 
The Zhuzzh traders move through the hyperspace gates trading, collecting, and even bringing alien passengers such as those from The Alliance: into Terran space. Ibglibdishpan find work in both the Reticulan and Terran Federation. 
The Terrans may be in for far more then they bargain for because of the influx of alien technologies, slaves, and more from the Strang Stars. We'll get into this next time. 

OSR Commentary Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier Rpg By Jason Vey & The Arduin Grimoire rpg - Ruins & Weirdness

 This blog entry picks right up from where we left off here on the blog a couple of days ago. We've been talking about the PC's exploring Nexus Gates on 'lost planets'. Why?! 

 The ruins and dungeons of those who fell under the influence of the King In Yellow  are numerous especially those that have been dropped from the interstellar scene. These are still available from the Arduin rpg Nexus gates. Why explore such cursed and damned places?! One word, greed! Seriously this is all of the motivator that the players need. With lost knowledge, technologies, artifacts, trade routes, treasures and more it's only a matter of time as the Yellow sign spreads it's insanity. 

 Ages ago Arduin's ancient races saw the spread of the madness of the King In Yellow and the plague of the Yellow Sign. They isolated as many of the Nexus gates locations as they could. But the King In Yellow is not so easily defeated. With the opening of the interstellar lanes again in Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier. Things have gotten very dangerous again and add to this fact that knowledge of the Nexus gates have gotten into the general population. 

The influence of the King In Yellow has been both active and passive with it's power. According to the King In Yellow wiki entry; "There are few direct references to the King in Yellow in the book that bears his name by  Robert W. Chambers. There are implications that he (or it) is some kind of terrible, perhaps almighty being, of vast and insidiously penetrative reach, although it is unmentioned of just what substance or origin nor the true form it takes. Its machinations, though, appear born of a limitless desire for domination. As noted by Mr. Wilde in The Repairer of Reputations:

"The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts ... He is a king whom emperors have served.""

 This means that the King's power is partially sustaining the ruins, treasures, and dungeons. These interstellar locations  are almost parodies of what they used to be. And still their legends continue to lure adventurers, treasure hunters, raiders, and other fools.  This also includes Arduin itself where the King's followers continue to subtly feed the flames of the cult.  Next time we dive into the cult of 'The King In Yellow' on Arduin and it's reach past the Nexus Gates. 
 

Assignments Within The Interzone of New Flesh Rpg - Session Report One

" Enter the dystopian world of New Flesh, a future-noir roleplaying game where cyberpunk meets biological horror in the neon-drenched streets of Interzone. Set in then near future, when corporate power runs unchecked, this game draws inspiration from the works of William S. Burroughs, David Cronenberg, and other masters of transgressive fiction."

"New Flesh embraces the surreal and visceral, biotechnology reigns supreme over chrome and steel, transforming human bodies into corporate commodities. Underground labs conduct forbidden experiments, pleasure dens offer metamorphic experiences, and reality itself distorts in the wake of chimeric entities. In this haunting setting, player characters inhabit a world where flesh warps at corporate whim, consciousness fragments across biological interfaces, and survival demands moral compromise."

The Red Edition of New Flesh rpg has been on my mind for a couple of days after Legion of Myth covered the second edition of Wretched New Flesh by the Red Room. The Legion of Myth guys even dived into the magick and technology of Aviliadad. We've played the Red Edition of New Flesh extensively over the last couple of months. And it's all about how far the PC's are willing to compromise their morals, their existence and their very souls especially where the Interzone is concerned. Interzone is this region within Aviladad where the alien and the reality of the world break down. The aliens from outside our reality have begun to move in & their technologies have begun to move in. And this is where our Zonetec agents who are a part of the party steer them into doing work for them. 

The party got deeply involved in the moving of black technologies cargo for Takeda Technologies which turned out to be assassin bots. These bots are deeply on the biotechnological side & completely alien. To stop these things from murdering the leaders of the Mutant Underground sparking off a riot. This means that the PC's had to take on dangerous implants and weird psionic powers. This leads into the Nakatomi Genetics Inc building incident. 

 This led to the PC's now on the track of Scarrli cultists who are a part of a an integrated Advilidad. Who are now diving down into the underground where the PC's must deal with the fall out. 

