Lit We Hav to Go on an Adventure with Jello

Ah, the 90s.

 

I had Platt's Starport Guide. Got a lot of good mileage out of that book, almost as much as Fragments from the Rim.

 

For the first time since the initial issue's Timothy Zahn-written story, Peter Schweighofer is bringing out the big guns. He's forgoing the Adventure Journal's reliance on the amateur and semi-pro side of the game writing field and bringing in a professional Star Wars author. Kathy Tyers, author of that year's The Truce at Bakura, leads off this issue with Tinian on Trial, a short story introducing characters Tyers would continue to develop in more short fiction. Many of you may recognize it from its republication in Tales from the Empire.

We open with Tinian I'att, heiress to her grandparents' armaments company, watching dreamy Daye Azur-Jamin (Tinian has fallen for the help) sell the company's new protective field add-on for stormtrooper armor to Moff Eisen Kerioth. Daye is not fond of the Empire, but Tinian's grandfather served in the Imperial military and his company has strong Imperial sales connections. Daye is actually Force-sensitive, like approximately half of Adventure Journal short story characters, but at least he's not the direct protagonist. He's told Tinian that the Empire is repressive and persecutes Force-sensitives, but Tinian doesn't believe the Empire could be truly evil. Seventeen-year-old Tinian has a few things to learn about the galaxy.

Despite the I'atts' insistence that this new field will make previously vulnerable stormtrooper armor impervious to blaster fire, their demonstrator chickened out at the last minute, which doesn't send a reassuring message about their product. And Tinian very much wants to make the sale, as it will allow her grandparents to retire, allowing her and Daye to run the factory (they're too young; Druckenwell won't let them get married unless they can show financial independence) and grandma to get needed medical treatment. Kerioth demands a demonstration. He wants them to stick the armor on Wrrlevgebev, the family's Wookiee bodyguard, but he's too big. Some jackass stormtrooper mouths off out of nowhere and suggests Tinian. I don't know why all of a sudden he thought it was his turn to talk. Kerioth, the demanding jerk, insists that if grandpa really believes in his armor, he'll let Tinian get in it. Both Tinian and gramps are pretty uncomfortable with this; all that sales puffery melts away when you're called on to back it up with your own life. But Kerioth is fixed on the idea, now; he's more than a bit of a bullying monster, and he won't settle for putting the armor on a demonstration droid. No, he wants to see if the I'atts really believe in their product.



So Tinian volunteers. She knows if grandpa keeps wavering, Kerioth will never buy into the system. She suits up, explaining how it works, and steps out for the demonstration. There's a moment of tension as Kerioth's troopers line up and fire at her . . . and the system works. Kerioth immediately orders outside stormtrooper squads to seal off the factory. He's buying the product, but he insists everyone involved at high levels will have to move to Doldur, his territory, a completely Imperal-controlled world, where the armor can be manufactured under the highest security. The old folks complain that they can't go. They're already retiring to the Geridard Convalescent Center, where granny can get her treatment. Tinian volunteers to go with Daye if that's what the Moff wants. But what he really wants is to present this project as his own, since he's already been conducting similar research on Doldur. Kerioth knew Grandfather Strephan back in the day. Now, he has his troopers kill Grandfather Strephan and Grandmother Augusta. Kerioth is not a subtle man. Nor particularly intelligent.

Daye is not very interested in cooperating. Seeing he's about to make a move, Tinian runs, hitting a control that separates Kerioth and some of his troopers behind a blast door in the demonstration area. Other stormies are still in there with them, and Daye makes a fuss to draw them off as Wrrl, the Wookiee bodyguard who owes Tinian a life debt for having saved him from slavers as a girl, goes with Tinian. He carries her up the lift shaft, and when they run into stormtroopers at the top, Tinian rushes them in her invulnerable armor, drawing fire, while Wrrl makes stormtrooper salad out of them. Don't piss off a Wookiee.


This is basically what a Wookiee-on-stormtrooper fight looks like.

They make it out to the courtyard, where stormtroopers are up on the wall near the facility's guns. Looks like she's not getting out. Until she remembers her good-luck charm. Her good-luck charm just happens to be a piece of impact explosive she grabbed as a souvenir from her first time on the factory floor. Tinian . . . is not a normal person. And I don't care how much your granddaughter loves explosives, I'att grandparents. You have some issues too. Anyway, it's not like she could throw it hard enough to set it off, so why not carry around some live explosives? But Wrrl could throw it hard enough, because Wookiee strength. So he throws it and blows a big hole in the wall right where the troopers are, and they escape. Escaping involves a Wookiee throwing a big-ass boulder down onto a stormtrooper outside. Seriously, do not piss off a Wookiee.

The problem is that Wrrl has taken quite a few shots in this whole process. So while Tinian scrambles outside the wall, Wrrl goes back in to die like a badass, taking as many stormtroopers as he can with him. She makes it out to some abandoned buildings, where she takes out the important components from the armor and ditches the rest. She heads into a nearby bar called Happy's Landing, where she and Daye had snuck a couple times.

We then cut, for the first time, to Daye, who's hiding in some kind of service shaft, having been shot in the leg during his escape. He's determined to take out his research before Kerioth can use it, so he's crawling to the plant's power grid to overload it and blow the factory.

Back in the bar, Tinian is approached by the ridiculously-named couple of Twilit Hearth and Sprig Cheever. Twilit sings there. Daye trusted them, so she tells them her trouble, and they take her up to Twilit's dressing room, where the singer makes her up and puts her in a padded dress, disguising her in plain sight onstage. She sings away with Sprig and he rest of the band as stormtroopers enter the bar and search. Everyone rushes out when there's a big explosion. Daye blew up the factory.

She spends the rest of the night singing, until a worker eventually comes in and states that he's been digging through the rubble for the Empire and the place is completely gone. Looks like a suicide job. Tinian keeps getting woozy thinking about everyone being dead, but the band circle up and decide to hightail it offworld. They seem to know some Rebels, and they agree to smuggle Tinian and her circuit boards offworld, though she's lost one of the them at some point of her flight.

We then cut back to Daye, who's barely alive. The worker actually pulled him from the rubble and hid him . . . and Daye sent him out to find Tinian and make her think he was dead. Cold. His new friends are going to set him up with the Rebellion, and he's a mess physically. He thinks Tinian's better off without him, not wanting to drag her into the danger of life with the Rebellion. So heroic. So tragic, both of them leaving the world separately.

