Monday, October 4, 2010

Star Wars Part One: The Black Sun Warehouse




You are in a Corellian cantina of Nar Shadda. It is night and the usual unsavory characters are present, loud music distorting the air. Smoke from numerous death sticks permeates your nostrils, but the glowing drinks at your hand keeps your senses dulled to the poison lurking in the room.



Throughout the night, among a host of many different races, you see a cloaked woman, dark haired but unexpectedly nice looking wandering around the bar. Eventually, one-by-one you catch eyes with her, a hint of familiarity flashing through her eyes. She motions for you to join her at her table.




Once gathered, she leans over to talk to you. Occasionally looking around and obviously cautious, she says “You can call me Drifter. I have a job that may be worth your time, if you are up to it. There is a family heirloom that has been obtained by the the local Black Sun warehouse. It will be arriving tonight. I have learned of a raid that the local gang is planning tonight. They should give a sufficient distraction for you to enter the other side.”


She puts 1000 credits and two datasticks on the table. “I have five times this for when you return with the object. Use this skeleton key-drive to open any door. It will only work three times before the decryption software is obsolete. This other drive has schematics and location of the Black Sun warehouse. The object will be in the middle of the warehouse, in the valuable storage area. It is a glistening polyhedral piece of my destiny.”


“Meet me at the shuttle docks in the Northern sector when you have fulfilled my request. The thug raid is planned for 2 hours from now.“ She gets up to leave, cloak pulled tight. “Oh and one more thing. Once the alarms go off in the building, you will have five minutes to get the job done before the Black Sun guards arrives.”


The three heroes sat at the cantina table in silence. Cautiously, they introduced themselves. Feena Tao, a sturdy human soldier, flashed her rifle and related her fondness of the Republic during which she served as a battle nurse. J'kerr (pronouced Joker), a Nagai with a bandoleer of different types of weapons, flashed a mischievous grin and only said, "I'm looking for work." The largest of the three, Sorn, a towering feeorian mercenary, focused on the well-paying job and decided to get to business.








Click to Enlarge


J'kerr took the cred stick and distributed the funds equally. While Feena went to purchase some quick supplies, the two males pulled up a holograph of the Black Sun warehouse on J'kerr's datapad. Notes were added where the entrances and exits of the building were, only a back door, shipping dock, and speeder bay. In smug earnestness, Sorn stated "Looks like we're not just going through the skylight." Searching for more information, they located the valuable storage area, which was almost directly in the center of the building. A quick look at security revealed a computerized turret system. Trying to draw from his experience in the field, Sorn tried a deep probe of security procedures, but the system crashed.


The three left the cantina with a half hour left. The warehouse was located east about two kilometers. They took a public taxi speeder three-quarters of the way, and walked the rest, hoping to avoid tracking. The warehouse was dimly lit by street lights. The back door was watched over by a single guard, armed with a blaster carbine. A small computer terminal was mounted in the door, the only sign of building access.


While the normal early morning scum was still wandering around, the three formulated a plan and waited across the street for the raid to start. Exactly as described, an explosion rocked the area and the guard punched his code into the door terminal and disappeared within.


They rushed across the street and after J'kerr quickly hacked the terminal they entered the building. Brilliant red lights flashing, comm stations crackled, "...we have been attacked....thugs with...GET DOWN!" A path to the left showed a hallway going down to the left showed two locked rooms, while two other halls went straight and slightly more towards the center of the building. They decided, since time was of the essence, to go towards the middle. They found a room with a description in High Galactic and a bar-code guideline on the door. J'kerr once again bypassed the locking mechanism and they found themselves in a dimly lit room full of disabled droids.


Along the far wall four old Trade Federation battle droids stood, powered down. On the opposite wall, four different droids were also motionless, but they were of a different class. Each droid had a unique but patterned bar-code. Trying to gain information, the heroes powered up a H-IME Battle Mechanic droid. Just then the security feature of the narrow room activated, setting the other three droids to self destruct while the battle droids powered up. Sorn immediately charged in, force pike knocking the droids asunder. Feena, enjoying the battle environment once again, took cover and with her Bryar rifle starting loosing large bursts of energy at the droids. J'kerr, confidently twirling his pistol out of the holster, dropped it in the confusion.


The initial attack absorbed, two of the droids started sending blaster bolts towards the heroes while the other two unarmed droids punched wildly. Sorn tooked some direct hits, but between his pike and Feena's well-placed shots, the droids were quickly left to pieces. Looking at the cronos, a minute and a half had elapsed.


The trio decided to back-track and go down the second hall straight ahead of the back door. They found another secured door. Seeing that time was counting down, they used one of the skeleton key's encryption codes and opened it to find a room of exotic animals. Giant cages housed many beasts, but one cage was empty and the lights destroyed. Feena stood on the outside to scout the room, but J'kerr rushed through, hoping to open the door on the other side. Immediately, a Wampa charged from behind the cages!








J'kerr was badly wounded, but his companions leaped to his aid. Sorn bravely combated the beast from Hoth in melee, with Feena taking carefully placed shots in the background. J'kerr, unable to withstand more of the onslaught, continued through the other door. He was immediately face-to-face with a Black Sun security guard standing before the valuable storage area. J'kerr smoothly convinced the inept guard to help attack the wampa, who also was bar-coded.


After the beast was put down, the guard realized what was going on and went after the three heroes. Before he was hit with bolts, he called for reinforcements. Two guards exited the valuable storage to help, only to be mowed down by blasters and hit by one of J'kerr's stun grenades.