OSR Commentary - Perils of the Young Kingdoms By Fred Behrendt, Geoff Gillan, Nick Hagger, Mark Morrison, Mike Syzmanski & Richard Watts For the Stormbringer Rpg

 "A thousand years ago a great war between the Dharzi and Melnibonean eliminated the ancient race of sorcerers from the Young Kingdoms, and established the Dragon Lords as masters of the world. Far to the north of Melniboneân the family of a lesser lord took the caverns of a tall, black island as their home, transforming the former laboratory of a Dharzi sorcerer into a magnificent abode." 

"Then, the Bright Empire began its inexorable decline, and the caverns were abandoned. Four hundred and fifty years have past, and something dark and vile now inhabits this isle, warping the natural order of living things and twisting their very beings into hideous monsters."

"Lord Straasha summons the adventurers to the coast of Tarkesh, bordering the frigid Pale Sea and the unholy domain of forbidden Pan Tang. Visions of bloody waves ceaselessly haunt their dreams, presaging a doom to come should the heroes fail to heed Straasha’s urgent call."

 Perils of the Young Kingdoms By Fred Behrendt, Geoff Gillan, Nick Hagger, Mark Morrison, Mike Syzmanski & Richard Watts For the Stormbringer Rpg has five scenarios that challenge and are set in unusual locations throughout the Young Kingdoms. 
 Back in '91 we slowly ran through these adventures with 6 PC deaths and one TPK directly lost in the Million Spheres. Alright, we slowly had a build up of slogging through the Young Kingdoms after having dealt with the Hawkmoon campaign setting. Perils of the Young Kingdom was a campaign adventure supplement that my uncle used to hype up the fact that the events of Elric's Young Kingdom were accelerating. 
Sorcerers & wizards from Pan Tang were playing with forces that were best left alone especially those ancient secrets of the Dharzi sorcerer's civilization & ruin. Perils ties into the fact that the old orders & powers of the Young Kingdom are declining. The back of the book describes this: "PERILS OF THE YOUNG KINGDOMS provides five independent adventures for the STORMBRlNGER roleplaying game. Each of these adventures explores places scattered across the world of the Young Kingdoms, revealing marvelous, mysterious, and treachous locales such as the Floating Realm, a Sargasso sea of ruined ships; the Link Machine, an engine of law which slowly mutates the winged Myrrhyn race; and a Chaos Storm, carrying the chaos pack of Queen Xiombarg, which hastens the appearice of the Infinite Cathedral of Gormweller the Cod Seller."

These adventures are location based enabling the DM to customize them as they want to their own Stormbringer rpg campaign and they are as follows:

• The Floating Realm by Michael Syzmanski
• The Myrrhn Link  by Fred Behrendt
• The Fang and the Fountain  by Richard Watts
• Stolen Moments  by Nick Hagger and
• The Man Who Sold Gods by Geoff Gillan.

 So in my mind Perils of the Young Kingdom is a mid tier Stormbringer campaign set of adventures for an ongoing campaign. This means that a DM doesn't have to suppress their Young Kingdom campaign setting. 'The Man Who Sold Gods' was an adventure that we used to lead deeply into a Corum rpg mini campaign. 

Review & Commentary On 'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' By Stewart Wieck, Kevin Freeman, & Sandy Petersen ... For The Stombringer Rpg 2nd Edition Box Set

 "Explore Three Deadly Temples! Enter the Accursed Realm of Zhortra, Lord of Chaos.

White Wolf, a supplement for the Eternal Champion series of roleplaying games, presents many items of interest to gamemasters, particularly those wishing to run high-level campaigns. The book contains: Complete information, stats, and maps for three powerful temples of the Young Kingdoms. DARKSPIRE: Temple of Chaos is a mysterious and sinister place, with many dooms for the unwary adventurer. From this dark abode the twisted worshippers of Mebelrode, the Faceless God, bring fear to all who fail to bow down to the power of Chaos! The Temple of the Eternal Flame lurks in the fiery heart of an ancient volcano. This remarkable temple is dedicated to the worship of Kakatal, Lord of Fire Elementals. The mighty fortress of HAVEN: Temple of Law stands defiant against the minions of Chaos, and offers refuge to all who flee their wrath. Its courageous guardians worship four great Lawful deities: Donblas, Goldar, Arkyn, and Callandus. They stand ready to battle Chaos whenever called upon by the faithful.

Escape from Yellow Hell, a high-level, ultra-magical scenario the will challenge even the most powerful adventurers. The adventurers must rescue a priest trapped on the Yellow Hell, a x5 Chaotic plane of the damned ruled by Zhortra, Lord of Chaos.

