Last update: 02/October/2006
Campaign background Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11
DISCLAIMER
This article is not authorized or supported by West End Games. This conversion is unofficial and has not been reviewed by anybody at West End Games or Lucasfilm, Ltd. Star Wars (R), TM, & (C) by Lucasfilm, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Trademarks of Lucasfilm, Ltd., used without authorization, that use isn't intended as a challenge to those trademarks.
ABOUT FUDGE
Fudge is a role-playing game written by Steffan O'Sullivan, with extensive input from the Usenet community of rec.games.design. The basic rules of Fudge are available on the internet at http://www.fudgerpg.com and in book form from Grey Ghost Games, P.O. Box 838, Randolph, MA 02368. They may be used with any gaming genre. While an individual work derived from Fudge may specify certain attributes and skills, many more are possible with Fudge. Every Game Master using Fudge is encouraged to add or ignore any character traits. Anyone who wishes to distribute such material for free may do so - merely include this ABOUT FUDGE notice and disclaimer (complete with Fudge copyright notice). If you wish to charge a fee for such material, other than as an article in a magazine or other periodical, you must first obtain a royalty-free license from the author of Fudge, Steffan O'Sullivan, P.O. Box 465, Plymouth, NH 03264.
DISCLAIMER
The following materials based on Fudge, entitled Fudge Starwars: the Easiest Way, are created by, made available by, and Copyright (C) 2006 by Jorge Arredondo, and are not necessarily endorsed in any way by Steffan O'Sullivan or any publisher of other Fudge materials. Neither Steffan O'Sullivan nor any publisher of other Fudge materials is in any way responsible for the content of these materials unless specifically credited. Original Fudge materials Copyright (C)1992-1995 by Steffan O'Sullivan, All Rights Reserved.
The characters have been following the clues up to Cloud City, in Bespin, in the hope that Torunn was also after the separatist conspiracy. However, they don't have much information. Torunn as usual vanished without a trace and he might be anywhere this far.
Cloud City is as shown in the movies, an incredible large city-ship with over five million sentients and around one million droids, measuring more than 10 miles wide and 3 miles tall. The city is at the same time ship, factory of probably the best tibanna gas in the known space, and luxury palace, filled with casinos everywhere. Unknown to the players, they're going to arrive in the middle of a power struggle between the actual baroness-administrator, the devaronian woman Fahime and a powerful noble called Raynor Todd...
[ Soundtrack music: The Empire Strikes Back, City in the Clouds ]
The Falcon exits hyperspace and the camera follows it to a giant gas planet with a reddish color. The course is easily set to the main space port on Cloud City. In this era visitors are widely welcome here. However, if the characters identify themselves as republic agents, their stay here will be quite different. We'll suppose they do so because their credentials can open many doors and lead them to many places which would remain otherwise far from their pesky eyes. Besides, weapons are forbidden here if they don't claim their status (even as republic agents they won't be allowed to carry anything more powerful than pistols, or in the case of jedi their lightsabers).
[ Soundtrack music: The Empire Strikes Back, Lando's Palace ]
There will be a small welcome comittee waiting for them in an open landing spot not quite unlike the place where another ship called the Falcon will land around 23 years later. There, a tall devaronian woman dressed with regal clothes, and accompanied with a young and bald cyborg (a young Lobot, who was hired years ago by a previous baroness, lady Elissa Shallence) and two wing guards, wait for the republic agents to leave the ship.
Lady Fahime introduces herself as the baroness administrator of Cloud city, she looks to have a great self confidence and intelligence, and behaves with great grace and elegance. In fact she isn't actually very happy of seeing republic agents in her city, so she asks while leading them to the main building:
In this moment the baroness and the PCs reach the building and find the corridor and rooms ahead watched by quite a lot of Baktoid battle droids. There can easily be around 30 up to where the PCs can see. If Fahime sees they're taking it in the worst possible sense she quickly tells them "don't worry dear sirs, we've bought them as an extra security measure for as long as the war lasts."
In this moment they PCs may notice small groups of droids everywhere, even a few flying on STAPs over the city. It seems clear they form a little army on their own though don't seem hostile. If asked, Fahime tells them they've bought 50,000 of them (!)
The droids are under control of the core computer of Cloud City, through a secondary tactical computer. The main antenna through which all the control information is handled is also located there, in the best protected innards of the city.
