Adventure 062005

[beaumont sebos]

Hello all,

I am the game master for a long-running campaign (8 years and coutning). We play games once every two weeks. At the beginning of each adventure, I read a synopsis of the previous game to the tunes of the Star Wars main theme. I am going to start posting them here for your reading pleasure. If you have any comments let me know.

Currently, there are 4 PCs: Salimon Teff, former bounty hunter who works as a merc for the new republic; Cackin Bwallz, force user (muntak warrior); Nova Starkiller, force user currently looking for a force discipline); and Biff McKraken, tech and merc. They all work on a for-hire basis for the new republic.

My campaign is set 50 years after RotJ. We only use the 6 SW movies as our canon. Here are some notes on the current state of the galaxy:

The New Republic
With Coruscant as again the capitol, there are now about 75 systems that are formal members of the New Republic with another 30 in application. The New Republic is set up in the same fashion as the old, with additional laws in place to prevent the corruption of the past administrations.

New Rebellion Commander Knocknex, a Mon Calimari, was unanimously voted as the Supreme Chancellor of the New Republic. But with so few members, the now reopened senatorial chambers look bleak and empty. Knocknex is aided by Lea Organa-Solo and Biram Cathmori, the head of the newly organized Jedi Order.

In addition to traditional Mon Calimari engineering, the New Republic has refitted many Imperial ships and weapons for their own use. The New Republic also holds the technology for the Revon Generator and Wave Disrupter. However, the actual machines were destroyed by the Empire. Cost and other factors have prevented the New Republic from rebuilding this tech, but plans are in the works to get loans from contractors who will do the work.

The Empire
The Empire is an empire in name only. While there are many Imperial forces still in the galaxy, they are highly disorganized and disjointed with no central leadership. Limited hyperspace travel and communications make matters worse. There is a group of systems in the Mid-Region, called the Morthai cluster that is under heavy Imperial control. But the rest of the Imperial holdings are usually remnants that have not yet received word that the Empire has been defeated. So, there are still many worlds in the galaxy that need the attention of the New Republic.

Chrystos and the Grovellish
The maniacal Columni has all but halted hyperspace travel and instant long-distance communication by taking control of the holonet. He stole technology from the Empire for sapping the force from force-sensitives and harnessing the energy into droids. Only one force-using droid has been sighted, but considering the size of the recently discovered operation, more have assuredly been completed.

Chrystos set up an alliance with a mysterious race called the Grovellish on the planet Grovell. The Grovellish have a sophisticated Ysalimiri farming system and effectively utilize the creatures against force users. The Grovellish were behind the capturing of dozens of force users for Chrystos’ purposes.

A recent attack against the facilities on Grovell destroyed Chrystos’ force gathering capabilities. But the New Republic Army was driven back by huge war machines and Chrystos remains at large. Although Chrystos’ forces have yet to move beyond Grovell, many believe it is only a matter of time.

UPDATE: Chrystos has been killed by the PCs!

The Jedi Order
With the fall of the Empire, force users have been able to come out of hiding with more safety. The Jedi Order is in the process of reestablishing itself on Coruscant with the Nikto Jedi Master Biram Cathmori leading the Jedi Council. Master Biram has proven to be a dedicated historian of the old Jedi order and is framing his order from their teachings. There are now 15 members of the Jedi Order and recruitment will soon begin in earnest. In addition, there are plans to rebuild the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

However, the fragile nature of the New Republic keeps the Jedi preoccupied and many would-be recruits yield to the financial rewards of the Astro Guild, so advancement of the Jedi Order is arduous and slow at best. In addition, the Jedi are needed as navigators aboard New Republic cruisers when the Astro Guild’s demands cannot be met, or the mission requires secrecy.

The Astro Guild
The Astro Guild has only been a player in the galactic arena for six months, but in that time has amassed vast power and financial success. Based on the former Imperial planet of Filven XIV, the Astro Guild employs those that utilize the force. The secretive and anonymous leaders of the guild train force users by unknown methods to navigate through hyperspace using the force, thus bypassing the need for the Holonet.

There are currently only 150 known Guild Astrogators; thus the Astro Guild services are in extremely high demand. They command hundreds of thousands of credits for even navigating the smallest hyperspace jumps, thereby amassing great wealth, driving up consumer prices and putting themselves in great political power. And it seems that any competitors to the Astro Guild quickly disappear.

In addition, the Astro Guild poses a threat to the Jedi Order. Many would-be Jedi fall prey to the financial rewards of becoming a Guild Astrogator and forgo Jedi training. This raises the concern of having many powerful force users in the galaxy without the proper training for using their powers wisely. It was predicted that many Guild Astrogators would fall to the dark side, but no occurrences have ever been recorded. In fact, no Guild Astrogator has ever been known to leave the fold of the Astro Guild.

