Hello everyone!

I'm building a new campaign where some parts will be kind of archeological / force discovery focused.

The PCs are an

Explorer Archeologist (who would have thought) / Force Exile

Bounty Hunter Gadgeteer

and an Ace Hotshot

I would like to involve the Czerka Corporation in some way, providing digsites and jobs for surveying worlds for ressouces and the like. Maybe create conflict when an indiginous people is located right above a potential drilling operation, stuff like that.

They would take a semi-antagonistic role to the players, as in: they will probably have to work for them some of the time even if they don't want to.

But I'm having trouble finding good source material on Czerka. Wookiepedia is little help and as far as I could tell the books make vague references at best.

And my memory of KotOR is patchy at best when it comes to Czerka.

Of course I could make the parts I want/need up myself, but if there is material already out there I would love to use it and save on the workload.

It also doesn't HAVE to be Czerka. Any corp. that would fill this kinda role would work, I just thought a familiar name would be nice.

So if anyone can point me in the right direction or even give suggestions that would be super.

Thank you!

I don't know if there is much. Dangerous Covenants has a little bit of information in the equipment chapter.

Honestly, I think you'd probably be better off switching to something else, such as the Corporate Sector. From what I can read, Czerka Arms (what was once Czerka Corporation) mostly now has their hands solely in munitions, and not the more expansive, morally ambiguous activities that we see them do in the KotOR games.

I think Sienar Systems (the folks that make TIEs) are the new "Czerka" in terms of evil corporations but mostly it's the ISB that would likely give the PCs the most trouble. Because of the fascist nature of the Empire the ISB is indirectly, and directly, involved with supporting those corporations that benefit the Emperor. A good example of how they work is found in Beyond the Rim.

Funny, I was working on the same type of campaign....an exploration campaign where one player first was an Archaeologist but now wants to be a force-sensitive Scout.

(SPOILER ALERT for that player if he's reading this!)

We wanted unexplored space or outer rim so as to be able to discovery new things and to avoid going somewhere that a player had read all of the books or memorized the wiki. I will go with a "shadow" corporation....a secret subsidiary of the CSA. I googled certain exploration-like words for images and came back with "Venture", which is a trucking company, but it has cool logos with a big "V" and "Venture" in various colors. GREAT imagery!

Venture works as an independent company out in the Corp Sector exploring some of those 30,000 systems the wiki says are out there. The people running Venture are legit. They don't know that it's actually doing work for the Empire through the CSA. The president is never seen but by hologram (you know why!), but the ONLY ones who know that are the VP and corporate liaison. The VP runs operations at Venture City (Think Resident Evil: Raccoon City), a permanent settlement on an unnamed jungle planet. There is a corp liaison (who is actually ISB/spy/Empire). SHe's hardcore mean, but the VP and corp officers are nice men, easy for the group to like. (Our group expects betrayal at every turn...especially from corporate types.) I expect the group to develop sympathy for them by the end when Venture City succumbs to a natural disaster (giant insects, I think).

Also going on is the search for a legendary planet...Planet X. It is rumored to have minerals and ores....or alien technology... worth billions!!! Small clues given along adventures.

Adventure ideas?

• mineral/ore samples desired from a gaseous planet. Must land through hazardous atmosphere, place mining equipment (Mech and COmp check), let it run a few hours, then deal with an upcoming storm when drill is finishing. It's a laser drill sampling the planet's surface. Heavy and tough to set up with a main cylinder and 3 legs for stability. Either stop and re-do, which puts them past the deadline....or, must let it finish it's laser drilling in 8 minutes then rush to tear it down and load it up in less than 2 minutes (much harder Mech and COmp checks or risk damaging equipment) It is actually looking for fuel sample for an Empire company)
• IN-City.....mudding with one of the mercs hired to guard the city....swoop riding in the nearby hills. Spot a single insect...take turns sniping it.
• Minor giant insect incursion (STarship Troopers-like)....a foreshadow of future events. Locals are overconfident. Save some civilians when a few insects come into the city and attack the hovertrain.
• They'll be Probe Team 4......sort of a mystery about the other 3 probe teams.....missing or operating concurrently?

