Beautiful! The product consists of two pages, one normal A4 sized sheet that is the cover sheet, and one humongous one roughly 4x the dimensions (that's 16x surface area). The hexes themselves have artwork that shows at a glance if the world is an asteroid belt, a world-free bright star, a desert world, etc. and what bases and ruins are there.

The large map is infinitely zoomable in the standard acrobat reader, and ALL of the text is stored as searchable fields, so if you want to find a world or hex coordinate, just search for it. If you zoom in first, you might even be fooled into thinking you are using travellermap.com. :)

My only complaint is that it might be hard to print this thing out. Including a "negative" page that swapped white and black (but not the other colors) would have made printing a more sane proposition. But if you have a printer capable of inverting colors, you could take care of that yourself, I guess.

All in all, Very Well Done!

A Short Review:

"Outer Veil" is the lower-tech, smaller Traveller setting I've been looking for!

The book is chock full of a frankly stupefying amount of data, from 20 new ships, 8 new character careers, some new setting appropriate weapons, long writeups on the history of the sector and who the "movers and shakers" are, some asteroid mining rules, patrons, an adventure, and UWPs of over 600 worlds! And thanks to some extra data Spica put in their UWP tables, you know more about those worlds than you typically would in a Traveller sector book.

Also: no aliens are alive in the setting. There are ruins of two variety of "ancient aliens", one an ultra-mysterious race that only left stone monuments and nothing else, and the other a high tech race that appears to have disappeared from the sector only a few millennia ago. If you want to imagine them as "Grays" or "Chariot of the Gods" types, that might be appropriate. Their artifacts are mostly corroded and worn down junk. Mostly. Both aliens have sites dotting the sector.

Artwork is competently executed but minimal, and is either "Poser" type scenes or line drawings. The artwork seems to be properly employed to help fill blank space on pages rather than to inflate page count. Thumbs up.

Things I Loved:

So, so many worlds! I've estimated that there are over 600 of them, with 2/3 being at best "frontier" and at worst "an unexplored blip on a star map". The distribution of technology on the worlds seems much less haphazard than usual for Traveller, which is a nice touch.

SPICA has added some new statistics to the classic UWP line, most notably the Stellar Classification of a world's star(s) and more interestingly, a "Life" stat that tells not only how advanced the local life is, but how compatible with Earth biology it is. This is a fantastic idea, and really helps breathe life (no pun intended) into UWP stats.

The setting appropriate ships, weapons and careers give a lot of character to "Outer Veil", and I like the "book 2" approach of having most ships well under 2,000 tons. That 800 ton frigate just became the most powerful ship within a half-dozen parsecs.

Things I Didn't Love:

The subsector maps are rough; maybe they're bitmaps instead of vector graphics. There isn't a full sector "zoomed out" view. SPICA has said they are planning such a thing though.

In Summary:

You really will not find a more detail dense setting book for this price. Possibly for any price.

Outer Veil is a most welcome alternative to Traveller's standard setting, especially because it is much "closer to home", with a shorter history and a smaller explored space with lots of unexplored frontier. The 156 pages contain everything a referee needs, the detailed background information (history, politics, society, megacorpo-rations, etc.) as well as new character careers, starships with deck plans and star charts - and even rules for asteroid belting. This very well done material alone would be a good reason to buy Outer Veil, even if one does not intend to play the setting. I did not yet take a closer look at the introductory adventure, but what I have seen so far looks very interesting. All in all, another most useful Traveller supplement from SPICA with well deserved 5 stars. Highly recommended.

Simply put, variety balanced with connecting themes. Starting with allies a GM can give a group help, hindrance and possibilities with minor effort. Character profiles offer enough insight into the various characters possibilities while the portraits provide that needed first impression. Money well spent.

Very nice, I heartily recommend picking this up, it has some extras you'll find very useful indeed! Just remember this combines some new event tables for certain careers as well as pregenerated characters for those careers and given the price its certainly well worth it!

Excellent job!!! Spica publishing created a believable amazing world!! Economy, culture, calender system. This module really inspires the imagination!!! 5 stars!!! Make more!!!! Great writing!!!

