I had this idea about a story premise:

Rise of the Rakata

The Yuuzhan Vong (after their defeat) (or whomever, it doesnt matter), somehow, found Rakata Prime and made contact with the locals, who shared their history. They managed to find a cure for the plague that cut their connection to the Force..

And now they will be back. They want all of their Infinite Empire back. But a new Galactic Order now stand in their way, and thus they shall first start to plot subtly to undermine the opposition, until they are in a position to strike openly.

Okay. I have plenty of ideas for the villaisn, their plots, the way the galaxy would resist..

..but i am wondering if its a good idea. On two fronts:

1- first, its Edge of the Empire. The game is about the scums, the rim, the criminals. A big overarching plot of galactic domination might be beyond the game's intendend scope, and the players might react badly to getting into a game style that is so different from what was advertised.

2- its breaking apart from core Star Wars stories. The essential struggle of the little guys vs The Empire, the Jedi vs the Sith. Im basically involving a new villain faction out of nowhere, and changing the classic thematic of Star Wars.

I mean, even in KOTOR, the Rakata and their legacy were nothing more than the landscape upon with the Jedi and Sith were fighting over. The Rakatas were not actors, merely bystanders.

Should I change that? Would that stop being, feeling Star Wars?

First of all, I nearly stopped reading after the words "Yuuzhan Vong".

In my opinion the Empire/Sith should always be the BBG in Star Wars, no one badder. Anything else wouldn't feel right to me, because:

The unique characteristic in Star Wars is the Force; so the epic struggle should always be between the Light Side and the Dark Side. Anything else is just sideshow.

So, an interesting twist here could be that some dark-sider is doing experiments on Rakata Prime, and not only manages to re-connect them to the Force, but makes them especially strong with the Dark Side.

So, now you’ve got two huge problems — one is that this is the Rakata, after all. They’re the most powerful race that the galaxy has ever known, at least in the last 100,000 years. But now they’re dark-siders, and they’re back with a vengance, and a shiny new axe to grind.

This could be way bigger than the Yuuzhon Vong, or any other enemy that the galaxy has ever faced, at least in known history. All those ancient weapons start coming out of the sealed vaults, and suddenly Abeloth itself seems like the lesser evil in this galaxy.

Maybe it could even be big enough to make the Empire (remnants?) join forces with the Rebellion/Resistance?

Go big, or go home? ;)

I struggle with my ongoing story as well because EotE is very different than a FoD/AoR game where quests and overarching goals are more focused.

I do believe that over time my group will gravitate towards AoR/FoD because of the party's Jedi, as well as the Selonian who has sparked rebellion on their world. I try to intersperse rebel and force plots here and there but otherwise keep it focused to Edge because 1/2 the team wants nothing to do with important stuff (in character).

I do think a Rakata plot is very cool. I like to think of it as being a bit Eldrich and you could conjure up mysterious, long-forgotten horrors and spookiness of their ancient evil Empire rising again.

I do think a Rakata plot is very cool. I like to think of it as being a bit Eldrich and you could conjure up mysterious, long-forgotten horrors and spookiness of their ancient evil Empire rising again.

That is what i believed as well. But thing is, i am a big believer in thematics of storytelling. And the slot for "Ancient Eldritch Abomination" kind of already been taken by old Sith Artifacts, no? The sort of things that might turn you mad, corrupt and twist you..

Adding the Rakata on top, while it would 100% totally work, might also crowd the established niche. A bit like, using the Cthuluh Mythos example, you introduce a non-Old One Ancient Evil that is meant to upstage the current Old Ones. It sort of comes out of nowhere and needlessly takes a spot that was already occupied.

I mean, lets admit it. Star Wars has usually been weaker when these out of context villains come and take the stage. Ssi-Ruuks, the Yuuzhan Vongs..

Maybe the core campaign concept might need retooling. I guess the Rakata could be some Sealed Evil in a Can. I really, really like your input about it being some Eldritch Evil..

The Sith artifacts are old relics of the past. Whereas the Rakatas are a living, breathing enemy?

Thanks for your input, and dont hesitate to keep commenting people! Brainstorming is nice!

I think it depends on the tone of campaign you're looking for, as well as your group of players. Edge of the Empire is a distinct, but varied, experience. Do you suspect your players will be relish saying "Let's be bad guys!" or will they prefer to be Big **** Heroes?

It all depends on your you parcel out the story, I think. I did a Star Wars campaign that ran for 10 years, and was broken into four "seasons" (most of which were broken int two half-seasons, so it was really, sort of seven seasons).

When the campaign started out, the PCs were low-level and all had different agendas and goals. One player was a Jedi Padawan. Throughout the first season, they players periodically encountered "Bando Gora cultists," often led by Force-users using Force-enhanced masks. The first season finale was a dungeon delve into abandoned necropolis, where the PCs competed with three groups of recurring villains for an artifact that turned out to be a really powerful version of the masks they had previously found.

