TOURING THE STARS JARDINE TM Sample file Under License From E-CAT35SN215

® ©2020 The Topps Company Inc. All rights Reserved. Touring the Stars: Jardine, Classic BattleTech, BattleTech, BattleMech and ’Mech are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of The Topps Company, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Catalyst Game Labs and the Catalyst Game Labs logo are trademarks of InMediaRes Production, LLC. Introduction

We began on Terra, a lonely, blue-green speck in the vastness of the void. It has been more than a millennium since mankind ventured to the stars beyond home, and while it has been a tumultuous history—at the very least—we have discovered, explored, and conquered worlds that our ancestors could only dream about. Humanity now occupies more than two thousand worlds stretched across a vast range of interstellar space known as the Inner Sphere. For humanity as a whole, Terra, at the heart of it all, will forever be known as “Home.” But for the far greater majority of us, “home” is a very different speck amidst the infinite black. Our homes are many, varied, beautiful, and filled with rich histories—each unique to itself. In the grand scale of interstellar history, it often becomes so easy to forget this, to see planets and solar systems as dots on an abstracted map. But, at the core of the matter, each of those dots is a place where men, women, and children live, work, love, and survive. Join us on a special tour of the Sphere, as we explore the richness of these worlds like never before! —Professor Herbert Redburn, Touring the Stars: One World at a Time, Interstellar Free Press

elcome to Touring the Stars, a campaign supplement designed to offer players the opportunity to learn about the worlds of Wthe Inner Sphere, Periphery, and beyond. The background information contained in the Atlas section gives players a world’s geography, history, notable events, and other tools needed to create an unlimited number of BattleTech games for play, while the A Time of War section offers plot seeds and details for the planet’s more notable events. These plot seeds can be used as stand-alone games, woven into an existing game, or as part of a larger on-going campaign. The Rules Annex section explains planetary Atlas information for use in gameplay, as well as optional terrain tables, weather, and flora/fauna rules. Terrain tables can be used as a random chart to determine gameplay maps, or simply as a guide to provide ideas on the types of terrain found on the world. This section also contains a list of other rules that can be used to enhance your game experience. All players should agree whether or not to use any or all of these features before play. Note: The last four pages of this PDF are sized for 11” x 17” paper. Please keep this in mind when printing out the document.

CREDITS

STAR LEAGUE CLAN INVASION JIHAD Project Development: Joshua C. Perian BattleTech Line Developer: Ray Arrastia Writing: Herbert A. Beas II BattleTech Line Editor: Aaron Cahall Production Staff Cover Design and Layout: David Kerber Maps: Ray Arrastia, David Kerber Special Thanks: To BattleTech. Thanks for all the fun times!SampleSUCCESSION WARS CIVIL WAR fileDARK AGE ILCLAN

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JARDINE (HERAKLEION)

Star Type (Recharge Time): G2V (183 hours) Position in System: 3rd (of 5) Time to Jump Point: 9.12 days Number of Satellites: Two (Oahu, Tonga) Surface Gravity: 0.92 Atm. Pressure: Standard (Breathable) Equatorial Temperature: 25°C (Tropical [2765/3067]); 19°C (Cold [3150]) Surface Water: 53 percent Recharging Station: None HPG Class Type: B (2765); None (3150) Highest Native Life: Mammals Population: 443,560,000 (2765); None? (3150) Socio-Industrial Levels: C-D-C-C-B (2765); N/A (3150) Landmasses (Capital City): Taveuni ( Hou [2765]), Mussau, Rapa Nui (Hope [3067])

Editor’s Note: While much speculation and official denials of the so-called “Five Worlds Conspiracy” persist into modern times, numerous historical records confirm the existence of Jardine and its fate, from the early years of the Succession Wars through the opening days of the Jihad. As late as 3130, the world remained unlisted on navigation charts, though it was declared a secured protectorate of both the Marik- Stewart Commonwealth and the Duchy of Tamarind-Abbey, who only permitted limited access to it for civil and scientific expeditions. As of 3150, Jardine’s protected status is unclear, but official maps still omit its location. The following documentation derives from numerous sources, the most prominent of which are the accounts of Dr. Brooklyn Stevens, an independent explorer who reportedly rediscovered the planet in late 3067. Extensive efforts were made to verify the details enclosed here, but errors may remain. Mystique still surrounds Jardine, the Hidden Worlds of which it was one, and the enigmatic powers who shaped ComStar and the Word of Blake over the centuries after the fall of the First Star League.

