TEXT: 1
  In The Pirates of Drinax, the players play a band of adventures who are 
  entrusted by the King of Drinax with a letter of marque, permitting them 
  to prey on ‘illegal’ trade within the borders of the vanished kingdom. 
  The King hopes that this piracy will give him the leverage he needs 
  to restore Drinax to its former glory, and intends for the characters to 
  win back all the planets lost over the last two centuries – but the King’s 
  plans are just the starting point for this campaign. 
  Once the characters have their letter and their ship, it’s up to the 
  players what to do next? Will they stay loyal to their patron and help 
  restore Drinax? Will they turn rogue and create their own kingdom? 
  Will they be heroes or monsters, pirates or privateers? Will they make 
  their fortune amid the pitiless stars, or will the cold depths of the Trojan 
  Reach be their grave?
  To run this campaign, you need a copy of the Traveller Main Rulebook and Alien Module 1: Aslan. Other books that are not 
  strictly necessary, but are highly recommended are:
  Career Book 6: Scoundrel, for the expanded rules on piracy, fencing, intrusions and crime.
  Central Supply Catalogue, useful in any Traveller campaign 
  Traders and Gunboats for a greater variety of prey
  Merchants and Cruisers for larger prey
  Written By Gareth Hanrahan
  TRAVELLER
  TRAVELLER
  THE PIRATES OF DRINAX
  
   
  2
  PLAYERS’ SECTION
  PLAYERS’ SECTION
  Floating Palace Life Events
  Roll 
  1D6
  Event
  1
  New Contact: You befriended one of the ﬁ gures in the 
  court of Drinax. Pick one of the NPCs listed in section 3 
  as a contact. 
  2
  Family Affairs: Roll 1d6. 
  1-2: Someone close to you gives birth, complicating the 
  line of succession and taking one of your inherited titles 
  away. Reduce your Social Standing by 1.
  3-4: A marriage is arranged for you by your family. Gain 1 
  Social Standing if you go through with it, but you don’t get 
  to meet your new spouse until the ceremony.
  5-6: Someone close to you dies, and you inherit their 
  estate and titles. Gain an extra Beneﬁ t roll or  increase 
  your Social Standing by 1. 
  3
  Romantic Entanglement: You become romantically 
  involved with another courtier. Roll 1d6 to see how it 
  turned out. 1: Amicable breakup. 2: Nasty breakup. 3-
  4: Ongoing relationship (gain a contact). 5: Marriage. 6: 
  Tragic death or disappearance. 
  4
  Misfortune: You suffer an unfortunate accident. Roll 1d6
  1-2: A wicked uncle steals your family inheritance and 
  titles. Lose 2 Beneﬁ t rolls, reduce your Social Standing by 
  2, and gain an Enemy.
  3-4: While trading with the Vespexers of the surface, you 
  contract a disease left over from the Aslan attack. Reduce 
  your Endurance by 1.
  5-6: You ﬁ ght a duel of honour with another noble, and the 
  cur cheats. Gain a Rival and Melee (blade 0), and lose 
  either 1 Beneﬁ t roll, 1 Social Standing, or 1 Endurance.
  5
  Good Fortune: Fortune smiles upon you.
  1-2: Rachando the merchant offers you a good price for a 
  family heirloom. Gain 1d6 x 10,000 Credits.
  3-4: You inherit a place in the Star Guard. You can sell 
  this commission on for 1d6 x 10,000 Credits, or you may 
  automatically qualify for the Navy career and automatically 
  gain a promotion in your ﬁ rst turn.  
  5-6: You ﬁ nd an antique weapon in the armoury of the 
  Floating Palace. Gain either an ancient rapier or a laser 
  pistol. 
  6
  Unusual Event: Roll 1d6
  1-2: You’re psionic! Roll to test your Psionic Strength 
  immediately, and gain a +4 DM to the roll.
  3-4: Great expectations. Before the fall of Drinax, your 
  family owned large estates on a planet. Roll 1d6: 1: Paal 2: 
  Torpal 3: Clarke 4: Asim 5: Banks/Khusai 6: One of the old 
  Sindalian worlds – pick any planet in Sindal Subsector
  5-6: You discover that you are actually the bastard child 
  of King Oleb. 
  This section should be read by all players.
  Creating Player Characters 
  In The Pirates of Drinax, the player characters are given a 
  letter of marque by the King of Drinax and ordered to cut a 
  swathe across the Trojan Reach. The player characters must 
  therefore be adventurous, hardy spacefarers. They do not have 
  to be blood-thirsty rogues – they could be, but they could also 
  be loyal warriors of Drinax, or travellers seeking employment, or 
  adventurers with a grudge against the Imperium or the Hierate 
  or both. As long as they have the daring and the skill to fulﬁ l 
  King Oleb’s mad dream, then they will be offered a place on 
  board ship.
  Non-Humans: Drinax is right on the border of Aslan space, so 
  Aslan exiles or adventurers are the obvious choice. Aslan ihatei 
  often turn pirate. There are a few Vargr corsairs operating in the 
  Reach, too, and one of them might travel coreward far enough 
  to end up on Drinax. 
  Origins
  The ‘unusual’ origins (The Floating Palace, the wasted surface 
  of Drinax, and Asim) offer special homeworld skills and Life 
  Event tables that replace those from the Traveller Main 
  Rulebook for such characters. Player characters from the 
  Imperium, elsewhere in the Trojan Reach or the Aslan Hierate 
  use the normal background skills and event tables for those 
  cultures (from the Traveller Main Rulebook or Alien Module 
  1: Aslan respectively).
  Drinax (Floating Palace): You are a noble of the Kingdom of 
  Drinax, just like everyone else who lives on the Floating Palace. 
  You grew up amid the decaying wonders of the citadel, learning 
  the history and the glorious deeds of your ancestors.
  Characteristic Changes: -1 Strength, -1 Endurance, +1 
  Education, +1 Social Standing
  Likely Careers: Noble, Scholar, Navy, Entertainer
  Homeworld Background Skills: Carouse 0, Social Science 0, 
  Diplomat 0
  
   
  3
  Wasteland Life Events
  Roll 1D6
  Event
  1
  New Contact: You are not without friends. Pick Rachando, Chieftain Galx, Sal Dancet or Prince Harrick as a contact. 
  2
  Family Affairs: Roll 1d6. 
  1-2: Someone close to you gives birth, and the tribe cannot feed another mouth. Either the child dies, or you must 
  leave your current career and strike out as a Drifter or Rogue.
  3-4: Your tribe is struck by disease, and someone in your family dies. Gain their possessions as a bonus Beneﬁ t roll.
  5-6: One of your kin is accused of a crime and exiled from the tribe. He has not been seen since – perhaps he vanished 
  offworld. Gain him as a vengeful Enemy, should you ever meet him again.
  3
  Romantic Entanglement: The tribe must grow, and you are married off. Roll 1d6 to see how it turned out. 1-2: Partner died.. 
  3-5: Ongoing relationship. Gain your spouse as an Ally, and you’ve got 1d6-3 children. 6: Tragic death or disappearance. 
  4
  Misfortune: You suffer an unfortunate accident. Roll 1d6
  1-2: You are framed for a crime and exiled from the tribe. Gain your persecutor as an Enemy and reduce your Social 
  Standing by 1.
  3-4: While exploring a ruined city, you contract a disease left over from the Aslan attack. Reduce your Endurance by 1.
  5-6: You are wounded while hunting, and worse, your hazard suit is torn. Lose one Beneﬁ t roll to pay for its repair.
  5
  Good Fortune: Fortune smiles upon you.
  1-2: Rachando the merchant offers you a good price for a relic recovered from the ruined cities. Gain 1d6 x 10,000 Credits.
  3-4: A travelling merchant or smuggler offers you a place on board his ship. You may automatically qualify for the Rogue or 
  Merchant career. 
  5-6: Your tribe prospers. Gain an extra Beneﬁ t roll. 
  6
  Unusual Event: Roll 1d6
  1-2: You’re psionic! Roll to test your Psionic Strength immediately, and gain a +4 DM to the roll.
  3-4: You ﬁ nd the wreckage of an Aslan ship that crashed on Drinax, and recover a mysterious chest from its cargo 
  hold. You’ve never managed to open the chest, but it bears the symbol of the Syoisuis assassin-clan. 
  5-6: When you were a child, the tribe’s wise-woman cast broken stones over your crib and declared that you were the 
  Hlax Kur Eaisa, the messiah who would avenge the Vespexers upon the Aslan who ruined their world. 
  Asim Life Events
  Roll 1D6
  Event
  1
  New Contact: You have the ear of someone at court. Pick Cleon Hardy, Rachando, Kisayl or Lord Wrax as a contact. 
  2
  Family Affairs: Roll 1d6. 
  1-2: Your family has thrived since the reconquest. Gain +1 Social Standing.
  3-4: A Drinaxi noble killed your father during the war. Gain him as an Enemy. 
  5-6: Your family still live in desperate poverty on Asim. You may lose one Beneﬁ t roll to relieve some of their suffering; 
  if you do so, gain a +1 DM to your next Advancement roll.
  3
  Romantic Entanglement: Roll 1d6.
  1-3: Your family holds to the old ways, and practises the breeding program developed by the Foundation. You have been 
  married off despite your objections. 
  4-6: You travelled to Drinax to seek your fortune, and found something else instead. Roll 1d6 to see how it turned out. 1: Amicable 
  breakup. 2: Nasty breakup. 3-4: Ongoing relationship (gain a contact). 5: Marriage. 6: Tragic death or disappearance.
  4
  Misfortune: You encounter difﬁ culty. Roll 1d6.
  1-2: Your low-tech backwater homeworld did not prepare you for the wider galaxy, and you run into a damaging 
  misunderstanding. Lose 1 beneﬁ t roll or lose a Contact or Ally. 
  3-4: You are injured while travelling. Roll on the Injury table.
  5-6: Aslan Slavers! You are kidnapped by slavers from the Glorious Empire, a renegade Aslan state that practises 
  slavery (see the Aslan sourcebook, page 157). Roll 1d6 to see where the Slavers put you: 1-2: Navy; 3-4: Army; 5-6: 
  Scout. While enslaved, you cannot gain a Commission or gain Beneﬁ t rolls. You may try to escape after each term 
  either by rolling 8+ on 2d6. If you fail to escape, roll on the injury table.
  5
  Good Fortune: Luck is on your side. Gain a +2 DM to any one Beneﬁ t roll. 
  6
  Unusual Event: Roll 1d6
  1-2: You travel in the Aslan Hierate for some time. Gain a Contact among the Aslan.
  3-4: A mentor of yours is a secret member of the Foundation, and inducted you into their conspiracy. Your mission is to 
  spy on the court at Drinax and report back to your secret masters on Asim. If you refuse, your family will be killed.
  5-6: You’re psionic! Roll to test your Psionic Strength immediately, and gain a +4 DM to the roll.
  
   
  4
  Drinax (Wasteland): You are a Vespexer, one of the tribes who 
  wander the blasted surface of Drinax. Two hundred years ago, 
  the Aslan wiped out your world and condemned your ancestors 
  to a living hell. The King in his ﬂ oating palace may claim you as 
  one of his subjects, but the Vespexers kneel to no-one.
  Characteristic Changes: +2 Endurance, -1 Education, -1 
  Social Standing
  Likely Careers: Army, Citizen (settler), Drifter, Rogue, Scout
  Homeworld Background Skills: Survival 0, Recon 0
  Asim: The minor agricultural world of Asim is the only province 
  left to the Kings of Drinax. Prior to the reconquest, the Asim were 
  ruled by the cryptic Foundation; life has improved marginally 
  for the peasants since then, but the planet is still a low-tech 
  backwater.
  Characteristic Changes: +1 Endurance, -1 Education 
  Likely Careers: Army, Citizen (settler), Drifter, Entertainer, 
  Marine. 
  Homeworld Background Skills: Animals 0, Seafarer 0, Trade 0
  Elsewhere in the Reach: Pirates can come from anywhere in 
  the Trojan Reach – the lawless central subsectors are known 
  for piracy and bloodshed. The ‘pirate planet’ of Theev in 
  Sindal subsector, for example, is home to tens of thousands of 
  criminals. Closer to Drinax, any of the old vassal worlds could 
  be home to a player character.
  The Imperium: Characters from the Spinward Marches might 
  end up on Drinax, and in need of employment. A band of travellers 
  with an old scoutship or far trader could start of exploring the 
  Trojan Reach, then suffer engine failure and have to land on the 
  Floating Palace. Alternatively, pirates and criminals who ﬂ ee the 
  Imperium’s justice often end up taking refuge in out-of-the-way 
  parts of the Outrim Void.
  The Hierate: King Oleb would gladly employ a few Aslan outlaws 
  or outcasts. Even wandering ihatei still in good standing with 
  their clans could join Oleb’s privateering scheme. 
  Careers
  While any player character can participate in these adventures, 
  the obvious careers for prospective privateers include Agent, 
  Navy, Marine, Rogue, Merchant or Drifter. Drinax produces 
  far more than its fair share of Nobility. If you have access to 
  the Scoundrel book, then the Pirate, Intruder and Scavenger 
  careers are all ideal.
  Ship Shares
  Unlike normal Traveller games, the player characters start with 
  a ‘free’ ship – the Drinaxi Harrier. There is no mortgage on this 
  ship; it remains the property of the King of Drinax, who expects 
  the characters to pay him a tithe and to follow his plan to unite 
  the independent worlds under his banner. Player characters 
  do not need to buy their ship with Ship Shares; instead, Ship 
  Shares are used to upgrade the battered old Harrier.  See page 
  5 for details.
  The Ship
  The Drinaxi Harrier-class commerce raider (her original name 
  was V’Hurg, but the player characters can change this) was 
  constructed at a TL15. Her internal systems are extremely 
  advanced, although battle damage and two centuries of 
  neglect means that there are some glitches and damaged 
  components. 
  Externally, the Harrier-class resembles a bird of prey, with swept-
  forward wings and a stern prow. The ship has two weapons 
  hardpoints, one on each ‘wing’. When she was ﬁ rst launched 
  from Drinax, her hull was painted with the heraldry of the Star 
  Guard, but now her hull is bare grey metal without identifying 
  marks. She is streamlined and has landing gear, so she can 
  land on planets. Fuel and cargo scoops are located in a recess 
  under the prow. 
  While the bulk of Humaniti struggled through the Long Night 
  between the fall of the Second Imperium and the rise of the 
  Third, the Empire of Sindal (and, later, the Kingdom of Drinax) 
  continued to make scientiﬁ c progress. While their development 
  was not so abrupt or so dramatic as that of the Darrians, the 
  Sindalians advanced to TL13 throughout much of their Empire, 
  with a few worlds reaching the heights of TL15. All these 
  wonders were lost over the centuries, but the Harrier contains 
  the fruits of this scientiﬁ c achievement. Her jump drive and 
  power plant are considerably more compact than those of 
  the Imperium, allowing her to pack in Jump-2 range and an 
  impressive 5-gs of thrust. Her hull is similarly impressive, using 
  smart materials and synthetic compounds to give it nearly twice 
  the resilience of a comparable Imperial hull. Unfortunately, there 
  are microfractures throughout the damaged keel of the ship, so 
  the Harrier is only half as tough as she should be.
  Inside, the Harrier is a baroque beauty. Her original ﬁ ttings 
  are mostly intact, and the Drinaxians delighted in luxury and 
  opulence. Every surface is gilded or engraved. The staterooms 
  have red velvet cushions and soft beds; the bridge consoles 
  are covered in dark oak and the controls are brass and crystal. 
  She has eight staterooms; four for ofﬁ cers with double beds 
  and four for crew with bunks. There are also eight low berths 
  adjoining the cargo hold. These were originally intended for 
  prisoner transport, but can be used to store frozen crew or as 
  emergency life support.
  
