Clone Wars Campaign: Recap # 29

This is the beginning of what became my favorite story arc of the campaign (at least so far). This session in particular had (to my mind, at least) an original and interesting mystery-based plot, some exciting action scenes, and a dramatic adventure hook to propel the story forward. I was also really happy with my role-playing of two major NPCs that until now hadn't received a lot of real "screen time": Stefan Cassadine & Horellius Creen.

Two new player characters appeared for the first time. Doxen was the creation of the guy who played the short-lived Zee a few sessions earlier; although Ewoks and Endor are unknown at the time of the Clone Wars, his appearance is explained as his being one of a handful of Ewoks taken off-planet by an explorer (and future Senator) named Orelus. The other new character, A'tel Por'Ten, was the creation of a player joining the campaign for the first time. The addition of a Jedi character to the ranks always helps to spice things up by adding a level to the game (the vagaries of the Force, the lure of the Dark Side, etc.) that can be missing from a "smugglers and scoundrels" type game. The disappearance of Zero & Natany is explained in the session as well, since their players dropped out months before.

Having a very straight-forward opening scene (protect the Senator) was intended to be an easy entry point for the new player. This story arc was planned as a major "myth-arc" episode (the "City of Sand" was referenced by the Oracle as being a place where she would re-appear), with some underlying structure taken from the only full length pre-made adventure available at the time, Tempest Feud (which involves Hutts & spice smuggling), elements of which begin to appear in the following session. Padawans Whie & Scout are taken from the Clone Wars novel Yoda: Dark Rendezvous (though their appearance here is set earlier in their lives). Sian Suan is a character I used to play years ago in a Star Wars RPG, while Carn Sokhol was an NPC in that campaign.

The appearance of the Seducer was intended both as a reminder of the Anomaly's existence, the dangers posed by the Forgotten (especially if they are beginning to escape), and a chance to throw some new Force-based dangers at the PCs since they'd pretty much exhausted the possibilities of droids and traditional blaster fights. I especially wanted to feature the Seducer in a story that involved . . . well, seduction, since that aspect of his character didn't really come across during the previous adventure into the Anomaly.

As I always say with gaming, the best part of being a director is seeing the creative or surprising things the players have their characters do. In this session, Daal gets himself in more and more trouble with Jocasta and Arresta decides to secretly slip away from the Temple without informing her husband. Each of these decisions would have a major impact on the future of the campaign.

Update (June 20, 2012):  Added in the previous secret passage where Arresta talks to Horellius Creen and learns more about Tarn's disappearance.


EPISODE 2.8: THE CITY OF SAND

SESSION # 29

Not since the Second Sith War, millenia ago, have so many Knights of the Jedi Order taken up arms on behalf of the Republic. Once keepers of the peace, and now soldiers, the Order is stretched thin, fighting battles on a thousand worlds. With the pall of the Dark Side clouding the Force, even great Jedi Masters find it difficult to see beyond the exigencies of war. And now, a new threat has struck at the heart of the Order, and the Jedi must seek the aid of outsiders.

[A.G. 286]

At Horellius Creen's "suggestion," Daal Mordo has spent the last several weeks in a small apartment near the Jedi Temple. Little of interest occurs during this time, apart from word that Separatist assassin Greesh Leedo apparently escaped from a detention facility with help from the inside.

At a small diner in Republic City on Coruscant, Daal is perusing some neo-tech on his datapad when he notices that the place has quieted down and is now empty except for himself and a group in the corner. Some of the Sun Runners are present, including the corsair Jocasta, the Gammorean thug Korkoth, a Cerean sociologist named Kylo-Vas, and a strange, husky bald man who talks like he has some ability to predict the future. Jocasta confronts Daal about his having taken payment to retrieve a mysterious package on Nar Shadda and then having run off without retrieving it. Daal bluffs that he doesn't have the money or his credit chip on him, but promises to return the package (the severed head of an MD-4 medical droid) and the credits plus interest in three days' time. Jocasta relucantly agrees and gives Daal her comlink frequency, but also exacts a further price: Daal must join her crew and pilot her ship once it's out of drydock in a few weeks' time, since her former pilot had decided life would be more profitable as a freelancer. Daal leaves the diner without further incident and makes his way to an appointment at the Republic Senate Building set up for him by Jedi Master Horellius Creen.

Doxen discovers that two of his fellow Ewoks on Melosia have been kidnapped by a ruthless slaver named Harno. But the trail has grown cold, and Doxen decides to respond to a request from his friend and patron, the new Senator from Melosia, to visit the Republic Senate Building to help with an urgent task.

