Lit Fragments from the Rim: A look at Galaxy Guide 9 w/ Charlemagne19

Ooo, got a link?

Yeah, it is pretty impressive.

Certainly, it made a near endless supply of baddies for player characters and later our Rebel friends.

 

Here.

 

You can thank JoinTheSchwarz for that one.

 

Are you discounting Grand Admirals Takel, Teshik, and Tigellinus because they didn't get full write-ups?

Airen Cracken? Arhul Hextrophon? Voren Na'al? Ars Dangor? Adar Tallon? Walex Blissex? Halagad Ventor?

Interesting to see how other GMs handle continuity. This approach to RPG continuity is ... a little alien to me, and it's probably a big part of why I almost never use premade NPCs in my games. For me, whatever happens in games, happens. Only one group of characters captured notorious crime lord Alba the Hutt for arms dealer and competitor Sha-Ru-Ul. I've had two other groups since then (playing over a decade later in the real world, but in the same timeframe in-universe) run interference and create diversions for that first group instead of capturing him themselves, because that capture only happens once.

 

Ahnjai Rahmma



The Wookie life-debt is incredibly exploitable. A lot of players have often considered saving the life of a wookie just for the opportunity to have their own bodyguard. This, of course, is something that perverts the entire purpose of it and explains why a certain Wookie in Knights of the Old Republic 2 decided to kill their rescuer rather than have that kind of obligation. That doesn't strike me as very logical but it's about as logical as plenty of RL honor killings have been conducted under (which is to say not very).

Ahnjai is basically a member of a feline humanoid race which basically is a bunch of wookies except cats. I wonder if it might not have been more interesting to have an actual wookie serving as Tremayne's bodyguard since that would mean added humiliation. There's some general advice to play up Ahjai's stereotypical elements as well as treating him like a generic ethnic henchman. However, the game shows a really easy way to reward compassionate player characters like Jedi.

If they rescue him, he'll consider his debt to Tremayne paid and work to kill him. Obviously, Ahnjai is punching out of his weight class if he tries to kill Tremayne but it would serve as a cool distraction or use of him as an ally to kill him if you want to go that direction.

Moff Abran Balfour



Moff Balfour is kind of an oddball character as he's kind of useless as a character in an RPG but still entertaining to read about. Balfour is the laziest Moff in the universe. It actually has he quote, "Rebel activity? In my sector? Ignore it and it will go away." He is a devoted student of Galactic History and spends almost all of his spare time working on getting Thalassian luxury space barge working. He spends a lot of his time searching for spare parts to keep the thing working.

He doesn't have any enemies, per se, and the Rebellion has a lot of activity in the neighboring sectors but not his--which they think are using his as a base but are wrong about. It says that eventually something will cause a spark in his sector that will make it a big deal but I question that. It strikes me Moff Balfour's style of approach is probably the single best way to NOT get the Rebellion riled up. The Rebellion needs big and dramatic examples

So, I'm not sure what the point of the character is outside of a Minister Tua comic-relief character. The guy, unlike Tremayne, isn't particularly villainous and probably would have been fine in the Old Republic if he's not a holdover himself. I'm also not quite sure how he got the position of one of the 1100 or so most powerful people in the galaxy anyway.

Is he Tarkin's cousin? What?

Elena Shelvay



Elena is another character I've gotten a ridiculous amount of mileage out over the years. Basically, Elena is an extremely useful character who can fulfill multiple roles if you want to use her that way. She can be Isard-in-miniature or a female Agent Kallus, she can be a character who hunts down Jedi, she can be a character you redeem to become a Jedi herself (there's some art showing Corwin train her), or she can be a love interest for heterosexual male or homosexual female PCs depending on your wishes.

Elena took the role of all of them in my various games as well as a sort of mid-boss on the road to defeating High Inquisitor Tremayne. Basically, I would often start games with the PCs messing up some local Imperials then dispatch Elena after them on behalf of Tremayne and they'd bamboozle her until Tremayne himself became involved.

The background of the character is that she's Corwin Shelvay's sister back when the Jedi were assumed to have ties to their family. After Corwin screwed up their lives, the Empire came and kidnapped her (killing her family) before putting her through brainwashing akin to the kind which created Kerrigan and Nova in Starcraft. Now she blames Corwin for her family's death and all Jedi in particular. It's perfect Star Wars-esque stuff and I've even had the PCs take Corwin's place with Elena as their sister.

