There are seeds for 6 Edge Careers, but a lot of them can also work for general Adventure-Ideas.I've created a series of threads to catalog adventure seeds for each of the careers. The goal of the series is to offer GMs a bank of ideas they can use to create adventures that cater to specific careers.
Each seed includes the basic hook, an overview of how the adventure plays out (the meat), and how it ends.
Career Adventure Seeds
Career Adventure Seeds
Originally started by ddbrown30 on the FFG-Forums and a lot of contribution from other members.
The Bounty hunter
Spoiler
The Hook: While on some planet for any other reason, the PCs are arrested in a public place by the local government. Be sure to set it up such that the PCs cannot escape here. If they choose to fight, the police should easily overwhelm them with stun weapons. The PCs are taken to the local station, their weapons confiscated, and then they are taken to an office.
They are greeted by a government official of some import. He set up the arrest as a way to offer the PCs a job, but also to force them into it. He implies that their rejection of his offer will mean they will be charged and punished.
The job is to find his missing bride. She disappeared recently and the local police have not been able to find her. The wedding is soon and he fears for her safety.
The Meat: Lots of flexibility here. The bride could have been kidnapped for any number of reasons. An old enemy of the employer may want revenge for some past wrong. An ex-lover of the bride may have stolen her away out of jealousy. A political rival may wish to embarrass the employer by showing he's incapable of finding even his own wife.
Alternately, the bride could have left on her own accord, possibly faking evidence of a kidnapping. Perhaps the employer is abusive. Maybe he treats her as property or an achievement rather than as an equal. This could even be combined with the "kidnapping," by having the ex-lover be her real choice of husband, with the pair attempting to escape to be together.
Tracking down the bride should reveal these truths. If the bride chose to leave, it could present the PCs with a moral decision of whether to get paid or to back out of the deal to help her.
The End: As with most of my seeds, the end can be all over the place depending on your decisions in the meat. The PCs could have some new enemies in the employer, his bride, or the kidnapper or could have earned some hefty favors with these same people. If they chose to betray the employer, they could even end up being wanted on this planet.
Hook: The PC is hired by someone to find their brother. The last anyone had seen of him he was planning an expedition to a remote part of the sector.
Meat: After gathering supplies and planning, the party should begin the search. As they explore they should find clues to the NPC's location abandoned scout probes, locals with directions, etc. Encountering wildlife and hostile natives (e.g Tusken Raiders). When they finally get to the planet the Npc is on their ship should be shot down by an ancient planetary defense system.
End: The planet they crash land on a mostly abandoned desert planet. Sensors indicate possible habitation far out into the desert. Along the way, they find either the brother or his remains along with notes about the BBEG the last of an ancient order of Darkside force users driven mad by his isolation and connection to the Darkside. If they choose to run the BBEG arrives before they can fix their ship and leave. If they try to confront him he battles them deep inside a Sith temple full of his experiments to bring people back to life.
The Hook: The PCs are hired by a crime lord to track down a debtor who is way past due on his repayment. This debtor is also wanted by the Imperials, so the PCs will need to get to him first if they want to get paid.
The Meat: The PCs will need to work fast to find the debtor. Reward clever ideas from the players and allow advantages and triumphs to fill in the rest. Be sure to build a timeline that's a fair match for your players. If the PCs do take too long, they'll have to break the target out of custody if they want to get paid.
The End: If everything goes smooth, the PCs get paid and everyone is happy (well, except for the debtor). If not, the PCs could end up on the Imperial watch list.
The Hook: The PCs are hired for what appears to be the most basic, cakewalk job - hunt down someone who's skipped bail. They were last seen fleeing to a fairly remote part of a backwater planet.
The Meat: It's a setup! A rival bounty hunter who's jealous of a PC bounty hunter's reputation has decided to rub them out and is luring them to a remote place to spring their trap. The rival and their goons have used this same planet for similar hits before, and are familiar with the terrain. They quickly act to disable the player's ship (temporarily) and drive them into the wilderness... where it turns into a deadly cat-and-mouse game.
The End: This is a duel to the death between two rivals. If the PCs win, they've eliminated a powerful enemy (and knocked a few points off an obligation.) For more tangible rewards, the rival has a stash of quality equipment at a small base he/she maintains in the area.
The Hook: There is a huge bounty on a very reclusive crime lord; alive only. She hasn't been seen in public for years, making her acquisition impossible. Just yesterday, someone close to her died. The PCs have discovered/been informed that the crime lord will be coming out of hiding to attend the funeral. Now's their chance.
The Meat: The PCs are not the only ones with this info and the payout is large enough that competition will be fierce. This is a perfect opportunity to either create a new nemesis or have an old one reappear. Rival bounty hunters should be sabotaging each other and the usual, "No Hunter Shall Slay Another Hunter" tenet seems a lot more flexible.
As for the hunt, the PCs will need to find the best time and place to attack. They might be able to acquire travel information for the target, ambushing her before or after the funeral. Lying in wait at the funeral itself will be the most obvious course of action, which means that another bounty hunter will likely have the same idea.
It's important to have a timeline set for this adventure; the whole point is that this is a once in a lifetime bounty with a very short window of opportunity. If the PCs waste too much time, they're going to miss out.
The End: If the target escapes or dies, nothing happens. If the PCs are able to capture their target, they get their huge payout and make a name for themselves. This means better jobs, but also more opposition. If a rival is able to capture the target, the PCs may try to go after the hunter. Do your best to make it clear that this would violate their code of honor and be a bad idea. If they go through with it anyway, bounties should start drying up and other hunters should become completely unhelpful or actively try to eliminate the PCs; they should still be allowed to turn in the crime lord if they are successful in their dishonorable attack, however.
The Hook: There's a bounty being offered on a target who loves to race. The PCs get word that he'll be participating in an upcoming race, but he's racing under a fake name and they don't know which entrant is actually him. Only contestant's ships are allowed near the racing area, so the PCs are going to need to enter the race in order to capture him.
The Meat: The adventure will mostly consist of piloting the race in order to keep up with the other racers until they're able to identify the target. From there, they'll need to find some way of disabling his ship (without causing mass amounts of collateral damage) in order to capture him. Alternately, if the PCs could find a way to track him, they could capture him after the race. All this needs to be done before the end of the race because the target won't be sticking around.
The End: As with all bounty seeds, successful capture means payday. Outside of that, though, there could be some legal fallout with the planet that hosted the race if the PCs cause a lot of damage or end up killing any bystanders.
Specialization: Survivalist
The Hook: The PCs are on a planet with wilderness when an important person goes missing. The person activated his emergency beacon, but it cut out a short time later. There is a large reward for the safe recovery of this person.
The Meat: The beacon gives the PCs a place to start looking. Ensure that the search area has a thick tree cover to encourage traveling by foot. The PCs should find signs of a struggle, and wilderness tracking should lead them in the right direction. Perhaps the target could drop clues as to the identity of his captors or help search teams find him.
After a few encounters with wildlife and challenges with the environment, the PCs should arrive at a hidden pirate camp. The pirates have brought the target here in order to ransom him. The PCs will need to break into the camp to extract their target.
The End: The PCs can earn an ally in this adventure if it goes well. If any of the pirates survive the encounter, it's a good opportunity to build towards a revenge adventure later.
The Hook: The bounty hunter is presented with an unusual case. Word of a bounty has come his way where the person who has put the bounty out placed it on... himself! Apparently, should he (called henceforth "the target") disappear his wife was instructed to place a lucrative bounty out for his return.
The Meat: As the heroes investigate they soon learn that the target was doing pharmaceutical work for the Zshod, a Zanibar high minister of the Population Control Committee of planet Xo. On Xo, the heroes find a brutal planet where slavery is everywhere and cruel Zanabar shows no mercy to their prisoners. It is stiflingly hot and the air burns the lungs.
Eventually, the bounty hunter will get an audience with Zshod. Soon the target is brought forth in shackles, enslaved for failing to complete his work. The target explains that disease is ravaging the native Zanibars (and notably not the offworlder slaves). To complete his work he needs a sample of the rare Xoian Starburst Flower that only grows on the volcanic mountain of Tearawe. Zshod can be talked into freeing the target should the heroes recover the flower and allow the target to complete his work.
Naturally, the heroes may not be inclined to cure the Zanabars. Let them stew on the dilemma until they arrive at the only way to save the target (shoot of blasting up the place).
The bounty hunter must trek up the hazardous mountain, braving natural dangers and vicious predators with each step. Eventually, he finds the flower and returns it to Zshod, Zshod thanks the heroes for the flower and claims the Zanabar can complete the cure. With a laugh Zshod claims the bounty hunter is too late; the target has been sold on the slave market as he is no longer needed. Havok no doubt ensues.
Once the bounty hunter is done with Zshod he is able to track the target down to the slaver in the market who sold him. The slaver will eventually confess (after some coercion) that the target was sold to the high priests to complete their ritual sacrifice.
As if the heroes haven't been through enough, they must somehow enter the High Temple and save their target from certain death. Violence no doubt ensues.
The End: Once the target is successfully reunited with his wife the bounty is happily paid. The heroes now have a grateful contact with medical skills to call on in the future.
The Hook: Find a missing local businessman that owes a debt to some shady businessman, bring him back dead or alive.
The meat: Man has family, the family tries to convince the group to help him instead.
The End: capture, kill, aid him or decide not to follow through with it.
The Hook: Bounty hunt for a scientist's lab assistant.
The Meat: Assistant is a human replica droid with highly classified information about the experiments being done. Willing to release the information so the scientist urges you not to listen to it.
The End: Capture, rescue or kill droid. If the group listens to the information from the droid, the scientist hires local thugs to take you out and capture the droid.
The Hook: Track and kill serial murderer that is targeting black market dealers specializing in the spice trade.
The Meat: Bounty is pushed to the edge of sanity due to a loved one's drug overdose.
The End: Capture, kill, aid in taking down dealers, or leave him to his own problems.
The Hook: Trilas, one of the Hunter's mentors, sends them a holocomm message. He was attacked, and nearly killed by mercenaries sent after him, and needs their help getting to the bottom of it.
The Meat: He sends them to the site of his attack on Socorro to investigate who hired the mercenaries, and to track down who ordered the hit. PC finds out that it was the rival of one of his proteges, both of whom are in the current Great Hunt, who was afraid they would call on the mentor and surpass them.
The End: Find the rival as they are on their own hunt and 'make them pay'. Capture, defeat, extract blood money from or perhaps kill another Hunter, weighing against interference with the Great Hunt.
Side Complication: Tracking the Rival may mean finding the bounty they are on and tracking that themselves. perhaps even taking his credit.
The Hook: The PC and his crew, stationed on Tatooine (I know, real creative, right?) are brought in for "questioning" by the local Imperial administrator. This, of course, is simply a cover to hire them. He tells the crew that his brother, a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy, recently crash-landed on the backwater forest world of Rothana in the Outer Rim. The Empire has set Rothana up as a dumping ground for "undesirables" (pirates, smugglers, gangsters, and other assorted scumbags) who are kept on the planet by a low-orbiting array of auto-targeting turbo lasers that pulverize any ship that attempts to leave. The only way to get past the lasers is with the bypass code, which is generated randomly every half hour. The lasers, however, do not target incoming ships, which allows "residents" with adequate resources to stay supplied with food, weapons, vehicles, and other necessities through the use of drone ships. Lawless does not begin to describe this place. The administrator informs the crew that the Empire does not deem one junior officer worthy of a rescue effort, so the crew must perform the task. They must land on Rothana and rescue his brother. Only after confirmation that the brother is alive and in their custody will they be given the bypass code to leave. If they do not locate the brother, or find he is dead, they will be permanent residents of Pzob. If they refuse to take the job, they will be arrested, and sent to Pzob. Upon success, though, they will be paid 30,000 credits.
The Meat: After surviving as many encounters and battles as the GM deems necessary, the party will eventually find the lieutenant alive and relatively undamaged. However, he immediately asks for their help. He wants to defect to the Rebellion. He was on his way to meet with a Rebel cell when his ship was damaged by stray space debris above Pzob, which caused him to crash. He asks the party to take him to meet with the Rebels instead of returning him to his brother.
The End: The party has 3 choices here. They could return the lieutenant to his brother and not tell him about his intentions to join the Rebellion. They could return him and rat him out for his treason. Or they could deliver him to the Rebels, per his request. Each scenario has potentially vastly different rewards and consequences.
They are greeted by a government official of some import. He set up the arrest as a way to offer the PCs a job, but also to force them into it. He implies that their rejection of his offer will mean they will be charged and punished.
The job is to find his missing bride. She disappeared recently and the local police have not been able to find her. The wedding is soon and he fears for her safety.
The Meat: Lots of flexibility here. The bride could have been kidnapped for any number of reasons. An old enemy of the employer may want revenge for some past wrong. An ex-lover of the bride may have stolen her away out of jealousy. A political rival may wish to embarrass the employer by showing he's incapable of finding even his own wife.
Alternately, the bride could have left on her own accord, possibly faking evidence of a kidnapping. Perhaps the employer is abusive. Maybe he treats her as property or an achievement rather than as an equal. This could even be combined with the "kidnapping," by having the ex-lover be her real choice of husband, with the pair attempting to escape to be together.
Tracking down the bride should reveal these truths. If the bride chose to leave, it could present the PCs with a moral decision of whether to get paid or to back out of the deal to help her.
The End: As with most of my seeds, the end can be all over the place depending on your decisions in the meat. The PCs could have some new enemies in the employer, his bride, or the kidnapper or could have earned some hefty favors with these same people. If they chose to betray the employer, they could even end up being wanted on this planet.
Hook: The PC is hired by someone to find their brother. The last anyone had seen of him he was planning an expedition to a remote part of the sector.
Meat: After gathering supplies and planning, the party should begin the search. As they explore they should find clues to the NPC's location abandoned scout probes, locals with directions, etc. Encountering wildlife and hostile natives (e.g Tusken Raiders). When they finally get to the planet the Npc is on their ship should be shot down by an ancient planetary defense system.
End: The planet they crash land on a mostly abandoned desert planet. Sensors indicate possible habitation far out into the desert. Along the way, they find either the brother or his remains along with notes about the BBEG the last of an ancient order of Darkside force users driven mad by his isolation and connection to the Darkside. If they choose to run the BBEG arrives before they can fix their ship and leave. If they try to confront him he battles them deep inside a Sith temple full of his experiments to bring people back to life.
The Hook: The PCs are hired by a crime lord to track down a debtor who is way past due on his repayment. This debtor is also wanted by the Imperials, so the PCs will need to get to him first if they want to get paid.
The Meat: The PCs will need to work fast to find the debtor. Reward clever ideas from the players and allow advantages and triumphs to fill in the rest. Be sure to build a timeline that's a fair match for your players. If the PCs do take too long, they'll have to break the target out of custody if they want to get paid.
The End: If everything goes smooth, the PCs get paid and everyone is happy (well, except for the debtor). If not, the PCs could end up on the Imperial watch list.
The Hook: The PCs are hired for what appears to be the most basic, cakewalk job - hunt down someone who's skipped bail. They were last seen fleeing to a fairly remote part of a backwater planet.
The Meat: It's a setup! A rival bounty hunter who's jealous of a PC bounty hunter's reputation has decided to rub them out and is luring them to a remote place to spring their trap. The rival and their goons have used this same planet for similar hits before, and are familiar with the terrain. They quickly act to disable the player's ship (temporarily) and drive them into the wilderness... where it turns into a deadly cat-and-mouse game.
The End: This is a duel to the death between two rivals. If the PCs win, they've eliminated a powerful enemy (and knocked a few points off an obligation.) For more tangible rewards, the rival has a stash of quality equipment at a small base he/she maintains in the area.
The Hook: There is a huge bounty on a very reclusive crime lord; alive only. She hasn't been seen in public for years, making her acquisition impossible. Just yesterday, someone close to her died. The PCs have discovered/been informed that the crime lord will be coming out of hiding to attend the funeral. Now's their chance.
The Meat: The PCs are not the only ones with this info and the payout is large enough that competition will be fierce. This is a perfect opportunity to either create a new nemesis or have an old one reappear. Rival bounty hunters should be sabotaging each other and the usual, "No Hunter Shall Slay Another Hunter" tenet seems a lot more flexible.
As for the hunt, the PCs will need to find the best time and place to attack. They might be able to acquire travel information for the target, ambushing her before or after the funeral. Lying in wait at the funeral itself will be the most obvious course of action, which means that another bounty hunter will likely have the same idea.
It's important to have a timeline set for this adventure; the whole point is that this is a once in a lifetime bounty with a very short window of opportunity. If the PCs waste too much time, they're going to miss out.
The End: If the target escapes or dies, nothing happens. If the PCs are able to capture their target, they get their huge payout and make a name for themselves. This means better jobs, but also more opposition. If a rival is able to capture the target, the PCs may try to go after the hunter. Do your best to make it clear that this would violate their code of honor and be a bad idea. If they go through with it anyway, bounties should start drying up and other hunters should become completely unhelpful or actively try to eliminate the PCs; they should still be allowed to turn in the crime lord if they are successful in their dishonorable attack, however.
The Hook: There's a bounty being offered on a target who loves to race. The PCs get word that he'll be participating in an upcoming race, but he's racing under a fake name and they don't know which entrant is actually him. Only contestant's ships are allowed near the racing area, so the PCs are going to need to enter the race in order to capture him.
The Meat: The adventure will mostly consist of piloting the race in order to keep up with the other racers until they're able to identify the target. From there, they'll need to find some way of disabling his ship (without causing mass amounts of collateral damage) in order to capture him. Alternately, if the PCs could find a way to track him, they could capture him after the race. All this needs to be done before the end of the race because the target won't be sticking around.
The End: As with all bounty seeds, successful capture means payday. Outside of that, though, there could be some legal fallout with the planet that hosted the race if the PCs cause a lot of damage or end up killing any bystanders.
Specialization: Survivalist
The Hook: The PCs are on a planet with wilderness when an important person goes missing. The person activated his emergency beacon, but it cut out a short time later. There is a large reward for the safe recovery of this person.
The Meat: The beacon gives the PCs a place to start looking. Ensure that the search area has a thick tree cover to encourage traveling by foot. The PCs should find signs of a struggle, and wilderness tracking should lead them in the right direction. Perhaps the target could drop clues as to the identity of his captors or help search teams find him.
After a few encounters with wildlife and challenges with the environment, the PCs should arrive at a hidden pirate camp. The pirates have brought the target here in order to ransom him. The PCs will need to break into the camp to extract their target.
The End: The PCs can earn an ally in this adventure if it goes well. If any of the pirates survive the encounter, it's a good opportunity to build towards a revenge adventure later.
The Hook: The bounty hunter is presented with an unusual case. Word of a bounty has come his way where the person who has put the bounty out placed it on... himself! Apparently, should he (called henceforth "the target") disappear his wife was instructed to place a lucrative bounty out for his return.
The Meat: As the heroes investigate they soon learn that the target was doing pharmaceutical work for the Zshod, a Zanibar high minister of the Population Control Committee of planet Xo. On Xo, the heroes find a brutal planet where slavery is everywhere and cruel Zanabar shows no mercy to their prisoners. It is stiflingly hot and the air burns the lungs.
