Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,– One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. – from Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson The Rangers August Hahn Contents Line Developer Ian Belcher Introduction 3 Graphic Design Consultant Brandon Bray Anla’shok History 7 Internal Special Effects Danilo Moretti & Phillip Renne Anla’shok Directives 33 Producer Alexander Fennell Anla’shok Technology 57 Studio Manager Ian Barstow Important Sites of the Anla’shok 90 Key Grips Jason Durall & Jamie Jones Ranger Characters 101 Extras Mark Billanie, Daniel Haslam, Mark Howe, Alan Moore, Daniel Scothorne, Mark Sizer, Michael J Young Gamesmastering the Anla’shok 124 Special Thanks J. Michael Straczynski, Fiona Avery, Isabelle Richard, License 127 Skye Herzog Contents Designation of Product Identity: The following items Designation of Open Game Content: Subject to are hereby designated as Product Identity in accordance the Product Identity designation above, the following with section 1(e) of the Open Game License. Version portions of The Rangers are designated as Open Game 1.0a: Any and all Babylon 5 logos and identifying Content: all character statistics and creation rules, marks and trade dress, including all Babylon 5 product all new character classes and abilities, all new feats, and product line names; any elements of the Babylon powers and skills, all rules systems and mechanics, all 5 setting including but not limited to capitalised statistic blocks and paragraphs specifically explaining names, planet names, alien species names, ship names, rules mechanics or special qualities. The use of Product organisation names, characters, equipment, setting Identity in these circumstances is limited solely to and historic events, episode descriptions, any and all mechanical effects and systems, not to the items stories, storylines, locations, plots, thematic elements, previously stipulated as falling under the PI. documents within the Babylon 5 world, quotes from Printed in China. character or episodes, all artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, illustrations, maps and cartography, likenesses, poses, logos, sumbols or graphic designs; any other unspecified incarnations of Babylon 5 creative Copyright © 2004 Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. property, including elements either derived or inferred BABYLON 5, and all related characters from the Babylon 5 setting; and website support and elements are trademarks of and © materials and all future incarnations, online community Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. donations, and all free game support items, except such WB SHIELD: TM and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. items that already appear in the d20 System Reference (s04) Document and are already OGC by virtue of appearing there. The above Product Identity is not Open Game Content. 2 defence. While a given Ranger was a powerful adversary, Introduction they were not used as shock troopers or soldiers. ‘We are the sentinels at This was in keeping with their mandate as given by their the gate and the soldiers founder. They were the guardians at the gate, the shadows in the dark. We hold the against the shadows, as he put it to them. They were not line against the forces of expendable as troops of the line, though their lives could and should be spent for the preservation of the greater darkness and fight the good. The Rangers were not warriors on any battlefield wars you never see. We do but the hidden ones of back alleys on distant worlds and the corrupt corridors of traitorous powers. They were given battle on a hundred worlds a mission to investigate wherever their leads took them, no and oppose nightmares matter who the target or how high (or low) the walk of life beyond your imagination. they had to follow. We live for the One; we die This directive was certainly not going to endear them to the for the One. We live and die upper echelons of government and military power, which is why the Rangers were also not an open society. While for each of you. We are the membership was originally only for Minbari and thus the heralds of the next great places they could go were limited, Valen foresaw the time conflict and the survivors of the next Great War and the need for the Anla’shok not to be known by others. This led him to shroud the Rangers of the last. Your survival is in secrecy, keeping knowledge of them and their activities Introduction bought with our blood. The within a very small circle of trusted personnel. Rangers may serve for many reasons but fame and glory have never greatest testament to our been among them. When they serve, they act only in the struggles, our sacrifices knowledge of a handful of people. When they die, they and our skill is that, if we often do so alone. have done everything right The Mystique of the Rangers at the end of the day, you Even before the events of the last Great War, there were those who knew of the Rangers outside the trusted members of will never know we exist.’ the Grey Council. More accurately, there were those that knew of someone, somewhere operating as an espionage — Lennhan, Minbari Anla’shok and intelligence gathering agency completely outside their own spheres of control. Whenever a government document Of all the groups, secret societies and allegiances created in detailing unknown alien races went missing, only to turn the Babylon 5 setting, the most memorable and influential up a few days later intact – they knew the Rangers had is arguably the Anla’shok. These brave men and women been there. of many different races (by the end of the five year story arc) were gathered together in common cause and given Not, of course, that they knew the term ‘Rangers’. The the most advanced weapons and vessels ever designed by various governments of the galaxy knew only that there were their respective cultures. Their mission was a simple one those ‘out there’ with the ability to get anywhere, intercept yet deceptively complex – to discover all the hidden threats any message and be places faster and with greater firepower to the galaxy and deal with them before they could become than anyone else. Ironically, many worlds’ intelligence a true danger. agencies took to calling them ‘shadows’ – an ironic choice of names, as it would turn out. The Rangers are an intriguing organisation best defined not as what they are but as what they are not. The Rangers, Many governments spent a considerable amount of time and as they were conceived by Valen during the Great War a money trying to track these ‘shadows’, even sanctioning the thousand years before the time of the Babylon 5 diplomatic existence of their own secret groups to find and identify the station, were not an army or an attack force of any kind. nameless agency operating at the periphery of their known They were trained in martial arts and combat tactics but space. So few governments even knew of the Minbari that these were more a means to an end and a form of self- no suspicion was ever laid at their galactic doorstep. Even 3 After the Vorlon/Shadow War As with any organisation dedicated to a single goal, everything changed for the Anla’shok after the exodus of the Shadows and the other First Ones beyond the galactic rim. When what had been their overriding, nearly unattainable dream became a reality, there was no longer the force of momentum behind their every action and effort. The Rangers were left adrift with no true purpose to serve. Some agencies would simply have folded and disbanded to follow other directives but the universe had a different fate in mind for the Anla’shok. The Interstellar Alliance, forged from the echoes of the last Great War out of the League of Non-Aligned if a given race’s government did suspect the Minbari of Worlds and the Babylon 5 Security Council, offered being behind the investigations, they never dared air such new life and a continuing goal for the Anla’shok as its an opinion or try to verify it. In many ways, the dangerous official police/intervention force. Not truly a military force, reputation of the Minbari served to inadvertently hide the as the individual member states of the ISA were called up Rangers in its intimidating shadow. to provide that, the new direction of the Rangers was as a peacekeeping force and an intelligence agency without The Truth Behind the Rangers peer. This anonymity served the Anla’shok well, as did the fearsome onus of their parent race. Doing what the Fire This new mandate necessitated a number of changes in Wings Warrior caste would call the Sunwalking, the the way the Rangers operated. While membership in Rangers were free to act as they wished and retreat back the Anla’shok had been open to Humans for a few years, to Minbari space, safe in the fact that no one would look now any race in the Alliance could submit candidates to there for them. This constant port of call allowed them to its roster. This also required a number of changes to the operate in complete secrecy for nearly a millennia. Only organisational structure of the group and seriously altered when the Shadows, their true enemy, began moving again the amount of training any given Ranger might receive. in the stars did they have to risk exposure by operating Whereas before a member of the Anla’shok might have Introduction farther from their safe haven.