Star Wars

Some projects take time to see the light. Among these, our Star Wars scenario cuts a fine figure (without even coming close to brushing against the Cat one-shot). Initially planned to be played online on Second Life in 2013, until it was finally adapted in 2016 for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, this scenario follows "Battle for the Golden Sun", released in 1998 for the Star Wars D6 line.

Although, as I write these lines, our game is not finished yet (I have high hopes that my players do not go snooping around my blog), here is a first article presenting its context of creation, its concept and its stakes.

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The origin of the scenario

Without being my most memorable character, "Aromée Abdala" has become my signature avatar in online games. It was through this venerable PC that in 2013, I decided to join the roleplay community dedicated to Star Wars on Second Life ^[1].

At the time, on Second Life, most of the Star Wars-dedicated simulators ^[2] had agreed to play in a non-canonical era, so as not to tempt anyone into portraying characters too close to the major protagonists of the official saga. The players call this invention the "Post-Legacy Era", in reference to the "Star Wars Legacy" series. This era, which takes place between 200 and 250 ABY, does not benefit from a clearly defined background. As is customary in online role-playing, everyone wants to portray extraordinary heroes, and the guidelines only evolve at the mercy of recurring quarrels and the egos swelling within the community. It is into this maelstrom that I tried to integrate Aromée, the only character of my Star Wars roster to have survived for 250 years. To do so, my RPG comrades of the time suggested I create a scenario, which would justify my character's return to business after more than a hundred years of isolation. They thus left me with the task of explaining why a businesswoman with long teeth (in almost every sense of the term) had remained inactive for so long, ideally without resorting to the lame cryogenic freezing excuse.

The scenario starts in a film Noir atmosphere in the underbelly of Coruscant, then opens onto a more conventional Star Wars ambiance. Here, no Sith spitting fire from behind their anxiety-inducing masks: just the manifestation of the dark side through ideological blindness. The idea of giving an unofficial sequel to "Battle for the Golden Sun" comes from the fact that it is the last scenario Aromée officially took part in. We had moreover frozen right before the final session.

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The scenario

The reasons that pushed Aromée to isolate herself on the Andele space station do not directly come into play in the scenario. The idea here is to avoid the Yurgen Thanos / Mary Sue syndrome by giving too much importance to an annoying NPC. Be that as it may, after almost 200 years of solitude, Aromée finds her moping disturbed by a band of mercenaries armed to the teeth. Their motivations? They remain impenetrable, but one thing seems certain: judging by their gear, they are not in the mood to chat. She then triggers the base's defense systems and then, gripped by adrenaline, neutralizes one attacker by "draining his soup" ^[3]. In the panic, she takes refuge in the secured zones of her station while one of the mercenaries manages to restore calm. They make off, leaving the mistress of the premises with many questions.

These mysterious individuals do not act out of conviction: they form a small band of experts, led by Decebal Vulpesco, a noble of the royal family of Bakura and Force user who never managed to become a Jedi. Failing that, he draws on his considerable fortune to maintain a troupe and sign contracts whose rewards usually take the shape of Force artifacts. It is Iruvaw, an Ithorian Jedi Mistress, who entrusted him with his latest contract, the worst of all: to break into an isolated and protected station to retrieve a stellar map containing the coordinates of Sedri, a mythical planet whose trail disappeared shortly after 60 ABY.

After their failure, Decebal and his people set sail for Bakura. The civil war raging there and the reprisals of an Iruuvaw who feels cheated push them to follow the flow of refugees towards Coruscant, where they hope to be forgotten more easily while waiting to sort things out. To this end, Decebal uses the retinal recording of Duke Galoé, his scout, brain-dead since his confrontation with the "beast of the abandoned station". His work is made difficult by the immaturity of Aaren - a member of his team so attached to Duke that he has dragged his carcass around since the incident. The tension between the two men reaches such heights that the latter storms out of his squad, taking Duke along. He vainly tries to provide him with care, calling on the physician of his former Mandalorian clan and even cozying up to Coruscant traffickers to obtain medical equipment. Deeming that Aaren has become a threat, Decebal asks his latest recruit - Xeli Netham, an elite sniper - to track down their former comrade and shoot him. She eventually narrows her search zone down to a squalid refugee camp, which she watches from the top of a neighboring building, waiting for her target.

