November 8 recap

•The party helps liberate Keren, and ultimately Naboo, from the Mandalorians.

•The true identity of Mandalore is revealed.

The adventure begins with the party on its way to Keren to liberate the city. After discussing plans with the resistance, the party decided to scout ahead first, using a stolen Mandalorian gunship to avoid attracting attention — the Capanata is left behind at the abandoned Eutix station. Ras enters a meditative trance while Marina and Yvegeny fly the ship (which, they note, has been heavily slave-circuited to only need two pilots instead of the usual eight) and Gobmush works the sensors. As the ship approaches Keren, Gobmush soon detects that the gunship has been hooked up to the local Mandalorian network — all the ships here are connected by a central communications relay. By poking around the network, they find that the city of Keren is guarded by an energy shield protecting it from bombardment (about 30 ships constantly overhead, waiting for the shield to fall or looking for weak spots in the shield), and the Mandalorian force engaged with the city is about 100 Mandalorian troops with 500 sentinel droids, while the city has a colonist militia, light artillery, and guerilla troops. The party finds it odd that the Mandalorian force is composed of mostly droids.

The gunship is hailed by the central relay, asking what they're doing in Keren. Yvegeny claims their ship is the Aay'han and they're an infiltration team trying to get into Keren, getting them permission to land, though there will be a Mandalorian team waiting for them when they land in the woods outside Keren. At the landing, Yvegeny sticks to his story, but when the Mandalorians push to be included, Yvegeny says he'll give a signal when he's ready for the second Mandalorian team to enter.

The party begins the walk to Keren, when they begin to notice that they are being followed. Gobmush decides to fall back from the main group and find out who they are, only to end up surrounded by camouflaged humans — definitely not Mandalorians. He tries to communicate through his vox-box, but has a hard time convincing them he's not a Mandalorian. Finally, he turns on his comlink, and Lyta persuades the guerillas that they're not with the Mandalorians — they just lied to them to get past their ships. The guerillas agree to let the party inside Keren. The Mandalorians radio Yvegeny and let him know they're getting impatient; they want 10-minute status reports, or they'll storm the city themselves.

The party crosses through the forest and across the plains to the walled city of Keren, which sits on a river and near Lake Varum. Inside, the city is mostly undamaged — the colonists got the shield up and running before the Mandalorians could hit too hard. Although most of the citizens are armed, life generally proceeds as normal within the walls of the city. The guerillas lead the party to the central town hall, where they're met by the lieutenant governor, a Trandoshan named Surussk, who explains that the previous governor is dead.

The party explains that they're with the resistance, and begin helping around the city. Yvegeny works on fixing up a comm relay to be able to communicate with the insurgents in Theed and the Eutix labs, while Lyta and Oro set up a triage to help out with medicine in the city; Keren's doctors died in the initial assault, and since then, they've been relying on a med student. Gobmush investigates the possibility of using submarines to evacuate the city if need be, while Kelif meets with the city's anthropologists, who have been studying Gungan culture, and meets with the few Gungans who are living peacefully in the colony. Monad, a shaak shepherd, knows about Gobar Binks in particular, pointing out that most Gungans know who he is — he's now the Gungan-Mandalorian liaison.

Surussk, asking about how the party got to Keren, learns that the party is hooked up to the Mandalorian network. He points out that the ships are connected by the central comm tower — it was initially built for the Republic to coordinate ships, but the Mandalorians seized it in the early attack. If they can capture or destroy the tower, the Mandalorian ships around Keren will be confused and probably regroup at the war forge. Yvegeny plans to lure the Mandalorians outside into Keren, where they can be easily ambushed; meanwhile, Yvegeny, Marina and a Twi'lek from Keren named "Twitchy" will use the gunship to attack and destroy the tower.

