Star Wars: KotOR - Precursor to War

Rodi called up the Ghtroc Cruiser 720 as they were taking off, asking to meet with them.  When they met up he asked to borrow Serath Ann and Bee-Gee for another task.  Dey Hauk and Salubricon decide to follow up on the tip the group received about Krogar's dreadnaught resupply shipment, thinking they and Har’air’al would be able to take out the 3 man crew the ship was supposed to have.  They jumped to intercept it at a point it was scheduled to make course corrections.   Before they arrive, they were suddenly pulled out of hyperspace by an uncharted gravity well.  They found themselves confronted with the legendary pirate ship Shadow Dagger, which proceeds to trap them in a tractor beam, as well as their target when it dropped out of hyperspace a few moments later.

After they were pulled into the shuttle bay, the Miraluka first mate invites them for a discussion with the captain, a war-scarred veteran Chistori named Groxlar.  Dey Hauk shows the better side of valor and convinces the captain not only to let them go, but to sell them quite a bit of what the pirates had taken from the transport, including the transport ship itself.  The captain summons one of his crew members to report the inventory of their plunder, who turns out to be Kari Chattan , Dey Hauk's Padawan.  Kari was called away months earlier by the Jedi council to help on a secret mission.

After driving a hard bargain, Day Hauk and Salubricon manage to purchase the transport ship itself (crews 12), 4 turbolasers, and 4 fighters, for 160,000 credits.   Kari is ordered to unload the rest of the cargo and secure everything.   She arranges to stowaway on the transport with Dey Hauk and Salubricon when they leave.

Kari had infiltrated the legendary/mythical ship Shadow Dagger  while working undercover as Rita Carlyle.  She discovered that  Shadow Dagger is controlled by the Dark Hand Syndicate, which is loosely affiliated with the Sith.  She planted a program into the ships computer that will send a signal to Republic receivers to help track the Shadow Dagger.  It needed activated with a com signal after she got off the ship, which she accomplished from the transport.

Kari had planted the program and has been trying to get off the Shadow Dagger, when the Captain detoured to the headquarters of the Dark Hand Syndicate.   Unfortunately, the Captain manually inputs the coordinates and she was unable to determine the location.  At the headquarters, there is a shipyard constructing another Shaddow Dagger class ship,  and also a number of Mandalorian scout ships, similar to what have been seen when settlements in the area have been attacked.  

After they left the dark hand syndicate's shipyard, they settled down for some pirating.  Groxlar had some intelligence info from the resistance movement on Yaglu (which she had heard the rest of the group Dey Hauk and Salubricon are helping).  This led him to one of Krogar's shipping routes where replacement parts and starship weapons are being shipped to Yaglu.  Shadow Dagger  travels with a cloaked transport ship that powers a massive gravity generator that can create a temporary gravity well to pull ships out of hyperspace, which is how they caught both ships.
 
They bring the transport and freighter to the republic base on Ord Taneer, where they bought a new transponder and installed it, now have 5 names on the new transport ship just as we did on the old ship.

Met Jedi Master_Vandar on Ord Taneer, who will start monitoring for the Shadow Dagger signal.  He expresses satisfaction with Kari's progress in her training, and dissatisfaction with the behavior of Dey Hauk as he supports the rebellion against Kroeger. 

The current missions is to gather evidence of atrocities to block Kroeger from joining the republic.  Heading to Taigon to gather info on slavery in the mines, terrible wages, etc.  If Krogar joins the republic,  Dey Hauk will have to deny his relations with the jedi, or perhaps even leave the Jedi.

Our heroes discovered a Sith Lord on the Outer Rim World, Taigon.  They defeated him and later learned that he had tricked death by transferring his essence into someone else. They unsuccessfully tried to thwart his power grabs on Taigon, Yaglu and Gessoo.  Now, under pressure from the Jedi Order, and the impending threat of a Mandalorian invasion our heroes work with resistance movements on those planets to end his opressive reign.

