Characters:
NX-275, Arkanian Offshoot, Smuggler (played by Jojo, 11yo)
Miko Eiduno, Jawa, Bounty Hunter (played by Evan, 9yo)
Miko Eiduno, Jawa, Bounty Hunter (played by Evan, 9yo)
When we start, I ask the kids what sort of jobs would they
like to do in Teemo’s palace. Jojo tells me that she wants to work somewhere
with animals, while Evan tells me that he wants to work in the workshop.
“The sullustan who works for Teemo assigns some jobs to you
both,” I tell them. “Nix is assigned to work as a cleaner in Teemo’s
‘menagerie’, while Miko is shown the workshop and told to fix up his armor.
Afterwards, he is to hang around Teemo’s main hall as one of the bounty hunters
there.” The next couple of days pass quickly, with Miko restoring his
shadowtrooper armor to working order, while Nix cleans up the endless poop in
the Hutt’s menagerie. “It seems that visitors sometimes give Teemo rare and
expensive animals as gifts,” I tell her. “It is no co-incidence that the
menagerie is located right next to the palace kitchens!”
“Eww, gross!” blanches the kids.
On the third day, Nix is cleaning out one of the empty cages
when a large alien sticks his head out from the kitchens. “You! Slave!” he bellows.
“The stupid serving droid has broken down again! Take this dish up to Teemo’s
main hall!”
Nix obediently takes the dish and carefully brings it up to
the main hall. I tell Evan that Miko is already in the main hall which is
filled with mercenaries, bounty hunters and gamorrean guards. No one pays the
jawa in his shadowtrooper suit any attention.
“What about the curtains!?” asks Evan intently. “Are they up
or down!?”
I look at him blankly. “Uh, curtains? What curtains?”
“You know, the curtains! The ones from Jabba’s palace when
Princess Leia was un-freezing Han Solo, and then the curtains came up, and the
bad guys were all hiding there!”
 |
| Wait, I know that laugh.. |
I describe the main hall to the kids. “There are mercenaries
and gamorrean guards everywhere. A live band is playing music. And on a raised
dais sits Teemo the Hutt, eating his frog snacks.”
The sullustan who works for Teemo appears next to him and
whispers something into Teemo’s ear. The Hutt belches and announces, “I’ll talk
to him here!” Immediately, a hologram stutters into place in front of the
Hutt’s dais. “You can see that this is a hologram transmission of this guy!” I
hold up a token showing a man in an imperial uniform.
 |
| Why do we deal with such scum? |
“An Imperial officer!?” interrupts Evan excitedly. “I’m
going to come out front and say, ‘This is Shadow Trooper 1158! Help - I’ve been
stranded on this planet!’”
Okay, this will be interesting. I hand Evan the dice, “I
suppose this is a Cool check to see how well you can convince the Imperial
officer that you’re a real Shadow trooper!” Evan rolls the dice, and
unfortunately, Failures reign supreme. “Just as you step forward to deliver
your message, you step on someone’s foot! A reptile-like face snarls at you,
and you see that you’ve stepped on the foot of a Transdoshan!” I get the kids
to google up a picture of a Transdoshan:
“Uh oh, those guys!” mutters Evan.
 |
| Hssss! |
The angry transdoshan shoves Miko back, and the jawa falls
backwards on his butt. “Watch where you are going!” The lizard-like alien
snarls a few words in his own language that the jawa does not recognise, but
their meaning is obvious.
Meanwhile, the imperial officer speaks to Teemo, “Teemo? Is
this channel secure? You and I must speak in private! I cannot afford to have
this transmission over-heard!”
The Hutt laughs. “You impewials are all the swame! Sneaking
awound with youwr secwet discussions! We Hutts hide none of ouwr business
dealings from ouwr own people!” Everyone else in the room laughingly agrees.
The imperial officer seems agitated. “Very well. As per
our... prior agreement, I am informing you that the… ‘package’... is currently
in transit. On a smuggler’s vessel owned by one named..” As usual, I poll the
kids for a name. Jojo suggests ‘Fin’ while Evan provides ‘Lou’. I mash them
together. “Lofin. That is all I can say.” And with that the imperial officer
ends the transmission.
