A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Solomani Front

Solomani Front by Martin J. Dougherty is a role playing game supplement published by Mongoose Publishing for use with Traveller.

The supplement is available as a PDF collection from DriveThruRPG for $35.99 but was purchased at a reduced price during a sale. The supplement is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. There are three PDFs in the DriveThruRPG version, which is the one reviewed.

Solomani Front is the primary, 314-page PDF with two pages being the front and rear covers, one the front matter and Contents, two being subsector indices and one being the Index.

The short Introduction explains that the Solomani are the descendants of the humans left behind on Earth after the Ancients transplanted their kin all over Charted Space. They developed the jump drive, encountered the Vilani Empire, conquering it and replacing it with the Second Imperium, which quickly collapsed into the Long Night. The Third Imperium rose from this and was strongly influenced by the Solomani to start with. With the decline of Solomani influence, the Solomani Movement pressed for its own autonomous region, eventually leading to the Solomani Confederation and the war between it and the Imperium, which the Confederation lost. The Solomani Front consists of the Solomani Rim and Alpha Crucis sectors.

Chapter 1: Overview of the Solomani Front explains the term is used to refer to the border region between the Solomani Confederation and the Third Imperium. It covers the different peoples of the region, with most being humans of one form or another. New types of humans are Selenites and Aquamorphs and rules are given for creating Travellers for these. Non-Humans are covered, with rules for Ape, Gurungan and Ladybug Travellers; other species are also found in the area, but their rules are covered in other books, such as Behind the Claw for Dolphins.

Chapter 2: Imperial Territory gives an overview of the territory occupied by the Third Imperium, the Archduke of Sol, the Imperium’s strategic stance, Imperial military rule for those conquered parts of the Confederation where it still applies, Imperial Navy and Army in the region and colonial and planetary armed forces.

Chapter 3: Confederation Territory starts off similar to the previous chapter, but covers the Solomani Confederation’s armed forces, intelligence – the notorious SolSec – planetary Home Forces, culture and communications. Following this are astrographic and political factors, for the Confederation is officially an alliance of member governments. Detailed are various regional powers and factions of the Solomani Party; all of these tend to want different things and some are outright opposed to each other.

Chapter 4: Ships of the Solomani Front starts by looking at the differences between Imperial Navy and Confederation Navy ships and design philosophy, which is then followed by descriptions and deck plans of new ship types.

Chapter 5: The Vegan Autonomous District looks at this region which was created after the Solomani Rim War by the Imperium. It starts off looking at Vegans, their society and culture, government and military and history, before covering how to create Vegan Travellers. Highguard: Vegans covers Vegan ship design philosophy, with new modifications and more ships.

Chapter 6: Corporate Bodies and Non-State Organisations looks at these in the two sectors, starting with megacorporations, which are all but one Imperial, and a new ship design, smaller corporations within both the Imperium and Confederation, with new vehicles and a robot, political and cultural movements and finally criminal, paramilitary and insurgent groups. Each is given a short overview.

Chapter 7: The Solomani Rim begins with a map, an overview of the sector, its astrography and history, which is significant, being home to Terra, the Vegans and on the front lines between the First Imperium and the Rule of Man, and has a timeline.

The subsectors of the Solomani Rim are then described. Each is given an overview, system list, subsector map, details on some important planets and, in some cases, new equipment, descriptions of new vehicles, including deck plans and starship design for aquatic species, some new creatures and diseases. Sol System is covered in detail, given how many bodies in the system have been colonised.

Chapter 24: Alpha Crucis (yes, that is what it states and it’s clearly an error) starts with a history of the sector, including timeline, details on paraterraforming – sticking a bag around an asteroid and inflating it – and then covering subsectors in a similar manner to the previous chapter.

Chapter 10: Adventures in the Solomani Front (again, an error) has examples of different types of campaigns that could be run in the region.

Following this is a sector map showing the entire Solomani Confederation territory and neighbouring powers and sector maps of the Solomani Rim and Alpha Crucis showing the different territories.

The other two PDFs are both a single page in length and are sector maps of the Solomani Rim and Alpha Crucis.

Solomani Front in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with major and some minor sections linked, though not to a level of depth that the book really needs. The Contents is less thorough and is hyperlinked. Navigation could be a lot better. The text maintains a two-column colour format and, along with the major errors in the chapter numbers, some minor errors were noticed. There are a lot of colour illustrations, up to about half page in size, including for different starships and creatures. Presentation is good.

This supplement expands the area covered again and the Imperium is only one of two major powers in the region, with the Solomani Confederation still owning a large proportion of the two sectors, mostly concentrated in Alpha Crucis. Apart from the Vegan Autonomous Region, there aren’t really many minor powers in the area. There are some independent worlds and multi-system groups, but the majority of systems fall under the sway of one of the two major powers. Few of the worlds are covered in any greater detail than a line on a subsector list, but even then, there are a lot of potential adventure hooks. In particular, the presence of two major powers that fought a war comparatively recently, resulting in occupied worlds, adds a significant element of tension to the region. Solomani Front is a major expansion, including new ships, equipment, creatures and playable species, and it can be found by clicking here.