SB1: Katringa is after reading and digestion of its data, a complete campaign within in a single star system, a perfect example of the best way to look at Traveller--in detail, and not in the older-cut-n-paste Truckstop starport two paragraph world description.

The stellar data and hard science is first rate, and woven into the fabric of the people's lives and their culture is a rather unique take on time-keeping, and how it impacts the lives of all there as juxtaposed to older simpler 24-7 hour/day schedules, which occur rarely beyond the Terra (Earth) system. Kudos to Dr Constantine Thomas & Mr Richard Hazelwood for bringing this "to life".

Mr. Hazelwood has with the ethnic background also given us a different human culture for a small Non-Industrial world's colonists, complete with dozens of plot hooks and ideas looking at how Tribal identity and politics matures, and changes, and yet still dominates even in modernity the political outlook of the colonists here!

5 Stars ***** hands down, a Must-have for writers, GMs, and players for the game Traveller here in the 21st century.

sincerely, Liam Devlin/ aka SSG Daniel W. Hammersley

Populating my settings with interesting non-player characters has always been a problem for me, mainly because I have a tendency to become repetitive with my descriptions and to offer the players only "more of the same" instead of new original ideas. As you can imagine, I was very much looking forward to ACER.

ACER has about 50 pages of content, with 6 each of Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals, 6 "individual nonplayer characters", plus the crews of a free trader, a detached duty scout and a mercenary cruiser, plus a PsiTac team (an excellent idea), an entire Marine Striker Platoon and 48 Red Shirts (combat values only).

All except the Red Shirts come with stats, important life events, money and equip- ment and a description of their appearance and personality. Many also come with really good illustrations that fit their descriptions very well - very nice pictures to show to the players. What I also like very much is that the descriptions did not repeat the usual cliches, the characters feel like plausible "real people" with belie- vable stories and quirks - and no silly names.

I will of course have to tinker with these characters a bit to fit them into my set- ting, but this will in no way be difficult, and the descriptions did already give me a couple of new ideas for plots to introduce these characters into the setting.

It is not difficult to see that I really like ACER, and why, I think.

ACERS brings with it to the GM, or the player useful, 3-D NPC's as allies, Contacts, Enemies, or Rivals, just like the title says it does. These are not cut-out mediocre generic 'strawmen' to be shot full of ribbons by the Travellers/ Player Characters, but plausible, realistic sophonts in the Traveller/ Hard sci-Fi 'Verse your players can encounter. As one of the contributors, I am biased of course, But I find the rest of the project I was not involved in meets the high expectations and superior work SPICA Press has established itself in the SF RPG marketplace. I am also proud my name is within this product, and pleased at the end product, which I have also purchased.

Shiny side up!

Sincerely, 'Liam Devlin'/ SSG Daniel W Hammersley

An excellent addition to one's Mongoose Traveller game, providing over half a dozen new careers, and expanded event tables for a number of core careers.

My personal favorite is the Space Patrol, but having clergy and militant clergy careers allows both modern and sci-fi religious themes pretty easily. Well written and easy to use, it integrates almost seamlessly into a Traveller game.

Another excellent supplement from Spica Publishing, and this time it is even more than just a collection of (14 !) very interesting and useful careers. Just browsing the careers gave me a couple of new ideas for Traveller campaigns - ever had your player charac- ters start a campaign as (probably escaped or escaping) slaves ?

And I especially like the two alternatives for the background skills, the (pre-) career op- tions for University and Graduate School and the two new "psycho skills", Manipulation and Psychohistory, perfect for any (preferably evil ...) mastermind characters in a set- ting's dark corners.

Finally, the many very good illustrations add a nice touch and help to spark the imagina- tion.

Since I really cannot imagine a Traveller campaign that could not be expanded or impro- ved with some or all of the material in this supplement, in my view it deserves all five stars.

A very cleverly designed ship with a detailed description, a nice deckplan, details of three crews, three new vehicles and some good scenario ideas.

All in all a ship that is as versatile as the traditional Type S scout, but with far supe- rior technology (and, of course, a higher price tag) - the perfect ship for those cha- racters who have gained some money or have found a wealthy patron.

And, my view, excellent value for my real world money, too.

Ah, and that "Spinner" grav vehicle is a real beauty ...

