Dawn of Defiance Episode IV and Darth Rivan: Retcons (DoD Ep IV spoilers)

Whoa, Reddjak! I have to second The_Four_Dot_Elipsis's comments. I just got a copy of that Droids comic a couple weeks ago and thought for sure I'd never see that character again since he's about as obscure as they come. Leave it to Abel to prove me wrong just a few days later. Will lightning strike twice? I just got a copy of "Death Masque" yesterday, so does that mean there will be nightmare demons in the KOTOR campaign guide?

 

Nightmare demons! I remember them! Oh man, can we have them in some prequel era stories...?

 

I wish. It's tough to keep up with all this stuff (said Captain Obvious).

Thanks 4Dot. Using Reddjak was a way to keep the adventure a little lighter in the beginning before all heck breaks loose later.

I think a little Halagad goes a long way. This project was essentially a Domain of Evil tribute, so Halagad was bound to make it in there, but it did make a lot of sense to make him an Almas Academy student, since they take trainees at older ages than the Jedi Academy on Coruscant. As for the Ashka Boda tag-team, that's actually a bit of bleed off from Vader's Legacy.

This is a very good question. Here's what happened: I wanted to make the Blood Brother the ship that Reddjak has in the Droids comic, but the deadline was very tight and we didn't have time to create stats for a new ship class. So I wrote in the Blood Brother's bio that it was a consular-class ship, and asked the editors to sub in the stats for that class of ship from the Starships of the Galaxy guide (which wasn't out yet, IIRC), and add a tractor beam. I don't know if they did that. The text does say that Reddjak modified the ship for piracy, and cartoony illustrations are always subject to interpretation. So there's some confusion and ambiguity here, and I'm not anxious to make up my mind about it, at present.

I've always been a big fan of Ashka Boda, and I thought that was the perfect pivotal figure to tie Halagad to in order to help lock down his "betrayer of the Jedi Order" status. The network concept also helps to explain how Halagad could think he betrayed all the remaining survivors.

Actually, we only did half the job on that one. I meant to add his Sith name from the Living Force scenarios, Darth Malus, into Rivan's bio, but I forgot, and so did JF. Well, there it is.

Yes, in a way. It's technically hearsay, but interesting hearsay.

The Shadow Troopers almost didn't make it in, incidentally (for fear of being a little too fanboyish), but JF lobbied very hard for them, so I caved (which I wanted to do anyway).

 

I wish. It's tough to keep up with all this stuff (said Captain Obvious).

Sorry bout that Abel, never thought to look in the framing text of an article. Still, the text where it is mentioned itself is OOU, and I would have been prepared to put it down as merely an error.

 

Darth Malus? Interesting, never heard of him before.

As for the talk about holocrons and spirits. I liked how in Rule of Two it made holocrons sound like a bit more than just recording devices. It was more like they housed a piece of the person's spirit. I increasingly like to think of them a bit like the diary in Chamber of Secrets, just without the capacity to become a real person again.

And... Exar Kun... Galaxies?

 

I think most of you here are familiar enough with my writing style by now to know when I'm suggesting something. If it looks like a barve, and tastes like a barve, then I'd call it a barve.

Solipsism is perhaps the most ruinous, yet inherently attractive, philosophical creed. It has nihlism's quality of absolute bleakness, but removes it from the realm of abstraction by combining it with a seemingly justified absolute indulgence of will. Essentially, if you are powerful enough, and you are intelligent enough, the universe is your playground.

And a Jedi Master can be quite powerful and intelligent.

Nice catch, TC. I thought the Almas connection helped smooth out the rough spots of Halagad's late training.

It's becoming more and more difficult to find time to write up endnotes, unfortunately. The ones I'm currently writing for The Emperor's Pawns may be the last.

I think I mentioned this; the shadow troopers almost didn't make it in there. At one point we considered using Clone Commandoes instead.

Thanks. Originally I wanted to use the spirit of Darth Ruin for this adventure, so I already had this creed formulated, but in the end I decided that Darth Rivan was a far more suitable villain, given his ties to the planet Almas. Didn't mean I had to leave the creed out, though.

That would be in Evil Never Dies.

 

So this means there will be a part 3 of Aliens in the Empire?

TC

 

With those eyebrows and the Near-Human description, Reddjak could almost be a Caridan, more of the Furgan variety that the round dudes though...

 

Very good point. It would seem that Lord Kaan's Brotherhood was a smart and effective means to prevent the chaos(madness) that Darth Rivan and Darth Malus created. One has to wonder what would've happned if Darth Bane didn't $%^& things up.

Also makes sense why Hett created the One Sith, that is, if he learned some of this from the Sith Holocrons he has collected.

 

Frankly I've always just seen One Sith as basically the same thing anyway. I just assume Kaan didn't make a holocron to leave any information on his "Rule of the Strong". Bane had to do a lot of work just to find out how to create a holocron, so I think its safe to say Kaan probably didn't have a clue if all he had was the stuff in the Korriban Academy.

Apart from that, "We are all Dark Lords now" and "We are One Sith now" don't strike me as that fundamentally different. The only major distinction is Krayt is very clearly the boss whereas Kaan pretended he was just one of the lads by using his magic charisma.

Of course, One Sith will probably meet a similar fate to the Brotherhood when Nihl and Maladi and whoever else finally get sick of Krayt. On the basis the Brotherhood probably ruled half the galaxy in the decade or so Kaan was in charge, you could argue the seven years or so Krayt will be in charge actually won't be much different to the Brotherhood at all.

 

Actually, the Living Force module where he is first mentioned titled "A Mon Alone" states that Darsin never became a Sith Lord, and thus his never received his Darth title. Here's the passage from the module:

Darsin is not a fool, and should not be played as one. He came very close to being a Dark Lord of the Sith (Darsin is his birth name; he hoped to become known as Darth Malus, but died before he became a Sith Lord).

So I did not feel that his Sith name had to be mentioned.

As for Darth Rivan and Ruusan, the LF Guide and various online sources do specify that he was driven from Almas by Jedi during the "Sith Wars" (back in 2001 I thought this meant 4,000 BBY)and he was killed at Ruusan (that brings it to 1,000 BBY). The Sith Wars reference could mean the Battle of Ruusan. I will elaborate more later with specific sources.

btw, I really should work on my blog to elaborate on all those Living Force references. Not a lot of folks ever had a chance to order the modules if they were not RPGA members.

 

I'm curious, is there a particular date for this adventure? It mentions that it begins "months" after the third installment - and it mentions both Vader already having visited Honoghr and Halagad's capture which, IIRC, had not happened by the time of the "official" Order 66 run-down for the Emperor (dated 09.19BY)

 

The description of the city of Forard says it was abandoned for 2 years, so it means the adventure is a bit over 2 years after Revenge of the Sith (since it wasn't evacuated until some time after the destruction of the academy). But the date is made to be vague, as RPG adventures can take place any time the Gamemaster decides. Time is only important in regards to the previous adventure (i.e. how much time did the Heroes spend in-between).

 

I noticed that "2-year" mention, which sparked my interest in tying down the date further...

... yeah, I know, dating RPG adventures is only really important to detailed-obsessed nutjobs.

Wait a minute, that's me!

 

>and it mentions both Vader already having visited Honoghr and Halagad's capture which, IIRC, had not happened by the time of the "official" Order 66 run-down for the Emperor (dated 09.19BY)<

Vader's visit to Honoghr had already occured as of Mist Encounter, which takes place one to three weeks after ROTS.

TC

 

Hey, now. I came up with Rivan before Revan showed up in KOTOR.

Just sayin'.

 

Heh. Well, Zelosians look human, so ya gots to spill that chlorophyll to really tell.

Thanks Charlii.

Yes. If Darth Rivan was at Ruusan and he was powerful, we'd expect him to have had a big fight with Bane, or at the very least Kaan, which means, from a practical point of view, we should've seen this in either Jedi Vs. Sith or Path of Destruction.

I like Death Masque and I love Alan Moore's stuff, so a nod isn't out of the question. Just have to find the right situation to spring it.

That's a smart username you've got there, incidentally.

Poor Rivan, completely overshadowed. No wonder he's pissed.

The way I make sense of this phenomenon is that the Tales of the Jedi Companion tells us that Sith actually transferred a part of their "essences" into a holocron. It's this "piece of soul" that thinks itself to be Rivan ... because essentially it is Rivan (a little chunk of him, anyway).

Yes. It will probably run in the Hyperspace supplement to Insider #100.

I imagine that most of Ruin's followers did not follow the creed, since a sincere belief in solipsism is psychotic, even for a Sith. As a fellow Darth, Rivan probably felt a kind of kinship with Ruin, and may have tried to imitate aspects of the creed, but from Rivan's writings it seems doubtful that he's a true adherent himself.

Hmm, good catch.

 

TalonCard posted:
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So this means there will be a part 3 of Aliens in the Empire?
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Yes. It will probably run in the Hyperspace supplement to Insider #100.


Now, if only they put that kind of articles back INSIDE the Insider, the magazine will be worth buying again!!!!!

 

Thanks. I loved the nod you gave to John Searle when you created this character, and since I'm a philosophy grad student, it seemed like an appropriate username.

 

Can't really add much to that. Well said, Zorrixor.

Yes, I believe I remember JF mentioning that to me during the project. Maybe that's why I left it out of Rivan's bio.

That's a great idea.

Robert Wiese?

Heh heh. I was reading Searle when The Phantom Menace hit theaters (in fact, I was studying for my philosophy final while standing in line).

 

*Uli doesn't want to point that out to the folk who say Revan (a little chunk of him, anyway) wasn't a master of Bane's*

Though, irritatingly, the brilliant EGTTF seems to have been trying to take a step back from that method of holocron construction, with Tionne (IIRC) pretty much outright saying that there's nothing "spiritual" about them. Jedi lies?

They did? It might have been a case of retroactive continuity in action, but I definitely did not get that impression from PoD. My thinking was that by the time the Brotherhood rolled around, the "Neo Sith Empire" (or, whatever) had collapsed some years prior, the Republic had regained a position of strength and Kaan's brotherhood were only launching "skirmishes" (for the most part) here and there.

 

This adventure is full of wonderfulities

Homage to The Ganner?


Also these are cool connections:

But this does not jive:

[image=http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/6/6d/Valin_Draco.jpg]
Does it?

Hope you return to write more stuff for the RPG, Abel, besides the KOTORCG of course

 

I expect there isn't much special about Jedi holocrons. It seems wrong that a Jedi would tear off a piece of their soul Voldemort-style and stick it in a box. So, I'm guessing we can assume she was just talking about Jedi ones, or, if in need of a retcon because she was explicitly discussing Sith holocrons, that she was just naive and assumed they worked the same way.

I admit its always been a bit unclear. The older sources always implied "the Sith" in general terms ruled most of the galaxy with the Republic basically being boxed into the Core during the New Sith Wars. The Sith got faught back during the Draggulch Period in the final 100 years, but the reason I always thought Kaan was meant to be like a saint to them was because he turned things around and had the Brotherhood reclaim much of their lost territory.

I agree though that the Brotherhood probably wasn't as big as the New Sith Empire in its glory days under some Dark Lord we've not yet heard about. But, I assume the Brotherhood controlled the Outer Rim and was probably beginning to break into the Mid Rim (if not deeper) by the time they self imploded after Ruusan. With Kaan having Sith Academies throughout the Outer Rim though, I think the Brotherhood was definately bigger than Ruusan sometimes makes it feel given they were all meant to be there. I've always liked the idea the Republic had to perform a mopping up excercise in the years between PoD and RoT as I have trouble swallowing the idea all the Sith warriors, acolytes and assassins, armies, navies and occupational forces were on Ruusan. Their main fleet and the Sith Masters may have been, but there'd surely have had to be forces elsewhere actually defending their empire.