Traveller Intro

What you know

You're on the planet Winston which is the only habitable planet in the Winston system.
Winston is very similar to Earth in that it's about the same size (12,000 km diameter), the same gravity (rocky core, 1.05g), the same hydrography (70%), similar air pressure and composition (110 KPa, N, O, Ar, Xe), similar temperatures, and similar day length (23 hours). Axial tilt is 15 degrees, so the seasons are not as strong as Earth.

1 hex = 1000km, so New Zealand would be about two.

Sun and Friend

Winston orbits a much smaller star than Earth's sun (G2V). The "Sun" is a K5V orange dwarf (0.7M☉, 0.17L☉) at only 42 M km (0.28 AU), so the the year is only 72 days long.

And there is a second star orbiting further out at 0.4AU. It is a M5K red dwarf (0.1M☉) and appears in the sky as a bright reddish star that varies in size between 3/4th to 1/8th full-moon size. This is called the "Friend" or "Little Friend". It is thrice as bright as our full moon, and produces big tides.

Planet Winston was probably originally captured from further out in the system. It is now in an orbital resonance with both stars, and it's been stable like this for hundreds of thousands of years*.

* = All years here are "Earth years" to help understand.

But due to this origin, life would not have evolved here. The place was terraformed by the Imperium 350 years ago which took 160 years. It was then given to the Sword World Confederation in a political deal 190 years ago.

The combination of the two suns gives very large tides, and violent weather; hurricanes and tornadoes are common. Orange and red dwarves are more violent stars than Earth's sun, so there are regular solar storms and coronal mass ejections from the Sun and the Friend. The most violent of these force Winston's inhabitants to take cover in bunkers.

Winston Ende

The Winston system and planet was named after its first ruler, Winston Peters Ende. He was a benevolent dictator, or fascist tyrant, depending on who you ask. 

Winston Ende had life extension, so was 420 years old when he tragically died in a skyhook accident 20 years ago. The fuel governors on the air-raft thrusters malfunctioned, so all those on board were subject to 25g for a sustained time before the fuel ran out, as the craft looped around and around in a great arc. What came back didn't live long.

Politics

Planet Winston is still in settler mode. It is tech level 6: 1950 plus modern TL10 nick-nacks. The population is currently only 500,000, so there are lots of big farms and rural towns. There is a very "wild west" feel about this, with each town having a local sheriff appointed by the local noble, warlord or crime family. There isn't really a central government.  Entrope (the closest system) has stationed a battalion of Sword-Worlder peacekeepers to the biggest town Ravens End to maintain the control of the space elevator and star port, but they don't tend to venture out into the wilds.

Carrying of blades, single-shot projectile weapons and revolvers openly is tolerated, but not grenades, automatic weapons, lasers or energy weapons. 

There is one space port orbiting in a geostationary orbit with a space elevator to the ground, connected to Ravens End. It is an E-type "Frontier Star port" plus. There are no ship-building yards here, nor ship repair capacity. But they do sell refined fuel, which is stored in orbit.

When they can get a successful harvest, Winston farms make a lot of food which is exported mainly to the nearest system (and megalopolis hell-hole) Entrope. Space tourism is another big earner.

The Party

The party is a mix of Sword-Worlders and Solomani from Winston and Entrope, and one Daryen from Torment. All are legally freemen and have Winston citizenship.

Belle Ende drinking and flying

Your patrons, the Ende family, live in an impressive estate overlooking the sea and the town of Ravens End. The aging patriarch Sir Ledge and his ageless wife Lady Contessa run the Ende (crime) family. 

They have five children: Hoff, Itzy, Belle, Knob and Apres.

Belle Ende, socialite and lush, has come of age and wants to prove herself to her father. So, she, her two brothers Hoff and Itzy, her body-guard Liz Holmes, and her chauffeur Paddy O'Riley have collected a group of malcontents, recidivists and ne'er-do-wells from the local slums, brothels and doss-houses hard-working, loyal, honest advisors and stalwarts: Emerse Gee, Anton Tositova, Spanner Hoang, and Gnostic Hands.

