The Death of Liberty Campaign

[DougRed4]

Here's some summaries for our "Star Wars: Death of Liberty" campaign.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….

STAR WARS

Episode 1: A Rebellion Forms

It is a time of turmoil in the galaxy. More and more systems are feeling the subjugation and tyranny of the Empire as it cracks down on distant worlds and enslaves various alien species.

Unknown to most, leaders from Chandrila, Alderaan, and Corellia meet in the Corellian system and sign a treaty, declaring war on the Galactic Empire. They secretly communicate their plans to operatives all over the galaxy, where deep in the Outer Rim noble Grevin Zorace is encouraged to gather any allies he can to join this Rebellion.

Meanwhile, the frigate True Vision journeys through the Lomdar system, its occupants unaware that they are soon to become very much involved in greater galactic events….


Part 1: Rescue from Slavers
The frigate True Vision is attacked by the pirate yacht Distant Rainbow. Miraluka information broker Tumarae Zebron and Feeorin mercenary Zren seem outmatched by the attackers, but the freighter Stardancer swoops in and aids them in chasing away the assailants. The Stardancer, piloted by human drifter Dargin Ordo, also carries human noble Grevin Zorace and Barabel arms dealer Zal “Bishop” Darkscape. Following a rumor, the two vessels travel to an asteroid in the Jelvor system, where they find an ancient starfighter buried in ice. They rescue the lone occupant, human Jedi Knight Thorim Sunrider, who awakens and joins them after having been frozen for centuries. The entire group meets up at the Smuggler’s Moon cantina in the city of Tranndaasar on the planet Kaneer, and Zorace encourages the others to join the newly formed Rebellion against the Empire. After gathering intelligence, the party storms a nearby cave that night, slaughtering eight alien slavers and rescuing three captive Twi’leks. Abyssin mercenary Pyammi survives the assault and plans revenge.

Part 2: The Danger of the Hutts
Zebron departs alone for business. Sunrider surreptitiously starts a bar fight on the planet Lannik, disrupting Bishop’s sale of weaponry to Red Iaro terrorists; shortly after he makes even more credits by selling them to the Rebel Tiree. When the group arrives in the Si’Klaata Cluster at the far end of Hutt Space, the Night Comet, a small scout vessel, is swiftly eliminated after it attacks the Stardancer. The True Vision reunites with the others and the two ships land in the dangerous Meirm City on Sriluur. After being observed by an Imperial agent, the party barely escapes trouble with many Weequay soldiers after asking about Golva the Hutt. At a local watering hole Zorace recruits criminal henchmen of a different Hutt, Ganis, after the adventurers scare them away from a victim. The six then raid an Imperial depot on the planet Choona, the Stardancer striking from above as a ground team wipes out the forces inside and absconds with many weapons and records. Golva discusses the interfering heroes with his Trandoshan henchman Ssarroq.

Part 3: The Treasure of Celis Mott
The sublight drive on the True Vision experiences problems, so the adventurers travel to the planet Peneth for repairs. Zorace stays with the ship, and as the others leave the docking bay Ordo is surprised by old pal Marka Durn, who cryptically hints of a treasure before dying at their feet. After driving off attacking pirates, the group visits Durn’s ship, the Deephopper, persuades his astromech droid R2-C9 to assist them, and finds a hidden data disc. Accompanied by CeeNine, they head back to their ships, shadowed by the pirates. There they rebuff the dangerous Falleen mercenary captain Xishel, who seeks precious stolen items and claims that Durn was working for him. The Stardancer journeys into deep space and locates a signal on an asteroid, allowing them to find a chest loaded with treasure. Following the freighter via a homing beacon, multiple pirate vessels attack, but the heroes are able to outrace and evade their pursuers in the asteroid field. They remove the tracking device, only to hear a farewell from Xishel as they jump into hyperspace.

Part 4: A New Ship
On Peneth, Zorace returns to the True Vision just as Ssarroq, Pyammi, and many Weequay soldiers arrive. He warns their Twi’lek allies, allowing them to escape before the ship is surrounded. The others return and he explains what he has learned from the Alliance. The Rebellion has only a rag-tag fleet, but has an operative in place that could help them commandeer a nearby corporate ship loaded with medical supplies. CeeNine flies the Stardancer to a prearranged rendezvous point, and the group, aided by the Rebel spy Darkus Loon, easily boards the Loronar medium transport. Though escorted by heavy firepower, the vessel has only minimal security inside, and the party swiftly takes them out as they ascend through the planet’s atmosphere. They jettison the crew in an escape pod and make the jump to lightspeed. At the meeting place in the Jelvor system, after turning over the supplies and their earlier recovered records, Rebel techs aid them in making modifications to the transport to allow the Stardancer to dock inside. When the adventurers return to Peneth, the True Vision is gone.