   
  5
  The Harrier has just under forty-four tons of cargo space. 
  Healing The Wounded Ship
  The Harrier suffered grievous damage during the Aslan attack 
  200 years ago, and with the loss of the starport on Drinax, full 
  repairs cannot be made. The technicians of the Scholar’s Tower 
  have done their best, but there are still numerous problems 
  and drawbacks. The characters can alleviate some of these 
  drawbacks by spending Ship Shares. 
  Once the campaign starts, upgrades to the Harrier can be 
  purchased at the rate of MCr.5=1 Ship Share.
  Microfractures: When built, the Harrier had Hull 8 and Structure 
  8 thanks to its advanced hull design and metamaterials. 
  Repairing these fractures is possible, but costly. Each ship 
  share spent on repairing the hull increases the ship’s Hull or 
  Structure by 1, to a maximum of 8.
  Maintenance Costs: The ship’s maintenance costs are 
  unusually high, due to the exotic high-tech components it needs. 
  Normally, the Harrier would cost 15,860 credits to keep ﬂ ying; 
  currently, it costs 31,720. Each Ship Share spent reduces the 
  increased cost by 20%, to a maximum of 5. 
  Missing Hardpoint: The starboard hard point was targeted by 
  the Aslan attackers. A direct hit from a fusion bay destroyed 
  the hardpoint and the ammo feed mechanism. Reactivating the 
  hardpoint costs 3 Ship Shares. 
  Once the hardpoint is reactivated, weapons can be purchased 
  for it using starting funds. 
  Unreliable Jump Drive: The Harrier’s jump drive mostly 
  works, but is inaccurate. It has a -2DM to all jump checks. Each 
  Ship Share spent reduces the DM by 1.
  Unreliable Manoeuvre Drive: The Harrier has a powerful 
  manoeuvre drive, but it has a habit of cutting out at exactly the 
  wrong moment. If a double 1 is rolled for any Piloting check, 
  the ship looses all thrust for one round. This problem can be 
  removed at the cost of 2 Ship Shares. 
  Repair Costs: The Harrier was built at Technology Level 15, 
  far about the tech level of most systems in the Trojan Reach. 
  This means that ﬁ nding suitable spare parts is very difﬁ cult. 
  Structural repairs to the ship (see the Traveller Main Rulebook, 
  page 143) cost 1MCr per point. Unlike the other drawbacks, this 
  problem cannot be ﬁ xed with ship shares. 
  Locations on Board 
  Main Airlock: The Harrier’s main airlock is located on the belly 
  of the ship. It is large enough to transfer four people (or two 
  marines in battle armour) at per cycle. A real pirate ship would 
  have a breaching tube (see page 88 of Scoundrel) instead. 
  Cargo Hatch: The cargo hatch between the grav plates is used 
  to load and ofﬂ oad cargo. The cargo hold can be depressurised 
  so the hatch can be used in vacuum.
  Cargo Scoop: Cargo scoops use magnetic ﬁ elds to grab 
  nearby metallic objects like cargo canisters. A scooped canister 
  is dragged into a smaller airlock and deposited in the hold. To 
  pick up a cargo canister, the pilot must make a successful Pilot 
  check; failure means the ship rams the cargo canister.
  Cargo Hold: The hold of the Harrier is cramped despite its size, 
  with low ceilings and insufﬁ cient lights. The stern faces of past 
  kings of Drinax stare from the ornamented bulkheads, keeping 
  watch over the cargo (the eyes of these carved faces contain 
  micro-cameras).
  Crew Staterooms: The crew staterooms are comfortable and 
  well-appointed, if although their glory has faded somewhat. 
  Each crewman has a bunk bed and a locker; there is a shared 
  fresher and a workdesk in each room. Above the door is a 
  weapon’s locker and storage for vacc suits. 
  Ofﬁ cer Staterooms: The ofﬁ cer staterooms look more like 
  accommodation on board a luxury star liner than rooms on a 
  warship, with all the beneﬁ ts of high technology – grav-suspended 
  beds, emotionally intelligent interfaces, environmental controls, 
  and food dispensers.
  Port Turret: The port turret is fully operational. The whole 
  turret mechanism is built into a rotatable section of the hull, so 
  the turret can be moved from a dorsal position to a ﬂ ank or 
  ventral position, giving it a wide ﬁ eld of ﬁ re. The double turret is 
  equipped with a TL15 Accurate High Yield Particle beam; this 
  weapon has a +1 DM to hit, and any dice that roll a 1 or 2 for 
  damage may be rerolled. 
  Starboard Turret: As described above, the starboard turret 
  mechanism was destroyed and has not been repaired. The 
  space is now used for storage.
  Common Area: The crew lounge and meeting room. The large 
  table has built-in holographic projectors connected to the ship’s 
  library. 
  Computer Room: This small annexe to the bridge contains the 
  ship’s computer core and an immersive holotank for examining 
  sensor data.
  
   
  1.  Avionics / Sensors
  2.  Cargo Scoop Airlock
  3.  Fuel Processors
  4.  Cold Berths
  5.  Missile Storage (Empty)
  6.  Main Airlock
  7.  Cargo Bay
  8.  Cargo Hatch
  9.  Engineering
  10.  Landing Gear Access
  3 Metres
  1.5 Metres
  Acceleration
  Chair
  Cold Berth Units
  Chair
  Machinery
  Single Bunk
  Access Panel
  Double Bunk
  Hatch
  Iris Valve
  Hatch Floor
  Iris Valve Floor
  Hatch Ceiling
  Iris Valve Ceiling
  Hatch Both
  Iris Valve Both
  Fuel
  Fuel
  Fuel
  Wings less than 
  1/4 metre thick
  Particle Beam
  Turret
  Missile Turret
  (Disabled)
  Manoeuvre Drive
  Power Plant
  Jump Drive
  Fuel
  Fuel Scoops
  1
  2
  3
  10
  4
  6
  7
  7
  7
  10
  10
  8
  Drinaxi Harrier Class 
  Commerce Raider
  Level 2 
  Cargo/Engineering
  Deck
  5
  9
  9
  1.  Captain’s Platform
  2.  Bridge
  3.  Utility/Office Room
  4.  Ship’s Locker
  5.  Ship’s Computer
  6.  Officer’s Staterooms
  7.  Crew Staterooms
  8.  Common Room
  9.  Galley
  10.  Stores
  3 Metres
  1.5 Metres
  Acceleration
  Chair
  Cold Berth Units
  Chair
  Machinery
  Single Bunk
  Access Panel
  Double Bunk
  Hatch
  Iris Valve
  Hatch Floor
  Iris Valve Floor
  Hatch Ceiling
  Iris Valve Ceiling
  Hatch Both
  Iris Valve Both
  Drinaxi Harrier Class 
  Commerce Raider
  Level 1 
  Command/Living
  Deck
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  6
  6
  6
  7
  7
  7
  7
  8
  9
  10
  2
  6
  
   
  7
  Tons
  Cost
  Hull
  200 tons
  Hull 8 (4)
  13,200,000
  Streamlined
  Structure 8 (4)
  Armour
  Crystaliron (4)
  10
  6,600,000
  Jump Drive
  B
  Jump 2
  11.25
  50,000,000
  Manoeuvre Drive
  E
  Thrust 5
  9
  20,000,000
  Power Plant
  E
  12
  80,000,000
  Bridge
  10
  1,000,000
  Computer
  Model 3
  Rating 15
  2,000,000
  Electronics
  Advanced
  3
  2,000,000
  Weapons
  Hardpoint #1
  Double Turret
  1
  500,000
  Accurate, High Yield
  Particle Beam
  8,000,000
  Missile
  750,000
  Hardpoint #2
  Disabled 
  Fuel
  1 Jump-2, 4 Weeks of 
  Operation
  60
  Cargo
  43.75
  Ammunition
  Smart Missiles (TL8, 
  12 missiles)
  1
  30,000
  8 Staterooms
  32
  4,000,000
  8 Low Berths
  4
  200,000
  Extras
  Cargo Scoop
  2
  500,000
  Fuel Processors
  1
  50,000
  Software
  Manoeuvre/0
  Library/0
  Jump/2
  200,000
  Maintenance Cost (monthly)
  15,860 (31,720)
  Life Support Cost (monthly)
  16,800
  Total Tonnage & Cost
  200
  190,300,000
  
   
  8
  Bridge: The ship’s bridge. In common with the traditions of the 
  Star Guard, the ship’s commander stands on a walkway that 
  runs the length of the bridge, while the crew work from computer 
  stations below. 
  Crew 
  A fully crewed Harrier carries twelve personnel – the captain, 
  two pilots, a navigator/sensor operator, two engineers, two 
  gunners, a medic and three marines. Ideally, the marines are 
  qualiﬁ ed to double up on other assignments. At minimum, the 
  ship needs a pilot and an engineer to ﬂ y her. 
  THE REACH
  The Outrim Void. The Trojan Reach. The place where empires 
  die. 
  Between the Spinward Marches and the ever-advancing Aslan 
  Hierate is an expanse of wild space called the Trojan Reach. 
  A narrow ribbon of stars, the dust-spice trade route, links the 
  two empires. Every day, ships brave the perilous crossing from 
  Imperium to Hierate, navigating a circuitous route from Fist 
  (Tobia 0508) to Tyokh (Tliowaha 0606). Between these two 
  worlds is a sea of lawless, dangerous planets.
  The Reach is where empires run aground and mortally wound 
  themselves, and where fortunes can be made on trade and 
  commerce. The First Imperium never conquered the Reach; 
  the Second Imperium left isolated colonies across its expanse, 
  and even the Third Imperium claims no more than a sixth of the 
  systems here. 
  During the long night, another petty empire arose here – the 
  Empire of Sindal. The Sindalians were barbarian raiders who 
  crowned themselves kings and conquered several dozen 
  worlds before their subjects rose up against them. Today, 
  Sindal is a ruined world of a few hundred dirt farmers whose 
  ancestors once ruled all the night sky, and the Sindalian empire 
  is remembered in confused tales of a golden age and of wars 
  amid the stars. 
  When the Empire of Sindal collapsed, outlying regional capitals 
  became the seat of even lesser kings, and the longest-lasting of 
  these was Drinax (0603 Tliowaha). Drinax’s kings claimed half 
  the worlds in their subsector for generations. The Drinaxians 
  were wiser than their cousins; they learned to hide the iron 
  ﬁ st of orbital bombardment behind a velvet glove of trade and 
  protection. Drinax itself became a garden world, fat and plump, 
  an oasis of culture and technology in a dangerous and barbaric 
  sector. The ﬂ oating palace of Drinax – a huge citadel of beauty 
  and art, suspended on a grav platform of prodigious size – was 
  a wonder of the galaxy.
  Then, another empire came to the Trojan Reach. The Aslan 
  were numerous, hungry, aggressive and conﬁ dent, and the 
  Empire of Drinax was fat, lazy and wholly unaware of the sheer 
  numbers and might of the Hierate. The Aslan trade routes to 
  the Imperium ran through the Kingdom of Drinax, and the kings 
  became greedy. They demanded tolls, taxes, bribes… and 
  the Aslan were incensed. In a single bloody war lasting less 
  than a year, the Aslan shattered the last surviving remnant of 
  the old Empire of Sindal. Drinax’s subject worlds were either 
  conquered by the Aslan or revolted. Drinax itself was blasted to 
  ash, leaving the ﬂ oating palace as the only remaining property 
  of the King of Drinax.
  One palace… and a few ships. 
  That was two hundreds years ago.
  Today, the trade ships from the Imperium and the Hierate pass 
  by broken, beggared worlds. The worlds once claimed by Drinax 
  realise they have exchanged one master for another, and that 
  the Aslan have even less regard for them than the kings did. 
  The Imperium and the Hierate pretend to be friends while they 
  jockey for position. The sector stands on a knife edge. The right 
  pressure could push half the Trojan Reach into the claws of the 
  Aslan, or force an already overstretched Imperium to extend its 
  forces deeper into the sector, or permit Drinax to rise again – or 
  carve out a new kingdom in blood and steel!
  Now is the time for corsairs and privateers, for rogues and 
  empire-builders. The King of Drinax offers a small band of 
  trusted, resourceful bastards the chance to make their fortune. 
  He gives them a ship and a letter of marque. They are to go 
  adventuring in the Trojan Reach, to prey on shipping and to build 
  up support in the worlds once held by the Kingdom of Drinax, 
  and to play the two great powers off against each other. If they 
  succeed, they will become princes in the renewed kingdom.
  If they fail, the stars will be their grave.
  The Kingdom of Drinax
  In the days of its strength, the Kingdom of Drinax – or, to give it 
  its proper title, the Star Dragon Empire of Sindal in Exile – ruled 
  many worlds across Tliowaha subsector. Tliowaha, of course, is 
  the Aslan name; old charts still call it Drinax subsector. The heart 
  of the Kingdom of Drinax was the arc of planets ﬁ rst named by 
  Solomani settlers in the age of the Second Imperium. These 
  worlds were named for the great visionary writers of old Terra 
  – Banks (now Khusai), Stross (now Kteiroa), Asim, Pourne, 
  Hilfer, Paal, Torpal, Clarke and Blue. Beyond these core worlds, 
  the Kingdom also had a presence in two dozen other systems 
  across the subsector and beyond. 
  
   
  9
  Of course, the Kings of Drinax also claimed to be the heirs to 
  the vanished Empire of Sindal, and if one were to accept that 
  right, then half the sector legally belongs to them. That Empire of 
  Sindal arose in the year -2000 and ruled for 600 years, although 
  for much of the last 200 years it was riven by internal dissent, 
  rebellions, and brutal punitive attacks on its own vassals. The 
  Sindalian Empire ﬁ nally fell around -1400, when the imperial 
  seat at Noricum was bombed to oblivion.
  Half a dozen regional dukes proclaimed themselves Emperor 
  or King, and the Kingdom of Drinax was the longest-lasting 
  of these pretenders. From -1400 until the year 902, a span of 
  more than two millennia, the Kings of Drinax ruled over their 
  domain, guarding their vassal worlds from invaders and pirates. 
  For most of their reign, the Kings were wise and well loved. It 
  was only around the year 700, under the disastrous reign of 
  Glaco IX, called the Vengeful, when Drinax started using the 
  old tactics of Sindal and bombed their vassals to keep them in 
  line. The Kingdom became increasingly unruly in the face of the 
  growing Aslan threat, and the outer worlds broke away from the 
  cruel yoke of the kings.
  Matters came to a head in 884, when King Oleb XIV placed a tax 
  of 20% on all trade between the Third Imperium and the Aslan 
  Hierate that passed through the Kingdom. The Aslan response 
  was swift, deadly, and all too ﬁ tting for the descendants of Sindal.
  They bombed Drinax from orbit. 
  The Few & The Forgotten
  Few travellers visit Drinax today. According to the charts of the 
  Imperial Scouts, the planet still has a Class-A Starport, but the 
  charts are centuries out of date. Drinax is a dead world. There 
  are no settlements on its surface, only the scars left by the 
  Aslan when they bombed the cities from orbit. The once-fertile 
  grasslands were seared to deserts; the forests where the kings 
  of old hunted were razed. The seas bloom red with algae after 
  they were boiled to death. No-one lives on Drinax anymore.
  They live above it. 
  A sense of irony is shared by both Humaniti and Aslani. The 
  Hierate’s invasion force spared the famous ﬂ oating palace of 
  the Kings of Drinax. They blasted the cities and laid wait to the 
  countryside, but did not touch the golden grav-platform or any of 
  the palace’s elegant domes or delicate towers. They exterminated 
  millions of commoners, but let no harm come to the nobles, 
  servants, sycophants and courtiers on the Floating Palace. 
  The survivors of the invasion, numbering a scant few thousand, 
  had to adapt to survive. The glorious Hanging Gardens, said to 
  be a wonder of the sector, were cleared of their exotic blooms 
  from a hundred worlds and turned into hydroponics bays. 
  Delicate nobles who had never worked an honest day in their 
  lives suddenly found tools thrust into the hands. The early years 
  were not easy. Blood stained the diamond tiles of the King’s 
  Seraglio, and the ancient Scrolls of the Prophet Zaol used for 
  kindling. Still, the people of the Floating Palace survived. In the 
  months before the invasion, the King had ordered the staff of the 
  great university to transfer their best scientists and equipment to 
  the Scholar’s Tower, so they were able to retain the bulk of their 
  scientiﬁ c knowledge. The Drinaxi still have Technology Level 
  15-era knowledge, although they lack the mineral resources 
  to put it to use. With most of the world below still radioactive, 
  diseased or simply scorched beyond use, all the knowledge in 
  the galaxy is useless when you have no copper or steel or rare 
  earths with which to forge your wonders.
  Behold, then, the Floating Palace – a ﬂ ying city, an aerial 
  pleasure-dome of surpassing beauty, of endless wonder... and 
  of utter despair.
  The King & The Starship
  Stand on the Parapet of Glory, a mile-long balcony along the 
  starboard side of the Floating Palace, and look out across the 
  dusty skies of Drinax. Those dots that circle like birds of prey 
  are the Hawk Warriors, held aloft by grav-belts. King Oleb XVI 
  ﬂ ies at their head, although he must wear three grav-belts to 
  carry his tremendous girth. The King is... well, his courtiers call 
  him ‘Magniﬁ cent’, his enemies dismiss him as ‘loud, fat and 
  impetuous’, and an unbiased observer would certain deem 
  him ‘energetic’. Perhaps he should have been born a hundred 
  generations ago, when he could have led the Star Guard Navy 
  to battle across the stars. Instead, he rules a dead world and a 
  crumbling palace.
  Timeline
  -2000: Rise of the Empire of Sindal
  -1600: Sindalian revolts begin.
  -1400: Fall of Noricum and collapse of the Empire. The duke 
  of the regional capital of Drinax claims the imperial title.
  -1000: Aslan ﬁ rst cross the Great Rift to the Trojan Reach
  500: Aslan expand into Tliowaha Subsector. Trade between 
  Imperium and Aslan grows.
  700: King Glaxo bombs rebel worlds.
  884: King Oleb XIV establishes the Drinax tax. Harrier ships 
  are built to enforce payment of this tax.
  885: Fall of Drinax.The Aslan, led by the Ahroay’if clan, 
  bomb Drinax. 
  1085: Reconquest of Asim. 
  1105: Current year. The Drinaxi harrier ship is recovered 
  and rebuilt.
  