Jedi Knight Atel Por'Ten is forced to call off his search for a pair of Force-sensitive twins on the planet Romin because the Order has asked him to return to Coruscant to assist the Chair of the Senate's Jedi Oversight Sub-committee with an important task.

After arriving at the Outcast Tiara aboard a stolen Separatist shuttle, Arresta and Krevlax learn that the freighter has been deserted: Zero and Natany have undertaken the risky gambit of mounting the ship's back-up hyperdrive on the remaining escape pod and have ventured off to parts unknown. Lacking the parts and expertise needed to fix the freighter, the Anx and the Noble have little choice but to return to Coruscant aboard the cramped, slow-moving shuttle.

The shuttle carrying Arresta Cassadine and Krevlax Mex emerges from hyperspace near Coruscant. The shuttle is forced to divert for inspection since it lacks a transponder signal and Krevlax is almost detained for carrying an unlicensed blaster rifle. Arresta manages to convince the security team that they have important business on behalf of the Republic, and the two travelers are allowed to depart. As soon as the shuttle draws within range of Coruscant's planetary communications network, Arresta's comlink beeps with a priority message from her husband, Stefan Cassadine, urging them not to land but to instead rendezvous with his yacht, the Knife's Edge. On the damaged yacht, Stefan reveals that Arresta and Krevlax incurred great Separatist wrath on their last adventure: Arresta's captured bodyguard has been returned with his lips sewn shut, her apartment's security is compromised, and bounty hunters have been sent to shut her up. Stefan claims that he's managed to call in enough favors to have the guild cancel the contract on her life, but that great danger still exists from freelancers. He tells Arresta that he's arranged with a business associate for her to be safeguarded in the Jedi Temple, after she has a meeting at the Republic Senate Building. Stefan makes it clear he expects Arresta to stay at the Temple for both her own safety and that of the child; he also tells her to make it to clear to "that foolish Jedi boy" that the child is Stefan's and that Arresta is to be left alone.

A two-month recess has left the Republic Senate Building mostly empty. Senator Orelus of Melosia finishes his last committee hearing and then speaks to the group assembled before him: a short, furry creature named Doxen, a young Jedi Knight named Atel Por'ten, a Durosian named Daal Mordo, and a pregnant, blonde woman dressed in expensive clothing named Arresta Cassadine. Senator Orelus explains that he's called the meeting because an investigation at the Jedi Temple has fallen under his Committee's jurisdiction. In the past few weeks, three Jedi have committed suicide under suspicious circumstances and one Padawan, named Tarn Tamarand, has disappeared. As the Senator attempts to use a holo-projector to explain in more detail, the lights slowly dim and then go off completely--it looks like the power to the building has been turned off. Atel explores the darkened hallway outside of the meeting room and stumbles over the corpse of a Senate Guard. The group decides to split up: Atel, Daal, Arresta, and the Senator head for a turbolift on the Concourse, while Doxen makes his way to the Grand Convocation Chamber, a vast room filled with 1024 repulsorpods for Senators from around the galaxy. In the Chamber, Doxen spots three black-garbed figures planting explosives in the Chancellor's Podium. Doxen rejoins the others, who have spent their time attempting to open the door to a turbolift. The group agrees to investigate Doxen's sighting.

Inside the Grand Convocation Chamber, Doxen takes up a sniping position, Daal rigs one of the repulsorpods to crash into the Chancellor's Podium, Atel moves stealthily to the base of the Podium, and Arresta protects the Senator by keeping him out of sight. At a pre-arranged signal, the group strikes. Doxen's opening salvo strikes home, knocking one of the saboteurs off of the platform before finishing him with another grisly shot. Atel calls upon the Force to leap aboard the Podium and fight a second saboteur with his lightsaber, while Daal eventually catches up in a repulsorpod of his own. A long and bloody fight ensues, as the saboteurs are determined to fight to the death. Eventually they are subdued, but not before Atel takes several blaster wounds and Doxen gets a bloody mouth from a misfire of his rifle. Daal disarms the explosive charges and the group take their one surviving prisoner back to the Concourse. There, they find a maintenance tunnel which will hopefully lead them outside. Atel scouts ahead and sees a suspicious looking airtaxi waiting near an outer disc hatch, but the driver is scared off. Eventually, the group calls another taxi and drops the grateful Senator and the prisoner off at the nearest Coruscant Metropol station.

At the Jedi Temple, the group is quickly introduced to Tyree Coramon, a Twi'lek member of Metropol and the law enforcement liason to the Jedi Order. Tyree explains that two Padawans and the Mistress of Novices have been found dead in recent weeks, each of an apparent suicide and surrounded by evidence indicating a romantic rendezvous. In addition, Padawan Tarn Tamarand disappeared three days ago. Arresta leaves the group to see to her quarters. Meanwhile, the remaining investigators search computer records in the archives, examine death scenes, and question witnesses and friends of the deceased. Padawans Whie Malreaux and Scout provide helpful information, as does Carn Sokhol, a heavily-scarred Jedi recently returned from an almost-fatal encounter in the Tion Cluster. Eventually, the investigators realize that all three of the deceased had shirked their official duties in the days before their deaths. In addition, all three had received messages or even visits from people with whom they had once formed strong attachments--people who had, in fact, died months or even years earlier! Noticing that the two dead Padawans had been cited for roaming after curfew shortly before their deaths, Doxen decides to see if any current Padawans have been similarly cited in recent days and learns about a Sullustan named Sian Suan. The group, apart from Arresta (who pleads illness), decides to set up a rotating watch outside Suan's quarters and see if she leads them to the solution of the mystery.

During her time away from the others, Arresta meets with Horellius Creen.  Creen insinuates that he knows who the true father of Arresta's baby is, and states that Tarn truly cared for Arresta--he even left a message that "When all is dark, you will see the light."  Nonetheless, Creen insists that Arresta find the droid head, as "it's the key to everything."  He also tells her that someone else has survived a trip into the anomaly--Sian Suan.  Arresta decides to search Tarn's quarters.  She learns that he had been in correspondence with the asylum on Alderaan where Ycram Notwal resides.  No sign of Tarn's affection for Arresta is present in the room, but after she leaves  and turns off the light, a glow-in-the-dark image of her appears on the wall.  Arresta returns to her quarters, logs on to her computer to search for flights "to Corellia", leaves a timed message on her message recorder, and then leaves the Temple intending to catch the next spaceflight to Alderaan.

[A.G. 287]

Shortly after midnight, Daal meets with the reclusive Horellius Creen and is told that "the girl" has already been told everything important. Creen reiterates that Tamarand has taken the medical droid's head--the key to discovering where the anomaly will reappear. Creen says he is close to discovering who had originally found the head to sell on Nar Shadda which may provide a lead, but that the bottom line is that the head, with or without Tamarand, must be retrieved.

In the early hours of the morning, the three remaining investigators spot Sian Suan leaving her quarters and heading for the South gardens. They see her embrace a dark-skinned woman near an artificial stream. The woman tells Sian in a soothing voice that the only way they can be together forever is by shedding the limitations of mortal life. Atel, Doxen, and Daal confront the strange woman and insist she come with them. For a moment it seems as if Mace Windu has arrived and ordered the investigators to stand down, but Atel senses something is not right and sees through the illusion. Suddenly, the sinister figure behind the "suicides" decides to reveal himself. Standing before the group is a muscular, tattooed figure with a long black sword--the Seventh of the Nine Forgotten Sith. The Seducer had somehow managed to escape from the strange cosmic vessel (known as the anomaly) once encountered by Arresta.

The Seducer tells the sobbing Sian to go drown herself in the stream, and she promptly throws herself in, face first. Daal tries to save Sian, as Doxen tries to fire from hiding (with little success), and Atel ignites his lightsaber and prepares to duel. Atel manages to land one blow but is then forced to withdrawal from the sheer fury of the Seducer's mastery of both the Force and the Sith War Sword. Daal, having barely managed to save Sian from drowning, hurls the explosive charges he found at the Senate Building and tremendous explosions shake the gardens. The Seducer is hurt and torn by indecision--he hears the sounds of reinforcements arriving and knows he will soon be discovered by the entire Jedi Order, but the chance to toy once more with the Duros he calls "The Stranger" is too good to pass up. The Seducer summons the Force to cloud the minds of Doxen and Atel, making them completely forget his presence. He then trades blows and words with Daal before disappearing into the smoke caused by the burning shrubbery.

Seconds later, Tyree Coramon and several Jedi appear. Daal tries to explain what has just happened, but a search of the area doesn't turn up the supposed assailant. The Durosian decides to check on Arresta, only to receive a pre-recorded message: "By the time you receive this, I'll be gone. If you are who I think you are, this will make sense. I think he's going back in. We have to find it--to figure out where it will be. I've gone to see the mad old man. I'm sorry about this, but I have to find Tarn--I think I was wrong--I think he still loves me."

Return to Clone Wars Campaign Main Page