I have a lot of weird angst about playing Jedi in the OT era; it feels like if too many folks are running around that aren't named Luke, Obi-Wan, and Yoda, then the apocalyptic nature of Order 66 feels significantly undermined, to the point where even canon characters like Ahsoka and Kanan strike me as a bit much (to say nothing of Legends). Yet I understand that FaD is not the movies and part of the fun comes from being the star of your own show, so I'm curious to hear what the forum has to say:

How did your Jedi characters (players or NPCs) manage to survive the Empire's purge?

I've been considering two approaches myself: a Sentinel who was embroiled in some sort of intrigue on the Rim when things really hit the fan and had the combination of obscure location and street smarts needed to vanish, and a Consular who rejected the Jedi Order's involvement in the Clone Wars and chose self-exile over following her peers into what she felt was a betrayal of their own ideals., so that she was long gone and no longer Jedi anyway when the clones turned on their generals.

None of my players are Jedi. They are force sensitive. The Jedi died. Or are only a meager dozen of beings in a Galaxy of Trillions (Quintillions?)

The Force didn't die in Order 66. People continue to be born who can use it. Some live their whole lives never wielding its powers. Others become Dreaded Agents of the Empire. Most go on to have very Lucky lives or make Spiritual Connections in their communities.

But just using the force doesn't make one a Jedi.

3 minutes ago, Tear44 said:

None of my players are Jedi. They are force sensitive. The Jedi died. Or are only a meager dozen of beings in a Galaxy of Trillions (Quintillions?)

The Force didn't die in Order 66. People continue to be born who can use it. Some live their whole lives never wielding its powers. Others become Dreaded Agents of the Empire. Most go on to have very Lucky lives or make Spiritual Connections in their communities.

But just using the force doesn't make one a Jedi.

I understand that, but this thread is about Jedi characters.

For what its worth,

My force sensitive character wasn't born when Order 66 hit.

But the character stumbled into one of the "Jedi" who did disappear during the purge.

I think in a lot of cases, most of the Jedi survivors that are PCs were probably initiates/trainees or very young Padawans that hadn't been Padawans for very long. At least over in Legends, Palpatine knew there were a bunch of Jedi that had managed to survive Order 66, and unlike Vader who was dedicated to truly and utterly eradicating the final remnants of the Order, Palps was content to let the survivors be, but only so long as they stayed hidden and didn't try to resist him. After all, what better way for a megalomanic to enjoy one's victory over your most hated foes than to ensure there are survivors who remember your victory but are powerless to do anything about it?

Also make sure that your players aren't confusing Jedi with "someone capable of using the Force" as Tear44 noted. Just because a PC has had training in the Jedi Arts does not make them a Jedi. In Legends, there are a plethora of Force traditions that are quite adept at using the Force that have nothing to do with the Jedi Order; said traditions generally keep a low profile during Palpatine's reign so as to avoid getting purged like the Jedi Order, but they are still out there, and it's quite possible for a PC to have been trained by one of them.

There are probably also Jedi trainees that washed out long before Order 66 rolled around. Not all Jedi Initiates get chosen to become Padawans, and not all Padawans have what it takes to become a Jedi Knight. So it's entirely possible that a PC was one of those wash-outs, and that any abilities they may have had previously had effectively atrophied from lack of use, or simply remain unused until the character "remembers" they've got them (i.e. spent XP to acquire said abilities). If the PC was a former Padawan, then you're probably looking at having the party start at Knight Level to account for the general level of training/expertise that most Padawans would have.

On 31.1.2017 at 11:45 AM, atamajakki said:

I understand that, but this thread is about Jedi characters.

So the answer is: They did not survive. In most cases they simply did not and in the few they did, they have to keep a low profile or risk the inquisition or even orbital bombardment to silence them forever.