The group decided to try and hit up a local cantina in Tegeel, the largest city on Tanior, on the outskirts of which lay a Krogar Enterprises facility. They gambled a little bit, playing sabacc with some armed guards that worked for Krogar Enterprises. They slipped out when it looked like the guards were leaving and jumped them when they exited the cantina. Bee-Gee and Salubricon ran straight off down the major through street, while Dey Hauk and Serath Ann took the unconscious guards down the back alley. Unfortunately one of the guards had managed to get a comlink signal off the the authorities who traced it back and nearly captured Dey Hauk and Serath. With some fancy flying Serath got away, and they slipped into a used speeder lot and stole an airspeeder. Both groups then met up with Har’air’al and the ship.

When Serath Ann and Salubricon entered the building Salis had told them of, they found a couple of rodians with guns. They identified themselves and were introduced to Elav Ghrout. They spoke with him about both what kind of resistance he might be able to build against Krogar Kalvin and what they could do to help. They told him they intended to build a two-pronged assault on Krogar's power by also instigating rebellion on Yaglu. Ghrout asked them to take an associate with them to help facilitate communication. The associate turned out to be none other than Roka Glar ‘Rodi’. Then they flew to Yaglu and landed in the swamp outside of the capital, and sneaked into the city on speeder bike. Har’air’al led them through the city to a meeting with Gith Rosh, a former factory worker. She asked them what they wanted from her and listened to their plans to help the rebellions on Yaglu and Taigon. She agreed to work with them and was able to tell them that Krogar was most likely getting the armaments for his droids from Gessoo. The party flew to Gessoo where met with S’viv Zdu, an outfitter and occasional arms dealer that Serath had known from her scouting days. Dey Hauk negotiated with her and used his winnings from the Royal Casino on Kahlus to purchase blaster pistols, grenades and armor for the rebels. For the next eight months the group continued to try and supply the militias. Bee-Gee and Serath offered their skills in training the militias as well. All this time, the group kept watch for news of weapons' shipments, starfighters they might be able to steal and for the shipyards where the dreadnaughts had been built.

Then finally they learned that of a lighter guard on some of the weapons shipments, as well as some replacement parts being delivered to the dreadnaughts over Yaglu. S’viv Zdu also called the group saying a spy who thought they had a lead on the shipyards had disappeared on Tanior.

Heading towards Thaigo’s shop, Dey Hauk and Salubricon found themselves being followed by a tall robed figure. They ducked into either side of an alley and saw the person stop looking around for them. Dey Hauk snuck up behind him and recognized him as Calus Lieb from the others’ description of him. Calus told them he had a message from them and handed over a holocron. Dey Hauk looked at it and recognized it wasn’t the Sith holocron that was supposed to be in the auction, but rather a Jedi holocron. He asked Calus what gave, but Calus said that his employer was having difficulties procuring it at the moment, and that’s all he knew. He also handed Dey Hauk a datachip with instructions on how Dey Hauk could contact Thaigo.

Dey Hauk and Salubricon decided to head to the ship, and as they headed there they found a message being broadcast over the city’s broadcast system. Krogar Kalvin was introduced as the new Prime Minister of Yaglu. He showed footage of the group breaking into his factory, though only Dey Hauk was recognizable in the image, and blamed Dey Hauk as both a Jedi and an agent of the Republic for trying to sabotage Yaglu’s industrial and defensive infrastructure. He also announced that upon his appointment as Prime Minister he had arranged for six dreadnaughts to be puchased for Yaglu’s Planetary Defense Force. He further announced his forming of a mutual defense alliance with Taigon. He then introduced Thaigo as his 2nd Minister.

Dey Hauk and Salubricon continued to the ship, while listening to the broadcast. Bee-Gee and Serath Ann were listening aboard their ship, and tried hailing them over the comlink, only to find it was jammed. Dey Hauk and Salubricon snuck through the Dock Authorities Security and made back aboard. Serath called the Docking Authority to see if their departure clearance had been processed, and decided to leave instead of wait for it to be granted. They made their way to orbit where they found three of the new dreadnaughts between them and the edge of the gravity well. The dreadnaughts launched fighters and began firing upon the Ghtroc Cruiser 720 .

