Star Wars Shards of the Empire Season 02 "Restore the Faith" Episode 01 "The Force Is With Me" Part 1 "Life Debt"

Star Wars Shards of the Empire Season 02 "Restore the Faith" Episode 01 "The Force Is With Me"

Part 01: Life Debt

Balyn Tosh and Tracker Tam stood on the outskirts of Niima Outpost watching their YT-1300 freighter "The Rusty Gundark" take off from the "New Republic" outpost headed for who knows where.  A day before the New Republic had commandeered their ship to transport supplies off Jakku.  "You know last year I was fighting terrorist above Endor and now those same people are taking off in our ship" Balyn sighed.  "Yeah strange galaxy.....  Was that part of the engine flaring flying off?"  replied Tam.  The Zabrak looked over at her companion "Hey the voucher they gave us if they don't return the ship is worth more than that hunk of junk."  "Only if we can find someone to honor it" replied the ex-imperial.  

Back at their camp a curious sight awaited them.  Their shipmates Anno Sune and her B2 battledroid companion 00-C were talking to a Wookie.  Sune's head tails twitched like they always did when she was negotiating a deal.  "I wonder what she's getting us into" Tosh mused.  "Hey guys this is Jondara.  He says he needs our help rescuing a clone trooper captain called Stalker" the orange Twi'lek explained.  "Well I thought this day couldn't get any stranger but I seem to be wrong" replied Tam.  "The pay is a thousand creds and a trip off this rock" the Twi'lek said hopefully.  "Guess we got nothin better to do" Balyn agreed.  

    

Jondara explained that his friend "Captain Stalker" had rescued him from a Separatist attack on his home world during the Clone Wars but he was wounded in the process.  After being medically retired from the service the two had joined an order of monks called "The Guardians of the Whills" on a planet called Jedha.  The Guardians had taught Stalker to use a Kyber Crystal and force meditation to control his accelerated clone aging.  After the destruction of the Holy City the two had joined the rebellion but since the fall of the Empire Stalker had been trying to get help to liberate Jedha from the Imperial Warlord Moff Korrath.  The New Republic had declined to help liberate the planet so Stalker was looking to recruit a resistance.  They had traveled to Jakku to look for former rebels who might help them.  Unfortunately Stalker had been tricked by a bounty hunter working for Moff Korrath and captured.  During the fight his Kyber Cristal had been destroyed.  The bounty hunter had sold Stalker's armor to a band of Jawas in Scrapper Town and was waiting there at a comm station for his partners to pick him up.  The Wookie was adamant that they needed to rescue Stalker and his armor.  

Upon reaching the outskirts of Scrapper Town Jondara insisted that they recover the captain's armor from the Jawas first.  Although the crew didn't understand this logic they decided not to argue.  Everyone knows it's not wise to upset a Wookie.   

 

As they made their way down the dusty street towards the Jawa's bunker four old B1 Battle droids emerged from the structure.  "Halt!  By order of Clan Ooo'dora that Wookie is not allowed in Scrapper Town!" all four droids proclaimed over their metallic vocabulators.  

 

With a Wookie battle cry Jondara charged one of the droids and sliced it's arm off with his vibro knuckler.  00-C charged towards another of the B1s.  "By order of Separatist Alliance directive 062-386-1138 you are ordered to remand yourselves to the command of a superior model." the super battle droid said as it smashed it's hand accuator into the head of the lesser droid.  "Roger, Roger by your command" the other droids replied in unison.  

    

Unfortunately 00-C's crewmates cut one of the B1 droids down in a hail of blaser fire while the Wookie literally shook the one he was facing to pieces even as the poor droid exclaimed "Ssssammmme side! Same siiiiiiiiiide...." out of it's broken vocabulator.  

Three Jawa emerged from a hatch on top of the bunker and began taking shots at 00-C with their Ion rifles.  One scored a direct hit causing arks of Ion energy to flash across the droids shiny surface for several seconds.   