Yvegeny detonates some abandoned buildings near the edge of town, then comms the Mandalorians to begin their attack there. When the strike team breaks through the wall, they find Ras, Kelif and Gobmush waiting for them with an army of armed colonists, while Lyta and Oro work the triage. Ras uses the Force to crash a wall on most of the foot soldiers. Gobmush and Ras face a Mandalorian Wookiee who flies into a rage and batters them with his fists, but they figure out how to use his aggressive tendencies against him and bring him down. A black-armored Mandalorian produces a barrage of blaster fire that badly wounds Kelif; he takes cover behind a vehicle before Gobmush charges the Mandalorian, finishing him off. Kelif grabs the black Mandalorian armor and the autofire gun, a prototype interchangeable weapo system (modulating between blaster rifle, sniper rifle, and grenade launcher). Meanwhile, Yvegeny bluffs his way into the relay tower's airspace before blowing it to smithereens. As the tower falls and the ships fly away to regroup, the gunship gets a comm from the wreckage below. He says he's leaving the Mandalorians and he can provide valuable intelligence if they rescue him. The gunship lands and picks up an older Gungan, who introduces himself as Gobar Binks (Kelif's father).

When the party regroups happily in Keren (although Kelif is off helping the colonists), they meet up with Gobar Binks, who's very enthusiastic about helping the Republic beat the Mandalorians, and readily admits that he can be useful — he knows that Mandalore the Divider is at the war forge, and he's pretty sure he can get some of the Gungan tribes together to take down the Mandalorians. The party debates what to do: some want to free Theed, while some want to directly attack the war forge.

Eventually, the party hatches a plan. Gobar Binks gets some of the Gungan tribes to help take back Deeja Peak and Theed, and Sith officer Ordal Naberrie will be in charge of hooking up with the rebels in Theed to help retake that city. Meanwhile, colonist ships will attack the war forge, providing cover while the Capanata enters the war forge to assassinate Mandalore the Divider. Gobmush will travel separately in a Gungan bongo with a guide.

As the battle rages overhead, the Capanata sneaks underwater, dodging falling debris to enter the war forge. Gobmush secretly breaks off from the Capanata and heads off to a different location. Inside, the war forge is on high alert, and the party fights through legions of foot soldiers to reach the inner sanctum, thanks to blueprints that Gobar Binks provided. Along the way, Rek Luk, who reveals he's been following the party and is joined in the battle over the war forge, tells the party he wants the Raraza back.

Ras, Yvegeny, Lyta and Oro cross over the factory in the core of the war forge, past a null gas trap, to find Mandalore the Divider himself, a tall, well-armored soldier, and his minions loading riches into an escape pod. The party quickly wipes out Mandalore's minions, and while Mandalore talks a big game, he doesn't back it up with any strong show of might. Mandalore soon falls, and when the party takes off his helmet, it's just a shrimpy Neimoidian inside, and the vaunted "helmet of Mandalore" (whosoever wears the helmet of Mandalore, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of the Mandalorian clans) is nothing but a clever forgery.

Ras broadcasts to the Mandalorian fleet that Mandalore is dead and the helmet has been destroyed; some soldiers fight to the death, but most of the soldiers — being conscripts — surrender or defect immediately. The party finds some very nice gear in among the treasure for their troubles. Rek Luk picks up the Raraza, and immediately begins petitioning the Naboo provisional government for purchase of the war forge to turn it into a Luk Shipping factory.

Gobmush arrives at his destination: the underwater Eutix lab, near the planet core. He was sent to Naboo in the first place by Czerka to destroy the Eutix facility. The Selkath scientists are cowed by his mighty arg'garok, so he has Chuckles kill the beck-tori. His mission on Naboo is now complete, and he rejoins the party.

The party's mission on Naboo is done. With the help of the Sith navigator, the party learns that the Sith who attacked Coruscant regrouped at the nearby planet Chommell Prime, and the Republic prepares to attack the planet. For all their efforts, however, the Republic first agrees to provide the party with some much-needed R&R before they rejoin the fleet to help attack Chommell Prime. Gobar Binks, eager to leave Naboo for new pastures, joins with the party.