Actually Fahime has been selling a lot of tibanna gas to the separatists, but as she sells it to anyone she doesn't think that is a problem. As she's quite smart and her knowledge of the law is also quite high, she thinks she can get her own way. Under her command, Cloud City has thrived and flourished and has become a place of tolerance.
Other arguments Fahime can use are:
If needed, Fahime can resort to use the possible PC's fiasco at Ryloth to undermine their arguments.
Fahime, devaronian baroness-administrator
Attributes: Knowledge Superb, Perception Superb, all other attributes Fair. Fudge points 4.
Skills: amongst others, Bureaucracy Superb, Business Superb, Con Superb, Persuasion Superb, Law Superb. All other skills Poor.
Gifts & Faults: Contacts, Authority, Iron Will, Duty, Enemies.
Equipment: fancy clothes.
If the PCs accept Fahime's hospitality they're led to her main residence, a tower around 400 meters tall which is also used as the headquarters for the city government. They've prepared a pretty good room with nice views of the city and vivid evenings of the planet; the windows are even shielded against blaster fire! If they look for them they'll find security cameras, of course (Search Good or better). If asked the wing guards will tell them the cameras are there to ensure their safety, but won't say they're also there to spy them, too.
The first 50 levels of the city hold the high class services (hotels, health resorts, clubs, museums and casinos). The next 50 levels hold the main residences for the rich inhabitants of the city. The next 20 the administrative sector. The sectors 121 to 160 hold Port City, where the main freight operations are held; there are also debious casinos, bars and actually the main criminal underworld is located here. The next 60 levels are used as housing the the service workers. The next 60 levels are used as factories, the next 90 as the tibanna gas processing and mining services and finally the next 22 levels hold the main tractor beam and repulsion generators.
The PCs may learn from different sources that the criminal underworld isn't very happy with Fahime because her security measures have been successful enough to keep them under control and mainly isolated on Port City. They resent quite a lot the 50,000 battle droids deployed at the upper levels!
If they try to track Torunn in the upper levels of the city, the only good reference they can get is a single ship travelling to Kuat 1 month ago, it was an small luxury yatch bought there with the earnings won at the casinos by a mirialan captain called Aaler (in fact, Torunn disguised and using the Force to get funds and continue his investigation). There are lots of ships coming from Ryloth, so that's not a clear path to look for clues. If they ask about the mirialan they may be able to find out he visited Port City and the casinos often, asking about sales of tibanna gas and unusual ships.
After the PCs move into Fahime's tower or another residence (the cheap hotels are worth an average of 50 credits/night), they receive a message via a young messenger. The message asks them to meet someone called Raynor Todd at the Royal Casino this evening at a private Sabacc game, where he can share some information that special Republic agents like themselves may find very interesting.
If investigated, Raynor is someone important amongst the administration and local nobility. What they can't find is that he lusts to rule the city himself but he has to remove or discredit Fahime first. The next baron would be elected by the baroness (if discredited she couldn't!) or rather in a voting between the Exec (the council of the management administrators) and the Guilds Parliament, where Raynor has enough support to get elected (Raynor will tell the PCs that Fahime would elect her successor herself, which is true, but omits telling them that in fact he'd be the next baron).
[ Soundtrack music: Attack of the clones, Zam the Assassin and The Chase Through Coruscant ]
In the way to the Casino or later if you prefer, the PCs may be ambushed by a mechanical bounty hunter sent here after a large bounty on their heads by the remaining Ever'on clan leaders. After the severe blow they received at the PCs' hands, they set a bounty of 25,000 credits for them (alive) and 50,000 credits (dead), ensuring all interested bounty hunters would do their best to kill them "in self-defence" before presenting the case to the courts of the republic, if needed. Bespin was a very probable destiny after the PCs left Ryloth.
By the way, lone PCs are a much better target for this bounty hunter, IG88#3! It sets an ambush after following the PCs at a park in the upper levels where it can hide at a rooftop and snipe hunt them while a small swarm of flying drone droids harass them.
IG88 #3
Attributes: Dexterity Superb, Perception Great, Knowledge Fair, Strength Superb, Mechanical Good, Technical Mediocre.
