The Azure Expanse

[K_Feldspar]

I just started my new campaign tonight. There were about twelve of us. Man that's too big a group to keep control of without being exhausted. I'm beat, but I thought I'd write about it. Especially since so many people here contributed to it here through pdf.

After about two hours of character gen and basic rules for the newbies we started. Kind of a typical opening. All the pcs were just laid off or looking for work. They all came down to this bar/restaraunt. Nothing too seedy. Kind of a nice place to eat. Dim lights, ok music and a little smoke in the air. They were there spending their last few credits on a decent meal and some drinks. Some new each other, and some didn't. (In fact through player back stories two of them decided that they knew each other. The ex-cop recognized an ex-con he had arrested.)

All of a sudden some big spender dude with a tatoo of a green droid on his left forearm comes in. Man does he spread around the cash. Even buys the house a round of drinks. Really obviously too. Some of the pcs figured out he was trouble, and were ready.

Others were caught stupid when two guys also with green droids tatooed on their arms opened fire. One with a blaster pistol, and the other with this heavy disruptor cannon of my own design.

Well see, one of the pcs was a Coynite, and really appreciated the free drinks, so he went over and beheaded both those guys as eaight more lightly armed men with the same mark came in and finally blasted the big spender to bits. Now the Coynite is only here with us this week so I let him grab the disruptor. That and his traditional sword made him the most powerful character by far, so it's important that he was only here this week. "Meow meow, kill?" That's one of his favorite phrases.

Anyways the other eight guys start leaving because their job is done. Big spender dude is toasted. During the short shoot-out the other pcs were doing various things. Some tried pick pocketing. Others looted bodies of the fallen--especially the big spender. Others ran out the back.

One of the humans, however, used her comlink to call the authorities. Which of course, was something the Wookie didn't care for. So the Wookie wandered over, picked up the snitch, and crushed her comlink. That was something I found amusing because I had started the pcs with so little equipment, that loosing the comlink really hurt.

The pcs make their way outside to see the thugs driving away in an open-air speeder. One of them takes a head shot, and frags the driver causing the speeder to come to a screeching halt. This throws the other thugs out of the speeder. A bunch of pcs decide to leave together at this point because they hear sirens coming. So they head to the spaceport.

One of the pcs, a Verpine is walking down the street, and gets stopped by some stormies. They look at his papers, and tell him to get in the speeder. He calmly complies. The start to depart, but the Coynite just couldn't get in enough trouble. He discharges the disruptor canon at the speeder and vapes part of the back end.

Now the pilot punches right then, but the Verpine just happens to be the pc I gave the one grenade to. He takes it out, and scares the stormies. So instead of speeding away the vehicle comes to a screeching halt and the four stormies jump out.

As they jump out, the Coynite stuns one. The Verpine pulls the pin on the grenade--we're not sure why. The stormies shoot at the Verpine, but all miss. The grenade gets lobbed out stunning two of the stormies. The Verpine jumps in the drivers seat, picks up the Coynite and drives off to the spaceport.

The rest of the characters all meat up at the space port, and recognize each other from the restaraunt. That's where we stopped. Hopefully in two weeks when we play we can get them all into the same ship.

Hope this was mildly interesting for everyone. I might give updates from time to time, or let you know if they're doing something funny. Or tell me to shut up if I'm boring

[Akari]

Yeah, that was pretty cool! Keep us posted! I always like to hear detailed descriptions of other peoples campaigns. ^_^

[Esjs]

Twelve of you? How did you keep your head from spinning off your neck?
_________________
"WHERE ARE THE CHEETOS?"

"Esjs" == "Jess"

[Volar the Healer]

Sounds very busy...
_________________
Know Jesus, Know Peace.
No Jesus, No Peace

[K_Feldspar]

Ok I counted in my head, and I only remember 10 people--just to be precise. It was difficult, and I wound up with a headache afterwards. I had to keep things pretty fast and furious with lots of rolls. That way distracting side conversations were kept to a minimum.

[entropy]

It might be more entertaining to our audience if you included the names of the characters in the story. That would allow people to kind of follow along as we develop our respective personalities.

