Freelance Traveller

A Job on Plaven

by Ewan Quibell

This article originally appeared in the September/October 2026 issue.

Author’s Note: This adventure was written following the publication by Mongoose of Behind the Claw for Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition, and using the information given about Plaven in that publication. It was submitted to Mongoose Publishing but was not accepted.

Adventure Synopsis

The adventure is set before the breakout of the fifth frontier war.

The PC’s are hired to take Dilara Avci, her equipment and information to Arden. Before they do however Dilara asks them to find the general location of a humanoid creature that she wishes to hunt while the PCs load up the cargo into their ship.

The humanoid creature is in fact Rosalie Campbell, the niece of the Count of Jewel who escaped Dilara and her pirate colleagues 12 years ago. Rosalie can implicate Dilara as part of the pirate group that operated from Plaven.

Dilara has an agreement with the Arden Society to provide them with sensor and trading data that was gathered by her pirate group form the ships and settlements they raided in exchange for a good life in Arden, a seat at the table, and thus immunity from Imperial prosecution.

Arrival

The PCs arrive in the Plaven system (0807 E845300-5 Lo G Cronor Subsector, Spinward Marches) for whatever reason.

That reason might be:

• As a detached scout they are asked by the Scout base on Emerald, Ruby or Jewell to undertake a survey and census of Plaven.
• That they heard rumours that Rosalie Campbell is still alive on Plaven – The rumours having started on Jewell from the Count’s household having hired a Psion to do a search for life with a reward for Rosalie’s safe return being substantial.
• The Arden Society ask them to visit Plaven with a message of “Yes” for Dilara Avci – the Society will pay the fuel and life support costs of getting there.
• That they have been given the locations of Cache number 2 and 4 by one of their underworld contacts in part repayment of a favour.
• Or something completely different that fits into the Referees campaign.

Upon landing at the flat rock that is designated as a “Downport” they are approached by an elder of the village next to it (the capital of Plaven). The village elder Johnis Souros has had a request from Dilara Avci to ask the next ship to land to contact Dilara for a job offer.  If the PCs are interested Johnis will say that he will put out a radio call this evening to Dilara, but he can’t offer more information than that (because he doesn’t know).

Waiting for the Call

Depending on how long the PCs have to wait until the radio call, there are a number of jobs that they can help the villagers out with.

• Johnis may ask questions such as “Don’t suppose you know anything about water pumps? Our’s seems to be on its last legs.” It’s not, it just needs a significant service, strip, clean and re-assemble with tools, and equipment you would normally find on a star ship. Any mechanic with a couple of hours free can get the job done (unless they spectacularly fail at the task).
• Or “Don’t suppose you have anything that can lift a couple of rocks a klick or so?” there are up to five rocks up to about ½ a ton each that Johnis would like moved to a small area next to the village. The villagers break the rocks to create stone bricks and aggregate for building materials and to fill in holes in the roads in the village (such as they are). Getting them next to the village would be a real boon as the villagers won’t then have to trek to the bricks and the aggregate back. Having the rocks carved into bricks and broken up would be even better. The villagers can provide material for a sling if the players have an airraft or some other type of grav vehicle available. Combat engineers, and grav pilots would come in handy.
• “O … could you pick up Eneri? He’s out on the hunt and has probably got a carcass that needs bringing back.” Eneri is about 10 klicks to the north of the village, and following a radio call will say he indeed has a carcass he’s bringing back, but if he’s being picked up he can get a couple more … If the players agree to pick him up by the time they get to his location he will have four carcasses to transport.

As you might expect the villagers don’t have anything that they can pay the players with, as they have very little of value, however they can provide decent home cooked meals, ale and wine, fresh rations for the ship and will offer to clean the life support filters while the players ship is “in port”.

Enquiring of Dilara within the village or of Johnis will elicit that she is a bit of a hermit who has been around as long as anyone can remember, who has often done helpful things for the village. She has found a missing person and has fixed various bits of equipment that have gone wrong over the years, as well as supplying lumber and food to the town at various times when they were in need. She is the only person they know who has a vehicle.

There is a 50% chance that Dilara will answer the radio call when Johnis makes it at meal time in the evening of the first day the PCs are planetside. If she doesn’t answer the first night, she will on the second. Her job offer to the PCs is a six week charter of their ship.