It's a bit ruined by the Prequels now as Elena would have no idea who Corwin is or vice versa. However, that just makes the Empire's treatment of families which produced Jedi all the more interesting. Was there a mass purge of them? I think that's within Palpatine's wheelhouse.

Elena is notably not Force Sensitive but in my games, I rule that's because she's suppressed it with her brainwashing. If she ever opened herself up, she'd have the potential to be a Jedi (albeit of the Tyria Sarkin kind rather than the Luke or even Kyle Katarn variant).

When doing my games, I use pictures of Alison Doody because Elsa Schneider works perfectly.

 

Ever since ROTS, I've felt that something must have quietly happened to the families of Jedi children, because otherwise they'd be the single biggest potential threat to the Empire's "the Jedi were a dangerous treasonous cult!" narrative.

 

I think we can probably guess, it's just that very few people want to include THAT part of fascist history in their Space Fantasy.

Well, except for Boba Fett: Agent of Doom.

The Prequels and the brief mention in DEATH STAR (the novel) make it all the more horrifying if you think too long about the implications as midiclorian tests might still be conducted across the galaxy and the Empire would only take a very small portion of them to be trained as Inquisitors or operatives.

 

What we have next is fairly tame and almost not worth covering. We have two new kinds of "environmental" stormtroopers like the Snow Troopers proved to be on Hoth as well as the Scout Troopers proved to be on Endor. The thing is, I'm fairly sure both of those only exist so we can sell toys of them. Given no one was ever going to make toys out of West End Game's figures, I don't think there was much point in those.

Rad Troopers and Imperial Storm Commandos



Still, I rather like them for their potential One Shot usage in the fact Radtroops are when the Empire causes an area to become completely covered in lethal radiation then sends these guys to murder the people who are presumably either in spacesuits or dying already. This could be a really powerful scene for a group if the players are, for example, Rebel Alliance members and the Empire causes something which starts to kill everyone around you as you can only helplessly watch in your spacesuits.

It's also a potential good moment for a character to earn points at my table if they pass on their space suit to a fellow Rebel Alliance member or NPC. Yes, it'll mean the death of their character but
I've had players do that before and it impressed me every time. May the Force be with them. Imperial Storm Commandos, by contrast, are the Empire's version of Special Forces. Notably, these guys are significantly tougher than regular Imperial Stormtroopers. They have 7d as their Blaster score, which is almost TWICE as good as regular Stormtroopers. I should also mention WEG Stormtroopers were poorly designed to begin with.

You see, Stormtroopers in West End Games, if you didn't fudge your dice rolls had a very real chance of murdering you in your first combat. They had 4d Blaster scores and 5D Damage as they hit you, which in simple terms was about as good as the players. In a typical game of WEG Star Wars, it's entirely possible Luke gets gunned down alongside Threepio if they didn't roll good or spend a force point. Wizards of the Coast, in order to deal with them, crippled Stormtroopers significantly because this isn't very Star Warsy.

Notable fact, the Imperial Storm Commandos are also a product of then-Imperial General Madine's genius. They're also guys who wear black so you KNOW they're badass.

 

I don't know if it's "poor design" so much as the whole "WEG tried to make stormtroopers the elite" thing. The excessively dangerous stormtrooper stats are just a logical outgrowth of the questionable worldbuilding.

 

Stormtroopers did have a base blaster skill of 4D, but remember they never actually rolled that. They had the armor penalty to deal with, and if they dodged or fired more than once in the round they were already down to rolling 2D for both. That meant WEG stormtroopers weren't really that dangerous if the PCs applied a minimum level of reasonably intelligent tactics (dodging, taking cover) during a firefight. The combined fire rules theoretically made stormtroopers more dangerous, but how many GMs managed to figure those out anyway?

 

Savareen brandy, anyone?

Canon now. Thank you, Solo.