DM's Notes:

• I was originally planning to have the party travel to Otoh Bokan, but I decided it would be more interesting to have the mountain come to Mohammed and bring Kelif's father, Gobar Binks, to the party instead. He's a very different kind of Gungan than we've seen before — he's very social and very ingratiating. He comes across like a used car salesman. (And I wasn't entirely sure what I'd have the rest of the party do if they went there. I'd conceptualized the city as undergoing a bloody political coup, but I didn't really see the party getting involved in Gungan politics.)
• My original concept for the fake Mandalore would be that he was a former Mandalorian who'd ended up being a gladiator-for-hire after the war, and he had the idea to build a new helmet and rally the clans because he earnestly believed in the Mandalorian cause. But I liked the idea that it was just a con artist who was looking to grab his own planet and taking advantage of the lore surrounding the helmet. (In canon, Darth Revan held onto the helmet after the end of the Mandalorian Wars specifically to prevent them from picking a new Mandalore, then gives it to Canderous before heading off to the Unknown Regions before the start of KotOR II.) The idea of a fake Mandalore helmet being used to revive the war effort is one I've had since the campaign began.
• The Naboo war forge survived the Mandalorian Wars simply because it was underwater, and Revan and his troops didn't know about it because it wasn't in a big, obvious place (as war forges usually are). It holds all the Mandalorian ship blueprints, hence there being authentic gunships, fighters, etc. in operation on Naboo.
• While the party believed at some points that these Mandalorians held multiple planets, they only ever held Naboo (I didn't want to correct the party). They would've eventually tried to take a nearby planet if left to their own devices too long, but they only had the manpower to hold Naboo. As for where all the riches came from that Mandalore the Divider was loading into his escape pod before his defeat, those are from his ships raiding nearby planets and ships. Really, not much better than common pirates.

Clone Wars Season 1 out on DVD

Season 1 of The Clone Wars is now out on DVD. I've already picked up my copy, and it includes a sketchbook of concept art from the first season, as well as 7 director's cut episodes. I've been with the series from the very beginning, and I highly recommend it — the animation is pretty good, and it's a lot of fun action (though I will admit the second half of the season is heads above the first).

Season 2 is currently ongoing on Cartoon Network. If you want to check out my weekly reviews stretching back to the start of the first season, visit my personal blog.

Update

Small-group game was canceled on Thursday, October 29; it took much longer for me to leave Chicago than I had hoped (took a few wrong turns), so I was not able to return to Wausau in time for the session.

However, there is a Sunday game coming up in the next few weeks, which I will post once I look up the exact date.

October 8 recap

•The Mandalorians show they're wise to the party now, arresting and imprisoning them at Deeja Peak.

•Yvegeny and Kelif hold off an army of Mandalorians to provide a distraction.

•The party plans to start its planet-wide rebellion at Keren.

The party takes off for Deeja Peak, wanting to regroup with Celeri and any other unwilling Mandalorians to help coordinate their burgeoning rebellion. Upon landing the Capanata in Deeja Peak, Yvegeny exits the ship to find a large welcoming party of Mandalorians waiting for him. A Rally Master questions what orders brought him there, then leads him away to a detention center for further discussion. When Ras and Kelif attempt to leave the Capanata as well, they are also questioned by a Rally Master and hauled to a detention center. They are told that security footage from the war forge shows them leaving with a high-priority Sith prisoner (Ordal Naberrie) on their ship, leaving the Mandalorians to think the Capanata is housing a group of traitors. Yvegeny, Ras and Kelif are stripped of their weapons and armor and shoved into individual holding cells in a former police station. The Mandalorians force their way onto the Capanata and arrest Lyta and Oro, though they miss the hidden Gobmush and Marina.

While in prison, Yvegeny constructs a shiv. Ras managed to hide her lightsaber on her person, and uses it to smash the force field generator protecting her room. She promptly uses a mind trick to send the guards away, then frees the others. When the guards return, Ras and Yvegeny quickly dispatch them, and despite their grievous wounds, Lyta keeps them alive. The group heads to the armory and finds all of their equipment there. Realizing the whole city has turned against them, the party decides it needs to head back to the Capanata to escape.