Over the course of the next season, one of the many subplots was that the Jedi discovered that the mask they found was one of twelve very powerful "Bando Gora death masks," worn by a dozen former high priests, most of who were Sith who escaped the Jedi-Sith war that ended at Ruusan a thousand years ago. The Jedi made an active effort to collect the masks (mostly, to keep them out of the hands of her nemesis, who turned out to be her half-sister... but that's another story).

Eventually, the players realized that the Bando Gora high priests had left their masks behind thinking they would gain immortality ... but they had been duped by "Darth Traya" (not the one from KotOR, but one from a thousand years ago... I was pulling on every corner of Star Wars mythology I could get my hands on, and created this whole "legend of Traya" thing where there's ALWAYS a traitorous female, a Traya... interestingly, the EU really supports this idea if you s tart looking). Anyway, Traya was actually obsessed with Xendor (who I reinterpreted as sort of a demigod of War, eventually tying his mythology in with both Mortis and Aboleth).

By Season Four, the players all realized that they were part of a prophecy that involved an attempt to use the power of the long-dead (but preserved in their masks) Bando Gora to revive Xendor to strike horror across the galaxy.

I know I've gone pretty deep down the rabbit hole with respect to mythology and pulling in various supernatural type threads.... but the point in all of this was that the game was allowed to build at a natural pace, and the players would NEVER have suspected from early sessions (where they were a gunslinger, a low-level Jedi, a pitfighter on the run from the law, and a fourth guy -- the running joke was that the fourth PC seat was like the drummer in Spinal tap -- meeting during a pirate attack on a passenger line) that 100 or so sessions later, they would be fighting a war of prophecy to save the galaxy. In fact, at least two, if not all three, of the non-Jedi characters would have flatly dismissed they idea and run the other way... because we really did start out as something close to an Edge of the Empire campaign (this was back in 2002, when there was no EotE, but there WAS Firefly).

If you're looking run an EotE campaign that will lead to bigger things, there are far worse approaches than the idea of dealing with cultists, valuable artifacts, wealthy collectors, etc. as a way to introduce the concepts.

Personally, one of the things that I liked about my campaign (which may not be clear from the quick narrative) is that most of the villains were being duped in one way or another. There was always a bigger fish (and some iteration of Traya calling the shots and manipulating things), so we went through various villains who were connected to the larger organization. The Jedi's half-sister went through three or four different villains, each of whom was very wealthy, to support her mission... and the PCs had the fun of encountering various schemes and machinations of each, many of which had nothing to do with the Bando Gora or Xendor directly.

First of all, I nearly stopped reading after the words "Yuuzhan Vong".

In my opinion the Empire/Sith should always be the BBG in Star Wars, no one badder. Anything else wouldn't feel right to me, because:

The unique characteristic in Star Wars is the Force; so the epic struggle should always be between the Light Side and the Dark Side. Anything else is just sideshow.

Yes.

Although I think there is always room for a good role reversal in the story. Having corrupt rebels and moral Imperials can add a lot of depth to a game. It's unreasonable to believe it should happen any other way. The Alliance undoubtedly had greed and corruption just as the Empire undoubtedly had plenty of men and women wanting to protect and serve. It might be fun to play against the normal good/evil routine and plant the PCs right in the heart of a propaganda war. You could even make it topical and have it hinge around national security and terrorist threats. I'm sure to Average Joe Imperial, the rebellion looks a lot like terrorism.

Regarding the Rakata, one of the side quests in KOTOR was to provide them with genetic data from the temple they couldn't get into. If you follow this thread, over the last 5000 years they could have self corrected their genetic damage and slowly rebuilt their strength. No need for intervention from any outside agent.

I would doubt even evil Rakata would attempt to re-found the Infinite Empire because the situation in the galaxy is not the same. The Rakata used Force-powered hypderdrives that moved between planets strong in the Force, creating isolated pockets of subjugated peoples. Ancient Rakata transport technology would be at a severe disadvantage to current FTL technology.

Not saying the wouldn't make an interesting bad guy, just I would stay away from them wanted to conquer the galaxy personally and provide some other motivations. You could also make it more EotE by creating competing Rakata factions (Force using/non-Force using, Expansionist/Isolationists) to create more of the nooks and crannies where EotE play thrives.

The beautiful thing about being scum and villiany is that sometimes you do things in a short sighted manner. Maybe one day a guy who knows a guy who thinks he knows a guy has a job for your intrepid smuggler crew. All they need to do is get a sample from this medical lab. Now this place is strange its out in the middle of nowhere, far better secured than it should be and far more advanced than anything in this area. You crew does the job turns over the sample and pockets the credits. Just another job and another pay day. Fast forward a year or two and suddenly an ancient race is back in full swing after the miricle cure was delivered.They are doing vile evil things in the name of retaking their power. Maybe even members of your smuggling crews species/family/friends have been tortured/killed/enslaved. Then comes the scuttlebutt about how this miracle cure came from a secret imperial medical/genetic lab that was hit a few years ago.

Now the question is will the scum and villiany hide or will they clean up their mess. How do they react to being used? Will they want vengence for those who have been made to suffer?