Salubricon poured as much power into the engines as he could while Bee-Gee took to the weapon controls. They cleared the dreadnaughts only to find a half dozen Mandalorian Cruisers dropping out of hyperspace in front of them and launching fighters. Desparate to avoid being caught between the two fleets Salubricon turned back towards the dreadnaughts to give Serath time to perform the hyperspace calculations. Serath noticed that the “Mandalorian Cruisers” didn’t seem to be as heavily armed as those that had attacked Kahlus.

The Mandalorian Cruisers were being quickly disabled by the dreadnaughts and some of the fighters were turning back towards the Ghtroc Cruiser 720 as well as some planetary defense fighters launched from the surface. They also began taking heavy damage as turbolaser batteries from the dreadnaughts were also directed back at them. Serath triggered the jump to hyperspace before the calculations were completed and they escaped.

They dropped out of hyperspace a few hours later around Kahlus where they saw a Mandalorian Cruiser at the edge of their sensor range. They also managed to make out that the capital city was still largely intact, despite the destruction of the docking rings. Fearing being tracked, they jumped back to the outer edge of Yaglu’s solar system, to Taigon, and then to Ord Taneer.

They landed at the Republic Outpost where they got some technicians to sweep the Ghtroc Cruiser 720 for tracking devices or bugs. They also set about purchasing light laser turrets. During the shopping, Serath ran into an old friend of hers, Craig Killian who she’d worked with when prospecting. She found out he’d been working as a scout and otherwise tried to avoid conversation to avoid drawing attention to her recent activities. She and Solubircan got the laser cannons which they began setting up on the top and bottom of the ship. Dey Hauk also used some of his credits to purchase some heavier shields for the ship.

Master Vandar arrived landing in a small republic cruiser, similar in make to the correllian corvette. He asked Dey Hauk about the news he’d been hearing about them destroying factories and attacking cities. Dey Hauk told Master Vandar that they were constantly being set up as they set about trying to undermine Krogar. Master Vandar suggested that with Krogar’s fast rises to power on both Taigon and Yaglu that Dey Hauk might do well to find those who might be resistant to his leadership. He also asked how Dey Hauk’s retrieval of the holocrons was going. Dey Hauk showed him the one he’d received and Master Vandar suggested Dey Hauk hold onto it to continue his own training in the force. With a warning to be mindful of the dark side, and a warning from the Jedi Council to avoid conflict with the Mandalorians, Master Vandar left.

Har’air’al approached Dey Hauk asking what he was intending to do. Dey Hauk said he wanted to return to Taigon to build up a resistance against Krogar Kalvin. Har’air’al offered to continue with the ship in exchange for 100 credits a day. With the ship repaired and their upgrades complete the group took off, and jumped to Taigon. They landed in the mountains near Ketcheek, where Serath had lived on Taigon, and his the ship. Serath and Salubricon took one of the speeder bikes into Ketcheek where they stopped at a small pub she used to frequent run by Jelee. She spoke with him a little finding out that Krogar and the Taigon Planetary Defense Force (TPDF) had wrested control of the mines from Czerka Corp and lowered wages depressing the local economy. As she and Salubricon left Jelee suggested they try to find Elav Ghrout.

Serath led them to the Dancing Tails where her former roomate, Salis had worked. Salis approached them, seeming not to recognize them and gave Solubrican a lap dance, during which she slipped a datachip into his pocket. Serath noticed the chip, and slipped it out of the pocked and into her datapad, and noted the address and access code Salis had given them. She slipped the data chip back into Salubricon’s pocket. They stayed for a few more drinks and then headed to the indicated address. When Salubricon asked how she knew where they were going she told him to look in his pockets, where he found the datachip. The then made their way to the indicated address.

