Travel Hazards is Mongoose’s first LBB (little black book) adventure for Traveller. It was published in 2026 (41 years after Adventure 13!) and is written by Thomas Jones-Low, Matthew Kerwin, James Kundert and Robert Eaglestone.
Physically, Travel Hazards is almost identical to the original LBB adventures. The cover is a little thinner and the paper a little shinier, but that’s about it.
This is my first-impressions review of Travel Hazards; I haven’t run or played it. And spoilers ahead.
Location and overview
Travel Hazards focuses on Double Sun in the Lemish subsector of Corridor. Double Sun is in a neutral stretch of space known as the Corridor Marchland, established by treaty centuries ago following border skirmishes between the Imperium and the Irrgh Manifest. Corsairs from the Irrgh Manifest and their hated rivals, the Glory of Taarskoerzn, patrol the Marchland to counter each other’s operations.
It took me a good while to figure that out. The library data is towards the back of the booklet, and the map doesn’t show the Glory of Taarskoerzn at all. But thanks to the wonderful Traveller Map, I figured it out. I’m not sure why Travel Hazards doesn’t introduce the situation with a big-picture overview, but perhaps it’s targeted at Traveller-grognards, rather than casual players like myself.
Overview
Broadly, Travel Hazards presents an unusual star system for Traveller, complete with a system map, organisations and NPCs. And to draw the PCs (I note they are not called “Travellers” in the adventure, except on the back cover) in, it offers five patrons to hire the players to help them explore Double Sun.
So let’s explore the Double Sun system.
Double system
As the name suggests, Double Sun is a binary star system – a smaller red dwarf orbiting a larger one. The primary star is unstable, not helped by a heavy ball of iron and nickel orbiting extremely closely, enough to interact with the primary and throw dust and flares into the rest of the system. Further out, the companion red dwarf emits bursts of radiation and plasma, and farther still, the turbulent gas giant makes skimming for fuel a challenge.
All this messes with ship sensors, meaning there’s an effective top speed for piloting craft around the system. And although it isn’t defined in terms of the damage a ship might take, there is a table of hazard events. I would have liked full rules for travelling through the system, which would let the players take calculated risks on how fast they travel.
And with that restricted top speed, if you’re travelling more than 2AU, it’s quicker to jump. However, that assumes that you’re outside the various jump shadows…
The system information is presented in Book 6 Scouts format, but is still easy to read if you lack that book. (I didn’t need it.) Unfortunately, the system diagram is confusing, as it shows the companion much farther out than it actually is – and it doesn’t show the jump shadows, which would have been useful given the need to jump around the system.
So it’s an interesting system, which is lovely to see, but slightly let down by the lack of rules for travelling around it and the wonky map.
Anyway, all this means that Double Sun has been classified as a Red Zone due to “Travel hazards.” Quite.
Inhabitants
Double Sun has around 100,000 inhabitants in several groups.
Spiderweb
Spiderweb is an inhabited 550-km-diameter asteroid with 90,000 xenophobic inhabitants. It is the result of two separate mining operations, the first of which (Web Mining LIC) arrived in Double Sun 100 years ago. 90,000 people is a lot – it’s the population of a medium-sized UK town like Hastings or Burnley. Not everyone is a miner; others include families and support teams. The miners extract metals, gems and crystals, which they then barter.
It’s not clear, however, what they live on. The description of the buildings mentions lots of balconies laden with plants. That doesn’t sound quite enough, so maybe there are underground farms somewhere. NPCs for Spiderweb include the dockmaster and a magistrate.
Unfortunately, Spiderweb is on the verge of collapse – equipment is falling apart, and they are getting desperate.
The Icy Manipulator: The Icy Manipulator is Spiderweb’s only ship, a 1,000 dton patched-together cargo hauler with a cargo net capable of moving up to 3,000 dtons of cargo. It’s falling apart, and something critical goes wrong every six weeks or so (throw 10+ every week). It’s frankly a miracle it’s still flying at all. NPCs include the crew, one of whom is a robot.
Vargrholm
Newcomers to Double Sun, Vargrholm is a twelve-year-old mining settlement run by Ungareen VC, with 5000 miners and support staff. NPCs include the mostly-Vargr representatives and admin staff. Vargrholm trades with Spiderweb via the Icy Manipulator.
Unfortunately for Vargrholm, they must pay protection money to Iron Paw. Speaking of which…
Iron Paw
Iron Paw are a group of Vargr corsairs loyal to the Irggh Manifest. It’s not clear how long they have been based in Double System, but their secret base is hidden in a comet, which is fun. Iron Paw are led by the memorable Grand Admiral Beo, a large male Ursa.
Others
There are a few other small groups dotted around, most of them being malcontents from Spiderweb.
Visitors
Other than the PCs, visitors to Double Sun might include the IISS, archaeologists, and Vargr naval forces.
Patrons
Travel Hazards details five different patrons, five ways the PCs might end up in the Double Sun system. Job offers include crewing a supply ship, solving a family mystery, and more. The patrons are a bit of a mixed bunch, but there’s plenty in Double Sun itself to keep the PCs busy.
References
The rest of the book is filled with reference material:
- Library data: Two pages of library data, including a useful description of Lagrange points.
- Ships: Six new starships (in addition to the Icy Manipulator) as well as new ship components such as jump nets (well, new to Book 3, they’re not new to Traveller itself).
- Worlds: A non-standard subsector map.
- Contact Ursa: Genetically uplifted bears. New to me, but I believe they have been in the background for many years.
