Wednesday 24 August 2016

Heroes of the Black Company

I've wanted to write of review of the excellent "Chronicles of the Black Company" for a while now, having recently read the book for the first time. Sometimes it takes time for a review to congeal into something cohesive.

Chronicles of the Black Company collects the first three novels in Glen Cook's Black Company series into a single volume. This initial trilogy kicks off what is so far a series of ten books.

I've always enjoyed Fantasy, but as I've grown older I've found that most of my favorite books are Science Fiction. The problem is that much of Fantasy literature consists of Tolkien imitators, many of them, lacking any original vision or message. Glen Cook adopts this pattern but looks at things from the other side of the battle lines. The Black Company concedes the Tolkienesque world, but asks the question: What if our Heroes work not for Gandalf, but for The Dark Lord himself? It then goes about the daunting Humanistic task of making those villains relatable and sympathetic anti-heroes. This trick of creating a narrative with the bad guys in the lead is a difficult balance to strike, as the recent, rather poorly received Suicide Squad movie can attest to.

Anti-Superheroes

The Black Company


In this first book, we see the Black Company through the eyes of Croaker, the band's Doctor and Historian. We meet them in the inauspicious time before the end of their fateful commission in Beryl. The company faces an existential threat but is offered an out, if they will betray their employer and help overthrow the city. To their credit, the Mercenary leadership does not take the decision lightly, being men of honor with a proud history of completing their commissions. Only when the Syndic's own refusal to face the dire situation leaves them no choice do they accept the emissary's proposal. But the joke is ultimately on the Black Company as it soon turns out they are now working for this Fantasy World's version of Sauron, known simply as "The Lady".

The company soon takes on a new recruit, Raven. Raven is a Byronic Hero. He contributes considerable prowess to the company, yet remains unpredictable and dangerous.

The Black Company become the Lady's most elite unit, but remain sympathetic protagonists since they are not as bad as her regular troops. They ultimately help the Lady defeat the rebels and her Taken rivals, while at the same time planting the seeds for her eventual downfall.

Shadows Linger


The second book in the trilogy mostly takes place in the city of Juniper. It is, for the most part, a detective story(I'm not surprised to find that Glen Cook's other popular series is in the Hardboiled Detective genre.) Something strange is going on in the city, but no one seems to hold all the pieces of the puzzle. Croaker teams up with a toughened detective from the City Watch named Bullock in an attempt to get to the bottom of matters. Unbeknownst to them, Raven plays a big part of this mystery. His actions unwittingly lead to the almost total destruction of the Company. In this way, Croaker and Raven are unwitting adversaries throughout the book.

In the end, Croaker cracks the case just before the shit hits the fan, but too late to prevent it. The Company earns our respect once again when they officially break with The Lady, but now there is a bit of a bait an switch. It is revealed that The Dominator threatens to rise again. At this point, the Lady herself becomes a sympathetic character as she tries to hold-together her Empire and foil his plans.

The White Rose


In the final installment of the trilogy, the Black Company teams up with the White Rose herself in her fight against the Lady and the Dominator. Cook ends his game of role-reversal by completing the redemptive arcs of The Company and The Lady, respectively. In the final showdown, Croaker and Raven find them selves in parallel situations, pitted against one another in a life-or-death struggle. Croaker emerges victorious while Raven is left with nothing.

Heroic Croaker


One of the main reasons the morally ambiguous Black Company remains relateable is that our narrator, Croaker, is a Hardboiled Hero, straight out of Chandler's "Simple Art of Murder". He is the mean product of a mean world. He kills effectively and repeatedly and overlooks his companions' worst atrocities. Nevertheless, he hangs onto a moral code, often to his own detriment. His dedication to the legacy of the company is complete. He is almost a monk in his his duty as resident scholar, updating the annals and reading them aloud to inspire the men. He is also company doctor, healing the wounded after every battle. Finally, there is his strange sentimental crush for the the ultimate Femme Fatale, The Lady. Even when faced with Evil incarnate, Croaker shows his redemptive potential.

Ultimately, Raven and Croaker's ark in the trilogy pits two types of anti-hero against one another, Croaker's Hardboiled here and Raven's Byronic Hero. The Byronic Hero is a decidedly Modern character, assured in his power, the world is his oyster and he intends to harvest the pearl. The Hardboiled Hero is Postmodern, struggling with his own faults and limitations. Both are products of a wicked age, yet while the Hardboiled Hero hangs onto his moral code, the Byronic Hero is blown chaotically between acts of kindness and cruelty by his own inscrutable whims. In the end, Chronicles of the Black Company chooses the Croakers of the world over the Ravens.

