Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Star Wars: The Malicrux Peril


When I think old school gaming I think D6 Star Wars.


My Thursday-nighters are in the middle of a Classic Era (of course!) fringers campaign I'm running, and I thought I'd share some of the setting info. They've been galavanting round the Malicrux Sector in a race to discover the location of the Malicrux Peril - whatever that is - before anyone else gets it.


Good ol' fashioned space-romp fun, with a Beiberesque noble Captain,  a slimy and duplicitous Mon Cal tech, a Force-Sensitive Togruta stripper (watch her take the pleasure from this lightsaber!), and until recently a money-grubbing bounty hunter and a drug-fueled ex-corporate saboteur (these guys like their Shadowrun). Last week they were joined by a sentient garbage-hoarding amoeba and they've begun to explore a ruinous Jedi Temple; very haunted-house in spaaaaaace... like I said, fun.

I'll post stuff up about it every so often for anyone to use. Hope it makes you wanna break out handfuls of D6's and play :).

THE MALICRUX SECTOR

The Malicrux Sector is a small region of space limited to the confines of the Malicrux Nebula. Located on the fringe of Hutt Space in the Mid Rim Region, the Nebula has been slow to relinquish its wealth and many planetary systems lie hidden and unreachable deep within the interstellar clouds of the everchanging maelstrom.

The Nebula is the remnant of a colossal supernova that occurred tens of thousands of years ago, and has inexorably spread to its current girth and even today continues to expand. Scholars believe the Djakarshi void anomaly is all that remains of the original star, and the cataclysm utterly destroyed the fledgling Malicrux Empire that spanned a number of star systems that now lie in the heart of the Nebula. Little remains of the ancient Malicrux, consumed by the Djakarshi void or seared from the surrounding worlds in the fires of the interstellar explosion. These fires still smolder today, in great swathes of starburn that make navigating the Malicrux Nebula a very difficult and dangerous feat. The more turbulent regions of the Nebula still utilize ancient jump beacons — vast satellites that constantly scan the surrounding area for changes in the Nebula's starburn drifts then broadcast adjusted hyperspace co-ordinates for all to use.

Despite its comparatively small size and the challenges of traveling in the Nebula, the Malicrux Sector is blessed with a surprisingly high density of inhabited worlds. Over the millennia the Nebula has shielded its star systems from the much of rapacious hunger of the galactic corporations or the depredations of the neighboring Hutt clans; the Starburn Trade Run links only the most accessible star systems in the outer reaches of the Nebula, and few hyperspace routes have been plotted into the Nebula's deeper regions. It is widely believed that various select individuals and organisations know secret routes that cut right through the heart of the Malicrux; only fools and the insane would attempt to jump into the Nebula without meticulously calculated jump co-ordinates. Many are the stories of ships simply vanishing into the veils of the Nebula, and a number of pirate raiders plague the sector.

The Sector was controlled by a Council of Noble Houses, each with vested interests in one or more star systems. The Council would meet regularly at the Sector Capital of Sapphirica. Corporations and other mercantile organisations were required to negotiate with the Houses to enter the Sector's markets. During the days of the Old Republic a Senator was elected from the Council to represent the Sector's interest in the Galactic Senate; under the reign of the Emperor the Senator now liaises with the Imperial Governor Moff Kyreiken, based in the new Imperial City on Ravenholt. The relationship between the Sapphirican Council and the Imperial Governor is complicated, being at times obsequious, fractious, and occasionally deadly; ultimately the Council is slowly losing control to the rising power of the Empire.

2 comments:

  1. It's funny: Your background description sounds almost exactly like one I made for my own Star Wars d20 campaign a few years back. Campaign Area = self-contained sector, lots of stellar anomalies make space travel more complicated, remnants of ancient empire means artifacts and ruins to explore, set-up for intrigue and conflict with neighboring factions (Empire and Hutts), ruled by coalition of noble houses, it's all there. Not to accuse any of us for lack of originality, I rather think it's a kind of campaign setting that follows naturally from the premises of the game.

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  2. Funny thing is you're not the first to say that either!

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