FAE Star Wars Actual Play: The Hunt for Admiral Bayran



A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....
Star Wars: Tales of Rebellion
Episode I:The Hunt for Admiral Bayran

It is a dark time for the galaxy. The evil Emperor Palpatine has destroyed the OLD REPUBLIC  and the Jedi Knights, guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. In the Republic's place is the EVIL GALACTIC EMPIRE.

In this darkness, Senator Bail Organa secretly works against the Emperor, supporting the REBEL ALLIANCE. He has dispatched a team of Rebel Agents to Shesharile 5 in the Minor Cluster to meet with a rebel spy to see what help the Rebellion can give to that impoverished world.

Unknown to these agents, word has spread that the Admiral Bayran, a war criminal of the Clone Wars, has been hiding on the nearby forest world of Yelsain. The admiral's hidden shipyard was never found after the Clone Wars. If he could be persuaded to work with the Alliance, that shipyard could be used in the service of the Alliance....


Cast of Characters:

  • R2-C4 - Rogue Imperial assassin droid
  • Gaven Stark - Idealistic former Imperial army officer
  • Marcus Doha - Veteran Clone Trooper who has lived an active life since the Clone Wars

Scene 1: Rendezvous on Shesharile 5
A dark and stormy night. The moon Shesharile 5 is in open rebellion. Not so much against the Empire but against everything. It is filled with rage. Its economy in tatters, gangs rule the streets.

At Griff's Bar, to the sounds of angry industrial music, the rebel agents meet with Lt. Jun Chon of the Imperial Star Destroyer Magistratus. He tells them that there is likely little to be done for Shesharile 5 - Captain Zodin of the Magistratus will likely begin a full bombardment any day and the survivors will be used for slave labor. But... One bit of intelligence might have some hope. One of the gang leaders, a middle-aged Twilek woman named Akuna, was recently captured by Imperial security. In return fo her life she revealed she had shuttled the notorious Admiral Bayran to the settlement of Tavik's Landing on Yelsain. If his legendary hidden shipyard is true, perhaps it could be leveraged against the Magistratus and used in service of the Rebellion.

The agents left in a hurry as explosions rocked the streets and Imperial Stormtroopers and AT-DPs marched the street. Poor Chon was crushed by a collapsing wall. It looked grim but C4 was able to use its knowledge of Imperial procedure to bluff its way past the stormtroopers...

Interlude
Unfortunately, security was not good at the police station where Akuna was arrested. While the valuable prisoner was brought to the Magistratus, word leaked of his initial questioning. Even now bounty hunters were on their way to Yelsain to capture Bayran before Imperial Security could...

Scene 2: Skirmish at Tavik's Landing
While much of Yelsain sided with the Republic during the Clone Wars, the planet, with its rugged individualism was far from united - lacking even a capital or central government, the people of Tavik's Landing were very pro-Separatist during the Clone Wars. 

With Yelsain's lack of security (people are responsible for their own security), C4 stayed behind at their ship while the others went to the Moot, the tavern at Tavik's Landing. It was a much nicer place than Griff's. Like the rest of the Moot, it was built around one of Yelsain's gargantuan trees, high off the ground. After some talking they found themselves talking with "the Governor", the unofficial leader of the Landing. She was a middle-aged going on elderly woman who had fought against the Republic during the Clone Wars.  She was hesitant to give up anything she knew about Bayran and also figured out quickly Gaven and Marcus were once military. Their tense negotiations were interrupted by the door being kicked in by the Mandalorian bounty hunter Jodo Kast and his ally, the assassin droid IG-79 in search of Bayran. A firefight broke out. The droid tried to take the Governor hostage, thinking that would cause the Rebels to surrender and get them it and Kast the information they needed. After much fighting (including Marcus blocking a flamethrower with a table), Gaven took Kast out, his jetpack going out of control and sending him careening down to the ground far below. IG-79 calculated its odds as having diminished and departed.

The Governor began rethinking the value in keeping Bayran's secrets. And it became moot as they saw a Imperial landing craft heading towards the location of Bayran's homestead...


To be continued...