 

Spoiler: Extremely minor Solo spoiler

When they first mentioned the planet Savareen, my brain started processing ... "Savareen, Savareen ... Dune-like spice world? No, that's Sevarcos ... Other end of the Five Veils Route from Farstine? No, that's Skynara ... Oh! Savareen Brandy!" and was pleased at the obscure name drop. And then, half a movie later, when Beckett let the other shoe drop and asked about the brandy ... well, I barely managed to stifle the "Squee!" noise, but not the little chair dance, as was noted after the movie by the person who was sitting next to me.

My favorite reference in the film.

 

That you knew Sevarcos off hand is arguably more impressive.

 

I've always considered Fragments to be canon, but it's nice to have my opinion confirmed on the big screen.

 

Sevarcos got an entire article in SWAJ; I'd argue it's much less obscure than Savareen. I'm actually a little embarrassed that it even crossed my mind as a possibility, but the combination of "s" and "v" sounds with the topic of discussion in that scene was hard to shake, I guess.

They seem to be keeping to the idea that they're not going to be discarding any infrastructural EU material without a good reason. Gives me hope that a character will be blasting some Red Shift Limit or Emperor's New Clothes at some point.

 

Noval Garaint and Horch of Kheedar

Noval Garait is an interesting character that I always felt made use of a factoid which the best West End Games stories did, which is the fact that players are by definition Star Wars fans. Most roleplaying gamers are but the people who are going to be playing Star Wars: the RPG are going to be the kind of people who know every line of the movies.

The pretense of Noval Garaint is dependent on the player characters having the belief something they encounter will be like the movies and then twisting it around. Specifically, the premise is that Horch of Kheedar is a transparent stand-in for Jabba the Hutt (though they had the originality not to actually use a Hutt like in so many other stories). Horch is still a big fat alien (as we see in this picture) but he's a character which has one specific flaw: he's not the brains of his operation. The premise of the use of Noval Garaint and Horch is that the player characters think they're dealing with a tranparent copy of Jabba and Boba Fett but it's actually Boba Fett who is the brains in the operation while Horch is more like Salicious Crumb.



The story of Horch is almost tragic and would be if not for the fact his world's story is even more of a Butt Monkey than he is. Kheedar was a planet with a bunch of low-value Imperial targets called hydrocarbon processing plants (I'm assuming it's rations for the Empire's stormtroopers because it could be anything but "water food" sounds like the stuff they'd feed their troops) which were routinely blown up by the Rebellion despite inflicting almost no damage on the Empire. This eventually triggered an Imperial crackdown, except the Previously Pro-Imperial King chose to fight with the Empire due to the fact he was senile. This made the crackdown worse and got Kheedar's palace bombed because it was the only well-defended place on the planet. Honestly, this whole story makes the Empire sound a lot more sympathetic than it usually is as they usually don't need justifications like this.

Noval Garaint was, at the time, a mid-tier Bounty Hunter. Not exactly in Boba Fett's league but maybe Jodo Kast or Zardra's. He was turning in some Han Solo types to Horch and saw the place getting bombed so he massacred all of Horch's guards and arrested him before showing the Empire his license--then didn't turn in Horch. Noval, instead, took over Horch's criminal empire and recruited a bunch of his bounty hunter buddies who were kind of floundering in their current business and effectively made Horch's business as the nest egg to create a PMC which dealt in protection, slaving, kidnapping, murder, and other stuff. Everything is bounty hunter adjacent without being bounty hunting alone. I assume they also force smaller groups to give them money because, really, you don't need to run spice to get a cut of spice if you have people who can kill you if you don't have a cut of spice.

The Empire is notably established as being the Anti-Mussolini in how it deals with organized crime in this time period. One of the elements I liked about the Galactic Empire is that it really is uninterested in the whole "law and order" stuff fascist apologists claim the governments they support are. The Empire loves organized crime and black marketeering because it's corrupt from the top down. It was the comparatively "human rights and alien rights friendly" New Republic which actually had a serious issue with organized crime. Noval is explicitly stated to have incredibly good ties with the Galactic Empire as his people are all licensed bounty hunters and I presume he provides the proper kickbacks to the local Moff.

There's only one problem with the Kheedar Ring in the fact....well, I'm not actually sure what the plot twist is good for. I mean, yes, Jabba isn't the guy in charge but Horch is a drugged out idiot so aside from maybe kidnapping him only for nothing to change, it's not really that big of a twist. There's no, "Oh my God, DARTH VADER IS YOUR FATHER" moment. I actually think it might be more interesting if Noval was publicly the crime lord as a crime syndicate headed by a nasty Boba Fett type and his horde of killers is more interesting.

