Overview

History: 1981-1983

High Passage magazine was created by the High Passage Group of Jim Cunningham, Craig Johnson, and Scott Walschlager, who were high-school friends that were fans of Traveller; they turned a graphic-art class project into a professional magazine courtesy of a license from Marc Miller. The result was Traveller's second professional magazine, following GDW's own Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society (1979-1985). It was very nearly Traveller's second periodical of any type, but the British fanzine Alien Star 1981-1982), also produced by high school students, preceded the April or May debut of High Passage by a few months.

High Passage #1 (1981) lost the Group money, because they didn't know how roleplaying distribution worked. Fortunately, they were located in Illinois, which allowed them to make connections to FASA and the Keith Brothers, who were all producing Traveller material of their own. As a result, the later issues of High Passage were proofread, laid out, and distributed by FASA and the Keiths.

The first four issues of High Passage really laid down a blueprint for what a Traveller periodical should look like. The High Passage Group was given a sector as their own land grant, just like other Traveller licensees: The Old Expanses. Each issue of the magazine then detailed a subsector of the Old Expanses, featured an adventure set in that subsector, and also provided other articles related to that subsector. Later magazines such as Third Imperium (1986-1988) and Signal GK (1989-1997) followed this model precisely. Travellers' Digest was much more far-flung, but similarly matched up setting material and adventure in each issue.

By the time High Passage #5 (1982) rolled around, Johnson and Walschlager were headed off to the Air Force, and so the Group was becoming less able to produce a regular magazine. As a result, J. Andrew Keith and William H. Keith Jr. took over as the editors of the magazine.

Disagreements ultimately resulted in High Passage coming to an end following that issue, but FASA and the Keiths kicked off a new magazine, Far Traveller, which picked up where they'd left off, carrying over some of the columns they'd created for the previous magazine. It had to move away from the Old Expanses, but fortunately the Keiths had a land grant of their own, and so the magazine moved to Reaver's Deep. Unfortunately, the new magazine was short-lived too, as Far Traveller trailed off after issue #2 (1983), by which time FASA had begun publishing a roleplaying game of their own, Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game (1982).

Dale Kemper prepared a full manuscript for Far Traveller #3 and may have used FASA's own land grant of the Far Frontiers as a foundation. It was never published due to the rapidity of changes at FASA at the time, though some copies were rumored to be sold on Ebay. Some of the material Kemper prepared for the Far Frontiers Sector ended up published in Ares Magazine Special Edition #2 (1984) and later in Traveller Chronicle (1993-1997) as well.

Old Expanses Deep Subsector Index

• A: Dethenes [HP #1]
• C: Ahrhi [HP #4]
• H: Ile [#HP #3]
• J: Shenk [HP #5]
• O: So Skire [#HP #2]

Reaver's Deep Subsector Index

• F: Scotian Deep [FT #1]
• G: Caledon [TC #5-7, Pilot's Guide to Caledon]
• J: Ea [FT #2]
• K: Drexilthar [Pilot's Guide to Drexilthar]

Obtaining the Magazines

High Passage #1 (1981) was published in about 1,000 copies and has always been very hard to obtain. However the following four issues, all produced by FASA, were released in sufficient quantity that they remained highly available for decades afterward on the secondary markets. Even today they can be purchased at reasonable prices, especially issues #3-5. Marc Miller further supported the market in 2020 when he released a "High Passage Bundle" through Far Future Enterprises, which included copies of #2-5 taken from GDW's archives, plus a facsimile of issue #1.

Far Traveller seems to have been released in slightly lower quantities than High Passage. It was relatively easy to obtain as late as the early '90s, but today sells for low collectors' prices.

There are currently no official electronic copies of High Passage or Far Traveller.

About the Contents

This index covers both High Passage (labeled "HP") and Far Traveller (labeled "FT"), as there was a continuum between the two magazines.

This index is © Copyright 2022-2024 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 Ilelish¹

1. The Domain of Ilelish lies between the Solomani Sphere and Aslan Space and was the home of the Suerrat Republic. It includes the Daibei Sector, the Ilelish Sectyor, Reaver's Deep, and the Zarushagar Sector, and also administers the Verge Sector.

🎞️ ️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.

🎞️ Adventures: Historic

🗣️ Adventures: Patrons

🛸 Aliens: Minor Races

🐾 Animals & Plants

📚 Background: Misc

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Ilelish¹

1. The Domain of Ilelish lies between the Solomani Sphere and Aslan Space and was the home of the Suerrat Republic. It includes the Daibei Sector, the Ilelish Sectyor, Reaver's Deep, and the Zarushagar Sector, and also administers the Verge Sector.
2. The Caledon Highlanders also appear in ASLAN MERCENARY SHIPS (FASA, 1982).
3. FAR TRAVELLER #1 (1982) is the closest thing to a complete "Pilots Guide to Ea Subsector", though it's mostly focused on the planet of Roakhoi just as FAR TRAVELLER #2 (1983) contains the brief "Pilot's Guide to the Scotian Deep Subsector", linked to info on the planet of Rejhappur. The published Guides for Reaver's Deep were A PILOTS GUIDE TO THE DREXILTHAR SUBSECTOR (Gamelords, 1984) and much later A PILOTS GUIDE TO THE CALEDON SUBSECTOR (Far Future Enterprises, 2009). Together these four sources outline the four subsectors at the center of the Reaver's Deep sector [F, G, J, and K].

🌌 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.

🖊️ Campaign Design

🛠️ Equipment: Misc

🤖 Equipment: Artificial Life

1. Built using the system from JTAS #3 (GDW, 1979)

⚔️ Equipment: Combat

1. Illustrations of weapons from TRAVELLER (GDW, 1977).
2. Illustrations of weapons from BOOK FOUR: MERCENARY (GDW, 1978).

🛰️ Equipment: Infrastructure

🚀 Equipment: Transport

🎤 Interviews, Memoirs & Notes

⬆️ Meta

🗣️ NPCs

📜 Rules

Covers