Skills: Alien species Good, Astrogation Good, Blasters Great, Command Fair, Computer repair/programming Fair, Demolitions Good, Dodge Great, Droid Programming Good, Droid repair Good, Evaluate Fair, Flamethrower Good, Grenades Great, Hide Fair, Intimidate Superb, Languajes Fair, Lifting Great, Planetary systems Fair, Repair space transports Fair, Search Great (Legendary for targets at 50 to 750m, or moving targets), Security Good, Shields Fair, Slugthrowers Great, Sneak Fair, Sonic stunner Great, Space transports piloting Great, Starfighter gunnery Fair, Streetwise Fair, Survival Fair. All other skills Poor.
Equipment: armour plating DF +2, broad band antenna, flamethrower (OF +2), long range sensors, movement sensors, sonic stunner (OF +3), grenade launcher (OF +4), blaster rifle (OF +4).
Mini drone droids (6 to 8)
Attributes: Dexterity Fair, Perception Fair, Strength Fair, all others Terrible.
Skills: Blasters Fair, Dodge Good, Hide Good, Search Good, Sneak Fair. All other skills Poor.
Special: scale -1; against fast moving targets they tend to surround their foes and overwhelm them with coordinated fire.
Equipment: short range antenna, blaster gun (OF +3), short range sensors, armour plating DF +2, repulsors.
When the droid swarm is defeated IG88#3 flees the scene to seek more advantageous conditions, probably even dissapears with ease. If the PCs look for it they won't be able to locate it (as usual few pay attention to droids) but if they warn the authorities around 1 day later the wing guards will report to them that a droid with similar appearance was knocked down by someone from a tall building and crashed a few levels below. That daring citizen couldn't be well seen by the witnesses but he or she looked like a tall humanoid dressed with dark clothes. The wing guards are still looking for the crushed remains of the droid, but it shouldn't be a problem anymore, given the fall.
[ GM's note: someone else is after the PCs, who isn't interested in them getting killed so after the first ambush that someone tracked down IG88#3 and got rid of it by dropping it through a window, then hid again. It's not canon acording to the Expanded Universe but that's why there is an IG88 rusted shell at the rubbish dump in The Empire Strikes Back! ]
Alternatively, you may want to use IG88#3 as a recurrent foe in this module, appearing times and again in the worst possible moments till it is completely defeated. Being a well known villain from the Star Wars universe, it is always more satisfying to defeat than nameless hordes of droids or thugs. Every time it returns he comes with more probes and probably with different and more destructive weapons, mainly because probably the PCs won't split anymore. Good moments for its next attacks are while visiting Port City, while leaving the ship on landing platform 492, when heading to the baroness tower when the battle droids go mad or when heading to the main computer of the city.
[ Soundtrack music: Star Wars, the Cantina ]
The Royal Casino is one of the best casinos at Cloud City; it has gambling machines, variable G-force controlled dance floors, etc. Weapons, droids, datapads or your own cards are forbidden here (the PCs may be allowed to keep their weapons if they show their republic accreditations). Gambling taxes are 7% of the profits for winners or 10% of the profits for the casino.
[ GM's note: when describing the casino, make sure to tell the PCs about the whole lot of alien beings from all corners of the galaxy around; there are quite a few of them. Also make sure you include in these lot one of the smaller races, it is actually the Shadow (or someone working for it) in disguise...! ]
Raynor's invitation at the casino is of course used as a masquerade to conceal his activities to Fahime's eyes. A clue to Raynor's true goals, however, is shown when he avoids treating with aliens if possible (because unlike Fahime, he's a racist), at the very least he'll avoid looking at them like for example not looking at Neelyx if he's the only alien present. He may even "politely" request that the PCs' bodyguards (the alien PCs) wait outside the booth!
The PCs are led to a private booth with glass walls (those kind of walls that can turn translucent when the booth is closed) which is also soundproof and free of recording devices. Here Raynor is waiting for them with some of his rich followers. Some of them will leave when the PCs arrive to make room for them, others will stay, everything Raynor will say isn't a secret for them. However they'll leave if the PCs ask Raynor for it.
Raynor won't mind gambling with the PCs while they talk, in fact he'll enjoy it (Legendary Gambling), the minimum bet he'll accept is 100 credits.
