The Final Post of 2020

Hey, how about a respective post about 2020? Yeah, no. 

2020 was a dud. Today, I'll post a couple of images. Back when this s---show started, I pushed myself to practice drawing. 

I burned through pens and paper like crazy. Princesses, dragons, castles, knights, cat's, horses. I drew until I ran out of stuff to draw on and with. 

Thankfully, I resupplied in summer. And I'm still at it. 

This is a rough pencil drawing of a castle I'm working on. I've drawn it before and I'll probably draw it again. 

I wanted to work with my brush pen but it ran out a couple of months ago. 

This scratchy horse was done with a .5 sharpie pen. It was an iffy save. I figured I'd work on crosshatching if I couldn't do brush work. I don't know how I forgot that brush pen gave out and I never replaced it.

Ah, 2020. Kiss my... 

Green-5 Stats for WotC Star Wars

Green-5 is a unique droid to the Tarkeren Campaign. He has been on his own for far too long, Green-5 is suffering from corruption. He has taken on some traits that are not helpful. 

He has this obsession with turning speeders into fighters, which is less useful than it sounds. He has also taken on the idea he should know medicine. For a tactical droid, this is even more questionable than the thing with the speeders. 

T-Series Tactical Droid Statistics
Medium 4th-Degree Droid Soldier 3

Force Points: 2
Initiative: +6; Senses: Perception +7
Languages: Basic, Binary, Zabrak, Rodian

Defense:
Reflex Defense: 18 (Flat-Footed: 17), Fortitude Defense: 13, Will Defense: 13; Vehicular Combat
Hit Points: 30, Damage Threshold: 13
Immune: Droid Traits

Offense

Speed: 9 Squares (Walking)
Melee: Unarmed +1 (1d3)
Ranged: Heavy Blaster +2 (3d8)
Base Attack Bonus: +1; Grapple: +2
Attack Options: Quickshot (Heavy Blaster)

Base Stats:

Abilities: Strength 10, Dexterity 12, Constitution -, Intelligence 14 (Corruption. 10), Wisdom 14, Charisma 12
Talents: Battle Analysis

Feats: Armor Proficiency (Light), Armor Proficiency (Medium), Armor Proficiency (Heavy), Vehicular Combat, Weapon Proficiency (Pistols), Weapon Proficiency (Rifles), Weapon Proficiency (Simple Weapons), Point Blank Shot. 

Skills: Initiative +6, Knowledge (Tactics) +7, Perception +7, History +6, Use Computer +7, Treat Injury +2, Pilot +1, Astrogation +1.

Droid Systems: Walking Locomotion, Heuristic Processor, 2 Hand Appendages, Internal Comlink, Vocabulator, Backup Battery. 

Possessions: Heavy Blaster, Electrobinoculars, Durasteel Plating (Droid Armor; +6 Reflex), Cape, Notebook, Pen.

Availability: Unique

Tankeren's Defenses

The Tankerenian armed forces are not really what they should be. They have aircraft like the ship below. I call it an H-Wing. In real world terms, it's like an A-10 or a SU-25. However, no conflict has reached the level of needing those machines. Unlike their real world counterparts, they owe their robustness to devolved fighter designs of the Republic. They are incidentally tough, but not as tough as a Y-Wing or B-Wing. 

The whole planet probably has 200 of them. Of those, 20 or so of them are outfitted for training, aerobatic groups and the odd civilian hobbyist. Of the remaining fighters, 30-40% are down for servicing at any given time. Tarkeren doesn't have much a fighting air force. 

They have evolved this ship into a space fighter. The lines are more angular, the engines are bigger and the wings much smaller. Since the planet has a tiny space presence, these little ships are hot rods. They go from ground to orbit when needed. They are on par with an A-Wing in terms of speed, but lack missiles and maneuverability. They do have one advantage over most fighters, the pipe like structures are sensors so each ship acts as control ship. Maybe they have 100 of them.  

I showed this air speeder in my last post. It is unarmed, but a purpose build speed machine. It uses advance technology to perform more like a spacecraft than a speeder. It can reach orbit, but this is more of a stunt than a capability. Citizens of the Republic or Empire would be terrified at the power of this commercial speeder. But like I said, it's unarmed. These speeders are ubiquitous on this planet. 

Green-5 has transformed this air speeder into a power space fighter. It has heavy ion cannons for battle against capital ships, space for an astromech droid and powerful lasers. It can match TIE fighters in speed, Y and B-Wings for armor and has better weapons than both. It does lack missiles and photon torpedoes as the planet doesn't have the ability to produce either. 

The downside of this ship is, it is modification from air speeder to spaceship. That's expensive. Every fighter is a custom job involving droids and humanoids, which means that each one is unique. Also, it requires a humanoid droid or live pilot which means that Green-5, defender of the planet, does not have direct control of them once in service. Not enough droids are available to fly them, they type of droid required is not anything the Trade Federation has, so he needs Tankerenian pilots. 

So far, Green-5 has convinced the Lord and Lady to make 30 conversions. Half of them are still being assembled. He knows he needs 100 times that number to defend the planet against the Empire. 

Over the next couple of posts, I will stat up these ships. I hope you enjoy them. 

Tankerenian Speeders and Aircraft

I penned up some aircraft which are unique to my Tankerenian Star Wars Setting. 

For a warmup, I did a couple of open top speeders which are pretty Star Wars standard. Tankerenians are weird, they like fast vehicles, so these would only be found in cities and towns. They are small enough to fit inside a cargo transport so they are everywhere as a secondary mode of transport. 

