"This dog doesn't even appear in the scenario" It damn sure will if I'm running it, that is a quality dog.

I'm afraid at how smart Jack is now compared to Seth, the personalities are starting to diverge. Within a couple months it's gonna be like the movie Split I'm telling ya...

Come for Seth, stay for Jack. Who am I kidding... I come for Jack.

The first minute was a Pronunciation and mythological ride.

There will be spoilers? You overestimate my memory!

17:06 You can actually take a bunch of features of real-life squid that a lot of people don't know they can do and incorporate those. In fact, you mention bioluminescence and bioluminescent ink? Those are both things that certain species of real life squid (in particular the firefly squid) can do. Here are a few others: - Rapid color cycling. Squids have color changing cells in their skin called chromatophores that adjust the color of their skin on the fly. While many species of cephalopod use this for camouflage, squid primarily use it as a means of communication, threat display, and even helping them hunt by disorienting prey by rapidly cycling between colors like a strobe light. - Tooth-studded tentacles. Unlike octopus, which mainly use suction power for their sucker cups, squid--being much more active and aggressive predators--make use of hooked teeth that dig into the flesh of prey. Like fishing hooks, they're designed to sink in deeper the more potential prey struggles, making them difficult to escape from. In colossal squid, these hooks are almost as large as an average human finger. - Speed. The jets of a squid can propel them through the water at speeds of up to 25 mph. They are also quite agile, capable of quick stops and changes of direction. Combined with the above-mentioned color cycling, this makes them very difficult to track visually in the water. -Aggression. Squids are aggressive, active predators. They charge and envelop prey with their tentacles and will try to rapidly bring them towards their beaks in order to deliver a killing bite. Squids are also known to be aggressive towards each other. In large congregations, squid have been known to attack, kill and eat each other while feeding. All in all, if you want inspiration on the squid attack, or any other use of cephalopods, I'd say go on youtube and look up "Humboldt Squid Feeding Frenzy". Big disclaimer though: be prepared for overwrought sensationalist hooey. Most squid are too small to attack humans and even those as big as humboldt squid can't kill you outright and the odds of running into one in open water are astronomical. You're more likely to get hit by a boat than dragged to the depths by a humboldt while going for a swim.

Plot twist, dog is the last member of the precursors which built Calixcuel :)

21:00 Don't get us wrong, it's a good dog. But if we can't pet the dog in this adventure, it's a waste of dog art. Either give us a dog, or include different art.

Never played Traveller but can't miss a Seth's video.

These Traveller reviews are great, but they're killing me. I *just* started running a Pulp Cthulhu campaign, I feel like I'm cheating on it just by watching these...

Don't think the uptick in video and audio quality goes unnoticed!

Look. Every game should include pronoucation guide.

Nahuatl is a tongue twisting language.

Quick thought I had about the hook: earlier in the video you said that rather than the big fancy proper generator the tower is supposed to have, the local government bought some outmoded starship generators to provide power. With that in consideration, the crew of an active starship should reasonably contain at least one person knowledgeable and capable of properly turning on a starship engine, so they probably actually *are* fully qualified for the task.

Jack as Seth's player: these people are weirdly friendly. They MUST be inhumanely tortured! Me: Have you ever worked in the service industry? Crank that up to twelve and that's basically what you're getting here. In addition, the beginning-which I'm far from the first to comment on-shows a real big increase in these reviews being pieces of entertainment in themselves along with more practical use as module reviews and packets of advice for said scenario. And not like this needs a third point, but I wholeheartedly agree with your point of official Traveller art being more like file photos than something that is intended to assist a shared narrative. Especially NPCs, who have these pointedly neutral expressions that show little character if any.

I already know from that cover and the title that this is going to be the "Call of Cthulhu crossover" one.

As a grossly multilingual person and someone who subconciously says "Skorkovski" any time I want to mention any of Seth's content, Jack telling Seth how to say it was exceedingly funny. Well done.

Seth! I'm pretty sure you were referring to "Kowloon Walled City", which was located in Hong Kong until it was demolished in the 80s. It was never a part of China or referred to as such. It is a super interesting place. Many of the inhabitants were refugees from mainland China. Thanks for the video!

