Overview

History: 2014-2015

The print edition of Traveller5 (2013) was Kickstarted by Far Future Enterprises (FFE) starting on May 31, 2012 and began shipping in March 2013. However, the T5 Dev Team, which consisted of Marc Miller with Rob Eaglestone and Don McKinney, recognized that the new game was "not quite like what has come before" and that examples could help players to figure out those details. They decided that a new electronic newsletter could serve this purpose.

Well, a sort of new magazine. The original Imperial Lines (1991-1993) had been produced by HIWG for GDW back in the waning days of MegaTraveller (1991-1993). It had been a fairly brief and spare newletter with deep info on the OTU. That was a good model for what FFE wanted to do with their new 'zine, so FFE adopted not only the older 'zine's name (other than dropping the space), but also its numbering.

The primary goal of the new Imperiallines was to provide articles that demonstrated the usage of Traveller5 through "examples and walk-thrus". However, a secondary goal was exploring concepts from the Official Traveller Universe (OTU) while simultaneously providing ideas for individuals' personal TUs. This was all to be done in just three articles per issues (though the magazine would quickly grow beyond that remit).

Imperiallines was overseen by Rob Eaglestone as editor, with a small cadre of core contributors: Andrea Vallance, Donald McKinney, Greg Lee, and James Kundert. The first two issues came out like quarterly clockwork: Imperiallines #6 (2014) in September 2014, then Imperiallines #7 (2015) in January 2015. Then the third issue was delayed month after month and year after year; as recently as 2021, Eaglestone said it was "not a high priority" and that Marc Miller could address any questions on the topic.

With that said, an extensive amount of content was gathered for that third (eighth) issue. It included: Traveller News Service for late 1099; the second (and final) part of the nobility article; an article on designing a Traveller univesre; rules for smuggling; an Amber Zone called "Food Fight"; and a Ship's Locker.

Though Imperiallines is moribund, editor Rob Eaglestone has since produced his own six-issue fanzine for Traveller5 serving some of the same purposes as Imperiallines: Xboat (2019-2022). And there continues to be the suggestion that there might be more Imperiallines some day.

Theme Issues

• #6: Regina
• #7: Nobles

About the Contributors

There are no credits for most of the articles in Imperiallines. They were written by Donald McKinney, Gregory Lee, James Kundert, Robert Eaglestone, and Andrea Vallance. Marc Miller also contributed some reprints to the latter issue, as noted.

Obtaining the Magazines

Imperiallines #6 and Imperiallines #7 are both available through DTRPG.

This index is © Copyright 2023 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution.

Main Index

🧰 Accessories

🛸 Aliens: Minor Races

📚 Background: Misc

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Deneb¹

⌛ Background: Historic

🖊️ Campaign Design

1. Originally published in HIGH PASSAGE #5 (High Passage Group, 1982), but updated with two new Government codes from TRAVELLER5 (FFE, 2013).

⬆️ Meta

🗣️ NPCs

📜 Rules

Covers