What they really like are their skyspeeders, something like a cross between a cloud car and a snow speeder. They are insanely fast for 7 or more person vehicle. 

The Tankerenians only developed a vague sense of warfare and they do have some horribly antiquated fighters. They are limited to in atmosphere flight and are totally outclassed by even the oldest Republic designs. 

Mom, Dad... I'm in prison, and I don't like it.

This morning, I busted out some pens and graph paper to come up with the next scenario for my Star Wars campaign. This post is somewhat applicable for other campaign types, as you can grab the maps for just about anything. The links below go to the worldbuilding and character information about this campaign, in case this is the first you are hearing of it. 

In my worldbuilding post, I mentioned many names. Bergel was the Neimoidian viceroy in charge of the planet but he is playing a very sideways game of "not it". He knows the Empire or the Rebels will be paying him a visit very soon and he doesn't want to be the guy in charge when it happens. 

He set up the Tactical Droid, Green-5 as the pasty when whoever arrives has an obvious target to kill. He ordered the droid to protect the planet and Bergel charged him to work with the leadership of the planet. Additionally, Bergel has a Neimoidian bounty hunter, La'ow Houd keeping tabs on Green-5 and the leadership. His intention is to make sure that Green-5 puts up a bit of a fight, but not enough to get the planet glassed. Bergel is going to play the deposed leader card and say that Green-5 took over. 

Green-5 is pretty smart when it comes to tactics. He drew up a plan to kill everyone on the planet but since he's been ordered to work with the Lord and Lady of the planet this idea has been ditched. The Tankerenians are treating him like a living being which is causing him to wildy exceed his programing. He should have gone into safe mode a couple of times already but keeps lumbering on.  

In light of the riots and a party of unknown adventurers, he is in high threat mode. He has negotiated a plan to keep everyone safe. The Lord and Lady of Tankeren have granted him plot of land that contains a ruins. Green-5 started construction of a prison to incarcerate the rioters as he catches them. Currently, they are mostly held in place, which is very dangerous for his droids. They are not jailers or wardens. 

Bergel hates this idea. For one, the prison is far too close to the Capital making both a military target. Second, if anyone attacks the prison, it will be a bloodbath. This will cause the Tankerenians to fight with anyone that slaughters the prisoners. Bergel is an opportunist and has been exploiting the citizens, he doesn't mean to get them all kill or enslaved. This is exactly what will happen if the prison is completed. Someone will come to knock it out. 

Bergel is playing both sides. He set Green-5 on his course but also has La'ow Houd keeping eyes on him. La'ow has set his ship down near the prison site and has been evaluating the situation. He has a mandate to sabotage it any way he can. He doesn't have the means to destroy it himself, but he does know of a party of adventurers (click here for their character sheets) who might get the job done. In a perfect world, these adventures will do double duty: free the prisoners and destroy the facility. 

Last week, I posted some towers. I really liked these designs and incorporated them into the maps. When I drew them, I was thinking medieval towers but the slender design lends itself to sci-fi. 

The prison has 16 towers to jail prisoners. Green-5 is pretty sharp and he tried to eliminate as many problems with jailing people. Each tower is 6 levels or 22 meters high and 9 meters wide. They were carved right out of the local bedrock, so it should be impossible for prisoners to dig their way out. 

The bottom floor is the bathroom and showers. There are no windows on this floor. The next 4 floors are accommodations for the incarcerated. Each level does have a narrow slot window, but is far too small for an adult to crawl out of. The roof is for recreation. Prisoners are dropped off on the roof by a floating platform. There are no droid guards inside the towers.

The Tactical Droid has invented a variation of an oubliette, and the prisoners know it. Several smaller prisoners, mostly women and children have managed to get out of the towers and explore. They have not found a way to breach the walls, so they have not escaped. When they do figure out a way, they are going to destroy this place. This keeps the prisoners from fighting with each other. Wrecking this place is their game plan. 

I must apologize now for the orientation of the prison. The prison towers are on the south side of the map, which means that if I wish to continue this tour of the facilities, the maps will be upside down. 

South Ward (Prison Area)

In the map above, you can see the tower arrangements. The guns that point inwards are heavy stunners. The outward pointing guns are light and heavy weapons for taking down infantry and armor. The dotted lines are the gates. Imbedded in the ground are metal posts meant to stop vehicles while the gate doors slide sideways. They don't stop people, that's what the gates are for. At the bottom of the image are two ramps that lead to the fortress. 

As you can see from the arrangement, the towers block lines of fire. Green-5 believes that a force could come down the ramps and sweep up anyone trying to escape. He's never seen a prison riot before. 

The walls are hollow. There is a 1 meter wide and high tunnel through them, so Destroyer Droids can deploy from cover via secret openings. On the top towers of the prison side are two domes so that the Destroyer Droids can rally before rolling out into the yard. These tunnels are also how droids reach the weapon emplacements in the tower. 

The Command Section

The command area is much more reasonably designed. On the right bottom corner is the barracks area. Since only droids are station here, not much room is needed to store them. The towers along the perimeter have heavy weapons. The box like structures are missile launchers, however, they lob missiles upward. They cannot target anything inside the perimeter, not even the prison area. 

In the courtyard on the left are several faint pencil lines to mark where ships should land. This is also where the hovering platform is stored. These are not permanent marks and are moved, added and removed as needed. The faint pencil work at the top of the image is a duplication of the prison area so I can match the two halves of the map together. 

For the next session, La'ow will alert the players to the problem the prison represents to the people of this planet. He will be helpful, but not really helpful. The players will arrive before the entire structure is complete, they will see how the towers are constructed and gain useful recon information before making their assault.