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Friday, 3 July 2020

Last of the Sith, Episode 1: Life Finds A Way

We're starting a new Star Wars campaign, set around halfway between the events of Knights of the Old Republic and the movies, which has the great advantage (to me) that I know about as much about the setting as the rest of my group, despite not having assimilated the entire sum of Star Wars extended universe material into my brain the way some of my group seem to have done.

System is Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars, funky dice and all, and we're playing on the Foundry VTT.  I'm pretty impressed so far - the character sheets look good and link up well with the dice roller.  I don't know if this is official or fan-made, but it's well worth a look if you're playing FFG Star Wars, as I actually prefer it to rolling real dice.  As a player it's easy to access through a browser window, and it took us only a few minutes to get the hang of the tools.  I'm not sure what it's like at the GM end, but the GM hasn't rage-quit so I assume it's not too bad.  Actual character creation was done with the OggDude character generator, which remains vastly superior to anything I've seen on a VTT, with the information then manually copied to the character sheets.

I'm playing Gin Daalaro, a Bothan Smuggler / Charmer.  We're using the obligation system rather than morality (far more fun), so my character has a backstory full of angst and betrayal that definitely won't cause any trouble down the line...

Life Finds A Way


Gin didn't think that life could get any worse, but apparently life finds a way.

The transport ship that was supposed to take her back to Listehol had been suddenly wrenched out of hyperspace and boarded by Sith forces.  Some of the other passengers had made a valiant attempt to fight them off but it was all for nothing.  She was captured and sedated, and when she woke up she was on a shuttle, in restraints and stripped of almost all her possessions.  Destined for slavery, no doubt.

She glanced blearily at her fellow prisoners.  That hulking dashade was headed for the fighting pits, no doubt.  What use the Sith had for the rest of them she could only guess.  She mentally ran through a variety of dreadful fates, wondering if this was as bad as life could get.

And that's when the shuttle caught fire.

Life finds a way.

The tumbling ship had loosened her restraints, and if the oversized human beside her could wriggle out of them, so could she.  The tiny jawa on the other side had no trouble.  He'd been given additional restraints, and seeing him use them to decapitate a droid explained why someone had felt they were necessary.

They soon had the upper hand, but what use was that in a crashing ship?  "If anyone knows how to fly, this would be a great time to be a hero," she called out, and it seemed the human was listening.  There was some saying about good landings and walking away, and by that standard it was a good landing for her and her fellow prisoners.  Except that walking away was going to have to wait, as the tracker droid was now surveying the area and apparently everything was coming up spiders.

"Guys, it would be really embarrassing to survive a ship crash, only to get eaten by spiders," she called out as the droid hauled her onto the roof of the ship, out of reach of the spiders.  She'd grabbed a small pistol off one of the dead guards when leaving the ship, and was able to take out one of the spiders with it, but when everyone else's weapons started to fail she handed over the battery pack to the jawa.

Even with the spider threat temporarily dealt with, it was clear they couldn't stay put.  The droid lead them through the jungle until they reached a small village of small furry sentients.  The human and droid hung back, along with the still unconscious dashade.  She stepped forwards, along with the jawa, and spoke with the village elder.  She could only pick out a few words of his speech, but she quickly noticed his fur rippling in a way that she was a lot closer to understanding.

She negotiated medical care for the group in exchange for finding them electric lights from the crashed shuttle, and instructions on how to charge them from the ship's power cores.  With everyone feeling better and with their weapons recharged, it was time to move on.

The furry sentients gave them directions to the nearby Sith base, while warning them of a large spiky monster in the jungle.  Scouting the base revealed some fairly useless fighter ships initially, but further observation saw the arrival of a ship with hyperdrive engines.  It didn't look like much, and it would be a tight fit, but it would be enough to get them off this planet and back to Listehol.

The jawa came up with a plan, and explained it via a series of pictures of spiders in cages.  The human mentioned how useful a protocol droid would be, and she felt her heart break all over again.  But there was no time for tears.  Using the jawa's plan to lure the spiky monster to the base meant they had a window of opportunity while most of the Sith were distracted.  A small number of guards remained on the far side of the base, but between them they were quickly taken out.

The ship wasn't going to let itself be stolen without a fight, and she soon found herself head down with the human, breaking the security systems to get the engines to fire up while the droid and jawa made sure they weren't interrupted.

And then they were airborne, with the human in the pilot's seat while the rest of them squeezed in wherever they could around the still unconscious dashade.

When she'd boarded that transport ship a few days earlier, she'd felt like her life could never get any better.

But life finds a way.

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