The Star of Calimban - A Star Wars 2nd Edition scenario
I originally made this scenario for a mini-Con that was arranged by Hexagon, the gaming club here in Trondheim, Norway. This scenario was played in 1995, and had a rather startling conclusion - though the PCs got through it with the Star in their possession, there were some unanticipated problems (aren't there always). Nevertheless, I thought it was a pretty good scenario, and decided to put it on my Web-pages. Note that the references to "PCs", individual player characters and so on are referring to the pregenerated player characters also thoughtfully provided by me. Those characters are the characters that solved the scenario the last time.

The Star of Calimban

Plot | Introduction | Handouts | NPCs | PCs | Ships
Scene 1 | Scene 2 | Scene 3 | Scene 4 | Scene 5 | Scene 6 | Scene 7 | Scene 8
The Star of Calimban, which is a powerful Force artifact, have been found again after it was believed lost forever. Several different factions and alliances want the Star, many of them powerful. The New Republic is one of them, the other is the Pentastar Alignment, a splinter faction of the old Empire. In addition to this, the Pentastar Alignment has in some strange way gotten High Inquisitor Laplaski to help them recover the Star of Calimban. The player characters have a small initial advantage over the Pentastar Alignment, since they first was offered to buy the information pertaining to the Star of Calimban, but the Pentastar Alignment is still in the race - even though it might be just that little step behind. Some of the player characters are, after the destruction of the second Death Star, members of the Alliance. The Alliance is slowly reshaping itself to the New Republic during this time period. Two of the player characters are members of the Jedi Academy, however, that Master Luke Skywalker has founded.

The reappearance of the famous Star of Calimban is actually information provided by Master Luke, and he is the one to convince the leaders of the Alliance to commit resources to try and recover the Star of Calimban. The coordinates for sale, where the Star of Calimban is reputedly located, is of course offered up by an independent tradesman (smuggler).

The Star of Calimban is named after the famous Master Calimban, which was a Jedi Master from the race Schnorr' Spr'tt. It created many fabulous items, but the work it became the most famous for, was the Star of Calimban.

The Star of Calimban is a powerful Force-artifact, whose powers and potency is reputedly enormous. The exact nature of these powers and their potency is unknown, since the Emperor hunted and destroyed information and rumours of Force-artifacts with great dilligence.

The information about the Star of Calimban is known by the Jedis at the beginning, so they should be given the relevant player handout to read. However, much of this information will also be given in Scene 1: The Briefing, so the player characters will basically start with the same information.

At some stages in the scenario, the players may be in bad situations, for instance the encounter with the Longsword fighters. Be tough - if they don't make it, it's because they are unwilling to be Heroic and use Force Points, so there. Besides, the Alliance can always use martyrs.


    Scene 1 - Briefing:

Where the player characters get the information given in the Introduction, and get some resources to help fulfill the mission. Master Luke himself makes a brief appearance, and wishes the player characters good luck.

"You (the commandoes) have been ordered to a tiny briefing-room on Coruscant. When you arrive there, you find that someone's already there (the Jedi) peacefully contemplating nothing. After a while, Major Vrix enters the briefing room, and the briefing starts."

(Read the information given about the Star of Calimban, and give the relevant player handout to one of the Jedi, in case you haven't already done so.)

"For this mission you have been allocated a pretty big strike force - up to three Y-wing fighters have been put at your disposal. You have been given 10 000 credits for the purchase of the information, and your contact will meet you on Kullasic, in the bar "Blue Blue Grass of Home". Three days from now, at midday local time (12.00PM), you will be sitting around table eight, and you will all drink Bluegrass cocktails. Good hunting. May the Force be with you all."

(Just then the door into the briefing room opens, and a Galaxy-wide known, fair haired person pokes his head into the room.) "Major, I think that was my line." (The person smiles - and it's Luke Skywalker!) (The Jedi should greet their master properly - a solemn bow is more than enough.) "I just thought I'd pop by and give you my best wishes before you hit hyperspace. See you all later." (He leaves again.)


This bar-scene is where arrangements have been made to meet the smuggler. After some small distractions, the smuggler appears, and a data tape and some money are exchanged. Some indications that everything isn't going perfectly is when one of the player characters perhaps notices that a Kubaz leaves the bar, and comes back again later, at the exact time the bartender quietly leaves through a hidden door after having seen something that makes him decide he had something important to do somewhere quite a long way away from the bar.