Traveller 2025

Milieu

You are in the "Golden Age" of Traveller. Year 1105 of the Third Imperium (AD 4677).

The action is taking place in the Querion subsector of the Spinward Marches sector. This is the junction between four groups: Third Imperium, Sword Worlds Confederation, the Zhodani Consulate and the Darrian Confederation.

The Imperium is the biggest human political organization. It is a feudal confederacy where member worlds agree to pay taxes and obey a few fundamental laws (the High Laws). In return, the Imperium agrees to patrol the space between the worlds, to protect interstellar trade, to encourage travel and commerce, and to arbitrate diplomatic relations between worlds. Beyond this, individual worlds are left to their own devices.

All of Traveller takes place in Charted space, which is that little red dot on the map of the Milky Way.

Milky Way Galaxy

Zoom in to "Charted Space"

One hex in this final map is 1 parsec (pc) and that is the size of one star system, planets and all.

A parsec is a unit of distance, and it is 3.3 light-years = 206,000 AU = 3.1E16 metres =  31 trillion kilometres or 31 million million kms (31,000,000,000,000).

The yellow circles are indicators of population. The red and blue borders are the different political regions. Red to the right is the Imperium. Blue to the top is the Zhodani Consulate. Blue at the bottom is the Sword Worlds Confederation.

Jump Drive

The jump drive was invented on Earth 2500 years ago (AD 2088). It is the main way for travellers to move around Charted Space. Traveller follows the Star Wars hyperspace model:  A ship slides into "Jump Space" and travels there for one week, then slides out in the destination system. This trip always takes exactly one week unless something goes wrong.

The distance the ship can travel in that week is dependent on the engine size. A Jump-1 engine will travel one parsec in the week, Jump-2 two parsecs, right up to Jump-6 which is six parsecs. Jump-6 is the maximum jump with onboard fuel tanks. (Bigger jump drives do exist, but they need external drop tanks for the fuel. Like with the rocket equation, the weight of the fuel diminishes the load you can carry, and you eventually end up with all fuel.)

The jump must take place away from strong gravitational fields. 100 diameters is the recommended distance. (E.g. Earth is 12,000 km in diameter, so you'd need to jump at 100 x12000 = 1.2 million km, three times the moon's distance, about L2 where the James Web telescope is. To fly out to 1.2M km at 1G takes almost 6 hours)

You can try to jump closer than 100, but then you take a risk of a mis-jump. That means the ship can fail the jump, or end up somewhere random up to 6 parsecs away, or ... just explode.

To execute a jump, the jump fuel is burned which charges the jump capacitors - this takes an hour. It is the discharging of the capacitors powers the jump-drive.

The actual slide into hyperspace only takes a few seconds. The jump-drive field generators make a timed Einstein-Rosen bridge and the ship slides into Jump-space with the current movement vector (universe absolute). This is an incredibly complex set of calculations to time it right, so must be done with the Jump computer. 

The jump capacitors are lossy and can not hold their charge for too long, so the jump must go ahead within 30 minutes of full charge, or else they discharge too much to power the jump. If this happens, they need to be topped up with more fuel, or discharged. It takes an hour to dissipate all that energy safely.

Jump fuel can be on board, or stored in drop-tanks. Drop tanks are jettisoned after draining (and must be more than 100 tank diameters away before the jump engine is engaged.)

When a ship enters or leaves jump-space into real space, there is a huge electromagnetic pulse which can be detected within one light-hour (7AU). Plus the arriving ship's transponder will be pinging anyway.

If another ship is within 100,000 km of a jumping ship (and in line-of-sight), it can work out (by the "angle of entry" into jump-space) where the destination will be.