Yvegeny and Kelif draw their guns and prepare to be a big distraction — drawing out the Mandalorians with heavy fire and grenades. Meanwhile, Ras, Oro and Lyta sneak out the police station another way, taking advantage of the distraction to get to the ship. Yvegeny and Kelif launch a suicidal attack on the Mandalorians and are interrupted by a heavily armored Mandalorian with a giant sword, who gives Yvegeny some new scars but is ultimately brought down by Kelif. The duo makes its way towards the barracks, hoping to hit the Mandalorians where it hurts.

Ras, Lyta and Oro arrive at the Capanata's docking bay, only to find a Basilisk war droid guarding their ship. Ras uses the Force to hurl the driver off, then not able to read the console (as it's in Mando'a), stabs at the controls, shutting the droid down. They get aboard the Capanata and find Gobmush and Marina still aboard. They haul the Basilisk inside for later repairs, and the ship takes off and heads for Yvegeny and Kelif's position.

Yvegeny and Kelif find the barracks empty — just about every able-bodied soldier in Deeja Peak is armed and chasing them. They hole up inside, barricading the doors, and continue to take pot shots at the soldiers gathering outside, then notice the Mandalorians bringing grenade launchers to tear the doors down and storm the building. Yvegeny and Kelif destroy the grenade launchers, only to find out (painfully) that snipers have drawn a bead on their position, and they're effectively trapped.

At this moment, the Capanata swoops in overhead to extract its two errant gunrunners. Needing cover from the snipers, Yvegeny and Kelif set fire to the building, using the smoke as cover to get on the roof and board the Capanata. The ship races away from Deeja Peak, evading Basilisk war droid pursuers. As the Capanata heads back to the Eutix lab site, they get a transmission — during the firefight in Deeja Peak, about 200 rebels stormed the docking bays and stole 11 starships, and they'll rendezvous at the Eutix lab site.

When the party arrives at the Eutix site, they find a large group of rebels waiting for them, looking for direction. Yvegeny suggests first freeing the city of Keren, which is under siege by the Mandalorians but still has a strong Republic contingent. He delivers a rousing speech to the rebels, and the party prepares to retake Keren.

Don't call it a comeback

Dang, sorry about the long delay between posts. I've been taking a bit of a break from RPG stuff for the past 2-3 weeks, but I'll be back at it this week, especially with the small-group session on Thursday.

For now, enjoy that The Clone Wars has started Season 2, and it's all streaming at Starwars.com:

http://www.starwars.com/video/view/000871.html

Galaxy at War

So about a week ago I picked up Galaxy at War, but that was sadly on the same day as my computer problems. Now that my computer is feeling much better, I feel better about posting.

Chapter 1 is Military Heroes and encompasses all kinds of new player options. There are nine new species, most of which have a military bent: Barabel, Dashade, Lurmen, Taung, Thakwaash, Trianii, Yevetha, Yuzzem, and Zygerrian. I should mention that this book could accurately be described as "splatbook for military-themed heroes, and also new stuff from the Clone Wars series." Hence the Lurmen, who are noted for their pacifism, and the Zygerrians, known as galactic slavers (though they appeared in the comics, not the TV series). Barabels are mighty impressive — natural weapons, natural armor, darkvision, radiation resistance, stun resistance, AND reroll Persuasion checks to intimidate — and Dashades are mighty good at fighting Force-users due to their inborn resistance to Use the Force checks.

Then there are talents. Jedi get two new talents: Cover Escape, which helps allies when you use Block and Deflect to protect them, and Prime Targets, which lets you deal an extra die of damage to targets who haven't been attacked since your last turn.

The Noble gets the Anticipation talent tree, which is pretty useful. It's all about helping your allies anticipate enemies' actions — like the Forewarn Allies talent, which gives your friends a +2 bonus on attack and damage for attacks of opportunity, and Get Down, which lets you knock your allies prone when they're targeted by a ranged attack. They also get two new talents for the Leadership tree — the unfortunately named Commanding Presence (which is also the name of a soldier talent in Force Unleashed), which is otherwise pretty good, and the very good Tactical Savvy, which lets you add your Intelligence modifier to the result of any Force Point an ally rolls. Really, really powerful.