The Roots of the Hardboiled Hero


Men of David, James Tissot
The Hardboiled Hero archetype was popularized in the early 20th century pulps, but his roots run deeper.  A man of  honor in a dark world, Croaker's enigmatic personality reminds me of Y. Medan's description of David. In the book of Samuel, David is presented as brave, sensitive and pious, yet when he is insulted by an unappreciative Nabal the Carmelite, he comes dangerously close to committing mass-murder. Says Medan, this is the lot of good men who live by the sword. With the passage of time, pulling the trigger starts to become too easy. In his darkest times, being hunted by King Saul through the hills of the Judaean Desert, David is left struggling simply to maintain his virtue.

The Hardboiled Hero continues to speak to us today, as police and security forces are caught time and again using deadly force inappropriately. This timeless theme is what makes the Black Company novels work so well. In Croaker's own moral struggle in a Dark Fantasy world, we see our own struggles, and in his ultimate redemption, we see hope for ourselves in the darkest corners of our own existence.

Monday 20 June 2016

Random Encounters IN SPAAAAAAAACE!

So, with the party jumping through Hyperspace like a Womp Rat caught in a bullseye, I needed a quick way to answer the question "who is hanging around the system you just arrived at", in addition to the fixed setting elements. Here are the three random tables I used.

The first table, answers the question of "who" these ships belong to. Note, that they are designed around the typical inhabitants of Airam Sector. If and when the party moves on to another sector, then they will probably require some adjustment.


RollWho
1--2None
3Roll twice
4Bounty Hunters
5--6Merchants
7Smugglers
8Gank Killers
9Criminals
10--11Ugor Scavengers
12--13Squib Scavengers
14Ex Imperials
15Jedi
16First Order
17Nharwaak(Zygerrian type)
18Habeen(Human type)
19Eriadu
20Yoberra

Next, the question of scale. It this a single small ship or a flotilla of cruisers?

RollHow many
1-51 small
6-10few small
11-141 med
15-17few med
19-181 large
20few large

Finally, where are they headed?

RollHeading
1-2Planet
3-4Hyperspace
5-6Waiting
7Hiding
8Will hyperspace in soon
Once I've rolled these basic questions, I take a second to flesh out the encounter more. I ask myself things like:
  1.  What are these ships doing here?
  2. Where are they from originally?
  3. What do they want?
  4. How will they react to the PC's ship appearing?

Thursday 16 June 2016

Star Wars 2020: Session 3

We got together a third session of my Star Wars/Cyberpunk 2020 mashup on short notice, due to half of our gaming group being in town. The other half joined via skype, leaving us with a full 6 player characters- not bad for our group. Let's go over the lineup:

  • Pigman- a Gammorian beater/scavenger/heavy machine user/starship pilot(Avraham)
  • Art- Ithorian tech Rock gardener, healing(Avi)
  • Lucky- a Gran with many natural talents, good at dodging, explosives, stock market, interstellar navigation, leadership, pharmaceuticals(Lauren)
  • The Wookie- a wookie turret gunner, butt kicker(Joshua)
  • Deeberjay- Nephew of Ilay who party agrees to transport at end of session(Art)
  • Candy- a pretty Mon Calamari princess who swings a mean plasteel sword(BC)
  • Roy- NPC scavenger from Nocto II(NPC)
  • Snortbert- Gammorian who swore fealty to The Wookie(NPC)

You may recall that in session 2 the party accepted two missions to the Squib Home System of Squab. One was to deliver a shipment of refined metals, the other to deliver Deeberjar, the nephew of Ilay. This session they accomplished that mission, and made some credits to boot, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Candy, the Calamari Princess

Aiquin 4

As the party came out of the gravity well of Aiquin 4 and prepared to enter hyperspace, an Ugor Corvette came out of it's hiding place behind one of the system's moons. It made straight for them but they made the jump to hyperspace.

Eliraad System

The party reached Eliraad System where they found a deep space platform with a small Eriadu just leaving. They hailed the Eriadu, but the Human pilot didn't like having his time wasted by a "bunch of stupid aliens". He cut-off communication and made the jump to hyperspace.

