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This review is one in a series which will look at some of the many Spinward Marches setting books which have been published over the years and which describe the area. It'll offer advice as to which ones were the best and which will work the best with Mongoose's current, fifth-edition, Traveller gaming system.

In the early 2000s, Comstar Games and Avenger Enterprises put out a total of three (now out-of-print) setting books for the Spinward Marches.

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This eighteenth review discusses Spinward Marches System Guide 1: Datrillian. It offers an in-depth look at one of the ten Bowman Arm worlds.

An Overview of the Book

Datrillian is a brief little book with just 12 pages of text. Those twelve pages of text are broken in half, with the first six providing an overview of Datrillian and the other six offering adventure ideas.

The world guide starts off with a description of all of the planets in the Datrillian system. It's a slightly complex star system, with the majority of the worlds of interest (including Datrillian itself) orbiting a gas giant, and the organization threw me off for a bit; I would have loved a map.

However, beyond that, I was very pleased to see a look at these various planets, as it gives a lot of opportunity for the Traveller game to be more science-fictiony--thanks to the opportunity for encounters of interest outside of a system's main world. Some of the detailed worlds were very inspirational (quite literally, as we'll see when we look at the adventures, but I was already thinking about ideas of my own before I got to the last half of the book).

Once we get down to the world of Datrillian, things become slightly more mundane. Certainly every world in the Imperium can't be breathtakingly original. It just wouldn't be believable. But once you accept that, then you end up detailing some more normative world. Datrillian is one of them.

Despite my feeling that the planet as a whole didn't spark, it does have some interesting details, among them: an ex-Sword-Worlder ruling class and a quasi-feudal civilization. Unlike a typical feudal system, where noble obligation is based around land, on Datrillian it's based around industry. Various "Houses" control manufacturing or service enterprises, and hand them down from generation to generation. It's one nice element of uniqueness for this particular setting, and perhaps that's all that's required.

The final element of notable interest in Datrillian is that the vast majority of the population lives in a single city, called Wintergard. I was a bit sad that though there's a nice (color) map of the world, there's no map or diagram of this all-important city. Still, we get a bit of a feel for it.

The adventures section offers six adventures, at about a half to three-quarters of a page in length each. Besides offering some basic details, each adventure also tends to offer a few different ways to get into them.

1. Regin Rebels. A more in-depth look at one other planet in the system (and the troubles that it causes).
2. Listening Post. A second outer-planet adventure, this one centering on the scout's presence in the system.
3. Cult of Sigefred. Some details on the form of the Sword Worlds' Aesirism found on Datrillian and some ideas on how it might impact adventures.
4. Petroleum Fields. An adventure centering on one of the Houses and its charter grant.
5. Frostcrabber Wars. Another House-related adventure, this one focusing on the economic battles in the frostcrabber trade.
6. Pirates of Hrona. A return to the outer systems, discussing the pirate problem of the system--and its interesting politics.

Generally, I found the adventures evocative and interesting. They detailed some great adventures to run in the system and gave lots of different ways to get involved with them. That half were set in the outer system underlines, I think, the somewhat limited possibilities of the system itself (but it'd still make a fine and nicely detailed setting for an normal sort of Traveller adventure--and that detailing has to be much of the purpose of any setting books).

On the whole I found the description of Datrillian fairly average, and I'd give that part of the book a slightly high "3" out of "5" for Substance. I found the adventures quite interesting. In some cases they provided the neat details I'd have liked to see in the setting proper. They earn a "4" out of "5" for Substance, which is also the overall rating I've given the book when averaging both of those together.

Applicability to Mongoose Traveller

Datrillian is set in 1111, but that has almost no impact on the setting. It also uses the Classic Traveller rules, but there's just one animal stat, for the frostcrabbers, which scarcely need stats anyway. In other words, the book is totally compatible with Mongoose Traveller.

The problem is that, like the two other Avenger Bowman-Arm books, it's an out-of-print PDF, which means it's virtually impossible to get ahold of in our current world of no secondary PDF markets. Keep an eye out for it, though, because it should be reprinted in some form at some time in the future.

Style & Design

As with other Avenger books of the time period, this one is pretty plain. I also didn't find the book that evocative until the adventures started to make things a bit more exciting. Thus I've given Datrillian overall a "2" out of "5" for Style.

Conclusion

Spinward Marches System Book 1: Datrillian is a fair supplement to the Bowman Arm cluster book. It would have bene great to have 10 world descriptions like this. As is, if you've got this one, it's another nice bit of detail for District 268.