Eventually, the bounty hunter will get an audience with Zshod. Soon the target is brought forth in shackles, enslaved for failing to complete his work. The target explains that disease is ravaging the native Zanibars (and notably not the offworlder slaves). To complete his work he needs a sample of the rare Xoian Starburst Flower that only grows on the volcanic mountain of Tearawe. Zshod can be talked into freeing the target should the heroes recover the flower and allow the target to complete his work.
Naturally, the heroes may not be inclined to cure the Zanabars. Let them stew on the dilemma until they arrive at the only way to save the target (shoot of blasting up the place).
The bounty hunter must trek up the hazardous mountain, braving natural dangers and vicious predators with each step. Eventually, he finds the flower and returns it to Zshod, Zshod thanks the heroes for the flower and claims the Zanabar can complete the cure. With a laugh Zshod claims the bounty hunter is too late; the target has been sold on the slave market as he is no longer needed. Havok no doubt ensues.
Once the bounty hunter is done with Zshod he is able to track the target down to the slaver in the market who sold him. The slaver will eventually confess (after some coercion) that the target was sold to the high priests to complete their ritual sacrifice.
As if the heroes haven't been through enough, they must somehow enter the High Temple and save their target from certain death. Violence no doubt ensues.
The End: Once the target is successfully reunited with his wife the bounty is happily paid. The heroes now have a grateful contact with medical skills to call on in the future.
The Hook: Find a missing local businessman that owes a debt to some shady businessman, bring him back dead or alive.
The meat: Man has family, the family tries to convince the group to help him instead.
The End: capture, kill, aid him or decide not to follow through with it.
The Hook: Bounty hunt for a scientist's lab assistant.
The Meat: Assistant is a human replica droid with highly classified information about the experiments being done. Willing to release the information so the scientist urges you not to listen to it.
The End: Capture, rescue or kill droid. If the group listens to the information from the droid, the scientist hires local thugs to take you out and capture the droid.
The Hook: Track and kill serial murderer that is targeting black market dealers specializing in the spice trade.
The Meat: Bounty is pushed to the edge of sanity due to a loved one's drug overdose.
The End: Capture, kill, aid in taking down dealers, or leave him to his own problems.
The Hook: Trilas, one of the Hunter's mentors, sends them a holocomm message. He was attacked, and nearly killed by mercenaries sent after him, and needs their help getting to the bottom of it.
The Meat: He sends them to the site of his attack on Socorro to investigate who hired the mercenaries, and to track down who ordered the hit. PC finds out that it was the rival of one of his proteges, both of whom are in the current Great Hunt, who was afraid they would call on the mentor and surpass them.
The End: Find the rival as they are on their own hunt and 'make them pay'. Capture, defeat, extract blood money from or perhaps kill another Hunter, weighing against interference with the Great Hunt.
Side Complication: Tracking the Rival may mean finding the bounty they are on and tracking that themselves. perhaps even taking his credit.
The Hook: The PC and his crew, stationed on Tatooine (I know, real creative, right?) are brought in for "questioning" by the local Imperial administrator. This, of course, is simply a cover to hire them. He tells the crew that his brother, a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy, recently crash-landed on the backwater forest world of Rothana in the Outer Rim. The Empire has set Rothana up as a dumping ground for "undesirables" (pirates, smugglers, gangsters, and other assorted scumbags) who are kept on the planet by a low-orbiting array of auto-targeting turbo lasers that pulverize any ship that attempts to leave. The only way to get past the lasers is with the bypass code, which is generated randomly every half hour. The lasers, however, do not target incoming ships, which allows "residents" with adequate resources to stay supplied with food, weapons, vehicles, and other necessities through the use of drone ships. Lawless does not begin to describe this place. The administrator informs the crew that the Empire does not deem one junior officer worthy of a rescue effort, so the crew must perform the task. They must land on Rothana and rescue his brother. Only after confirmation that the brother is alive and in their custody will they be given the bypass code to leave. If they do not locate the brother, or find he is dead, they will be permanent residents of Pzob. If they refuse to take the job, they will be arrested, and sent to Pzob. Upon success, though, they will be paid 30,000 credits.
The Meat: After surviving as many encounters and battles as the GM deems necessary, the party will eventually find the lieutenant alive and relatively undamaged. However, he immediately asks for their help. He wants to defect to the Rebellion. He was on his way to meet with a Rebel cell when his ship was damaged by stray space debris above Pzob, which caused him to crash. He asks the party to take him to meet with the Rebels instead of returning him to his brother.
The End: The party has 3 choices here. They could return the lieutenant to his brother and not tell him about his intentions to join the Rebellion. They could return him and rat him out for his treason. Or they could deliver him to the Rebels, per his request. Each scenario has potentially vastly different rewards and consequences.
The Colonist
Spoiler
Specialization: Politico
The Hook: There are two crime families that have been fighting each other for years. For some reason (leadership change/especially brutal battle/whatever), they would like to end hostilities. They hire the PCs to help mediate the negotiations and keep everyone in line.
The Meat: Not everyone within the families are sold on this idea; there will be attempts from both sides to sabotage the meeting. The negotiations themselves should offer many opportunities for social challenges as the PCs try to keep both parties cool and focused. As tempers flare, some of the more "direct" of the PCs may need to step in to keep everyone under control. The PCs should also spend time investigating both sides to root out any potential saboteurs, but allow them to come to this idea on their own.
Unless the PCs are especially successful, I would suggest having at least one sabotage effort succeed. This should have a twofold effect on the adventure. First and most obvious, it will setback the negotiations and will require work from the PCs to mellow things out. The second, and most important, is it will give the non-social PCs something to do; tracking down and exposing the saboteur will help the negotiations immensely, especially when it's revealed that the saboteur was acting without consent from their leadership.
The End: Successful mediation should be rewarded with both monetary rewards as well as a few valuable and powerful contacts. Failure could lead to some bad blood, especially if any key players are killed.
Specialization: Doctor
The Hook: Before leaving his old life, the PC Doctor was known as the best splanch surgeon in the Core. He is contacted by a person one might consider evil, maybe even an enemy, who is suffering from MacGuffinitis of the splanch and offers the PC a large sum to help them. First, they'll need to pick up the splanch. Second, the doctor will need to perform the splanch transplant.
If you can, selecting a patient with whom the PCs have an obligation would be an excellent choice. Saving someone's life is a great way to earn their favor.
The Meat: Unsurprisingly, the splanch the PCs are to acquire was not attained through legitimate channels. The PCs should have to deal with the authorities or whatever other person/organization that has an interest in retrieving the splanch (perhaps a much more deserving recipient).
If the PCs are successful in smuggling the splanch, the surgery can begin. It's important that the surgery takes place under duress. To set this up, have the Doctor start the surgery and then, after removing the old splanch, have something happen. My suggestion would be to either have an enemy of the patient, someone within his organization or someone looking for the splanch starts attacking. The attack should give the rest of the PCs something to do while the Doctor tries to keep focused on the surgery. Be sure to add setback dice liberally as the Doctor is disturbed.
The End: If the surgery is successful, the patient is grateful and rewards the PCs generously, and becomes a valuable contact for the group. If the patient dies, there could be a very tense and dangerous situation for the PCs to escape.
It's possible that the PCs could betray the patient earlier in the adventure. It may even be possible that they kill the patient on purpose. In this case, they should earn rewards/contacts from whomever they helped. They may even earn some reputation as outlaws with golden hearts, which could be both a help and a hindrance in the future.
Specialization: Scholar
The Hook: The scholar is hired by a wealthy patron (Hutt crime lord, corporate executive, obligation holder, whatever) to represent him at an auction for a valuable piece of holo-art. The patron makes a near unlimited credit line available with the admonishment that the heroes had better make sure it's the real thing. If it is they had better come back with that art, no excuses will be tolerated!
The Meat: The scholar validates the artwork as the legitimate piece in question. The heroes learn that the previous owner died rather unexpectedly and his estate is being auctioned off to cover his numerous debts, most of which involved his insatiable habit of acquiring precious art. After a tense bidding war, the heroes' massive credit line wins the day.
Now that the scholar and his friends have it the real problem becomes keeping it. The scholar must dodge thieves, thugs, and ISB agents all of whom want to get that holo-art. In one case the piece is stolen and mixed in with three expertly crafted duplicates; only by using his keen eyes can the scholar recover the real one.
Finally, after many harrowing experiences, the scholar is approached by a party indicating that they represent the Rebel Alliance. They claim that the holo-art contains a unique cipher that is the key to decrypting a code used by Rebel agents planted throughout the galaxy. The previous owner was Rebel cell leader in secret and how this holo-art could put countless agents in jeopardy! The Rebels admit that one of the theft attempts was by their doing; they simply must have that cipher back.
Using his scholarly ways, the scholar verifies the Rebel's claim. Now, what to do? The Rebels aren't taking no for an answer and as a last resort, they'll try to take the holo-art by force (too many lives are at stake). Note that the Rebels will try to use non-lethal means unless the players respond with deadly force.
The End: The scholar and the other heroes face a major dilemma. The ISB knows they have the holo-art, the Rebels need it, and their patron made it emphatic that he expects them to return with the goods. No matter what they chose the heroes will owe someone some obligation. The question is, will they still have their souls?
Specialization: Doctor
The Hook: The PC is sought out by the leader of a powerful criminal organization. The group travels to the criminal leader's homeworld to learn the terrible things this leader has done and continues to do to the people of his homeworld. The group encounters residents who beg them to let the criminal die and help them gain freedom from his grasp.
The Meat: The adventure begins with a space encounter, in which the party is hailed by a ship of unknown origins. The group then must choose whether to allow the ship's representative onboard or to fight or flee. Ultimately, the representative informs the party of a very lucrative opportunity to help a powerful leader of his organization. This leader is presented as an important philanthropist and businessman of his homeworld. He has a deadly disease that only a skilled doctor can cure.
Upon arrival at said homeworld, the players note the suffering of the common people who live just outside the extravagant palace of the man they intend to help. While on their way, they are surrounded by a group of armed men who claim they mean no harm but have been instructed to take the PC group to their boss. This boss turns out to be the leader of a resistance group who seeks the downfall of the businessman that the PC group has been hired to help. The leader claims the businessman is a criminal and has gained his position through the murder and oppression of commoners.
After meeting both the resistance leader and the businessman himself, the PC group must decide whether to help the businessman or help the resistance. They could even pretend to help the resistance while truly intending to betray them to the businessman's goons. Alternately, the doctor could pretend to do the surgery and secretly kill the businessman, claiming the surgery didn't work. Whatever the case it should prove an interesting adventure.
The End: If the doctor saves the businessman successfully, then they are paid well and offered a position within the organization to help further their cause. However, they create an enemy in the resistance leader and may incur obligation from them. Then again, they could divulge all the information to the businessman and help him snuff out the resistance.
If the doctor refuses to help, then they could plot with the resistance to overthrow the businessman. This would mean less monetary reward, but they would gain the favor of the common people and help to liberate a whole town from an oppressive regime. If they leave anyone alive from the businessman's family, they could have an obligation of that family member seeking revenge.
The ending could also vary if the doctor kills the businessman purposely during surgery or fails to successfully complete the surgery. They may incur the wrath of both groups on the planet and have a double obligation!
Specialization: Politico
The Hook: The Politico PC receives a holovid from the chief of staff to an old friend (here named X) who achieved notoriety as a senator on the planet [GM's choice]. Apparently, the chief of staff is putting out a bounty for the safe return of Senator X and chose to specifically beam this to the Politico as well as posting it.
The Meat: After conversing with the chief of staff the Politico learns that Senator X was in a tight electoral race with Dardon Black, a candidate from the relatively new and powerful Rising Dawn party. It is revealed that the Senator was head of the Ethics Committee and was prepared to launch an investigation into links between the Rising Dawn and a manufactured exports mega-firm named [GM's choice]. The mega-firm stands to reap mammoth financial gain when a tax exemption bill comes before the senate in two days, giving the firm a massive trade advantage. How the firm has managed to gain so much political support as to have such a bill brought to the floor is unknown to the chief of staff. Further, he suspects the Rising Dawn of corruption as they are supremely funded, came out of nowhere, and Senator X disappeared within two days of the crucial vote which he led the opposition against.
The chief of staff recommends the Politico (& allies) sneak into Dardon Black’s Rising Dawn campaign office after hours and see what clues they can find. Oddly, the heroes will note three Aqualish (or thugs of choice) hanging around outside the campaign office during the evening. After much sneaking in the heroes will have an opportunity to slice the Rising Dawn's records. First, they uncover evidence that the Rising Dawn's financial benefactor, and strong arm, is none other than the dreaded Black Sun criminal syndicate! Also, they find in Dardon Black's itinerary three suspicious visits to the mega-firm's warehouse in the shipping district. The evidence points to looking there next.
The mega-firm's warehouse is patrolled by thugs but they should be easy to sneak around or deal with if the players are smart. Inside the warehouse, they find crates marked for export that contains what their labels state. However, the crates marked as imports actually contain smuggled blasters. The Black Sun is using the shipping business as a front to run guns onto this peaceful planet!
There are three large bays in the warehouse with a small two-story office setup inside. The bottom floor offices contain a few thugs [minions] and one enforcer [rival NPC]. There is an exterior stairway to the second floor, allowing stealthy heroes access without disturbing the Black Sun goons. Through the window of the second-floor office, they see the trapped Senator X. The heroes can now either use skullduggery to bypass the door lock or break the glass if they don't care about attracting attention. Any subtle plan should be given a good chance of success without rousing the thugs.
Once Senator X is freed he tells the Politico that his wounds have left him too weak to visit the planetary senate floor. The senator grants the Politico emergency powers to represent his district in the senate. Now it's up to the politico to debate and defeat the Rising Dawn bill favoring the mega-firm while also presenting the evidence of their foul deeds. Have the Politico make opposed checks against the Rising Dawn's leading senator, who of course is outraged, in order to sway the senate to the side of the truth.
The End: If the Politico wins the day with his wordsmithing skills the Rising Dawn is done for. The senator and his chief of staff are thankful for the heroes good deeds and make good on paying the bounty promised at the beginning of the adventure. If the PCs refuse the bounty, thinking their heroics were justified, then consider an XP bonus instead.
Specialization: Politico (or any social-oriented Face)
The Hook: The PCs get the word (by the news, family, at a bar, etc) that a planet one of them is connected to is about to change it's citizenship laws to include only landowners; currently, only citizens are under the protection of the planetary army, and the Empire plans to round up the landless people (probably non-human) for slave labor. It should be a sign of corruption/Imperial intervention that this law will strip people of their citizenship. This hooks the PCs if they are actively anti-slavery, or if they have friends/family who could become enslaved.
The Meat: Many different ways for PCs to approach this. One of the simplest and shortest-reaching ones is to raise money to buy land for their friends/family in need; this should be expensive for some reason (landowner fees, high cost of land, etc), and make it clear that the rest of the people on the planet are still in trouble.
The PCs can get political and team up with a senator on the planet's senate who opposes the bill. Perhaps a businessman/politician has plans to get rich off of selling the slaves from the region he governs. This political enemy should have criminal connections that the PCs can exploit; while the PCs' face handles the Senate (the senator is attacked or gets sick and the Face needs to step in for him, as he is the best choice due to his convictions), the other characters can search the local underworld for clues and connections. Lots of places for Enforcers, Slicers, and Thieves to get involved here.
When the bill comes up in court, the Face should have some resources and evidence to use against the Political Enemy that his buddies (other PCs) got for him in their efforts, gaining boost die/decreasing the difficulty of checks for different points he brings up, especially if he's able to cast a bad light on the Political Enemy with some evidence. To simulate the winning over of Senators, you could build a light side/dark side pool of destiny points to represent the swaying over of lawmakers; it should start about 1/3 anti-slavery, 2/3 pro-slavery to represent the pressure the Empire is putting on them to make this happen.
The End: The Senate opposes the Empire-backed bill and it fails, saving the poor from slavery and rallying the planet's leaders against the Empire. This could result in some Imperial obligation, as the PCs (especially the face) just set precedent and dealt a political blow to them. The Rebellion could become interested in their services elsewhere, and they could obtain some powerful friends on the planet. The Political Enemy could become a recurring Nemesis.
Specialization: Doctor
The Hook: Small camp of refugees from Alderaan seeking medical aid after being released from an Imperial interrogation facility.
The Meat: refugees are Rebel sympathizers, Imperials still tracking them and make you an offer of you hand them over.
The End: hand over sympathizers, refuse, leave them to their own fates, take them all out.
Specialization: Doctor
The Hook: Bloodied man in the road in dire need of medical attention. Whether the medical check is successful or not, he tells them that more of his men are hurt and where they are. If he is healed, he joins the group as an NPC for this job. The group needs to find a swoop gang and rescue the man's pals.
The Meat: The gang knew you were coming and were prepared. Group is possibly captured and has to escape.
The End: Rescue men or not, take out gang or sneak out.
Specialization: Any, preferably not Doctor. If doctor, make sure they are more of a simple field medic or local doctor, not someone who would know how to do medical research. Family obligation or Cure motivation highly encouraged
The Hook: The colonist has a sick family member, with a rare disease that has left them bedridden. Coughing, fever, nosebleeds, partial paralysis. They require constant care, but if they get such care they won't die. However, this is a miserable way to live and there is no cure for this disease, so the colonist sets out to find one by any means necessary (queue reason for joining the other PCs, most likely).
The Meat: When in a less-than-scrupulous city, the colonist runs across a doctor that the locals swear is a miracle worker, and has helped them in numerous, almost miraculous ways. He tells the PC to bring him a vial of his family member's blood and that he'll take a look at it. This kicks off a series of 'errands' for the good doctor in which the PC isn't sure if he is getting things to help him develop a cure, or just being an errand boy played for a fool. I am using a messaging device to allow the two to communicate, and to assign appropriate tasks at the right time. For instance, upon landing on a jungle planet, he mentions he needs the adrenal gland of a jungle predator that secretes a substance that separates poisons from its blood. The only issue? Gotta get it to him alive or the gland will be useless for harvest. Later, he's going to need some advanced materials the PCs will have to steal from a storehouse. The possibilities go on, string him along as long as you feel like.
The End: Personally, this is my plan for the end of it. The doctor is a psychopathic mad scientist who was fired by the Tenloss Syndicate for being too extreme even for them, and he is constantly doing weapons research, trying to find something, anything that will make the Syndicate regret not doing things his way. He's only been doing good for the locals so they shield him from scrutiny. He absolutely plans on finding a cure for the PC, but only because he has first managed to weaponize the disease his family member suffers from. After delivering the cure at the end of the adventure arc, it works! His/her family member is totally cured. A few days later though, they begin to see news across the holonet of other people getting a similar-sounding disease, terrorized by a madman who ransoms off a cure to the victims. So congratulations, the PC has accomplished their goals, only to accidentally unleash their family's special brand of hell upon the galaxy... in the hands of a terrorist. Perhaps someone learns that his family member was patient zero and their blood the source of the cure, and begins to look for them, triggering yet another adventure...
Specialization: Marshall
The Hook: On the rural farming/ranching colony where the PCs live, one of their neighbors, Randar Culler, travels to their homestead and asks them for help to find his missing daughter. If there is no Marshall in the group, who, as sheriff, would do it over a contract, obligation or money could also be used. Randar takes them over to his house. Their discussions with Randar indicate that he has bad blood with another neighbor, Burt Hoglar.