The Scoundrel gets the Brigand talent tree, which is all about tripping up opponents. Cheap Trick lets you reroll Deception checks to feint, and Quick Strike lets you get an extra attack in during the first round of combat. They also get some new talents that boost the Sneak Attack talents, most notably Backstabber, which lets you deal Sneak Attack damage when flanking. But this particular talent gives me a little bit of worry about power creep: there's an identical talent already out (Advantageous Positioning), except it's an Assassin prestige class talent and it has a prerequisite (the Shift talent) before you can even take it. Backstabber is only once per round, so you can't do it on, say, an attack of opportunity, but how often are you flanking on an attack of opportunity?

The Scout gets some new Camouflage talents which greatly boost sniping by giving concealment or making targets flat-footed. They also get the Advance Patrol talents, which are kind of generic. They're not bad, but they're not particularly flavorful, either.

The Soldier gets two new talent trees — the Shockboxer and Veteran — as well as a new talent apiece for Commando and Weapon Specialist. Shockboxer is all about close-up attacks and penalizing your opponents for missing you in melee. (Gobmush in particular would like the Retaliation Jab talent.) Veteran is kind of all over the place, but it's primarily about keeping yourself alive. Battlefield Remedy is nice for Treat Injury; Tested in Battle improves your second wind; Seen It All protects you against fear effects, for example.

While talents left me a little lukewarm, I'm all about the new feats, which are pretty much across-the-board awesome. Bantha Herder is an oddly named but fantastic feat that lets you move around targets of ranged attacks. Never Surrender is a great option for characters with Endurance trained (*cough*Gobmush*cough*); the first time you'd be knocked down to 0 hit points in an encounter, you can make an Endurance check (with a DC equal to the damage taken) to stay at 1 hit point instead. Mission Specialist lets you pick a skill — all of your allies who aren't trained in it get a +2 bonus to it. It's a good way to shore up any deficiencies in the party.

There's a group of weapon-focused feats (Disabler, Pistoleer, Riflemaster, and Sport Hunter) that greatly improve certain weapons. Disabler, for example, focuses on ion weapons, and gives you a bigger blast radius with ion grenades and d8s instead of d6s when using ion pistols. They make some less-used weapons more useful (I'd use the sporting blaster pistol more often if I could reroll 1s on damage!), even slugthrowers.

There's also a subset of feats that mimic D&D's "choose your stat for defenses" shtick. Force of Personality lets you use Charisma for your Will; Predictive Defense lets you use Intelligence for Reflex; and Resilient Strength lets you use Strength for Fortitude. For the capper, Fight Through Pain lets you use your Will Defense to determine your damage threshold.

There's a set of Martial Arts feats that each feature a particular style (Echani, Hijkata, K'tara, K'thri, Stava, Tae-Jitsu, Teras Kasi, and Wrruushi) and are extraordinarily useful if you plan on being a martial artist. There's also the super-cool Team Feats, which get more useful the more people in the party have them. They all give a +3 bonus (doesn't stack with Skill Focus), +1 for each ally who has the feat. And they all give something extra, too — the Perception one, Wary Sentries, lets you take 10 on Perception checks all the time, and Medical Team, the Treat Injury feat, increases the healing when you're aided by someone else with the same feat. All in all, very cool, and I'm very impressed with Team Feats.

There's some new prestige class talents for the Elite Trooper and Gunslinger. The Elite Trooper gets the Squad Leader talent tree (unfortunately named just like a Soldier talent tree in Clone Wars), which gives healthy bonuses to all your allies. These are pretty powerful and can make the Elite Trooper a little more of a team player. The Gunslinger gets the Sharpshooter talent tree, which is all about shooting things from far away. They're really good and give a nice boost to aiming (Yvegeny, take note), though they're most effective from farther away.

One new prestige class is introduced in the book: the Martial Arts Master. Do you like beating up on people with your bare hands (and wearing only light or no armor)? Then you will love this prestige class. It's got some stringent requirements (4 specific feats and a talent from one of two trees), but it's well worth it. For completists, you also gain access to the Master of Teras Kasi tree from Threat of the Galaxy. This provides all sort of unique ways to beat the crap out of people.

