On Thursday we played Star Wars using the Fate game system in our ‘West Marches’ style game – a drop-in/drop-out world that allows multiple players to be engaged at different times and dates without major FOMO.
Fate is an intuitive and simple rules-set that is narrative based. Creating a character is as easy as writing a couple of bullet points called Aspects (no stats!) about who they are and takes <20 minutes.
For reference, our world is set using the following Aspects:
1. Mando Era – set after the fall of the empire, with a fledgeling New Republic struggling to maintain order.
2. Minor Warlords – lots of ex-imperials and others (inc. pirates) all over the place vying for territory and power.
3. Lots of Greed – related to the above – everyone is out for themselves right now and takes whatever they can get their hands on.
Our characters:
1. Klore Belor – An ex-imperial prison officer, with self-control issues. Is now one of several Klore Belor clones (see previous session write up here: https://brisbanecasualrpg.wixsite.com/brisbane-casual-rpg/post/star-wars-prologue-episode and here: https://brisbanecasualrpg.wixsite.com/brisbane-casual-rpg/post/star-wars-episode-1 for a load of background about the clones…) who is working with his other clones to uncover what had happened to him and why he was cloned. Not sure if he is the original or a copy.
2. Shilia – A Twi’lek information broker and spymaster, apparently a set of triplets but in truth three clones which share a common mind thanks to an unexpected side effect or error in their cloning. Trusts no one except for her G3KL services droid which acts as butler, protector, and assistant. Has been investigating leads into Colonel Kriak who she blames for her own cloning.
3. Schlekneir – An outcast Trandoshan, one of the only surviving crew from a previous episode who turned on his clan and assisted to free the clone slaves aboard the Trandoshan transport ship. Is an ace pilot, although a little reckless, and interfaces with his advanced ship ‘The Pheonix’ via the use of an implanted droid interface. Has a daughter who he wants to reunite with, but she is kept from him by other Trandoshan forces.
As Klore was a returning character, he had a bit of decision-making power in how this whole session started. We established that the runaway Trandoshan slave ship from our first episode was intercepted by New Republic Rangers, but that Klore (with several of his clones) escaped with the help of Schleknir. Schleknir knew of a place (the space station, Cirrus) and someone (Shilia) who might be able to help Klore uncover more information about the cloning that seemed to be under the direction of mysterious ex-imperials who remain unknown.
Standing around in one of the large hangar bays aboard Cirrus, Schleknir introduced Klore to Shilia and then stepped back a ways to give them some privacy to conduct their business. The rest of the population of Cirrus knew to give Shilia plenty of room to conduct her business, so this corner of the hangar was relatively empty of people. Klore raised his desire to identify the root of this cloning operation which had done this to him, something of interest to Shilia as well since she was also the result of a cloning experiment herself. Shilia’s ever present droid, G3, began searching the databanks of her immense spy network to identify what she had on the matter – coming up with a few likely names, including a rogue ex-imperial scientist who had recently come through Cirrus – Dr Theo. Shilia, a clone herself, and interested in her ex-imperial cloning suspect, Colonel Kriak, was interested in seeing if the two clandestine cloning programs were connected. Negotiating a price, Shilia refused credits from Klore, instead insisting that he would owe her a favour made payable at some future point. Klore agreed and was given a lead on Dr Theo – who happened to be working on a nearby planet recently investigating fungi.
Just as Klore and Shilia were concluding their deal, alarms started wailing through the ageing speaker system of the space station, something practically unheard of in the entire time Cirrus had been in private hands (i.e. since the Clone Wars). Knowing this meant trouble, Schlekneir made a run for the hangar where his beloved ship was parked, skidding to a halt as blast doors closed all over the place, compartmentalising in case of battle damage. Not one to be trapped, Schlekneir uncoiled his implanted droid interface (a small grafted appendage, a bit like ‘Doc Oc’ tentacles in Spiderman) and tried to slice into the station computers to open the blast doors – but met with ageing systems of military grade which stymied his attempt.
