KordCorp 0508 A445511-14 SRTI Ag Ht NI
A sleepy little world populated mostly by robot farmers, and that happens to be the headquarters for KordCorp.
NPCs of note:
Ted Kord, billionaire industrialist extroardinaire. Mostly too busy to bother with the PCs, but they very well might see a well-coifed man storming through the space station, surrounded by sycophants and aides.
Yeven Orthos, once the head researcher for KordCorp. He and Ted had a nasty falling out, and now he spends most of his time trying to drum up support for a takeover by people with "the real knowhow," him and his scientist buddies. Wiry little guy with messy black hair, and quite pleasant when he's not on the subject of Ted Kord, traitorous bastard.
"The Shining Star" would be easy enough to write off as a bunch of drugged up hippies, if it weren't for their unfortunate tendency to assassinate an important public figure every so often. There's a rumor going around that they get their instructions (and supplies) from some offworld interest, but most investigations into the matter end in unhelpful conversations in bars with shadowy figures you are never seen again.
Local Rumors:
1 Erdo Mitchel's robots have gone crazy!
2 The West River Boys, a bunch of no-good surly frog-ox rustlers, have been spotted at least once or twice in the hills to the north.
3 Rusty Sallone is looking for someone to ship something awfully weird to Goro. Comes in boxes and growls.
4 Sunday Jones ran away from his father (Stewart) a couple days ago. He's still looking for her, and worried that he'll try to hitch a ride with some offworlders and he'll never see him again.
5 There's some real shady guy wandering around town, says he needs a couple people he can trust to get a message offworld.
6 A couple lab-coated guys came downport a couple days ago, looking for something with scanners (wouldn't say what it was, so we couldn't help) and they haven't been seen since.
Locations:
Kordford -- the only thing approaching a city on KordCorp. Named for the leader of the original settlement, Elijah Kord, an age and a half ago.
Snake Eye's Saloon -- Run by the eponymous Joe "Snake Eye" Jefferson. Mostly the best place to pick up rumors in Kordford, but Snake Eye occasionally needs a job or two done, too.
"Speedboat for the lake of your imagination" indeed.
This is pretty much the extent of what I'm designing for each of the half a dozen planets that comprise the starting area of the campaign. Everything else in the sub-sector gets a paragraph, at most, until the PCs express interest in it. I'm good at winging it, and I plan to make use of that skill. And Traveller looks to have a lot of support for such shenanigans, with its spiffy random encounter tables and list of pre-statted NPCs.
This is the first time, though, that I've actually had to sit down and decide that I'm not going to obsessively detail everything on the map. Normally, that nonchalance comes naturally. I don't know if it's because I've gotten older or because Traveller hands me a subsector map to fill out, but I did feel an urge to go and detail every planet on the map, and put a lot more together for KordCorp. Not that I had any ideas to either effect, mind you. I just felt like I should drive myself crazy.
It's one of CT's big strengths. Pretty much it's easy for the GM to wing it in places that are not detailed. Every time I read a Traveller related post, it just wants me to play it again.
ReplyDeleteBut..... where's Booster Gold? 8)
ReplyDeleteBonemaster: It's just got this . . . vibe to it, don't it? Like LEGOs are something. You just want to go make some stuff, and show all your friends. It's great.
ReplyDeleteThe Badger King: I was hoping someone would notice that -- the one player I've got who I know reads comics is mostly into Marvel. I have this terrible habit of putting references into my game. Once dropped the statue from "Ozymandius" into the game, inscription and all, and then had the gall to make it the starting point of a major storyline.
And how many people actually caught the reference to Ozymandias? I did that once... except it was a statue of Ozymandias from WATCHMEN... sadly, no one even noticed.
ReplyDeleteAt least two people in the group picked up on it, but they thought it was a Marvel villain. Wikipedia is not always your friend.
ReplyDelete