[ GM's note: Raynor should become after all the next baron administrator, only to lose the city in another gambling contest with another Legendary player called Lando! Besides that, he's probably as good lying as the current baroness. ]
What does Raynor have to say to the PCs? Amongst half truths and interested lies, he tells them the following:
Raynor has no idea about other jedi visiting the city but he'll offer his help nevertheless as a sign of good faith. The PCs may also try their luck at Port City, which seems a little bit more sophisticated than Mos Eisly and almost as dangerous. However, Torunn's presence in the city was fully unnoticed, so nobody will give them any information about him. Feel free to pester the PCs with mean-looking thugs if they look like if looking for trouble.
However, the underworld is a bit better informed about the baroness' deals with the separatists, as after all, most loads of tibanna gas and the deployment of the battle droids take place in Port City. That way, through bribes or intimidation, some local mob bosses have heard about the deals and often follow the exchange of cargo to see if they can profit from it. This way the PCs may learn about a new cargo of tibanna gas (around 3000 cubic meters) going to be delivered to the separatists through a ship which should arrive soon; the landing platform of course isn't decided yet, but knowing the right time they could be there soon after the landing...
[ Soundtrack music: Return of the jedi, Into the trap ]
Some time later they receive a message at their ship radio. It is an holovid using a popular advertisement in which an arcona seller usually speaks about some kind of new speeder, but the audio has been edited, and an unidentifiable voice tells them:
"You'll find something very interesting in the landing platform 492. Just be careful with the welcome comittee".
[ GM's note: and yet another one is tracking the PCs! In this case this is a side quest, not quite important for the story but which will introduce some interesting elements. The one who sent the information to the PCs wants them to board the ship and fly to its intended destiny, out of curiosity, as he or she couldn't go there by its own. ]
Platform 492 is located on Port City, it's a YZ-705 freighter (a 40 meters long, older version of the YZ-775), which has been docked and closed there for weeks. The docking fees are still good for a couple of weeks, at least. It is identified as a ship from the Corporate Sector with unknown destiny (yet), as an space transport of many different kinds of cargo (the one who brought it here left later in a passenger ship).
In fact it is a separatist ship guarded by some (depending on how strong are your PCs, around 10) super battle droids with independent processors. Besides them, there are lots of spare parts for robotics systems, lots of tools and also perhaps too many detonite cubes (do any of your PCs know anything about Demolitions? They're there just in case the separatists agents had to blow things apart in their dark destination).
Besides that there is another holovid of Count Dooku at the main computer:
"Welcome Tangram. Your next mission will be await here for our special agent Josaz. He'll be able to complete the hyperspace coordinates partially set on the navigation computer. In your destination you'll find a lot of work, fix whatever you can, learn as much as you can and give me something to work with. Ah, be very careful with the guardians."
Certainly, the coordinates loaded at the navigation computer are unfinished and only someone with the Force may finish them (using Instinctive astrogation). They lead to an unknown, nameless system through a dangerous route too near a cluster of black holes (that's why normal astrogration attempts make the navigation computer refuse the route, unless you fail by too much in which case you end up inside one of them). This side quest will be developed on Chapter 5, "Red Death Maidens". The PCs may dismiss this quest as there are no clues that Torunn followed this clue himself, besides it seems he left at least 1 week before the freighter arrived, so in fact this mission would mean a delay in their main goal. However, can they risk other separatists to arrive to that system and get whatever powerful menace lies there? If they choose the easier path, they may find later it wasn't such a good idea... if that old technology was developed by the separatists, the tide of war could easily change!
[ Soundtrack music: Attack of the Clones, Jango's Escape ]
Unless the PCs have done a good job trying to discredit Fahime, Raynor decides to speed things up. He also knew about the separatist cargo ship but probably it could all be masked as a legal transaction or something too slow having to be decided at the republic courts, so he's bribed some dock workers to lead the ship to an appropriate platform where a demolitionist expert has set proximity charges which will explode as soon as the ship tries to dock.
Said and done, probably when the PCs reach the platform they see a large cargo ship docking and just when the magnetic seals keep the ship in place it explodes (perhaps a Great or better Demolitions roll would show a PC that the ship wasn't the source of the explosion, but something located at the dock). The explosion can be heard in all the city and it may even shake a bit with the fiery blast. The remains of the ship fall over the levels below crashing them and probably killing a few hundreds of sentients. Soon, a large group of emergency service workers arrive and try to control the fire and save as many as they can. Also lots of battle droids come to the area looking for possible threats though they're a bit overwhelmed by the situation and do nothing.
