Battletech - Touring the Stars - Butte Hold (2016).pdf

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TOURING THE STARS
BUTTE HOLD
A BATTLETECH SOURCEBOOKS COMPANION
BATTLETECH
TM
TOURING THE STARS
TM
BUTTE HOLD
Under License From
®
E-CAT35SN210
©2016 The Topps Company Inc. All rights Reserved. Touring the Stars: Butte Hold, Classic BattleTech, BattleTech, BattleMech
and ’Mech are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of The Topps Company, Inc. in the United States and/or other
countries. Catalyst Game Labs and the Catalyst Game Labs logo are trademarks of InMediaRes Production, LLC.
INTRODUcTION
We began on Terra, a lonely, blue-green speck in the vastness of the void. It has been more than a millennium since
mankind ventured to the stars beyond home, and while it has been a tumultuous history—at the very least—we have
discovered, explored, and conquered worlds that our ancestors could only dream about. Humanity now occupies more
than two thousand worlds stretched across a vast range of interstellar space known as the Inner Sphere.
For humanity as a whole, Terra, at the heart of it all, will forever be known as “Home.” But for the far greater majority
of us, “home” is a very different speck amidst the infinite black. Our homes are many, varied, beautiful, and filled with
rich histories—each unique to itself.
In the grand scale of interstellar history, it often becomes so easy to forget this, to see planets and solar systems as
dots on an abstracted map. But, at the core of the matter, each of those dots is a place where men, women, and children
live, work, love, and survive. Join us on a special tour of the Sphere, as we explore the richness of these worlds like
never before!
—Professor Bertram Habeas,
Touring the Stars: One World at a Time,
Free Republic Press
elcome to
Touring the Stars,
a campaign supplement designed to offer players the opportunity to learn about the worlds of
the Inner Sphere, Periphery, and beyond.
The background information contained in the
Atlas
section gives players a world’s geography, history, notable events, and other
tools needed create an unlimited number of
BattleTech
games for play, while the
A Time of War
section offers plot seeds and details
for the planet’s more notable events. These plot seeds can be used as stand-alone games, woven into an existing game or as part of
a larger on-going campaign.
The
Rules Annex
section explains planetary
Atlas
information for use in gameplay, as well as optional terrain tables, weather, and
flora/fauna rules. Terrain tables can be used as a random chart to determine gameplay maps, or simply as a guide to provide ideas
on the types of terrain found on the world. This section also contains a list of other rules that can be used to enhance your game
experience. All players should agree whether or not to use any or all of these features before play.
Note:
The last four pages of this PDF are sized for 11” x 17” paper. Please keep this in mind when printing out the document.
W
cREDITS
Project Development:
Joshua C. Perian
BattleTech Line Developer:
Randall N. Bills
Assistant Line Developer:
Ben H. Rome
Products Developer:
Ray Arrastia
Writing:
Aaron “Gravedigger” Pollyea
Editing:
Herbert A. Beas II
Production Staff
Layout:
Ray Arrastia
Maps:
Ray Arrastia, David Kerber, Patrick Wynne
Factchecking/Playtesting:
Stephan Frabartolo,
Eric Salzman, Chris Wheeler
Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank Joshua Perian for
giving me the opportunity to once again write for
BattleTech and to expand the universe that we all love.
Haha, Butte Hold!
STAR LEAGUE ERA
CLAN INVASION ERA
JIHAD ERA
SUCCESSION WARS ERA
CIVIL WAR ERA
DARK AGE ERA
3
ATLAS
BUTTE HOLD
Star Type (Recharge Time):
G8V (189 hours)
Position in System:
3 (of 7)
Time to Jump Point:
6.19 Days
Number of Satellites:
None
Surface Gravity:
1.02
Atm. Pressure:
Standard (Breathable)
Equatorial Temp:
39
o
C (Desert)
Surface Water:
43 percent
Recharging Station:
None
HPG Class:
B (2750, and post-3120)
Highest Native Life:
Fish
Population:
205,000 (3150)
Socio-Industrial Levels:
D-F-F-D-B
Landmasses (Capital City):
Throline (Butte Hold,
aka Raider’s Roost)
Butte Hold has had a long history of being the home of criminals
and iconoclasts, and this nearly 700-year history continues to influence
the planet’s destiny today. The planet had less nefarious beginnings
when a group of ichthyologists and aqua-culturalists originally settled
it from Apollo in 2597 who felt that selective breeding of the native
fish-analogue species could produce a high protein food source for
Rim Worlds Army field rations. The large, shallow, and briny seas of
their world provided ample species to experiment on and the relative
old age of the planet (nearly a billion years older than Terra) meant
genetic diversity was high. The scientists and farmers set up their
research colony on the wide salt flats on the planet’s single equatorial
landmass, along the northern Selenide Sea. They named the world
Butte Hold after the tall rhyolite butte they built their research and
storage facilities into.
After two decades of inhabitation, the Rim Worlds Republic claimed
the world. While this did little to impede the scientific research or
change the lifestyle of the few dozen permanent inhabitants, the
growing awareness of Butte Hold started to draw the wrong kind of
attention. Even during the arrival of the original waves of colonists, the
first large criminal organization began to set its roots into the dusty
soil of the world spanning equatorial Throline Desert. Known as the
Cavemen, the bandits would prey on new colonists settling the edge
of the Throline Desert and disappear into the deep limestone cave
networks common under the desert floor.
