Character Creation Challenge 2026 Day 24: Quantum Starfarer

This month I've created a character for Classic Traveller with its full life-path character creation system.  I've also created a character for Retro Sci-Fi Rules with its abbreviated method.  Now, I am going to use Quantum Starfarer.

 

Quantum Starfarer is in the Cepheus Engine family but it is a very stripped down version.  Character creation is even more bare-bones that it is with Retro Sci-Fi Rules.  In Quantum Starfarer, a character does not have Characteristics.  No UPP.  Instead, a character consists of seven skills, Stamina, Lifeblood and a Trait.

 

You have 5 points to divide between the skills:   Combat, Knowledge, Physical, Social, Space, Stealth and Technical.  

 

You derive Stamina and Lifeblood from your Physical Skill.

 

You choose your Trait from a list.  Easy.

 

Basic mechanic is 2d6 + Skill => Target Number

 

Robert Sey

Combat 1, Knowledge 0, Physical 1, Social 1, Space 1, Stealth 0, Technical 1

Stamina: 8

Lifeblood: 16

Trait:  Ace (+2 Bonus to gain edge in vehicle combat)

Cr: 8000

100 Ton Scout Ship

Shotgun 

 

Character Creation Challenge 2026 Day 15: Retro Sci-Fi Rules

Today I am revisiting the Classic Traveller family of games.  This time via the Cepheus Engine branch of the family tree.

 

The Retro Sci-Fi Rules are by Paul Elliott, the author of Hostile and Cepheus Universal amongst other Traveller related things.  It is intended to emulate the 1977 edition of Traveller.  But it has been streamlined and modified in several ways.  One of the biggest changes is character creation.

 

Gone is life path character gen with the possibility of death.  Here are the steps with commentary in color.

 

1 Select Career. Note its ‘required characteristic’.  Six careers:  Navy, Marine, Star Trader, Scout, Syndicate, Scout

2 Skills. Divide up 7 skill levels between the career skills. No skill level may start at more than 3. One of your choices must be the Auto Skill.  Each Career has an Auto Skill.  For example the Auto Skill for Marine is Gun Combat.

3 Select Bonus Skill. Select a table and roll 1D6 for a bonus skill at level 1.

4 Characteristics. Choose a ‘String of Scores’ and allocate those scores to your six characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education and Social Influence, as you see fit. The career’s ‘required characteristic’ must be at 7 or more.  There are four separate strings of scores to choose from, some balanced, some not.

5 Name. Create a name for the character.

6 Rank. Use Social Influence to determine the character’s rank.  Social Influence replaces Social Standing.  No nobility in the implied setting.  And there is a sample setting involved.

7 Age. Decide on an age.  Are you retired from your service or not?

8 Appearance. Decide on the character’s appearance.

9 Movement. Note your Move score.

10 UPP. Note your character in the Universal Personality Profile arrangement.

11 Equipment. Allocate cash and starting equipment as needed.  Starting cash determined randomly based on your Social Influence.

12 Backstory. Roll for a past career event.

 

Character creation is a very quick process. 

 

Let me present:

 

Ret. Capt. Gael Jones-Smith 

Star Navy    46697A, Age 50, Move 10

Computer-2, Engineering-2, Gun Combat-1, Gunnery-1, Medical-2

Cr 30000 

 

Retro Sci-Fi Rules are an interesting variation on Traveller.  I might do more of a review later.  If you're interested in these type of RPGs, I think it's worth a look. 

 

Character Creation Challenge 2026

Several years ago I participated in the Character Creation Challenge.  I failed to finish.  I'm going to try again this year.  I'm not going to try to use 31 different so there will be repeats.

 

So, that being said...Away we go...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's start with one of my favorite character generation systems:  Classic Traveller.  You can die before the game begins!