Teemo snorts. “Lofin? Hmm.” He beckons to his sullustan
aide. “Get Lofin on the line.” And soon, a hologram projection flickers on
again, and this time it shows…
“...A fat, bulky alien,” I say hesitantly. This is what I
probably find hardest in running a Star Wars RPG: coming up with interesting
NPCs. I’m no longer in the realm of elves, gnomes and dwarves, and instead have
to think of droids, wookies and “God knows what that thing is, but it was in
that scene from Episode 6”.
Evan helps out. “How about those aliens with the tentacles
on their chins? Quarrens?”
 |
| By the tentacles on my chinny-chin-chin! |
“Well, this one is,” I declare. “A fat, bulky Quarren
appears in the hologram. ‘Greetings, Teemo,’ he intones. ‘To what do I owe the
pleasure of your transmission?’“
“Ah, Lofin,” croons Teemo. “I am so disappointed to know
that you are in the area, and you have not bothered to stop by my palace!”
The quarren looks uneasy. “I’m afraid I am in a bit of a
hurry. I won’t be near your system for long.”
“But surely you can spare some time to check out what I have
to offer,” says Teemo. “I have just had a fresh stock of.. slaves!”
“He’s going to sell me again!?” exclaims Jojo feeling
incensed. “I stand up and shout, ‘You’re not going to sell me again!’” The
angry arkanian offshoot is hurriedly silenced by some guards. One put his hand
over her mouth, and gets bitten as a result.
Teemo looks annoyed, but Lofin laughs at the sight. “If she
is one of the slaves you intend to sell, I’d be interested to buy her!” The
quarren’s eyes narrow. “But I truly do not intend to stop over at your palace,
Teemo. Instead, if you want to trade, you can meet me here at this moon.” A
display showing the coordinates of a lonely moon appears.
Teemo snorts. “Vewy well, but I am unhappy with your lack of
twust!” He ends the transmission and looks around the room. “Well, is anyone
gwoing to volunteer to meet Lofin at this moon?”
I turn to Evan. “You know that transdoshan whose foot you
stepped on? He steps forward (on his good foot) and says, ‘I will deliver the
slave, great Teemo!’”
Teemo glances at the transdoshan. “Captain Trex! If I wecall
from last time, you were supposed to bwing a shipment of cordite for my
gwandmother’s birthday! And you lost it!”
“Cordite?” frowns Jojo. “Isn’t that something to do with
explosives or gunpowder? What’s Teemo trying to do bringing cordite to his
grandmother’s birthday!?”
“That’s a story for another day,” I tell her sagely.
Captain Trex scowls at the reminder. “And this is the
perfect chance for me to redeem myself, O great Teemo.”
Teemo chortles. “Vewy well, Trex. You will bwing the slave
to Lofin, and you will bwing that one with you too.” He points at Miko who is
just behind Trex, and the crowd laughs at Teemo’s choice.
“I punch Trex!” says Evan.
“He’s all the way in front of Teemo,” I remind him. “You’ll
need to get closer to do that.”
Evan opts to hoist his blaster carbine menacingly at the
transdoshan instead.
The transdoshan looks angry and unhappy at the same time,
but he nods. “Very well, great Teemo.”
The Hutt sits back. “And when you meet Lofin, you will kill
him and his cwew. Wetrieve the ‘package’ from his cargo hold, and bring it
bwack to me.”
The kids consider this. “Ooo. He really wants that package,”
says Jojo.
Evan says, “I ask Teemo if we can look at what it is when we
get it.”
“Of course not!” I reply.
----
At this point, I pull out the large glossy layout of a ship
from the box. “Trex actually has a pretty decent ship. This is his ship, the
‘Krayt Fang’.”
A ship can only be as decent as what its captain cares to
be. Trex has not bothered to keep the ship clean at all. Junk, half-eaten food
and empty cans roll about the floor. “And when you open the fridge, you
hurriedly close it again when the smell hits you.” I tell them.
 |
| The Krayt Fang |
“Hey Jojo look!” Evan points excitedly at the crew messroom.
