EOTE: The Mando Mayhem Sessions

Here are the actual play write-ups of the four sessions I ran at the KakiTabletop booth during the Mando Mayhem event organised by Star Wars Malaysia Fan Club.

You can read about the reunion of friends during the two-day event in this blog post.

Session 1: “UNION TROUBLES”

(Saturday 2023-05-20; Rebellion Era.)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

• 41-VEX, Droid Colonist (Hanna)
• Lowhhrick, Wookiee Hired Gun (Imeel)
• Dash Pash, Human Smuggler (Jason)

Story resulting from Session 1:

Upon landing in Mos Eisley, Tatooine, Dash Pash, Lowhhrick & 41-VEX are apprehended by Imperial sandtroopers. Apparently, three weeks earlier a YT-1300 freighter named Millennium Falcon launched from Mos Eisley and broke through a blockade. Dash Pash’s ship Cash is also a YT-1300 but painted with shades of pink. The Cash had landed safely in Landing Bay 41. Before they could object, the Imperials threw them all in a holding cell in a security office across the street. All their weapons and gear, and even VEX’s blaster arm, were confiscated.

Ironically, the Imperials were not aware that their new prisoners were real Rebel operatives.

In their cell, they planned their next move. Lowhhrick put his Wookiee ear to the solid, black door but was unable to gain any intelligence of the situation in the office outside.

First of all, VEX tried calling a guard through the door, but the guard said, “You’re not fooling me, scum.” The droid also tried very hard to remotely connect with their arm on the guard’s console outside. They were unable to do so.

Dash decided to tinker with the ceiling holocam by climbing on Low’s back but fails to hack into it. But upon viewing the tinkering on his screen, the guard drew his SE-14 blaster and opened the cell door to threaten them. Dash threw the holocam he had removed at struck the guard in the face. Then Low moved forward and slammed the guard face first into the floor, knocking him out. VEX rushed out first to reattached their arm.

Dash and Low apprehended shiny black EG-6 power droid who was trying to flee and threw him into the cell. As they locked the cell door, VEX suggested to the power droid to form a union for their own benefit and safety. Retrieving their weapons and gear, the trio decide to connive their way out. Pash found a spare Imperial Naval Trooper uniform and wore it. With VEX as his “droid assistant” and Low as his prisoner (wearing a covertly-unclamped binders on his wrist), it was time to cross the street to their ship, Cash.

It was afternoon and both suns were shining above them. There were five Imperial sandtroopers at one end of the street and another five at the other. They turned left toward the entrance door to Landing Bay 41. The closest five stopped them. The lead trooper asked, “Where are you taking this prisoner?” Dash said that the local Imperial Prefect issued an order to bring the Wookiee to him. However, the sandtrooper sergeant did not believe him. Before he could draw his blaster, Low’s binders became released! Dash yelled, “Look out! It’s free!” A single swipe and Low cut the sergeant into two flopping pieces in mid-air. The rest of the squad – being local conscripts – fled in panic.

“Let’s get to the ship!” said Dash.

VEX reminded him, “There are five more troopers down the other end of the street. They’re coming this way.”

Blasters raised, the squad leader asked, “Do you need help?”

“No!” Dash told them. “We got this. This Wookiee will not be free ever again!” Somehow, right in front of the second squad of troopers, it seemed as if Dash had overpowered the huge, furry Wookiee and have now reattached his wrist binders. This would have been very suspect if not for VEX approaching them and once again preach unto them the virtues of having a strong union. Confused by the fast talk, the soldiers promised to look into it. Soon after, the trio had entered Landing Bay 41.

While VEX found the controls and opened the ceiling doors, Lowhhrick prepped the Cash for a quick getaway. However, in the ship’s engineering bay, Dash found a bomb strapped near the hypermatter reactor igniter. Who planted this? The smuggler quickly and successfully disarmed and removed the explosive from the engine compartment.

(By flipping a Destiny Token,) VEX managed to print out a stack of colour leaflets at the landing bay office and placed them on a grenade-booby trap set at Hangar Bay 41’s door.  As soon as VEX was up the entry ramp, it raised shut and the Cash blasted out of the bay.