Note: Without jumping, interstellar travel not really feasible. Light takes 3.3 years to travel one parsec, of course.  For a non-jumping space-ship to make the same trip, travelling at 1g, turning half-way and slowing at 1g (and ignoring fuel concerns), it would get to 93% of light-speed and, because of time dilation, would take 3.2 years for those on board. For remote observers, the trip would appear to take 4.8 years.

Ancients

Scattered throughout known space are the ruins of a civilization that once dominated this region of the galaxy. We call them "the Ancients." The sites have been dated  about 300,000 years ago. 

The Ancients lasted less than 20,000 years in total. Their civilization was destroyed in a cataclysmic war. Over a period of about 2,000 years, they fought with such ferocity that archeologists today work under a severe handicap trying to piece together the bits and fragments that remain.

The Final War was fought with technology far beyond that available to the Imperium, or to any civilization extant. Estimates place the resources used at tech level 25 or greater: a level virtually incomprehensible to those investigating the war. Compare this to Earth 2024 which is TL 9. The Third Imperium is currently on TL 15.

The weapons they had were brutal in their power. They were capable of great destruction; entire planets were reduced to asteroid belts by what must have been planet-buster bombs. In other cases, planetoids and small moons were seized, moved, and directed toward planets to obliterate what must have been bases, cities, and installations. Many worlds still bear the marks of such attacks.

The weapons of the Final War were also sophisticated. Some worlds appear to have escaped unscathed from the war; only when an Ancient site is discovered does it become apparent that that particular site was the target of an attack. There is no evidence of misses, no pattern bombing, no random attacks. What was attacked was hit; high technology controlled the attacks.

This Ancient civilization was wide-ranging. Confirmed Ancient sites have been found in every sector of the Imperium, as well as throughout Vargr, Aslan and Zhodani territory. The total number of confirmed Ancient sites visited by the Imperium is more than 200.

After the war the Ancients just vanished. Whether they were utterly destroyed, morphed into something else, or ascended to another dimension, we just don't know.

The Ancients are responsible for scattering humanity around Charted Space. While humanity evolved unmolested on Earth without Ancient involvement, the Ancients certainly sourced their humans from Earth to do the scattering. All the traveller human-type races are from this origin. The Ancients also uplifted wolves, lions and lizards from Earth, and this is the origin of the non-human races Vargr, Aslan and Keerens.

Solomani were the humans left on Earth. They developed the jump drive in AD 2088, got to Barnards Star in 2097, and explored ever since. Vilani were humans taken by the Ancients and shifted to other star systems. They discovered jump drive themselves.

Items of the Ancients that survive are akin to magic.

Chemistry & Physics

Fusion exists and is used.

Antimatter exists and is used.

Transparent aluminium exists.

So do carbon nano-tubes, nano-wire, and mono-filaments.

Some planets have nano-tube orbital lifts, other planets use skyhooks.

Quantum computers

Dark Energy (LCDM) was abandoned when MOND was discovered to be correct.

And Dark Energy was discovered to be a side-effect of Doppler shift on observations of moving galaxies.

Zero point energy and vacuum energy turned out to be nonsense.

Hawking radiation does not exist, nor do point singularities.

Gravastars turned out to be a more common fate for collapsing stars than black holes.

 

Grav Drive and Grav Plates

Grav plates and grav drive as per the Traveller canon is TL 10. Grav plates make spaceship interiors behave like Star Wars and Star Trek. There are miniature point-source graviton generators which can be ducted to warp space-time to form gravity surfaces. They do use a colossal amount of power.

Because of the grav plates, space-faring ships can not enter the atmosphere of planets,  nor land on the surface. So spaceships dock at orbiting space stations.  Air-rafts, other kinds of shuttles, space elevators and sky hooks are used to ferry passengers and cargo to and from the ground to the orbiting space station.

Drones

Drones were not around in 1977 Traveller, but they are wide-spread in this Traveller universe. There is even a dedicated skill for them.

A.I.

