Hi all

i'm playing a mini campaign started with beginner game then following with Operation Shadowpoint plus some other adventures as event seeds (ie Perlemian Haul, Dead in Water and some made-by-me event seeds like one for kyber crystal)

At the moment they are all around recruiting people and providing supply line, but still is important to clearly state who's the Imperial Players on the planet and what they can and will do.

So far, from Beginner Game and some notes on Operations Shadowpoint i see

- Admiral Corlen is the main imperial player. He's the one on Japrael system and the one behind imperial garrison. Also, he's the one who should NEVER know about whisper base; secrecy of the base from Corlen is the single most important thing about the mission, and if he should ever know something, mission wuold be a failure, and they should leave quickly enough. Losing time, resources and probably sentient's lifes.

- Moff Dardano is a Moff, probably more influent than Corlen, but in another sector. He's a political adversary of Corlen and he established Whisper base to spy on him and also to use it to gain personal advantage. However, now Whisper base is gone, and he obviously got all interest on keeping it secret. Moff Dardano can't confront directly Corlen, but also is a loyal Moff so is not eager to let the rebels go and spy on the Empire Intelligence.

- Maybe Dardano does'nt know the base was captured, but he will soon, and then he will try get back the base or at least destroy the SigInt Array and all his data. Dardano can't play openly: he can't drop his troops on Onderon 'cause of Corlen's troops presence. He also can't "sell" the rebels location to Corlen or he could get exposed and let Corlen know he was spying on him.

He's then planning on taking back the base, and the final confrontation of Operation Shadowpoint is about that

However there's something missing:

if the PC will expose him, try blackmailing him, or just when they defeat his final assault, Dardano will have no reason to not go Corlen (or even an Admiral he's friend with) and expose the whisper base presence.

if the PC will start reducing Corlen's authority, stealing cargo on his sector and letting leak sensible informations, they are actually doing Dardano a favour, so he could "close one eye" and let them operate long enough to actually start thinking about letting them go and thus maybe start thinking is too risky to attack them and just containing information leak is good enough

what do you think about it? what's your ideas?

Also, i'd like to let them know something more about Corlen-Dardano relationship: what's the reason behind their political rivality? there is something else about them?

maybe Dardano has a reason why can't absolutely risk being exposed, maybe he's doing it with other political rivals so he could be exposed against ALL his rivals?

or there is some other hidden agendas (Dardano's or even maybe Corlen's) to keep the situation in balance?

lat but not least, the Rebel Alliance is not investing in a lost cause, and even if the SigInt Array is good, is not too good to lose several months, agents and resource knowing the base will eventually fall. So maybe there is a contingency plan in case the mission fail... or maybe something really, REALLY important to know, so even a complete failure is worth the risk?

what do you think? your ideas?

anyone who played this adventure (or used is in some parts) has something to share with me?

thanks for your advices

If I remember correctly, one of the blurbs in the book offered alternate takes on Corlen - perhaps he was a rebel plant who accidentally worked his way up the ranks being one of them. I took that and ran with it, and in fact the Moff was suspicious of him which is why he even built the secret base to spy on him and find evidence. Corlen is the one who leaked the base's location to the Alliance, but had to act publicly like he still didn't know the base existed.

At the end of Shadowpoint's followup, I think Dardano was in the AT-AT bearing down on the base for the final showdown; this let the players work hard at disabling the AT-AT, and once that was done, he was basically captured. Calling for help from the Admiral would have been worse than being captured, so he allowed himself to be taken with the expectation that an Imperial mole would either a) effect his rescue or b) alert that he was captured to generate a bigger mission to free him.

Oh. Ok.

I admit i was missing this passage... i read the adventure once, and i forgot the blue box about Admiral Corlen x_x

however, this still does answer one doubt of mine: why Moff Dardano does'nt let the PC fight and spy and on Admiral Corlen?

If he suspect Admiral's a rebel, the leaking of information can be used as a proof of his involvment; if he does'nt, still stop leaking of sensible imperial information should be more important than political rivality (and also, he can deny every connection with the base and accusing the rebel of framing him)

I am currently running the same campaign with a few extra seeds thrown in for extra interest. I am treating Corlen as a high level Rebel sympathiser/information source. The PC's don't know this, they are too low level and not trusted with this secret. After they defeat the Moff, or the Moff retakes the base, I plan on having the ISB take Corlen into custody and have the PC's be ordered by Rebel Command to rescue him.

As to the Moff's motives, I am treating him as unsure that the base is lost, and if it is lost he is not sure of the circumstances, have the rebellion captured it? Has Corlen bought the loyality of the Moff's troops? Once he is convinced that the rebellion has the base he launches his efforts to retake it because he is concerned about having his 'off the books' facility revealed to higher imperial authorities. Perhaps Corlen has connections in the empire that mean the Moff can't just bring accusations against him, or perhaps Corlen has something over the Moff that would be extremely damaging to him and he can't risk Corlen revealing that. I haven't worried about the motivations too much because I don't think the PC's would be aware of the motivations anyway, although they may speculate.