   
  10
  The King loudly proclaims his love for strong wine, red-haired 
  women, and glorious battle, but despite his bluster, he is also a 
  subtle and clever ruler. All his life, he has harboured ambitions 
  of restoring the Kingdom of Drinax to its former glory. All he 
  needs is a little leverage. All he needs is one good ship...
  … and the Star Guard of Drinax just found one. She’s an 
  old Drinaxi harrier from the great days of the Kingdom. She 
  jumped in to defend Drinax from the Aslan attack, but her drive 
  malfunctioned as she arrived in-system. Her crew were blasted 
  with a lethal dose of radiation, and the ship drifted crewless 
  and rudderless through the system’s Oort cloud for two hundred 
  years until she was recovered. She is as close as Drinax has to 
  a working warship. 
  PRIVATEERS!
  King Oleb offers you – and the other player characters – a 
  chance for glory!
  He will give you the Harrier as your ship, and more, he will 
  give you a letter of marque and reprisal. This document gives 
  you the right to prey on merchant and military shipping within 
  the borders of the old Empire of Sindal that does not carry the 
  proper documentation. “Of course”, says the king with a grin, 
  “no-one’s carried those papers in bloody centuries. Every ship 
  in space is your legal prey – but I don’t want cutthroats and 
  murderers. I want thieves.”
  He gestures at a map of the Trojan Reach. On one side, there’s 
  the great red expanse of the Third Imperium. On the other, the 
  golden glow of the Aslan Hierate. Between the two are dozens 
  of points of light, each marking a different independent star 
  system. Threads of commerce and trade run between the two 
  empires like arteries. 
  “Once, every world along that trade route shared in the bounty. 
  The traders paid taxes to use our space and our starports. 
  Then, because my ancestors were greedy bastards, everything 
  fell apart. The Kingdom collapsed, and that meant those cold-
  blooded Vilani snakes picked the Trojan Reach apart. It’s every 
  world for themselves out there right now, and solitary worlds 
  can’t bloody hold out against a godscursed empire!”
  He throws himself heavily into the armoured bulk of the Dragon 
  Throne. “So, here’s what we’re going to do. You take the Harrier 
  and you cut a bloody swathe across the stars. Attack shipping, 
  raid starports, hit fuel depots. Take what prizes you can. Don’t 
  kill anyone you don’t have to, though – we want to bleed the 
  merchants until they go crying to the Imperium, not start a 
  bloody war. Pirate’s part one of the plan.
  Part two is all those worlds out there. We make them our allies. 
  Sell stolen goods there, defend ‘em from raiders, recruit crew, 
  give them a taste of wealth, and bring them back under the 
  banner of Drinax. When the time comes, we offer the Imperium 
  a deal – the pirate attacks stop if they recognise the Kingdom 
  of Drinax and give me my rightful due.” He slams his meaty ﬁ st 
  into the arm of the throne.
  “We do this right, and we’ll show there’s life in this old empire yet.”
  “Now, the terms. We keep this a secret from the Imperium for 
  as long as possible – and that means you keep that letter of 
  marque hidden until we sign a peace. The ship’s being loaned 
  to you – you’re responsible for repairs and maintenance, but 
  she’s coming home at the end. 
  Ten percent of any money you make goes to me. Spend as 
  much as you can spare on the colony worlds and curry favour 
  with them. We’ll need them on our side if this isn’t going blow 
  up in our faces.”
  He leans back in the throne. “If this works... then you’ll be made 
  dukes of my court. And...” The king glances at a side door. “Get 
  in here, daughter. This whole scheme was your idea.”
  The Crown Princess of Drinax slips into the room. “Do I have to 
  explain the whole ‘clandestine’ part of this scheme to you again, sire?” 
  She smiles at you, and you can’t tell if she’s amused or furious.
  What Good Is A Letter Of Marque?
  Piracy is punishable by death. The old Ziru Sirka of the 
  Vilani punished it with spacing; captured pirates were hurled 
  naked out of an airlock to freeze to death in the vacuum, while 
  pirate captains were permitted the honour of a spacesuit, 
  prolonging their suffering for hours. In the vanished Sindalian 
  Empire, pirates were hung by the neck until dead, and their 
  bodies were preserved in a silicon sheath and attached to 
  the hull of pirate hunter ships. The modern Third Imperium, 
  more prosaically, permits suspected pirates a trial before 
  they are imprisoned or executed by ﬁ ring squad. As for 
  the Aslan... the lord of each territory personally carries out 
  execution with his own dew-claws.
  If you are captured, you are bound for death. The letter of 
  marque will not save you – unless the Kingdom of Drinax is 
  restored. If Drinax’s ﬂ ag is raised again over a dozen worlds, 
  then your crimes are retroactively negated – you were 
  never devilish pirates, you were always licensed privateers, 
  carrying out the king’s commands!
  Saving Drinax will also save your own necks... 
  
   
  11
  The King rises from his throne and takes his daughter’s hand in 
  his huge ﬁ st. “If we are going to save this kingdom, daughter, we 
  shall have to trust these travellers.” He gestures towards you. 
  “After all, if they succeed, you’re marrying one of them.” 
  The Mission
  • 
  Go privateering across the Trojan Reach.
  • 
  Disrupt trade between the Imperium and the Aslan Hierate.
  • 
  Establish alliances with independent worlds and factions.
  • 
  Make your fortunes and rebuild the Kingdom of Drinax!
  LIFE IN THE FLOATING PALACE
  Imagine you are a craftsman, an artist, a scientist, an engineer, 
  the best in your generation. You trained for years, studying 
  under the previous masters, honing your talents with endless 
  practice. You produced works of surpassing excellence, works 
  combining wild genius and perfect technique, until you were 
  ready to make your masterwork, your legacy to the ages. You 
  worked for ten years - ten sleepless, obsessive, glorious years 
  – ignoring the outside world, ignoring everything except the 
  ﬁ re in your soul that drove you to this act of creation. Finally, 
  exhausted and emotionally shattered, your masterwork was 
  done, and you proudly presented it to the King of Drinax.
  Now, between all the possible ﬁ elds of creation and study, from 
  sculpture and painting to weapon-smithing to astronomy to 
  molecular biology, let us assume that there are a dozen such 
  masterworks in every generation across a single planet. These 
  masterworks are things of such staggering genius that they will 
  be remembered for centuries. A dozen from each generation of 
  artists and creators... from every one of thirty worlds that owed 
  fealty to Drinax... for more than ﬁ fty generations. If you take, say, 
  the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or Taj Mahal as your baseline, 
  then the Floating Palace of Drinax is crammed with around 
  20,000 such works of staggering genius, along with ten times 
  as many lesser works and treasures from across the stars. Add 
  onto that all that they looted from the Sindalian empire and from 
  other worlds, including the Ziru Sirka. 
  Walking into half the rooms in the Floating Palace is like being 
  hit in the face by a ﬁ rehouse of baroque beauty. Where do you 
  look ﬁ rst? At the onyx ﬂ oor inlaid with a map of the subsector 
  made from artiﬁ cial diamonds that are lit by hidden lasers to 
  perfectly match the colours of every star, or at the dozen Hiver 
  scented sculptures imported at great expense from the far side 
  of Charted Space, or the ﬁ rst printings of the entire works of the 
  Sindalian poetess Shing Za Zoha that spill from the bookcase 
  that was carved from the living heart of a genetically engineered 
  amber-plant, or the vaulted ceiling decorated with animated 
  holograms of the Seven Glorious Deeds, the Nine Celestial 
  Virtues and the Eight Seasons of Drinax?
  The splendour is so great that it distracts you from the absurdity. 
  The Floating Palace is absurdly overcrowded. Every ballroom 
  and feasthall is home to a dozen families; children play among 
  the works of art and technological wonders. The people ‘make 
  do’ amid the greatest collection of art in the whole subsector, 
  stringing washing lines between golden statues, and using 
  ancient tapestries as blankets. 
  When the Aslan destroyed Drinax and the survivors crowded 
  into the Floating Palace, the divide between noble and 
  commoner vanished overnight. Back then, there were some 
  twenty thousand survivors, split evenly between the titled 
  aristocracy, courtiers and other nobility, and the servants and 
  lower classes. Two hundred years of interbreeding grew the 
  population to some forty thousand, and every single one of 
  them has inherited at least one title. These titles are not used 
  from day to day, but Drinax clings tightly to formality and ritual, 
  so every plumber and hydroponic farmer in the Floating Palace 
  can list their linage and titles. 
  The Floating Palace is the size of a city, a ﬂ ying Gormenghast of 
  plas-steel and carbosamite. It is easy to get lost in the endless 
  maze of hallways, monumental chambers and spiralling 
  towers. The palace mixes the wonderful and the absurd at 
  every side. To take a prosaic example, the bathrooms are all 
  made of shimmering silver, with delicate fountains sculpted by 
  microgravity generators in the walls into the shape of nymphs 
  and dolphins, with baths large enough to drown in that that sing to 
  you as you bathe – but because the Floating Palace is no longer 
  visited by water-barges from the planet below, the inhabitants 
  must collect rainwater in barrels to ﬁ ll the ornamental lakes and 
  reservoirs. Similarly, the Palace had a hundred ornamental 
  gardens but no farmland beyond the hydroponics; a hundred 
  palatial galleries and ballrooms but no factories beyond a few 
  small workshops. The inhabitants of the Floating Palace may 
  have all the ball-gowns, starched military uniforms and glittering 
  jewellery they desire, but there’s a distinct lack of vacc-suits and 
  engineering overalls. 
  Notable locations on board the palace include:
  The Dragon Throne: Looted (or so the legends say) from the 
  Sindalian Throne World of Noricum before it fell, the Dragon 
  Throne is older than the fabled Iridium Throne of the Imperium 
  (a fact that the courtiers of Drinax never fail to point out to visiting 
  ambassadors). The Dragon Throne is made from fragments of 
  fused hull-metal from ships defeated and captured by the Star 
  Guard over the last three thousand years; even though every 
  ship only contributes a scrap of metal, the throne has still grown 
  into a huge, ugly monstrosity like a dragon’s skull. King Oleb 
  only drags the thing out for formal occasions, preferring a more 
  comfortable grav-couch most of the time. 
  
   
  12
  The Throne Room: The old Throne Room was converted into 
  a hangar, so King Oleb’s throne room is now a much smaller 
  affair. The walls are laser-etched platinum showing the deeds of 
  his ancestors, and there are long low benches on either side for 
  his ‘courtiers’. As almost everyone on board the Floating Palace 
  can claim a noble lineage of one sort of another, the king’s actual 
  courtiers and advisers are chosen for their practical knowledge 
  and wisdom, not their family connections. 
  The Scholar’s Tower: Drinax maintained its high level of 
  technology by sheer chance – the best academics and a full 
  copy of the planet’s scientiﬁ c corpus were moved to the palace 
  mere weeks before the Aslan attacked. Of course, with such a 
  small population to draw from, the Scholars of the intervening 
  two centuries have made no new discoveries, but they have 
  preserved the knowledge of the ancients. The small staff of the 
  Scholar’s Tower are easily the best university in the subsector; 
  students come from across the stars to learn here, and their 
  fees are one of Drinax’s few sources of income. 
  Rachando’s Bazaar: After the King, the most powerful ﬁ gure 
  on the Floating Palace is one of the few without noble blood. 
  Rachando the merchant sells high-tech gadgets, art and relics 
  offworld and imports vitally needed supplies. He came to the 
  Floating Palace ﬁ ve years ago on board his Beowulf-class free 
  trader, the Invisible Hand. The king begrudges every treasure 
  that he sells to Rachando, but he has little choice in the matter. 
  Every trade Rachando makes diminishes the past glory of 
  Drinax to preserve its fragile future.
  The Starport: The Aslan destroyed the original starport of 
  Drinax, but the King’s personal starport qualiﬁ es almost as a 
  Class A port. It lacks a shipyard, but can repair any ship that 
  lands there and has absolutely luxurious ﬁ ttings for both crews 
  and vessels. 
  The Underlinth: The underlinth refers to the network of access 
  corridors, drains and secret passages that riddle the huge 
  platform that supports the Floating Palace. It is the shadow side 
  of the palace, used by spies, smugglers and conspirators.
  Gravity Dungeons: The dungeons are on the lower side of the 
  platform. The huge anti-gravity generators that hold the Floating 
  Palace suspended above the ground are so powerful that they 
  create zones of intense gravity within themselves. Prisoners 
  held within the gravity dungeons are held in cells by three or 
  more gravities. The closer to the anti-grav generators, the more 
  intense the ﬁ eld; the deepest cells are under a bone-crushing 
  twenty gs.
  The Scorched World of Drinax
  Below the Floating Palace, Drinax is a wasteland. The Aslan 
  dropped rocks from space on much of the planet. Dust clouds 
  choked the skies for years, plunging the whole planet into a 
  long impact winter. Major population centres were blasted with 
  plasma weapons and disease bombs; millions died at the claws 
  of the conquerers.
  Two hundred years later, the planet is slowly healing. Green 
  shoots cover the impact scars, and new forests are growing in 
  the ashes of the old. It will be another thousand years before the 
  planet is close to its former vitality, and some wounds will never 
  heal. The spores of the Aslan biological weapons still sleep in 
  the overgrown ruins of the cities, so Drinax may never be safe 
  for human occupation.
  The Chattel World of Asim
  Twenty years ago, King Oleb led an invasion of the neighbouring 
  world of Asim, after the hydroponics bays suffered a catastrophic 
  failure and the harvest was lost. To avoid starvation, Drinax sent 
  a dozen small ships to obtain food from the peasants of Asim. 
  When the Foundation of Asim refused to co-operate, the King 
  angrily ordered his ships to take the planet by force. Although 
  the Asimi outnumbered the forces of Drinax several thousand 
  times over, they were completely outclassed technologically. 
  Riﬂ es and rockets are no match for plasma riﬂ es and FGMPs. 
  Today, Asim is the only vassal world belonging to Drinax. King 
  Oleb privately regrets the conquest, and life has changed little 
  for most of the peasants of that grim agricultural world. Instead 
  of paying tithes to the Foundation, they now give their tithe to 
  the grain-ships that visit from Drinax once every year. Some 
  Drinaxi whisper that the king should move the whole court to 
  Asim, and that the Floating Palace should be abandoned in 
  favour of a living world, but it is a brave man indeed that would 
  openly make such a suggestion to the king. Oleb will sit on his 
  ancestor’s throne until he dies (or until it collapses beneath his 
  growing weight). 
  The Vespexers
  The Vespexers are tribes of humans who live on the surface 
  of Drinax. Most are the descendants of survivors; others 
  are exiles from the Floating Palace. The Vexpexers are a 
  hardy folk who subsist primarily by hunting and gathering, 
  although they have farms in a few sheltered valleys. They 
  wear protective hazard suits made by the craftsmen of the 
  Floating Palace to protect them from the dangers of Drinax. 
  The Vexpexers are technically subjects of the King of Drinax, 
  but obey no laws except those of the tribe. The Floating 
  Palace trades hazard suits and other worked goods for food 
  and raw materials.
  
   
  13
  Asim is a non-industrial TL6 world with a population of around 
  ﬁ ve million. The planet is physically similar to Earth, with an 
  almost identical mass, a close match in terms of atmospheric 
  composition, and  a comparable land/water ratio, yet there is 
  something missing. Asim lacks the vitality of a true garden world. 
  The planet is overwhelmingly brown; the local equivalent of 
  chlorophyll is a brownish chemical, so Asim has brown ﬁ elds and 
  brown forests growing from brown soil. The former government 
  of Asim was called the Foundation, and was an assembly of 
  elders and wise men from the cities. The Foundation claimed to 
  have a thousand-year plan that would bring Asim – an obscure 
  world in the middle of nowhere with no technological base or 
  mineral reserves worth a damn – to dominate the Imperium. For 
  two hundred years, the Asimi toiled to support the Foundation’s 
  grand design, never realising that it was a scam to keep the 
  sages and bureaucrats in charge. 
  NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS
  Over the course of The Pirates of Drinax, the characters will 
  likely return to the world of Drinax again and again. The key 
  ﬁ gures at court are described below. They are excellent Allies, 
  Contacts (or Rivals, or even Enemies) for player characters; 
  some will also play important roles in later adventures. 
  King Oleb XVI
  King of Drinax, Dragon Emperor of Sindal-in-Exile
  Age 105 (Apparent age mid-50s)
  King Oleb, Sixteenth of his name, is the ruler of the Kingdom of 
  Drinax. He’s also, as he puts it, the ‘bumpty-umpth emperor 
  of Sindal, lord admiral of the Star Guard, protector of the 
  whatsit and duke of the other thing’. The only titles that Oleb 
  really takes pride in are his awards for boxing and swordﬁ ghting. 
  The king was a wild man in his youth, and spent years as a 
  freebooting adventurer and sometime pirate before returning 
  home to take the crown. Anagathic drugs have preserved 
  his youth, but not his ﬁ gure; the courtiers politely refer to the 
  king’s ‘imposing frame’ or ‘vigorous presence’. The king is more 
  direct - ‘I may be fatter than a gas giant, but I am still the 
  godsdamned king’. 
  King Oleb delights in drink, in women, in food, in ﬂ ying with his 
  hawk-men, and in conquest, but given the state of his faded 
  kingdom, the last pleasure is denied him. The forces of Drinax 
  are too diminished to easily conquer any other worlds, and the 
  Aslan threat is growing. 
  Others may dismiss the king as a buffoon, but he is actually a 
  cunning statesman and can be diplomatic when he has to be. He 
  just doesn’t enjoy it half as much as shouting and blustering. 
  Prince Harrick
  Age 54
  Prince Harrick is the prince of Drinax and a potential heir to the 
  kingdom. He led the assault on Asim twenty years ago, when 
  the agricultural world was conquered by Drinax. His attack 
  shuttle suffered an engine malfunction and crashed, and Prince 
  Harrick was mortally wounded. His body – little more than a 
  charred husk – was placed in a low berth and shipped back to 
  the Floating Palace. The scientists of the Scholar’s Tower took 
  him into their care, and they rebuilt him cell by cell. 
  For twenty years, Prince Harrick ﬂ oated unconscious in a 
  tank while scientists tried to restore him to life. The outcome 
  was uncertain, and many rumours about his death circulated 
  through the palace. At one point, when it seemed as though the 
  procedures had failed and Harrick was about to die, King Oleb 
  quelled fears of instability by naming Princess Rao his heir. 
  He emerged from the tank only six months ago. His features 
  bear little trace of the horriﬁ c injuries that robbed him of half his 
  life, but his movement is oddly stilted and his skin is just a little 
  too perfect. The scholars refuse to discuss the technicalities of 
  his resurrection, but most courtiers believe the prince is more 
  machine and cloned tissue than mortal man. 
  Princess Rao
  Age 28
  When her elder brother Harrick was gravely wounded, King 
  Oleb realised that his daughter was likely to inherit the throne. 
  Previously, Rao was most ignored by Oleb, who entrusted her 
  upbringing to his courtiers and attendants. She became the 
  king’s foremost counsellor and diplomat, and is highly inﬂ uential 
  at court. She dreams of a grand alliance of worlds – either the 
  Kingdom of Drinax reborn, or a more equal and progressive 
  league to provide a bulwark against the great imperial powers. 
  Bringing the advanced technology of Drinax back to her former 
  subjects could bring about a golden age.
  Her detractors claim that the princess is overambitious and 
  blind to the perilous circumstances of Drinax, and that any such 
  grand alliance would only serve to anger the Aslan. 
  Lord Wrax commands the Star Guard, the naval forces of 
  Drinax. The Star Guard has only a handful of ships, and while 
  they have the beneﬁ t of advanced technology, none masses 
  more than 400 tons, and only the 100-ton scoutships have jump 
  drives. The Harrier would have been the ﬂ agship of the Drinaxi 
  ﬂ eet if Wrax had his way. He has little time for the king’s scheme 
  of piracy. 
  