JARDINE (HERAKLEION) Bathed in the light of a yellow sun not much different than Terra’s fauna proved far less diverse than its early discoverers expected. Entire Sol, but orbiting from a mean distance of just over 0.8 AUs, Jardine was orders of animals found on planets of similar development, such as a world of warmth and beauty. Geologically young and tectonically analogs of Terra’s marsupials, simians, ungulates, and many reptilian active, the planet was lush with jungles and forests, especially on the and amphibian species, were completely absent on Jardine. In their northeastern continent of Rapa Nui, and throughout the southern half place were a disproportionate number of other species, most of which of the large Rapa Nui landmass. Despite its active volcanism, Jardine’s took on decidedly felid and avian morphology. For this reason, many weather patterns were relatively milder and more stable than those biologists studying Jardine during its early settlement years came to of Terra. Combined with the abundance of mineral-enriched soil, nickname it “the Planet of the Cats” or “the Feline Aviary.” freshwater lakes, hot springs, and river complexes that radiated across With so much of its land covered by temperate and tropical forests whole continents, this climate created an environment almost entirely against a backdrop of volcanic mountain chains and hot springs, shrouded in vegetation. Indeed, what few deserts and arid badlands Jardine felt like a second homeland to its founding colonials, most of existed amid this global garden were found only in the deepest whom hailed from the various island states of Terra’s Pacific Islands and reaches of the continents of Mussau and Taveuni. coastal regions affiliated with the so-called “Ring of Fire.” Over time, While Samplethese features produced a world well-suited to a broad these settlers developed a local culturefile that was an eclectic mix of range of wildlife—including the humans and other animal species Hawaiian, Filipino, Polynesian, and Maori ethnicities. To maintain the eventually transplanted there during its colonization—Jardine’s native native beauty of their world, many early colonies imposed a multitude

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of laws and traditions aimed at limiting heavy industry along the major In early 2811, raiders presumably operating out of the Lyran riverways and coastlines, while declaring huge swaths of woodlands Commonwealth struck Jardine without warning or mercy. The and jungle off-limits to large-scale human habitation. These ecological attack lasted barely more than a week, but in that time most of the restrictions—at least partly aimed at making Jardine a garden paradise planet’s major cities were razed and cobalt-salted nuclear weapons for wealthy tourists—hobbled the planet’s commercial development transformed Taveuni into an infernal hellscape. Unable to call for help so significantly and for so long that major corporations came to see while their planetary government and infrastructure lay in ruins, the Jardine as a poor candidate for expanding their businesses. Thus, by surviving populace succumbed to despair and panic as skies across the the time Jardine formally entered the emergent Free Worlds League, globe darkened with the smoke and ash from Taveuni’s firestorms. the planet’s economy had become almost entirely agrarian in nature. It was amid this chaos that the first aid ships arrived, hailing from the Its biggest exports took the form of exotic foods, decorative flowers, last place anyone expected: Terra. and an assortment of domesticated beasts—the most well-known and According to the sketchy evidence that remains, what followed was coveted of these being the tabiranth, a felinoid animal as large and part of the greatest secret project ever conceived by Jerome Blake and tamable as the terrestrial horse. Conrad Toyama, masters of the nascent ComStar. The details of this Although the Star League era did see a rise in Jardine’s industrial operation remain sparse even today, but they confirm that Jardine was development—particularly across Taveuni, where most of the selected as one of five potential base worlds that Blake and Toyama planetary spaceports, light aerospace support industries, and the planned to use as emergency fallbacks for ComStar’s control over the capital city of Luzon Hou stood—Jardine never shook its image as a HPG network in the event that one or more of the Successor States commercial and strategic backwater, with abundant but ultimately chose to ignore Terra’s neutrality. Though each of the five were chosen unremarkable resources. This suited the locals just fine, as they had for different reasons, all were said to be “remote and unremarkable” grown accustomed to an existence absent of the interstellar hustle within their respective realms—the kind of planets that nobody would and bustle seen elsewhere in the Inner Sphere. Even as the Star League particularly miss among the rampant chaos of the early Succession crumbled and the drums of war sounded throughout the Successor Wars. To further obfuscate their disappearance, ComStar altered all States, the people of Jardine felt certain that their sleepy and self- records of their locations, names, and even their system composition, sufficient world, several jumps from the Steiner-Marik front, would under the guise of Blake’s ongoing efforts to conduct and maintain never endure the thundering strides of BattleMechs and the screaming a census of the Inner Sphere’s HPG network in the wake of the Star fire of aerospace fighters. League’s collapse. Thus, around this time, Jardine vanished amid the Until the day the sky fell on them. shuffle of dying worlds, while a similar world—dubbed Herakleion—

