I’m having some innocent fun with Traveller setting building, just as a thought exercise and to squeeze some creative juices. This was precipitated by the acquisition of the new Cepheus Deluxe, a really wonderful version of Traveller. I talk about it here:
Set 1000 years in our future, the game focuses on the Trailing sectors of Hinterspace, largely ignored by the introspective Empire of Stars (EOS) as they are far and away from their stagnated playground and their subservient provinces. Occasionally the Noble Houses will send their Envoys out into the deep, but otherwise these fringes of space can level up on their own.
I’ve started by looking at sector structure on the Orion Arm. This provides a simple overview of astrography and provides a context in which to zoom in. I’m aiming for one sector, and starting within one subsector, which will probably be enough for all play anyway.
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| Each box is a standard Traveller Sector |
The alien threat is a new and active incursion, driving Spinward and into the Hinterspace sectors. EOS has started to take an interest and looking for the ‘outwilders’ to resolve the situation for them, or die trying. Mostly EOS is firming up their borders and resisting any spinward pressure into their hallowed space.
Next we zoom in with enough detail to enable some Travellermap.com possibilities. I’ve picked out the Cyronsure Sector as the place I will do gaming.
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| Subsector names and those of surrounding sectors |
Still zooming in, I get to the subsector level and Eventide itself. I’m using this generator:
https://zhodani.space/stuff/generators/random-subsector-generator/
It generates SEC formatted outputs that can find their way into the Travellermap.com for poster and booklet outputs. A first pass of a random subsector data produces a nice map on the generator site.
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| A pre-edit Eventide subsector |
The next stage is to hand edit the text file that created this map. I can double check the random names and tweak to my satisfaction. Hinterspace has fragmented polities, so I will check the allegience data and create a small number of powers ready for the next stage.