In this moment, the PCs are called to their comlinks (probably even if they didn't give their frequencies to him) by Raynor, who tells them they've just heard about the terrorist attack: "I am at the parliament, we were debating a motion of no confidence against the baroness (a lie, it was more like a bunch of complaints against her with little base, as usual) till we started to get data from the blast, then she left very quickly..."
The communications start to fade out while he still talks "hello?
In the meantime Raynor stays at the parliament blaming all the incident on the baroness "her deals with the separatists have brought chaos and destruction to our beloved city! She's endangered us all! And she has a whole army to ensure her tiranny! She may have blown that ship apart to avoid it from being discovered by the Republic or maybe the separatists want to hide their activities here, either way she's a threat to us all!" (this would ensure that someone else would call the Republic through an hyperspace antenna, too).
If the PCs go to the baroness' tower they'll find battle droids going on their usual business without messing with them, but the droids deployed inside the tower aren't so neutral. Just at the hall around 30 battle droids (with continuous reinforcements) shoot them at sight, even coordinating their fire, so they may have to find another way to locate the baroness (there may be easily around 1,000 droids at the tower).
Some alternatives are climbing (400 meters???), flying on STAPs or flying on their ship (though probably it's too big to manoeuvre close to the tower as this planet is too windy for that), etc.
At the tower they may find small parties of droids patrolling it, but at least not as many as in the hall. According to the right floor they infiltrated at they may have to fight more or less till they reach the baroness' office. In them they can find Fahime, unharmed (in fact the droids have been reprogrammed to attack anyone in the tower but the baroness), and working frantically at a computer; it may look very suspicious but she tells them she's trying to deactivate the droids but the access codes have been changed (she looks very nervous but sincere... but she always look sincere!). She also tells them Lobot doesn't respond to her calls, so there is little else she can do, at least there.
Actually, Lobot felt an intrusion at the core computer and headed there to investigate, but when the jamming begun he was overwhelmed by the noise signal and fell unconscious, having been there since then. The PCs may flee from the tower with the baroness "I may be able to deactivate them at the core computer", no matter if they believe her or not they can try to shut down the droid control computer by themselves, and they don't have the access codes of the core computer rooms (with the right codes it is always easier getting into).
Surprisingly enough the PCs aren't attacked by more droids as soon as they leave the tower, the city droids aren't behaving any different than before the attack. If they manage to reach the main computer, they'll see the codes Fahime knew are working again (did they actually fail?) and the droids have returned to their usual function. The communication blockade has also ended. Either Fahime fixed it all when they found her or someone else did it (here or where?). The truth is that someone developed a troyan program over the past few months, slowly enough to make it go unnoticed by Lobot, through technicians open to bribes, which would get control of the droids programming and then delete itself to leave no traces. Superb computer rolls may find traces of the program but no clue of its origin; anyone, including the baroness, with access to the core computer, could have done this.
In the worst case the baroness doesn't declare against herself "We'll see the truth of all this in the trial, but it's clear there are other agents interested in this situation". Lobot wakes up with a huge headache and under the request of Fahime or the PCs he may look for clues and/or deactivate the droid army to avoid making things worse.
A batallion of clone troopers will be deployed at this time, the republic destroyer arrives in this dramatic moment. The Republic, which clearly sees the situation as a "coup d'état" attempt, will place Fahime under arrest till she can be brought to Coruscant and judged under such charges. Up till now, the navy will help to ensure order in the city till a new administrator is elected (surprisingly, or perhaps not so much, Raynor will be elected).
[ Soundtrack music: finishing theme of Attack of the Clones ]
After they've been used as political tools, the PCs may have found little about their original mission. They may have learnt someone is following them (and may think it is a single being, not two), that probably Torunn was here investigating the ilegal sales of tibanna gas but left to Kuat and that the separatists had interest in a remote planet with something related to droids there.
Perhaps the PCs think someone has framed the baroness of something not entirely their fault, but Raynor has always put a lot of people between himself and the people doing the real dirty work. Anyone else wants to believe Raynor is right and that all will be safer with Fahime out of the equation. Try to fix or investigate the whole mess would require a lot of time they don't have...
| Campaign background | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |
| Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 |
| Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 |
| Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 |
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