Dilara’s Complex

If the PCs agree to her request then she will give them the location of her home. Dilara lives about 240 kilometres away from the capital, about 65 kilometres away from a small hamlet where she occasionally trades. No-one at the village or the hamlet knows where Dilara lives, they just know she turns up occasionally to trade from the east.

She has a small holding and her complex has a cabin, a barn, a garage, a green house, and a boat house and is nicely secluded on the side of a lake. All powered by solar arrays (of different makes and TL (but all successfully combined)), with battery back-up (again of all different makes and TLs). All completely self-sufficient.

Her buildings are made of lumber, in the “log cabin” style, with “homemade” double glazing windows and doors; however inside they are fitted out very nicely with all the modern conveniences of between a TL6 and TL9 lifestyle. Furnishings, lighting, fridge, freezer, cooker, kitchen appliances, entertainment system, computer, radio system etc. although they are of an eclectic mix of styles designs and manufacture, along with an extensive gun rack of TL8 to TL9 long arms and pistols although there is minimal ammunition for the rifles, but the laser rifles are charged.

In her barn is the cargo. She has 3 tons of radioactives, and 2 tons of luxury goods, although on closer inspection it will show that there has been more cargo in here at some time in the past. She also has 5 cases of the same size all locked to her biometrics and passcodes. These contain lanthanum bars worth MCr 2 per case but she will not divulge this. There are two smaller cases with similar security, both hold raw scientific data, from all sorts of readings from places, installations, ships and small craft around the alpha quadrant (Cronor, Jewel, Querion, and Vilis subsectors) of the Spinward Marches from about 25 to 12 years ago.

In the garage she has three vehicles, a TL5 ATV with a trailer, which runs on alcohol, that she drives to the hamlet and village, a standard open top TL8 air/raft, and a TL10 luxury grav speeder, along with two robots: a valet, and a standard labour robot.

The boat house has two boats, a wooden motorboat with luxury seats and fittings, and a small foam-filled twin-hulled fibreglass dory with an outboard motor both of which are out of the water. There are an array of fishing nets, rods and tackle along the sides of the boat house, along with a sailing skiff in the rafters that is stowed.

She wishes for the radioactives, luxury goods, cases, speeder, valet, weapons, and normal luggage to be transported to Arden, stopping as little as possible, no questions asked. Everything else is to be left. The players may have the standard labour robot and air/raft if they wish and can come back for anything else once Dilara is in Arden.

If the players need cash up front to pay for fuel and life-support then she will pay a standard charter fee for the PCs’ ship. A Far Trader for Cr 900 per ton of cargo, Cr 9,000 per high passenger and Cr 900 per low berth every two weeks for six weeks comes to Cr 369,000. A Scout/Courier comes to Cr 59,400. If they don’t need cash up front then the payment will be the 2 tons of luxury goods for a Far Trader or 1 ton for a Scout/Courier. If the PCs have a bigger ship then she will pay with 1 ton of radioactives, but she won’t go higher than that.

As A Slight Aside

First she asks if the PCs would mind re-fuelling her air-raft and speeder.

Before all the goods are transported to the ship in whatever manner the PCs can provide (or by the ATV and trailer if they don’t have any other means) she has one errand to perform. There is a humanoid creature that she has been unsuccessfully tracking and trying to kill for the last decade which she would like to have one last shot at. Dilara asks PCs to locate the creature with the equipment they have and then provide the co-ordinates to her to go out and hunt it. While Dilara is out hunting the players can move the cargo to their ship.

The creature is in fact Rosalie who escaped Dilara and her colleagues 12 years ago and has been living wild evading capture for all that time. Last year Dilara had another attempt at finding and killing her but was unsuccessful.

It’s been a while since Rosalie has been hunted from the air, so she has become slightly lax in her airborne escape and evasion skills. As such the PCs will be able to spot her on a routine sensor sweep from an air/raft or small craft before Rosalie realises and performs proper evasion skills. On exceptional success the players will identify Rosalie as a human. If the PCs follow up on their sighting, then they will need an exceptional sensor task to pinpoint her. The readings show that she is 150 kilometres east of Dilara’s complex. If they do pinpoint her and are able to speak to her then she will relay the information that she has on Dilara.

