A ruined Sith Library temple

[Jonos]

The adventure is progressing well, but I wanted to ask for some additional ideas.

What sort of mundane items may be found in a Sith Library Tomb?

Maybe they are worthless, or worth a few credits. Maybe they are just debris to fill in dusty corners. Maybe its the other grave goods buried with the Sith Lord.

Your thoughts?

[tetsuoh]

Artwork - Pottery from clans who feared their lord, Statues made of all kinds of things, tapestries mostly destroyed.

All of value to knowledgeable people studying history and to the big brute who likes breaking things.

Possibly the tribute from those who served him - whatever that may be, this could include the skeletons of slaves he took with him.

Sith like permanency though so many of the statues will probably be made of stone and upwards of 12ft in height and/or build into the temples structure.

More mundane things:

The intricate glowstone fixtures on the walls.
or if your sithlord prefers fire =
The metal and stonework braziers.

If your sith lord has guarded his vault well and no known raiders have succeeded they might find opulence in the form of precious metal and gemstone works jewelery/chalices/hand boxes/smaller statuettes on certain statues and/or busts or on shelves,

And/or if your sith lord was more martial maybe weapons taken from fallen enemies in the hands of statues created to look like his foes so he could mock them even in death - or mourn that he was their better in the end. Or just hanging on wall racks or on display on shelves. If he conquered jedi more than one lightsaber may be present as sith believed themselves to be the creators of such technology and it unfit for jedi hands.

To give a good list we need to know your sith lord first.

backstory - emotion - how he viewed his foes - how he treated others - what he valued in his life - all of this plays a part in it. If this was his domain - they should be able to read it like a half decayed holo of his life spread out before them. That is unless your sith was the paranoid minimalist - then theres nothing and all his knowledge is hidden thoughout the temples vault room behind false walls.

Ugh I'm enjoying this wayyyyyyyyyy too much aren't I.

[Jonos]

Alright, lets get down to some specifics.

Xian Yann was a Sith lord and a philosopher warrior. I was inspired by the Greek definition of Wisdom:

"Wisdom derives from the following formula: information without experience remains just information; information combined with experience results in knowledge; wisdom flows from the combination of knowledge and experience."

He was a warrior - he lead armies and vanquished his foes. He learned from his victories and also learned from those he vanquished.

He was a mentor - he trained warriors using the vast knowledge and experience he gained.

He was a scholar - He chronicled what he learned, and avoided revisionist history. While he believed in Sith ideology, he also knew that there was value in knowing that there were other ideas in the galaxy that were worthy of study. He knew the value in the lessons of defeat and failure. He sought to understand his enemies as well as conquer them. He didn't subscribe to the principle of eradicating his foes and obliterating their works and history.

Another passage that is important to understanding Xian is this:

"There are many problems with this secondhand approach when we are seeking truth. The most glaring one is that history is written by the victors not the vanquished. Even though Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian (Athenian) War, they realized defeat in their victory. On the other hand, Thermopylae was the exact opposite. The courageous and gallant last stand of Leonidas and his brother Greeks was a victory in defeat."

These ideals did not necessarily endear him to his contemporaries.

While Xian was a master of the dark side - harnessing his emotions to give him strength - he also sought to understand those emotions because, to him, understanding was the key to controlling. If he could control his own emotions, and provoke others into losing control of their own, he would be victorious.

When the Sith empire was crumbling in defeat at the end of the Great Hyperspace War, Xian fled to a remote moon in uncharted space where he established a stronghold. There he hoped to preserve his strength and all that he had learned in preparation for an eventual return to power.

He never had the chance, as his stronghold was discovered and attacked - destroyed by orbital bombardment. During the attack, Xian and many of his followers were killed - the survivors entombed their lord and tended to the collection of knowledge until the last of them passed away. When the last of Xian's servants grew close to death, he sealed the library tomb for the final time.

Xian's spirit was preserved within his talisman, eventually gaining enough strength to reform. Although by this point he had been buried within his tomb and he lingered there, unknown to his disciples, who had set about the task of salvaging works from the shattered remnants of the stronghold.

[Jonos]

I don't want the characters to have access to things that might upset the campaign balance. For example, a handful of lightsabers or sith holocrons.

