 February 9, 2009 - 7:45am | Back in the early '80s, when Steve Jackson still owned Space Gamer, there was an adventure in that magazine for Traveller (i dont have the mag and tried to buy a few space gamers off ebay but cant find this adventure any more). the idea was that a group of humans who had travelled to planet x and backslid into barbarism and had been rebuilding their knowledge and tech base back up to at the point the equiv of earth's tech in the 1960s. Their new home planet had been very harsh and tough to survive on and as a result they had through natural selection become shorter like pygmies (this race of man had also begun to realize that they were not native to the planet). the imperial authority had re-discovered them but decided that it could be harmful for the societal matrix of these people to discover that they where an offshoot of man and "shrunken" in comparison. so a listening station was put in hidden behind one of the moons and some stealthed satellites all 40years ago. The adventure happens because the PCs get detailed to find out why the listening station stopped reporting.They get there and find that they cant dock with the station as the air lock is open and something is floating in the way(remains of one crewman). inside they find a mess like maniacs rampaged threw the station. The doctor is still in the autodoc because he programmed it to remove all his interanal organs which are now rotting in a bowl while the autodoc keeps him alive in stasis. It turns out that the officer in charge has fired off a probe at the planet and forgot to arm its self destruct- players could descover that but they will most likely be too busy with the mystery of what happened and the beginning onset of physcosis among them selves. The "pygmies" have recovered the probe from its crash in a lake and now know they are not alone and that knowledge has taken away all resistence to spend money on a space program and they are about to launch a shuttle. The source of all the trouble on the station is that the life support reads ok but dangerous levels of CO2 has developed and crew went crazy from basically killed them selves. The Pcs have to deal with a bunch of matenance issues plus the other shoe will drop with the launch of the shuttle. and they have to decide if they what to do about their orders of not letting the pygmies discovering the larger galactic society before their ready and quite possibly they get to have a first contact encounter. It was a fascinating adventure, I especially liked the idea of the undermaintained equipment on a space station and the "fight" being to keep things together However, the topic is redemption for the ifshnits. Wouldn't it just make more sense to have the Ifshnits being an offshoot of man with a similar background? Their relationship to humans being much like the relationship between a boxer and a chihuahua. Tweak their culture a little and they work in the setting without being Gnomes or Dwarves in space. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 9, 2009 - 1:57pm | Sounds like you've just turned the ifshnits into miniature Klingons. I'm a little lost on why it would be so bad for the rest of the Frontier to re-discover them and just welcome them back in. If they had realized they were not native to the planet I would think they'd be a little agitated that the rest of the galaxy had just left them and never helped out. A whole planet full of munchkins just might be a little more than hostile at this point. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
 February 9, 2009 - 5:15pm | What, did the Roloff family decide to colonize the Capella system? No, seriously, as offshoots of Humanity, it's quite doable. Why not have the Sniffs—I mean Ifshnits be a splinter colony, who removed themselves from the rest of Humanity over philosophical differences,religious differences, or...no joke...they could even be part of a lost troupe of circus performers, whose ship(s)crashlanded on Faire and they had to make a go of colonizing their new home...anyone familiar with Barry Longyear's Momus stories? Going on that theme, it might even be possible that the little guys aren't the only ones native to the Capella system...one can find normal Humans(including the storytellers, who wouldn't exactly be popular amongst the Ifshnit), descendants of circus strongmen, circus animals who've evolved into sentience, the works.... And, in any case, who says all the Ifshnit have to come in one size? You can have taller than average Ifshnit, "giant" Ifshnit(who would be about 5'5" or 5'6"), "dwarf" Ifshnit, hairless Ifshnit, etc. Hey, if Bill and Shell can make the Mechs worth a second look, anything's possible. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
 February 9, 2009 - 5:58pm | Kudos to all of you for trying to redeem the unredeemable. LOL |
 February 10, 2009 - 5:43am | Ifshnits have potential with the right tweakings. I allow slightly taller versions, up to dral height anyways (1.3m) and a little extra heft as the Zeb's suggestion of 35kg is not much heavier than a football. Make 'em a bit heartier if you will, like true gnomes and dwarves. Throw in a little environmental skill as an automatic ability, or allow them dual PSAs in either enviro or psycho social and whatever other field they opt for (after all they're already good swindlers and merchants, may as well give them some extra benefits on that end). Relieve some of the other restrictions as well...I permit them to use full size rifles assuming they shorten the buttstock and add a bipod or tripod mount a la heavy weapons and apply the -10 heavy weapon penalty as such. And one other entertaining possibility that someone else turned me onto long ago: have their homeworld ships scaled to their use as well. Makes for an entertaining boarding action when the "normal sized" core four races try to enter a 1.3 x 0.6m hallway... |