Intended as a supplement to Mongoose's Traveller Main Book, this work looks at alternate options that could be available to characters following careers in the core rules and provides some new career paths. As any experienced Traveller player knows, the 'career' defines what his character knows and what he did in the past before the game itself began - a ready-made history even before you start thinking about the specifics of what happened to make your character the man he is today. The Mongoose ruleset in particular has taken advantage of this method of character generation by providing tables of 'Mishaps and Events' that you can roll on to provide extra detail and flavour; and here with have additional tables for the Agent, Drifter, Entertainer, Merchant, Nobility, Rogue and Scholar careers which feature in the Mongoose rules. There are also generic Life and Unusual Event tables. The new tables are entertaining to read and have the potential to spawn plenty of backstory which will no doubt return to haunt you during the game!

Next comes eight new career paths. All are suitable for human characters, and most will suit at least some alien races as well. All the career-specific information and tables are here for you to create an Adventurer, Bounty Hunter, a member of the Clergy, a Colonist, a Corporate Citizen, a Militant Religious individual, a member of the Space Patrol or a Worker. Each has sub-paths, so your clergyman might be a missionary or a monastic, while your wage-slave Corporate Citizen may earn his way as a lawyer, accountant or administrator... while giving ideas, none tie you down too much, just providing a framework on which you can build your character as you choose. Again all the incidents provide plenty of ideas for background for your character... the good sort of background (for the GM at least) that provides lots of material for the things from your past that pop up to make the present interesting!

The final part of the book contains a bunch of pre-generated characters, usful if you need an NPC in a hurry or even need a character and have no time to generate one. Although they have allies, enemies and such like listed, presumably from the appropriate life path tables, there's no indication of what went on, so either make it up or roll a few times to come up with a backstory for them if you need that kind of detail.

Overall it is a neat addition to the Mongoose ruleset. Back in the days of the 'little black books' I spent many an afternoon inventing new career paths, it's good to see that the appeal of trying to model just about anything that a character might have done in his past is alive and well!

I posted this review at the Freelance Traveller website, and am reposting it here:

On the ... Shelf? An attractively laid out and well organized PDF. I was especially impressed with the artwork; while much of it computer generated, it’s pretty good. Mongoose should give these artists some work.

Initial Impressions I was quite happy with the book as I originally purchased it – and then they put out an updated version with even more goodies in it. This is exactly the kind of support I was hoping we’d see from "third-party" sources. New careers are always fun, and expanded event tables are great stuff.

On Closer Inspection We get expanded mishap and event tables for the non-military careers from the Core Book, except for the Scouts because those will be forthcoming from Mongoose. All the new event tables are "d66" format, with a lot more potential events. They can be used in place of or in conjunction with the originals. There are two new Life and Unusual Events tables to really add some spice to your characters background. Then we get into the new careers and specialties: Adventurer (explorer, treasure seeker, hunter), Bounty Hunter (skip tracer, repossessor, support), Clergy (missionary, monastic, preacher), Colonist (farmer, miner, settler), Corporate Citizen (finance, legal, administration), Militant Religious (warrior, monk, zealot), Space Patrol (operations, trooper, technical) and Worker (technician, service, labourer). The Corporate Citizen, Colonist and Worker careers take the specialties from the core book’s Citizen and expand them into full careers of their own. My personal favorite is the Space Patrol; space cops! Traditionally in OTU this job has been done by the Navy, which never made a lot of sense to me. There is now officially a Imperial Interstellar Space Patrol in my campaign.

And then we get FORTY pre-generated characters; one from each assignment of the new careers and 16 multi-career characters that also use some of the core book careers. I will go on record right now; I would purchase a book of nothing but these! What a great resource for referees! They can be used as NPCs or as PCs and they are great! Notes are included on the new skill specialty Social Science (theology).

Summary Buy this PDF. Its simply that good. New careers, and those pregens..this is great stuff. And the presence of the "1" in the title implies that there will be more, and if so I will be all over that like a Hiver on corn dogs!

An excellent idea !

There are a couple of setting-specific careers I have to design for my next campaign, from Colonial Ranger to Terraforming Engineer, and this form makes it much easier to do so.

And it is free.

Thank you !