Hello,

I just wanted to share my experience so far with the game and the tale of how my murder hobo's became something more. If that's not your thing then "this isn't the post your looking for" and "move along, move along".

I bought the beginner box for Edge of the Empire nearly a year ago. At the time I was a member in a gaming group that was full blown DND high fantasy players. The group broke up but I was able to salvage a couple of players to finally try out the beginner game. So the appointed hour comes and low an behold only one of the former member is able to partake. That leaves me with a gaming group consisting on myself and a player who is all dwarf warrior. So my wife, seeing how disappointed I was, offers to play. Then my 10 year old daughter decides to jump in (now I am really worried).

My dwarf warrior wants to play a bounty hunter but isn't "cool with playing chicks" while my wife wants to play a doctor but doesn't like the droid pregen character. So with some trepidation we start making characters from scratch to play the beginner box with. The dwarf decides on a Gank Bounty Hunter Assassin whose name is Derek and he wears mostly black. The wife creates a bothan Doctor named Nakyanna who "looks like your average bothan", and finally my daughter's turn. Here we go, super nervous. I had her read the character generation section of the core rulebook and am super nervous that the 40 year old dwarf adult gamer will lose patience with the youngling. My daughter makes a Twil'ek Slicer. She is light blue skinned with stripes on her lekku. She has a small scare under her right eye she got when she had to dump her motorcycle while street racing (changed to swoop by the GM). Her obligation is bounty and her motivation is her parents. She decides she used her computer skills to hack her employers bank account and files to free her slave parents. In doing so they had to change their identity so she'll never see them again, but can go on knowing they are safe somewhere in the galaxy. Her employer, mad that she stole his money, put a bounty on her head. (GM adds the employer was teemo the hutt to match the beginner box and we are good to go.) One of my favorite pieces of dialogue from the night was the 10 year old girl explaining this back story to the bounty hunter and him replying "I'm Derek and I wear black."

Opening sequences starts off with a bang, all player fail their rolls and get caught by the gamoreans standing around in the open. Derek decides since the girl on stage refused to hide them he is going to hold her at gunpoint to force the thugs to leave. Not in the book and my first improve of the night so I have him roll a check against coercion. With a pass, I decide what the heck we'll let them go it is probably a no brainer combat intro anyway and I'll reward them for being creative. As the thugs turn to leave (narrated that they didn't want to get barred from their drinking hole and could care less about the girl) The group opens fire into their backs. "Dead men tell no tales" says the assassin. Off to acquire the the part for the ship. They ask the store owner if he still has the part. The Doctor offers to negotiate for the part and fails miserably on the roll. Seeing the failure the Assassin guns down the shop owner.

"That thing does have a stun setting," Natalya (my wife) says with a disapproving glare.

"Is THAT what that button does," replied Derek.

With much more shooting, and phenomenal rolls the group blasts (literally) a swath through the city, steals the ship, and makes it to a clean getaway.

Everyone had fun, but I am already concerned about the bloodthirsty nature of the group. So I approach my veteran player, the bounty hunter. We have a great conversation about where he wants his character to go and how life can be difficult in the outer rim if you leave behind corpses and enemies in your wake. He says he chose assassin for a reason and we agree that he'll tone it down and he'll have faith that I'll give him plenty of opportunities to excel at killing things but he need to let others excel at their skills beyond the blasty end of their gun. So the challenge is on. Next session had to be a bit of everything and I am staring down intergalactic assassins. I decide I am custom writing the next session to suit the players tastes a little more. In between play sessions we play another round with just my wife and daughter earning 10xp and doing a simple cargo run which feeds into the pirate module in the lords of Nal Hutta. The pair get to use a lot more of their non-combat skills to overcome the pirates and get a better grasp on the rules.

The party finally regroups nearly two weeks later for another session. While Derek was missing from the group I declare he was chasing down his black market contacts for a "job". Word on the streets is there is a high profile hit that has been placed by Teemo the Hutt whom the group owes quite a bit of obligation to. The group reconvenes and finds themselves in the 'Hungry Mynock" cantina where Derek only has the name of the contact they need to find as the "Fixer". With some sweet talking to the waitress (Renka who gets added to the groups list of contacts for future use) she arranges for them to meet the mysterious "fixer" for a price. The group returns to the cantina the following night where Renka sits them down in a corner booth with more privacy. A human male comes to the table and puts and encrypted holoreceiver on the table where a blurred image addresses the group. (Derek is ruffled immediately as he had been vocal about intimidating the fool for a bigger payout. I predicted that from the first session and decided that the group would never meet "fixer" rather continually be stuck dealing with front men.)

The job is for a high profile hit. The planet's governor is set to address the masses in a speech in three days. The target is the Governor's top adviser who is loyal to one of Teemo's rivals. Teemo has already secured the poor mook who would be next in line for the job via blackmail so he just needs the adviser out of the way. The catch is he doesn't want to make his rival suspicious so the whole job needs to be framed as something else. The Governor will be making his speech from a stage with a podium. Due to the popularity of the Empire the stage itself will have shielding. In addition, the Governor will most likely be wearing personal shields as well. The group will need to have the slicer infiltrate the local security headquarters and drop the exterior shielding. They can cut the power but the back ups will switch back on after the interruption so Derek will only have time to make two shots. The first shot will be on the Governor who "Fixer" assures will most likely be fully protected by his personal shield generator. In the chaos that follows the first shot Derek will make his second shot on the true target, the adviser.

"Sounds simple enough" chuckles Derek.

"That's the easy part," I grin. The whole area is going to be on lock down due to the political events unfolding so the group is encourages to go in with only weapons that are easy to hide (they only have one holdout blaster between the three of them). Fixer has arranged for Derek to meet up with a contact who will supply the rifle on site he just has to get to him. The party is own their own for extraction. Fixer also recommends the group have a backup plan as Teemo will be enraged if they botch the job.

The group has three days to plan the hit. My wife decides they need a better cover than what has been given. There are just too many holes in her mind. She convinces the slicer to return to Renka and find out if there are any rebel groups in the area. Meanwhile Derek and her go and steal a shipments of imperial supplies. (Lots of improve happening but it is working and I am curious to see where it leads). They arrange to sell the supplies to the rebels on the morning of the speech in a nearby hanger. The Doctor makes the deal with a low ranking officer and says her employer is sympathetic to the rebellion and drops hints of his political ties. Records the transfer of goods on her datapad and heads out to the speech. She says she is not needed by the other two and decides to join the crowd of spectators to watch the show. Baffled we play out the Slicer, sneaking in through an air duct and hacking into the system through an open maintenance workstation. She rolls a critical success on her slicing and I reward her with information on the patrol routes of the local pd which she can sell to the right buyer later. Derek makes his way through the cityscape getting in a tussle with some protesters but manages to make it to his drop. The shifty contact is a Duros who rented a penthouse room overlooking the stage. He has the rifle ready to go and just needs his payment and he'll be on his way. Derek whips out the lone holdout blaster and guns the guy down. He contacts the slicer and lets her know he is in position and ready. I read the first three lines of a speech I threw together when the shielding flickers and blam the first roll is made by Derek. I upgrade the difficulty of the check with a destiny point to keep him from succeeding and sure enough the shot bounces harmlessly off the personal deflector shield. Security springs into action and Derek flips a destiny token to aid in the second shot which scores a hit with a triumph and plenty of advantages. The adviser go down in a heap. That's when my wife yells "Out of the way I am a Doctor" and whips out her medpack. Smart. She hovers over the fallen adviser and says she wants to make a check to hide her datapad from the sale of the supplies on the adviser while treating him. A successful skulduggery check later and she pronounces the adviser dead. One problem, Derek didn't do enough damage to kill him. He has 3 wounds left. So she says I want to use my medicine skills to open the wound to make it fatal. Sever an artery, whatever. Another successful check and the poor adviser is dead. She laments that there is nothing more she could do and melts away into the crowd.

The slicer makes a bid to escape by hacking the comm relay and diverting security forces to chase down the assassin clearing a path for her to sneak out and get lost in the crowd. Derek leaves the gun with the dead contact and walks into the hall where he is confronted by a member of hotel security. He blasts the guy in the hall and kick's in the door leaving behind a scene of a brave security guard who traded gunfire with a lone assassin leading to both their deaths. He departs for the floor via the garbage chute just in time to avoid security forces arriving on another lift.