“There’s that hologram chess-board like in the Falcon! Let’s play a game of
holo-chess!”
“Unfortunately, the holo-chess game is busted too,” I tell
him solemnly.
“Man, this ship sucks!”
Trex fires up the engines, and I tell the kids that they see
that he needs to request the Control Tower to release the locking clamps from
the ship before he can fly it off. Soon, the ship blasts off into space, and
jumps into lightspeed once they are clear from the planet’s atmosphere.
The journey takes several hours. Through that time, Trex
just scowls at the two of them whenever he sees them. At the start of the
journey, he snarls at them both, “You two keep out of my way! In my ship, only
my rules apply. If you cross me, I’ll throw you out the airlock!” He spends
most of his time at the cockpit.
Meanwhile Nix and Miko explore the ship. I tell them that
they can access almost every room, except for the last cargo area in the ship.
“This cargo area is secured with a simple electronic lock,” I tell them. “You
suppose could open it with some luck.”
Nothing like some curiosity to whet the appetite for
exploration. But the kids don’t seem to be biting today. “No, leave it,” says
Jojo. “We just wait for Trex to get to that moon.”
Somewhat surprised at my kids’ sudden respect for other
people’s property, I continue the adventure. “Finally, the ship comes out of
lightspeed, and you see that you are near a small moon.” I admit I was tempted
to burst out with ‘But that’s no moon!’.
“You see that there is another ship here orbiting the moon. No doubt this is
Lofin’s ship.”
Lofin’s ship is a big, clunky cargo hauler with angular
lines and large double thrusters. As the Krayt Fang comes close to dock with
the other ship, Trex comes to the both of them. I tell Jojo. “He throws a
blaster at you.”
Jojo says, “At me? Are my hands tied?”
“What? Why?”
“Because if they are, I’ll do this.” She stands up and
pretends trying to clumsily catch the blaster with her hands tied before
dropping it, much to our amusement.
“Yeap,” I say. “Your hands were definitely tied.”
“Yayy!”
Captain Trex snorts, un-ties Nix and hands her the blaster.
“You might as well make yourself useful,” he growls menacingly. “Since we’re
going to be blasting Lofin’s crew.” He glares at both Nix and Miko. “And either
of you try any stunts that I don’t like, I’m throwing you both out the
airlock!’” This is possibly the only threat the transdoshan knows.
The two ships dock against each other with a clank. The
intercom buzzes and then Lofin’s voice comes on, “Ah! Captain Trex! I see that
you have been assigned to bring the slave to me!”
“Yes, Lofin,” growls Trex. “Let’s get this over with. Open
the hatch door and we’ll hand her over to your crew.”
“Crew?” The quarren snorts. “I fired my whole crew sometime
ago. Useless good-for-nothings they were!”
“I bet he’ll not be thinking that soon!” says Jojo
gleefully.
“And so I replaced my crew. With droids!”
With that, the hatchway connecting the ships opens up. They
can see a loading bay and four security droids with blasters waiting there.
“Deliver the slave to my security droids!” commands Lofin.
 |
| Lofin’s ship |
Trex nudges Nix, and the three of them walk across the
passageway connecting the two ships. “What about payment, Lofin?” hisses Trex.
“How shall you settle this?”
“Payment?” laughs Lofin. “You can tell Teemo that he can
expect no payment from me! In fact, you won’t be able to, once I order my droids
to blast you all!”
“Well, that’s a co-incidence,” remarks Jojo. “We were just
going to blast all his crew too!”
“That’s the underworld of crime in the Outer Rim,” I tell
the kids. “Everyone’s backstabbing everyone.”
Quick as a flash, Trex tosses something which rolls and
skitters on the floor towards the droids. It looks like a round, blue-glowing
metal sphere.
“An ion grenade!” guesses Evan. “Isn’t that right, dad?”
“Yeap, it sure is.” The ion grenade rolls right into the
midst of the four droids before exploding into a brilliant display of lightning
surges. The droids all rattle and gabber uncontrollably before collapsing where
they stand. Trex, Nix and Miko enter the loading bay and inspect the area.
“Utinni ability!” declares Evan. “I search the room!
Utinni!”