GM Notes
  • We were planning on continuing tonight (February 13) but real world (tm) has blocked that. So tune in in two weeks... (Plus time required for writeup)
  • C4-HK is inspired by both K-2SO from Rogue One and looks like one of the HK droids from Knights of the Old Republic. We'll assume the blueprints were found.
  • After playing the adventure I realized I got the name Tavik's Landing from a location in the city of Sharn from the Eberron setting for D&D. Oh well. Sounds like a good name for a settlement.
  • We've not quite specified the exact year the game takes place in, but it is pretty close to A New Hope. At some point they'll likely go visit Alderaan and see it is not there.
  • I'm making use of some stuff from my previous game set in the Minos Cluster, though I anticipate the characters will visit other locations as well. 
  • The combat using Fate was nicely dramatic and didn't feel repetitive, something I'd worried a bit about.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jules Verne Translations That Don't Stink

Image
Shortly after I graduated from college R. Talsorian published their fantasy steampunk RPG,  Castle Falkenstein. Having missed out on Space: 1889  when it first came out this was my first steampunk RPG, though I had been exposed to the genre by Gibson and Sterling's novel The Difference Engine (a novel which, though I though I found the setting compelling, I did not particularly care for - must reread some day). Jules Verne was one of the authors in the inspirational reading section of Castle Falkenstein.  Heck, the game also made him into France's scientific advisor, having him responsible for their massive Verne Cannons  which formed a sort of nuclear deterrent.  With that in mind, one Sunday afternoon I was at a Barnes & Noble bookstore my new girlfriend (now my wife of nearly 16 years!).  On a whim I decided to pick up a Jules Verne novel. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . That night I started reading it, never having read any of his works b...
Keep reading

Stepping Away and a New Beginning

Image
After maintaining this blog for nearly seven years (an eternity in internet time), I've decided to step away from it. When I first began I wasn't 100% certain what it would be about. For a while I thought it would be a blog related to OSR type RPGs but I found my own tastes not firmly rooted there. Looking at the history of the blog, I see a lot of Call of Cthulhu which is hardly surprising. However, some lack of consistency definitely made it tough for me find a defined niche and over the past few months I've been giving some thought to starting a new, more narrowly focused blog. The imminent end of Google+ played a part in these thoughts, with much of my traffic coming from that site. I write because I enjoy writing, but I do enjoy growing an audience. My plan to start a narrowly-focused blog took a turn when I had the opportunity to join the  Rolling Boxcars  blog. Talking with the contributors (one of whom I game with on Discord already) and going through thei...
Keep reading

Using the Force in D6 Star Wars

Image
Defending yourself with just 1D in Sense is not easy, as Luke discovers when training with a remote. My previous post discussed the proto-D6 System as found in the Ghostbusters RPG. For those unfamiliar with the D6 System and the way it does the Force (or for a brief review) the essentials are: You roll a bunch of six sided dice against a target number, typically ranging from 5-ish (easy) to 20 or even higher. Your rating is listed as something like 2D+2 which means roll 2d6+2. By default, most normal/non-heroic people have 2D in most stats.  Starting heroes will might have their best skill be at 5D or a touch higher. You can take as many actions as you want in a round. However, taking two actions in a round reduces all dice codes by 1D, taking three reduces all by 2D, etc. Starting with Force skills will lower a characters starting attributes. Unlike most skills they start off at 1D. There are three Force skills - control, sense, and alter. Control lets you contr...
Keep reading

Developing Boston for 1920s Call of Cthulhu

Image
While Chaosium has produced sourcebooks for many locations in Lovecraft Country (Kingsport, Arkham, and Innsmouth) as well as non-fictional cities of the 1920s (such as New York City and New Orleans), the nearby city of Boston, while being featured in many adventures, has never received its own full sourcebook. The most common era for my Call of Cthulhu  games has been in the 1920s - some campaigns have been in New York City while others have been in Lovecraft country. For those in Lovecraft Country, many adventures have been in nearby Boston. Over the years I've slowly been building up some expertise in the area and I thought it might be of interest to others gaming in the same setting - whether with Mythos horrors or a purely mundane game. First, let us investigate those official sources. While Boston has found its way into many adventures, I can think of two sources where it has been given a fair amount of detail. First, The Unspeakable Oath  double issue 16/17 has ...
Keep reading

Balancing Classes in Swords and Wizardry

Image
DM: "The box is the size of a small trunk; it is latched but not locked."  Dougal: "I'm looking for traps on the box."  DM (rolling for Dougal's "find traps" ability. The roll indicates that Dougal has failed to find the poisoned needle in the latch.) "You don't find a trap."  Morgan (the group's leader): "Black Dougal will open the box."  DM: "Black Dougal, you find out that you missed a tiny discolored needle in the latch. Roll a saving throw vs. Poison, please!"  Dougal (rolling): "Missed it!"  DM: "Black Dougal gasps 'Poison!' and falls to the floor. He looks dead."  Fredrik: "I'm grabbing his pack to carry treasure in." Game balance. It's a tricky concept in RPGs. D&D 3rd and 4th editions made a very strong effort to balance the character classes with one another as well as to balance encounters. For my purposes, they went too far. A...
Keep reading