Great going Seth. Your channel is what got me into H.P. Lovecraft and Roleplaying. When I found your channel, I had just started learning about Roleplaying, and was curious on what game I should run. I now GM a CoC and Pulp Cthulhu game, as well as a Cyberpunk 2020 game and some 5e games. I’ll probably pick up the Traveler books in the future, since from what I’ve seen it sounds just up my alley.

Loved the pronunciation joke, especially that I'm Polish and always thought you are pronouncing your name in weird way ;)

Seth, thanks for all you do. Love your vids and books!

That slow clap to the pun...

Great video as always. I'm going back through all of your Traveller videos because you've convinced me and my group to give it a try. Also, I just want to say that I watched this last night, and I'm really coming back here to comment because you piqued my interest with your comment about the guilty pleasure Deep Rising movie. I went out and rented it and watched it last night afterwards, and I have to say, I can't believe I missed that movie growing up in the 90s. It was a blast. Peek 90s monster flick. Thank you for leading your audience to such great content all the time.

Just finished a 10 hour study session. Boy did this come at a right time. Love watching your videos, regardless of the system(I mostly play D&D). I think you perfected the balance between adventure/system specific info, general DMing and RPG advice, humor and entertainment. And of course, Jack has impeccable timing. I think I speak for everyone when I say that I'd love to see you run a quick one-session adventure. It would be great to see you in your element, and I think a ~45 minute edited down version of the session would even be better than the full thing.

Couldn't the players also escort an engineer(s) to work on the plant and the players are his protection team and/or assistants?

I'm enjoying your Traveller reviews for scenarios and was wondering out of all scenarios you have reviewed which ones were the best fit for you and your group?

Argh, I am playing subnautica these days, and I thought this would be very interesting ... Ocean depths can be dark and intimidating ! However, this adventure seems little bit bland. I think this needed somekind of mythos to the colossal squids, and some extra mission(s). Like maybe these squids are sentient, and some remnants of the precursor race which built the cities. And after recovering the power plant and saving the submarine, the group recovers some plot info which leads them to a final mission to deal with the squids master plan to destroy the city. Maybe they are summoning some kind of shub niggurath or trying to activate an ancient weapon, or self destruct mechanism etc.

Sounds like a campaign in this world could take some inspiration from the movie (or book by Crichton) called: Sphere.

Hey Seth, Just wanted to say that your videos are great, consistently informative and very entertaining. Thank you for all your hard work!

You could also have the first ship of expert engineers being hired by the mob boss, and the PC's are just hired to carry extra "diagnostic equipment". Then the ship of engineering experts is attacked and destroyed by a rival, someone who wants to supplant the mob boss.

Never played a tabletop RPG, though over the years, I’ve considered trying to find a group to try it out with. I don’t know how I came across your videos, but I really enjoy your videos, Seth. Goofy and entertaining and your passion really comes through. Thanks for sharing your special brand of nerditude!

Loving the pre warning use of Jack. Great work Seth

The Home Depot comparison had me on the floor XD Brilliant. And yet, so many modules over the years have had this exact issue.

I've been a big fan of this channel for a long time. This series in particular influenced me to pick up the Traveller Core Book, Highguard, and the Central Supply Catalogue to possibly run for my group one day. Cheers, Seth. Keep em coming.

Great review as always! I like that you ad tips & small tweaks that might help other running this or that adventure. I should rewatch your videos to try to internalize the types of changes you do, which would help me write some scenarios of my own to get a game going and feel like it's going to be interesting for the players.

6:21 "They asked me if I had a degree in theoretical physics, I told them I had a theoretical degree, and they hired me on the spot."

Me: "I saw that cover art. What Lovecraftian horror awaits us in this module?" Seth: "Literal squids." Me: "Things with tentacles where they're supposed to?" Seth: "Yep." Me: "Spooky!"

It makes me so happy you are also a Deep Rising fan!

I was considering putting together a CoC session with themes centred around something akin to "The Abyss". Many parts of this Traveller Module, I could easily adapt to fit what I'm going for. Soon as I saw the squids, my eyes and ears perked up. Thanks very much Seth! I think a PC Investigator with a high ranking Brother/Sister/Uncle/whatever, stationed in an deep underwater trial complex (current era) that has requested aid from our resourceful team, could get us down there for a plausible reason. The threat(s) can even come from more than one source but ya can bet Deep Ones will be one of them, heh.

