Help for treasure hunting (spoilers for Yaimpar be te Bes'uliike).

By P-47 Thunderbolt, in Game Masters

Ruus, Helix, stay away. Spoilers.

In the PbP I'm running, the party is sent on a quest to resurrect the Basilisk war droids.
There are two basic plotlines running simultaneously: 1. traveling to various museums and collections to try to reverse-engineer the tech, and 2. tracking down the last 3 parts of a set of "coordinates" that will lead them to a vault that allegedly contains the programming schematics for the droid.

The latter part is the one I'm having trouble with. You see, they are given one part of the 4 part sequence and they are told that it is a latitude for a grid square, and they need to find the longitude, column, and row to finish off the code. They are told what to look for: an inhabitable ice moon. The twist is that it is actually for a vault on the frozen moon of Improcco. The "longitude" is actually the storage room that contains the information, the "latitude" is actually the pass-code for said vault, and the "column and row" are actually the vault's designation.
Room 621 of vault F12, the pass-code is 1187, as opposed to 1187x621, F12 on the galactic map.

Here's the rub: How do they come across the other pieces of the puzzle? I'm fairly sure the question of discovering the confusion will work itself out (through NPCs and dropped hints if necessary), but I'm stumped on the first question.

You could always just have them asking around on the black market, make a check for it. Or maybe the piece of the puzzle they do possess (or its previous owner) has a clue to the whereabouts of the next piece? Or consult an expert. Doctor Aphra would never betray them.

Edited by Edgehawk
10 minutes ago, Edgehawk said:

You could always just have them asking around on the black market, make a check for it. Or maybe the piece of the puzzle they do possess (or its previous owner) has a clue to the whereabouts of the next piece? Or consult an expert. Doctor Aphra would never betray them.

I've thought about using her! Thanks for reminding me, I'll make a note of that.

The black market might be hard to use, but in conjunction with something else, maybe the lead, could work very well... I'll have to think about that... Thanks!

Another entity with a clue in possession could also be seeking the other pieces of the puzzle... in such an instance, a piece of the puzzle could come to them. And of course, in this franchise, one of the “coordinates” might well be hidden in a droid.

Maybe a previous treasure hunter's journal, a la The Last Crusade, could hold the clue tk peicing together the rest of the puzzle.

In case any of you are interested, here is the gist of what I decided to go with. I pulled ideas from all of the suggestions, and I think it turned out quite well. As long as the players don't see where this is going and shoot Aphra on sight, I'm really looking forward to using her! Thanks again guys!

There is rumored to be an ice world with an ancient vault where a lot of old Mandalorian stuff was stashed (weapons, Beskar, Basilisks, etc.), but no one has been able to find it.


According to the rumor, the Mandalorian who had the complete location split it into its four component parts and entrusted one to each of his children. Three of them lost it in various ways, the fourth was passed down through the generations until now. A descendant of that Mandalorian brought it to the attention of someone in Bo Katan’s circle, which started this whole mission in the first place. He claims that his piece is the latitude of a grid square and that the other fragments would give a full picture: column, row, and longitude, all of which together would point to a square parsec inside a grid square. It’s a big area to search, but shouldn’t prove too hard.

The location of the other fragments is a mystery, but the man who turned over the fragment claims that one of the fragments made it onto the black market. At some point, one of his family members attempted to acquire it from a black marketeer, but failed when he sold the information to someone else first.

He says that he thinks they might be able to find the fragment if they do some digging, and if they find the one fragment, it may lead them to others.

The other information fragments:

The Column is in the hands of a Yarkora explorer who has become stymied in his search. If he catches wind of the PCs efforts, he may contact them and offer to sell it to them. He is actually hoping that they will be able to find it for him, or put him onto the trail, so that he can swoop in and grab it all for himself.

Doctor Aphra has come into possession of the Row, and is desperate to find the other pieces. She may try to get the PCs’ piece, or possibly offer to join forces, only to betray them. Possibly multiple times.

Doctor Aphra has (or acquires during the course of the campaign) an old datapad that served as the journal of an old xenoarchaeologist who was also searching for the location of the vault. According to the journal, the xenoarchaeologist’s droid has the Longitude in his memory banks, but the location of the droid is a mystery. However, the end location of the explorer is known. He died on Licha In, a world in the Gree Enclave, and his datapad was sold to Aphra by an archaeologist who knew Aphra and figured she’d follow up on the notes in it, as treasure hunts are more her thing and he was busy with his research on Licha In. She believes that her acquaintance (she doesn’t think they can really be called friends) might be in possession of the droid, or at least may possess the information. The complication is that Aphra betrayed him and stole some valuable artifacts from him, and he is (obviously) not too happy about it.

I may pinch this myself at some point in the future. One of my players added a dead brother who was a xeno archeologist to her background recently, so it's a nice tie in.