The Legends of Luke Skywalker just came out a few days ago, and is a pretty interesting read. If you're a fan of Star Wars novels, and don't mind stories with unreliable narrators, I'd recommend it. If you're interested in the book and don't want spoilers, I'd stop reading here and go buy it.
So, jumping straight into it, there are six different stories about Luke throughout the book. Each of them is told by a different character, and each should be taken with a grain of salt. One story tells the tale of a conspiracy theorist, who is certain she has "busted the myth" of Luke Skywalker. One story recounts the tale of Luke's battle against the rancor and over the sarlacc pit from the point of view of a sentient (and quite full of herself) head lice. A story is told from the perspective of a surviving Imperial gunner who survived the battle of Jakku, and another from a droid who claims to have been saved by Luke. One is about Luke traveling with a biologist into the belly of an Exogorth, also known as a space slug, like the one Han flew into in Empire Strikes Back. Each of these stories seem to have elements of truth to them, with varying degrees of plausibility, and aside from the story of the Exogorth (and possibly the one from the gunner, depending on just how much of that story was concussion-and-fever-induced delirium), don't really tell us much about Luke.
However, the one story that I'm sure happened almost exactly as it was told in the book was the third story in the book, about when Luke visited an ocean world named Lew'el. This was the most fascinating part of the book for me, as it went quite in-depth on a new Force-based belief system. The settlers of Lew'el first came to the world eons ago, before either the Republic or the Jedi had come into existence. They believed in the Tide, another word for the Force. The Tide's ebb and flow held sway over the entire galaxy, and there were some who sought to control the Tide for their own ends. In response, those who knew how to feel the Tide banded together and traveled to Lew'el, to keep their knowledge out of the hands of those who would use it. Over the generations, the people of Lew'el settled into life on this new, mostly aquatic planet. There were few islands dotting the surface, but the oceans provided everything one could possibly need to survive. In addition, there were large, four-winged creatures known as wind-trusters, that the people domesticated. Wind-trusters could spend virtually the entirety of their lives in the air, dipping down to the ocean only to feed. The people used wind-trusters as mounts to travel the planet and fish from the oceans.
During one such fishing trip, the main character of the story nearly died when her wind-truster was killed in a storm. She was saved by Luke, who just happened to be coming to the planet, and caught her on his X-Wing as she fell from the sky. Luke returned her to her village, where he then sought out the elder and asked to be taught in the ways of the Tide. There were many parallels to this training sequence and the training he received from Yoda, but with some stark differences as well. While the Jedi constantly went on about the Dark Side, and shied away from it, the people of Lew'el believe that the ebb and flow of the Tide are both essential parts of the Tide as a whole. You can't have one without the other. For every flow, there must be an ebb. They also adamantly believed that one must never use the Tide, unlike the Jedi and Sith. To the people of Lew'el, the Tide is something to be felt, something that can carry and guide you, or sink you at a moment's notice. It's not something to be tamed and controlled. There was a lot of tension between Luke and the elder over this particular aspect of belief. At first, the elder refused to teach an outsider, but after much convincing, the elder agreed to put Luke through all the same trials that a member of their society would be put through to see if they're worthy of learning the ways of the Tide.
As Luke learned more about the Tide, he was given three trials. These trials were each pretty interesting, and I'd love to include them in a game I've been thinking of running. I just need to think up exactly what kinds of checks I'd want the players to make.
The first trial was called "Cloud-walking," and reminded me a lot of playing old Sonic the Hedgehog games. Near the village Luke was visiting, a large mountain was barely poking out from the ocean. All around the entire island were gas vents, pouring breathable air from the crust up to the surface. The trial was to dive under the water, and walk a complete lap around the mountain without resurfacing, using the air vents on the ocean's floor to sustain one's self. When all was said and done, Luke completed this trial in about an hour, if I remember correctly (Entertainingly enough, Luke "cheated" on this trial, using his robes to catch as much air from the vents as he could and pulling a Jack Sparrow from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie). For this trial, I'm thinking perhaps a fairly simple Athletics check for the swimming, and a difficult Survival check for the breathing through underwater air vents?
The second trial took far longer. Luke had to learn how to ride a wind-truster and to circumnavigate the entire globe with the help of a guide, the girl he saved at the start of the story. This one took Luke over a month, and much of the difficulty came from learning how to act as one with his mount, as well as finding ways to sustain himself. It was a very physically taxing trial, far harsher than anything Yoda put him through, from what I've observed. I'm thinking this might be a three-check process? One relatively simple Survival check to learn how to fly with the wind-truster, one rather challenging Piloting (Planetary) for flying around the entire planet over the course of a month, and a daunting Resilience check to survive the harsh conditions of flying for over a month straight, eating raw fish from the ocean to survive?
The third trial is the one I have the hardest time trying to come up with mechanics for. Toward the end of Luke's flight around the planet, he reached a dead-zone in the air, where the air currents made it extremely difficult for the wind-trusters to fly. As a result, in this area of the ocean, most of the wind-truster's favored prey gathered here. The third trial was to let the Tide to guide your actions, allowing you to spear one of the most rare species on the planet, a fish with golden scales. The twist? The spear that had to be used was over a kilometer long. At the beginning of the trial, Luke tried using the Force to guide his actions, much like how a Jedi might use the Force to guide their lightsaber in combat. However, each of these attempts failed. It was only when he stopped trying to use the Force and simply followed its will, allowing it to guide him, that he succeeded in the task (though ultimately he released the fish, technically failing the trial). With this in mind, I have no idea what I would do for this segment of the trial in-game. Would it be survival to try and spear a fish? Melee? Discipline to open one's self up to the Force, and allow it to guide them? I've got no clue here.
After the trial was failed and he returned to the village, he recounted to the elder all of the things he'd already learned of the Tide from the trials themselves, and was told he had learned all they could have taught him, even though he technically did not succeed. They also told Luke he was welcome to return to the planet any time.
Anywho, sorry for the long-winded and probably poorly-worded post. I really enjoyed this story, and felt like sharing it with you guys. The new Force tradition, the trials Luke faced, the interesting setting, I just loved the story from start to finish. Maybe I'll go through and edit this to make it more coherent later after I've gotten some sleep (it's 1:30am here). For now, let me know what you think about this setting! Does it interest you at all? Seem like something you'd try to include in a game some day? At the very least, I'm definitely making notes in case I ever get to run the campaign about Luke's Jedi Order that I've been brainstorming.