Freelance
TravellerFleetwatch
This article originally appeared in the July/August 2026 issue.
Fleetwatch. W. H. Keith.
Marischal Adventures (defunct, no website)
4pp., PDF (originally paperbound)
Available on the Far Future Apocrypha 3 CD-ROM
This adventure can be viewed as something of a sequel to Flight of the Stag (which I reviewed in November 2023). This adventure does stand on its own, however, not requiring any knowledge of that adventure. As with any adventure, you need a set of core rules – for Classic Traveller, in this case – and the author notes that material in Book 4: Mercenary, Book 5: High Guard, and Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats may be useful (but none of these are specifically called out as necessary).
This adventure is set during the Fifth Frontier War, not long after the Battle of Thanber.
Fleetwatch had reported Zhodani presence in the system, which would represent a threat to Vilis and Garda-Vilis if the Zhodani were moving in in force. The PCs are attached to the Close Escort Stag, and the Stag’s current (and urgent) mission is to (a) scout the Choleosti system and (b) rescue the staff of the Fleetwatch station there.
No, it’s not going to be that easy. The Zhodani are still there, and in force, but hiding, and by the time the Stag arrives, the Fleetwatch station has been destroyed. There are survivors, but because of the Zhodani, who have set an ambush for whoever comes to retrieve the Fleetwatch personnel, the PCs aren’t going to be able to just get in and get out. That’s the actual adventure here; the PCs and the six surviving (but two severely wounded) Fleetwatch NPCs are going to have to trek across 20 km of airless moon, in hopes of finding another gig to get off the planet and back to the Stag. The actual “mechanics” for running the trek, including a small, rough map and an Event table, are roughly the last page-and-a-half; the rest is all setup and background. Time is of the essence; if they keep moving, it will take five hours to cover the distance to where the gig will be found – but they only have six hours of air. Once they’ve found the gig – if it hasn’t been destroyed – they still have to get back to the Stag, and then get the Stag out of the system and back to Vilis, and the Zhodani aren’t going to be inclined to let them go peacefully.
Production values are consistent with the other Marischal adventures on the CD-ROM; they show the signs of early production, using typewriters and Letraset lettering, on inexpensive paper. Nevertheless, the final product is quite readable, and the PDF is “clean”, rather than showing the signs of a scan of a used product. It is strictly image-to-PDF, however; you can’t copy/paste the text.
This is a pretty good adventure for running at a convention, or for an evening’s play at home; it could be slotted in as an episode in a longer campaign, but it doesn’t really have any significant links to other events. Over all, it contributes to the value of the CD-ROM, and a referee that likes to have a bunch of prepared adventures on hand could reasonably consider this a good separate purchase for $5 or less on DTRPG, if it were available.