   
  14
  Scholar Voha is the elderly master of the Scholar’s Tower, 
  chancellor of the university, and unofﬁ cial court sage and 
  prognosticator. Voha sees his role as protecting the knowledge 
  of the ancient empire of Sindal, and is wary of any action that 
  might endanger the Floating Palace. 
  Kasiyl of the Ahroay’if is an exiled Aslan from the Hierate. The 
  Ahroay’if clan are the dominant power in Tliowaha Subsector. 
  Why a prince of that family ﬂ ed the Hierate is a mystery, and 
  he refuses to speak of his past. He ended up on Drinax several 
  years ago. The Aslan noble is a mighty warrior and a superlative 
  pilot, but as a male he has no idea how to use technology or 
  handle money, so he was little more than a beggar when he 
  arrived. He sought a place on the Star Guard, but Lord Wrax 
  refused him. Since then, Wrax has found work as a bodyguard 
  and interpreter.  
  Imperial Consul Thao Poloc represents the Third Imperium 
  at court. Capital is very, very far away from Drinax; even the 
  Imperial governor at Pax Rulin is many weeks away. The court 
  of Drinax is not high on the Imperium’s list of plum assignments, 
  even though Emperor Strephon does send greetings every ten 
  years to his ‘beloved cousin’ the King of Drinax. The consul’s 
  role usually involves dealing with lost merchant ships and a little 
  light spying. The current consul, Thao Poloc, is a historian who 
  travelled here to study the last remnants of Sindal. His presence 
  is a reminder that these are probably the ﬁ nal days of a once-
  glorious empire. 
  Lady Hil: An inﬂ uential noble in court, Lady Hil has little time for 
  anyone who cannot trace their lineage all the way back to the 
  old empire of Sindal. Sometimes, with her emphasis on protocol 
  and noble titles from long-lost worlds, it appears as though Hil 
  is in denial about the current state of the kingdom. She has a 
  great many supporters in court and on the Floating Palace, and 
  in a culture dominated by the weight of the past, her insistence 
  on proper behaviour and tradition gives her power.
  Rachando: The trader Rachando has no noble title or 
  aristocratic lineage; he arrived on board a battered freighter 
  a few years ago, but has somehow become the lynchpin of 
  the economy of the Floating Palace. He controls Rachando’s 
  Bazaar (see page 12).
  Sal Dancet: A free trader and smuggler, Dancet uses the 
  Floating Palace for repairs and as a hiding place. She can obtain 
  rare goods and commodities from across the Trojan Reach, and 
  is also an excellent source of rumours and information.
  Cleon Hardy: When King Oleb conquered Asim, he overthrew 
  the corrupt Foundation and instead put his own nobility to rule 
  over the planet. To ensure the loyalty of the Asim, he invited 
  the inhabitants to elect an ombudsman to bring their concerns 
  to court. Cleon Hardy is their representative; back on Asim, he 
  was an economist and broadcaster. He is out of his depth in the 
  strange court of the Floating Palace, but he’s learning rapidly.
  Chieftain Galx: A representative from the Vespexer tribes of 
  the surface, Galx visits the Floating Palace when it passes over 
  her territory. Even in the climate-controlled halls of the palace, 
  she insists on wearing a full-body hazard suit. 
  POWERS OF THE TROJAN REACH 
  Along the trade route, only a dozen parsecs separate the Third 
  Imperium of Humaniti and the Aslan Hierate. Those two great 
  imperial powers may control less than half the space of the 
  sector, but their  political gravity wells perturb affairs far beyond 
  their borders. 
  The Third Imperium: The great Empire’s expansion has 
  ground to a halt. It controls parts of four subsectors, protected 
  by the ‘rampart worlds’ of Pax Rulin and Tobia. While the 
  Imperium shows little interest in extending its borders – the 
  cost of protecting more worlds against the Hierate is prohibitive 
  – there are several potential ‘client states’ that the Imperium is 
  cultivating as a buffer against the Hierate. 
  The Imperium is a lazy giant until provoked. The Imperium’s 
  interest lies elsewhere right now, but if the Aslan advance or a 
  pirate lords makes too much of a nuisance, the Imperial Navy 
  will be dispatched to enforce the will of the Iridium Throne.
  The Hierate: To humans, the Aslan Hierate looks like an 
  impossibly frozen tsunami. At any moment, the Aslan horde 
  could jump over the border and conquer the whole reach. The 
  Aslan are certainly an intimidating race. Physically, they are 
  larger and stronger than humans, and while their technology 
  level is not quite on a par with the Imperium, they make up 
  for this with weight of numbers. External observers miss the 
  deep divides in Aslan society; the Hierate is a loose alliance 
  of warring clans, and only act rarely act in unison. The Aslan 
  drive for territory means they will inevitably expand into the 
  Trojan Reach. The only question is where their next advance 
  will come. 
  The divided Hierate is much more likely to act than the 
  Imperium. Each clan – and there are dozens of them – has its 
  own navy and can react to pirate attacks or vulnerable worlds 
  with alarming alacrity. No human can predict what the Aslan will 
  do next.
  
   
  15
  The Trade Route: The trade route between the Hierate and the 
  Imperium is important enough to be considered an independent 
  entity. The Imperium exports primarily manufactured goods 
  and dust-spice in exchange for raw materials and Aslan goods; 
  many of the Imperium’s exports are resold by the Aslan to 
  independent worlds across the Reach. It takes 7 or 8 jump-2 
  jumps (depending on the course chosen) to cross wild-space, 
  a journey that takes approximately 60 days. Imperial escorts 
  usually follow ships as far as Acrid; the Aslan pick the convoys 
  up at Techworld, while mercenary and corporate escorts follow 
  convoys along the whole route. 
  Pirate activity varies along the route. Most of the attacks happen 
  in the Borderlands subsector, where travellers must navigate an 
  unpromising series of systems. In general, both the Imperium 
  and the Hierate tolerate a low level of piratical activity, as long 
  as most of the attacks hit independent, small-scale merchants. 
  Once the losses impact on a megacorporation’s bottom line, 
  though, the ﬂ eet is sent out to scour the stars and the pirates 
  are driven out of the Borderlands for a few months.
  General Development Company: The General Development 
  Company (GeDeCo) is not the largest Imperial corporation 
  operating in the Reach, but it is one of the most widespread. 
  The company was originally founded to improve conditions in 
  colonies and independent worlds throughout the Reach, but 
  has become a major political player. GeDeCo advisors have 
  the ear of many rulers of the independent worlds.
  Independent Worlds: Most of the independent worlds in the 
  Trojan Reach were settled by exiles or wanderers from the First 
  Imperium, or by long-range colonisation efforts by the Second 
  Imperium. During the Long Night, the Sindalian Empire was 
  the great power in the sector; even the worlds that were not 
  conquered by the Empire were under its inﬂ uence. Today, the 
  worlds of the Reach are isolated, visited only by a few traders. 
  Their technology declines, their cultures calcify, and they turn in 
  on themselves. The Aslan will pick them off, one by one. 
  Pirates of Theev: The free pirates of the Reach use Sindal 
  subsector as their base of operations, especially the ‘pirate 
  world’ of Theev. As of 1105, the best-known pirates are:
  Admiral Darokyn: A former Imperial navy ofﬁ cer who ﬂ ed the 
  Imperium and made his name as a pirate. He operates out of 
  Theev and commands a ﬂ eet of pirate ships, said to number 
  more than ﬁ fty vessels. Other tales claim that he still has allies 
  in the Imperial Navy who protect his followers from hunters. 
  Peytr Vallis: A newcomer, Vallis has had great success preying 
  on Aslan traders along the border. Other pirates are said to be 
  less than happy about Vallis stirring up the Hierate’s wrath, but 
  the young captain has a vendetta.
  The Ghost: A legend among pirates of the Reach, the Ghost is 
  more thief than pirate. Whenever a ship vanishes without a shot 
  being ﬁ red, the Ghoat is held to be responsible.
  Hroal Irontooth: An Aslan outcaste, Hroal ﬂ ed the Hierate with 
  a retinue of a dozen warships, including a Halaheike pocket 
  warship. His name comes from his cybernetically-enhanced 
  jaws that are strong enough to bite through battle dress.
  Dread Ashan: The reaver Ashan is perhaps the most feared 
  pirate in the Reach. She rarely strays into the Borderlands, 
  preferring to attack independent worlds with her band of 
  cutthroats.
  Zuekhvi the Corsair: A Vargr born and bred to space, Zuekhvi 
  has escaped Imperial hunting patrols time and again. No-one 
  knows the trade route worlds better than him. 
  The Glorious Empire: A splinter state of Aslan, the so-called 
  Glorious Empire practices human slavery on a massive scale. 
  Their slave ships are a threat throughout the Reach.
  The Florian League: On the far side of the Trojan Reach dwell 
  a strange race of humans called the Florani. They are extremely 
  xenophobic, and even more conservative than the Vilani. The 
  Florani trade a little with the Imperium; the trade route to the 
  League is also beset by pirates.
  
   
  16
  CAMPAIGN RULES SECTION
  CAMPAIGN RULES SECTION
  This section must be read by the referee, but players will also 
  ﬁ nd much of interest here.
  The Pirates of Drinax is an episodic campaign. The ten set 
  adventures (see page 34) are interspersed with wandering, 
  raiding, thieving and the Referee’s own scenarios. However, the 
  choice of course is up to the players. The Trojan Reach is your 
  sandbox – King Oleb intends for his newly-minted privateers 
  to disrupt Imperial shipping and give him leverage to rebuild 
  his kingdom, but that’s just the starting point. The players may 
  choose a different course! 
  Travelling the Trojan Reach
  The Pirates of Drinax starts when the player characters 
  receive their letter of marque from King Oleb. From there, 
  they can go anywhere, but the bulk of the action takes place 
  in Sindal, Tliowaha, Borderlands and Pax Rulin subsectors. 
  Library data entries in the forthcoming ten adventures detail 
  all the independent worlds in those four subsectors, describing 
  patrons, encounters or hazards for each planet.
  PORTS & HAVENS
  Pirates need places to put in for repairs, to refuel, and to sell 
  their ill-gotten goods. Unlike a legitimate trader who can do 
  business at any port, pirates either frequent lawless worlds, or 
  else establish networks of contacts and fences who can handle 
  stolen goods at otherwise lawful starports. Remember, unlike 
  the civilised Spinward Marches, the Imperium does not control 
  the starports of the Trojan Reach. Each world’s port is its own 
  affair.
  Starports are classiﬁ ed not only by their letter rating (A-E), but 
  also by their relationship with the pirates. Ports can be Havens, 
  Friendly, Tolerant, Neutral, Suspicious, Unfriendly or Hostile.
  Havens ports are either part of the pirate’s organisation, or count 
  the pirates as their own ships. Not only are pirates able to land 
  here, the port’s System Defence Boats and the local population 
  will defend the pirates against enemy ships and pirate hunters. 
  At the start of the campaign, only Drinax counts as a Haven. 
  Friendly ports are willing accomplices in the piratical trade. 
  While they will not take up arms to defend the pirates in open 
  battle, they will do everything else they can to help the crew, 
  such as repairing battle damage without asking questions, 
  providing replacement crew, and fencing stolen goods.
  Tolerant ports are willing to turn a blind eye to fencing goods, and 
  may even provide repair facilities without too many questions, 
  but are otherwise not involved in piracy. The characters can 
  land here freely, but must keep a low proﬁ le.
  Neutral ports are willing to take the characters’ money, but offer 
  no protection. If the characters bring trouble with them, the port 
  authorities will turn on them.
  Suspicious ports are law-abiding and have reason to suspect 
  the characters are pirates. Everything is more difﬁ cult at 
  suspicious ports. The characters can still land here, but can 
  expect to be searched or detained.
  Unfriendly ports do not tolerate pirates. Landing here is not 
  permitted; if the characters land here, they will be arrested. If 
  they linger in the system, system defence boats will be deployed 
  to chase them away.
  The pirate ship will be ﬁ red upon as soon as it arrives at a hostile 
  port. The characters’ faces are on wanted holograms throughout 
  the starport; the sensor proﬁ le of their ship is logged with every 
  listening post and System Defence Boat in the system. 
  Port
  Fence %
  Recruitment
  Risk Arrest
  Risk Spies
  Protection
  Haven
  30%
  3+
  -
  12+
  3+
  Friendly
  25%
  5+
  -
  12+
  7+
  Tolerant 
  20%
  7+
  12+
  10+
  11+
  Neutral
  10%
  9+
  12+
  10+
  -
  Suspicious
  10%
  11+
  10+
  8+
  -
  Unfriendly
  -
  12+
  10+
  8+
  -
  Hostile
  -
  -
  -
  2+
  -
  
   
  17
  Fence %: The characters’ share of the goods sold at the port. 
  For example, at a Haven, the pirates get ¼ of the normal value 
  of the stolen goods. Optionally, the more detailed fencing rules 
  from Scoundrel can be used when disposing of loot. See 
  Division of the Spoils, page 18.
  Recruitment: The chance to recruit replacement crew at that 
  port. Note that this roll just determines the presence of willing 
  volunteers, and goes not guarantee they have the necessary 
  experience and skills.
  Avoid Arrest: When the pirates land at this port, the Referee 
  should roll 2d6 against the listed target number. If the roll 
  succeeds, then the local authorities will attempt to detain the 
  pirates. 
  Avoid Spies:When the pirates depart the port, the Referee 
  should roll 2d6 against the listed target number. If the roll 
  succeeds, then a spy at the port reports their presence and 
  heading to the pirate’s enemies, if any. 
  Protection: If the characters are attacked in the space controlled 
  by the port, roll 2d6 against the listed target number. If the roll 
  succeeds, the port’s defences help protect the pirates.
  Starting Levels
  Drinax is the only Haven at the start of the campaign. 
  Theev is the only Friendly port at the start of the campaign.
  Any Aslan ports are Unfriendly.
  Other ports have their status determined by Law Level.
  Law Level
  Attitude
  2-
  Tolerant
  3-5
  Neutral 
  6-9
  Suspicious 
  10-11
  Unfriendly
  12+
  Hostile
  Upgrading Ports
  Over the course of the campaign, the characters can alter the 
  attitude of a port towards them, by:
  Making contacts and completing patron missions
  Spending money in the port on improvements, upgrades, 
  repairs or bribes. 
  Donating captured ships and equipment
  The costs for doing so vary from port to port. 
  Crew
  While the starting Drinaxi Harrier can be ﬂ own with only a handful 
  of shiphands, pirate ships traditionally carry a full complement of 
  crew, and with good reason – when you’re boarding an enemy 
  ship, weight of numbers can often carry the day. Pirate ships 
  also need engineers, pilots, navigators and gunners, especially 
  if the pirates intend to capture prizes instead of just looting 
  them. 
  The life of a pirate is dangerous and likely to be short. The 
  rewards must therefore be very lucrative. Pirate crew are paid 
  twice – they get their normal pay for their regular duties, but are 
  also due a share of any proceeds from looted cargo and prizes. 
  See Division of the Spoils, page 18.
  Pay Rates per month:
  Position
  Key Skills
  Base Salary
  Pilot
  Pilot, Sensors, Comms, 
  Tactics (naval)
  6,000
  Navigator 
  Astrogation, Sensors, 
  Computers, Comms
  5,000
  Engineer
  Engineering (m-drive), 
  Engineering (power 
  plant), Engineering (j-
  drive), Mechanic
  4,000
  Medic
  Medic, Zero-G, Life 
  Science, Steward
  4,000
  Gunner
  Gunnery (turret), 
  Mechanic, Zero-G, 
  Sensors
  2,000
  Marine
  Battle Dress, Zero-G, 
  Gun Combat, Melee 
  Combat
  2,000
  The skill and experience of crew members varies wildly. As a 
  rule of thumb: 
  A green recruit has a +0DM for their key skills, and a -2 DM for 
  other skills. 
  An average crewman has a +1 DM for their key skills, and a +0 
  DM for other skills.
  A good pirate has a +2 DM for their key skills, and a +1 DM for 
  other skills. A good pirate may demand extra shares of loot.
  An excellent crewman has a +3 DM for their key skills, and a 
  +2 DM for other skills. An excellent pirate of this sort certainly 
  deserves extra shares of loot.
  A legendary pirate has a +4 DM for their key skills, and a +2 DM 
  for other skills. If you don’t give a legendary pirate extra shares, 
  he’ll cut your throat and take your ship from you.
  