Pukao

DAVISLAND

THE MELTED VOLCANO MOAIS FIELDS R A P A N U I HINE-MOANA Hokitika MANNE MĀTAITAI MEGA-GEYSER APPROACH NGAS R A P A N U I P MAU BURNING ĀKAU FIELDS AR MAW OF NUBARA H LOST MANU S Karoro KAWAU NECK TANIWHA Hope (Volcano) Rikitea KĀNIWHA Kopara Kikiwa POINT T A V E U N I KŌURARA ĪNANGA BIGHT M U S S A U

GRITTY ĀKAU Rehua BURNING ĀKAU Eloaua (Volcano) Ō K A I K A I Whitehead SILTED ĀKAU Makarora STRAIT OF PURUTU EMIRAU S S A G TĀNE A KAI HĀWANAWANA DESERT N G AU N M GOLDEN U ROA A RANGI NGA TAHUNA ĀKAU OF ASHES TA M PU TA ASHGLAZE PA A PUG KE Hanalei ATHAL AD A M A N TI T A V EU N I B PAROSCOAST INLET MAUN Luzon Hou THE MĀTAITA GAS S IN A Y A OTIRA W LAKES A FOREST IA HEREPO TĪTĪ N KŌTUKU LAKE TŪMATAUENGA DRIED TATAHI A FOREST RONGO FOREST E P E T A V E U N I A M A N RĀHUI BASIN A PARINGA P K G RANGATAHI S ŌH D I Ā I MAGANDA W D BAY O S I N A Y A TIO BAY KE Lalakoa A A A ADIARTE A GUBAT M G MALAKAS T P (Volcano) U U E A WEREWERE SHORES A MILILANI L P GUBAT K S P Kuku Seabase GUBAT U Tamblot Cache G (Rumored) A (Rumored) Akupu D DAGA (Volcano) NI’HAU Ruku Seabase (Rumored) HAUULA GUBAT ADLANDS Makuta MANOA B VISAYAN COAST NAUPAKA LAKE FOREST Bohol LANAO KAAWA KEAHIAKAWELO FOREST LAKE BATALA DIWATA TONG LIT TORAL WAIMEA BONTOC Leyte HANALEI KS EA S P M AK PUPUKEA A E N O ‘A P I L LIMOK AEKA A A ON P OP UP IA UG PĀPAKA UL R A I ASWANG D BAY PU GA MAKALENA ARIDITY D