The group gathers later that day at the Hungry Mynock and celebrates their victory. Fixer makes contact through another proxy who notifies the group that half their fee is being withheld for the cost of replacing the guy who was supposed to drop the rifle and survive. Teemo is pleased as the holonet is filled with reports of a botch rebel assassination attempt and the subsequent arrest of rebels conveniently in the docking back transferring their cargo, 25% of the fee is used to relieve some obligation and the group keeps 25% of the pot plus the money for the sale of the rebels. (Slicer nets another 1000 for the data she stole from the security station)

The party had a ton of fun and thanked me for the adventure. When asked what's next for the band of assassins my wife deviously answered "Why we are going to free the stooge we sold the supplies to, he'll be super grateful and it would be nice to have a contact inside the rebellion."

Crafty. Most crafty.

Awesome stuff! Your daughter sounds like a natural roleplayer coming up with a back story like that & nice move by your wife's character with the datapad! Love it

Very cool. That was a delight to read.How does your daughter and wife feel about "Derek" now?

That is an amazing read and your daughter and wife are geniuses! You have an exceptional grasp on how to tailor adventures to prevent murderous rampages yet still give the combat-high to the heavy. I'll be sure to point to this as a superb example in the future.

Thank you everyone for such nice feedback. No doubt my daughter whom I was so concerned about mixing with the adults was my break out star. Not only did her imagination shine in character development, but she really challenged the adults to pick it up a notch. She wasn't a big star wars fan so she needed help with correcting terms from what she knows now to fit to the universe, but she turned out to be quite the ham. I encouraged her to keep her character young to explain her general knowledge level so her character is only sixteen. It worked wonderfully. (As a side note she picked up the dice system with ease and by the end of the second game was helping my wife to assemble her dice pool. I attribute this to a lack of other table top experience. She had no other way to compare it too and thus it simply was while my friend and wife struggled)

The veteran DND player took a little while to shed his dwarf like character, but having the conversation clearly helped. We were able to agree and find the common ground between his expectations and mine. The off color humor he is used to has been an interesting dynamic as a lot of jokes are now left vague or couched enough to clear the 10 year old's head. My wife loved the first run and was much happier that she wasn't being carried around like baggage which due to poor combat skills was the majority of beginner box. The shift in focus of the group in the second game was surprising. My wife and daughter fell naturally into the roles of helping this intergalactic assassin and the conversation around spending credits quickly turned to what a lot of hitman style missions would require and what upgrades the Doctor and Slicer could obtain to be more valuable.

I am toying with the idea of bringing in an NPC pilot who mostly stays with the ship and becomes another friendly contact that I'll be able to squeeze later to drive plot hooks. My main motivation for doing this is the lack of piloting skills. The Bounty Hunter could fly the ship but is far more interested in combat skills.

It sounds like a great game! I can't help but look forward to hearing further adventures.

On the NPC pilot thought, you might consider making them a droid - droids make natural semi-background characters and make it easy to explain their lack of other skills. A pilot droid and/or Astromech could easily fly them from place to place, bring the ship around when needed and even Plus, particularly if it has a less than legal history, it/they could have knowledge, experiences or connections that could act as plot hooks the way R2 did with that whole Death Star Plan thing, or feed them basic information about the world they've just arrived on.

Anyway, sounds like a blast, enjoy.

Love it.. can't wait to read more adventures

I loved reading this! Please share more.

One Word.... Awsome

The group really solidified their unity after the big "hit" and even named their ship the "Supernova". All together they are behaving more like a team than the random group of murderers that blasted out of Mos Shuuta. There are a couple of things I have learned so far that are helping me with the group. First they crave anchors to the world. After just one play session with the NPC character "Renka" the group's default instinct is to run to her for information. I have decided that I will lace in more permanent contacts on a variety of worlds with varying specialties considering how well the group has responded to her. (There was even discussion of buying her items as a reward). The second thing is the Hungry Mynock Cantina. I threw it together off the cuff purely as a setup location for that job and the pc's have already declared it as one of their favorite establishments.

So when we last left off the Doctor wanted to stage a rescue mission to free the rebellion stooge from the imperials trap that they had ultimately set him up for. The group discussed the odds of survival for an all out assault on an Imperial Garrison and quickly decided that the best chance they had to free the stooge was to do it during a prisoner transport. They returned to "Renka" and asked her to keep an ear out among the imperial pilots for any prisoner exchanges or transfers especially those involving rebels. Renka agreed, but added that there is a surcharge to her normal fees for information on the Empire and it would take some time for her to get the information (I was going to hack up the whisper base module from Age of the Rebellion to add in a holding cells and fix the location for the raid, but they surprised me by wanting it to be a vehicle assault or a space assault where they figured their odds would be better. I could have improvised something, but I had a backup mission ready to play and I wanted to make the jailbreak more than just a couple of improved fights) The group readily agreed and asked if there was anything else going on. Renka says their isn't much activity on the criminal underworld channels due to the recent assassination as it appears anyone with any sense is laying low until the dust settles. The only interesting thing she has seen recently is an old codger that comes in from time to time ranting about lost treasure and hidden hyperspace routes. The group bites on the lead and asks when and how often the old coot comes around. Renka informs them that he normally comes in just after the monthly trade bazaar full of credit from selling "lost treasures" to off-worlders and gets lit on Corellian Brandy. It's during these times when he talks about the real treasure as opposed to the knock offs he sells to stay alive. She is expecting him back any day now.

The adventure is based off "The Dead Road" module in the back of the Lords of Nal Hutta book. I chose to write this up in the background due to the interests of a new player in joining the group who wants to play an emerging Sith. I had just bought the F&D beta book at the local gaming store and was thinking of a way to weave the new player into the group. In the back of the Dead Road module it lists a number of rewards including the Morrigan Scrolls. I plan on the group obtaining them and the new player being the buyer. Unfortunately they will get stolen out from under the party leading the new sith apprentice needing to work with the group to recover them at the same time, hopefully, allowing the group to mesh on an enjoyable adventure and on successfully retrieving the scroll I will treat it as a holocron for the Sith player.

The group kills some time for a couple of days hanging around the cantina. The first night they all get into a rousing game of dice from the Fly casual book. The group is doing well credit wise winning more hands then not, so I start having the Brandy brought in between hands. After each round all players drink (resilience test) and on a fail they are too drunk to continue and are done for the night, on despairs they make foolish bets doubling what they originally bid on the next hand. Each round of drinking adds a black die to the pool and players are using their advantage to encourage the others (adding boost dice) to keep playing. The doctor drops first after only two rounds. Credits are flowing freely as are the jokes and laughter and honestly the players quickly fell into it and started hamming it up. The bounty hunter and the slicer played on and seemed to lose all regard for who was winning or losing at Hintaro and instead focus on how the adult wasn't going to let the 10 year old drink him under the table. (I knew at that point I was spending the next day reviewing her DARE packet from school and saying no to drugs and alcohol lol). At the end of the night (after only 4 rounds or so as those black dice added up fast) and about 2500 lost in credits the 10 year old slicer said "Don't worry I'll tuck you into bed," as the bounty hunter failed his resilience roll and succumbed to a drunk stupor. (this whole round took about 15-20 minutes, but was so worth it for the bonding of the group and the fun had at the table)

The second night in the Cantina was quiet with everyone nursing their hangovers from the night before. As the group left the cantina that night they were approached by an apprentice bounty hunter who took note of the slicer the night before (Bounty is the slicers obligation and they rolled her for the session. I had originally planned the encounter for an unruly bar patron but improvisation is the most valuable tool in the chest right?) The hunter calls out the slicer in for a duel (again using the rules in fly casual for the gunfight). The Slicer wins on the buildup phase and chooses to use aim to shoot for the blaster hand of her opponent. In a very classy bit of rp she out draws the apprentice and shoots the blaster from his hand. The Bounty hunter assassin roughs up the upstart and with a check for intimidating the young fool convinces the upstart that he was "mistaken" about about the identity of his Twil'lek companion and happily accepts the apprentices last bounty in exchange for forgetting this interaction ever took place. (roughly 2500 credits which puts the group at break even)

Spoilers ahead for Dead Road module:

On the third night at the cantina the player are reward by meeting "Jecek" the man from the Dead Road adventure who spins the tale of the lost treasure planet. A group of bounty hunters overhears the conversation and tries to make off with "Jacek" the group acts quickly with the 10 year old slicer using the skills I have seen the most from her as a parent. Deception. She quickly spins a tale about her crazy old step dad who drinks too much Corellian Brandy and makes up stories of grand adventure to cover his dull life as a farmer. Graayl Nor buys the story for now and leaves them be. The group quickly leaves the cantina and follows Jacek to his storage locker where they recover the "key". On returning to their ship, however, they are greeted by Graayl Nor again this time with his pack of bounty hunters and the apprentice whom the group let go the night before. This triggers a "See that's why we don't let people go," response from the assassin which gives everyone at the table a good laugh. Graayl gives a typical villainous speech about how stupid the pc are and how they will get the treasure and the bounty on the Slicer and make off with the Supernova to boot. A firefight breaks out in the hangar with the doctor ushering Jacek down behind some cargo containers and shooting from cover at the thugs. The slicer draws her heavy blaster pistol and takes cover behind a loading droid that continues to move slowly forcing her to move each round instead of aiming to keep behind the droid and stay in cover. The bounty hunter launches himself at the Graayl (nemisis) and leads with his repulsor fist. The slow firing on the fist leads them to break apart and draw blasters. After two rounds of blaster fire the doctor makes a desperate run to the Bounty hunter assassin's aid to apply stimpacks to keep the groups hard hitter up and fighting. The slicer does a great job bringing down the thugs with her heavy blaster and when the coast is clear makes a run for the ship. As the Doctor and Assassin continue to struggle against Graayl, local security forces arrive at the entrance to the hanger and open fire on everyone. "Jacek" makes a dash for the ship, whose engines are running thanks to the slicer. The volley of fire from the security forces drops Graayl and critically injures the Doctor with a glancing wound. Quickly realizing they don't want to leave behind a bounty hunter who has identified the Twil'lek as a bounty the doctor instructs the bounty hunter to grab the fallen Graayl and together they board the Supernova as the ship blasts out of the hanger and makes a quick getaway.

The doctor uses her medicine skill to keep Graayl from dying and flips a destiny token to have some anesthetics on the ship to keep him under heavy sedation (note at this point they have only established that they have them). The doctor has to stay with Graayl to ensure he doesn't wake up. The ship is jolted by blaster fire suffering 2 strain as security cloudcars intercept the Supernova in the upper atmosphere. The Bounty Hunter mans the guns blasting back at the cloud cars while the slicer races for the atmosphere in the hope of making a clean escape to space beyond the cloud cars (planetary) range. The slicer makes evasive maneuvers to avoid fire (success with disadvantage) and Graayl is thrown from the bed onto the doctor who is knocked to the floor. Ripping out his anesthetic iv's before the drugs take full effect the doctor is now grappling with a wounded and weary Graayl for the hypospray filled with sedative to get him back under. (Other than applying stims the Doctor had little meaningful contribution to bringing down Graayl and I wanted to make sure the character was getting to do more than following the group being a stim-bot). The weakened Graayl has his adversary 1 removed and suffers 2 black dice for being injured and partially sedated. The Doctor is unable to outmatch the strength of the bounty hunter and grabs a fire extinguisher from the wall and bashes Graayl over the head. With an exasperated breath she calls up the ladder to the Assassin in the gunner pit that Graayl has been "Sedated" which brings a good laugh at the table. Blasting two of the three pursuers the Supernova meets the atmosphere and escapes in to the safety of space leaving the remaining atmosphere bound cloud car returning to the surface. (in all the excitement they forgot to slice the systems or Jam their transponder signal which they'll discover when they return to the planet.) They plot a course for the edge of the rim to the "Pearl" space station and jump into hyperspace.

While in hyperspace (break for dinner) the group discusses what to do with Graayl, The bounty hunter is tempted to eject him into space, but the other two in the group are not down for it. The group then discusses that they can't just abandon their current task to deal with it so they must find a way to hold him prisoner while they finish their current task. This brings about the bounty hunter saying "See, this is why we don't take prisoners," which brings about another laugh from the group. The group continues on arriving at the Pearl without incident and begins tracking down medical facilities to help the group recover from the combat with Graayl who they bind up with spare cable and leave in a cargo hold with Jacek in the their ship. Jacek is under strict orders to not allow Graayl out of the hold no matter what. "If he dies then he is not our problem," instructs the Assassin. The medical facilities are overpriced but effective and the group is back to full strength and tracking down Harke to get the final piece to the puzzle. After some negotiations they purchase the location (failed first attempt, so the group decided to try and get him liquored up and I allowed a second test with a boost but at added cost for the booze and he charged 75% more for the information). The group finds a slave collar at the market as well as the exploding shackles from the Nal Hutta source book and decides to pay triple the price on the Pearl to acquire them for Graayl. (Normally I want restricted items to be harder to acquire but the group in talking with each other decided if they couldn't secure him then he was too much of a liability and they would execute him. I was already scheming up another story arc based on the bounty hunter so I allowed them the purchase as I very much wanted him alive). The book doesn't give much for the landing on the planet Pybus so I was left to design more if I wanted it to be more than fight a few droids and frogs and find a treasure hoard. I had just finished reading the "Darksabre" book from the EU universe and loved the scene where Han and Leia were invited into a Hutt Bath house and were repulsed by the disgusting sludge called bathwater but forbidden from using it as they would contaminate the pureness of it. I decided I wanted to use that and so fleshed out a story.

The group makes the arrival of the Pybus system and finds the emptiness of the area unsettling. The stories they heard earlier about the planet being forbidden by the Hutts plays havok on them and I force a fear check. The slicer fails and so as a result I put a black die penalty on her actions while on the planet. They stick to the upper atmosphere while scanning the dense jungle planet for anything that looks like a structure and succeed in finding the palace and the grown over landing pad. (I had planned for a fail for them to find the structure but no landing and then a two mile hike through the jungle which would cost each member 2 strain and on a pass they find the grown over landing pad from the Hutt palace and land smoothly they passed). On landing they are greeted by a robed figure who welcomes them and says he foresaw their arrival. He explains he is was a padawan and he and his master were sent to search fr traces of grievous after the assault on the capital of the Old Republic. Their mission was to search uninhabited worlds for signs of the separatist's. That's when they stumbled on Pybus. The star at the systems heart is volatile and solar flares make jumping in and out of the system treacherous. Their ship was struck by one such flare on entry to the system and they crashed on the surface. They assumed the Jedi order would send some one for them, but no help ever came. They felt a great disturbance in the force (when order 66 went down) and then silence for decades. The master died of old age and he was left alone on the planet to survive. He had given up on the force and all hope of seeing any sentient being again until he felt another tremor in the force as if billions of people screamed out at once (destruction of Alderaan). Shortly after he began having visions that the group would arrive on Pybus and assumed whatever they were here to do was the will of the force. He cautioned them on their choices moving forward as he sensed their actions would trigger great events to unfold in the universe, but the future was clouded. He could not say if it was for good or evil. The pc's relayed the betrayal of the Jedi Order (for they would have only known the propaganda at best) and the establishment of the Empire. The subsequent appearance of Lord Vader, and the bounty on information leading to the Jedi. (The assassin was itchy to take him in, but weary of whether they could take down a Jedi Knight after the struggled with the bounty hunter nearly losing the combat) The party leaves the Jedi behind after he refuses to accompany them into the Palace. He cites that his master grew fixated on the place before his death and his belief that something inside drove him mad.

The key Jecek provided opens the door as expected and the party enters the main receiving bay. Old computer terminals covered in dust lay as ghosts and the place is as dead as a tomb. The group decides their first task is to try and restore power to the compound. The slicer makes a mechanics check to trace the power cables from the computer terminals to the wall and then to follow the power from conduit to conduit which will lead the group to the main generator. (The 10 year wanted to check the fuse box like when the power goes out at the house and we helped narrate the rest). The group navigates in the darkness with just a single glow rod and finds multiple signs that animals have take over the compound. The Doctor begins questioning how the animals were able to get in but the Jedi were not. They find the main power generator and are immediate besieged by an Ackalay from the F&D book. The monsters hide is too tough for blaster fire and the group immediately concludes they they are not going to be able to bring it down. The bounty hunter valiantly using his defensive talents from his replusor arm engages the beast while the slicer works to restore power to the facility by reactivating the generator. With the lights snapping on the sudden whirl of power disorients the beast and the group makes a run for the door. sealing it shut behind them. They have no idea how long the power will last and whether the beast will attack the now humming generator and decide to hurry back to the entrance. Once back the slicer makes quick work of the system taking control of the Hutt's booby traps and getting the general layout of the palace. She learns that the Hutt had creature pens inside and some how they must be loose in the facility. With an ominous tone I reveal that the Hutt's prized pet was a rancor.