   
  18
  Names
  11
  Black Jack
  41
  Tom Vargrface
  12
  Cyrex 
  42
  Scarlet Sal
  13
  Adro Venniser
  43
  Pete the Stench
  14
  Penitent Grim
  44
  Shayra Ventassen
  15
  Jim Cheese
  45
  Drax the Knifer
  16
  Sutton Vries
  46
  Little Cleo
  21
  Nosetter Hali
  51
  Streph Falter
  22
  William Magnus
  52
  Clonehand Brimmer
  23
  Abra Harper
  53
  Opal Twice-Vacced
  24
  Scarr
  54
  Catkiller Targ
  25
  Ben Parr
  55
  Fat Florian 
  26
  Kolx Hawk
  56
  Cerdic 
  31
  Master Dank
  61
  Old Jaek
  32
  Golim Gryer
  62
  Laerte 
  33
  Edd Law
  63
  Ramsay Grog
  34
  Kagni Vasiir
  64
  Sperric
  35
  Silent Unter
  65
  Belit the Reaver
  36
  Wulf Bloodaxe
  66
  Ed Tech 
  Traits
  11
  Cybernetic leg 
  41
  Bloodthirsty
  12
  Alcoholic
  42
  Get space-sick
  13
  Hungry for revenge
  43
  Always nervous
  14
  Always carries a knife
  44
  Tells 
  lengthy 
  stories 
  about the good old days
  15
  Multicoloured hair or 
  beard
  45
  Horribly scarred
  16
  Once shot a man in 
  District 268, just to watch 
  him die
  46
  Eyepatch
  21
  Believes he has psionic 
  powers
  51
  Sings spacer shanties
  22
  Wants to be in charge
  52
  Has a grudge against 
  a PC
  23
  Cybernetic Hand
  53
  Former farmer
  24
  Paranoid
  54
  Smells really bad
  25
  Collects alien curios
  55
  Girl in every port
  26
  Always hungry
  56
  Alleged cannibal
  31
  Demands his own cabin
  61
  Murderous rogue
  32
  Ran away to space at a 
  young age
  62
  Ex-Imperial navy
  33
  Former barbarian
  63
  Network of contacts
  34
  Has a genetically 
  engineered parrot
  64
  Ambitious
  35
  Dying of an exotic 
  disease
  65
  Coward
  36
  Covered in prison tattoos 66
  Bad temper 
  Morale
  Morale is a special Characteristic that applies to the whole crew. 
  The crew’s morale starts at 6+1d6. Morale works like other 
  characteristics – it proves a DM to some dice rolls, and can 
  suffer damage. 
  If the crew’s morale drops too low, they become discontented. At 
  morale 0, the crew mutiny and attempt to overthrow the current 
  leadership and seize the ship for themselves. 
  Checking Morale: To check morale, roll 2d6 + the current 
  morale DM against a target number of 8+. 
  The Referee should check morale when:
  • 
  The ship is endangered (hull reduced to 0)
  • 
  The crew are ordered to risk their lives
  • 
  The crew have to endure undue hardship
  • 
  The captain and pirate leadership are divided or indecisive
  Morale Damage: If a morale check is failed, the crew’s morale 
  takes 1d6 damage. 
  Morale also drops by 1;
  For every month that goes by without a division of the spoils.
  For any failed attempt to capture cargo or prizes
  Restoring Morale: Morale increases by 1 when:
  The ship captures a considerable amount of cargo or a prize
  The pirate leadership reward the crew with shore leave, 
  intoxicants and other pleasures
  Division of the Spoils
  According to ancient and inviolate tradition, the crew of a pirate 
  ship have a share in any proceeds from their larceny. These 
  shares are divided when the pirate ship is in a safe harbour and 
  any captured cargo has been sold. 
  The loot is divided as follows:
  First, King Oleb of Drinax demands 10% of the proceeds from 
  any piracy. If the characters refuse him his royal tithe, they 
  lose the beneﬁ ts of the letter of marque and make an enemy 
  of Drinax. 
  Second, work out the total number of shares. Every ordinary 
  crewman has one share; the player characters have two shares 
  each, and the captain has ﬁ ve shares. 
  Finally, divide the total value of the spoils by the total number of 
  shares to work out the value of each share.
  Retaining Crew: When there is a Division of the Spoils, some 
  of the crew may choose to leave. For each NPC crew member, 
  roll 2d6 + the crew’s morale against a target number of 6+. If the 
  roll fails, that crewman chooses to depart the ship at the next 
  Tolerant or better starport. 
  
   
  19
  Standing
  There are two great powers who cast long shadows over the 
  whole Trojan Reach – the Third Imperium and the Aslan Hierate. 
  A pirate ship’s standing with these two powers determines how 
  they react to the pirate’s activities. Both sides are willing to 
  ignore minor acts of larceny and extortion as long as it does 
  not impact the ﬂ ow of trade, and both sides are secretly in 
  favour of attacks upon the other by pirates – the fewer Aslan 
  merchants in space, the more likely the Imperium is to dominate 
  the trade routes, and vice versa. However, if the pirates are too 
  brazen and their standing drops too far, the Imperial powers will 
  respond with violence.
  Standing with the Imperium starts at 0; Standing with the Aslan 
  Hierate starts at -5.
  Stealing Cargo: -1 per incident in which more than Cr. 100,000 
  is stolen.
  Per Infamous Incident: -1d6 for incidents where the pirates 
  steal a large amount of cargo, capture ships, and otherwise 
  ‘rock the boat’.
  Per Atrocity: -1d6 for incidents where the pirates destroy ships, 
  murder prisoners or otherwise breach the code of the stars.
  Per Interference: -1d6 for incidents where the pirates attack 
  Imperial scoutships, couriers or registered convoys, damage 
  starports or refuelling stations, or otherwise interfere with the 
  ﬂ ow of trade.
  Per Heroic Deed: +1d6 for attacking pirates or inﬂ icting 
  signiﬁ cant damage on the other Imperial power.
  Per Month Elapsed Without Incident: Over time, standing 
  tends towards its starting point. A crew’s standing moves one 
  point towards its starting position (0/-5) after each month in 
  which the pirates do nothing of consequence. 
  These rolls can be combined. For example, an incident in which 
  a pirate steals millions of credits worth of cargo, destroys an 
  Imperial escort and guns down ﬂ eeing escape pods would 
  qualify as an Infamous Incident, an Atrocity and Interference, 
  so the pirate’s standing with the Imperium would drop by 3d6+1. 
  However, the Aslan are pleased by this setback to the Imperium, 
  so the pirate’s standing with the Hierate rises by 1d6.
  Effects of Standing
  Standing
  Effects
  20+
  Ally: The pirates are rewarded for their heroic 
  efforts. All ports belonging to the Imperial power 
  are now Friendly, and the pirates gain +2 Social 
  Standing within the Imperial power’s territory. 
  6 to 20
  Tolerated: The Imperial power is willing to overlook 
  the pirate’s excesses. All ports belonging to that 
  power are now Tolerant of that pirate.
  -5 to +5
  Ignored: No effect.
  -6 to -20
  Irritant: A bounty is placed on the pirate’s head of 
  -1d6 x 1,000 cr x the pirate’s Standing. 
  -21 to -40
  Infamy: A patrol is dispatched to hunt down trouble 
  in the reach, including the pirate menace.
  -40+
  Enemy of the State! The pirate is hounded by agents 
  of the Imperial power, ranging from assassins to 
  naval ships. The attitude of any ports not already 
  Friendly or better drops by one level.
  Upgrading & Repairing Ships
  The Drinaxi Harrier that the characters start the campaign with 
  is a ﬁ ne ship, but ambitious players may dream of commanding 
  a larger warship, or even commanding a ﬂ eet of pirate ships and 
  calling themselves pirate admirals (while miserly pirates might 
  prefer a ship that is less distinctive and cheaper to maintain). 
  Any captured ship can be reﬁ tted with weapons and turned into 
  a pirate ship, while the player characters can order new ships 
  like Corsairs at the shipyards of Theev (Sindal 0506). Several of 
  the adventures also include the opportunity to obtain a different 
  ship. 
  Extra ships can be placed under the control of non-player 
  characters, and can either take part in the player characters’ 
  attacks or else sent off to conduct their own raiding. By default, 
  a pirate admiral takes 10% off the top of any loot taken by 
  subordinate ships.
  Damage to ships must be repaired at a suitable port (ideally, a 
  Class C or better starport). 
  
   
  20
  PIRACY
  Like most dangerous professions, piracy consists mostly of 
  waiting and watching; 99% boredom mixed with 1% terror and 
  violence. These rules skip over the waiting and watching to 
  concentrate on the hunt, the chase and the kill.
  The Code of the Stars
  There is an unwritten code of understanding between pirates, 
  merchants and the great powers. While stealing cargo is a 
  crime, the cost of hunting down and exterminating such a pirate 
  is far more than the value of the cargo that pirate is likely to 
  steal over the course of a career. Some small-time pirates have 
  survived for years by never taking more than the insurance 
  companies and trading corporations can bear. As long as a 
  pirate only takes cargo (or better yet, accepts bribes to leave a 
  trader pass freely), the great powers will turn a blind eye to the 
  corsair, at least for a few months. A pirate who intercepts a ship, 
  steals a few tons of cargo, and leaves both merchant ship and 
  crew unharmed is not considered a major threat. 
  Killing crew, stealing ships or attacking Imperial convoys, though, 
  is a different measure. Pirates who breach this unwritten code 
  draw attention to themselves, and must be destroyed! Neither 
  the Hierate no the Third Imperium can tolerate any challenge to 
  their authority.
  Finding Prey
  The trade route between the Third Imperium and the Aslan 
  Hierate is prime hunting territory for ambitious pirates. The 
  cargo ships that ply those routes are heavy with valuable 
  cargo, and the comparative lack of civilised worlds along the 
  way means that the pirates are less likely to run into System 
  Defence Boats or pirate hunters. To avoid attack, most 
  merchants travel in convoys escorted by either military vessels 
  or armed mercenaries, but there are always a few unlucky ships 
  who either can’t afford an escort or lose it along the way in a 
  mistimed jump. 
  Beyond the trade route, the pickings are thinner. While there are 
  always free traders and vagabonds chancing their luck in the 
  backwaters of the Reach, pirates are less likely to ﬁ nd a suitable 
  target in systems off the beaten track. 
  When a pirate attempts to locate prey, roll on the Prey Encounter 
  Table to determine the most likely target. A result of ‘no prey’ 
  does not mean that there are no other ships in the system, it 
  implies that there are no other ships that the pirate has a chance 
  of successfully tackling right now, although this may change at 
  any moment if a ship jumps in.
  The amount of trafﬁ c in the system determines when to roll on 
  the Prey Encounter Table.
  Roll d66, applying DMs as follows:
  Backwater System: -1DM to ﬁ rst die only 
  Dangerous World: -1DM to second die only
  High-Trafﬁ c System: +1DM to ﬁ rst die only
  Secure World: +1 DM to second die only
  Capital or other key System: +2DM to ﬁ rst die only  
  Naval Base: +2 DM to second die only
  A backwater system is one with a Class X or E starport that is 
  off the Imperium-Hierate trade route.
  A high-trafﬁ c system is one with a Class A or B starport and 
  with at least one of the following traits: High Technology, High 
  Population, Industrial, Agricultural, Rich, or a system on the 
  Imperium-Aslan trade route.
  A capital or other key system is a subsector capital, like Pax 
  Rulin.
  A dangerous world has an Amber or Red Travel code, or a Law 
  Level of 3 or less, or is otherwise unable to patrol its space.
  A secure world has a Law Level of 7 or more, and has the 
  technology to protect travellers, or has a naval base present 
  with six parsecs.
  A naval base in the system offers the best possible protection 
  for travellers.
  
   
  21
  Prey Encounter Table
  00
  Traveller
  40
  Small Freighter
  01
  Traveller
  41
  Traveller
  02
  No encounter
  42
  Convoy
  03
  No encounter
  43
  Heavy Freighter
  04
  Small Freighter
  44
  No encounter
  05
  No encounter
  45
  No encounter
  06
  No encounter
  46
  Liner
  07
  No encounter
  47
  System Defence Boat
  08
  Naval Patrol
  48
  1-3: No encounter; 4-6 Naval Patrol
  10
  Traveller
  50
  Traveller
  11
  No encounter
  51
  Convoy
  12
  No encounter
  52
  Small Freighter 
  13
  No encounter
  53
  Medium Freighter
  14
  Small Freighter
  54
  No encounter
  15
  No encounter
  55
  Heavy Freighter
  16
  No encounter
  56
  Liner
  17
  Medium Freighter
  57
  System Defence Boat
  18
  1-3: No encounter; 4-6: Naval Patrol
  58
  1-2: No encounter; 3-6 Naval Patrol
  20
  Traveller
  60
  Traveller
  21
  No encounter
  61
  Convoy
  22
  No encounter
  62
  Small Freighter 
  23
  Small Freighter
  63
  Medium Freighter
  24
  Medium Freighter
  64
  Liner
  25
  No encounter
  65
  Convoy
  26
  Unusual Vessel
  66
  Rich Freighter
  27
  System Defence Boat
  67
  System Defence Boat
  28
  1-3: No encounter; 4-6 Naval Patrol
  68
  Naval Patrol
  30
  Traveller
  70
  Traveller
  31
  Small Freighter
  71
  Small Freighter
  32
  Convoy
  72
  Medium Freighter
  33
  Unusual Vessel
  73
  Convoy
  34
  Medium Freighter
  74
  Unusual Vessel
  35
  No encounter
  75
  Liner
  36
  No encounter
  76
  Rich Freighter
  37
  Rich Freighter
  77
  System Defence Boat
  38
  1-3: No encounter; 4-6 Naval Patrol
  78
  Naval Patrol
  Traveller: A vessel other than a cargo ship, such as a scout 
  vessel, small military ship, fast courier or even another pirate. 
  Travellers are poor targets for pirates, as they are unlikely to 
  carry valuable cargoes. They can be looted for parts.
  Small Freighter: A far trader, free trader or other 100-300 ton 
  trade vessel. Such vessels are ideal prey for most pirates, as 
  they can quickly be looted and are unlikely to have signiﬁ cant 
  defences. 
  Medium Freighter: A trader of 400-1,000 tons. Still a good 
  target for pirates, although sorting through the cavernous cargo 
  bay for the choicest items may take more time than the pirate 
  can afford. 
  Heavy Freighter: This is a freighter of 1,000 tons or more. 
  Heavy freighters of this kind travel with escort vessels or carry 
  their own ﬁ ghters or defensive weapons, and may be more than 
  the average pirate can handle.
  Rich Freighter: Roll 1d6 to determine the sort of freighter 
  encountered. 1-3: Small Freighter, 4-5: Medium Freighter, 6: 
  Heavy Freighter. This freighter is carrying an especially valuable 
  cargo; when rolling for a random cargo, roll twice times and take 
  the most valuable result. 
  
   
  22
  Liner: This is a passenger vessel, colony ship, troop transport 
  or tourist vessel. Such ships may have many valuable items 
  carried by the passengers, but the pirates will be outnumbered 
  if they try to storm on board
  Unusual Vessel: A noble’s yacht, science vessel, X-boat, 
  mercenary transport, survey ship or other rare type of ship. 
  The vessel may be utterly useless to the pirate or a rich prize, 
  depending on what is on board. It could even be a rival pirate. 
  System Defence Boat: Roll 1d6. On a 1-5, this is a classic 
  SDB of some sort – a heavily armed, fast-moving spaceship 
  without a jump drive. On a 6, it is a q-ship, a small freighter that 
  has been reﬁ tted with concealed weapons as a honey trap for 
  pirates.
  Convoy: A convoy consists of 2-12 ships, split between Heavy, 
  Medium and Rich Freighters and armed escorts.  
  Naval Patrol: The pirate has run into a heavily armed navy 
  ship, ranging from a small escort ship or pirate hunter to a full-
  size warship. 
  Morale
  Enemy ships have a morale score, just like pirates. The morale 
  for a merchant starts at 1d6+3; for an armed ship, it starts at 
  1d6+6; and for a naval ship like an escort, at 1d6+8. Morale is 
  reduced by 1 for every Structure Hit, and by 1d6 for a Bridge 
  Hit or if the M-Drive, J-Drive or Power Plant is disabled. A ship 
  with damaged morale may be willing to sacriﬁ ce a portion of 
  her cargo in exchange for the promise of safe passage – see 
  Demanding Surrender, page 23. 
  If morale reaches 0, then the victim either jumps out (if possible) 
  or else surrenders. 
  Encounter Distance & Timing
  The ‘encounter window’ for a pirate attack is a slim one. It takes 
  a ship only a few hours to lift off from a spaceport and pass 
  through the hundred-diameter jump point, or to travel from 
  where it entered the system to the safety of the atmosphere. 
  Within that window, the pirate has to come within range of the 
  target, disable it or force its surrender, match velocity, dock, loot 
  the cargo and then escape. 
  The initial encounter distance is set by the Referee; as a rule of 
  thumb, roll 3d6 and multiply it by the diameter of the mainworld 
  (or 1,000km for Size 0 worlds). An arriving ship will arrive 
  somewhere outside the hundred-diameter jump limit, so the 
  values in the Jump Limit Transit Table are the minimum travel 
  times for an arriving ship.
  Roll 1d6 or choose the prey’s direction of travel. On a 1-3, it is 
  heading towards the planet to land; on a 4-5, it is heading to the 
  jump diameter limit. On a 6, it is stationary or heading towards 
  some other destination, such as a moon, another planet or 
  another vessel.
  The Jump Limit Transit Table describes how long it takes a 
  vessel to reach either the surface or hundred-diameter jump 
  limit, depending on its thrust and the size of the planet. Note 
  that it is much quicker to leave a planet and travel at full thrust 
  to the jump limit than it is to ﬂ y to the surface, as the vessel 
  must do a turnover at the half-way point (or use atmospheric 
  braking; either way, it must reach zero velocity at the surface or 
  there will be an unfortunate interaction with the ground, termed 
  a ‘crash’). 
  Jump Limit Transit Table
  Size
  1g
  2g
  3g
  4g
  5g
  6g
  Up
  Down
  Up
  Down
  Up
  Down
  Up
  Down
  Up
  Down
  Up
  Down
  0 (80,00km) 
  1hr
  1.5hrs
  45mins 1.2hrs
  40mins 1hr
  33mins 45mins 30mins 42mins 27mins 38mins
  1 (160,000km)
  1.5hrs
  2 hrs
  1.2hrs
  1.5hrs
  1hr
  1.2hrs 45mins 1.1hrs
  42mins 1hr
  38mins 0.9hrs
  2 (320,000km)
  2hrs
  3 hrs
  1.5hrs
  2.25hrs 1.2hrs
  2hrs
  1.1hrs
  1.5hrs
  1hr
  1.5hrs
  0.9hrs
  1.2hrs
  3 (480,000km)
  3hrs
  4 hrs
  2hrs
  2.75hrs 1.5hrs
  2.2hrs 1.3hrs
  2hrs
  1.2hrs
  1.75hrs 1.1hrs
  1.5hrs
  4 (640,000 km)
  3 hrs
  4.3 hrs
  2.25hrs 3hrs
  1.9hrs
  2.5hrs 1.5hrs
  2.25hrs 1.5hrs
  2hrs
  1.2hrs
  1.9hrs
  5 (800,000km)
  3.5hrs
  5 hrs
  2.5hrs
  3.5hrs
  2hrs
  3hrs
  1.75hrs 2.5hrs
  1.6hrs
  2.2hrs
  1.5hrs
  2hrs
  6 (960,000km)
  4hrs
  5.5hrs
  2.75hrs 4hrs
  2.25hrs 3.2hrs 2hrs
  2.75hrs 1.75hrs 2.5hrs
  1.5hrs
  2.25hrs
  7 (1,120,000km)
  4.2hrs
  6hrs
  3hrs
  4.2hrs
  2.4hrs
  3.5hrs 2.1hrs
  3hrs
  1.9hrs
  2.6hrs
  1.75hrs 2.5hrs
  8 (1,280,000km)
  4.5hrs
  6.3hrs
  3.2hrs
  4.5hrs
  2.6hrs
  3.7hrs 2.25hrs 3.1hrs
  2hrs
  2.9hrs
  1.9hrs
  2.4hrs
  9 (1,440,000km)
  4.75hrs 6.75hrs 3.3hrs
  4.75hrs 2.75hrs 3.9hrs 2.3hrs
  3.3hrs
  2.1hrs
  3hrs
  2hrs
  2.75hrs
  A (1,600,000km)
  5hrs
  7hrs
  3.5hrs
  5hrs
  3hrs
  4.1hrs 2.5hrs
  3.5hrs
  2.25hrs 3.1hrs
  2hrs
  3hrs
  