It's rare to start with so many XP to start with a jedi knight anyway. ;-)

All my PCs managed to survive Order 66 by effectively remaining hidden on Nar Shaddaa in Hutt space, three by accident: A son of Nautolan explorers, a daughter of a Dathomir born mercenary, and a former Padawan who suffered amnesia from the 'Force backlash' of Order 66 who has only just remembered he is a former Jedi in training, and now very old by Padawan standards (30's).

The one other PC in my group was saved by a former Jedi Master, who I stated was gifted with an incredible level of Foresee and could sense the black cloud of Order 66 on the horizon (though didn't actually know what it was) and ran from the Core Worlds rescuing the PC (then a youngling)... The master died at the beginning of the first scenario, his own death far too clouded by the Dark Side that he only sensed it's approach just before it happened... But long enough to do his Gandalf 'Fly, you fools' bit.

2 hours ago, MDR101 said:

The one other PC in my group was saved by a former Jedi Master, who I stated was gifted with an incredible level of Foresee and could sense the black cloud of Order 66 on the horizon (though didn't actually know what it was) and ran from the Core Worlds rescuing the PC (then a youngling)... The master died at the beginning of the first scenario, his own death far too clouded by the Dark Side that he only sensed it's approach just before it happened... But long enough to do his Gandalf 'Fly, you fools' bit.

This was my one and only Jedi's backstory exactly. The Master Sentinel rescued a youngling during the Purge and vanished. Raised him alone on a far flung forest planet, teaching him to use the Force from the shadows. First adventure, he fell for an Imperial plot to lure jedi from their hiding holes, and the Master ran smack into Vader. "Fly, you fools."

When I made a character, my idea was that he technically wasn't a padawan or a jedi, but rather a force sensitive who was missed by the jedi recruitment system that received some degree of training from a jedi during the clone wars. He was an indigenous resistance fighter that had made contact with the clone army (and the attached jedi) and was helping as a guide and liaison with the rest of the local resistance. The fighting continued for some time, and during that, the jedi noticed the PC's abilities, and opted to teach him at least some of the basics of interacting with the force ("reach out with your feelings," blah blah blah). As this sort of training wasn't technically permitted, there was no record of the characters association with the jedi, and he was able to avoid being Order 66'd (although he did see it first hand at a distance).

I like the idea of a Sentinel being involved in something out on the Rim - away from Clone Troopers - when O66 went down.

It's not too hard to come up with reasons why other Jedi might have been away from Clone Troopers.

If you want something that allows a bunch of Jedi to survive I'd recommend expanding on something from Ep III: Obi-wan sends out a encoded Jedi message (from the Temple) warning jedi to stay away and go into hiding (Kanan has a recording of this message - though he just happened to barely survive being killed by Clone Troopers himself). So maybe a bunch of Jedi got the message and went into hiding. Maybe Bail Organa (or his allies) managed to pick up more Jedi than just Yoda and Obi-wan.

Kanan survived his encounter with the Clone Troopers as well as Obi-wan and Yoda. Perhaps others did too. Or, as already said, a Jedi was not with Clone Troopers for whatever reason.

In a campaign I'm currently running, two of the PCs (siblings) were both Initiates in a Jedi training clan, and were out on what amounted to an educational field trip with other clan members being chaperoned by a novice Jedi Knight when Order 66 went down. As they weren't on a combat op, there were no Clone Troopers on hand to execute Order 66, so it was possible for the entire group to avoid getting killed. They've since gone their separate ways, with the two PCs sticking together.

Only one of the PCs had chosen a Lightsaber Form spec (Guardian/Soresu Defender) while the other was a Mystic/Seer (she wanted to be a Force wizard), though both had at least one rank in the Lightsaber skill (the Seer picked it as one of her bonus non-career skills) to account for having at least basic proficiency with it. Neither of them really consider themselves to be "Jedi" in the truest sense of the word, though the Seer has more of the mindset while the Guardian leans towards a more pragmatic view of whether openly acting like Jedi is such a hot idea.