  

00-C moved towards the bunker firing his wrist mounted repeating blaster .  One of the scavengers was struck but not killed.  The Jawa returned fire and another blast hit 00-C "Systems operating at twenty eight percent initiating self repair protocol.....  Systems restored to seventy five percent efficacy" the droid explained as he trudged on.

    

Unfortunately for the super battle droid it marched right into a Jawa ambush.  Blue energy sparked across the droid's armored structure.  00-C dropped to the ferrocrete floor with a loud clang.  

Under the covering fire of the crew and their new droid allies Jondara leapt and vaulted over the top railing of the bunker.  With a roar he picked up the last rooftop Jawa and threw him over the railing into the side of an adjacent building.  The poor creatures scream was cut short as his body hit the building with a thud then fell to the ground dead.  

 

Anno and Balyn moved up and engaged the Jawa inside the bunker wounding one but the creatures fired back taking down one of the B1 droids.  

A heavy blaster shot hit the ferrocrete bunker just above Anno's head.  She turned and spotted an armed figure firing from the roof of the town's comm station.  "Sniper!" the Twi'lek yelled.

Inside the bunker 00-C's system rebooted.  "System online.  Operating at minimal efficiency" the droid intoned.  Standing in one sudden movement the massive droid stepped over and smacked one of the Jawa over the head with it's metallic fist dropping the creature just as Jondara was finishing off the other.  

As the rest of the party moved against the sniper Balyn Tosh's R5 astromech droid "Blooper" began repairing 00-C.  "Bloop, bloop!" the little droid chirped.  "Systems restroed to ninety eight percent efficiency."  reported the B2 droid.  "Good work R5-B4".  "Bloop, bloop" the astromech replied.  

  

Balyn, Anno, Tracker, and Jondara moved down the street towards the comm station trading fire with the Bounty Hunter on the roof.  As they reached the building the Wookie began climbing the wall.   

 

The Bounty Hunter turned and shot Jondara as he pulled himself onto the roof.  Undaunted the Wookie charged the man an hurled him off the roof to his death.

   

Inside the building sat a man who's face matched those on countless Republic propaganda posters from the Clone Wars sitting cross legged on the floor.  Over and over the man repeated a simple mantra "The force is with me.  I am one with the force".

Game Master Notes: This was the first session of my 2nd Star Wars Shards of the Empire campaign set just after the fall of the Empire.  In the first campaign former Rebel Alliance pilots were hired by the Queen of Naboo to help her pirate Ally Nym destroy a dangerous squadron of TIE Advanced pilots known as "Storm Squadron" out of the Lok system.  This campaign follows a more rag tag crew of smugglers as they are drawn into a war between a power hungry Imperial Warlord and the followers of various Force based faiths on the holy moon of Jedha.   

     

Star Wars "Shards of the Empire" Setting Overview.

Star Wars “Shards of the Empire” is set just a little over a year after the destruction of the 2nd Death Star and it follows the new post Endor storyline set up by Episode VII.  There isn’t a lot of information about the new timeline between the battle of Endor and the new movie.  Basically the Empire seems to have crumbled during the first year after the death of the Emperor due to internal fighting and pressure from the New Republic. 

What is left of the Empire either disarms or flees to the unknown regions to later become the First Order.  The New Republic decides they don’t want to be like the old Empire so they sign the Galactic Concordance reducing their military down to a laughable level and moving the government around from system to system so as not to show favoritism.  Planets and systems are allowed to have defense forces of their own but they are restricted from creating Stormtrooper forces and having large numbers of armed capital ships.  Eventually the First Order is discovered and while the New Republic mostly hides their heads in the sand a few powerful individuals start the Resistance.  Within this framework I’m trying to create a more realistic explanation for what happened after Endor.  

Nothing as big as the Galactic Empire just goes away in such a short time frame.  In my “Shards of the Empire” setting most of the more powerful Imperial forces either fled to the Unknown regions to form the First Order or re-aligned themselves to the New Republic.  The rest of the forces followed roughly three paths.  

