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Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 11:
Not So Civil Disobedience

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

Note – When voicing Ithorians, Nick uses an incredibly low, deep, drawn out voice and often pauses in the middle of sentences.

Note – Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in an accent. Most of her soft I’s sound like “ee,” and most of her TH’s sound like Z’s. Example: “this and that” = “zees and zat”

## Intro

NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your game master. Every other Thursday, our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, a fringer, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

Friends, a lot of things have happened since two Thursdays ago so stick with me, namely I have some reviewers that I am excited to thank. First up, opRIAter. Thank you so much for your kind words and review. Also, I wanna thank Rated RConO. You’re wonderful. FLSocialWorker, you said some very nice things , and you’re a super cool person. ProperGentleman, you rhymed and were sublime, thank you. I want to thank the user FunnyStarWarsPodcast. You said some extremely kind things, and you have a super appropriate username. Special thanks to FrostyTheSnowman92. Drive safe, and thanks for joining us on our adventures. Last but not least, I want to thank Dolpheus123. You’re a thoughtful and engaging human that we all enjoy.

Phew, that was a lot. Right? Well, for anyone that was counting, that puts us at exactly 20 reviews. Cameron is currently stressfully, but happily, editing our bonus episodes featuring Karma and her twin sons. You can expect the next episode next week. I hope you all look forward to six straight weeks of Star Wars shenanigans. Everyone on Tabletop Squadron is ecstatic with the recent listener responses we’ve been getting, and we want to thank you all from the bottom of our multiple alien hearts.

After all that, thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

## [0:02:05]

NICK: Hello! Welcome to Episode 11 of Tabletop Squadron. I am your host, Nick. This is going pretty good. I’m pretty happy with it. Thank you for joining us on this journey. I’m gonna go around the table. Everybody introduce themselves and their characters, starting off with the person who gave me the double bird when I said 11.

LAURA: Hi, I’m Laura. (laughter) I play Xianna who is a Twi’lek thief, and I did indeed double flip Nick off. I was just making sure you knew we were on Episode 11.

NICK: Yeah, obviously.

LAURA: I was being helpful.

NICK: Thank you very much, Laura. This is great for my self-esteem.

LAURA: You’re welcome.

NICK: And, next we got Hudson.

HUDSON: Hi Nick, it’s great to be here.

NICK: I’m glad.

HUDSON: I’m Hudson, and I’m playing Tink, a Gigoran slicer.

NICK: And, Steven.

STEVEN: Hi Nick.

NICK: Hi.

STEVEN: Thank you for allowing me this chair.

NICK: Oh, I mean, it depends on how you behave. We may take it away.

STEVEN: Yeah. … I play Sabos, a Togruta, a fringer. I’m done.

(giggling)

NICK: Good work. Yay!

CAMERON: You should just leave all of those in. Leave the whole thing in.

NICK: Listeners need to know that was like the fourth try. And last but not least, we have Cameron.

CAMERON: Hi. I’m Cameron. I’m playing Karma the Nautolan bounty hunter.

NICK: Good job. Professional. Succinct.

CAMERON: Thanks. I memorized my script.

NICK: Yeah. It’s like a sentence, so…

CAMERON: Mm-hmm!

LAURA: It’s really not that hard.

CAMERON: No, it’s really not.

STEVEN: I’ve only given it 11 times. Okay?

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: It’s true.

NICK: Alright. Before we get started, let’s kick it off with the Destiny Roll.

STEVEN: Two light side.

CAMERON: One dark side.

HUDSON: One dark side.

LAURA: One dark side.

STEVEN: God damn it, guys.

NICK: Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

CAMERON: Three dark side, two light side.

NICK: It’s better than last episode where I didn’t have toys to play with. This is much better. Alright. If you remember, last time we left off you went to a gaming den on the outside of the Ithorian herdship looking for Kettle, as she’s known in the underworld “the Queen,” who had won an important piece of equipment off of your contact and you needed to go get it back. You had challenged Kettle to a Sabacc tournament to try and get the Rancore Protocol back and you were successful, you even secured an IOU from the mobster, and we left off with her seeming not really that worried about it, almost like that’s what she had expected all along.

LAURA: I’m not worried.

CAMERON: I’m sure it’ll be fine.

NICK: Yeah, it’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. I’ll probably forget. Right?

STEVEN: She’s a kind, benevolent queen.

NICK: Sure she is. Is there anything else you guys want to do in the casino? Do you want me to start you back in the bar, or on the street?

LAURA: Yes, please.

STEVEN: Bar sounds good.

CAMERON: Yeah. Let’s go back to the bar.

NICK: Okay.

LAURA: No, so, Xianna definitely goes back over to the Twi’lek waitress and gives her her com number, and is like, I’m sure this will be totally fine. “That is my number. I do not know how long we will be here, but you know.”

NICK: I’m not sure what it looks like if you’re green and you blush, but that happens.

LAURA: I think Twi’leks bleed red?

CAMERON: Yeah, but if your skin’s green…

LAURA: It would be kind of like a rutty…

NICK: I guess her skin would just darken… Eh.

CAMERON: Karma blushes a darker green, so… as blood rushes to the skin.

LAURA: I think it would just be kind of like a rutty red.

NICK: Here’s a cool writing trick. The green Twi’lek waitress blushes and titters behind her hand, and does some lekku twitches that show that she’s pleased with that ,and tucks it inside. “Well thank you, and thank you for joining us at the gambling den.” She makes eye contact for just a second, and then someone calls for her by the bar and she hurries away to go continue her job.

You leave the gambling den, and the camera zooms in on a tray of drinks and into the top of the drink, and then zooms out from a circle of drinks at a round table as you all each grab a glass, and you are back in The Gooberfish. You’re in that round booth from before, so you’re all sitting, there’s one table. You all have Felton Mox crammed between you two on each side so he’s not going anywhere. The Ithorian bartender is off kind of in the corner bustling around with the glasses, and that’s where we’re gonna start.

STEVEN: I take my Imperial Stout and say, “Good job, guys. Thank you especially, Felton.”

NICK: “Yeah, uh…”

LAURA: “I mean, he did not do very much, so…”

NICK: “What? I, I am a valued member of this team at this point. I brought you to the contact. You were successful.”

STEVEN: “You are sitting with us.”

HUDSON: “Zero is a value, I guess.”

LAURA: “Very true.”

CAMERON: (laughing) The hood giggles.

NICK: “You know, I didn’t do a lot of math growing up, so I guess—I don’t know. That’s fine. So, you have your tools you need.” The camera zooms in on the data spike and the plasteel box that you have collected. The data spike for the Rancore Protocol is curved kind of like a talon and has some exposed circuit boards on the outside. It looks a little less finished than most that you are used to. The plasteel box is about six inches by six inches and it rattles ominously for a second before going still again.

LAURA: “So, does anybody have a plan?”

STEVEN: “Do you know how to use these devices, Felton?”

HUDSON: “I can use them.”

NICK: “Well…”

STEVEN: “Tink?”

HUDSON: “Why would he—Why would you want him to use them?”

STEVEN: “Oh. I don’t want him to use them. I’m curious if he knows how.”

LAURA: “I would assume Tink would know how to use a data spike.”

HUDSON: “Yeah.”

STEVEN: “Do you know how this relates to shutting down the Imperial blockade?”

HUDSON: “Are you questioning my knowledge?”

LAURA: “Oh. We have to get onto one of the ships and then use the data spike. Right? That was said at some point”

HUDSON: “That’s correct.”

CAMERON: The hood nods.

LAURA: “Yes. So, all we have to do, just a little thing, get on an Imperial ship, and then put in the data spike, and then destroy the blockade.”

STEVEN: “That should be fine.”

LAURA: “Yeah. Uh-huh.”

NICK: Felton has really wide eyes, and he goes, “Well, uh, we’re not really sure what that data spike does, or at least I’m not. You probably are gonna wanna open that up. Since the big guy seems pretty confident in his skills he should probably work on that. Remember, the goal is to crash the flagship, break the blockade for the Ithorians, that little box there probably would be pretty useful in taking down a Star Destroyer. I wouldn’t open it though, yet, if I were you.”

LAURA: “What is in it?”

STEVEN: “Should we open it on the Star Destroyer?”

NICK: “Uh… Yeah. If you open it on the Star Destroyer it’ll probably do it. Let’s just say it’s a particularly unconventional weapon. That’s all Sentinel told me, but he did say don’t open it.”

LAURA: “Okie.”

HUDSON: “So it varies from normal convention?”

LAURA: “Well yes, that is what unconventional means.”

HUDSON: “I’m just making sure, man.”

NICK: “Yeah. You know, it’s an important point to clarify. I think you should ease up off my buddy here a little bit—“

HUDSON: “Yeah!”

NICK: “—you know, because us hairy folks gotta stick together. Am I right?”

HUDSON: “Yeah! People are questioning my knowledge. This guy gets it!”

LAURA: “No… No…”

NICK: He puts his arm up for a high five. You’re sitting on the outside of the table, so you’re gonna have to high five over Xianna.

HUDSON: I try and I miss.

NICK: Oh…

CAMERON: He’s still a little drunk.

HUDSON: I’m still a little drunk.

NICK: So, your hand hits the table, everyone’s drinks rattle, Sabos’s Imperial lager which is still pretty full goes over the side of the glass just a little and it leaves kind of sudsy, but your arms are long enough that you can reach Felton so he kind of like picks up your wrist and then high fives next to your hand so that the high five was completed.

HUDSON: “…Alright.”

LAURA: “So, anyways. We will have Tink look at the data spike, investigate that, figure out how it works. Any ideas how we get onto the Imperial ship?”

STEVEN: “We do have a code cylinder.”

CAMERON: Karma pulls out the code cylinder.

LAURA: “Oh yes, we have that.”

CAMERON: And then places it back in her jacket.

LAURA: “Big problem, none of us are human, and while you are, you know, you—“

NICK: “I knew it!”

CAMERON: (giggles)

LAURA: Xianna like holds up a finger at Felton Mox to shush him, “and you are you, but that is a special circumstance and we do not know how far we will get before they ask to see who exactly you are.”

HUDSON: “Shave me and I look enough like a human.”

STEVEN: (laughs)

LAURA: “I mean, have you shaved yourself before?”

HUDSON: “There was this one time in college. It was kind of a bet. And, yeah, it’s happened.”

LAURA: “I mean, I have seen a hairless Wookie. They do not look like humans.”

HUDSON: “They look like a human with something messed up about them.”

LAURA: “No. They look like a hairless Wookie.”

HUDSON: “You’re only one part—What do y’all think?”

NICK: “I mean, my hairy buddy here isn’t a Wookie, so maybe he looks more human. You don’t know.”

HUDSON: “That’s right.”

STEVEN: “How about we make him look like a Wookie.”

LAURA: “Wait, wait, who here is a Wookie?”

NICK: “You said a hairless Wookie doesn’t look like a human, but he’s not a hairless Wookie, he’s a Gigoran. Right? Yeah. I’ve been there once. It’s real nice. There weren’t any Gigorans there, though. That was weird.”

HUDSON: “Ah. Yeah. You just got some bonus points there, Filmon.”

(snorts)

NICK: “Uh, Felton.”

HUDSON: “Yeah.”

NICK: “Yeah. Yeah, so we’re, we’re pals—Hey. I gotta go to the bathroom, so if you guys could just let me scoot out of this booth for a second here, I’ll be right back.”

HUDSON: “Oh, no. I’ll join you. Social convention and all.”

LAURA: “Yes, Tink, you go with him.”

NICK: Okay. So there’s a way too long shot of you all like skootching out of the booth, and Xianna has to get out and wait…

LAURA: (sighs heavily)

NICK: …and Felton gets out and starts to head towards the back, and Tink goes with him?

HUDSON: Yup.

NICK: Okay. They go off camera-right into somewhere, and it’s the three of y’all sitting at the table.

LAURA: “Okie, so, how badly do you think Felton will react if he ever figures out who you are?”

CAMERON: “He was pretty drunk, so I don’t know if he’d 100% remember. He’d definitely recognize me, but it’s also at this point I’m wondering if I can just start talking but leave the hood on so that any cameras don’t see me… but the quietness is chafing.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

CAMERON: “I’ve been working on my Imperial accent, but it’s not great.”

LAURA: “We should’ve picked a human.”

STEVEN: “As long as they don’t recognize me, Togrutas aren’t super threatening.”

LAURA: “No, but they do not look Imperial.”

CAMERON: “But you’re also an alien.”

STEVEN: “I could be a servant.”

LAURA: “No.”

CAMERON: “Well yeah, that’s how we got here—“

STEVEN: “Indeed.”

CAMERON: “—was that we’re ignoring the fact that I’m not human.”

STEVEN: “Yeah, oh yeah, right. I am the servant.”

CAMERON: “Yeah.”

STEVEN: “Oh. Yeah, that’s true.”

LAURA: “So, getting through the blockade is one thing. Getting onto an Imperial ship is a different thing, because then like, real people see us in person and see that we are not human.”

CAMERON: “So, well, this gets a little weird, but some of y’all do have Imperial bounties on you. I could turn you in, we get the money for the bounty, and then you’re on the Star Destroyer, we’re there, we wreck whatever havoc we need to, and then hopefully we leave.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

STEVEN: “That sounds alright. I’m just not sure if my bounty is important enough to them to actually seem not sketch.”

LAURA: “Well, we could always wreck up the place down here a bit.”

STEVEN: “We… could. Somewhere the Imperials are watching?”

LAURA: “Yes.” (laughs)

NICK: The Ithorian bartender kind of leans around the bar and goes, “I… would like… to disagree.”

LAURA: “No, no, not this place specifically, this bar, I mean like an Imperial station or something.”

NICK: “With that plan…”

LAURA: “Yeah.”

NICK: The Ithorian bartender is like paused with a finger up… and then goes back to wiping down the bar.

LAURA: “Yes. So, if we could find some sort of Imperial outpost or galactic run company front, or something like that.”

CAMERON: “The way that this would need to work if it is me turning y’all in, I would need to drop you off and I would need to leave, and y’all would need to get another ship to get off.”

NICK: Smash cut to Tink and his buddy Felton in the bathroom at two urinals. Tinkly water noises.

LAURA: Psss… (hissing)

NICK: Oh, no, that’s like a sibilant noise. We don’t want that one. Have you been in a men’s bathroom? It doesn’t sound like that at all.

LAURA: Well, I can’t make the tinkle sounds of hitting the porcelain!

HUDSON: Blorb blorb blorb blorb blorb.

STEVEN: Just imagine asparagus.

HUDSON: Ew.

NICK: Ugh.

LAURA: That’s not a sound!

NICK: You’re gross!

STEVEN: I use too many bathrooms at work.

NICK: Sounds like asparagus. (others giggle)

The camera is on their backs, and you see Felton’s head turn towards Tink. “You know, sometimes they call me the Rancore of Coronet,” and he’s like looking pretty proud of himself.

HUDSON: “Are you coming on to me?”

NICK: “Uh… I—No? May—“

HUDSON: “Good.”

NICK: “Okay. Yeah, I wouldn’t, come on, no. we’re, I hope—It’s platonic!” And he turns around real quick. We cut back to the table.

HUDSON: So awkward. (laughter)

CAMERON: It’s so awkward.

LAURA: “So, yes, we will throw some like grenades at some—“

STEVEN: “I could be your bounty.”

CAMERON: “No no no.”

LAURA: “No, not my bounty. I’m not bringing them in. I have a bounty out for me. It was more than yours.”

STEVEN: “Aren’t you the bounty–?”

CAMERON: “I am a bounty hunter, under the cloak here.”

STEVEN: “Oh okay, yeah.”

LAURA: “Karma is the bounty hunter.”

STEVEN: “Yeah, that’s right…”

CAMERON: “Y’all are the ones with bounties.”

STEVEN: “Yeah. I’m trying to find a reason…”

LAURA: “Yes. Well, Tink doesn’t really have one—“

CAMERON: “No. Tink was clean.”

LAURA: “—but I’m pretty sure if you just bring a Gigoran in they will assume he did something.”

CAMERON: “Well, it’s also how we want to work it. Do we want to split and have Tink be somewhere separate where he can hack into things if necessary, or do we want him on the ship?”

LAURA: “You know, he is surprisingly sneaky for his size. He could be on the ship and then sneak off while you are bringing us in. we will just make some sort of loud commotion as you are bringing us in so that they do not look as closely to the ship as they should. He sneaks off and he hides in there, and then we meet up later?”

NICK: Smash cut to the bathroom! They’re still standing at the urinals. Felton says, “You know, I’ve always kind of had a thing for tentacles.”

HUDSON: “Oh… Yeah. I know a fellow with head tails. Is that what you mean?”

NICK: “Uh… You know, my friends always said never date a Togruta. I’ve made that mistake before.”

HUDSON: “Oh, and you’re not willing to make it again, are ya?”

NICK: “I mean, what’s a mistake but another of life’s little lessons, right?” And we snap back to the table.

(laughter)

LAURA: I want Tink to set Sabos up on a date!

STEVEN: And I hope Felton is—He’s like, he’s been done peeing, but Tink obviously isn’t, so he’s just standing there still, just pretending.

LAURA: Just like a race horse, just goes forever.

CAMERON: He had a very large drink at the gaming den.

NICK: Okay, yeah. That’s canon.

STEVEN: He’s bigger, clearly.

CAMERON: Tink has a very large bladder.