The Meat: For whatever reason, the daughter traveled on an animal when she left for town. The tracks lead them into the territory of Burt Hoglar, who owns the land between the Culler's home and town. They should, logically, want to confront Burt. Burt explains that much of his land used to belong to the Cullers, but he won it in a game of Sabacc. The bad blood between the two farmers seems to be reciprocated, however. While the PCs can off on a wild bantha chase investigating Burt, they eventually discover that the daughter actually turned around, away from town. They again must follow the tracks. (A colonist can get survival as a career skill by having their homestead be a ranch.) Regardless, the tracks eventually stop, but at this point, in the wilderness. However, contacting someone allows them to know that a certain ship left from that area. This person can use their legal powers, or a PC can then slice their way into finding that that same ship is now docked at a nearby planet. Once they find the ship, it is fairly simple to track her down, and they find her at a bar with another person, who turns out to be the pilot of the ship.
The End: They must charm, coerce, or negotiate with her to find out that she actually wanted to get off-world anyway, but her father arranged for her to get off-world stealthily so that he could blame her "disappearance" on Burt Hoglar. They return to the original planet, only to find that Randar Culler and several others have formed a mob at the Hoglar homestead. Hoglar is badly wounded, and soon to be killed, so the PCs must calm down the crowd and reveal the truth.
The Hook: There are two crime families that have been fighting each other for years. For some reason (leadership change/especially brutal battle/whatever), they would like to end hostilities. They hire the PCs to help mediate the negotiations and keep everyone in line.
The Meat: Not everyone within the families are sold on this idea; there will be attempts from both sides to sabotage the meeting. The negotiations themselves should offer many opportunities for social challenges as the PCs try to keep both parties cool and focused. As tempers flare, some of the more "direct" of the PCs may need to step in to keep everyone under control. The PCs should also spend time investigating both sides to root out any potential saboteurs, but allow them to come to this idea on their own.
Unless the PCs are especially successful, I would suggest having at least one sabotage effort succeed. This should have a twofold effect on the adventure. First and most obvious, it will setback the negotiations and will require work from the PCs to mellow things out. The second, and most important, is it will give the non-social PCs something to do; tracking down and exposing the saboteur will help the negotiations immensely, especially when it's revealed that the saboteur was acting without consent from their leadership.
The End: Successful mediation should be rewarded with both monetary rewards as well as a few valuable and powerful contacts. Failure could lead to some bad blood, especially if any key players are killed.
Specialization: Doctor
The Hook: Before leaving his old life, the PC Doctor was known as the best splanch surgeon in the Core. He is contacted by a person one might consider evil, maybe even an enemy, who is suffering from MacGuffinitis of the splanch and offers the PC a large sum to help them. First, they'll need to pick up the splanch. Second, the doctor will need to perform the splanch transplant.
If you can, selecting a patient with whom the PCs have an obligation would be an excellent choice. Saving someone's life is a great way to earn their favor.
The Meat: Unsurprisingly, the splanch the PCs are to acquire was not attained through legitimate channels. The PCs should have to deal with the authorities or whatever other person/organization that has an interest in retrieving the splanch (perhaps a much more deserving recipient).
If the PCs are successful in smuggling the splanch, the surgery can begin. It's important that the surgery takes place under duress. To set this up, have the Doctor start the surgery and then, after removing the old splanch, have something happen. My suggestion would be to either have an enemy of the patient, someone within his organization or someone looking for the splanch starts attacking. The attack should give the rest of the PCs something to do while the Doctor tries to keep focused on the surgery. Be sure to add setback dice liberally as the Doctor is disturbed.
The End: If the surgery is successful, the patient is grateful and rewards the PCs generously, and becomes a valuable contact for the group. If the patient dies, there could be a very tense and dangerous situation for the PCs to escape.
It's possible that the PCs could betray the patient earlier in the adventure. It may even be possible that they kill the patient on purpose. In this case, they should earn rewards/contacts from whomever they helped. They may even earn some reputation as outlaws with golden hearts, which could be both a help and a hindrance in the future.
Specialization: Scholar
The Hook: The scholar is hired by a wealthy patron (Hutt crime lord, corporate executive, obligation holder, whatever) to represent him at an auction for a valuable piece of holo-art. The patron makes a near unlimited credit line available with the admonishment that the heroes had better make sure it's the real thing. If it is they had better come back with that art, no excuses will be tolerated!
The Meat: The scholar validates the artwork as the legitimate piece in question. The heroes learn that the previous owner died rather unexpectedly and his estate is being auctioned off to cover his numerous debts, most of which involved his insatiable habit of acquiring precious art. After a tense bidding war, the heroes' massive credit line wins the day.
Now that the scholar and his friends have it the real problem becomes keeping it. The scholar must dodge thieves, thugs, and ISB agents all of whom want to get that holo-art. In one case the piece is stolen and mixed in with three expertly crafted duplicates; only by using his keen eyes can the scholar recover the real one.
Finally, after many harrowing experiences, the scholar is approached by a party indicating that they represent the Rebel Alliance. They claim that the holo-art contains a unique cipher that is the key to decrypting a code used by Rebel agents planted throughout the galaxy. The previous owner was Rebel cell leader in secret and how this holo-art could put countless agents in jeopardy! The Rebels admit that one of the theft attempts was by their doing; they simply must have that cipher back.
Using his scholarly ways, the scholar verifies the Rebel's claim. Now, what to do? The Rebels aren't taking no for an answer and as a last resort, they'll try to take the holo-art by force (too many lives are at stake). Note that the Rebels will try to use non-lethal means unless the players respond with deadly force.
The End: The scholar and the other heroes face a major dilemma. The ISB knows they have the holo-art, the Rebels need it, and their patron made it emphatic that he expects them to return with the goods. No matter what they chose the heroes will owe someone some obligation. The question is, will they still have their souls?
Specialization: Doctor
The Hook: The PC is sought out by the leader of a powerful criminal organization. The group travels to the criminal leader's homeworld to learn the terrible things this leader has done and continues to do to the people of his homeworld. The group encounters residents who beg them to let the criminal die and help them gain freedom from his grasp.
The Meat: The adventure begins with a space encounter, in which the party is hailed by a ship of unknown origins. The group then must choose whether to allow the ship's representative onboard or to fight or flee. Ultimately, the representative informs the party of a very lucrative opportunity to help a powerful leader of his organization. This leader is presented as an important philanthropist and businessman of his homeworld. He has a deadly disease that only a skilled doctor can cure.
Upon arrival at said homeworld, the players note the suffering of the common people who live just outside the extravagant palace of the man they intend to help. While on their way, they are surrounded by a group of armed men who claim they mean no harm but have been instructed to take the PC group to their boss. This boss turns out to be the leader of a resistance group who seeks the downfall of the businessman that the PC group has been hired to help. The leader claims the businessman is a criminal and has gained his position through the murder and oppression of commoners.
After meeting both the resistance leader and the businessman himself, the PC group must decide whether to help the businessman or help the resistance. They could even pretend to help the resistance while truly intending to betray them to the businessman's goons. Alternately, the doctor could pretend to do the surgery and secretly kill the businessman, claiming the surgery didn't work. Whatever the case it should prove an interesting adventure.
The End: If the doctor saves the businessman successfully, then they are paid well and offered a position within the organization to help further their cause. However, they create an enemy in the resistance leader and may incur obligation from them. Then again, they could divulge all the information to the businessman and help him snuff out the resistance.
If the doctor refuses to help, then they could plot with the resistance to overthrow the businessman. This would mean less monetary reward, but they would gain the favor of the common people and help to liberate a whole town from an oppressive regime. If they leave anyone alive from the businessman's family, they could have an obligation of that family member seeking revenge.
The ending could also vary if the doctor kills the businessman purposely during surgery or fails to successfully complete the surgery. They may incur the wrath of both groups on the planet and have a double obligation!
Specialization: Politico
The Hook: The Politico PC receives a holovid from the chief of staff to an old friend (here named X) who achieved notoriety as a senator on the planet [GM's choice]. Apparently, the chief of staff is putting out a bounty for the safe return of Senator X and chose to specifically beam this to the Politico as well as posting it.
The Meat: After conversing with the chief of staff the Politico learns that Senator X was in a tight electoral race with Dardon Black, a candidate from the relatively new and powerful Rising Dawn party. It is revealed that the Senator was head of the Ethics Committee and was prepared to launch an investigation into links between the Rising Dawn and a manufactured exports mega-firm named [GM's choice]. The mega-firm stands to reap mammoth financial gain when a tax exemption bill comes before the senate in two days, giving the firm a massive trade advantage. How the firm has managed to gain so much political support as to have such a bill brought to the floor is unknown to the chief of staff. Further, he suspects the Rising Dawn of corruption as they are supremely funded, came out of nowhere, and Senator X disappeared within two days of the crucial vote which he led the opposition against.
The chief of staff recommends the Politico (& allies) sneak into Dardon Black’s Rising Dawn campaign office after hours and see what clues they can find. Oddly, the heroes will note three Aqualish (or thugs of choice) hanging around outside the campaign office during the evening. After much sneaking in the heroes will have an opportunity to slice the Rising Dawn's records. First, they uncover evidence that the Rising Dawn's financial benefactor, and strong arm, is none other than the dreaded Black Sun criminal syndicate! Also, they find in Dardon Black's itinerary three suspicious visits to the mega-firm's warehouse in the shipping district. The evidence points to looking there next.
The mega-firm's warehouse is patrolled by thugs but they should be easy to sneak around or deal with if the players are smart. Inside the warehouse, they find crates marked for export that contains what their labels state. However, the crates marked as imports actually contain smuggled blasters. The Black Sun is using the shipping business as a front to run guns onto this peaceful planet!
There are three large bays in the warehouse with a small two-story office setup inside. The bottom floor offices contain a few thugs [minions] and one enforcer [rival NPC]. There is an exterior stairway to the second floor, allowing stealthy heroes access without disturbing the Black Sun goons. Through the window of the second-floor office, they see the trapped Senator X. The heroes can now either use skullduggery to bypass the door lock or break the glass if they don't care about attracting attention. Any subtle plan should be given a good chance of success without rousing the thugs.
Once Senator X is freed he tells the Politico that his wounds have left him too weak to visit the planetary senate floor. The senator grants the Politico emergency powers to represent his district in the senate. Now it's up to the politico to debate and defeat the Rising Dawn bill favoring the mega-firm while also presenting the evidence of their foul deeds. Have the Politico make opposed checks against the Rising Dawn's leading senator, who of course is outraged, in order to sway the senate to the side of the truth.
The End: If the Politico wins the day with his wordsmithing skills the Rising Dawn is done for. The senator and his chief of staff are thankful for the heroes good deeds and make good on paying the bounty promised at the beginning of the adventure. If the PCs refuse the bounty, thinking their heroics were justified, then consider an XP bonus instead.
Specialization: Politico (or any social-oriented Face)
The Hook: The PCs get the word (by the news, family, at a bar, etc) that a planet one of them is connected to is about to change it's citizenship laws to include only landowners; currently, only citizens are under the protection of the planetary army, and the Empire plans to round up the landless people (probably non-human) for slave labor. It should be a sign of corruption/Imperial intervention that this law will strip people of their citizenship. This hooks the PCs if they are actively anti-slavery, or if they have friends/family who could become enslaved.
The Meat: Many different ways for PCs to approach this. One of the simplest and shortest-reaching ones is to raise money to buy land for their friends/family in need; this should be expensive for some reason (landowner fees, high cost of land, etc), and make it clear that the rest of the people on the planet are still in trouble.
The PCs can get political and team up with a senator on the planet's senate who opposes the bill. Perhaps a businessman/politician has plans to get rich off of selling the slaves from the region he governs. This political enemy should have criminal connections that the PCs can exploit; while the PCs' face handles the Senate (the senator is attacked or gets sick and the Face needs to step in for him, as he is the best choice due to his convictions), the other characters can search the local underworld for clues and connections. Lots of places for Enforcers, Slicers, and Thieves to get involved here.
When the bill comes up in court, the Face should have some resources and evidence to use against the Political Enemy that his buddies (other PCs) got for him in their efforts, gaining boost die/decreasing the difficulty of checks for different points he brings up, especially if he's able to cast a bad light on the Political Enemy with some evidence. To simulate the winning over of Senators, you could build a light side/dark side pool of destiny points to represent the swaying over of lawmakers; it should start about 1/3 anti-slavery, 2/3 pro-slavery to represent the pressure the Empire is putting on them to make this happen.
The End: The Senate opposes the Empire-backed bill and it fails, saving the poor from slavery and rallying the planet's leaders against the Empire. This could result in some Imperial obligation, as the PCs (especially the face) just set precedent and dealt a political blow to them. The Rebellion could become interested in their services elsewhere, and they could obtain some powerful friends on the planet. The Political Enemy could become a recurring Nemesis.
Specialization: Doctor
The Hook: Small camp of refugees from Alderaan seeking medical aid after being released from an Imperial interrogation facility.
The Meat: refugees are Rebel sympathizers, Imperials still tracking them and make you an offer of you hand them over.
The End: hand over sympathizers, refuse, leave them to their own fates, take them all out.
Specialization: Doctor
The Hook: Bloodied man in the road in dire need of medical attention. Whether the medical check is successful or not, he tells them that more of his men are hurt and where they are. If he is healed, he joins the group as an NPC for this job. The group needs to find a swoop gang and rescue the man's pals.
The Meat: The gang knew you were coming and were prepared. Group is possibly captured and has to escape.
The End: Rescue men or not, take out gang or sneak out.
Specialization: Any, preferably not Doctor. If doctor, make sure they are more of a simple field medic or local doctor, not someone who would know how to do medical research. Family obligation or Cure motivation highly encouraged
The Hook: The colonist has a sick family member, with a rare disease that has left them bedridden. Coughing, fever, nosebleeds, partial paralysis. They require constant care, but if they get such care they won't die. However, this is a miserable way to live and there is no cure for this disease, so the colonist sets out to find one by any means necessary (queue reason for joining the other PCs, most likely).
The Meat: When in a less-than-scrupulous city, the colonist runs across a doctor that the locals swear is a miracle worker, and has helped them in numerous, almost miraculous ways. He tells the PC to bring him a vial of his family member's blood and that he'll take a look at it. This kicks off a series of 'errands' for the good doctor in which the PC isn't sure if he is getting things to help him develop a cure, or just being an errand boy played for a fool. I am using a messaging device to allow the two to communicate, and to assign appropriate tasks at the right time. For instance, upon landing on a jungle planet, he mentions he needs the adrenal gland of a jungle predator that secretes a substance that separates poisons from its blood. The only issue? Gotta get it to him alive or the gland will be useless for harvest. Later, he's going to need some advanced materials the PCs will have to steal from a storehouse. The possibilities go on, string him along as long as you feel like.
The End: Personally, this is my plan for the end of it. The doctor is a psychopathic mad scientist who was fired by the Tenloss Syndicate for being too extreme even for them, and he is constantly doing weapons research, trying to find something, anything that will make the Syndicate regret not doing things his way. He's only been doing good for the locals so they shield him from scrutiny. He absolutely plans on finding a cure for the PC, but only because he has first managed to weaponize the disease his family member suffers from. After delivering the cure at the end of the adventure arc, it works! His/her family member is totally cured. A few days later though, they begin to see news across the holonet of other people getting a similar-sounding disease, terrorized by a madman who ransoms off a cure to the victims. So congratulations, the PC has accomplished their goals, only to accidentally unleash their family's special brand of hell upon the galaxy... in the hands of a terrorist. Perhaps someone learns that his family member was patient zero and their blood the source of the cure, and begins to look for them, triggering yet another adventure...
Specialization: Marshall
The Hook: On the rural farming/ranching colony where the PCs live, one of their neighbors, Randar Culler, travels to their homestead and asks them for help to find his missing daughter. If there is no Marshall in the group, who, as sheriff, would do it over a contract, obligation or money could also be used. Randar takes them over to his house. Their discussions with Randar indicate that he has bad blood with another neighbor, Burt Hoglar.
The Meat: For whatever reason, the daughter traveled on an animal when she left for town. The tracks lead them into the territory of Burt Hoglar, who owns the land between the Culler's home and town. They should, logically, want to confront Burt. Burt explains that much of his land used to belong to the Cullers, but he won it in a game of Sabacc. The bad blood between the two farmers seems to be reciprocated, however. While the PCs can off on a wild bantha chase investigating Burt, they eventually discover that the daughter actually turned around, away from town. They again must follow the tracks. (A colonist can get survival as a career skill by having their homestead be a ranch.) Regardless, the tracks eventually stop, but at this point, in the wilderness. However, contacting someone allows them to know that a certain ship left from that area. This person can use their legal powers, or a PC can then slice their way into finding that that same ship is now docked at a nearby planet. Once they find the ship, it is fairly simple to track her down, and they find her at a bar with another person, who turns out to be the pilot of the ship.
The End: They must charm, coerce, or negotiate with her to find out that she actually wanted to get off-world anyway, but her father arranged for her to get off-world stealthily so that he could blame her "disappearance" on Burt Hoglar. They return to the original planet, only to find that Randar Culler and several others have formed a mob at the Hoglar homestead. Hoglar is badly wounded, and soon to be killed, so the PCs must calm down the crowd and reveal the truth.
The Explorer
Spoiler
Specialization: Big-Game Hunter
The Hook: A Hutt is looking for a new beast for his arena. He wants a baby or egg from the most ferocious and deadly creature that can be captured. All offers must be delivered to the Hutt on the same day when he will make his decision and pay the winner.
The Meat: If the players have a good knowledge of Star Wars (or if they feel like doing some research online), I encourage you to allow them to choose their own creature to hunt. If not, spend some time choosing a selection of creatures to suggest to the players. Give them a wide range of difficulties, including several that seem way out of their reach. If the players spend some time, they should also be allowed to learn more about the Hutt's preferences. The Hutt should have a specific creature that he is actually hoping for. Let them discover that info, but make sure that his desire will be most difficult.
The hunt will depend greatly on what creature is chosen and what planet(s) it inhabits. There should be lots of opportunities for survival and tracking. Clever players will likely find ways of acquiring the target without actually needing to fight the parents, but don't make it too easy.
Finally, one thing to keep in mind is the timing. If the PCs acquire the target too soon, they may be stuck caring for the creature while waiting until the delivery day. If they wait too long, they might miss the day completely. Remember that this is a vicious animal, even if it's just a baby. Having it on board their ship should be dangerous and a massive inconvenience.
The End: Resolving this adventure could be tricky. Be sure to figure out what other hunters will be bringing and rank them, doing the same with the creature chosen by the PCs. If the PCs chose a creature without verifying that the Hutt might want it, it's possible that they could lose the competition. If this is the case, allow them to talk their way to their victory or, at the very least, talk their way into a much lower payout than if they'd won.
If they manage to collect the Hutt's true desire, he should be most pleased. The PCs should be allowed to talk up to a higher reward or should at least be ingratiated with the Hutt.
If the PCs are late in their delivery, I would suggest that the Hutt will simply ignore them - unless they have his true desire. Depending on your group, they may just kill or abandon the creature at this point, but an enterprising crew will try to find a new buyer. This means more time caring for the creature, but at least they'll get paid.
