September 2010 - Star Frontiersman

September 2010
Star Frontiersman
By Thomas Verreault/jedion357
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how to
detail some background fluff for the Frontier setting
and suggest ways to use it in your games. Creating
bits and pieces of background fluff can be fun and it
helps set the flavor of the game setting.
Background fluff is basically anything that you create
that is not absolutely necessary for a campaign or
adventure but supports the atmosphere or theme of
your campaign or adventure. It can include significant
game information. Anything can be fluff; a computer
file, a prophetic inscription, torn pages from an atlas,
or a song lyric. Though I wouldn’t consider half the
background material I create to be absolutely
necessary, I find that all to often it inspires me with
ideas for adventure, particularly when I start asking
myself questions about it.
In the Volturnus campaign the writers created song
lyrics that were sung by the mad pirate in the caverns.
It was patterned after historic sea shanties probably
because it was intended to support the theme of
piracy. In the “Dramune Run” module the writers
created computer print outs of information available for
the PCs from the ship’s computer. In the first Robocop
movie there were all these fake futuristic commercials
that served the purpose of establishing the futuristic
setting.
As a player in a play by post game I needed a bit of
poetry for my character to recite during combat (kind
of like the sniper in “Saving Private Ryan” who was
always quoting “The Book of Psalms”). In particular it
had to be yazirian poetry. Now I have written poetry
before but didn’t really have a solid idea of what to
write that wouldn’t sound really lame so I combed
some poetry books. After spending hours looking at
poetry to “yazirian-ize” I got bored and looked up a
personal favorite from high school, “Charge of the Light
Brigade.” Twenty minutes latter I had “Charge of Clan
Renegade” and it became a center piece of an
incredibly fun post. So what, that I ripped off Alfred
Lord Tennyson, I didn’t feel up to writing the poem
myself and the modified poem reads like something
written by a yazirian.
Being the fruit of a favorite game post and a modified
version of a favorite poem, “Charge of Clan Renegade”
was just too good to leave alone. I kept coming back
to it and asking myself questions about it which led to
new material. Eventually it all came full circle when I
used it in a post for a game I referee. Below is an
excerpt from my game where I used a few lines from
the poem to introduce a bit of plot twist. Note, that in
just writing that post I created the idea that there are
rich posers in the Frontier that get electronic copies of
40
books printed to fill a library for show, which is in itself,
another bit of fluff.
Tanar followed the house keeper into the library with its
impressive collection of hard copy volumes. He knew that
the owner of this particular library was no poser who had
electronic copies printed to fill shelves and put on airs of
looking rich and intelligent. Dr. Albrecht Zinasta’s
collection was authentic, old, and the fruit of many years
of collecting. Even more importantly he had read every
book and probably could recall them all. It was also the
reason for the gift under his arm, a pre-Yazerian Star
Exodus edition the epic yazirian poem, "Charge of Clan
Renegade." He didn't know how the ifshnit trader had
come by it but he couldn't resist purchasing it knowing
that his mentor would cherish it, relishing the exercise in
puzzling out the archaic tongue it was written in.
"Sir Tanar Daagron!" Tanar winced at the new title and Dr.
Zinasta smiled and winked, still obviously proud of his
young protégé. They chatted and Dr. Zinasta robustly
quoted a line form the poem pronouncing it far better than
Tanar could have then translated the ancient Yazirian
dialect it into Pan-Gal on the fly.
"Boldly they flew and well
Into the Jaws of Death
Into the Mouth of Hell"
"Pardon my use of the human term, “hell” as it is a close
fit to the yazirian word and it rhymes better."
Tanar smile, "No I think the human term carries the
sentiment as well as, if not better, than the original." To
himself he said, 'Yeah this was a good gift.'
"Well, well, I too have a gift for you."
With a wink and a smile he waved him over to his desk
and activated the computer terminal. With a touch, the
holo display activated and Tanar recognized scans of the
sathar destroyer that had curiously buzzed through the
system at sub void speeds during the recent GOC
operations. It was a standard energy sensor scan and at a
glance it looked to be from the stealth platforms in the
outer system.
"Do you see anything unusual?"
Tanar leaned into the display and played with refining the
data. After a few minutes he leaned back and said, "This.
This reading isn't right or rather it’s unexpected but I'm
not sure what it means...unless...unless....oh Hell!"
Dr Zinasta frowned, "Hell in deed.” After a pregnant
pause he continued, “…behold a pale horse and the name
of him that sat on it was Death and Hell followed with
him..."