Like with AI in Dune (the Butlerian Jihad), the Traveller universe has had its psychotic AI problems too. So, sapient (self-aware) AIs are strictly banned. Some places will allow them up to the intelligence of a dog, but you won't get AIs like 2001's HAL9000, Avenger's Jarvis, HGttG's Marvin, Blake's Seven's Orac, or the Matrix's Architect.

Air-raft

Air-raft is a craft that can take off from the ground, reach orbital speed and go into orbit. Air-rafts can ferry cargo and passengers from the ground, between moons or between two space ships.

Air-raft is spelt with a hyphen and not as "air/raft" as per canon. Spelling air-raft with the slash is a capital crime in all cultures and creeds, and is enforced rigorously. Just like the universal restriction on grappling hooks, shoe buckles, camp-stretchers and soot.

Scanners

Visual-range is short in space terms. Visual-frequency on-board, 10m focal-length cameras can see 0.01 arcsecs. (10pt text,1mm pixel @ 20km, or ship-ID (5m pixel) @ 100,000km). Image-processing techniques can give you a five-fold resolution increase. This is the only form of silent running.

Short-range scan is used for most navigation and identification. It has a range of 1 light-minute (18 million km). 

Medium-range scan will spot any ship-size object within 1 light-hour (7.2 AUs).  Medium-range scanning radiates a lot of energy so is forbidden within a few million km of a space station or planet. Nav buoys do this. And this is how you detect jump-drive signatures.

Long-range scan scanners can see any ship in a light-month by sending out a powerful ping, but it is directional, so you can only "see" things in an 5 degree cone, and of course it is not very useful if you want to get the information back in a reasonable time (who wants the reply two months later?).

Ships Transponders

All ships have transponders. They are running all the time: a ping transmitted once per second showing ship name, origin, ship serial number, current owner. For redundancy, every ship carries three different systems:

1. Active - omni-directional one-second ping on 2.3GHz and 8.4 GHz. 
2. Passive - A quartz window that, when illuminated by a 704nm transponder laser, will transmit the normal transponder data both back down the beam and on radio (2.3GHz band). It gets its power from the beam so works when the ship has no power.
3. Writing on hull, like a QR code. Can be read at Short-range scan range. This is last resort if the ship's internals have been totally destroyed.

The transponder can not be turned off, and in fact it is an offence in all jurisdictions to switch them off; you will get shot out of the sky. 

Transponders can not be faked, but they can be changed - all three transponder systems need to be changed and the hull repainted. This is also highly illegal and can't be done in any system Tech 9 or greater because you will be spotted by diligent Space Control ("Where did that new ship come from? Ye Fairy Queene was not registered arriving in this system, nor was it built here, and we detected no arrival jump pulse".) 

Mechanics: Engineering roll to get at the Transponder. Then a Computer and Electronics roll to change it. Final Engineering roll to finish it.

Psionics

No psionics

Gabriella's Bequest

 Present:

• Phoebe Lacrosse. Human Barbarian from Pugtown – Andrew
• Griza Muso. Human Thief from Lakeside – Jeff
• Balder Dash. Gnome Wizard from Toluene - Jamie
  
• Bush Tucker. Human Rogue from Spite Anti - Darryl
• Red Feuersturm. Human Temple Fighter of Hob from Toluene - Chris
• Malcom Gandhi. Gnome Thief from Brian – Kevin
  
• Napolean Twig. Elf Priest of Caribou Gorn from Pugtown - Ian
• Joe Manco. Human Fighter from Toluene – Shane
• MARMALADING Galena Alfdis. Elf Priestess of Vingt et Un from Palantir - Steven

By Phoebe 

Having explored the tunnels under the Massimo tomb in Spite Battle, and having destroyed sleeping vampire Simeon Massimo, corpse-like Loris, and the two vampire children of Simeon and Gabriella, we followed a long tunnel from the cemetery which emerged into the basement of a house. There was a fully-fledged shrine to Canker here (god of Death), and various other rooms and chambers that contained accoutrements and nick-nacks of Canker.

