Star Wars D20 - Dawn of Defiance

We survived our gladiatorial combat with Darga's minions, then explored, and finally were beset upon by assassins. Tomorrow morning, the Empire shows up so we need to be at our best and may not be anyhow...

Follow up:

July 11, 2010
We stroll into Darga’s court after planning; there is a large crowd of people here to watch. The gladiator crew is already in the pit and is on the southern side; we will enter from the north. Scoping them out, there are more of them than us. 4 Gommorians (K, L, M, and N – the Karg brothers), a Rodian, Zaya, with a heavy blaster, two cobbled-together battledroids (with a grenade launcher) (D and E), and a big black Wookiee (W, who Lorcan has already fought).
Just to Darga’s left is the protocol droid, 6-6. He calls out, “fight for the chance to be my personal gladiator team!”
There are a lot of spotlights; shooting them out will provide concealment (50% miss chance) for a 2x2 area. The rough terrain means all movement is at half speed.
We begin. The Gommorians move up. We move up. One of the droids lobs a stun grenade at 1, 3, 5, and 6—no one is stunned. The Wookiee runs up. The Gommorians are closing and are unarmed and start pounding on Morten. He has to start recovering right away…
The crowd cheers as the Korgs start pounding on Morten. Braktor drills M. One of the Gommorians closes with Lorcan. W blows away one of the lights. Z misses with a stun weapon, but the range appears to be extended. Morten is reeling because he keeps being pounded. He recovers, total defenses, and Second Winds.
Braktor moves up to one of the killbots and starts firing (in Kill mode). Nice shot! Soma finally crits K. Brenna lobs a stun grenade but apparently breaks a nail, because she throws it wide. She attempts to pistol-whip the Wookiee when it runs past her; she misses. The Wookiee then Rages and prepares to attack Lorcan.
Braktor finishes off E, and the crowd cheers (and boos). Then he moves in and drills M. Soma starts to move about the battlefield. Brenna lobs a stun grenade around. Z shoots a light and moves. Bertalan moves and shoots a light.
M attempts to clobber Braktor, who AOO’s him. Morten full-defenses again. Braktor drops M. Soma chases after Z. One of them hits Lorcan. Bertalan chases Z with Soma.
Braktor moves up behind one of the enemies and shoots him. You do not get the flank bonus to hit if you are shooting a guy (in the book) but since you will still threaten (via pistol-whipping), anyone else in that flank will get the +2 to hit.
When you lob a stun grenade at someone with Evasion, does the Evasion talent cut the damage in half with regard to stun threshold or just the physical damage?
It appears that Evasion *will* cut all the damage in half from stun grenades.
Soma is stunned by the grenade, so he runs past Z and starts to recover.
The droid finishes off Morten. Lorcan finally crits the Wookiee but does laughable damage. Braktor AOO’s a guy and kills him, then goes after Z (hitting him). The bookies are getting pretty loud – “You all put your bets down, now shut up!” The Karg brothers never have lost before. L draws his vibroaxe, charges, and attacks. 35 points to Braktor…
…or zero, thanks to Lucky Stop.
The droid moves up to Brenna and whacks her with the stunner. Soma drills Z and takes him down the track.
Brenna switches to kill and misses D. Lorcan hits the Wookiee for a little damage. Z moves; Bertalan tries to drill him and misses. N pulls out his vibroaxe and takes Lorcan down. The crowd cheers. The Wookiee un-rages and misses Brenna. Braktor hits L, who misses him in return. Soma readies to blow Z away. Brenna moves and shoots the Wookiee, dropping it.
Z backs up, Soma misses him, and then Z shoots Bertalan. Bertalan shoots Z and brings him down another notch. Braktor finishes L off.
Braktor cries out, “That’s three!” The crowd boos and calls out, “Stop the fight! Don’t kill the Kargs!”
D blasts Brenna with his carbine. Soma finishes Z off with a shot.
