The Undying War is a campaign idea set in The Old Republic era of Star Wars with the player characters in service to the Sith Empire. This write-up includes how to port FFG’s Star Wars RPG to a different era as well as my original campaign notes.
Reskinning the Game
When Fantasy Flight Games announced they were releasing a new Star Wars tabletop RPG my mind immediately began thinking about my favorite Star Wars setting: The Old Republic. I had been playing the MMO set in the same era and some of my favorite moments in the game came from playing on the side of the Sith Empire, especially the Agent and Sith Warrior storylines. I began thinking about how a tabletop RPG would work with the players on the side of the bad guys without them having to do explicitly evil things. The game FFG eventually released didn’t quite match up to my expectations, but Star Wars is malleable enough that it wouldn’t take much work to reskin the game in a different era or side.
It doesn’t really matter what era Star Wars is set in: Old Republic, any Age of the trilogies, or Legacy; when it comes to starships and equipment the effects are the same, only the names have changed. The Corellian Light Freighter named Ebon Hawk in Knights of the Old Republic is equivalent to the Age of the Republic’s Millennium Falcon, albeit with a slightly different design. This means that, in terms of stats, one needs only find (or make up) an Old Republic equivalent name for the same type/class of vehicle/equipment.
I suspect FFG intentionally thought about other Ages and styles of play when writing the books. The Roles (Edge of the Empire) and Careers (Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny) easily apply to any Age or side of the battle. A case might be made to change the Jedi career of Counselor to Inquisitor and Guardian to Warden, but that is little more than window dressing. Overall, the names and paths remain the same; a Spy for the Republic’s skill chart would be no different than one for the Sith Empire. Even Motivations would be much the same, just with a shift in who the character may view as the enemy.
If all this reskinning is so easy then why not just have my campaign in a setting provided by the written rules, you may ask. The main reasons I find the Old Republic a bit more rife with roleplaying ideas are the balance and scale of both sides of the war. The Republic and Sith Empire at this time are evenly matched and, despite some skirmishes, are in a relative cold war. Both Jedi and Sith are abundant allowing for players to easily assume either mantle. While both sides of the war have overarching themes, both the Republic and the Empire still quarrel internally allowing conflicts to arise within the story of each side. Not to say that other Ages don’t have similar themes and issues, but it seems to be more pronounced within the Old Republic.
The Undying War
The Undying War takes place in 3658 BBY. The truce between the Republic and Sith Empire is beginning to waver as both sides vie for territory and control with skirmishes and small battles breaking out across multiple planets. The PCs may come from many walks of life but they must be willing to serve (if not join) the Sith Empire. PCs may be ex-Republic soldiers disillusioned by the squabbling politics of the Republic, smugglers or bounty hunters seeking credits, Empire troopers, fallen Jedi, or rising Sith. Squabbles and tensions between player characters will be likely, but they should still be willing and able to work as group, even if grudgingly.
Darth Geisa (screenshot from SWToR MMO)
The PCs are brought to Dromund Kaas by the newest member of the Sith Council, Darth Geisa. She is intended to act as the primary provider of various missions throughout the campaign; though random events and the pasts and in-game actions of the PCs will also inspire adventures. The Sith provides the group with a YV-929 light freighter named the Ashen Harpy; confiscated from a smuggler (not one of the PCs). The ship is innocuous enough that should be able to dock anywhere without alarm. Darth Geisa explains that she seeks to root out the corruption from the Empire, to restore it to its purity of order. It should be no mystery that she really means is that she is looking for secrets and support to weaken other council members; gaining more political power. The ship has multiple hidden cameras and recording devices allowing Darth Geisa to keep tabs on the squad.
What the characters will not initially be made aware of is that the Sith Lord is also investigating her origins. She has hazy memories of a violent childhood before the Empire, but had been pulled from that life and raised on Korriban in the way of the Sith. Darth Geisa is fueled by her passion and desire for a familial network. Through the course of the campaign the PCs may not only secrets for their backer but also secrets about her—which they may try to use against her.
While Darth Geisa will direct the new crew of the Ashen Harpy, she will not be traveling with them and it will be up to the PCs to decide any chains of leadership within their team. In the Sith Empire, the Sith rule over soldiers and commanders, and it’s possible that a Sith player character will assume leadership duties, but experience and other ranks of command may dominate. This “choose a leader among yourselves” approach may be a continual source of RP conflict within the group and Darth Geisa will only directly intervene if lack of leadership causes mission failures (or if it becomes problematic outside of roleplay for the players themselves).