Most of my groups have people who just started developing abilities and began their own journeys to learn what it all means. Only a few are interested in being Jedi and only one was born of Jedi (his father was someone who was falling away from the order before Order 66). The idea is that even if they get to a point where they claim they are Jedi, knowing the players and how they are playing the characters, they will not adhere to the Jedi code, they are not taught by anyone who is still around (either taught by holocrons or by people who are no longer considered Jedi), so by the remnant of the official order (just Yoda at this point really), they are not Jedi. That or Luke was just fed more lies to do what he needed to do. They couldn't give him an out. "Oh yeah I just talked to Kanan and Ezra a couple days ago... they totes got your back if you're not up to it Luke."

Well I have an Inquisitor NPC I upgraded to PC awhile back. I used the Clone Wars to flesh out his backstory. So he was a Jedi padawan, who fell to the dark side after becoming disillusioned with the Order and decide to hunt down his former brother's and sister's.

i don't know if his survival counts as Cheating cause he isn't a Jedi anymore but that's how he did it.

3 minutes ago, Shlambate said:

Well I have an Inquisitor NPC I upgraded to PC awhile back. I used the Clone Wars to flesh out his backstory. So he was a Jedi padawan, who fell to the dark side after becoming disillusioned with the Order and decide to hunt down his former brother's and sister's.

i don't know if his survival counts as Cheating cause he isn't a Jedi anymore but that's how he did it.

That works fine. The Grand Inquisitor on Star Wars Rebels was a former Jedi Temple Guard, so...

My signature character, Korath, wasn't born until about 7-8 years BBY, but his parents were both survivors as younglings. His Master was an ancient Star Dragon Jedi Master who stayed away from Coruscant (he was a really "old-school" Jedi Master, as in pre Ruusan Reformations) and wasn't involved in the Clone Wars.

There are technically two Jedi in my current group: The first, Aesa, was a Jedi Master selected for a deep space observation mission to the Unknown Regions. Using an experimental hyperdrive on a colony ship fit to carry thousands, the aim was to establish a colony of the Republic on the far side of the Galaxy. A Jedi Master, her Padawan Learner, their Legion of Clones, and a cross section of Scientists, Colonists, and Diplomats were to establish a microcosm of the Republic on the far edge of space and begin colonizing their way back towards the Galactic Core. This way, the galaxy could be explored from both sides. The colony ship disappeared, not to be heard from again. In reality, it was a convenient way for Palpatine to rid the Republic of dissident voices without the need to attract undue attention, and most of the Republic officers were those that expressed reservations regarding the militarization of the Republic, along with those civilians that were of great renown but "resistant ideologies" to Palpatine's vision of the future. While Palpatine had foreseen the hyperdrive would have a critical malfunction, his assumption that the complete disappearance of the ship meant it's destruction was incorrect. The colony ship was actually caught by a Dark Side Nexus in hyperspace (see my adventure The Force Explorer ) which, when removed, dropped the ship back into realspace. Unfortunately, the warping of time within the Nexus had seen two decades pass.

The second, Tam, was a Jedi who was sent to act in an advisory capacity to a distant Outer Rim planet. Never a particularly skilled Jedi, he was chosen for his natural tendency to rely on his own devices as opposed to support from the Council. The planet he was on was exceptionally Xenophobic, and generally distrustful of the central government of the Republic. In fact, it was only because of his personal experiences in assisting the world that he was even allowed there. With his own distance from reliance on the Council, and the planets natural aversion to outside influence, he got along well on his own and regular communication wasn't made with the Council, but both the Senate and Council were satisfied that the world at least had a representative of the central government on site. With the outbreak of the Clone Wars, the planet was cut off from the Republic, and as it wasn't a military asset in any way, was largely ignored by both sides, being fairly insignificant. Also by this time, Tam spent so much time just helping those on the planet he had become more farmer than Jedi. With the Separatists as disinterested in the world as the Republic was, the backwater planet barely even noticed the war. At the close of the Clone Wars, and the Rise of the Empire, Tam had already fallen in love with a local woman, and when he received the automated message from Obi-Wan to go into hiding, he decided to put down the robes and become just a farmer. Sadly, even backwater worlds eventually come to the attention of tyrants, and so the Empire came to Tam's world. As expected, the ideals of the xenophobic world clashed with the Empire's ideas of incorporation into the galactic regime, and when they tried to resist, many paid the price, Tam's wife included. Now, the need for him to pick up the robes has returned, though his powers are weak from disuse.

