#ophexis

This is a few days late because the second half of November was 3 hours long but...

Ten years ago (can you believe it), @ophexis found the courage to send a stranger on the internet an ask, and thanks to that, I am now a best friend, a family member richer.

Thank you for being in my life, Phex. Your friendship is a blessing I am grateful for every day. I could not imagine a life without you.

A’den messes with the sensors for good measure, and also deactivates the Grunt’s tractor beam - the Dawnrunner is free to leave.

The captured communications and navigation data reveals a weird navigation glitch: As a couple of bomb crates are sent from the Downfall to the Starrise (the Star Destroyers above the planet), the ships have to engage in some maneuvering to compensate for the mass they are pushing and pulling with the tractor beams.

Before this realization can lead to anything though, the inevitable happens: Someone in the control room noticed somebody messing with the Grunt’s systems and 10 Stormtroopers are sent to investigate. A’den notices running steps in the hallway and decides to ignore his own imperial disguise and opens fire.

On the ground, Cal is helping the natives to find shelter in the nearby holy caves. Their elder, Bol, is telling Calico that he should really go deeper into the caves.

With Kyrsta’s blaster support and Jins blocking Imperial comms, A’den finishes the fight standing, with the Stormtroopers on the ground.

Meanwhile, Cal is going deep into the cave, where he is having a strange vision of the past - personally experiencing the story he has seen in the underground room, only to be visited by the spirit of the “ancient one” who carved the reliefs. The strange, long dead insect being, whose carapace lay beside the final carvings, reveals that our heroes have a chance to save the planet: Wield the knife!

A plan begins to take shape: A’den and Kyrsta are on a transport with a powerful tractor beam, that the Star Destroyers consider one of their own. So A’den and Kyrsta send Jins onto the bridge to convince the remaining bridge crew that they really want to surrender.

Luckily for A’den, none of the officers on the Grunt are particularly personally connected to the Empire and they surrender peacefully. A’den maneuvers the Grunt close to the nearby Starrise, calculates a firing solution for the tractor beam, that would send that ship straight into the Downfall, and fires - but nothing happens! 

While he freed the Dawnrunner, A’den did not reactivate the Grunt’s tractor controls - cursing, he runs back to the engine room to get the one weapon system back online, while the commander of the Starrise is getting increasingly annoyed and threatens to open fire. A’den sprints back, shouting at the bridge to fire.

Just as the Grunt goes for maximum thrusters and grabs the Starrise, the battleship opens fire. Turbolasers light up the vacuum above the uncharted planet and begin to work through the protective layering of cargo containers, that surround the transport. Positioned in the blind spot, right inside the capital ship’s engine plume, the Grunt gives one last push and crashes the tip of the Starrise right through the command deck of the Downfall. With just enough time to make it to the Dawnrunner in the cargo hold, A’den, Kyrsta and the Grunt’s crew escape a gigantic explosion as the Grunt rear-ends the Starrise and all three Imperial ships go up in flames.

Having saved the natives for now, Kyrsta promises to try and build an Alliance outpost here - to protect the world from the Empire, but also because of the convenient strategic positioning. Our heroes say their farewells to the natives and make their way back to Mon Calamari.

THAT’S RIGHT, REJOICING AND REVELING THAT SUCH A WONDERFUL PERSON IS IN THIS WORLD WITH US!

Having jumped to unknown coordinates, our heroes land on a planet full of small jungle islands in a single, gargantuan ocean. having found a safe (and very defensible) landing spot with a camping capable cave.

Having flown over a couple of these islands, they noticed some smoke coming off of one, and they decide to investigate. A’den almost gets swallowed whole by a sea monster and is then surprised by a group of insectoid aliens with spears.

Calling Cal for backup (who happens to bring their protocol droid C4-T3 with him), they manage to talk to the aliens and convince them, that they are just harmless travellers. The group is invited back to the locals’ village and they are offered some food and a sharing of stories (think Ewok village in RotJ)

Many of the locals’ stories revolve around aliens going underground and sometimes returning, sometimes not. Having followed an art piece that implies valuable minerals, the group decides to investigate and are being led to one of the caves mentioned in legends.

Upon entering, a small earthquake cuts A’den and Cal off from the rest of the group, and they fall, slide and tumble into a larger cave. From here, they follow a tunnel and quickly realize, that this seems to be an artificial structure that was partially flooded with lava. They come across a room with a weird structure: A partially smashed stone table, a large, round rock, and some chains that seem to have kept the rock suspended over the table, until some mechanism dropped it onto whatever was strapped to the table at the time.

leaving this disturbing room behind them, they find a large, cubic hall and are immediately attacked by a gigantic cat-bug-mixture-beast, that manages to badly hurt our heroes, before Calico and A’den manage to slay it.