Specialization: Archeologist
The Hook: A mining company has stumbled upon some ruins while mining. They hire the PCs to investigate the ruins to identify anything of value within. While this doesn't need to be immediately communicated to the PCs, their definition of "value" is how much they can sell it for. The company plans to demolish the ruins after stripping them of everything they can sell.
The Meat: As the PCs scour the ruins, they should discover things of minor value and face subterranean inhabitants. By the end, they should discover at least one object of high value, but that value could be more academic or relative rather than simply it's worth in credits. If you want to include dark side artifacts in your campaign, this would be a great place to find them, and having creatures that have been twisted by the dark side would work to great effect. If you want to keep it straight, finding old technology, precious metals, or old data repositories would be an interesting place to go. Creatures "corrupted" by old technology could work just as well (a machine that can imbue intelligence, for instance).
Depending on your group and their PC's motivations, the knowledge of the company's plan to destroy the ruins could be an interesting point of contention. If the PCs know ahead of time, they could attempt to lie about their findings in order to delay the ruins' destruction while they devise a plan. Really, this is an adventure unto itself, and I encourage you to develop it if it fits your group.
The End: Regardless of what you chose to put in the ruins, you should do your best to seed further adventures from this; ancient ruins are a fantastic font of possibilities. If the PCs tried to pilfer anything from the ruins, they run the risk of being caught by the company, so make sure to consider this.
The Hook: The explorer is drawn to the agrarian world of [GM's choice] where the annual Greengrass Festival is set to take place. It's a wonderful opportunity to scout a new world or trade with the locals.
The Meat: Every year a maypole is raised, there are many songs and dancing, and finally they crown a Greengrass bride. The maiden is paraded around the village before finally being thrown in the river that runs near the town. An elder disturbs the festivities with a stern warning that the meaning of the festival has been forgotten. Apparently, the bride is crowned and thrown in the river as an offering to the fairy spirits to ensure a bountiful harvest. However, most people have no memory of the fay part of the story, it's just a festivity they're used to engaging in each year.
Well as luck would have it the fay king decides to show up this year. Worse, he turns out to be a mighty Gorax who brings along another Gorax friend. The lead Gorax is happy to scoop up the "bride" while his friend helps himself to tables full of pies or anything else the villagers have set up. Pleased with their prize, the Gorax retreat to their lair deep in the forbidding woods.
The End: The explorer will have to use his wits, his gift of negotiation, or his mastery of skullduggery to save the Greengrass bride. In this situation brute force would be fruitless, the explorer will have to formulate a plan to outwit the wicked Gorax.
Specialization: Scout
The Hook: The PCs are out scouting a planet - either by self-motivation or at the behest of someone else - scanning the surface, looking for signs of useful resources, civilization, or valuable flora and fauna. The planet seems to be mostly barren, but just as they're about to leave, they pick up a usual power signature from the planet.
The Meat: The PCs will investigate and discover a strange monolith in the middle of a barren landscape. They can see no way of interacting with the object and scans are unable to penetrate it. They are able to determine that the object is actually much larger than it looks, extending hundreds of meters into the ground. And, wouldn't you know it? There's a cave entrance right next to the monolith.
Exploring the cave system should reveal remnants of an ancient culture. The PCs should face vicious creatures and happen upon dangerous terrain. Eventually, they should find their way to the base of the monolith, connected to an ancient computer. Accessing the computer should be of great difficulty, especially if the PCs didn't bring any special equipment.
The computer contains a repository of knowledge of either a long-dead race or a race that moved planets at some point in the past. This was their original homeworld, but some global catastrophe turned it into the barren wasteland it is now. They were forced to abandon the planet (or simply died out), but they left this monolith as a marker to future visitors.
The End: The historical data here is a huge find. This will make the PCs very well known with those who care. You'll likely need to find a more tangible way of rewarding the PCs, as well, but that will depend on your group. I would suggest that the PCs should find valuable artifacts while exploring the caves. It would also be interesting if they found some schematics or other data that could be used to manufacture some long-forgotten item.
Specialization: Driver
The Hook: The PC is hired to deliver a package to someone in a remote area of a planet where starships cannot land. The only method of delivery is a speeder run through a dangerous maze of canyons, where threats lurk around every corner.
The Meat: The PC group is hired to deliver a package to a primitive planet, where the employer's contact lives in hiding. The hideout is not accessible by air, and the PC driver's talents are needed to successfully navigate the rocky landscape to reach the hideout. They are provided with speeders if they do not have them. The one who hires the PCs also says it is vital the package reach its destination quickly and without being opened.
Upon starting the journey, they could come across several threats, which could include local wildlife, tribal people native to the planet, rivals who are trying to intercept the package, etc. Give several opportunities for the PCs to grow extremely curious or worried about the package's contents. Maybe have threat or despair cause the package to fall from the speeder and break open. Make it possible but very difficult for the package to arrive at its destination unopened.
If the package comes open, make its contents extremely surprising or upsetting. Maybe the package contains a large bomb on a timer that will explode soon after delivery. The PCs must then decide whether to continue delivery, disarm the bomb, or even return it to the sender to have it explode in the sender's face. Maybe the package contains something extremely valuable or dangerous, such as a weapons shipment or the plans for an imperial or rebel base that in the wrong hands could sabotage one side of the war. Finally, the package could contain an actual person, a child of an important diplomat, or even a key player in the war.
Regardless of the contents, the PCs must make the decision of whether to deliver or take an alternate course. The GM would have to be prepared for many decisions.
The End: If the PCs deliver the package, they are rewarded handsomely by the sender, regardless of the outcome. Then again, maybe the sender wants to eliminate witnesses and tries to kill off the PC group. Depending on the results of the delivery (package explodes or prisoner delivered), then they may have someone come after them for revenge.
If the PCs turn against the sender, either by disarming the bomb, freeing the prisoner, or keeping the goods for themselves, then they will have to deal with the sender and his thugs.
Specialization: Driver
Hook: There is a major speeder race and show taking place. The prize for the top three slots can go a long way to pay off the party's debts/Obligation. Alternatively, the prize being offered is something that they need to progress in their main campaign.
Meat: the party needs to have an appropriate vehicle for the race. If they already have one, it might need to be suped up to compete. This could mean gambling and taking a loan from a benefactor or whoever they owe Obligation to. Then they'll gain admittance into the show; this could be as simple as paying for a ticket to getting their vehicle inspected and getting a background check. Part of the show might be putting forth a sufficiently hot or pretty speeder. Once in the show, they find their nemesis (or one of his associates) is competing in the race.
Cheating is a problem, of course. The race may be rigged in favor of the nemesis or another competitor, or the party may want to rig it themselves. Undoing or perpetrating sabotage may be a major part of the adventure. Betting also may be a part, so if the party has a Gambler, they can add some to the adventure.
The End: losing the race or performing poorly may put the party in deeper debt than they were before, especially if they borrowed money to trick out their vehicle. Winning, of course, is the goal, and doing so might pay off Obligation or leave the party with some hard-earned prizes. Another element to consider: the race may be legitimate, or it could be hosted and sponsored by any variety of criminals, such as the Black Sun or the Hutts. In the latter case, winning (even honestly) may catch the ire of a loser, a Hutt sponsor that was indirectly humiliated, or a crime lord who lost big betting against the party. And if the party cheated or ran a scam, that could also bite them later.
(Although a muscle car show inspired me to write this, to keep with the Explorer theme you could easily make it an endurance race, or something similar.)
Specializations: Scout, Big Game Hunter
The Hook: The players are hired to assist a person wishing to create a colony on an uninhabited planet that he or she discovered in the outer rim. You could tie in obligation to this.
The Meat: The players are taken to the planet by the employer. They are placed in charge of a group of 15-20 other scouts. (consider using the stats for the Sector Ranger, though perhaps not quite as good.) They are to set up a temporary campsite in the area, create maps, profiles of local wildlife, set up defenses against animals, etc. On the first night, their defenses are thwarted and supplies are stolen. The employer is enraged, and he demands that the party finds the raiders. He goes with them as they follow the tracks. The party reaches a place where their culprits await. The employer's assistant, a protocol droid, speaks their language. They are clearly a semi-primitive tribe and lack technology. The tribe's leader demands them to leave, but the employer states that they have no claim to the land under Imperial law, and it is he who has legal rights to the land. The tribes' leader says that if the PC's employer does not leave, they will go to war. The PC's employer agrees to go to war, and chaos breaks loose. Both sides possess comparable numbers and power per person, the tribe has a home field. The tide turns to the native tribe, and the employer is killed. As he dies, he demands that the players contact Imperials, to have them colonize his planet, and kick out the tribe, so as to avenge his death.
The End: Either way, the players don't get paid. With the employer's death, the tribe gives the new leaders of the party (the PCs) another chance to choose. Leave, or go to war. The tribe should be at about 3/4 of its original strength, while nearly all of the scouts are dead. The PCs should choose to leave at that point. Once they have left the planet, though, they still have a choice: do they let the Empire come to the planet, and imperialize it, or let the native tribe be?
The Hook: A Hutt is looking for a new beast for his arena. He wants a baby or egg from the most ferocious and deadly creature that can be captured. All offers must be delivered to the Hutt on the same day when he will make his decision and pay the winner.
The Meat: If the players have a good knowledge of Star Wars (or if they feel like doing some research online), I encourage you to allow them to choose their own creature to hunt. If not, spend some time choosing a selection of creatures to suggest to the players. Give them a wide range of difficulties, including several that seem way out of their reach. If the players spend some time, they should also be allowed to learn more about the Hutt's preferences. The Hutt should have a specific creature that he is actually hoping for. Let them discover that info, but make sure that his desire will be most difficult.
The hunt will depend greatly on what creature is chosen and what planet(s) it inhabits. There should be lots of opportunities for survival and tracking. Clever players will likely find ways of acquiring the target without actually needing to fight the parents, but don't make it too easy.
Finally, one thing to keep in mind is the timing. If the PCs acquire the target too soon, they may be stuck caring for the creature while waiting until the delivery day. If they wait too long, they might miss the day completely. Remember that this is a vicious animal, even if it's just a baby. Having it on board their ship should be dangerous and a massive inconvenience.
The End: Resolving this adventure could be tricky. Be sure to figure out what other hunters will be bringing and rank them, doing the same with the creature chosen by the PCs. If the PCs chose a creature without verifying that the Hutt might want it, it's possible that they could lose the competition. If this is the case, allow them to talk their way to their victory or, at the very least, talk their way into a much lower payout than if they'd won.
If they manage to collect the Hutt's true desire, he should be most pleased. The PCs should be allowed to talk up to a higher reward or should at least be ingratiated with the Hutt.
If the PCs are late in their delivery, I would suggest that the Hutt will simply ignore them - unless they have his true desire. Depending on your group, they may just kill or abandon the creature at this point, but an enterprising crew will try to find a new buyer. This means more time caring for the creature, but at least they'll get paid.
Specialization: Archeologist
The Hook: A mining company has stumbled upon some ruins while mining. They hire the PCs to investigate the ruins to identify anything of value within. While this doesn't need to be immediately communicated to the PCs, their definition of "value" is how much they can sell it for. The company plans to demolish the ruins after stripping them of everything they can sell.
The Meat: As the PCs scour the ruins, they should discover things of minor value and face subterranean inhabitants. By the end, they should discover at least one object of high value, but that value could be more academic or relative rather than simply it's worth in credits. If you want to include dark side artifacts in your campaign, this would be a great place to find them, and having creatures that have been twisted by the dark side would work to great effect. If you want to keep it straight, finding old technology, precious metals, or old data repositories would be an interesting place to go. Creatures "corrupted" by old technology could work just as well (a machine that can imbue intelligence, for instance).
Depending on your group and their PC's motivations, the knowledge of the company's plan to destroy the ruins could be an interesting point of contention. If the PCs know ahead of time, they could attempt to lie about their findings in order to delay the ruins' destruction while they devise a plan. Really, this is an adventure unto itself, and I encourage you to develop it if it fits your group.
The End: Regardless of what you chose to put in the ruins, you should do your best to seed further adventures from this; ancient ruins are a fantastic font of possibilities. If the PCs tried to pilfer anything from the ruins, they run the risk of being caught by the company, so make sure to consider this.
The Hook: The explorer is drawn to the agrarian world of [GM's choice] where the annual Greengrass Festival is set to take place. It's a wonderful opportunity to scout a new world or trade with the locals.
The Meat: Every year a maypole is raised, there are many songs and dancing, and finally they crown a Greengrass bride. The maiden is paraded around the village before finally being thrown in the river that runs near the town. An elder disturbs the festivities with a stern warning that the meaning of the festival has been forgotten. Apparently, the bride is crowned and thrown in the river as an offering to the fairy spirits to ensure a bountiful harvest. However, most people have no memory of the fay part of the story, it's just a festivity they're used to engaging in each year.
Well as luck would have it the fay king decides to show up this year. Worse, he turns out to be a mighty Gorax who brings along another Gorax friend. The lead Gorax is happy to scoop up the "bride" while his friend helps himself to tables full of pies or anything else the villagers have set up. Pleased with their prize, the Gorax retreat to their lair deep in the forbidding woods.
The End: The explorer will have to use his wits, his gift of negotiation, or his mastery of skullduggery to save the Greengrass bride. In this situation brute force would be fruitless, the explorer will have to formulate a plan to outwit the wicked Gorax.
Specialization: Scout
The Hook: The PCs are out scouting a planet - either by self-motivation or at the behest of someone else - scanning the surface, looking for signs of useful resources, civilization, or valuable flora and fauna. The planet seems to be mostly barren, but just as they're about to leave, they pick up a usual power signature from the planet.
The Meat: The PCs will investigate and discover a strange monolith in the middle of a barren landscape. They can see no way of interacting with the object and scans are unable to penetrate it. They are able to determine that the object is actually much larger than it looks, extending hundreds of meters into the ground. And, wouldn't you know it? There's a cave entrance right next to the monolith.
Exploring the cave system should reveal remnants of an ancient culture. The PCs should face vicious creatures and happen upon dangerous terrain. Eventually, they should find their way to the base of the monolith, connected to an ancient computer. Accessing the computer should be of great difficulty, especially if the PCs didn't bring any special equipment.
The computer contains a repository of knowledge of either a long-dead race or a race that moved planets at some point in the past. This was their original homeworld, but some global catastrophe turned it into the barren wasteland it is now. They were forced to abandon the planet (or simply died out), but they left this monolith as a marker to future visitors.
The End: The historical data here is a huge find. This will make the PCs very well known with those who care. You'll likely need to find a more tangible way of rewarding the PCs, as well, but that will depend on your group. I would suggest that the PCs should find valuable artifacts while exploring the caves. It would also be interesting if they found some schematics or other data that could be used to manufacture some long-forgotten item.
Specialization: Driver
The Hook: The PC is hired to deliver a package to someone in a remote area of a planet where starships cannot land. The only method of delivery is a speeder run through a dangerous maze of canyons, where threats lurk around every corner.
The Meat: The PC group is hired to deliver a package to a primitive planet, where the employer's contact lives in hiding. The hideout is not accessible by air, and the PC driver's talents are needed to successfully navigate the rocky landscape to reach the hideout. They are provided with speeders if they do not have them. The one who hires the PCs also says it is vital the package reach its destination quickly and without being opened.
Upon starting the journey, they could come across several threats, which could include local wildlife, tribal people native to the planet, rivals who are trying to intercept the package, etc. Give several opportunities for the PCs to grow extremely curious or worried about the package's contents. Maybe have threat or despair cause the package to fall from the speeder and break open. Make it possible but very difficult for the package to arrive at its destination unopened.
If the package comes open, make its contents extremely surprising or upsetting. Maybe the package contains a large bomb on a timer that will explode soon after delivery. The PCs must then decide whether to continue delivery, disarm the bomb, or even return it to the sender to have it explode in the sender's face. Maybe the package contains something extremely valuable or dangerous, such as a weapons shipment or the plans for an imperial or rebel base that in the wrong hands could sabotage one side of the war. Finally, the package could contain an actual person, a child of an important diplomat, or even a key player in the war.
Regardless of the contents, the PCs must make the decision of whether to deliver or take an alternate course. The GM would have to be prepared for many decisions.
The End: If the PCs deliver the package, they are rewarded handsomely by the sender, regardless of the outcome. Then again, maybe the sender wants to eliminate witnesses and tries to kill off the PC group. Depending on the results of the delivery (package explodes or prisoner delivered), then they may have someone come after them for revenge.
If the PCs turn against the sender, either by disarming the bomb, freeing the prisoner, or keeping the goods for themselves, then they will have to deal with the sender and his thugs.
Specialization: Driver
Hook: There is a major speeder race and show taking place. The prize for the top three slots can go a long way to pay off the party's debts/Obligation. Alternatively, the prize being offered is something that they need to progress in their main campaign.
Meat: the party needs to have an appropriate vehicle for the race. If they already have one, it might need to be suped up to compete. This could mean gambling and taking a loan from a benefactor or whoever they owe Obligation to. Then they'll gain admittance into the show; this could be as simple as paying for a ticket to getting their vehicle inspected and getting a background check. Part of the show might be putting forth a sufficiently hot or pretty speeder. Once in the show, they find their nemesis (or one of his associates) is competing in the race.
Cheating is a problem, of course. The race may be rigged in favor of the nemesis or another competitor, or the party may want to rig it themselves. Undoing or perpetrating sabotage may be a major part of the adventure. Betting also may be a part, so if the party has a Gambler, they can add some to the adventure.
The End: losing the race or performing poorly may put the party in deeper debt than they were before, especially if they borrowed money to trick out their vehicle. Winning, of course, is the goal, and doing so might pay off Obligation or leave the party with some hard-earned prizes. Another element to consider: the race may be legitimate, or it could be hosted and sponsored by any variety of criminals, such as the Black Sun or the Hutts. In the latter case, winning (even honestly) may catch the ire of a loser, a Hutt sponsor that was indirectly humiliated, or a crime lord who lost big betting against the party. And if the party cheated or ran a scam, that could also bite them later.
(Although a muscle car show inspired me to write this, to keep with the Explorer theme you could easily make it an endurance race, or something similar.)
Specializations: Scout, Big Game Hunter
The Hook: The players are hired to assist a person wishing to create a colony on an uninhabited planet that he or she discovered in the outer rim. You could tie in obligation to this.
The Meat: The players are taken to the planet by the employer. They are placed in charge of a group of 15-20 other scouts. (consider using the stats for the Sector Ranger, though perhaps not quite as good.) They are to set up a temporary campsite in the area, create maps, profiles of local wildlife, set up defenses against animals, etc. On the first night, their defenses are thwarted and supplies are stolen. The employer is enraged, and he demands that the party finds the raiders. He goes with them as they follow the tracks. The party reaches a place where their culprits await. The employer's assistant, a protocol droid, speaks their language. They are clearly a semi-primitive tribe and lack technology. The tribe's leader demands them to leave, but the employer states that they have no claim to the land under Imperial law, and it is he who has legal rights to the land. The tribes' leader says that if the PC's employer does not leave, they will go to war. The PC's employer agrees to go to war, and chaos breaks loose. Both sides possess comparable numbers and power per person, the tribe has a home field. The tide turns to the native tribe, and the employer is killed. As he dies, he demands that the players contact Imperials, to have them colonize his planet, and kick out the tribe, so as to avenge his death.