 February 11, 2009 - 9:46am | I just redesigned the ifshnits into a new race with similar attitudes but different appearance and history. See the byshinti entry in my Star Frontiers: Vistas project. I like the concept of the roving interstellar trader, less corporate more independant trader. Less vrusk more ferengi. :) Long live the Frontier! |
February 11, 2009 - 6:49pm | Ifshnits have potential with the right tweakings. I allow slightly taller versions, up to dral height anyways (1.3m) and a little extra heft as the Zeb's suggestion of 35kg is not much heavier than a football. Make 'em a bit heartier if you will, like true gnomes and dwarves. Throw in a little environmental skill as an automatic ability, or allow them dual PSAs in either enviro or psycho social and whatever other field they opt for (after all they're already good swindlers and merchants, may as well give them some extra benefits on that end). Relieve some of the other restrictions as well...I permit them to use full size rifles assuming they shorten the buttstock and add a bipod or tripod mount a la heavy weapons and apply the -10 heavy weapon penalty as such. And one other entertaining possibility that someone else turned me onto long ago: have their homeworld ships scaled to their use as well. Makes for an entertaining boarding action when the "normal sized" core four races try to enter a 1.3 x 0.6m hallway... "Hey I can't aim my heavy laser with your elbow in my eye...." All excellent suggestions, Shadow, especially the idea of scaling their own ships for their use...a "normal"-sized being trying to haggle with a Capellan Free Merchant aboard his own ship will be too distracted with worry over the bulkheads closing in on him to negoiate effectively.... The Flight's warships will also be smaller than normal scale, and will able to cram more crew and gear than a similarly-sized Frontier warship...Humma can adapt easily to the cramped quarters, and only the Oskar will be somewhat uncomfortable when serving aboard one of these "tin cans." "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
February 12, 2009 - 11:20am | I'm a little lost on why it would be so bad for the rest of the Frontier to re-discover them and just welcome them back in. Sorry about that Sargon- I just detailled the original adventure because I was hoping that someone would remember it and say oh yeah that was space gamer #x which would let me look for the particular mag on ebay. No- no reason to prevent contact- I just thought the core idea behind the traveller adventure gave a nice way to explain the gnomes in space ifshnits with in the std. setting and if memory serves the ifshnit traders found the frontier first. The circus animals idea has some merit too though the idea that 1 cicus troupe would have enough genetic material on the human side let alone among the animals to establish a breeding population doesn't work. i remember someone claiming that there must be as many as 30 animals in Lock Ness generating the monster sitings as that would be the minimal number for a breeding herd- not sure if that's true. Anyhow if we suppose a number of 10,000 individuals stranded on Faire with several hundred pets and several hundred of some other earth animals- we could extrapolate some animals based off of earth animals that have undergone some natural selection or planned breeding and are now significantly different. Then throw in some aquatic species native to Faire and you begin to have a nice bestiary for the planet. Who mentioned Ferangi- I love those guys! Quark rules! Once you have their latnum you never give it back! Any tweak of the shnits in the direction of the ferengi would require a shnit version of the Rules of Acquisition! I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 12, 2009 - 6:54pm | The circus animals idea has some merit too though the idea that 1 cicus troupe would have enough genetic material on the human side let alone among the animals to establish a breeding population doesn't work. i remember someone claiming that there must be as many as 30 animals in Lock Ness generating the monster sitings as that would be the minimal number for a breeding herd- not sure if that's true. Good point, jedi. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
 March 1, 2009 - 9:58pm | Kinda like the Txeliu, or whatever from , DUNE, lol |
March 3, 2009 - 12:16pm | I just tracked down a copy of the magazine that the adventure was in that I talked about above: Jan/Feb 1984 Number 67 Space Gamer article title: Can You Survive Interdiction Station....A Generic SF-RPG Scenario Once it gets here through the mail I'll update details of the adventure as an FYI as the basic premise of a run down station played well especially for low level characters as death is possible but not so absolute. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 10, 2009 - 7:07pm | Ifshnits have potential with the right tweakings. I allow slightly taller versions, up to dral height anyways (1.3m) and a little extra heft as the Zeb's suggestion of 35kg is not much heavier than a football. 35kg = 77 pounds. That's one heavy football.  |
March 10, 2009 - 7:20pm | ...not if you're wearing magnetic boots. |
March 10, 2009 - 7:39pm | ...not if you're wearing magnetic boots. Very funny.  Even in Zero G you still have mass and acceleration to worry about...not to mention the pain caused by being hit by a 77 pound football. "I got it!...SPLAT!"Science makes my head hurt. |
March 10, 2009 - 11:20pm | Yeah, but I was only referring to the kick off part: plant one foot, kick with the other LOL Still, throw in some rocket packs and you could have one heluva violent contact sport! |
March 11, 2009 - 11:00am | Yeah, but I was only referring to the kick off part: plant one foot, kick with the other LOL Still, throw in some rocket packs and you could have one heluva violent contact sport! Dwarf or is it Ifshnit Tossing? A new sport on the Frontier!! Each corporation can sponsor a team. |
March 11, 2009 - 1:58pm | IWF --- Ifshnit Wrestling Federation |
March 11, 2009 - 1:58pm | IWF --- Ifshnit Wrestling Federation |
I once went head to knee with Brutus the Yazirian....