If you followed a megathread I started two years ago, you know I'm into building out a set region of the Star Wars Galaxy for my players to run around in. The intention is to give my players a set territory where they can do what they want without interfering in the canonical main story line and for me to engage in a bit of world building. I'm in the pre-campaign prep phase for a Star Wars game that will start in a few months so now is the time to map out a new territory.
I've decided to develop a Mid Rim sector from scratch for a couple of reasons. First, the Mid Rim always feels overlooked. The Core is more cosmopolitan and the Outer Rim has most of the cool alien home worlds and this makes the Mid Rim feel like the "flyover country" of the SW Galaxy. And as a native of Indiana, I find that offensive. 😉 Second, I like the idea of the Rebellion's Mid Rim Offensive and Mid Rim Retreat, which was introduced in Alexander Freed's Battlefront: Twilight Company . A year of conventional ground warfare, in the Star Wars sense, is a great story hook. Because a lot of the planets mentioned in the novels aren't assigned a specific sector, and because Freed's writing style is minimalist, I can grab some of these locations and flesh them out.
After skimming around the map of the SW Galaxy, I settled on the Taldot Sector because so much of it works for what I want. First, it's a huge regions of space and it's, canonically, an industrial and agricultural powerhouse. Second, it's been the location of outside invasions across the millennia, from pirates to the Sith and Mandalorians to the Separatists and the Republic, which means it could have a lot of interesting cultural and historical traditions. Third, it has some native alien species and has plenty of room for a couple more.
The biggest mistake I made with my Tion Cluster campaign is that I ended up fleshing out too many planets that never ended up getting used. For this campaign, I'm going to scale it back to the number of planets you would find in a book like Suns of Fortune or Lords of Nal Hutta . Because I'm going to write these locations from the ground up (with the help of Wookieepedia), rather than cribbing old West End Games material, I want to keep the number of planets reasonable. Let's say 18 with 9 or 10 getting full write-ups and 8 or 9 getting a single large paragraph.
I also want to flesh out some of the background aliens introduced in the newer movies. After skimming through the Visual Dictionaries for suitable species with little-to-no backstory, I've opted to bring in the Britaro and Octero, flesh out the Xi Charrians and Togorians, and situate the Coyerti home world (from Twilight Company ) in the Taldot Sector.
According to Wookieepedia's Legends section, the Taldot Sector has the following planets of note: Balamak, Charros, Masposhani, Nauton, Persavi, Rathalay, Rearqu, Togoria, and Stronghold. Stronghold was featured in an old WEG module and the rest barely have any relevant information attached to them other than stuff like "Vasp Vaspar's cape symbolizes the Battle of Balamak." So they're basically blank slates.
From Twilight Company, I'm grabbing Coyerti, Phorsa Gedd, Redhurne, Bamayar, Allst Prime, Haidoral Prime, and Nakadia. Some of the planets popped up in other recent Star Wars novels so there is a little bit of pre-existing setting material to work with.
I'm also bringing in Britaxis Minor, the home world of Britar which has no official region in canon (yet).
Splitting these into two groups, one for full write-ups, and one for briefs, this will be the break down based on nothing more than my personal interest :
-
Full Write-Ups:
- Bamayar
- Balamak
- Charros
- Persavi
- Rathalay
- Redhurne
- Rearqu
- Togoria
- Britaxis Minor
- Phorsa Gedd
-
Briefs
- Coyerti
- Allst Prime
- Haidoral Prime
- Nakadia
- Masposhani
- Nauton
- Stronghold
- Octero
Before we start writing up planets, we need to piece together a working history of the Taldot Sector. So that's coming up next.