 

Carlos Lawson

Retired Merchant 3rd Officer    798A66    Age 38    5 Terms    Cr 85000

Electronics-1, Vacc Suit-1, Jack-o-T-1, Navigation-1, Mechanical-1, Streetwise-1, Revolver-1, Medical-1

Retirement Cr 4000/yr, Revolver 

 

Carlos' stats started out at 899A66.

He easily made his enlistment roll because of his bonuses.  He also easily made all of his survival rolls because they were to start with and his bonus made it that much more so.  He was commissioned during his 1st turn and his only promotion came during his 3rd.  Reenlistment rolls were low, so he made all of those also.

 

Throughout his career he did a wide variety of jobs on the ship and ashore.  As 3rd Officer, one of his duties was collecting overdue crew members from shore leave.  This sometimes led to uncomfortable situations, both with the denizens of the sometimes low class establishments the crew sometimes patronized, the law or both.  More than once gun play was involved.  Thus, he obtained skills in Streetwise, Revolver, and Medical.

 

He had to make rolls on the Aging Table at the end of his 4th term and he lost a point of Strength.  After the 5th term he lost a point of Endurance.  He decided to retire after this and after making his reenlistment roll to ensure there was no mandatory reenlistment he mustered.

Carlos received an engraved, gold inlaid revolver from his shipmates when he retired and a small Cr 4000 annual pension from the company for his length of service.  Wise investments payed out to the tune of Cr 85000.

 

Photo and Lego Build by BiscutHead

 

Space Viking Small Planetary Cluster

Here is the small planetary cluster I generated using my revised Space Viking planetary world generation checklist I posted.  I welcome comments.

Harpe is the stand in for a Sword World.  I did not roll for its UWP.  I created it to suite my needs.  For the rest I used the generator.

 

Harpe	0405	A675953-A	NG	In
Zeus	0206	E342898-4	G
Hera	0304	X254874-2	G
Althea	0305	X454773-4		Ag
Aeolus	0403	D844978-6	SG	In
Pontus	0407	D589444-3	SG	Ni
Boreas	0504	X776573-3	G	Ag Ni
Notus	0506	C656876-2
Dorus	0606	B777978-A	NG	In

I created the map using Alex Schroeder's subsector generator and map creator.  It includes a Classic Traveller map generator.  It's pretty cool.  It will create random subsectors or you can input data you generated.  It will also show multi-planet governments.

 

Space Viking Subsector Generation Thoughts 2

 After several false starts, bouts of gamer ADD and some revisions, I took a look at the thoughts and ideas I posted here three(!) years ago and simplified them.  I wanted to keep the generation rules as close to the original checklist as I could.

Keeping the tech level of most worlds low was one one of my concerns.  Controlling the starport type was a simple solution and also fits in with the fact that most of the settings worlds either don't have starports or only have primitive ones. 

I did discover when I was playing around that populations seemed too small so I changed the population roll to a straight 2D instead of 2D-2. I still cap it at A though.

I'll create a small cluster of worlds and post it soon. 

Piper World Generation rev. 1

• Determine world occurrence (1D for 4, 5, 6 is standard). 
• Check system contents table for details of world. 
• Find Starport type.  Used modified table below. 
• Check for Viking (scout) base.
• Check for gas giant. 
• Name world. 
• Generate universal planetary profile for the world. 
• Planetary size: 2D-2. 
• Planetary atmosphere: 2D-7 +size. Tainted designation indicates pollution in the atmosphere, however no filter mask required.  If planetary size is 0, the atmosphere must be 0. 
• Planetary hydrographics: 2D-7 +size. If planetary size is 0, then hydrographics must be 0; if atmosphere is 0, 1, or A+, then apply a DM of -4. 
• Population: 2D. No population if atmosphere 0-3, A+. Cap A.
• Government: Roll d6, 1-3 Balkanized. When the planet is detailed, roll D3+1 for # of major political units.  Governments can be rolled for or determined by GM. If not balkanized 2D-7+population.
• Law level : 2D-7+government. 
• Technological Level : 1D+DMs from tech level table. Hard cap TL 10.
• Check for naval base as appropriate. 
• Note trade classifications based on universal planetary profile. 
• Note statistics for reference.

