I’m designing a large campaign for my group, and plan on plugging FFG adventures or old WEG stuff into the mix. Let me know what you think!
I just recently finished replaying KOTOR, and my idea for the campaign involves resurrecting the Ebon Hawk and making HK-47 the prime villain. The players in my group have never played KOTOR, so this is a great opportunity to let them uncover some of the wonderful backstory and history written for that game. It also lets me introduce them to one of the most wonderfully wicked droids in the EU, HK-47. I love HK, I loved his dialogue, and to me he could make a fantastic villain with the right “push”.
Here’s the plot:
The characters don’t have a ship to start. They know this, and that they’ll have the opportunity to find their own ship in the course of the game.
We start with “Beyond the Rim.” PCs are hired to go to Cholganna, and are sent on a ship piloted by a racist old Selkath. As they explore the planet, perhaps in the Sunken Cavern, they uncover a vacuum sealed chamber, inside which lies the Ebon Hawk. The characters are overjoyed. A nice ship there for the taking.
The Hawk is a little worse for wear. It has hull damage, erratic weapon systems, corrupted databanks, and the hyperspace routes are hopelessly wrong. If the players think to look (and make a difficult astrogation check) they can deduce from the state of the galaxy depicted in the routes that the Hawk is over 3900 years old! Further, they find a few fun toys in the mix, including a swoop bike and an ancient (non-functional) astromech in the hangar.
The characters take the ship, unaware that they have a stowaway. HK-47, the maniacal assassin droid, brought the ship here and is hidden in a secret compartment on the outer hull, in a state of suspension. When they fire up the Hawk, HK is restored to power as he intended. The long millennia have made HK darker, turning a penchant for “killing meatbags” into more of a consuming obsession. He now is intent on building his own droid army (to steal a page from his post KOTOR comic book history). Another bit adapted from the comic is that HK has developed the ability to transfer his own awareness into other droid bodies, providing they are “clean slates” with fresh memory wipes.
When the characters stop in at a port to have the ship serviced, HK downloads himself to the ancient astromech and slips out into the city while the characters sleep.
In the morning, all the city is abuzz. The top droid designer in the city has been found brutally murdered, his office ransacked. Strangest of all, the only thing the cameras seem to have picked up is a lone droid. (Or more wickedly, one of the characters is seen on the camera walking into the victim’s office. HK has altered the footage
)
The characters might not think much of this, but might decide to put the astromech off at this port. If so, no worries.
At the next stop, HK again kills the top droid expert in the city and steals all pertinent information on modern droid design, manufacture, capabilities, upgrades, etc. His plan is to assemble the best ideas of the last 3900 years into a sort of “perfect killer.” At the same time, he’s eliminating the people who would be best equipped to recognize what he is doing and thwart him.
HK begins to amass credits. First, he skims credits from credsticks the characters are carrying. Then, he invests and sells a few of the secrets he’s been stealing. Soon he has enough to buy his own ship and stop hitching a ride on the Hawk. Before he leaves, he plants a tracking device on the Hawk, for old times sake. He wants to keep tabs on where she goes. From there, he purchases an abandoned factory and starts manufacturing.
After the second murder, the characters probably begin to wonder what on earth is going on. They may finally get access to the databanks and find an anonymous journal kept by Meeta Surik, describing the events of KOTOR 1 and 2 in broad terms. Her journal also includes her own private thoughts on each person involved with the Ebon Hawk during that time. The characters can read these short bios. If they look closely, they can see that two have been tampered with:
- Revan's bio. HK-47 has altered this bio to remove references to himself as an assassin droid.
- HK47 - He has altered his own bio to instead depict himself as a protocol droid. He also adds a personal note from Meeta as a sort of sick joke: "Makes a mean meat stew and is quite skilled with a searing torch."
The characters can see that these records have been altered, but not what the original versions say. What they make of this is up to them. It could be that they come to the conclusion that they are facing Revan, which I may actually push them toward with some red herrings. Anyway, a fter a VERY thorough search of the Hawk, they discover a hidden compartment on the outside hull of the ship, with a suspended animation canister inside. This is somewhat to throw them off the scent. It may not directly suggest “droid” if a human could survive in there.
From here, I would continue to drop clues as I ran other adventures. Droid experts would continue to die. The characters may even race to investigate. At some point, the characters are offered a gig doing bodyguard work for one of these experts, bringing them face to face with HK for the first time.
The first encounter may end with HK’s “destruction”, but mayhem continues. He repeatedly shows up when they think they’ve killed him, and each time with more and more of his custom built droids. Eventually, HK will use the army he’s built to march on a planet, and the players will be close by to have a final showdown.
Thoughts? This is my very rough sketch. Sorry it’s so long!