White Wolf also contains naval rules for the Eternal Champion series, suitable for any campaign, and new data on Elric of Melnibone (the "White Wolf").

Any adventure created for an Eternal Champion game will function without flaw in any scenario in the series. The strength of Law or Chaos on a plane may affect a character's magical ability."

Coming out of the ether in '87 is one of the more unusual early books for the Stormbringer rpg 'White Wolf ' from the pens of Stewart Wieck, Kevin Freeman, & Sandy Petersen. The page count seems unimpressive at fifty six pages but these early books are unusual in that they set the Sword & Sorcery tone for later editions , push forward the Stormbringer rpg universe, & bring to the table experimental early Chaosium rpg  ideas.

You can think of 'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' as a supplement that occurs later in the career of both Elric & the PC's. There are rules straight out of the gate here for dimensional travel, war, and more. You can think of this book taking place right around the time of the 'Weird of the White Wolf era or much earlier;""We must be bound to one another then. Bound by hell-forged chains and fate-haunted circumstance. Well, then  let it be thus so ” and men will have cause to tremble and flee when they hear the names of Elric of Melnibone and Stormbringer, his sword. We are two of a kind produced by an age which has deserted us. Let us give this age cause to hate us"

Imrryr, the dreaming city; Yyrkoon, the hated usurper; Cymoril, the beloved... all had fallen to the fury and unearthly power of the albino prince and his terrible sword. And Elric faced at last the fate that was to be his in this haunted era ” that he must go forth, sword and man as one, and havoc and horror would be forever at his forefront until he found the Purpose that was yet obscured to him.
THE WEIRD OF THE WHITE WOLF is the authorized, revised and finally complete novel of the third book of Elric."
'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' brings the fire of high end & PC level Stormbringer rpg action to the table top level. You can compare the feel of this Stormbringer book to T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil by Gary Gygax &  Frank  Mentzer. How so!? This is the high end promised middle to upper teir adventure promised in the Stormbringer rpg line. You've got three different temples of Law & Chaos in 'White Wolf'. According to the  Elric/Stormbringer rpg entry in Wayne's Books;" DARKSPIRE: Temple of Chaos is a mysterious and sinister place, with many dooms for the unwary adventurer. From this dark abode the twisted worshippers of Mabelrode, the Faceless God, bring fear to all who fail to bow down to the power of Chaos! " What this actually is the first of three temples of Law & Chaos, its a deadly affair. I can honestly say that this temple has made me hate & loath  Mabelrode, the Faceless God because I lost three PC's to this place.

Thrown into the deep end this is a temple that belongs in both Stormbringer & the Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg. Yes its that deadly!
"The Temple of the Eternal Flame lurks in the fiery heart of an ancient volcano. This remarkable temple is dedicated to the worship of Kakatal, Lord of Fire Elementals." This is one of those elemental rulers temples that I've used numerous times as a dungeon master with players. Since Elric called on various animal rulers from half worlds to the various elemental rulers. This temple has appeared in Runequest, as a Call of Cthlhu Dreamlands adventure location, and even as a D&D elemental temple its that well thought out & serves its purpose well! Next! There didn't used to be a lot of detail on the temples of Law in Stormbringer until 'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' detailed out this location

"The mighty fortress of HAVEN: Temple of Law stands defiant against the minions of Chaos, and offers refuge to all who flee their wrath. Its courageous guardians worship four great Lawful deities: Donblas, Goldar, Arkyn, and Callandus. They stand ready to battle Chaos whenever called upon by the faithful." My god has this adventure location gotten a work out. This was the adventure headquarters for the Knights of Donblas & the bastion of Law for Stormbringer. Towards the end of the campaign this adventure location was the perfect location to have the PC's make a stand against the wave of undead & Chaos at the end of the world. But the icing within the White Wolf supplement has to be the adventure 'Escape From Yellow Hell; "Escape from Yellow Hell, a high-level, ultra-magical scenario the will challenge even the most powerful adventurers. The adventurers must rescue a priest trapped on the Yellow Hell, a x5 Chaotic plane of the damned ruled by Zhortra, Lord of Chaos."

'Escape From The Yellow Hell' is a mini campaign within its own right, its brutal, nasty, & an excercise in high end thinking & actual slogging through the adventure location & plane. Its well done but its really dark & nasty Hell. My players hated me for using this adventure.

