Escape From Scarif

Escape From Scarif…
This is a short campaign intended to get a party of rebel operatives started. I’m making this a system neutral campaign, so use your favourite rule set.

Given the time period of the adventure there should be no Jedi in the party… initially at least, but Force Sensitive characters would work fine… perhaps even an Alien Student of the Force with very limited powers.

After The Battle Of Scarif…
The Death Star blast destroyed the Citadel Tower on Scarif and killed almost everyone…

One rebel U-Wing managed to get clear of the blast radius, but sustained serious damage and crash landed in a remote part of the planet.

A handful of rebels is all that survived and now they are in hiding, their ship concealed in cave on an island far from the ruined imperial base.

With only two weeks of supplies aboard the ship, they have to find a way to fix the hyperdrive and get off this planet before they are detected by imperial forces.

Character Generation
Assume that all of the rebels aboard the U-Wing sustained at least minor injuries in their escape from the Death Star blast.

At least one of the PC’s must be a pilot, but the others ships crew, or ground troops.

Starting equipment…
Each PC has a ranged weapon (pistol for a pilot)

Plus a melee weapon (most likely combat knife or vibroblade, although some alien species may have cultural weapons… but no lightsabers).

Clothing will be flightsuits for pilots and appropriate combat armour for the others. 

Tool kits should be available for PC’s with a relevant skill.

Other resources aboard the U-wing would be medical supplies, tools for ship repairs, plus two weeks of food and water rations.

Details on the U-wing are sketchy, but based on visuals from the movie I would say that there’s room for a couple of speederbikes in the cargo hold… modified for water use of course.

Ships Systems
Shields are down, weapons are offline, hyperdrive is fried, sublight engines are barely functional… in short… the ship isn’t going anywhere until they make some repairs.

Fortunately… other ships tried to escape the blast area, but were not so lucky. The ones that were not vaporised crashed into the oceans, or on other islands… 

Sensors are unreliable due to ionisation of the atmosphere from the Death Star blast… but this makes it hard for the empire to locate the PC’s crashed ship.

Scene 1… The Crashed Ship
The Death Star blast has done some serious environmental damage and for a few days at least, going outside is  dangerous, but that gives the PC’s time to assess the damage, do some minor repairs, heal up and get to know each other.

If they seem a bit bored due to lack of combat… there could be some Mynocks out there looking for a ship to suck the energy out of.

The Blip
When sensors start working… they detect a metallic object, probably a ship, that’s crashed on an island not that far away, but far enough to require speeders.

Communicating with it is risky, as they don’t know which side it belongs to, but it may have some useful spares… or even a survivor.

Investigating The Crash Site…
When they reach the crashed ship they find a badly damaged craft with a dead pilot, but the astromech droid is in one piece… more or less… it’s a bit twitchy at present and has some personality quirks.

From the wreckage they can scavenge some spare parts…

And while they are scavenging they can have a run in with the native wildlife of Scarif, an aquatic predator whose attention they have attracted.

Scene 2… Repairs
When they return to the ship they can start repairs… give them the option of fixing the shields, weapons, or sublight engines… but not the hyperdrive… don’t make life too easy for them.

They also have a droid in need of some minor repairs and it can then aid them in fixing the ship… after they convince it that they really are rebels… as I said, it has some personality quirks and distrust is one of them.

Note: The droid has valuable data stored in it’s memory is… a plot line for when the ship gets off the planet… details to follow.

This is more of a cutscene and allows the PC’s get do some repairs, get some rest and recover from any injuries sustained.

The nature of the data in the droids memory depends on what the GM has planned for the party and equally importantly… what the players want from the game.

Hopefully during the rest of their time on Scarif those two plans will emerge and merge.

Part of the data included in the droid will be astro navigation data to get them to their next adventure.

Some options for data in the droid are…

1) The droid belonged to an archaeologist interested in Sith lore. The intent of the archaeologist is not important, but the PC’s intent is. Do they want to find the Sith world and delve into it’s secrets (leading to a potential Dark Side path for a hero), or make sure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands? Either way they may find a sith sword in the tomb on the planet, or possibly one made of Cortosis…

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sith_sword
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cortosis/Legends

2) The droid belonged to a force sensitive that found a broken lightsaber… it’s useless without a crystal and in need to suitable power cell too. Both of these items and the skill required to make the repairs can be part of the ongoing campaign for a jedi potential.

3) The droid has data on an imperial project in the outer rim territories that is not far from Scarif… you can always put a deadline on it to ensure they act on it immediately.