The End: Either way, the players don't get paid. With the employer's death, the tribe gives the new leaders of the party (the PCs) another chance to choose. Leave, or go to war. The tribe should be at about 3/4 of its original strength, while nearly all of the scouts are dead. The PCs should choose to leave at that point. Once they have left the planet, though, they still have a choice: do they let the Empire come to the planet, and imperialize it, or let the native tribe be?
The Hired Gun
Spoiler
Specialization: Bodyguard
The Hook: The PCs are hired to protect a "Big Game Hunter" during his safari to a dangerous world. In reality, the ward is just some noble with more money than sense that believes he is much more capable than he really is. His goal is to bring back a specific rare and/or deadly beast. I'll leave it to you to decide based on the planet that makes the most sense for you.
The Meat: The PCs will need to protect the ward from not only the creatures of the wild but also from the greedy or violent inhabitants of the world. The PCs will also need to track down the beast on their own, as the ward will only lead them in the wrong direction. Finally, the PCs will need to aid in defeating the beast.
For fun, really play up the confidence of the ward. Don't let the players know right away that he's incompetent. After he fails a few times, it should become obvious and the players will start stepping in.
The End: A large portion of the payment should be dependant on the success of the safari. If the group is able to bag the beast, they should get the full amount. If not, the PCs get significantly less. Make sure the players know this upfront.
The Hook: There's an uprising/revolt against a planet's government. The government has hired the PCs to help stamp it out.
The Meat: The PCs will need to spend time trying to both discover the identities of and to track down the leaders of the resistance. After this, the PCs will need to eliminate them.
To bring some additional conflict into the story, have the resistance members be sympathetic. Give them a chance to sway the PCs (and the players) over to their side.
The End: In the simplest case, the PCs will eliminate the leaders, in one way or another, and get paid. If they decided to join the resistance, this would be a great springboard into a wider campaign to overthrow the government.
Specialization: Bodyguard
The Hook: An up and coming starlet has hired the PCs to protect her on her latest tour. She'll be making appearances on several planets and a couple of space stations. She wants the PCs to take care of guarding her, screening visitors, dealing with customs/port authority, and whatever else comes up. Her manager will also be flying with them.
The Meat: This adventure can mostly jump from scene to scene for awhile. Have a few abstracted checks of the PCs interviewing visitors, brawling with thugs, and negotiating with (and maybe bribing) officials. Start throwing some harder checks at them as the adventure goes on.
Everything should start pushing towards a kidnapping attempt. Start out small with sketchy guys trying to get through, then someone trying to sneak into her room, then a group trying to force their way in, and finally a space battle. If any of the attempts succeed, this could be resolved as either a chase, if the PCs catch it in the act, or a search, if the PCs only find out later.
If you feel like adding a twist, have the manager be behind the attempts. He could have some sort of ransom scam set up or perhaps some kind of insurance policy. For an extra sting, you can make it so that the reason he hired the PCs is that he wanted someone incompetent who would fail at guarding her.
The End: If the starlet is ever kidnapped, the PCs take a huge cut in their pay. Any attempts that make any progress (someone successfully sneaking into her room, for instance) should also affect the pay. A perfect job will earn a bonus and a great contact for future work.
The Hook: The hired gun is approached in a cantina or tapcaf by a grizzled-looking man and an eleven-year-old boy. The man looks like he hasn't slept in some time and is under great stress. He offers 5000 credits, claiming is all that he has, for the hired gun to escort his son to his uncle who lives on the planet [GM choice]. The man claims that his son saw a crime committed by a local crime lord and that he is in great danger if he stays.
The Meat: Before they even get to their ship the heroes are accosted by bounty hunters. Their ship is pursued throughout space. Once they arrive on the planet [GM's choice] they are set upon by Imperial forces as they search for the boy's uncle. However, the heroes are never surprised by these events as the boy manages to consistently warn them before danger strikes. He possesses an uncanny ability to see things he shouldn't as he travels with the heroes.
The End: Eventually the hired gun will come to the revelation that this boy is Force-sensitive and that the Empire is behind the bounty hunters and troopers sent to capture him. It's up to the heroes to get him to safety. That could be his uncle or if the GM wants to throw a curve have the uncle eliminated by the Empire and the hired gun must figure out where to take the boy.
Hook: A small community on Khomr (Sons of Fortune pg. 84) sends three representatives to whatever planet the heroes are on. These simple farmers desperately need help. They don't have much money and are prepared to offer everything they have for help.
The Meat: The farmers are being oppressed by the Lazerlord pirate gang (WEG, various books) led by the swashbuckling Drek Drednar (WEG, on Wookieepedia). The pirates come on their Corellian Corvette, the Sable III, and pillage the pacifist farmers. Their corvette is usually accompanied by three uglies, making for a formidable challenge in the skies.
When on the ground Drek leads a motley crew of human and alien pirates, none of which are over-equipped beyond their blaster pistols and vibroblades. In the town the Lazerlords are merciless, killing anyone who opposes them. Their cruelty knows no bounds and they take all the villager's crops leaving them with almost nothing to eat.
The heroes can't hope to defeat the Lazerlords in straight combat, there are too many pirates in town (numerous minion groups). They will have to use strategy to set up traps, encourage the people to help repel the pirates, and to herd the pirates into kill zones where they can be dealt with without endangering the villagers.
Once things start to look bad for the pirates' Drek Drednar will petition the Hired Gun with an offer to join him. Drek claims to be a member of a larger organization that can make the Hired Gun's Obligation disappear while filling his pockets with bountiful credits. He's very charismatic in his offer and will be open to negotiation for the Hired Gun's cut of the booty should he switch sides. Perhaps the Hired Gun will take Drek's offer or perhaps the Hired Gun will remain loyal to the villagers.
The End: The ending assumes the heroes don't take Drek's offer to join the pirates. With Drek Drednar defeated the villagers can finally live without fear. They proceed to offer everything of value that they have to the characters. If they do the right thing and turn it down they should be awarded +5 XP. Note that the heroes may gain Obligation for taking on the Lazerlords as they are part of the larger Invid Pirate Alliance (Wookieepedia).
The Hook: Players are contacted about a job to protect a salesman who works for a private interest off-world. He is willing to pay well for an escort across a series of planetside stops to peddle his wares.
The Meat: The salesman is an undercover operative working for the Rebellion. To avoid the possibility of Rebel agents being identified by Imperials, he has chosen to use independents to serve as guards. He plans to visit a set number of systems to discuss Rebel Agendas under the guise of Sales meetings.
A number of encounters could entail a few ideas:
1. Story should start with a few light encounters with nosy customs officials, to set up the lie of planetary salesmen. A few tangles with some local color.
2. By the second planet, the players should start to notice things are a miss; mysterious late-night private holo calls, close calls with local authorities investigating Rebel activity in the area. By the third planet it should start to become clear that the Imperials are on to them; previously visited locations being blown up by Imperials. News reports entailing the escape of Rebels fleeing the area.
The End: Whether the players confront the "Salesmen" about his clear connection with the Rebellion is up to you and your players. Negative opinions toward the Rebels may push the Salesmen to run for fear of a double-cross by the players, the Imperials would pay a handsome "finder fee" to the whereabouts of said Rebel. This angle could lead to more work from the Imperials. On the other hand, if the players find the idea of being on the run and aiding the Rebels could clearly set them up for some future work. If the players can hold their tongue and just go along with the scam and walk away from the job could earn them some respect among the independent factions. Either outcome should net the players some new contacts and some credits. As the GM, this should drop the potential of some new enemies/allies and hopefully a hook or two for your next game.
The Hook: The PCs are hired as guards for a prison transport ship. The ship is transferring several high-security prisoners. The PCs will be leaving their ship at home for this one; they'll be traveling aboard the prisoner transport. If your players insist on bringing their ship as an escort, tell them the destination is secret, so that will not be possible.
The Meat: The prisoners belong to the government of a planet. The prisoners on board are all convicted of extremely violent crimes which is why they are being transported from the planet to the high-security prison facility located on another planet.
The hyperspace journey should take at least a week, but feel free to make it longer if you want. This time is important because it means that the prisoners cannot simply remain locked up for the duration of the trip. There will need to be several times that the prisoners are allowed out for exercise and hygiene, as well as to give time for their cells to be cleaned. This is essential to driving the adventure as it will give opportunities for attacks on the PCs, fights amongst prisoners, and riots, as well as give the prisoners opportunities to obtain contraband and further escape plans.
Eventually, one of the prisoners will be successful in making an escape and will try to take over the ship. He will escape from his cell during the night, slice the security system, and release most or all of the other prisoners. The prisoners will attempt to arm themselves and take over the ship. The PCs will need to stop the prisoners and return them to their cells - or escape the hostile ship before being killed or captured.
There should be opportunities for all of the PCs to shine here: there will be combat, opposed slicing to regain parts of the security system, social checks to convince prisoners to surrender or help, mechanical checks to repair parts of the ship or barricade doors, and more.
The End: This will depend a lot on how successful the PCs are in containing the prisoners. If they are able to get the escape completely under control with minimal losses, a bonus should be in order as well as future employment opportunities.
If the PCs manage to barely succeed, such as by barricading themselves in the cockpit and desperately landing at the prison facility, the PCs will receive minimal pay but gratitude for at least saving the ship.
If, however, the PCs turned tail and escaped on another ship or by the escape pods (or even if they were captured), they will receive no pay and may even earn a bounty as the government will assume they aided the prisoners in their escape. If they were captured, that's another adventure to run.
The Hook: The PCs are hired to rescue a colleague of the employer. This person was captured by a Hutt and imprisoned for smuggling inside his territory. The Hutt is going to have him fight in his arena. (I just realized this sounds exactly like the end of Trouble Brewing, so using Thakba the Hutt would probably be a good fit).
The Meat: I'm going to be a bit lazy and go much vaguer than I usually do. The players are likely to bring a lot of ideas for how to deal with this one, so planning out the specifics might be tough. Personally, I would give the PCs the option of joining the arena in some way. Perhaps Thakba has prizes to entice fighters that aren't forced to be there. The PCs might also try to sabotage the opponents of their target in order to buy time. Finally, if they ran Trouble Brewing, they may attempt to leverage their good relationship with Thakba in some manner. Regardless of their plans, I would expect them to either try to deliver something to the target or sneak/blast their way into the prison at some point.
As a note, I would suggest paying attention to how much time the PCs spend during the rescue. The target will have regularly scheduled fights in the arena (perhaps more than once each day) and these may lead to the target's death.
The End: Getting the target out alive secures the PCs' payment. If the target dies, regardless of the circumstances, the PCs get nothing. Unless the PCs are able to execute this rescue perfectly (or with Thakba's blessing), they are likely to have made an enemy of a minor Hutt kingpin. Be sure to use this to create future trouble for the PCs.
Specialization: Marauder preferred, but any hired gun who is good at melee or brawl.
The Hook: This idea is from Game of Thrones. A certain wealthy "trader" has finally had his shady dealings backfire and may be facing a death sentence. This wealthy person contacts the Hired Gun PC with an urgent request to represent him in a trial by combat on an outer rim world.
The Meat: The PC group is contacted by a known smuggler (possibly someone previously met in another adventure). He requests their help on a planet far out in the outer rim and promises great wealth if they succeed. When they travel to this planet, they find out their contact has been arrested and placed on trial for his illegal dealings. The evidence is stacked against their client, and unfortunately, the penalty for his crimes is death.
The client has found one possible out. The inhabitants of this planet have a tradition of requesting a trial by combat to "let the gods decide guilt or innocence." The smuggler himself knows he is no fighter and has no chance in melee combat against the "people's champion" who happens to be the biggest and baddest dude around. The client tells the PC hired gun that this is his only hope and promises great riches if the PC should win the melee and clear him.
While thinking over his proposition, the PCs could learn of others who plot to ensure the smuggler is executed and that his champion loses. There could be attempts to poison, cripple, or kidnap the PC fighter to prevent him from fighting in the melee or ensuring he loses. There could also be ways that the PCs could learn about weaknesses in the seemingly indestructible opponent, or the fighter's friends could seek ways to sabotage the enemy.
PCs could find out about a plot of one of the smuggler's enemies working with the government to see him executed. They could try to find a way to implicate this enemy of the accused crimes instead. Or the PCs could decide this smuggler deserves to die and bail on him at the last moment, trying to find a way to take his riches anyway.
The End: The adventure will most likely end with a melee fight, which has the PC character vs. the NPC brute. Along the way, the one-on-one could erupt into a full-on firefight between the PC party and the NPCs minions, if either side attempts to interfere. While the Hired Gun is fighting, the other PCs could try to plan a jailbreak, helping the smuggler escape. If they succeed in saving the smuggler, either way, they could receive the promised riches or be double-crossed and left to run from the planet's authorities themselves.
Specialization: Enforcer, though any would work.
The Hook: A local crime lord has had one of his smugglers fail to bring in their cargo. The PCs are hired to accost the smuggler and his crew and get the cargo, and "make a point" with the smuggler. Think Han's dumping his spice cargo for Jabba, or from Firefly when they return the medicine they were supposed to steal for Niska.
The Meat: To differentiate from a Bounty mission, the PCs should be given the location where the smuggler is expected after their next run. The PCs could intercept them coming into the system (if you'd like to add a little space combat), or confront them at the docking bay.
The content of the mission will depend a lot on the style of the player group. Stealthier PCs can board the ship, take the goods, and do some sabotage. PCs that prefer to avoid violence can engage in some serious Coercion, which should also involve either taking or damaging something belonging to the smuggler so they "get the message". More combat-oriented PCs can break a few bones and generally leave the smuggler/crew licking their wounds; however, death should be avoided, as the crime lord wants them to fear him and still work for him.
Complications could involve the cargo no longer being aboard the smuggler's ship. Perhaps instead of selling the cargo for their own gain, the smuggler gave it back for more moral reasons. Maybe the PCs are sympathetic to the smuggler and decide to instead get back at the crime lord. Or the smuggler could have taken the goods to a rival crime lord, and expecting an ambush they brought back up with them.
The End: Full payment and/or Obligation reduction for the return of the goods and roughing-up the smuggler. Slight reduction for returning the value in credits or for the smugglers' death or escape. If the PCs side with the smuggler, this could lead to more adventures against their employer.
The Hook: Bodyguard for a local sleemo. His life was recently threatened.
The Meat: Bribed to intentionally fail at guarding the client against his enemies.
The End: guard client successfully, fail, betray client, capture/kill client’s assassin.
The Hook: Intimidate client’s business rival to sell his legitimate business.
The Meat: rival’s business is a boon to the local community, customers would have to go through client instead. The client charges insane prices for essentials.
The End: do the job, quit the job, get the client to lower his prices.
The Hook: Basically the ANYYON, The Guardians of An'yettu mission on page 85 of Dangerous Covenants except pulling in more information from the EU, the party's combat prowess and bloodshed reawaken the Rodians' old obsession with violence and death. The party is then asked to spearhead the takeover of the planet by the clan leader. Hoping to take power from Navik the Red of the Chattza clan.
The Meat: A long campaign taking over country after country, managing resources, and eventually assaulting the capital which is receiving reinforcements from the Empire and Black Sun.
The End: The party can choose to take power for themselves since they were the biggest factor in taking over and rule their own planet or they can be considered honored war heroes to the planet and can call on aid from them whenever they want and always guarantee a safe refuge from their enemies.
The Hook: The PCs are hired to protect a "Big Game Hunter" during his safari to a dangerous world. In reality, the ward is just some noble with more money than sense that believes he is much more capable than he really is. His goal is to bring back a specific rare and/or deadly beast. I'll leave it to you to decide based on the planet that makes the most sense for you.
The Meat: The PCs will need to protect the ward from not only the creatures of the wild but also from the greedy or violent inhabitants of the world. The PCs will also need to track down the beast on their own, as the ward will only lead them in the wrong direction. Finally, the PCs will need to aid in defeating the beast.
For fun, really play up the confidence of the ward. Don't let the players know right away that he's incompetent. After he fails a few times, it should become obvious and the players will start stepping in.
The End: A large portion of the payment should be dependant on the success of the safari. If the group is able to bag the beast, they should get the full amount. If not, the PCs get significantly less. Make sure the players know this upfront.
The Hook: There's an uprising/revolt against a planet's government. The government has hired the PCs to help stamp it out.
The Meat: The PCs will need to spend time trying to both discover the identities of and to track down the leaders of the resistance. After this, the PCs will need to eliminate them.
To bring some additional conflict into the story, have the resistance members be sympathetic. Give them a chance to sway the PCs (and the players) over to their side.
The End: In the simplest case, the PCs will eliminate the leaders, in one way or another, and get paid. If they decided to join the resistance, this would be a great springboard into a wider campaign to overthrow the government.
Specialization: Bodyguard
The Hook: An up and coming starlet has hired the PCs to protect her on her latest tour. She'll be making appearances on several planets and a couple of space stations. She wants the PCs to take care of guarding her, screening visitors, dealing with customs/port authority, and whatever else comes up. Her manager will also be flying with them.
The Meat: This adventure can mostly jump from scene to scene for awhile. Have a few abstracted checks of the PCs interviewing visitors, brawling with thugs, and negotiating with (and maybe bribing) officials. Start throwing some harder checks at them as the adventure goes on.
Everything should start pushing towards a kidnapping attempt. Start out small with sketchy guys trying to get through, then someone trying to sneak into her room, then a group trying to force their way in, and finally a space battle. If any of the attempts succeed, this could be resolved as either a chase, if the PCs catch it in the act, or a search, if the PCs only find out later.
If you feel like adding a twist, have the manager be behind the attempts. He could have some sort of ransom scam set up or perhaps some kind of insurance policy. For an extra sting, you can make it so that the reason he hired the PCs is that he wanted someone incompetent who would fail at guarding her.
The End: If the starlet is ever kidnapped, the PCs take a huge cut in their pay. Any attempts that make any progress (someone successfully sneaking into her room, for instance) should also affect the pay. A perfect job will earn a bonus and a great contact for future work.
The Hook: The hired gun is approached in a cantina or tapcaf by a grizzled-looking man and an eleven-year-old boy. The man looks like he hasn't slept in some time and is under great stress. He offers 5000 credits, claiming is all that he has, for the hired gun to escort his son to his uncle who lives on the planet [GM choice]. The man claims that his son saw a crime committed by a local crime lord and that he is in great danger if he stays.
The Meat: Before they even get to their ship the heroes are accosted by bounty hunters. Their ship is pursued throughout space. Once they arrive on the planet [GM's choice] they are set upon by Imperial forces as they search for the boy's uncle. However, the heroes are never surprised by these events as the boy manages to consistently warn them before danger strikes. He possesses an uncanny ability to see things he shouldn't as he travels with the heroes.
The End: Eventually the hired gun will come to the revelation that this boy is Force-sensitive and that the Empire is behind the bounty hunters and troopers sent to capture him. It's up to the heroes to get him to safety. That could be his uncle or if the GM wants to throw a curve have the uncle eliminated by the Empire and the hired gun must figure out where to take the boy.
Hook: A small community on Khomr (Sons of Fortune pg. 84) sends three representatives to whatever planet the heroes are on. These simple farmers desperately need help. They don't have much money and are prepared to offer everything they have for help.