A PC in a game I'm about to start running is playing a Jedi Knight who basically "unofficially" left the order.

His first mission as a Jedi Knight was as a squadron commander and his entire squadron was wiped out - he felt rushed into the position - and his confidence shaken he left the Order and the war. The Jedi who "processed" his resignation - accepting his lightsaber and so forth - decided not to officially report it hoping the PC would come back at some point. Jedi/Republic/Imperial records seemed to indicate that the PC died with his squadron.

The PC set up on an out-of-the-way world hoping to mind his own business, even turning away a Bothan rebel. The Empire, tracking down the Bothan, didn't believe the PC so burned down his house anyway...convincing him to join the Rebellion - no matter what he did he couldn't stay out of the fight.

Jedi Heresies.

Earth is a single planet, and Christianity is only 2000 years old. Since the very beginning, there have been disagreements on doctrine and belief. There has never been a single, unified "Christianity." We have Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, Southern Baptists, Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovia's Witnesses, Amish, Mennonites, and Quakers. That's just what I can name off the top of my head, and I ain't even Christian. If you consider that Christianity is a branch of the Abrahamic religions, you also have to start counting all the different sects of Judaism and Islam. It's a lot, and we're a single planet, with a single sentient species, and that's just one root religion.

Now, in a place as vast as the Galaxy, with many more millennia to get weird, the possibilities are endless. Every time a Jedi has a fundamental, unworkable disagreement with the Jedi Council, there's a good chance he'll go off on his own. Some of these "heresies" will be clearly dark, and the Jedi will have to hunt down the new cult. Some of them will be right in line with what we recognize as Jedi beliefs, but be different politically. "There should not be a single, elite Jedi Council." "Jedi should be able to marry." "The Jedi should defend the weak, not the interests of the Galactic Senate."

I imagine Jedi Knights would have left in droves at the outset of the Clone Wars. "Let me understand this. Due to corruption and lobbying, numerous star systems feel that the Senate does not represent their interests. After much diplomacy and politicking, these systems have banded together, and demand the right to govern themselves. Perhaps we should serve as mediators, to ensure that, whatever the final decision, it is enacted peacefully, and with as little violence as possible? Oh, instead we, the guardians of peace and freedom, are supposed to take a vast army of genetically engineered warrior-slaves (created under mysterious and almost certainly illegal circumstances) and jump headlong into a galactic war that will last for years. You know what? I'm out."

That's a lot of room for a lot of Jedi traditions to start on some backwater world. Many would die out on their own, but a lot, with (in my opinion) just as valid a claim to the title, "Jedi Knight," would have survived.

There would have been tons of people who had Jedi training but didn't pass the Jedi trials, so they never became Jedi knights. Most of them ended up employed in other orders of the temple, and were deployed all over the galaxy in non-combat roles. They would have had a much better chance to escape than the actual Jedi Knights.

13 hours ago, atamajakki said:

I have a lot of weird angst about playing Jedi in the OT era; it feels like if too many folks are running around that aren't named Luke, Obi-Wan, and Yoda, then the apocalyptic nature of Order 66 feels significantly undermined, to the point where even canon characters like Ahsoka and Kanan strike me as a bit much (to say nothing of Legends). Yet I understand that FaD is not the movies and part of the fun comes from being the star of your own show, so I'm curious to hear what the forum has to say:

How did your Jedi characters (players or NPCs) manage to survive the Empire's purge?