Rosalie has a range of about 100 km diameter, and she is on the east most point of her range. She occasionally explores outside her range to gain a better understanding of her environment. Apart from Dilara she has not encountered any other sophont in the last 12 years and only knows the way back to the pirate base that she believes was destroyed by the Navy.

Rosalie has a number of overnight spots in her range that she knows have not been discovered by Dilara. She has occasionally set-up a number of camps to be found by Dilara to lead her off the trail. Rosalie has become expert in survival, camouflage and evasion, and is most likely to hide as opposed to confront.

Dilara will take 5 days to see if she can find and kill Rosalie otherwise will leave her to her own devises and leave for Arden. It’s up to the referee to determine whether Dilara is able to find and kill Rosalie if the players were not able to pinpoint her.

Rosalie knows the real identity and despicable actions of Dilara and will wish her to be handed over to the Imperial authorities. If the players are able to talk to Rosalie she will disclose this information leaving it up to the players to make a decision on what to do. As an incentive to rescue her Rosalie will disclose the locations of the caches and the pirate base that she knows about.

Results of the “Hunt”

Handing Dilara over to the authorities will mean confiscation of all the stolen goods and moneys that she has, including the charter monies of the ship. If they have managed to rescue Rosalie on stopping at any planet with an Imperial base Rosalie will part company with the Players giving them her profound thanks. Four months after dropping off Rosalie, if the PCs have a mortgage on their ship, when they next go to make a payment that payment will be the last payment to pay off the mortgage in full following which they will own the ship free and clear. If the PCs don’t have a mortgage on their ship then the referee should think of a suitable reward for returning Rosalie to the Imperium.

At Arden if all goes to Dilara’s plan then the PCs will receive their payment when she and her cargo are offloaded at the starport. Dilara will thank the PCs and suggest that they look her up the next time they are at the downport.

Anytime within six months after dropping Dilara off at Arden Dilara becomes a member of the Arden Society. On their next arrival on Arden after this time Dilara will request the pleasure of the PCs company at their earliest opportunity. Dilara will then explain who she used to be, the locations of the three caches on Plaven that she knows about, and the real identity of Rosalie. Dilara thus offers the contents of the caches as payment for rescuing Rosalie and returning her to the Imperium.

Pirate Infrastructure

Cache 1:

Items from the home. Home furnishings, electrical goods and tools from between TL6 and TL9, more TL6 and 7 than 8 and 9. The pirates would essentially house clear all goods and items from the communities they raided from the tools in the tool shed to the kitchen appliances to the pictures on the walls. They would dump them in cargo containers and ship them to Plaven and sort them out during downtime at their base. Anything you can think of that’s in a house will be in this cache. All of the high value items were extracted for fencing while rest was sorted by tech to be sold when visiting the independent planets (most of which was stolen from other independent planets in the first place). There are a significant number of sorted items that have little market value (although huge intrinsic value to the population of Plaven if the PCs think of this), and a number of unsorted cargo containers that the PCs can find whatever the Referee wishes to give as a reward. A high values piece of art, or a gun cabinet full of laser rifles, or something completely different.

Cache 2:

Infrastructure from the homes and farms. Solar panels, heat pumps, boilers, water tanks, radiators, wood burners, compressors, generators, wind turbines, batteries, water pumps, anabolic digesters, etc.
The pirates would strip the available infrastructure from the properties then sort them back at base and then sell these second-hand to the independent planets.

Cache 3:

Vehicles. While most of the vehicles that the pirates took were resold quickly because of their higher value there are a number of them still left in the cache. All types of domestic agricultural and business vehicles were taken. It’s up to the referee what if anything is left in the cache for the players. Although TL6 and TL7 tractors that would be a boon to the peoples of Plaven might still be there.

Cache 4:

Trade goods. Containers full of trade goods captured from the communities or from ships that they openly pirated. Most of this was sold off quickly through fences through places like Arden who wouldn’t ask too many questions about their origins.

The Pirate Base:

While the entrance has completely collapsed shutting the base off from the outside, the inside is relatively intact and mostly undamaged although there was a breach by Imperial Marines and a firefight inside to eliminate and/or capture all of the pirates. While the Navy removed any functioning starships and small craft there might still be equipment that the players could use on their ship. A ship’s computer that the PCs could use to upgrade their own, military grade sensors, or a double missile turret as a replacement to their single missile turret; along with an assortment of personal items that any spacer might have, or any pirate might posses.