The Meat: The farmers are being oppressed by the Lazerlord pirate gang (WEG, various books) led by the swashbuckling Drek Drednar (WEG, on Wookieepedia). The pirates come on their Corellian Corvette, the Sable III, and pillage the pacifist farmers. Their corvette is usually accompanied by three uglies, making for a formidable challenge in the skies.
When on the ground Drek leads a motley crew of human and alien pirates, none of which are over-equipped beyond their blaster pistols and vibroblades. In the town the Lazerlords are merciless, killing anyone who opposes them. Their cruelty knows no bounds and they take all the villager's crops leaving them with almost nothing to eat.
The heroes can't hope to defeat the Lazerlords in straight combat, there are too many pirates in town (numerous minion groups). They will have to use strategy to set up traps, encourage the people to help repel the pirates, and to herd the pirates into kill zones where they can be dealt with without endangering the villagers.
Once things start to look bad for the pirates' Drek Drednar will petition the Hired Gun with an offer to join him. Drek claims to be a member of a larger organization that can make the Hired Gun's Obligation disappear while filling his pockets with bountiful credits. He's very charismatic in his offer and will be open to negotiation for the Hired Gun's cut of the booty should he switch sides. Perhaps the Hired Gun will take Drek's offer or perhaps the Hired Gun will remain loyal to the villagers.
The End: The ending assumes the heroes don't take Drek's offer to join the pirates. With Drek Drednar defeated the villagers can finally live without fear. They proceed to offer everything of value that they have to the characters. If they do the right thing and turn it down they should be awarded +5 XP. Note that the heroes may gain Obligation for taking on the Lazerlords as they are part of the larger Invid Pirate Alliance (Wookieepedia).
The Hook: Players are contacted about a job to protect a salesman who works for a private interest off-world. He is willing to pay well for an escort across a series of planetside stops to peddle his wares.
The Meat: The salesman is an undercover operative working for the Rebellion. To avoid the possibility of Rebel agents being identified by Imperials, he has chosen to use independents to serve as guards. He plans to visit a set number of systems to discuss Rebel Agendas under the guise of Sales meetings.
A number of encounters could entail a few ideas:
1. Story should start with a few light encounters with nosy customs officials, to set up the lie of planetary salesmen. A few tangles with some local color.
2. By the second planet, the players should start to notice things are a miss; mysterious late-night private holo calls, close calls with local authorities investigating Rebel activity in the area. By the third planet it should start to become clear that the Imperials are on to them; previously visited locations being blown up by Imperials. News reports entailing the escape of Rebels fleeing the area.
The End: Whether the players confront the "Salesmen" about his clear connection with the Rebellion is up to you and your players. Negative opinions toward the Rebels may push the Salesmen to run for fear of a double-cross by the players, the Imperials would pay a handsome "finder fee" to the whereabouts of said Rebel. This angle could lead to more work from the Imperials. On the other hand, if the players find the idea of being on the run and aiding the Rebels could clearly set them up for some future work. If the players can hold their tongue and just go along with the scam and walk away from the job could earn them some respect among the independent factions. Either outcome should net the players some new contacts and some credits. As the GM, this should drop the potential of some new enemies/allies and hopefully a hook or two for your next game.
The Hook: The PCs are hired as guards for a prison transport ship. The ship is transferring several high-security prisoners. The PCs will be leaving their ship at home for this one; they'll be traveling aboard the prisoner transport. If your players insist on bringing their ship as an escort, tell them the destination is secret, so that will not be possible.
The Meat: The prisoners belong to the government of a planet. The prisoners on board are all convicted of extremely violent crimes which is why they are being transported from the planet to the high-security prison facility located on another planet.
The hyperspace journey should take at least a week, but feel free to make it longer if you want. This time is important because it means that the prisoners cannot simply remain locked up for the duration of the trip. There will need to be several times that the prisoners are allowed out for exercise and hygiene, as well as to give time for their cells to be cleaned. This is essential to driving the adventure as it will give opportunities for attacks on the PCs, fights amongst prisoners, and riots, as well as give the prisoners opportunities to obtain contraband and further escape plans.
Eventually, one of the prisoners will be successful in making an escape and will try to take over the ship. He will escape from his cell during the night, slice the security system, and release most or all of the other prisoners. The prisoners will attempt to arm themselves and take over the ship. The PCs will need to stop the prisoners and return them to their cells - or escape the hostile ship before being killed or captured.
There should be opportunities for all of the PCs to shine here: there will be combat, opposed slicing to regain parts of the security system, social checks to convince prisoners to surrender or help, mechanical checks to repair parts of the ship or barricade doors, and more.
The End: This will depend a lot on how successful the PCs are in containing the prisoners. If they are able to get the escape completely under control with minimal losses, a bonus should be in order as well as future employment opportunities.
If the PCs manage to barely succeed, such as by barricading themselves in the cockpit and desperately landing at the prison facility, the PCs will receive minimal pay but gratitude for at least saving the ship.
If, however, the PCs turned tail and escaped on another ship or by the escape pods (or even if they were captured), they will receive no pay and may even earn a bounty as the government will assume they aided the prisoners in their escape. If they were captured, that's another adventure to run.
The Hook: The PCs are hired to rescue a colleague of the employer. This person was captured by a Hutt and imprisoned for smuggling inside his territory. The Hutt is going to have him fight in his arena. (I just realized this sounds exactly like the end of Trouble Brewing, so using Thakba the Hutt would probably be a good fit).
The Meat: I'm going to be a bit lazy and go much vaguer than I usually do. The players are likely to bring a lot of ideas for how to deal with this one, so planning out the specifics might be tough. Personally, I would give the PCs the option of joining the arena in some way. Perhaps Thakba has prizes to entice fighters that aren't forced to be there. The PCs might also try to sabotage the opponents of their target in order to buy time. Finally, if they ran Trouble Brewing, they may attempt to leverage their good relationship with Thakba in some manner. Regardless of their plans, I would expect them to either try to deliver something to the target or sneak/blast their way into the prison at some point.
As a note, I would suggest paying attention to how much time the PCs spend during the rescue. The target will have regularly scheduled fights in the arena (perhaps more than once each day) and these may lead to the target's death.
The End: Getting the target out alive secures the PCs' payment. If the target dies, regardless of the circumstances, the PCs get nothing. Unless the PCs are able to execute this rescue perfectly (or with Thakba's blessing), they are likely to have made an enemy of a minor Hutt kingpin. Be sure to use this to create future trouble for the PCs.
Specialization: Marauder preferred, but any hired gun who is good at melee or brawl.
The Hook: This idea is from Game of Thrones. A certain wealthy "trader" has finally had his shady dealings backfire and may be facing a death sentence. This wealthy person contacts the Hired Gun PC with an urgent request to represent him in a trial by combat on an outer rim world.
The Meat: The PC group is contacted by a known smuggler (possibly someone previously met in another adventure). He requests their help on a planet far out in the outer rim and promises great wealth if they succeed. When they travel to this planet, they find out their contact has been arrested and placed on trial for his illegal dealings. The evidence is stacked against their client, and unfortunately, the penalty for his crimes is death.
The client has found one possible out. The inhabitants of this planet have a tradition of requesting a trial by combat to "let the gods decide guilt or innocence." The smuggler himself knows he is no fighter and has no chance in melee combat against the "people's champion" who happens to be the biggest and baddest dude around. The client tells the PC hired gun that this is his only hope and promises great riches if the PC should win the melee and clear him.
While thinking over his proposition, the PCs could learn of others who plot to ensure the smuggler is executed and that his champion loses. There could be attempts to poison, cripple, or kidnap the PC fighter to prevent him from fighting in the melee or ensuring he loses. There could also be ways that the PCs could learn about weaknesses in the seemingly indestructible opponent, or the fighter's friends could seek ways to sabotage the enemy.
PCs could find out about a plot of one of the smuggler's enemies working with the government to see him executed. They could try to find a way to implicate this enemy of the accused crimes instead. Or the PCs could decide this smuggler deserves to die and bail on him at the last moment, trying to find a way to take his riches anyway.
The End: The adventure will most likely end with a melee fight, which has the PC character vs. the NPC brute. Along the way, the one-on-one could erupt into a full-on firefight between the PC party and the NPCs minions, if either side attempts to interfere. While the Hired Gun is fighting, the other PCs could try to plan a jailbreak, helping the smuggler escape. If they succeed in saving the smuggler, either way, they could receive the promised riches or be double-crossed and left to run from the planet's authorities themselves.
Specialization: Enforcer, though any would work.
The Hook: A local crime lord has had one of his smugglers fail to bring in their cargo. The PCs are hired to accost the smuggler and his crew and get the cargo, and "make a point" with the smuggler. Think Han's dumping his spice cargo for Jabba, or from Firefly when they return the medicine they were supposed to steal for Niska.
The Meat: To differentiate from a Bounty mission, the PCs should be given the location where the smuggler is expected after their next run. The PCs could intercept them coming into the system (if you'd like to add a little space combat), or confront them at the docking bay.
The content of the mission will depend a lot on the style of the player group. Stealthier PCs can board the ship, take the goods, and do some sabotage. PCs that prefer to avoid violence can engage in some serious Coercion, which should also involve either taking or damaging something belonging to the smuggler so they "get the message". More combat-oriented PCs can break a few bones and generally leave the smuggler/crew licking their wounds; however, death should be avoided, as the crime lord wants them to fear him and still work for him.
Complications could involve the cargo no longer being aboard the smuggler's ship. Perhaps instead of selling the cargo for their own gain, the smuggler gave it back for more moral reasons. Maybe the PCs are sympathetic to the smuggler and decide to instead get back at the crime lord. Or the smuggler could have taken the goods to a rival crime lord, and expecting an ambush they brought back up with them.
The End: Full payment and/or Obligation reduction for the return of the goods and roughing-up the smuggler. Slight reduction for returning the value in credits or for the smugglers' death or escape. If the PCs side with the smuggler, this could lead to more adventures against their employer.
The Hook: Bodyguard for a local sleemo. His life was recently threatened.
The Meat: Bribed to intentionally fail at guarding the client against his enemies.
The End: guard client successfully, fail, betray client, capture/kill client’s assassin.
The Hook: Intimidate client’s business rival to sell his legitimate business.
The Meat: rival’s business is a boon to the local community, customers would have to go through client instead. The client charges insane prices for essentials.
The End: do the job, quit the job, get the client to lower his prices.
The Hook: Basically the ANYYON, The Guardians of An'yettu mission on page 85 of Dangerous Covenants except pulling in more information from the EU, the party's combat prowess and bloodshed reawaken the Rodians' old obsession with violence and death. The party is then asked to spearhead the takeover of the planet by the clan leader. Hoping to take power from Navik the Red of the Chattza clan.
The Meat: A long campaign taking over country after country, managing resources, and eventually assaulting the capital which is receiving reinforcements from the Empire and Black Sun.
The End: The party can choose to take power for themselves since they were the biggest factor in taking over and rule their own planet or they can be considered honored war heroes to the planet and can call on aid from them whenever they want and always guarantee a safe refuge from their enemies.
The Smuggler
Spoiler
The Hook: The PCs are offered a job to transport an unknown cargo and offered a ridiculously high payment. The employer absolutely refuses to tell the PCs what the cargo is; they can either take the job or leave it. The PCs are sent to meet a ship in a remote location to pick up the cargo and, as they prepare to load the cargo, discover that their cargo is a group of slaves.
The Meat: The PCs have a few options here. They could back out of the deal and leave. They could take the slaves with them and free them later. They could attack the slavers. If your players (or their characters) are particularly evil, they could simply complete the deal.
The End: Depending on how the PCs deal with the slaves will greatly affect how the adventure ends. Most likely, they will have earned some new enemies in the slavers. If they went the evil route, having one of the slaves become a future nemesis could make for some fun down the line.
Hook: The Smuggler is hired to move legitimate but regulated cargo from the core to the rim. Alcohol or medicine for instance. The pay is a little higher than a normal transport job but the client wants it moved "without Imperial oversight". A drop off location is selected. One of the more popular outer rim worlds. They are told what ship the buyer will be flying and where to meet him when they get there.
Meet: They need to slip past at least two imperial checkpoints and get the cargo to the destination. When they get there they discover that the ship they were to meet with, to transfer the cargo to, has been impounded by the ISB. The buyer, who evaded capture, contacts them and suggests that he could pay them an additional fare if they take him and the cargo to a nearby planet.
End: They take him to the planet only to discover that the buyer is working with the Rebel Alliance. Now the party needs to determine what to do with their knowledge of the rebel base.
Specialization: Thief
The Hook: The owner of a spaceport/storage business/whatever wants to hire the PCs to break into a rival business to steal something from one or more of their customers. He is doing this as a way to undermine his rival's claims of security in hopes of increasing his business.
The Meat: The PCs can either go through with the theft or they could approach the rival with the information, possibly turning around and instead of robbing the initial employer instead. Another possibility would be for the PCs to intentionally fail at the theft in order to make the security look better.
The End: If the PCs completed the theft successfully, they get paid. To tie into future adventures, the PC's identities could be discovered later, leading to bounties or just an enemy. If they were caught, they'll need to deal with the authorities - or maybe just an angry Hutt.
The Hook: A planet is currently under blockade. The PCs are hired to deliver much needed medical supplies. The employer has some stolen transponder codes that should get the PCs past the blockade and to the surface, but it's unlikely the codes work again on the way out.
The Meat: This adventure can go in many directions. The transponder could fail, leading to a chase to the surface. Either way, the PCs will need to find an alternate way of bypassing the blockade on the way out. Some suggestions would be to bribe an official, steal new transponder codes, or, if the players are feeling brave, try to run the blockade directly, escaping to hyperspace. They could even find a way to end the blockade.
Beyond that, there are lots to work with here. Why is the planet blockaded? Is it a political move? Is there a contagion of some kind? Perhaps a Moff has gone rogue and is trying to cover up something. Getting off the planet could/should require the PCs to become embroiled in whatever intrigue is happening.
The End: Not much I can say here since the meat is so open. Obviously, the players will eventually be able to leave the planet, but the how and why will greatly depend on your design.
The Hook: The PCs are hired to transport some Imperial weapons or technology to some location in space in order to trade them for some other commodity they need. Before the trade can be completed, the trader is captured by the Imperials. Knowing that the PCs will be meeting him with stolen Imperial tech, he strikes a deal with the Imperials to betray the PCs.
The Meat: When the PCs show up to make the trade, have it appear as if nothing is wrong, but give the players many opportunities to get a sense that something is amiss. Depending on how your players react, they may proceed with the trade, flee, or attempt to change the arrangement somehow. Regardless, the Imperials will be monitoring the situation and should show up at some point before the PCs leave. Make sure to use an appropriate challenge of the ship here; the players shouldn't feel immediately defeated and should have an opportunity to escape or fight back.
The End: By the end of the adventure, the PCs will have either destroyed or fled from the Imperial ship or have been captured. If they managed to get away with their goods, then they'll be back to square one to find somewhere to offload their goods. If they were captured, that's another new adventure to run.
The Hook: The players are hired to deliver needed medical supplies to a mid-rim world. If they're sympathetic to the Rebellion, the Rebels are upfront about it - they're delivering to a Rebel stronghold. Otherwise, all they're told is it's a humanitarian supply run.
The Meat: The PC ship comes out of hyperspace into a warzone. The Imperial navy is bombarding the planet and Rebel forces are engaged in a desperate battle against the blockade. If they want to get paid, the players will have to slip through the battle onto the planet surface, brave the bombardment, and head to the drop off point - a Rebel bunker in a devastated city crawling with Imperial troops. Even if they drop off the cargo, the players then have to backtrack past the battle and escape the system. Being caught with the supplies by Imperial forces gets them labeled as suspected Rebel sympathizers even if they *didn't* know who they were delivering to.
The End: If the players bail on the job, the Rebels catch wind of it and the players' reputation takes a big hit - Rebel elements are also less likely to hire them again. They can still make a profit, though, selling the supplies on the black market. If they succeed in the mission, the Rebellion is overjoyed and duly impressed - they're given a bonus (materials, money, or favors) for risking their necks, and the promise of more work in the future.
Specialization: Thief & Pilot
The Hook: Someone hires the PCs to retrieve their starship from an impound yard.
The Meat: After somehow breaking into the impound lot, they discover the ship is no longer there. The PCs must do some investigation to find out where it's gone. The best way for this adventure to play out will be as a trail of breadcrumbs. For instance, the impounder sold it to someone, then it was stolen and the transponder was changed before it was moved to a storage facility to await resale. Feel free to come up with your own ideas that fit the PC's skillsets.
Once the PCs eventually track down the ship, they have to break in and fly it out, all without damaging the ship too much.
The End: The PC's reward should be relative to the ship's condition. If they manage to get it there in perfect condition, especially if it doesn't take too long, they should get a bonus. A heavily damaged ship should be worth significantly less.
Specialization: Thief
The Hook: A sympathetic character approaches the PCs to retrieve an item that was stolen. In reality, the item is not rightfully theirs. The Damsel in Distress will work well here and ensure that the current owner of said item is especially villainous. The goal here is to lower the guard of players as much as possible; you want them to fully believe the damsel. If you feel there is a better way to trick your players (the players, not the PCs), then use that. Only roll for any deception if the players suspect something and, even then, make the check difficult; the damsel runs scams often and is well-practiced. Success should only make the PCs suspicious, not reveal the nature of her deception.
The Meat: If the PCs take the damsel at face value, they'll likely dive straight into trying to retrieve the item. This will probably involve the usual stuff like staking out the place, grabbing blueprints, and trying to find someone on the inside to bribe, or it could end up being more "guns blazing" if that's how your group plays.
Regardless of how your players approach this, it should eventually be revealed that the item does not, in fact, belong to the damsel. If you would like to add some extra twist, you can make it so that the villain is not the true owner either.
Depending on when and how this info is revealed, it can have some big changes to the adventure. It's possible that the villain may convince the PCs to give up their employer, either for money or simply to avoid being killed/arrested. If a third party is the true owner, the PCs may decide to simply abscond with the item in the hopes that the true owner will give them a larger reward.
As a final note, it could be interesting to make the item desirable to the PCs. If it's worth more than just credits, they may decide to keep it for themselves, especially if they know the damsel is not the owner.
The End: Depending on how the meat played out, you could end up in very different situations. At its core, however, are really just four main results.
If they give the item to the damsel, allow enough time for her to leave the planet before her deception is revealed; she'll make for an excellent future nemesis (think Saffron from Firefly).
If they let the villain keep the item, maybe he'll be a new friend, but that will greatly depend on how much damage they caused on the way in. You should also give the PCs an opportunity to confront the damsel.
If they decide to find the true owner, that could be an adventure in and of itself. If you want to go with something simpler, some simple social checks can be a faster way to go. If the PCs approach the owner along the vector of selling the item to him, he will react as if the PCs are criminals who are ransoming back his property. If they instead offer it up freely, he will be much more amenable to giving them a reward. Reward the players' risk here, to encourage this sort of play in the future. It doesn't need to just be more credits, but the players should feel it was worth it.
Finally, the PCs could have decided to keep the item. This should result in pretty much everyone involved becoming enemies of the PCs. I might even suggest telling the players that they'll need to take on obligation if they choose to keep the item.