Noval also isn't really brimming with personality. He's a thug in a suit of armor. Amusingly, his stats are bigger than Tremaynes and he actually is capable of probably taking on an entire group of PCs by himself so he might actually be Boba Fett level versus Kast or Zardra.

 

Well, that update didn't take long at all.



Sorry, guys, was distracted by working on my third BRIGHT FALLS MYSTERIES novel.

 

Reuss VIII

Reuss VIII is an industrial hellhole world which has been devastated by corporations and it describes a fairly believable horror that is coincidentally (?) similar to Corellia as depicted in Solo. It's nothing but industrial hellscape with large numbers of children who have had their parents carted off to be killed in organized labor camps while they are forced into crime in order to survive. They're called "Rust Rats" apparently.

The average life-expectancy on this world is 40 so apparently it really is Space Detroit. No surprise the Empire doesn't care about what happens on this planet but the implications are this started during the Old Republic and no one did anything about it then either. There's literally damage taken by you if you don't wear breath masks on the planet too so it's a nice depiction of a kind of urban hellhole.

Torel Vorne

Torel Vorne is a crime boss with a shtick, which I appreciate because in a gameline like STAR WARS, you need something that you do better than anyone else to stand out. If you want to make a crime lord, don't make him a crime lord but a slave lord, the biggest gun runner in the galaxy, a space cowboy, or something. In this case, Toren Vorne does organ legging. Rather than simply carving you up for credits, you can trade your organic parts in exchange for dirt cheap cybernetics. The irony being that most of Vorne's creditors actually tend to prefer this to the alternative and it's sadly truth in television as there's a disgusting fact that you can trade kidneys in at least some parts of the world and we don't have cybernetics. The real problem is Torel's doctors aren't very good at this and I like to think Doctor Evazan got his start here.

There's no explanation for why Torel wants the organs but the rather unfortunately easy answer is that its for the people on the planet who are suffering so badly from organ damage but might be able to afford them. The one time I used Torel, I went the extra mile and revealed the organs were actually for an elite Imperial dining club of Pro-Imperial aliens who struck back at the racism in a mild way by treating humans as a delicacy....and it had actually caught on that Torel was always in need of more stock.

I think the joke was technically nothing Torel did was illegal but he was in bigger danger from his clients who wouldn't want their dining habits exposed.

 

It's kinda important to be well-themed in Star Wars. Imagine if Darth Vader had shown up with, like, red loafers! Noval at least is committed to his Boba Fett cosplay.

 

Shownar

Shownar is an excellent location for gaming as it's "The Crystal Planet" and is a luxury tourist resort. It also has a massive spectacularly nighty display in its sky called "The Torch Nebula" that is so pretty you can actually buy holograms of it across the galaxy. Admittedly, I refuse to believe this is anything other than the galactic equivalent of Las Vegas snowglobes and not a serious present anyone but quirky collectors wants.

Actually, re-reading it, IT IS A LAS VEGAS SNOW GLOBE. It's kind of hilarious as they immediately describe the thing with, "I've been to [insert name of planet] and all I got was this crummy tunic." Apparently, prostitution, gambling, and drugs are all legalized on Shownar though they cover two of those with "gambling and other vices."

Oro Freatt

The planet is controlled by Oro Freatt, who is sadly a character who has no picture and no discernable personality. He's apparently the head honcho on Shownar but not interested in creating a galaxy-spanning crime syndicate but ruling Space Vegas. Weirdly, the book DRIPS with disdain for Freatt to a far greater excess than the slavers or other scumbags in the book. It's kind of weird. Despite the fact he's kept the planet peaceful, rich, and the Empire out of it--he's talked about as a sleazy disgusting little toady. This is despite the fact this is EXACTLY the kind of planet which Lando Calrissian would, and has, run.

Shownar seems like a nice place to do some upper class criminal activity or casino robbing but Oro seems like a nice guy (for a criminal) so I don't see what people would want to do to him as a proper villain should be done to.