Gabriella's Kitchen

At the end, up a ladder, we all emerged into a kitchen of the house.

An eighty year old woman was here, Gabriella herself.  Galena had confirmed that Gabriella was not undead, though Galena was in no fit state to do anything this second - except drool marmalade.

Gabriella introduces herself

Gabriella seemed to know that we had staked Simeon and the children, but did not appear to be too worried.

That's evil for you, I guess.

"You have killed my husband and my two children," she began with a strong Luln accent. "I don't think you are in any position to argue. What will you give me in return?"

Awkward silence.

"I have some suggestions, if you would like."

She pointed a steady finger at Balder. "I would like him."

"What will you do to him?" I asked.

"Carve him up," said Bush, helpfully, fingering his new knife.

"He will join me," she said "It will give us both enhanced power."

"Holy matrimony?"

"I will not marry a gnome!" Gabriella spat.

"Why not? Racist, biased, sexist, xenophobic?" 

"Not a woke lich-king... er ...queen," said Red.

"It's a lich's kitchen," quipped Gandhi, playing with the alliteration.

Gabriella fixed her eyes on Bush.

"I'd like my knife back too."

"Nah, yer cant have it," said Bush quickly. "I found it."

"You found it in MY home," Gabriella continued. "That's theft. Feel any urges with that knife?"

"Nah."

Bush's fever dream

"You don't feel like cutting one of your comrades here?"

Bush looked at the top of Phoebe's thighs, where her tight leather skirt met the skin. He could imagine in his mind's eye sawing repeated parallel cuts into the skin with the razor-sharp blade edge, and watching delightedly as the blood pooled up.

"Nah."

Gandhi broke the awkward silence and handed over a pair of Galena's knickers to Gabriella.

"I have a nice hat for you. Lovely big ear holes too."

Gandhi continued triumphantly when Gabriella took the garment "Now we are free! She has taken the gift, so we are free."

"Why would you give me those?"

Despite adamant protests from Gandhi over the value of the kickers and them being adequate payment, Gabriella did not seem to agree with him.

"How powerful are you, Gabriella?" asked Balder.

"Just an old lady. But I am very disappointed that you destroyed my husband and two children."

She didn't seem that upset. More like just stating a fact.

"I think you have been the source of all our challenges over the past few weeks," said Balder

"You are the source of your own challenge. I serve the god Canker. If you do not join me, your friend with the strange accent who took my knife ... will die."

Balder resolved the impasse. He suddenly cast Feeblemind, as an enhanced spell. 

[Feeblemind is a 5th level spell that reduces the MND of the target to 4, making them into a slack-jawed idiot. It is a contested spell which means the target gets a save. To improve his chance, Jamie spent 5 luck on this, which meant he got to roll two D20 and take the best one. ]

The misty bolt of the spell seemed to slide off Gabrielle and it hit Napolean, in a bright flash of light. Napolean blinked... but nothing happened.

[ Gabriella had some innate spell-diversion power, or, despite Balder's enhancement she saved well. The spell got diverted to Napolean. So, then it was his turn to make an opposed roll. Ian threw a 1 - perfect save! ]

Seeing this, Phoebe, Red and Bush all drew magic weapons, and all rushed Gabriella at the same time.

Napolean and Griza skulked away, cowering down the stairs. Perhaps this was wise.

We all missed our blows. Bush was the primary; Gabriella back-handed him. She had immense strength (especially for an 80 year-old). Bush stumbled back, ears ringing.

Red stepped in and took the brunt. We all whacked her again. Only Red's blow landed, but it was just a flesh wound. Not good.

... the split second before 
Gabriella vanished

Then Balder cast another spell. A spell we had never seen before.

 

[ He cast Dismissal. This is a fifth level spell that sends extra-planar creatures and powerful undead back to their plane of origin. Jamie spent another 5 Luck points to give himself the bonus D20. And he threw well. Gabriella got the opposed roll, but it was not enough.]

