Contraband Rules

The concept of Contraband in Star Navy fascinates me. According to the rules,

“Weapons, restricted tech, certain narcotics, dangerous Xenoforms, Turing AIs or even slaves are examples of Contraband.”

Any one of those could be a seed for an adventure.  In fact, they almost seem to be more trouble than they are worth.  How are your happy go-lucky freedom fighter pirates going to react when they find out that they have slaves in the cargo?

I offer the following optional rules for dealing with contraband in your Star Navy game.

Roll 3d6 to determine your type of Contraband

3 – Illegal technology.
4-5 – Controlled Luxury Items
6-8 – Profitable Narcotics
9-12 – Weapons
13-15 – Slaves
16-17 – Artificial Intelligences
18 – Xenoforms of a Dangerous Quality

Illegal Technology can be anything from an experimental terraforming machine to giant Soylent Red ovens.  Most pirates are not interested in something they can’t drink, snort or kiss, so they tend to sell these things pretty easily.

Controlled Luxury Items are things like rare furs from restricted worlds, cases of limited edition platinum sketch cards from galaxy famous artists and antique copies of Earth wargames.  These items are nice and wonderful but doesn’t hold much interest to pirates and are therefore easy to sell.

Profitable Narcotics are drugs, plain and simple.  These are a big temptation to pirate crews and the ship that seizes this cargo has to make a Controlled Looting Test.

Weapons are the biggest thriving illegal industry in the galaxy.  There is a reason that most of the games in the 5150 universe are war related.  All sides have their rules of war and all sides have their fighters who would much rather break those rules and have a gun that kicks ass.  Weapons are great loot but you run the risk of the crew taking the best for themselves.  Make a Controlled Looting Test.

Slaves are intelligent beings held against their will.  Most pirate crews will feel bad about selling such misfortunate creatures and will think darkly of their Captain for doing so.  Quite frankly, if your pirate crew is cool with selling slaves, they are likely not the kind of people you want having your back.

A Pirate Captain who wants to sell slaves for their Cargo Value can do so, but they must make a Campaign Morale Test on one die.  If they fail, the Rep of all ships in the Pirate Force go down by one. 

If a Pirate Captain decides to free the slaves, they gain no Cargo Value but they can add one die to their next Recruitment Roll.  

Hishen Pirates ignore any rules for slaves and treats them like cargo.

Artificial Intelligences are androids, robots, smart programs on Frisbees carried around by midget robots, etc. The rights of AI’s vary by region to region but almost everyone likes a robot sidekick.  There is a chance that the AI’s will be absorbed into the crew like lost puppies.  The ship seizing such cargo makes Controlled Looting Test. 

Xenoforms of a Dangerous Quality are nasty beings usually armed with more teeth, more acid blood and more claws than you.  Ever since man first went into space, man has tried to bring back eggs that they really shouldn’t have.  There is money to be made but you are always one minor accident away from becoming a cautionary tale for other ships.

A pirate ship who takes Xenoforms cargo must make a Rep test on one die.  Succeed and you can sell the cargo as normal.  Fail and you take one hit to your ship as if from a ship of Higher Class.  This represents the Xenoform getting loose, impregnating your crew, punching holes in the hull and reenacting a scifi horror film on your ship. Needless to say, you don’t get to sell the Xenoforms as cargo as you probably had to kill them in a very dramatic and messy finale.

Controlled Looting Test – 2 die vs Rep of Ship

2+ Successes – Pirates behave themselves for a change and you can sell the cargo for the full value.

1 Success – Pirates take first pick at the best stuff.  Cargo Value is reduced by half.

0 Success – Pirates take the best stuff, the average stuff and even some of the bad stuff.  There is nothing left worth selling.  Cargo Value is reduced to zero.