The group makes their way to the main audience hall which they determined from the layout leads to the Hutts personal chambers. They find the hall doors sealed and the slicer makes quick work of the panel. Inside bones and debris litter the hall. The slicer finds another terminal while the doctor and bounty hunter search for anything valuable. The slicer determines from searching the records that the whole palace was wired to a kill switch the hutt had surgically implanted. When he died the palace sealed itself and opened all the pens. In the centuries that followed the creatures must have staked claim to certain portions of the palace and had offspring. The Doctor quickly realizes that there must be more than one of everything down here and how much danger they are really in. The group decides to avoid the armory and underbelly of the compound for fear of the rancors and instead to as quickly as possible traverse the Hutt bath house, find the penthouse, and see if they can find the treasure hoard. They all assume that a hutt this paranoid would keep his treasure room close to his personal quarters and that is their best bet. (Slightly disappointed as the group bypassed my fight with the rancor, but they are being smart and the session is running slower than I expected and I am worried about them finishing by the 10 year old's bed time). The group enters the bath house house to find centuries old filth filled pool separating them from the entrance to the Hutt's personal penthouse. The only way across is to shimmy across the lip of the pool or to swim through the muck. The group decides to avoid the pool of filth and try to slip across the lip which is difficult due to the grime and filth. The bounty hunter makes it across, but the Doctor and the Slicer fall into the pit. The Slicer has an especially bad fall and losses her weapon in the muck. On the waters being disturbed the group is attacked by the Pybus Amphibipole's from the book. They bred in the muck and are quick engaged by three minion groups of three. The frogs are venomous and quickly I realize I put too many in as the group takes a beating on the first round. The bounty hunter getting desperate calls for the slicer to abandon her blaster and run from the pool with the doctor. Both the doctor and the slicer make checks to climb from the filth and run to the next room. The bounty hunter tosses his prized frag grenade he got from Graayl and triggers the blast on his roll doing massive damage to the frog groups. The slicer closes the door and I narrate that the wounds to the frogs were great enough to drive them off. Inside the Hutt's penthouse the group finds some hutt jewels and a boonta blaster for the slicer (it'll do for now.) after searching the room closely they find a hidden door in a wall panel that leads them to the fabled treasure room. The party is relived to see their goal and immediately dives for the treasure. That's when the Hutt Security droids come to life and attack. The group already weary from combat puts up a great fight hiding behind treasure piles and watching as each stray shot from the two droids destroys another valuable. They manage to put down the the two droids and with a sigh of relief are glad that it is over. That is when the slicer on trying to see if she could reprogram the droid to serve the group finds the killswitch similar to the Hutt's. The room begins to shake violently as the center gives way to a giant chasm that continues to grow. The group scoops up what treasure they can carry and makes a run for it. They dodge falling debris, and realize the whole palace is coming down. To make matters worse the violent shaking has disturbed the Rancor who begins to chase them (using the chase rules from the book) after the group flips nearly all their destiny points during the chase sequence they make it to the landing pad just as the palace behind them sinks into a chasm. They have only a second to catch their breath before the clawed hand of the rancor grasps the edge of the chasm. The group opens fire, but similar to the Ackalay from earlier their weapons have no effect as the beast pulls himself over the edge. Hopelessness begins to set in when the Jedi Padawan emerges again Lightsabre drawn and charges the Rancor. (Jedi is narrative causing a break in the combats) The Jedi takes the Rancors clawed hand at the wrist causing the creature to be staggered on the edge of the chasm. The group is free to act again and on the Jedi's urging the group opens fire into the wall at the feet of the Rancor causing it collapse and sending the beast down into the darkness.

The group (finally) has succeed at their mission and offers to take the Jedi away from Pybus. He declines reasoning that if the empire hadn't found him here after all these years it was probably as safe of a spot as any to hide. He offers to be a mentor to any light side force users the group comes across (putting both the mentor aspect from F&D and the Holocron into play so the players have both paths available). The players made off with all three treasures in the back of the book which Jecek demands the siren's soul and Key for his share. Funnily enough the PC's agree (I thought for sure he was dead once they left the Jedi) leaving them the Heart of Gamor and the Scrolls. They return to the Pearl where Jecek departs and they add him as a contact for the group. They wrap up the session for the night there and are curious how I am going to work in the new player on their return. I didn't describe much about the scrolls only telling them they would need to find the right buyer for such an old relic, but they were sure it must be worth something or it would not have been in the Hutt's treasure hoard.

The group had fun this session. It was rewarding to see the dynamic of the group come together during the non-combat scenes in the Cantina which I was worried the Bounty hunter would grow tired of quickly. The 10 year old continues to be the star performer of the group which I think drives the two adults to be more creative. I am thinking the Drama club might be in her future (at the very least she is going to make some geek like me very happy someday by being a gaming wife who could pull off running a game). The new player sounded a lot like me at the outset nervous about the young player when I described the group, however, I can't imagine the group without her now. I honestly believe she holds the whole thing together. In addition, her interest in the game has lead her to watch the first trilogy and she is now working on the prequels and she picked up one of the graphic novel omnibus books with her allowance.

The new player will be brought into the group the next time we play (June 6th) and we'll see how it goes.

As a side note:

In comparing notes with one of the local store owners on our player group he commented he liked the way I named things (cantina's, ships, whatever) and asked if I used a generator. I explained I just take a random creature or item from Starwars and apply a emoticon or facebook feeling to it. It is really simple and helps when I need something on short notice.

Ie:

Hungary Mynock Cantina

a YT-1300 named the Grinning Rancor

The Lonely Bantha Casino

The Angry Jawa Weapon emporium

The Sleepy Krayt Hotel

The Crying Dewback shipwright

great write-ups

Only read the first post so far, but I WANT TO RUN THIS ADVENTURE!

Did you write any notes for this? I would hugely appreciate it, and I am sure between myself, and a certain someone else, we could turn it into a fully realised PDF adventure too.

I do have notes but they a scribbled out in a spiral notebook. I'll post the notes tomorrow when I have time to copy them all down electronically and you can feel free to do whatever with them.

Notes for my session I called and refer to as "The Hit" (As I went into my notes trying to make sure everyone had a part I noted which items were combat heavy and which were not). You can see from the actions of the pc's versus the notes how things went all over the place the players were responsible for 50% of the storyline in my opinion. The chase never happened, the doctor went way off in another direction, the bounty hunter dealt with the protesters alone.

Over all plot:

Group is hired to assassinate a political aid. The current Aid is dirty and is owned by a rival Hutt to Teemo whom the group owed obligation to. Teemo wants to replace the aid with a someone he has control over. (In hindsight I could have had a special slicer or dialogue mission here to have the blackmail obtained by the pc's in a pre-adventure). The story line will introduce "fixer" as a mission contact and require the pc's to follow the following steps:

1. Find Fixer and negotiate (non-combat - Doctor)

2. Plan "hit" and escape (non-combat - party)

3. Infiltrate Security Sub station to drop shields (combat/non-combat - Slicer)

4. Talk down unruly rioters (non-combat - Doctor)

5 Pick up weapon drop (Bounty Hunter)

6 Make shot (Bounty Hunter - Doctor is lookout)

7 Fight Security on exit (Bounty Hunter)

8 Chase through City (party)

Scene One: Hungry Mynock Cantina

Persons of note: Fixer and Renka

Entrance

"Was it the fourth or the fifth run down skeevy Cantina you have seen today? You can barely keep count as the search for the mysterious "Fixer" continues. The Hungry Mynock sits a stone's throw down the way from one of the lessor space docks and attracts a variety of scum and villainy. It is lit by a spectrum of neon lights that blink and whirl in snyc with an aged jukebox that sits adjacent to vacant stage. Judging by the blaster scorch marks on the stage's back drop the Mynock is a place where bad acts go to die... literally. The Mynock has a long durasteel bar decorated only with a dozen or so stools and a husky looking bartender leaning over it's surface propped up by his grimy elbows. The walls are lined with semi-private booths which easily accommodate the variety of deals that undoubtedly occur in a place like this. The center of the Mynock is a myriad of mismatched tables and chairs scattered over what used to be a dance floor. Some time long ago the Mynock must have been a fine establishment in more prosperous times, before the Empire. The only saving grace to the place appears in the form of a spirited and lovely Tiwl'lek waitress who floats from patron to patron with a grace and poise that hints a better life and upbringing than that of a serving girl in this dive."

Renka - Waitress stats of Infochant from scum and villainy adversary deck, may have heard of Fixer but only has time to chat with paying customers. The houses finest Corellian Brandy is a good vintage and seldom bought which she recommends for 100 credits a bottle. For a hard charm check the pc's can try to sweet talk her for a discount. After some free style conversation with the pc's offer the following "I could set you up to meet "Fixer", but that takes alot of time... time which I could be using to get better tips. A girl has to live you know."