Gabriella suddenly turned into a horned winged creature, but she was now unclothed, young, blonde and stunning. This vision only lasted a fraction of  a second before she then vanished in a loud pop, leaving only some sparks, and clouds of brimstone and formaldehyde.

"A succubus," hissed Balder as the smoke cleared.

Spite Battle

Red pointed to the cooking fire in the hearth whose flames were now licking up the kitchen wall. Maybe he had enhanced those flames with his Hob gifts.

"We better get going," said Red.

Massimo house ablaze

So, we quickly exited the house as the conflagration increased in intensity. People were running about in the streets, panicked, as the house burned. So we merged into the fleeing crowds.

We didn't recognize what part of Spite Battle we were in, but headed for a main road and followed that to a familiar landmark. 

By now, there was a large plume of smoke billowing on the Spite Battle sky line.

I asked Balder to go to the UWG to check on the mechanics of demons. I wanted to know how easy it would be for her to return to ... seek revenge.

While he was doing that, the rest of us went to the docks and I booked a ferry for the trip back up the Spite Delta to Spite City. (After Spite, we intended to travel back to Quek, to reunite with Thursa, of course. The whole point of this mission.)

Ferry from Spite Battle to Spite

Luckily, there was a ferry leaving that very afternoon [I threw a 1 on Luck], so booked passage for whole group, then waited the few hours for Balder to return.

Return, he did. He had spoken to the Wizards' Guild head wizard Elowyn Frostglobe. Elowyn confirmed, from Balder's descriptions and the success of the Dismissal spell, that Gabriella was likely a succubus, a minor demon. To return to this realm, Gabriella would need a temple of Canker - not just a mere shrine, a full temple. Elowyn was sure there were no Canker temples in the Spite area. 

"There might be one in Two Frime, but I don't think so. There is one in Scabport. Highport and Porncity are also 'maybes'. And Canker has a cathedral in Luln and Sancho."

Scabport is the closest of all them and is about five week's travel away. Luln and Sancho are probably half a year's travel away. That, or 10 seconds by Teleport...

Spite ho 

The trip from Spite Battle to Spite took four days. It was all upstream, so Nicoli Sparetti's ferry was pulled by draught horses, and some sections of the delta had expanses of water that needed to be sailed.

The first few nights, the party spell-casters all took grapes and wafers to recharge their depleted reserves.

We had plenty of time to look at the magical items that we had bare-faced stolen acquired - there was a magical amulet, magical slippers, a magical hat and two magic thumb-screws.

We were starting to worry about Bush

Bush also had his knife (that he'd swiped from Gabriella's coffin). We were starting to get worried because he'd keep playing with it and sharpening it all day. And any party members who had large tracts of skin (mostly me), he'd fixate on them, obviously imagining the delicious feel of the keen blade cutting immaculate rows of perfectly parallel cuts. 

If anyone innocently asked if they could hold the knife, Bush would hiss and growl and make stabby motions towards the speaker. Not a chance.

On the third day, dark clouds formed from klibwards, followed by heavy rain. 

And then a large cloud of bats. All flying towards Spite Battle.

Did we care? "What is behind us is not important."

Balder cast Identify on the magic amulet first. [Amulet of +2 save (poison, arcane, divine)]. Napolean got this.

The ironic elf

We arrived at Spite and stayed in the Ironic Elf. (The clever irony being that the "elf" was a human who identified as an elf. "I can see in zee dark," as he crashed down the stairs.)

We spent three nights in Spite and that gave Balder enough time to cast Identify on all the other three items.

• Hat of Observation [+2 PER]. Galena got this.
• Slippers of Silence [auto-quiet when moving inside]. Joe got these.
• Thumbscrews of Truth [Detect Lie]. Red got these.

Also during that time, news arrived from Spite Battle. A section of the city had burned, and the authorities had discovered remnants of a Canker shine in the ruins.