ANAGOLAY Camp Waiouru ANAGOLAY MANGKUKULAM Sample ANAGOLAYfile

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appeared in its place as JumpShip navigators received their updated or merely the desire to evade easy conscription into ComStar’s maps and interstellar travel advisories. To the rest of mankind, the ranks, some of the local populace chose to venture into the planet’s backwater planet known for little more than its stunning natural sprawling wilderness. It is unclear how much resistance these first beauty, birds, and exotic riding cats sold almost exclusively to the separatists encountered from the planet’s new keepers, but over time wealthy elite, faded into obscurity. they evolved into tribes collectively known as the Wayward. In general, Further ensuring the secrecy of ComStar’s Five Worlds project, the the Guardians and the Wayward seemed content to coexist, viewing hidden worlds were completely cut off from all interstellar trade and themselves as countrymen and fellow survivors of the Succession communications routes, and navigational buoys seeded at their main Wars “holocaust,” but this arrangement hinged on the Wayward jump points warned off any visitors with the promise of a grim death. tribes maintaining the same level of discretion as the city-dwellers. For those who dared venture closer, automated picket sensors lurked Wayward tribes that failed to do so—say, by cultivating traditional, about, ready to alert hidden defenses ranging from Star League-era open-field farmlands, or by building roads and structures that could drones to manned assault ships. ComStar handpicked the personnel be seen at high atmosphere—were swiftly and decisively punished. sent to these worlds for their exceptional loyalty and discretion, Furthermore, though they openly allowed city-dwellers to leave the with most prohibited upon pain of death from ever leaving their enclaves and become Wayward, the Guardians maintained perimeters new homes. JumpShip traffic was around their holdings upon which restricted to barely enough vessels these self-exiled individuals were to cover supply needs. For extra not allowed to encroach. Guardian measure, no JumpShip captain patrols often hunted down and assigned to these top-secret supply destroyed Wayward tribes who failed runs ever received the entire route to respect these unspoken borders. once the worlds vanished from the Though some tribes defended public eye. As ComStar became ever themselves, typically using weapons more insular under Toyama’s reign and equipment scavenged from the and the rise of ROM, the Hidden ruins or smuggled out of Guardian Worlds sunk further under layers of facilities, even those conflicts were quasi-mystical security measures tightly confined to avoid detection and selective “purges,” until none but from the air. No Jardinian—from ComStar’s most fanatical officers (and Guardian to Wayward—wanted to be those who already lived there) even responsible for attracting attention suspected that they existed. from the “Lost” (their collective term For Jardine, the decades and for anyone beyond “the Five”). eventually centuries that followed As it became clear that no were a time of sheltered peace in Successor State would challenge an age of unrelenting warfare. Led ComStar’s control over Terra and the to believe that the Succession Wars were even more savage than Inner Sphere’s HPG network, the need for Jardine and the other secret they actually were, the populace embraced their ComStar saviors, fallback sites receded. Over time, the Guardians who managed these and worked with them to ensure their mutual survival. Together, worlds and the increasingly secretive officers in ComStar who acted as the Jardinians and their “Guardian” masters pursued a grand their coordinators and protectors on the interstellar stage evolved into strategy of eliminating all signs of human civilization on the planet, a cabal of Blake-worshipping devotees with an agenda all their own. abandoning the few major cities and towns remaining while enacting These conspirators—most of whom operated through ROM—came to strict population control measures to reduce their numbers over see the Hidden as ideal places to train hyper-elite, hyper-loyal special time. Heavy industries were dismantled entirely or moved below forces and to pursue numerous experimental research projects. In ground, while foliage and wildlife were encouraged to overtake their Jardine’s case, the research took the form of advanced medicine and abandoned ruins. Farmers meticulously reworked their fields to blend cybernetics development, with many recruits and test subjects chosen into the natural environment, and food animals roamed, grazed, and from among the local populace. reproduced unchecked. Wireless communication and fusion power The development of extensive bionic medicine on a world founded were curtailed to bare minimums and restricted to only periodic within the broadly anti-cyborg Free Worlds League was a curious use in appropriately shielded areas. In their place was a reliance on choice. But, in 3035, those capabilities enabled one of the most fateful older wire-based technologies and the harnessing of power through decisions in Inner Sphere history when members of the Hidden’s ruling cleverly disguised geothermal and water current sources. By the end cabal sent a high-value patient to Jardine in a desperate bid to save his of the thirtieth century, only one major inhabited enclave remained on life: Thomas Marik. Critically wounded in the bombing that claimed the Jardine: the city of Hope, located on the edge of a volcanic field in the lives of his father and nearly all other heirs to the Captain-Generalcy, heavily forested Rapa Nui continent. the one-time Acolyte of ComStar was close to death by the time he Not everyoneSample on Jardine wished to live within the bounds of the arrived on Jardine. The cybernetics usedfile to save his life were extensive, Guardians’ controlled environments. Driven either by wanderlust sophisticated, and far too numerous to conceal. Wary that a fragmented

