Island Parameters - World's Apart

In Traveller (at least the OGL version I'm using, that is..) a beginning character first generates abilities and then picks a certain number of background skills based upon what type of home world your character comes from as well as from a general list. I'll be doing the same thing in Worlds Apart.

This means I need to look over the Traveller worlds and determine what types of islands could be analogous to them as well as making sure that newly appropriate types of home islands are available.

In Traveller the worlds and their associate skills are:

Agricultural:            Animals 0
Asteroid:                Zero-G 0
Desert:                   Survival 0
Fluid Oceans:         Seafarer 0
Garden:                  Animals 0
High Technology:   Computers 0
High Population:     Streetwise 0
Ice-Capped:          Vacc Suit 0
Industrial:               Trade 0
Low Technology:   Survival 0
Poor:                     Animals 0
Rich:                     Carouse 0
Water World:        Seafarer 0
Vacuum:               Vacc Suit 0

Right away certain things are just out: Asteroid, Fluid Ocean, Water World, and Vacuum are not going to happen in the World's Apart concept. Some things are going to change in concept, but still exist, such as High Technology and Industrial. This, of course, also brings up the skill list as well. Obviously there won't be Zero-G, Computers, and Vacc Suit skills in a World's Apart. This means I'll have to do some more designing into the void.

After thinking a bit about what I'd like for the tone of the game, the following list comes to light:

High Magic               Magic 0
Low Magic               Science 0
High Population        Streetwise 0
Low Population        Survival 0
High Technology      Trade 0
Low Technology      Navigation 0
Arid                         Survival 0
Lush                        Animals 0
Hot                         Survival 0
Cold                        Survival 0
Rich                        Carouse 0
Poor                       Agricultural 0
Agricultural             Agriculture 0
Industrial                Trade 0
Archipelago            Seafarer 0
Atoll                       Seafarer 0
Large                     Language 0
Small                     Leadership 0

Several things now pop out. There are varying level of magic on each island This adds a lot of diversity to the setting, for not every land has the same mystical underpinning. It also means, of course, that I'll have to mechanically determine just what Low and High magic means for spell casters. Also, I've "rationalized" the climatic variables a bit, so now there's hot and cold, wet and dry islands. I've also put in a few descriptors, such as Archipelago and Atoll. On the skills end, I've got Magic and Navigation as new skills that don't already exist in Traveller.

Another example of designing into the void is done. Next is skills. Skills will be rough.