So, "Season 2" of my Star Wars campaign is getting ready to kick off. I've got "Episode 1" all figured out and ready to play, and am on to "Episode 2." My games tend to be relatively on-rails, as my players are more interested in a cinematic story experience with this game than a sandbox experience (That's what we have D&D for in my group). Since Halloween is coming up, I felt like running my players through a spooky game session for "Episode 2." With that in mind, I had the idea to put my players through the tried-and-true 'ghost ship' experience. Ever since reading Death Troopers, I've loved the idea of an abandoned space vessel. It's got such a perfectly creepy vibe. This was done fairly well in Star Wars Rebels season 2 as well.

The ship I'm thinking of having my players explore is a derelict Dreadnought -class heavy cruiser, as the name of the topic suggests. With that covered, I have two questions:

1. Does anyone here have any experience with making floor plans for ships in this game? I know a couple smaller vessels have been given a basic floor plan in the sourcebooks, but the Dreadnought is quite a bit bigger, if I'm not mistaken, and has a very different layout. I've found the outer schematics, but nothing internal.

2. What do you guys think would be a fun, scary ready this Dreadnought would be abandoned? I probably won't be going with the "zombie stormtroopers" scenario from Death Troopers, and I'm already planning on using a Nightsister Inquisitor in "Episode 1," so Force witches are also out of the question.

Right now, my current train of thought is that this ship was a Rebellion-refitted Dreadnought , which has had many of its heavier weapons replaced with tractor beams for the purpose of serving as a cargo vessel rather than a war ship before the Rebels hijacked it. While stopped at a waypoint and calculating its next hyperspace jump, the Dreadnought had been boarded by a couple Dark Troopers, which did serious damage to the ship and killed off most of the Rebels on-board, with the remaining Rebels trying to flee in the escape pods. The Dark Troopers then activated the tractor beams to hold the escape pods in place, then blew apart the escape pods with the few remaining weapons. However, due to the amount of damage the Dark Troopers did to the vessel, the hyperdrive is no longer functional, leaving the heavy cruiser sitting derelict at an off-the-beaten-trail hyperspace waypoint. The tractor beams remained active, with the intent of capturing any vessels that came to investigate the heavy cruiser, under the assumption that the only vehicles that would come to search for it would be other Rebel ships.

At the moment, that's just a rough idea, and if anyone has other ideas for a scarier experience aboard an abandoned Dreadnought , I'm all ears! I really want to make this a Halloween game to remember, so I'm completely open to suggestions.

2 hours ago, Underachiever599 said:

2. What do you guys think would be a fun, scary ready this Dreadnought would be abandoned? I probably won't be going with the "zombie stormtroopers" scenario from Death Troopers, and I'm already planning on using a Nightsister Inquisitor in "Episode 1," so Force witches are also out of the question.

What about an evil AI that is in control of the ship? Some kind of mix between the Red Queen (Resident Evil) and Shodan (System Shock).

2 minutes ago, MasterZelgadis said:

What about an evil AI that is in control of the ship? Some kind of mix between the Red Queen (Resident Evil) and Shodan (System Shock).

Ooh! That would be fun. Especially with one of the player characters in my group. He's playing a fairly unstable droid that was the result of a penny-pinching crime lord trying to assemble his own assassin droid. The crime lord didn't feel like putting any credits in toward hiring an actual assassin droid, so instead he just put a B-1 Battle Droid's memory banks into a cobbled-together chassis of a 21-B Medical Droid. Problem is, he never removed the Medical Droid's memory core, the the makeshift assassin droid has the equivalent of schizophrenia. He'll sometimes shoot someone, only to run over and heal them the next turn. He's frequently turned on the party Jedi for a turn when he sees them pull out lightsabers, due to his Battle Droid programming. And when he learned about how he was assembled, he realized, "Hey, wait a minute. Does that mean I can just transfer my memory banks to other machines?" Since then, he's been dying to try hooking himself up to other machines to create doubles of himself. Throwing him into a situation where he's facing an insane AI that's slaved all of the ships droids to itself and launched a mechanized coup could be hilarious, just to see what the player comes up with. Heck, for all I know, he'll join in the droid uprising.

http://thompsonpeters.com/eote/deckplans_capital/ second one down is a pdf of a seven deck layout of an old Dreadnought.

This is a really fun idea! I love a good haunted house story, in whatever guise it happens to be. Add in some scientifically-based environmental factors like parts of the ship being so broken up that they're exposed to vacuum or something, and it'd be perfect!