 

Actually we could have Elena knowing who Corwin was. I can see many families taking great pride in their child being taken in by the Jedi and try to follow them from afar, even if they know that they are no longer part of their birth family. A bit like the people of Ultramar (in WH40k) take great pride in the sons who go out and became Space Marines and families keep records about it.

 

Ahhh...the book that gave us the Reactor Core.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Reactor_Core_(drink)

 

Galactic Businesses and Corporate Families

It's kind of funny here but back in the 90s, it wasn't necessarily an ubiquitous part of American culture that corporations were evil. We had cyberpunk but it was still a fringe genre so that it hadn't spread everywhere else.

The Han Solo trilogy had created the Corporate Sector but it was a decade before the Prequels where we saw George Lucas share his overt loathing of the capitalist system which he managed to make himself a not-inconsiderable fortune but he still viewed himself as an outside too. The idea of the Empire having large numbers of corporate sponsors was a fairly fringe idea, mostly found in history nuts of the Nazi period and the people who noted it had always been a major part of George Lucas' notes.

The take of Fragments from the Rim is actually...not the best version of this. This chapter doesn't actually present much in the way of really good villains and that's a shame. Big Business is more or less a side thing and it's shown to be more a neutral force in the galaxy versus anything exploitative (with one very good exception).
We also get a sense the writers see the majority of corporate wealth and heirs in this world as "new money" for aristocratic (Leia) or pretend aristocrats (Lando) as easy marks. One line I like being, "If Daddy runs the company and gives his daughter a MERE million a week allowance, how IS a girl supposed to spend it?"

Apparently, Valley Girls are a thing in the GFFA.

Fabritech Inc.

Fabritech is an interesting example of "the writers not knowing how capitalism worked." Or at least it is an example of how capitalism would work in a system which wasn't controlled by something like the Empire. The premise of the company is that it is a manufacturer of TIE Fighter sensor control systems and control modules (i.e. steering wheels). It's since branched out into other military hardware for the Empire.

The thing is I don't believe in this company for a second because I have no doubt Sienner Fleet Systems would have every single bit of TIE fighter production under their control and would have bought them out completely if not had the Empire directly control. Corporate freedom in fascist states is not a thing. At the very least, Fabritech would be a subsidiary of Sienner with its leadership as the easily-replaced executives of it or having been bought out with them as the nominal heads. This wouldn't actually change much about the company as subsidiaries on Earth can be huge. However, it rubs me the wrong way as it creates a sense the Empire and its cronies wouldn't be nearly as controlling as it would be in RL.



Kvarn Mandel is the owner of Fabritech and a staunch Imperial supporter but in the sense of being a guy who made early deals with the New Order versus actually supporting supporting it. He's a devoted family man and a corporate shark but not the kind of awful person most people expect from Space Nazi-supporting corporate businessmen.

Kvarn has a problem in that his sixteen year old daughter disappeared eleven years ago (making her 26 now) and he's turned a blind eye to the subject. His son, Simmin (e.g. Simon), has hired the Skine Bounty Hunter College to look after her. There's enough signs that she's alive out there somewhere but it's a big galaxy. Kvarn hates this because he truly believes his daughter is dead except for the TINY NAGGING bit of conscience that there's another possibility: she actually joined the Rebellion.

I really like this write-up because it's one of the single best for giving you a direct hook as a Gamemaster. Kvarn is a legitimate target of the Rebellion and his company, unrealistic as it may be, is a genuine threat that provides war material for the Empire. It has also has family intrigue, a "hook", and multiple angles to pursue. The only real problem with it is if the PCs are rebels and his daughter IS one then the PCs know the truth probably better than they do.

 

Fully agree with your and I like your what-should-be-points. If I ever use them I think I will have them as a subsidiary of Sienner

Also, Kvarn Mandel is a really funny name for Swedish speaking people. Translated it means Mill* Almond
* or Grinder

 

Drever Corporation

This is an oddball entry that is useful enough for a game to be built around it but isn't quite as straight forward or operatic as Kvarn Mandel's family drama. The premise of Drever Corporation is they are a blaster and rifle manufacturing company but make average run-of-the-mill weapons. They also make the Plasma Punch which is an "uninspiredly named" fusion torch.

