When I thought this character up, I really hadn't considered much beyond 'Throg hit hard'.  There are a number of interesting specializations I can expand into in the future, more should our DM allow Dangerous Covenants.

I was thinking Demolitionist for some entertaining pyrotechnic shenanigans but the Gadgeteer is an interesting choice as well, Bryce.  Although I've always thought of the Bounty Hunter/Gadgeteer as the Batman of the Star Wars universe.

I've also posted my character sheet to my description for those interested in taking a look.

As far as ships go, I'm reasonably neutral here.  Good maneuverability and toughness are important here but a decent cargo hold would also be handy.

Think if I ever get another chance to play Star Wars, I'll go Gadgeteer.

The Order 66 did a show on the spec once to highlight its various talents.  Was a good listen and interesting.

A lot of sheets up, and they look good. :D For those wondering how I generally do sheets, Iaarkahr's got the program I use. Harder to modify, but very pretty.

Is anyone in the group native to Tarawa, or have any strong connections there? And do any of our heroes know each other already, or are they all meeting for the first time with the start of this story?

I had a notion that Bryce and his family of criminals were native to Tarawa.

In reply to Bryce Fines (msg # 50):

Part of my background is that I am seeking revenge on my old crew.  Perhaps they left me stranded on Tarawa and you helped me escape?

I hadn't worked out all the details yet, but I decided to randomly roll my obligation and motivation, and ended up with:

Obligation:  Bounty
Motivation:  Relationship: Sibling
Motivation:  Relationship: Mentor

Given that my people, the Elomin, have been forcibly pressed by the Empire into working our homeworld of Elom's Lommite mines on their behalf, that makes the Sibling motivation easy:  I want to get them out of the mines before they end up worked to exhaustion and death.  I'm not sure what direction I want to go with the Mentor, but I have a half-baked idea that my Bounty is related to taking the slicing skills my mentor taught me, using them in some fashion to try and arrange my sibling's freedom, and failing at the attempt.

Hm. Maybe Villettarech's mentor is a Tarawan who was teaching her there, before the Empire abandoned it.

I see Bril as a fresh face in regards to the underworld. He's basically a petty crook on an unfamiliar planet and pretty much out of his element. Basically he's inadvertently stepped into the big leagues and needs someone to show him the ropes before he gets himself totally in over his head.

Well, he's in luck! Most of the underworld is a fresh face here, since Imperial presence was too strong for overt crime until fairly recently. Before that, everything was pretty pristine, except where white collar crime is concerned. Imperials like to keep up appearances, after all.

Slicers were likely much more common than burglary sorts. And any physical types were likely in the employ of Imperial authorities or apparently-squeaky-clean businesses. That's the sort of world I'm imagining. Except now with the Empire just up and taking off, there's a huuuuge power vacuum in place.

I had this image that Bryce's family only recently started hitting the larger scale of their operations.  Maybe before the Imperial presence started to slip they were pretty much just catering to small vices.  Moonshine runners basically that smuggled in some spice, alcohol, the occasional run of weapons for a blaster enthusiast or collector but nothing much larger.  Then when the Imperials started withdrawing they were poised to make a much larger splash since they already had the infrastructure and smuggling paths mapped.


I'm all about saving stranded wookies.  Could see a scene of your wookie fighting someone with an axe and if someone tries to intervene he just pops his blaster out to shoot them.  Fair fight and all.

What kind of droid were you thinking of? Something akin to one of the roughly humanoid 3PO-style units, or something more miniaturized, similar to the M-TD series of belt-clippable translators?

I am pretty open, though I do like the M-TD idea slightly better. It provides the translation functions but no really overpowering benefit. That said a full size protocol/translation droid offers more independence as an NPC.


Any idea how he got away from Tatooine? How does his clan feel about his departure? How does he feel?

I am thinking Kra started out out as one of the Jawa living and working in Mos Eisley or Tachi Station. You see some of them wondering in the background of the movies, probably working odd jobs or for small businesses?
From there the transition to crew on a skip that was desperate for a mechanic would seem a reasonable step. Possible a connection to one of the other players there? In any regard, that initial trip leads to Tarawa and the current state of affairs.