'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' is a naval warfare supplement as well that has a nice set of Young Kingdom ships, naval combat rules, and even other planar travel rules. It presents itself as a universal supplement for the Stormbringer rpg but its really high end set of options for the 2nd edition Stormbringer box set.

And in point of fact I've used these rules sets & tool box found within this book to run a complete 'A Sailor on the Seas of Fate' campaign upon which the player's PC's signed up for. Yes its a solid supplement & one of the best in my opinion that was published.

OSR Commentary Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier Rpg By Jason Vey & The Arduin Grimoire rpg - The Yellow Connection

 "Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier is the latest tabletop role playing game project from Elf Lair Games, producers of Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars  and Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age. It forms the third of our trilogy of core games - we've given you modern and fantasy, and now we bring sci-fi to the forefront with the same rules, completely customizable and ready for you to build exactly the type of science fiction gaming you want. As always, it's your game your way when it's Powered by O.G.R.E.S.!"

 Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier Rpg By Jason Vey is a game that we've been playing around with. The game has some real legs to take your rpg player's PC's into space. The third interstellar campaign option leans heavily into the King in Yellow Mythos & this is a perfect Sci Fi tool kit for putting together a space based OSR game. It's very easy to plug and play your favorite OSR setting if you want to. For me it's David A. Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire which lines up with some of Jason Vey's interstellar races within Thirteen Parsecs. 

For example the Phraint make an excellent alien race to trade with and the Nexus gates are the perfect vehicle to get PC's to the Arduin campaign setting. 

 

 What 13 Parsecs does right is present an alternative OSR style rpg tool box and platform that allows the DM to bring their own Science Fiction vision to the table top. Within the Arduin Groimoire there are tons of optional systems that can influence PC generation.  Thirteen Parsecs has character archetypes  including the Augmented, Blaster, Bounty Hunter, Diplomat, Merc, Mystic Knight, Psychic, and Slicer. These PC types are perfect to bring into a game as traders, bodyguards, etc. 
The Arduin fantasy setting then is easily convertible into the primitive alien world. I'm not the only person whose done this. The alien races of Thirteen Parsecs  such as  Android/Robot, Canis, Decti, Felis, Grey, Jalex, Remoni, Saurian, are those who rule the Galactic Empire. 
Arduin's fantasy races are the remains of the colonists and colony races who have been supplanted after these colonies have fallen.  The Nexus gates have only recently started working again. 
These Nexus gates also lead into the interstellar ruins and dungeons across the multiverse. But are these dimensional gates also leading back into the clutches of the King in Yellow? 
Yes because the King In Yellow has ruined or destroyed countless other worlds. Many of these worlds  used to be under the control of the yellow sign. But is this only the beginning. 

OSR Post Apocalyptic Commentary & Review Of Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny For Your Old School Campaigns

 "Hell Tanner isn't the sort of guy you'd mistake for a hero: he's a fast-driving car thief, a smuggler, and a stone-cold killer. He's also expendable “ at least in the eyes of the Secretary of Traffic for the Nation of California. Tanner doesn't care much for those eyes. You'd also never mistake Hell Tanner for a humanitarian. Facing life in prison for his various crimes, he's given a choice; rot away his remaining years in a tiny jail cell, or drive cross-country and deliver a case of antiserum to the plague-ridden people of Boston, Massachusetts... if anyone is still alive there to receive it, that is."

Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny was published in 1969 & is an unapologetically post apocalyptic Science Fiction yarn. Damnation Alley isn't a great novel instead it's a throw back to Pulp magazine tradition. This novel goes hard because Hell Tanner is an exact copy or contemporary of Snake Plisken from John Carpenter's Escape From New York. 

According to the Damnation Alley wiki entry;"Hell Tanner, an imprisoned Hells Angels  member, is offered a full pardon for his crimes in exchange for taking on a suicide mission: a precarious drive through Damnation Alley, a narrow passage relatively free of lethal radiation, across a ruined America from Orange County, California to Boston, as part of a convoy of three Landmaster vehicles (fitted with various rocket launchers, flame-throwers, machine guns, and slicing implements) attempting to deliver an urgently needed plague vaccine  to the survivors of Boston"  

The world of Damnation Alley is a post apocalypse Hellscape & here's a break down according to the Wiki entry; "a post-apocalyptic Southern California, in a hellish world shattered by nuclear war thirty years before. Several police states have emerged in remaining areas of the former United States that can still support human life. As a result of the war, hurricane-force winds above 500  ft (150 m) prevent any sort of air travel from one state to the next. Sudden, violent, and unpredictable "garbage storms," and giant, mutated animals and insects make day-to-day life treacherous."