 

Starport
2	A
3	B
4	C
5	D
6-8	E
9-12	X

 

Christmas Gift

 I realized I haven't mentioned my Christmas gift yet!  I received the newest version of Traveller!  Pretty cool!

World Names for the SV Inspired Setting.

I've been pondering what to name the planets in my Space Viking inspired setting.  In his Terro-Human Future History, Piper leaned heavily on world mythology for the names of planets.  So, I figure I can do one of two things.  

I can embrace this and either recycle the names that Piper used or I can dig up my own mythological names.  On the positive side, reusing Piper's names would give an instant familiarity to anyone who has read the book and people who haven't read the books wouldn't know any different.  On the negative side those who have read the books might have preconceived notions about what the planets are like, even if I don't want the planets to emulate the originals.  

Digging up my own mythological names shouldn't be too hard but many of the figures involved could be very obscure.  It's a distinct possibility that the players would miss the references.  Heck, I would probably miss the references.  It shouldn't be that hard though, with the internet and the books available at the library and such.

The second course of action is to invent new names or draw them from a different source.  Now, I find this a bit daunting.  I would like a unified theme like Piper used but I don't know what that it would be and I don't know where I would get the names if I did come up with a theme that I liked and felt fit the game.

Right now I'm leaning towards scavenging Piper's names in conjunction with coming up with new mythological names.

Here is a list of names from Piper's Terro-Human Future History books.  I found it on one of the sites dedicated to Piper's works, Zaranthi.net. 

Worlds				Sword Worlds.
Abigor	Hoth	Panurge		Colada
Agni	Imhotep	Poictesme		Curtana
Aditya	Irminsul	Quernbiter		Durendal
Amaterasu	Isis	Rimmon		Excalibur
Ashmodai	Ithunn	Seshat		Flamberge
Aton	Janicot	Set		Gram
Audhumla	Jaganath	Shesha		Haulteclere
Baldur	Joyeuse	Svantovit		Joyeuse
Baphomet	Jurgen	Tanith		Morglay
Belphegor	Khepera	Terra		Quernbiter
Beowulf	Koshchei	Tetragrammaton		Tizona
Britomart	Loki	Titan
Calidore	Lugaluru	Tizona
Colada	Luna	Thor
Curtana	Malebolge	Uller
Dagon	Marduk	Venus
Deirdre	Mars	Vishnu
Dremna	Melkarth	Vitharr
Durendal	Mephistopheles	Volund
Excalibur	Mercury	Xerxes
Fenris	Midgard	Xipototec
Flamberge	Mimir	Xochitl
Freya	Morglay	Yggdrasil
Gilgamesh	Nergal	Zarathustra
Gram	Niflheim
Hathor	Obidicut
Haulteclere	Odin
Hertha	Osiris
Hovendile	Pantagruel

Space Viking World and Subsector Generation Thoughts

Art by Alan Gutierrez

I mentioned in an earlier post that the standard world generation in Traveller wouldn't meet my needs for my SV inspired setting.  There are a few worlds I would want to handcraft.  Those worlds that had a high enough tech level for interstellar flight, particularly the character's base worlds.  And the world(s) that they controlled/dominated.  Essentially whatever pocket empires I want in the setting.  I don't envision them being larger than three or four worlds in size.  Other than that I would want to be able to randomly generate worlds that meet the tech level and other requirement that produce the feeling of the setting.

So, planetary generation would need to be modified in several areas.