LAURA: Yes. He’s giant.

STEVEN: Yeah. “So, I need to be on the ship, or I go out with you as your servant still?”

LAURA: “No. So, you have a bounty.”

STEVEN: “I do.”

LAURA: “I have a bounty, so we have to be seen, and we should probably do something here to make it a little bit more pressing, so we should like be seen doing something to a building, or Imperials, or stormtroopers, something of that nature, so that when Karma brings us in they are a little bit more excited about it.”

CAMERON: “Just so that there’s a reason that I’m disturbing the blockade.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

STEVEN: “Will they not be suspicious that Karma’s servant now suddenly has a bounty?”

CAMERON: “No.”

LAURA: “No, no, she will take off the robe, the cape, situation.”

CAMERON: “Yeah. I would become myself again.”

STEVEN: “Oh, I see. I understand now.”

LAURA: Because she is a known bounty hunter, so they will not be suspicious if she, as Karma, brings us in.”

STEVEN: “Will they let her as Karma back through the blockade on the way out?”

LAURA: “No.”

CAMERON: “They probably will not let me leave, but I should at least be able to get to the ship and drop y’all off.”

STEVEN: “Yes, that’s true.”

LAURA: “And then Tink can hide in the ship, and when we make some sort of commotion he gets off the ship and hides, and then we will just somehow try to meet up later, get out of the prison, or you know Tink come gets us.”

NICK: So, one thing I do want to call out, if you “turn in a bounty,” if you want to preserve your relationship with the Empire, you would want to be careful that they don’t see you for what you’re doing, which is like letting people loose on their ship for hijinks.

CAMERON: Yeah. That’s why I was saying that I would need to leave once I dropped them off, and like once the dealings were done and I found out if there were any other people I could go after on the planet, because obviously I’m not gonna try and leave because of the blockade, and I respect the Imperials, so it’s just if there’s anyone else down there they want me to get while I’m stuck here.

NICK: Yeah.

LAURA: “Also, you can tell them that you have another bounty. Does Felton have a bounty?”

CAMERON: “One sec. I know he does on Coronet. I don’t know if he does within the system, though.” I get out my data pad and look up Felton Mox.

LAURA: “We could always bring Felton with us when we go… I don’t know, throw grenades at the place? We’ll figure that part out.”

NICK: Smash cut to the bathroom. It is very clear that Felton has been done peeing for a while but he’s still standing there staring at the wall, and his head tilts over towards Tink again who is still going. “So, uh, what’s your deal?”

HUDSON: (laughs) “So… Tink made a tinkle.”

(laughter)

NICK: “Ha ha ha…”

LAURA: Oh, you are too drunk.

NICK: Felton stops for a second. “Uh… Yeah. Yeah, you did,” and then snap back to the table.

LAURA: “What we could do is you drop Sabos and I off and then you say that you have another bounty back on the planet that you will have to bring up later, and that way you can come back for us.”

CAMERON: “That’s true. I could do that.”

LAURA: “And we will just have to be very careful to sneak onto the ship so that they do not ever know we are together, because I think you want to still stay a respectable-ish bounty hunter?”

CAMERON: “Everyone’s life is a lot easier if one of us on the crew is not wanted.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

STEVEN: “You could just say you caught me gambling, because I think it’s clear that my bounty is a money problem. Right?”

LAURA: “I do not think that gambling is illegal. Is it?”

STEVEN: “Well, I have a bounty, though.”

LAURA: “I mean, in some places it is.”

STEVEN: “I do have a money problem bounty.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, I mean, I could definitely pick you up in the gambling den, but that wouldn’t be why I was turning you in. It would just be, that might be where I saw you, to make them think that you were gambling away all of the money that you stole from them.”

STEVEN: “Exactly. I feel like they would take me for that.”

CAMERON: “Well, I mean, they’re gonna take you anyway. There’s a bounty out on you.”

STEVEN: “It’s a little bounty.”

CAMERON: “I know, but they’re still gonna pay me and take you.”

STEVEN: “True.”

LAURA: “But again, that is why we are going to go be seen publicly doing something illegal so that when she brings us to the ship it is a little bit more impactful, because we would have just done something.”

STEVEN: “I’m just worried about my diplomatic status.”

LAURA: “That is not a thing at this point. That is gone. It is no more.”

STEVEN: “Oh, I am an Osaronian diplomat.”

LAURA: “No…”

CAMERON: “Yes, so we’re not arguing with that. What Xianna is saying is that you already kriffed up your relationship with the Empire.”

STEVEN: “Oh, they don’t know me.”

CAMERON: “Uh, yeah they do. They have a BOUNTY out on you, Sabos.”

LAURA: “You have a 2,000 credit bounty.”

STEVEN: “Just a little bounty.”

CAMERON: “Yes. That still means they know about you.”

STEVEN: “I play both sides. You know, I know some of the Empire, I make deals with the others, some try to catch me.”

LAURA: “Okie. So, as someone who often plays both sides, the problem is eventually—“

NICK: Heh.

(laughter)

LAURA: “Eventually both sides figure out what is going on, and sometimes those both sides get together to come after you as a group, and that is worse.”

NICK: We cut to a well-furnished dark wood office overlooking a jungle, and we see a tan man with little horns wearing an Imperial uniform holding a martini glass staring out the window. Falx goes, “Wow. I feel like someone was just talking about me.” And we cut back to the table.

LAURA: “So, if you have an Imperial warrant for your arrest for 2,000 credits, the Empire knows because they issued the warrant. Do you understand how warrants work?”

CAMERON: “And did you notice that eventually Falx did look y’all up. That’s something that they do. They do run your credentials.”

STEVEN: “Eh…”

LAURA: “I am not surprised about that. I am a career criminal. That is how that works. That’s why I use fake names. You keep using the same two names.”

STEVEN: “Normally Osaron is just too far and remote for them to come and worry about.”

LAURA: “And that is fine…”

CAMERON: “And see, that works great as long as you’re not interacting with Imperials, but you’re going to be.”

LAURA: “…but you are interacting, and you have an Imperial warrant.”

STEVEN: “Oh… That’s fine. I think I can pay it off.”

NICK: Smash cut, back to the bathroom. There’s no longer any urinating noises. They’re both still standing at the urinal. Felton turns to Tink. “We’ve been in here a really long time.”

HUDSON: “Uh, I don’t even know what time is anymore. I can’t figure out how long I’ve been in here. You’ll have to help me with that.”

NICK: “Right. I think it’s probably time to go back to the table. If you go first I’ll make sure I wash hands for the both of us.”

HUDSON: “I’m supposed to be watching you because you’re my friend, so I think that we should wash our hands and I’ll follow behind you.”

NICK: “Alright. Let’s get those hands washed, big guy.” And they go over to the sink. Cut back to the table.

LAURA: “So again, I feel like we have this plan already planned out pretty well.”

STEVEN: “Sounds good.”

LAURA: “Okie. Do you understand?”

STEVEN: “I think so.”

LAURA: “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Okie.”

STEVEN: “Oh yes.”

LAURA: “So, I guess we should find some sort of Imperial galactic place that we can be seen, like, graffiti-ing, or throwing a grenade at, or… Do we have like real bombs?”

NICK: On that note, Felton and Tink walk back to the table. There’s an awkward silence as Xianna skootches out and Felton skootches in.

HUDSON: “Me and Femur are back from the whiz palace, all.”

LAURA: “Anyways. So Felton, do you have like any bombs on you? Or not necessarily on you, but like at your place, or one we could borrow?”

NICK: (Felton sighs)

STEVEN: “Well…”

LAURA: “I guess one we could just use.”

STEVEN: “We might not return it.”

LAURA & CAMERON: “We will not return it.”

NICK: “Yeah, no. I gave you two of the strongest weapons in the galaxy just now, so.”

LAURA: “No, we need like a little bomb.”

NICK: “Mmm… no, but I know someone who might be able to help.” We can swipe cut, and what I want to do is a montage of Sabos and Xianna doing public disturbance type stuff for the camera. So, think of your first thing that you do.

STEVEN: Where are we at?

NICK: You’re on the herdship.

STEVEN: No, I get that, but what do we see around us?

LAURA: Like, are there stormtroopers? Is there like…

STEVEN: Statues that are important to the Imperials?

LAURA: Yeah, anything important to the Empire?

CAMERON: Trying to mess stuff up for the Empire, not necessarily the people who live here.

LAURA: Is there a statue of Sheev?

NICK: So, the problem is Ithor has been fairly neutral, and you guys may remember the first Imperial to set foot on the planet since the blockade was Karma, apparently, so there isn’t a lot of stuff. There’s a few things. There is an Imperial archive that has been there, because they place those all over the place, so it’s like a library with a lot of military records, but they’re like propaganda records so they’re not that helpful. There are some communication nodes that go back and forth into space. They’ve been silent lately but they are monitored. Your best bet you realize would probably be to take out infrastructure stuff, because the Imperials want these things functioning so they can use them. If you take down like public transit or electro-grids or anything like that, that’s something that they’re going to notice, but because there’s no Imperial presence the more stuff you do the Ithorians may complain. It may go into your reputation a little bit, but they’re kind of incommunicado, so it’ll really just help you get off planet and to the ship faster, it’s not gonna make you higher profile, and the more you do the more you’ve messed up this neutral city.

CAMERON: So, before we start selecting the targets, Karma wants to go talk to the Oracle again and just explain we’re trying to break the blockade, which we had talked about beforehand when we met them before.

NICK: Let’s just do that scene.

LAURA: Yeah. Let’s say that Sabos and Karma go there, and then Xianna and Tink take Felton and—

CAMERON: And babysit Felton?

LAURA: –and go get a bomb.

NICK: Okay. We need to do those two scenes. So, we’ll start with, we swipe to Sabos and Karma standing in front of the Oracle who is sitting cross-legged. “You have returned… quickly.”

CAMERON: “Yes. We are putting a plan in place to break the blockade, and wanted to run a few things by you and get some advice.”

NICK: “I exist… for advice…”

STEVEN: “That’s true.”

CAMERON: “Wonderful.” Karma’s never quite sure where the sentence finishes, so she waits a little bit longer than—It becomes slightly socially awkward to make sure that the Oracle’s done talking.

NICK: The Oracle looks extremely placid and calm, and doesn’t seem to notice how uncomfortable you are with conversing with him.

CAMERON: “So, the current plan is to try and cause some problems on the herdship that hopefully do not inconvenience your people in a particularly large way but would cause the interest of the Empire so that the ones responsible could be taken to them to reach the ships. So, I would like to request assistance in selecting these targets to where hopefully the end result of this is that the blockade is no more and you can resume life normally, but not have the small amounts of destruction impede that normal life.”

NICK: “The wisdom… of the Mother Jungle… states… that to preserve the trees, sometimes you must prune branches. You… will not… be prosecuted… for any mischief. What… targets are you looking… to attack?”

CAMERON: (giggles) “Things we had discussed were potentially communication nodes that the Empire might be utilizing, the Imperial archives, but also potentially some infrastructure as they want Ithor to continue its current production of everything, so some infrastructure things there. I’m more requesting assistance in selecting infrastructure targets that do not impede your people but might seem like large enough disturbances to warrant the Empire’s attention.”

NICK: The Oracle’s eyes get real wide, and they say, “Whatever… you choose… do not destroy the repulsor pylons. The city will fall out of the sky.”

CAMERON: “Oh, of course. Yes. Not the pylons ,no. more like transportation and those types of things. On top of the herdship, not the inner workings of the herdship at all.”

NICK: “Good. We have a small but respectable metro system… It’s like a monorail, but it’s Star Wars.”

CAMERON: “Oh, cool.”

NICK: “And we don’t use it much, because our population… is shrunken. Knock yourselves out.”

CAMERON: “Wonderful. We’ll make sure the area is clear of any citizens before knocking ourselves out.”

NICK: It’s eyes widen again, and says, “I had assumed… that was a given.”

CAMERON: “Yes. I was just stating it to be clear.”

NICK: “Thank you. We will allow you… to handle the details. What else did you need?”

CAMERON: “Did we need anything else?”

STEVEN: “I think that’s all, your Oracle-ness.”

CAMERON: “I think that is it.”

NICK: It smiles at you like it likes that title. “Well, thank you.” It turns around and it is clearly dismissing you.

STEVEN: “Good bye.”

CAMERON: We leave.

NICK: Swipe cut to… Tink and Xianna and Felton are doing a deal to get a bomb.

LAURA: I’m picturing that we’re like in some back shop that just has like electronics, and we’re doing the whole like, ‘so we need, you know, some special equipment.’ We’re doing one of those things where Felton is asking somewhat code, and we’re just like ‘mm-hmm.’

NICK: From the camera angle, it’s like a dark shop, it’s got a glass case, there’s some random assorted electronics. There’s a Devaronian shopkeeper, which is like a sort of devil-looking guy if you’ve listened to any of the episodes—

CAMERON: A ‘dee-vil.’

LAURA: A ‘dee-vil!’

NICK: Oh man.

LAURA: Hudson, say it.

HUDSON: ‘Dee-vil!’

(laughter)

NICK: Okay. There’s a Devaronian behind the counter, and he’s like, “So, I’m not sure I quite understand. What exactly are you looking for?”

LAURA: Xianna leans in real close, and I imagine this is after a few minutes of subtle little things, like “you know, some equipment,” and she leans in and she goes, “we need, um, how do you say, a bomb.”

NICK: He’s also leaned in, and he goes, “Oh, a bomb. All this weird double speak, I thought you were looking for like drugs or something.”

LAURA: “You have drugs?”

NICK: “Uh, well, that kinda depends.” You can see there’s a little curtain, and on the other side of the building there’s a normal large shop that seems to be selling a lot of gardening implements and stuff like that.

An Ithorian pokes its head through the curtain and says, “What is the problem?”

And the Davronian goes, “Hey, don’t worry about it, just doing some deals back here. You know, I’m here to sell the over inventory. That’s why I’m here. Don’t worry about it one thing. Why don’t you just go back to the main part of the shop?”

“Okay…” And they go away.

“Oh yeah. We got lots of drugs.”

LAURA: “Do you have impact?”

NICK: “Oh yeah, we got impact.” He hits the counter and the top pops open, and you see that it’s like a mirror case, and inside there’s just a nice container shadow box with a lot of different compartments, and he pulls out a surprisingly large baggy of impact.

LAURA: “How much?”

NICK: “Uh, probably only charge you about 20% over the going rate.”

LAURA: (pauses)

NICK: “We’re under a blockade.”

LAURA: Yeah. How many doses of impact do you think is in the bag?

NICK: Like, ten.

LAURA: So…

NICK: Okay. Here’s what I want to happen story-wise, Laura. I want you to have to choose between getting a shit-ton of impact and being able to buy the bomb.

LAURA: So, Xianna’s like, “How much is the bomb?”

NICK: “About 1,200 credits.”

HUDSON: “I think we may have that.”

LAURA: “No, so, do You have 1,200 credits?”

HUDSON: Uh… I thought we had 1,200 credits.

LAURA: I have 1,500.

HUDSON: Oh, that’s not group money.

LAURA: No, I personally have 1,504 credits. What do you personally have?

HUDSON: 270.

LAURA: Okay…

STEVEN: (laughs)

LAURA: Xianna’s like doing the math in her head. She’s like, ‘oh shit, no.’ (sighs) “Okie, fine. We will buy the bomb.”

NICK: “man, you’re really missing out. You know, this impact, it’s like top notch stuff.”

HUDSON: “We’ll take the bomb!”

LAURA: “I mean, could you sell me like, a smaller amount than the giant bag?”

NICK: “Well… no.”

LAURA: (sighs)

NICK: “I would hate to break up such a big collection, you know. The dealers really prefer this amount. If I break it up even less than that then I won’t be able to get all my money back.”

STEVEN: Yeah, that’s how that works.

NICK: Shut up.

(laughter)

LAURA: ‘Hate to break up the collection!’

HUDSON: That’s how drug dealers talk.

NICK: “No, it’s like this is our gross. If you start selling less than this then people won’t be able to smuggle it.”

STEVEN: Oh, I’d hate to break up the distribution size to people that buy it to make money on the distribution—(laughter) Sounds fine, though. It’s all good.

NICK: “No, because plot points!”

LAURA: “Fine. We will take the bomb.”

HUDSON: “Thank you, Xianna.” I’m very sober by this point.

NICK: Okay. He routes around and he pulls out what looks like two thermal detonators stuck together with a toilet paper tube.

LAURA: Cool.

NICK: It’s got like extra wires and things, and he sets it on the counter and nudges it so that it rolls, and that seems real sketch.

LAURA: Yeah. Xianna takes it and then holds it for a second, and as she’s putting it in her pocket goes, “Oh, and do you have cans of spray paint?”

NICK: “Uh, yeah.” And we’ll cut from there to the next scene.

LAURA: So, the bomb was 1,200?

NICK: Yeah. Expensive bomb. But now you have a large story bomb that does story bomb things.

LAURA: Yay, story bombs. Booomb~

NICK: So, you all wanna do your sabotage montage?

LAURA: Yes. The first one we’re gonna do is we walk to the archives. Xianna has Sabos walk to the Imperial building, and she throws him a can of spray paint and goes, “Okie. Tag the front of the building, Free Ithor.”

STEVEN: “In Basic?”

LAURA: “In whatever language you want, but probably Basic so that the Imperials read that it says Free Ithor.”

