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Dr. Bidlo
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 Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2022 12:46 am Post subject: |
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| Yeah, honestly parting with something like that for $200 is not worth it. |
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2022 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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I'm playing through the Tapani Instant Adventures, but mixing in some of my own stuff, as usual.
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Inquisitor1138
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2022 5:26 pm Post subject: Re: The Tapani Sector |
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| Whill wrote: | | Whill wrote: | 1997 Lords of the Expanse box set with a Sector Guide, Gamemaster Guide, Campaign Guide, Sector poster map, 16 full-color adventure cards, and 6 dice
1997 Players Guide to Tapani 64-page paperback supplement
1997 Tapani Sector Instant Adventures 96-page paperback including 5 adventures with 32 color adventure cards
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The WEG Tapani material is set in 3 ABY. A few observations in my studies on the Tapani Sector thus far:
Fondor
Fondor was a previously existing planet which had not had its sector or region identified, so WEG puts it in the Freeworlds Region of the Tapani Sector. It's biggest claim to fame is that this is where Vader's "super" star destroyer was constructed. The source materials refer to Fondor as having one of the top few starship manufacturing facilities in the galaxy. True that wouldn't necessarily mean that it always had to be that way, but I don't think that it could get to that point overnight in 0 ABY when it becomes restricted to Imperial traffic only, which would mean that Fondor had to have been a significant planet in the galaxy in the past before the classic era. I find it extremely odd that the WEG material barely mention anything about Fondor at all, but it may have because they had planned on going into more detail about it in the future campaign where the Empire invaded the Tapani Sector that never materialized due to the WEG bankruptcy. Maybe Fondor was going to be dealt with in the unpublished WEG Tapani adventure, but we'll never know. But an issue with what was published was that Fondor is not even one of the five principal systems in the League of Tapani Freeworlds, and WEG doesn't even place Fondor on the Shapani Bypass or Giju Run (the two "galactic" hyperroutes in Tapani), or even a locally major hyperroute.
Fondor is a total whopping 62 hours (at standard speed) off the Shapani Bypass (including a stop at a minor system on the way required due to the use of hyperspace beacons). Yes, there is also a secret Imperial hyperroute from Fondor to a Core World, but again, Fondor didn't get the super star destroyer contract and become restricted until 0 ABY, and the Empire hadn't even existed 20 years by that point, so I find it utterly ridiculous that Tapani wouldn't have a major hyperroute going to it. SW author Jason Fry felt the same way when designing The Essential Atlas, and invented the Shipwrights' Trace which connected Fondor to the Corellian Trade Spine, Hydian Way and Corellian Run. I agree with his intention, but that does contradict the statements in the WEG material that the Shapani Bypass and the Giju Run are the only major hyperroutes in and out of the Tapani Sector. I asked Jason Fry about it, assuming it was meant to be a retcon resolving an obvious problem with the source material, but he replied that it was an error. He did not intend to override any published continuity except where absolutely necessary due to contradictions. (He also said that in his research he had read about how the Tapani Sector still requires the use of hyperspace beacons in the classic era and meant to mention that in TEA but had forgotten which sector or where he had read it until I mentioned it to him.) He told me he noted for his TEA errata document, to maintain the WEG continuity about the Tapani Sector, he moved the start point of the Shipwright's Trace to just outside the Tapani Sector rimward of Mrlssi. Unfortunately, with that only being non-public errata, the error is duplicated in more recently published material such as FFG's RPG maps of the galaxy.
Jason Fry's correction would make TEA conform to WEG, but it un-solves the original problem of there not being any major hyperroutes connecting to Fondor! So for my SWU I adopted his errata but created two new things: a system at the new start point called New Fondor, and a new major hyperroute connecting Fondor to Tallaan (the major Freeworlds system at the junction of the Shapani and the Giju Run). Tallaan being another planet with major shipbuilding, I call the new short Tallaan-Fondor hyperroute the Shipwright's Run. So there still isn't a galactic hyperroute directly connecting to Fondor, but now the galactically significant planet which has been a major shipbuilder for millennia is not so far off the beaten path. There was a mission of Republic-Sith Cold War featured in The Old Republic MMORPG called Operation Midnight Freedom that takes place in the Fondor system.
