Play Report: "Oh my God, it's Grand Admiral Thrawn!"

At long last, I was able to gather my band of merry mercenaries again to run a one-shot of WEG Star Wars. Fantasy Flight games might have delayed my book three times now, but with REUP and +Jez Gordon 's rules essentials printout, we did just fine. Possibly better (those rules essentials are top-notch)

The group consisted of:

• Tekashi Kovax, twi'lek investigator
• Maia, togruta navigator
• Utini, jawa tinker
• Ka Vosent, zabrak pilot
• Dierak Higara, mandalorian mercenary
• Thogar Balor, mandalorian commando
• E-L0N MSK, assassin droid
• Kupu'rust'ponto, chiss doctor

An easy enough opening: the party are independent contractors hired by the Republic to either extricate or kill an Imperial warlord by the name of Admiral Russof Enterax, who has fled to the distant world of Yoon-Suin and taken up residence in the palace of the hutt lord Bago Oorunda of the Yellow City.

The party were to meet a contact in a city cantina and get further information, but they had barely gotten introductions out of the way when his head exploded.  stray shot from a blaster bolt, and the entire cantina erupts into chaos as the riot that had exploded outside decides to move inside.

Thogar flips the table to provide cover, knocking their contact's still-wrapped package into the middle of the room. Maia dives out to grab it, with E-L0N MSK providing covering fire. Imperial riot troopers start filing into the cantina, shooting at brawlers. The mandos and droid continue to cover as the rest of the party dashes past the counter and out through the kitchen. KRP grabs a tin of tea leaves from the kitchen on the way out.

The back alley looks to have already been deserted, and the party decides to head up to the roof of the tenements on the other side, to get a better view of the city.

The package is unwrapped to find that it contains an incredibly rare, incredibly illegal single-use skeleton key capable of burning through any electric lock. The group splits in two - one party (Tekashi, Maia, Utini, and E-L0N) make their way over rooftops to the Spire of Ten, a library. The mandos, pilot, and doctor make their way towards the spaceport, which was giving off an ominous plume of smoke. They are swiftly derailed by a probe droid and drop to the streets: it is handily offed, its parts scavenged, and they decide to go by sewer instead, navigating through Spacemaps Streetview.

There is, of course, a dianoga, but they manage to get past with only slight harassment and terror.

The other group find the library locked down due to the riots, and proceed to break in through a large stained glass window. This terrifies an under-librarian utterly shitless, and the poor lad's only response is to insist that they sign up for a library card. Some useful information is found by scanning through local news: the admiral shows up with Bago in public appearances all the time, but the local Imperial outpost seems to be run by his underling, a Lt. Staavirus, whom Bago holds in great disdain.

Spaceport group  manage to get to their location, to find out that the riots had spread to the commercial spaceport and at least one ship had its drive detonated. The others are either on fire or damaged. Firefighters are desperately trying to put out the fires, and one mentions that any incoming ships have been diverted to the next city down the coast.

A short commlink call gets everyone up to date, and the two parties meet up. They decide to attempt the Imperial fort to eliminate Staavirus first (and possibly steal a vessel), and easily manage to break into and hotwire a delivery truck landspeeder ("Happy Weequay Meats", for those asking.) and drive right up to the front gate of the fort.

It is here that Kupu'rust'ponto informs the guard that he is, in fact, Grand Admiral Thrawn (accompanied by Maia, his secretary - she was providing the assist bonus) here to see Enterax and deliver rebel agents picked up during the riots.

He utterly destroys the roll (cue Thogar's player delivering a "oh my God, it's Grand Admiral Thrawn!" in falsetto) due to both numerical superiority and ingrained Imperial racism ("Thrawn is Chiss, ergo all Chiss are like Thrawn"), the fact that this far out no one in the Remnant has actually met Thrawn and most still think he is still alive at this point.

With the Thrawn ex machina working splendidly, the party meets with Staavirus and demands an APC, a shuttle, and replacement uniforms. At this point (partially my own doing, for I front-loaded most of the prep for the session), it is a smooth sailing to the hutt's palace, having the guards haul out Enterax from the harem, and flying off back to Republic space with their hostage.

Notes:  The ending was a bit limp, but given that everyone had fun I shall forgive myself for it. That always has been my weakest spot when running my own stuff, and eventually I'll patch that hole. We may return to this plucky band in the future, but not before returning to the Distant Lands of DIY with Hot Springs Island in the next session.

Noxalas! Notes towards a Pyre Tabletop

The Nightwing Triumvirate: Jodariel, Hedwyn, Rukey Greentail

I’ve been playing Supergiant Games’ Pyre this week, and it is fantastic. Wonderful. Stupendous. Superlative. Very, very solid. A guilt-free Day 1 purchase, soundtrack included.

You might have guessed that I speak from a position of incredible bias. You are absolutely correct. And like both Bastion and Transistor, Pyre brings to mind that most common of idle DM thoughts:

“Can this be made into a tabletop?”

After playing a good amount of it this week, I say “yes, easily”. I wish there was a proper lore/art book (I would buy it in a heartbeat), but the notepad I have been keeping ready will serve enough for this little project. Right now I just want to get ideas down and in a place where other eyes might give them a look over.

Since Pyre has RPG elements already, and those elements are not particularly crunch-heavy, translation should be pretty easy. There’s a solid amount of support for both the tactical end (the Rites) and the story-based parts (the rest of it), and even exploration / wilderness survival (making the trek between ritual sites). The premise itself fits into a campaign mold easily (you have all been exiled from your home, and have to form a group of pilgrims to compete in the Rites against other groups to earn your return home).

There are four attributes in Pyre (Glory, Quickness, Presence, Hope), and three primary abilities in the “combat” section of the game (Aura, Jump, Sprint – all with variants). Each character has a short bio, providing information of a character’s, race, background, astrological sign, crime, motive for the crime, and how many years they have been exiled.

System-wise, I find myself leaning towards an adaptation of the West End Games D6 System.  Templates could cover the eight different races, and some additional skills can be thrown in to provide some out-of-Rite usability. I’ve found myself fond of “background / identity as a skill” as found in the third edition of *Unknown Armies*, so some of the background bits might be turned into attributes (“of course I can give someone the evil eye! I’m a bog hag!”)

The “combat” system (Air quotes used because it’s not really fighting, and more like magical basketball. It’s said in-game that the laws of the Rites forbid harm towards the opposing team) is the main thing that will require some elbow grease, as in the game proper it is real-time, controlling one character at a time. I have some reservations about switching over to a more turn-based method, but it’s certainly possible.

The XP system can be kept as-is, and abilities / items will just need whatever tweaks are needed for WEGd6 (many of them won’t need it).

I’ve got outlines of all the material I’d need in the future, so I expect a preliminary version of the rules won’t be too far off.

Regardless of all this blather on my part, it’s a great game. Art, music, gameplay, story, it's all great- and it's all new. Supergiant consistently makes some of the best and brightest fantasy worlds out there, and for that I am ever thankful.

Noxalas!