Minos Cluster Campaign

[raithyn]

I'm working on a campaign set in the Minos Cluster during the Old Republic era between the Dark Wars and the Great War. A Jedi master in self-imposed exile just sent a distress signal from a point along the Rimma Trade Route. His ship was found completely abandoned in space. The party is dispatched to discover what has happened to him. Over the course of the campaign, they will explore every corner of the Cluster and find a plot that threatens the stability of the Republic.

I have a bunch of plot threads that I'm working into a proper outline. Hopefully I'll have time to make it useful for other GMs as well.

For now, I have a draft map to share. You can find it here. I welcome any comments as I work on the final version.

• I'm trying my best to play nice with as many D6 supplements as possible. I used GG6 and the Adventurer's Journal Presents: The Minos Cluster as the two main sources but had to adjust the transit times a little so that the Rimma Trade Route remains a logical path. There are several other maps, almost all of them on The Pit, that I referenced as well.

• I list planets, not systems. That's because I also have a bunch of planet cards that I'll give my players as they unlock routes.

• Since the Trition Trade Route isn't founded for over 300 years, I have the Rimma running all the way through.

• I'm sure there are EU or Canon details of the Cluster that I haven't represented correctly. I'm willing to incorporate any that don't require major rework.

• I plan to print the final version at 12" x 14" on vinyl or neoprene.

[Whill]

Hey. Your draft map link also goes to the Adorlon planet card. I'd love to see your draft map.

Did you see the thread discussing my Minos and Elrood maps? My maps are directly for the Imperial era, but I did take into account the region's Clone Wars-era history in its background, so it deals a bit with the end of the Republic. That thread has a direct link to my maps, and the Pit Library (linked in my signature) has another version of my Minos map created by another user here.
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[raithyn]

[Whill]

I could find no pre-Empire Legends info on Travnin, but I saw that Eliad was important to one Old Republic story, so I made Eliad the original capital of the cluster until it joined the Republic, which made Travnin the new captial. Here's how I see it... A royal family from Eliad rose to power in the sector and sided with the separatists in the Clone Wars. When the Empire rose to power, it rounded up nobles from all over the galaxy and exiled them to Eliad, and then publicly executed the native Eliad royal family as an example to the rest of the nobles.

The Empire kept Travnin its capital in the sector. The moon was unsuitable for agriculture but I still made Travnin a "bread basket". To address my disbelief in the moon having an atmosphere breathable to humans while only having a "small ocean", I changed it to one big ocean that covers 50% of the world (the landmass is a supercontinent), so there is aquaculture and the primary food product is seafood. In the classic era, the world is on an ecological decline due to overfishing, and environmental waste from over-mining and Imperial activities. By the end of the campaign, it seems that virtually all life in Travnin's ocean dies.

For the final adventure of my campaign, one possible outcome is the moon would be rendered completely uninhabitable, and Eliad would return as capital of the sector. Travnin could still have been the first Republic settlement in the cluster – I like that idea.

Corlaasi is on the Rimma in Legends. Since it made sense for Travnin to be on the Rimma and Travnin is in a binary star system, I put the systems of Travnin and Corlaasi together. This provided for a convenience on my map/chart. The GG6-details planets all start with different letters and I wanted to represent them with a single letter for the map and astrogation chart, but I added the planet Teh'Jar (a Minos Cluster world with a cool adventure hook in Heroes & Rogues) and there would be two Ts. Combining Corlaasi and Travnin into a binary star system allowed me to use "T" for Teh'Jar and "C" for Corlaasi-Travnin on my map/chart. I also like it that "C" can represent "capital" as Travnin is the capital of the sector. I'm adding planets to the Corlaasi and Teh'Jar systems.
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[Whill]

[raithyn]

[Whill]

[raithyn]

Okay, more Minos Cluster planet cards: DropBox link

These are a bit generic since I'm lazy and wanted to use as many as possible in any era. The only one I have two versions of is Pergitor, for obvious reasons.

[raithyn]

KEY CHARACTERS:

• Jedi Master Haast Turim. The missing Zabrak Jedi Master that kicks off the campaign. Turim has not been seen in over two years. His integrity is respected by the other masters but his reputation is in tatters. Of his three padawans, the first failed his training, the second became a knight but was grievously injured during his first solo mission, and the third was killed during a mission with Turim. Turim reported to the Jedi Council after the last event. They fully exonerated him of any wrongdoing. He immediately undertook a self-imposed exile in response.

