Looking for any ideas on scenes, adventures, or specific elements to suggest for a campaign:

So - on a theory that our group is somewhat....variable...in attendance, we've decided to try a small-scale group with the two most reliable members, so we've got something to fall back on when it's just them.

They wanted to try Force And Destiny, which I like the sound of. The other star wars settings probably work better with a larger group of players than two, plus they really like the idea of occasionally smacking people upside the head with a lightsaber. Which I can get behind.

Anyway, I decided on the KOTOR period (more or less) because it's recognisably star wars but not, and because I've read/played a lot of the (now-Legends) stuff but they haven't.

This means that I can steal some good ideas where needed, and - by setting them as young-ish padawans, they know enough to know what their relatively young and insularly-raised characters should know (skippy the jedi droid says: Light Side Good, Dark Side Bad, broad outlines like coruscant, sith, mandalorians, but very little period-relevant detail) without being burdened with a lot of out-of-character knowledge.

Because I think it's an awesome RPG setting, I was going to broadly plagiarise the Knights Of The Old Republic graphic novel series (Zane Carrick and co) with our heroes cast in the role of Zane and getting a first-hand look at what "by any means necessary" actually entails.

We'll be going with Knight-level play; so the characters start out nearly knights and pretty competent.

The two players:

One has his eye on being human, with a mandalorian background (narratively, rather than any game mechanics) with Shii-Cho knight with enhance to start with. I've had a quick discussion and we've come up with the idea that he's a war orphan taken in as a ward by the Jedi (which means that setting it relatively shortly after Exar Kun and the Great Sith War makes sense as a hell of a lot of Mandalorian casualties would be spread around the galaxy).

He won't know much about the Mandalorians in practice, but is likely to have a few ill-repressed issues for so many of 'his people' getting killed. Which will balance well with finding out (in practice) when he gets out of the temple into a world which actually got hit in the war, that whilst not given to random acts of sadistic war crime in the same way as the Sith, are brutally efficient warriors and not exactly "nice people".

He's got a nice mental image of his character when fully equipped; mandalorian shock armour (give or take), a lightsaber pike and a cortosis shield. Think a sort of "jedi hoplite". Obviously he's not going to get the armour and shield to start with.

The other has her eye on human as well, but a 'pure jedi temple' brat who's got increasing doubts about the order.

Partly to play up a miss-match between the two, and partly because she likes the idea, she's looking at an ataru striker with sense, and ultimately wants a double-blade saber. So very little armour (maybe robes) but hard to hit with sense, and maybe an energy buckler (again, not initially).

Thoughts i'd had to tie them into 'the world':