 This novel has very little to do with the movie & according to a review; "Barry N. Malzberg found the book "an interesting novella converted to an unfortunate novel," faulting it as "a mechanical, simply transposed action-adventure story written, in my view, at the bottom of the man's talent."^[1] Zelazny himself agreed with Malzberg, stating that he preferred the novella and only expanded it at his agent's request to make it more viable for a movie deal."  Umm don't let this take away from a great little post apocalyptic that tells it's story in a one hundred and fifty pages. If you wanna read the original "Damnation Alley" (novella) at the Internet Archive.

Damnation Alley could easily be used as OSR post apocalpytic inspiration with the PC's being called into service to take medicine from the nation of California to Boston. The DM can populate their own landscape with a wide variety of mutated encounters. Hell Tanner could easily be viewed as a proto type for a Wretched rpg Apocalypse game group of PC's. The PC's have to trek from West to East coast and they happen to be the worst of the worst criminals because only they can survive the Hellscape. 

Forget radiation for a moment and let's talk weapons that are capable of mutating animals and humans into the monsters we see in Damnation Alley. For me it's easily got to be some sorta of Michael Moorcock inspired Chaos based weaponry. These weapons may crack the reality of Damnation Alley's Earth and allowed Chaos to pour into the landscape wrecking ecology, reality, and more. This Hellscape is what the PC's must journey across. 

For the Wretchedverse these horrid weapons allowed the breaking the walls of reality allowing the Beyond to pour into this world and mutated every monster and animal it touched including the human race. This is a world on the edge of extinction to adventure within. 

  

Warriors of The Red Planet Rpg & Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation by English writer Edwin Lester Arnold For An Old Mars Campaign

Mars is a massively dangerous place to dungeon crawl & adventuring down in the ruins. This blog post picks up from this blog post. 

So we've been working with Warriors of the Red Planet and taking advantage of the multi WoRP races and PC classes. This is a great system to run full on post apocalyptic rpg campaigns. 

To this end I've been rereading Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation by English writer Edwin Lester Arnold, & this book has numerous elements that perhaps inspired Edgar Rice Burroughs 'A Princess of Mars'. 

Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation was published in 1905 & 'A Princess of Mars' was published in 1917. 

Is there a way of including both Gullivar Jones's Mars  & John Carter's Barsoom together in one campaign setting. According GULLIVER JONES ON BARSOOM?  by Den Valdron in ERBzine issue 1403 there's a ton of reasons why Gulliver Jones adventures took place in the Arctic region of Barsoom. 

The Mars of Gullivar Jones is highly dangerous place because it's essentially a prehistoric micro cosm of 'the Mars of yesteryear'. Sure you've got the Hither & Thither peoples with a relatively stable culture comparable to the Eloi & the Morlocks of HG Wells Time Machine novel. But there are other peoples, creatures, etc. which the author doesn't get deeply into. I have to admit that it was a bit slow going at times with the Edwin Lester Arnold going into far more detail about the alien plants then the creatures and monsters. Does this actually line up with evolutionary traits of ancient Mars?! What I'am I talking about?! 

Does Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation's fixation on the plant life point up a truth that we've found within Clark Aston Smith's Mars cycle. The simple evolutionary truth that the animal life on Mars is highly aggressive and multi limbed  for a reason. That reason is the fact that the plant life is highly evolved to kill animal life in a wide variety of creative ways. 
Think about it. Mars even when it was green is a very 'plant eats animal' based world. This Mars belongs to the first cycle of the planet when it was dominated by plant based life, gods, and even horrors.  We know this because Clark Ashton Smith goes hard into this with his Mars Cycle: 

• Dweller in the Gulf, The  (1933)
• Mnemoka (1955) Fragment
• Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, The  (1931)
• Vulthoom  (1935)
• Seedling of Mars or The Planet Entity  [plot by - E M Johnson] (1931)[An alternative background to the proceeding 4 stories]

What does this mean for Edgar Rice Burroughs material?! Quite a bit for the DM whose linking all of these stories together for their Warriors of the Red Planet campaign. Edgar Rice Burroughs's Plant Men from The Gods of  Mars by  Edgar  Rice Burroughs are hold overs from this time period gardened and tended by the Therns and their religion of manipulation. This ecological manipulation goes deeply into the lands of the Hither & Thither peoples. Extending deeply into the dungeons & ruins of the Martian underworld. We'll go down into the Martian underworld, the Therns, and the dungeon ecology of Mars next time. 