   
  23
  If the ship is located elsewhere in the system, then it can jump 
  out immediately when threatened, assuming it has fuel. 
  PIRATE ATTACKS
  Once the pirate has located a suitable target, the following steps 
  must be taken:
  • 
  Intercept the target
  • 
  Attack the target
  • 
  Prevent the target’s escape
  • 
  (Optionally) Board the target
  • 
  Loot the target
  • 
  Escape!
  Intercept the target
  The pirate faces a difﬁ cult task – they must not only get within 
  range of the target, but must also match velocity with it so 
  boarding can be attempted. The target may attempt to avoid the 
  pirate, but any evasive manoeuvres will increase the amount of 
  time it takes to reach the target’s destination. Opposed Piloting 
  checks are when the range drops to Short or less, as the target 
  jinks and dodges to avoid the approaching pirate vessel. 
  In general, if the pirate has a higher Thrust value than the target, 
  and is within 100,000 kilometres of the target, then escape is 
  very difﬁ cult indeed.
  As soon as the pirate opens ﬁ re, a clock starts ticking. The 
  pirate has a limited amount to breach the target and loot before 
  the authorities arrive (see Pirate Hunters on page 26). The 
  Referee should track how long the attack takes, to determine 
  how long the pirates have to loot their prize.
  Skill Checks:
  Locating a target: Sensors+Intelligence, 1-6 minutes, Average 
  (+0)
  Estimating the likely value of a prize: Broker+Intelligence, 1-
  6 seconds, Difﬁ cult (-2)
  Plotting an intercept course: Pilot+Education, 10-60 seconds, 
  Average (+0)
  Attack the target
  Pirates do not want to destroy their target, they want to cripple 
  it. Missile and torpedo attacks may be used to ‘soften up’ a 
  target, but as soon as the target’s Hull is breached, the pirate 
  runs the risk of destroying the cargo he seeks. Most pirates will 
  challenge the target as soon as the ﬁ rst shot is ﬁ red, demanding 
  that the prey surrender, heave to and prepare to be boarded.
  The ideal results for a pirate are hits to the Manoeuvre Drive 
  (reducing the target’s Thrust and making interception much 
  easier) or Fuel (dumping a portion of the target’s fuel into space 
  and possibly preventing it from jumping away). 
  Demanding Surrender: To force a ship to surrender, roll 
  Comms + Social Standing against a difﬁ culty of 8, subtracting 
  the target’s current morale as a -DM. Surrenders are rarely 
  unconditional; normally, the merchant demands a promise of 
  safe passage for ship and crew in exchange for handing over 
  part of the cargo. Many merchants keep a few tons of ‘sacriﬁ cial’ 
  cargo on board to keep pirates at bay.
  Skill Checks:
  Demanding a Surrender: Comms+Social Standing, 10-60 
  seconds
  Attacking engines: Gunner+Dexterity, 1-6 minutes, Difﬁ cult (-
  2)
  Docking with a crippled target: Pilot+Dexterity, 1-6 minutes, 
  Difﬁ cult (-2)
  Board the target
  To board the target, the pirate vessel must either dock with it, or 
  send boarding troops across using thruster packs, grav belts, 
  grapple lines or other transport methods (psionic teleportation 
  is ideal for piracy). Once the boarders have reached the target, 
  they need to force open an airlock. Most pirates warn the target 
  before breaching the hull, demanding that the victims open up 
  or lose atmospheric containment. All but the bravest of targets 
  will just let the pirates in at this point.
  If the victim intends to ﬁ ght back, then the situation becomes 
  more complicated. If the defenders are not wearing vacc suits, 
  then just breaching the airlock removes the problem, but no-one 
  is stupid enough to resist boarders without ﬁ rst putting on vacc 
  suits (or closing internal doors, ensuring that a breach at the 
  main airlock or cargo hold will not vent the air from the bridge 
  and crew quarters). Assuming both sides are ready for ﬁ ghting 
  in vacuum, then the pirates must battle their way onto the other 
  ship and eliminate any resistance. The weapons of choice in a 
  boarding action are cutlasses, gauss pistols and other zero-g 
  weapons.
  Ideally, the pirate vessel docks with the target, to allow cargo 
  and other loot to be transferred quickly. 
  Called Shots
  Ships at a range of Short or less may attempt to make called 
  shots with direct-ﬁ re weapons. The attacker nominates the 
  location he wishes to attack, and then rolls with a -2DM to 
  his attack. If the attack hits, the Referee rolls on the location 
  table as normal, but then moves one row up or down on the 
  table towards the desired location. 
  For example, a pirate corsair targets the fuel tanks on a 
  ﬂ eeing merchant. He rolls and hits; the Referee rolls 2d6 on 
  the location table and gets a 4, M-Drive. However, thanks 
  to the called shot, he moves one row towards the Fuel 
  location. 
  
   
  24
  Skill Checks:
  Setting a breaching charge: Explosives+Education, 1-6 
  minutes, Average (+0)
  Moving in zero-g: Zero-G+ Dexterity, 1-6 seconds, Average 
  (+0)
  Finding the cargo hold: Recon+Intelligence, 1-6 minutes, 
  Average (+0)
  Loot the target
  If the pirate has secured its prize, the crew can begin looting. 
  Successful pirates have this part of the operation down to a ﬁ ne 
  art, hunting down the most valuable items ﬁ rst and dispatching 
  specialised teams to recover speciﬁ c targets. Security systems 
  must be bypassed or destroyed; the pick of the cargo must be 
  transferred into the pirate vessel; subcraft and other vehicles 
  are cut free and stolen. Looting is as dangerous as any part of 
  the attack – if the pirate captain does not leave promptly, he will 
  be caught by the authorities. Many pirates have been left behind 
  on a crippled merchant ship when their captain abandons them 
  rather than stand and ﬁ ght. A well-trained pirate crew will leave 
  behind what they cannot safely steal.
  Skill Checks:
  Opening a ship’s locker: Security+Education, 10-60 minutes, 
  Average (+0)
  Finding the right cargo: Recon+Intelligence, 1-6 minutes, 
  Average (+0)
  Moving a cargo container manually: Zero-G+ Strength, 1-6 
  minutes, Difﬁ cult (-2)
  Escape!
  The ﬁ nal challenge for the pirate is to escape without being 
  captured. Once a pirate has taken its prize, it still needs to 
  make it back to the hundred-diameter jump limit to escape. One 
  common mistake made by inexperienced raiders is to chase a 
  target too far into a planet’s jump shadow, so they cannot then 
  safely jump out. (Jumping within the hundred-diameter limit 
  incurs a -8DM to the jump check). 
  Prey Quirks
  Every ship hides surprises; roll on the Quirk table to spice up 
  any encounter with a merchant ship.
  Quirks
  11
  Coward: Surrenders easily. Reduce starting morale by 
  1d6.
  41
  Heavily Armed: The merchant ship is ready for a ﬁ ght. Any 
  hardpoints are equipped with turrets ﬁ lled with lasers or 
  particle beams.
  12
  Deceitful: Pretends to surrender in order to lure the 
  pirates into docking, then ﬁ ghts back at short range.
  42
  Berserker: One of the merchant crew is a trained marine 
  equipped with battle dress or a boarding vacc suit and a 
  heavy weapon.
  13
  Smuggler: The really valuable cargo is hidden in a 
  secret compartment
  43
  Self Destruct: The captain would rather die than lose his ship. 
  Unless the pirates can stop him, he’ll scuttle his ship rather 
  than lose his cargo. 
  14
  Eccentric: The captain is insane, drunk or otherwise 
  eccentric.
  44
  Mission of Mercy: The ship is carrying vitally needed supplies, 
  like medicine or food, to a troubled colony.
  15
  No Surrender: The crew won’t surrender under any 
  circumstances. Ignore morale.
  45
  Die Hard: One of the merchant’s crew hides when the ship is 
  boarded, and sneaks onto the player’s ship to sabotage them.
  16
  Duel of Honour: The captain challenges one of the 
  pirates to a rapier duel in vacc suits on the exterior 
  hull of his ship. 
  46
  Psionic Defender: One of the crew of the merchant ship is a 
  psion.
  21
  Noble: There’s a noble on board. If ransomed, she’s 
  worth considerably more than normal. 
  51
  Unlikely Cargo: The merchant ship is carrying an unexpected 
  cargo – what are they doing out here?
  22
  Alien: There’s an exotic alien like a Hiver on board.
  52
  Perishable Cargo: The merchant’s cargo is valuable, but only 
  if sold within the month.
  23
  Family: The captain’s family travel on board the ship. 53
  Dangerous Cargo: The merchant’s cargo is dangerous to 
  have on board. 
  24
  Diplomat: There is an Imperial or Aslan diplomat on 
  board, carrying a secret message
  54
  Living Cargo: The cargo is alive – animals, insects, or even 
  slaves.
  25
  Stowaway: Someone’s hidden inside a cargo container 
  that the pirates just stole.
  55
  Hot Cargo: The cargo was stolen – and the real owner wants 
  it back.  
  26
  Prisoner: There’s a criminal – perhaps a captured 
  pirate – in the ship’s brig.
  56
  Alien Cargo: The merchant is carrying something from a very 
  distant part of space, or even an Ancient relic.
  
   
  25
  31
  Plague Ship: The crew are infected with a potentially 
  fatal disease.
  61
  Traitor: One of the merchant’s crew is willing to betray his 
  shipmates for a large payoff. 
  32
  Dying Ship: The ship misjumped and is running low on 
  food, oxygen or fuel.
  62
  Infestation: There’s something alive on board ship.
  33
  Damaged Ship: The ship sustained 1d6 hits to internal 
  systems already.
  63
  Ghost Ship: This ship has been drifting dead for centuries. 
  The characters were attacked by automated weapons.
  34
  Treasure Map: While looting the ship, the characters 
  ﬁ nd a map pointing to a hidden supply cache, mineral 
  deposit or other valuable treasure. 
  64
  Strange Curio: There’s a relic or other strange item in the 
  captain’s cabin.
  35
  Important Document: The ship’s safe contains the 
  deeds to a property, a letter of marque, a corporate 
  contract or some other valuable document.
  65
  It’s a Trap: This ‘merchant’ is actually a disguised q-ship or 
  pirate hunter.
  36
  Message Pod: The ship carries a 5-dton data drum 
  containing mail. Decoding this data may reveal useful 
  information. 
  66
  Drinaxian on Board: One of the NPCs from page 13 is on 
  board... what are they doing here?
  Encounter Complications
  11
  Solar Flares: The system’s primary sun spits out huge 
  ﬂ ares and high levels of radiation. All ships take 3d6x100 
  rads per hour.
  41
  Rapid Reaction: The security forces here respond very quickly 
  – add a +4 DM to the response time roll.
  12
  Debris Field: The encounter takes place in a debris ﬁ eld. 
  Pilot checks are needed to avoid ﬂ oating obstacles; on 
  the bright side, there may be some salvage here.
  42
  Corrupt Cops: The security forces can be bribed to ignore the 
  attack.
  13
  Ice Field: The planet’s surrounded by a ring of ice 
  particles, and the quarry takes refuge there. Direct-ﬁ re 
  weapons are limited to Short range.
  43
  Nearby Asteroid: There’s an asteroid close to the battle; 
  the merchant can take there refuge and hide behind it. The 
  asteroid might even be inhabited.
  14
  Comms Jamming: Something in the system blocks 
  communications. The victim can’t call for help.
  44
  Sensor Jamming: Conditions in the system block sensors. 
  15
  Behind The Moon: There’s a nearby moon. What’s lurking 
  there? Another pirate? An interceptor? An Aslan spy?
  45
  Imperial Patrol: There’s an Imperial or Aslan patrol in the 
  system, hunting for pirates. They’re far enough away that the 
  characters might be able to complete the attack before the 
  ﬁ rst ﬁ ghters arrive...
  16
  Incoming Escort: The merchant has an escort, but they 
  haven’t jumped in yet. They’ll be here any minute.
  46
  Distress Call: The characters detect a distress call from a 
  stricken ship. Do they call off their attack?
  21
  Rival Pirate: There’s another pirate after the same prize.
  51
  High Guard: There’s an unexpected ship refuelling at the 
  system’s gas giant (or at another source of hydrogen, like a 
  lake). Why are they avoiding the starport?
  22
  Slow Leak: The characters’ fuel tank has a slow leak; 
  they’re losing 1d6 tons of hydrogen per round.
  52
  Spy in the System: A spy in the system contacts the characters 
  by radio, offering them useful information about trafﬁ c.
  23
  Out of Control: The quarry loses control of its attitude 
  thrusters and starts spinning wildly. It’s now easy to 
  catch but very hard to dock with.
  53
  Screamer: The merchant ship frantically warns everyone 
  who’ll listen about the pirates – not just in this system, but in 
  every other system the merchant visits
  24
  Cargo Spilled: In a panic, the merchant jettisons most of its 
  cargo, sending an expansing ﬂ ock of canisters into space.
  54
  Incoming!: The starport below launches ground-to-space 
  missiles. The ﬁ rst missile hits in ﬁ ve rounds...
  25
  Collision Warning! Both ships nearly collide with a small 
  asteroid or other piece of space debris. 
  55
  Tricky Calculation: The complex arrangement of moons and 
  planets in this system make jump calculations harder. Apply a 
  -4 DM to any Astrogation checks.
  26
  Misjump: The ﬁ rst ship to jump out misjumps when they 
  ﬂ ee.
  56
  Pull Up!: The merchant doesn’t slow down as it approaches the 
  planet – instead, they plan to use aerobraking to slow their dissent. 
  31
  Observer: There’s another ship nearby. They steer clear 
  of the dogﬁ ght, but they’re watching...
  61
  The Black Signal:  The pirates pick up the fabled ‘black signal’ 
  on the ship; a pattern of radiation burned into the hull, denoting 
  that this ship is an enemy of the pirates of Theev.
  32
  Bad Jump: This was a bad jump – the pirates have 
  arrived well outside the travelled parts of the system. 
  62
  Familiar Ship: The player characters have encountered this 
  merchant ship before...
  
