This is a great product, I've been playing Traveller for almost 7 years nw and its one of my favorite systems, and this setting seems to fit the game fairly well. some aspects dont work, for example, the social attribute makes more sense with the landed nobility of Traveller, but can easily be fixed. However, i do wish more books were made, certain aspects of the setting are lacking, but in comparison to its successor, The Void, it contains as much information as those books without requiring you to buy 5 or 6 books. Overall i really like this product.

I like the setting, the background was well done. I would have liked to see more of their materials converted over to Traveller but I understand their now supporting their system.

If you are a Traveller fan and want a fun and different background to use, you need to buy this book.

I love this product. Even over the void. It feels more complete. It has more creatures than the void plus as it's traveller there is already plenty of support out as in central supply catalogue etc. I prefer to use 2300ad tools for frontier living as they are more hard scifi equipment. I know there is no support for chthonian stars however the void system is d6 while traveller is 2d6 so converting over creatures is a doddle despite the change in attribute names. Hopefully the world books will be just as easily converted. Beautiful product.

An excellent product with clean, concise rules and formatting. I especially enjoyed the treatment of Lovecraftian creatures. It should provide an excellent reference for anyone wanting to add a little horror aspect to their games.

I really love this book. I'm also hoping that Wildstar produces a few more supplements.

The plus side is that they integrated Traveller with Lovecraftian horror quite well. The minus is that they didn't provide enough creatures and those they provided are a bit too easy to kill IMNSHO. And they didn't define Shoggoths! :)

I am about to run a Traveller campaign with Lovecraftian elements and this book helped a lot.

One thing I suspect is that this book would mix well with the Orbital setting for Traveller.

This setting combines hard SF in the vein of 2300 AD and Transhuman Space with quite an original use of the Cthulhu Mythos, this is most definitely not CthulhuTech 2.0! Interestingly for a setting with fantasy and magic the technology seems entirely plausible, no warp drives, the setting takes place in the Solar System and if you want gravity on a spaceship you need centrifugal force. It captures the look and feel of sf horror classics like Event Horizon and Aliens nicely with its claustrophobic setting. I'm definitely looking forward to the next installment

You enjoy your sci-fi, but you also have a hankering for horror. Maybe your Delta Green campaign just didn't have heavy enough weapons for your taste. Well, someone put your Cthulhu in my Traveller, and the combo is awesome!

I really enjoying working my way thru the Chthonian Stars Core Setting for Traveller. It's not a mash-up I would have thought up on my own, but its a very good match. The books is full of short fiction, which normally I can't stand, but in this case it is very evocative of the setting and a good tool to engage the reader.

It scales down the default Traveller setting to just our (now fully colonized) solar system, and I think the change in scale works very well in making the horror more immediate.

Character generation is changed a bit from regular (Mongoose) Traveller, as many careers have been adjusted to the new setting. New space ships, which makes sense, as they are made for traversing the solar system.

We are given three short adventures, which is nice, but I would have appreciated a page or two of adventure seeds. Maybe I missed them, as flipping thru a PDF does have disadvantages over print.

Overall, I'm very excited by the Chthonian Stars Core Setting. I might find a use for my Traveller core rulebook now. If nothing else, the setting book deserves a second read thru.

Let me start with saying that I am a lover of nearly all things Cthulhu but that I have never played Traveller (in any of its incarnations). All the same I was very excited to see this release and hoped that I could use the material in a space themed CoC game. I have read a couple of the Miskatonic University imprints and liked those but found them lacking for building a campaign. After having read Chthonian Stars I find my review barely creeping into four stars (to my surprise as much as any one's). Let me clarify and say that the writing is great, the art very well done, the layout professional and easy to use. Yet...what I feel I got was a Traveller book with a little Mythos dashed in. Not the other way around. It is never fair to compare one game to another but in this case I think it is appropriate. Cthulhutech (while dismissed by some) is a science fiction setting infused with the mythos. Chthonian Stars seems to have it tacked on. Short of the fiction the Mythos doesn't even appear until nearly the end of the book. The "section" on magic is basically "make up some rules on magic that fit your game. Player characters shouldn't use magic." The horror check system seems very thin. Where in games that are horror themed (particularly Mythos games) sanity loss is an integral part. Most of the fiction from Mythos stories illustrates the erosion of the protagonist's mind. The creatures were ok but brief. A mere single page write up. For a core book that may assume you have never played a Mythos game before there seems to be many creatures missing, perfect for extraterrestrial games (Moon Beasts, Byakhee, Chthonians, Dimensional Shambler, Formless Spawn oh I could just go on and on). At the same time the inclusion of some creatures that have no fictional origin (Seethari, Terofex, Nyphelous???) and seem more like typical sci-fi baddies. Planets and moons get a scant two page write up with mostly hints of "dark goings on". In conclusion I would definitely say there is stuff I will use. It seems this idea could very cool with more development. The upcoming release of The Void may rememdy all this and thus you may want to wait for that release. If you wanted a different take on a Traveller game still confined to the Sol solar system this would probably be a direct hit. On sale the price makes this pretty good to mine for ideas, even for just a basic hard sci-fi game. For hard core Cthulhu nuts wanting a alternative to Cthulhutech wait for The Void.

I have to admit to coming to Chthonian Stars with a low expectation. I disliked a lot about the Cthulhutech line but thought that there might be a few things I could rip out of Stars. I was wrong. It's blooming brilliant. My read through (OK I admit to not having played it yet) convinced me that this was written by someone who loves both the Mythos and the Traveller universe. Reasonable ficltion, good artwork, and a whole lot of good ideas about what happens when the dark stars are almost right.

Cthonian Stars is Cthulhu in Space. The premise is the arrival of a "Cthonian Star" which is emitting a strange energy which is awakening the slumbering Cthulhu Mythos creatures. It uses the Mongoose Traveller system, and requires that you own the Traveller Core rulebook. I always like the excellent writing and artwork in Wildfire products. Cthonian Stars is no exception.

This product would have received 5 Stars from me, except for the following issues:

The problems I have with Cthonian Stars: For one, it gives almost zero information on the colonies your characters are supposed to be investigating. With the Traveller world building rules in place, this should not have been a problem for them. Perhaps it will come out in an update. Another problem was, when I sent two questions to the creators on their website, they never responded. Both questions were setting related, and I thought, important enough to be answered. No answer. So I put Cthonian Stars away, even though I bought the Traveller Core Rulebook just to run it, and will focus my Sci-fi Horror attention elsewhere. I also tried to join the forums for this game, but was never admitted by the admins. Perhaps they are all on vacation?

The price is right, and it is nice, but do not expect support from its creators. You are on your own!

I´m completley satisfied with it. Cthulhu (-tech) goes Space Opera.