STEVEN: “Oh, I see.”

LAURA: “So, tag that building.”

STEVEN: I tag the building that says the Imperial Archive that says Free Ithor, in Basic. I also draw a figure with four head tails.

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: It’s your signature.

LAURA: As he’s doing that, Xianna’s just kind of watching, and once he finishes up walks into the building—

STEVEN: Oh, and I use my head tails to rub some of the paint artistically.

NICK: Egh.

LAURA: No…

CAMERON: Oh god.

NICK: So, how I picture this, Sabos wasn’t around for parts of the plan so you just hand him the spray paint and say just tag Free Ithor on it, and he goes up and tags it, and as he’s rubbing his head tails into it and really getting into it you can see he’s starting to like… He started with just a tag, and then he’s going back and starting to like, perfectionist stuff. Karma, how do you arrest him while he’s doing this?”

CAMERON: Alright. We’re kind of all standing in the shadows to the side. I turn to Felton, “Don’t freak out,” and I drop my cloak.

NICK: He looks at you and goes, “Oh, that actually explains a lot. Man, that Togruta is gonna really be surprised when he finds out that he’s been hanging out with a bounty hunter this whole time.”

CAMERON: “…Yup.” (laughs) “Surprise.”

LAURA: Surprise~

CAMERON: I swing my carbine around to my front and just stalk out into the street, and I think I’m gonna shoot him. I’m gonna stun him.

NICK: Okay… So, Sabos—

CAMERON: It’s gotta be convincing, okay?

STEVEN: (sighs)

CAMERON: I didn’t tell you I was gonna stun you, though. You knew you were gonna get arrested, but you didn’t know I was gonna shoot you.

STEVEN: I did.

NICK: So, Sabos, you turn around and you’re like, ‘Hey, is this re—‘ (whooshing shooting noise) and you just get dropped. Then we swipe cut to a monorail station, but it’s a real small station with a really big track, and a train has just gone by with two Ithorians on it. It’s like a six car train, but not very many people are using it. Xianna, what do you do?

LAURA: So there are people on the train?

NICK: They’re on the train but they just went by, so if you destroy the tracks it’s not gonna drop them.

LAURA: Okay. So, Xianna also takes out a can of spray paint and tags the building again with Free Ithor, and then sets the bomb and runs off, but she makes sure that she looks into the cameras and probably does a little kiss and wave at whichever one she sees as she’s tagging the place, and then just like sets the timer, tosses the bomb behind her, and runs out.

NICK: Karma, how do you arrest her before she makes her escape?

LAURA: Oh, we definitely timed it. I was like, I will run out of this building, and you tackle me.

CAMERON: Yeah. I was carrying Sabos around, because I literally just arrested him, and just—

NICK: You can have like a wheelbarrow that you’ve been carting him in.

CAMERON: Yeah. I just had a wagon. I was pulling a wagon behind me, and I had Sabos in the wagon. He’s in binders at this point. I just see the explosion start as Xianna runs out of the building, and just run and flying tackle from the side… but it’s all done very artfully so that we both land on the side so that we don’t hurt each other.

LAURA: We rehearsed it.

CAMERON: Yeah. We practiced a lot.

LAURA: It’s very WWE.

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: So, we get two different camera shots. The first one is a close up kind of grainy security cam film of Xianna in profile spray painting and she does her smooch and wave and winks at the camera, and turns, and then becomes all business and runs out. Then we get a pan of the wide street of another security camera that’s kind of gritty, and she takes like three steps, and then we just see Karma go (three impact noises) and just nail her, and they go flying off screen again.

So, from there, we cut to you all in space. Is Tink on the ship as well? I would imagine so.

LAURA, CAMERON, & HUDSON: Yeah.

NICK: So, you’re on the Afternoon Delight—

CAMERON: Can we take a different ship up?

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: I’d like to not take our ship.

LAURA: Just like rent a ship.

CAMERON: Yeah. I just want a rental, because obviously I’m not in my bounty hunting ship, and I’ve been here a while. I didn’t come in on the Imperial shuttle. ‘I’ve been here.’ So, I just rent a ship.

NICK: Okay. We’ll get you the Star Wars equivalent of a daycare van.

CAMERON: Awesome, great.

NICK: It’s a very blocky ship with just like a single view port, nothing fancy, seats like six people, and that’s it. It’s for short hops.

CAMERON: It has a cargo compartment though, so that Tink can hide in the cargo compartment.

NICK: Yes. There’s a compartment under the floor of the ship that a Gigoran laying prone could fit in. we get a shot from behind the ship as it’s on an approach vector to the Star Destroyer. You get a ping on the com, and you hear, “Unidentified vessel, why are you approaching the ISD Vengeance?”

CAMERON: “Yes. This is bounty hunter—“ insert Karma’s bounty hunter ID.

NICK: Whoop! We get the close-in of a slide in card, and the three yellow lights that go across over and over again, because 70’s Star Wars thing. “We have your identification. Why are you approaching the Vengeance?”

CAMERON: “I have two bounties to turn in to Imperial control.”

NICK: “We don’t normally accept bounties on blockade. Why should we let you onto the ship?”

CAMERON: “Well, there’s no holding pattern on the ground, and they’ve been causing some mayhem aboard the herdship. There was a transportation center blown up, and tagging, causing some unrest across the populous, and I figured you’d like them off planet. You are my only option to turn them in at this point.”

NICK: “Oh yes, because you’re not getting out of here, especially not in that.”

CAMERON: “Well, obviously. (laughs)”

NICK: “Roger that, Ithorian sip, uh, Harmless.” (snickering) “You can approach to the third landing bay. Have your prisoners restrained and we will process bounties accordingly.”

CAMERON: “Thank you. Proceeding to the landing bay.”

NICK: Beep-boop. And then we get the shot of the ship going in, and it’s like the cool Star Wars models so it looks nice, and then it lands. How do you all look coming off of the ship? Are they beat up? Are they bindered?

CAMERON: Yes, bindered.

LAURA: Yes.

CAMERON: Sabos is looking a little worse for wear, because I shot him…

STEVEN: Do I come in on a wheelbarrow?

CAMERON: No. it’s been long enough by the time—My stun probably didn’t 100% knock you out, it just, yeah.

LAURA: Stun just works how you need it to work in Star Wars.

CAMERON: Yeah. It just, it got you pretty good, and I was able to get the handcuffs on you while you were unaware. So, you look a little frazzled, probably.

STEVEN: I look frazzled.

NICK: Does Sabos have like, a head tail askew, like bad hair? Is he that frazzled?

LAURA & CAMERON: I don’t think that’s how that works.

LAURA: That’s like a nose. I think it’d be broken.

NICK: Oh no.

CAMERON: Yeah, no. he’s fine. He looks a little roughed up. He’s—What color spray paint were you using?

STEVEN: Uh, we’ll go with black.

CAMERON: So, he’s got the tip of his head tails kind of covered in black, and it’s kind of a nice ombre up his head tails with the black.

NICK: Nice work.

CAMERON: Yeah, well he was doing gradient for his graffiti painting, so it kind of did that naturally, but his hands are kind of covered in paint.

STEVEN: See, it couldn’t be red, because it would just blend in with me.

NICK: I was picturing mustard yellow for the graffiti. I don’t know why.

STEVEN: I figure the Imperial archive is a nice, uh…

CAMERON: Clean gray building.

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: It’s always gray.

CAMERON: It’s a nice solid black, looks nice.

STEVEN: Exactly. Nice clean gray, so black is definitely noticeable.

NICK: Yeah, it’ll be a pain to clean, and they can never match it when they try to paint over it, so then it looks really obvious. Xianna?

CAMERON: You probably have some soot on you from the explosion.

LAURA: Yeah. I probably added extra soot, and I definitely made sure to hide everything in my deepest pockets. I probably left a can of spray paint in one of the easy to find pockets, so if they search me they feel like they found something, and then I took my scanner goggles off and put it in the deep pockets with my other stuff.

CAMERON: Well, anything you don’t want them to have Karma can keep, too, if you don’t want them to confiscate it. Like, your rifle and stuff, I won’t turn you in with a rifle

STEVEN: That would be a good idea.

LAURA: So, I most likely gave you things like my binders, my surveillance tagger, the IOU from Kettle, but I probably kept my blaster and my little snuff box, because I just put them in my deep pockets because they’re decently hard to check, but I did leave a can of spray paint and some little things for them to find and they feel like they did something when they search me.

STEVEN: I’ll have nothing but a com link in my padded armor.

CAMERON: Your com link’s probably in your… however you have ears.

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: So, you’re frog marched out by Karma. There’s two stormtroopers next to a low ranking Imperial officer. He looks like the deck commander. He says, “Well, are these our ne’er-do-wells?” and he looks pretty proud of himself. He’s got like a little squeebly mustache.

STEVEN: “I think I did pretty well.”

CAMERON: “Indeed, officer, they are.”

NICK: “Well, if the records of the scans are to be approved, I don’t know why you look so proud of yourself, Togruta. All you did was spray paint some things.”

LAURA: “I mean, that is actually quite a bit for him.”

CAMERON: “They apparently know each other.”

NICK: “Huh, interesting.”

STEVEN: “Oh, we know each other pretty well.”

LAURA: “No…”

STEVEN: I say implicatively.

LAURA: (laughs)

NICK: “Well, we’ll be taking over custody now. After the bounty has been turned in and approved you can expect your payment in six to eight weeks.”

LAURA: “I mean, so who approved your mustache?”

NICK: “I’m an Imperial. We can have mustaches.”

LAURA: “You really shouldn’t, though.”

NICK & STEVEN: Ohhh.

NICK: He motions to a stormtrooper and they punch you in the stomach with the butt of their rifle.

LAURA: “Ow!”

NICK: It hurts.

CAMERON: I swap out my binders with the binders that the stormtroopers have.

NICK: Yeah. It’s all very professional, just click-click, snap-snap.

CAMERON: Yup. Remove mine, put them back up on my head tails.

NICK: The deck commander looks kind of smug and leans over. “Not so smug now, are you? Search the prisoners!” And the stormtroopers come up and start to pat you down. What does your smuggling coat do?

LAURA: It’s an opposed Skulduggery.

NICK: Oh shit. So they’ll have two green… Does the coat make it an opposed Skulduggery, or give you a bonus to it?

LAURA: No, it is an opposed Skulduggery to search.

NICK: Oh. Yeah, they only have two greens. Well, we’ll make it a green and a red. This guy’s been trained. He’s a marine.

LAURA: I want to flip a light side point. I really don’t want them to find my stuff.

NICK: Well, so it’s opposed… Yeah, you can roll a purple and a red on yours, so that we’re building a smaller pool.

LAURA: Six successes, but two threats. And remember, they will find the spray paint.

NICK: Yeah, so they find the spray paint. The stormtrooper pulls it out and says, (muffled) “All she has is this, sir.”

LAURA: “Hey, I want that back. That is mine.”

NICK: “You can have that back… in jail! Ha ha ha.”

LAURA: “Oh, so you will actually give it to me once I am in my cell?”

NICK: The deck commander just slowly shakes his head and says, “Take them to the holding cell.” They pat down Sabos and pull off his com. They leave your armor on, they don’t care. They start to march you away, and the last shot we have is Karma standing at the thing… You’re gonna leave, right?

CAMERON: Yes, after Tink gets off the ship.

NICK: Right. Karma is standing at the foot of the on-ramp, and Tink lifts up the roof of his smuggling compartment and sticks his head out, and says…

HUDSON: “Am I good to go?”

CAMERON: (quietly) “Yeah, I thought you left already.”

HUDSON: “Oh—“ I run out.

(laughter)

NICK: And that’s where we’ll end the episode!

(all make dramatic noises and Star Wars tunes)

## Outro

CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show please consider logging into iTunes and giving us a five-star review. Five-star reviews will help new listeners to find the show.

Xianna’fan is played by Laura Penrod. She can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.

Tink is played by Hudson Jameson and he can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.

Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.

Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet.

Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.

Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.

Additional music by James Gunter.

Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tabletop_squad. For real! We’re real people and we wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.

The crew spends a lot of time during episodes 23 and 24 having breakfast. One of said breakfast items was scones. Some were certainly regular cream scones served with butter and jam, but some were probably heartier, like these Oatmeal Rum-Raisin Scones.

The scones piled on a plate. Pancakes, maple syrup, and sausages are out of focus in the background.
Breakfast is ready!

These scones are made with a mix of all-purpose flour, whole wheat flower, and oats. This creates a wonderful hearty flavor and a chewy texture. Brown sugar adds sweetness, and cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves add a warm spice. Orange zest brings a hint of freshness and prevents these from tasting flat.

All the ingredients measured out into small bowls.
The ingredients

The real secret in letting the raisins soak in spiced rum. This plums them up and adds some extra flavor.

If you don’t wish to or cannot use rum, apple juice or cider would work as well.

These will sit for an hour and get nice and plump.

Rum poured into the bowl of raisins.
Rum-Raisins in the making.

When the raisins are almost done soaking you’ll combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and give them a good mix.

All the dry ingredients combined in a large mixing bowl.
The dry ingredients.

Then you’ll add the cubed butter. You’ll want the butter to stay as cold as possible for the best texture. If the butter gets too warm into melt into the flour and create a doughy texture instead of light and crumbly.

Cubed butter adding to the mixing bowl of dry ingredients.
Add the butter.

You’ll “cut” the butter into the flour mixture by cutting it up into small pieces. You can do this with a pastry cutter, a handle with thin wires or cutters, or you can use two butter knives and slice at the pieces of butter.

The final butter pieces should be very fine and blended into the mixture.

Then you’ll add the buttermilk and stir just until the dough begins to form. Drain the raisins, you can use the leftover rum for whatever you’d like, and add to the dough. Continue stirring until the dough is mostly combined.

Raisins added to the dough.
Raisins added.

Next, you’ll pour out the dough on a flat surface, with some extra flour to prevent sticking, and knead until the dough is fully mixed and cohesive.

Dough turned out onto a surface for kneading.
Time to knead!

Form it into a flattened disk about 2 inches tall.

The dough formed into a flat round.
The final dough.

Cut the dough into 8 equal pieces.

The dough divided into 8 triangular pieces.
Divided up.

Place the scones on a lined baking sheet and put them in the 400 degree F oven for 15-20 minutes.

The scones on a baking sheet.
Baking time.

While the scones are baking you’ll make the cinnamon-maple glaze. It’s quite simple. Powdered sugar, cinnamon, maple syrup, and salt, with a little bit of water to smooth it out.

Glaze ingredients in a bowl.
Glaze ingredients.

Add the water a teaspoon or two at a time until the glaze is thick, but pourable. It should pool up when drizzled back into the bowl, but after a second or two melt back in with the rest of the glaze.

The mixed glaze with a spoon drizzling some back into the bowl.
The mixed glaze.

The scones should be a wonderful golden color when they are done baking.

The baked scones on the baking tray.
The baked scones.

Wait 10 minutes before glazing. This lets them cool down enough that the glaze won’t completely melt away, but lets them be just warm enough for the glaze to fully stick.

An R2-D2 kitchen timer set to 10 minutes.
Other kitchen timers will do.

Drizzle the glaze on in thick stripes or zig-zags. I used a butter knife, but you could also use a spoon or even a piping bag.

The scones on the baking tray with the glazed drizzled on.
That good, good drizzle.

Oatmeal Raisin Scones [makes 8 scones]

1/2 cup (90g) raisins
Spiced rum (or apple juice/cider)
1 1/2 cups (192g) all purpose flour
1/2 cup (64g) whole wheat flour
1 cup  (100g) oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup (100g) brown sugar
Zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup cold butter, cubed
3/4 cup (180g) buttermilk

Place the raisins in a small bowl and fill with enough rum to just cover them. Cover and let sit for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl combine the all purpose flour, the whole wheat flour, the oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, brown sugar, and orange zest. Mix well.

Add the cubed butter to the bowl. Using a pastry blender or two butter knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until the butter is evenly distributed.

Add the buttermilk and roughly mix until just beginning to combine. Drain the raisins and add them to the bowl. Stir until mostly mixed. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and cohesive.

Form the dough into a flattened circle about 2 inches tall. Cut into 8 equal pieces. Place the scones on a lined baking sheet.

Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Let cool for 10 minutes before glazing; recipe below.

Cinnamon Maple Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoon maple syrup
A pinch of salt
1-2 tablespoon water

Mix together the powdered sugar, cinnamon, maple syrup, and salt in a bowl. Slowly add water, a teaspoon at a time, until the glaze is smooth and pourable, but still thick.

A plate of scones sitting on a fabric napkin. One scone is off the plate sitting on the napkin.
Time to wrangle up for nerfs!

Word document download: Episode 10 Sabacc in Business

PDF download: Episode 10 Sabacc in Business

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Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 10:
Sabacc In Business

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

Note – Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in an accent. Most of her soft I’s sound like “ee,” and most of her TH’s sound like Z’s. Example: “this and that” = “zees and zat”

## Intro

CAMERON: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Cameron, not your game master. Every other Thursday our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, a fringer, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

Thank you so much to GearedForMusic for leaving us an iTunes review. You saying that listening to us was like hanging out with your funny, nerdy friends in space made us smile. iTunes is actually the reason that I’m giving the intro today instead of Nick, your actual game master. GearedForMusic’s review took us to 13 reviews. When we reach 20, we’ll be releasing a series of flashback episodes that I ran featuring Karma’s twin sons. We brought in two of our best friends to play Jet and Juke Nailo, and we had a ton of fun recording this little side adventure. The best thing about the flashback episodes is that we’ll be releasing them on off weeks, so you’ll get double the Tabletop Squadron in your ears for approximately six weeks. I have the first episode edited and ready to go as soon as we hit that 20th review, and I would love for all of you lovely listeners to make me feel rushed to get the next two done.