The central theme is the redemption of a character that was, in times past, a sith warrior of some power. His backstory is somewhat of an "Iceman" plot, where he began as a Jedi, fell to the dark side, became a sith, and was then trapped in a symbiotic resin for a few thousand years. He was haunted by the spirit of his former Jedi master (who he had killed)

His master had a very long time to redeem his fallen pupil and when the character is discovered and freed (In the first adventure of the campaign, which is set in the Rebellion Era) he sets about redeeming himself fully. (The character started with 5 DSP and is working towards getting rid of them all) he also suffers from a form of amnesia (explaining why he began as a starting character and not an evil mega b@st@rd* armed with dark side force powers)

He is forever battling with the dark side and is seeking lore to help him in his battle to free himself from his dark masters (In my campaign, the D&D race of mind flayers 'Illithids' have come seeking to enslave the galaxy. They have chosen to control the various galactic powers and weaken them both by setting them in eternal conflict and struggle. They plan to act when the galaxy is weakest, enslaving everyone and everything for their own unfathomable goals) The Jedi character was one such being, enslaved and driven to darkness, controlled as an agent of the Illithids. The backstory is very extensive and way too long to list here (I don't want to put anyone to sleep with my many pages of fluff)

[Jonos]

The campaign has been underway for quite a long time, several characters have 5 or 6 D in their primary skillsets. The most frequent characters include

The Fallen Jedi, Gen Wosa. He was mentioned in the previous post.

The Smuggler and ship captain, Jexter Malone (created in the loose image of Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly) who comes from a family of force using matriarchs. He is slowly discovering that he has latent force potential (he began Force sensitive and recently has started unlocking some of his powers. He is not a Jedi, but tries to do good and right so is in essence a light sider.)

The Wayward Slicer: A Twilek scoundrel and tech wizard who worked with Jexter's family. (His "family' is a crime syndicate created from GG 11) She was too unpredictable and unruly to keep around, but too skilled to get rid of, so they sent her off with Jexter.

There are some other characters belonging to players that aren't able to make the regular game sessions, so they only appear from time to time and are not expected to take part in this adventure.

The campaign began loosely based upon Firefly, with the captain and his ship full of misfits scraping out a living as salvagers and freight haulers (GGs 6 and 9) and running a modified "Barani Conspiracy" campaign from "Secrets of the Sissar Run". I rewrote much of it to take place in the Rebellion Era, and doesn't rely upon all the backstory and political skullduggery in the original adventure.

With the discovery of a forgotten world, a prototype droid with unusual characteristics (Now part of their crew), the presence of the Alien Illithids, and the attack upon the captain's 'family' by an unknown rival syndicate - the campaign is in full swing.

The players are very busy - trying to avoid having to side with the Alliance (Despite Gen Wosa's desire to do so) free the Jedi from his darkness and dodging the Empire which is slowly starting to take notice of their antics and doings of illegal things, as well as an Inquisitor who is tracking down the Jedi since he has made a few blunders and gotten himself noticed.

[Whill]

[Jonos]

[Pel]

I like the idea of artwork and tapestries. You could weave (pun intended) them into your narrative by having them depict important discoveries or events in the life of the Sith Lord.

Mathematical proofs and tomes of philosophical treatises can take up large leatherbound manuscripts. Depending on how much longevity you want to put into this theme, maybe the players find some detail that helps the campaign in a minor way, or if they completely ignore the data, maybe a rival NPC finds the discarded books and gets credit for the "discovery".

Musical instruments are also commonly used by scientists and intellectuals so toss in a Sith harpsicord or even a gothic pipe organ.
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Aha!

[tetsuoh]

OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh

Grey Sith - I love grey sith - they can be incredibly dangerous and incredibly awe inspiring at the same time.

Okay so then he would take trophies from his fallen foes who he thought were worthy of this - so many weapons and armor would probably be on ceremonial display - he might have a collection of sculpted warriors he faced as he seemed the type of guy who might respect them - that whole mourn the loss of a great warrior more than anything.

As a philosopher some of his riches and mundane items may be murals, statues, carved tablets, scrolls, and even data on devices of collections of alien philosophy and culture. To most this stuff is nigh on worthless - but to the diplomat, galactic traveler, or even a jedi - this would be a treasure trove of information - even if more for light reading than anything. Mantras, Statues depicting meditations, rituals of all kinds, poetry and artwork from possibly dead or lost or unknown worlds, possibly items of no use but something so captivating to certain species that they need willpower checks to look away.

Alderaan was sacced in a number of old wars involving the sith. I doubt he would NOT have something from it being as he was - and if this campaign is set after its destruction then the survivors are grasping and throwing money towards reclaiming anything they can get their hands on from their homeworld.