I've been considering two approaches myself: a Sentinel who was embroiled in some sort of intrigue on the Rim when things really hit the fan and had the combination of obscure location and street smarts needed to vanish, and a Consular who rejected the Jedi Order's involvement in the Clone Wars and chose self-exile over following her peers into what she felt was a betrayal of their own ideals., so that she was long gone and no longer Jedi anyway when the clones turned on their generals.

The jedi purge was made by Vador during the 20 years between the 2 trilogy. For myself, I see order 66 as a quick strike against the Temple and the jedi counsel, not the total eradication of the Order.

Official holovid recordings show him being executed by clone troopers as per order 66. That is all. Nothing to see here. Move along citizen. His resemblance to anyone living or dead, is purely coincidental.

*Edited Typo

We're talking about a -galaxy- here, with literally a billion of populated worlds. To enact something like the killing of every single member of an entire order with scattered members all over that galaxy would be logistically and technically impossible (unless you engineered some kind of FTL-travel-capable grey goo that spread exponentially from world to world and ate all force sensitives or something, which the Empire clearly has not done). I'd consider it more strange that only Yoda, Kanan and Obi-Wan survived than that hundreds of Jedi did. The important thing for Force & Destiny's purposes is that the -order- was destroyed, because its leadership, infastructure and resources were wiped out, and that would really, by proxy, destroy the Jedi as a concept too, because even though many of them must have survived, they would be scattered, confused and without legitimacy and organisation, and thus, as a group, seize to be. And that's what makes for good, personal stories - the surviving Jedi and their struggles.

Thus, I prefer in some ways the old Legends continuity's version, where many Jedi survived in hiding but were utterly insignificant in the larger picture. It's both more believable, more dynamic and more bleak than a melodramatic, all-encompassing democide. This is what I've been using in my campaign.

Regarding the PCs, two of the three are in denial about their Force Abilities, but all have some sort of background connection to the Jedi order. One, a nautolan pilot, is rather old and worked with the Jedi in the Clone Wars and have fond memories of them. Another, a zabrak warrior, had a mother who was a Jedi, but seems to, in a misguided attempt to protect him, have Force Persuaded him that the Force did not exist, before leaving him to try and escape the Jedi purge. This has given him a huge mental block and internalized anger. My guess is that his mother failed to escape, and was killed somehow. Maybe I'll introduce an Inquisitor as her killer later, could be a good villain. The third PC, a mirialan mechanic, have some actual jedi training; Saar Harn , a downtrodden and rugged Nikto jedi in hiding after the purge ran into her on accident (or was it the force?) while she was a slave on Zygerria, and reluctantly took her in as his unofficial padawan, before abandoning her in suspicious circumstances. I was thinking of him having died in some reall unworthy fashion like shot during a card game or run over by a speeder while drunk, but he's such good dramatical stuff for the mirialan PC that I'll probably keep him alive and introduce him at some point.

Now comes HUGE HUGE SPOILERS FOR MY PLAYERS.

Except for this, I have introduced (or plan to introduce) three surviving jedi as NPC, one is directly taken from Star Wars Legends, another is an original creation, and a third one is mixed. I'll probably refrain from introducing more than these, at least unless the campaign becomes very long, because even though I think many more have survived, as I stated above, they would be really, reaaally scattered (not to mention, hunted) and unable to find each other in the vast galaxy, and many might just have put away their lightsaber and tried to live a quite life. Anyhoo, the three I have are:

K'Kruhk have survived in hiding on Toola, keeping a very low profile. He did aid the PCs when he began suspecting they were force sensitives, but didn't reveal himself; he only snuck into their ship and hid the astrogation chart for Tython on their computer, trusting in the force to guide them there when they were ready. Unfortunately, it happened way too soon. I could use him to great effect in a cutscene by describing him as he snuck in, because at least one or two of the players knew about him from Legends and recognized him by the concept of his cool hat, and thus were prepared when he did a mind trick on an NPC, having her ignore him as he walked around the ship when the PCs were not there.

