Questions about Pirates of Drinax campaign.

[Jet_Black]

Continuing the Ihatei! adventure, the PCs have decided trying to lure the Aslan to Hilfer. They have already learned that Teaw, the Aslan "advisor" is concerned about the growing influence of the GeDeCo, so they want to plant some fake evidence proving the company is up to something nefarious.

Now, my problem is that there is barely any information about Hilfer and I don't want to evoke standard desert planet tropes - so, no second-rate Arrakis or Tatooine! How would you present Hilfer to your group? Give me some world-building hints, please!

 

[AndrewW]

Continuing the Ihatei! adventure, the PCs have decided trying to lure the Aslan to Hilfer. They have already learned that Teaw, the Aslan "advisor" is concerned about the growing influence of the GeDeCo, so they want to plant some fake evidence proving the company is up to something nefarious.

Now, my problem is that there is barely any information about Hilfer and I don't want to evoke standard desert planet tropes - so, no second-rate Arrakis or Tatooine! How would you present Hilfer to your group? Give me some world-building hints, please!

So no spice worms or krayt dragons. Maybe start with what you want the source of water to be? Deeep underground pools, or perhaps it is all imported from ice asteroids. How do the natives protect themselves from the sun? What kind of society have they built up? Might have a variety, some nomadic and some that live in cities. I would say start with asking questions then answer those questions and fill things out from there.

 

[Regnarts]

B55077A-6 as of traveller wiki
A balkanized desert world with about 60 milion people, nuclear energy technology and extremely strict laws?
You can have local wars over ideology or natural resources with GeDeCo influencing the conflict and quite a lot of gunrunnig happening on the side. If you wish, the players can get caught up in the conflict or maybe the even shot down in the middle of an active war zone and needing to get supplies for repairs by raiding a military base.
You could, on the other hand, get them involved in a diplomatic summit between two warring countries... and some militant groups backed by GeDeCo trying to disrupt the talks.

 

[Vormaerin]

The thing to realize about not making your worlds stereotypes is that worlds are big and numbers are generalizations. It shouldn't be all the same everywhere. That's the critical flaw of most desert worlds.

The hydrosphere of Hilfer is 0. There is less than 5% of the surface covered in standing water. The atmosphere is also thin. But lots of people live here. So there's something to make that worthwhile.

Consider what else makes a stereotypical desert world boring. It's usually hot, brown, and mostly devoid of life (except big monsters ). But there's no reason you have to do that. You could have water widely but thinly distributed in an underground aquifer with seeps or vast lands carpeted in multi-hued fungal analogues that have a massive mycelial network leeching the moisture out of the ground and upon which animal life depends for its water and nutrients.

Or consider Ganymede and Europa. They are both Hydro 0 in Traveller but are believed to have liquid water. It's just all deep underground (like 100km down) below a thick layer of ice. A 'desert' world with ice geysers shooting into space through the thin atmosphere would definitely be different.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Ex and Cx from Traveller map (967+2) [9778]; indicates a well developed (but with distinct room to expand) infrastructure, with well connected industrial sites, and a good pool of skilled, hard working labor. But their culture is highly discordant; there seem to be many viscous disagreements between groups. At least some of these are about issues that outsiders do not understand or think are a bit strange -- but they don't ask outsiders for their opinions, anyway.

So when you balkanize the world, you might leave portions of the world -- especially away from resources -- undeveloped or uninhabited; and create dozens of small, quarrelsome powers tightly packed into a relatively small portion of the surface for reasons apparent only to the locals. Make moving from one local nation to another difficult, even between nominally 'friendly' nations -- this is a place where that 'Law Level' really comes into play. There is likely to be widespread 'cold war' paranoia; but remember, these nations do not tend to fight over resources -- their reasons for wars are more along philosophical lines. Outsiders might be heretics, or spies for heretics.

Maybe local superstition centers around rain being sacred; and mishandling rainwater -- or water that might have been rainwater, or symbols or totems associated with rainwater -- is taboo. Groundwater is sacred, too -- and there are rituals that must be performed to appease 'Mother Hilfer' (or, in some areas, 'Aunt Hilfer' or 'Grandmother Hilfer') before using it -- these rituals leave distinct markings behind that need to be left undefaced. Everyone regards it as obvious that Irrigation is allowed only on auspicious days, but which days are auspicious (and which ones carry a daunting penalty) is a matter of gun-fire laden debate. Drinking out of containers which are not transparent, or are inauspiciously colored, is inauspicious or taboo. Some groups strictly regulate bathing, with a caste dedicated to the conservation (and holy handling) of the used bath water. Other groups scorn this as a barbaric and backwards practice; etc. Evaporation of rain-puddles might be seen as a terrible tragedy, or as a revered process by which Mother Hilfer renews herself -- or it can be the work of the sun-demon Mister Reflih. Off-world water is not-of-the-mother, with varying official stances; expect at least several local spaceports to demand a quarantine of ship's personell whereby their urine is kept out of the local economy and they are allowed to drink only acceptably cleansed local water until they are no longer excreting 'foulness'.