Briefing from General Dodanna

As many of you know, the Empire has been quiet in most sectors since the destruction of the Deathstar; however, what some of you may not know is that there has been a significant military buildup in sectors bordering the Outer Rim. We believe the Empire is preparing to knock out pockets of resistance there so they do not have a chance to join the Alliance. This must not happen.

To prevent their takeover of the Outer Rim, we are deploying you as a small strike team to the Habin sector. Until reaching that sector, you are to avoid all contact with the enemy. Once there, your primary mission is to make contact with local rebel cells, criminal organizations, and other potential dissidents and either convince them to join the Alliance or make them sufficiently indebted that they can be relied upon in future operations.

Your secondary mission is to sabotage Imperial efforts in the region and the work of TaggeCo and its subsidiaries. I don't need to tell you that the Tagges are powerful figures in the Empire, and that their industries do much to power the Imperial war machine. Some of you have felt the effects of TaggeCo on your homeworlds. However, this sabotaging should not be done at the expense of the primary mission. Your goal is to secure allies not enemies.

Your tertiary objective is to provide funding to the Rebellion as best you can. Any materiel that can be secured would be most useful to our war effort and can be securely given to the listening post at Kaabla.

Your first task should be to make contact with Borba the Hutt and his base of Goti Station. Unfortunately, few know the hyperspace travel routes to reach it and thus you will need an informant. Fortunately, our agents at the listening post in Kaabla have set up a meeting with a potential informant on the planet of Habin, the capital of the sector. You are to proceed there with all speed and have this meeting.

Good luck, and may the Force be with you!

Star Wars: War on the Frontier

This is a revamp of my War on the Final Frontier campaign for Star Wars.  I did a Star Wars pitch after seeing the Force Awakens, so it seems natural I should do one after seeing Rogue One.

The year is 5 BBY.  The Galactic Empire is approaching its zenith and the Galaxy is in the midst of the Dark Times, but the Empire has not yet gained control of certain corners of space.  The Outer Rim, ever lawless and independent, has proven a tough nut to crack, even for the crack Imperial Navy.  However, their expansion into this region has been aided recently by the acquisition of nine systems known as the Habin sector, after its capital.  This sliver of space will prove vital to imperial operations as it will serve as the primary root for materiel from the Core and also has an industrial planet of its own.

The players are members of Rebel Intelligence.  Their mission is to head to the Habin Sector and make contact with any criminal organizations or potential rebel cells there.  They are to persuade these entities to join the Alliance or, failing that, make sure that they are sufficiently indebted that they can be relied upon for "favors" in future operations.  As a secondary goal, they are to sabotage whatever Imperial projects they can, but not at the expense of the long term operation.

Their cover is to be bounty hunters and merchants in the hope that this will provide them an "in" with meeting the local criminal organizations and give them significant room to move within Habin society.  Execution of the functions of these covers will be necessary to maintain them, but in a sector so close to the Outer Rim, it should be easy.  The players are encouraged to remember that the long term mission of alliance building and intelligence gathering is paramount and will require sacrifices.

Rebel brass believes the first organization you should contact is that belonging to Borba the Hutt.  He supposedly operates out of a deep space station known as Goti Station, but its current whereabouts are unknown.  An informant has promised to reveal its location for 10,000 Imperial Credits.  He wishes to meet at a warehouse on Habin.

Notorious murder and criminal Dr. Evazan has been sighted in the system and both Borba the Hutt and the Imperial Security Bureau have placed sizable bounties on him.  Interestingly, the ISB bounty specifies that he must be brought in alive.  Getting the bounty for him could prove useful for future operations in the sector, but he may know information that may be useful to the Rebellion.

Spies at a listening post within the system report that the garrison on the fortress world of Dostroth has been recently reinforced, and rumors persist that it is due to the arrival of a high-ranking Imperial official.

 

Star Wars: Goti Station

New year. New blog post.  This one is about Star Wars.

I recently watched the original trilogy with my wife, who had never seen a New Hope or Empire and hadn't seen Jedi since she was a child.  She loved them, and I was reminded of how much I loved them.  Hence this campaign idea.  I hope to run something like it later in the year, but right now I'm running WFRP again in Middenheim, my favorite fantasy city, and I am hoping that campaign will last long enough that this one can't start anytime soon.

Goti Station was once a mining colony on the outer edge of Hutt Space.  It is essentially a collection of asteroids connected by durasteel struts and turbolifts.  In the first years after Palpatine declared the New Order, a crime lord named Borba the Hutt* purchased the colony as well as a number of very large hyperdrives.  He affixed these to Goti Station and shot the entire thing into deep space, far from any star.

Borba now uses the station as a mobile command center for a vast, and territorially disparate, criminal empire.  Goti Station floats in the blackness between systems, making jumps to crucial junctures between planets and then moving on before imperial agents can catch the scent.  Their are sometimes complications, like asteroids tearing off in hyperspace, but nothing so great as to deter Borba's plan.

The PCs are fugitives from the Empire - force users hunted by the inquisition, bounty hunters who violated proper jurisdictional codes, princes who made enemies of a Grand Moff, etc.  They have made their way, through the use of contacts or through Borba's actively seeking them out, onto Goti Station.  In exchange for credits (or more likely Borba's company scrip) and refuge form the Empire, the PCs must perform services for the various miscreants who run the station.

These typically take the form of adventures on planets near the current location of Goti Station.  The GM (i.e. me) will create 1-5 hooks each for 2 to 3 nearby planets.  A single hook may be an isolated adventure, a connected mini-campaign comprised of multiple hooks on the same planet, or part of a web of scenarios that includes multiple planets.

Whenever the PCs kick the hornets' nest of Imperial Law Enforcement too hard, Goti Station will have to jump somewhere else and a new list of hooks will be created.  Should they decide to kick the hornets' nest, pick it up in their hands, and proverbially rub it on their genitals, then the Empire may very well find and attack Goti Station, forcing the PCs to either fight to defend their shitty home or to leave it in search of a new hiding place.  The later option would necessitate a new campaign model, but since it would develop organically out of the players' actions I think that could work.

Typical threats would include gross crime lords, trandoshan slavers, bounty hunters, imperial inquisitors, dark side prophets, and the robed weirdos of the Emperor's ruling council.  Why those guys?  Because those guys are why I like Star Wars.

*Borba is not actually a Hutt.  He is a Tarsunt that underwent extensive genetic modifications in order to be accepted by Hutt crime bosses on Nar Shadda.  His hideously bloated form must now continually float in a bacta tank or he will die.