   
  26
  33
  Unfortunate Timing: Another ship jumps right into the 
  middle of the battle.
  63
  Aslan Raiders: Several Aslan raiders lead by an ambitious 
  ihatei warlord arrive in the system.
  34
  Crew Dissent: One of the crew on board the PCs’ ship 
  is having problems that affect the battle. Perhaps they 
  object to this particular target, or are drunk, or are 
  deliberately sabotaging the attack. 
  64
  Under The Shield of the Sunburst: An Imperial patrol jumps 
  in; they’re not pirate hunting, they’re here to enforce the Third 
  Imperium’s will on the planetary government.
  35
  System Failure: A key system fails on board the pirate 
  ship. Roll 1d3 hits on the internal damage table.
  65
  Didn’t Expect To Find You Here: A contact (or ally, or enemy) 
  of the player character is on board the merchant.
  36
  Escape Pods: The merchant’s crew ﬂ ee their ship in 
  escape pods and small craft. They could be carrying 
  treasure on board those pods – but the pirates have time 
  to only chase down one of them...
  66
  Anomaly: The characters run into something unusual, like a 
  wrecked ship or a spatial anomaly. 
  PIRATE HUNTERS
  Any system with sufﬁ cient resources and trade will maintain a 
  ﬂ eet of system defence boats and customs vessels. Even on 
  technologically primitive worlds, the government will either hire 
  private contractors or request Imperial aid. These SDBs patrol 
  the space around the mainworld, as well as other key locations 
  in the system such as gas giants or asteroid belts. While the 
  main purpose of an SDB ﬂ eet is to protect against invasion, they 
  hone their skills hunting pirates.
  Pirate hunting can also be an important duty for the Imperial 
  navy and subsector navies. The Imperial navy only bothers 
  with pirate hunting when training new crews, or when a nest 
  of pirates proves especially troublesome. Many years can 
  go by before the navy bothers to act, but when they do, they 
  use overwhelming force. Imperial navy ships are deployed to 
  besiege and destroy pirate bases.
  Subsector navies are much more active when it comes to pirate 
  hunting, and it is one of their primary roles. Subsector navies use 
  much smaller and more agile warships, making them ideal for 
  patrols and anti-pirate operations. Pirates often operate across 
  subsector borders to avoid subsector ﬂ eets – the dead hand of 
  bureaucracy is a powerful weapon in the stratiﬁ ed Imperium, 
  and one duke may be unwilling to allow a neighbour’s ships to 
  enter his space.
  Any of these pirate hunters may respond to a distress call from 
  a merchant ship. Roll on the Response table when the pirate 
  attack begins.
  Roll 2d6
  Result
  5-
  No response; roll again in one hour
  6-7
  A vessel launches from the starport to investigate
  8-9
  A vessel launches from the starport or from the 
  hundred-diameter jump limit, whichever is closer
  10
  A vessel in orbit responds; response time is 1d6+1 
  hours
  11
  A vessel in orbit responds; response time is 1d6 
  hours
  12
  A vessel in orbit responds; response time is 10-60 
  minutes
  13+
  A vessel in orbit responds, response time is 5-30 
  minutes
  DMs:
  Backwater System: -1DM 
  Dangerous World: -1DM 
  High-Trafﬁ c System: +1DM
  Secure World: +1 DM
  Capital or other key System: +2DM
  Naval Base: +2 DM 
  Customs Ships
  Customs ships are small, fast-moving lightly armed vessels, 
  designed to intercept smugglers and patrol the spaceways. A 
  customs ship is not designed to get into a shooting match with 
  another vessel, although most could inﬂ ict signiﬁ cant damage 
  on a small pirate. Customs vessels are normally the ﬁ rst to 
  respond to a pirate attack, although they will call in support from 
  SDBs if necessary.
  
   
  27
  SDBs
  System Defence Boats vary wildly in size. The largest SDBs 
  are hollowed-out asteroids bigger than any capital ship; these 
  supermonitors are designed to ﬁ ght off invading ﬂ eets, and 
  could swat every pirate in the subsector with a single broadside. 
  The SDBs normally encountered by pirates are much smaller 
  escorts. SDBs are extremely dangerous, as they are faster 
  and better-armed than any pirate ship. They are incapable of 
  jump travel, though, and their crew may not be as skilled as a 
  hardened pirate band, so a clever pirate can avoid or escape a 
  SDB.
  Q-Ships
  Q-ships are merchant vessels with concealed weapons, used 
  as lures for pirates and commerce raiders. Most subsector 
  navies have a few old q-ships in storage that are hauled out 
  when pirate activity becomes a problem. The q-ship then 
  ‘conveniently’ jumps into dangerous systems and offers itself a 
  tempting target for pirates. When the attack begins, the q-ship 
  responds by revealing its weapons and launching ﬁ ghters. 
  Some worlds use a variant on the q-ship concept, where 
  they send freighters loaded with booby-trapped cargo into 
  dangerous space. When the pirates steal the cargo, the booby 
  trap is activated. High-explosive charges are the most common 
  form of booby trap, but other q-ships have concealed armoured 
  marines, lethal toxins or even nuclear mines.
  Naval Vessels
  Small naval vessels like the Gazelle-class close escort are ideal 
  pirate hunters. These vessels can outgun or outgun most pirate 
  ships, and unlike an SDB they have skilled crews and can chase 
  corsairs from one system to another. Naval vessels may also 
  carry high-acceleration ﬁ ghters, which can chase down pirate 
  vessels in the same way pirates chase down prey. 
  Small naval vessels are the bane of piracy. The only chance for 
  the pirate is to ﬂ ee to a less well-patrolled subsector and start 
  again. Actually destroying the naval vessel is the worst possible 
  course of action, as it ensures that the pirate will be hunted down 
  and exterminated by the navy. At least surrendering means the 
  pirate may survive.
  Capital Ships
  Massive capital warships are much too large and expensive to be 
  ‘wasted’ on pirate hunting. Nonetheless, pirates do sometimes 
  encounter capital ships. There are two likely scenarios – either 
  the navy have detected a pirate base, and wish to pound it 
  into free-ﬂ oating dust, or some inﬂ uential noble or corporation 
  has made a fuss and the navy wishes to show how seriously it 
  takes the pirate situation. Both scenarios involve a great deal 
  of overkill.
  Bounty Hunters
  If all the above pirate hunters are unable to deal with a 
  particularly troublesome corsair, then the time-honoured system 
  of bounties can produce results. Putting a price on a pirate’s 
  head (or hull) means that every adventurer and bounty hunter 
  in the subsector will be looking for him. Usually, this price ends 
  up getting collected by another pirate.
  PIRATE LOOT
  Once a target has been boarded, the looting can begin. Each 
  type of loot takes time to recover from the target ship, so pirates 
  must choose what they take carefully. The times listed all assume 
  a single pirate crewman is assigned to the task; assigning more 
  crew will reduce the time required, but cannot reduce the time 
  below the minimum time listed.
  Supplies
  This covers spare parts, ship components, electronics, food, 
  oxygen and other immediately useful items. Pirates have to go 
  for months without docking at a fully equipped starport, so they 
  cannot resupply and maintain their ships in the usual fashion. 
  Cannibalising supplies allows a pirate to keep ﬂ ying without 
  resupply. Looting supplies in this fashion takes 10-60 minutes. 
  Cargo
  The merchant’s cargo can be the richest prize on board, but 
  handling a large number of cargo containers hastily can be 
  difﬁ cult. 
  On average, a freighter will have 40+1d6x10% of its cargo 
  bay ﬁ lled. Half the cargo will be of a single type, chosen from 
  either the cargoes available at the world the freighter just left, 
  from those that sell well at the destination world, from the list of 
  goods commonly traded between the Hierate and the Imperium, 
  or by picking one of the six basic cargo types. The rest of the 
  cargo should be rolled for randomly in smaller blocks of 20 tons 
  each. 
  The number of cargo containers that can be moved 
  simultaneously depends on the size of the cargo bay doors, 
  which varies from design to design. As a rule of thumb, assume 
  that the hatch is one container wide for every ﬁ fty tons of cargo 
  at minimum. Only one hatch can be used at a time.
  If the pirate has no cargo handling equipment, then each cargo 
  container must be handled individually. 
  Cargo may or may not need to be fenced, depending on how 
  identiﬁ able it is. Fifty tons of wood or ore can be sold anywhere; 
  ﬁ fty tons of brand new TL15 robots are covered in tracking 
  numbers and codes, and have to be sold through a fence. 
  
   
  28
  LOOTING TABLE
  Item
  Value
  Average Time Required
  Skills Needed
  Supplies
  —
  10-60 minutes
  None
  Cargo
  Varies (approx. 50,000/ton)
  By hand
  —
  1-6 minutes/container
  Zero-G
  By waldo
  —
  1-6 minutes per container
  None
  By robot
  —
  3 minutes per container
  None
  By grappling arm
  —
  1 minute per container
  Remote Operations
  Treasure
  —
  Ship’s Safe
  20,000 Cr/100 tons
  1-6 Hours
  Recon 
  Personal treasure
  10,000 Cr per high passenger
  5,000 Cr per medium passenger
  1,000 Cr per low passenger 
  1-6 minutes per passenger
  None
  Equipment
  1,000 Cr per crew member
  1-6 minutes per crewman
  None
  Prisoners
  Varies
  1-6 minutes per passenger
  Melee
  Vehicles
  Varies
  10-60 minutes per vehicle
  Computers, Pilot
  What’s Not Nailed Down
  50,000 Cr/100 tons
  10-60 hours per 100 tons
  Mechanic, Zero-G
  Prize Ship
  Varies
  Varies
  Varies
  Roll (2d6)
  Imperium → Hierate
  Hierate → Imperium 
  2
  Advanced Weapons
  Radioactives
  3
  Live Animals
  Uncommon Ore
  4
  Luxury Goods
  Luxury Goods
  5
  Luxury Consumables
  Luxury Consumables
  6
  Spices
  Textiles
  7
  Basic Manufactured Goods
  Basic Raw Materials
  8
  Biochemicals
  Polymers
  9
  Pharmaceuticals
  Crystals & Gems
  10
  Advanced Manufactured Goods
  Uncommon Raw Materials
  11
  Advanced Machine Parts
  Precious Metals
  12
  Illegal Luxuries
  Illegal Weapons
  Treasure
  This covers cash, gemstones, precious metals, high-value 
  trade goods, software, exotic or alien equipment, art and other 
  small, valuable items. Such treasure will normally be held inside 
  a hidden safe on board. Finding this cache requires a Difﬁ cult 
  (-2) Intelligence + Recon roll taking 1-6 hours per hundred tons 
  of ship. The value of the treasure is generally equal to 20,000cr 
  per 100 tons of ship. 
  Passengers on board ship may also have treasure. Assume 
  Cr. 10,000 for High passengers, Cr. 5,000 for mid passengers, 
  and Cr. 1,000 for low passengers. Treasure is in cash or easily 
  sellable items, and does not need to be fenced. Looting this 
  treasure takes 1d6 minutes per passenger, unless the treasure 
  is hidden in the ship’s safe. 
  Equipment
  Equipment includes items such as armour, weapons, computers 
  and other personal gear that can be sold. Assume Cr. 1,000 per 
  crew member. This equipment must be fenced, so the pirate 
  may only get a fraction of the ‘real’ value.
  Looting equipment takes 1d6 minutes per crew member.
  Vehicles
  Ship’s vehicles like boats, launches and shuttles are extremely 
  valuable to pirates. A 20-ton launch is worth 14MCr, the 
  equivalent of cargo worth 700,000 cr./ton! While these vehicles 
  must be fenced, they are still choice loot if they can be stolen. 
  
   
  29
  If the pirate’s cargo bay is large enough to hold the stolen 
  vehicle, then the pirates need only ﬂ y it across. If the pirates 
  have no suitable place to stow a vehicle, they may try docking 
  it to an external airlock, although this is risky. Any large object 
  attached to the hull can cause problems when jumping (assume 
  a -2DM for every ten tons of stolen vehicle). 
  Overriding security systems on a vehicle requires an Average 
  (+0) Security+Intelligence check taking 10-60 minutes. Flying 
  the ship across requires Pilot+Dexterity, Average (+0), 1d6 
  minutes.
  Prisoners
  Some pirates take prisoners for later ransom. Ransoming is 
  a difﬁ cult process, and should be handled as an adventure. 
  Prisoners are usually thrown into low berths for ‘storage’. Forcing 
  an unwilling prisoner onto a pirate vessel requires Melee check 
  and 1-6 minutes (or, better yet, a stunner). 
  What’s Not Nailed Down
  It is possible, albeit time-consuming, to strip every valuable 
  item from a captured ship; everything from computer cabling 
  and hydrogen fuel to jump drive components and ﬂ oor tiles can 
  be stolen. Fully stripping a ship of all easily transportable items 
  takes 10-60 hours per 100 tons of ship. Every hundred tons of 
  stripped ship produces 10 tons of spare parts worth Cr. 5,000 
  each (or 50,000 Cr/100 tons).
  Prize Ships
  To escape with a captured ship, the pirates need to have enough 
  crew on board to ﬂ y both ships. A determined and charismatic 
  pirate might be able to convince some of the crew of a merchant 
  ship to switch sides and turn pirate.
  Selling a stolen ship is virtually impossible – not only is a stolen 
  ship a ‘hot’ property, thanks to IFF beacons and serial numbers 
  woven into the hull’s molecular structure, but few brokers have 
  the ready cash to buy a ship. Some pirates who steal a ship 
  keep it and use it as a cargo store or even as a legitimate 
  merchant; others add it to their pirate ﬂ eet. Another option is to 
  donate the stolen ship to a friendly system to curry favour with 
  the government there. 
  
   
  30
  REFEREE’S SECTION
  REFEREE’S SECTION
  These adventures are divided into Heists – adventures where 
  the player characters steal something valuable and piratical 
  – and Perils, where the tide of events overtakes the player 
  characters and they must ﬁ ght to survive.
  Heists
  Honour Among Thieves 
  Raiders from coreward struck the old Drinaxian worlds of 
  Torpol and Clarke, looting their orbital factories and destroying 
  their system defence boats. These raiders were no desperate 
  brigands – they had the weapons, technology and discipline 
  that marked them as dangerous corsairs. The Provosts of Torpol 
  and the Psychopomps of Clarke put a combined bounty of the 
  heads of those accursed raiders. Anyone who brings back proof 
  of the raiders’ death will be showered in lanthanum and gold.
  Tracking the raiders brings the characters to the ‘pirate’s world’ 
  of Theev (Sindal 0506). There, on the walkways and alleyways 
  of Port Blacksand, the characters must ﬁ nd the raiders – but 
  the shadowy rulers of Theev are always watchful. Can the 
  characters complete their mission and escape the pirates’ world, 
  or will they have to make alliances with untrustworthy rogues 
  to survive? Bringing the raiders to justice will bring Torpal and 
  Clarke closer towards alliance with Drinax, but at what cost? 
  And what triggered the raid? The shadows of Port Blacksand 
  hide a thousand secrets and a thousand knives...
  The Demon’s Eye 
  Techworld (Borderlands 0204) is a bizarre aberration, a high-
  technology colony where mad scientists carry out experiments 
  banned by the Shield Church clerics of Neumann (Gazulin 
  0705). Beyond the church’s reach, the scientists meddle with 
  dangerous technologies... and something’s gone wrong. One 
  of the scientists fell victim to her own experiment, and she is 
  now becoming something inhuman. The characters are hired 
  to capture her before she reaches the Imperium. Exploring the 
  bizarre machine world, the characters learn the strange history 
  of Neumann, and discover that the scientist was working on a 
  solution to save her world from the dissembler plague.
  Tracking the scientist brings the characters into Imperial space. 
  They catch up with her on Mirage (Gazulin 0509) where they 
  battle assassins sent by the Shield Church. The scientist begs 
  the characters to help her tame the nano-swarms – but to do 
  that, they’ll need to outwit the machine demigod called the 
  Immortal Protector. 
  Players should not read this section at all.
  CAMPAIGN OVERVIEW
  The Pirates of Drinax is intended to be a ‘sandbox’ campaign. 
  Once the player characters take off from Drinax, they can go 
  anywhere they want reach of their jump drive. Their fate is 
  their own – if they want to follow King Oleb’s plan, and build 
  a privateer-funded alliance of worlds, they can. If they want to 
  steal the Harrier and become renegade pirate kings, that’s an 
  option too. They may end their adventures ruling the stars, or 
  swinging from a noose.
  Early in the campaign, the player characters are based on 
  Drinax, and are likely to return to that world again and again 
  for resupply and aid. Later, they may decide to strike out on 
  their own. The campaign rules in Section 2 cover wandering the 
  stars, preying on shipping, and commanding a crew of pirates. 
  Use this as a framework for your own adventures. There are 
  innumerable ways that a pirate crew could be drawn into a more 
  complicated and perilous adventure. For example:
  An old pirate tells them about a fabled lost pirate ship that 
  misjumped with a huge treasure in her hold. Find the ship, ﬁ nd 
  the treasure.
  One of the passengers on board an ambushed ship turns out 
  to be a noblewoman in disguise. She is a last-ditch diplomatic 
  envoy between the Imperium and the Hierate on a mission to 
  avert a war. Do the characters aid her, or turn war proﬁ teers?
  The ship’s navigator dies in a tavern brawl, and a replacement is 
  needed. The characters learn of a navigational prodigy, a savant 
  who can calculate the most accurate jumps in an instant – but 
  he’s imprisoned in a madhouse on a backwards planet. Can 
  they break into the asylum and retrieve this troubled genius?
  Spies report to the characters, telling them that one of their 
  old Enemies is on the move. The characters have a chance to 
  intercept their enemy’s ship and put an end to him – but to do 
  so, they need to track down his ship, capture it, storm it, and 
  ﬁ ght a duel with their old foe.
  Fleeing Imperial pirate hunters, the characters jump into 
  an isolated system and uncover the ruins of a long-dead 
  civilisation. 
  In addition to Referee-created adventures, the Pirates of Drinax 
  campaign contains ten epic adventures. The ﬁ rst nine of these 
  can be run in (almost) any order, intermixed with the Referee’s 
  own creations. The tenth and ﬁ nal adventure determines the 
  success of King Oleb’s grand plan and the fate of those who 
  received a letter of marque from his hands. 
  