• putting it closer than the original KOTOR series to the war would help there; if it happened whilst the foundling was a (very young) child, she would remember bits of mentors leaving and either being told [killed in the war] or [we don't talk about what happened to them]. Which would be very interesting if one of her closer figures (in so far as she remembers) ended up as one of Kun's soldiers.
• Double potential for conflict if her current master is a war veteran (not unreasonable and probably likely if they're a covenant member).
• Triple potential for conflict if one or more of the current masters killed the tutor-turned-dark jedi. and possibly 'adopted' her former favourite younglings as padawans to 'keep an eye on them'.
• having one of the masters at the temple have a former padawan who was killed by the mandalorians would help tie things back into the orphan. For extra fun have the mandalorian be (not that anyone necessarily knows it) be his father.
• They need a zane karrick-style reason to be late to the party, and the "personal mission that they get a second chance at" remains a good one. Players being players, and reliably doing precisely what they're not supposed to do, having someone actively prevent them make it might be nice - so a criminal actively ambushing them for revenge might work. Nothing slows you down like someone shooting your cab out of the air with a missile tube.
• Which means a 'scene-setting' mission where they do something to annoy the criminal syndicate enough to consider doing this. The foundling player has an out-of-character dislike of Hutts, and the Hutt cartels are generally old enough, and you can always find a Hutt cartel doing something unethical that needs stopping, so that might be an easy 'win'.
• Since we don't have the cut-away scene to the masters having their force vision, if they want any hints dropped, they can be concerned about 'a vision' of some kind, and the best way to hint at an order-within-an-order is spotting a secret messenger - maybe have someone looking suitably nefarious arrive from off-world and have a cloistered meeting with the masters.
• Not all the masters are necessarily going to be covenant members. Which means that the one who isn't needs to be disposed of. I'm not sure if it'd have more impact for it to be a teacher they actually like or one they really don't (and the teacher they like be the ones doing the murdering).
• There could do with being an easy call-back to the orphan's mando heritage. Having a surviving mandalorian on the planet as an ex-prisoner, or left behind, might work; an underworld figure hiring a surviving mandalorian would make sense. The orphan could either inherit his armour and shield, or else the survivor might be able to fill in his heritage and background and have an armour and shield that was "intended to be his" that - if he was 'adopted' by the jedi as a baby, makes sense that it was comissioned as his "first armour" when he was born. Which, in turn, casts our surviving mandalorian as the armourer who made it. Which, in turn, makes sense - but if he was important enough to have that done for him, suggests his father was vaguely important. I'm not suggesting mandalore or anything, but some sort of clan or sub-clan commander.
• As a group resource, I would probably suggest a holocron - because it's a nice narrative tool for the players to ask "sorry, what the hell is a [Old Republic specific thing]" in game without handing them an NPC to do their interacting or fighting for them. Having the former tutor as the gatekeeper is one possibility. Another (depending on precisely how she went dark jedi) is that it's a sith holocron she 'collected' and was trying to access, that somehow didn't get taken with her when she went off to join Exar Kun.
• I had a random idea of how to hide it. I know most holocrons are all ornate and covered in metalwork tracery, but since they're 9at first inspection) a multifaceted, shaped piece of crystal, could you make a holocron look like a lightsaber crystal? And essentially hide it in a "broken" hilt?
• I wasn't sure if I wanted to start them off with traning saber emitters. But it strikes me that if they're close enough to knights to have preferred non-standard sabers, they're probably past the point of training sabers.
• Still, I'd quite like to see them (especially the foundling) getting a non-standard crystal, as a heritage tie-in and as a match for the "inherited armour". I suspect the Barab Ingot's burn trait would grab her attention due to some mild and entirely healthy pyromania, although I'm not sure what to make it narratively. I'd like it to be something more significant than 'lightsaber crystal +1'.
• Possibly have a 'final trials' include some sparring? Gives them a good chance to get their heads around the rules (including the 'fly casual' Showdowns for one-blow-duels) and I'd like to think even veterans might consider using training sabers on each other. Which explains why they're still armed with training sabers when it all drops in the pot shortly afterwards.

Anyway; any thoughts or inputs for the campaign are welcome!

Lightsaber pike is two handed iirc, so can it be used with a cortosis sheild , im away from my books so cannot double check.

Edit - scratch that im foretting in Swtor the knights uses pikes and shields.

I'm happy to up the 'cumbersome' rating if he's trying to use it one-handed, but then so is he - he took Enhance up to the +1 brawn level, so can summon up a point of brawn over and above what's required if he needs to.

I had a random idea of how to hide it. I know most holocrons are all ornate and covered in metalwork tracery, but since they're 9at first inspection) a multifaceted, shaped piece of crystal, could you make a holocron look like a lightsaber crystal? And essentially hide it in a "broken" hilt?

Had a look around and can't see any suggestion one way or another on this one. Could it work? For that matter does it sound feasible that you could make a holocron which is able to act as a kyber crystal?

In Chronicles of the Gatekeeper on the first planet there is a guy who has one of the three crystals needed to make the holocron work to its fullest capabilities. So a whole holocron I'd say no. However, in a sidebar they bring up the option of the guy having a lightsaber using the holocron crystal as a lightsaber crystal for knight-level pcs, so there's that possibility.

Since gaining a lightsaber (or rather assembling it yourself) is a pivotal moment with a great deal of potential for story...I'd consider starting with training sabers first. Perhaps you were about to start your trials when the war ended and everything got up-ended. Maybe the character fell or abandoned his path, and has spent the last few years finding his way back. Maybe the beloved Master fell, has been framing (altering memories) and hunting down all his former comrades and their students...and no one believes the Padawan when he claims his innocence.

Then again these are how I'd tell the story...BUT this is your (and the player's) story. Ask and discuss how they want to go about the broad story arc.

I was planning to start them with training sabers, so yes.

Glad to see the holocron crystal idea works. That works well too - because it's not that wierd for a former tutor who felt close to a student to leave them a holocron (even if it's one hell of a gift!) as the order could check the holocron and find that it contains just ataru lightsaber techniques and some advice about convoluted ethical problems.

The fact that her old saber's "kyber crystal" has the information in it that she wanted to pass on but couldn't do so openly works rather well.

That then gives us two 'equipment' missions early on - one to acquire the foundling's tutor's saber and holocron and one to acquire the orphan's father's armour and shield.

Are you planning on including the darksaber in your campaign? I think that may be a cool addition.

I'd consider giving the option of Mandolorian rules to the PC who wants to be one, while not much different they do offer flavor for creation.