Czerka did some stuff in SWTOR that would definitely qualify as sleazy and more than a little illegal, but as far as the current timelines, I have no idea what they are up to. Given that you said the current info on Czerka is a bit thin, then I would say 'run with it'. Sure, they could be working on munitions as far as anyone is concerned, but they could also have digsites and crews searching for Infinite Empire weaponry on various worlds.

If you want a company thats pretty slimy, but would fit in well with the Empire, take a look at Weyland-Yutani from the 'Aliens' movie. Plop down a colony/research team/surveyor team on a planet, and make profit by any means they can. If the locals are in the way...'convince' them to move somewhere else.

A corporation from an old sci-fi rpg was MercCo. Mercenaries and Rent-an-Army, any time, any where, any job. They might have a little bit of trouble working with the Empire...or maybe they do jobs for the Empire that the Empire wants to keep its distance from.... They could also be heavily involved in the Corporate Sector. For the right price, they'll rain down ordinance on any location.

Pretty much, if Czerka doesn't fit, or their current activities are a little too hazy for your tastes, make a corporation. You're the GM.

In run a solo game for our Archaelogist/BigGameHunter/Scout who's player lives abroad and can't attend table meets. She's sponsored by Czerka, and I play them as a typically sleazy, amoral company. She sometimes has to attend company shows as part of her Obligation.

I make most of it up - I basically think 'what's the sleaziest, most underhand thing a big company can do?' and then that's what they do. It's mostly played for laughs, but sometimes it has serious consequences when they try to hush up something horrible they did. They pay really well though so there's a reason she keeps in with them.

There's no shortage of real world examples for me to draw on!

The big thing with Czerka in the imperial era is that they signed their exclusivity agreement with the Empire.

This means that they only have one customer, but that customer is huge, amoral, pays very well, and is totally willing to look the other way on just about anything they do (after all, if it helps Czerka, as their only customer, it helps the Empire).

So they've got this diplomatic immunity, a form of a non-compete (their biggest competitors being BlasTech, Merr-Sonn, and SoroSuub...with Arakyd somewhere not far down the list...but none of them with exclusive contracts, and all of them concerned with other markets as well), and the resources of the Empire to draw upon (Imperial Moffs are far more inclined to divert troops to guard Czerka facilities and escorts for their convoys as opposed to their competitors...which is resources they don't have to invest on their own behalf). With that sort of unfair advantage, questionable morals, and a hungry customer with deep pockets, they'll do whatever it takes to boost margins.

A similarly amoral corporate body might be the Corporate Sector Authority, which is an interesting hybrid military force, bureaucratic government, and business leadership group. In my games, I try to make it clear how The Budget informs every major decision they make, from "The rate of return on supplying these contract laborers with breath masks is less than ten percent...they can deal with the lung rot. If they have a reduced life expectancy because of it, that's less time we have to pay an aging, underperforming worker" all the way to "The organization these prisoners work with is known for scavenging derelict ships...that implies they're strapped for credits and can't afford a reasonable bail fee. Execute them."

In a galaxy with such low population density and variety of life, though, it's a common and accepted theme that, for the most part, the citizens of the galaxy place environmental conservation pretty low on their priority lists. Certain locals defending their own backyards, sure...but rarely if ever do you see groups or individuals advocating for someone else's backyard. This is a value set that many players won't share with the galactic culture, due to our more resource conscious Earth-culture...as a GM, you can twist that knife to your advantage.

Excellent suggestions!

Seems like I'll have to tailor most of it myself, but as already pointed out there are plenty of real examples.

I'll probably run with Czerka then and just put my own twist on it. The name alone will immediately provide the PCs with the right mindset and context, I feel.

Overall between the Empire and the Crimelords this will be a welcoming breath of fresh air at out table as far as this particular RPG goes.

Thank you very much everyone!

The big thing with Czerka in the imperial era is that they signed their exclusivity agreement with the Empire.

This means that they only have one customer, but that customer is huge, amoral, pays very well, and is totally willing to look the other way on just about anything they do (after all, if it helps Czerka, as their only customer, it helps the Empire).