“Utinni works on scrap,” I tell him. “Where’s the scrap
here?”
“Trex just destroyed those droids,” he points out. “Those
droids ARE scrap now, aren’t they?”
I suppose they are. I let him roll the dice, which come up
favourably. “The blasters and equipment on the droids are all pretty much
shorted out by that ion grenade. But you do find four grenades which look like
they still work because they don’t use electricity.”
We discuss what sort of grenades these should be, and decide
that they must be some sort of stun grenades that break and release a stun gas
when thrown. “It makes sense,” I tell Evan as he notes them down. “Stun gas
doesn’t work on droids, so these droids must have had them to use on organic
beings.”
The kids inspect the two doors, and reason out that the door
heading towards the front should lead to where Lofin is, while the door leading
to the rear of the ship should be where the cargo hold is. Trex remarks, “We
should secure Teemo’s ‘package’ before finishing off the rest of the droid
crew.” The Transdoshan strides towards the door leading to the rear of the ship
and presses a button to open it. The button gives a dull click, and the door
stays closed.
“Just great!” snorts Jojo. “Nice work, Trex! Your ion
grenade shorted the door out too!”
The transdoshan grunts as he taps the dead electronic lock a
few more times. “I’ll get this open. You guys go ahead and finish off the rest
of the droids.” He heads back into his ship, and returns with a blow-torch. As
he starts working on the dead door, Nix and Miko inspect the door heading to
the front of the ship. It looks like it is still operational.
“Oh! Is it all fuzzy, like this?” Jojo puts her palms
side-by-side and demonstrates a faulty sliding door.
“Pretty much,” I tell them. The door slides open just about
half-way before failing. Nix and Miko squeeze through and head into the
corridor that turns into a T-junction. They decide to take the corridor leading
to the front of the ship, and run straight into two security droids standing at
guard.
I get the kids to roll for Initiative, and despite having
better dice than the droids, the droids go first. “Those droids must have been
waiting for you two to come around the corner! They both open fire with their
blasters!” I roll a few Hits on Miko, plus several Advantages. “Ooo, that means
something happens to the droids’ advantage! What do you think happens?”
Evan thinks a bit. “How about, one of the shots activates
the ‘open’ button on my suit, and it opens up!” We laugh at the idea, and go
with it. To Miko’s dismay, his shadowtrooper armor suddenly decides to open up,
dumping the startled jawa on the ground in front of it.
Nix gets hit badly by the other droid’s blasts, and receives
7 damage, even after reducing Soak. Badly injured, the arkanian offshoot fires
back with her blaster, but only scorches the door behind the droid as her shots
miss.
I tell Evan that despite being dumped out of his armor, Miko
is quick enough to dislodge his blaster carbine from the shadowtrooper suit.
The jawa fires back at his droid, and blasts it to bits. The remaining droid
and the kids exchange blasts for another round before Miko’s blaster carbine
finally blows off the droid’s head, leaving the rest of the body still standing
there.
Evan wants to take the droid’s weapons, but is disappointed
when I tell him that the droids’ blasters are attached to their arms. “Besides,
they aren’t as good as your own blaster carbine.”
“When I get back to Mos Shuuta, I want to upgrade my blaster
carbine to a DLT-19X,” he says to me. “It’s a blaster that does one powerful
shot, but takes a while to reload.”
“Mm hmm,” I nod. Some sort of laser shotgun, I suppose.
Better remember to google that later.
After Miko gets back into his armor, the two of them enter
the cockpit area of the ship. “There’s no one here,” I tell them. “Control
panels line up the walls, and there’s an empty pilot seat, but you don’t see
anyone here at all. On the speakers, Lofin’s voice sneers, ‘Hahahaha! You
cannot find me! My ship has secrets that only I know! Leave my ship before I
initiate the self-destruct! Hahahahaha!’”
“Yeah, well that’ll blow you up too,” retorts Jojo. “I’m
searching the control panels for a Mute button!” The arkanian offshoot searches
the control panels, and I get Jojo to roll some dice for Perception.
“Unfortunately, you don’t find a Mute button. But you do
notice that although there are buttons and controls on every panel, there’s one
panel here that doesn’t have anything on it.” I point to a section of panel
next to the pilot seat.