If you only know this story from Tales from the Empire, you're missing two things: Mike Vilardi's artwork, which is pretty great, and the supplemental material from the end. There's a character profile of Tinian. Though she's only seventeen, she's been working in the family trade forever, with experience in just about every capacity, and is an explosives expert. I don't know what it is about fantasy and absurdly young-yet-absurdly-experienced-and-capable protagonists. Tyers gives away a bit of her trajectory: Tinian plans to join the Rebellion and get revenge against the Empire, having turned pretty cold after losing Daye. So, you know, good work, Daye, saving her from the tragedy of life with the Rebellion. Moron.

Speaking of, Daye gets a profile too. He was a young supervisor in the business with whom Tinian fell in love and now he's in line to inherit the business. No word on how old he is, but I bet it ain't seventeen. He's Force-sensitive, but doesn't know how to do much with it. He knows it's dangerous, and has only told Tinian about it.

Moff Kerioth also gets a profile, letting us know that he's driven to develop better stormtrooper armor because of an incident in which Rebel snipers took out his bodyguards with shots to vulnerable points in their armor and wounded him in the leg; he still limps.

Tyers, who has a thing for music, also gives us a profile of the band. Twilit Hearth, Sprig Cheever, Yccakic, and Redd Metalflake, the sound droid make up the group, who wander around the galaxy performing in small venues. They don't make much money, and often have to move on in advance of trouble with the Empire or criminal elements.

Then there's Druckenwell, a mostly urban, industrialized swampy world split between workers and the corporate guilds that rule it. So I guess Tinian is the unwitting villain in some kind of Marxist nightmare, too. There's one Adventure Idea, suggesting the characters hear rumors that someone escaped the I'att Armaments explosion with prototype shield technology. They go and look for it in the city of Il Avali, but only find the one circuit board Tinian lost . . . plus a big "sewer predator."

Overall, like every story in the Adventure Journal, it suffers from wanting a slightly bigger page count. Tyers is throwing in a lot of ideas with the tragic romance and the wandering musicians and the armaments heiress and doesn't have time to develop that much of anything as a result. It also feels like an origin story for a series character, which most of these first-time Adventure Journal stories do. The problem is always that you're setting up a presumably interesting ongoing situation without ever getting to it. It's a story that's all setup and no payoff. It usually feels like it would have been better to find a strong story for the character, and then fill in the backstory with reflection and character profiles. That said, it's a good effort from Tyers, with a likable main character who makes an interesting female protagonist. It's not her fault that the pagecount for Adventure Journal shorts is so limiting. Next is an interview with Tyers.


Because.

 

A Kathy Tyers work without evil dinosaurs is inevitably a little disappointing.

 

Speaking of Kathy Tyers works, we have the most inanely titled interview of all, Kathy Tyers: Personal Influences Affect Bakura. When you get a big author to write for the Adventure Journal, you also make sure Ilene Rosenberg gets an interview with him or her out of it.

This one opens "Dentists and dinosaurs once roamed the Star Wars universe." Everyone, even Kathy Tyers, acknowledges that the Ssi-ruuk were dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were one of many real-world interests that inspired Tyers in creating her book. She has a degree in microbiology and experience in parasitology, thus we got the use of parasites against Luke. Nereus has a tooth hobby because Tyers is "up on teeth" due to her father's career as a dentist. The Ssi-ruuk were developed through her familiarity with dinosaurs thanks to her son's dinosaur phase and the fact that she still had a lot of books about them lying around. In fact, she was following the research suggesting they were most closely related to birds, and as a result tried to give the Ssi-ruuk many avian features, from the way they carried themselves to the sound of their speech. Gaeriel Captison's religion is a sort of result of Tyers's Christianity; as a religious person, she was more interested in religion and wanted to play with the idea of a religion that would reject the Jedi and Sith both, something that couldn't fall within the all-encompassing, universal nature of the Force. One thing that Tyers doesn't know about: politics. She's no political expert, and so tends to leave any significant politics out of her books. She says that she once dropped a novel she was writing because "it had too many political ramifications, and I don't enjoy broadcasting my ignorance." If only all politically ignorant people felt the same.

As for the standard questions, she got the job because she had already written four books for Bantam Spectra, and was a huuuuuuuuge Star Wars fan who bugged her editor for advance copies of the Zahn books. So they gave her a shot at Star Wars. She was told to come up with five high-concept ideas to pitch to them in five days. She got to use her favorite one, which was the idea that an alien menace would drive the Rebels and Imperials to work together in one region. Her guidelines were to set the book immediately after Return of the Jedi, "have the fate of the universe at stake," and keep the main characters together on one adventure rather than split them up (apparently Lando isn't considered a main character). She also wasn't allowed to contradict Zahn. That kept her from doing the one thing she, as a fan, would really have loved to have been able to do, which was get Luke married to a nice girl. She loved everything about working on the book, it was great, blah blah blah. The one thing she can come up with that she regrets is that she would have liked to have had Dev Sibwarra survive. Rosenberg doesn't take the chance to follow up on that, but I presume that as Luke doesn't have Dev as a student in TTT, Tyers either wasn't allowed to or felt that she couldn't keep Dev around.

She did not find it limiting to have a defined endpoint in TTT; knowing where the characters were going didn't keep her from being able to work with them on the way there. One of the big differences in Star Wars, though, is that in her original work she tries like crazy to be creative. She doesn't want to repeat other people's ideas, use their science fiction terminology. With Star Wars it's actually easier because she doesn't have to make up her own terms. She can just use others'. She can take other people's ideas and run with them and expand on them, play with other people's material and characters. It's liberating and fun.

Tyers doesn't think that her being a female writer makes a big difference in writing the characters. She might see things slightly differently, but she believes that men and women can write both men and women well if they focus on making them believable, rounded characters. She writes multi-page character analyses of her main characters before she starts writing her books to make sure she understands what's going on inside their heads.

A few random notes: she knows a retired Air Force four-star who gives her technical advice and reads her flight scenes. She sees Dev Sibwarra as an abuse victim, one who became stuck in that pathology and became codependent. He was holding himself back from escaping as much as the brainwashing was.

A pretty good interview. Short, but it avoids wasting too much time on the standard "what makes Star Wars so special" stuff and focuses in on some of the more unique elements of Tyers's writing.