The original colonists did find success in engineering a better
protein source. But with more desirable and productive farming
locations for the newly bred krill on Apollo and Crellacor the farming
of the new micro-krill was moved off-world along with the planet’s
largest employer. The native micro-krill remain the primary native
food source to the present, with the compressed (and tasteless)
micro-krill cubes lovingly called “Butte Bricks”. A centuries-long
economic depression took hold, and many analysts in the Rim
Worlds government considered relocating the few inhabitants
as the cost of policing the world against the Cavemen and other
bandit gangs outweighed the profits of the strip mining of selenium
and tellurium salts from the Throline Desert. Many historians see
the Butte Hold Compromise of 2640 as a blunder, the RWA police
force was removed from the planet and the population was tasked
with forming their own police force from assets already on world.
That meant miners, farmers, and fishermen with no training and
little more than basic firearms would be left to defend themselves
against much better armed bandits. The lawlessness that followed
came to define Butte Hold.
During the Third Hidden War, the Draconis Combine made use of
the world as a staging ground for mercenary forces striking at the
Lyran Commonwealth. As the planet had no space traffic system,
no permanent staff for the HPG system, nor an official spaceport,
the Combine mercenaries were able to arrive and depart without
any official notice by anyone other than lone prospectors that knew
how to keep their mouths shut. The mercenaries used the same vast
limestone cave systems to hide their supply caches and repair bays
as the Cavemen of centuries before. This would all end in 2742 when
the Lyran Intelligence Corps traced a raid by the Combine mercenaries
from The Edge back to Butte Hold. Archon Michael Steiner deployed
both the entire Twelfth Lyran Regulars and a LIC team to Butte Hold.
The assault was a success with the Regulars wiping out the regiment of
mercenaries and LIC learning the origins of the mercenaries. The lack of
governance on Butte Hold was so great that the Rim Worlds Republic
4
ATLAS
didn’t learn of the battle for nearly six months, when Archon Steiner
and Coordinator Kurita came to blows over it in the winter Star League
Council session of 2742.
The dissolution of the Star League and the Rim Worlds Republic did
nothing to change life on Butte Hold. Foreign interest waned after the
last of the Lyran regiments passed through the system to conquer
worlds that were more important. In 2865 Butte Hold gained some
renewed interest as salt prospectors broke into an unknown cave
network that contained military rations, small arms, and ammunition
left over from the Third Hidden War. A brief land grab ensued with
other prospectors and families claiming areas of worthless desert in
an attempt to uncover more relics of the Star League era, with little to
show for it besides worthless wreckage left from the battles of 2742
and the occasional small find of repair parts or munitions. What good
did come of the land rush was limited to having nearly ninety-eight
percent of the population armed with pistols from the Star League
era. This statistic included even small children who were given guns
and taught how to defend themselves and their families. A saying
that circulated in the coreward Periphery at the time was, “Welcome
to Butte Hold, here’s your gun, here’s your ammo, and the hole in the
desert where you’ll end up is yours to find.”
The knowledge of the cave network and the possibility of more
hidden caches across the Throline Desert brought the attention of
Butte Hold’s most infamous citizen, Redjack Ryan. After splitting from
the Oberon Confederation and holding thousands hostage with the
threat of chemical weapons and the eventual death of half of the
population of Fianna, Ryan “borrowed” a JumpShip that he used to
flee to Butte Hold along with a battalion of BattleMechs formerly of
the Oberon Guards in 3017. Ryan proclaimed himself “King” of Butte
Hold—a title that had never existed before, nor had any meaning to
the locals besides how to address Ryan respectfully when they were
brought before him.
Redjack Ryan’s rule over Butte Hold was the strongest felt on the
world in its history, with BattleMechs patrolling the deserts and heavily
armed pirates in the small ocean-side settlements ensuring the only
law followed was theirs. Ryan placed his throne at the same butte on
the Selenide Sea that the original colonists had abandoned centuries
before and only now notable for the small abandoned HPG station on
the top of the butte. Declaring it the planetary capital, Ryan used the
tunnels and storerooms as his palace, his hostage camp, and his harem
of unwilling victims. Being brought to “the Butte” (or “Raider’s Roost” as
Ryan called it) as a citizen of Butte Hold meant death, life as a sex slave,
or worse—depending upon Ryan’s whims.
Between 3017 and 3028 Ryans’ forces grew along with his war
coffers after a series of successful interstellar raids. His pirate gang
grew to encompass more than two battalions of BattleMechs and
an assortment of combat vehicles used to guard his most important
convoys. DropShips full of stolen artwork, weapons, clothing, food,
and even ice were stored across the planet in the Throline Desert cave
complexes. The average citizen saw nothing of these of riches unless
they were buried alive with the loot to serve as a warning to others.
Even other planetary and interplanetary governments hesitated to
move against them due to his previous use of chemical weapons and
the risk to many of the hostages he held.
‘Urt
NI
DE
SE
A
SE
LE
BIG
FULLAS
CO
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TC
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Mater
ON
Raider’s
Roost
S
BIG
FULLA
T
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SELENIDE SEA
TA
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OF
LD
T H R O L I N E
POCKET SEA
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I N
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Thieves’
Harbor
T
HE
S
LO
TE
CH
CA
VE
UN
MO
S
INS
Singlestown
O
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SC
GROANING
PE
AKS
Yonker Oasis
Council of Water
Monastery
TO N G U E S W E
B AY
L
T H R O L I N E
G
R
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N
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SEA OF THE
RIGHTEOUS
Grennid
SEA OF THE
RIGHTEOUS
D
5

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