Bottom Line Up Front: The Gwad Urm System Defense Destroyer Quick Ship File is an interesting, if somewhat non-standard, ship design that can easily be dropped into your setting or adventure when a perhaps slightly above-average in-system ship is needed.
One of the oldest ships in the Traveller RPG universe is the System Defense Boat. A System Defense Boat—or SDB—is a non-jump capable ship (i.e. no Faster than Light FTL drive) optimized for planetary defense within a star system. Long ago, Traveller Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats wrote:
THE SYSTEM DEFENSE BOAT: The term boat means a non-starship, whether a gunboat, a ship’s boat, or a system defense boat. Because non-starships can allocate more tonnage to power plants and weaponry, they can usually defeat a starship of equal tonnage. From this principle, the concept of the system defense boat has evolved. Fleets of such boats are stationed in important systems and charged with their defense. From stations in orbit, they defend the primary world. From stations deep within the local gas giant, they attack enemy ships in the process of refuelling. In extreme situations, they can scatter and hide, in asteroid belts, on airless worlds, and in the depths of oceans; later they strike out again, hitting the enemy from the rear or when least expected.
Traders and Gunboats, 1980
Jumping back into our timeline, in 2023 Moon Toad Publishing released another entry in their Quick Ship Files series called Gwad Urm Class System Defense Destroyer. The use of “destroyer” confused me at first until I read in the General Description that, “The “Destroyer” nomenclature is deliberate, to separate this ship design designation from similar ships without a missile bay.”
The Gwad Urm System Defense Destroyer Quick Ship File is more than just another Adventure-class ship description. Coming in at 38 pages this Quick Ship File includes:
- Ship description.
- Specifications.
- Crew Manifest.
- Deck plans.
- Incredible artwork by Ian Stead.
The design of the Gwad Urm is a nice example of how flexible the Traveller/Cepheus Engine starship generation process can be. In addition to its non-standard missile bays (not often fitted on such a small ship) the “dual” engine arrangement of a 5G-capable boat with both 4G “boost” with 1G “cruise” engines is interesting and lends itself to adventure seeds that call on that different engine and fuel use arrangement.
The Gwad Urm System Defense Destroyer Quick Ship File also includes an adventure featuring this plucky little destroyer. There is also a table of Random Patrol Scenario Seeds which includes everything from “War Duty” where the ship must hang above a hostile planet and destroy weapons of mass destruction as they are launched to the mundane but perhaps more adventuresome situations like, “It is the birthday party of a notoriously brusque senior member of the crew.” Two other very nice parts of the book are the inventory of the Ship’s Locker and a graphic for die rolling a random ship location.
The Gwad Urm System Defense Destroyer Quick Ship File is available on DriveThruRPG for a mere $7.50 as I write this post. The digital download includes the 38-page book, another file of just the deck plans, as well as a file of Virtual TableTop (VTT) assets. Overall a very fair bargain for the volume of content received.
Feature image courtesy Moon Toad Publishing
The opinions and views expressed in this blog are those of the author alone and are presented in a personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Navy or any other U.S. government Department, Agency, Office, or employer.
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