Hmmm, maybe .... the squid are drawn to the reactor because the radiation does something for them ? Or that when the ancients' city was uninhabited it was their breeding ground, and now they've returned to spawn ...

Sweet! Another awesome Skorkowsky video!

I feel like a through line common to your Traveller reviews (and from my own experience looking through these adventures) is that there aren't enough maps in these adventures. I really hope Mongoose is paying attention there, because I absolutely *love* everything else about this system. Travellermap.com is absolutely ridiculous and beautiful, the hexadecimal planetary codes, the sheer abundance of 3rd party/previous edition/"official" tools to help make adventures is staggering. But, I'm just starting out on running Traveller games, and more area maps would be a godsend.

Based on the cover art I was a little disappointed that the scenario wasn't space squids.

Expanding the scenario: If PCs save the city, a looter should try interest PCs in a treasure hunt for a old armory in a flooded part of the city. Local government will need assistance with hull breaches and other TL10+ repairs. Throw in a double cross, old security AI, unstable munitions, etc to complicate the salvage

Re: the squid. One of the things that I've found can really scare players is when something they thought was a dumb beast actually has some intelligence. Given the alien races in the Traveller universe, they shouldn't take anything for granted. Another thing that give players a fright is when they learn what they thought were malevolent beasts were acting out of self-preservation or -defense. Since the squid are apparently sensitive to loud noises, maybe some of the crappy equipment is creating some kind of non-human-perceptible sound or effect that is affecting the squid.

The advice to provide options between various obstacle is a hidden gem here.

Just made my week, please keep doing what you do man.

When I ran the module I used this whole topic of hiding the planet's overpopulation as a hook for my group: they worked for a noble overlord of Pax Rulin, who was an ally to Chalchitlicue's government, and were sent by him to do the job secretly.

These just keep getting better and better, thanks Jack... err... I mean Seth

For the setup, you could also have the characters visiting the place on a rando mission, such as a bag drop/pickup for the aforementioned off-world crime boss. Then have the only engineer on duty at the station who is capable of fixing the power plant get killed in an accidental collapse when the sub is attacked and strikes the wall near the plant in which he was located at the time. Mad scramble for a ship engineer (character) and could also lend an opportunity to warn the character about the malfunctioning bot that was in the same location. Perhaps have the bot be the cause of the original engineer getting killed, thus adding that as further reason for having the space cowboys go in.

Fantastic production as always Seth! Please do more Pulp Cthulhu or Gaslight too :)

I really like Jack giving Seth grief over not knowing Aztec mythology.

The remnants of the old Sindalin Empire has a lot (a *LOT!*) of worlds with sentient giant squid/Kraken type creatures, many with psionic, or psionic-like abilities. Want to "Alien-up" the squids, give them some psionic abilities. (And the little mouths at tentacle's end as well!👍)

Good review and thank you for helping making this year less horrific :)

You Fukin' RAWK, Seth Skorkowsky. I played 'Tunnels & Trolls' before D&D came out. Still have the original 3 Traveller Core Books - been rollin' since the early 80's. I'm a serious fan of the Lovecraft/Cthulu genre, epic fantasy & hard-care sci-fi. Table topped D&D, Star Frontiers, Gamma-World, Top Secret, all the Traveller editions & played around w/many others+home-brews (had a pretty good unpublished 1700-1800 Pirate rpg) - Hey; Thanks for all you do, amigo. I really enjoyed your recent live-stream and all your great vids on YT. Cheers! PS: I also have a difficult last name - its very German. Has half the alphabet. Includes imlauts. I learned the alphabet at an early age. And got called silly names. Sempre Fi.

I could imagine my players getting to the reactor and realizing at that moment they lied to get the job and have no clue how to fix it.

Maybe in the previous adventure the travelers screwed over a group of engineers and left them stranded on a nearby planet

Seth, you are wonderful! Great work :D

Another Great review, I just started a campaign running High and Dry, and I have to say your review and suggestions helped, especially as rusty at GMing as I am, it went Great, we all had a Blast.