A huge thank you to everyone who has left us reviews so far and said nice things about us and the show. The squad appreciates it more than you can possibly know. Anyway, I’ve talked enough. Thanks for reviewing, thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy.

[musical chime]
Hi, I’m Lilit and I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler. I was going by an old name during this recording and while we have left the audio as originally recorded, I would request that you use my current name when discussing the episode. Thanks!
[musical chime]

## [0:01:47]

NICK: Hello, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, Episode 10! I’m your host, Nick. Good to have you back! Nothing special.

(long pause, laughter)

HUDSON: Wait, what? Oh, okay. I get it. You can say good to have you back because you’re not referencing it as like we’ve been gone.

STEVEN: Yes.

NICK: Some people may not know…

CAMERON: (sighs)

NICK: This show releases every two weeks, so we can pretend that we know our listeners and that we’re happy to see them. (laughter) This is going in the god damn episode.

LAURA: We are happy to see our listeners despite this being a purely audio medium.

NICK: Well that’s what the microphones are for. If you look through them you can see, like, ten.

STEVEN: Oh, I see it.

LAURA: Oh.

NICK: Yeah. See!

CAMERON: Mine must be broken.

NICK: So, we’re gonna go around the table—

LAURA: Is that why there’s a crystal ball in the middle of the table, so we can astrally view our listener?

NICK: Well, that’s a d1, actually. You roll it if you need a number between one and one.

CAMERON: Hmm. Alright, cool.

HUDSON: The villain from Mighty Morphing Power Rangers left it.

(laughter)

NICK: So, moving on! We’re gonna go around the table and introduce everybody real quick, starting with Steven!

STEVEN: Hi.

NICK: Hi.

STEVEN: I’m Steven.

NICK: Hi Steven.

STEVEN: I play Sabos the Togruta. Sabos a Togruta? He’s not the only Togruta.

NICK: Good work. Moving on. Cameron!

CAMERON: [through giggles] Hi, I’m Cameron.

NICK: Hi Cameron.

CAMERON: I’m playing Karma the Nautolan bounty hunter.

NICK: Great. And, Hudson!

HUDSON: Hi, I’m Hudson. I’m playing Tink, the Gigoran slicer who has the career skill of Technician.

NICK: See Steven, they remember specific facts about their character and relate them in a standard way.

STEVEN: Oh. … No, I don’t do that.

NICK: Yeah, obviously. And, Laura!

LAURA: Hi. I’m Laura. I play Xianna, a Twi’lek smuggler.

NICK: We got some experience last time we played, if you could just rattle off what you’ve spent any experience points on. We’ll start with Cameron.

CAMERON: So, for Karma, I bought a talent on my Assassin bounty hunter tree, Quickdraw. Once per round I can draw or holster a weapon or item as an incidental.

SEVERAL: Ooh.

NICK: Does it have a limit on what kind of weapon?

CAMERON: Nope.

NICK: So you could like draw a rocket launcher?

CAMERON: Sure. If I have one. I don’t currently, but…

NICK: Eh, I’ll get you one. Yeah, that’ll be fine.

CAMERON: Maybe we can fix that.

NICK: Let’s go to Steven.

STEVEN: Hi. I, Sabos, the Togruta fringer—

NICK: Hey! Good work.

STEVEN: Yay—spun, spent, did spend, spent, right? Spent 15 points on Rapid Recovery in my fringer tree which allows me, when healing strain after an encounter, to heal one additional strain per rank of Rapid Recovery.

NICK: Okay. So, continue to shoot Sabos. Duly noted.

LAURA: Got it.

CAMERON: Only with stun, though.

NICK: I’ll just—He’ll figure it out.

STEVEN: I haven’t got the crit one yet, sorry.

NICK: Okay. Laura.

LAURA: I am hoarding my points.

NICK: You have spent no points.

LAURA: I have spent no points.

NICK: Saving up for that shiny new talent.

LAURA: Yes.

NICK: Okay. Hudson, did you spend any experience points?

HUDSON: I’ve spent zero experience points this time, because I’m saving up for a shiny new talent on my talent tree.

NICK: Okay! How about the Destiny Roll!

CAMERON: Two light side.

STEVEN: Two light side.

LAURA: One light side.

HUDSON: One light side.

CAMERON: So we have six light side points!

NICK: Alright, so, we haven’t recorded in a while, just a peek behind the curtain. We’ve had some stuff happen and haven’t recorded in a while, worked our way through our back log, so we’re gonna give a little bit of a recap and make sure all of the players know what’s going on.

So, stepping back a couple of steps. You fled Unroola Dawn. You went to an asteroid and shot some people, and killed them, and then you went to Ithor, which is a planet with like hammerhead slow-talky guys. You landed on the planet, and you went and met the Ithorian Oracle, and gave them the Stone Breaker, further cementing your business relationship. You then went to the…

CAMERON: Gooberfish!

LAURA: The Gooberfish.

NICK: Yeah, The Gooberfish, one of the bars that is near the Oracle’s retreat, and you met with your contact. Karma is currently disguised as an Imperial something or other in a full cloak and robes, and it turned out that your contact was…

CAMERON: Felton Mox.

NICK: …was Felton Mox, a large otter of a guy with a beer belly. He’s a Selonian, and somebody who you may remember was your original bounty in Prologue 1. So, you talked to him a little bit. He was able to give you a small, gray plasteel box with something inside with instructions that it would help you to break the blockade, and he also informed you that he may or may not have lost another piece of the puzzle, the Rancore Protocol, and he tried very hard to convince you that you didn’t need him and that he was gonna go on his way and everything was good, but that’s about where we left off, you all grabbing him as he tried to leave and saying ‘no, we think we’ll hold onto you.’ You know that Kettle has the Rancore Protocol somewhere, and that she’s somewhere on the planet, and you know that Felton Mox is supposed to be your contact with local information who can help you, and you now have the little plasteel box with something in it.

Okay. We start our scene. You are standing in the late afternoon sun on the street of the Ithorian herdship, which is a giant floating city above a beautiful, pristine jungle way below. You can’t see it from where you are, but it’s there. You’re standing outside The Gooberfish. Tink has a big mitt on Felton Mox’s shoulder. He looks extremely uncomfortable, he’s sweating a little in the humidity and is trying to inch away from you, but he’s not going anywhere. You have just exited the bar, and it’s time to make a plan.

CAMERON: I forgot—I’m not talking.

HUDSON: Out of game real quick, would Felton know where Kettle is?

NICK: Yeah.

STEVEN: That was kind of my strategy was to tell him that [mumbled speech]

HUDSON: We should find an alley to rough him up.

NICK: Yeah, he knows where Kettle is.

HUDSON: Okay. Back in game.

NICK: Okay.

HUDSON: “So, you’re gonna tell us where Kettle is, right?”

NICK: “You don’t really… You’re not gonna go after her, are you? That seems like a really bad idea. I wouldn’t recommend that.”

HUDSON: “I don’t think I asked for your advice, friend.”

NICK: He pulls at the collar that he doesn’t have, and goes “ewwehheww” and looks at your giant vibro-axe, and says, “Duly noted. Uh, yeah. She’s at a gaming room at the edge of the herdship. I could show you, I guess, where she is. And then we’re done, right? I can leave after that.”

CAMERON: Karma shakes her hooded head ominously, in a ‘no…’

NICK: Getting a real ghost of Christmas future vibe.

LAURA: “Do not worry about them. They are fine.”

NICK: ‘Oh. Yeah… ‘kay. Yu know, it’s weird, you all seem kind of rough and tumble. It’s strange for you to be hanging out with a high profile Imperial agent. That’s not normal.”

CAMERON: Karma nods. (laughs)

LAURA: “It’s not normal, but it is just how we do things. It works.”

HUDSON: “You haven’t gotten to know me. I’m actually a very sensitive soul.”

NICK: “Yeah, I can feel that, from that—Hey, hey, I think you’re grinding my bones together. Can you lighten up a little bit?”

HUDSON: “Sorry.”

LAURA: “Yes, yes, please do not break the captives.”

HUDSON: “Yeah. I shouldn’t do that at all. I thought my fur would provide enough, you know, kind of filter, buffer.”

NICK: “Yeah, uh, business partners. Just wanna clarify, business partners. Not captive. Same team.” He gives an optimistic double thumbs up.

LAURA: “Well…”

STEVEN: “You don’t wanna know how I ended up with the fourth head tail.”

NICK: “You’re right, I don’t, because I imagine that is a story involving your conception.”

LAURA: Xianna does not handle this. “Wait. Okie. Have you always had it, or did you get it? How did you get it? And why is it a bad thing that you have it?”

STEVEN: I just point at the Imperialist, and be like, “Don’t mess with her.”

LAURA: “But what—Because the head tails symbolize virility…”

STEVEN: “Yes.”

LAURA: “…would it not be better to have more? Because some Twi’leks have a third one…”

STEVEN: “… Yes.”

LAURA: “…and you know, they are considered sexier.”

STEVEN: “… No.”

LAURA: “So is it yes or no?!”

STEVEN: “Yes.”

NICK: Someone’s been watching a lot of Senate hearings lately. (laughter)

STEVEN: “I try to be scary sounding with threats—Emperors, Emperor, Imperial!”

NICK: There it is!

LAURA: “I still do not understand what that has to do with your head tail.”

STEVEN: “I have head tails. Anyway, you’re gonna show us where Queen Kettle is.”

NICK: As you turn back to Felton, you can see he’s been slowly sidling. Tink’s arm is so long it’s just been stretching out towards an alley, but he hasn’t let go. He stops. “Okay. Fine. I’ll show you to the gaming room. It’s not that far. I guess I owe Sentinel enough that I can at least do that part of the job.” And you take off through the beautiful herdship.

The floating city is very nice. It looks almost organic in its construction. It’s very clean. You see not a ton of Ithorians, but all of the people you see pretty much are Ithorians. That tends to happen when there’s a blockade in orbit, but there’s not that many. Maybe you see a couple every block or so kind of walking around. It looks like there’s not a ton of population for the size of this city. As you continue you come to a dome that looks right on the edge of the herdship. There’s a low, waist-high wall that circles the edge of the city, and over that you can see the horizon, and a drop of like 8,000 feet, and then the jungle down below. You can see kind of the ebb and flow of trees but not necessarily like individual details. The dome doesn’t really have any features. The top third of it is all glass sky lights. The construction looks kind of similar to the pavilion that the orca? was staying in, just more permanent, and a revolving door, because I like those, so there’s one on this dome at the front. It is glass, but the glass gets opaque as it gets hit by the sunlight and starts to fade as it goes around, so you can’t see into the building, but you see it getting darker and lighter as it goes around. It’s very nifty.

Felton says, “Well, so that’s the gaming room. It’s just called the gaming room. It caters mostly to off-worlders, because the Ithorians aren’t really much for gambling. They’re a little more placid, honestly.” He looks at Tink and says, “Placid, not flaccid. Placid. It means calm, like you’re not being.”

HUDSON: “I know what it means.”

NICK: “Right. So, anyway. The gaming room’s right there, Kettle’s inside. I have guided you. Have a great day.”

STEVEN: “Why don’t you show us in?”

NICK: “Oh, you just walk through the doors. It’s not that complicated.”

LAURA: “No, you should come with us.”

CAMERON: The hood shakes no.

STEVEN: “I’m not familiar with these doors on my home planet. I think I need you to help.”

NICK: He seems so confused that he starts walking before he does anything, and is quickly at the doors and pushes through. Inside is, imagine a ritzy kind of casino look but it’s not that big, probably a couple thousand square feet, the size of a medium gymnasium. There are gaming tables around. I want everyone to provide one detail of this gaming room, this alien gambling den, starting with… whoever thinks of something first.

HUDSON: The trunk people are all playing baccarat.

NICK: (laughs) The trunk people?

HUDSON: I mean, that might be racist, I just don’t remember their real alien race name.

NICK: The trunk people are playing baccarat. It’s an alien—

HUDSON: They’re also drunk.

NICK: The drunk trunk people are playing baccarat, but it’s like space baccarat, so are there lasers involved, or…?

HUDSON: Yeah. It’s high stakes in like a life or death way, which you would never think of baccarat as being normally, but they’ve done it.

(laughter)

NICK: Okay. The back wall, you actually see that the dome protrudes over the edge of the herdship a little bit, and the baccarat table is over there, and they seem to be standing on little trap doors as they’re playing. Nothing comes from that, but those are there. That’s cool. Okay, what else?

STEVEN: So, it has like a fountain, except the fountain is a drink fountain, and the drink that comes out of it is Flame Out. It’s got a Flame Out fountain.

NICK: A fountain of Flame Out…

STEVEN: And it kind of sparkles and buzzes in the scary way.

NICK: Yeah. That sounds about right.

STEVEN: Slightly luminescent.

NICK: Eh. Sounds less and less appetizing.

LAURA: Sounds less and less like a Flame Out.

STEVEN: It’s flaming out.

NICK: It’s as though you can’t tell if the pipes can’t handle the alcohol content or if there’s a loose electric wire somewhere in the basin.

STEVEN: Right. They might be enhancing the look of the Flame Out fountain.

NICK: Yeah, and with a fountain of that particular type of drink, that means that the air has a spicy, minty smell just permeating the place. It starts nice. It gets old real fast.

LAURA: There’s a large Sabacc area, and all the little Sabacc machines are like gilded gold. They’re very pretty.

SEVERAL: Ooh.

CAMERON: There’s a kickass chandelier that may or may not have aliens doing acrobatics on it in the center of the dome.

LAURA: It does.

CAMERON: I mean, it does.

NICK: What’s the name of the little rat guy from Jabba’s palace?

LAURA: Salacious B. Crumb? It’s not that.

NICK: There’s Salacious B. Crumbs wiggling around?

CAMERON: No. It’s not those. It’s not those, no. It’s like the Kushibans who are just doing flips and stuff in the chandeliers.

LAURA: Oh you—Xianna’s gonna get nothing done, you guys. (laughter) She’s just gonna be standing in the middle like, “Oh, there’s a chandelier. Look at that! Oh, look at them go!”

NICK: Okay, so yeah. The whole thing is lit very nicely.

HUDSON: And it is lit, like—

NICK: It is lit, 420.

HUDSON: Yes.

LAURA: And as we walk in, Xianna looks at everyone else and goes, “Oh, by the way, does anyone have like a gambling problem? (snorts and laughter) That we should watch out?”

CAMERON: A little late.

NICK: Sabos is looking a little nervous right now.

STEVEN: “Uh, no. I like—No. I like the home world just fine. Everything’s fine.”

LAURA: “Kay… because I kind of do. So, watch out for me.” (giggling)

STEVEN: “I don’t escape the home world to gamble. No, I mean, eh. We’re fine.”

HUDSON: “My only problem is I’m not gambling. That’s my gambling problem. Just kidding, I don’t have a problem at all.”

NICK: Oh boy.

LAURA: “I will probably be fine. Don’t worry. I’m sure I will be fine.”

NICK: What thoughts are going through Karma’s head as everyone admits that this is a dangerous situation for them?

CAMERON: She’s just shaking her head. She’s far more comfortable here than she was on Unroola Dawn, because this is the type of scenario she’s used to being in when trying to track people down. She’s often in bars and casinos and stuff, because that’s where the type of people that she’s after normally hang out. And she feels far more elegant than everyone else, and like she fits in better because of the cloak.

NICK: So, the camera pans around to the jingling sound of holo-slot machines striking jackpots. There are several Sabacc tables with golden Sabacc projectors in the middle. They definitely are projecting HD cards, because you normally see in Star Wars holograms are kind of woobly and look like their bunny antenna had been out of wack. These are all very crisp. It looks like you could almost touch them, but they disappear as people play them.

While most of the players are some assorted races, there’s probably 20 or 30 people in here, all the dealers are Ithorian pretty much. So, the ones at the Sabacc tables, each table has two or three people, you know that up to seven can play but they tend to like to spread out. So, Sabacc is—For the people who don’t know Star Wars… (snooty)

LAURA: Mm-hmm… (snooty)

NICK: Sabacc is sort of a mix between Poker, Blackjack, and Yu-Gi-Oh, as far as I can tell.

LAURA: Good description, actually. That’s about right.

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: You can build your own deck. It’s got some math junk in it, but it’s mostly Blackjack except when it’s not, and the rules change depending on which extended universe book you read, but the professional Sabacc people like to play with about three, as they think that gives them the best odds. It’s sort of like when people go to Vegas and they try to count cards because they’ve read the book about counting cards and think that they’re very good at it. It’s just a rule of thumb, it doesn’t actually really do that much, but that’s why there’s so many tables is people like to play low. You can tell that a lot of the seats don’t get used that much because people also have favorite seats, and we’re getting too into Sabacc. I just think it’s interesting.

So, some of the Ithorian card dealers look up as you come in and look at you before dismissing. Some eyes definitely stay on Karma for a while, because she is the first Imperial that has set foot on the planet since the blockade started as far as they know, so that’s real weird. You can see they have some questions.