Some Imperial forces have basically become Pirates.  With the means to take what they want, especially, in the Outer Rim several smaller groups of Imperials have turned to banditry.  None of these forces are large enough to threaten the New Republic in any way but they can certainly threaten individual and remote worlds in the galaxy.  Some planetary governments have taken to hiring former Rebel Alliance personnel as Privateers to combat this threat.  

Other Imperial forces have taken up an insurgency against the New Republic using basically Rebel style tactics to conduct hit and run raids against New Republic targets.  These cells are typically led by former Imperial Officials who were fanatically loyal to the Empire.  They are not all aligned with each other though they share the same cause.  The New Republic has responded to these threats by downplaying them and encouraging local systems to be vigilant against Imperial Loyalist.  

There are other Imperial forces who have either tried to carve out small kingdoms for themselves in remote areas or they have decided to embrace the New Republic while secretly working to undermine it.  Some systems still have a very Imperial culture run by former Imperial officials who find clever ways around the restrictions put in place by the New Republic.  A number of these systems are also secretly aligned with the First Order and are supplying the movement with arms and information.  

For the most part the New Republic is aware of these former Imperial factions but their response has been to either downplay the threats they represent or to ignore them completely.  Most system regard the New Republic as the legitimate government but the systems of the Outer Rim and other remote areas of the galaxy have become far more dangerous and lawless since the fall of the Empire.  The Hutt Cartels have been very aggressive against their neighbors and several other criminal organizations have increased their activities in the last year.  Other systems have decided to rule themselves rather than join the New Republic and these systems have rejected the restrictions places on the Galaxy by the Galactic Concordance.  

In my campaign former Rebel Alliance personnel have joined a private security company called “Sand Panther Squadron” and they are currently employed by Queen Sosha Soruna of Naboo who had assigned them to aid the pirate king Nym of Lok in his struggle against the Imperial pirate force called “The Storm Lords” who have also threatened her own system.  

Eventually they will face other former Imperial threats and be a part of uncovering the threat of the First Order and the formation of the Resistance but those events are many chapters away.  

At this time I am currently behind posting game reports.  We are six episodes into the campaign and the players have just fought a major battle against the Storm Lords in the Naboo system.  I will probably post most of the the last few game reports as short synopsis with a gallery of images.    

Star Wars Shards of the Empire Season 01 Episode 02 Recon in Farce

Sand Panther Squadron had been sent on a mission to Nod Kartha a planet in the Karthakk system near Lok to search for one of Nym's operatives.  Morago was a Kubaz member of the Lok Revenants who was spying on Storm Lord activity on Nod Kartha.  As near as Nym could tell he had made it to the planet but they had not heard from him since.  Nym was not sure if he had been captured by the Storm Lords or the Local Neimodians who were no friends to Nym or his followers.

First they would have to get past the Spine and the Storm Lord patrols.  "Eyeballs dead ahead!" shouted the Zabrak Sune' Arkel over her comm.  "I see em!" replied one of the Revenant Y-Wing pilots.  "Darin let's get these two on the right!" Jenny Kule.  Two X-Wings and a Y-Wing banked towards their targets scoring a few hits.  "Hey I'm gonna need some help over here!" Sune' said excitedly.

"Got em!  Two down!" excalined Darin-Une.  "Yeah but their chewing us up over hear.  Shields out!" yelled Sune'.

 "Interceptor down!  We're comming to help." replied Jenny.  The Sand Panthers swung around to help their friend.

 "Hey I got one!" shouted one of the Revenants.  "We might just pull our backsides out of this yet" Sune' said.

 "Got the last TIE!  Take out that Squint before he gets away." Sune' said as her X-Wing rolled through the debris of the TIE fighter she had just vaporized.

 Darin lined her ship up on the final TIE Interceptor and opened fire.  In a flash the small craft vanished.  "He's down.  Let's get clear of the Spine and make our jump." she said.

The three Sand Panther pilots and two Revenants landed a few kilometers south of Gunray station on Nod Kartha.  The planet was a cold and desolate wasteland but there was so little moisture that nothing more than a heavy frost covered most of the ground.  "Separatist used to make Trihexalon weapons on this rock.  Cold kept the stuff stable." one of the Revenants said.  "Sounds like a great place to live." growled Sune'.  