Something I would add after watching this is an encounter with large alien crabs. The reason the squid near the city have been getting more aggressive is the crabs (which are the squids food source.) has been using the city with its anti-squid torps as a haven for years now. when the incident happens some of the local crab population flee from the squids attacking the city by squeezing through breaches or creating their own. the travelers are attacked either after a breach happens nearby or as they get closer to the bottom they run into a colony that snuck into a unused area and created a nest there. the travelers can use defeated crabs as lures for the squid near the downed sub. But that is just my two cents and its probably stupid.

Please keep being awesome

Excuse me while I go watch 3h of videos on the walled city! xD Thanks for another great vid! :D

It’s like the Bizarro Towering Inferno.

Gotta admit, that would be an almost perfect mission for a Stargate RPG. Put the gate in the tower, the locals think its art or something, the SG team gates in. Throw in a twist that their secondary reactors are generating a frequency that is harmful to the squids, and the procured starship reactor will amplify the problem without proper tuning. Have the local workers be honest about the population problem, they have nothing to lose, and they have a reason to think the strangers could help as they would have stepped out of the same kond of ancient tech as the city itself. On that note for the hook on the Traveller side, perhaps the PCs arrive in a ship at the same tech level as the city.

A third way to start the plot and have a reason for the characters to be hired is that 1 of the party members may be famous for being a good engineer or whatever job they need

So, I had a couple thoughts while watching this review. 1.) This would be a great framework for running an RPG Session/ game based on Subnautica. Just copy paste some of the leviathan class lifeforms from Sub and Below Zero as enemies, And take the Prawn Suit, Seamoth, and Cyclops and use them as skins for the mini-sub, dive suit, and Submarines. You could even change the company/ gov't that's handling the job as "Alternate Earths" or something. 2.) As far as obstacles and what not, perhaps you could have one of the NPC guides be an acting foreman or supervisor for the job, and have them mention something like "oh, there's been some problems with collapsing walls and broken stairs and stuff, but thankfully, this is a work zone, so we have blowtorches and hacksaws and stuff laying around that might be useful." Could give your PC's a chance to find some creative uses for like, Arc welders and stuff. I've been binge-watching all your CoC and Traveller stuff lately, now if only I could find a group to play in.

So that's the problem I have with Traveller art. It's not the quality or quantity, it's the lack of inspiring scenes. While it's not a deal breaker, I find it harder to get into the game because of it. Thanks for putting words on this issue! And thanks for the review of course.

In a Pirates of Drinax campaign, it's easy to slot the scenario in as the players being experts because they've been flying around with a TL15 reactor built along Sindalian lines; exactly the kind of thing you'd have in the city. And the scholar's tower on Drinax is exactly the kind of place you'd contact if you were a government who knew they'd need to find someone with that skillset. It's a pity I'm already running Gods of Marduk and I don't want to have the whole campaign be about waterworlds, submarines, and giant squids. At some point the players are going to have to do some piracy.

Hi Seth, have you ever thought about making KZfaq videos on creative writing or more specifically on writing RPG scenarios? I think you could grow your channel quite a bit and your current audience should love some how-to's and guides on the subject if they're into running home-brews and writing fiction. I know I am :)

It would be cool to give the scavenger guide a reason to betray the party, or at least present them with a moral quandry while they're down there.

I often watch Seth's Traveller videos to get ideas for Star Trek Adventures, which doesn't always work out. But regarding 5:49, it seems like a planet calling in some Starfleet engineers would actually make a lot more sense.

How about a video about lack of leadership? It's something what I have in my current group. Everyone has extremly high issue with making decision, it's something which slows entire sessions so strong that they aren't able to achive any goals.

Love this one. Good job Seth!

I love these Traveller videos. I'm totally stealing these ideas for my SWN game.

I do make an effort to include old characters and the actors who portrayed them in my games when I need NPCs. Whether or not I reveal their names from their past work depends on the group.

