Hi all,

For several months now I have been running a more sandbox-like campaign for my players after finishing the first two published adventures for EotE. It has been interesting to see how different the players approach a situation in comparison to how I, the GM, expect it to play out. Some of our best sessions have been completely unplanned and off the rails so to speak.

Currently I have presented my group with a maguffin of great interest which was originally going to be acquired via a train heist. However, they have decided to first infiltrate the factory it is being shipped to first, which I suppose I should have planned for. I am mostly just looking for interesting ideas on what this factory makes down in the Undercity of Nar Shaddaa (other than a ton of pollution) and what would be some appropriate things they would encounter there.

What's are they trying to steal? I'd think it's somehow related to the factory. Otherwise just go for some terrible sweatshop where minors are making clothes on the cheap for some Core World bastard.

What's are they trying to steal? I'd think it's somehow related to the factory. Otherwise just go for some terrible sweatshop where minors are making clothes on the cheap for some Core World bastard.

They are attempting to rebuild a drug lab they destroyed, so the item in question is a "Polarized Filtration Sphere" which a player and I techno-babbled into being needed for processing chemicals.

How dark do you like your games? You could find a part like that at a "meat market" that renders down old/infirm/non-compliant slaves into food or fertilizer.

The factory could turn slaves into robots, why does a slave need free will anyway?

They arrive as people and get given lobot style cyber brains to make them programmable.

They are the workforce and the product.

The factory could turn slaves into robots, why does a slave need free will anyway?

They arrive as people and get given lobot style cyber brains to make them programmable.

They are the workforce and the product.

The implant costs 10,000 credits and then you have a servant that needs food, drink, and sleep. A protocol droid or astromech droid costs less and are far cheaper to maintain. I can't really see that as being a viable business.

OTOH, massive city-worlds like Nar Shaddaa are always short on food.

10,000 to buy in a shop, a fraction of that (per unit) to mass produce in a factory.

You could also save the cost of buying a slave by grabbing people off the streets

Nar Shadaa map here for a few ideas:

http://thompsonpeters.com/eote/maps/

Why not scale it back a little. Make it something more... required.

The "factory" is a water processing plant. It's located largely inside a large reservoir under other city blocks. Run by a Hutt (of course) the operation is the primary source of clean water for the region, and is part of a larger utilities monopoly. The plant's primary function is to suck water in from the reservoir filter out all the waste, toxins, pollutants, bacteria, and "wildlife" and pump it up toward the surface to customers. The facility is a complex system of filters, hoses, tubes and such, resembling an oil platform and smelling worse. Most of the work is relatively blue collar, but for the smuggler's moon the work is (mostly) legit, the pay decent (ok, there IS pay, still a plus), and the perks (you probably won't get kidnapped by organ merchants on the way to work, see below), and job security (people don't stop being thirsty), make it worth it, so the employees are reasonably loyal, if not especially enthusiastic.

There's two primary ways in.

1) the Tube, the way your train gets in and out. It's used to move parts and people in and out daily. It's a monorail type system that runs up to the "surface" rather then risking trying to move through the city more conventionally. Parts of the Tube run through the reservoirs themselves. To allow for the train to travel faster the inside of the tube is a vacuum, allowing for it to ignore wind resistance while also providing a level of security. Pressure breaches are easy to detect and you can't go into the tube system without a vac suit. The Tube is pretty large and is part of a network that services several facilities in the monopoly, so while you can't fly a freighter in, swoops bikes or perhaps a small airspeeder might fit... provided you can dodge tube cars, maintenance skiffs, and service droids.

2) The town. This is the underground outer space version of a Brazilian favela, formerly the old Reservoir when it drained the locals moved in a built up unregulated structures. Some menial laborers from the plant work here. The town is the easiest way to get items too big for the Tube into the plant. To keep the local gangs that run the town from becoming a problem the plant sells the gangs a type of cheap spice at bargain prices, providing them a source of income as well as something to take their mind off the fact they live in a Nar Shadda favela. The spice is of course hazmat collected during a phase of the water filtration process, and it's side effects far outweigh the trip, but it's what the locals can afford.

How about that? Not only do you get a setting, but you've got a couple real set pieces to boot.

As I probably should have expected, my players infiltrated the factory but were far more interested in just finding out where the item in question was going to be shipped from. I didn't have to elaborate too much on what was actually being produced there (vague hints at a Foundry on the lower level, but no one really pursued details) so it's still pretty open should they return. I like the suggestions in this thread, I feel I can definitely use those later for some other location.

On the plus side for me, we are back to a train heist next game (Using the d20 radio hovertrain heist pdf for ideas).