The Kwymar Liberation - New Tricks for an Old Dog

[Dromdarr_Alark]

Hello everybody!

I just officially joined the Rancor Pit, but I have been lurking for the past few months and absorbing all of the great advice you share..

I have been RPG gaming since I was 8 years old (quite a munchkin, indeed!), but this is my first time delving into the world of Star Wars roleplaying.

Actually, let me correct myself. I played in a SW campaign for about 4 months before getting fed up with the GM and the campaign. The GM seemed to value the lives of his NPCs more than he did the characters, and actually had half of the party studying under a dark Jedi while the other half was trying to establish a Rebel outpost on the planet. The majority of his attention was spent on the Dark Side characters, so I found myself sitting for about three hours before my character could say anything. Anyway, that's in the past. I have since decided to GM my own SW campaign.

And that is what brought me here! I am lucky enough to have found PDFs of most of the books, but I do not have any hard copies - Alas! I also am extraordinarily grateful for all of the compilations and fan-made books by Gry Sarth and Cheshire.

My group consists of me (the GM), a player who left the previous campaign with me, one experienced player who has never done D6 SW before, and two players who are completely new to roleplaying. We were all friends before this, so we already have a group dynamic.

The Campaign:

The setting is in the Kwymar Sector (hence the title) right after the first Death Star blew up. The PCs are as follows: Dezorah Endovain - a politician in hiding (wife to a member of the Tarkin family), Va-Ro-Zah - a Tissh'shar mercenary, Tu Kwai - a Blood Carver bounty hunter, and Gir Dri - a Blood Carver pirate from the same clan.

I started them off with a generic adventure. They had to go to a backwater planet to rescue Agent Zephyr, a rebel operative, from an Imperial outpost. In the process, they met the ruthless bounty hunter Tharan Orden, who will be pursuing them for the rest of the campaign.

They needed to find a way into the outpost, so they met Tharan Orden in the local cantina, and he gave them the map of the sewer system - for a price. They used the sewers to infiltrate the outpost and freed Agent Zephyr, a red Twi'lek. After fighting their way through waves of stormtroopers and getting shot a few times, they found the armory. Agent Zephyr insisted that they take a few crates of weapons for the Alliance.

When they opened the blast doors to the hangar, they found Tharan Orden waiting for them. He planned to capture the escaped Agent Zephyr and the rebels and collect the bounty on them. He had also found out about the bounty for Dezorah, placed by her husband.

Combat ended with Va-Ro-Zah slicing off Tharan Orden's arm with his vibro-axe (in a very Star Wars fashion). They assumed he was dead and started loading their goods into speeders. To make a long story short, they had a chase scene in the city and in the woods on their way to the pick-up point, where they met Arlan Kaiser, the space Texan and freighter pilot.

They took off, fought some TIE fighters, and jumped into hyperspace. A few hours later, they entered orbit above Telos IV, where they are now.

There have been quite a few sessions since then. Let me know if you want to hear more! They are trying to overthrow the Imperial Governor. It's pretty awesome.

^^^That's a lot of words. Any feedback on how I can make this more friendly on the eyes would be helpful.

Cheers!

[cheshire]

Wow... quite a goal for a rag tag team like that. I'm sure it's going to be pretty dramatic when/if they pull it off.

So far so good. But if you could give us a paragraph or two about where they are now and how they plan to root out the governor, that would be interesting.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Dromdarr_Alark]

I pulled some resources from Fragments from the Rim - namely the Skulls and Knights swoop gangs.

Setting the Stage:
The reason the rebellion sent the group to Telos was because the leader of the Knights, Finnegan Flint contacted them and requested their assistance. Since the Kwymar Suppressions, Telos and other planets in the sector had their local governments replaced by Imperial governors, and divisions of COMPForce and Stormtroopers were sent in.

The Imperial governor of Telos, Marek Trebor, is trying to capitalize on the rich supply of lommite in the planet's crust (I know - there is no lommite on Telos in canon, but the EU can be modified to suit my wants in this case). Now the once rich and verdant countryside outside the capital city of Thani is polluted and ashy.

When the party arrived on planet, they landed at an abandoned restoration zone outpost that was retrofitted as a supply base for the Knights. There they met the Zabrak mechanic Tiunt and the stoic Devaronian soldier Dromdarr Alark.

Those two led them to the city of Thani on the backs of Tee-muss and Dalgos (beast of burden from the Clone Wars Onderon episodes). On the way, they encountered an Ithorian hermit by the name of Dona Habat (descendent of Chodo Habat from KOTOR 2). Dona Habat sensed the Force potential in Dezorah and gave her a trinket through which she could contact him. He refused to go into the city, however, because he was a naturalist who despised high technology.

When they reached the outskirts of the city, they were confronted with the encroaching pollution and desecration caused by hundreds of mining crawlers (they look like the sand crawler on Tatooine in KOTOR - except they are gray). The gleaming goldenrod towers of the inner city were obscured by smoke and dust, and the once bountiful ground was covered in chalky gray soot.

It was not until they made it past the pollution, through the outer city walls, through the bustling bazaar and slummy streets, and into the Knights hideout to meet Finnegan Flint that they found out their task was to overthrow the governor.

The Task at Hand
At first they had no idea how they would handle such a task. They thought it was hopeless.

When they remembered seeing an argument between stormtroopers and COMPForce officers, they saw an opportunity. There was a clear conflict between the two forces: the stormtroopers enforce Imperial Law, while COMPForce enforces Imperial doctrine and loyalty. Essentially, the stormtroopers were the police while COMPForce was the thought police. Because of this, they have had conflicts over jurisdiction and which "criminals" belonged to which group. The party thought that there could be a way for them to pit the two groups against each other and cause an open confrontation that would weaken the state of the government. It was a long-shot, but it was worth a try...

Stay tuned for more updates!


As of right now:

The uprising is completely in motion. Both the stormtroopers and COMPForce have lost their commanding officers. Open rebellion has been declared. The people are fully armed and marching towards the capitol building.

If you want to know how that happened, you'll have to wait until my next post.

Cheers!

[DougRed4]

That's some awesome stuff, and lots of run to read about, Dromdarr!

It's great to have you posting here, and I look forward to reading more about your games!
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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]

Let me tell you the story of how the characters planted the seeds of the destruction of the Telosian establishment...

How it All Happened

The players had just realized that there was a rift between the local COMPForce and Stormtroopers. There had to be a way to implicate one of them to make that rift wider and more treacherous - and that is exactly what they did.

Va-Ro-Zah and Dezorah went on a tour around the city to get a feel for the goings-on while Tu Kwai went to a bounty hunting office to check up on the local bounties. Tu Kwai noticed something interesting. There was a bounty out for Finnegan Flint, the leader of the Knights gang, but there was no bounty out for Jeng Seth, the ruthless leader of the brutal Skulls gang. There had to be a reason for that!

Tu Kwai paid 400 credits to take an exclusive bounty on Finnegan Flint, which would prevent other hunters from claiming him, to postpone his demise. He then noticed that there was a bounty pending for Representative Quom Jocle of the Ithorian Environmental Committee, which oversaw the maintenance of the planet's surface. He took note of that, as well.

When Tu Kwai returned and told the party about his discovery, they immediately became suspicious of a conspiracy, and suspected COMPForce was preventing a bounty on Jeng Seth from being released. They wondered why and figured out that the Skulls were a public enemy because of the chaos they caused. COMPForce may have been paying them to be a menace so that the people of Telos would worry about gangs instead of the oppressive government.

They brought this to Finnegan, who told them that they should meet with Jeng Seth's girlfriend, Kira Merasska. He said that she is closest to him and might have valuable information.

The party also decided to jump some Skulls and see if they had any equipment that might have been provided by COMPForce.

And that is where I will leave off for now!

Cheers!
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[Dromdarr_Alark]

Where we Last Left Off

The heroes suspect that COMPForce is paying The Skulls to cause chaos to prevent the citizens from worrying about the government. They plan to meet with Jeng Seth's Zeltron girlfriend, Kira Merasska, to gain information on this lead. They also plan to jump some Skulls to see if they are carrying COMPForce equipment.

Moving Forward

The party met with Kira as she was performing at the Starlight Club and made plans for Dezorah to meet with her for lunch the next day. The rest of the party found a group of Skulls outside and jumped them. On the Skulls bodies, they found Imperial Munitions SC-4 blaster pistols, which are known to be standard equipment on the local COMPForce troops.

When Dezorah met with Kira for lunch, they discussed trivial matters. Kira made it evident that she was not particularly happy with her relationship. It seemed that both were beating around the bush when Kira finally asked Dezorah to get straight to the point and asked her what she wanted. Dezorah then shared her plan to use Jeng Seth to implicate COMPForce. Kira agreed to help Dezorah as long as there was a reward. What Kira made apparent is that she wanted power. She mentioned replacing Marek Trebor as governor of Telos, but saw a brighter opportunity when Dezorah mentioned that she has connections with sector moffs. Kira agreed to retrieve her boyfriend's account statements, and told Dezorah that she and Jeng were going to eat at the Lucky Cannock the next evening - and that they would be walking home....
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[Dromdarr_Alark]

Good day, everyone! Now that this crazy week is over, I figure I can post an update.

We haven't had any sessions recently, but I still have not caught up to where we are.


Recap

The party is trying to implicate COMPForce in the funding and support of a known criminal organization: the Skulls swoop gang. They found COMPForce-issue blasters on dead Skulls, and leader Jeng Seth's girlfriend agreed to help the party find more information. She told them where he will be the following night, and the party plans to kill him and use his murder to show the Stormtroopers that COMPForce is allied with the Skulls.

Moving Forward

Everything went according to plan.

Kira went into Jeng's bank account and found periodical payments of 500 credits from an unknown source which started coming in three years prior (when COMPForce arrived on planet).

The party set up a swoop race outside of the Lucky Cannock to serve as a distraction for the authorities while they stalked Jeng and Kira as they left the cantina.

Jeng Seth is a fiercely skilled adversary. If you look at his stats, he has something like 8D in blasters. The party managed to kill him in one turn /facepalm. The party shot at him from the roofs of buildings while Va-Ro-Zah charged in and sliced him in half with his vibro-axe.

They then placed the evidence at the scene and left to make an anonymous call to the Stormtroopers.

Stay tuned to find out what happened to the Skulls when they found out their leader was dead!
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[DougRed4]

More good stuff, Dromdarr.

So why did Jeng Seth's girlfriend betray him?
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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

[Darth_Hilarious]

The CompForce officers remind me of old COld War Soviet political officers and KGB while the stormtroopers fall into line with soviet GRU or Military High Command. In real life they were often at odds with each other and plenty of political infighting sounds like a good adventure hook.

[Dromdarr_Alark]

I appreciate the comments. I did not notice them until now.

[Dromdarr_Alark]

I figure it's time for a new update.

I don't want to spend too much time on Telos, so I will be brief.

The party had just killed Jeng Seth and framed COMPForce. They then returned to his apartment to plant more evidence. There they found a nice T-21 repeating blaster and an odd cube of some sort. They assumed it was the cube that Jeng Seth had stolen from Finnegan Flint.

When the Skulls discovered that their leader was murdered during the swoop race, they descended into chaos. Dromdarr then stepped in and killed those vying for power, claiming his place as the leader of the swoop gang.

When the party returned to Knights headquarters, Dezorah discovered that the cube responded to her touch. It would light up when she held it, and it asked her to recite the Jedi Code. Since Finnegan Flint knew studied the Jedi, he shared the Code with her. The cube then revealed itself as a holocron imprinted with the personality of a late Jedi master.

Important Point
The important thing to note here is that the players have set events in motion that will cause ripples outside of their control. Power dynamics will begin to change on the planet as time goes by.

