I find myself thinking a lot about Frontier these days. (It’s probably because I have some self-imposed deadlines for ‘Illusion’ and ‘6’.)
Over the last couple of years I’ve harvested some twenty names from the freelancer forums of RPG.net as I try to get a feel for the art that I want for my games. Some of them are for games in development, some of them capture the feel of games not even fully realised. I just want to grab the names, the web sites and keep them while my brain stews over the content.
The opening of the Frontier book should have a visual representation (otherwise known as a picture) of Kumbu. It needs some sparse flavour text to describe where to go from there and then it should move to background describing how to get there.
It’s a nice feeling, crystallising the book in your mind. Makes you want it all the more.
Nice flavour text. Could Kumbu, or the organisation behind it also be a patron?
i.e.
“There’s a ‘VrrrLLnd-k Nyardup’ referenced in Index 345, Journal 234B, Entry 345-av-765. It appears to be a few jumps beyond Beneth Lylax. If we can recover some media from this location we may be able to formulate the grammar of Language 345x”…
The organisation behind Kumbu is ‘Human Unity’. It certainly would be an option for this. I would say that the research team for an Explorer would leave Kumbu with several such requests. They would be prioritised by the Captain Expert and the Executive Team.
There should be sufficient requests to last, say, a 5 year mission…to see out…you get the idea?