Sablemage
Demi-God
Last time, on the Aslan Route, we pulled together a list of NPCs and open plot threads.
We know that the PCs will be on Cordan next session while their ship is overhauled, and that there is going to be a fight.
Published Material
Most of what we know about Cordan comes from The Pirates of Drinax and The Drinaxian Companion. Both of those have writeups which treat the world as if it had atmosphere type 8 (dense), whereas all the statblocks I've ever seen for it - including the ones in The Pirates of Drinax - show it as atmosphere type 9 (dense, tainted). This irks me, but is not a huge issue. Maybe someday I'll figure out a way to reconcile it, but for the time being we'll pretend the taint has no significant effects.
Cordan is important; a class A starport on a trade hub situated at the junction of the two main trade routes in the sector. It's also inside the Imperial Navy patrol radius - IN patrols go as far as Acrid - so it's relatively safe from pirates. It would, in fact, make a fine base world for the PCs in any campaign, but the PCs in the first campaign took a shine to Ace and worlds spinward of Drinax, while the current lot have put down roots on Sink. You really can't force this stuff, and it's best not to try; let them settle if and where they want.
We have the following scenario options from the published materials:
- The Cordan Conflict in The Drinaxian Companion deals with infighting among the three noble families of Cordan. This is one of the best of the Drinax scenarios, but three of the four players have already played it, so that's ruled out. What might be worth retaining is that the nobles are jockeying for position, but none of them dares call down Imperial wrath, so the skirmishing is relatively low-key.
- There are mole people left over from an old Solomani colony living underground. In the last campaign I replaced these with mind flayers, which terrified the players to the point that they ran away and never went back to Cordan for the rest of the game. Probably best to avoid that one, too much trauma.
- There's a throwaway line in the Cordan Conflict alluding to one of the noble families having Zhodani backing. We haven't used that yet, so that's a possibility.
Emergent Material
Looking at the lists from last week, it looks like there are three possibilities:
- Mazun will contact his handler (whom we shall call Kenneth Prasad) for information and to fence his loot; the player expects this to vanish into the handler's black fund. I think the handler should be embedded in the starport staff, and launder the money by using it to pay for the Macavity's overhaul. For further consideration: Is the handler legit, bent, or a double agent for the Zho (bearing in mind they are telepaths so he might not know)? We'll let that come out in play, on the principle of not prepping more than is necessary. However, we roll for a personality on the table for SWADE Allies (10, Young) and an objective on the One Page Mythic table (77 Object 81 Rotten).
- The Shugaka crime syndicate are obviously plugged in to the starport, with connections to smugglers and piracy. The questions here are first, how much of the port is under their control, and second, does that include Mazun's handler? We shall call the local boss Diideshur Laarbak, and give him a Mysterious personality and the objective of Decrease Dangerous.
- Vargr corsairs, which should be the ones from the raid on the House of Shrouded Mirrors. Meet Captain Okorzrourrg Onfu of the corsair Khuerga; a Bright female with the objective of Leave Extravagant.
Yes, I think I can see where this is going.
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