Traveller Session 2: Verorum

Player Characters:

John A Rico - Former Star Marine

Rocke Ramora - Thief-Turned-Trader

Willy Warder - Noble Administrator

NPC Crew:

Zuleikah - Money-Obsessed Astrogator

Gorod

Having sold the haul of Space Tobacco they'd picked up on Lucus III, the crew set about figuring out what to purchase and where to go next.  After some searching, they figured that Gorod's manufacturies produced a variety of finished and raw goods that would fetch a high price on the desert world of Verorum.  Remembering that the S. S. Suck-It's cargo hold still had some xenomorph acid coming from somewhere after a smuggling mission gone wrong, they decided on the raw goods, as if anything melted, at least the loss would be less costly.  They booked as many middle passengers as they could, though none of the crew were willing to double-bunk to squeeze out all the money they could (Rico and Willy heavily considered it, but they couldn't overcome their personality differences).

Willy was confident in his abilities as a medic, so they also filled all the low-berth pods.  The crew decided to leverage half of their assets for the buy (though for Willy this was only 1000 Spacebucks), and both Willy and Rico rolled poorly and dropped a wealth tier.  The crew went to Juan Ghoulio's Industrial Goods Warehouse, and picked up 33 tons of industrial goods, though Willy made a slightly bad deal, costing them another 5%.  With crew, cargo, and passengers aboard, the S. S. Suck-It jumped to Verorum.

Verorum

Verorum, a desert world, had a mildly toxic atmosphere, which would require a breathing apparatus if outside; Rico and Rocke had picked up full breather masks back on Gorod, while Willy could only barely afford a cheap filter mask with straps that chafed and a seal that dug into his face.  Anagathics, aka immortalitiy drugs, were produced here, and could fetch a high price throughout the galaxy.  Fittingly, a patrol corvette of the Star Marines sat in orbit, though it didn't request anything from the Suck-It as they flew towards the main settlement, a great dome which shared the name of the planet.

Without further issue, they were granted permission to land at the "Grand Verorum Pleasure Dome", and descended onto a landing pad through a hatch which quickly closed behind their ship.  The passengers disembarked and the low-berths were resuscitated without issue, so the crew got down to trying to find a buyer and inspecting their goods.  Catastrophically, 13 tons, over 1/3 of their shipment, had been melted by the xenomorph acid in the cargo bay (Rocke: "Huh, y'know, I guess there was more acid than I thought").

On the upside, Willy easily found a buyer in Overseer Paulus Caladius, who invited them to a meeting at his office in the inner dome.  They headed there in a rented space car (there being no space public transit, of course), and picked up some stunners, the heaviest legal weapons, on the way.  They noticed that the dome was fully opaque, and that all light within was from artificial lamps.  Most of the inhabitants were deathly pale and plump, but some, who seemed to be servants, were taller, more fit and tanned.

Paulus Caladius

The crew rode the elevator up to the 26th floor, which was entirely devoted to the Overseer's office.  A floor-to-ceiling window behind his enormous desk looked down on a field of dull, green-grey metal.  Paulus Caladius was bald, pale, jowly man, but he greeted them warmly, and Willy reciprocated with all the appropriate etiquette.  Apparently he was impressed, because Willy got them an amazing deal, with 7 effect on the Broker check.

Their deal concluded, the Overseer brought out a bottle of spacebrandy and some glasses, to share a customary drink, then clapped twice, and a male servant walked in and stood behind the party.  Willy asked what he was there for, and Paulus explained that this customary slave was theirs now.  He then buzzed his secretary, Jessica to ask what the slave's name was, and over the garbled space intercom, she replied "Designation is GX-415".  The crew were mildly shocked, but Willy saved face by complimenting the Veroran culture for being so sophisticated.

The Overseer was pleased by this, and remarked that yes, they were one of the most cultured societies in the galaxy, though many off-worlders couldn't see the beauty in the work of their clone masters.  After a pause to drink, he then asked what they were doing in-system ("Are you just traders stopping by?" Rocke: "You could say... we're travellers." Paulus: *Chuckles like Nixon from Futurama*).  Satisfied, he offered to sell them anagathics directly.  Due to his position, he could procure small batches to sell to enterprising individuals without all the middle-men and licensing, which meant that they could be purchased for a much lower price.

Rocke realized that this would technically be illegal, but would be so profitable they wouldn't be able to overlook the opportunity.  The crew expressed their interest, Paulus asked for three days to work out the "paperwork", and they returned to the Suck-It.  They discussed what to do about GX-415, while Willy surreptitiously looked up the going price for a Veroran slave ($200k skilled, $100k unskilled, though they wouldn't go for near as much on Verorum itself).  When it turned that he wasn't capable of being a ship steward or cleaning up xenomorph acid, they decided to free GX-415 and drop him off at their next stop (Rico and Rocke found the concept of slaving reprehensible, while Willy was more open).

Spreadsheets

Willy calculated their "profits" and noticed that they were actually down 5 kiloSpacebucks (Rocke: "But it feels  like we made a lot of money!").  He then immediately brought up selling GX-415 again; despite his earlier moral objections, Rocke, now faced with a tiny amount of adversity, was much more open, and flipped his vote (Rocke: "Look Rico, when we have more money, we can buy and free two slaves").  While they discussed it, Willy started looking at the star charts and available goods on Verorum to find the optimal purchase and destination.  Rocke went around the starport of the Pleasure Dome to see if anyone could clean up the xenomorph acid in the hold, found a hazmat team that was capable for $100k, and finally got the deadly puddle removed.

One real-life hour later, they had worked out that picking up spices to sell at Solace, a poor, high-population world, was their best bet ("Wow, buying spice on the desert planet, how original!").  Willy went to go find any passengers, and after setting up a sign that read "No Low-Berth Passengers Have Ever Died On This Ship!", found many with ease.  Now, they just had to find a spice dealer, then head back to the Overseer for their black market anagathics...

Notes:
Rocke failed the Engineering test to know how many goods the acid would destroy.

The character sheet we're using has some weird personality trait matrix.  Rico has max Recklessness, so he was all-in on the stonks (diamond hands, too the moon, etc).

Rico noticed with an amazing roll that the corvette in orbit was carrying his old unit, the 12th Space Rifle Company, but didn't tell them.

During the discussion about smuggling illegal immortality drugs, the subject of "who enforces the law" came up.  In-system, it's the private spacecops, which usually don't care what takes place anywhere but the planets or stations they're paid to "protect".  Otherwise, it'd be the military, but they don't usually want to make work for themselves.

Rico has max Selflessness, so in theory should be anti-slavery, but it was pointed out that he selflessly served in the military which upholds the economic system that allows slavery so shrug.

While looking for legitimate goods to cover up their illegal anagathics smuggling, Rocke got really excited that he'd found something with really good modifiers, until looking to the left and realizing that the goods in question were illegal weapons.

Used the actual trade rules this session, we'll see if people actually liked it enough to do so in the future.

I've only rolled up stats for 3 planets (Lucus III, Gorod, and Verorum), so when they were trying to figure out what to buy and where to sell it, I just let them choose what type of planet they'd like to sell to.