Epilogue

Even if they only get access to Dilara’s small holding it will be huge boon to the population of Plaven enhancing their lifestyle significantly. If they get access to the Pirate caches it could change their standard of living completely. If the PCs don’t think of pointing the population of Plaven at the caches then Dilara or Rosalie will.

NPCs

Johnis Souros
Plaven Colonist, Human Male, Age 58
UCP: A7A756 (STR 10, DEX 7, END 10, INT 7, EDU 5, SOC 6)
Skills: Advocate-1, Animals (Handling)-1, Athletics (Endurance)-0, Deception-1, Drive (Wheel)-0, Gun Combat (slug)-1, Jack-of-all-Trades-1, Melee (blade)-1, Navigation-1, Persuade-1, Profession (Farming)-3, Survival-2, Recon-1
Equipment: Shotgun

Johnis is just a good citizen of Plaven who just wants to do the best he can for his family and friends in the village and hamlets of Plaven. Anything that is reasonable he can do that can make their lives easer he will. Johnis believes that Dilara is just a normal good human who wishes mostly to just be left alone and has no reason to suspect that she is anything else. He considers her a friend and will do what she asks as long as it’s reasonable, as any friend would.

Dilara Avci
Pirate Lieutenant/Colonist, Human Female, Age 46
UCP: 486B66 (STR 4, DEX 8, END 6, INT 11, EDU 6, SOC 6)
Skills: Astrogation-1, Engineer-0, Deception-1, Gun Combat (Energy)-1, Gun Combat (Slug)-1, Gunner-0, Drive-0, Melee (blade)-0, Mechanic-1, Persuade-1, Pilot-3, Stealth-1, Streetwise-0, Survival-1, Recon-2, Vacc Suit-0
Equipment: Auto Pistol, Body Pistol, Revolver, Accelerator Rifle, Assault Rifle, Auto Rifle, Rifle, Shotgun, Submachine Gun, Laser Pistol, Laser Carbine, Laser Rifle, Cloth Armour

Dilara is the former lieutenant of a pirate group that raided isolated communities through Cronor, Jewel, Querion and Vilis subsectors of the Spinward Marches. While not making an absolute fortune they were reasonably successful until the Imperial Navy tracked them down to their base in the Varnis Mountains on Plaven in 1093.

Dilara was out looking for Rosalie when the Navy arrived and subsequently just watched as her colleagues were killed or captured and her base blasted to ruin.

Dilara then set about building her complex with the help of the two remaining robots, and moving some of the spoils of her group’s raiding from two of the three caches that the Navy did not find. However she could not break the security on the third cache to gain entry.

Dilara has been putting the data she has, including the full database from Rosalie’s yacht and the other ships the pirates came across, together into a meaningful archive in order to provide this to those in charge in Arden to help their expansion plans. It’s this data that is the most valued item she has, and it’s the data that she believes will set her up for the rest of her life in luxury in Arden (which it will if she gets there).

Rosalie Campbell
Noble Diplomat/Colonist, Human Female, Age 38
UCP: 699AEC (STR 6,  INT 10, DEX 9, EDU 14, END 9, SOC 12)
Skills: Admin-1, Advocate-0, Art (Write)-2, Athletics (Endurance)-0, Electronics-0, Diplomat-2, Flyer (Grav)-0, Investigate-0, Language (Zdetl)-3, Navigation-1, Persuade-0, Stealth-1, Survival -3, Recon-2
Equipment: None

An Honours student, Rosalie is the niece of Count Jewell and was captured by the pirate group when they took her yacht. Rosalie was able to escape the pirates before they were able to identify who she was. It was when her yacht turned up for sale that the Imperial Navy were pressed upon to deal with the pirates (but Rosalie of course doesn’t know this).

Rosalie has been living off the land and evading Dilara and everyone else on Plaven for the last 12 years, although she suspects that Dilara has been less interested in her over the last two and has subsequently been planning how she might explore further afield.

Rosalie does not know where she is or how or where to go for help, or if there is anyone on the planet who might help her.

Rosalie knows the location of two caches, the third one that Dilara can’t get into and another (Cache 4) in addition to the two that Dilara knows about.

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