Aurore Sourcebook

by William H. Keith Jr.

"Nobody said it would be easy. On Aurore, life is no paradise. There are the quakes and volcanoes, the inedible (and often hostile) life forms, and the peculiar orbital mechanics which made half the planet too hot for human habitation. Even to grow food is a struggle of sizable dimensions. The Kafer invasion only made things more complicated... Aurore [Eta Bootis IIc] is one of the least hospitable worlds in the French Arm, and at the same time one of the most spectacularly beautiful worlds in known human space. Aurore is a world Earthlike enough that humans can live and work in its temperate zone without being forced to resort to cumbersome survival gear or protective suits. Only slightly smaller than Earth, Aurore is largely a vast and unexplored wilderness; the regions which have been thoroughly explored and developed around each of Aurore's three human colonies are relatively small, and much of the rest of the surface has been only superficially surveyed and mapped. The fact that Aurore is actually a large [tidally-locked] satellite of a superjovian gas giant [brown dwarf] has created extremes of climate and surface conditions which present players with unique and interesting problems. Aurore Sourcebook contains background information on Aurore, allowing the 2300 referee to set campaigns anywhere on the planet. It is intended to give a broad overview of the planetary conditions, terrain, biology, and colonies of Eta Bootis IIc-known to its inhabitants as Aurore. Although Aurore Sourcebook is intended to be used with Kafer Dawn, the module in not needed to complete the information presented in this sourcebook."

Genres: Gaming

Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Bill Keith was raised in the mountains of western Pennsylvania, and served in the Navy as a corpsman for many years. In addition to writing fiction and non-fiction works, he is an award-winning illustrator/artist.

He has also published under the psuedonyms:
Ian Douglas (SF series: Heritage, Legacy, Inheritance, Star Carrier, Andromedan Dark)
H. Jay Riker (SEALS:The Warrior Breed series)
Keith Douglass (Carrier and Seal Team 7 series)
Bill Keith
Keith William Andrews (Freedom's Rangers series)
Robert Cain (Cybernarc series)

Reviews

[Matthew J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

2300AD is such a well realized setting. Very much in the vein of the original Alien (1979) and Outland (1981). With Aurore, William H. Keith Jr. has given us a dramatic frontier world and potential battlefield. This is the outer edge of Human space, where it butts up against the Kafers, a dangerous and alien foe that fights mean. But the Kafers, no matter their threat to the greater Human controlled space are nothing compared to the world itself. A violent world of extremes, the life of colonists is anything but comfortable.
My only real complaint with this book is its organization. It feels like some information is states, restated, and restated again, while other bits almost drift by without notice. I can't imagine having to reference it during a game. I'd have to copy out and make my own bullet-pointed lists of pertinent information.