I'm thinking of throwing some Rakatan ruins at my players and making them do some Knowledge (Lore) checks etc. so that they can identify the ruins. My plan is that some natives have moved in and used them as places of worship (not knowing their true identity) and some offworlders are trying to flatten them to build a base. Basically the Going Native adventure from Far Horizons page 90, but with the twist being that the replacement for Governer Fillen is a superior officer of the PCs in the large mercenary group

I would say limited to a handful of very specialized scholars and even they know very little. Rakatans are really ancient history.

Unless you have some convenient devices from Rakatan time around that conveniently explain their history to your protagonists for absolutely no conceivable reason at all, I'd have to go with "knowledge nonexistant".

I'd set the difficulty for any Knowledge (Lore) checks about them to Formidable, and then pile on setback dice for the general obscurity of the information beyond that.

They're more likely to know something about the Old Republic than the Rakatan, in fact they'd probably have to raid a KOTOR era library just to even learn the bare bones of what they knew about the Rakatan...

There's a couple of youtube videos regarding the KOTOR mmo which you might want to call upon if you're determined to introduce them to the Rakatan.

Heh maybe have them visit Taris to search for some clues...

I would say limited to a handful of very specialized scholars and even they know very little. Rakatans are really ancient history.

Pretty much this.

There are records of the rakatan civilization from long ago, and most of those would be pretty rare to see, and then only in the deep archives of museums and private collectors.

So unless the player characters include some archeologists with interests in the ancient civilizations specifically, I'd say they have no clue what a rakatan ruin is.

That doesn't mean they couldn't just misidentify it as something else though.

Gree ruins, Kwa ruins, Columi ruins or just "celestial" ruins.

In fact, it doesn't matter all that much which civilization built the ruins, they're still pretty important if they're not built by the indigenous race that's currently worshiping at it.

EDIT: Remember, anytying pre-republic is at least 25.000 years old by the time the players discover it. Most likely alot more than that even.

Maybe part of the story is discovering the Rakatans - you could have a number of sessions where they just learn what these crazy ancient ruins are. It might be fun to string them along thinking they're something more familiar at first and have them seeking the wrong information that then informs Bad People as to the true nature of what they've discovered.

That would be a formidable task, but if its discovery is central to your intended plot, they can discover it by GM fiat without a check.

I definitely agree this would be rarified knowledge and even that would be questionable. If, however, you have an emerging jedi in your midst, you could begin to give them really weird odd dreams / visions when they enter the ruins. Kind of like the early sequences of Mass Effect. Make it brief, keep it really cryptic and let them start trying to find answers. Whether you ever give them any answers is up to you (sometimes it is best to never ever give them the answer). Let them find other sets of ruins and have a different vision in each. Couched in mystery, shrouded in darkness, covered in vapors of tragedy. If you hit the right tones with this, you'll be amazed at what players will do to try to figure it out. If you really don't know what it is, but have hints of it yourself, you'll be able to tell the truth better and be more convincing.

Well the Rakatans took over a big chunk of the galaxy right? It seems like there'd be basic (if not detailed or even very accurate) info on them pretty much everywhere.

When you're talking about spacefaring civilizations like you see in "modern" star wars it doesn't take a hyperspace scientist to see that dozens of different worlds feature ruins with similar architecture. So there'd be at least a basic knowledge of a ancient spacefaring race that went all over and did.... stuff.

I think of it as kinda like the Mayans, or Aztecs, or Easter Islanders, with a little Atlantis mixed in. Everyone with any education knows the Rakata existed (even if they get the name wrong a lot), but they probably wouldn't be able to really identify Rakata artifacts beyond "eh... it looks like it". Some with more specialized knowledge will know the Rakata set up a big empire, were kinda a-holes, then something happened and, poof, gone, but at least these guys would likely be able to tell real from fake, from similar but not. Only experts will be able to give you any kind of serious info about who they were and what they did "Ah yes, this was a Rakata mixing bowl, and over there was the slave pens." Only the most expert of experts will really be able to tell you anything of extreme detail or accuracy. "Oh, this is from the early Gsiof Period when the Empire was ruled by Garutos the Irregular, also known as Lokoiuh the Irritable, and Lolokjoiu the Uncomfortable. Supposedly you can use this to communicate with and locate a distant friend who also has one, but no one has ever gotten them to work. Fit them with some glow paneling and they make nice lamps though... say 800 credits on the open market, 1200 in the Corporate Sector these days."

Although it doesn't delve into the idea specifically, Enter the Unknown makes several references. The general idea is that modern historians know about it, in general, sort of, but it's greatly debated. Language and architecture can be identified, but identifying a specimen of the species casually is probably out.

Also remember that in the dark times, the Empire can silence anyone it pleases, so if the GM wants a particular element of ancient history to be suppressed, it's suppressed.

Well the Rakatans took over a big chunk of the galaxy right? It seems like there'd be basic (if not detailed or even very accurate) info on them pretty much everywhere.

When you're talking about spacefaring civilizations like you see in "modern" star wars it doesn't take a hyperspace scientist to see that dozens of different worlds feature ruins with similar architecture. So there'd be at least a basic knowledge of a ancient spacefaring race that went all over and did.... stuff.