Breanna goes after D. N beats on Braktor for real damage. Braktor misses and withdraws. The droid whacks Brenna. Soma moves to shoot N and misses. N charges Soma (Braktor lands the AOO) and deals Force-point-worthy damage. Braktor drills N. The droid shoots Brenna and takes her out. Bertalan misses N; N misses Braktor. Braktor wipes out the last Karg brother and proclaims himself “the Gommorian slayer”.
Bertalan switches to kill, ducks behind cover, and shoots. He misses. Braktor drops and shoots, he can’t aim because he needs to switch to kill first.
Morten *almost* comes back to consciousness. Braktor double-moves over to the opposite side of the rock as the droid. The droid moves to get a shot on Braktor and misses. Bertalan misses the droid on an open shot (sigh). Braktor steps up and lays a hurting on it with a crit, but can’t kill it. It stuns Braktor and takes him out. Bertalan finishes the droid off.
Everyone wakes when Darga’s horn blows, and he calls, “We have a new champion – hail the victor, Bertalan, the last man standing! He is the new champion of Darga’s gladiatorial ring!”
Darga: You and your clan have earned the right to represent me in future battles. The spoils of war are yours, and as victors you are welcome to a share of the proceeds.
He throws some coinage down to us and tells us we can take some equipment. The meatbags are alive, so we can’t loot them, but we take 12 frag grenades and 5 stun grenades. We can also get duranium plating, two grenade launchers, and two blaster carbines.
Braktor: And what of the cheaters?
Darga: Ah, yes – they shall be shamed.
Lorcan: They’re pigs. How do you shame a pig?
1000 credits worth of jewels *each*. The Karg brothers are jailed with their fate to be determined later (as they broke the rules of gladiatorial combat)…those upstairs are upset because no one bet on us, and we are told that we can return to our quarters for the rest of the day. Darga announces there will be no more entertainment for today.
Lorcan: You’ll never hear me say this again, but I’m all battled out.
We also gained a point of favor with Darga.
Breanna: all 5 stunners
Soma: 4 frags
Bertalan: 2 frags
Morten: 2 frags
Brenna: 4 frags
At this point, we don’t know enough about using the force. We’ll trance to heal up. Four hours will get most of us in good shape, but Lorcan will need six hours. Braktor starts working on breaking encryption while the rest of us snooze. He has some trouble, but it doesn’t seem to be locking him out if he fails. Fourth try is good…sender was the Nemoidian, Igren Demos (the Hutt’s majordomo) – to an imperial comms relay somewhere in the sector (it’s just a drop point). There are details about Darga’s trades and dealings. Most of the comms concern the influx and sale of slaves (not very detailed) – but there are different transactions about volumes, success rates of surviving slaves, etc. One of the later transmissions mentions that the quality of slaves continues to decline and the customers are unhappy. Several references mention “the prisoner” being alive and well, and there is no change in their status.
Darga doing something for the Imperials and is being paid in slaves; then he is trading the slaves off, and whatever the Empire is doing to them, the slaves are pretty much shot. But what is he trading *to* the Empire?
We need to pass this info back to 6-6. Switch couldn’t break the encryption.
BTW in less than 24 hrs, there will be an Imperial delegation here. We also know that many credit chips have been passed up and down that elevator. The casinos are upstairs (connected via elevator) – level below us is open, and level below *that* is restricted.
Brenna, Bertalan, and Soma will go check out the casino. The others will continue to hang out for a while.
In the casino: there are various races and people of all social classes. We split up and start to play while Gathering Information. Brenna gives Bertalan and Soma 1000 credits with which to play.
Spend 500 credits, make GI check. Bertalan gets robbed. Brenna learns that Darga has got a lucrative contract with the Imperials dealing tabana gas. He’s moved massive quantities of tabana gas to some unknown location; he’s in control of a cartel that refines the gas. Tabana gas is used to power lasers and blasters. Darga buys the raw gas, refines it, and delivers on contract. Based on what we know of the other half of the deal, he’s getting raw beings for him to sell off as high-priced, low-quality slaves in order to make his money. The only other thing we learn is that the Nemoidian he keeps in charge has more pull than people think…the Hutt is smart, but the Nemoidian is devious. This may not be apparent in the court because Darga treats the Nemoidian as a trusted advisor; the Nemoidian uses his authority to manipulate the Hutt—and the Hutt doesn’t realize this, or he just doesn’t let on.
