More Fun with Accountants in Space – the Space Corsair’s Return

Cover of GURPs: Far Trader - slightly altered

While retrieving files from my old computer, I came across the link to one of my favourite Traveller language generator sites - Space Corsair's Word Generator.

During the development of Classic Traveller, a lot of work was done developing unique phonologies for the languages of the various Major Races, and some of the Minor Races as well. Originally, the results were published in phonology tables where, by working out the vowel/consonant ratio of a syllable, a series of dice rolls would generate completed syllables. These could then be strung together to form words and sentences. If you could remember the pronunciation guide, you could even get a feel for how the language might sound.

This was fun as far as it went, but was also rather time consuming.

Then one day while pootling around on the internet, I stumbled across Space Corsair’s Word Generator.

Control Panel of Space Corsair's Word Generator

As you can see, this programme has a nice, clean and simple front page.

Language selection - 12 on offer

It allows you to select from any one of twelve languages; the Major Race Languages of Vilani and Zhodani, Gurvin (the Hive Federation Common Language), K’kree, Gvegh (one of the major Vargr languages), Trokh, and Oynprith (the Droyne language). The Minor Race languages of Ael Yael, Te-Zlodh (Darrian), Bwap, Ithklur, and Sword World Icelandic are also included, as these are, in all likelihood, the most commonly encountered Official Traveller Universe Minor Races.

Twenty separate two-syllable words generated

With a language selected, the programme allows you to generate multiple words of multiple syllables, or generate sentences of multiple words.

A six-word sentence is generated

The words so generated can be copied from the generator and pasted into a Word Document or Note Pad for later use. I keep a file of one, two and three syllable words which I can access when I need, say, a word in Trokh for a type of drink Aslan prefer, or a Gvegh name for a common household pet.

Unless I am working with existing root words or grammar, (and I have only really explored this in work I have done on Arrghoun – an ancient Vargr language that appears in Alien Module 3: Vargr and which I have adopted for the Vargr of the Hunt of Rronurl in Cabria Subsector) then I usually don’t concern myself with relationships between generated words and possessives or tenses or all those other bits of the structure of language that I really wished I had paid more attention to at school.

Being able to slip some authentic sounding words from another language into the course of your game, especially when your characters are in a multi-species situation, always adds to gaming experience, and it’s even more fun if your Galanglic-speaking Player Characters start picking up and using loan words from their non-human companions.

Aslan and K'kree

GURPS Traveller: Alien Races 2
by Andy Slack, David Thomas and David L. Pulver

The second in the GURPS Traveller line of Alien books examines the Aslan and K’kree Major Races in some detail. Having recently read the Mongoose Traveller Aslan book, I was interested to compare the two works, particularly as I still refer to the original GDW Aslan Alien Module for guidance for the Aslan character I am playing in a Classic Traveller PBeM.

Of the three works, the sketchiest is the original Aslan Module – the Aslan were still in a state of development and, consequently, were treated in a broad-brush fashion. Andy Slack appears to have been the lead writer on the GURPS version and, as he says in his notes on the Steve Jackson Games support site, he was very conscious of both the Classic Traveller Aslan, and the reworked Aslan of Digest Group Publications MegaTraveller. With the latter material subject to copyright issues, the GURPS material had to walk a fine line between regurgitation and rewriting, while still offering something new for players who had moved on to GURPS Traveller from the earlier versions of the game.

And I think Andy and his co-writers pull it off. There is a warmth about the telling of the Aslan story that indicates to me the writers know their subject well and have an affinity for it. There are nice, new little cultural touches, as well as broad-brush considerations of the Hierate, its politics and why Aslan in this book may differ from earlier accounts. Some nice starship deck plans round out the Aslan section.

The K’kree section, in contrast, feels a little more mechanical. A species of militant claustrophobic vegetarians who dislike technology but who are bent of galactic conquest does take a pretty big hit on the believe-o-meter. While the material from the original GDW Alien Module is worked over nicely, and there are some good tips for Refereeing K’kree (like being careful the K’kree player doesn’t treat his compulsory entourage as a skills grab bag), I find that I would probably only use K'kree in my campaign as NPCs as there are a number of downsides to them that could make them very frustrating to play as Player Characters.

This book concludes with two minor races, the Inyx and the Devi Intelligence. Of the two, the latter – a dimorphic intelligent fungoid species – actually interests me the most and is a race I would seriously consider adding to my game. The Inyx, on the other hand, a race of aquatic ergovoric parasites, don’t interest me as much. In some aspects, they are so alien that I can see very little scope for interaction between them and Humaniti or any of the other Major Races, which for me lessens their usefulness as characters in a Traveller game.

Finally, comparing GURPS Aslan with Mongoose Traveller Aslan, I find myself wishing to graft the cultural elements of the GURPS version onto the Mongoose Version, and this is simply for story telling reasons, as I do like what Mongoose has done with Aslan.

Sadly, GURPS Traveller Alien Races 2 appears to be out of print from Steve Jackson Games – I seem to recall that I picked up my copy through eBay UK – though it is available as a pdf from Steve Jackson Games’ e23 e-shop and would make a valuable addition to a Traveller Referee's toolkit of ideas.

Aliens Ate My Baby - Part 2: Bring me my rubber suit and latex eyeridges

Recently I saw a discussion on either The Miniatures Page or one of the Traveller Yahoo groups where a poster was asking after an article on alien construction that appeared in Dragon Magazine back in the 1980s. I remember the article, and I think I actually have a copy of it in my box of RPG stuff. It was quite an innovative article for its time in some respects, in that the physical characteristics of an alien race were defined by a series of dice rolls on a sequence of tables. The idea was to get away from the Classic Star Trek aliens ‘with latex brow ridges or different coloured skin paint’, and generate aliens that were, well, alien.

Of the Classic Traveller alien races, the Zhodani were just tall, turban-wearing psionic human, the Vargr were dogmen (and usually played as anarchic sociopaths), the Aslan were mock-samurai catmen and the Droyne were little guys in rubber lizard suits. No one really played K’kree in my group and it is only in retrospect that I discover they were fanatical genocidal vegetarians. Only the Hivers were truly alien in both appearance (giant starfish) and motivation (cliques of manipulators). Now this all sounds a bit harsh, and I’m still very fond of the Traveller Major Races but, back in the day, that was how things were.

I’ve just finished reading Flynn’s Guide to Alien Creation by Jason “Flynn” Kemp, a little, ‘compatible with (Mongoose) Traveller’, product put out by Samardan Press and available from Lulu.

Using a 14-step checklist, Jason examines homeworld factors, ecology, size, movement type, senses and alien traits and uses these to round out an existing alien concept, as well as create an alien race from scratch. At $US 4.99 for a PDF, a booklet of this quality is a bargain. I am very impressed with this product and cannot wait to begin using it to define the alien races in my Traveller campaign.

Jason puts in an occasional appearance on the SFRPG boards where you can also find his very excellent Stellar Reaches fanzine if it isn't available from his site.