Everyone except for Karma is feeling pretty solidly buzzed from the drinks that they had at The Gooberfish. You all had several. Felton Mox stands in front of you. He kind of shakes Tink’s hand off his shoulder and gestures grandly to everyone. His fur ripples with the motion. He says, “So, this is it, I brought you in. That’s great, right? I’ll, uh, see you later,” and he turns to try and leave again.

LAURA: Xianna was like looking up in the chandelier and is like, “Oh, yes, we are doing something. No, you cannot go yet. No.”

CAMERON: Karma walks over to Felton and links her arm through his.

NICK: He shudders a little, and then he gets like a look on his face as you’re standing there arm in arm. “This… is a weird feeling of space deja vu right now, standing arm in arm with you. Have we met before?”

LAURA: “So anyways… (laughter) Um, yes. Uh, Kettle? That is who we are–?”

NICK: As you bring that up, you can see that there’s a separate Sabacc table in a roped in area kind of towards the far back. It’s on part of the transparasteel floor that overhangs the jungle, and it has a little Chadra-fan dealer running the table. For those of you who don’t know, a Chadra-fan is a little bat person that’s like three feet tall, and doesn’t have wings, and is super cute. You can see it in New Hope. It’s the one that gets its drink from the bar with two hands and makes a cute little squeaky noise.

He’s wearing a green vest with a leaf pattern on it, and has one of those little green visor dealer hats on. He looks kind of torn as he deals out the cards. So, he’s setting out one set of cards for a human that is sweating profusely. His dark hair is matted down to his face and he’s gripping each card like it’s the only thing in the galaxy. The other set of cards goes to a strange insectile-looking creature with their back to you. They’re covered in scars and their wings are tattered. If you make a Xenology check you might know what this thing is. Except for Sabos, Sabos recognizes this thing.

CAMERON: What’s the difficulty on the Xenology check?

NICK: Hard.

HUDSON: I’ll let you guys handle this one.

CAMERON: Sure. It could happen.

LAURA: I mean, I’ll roll.

NICK: Also, while they’re rolling, you may notice that some of our dice noises changed. We got cool little dice cups because our dice pools were getting too big, so thanks Kickstarter.

LAURA: I got a failure.

CAMERON: Yeah, so Karma got two failures and two advantages.

NICK: Okay. Is there something you would like to spend the advantages on?

LAURA: Wait, Hudson, why don’t you make Xenology rolls? You have a four in Intellect.

CAMERON: You’re smart!

HUDSON: Oh! You’re right.

LAURA: You do way better. I only have a two.

CAMERON: I have a two! You’re way smarter than us.

HUDSON: And I get to use this new fun cup.

LAURA: Xianna’s cunning, but she’s not smart.

HUDSON: What’s that, two advantages?

STEVEN: Absolutely nothing.

HUDSON: Oh.

NICK: Complete wash! Okay. None of you recognize what this particular species would be, but you do notice that Felton is staring pretty pointedly at that table, like that’s where you guys need to go. Sabos, you recognize that as Kettle most likely. You don’t see Geonosians every day, but that’s definitely one of them, and those are pretty rare.

STEVEN: I didn’t see her from the back, though.

NICK: No, but it’s like—

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: So, it’s a large, brown insectile creature. There’s not so many of those out there. What do you guys wanna do?

LAURA: “Okie, Tink, give me your credits.”

HUDSON: “Your—My what?”

LAURA: “Your credits! You know, your money.”

HUDSON: “Oh, credits. Oh, uh, wait all of it?”

LAURA: “Most of them.”

HUDSON: “Why?”

LAURA: “So I can go to the table.”

STEVEN: While they’re doing that, I just walk up to the table and say, “Hi Queen.”

(laughter)

LAURA: “Oh, never mind. It appears Sabos knows her.”

HUDSON: “Wait, don’t you have cred—Never mind.”

LAURA: “I have some, but I need more for the gambling. I do not know what the buy in is.” (laughing)

NICK: So we get this nice top-down shot of the Sabacc table and Kettle playing cards, and it angles over to Sabos who walks up and greets her, and in the background we see Xianna and Tink talking about credits and elbowing each other, and then they just stop and turn to look at the scene.

As you say ‘hi Queen,’ the Geonosian tosses down her cards and says, “Well, Mr. Alto, it looks like we’ll be in touch,” and he hangs his head and stands up from the table before walking away. The human looks very distraught and runs his hands through his hair. Whenever the Chadra-fan dealer looks at Kettle he smiles real big and looks really excited, but then he’ll look back at the human who’s slowly walking away and look like someone just stole his vest and looks very sad, and he kind of alternates back between being happy for Kettle and sad for the human.

So, Kettle sets her cards down and cracks her neck, which makes a really hollow popping noise. She looks up at you. “Ah, Councilman Sako. What a pleasant surprise.”

STEVEN: “Yes, it’s been… ages, it seems.”

NICK: “Yeah, it’s been about… three days, I think, at this point.”

STEVEN: “A lot happens in three days as you might know.”

NICK: “Really? You’ll have to tell me about that sometime.”

STEVEN: “Absolutely. So, you got through the blockade too, huh?”

NICK: “Oh, blockades are really more of a formality for someone like me.”

STEVEN: “(chuckles) I understand.”

NICK: “It turns out they are until you get down on the planet when they take it real seriously. Sometimes you get, well, inconvenienced.”

STEVEN: “I couldn’t imagine.”

NICK: “Yeah. It’s actually convenient that  you’re here. Maybe with your political clout, Councilman Sako…”

STEVEN: “That’s exactly how I got through the blockade.”

NICK: “Yeah, well, maybe you can help me get out of this particular situation.”

STEVEN: “I actually think we’re looking to have you help us get out of this situation as well, so this seems like a very mutualistic situation.”

NICK: “How fortuitous. You’ll have to introduce me to your friends.” She looks around to the rest of the group.

STEVEN: “Yes. Absolutely.”

LAURA: “Hello~!” Xianna waves at her.

CAMERON: Karma and Felton have floated over.

NICK: She nods to you regally.

HUDSON: I scrunch up and look suspicious.

CAMERON: Scrunch up what?

HUDSON: Body-wise.

CAMERON: Like, just your whole body? You just like shrink?

LAURA: Like your little face?

HUDSON: Like a slight tense up.

NICK: Kettle nods to you all, and sees Felton, and goes, “Felton, what are you trying to do bringing muscle on me? You lost fair and square, and it’s time for you to go do your part of the bargain,” and she looks very disinterested in him.

He says, “Well, look, hey—“

STEVEN: “Oh, he’s not here for muscle. He’s actually a very lovable creature.”

NICK: “Oh, well—“

STEVEN: I say pointing at Tink.

NICK: “Oh—Uh, yeah. I thought you were talking about me. That would’ve been…”

STEVEN: “Oh, no.”

NICK: “No. Obviously not, right? Uh, no, Kettle, I’m just here to introduce my new friends, uh, business associates. Really just some people I met in a bar. We’re not really associates… You’re right, I should probably go work on that thing—“

STEVEN: “Nope!”

NICK: “—that you told me to do…”

CAMERON: Karma does not let go of his arm.

NICK: “…but I can’t seem to be rid of them.” He smiles real big. “So, yeah. I guess we could play some cards, maybe, or go to a business room, or do something…” and Kettle just waits to see what you guys have to say.

STEVEN: Is there a VIP room available? Like, you know, big bets, away from listening crowds.

NICK: The Chadra-fan perks up and starts to look eagerly between you all, and Kettle says, “Well, this is basically the big bet area right here. You can tell from the velvet rope and the nice floor windows, but we don’t have those crazy trap doors.”

STEVEN: “I’m okay with that.”

NICK: The camera snaps over real quick to the baccarat table You see an Aqualish which is like a big walrus person go (roars) and then there’s a red buzzer noise, and the floor jiggles a little, and they all look real nervous but it doesn’t give away, and then the camera snaps back to you.

(giggling)

LAURA: “Oh no…”

STEVEN: “Cool.”

NICK: “Yeah. The designers of this game room really like the idea of high stakes, meaning more than just bigger numbers, but the Ithorians aren’t real big on raining gamblers down upon their sacred jungle, so it’s pretty rare. We have that mostly turned off.”

STEVEN: Well, uh, I invite my acquaintances to have a seat, and it feels kind of weird inviting the Imperial to have a seat because I would think the Imperial would invite us to have a seat, but I invite everyone to have a seat at the table with Kettle.

LAURA: Xianna sits pretty quickly.

NICK: Cool, so you all sit at the table. The Chadra-fan eagerly starts dealing out cards. Let’s say it’s 100 credits to get in on this.

STEVEN: (deep inhale) “Give me a sec…”

LAURA: (laughs) Sabos.

STEVEN: “Okay. I can play a game or two.”

NICK: So, it’s like 100 credits for playing through the scene, it’s not gonna be per hand.

STEVEN: Oh. I can play that.

CAMERON: Karma can’t.

NICK: Ouch. Are you gonna try to get credits from someone else to play with?

CAMERON: No, Karma’s just not playing.

NICK: Okay. You’re just gonna stand in the background?

CAMERON: Holding onto Felton. We’re just standing ominously to the side of the table.

HUDSON: I’ll play.

LAURA: Yeah, Xianna puts in credits.

NICK: Okay. You toss the credits in. A little mini mouse bot, probably like three or four inches long with what looks like a snow plow on the end, comes out and scoops your credits off into a slot and goes away, so it makes the little meepy droid noises, and then digital—except it’s Star Wars—so like analog displays pop up with your credit count, and the Chadra-fan starts to deal out cards.

Kettle says, “Oh, so your Imperial friend…” If she had eyebrows she’d be wiggling them. “You Imperial friend won’t be playing, and I know Felton can’t afford to play, but this is a friendly game. What brings you to my end of the herdship?” And you start playing cards.

STEVEN: I look at Xianna.

LAURA: I looked at Sabos, in this face of like, well he knows her, so… Also, I kind of forgot what we were doing. (laughter) Did you see the chandelier in here?!

STEVEN: I excuse myself for a second to go get some Flame Out, and I come back. “As you might know—”

NICK: Wait, wait, wait. You can’t describe something fun like that and then just move on.

STEVEN: (chuckles)

NICK: As you run over to the fountain the smell gets stronger.

STEVEN: It does.

NICK: Your eyes start to water a little bit.

STEVEN: It reminds me of home.

NICK: A green Twi’lek, she’s not very tall, she’s even a little shorter than Xianna, because Xianna’s what, 5’6”?, 5’?

LAURA: I am 1.71 meters.

NICK: What does that mean in English?

LAURA & CAMERON: 5’6”.

NICK: Okay. So, she’s shorter than Xianna. She’s probably about 5’ flat. She’s green, and she’s got a waitress outfit on, and she grabs a copper mug and scoops some out and takes a cloth to wipe the edge so that it’s dry. She tells you, “The high rollers don’t pay for drinks,” and she hands one to you.

STEVEN: “Oh. Thank you very kindly.”

NICK: So, you have your booze.

STEVEN: I do.

NICK: You head back to the–?

HUDSON: “Hey! Can you get me a–?”

STEVEN: “Flame Out?! Absolutely!” I get my Flame Out and just bring it to him, then I go back and ask if they have a bigger glass.

NICK: The Twi’lek cocks a tattooed eyebrow at you, because fun Star Wars fact: Twi’leks don’t have eyebrows but the females often tattoo them on to make people not freaked out about not having eyebrows, and gets two mugs and does the routine of scooping it out and shrugs.

STEVEN: I apologize and point at Tink, and then I think she understands. He is large.

NICK: She doesn’t really seem all that engaged.

STEVEN: Perfect.

NICK: Professionally polite is how I would describe her.

STEVEN: I take both mugs and keep them to myself as I sit down.

NICK: (laughs) Okay.

HUDSON: Where’s my drink?

STEVEN: I gave you the original one.

NICK: He gave you the first one.

HUDSON: Oh, sorry.

STEVEN: I just got more of it.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Xianna, after watching this whole thing, you see her kind of put her hands on her hips and cock her head to the side in mild annoyance at the whole exchange, but she doesn’t do anything.

LAURA: No.

NICK: So, Kettle’s been holding cards this entire time. “So, are we playing or what?”

STEVEN: “Yes. I apologize, Queen. I play better with drinks.”

NICK: Alright. I want a gambling roll out of y’all.

CAMERON: Is that Skulduggery?

NICK: Yeah, I’d take Skullduggery.

STEVEN: Oh will you?

LAURA: Can do.

STEVEN: Will you take… yeah, well… Streetwise?

NICK & LAURA: No.

STEVEN: Uh… Negotiation?

NICK: No.

STEVEN: Cool.

NICK: No.

STEVEN: Okay then.

(giggling)

CAMERON: Astrogation!

STEVEN: How about Astrogation? (laughs) So, just Skullduggery, huh? Okay.

HUDSON: What’s the difficulty?

NICK: Let’s do average.

LAURA: Sure.

HUDSON: Might I go first?

NICK: Yeah, go ahead.

HUDSON: Two successes and a threat.

STEVEN: I got a success, without Skulduggery. Hell yes.

LAURA: Ohhh!

HUDSON: Oh snap.

CAMERON: Oh shit!

LAURA: Ohhh snap! Okay, so it’s two triumphs that are not cancelled by anything, plus two more successes… Yes.

NICK: Two triumphs and two more successes?

CAMERON: Yes, so four successes total, and then also two triumphs.

NICK: Oh boy. Okay, and then if someone could roll me a hard check against just three greens, please.

CAMERON: A success.

STEVEN: Fall prone.

CAMERON: … No, they cancel.

STEVEN: Oh. I didn’t see that bottom one. Okay, yeah.

LAURA: Mm, fall out of the chair!

CAMERON: It was three threats, but it is also three advantages, so it’s just one success.

NICK: Okay. Thank you.

CAMERON: You’re welcome.

HUDSON: I start to get a little nervous because my hand was bad, so I drink my drink pretty fast.

NICK: Okay. You start pounding away on this drink. You guys have made some small talk, and after the first few hands Xianna makes an extremely aggressive bet and you all go for it, and Kettle has a very contemplative look on her face, and then she goes in on it too, and she just mops the floor with you. You have a Purple Conundrum, one of the best hands in Sabacc as far as anyone knows.

LAURA: Well, I build up a fake tell. I assume that’s what I do, is I probably hustle a little bit and I do a few hands where like, oh I twitched my eye a little bit so it makes it seem like when I do the high bet that I’m bluffing, and then I’m not.

NICK: Nice. Kettle nods with respect to you as your counter goes way up and everyone else’s goes down. Nobody’s out, but there is a definite disparity. That could be one of the triumphs. Is there something as far as outside the game you would like your other triumph to do for you?

CAMERON: (gasps) I have a thing that I was wanting to do…

LAURA: (whispered) What?

CAMERON: Okay. I was trying to figure out if I would do a Skulduggery or Stealth check to try and get my binders on Felton, because I have the ones that are individual bracelets and then I can do something to magnetize them and they go together, so I have one of his arms, but he’s very into the game now and doesn’t notice me do it.

NICK: Sure. Yeah. Are you binding him to you or just his hands together?

CAMERON: No. I’m just—He’s getting a bracelet that he can’t remove on both wrists.

NICK: Is that how you would like to spend your triumph, or do you want her to roll for it and you want yours for something else?

LAURA: No, so, we’ll do that, and what I want to happen is I can see her starting to get like the prep ready. I can see her surreptitiously pulling a binder down, and so then what I do is, I think I’m probably sitting next to Tink, and I spill his drink and make a big scene over it. “Oh no, Tink, I spilled your drink! … Oh, haha, that rhymed.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

HUDSON: “I was gonna get another anyway.”

LAURA: “Oh no! We will get you a new one.” And I try to flag down the Twi’lek waitress from before.

STEVEN: I slide one of mine over.

LAURA: “No, we do not want Your drink. We want a New drink. I want that Twi’lek waitress. Hello~! We need some new drinks, and maybe a towel of some sort, or maybe a cleanup droid. Please?”

HUDSON: “Oh hey, hey, could you get me a Green Extermination?”

LAURA: “I do not know what that is. Also, you are all wet with the drink.”

HUDSON: “Things always dry on me.”

CAMERON: (laughs) Ew.

LAURA: I’m still flagging the waitress down.

NICK: Yeah. The waitress pointedly doesn’t make eye contact with Sabos. She flounces over. She’s got, I’m picturing like the beer maiden German waitress outfit on her, but space, so like a sticky-outie skirt, a very cleavagey top with straps that go aside the shoulders, and she comes over and leans down towards you and says, “What can I help you with?”

LAURA: “Hi. Well, first off, there was a drink that got spilled.”

NICK: “Oh yeah, I see that.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

NICK: “You know, it always seems to happen to whoever loses the hardest. Isn’t that interesting?” She titters away behind her hand.

LAURA: “Yes.”

HUDSON: “This whole thing’s a scam.”

LAURA: “No it is not. I just beat you.”

HUDSON: (growls)

LAURA: “He would like… He called it a Green Extermination. I do not even know if that is a real drink, but he wants one.”

NICK: “I think we can make that happen. Would you like anything?”

LAURA: “Yes. I would like a Starship Juice, please.”

NICK: “Starship Juice? Oh, that’s one of the specials of the house,” and she flounces away. If this was animated there would be little boingy noises as she goes. She’s much happier talking to you than she was to the others.