A few Stimpacks later, they take a closer look at the room they are in - more specifically, the check out the walkway on the walls, that is slowly spiraling up in the room. The walls are covered in sunk reliefs, telling a story of a fallen civilization, trade with aliens, technological advancement with the materials they mined from the planet, but this mining leading to planetary instability and a cataclysmic event, that killed everything on this planet.

The Alliance Spy, who introduces herself as Kyrsta Agate, meets up with A’den and Calico and seems kinda pissed at them, for not revealing that the “Major” they had met on the ice planet a while back was a high ranking alliance officer, who also happened to be the last princess of Alderaan. But her anger soon vanishes when the two confess to having had no idea about the personal identities of their contact.

Satisfied with their trustworthiness, she offers them a job: Finding the contact she was supposed to meet the day before. She was supposed to meet a Mon Calamari spy by the name of Sha Lackbek, who was on a mission on Lothal to steal imperial secrets for the Alliance.

Following the lead, the friends make their way to Lothal, only to discover that the Empire has put a bounty on a Mon Calamari that matches Sha’s description. Following their instinct and understanding of the shady parts of the outer rim, Cal and A’den find a ship, the Liasort, that had just recently transported Sha from Lothal to Mon Calamari.

Fearing the worst, the two make their way back. Asking around at the spaceport, Cal manages to use his near-encyclopedic knowledge of cheesy holo-novels to charm the arrivals desk employee and she reveals that Sha arrived two days before, and that her place of residence was given as the “Wesa Cantina”.

Asking around again, they find the place: A shabby hole-in-a-wall cantina in the seedy underbelly of Mon Calamari City, run by a rude Gungan. The innkeeper agrees to let the two into the room, as long as they pay the overdue rent of “forty - no, fifty credits!” the inhabitant owes.

Opening the room immediately confirms their worst fears: Sha is dead, but they find a datapad that whoever killed her seems to have missed when they searched the room. Confronting the innkeeper about it, he reveals that Sha had a Trandoshan visitor, but since he assumed her to be “The type to charge by the hour”, he didn’t pay any closer attention to him.

Cal and A’den take the body in order to have the medical droid on the Dawnrunner have a closer look at her, but carrying a corpse around a major city led to a few people noticing and notifying security services. With an Imperial Peacekeeper License (bounty hunting permit), Cal defuses the situation and they take a closer look at the body (killed by short range blaster shot) and the datapad.

Stored on it is a recording of an Imperial officer, reporting on the newly discovered planet Diponeas, which appears to be perfect for a hidden military base and shipyard, in order to strike at Alliance planets like Mon Calamari in the Outer Rim.

In the meantime, Cal had the ship’s computer analyze a set of numbers on the holo-image that was found in his new starfighter and it turns out that it describes navigation coordinates into wild space. He decides to ask their collector friend Deis about it, but not wanting to hand out the original, he makes a copy... which shows a different course - one that would send any ship straight through a sun.

Deis takes a look at the copy and confirms that this is the rather famous, last art piece by the Quarren artist Tissk Oor “Vonium Road”. Oor vanished mysteriously shortly after producing this piece - presented with the original and the different coordinates, he gets really exited and asks to come along, if the Dawnrunner were to make this uncharted trip.

Having also finished their mission for Kyrsta, they also offer to take her along, which she gladly accepts, not wanting to stay too long in one location when there are Imperial spies, bounty hunters and assassins about.

The Player Characters:

Calic’olan (AKA Calico or Cal) the charming Twi’lek bounty hunter who chose a life of danger and adventure inspired by the holo-novels of his youth over the security and stability of a career in his dads’ business

A’den Zuhl (AKA Buddy) the former Death Watch Mandalorian Bodyguard who, for the past 20 years, has tried to forget his history of murder and terrorism and who has recently turned his life around and is now actively working on overcoming his past

What is going on:

A childhood friend and adopted sister of Calico’s has promised Cal a reward for finding the father of her daughter. While spending a lot of time on Mandalore which included providing help in forging an alliance between the clans, exposing and incapacitating the “New Watch” organization (a Death Watch copycat terrorist group), preventing the worst effects of an attack on Mandalore’s capital Keldabe and A’den reconnecting with his estranged mother, Cal finds out that one of their local friends is indeed the long sought dad to his niece.

The promised reward is waiting on the planet of Mon Calamari in the form of a powerful and rare Starfighter, that Cal can get for trading in his old Z-95 Headhunter. Eager to get this trade done, Calico and A’den take their freighter, the Dawnrunner, to Mon Calamari.

The local authorities take a rather radical stance on smuggling, so any ship landing on the planet has to be searched thoroughly, but while the Dawnrunner used to be a smuggling vessel, the owners have nothing to hide and the control is dealt with smoothly and professionally, as soon as the astromech droid (”Captain” Rust Bucket) has left to let the starport personnel do their job.

Cal and A’den take in the effects of a whole planet full of water and a two-part city with an above-water part (mostly the spaceport and lodgings for non-amphibious aliens) and the submerged Mon Calamari City. After trying some local delicacies, they visit the collector who is supposed to trade Cal’s old starfighter.