Cirrus rocked as if coming under fire, and a timid and nervous voice came over the emergency comms systems – ‘uhhh… it seems that we are under attack? There is some kind of cruiser out there – probably imperial… and they are shooting at us’. Although as an old warship, Cirrus can somewhat defend itself, the group decided that it was better to leave than get caught in the middle. Shilia and G3 had been covertly inside the station systems for years as part of their information gathering efforts, and had no trouble slicing back in to open some doors to the hangar where their own small ship was parked – no where near Schleckneir. Deciding to stick together while the station was under attack, the group made their way through the path of the newly opened blast doors and reached the hangar.
To find a group of thugs (endemic to the station it seems) trying to break in and steal the small craft for their own escape. A handful of them turned around and drew blasters, while another continued to work on the door release mechanism. Klore, ever the unthinking, drew blaster and shot at the group – causing ricochet fire to pin down his own teammates, while Schleckneir dove for cover, failing badly and nearly getting scorched by blaster fire. Shilia opened fire to middling effect. After nailing a couple with blaster, Klore reverted to form and charged in – the brute disabling the lot and leaving many unconscious on the ground or groaning in pain, unable to offer more resistance.
As the most competent pilot, Schleckneir took control and whizzed directly out of the hangar bay, attracting the attention of a group of Tie Fighters. Soon he was ducking and weaving through the station’s infrastructure trying to lose them, aided by Shilia who sliced into the imperial comms frequency assisted by G3. Shilia, with the help of Klore’s imperial military knowledge, issued commands to the tie fighters to pursue other fleeing ships and ignore the group. They quickly made their way to the hangar where Schleckneir’s ship the Pheonix was parked, and immediately agreed that they should flee together in this ship as it was far superior.
They took off in the Pheonix and were again pursued by Tie fighters, and made their way towards a clear hyperspace jump point – unfortunately situated beyond the imperial cruiser blocking their way! The ties zoomed in and Schleckneir pulled a ‘crazy ivan’, spinning the ship around allowing Klore to bring the cannons to bear with devastating effect, destroying three tie fighters in one volley and sending the others scattering. Shilia hopped in the sensor suite and scanned the area for opportunities, learning that an imperial shuttle seemed to be leaving Cirrus headed on a parallel path with them towards the imperial cruiser. To the overly impulsive Klore, this was an opportunity and he swung the ships cannons to fire upon the shuttle instead of the remaining ties, which gave them an opening to decimate the Phoenix’s shields and rip into the engines, sending it into a flat spin. Schleckneir the wily pilot drew on his vast experience and played along – pretending that the ship was disabled and manipulating the spin to take them away and past the imperial cruiser.
Once clear, Schleckneir brought the ship expertly out of the spin and sent them hurtling into hyperspace as Klore took a few pot-shots at the cruiser, causing extensive damage to the unshielded side of the larger ship. They flew to the last known research planet where Dr Theo was working, a temperate planet named Lota IV – home to the Crimson Claw pirates. Wracking his brains for any information that might be useful Schleckneir remembered that the Crimson Claw pirate captain, Agerys, was also interested in Colonel Kraik who had abducted Agerys’ family some years ago. Filing this information away in case it was useful, but still wanting to avoid any confrontation with the pirates, Schleckneir brought the damaged ship down on the far side of the planet away from the moon where the pirates were based.
Settling the ship onto a landing pad in a small village within the swampy equatorial belt of the planet, the crew got ready for their search for the rogue imperial Dr Theo. Klore, perhaps feeling guilty at getting Schleckneir’s ship shot up by tie fighters, purchased some parts for repairing the Pheonix, but Schleckneir refused an offer of labour and installation, preferring to stay with the ship and repair it himself while the others went searching. Shilia left her two clones in a state of mediation under the care of G3-KL in the ship so as to not attract attention in this small village and set off with Klore.
Klore and Shilia followed some leads to Dr Theo, and through Shilia’s spy network and connections, learned that Theo was no longer there but their protégé, a young Dr Cordner, was still in the town. A street urchin assured them they could find Dr Cordner and they waited impatiently for the remainder of the day in the village while Schleckneir repaired the ship. Eventually, just around sunset the urchin returned and led Klore and Shilia out into he swamp by a series of boardwalks to an isolated house out in the swampy forest. The urchin held out their hand and Shilia dropped a handful of credits into their hand before they disappeared off into the darkness, leaving Klore to knock on the door, hearing a weak voice telling them to enter.