• Tech Level Cap (TL 10)
• Starport Type
• Bases
• Planetary Atmospheres
• Government

The first thing that would have to be modified is tech level.  The tech level cap will be TL10.  Though I'm thinking that I will allow Type J maneuver drives, jump drives and power plants because that will allow for 2000 ton ships.  Space Viking had some big ships and this will allow for a bit more emulation in that area.  TL 10, however, limits the setting to computer type 4 which means jumps are limited to 4 parsecs.  So even small ships won't be wildly speeding through the galaxy.  I plan to designate which planets have TL9 or TL10 so the planets that I randomly create need to be capped at TL8.  My solution is to roll on the Tech Level Table as usual but ignore the starport type modifier.  Technically, this can still yield a tech level as high as 11 but I think it is unlikely.  And the GM can just cap it at TL8.  Or, if they want another starfaring planet they can just go with it up to the TL10 max.

Starport type needs to be handled differently too.  Anything below TL7 will not have a spaceport.  Unless it is in ruins or it is mothballed or on a moon or is a satellite.  TL7-8 can have interplanetary ships so can have one and may be in the process of colonizing its solar system.  The GM can either choose a starport type or roll on the table I've devised below.

Bases won't be present on TL6 or below planets.  Unless, of course, they are ruins or abandoned bases off planet.  They can be determined as the GM deems appropriate for TL7 and above systems

I wanted to modify atmosphere for a couple of reasons.  The first of which is that 10 out of the 13 types of atmospheres listed in the book are unbreathable by humans without some sort of breathing equipment.  I figured that with the loss of technology after the Federation fell that this would lead to planets being depopulated as their inhabitants lost the ability to manufacture and repair the equipment.  The second reason is that I can remember the only planet in Piper's Terro-Human Future History that did not have a human breathable atmosphere was Niflheim. It was from another of Piper's books, Uller Uprising, set centuries earlier than SV.  The only reason that people had anything to do with Niflheim and its corrosive atmosphere was its wealth in metals.  The planet is so hellish that its name is actually used as a curse.  So, in order to give planets a higher chance of be habitable I am going to dropped the tainted designation.

Several of the planets mentioned in SV weren't unified, both the primitive ones as well as some of the relatively technologically advanced worlds.  I wanted to have this reflected in the world generation.  I figured that before the government type was rolled the GM would roll 1D6.  On a 1-3 the planet would be balkanized, otherwise the GM would roll normally.  If balkanized, roll 1D3+1 to find the number of major countries/political units.  Then the GM can either roll separately for each country or the GM could choose.

Here is what the World Generation Checklist would look like.

• Determine world occurrence (1D for 4, 5, 6 is standard). 
• Check system contents table for details of world. 
•     Check for gas giant. 
• Name world. 
• Generate universal planetary profile for world. 
• Planetary size: 2D-2. 
• Planetary atmosphere: 2D-7 +size. Ignore Tainted designation (unless GM has special circumstances in mind).  If planetary size is 0, the atmosphere must be 0. 
• Planetary hydrographics: 2D-7 +size. If planetary size is 0, then hydrographics must be 0; if atmosphere is 0. 1, or A+, then apply a DM of -4. 
• Population: 2D-2. No population if atmosphere 0-3, A+
• Government: Roll d6, 1-3 Balkanized. Roll D3+1 for # of major political units.  Governments can be roll for or determined by GM. If not balkanized 2D-7+population as usual.
• Law level : 2D-7+government. 
• Technological Level : 1D+DMs from tech level table. Ignore starport modifiers.  TL8 cap unless referee decides otherwise.
• Determine starport type. See tables below.
• Determine naval base as appropriate. 
• Determine scout base as appropriate.
• Decide if travel zone coded. 
• Establish communications routes.
• Note trade classifications based on universal planetary profile. 
• Note statistics for reference.

Here is the table to generate starport type for TL 7-8  I also included a table for TL 9-10 just for kicks.  In case the GM wanted a little randomness.

Spaceport Type			Spaceport Type
TL 7-8			TL 9-10
2	X		1	X
3	E		2	E
4-8	D		3-4	D
9-10	C		5-7	C
11-12	A/B		8-9	B
			10-12	A

These are just my initial thoughts.  I haven't tested these world generation rules yet.  When I do I will let you know how it went and and changes that I think need to be made.