He could have numerous items of martial prowess and artwork and information on martial practices - from alien martial arts to simple weapon play - statues of figures in all kinds of combat, collections of various weaponry and armors, collections of mantra's(philosophy of martial insight), Kata's (weapon stances and motions), and warfare tactics.

If he was beloved by his followers and worshiped by them then the tomb may contain a number of their mummified remains to serve as his servants in death and may in fact do just that. Sith alchemy is a rare talent and he doesn't sound like a sorcerer but more a warrior poet. BUT if he did know alchemy and passed it on to any apprentices and his apprentices/acolytes felt honor and respect for him they may have sacrificed their remains to be used as the final guardians of the library as undead. Think like the royal guards from the movie Mummy. Wether they do or do not come back to life, their remains may be considered treasure.
A look into their lives and how they served, not to mention they may be of races that have been lost to the annuals of time. Most sith purebloods are thought to be extinct by the time of episode 1, killed off by both their warlike nature and breed into extinction by the fact of other sith wanting their bloodline to contain the force link all pureblooded families had and the fact that the sith purebloods seemingly were able to breed with many other species including twileks and humans, even though those two are thought to be mutually exclusive of one another. And even more as maybe one or more of the acoyltes was of a completely unknown race to common galaxy, or of a race known to have gone extinct by modern times, or even of a race suffering from a genetic defect that one of their mummies may help cure. It all depends - did he accept the out of common races as equals? You didn't mention if he was a specie-ist. He could have been and all his acolytes are sith or human for all we know - could have been his odd quirk. If not though - there is opportunity for your players.

You can go SOOO many places with a treasure troves of sith.

If this is a library and as you stated he understood the "truth" that history is written by the victorious - then you might want to throw your PC's the curve ball of a lifetime.

That this sith was a collector of TRUTH.

That he has tomes and volumes and relics that depict how certain events actually happened in the past, things that often are destroyed because of the knowledge that the victorious want deleted.

Allow them to learn that the heroes some of them admire were not so glamourous, and that the mighty enemies those heroes faced, might have been the "good" guys.

This will also make the party question if this sith lord was so evil or not. He was someone who understood a far more vast scope of life than many.

[Jonos]

You get Xian pretty well. He isn't immediately hostile, and only really gets pissy when the characters either refuse to converse, or go all 'light side' and offensive or if they start trashing things or plundering some of his relics.

He does indeed collect the truth, and in the main hall of his library I have included lots of history that delve into the schism leading up to the original Jedi Civil war and the persecution and exile.

I hope to convey the Sith side of the story, about the intolerance of the Jedi, but also the brutality of the Sith and their own ideas of racial superiority.

Xian's great passion is in study of all martial philosophy - he admired and respected many of his foes and chronicled all of his campaigns and the greatest of his opposition. I want the characters to realize the things that Xian learned were his real treasures.

You have given me boat loads of ideas and scenery as well as food for thought. If you have any more thoughts, lay em on me! I'm steadily writing this adventure!

[tetsuoh]

One of the parts you have to include is how everything is covered in dust and many things are falling apart due to age.

This is a wealth a information that was the prize of someone powerful and awe inspiring, yet that information should be on the boundary of being lost.

This gives your group the dilemna of their realization and the fact that everything is lost given enough time. This also plays on how the one PC is himself lost in time.

You could play this off within the gallery of his honored foes, by covering the statues in their owners original armor and wielding their weapons.
Should any of the pc's touch one of the suits of armor - make the straps crumble and parts fall off.

These could include people that may have been heard of as ancient heroes AND villians from ancient times (like a jedi war hero who saved the lives of everyone on corellia, and then 3 statues down is the same sith who killed that hero in the legends), but the vast majority should be unknown BECAUSE of the truth being stripped away from honoring them because of time. These people were great, as was this sith - and now no one knows of them. If you want to make it harsher - include a villian the lost in time PC readily identifies, and make everyone else know of them as the great hero from a conflict in the mid rim.

In the more ground based side, you can award all the players in this vault:

You can award the big brawler with something unexpected, a weapon on one of the statues that suits their tastes, that is being wielded by a warrior no one has heard of but in times was feared and respected in many sectors as "Blank of the Color Weapons Name"

The smuggler type can learn of some hyperspace routes that have long sense fallen out of use and while they might be dangerous they lead to worlds where they might hide out.