• Governor Shan Jelavan. Shan is the governor of Adarlon. She is warm, carefully composed, and precise. Shan is also the wife of Vessin Reed and mother of Shaw Jelavan, Master Turim's third padawan. She deeply loves her people but is constantly faced with ethical compromises in order to do what she thinks is necessary for them. She surrendered her only child to the Jedi to strengthen her planet's ties with the Republic. (This very much worked.) Now she finds herself creating alliances with the Exchange in order to fight off growing Hutt Cartel influence in the Cluster.

• Vessin Reed. Shan Jelavan's husband is sharply dressed and carries himself with a relaxed air that contrasts strongly against his wife's formal mannerisms. He plays the loving husband, even in private, but harbors resentment for her giving up their son. Over time, this grew to full-on hatred as his regular letters to his son were never returned. He is working against her in secret and his plans are starting to fall into place.

• Jedi Apprentice Shaw Jelavan. Shaw is Shan Jelavan and Vessin Reed's only son and Haast Turim's third apprentice. Turim believes he perished over two years ago. Shaw reconnected with his father six months before his purported death. Vessin fed his son's fear and anger through text communication until Shaw opened himself up to the dark side. His fall was gradual. Barely conceived as he and his father planned his "death." Only sprouting as he learned of his mother's deals with the Exchange. Now though, it is in full bloom. Shaw lured his former master into an ambushed and now plans to use Turim's prior experience in the Cluster to locate ancient ruins and muster others that feel betrayed by the Jedi.

• More to come...

KEY PLANETS:

• Adarlon. Lots of political intrigue. Obviously.

• Travnin. The breadbasket of the cluster. The AgriCorps is key to the farming economy.

• Shesharile 5 & 6. The Hutts are buying land and expanding their influence mainly through these two moons. This is why they become junk heaps.

• Quockra-4. The native species is xenophobic and supplies most of the droids for the cluster. The Hutts play on this with their similar forms to impact the Cluster's economy and solidify their own power.

• Yelsain. Home base to the Warden of the Skies who is leading a small band of "pirates" against both the Exchange and Hutt Cartel in the Cluster.

• Gerasil. The Wardens of the Sky will start (or be reborn) here under the tutelage of the native force-sensitives.

• Yelsain. Home base to the Warden of the Skies who is leading a small band of "pirates" against both the Exchange and Hutt Cartel in the Cluster.

• Trangfyyr. The tomb of the Handmaidens of Atris who preserved her twisted teachings. They are frozen in carbonite and can be reawakened.

• Artifact Planets. I have ideas for Mestra, Ganvar, Gesaril, Yelsain, Eliad, Pergitor, and Bento.

• More to come...

ADVENTURE HOOKS:

• Distress Beacon. The campaign hook. Stealing from the new canon though, there is space debris surrounding the Cluster. The players know that shortly after their arrival, the Rimma Trade Route running coreward will be impassible for several months as the debris crosses it. That doesn't mean there's no way in or out of the Cluster, just that they're cut off from Republic support and generally bound to the map.

• Smuggling from Travnin. I like the first adventure in the GG6 campaign. It's fun. I'm repurposing it so that the players end up smuggling a lightsaber off of Travnin for the Warden. They're given a locked crate. Assuming they take it to Eliad, the Warden's pirates board and relieve them of it, knowing exactly where it is. This sets up some fun potential conflict between the PCs and someone who is ostensibly fighting for good.

• Assassination Attempt. When the players first meet the Governor they are treated to a banquet. Before that starts, Vessin pulls them aside and confesses that he is worried about his wife. He suspects there will be an attempt on her life. He asks these people who come with the backing of the Jedi to protect her. He's right. An assassin attacks during the dinner. The players should be able to keep Shan alive as this will lead them to trust Vessin and possibly discover Shan's underground connections.

• More to come...

That's enough to start with. I have quite a bit pinging around my head like an AgriCorps uprising and an ancient Dark Jedi superweapon (maybe what turned Mestra from a plenat into an asteroid field?). Hopefully I'll get it all out later.