I'll also throw in the HoloNet Hype letters section here. Jon L. Harris of Norman, Oklahoma, writes to say that the Adventure Journal is a great tool for gaming. Thanks, Jon! He'd like to know, though, if there are any plans for the Adventure Journal to address new weapons, adventures in the Corporate Sector, or more information about the Jedi. The answers are yes, that's up to the people submitting material, and it's hard to keep up with the Jedi with The Jedi Academy Trilogy coming out and a bunch of stuff always addressing new things about the Jedi. Matt Simon, hailing from Belleville, Illinois, would like to know if there are plans to address the Marvel comics, or to make miniatures of recurring characters like Platt, Alex Winger, and General Cracken? No, and hey, that's a neat idea, says Schweighofer. SOS-type Mrs. Jan Robtison of Vinton, Virginia, would like to see more of Luke, Han, and Leia. Especially Luke. Include some Luke in the Adventure Journal, please. It doesn't even have to tie in to the books, it just has to be Luke. Schweighofer says . . . no. The Adventure Journal is focusing on the little guys, and staying out of the way of the books.

NEWSNETS NEXT.

 

I remember Kathy Tyers posted here back in the day. I complimented her on the believability of her flight scenes, and she responded that a friend took her up in a Pitts Special aerobatic biplane. The Pitts has a reputation for being a real handful to fly, marginally unstable in all 3 axes, and amazingly sensitive to control inputs. That was pretty much how she described Luke's reaction to flying a TIE in Bakura, IIRC.

 

Oh, that name brings back a memory or two! I had eight or nine of Hollywood Pins' Star Trek offerings, which may still be in a shadowbox at my mom's somewhere. Their TNG Communicator pin graced my Starfleet uniform for more than one Hallowe'en.

Alas, it would be a few years before I'd come to appreciate Star Wars as much as Star Trek, and by then, Mom had stopped getting whatever catalog we bought them from.

I think turnaround on RPG books in the '90s was quite a bit faster than the turnaround time on mainstream books that we're used to. They probably had several months between the premiere of the SWAJ and the decision to give Platt a book (which probably meant giving her voice to a Starports book that was already on the slate).

Geheimhaven! Sorry, I really like saying the name of the base. Geheimhaven, Geheimhaven, Geheimhaven. Smock, smock, smock.

 

Last issue introduced the greatness that is the Galaxywide NewsNets. This issue, the greatness continues with yet more news reports from all kinds of sources.

We start off with a notice from the Coruscant Daily Newsfeed that Chandrilan senator Canna Omonda, Mon Mothma's protegee and successor, has confessed to treason. Seen last issue condemning the suspension of the Senate, Omonda was "asked" to return to Coruscant from Chandrila to clarify her comments and reaffirm her loyalty to the Emperor. Palpatine, you know, just wanted to clear up this misunderstanding. By letting Omonda have an interview with High Inquisitor Halmere. And he made his regard for Omonda clear by sending an "honor guard" of three Star Destroyers to get her. Apparently the Inquisition has spokeswomen, because Gretta Spinbalio, Halmere's spokewoman, announced to the press that Omonda had barely sat down before crying and confessing that she had been passing information to the Rebellion, and voluntarily disclosed the identities of her Rebel contacts, who had all been arrested. Palpatine, in "before-dinner remarks" at the Palace, announced that he was shocked and disappointed, as he had valued Omonda's advice and so much. He was perfectly open to criticism, and was glad Omonda had rediscovered her loyalty, but sadly the laws were very clear, and as an upholder of law and order, her execution would have to go forward. "The Empire will miss her." It's a very well-written piece, about as excellent an example of the Empire announcing it had captured and tortured a senator without saying it as you'll see. The evasions and euphemisms are exquisite. I've always been disappointed subsequent material never did much with Omonda, whom the NewsNets portrayed as a significant Rebel leader, the successor to Mon, Garm, and Bail as the leading Rebel in the Senate and an important part of the early Rebellion's public face.

Next, TriNebulon lets us know that the mysterious Corellian art/jewel thief known as the Tombat (this is maybe supposed to sound like tomcat, as in cat burglar, mixed with bat, but mostly just sounds like wombat), has struck again, stealing the prized antique pistols of jatz musician Fitz Roi during the Priole Danna Festival on Lamuir IV. You may recall that last issue separately introduced both the Priole Danna and Fitz Roi and his classic pistols. Here we learn that Fitz Roi was, indeed, dropped by his sponsor and his tour canceled after his antics that issue. Now, after arriving on Lamuir IV due to an invitation to perform during the Priole Danna Festival, he found his six-thousand-year-old pistols, dating to the Early Manderon Period and crafted by legendary Brentaalian inventor Andel Tanner, worth over twelve million credits yet uninsured, stolen, with the mark of the Tombat left behind. This may seem like just a throwaway bit of news, but as jSarek pointed out last issue, pay attention, because there's more going on.

Cynabar wants his readers to know that they should probably get out of any investments in Chandrila, because Palpatine was heard to privately remark that Chandrila might need a more direct hand if it's sent two Rebel traitors in a row to the Senate. The Empire has previously had a light hand in the Core, but Alderaan and Ralltiir make it seem like things are changing. Expect bad news for Chandrila.

The inaugural broadcast of the Alderaan Expatriate Network, mentioned last issue in the discussion of NewsNets but obviously not yet appearing in the NewsNets themselves, sets the record straight about Alderaan. This network of offworld Alderaanian reporters has uncovered the real story, and wants the galaxy to know that Alderaan was destroyed not by Rebel superweapons gone wrong, but by an Imperial superweapon commanded by Grand Moff Tarkin. A satellite in the system recorded the Death Star firing on the planet, and Rebel agents were able to smuggle the recording out of the system despite the Empire immediately imposing a blockade of Delaya and the rest of the system. The network has also obtained recordings of transmissions between Alderaan and Delaya after the Death Star entered the system, and a private transmission from Ars Dangor to the Grand Moffs concerning the Death Star and its role in rule by fear. This really is a professional operation, marshaling its reporting. It's not without a viewpoint, however, celebrating the fact that the Rebellion destroyed the Death Star before it could do further damage and urging citizens to rise up against the Empire's tyranny.

Cynabar's back to ask if anyone's seen Han Solo in the last several months. The underworld's lost track of him; he was last seen shooting Greedo. Now he's gone unexpectedly quiet, while his name appears on Imperial wanted lists, some very strange rumors are circulating, and Jabba has Heater hiring bounty hunters. I like the idea of the piece, but personally I'm a bit confused about how the Empire would have found out about Han's role in the Rebellion before the Fringe would have. A lot's been made of the Empire finding out Luke's identity; not so much has been made out of the Empire finding out Han's name, though they'd have to investigate just the same. It's only Leia who was a known quantity.