- Generating Characters from Double Sun: A page on creating characters from Double Sun.
What I liked
I found plenty to enjoy in Travel Hazards.
The Double Sun system: It’s lovely seeing an interesting and dynamic star system full of flavour. Whenever I watch Brian Cox talk about the wonders of the solar system and beyond, it’s immediately obvious that the universe is much stranger than it often appears in Traveller, and it’s nice to see that reflected in Travel Hazards.
The Icy Manipulator: I like that it has much more character than most Traveller ships.
Conflict and drama: The system is full of potential drama, from the failing colony to the rickety ice hauler to the secret pirate base extorting protection money from the miners. Plus, of course, the sheer danger just in visiting Double Sun.
Campaign material: And if you don’t fancy running Travel Hazards as written, it contains loads of material that can be used elsewhere: the Ursa, a cool pirate base, a failing mining colony, and more.
Things that made me go hmmmm…
But a few things struck me as I read Travel Hazards.
The Icy Manipulator: While I like the idea of a heavily patched ship held together with spit and sealing wax, I do wonder where it gets its fuel. It isn’t streamlined, so it can’t skim fuel from Double Sun’s lone gas giant (which is notoriously turbulent – I wouldn’t want to take a rustbucket like the Icy Manipulator anywhere near it even if it were streamlined). So, presumably, the Icy Manipulator uses a fuel processor to extract liquid hydrogen from ice, even though the book makes no mention of it. Let’s hope the processor doesn’t break.
Ursa: I found the Ursa slightly underwhelming. Despite weighing 150 to 500 kg, they get a mighty +2 to their STR roll. They’re also shown standing on their hind legs (the portrait of Grand Admiral Beo suggests an upright position) – which feels wrong and a bit too human-y. (Plus, “…but they can usually squeeze into human vehicles and ships with minimal modifications.” I think that depends on the size of the bear!)
And as for personality, they are as varied as humans – just wary of Humaniti.
I would have made Ursa less human: much stronger, quadruped, and with some interestingly bear-ish personality traits to roleplay. (Curious? Quick-tempered? Clumsy, in a bull-in-a-china-shop way?) And “minimal modifications” be damned; if you have a bear crewing your ship, you’d know about it!
 |
| AI illustration of a bear crewmember aboard a ship. I asked for it to wear a harness with tools, but instead it looks like it’s into bondage! |
Spiderweb: Described on page 20 as a “fully functioning colony”, the whole Spiderweb situation snaps my reality suspenders. It just doesn’t make sense to me. 90,000 xenophobes hiding in a rock, with virtually no outside contact. I mean, what are they doing about a sewerage system? Or an air supply? Or their clothes, or any of the thousands of things that a viable colony needs? And why is there only one airlock to the whole place?
I would make Spiderweb less xenophobic and have them trade (via the Icy Manipulator) with both Vargrholm and systems beyond to get what they need. (The minerals are valuable enough for the original mining companies to ship so many miners to Double Sun, and I can imagine regular trade with Spiderweb.) I’d still have Spiderweb failing – there might be an adventure there, with the miners seeking help to negotiate support from the Imperium, Irrgh Manifest, or elsewhere.
Mining operations: Although many inhabitants of Double Sun are miners, there’s no actual description of how asteroid mining works. Presumably, Spiderweb and Vargrholm do it differently, but you wouldn’t know.
The biggest problem
The main problem I have with Travel Hazards is its confusing structure.
What we get
Travel Hazards is structured so that first we meet four NPCs, and then five different job offers (sometimes from those NPCs, sometimes not – and presented in a different order to the NPCs).
Then, in “The Double Sun System,” we get a description of the system and its groups, followed by a series of events or options (“The Course of the Adventure”) for each part/group in the system.
After that, in “Concluding the Adventure,” are the outcomes for the various patrons – although not in the order the patrons are presented, nor referring back to how they were originally presented. (For example, “The Corporate Historian” is the third patron, yet this chapter starts with that patron’s outcome in a section titled “Wandering Eye”.
This chapter also describes hidden stuff the PCs might encounter. They might be encountered as part of any patron, so they really ought to be in the overall description of the system.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe I just have a different brain than most roleplayers, but I found it extremely confusing to read. I’d hit a section and wonder who it was relating to, so I would have to flip back and forth to try and puzzle it out.
What I wanted
Instead, it would have been much clearer if the book had a simpler structure:
- Introduction (with a clear one-paragraph summary of the overall political situation, and maybe a high-level map of the area)
- The Double Sun System (with the description and events grouped – so the description of Spiderweb is immediately followed by its events)
- Patrons (with everything for that patron in one place)
- Reference material (the Library Data, subsector map, new ships, details on the Ursa and so on)
I suspect that would make the adventure flow more easily and be much easier to run at the table.
Bonus: Close Orbit Interceptor
As a nice bonus for ordering directly from Mongoose, they included a four-page booklet describing the Korpen Aerospace/Close Orbit Interceptor. I can’t imagine ever using it, but it was a lovely treat to find in the envelope.
Overall
So that’s Adventure 14: Travel Hazards. It’s nice enough, but it doesn’t compel me to run as written. Perhaps if the situations/patrons were more tightly written, I could get into it. So instead, I’m more likely to mine it for parts.
But I’m delighted that it exists – I think it’s wonderful that Mongoose is supporting Classic Traveller. I prefer the LBB format over the modern coffee-table books (although I appreciate that the latter keeps Mongoose in business), and I look forward to Adventure 15 whenever it arrives.
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