Sandtroopers rushed for the hangar bay and triggered the grenade-booby trap. They all went flying. A cloud of leaflets fell around their armoured prone bodies. The squad leader, shaken bby the explosion, whispered, “We should actually unionise…”

Meanwhile, as the Cash soared away, Jabba the Hutt, via a translator droid, contacted them. Jabba was Dash’s long-time adversary. The droid said that they would destroy the Cash if they do not land at his palace and surrender to Jabba. Dash dared  the droid to carry out his threat. Of course it did not work as Dash had disabled it earlier.

When VEX heard Jabba (in the background) yell at the droid, they said, “What you should do is to unionise at the palace. You would have better treatment and benefits.”

The droid paused for a heartbeat, then replied, “That actually sounds like a good idea. Let me talk to the other droids at the-”

There was the sound of a metallic crunch and clattering on the floor because it seemed that Jabba had presumably decapitated his translator droid! As Jabba threatened them loudly, Dash thumbed off the comlink, then pulled the hyperdrive lever. The Cash disappeared into the rich starfield before them.

THE END

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Session 2: “A COLD CASE”

(Saturday 2023-05-20; Rebellion Era.)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

• “Cricket”, Clone Soldier-Infantry (Chewie)
• Narood, Rodian Explorer-Scout (James)
• Dash Pash, Human Smuggler-Pilot (Jason)

Story resulting from Session 2:

Six weeks after her escape from Mos Eisley, the pink-hulled YT-1300 Cash reverted back to realspace off the Ibaar system. In her cockpit, Dash Pash the pilot and Narood the Rodian scout were startled by the view before them. The Cash was about to fly through the tail of a local comet. With Narood spotting ice debris on the scopes, Dash tried his best not to pulverise his ship with the ice. (With a Success but a Threat,) The Cash safely navigated her way through the comet’s tail, but in the last moment collided with a debris, disabling the landing repulsorlifts.

Dash was able to guide the freighter to the general area of their landing zone, but they were unable to avoid a crash landing without repulsors. From the cockpit, Narood studied the landscape and identified a snowbank large enough for them to crash into. With Narood’s help, Dash pointed the ship to the snowbank and at the last second, fired the landing thrusters. With a lot of skill and luck, the Cash landed softly and safely on the heap of snow.

Dash and Narood considered their mission to retrieve a defecting Imperial General Calvoun. Their rendezvous point was at a small rocky hill about three kilometers away to the west, across an ice plain. They both geared up and debarked. Soon they saw a cloud bearing a wall of darkness below it, approaching their location. It was a blizzard, quick but heavy, that plagued the upper northern latitudes of Ibaar. Narood knew about them.

They headed back to the ship, battened the hatches, and waited for the blizzard to pass them by. The skies turned blue again 30 minutes later.

Dash had an idea: he would stay to repair the ship’s repulsorlifts because who knows when they need to escape fast. Narood would make contact with Calvoun himself. It took almost an hour for the Rodian to reach the base of the hill. He scoped it out but saw no traps. He felt like it was a trap.

There was a cave among the rocks. He sneaked into it with his blaster carbine and discovered someone tied up behind a boulder in the cave. The man was a clone trooper with a braided beard, called “Cricket“. Cricket told Narood that he used to be General Calvoun’s bodyguard. He took the job to try to kill the general, but instead the general got the drop on him. The general bound and left him to attract Rebel agents. Cricket said, the defection was a ruse. This was really a trap!

Narood cut Cricket’s bonds and handed him the DC-15a blaster rifle on the ground nearby. Cricket said, “We need to get out of here!”

“Our ship is 3 kilometres away. It would take a while to reach it.”

(By flipping a Destiny Token,) Cricket said, “I have a speeder bike stashed nearby. Come on!”

Indeed, there was a white-painted Aratech 74-Z speeder bike hidden among the huge snow-covered rocks on the northeastern quadrant of the hill. Cricket barked, “Get on!”