The collector is named Deis Morean and he wants the Headhunter simply because it is one of only 250 in existence that has the signature Z-95 sound. In exchange he offers a heavily armored and armed Blade-32, which used to belong to a local artist and should thus be in near-mint condition - especially since it has not left the atmosphere in a good 50 years.

To celebrate the deal, Deis invites the group to his favorite cantina to try some of the local art of alcohol distillation. A’den, being a lot more paranoid than Cal, notices a human woman with a glowing red cybernetic eye enter the cantina. She seems to wait for someone, but hastily leaves the place as soon as she notices A’den watching her.

A’den decides to follow the stranger and ends up renting a room in the hotel she is staying at, the “Great Reef Inn”. The next morning, while reporting back to Cal, she manages to sneak up on him with a blaster against his head. In a moment of sheer instinct, A’den manages to disarm her. Instead of a fight, however, the two have a conversation and it turns out the woman is a rebel spy who was afraid of Cal and A’den being Imperials. Assuring her that they have no love for the Empire and have even helped the Alliance a while back, she promises to verify this claim and suggests she might even have a job for the two, if their story checks out.

OKAY CALM THYSELF<3

1. A favorite character you have played.

Hmm, sticking to only D&D/Pathfinder, I think that award goes to Amadi, my “Dervish” (aka War/Ice Cleric with a Scythe). The campaign he was in fizzled out, like so many D&D campaigns do, and I think @cuyguy, our GM, had a bit of trouble with the setting I had created for the character, but for the time I played him, I had massive fun. He was young and excitable and curious, but his vocation was literally to kill so others didn’t have to, and I really enjoyed that dichotomy and portraying it as a good and wholesome thing in his society instead of an excuse for edgelording like you’d normally expect. Also, I worked hard on his home setting, specifically their faith.Also, he was a cutie.

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

I LOVE ZAV AND UL MKAY. I love Ulgarim going from a typical fighter trope to a curious scholar. I love Zav’s sassy comebacks and the way she trusts herself (because that’s all she had). I love the way they became friends.

9. Your favorite thing about D&D.

Where else do I get to throw an idea out and immediately have it used and played with and brought to life?Where else do I get to have as many diverse people as I need and want without some bigoted asshole trying to guilt-trip me for wanting to see myself and the world I live in in a story? Where else do I get to facilitate someone else’s joy and creativity at the same time as my own?My favourite thing about D&D/P&P is that it exists.

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

“This tunnel is about 2 Ulgarims wide.” Listen, when you have a decidedly biggest member of the party, it’s perfectly reasonable to use them as a measurement tool for everything.

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.

Honestly, I forgot about the other characters in all my older games (because they are either nearly two decades ago or the guys, while nice, were not exactly… stand-out D&D roleplayers), and right now, I only have that one game. I’ve played in one other game for a short time last year, but then Bad Things Happened that are not my place to talk about here and the game sadly had to be stopped. My co-player had a really cool Dragonborn who ran away from military service, and I played a traveling Tiefling Storyteller.

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

Right now, not many. - Initiative = Dex + Int mod- Crit Fails on all rolls exist- 1. Death Save Failed = 50/50 chance at a traumatic temporary injury- 2. Death Save Failed = 50/50 chance at a traumatic injury being either temporary or permanent - short rests are half an hour, long rests are four hours

In my new campaign I’ll use a handful more rules if necessary (plus a bit of custom content I OBVIOUSLY CANT SPOIL HERE).  When you only have two players, you sometimes have to bend the system a bit to keep things flowing smoothly. Plus, there are certain design decisions about D&D that don’t sit well with me.

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?

@cuyguy is wholly to blame! We got introduced because I wanted to try P&P and he was willing to have me join his group. And then we became friends, and then partners and we never stopped playing together. I must have been 18 or 19 when he first whipped out AD&D. (YES I REMEMBER THAC0.)There was a time in between us moving away from our hometown and moving to our current home town where we didn’t play because we didn’t find the right friends though. ‘twas a sad time.

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters.

I don’t really write out whole scenes beforehand, but… the moment Zav and Ulgarim saw a time-frozen scene from the apocalypse that hit their planet thousands of years ago. I took my inspiration from Sara’s dream/vision in Terminator 2, and I think it went over well. The campaign took a very somber tone after that.

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?

D&D subclasses are too diverse for me to pick a whole class as my fave. Like, Celestial Warlock REALLY tickles me good, but I have no interest in the other Warlocks. Grave Cleric? Very cool. Other Clerics? Eh, ‘sokay. Some Barbarians, like Zealot or Ancients, super cool. Other Barbarians, like Totem, boring. I guess… I like things that feel like twists, or contrasts in some way. Designs that create a tension between what they are right now and what the old clichés are. Which is really subjective and personal so I don’t really know how to better define it.