The Spinward Marches Campaign (1985) is sort of a summation of the Traveller universe up to that point. The region was broadly detailed in the third Traveller supplement (1979), and that book really establishes much of the campaign setting that was already implied by the mechanics. The summer, 1981, issue of the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society revealed that was had broken out in the Marches. That war continued in semi-real time until the Journal shuttered in 1984. This book charts the toll of the Fifth Frontier war and lays out the future of adventure in the sector. If the ‘79 book is the before, this one is the after.

There is an adventure included. The book calls it a campaign, but in a post-Masks of Nyarlathotep world, four or so pages of factions, plots and adventure seeds doesn’t really feel like a campaign, no matter how good it is. Call it more a campaign frame instead. It’s…all right? The players are framed and forced to go all over the sector in order to clear their name. That’s a pretty good excuse to travel to a bunch of planets and unravel some espionage. The frame naturally draws on the material in the book and lends itself to plenty of digressions and meandering but, like most Traveller adventure material in this era, it requires a ton of work from the GM.

I like the art in this era of Traveller a lot (even if that scout ship on the cover is designed to give me Star Wars vibes). There is a sort of just-shy of generic that I find appealing. It isn’t so blank as GURPS art, for instance — the illustrations are depicting a unique universe — but they’re still general enough to make you not feel locked into pre-ordained narrative stuff. You can do what you like, if you want. Also, Jennell Jaquays’ stuff is all over this era, and that is always a welcome thing.