[raithyn]

I printed the cards and map through PrinterStudio. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.

Just to note, the company has several sites with identical options for cards and neoprene mats but slightly different pricing and coupons. I've used PrinterStudio, MakePlayingCards, and BoardGamesMaker at different times and can confirm the actual print shop is the same for each type of item no matter which you order from.

[Whill]

Thanks for sharing your ideas. Please, keep 'em comin'!
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[FVBonura]

Some thoughts from my own campaign.

Being that Quockra-4 is the hyperspace center of the cluster, it's closest to all its neighbors by travel time, I concluded the ancient Quockrans had formed an empire spanning the cluster. Around 1,000 BBY the cluster was attacked by an extra-galactic race that was taking part in a three way war with two other extra-galactic races. Read "At the Mountains of Madness" by Howard Philips Lovecraft if you want to go down that rabbit hole.

This war destroyed every planet in the Mestra System leaving a debris field of asteroids. This is my backstory as to why the miners in the Mestra System keep finding ancient alien artifacts in the system (see: Galaxy Guide 6, pp. 55-58). My players found a 1,000 year old Thrella Fighter with a mummified pilot still in his space suit in the Mestra System (see: "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" for more info).

This is also my back story as to why there is only one surviving gas giant in the Travnin System. I added other devastated homebrew solar systems in the cluster as well to add evidence of this ancient war. Naturally Quockra-4, a once lush moist planet was scorched bare in this conflict leaving it the smoothest roundest object in the cluster. The Quockrans reverse-engineered their enemy's weapons and droids and retreated underground. They managed to survive in subterfuge departing from the surface now a lifeless salt flat.

I run a very investigative campaign so my players enjoy trying to piece together this millennium-old mystery. I run Quockra-4 like a hunted planet where spacers don't venture far from the spaceport. The native Quockrans operate by proxy using their odd unique droids, never seen by anyone, save the extremely nosey who often are never seen again.
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[raithyn]

Thanks, FVBonura! I appreciate all the ideas you've posted recently.

I'm focusing on the similarities of the xenophobic Quockrans to the Hutts to fuel some of the political discord of the campaign. I'm sure I cannot be the first GM to call that aspect out although my chosen era may allow me more leeway to play with the idea.

I'm going to have Mestra being destroyed by the Rakatan empire. That opens the potential for ancient but 100% unhealthy Force teachings to be found that aren't all "Sith" in origin. I'm playing heavily with the ideas and continuation of the deconstruction of the Force implied by the KotOR comics and made explicit in the second video game.

As an example, Pergitor is under the Jesa Corporation pre-cataclysm. The Church of Infinite Perception is not in control but is officially sponsored by Jesa Corp. so they have a lot of power. The Church believes that individuals should seek to understand the "The Path" and dedicate their life to building it. "Prophets" dedicate their lives to monasteries and meditation in an attempt to experience and interpret Force visions. Any other use of the Force is expressly forbidden as an attempt to impose one's own will instead of submitting to "The Path."

For Jesa, this results in a reliable, compliant workforce. More than that though, the leaders of the company believe in The Path and are working to create devices that enhance precognition. The volcanic minerals mined on the planet are necessary for their work.

I haven't decided if they uncover an artifact that aids their work or if they successfully create one. Either way, this device--or more accurately the power it represents--is what Shaw is after on the planet.

I'm also trying to decide how much to incorporate a proto Legacy-era Emperor. That is, perhaps there is one person who has been vested with the authority to speak for the Force and pronounce The Path. That opens the door for an Imperial Knight-esque militarized body that can use the Force toward specific ends. I don't think that's necessary for a good story or moral quandaries but it may help with gamification at the tabletop.

Another interesting thought that the original RPG rules hold but is lost in later media, especially video games, is the idea that violence corrupts Jedi ideals in subtle but persistent ways. The catch is balancing the inspiring laser sword icon with a "war is hell" message.

I'm currently in a period where I don't have time to write all this down systematically like I hope to. Eventually all the little scraps of paper that are accumulating around my desk will be combined and shared. That may be after Christmas at this point though.

[garhkal]

IF you DO have force users as pcs, how would they see this new 'force order'?
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[raithyn]