John Sabino | CAAM | Hobbies | RPG

The Majestic Ghost Kite

Something to read while the thumbnails load

Zack's running a Traveller T20 game for Bob, Christy, Mike, Phil, Tim, and I. We're taking the role of merchants in a sci-fi 'verse in the far future. Our boat? She goes by Ghost Kite. Our mission: make money, save worlds, and hunt steak hamsters. We've had two sesssions so far. We started with simple jumps with grain in the hold. Soon enough, we landed on a comet, diverted it from the path of a pre-spaceflight world, and grabbed a tachyon device before jetting the puppy. Since then we "liberated" an oppressed univeristy world, and now we're laying low a few jumps from there.

The Cast:

Captain Chase Abel (Me) - Ex-navy merchant. The face. Captain, Negotiator, Purser, Broker, Gunner
Hank Sloan (Tim) - Cowboy. Pilot, Astrogator, Driver, Navigator
Dr. Sh'isa A'tulin ne Fadrin (Christy) - Vargr. Chief Medic, Passenger Steward
"Mak" (Mike) - Belter. Chief Engineer, Damage Control
"Spaceport Pete" (Phil) - Ex-phreaker. Sensors, Comms, Computers, "Information"
Yupik (Bob) - Eskimo with a harpoon. Ship Security, Cargo Hand

The story behind the ship

We played our first game, and I knew I wanted to build a ship. Tim hopped on it before I did and drew up some plans. We have the 300-ton freighter to scale, 1.5 meters to an inch. We were happy with the plans, so we got out the cardboard, hot glue, and toothpicks and set to it. Well he did. I got to it the next day. He put up the walls and most of the essential structures. He came up with the killer idea allowing the fins (and later the turret) to rotate. He also put in retractable landing gear. Furthermore, Tim got in the thrusters and the viewports. I put up a few walls but mostly sweated the accessories, bridge, movable cargo gate and turret, and the structures flanking the sides. Christy had the idea for the chairs on the bridge, which I built. A few notes: the "picnic" table in the galley is a Firefly-esque themed dining table. We're trying to maintain its Western-in-Space feel. Just check out our pilot! No lateral thrusters: no big deal. We pretend the fins can move in the third dimension. We figured the design we had was sturdy, so we forwent implementing the yaw maneuvarability.

Overall, we're proud of it. The cost? About $7 in hot glue and some toothpicks. We had the cardboard around from various packagings, and the plastic for the viewports came off some packaging for paints. We put about 25 man-hours into it, spread out over a week or so. We also did not paint it. We're quick and dirty, and don'tcha forget it!

Before you are done, be sure to look at the baby Ghost Kite at the bottom of the page. About two hours before we were to unveil the Ghost Kite to the guys, I came up with a joke to play on them. Tim hopped at it, and made a silly fake Ghost Kite to show them first. We'd been talking up the ship for a couple weeks by then, and we wanted to see the look on their faces when they saw the "majesty" of the fake one! Zack was pretty polite about it, actually. No dissappointment. I think Bob was quite taken with it, to tell the truth. We all are, now, I gather. It's a cute bugger.

The Ghost Kite Pictures
These are thumbnails. Click to enlarge!
(Or you can download all the files here.)


Starboard bow	Starboard bow in motion	Portside bow	Portside stern	Portside stern in motion

Starboard stern	Starboard stern in motion	Thrusters	Cargo deck, crew deck, and roof	Cargo hold

Crew deck	Crew deck on cargo deck	Bridge & quarters	Bow of crew deck	Cargo hold open

Ready for loading!	Stern of cargo deck	Engine room	Pilot Hank at the controls	Hank grabbing a bite to eat

Hank checking for stowaways	Hank stealing a nap in Mac's hammock	Hank screaming out of the cargo hold in his jeep	Starboard fin construction	Turret construction