N0-BDY (screenshot from SWToR MMO)
Along with a ship, the characters will also be provided a medical/utility droid by the designation of N0-BDY (or, “Nobody”). The droid is fawning and sycophantic to the PCs and can provide engineering or medical assistance to the PCs as needed. The droid can also be used as a source of exposition and explanation. Like the hidden devices of the Ashen Harpy, N0-BDY also monitors the characters and files secret reports to Darth Geisa; the droid will also covertly re-establish connections to any recording devices the characters might find and disable. It’s somewhat expected that the characters will find and disable the devices on the ship, but they should know (or will be informed) that disabling the droid will incur the Sith Lord’s wrath. This means that if they want to do things in secret from Darth Geisa, they will need to do so away from the droid or somehow have the droid report something else to its true master.
Missions will take place throughout the galaxy and initially will focus on intercepting or thwarting the actions of other Imperial missions. Despite being under the guidance of a Sith Lord, the players may almost feel heroic as they stop the actions of a corrupt general from poisoning a town in order to gain its resources, take down a maniacal Sith apprentice, and rescue a slicer from a ruthless bounty hunter. While all of the actions may strengthen Darth Geisa, they will still feel like the player characters are doing the right thing. Alternatively, the players may choose to “do the right thing” in the most ignoble or evil of ways. The first few missions help provide a direction and tone for how the players will want to treat the campaign.
As the campaign continues, the PCs will start to go deeper into Republic territory and missions will pit them against various factions, including the Republic and the Jedi order. In these missions Darth Geisa is piecing together her past, and the PCs may also put the puzzle together. The characters will begin to face reoccurring opposition by a Republic commander by the name of Brionie Whyte. It’s not as if the commander is outright tracking and thwarting the PCs, more that their paths often cross and with similar goals. Commander Whyte is also seeking answers and those pieces are strangely similar to Darth Geisa’s.
Brionie Whyte (screenshot from SWToR MMO)
One of the biggest pieces of the puzzle is the name of a planet with no known coordinates: Anubaan. The PCs and Commander Whyte will discover the existence of this planet either together or near the same time and it will become a race between the two factions to find the hidden coordinates. This race will lead them to Jedi ruins on the acrid planet of Ossus where they will face savage inhabitants, dangerous force ghosts, as well as hazardous weather and terrain. In an a damaged and barely functioning holocron they will find a record from Exar Kun providing the location of Anubaan—a distant planet on the outer rim of the galaxy.
Anubaan is a war-torn planet, but its battles are isolated from the galactic struggle beyond their system. Here, the people fight in a seemingly timeless and endless war between their own factions. Unlike so much of the galaxy, it’s a technologically backwards, but not primitive, planet. The Anuba people’s technology s equivalent to Earth in the 1970’s; the people fight with projectile-firing weapons and use simple blades in close combat. It’s typically unwise for starships to land on such aggressive and “broken” planets, as any damage to the ship could it landlocked. The need for cautious landing will be paramount if the PCs are to continue.
The Anuba look like humans and they are very likely descendants of the myriad of human races that seed the galaxy. Unlike most humans, the Anuba stop aging once they are in their mid-thirties and can survive what other humans would see as mortal wounds. They may lose limbs or be scarred, but their internal organs will heal themselves at point of death. So long as the brain remains alive, so does their body. This means that some of the people fighting in the war have been doing so for hundreds of years. This is the titular Undying War.
The knowledge of the planet begins the end of this campaign. The PCs will likely discover the history of both Darth Geisa and Commander Brionie Whyte; how slavers randomly discovered the planet only for most to be killed by the populous, with one escaping and taking two younglings, no more than two years old. Sealed records on Dromund Kaas and Coruscant will reveal that the slaver ship was then captured as a Republic and Imperial patrol were surveying the same sector. The ship was destroyed and one was taken by the Republic while the Sith-led Imperials claimed the youngling that displayed force sensitivity.
From here the campaign’s direction could go anywhere. What will they do with the knowledge of a mostly undying race; what would happen if such a race was elevated to the galactic war? How will this more personal knowledge affect the commander and Sith Lord?
After a series of vignettes based on player decisions, my ideal was to then run a spin-off campaign taking place 10 years later with a combination of returning and new characters. The galactic war will be back in full swing and the Anuba will have been added to the ranks of both the Republic and Empire. The PCs will be tasked with discovering the origins of the undying race in order to either replicate and expand the ability and/or stop it completely. Their investigations will take them from Anubaan to Ossus and through the galaxy as they discover secret research performed by a contemporary of Exar Kun in The Infinite Bloodline (working title).
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