By the way, I'm playing Drax, the ex-cop who got a lucky headshot on the landspeeder pilot (that was my only good roll all night). I'm glad the wookie followed me out the back of the restaurant, because my 2D mech probably wasn't going to move a landspeeder that had just crashed.

[entropy]

The Crew:

- Zeek, the Verpine Tech
- Quarx, the Quarren Bouncer
- Aramina (Mina), the Human Diplomat
- Edj-dur (Edj), Twi’lek Gambler, Drax arrested him once.
- Rika, Wookiee, big even for a Wookie, she ran a brewery before the empire invaded Kashyyk.
- Drax, Human Ex-cop (Alien Interrogator), the Empire made his job obsolete, they just shoot the aliens now.
- Rayne, Human Pilot, in debt up to his eyeballs for his ship.
- Zodraz (Zod), Human Kid with an unusual talent for carving things out of potatoes.
- Morris, Human Starship Crewman

There were a few people who didn't show up this week, I'll edit this when I get their names the next time they come.

[entropy]

It seems to have fallen upon me to take notes during our adventures, so as long as there seems to be interest, I'll keep posting our exploits.

Star Wars: The Azure Expanse
Episode II – The Gathering Storm

Approaching the spaceport, Zeek sees that the area is swarming with stormtroopers. Smashing the squadcar into the wall, he jumps out and makes a dash for the doors. Meanwhile the Coynite powers up the disrupter cannon and prepares for a fight. As he slips into the crowded spacedocks, Zeek sees the Coynite vaporize two troopers before they overcome and arrest him. Better him than me, he thinks, as he looks around for a fast way off-planet.

Rayne, with his brand new pre-owned transport, is making a deal to transport a load of tungsten to the Pyros system. Drax, Edj, Quarx, and Rika (still dragging Aramina) spot him and overhear that he has a ship. Thinking it might be safer off-planet, Drax suggests to him that they may be able to make a deal. To their surprise, Rayne offers to hire them on as a crew.

Edj finishes up the negotiations for the tungsten shipment, netting an extra 14% through clever bargaining just as a kid named Zod starts pestering Rayne. After a bit of talking, he finds out Zod is pretty handy with a ship’s communication system, and hires him on too. Zeek sees the group boarding a ship and offers his services as a tech. Morris tries (poorly) to stow away, but Rayne finds him and offers him a job running the shields. Drax drives the landspeeder into a cargo bay, and everyone boards the ship.

As the ship, The Gathering Storm, takes off, the new crew takes a look around. It’s one of those “fixer-uppers.” You know the type… no weapons, no sensors, no backup hyperdrive, one escape pod missing, the other non-functional, and a horrible smell coming from one of the crew cabins. Zeek goes to work on the escape pod. Drax takes an inventory and finds a fully stocked medical bay, one helmet, and no space suits.

The ship leaves the dock to pick up the cargo, which is in a container orbiting the planet. With no sensors or tractor beam, Edj goes to the cargo bay and opens the doors while directing Rayne to back the ship around the container. There was a bit of a bump the first time, but they work it out and are soon on their way. As they pull away from the planet, Morris notices a ship pass over them, and decides to raise the shields before plotting a course to Pyros.

Just as Zeek finishes the escape pod (pulling out a hairball the size of a Wookie’s fist from the launch mechanism) the ship comes under attack. While the crew is trying to figure out what’s happening, the first blast glances off the shields and the second takes them down. Zeek immediately starts working on them and heroically brings them up the next round, while Edj reports a ship closing and three humanoids in zero-G suits carrying boarding gear. Drax grabs Rika and Quarx and heads to the back of the ship to repel boarders, and Rayne takes evasive maneuvers and tries to get some distance. Morris tries to make a jump, but the Astrogation computer tells him he’s too close to the sun for that.

After a dramatic 25-second chase, The Gathering Storm makes it into hyperspace.

Zeek goes to work on the rest of the ship, getting the sublight engines up to speed, but finds that he needs a part for the sensors. Zod goes looking for the source of the horrible smell in the crew quarters, but finds nothing. When the crew tries out the auto-chef, they find it produces normal-enough food (and has an exceptionally large wookie recipe collection), but tends to turn things an unnatural shade of blue. Rayne notices that the ship feels a bit shaky, so Zeek goes to check out the hyperdrive. Before he has a chance to do anything, there’s a sudden lurch, knocking the crew off their feet, and the ship is back in real-space.

