Freelance
TravellerThe Trail of the Sky Raiders
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2025 issue.
The
Trail of the Sky Raiders. J. Andrew Keith.
FASA (defunct, no website found)
56pp., digest softbound or 62pp. PDF
US$6/UK£4.83 or Available via FFE Apocrypha 1 CD-ROM
Has it really been that long? Four years ago I looked at and reviewed The Legend of the Sky Raiders1, so I thought I’d better continue with the series to see just how good these adventures are. They are purported to be some of the best written for the game, and I’ve used them myself as a yard stick to beat other adventures with. So are they really that good?
It’s a 56 page LBB in the FASA house style illustrated by William H. Keith and the production quality is high (which I really appreciate). It comes with an additional map that is of good quality again. The introduction is your standard “requires basic rules and Supplement 4” along with would be good with Mercenary, High Guard, name and place etc. etc. We get the same pregens as The Legend of the Sky Raiders (with one change) and this time we have a ship, an A2 Far Trader, which if you’ve played Legend the PCs obtained by stealing it from the smuggler who was the bad guy in Legend.
Next we get a brief history of what has happened between the end of Legend and the beginning of Trail. I don’t like this bit. I know this is an early adventure in the RPG hobby, but we have the results of the railroads that happened in Legend coming back in Trail and some more to get the PCs into the next adventure. The ship that the PCs appropriated to get off planet from Legend is via some illicit contacts that changed the registry now theirs and the payoff has been taken up by repairs, alterations, operating expenses, and bad trading. Or in other words the PCs have become pirates and they squandered the MCr 2.5 payoff from Legend …. Hum. If the PCs choose to be pirates, that’s fine; let them choose to be. Don’t impose it on them. If the PCs choose to squander their hard-earned cash, that’s fine; let them. But don’t impose it on them. It would be better from my point of view to have played this out with the PCs. What do they do with the ship that they escaped with? Does the institute help them out in this regard? What do the PCs wish to do with their payoff? Don’t impose stuff on them, let them choose what they wish to do. I know there is a difference in playing an ongoing campaign and running a published one. I know I’m going to have to do some work adapting the published adventures into my own campaign and I know that this is an early work in in the early years of the RPG industry so they didn’t have the knowledge and decades of experience that Referees and writers have today, but it still irritates.
Anyway we next get the adventure hook, which is not bad as an adventure hook, to be fair; it’s a whole scene that that is laid out for the PCs to find a single clue that is the name of a freelance scout and a reason to get back into the mystery of the Sky Raiders again and go to see their archaeologist friend. It’s a fair hook and it’s the start of the mystery which is the adventure, but it’s easy for the PCs to miss the clue that they need to pick up. Things at the table never go the way that the writers or the Referee envisage. It might be crystal clear to Andrew that their clue was “so obvious”, but Andrew is not the players and what’s obvious to him might be completely obscure to your PCs sitting at your table playing in your game.
Then we get the adventure hooked further, which is the PCs being set-up after contact their archaeologist friend to be attacked by a group of thugs that the PCs will recognise as the “bad guys” from Legend of the Sky Raiders. There is lots of getting the PCs to do what Andrew wants them to do, and clues that “should be obvious” to the PCs that culminate in their friend being kidnaped and the PC’s realising “that they have been caught up in a situation of great complexity” and the authorities have little hope in resolving the mystery …. So it’s up to the PCs. Again, what’s obvious to Andrew is not necessarily obvious to the PCs, but Andrew does give us an out in that someone might hire the PCs to go look for the archaeologist.
Andrew gives us some background on Alzenie, the capital of the League of Suns, where the PCs are, along with a map of the planet and he continues on with data on Alzenei City as well. You get all sorts of information that we haven’t see that often in Traveller adventures until recently. Things like planetary period, density, gravity, rotational period, axial inclination, and for the city population, mean temperature in summer and winter, annual precipitation, average humidity and industries and points of interest. And you might ask why do we need this? Well you don’t really, but what Andrew is providing is information you can use as a Referee to make Alzenie feel unique to your players, not just another TL12 world, and he says as much in his referees notes. This is really good, this is the type of stuff that a Referee can use at the table, admittedly with some prep, so the PCs can experience another world, a different world to ours, and transport themselves there.
