First impressions: Mysteries of the Ancients (part 1 – the adventure)

Mysteries of the Ancients is the first third of a huge campaign featuring my favourite bit of Traveller, the Ancients. Secrets of the Ancients (the middle section) has been out for years (I wrote about it here), and the trilogy will be capped by Wrath of the Ancients, which is in pdf now and due in hardback later in 2024.

(I am delighted that the three campaigns are in alphabetic order. Whether by luck or design, that pleases me.)

Mysteries of the Ancients is a 304-page book by M J Dougherty. It takes the GDW's 1980 adventure, Twilight's Peak, and gives it a modern refresh. This review is based on a read-through – I have not run it.

Physically, the book looks good with an evocative cover, clean design, and artwork. Most NPCs have illustrations, which I like (and was a criticism I had of Secrets). The pdf download also comes with a file of handouts, which is unfortunately sparse.

Unfortunately, I found Mysteries extremely overwritten, with a layout and structure that didn’t help me understand the adventure. I'll return to those in a later post, but first, I will talk about the good(ish) stuff - the adventure itself.

And there will be spoilers ahead. Sorry about that, but it's hard to talk about the campaign without talking about the campaign.

A mysterious package

The campaign starts with a package from an old friend, Sorrel, arriving out of the blue, containing mysterious Ancients artefacts and a cryptic note asking for help. The note isn’t helpful – it doesn’t say where Sorrel is but instead directs them to look for a starship and its captain, BK.

There are several issues here:

• First, the old NPC friend is an overused trope. I hoped to see something where the players were driving the plot rather than reacting to a request for help.
• Second, the note is ridiculously cryptic. Why doesn’t Sorrel say where she is rather than force her friends to go on a wild goose chase? Instead, she could give the PCs a sensible reason to find the starship – perhaps she needs something from it or BK?
• Third, why does Sorrel ask the PCs? Why doesn’t she ask BK? (BK and Sorrel were recently crewmates since the PCs last saw Sorrel.) That would be more logical. 
• The package contains a handgun of an unusual design. I’ve no idea why, but it feels unnecessary.
• The package contains lumps of a strange alloy. These are never explained, although Aish Nirkha has a theory on page 66, but we don’t know if it’s correct (it may as well be). Equally strange is that the lumps of alloy don’t feature in the section where we meet Sorrel. So where did she get them from?

I’d rewrite the opening note, getting the PCs to get something from the ship. I might even have Sorrel say where she is so the PCs can go to her first if they want and give them more agency.

Ancient Hunters

The next scene (it’s not really an “adventure”) takes place at a museum of the Ancients – that, unfortunately, the PCs could miss. I say, unfortunately, because there’s information here that might be useful in the next section, and Aish Nirkha (the museum’s curator) writes to the PCs later in the campaign. So it would be ideal if the PCs visit the museum.

The GM can always force this (“You notice there’s a museum all about the Ancients here…”), but a better way would be for Aish to be a PC contact.

This is the first time the PCs meet an “Ancient Hunter” in Mysteries (although, technically, Sorrel is an Ancient Hunter.) Ancient Hunters are individuals seeking to understand the nature of the Ancients. Their theories are wild and varied – and, to be honest, a bit of a shock. The secret of the Ancients has been common knowledge (amongst Traveller GMs and players, at least) for 40 years, and it’s easy to forget that player knowledge and character knowledge are not the same.

The PCs will meet more Ancient Hunters as the campaign progresses – and they are likely to become Ancient Hunters themselves.

In Fleeting Memoriam

This is the first proper adventure of the campaign. The PCs are tracking down the ship and its captain, BK. However, there’s a problem when they find it…

This adventure is a monster hunt. A nasty monster (really nasty – you could easily lose several party members) is loose in a small village on a desert planet. The monster is tricky to defeat.

There are, however, two problems with In Fleeting Memoriam.

The first is timing – and this happens time and again in Mysteries. The PCs turn up just as the monster has escaped. Whether they are a day or two earlier or a month later, there’s no difference: the monster has just escaped. While the players may never notice, it feels contrived.