No mention of the swarm of bats.

Bush was becoming a worry. He was getting more and more psychotic with his dagger. One morning we got up and he'd shaved hair, beard and eyebrows.

This had to stop, so that night, the three strongest of us all, Joe, Red and myself, grabbed him bodily. We hogtied and gagged him. Balder grabbed the dagger wearing gloves.

We all took it to the Spite REAL temple, and Balder and I got an audience with the high priestess. She was happy to destroy such an evil knife. As we were leaving the temple grounds, there was a loud CRUMP noise and some smoke drifted out of the REAL fume-cupboard vent.

At the same time, a wailing gagged scream from our room in the Ironic Elf.

We left Spite the next day, heading for Quek. Bush was sullen and miserable. He would get over it.

Quek ho

The next few days passed without incident. These were all familiar towns, and these roads were travelled quite a lot.

In Rouen we stayed at the Wandering Pony. Then Acruchet, stayed in Solemn Gargoyle. And then Burq, at the Rabid Monkey.

Between Burq and Peignoir, we met some Spite soldiers on the road. They warned us of a half-elf brigand called Felix Amure who was a master of disguise. He and his band had been robbing travellers on this road.

"I think we can look after ourselves," I smiled. "But thanks for the warning, Sergeant."

We arrived at Peignoir and stayed at the Green Avocado.

The next morning, we encountered the most incompetent ambush known to man.

As fore-shadowed, it was Felix Amure and a bunch of three brigands. One threw his (magic) bow onto the ground [fumble]. Then they all took off when we threatened them. We were hurrying to get to Quek, so did not want to get distracted on a side mission to follow them, much to Joe's chagrin.

We camped out that night.

Five wolves attacked at third watch. Backed up by four figures. It was the same group. We killed their wolves and the rest fled. Again, we did not pursue. Again, Joe was furious.

Next day we arrived in Quek and stayed at Simon's Pouch.

Then, the next day we got the the Great Pillar of Quek. Here, we met up with our patron Thursa Demont.

"We have completed your mission," I said.

"Excellent!" she replied. "Where is Loris and his brother Simeon?"

"We have Loris. Well, his jaw bone."

I produced that.

"Now Simeon, he was a vampire. He was already dead. We couldn't transport a vampire. But, the next best thing, Ma'am. Here is his skull."

Griza hands that over too.

"Then you should have brought me someone who was living. One of his family."

"We killed them all," muttered Balder.

"But they were vampires too," I hurriedly said. "And his wife Gabriella was a succubus. And ... she has been banished to the outer planes. By our ... demonologist Balder."

"But, we would have brought Simeon back alive, had he been alive."

"The succubus, she will hunt you. She can return."

"Well, she is really after Galena."

"Why is that?"

"She has Galena's underwear."

I cut that tangent off quickly.

"So I get no revenge," bemoaned Thursa. "How can I praise Smackwater Jack without revenge?"

Red [whose talent allows him the best of two Persuade rolls] managed to persuade her, and she agreed to pay us the promised items.

• Phoebe: Bracelet of Aishwarya [ +1 APP ]
• Bush: Bag of Holding (200kg)
• Griza: +1 Sword
• Napolean: Lyra's Bracelet of Storage [ Store 5 MP - recharge with Transfer ]
• Balder: Bobbin's Amulet of the Goblin [speak the goblinoid lingua franca - kobold, goblin, orc, hobgoblin, gnoll]
• Gandhi: Lacy Underwear of Deftness [ +1 DEX ]
• Joe Manco: +1 double-sword
• Red: +1 studded leather
• Galena: Holy Symbol of 21; turns undead at +2

The jaw bone of Loris was needed so that Thursa could work on Balder and purge him. This painful ordeal with take many weeks and Balder would be doused in star-fall, receive star-fall purgatives, and of course the mandatory star-fall enemas. This would remove the traces of the blue egg that had infected him all those years ago.