This is a character concept that I had developed for a 1st edition D&D character back in the 80s that I never did get a chance to play. At the time we were playing in the World of Greyhawk and I had visualized the Dry Steppes and Plains of the Paynims as having a culture that was kind of a mixture of American Plains Indians and barbarian Mongol with some influence from two books I had just read at the time, Frank Herbert's Dune and Robert Jordan's Shadow Rising (Wheel of Time book 4). A lot of the influence also derived from the cartoon series of Conan the Barbarian that was on TV at the time.
I was going to start the character as a Barbarian (Dragon #63) and then as he became more ‘civilized’ from his association with the other characters roleplay his duel classing into an Assassin apprenticing under the Assassin in the party, Georgia (Jeremy’s character), possibly as an assassin/acrobat with tutelage under the party thief-acrobat Andrew (Farrell’s character) although 1st edition didn’t really have a rule for mixing the assassin subclass and acrobat split-class. The evil alignment was more out of the alignment requirement for the Assassin class, which I was visualizing as using a more as a combat oriented thief, than any desire to play an evil character and the Conan characterization in the cartoon series had some rogue skills and a ruthless streak mixed in with his barbarian honor and decency.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Starship designators
Starship designations, numbers, and naming conventions
Overview
The Federation Charter and Starfleet regulations govern the designations and names used for Starfleet vessels. There are principally four different identifiers associated with each ship and each identifier provides different information. The four identifiers are the Ship's Name, the Ship's Number, the Ship's Class, and the Ship's Designation.
Ship's Name
Names for Starfleet vessels are chosen by the office of the Secretary of Starfleet, under the direction of the Federation Council and in accordance with the rules prescribed by Starfleet’s charter. In general the Charter designates that ships of a certain class should have a theme to their naming and that larger vessels should have more profound names. So one class of cruisers may be named after ‘ideals embraced by the Federation” while another cruiser class is named after “famous Earth naval vessels” and a frigate class is named after “stellar phenomenon” and an escort class after “cities of Andoria” while a class of fleet tug auxiliaries is named after “historical or mythological individuals of prodigious strength.” Generally once a proposed class has reached a certain point in its planning and development a naming scheme for the class will be chosen and reserved for that class and will govern what names are assigned to vessels within the class. There are of course exceptions to this rule, the two most common are when a vessel is named in honor of a person or when a vessel is named after a former Starfleet vessel to preserve its honors.
Ship's Number
While a Name may (rarely ) be duplicated the ships number is always unique to each individual ship. All warp capable Starfleet vessels built under the naval codes of the Federation Charter are numbered by their Navel Construction Contract number or “NCC” number. Ships built under Starfleet’s research and development division are assigned a “NX” number. As the Federation expands and construction has diversified into various shipyards contract numbers are often assigned both to ‘runs’ of a certain ship type built by a certain yard to avoid some of the confusion of the numbers seeming to ‘jump’ around quite so much. There is a single exception permitted to the number conventions under the Federation Charter. The Federation council, under the advisement of Starfleet command, may elect to promote a starship to the “Roles of Honor” where its name and number are kept in perpetual operation to preserve its honors. When a starship on the role is decommissioned or destroyed another ship about to be commissioned is given its name and number, the number is appended with a letter to clearly identify it from the other ships in its lineage. For example. The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 was added to the role of honor. Since then the name USS Enterprise has been kept in service, but each new vessel to bear the name has an additional letter appended to the number (NCC-1701-A, NCC-1701-B, etc).
Overview
The Federation Charter and Starfleet regulations govern the designations and names used for Starfleet vessels. There are principally four different identifiers associated with each ship and each identifier provides different information. The four identifiers are the Ship's Name, the Ship's Number, the Ship's Class, and the Ship's Designation.
Ship's Name
Names for Starfleet vessels are chosen by the office of the Secretary of Starfleet, under the direction of the Federation Council and in accordance with the rules prescribed by Starfleet’s charter. In general the Charter designates that ships of a certain class should have a theme to their naming and that larger vessels should have more profound names. So one class of cruisers may be named after ‘ideals embraced by the Federation” while another cruiser class is named after “famous Earth naval vessels” and a frigate class is named after “stellar phenomenon” and an escort class after “cities of Andoria” while a class of fleet tug auxiliaries is named after “historical or mythological individuals of prodigious strength.” Generally once a proposed class has reached a certain point in its planning and development a naming scheme for the class will be chosen and reserved for that class and will govern what names are assigned to vessels within the class. There are of course exceptions to this rule, the two most common are when a vessel is named in honor of a person or when a vessel is named after a former Starfleet vessel to preserve its honors.
Ship's Number
While a Name may (rarely ) be duplicated the ships number is always unique to each individual ship. All warp capable Starfleet vessels built under the naval codes of the Federation Charter are numbered by their Navel Construction Contract number or “NCC” number. Ships built under Starfleet’s research and development division are assigned a “NX” number. As the Federation expands and construction has diversified into various shipyards contract numbers are often assigned both to ‘runs’ of a certain ship type built by a certain yard to avoid some of the confusion of the numbers seeming to ‘jump’ around quite so much. There is a single exception permitted to the number conventions under the Federation Charter. The Federation council, under the advisement of Starfleet command, may elect to promote a starship to the “Roles of Honor” where its name and number are kept in perpetual operation to preserve its honors. When a starship on the role is decommissioned or destroyed another ship about to be commissioned is given its name and number, the number is appended with a letter to clearly identify it from the other ships in its lineage. For example. The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 was added to the role of honor. Since then the name USS Enterprise has been kept in service, but each new vessel to bear the name has an additional letter appended to the number (NCC-1701-A, NCC-1701-B, etc).
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)