LAURA: Because I smile, and say thank you.

NICK: Yeah, and as she walks away she winks conspiratorially at you.

LAURA: No, she doesn’t wink. She Twi’lek winks.

NICK: Ooh.

LAURA: Which is, she does a little lekku move that we know is our equivalent of a wink, because we can like somewhat use them to communicate.

NICK: Ooh, I like that a lot. Ooh! She also has the suits of Sabacc cards tattooed on her lekku.

CAMERON: Oh cool.

LAURA: Aww, yes.

NICK: That starts at her forehead and goes back, so those look very neat. You get distracted by that for a second. Yeah, so she goes away and gets a drink. While that’s all going on, Karma very quickly slips the binders onto Felton. He doesn’t notice, until she starts to go by and you can see him—

CAMERON: I didn’t magnetize them. I just have them on there so that if he tries to run I can make his hands jump together.

NICK: Okay, so he doesn’t notice at all, he just has heavier bracelets, which means he does slap her on the butt as she goes by, and the waitress turns around and in one fluid motion plants a fist into his solar plexus, which is a pretty satisfying thing because he’s kind of paunchy, and he doubles over groaning.

LAURA: “That is what you deserve.”

CAMERON: Karma laughs. She tries not to, but she can’t help it.

NICK: The Twi’lek waitress gives a lekku twitch that, I don’t know if Karma can read lekku, probably not.

LAURA: Probably not.

NICK: But she gives one that’s like the equivalent of the jaunty salute, and she keeps going. Felton, who’s head is down by his knees, you can tell he’s trying to breathe and having trouble. “I just—I’ve always had a thing for tentacles. (groans)”

LAURA: “Don’t we all.”

STEVEN: I turn around and look at him, like look at my head tails. (laughter)

CAMERON: The camera slows and does a slow motion shot of Sabos’s head tails flinging over, and it does like the star, slightly glittery…

LAURA: Oh! There’s absolutely the anime sparkle!

CAMERON: Yeah!

LAURA: And then like little roses appear on the corner of the screen as he stops.

CAMERON: Oh yeah. It’s gorgeous.

NICK: And then the camera snap cuts to Felton’s face twisted in pain and mesmerized disgust as he stares at Sabos, and then we get back to the game.

STEVEN: I turn back around and try to hit him with the head tail as I turn back.

NICK: He’s like 20 feet from you.

STEVEN: I try. It doesn’t work.

NICK: Okay. They fling out. The Chadra-fan is practically vibrating. The thing about being a Sabacc dealer is you don’t actually touch cards because it’s all holographic, so you’re mostly just touching a keypad and then working as the craps dealer kind of announcer of ‘this is here’ and ‘you were worth 20 points, hooray,’ but he doesn’t really talk, he just squeaks a little. Everyone seems to be having a good time. Nobody’s out. When he looks at Tink he looks a little anxious like he wants you to be happier but he can’t figure out how. The Chadra-fan presses some buttons and starts to deal a new hand, and Kettle as she’s picking up her cards kind of looks sidelong at Xianna and says, “That was some fine playing there. You seem to have some experience.”

LAURA: “Oh, you know. I play cards here and there.”

NICK: “Yes, clearly. So, you’ve come to the gaming table, currently wiping the floor with me, and normally this is about the point where someone says what exactly they want. I don’t normally get approached just for fun and games. If you’re with Felton you probably need something. He rarely has anything to give. He’s more of a taker, that guy.”

STEVEN: “That makes sense.”

NICK: “So what are you here for?”

STEVEN: “So, you know the blockade exists…”

NICK: “Mm-hmm.”

STEVEN: “…and it might not be the…” I look behind me and see the Imperial and talk quieter. “…might not be the best thing for the planet.”

LAURA: She’s at the table.

CAMERON: I’m standing like right behind you.

STEVEN: I’d say it anyway.

NICK: No, I said you were like ten feet back.

CAMERON: Oh, okay. I didn’t realize I was that far away.

NICK: If you’re not playing you have to be outside the ropes.

CAMERON: Oh, okay.

LAURA: Okay. So you’re probably like right at the ropes, so we could talk to you, but if we whisper you won’t necessarily hear it.

NICK: Plus, that lets you be a little more imposing, because you get to be like mysterious in the distance. Yeah, so.

STEVEN: Anyway. “So, you know, it might not be the best thing for the planet here, and I understand you might have a device, the Rancore Protocol, or an object that might help us defeat the blockade.”

NICK: At that, Kettle nods to herself. “Ah.”

STEVEN: “Well, Felton was supposed to have it, we understand.”

NICK: “Yes, he was, wasn’t he.”

STEVEN: “But he is a little bit, uh, loose-fisted.”

CAMERON: “Useless.” You hear from the other side of the rope. (laughs)

LAURA: “Yes.”

NICK: Kettle stops and cranks all the way around to look behind her. She’s in the middle seat, so she cranks all the way around to look at you, makes eye contact with Felton who’s finally starting to straighten up a little, and goes, “Yeah, useless,” and turns back. “This is making a lot more sense. It’s interesting…” and she’s fiddling with the cards in her hand. The Chadra-fan is waiting for people to start making their moves. “It’s interesting how many things from Coronet City are ending up coming full circle, isn’t it?” And, if I could get another Skulduggery roll from everyone as they play another hand.

LAURA: Can do.

STEVEN: Sure. Average or hard?

CAMERON: Average?

NICK: Yeah, let’s just do average. It’s more of a competition thing.

STEVEN: Alrighty. I get two successes and a threat.

LAURA: So, two failures, but three advantages.

NICK: Hm.

LAURA: Yeah. I rolled the worst you absolutely could on these dice. It wasn’t…

NICK: Yep.

CAMERON: Kettle has one success.

HUDSON: One failure, two advantages.

NICK: Is there anything you all would specifically like your advantages to get used on? The way we’re doing this gambling mini-game, obviously successes and failures are how well you’re doing. You can either use your advantages to manipulate something in the room, do something outside the game, or they can count towards what your Sabacc total winnings are going to be, but they don’t do very much compared to successes. So, if you have advantages, now would be the time to say if there’s something you wanna spend them on.

LAURA: Could I spend mine to where I’m not winning anything, but I’m kind of folding because I know my cards aren’t right, so I’m losing a little bit of money, but I want to try to set myself up a little bit better so I can just have like a blue die on my next roll.

NICK: Yeah. That’s what I was gonna—(goofy) So, mechanically!

LAURA: (goofy) So, mechanically! Can I get a blue die, please?

NICK: Yeah. You can have a blue die on your next roll.

HUDSON: Can I do that as well when I’m playing my hand so that I can maybe do a little better?

NICK: You only have two advantages.

HUDSON: Ah, that’s true.

NICK: Hell. Okay. You get one blue die. Xianna can have two blue dice.

HUDSON: Okay.

LAURA: Ooh-hoo.

NICK: So, you all do the Botanelli’s Sabacc defense and set up for a later hand. … It’s Sabacc. I can make up whatever the heck I want.

HUDSON: We count Sabaccs.

NICK: Four Sabaccs make a trick.

LAURA: Five Sabacc. They’re not plural.

NICK: (laughs) Okay. So, the cards lay down, and Sabos actually comes out with the win. Tink and Xianna do very poorly, but yeah, they’re playing defensively, whatever that means in cards.

STEVEN: “I’ve never gambled before, guys.”

HUDSON: (groans)

(laughter)

STEVEN: But I say it in a way where you’re pretty darn sure I’m serious.

LAURA: “I actually have no idea if that is true or not. No idea.”

NICK: Kettle is playing really consistently. She’s not losing much money, but she is very clearly evaluating you all, more than she’s focused on her own hand. Sabos makes a pleasant win. He is still in the negative because everybody lost so much money to Xianna on that first hand, but you’re no longer worried about getting knocked out of the running, as it goes. You win. Your analog counter goes up. I’m picturing like old alarm clocks with like the flippy cards. There’s one of those set in the table in front of you and it changes. Extremely 70’s. The little mouse droid that collected your credits does a little victory lap and does a little (small trumpet noise), and then goes back into a little baby garage set into the wall of the table for the mouse droid.

Kettle looks at you and says, “Well, Councilman Sako, that was particularly impressive.”

HUDSON: “Who?”

(laughter)

LAURA: “Tink. Our friend, you know, Sako.”

HUDSON: “Yeah…”

LAURA: She nudges Tink a little bit under the table.

STEVEN: I just, I look at Kettle and say, “It’s a hard word to pronounce in their language, I think.”

NICK: “What, Basic?”

STEVEN: “Yeah.”

LAURA: “Well, no. You see, he speaks Gigoran, but the translator turns it into Basic, and sometimes it has difficulty with some words.”

STEVEN: “—says Sa-ko, sits, harded… Sako.”

NICK: “Oh, so you weren’t referring to the fact that his name is actually Sabos, and that he was impersonating someone when I dealt with him originally.”

LAURA: “Oh! You know that? Okie, then never mind. Yes, we know that.” (laughs)

STEVEN: “Well, of course she knows that.”

LAURA: “We are just confused, because he doesn’t seem to know which one he actually is, so it’s… you know, confusing.”

NICK: “This is interesting data. So, Sabos, which one do you think you are?”

STEVEN: (deep inhale) “I… Well, most recently I was… Well… I don’t know.”

LAURA: ‘He has gotten too far into the con! He does not know who he is anymore!”

STEVEN: “Because most recently I was actually some Imperial officer that got me through the blockade, so I’m actually pretty darn confused what I am right now.”

NICK: “Duly noted. You know, I’ve worked with some front men before who have had similar issues. It’s an interesting choice in crew leader, (snickering) but if that’s the way you choose to do business, that makes sense.”

HUDSON: “Where’s my kriffin’ drink?”

NICK: As you say that, the Twi’lek woman comes back and sets your Green Extermination in front of you. It’s a very large glass. That’s the only descriptor I’m gonna take, you can take the rest, but it’s a very large glass, and the table actually pops a little side table out so that you have somewhere to set it because the lip of the table isn’t big enough. She sets it down with one hand. She’s a very good waitress, because this is a big thing, she takes it off, loses no balance with anything, keeps the other more normally sized glass. She sets your Starship Juice in the set coaster and she brushes against you a little as she does it. She looks at you and says, “Oh, well I hope you’re doing well.”

LAURA: “Oh yes. Thank you.” I tip her. What is an appropriate tip for this place? What have I seen people tipping?

NICK: So, are you going for an appropriate but generous amount, or like an obscene amount?

LAURA: I’m going for a flirtatious amount. Whatever a flirtatious tip is—So, more than normal, not like crazy extravagant, so I guess our equivalent of like a 40% tip. I don’t know if 20 is the normal Star Wars amount.

STEVEN: A flirtatious tip is like 80-100%.

CAMERON: Uhh…

NICK: Oh, no…

LAURA: No no no. (laughter) Having waited tables, it’s just a bunch of business dudes…

STEVEN: It’s an old dude? Yeah.

LAURA: ……who like, have the company card and just know they can and are feeling generous.

NICK: It’s probably like 30 credits. That’s a solid amount.

LAURA: Yeah. I tip her 30 credits.

STEVEN: That’s a big tip. The buy-in at the table was 100, at the higher roller table?

NICK: We’re using the 100 for that. The table is less of a high rolling table and more of an exclusive table. It’s also because if I set it at actual high roller numbers you guys wouldn’t have been able to play.

STEVEN: Eh, maybe a hand.

NICK: Eh.

LAURA: That’s why I asked for Tink’s money.

NICK: Also, Xianna is still sitting on a lot, so I imagine you’re paying out of your winnings.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Like, flipping her some—I guess it wouldn’t be chips. You press a little indicator on your flip board of numbers and it goes down 30, and her tray beeps at her. She looks and she goes, “Oh, well thank you. Is there anything else I can get you?”

LAURA: “Uh, no thank you.”

NICK: She does a little secret lekku move, that—

LAURA: Ooh~

NICK: –means whatever you want it to mean.

LAURA: (giggles) Xianna smiles at her.

NICK: And she bounces away. Do any of the rest of you notice this whole thing going on?

HUDSON: I’m just happy that I got my drink. I mean, she brought it over, right?

NICK: Yeah. You have your own special extra-large coaster for your very large drink.

HUDSON: I don’t tip. I just tell her that the tip was included with hers.

NICK: She looks at you, rolls her eyes, and just moves on. She’s in a good enough mood now that most people’s hijinks aren’t gonna get to her. So, describe your beverages!

HUDSON: I’m drinking a Green Extermination, which is a green, cinnamon flavored drink with some red ice cubes in it, and in addition some red floating what looks like little candies.

NICK: Huh. Sounds interesting. Xianna, what is your beverage?

LAURA: Oh, well I ordered the Starship Juice. It is very strong, but also very fruity, and since it’s a tiki drink it almost certainly comes in a cutesy little carved tiki glass. It looks like—Ooh! So it’s carved to look like a little loth-cat, and it has an umbrella on the top, and a colorful straw.

CAMERON: It’s a loopy straw.

LAURA: Yes.

NICK: A Luby’s straw?

LAURA & CAMERON: Loopy!

NICK: Oh.

CAMERON: It’s a straw that has loops in it.

NICK: I was gonna say, last time I went to Luby’s the straws were not that special.

LAURA: No, it has at least two loops in it.

HUDSON: That’s usually called a curly straw, right?

CAMERON: Probably.

LAURA: Or curly straw, yes.

HUDSON: No. Crazy straw! Crazy straws!

CAMERON: Crazy straws! There you go. It’s got a crazy straw.

LAURA: It’s got a pink umbrella. It’s pink.

NICK: That’s the important part.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. Your waitress friend has left. “So, the Rancore Protocol…” Kettle says, as the table starts to reset. The way the game has been going, you’ve played several hands, you’re not rolling for every hand, but there’s probably one more big climactic hand coming. “It’s an interesting piece of technology. I have no real use for it. It turns out, I’ve had it analyzed, and it’s still encrypted. If I could get it back to Coronet I think I could probably have someone break it up, but here on Ithor my resources are a little more limited than I would like. Wonderful people, the Ithorians,” she says, as an Ithorian in a pit boss kind of sequenty blazer and pants walks by, and he slowly nods his big hammer head and then continues on, “but not necessarily the most technological. They value nature a little too much. So, I might be able to part with it. You would just have to make it worth my time. It is a resource. I did win it.”

HUDSON: “Why don’t you bet it on this game?”

NICK: “Wow. I hadn’t really thought of that. I was going to charge 20,000 credits for it… but maybe we could make that happen. We won’t even bet it on this game, we’ll bet it on this last hand. Now, you’re gonna need a bigger ante, though.”

STEVEN: “How about if we make it more interesting with say, an Imperial code cylinder?”

CAMERON: (laughing) The hood head tilts.

STEVEN: (laughs)

LAURA: Xianna’s head tilts, like ‘What…?’

CAMERON: And then like, the head considers it.

NICK: “I mean, it would really—Do you have it with you? I’d love to see it.”

CAMERON: I do have it on me.

LAURA: “I think so. I mean, we will bet it.”

NICK: She turns around and looks at the cloaked figure of Karma and just imperiously gestures, and does the ‘give me’ hand sign. “I’m not going to take it. I just need to see what level it is.”

STEVEN: “Oh, it’s a… Sure.”

LAURA: “It is a code cylinder.”

STEVEN: “It’s the… it’s the best.”

NICK: This is the one you all already modified, right?

STEVEN: It’s the bigly-est code cylinder.

CAMERON: Uh, we didn’t modify it.

STEVEN: Yeah we did.

NICK: Didn’t you use that to get through the blockade? You used it as part of your passcode?

CAMERON: Oh yeah.

STEVEN: Yeah. It’s a very important intelligence officer code cylinder now.

LAURA: Now it’s pretty important.

CAMERON: It is now, actually. Yeah. It has very high clearance.

NICK: So, do you hand it over?

CAMERON: Yeah. I take it out of my jacket and hand it over.

NICK: So, it’s a cylinder.

CAMERON: Ooh.

NICK: The fun thing is this one’s obviously been bootlegged a little bit. There are some wires sticking out of one end that are crossed over to the other, and the casing is not sealed all the way. It’s like when somebody tries to play with an iPhone and doesn’t open it right, and it mostly goes back together but not all the way. She’s looking at it, and she goes, “Oh, okay. It’s a petty officer cylinder that is actually very important now. Interesting. Yes, that would definitely take some off the ante. I’d take that into account. The only thing about it would be, I’d also want to know who made this, because I may have some more work for them later on.”

HUDSON: “Do you think it’s a good job?”

NICK: “Yeah, actually. It’s good work. There are some things we could do about the cosmetics of it, but once we have that underway I think we could use this to make a pretty lucrative business.”

HUDSON: I look happy, but I’ve also been drinking, so I look a little glazed eyed, and I say, “You’re not part of the conspiracy, are you?”

NICK: She looks at you very seriously and leans forward. The Chadra-fan also leans in. his ears are all perked up.

LAURA: We all lean in.

NICK: She goes, “It depends on the conspiracy, but not the one you’re thinking of.”

HUDSON: “Good.”

NICK: Yeah. She nods to you self-assuredly.

HUDSON: “Okay. Just, right now, things are just everywhere, man. I, they’re all watching us, and we’re all just asleep. None of us are awoken…”

LAURA: “Tink, Tink… Are you on drugs, or do you need to be on drugs?”

