I'm of a mind to explore the seedy underbelly of the Star Fleet Universe. Feel free to sketch out a character concept for a rogue type character. [You don't have to worry about stats-- just describe the character you want to play.] Non-human characters are welcome. Players do not start the game with a ship. [If you want to play something else, speak up-- I'm just trying to get the ball rolling.]
I propose that we set things in Donjebruche. In the spirit of TOS, I'm going to have a cold war situation between the Klingons and the Feds. The time period is before the General War... many ships do not yet have refits.
I don't know how it would sit with the purists and the canon police, but in my prime directive universe, I'm predisposed to allow Klingon subject races to occasionally roam around outside of the Klingon empire. Player Characters that choose such races may need an "unusual background" to justify it.
Campaign premise: life is common as dirt. Random worlds tend to have some sort of animal life... and humanoid life forms tend to show up all over the place.
This stuff was posted by Steve on discus:
Donjebruche is on planet Taffelland, which is near the Klingon and Kzinti border (and Mad Jack's Hole).
Way back when, a bunch of simpler farmers who wanted a pure colony of their sprig of humanity bought a spaceship and went looking. They found Shiloh and were going to set up there, but the Mantorese told them to run fast as the kzintis were around. The farmers ran until they ran out of fuel, and found Taffelland, a very desert planet. The planet had granite colonies on a bassalt crust (like earth) but no water, and the "sea bottom" was covered in sand and dirt. But there was SOME water, some rain, and the planet averaged an inch or two a year. One of those big granite slabs sloped, and all of the rainwater from an area the size of North American ran into a valley the size of, say, Arkansas, creating the only farmable spot (Greenveldt or something I don't remember right now). So, the farmers took it. They were happy. They did not have to deal with outsiders, especially outside humans of other races. They did not consider themselves racists, just segregationists.
Then one day, a spaceship landed. These spacers wre honest merchants, and just wanted to buy some fresh veggies and stuff, not defoliate the farmers' daughters, and polite conversation and an exchange of potatoes for metals worked out. This continued, and grew, and the farmers became more and more nervous about outsiders but more and more accustomed to dealing with them at a distance.
So, some bunch of space traders build a small landing port, Donnjebruche, on the granite slab "above" and a few dozen miles from Greenveldt. A carefully controlled elevator-train was built, and the port and the farm colony could trade without really seeing each other (and the farmer fathers could control what came into their community, no porn for example).
Soon there are desert mining colonies all over Taffelland, all going to Donnybruche for a weekend away from the mines. Klingons, Kzintis, Cygnans, Mantorese, Orions all showed up and traded.
The Federation showed up and had a problem. Here was a planet full of colonies with no "law" or "government" to speak of. Worse, any starcrews landing there were as likely to pick up knife wounds as they were potatoes. Something had to be done. So, Federation marshals (and Rigellian Army military police) showed up along with Federation colonial experts, who said "you gotta fit into fed law somehow, but let's come up with something that leaves you alone and makes visitors safe--well, less unsafe."
So, you have one big farm feeding all kinds of mining colonies and one big town that is a cross between Las Vegas and Dodge City. Klingons, Kzintis, and Orions all show up to trade.
DONJEBRUCHE TRADING POST
Located on Tafelland, a Class-K planet in Federation Space, Donjebruche Trading Post is an adjunct to the Grenveldt colony. Close to the Klingon border, and near enough to Kzinti space to allow easy peacetime trade, the trading post is a convenient stop for traders and travelers in the area. Being less than a thousand parsecs from the infamous Orion Pirate bastion known as Mad Jack’s Hole, Donjebruche Trading Post has also become a legal point of sale for purloined items that are “laundered� by the Orions and ready to re-enter the market.
Donjebruche Trading Post is a very cosmopolitan “town� (numbering 10,000 people by the time of the General War). The town is fed (literally) by the agricultural community of Groenveldt (which regards Donjebruche as “sin city�, their residents rarely going there). The town of Donjebruche existed before the Federation reached this area and was not originally a formal colony. The legal status of the town is less clear than the official Federation records would seem to indicate, and residents of the town regard themselves more as citizens of Donjebruche than citizens of the Federation.
There are a dozen large mining complexes around the planet, all of them in desert areas. These have populations from a few thousand to 20,000 and are effectively small independent “company towns�. All of their citizens regard Donjebruche as the place to go and have a good time or to do some shopping.