Ilum is maybe the highest ranking Jedi known to have survived in my setting. She's half from Legends, but I've taken her story in new directions. Ilum is a Shard, i.e, a sentient but immobile crystal, so she's very, very low profile and time is on her side; she's more than a thousand years old. She probably could have survived even under less favorable circumstances, but as it happened, at the end of the Clone Wars, she was somehow at odds with the Jedi Council, and absconded with some followers to find the forgotten world of Tython. They hoped to find knowledge there, something to mend the Jedi order, or maybe just a refuge from what they perceived as its growing corruption. But although Ilum's expedition did reach Tython, they were beset by misfortune and got marooned on the desolate world. Soon enough Ilum sensed the purge happening, and the horror of it, exacerbated by Tythons' force vergencies, drove her mad. She eventually fell to the dark side and killed those of her pupils that had not yet fallen prey to Tython's dangers. She then meditated for years upon years, and learnt to craft a shadow-body for herself through the dark side, so she could be carried to the ancient Gree hypergate on Tython, and thus escape. The PCs arrival changed all this. Ilum sensed them, and realized another means of escaping the planet had come. If nothing happens that makes me change my mind, she'll relentlessly manipulate the PCs until she can betray them and escape with their starship, leaving them on Tython to die. She'll then embark on some sinister agenda and become a primary antagonist in the campaign. For more about her, and thoughts regarding her fall, see my thread "Designing a really, reeeally weird NPC".

The last of my Jedi is much less thought out, as she hasn't appeared yet. She's Noreekee , an Ayrou, a kind of weird avian humanoid. She was a controversial Jedi, and maybe even got banished at some point, whatever the case, I think she ended up a prisoner on some horrible labor camp planet, where she has subtly been stirring up insurrection right under the nose of the authorities. If they ever knew she was a Jedi, she's long ago made that fact disappear from the records, and she might have been a prisoner since before the Jedi purge began (thus inadvertently escaping it). I don't know how the PCs will run into her yet, maybe through Ilum mentioning her existence, but she's the one who'll become a mentor of sorts for them, albeit excentric, and it remains to be seen how trustworthy she'll be.

Ever read the Dark Times comics series? Familiar with Dass Jennir?

On 31/1/2017 at 9:49 PM, The Grand Falloon said:

I imagine Jedi Knights would have left in droves at the outset of the Clone Wars. "Let me understand this. Due to corruption and lobbying, numerous star systems feel that the Senate does not represent their interests. After much diplomacy and politicking, these systems have banded together, and demand the right to govern themselves. Perhaps we should serve as mediators, to ensure that, whatever the final decision, it is enacted peacefully, and with as little violence as possible? Oh, instead we, the guardians of peace and freedom, are supposed to take a vast army of genetically engineered warrior-slaves (created under mysterious and almost certainly illegal circumstances) and jump headlong into a galactic war that will last for years. You know what? I'm out."

The Jedi also had, at least in Legends, the Right of Denial. This left them unarmed (they had to hand in their lightsabers) and stripped of any authority, Jedi only in name. An even more radical approach was to simply resign from the Order as Count Dooku did ebfore becoming a Sith Lord.

Spoilers for a campiagn

My Campiagn has met 3 Jedi. One is the apprentice of Ward, Elza (Yes, the jewel of Yavin lady) a PC called Raine and Ward himself for our particular campaign. Aside from Ward no one really knows how they escaped Order 66, Raine has since died to hold off Darth Vader and Eliza was last seen fighting with an inquisitor, thus how exactly they have survived is a mysterious to most PC's. We also know that a man called Sirak was also an ex apprentice of Warde and when he fell he killed every apprentice of ward (there were 6 including himself and Eliza) and is still hunting for Warde, believing he was abandoned.

Spoilers done.