And since the Shapani Bypass was only established in 2203 BBY but Fondor likely would have been a galactically significant planet before that, I just say that Fondor was invited but declined charter membership in the League of Tapani Freeworlds, wanting to remain even more independent, and was capable of handling its own defense so didn't need to share its fleet with the five worlds contributing to the Freeworlds Common Navy. From my study, Fondor continues to be an important planet in the EU well after the classic era, and was in the prequel era. The Tapani Sector Galactic Senator was from Fondor in the year before TPM and in the year before AotC, which raises the question how that would happen since according to WEG, the Tapani Federation Great Council elects the senator (and you would think would elect one of its own nobles from the ruling coalition of the day). I just say that major noble house in control of the Great Council at those times let Fondor represent the sector in the Galactic Senate as part of the terms of a business deal. |
I am surprised i had not caught on to that logistical blunder before now! Perhaps it was due to other concerns i had at the time i didn't dwell on it. I suppose i'll be doing some retconning on this one way or another.
I had used the setting with a bit of modification for my New Republic campaign which was set c.20-25 ABY, Not as the main setting but as a strategically vital sector. So we had several months of adventures there, eventually ending in Tapani joining the New Republic. This campaign was most active in the early 2000s, continued off & on to 2015 or so.
| Whill wrote: | WEG otherwise
WEG's own historical background on the Tapani sector is confusing and self-contradictory in some ways. Events are described as seeming to take place in one era but then by the year provided take place in a different era. There are some other anachronistic references. However these are very minor compared to what WotC does with the material...
WotC
The SAGA sourcebook Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide adds some Tapani fluff taking place around the time of the Great Sith War circa 3996 BBY, and the entry includes several errors. This is the Dynastic Era of Tapani history. In this WotC sourcebook, The Tapani Sector seems to be a part of the Republic over two and a half thousand years before it sent its first senator to the Senate, but that one is solved easy enough by saying Tapani was an Allied Region of the Republic (without Senate representation) at the time, but it still wouldn't have been the Tapani "Sector" yet - It would be the Tapani Empire, or maybe even the Tapani Region from the Republic's point of view. However "High Lady" Brezwalt III of House Mecetti is "part of a dynasty of Mecetti rulers". So how are you a part of an imperial dynasty but your title is High Lord and not Empress? She "endeavors to seize control of half the sector" so she clearly wasn't Empress or she would have controlled whole "sector". It lists Calipsa as one of three houses that were completely absorbed into Mecetti, but Calipsa is still alive and very prosperous in the classic era. Brezwalt stood "poised to transform Tapani Sector into the Mecetti Empire" even though multiple dynasties that controlled the Tapani Empire throughout the Dynastic Era were Mecetti dynasties while it remained called the Tapani Empire. This is just lazy writing to not even care that much about the source material. It took some mental effort but I rewrote that fluff to make it make the most sense with respect to WEG while trying to keep as many of the original sentences as true as possible.
The SAGA sourcebook Galaxy of Intrigue has two pages on "Tapani Nobles" and this takes lazy RPG writing to a whole new level. It calls the Great Council the Grand Council, but that is a minor forgivable thing. There is hardly any information that even is correct! It lists what are really the only seven noble houses of the classic era as the "major houses" and says "Seven major houses of Tapani oversee dozens of minor ones, arranged in an elaborate hierarchy." Um, no. There are a few hundred noble families total that are a part of seven noble houses total, with three of those the greater ones and the other four the lesser ones. It states that as a result of the Jedi purge of House Pelagia, "House Melantha seizes most of its territory," when it was really House Calipsa who is a part of the Mecetti lead coalition (look on the sector map, idiot). It says that House Pelagia only survives "on the charity of its allied houses like Calipsa and Reena," when those houses are the allies of Mecetti and thus enemies of Pelagia. Pelagia actually survived on the charity of its real ally, Cadriaan. This "Factions and Organizations" entry is almost completely worthless. It reads like someone just went to Wookieepedia's Tapani Noble Houses article, copied the list of the seven noble houses, read the article once, went to bed, got up the next day and went to work at their day job, then came home that night and typed up the book's entry based on inaccurate memories of what he had read and just winging it. There is absolutely no way to reconcile this steaming piece of bantha poodoo so I just ignore most of it. |
Wow! Am i glad i didn't get too deep into the WotC book; i did save both the Saga Edition & D6 Conversion pdfs. If i used the WotC take at all, and i might have & since then forgot the specifics of what i did, i think i took the "Seven major houses of Tapani oversee dozens of minor ones" as there were more houses way back then, but over time got wiped out or absorbed into the houses that remain.