Meanwhile, Aromée picks up her aggressors' trail. Under a fake identity, she follows them to Bakura, then in turn reaches Coruscant in the zone most affected by the influx of refugees: level 1,612. Fearing the trail would go cold, she hires mercenaries under the name of "Linda Garvik", another of her fake identities. The waves of talentless opportunists follow one another, until she meets a group that is admittedly unkempt, but nevertheless able to get results: the penniless PCs. Because it always has to fall on them.

Aromée is not the only one busy. Iruuvaw will not give up, despite the failure of her initial plan. After sending Republican soldiers after Decebal, she chooses to focus on what really matters: obtaining the coordinates of Sedri. As the scenario begins, she is on the verge of locating the Andele station. It is only a matter of a week before she enters it, defeats its defense systems and finally fulfills her objective.

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Iruuvaw, in more detail

Iruuvaw is the descendant of Waganougou ^[4], an Ithorian Jedi who took part in the Alliance to Restore the Republic (more commonly called the "Rebellion" by the Empire). In 2 ABY, his squad discovered the aquatic planet Sedri and the Golden Sun, a planetary-scale Force artifact. It turned out that the Golden Sun was not just an object, but a living entity endowed with a will that could easily be corrupted. As a last resort, the rebel squad broke the coral barrier that constituted the Golden Sun, releasing it into the waves. Decades later, Waganougou bequeathed Jedi holocrons to his descendants: in his memoirs, he expressed his doubt about the Golden Sun's disappearance. He believed the entity would eventually condense again.

Iruvaw is a Jedi Mistress who has sunk into complacency. Her temperance, wisdom and rigor now struggle to conceal a serious superiority complex turning into a Messiah complex. Faced with the Jedi Council's inertia and the rise of a new Sith threat - barely sketched in this scenario - she believes she is the only rampart able to protect the galaxy. To this end, she hopes to call upon the fabulous Golden Sun at any cost.

A discreet antagonist, Iruuvaw only intervenes in person in the last act, assuming the PCs choose to pursue her all the way to Sedri.

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The PCs

For our scenario, a balanced and rather traditional group based on the Edge of the Empire classes. I preferred to have Aromée played by someone around the table, rather than portraying her as a mere quest-giver NPC. We thus have:

• TRCJ (Killing-Rebels-Is-My-Joy), an assassin droid dating back to the Galactic Empire, recently reactivated within a Coruscant at the mercy of the Rebels. His programming commands him to restore the legitimate regents to the head of the Galaxy, so much so that he has run up debts down to his motherboards to obtain the equipment needed to fulfill his objective.
• Galrow the Black, aka "Furball", a venerable Wookiee fond of gadgets who joined the Black Sun out of loyalty to his savior. He now holds his benefactress's place on account of a dispute between the latter and the gang's new mastermind.
• Nolan "Parsec" Malter, a pilot and smuggler with a silver tongue. He passes himself off as a human merchant with a few incomprehensible run-ins with Republican justice following a scrape with certain colleagues. Fortunately, these misadventures have not altered his great accountant's rigor!
• Diana Palmer, Aromée's fake identity. A woman versed in medicine who works for a separatist political group in the Outer Rim, led by Linda Garvik. She tries to reconcile her superior's obscure orders, her own pacifist leanings and her need for credits.

The scenario starts when "Linda Garvik" "asks" "Diana" to find four individuals she knows almost nothing about. She only has a photo of one of them, as well as the certainty that they are on level 1,612 of Coruscant, in a sector hosting many refugees. After interviewing two waves of unconvincing mercenaries capable of helping her in her task, Diana resolves to meet three other potential candidates: TRCJ, Nolan and Galrow.

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Sessions

• 30.04.2016: First session, presentation of the group and Kejar's release
• 15.05.2016: Second session, discovery of Duke and Aaren's capture
• 28.06.2016: Third session, conflict and capture of Decebal and Xeli

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1. "SL-SWRP" (Second Life - Star Wars Roleplay), better known under the name Armpit-Swous-Herpes (this is a joke - please do not take it seriously). ↩︎

2. Second Life's play spaces are called "Sims", for "simulators". ↩︎

3. For the two in the back who are not following, the "Anzati" are humanoid creatures endowed with two retractable facial tentacles whose function is to pierce the nasal cavity of their prey to reach the brain and extract emotions and - sometimes - memories or knowledge. The Anzati call this mixture "the soup". ↩︎

4. You will have guessed from the name, this is a former PC. ↩︎