The duo made a beeline for the snowbank where the Cash had landed. They would have arrived quickly but for one thing: a single Arakyd Viper probe droid appeared and closed in on them from the northeast. The floating droid locked on to them as a target, spinning its torso so its blaster cannon lined up to finish them off. Before it could fire, Cricket swerved and closed in even faster on the Viper. Narood drew his carbine and fired at the ice and snow under the droid. The explosion of soil, dirt and steam took the droid by surprise, and obscured its view.

Cricket pulled up on his controls, rearing up the speeder, and hit the cannon trigger (achieving a Gunnery roll Success). The red energy bolt struck the Viper’s midsection, melting a lot of its gear, including its repulsorlift. The droid fell onto the ground in a heap of metal, sparks and smoke. Narood and Cricket whooped with joy as they zoomed towards the snowbank and the Cash‘s open entry ramp.

Inside, Narood introduced Cricket to Dash Pash who was just completing his repairs on the repulsorlifts. Cricket and Narood suggested they get out of there quick, but Dash wanted to attack General Calvoun. That was when the alarms began beeping. The Imperial Star Destroyer Manticore had just jumped into the atmosphere at an altitude of 20 kilometres and bearing 150 kilometres northeast. Dash believed if they could attack the Manticore head on, they could destroy it and kill General Calvoun.

Although Narood still wanted to flee, Cricket changed his mind: he favoured the frontal assault, suggesting flying into the hangar bay, then fight their way in towards Calvoun. Narood threw his hands up in frustration. Soon, the repulsorlifts were active again, and the landing thrusters raised them off the snowbank. The engines flared, and the Cash streaked like a meteor up towards the Manticore.

Flak cannons opened up, but Dash was able to evade skillfully and with finesse. At first the wedge-shaped threat was an arrowhead in the sky, then it was the entire sky. The Cash banked into the hangar bay, but (with a Failure in Piloting – Space) crashed into the hard deck, smashing into a lot other vehicles, including a Skipray Blastboat, tearing it apart. After that, the Cash was totally inoperable.

After regaining their senses, Dash, Narood and Cricket grabbed their weapons and prepared to leave the ship. Meanwhile several platoons of Imperial stormtroopers, armed with E-11 blaster rifles, had stormed the hangar bay & surrounded the Cash…

To be continued…?

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Session 3: “THE NAR SHADDAA REWARD”

(Sunday 2023-05-21; New Republic Era.)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

• “Mando” (Real name unknown), Mandalorian Bounty Hunter-Gadgeteer (Connor)
• Dethra, Twi’lek Technician-Outlaw Tech (Syed)
• “Weak Eye” Wickeye, Human Soldier-Sharpshooter (Colin)

Story resulting from Session 3:

It was four years after the Battle of Endor. In hyperspace, “Mando” the Mandalorian gadgeteer whose real name is unknown, Dethra the Twi’lek outlaw tech and “Weak Eye” Wickeye the sharpshooter were in the G9 Rigger freighter Eon Falcon when they received a holo message from Vorglo, an elderly Aqualish who used to fight with them during the war. Vorglo’s hologram recording said, “Mando, help me. I am being hunted on Nar Shaddaa. I’m at Shadow District 3. I don’t know what they want with me. Hurry, please!”

When the recording ended, the trio decided to rescue their old friend. Nar Shaddaa, also known as Smuggler’s Moon, is in Hutt Space. The moon orbited the Hutt homeworld of Nal Hutta. the Smuggler’s Moon & needs their help to flee the system. The trio agreed unanimously to go rescue Vorglo, and the Eon Falcon jumped into hyperspace heading for Smuggler’s Moon.

It only took them several hours of transit time. The Eon Falcon reverted near Nal Hutta and unfortunately a colossal cargo starship was in their flight path. A collision with a Field Secure Container Vessel was imminent. Thankfully, with his piloting skills, Mando was able to deftly avoid the collision. Immediately after, traffic control contacted them. After a quick talk with Dethra, they were granted permission to land on Landing Pad Delta-72A in Shadow District 3.

