Casting Shadows

This Saturday Seed presents an idea for your favorite flavour of Star Wars RPG. I touched on the primary idea behind it just before WEG’s 2nd edition of the D6 Star Wars roleplaying game was our only hope, but am revisiting it here as a result of perusing Edge of the Empire. (With very little effort, this could work just as well as a seed for Serenity/Firefly).

The seed
As the characters go about earning their daily bread, they receive information that someone in their midst is wanted by the Empire and that they may deserve to be.

Planting the seed
This seed requires a ship-based group and regular access to NPCs either as part of the crew or part of a group of trusted contacts at a regular port of call. With those conditions met, the seed can literally be planted any time that the ship and PCs are in a port.

The details

 While passing through the twisting alleys of the port the characters spot a display detailing lists of fugitives and wanted beings. Large-as-life, a mechanic of their acquaintance is among the faces cycling through on the display with a bounty on her head worth stopping and checking again… and again. 

The charge is that the person shown was the lead designer at a certain popular ship-building conglomerate and responsible for intentionally including defects in several key components which lead to hyperdrive failures, although ostensibly not a part of that ship system at all. The end result is incredible numbers of ships sitting in dry docks across known space with baffled mechanics and numerous parts and service upgrades purchased for specific proprietary onboard systems until the ship starts to function again. So famous is this glitch that it has spawned space-farers’ legends about ships launched on specific days, ships that are no good in certain atmospheres, and ships that need to be replaced from stem to stern, piece by piece with generic parts before they really work right. It is generally known that if a certain class of mechanic (namely the kind who has to find the problem in deep space or die) could get their hydrospanners on the person who designed such a seemingly solid, but actually very quirky and unreliable system, said designer would not live to see their next lift off.

The revelation that their friend is responsible for building this design flaw into so many popular ships, perhaps a flaw which has haunted them in the past, and has been potentially reaping incredible profits from her deceit should be a major one.

What is going on

The Empire has posted a bounty for the designer claiming she is now a fugitive and is wanted for fraud. It seems these designs ended up in certain capital ships and have recently been isolated as the main cause of breakdowns which have been known to play hob with naval operations. Moreover, the list of popular ships and ship types into which the design has been incorporated is long enough to sting a surprisingly large number of groups – not to mention those groups who build their fleets by less than scrupulous acquisition methods. 

The thing about this seed is that the charges are real and absolutely true. What the characters do is the whole focus. They know where she is. They have regular dealings with her. They have no doubt that she is the designer the stormtroopers are looking for. The bounty is immense. 

What will they do?

Enjoy~