The Hook: The heroes are hired by an eccentric collector to smuggle the parts of his vintage starcruiser through customs at [GM's choice]. The vessel is to be taken in pieces to his estate on another world. This unorthodox method will allow him to avoid a fortune in taxes to transport an expensive classic starcruiser and he intends to make a project out of rebuilding it. He's arranged to have the spaceframe prepaid for and stored at a remote mining station. The individual starship parts (engines, control systems, etc.) are to be purchased and picked up from the collector's contact on [GM's choice] as their first task.
The Meat: No doubt the heroes rejoice, for practiced smugglers, this is a coffee and cake run. First, the PCs meet up with the collector's contact; however, their patron failed to mention that this contact was a pirate. Even worse, the pirate brought members of his gang with the intention of taking the credits without completing their side of the bargain. The heroes will have to defend themselves from the greedy gangsters before taking possession of the starship parts.
The cargo consists of two large engines and several crates full of components that would take the better part of a week to catalog. Next, the heroes have to get clearance to take off without Imperial security confirming their manifest. The GM can throw out whatever hijinks he wants here as some side mission to solve a problem for the customs supervisor in return for not searching their ship.
As soon as the heroes hit space they are hailed by a recently arrived Star Destroyer asking if they specifically have cargo belonging to the collector that hired them. TIE Fighters quickly move to intercept. The heroes will have to hold them off until they can make the jump to lightspeed. Note that while it can be used to create tension, the Star Destroyer should not have enough time to come within range of the PC's ship.
The heroes make their first drop-off at the patron's estate on the planet [GM's choice]. The patron claims to not know why the Imperials would care about his project and offers to double the heroes' pay if they'll go retrieve the spaceframe. So long as smugglers still crave credits the heroes should agree.
When the heroes arrive at the mining station orbiting [GM's choice] they inquire as to the cargo pod that the spaceframe is contained in. The dockmaster tells them that an [alien of your choice] took possession of it a week ago. There is only one alien of that type on the station and the dockmaster claims he can usually be found on the recreation deck. Once there, the heroes find the alien playing sabacc. He claims that the patron owed him an unpaid debt and his repossession was fair and square. Luckily this alien has a weakness for gambling and if the heroes can engage him in a sabacc game they can play for the spaceframe (see the free adventure "Under a Black Sun" for rules on sabacc).
The heroes find the spaceframe cut into two pieces for easy transport on a freighter. It should dawn on them as soon as they see the frame that they are smuggling a Y-Wing Starfighter. Obviously, the patron has some explaining to do!
The End: Upon meeting the collector he admits that he has dedicated his wealth to assist the Rebel Alliance. He apologizes for not telling the heroes; however, he needed the best smugglers he could find one way or another. The patron makes good on the pay he promised the heroes plus something extra for their trouble.
The Hook: Guns and ammo need to be delivered to some people for their protection.
The Meat: Clients are a gang, intend on using the guns in a shooting war. Guns are Imperial owned. Both the Empire and Rebellion contact PCs about the stolen weapons
The End: deliver guns and get paid, decide against it, inform Rebels/Imperials about the guns. Could double or triple cross but that will end in a shootout.
The Hook: Transport shady characters off-world that want to avoid the Empire.
The Meat: Wanted criminals. A Bounty Hunter is sent after them to bring them in.
The End: Finish the job, give up the bounty, betray the clients and turn the bounty in yourself.
Specialization: Pilot
Hook: The players are contacted by a crime organization (the Pykes) to find a ship that has crashed in an asteroid field and return its cargo to their operative on some other planet. (Llanic fits well)
Meat: This involves several parts, which can be included or excluded based on the skill set of the group and how long the GM wants the adventure to be. It takes a while to find the crashed ship, which requires checks to survive that long in an asteroid field. A mechanic can decrease time by temporarily boosting the sensors. Once they land, they find that the co-pilot is still alive. The co-pilot expresses interest in knowing what the cargo is, and if the PCs look inside the crates, they find to be carrying some cheap, unimportant, and not very special cargo. Extensive, careful, searching reveals a data drive hidden inside. It is highly secure, and the PCs can spend time hacking it if they would like. This reveals navigation data. Further intrigue includes a baby Exogorth trying to attack the ship, which would require a check to transfer all of the crates in time.
End: Once they escape, they receive an alert that their communication systems are being used from the inside. They end up discovering that the co-pilot is the culprit and that he has summoned bounty hunters. Perhaps simultaneously, they must chase/battle the co-pilot and escape bounty hunters through the asteroid in a ship chase. Once in hyperspace, they may attempt to interrogate the co-pilot. Depending on how you want to continue, they may get all or part of the following story:
Spies for the Pykes captured navigation data from a crime family, (For example, Hutt clan Besadii) This data is the location of a very secret world that Besadii uses for spice mining. Too sensitive to send by comm, they instead decide to have a pilot smuggle the data drive to their base of operations. However, there is another crime lord (some minor Hutt, we'll call him Guta) who also wants the data. Guta is a rival to Besadii. Guta hired the co-pilot to get him the data drive. Since the drive is small and well-hidden, the co-pilot couldn't find it. So he organized the crashing of the ship and hoped that the Pykes would send someone who would know and reveal the location of the data drive. Expecting less powerful PCs/slower ship/less powerful ship, he assumed the bounty hunters could acquire the drive.
The Meat: The PCs have a few options here. They could back out of the deal and leave. They could take the slaves with them and free them later. They could attack the slavers. If your players (or their characters) are particularly evil, they could simply complete the deal.
The End: Depending on how the PCs deal with the slaves will greatly affect how the adventure ends. Most likely, they will have earned some new enemies in the slavers. If they went the evil route, having one of the slaves become a future nemesis could make for some fun down the line.
Hook: The Smuggler is hired to move legitimate but regulated cargo from the core to the rim. Alcohol or medicine for instance. The pay is a little higher than a normal transport job but the client wants it moved "without Imperial oversight". A drop off location is selected. One of the more popular outer rim worlds. They are told what ship the buyer will be flying and where to meet him when they get there.
Meet: They need to slip past at least two imperial checkpoints and get the cargo to the destination. When they get there they discover that the ship they were to meet with, to transfer the cargo to, has been impounded by the ISB. The buyer, who evaded capture, contacts them and suggests that he could pay them an additional fare if they take him and the cargo to a nearby planet.
End: They take him to the planet only to discover that the buyer is working with the Rebel Alliance. Now the party needs to determine what to do with their knowledge of the rebel base.
Specialization: Thief
The Hook: The owner of a spaceport/storage business/whatever wants to hire the PCs to break into a rival business to steal something from one or more of their customers. He is doing this as a way to undermine his rival's claims of security in hopes of increasing his business.
The Meat: The PCs can either go through with the theft or they could approach the rival with the information, possibly turning around and instead of robbing the initial employer instead. Another possibility would be for the PCs to intentionally fail at the theft in order to make the security look better.
The End: If the PCs completed the theft successfully, they get paid. To tie into future adventures, the PC's identities could be discovered later, leading to bounties or just an enemy. If they were caught, they'll need to deal with the authorities - or maybe just an angry Hutt.
The Hook: A planet is currently under blockade. The PCs are hired to deliver much needed medical supplies. The employer has some stolen transponder codes that should get the PCs past the blockade and to the surface, but it's unlikely the codes work again on the way out.
The Meat: This adventure can go in many directions. The transponder could fail, leading to a chase to the surface. Either way, the PCs will need to find an alternate way of bypassing the blockade on the way out. Some suggestions would be to bribe an official, steal new transponder codes, or, if the players are feeling brave, try to run the blockade directly, escaping to hyperspace. They could even find a way to end the blockade.
Beyond that, there are lots to work with here. Why is the planet blockaded? Is it a political move? Is there a contagion of some kind? Perhaps a Moff has gone rogue and is trying to cover up something. Getting off the planet could/should require the PCs to become embroiled in whatever intrigue is happening.
The End: Not much I can say here since the meat is so open. Obviously, the players will eventually be able to leave the planet, but the how and why will greatly depend on your design.
The Hook: The PCs are hired to transport some Imperial weapons or technology to some location in space in order to trade them for some other commodity they need. Before the trade can be completed, the trader is captured by the Imperials. Knowing that the PCs will be meeting him with stolen Imperial tech, he strikes a deal with the Imperials to betray the PCs.
The Meat: When the PCs show up to make the trade, have it appear as if nothing is wrong, but give the players many opportunities to get a sense that something is amiss. Depending on how your players react, they may proceed with the trade, flee, or attempt to change the arrangement somehow. Regardless, the Imperials will be monitoring the situation and should show up at some point before the PCs leave. Make sure to use an appropriate challenge of the ship here; the players shouldn't feel immediately defeated and should have an opportunity to escape or fight back.
The End: By the end of the adventure, the PCs will have either destroyed or fled from the Imperial ship or have been captured. If they managed to get away with their goods, then they'll be back to square one to find somewhere to offload their goods. If they were captured, that's another new adventure to run.
The Hook: The players are hired to deliver needed medical supplies to a mid-rim world. If they're sympathetic to the Rebellion, the Rebels are upfront about it - they're delivering to a Rebel stronghold. Otherwise, all they're told is it's a humanitarian supply run.
The Meat: The PC ship comes out of hyperspace into a warzone. The Imperial navy is bombarding the planet and Rebel forces are engaged in a desperate battle against the blockade. If they want to get paid, the players will have to slip through the battle onto the planet surface, brave the bombardment, and head to the drop off point - a Rebel bunker in a devastated city crawling with Imperial troops. Even if they drop off the cargo, the players then have to backtrack past the battle and escape the system. Being caught with the supplies by Imperial forces gets them labeled as suspected Rebel sympathizers even if they *didn't* know who they were delivering to.
The End: If the players bail on the job, the Rebels catch wind of it and the players' reputation takes a big hit - Rebel elements are also less likely to hire them again. They can still make a profit, though, selling the supplies on the black market. If they succeed in the mission, the Rebellion is overjoyed and duly impressed - they're given a bonus (materials, money, or favors) for risking their necks, and the promise of more work in the future.
Specialization: Thief & Pilot
The Hook: Someone hires the PCs to retrieve their starship from an impound yard.
The Meat: After somehow breaking into the impound lot, they discover the ship is no longer there. The PCs must do some investigation to find out where it's gone. The best way for this adventure to play out will be as a trail of breadcrumbs. For instance, the impounder sold it to someone, then it was stolen and the transponder was changed before it was moved to a storage facility to await resale. Feel free to come up with your own ideas that fit the PC's skillsets.
Once the PCs eventually track down the ship, they have to break in and fly it out, all without damaging the ship too much.
The End: The PC's reward should be relative to the ship's condition. If they manage to get it there in perfect condition, especially if it doesn't take too long, they should get a bonus. A heavily damaged ship should be worth significantly less.
Specialization: Thief
The Hook: A sympathetic character approaches the PCs to retrieve an item that was stolen. In reality, the item is not rightfully theirs. The Damsel in Distress will work well here and ensure that the current owner of said item is especially villainous. The goal here is to lower the guard of players as much as possible; you want them to fully believe the damsel. If you feel there is a better way to trick your players (the players, not the PCs), then use that. Only roll for any deception if the players suspect something and, even then, make the check difficult; the damsel runs scams often and is well-practiced. Success should only make the PCs suspicious, not reveal the nature of her deception.
The Meat: If the PCs take the damsel at face value, they'll likely dive straight into trying to retrieve the item. This will probably involve the usual stuff like staking out the place, grabbing blueprints, and trying to find someone on the inside to bribe, or it could end up being more "guns blazing" if that's how your group plays.
Regardless of how your players approach this, it should eventually be revealed that the item does not, in fact, belong to the damsel. If you would like to add some extra twist, you can make it so that the villain is not the true owner either.
Depending on when and how this info is revealed, it can have some big changes to the adventure. It's possible that the villain may convince the PCs to give up their employer, either for money or simply to avoid being killed/arrested. If a third party is the true owner, the PCs may decide to simply abscond with the item in the hopes that the true owner will give them a larger reward.
As a final note, it could be interesting to make the item desirable to the PCs. If it's worth more than just credits, they may decide to keep it for themselves, especially if they know the damsel is not the owner.
The End: Depending on how the meat played out, you could end up in very different situations. At its core, however, are really just four main results.
If they give the item to the damsel, allow enough time for her to leave the planet before her deception is revealed; she'll make for an excellent future nemesis (think Saffron from Firefly).
If they let the villain keep the item, maybe he'll be a new friend, but that will greatly depend on how much damage they caused on the way in. You should also give the PCs an opportunity to confront the damsel.
If they decide to find the true owner, that could be an adventure in and of itself. If you want to go with something simpler, some simple social checks can be a faster way to go. If the PCs approach the owner along the vector of selling the item to him, he will react as if the PCs are criminals who are ransoming back his property. If they instead offer it up freely, he will be much more amenable to giving them a reward. Reward the players' risk here, to encourage this sort of play in the future. It doesn't need to just be more credits, but the players should feel it was worth it.
Finally, the PCs could have decided to keep the item. This should result in pretty much everyone involved becoming enemies of the PCs. I might even suggest telling the players that they'll need to take on obligation if they choose to keep the item.
The Hook: The heroes are hired by an eccentric collector to smuggle the parts of his vintage starcruiser through customs at [GM's choice]. The vessel is to be taken in pieces to his estate on another world. This unorthodox method will allow him to avoid a fortune in taxes to transport an expensive classic starcruiser and he intends to make a project out of rebuilding it. He's arranged to have the spaceframe prepaid for and stored at a remote mining station. The individual starship parts (engines, control systems, etc.) are to be purchased and picked up from the collector's contact on [GM's choice] as their first task.
The Meat: No doubt the heroes rejoice, for practiced smugglers, this is a coffee and cake run. First, the PCs meet up with the collector's contact; however, their patron failed to mention that this contact was a pirate. Even worse, the pirate brought members of his gang with the intention of taking the credits without completing their side of the bargain. The heroes will have to defend themselves from the greedy gangsters before taking possession of the starship parts.
The cargo consists of two large engines and several crates full of components that would take the better part of a week to catalog. Next, the heroes have to get clearance to take off without Imperial security confirming their manifest. The GM can throw out whatever hijinks he wants here as some side mission to solve a problem for the customs supervisor in return for not searching their ship.
As soon as the heroes hit space they are hailed by a recently arrived Star Destroyer asking if they specifically have cargo belonging to the collector that hired them. TIE Fighters quickly move to intercept. The heroes will have to hold them off until they can make the jump to lightspeed. Note that while it can be used to create tension, the Star Destroyer should not have enough time to come within range of the PC's ship.
The heroes make their first drop-off at the patron's estate on the planet [GM's choice]. The patron claims to not know why the Imperials would care about his project and offers to double the heroes' pay if they'll go retrieve the spaceframe. So long as smugglers still crave credits the heroes should agree.
When the heroes arrive at the mining station orbiting [GM's choice] they inquire as to the cargo pod that the spaceframe is contained in. The dockmaster tells them that an [alien of your choice] took possession of it a week ago. There is only one alien of that type on the station and the dockmaster claims he can usually be found on the recreation deck. Once there, the heroes find the alien playing sabacc. He claims that the patron owed him an unpaid debt and his repossession was fair and square. Luckily this alien has a weakness for gambling and if the heroes can engage him in a sabacc game they can play for the spaceframe (see the free adventure "Under a Black Sun" for rules on sabacc).
The heroes find the spaceframe cut into two pieces for easy transport on a freighter. It should dawn on them as soon as they see the frame that they are smuggling a Y-Wing Starfighter. Obviously, the patron has some explaining to do!
The End: Upon meeting the collector he admits that he has dedicated his wealth to assist the Rebel Alliance. He apologizes for not telling the heroes; however, he needed the best smugglers he could find one way or another. The patron makes good on the pay he promised the heroes plus something extra for their trouble.
The Hook: Guns and ammo need to be delivered to some people for their protection.
The Meat: Clients are a gang, intend on using the guns in a shooting war. Guns are Imperial owned. Both the Empire and Rebellion contact PCs about the stolen weapons
The End: deliver guns and get paid, decide against it, inform Rebels/Imperials about the guns. Could double or triple cross but that will end in a shootout.
The Hook: Transport shady characters off-world that want to avoid the Empire.
The Meat: Wanted criminals. A Bounty Hunter is sent after them to bring them in.
The End: Finish the job, give up the bounty, betray the clients and turn the bounty in yourself.
Specialization: Pilot
Hook: The players are contacted by a crime organization (the Pykes) to find a ship that has crashed in an asteroid field and return its cargo to their operative on some other planet. (Llanic fits well)
Meat: This involves several parts, which can be included or excluded based on the skill set of the group and how long the GM wants the adventure to be. It takes a while to find the crashed ship, which requires checks to survive that long in an asteroid field. A mechanic can decrease time by temporarily boosting the sensors. Once they land, they find that the co-pilot is still alive. The co-pilot expresses interest in knowing what the cargo is, and if the PCs look inside the crates, they find to be carrying some cheap, unimportant, and not very special cargo. Extensive, careful, searching reveals a data drive hidden inside. It is highly secure, and the PCs can spend time hacking it if they would like. This reveals navigation data. Further intrigue includes a baby Exogorth trying to attack the ship, which would require a check to transfer all of the crates in time.
End: Once they escape, they receive an alert that their communication systems are being used from the inside. They end up discovering that the co-pilot is the culprit and that he has summoned bounty hunters. Perhaps simultaneously, they must chase/battle the co-pilot and escape bounty hunters through the asteroid in a ship chase. Once in hyperspace, they may attempt to interrogate the co-pilot. Depending on how you want to continue, they may get all or part of the following story:
Spies for the Pykes captured navigation data from a crime family, (For example, Hutt clan Besadii) This data is the location of a very secret world that Besadii uses for spice mining. Too sensitive to send by comm, they instead decide to have a pilot smuggle the data drive to their base of operations. However, there is another crime lord (some minor Hutt, we'll call him Guta) who also wants the data. Guta is a rival to Besadii. Guta hired the co-pilot to get him the data drive. Since the drive is small and well-hidden, the co-pilot couldn't find it. So he organized the crashing of the ship and hoped that the Pykes would send someone who would know and reveal the location of the data drive. Expecting less powerful PCs/slower ship/less powerful ship, he assumed the bounty hunters could acquire the drive.
The Technician
Spoiler
Specialization: Slicer
The Hook: The PCs are hired by a security firm to test their protection. The firm has asked the PCs to break into a secure facility to steal a specific piece of data from the databank. The firm will pay double if the PCs are successful and triple if they are able to do it without being spotted. It is absolutely imperative that no one is harmed; the PCs will be paid nothing if anyone is seriously injured or killed. The employer does not want to know when the PCs plan to make their attempt, but it must be within the next week/month/whatever.
The Meat: The PCs will need to do some recon work and come up with a plan. Depending on your player's abilities (and the PC's skillsets), you can vary the difficulty of the break-in. Some things to consider will be patrols with patterns, lazy guards who tend to take naps, security cameras, and locked doors (preferably that require slicing, to maintain the theme).
Outside of the data heist itself, there are some levers to pull. It could be that the firm has not approved this job and the employer is working on his own, specifically to get this data. Alternately, the PCs could take the opportunity to steal more data than they were permitted to or take other actions while accessing the databank.