On a Traveller-related note, I love the background fluff behind this thing (which you can see in the preview): www.drivethrurpg.com/product/331011/Ship-Dossier-Kalevala-Class-Small-Pickets?src=newest_since Jump-capable picket ship for anti-piracy and limited emergency-response duties - that's nothing new. What is new is that the thing's been deliberately designed so that it's crew can't easily steal the thing and go a-viking themselves. It's not well-armed enough to actually beat most pirates, just good enough to make fights unprofitable for them and pirates are all about the money. If it goes rogue it has real problems refueling, can't jump fast enough to escape news that they're Black Hats anyway, don't have the guns to beat a navy patrol ship, and its missiles limit its effectiveness even more if they can't rely on resupply. It doesn't even do its official job well, just barely adequately, and it doesn't do pirate work worth a damn - and that's all deliberate. This is the kind of ship mean GMs can give a party gratis and see if they can find a way to use it for something profitable. Or throw in the way of piratical PCs without having to worry much about them maybe taking it as a prize if it comes to a fight. Such a great idea for a "combat" ship.

You could replace the squids with the reapers from the video game Subnautica. Those things are huge and terrifying.

Many , many years ago I played the proto adventure for this book with the arthur as we were both really keen on the disaster movie pulp feel. I think as seth says really go to town on the pulp like nature of a disaster movie. Also consider a villian , as all good movies need a villian. In this case perhaps the manager who has ignored the scientists about the squid and now needs to get rid of the evidence about his incompetence.

Wow. Sounds like they missed a golden opportunity for a randomized dungeon. Roll to determine how many levels you can go down via a stairwell before being stopped by debris, then roll on a table for obstacles & encounters while crossing that level to another stairwell. Rinse & repeat.

My initial reaction is that whilst they just arrived a port official comes over for an inspection and goes over the various details taking great care to ask if they need to perform any maintenance on their ship whilst they're here and if they can get the ship's engineer talking lead them into chatting about the power systems. If convinced they'd offer to cover the maintenance if they could spare their engineer to look at =a ship they recently got sold to get their opinion on it. Of course if they accept they later learn their engineer was taken to the underwater city and the other PCs naturally get worried (unless they all accompanied the engineer cue underwater montage ala Disney's Captain Nemo or the other 1950's series Voyage to the bottom of the sea!) and then they go looking for him/her.

You do a great job on your videos, Seth. Might a suggest an NPC a bit more saltier for this one based maybe on Robert Shaw? Ref: Jaws, the Deep, etc... Ok, enough from the peanut gallery.

Now I think about it, how about the population actually lives underwater in several underwater cities ever since the conflict that brought them almost to extinction? So the little surface land is used for the space port and what amenities they need to encourage visitors which is dependent on an underwater and surface cruise line industry. Few notice that the over population is actually hidden from view deep underwater. However recent problems at one of the power facilities has grown worse because they've unknowingly aggravated a sentient species that's stayed hidden far deeper than the human inhabitants have ever explored. The reactor they've cobbled together to help with the facility however is faulty and the leaking radiation is whats causing the long hidden giant squids to become violent. Their attempts to investigate have either failed because of the squids efforts to shut it down have damaged it too more to reach directly from inside via the access ports at the surface or half way down. The only means to reach it is to head straight for the bottom hangar trying to avoid the patrolling squid. Their latest effort to get help involved an off world engineer who took one look at what was actually going on then hoodwinked his handlers ran back to the space port and attempted to flee out of the system. Forced to hijack the ship and get it launched the port authorities tried to bring it back down but accidentally shot it down where it ended up in the ocean. So the PCs are crew and passengers on that hijacked shuttle now stuck underwater with an engineer in the midst of a psychotic break down literally would rather die than "go down there". They're eventually rescued and taken to the power facility mid port however the engineer unless overwhelmed and secured kills himself and anybody else is they aren't careful. So your PCs are asked for help. The power is cutting out and they need help getting down to the bottom of this facility and reboots the reactor safeties which should restore power as well as access to the elevator system so they can use that to return to the surface. I've ordered a copy of this adventure so looking forward to reading it!

your description of this adventure reminds me of the movie Deep Rising.

Of all the Traveller adventures, I find the Reach and Drinax adventures to be the most lacking. I was going to run this, and was like, way too much work. Sadly, this is kinda normal for Traveler adventures, basic scenarios that require the GM to flesh things out. Since I use Fantasy Grounds, that artwork, maps, etc are extremely useful, and it is heavily lacking. Of course, there is also a huge part of me that just hates the Reaches and Sindal areas :)

My players loved the adventure, we finished it in about 3h. Now they're just chilling in the resort of the starport playing holo games.