The Eon Falcon descended into the ecumenopolis’ grimy atmosphere. The arcologies there were painted dark, but illuminated by patterns of multi-coloured holographic lights. Four huge ziggurats rose above a wide arcology. Each ziggurat was marked as a Shadow District. Speeder lanes were a chaotic zig-zag of lights in the airspace surrounding them. Landing Pad Delta-72A folded outwards to become a landing pad as the Falcon touched down safely.

As Dethra settled business with the landing pad droids, Mando and Weak Eye geared up and prepared a walk into the dark, grimy enclosed streets of Nar Shaddaa. Dethra told them, “The droids will refuel and take care of the ship while we look for Vorglo.”

There were garishly coloured holograms advertising every type of business surrounding them. Fellow travellers and entrepreneurs of various species, sizes and locomotion-types populated the streets. Weak Eye asked, “Where are we going first, boss?”

Mando said, “We should check out the local jail, but first…” The armoured Mandalorian strode to a street stall selling sauteed space worms: his favourite street food. At ten credits a pack, he ordered one for each person in the team from a Brizzit vendor.

Suddenly. Weak Eye whispered to him (after rolling Perception successfully), “Boss, don’t panic, but we have a seeker droid following us.”

“Alright,” said Mando. “I have an idea.” (Flipping a Destiny Token) Mando activated a floating holographic projector that he could control using his wrist panel. They moved further ahead. When they were out of sight, Mando projected a hologram of himself walking down the street before the seeker droid came into view once again. The trio hid as the droid floated by following the holographic figure. Before the droid could effectively scan Mando’s holo, Wick Eye drew his weapon and blasted the droid.

Dethra rushed in and flipped open the undamaged droid brain. (Thanks to a couple of Advantages) The Twi’lek was able to access the memory banks and managed to easily extract a single cluster of information: It was a WANTED poster. All their faces were on it with the reward of 15,000 credits alive. The bounty was posted by an unknown party.

Thanks to Dethra’s excellent slicing skills, they also obtain another piece of information: An address, pointing to an office space located two levels above them.

At this point Dethra felt the ship might be in danger, and so the Twi’lek broke away from the team and rushed back to the ship to ensure its safety. Although the Eon Falcon was not the technician’s own ship, Dethra very much loved it.

There was an old B-1 battle droid guarding the closed door that led to Landing Pad Delta-72A. He managed to deceive the droid to abandon his post. Then he rushed onto the landing pad.

Upon boarding the ship, he promptly locked out the attendant droids, much to their annoyance, and carefully inspected the ship. He was sure that no one had sabotaged the Eon Falcon.

Meanwhile, Mando and Weak Eye proceeded to the address found in the droid’s memory. From a nearby junction in the corridor, they espy a door leading to an office. The door was shut, locked and guarded by a Red Nikto and a Weequay.

Mando tried to lure away the guards by yelling that there was a deal at a clothier’s down another corridor (and the rolled failed with an Advantage). But then a lady came running across the main corridor, yelling, “Buy one, free one? I am so there!” This caused the Nikto to abandon his post to run after the lady.

With one guard left, Mando went up to have a talk with him. The talk was a ruse. Weak Eye’s sniper skills dropped the Weequay with a stun bolt.

They opened the door into the office and a man was sitting on a high chair with his back to them. The man spins, and it was the Aqualish Vorglo. “Ah, I see that you did come to Nar Shaddaa to rescue me!”

The Aqualish had sent out the fake message to test their resolve. Because they made it this far to rescue him, he rewarded them with 15,000 credits. Ever since he became a successful entrepreneur on Nar Shaddaa, he wanted to repay the friends that stood with him over the years, which included Mando and Weak Eye as they both served as rebel soldiers five years ago during the Galactic Civil War.

They had a drink with their old friend at his office. For a second they considered not telling Dethra about the reward money. But being former rebels, their conscience were quite strong.

After wishing Vorglo well, Mando and Weak Eye returned to the Eon Falcon with Dethra’s cut as well. Dethra was elated as the Twi’lek immediately thought of buying gear to fit onto the ship.  Then, they lifted off and headed for new adventures.