Around the time i got the Tapani books (hardcopy, pre-owned) i was getting Elder Scrolls strategy guides. The Stormcloaks' insignia (logo for ESV: Skyrim) resembling the iconography of the Infinite Empire & Revan's Sith Empire stuck with me...
c.2006-2010 i was in a collaborative wring group, the Vast Empire, in 2008 gamer 'Draco Korr' has me join them in crafting a d20 campaign set in the comics' Legacy Era, c.120-130 ABY. For this sadly ill-fated campaign, i created 2 characters with high positions in his "Dark Brotherhood" in the setting we made. Might have been earlier that that but records back to 2008 are what i can vouch for at the moment.
These were Lord Kylix (based on Revan) & Darth Veritas/Duke Nemo (based on Count Dooku wielding 2 Lightsabers, not used in AotC but in games & promos)...
I shortly after that made them in KotORII: TSL. When SWTOR was announced in 2009, i made email & SWTOR accounts for both characters.
I had put money down on the SWTOR CE preorder bundle, but when i was late with paying the remainder they sold my copy to another customer (!!!!), so i didn't get to play SWTOR until after it went f2p in 2012 that i finally got to play...
In the meantime i made future versions of these chars in STAR TREK ONLINE, & my players wanted a new direction in our D6 SWRPG game, so i was Revising & Expanding the Tapani Sector & fleshing out the characters that exist in one form or another over thousands of years' continuity & different games.
So i now had Nine Noble Houses, and a history where there had been more, but now there were Four Great Houses & Five Minor Houses, with Kylix & Nemo as allies, with Kylix the Great House, and a rival of the Mecetti...
I took Nirn, the planet that Elder Scrolls is set on, to make it the capitol of Kylix Kingdom/Province, i made a northern extension to the sector map. House Kylix was House Skyrim until Revan turned Jedi Lord Kayn Skyrim into the 1st Lord Kylix...
Khajiit became Cathar offshoots, Argonians became Trandoshans & wolfmen/werewolves Shistavanen...
i 'should' still have my notes somewhere...
One of SWTOR's biggest Lore Blunders are the "Light Foil" vibroswords & Training Sabers...
Still, among the most fun & challenging Sith RP i've had in SWTOR was the aftermath & eventual reconciliation after the High Lord Kylix's failed bid to be the new Sith Emperor, because that had ramifications for 2 Houses/Legacies & created conflict (DRAMA!!!)... |
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Whill
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2022 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah I agree. Having anything collectible does not ever benefit me financially because I am never willing to part with anything I collect. That's what happens when you collect things you love. |
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Inquisitor1138
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| Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2022 12:19 am Post subject: |
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| Dr. Bidlo wrote: | | Yeah I agree. Having anything collectible does not ever benefit me financially because I am never willing to part with anything I collect. That's what happens when you collect things you love. |
Agreed!
| Whill wrote: | | In my post-RotJ setting, after many years of war and chaos, four galactic powers emerge from the former Empire: the New Republic and three successor Empires. The Tapani Sector is the seat of the Southern Empire. |
My campaign started with an unholy alliance of Dark Jedi uniting into a new Sith Order, rapidly seizing the reigns of many of the Imperial Remnants scattered throughout the galaxy. Grand Admiral Pellaeon's Remnant was one of the largest & had a truce with the New Republic, but if the New Sith continued absorbing the other Remnants Pellaeon could be left with no choices.