Reporting from Altoona, Bethal, Colonial News Nets would have us know that the planet's infestation of greddleback bugs has become very serious in the past twelve weeks. Swarms of the large, termite-like bugs are moving across the planet's southern continent at a rapid rate. They're aren't a health threat, though their dense swarms are certainly obnoxious, but they have the potential to destroy Bethal's economy, which is dependent on apocia hardwood. The trees take two hundred years to mature and are carefully managed to ensure renewable harvests. If the bugs take out the trees, the apocia export trade is done for hundreds of years. Planetary authorities are considering burning six thousand kilometers of trees to contain the swarms, which those farmers who haven't lost their stands are resisting. Not a story with a lot of obvious application yet, but the way this issue has been building on seeds from last one, I expect it to set up further stories.

Now that the truth is getting out, Imperial HoloVision is carrying the Empire's attempt to get out ahead of the Death Star story. The Imperial Navy has announced that the Death Star, an Imperial battle station, was in fact responsible for Alderaan's destruction, not the Rebel superweapon tests previously "speculated." Now, NAVCOR Command spokesman Admiral Kemal Trowe says that the Emperor had Alderaan destroyed . . . but only because he had incontrovertible proof that Alderaan was developing a catastrophic bioweapon program. Bail Organa's biowarfare would have been so dangerous that it had to be contained by eradicating the entire planet. And even so, the Empire is sad to report that it can't be absolutely sure none of these terrible Rebel plagues got offworld. The Navy is not, however, confirming the Death Star's current location or fate. Some rumors say it has been destroyed, but some say it's lurking in the Outer Rim, ready to destroy more dangerous worlds.

IHV also has a shocking story: for the first time ever, two former senators are on the Imperial wanted list. Both Mon Mothma and Leia Organa have been identified as Rebel leaders. Mothma was known as a longtime vocal political opponent of Palpatine, but she resigned several years ago and disappeared. Now, the Empire has announced that she has spent her time meeting with such figures as Jan Dodonna, Garm Bel Iblis, and Keenal Dene, transforming her political movement into a military resistance. Bel Iblis is mentioned as suspected to join Mothma on the wanted list soon, which doesn't quite fit with his being suspected dead by the galaxy at large. Shockingly, this is the only time Keenal Dene has been mentioned. There's absolutely no information on who this person, cited as a key Rebel leader, is or what his or her role is. I smell opportunity. Organa, meanwhile, was identified as a traitor by Darth Vader, but escaped after her arrest and has cost thousands of Imperial lives in her campaign of sabotage and terrorism.

Next up we have an example of a virastack, the pirate broadcasts that, viruslike, hijack legitimate NewsNets to broadcast an underground message. A story by Wanda Windrow of Galactic Resorts highlighting Timoran sunpetal flowers as a Fete Week gift to business associates is taken over by the satirical Galactic Weekly NewsStack. The NewsStack apparently has sources in the Rebellion, as it reports that, with peacemaker Bail Organa's death, Garm Bel Iblis has broken up with the Rebellion, taking his supporters and withdrawing in suspicion of Mon Mothma. Apparently their sources are even highly-placed enough to tell them that Bel Iblis was calling her "Empress Mothma" in their last face-to-face meeting. There's also speculation, not something that's generally a part of the story, that Bel Iblis had always been personally annoyed with Mothma ever since the Corellian Treaty signing, when he felt she stole his thunder. Definitely interesting to see this kind of smartass take on the squabbles of Rebel leadership.

Our final NewsNet comes from Imperial Defense Daily, which contains the admission that traditional Imperial units are not well suited to taking on Rebel guerrilla tactics. Now declassified is the Emperor's order of four months ago directing the creation of a new Imperial Army unit of elite commandos designed to respond with guerrilla warfare of its own. Imperial Defense Daily is debuting the Storm Commandos. They will be made up of various specialists, with missions tending toward covert operations. Grand Moff Tanniel has appointed Colonel Crix Madine as the commander of the unit, and he is currently training the first class of Storm Commandos on Carida; they're expected to become operational within weeks. It's curious to see actual public reporting on the Storm Commandos, and even more curious to see it at this point on the timeline. Since Madine tends to show up with the Rebels in post-Yavin material, it couldn't have been long between the creation of the Storm Commandos and Madine's decision to defect. So while he's often associated with the unit, he would have spent almost no time with them before defecting. The timeline, including early Storm Commando appearances, can all easily be adjusted by using the dubious nature of the NewsNets to say that this is simply the propagandistic declassification of a long-extant progam being presented as if it's newly created.

All in all, there's not much you can say about the NewsNets except that they're awesome. I love the way they're continuing to build and develop plotlines from last issue, and look forward to more in that regard. Following this we have another exciting short story to look forward to: Patricia Jackson's classic The Final Exit. Brandl is coming.

 

Madine's defection on the timeline was, IIRC, set by Rogue Squadron/Dark Forces (two games that were weirdly intertwined without any real explanation why) - about 6 mths ABY.

 

Yeah, and the NewsNet is dated six months ABY. I seem to recall WEG setting Madine's defection more around 1 ABY. Darksaber, meanwhile, dates it at 3 ABY, whereas X-wing has him as a Rebel before Yavin. It's kind of a mess.

 

The Omonda piece is one of the NewsNet pieces that really stands out in my memory, because it's such a perfect example of how everyday citizens would perceive things. My favourite thing about it is that it lies without technically lying, simply telling the truth but omitting some important context that OOU readers can instantly grasp the implications of. An "honour guard" of three Imperial Star Destroyers? We can tell that she was clearly forced to return to Coruscant, and the Chandrilan government was potentially coerced into handing her over under the threat of violence, but from an IU perspective it's not an eyebrow-raising moment for a Core World VIP to receive a military escort. An "interview" with a goddamn High Inquisitor? We instantly know that it's a torture session, but IU where the role of the Inquisitorius was largely unknown and subject to rumours and speculation even among the Imperial Military, a High Inquisitor probably seems like a glorified police officer who would naturally oversee the debriefing of a former senior government official. Even Palpatine's "before-dinner remarks" were perfect, where he expresses his deep regrets, feigns humility regarding the value of criticism against his policies, and pretends to be bound by the rule of law and powerless to alter Omonda's fate, shows why people would regard the Emperor positively (and even as a powerless figurehead, unaware of or unable to prevent the abuses of his evil subordinates like Tarkin, as some sources try to paint him in the popular perception).

Despite the expectations of a build-up, I can't recall off the top of my head if WEG actually did anything with the seeds of a Bethal storyline. According to the Wook, it appears in the Tapani sector sourcebook Lords of the Expanse, so it's possible they include a few more adventure ideas for GMs there.