THE END

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Session 4: “SCREECHER’S NICHE”

(Sunday 2023-05-21; New Republic Era.)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

• “Mando” (Real name unknown), Mandalorian Bounty Hunter-Gadgeteer (Connor)
• Scurvy H. Sharky, Human Smuggler-Gambler (Nathan)
• Brett “Bloodhound” Baden, Human Explorer-Scout (Haniel)

NOTE: This session is played by children of my old ACS Sitiawan classmates, two of them playing their parents’ PCs from our old 1989-1990 campaign!

Story resulting from Session 4:

“Mando” (real name still unknown) was assigned to team-up with Strikeforce Enteague‘s Scurvy H. Sharky the smuggler-gambler & Brett “Bloodhound” Baden the explorer-scout from the Enteague Sector.

Their drop zone was on a rocky plain with lava rivers on the planet Sullust where the Empire still had hidden bases. The Lambda-class shuttle successfully dropped them there, with no one questioning their approach. Their mission was to steal a prototype Imperial bomber named the TIE Screecher.

As they approached the black hill where the base was located, everyone spotted an Imperial dwarf probe droid scanning the terrain. Everybody found a hiding space but the probot spotted Brett. It flew down to have a chat. It droned, “This is a restricted military area. What is your business here? ”

A pausing for half a second, Brett said, “My name is Dr. Zak, and I have here invited here to inspect your base.” (Successful Deception check!) It scanned Brett’s ID (gotten with a flip of a Destiny Token) and cleared Brett immediately.  It thanked the “good doctor”, then hovered away.

When it moved out of sight, the others broke cover and they all headed for the hill.

There was a cave entrance at the base of the hill. According to their intel, the cave was the back door into the Imperial base. Being the scout, Brett headed in with his scopes and found a tunnel 100 metres long.

At the end of the tunnel was a door to a lift. It was presently guarded by a single Imperial Army trooper. After a moment considering their options, they decided to sneak in and stun the soldier.

They filed into the lift. There was a single button on the panel. Scurvy pressed it and they went upwards.

The doors opened and there was an antechamber guarded by two more Army troopers. Brett tried to use his Dr Zak ruse, but failed. The guards were about to call for backup when Mando and Scurvy surprised them. There were several muzzle flashes, and the guards were felled by carefully placed stun blasts.

Most of the wall on the right was an active, buzzing forcefield. Beyond the red-tinged wall of energy, they saw the TIE Screecher prototype in an empty launch bay.  They grabbed one of the unconscious guards’ code cylinder from his breast pockets. Mando clicked it into its slot at the wall panel and the forcefield disappeared.

They all stepped into the launch bay and quickly got to work.

While Mando boarded the ship and warmed up its ion engines, Scurvy headed for the panel at the far wall to open the bay doors. Unfortunately he triggered an alarm in the process.

Brett leapt back to the forcefield controls and reactivated the forcefield just as Imperial stormtroopers appeared from the lift into the antechamber.

The troops opened fire at them with their E-11 blaster rifles.

With the forcefield holding off the deadly blaster fire, they all rush into the bomber cockpit, turned the ship towards the open launch bay doors.

Then Mando hit a button and launched the TIE Screecher. During the unplanned launch the TIE Screecher’s ion engine exhaust ignited the fuel storage pods (another Destiny token flipped), causing the entire bay to explode, destroying the Imperial base and half the hillside in a ball of fire and debris. They were safely out of reach of the blast.

Mando, Brett Baden and Scurvy Sharky zoomed out into space and escaped into the safety of hyperspace, heading back to the Enteague Sector…

THE END

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Notes:

• This was the first time I ran multiple RPG sessions in public
• This was the first time I ran a session for children of my old ACS classmates.
• How I prepped for the game was printed and laminated a bunch of pregenerated character sheets that people might use, with some characters that might be well known now, like a Mandalorian like Din Djarin or a KX-series droid like K-2SO.
• When we begin, I would ask if they prefer Clone War, Galactic Civil War or New Republic eras. There would be pregens ready for them to choose.
• The books I brought were the Force and Destiny core rulebook, Allies and Adversaries, Rise of the Separatists, Dawn of Rebellion, the Edge of the Empire Beginner Box materials and my paperminis.
• This was fun for me and I hope I can do it again in the future.