As far as the clan goes, his wonderlust is unusual but only in intensity. They spend a lot of time wondering and scavenging. So that part could be considered an eccentricity, or the fact he left could be considered madness. On the other hand part of his obligation is to his family, in part him sending back and looking for ways to aid the clan, which would probably be seen in a positive light.
Over all I see him as that eccentric uncle that is occasionally of use to the rest of the family.


Definitely open to connections to the other characters. Who knows, maybe the little ankle biter helped out the Wokee in a fight. :)

Alright, I've been doing things. Part of it has been to help my keeping track of things: I statted you all up using OggDude's Character Generator to the best of my ability, base on what you've presented to me so far. Established you as a Group so I could assign and track group resources. After much waffling, settled on a ship for you, and been getting things in that regard ready.

So Bril's pitch was to be part of a smuggling operation, a deal went down on Tarawa, things went bad, and now everyone's arrested and Bril is left free, with knowledge of where the ship is. Iaarkahr and Kra at the very least are both from offworld and got dumped on Tarawa by their respective crews. So with at least half the party having that backstory...

Bril, how would you feel about not being the last of your crew? If you, Iaarkahr, and Kra were part of the same crew, that would connect you together. Maybe just the captain was arrested/killed, leaving the rest of you more or less free and in possession of your own ship.

Bryce, it sounds like you're angling toward already being either a Ranger or a cop deputized by one. Do you think you and Villettarech would be on cooperative terms already? Maybe she or her mentor worked with your family. Maybe her mentor is in your family.

Seraphmoon, where do you think your fighter would come in? Also, do they have a name yet?

I'm fine with not being the last of my crew. Seems like a good fit and then even though Bril's still kinda flapping in the wind, he's not alone.

I like the idea of Bryce being deputized without much fanfare or instruction.  Sort of flipping a star at him and telling him to get ready for a fight sort of scenario.  Afterward he might have actually taken the oaths and such.  Thinking that maybe a ranger was preparing to defend a small town and Bryce was there drunk after getting out of prison.  The ranger recognized him as someone that knew his way around a blaster so he took an unlikely chance.  Defending the innocent and the weak appealed to Bryce, especially after prison and so he took to the position.  Could even say they tried to remove him from service after finding out who he was but he had already done his duty and earned at least his chance.

I do think it would be interesting if the mentor was part of the Fines family in some fashion.  Could also see Bryce and Villettarech having worked together or at least know of each other.

Sort of piecing more of his backstory together as I can sit down and do some work.  Thinking that he had little cause to question his family until a botched heist got his brother killed and him arrested.  Thinking his brother was young and out to prove himself, not ready for what was about to happen.  An innocent that his family allowed to die for their profits.  That was sort of his "oh crap" moment.

Ooooh!

I was thinking "Bryce gets deputized for a case, a few days/weeks later case is still going, opening crawl." Was considering statting up the Ranger, along with V's mentor. How much time are you thinking has passed? While it might be tough to get him into the Sector Rangers during this time of crisis (especially with his background), he could easily take that experience and sign up for the local police force with relatively little training and time put in; they're suddenly overworked and understaffed with the Empire's departure, so any protests they put in to having you among their number would be basically a formality before they toss you a badge and send you to work. On the other hand, if Bryce is deputized by a Special Enforcement Officer, Bryce could continue working on finishing the mission and technically be within his authority as given by the SEO. After that, I'm sure any enforcement agency would be falling over itself to get him in their number.

When you say "Bryce's family", do you mean his parents and siblings, or do you mean The Family? Like, is there a crime syndicate one can enter, or is it all literally his relatives?

Which brings me to another question! Anyone wanna name some NPCs? :D Here's who I have that needs names:

Head of Bryce's family.
Bryce's police chief.
Bryce's Sector Ranger/SEO mentor.
Bril's smuggler captain.
Villettarech's slicer mentor (likely also in Bryce's family).
V's brother

Well for the captain we could combine two of the most famous, Mal and Jack, for a Captain Jalmack.

For V's slicer mentor I'm trying to think of famous fictional hackers and the first one that comes to mind is Oracle/Barbara Gordon so maybe some play on that.