Their new droid friend was able to open the heavily locked door to the storage where they found a lone guard, who took a pot-shot at them. Instead of fighting, they took a second to have Feena, who was very well trained in first aid, mend some wounds. During the break, they heard sounds of battle in the room. J'kerr went in first to scout and was surprised by some Anjiliac gang members, who rivaled his hutt liason Tsinith. His immediate reaction was to take a shot, hitting one immediately.


The valuable storage room had eight cases in the room, each sealed with a barcode and small keypad. For now, however, they served as cover for the combatants. Both sides took positions on opposite sides of the room, but a grenade from J'kerr quickly up-ended the thug's strategy. Easily taken out by Feena's shots and Sorn's sweeping pike attacks, the three turned their attention to the cases.


The eight cases had barcodes similar to the droids and the exotic animals. By process of elimination, three likely cases seemed to hold Drifter's object. They chose case number six first. The computer was a simple yes/no open prompt. After confirming, a security countdown started, prompting for a disabling code. Within ten seconds, Sorn noticed a small key card on the thug leader, and quickly inserted it to stop the countdown.The case lowered to reveal a display of Bothan electrobracers, which gives cloaking abilities to their wearers.


They tried another case, but this time, did not have a code. As the case lowered, so did wall sheaths hiding turrets. In a short firefight, the turrets were quickly dispatched. This time, the display item was the target.








With two minutes to go, J'kerr started for the door, but Feena and Sorn convinced him to open some more cases, since the turrets had been beaten easily. J'kerr openned one case, disabling the security with his mechanical expertise. Valuable nanospice was the pay-off. Going for one last case, the security could not be over-ridden and more turrets were exposed. This time, with targeting data re-calibrated and the guns scored several hits on the three before being fragged. A vial of Kamino clone DNA was on the stand.

After debating the best exit strategy, the three heroes rushed down the hall towards the speeder hanger.Two unsuspecting guards remained at the end of the hall and were caught off guard by a grenade, charged blaster shot, and strong pike. The hanger had two swoops and a cheap SoroSuub X-34 Landspeeder. J'kerr left surprise mines on the swoops while Feena, the most adept pilot of the group, manned the controls of the landspeeder. They took off down the busy street before the Black Sun elite had arrived.


All seemed clear until two Imperial Scout troopers took chase on speeder bikes. Confused by the presence of the Empire on Nar Shaddaa, the crew of three and one droid took a direct laser canon hit, nearly distroying the speeder. In quick thinking, Feena swerved the speeder into an ally and when the Scout Troopers followed they were met by one of J'kerr's grenades. Before Sorn could stop them, for it was revealed that he is under contract with the Empire, Feena and Sorn dispatched the troopers with some quick shooting.








Astonished and worried by this turn of events, they turned the speeder back to the street and arrived at the Correllian sector docks.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

When's the next game?

-Sorn :)

Cory said...

Sounds like a wicked awesome game! Nothin' like the Empire to show up to give a few Nar Shaddaa Ne'er do well's a surprise. Sounds like this heist isn't just another blue milk run!

I do miss playing Star Wars. Have you read the review of the alternative script that was written for Empire back in the day? It sounds like an interesting alternate Star Wars world. Darth Vader isn't Luke's father, Luke and Leia aren't bro and sis (and they hook up), Wampas attack Rebel Base en masse on Hoth, and Han Solo's Stepfather is some sort of high Empire official or something. Sometimes I think it would be fun to play a campaign where only A New Hope is canon, and you get to re-make up all the history from there, just using whatever Obi-Wan happened to mention (i.e. the Clone Wars could be made much, much cooler).

MadTownDM said...

There are some really cool elements of that post and some that I wouldn't really like. Finding that Vader is Luke's father is one of the quintessential plot twists and I think makes the movies relatable, since most people have dads. So I'm glad they changed that.

A mass wampa attack and that Luke would draw on the dark side to beat Vader are sweet ideas though. I could see you running a campaign like that. Horror checks, anyone?

Cory said...

I think Vader not being Luke's dad would be much more spaghetti western (in space), and I would love it. "Vader, you killed my pa! Draw!" *bzzzzzrrrrp!* Plus it would open up Luke to talking to his father through the force, Darth wouldn't have to be a human, the Emperor could be just a patsy to the Imperial Moffs, and all sorts of other stuff. I mean, Grand Moff Tarkin orders Darth to release that dude in Star Wars, suggesting to me Grand Moff Tarkin has more power than Darth Vader. Then later we find out Vader is #2 in the entire galaxy, so what gives? Vader could still be impressed by Luke's innate force powers and offer to host a coup against the Emperor with him at the end of Empire, even if he wasn't his pops.

Of course, I could swallow the fact that Darth is Luke's father a lot better if he didn't have the same last name. I'd prefer it if "Skywalker" was his adopted uncle's name or something (like Leia "Organa"), and Darth's real name was...well, Darth Vader, I guess. Its just dumb Obi-Wan would go to all the trouble to hide the kids and let Luke keep his father's name. Tattooine should be the last place Darth Vader would look (i.e. Anakin should've been from Coruscant or something).

MadTownDM said...

Obi-Wan is especially lucky that the Holonet doesn't have a "search people" function or that Vader didn't know how to use it.

After playing the Force Unleashed (new one in 2 weeks!) I think that the Emperor is pretty annoyed at Vader for the whole secret apprentice thing. So in that case Tarkin would be a little higher up.

Cory said...

True enough, Google for the Holonet would've been invented by Bothans.

But the Empire hates Bothans.