The face of they group can learn insight into the political intriques of a nation that still exists on a core world, and may be able to use that to leverage goods or favors from a house that now tries to maintain a postitive political front.

The force users have their rewards laid out already.

And my favorite - if you have any children, a special reward - a simply but almighty device - a large marble of every shifting color that when first found is only dull glass. But alights when they are alone and whispers to them. It isn't evil and can only speak simple words, and warnings. And of a need for it to "Go Home", but has no idea where home is.

On the more darker side of things - include something malicous as well - if this vault contains Xian's truth as well. Let them learn of the evils of countless worlds and the despair of those that had nothing to do with the wars but could not escape the jedi and sith's influence. Including this sith lord's mistakes, and as a man of passion and power - he is sure to have made many. If you want to be harsh - include how one of them involved a woman he came to love and how his old master commanded the world to be crushed, and he did so - for power. Or how after he had conquered a planet, one of his acolytes came before him after his life - his master did not know he had just slain his own followers son. Or how after he succeeded in being named lord he learned of the sun of a system in his domain becoming unstable, and when he was asked to fix it - he instead doomed the entire system out of anger from another loss elsewhere.

[Jonos]

Here's an excerpt from the entryway. It's just after they get the temple door open and step inside...

The sand spills in as you step into the musty foyer. You can hear yourself breathing inside your breath mask, your heart beating in your ears as your eyes adjust to the dim light filtering in from the open door.

This is a circular chamber, silver specked gray stone – polished smooth and covered with a layer of dust. In the center of the chamber is a large three meter statue of a bald man wearing robes, he holds a sword in his right hand by his side, while his left arm is extended hand open as if to grasp something.

The walls are lined with huge stone tablets containing images of the same man holding a large crystal in each hand, sitting in a large chair while robed supplicants kneel before him. Other carved relief images show the man surrounded by armed and armored warriors, where he is apparently leading them to victory over what appear to be light saber wielding foes in cloaks.

Alcoves to the left and right each open into wide stairways curving down into the darkness, while a wide stairway in front of you leads up into an antechamber of some kind.

The air is still, save for a few motes of dust that fall through the light of your glowrods.

[Pel]

"The statues' eyes seem to follow you around the room, although the stone is immobile".

Outstanding intro! Just the right amounts of mystery and reverence. This is a campaign I'd definitely play in.
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Aha!

[Jonos]

I've decided to make a few slight changes. Xian decides that he knows his death is inevitable and he wants to preserve it all. Paper, flesh, stone, data - all these are fallible things. He decided to make a holocron but he couldn't have just ANY holocron. See what you think...

The Truth Sphere of Xian

Xian labored for many years after his exile to create a repository for his accumulated knowledge. It pained him to think that it would all be lost, that his study would be useless. Although a devout follower of the dark side, he held hope that somehow the destructive conflicts he had witnessed, been a part of, and even relished would end up being for nothing. While having always striven towards mastering death, as he had mastered life, his plan was to store his knowledge into a holocron, preserving him and his knowledge forever. The destruction of his stronghold was sudden and unforeseen, leaving his work incomplete. While all the necessary arrangements had been made to capture his departing spirit, he never felt his work was complete enough to make the final step. As it happened, he never got the chance.

What if some Jedi found his holocron? He didn’t want it destroyed simply because he was a Sith. The Jedi were very close minded that way. Perhaps even more terrifying to him was the thought that he might end up locked in some dusty archive, cut off from learning and study. To this end, he created the device in the shape of a sphere, so at least perhaps he would have a chance to explain its purpose. He wanted to create a legacy, so that he would discover everything – to continue learning even after his death.

Xian has been stuck in an existence of pure torment. He could not leave his tomb, he didn’t have any of his books, and had nothing new to study or learn. It was the worst kind of hell for him. Honestly, he couldn’t read them even if he had them. Being a spirit was very limiting, and his death didn’t go anything like he had planned. The characters represent a hope that has been a long time in the coming. He wants them to have his holocron, but not if they are close minded light siders who would destroy it or judge his work out of hand. No, he would kill them all before that happened. However, if he could control them, to get them to do what he wanted – to help him continue his work… then that would be his great victory.

[garhkal]

Go over some of the less used skills, to see what might be intresting to 'reward'..

Perhaps studying some of the murials or books/datapads there, might give insite into lost cultures, or planets (Cultures and Planetary systems).
Combat lore and where/how it was used (Tactics), ways to strengthen someone's resolve (willpower.
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