I think of it as kinda like the Mayans, or Aztecs, or Easter Islanders, with a little Atlantis mixed in. Everyone with any education knows the Rakata existed (even if they get the name wrong a lot), but they probably wouldn't be able to really identify Rakata artifacts beyond "eh... it looks like it". Some with more specialized knowledge will know the Rakata set up a big empire, were kinda a-holes, then something happened and, poof, gone, but at least these guys would likely be able to tell real from fake, from similar but not. Only experts will be able to give you any kind of serious info about who they were and what they did "Ah yes, this was a Rakata mixing bowl, and over there was the slave pens." Only the most expert of experts will really be able to tell you anything of extreme detail or accuracy. "Oh, this is from the early Gsiof Period when the Empire was ruled by Garutos the Irregular, also known as Lokoiuh the Irritable, and Lolokjoiu the Uncomfortable. Supposedly you can use this to communicate with and locate a distant friend who also has one, but no one has ever gotten them to work. Fit them with some glow paneling and they make nice lamps though... say 800 credits on the open market, 1200 in the Corporate Sector these days."

30.000 years turns most ruins into dust.

Also remember that in the dark times, the Empire can silence anyone it pleases, so if the GM wants a particular element of ancient history to be suppressed, it's suppressed.

Yup, the humano-centric Empire wouldn't be too pleased with a bunch of historians claiming that an ancient race of alien force-users were the creators of pretty much all the tech we have now and also dominated the galaxy with a larger empire than the Empire.

Granted, none of them were historians, but none of the characters in the KotOR video game seemed to have any clue about the Rakatans. So we can infer that the knowledge was pretty scarce.

Granted, none of them were historians, but none of the characters in the KotOR video game seemed to have any clue about the Rakatans. So we can infer that the knowledge was pretty scarce.

There's a quest in SW:TOR (takes place some 300 years after KotOR) where you go to tatooine and find out that Czerka uncovered a Rakata device.

You look at a few holo recordings and amongst them there are scientists/archaeologists arguing about whether or not there even was such a thing as Rakatans.

So, I'd say it wasn't even specialized knowledge at the time, but rather debated.

Not to mention the species was almost extinct. Pretty much every specimen that appears in TOR dies, and the last deposits of their technology get destroyed. Slap another 4 and a half thousand years on that and you end with very little left over except inconclusive historical documents that might count as archeological relics themselves. Is it the Darth Bane novels that briefly visit Lehon and the planet is abandoned? And that's a thousand years ago still.

Not to mention the species was almost extinct. Pretty much every specimen that appears in TOR dies, and the last deposits of their technology get destroyed. Slap another 4 and a half thousand years on that and you end with very little left over except inconclusive historical documents that might count as archeological relics themselves. Is it the Darth Bane novels that briefly visit Lehon and the planet is abandoned? And that's a thousand years ago still.

Apparantly the republic relocated a bunch of them, but the ones that stayed died out.

I've seen rakatans in TOR enough times that I'm convinced they managed to live on for at least a while after TOR.

Among the only survivors of this race remained within the Unknown Regions in the Rakatan Archipelago. No Republic surveyors ever managed to locate this area of space whilst many of the local species were abused by this pocket civilization. The other powers of the Unknown Regions were largely unaware and ignorant of the threat of these Rakata. The few Rakata that remained in this space consisted of a scattering of planets where these Rakata tribes continued their ancient struggles. While most tribes were primitive and were restricted to a single planet, some had managed to rediscover the secrets of space flight; two tribes had even begun construction on small orbital factories similar in function to the Star Forge. It was believed that if any of these Rakata found a way of restoring their primeval technology, then they may bring about the rise of the Infinite Empire once more. ^[7]

So, apparantly they kept existing, but completely separated from the galaxy at large.

Well what kind of characters do you have and what type of game are you running?

An Indiana Jones type might reasonably make a check, albeit a difficult one.

A Jayne Cobb type wouldn't even be able to venture a guess.

Is it a game where knowing the origin of the ruins is going to make a difference to the PCs? If so, find a way for them to learn more. If there don't have an academic in the party maybe they meet an NPC who can offer a hint or two.

I'd do whatever makes your idea work at your table.

Well, my current group will expecting quite a bit of combat, but seeing as the first session hasn't come to pass yet, I can't say this with complete certainty, but I'm pretty sure that none of them will be taking any Knowledge skills or really anything that wouldn't have a direct impact on fighting. The natives will vaguely describe that some among them (Force-sensitives) have been able to do vague things in the ruins, but the general pace of the campaign I want to run probably won't have time, especially several sessions, to learn about some ruins that their superior wants to flatten, but they will also have access to a great scientist, so they might have some basic knowledge, or he might go with them. I'm still not sure about that

And maybe the first scientist gets poisoned and there are other similar issues that point to someone not wanting them to find out more. Which might be all you need to get them busy trying to find out more..

Quite possible there were many other space faring civilizations.. or even non space faring species that built ruins. BESIDES Rakatan, Celestials, etc.

Fermi's Paradox could even apply to the star wars universe.

The Massassi temples on the forest moon of Yavin are a great example where temples were built by a transported species that later devolved and went extinct, and that was only 4000 years BBY. Now think that could have happened hundreds of times, over the dozens of millennium of the Star wars Galaxy since the time of the Rakatan empire

But there will also be a third party of enemies that could attack at any time, any where. Just not sure how to implement that because, by that time in the campaign, the PCs would have fought those enemies quite a bit. I have been thinking about throwing some evil natives that joined the evil group at them though

How Common is Knowledge of the Rakatan?

EDIT

After scanning wookiepedia, I see they will probably be the focus of my archeologist player. I'm still in sponge mode for all this EU clutter. I was 7 when I saw Star Wars in the theater (1977), I must have seen the original trilogy a hundred times, but other than the 6 movies, I never delved into the rest of the universe. Now that I'm starting to run the game, I need to "drink from the fire hose" on all this extra stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I love it, but I wish I could just download it like The Matrix!