IMO, this could be handled just like the Sith “Rule of Two”. You may never see more than two together onscreen at one time, but there’s always someone else you don’t know about who’s offscreen doing something else for one of those two. And each side will think that they are fooling the other.

So, as sleazoid corporatists, of course Czerka is going to go off and do all sorts of stuff outside of the Imperial charter, but they’re probably going to hire secret subcontractors and sub-subcontractors to handle that at arms length, so that they can’t get blamed for it.

At least, that’s the way I see it. YMMV, etc….

In my game I chose Nar Shaddaa, to be where the Czerka corporate headquarters was located, and oneven of my pcs, Tal (Lee) Seario (a direct descendent of Pollard Seario, whose name is listed on the wookieepedia page for czerka) is the rightful heir of about 10% of the stock in the company. There are 2 main rival factions vying for control of the company with various smaller groups being swing votes at board meetings. The about 20 years ago the faction that is currently in charge had Tal's parents, aunts uncles cousins, etc. all killed except for one "second cousin twice removed" who using the Seario family 10% of stock to tip the scales about 10 years ago they installed as a puppet ceo (actually a human replica droid of the second cousin). Tal's parents fled from the assassins but their ship was sabatouged and they crashed somewhere in the Kathleen sector (probably in the outback). They died but young Tal survived but we're found by young Thad Bane (another PC) and his father who where on a camping trip. Thad Bane comes from a long line of goody two shoes duros lawmen, you may of heard of his infamous uncle, Cad Bane, the black sheep of the family who became a bounty hunter. Thad and his father took young Tal back to their home planet Galtea where Thad's father was the Marshal of the township of Dere (I made up the town but not the planet), where Tal was adopted by the Lee family. recently Czerka learned that Tal is still alive and the faction currently in power is trying to kill him so that their puppet ceo can keep (actually at this point regain) control other the Seario family 10% stock and stay in power. the second faction wants to install Tal as a puppet CEO say that they can take control of czerka. The faction that's trying to kill Tal blew up the party ship (a highly modified loronar e-9 explorer named the red talon) on the tapani free world's planet Tallaan during the annual starwright's trace star ship show, and the party escaped Tallaan by ducking into the collectors portion of the show and Tal making a 5 million credit impulse purchase of a highly modified consular class light cruiser (originally it was going to be a highly modified IR-3f class light frigate, and the stats i'm using are closer to that, but i was able to find a deck plan for it and purchase a wotc "republic cruiser" miniature so I retconned it to be a highly modified consular class light cruiser) using his father's (Tel Seario's) "unlimited" funds credit stick (which Tal got out of a safety deposit box in a gangster bank on the planet Pembric II in the Kathleen sector, one star system over from Galtea). Anyway, this last assassination attempt convinced Tal (who previously had wanted nothing to do with czerka) to go back and deal with his czerka problem (regaining legal control on the Seario family 10% stock) and he's about to be installed as the CEO of czerka which will last less than one session, he's going to have to sign over the majority of his stock over to the leader of the faction that wants hI'm to be a puppet CEO to survive an assassination attempt (remove the incentive to kill him). There's another secret faction vying for control of czerka, a secret droid society. Unbeknownst to the faction currently in power, the human replica droid that the replaced Tal's second cousin twice removed with is a double agent working for the secret droid society, and in its capacity as the puppet CEO has been able to discretely syphon of millions of credits which the secret droid society has used to make more human replica droid to replace other high ranking members of both major czerka factions with. Last session the secret droid society kidnapped the real Tal and the beautiful minor executive daughter of the leader of the faction that wants to make Tal a puppet CEO (at her father's bidding, she had been angling for a relationship/marriage with Tal) and replaced them with replica droids. The secret droid society had held Tal and Arica (using the name of the wotc mini used to represent the beautiful minor executive daughter) together in a cushy romantic apartment prison in the hopes that they would actually become romantically involved so that they could study their behavior and use that to inform the behavior of the replica droids that replaced Tal and Arica. The faction that wants Tal dead actually managed to assainate his replica droid impersonator which tipped off the rest of the party that Tal (and Arica) had been replaced by replica droids and they learned of the existence of the secret droid society. The party did rescue Tal and Arica, who during their imprisonment actually did fall in love.