Merchant Diana Staha

[Shadowdancer]

This is the results of my first attempt at creating a character using the T20 Lite rules. I probably won't play this character, but will use her as an NPC. She is based on an NPC from the first Traveller campaign I ever ran.

Diana Staha -- Merchant 5 terms.
Final rank, O6 Executive Officer.
Age: 38
Experience Points: 42,000
Level: 9th
Stamina: 61

STR: 14 +2
DEX: 18 +4
CON: 16 +3
INT: 20 +5
WIS: 15 +2
CHA: 16 +3
EDU: 16 +3
SOC: 14 +2

Skills: T/computer 11, T/communications 11, T/astrogation 11, T/sensors 11, K/business 14, Appraise 15, Pilot 14, Broker 15, K/trade and commerce law 14, P/administration 10, Trader 15, Bribery 10, T/medical 10, Gather information 10, Liaison 12, Bluff 10, Gambling 12, Sense motive 7, E/dance 8.

Feats: Armor (light), Armor (Vacc suit), Barter, Weapon Proficiency (marksman), Vessel (starships), Vessel (grav vehicles), Calculating Eye, Narrow Escape, Market Analyst, Zero-G Combat, Ship Tactics, Zero-G Adaptation, Weapon (Swordsman).

Earned benefits: Cr136,000, TAS membership, +2 INT (x2), Far Trader Pirouette (x2).

Background: Born on Sentry (Ley 0921 B5A8ACB-D 410 I M4 V). Diana was trained as a ballerina as a young girl. She wanted to become a professional dancer. Her parents wanted her to become a deep-sea engineer, like them. She rebelled, and at age 18 ran away, joining the crew of a Tukera Lines charter luxury yacht which had been at Sentry for its annual refit. She was hired as a steward, but showed remarkable talent for using the ship's sensors and communications equipment as well as using a computer. She was later trained in astrogation and, finally, how to pilot the ship. She received a promotion to Crewman.

Diana began taking correspondence courses from the University of Dukh, and showed a natural apptitude for business and trading. Eventually she earned a doctorate in interstellar commerce. After her first term, Tukera moved her to the crew of an exploratory trading vessel. She served two terms, receiving two more promotions. During her second term, the vessel returned from an extremely successful mission into the Gateway and Crucis Margin sectors, establishing a new trade route to several worlds in that sector. She and the rest of the crew received a bonus of Cr5,000 each. She proved herself to be a shrewd negotiator, and willing to take aggressive, yet never reckless, chances on speculative trading. Her hunches and instincts about markets, buyers and sellers were almost always correct.

Diana signed on with Tukera for two more terms, working on a ship serving the trade route into Gateway and Crucis Margin she had helped establish. She received two more promotions and eventually was second in command of the ship. Then, at age 38, she retired from Tukera. She received a Golden Vacc Suit retirement package, which included a TAS membership and her own ship, a far trader she renamed Pirouette. She also called in some markers owned to her by some company officials, and received a ship with two dual turrents. These same company officials are pulling some strings for her so she can receive a mail contract in the Linkworlds Cluster, where she plans to operate her ship.

She has two Bashtu wampuscats, feline-type creatures about the size of a Terran lynx, and about as intelligent as a non-Uplifted Terran dolphin. These animals serve as guard animals aboard her ship as well as pets, and have warned her in the past of trouble on board.

Unknown to Diana, the wampuscats are psionic. They can communicate with each other, and her, telepathically. Diana has never been tested for psionics, but she does have a natural psionic talent for reading people's thoughts and feelings. She believes this is just a "gut instinct" she has about people, an ability to read their body language and other factors. But it's actually an ability to establish an empathic link to read their feelings, and some of their surface thoughts. This is one reason she is so good at business -- she can sense what others are going to do, what price they are willing to sell and buy at, etc. She has no idea she has this psionic ability.

Diana still loves to dance. She practices ballet every day aboard the Pirouette, and enjoys going to clubs onworld to learn the latest dance steps, or even a native dance from the locals.

Diana has red hair, cut short and closely cropped to her head, and emerald-green eyes. She is 5'9" tall and weighs 126 lbs.

 

[trader jim]

your merchant looks good - hope you have better luck with yours than i had with mine.....hehe

 

[eclipse]

Originally posted by Paraquat Johnson:
This is the results of my first attempt at creating a character using the T20 Lite rules. I probably won't play this character, but will use her as an NPC. She is based on an NPC from the first Traveller campaign I ever ran.

Diana Staha -- Merchant 5 terms.

Nice background material! Really brings the character to life.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Thanks. One thing I've always loved about Traveller is the prior history part of the character creation process. It provides a good basis for filling out the background of the character. I also like trying to come up with logical reasons for the character's skills, and selecting skills which support the background, rather than just taking the best combat-oriented or play-oriented skills.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Good stuff Paraquat. I like the background embellishment. Makes em less 2-D, and more like a RL bio sketch. 5

star work there*****

 

[themink]

Those stats - I'm assuming that you used something a little bit more generous than 4D6 - pick the best 3. What did you use. More generally, what do people roll stats with? As ref I often listen to the background then bump stats based on arbitary factors, however non of my players ever roll up stats at those levels

Given the Lite rules didn't seem to have an Exp-> level table, I figure that the numbers are about the same as D&D 3rd Ed - which probably also means you get the +1 stat per 4 levels - that would account for the 20 Int.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I rolled the stats the same way my group roles D&D characters: 4D6, take the best three, but with two "house rule" variations:

1) All "1"s are rerolled.

2) Roll enough stats for two characters, take the best set for one character.

And yeah, I raised a stat at 4th and 8th levels. Also got two bumps to Int as a mustering out benefit.

My stat rolls WERE pretty good. Did my munchkin heart proud.

Since I rolled them with no witnesses, that's why I planned on using this character as an NPC.

 

[themink]

Why reroll 1s?

With two characters worth to choose from, at least they can choose their main wieghting.

Another rolling method that I enjoyed was 3d straight and allowed them to reroll any dice once - then assign the stat immediately (so if you put a 16 into Int, you can't replace it with a better result later.

The net result of the reroll and immadiate assign was that characters had generally "good" results with suprises fairly often - We had a very bright Barb once that was lots of fun for both player and ref.

Time to start a thread on "how do you roll stats"