Time for me to give Age of Rebellion some more love, with two articles focusing on my Skype Age of Rebellion campaign which has been alternating with other RPG campaigns ever since the beta book was released. First up, the player characters. The players, all longtime D20 Radio forum users are credited below. Part 2 will cover Azure Base.
The Friday Night Skypers suggested I introduce their PCs here and I thought it was a cool idea. The party started out as a group of Rebels who just happened to be available for what would become the first mission of the campaign, the module “Operation Shell Game” from the AoR beta. To my surprise, I had fun running and agreed to do a mostly episodic campaign. The party (with some players opting for new PCs) became an unofficial replacement for Azure Base’s imprisoned SpecOps team, which the “Shell Game” party hadn’t been able to free. Later, the Alliance High Command would make them officially SpecOps. Their SpecOps nickname, Roke Squad, memorializes the team’s first commanding officer (CO), Lt. Jacen Roke (below), who was killed in the line of duty. The current CO is Captain Doctor Brynn. Fun Fact: The PCs in this AoR campaign don’t use AoR careers/specs. They all have Duty, and the Force-sensitive, at player request, also has Morality and Emotional Strength and Weakness.
Roke Squad is very popular, and at my players’ request, am preparing to resume the campaign in a few months, in spite of me being the least experienced GM in the game group. Another sign of their popularity: One of Dono’s Force & Destiny sessions involved those PCs becoming involved in a Rebel op to free a cargo of slaves. Early in the game, my Seer made a Perception check and noticed a young man wearing tech goggles, who appeared to be slicing a console. I exclaimed, “Hey, it’s Tyro Proga!” Dono, perplexed or chagrined, asked me, “What makes you think that, Linda?” I told him I was just joking. At the end of the session, Dono told us it was Roke Squad. Why should he make up a group when he had access to the stats of a perfectly good one. I loved the idea so much that I gave Dono and the other players a small amount of XP for their AoR characters who had done the “crossover issue.”
Lt. Jacen Roke (Donovan Morningfire): The original CO of what became Roke Squad. Jacen got drawn into the Alliance by a girlfriend and led the group for quite a while. Lt. Roke was Killed in Action during the extraction of a young Force Emergent, Dr. Brynn’s former ward Jade, from Imperial custody. Roke had given the young woman his uniform jacket shortly before his death at the hands of ISB Agent Abyss and she wears it as a tribute to the man who gave his life for hers. His murder affected the whole team, and is still a driving force for them, although it has been months (in-game) since Roke’s death and Agent Abyss is also dead.
Lt. Roke’s murder was arranged by me at Dono’s request. He felt the character’s story was coming to an end and wanted him to go out as a hero. Since I was already planning that extraction mission, I decided he would die at Agent Abyss’s hands. It was hard to run this session. I gave Dono, via private IM, a warning that Abyss’s next attack would be the fatal stab. With Dono’s go-ahead, I narrated the vicious, deadly blow. The shocked and angry PCs hustled Jade onto Abyss’s own shuttle and even retrieved Roke’s body. Back at Azure, he was given a hero’s funeral, inspired descriptions in the X Wing novels.
Captain Doctor Brynn, aka Dr. Bin’daki (Ogehn): The Twi’lek physician and gambler got roped into working for the Alliance after spending a lot of time escaping and evading Outer Rim crime lords. He’s yet another of those classic Star Wars Heart of Gold Scoundrels. Brynn stepped into Roke’s spot to get the party and young Jade back to Azure base, and was surprised when the Alliance made him a Captain and permanent CO. Almost immediately, the squad decided to become Roke Squad, in honor of his predecessor. Brynn has done an excellent job as CO. He is very good at keeping Tyro, the least disciplined and mature member on-task and in-line–for which the Alliance is truly grateful.