Taking a quick survey, Zeek finds that Edj and Zod are the only ones injured. He brings them to the medical bay and patches them up, then goes to work on the hyperdrive. Zod, Edj, and Drax go back to looking for the source of the smell and find a hole between the walls. Edj decides they need to tie something to Zod and shove him through, but can’t find anything suitable until he comes across Zeek and grabs some wires that don’t look important. Rika, thinking this is a bad idea, grabs him by the tentacles and lifts him off the ground, shouting something he doesn’t understand in Wookie. Edj drops the wires but insists they weren’t important, and Rika eventually lets him down.

Drax manages to find some rope, and Zod crawls around between the walls until he finds a dead four-legged creature with a shipjacking kit. Rayne says, “Well, it looks like we repelled our first boarder!” Morris, eyes downcast, mutters “…second…” and everyone laughs. Removing the shipjacking kit, Drax zips the creature up in a body bag, and seals him in the empty escape hatch bay.

After about six hours, Zeek gets the hyperdrive working again and Rayne punches in some new coordinates. There is a lurch, followed by a pop and a fizzle, as the ship goes nowhere. Rayne berates Zeek for his poor technical ability, and Zeek, looking dejected, walks up to the bridge, hands Rayne a hydro-spanner, and plops himself down. Realizing that no one else on the ship had a chance at repairing the hyperdrive, Rayne apologizes to Zeek, who goes back to fix it. A few hours later, the ship is back in hyperspace, headed for Pyros.

Upon arriving at Pyros, the ship is hailed by an imperial customs cruiser. There is some discussion among the crew about whether or not they’re willing to be boarded, but when Zod starts talking to the official, Edj grabs the communicator from him and responds. The crew stashes their unregistered weapons in the hole in the wall and hopes the official doesn’t notice the body in the escape hatch. There is an ominous clunk as the ship docks, and the inspector steps in.

Seeing everything is in order with the cargo, the inspector states that they are checking safety systems as well, and does a brief walk through. Edj manages to talk him out of pursuing the smell in the crew quarters, but the inspector won’t budge on the 400-credit fine for the missing escape pod. While Drax is counting his blessings that the inspector didn’t open the bay, Zeek slips him 20 hard credits, and the inspector lets it go. The inspector leaves, and as Rayne pulls into the spaceport, Drax ponders aloud, “Wait a minute... there’s not supposed to be an imperial presence on Pyros.”

Arriving on Pyros, the Rayne collects his payment, and doles out 200 credits each to the crew. That leaves him with enough to make his next payment on the ship, and a little bit extra for repairs. They buy the part to repair the sensors, and pick up some glow rods, communicators, and miscellaneous gear. Some of the crew buy identicards and permits to carry the blasters they’ve scavenged. Drax makes friends with the local police lieutenant, and gets a license for bounty hunting in the sector. While he goes to look up bounties, Aramina tries to find out what the creature on the ship was.

[entropy]

Star Wars: The Azure Expanse
Episode III – The Smoking Pit

The party is out shopping and looking for bounties. Meanwhile, back on the ship, the wookiee is carrying load after load of potatoes from the auto-chef to her quarters. She appears to have set up some sort of still, and is brewing the wookiee equivalent of vodka. One by one, the characters return, and Drax goes over the bounties he found. Two of them, a labor leader named Karol, and a cult leader named Tom, are rumored to be on planet.

As the party is discussing their options, an explosion rocks the ship. Drax is the first one out the door, and sees smoke coming from a nearby ship, and a man lying nearly unconscious in its entryway. As he is about to render aid, he glances up, and sees none other than Tom, one of the bounties, watching the scene from a vantage next to the starport exit. Drax gestures to him and says to the party, “That man is worth a lot of money to us alive.”

Edj and Rayne sneak through the crowd toward Tom, while Drax heads out another door and around the building, setting his blaster to stun. The wookiee starts moving toward Tom, and he gets scared and runs out of the building, nearly colliding with Drax. Drax drops him with a shot from the blaster. As the rest of the party catches up, it becomes apparent that something on Tom is beeping. Edj looks through his coat while the wookiee grabs him and starts heading back to the ship. Rayne runs there first and pulls the land speeder out of the cargo bay.