Chapter 2 is Hardware. There's some great weapons in here. Melee weapons are darkstick, entrenching tool, fire blade, shockboxing gloves, shock stick (a very nice tool for knocking people unconscious), static pike, and vibrolance. Ranged weapons are the ascension gun, sidearm blaster pistol, variable and heavy variable blaster rifle (very cool weapons that force you to keep track of ammo, but let you spend more shots to deal higher damage dice), repeating crossbow, flame cannon (a bigger flamethrower that requires a tripod), radiation grenades (some nasty "dirty bombs"), smoke grenades, interchangeable weapon system (a 3-in-1 weapon that can be a blaster rifle, sniper rifle, or anti-armor rifle), mortar launcher, rotary blaster cannon, scatter gun, tactical tractor beam (very cool!) and targeting laser. There's four new kinds of mines: antipersonnel, detonite cord, ion mines, and limpet mines (just slap them on a vehicle and watch them explode). There's also a good amount of armor that incorporates the modification rules from Scum and Villainy: Barabel microbe armor, biohazard suit, camo scout armor, Katarn-class commando armor (which may be the best medium armor in the game), Rebel Alliance marine armor, stalker armor, and a stun cloak (note: the stun cloak does not stun you, it stuns anyone who tries to grapple you).

There's also a whole lot of normal equipment: anti-rad dose, camouflage netting (Yes! It's real, Kelif!), camouflage poncho, com scrambler, tightbeam comlink, communications scanner, cryogenic pouch, droid diagnostic, field food processor, personal field shelter (or "tent," as we call them on Earth), plasma bridge, proximity flare, radiation detector, targeting beacon, triangulation visor, and vacuum survival pouch. Everything you need for your very own military operation. Expect some of these things to appear soon in our campaign.

The book also includes advanced cybernetics. Want a targeting eye, a built-in neck comlink, or a handy brain computer like Lobot? Now they're possible, although I should note that there's a hefty chance of implant rejection. There's also rules for spending a Destiny Point when you die to survive long enough to have a chance of cyborg implants to keep you alive, a la Darth Vader or General Grievous. (There are ways you can die without being able to spend a Force Point to survive, if you fail a Constitution check poorly enough after already falling unconscious.) There's also some nice cross-promotion with Scum and Villainy, as cybernetic prosthetics can now be modified (Yvegeny, again, rejoice).

The chapter features new droids: the A-series medical droid (Grievous' droid from the Clone Wars episode "Lair of Grievous"), the KDY-4 tech droid, Chiba DR-10 protocol droid, B2-AA air assault super battle droid (the jet pack droids from the episode "Jedi Crash"), the Eradicator-series battle droid, the purge trooper (from The Force Unleashed), sniper droideka, tactical droids (the eponymous droid commanders from the Clone Wars cartoon), the Vigilant 2X Picket Droid, the CLL-M2 Ordnance Lifter, and the MR-200 Series Minesweeper.

There's also some new animals in the section: the carrier butterfly (used to relay messages), new mounts bolotaur and gelagrub, and vicious beasts like the gutkurr (seen in episode "The Innocents of Ryloth"), mastif phalone, nek, roggwart (seen in "Lair of Grievous"), and Gamorr's own watch-beast.

There's not a whole lot of new vehicles or ships — some Clone Wars and Force Unleashed stuff — but the book does contain rules for "vehicle fire" effects, similar to tactical fire for capital starships. Want to have AT-ATs in your fights without worrying about one lucky hit killing a player? Now you can. The chapter concludes with rules for gear requisitions (for a military campaign) and rules for rank and privilege in a military organization.

Chapter 3 is Military Campaigns. It's got a lot of military jargon, as well as detailed write-throughs of how to play a campaign where all the characters are in the military. It concludes with a detailed write-up of the ultimate military campaign, playing as the Galactic Empire. It talks about how to play Imperials who aren't all bad guys, and gives some adventure hooks for an Imperial campaign, whether it's Imps versus aliens, Rebels, or other Imperials. The chapter concludes with a Battlefield Encounter Tool Kit, with stats for some things found on common battlefields (mines, automated sentry guns, razor wire) and rules for artillery strikes, mortars, and orbital bombardment, finishing up with a Random Mission Generator.