Gunray station was a large town consisting mostly of prefabricated structures in fairly bad repair.  As the three pilots made their way through the outskirts they noticed that the town itself was fairly sparsely populated and in fact they had not seen any Neimodians at all.  

They got directions to the local cantina.  The place was named Rizzno's and it was owned by a Rodian.  Darin went up to the bar.  "Hey I thought that this was suppose to be a Neimodian town.  Where are they?" she ask.  The Rodian bartender looked around nervously "They moved on.  Yeah some time ago.  None of them left around here.".  He was obviously hiding something but Darin didn't know what.  

Sune' went up to the bar next and ask if the bartender knew Morago a Kubaz.  "Yeah there has been a Kubaz in here lately.  Comes in about this time most days. 

Sune' set back down with here drinks and watched the door.  After a while a Kubaz came in and set down at a table along.  The three Sand Panthers approached his table.  "Well, well you all don't look like the locals." the Kubaz said through a robotic sounding translator.  "We aren't.  You wouldn't happen to know a Morago would you?" Sune' asked.  The Kubaz leaned in and said "I hope Nym sent you.  I'm Morago.  I've got some intel for Nym but I need to get it out of my safe house.".  "Lead the way." Jenny said.
  

They made their way across the street to Morago's safe house.  "Hold on here.  I'll get my stuff and we can get back to Lok." the Kubaz said then went inside the small structure.

 Darin heard a group moving up behind them.  Turning she saw a group of four Stormtroopers.  "We've got company!" she shouted.

After a brief blaster exchange all four troopers lay on the ground.  "Crap they got me." Jenny said.  Just then the Kubaz ran out a side door of his safe house and headed across the street.  "Stun that bastard!" Sune' yelled.  The three pilots shot the Kubaz with stun bolts and he fell to the ground.  

After patching Jenny up Darin used some smelling salts from her pack to wake the Kubaz.  "So Morago you planned to double cross Nym" Sune' said as she held her blaster out at the Kubaz.  "I'm not really Morago.  The Storm Lords hired me to impersonate him in order to catch any Revenants who came looking for him.  My name is Velis.  If you promise not to kill me I will show you where the Storm Lords are holding Morago." the Kubaz said.  "Well Velis" Jenny said "We best get moving".

The Sand Panters and their Kubaz captive traveled to the warehouse sector of town.  There were eight Stormtroopers guarding a large warehouse.  Velis pointed at the structure.  "Morago is in there and I can tell you there will be more troopers in there guarding them.  Now if you let me go I promise I won't be any more trouble".  "Get moving then before I decide to kill you." growled Sune'.  The Kubaz ran off.

After searching around the three pilots found a large barrel full of fuel.  "Let's set this up behind this warehouse and set a thermal detonator to blow it.  When the troopers come to investigate we can attack the warehouse." Sune' said.  "Sounds risky but I don't have another plan" said Jenny. 

The Sand Panthers set the detonator then moved across the street to another warehouse. 

The entire warehouse exploded in a ball of fire.  The shock wave knocked the three pilots off their feet.  The Stormtroopers ran towards the inferno but stopped in the middle of the street gawking at the flames.  

 "Quick let's move out!" Darin said and she and Jenny ran towards the warehouse that Velis had pointed out.  A Stormtroopers came out a side door and Darin shot him.

Sune' sat on the ground shaking her head.  It took her a moment to get to her feet.  She then moved back towards the street and fired at one of the gawking troopers killing him.    

Jenny and Darin took out another pair of troopers who came out the door.  The troopers who were watching the fire seemed confused for a few moments then they realized they were under attack.  The split into two ground.  One group headed back to their warehouse while the other moved towards Sune's position.

Sune' dropped another detonator and ran away from the advancing troopers.  One trooper rounded the corner of the building and shot her knocking her out.  The detonator exploded killing the trooper and his comrades.