If it happened once in Mysteries, I might overlook it. But as we’ll see, it happens repeatedly.

Second, as described, the logic of the situation doesn’t work.

The adventure is set in a village of 400 people – who are going about their business without realising there’s a monster in their midst, killing people off! (There are plot reasons for this, but I’m trying not to give too much away.) However, they also ignore the dead bodies – which isn’t how the monster works.

So I would either:

• Change the logic so anyone who sees a body also falls under its influence. (Page 35 hints at how that could happen.)
• Adjust the text so the villagers are scared and wondering what to do – and maybe they’ve called for help? 

(This second option could be a better entry point into Mysteries of the Ancients. The villagers are under attack, and the planetary authorities hire the PCs to investigate. There, they deal with the creature, which leads them to the starship and the campaign. That also solves the timing problem – although you’d need to get the PCs interested in Sorrel and the Ancients.)

A timeline would help this section – a clear timeline of events occurring as time passes. (This is not the last time I say that...)

Hell at Perihelion

Next up – it’s time to meet Sorrel. She’s working at a dangerous experimental mining installation on an inhospitable world with really lax security. I mean, it's amazingly lax. The PCs can just walk in. Oh, and it’s an Ancients’ site – but for no reason I can see, there’s no official interest in it. (Sorrel could have given them cover IDs and badges in her package, but no. They can come and go as they please.)

Luckily, they arrive just in time (again) to rescue Sorrel. Phew! Once rescued, the PCs can progress to the experimental facility, where they discover a terrible plot to blow everything up. As luck would have it, it is timed to happen shortly after they arrive.

Luckily, the PCs aren’t in too much danger because there’s a deus ex machina waiting to save them if they need it.

(I know it’s exciting to have all these things happening just as the PCs are there to see them, but it feels contrived.)

Hell at Perihelion also needs an event timeline, and it would be better if the PC’s actions triggered the end game rather than things being in a state of suspension awaiting their arrival. Perhaps the PC’s arrival (and something they brought from the ship) is why Sorrel needs rescuing, and the terrible plot is triggered.

Oh, one other thing about this episode: it’s unnecessary. It doesn’t drive anything in the overall plot – the PCs learn nothing useful other than reuniting them with Sorrel.

NPC interlude

We then have a brief interlude where the PCs meet enigmatic alien NPCs. The purpose of this seems only to introduce them to the PCs – they take a more active role at Twilight’s Peak.

Oh, yes, I should probably mention Twilight’s Peak. Twilight’s Peak is the name of a book which some think contains a coded map to an operational Ancients base. So far, it’s barely been referred to – and while the PCs encounter the book, it never feels like part of the campaign. The PCs don’t need the book to work through the campaign.

(I would include a reprint as part of the Ancients museum, maybe in the gift shop.)

Ancient Hunter conference

Next up, Aish Nirkha writes to the PCs to invite them to a conference of Ancient Hunters set aboard a Type-M Subsidized Liner. As is now almost inevitable, the conference is timed to start just after the PCs arrive, whenever that may be. 

(They can’t miss it – they get their next clue at the conference. I wish Mysteries was less of a railroad. The PCs could have been given clues to the different episodes, and they could have chosen which order to deal with them. That would have been much more satisfying. The conference could be a series of regular (quarterly, say) Ancient Hunter conferences held at different locations around the subsector. That would have worked equally well.)

Anyway, the conference is an opportunity for the PCs to talk to NPCs and learn about the Ancients. This is a pleasant change of pace from the more action-oriented episodes, although I’m not sure how easy it is to run.

Most importantly, the conference is an opportunity to meet (and hopefully befriend) Vlen Backett, who is pivotal in Secrets of the Ancients. Vlen gives the PCs their next clue, so hopefully they don’t upset him too much.