[DougRed4]

For anyone interested, here's our website. You can click on the tabs at the top to view the characters.

[vanir]

I'm interested only partway through reading. It's just the sort of campaign hooks I've been throwing into our sessions over the years, last time I used a Miraluka Jedi knight from ca.3990BBY aboard the Starlight Intruder which has been derelict and drifting in deepspace for millennia. Aboard these older vessels the old carbonite freezing pods were used hailing back to the tradition of the Empress Tita system in exploring the galaxy with slow hyperdrives, over long journeys carbonite chambers were used by the crew, until the navigational beacons were built along major routes.
Some ships of the old Republic in the golden age retained carbonite chambers as an emergency lifepod system should they be stranded with hyperdrive failure, backups if fitted were excruciatingly slow and consumables stores even on larger ships were small, only weeks at most.

So using the carbonite chamber in combination with Jedi hibernation trance to minimise her life support requirements, the Miraluka has been aboard the ancient courier ship for literally centuries, shunted forwards through time and across vast distances by spatial anomalies at the location her hyperdrives failed and she went into stasis.

The PCs discover her along their travels and wake her from her slumber. In that particular party we had Meris surgeons and full medical facilities so it was appropriate she initially stayed with us as an NPC and she was very easy to steer the PC group with at first, into adventures and whatnot.

I did find there was a trick to introducing such overwhelming NPC-backstories into a campaign plot, as it literally does overwhelm the Players imagination with such fantastic events it desensetises them to any other plot leads you try to introduce unless they're related.
ie. you don't use a star dragon to introduce an adventure hook to find some information in a canteena. Players will be like, forget the canteena, we want to go adventure with the star dragon!
But you can have a star dragon give them such a hook, if the purpose of the task is to later adventure with the star dragon.

So when you take a time travelling NPC, or one in stasis like Captain America or The Thing frozen in the ice, the backstory alone overwhelms rational thought, it's such a big deal just for the scientific community people kind of expect a big deal all about it throughout the game from all authorities and organisation, from holo-media to local street talk.

Even if you kept it a complete secret for their security and military clearance for your eyes only 007 and all the rest, the Rebel High Command would immediately want to interview them. Their own doctors would want to examine them. A pretty likely result is that their body would degenerate at an accelerating rate now exposed to atmosphere again, until metabolic rate balanced with the passage of actual time and so forth, you might find the Jedi grows old and dies within weeks. The Rebel doctors would want to know, the ancient Jedi would want to know.
And even among the Rebel fleet they would be a celebrity, if nobody else is allowed to know, the people that do are still going to be talking about it with each other. It's a big deal.

So it's a bit hard to suddenly introduce an NPC that academically significant and then forget about that now let's concentrate on the Sith Lord who is really the Jedi apprentice's father oh-no, and he had a crush on his sister before he knew she was his sister but somehow she's always know, oh-no, and then the old man lied but it depends on the way you look at it omg little green jedi, oh-no.

And then we're going to throw in Tremayne is a cyborg, Luke marries the Emperor's Assassin, Leia is literally the hardest working mother in the galaxy, and oh yeah here's the thundering, star shaking impending doom of a massive campaign plot that draws your PCs into its web of intrigue...

It's all just a bit too much, the extent of let me just make sure the other PCs aren't my siblings or a sith lord despite being a fish-alien.

So I'm just kind of saying if you throw in time travelling ancient jedi knights from the days of omg who gave the children a sith artefact; you sort of have to make their backstory and personages the central theme of the campaign you've put them in. Or you can kill the RPG dynamic and turn it all into hack and slash and CP mining.

When you throw an NPC as massive as a time travelling ancient jedi knight from the days of omg there's a hundred sith running at me; or like a speeder scale star dragon with 18D Force skills and he's so old his daddy literally invented jedi knights when they taught humans what they'd learned over countless millennia of wandering through the galaxy using the Force....well you can't just go back to saying, oh and now the dark jedi are after you, it's like cool I'll feed them to my jedi dragon, or stand back and watch the ancient jedi dude make some beef cuts.
The campaign has become that incredible NPC so it's better to have the Dark Jedi come not for the PCs, but they appear to pursue and capture if possible, alive, that new NPC that doesn't belong in this time and place.
Everything that you want to impress the Players with for a while will have to involve that big in game discovery, or you overload their information processing.