Chapter 4 is Military Units, and talks about various military groups in different times of Star Wars history. There's no stats with any of these, but they're pretty evocative and talk about military groups can vary their tactics, membership, and objectives. There's the Ailon Nova Guard, Churhee's Riflemen, Hapan Royal Guard, Kaleesh Kolkpravis, Katarn Commandos, Lightning Squadron, Mandalorian Protectors, Mistryl Shadow Guard, Nimbus Commandos, Onderon Beast Riders, Republic Rocket-Jumpers, Senate Guard/Senate Commandos, Sun Guards of Thyrsus, Trianii Rangers, and Wraith Squadron.

Chapter 5 is Bases and Battlestations. It's full of rules for interior combat of all kinds. It's got blueprints for a lot of common rooms (barracks, hangar bay, command bridge, etc.) as well as DCs for things you would commonly find in them. It's very similar to what appeared in the Galactic Campaign Guide for the old rules set, and it's a welcome addition to the game. It's also packed full of rules for alarms of all kinds, blast doors, computer systems, and traps of all kinds. (Finally, rules for carbon freezing!)

I won't get too much into Chapter 6, Military Encounters (which includes several mini-adventures of varying levels), or Chapter 7, Operation: First Breach (a small campaign set during the Clone Wars), but suffice to say I'm impressed.

All in all a good book — not too impressed with the talents, but the feats are pretty nice, and this book is a GM's dream come true with all of its rules for bases and battlestations. You'd best believe I plan to incorporate some of this stuff into the campaign.

September 7 recap

•The party makes an unlikely ally of a Sith officer.

•A standoff ensues at a hidden Eutix laboratory.

The party, flying away from the Mandalorian war forge, discusses what to do with their Sith prisoner. At first, the entire party attempts to interrogate him all at once in the mess hall, which proves disastrous; Yvegeny and Kelif are more interested in causing pain than getting information, and the party fails to provide a unified front. The officer, who introduces himself as Ordal Naberrie, scoffs at the notion of providing any information to the party. Finally, after shooing Yvegeny and Kelif out of the room, Lyta talks to Ordal one-on-one and learns that he belongs to a military family dating back any generations, and that he served in the Coruscant Defense Militia during the Mandalorian Wars (and did not see any action). He follows Revan because he was the only Jedi willing to help the Republic fight the Mandalorians when no one else would, and Revan was single-handedly responsible for the Mandalorian defeat.

Lyta appeals to Ordal's sense of family tradition: Would his father and grandfather approve of him deserting the Republic? Ras jumps in, offering to get him away from the Sith (and specifically the Butcher) if he helps. Ordal acquiesces; he says his ship was on the way to the Sith rendezvous point, but had a hyperdrive malfunction and detoured to Naboo for maintenance. When they arrived in-system, they were attacked by Mandalorian gunships and shot down; Ordal and some of the crew got to the escape pods in time. While Ordal himself doesn't have the coordinates of the Sith rendezvous point — he's just a lieutenant — he knows his ship's navigator made it to one of the escape pods. Lyta and Ras take him to the cockpit, where he uses the Capanata's comm system to locate two Sith escape pods — one near the Eutix lab site, and one near Harte Secur. The ship sets course for the Eutix site.

Along the way, Ordal talks to Yvegeny about having fought in the war, and is underwhelmed that Yvegeny fought on the Mandalorian side. Yvegeny tries to intimidate him by threatening to torture him, but Ordal stands his ground and tells him he has tortured people. (Lyta, who is overhearing, loses all respect for Ordal.) Yvegeny uses his computer skills to change the transponder code of the Capanata to avoid detection by the Mandalorians, altering its ID to be that of an Orphanmaker gunship he saw near the war forge. Yvegeny and Ordal talk more about how they would take out the Mandalorians: Yvegeny is all for a revolution, but Ordal admits he'd rather just bombard the planet from orbit, not just because it's effective, but also because it gets the job done (as the destruction of the planet Telos a few months ago can attest).