Star Without Number Revised Campaign - Mixing Trey Causey's Strange Stars & Terra Arisen rpg -Terrans & Reticulans

  Let's pick it up right from here on the blog for our  Trey Causey's Strange Stars Stars Without Number campaign. This ties in with  the Reticulans of the Terra Arisen campaign setting.The idea here is that the Reticulans control more then one of the hyperspacial gateways of their empire. 

The Reticulan empire is still economically solvent because of the fact that they impose a small toll on all interstellar traffic. This enables the empire to collect on resources, technology, and more through these tolls. 

The exports of the Reticulan empire include modified Terrans to the empire's client races. The Terrans are their own easily modified resource and they get farmed out to the modified races. The Reticulans see this as only natural. 
Cybernetic warriors, modified space going workers, etc. all are exported by the Reticulan empire. This idea and ethos something that the Vokun are only too happy to buy into. The idea of using another race to fight wars, take on the harder ideals of interstellar trade and negotiations. What could be better. Possibly making a profit. Here's where the Slavers of Strange Stars have come into their own by buying these cybernetically and biologically modified Terrans and twisting them further. Then selling them to their own client races and marking them up making a profit in the process. 

So is it any doubt as too why the Terrans have rebelled with such force against the Reticulan Empire?! The Reticulans are loathed by the Terrans. But it goes deeper then this. The Terrans are a reflection to a certain extent of the Reticulans having been deep in the trenches of the empire with the lesser Reticulans and their clans. The client races of the Reticulan empire are taken aback by the violence and cunning of the Terrans after the rebellion. 

How do the client races who use the modified Terrans feel about these recent current events?! This places the Terrans in a modified position. Well get into this next time. 

Review & Commentary The Freedom-class Merchant Vessel Written by Independence Games starship guru, Michael Johnson For The Clement Sector Rpg

 "The Freedom-class Merchant Vessel is a starship from the days before grav drives and grav plates changed everything. A 400-tonne ship built in 2204 and squarely marketed to those enterprising enough to brave the frontier and head out to the new colonies in Earth Sector and Clement Sector, the ship was state of the art in its time. Now, over a hundred years later, the ship could be considered a bit of a dinosaur yet many continue to swear by this stalwart, especially the waldlaufers in Ariel Sector who value nothing more than their independence and their Freedoms."

"Written by Independence Games starship guru, Michael Johnson, inside this book you'll find a detailed breakdown of the Freedom-class, including its history, specifications, deck plans, and multiple variants”plus financing options, cargo configurations, and planetary landing procedures. Alongside these essential details, dive into A Visit to Miss Kitty's, a short story by John Watts that gives insight into the life of a waldlaufer making his way in a dangerous universe."

The Freedom-class Merchant Vessel  written by Independence Games starship guru, Michael Johnson is one of those trader starships is perfect for the adventuring party within Clement sector. Why?! Because star ships such as the Freedom class Merchant vessels are the heart and soul of the colonies in the Clement sector rpg campaign setting. 
There are a couple of other details about this starship that make it perfect for an adventurer's star craft. One is the fact that this ship has a low crew compliment, lots of great details & this ship can take a high value and low value cargoes.  The Freedom class is 400-tonne ship built in 2204 and squarely marketed to those enterprising enough to brave the frontier. This means that the Freedom is perfect for an experienced group of adventurers and traders. Since the Clement sector is an Old West analogy the Freedom is the perfect bridge gap between the 'Black' and the deep  colonies of the Clement sectors. 

The Freedom-class Merchant Vessel is well written and the artists do a fantastic job of bringing the Freedom to life. The layout for this book is well done, the font is easy on the eyes, and this book is up to Independence Games usual standards. 

The Freedom-class Merchant Vessel  is a fantastic starship for adventurers because is creates an opportunity for adventure and trade among the stars of the Clement sector. As a side hustle for adventurers the Freedom merchant class presents a classic star craft in the tradition of 2d6 classic Science Fiction rpg. The year is 2342.  Adventure awaits in the crew quarters of the Freedom class merchant vessel..