When they pc's tip generously enough she'll agree to arrange the meeting and instructs them to return tomorrow night.

The following night Renka leads the party to one of the semi-private booths and recommends the Alderaan Nectar Wine which is an ever increasing commodity now for 250 credits.

"Fixer" is brought to the table.

"After what seems like an eternity Renka returns to the table leading aging human male to the table. He sits without a word and places a holoreciever on the table. A blurred humanoid image springs up from the device and begins to speak: "Greetings, I assume you are here about the job. Please refrain from asking any questions until I finish as the encryption on this transmission only gives us a limited window to converse in private. My employer wishes to see the political change the Governor is constantly droning on about and has suddenly himself become interested in politics. He wishes for change he can believe in if you will and as such needs the ear of the Governor. Unfortunately one of his rivals already has the ear by way of control over his chief adviser. My employer has recently acquired leverage on the advisers first Lieutenant and now just needs to expedite the Adviser's retirement. My employer is reluctant to handle this matter via his normal channels as he does not want to tip his rival off on his power play. This is where you come in, your going to fail to assassinate the Governor, but a stray shot from the attack is going to leave his adviser as unfortunate collateral damage. You'll need to head to the capital, in three days the Governor will give his bi-annual address from the stage in the gardens. The stage will be protected by shielding as typical for these kinds of events. You'll need to disable the shielding from the Security Sub Station on the southern side of the Gardens. You'll only have seconds before the systems backups restore the shields. Your first shot must be on the Governor. I have on good authority that he also wears a personal deflector so the shot should be harmless other than to create the panic you'll need. The second shot needs to put down the chief adviser.

Due to the growing anti-empire sentiment the whole place is going to be crawling with security. Absolutely no weapons will be allowed anywhere near the place. You'll have to go in unarmed. I have arranged an asset in their to supply you with the weapon. He'll meet you in the penthouse suite of the hotel overlooking the gardens. You'll be on your own for extraction. If you succeed and meet me back here after the job is done you'll earn you $50,000 credits." A red warning light flares to life on the transceiver and man quickly terminates the call and abruptly leaves the table.


**** My group went off the rails here to ensure. I used the Imperial Army Trooper in two minion groups of three and quickly improved a shuttle bay gun fight over some medical supplies. The next thing I had written was the infiltration of the security station ****

Scene 2: Security Sub Station:

At the edge of the gardens a bunker shaped building sits adorned by a communications dish on the top of the building a a pair of sector security (Two Corporate Sector Authority police from Citizen of the galaxy Advisory deck. Inside at the main computer terminal sits a Comm Operator. If the pcs look hard enough they can find a ventilation duct the slicer can slip through. The slicer can use stealth to navigate the corridors and looks for a terminal to access. Make a series of checks with increasing difficulty

1. Penetrate system (Easy)

2. Gain access to shield controls (Average)

3 Bring down shield on BH mark (hard)

cutscene to BH

Scene 3:

At the edge of the gardens sits the Sleepy Krayt Hotel. Only the most wealthy visitors can afford to stay in this posh suburb of the capital. The anxiety of the day is in the air as you frequently pass nervous security patrols randomly "searching" civilians. (Stealth check Hard to bob and weave through the crowded walk without attracting notice of the patrols. On a fail the patrol singles out the players and searches them for weapons. *I gave a boost die here because my bounty hunter left all armor behind as well as his blaster and carrier only a hold out blaster into the building).

Near the entrance of the hotel is a group of six alien Protesters who are chanting for equal rights for non-humans. They are rowdy and aggressive and will fight if provoked. Can be verbally tamed through intimidation, charm, or deception checks (Hard) and add a boost for alien species character (my doctor is a bothan). (two minion of three Street Toughs from Scum and Villainy adversary deck).

(Proceed to top floor scene)

Scene 4:

"The penthouse is opulent in design with carved and shaped molding in the hallways not common to the sterile dives you normally stay in. The whole place scream of luxury and software which is repulsive to your warrior senses in its excess yet alluring in it's status at the same time. The door to the penthouse suite slides open to reveal a shady Duros. He has a weequay lance all set up which has been heavily modified with additional optics and a custom crafted barrel." (From the Nal Hutta book and screamed ideal for extreme range. I boosted the accurate to account for the mods.

Giver the BH time to set up and comlink up with the slicer then start the speech:

"Citizen of the Empire, I great you on this fine day and wish you the esteemed blessings of the Emperor. It is with great privilege that each of us can serve the Galactic Empire in our own way. Some of us are called to duty in the army or navy. Some of us are called to serve in the Storm trooper legions which valiantly protect us from the chaos and crime that would over take us in the absence of the Emperor's love. Many of us can not contribute to the Empire with acts of heroism and bravery such as these our shining examples of our youth. Yet for those of you who have asked, "How can I serve?" the Emperor has heard your calls and has answered. While the heroism of our youth can not be overlooked there is also heroism in contributing to the greater good. Our young folk can't be given the opportunity to let their bravery shine without the proper equipment and funding. As such it is patriots like yourselves who will contribute an additional 5% to the Patriot Fund. Now you too can be a shining example of heroism. Let not your Son's carry just your love into the maw of danger in their hearts, but show your support by wrapping those hearts in the shining white laminate armor that will ensure they return home to you. Every wound prevented, every tragic death avoided will be a testament to your heroism and your generosit.... (cue deflector fail)

First shot four purple dice, two black for personal deflectors, plus flip a destiny to up the difficulty. Governor stats from the Citizens of the galaxy Adversary deck
Second shot (Make it feel epic) 4 dice, one black for chaos of crowd. (minon level character dies easily used street tough stats)

Scene 5:

Slicer escape from security sub station:

• Trick guards by redicted through controls (computers)
• Stealthy sneak back out ventilation
• Stun comm operator and assume control
• Try deception? Hard least likely way out
  
  Once outside describe chaos scene and give chance to Steal speeder, computers check to hotwire: setup for getaway
  
  Scene 6
  
• Gunfight Security forces in lobby on exit (using the adversary cards from earlier)
• Use remaining destiny to drop/damage weapon so BH can't make off with tricked out rifle.
• Exit hotel and jump in getaway car

Final Scene:

Chase scene from hotel. Through crowded districts use following items:

• Crowd of civilians (average)
• Construction crew work zone (hard)
• Other vehicles (average/hard)
• Another patrol trying to box player in (4 purple)
• Tunnel with on-comming traffic (hard)
• Traffic Jam (5 purple) > break out on foot and disappear into crowd. Stealth checks to finish

Epilogue:

Fixer this time is brought by a girl zabarak who behaves like the first saying nothing

• +10 obligation if failed to kill adviser
• +10 criminal obligation if player or players were caught or made by security
• Less cost of rifle if taken or destroyed 50% (I used this for them killing the duros)
• 25% is taken by Teemo on learning of the players to pay obligation
• Fixer holds on to a portion of the credits as a retainer for the next job

Award XP, players should only walk away with 15000 credits or so from the original promised $50K


I spend the most time with my descriptions and speech and just use bullets mostly for combat and encounters because my players almost never solve a problem the way I predict they will. Renka was meant to be a one off character but the players loved her so much I am fleshing out a background for her and am working on her own story arc to make the players "care" for her.

I am working an arc where they go to her for info and instead of asking for her normal price has them complete a mission for her to kidnap a "special" child from a noble house heavy with innuendo that the child is force sensitive or otherwise valuable to the right buyer. The intent is to make the pc's feel icky about taking such a kidnapping mission, but for them to find out as the mission progresses that the child is "special" because he/she is Renka's who was taken into slavery. The drop point which they assume is something else turns out to be a run down shabby apartment which belongs to Renka and will end in a tearful re-union between Renka and her child. The pc's will learn her backstory as a political candidate who was drummed out based on her alien heritage. How she turned to stims and drug abuse that lead her to losing her child to the Hutts and how she has cleaned up her act and used her old political skills to turn a profit as an infochant at the Mynock. This will allow her to move on from the Mynock to another planet doing the same work if I choose and remain a contact for the group while allowing me to introduce more villains through Renka and her child.

Fixer is an undetermined species as of right now and will continue to offer the characters shady hits. I am building out different delivery men and women and plan on making the delivery person coincide with tone of the mission and success/failures. so the Zabarak woman will 'always" deliver success while failures might always have a droid courier. It will take quite a few missions for the player to see the pattern and give them something to start piecing together. This will ultimately just be a quirk of the character, but if the players start snooping into Fixer's identity I can flesh out a back story and perhaps do a double cross. I don't know perhaps the whole time Fixer is really imperial intelligence manipulating the Hutts and the Black Sun through espionage and the characters will find out they have been working for imperial intelligence the whole time. If I go down this route I want to drive the players to really hate the imperials through bad things happening to deliver a huge blow when they find out they have been unwitting pawns the whole time and lead to a climatic show down between Fixer and the players to create an ongoing villain. I have created a Human pilot who will help fly their ship which could fit in as an imperial spy and betray the players as well making it a personal vendetta.

The party still has Graayl Nor as a captive which I would like to turn into a reoccurring nuisance for the group. Perhaps a separate story arc where they infiltrate the Bounty hunter group and the BH Assassin takes over as leader. It would give them a home base, more resources, and another thing they value that could be destroyed at a later date. At the same time I want to explore the Doctors backstory and the blackmail arc that lead her to teaming up with the criminal band. At some point the players will also have to clean up the slicer's mess whose bounty came from freeing her parents from slavery. Perhaps they will resurface and she'll need to convince the group to rescue or hide them. We also have the jedi/sith joining the group whom I am eagerly awaiting a backstory on so I can weave into the plot as well.

As others have already said, this is great! Following the thread and I really hope you'll continue to post!

I must say that I find your ideas and how you go with the flow of what your players provide you are quite impressive. I for one feel that is why I struggle to be a GM, I am not good at improvising. I wonder if you could speak to what helped you to be able to do it so well so that I may work towards that end goal.

BTW please keep the posts coming, I find them rather interesting.

Only question I have: What sort of ship is the Supernova? If you mentioned it, I missed it, but not knowing is hurting my mind's eye.

Thanks!

Sorry,

They are running a YT-2400 and after naming her am unsure whether they will trade-up. They are very interested in stealing another ship.

Agent J - Thank you for the compliments. I have been a GM for about 20 years now through various systems. I keep a note pad handy during sessions to note down things the pc's do or don't do to bring it back later. My goal is always to make them feel like a part of the world they are playing with so I find that works best when I take nuances from game-play and tie them back in. They always have that cause/effect relationship going on. When the players go off my script I don't try super hard to reign them back in. I find that doing so just causes them to push further in directions I don't want. Not that they are doing it intentionally, I believe it is purely subconscious so if the plot hooks I have laid out don't keep their interest then I keep it aside and repackage it until it does. When they go off the rails from my script I usually say "now is a good time for a food and drink break" and throw together what I can. My players have been conditioned that I do the writing so they do the snacks and dinner prep. This makes it easy for me to come up with ten or twenty minutes to throw something together. I am finding this is the easiest game I have ever GM'd to just go off the cuff. There are so many modules available in the books that you can repackage and re-purpose. Stealing the imperial supplies for instance was the same scenario from the starter game when stealing the ship with Army troopers subbed in and some modifications here and there to make it feel different. In essence though the players had run that exact scenario the prior week, but the adversary deck and some narrative off the cuff remarks made it seem like something different.

My best advise is not to panic when they go off the rails. At its core the encounter is merely a series of checks. When I improvise for instance I know I want a door here and I want it to be hard and that's all I have in my head. Then I let the group tell me how they are getting through it and I apply the modifiers based on how creative they are. I also take advantage of the players to help tell the story some times. For instance if a player is running down an alley that I didn't write being chased by storm troopers I don't need to give a whole lot of detail as the character is running and isn't exactly taking in the scenery. In cases like this I'll say you don't have time to actively take in all the detail only seconds to scan for what your looking for? What are you looking for?" Now my player are pretty used to my "style of GMing so they have been trained to say something like "I am searching the alley for an escape/ hiding spot/ improvised weapon/ cover etc. and then using that I'll throw something in.

Hope that helps, I will keep posting the ongoing adventures.

YT-2400 is a good ship. I can't imagine a good reason to go away from it, unless the group wants fighters or a capital ship or a member wants a ship to themselves.

Yeah they seem happy enough with it. I am adding this option to the campaign as they don't have much interest in smuggling and don't really do too much space combat. We'll see how it works out. I can see them getting a second ship just with different hard point mods so they can select the ship they need based on the mission.

Assassin's Arsenal:

Ship Modification:

Follows the rules for Cloaked Smuggling Compartment from Fly Casual. Uses both available mods to make the storage for Weapons and Equipment only. Gives one member of the party "Right tool for the Job" talent each time the party leaves the ship. May be a separate party member each time.

Talent: Right tool for the Job

When leaving the Arsenal player character can declare an encumbrance value that he/she is reserving for later use. The player counts as carrying that value for encumbrance purposes. Once during the session the player can use a destiny point to declare he/she is carrying an item from the arsenal in their "reserve encumbrance" portion of their inventory to reflect the assassin always having the right tool for the job on hand. The item declared must have an encumbrance equal to or less than the value reserved in inventory when the players left the arsenal. During searches or customs checks the DM can use a destiny point to force the player to declare what the item is for narrative purposes.

All items in the arsenal need to be purchased and maintained separately and actively placed in the arsenal prior to the declaration of encumbrance (ie. player 2 can't go off from the group, buy a missle tube, and return to the ship so player 1 can retrieve it).

In the event the reserve item is seized by Customs or destroyed by some means the player MUST declare an item from the arsenal to be lost (incentive to keep it stocked with un-modded generic weapons as well)

What happened?

I want to read more!

It has been a while since I have posted, but I'll try to recap the adventure so far. We have added two players to the group and the tales of the Supernova have added more potential players in the mix lining up to give it a try. The forums pointed me to Obsidian Portal which I am working on loading up from my group which has been dominating a lot of my time. When we last left off the first new player was getting ready to join the Supernova group. He rolled up a Rodian sharpshooter. I was immediately concerned because Derek, the Bounty Hunter, is a great shot and I was worried that coming into the group until he caught up he would feel like a less effective version and redundant.

On returning to their favorite Cantina to enjoy their spoils the crew of the Supernova is greeted by Renka, their infochant contact who doubles as a waitress at the hungry Mynock. She greets the crew warmly commenting on how she was afraid her best customers had found some trouble because they had been gone so long. Derek, who has been playing a potential relationship with Renka, slips her a hefty tip. As the group begins to unwind Renka informs them of a potential job they might be interested in. The players agree they are always looking for more credits and asks for more details. Renka motions to a Mon Cal who nervously approaches the table. He introduces himself as "Wrex". He is a small time weapons trafficker in the outer rim. He had the right contacts in the Empire, a commander of Whisper base who was financing his retirement by ensuring Wrex knew just which ships to target. He had a sweet deal running with a group of pirates called the Red Blade who would raid the Imperial supply ships feeding Wrex a continuing supply of low grade military arms which he could then off load in the outer rim. Business was good with more and more rebel cells buying hi wares. Then whisper base went dark. It didn't take long for the pirates greed to lead them into attacking random imperial ships. It was then after a month of raiding the hyper lanes that the Red Blade hit the mother load. An Imperial Science vessel carrying a doomsday weapon was seized by the pirates. They wanted Wrex to off load the weapon to the Hutts or the Black Sun. Wrex knew better than to get involved with such a deal though. That type of acquisition would surely pull down heat from Imperial Intelligence. Blasters here and there and no body bothers looking, but surely it would be only a matter of time before some imperial kill team tracked the weapon back to Wrex. He now figures the best thing for him to do is wipe any trail that might lead back to Wrex. He wants the group to infiltrate the Red Blade's base of operations, hack their systems, remove any trace of Wrex from the records, and assassinate the leader of the pirates who could easily hand over all of Wrex's information should he be interrogated. Wrex's is concerned that the crew might not be enough to get the job done and as such has hired another marksman, Grexi the rodian, to ensure the Red Blade gets taken out.

The players accept the mission on the deal that they can keep what ever they find in the pirates lair in addition Wrex will add the custom Assassin Cache to the Supernova using his knowledge of gun smuggling. Wrex gives the player the coordinates to an old asteroid mining facility named Hades II where they will be able to find the Red Blade pirates. He cautions them that imperial intelligence may not be far behind.

The crew of the Supernova heads out in their ship and Grexi heads out in his own YT-1300. They pass their astrogation check and drop out of hyperspace in a spot that gives them the advantage. Hades II sits at the edge of an Asteroid field the blue shielding done of its artificial atmosphere shines like a beacon in the dark of space. On the near side of the asteroid a wave of 4 dunelizard fighters and two Z95 headhunters work the perimeter. On the far side of the asteroid a Corellian corvette hovers dangerously over the base. The two ships punch the accelerator and come out firing getting a surprise round on the patrol craft due to their successful roll. The opening Volley destroys a Z95 and leaves a Dunelizard with critical damage to it's engines knocking them out of the fight. The other fighters swarm the two ships scoring some light hits. The corvette does nothing. The Supernova, being better armed of the two ships with boosted shields and armor plating easily drops another Dunelizard on it's turn while the new YT-1300 continues to make a B-line for the asteroid. With some minor damage the Supernova wipes out the remaining fighters over the next two rounds clearing the way to the asteroid. The group is curious as the corvette still makes no actions what so ever. Deciding not to press their luck the two ships attempt to make a forced landing on the asteroid. Flying in around a series of turrets which do not fire they become suspicious. They land on the docking pad without incident and disembark from their ships.

As they approach the end of the ramp they see bodies lying motionlessly on the ground. The doctor moves to examine the bodies and rolls them over to find two aliens dead. Their mouths and throats dissolved away as if they had drunk a glass of acid. At this point I explain to the doctor that this portion of the story ties directly to her obligation of Blackmail which she had previously neglected to expand on. Prior to her life on the run in outer rim she was a doctor working in a facility doing classified research on a bioweapon called Cerberus. Her lab partner was some one special to her and I asked her to describe who he was. (She was struggling with a backstory and agreed to allow me free reign to do what I wanted prior to the evening) She quickly decided that it was her husband another Bothan. I continued with the memory describing how the virus attacked the organisms respiratory tract and was fatal withing 7 days of exposure. Then I asked her who they were developing the virus for? She decided again that it wouldn't fit the rebels so it was for her people. The bothans. I filled in the gaps explaining that the Bothan internal security was looking for a nuclear deterrent to the Empire and had engaged some of it's best scientists and doctors to create a bio super weapon that would target the Human genome which would devastate the empire should Bothawui ever suffer the same fate as Alderaan. Their research facility, however, was compromised by Imperial spies and was seized by the Empire. She was smuggled off world by Teemo the Hutt who then blackmailed the doctor to keep her secret safe. While the doctor recognizes the effects of the bioweapon the version she was responsible for targeted Humans and she has no idea how two aliens could have contracted the virus.

Troubled she debates whether to share this new information with her crewmates who all are expectantly waiting for her to say yes. She hesitates and says no for the time being as she isn't 100% sure it is her Virus. The team progresses through the facility working it's way to a communications relay where they find some pirate still alive. The pirates open fire on the group and a shoot out begins. The crew is caught in the open and quickly realizes how deadly combat can be as the first shots come in scoring critical injuries on two of the crew members. Natalya books it for the door to the comm relay station but finds it locked. She begins work on bypassing the security system. To make it more interesting the pirate manning the comm station is also a slicer and her checks become opposed checks as they continually reroute the systems denying her easy access to the controls.

Derek opens up lobbing a grenade into the group of pirates killing some and scattering them from their fortified positions overlooking the comm relay. Grexi, as I had predicted, felt like a backup shooter not quite as effective as the bounty hunter and doing not quite the same damage. The Doctor applied stims as needed and popped a shot here and there. Finally the slicer manages to open the door and square off with the pirate on the inside in a one on one fight while the rest of the crew handles the opposition on the outside. As the crew mops up the pirate outside the small comm station the slicer kills the pirate on the inside with a well placed vibroknife. Manning the comm station the slicer quickly makes contact with the corvette parked above only to find there are only a handful of human survivors. The bioweapon exposure has happened on the corvette as well and with all but a few of the crew dead the capital ship is adrift in space above the asteroid. The frantic human survivor tells the slicer that humans appear to be immune to the virus but it is airborne and spread quickly. With a grim taunt the pirate tells the slicer that they may have come for their credits, but they found their own deaths. They just don't know it yet. With that final proclamation he cuts the comm. At a loss the slicer searches the computer to see if she can find the mainframe within the base. All traffic and power seem to come from one larger centralized building which used to be the old mining facility. On reviewing the security footage they see what can only be the leader of the pirate with a group of followers barricade themselves in the building as droves of pirates lie dying in the streets.

The party makes their way to the main building which is heavily barricaded and fortified. The sole entrance that still seems operational is a thick security door with only an intercom panel on the outside. The slicer looks to hack the door but finds that unless they have something to cut through a few feet of durasteel she can't access the controls to the door. Out of options they try the intercom panel. The voice on the other end identifies themselves as the Red Blade, leader of the Red Blade pirates, and advises the group to move along as there is nothing of value left here. They party tries a bluff with the doctor saying they are here to help and that she might be able to cure the disease. The Red Blade counters saying that there is little chance the doctor could save them with the little time that is left. The doctor running out of option discloses that she is one of the original designers of the disease and that if she is given access to the bioweapon she might be able to find a cure. With that the door slides open.

The inside of the facility looks to be a makeshift hospital and morgue. With more morgue than hospital. There is a sole human nurse left from the crew of the original science vessel. The nurse speaks to the doctor recounting the tale of how she was assigned to watch a Bothan scientist. How he had been brilliant and was told if he was able to make the changes to the virus the Emperor wanted he would be reunited with his wife. The medical staff from the imperial science vessel plus 20 test patients had been taken by the pirates and relocated here. The Red Blade chimes in and says after they realized they wouldn't be able to sell the weapon they loaded a sample onto their corvette and deployed the weapon on a nearby alien colony. The weapon was brilliant killing off the population so the pirates could move in and loot the entire colony at once. The pirates were far from trained medical crew, however, and the virus was soon running rampant on both the asteroid and the ship. A colony worth of credits floats adrift above the asteroid while the Pirates huddle in the compound dying. The doctor asks what happened to the bothan and is told he worked diligently on a cure until he succumbed to the disease. The nurse hands the doctor his notes.

The doctor discovers from the notes that her husband had redesigned the bioweapon to target anything that was not human. In doing so he needed to introduce many strains of DNA to the virus. One of the 20 test subjects had shown an immunity from the virus and it's unique alien physiology seemed ideal for harvesting antibodies that could kill the virus. The doctor relays to the party that the bioweapon has been tailored to effect only non-humans and they probably have all been infected already. At this point I stop the conversation and have each player add the critical injury "Cerberus" to their character sheets. With that the Red Blade realizing that they are not going to die draws her weapons and says looks like your dying early and we are taking your ship out of here. With that combat begins. The Red Blade is the pirate captain from the adversary decks and is armed with a vibroaxe. The captain is assisted by a handful of pirates who grab whatever they can find and attack the crew. The initial exchange of fire drops a few of the pirates and does a large number of wounds on the Pirate Captain. The captain attacks Grexi, who made the mistake of standing and shooting at short range. The virboaxe lands heavily on Grexi's head. Dropping the character in one shot. Grexi suffers a major head injury dropping a stat permanently and is pretty much out of the fight as the doctor fails to use first aid on him. The Red Blade is incapacitated on the next round and begs for mercy promising credits in exchange for disappearing. Derek quickly replies they already have credits and a job to do and executes the pirate captain. The slicer finds the mainframe and destroys the entire system leaving no records behind. After the encounter the doc stabilizes Grexi who is barely functional and the party decides to find this test patient who could be the only key to the parties survival. They work their way deeper into the facility until they come across a room labeled patient X. Opening the door the crew is stunned to find a Hutt of all things sitting smugly in a make shift holding cell. The Hutt identifies himself as Burpa the Hutt. He is brash, entitled, and rude to the players. (I patterned his character from Regis on farscape) Burpa is the rightful Hutt cartel member who Teemo usurped. The Hutt cartels would not have tolerated Teemo's ascendance if he had killed Burpa out right and so he had arranged for Burpa to go missing. Burpa knows his Hutt immune system can counter the virus and knows that the players need him and takes full advantage of the situation demanding the players assemble a sled for him before he will leave his cell.

Without the proper medical facilities the doctor is only able to create a treatment for the virus and not a cure. The treatment only stops the progression of the virus for one day plus the ranks in resilience. The players quickly surmise that they are now forced to bring Burpa with them and they are forced to stick together until a cure can be found making Grexi a permanent member of the crew. On the upside the players are excited that they are going to be able to seize the Corvette with little resistance. With everyone in tow they begin to head back to the ships. Just as they are leaving the trademark sound of tie engines fills the air as bomber rain photon bombs on the compound. The empire has arrived. The party rushes to the supernova and takes off as squads of bombers and ties fill the air. An Imperial Star Galleon comes into view as the crew sees turbo laser blast after blast hammer the crippled corvette. Tie pile on the Supernova in overwhelming odds. The crew plots the escape to hyperspace and shoots back at the ties scraping one with every shot. Each round more ties come from the carrier and there crew desperately fights their way through three rounds of combat before they make the jump to safety.

The session went really well and Burpa was a great plot twist and was fun ridiculing the characters at every turn. Knowing that the Hutt was the only thing keeping them alive forced the players to tolerate his jeers and jabs along the way. The original crew of the supernova liked how I worked in a way to make the addition of the new crew member make sense. The new player had surprised me by showing up with a ship on his roster, but rather than saying no I used it as an explosive target for the bombers taking away the additional resource with some flair and making the players feel the power of the empire.

In between sessions Grexi reached out to me with a request to change characters. The redundant feeling with the bounty hunter and bother of them competing for the same items did not feel like a good fit. In addition, the character had been brutally maimed and weakened on it's first run out. I wasn't keen on the idea at first. My thought was that Grexi's wound could help define the character and that the Burpa storyline was worked in to accommodate the addition to begin with. Deciding that I didn't want to leave the player feeling trapped in a back up role I relented and allowed him a new character. At the same time he brought in another player whom he worked with who also wanted to play for the next session giving me two new characters to work into the story and loose ends all over the place to work with.

By a break of fortune the two new players couldn't make a mid week play session on my vacation leaving me with just the original crew of the Supernova to take care of some of the loose ends. For this play session I explain that Grexi due to his serious injuries succumbed to the virus despite the doctors efforts. On returning to Bespin the doctor was able to use the proper facilities to create a cure for the virus and all the players were able to remove the injury from their sheets. I felt it would have been unfair to have the crew carrying the virus while new player came in without it. The Doctor was able to trade the cure in exchange for paying off her blackmail obligation to Teemo. Burpa having outlived his usefulness pleaded with the crew to keep working with him. If his existence became known too soon Teemo would just have him disappear again after all. The crew of the Supernova still owed serious obligation to Teemo and had to decide whether to turn over Burpa to Teemo for more obligation relief or follow along with Burpa's plan to restore him to power and have the Hutt owing them obligation. Greed won out in the end and the players decided it was far better to have Burpa owe them obligation than it was to pay down obligation with Teemo. Burpa told the crew he would work through some old associates to begin formulating a plan to restore his power base and with that the crew was left to their own devices again. Without fail the crew finds themselves back in the Hungary Mynock Cantina greeted warmly by Renka.

Instead of her usual promise of information Renka opens with the following:

The party decides to return to the former employee of Roan Fel and convince him to assist them in entering the compound. With the promise of credits the former employee suggests they come in through the local delivery of goods and refers them to a local merchant who trucks in supplies daily. The crew finds the shop where the deliveries come from and subdue the delivery driver. With a truck full of supplies the group elects Natalya, the slicer, as the driver of the truck as the rest of the party climbs into the back. They make their way, lightly armed, to the gate where the slicer tries to convince the guard that she is new and it's her first day and as such she has forgot her company id. She pleads with the guards to let her in, but the guards don't buy her story. She turns the truck around and begins to pull away when Derek opens the rear door and blasts the nearest guard. With a yell for Natalya to slam the truck in reverse she pilots the truck backwards through the gate as it is pummeled by sniper fire from the towers. Not taking the time to find an entrance they back the truck through the front door to the mansion sending security alarms blaring and inciting general chaos. Immediately they are set upon by a security team with a firefight taking place from the rear of the delivery truck to the main foyer of the mansion. Within a couple round the security team is dispatch and the party begins the search of the mansion.n Room by room they start sweeping. Taking out patrolling security teams and passing by numerous servants. They find their way to the security station where they quickly dispatch a security captain and his team. The slicer hacks the security terminal controls and turns on barriers and defenses on Roan's own men. In search the system she find a personnel list. No person on the list is named Ryn. Further searching the system they find a cargo container in the loading dock whose contents list a series of eight names on of which is Ryn. Derek asks the slicer to find Roan Fel on the compound and the safe. After a quick check she determines he is holed up on the third floor with a team of security droids.

The party fights their way to the third floor where the encounter an old and cowardly Roan Fel. The security droids are a challenge for the players but are dispatched with ease. Ready for the big payday Derek pushes the former senator to the safe and forces him to open it. The rumors prove to be true as the safe is filled to the brim with credits from wall to wall. However, the entire fortune is Separatist currency and completely worthless. Derek turns his blaster on Roan who breaks down and admits it's all a sham. His fortune is one great ponzi scheme which relies on advance payments and accounting trickery with loans to keep everything afloat. The slicer hacks his personal terminal and confirms that according to his accounts he is millions of credits in debt. He manages to scrap by on turnover float between loan payments and as rumors thought human trafficking. The party begins discussing among themselves whether Renka is having them engage in human trafficking or covertly rescuing some one. The discussion on the moral connotation of their choices from this point on is hilarious and I honestly have to fight back from busting a gut at the table. Ultimately they move on to fight their way to the basement. As the security teams begin to be more of a nuisance Derek comes up with the plan to hack the compounds intercom and announce the truth to all of Roan's employees. With a successful check the slicer gains control of the intercoms and Derek relays how Roan's safe is now open for all and how there is nothing, but worthless separatist currency. The players reason that the security teams would all be hired goons and with the truth now exposed would be less willing to engage in a firefight with the deadly intruders. I love the though and the concept so I agree and allow the player to move to the loading docks unhindered. The find the shipping container and break it open. Derek asks which of the children is Ryn, but none of them answer. Running short on time the party realizes they must take all of the children with them and usher the kids out of the shipping container and back to the beat up truck. Loading them in the back the slicer takes the controls once more and begins to flee the property.

The commotion has not gone unnoticed as imperial patrol begin arriving on the scene weary of the recent rebel activity on the planet. With gunfire escaping the back of the truck once more a patrol speeder is dispatched with ease as the party sighs happy to make a clean getaway. It is at that point that an ominous thump lands on the roof of the truck and the Slicer driving yells sounds like we have company. The Emperor's hand sent to stop the rebellion in the area has mistaken the rescue for a rebel strike team. The players are completely unaware of the dangerous foe they now face. Derek grabs hold of the swinging tail door and swings out to get a shot at the enemy. His first shot misses it's target. The doctor inside is trying to keep the children calm while unloading into the roof hoping to score some damage on the adversary. On the Hand's turn he uses the force to cloud Derek's mind and convince him that the back of the truck is on fire. Derek is forced to spend his next turn patting out illusion flames in an attempt to save the children. The slicer tries ramming the side of the truck into buildings to shake the attacker off the roof. At the display of force powers the group is immediately shaken realizing they are now fighting an opponent beyond their abilities. The Hand opens fire with his disruptor pistol opening a hole in the roof.

Derek recovers from the illusion and fires back at the hand scoring a critical hit and wounding the left arm of the attacker making it completely useless. The Hand dives for cover on top of the speeding truck but fails in a big way dropping his disruptor on tumbling over the side of the truck. Grasping to the edge of the roof with his remaining free hand he barely maintains his perch on the truck. That is when the slicer again tries to smear him off the truck forcing the hand to let go of the truck and fall crashing into a stack of garbage right before the truck scrapes against a nearby building. The truck battered and blasted apart speeds into the night leaving the hand behind. The player agree they were lucky at best and they have left behind a vicious adversary. They ditch the truck and take the monorail with the children back to the spaceport. The customs inspector gives them a hard time, but there is nothing illegal that he can tell. The players offer a decent bribe to be hurried on their way knowing the Hand can't be far behind them. They leave the planet with no further issue slipping silently into the night. As they navigate hyperspace a young Twil'lek identifies herself as Ryn and apologizes for not saying so sooner. She just couldn't bear for the party to leave her friends behind.

The players are confronted with a choice. They can sell the other seven children to another slaver for $5,000 each or they can try to find someone who will take care of them. Deciding their souls are not that black the turn the children over to the authorities on Cloud City so they can be reunited with their families. They then proceed to take ryn to the coordinates they were given. I read the following to close the story:

The coordinates lead you to a hovel in the poor under section of cloud City. Here on the underneath the homes have no luster and everything is covered in the dingy smoke of the tiabanna mining process. The place is mostly inhabited by ugnaughts and there is little security, fortunately there is also little of value. You follow the coordinates to a small apartment complex that is a mish-mash of run down dilapidated apartments. Arriving at the designated location you find yourself knocking on the door of 2B.