Overview

History: 1981

Trevor Graver, the founder of the Dark Star fanzine, had been Games Workshop's first employee, hired in October 1977 when the company was run out of "The Breadbin", a shop so small that it could only hold two people at a time. Unsurprisingly, he quickly became a White Dwarf author as well. His first published work was the "Needleman" for White Dwarf #6 (April/May 1978), which eventually made its way into the Fiend Folio (1981). However, he soon moved onto to supporting one of Games Workshop's special games: Traveller (1981). His initial contributions were "Criminals" in White Dwarf #19 (June/July 1980) and "The Self-Made Traveller" in White Dwarf #25 (June/July 1981) — the latter a point-based system for Traveller character generation.

Graver soon came to the conclusion that Traveller had a major problem in the UK in the early '80s: a lack of communication. To resolve that problem he decided to create a Traveller newsletter that would tell players about the latest news and help them to contact each other: Dark Star. The news was likely easy enough for Graver to gather thanks to his position at Games Workshop, while player introductions were to occur through a player directory, where players sent in their names and addresses so that they could write each other.

Dark Star was the fourth Traveller periodical of note, following JTAS, Alien Star, and High Passage. It had some connections to Alien Star, which like Dark Star was a British periodical. In Alien Star's first incarnation, it took over Dark Star's player directory (which was never very successful) and in its second incarnation, it took over Dark Star's news, with Graver at the helm.

Unlike the other early periodicals, Dark Star was a newsletter, or if you prefer to use Graver's own terminology, a microzine. This category of periodical publication would develop as a fairly standard alternative to more traditional fanzines in Traveller fandom, especially among HIWG members. The newsletters are usually short and printed with no separate cover. Articles also tend to be shorter, less polished, and more focused on news and discussion. In Dark Star's case, the 'zine was just four pages long, and at least half of its content was news and reviews.

Dark Star published monthly across half of 1981. After six issues, Graver said he was ending the newsletter due to "lack of interest". Both Dark Star #6 (November 1981) and Alien Star claimed there was to be a seventh issue, but it's currently believed to have never been produced.

Graver was also working on an "Approved for use with Traveller" book on criminals, which he said would revise the "mess that appeared in White Dwarf #19" but that didn't appear either. Alas.

Obtaining the Magazines

About the Contents

Any image of the "cover" of Dark Star #1 would be great too!

This index is © Copyright 2022 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution.

🗣️ Adventures: Patrons

1. Continuing the counting from TRAVELLER SUPPLEMENT 6: 76 PATRONS (GDW, 1980).
2. Likely the same article that appeared in JTAS #10 (GDW, 1981) under the same name.

🛸 Aliens: Minor Races

📚 Background: Misc

🌌 Background: Geographic, Charted Space

1. This was the official map of the Imperium that GDW released in 1980, most prominently in DIFFERENT WORLDS #9 (Chaosium 1980). DARK STAR used it to map out all the known land grants to date.

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Deneb¹

🛠️ Equipment: Misc

⚔️ Equipment: Combat

🚀 Equipment: Transport

⬆️ Meta

1. Also briefly ran in ALIEN STAR #5 (1981).

📜 Rules

1. Corrections and additions for "The Self-Made Traveller" in WHITE DWARF #25 (GW, 1981)

⭐ Reviews: Misc¹

1. Dark Star Reviews measured "Q"uality and "U"sefulness on 4 point scales.

Covers