The End: Depending on the decisions you've made, the adventure could end up in a few places. If the PCs are successful, they should get paid at whatever rate matches their performance, regardless of the employer's motivation; it's unlikely the PCs would hand over the data until they get paid.
If the PCs decided to take a little extra from the databank, make sure to keep track of how well they rolled. Any threat or despair could mean their intrusion was detected, which could lead to problems for them now or in the future.
Finally, if the PCs really muck it up, the authorities could end up showing up. Having the security firm completely disavow all knowledge of the operation could make for some interesting outcomes, especially if the employer was working on his own.
Specialization: Outlaw Tech
The Hook: There's a competition that occurs every 1/5/10/whatever years to build the best battle droid. The droids are entered into a gladiatorial competition against each other and the last droid standing wins. The prize money and recognition are huge, resulting in a large number of entrants from all backgrounds.
The Meat: This adventure has two main parts. The first is the construction of the droid. There is a massive range of options for how this could go down, but I'll include a few here that I think would be fun. The PCs could scavenge the rare and powerful remains of battle droids from past eras. They could break into a droid manufacturer to steal schematics and/or parts for prototype droids. They could contact a previous winner to figure out his secret (this could reveal some interesting secrets i.e. cheating or a rules loophole).
The second part is the competition itself. I'll start off by saying that running each of the combat encounters might not be a great idea, but it depends on your group. Unless you build the adventure in such a way that there are enough droids for all of your players to control, the combat will likely be boring for a lot of the group. Finding a way of abstractly resolving the combat will keep the game moving and keep everyone involved. The exception might be the final fight (if the droid makes it that far) since tensions will be higher.
With all that said, the competition should not be limited to the battlefield itself. Before the fights begin and in between rounds, the party should have things to do. There should definitely be cheating happening. Give the players opportunities to uncover sabotage. If the PCs' droid is doing well, have another competitor threaten them. Give the PCs the option to cheat too (with the associated consequences if they fail). Give time for repairs and modifications to the droid; allow the players to learn from each round and alter the droid accordingly.
For the fights themselves, for any that you actually run as a combat encounter, I would suggest coming up with ways of making it unique. Neutral combatants or dangerous, fluctuating terrain come to mind. Basically, you don't want the encounter to be, "I shoot, they shoot, I shoot, they shoot." It should require movement around the battlefield, quick reactions, and tactical choices. If it all comes down to the dice, there's not much point in running it.
For both parts of the adventure, there is a ton of leeway for creativity. I've just included a few options to get your juices flowing, but don't feel constrained by what's here. You know your group best; find ways to tailor the adventure to your players and their characters.
The End: As usual, if the PCs win, they get paid. Winning this competition should be a major boost to their reputation. Companies from all over will have an interest in the PCs and they will be contacted with lucrative offers in the future. This should also open up some contacts for them that they can use to help with future jobs. You could even find a way of tying this into obligation reduction.
If the PCs fail, consider the possibility of a partial reward based on how far they made it. For instance, making it to the final is still a huge accomplishment and may still open some doors for them (even if they have less leverage for pay negotiations). If the PCs were caught cheating, expulsion from the competition and a black mark on their name will likely be appropriate.
The Hook: A contact of the PCs has discovered some information that points to a ship graveyard somewhere in the Deep Core. Due to a certain combination of gravitational forces (or some other sci-fi mumbo jumbo) derelict ships collect in a certain region of space. The contact wants the PCs to go there and attempt to repair and recover any ships they can. Since this is a highly dangerous mission, having this reduce obligation would make sense.
The Meat: The contact has some very dated astrogation data, but it would be wise of the PCs to seek out newer data. The Empire considers the Deep Core routes to be highly restricted, so getting this data will not be easy. Reaching out to contacts or even taking on more obligation might be necessary. Make sure that the players understand just how dangerous the Deep Core is. The PCs should also consider picking up some spare parts; extra hyperdrives, nav computers, and sublight engine parts would make the most sense. They should also ensure a proper selection of tools if they don't already have them. Finally, the PCs should consider the fact that they may have to enter a vacuum and should prepare accordingly.
After they've finished their preparation, they need to make the jump. Personally, I would upgrade the astrogation check at least once to ensure the possibility of despair. Also modify the roll for any better data they may have received, as you see fit. If the jump does generate despair, instant death is an option but isn't going to be very much fun for most players. Instead, have the group be pulled out of hyperspace by the gravity of a planet and have them crash land there. From there, it's a new adventure to survive and somehow escape.
If the PCs make the jump safely, they can immediately confirm the story's veracity. Dozens of ships of varying designs and integrity and tons of debris litter the area. At this point, the PCs should start scanning the graveyard for ships that look like they're either space worthy or that could be made so. From there, they need to fly around from ship to ship getting them running and jumping them out of the Deep Core.
I would definitely suggest having some interesting encounters on some of the ships. Finding interesting data in the computers of one of the ships. A ship that's in complete working order, but devoid of all life (lots of room for imagination with this one). A ship that's inhabited by some hostile space creatures. Finding some valuable or rare weapons or gear. Finding a ship that the PCs might want to keep (this might require some negotiation or deception with their contact). There are lots of possibilities.
If you feel the need to mix things up, have an Imperial patrol come by to cause some trouble.
The End: Depending on how well the PCs rolled in their various efforts, they should be coming home with quite a payday. If they're very successful, they may even have a new ship of their own. I would also recommend trying to seed some future adventures from the ships they investigated; data or items from some of the derelict ships could easily lead to a larger story.
The Hook: The technician and his allies experienced engine difficulty and had to make an emergency stop at a remote space station that serves as a refueling depot for Imperial warships patrolling the Outer Rim. The Empire reluctantly granted the heroes clearance to land due to their engine difficulties. Soon after repairing their ship, while the heroes are relaxing at a tapcaf, chaos breaks out.
The Meat: The Rebel Alliance sets and successfully activates a bomb that disables the station's atmosphere processing plant. With only a limited amount of air left panic quickly sets in. The heroes realize they'll never get clearance to take off as everyone on the station is trying to depart at the same time.
Luckily the technician has the skills to repair the air processing system. First, he has to get through the panic-stricken crowds rushing for the docks (he has pushed against the wave to get further into the station). Another challenge awaits as the Rebels who disabled the system are still on the station and they plan to stop anyone reestablishing life support. The heroes will have to decide if they want to battle the Rebels to save an Imperial station or try to blast their way out with their ship.
The End: Either the heroes reestablish oxygen production (and earn obligation with the Rebels) or they fly to safety (and earn obligation with the Empire).
The Hook: The Technician is traveling to the planet [GM's Choice] when he receives a distress call. The plea for help is coming from a disabled Corellian Corvette orbiting Jumus (Sons of Fortune pg. 84 or any planet of the GM's choice).
The Meat: The captain claims he was attacked by pirates that disabled his ship. His crew evacuated the vessel and went to Jumus below. The captain wants the heroes to find his crew and relay their status. He's also willing to pay any skilled Technician to repair his disabled corvette.
As the Technician explores the ship he finds the maneuvering thrusters, power plant. and blaster turrets all knocked out but repairable. During a trip to the cargo bay he luckily sees the parts he'll need to repair the ship. However, the cargo hold also contains barrels of spice, chests with jewelry inside, and tons of weapons. It should dawn on the Technician that the captain wasn't attacked by pirates; he in fact is a pirate himself!
Meanwhile, the captain has become agitated. He snaps at anyone who talks to him and is constantly upset with the speed of repairs on his ship.
On the planet, the crew is very unfriendly and shows no desire to rejoin the captain's pirate gang. It only takes a little conversation regarding the corvette and pirates before the crew becomes violent. In fact, the crew is strangely more confrontational than they should be. The heroes will note that the crew member all have extremely bloodshot eyes as they attack.
The heroes return to the corvette with the bad news. There the captain has become extremely agitated and soon attacks the Technician for failing to bring the crew back. The heroes note his eyes are bloodshot.
Now the heroes have a broken down corvette; however, they are beginning to become agitated. Each hero should make hard Resilience checks to resist their urge to snap at their fellow heroes. The Technician will soon realize that this ship is carrying some kind of virus that caused the crew to go mad and rage.
Once the heroes realize they're infected someone will try to make a Medicine check to figure out what's going on. With an average roll, the hero will realize that they are infected with nanobots, tiny droids that are affecting their brains. Now it's up to the Technician to find a "cure" to disable the nanobots before they all go mad.
As if this isn't vexing enough, the Imperials show up and ID the corvette as a pirate vessel. The Imperial ship should be a smaller warship on par with a Corellian Corvette, not a mighty Star Destroyer that would blow them out of space. The Imperials will try to board the ship, putting the Technician and his allies in jeopardy. The heroes can either flee the corvette in their ship or they can stand and fight for possession of the corvette.
The End: If the heroes succeed in curing themselves, and defeating the Imperials, they can try to fix up the corvette. Many of its systems are dilapidated or disabled, making it a shadow of its former strength. Still, a capital ship is a great boon that can be sold off or fixed up. Alternatively, if they escape on their ship they may have grabbed some of the booty from the pirate ship's cargo hold. It's up to the GM to determine what their loot is worth.
Note that this ending could lead to further adventures. Who manufactured the nanobots? Why were they deployed and how did the pirates encounter the virus? How widespread is the disease?
The Hook: The PCs are hired by a security firm to test their protection. The firm has asked the PCs to break into a secure facility to steal a specific piece of data from the databank. The firm will pay double if the PCs are successful and triple if they are able to do it without being spotted. It is absolutely imperative that no one is harmed; the PCs will be paid nothing if anyone is seriously injured or killed. The employer does not want to know when the PCs plan to make their attempt, but it must be within the next week/month/whatever.
The Meat: The PCs will need to do some recon work and come up with a plan. Depending on your player's abilities (and the PC's skillsets), you can vary the difficulty of the break-in. Some things to consider will be patrols with patterns, lazy guards who tend to take naps, security cameras, and locked doors (preferably that require slicing, to maintain the theme).
Outside of the data heist itself, there are some levers to pull. It could be that the firm has not approved this job and the employer is working on his own, specifically to get this data. Alternately, the PCs could take the opportunity to steal more data than they were permitted to or take other actions while accessing the databank.
The End: Depending on the decisions you've made, the adventure could end up in a few places. If the PCs are successful, they should get paid at whatever rate matches their performance, regardless of the employer's motivation; it's unlikely the PCs would hand over the data until they get paid.
If the PCs decided to take a little extra from the databank, make sure to keep track of how well they rolled. Any threat or despair could mean their intrusion was detected, which could lead to problems for them now or in the future.
Finally, if the PCs really muck it up, the authorities could end up showing up. Having the security firm completely disavow all knowledge of the operation could make for some interesting outcomes, especially if the employer was working on his own.
Specialization: Outlaw Tech
The Hook: There's a competition that occurs every 1/5/10/whatever years to build the best battle droid. The droids are entered into a gladiatorial competition against each other and the last droid standing wins. The prize money and recognition are huge, resulting in a large number of entrants from all backgrounds.
The Meat: This adventure has two main parts. The first is the construction of the droid. There is a massive range of options for how this could go down, but I'll include a few here that I think would be fun. The PCs could scavenge the rare and powerful remains of battle droids from past eras. They could break into a droid manufacturer to steal schematics and/or parts for prototype droids. They could contact a previous winner to figure out his secret (this could reveal some interesting secrets i.e. cheating or a rules loophole).
The second part is the competition itself. I'll start off by saying that running each of the combat encounters might not be a great idea, but it depends on your group. Unless you build the adventure in such a way that there are enough droids for all of your players to control, the combat will likely be boring for a lot of the group. Finding a way of abstractly resolving the combat will keep the game moving and keep everyone involved. The exception might be the final fight (if the droid makes it that far) since tensions will be higher.
With all that said, the competition should not be limited to the battlefield itself. Before the fights begin and in between rounds, the party should have things to do. There should definitely be cheating happening. Give the players opportunities to uncover sabotage. If the PCs' droid is doing well, have another competitor threaten them. Give the PCs the option to cheat too (with the associated consequences if they fail). Give time for repairs and modifications to the droid; allow the players to learn from each round and alter the droid accordingly.
For the fights themselves, for any that you actually run as a combat encounter, I would suggest coming up with ways of making it unique. Neutral combatants or dangerous, fluctuating terrain come to mind. Basically, you don't want the encounter to be, "I shoot, they shoot, I shoot, they shoot." It should require movement around the battlefield, quick reactions, and tactical choices. If it all comes down to the dice, there's not much point in running it.
For both parts of the adventure, there is a ton of leeway for creativity. I've just included a few options to get your juices flowing, but don't feel constrained by what's here. You know your group best; find ways to tailor the adventure to your players and their characters.
The End: As usual, if the PCs win, they get paid. Winning this competition should be a major boost to their reputation. Companies from all over will have an interest in the PCs and they will be contacted with lucrative offers in the future. This should also open up some contacts for them that they can use to help with future jobs. You could even find a way of tying this into obligation reduction.
If the PCs fail, consider the possibility of a partial reward based on how far they made it. For instance, making it to the final is still a huge accomplishment and may still open some doors for them (even if they have less leverage for pay negotiations). If the PCs were caught cheating, expulsion from the competition and a black mark on their name will likely be appropriate.
The Hook: A contact of the PCs has discovered some information that points to a ship graveyard somewhere in the Deep Core. Due to a certain combination of gravitational forces (or some other sci-fi mumbo jumbo) derelict ships collect in a certain region of space. The contact wants the PCs to go there and attempt to repair and recover any ships they can. Since this is a highly dangerous mission, having this reduce obligation would make sense.
The Meat: The contact has some very dated astrogation data, but it would be wise of the PCs to seek out newer data. The Empire considers the Deep Core routes to be highly restricted, so getting this data will not be easy. Reaching out to contacts or even taking on more obligation might be necessary. Make sure that the players understand just how dangerous the Deep Core is. The PCs should also consider picking up some spare parts; extra hyperdrives, nav computers, and sublight engine parts would make the most sense. They should also ensure a proper selection of tools if they don't already have them. Finally, the PCs should consider the fact that they may have to enter a vacuum and should prepare accordingly.
After they've finished their preparation, they need to make the jump. Personally, I would upgrade the astrogation check at least once to ensure the possibility of despair. Also modify the roll for any better data they may have received, as you see fit. If the jump does generate despair, instant death is an option but isn't going to be very much fun for most players. Instead, have the group be pulled out of hyperspace by the gravity of a planet and have them crash land there. From there, it's a new adventure to survive and somehow escape.
If the PCs make the jump safely, they can immediately confirm the story's veracity. Dozens of ships of varying designs and integrity and tons of debris litter the area. At this point, the PCs should start scanning the graveyard for ships that look like they're either space worthy or that could be made so. From there, they need to fly around from ship to ship getting them running and jumping them out of the Deep Core.
I would definitely suggest having some interesting encounters on some of the ships. Finding interesting data in the computers of one of the ships. A ship that's in complete working order, but devoid of all life (lots of room for imagination with this one). A ship that's inhabited by some hostile space creatures. Finding some valuable or rare weapons or gear. Finding a ship that the PCs might want to keep (this might require some negotiation or deception with their contact). There are lots of possibilities.
If you feel the need to mix things up, have an Imperial patrol come by to cause some trouble.
The End: Depending on how well the PCs rolled in their various efforts, they should be coming home with quite a payday. If they're very successful, they may even have a new ship of their own. I would also recommend trying to seed some future adventures from the ships they investigated; data or items from some of the derelict ships could easily lead to a larger story.
The Hook: The technician and his allies experienced engine difficulty and had to make an emergency stop at a remote space station that serves as a refueling depot for Imperial warships patrolling the Outer Rim. The Empire reluctantly granted the heroes clearance to land due to their engine difficulties. Soon after repairing their ship, while the heroes are relaxing at a tapcaf, chaos breaks out.
The Meat: The Rebel Alliance sets and successfully activates a bomb that disables the station's atmosphere processing plant. With only a limited amount of air left panic quickly sets in. The heroes realize they'll never get clearance to take off as everyone on the station is trying to depart at the same time.
Luckily the technician has the skills to repair the air processing system. First, he has to get through the panic-stricken crowds rushing for the docks (he has pushed against the wave to get further into the station). Another challenge awaits as the Rebels who disabled the system are still on the station and they plan to stop anyone reestablishing life support. The heroes will have to decide if they want to battle the Rebels to save an Imperial station or try to blast their way out with their ship.
The End: Either the heroes reestablish oxygen production (and earn obligation with the Rebels) or they fly to safety (and earn obligation with the Empire).
The Hook: The Technician is traveling to the planet [GM's Choice] when he receives a distress call. The plea for help is coming from a disabled Corellian Corvette orbiting Jumus (Sons of Fortune pg. 84 or any planet of the GM's choice).
The Meat: The captain claims he was attacked by pirates that disabled his ship. His crew evacuated the vessel and went to Jumus below. The captain wants the heroes to find his crew and relay their status. He's also willing to pay any skilled Technician to repair his disabled corvette.
As the Technician explores the ship he finds the maneuvering thrusters, power plant. and blaster turrets all knocked out but repairable. During a trip to the cargo bay he luckily sees the parts he'll need to repair the ship. However, the cargo hold also contains barrels of spice, chests with jewelry inside, and tons of weapons. It should dawn on the Technician that the captain wasn't attacked by pirates; he in fact is a pirate himself!
Meanwhile, the captain has become agitated. He snaps at anyone who talks to him and is constantly upset with the speed of repairs on his ship.
On the planet, the crew is very unfriendly and shows no desire to rejoin the captain's pirate gang. It only takes a little conversation regarding the corvette and pirates before the crew becomes violent. In fact, the crew is strangely more confrontational than they should be. The heroes will note that the crew member all have extremely bloodshot eyes as they attack.
The heroes return to the corvette with the bad news. There the captain has become extremely agitated and soon attacks the Technician for failing to bring the crew back. The heroes note his eyes are bloodshot.
Now the heroes have a broken down corvette; however, they are beginning to become agitated. Each hero should make hard Resilience checks to resist their urge to snap at their fellow heroes. The Technician will soon realize that this ship is carrying some kind of virus that caused the crew to go mad and rage.
Once the heroes realize they're infected someone will try to make a Medicine check to figure out what's going on. With an average roll, the hero will realize that they are infected with nanobots, tiny droids that are affecting their brains. Now it's up to the Technician to find a "cure" to disable the nanobots before they all go mad.
As if this isn't vexing enough, the Imperials show up and ID the corvette as a pirate vessel. The Imperial ship should be a smaller warship on par with a Corellian Corvette, not a mighty Star Destroyer that would blow them out of space. The Imperials will try to board the ship, putting the Technician and his allies in jeopardy. The heroes can either flee the corvette in their ship or they can stand and fight for possession of the corvette.
The End: If the heroes succeed in curing themselves, and defeating the Imperials, they can try to fix up the corvette. Many of its systems are dilapidated or disabled, making it a shadow of its former strength. Still, a capital ship is a great boon that can be sold off or fixed up. Alternatively, if they escape on their ship they may have grabbed some of the booty from the pirate ship's cargo hold. It's up to the GM to determine what their loot is worth.
Note that this ending could lead to further adventures. Who manufactured the nanobots? Why were they deployed and how did the pirates encounter the virus? How widespread is the disease?