Non OTU Zho?

[jawillroy]

Ever since I first got LBB123 when I was wee, I've cobbled together my own Traveller Universi: when I discovered the existence of the OTU, I found myself bridling at it, preferring to cut my own trails outside of broad frameworks. I'm doing the same thing now.

My first TUs tended to be all-human affairs, at least as far as sophonts were concerned; later on, I started cobbling together my own aliens. I never quite cottoned on to the Dog People/Lion People models that the OTU presented.

Zhodani, though, have always seemed a more natural addition to the Proto-Traveller universe: the notion of a Psionicist empire fit naturally with the "built-in" prejudices of the game, and the classic be-turbaned, moustachioed mind-reader villains fit nicely. So though Back In The Day I never ended up adopting the Zho to my games, in my current endeavor I'm finding it tempting.

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For those of you running or at least constructing ATUs, how much of the canon alien menagerie have you adopted, if any - in particular, the Zhodani? Did you find it easy to blend reasonably seamlessly?

Particularly with regard to a small Traveller Imperium - a sector, give or take.

 

[Dr_Skull]

I'm about to start a new CT campaign set in the Spinward Marches. I really wanted to use my miniatures of stereo-typical "Gray" aliens and "Mars-attacks" style aliens.

I decided that the Zhodani Consulate was in fact ruled by a triumvirate of races, Zhodani Humans (who act as the public face of the consulate when dealing with Imperials); the Span-Kee (grays) who are all psionic and are the amoral scientific scouts, and the Mavorians (Mars Attacks green guys) who are ultra-violent marauders ruled by a psionic priesthood.

 

[jawillroy]

the Span-Kee (grays) who are all psionic and are the amoral scientific scouts

I like this - gives their human adversaries a neat & fun denigrating name to shout at them in a fight. "Awright, SPANKY, this one's for Wapapitame FIVE!" BLAM BLAM BLAM

 

[ffilz]

I have used the Zhodani, Vargr, and Aslan in my non-OTU campaigns. The Zhodani featured very prominently in my longest running one.

Frank

 

[robject]

My Proto-Traveller has none of the major races, and none of the minor human ones, for that matter.

This was not a conscious choice. It just didn't evolve in that direction.

I could see the Zhos in my Proto-Traveller, as you said: a psionic empire.

 

[jawillroy]

Ffilz, Did you find it easy/satisfying to pretty much lift'em'up and plop'em'down into your setting, or did you find there was a lot you had to fiddle to make them fit?

Ya, Robject; it's much the same with me. Since I was building pretty strictly from LBB123, there's no diktat that leads to the presence of ANY nonhuman sentients, so unless you really want them in there, they won't be.

I'm imagining what it would take to create something of a Sophont Generation system - sort of a "LBB6 system gen meets the LBB3 Animal Encounter Table" that, given certain planetary conditions and certain animal traits, such and such a species would be classed as semi or fully sentient...

 

[robject]

I'm imagining what it would take to create something of a Sophont Generation system - sort of a "LBB6 system gen meets the LBB3 Animal Encounter Table" that, given certain planetary conditions and certain animal traits, such and such a species would be classed as semi or fully sentient...

I have bits of an ur-mainworld generation system, for use in the wilds.

I also proposed a "Traveller gene" as a key part of the system. By that definition, about 2.7% of sophont species have the urge to go interstellar. The rest stay home and mind their own business.

 

[Scratches]

I modify almost all the aliens I use and don't just stick to the OTU ones.

Terrans are the default humans covering a few subsectors with the spirit of the Solomani present as political agitators on a few planets. The Vargr, apes and dolphins are Terran uplift races.

The Zho are a Terran experiment gone wrong and exist as an outcast society, i.e. they are the Psi Institute.

Chirpers are true aliens and the Zho discovered some may be psionically trained to act as interpreters and unwitting spies, which works as Terrans and the uplifted species mostly ignore them.

 

[ffilz]

Ffilz, Did you find it easy/satisfying to pretty much lift'em'up and plop'em'down into your setting, or did you find there was a lot you had to fiddle to make them fit?

I just plugged them in... But I also wasn't in a mind space of considering the implications of the setting choices I made. I just plopped them in and had fun. Unfortunately I don't know if I introduced them before or after getting the Alien Modules (I think before, from JTAS 9).

The main bit I used to think about them was a quote from Cheap Trick's Dream Police:

"The dream police they live inside my head..."

Frank

 

[Quint]

In my last few Traveller games, which had a very epic Space-Opera vibe, the Zhodani were accidently time-travelled to the past descendants of Imperial eugenics experiments that rebelled and fled during the Psionic Suppressions.

I happen to like the vibe of my outlaw, supposedly terrorist "Zhodani Transhumans" and am likely to keep more with that version than the more official "evil empire" found in the OTU.

D.

 

[jawillroy]

That's pretty cool!

My Festrian Empire is young, and still expanding - through the scattered worlds left behind by a long-gone First Empire. So it's ripe for a fresh or recen contact! I like the idea of the Zho having developed from a First-Empire survival that went Psionic, and then started to expand... I should be able to preserve a lot of the character of the Zhodani empire while keeping it on a par with my Festrians.

 

[RandyB]

Never thought about it before now, but creativity has been engendered... :coffeesip:

 

[jawillroy]

That's the nice thing about this joint.

 

[RandyB]

My creativity is going in the direction of a mash-up of the Zho and the Azuriach from FGU's Space Opera setting...

 

[kilemall]

Never felt the need, I've split up my psionicists into different power groups that have developed one of the psi skill sets, plus different nation-states and megacorps types dabble at times but aren't as good at it as the 'off known space' ones.

I do have an outland human settlement that 'owns' one of the psi skills. Who knows, maybe in a few thousand years they BECOME the Zhos.....

 

[kilemall]

Oh, while thinking about this absent-mindedly, might ask yourself the question, what happens if Zhos or equivalent hit your fave empire before the invention of psi-shielding?

Could be a horrific roll for the psi-empire.

 

[jawillroy]

Ouch, yeah.

Okay, I'm starting to fit a Zhodani element to my Festrian Empire Proto-TU: Totally background at this point, and I have no idea if the players will ever stumble into it, but it could be pretty juicy.