Everyone piles into the landspeeder and Rayne takes off. After removing everything obvious, a few rounds of searching reveals that the beeping is coming from inside his ear. Before the party has time to contemplate what it might be, a sleek black landspeeder with tinted windows pulls alongside and tries to run them off the road. With some quick maneuvering, Rayne manages to pull ahead of them and guns it for the Imperial holding facility.

A panel slides away on the black landspeeder, revealing a hidden blaster cannon. Drax takes cover behind the back seat and aims the blaster he pulled off of Tom at the blaster cannon. Rayne swerves suddenly as a shot flies past his head. Drax yells back, “Can’t you hold this thing still?” as an imperial patrol craft takes up the chase. Everyone hears, “Pull over and step out of your vehicle,” from the loudspeaker. Drax takes a shot at the blaster cannon, and there is a popping noise followed by a shower of sparks.

The black speeder cuts down a side street, while the patrol craft stays on the party. Drax says, “Pull over, let me do the talking.” Then turns to Edj and adds, “Unless it looks like I need help.” The speeders stop and a squad of stormtroopers take position with weapons raised. “Throw your weapons out of the vehicle and put your hands up,” is heard from the loudspeaker. Drax makes a show of putting down his blaster, holds up his bounty hunter license, and steps out of the speeder.

An officer steps forward, checks out the license, and looks at the body in the back of the speeder. Drax says, “We picked him up at the spaceport, we were on our way to claim the bounty when that other speeder showed up. We figure it was friends of his trying to get him back, I imagine we’ve pissed off a few people with this stunt.” A little of his cop-to-cop charm, and the party has a police escort to the holding facility to claim the bounty.

While waiting for the bounty to clear, they hear over the news that no ships are being allowed in or out of the starport for 24 hours, pending the investigation of the explosion. The party splits up the bounty, and decides to go check out a local gambling hall, the Smoking Pit. It turns out Edj had been there earlier that morning, and already has a reputation as a gambler that the pit bosses keep an eye on. He starts winning early on, and a pit boss comes to the table and tells the dealer to take a break. Edj doesn’t like this and cashes in, with the pit boss complaining that he should play for “just a hand or two.”

Edj happens to spot an attractive female Twi’lek and walks up to her. Drax notices that the large human she is with has a blaster rifle under his coat. The party tenses as Edj hits on her, but both of them ignore him, and he moves on. The party decides it’s time to get going, and drag Edj back to the spaceport.

Ever suspicious, Aramina and Rayne check around the ship before entering, but find nothing. As Drax steps onto the platform, an explosion rocks the party. Most of them dust themselves off, but Rayne is bleeding badly and Edj is unconscious. Drax goes to Rayne and notices he is missing a foot. Thinking quickly, he grabs Rayne and runs for the medical bay shouting, “Guys, see if you can find his foot.”

In the medical bay, Drax realizes that Zeek still hasn’t come back from shopping this morning. It doesn’t look like Rayne can wait for him to come back. No problem, thinks Drax, I’ve seen him do this before. Grabbing some supplies he tries to close up the wounds. A few seconds and a force point later, and Rayne is stable, but unconscious.

An officer, flanked by stormtroopers, comes to the doorway and demands to know what happened. Drax explains the story, and says that two of the crew need medical attention, and one is missing a foot. A medical officer checks them out, while one of the search teams finds a badly burned boot, with most of a toe in it. The medical officer says there’s not enough to reattach, so Drax and Quarx load Rayne into the speeder and head for the hospital, where Rayne gets a prosthetic. Rayne’s new foot has an appealing wood-grain finish, and he proceeds to make pirate jokes for the rest of the evening.

While they are gone, there is a knock at the ship’s door. The wookiee goes to answer, and a man in a dark cloak is there. Returning her greeting, he speaks in wookiee, stating that he knows who set the bomb, and while he doesn’t agree with their methods, his position prevents him from doing anything directly against them. He can, however, set up a meeting with them, and tell us where they will be. He then says he will return tomorrow.