One of the dealers also mentions that somewhere in the facility is a dude named “Gome”, Darga’s book-keeper. If anyone else knows more about Darga’s business, that’s the guy. Of course, Gome is nuts.
Meanwhile, the others try to go to the first sub-level. No guards down there. After a short hallway is a large door unlike anything we’ve seen – behind that, they hear the loud screeching of a Nemoidian opera. There is a doorbell.
As they wait, a couple of Gommorians bring two large sacks of credchips to the door and press the bell. After a short while, a crazy old Nemoidian answers the door and takes the money sacks as the sound of Nemoidian opera pours out of the door. Inside it appears to be an apartment furnished as a well-off Nemoidian would have it.
They ring the bell to see who this is. Morten starts to chat and mentions that they’re exploring; he introduces himself as Gome – he keeps track of the finances. Gome introduces them in for tea as Lorcan wishes he died.
There are stacks of coinbags and several days of food trays. He has a work surface with some coinage on it that he must be counting.
Gome returns with tea and pours out three cups worth. He is happy to meet the new gladiators. Braktor mentions that he defeated the Gommorians; Gome does not care for the stinky creatures.
The tea is not very good, and the cups are dirty. He doesn’t get many visitors because he’s Darga’s accountant; only people in trouble with Darga come to visit.
Dude pours out much more tea, mentioning his cousin Braktor. Dude goes to get more tea; Morten delays him while Braktor hacks his computer and copies over a spreadsheet or two.
Darga’s a good boss, he mentions. The music was from the Clone Wars era of the Nemoidians…just after separatists killed the tabana gas ring, Darga took over. Times now are very good – lots of tabana gas smuggled outside normal channels…more profitable even than the slave trade. A few months ago, the Empire wanted off-record tabana gas and even threatened Darga – but they negotiated good terms, and have funneled every canister they can into the Empire for a secret project.
Braktor: Ooh, that sounds very important.
(uncomfortable pause)
Gome: …would you like some tea?
Morten asks for a copy of the music.
Braktor: It’s good to hear that the contract is so good. Did you negotiate it?
Gome: Darga and his majordomo, Igen, did that. He’s been majordomo as long as I can remember.
And Gome had an uncle named Igen.
Darga takes good care of Gome, and he serves Darga well. It’s a good thing to do in his last days; he’s old, after all. There were times when he planned to be the Viceroy of the Trade Federation, but the Federation is no more. Ever since the Clone Wars…but they did have a good thing going with the tabana gas smuggling ring.
Braktor: Where is all the tabana coming from?
Gome: You *are* smart. It comes from Bespin. Not many people know about that. It’s a good place to trade with the Empire; we trade ships’ worth in the space above that world. They are given other goods (he doesn’t know what kind, though) in return.
Will the Empire come to change the terms of the contract?
Visit from the Empire: He doesn’t know; the less he has to see, the happier he is. But Darga *does* profit from the arrangement – and he even has a remote getaway in Cloud City on Bespin.
The door rings; the PC’s hide, and Gome answers it – he’s got more money to count.
Gome looks at Morten and says he looks familiar; Morten says his name is Braktor (no relation). They bail out and meet 6-6 in the elevator. 6-6 greets them and asks if they’re alone. As far as they know, there are no bugs. 6-6 asks if they have anything to pass along; Braktor mentions that perhaps they have found something (a brief overview of the data, including the fact that the Nemoidian was transmitting).
We discuss tabana gas – what would the Empire be doing with it? Outfit another army’s worth of clone troops or something? And the slaves – they’re all non-humans. We weren’t able to identify what was wrong with them; are they displaced aliens, or test subjects, or what? We don’t know.
Status: We have a point of favor with Raden (for saving him) and we all have a point of favor for saving the Hutt from poisoning, and another one for winning in gladiatorial combat. No benefit to Lorcan for defeating Kessra (too many birds were killed).