The Empire's damage control on the truth about Alderaan's destruction getting out is another great ongoing series of stories. I like it because it's one of a handful of instances where the Empire, despite its strict control of the media and their reporting (as exemplified by the Omonda piece above), loses control of the narrative. They completely flounder in response, changing their story constantly, repeatedly contradicting their previous version of events, and get caught out in lie after lie. It makes you wonder if it was a wake-up call for Imperial citizens that made them distrust the media, or just an isolated awkward incident that only couldn't be covered up because of the sheer size of the story. You get series in future AJs where the Empire makes up an excuse for a smaller atrocity, the Rebels release information contradicting it on their own networks, and the Empire never actually has to issue a retraction and make up a new story like they did with Alderaan. Given how large the readership of official Imperial NewsNets is, as opposed to that of the illegal and unofficial Rebel ones, their cover-ups probably actually work 99% of the time.

I'm also pretty interested in who this Keenal Dene character is, given that they're mentioned alongside the likes of Bail Organa, Jan Dodonna, and Garm Bel Iblis as a major early Rebel leader but never mentioned anywhere else again. I imagine they were given that tantalisingly vague reference so that GMs could use a major Rebel founder without any established history, thus allowing them a completely blank canvas for their RPs. That said, I find it odd that authors who absolutely love plucking obscure WEG references out of the aether never touched that one. A shame, really.

Regarding Madine's defection, the events that cause it are referenced as part of an ongoing NewsNet series in future issues. Setting aside the absolute mess regarding his defection and its timing, he really doesn't serve as the leader of the Storm Commandos for long, since the event that later spurs him to "mysteriously vanish" during a training exercise occurs in the next AJ (I think?). It was one of the Storm Commandos' earliest missions. That said, your theory that the storm commandos have existed much earlier than stated and that this was just their official unveiling to the public seems believable. A later AJ also mentions a stormtrooper commander, Modigal Glave, who led an "elite Imperial stormtrooper commando unit assigned to Governor Kline - one test version of what will soon become the Imperial Storm Commandos." So you could even argue that they existed in all but name prior to their formal establishment, with Madine leading one of these earlier test versions as well.

 

I doubt this is the appropriate place, but if someone is willing to sell a copy of AJ #7 please let me know. I'm not sure where the poor guy ended two moves ago and is a sore spot in my WEG collection.

I got most of my WEG collection during the clearance sale ages ago... I placed a very large order and boom... I got charged twice on my credit card!
Did I ask for a refund? Heck no! I asked for more books!

 

eBay has a couple, including one at a pretty reasonable price.

 

This brings us to our second short story of the issue, The Final Exit, by Patricia A. Jackson, with awesome, moody art by Chris Gossett. In a surprising move, having spent the last two issues developing her young smuggler protagonist Drake Paulsen, Jackson moved on to introduce a completely new storyline: that of Adalric Brandl. Jackson would continue following both characters in the Adventure Journal, but this is the first time we've seen a writer with an ongoing series pivot to doing something else. It's a confident move, to press pause on a character you've started building up and go off and do something else instead. This move, though, definitely paid off, with Jackson's work with the Brandls ultimately better known than Drake Paulsen. Part of that may have to do with Brandl stories getting picked up for Tales from . . . republication. The Final Exit appeared in Tales from the Empire, so most people should at least know it from there.

Our story opens with Thaddeus Ross, relationship to Marvel antagonist Thaddeus Ross unknown, on Najiba. Ross is a Corellian smuggler with a YT-1300 freighter. Ross is not the most original character. He's a little original, though, because his YT-1300 is named Kierra, and it flirts with him. It's got a droid brain with female programming that calls him "flyboy" and he calls her "darling." On this desolate, smuggler-friendly world, Ross meets with Reuther, a fatherly old dock owner who speaks to him with a smattering of Old Corellian sprinkled in and who talks to him about Mos Eisley and how he's wanted by the Empire. Jackson's borrowing more than a bit of her dynamics and atmosphere from her work with Socorro and characters like Karl Ancher. Reuther says that he summoned Ross for a reason, while they watch a port official stagger out of a nearby bar cradling the dying body of his Twi'lek girlfriend. What happened? "Adalric Brandl happened." The man came into town ten hours ago, demanding a ship and a pilot who could both shoot and fly. The port official told him the port was closed due to the asteroid belt the planet was passing through. Brandl killed his girlfriend. He never touched her, but Reuther is certain he killed her. "He's a 10-96 if I ever saw one." Reuther brought Ross in as the best pilot to get him through the asteroid field. And as Brandl walks up, Reuther tells Ross he'll give him an extra two thousand credits just to get Brandl off his planet, on top of Brandl's fee. A lot of atmosphere here, letting us know this guy is bad news.

Brandl and Ross eye each other up, and Brandl offers five thousand credits for passage to Trulalis and for Ross to come with him to Kovit Settlement. When Ross demands seventy-five hundred, he agrees without argument. They go aboard, and Kierra starts arguing profanely with Brandl when he questions what she is. Feisty, she is. Ross offers an improbable estimate of an hour to Trulalis; Jackson seems to be going with hyperspace travel time as incredibly short, and probably not even really considering the necessity of burning out of the gravity well in subspace. Ross has Kierra prep the ship while he argues with her about her using his hated first name and giving him a hard time in general. Honestly I'm getting some Joker and EDI vibes. He also has her look up what a 10-96 is while she's at it. It's an Imperial law enforcement code for a mentally unbalanced person, but he figures there's got to be more to it than that, some obsolete older edition of the code or something. And then they go from on the pad to hyperspace in the space of about a minute's conversation, so, yeah, Jackson's underestimating pretty severely here.

In transit, Ross lounges in the turret, having given his cabin to Brandl. Kierra wakes him up by flirting with him. Seriously, just get a room already. Wait, she is the room. She tells him that 10-96 has two definitions: mentally unbalanced, and ke'dem. I'm not really following the logic of this section, which says that 10-96 is older than the 10-code setup and "10-96" somehow originates from the Old Corellian term ke'dem. But anyway, the point is that, much like Luke Skywalker using Mandalorian etymology to explain Jedi and Sith, this Old Corellian etymology explains everything, because ke'dem means condemned or fallen. Ross immediately figures out that Brandl is a Jedi Knight. He doesn't say fallen Jedi. He just says Jedi Knight.