The next day, Rayne and Edj are feeling a little better, and Drax comes back with a brand new Bipolar Blaster Carbine. Edj decides to go and do a little more gambling, while the rest of the party waits for their visitor. When he arrives, Drax realizes that it is Karol, the other bounty he looked up, but decides that getting the people who tried to blow him up is worth more than the 4000 credits for turning this guy in, so he says nothing. The man says that the meeting is set for later that week, at a local hotel in room 612. He hands the wookiee a room key and leaves.

Meanwhile, Edj has managed to annoy one too many people, and someone slips something into his drink. As the effects hit him, he realizes what is happening and has the foresight to call on the communicator for help. Drax, Quarx, and the wookiee race back to the Smoking Pit to find Edj, barely able to stand, throwing money away on the gambling tables. When trying to convince him to leave fails, the wookiee gets impatient, picks him up, and carries him out the door. They head back to the ship and put him to bed, hoping he’ll recover in the morning.

The next morning arrives, and Edj is looking no better. Since credits are running low, Rayne suggests taking him to a street doctor he knows, who can fix him up at a discount. Reluctantly, they agree, and head over to meet this doctor. A few tests, and an antitoxin later, and Edj is getting better. The party heads back to the ship to plan for the meeting. No one lets Edj go back to the Smoking Pit.

The morning of the meeting, the party goes to check out the hotel. It’s a wide-open lobby with a clear view of all of the hallways. Pretty much the worst possible design, as half of the building has a clear shot at the door to the room. Perhaps that was part of the design for this meeting. Now the party just needs to come up with a plan.

[Kehlin Yew]

wow.... could i suggest a grenade bluff for the crew? or even a TD bluff...
or have a few rush through the door....

but if love to hear more about your adventures... its always exciting to hear about other peoples adventures...

[entropy]

Well, I'm figuring it will be the same people who shot at our speeder. One of my thoughts is to try to take them in the parking garage before they get into the hotel. (I don't think they're the type to use valet parking, or we could have some real fun with them.)

The sore loser plan will probably involve the Wookie and I in the room, the rest of our team in positions around the hotel, several stun grenades, and several character points.

[Trusty]

Let me tell ya how to avoid the headaches. Give all the players the damage charts and tell them the relevent stats for the round. What I do in heavy combat is have two players sit opposite each ther and have them roll. Player A rolls for baddie as I describe the actions and Player B rolls himself. THen B rolls the baddie and player A rolls his character. After the round is over, I get a report and then go at it again. If they are honest players...they won't cheat. My players don't. It is ijust a game, you know. Anyway, it keeps me as the GM from slowing the game down. I make the players GM the rounds out to get it over with. So instead of me rolling against all of them one at a time, this gets the rounds done faster. Anyway, I'd kick out all the players that only came every two weeks. We play once a week and it still isn't enough.

P.S. Why do campaigns always first begin in a bar? I decided that our campaign that we are running now began in a rehab.
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Growing old is inevitable. Growing up is optional!

[K_Feldspar]

No no, this campaign started in a nice pub style eatery. Sure it had a bar, but it also had tables and nice waitresses to take your dinner order. Otherwise all my campaigns have started in *seedy* bars. So this was a huge break from tradition for me. I wonder if players should be concerned about discussing strategy in this forum since the GM is watching.

[Edj]

Isn't there a plan that doesn't involve yet another trip to some credit-leeching back alley bonesaw?

The sore loser plan with Drax running in seems often to end with the poor gambler flat-out or the ship's captain shopping for replacement appendages (though I must say the cherrywood finish on the new foot is surprisingly aesthetic).

Can't we just send their car (with parking slip still in the window) crashing driverless into a parked Stormtrooper sedan (let the cops take this one), or rent the room next door (using an alternate ID of course), then drill a small hole in the corner adjoinging their bathroom and queitly pop the next goon that visits the can? We can slip out and be gone leaving a nice block-letter note to explain our position.

And of course run up a huge tab under their room number for the hotel's casino.

Maybe? (I don't wanna go to the bad man with the needles again...)

[entropy]

Star Wars: The Azure Expanse
Episode IV – The Lowel Regency

Zeek, the Verpine, has spent the last few days checking out junkyards and managed to find a beat-up old powersuit and a damaged backup hyperdrive. The owner of the junkyard quotes him 350 credits for both, which he doesn’t have, so he tries to talk him down.