We get a request from Darga in the evening – the Empire will be visiting, and he wants our presence and counsel during the visit. Apparently we have enough favor to be invited, even though we’re nervous.
We are also informed that we have unrestricted access to his facility. We go below Gome’s level to the melodious sounds of Nemoidian opera to the level below. 20 meter hallway that opens into a large room (10 m x 20 m) – many Gommorians that immediately sit to attention when we enter. Three are armed; five or six more are standing around. It’s a guard room. At one end is a set of sealed doors; the entrance is a heavy blast door. One Gommorian comes up brandishing his War Mace; he’s a tall and huge one. He looks at us and oinks, “What you want?”
Braktor: We’re here to check on the prisoners.
G: We guard them – they’re all fine, and you’re not allowed in here. They’re behind the doors.
B: All of them?
G: Didn’t I already say that?
Bertalan: Darga trusts you with all of ‘em? Or aren’t you good enough?
G: That’s none of your business. Now get out!
There is a door we passed, but there is no handle…Bertalan searches his feelings, and has no idea whether or not we should go inside. It’s probably not important.
Sub-basement: Prisoners and pigs
Basement: gome
Ground floor: living quarters
Second floor: casino
Top floor: garden (just the garden)
We turn in for the night, knowing we have a long day of spying on the Empire tomorrow. As we settle in, perception checks:
Brenna: 20
Morten: 17
Bertalan: 26
Braktor: 24
Soma: 21
Lorcan: 23
Braktor spots something moving in his room…Init! There is a well-hidden Quarren in his room (an assassin!) Everyone else will be surprised…because those Quarren are all stealthy. Everyone else = Morten and Lorcan.
First, Morten’s assassin…3 points of damage but no poison. He’s been attacked! Braktor watches his assassin come after him…7 points of damage and poison. Lorcan takes 3 points of damage but no poison. Braktor whips out his blaster, flips it to stun, and drills the Quarren. Nice shot.
Lorcan gets his blaster, doesn’t switch to stun, and drills his assassin. Morten’s assassin hits him again (crit)…an extra 15 points from poison. Braktor’s assassin shoots him. Morten grabs his stun baton, stacks on a Battlestrike, and drills his assailant. Great except the damage sucked.
Braktor shoots Q, then Second Winds as he kills his assassin.
Brenna hears blaster fire and wakes up. She grabs her weapon and runs into the hall—in the hallway is a black Wookiee with a bowcaster pointed at her. He’s got a ready action, and she’s the target. 20 points of damage.
Bertalan is woken up by the bowcaster and runs into the hallway with his carbine in hand – he spots the Wookiee with his bowcaster and Brenna, wounded.
Lorcan blows S, his assassin, away and heads for the door. Brenna misses. Braktor misses. The Wookiee moves towards Brenna and misses her. Bertalan misses the Wookiee (firing in stun mode). Soma moves and misses.
Lorcan moves up, notices the hole in Brenna, and taunts the Wookiee: You again? I’m gonna kill you this time.
Morten continues to be poisoned and stun batons his assassin. Then he second winds. Braktor moves up. Brenna uses Force Slam on the Wookiee and knocks him on his tail. The rug stands up and misses. Bertalan misses. We eventually smoke the Wookiee, but some of us are poisoned… Braktor eventually kills the Wookiee. Bertalan and Soma runs to Morten’s room but miss.
Brenna can’t stop the poison on Braktor. Soma kills the assassin. Braktor has to spend a Force point to avoid dying; at that point, Brenna stops the poison. Lorcan treats Morten before Morten dies.
We are done for the night – Morten at 6, Braktor at 0.
399 XP.
Some guards come running, asking what’s going on…Braktor mentions the unconscious (not dead) assassin in the room. Who sent them? Could be the Wookiee, or maybe not. Morten’s assassin is wounded but not dead.
No game on 7/19, no game on 7/26. Perhaps a game on 8/1, or at least a late-starting one.