That's what I found anyway, like I said this is virtually signature for me, I throw in ridiculously overpowered NPCs all the time. Half the time nobody ever knows and they never reveal themselves, but it just makes me smile to know how easily I can squish the PC party. You have that relationship as a GM eventually

[DougRed4]

Hey, thanks for the comments and info, vanir!

Our Jedi, though technically a Jedi Knight, is not very impressive yet. Because he wanted his Jedi skills to be decent, he was forced to skimp on his other Attributes. So he's like the slowest one in the group (2D Perception). I suppose I could rationalize that part of this is because he was frozen for so many years.

I think you're right that the Rebellion would be really keen to meeting and evaluating this guy, if they knew. So far the Jedi has kept everything very low key. He hasn't even activated his lightsaber in public yet!

We're dealing with the really early days of the Rebellion, too. Right now their "fleet" consists of merely a couple beat-up freighters and a few starfighters, though they're working on acquiring some transports and larger vessels.

I don't believe the noble (the recruiter for the group and one that is sort of putting together this squad of Rebels) has even told his Rebel contacts about the Jedi yet. I'll have to check with him and see, as you've raised some good points; once discovered he really would be treated like a celebrity!

I do plan on introducing some dangerous adversary, perhaps an unknown Sith or the like. But I expect he'd be able to wipe the floor with the group at first, if I had him go all-out. Right now I plan on just offering hints of him, with perhaps a brief appearance soon.

Thanks again for the input!

[DougRed4]

Here's a picture I took of one scene, from Part 3:



I use 1" counters, most of which are made quite simply by taking old CCG cards (I have tens of thousands!) and snapping one out using a 1" die punch (they can be found at craft stores).

For a few of them, I simply make counters myself (something I've been doing for decades with the superhero RPG, Villains & Vigilantes).

[DougRed4]

As a bit of description (especially for those of you who have read through "The Treasure of Celis Mott" from the Instant Adventures adventure pack):

Two of the PCs, pilots Dargin Ordo (Human) and Tumarae Zebron (Miraluka) are at the top of the pic.

Right below them (and a little to the left) is the (Human) Jedi Knight, Thorim Sunrider.

Our Barabel arms dealer, "Bishop", is squared off with the Wookiee thug, just to the right of the Jedi.

Below them is the cyborg bad guy (yes, that's the main character from "Terminator: Salvation"; he was the only cool cyborg picture I could find of a human with one red eye).

And to their left is our other muscle, Zren (a Feeorin), faced off with more pirates.

Our noble (a Human) wasn't there for this session, so he remained back at the ship.

Other bad guys and various aliens are scattered around the scene, which is just out side a docking bay.

[DougRed4]

As I get ready to run again tomorrow night, I finally composed the summary of what happened last session (about a month ago).

I still haven't finished doing the "crawl" for Episode 2 (where things will get more dicey for our heroes), but here's what happened last time (I don't really have a proper name for it yet; "Ryloth" is just a placeholder for now):

Part 1: Ryloth
The group names their new transport the Safe Haven. Zebron, Sunrider, Ordo, Zorace, and Bishop journey in the Stardancer to Ryloth, where they dock in the large subterranean city of Kala’uun. They travel via lift up to a hidden opulent palace, where A’donari, a Twi’lek Zann Consortium lieutenant, accepts Ordo’s final payment for his freighter. Soon after, the group intervenes when a deadly lylek breaks into the city and begins slaughtering citizens. Together the heroes slay the powerful beast, Sunrider revealing his lightsaber in public for the first time.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[DougRed4]

Episode 2: (still don't have a title for this one yet)

Unrest spreads across the Galactic Empire. Word travels from system to system that a Rebellion has formed and is beginning to fight back against oppressive Imperial tyranny.

In the Outer Rim, a new group of Rebels recruited by the noble Grevin Zorace have disrupted the operations of Golva the Hutt and destroyed an Imperial depot. After multiple clashes with pirates and criminals, the group lost their own frigate, but hijacked a corporate transport that now serves as their base of operations. They have named the capital ship the Safe Haven, and the Rebellion helped them modify the vessel to be able to carry their freighter, the Stardancer.

