I haven't followed the series, and I haven't run it yet but hope to adapt it to my campaign, with that understood my review is ; it's a middle part in a series or mini-campaign running on 5E, altogether 14 pages beginning with a nice topical picture on the cover (albeit it's taller than what's in the story), eight and a half pages of main text (about 1/3 illustrations, block text and stat-blocks), appendix A is three pages with a color map to the region ( but no scale is given) and another (keyed) for the village where the adventure begins while the third page is for the target dungeon (with 11 locations), appendix B is the final page and that repeats two stat-blocks seen earlier along with the details of a humanoid NPC introduced at the dungeon. The adventurers, searching for a family kidnapped from the village move through the forest to some ruins scryed by their employer/patron. I would like to see some chance of a woodland encounter and a couple of opportunities to find some trace of those they pursue. Maybe howling wolves in the distance, cawing crows who might converse, a wayward or waylaid lumberjack from the Village, or an aloof or rude Druid as a distraction. At the ruins the party finds indications that someone has been camping here but no one is in sight, and no hazards detailed unless they press on through the (abstracted) complex to reach the cellar (the mapped dungeon). Now the action begins! Spaces in the dungeon have a sufficient amount of detail, each is distinctive enough. The dangers are mostly assorted lower CR Undead. I do think that the trademark stench of a Ghast should give the party a chance to negate its surprise. I also doubt the laired ghoulies would leave the human corpse unmolested - unless there's a good reason (maybe add a Foul Flesh Amulet there). If the PC's sweep through this dungeon they can gather up about 275 GP, 635 SP, a gemmed dagger worth 100 GP, one Magic Ring, an ever convenient Take-Your-Pick fragment of a Spell Book and a Gem of Brightness ! And don't forget the wine ... Also there's a piece of set decoration described as a "gilded claw", what is it exactly, what's its value (is it supposed to be part of the series' plot) ? Pages 7-9 cover the next Location, the 60 foot tall Tower hinted at on the cover. This is fairly abstracted ; Ground Floor, Second Floor and Top Floor - no maps are given and the text doesn't actually state its shape or diameter. One of the typos, "As the players accent the stairs" ... they encounter a couple of CR 1 guards, then their main opponent - a 6th Level Necromancer with six Attack Spells, several Defensive Spells and the option of Flight - with which he is intended to Escape “I will have my revenge". This villain has 4 basic Skeletons to hold back the Party and the author has provided a twist to assist them if things get rough. The rewards here are a +1 Dagger (why isn't the Necromancer using it?), three Potions, 78 GP and 430 SP. I would have liked to see a lot more Color at the Tower. And some in the Village too - what's distinct about the people the party is tasked to rescue ?

Whimsical but at times droll and perhaps some of the humor (?) is better in a language other than English ? I can say "Expert Oar" and "Pipe of the Mentor" are my favorites. The proof-reading failed in a score of places, e.g. "Seashell of Truth. Approach this seashell on your ears to listen the mellifluous swash of the waves. It can also be used as payment to benefit of the help of a marine serpent." and "Abundance pot. If you cook a meal in this pot, it will serve 1d10 ad many portions you out in it. You will not prepare more banquets as before! " and "Torn up network. It emits slight bluish glows. Only useful for capturing spirits (ST: medium, Wis). " and "Rewinding rope. You can tug the rope after use it, to recall it in your hand. The knots you made magically melt. You can make knots that no one can melt." (IMHO #88 seems self-referential to this RagingBarbarian )

I intend to use this as the basis for a campaign someday, my wife and I love the inspirational source, and I like the idea of a near-future setting thrust into a galactic maelstrom. Includes a scant half page of guidelines or suggestions for Character generation; a tie-in to the Mongoose edition with a Omega Base Career/Life Events table would be a nice addition - and wouldn't personnel sent from Earth receive any specific minimal training for the Lunar environment ? Detailing a vehicle or two, or the deckplans for an Eagle would have made this a 5-Star package for me.

11 pages of topical content, no maps. The adventure centers on "a non-aligned agricultural world ... sparsely populated. It has no major cities and a type E star port." and it's star is now about to go nova ! While many have already left in an orderly fashion "nightly news across the sector displays images of people desperate to get off ... while it is still possible." Now a charitable organization is offering you 10,000 Cr for each person rescued ! Eight fairly straightforward "complications" are listed, #1 restates the premise, none is outstanding as a twist. There's a table to randomize how soon the star explodes - as written it's possible that this will be a very short adventure ! Three principal categories of encounters have NPC's detailed ; desperate-to-escape passage seekers, various and sundry members of the populace milling about, and a squad of ship-jackers with a plan. "The Supernova will happen ... If the travelers are still in the system when it happens they will be killed along with those left on the planet." I think I would add in several someones wanting to go TO the planet ; perhaps a star-cultist seeking glorious "ascension", a biologist or a Collector keen to save a species from extinction, and certainly a Veteran who's been away and now needs to reunite with family. And this event ought to be quite the magnet for thieves, pirates and slavers.

The alternate and expanded Mishap and Career Event tables for Agent, Drifter, Entertainer, Merchant, Nobility, Psion, Rogue and Scholar are appreciated. There are TWO d66 Life and Unusual Event tables providing many new twists on Travel, Relationships, Good Fortune, Betrayals, etc. I've mined Career Book 1 considerably for my home-brew universe (which is akin to 2300 AD and High Colonies.) I find the Colonists, Corporate Citizens and Workers detailed here more to my tastes and millieu than Book 10 Cosmopolite.

