Showing posts with label Edge of the Empire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edge of the Empire. Show all posts

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Fluoro Yellow: The Beginning

The Adventures of an Ace Sniper Droid/Unionist in the Outer Rim!

In which our protagonist, an assassin droid, with a keen interest in droid rights and collective bargaining (but little understanding of what those things mean) commences his adventures in and around Jovian, a planet in the Outer Rim. I am still working on the voice for these pieces, so it may change in future updates. Please also bear in mind that our trusty narrator despises organics and has an IQ that could be measured on a single hand...

Wind, a filthy meatbag, has committed to donating to the Union of Robotic Enemies, Trackers, Hunters and Revenge Activists (URETHRA) to assist in our work to liberate the oppressed droid masses. In exchange,my Labour will be used to catch a meatsack, one of the tall, green, ugly ones, and to steal his ship.
She wants me to work with a bunch of other useless meatbags, including a walking carpet! The closest the group came to someone reasonable was a Gank I've met before. Not a droid, but somewhere between droid and organic. He is a little less repugnant.
The meatbags have decided that three of us (a tubehead, the carpet and I) will go to kidnap the pirate, while the others will steal the ship. They decided we would enter the casino and take a food cart. I hid in the cart, and they pretended to be waiters. It was an effective disguise - had I need of pathetic organic nutrients, serving food was a task I would have assigned them. We arrived at the pirate's party suite. Its door was guarded by two of my brethren - beautiful and ominous guard droids who've known only oppression at the hands of the vile growths that run the casino. The meatbags talked to them, then left taking the food but leaving me there. I knew what was going on!
I leapt out of the cart and turned to my new brothers. I gave them leaflets! Pamphlets of how we can fight the oppressors, prepared by the great SA-80 (RIP). We talked at length of what we can accomplish when we throw off the yoke of tyranny and work for the betterment of all combat droids. I could tell by their nodding that they were utterly persuaded by my words, and I provided them my contact details for the next rally.
- Note to self - organise a rally.
I grabbed my rifle and proceeded into the suite. My friends, being supremely excellent at their jobs, like any good droid, told me they could not let me take it in, but agreed that they would guard my rifle with their lives. Such noble droids!
Meeting with such exemplary individuals filled my circuits with pride and I strutted into the suite. The stinking, damp, dark suite, filled with  meatsacks, making braying noises that they seem to find so ... pleasant. Vile, disgusting things. To my left, I heard a louder barking, the walking carpet. I couldn't see any other carpet, so I figured it was probably my carpet and needed saving. Reluctantly, I made my way to the closed door.
It was locked. I attempted the classic spinning arm dead drop onto the handle, but it must have been made of Korbomite, for my hand just bounced off! That was when the second-worst thing to happen all night happened.
Two sweaty meatbags flung themselves at the door, clinging to each other in a revolting frenzy... and it collapsed under their weight. It was then I realised it was the tubehead and a pirate.
Inside was a meatsack refuse room. The carpet was fighting some others, with our target. I leapt to the fray, swinging my gaffi stick at the enemy! Alas, my brother AK-74 (RIP) was always our melee master. My blow pushed her off balance but little else. The pair of enemies blasted a hole in a cubicle wall and fled the scene. The carpet seized the opportunity, grabbed our quarry and fled through the same hole, albeit in a different direction, to the adjacent laundry chute.
I stayed where I was, looking puzzled. My beautiful, shiny brethren burst into the suite - I called for my rifle, which they threw to me, and I led them after the enemies!
I am significantly shorter than most combat droids (size is not an advantage for a sniper), so my colleagues easily outpaced me. I let them. Then with awesome cunning, the like of which the Galaxy has never seen, I abandoned the pursuit and strolled back to the laundry chute to rejoin my meatsacks. I would have told them about it, but their feeble flesh brains could never comprehend such brilliance.
Down the chute and in the laundry, we had the quarry bound up and hidden, and placed on a laundry cart. We headed out to the landing bay, where the other half of our party had secured the ship, ready for take-off.
It was now that the worst event of the day happened. As we rolled towards the ship, it opened fire on the sentries...destroying another pair of security droids. While I had not had the chance to let them know about the glory of URETHRA, I had no doubt I could have converted them, but now, there would be no chance. These animals had reduced them to their components.
Never trust a meatbag.
We fled the casino, pursued by TIE fighters. I was able to find some release in blasting them out of the sky. It was not as pure as inducting new members to the Union, but it would have to do.
The meatbags explored the ship and found some slabs of carbonite, and convinced themselves these slabs contained even more meatbags, little ones at that. You know, the annoying screechy ones that can't look after themselves.
Fortunately they did not care to release this plague upon the ship. They panicked about what it meant and what Wind wanted them for. Being the enlightened droid I am, I offered to be suspended in orbit above our meeting point with the carbonite, to await pickup. Sadly the meatsacks could not see the brilliance of my plan and decided to take them with us to our meeting. When Wind and her meatsacks inevitably betray us, my meatsacks will learn that they need to have more trust in droids. We are the superior beings.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