Inside the dimly lit dwelling, Klore and Shilia found a young bedridden man in imperial uniform who was hooked up to a medical device with several wires and tubes. Dr Cordner revealed he was very ill and unable to provide much information on the cloning operation, having only supported Dr Theo in some fungal studies at an old research base that he could only assume was long since abandoned by the imperials who moved such operations around frequently. But if the information persisted, he could assume it would be found in the databanks of a suitably important imperial asset – like a cruiser. Cordner revealed with a grim smirk that they would soon have the opportunity – revealing a communication device in his hand from beneath his blanket, ominously blinking. ‘I’ve called Colonel Kriak for a med-evac and the stormtroopers will be here any second to get me’. Klore pulled the plug on the life support machine at the same time as Shilia shot Cordner in the face.
Back at the small landing zone, Schleckneir got nervous as an imperial shuttle and disgorged a full twenty stormtroopers into the night beneath its floodlights. Both squads took off towards the small village – the same way that Klore and Shilia had gone. Schleckneir, thinking he might be able to shoot from the Phoenix to destroy the shuttle with a slight manoeuvring on his landing pad, was unfortunately noticed and one of the stormtrooper squads came storming back and began banging on the door of the Phoenix. Gulping with fear, but knowing that he had no opportunity to escape at this stage, Schleckneir lowered the boarding ramp and descended to the door with his hands raised – ‘May I help you?’ he enquired as the imperial troopers raised their blaster carbines in his direction. ‘We’ve identified this as the ship which blasted it’s way out of the space station Cirrus a day ago’. Schleckneir gulped.
The impulsive Klore began to panic but Shilia was more cunning and immediately came up with a plan – ‘Put on the imperial uniform and get in the damn bed’ she told Klore. He blinked in surprise for a minute and then, without a better idea, complied. Back over inside the Phoenix, the two Shilia clones woke up in fear and this scrambled Shilia’s senses a little, causing her head to swim as she fought nausea. Soon the stormtrooper squad was banging on the door, and without the wily Shilia to help him, Klore was forced to think on his feet – ‘they went out into the swamp’ he stuttered, and the stormtrooper sergeant sent a couple of troopers off to check out whatever it was he was talking about, while the remainder lifted him from the bed telling him they were getting him the med-evac he had called for. They asked him what to do with the Twi’Lek they assumed to be his slave or assistant, and Klore told them to bring her with them – the dazed Shilia trudged along behind the troopers.
Schleckneir dove back into his ship, receiving some blaster burns and spraining his ankle for the trouble – slamming the door shut on the stormtroopers and sliding into the pilot chair. He heard the dull thumping sound hoping it was not the stormtroopers attaching something to the hull of his beloved ship, and set off into low orbit around the planet keeping away from any tie fighter patrols – as his sensors picked up the distinctive signature of the imperial cruiser they had just escaped at Cirrus.
Klore and Shilia were taken back to the landing pad and loaded into the imperial shuttle and taken up to the orbiting cruiser. The stormtroopers left them in the care of a couple of medics for an initial check on the way to the med-bay, and Klore with his usual impulsiveness took the opportunity to smash their heads in, supported by Shilia who had recovered from her daze and made good use of her holdout blaster. The two made their way through the cruiser, aided by Klore’s imperial disguise and knowledge of these sorts of vessels, interspersed and supported by information Shilia had collected on imperials (and specifically, Colonel Kriak) over the years. They eventually reached the data core, dispatched a couple of stormtroopers standing guard, and retrieved the data tape they needed with the information about the clandestine imperial cloning operations.
Schleckneir contacted Klore and Shilia over their commlinks, giving them coordinates where he could swoop by and pick them up – they jumped into a nearby escape pod and were quickly swooped up by their ally, making their escape from the imperial cruiser with the vital information they hoped would lead them to deeper answers about the clandestine cloning operations which had so greatly impacted all of their lives.
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