Darin and Jenny engaged the other group in a fierce fire fight.  They had good cover from a piece of heavy industrial equipment they were hiding under.  Eventually they managed to kill all the troopers.

Darin ran back towards Sune' and pulled her medpack out.  Jenny went into the warehouse and found a Kubaz tied up.  "Hey are you with Nym?  I'm Morago." the Kubaz said through a very chipper sounding translator.  "Yeah he sent us to find you" Jenny replied.

Darin managed to patch Sune' up.  "We had best get our butts out of here." Sune' said.  "Yeah let's get someplace safer." Darin replied.  Morago and the pilots made their way to the edge of town.  "Alright I need to get to my Z-95.  Don't worry she's got a hyperdrive so we can make an in system jump back to the Spine." Morago said.  "Sounds good.  See you in space." Jenny replied.

 After making an in system jump the Sand Panthers and pirates made their way towards the.  "Looks like we got problems already.  These Imp bastards just won't give up!" Sune' said.  "Six Eyeballs, two Squints, and a Decimator!  Who did you guys kill?" asked Morago.  "Oh just a couple Storm Lord patrols." replied Jenny.

A pair of Z-95s bearing Revenant markings came up on their position.  "Nym thought you could use some help" said one of the Z-95 pilots.  "We certainly do.  This is going to be a tough fight!" Jenny answered.

The ships engaged at high speed firing at each other.  Several scored hits in the first pass but kills were scored.  "I always end up by myself!" Sune' growled.  "Stop doing that then." Jenny answered.

 The Decimator turned into the fight it's turret spraying out deadly green fire.  One of the Z-95s exploded.  "We lost one already!  We've got to fight they are too fast!" Morago yelled.

Darin, Jenny, and two of the pirates concentrated their fire on the Decimator and the larger ship exploded in a flash.  "Yeah he's down!" cried Jenny.  "Good, now get over here and get these Squints off me.  My shields are down already." Sune' yelled.

Another TIE exploded.  "Don't worry Sune' we're on our way" Jenny said.  Just then Sune's X-Wing exploded.

 "Sune'! Sune' are you there!" Jenny shouted into her comm.  She hit her thrusters charging straight at a TIE firing as she flew.  The small craft exploded but she over shot directly into the path of the oncoming interceptors.  The two fighters riddled Jenny's X-wing with laser fire and her ship spun out of control before exploding.

Darin took down another TIE and another was taken down by the Revenants but the TIEs took out a Pirate Y-Wing.  "Sith!  Did anyone see if they ejected?" Darin yelled over her comm.  "It's too hot.  We've got to get out of here!" was Morago's only answer.  
  

Darin-Une banked her craft away from the battle.  As she did she check her scanners.  Two familiar emergency transponders were blinking on her screen.  There was at least a chance her friends had survived.  

"I'm sorry about your friends but I want to thank you for bringing Morago home.  Jenkins if analyzing some vital data he brought back.  The Storm Lords have rounded up the Neimodians and they have them working as slave labor trying to produce Trihexalon weapons.  We're doing everything we can to find out what happened to your squadron mates.  Rest assured that we will let you know if we find anything."  Nym said.   Darin nodded and walked back to her quarters.  

Sune' and Jenny awoke to find themselves tied to a pair of chairs aboard some kind of ship or space station.  "Welcome to Blood Razor Outpost.  I'm Jorund Saleem a captain of the Blood Razors. I sure hope for your sake your worth more to me alive than dead." a tall human man with braided hair stood and crossed his arms smiling at his two captives.  

Notes:  Well that was another rough one.  The players planning to rescue Morago was a little too rushed.  They planted their explosives way too close to the guarded warehouse.  While it cause the distraction they intended most of the troops were able to recover and get right back into the fight before they could rescue the Kubaz.  The final space battle in the Spine went pretty poorly as well.  I think the opposing force was just a bit too strong but they also split up a bit too much.  At first they tried to just punch straight through but TIEs are too fast for that so they lost a whole round of fighting trying to run too early and they also took too much damage doing that.  Fortunately the two players who got shot down managed to eject.