The party was debating following him when the Ugor Corvette came out of hyperspace. The platform scrambled it's two fighters and the party decided it was time to move on to the Blair Cluster.

Airam Sector

Blair Cluster

The Blair Cluster is a huge asteroid belt. The party passed through it thanks to their skilled pilot. They spent some time searching it for signs of life, but to no success. They weren't sure if the Eriadu ship was hiding or had jumped elsewhere.

Swellen System

A deep space repair yard and 3 large Calamari Cruisers coming for repairs.

Deeberjay tried to use his Princely rank to gain cheap repairs. They didn't trust him as an Ilay Squib. Ilay sided with the Empire half a century back, while the rest of the Squib joined the rebellion. There's still some bad blood.

The cruisers aluded to a mission related to the First Order trouble in Hosnian System. Candy spoke to them and they offered to let the party land their shuttle in the flag ship's docking bay where the party would be given a mission. The party decided to decline and continued on to Undil.

Undil System

A large Squib world with another Calamari Cruiser in orbit and 3 Ugor Cruisers hanging out on the far edge of the star system. The party decided to move on to Bes.

Bes System

An Ice Planet with a major squib salvage operation, aftermath of Imperial battles half a century back. Lucky used her handy navigation skills and detected 3 corvette-sized ships hiding in an asteroid field. The party debated joining the salvage mission, attacking the corvettes. They finally decided to make the long jump to Squab.

Squab System

The party made it to squab and saw some heavy Squib Cruiser traffic. Squab contains the Squib homeworld of Skor II. The party made 10000 credits and dropped Deeberjay at his destination. He used his connections to find them cheap docking facilities and invited them to visit him in his office. He has a plan to make an Ilay alliance with the Ugor, but then double-cross them, hopefully helping ease some of the bad blood with the rest of the Squib. The party debated selling their military shuttle for a civilian freighter. They finally decided to stick with the shuttle and hopefully capture a larger ship by boarding it.

There wasn't any fighting this session, but there was some great space exploration, strategy, and general wheeling and dealing. The party completed two missions and made some respectable cash. They also managed to agree on a longer term goal for bettering their fortunes. They have proven particularly adept at avoiding ship maintenance fees.

The game really reminded me of playing Wing Commander Privateer back in my youth, exploring known space looking for missions, running from the big baddies and just making the hyper-jump in time!

Thursday 19 May 2016

Star Wars 2020: Session 2 Summary

So we finally got together for a second session. Last time the party escaped their Ugor task masters in the Nocto system in an old imperial shuttle with just a backup hyperdrive. This session began with a slightly modified character lineup.

Blank Shuttle Sheet
  • Pigman- a Gammorian beater/scavenger/heavy machine user/starship pilot(Avraham)
  • Art- Ithorian tech Rock gardener, healing(Avi)
  • Lucky- a Gran with many natural talents, good at dodging, explosives, stock market, interstellar navigation, leadership, pharmaceuticals(Lauren)
  • The Wookie- a wookie turret gunner, butt kicker(Joshua)
  • Roy- NPC scavenger from Nocto II
  • Snortbert-NPC Gammorian who swears fealty to the Wookie at end of session
  • Deeberjay- NPC Nephew of Ilay who party agrees to transport at end of session

Then we moved on to filling out the shuttle Ship Sheet(modified from Traveller). The party set the goals of:

  1. Getting a proper hyperdrive
  2. Charging their fuel cells
  3. Fixing the hull damage
  4. Getting an Astromech droid for repairs

Shuttle Sheet at End of Session

Klaatu System


The party arrived in Klaatu system. They opened communications with the Space Station, which directed them to the customs platform. They eventually got clearance to land on the station. While there they:
  • Took a delivery mission from Station AI to Squab system, 10000 credits on delivery
  • Fueled up at station's expense
  • Art fixed the ship, hover vehicles, installed parts, haggled for a broken hyperdrive
  • Pigman, Lucky, and the Wookie hitchhiked back and forth from the moon colony
  • While there they sold and bought stuff

Ambush

While taking a cab between the colony and the Rift, the party's cab was told to pull over by a heavily armed stretch limo hovercar. An Ugor, two Mandalorian Bounty Hunters, and two Gammorian Guards ordered them to surrender. After a hectic battle, the Ugor was captured, a defeated Gammorian had sworn fealty to The Wookie, and the others were dead. The party was pretty banged-up too, but they had gained a good deal of booty!