Leaving Zren behind, the others now journey in the Safe Haven to the distant planet Ryloth at the end of the Corellian Run, to pick up emergency supplies needed on Gamorr and for Dargin Ordo to pay off his ship…

Part 1: Paid Debts
Zebron, Sunrider, Ordo, Zorace, and Bishop fly the Stardancer to Ryloth and dock in the large subterranean city of Kala’uun. They travel via lift up to a hidden opulent palace, where A’donari, a Twi’lek Zann Consortium lieutenant, accepts Ordo’s final payment for his freighter. Soon after, the group intervenes when a deadly lylek breaks into the city and begins slaughtering citizens. Together the heroes slay the powerful beast, Sunrider revealing his lightsaber in public for the first time. They pick up emergency supplies from Sienar Fleet Systems, then rendezvous with the Safe Haven, where Loon joins them. They speed the cargo to Gamorr, but the situation turns ugly when the Gamorreans realize the goods are spoiled. Hostilities ensue, and the group is forced to dump their shipment and flee. They return to Ryloth, accept some compensation from Sienar, and accept new freight bound for Nal Hutta. They then make the long journey to the Hutt homeworld in the Safe Haven, quickly dispatching the pirate craft Flaming Sky upon arrival. On the moon Nar Shaddaa, Zebron pays off the debt he owes to Anx criminal Kanorra and Ordo buys an Elom slave, Vig Tiorus, who pledges his support and offers to assist in fighting the Empire.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[DougRed4]

One PC switched characters, dropping the mercenary Zren and now playing the scout Darkus Loon.

You can see all of our characters here. Scroll to the bottom to see Loon (who will look familiar to most of you, I would imagine!).
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[DougRed4]

Here's the portion we played tonight. It was a shorter than usual session (under four hours), as one player had surgery two days prior.

Part 2: The Jedi Outpost
Following the rumor of Jedi ruins, the Rebels hide the Safe Haven and fly the Stardancer to Lazerian IV in the distant Expansion Region. After some trouble with Imperial Customs in Lazerian City, they journey by speeder across the continent to the site of an ancient battle. Among the remains of an old military outpost Zebron finds a broken lightsaber before an eccentric noble chases them away.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Dromdarr_Alark]

This is an interesting story!

Now that Sunrider has revealed himself as a Jedi, it is only a matter of time until the Inquisitorius finds him!

I look forward to seeing more.
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[DougRed4]

Thanks, Dromdarr!

Yes, the Jedi most certainly will be bringing some Imperial attention their way, as will the exploits of the others.

They were pretty lucky when an Imperial Customs agent (I made him pretty darn good) spotted half the party with weapons landing on an Imperial planet last session. The Jedi was able to use Affect Mind to handwave attention away from himself (he'd spotted the lightsaber), but the weapons dealer (Barabel) lost his carbine (a SoroSuub model like stormtrooper use). I probably could have had the Imps search their ship at that point, but as GM I'm just starting to ratchet up the danger/tension, and didn't want to bring the pain at that level quite yet.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[DougRed4]

Now that Part 2 of Episode 2 is finished, I've changed the title of that section:

Part 2: Raiding Rebels
Following the rumor of Jedi ruins, the Rebels hide the Safe Haven and fly the Stardancer to Lazerian IV in the distant Expansion Region. After some trouble with Imperial Customs in Lazerian City, they journey by speeder across the continent to the site of an ancient battle. Among the remains of an old military outpost Zebron finds a broken lightsaber before an eccentric noble chases them away. Returning to the Outer Rim, they arrange to meet Rebel contact Tiree at Mesa 291 on the planet Horvuust to recover possible ships and weaponry. After raiding a corporate W-class barge and requisitioning their entire cargo (including two Y-wings), Zebron and Loon stay with the Safe Haven while Ordo, Bishop, Sunrider, Zorace, and CeeNine take the Stardancer to Horvuust. They park the freighter inside the ancient lidium mine and explore the long-deserted facility, which is plagued by explosions and plasma fires in the lower levels. They find no sign of Tiree, but soon meet his droid, R2-D0, who plays a holographic message from his master explaining that he is being tracked by ISB agents and attempting to lead them away from the site. Soon after they hear Imperial stormtroopers closing on their location, so the team sets up an ambush. The troops arrive and demand their surrender, but the heroes refuse. Sunrider uses the Force to cause all of the Empire forces to attack one another, and the others swiftly eliminate those close-by. At the same time a flock of mynocks attacks the droids, but are rapidly chased away. The group quickly escapes in their vessel, taking D0, an unconscious Imperial, and two dead stormtroopers with them.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[DougRed4]

[Dromdarr_Alark]