While we're on the subject, everyone who likes a good haunted house story needs to read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House . It is the epitome of literary genre fiction.

Can't have a thread about creepy Dreadnaughts without bringing up the hive virus.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hive_virus

Your dreadnaught need not be part of the Katana fleet, but it might be something you can use. I get a real Firefly reaver feel from a space virus which makes people insane.

8 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

What about an evil AI that is in control of the ship? Some kind of mix between the Red Queen (Resident Evil) and Shodan (System Shock).

I did this once and it was a blast!!! Also System Shock 2 is my fav PC game of all time.

The PCs made computer checks to combat the programming. I actually have something similar to this planned for a future date as well. I plan on running it as a sort of "Modular Encounter" that only lasts a session or two. Lots of Vigilance, Discipline, Cool, Resilience checks.

Classic zombie/monster stand-in for Starwars: Rakghoul . Humans infected with a virus that transforms them into hideous creatures. Just ignore the old republic and sith stuff and make it of "unknown origin"

Another option going along with your post about droids. There is a mini adventure in the the EotE Game Master Kit called "debts to pay". Its a quick dungeon crawl through a mine facility that's largely empty and the players come upon some grizzly scenes trying to discover what has happened. It could just as easily be a ship though.

18 minutes ago, ThreeAM said:

Classic zombie/monster stand-in for Starwars: Rakghoul . Humans infected with a virus that transforms them into hideous creatures. Just ignore the old republic and sith stuff and make it of "unknown origin"

Another option going along with your post about droids. There is a mini adventure in the the EotE Game Master Kit called "debts to pay". Its a quick dungeon crawl through a mine facility that's largely empty and the players come upon some grizzly scenes trying to discover what has happened. It could just as easily be a ship though.

it revolves around the droids going rogue and killing all the humans. Its not "horror" per say but its got a lot to work with that could easily be beefed up for more horror. There is a droid serving food to corpses face down in food, a crazy cook droid that could easily be cooking the humans, a corpse dumped into an oil bath, Corpses stuffed into closets and refreshers, etc. When I run it I will definitely be playing as a horror.

I'll be passing over the Rakghouls, as I'm still not interested in telling a story about space zombies. But your suggestion regarding droids sounds deliciously horrifying, and I'll definitely borrow some elements from that. Thanks!

Have it be from the early days of the republic.

Could be a sith lords personal ship

He was a sith alchemist

His sith spawn abominations got out of control and killed all on board.

They killed each other till one was left

Now a dark vergence exists on the ship and in the bowls sleeps an abomination... Hope they don't wake it.

What about something with a hive mind? something like the Tyranids and Genestealers from 40k? Although that might be too similar to Aliens for some. But throw in some changes. Make it a carnivorous plant, that escaped and now grows all over the ship. It has converted most of the ship into a garden, raises critters for food and sport. PC's find the descendants of the crew, primitive, but with legends of what their ancestors were like.

Dreadnaught -class was laid down several decades before the Clone Wars, so you're looking at a ship that's potentially almost a century old. That's not an inconsiderable amount of time, even given the span of galactic history.

I'm not a fan of your Dark Trooper idea simply because Dreadnaughts had such high staffing requirements. Even one-man/robot-armies go down under several thousand opponents. You're definitely on the right track, though.

I'd probably go with it being abandoned due to damage, maybe weapons fire from an opponent or a ruptured reactor or something like that. I'd ratchet up the tension and creepiness by having all systems down... no lights, no breathable air, no artificial gravity. The PCs will have to do their recon & salvage (or whatever) in the dark, in suits, in zero-g. Probably in the company of the occasional freeze-dried floating corpse. Of course, mynocks are immune to vacuum, and so are droids. The basilisk-droid from the back of the Force and Destiny CRB would be a cool challenge; hunting the PCs through the labyrinth of the ship.

You could always go with a situation similar to the movie Virus ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120458/ ) or Moontrap ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097911/ ). Some droids go off the deep end in their quest to become independent beings and theorize since flesh creatures are considered sentient and droids are metal, then they just need to become more flesh. So they kill off most of the crew for parts. Unfortunately since the ship had an extensive and cutting edge medical facility the droids have the technology to preserve flesh and use it for parts. They plan to build a flesh droid army and when they get to the next planet take it over by invading and using the inhabitants for parts. The last few crew members disable the ship so that the droids can never complete their ghastly plan. Should the players discover the flesh droids, replace the destroyed hyperdrive parts, or linger too long they come after the players for parts and/or for their ship.