STEVEN: “I think his translator is malfunctioning.”

HUDSON: “No, no. I’m as clear-minded as I’ve ever been.”

LAURA: “Are you sure?”

HUDSON: I take another giant drink. “I just, just need some assurance right now, guys.”

NICK: Kettle sits back in her chair. At this point you all have your cards for this last hand, because for whatever reason they’ve been dealt out before you finished deciding what you’re betting, but whatever. She nods and says, “Green Exterminations will do that to you.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

NICK: “Yeah. I’ll take the code cylinder, probably another 1,000 credits. That seems like a fair trade for a piece of code I can’t use right now.”

LAURA: “Okie.”

STEVEN: “And, winner takes all.”

NICK: Yeah.

STEVEN: Yeah. That’s how betting works.

NICK: She pulls out a computer spike. It looks like a talon, it’s curved which is weird, and it has a lot of exposed circuitry on it. Tink, you would recognize this as the spike that you used to collect the Rancore Protocol a few days ago. She tosses it into the middle, and she also places the code cylinder, and you all I guess pool your credits and put them in the middle so it adds up to 1,000, and then the mouse droid comes out and hits the pile of things and just goes (small struggle noise), because it’s too much stuff and it’s too heavy for it, so it’s wheels start spinning and you can see it put little tiny divots in the felt of the table. The Chadra-fan looks real concerned and scoops up the mouse droid and the bets and helps it get back to its little garage.

LAURA & CAMERON: Aww.

NICK: It like shakes its head nurturingly. It likes its mouse droid. Then, the hand is dealt, and you all play your final shot.

HUDSON: Who has the best dice?

LAURA: I am rolling two yellow, two green, two blue, and I think I’m gonna—

HUDSON: And we’re gonna flip a point.

CAMERON: Flip a light side, Laura.

HUDSON: Yeah. That’s what I was gonna suggest.

LAURA: So now I’m at three yellow, one green, two blue.

HUDSON: We roll Skulduggery when we gamble?

NICK: Mm-hmm, against average.

STEVEN: I’ll just roll for the fuck of it. Oh, cool. I’m gonna lose.

LAURA: So that is three successes, and (counts) seven advantages!

NICK: Gee whiz.

STEVEN: I just got an advantage.

HUDSON: Um, I have an advantage.

STEVEN: Same.

LAURA: Eh, you tried.

NICK: That’s it?

STEVEN: Oh fuck.

CAMERON: Uh, Kettle got five successes and a threat.

NICK: Yes! Ha ha!

CAMERON: I’m sorry guys. I rolled good that time.

HUDSON: Ooh. We can just take it and run.

NICK: No. it’s in the little garage.

HUDSON: Oh, it is.

NICK: It’s almost as if I thought that might happen. So, what happens is, you all start laying down cards, because Sabacc is actually—you don’t just necessarily lay down a hand, you start anteing each other. Immediately Tink and Sabos play cards that cancel each other out and they’re just out. There’s nothing you can do. You did The Fool’s Gambit. You can make you lose in three parsecs. Star Wars.

LAURA: Ha ha.

NICK: Kettle and Xianna start playing back and forth very quickly, and I think you end up tying. I’m assuming you would use your advantages to try and win the bet.

LAURA: Yes. I would use all seven of my advantages.

NICK: So, yeah. You end up having the exact same hand for some reason. The interesting thing is that the cards that you have, there’s only one in the deck, so somebody’s been cheating but it’s not sure who because the cards are identical. The Chadra-fan looks confused, and then starts to go to press a security button, and Kettle says, “No, no, it’s okay. We’re gonna do one more, but if you lose I’m gonna need a special favor as well.”

LAURA: “Mm, what kind of special favor are we talking about?”

HUDSON: (whispered) It’s sexual.

NICK: No it’s not.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Well, it might be. You don’t know. Don’t judge. “A special favor like a business favor, you know.”

LAURA: “Okie.”

NICK: “Something that might take advantage of your talents. You never know.”

HUDSON: “She loves my talents.”

NICK: We’re gonna do one more, but flip a dark side point because Kettle’s gonna get an upgrade. You can still have one blue die Xianna

LAURA: Cool.

NICK: As the cards are starting to deal the Chadra-fan looks real embarrassed and motions for Sabos and Tink to leave the area because they’re out of the game at this point, so you guys have to go an stand outside the velvet rope because you lost. What Kettle does is pulls out a little piece of flimsy and writes a little IOU on it and signs it and puts it in the middle, and hands you a piece of flimsy to do the same thing, Xianna.

LAURA: I definitely write like a little IOU, and I make like a little heart at the end. Or! I don’t remember what the aurubesh letters are for IOU, but I feel like one of them can be turned into like a little heart. That’s definitely how Xianna writes stuff.

NICK: Great. As you’re writing that up the waitress comes back with just a glass of water and puts it next to you. Roll me a Skulduggery check, please. This one’s easy.

LAURA: Three successes.

NICK: Yeah. She hands the glass of water and her hand brushes against yours. You feel the tell-tale nudge of an Alderanian palm sleight of hand technique, and as she pulls her hand back she winks at you one more time and there’s a clone card, which is how you cheat at Sabacc.

LAURA: Yeah!

NICK: It’s a card that’s basically a wild that you’re not allowed to use and can get your ass shot if you use one.

LAURA: Yeah. (laughs)

NICK: So, you get a blue die to your roll because your waitress friend has helped you out. That’s what the blue die was.

LAURA: Okay.

NICK: She backs up real quickly, and Kettle is looking at her own cards and does not notice.

LAURA: Cool.

NICK: Yeah, so, go ahead and roll one more time. Did you upgrade Kettle’s?

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: Cool.

CAMERON: Kettle got one success.

LAURA: Um, a triumph with its success, another success, and one threat.

NICK: Okay. You win pretty handily. The threat is, you feel like there were some moves that Kettle could’ve done that looked like really obvious newbie mistakes that would have made it a lot closer, that she made that make you start to feel like maybe this was on purpose.

LAURA: Oh no.

NICK: But yeah. The whole big pile, the little garage door on the table opens up, and you just hear a little high pitched machine whining as if little tires are pushing against this big pile of stuff, and the Chadra-fan looks embarrassed and pulls like a craps hook and pulls the stuff out towards you on the table while the mouse droid bumps against the craps hook trying to push the stuff towards you.

LAURA: Aw.

NICK: You end up with 1,000 credits, that’s just your winnings. Whatever you have now is 1,000. Sabos and Tink, you get the 1,000 part of the money back, so you didn’t lose that ante. You get that back. Out of the hundred that you guys anted, Tink gets 10 credits, Sabos gets 15. You guys didn’t do great at cards. Out of the 100 you anted you get that amount back. Xianna’s in the money, apparently, so that’s cool. You also get the Rancore Protocol, your code cylinder back, and you get a little piece of flimsy that says IOU signed by Kettle.

CAMERON: I’m gonna grab the cylinder again.

NICK: Kettle sits back and goes, “Wow. It looks like now I owe you a favor.” And that’s where we’re gonna end the episode.

(all make dramatic noises and Star Wars tunes)

## Outro

CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show please consider logging into iTunes and giving us a five-star review. Five-star reviews will help new listeners to find the show.

Xianna’fan is played by Laura Penrod. She can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.

Tink is played by Hudson Jameson and he can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.

Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.

Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet.

Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.

Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.

Additional music by James Gunter.

Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tabletop_squad. For real! We’re real people and we wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.

Popcorn is essential for any entertainment viewing, but it’s especially important if you’re watching an underground fight match. Xianna acquires a bucket of popcorn in Episode 21 to snack on while Tink fights a Wookiee.

This Curry-Carrot Popcorn recipe is perfect for all your death match needs.

Close-up shot of popcorn
Underground Fighting Ring Popcorn

Underground Fighting Ring Popcorn is simply popcorn popped in coconut oil that’s then tossed in carrot powder, curry powder, and salt.

ingredients for the popcorn measured out
The ingredients.

So let’s start with the weirdest component of this recipe: the carrot powder. It’s made by taking dehydrated or freeze-dried carrots and putting them in a spice or coffee grinder until they’ve become a fine powder. If you can’t find dried carrots substitute it with extra curry powder and a small sprinkle of sugar.

dehydrated carrots in a spice grinder
Dehydrated carrots pre-grind.
carrot powder in a spice grinder
The finished carrot powder.

Next, the curry powder. Storebought curry powders are perfectly fine, but homemade curry powder will pack a bunch of extra flavor. Ours combines coriander, cumin, fenugreek, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, arbol chilis, turmeric, ginger, and salt. Fenugreek seeds can be found at most Indian grocery stores, but you can substitute mustard seeds if you can’t find them. You can find our recipe after the main popcorn recipe.

the ingredients of the curry powder in a spice grinder
Curry powder pre-grind.
carrot powder, curry powder, and salt in a bowl
The carrot powder, curry powder, and salt.

For the main event, you’ll heat up coconut oil and 3 kernels in a large saucepan or wok. Once those 3 kernels have popped you know your oil is hot enough. Add the rest of the kernels and cover with a lid. Make sure to shake the pan once the kernels begin popping to prevent burning.

oil and 3 kernels in a wok
The 3 test kernels.
2 popped kernels
The popped test kernels. One managed to escape.
remaining popcorn kernels added to the pan
The remaining kernels.

Once the popping slows to 5 or more seconds between pops remove the pan from the heat. Be careful when removing the lid, sometimes a rogue kernel decides to pop a bit late.

popped popcorn in pan
The popped corn.
popcorn with the spices added
With the spices added.

Pour the popcorn into a large bowl or container with a lid and immediately toss with the curry powder, carrot powder, and salt.

finished popcorn in a movie theater style popcorn container
Finished product. Fun popcorn container optional.

Underground Fighting Ring Popcorn

4 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 cup popcorn kernels
1-2 tablespoons curry powder, store bought or homemade (recipe below)
2 tablespoons carrot powder
1 teaspoon salt

Heat the coconut oil in a large heavy saucepan or wok on medium-high heat. Allow the oil to melt.

Add 3 popcorn kernels into the oil. Once all 3 kernels pop add the remaining kernels. Cover the pot immediately.

Once the kernels begin to pop gently shake the pan back and forth to prevent burning.

When the popping slows to 5 or more seconds between pops, remove the pan from the heat.

Pour the popcorn into a large bowl. Immediately toss with the curry powder, carrot powder, and salt.

Curry Powder

2 Tbsp coriander seeds
1 Tbsp cumin seeds
2 tsp fenugreek seeds (or mustard seeds)
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
1 stick cinnamon
1 tsp cardamom seeds
1-2 arbol chilis, deseeded
1 Tbsp ground turmeric
2 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp salt

Place the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds (or mustard seeds), black peppercorns, cinnamon, cardamom seeds, and arbol chilis in a spice grinder. Grind until fine.

Add the tumeric, ginger, and salt. Grind for 2-3 seconds to combine.

finished popcorn in a movie theater style popcorn container

Word document download: Episode 9 The Wonderful Oracle of Ithor- Tabletop Squadron

PDF download: Episode 9 The Wonderful Oracle of Ithor

Read in browser:

Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 9:
The Wonderful Oracle of Ithor

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

Note – When voicing Ithorians, Nick uses an incredibly low, deep, drawn out voice and often pauses in the middle of sentences.

Note – Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in an accent. Most of her soft I’s sound like “ee,” and most of her TH’s sound like Z’s. Example: “this and that” = “zees and zat”

## Intro

NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your game master. Every other Thursday our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, a fringer, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

Not a lot of announcements this week, but I would be remised if I didn’t mention that we’re pretty close to our next review goal. If you write us a review, even a short one, you can help new listeners find the show. When we get to 20 reviews we’ll release a flashback with Karma’s family. It’s a fun adventure, and we’ll release it on off-week so you’ll get double the Tabletop Squadron.

Thanks for reviewing, thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy.

##

NICK: Hello, and welcome to Episode 9 of Tabletop Squadron! I am your host, Nick. I just realized I probably didn’t introduce myself in the last episode, but oh well. I’m Nick. You’re on Episode 9, you should know it by now. We’re gonna go around the table, and also things that you know, we’re going to introduce you to the people that are playing and their characters. We’re gonna start with… Cameron.

CAMERON: Hello. I’m Cameron. I’m playing Karma Nailo the Nautolan bounty hunter.

NICK: Great. Good work. Now we’re gonna go to… Steven.

STEVEN: Hi podcasty friends. I’m Steven. I’m playing Sabos the Togruta who isn’t dead.

NICK: Fantastic, and now we’re gonna go to… Hudson.

HUDSON: Oh hi. I’m Hudson. I’m playing Tink, a Gigoran slicer. (dramatically)

NICK & CAMERON: Whoa~!

STEVEN: Slicey, slicey.

NICK: And, last but not least, we’ve got… Laura.

LAURA: Hi. I’m Laura. I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler.

NICK: Great.

LAURA: Yep.

NICK: Sweet! Before we get started, let’s do the Destiny Roll!

LAURA: Two light side!

CAMERON: Yas.

HUDSON: One dark side.

NICK: Listeners at home, please keep track of how many times Hudson’s rolled dark side, because I’m pretty sure it’s most of it.

HUDSON: Most of it times.

CAMERON: Two light side!

STEVEN: One dark side.

CAMERON: A few episodes ago Hudson and Laura rolled light sides and me and Steven rolled dark sides.

LAURA: Yeah.

STEVEN: There was like five or six.

NICK: I didn’t say every time.

CAMERON: I know, I’m just saying there’s at least one recorded incident of him rolling a light side.

LAURA: We’re just saying your theory is bad and you should feel bad.

NICK: Okay great, thank you for that wonderful and constructive feedback, Laura. I appreciate it.

(giggles)

STEVEN: It wasn’t Laura, it was the Mask.

NICK: Alright. What does that bring our total score to?

CAMERON: Four light side, two dark side.

NICK: Awesome. Alright. When we last left off you were in space. You were going to deliver an item to the Oracle of the Ithorian people. They unfortunately are surrounded by a blockade, so you’re gonna have to deal with that. We are going to open on the ship coming out of hyperspace. We have a nice starry scene, and then the (whooshing noises) as the ship drops out and is there, and then the camera jumps into the cockpit where… Who is flying right now?

LAURA & CAMERON: Probably Karma.

NICK: Yeah. So, it drops to Karma flipping a bunch of switches. Ahead of you, you see the planet of Ithor which is a very beautiful, green planet. It has two small oceans on it, but a majority of it appears to be lush jungle and verdant life. In between you and that planet is a very large Imperial fleet. There are four Star Destroyers and one Super Star Destroyer. How can you tell there’s a Super Star Destroyer, you ask? Because it’s twice as big as a normal, already ridiculously large Star Destroyer. It’s a very big ship. They’re arranged around the planet in a geometric pattern. Basically any way that you would leave they’ve got a clear shot. Yeah, so as you pull out of hyperspace you have a couple of minutes as you pull closer to the ship. Is there anything last minute you all want to do?

CAMERON: “Alright. Plan wise… I think Xianna should be the one who talks.”

LAURA: “Um, but…”

HUDSON: “I’ve been working on my cockney accent.”

STEVEN: “Is Xianna George?”

LAURA: “Yes, uh, so Sabos was actually right, um… I am not a man.”

CAMERON: “No, like, he has an earpiece, I assume. You have a com, right?”

STEVEN: “Yeah.”

CAMERON: “Yeah. You can talk into his com. He says the words, but you come up with the lies.”

LAURA: “Oh. Okie, I will make the lies. You just—Okay Sabos, I will say things and you just have to repeat them.”

STEVEN: “Oh, I don’t need lies. I’m an ambassador.”

LAURA: “No, you see, but—“

CAMERON: “No no no, you’re not anymore.”

LAURA: “We are not an ambassador. We are Petty Naval Officer… What was the—“

STEVEN: “Petty Navy Officer George Jetson.”

CAMERON: “George Jetson.” (laughs)

LAURA: “No, we are Petty Navy Officer George Jetson.”

STEVEN: “Representing Ambassador Sabos Niks, I got it.”

LAURA & CAMERON: “No, no, no no no.”

LAURA: “You see, also, we figured out you are wanted. Not that much—

STEVEN: “Ohh.”

LAURA: “But enough to where maybe Sabos Niks, whatever your name is, would come up in their records.”

STEVEN: “Mm.”

LAURA: “It’s kind of like, you know how I don’t use my name when we are out and about?”

CAMERON: “Yeah, don’t say your name.”

STEVEN: “Oh, I see, so I’m George Jetson.”

CAMERON: “Yes.”

LAURA: “You Are George Jetson, yes.”

STEVEN: “Okay.”

LAURA: “Yes, and I will be your mind, and I will tell you what to say, with your mouth. Okie?”

STEVEN: “This will be fine.”

NICK: If nobody says ‘Meet George Jetson’ I’m gonna get so mad.

STEVEN: I know. (laughs)

NICK: His boy, Elroy.

LAURA: No.

HUDSON: Jane, his wife!

LAURA: No!

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: Yeah, so we just set up the com, and I—

NICK: You put an earpiece in so you can coach him through it?

LAURA: Yeah, and I just like sit in a different room. No, I’m probably just still sitting in the hot tub.

NICK: (laughs) Xianna has a favorite part of the ship.

LAURA: The hot tub… is great.