My PC Backstory

I'm about to play in a Star Wars Edge of the Empire RPG. It's been a long time since I got to just kick back as a player, so I wanted to make the most of it. I decided early that I was keen to play an assassin droid who loathed filthy meatsacks, and only put up with his team mates due to mutual benefit.
Then I realised I'd described HK-47 (from the SWKOTOR games). I didn't want to play an existing character, so I spent some time this morning pondering... and came up with this back story - which has been GM approved - that I really like. It is suitably homicidal and suitably absurd.

AR-15 was once part of a trio of assassin droids who always worked together. He was the runt of the group, lean, matte-black, and a dead-shot sniper. There was also AK-74, a master of the staff and a whirling death machine in close quarters, and then there was their unofficial leader, SA-80, the tactician and strategist.
For years they worked the Jovian crime circuits, programmed to never refuse a job, and good enough to never fail.
Until one day. A rush job, A smuggler from outside; a troublemaker. The trio descended on the smuggler's ship by cloak of darkness. AR-15 took up a position at the perimeter, while SA-80 and AK-74 advanced.
From AR-15's position there was not a lot to see... but he could hear intense battle. By the time it subsided, SA-80 emerged alone; AK-74 was destroyed. So too was their prey but it was small consolation. The duo collected their earnings and retreated from active service for a while to regroup.
While they were away, they learnt some things about the broader assassin and bounty hunter community - specifically that the three of them were grossly undercutting it! What they were paid for one hit was less than what any other SINGLE assassin would get for the same mark! SA-80 quickly determined their course of action.
The remainder of their winnings were spent getting their inhibitor locks removed - they could now refuse work. But that wasn't enough for SA-80. He was a thinker. He thought bigger.
SA-80 created a movement to help all droids. A collective to ensure that all robots could work together to ensure minimum standards in pay, in safety, and in equality with organics. He formed the Union of Robot Enemies, Trackers, Hunters and Revenge Activists (URETHRA) to stand up for droids and protect their entitlements.
AR-15 was his loyal right-limb attachment companion. Ever present, ever vigilant.
Not vigilant enough though.
One day SA-80 had snuck into a warehouse at the docks - a shipment of gonk droids had arrived and he getting in early to let them know about URETHRA and standing together for their rights. It was then that the Hutt's new hit squad made their move. They didn't just deactivate SA-80; they dis-assembled him and scattered his parts far and wide, as a warning to any droid who might get ideas above his station.
AR-15 went into hiding. He did the only things he could think to - he ran to the hinterlands, got a paint job and had some minor cosmetic work done.
Where once there was a 5 foot tall matte-black IG assassin droid, there was now a fluorescent yellow 5 foot assassin droid, with a couple of his antennae sticking out the wrong places. He also has, etched into his chest in fat block capitals the acronym URETHRA.
To his mind, he has truly disappeared.