The party arrives at the Sith escape pod landing site near the deserted Eutix lab; Marina, Oro and Gobmush stay aboard with Ordal while Ras, Lyta, Yvegeny and Kelif study the site. On the beach, it appears the escape pod drifted ashore, and whoever was aboard stripped it clean, loaded all of their stuff into a net, and dragged it to the Eutix site. While following the tracks, the party discusses the Yvegeny/Kazbich situation. Ras reminds the party about the fake Kazbich wanting to be in jail and getting financial benefit for doing so, so Yvegeny shouldn't act Kazbich-like to sabotage it. In fact, Ras says that after the death stick deal with R'vana on Coruscant, Yvegeny's got one more chance before Ras kills or arrests him herself.

The party eventually arrives at the abandoned Eutix labs — it's just a bunch of prefabricated buildings set around a landing pad. The buildings have been stripped clean, and it looks like anything of value has been taken. As the party explores, someone shoots at Yvegeny from inside one of the buildings; it turns out to be the other Sith survivors, including the navigator. Ordal quickly helps the party talk the Sith troops into a ceasefire. The Sith soon agree to help the party overthrow the Mandalorians, and even agree to provide information if the party can get them away from the Sith. They also loan Yvegeny their portable transmitter, which he plans to use to help coordinate his rebellion.

The Sith officers tell the party about a strange comm signal they picked up while hiding in the buildings; the Mandalorians didn't seem to have been too thorough when they sacked the place, so they must've missed it. It leads to an underwater facility near the planet's core. Everybody boards the Capanata and prepares to head deep into the planet's underwater core.

The party soon finds the facility, which has been extremely well-hidden, and Ras, Lyta, Yvegeny and Kelif enter. Ordal offers to enter the facility with them, but the party decides the Sith should stay on the ship. Marina is secretly ordered that if the Sith try to take over the ship and strand them there, she should vent water inside and drown them all.

Upon following the hallway inside, the party is stopped by a force field, where a security eye droid asks for identification. Yvegeny hacks through the force field, and the party is greeted by a Selkath scientist, who introduces himself as Bruck and asks who the party is. When the party reveals they've come from the Republic and the Mandalorians have taken over the planet, Bruck gets on his comlink and tells the executive officer to immediately begin scuttling the lab. The facility immediately begins venting water in to destroy their experiments. The party is quite surprised by this and intimidates Bruck into taking them to his executive officer.

Bruck takes the party to a central chamber, where Selkath scientists are working around a giant water tank with an enormous leech-like creature inside called a beck-tori. The executive officer, Quol, is convinced to stop the scuttling, then explains what's going on — they're a Eutix laboratory studying the beck-tori because of its natural Force abilities. It's a dangerous predator with a high midichlorian count (sending the party into groans) that can reproduce asexually, making it a threat to a planet's entire ecosystem. Because the lab's location has been compromised, the Eutix scientists want to relocate the beck-tori.

The party debates whether or not to kill the beck-tori — Ras argues that it's a living being that hasn't done any wrong, but Yvegeny says it's too dangerous to leave alive (the lab has a poison release to kill it if need be). Eventually, the party decides to leave the Eutix lab alone for now, saying they'll make sure a Eutix ship gets down there to move the beck-tori once the Mandalorians are overthrown. Yvegeny loads up on communications equipment to help their resistance movement, and the party decides to set up a rebel base at the abandoned Eutix landing pad, using the Sith to man the base. The party also considers using the underwater Eutix lab as a communications relay across the entire planet.

Trivia:

•Ordal Naberrie fulfills something I've been meaning to do more since the start of the campaign: incorporate the ancestors of Star Wars lore into the game. In the same way that Galduran Calrissian is an ancestor to Lando, Ordal is an ancestor to Padmé (and Kelif is an ancestor to Jar Jar). I plan to incorporate more of these kinds of characters into the campaign as time goes on.