Looking at my campaign details it may look odd that I as the GM have three of the characters listed with my id. That’s because 2 of my players said they didn’t have the time nor desire to make an id nor to do anything on here. I’ll add information on these characters, and eventually add stat blocks as I can later. -Tikanni

The party flew the Astral Star into orbit with Har’air’al following in the Ghtroc Cruiser 720 . The Astral Star was attacked by a half dozen sith fighters being launched from a cloaked vessel. Bee-Gee managed to take a couple out, and Salubricon managed to dodge a few missiles fired by the fighters. They raced off with Har’air’al until they got closer to the sun, scrapped parts of it and then sent the Astral Star into the sun.

They returned to Yaglu to find the planet under alert. During the fight two of the missiles had appeared to power down after being launched, and had apparently struck two of the large spires in Salicar, one being the main government center, and the second being a construction plant belonging to Thaigo. They commed Thaigo asking to meet him and were told to meet in a conference room in one of the other spires. The found the room easily and were disappointed to find not Thaigo, but a holo-projector.

Thaigo’s image appeared and he spoke with them saying he was calling off the bounties on their heads as agreed. He said that unfortunately they’d been linked to the attacks to the city which gave Krogar Kalvin the leverage to start wresting control of the government. With the Prime Minister and 2nd Minister dead, the ruling council was going to appoint him Prime Minister in exchange for him providing greater security. Thaigo then asked them to disrupt Krogar Enterprise’s droid production in the factor in the lower levels of the city, in the hopes that might undermine his offers of security. Dey Hauk accepted for the group and they began surveying the plant.

They considered trying to capture some security probe droids that guarded a chemical waste pipeline leading out of the plant but settled on entering through one of the loading doors. They found a tall building near a landing pad and threw a rope across. Everyone scurried across the rope while Dey Hauk walked across. They took out any droids between them and the control center for the factory, where they found a Sith and a worker operating the controls. Bee-Gee opened fire with both barrels killing the operator. The Sith pulled her sword out and attacked Bee-Gee. Dey Hauk stepped forward with his lightsaber and they swiftly cut her down. Dey Hauk then felt the presence of another Sith coming from the higher level of the city, suggesting they hurry. They planted charges in the control center and headed down to the lower levels of the droid factory.

They fought some droids along the way and found where droid fuel cells were kept. They set a few around the room so they’d overload and damage the others around them. They then made their way to the rooms where the droids were painted. They punctured the tanks spilling paint everywhere and rolled a drum into the central shaft, dropping it on droids on the lower levels. The group then set a few satchel charges in the turbolift shafts. Bee-Gee turned his magnetic feet on and ran up one of the shafts until he reached the level they’d entered on. As he turned to help pull the party up as they climbed, the Sith that Dey Hauk had sensed attacked him with her lightsaber. He quickly tied off the end of the rope and turned, trying to grapple her. He got a grip on her and threw them both the central shaft.

Serath, Dey Hauk and Salubricon continued climbing to escape. Unfortunately Bee-Gee’s attempt to kill the Sith in the fall failed when she used the force to move them onto one of the lower levels, halting their fall. She struggled to escape his grasp. Bee-Gee holding her with three arms reached with his fourth to grab one of the satchel charges, set it right against her stomach and set it off. Her intestines flew everywhere killing her. Bee-Gee managed to climb the shaft to join the rest of the group. They made their way across the rope they’d used to the other building, and set the charges off. Serath and Bee-Gee headed back tot he ship, while Dey Hauk and Salubricon decided to confront Thaigon to receive the holocron he said he’d give them.

Halfway to Yaglu alarms started going off all over the Sweet Nacha, and it dropped out of hyperspace. Running a quick diagnosis, Salubricon and Serath Ann found the ships’ power had been heavily depleted and damage to the primary and secondary hyperdrives, repulsors, life support, and sensors. They immediately switched everything off, set up the system to run off backup.

Once that had been done Bee-Gee and Serath Ann EVA’d and found mynocks attached and they quickly dispatched them. They examined the damage and found a number of major power lines chewed through. Salvaging parts from the speeder bikes, and draining some power from them as well they managed to get the repulsors and back up hyperdrive online.