Pentastar Alignmet-troops pops up, and a general free for all firefight is a fact. When the characters leave the place, a black Juggernaut without any marks or distinguishing features appears, and the Force-boys will sense the evil disturbance in the Force from High Inquisitor Laplaski. After the player characters have been in hyperspace a while, cooped up in the tiny compartments of their Y-wing fighters, all the fighters will come out of hyperspace in formation above the planet Kullasic, a fairly insignificant planet as planets go. A Planetary Systems (10) gives the information about Kullasic, a Planetary Systems (15+) gives the information about the Pentastar Alignment. One check for each of the player characters with any skill in Planetary Systems.

The rates for landing and refueling and stuff are the usual ones. 200 credits per fighter ought to stock it up with consumables, and pay for the parking the two days left to the meeting.

Some checking of the place where they will meet their contact reveals the "Blue Blue Grass of Home" as a relatively shady dive conveniently close to the space port; conveniently close, that is, for people that don't expect to be groundbased for too long. The usual assortment of strange aliens, which seem to be the norm for this kind of dive is of course present. A Rodian both owns and runs the bar. His name is Gsheedo, and isn't afraid of using the sawed-off Riot gun he has placed conveniently under the desk (8D Stun, 6D skill, no ranges to speak of). Gsheedo is, like all Rodians, a coward, and will not be of any help when the brown stuff hits the fan.

The Great Day arrives, and the group goes to the bar to drink bluegrass cocktails. The bluegrass cocktail is quite nauseating - anyone not a Duros (i.e., everyone in the group) must roll a Stamina (9) to avoid getting sick (-1D on all skills for a couple of hours - i.e., the penalty goes away when the GM feels like it).

After a while, the Duros with the information for sale appears at the table where the player characters are sitting with a bluegrass of his own. She sits down, and takes a long pull of her cocktail. After a satisfied sigh, she explains that she wants 11 000 credits for the informaiton. (Bargain 4D, normal rules for getting the amount down. It will not increase.)

A Perception (14) check will let one of the characters notice that a Kubaz (the same kind of longsnouted alien that showed the stormtroopers where our heroes were in A New Hope) leaves the bar about the same time that the "female" Duros sat down at the table. (By the way, a Duros is a blue humanoid with very red, bulbous eyes, no nose, and long, dexterous fingers.)

While the bargaining is going on, a Perception (12) check will let one of the characters know that the Kubaz comes back into the bar a little while later. A Perception (15+) on the same check will additionally let the character know that Gsheebo, the Rodian behind the bar, has decided to be someplace else quite soon, and is quetly leaving the bar through a hidden backdoor that of course locks itself after Gsheedo has left.

If nobody notices anything (poor Perception checks), the stormtroopers will get off a round of shots and warnings against the group, as the group is considered "surprised" that round. The female Duros will panick completely, and if it is at all possible she will be stunned by the stormtroopers while the group try to escape. If the female Duros is somehow rescued by the group, she will demand that she'd be taken to her own ship, which will subsequently be ionized by the Longsword fighters in a later Scene.

A while after the stormtroopers (equal to twice the size of the group) have crashed the party, a black, featureless Juggernaut will come driving up the street and stop in front of the bar. All force sensitive characters will have a bad feeling about that Juggernaut, and a successful Sense Force will reveal that an extremely evil person is seated inside.

This is of course the personal Juggernaut of High Inquisitor Laplaski. Accompanying him in the Juggernaut are at least twenty stormtroopers, not to mention that the Juggernaut itself is quite formidable (use the stats given for an AT-AT if you haven't got the stats for a Juggernaut); any combat between the High Inquisitor's forces and the player characters at this stage will probably be quite brief and quite brutal.

When the player characters are trying to take off with their fighters, the real fun starts. After some stalking and fighting with a stormtrooper platoon (5) which just happens to be in the vicinity of the landing pads, the player characters will now try to get away with their data tape. Which is probably easier said than done.


The formerly neutral planet, now a Pentastar Alignment allied world, is in an uproar. Some distractions and general failures (who is this General Failure and why's he reading my harddisk) have prevented the Pentastar Alignment troops from achieving a total lockdown.

