Overview

History: 2019-Present

Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society, or JTAS has regularly appeared from Traveller's major publishers and licensees as the official magazine of Traveller articles. GDW published JTAS v1 (1979-1985) back in the earliest days of Traveller, and it was here that the setting of the Third Imperium took shape. JTAS v2 (1997-1998), from Imperium Games, was a somewhat sad affair, in part because the editor and most authors didn't have a strong handle on the Traveller setting and in part because it ran only two issues. JTAS v3 (2000-2016), from Steve Jackson Games, had a very long run, publishing on a weekly or biweekly basis from 2000-2015 and totalling some 1,500 articles total. But, because it was a website-driven collection of electronic articles, it's largely been lost to history other than the PDF book The Best of JTAS (2004) and a CD-ROM collection.

Following the end of Steve Jackson Games' license in 2015, there was an opportunity for the publication of a new JTAS. At that point, Mongoose Publishing was Traveller's only major roleplaying licensee. And, they'd even published a periodical previously, Signs & Portents (2003-2013), a magazine supporting all of Mongoose's games, including Traveller, with many of the latter articles collected in a pair of Traveller Compendiums (2010, 2011).

The biggest problem was that traditional periodicals were largely defunct in the 21st century. (Even Signs & Portents had run as a free PDF-only periodical during much of its run.) Luke Crane of Kickstarter offered a solution in November 2018 when he announced the 'Zine Quest initiative, to run in February 2019. His idea was that roleplaying designers could produce old-school 'zines funded by Kickstarter patrons. Most creators produced one-off 'zines, but some instead funded multiple "issues". Most notably this included Rob Eaglestone and his Xboat (2019-2022) fanzine for Traveller5. Using the Kickstarter he funded the production of four issues and a Special Supplement, planned to be released quarterly, but actually released over the course of a few years due to the challenges of the COVID pandemic. It wasn't exactly a classic periodical, since it was prefunded and produced as a group, but it was perhaps the closest thing in the modern age.

Mongoose did not take part in the 'Zine Quest, but a month later, on March 7, 2019, they offered their own take on the idea: they opened a Kickstarter to produce three digest-sized issues of a new, fourth volume of Journal of the Travellers' Aid, to be released as a slipcased set to patrons, and later as standalone issues. Through stretch goals, those three issues grew to six. The volumes were produced as PDFs from 2019-2020, then shipped to print Kickstarter patrons in the slipcase, then were released as single print volumes (without the slipcase) to other interested fans.

To this date, Mongoose has run two additional Kickstarters which each duplicated this pattern, the second on November 5, 2021 and the third on July 5, 2024. Besides the volumes of JTAS, each later campaign has also included a Kickstarter-exclusive copy of a print volume, only available as PDFs to non-Backers: Bu and Embla’s Guide to Starports of the Marches (2023) for the second Kickstarter and Conflict Studies - Fifth Frontier War (2025?) for the third. These bonus books have been digest-sized but do not fit in the slipcases.

The Kickstarters have been increasingly successful, which is not the typical direction for repeating Kickstarters of this sort. The first raised £64,324 from 901 backers, the second £118,994 from 1,146 backers, and the £110,906 from 1,060 backers, with several days left to go.

The books that Mongoose has produced have all been beautiful, full-color volumes, in tune with the Mongoose 2e (2016) design aesthetic. Each one is a 128-page digest densely packed with individual articles, resulting in a single issue being like 3-5 issues of JTAS v1. The articles tend to be updates of classic articles, drawn from JTAS v1, Challenge (1986-1995) or even Signs & Portents, though there have always been some original pieces as well, with the number growing over time as classic content is used up.

About the Contents

The updated articles aren't exactly reprints. There are a few that hew very close to the original content, with only new editorial work, but many others are large-scale expansions of previous articles. This is particularly true of articles that were "Amber Zones" in JTAS v1 but which are now fully detailed (but still short) adventures.

Because so much of the content is updated from previous magazines, the original publication isn't listed with a superscript (as in other indices) but instead as part of the info-line for each article.

This index currently only covers the first Kickstarter, which was the first six issues of JTAS v4. Future releases will cover the second and third Kickstarters as well.

About the Contributors

Individual article credits are unfortunately not included in JTAS v4. This index lists the original authors of updated articles in the form "after John Smith". A few modern-day authors are also listed, per data in the Traveller Wiki.

If you are an author of content in JTAS v4 please email me and I'll get you credited!

Obtaining the Magazines

JTAS v4 remains available as individual print and PDF issues. The slipcases are the only things not widely available, though they can sometimes be obtained through eBay and other secondary sellers. (I picked up the first two slipcases through eBay before properly supporting the third Kickstarter.)

This index is © Copyright 2024 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution.

Main Index

🎞️ Adventures: Misc

🎞️ Adventures: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Deneb¹

1. The Domain of Deneb is the most Spinward of the Domains. It includes the Deneb Sector, the Reft Sector, the Spinward Marches, and the Trojan Reach. It's the most traditional location for adventure in the Imperium. It is also known as the region "Behind the Claw".

🎞️️ Adventures: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Sol¹

1. The Domain of Sol, formerly the Domain of Diaspora, contains the Solomani Sphere. It includes the Alpha Crucis Sector, the Diaspora Sector, the Old Expanses, and the Solomani Rim, and also administers the Hinterworlds and the Magyar Sector.

💡 Advice

🛸 Aliens: Misc

🛸 Aliens: Humaniti

🛸 Aliens: Major Races

🛸 Aliens: Minor Races

🐾 Animals & Plants

📚 Background: Misc

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Deneb¹

1. The Domain of Deneb is the most Spinward of the Domains. It includes the Deneb Sector, the Reft Sector, the Spinward Marches, and the Trojan Reach. It's the most traditional location for adventure in the Imperium. It is also known as the region "Behind the Claw".

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Sol¹

1. The Domain of Sol, formerly the Domain of Diaspora, contains the Solomani Sphere. It includes the Alpha Crucis Sector, the Diaspora Sector, the Old Expanses, and the Solomani Rim, and also administers the Hinterworlds and the Magyar Sector.

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium Outskirts¹

⌛ Background: Historic

🖊️ Campaign Design

🛠️ Equipment: Misc

⚔️ Equipment: Combat

🛰️ Equipment: Infrastructure

🚀 Equipment: Transport

1. Likely based on the "Soho Class Light Freighter" in TRAVELLER CHRONICLE #13 (SotK, 1997).

⬆️ Meta

🗣️ NPCs

📜 Rules

Covers