The Jouney Begins

The party began their trip to Squab with the short jump to Aiquin 4. They requested permission to land, claiming to have salvaged their ship from Klaatu system(little do they know that the Squib on Aiquin 4 claim exclusive salvage rights to the surrounding star systems). They landed only to find themselves facing a full contingent of Squib marines. In the interrogation that followed, the true story came out and the Squib were happy to hear that the ship was stolen directly from an Ugor salvage mission.
Updated Map
  • The party was allowed to register their shuttle on Aiquin 4 for 1000 credits
  • The Clan Leader of Aiquin 4, Ilay, requested to meet them. She asked them to do her a favor and transport hernephew to the Polyanarcharial Palace in the Squib homeworld in Squab system
  • They sold some more items at somewhat poor prices, the squibs being expert negotiators
  • Lucky accessed the planetary network and researched the various systems in Airam Sector, resulting in an updated sector map

At this point, we decided to call it a night...

Wednesday 18 May 2016

Welcome to Klaatu

Here's another system description for Star Wars 2020.

Klaatu is a star system in Airam Sector. Most of the planet's activity is around Klaatu III and it's moon.



Klaatu III's moon is the location of a Nharwaak mining colony. The primary locations in this system are:

  1. Customs Platform- a platform orbiting Klaatu III. Visiting ships must check in at the customs office.
  2. Low-Grav Refinery- a space station orbiting Klaatu III. It's a low-gravity metal refinery where mined ores are processed.
  3. Deep Core Bore- a deep bore mine near the moon's core. Mines heavy metals.
  4. The Rift- metal mine in seismic crack in the moon's surface
  5. Nharwaak Colony- small space port, residential, commercial area
  6. Garrison Camp- Nharwaak garrison's camp


A mining colony of the Nharwaaks. The Nharwaaks are from the Myloc system, also in Airam Sector, but are of Zygerrian ancestry.

Star Wars 2020 Point Buy


As per request, here is how to create your star wars 2020 character via point-buy rather than random generator.

1. Ability Scores


  1. Distribute 48 points between the ability scores Int, Ref, Tech, Cool, Emp, Luck, Body, Force (maximum 10, minimum 2)
  2. MA=8
  3. Run=MA*3
  4. Leap=Run/4
  5. Lift(Kg)=40*BODY
  6. Save=Body
  7. BTM=IF(BODY<=2,0,IF(BODY<=4,-1,IF(BODY<=7,-2,IF(BODY<=9,-3,-4)))) 

2. Species


  1. Pick a species
  2. Apply the ability modifiers for your species
RacesINTBODYREFEMPMA
Human
Wookie-111-1
Ewok-1-211-2
Gammorian-22-1
Twi'lek-11
Ithorian1-1-1
Mon Calamari
Gran

3. Skills

  1. You get 40+INT+REF skill points
  2. Assign them to skills(max 10)
BODYCOOLEMPINTREFTECHFORCE
EnduranceInterrogateSentient PerceptionAccountingArcheryHover TechForce Jump
Strength FeatIntimidateInterviewXenoanthropologyAthleticsBasic TechMind Trick
SwimmingOratoryLeadershipAwareness/NoticeBrawlingComputer TechPhase
Resist Torture/DrugsPerformBiologyDanceDemolitionsTelekinesis
StreetwisePersuasion/Fast TalkBotanyDodge/EscapeDisguiseRead Mind
Riding(Bantha)ChemistryFencingDroid TechForce Healing
Riding(Bolotaur)CompositionHandgunElectronicsReflex Boost
Riding(Keffi)Diagnose IllnessHeavy WeaponsFirst Aid/Medical
Riding(Tauntaun)Education & Gen. KnowlegeMartial ArtsHacking
Riding(Eopie)GambleMeleePaint/Draw
Riding(Dewback)GeologyOperate Heavy MachineryPharmaceuticals
SeductionHide/EvadePilot(StarFighter)Photography
SocialHistoryDrive(Hoverbike)Pick Lock
Language(by species/native world)Drive(Hovercar)Pick Pocket
Language(Basic)Pilot(Starship)Play Instrument(pick one)
Library SearchRifleHyperdrive Tech
MathematicsStealthWeaponsmith
Navigation(Interstellar)Turret GunnerStarship Engine Tech
PhysicsClimbingEnergy Weapon Tech
Shadow/TrackDivingCommunications Tech
Stock Market
Teaching
Wilderness Survival
Zoology

4. Equipment

  1. You get 1d10 Galactic Credits
  2. cloth shoes(worn out), dusty poncho, sand mask
  3. 4 items from this list
Anti-Grav Sledge
Bantha
Blaster pistol
Blaster rifle
Bolotaur
Brass bracelets
Camera
Cutting torch
Dancing shoes
Dewback
Diving aparatus
Eopie
Hand weapon(choose)
Heavy Plasteel Knife 1d6
Hip Flask
Infrared binoculars
Keffi
Light spear gun 1d6+1
Lockpicks
Longbow 50m, 12 Arrows 2d6+1
Medikitx5
Metal Detector
Motorized climbing rig
Musical Instrument(as per skill)
Old Hoverbike
Old Hovercar
Pack of Sabacc Cards
Pain killers
pick item of Native dress
Plasteel Sword 2d6+2, sheath
Portable Chemical Analyzer
Portable excavator
Portable Gene Sequencer
Sketchpad, Pencils
Small computer terminal
Small Electronics Kit
Small hacker's terminal
Small tool kit
Salvaged Droid(choose Astromech, Medical, or Protocol)
Tatoo
Tauntaun
Thermal Detonator 7/9d6
Uppers
Water Bottle
Wearable light



Force Combat for Star Wars 2020

After the first session of Star Wars 2020, a Cyberpunk 2020 Star Wars mod, I wanted to add an improved combat skill to the list of force skills. The existing list of skills(below) reflect common force abilities, but there wasn't anything that paralleled Luke's use of the force in combat.


  • Force Jump
  • Mind Trick
  • Phase
  • Telekinesis
  • Read Mind
  • Force Healing



I wanted something that gives a significant bonus, yet doesn't make force users too overpowered. Since Cyberpunk 2020 combat relies mostly on the Reflex ability score, I decided to create an ability that boost's that attribute. Here is the result:

Force Reflex Boost

The force-user concentrates, connecting to the Force. This gives them a boosted reflex ability score.


Skill Check

The force-user must make a skill check to concentrate and connect to the force. The target number depends on how distracted they are.

standard CP2020 difficulties

Effect

The ability is boosted by the character's force ability score, for a maximum of 11. (The player is allowed to make one Spinal Tap joke per session. Additional jokes cause the ability to fail.)

Concentration

If the character is injured or otherwise distracted, they must again make a skill check to maintain concentration. This doesn't use up their action for the turn.

Duration

The effect lasts as long as the character is busy with the current task. Once they start doing something else, the effect is lost. If they want to maintain the effect, they must make a concentration skill check.

Sunday 1 May 2016

Some Art from the Vault

My Mother passed away a few weeks ago. She'd had one of the nastier brands of cancer for a while, the type you don't get better from. The type where every treatment raises the question of whether the effects of the treatment are better or worse than those of the disease.

My sister was going through some of her things and found this, an old scratchboard drawing I did back in high school. A DnD scene with an White Dragon, an adventuring party entering it's cave in the background. Reminded me I used to be halfway decent at drawing.

Mom was always very supportive of her kids' artistic endeavors, sending us to all the after-school classes we wanted. I should probably draw more. Maybe once life gets a little less crazy...



Wednesday 24 February 2016

Science Fiction Review: Ancillary Justice

Ann Leckie's 2013 science fiction novel Ancillary Justice is categorized as Space Opera. That's fair enough, I suppose. It has aliens, interstellar travel via jump gates, and intergalactic Empires vying for power. That said, tonally and thematically, it is closer to Post-Cyberpunk.