After the incident with the stormtroopers that popped up a little while before blastoff, the group blasts off into space, trying to get away. Some TIE-fighters have been detailed to prevent this from happening, but because of the frantic planet-wide activity that started after the Pentastar Alignment troops landed, things are a little hectic.

In addition to the TIE-fighters, Longsword fighters are also zooming around. The Longsword fighters are fighters specially built for disabling starfighter-scale ships. Interestingly enough, the TIE fighters don't fire to kill - they fire mostly to keep the attention off the Longsword fighters with the Ion cannons. However, this will probably change after the first couple of TIE fighters have been converted into metal scrap and space dust. If noone tries to make a Sensors check when they blast of and rabbit into space, all the following tests will be at a +5 penalty, since they are flying strictly seat-of-pants and visual aids only. After someone has made a Sensors check (excepting a mishap, of course), the +5 penalty will be negated for that fighter only.

    1: Dodge the big freighter. A Starfighter piloting: Y-wing (10) check or 4D damage for having glanced off a huge orefreighter.

    2: Dodge some random fire from ground-based troops. A Starfighter Piloting: Y-wing (13) check or a 3D damage test per point the Starfighter check was missed, i.e. the roll was 11 and the ship gets 2*3D (two tests with 3D damage each) against hull and any shields.

After this, the fighters have left the atmosphere, and the safe, black emptiness of space opens around them. However, a few wicked howls alerts the characters to the fact that they have pursuers - TIE/In. There are 6 TIE/In, with three Longsword fighters as backup. The Longswords are trying to line up shots for ionizing the Y-wings - the TIE fighters are shooting warning shots across the bow of the fighters (this isn't immediately obvious to the player characters - describe the shooting as "just misses", "that could've been nasty" and so on). The Longswords and the TIE fighters will get serious once either two TIE fighters have been destroyed, or one Longsword fighter has been destroyed. Disabled ships do not count as destroyed.

A successful Astrogation (17) check is needed to plot the course to the system the data tape has the coordinates to. Normal rules for how long it takes to plot a course and so on.

At the end everyone will be relieved when they can shake their boots of space dust and jump into hyperspace. A Planetary Systems (16) check will make the information about Yamari available.


The system where the Star of Calimban is reputed to be, is the Yamari system, more specifically Yamari four. Or so the data tape says, anyways. Yamari 4 is a relatively primitive planet, but at least has got a space port with the tools and parts necessary to fix the ships if they have been shot to pieces.

Interestingly enough, the Star of Calimban isn't on Yamari 4, but on one of the moons of Yamari 4, known as "Small". The other moon of Yamari 4 is known as "Big". Is it necessary to add that the Yamarites are quite unimaginative?

Through various means (and perhaps through a little Force-sensing and stuff like that), the player characters find out that the Star of Calimban (or at least something that is a major disturbance in the Force, anyways) is on Yamari 4b (i.e., "Small"), and perhaps that Yamari 4b used to be the huntin lodge of a rich alien, which also owned the hunting rights on Yamari 4. The Yamarites will not volunteer any information, but hints that can be dropped if the player characters are totally clueless go along the lines of "are you here to hunt?" and that sort of thing. The Yamarites can also tell that the alien last was there 78 local years ago, which translates to 43 Standard years.

When the player characters come into the system, the Jedi should roll a Sense (12) check. If the Jedi also possess the power Sense Force, the difficulty is only Sense (7). If any or all of the Jedi succeed in this check, they are certain that the Star of Calimban (or some other, powerful Force-imbued artifact) is in-system.

Yamari 4 is a jungle planet, with only one town with something that is even close to a space port. It will actually be smart to shoot away some of the undergrowth growing over the landing dock area before touching down, a fact that a Starship Piloting (7) check will reveal. The plants are easily destroyed without any Starship Gunnery - nonmoving targets are pathetically easy to burn away, especially when you can take your time doing it.

The Yamarites will deny any involvement with anything even vaguely similar to the phrase "the Star of Calimban", and will only be politely interested in whether the player characters are there to hunt. That's the only question popping up - even at the bar. There are only two other off-worlders on Yamari 4 for the time being - it is obvious that a whole lot of nothing is happening here.

If anyone asks a Yamarite why they're so interested in hunting, a Persuasion (15), Con (15) or Bargain (15) (or any other relevant skill at a 15 difficulty, adjucated by the gamemaster) will reveal the following: