The Dawn of Defiance

Part 5, The First to Strike, is up.

 

Beat me

 

Part 6: The Core of Corruption is up.

 

Yay! It's finally out! Four more to go!

 

Bumping as requested for discussion.

 

well, the mission Core of Corruption almost killed us--two PCs were knocked out completely by mission's end (one of them twice IIRC). And due to the modular nature, I got a bit confused GMing, and we somehow skipped the whole Resh and the Rodians/Devaronians part bc we went to Imeici too soon (if we had not skipped it, I daresay we would all be dead). I think I can retcon the Resh part into the next mission.

So, excellent mission, but I was sorely disappointed in the art. No new or relevant art. Pics we've already seen being recycled, of little relevance to the mission. No pics of the missions major characters, like Resh, Nolor, etc. No pics of the interesting new droids and vehicles. So the art seems to be sliding. I would like to see the droid and vehicles illustrated esp.

 

Is there no picture of Sirona Okeefe?? :/

 

I think there's one in either Parts 1-2 (near where you first meet her on the station after rescuing Bail's agent), or late in the campaign...like, Part 8 or 9, from what I recall.

 

Unfortunately not, at least I looked up again, but there was none inside part one to eight. I don't know what you discovered in the ninth episode, cause it's not released since yet as far as I know. ^^

 

It was the "Gem of Alderaan" module I was thinking of, there -- couldn't remember if it was #8 or #9. But yep, the latest one doesn't contain a picture of Sirona, where I thought it might; her niece, though, had plenty of images in the old SW Adventure Journal, and was officially Teh HaVVtness.

 

*Raises a hand*

Since I was twelve years old. So for about 16 years.

How much of this is canon exactly?

Because the Dawn of Defiance seems to be the "Rebels have achieved their first Victory against the Evil Galactic Empire" in the opening crawl (I'm paraphrasing). The question is, is this contradicting the Force Unleashed by having the unnamed Spacers (to steal Halagad's way of referring to Galaxies players) blow up a Prototype SSD as the First Victory instead of Starkiller attacking Raxus Prime.

I feel sorry for these spacers though. They go through Hell to destroy the SSD and achieve everlasting fame only for some punk kid to overshadow their victory totally.

 

*raises hand* Me too. For about 20 years.

Afaik, Dawn of Defiance is 'canon' as in "goes through the same approval process as the novels and comics". Which is a huge part of its appeal for me.

A pity we are still stuck in the first adventure... But play by post is slow. *sniff*

 

Little over 30 years. Started in my 2nd grade Gifted class, back in 1978... so about as long as Star Wars!

 

I'll try and review each adventure and talk the EU elements.

 

Yup, and due to this, this seems to be far better LFL-vetted, in sense that we're not seeing any "Darth Voren"-type situations cropping up. So far, it's an interesting campaign to read through.

Also, John Jackson Miller has authored the upcoming next installment, "Episode IX," so there's another reason to stick with it.

 

Episode IX: Sword of the Empire is now up, penned by none other than Monsieur JJM...and there's there very interesting implication raised that Darth Andeddu relocated Prakith's entire Stereb population there from Serroco as his slave-army, Naga Sadow-style.

 

JJM mentioned Andeddu? Curious... most curious...

I wonder if his interest in the character is purely coincidental or at all linked into his possible prior experience with Andeddu in KOTOR plotting and/or the upcoming Lost Tribe short.

I notice the line is also "Prakith was touched by the dark side centuries ago, when it became home to the tomb of Darth Andeddu." rather than millennia ago, but admittedly I confess I am not one to take such generalisations literally, so I'm reluctant to conclude 'He must be a Banite then' like I'm sure Wookieepedia will as that's usually what it does.

 

Yeah, that kinda bugged me, too, since I'm one of the "Andeddu-lived-during-the-Old-Empire" proponents, but maybe chalk that referent up to impromptu dramatic shorthand on JJM's part -- maybe he'll pop in here shortly and give us some insight on this one (also, his blog doesn't yet seem to contain any BTS notes, but we'll probably see them sooner or later).

Of course, we know that Andeddu's tomb was relocated to the Deep Core long after he himself died (and reanimated), which could still allow him to exist prior to Marka Ragnos's time, and have his crap packed off to Prakith just "centuries" prior to the Clone Wars, rounding up a few Stereb on the way. There you go...easy-peasy.

Banite? No way in hell. The Wook can go swallow a Glock if it ever officially says this, as far as I'm concerned.

 

Given canon no longer seems absolutely immune to Lucasfilm just saying "It was a mistake, just forget we mentioned it." I'm all for Darth Revan being the first one to claim the Darth title and making Darth Sunshine and Darth Haze something that is a Sith word that Revan popularized.

I have no objections to Andeddu being a Banite though.

 

Tbh I never took "Darth Sunshine" seriously, always struck me as an easy mistake to make; though after "Darth Hayze" I've become less fussed as that made me more open to the idea that people may have learned of it through the old Sith texts and stuff.

I'm still open though to exactly how they found out as I don't necessarily feel it need command a Darth who rose up and pulled a Revan previously. Not that I mind, I just don't ever get the need for Wookieepedia to have all these "Unnamed Darths who must have existed because..." because, well, retcons are a dime a dozen.

 

Sorry for taking so long to respond to this, but I only just realized the PDF was online.

First, let me say that some note should be made here to the material of interest here to KOTOR fans -- essentially, we created a complete background for the Stereb, who appear in "Days of Fear." That was a great deal of fun to do, and it adds something to their appearance in the comics, I think. And, again, it's free ? though players participating in the campaign should avoid reading it until the adventure is run for them.

As to a couple of other things -- I don't have notes online yet, but I wasn't trying to pinpoint a specific timeframe for anything with Andeddu. Basically, there was a challenging puzzle to solve in that we had the Tomb appearing on Prakith in Legacy -- and yet, the previous WotC material on the planet suggested a more recent discovery of the planet. The story fills in some of the gaps.

As to the Darth name, yes, Haazen in KOTOR #34 suggests that the naming tradition had existed in some manner at some point in the past. This is not to say that Revan couldn't have been the first to take such a title in a long time, or that he wasn't the most famous person to do so -- just that the idea for the name wasn't pulled out of thin air. That wasn't a mistake, but something definitely discussed beforehand.

The Stereb connection, though, seemed very logical, so it was fun to get to explore it here.

 

Just a heads-up: the whole Dawn of Defiance campaign is finally up.

 

Unlock 'n' bump by request.

 

Thanks!

So I have a question for anyone still running this campaign.

At which level/adventure should I allow my players to purchase their own ship? I don't want to break the game by giving them one too early and I don't want to have to alter Queen of Air and Darkness's space battle to accommodate a YT-1300 or anything, but I would like them to feel a little more independent as soon as I can and not have to rely on Cabbie O'Keefe for their transportation needs, so...when and at what level?

Not sure where or if I'll include supplementary adventures so just assume I'm talking about the campaign by itself here.