Off the map

Vlen’s information takes the PCs to a world that isn’t on the subsector map in Mysteries. Not because the world is secret or hidden, but as far as I can tell, due to poor cartography. It’s not the end of the world, as you can always refer to the online Traveller Map. Still, it feels like a careless omission – particularly when, 40 years earlier, the original Twilight’s Peak adventure solved this problem by moving the centre of the subsector map so it showed everywhere the PCs might want to visit.

Anyway, Vlen’s information sends the PCs to a survivor of the original Twilight’s Peak mission, who is reluctant to tell the PCs anything. Reluctant, that is, until a team of baddies launch an assault on the NPC. Isn’t it lucky the PCs are there just at the right time? (It’s unclear why the baddies are suddenly making a move on the NPC, as they weren’t aware of her before now. Like many things in Mysteries, it seems to have been thrown in to make things exciting.)

So, with the baddies approaching, the NPC tells the PCs how to get to Twilight’s Peak before going on a mission of her own. (Hmm, apart from the just-in-time theme, there’s another theme: NPCs telling the players just what they need to know.)

As the timing of the bad guys is linked to the conference, it would be better if the PCs could learn of the imminent attack during the conference – at which point it becomes a race to see who gets there first.

Like all the adventures in Mysteries, this could do with an event timeline to keep track of everything that’s going on.

So it’s off to Twilight’s Peak and the campaign finale.

Twilight’s Peak

Finally, the PCs arrive at Twilight’s Peak, the place they have been searching for all this time, even though they didn’t know they were looking for it. To nobody’s surprise, Twilight’s Peak has a fully operational Ancients base below it.

Twilight’s Peak is a complicated section. As well as a detailed alien base to explore, three other factions are involved, each with different agendas. Towards the end, everything is likely to collapse into running battles – I can see montages being useful here.

And this time, we’re given a timeline, but it’s rather sparse, and I would have liked more detail. At least it accepts that the PCs might arrive midway through events.

While the ending is spectacularly cataclysmic, it’s difficult to tell how much influence the PCs will have as more powerful entities surround them.

So what do I think?

Sadly, I was disappointed by Mysteries of the Ancients. Compared to Secrets of the Ancients, I estimate that Mysteries has about half the adventuring time but with a longer page count. It’s overwritten, but I’ll come to that next time; this post is already long enough.

The actual adventures rely too much on contrivance and coincidence. The PCs being in the right place at the right time happens too often – it’s just lazy. (There are similar contrivances in Secrets, but I didn’t notice so many.)

A big difference between Mysteries and 1980’s Twilight’s Peak is that the PCs actively seek Twilight’s Peak in the original. It’s a mystery to solve, to find out what’s there. In Mysteries, Twilight’s Peak isn’t on anyone’s radar until the end – I can’t see how the PCs can work out how to get there without the final NPC simply telling them.

So many steps in the campaign happen because someone tells them. The PCs do not need to put the clues together – instead, each time they are told to proceed to the next part of the campaign.

There are quite a few errors and typos – this thread on the official Mongoose Traveller forum picks up many. 

Visions of a better campaign

So, as I suggested above, I’d love to see the campaign restructured. I would:

• Start the campaign with the PCs responding to a call for help in the village terrorised by the monster. As part of the aftermath of that (probably in the starship), I’d give the PCs clues about the other parts and let them decide which order to do it in.
• Make it so the PCs’ actions drive the disasters. At Hell in Perihelion, the PCs’ arrival forces the NPCs to advance their plans.
• Bring in the Twilight’s Peak mystery early and work out how the PCs can locate the Ancients’ base by decoding the text (perhaps with some help – maybe an NPC who served in the Third Frontier War).
• Make the Ancients Hunter conference quarterly, rotating around the subsector. The PCs can attend whichever they want – the people might be different, but the clues and the outcome can be the same.
• Add event timelines to each adventure so it’s easier to track what’s happening.

That’s a start. I appreciate that’s quite a lot of work, but it would be a huge improvement.

Next time, I explain what I mean when I say Mysteries of the Ancients is overwritten.