Traveller: Character 22 of 31: Belter

Friday, January 22, 2021

Character 22 of 31: Belter

Kin Uulamduu

884A48 Belter 6 terms, age 38

Vacc-Suit-3, Ship's Boat-2, Prospecting-2, Electronics-1, Brawling-1, Electronics-1, Instruction-1

Cr10,000, High Passage

Growing up in a belter community in the Uris Belt in the Kagamira subsector of Vland, Kin grew up in the old Vilani ways, but only has a smattering of Vilani, mostly blessings for food as ingrained into her from her family. Growing up onboard various mining ships from the small Seekers to larger stations, she early on learned to check, re-check and then triple check everything. She was in and out of vacc-suits before she could walk. On entering any new ship she makes a quick tour of the emergency lockers, and when possible, checks the permits and certifications for the ship systems. She has come to blows before in her demands to review the certifications as she can be quite vehement about it! A tall red head with some interesting digital tattoos, she speaks with an odd accent that, unless you are from the Uris Belt or have been there, you won't be able to place. She also really likes ship rations and heavily processed and prepared foods. This is a combination of her grandparents' distrust of more natural foods as well as what is readily available aboard most mining craft. Spending almost a quarter century working the belt, she is an able ships boat pilot and fully certified for instruction for vacc-suit, basic prospecting and ships boat piloting.

How you may meet Kin

As an instructor, she could be hired to teach basic vacc-suit safety or ships boat piloting. She can be used as a guide for mining or prospecting. She could also be a shuttle pilot, working odd jobs about the place. Her basic electronics skill could be useful for minor repair work or analysis. She could be sipping vilnaf in a local bar, getting talkative about a strike she may have found. Or hunting for someone to partner for her next big strike - a patron encounter for a share of the strike.

Wearing her vacc suit and carrying an ore analyzer

Deciding on another Traveller character (as that was the original genesis of this blog from a long time ago!), using my random tables I got major race, humaniti, Imperial, old Vilani stock. So will have to come up with a good Vilani name. And somewhere I read that they live longer, so perhaps we can avoid doing the age checks. Then I have to decide what I want to be, but usually I roll up the stats and that can help me figure out a few options.

Strength: 8
Dexterity: 6
Endurance: 5
Intelligence: 8
Education: 4
Social: 8
gender: 4 - female

Alright, average strength and dexterity, bit below average endurance, average intelligence, low education and middling social. And not having used Citizens a whole lot, and I don't think ever having rolled up a belter, I think I'll try that. Though that has a very high lethality rate. I do have a couple of other supplements that do the advanced character generation process (the Mongoose 1e Belter book and I am pretty certain I also have the Classic Belter module, or else I saw it in one of the journals [Journal 3 has a process for asteroid mining and I think what I was thinking of]). Also, Belters, like Barbarians, start at 14. Success on getting in with an 8!

And I just noticed per a conversation over on COTI that she also has an automatic Vacc Suit-1 by virtue of being a Belter. Okay, "just noticed" does not make any sense as I prepared this one ahead of time, and you are not reading this in real time. I am going for the conversational approach :)

Term 1 (14-18)

Survive (barely!) with an 8 but the +1 per term (which is a unique mechanic as it gets easier to survive per term). Seeing as we get 2 skills as there is no ranking, I'll just rotate through the available tables.

Personal Development: 2, +1 dexterity UPP: 875848
Service Skills: 1, Vacc-Suit-2

An 11 means I can continue to mine those asteroids!

Term 2 (18-22)

Survive again just barely with a 7...why do I always have these barely-surviving characters? But at least it actually gets easier each term. Again, 2 skills (and without an 8+ education, can't roll on the advanced education table):

Education Table: 5, Prospecting-1
Personal Development: 5, Brawling-1

Another 11 on re-enlistment. I do seem to get repetitive rolls.

Term 3 (22-26)

Another 7 to survive, which, thanks to being in the 3rd term, is +3 so all of a single point of survival. She has been living in the margins and in some rough conditions.

Service Skills: 3, Prospecting-2. Getting good at finding those valuable deposits!
Education: 1, Ship's Boat-1

Now, in her mid-20s and younger than most of my characters, but she has just barely survived these 3 terms. We'll go for even to do another term, odd to leave: 4, so she will stay in another term.

Term 4 (26-30)

Rolling an 8 +4, she has 6 whole points past the minimum survival! She is getting better!

Personal Development: 6, Vacc-Suit-3
Service Skills: 2, well, this would be another Vacc-Suit; instead I'll cheat & use the education table instead and let her have Electronics-1.

Same roll to continue or leave, and a 2 says yet another term. And let us hope she survives, though a +4 is all she needs to survive so the odds are in her favor.

Term 5 (30-34)

Okay, rolling a 4. She again barely survives. This will be the last term - she will start aging next term, so may as well get out before her body betrays her. We'll re-do the service skills then personal development tables this time.

Service Skills: 6, Ship's Boat-2
Personal Development: 2, +1 dexterity again; UPP 885848

And making sure she does not roll a 12 to be forced another term, I actually rolled a 12. These dice hate me.

Term 6 (34-38)

And rolling a 3, I again only survive as I get the +6 for the 6 terms I've been plying the belt. The dice - they hate me.

Education: 6, Instruction-1
Personal Development: 1, +1 strength; UPP 985848

A 4 and I do not have to do another term! But I have to roll against the aging:

Strength: 3, -1 strength UPP 885848
Dexterity: 11, no change
Endurance: 5, -1 endurance UPP 884848

Mustering out

With 6 rolls, we'll do 3 cash and 3 benefits.

Cash: 1, nothing!
Cash: 2, nothing!
Cash: 4, Cr10,000
Benefits: 4, High Passage
Benefits: 2, +1 intelligence UPP 884948
Benefits: 2, +1 intelligence UPP 884A48

Now interestingly the instruction skill allows her to teach others up to vacc-suit-0, prospecting-0 and ship's boat-0. She won't confer any real expertise, but hopefully enough to not get killed. And she sucked on the cash rolls, and I was hoping for a Seeker, but alas, it was not to be.

And the prospecting skill: The individual is experience in searching out mineral deposits on world surfaces and in deep space. Basically, it gives a greater possibility of discovering what is there. I would imagine it would be a combination of many things, between reading mineral maps and spectrographs, possibly other electronic or even old analog maps based on geological formations.

And in re-reading the rules after a conversation over on COTI, I missed that there were automatic skills for various careers. She gets Vacc-Suit-1, so we'll just bump her to Vacc-3 so she really knows how to handle herself in a vacc suit (and per the original rules, each level gives a +4 to avoid a problem when doing something risky; with a 10+ for success, then a +12 from her skill level, Kin can do anything in a vacc suit apparently. Additionally it confers battledress, and helping those in distress needs a 7+ to help with a +2 per level, so she can also where armored battledress and rescue idiots who get lost in space. Yeah, early Traveller had no consistent task system. Part of the joy and the pain.)