Cyberpunks


The main theme of the book is it's exploration of new paradigms of conscious experience, such as AI and technologically modified humans. This is a very cyberpunk theme, but while William Gibson tries to alienate us with uncomfortable marriages of technology and biology, Leckie humanizes this new paradigm, offering us an intimate view into these characters' lives. Ancillary Justice introduces us to three types of technological character:
  1. AIs and their Ancillaries- the protagonist, Justice of Toren/Breq is such a being, with modified human bodies networked with one another and slaved to a ship AI. All of the parts share a single collective experience and think of themselves as a single person, albeit one comprised of many bodies and many brains.
  2. Networked Clones- Anaander Mianaai, ruler of the Radch empire, continuously produces clones of herself. The clones are networked to one another(while within the same star system) and they all think of themselves as a single person. Her many clones travel the Galaxy, allowing her to rule over a highly-diffuse realm(basically James Patrick Kelly's Solstice, cranked up to 11). 
  3. Post-Humans- the backwater system Breq describes in chapter 17 is populated with "heavily modified people--not human, by Radchaai standards, people with six or eight limbs(and no guarantee any of them would be legs), vacuum-adapted skin and lungs, brains so meshed and crosshatched with implants and wiring it was an open question whether they were anything but conscious machines with a biological interface." We just get a sketch of them and their brand of utilitarian altruism "I found out later that a four-meter, tentacled eel of a person had paid the balance of my fare without telling me, because, she had told the captain, I didn't belong there and would be healthier elsewhere." pp.255-6

Cyberpunks in Crisis


Leckie explores each of these characters' sense of self, to various degrees.

She gives us a first person view of Breq's existential crises, first when her individual units lose their network connection, then when she is ordered to kill her favorite captain, then once again when Justice of Toren is destroyed leaving only a single surviving Ancillary.

"I spent six months trying to understand how to do anything--not just how to get my message to the Lord of the Radch, but how to walk and breathe and sleep and eat as myself." p.256

We are also offered a second person view of Anaander Mianaai's own long-running crisis as her clones develop differences of opinion. This rift within herself results in subtle intrigues and ultimately in armed conflict between the various factions of self.

We're also offered Breq's third-person view of the Post-Humans and their more individualistic culture, which nevertheless includes an ethic of helping others to find their own place in the system.


All Things Shining


This is sort of the opposite of the other book I'm reading, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly's All Things Shining. A major theme of All Things Shining is the vast, untranslatable cultural gap between previous epochs and our own Modern Age. The authors explore many examples of this, but one such case is their claim that our existential crises today are utterly alien to our forbears. That, without the broad array of choices that our modern situation offers us, these questions of self-definition simply don't arise.

"It is not just that in earlier epochs one knew on what basis one's most fundamental existential choices were made: it is that the existential questions didn't even make sense." p.13.

In the same vein, Dreyfus and Kelly also explore examples of past practices that seem utterly alien to us Moderns, yet which made complete made sense according to the world view of people at the time. For example, Helen recounts her affair with Paris in front of her Husband and polite company and is praised for "An excellent tale, my dear, and most becoming."(Homer's Odyssey) The authors argue that this lack of embarrassment can best be understood by the Greek belief that a person's ultimate fulfillment is to become attuned to the gods(in this case Aphrodite).

This is what Leckie is doing in Ancillary Justice--presenting us with a glimpse into a future society, whose own existential questions are be inherently alien to our own experience. What is it like to be a collective self? What sort of unique crises of identity does such a person face? Intellectually, we can only imagine the answers in terms of metaphors, but Leckie does better, taking a more impressionistic approach in her descriptions. Ancillary Justice is a book whose tones of stoic melancholy and irreparable loss stimulate our imagination to fill in the blanks where rational reflection hits a wall of inscrutability.

To sum up, Ancillary Justice is high-concept Science Fiction at it's best and is sure to become, itself, a Modern Classic.

Sunday 10 January 2016

What's in a Shuttle?

In our first session, the party succeeded in escaping the Ugor-run Airam sector in their stolen Lambda-class T-4a shuttle. Let's take a closer look at this fine piece of Imperial-Age machinery:

  • Crew/Passengers: 6-26
  • Speed: 50 MGLT
  • Hyperdrive: class 4 backup hyperdrive
  • Hull: 48/66RU
  • Shields: 100SBD (split between fore and aft shields)
  • Fuel Cells: 7/53 charged
  • Armament:
    • Steerable forward twin laser cannons(2d8) x2
    • Twin laser cannons (2d8) x2
    • Aft twin blaster cannon (2d6)

The Bureaucratic Reality is My Reality


So at the very least the shuttle could use some repairs and a new hyperdrive and some new fuel. The other issue, however, is registration.

The shuttle's registration currently is to the(now defunct) Navy of the Galactic Empire. Whenever another ship scans it, it will self-identify as such. This functionality can be turned off, but that's just as suspicious. The Ugor, a major force in Airam system, and in fact throughout the Galaxy, are looking for this shuttle. If the party wants to avoid pursuit, they need to get their shuttle a "clean" registration or swap it for another ship.