After a few years' play, the alliance was broken & most of the New Sith were dead...
When i brought in the Tapani Sector, it was to be a game changer. Instead of several petty empires there were now Two major Remnant Empires; Grand Admiral Pellaeon's Empire & Grand Moff Kir-Sol's Empire.
If the Tapani Sector joined either it could be the beginning of the end for the New Republic...
Of course, there were wild cards aplenty, and many interested parties trying to influence things to their advantage...
It was good fun! Kept everyone on their toes!
Incidentally, my interest in the Location Templates is because i'm making new shipyards for RP, and the Gebin system i am making is in Nemo Kingdom/Province of the Tapani Empire. |
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Whill
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Inquisitor1138
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2022 1:16 am Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | That sounds cool! My three Emperors are all progeny or legacies of Palpatine who of course each feel they are the rightful heir to the Galactic Empire. But there is yet another nebulous faction lurking in the shadows, manipulating things. |
I presume Palpy wasn't big on family gatherings, holidays or otherwise!
My players had a bit of a tough time trying to figure out the Tapani Lords Kylix & Nemo, especially since i played-up the mystery with the Revanchist Kylix & Nemo being as charming & cunning 'Dooku' as i could manage; both having supported the Republic in the Clone Wars & the Empire after that...
A bit of anachronistic fun i had, was having Sith, Krath & Republic ships of the KotOR & SWTOR eras in the House Fleets of Kylix & Nemo, & 1 or 2 others, mainly to make things more interesting, but also to have rivalry between certain shipyards, and cooperation between others, as dynamics players can play off of. |
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2022 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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| I am just curious to hear if anyone else has used Tapani Sector in their games. |
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2022 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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I am using it right now (next game planned for less than a week away). But my game is only about 1 BBY, so I'm just using it as a cool locale with major houses vying for control.
I'm personally okay with Fondor being off the beaten path, as maybe the Empire chose it for that very reason. Far from common hyperspace routes is kinda like Skunkworks being done in the middle of the Nevada desert.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 12:47 am Post subject: |
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| Inquisitor1138 wrote: | | Whill wrote: | | That sounds cool! My three Emperors are all progeny or legacies of Palpatine who of course each feel they are the rightful heir to the Galactic Empire. But there is yet another nebulous faction lurking in the shadows, manipulating things. |
I presume Palpy wasn't big on family gatherings, holidays or otherwise! |
No, Palpatine was a recluse. And family is just like anything else in his life, something to be used and manipulated for his purposes. Even from a distance.
I also like the idea of Naboo becoming an official Imperial vacation world for high-ranking Imps. Gungans provide a lot of the servant class. Palpatine may have gone back to visit in the early years of the Empire, but at some point he stopped leaving his palace on Coruscant.
| Inquisitor1138 wrote: | My players had a bit of a tough time trying to figure out the Tapani Lords Kylix & Nemo, especially since i played-up the mystery with the Revanchist Kylix & Nemo being as charming & cunning 'Dooku' as i could manage; both having supported the Republic in the Clone Wars & the Empire after that...
A bit of anachronistic fun i had, was having Sith, Krath & Republic ships of the KotOR & SWTOR eras in the House Fleets of Kylix & Nemo, & 1 or 2 others, mainly to make things more interesting, but also to have rivalry between certain shipyards, and cooperation between others, as dynamics players can play off of. |
Sounds interesting.
| Dr. Bidlo wrote: | | I am just curious to hear if anyone else has used Tapani Sector in their games. |
I have but not much. No Tapani campaigns just individual adventures. I often think about the Tapani Sector for backstory and possible future adventures set there.
I love that Tapani templates book. It has a lot of templates that can just be slightly reworded to be more general and apply to characters outside of the sector as well.
| DougRed4 wrote: | | I'm personally okay with Fondor being off the beaten path, as maybe the Empire chose it for that very reason. Far from common hyperspace routes is kinda like Skunkworks being done in the middle of the Nevada desert. |
A facility constructing an Executor-class being off the beaten path makes some sense from a security standpoint, but the only problem with Fondor is its importance to the galactic history of the galaxy spanning thousands of years in the lore. So the routes there being newly restricted makes sense, but there is still going to be a lot of traffic there. Even if it did at one time, I can't imagine the star system still has all the resources it needs to be self-sufficient, especially since it has been building spaceships for thousands of years. So it would have an influx of deliveries of new materials, parts, and labor.
| DougRed4 wrote: | | I am using it right now (next game planned for less than a week away). But my game is only about 1 BBY, so I'm just using it as a cool locale with major houses vying for control. |
Please recap your adventures for us!
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CRMcNeill
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 1:05 am Post subject: |
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Regarding Fondor, IIRC, the Tapani Sector is in a star cluster with an excessive amount of debris in interstellar space, making hyperspace travel much more challenging without the use of hyperspace beacons. One possibility would be that the Empire capitalized on this and interdicted the route, either obviously with gravity well projectors or somewhat more subtly by disabling the hyperspace beacons, thus forcing ships to make much shorter, slower jumps in and out of the system. At the same time, the Empire established their own top secret route into the system to allow rapid ingress and egress.
That way, you can handwave that the long travel times existed during the Imperial interdiction (while the Executor was being built), then revert back to more normal travel times after its completion.
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Inquisitor1138
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| Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 9:56 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | Regarding Fondor, IIRC, the Tapani Sector is in a star cluster with an excessive amount of debris in interstellar space, making hyperspace travel much more challenging without the use of hyperspace beacons. One possibility would be that the Empire capitalized on this and interdicted the route, either obviously with gravity well projectors or somewhat more subtly by disabling the hyperspace beacons, thus forcing ships to make much shorter, slower jumps in and out of the system. At the same time, the Empire established their own top secret route into the system to allow rapid ingress and egress.
That way, you can handwave that the long travel times existed during the Imperial interdiction (while the Executor was being built), then revert back to more normal travel times after its completion. |
Makes sense. I might well use this.
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Whill
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| Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Regarding Fondor, IIRC, the Tapani Sector is in a star cluster with an excessive amount of debris in interstellar space, making hyperspace travel much more challenging without the use of hyperspace beacons. |
You recall correctly. A fact that Essential Atlas project director Jason Fry admitted to me was always intended to be mentioned in the book but left out due to his own error.
| Quote: | One possibility would be that the Empire capitalized on this and interdicted the route, either obviously with gravity well projectors or somewhat more subtly by disabling the hyperspace beacons, thus forcing ships to make much shorter, slower jumps in and out of the system.
...
That way, you can handwave that the long travel times existed during the Imperial interdiction (while the Executor was being built), then revert back to more normal travel times after its completion. |
Here is a recap of this part of the discussion in this thread. According to the WEG Tapani Sector map of the sector, the only public route to Fondor was a minor route through another system. Author Jason Fry saw the problem of reconciling the WEG map with the Fondor's history in the EU, and his solution was adding a major route connecting other sectors directly to Fondor. The problem with that solution was that it violated WEG fluff stating that the Shapani Bypass is the only public route connecting the sector to the rest of the galaxy. Once I pointed that out to Jason Fry, he said his solution was to move his new route to ending at the Shapani Bypass just outside Tapani Sector. The only problem is, we are back to Fondor not having a major routes to it.
So my solution was to add a major route that connected Fondor directly to the Shapani Bypass. My update better honors the EU history of the Fondor system. So it wasn't just that the existing route was too slow. It was that a major direct route connecting Fondor to a major route didn't exist at all. Your ideas are good ones for the Empire temporarily eliminating the direct route, thus embracing both Fondor's EU history and WEG's description of the sector in the classic era.
| Quote: | | At the same time, the Empire established their own top secret route into the system to allow rapid ingress and egress. |
The secret route bypasses the Rimma and the Shapani Bypass, connecting a Core World directly to Fondor. IMO only a certain clearance level should even have access to the secret route, so low priority transports would still use the direct routes.
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | Please recap your adventures for us! |
Definitely! Unfortunately, I ended up getting covid, so had to postpone that planned game. Next one is now scheduled for the end of January.
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