Ad Astra heading

I'm considering removing the AD ASTRA link at the top of the bar there above; or at least changing it.  Right now, that's a collection of links to the blog posts that make up the AD ASTRA system.  However, I've spent some time the last few days copying all of that content into a Google Sites link, which is a better format in most respects than a bunch of blog posts.  Also; while doing so, I corrected a number of small things (mostly typos and inconsistent space ethnicity spelling conventions; fixed all Dhangeti to Dhangetan or Dhangetans, for example, and fixed all Cilindan to Cilindarean.)  This doesn't rise to the level of a new revision; it's more like mere errata, actually.  But going back and back-correcting all of the blog posts to now match the Google pages would be both difficult and... honestly, I'm not motivated to do that.  I could change all of the links to point to the Google pages, but there's already a Google index page that describes what everything is, so I'm not very motivated to do that either.  I'm thinking the whole thing needs to go to be replaced by a single link to the new AD ASTRA home.  I probably won't get around to it immediately, but something will need to be done with it.

In the meantime, it's worth pointing out that I still lack a bestiary, or monster manual, or alien anthology, or creature catalog, or whatever you want to call it.  Until that's done, I can't consider the game "complete", so maybe that's what I'll wait for.  When that's finally done, then I can finish the migration of the game from the blog to the wiki, and I just put a link to it somewhere permanent.

I also have two character sheet options available—not that you need either; I kinda like the notion of writing out your character in pencil on a sheet of notebook paper like we did as kids with our B/X games and whatnot.  But if you are interested in them, I've got them on the RPG Rules page.  The small one fits on one side of one page and has space for not only your character, but also his space ship, if he has one.  The standard one has the character on one page and the spaceship on the other, presuming that you will print it on both sides of one sheet of paper.  The standard character sheet is relatively large; you could write on it with magic marker almost, but if you're my age and prefer larger documents so you can see them better, well, that's the way to go.  By design, of course, the system is pretty rules-light, so defining your character isn't supposed to take a lot of space.  I'd be hesitant to say you can just write him up on a 3x5 index card—although you could, actually, if you really wanted to, and it wouldn't be all that difficult.

I've also attached the sector map on the Setting page.  To read it, you need to be familiar with both the star mapping protocol, as well as the starship and space travel rules, or it probably won't make as much sense as you'd like (although if you're familiar with Traveller, it should look similar enough for you to easily interpret it.)  I also said the following about the map:

• It's color coded for political affiliation:
• Red—Bernese system
• Pink—Bernese ally
• Blue—Revanchist system
• Light blue—Revanchist ally
• Purple—Imperial system
• Lavender—Imperial ally
• Green—Cilindarean system
• Light green—Cilindarean ally
• Gray—Dhangetan system
• Beige—Smaller polity
• Yellow—Independent
• The red systems at the top represent the border of the Bernese Monarchy.  The red systems further down in the map represent colonies that are somewhat autonomously governed and outside of the royal "heartland" so to speak.
• The same is true for the Republic (heartland's border is in the very far top right corner) and the Seraean Empire: the border is the line of purple systems to the right.  This sector is not one that's on the mainstream space-lanes—in fact, space lanes are mostly unestablished altogether for this region.  This is a colonial region, and the "vibe" of the New Alderamin sector should be similar to the "Scramble for Africa".
• This is not true, however, for the Dhangetan territory, which is completely within this sector, or the Cilindarean Arm, about half of which is in this sector.  Both, however, should be seen as considerably smaller territories than the Republic, the Monarchy or the Empire.
• There are three levels of development for the sector map—those that have star system data sheets (considered more or less "fully" developed", those that have only names but no other development, and those that have neither.  I'm actually considering leaving it exactly like that—some setting development is both necessary and desirable, and leaving some systems named but undeveloped gives me some opportunities as well.  But having a large number of systems that are there, but about which I know literally nothing except that they're there is a good thing.  It gives me plenty of leeway to create as needed on the fly.