The following few posts will be news broadcasts that I made for my players in between sessions to get them excited.
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[Dromdarr_Alark]

*** Live broadcast on the Holonet ***

Headline: Spontaneous Community Racing Event Explodes into Bloodbath

This is Luxa Lumina reporting from the Third Tier.

The supposed leader of the infamous swoop gang, the "Skulls," was murdered last night as he was walking home near a community sponsored swoop bike race. Due to the nature of his injuries, the local enforcement is baffled as to who could be responsible.

Some members of the Skulls were in attendance at the race. When they found out about the murder of their leader, they turned to violence, brutally killing each other in a supposed power struggle to choose the new chief. Reports indicate at least three dead and one injured.

This is Luxa Lumina, on the ground, in the Third Tier, giving you the real story, when it happens.

Stay tuned to NXTW News 9 for more updates.

*** End Stream ***
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[Dromdarr_Alark]

*** Live broadcast on the Holonet ***

Headline: New Evidence in Skulls Murder Cracks Local Confidence in COMPForce

This is Luxa Lumina reporting from the Third Tier.

The rift between local authorities and COMPForce is widening as new evidence found at the scene of the murder of former Skulls leader Jeng Seth could implicate the federal Imperial authority.

A leaked report from the local stormtroopers who are investigating the murder revealed that the gang leader was carrying standard COMPForce issue weaponry.

There has also been a report that Seth has been receiving anonymous payments to his bank account for the past three years, since the time when COMPForce first arrived on planet.

COMPForce has released no statements as of yet.

Once again, this is Luxa Lumina, on the ground, in the Third Tier, giving you the real story, when it happens.

Stay tuned to NXTW News 9 for more updates.

*** End Stream ***
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[Dromdarr_Alark]

*** Live broadcast on the Holonet ***

Headline: Decapitated Skulls Get New Head

This is Luxa Lumina reporting from the inside, in the Third Tier.

I am here with the newly "appointed" leader of the Skulls swoop gang, Dromdarr Alark, who recently finished a "re-visioning meeting" with his gang.

Dromdarr, What was the meeting about?

"The gang lacked focus and discipline under Jeng Seth's chaotic leadership. This meeting was necessary in order to ... restructure the group."

Interesting, and what is the new focus of the notorious Skulls gang?

"We agreed upon a vision after much ... discussion. The Skulls are no longer a gang of thugs who exist to sow chaos. We have agreed that our allegiance lies with the people of the Third Tier, who suffer poverty and destitution as much as we do."

That is astonishing. It seems to be a complete reversal of the way the gang has operated for the past three years. Is there anything else you would like to add?

"Yes. One of our community partners is hosting a rally on Primeday in Habat Square inside the Original City. The Skulls will provide a live holofeed outside of the Lucky Cannock for the community. We will also have resources for citizens to get involved."

There you have it. The infamous Skulls gang turned community organizers after one mysterious overnight meeting.

This is Luxa Lumina, risking life and limb to bring you the real story, when it happens. Reporting from the Third Tier with Skulls leader Dromdarr Alark, signing off.

Stay tuned to NXTW News 9 for more updates.

*** End Stream ***
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[Dromdarr_Alark]

*** Live Broadcast on the Holonet ***

Headline: Local Enforcement Chief Requests Arrest Warrants for Key COMPForce Officials

This is Luxa Lumina reporting from the Second Tier.

Thani district Stormtrooper chief Ando Clex publicly requested arrest warrants today for certain leaders of the planetary COMPForce contingent.

This is a result of the ongoing investigation of the death of Skulls leader Jeng Seth. The Stormtroopers claim to have traced the source of anonymous payments into Seth’s account to COMPForce members.

Among those mentioned in the request for warrants is Colonel Patraeus Jovian, the head of all COMPForce divisions on Telos.

The requests are pending approval by Governor Marek Trebor, who released the following statement: “Crime will not be tolerated. Criminals, both without and within, will be swiftly sought and apprehended. They will know justice.”

We could not reach Colonel Jovian for comments.

This is Luxa Lumina, in the Second Tier, bringing you the real story when it happens.

Stay tuned to NXTW News 9 for more updates.

*** End Stream ***
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."