They quickly determined that there would not be enough oxygen to make the remaining 3 days to Yaglu. Salubricon put Har’air’al and Serath Ann into drug induced comas while Dey Hauk put himself into a force trance. He made the jump and began to suffer feeling the first effects of asphyxiation as he readied to drop out of hyperspace. He donned his flight suit and managed a rough but successful landing in one of Yaglu’s lower docking areas. They began purchasing parts and overhauled the damaged systems when they noticed one of the ships in the docking bay with them was for sale, a Ghtroc 720 Freighter.

They spoke with the owner and negotiated a trade. Salubricon went to transfer the ownership and title and got saddled with a fine for tampering with the ships’ transponder, but otherwise the transfers of ownership went well. Everyone moved their stuff from the Sweet Nacha to the Ghtroc Cruiser 720 . They also bought parts and a wireless remote laser cannon to attach to the rear of the ship, and installed it. That night Bee-Gee patrolled the bay keeping an eye out for trouble, and saw nothing save the docking bay doors opening and closing a couple times through the night. The next morning the rodian who now owned the Sweet Nacha took it for a spin. A couple hours later Bee-Gee saw the Sweet Nacha returning for a landing, but coming in way to fast. He shouted a warning and Serath Ann got the shields back up as the Sweet Nacha crashed bottom first and burst into flames. The shields held against the explosions of flammable material and fuel. Fire and rescue crews arrived pretty quickly and put the ship out. The authorities had the party move the Ghtroc Cruiser 720 to another docking bay, and then questioned them about the crash.

Dey Hauk, Bee-Gee, Serath Ann, and Salubricon went to Thiago’s shop. Inside they found 10 bodyguards and Zhaigo, one of Thiago’s men. The group introduced themselves discreetly saying they needed to speak with Thaigo. Zhaigo said he would pass along the message, but when they turned to leave he identified Dey Hauk by name and said he had a message for them. He said that Thaigo felt he may have been a bit hasty in taking out his disappointment with them in the form of bounties and offered them a way to work off the bounties and build trust for future conversations. Dey Hauk accepted for the group with the stipulation that he wanted to speak with Thaigo before the job.

Thaigo gave them a holo-net call detailing an exchange that was to be taking place at the Erin Moon Resort. Apparently Krogar’s people had arranged to sell some of their cut spice to one of Thaigo’s dealers. They had arranged for the exchange to take place in one of the outer docking rings. They had discussed the number of parties that would meet at one of the cantina’s where they would then discuss where the exchange would take place. Thaigo requested that Dey Hauk “intercept” the shipment or interfere with the meet, so the spice could be captured before it hit the streets, and without him losing any money.

The group flew to the Erin Moon Resort and began looking around when they got a message from Zhaigo, saying they had identified which ship was bringing in the spice, the Astral Star, and that it would be docking on the far side of the station. The group got there just as the Astral Star landed, and let the two contacts head to the cantina. They then jumped the rest of the crew as they began unloading the spice. A firefight broke out, and in the process one of the drug runners launched an escape pod from the Astral Star that hit the inside of the docking dome, doing damage. The group gained control of the Astral Star and blasted out of the docking dome just as it began to close.

The Sweet Nacha dropped out of hyperspace at Tanior. Salubricon immediately hailed Dey Hauk on his comlink and and learned that Dey Hauk was flying toward them in a small shuttle that was under attack. Bee-Gee took to the gun turrets and tried to hold off the enemy ship while Salubricon maneuvered the Sweet Nacha to keep a shield face to the attacker and Serath Ann lowered the other shields and opened the underside elevator to let Dey Hauk get aboard.

Once Dey Hauk got aboard Salubricon began a hyperspace jump to Dantooine. Dey Hauk suggested they drop out and change course for a Republic Cruiser near Ord Taneer since they had been dispatched to help in his retrieval of the holocrons stolen from the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. They met the cruiser and set Dey Hauk called up Master Vandar on the Holo-Net telling him of his progress. Dey Hauk then asked Salubricon if they could take him to Kahlus where there was going to be an auction for one of the Holocrons.

