KMC Forums - USH'S STAR WARS GAME- CAMPAIGN II, EPISODE I (DARK SIDE)- New Order

Initialising: De-crypt sequence AB00011657.

Sequence completed. Message follows:

Reams of text appeared on the screen. The two men read it. One, sitting on the chair, was merely the relay officer. The uniformed man behind him was clearly the superior.

�What do you think?� asked the comms man.

�I need a better guarantee that it is genuine.�

�It seems genuine.�

�It also seems rather convenient, it suddenly happening like this. I need some way to better identify that� wait. Get me a link to the Archives on Coruscant.�

�Yes sir.� The comms man typed in a few keys.

�Come on, come on�� said the man in charge.

�Always takes a few seconds sir. Ah, there you are!� The man in charge got on the voice channel.

�I need to access a case file. Master Kellan Gundark, two years ago, on the planet Nar Shadda.�

Processing� my apologies. A negative match under those parameters.

�The mission was under secondment to the Chancellor�s office. Check there.�

Processing� my apologies. Any files here are security classified under�

The man was already typing in some details to the computer.

Authorisation accepted. I have the file you requested. Now uploading to your system.

�How will that help?� asked the comms man.

�You�ll see�� Over the next few minutes, the man in charge typed in a few calculations, and the comms officer smiled.

�Come on, hurry it up�� said the man in charge, as the computer made its analysis.

Completed. Positive match.

�Ahhhh�� said the man in charge.

�Then it is genuine?�

�It IS genuine. This is it, then. Get things going. I�ll need ships. Fast ships. Transponder analyzers. The works. Get me everything. Everything.� The man in charge headed towards the elevator door.

�Yes sir.�

�Oh, and you should probably inform the Jedi Council.�

�Sir? Is that strictly within protocol? I understood it was not necessary.�

�Not normally. But this case is rather an exception. Kuylen was one of their own, after all.� He stepped through the door. �They may want to see the body.�

The door closed.

-

Well folks, welcome to the new Star Wars campaign! Beginning now is Episode I of that campaign for the Dark Siders. For now, you guys can stop worrying about the Jedi as you get involved in more direct problems of getting back into the Galactic scene! You are getting bored with being on the fringe. Last time, you were the Jedi Order�s top priority. Oh, happy days! Let�s see if you can build a reputation again� and THEN we can worry about the Jedi. This time it should be your own reputation, not one borrowed from Kuylen.

As the game opens, all of you are heading to the planet Demarus. This otherwise unassuming world in the Republic has become big business for you, as you are receiving a signal from Kuylen. Now, all of you have been together for at least a year. You comprise of two groups- the veteran players, who once worked for Kuylen and have stuck together since they rather lost track of him after a big incident on the distant planet Zeiton, where they apparently failed, on a technicality, in their quest for ultimate power. This is Takuan, Galder and Rah. They have stuck together ever since, trying to make it big.

All the rest of you are the new group, under the ex-Jedi Master Nume Rand. You guys are a relatively new organisation of Dark Siders come together for mutual protection. Rand has led you out of the Republic to plan on what to do next. Whilst looking for the famed Kuylen to try and pool resources, you found Kuylen�s ex work-mates. Although it leads to group tensions, all of you have come together to try and get a better result. Sadly, recent work has not gotten you very far, and recently your attempt to take over a pirate clan led to you basically having to annihilate it instead. You are running out of leads to follow, and what you lack is anything to offer people other than violence. You have no permanent home and few friends.
But now Kuylen�s ex-buddies have received his locator signal- the signal he used to summon you all to him in the first place- Galder to Avalar, Takuan to Malastare, and Rah to Tartarus. This signal is unique- it cannot be duplicated. Kuylen was very security conscious on this issue, and only he has the activator. The signal is coming from Demarus.

Now, your reasons for seeing Kuylen may be varied. Kuylen was a driven man who knew a LOT of stuff. He was always going places. If he is summoning his old crew, he must have some new plan. You may want in on that. You may see allying with Kuylen as a very good idea for building your organisation. Alternatively, you may want access to what Kuylen owns- as his old friends can tell you, this includes a valuable Sith astrogation device that may help you find new places to go, and biggest of all, a partial Archive of information on all things Sith. You can ask the veteran players for more info on that, but it is big business.

Regardless, finding Kuylen is the first good lead you have had� well, in two years, since Zeiton, whether you were there or not. Finding him gives you options- and through the Force, you sense that new opportunities are coming by following this path. So, you travel through the Republic to Demarus, in your various collection of personal ships.

Now, it is only fair I want you in advance� this episode is INCREDIBLY violent! We are talking serious Dark Side hardcore unpleasantness, in a way the Jedi could never possibly act- at least not before the Clone Wars. Be sure this is a uniquely Dark Side story and therefore is very dangerous- pretty much all the way. Do be careful! Now, the good news is, a lot of you are Matrix veterans. It�s going to be that intense, combat wise, so it would be nice if those who have played the Matrix do their best to help the people new to the rules. This one is going to be a good test of the group dynamic and survival skills. It is a harsh Galaxy, and it is time for you to earn your position as big fish in the pond. There you go, fair warning.

Unlike before, there is no reason at all not to look at what the Light Siders are doing. Whilst there are links between your plots, right now they are exceedingly small and tenuous, and it can even be fun to try and spot them. Still, if you want to be literal about not knowing, don�t look at it- but it might be quite a while before you see anything of them again!

At this point, I need to ask everyone what, if any, predictive power they wish to use before the game starts. I�ll need to know it pretty quickly because once the plot gets underway you are forbidden from using them. As a reminder, the predictive powers you may have taken are:

Dreams. Using this gives you a small chance that the Force will have given you insight into what is to come in the upcoming story, giving you a chance to better react and deal with these events.

Foresight. This is better than Dreams- it represents you actually spending time to navigate the future to deliberately try and get warning of upcoming events. It can give far more clear and comprehensive visions than Dreams.

Manifest Destiny. Basically a Dark Side twist on Foresight. Whilst not literally better than Foresight, if you have it you will probably find it more useful. Manifest Destiny means that your future predictions become subjective rather than objective, and show you how you personally can increase your power, and become better than you are. It is how Palpatine creates his labyrinthine plans. A successful use of Manifest Destiny will give you information on what you should do to become more powerful. Normally this will, of course, be of relevance in the coming story- though Foresight talks more directly about story events. Manifest Destiny is very much focussed on you alone.

Instincts. The power of the Living Force gives you no warning about the future at all, but makes you more likely to do things right once you get there. A successful use of Instincts will give you a certain amount of re-rolls to use during the story, which you van use whenever a die roll goes badly to get a better result.

So, if you have Foresight, don�t use Dreams, Foresight is simply better. So if you have a choice, chose between either Cosmic Force prediction in advance, or Living Force sense at the time. And if you have Manifest Destiny, you have a choice between broad help from Foresight, or personal help from Destiny.

If you wish, you may reduce your force rating by one for the story to get +1 on your prediction roll. The Force power Augury also gives a bonus to these rolls. If the upcoming storyline is drastically relevant to you, you get +4 to the roll, but I will not tell you that in advance.

Choose one; I shall make the roll and tell you the result. Bear in mind that the rolls are not easy and if you get a result you have been lucky.

As Dark Siders, you get an additional option- if you wish, you may receive your Prediction, is any, in secret, by PM. Bear in mind that I will tell everyone the results of the rolls, so if you do choose to get it in secret, everyone will know that. Well, anything to increase paranoia, eh?

Good luck folks; the next post I make will be the starting situation.

__________________

"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"

"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"

BtVS