In May 2022 we presented the Gamelords Traveller Bundle, featuring 1980s Classic Traveller supplements from two of Traveller‘s earliest third-party publishers: Gamelords Ltd and Marischal Adventures. These primordial indies published many sourcebooks and scenarios by two of Traveller‘s most prolific designers: J. Andrew Keith and William H. Keith Jr. Though later known for Traveller landmarks like Murder on Arcturus Station, Nomads of the World Ocean, the Alien Modules, and much more, the Keith brothers started by self-publishing their own short “Folio” mini-scenarios (1981-82), followed by ten impressive booklets through Gamelords (1982-84). These titles date from the era when publishers printed their galleys on dot-matrix printers, yet this timeless material can still freshen any space-opera roleplaying campaign.
The Traveller community still holds Andrew, who died in 1999, in high regard; check this J. Andrew Keith Memorial hosted on Freelance Traveller. Old School blogger James Maliszewski lists several Keith titles in his December 2021 two-part blog post, “My Top 10 Classic Traveller Adventures.” William H. Keith went on to become a prolific novelist, first for BattleTech and other game lines, and later with his own geopolitical thrillers including the Warstrider series. Traveller designer Marc W. Miller has recently proposed William Keith for the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame, saying “his words and images creatively shaped players’ perceptions of their games and the hobby.”
There were ten titles in our Gamelords Collection (retail value $60) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:
- A Pilot’s Guide to the Drexilthar Subsector
- Three terrain survival guides: The Desert Environment, The Mountain Environment, and The Undersea Environment
- Three adventures keyed to the survival guides: Ascent to Anekthor (mountain), The Drenslaar Quest (undersea), and Duneraiders (desert)
- Three anthologies of short adventures and scenario hooks: Lee’s Guide to Interstellar Adventure, Startown Liberty, and Wanted: Adventurers
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Lost Supplements Collection with seventeen more titles, including eight of the Keiths’ early Marischal Folio mini-scenarios and nine titles that lay neglected until 2000, when Traveller fan Paul Sanders founded a company called Cargonauts specifically to publish them. The “Lost Supplements” sold out their 500-copy run almost immediately — but you can still purchase the .PDFs on a physical “Apocrypha 3” CD-ROM from Traveller designer Marc W. Miller at Far Future Enterprises.
These are .PDF image scans of the original 1980s hardcopies. Type is sometimes fuzzy, and image quality can be murky. The published Gamelords titles have OCR (Optical Character Recognition) applied, but none of the Lost Supplements do. Note that the Lost Supplements aren’t available on DriveThruRPG.
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to this Gamelords Traveller offer’s pandemic-related charity, Direct Relief. Direct Relief sends protective gear and critical care medications to health workers, with emergency deliveries to medical facilities across the US and to regional response agencies across the world.