They arrived at Kahlus, landing on the outer docking ring. After disembarking they found crowds of people offering services as guides around the city of Kahlus. The group decided to employ a wookie named Har’air’al. He took them through some back routes and straight to the Royal Casino, where the tournament was to take place.

Bee-Gee took up a watch outside the casino as Salubricon and Serath registered for the tournament and DeyHauk headed to a set of holographic pedestals standing outside a large auditorium. He found Sarin standing near one that depicted one of the holocrons. She welcomed him and she revealed that she had fallen to the dark side.

Then Devin Siller walked in with a half dozen Gran, checked a sword very similar to Krogar’s at the door, and then walked up to Sarin and DeyHauk. He then revealed that upon his “death” Krogar Kalvin had transferred his essence into Devin Siller. They parted ways and Dey Hauk and Sarin entered the tournament.

Salubricon was weeded out of the tournament in the early rounds, and Sarin managed to hang in into the second to last round. In the final round it was Dey Hauk and Serath against a few other good players. Dey Hauk managed to pull the right card and won the 5 million credit prize. At that point air raid sirens went off all over the city. Dey Hauk tried to collect his prize, and was only given 250,000 credits and a check for the rest. Har’air’al met them outside the casino and offered to help them bypass the panicked crowds in exchange for passage to Bandomeer so he could return home.

The group agreed and Har’air’al got them to the Sweet Nacha. They quickly powered up the Sweet Nacha as the Mandalorian bombardment began destroying the docking rings. With some gunning from Bee-Gee and some fancy piloting from Salubricon, the Sweet Nachamanaged to evade the Mandalorian fighters and capital ships and jump to hyperspace.

Serath Ann and I were arguing about what to do with the drugs we had found. Serath wanted to dump them directly into a star, while I argued that drugs worth enough to buy a capital ship should either be sold or turned in to the authorities. While we were arguing a frantic man ran up to the ship wanting to buy immediate emergency transport off the planet.

Unfortunately, the frantic passenger turned out to be a bounty hunter, named Calus Lieb, who poisoned the food. Serath and I fell into unconsciousness while Bee-Gee the droid sat oblivious in the cockpit. His first hint of trouble were when the engines went offline and the ship was plunged into darkness.

Bee-Gee was able to subdue Calus Lieb and power was restored, but only just in the nick of time. I was forced to calculate the jump to hyperspace without a working navicomputer, and managed to do it in the nick of time. Just as were leaving Calus’s partner arrived and took a few pot shots at us.

During the two day hyperspace trip back to a friendly planet Serath got in touch with her dark side as she tortured the bounty hunter and discovered that the biggest bounty was on the ship itself. At that point we decided to turn the drugs over to the Jedi as they were already proving to be bad for our health.

Arriving at the planet Dantooine, we discovered that Calus’s partner had followed us and that his ship was extremely well armed. A single hit from one of his concussion missiles was capable of destroying our ship. We escaped by fleeing into the atmosphere where a couple of Jedi starfighters turned our attacker away.

After patching up the ship we received a fare from a couple of prospectors heading to Ord Taneer. We delivered them and got a message from Devin offering to remove the bounties on us in exchange for the spice. Yeah, for some reason we realized we hadn’t turned the spice over to the Jedi yet. But we aren’t stupid we raised Sarin on the Holo-Net, unfortunately only getting audio. She said she’d meet us in orbit around Taigon, again, we were skeptical. So, we called up Dey Hauk and set up a rendezvous.

We set out to rendezvous with Dey Hauk, but as we left the atmosphere a severely damaged passenger ship dropped out of hyperspace in front of us. Packed full of refugees from a mysterious battle with mysterious armored attackers, the ship was engulfed in flames and only moments away from exploding. We docked up with the ship and Serath risked her life by going into the damaged vessel to help wounded refugees escape. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get them all clear before the ship exploded. Only my extremely awesome piloting skills saved everyone from certain death.

—Salubricon’s Journal