They land on Trulalis, a sleepy rural world. Ross and Brandl start walking to the settlement, and Brandl asks what Ross was told about him. Ross brings up the Twi'lek's death, which sets off an argument as Brandl seems indifferent to the murder, considering it "the least of [his] crimes." Brandl seems self-loathing, but also arrogant and not really repentant. Brandl pisses off Ross, who shows his own self-righteous streak, so badly that Ross draws on him and fires. Brandl whips out a lightsaber, deflects the bolts, and starts choking Ross, the same way he killed the woman, before letting him go. Brandl's lightsaber, for the record, is white, for all of you who wanted Brandl to play a role in founding the Imperial Knights. Brandl, who has said he's an actor, has a habit of reciting lines, and gets off a good one here. "There is one rule of theater that applies to real life, Captain Ross. Only heroes die. Villains and cowards are left to suffer."

They trudge into the tiny country town, Brandl seeming reluctant and suggesting that he's returning to his hometown. They go to the monumental theater in the heart of town, where Brandl has a strange, wordless, awkward encounter with a woman and her twelve-year-old son. Inside the theater, Brandl finds his old mentor, Master Otias. Otias suggests the ashamed, awkward, obviously emotional Brandl confess what's on his mind; Brandl works out his angst the only way he knows how, by reciting lines from great plays that capture his emotions. Otias, who seems to have been Brandl's theater teacher but also to know something of the Force, locates Brandl's fall in his obsession with tragic theater.

Now, Otias knows, Brandl seeks redemption, forgiveness at Otias's hands. He longs to be absolved of his sins -- because of guilt, but also, one feels, as much out of desire to play the role of the tragic hero as of genuine repentance of what he's done. And Otias refuses. He cannot forgive in the name of the dead. He cannot free Brandl from the burden of his guilt. He cannot vindicate Brandl of a course of action he willingly took on himself. Otias turns his back and leaves. A clearly distraught Brandl walks out and tinkers with some technological object before returning it beneath his robe, telling Ross that he liked his contempt better than his pity, and stalking off.

They walk back to the ship as darkness falls, but on arriving, Brandl waits outside. It's because they were followed by the boy from outside the theater. He's realized: Brandl is his father. Young Jaalib Brandl, trained by Otias to be an actor like his father, has a moment of connection with his father, and also says that he came to warn him: some men from town want to kill him for coming back; it's apparent he has a frightening and evil reputation in his hometown. One of them has a Headhunter. At that moment a concussion missile strikes, taking out the shields and damaging the engines. Ross gets the ship off the ground and flees the fighter; Brandl's forced to leave his son behind. He takes out the object from before: it's a transponder he's activated. The Empire will be coming to take him in. And there's the Star Destroyer, popping out of hyperspace right in front of the freighter and tractoring it. Ross is upset, since he's got an Imperial bounty, but Brandl assures him that turning in the wanted fugitive Adalric Brandl will clear him.

Ross preps the ship for Imperial inspection, hiding his munitions and having Kierra hide her programming. Once they're aboard, stormtroopers board and Lord Brandl is greeted by Captain Grendahl and a whole lot of troopers. Grendahl tells him that they're on their way to rendezvous with Inquisitor Tremayne for a little reunion. It's clear he expects things to go badly for the wayward Lord Brandl. Ross ends up in a cell, where Grendahl eventually visits him and waves the bounty issue around. Apparently it was for "interfering in an Imperial investigation," meaning he broke up two stormtroopers who were beating up a Jawa. Ross can get amnesty if he answers some questions, though. He can even get ten thousand credits, a tenth of the bounty on Brandl. Ross answers the questions, but lies to cover for Brandl by not mentioning visiting Trulalis or Brandl's family. Grendahl then gets orders from Admiral Etnam, on the bridge with Brandl, to release Ross. Brandl, seemingly happy, escorts Ross to his ship and gives him his money. Ross also notices that Brandl has palmed one of his thermal detonators. And he's talking of making his final exit from the play that his life has been, of finally having confidence after stumbling fearfully, ambitiously through a life of falsehood, of keeping his family safe. So it's going to be a big, dramatic, exit then. Suicide. Ross preps for a quick departure and hauls ass out of there as there's a big explosion behind him. Brandl's dead, but his family is safe, and Ross feels at peace.

The sidebars here are fairly short. One on Najiba lets us know about the planet's nature, an isolated world with an elliptical orbit, half of which takes it through an asteroid belt that shuts down travel. The native Najibs live in a relatively low-tech society, with little outside contact except with smugglers, but are generally hospitable. Ross's profile doesn't say much you wouldn't get from the story, except that he's twenty-eight. His family has a long smuggling tradition, but when his grandfather was caught by the Empire, he decided to take a more legal fringe role as a bounty hunter. He tired of that, though, and eventually drifted back to smuggling. He's fairly cynical but has a self-righteous edge that's brought out by seeing violence against an innocent or underdog. Kierra is a droid intelligence that ended up inside the Kierra rather mysteriously. An intelligence that was somehow trapped or hidden inside the ship's computers, she was dormant until Ross accidentally activated her. She very quickly learned from Ross and the others she's come into contact with how to perform her duties and how to behave unsettlingly like a rather eccentric person. Trulalis is one of three inhabited planets in its system. Issor and Cadezia are developed, but they maintain Trulalis as a low-technology world by law (though the laws are often ignored). So it's kind of a legal Amish preserve of a planet. Under the Republic, it was known for its liberal arts schooling; it might have been technologically primitive, but it was a cultural hotbed of the arts, especially theater. Now, that's all gone. Brandl's profile doesn't tell you anything you don't already know, except that he was callous and moody even before he was seduced by the dark side, back when he was just an actor. He's highly intelligent, obsessed with tragedy, and a remorseless killer, which makes him very valuable to Palpatine. There's also an Adventure Idea that seems weird: the players are forced to land on Trulalis for repairs, but find that the villagers seem afraid. It turns out a Dark Jedi has taken over the town, based out of the theater, and is gaining strength by tormenting the town and murdering residents. If there's a Jedi in the party, it becomes the Dark Jedi's goal to seduce him to evil.

This story has a few weaknesses. There are a few clunky passages where Jackson returns to her flaw of not communicating whatever idea she has in her head clearly on the page. Ross is nobody's idea of a groundbreaking protagonist. But overall this is by far the strongest short story in the Adventure Journals yet. I'm talking better than the work from the pros. It has atmosphere to burn, a moody, foreboding, emotion-laden atmosphere. The prose is evocative. The dialogue is potent. The themes of regret and tragedy are powerful and compellingly executed. And Brandl and Otias are 100% fascinating characters. Brandl is just such a rich character, deeply suggestive without being too bluntly written. He's a menacing figure of cold evil and a pathetic figure of tragic hubris and crippling guilt at the same time. He's remorseful without seeming truly repentant, someone who recognizes the burden of guilt and pain that his quest to play the tragic hero has gotten him, but is still so consumed in playing the tragic role that he's arrogant, scornful, and almost proud of how tragic he is, with his search for absolution feeling half like a performance being put on to fulfill the role. He's a guilt-wracked man hiding the depth of his brokenness within the performance of a sorrowful tragic hero, resorting to lines from tragic heroes to express his own feelings of tragedy. He's a guy who murders a woman so he can get home to seek absolution for all of his murders. He's just a fascinating, multilayered character, and Otias plays off him so well, a sorrowful, insightful old mentor who sees his student's flaws with great perceptiveness but refuses to give him the forgiveness he wants. He can tell his protege how he went wrong, but not how he can make it right again. He doesn't see a way to make all that evil right. It's the most cutting blow of all, telling Brandl that he's incapable of redemption. There's been some fun pulp in the Journal so far. This is a legitimately great story.