   
  31
  Treasure Ship
  The crossing from the Imperium to the Hierate winds its way 
  across the Trojan Reach. Every month, convoys of freighters 
  escorted by Imperial warships make the long journey from Pax 
  Rulin to the Aslan worlds. Jump after jump, system after system 
  – and at every step of the way, the convoy risks disruption or 
  attack. The most important and closely protected ships are the 
  fabled ‘treasure ships’. These small, heavily guarded freighters 
  carry the most important cargoes. Dust-spice, anagathics, alien 
  artefacts, sealed letters between the Imperial government and 
  the Hierate, and who knows what else. Capturing a treasure 
  ship is every pirate’s dream.
  Ambushing such a ship is futile – even a pirate ﬂ eet would be 
  hard pressed to capture a treasure ship before the Imperial 
  escorts blasted them to space dust. You’d need more than 
  stealth, cunning and daring – you’d need a huge stroke of luck.
  Like, say, hearing the news that an Imperial treasure ship 
  suffered an engine malfunction, and has put in at Arunisiir 
  (Borderlands 0201) for repairs. All the player characters need to 
  do is get to Arunisiir, get one or more agents on board, come up 
  with a plan to steal the treasure, and execute it under watchful 
  eyes of the escort ships...
  The Treasure of Sindal
  Thousands of years ago, the Sindalian empire collapsed in blood 
  and ﬁ re. Where once the Dragon Emperor ruled over a hundred 
  worlds, now there is nothing but ash and crumbling ruins. Still, 
  old Noricum is a legend-haunted planet. They say that, on the 
  night before the capital fell, the last Emperor ordered that the 
  treasury be placed on board a starship and sent to a hiding 
  place. 
  Could the treasure hoard of the old emperors still be out there 
  among the stars? A chance visit by an archaeologist to the 
  Floating Palace puts the characters on the trail of the hidden 
  fortune – but they’re not the only ones chasing the prize. 
  This adventure takes the characters across the sector on an 
  interstellar treasure hunt! Three rival pirates are also after the 
  treasure, so the characters must play their rival off against each 
  other in order to be the ones who ﬁ nally recover the treasure of 
  Sindal.
  Blood of The Star Dragon
  Princess Rao has been kidnapped! 
  The presumptive heir to the throne of Drinax vanishes from the 
  Floating Palace, and the kingdom is thrown into anarchy. Prince 
  Harrick, the other potential heir, travelled to Asim mere hours 
  before his sister disappeared. Is he planning a coup, or has 
  some other villain taken advantage of the rift between the two 
  siblings to sow dissent? Did Rao’s involvement in interstellar 
  diplomacy force some enemy’s hand? Or could Rao herself have 
  ﬂ ed Drinax for some reason? Unable to trust his courtiers, not 
  even the captain of his guards, King Oleb asks the characters 
  to investigate the kidnapping of his daughter.
  The quest for the princess takes the characters from Drinax to 
  Asim, and involves both palace intrigue and bloody ﬁ reﬁ ghts. Of 
  course, the characters may have their own ideas about Rao’s 
  fate. Holding the princess of Drinax would give the pirates 
  control over the nascent Kingdom... 
  Perils
  Ihatei!
  Spies report the gathering of a huge number of Aslan second 
  sons in the camps of Kteiroa, only two parsecs from Drinax. The 
  ihatei are an explosive threat – if a charismatic leader emerges, 
  he could lead an invasion across the border. This threat must 
  be defused, so the characters are sent into Aslan space. Their 
  mission is to ensure that no warlord unites the ihatei into a 
  ﬁ ghting force.
  The characters learn that the inﬂ ux of ihatei comes from a minor 
  Aslan clan, the Htyowao. For decades, the Htyowao and their 
  rivals, the Hkaaiheir, have been locked in combat over the world 
  of Keaih. After multiple triumphs, the Hkaaiheir seem about to 
  win the way, and ihatei who would normally go seeking glory 
  under the banner of the Htyowao are now turning their eyes 
  elsewhere. The best way for the characters to preserve Drinax 
  is to prolong the war... 
  The Game of Sun and Shadow
  Too many bites from insects, and the elephant stirs. A 
  detachment of Imperial warships departs the ﬂ eet base at 
  Pax Rulin, heading out into the wild space of the Trojan 
  Reach. These pirate hunters are a threat to every raider 
  and privateer in the sector – including the player characters. 
  The player characters escape the initial sweep, but dozens of 
  other pirates are captured by the Imperium and taken back to 
  Pax Rulin in chains. If the characters could chase the warships 
  back to the ﬂ eet base and break their pirate comrades out of 
  prison, it would make their reputation and tweak the nose of the 
  Imperial powers.
  The Vorito Gambit
  The characters capture a minor prize – a courier ship. Such 
  small vessels normally aren’t worth a pirate’s time, but this one 
  is different. The courier belongs to the General Development 
  Corporation, a megacorporation set up to foster trade and 
  commerce throughout the sector. Searching the courier, the 
  characters ﬁ nd a hidden cache of documents that reveal the 
  corporation’s sinister purpose – GeDeCo’s agents manipulate 
  worlds across the Trojan Reach to create a buffer against the 
  Aslan. They have spies everywhere – including Drinax! The 
  merchant Rachando is a secret agent for GeDeCo.
  
   
  32
  Rumours of the Reach 
  11
  An Aslan trade convoy vanished near Acrid. No debris, 
  no reports of weapons ﬁ re. Could a dozen ships have 
  misjumped simultaneously?
  41
  No Aslan raider will attack a ship carrying one of the clan 
  gods. Just get the right ﬁ gurine and you’re safe from 
  then. 
  12
  There’s an asteroid in the Sperle system that’s 90% gold 
  and platinum. 
  42
  The Ghost of Sindal ﬂ ies an invisible starship. It’s got an 
  Ancient cloaking device.
  13
  It’s bad luck to jump without ﬁ rst praying to the Starry-
  Eyed God who rules the space between the stars.
  43
  There’s a Solomani colony ﬂ otilla still travelling at sublight 
  speeds through the Trojan Reach. Millions of colonists in 
  deep freeze, looking for a home.
  14
  Blacksand City on Theev is secretly ruled by Hivers. 
  44
  An Imperial noble is travelling the Reach in disguise, 
  hunting exotic animals. 
  15
  The rulers of Byrni want to build a HighPort to control 
  trafﬁ c through their system. 
  45
  The rulers of the Ahroay’if clan – the richest Aslan in 
  Tliowaha subsector – are all addicted to dustspice. 
  16
  There are secret Imperial refuelling stations at empty 
  hexes in the Sindal sector, including 0705 and 0708.
  46
  The Ine Givar are building a ﬂ eet of warships in the Trojan 
  Reach. They’re going to launch an invasion of Corridor 
  sector and cut the Marches off from the Imperium.
  21
  Aslan pirate hunters can’t detect you if you hide in the 
  upper atmosphere of a gas giant. 
  51
  Any pirate who reveals the jump co-ordinates of Theev 
  is ﬂ ayed alive and their skin is ﬂ own as a ﬂ ag over Port 
  Blacksand.
  22
  The solar ﬂ ares on Pandora block travel through the 
  system once every seven years.
  52
  There’s a Zhodani agent at large in the Reach who’ll pay 
  for information about Imperial shipping & defences.
  23
  The Imperium allows the scientists on Techworld to 
  experiment with illegal technologies. 
  53
  The legendary pirate Scurrilous Dave buried his treasure 
  hoard somewhere on the moon of Homestead. 
  24
  Admiral Darokyn’s ﬂ agship, the Sorrowful Maiden, has 
  a damaged port sensor array. 
  54
  There’s an impurity in the atmosphere of the gas giant in 
  Cordan. If you refuel by scooping, it’ll fry your jump drive.
  25
  There’s a secret conspiracy of Aslan females who defy 
  convention and own property on human worlds, working 
  through human agents.
  55
  The Emperors of Sindal were immortal – they only died 
  by murder. They knew about a perfect anagathic, but the 
  secret was lost when the Empire fell.
  26
  There’s an old woman who runs the Starport bar on 
  Falcon who knows more about freighter schedules and 
  how to rb them than anyone else.
  56
  If the Imperium capture you, you can avoid execution if 
  you ask for a transfer to the Scout Service instead. They’ll 
  send you on the most dangerous, suicidal mission they 
  have, but at least it’s a chance...
  31
  Never trust a Vargr with a gold tooth.
  61
  There’s a lost ruby mine on Paal that was overrun with 
  monsters from offworld.
  32
  Every ship from the Tobia Commerce Guild carries at 
  least six trained marines on board to repel pirates.
  62
  The Aslan card game called Lion’s Paw is ﬁ xed – never 
  bet against a cat  holding purple suns.
  33
  The Yarrow, a 50,000 ton megafreighter that misjumped 
  six years ago, was sighted drifting through deep space 
  near Marduk. 
  63
  The Imperium can track you through jump space if you 
  jump away within 5,000k of one of their ships.
  34
  It’s good luck to leave a cargo container behind after 
  looting a prize.
  64
  There’s a clerk on Fist who can be bribed to learn the 
  cargo manifest of every ship that leaves port.
  35
  The Jolly Roger hullplate from Scurrilous Dave’s pirate 
  ship is somewhere on Pourne.
  65
  Go to the starport on Camoran. Find the arms dealer. 
  Say ‘Never Forget’ to her. She’ll tell you what to do next.
  36
  The madmen who live on the space station called The 
  World have strange psychic powers.
  66
  The Space Kraken is hungry this year...
  
   
  33
  Confronting the spy on Drinax, the villain begs for his life. If they 
  spare him, Rachando will help the characters loot the bank vault 
  of the GeDeCo headquarters. Can the characters get past the 
  corporation’s defences and break into the vault without being 
  found? What is GeDeCo’s real purpose? Was Rachando telling 
  the truth when he turned his coat?
  The Prodigal Outcast
  The exiled Aslan Kasiyl of the Ahroay’if comes to the characters 
  with a proposal. He confesses his secret shame – he was cast 
  out of his family for accidentally murdering a lord from a rival clan. 
  If the characters help him prove that he was framed for the deed, 
  then he will reward them as only an Aslan prince can. To restore 
  Kasiyl’s honour, the characters must travel deep into the Hierate 
  and grapple with the strange rituals and rites of Aslan society. 
  If they fail, then they will be trapped behind enemy lines with two 
  clans hunting them...
  Finale
  The lion roars! An Aslan invasion ﬂ eet reaches out to conquer 
  the Trojan Reach. With no hope of stopping the invasion ﬂ eet in 
  open battle, the characters must use all the skills and contacts 
  they have gathered over the course of the campaign to disrupt 
  the enemy supply lines, capture their couriers, and save Drinax 
  before the Floating Palace falls. If the player characters have 
  made allies across the reach, they can lead a grand alliance of 
  worlds to defeat the Aslan. If not, then all the Trojan Reach will 
  inevitably fall under the claw of the cat!
  RUNNING THE CAMPAIGN
  Make The Pirates of Drinax your own. Add in your own 
  adventures, and let the whims of the dice affect the course of 
  your campaign. If the player characters make a catastrophic 
  error and crash their ship on a deserted planet, don’t fudge the 
  result – let them struggle to ﬁ nd a way offworld and back to 
  space. This is a sandbox game where anything can happen!
   
  Refereeing The Pirates of Drinax
  This campaign calls for a light touch from the Referee. Encourage 
  the players to buckle their swashes and chew the scenery. 
  Make everything technicolour. The court of Drinax should 
  feel like a Shakespearean drama, with feuding nobles and 
  conniving courtiers. Make the Imperium feel like an invincible, 
  insurmountable and ancient foe by describing its vast size and 
  vaster bureaucracy. Play the Aslan as exotic aliens; play the 
  worlds of the Trojan Reach as isolated islands in a sea of stars. 
  Go for lurid, weird descriptions; draw inspiration from Dune as 
  well as Fireﬂ y. Mix in real-world pirate traditions and slang. 
  Print out a map of the four key subsectors and pin it to the wall 
  of your gaming room. Let the players pour over the chart and 
  plan their next moves. Track their course and the movements 
  of rival pirates and shipping convoys on the map; note which 
  ports are friendly and which ports want to hang the PCs. By the 
  end of the campaign, the map should look like a tangled web of 
  intrigue and adventure. 
  Follow the players, not the plot. If the players want to go take over 
  a planet and turn it into their own little kingdom, run with that. If 
  they decide to start a war between the Imperium and the Hierate, 
  let them try. Give the players the freedom of open space. 
  Building Alliances
  Keep the characters’ Standing and their relationship with the 
  various ports in the foreground of the game. Pirates don’t 
  exist in a vacuum, so to speak; there’s no point in stealing 
  cargo if you have no place to sell it and spend your winnings. 
  Encourage the characters to work to win planets over to their 
  side. Every system that becomes a Haven is a victory for the 
  player characters – and always remind them of the impending 
  threat of retaliation from one of the great imperial powers. 
  Behind The Scenes: Why Drinax?
  Why lavish all this attention on a single planet that has never 
  played a major part in the Ofﬁ cial Traveller Universe, 
  especially as the players are likely to leave it at the start of 
  the campaign? Why not just say to the players ‘you’re pirates 
  – off you go’? 
  There are three reasons why we chose Drinax as the starting 
  point for this campaign. 
  Firstly, you’ll need a context for piracy. Pirates don’t randomly 
  set sail attacking merchants – there are always reasons for 
  the pirates to risk their lives, and reasons for the merchants to 
  be there in the ﬁ rst place. Drinax, with its lost empire and its 
  position between the Aslan Hierate and the Third Imperium, 
  fulﬁ lls both these requirements, and making the characters 
  semi-legal privateers instead of villainous pirates means 
  that any sort of player character, from the most blood-
  thirsty rogue to an honourable noble can take part in the 
  campaign.
  Secondly, Drinax makes a great home base for a pirate, 
  without providing an overwhelming advantage. The 
  characters can retreat there for repairs, shelter or advice, or 
  to sell off their ill-gotten gains.
  Thirdly, the fate of Drinax provides the spine of the campaign’s 
  metaplot. Whether the characters ﬁ ght to save Drinax or 
  proﬁ t from its doom, the last days or rebirth of the Kingdom 
  drive events throughout the campaign. 
  
   
  34
  Mark the attitude of each port on the map, so the players can 
  see their inﬂ uence spread. If they have enough allies, they can 
  survive the storm that hits at the end of the campaign.
  The Pirate Life
  Piracy breeds problems. A repetitive pirate is a dead one. 
  If the same pirate attacks freighters landing at Wildeman six 
  times in as many months, then the seventh freighter will be a 
  q-ship packed with concealed interceptors and a brigade of 
  Imperial marines. Reward the players when they move on to 
  new systems and stay ahead of the pirate hunters; punish them 
  unmercifully if they stick to the same hunting grounds for too 
  long. Success breeds danger; failure breeds mutiny. 
  Encourage the players to plan their heists, instead of just 
  jumping in and looking for likely prey. The random piracy rules 
  assume no preparation on the part of the player characters, but 
  a good pirate has a network of spies and messengers to provide 
  advance notice of likely targets and approaching dangers. 
  Remember to characterise the crew. Be broad with your 
  portrayals of the cutthroats and hired guns employed by the 
  player characters – one distinctive personality trait is enough for 
  most of them. If the players take an interest in one of the NPCs, 
  you can develop that pirate’s history and personality further. 
  The crew also make obvious replacements for deceased or 
  departed player characters. 
  Bookkeeping & Finances
  Let the players handle the book-keeping – there’s usually one 
  player in the group who delights in spreadsheets and tracking 
  credits on hand. The rewards of piracy vary wildly. One rich 
  freighter’s cargo can be worth hundreds of millions of credits, 
  and that’s even before you get into selling prize ships. The high 
  cost of goods and equipment in Traveller means that piracy 
  can be extremely lucrative if the pirates get lucky. 
  While the basic costs (fuel, maintenance, life support, ammo and 
  repairs) are set and unchanging, you can adjust other economic 
  factors to keep the player characters on the edge of poverty if 
  necessary. If the characters are struggling, then let them gain 
  the support of unaligned worlds cheaply by adventuring. If you 
  need to drain their coffers, then have the unaligned worlds 
  demand expensive upgrades like HighPorts, System Defences 
  Boats, shipyards and automated factories. 
  Optionally, you can dispense with most of the book-keeping 
  entirely, assume that the characters are making ends meet most 
  of the time, and focus on big, dramatic shifts in their situation. 
  If the characters get a big score, give them a choice of ways 
  to spend it – do they buy a new ship? Upgrade a friendly port? 
  Invest in a legitimate business? Fund a mercenary army?
  The Court at Drinax
  The court of King Oleb is the character’s home base; King Oleb 
  summons them to report on their progress at infrequent intervals. 
  As the characters’ piratical endeavours prove successful, they 
  will be courted by the factions at court. 
  Princess Rao came up with the idea of attacking Imperial 
  shipping under a false ﬂ ag to force concessions, but she has no 
  desire to marry an uncouth pirate. If any of the player characters 
  intend to accept King Oleb’s offer of his daughter’s hand, they 
  will need to prove themselves a worthy match for a princess. 
  Prince Harrick is an enigma. Is he still sane? Is he jealous of his 
  younger sister? Is he a pawn of some other faction, or a hero in 
  waiting who will prove himself in the coming war? 
  Lord Wrax is an obstacle for the player characters to overcome. 
  He wants them gone from the court; the characters must either 
  prove their worth or else discredit Lord Wrax’s objections. 
  Scholar Voha is an exposition dispenser for background about 
  the Sindalian Empire and the Trojan Reach, while the Imperial 
  ambassador Thao Poloc is there mainly for comic relief, as 
  the characters must ensure he never ﬁ nds out that they are 
  pirates.
  Some of the other courtiers all have their own goals and interests 
  that can be advanced with the help of the player characters. 
  Do the characters help the oppressed Asimen, or work with the 
  Vespexers to restore Drinax? If Lady Hil insinuates that she can 
  help the characters at court, what does she want in exchange?
  Several of the courtiers play key roles in upcoming adventures; 
  Kasiyl (The Prodigal Outcast), Rachando (The Vorito Gambit) 
  and Sal Dancet (Ihatei!) are all important NPCs in adventures 
  to come.
  Release Schedule
  • 
  Honour Among Thieves
  • 
  Treasure Ship
  • 
  Ihatei!
  • 
  The Demon’s Eye
  • 
  The Treasure of Sindal
  • 
  The Game of Sun and Shadow
  • 
  The Vorito Gambit
  • 
  The Prodigal Outcast
  • 
  Blood of the Star Dragon
  • 
  Finale
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Traveller/08 - Mongoose Traveller/Third Party Materials/Adventures/The Pirates of Drinax - Adventure/Mongoose Traveller - Pirates of Drinax 00 - Campaign Introduction.pdf