Rumors about the secretive guild abound: their leaders are a hostile race of dark siders or the Hutts, they are in league with Chrystos to control the shipping lanes, any Guild Astrogators who attempt to leave the guild are killed, the Astro Guild is moving into the communications arena, their training involves complete mind control, and many more…

UPDATE: Chrystos has been killed by the PCs! This puts the Astroguild's stranglehold on astrogation in serious question.

Hutts
Again, the Hutts are basically unaffected by the current switch in power, with one major exception… they too bow to the whim of the Astro Guild. However, reports claim that the Hutts have a special agreement with the Guild giving them unparalleled access to Guild Astrogators when the need arises.

Others
The loss of the Holonet has one major advantage; criminals groups have not been able to build vast organizations in the void left by the fallen Empire. Even pirating activity has dwindled to nearly non-existent. However, this advantage also has a downside. Several outlying systems, and some even closer to the core not under New Republic auspices, have fallen to dictators, planet-wide criminal groups, civil unrest and outright war.

One last thing before I post the adventure from two weeks ago: the Chrystos Droid Army was up and running many years before Phantom menace hit the screens. George Lucas must've been taping out adventures!

And here you go:

“Salimon Teff, Cackin Bwallz, Nova Starkiller and Biff McKraken continued their escape from the clutches of the Astro guild and Chrystos on Filven 14. As they exited the atmosphere, they were engaged by several Chrystos droid fighters. Instead of simply shooting the group down, demolition droids where placed on their ships to destroy the engines. A Chrystos war machine swooped in and used a tractor beam to drag the crippled ships into its hangar bay. The group proceeded to protect their ears from impending sonic blasts as 70 Chrystos droids prepared for battle.

“Salimon and Biff opened their hangar bay and urged their Filven refugees out, but a force droid started making minced meat of them. With the help of Cackin, Wanna, Nova and Irving, the force droids were destroyed, and some of the refugees started making their way to the M2000. However, the other Chrystos droids continued their onslaught, eventually taking out the already weak Cackin.

“As the battle raged, Biff ran into the ship and met with Mirzzikle to grab a false power fluxer. The plan was to shut down the tractor beam generator and use the fluxer to trick the sensors into reporting that the tractor beam was still operational…”

Quetions and comments are welcome.

[Stule]

Wow!

That's impressive!

Nice work.

[Tatum]

8 years real time? Wow, thats a campaign. What kinds of stats do the characters have with that much time under their belt.

[beaumont sebos]

Well, nearly 9 years real time now.

I'll post the character stats in the Characters section right now...

[Vanion]

Very cool, Beaumont! Running a campaigne 50 years after RotJ has to be a little challenging.
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"Life is not measured in years, but by deeds"

[beaumont sebos]

Long time, no post of adventures. We had two adventures in this campaign after the one I posted. I'm about to post the one that followed immediately after, and then I'll post the other one later in the week.

We haven't played in this campaign in nearly a year because one member of our group (the infamous Cackin Bwallz) moved away. I didn't post vignettes of our new game because, well, they lacked oomph. I wasn't proud of them and the players weren't very into it.

After much deliberation, we are going back to the old campaign. As GM, I will be playing Cackin until I can get him out of the game... and there will be some more suprises to come.

So, I plan to post these vignettes again and I hope you all enjoy.
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Beaumont Sebos

"Saving the multiverse, one Gamorrean Ale at a time."

[Pel]

Very impressive work.

I detect some Dune resonance in the Astro Guild. Any relation?
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Aha!

[beaumont sebos]

I didn't fully realize it at the time, but I think Dune did seep into my SW universe.
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Beaumont Sebos

"Saving the multiverse, one Gamorrean Ale at a time."

[Pel]

That's cool. You did a great job of adapting it to the SW Universe. It's completely believable that Force users might go for the riches of space navigation rather than the almost monastic life of the Jedi.
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Aha!

[Firehawk0220]

My only question concerns the Astro Guild. Why that when everyone has a Nav computer or an Astromech like R2 to handle navigation?

I would only see something like that as an extreme niche market.

I run my campaign in a similar fashion. I use mainly the six movies as canon and take what I want from the expanded universe. Basiclaly I take out the Yuzhann Vong crap and don't use most of the characters from that area. My game begins after the Dark Empire series and the second Death of Palpatine.

My game progresses in a logical fashion based on events I create and events my players change or alter by their actions. I keep some parallels to some EU material that I like and choose to incorporate, but essentially the characters are completely free in the era of play they wanted to be in to do as they please.

It sounds like you do much the same thing.

[beaumont sebos]

[Firehawk0220]

[beaumont sebos]