GURPS Traveller Alien Races 3
I feel I should begin with a disclaimer: I'm not a big fan of the GURPS system. Its abilities and skills make a nice laundry list for other games and its sourcebooks are legendary for their quality, but I don't care for the system in and of itself. It is not my intention to get in depth here with my issues regarding the system, but instead to look at a sourcebook for the latest incarnation of the popular Traveller setting.
In its original incarnation, the major alien races of Traveller were covered in a series of books, with one book dedicated to each race. Under the MegaTraveller edition of the game, the system used was more complete and better constructed, but only 2 alien race books were printed as licensed products by a company named Digest Group Publications, and each book included 2 races. DGP's books were of high quality, so it is unfortunate that not all of the major Traveller alien races saw treatment under its auspices.
GURPS Traveller Alien Races 3(GT:AR3) covers the Hivers, the Droyne, the Ancients, the Inheritors, and the Lithkind. The primary emphasis seems to be the Hivers and the Droyne, both of which had alien books dedicated to them in the original Traveller. I shall not assume that the reader is familiar with these races.
Layout and Presentation
GT:AR3 is a 144-page softcover book priced at $22.95. The interior is black and white, and the art is very good overall. Some of the vehicle artwork appears computer generated; of those, the Hiver craft look rather bland, but the Droyne craft look interesting. There are also crisp deckplans for two of the races included, and maps of several planets.
As with many GURPS books, the majority of the book is sorted into "main text" sections and sidebars. The text in the "main text" section is not very dense, though the sidebars are pretty packed, and the use of sidebars and small margins means that there is little whitespace.
Each section has details on the physiology, government, history, relations, and game description of the race. The largest three sections also have starships and equipment, and the two largest have deckplans and maps.
The Hivers
The Hivers are a six-limbed race, with their limbs equally spaced about their bodies. Each limb can be used both as hand and feet, but one limb has all the Hiver's sense organs. This limb, however, is not properly a head--the Hiver's brain is safely housed in its body cavity.
The Hivers are perhaps the most interesting Traveller alien race, because they are the least "human in a funny suit." Hivers have no heads of state and only a few bureaucracies or structured government organizations. Their government consists of an indistinct set of policy making discussion groups called "topic groups."
One of the strongest plot characteristics of hivers is that they see clandestine manipulation as a valid and admirable means of exerting influence. In many ways, this feature makes them much akin to Larry Niven's puppeteers and is rife with plot possibilities.
Hivers are leaders of a federation of races. The section gives rules and characteristics for these other races as well.
The Droyne
The Droyne are a winged bipedal race with a somewhat gargoylish appearance. They are racially divided into six distinct castes that are chosen when they reach adulthood. When a caste is chosen, the choice of caste has a very real effect upon the Droyne's physiological and psychological development.
Droyne are a largely psionic race, and the choosing of caste is done by means of casting of disks they call "coyns." This may sound like a mystical ritual, but there is some substance behind the Droynes' mysticism.
The Droyne are unusual among the widespread galactic races in that they have no distinct territory. They are scattered throughout known space, including in and around the empires of other races. Many races contacted the Droyne on several different worlds, but due to their varied appearance (Droyne mutate and adapt to local conditions easily) and a psionic ability that makes people not notice them, for some time many races never realized that the Droyne were a single race.
The Droyne don't have the rich plot possibilities of the Hivers, but their abilities and mysterious background may make them suitable for use in many games.
The Ancients
(Warning: Spoilers follow)
The Ancients are a centerpiece in Traveller, an example of the "progenitor race" concept that shows up in much of the classic SF on which Traveller was based. The ancients are responsible for spreading humans among the stars and creating the Vargr race from the wolves of Earth. They destroyed each other in a colossal war hundreds of thousands of years ago. Their war was so fierce that almost all remnants of their civilization were wiped out, and their only legacy is a few isolated caches of their technology scattered about the stars.
The secret of the ancients is this: the ancients are the ancestors of the Droyne. A Droyne was born on the original Droyne homeworld hundreds of thousands of years ago. He was a remarkably intelligent mutant whose abilities soon made him the leader of his people. He realized that to press on with his experiments, he must sire a race of Droyne as intelligent as he to support him. He sired two generations of such Droyne geniuses, and he adopted the name Yaskoydray, meaning "Grandfather."
Among other things, Grandfather tried to find a replacement for Droyne assistants. For a time he used transplanted humans and the Vargr. He tired of these assistants, but not before introducing them to the galaxy.
They persisted for some time, until sooner or later Grandfather's children became independent, some eventually interfering with his experiments. He decided that it was a mistake to have these children, and began a 2000-year long campaign to eradicate them. He was successful. The galaxy was left in tatters.
He remained in the galaxy for some time after this, nursing the Droyne along as a race and helping to develop their casting system. He eradicated as many caches of ancient technology as he could, lest they be used against him. Eventually, he created a pocket universe where he went to dwell alone.
This chapter presents a variety of ideas and source material on the ancients, their technology, and plots involving them. This material should be useful for anyone trying to mount a classical SF type campaign, not just for Traveller GMs.
The Inheritors and the Lithkind
The last two chapters are smaller in scope and discuss two less influential but still interesting races.
The Inheritors are an eight-limbed race of zero-g dwelling fluorine breathers. They evolved in a partially completed Dyson sphere originally built by the ancients. The ancients were building their Dyson sphere when they encountered a primitive fluorine breathing race in the system. They built a habitat for them within their Dyson sphere, but they abandoned the project before it was completed, presumably due to the ancient's war.
The Inheritors eventually learned from the artifacts of the ancients and became a spacefaring culture, though their only interest in other systems was for finding rare minerals, not habitation, as their Dyson sphere offered them much more living room than the surrounding space. Still, they could pose a threat to the nearby races, the Hivers and the K'kree.
The Lithkind inhabit an area of space between the K'kree and the Hivers. The unique thing about Lithkind is that they are an intelligent race for whom reproduction is fatal. The book explores the social nuances and plot possibilities arising from such a race.
Conclusions
This is a good sourcebook for Traveller GMs no matter what system you actually use to run it. As is the case with many GURPS sourcebooks, the bulk of the material is explanatory text vice rules material, and the rules material is low level enough that it should be easy to work up a translation to any system.
This is probably one of the better GURPS Traveller alien race books because the ideas aren't as steeped in the Traveller background as some of the others. The races are truly alien and well explored, a worthwhile addition to many SF campaigns.
-Alan D. Kohler
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