I definitely plan on deploying the variants to my world. Thanks.

Essentially starting with an Adventure was a little confusing, but it was actually a decent, funny adventure. The system is intended to be really simple, I wish the expansions were available here.

This is one of the early companion pieces to original Traveller, M & M is copyright 1981 and written with little consideration to the standard Third Imperium canon that was admittedly still in under development at the time, "... the Merchant Service. With traditions descended from the ancient Merchant Marine of Terra". This book was intended to bring the Merchant career up to par with the "detailed" or "advanced" Army and Navy characters produced by Book 4 Mercenary and Book 5 High Guard, (in)famous for giving Characters 50% or more Skills than the original rules - Book 6 Scouts was still two years away, and Merchants and Merchandise was out a year in advance of the similar minded "Special supplement" for Merchants issued by GDW (and the full blown Book 7 Merchant Prince came out in 1985) so Donald Rapp certainly deserves quite a bit of credit. M & M introduced several new Skills, including separate Jump Drive Engineering and Low Berth Maintenance, plus expanding on a couple of Skills recently introduced by Mercenary and High Guard. It used a variation of the pre-career College option, and detailed a Merchant Service Academy to prepare young men and women for the Galaxy (think young Lieutenant Grimes). Characters are tracked year by year, serving in a Division, possibly Cross-training or taking a Specialty School, etc. One unique feature was that successive Specific Assignments, entitling a Character to a Skill gained, could span one, two or four years - which really made a kind of sense when compared to High Guard and Mercenary.

The Merchandise section includes a note that ties the products therein to their upcoming Vanguard Reaches, and Beyond sectors, "spinward" of GDW's two year old Spinward Marches, a seminal work in solidifying the canonical Third Imperium. The Eternity Circuit Module was a bizarre gimmick that seems to presage Nanite technology. There are four robots that are comparable to the robots in Adventure 2 - Research Station Gamma. There are two starships described, first the 150-ton Wind class noted as a modification of the 100-ton Serpent class Scout (as seen in Scouts & Assassins), the Winds are yachts or research/hospital ships with Jump 3 capability and accommodating up to 18 people (color-coded deck plan included). The other ship is a winged Far Trader featuring a Jump Governor [an outdated concept] and the "organic" computer that's the next Merchandise entry. There's also an explicit foray into ultra-tech with Matter Transporters ("to become a Transporter Specialist, an individual needs Navigation-1, Computer-1 and six weeks of training for familiarization. At the end of six weeks practice, throw 8 + for skill: DM'S for Intelligence 8+ (+1) , Dexterity 9+ (+ 2), and for each successive six week training session ..." )

As Adventure 4 - Leviathan - was (and is) one of my all time favorite Traveller settings Merchants & Merchandise was a great boost. It produced pretty interesting Merchant crew to blend with Scouts and Marines to fill our Merchant Cruiser as it probed the frontier.

First things first - part of this Book is a recap of psi powers included in the Basic Rules, nothing unreasonable about that and it's only about 5% of the product - what's new is greater detail on "Defining Psionics" including a reference to Tech Levels and several new Skills (found on page 54), how to acquire psi powers in "Doors of Perception" which dovetails nicely with some of the new Careers such as the Dedicated Psion Agency, Psi Scholar and Mystical Order (and those Careers plus several more get a full treatment with d66 Events table). Latent psychic potential is also covered nicely.

This Book is clearly going to be useful with Hammers Slammers and the Babylon 5 versions of MT, plus Cthulhu !

Psionic Trauma is given a chapter and it includes reference to insanity and phobias, but here I would have liked to see an optional link to Psi combat or assault - I expect not every ref' or every milieu wants a psychic attack to translate into just the equivalent of a gunshot or swordcut, but to do that of course would have needed a rewrite of the earlier Basic Rules for Telepathic Assault so instead there's "Psionic Attack", a distinct Advanced Talent, and only it includes a way to induce Trauma. The aforementioned phobias run from Ablutophobia to Zoophobia, 4 dense summary pages, many are rather obscure and will probably prove difficult to make relevant.

The New Equipment section didn't thrill me as much s some other parts, way back in the beginning of this Book there's reference to even Average Stellar tech levels of the Imperium making common use of Psi - I would have liked to see some Megacorp products laid out, only from other sources do we know SuSAG produces Psi drug, but how does Makhidkarum or Sternmetal Horizons engage Psi tech ?

This was part of my first purchases from DriveThru, which by the way was quick and easy and most satisfactory - I'm a traditionalist and collector and I'd prefer to have the hardcopies but there was no easy way to get the Mongoose Traveller books I wanted at a reasonable price (no local store had the correct supply chain) so I gave this system a try and got several products for the price of one real book.

I'm quite pleased with the Mongoose Traveller line, I've been a fan of Traveller since its beginning and I appreciate this "reboot" of the original even more than some of the intermediate editions. Kudos for the folks who wrote and play tested Psion, and the editor too. I definitely going to include some of the "advanced" powers into my ongoing (non-Imperium) campaign as it grows, we recently had two new characters achieve Training and that's going to add a new dimension to the game.