Next, Anthony Russo is going to let you know all about gamblers.

 

Adalric Brandl is one of the most interesting characters in the short stories, a Force-sensitive actor turned Inquisitor who is known for playing the lead role in a certain play that will become very important in the sequel. I can't wait to discuss Uhl Eharl Khoehng, which continues the story of Brandl family and adds another interesting character into the mix.

 

The Brandl stories are some of my favorites ever, what I like about them is that they're full of dramatics and theatricality without interfering with the sense of space opera, or perhaps adding to it. I'll be awaiting for Uhl Eharl Khoehng too. I really miss Old Corellian on the new canon.

Also, The Final Exit was compiled in "The Best of the Star Wars Adventure Journal 1-4" sourcebook.

 

"Only heroes die...villians and cowards are left to suffer."

 

Honestly, I find it hard to hold this against the story even a little, because he's so peripheral to the real meat of it. He's really just a reader viewpoint everyman type, and given WEG's general paradigm a Not Han fits rather well.

Though it would be nice if one of these guys flew something besides a YT-1300.

 

I like a lot of the details around him. Kierra creates a fun dynamic, way better than your average Chewbacca-knockoff copilot character. But Star Wars really doesn't need any more lifelong-fringer Corellian smugglers who fly YT-1300s. At least give him a different ship and have him be from a different planet. At that point it's just pointlessly derivative. He's got some things going for him, but he's dragged down by his ultra-generic backstory. All the possibilities out there, and people keep writing off-brand Han Solo. There's nothing interesting about that type anymore. Make your smuggler a Kuati nobleman on the run from his family, a Duros with a bulk freighter and a droid crew, an Agamarian woman with two sidekicks instead of one, an older black ex-Republic soldier. Anything but a thirtyish Corellian white guy with a YT-1300 and a sidekick.

 

I guess I'm in the minority for not caring about Brandl. To me, he's just an emo whiner who needs to quit feeling sorry for himself and get busy putting things right. Not that he'll ever have the guts to do that...

 

I think that's what makes him most interesting, though. He's a spectacularly flawed man who feels his flaws but lacks the will to truly better himself. He feels enough guilt to be miserable, but not enough remorse to actually drive him to do better. It makes for a really powerful character study of a great, complex villain. You're right that, wallowing in self-pitying evil, he's not sympathetic enough to like as the tragic hero he wants to be, but as an ambiguous villain, he's fascinating to watch. He's not as likable a character as, say, young smuggler Drake Paulsen or idealistic teenage freedom fighter Alex Winger to have driving a story, but I'd argue he's a deeper, more compelling character than they are, one who offers a potent commentary on human weakness.

 

You seem like a real go-getter Sarge, so perhaps that's why an emo whiner who knows better but is too weak to do better doesn't appeal to you. Myself, being a person who knows better but is often too weak/lazy to do/be better, I can sorta sympathize. Maybe. Sometimes. I don't exactly whine about it theatrically, though. My weaknesses are pretty mundane in comparison, I guess, as I don't kill people. But villains in fiction kill people.

I wouldn't know about this particular example, as I haven't read a single AJ, and know nothing of Brandl.

 

It's a Gambler's Life for the Adventure Journal. Anthony Russo, whom we've seen quite a bit of in the past few issues, is back, and this time instead of discussing mercenaries, he's here to give you some information for playing a gambler. A bit like the rather elastic definition of mercenary he used last issue, the gambler character type Russo will discuss covers not just professional gamblers, but con artists, grifters, and general Lando-type scoundrels. While I'm all about expanding the Fringe character types beyond simple store-brand-Han-Solo smugglers, I would have liked to have seen an article deep-dive specifically into playing a card sharp, addressing different games and the kind of scrapes gamblers can get into. Not only would it be a cool type to play, but all that information would be very useful to players in general any time they want to throw a little gambling into their game.

As Russo likes to do, he begins with a vignette. Reina Gale and her partner Rollos, a Gigoran (a knockoff Wookiee invented here, but so pointlessly that I struggle to figure out what exactly is supposed to be different about them; the species was later developed in a primate direction in Alien Encounters, and is now somehow appearing in Rogue One in the form of the big furry Immortan Joe guy), are making a deal with black market gangster Begas Tok. They're on Entralla, because Russo loves his Pentastar Alignment. Good for him for continuing to develop it. She makes a deal to sell him some rare crystals, the result of a long string of deals starting with Reina picking up a "misrouted" gas shipment, selling that to a distributor for cash, using the credits to buy plexite ore, which she traded for the crystals to Roark Slader, the Pentastar pirate from last issue, who had a buyer for it. It would be a nice tidy deal, except for the part where they get busted by the Pentastar Patrol. Tok has a permit to deal in hexa-crystals, but Reina doesn't. She got set up. Fortunately, Rollos is good at throwing heavy things into groups of law enforcement officers, and they escape.

Now that we've had our illustration of the ups and downs of the grifter's life, we get the breakdown. The type Russo is discussing covers thieves, con artists, dealmakers, card sharks -- anybody united by the quest for a big score, people living on the edge of the rush of success of the crash of failure. People who could hit it big or have to hurry out of town under cover of night.