4) The droid has been reprogrammed by the Imperial Security Bureau and is actually a spy with the goal of infiltrating the Rebel Alliance. Maybe the pilot was an imperial spy too… or the droid was reprogrammed without the pilot’s knowledge. Good if you want to induce paranoia in the party and enjoy a conspiracy.

And there are many more options of course…

Scene 3… We Are Not Alone
As they are continuing with repairs the PC’s pick up a distress signal. It’s encrypted and not a rebel alliance code. It can be decrypted by a PC… or if necessary the droid.

The message in incomplete, but the bits they can make sense of are…
‘This is shuttle… calling any Imperial ship over Scarif… sustained damage… unable to reach orbit… assist…’

There’s no reply to the message… which is not surprising given the atmospheric disruption caused by the destruction the Citadel.

With a bit of effort on their part, they can determine the direction in which the ship is located, but not the distance… however… it can’t be far as their own comm signals have limited range.

Investigating The Distress Signal
After a search, they spot a crashed Lambda class shuttle on a small rocky island. The island large enough for them to circle around and approach undetected.

From a distance they can see a couple of imperials outside the ship, shuttle crew… not stormtroopers. A keen observer will also see the flight crew in the cockpit.

Anyone experienced with space ships know that the shuttle has a crew of 6 and can carry 20 passengers, but if the passengers were stormtroopers, it would them outside guarding the ship, not flight crew, so it’s likely that it’s just 6 of them… a manageable number for a band of heroic rebels.

Dealing With The Shuttle Crew
It’s possible that the rebels will try diplomacy and negotiate with the shuttle crew in a bid to get them all of the planet safely, but imperials can’t be trusted and if they see the odds in their favour, will likely break any truce… but anything is possible.

More likely they will want to go for the more traditional approach… shoot first.

Shuttle Interior
When they get inside the shuttle they find that the sublight engines are in worse condition than their own, but there are parts worth salvaging for repairs.

They can also gather spares for the shields and weapons, but most importantly of all… the hyperdrive is working, so they can use components to fix their own ship.

It would be easier to bring their ship here than it would to transport the spares via speeder and their sublights are good enough to make that short journey.

If the imperials are no longer a threat, they will also have access to additional medical supplies, food and water.

Note: It’s possible that the PC’s will want to keep the shuttle, but they can only get one of the ships to orbit, so they have to choose wisely. The shuttle requires a larger crew, so this option works better for a larger party of characters.

Scene 4… Making Repairs
It will take a few days to make all the repairs to the ship, during which time the conditions on the planet have started to improve…

As they are making final repairs they notice TIE fighters approaching…

Scene 5 – Lift Off
With the TIE’s only seconds away the ship lurches into the sky… it doesn’t sound great… but it gets into the air and the weapons come online…

It’s just the two TIE’s, so not insurmountable odds and communications problems on the planet will prevent them from calling for back up.

As soon as one is badly damaged, the other breaks off to warn the Empire of survivors. The TIE is faster and it would be unwise to pursue, but players will be players and you can never be sure what they’ll do…

Scene 6 – What a Hunk Of Junk…
When the ship and the rebel survivors reach orbit they see several Star Destroyers and a lot of wrecked Rebel ships. Searching the debris field for survivors to interrogate are Imperial Shuttles with Spacetroopers aboard. TIE’s are providing escort duty and patrolling the area.

The escaping Rebels can’t jump to hyperspace while they are in this debris field, so they need to get clear before they make the jump.

Time for the pilot to shine as he will be trying the navigate the debris field to avoid any further damage to the ship and he has to be stealthy if he wants to avoid any ‘Imperial Entanglements’.

There are options for some fancy flying into the wrecks of some larger rebel ships to hide… and if the players are feeling brave they can dock… search the ship for spare parts, weapons, supplies and even survivors…

Scene 7 – The Chase
Eventually their ship will be spotted, but the better their pilot has performed, the quicker they can exit the debris field and make the jump to hyperspace.

Make this battle a challenge, but not impossible… unless you want them to have to escape from Imperial custody… which is another story entirely.

With the destruction of the last TIE fighter, the ship gets free of the debris field and makes the jump to hyperspace… insert appropriate sound clip from the movie…

To Be Continued?
Where does the campaign go from here? Well that depends entirely on the GM.

This is just the beginning of a campaign for Star Wars that I will run at some point, but it won’t be for a while as at present I’m running Savage Worlds…