Oeghn first played Doc Brynn in an Edge of the Empire campaign that ended prematurely, which can happen to even the best campaigns. When I decided to run the AoR game, I talked him into playing Brynn again. The “Little Girl Lost” arc, with the captured Emergent Jade, was partly built around the PC. Jade, my PC in the EotE game, had been Brynn’s ward and I thought it would give him more of a stake in the extraction, which wasn’t an official Alliance op. (Not that any of the players was reluctant to get a teenaged girl out of Imperial custody.) When Brynn was promoted to Captain, I worked up a formal Officer Commission for him, and gave Ogehn the PDF, written in both English and Aurebesh, the wording adapted from the Canadian commission in a nod to my player.
Tyro Proga (Empty Bacta Tank): Tyro, to put it mildly, is an even more reluctant Alliance recruit than Dr. Brynn. He’s also one of the most unlikely. Tyro is an androgynous appearing slicer in his late teens, has barely any weapons skills, is almost asexual and not very sociable. He is a runaway from a prominent Bureau of Ships and Services (BoSS) family. His father sent a lot of bounty hunters to bring the black nerf back to the family fold, but Tyro’s skills kept him barely ahead. He was captured by an Alliance handler when he tried to slice his way into access to a Rebel safe house. She gave him a choice of being tried by the Alliance or working for them. While Tyro’s powerful slicing savvy gives Roke Squad an edge, his immaturity gives Brynn many headaches. For example, Tyro is always using his data goggles–including during briefings with the Azure Base CO and other ranking Rebel officers and agents.
I enjoy EBT’s character. He can be a bit of a challenge to GM because I don’t want to kill him (or Brynn) with threats meant to challenge the more martial PCs like Scrapper and Kyren. This has given me a lot of practice in tiered encounters. In keeping with my custom of inserting hooks for my original plots into the official modules I use, a cousin of Tyro’s was one of the rescued frigate crew when I ran “Dead in the Water.” She had some hints about Tyro’s father that will lead into an upcoming arc.
Kurt “Scrapper” Fandon (Doctor Xerox): Scrapper is an ex-merc and the squad’s heavy hitter–whether with blasters or fists–and mechanic. He was part of the mercenary group Dejarik Gambit. A Moff and the brother of Dejarik Gambit’s CO, double-crossed and sold out the team, something Scrapper isn’t about to forgive, since he considered the team and expecially his CO close family. His old Dejarik Gambit armor means a lot to him and he is slowly fixing it up in game. Scrapper has learned that some of Dejarik Gambit, including the CO’s treacherous brother, may still be active. At Port Tooga (during “Dead in the Water”), Scrapper came across a shop with second-hand armor, some of which had the unit’s insignia on it. Outraged, he questioned the shopkeeper–no “cantina” brawl resulted, but it was a near thing. Scrapper intimidated the merchant into giving him what little information he had, enough that Scrapper will be able to find the nearly-obliterated trail.
Kyren Strider (Donovan Morningfire): Kyren, the second youngest of Roke Squad, was a very small boy at the Empire’s birth. He was orphaned in a protest that was violently suppressed by the Imps and was protected by a young woman named Asori, who was a fugitive Padawan. She trained Kyren as best she could. Years later, when Imps caught up to them, they separated, intending to join up when they lost their pursuers–but Asori didn’t, and Kyren sensed, never would. Kyren met up with the surviving PCs as they made their way back to Azure Base after rescuing Jade. Kyren is the Squad’s other heavy hitter, even without his lightsaber, which he is cautious about using. He didn’t hold back with it during “Dead in the Water,” witnessed by several of the Raptor’s complement, so there are rumors spreading in the Alliance. He also didn’t hold back in Roke Squad’s second and final confrontation with Agent Abyss. Fortunately for him, no other surviving Imperials witnessed Kyren and Abyss’s duel. But the Empire knows Abyss was trying to trap Roke Squad–and the next Imps that tangle with the Squad might have a tale to tell the Inquistorious…
Flight Officer Alyxa Redstar: My PC, when my sometime Co-GM Empty Bacta Tank runs a session. Alyxa is a member of Azure Squadron, and is sometimes seconded to Roke Squad. Alyxa and Kyren have a budding relationship.
Credits: Thanks to my AoR players listed above, especially Empty Bacta Tank.
Linda Whitson
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