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Free Worlds League would never accept him as a legitimate ruler (and Master’s most loyal follower, a heavily modified Jardinian man known likely hoping to ensure ComStar’s complete mastery over a Successor simply as Apollyon. Bestowed with the title of Precentor Manei Domini, State from the shadows) the cabal convinced Thomas Marik to remain Apollyon remained on Jardine as its Supreme Guardian and military sequestered on their Hidden world, while a body double returned to governor when the Master left the world to take up residence on Mars. Atreus and took power in his stead. There, he was tasked with preparing the latest batch of Manei Domini The subsequent events are pure conjecture, even a full century in preparation for the “Third Transfer,” a moment where the Master’s later, but somehow the cyborg Thomas Marik achieved a cult of prophesies claimed that the Word’s hidden glory and humanity’s personality during his convalescence. Gradually, he gathered a salvation would be revealed for all to see. following among not only Jardine’s locals but also among the Hidden Mere months before the opening salvoes of the Jihad, however, cabal. By the time of the Clan Invasion, it is believed that Marik Jardine’s fate was forever changed when a mercenary explorer had almost entirely lost interest in leading the Free Worlds League named Brooklyn Stevens and her crew pierced centuries of security through his double, and instead had come to see himself as a prophet precautions and discovered the planet’s existence. Unwittingly second only to the sainted Jerome Blake himself. When the Schism arriving just after the bulk of the Manei Domini and its transport fleet took place in 3052, he and his followers rose to claim the leadership deployed out-system, Dr. Stevens managed to land close to Hope, of the Hidden cabal and, through it, what they saw as ComStar’s true and made contact with a local Wayward tribe in the nearby woods. heart and soul: the Word of Blake. Though Marik himself remained After miraculously evading soldiers from Apollyon’s own Fifty-second unseen, whispers within the breakaway Order soon began to echo Division, Stevens escaped with knowledge not only of Jardine’s true the philosophies of its secret “Master.” fate, but also tales of the Hidden worlds, and the cyborg-enhanced At first, Marik was content to puppet the Word of Blake from behind armies that the Word’s unseen Master had managed to raise far from the scenes, as he once did his own Free Worlds League. Executing his any state’s prying eyes. extreme directives across the Inner Sphere was the Word’s Sixth of Stevens and her crew, along with a Wayward Jardinian woman they June movement, a group of ultra-zealots led by the likes of Cameron rescued during their adventure, vanished soon afterward when the St. Jamais and Demona Aziz. On Jardine, Marik the Master also began Jihad erupted across the Inner Sphere. But news of their discovery to cultivate an even more fanatical and fearsome following among leaked out. Although their warnings came far too late to prevent the the cybernetic super-soldiers the Hidden cabal developed in the Jihad, the existence of Jardine as the Manei Domini’s birthplace was a decades prior. secret the Master could not afford to leave exposed. Under his orders, Drawn mostly from the loyal populations of the Hidden worlds, Precentor Apollyon directed the bombardment of the volcanic the first wave of what would become known as the Manei Domini fields near Hope. While the exact method of this bombardment is were conceived as special operatives for ROM, or mere test subjects unclear—with theories given that range from redirected asteroids for new bionic techniques and technologies. With their non-existent to the use of hyper-massive thermonuclear weapons—the resulting backgrounds, shrouded origins, and layers of secrecy that shielded impacts caused enough destabilization of the surrounding crust to their very existence even from ComStar itself, these men and women trigger a chain reaction of volcanic eruptions. The lava flows and ash were the perfect ghosts for the Master’s grand vision. As spies and plumes that continue to this day have resurfaced more than sixty commandos, these agents boasted superhuman capabilities thanks percent of the Rapa Nui continent, and shrouded the planet in an to their sophisticated cybernetics, and defied any foreign intelligence endless gray haze. service that ever tried to track them. By reporting only to the Hidden Today, Jardine is a ghost of its former self. Now plunging ever cabal, the early cyber-soldiers could pursue ComStar’s darkest goals closer to a full-blown ice age, much of its native fauna has perished under ironclad deniability, as even the Order’s Primuses (and, allegedly, along with most of the planet’s lush woodlands and rainforests. several Precentors of ROM) were left in the dark about their existence. Between the semi-radioactive ruins and hot zones of Taveuni, Under Thomas the Master, the Domini received a greater sense of and the ongoing traps volcanism of Rapa Nui, two of its three purpose: the destruction of humanity’s one true enemy—the Clans. main landmasses are effectively uninhabitable. Meanwhile, on the Over fifteen years, the Master and his agents solidified their remaining continent of Mussau, each passing year sees the deserts control over the Word of Blake and built up their strength, buying up expand as the jungles continue to wither away. While rumors persist mercenary contracts and forming pacts with numerous allies while that some human habitation remains on the world, and that some infiltrating the ranks of nearly every major House and Periphery state’s unaccounted-for Word of Blake forces may have even made their armed forces. Among the Hidden worlds, production and development way there in the wake of the Jihad, no surveys to date have been stepped up to provide additional might in the form of secret fleets able to confirm such claims. and an assortment of cutting-edge super-weapons. For Jardine, this Given the rate of Jardine’s current decline, most climate studies meant a surge in the recruitment, augmentation, and equipping of conducted over the last fifty years predict that the planet will be new cyborg warriors and special operatives. By the end of 3066, the rendered completely lifeless and uninhabitable by the middle of the Manei Domini’sSample ranks swelled to some 6,000 such devotees, led by the thirty-third century. file

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