Funny enough the Hover dam was originally a make work project intended to help during the Great Depression, so getting a inexperienced plumber from the local hardware store is closer to the truth than many would imagine.

Total. Random. Dog. This is an example of where I think companies should take a cue from Chaosium. There is almost always action art in Chaosium products. It gives a bit of a framework for visualization. It is both good to look at AND inspiring. Description is so important to being an effective GM and art can be functional as well as beautiful. That said, you HAVE gotten me into Mongoose Traveller and I'm patiently waiting on my copy of Behind The Claw to arrive. :)

I enjoyed this! I enjoy all of your videos. A bit disappointed that the campaign itself didn't give more Lovecraftian vibes.. it really felt like it was set up for it. Maybe that's something I'd try to reach for, if I ever ran it...

so basically this planet is the Kwonloon City of Traveller Universe ?? Y...i...k...e...s...

Deep rising and ghost ship. Man, I need to watch those films again.

I think the cast Jack describes right at the end there might be setting things up for a slightly different kind of movie disaster.

7:15 ironic idea that the ship full of crack Engineers crashed ...

Maybe the squids ink could be like acid melting through stuff

Hm. The adventure might be underwhelming - but the core idea sounds promising... One thing I'd do for the diving/climbing down the flooded area would be a modification of the Cthulhu chase-rules. Under normal circumstances I love detailed maps - but for hundred floors, it's not only not feasable, it would simply bog down to a boring grind. I used this concept onces mapping out a fairly big dungeon/cellar/cave system in a CoC adventure. * Ignore the chasing itself and focus just on the locations and ways/obstacles (the dots and lines). * Draw some kind of web of locations and ways reaching from one initial point down to one or two endpoints. * You can have multiple ways to go from each location, you can include shorter (i.e. less locations) routes with more challenging obstacles or different kinds of obstacles (do you want to deal with a jammed hatch or an angry group of scavengers?) And as usual: To reach the next location you need to overcome some kind of test - mechanical engineering, explosives, athletics, swimming/diving - what have you. Locations may contain useful or dangerous encounters or simply tools / stuff to loot or a place to rest and heal up for a moment. If you want to have it fancy (As I did in that above mentioned CoC adventure) draw (or find) some cross-section image - it can be BIG (posterize might be your friend if you play offline). Just import your flooded arcology image in your painting program of choice, put a layer on top and put your location/way web above. I chose a design that looked a bit like the "Eldritch Horror" boardgame - with nice big image icons for the locations so the players already got a hint of what awaits them... Why do those monsters need to be squids at all? You can have a bunch of glowing orbs forming a squid-like hive creature, connected by a visible energy bands. The monsters still can suffer from damage like normal enemies - so damage weakens the energy bands rather than the individual bulbs - or you can have them be real hive-creatures. Which won't be affected by punctual damage at all, but still be susceptible to explosions and shock waves... This way you could have smaller hives or individual bubbles attack inside the structure... The potential of this adventure is absolutely stunning :D

6:15 it actually does make a lot of sense if you consider how primitive, isolated people behave in general. If a plane crashed on some island with little to know contact, you can bet your bottom dollar that the natives would expect a helicopter crew to be able to fix it. Travellers must seem incredibly worldly and knowledgable and advanced. If we found an advanced deep-sea city on earth we would probably expect visiting aliens of an advanced civilization to fix it. Kinda like how old people expect the minimum wage workers at Best Buy or Auto Plus to be full fledged engineers

Nice sound effects.

I hope you do a review of call of Cthulhu gateways to terror. 😊

I wonder a series of cold fusion power reactors piping in water to help supply the means to produce power however they haven't been careful and sea life also being sucked in has been clogging up the pipes and subsequent faults mean every attempt to perform routine maintenance has led to the teams disappearing because they didn't know the lower levels were flooded. In addition to that rogue drone and the squid and sharks accessing the lower section.

76K Subscribers! Seth you'd better start writing a script for a full-length movie starring you and only you!

What the heck is a fossit? Nice video as usual Seth.