Author: staff
Category: game
Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Line: Jovian Chronicles
Cost: $22.95
Page count: 144
Capsule Review by Papyrus on 08/27/99.
Genre tags: Science_fiction Far_Future

With the purchase of this book, perfect bound on a short side, I became highly impressed with the folks at Dream Pod 9 and fell in love with their Jovian Chronicles campaign background. I would have to characterize their production values as superior to all others.

From what I gather from this book and their web page, the campaign universe can be summarized as follows. A resources depleted Earth is a despotic political force in a solar system where Mercury, Venus, Mars, Luna and the Jovian Federation are among the other governments of various independence and power. Mars, in fact, is home to 2 "states". The Jovians, whose origins lie in a community of scientists, are the most just and obviously intended to be the "good guys". The technology is not far from our reach, spin gravity and inertia concerns are a part of space travel, and individual battle suits (exo-suits) supplement the capital ship navies and fighters of the different military forces. War, skirmish, trade and peace all exist simultaneously but chaotically among the solar systems governments. I may have some of this wrong but I can't be far off.

This supplement contains details of 3 Jovian ship classes, including game stats and enough general detail to make it useful with any scifi game systems. The technology would fit well into Babylon Project (Earth Force could easily contain any of the ships provided), Buck Rogers: XXVc and Star Frontiers, understanding that the science involved is far more detailed than the last 2 games ever inspired (the use of spin gravity is appropriate for all three and the vertical ship construction is common in the later two).

The ship classes are a destroyer, a carrier and a tender, one ship class of each. The development and changes to each class are discussed. Each variation of configuration and technology, due to overhaul or design change, is provided along with their place in the Jovian Chronicles timeline. Starship modelers and scifi fans in general would find this a great book to own, reference and just read. Deck plans, schematics, combat tactics and maintenance procedures are all included and with a depth that leaves you believing its all real.

Also within the pages are some rules supplements to the Jovian Chronicles game, their Silhouette and role-playing systems. New tactics and tactical combat rules, new archetypes, new career paths and shipboard equipment are detailed. The most useful being the career paths, which include sample careers to model characters usable in any game where their respective careers exist. As an ex-naval officer, I found the source material to provide a very real naval military feel and atmosphere. As with the entire book, the research done to provide this detail must have been immense but obviously well worth it to the consumer.

As if all this was not enough, thought the text runs a fiction story line involving the subjects covered (ships and rules) in the supplement. I found myself reading ahead, skipping the game text, in order to get to the next story segment and finish it. I will not preview any of it, but it was well written, demonstrated the genre and campaign well, and fun to read.

If you are a scifi gamer, modeler, enthusiast or fan of any caliber, you will find this book worth its price. I can only assume from their web page that the rest of Dream Pod 9's products are equally impressive, and I intend to find out for sure.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)