In service of that diversity, Russo lists several general character types people interested in gamblers could play. There's "the quintessential gambler," a person who actually gambles for a living. Drifting across the galaxy from table to table, hitting it big and busting, still gambling even though these types are unlikely to ever really get rich off this lifestyle. Then there's "the fortune hunter," an enthusiastic, risk-taking pursuer of lost treasure, the perfect sort of character to gather a party around them. "The engaging entrepreneur" is always cutting a deal, turning something others dismiss as valueless into credits, making a risky investment. "The high-stakes gambler" is a jaded individual who seeks thrills but needs bigger and bigger risks to chase that rush. He bets everything on the most dangerous activities or unlikely deals. A chroma-neeka is a small pest that nests inside electronics, hopping from ship to ship; "the cunning chroma-neeka" earns that underworld nickname because of her ability to manipulate bureaucracy, getting inside the big machine of a government or corporation and fleecing it. Always there's another fake identity, always a line ready to manipulate the system, to pose as some inspector or official or unnoticed janitor. Marks are also taken in by "the hyper-mouthed swindler," a type who cons others on the strength of their wits and a confidently-delivered line of BS. Another type is "the back alley con," a street urchin who grifts through life in the city on a day-to-day level with street smarts and connections. "The professional vagabond" is a scoundrel who likes to get involved in adventure. The scion of a wealthy family, this dissolute young rogue bounces around the galaxy on the family dime, taking on odd jobs for fun and courting risk for the thrill of it. Anything to avoid an honest job. Our last type is "the independent deal maker," who is always turning the product of one deal into the substance of the next deal, trying to build a small stake into a fortune. These convoluted, often shady transactions may keep the gambler one step ahead of the law, but will usually land him in hot water.

We get a profile for an example of the back alley con, Phoggus Maxx. Phoggy has a ridiculous name and a talent for dealmaking in Entralla's Nexus City. He knows people, a lot of people, and if you need something, he can get it for you. A fellow named Ace, leader of a swoop gang called the Afterburners, keeps a careful eye on him. The Afterburners look out for the citizens in their territory, an overbuilt area near the starport called the Overhang.

Then we come back to our vignette about Reina and Rollos. Having outrun the cops, they take a moment to figure out what to do next. This allows Russo to favor us with a few information dumps about Entralla (home to several philosophical and artistic traditions with long and noble histories, also home to a myth about the moon changing color to celebrate victory against an invader, doubtless the source of the Red Moons' name) and Reina and Rollos, who escaped an Imperial slave camp. She had been raised from childhood a servant of the slavemaster before she freed Rollos and escaped, saving him from execution. They then began life as dealmakers. Well, Reina made the deals, and Rollos was the muscle. As they start to move on, robed figures stun Rollos and grab Reina.

Reina gets a profile that lets us in on her full backstory. Taken to a colony world by her parents as an infant, she lost them early to a virus that wiped out almost the whole colony. She went to live with her uncle, but he was a gambler who got in debt to a Hutt. The Hutt took everything, including her, and sold her into slavery. There, she served the slavemaster of that camp, watching his corrupt dealings, until Rollos arrived. She was the only person who could understand his speech, and when the recalcitrant Gigoran was set to be killed, they escaped.

This is followed by a list of underworld vocabulary, slang current with gamblers and deal-cutters. Most of it's fairly unremarkable and cheesy (did you know that gamblers call a deal with little profit potential a "bad idea"?), but some of you may be amused to note that Boba Fett's name is now synonymous with making a dumb, ridiculous mistake, such as falling into a sarlacc. There's also a Barpotomous Drebble reference, with bounty hunters referred to as "drooling Drebbles." Always good to see a Marvel reference sneak in, even if it doesn't make too much sense. Notably, to bring in overwhelming force is to "Wookinate," and AT-ATs are nicknamed "stompasaurs," which is as fun to say as it is to look at.

Note on GMing a gambler character point out the need to make sure that there are opportunities and challenges tailored to gamblers, who might find that in a fast-paced game there's not enough time for them to wheel and deal the way their characters are supposed to. Used correctly, gamblers' risk-taking can help drive an adventure. Gamblers need to be alert for deal-making opportunities through the adventure, and the GM needs to feed them chances to act. It's very useful to give players contacts, people who can pass on a key bit of information or two to get things going, or who can set up gamblers with something they need or create conflict (not every old contact, after all, will be happy to see you).

Russo also sets up some dealmaking mechanics, with stages of a deal and rolls that can be made during it to see how successful the gambler is. You open to try to get the other party's confidence, you establish the value of the transaction -- whether it's worth the risk, whether each side has the knowledge necessary to value the deal properly -- for both parties, and then you negotiate the price.

The piece then ends with the completion of our Reina and Rollos vignette. The group silences Reina as they get ready for the Pentastar Patrol officers following them, and manage to draw them away by slicing their helmet comms with a fake alert message. Then they reveal themselves as who else but the Red Moons. Stormcaller's managed to avoid Reina drawing attention to his group's presence, and now he offers her the chance to do business. He wants her to get him the security plans for the Lunar Night festival. She's not that interested in working with such highly wanted people, but Stormcaller convinces her, helped by the fact that the credits she got from Tok are electronically tagged as stolen, worthless until she can get someone to clean them for her. It's a deal.

A profile of Rollos wraps it up, which lets you know that Gigorans are large, strong, and very protective of their families. They're often confused with Wookiees or Wampas due to their long white fur, but actually they're fairly peaceful. Rollos is somewhat confused by the galaxy of high technology he lives in. He can understand Basic, but he's fascinated by anything electronic to the point of appearing simple. He's fiercely loyal to Reina, but his background before he met her remains a total mystery.

I'd say this article feels a lot like Russo's article on mercenaries. It's fun enough, with some good solid information to use, but between its focus not really being on the title subject and Russo's determination to use about half of any sourcefile piece to plug his ever-expanding Pentastar-based universe, it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, a disappointment that it didn't go into more depth on the subject it teased us with. What we got is some good material to work with, but it's a bit of a bait-and-switch from what the title made you want. Russo remains, however, a reliable writer. I'd like to see him go into short fiction entirely to get his storytelling urge out and give us some of the action adventures that he clearly wants. Next up, we have this issue's Alex Winger story. It wouldn't be an Adventure Journal without an Alex Winger story.

 

"She went to live with her uncle, but he was a gambler who got in debt to a Hutt. The Hutt took everything, including her, and sold her into slavery."


Am I the only one who sees the irony here? In the middle of an article devoted to gamblers, how to play a character who is a gambler, and in general how to add fun and challenge to your role playing experience by adding gamblers, they offhandedly mention the rather sobering fact that gambling ruined a man's life and led to him selling his infant niece into slavery?

That's kind of like a "How to play as a swoop bike racer" article that casually reminds you about all the civilians who die in street races.

 

As for these vague, do everything fringers, I like to refer to them as opportunists. Whether it involves smuggling, bounty hunting, fancy piloting, fast gunplay, piracy or even legitimate freight hauling, they're just looking for a good opportunity.

Does it say anything about how this person is just really, really sick? Or, more cynically, how they're actually perfect targets, because they're always ready to risk it all on a bad bet?