Nix gives the panel a kick, and the whole panel collapses
in. Inside, they see the fat, bulky quarren squashed into the tight hidden
compartment with a microphone in hand. He blinks surprisedly at them,
“Hahah-oh.”
“End of the line, buster,” says Nix pointing her blaster.
I ask Evan what he wants to do, and he states that he’s
blasting Lofin. I do hesitate a bit - Lofin is a nasty piece of work, and
certainly wouldn’t be taken alive, but this was pretty cold-blooded. I decide
to roll with it, “You blast the quarren and the whole compartment explodes! Nix
is thrown back from the blast, and a red light suddenly fills the whole room!
An automated voice speaks, ‘Self-destruct initiated. Five minutes to
self-destruct.’”
Jojo decides to run back down the corridor, and head towards
the new door that they’ve not gone to. The loading bay she comes to has a
couple of escape pods there. “The door leading to the cargo hold is also open.”
I tell her. She decides to check out the cargo hold.
Meanwhile, Evan decides to race back to where Trex is, and
arrives just in time to see the transdoshan abandoning his attempt to open the
dead door, and run through the bridge back to his ship. “So long, suckers!” he
sneers as he closes the door behind him.
“Why, that stinking coward!” mutters Evan. He decides to run
back to where Nix had gone off to.
Nix enters the cargo hold. “There’s piles of cargo boxes
everywhere, but one in particular stands out. It’s a metal-and-glass cargo pod.
Something is glowing blue from within it!” Thankfully, the cargo pod can hover
magnetically off the floor, so the arkanian offshoot pushes it with her to the
escape pods.
Miko arrives just in time to see Nix pushing the cargo pod.
“I don’t think we’ll all be able to squeeze into the escape pod with that,” he
says after measuring up the size of the cargo box.
“You could open it up and take out what’s in there,” I
mention. The kids decide to do this, and I describe to them, “Inside the cargo
pod, you see a curious flat transparent cylinder that is about the size of a
bedside table. In fact, there seems to be a small alien being frozen inside. It
doesn’t look happy at all.”
“There’s buttons along the rim of the cylinder,” I tell
them.
 |
| Unhappy small frozen alien! |
“We do NOT touch the buttons!” states Jojo hastily. The two
of them take the large cylinder and squeeze into the escape pod. Miko punches
the launch button, and the escape pod blasts off into space. The two of them
watch as Lofin’s ship gets further away before it explodes in a spectacular
flash. However, before the flash even subsides, their view is blocked by the
menacing shape of Trex’s ship, the Krayt Fang.
“I’m going to blast you both for being so annoying,” snarls
the transdoshan over the comlink.
“Does this escape pod have any controls?” asks Evan. “Can we
fly it away?”
“Not really,” I tell him. “But perhaps you can try
negotiating with him?”
Jojo gets the idea. “Well, you might want to re-consider
blasting us, because we’ve got that package that Teemo wants!”
There is no reply on the comlink. However, there is a sudden
‘clank’ as a tractor-beam locks onto the escape pod. The pod is hauled into the
Krayt Fang’s front loading bay which closes up once they are inside. The two of
them exit the pod in time to see Trex glaring at them from the loading bay’s
entryway. “I’ll give you two one more chance,” he growls. “But if you cross me
again, I’ll throw you both out the airlock!”
“Seriously dude, you need to work on some better threats,” replies
Jojo.
And with that, we close off our second episode with the Star
Wars closing score.
Adventure Notes:
This adventure was
played over two half-sessions. My main idea was to introduce the kids to Trex
and the Krayt Fang. I felt it was important that the kids learn to loathe the
scaly transdoshan.
Afterwards, I did feel
rather concerned about the cold-blooded killing of Lofin, and asked Evan why did
he blast the quarren, to which he replied, “Because Teemo told me to.” I suppose
that makes his character ideal bounty hunter material. And a possible plot hook
for some encounters with the Dark Side.
Plot Hooks: Imperial
officer working with Teemo. What’s in Trex’s restricted cargo hold? What’s in
Teemo’s cylinder?
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