Naming is hard.

Alright, I've settled on Captain Jalmac for the ship's previous captain. The plan is to include him in a scene before he's removed from the group, make him a little more real than just a name in a backstory.

Does anyone have more ideas or questions, or thoughts on my earlier questions?

I would think the Bryce "family" would be a great deal of immediate family but also a few cousins, aunts and uncles that are more family friends than family.  Also this would be that sort of extended family of someone's cousin's brother's wife's son.  That sort of extended family that receives a generic title of "kin."


Cornellius S. Fines might be a good name for the head of the family.  I would say this is probably Bryce's uncle.

Jessup Matthews might be a good name for the mentor/sector ranger that recruited Bryce.


Police Chief Amedee Dempsey.  Just kind of fun to say.

Beautiful. Here's who I've got so far:

Cornellius S. Fines - Head of the Fines Family
Gorbara Fines - Master slicer
Chief Amedee Dempsey - Police Chief
Jessup Ma’thuz - Special Enforcement Officer
Captain Jalmac - Owner of the ship
??? - Villettarech’s brother

Trying to Star Wars up the ranger's name a little. Does this all look good?

How are the characters coming along? I'd like to get a name for seraphmoon, and a general idea of where that character's at and where they're going, before I lay down an opening post. V's brother is lower priority at the moment, as he's on another planet.

Here's a thought: sometimes there are rolls everyone will have to make that don't require choices, like initiative or the Destiny Pool. How would the group feel if I did the die rolls for some things like that to speed us along?

That's fine by me. It's gonna be a random number no matter what but this way I've got a scapegoat.

Just gotta get in mind my Rapid Reactions.

I don't mind having Kra, Brilk, and myself being part of the same crew.  Maybe we were part of a larger crew who were all abandoned together?  I may be the only one who's cranky enough to rip his arms out of their sockets seek revenge for the abandonment.

Then Bryce still helped me out at some point (maybe I helped him out as well somewhere along the line?) and he's looking for a ship to gallivant around the galaxy so he can book passage / join our crew.

That still leaves Seraph and Villettarec.

All the plans I've got cooked up involve these things happening very recently, like as part of the opening scene. From the sounds of it, you guys were more thinking of having the Ranger and loss of the Captain be in the relatively distant past. I think I can work with that, long as I know what expectations I'm working with.

So Bryce, how long ago were you recruited, and how long have you been officially in law enforcement? I'm angling to not start you in the Sector Rangers yourself, because that would give you a level of authority basically everywhere the game goes that I'm not prepared for. Giving you law enforcement authority on a single planet isn't too bad.

Iaarkahr, Bril, and Kra, how long ago did you end up stranded on Tarawa? Has your ship been there long? My plan was to start the game with the group fleeing from the death of the captain, trying to get to the ship while you still have it. Does that work, or did you have something else in mind?

Now that I think about it, I should probably go more into my expectations of the opening situation.

As I see it, we have the following: Bril, Iaar and Kra are crewmembers of the Silver Thorn under smuggler Captain Jalmac, having run the blockade to Tarawa delivering something to the Fines family. Bryce is under orders from Chief Dempsey, who is in turn under orders from Minister Kollos, to acquire the Silver Thorn by whatever means necessary. It's the only starship on the planet capable of running that blockade, now that the starfighters have all been relocated. If Bryce can get offworld, he and his team can either find supplies to get planetside or allies to shoot down the blockade. The Fines want the ship so they can start to take control the planet's supply chain, essentially making them the new government.

Thoughts?

I'm good with being stranded recently.  Maybe the good Captain thought to cut us out of our share of the loot and he's still trying to get off planet and run the blockade.  Either way, we (I!) still want to have words with him.


Possibly we have our ship but the good Captain escaped and we want to hunt him down.  Or maybe we have him captive and we can turn him in for a bounty of our own, like he owes the local crime lord some Obligation.  Or both in order.  It sounds like we have a vested interest in getting our ship quickly so we can keep possession of it.

Random related note: some years ago I played in a Silverthorn campaign with my local group, so I like the ship name.