The next phase is clue gathering through various parts of the city of Alzenei and Andrew gives us lots of clues to find in various places. He preps this with referee advice on being thoroughly prepared as a Referee and suggest that improvisation and flexibility will be needed to keep the PCs going through the material to unveil the clues in the event of unexpected PC choices and outcomes as they travel the city and its regions in search of their kidnaped archaeologist and the archaeological mystery. Andrew summarises what went on at the end, but lays it out so that you read all the clues before you get to the summary. I’m not sure this is a good thing; there is a lot of information and a lot of clues, and not all of it that fits that well together. The summary may have been better at start with. Andrew is correct in suggesting that improvisation and flexibility are going to be needed. I think if I was going to run this I think I’d have to map out the clues and how they connect and then probably think of others to drop in if the PCs don’t pick up on what’s needed to progress. I can see how this could be enjoyable for the PCs to piece together, and I can also see how this would be a bit of a nightmare for the Referee. Ultimately satisfying in the end when the PCs put it all together probably but a huge amount of work to get there.
Ultimately the PCs are off to another world following the kidnaping and archaeology, one that is contested by the different powers of the region. Qarant. Andrew gives us library data, history along with the data to make the world seem unique again.
We get information on where the PCs are headed, and archaeological dig run by the opposition, along with maps and patrols, and proof the PCs were right when the clues they found on Alzenei turn up on Qarant, and if they observe the kidnaped archologist. This is where Andrew wants the PCs to mount a rescue, and if the PCs are reluctant then the Referee is suggested to force the PCs hand to make them. It’s a railroad again. Andrew is expecting a desired outcome and is forcing the PCs to make this choice, it’s not much of a railroad the PCs are being led here, but it’s still a railroad. And not once, but twice. Once rescued the archologist wants to stay and look at papers about the Sky Raiders and solve what the opposition are searching for, which is the next part of the adventure, and if the PCs just want to return to Alzenei? Too bad “The adventures should be persuaded to assist her” because she will refuse to leave. The players are then expected to solve the mystery by themselves under time pressure from the result of rescuing the archologist. Andrew does give us some help here when he suggests that the Map the PCs need could be provided to them in about 4 different ways.
We then get to where the archaeologist want to get to and explore a ruined temple. Again this is a railroad. There are some “Temple Events” presented, but the path is predetermined and mapping “unnecessary” and are used to slow the PCs so the bad guys can turn up for a climatic confrontation and then lead to the PCs trying to escape the bad guys to get off planet.
Following the end of the adventure we get some further information. We get the history of the Sky Raiders that can be worked out or presented to the PCs by the archologist. We get the NPCs detailed, we get Library data about the area of space and listing around the Sky Raiders. We get the Jungleblut Subsector map and UPP listings and some Referee Notes to help you on your way.
So what do I think? Is it as good as it’s purported to be? It’s good. There is no question about that. There are parts where you just know the PCs will have a sense of achievement and enjoyable play. The search of the clues and the observation and rescue could be really fun. A lot of work for the Referee, but fun. It’s well written there are aspects you could take and just go with at the table, there is stuff for the Referee to work with. There is also a load of material that you can use again for further adventures and other adventures in the League of Suns if you so wished. Making a campaign here would be relatively easy. But then again, like Legend of the Sky Raiders, there is a lot of railroading and that’s not really for me. It would take a huge amount of work for it not to be a railroad in the places where it is and where Andrew expects the PCs to go. I won’t be Refereeing this as written, and I probably won’t/wouldn’t do the work to run it not as a railroad. I keep reminding myself that it’s 40 years old, and 40 years ago this was probably up there as the some of the best ever written. But now, today? Not so much. For me it’s the railroading that lets it down.
From reading the 2nd in the trilogy I got what I was expecting. Some good bits, some railroading. I’m expecting more of the same for the last instalment. Hopefully won’t take me 4 years this time.
Trail of the Sky Raiders is available on Drivethrough for $6 for the PDF, and the preview will give you a flavour of the layout and presentation. You can get it as part of the CD from FFE with the rest of the FASA and GameLords material for $35. Is it worth it? Good question I don’t have a definitive answer for. I have it as a paper copy from when I was collecting, and I must have picked it up for a dollar or two, and for a dollar or two it’s probably worth it just to spark some good ideas to steal. I wouldn’t buy it to run as written, but if you were prepared to put in the work you could make it some really good sessions of memorable role playing.