Okay, this description already lost me because if you had a welding torch named the Plasma Punch, I'd absolutely buy it in RL and I have no use for welding equipment. It's a bit weird, also, because I'm not sure why a blaster firm would make a fusion torch. However, the Empire LOVES this torch because it's the best tool for opening magnetically sealed doors. It probably was used on the Tantive IV but it doesn't say that outright.

Drever Corporation is in a bit of a spot, though, because it has a really crappy marketing company and hasn't been able to sell the Plasma Punch as well as it should. Read: It hasn't been able to sell it to the Empire. While it claims it's due to lousy marketing, it's probably more due to the fact Madel Wharen is the former CTO (It never uses that word) who got transferred to development work. This has actually improved the quality of the technology because he's more a tech head than executive--and he's also a Rebel Sympathizer.

The Rebellion would like to recruit Madel but his family needs to be rescued first despite the fact they're being monitored by the ISB and the fact a board member of Drever Corporation is a plant by the organization. They knew Madel Wharen is a Rebel Sympathizer but haven't arrested him yet.

This, by itself, would be interesting but it gets WEIRD because the Rebellion is considering a corporate sabotage plot to put Wharen in charge of the company so they can gain corporate backing. A company producing blasters which could have plenty "fall off the back of a truck" for the Rebellion is certainly useful as would be having their own endless supply of fusion torches.

The Empire would have an enormous pain in the anyx reversing this because Drever is apparenly well-liked in the Imperial corporate subculture (which directly contradicts the fact they're not a major Imperial supplier). They would either have to either nationalize the company, which would make its other supporters cagey or try to overthrow Mandel quietly, only to potentially expose themselves.

This is a set up for a complicated cyberpunk-esque plot where the Rebellion tries to take over a company to shore up it's supply line--and I approve of that. However, I'm not sure I buy the fact the Empire would stand quietly buy or worry about taking this over. In the ANH radio drama, Biggs was saying the Empire was nationalizing massive numbers of businesses left and right. We also know INCOM was nationalized by the Empire and turned into part of its war machine (albeit, never produced anything useful until Dark Empire).

There's also a sense of confusion as to how important Drever Corporation is. The text implies it's a mom and pop blaster corporation that isn't anything like the people who make stormtrooper supplies. If it WAS the people who provided the Empire with all of its welding equipment, I'd actually buy that it was important enough to worry about (the Empire buys a lot of hydrospanners after all) but it says the Plasma Punch isn't a good seller. Certainly, if it's NOT a big Imperial contractor then I doubt the rest of the folk in Sienner as well as Kuat would be worrying if the Empire shut it down.

Were I to re-imagine the company, I'd make it a straight up hardware manufacturer that is one of those, "For want of a nail" groups. Literally. Don't make them a blaster company, make them an actual tool company in terms of hammers and nails. If Drever Corporation is shut down by the Empire, the sudden lack of hydrospanners and multitools across the galaxy would severely imperil the entire Imperial War Machine as well as the manufacturing of everything from starships to Death Star consoles. So much so the Rebellion might be able to keep running the place if the PCs can eliminate the ISB's spies.

Madel Warren



Basically, Madel is Doc Brown. The entire premise of the guy is he's a lousy executive, Persuasion 6d at least implies that he knows SOME things about how to run a company, but he's really an engineer. Heck, there's actually a "Business" skill which many characters in this book have but Madel noticeably DOES NOT. I would run him exactly like Christopher Lloyd and there's no reason not to when you see the picture.

I also would have my players recommend a Business Droid ala C-3PO to assist him because the dude really needs one.

Jenson Drever II



Jenson Drever II (it's "The Second" part which makes him perfect as he looks like Marv from Sin City but he's clearly meant to be a space yuppie). He's depicted as an emotionless ruthless businessman who is actually close friends with Madel Wharen but has no interests other than his job. The game heavily implies you're meant to use Jenson as a bad guy but the book noticeably doesn't state he has any real Imperial sympathies. My suspicion is that's because he's obviously an alien and is never going to get the kind of respect a guy like him is meant to deserve. Instead, it's implied Jenson's problem is more lack of Rebel sympathies--probably because he's a very profit-driven corporate culture sort of guy who just wants to see the company prosper.

I think an interesting twist is that Jenson and Madel would be better reconciled and working with the Rebellion together (for a HEALTHY PROFIT) rather than using him as a stock villain.