As to getting a clean registration, there are many systems that can provide this, but only those who don't fear the wrath of the Ugor. These are generally organized criminals or those who are anyway on bad terms with the Ugor.

As to swapping it for a new ship, one can sell a ship with invalid registration and an Ugor bounty on it, but not to just anyone and certainly not for top dollar.


Thursday 7 January 2016

Star Wars 2020 Session Summary 1

So we got together and played a few hours of Star Wars 2020. The party was:

  • Pigman- a Gammorian beater/scavenger/heavy machine user/turret gunner(Avraham)
  • Art- Ithorian tech Rock gardener, healing(Avi)
  • Aazilbaki- a Green Twi'lek fighter pilot/untrained force user/insterstellar navigation(Avram)
  • Meemu- Ewok super martial artist, hoverbike riding loner, wamprat hunter, hyperdrive-tech(Mati)
  • Lucky- a Gran with many natural talents, good at dodging, explosives, stock market, interstellar navigation, leadership, pharmaceuticals(Lauren)
As mentioned previously, the setup is on Nocto II. The party are scavengers who stumble onto the motherload: a working Imperial Shuttle, undiscovered these 20 years. The only problem is they'll need to get it some sort of hyperdrive, maps for the nav computer, and some fuel cells if they're going to escape Ugor space. And they need to do it all discreetly.

The party were smart enough to search the shuttle thoroughly, lucking out by finding 17 pristine suits of Stormtrooper armor on board, which helped them with the funds they needed to pull off their caper.

Back to Town


Meemu used his underworld connections to determine that Kryygh, an Ithorian Bounty Hunter stationed nearby, would be willing to sell them his backup hyperdrive for an extravagant amount. They sold him 8 of the armors in exchange for dropping the backup hyperdrive at a pre-determined location later that night. They also wanted another fuel cell and a sector map.

Map of Airam Sector


As they were leaving the bounty hunter's ship, they noticed someone with hairy legs and a long cloak outside, but he didn't seem to be spying on them. Aazilbaki followed him anyway but lost him in the crowd.

Art traded his artwork to Snorblob the Ugor Cartel representative in town for another fuel cell, but then ditched it when he realized that it probably had a tracking device on it(DM Aside: he was right!)

They then heard a rumor that Roy, a Human Scavenger, had a stash for when he would one day make it off the planet. They spoke to him and made a deal. They would let him come along for his 7 fuel cells.

A Gammorian guard pulled Meemu aside and tried interrogating him, but the wily Ewok managed to escape.

The party now knew for sure that they were being watched so they made a plan.

In the Scavenging Fields


While Pigman, Art, and Aazilbaki snuck-off to the rendezvous point, Meemu and Lucky were very conspicuous about going with Roy to his stash. They did a good job and were followed by a couple tough bounty hunters, under Ugor employ.

There was a very close fight. I really didn't think Meemu, Lucky, and Roy could win. After a good deal of crawling around, hiding, shooting and kicking:
  • Meemu's hoverbike was fried by a laser rifle
  • One bounty hunter failed a stun check the second time he was hit by an axe, taking him out of the fight
  • The other bounty hunter was tricked out of cover with an unarmed thermal detonator, then had his leg shot off with his captured buddy's laser rifle
  • But, unfortunately Meemu, after shooting a bounty hunter full in the helmet with his own blaster pistol, was hit with three rounds from an automatic blaster rifle, killing the brave little Ewok outright! (and he was their only hyperdrive tech- evil DM laugh!)
Lucky and Roy took the bounty hunters' hoverbikes and hauled the fuel cells and loot to rejoin the rest of the party's night time rendezvous. Now the party was reunited and dragging their new hyperdrive to the shuttle. At the same time, they saw they were being followed.

Flyboys and Explosions


They made it to the caves, with three hovercars close on their tail. Art attempted to install the hyperdrive and Pigman to clear the rubble from the cave-in that was blocking their escape route. The rest of the party lay in wait, setting off a couple thermal detonators and blowing up 6 Gammorian guards and much of the cave entrance.

Finally the shuttle was ready, and the party piled in and took off, with Aazilbaki in the pilot seat and Pigman blasting away with the tail gun. The party made it up the gravity well, avoided an Ugor corvette, and made the jump to Klaatu system, escaping Ugor space! (using 4 of their 11 fuel cells in the process and knocking that hull damage up to 27% on the way out of the cave.)