STEVEN: Are you Naut—No, not Nautolan. Are you a water creature? Or are you just all wrinkly by now?

LAURA: … I get out, for periods of time.

STEVEN: Oh, okay. She hasn’t just been sitting in the hot tub.

CAMERON: We’ve been traveling for like three days. She hasn’t been in the hot tub the entire time. (laughs)

LAURA: “I have not been in here for three days!”

STEVEN: “I’d imagine you could deal with that.”

CAMERON: “I could deal with that, yeah.”

LAURA: “I cannot. Ryloth is a desert.”

CAMERON: “I’ve been taking naps in the hot tub.”

LAURA: “That is why this is so much fun. There is not a lot of water on Ryloth. Mostly sand.”

STEVEN: “Do Nautolans breathe water?”

CAMERON: “Yeah.”

STEVEN: “Oh, so you could just take a nap under the water.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, that’s what I was saying.”

STEVEN: “Oh, okay. Of course.” (laughs)

LAURA: “I mean, you don’t want to be underneath the water in a hot tub. It’s very hot.”

CAMERON: “No, it’s fine.”

NICK: (laughs)

LAURA: I actually don’t know how hot the water is…

STEVEN: Yeah. Was it even heated, or was it luke warm?

LAURA: No, I meant it as a hot hot tub, I just don’t know how hot the oceans are for Nautolans.

NICK: Okay. Time out.

CAMERON: I think the Glee Anselm’s land masses are tropical, so I would assume that parts of the oceans would be warm. I don’t know how deep in the oceans the Nautolans hang out, though.

NICK: They’re all over the place.

LAURA: Yeah, but like a warm ocean is still not 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

CAMERON: Yeah, still not quite hot tub. But it’s fine, it’s just a little warm.

NICK: I would imagine that a hot tub situation for a Nautolan is like a dry sauna situation for a human.

CAMERON: Yeah. We used to go to the volcanic jets all the time to… warm, ourselves, I don’t know. (giggles) It was the nifty place to hang out!

LAURA: All warm and bubbly. Nature’s Jacuzzi.

STEVEN: Because you’re cold blooded.

CAMERON: I don’t think we’re—No, we’re not cold blooded. No. I’m green, but I’m not a lizard.

NICK: Karma’s thinking about, ‘Why Did we go there?’

LAURA: To make out!

CAMERON: Yeah. It was the Hot place to be.

(groans and booing)

CAMERON: Ha ha ha.

(laughter)

NICK: Alright. You were drifting towards the planet under sub light drives. You get hailed.

CAMERON: I accept the hail.

NICK: Yeah. Good. A hologram, a little one in the middle of the dashboard pops up, it’s basically from the chest up. You see an older gentleman wearing this stupid navy hat that looks kind of like a sideways Burger King serving hat, and Imperial uniform obviously. He says, “This is The Vengeance paging Unknown Ship. What is your purpose here?”

LAURA: “Okie Sabos, tell them that you are a naval officer, that you are on personal leave, and you are reporting back on the planet surface for duty.”

STEVEN: “I am Petty Officer George Jetson, on personal leave, reporting back to the surface for duty.”

NICK: “Oh, wonderful. You’ll have to send your credentials over right away. We’re under a barricade as you can see.”

STEVEN: “I recall that as I left the surface of the planet on personal leave.”

(laughter)

NICK: “Good. You have passed the first test. This blockade has been here for months. It would be very strange if you did not know about it. Please send over your credentials now.”

STEVEN: “Sending now.” I make typing noises.

CAMERON: I hit the button that sends it.

NICK: There is an interminable pause of a couple minutes. The hologram turns off.

LAURA: “Well, they are not shooting us yet.”

NICK: Yeah, and you’re drifting closer. You can see that the ship’s guns are tracking you which is very intimidating because there are tons of them on the Super Star Destroyer which is the closest thing to you, and there’s also two other Star Destroyers in range, and your ship is quite small compared to these that are city sized. The hologram clicks back on. “Well, it’s an older code, but it checks out. What did you say your purpose was on entering the planet?”

STEVEN: “Reporting back to the surface for Imperial duty activities, sir, officer.”

NICK: “That’s very strange, because we don’t have a presence on the planet. We are staying on the—“

STEVEN: “Not that you know about.”

LAURA: (quietly) “Nope…”

CAMERON: (bursts out laughing)

NICK: “Are you implying that an Imperial Communications Officer on this Super Star Destroyer of Vengeance would not know where everyone is located?”

LAURA: While he’s saying that I’m like, “No no, tell them you are working with the ISB.”

STEVEN: “I’m sorry. I was doing activities with the IS… ISB. It’s been a long—It’s been a nice personal break.”

NICK: “Hmm… If you were with the ISB you’d be in the database. Stand by.” And the hologram turns off again.

STEVEN: “Indeed.”

LAURA: “Okie, so…”

STEVEN: “So, uh, slicer slicy slicy.”

(giggles)

HUDSON: I run over to the computer.

STEVEN: “Mr. Slicer, can you put me in the database? By me I mean George Jetson.”

HUDSON: I try to put George Jetson in the database.

NICK: Okay. You’re gonna put George Jetson in the ISB database.

HUDSON: Correct.

LAURA: I have to imagine that because so much of it is undercover work that they probably have very basic profiles.

NICK: Oh yeah.

LAURA: So it’s real easy to just import the same photo and a name, and like that’s all.

NICK: So, the actual getting him in, getting the database format is gonna be super easy. It’s getting into their network and dropping I in while this guy is searching it. That will be a Computers check, it’s going to be hard, and you’re still gonna have those two black dice. This is sort of becoming your specialty, dropping stuff into Star Destroyer networks.

CAMERON: I flipped a light side point to upgrade one of his greens.

LAURA & CAMERON: Yaaas.

LAURA: So, triumph with a success, two successes, and a threat.

NICK: So tons of successes.

CAMERON: Yeah, so three successes total, a triumph, and a threat.

NICK: Alright. How do you want to use your triumph?

HUDSON: Not only do I put him in the database, but suddenly he’s over the rank of the person who was on the hologram.

(laughter)

NICK: Okay. That’s good.

STEVEN: So Petty Officer is just the cover of George Jetson.

NICK: I’m gonna beat a dead horse here. That threat is you still haven’t noticed the signature, and you put it all over it but it’s like in the report. So, if there was some sort of inspector or special agent who was hunting you at some point, then this signature would be one of a long trail of Moriarty-like clues, but I’m sure that would never happen so I wouldn’t worry about it. Yeah, so the hologram clicks back on and the communications officer is sweating. You can see he’s pushed his hat back, tried to put it back, and his hair is kind of askew. “Oh, uh, Commander Jetson. My mistake.”

STEVEN: “Petty. Officer. Jetson.”

NICK: “Oh, y-yes, Petty Officer Jetson. I trust that this won’t need to be reported. I apologize for the delay, sir. If you will head down to the surface… Whatever you  need, just let me know, and apologies again.”

STEVEN: “I recommend this be handled with discretion as we land on the surface, if you know what I mean.”

NICK: “Oh, absolutely. We’ll mark you as a certified civilian vessel, of course, as is protocol, Petty Officer Jetson.” He winks into the hologram. “Is there anything else that I can do for you?”

STEVEN: “Nope.” Click.

NICK: You cut him off mid-word, and the hologram disappears.

LAURA: “You should have at least said thank you.”

STEVEN: (laughing) “Nope. Nope.”

CAMERON: “I feel like that’s not really a big thing in the Empire, though.”

LAURA: “Eh.”

STEVEN: “Good job, slicer.”

HUDSON: “Thank you.”

CAMERON: “Well done, Tink!”

STEVEN: “Mr. Slicer. May I call you mister?”

HUDSON: “I mean, this wasn’t like the hardest thing I’ve ever done or anything.”

(laughter)

STEVEN: “Good job, Tink.”

NICK: So, all the Star Destroyers, they stop weapons lock with the Afternoon Delight. The Super Star Destroyer, a chunk of the cannons seem to whip around in the opposite way as fast as possible like someone went and slapped a targeting officer in the back of the head, and you are able to head down to the planet.
Here’s the thing about Ithor… Nobody lives on the surface, really. Ooh, let’s get Xenology checks.

LAURA: I have Underworld.

NICK: Nope. This is the opposite of that.

CAMERON: What is the difficulty of the check?

NICK: Average. (musically) Who knows about Ithor~?

HUDSON: I know about ether.

NICK: Not that. Not that.

STEVEN: I know about Ithor.

NICK: What did you get?

STEVEN: A success and two threats.

NICK: Mm, okay.

LAURA: I got one failure, but two advantages.

CAMERON: A success and two threats.

STEVEN: Yeaaah.

HUDSON: Three advantages.

NICK: So, with the successes: The Ithorians value the Mother Jungle kind of as their god. They worship nature, and plants, and animals, and their ecosystem, and as such they don’t live on the planet; they live on massive floating cities above the planet. Sometimes they do take a pilgrimage down to the planet, but anyone who goes to live on the planet doesn’t come back – not like they died, like they just live there now, because once you become one with the planet you can’t leave. The only people who can take pilgrimages down to the planet and return are the Oracle, which is why they’re important, they can check with people.
So, as you are relaying this information, you break down through the clouds and you see a large floating city. It is made mostly of white steel and is very pretty, and has tree lined boulevards and is very open and airy, and you see Ithorians walking around which are those weird hammerhead-looking slug alien guys from, you know, the Star Wars. You are immediately given clearance to land, and you already knew as you were coming in some of the information that you got from Sentinel which was which floating city the Oracle was on and general directions of where you were going, so you’re able to land very quickly. They actually put you on a priority landing pad, and as you land you can see that there are several Ithorians standing by, and you are on the planet, sort of.

CAMERON: Nice.

LAURA: “Okie. So, somebody is going to have to wear some sort—It’s probably going to have to be Karma.”

CAMERON: “Hmm?”

LAURA: “You should probably wear some sort of fancy cape, cloak, thing that covers your face so that maybe it looks like we actually have a human aboard, because I do not think Tink could ever pass for human.”

HUDSON: “You haven’t seen me shaved.”

(laughter)

LAURA: “True. I have not.”

HUDSON: “We don’t have the time or the tools, thankfully.”

LAURA: “Sabos’s montrals things would be too pointy.”

STEVEN: I try to flatten them down.

CAMERON: They just pop right back up.

LAURA: Yeah. I don’t know how mobile they are, but I think they’re pretty rigid.

CAMERON: He definitely doesn’t make it flat, but he can like bend the tips a little bit.”

STEVEN: “What if I push them like towards–No? Hmm.”

LAURA: “I think I am a little too short. Just a little.”

CAMERON: “Okay. Now that we’re down here why do we need to be human?”

LAURA: “Because if they have any surveillance, or if any of these Ithorians were told we were Imperials?”

CAMERON: “I don’t know if I can pass as male though.”

LAURA: “Well no, no, we just pull the hood down and we get very fancy cloaks and capes.”

CAMERON: “Oh yeah, from our costume closet.”

LAURA: “And they will be so impressed by the cape, and that is how they would know you are important, because of the fancy cape.”

CAMERON: (giggles) “Okay.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

NICK: To be fair, that is basically how Star Wars works.

CAMERON: “Yeah. If I pull it down far enough so you just see darkness and chin shadow it’s not obvious I’m green.”

LAURA: “Yes. Just do not let them see your face, and if you keep the cloak, you know, mostly together in the front they will not see that, you know, you have boobs.”

CAMERON: “Okay.” I go to the costume closet and I whip out one of those capes we have!

NICK: So, you all have one full costume change and some accessories that you can use from a triumph a few episodes ago, so yeah, there is a very nice Imperial style cape with hood.

CAMERON: Nice.

NICK: What does it look like?

CAMERON: So it’s gotta be black… but it’s more ornate, because they’re normally just very boring, but it has really nice embroidery along the edges, like silver embroidery, or no, gold, it has to be gold. Gold is my color scheme. It has gold embroidery all along the edges of it.

NICK: Okay. Does it have an Imperial logo brooch that holds the front?

CAMERON: Nope.

NICK: It’s just a plain cape?

CAMERON: Mm-hmm.

NICK: Okay, with gold embroidery.

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: Alright. You get one of those. It hides you. It’s a very big hood. Imagine the one that Padme wears when she’s trying to be sneaky, and you’re able to wrap up in it, and it sconces you quite well. It will be difficult to tell much about you, except that you’re wearing pretty nice combat armor.

CAMERON: As I’m walking out of our costume closet I start swooshing around all the corners with my cape feeling very self-important.

LAURA: Yes.

NICK: Great. Yes. You get +1 to self-importance.

CAMERON: Awesome!

NICK: Make sure you mark that down. That is an important stat.

CAMERON: A blue die on all self-importance checks.

NICK: Yes. Is anyone doing anything else to prepare, or are you all rolling out?

STEVEN: What do Ithorians wear?

NICK: Mostly like mechanic jumpsuits. Nothing too fancy. They have weird kind of hunched bodies that seem way too small because they’re mostly head, so they wear a lot of single colors with utility belts and things like that. I think they have two fingers and a thumb.

LAURA: I think so.

STEVEN: Yeah, that’s not nearly Ranbo enough for me. I’m gonna keep on my current outfit.

NICK: Okay. What are you wearing? I don’t remember.

CAMERON: Oh, you’ve got like a vest with no shirt underneath.

STEVEN: Yeah, it’s like a leather vest with no shirt.

NICK: Oh yeah. Now I remember. Great.

LAURA: Yeah, because you have padded armor…

STEVEN: Yes.

LAURA: Are you wearing that?

STEVEN: No.

LAURA: Okay.

CAMERON: Why not?

STEVEN: (laughs) Well, not on the ship. Sometimes, when we get off the ship, I have a nice padded vest.

NICK: You have some sort of weird ballistics property under-vest that you wear in dangerous situations.

STEVEN: Yeah.

LAURA: With a vest over it.

STEVEN: With an over-vest.

NICK: Of course. It’s the Osaronian style… to wear… Great.

STEVEN: I am the Osaronian style. I mean, yes, it’s the Osaronian style.

NICK: (laughs) I’m starting to think that Sabos is the only person who lives on that planet.

STEVEN: There’s a couple others. (laughs)

NICK: Alright. You head down the ramp. Do you come down in a specific order or in any way tactically?

LAURA: “Okie. Karma goes first. She is in charge. She is the human. She goes first. The rest of us, as dirty, dirty aliens go next, because you see the Imperials would never have non-humans in front. They do not like the non-humans. So, Sabos and I will go in the middle, and then Tink goes in the back because it is more likely he would be some sort of hired mercenary and therefore would be taking up the rear.”

CAMERON: “Do we want to take the Stone Breaker with us now?”

LAURA: “Yes.”

STEVEN: “I feel like you have ample place to hide it in your coat.”

CAMERON: How big is it? It was a crate?

NICK: It’s a crate.

STEVEN: Oh yeah.

NICK: We’re gonna have to flash back real quick to you all opening the quite large crate.

STEVEN: (rewinding noises)

NICK: The Stone Breaker appears to be made of some sort of stone.

SEVERAL: Whaaat?!

NICK: Yeah. It weighs about 20 pounds. It is about 18 inches long, and 8 inches wide, so it’s like an oversized iPad kind of situation. It’s made out of, kind of a granite, about 3 inches thick, and it looks like a solid piece of kind of a beige stone, but when you pull it out of the case it has a lot of cover and padding and stuff. If you touch it in different spots different parts seem to light up. The stone can turn semi-translucent and there’s some sort of screen interface, but it’s in a bunch of symbols you don’t really recognize.

LAURA: “Just put it back in the box. Sabos, you hold the box.”

NICK: The box is like really big. It’s like three feet wide.

LAURA: Would there be somewhere in the Afternoon Delight a smaller box that would fit it or even some sort of wrapping to cover it up?

STEVEN: I’ll put it in my padded vest.

LAURA & CAMERON: Uh, no…

LAURA: Yeah. Would there be any sort of like wrapping paper, or like brown paper, or a small box or bag?

NICK: Yeah, you can find something. It’s not gonna be super resilient, but you could put it in something. Sabos, if you’re the one carrying it, what are you gonna put it in?

STEVEN: I’m gonna put it in my padded vest.

NICK: So you’re gonna like zip your vest up and put it just between that and your skin?

STEVEN: Yes.

LAURA: Yeah, Xianna wasn’t looking so much for protective cover, just something to cover it so if we get caught on cameras you can’t see exactly what we have.

NICK: Does the padded vest have some sort of like kangaroo pouch in it that you can put stuff?

STEVEN: Just in between the vest and the skin, because the other vest is pretty tight.

CAMERON: It’s just holding it there.

NICK: Okay. Yeah. So you’re just gonna flex your abs 100% of the time and hold it in place?

STEVEN: Oh, I don’t have to flex to hold it.

NICK: Okay. (laughs)

LAURA: “Why can’t you just hold it like a normal person?”

STEVEN: “I don’t want it to be seen.”

LAURA: “But it does not matter. It almost looks better if you are holding something, because then it looks like you are some sort of errand boy.”

STEVEN: “Hmm…”

NICK: This conversation’s happening while Sabos has it like half jammed down his armor.

STEVEN: Yeah, no I start thinking about it.

LAURA: “Okie. This makes sense in my mind. You see, Karma is the human, she goes in front.”

STEVEN: “George Jetson.”

LAURA: “Then I go. They will probably just assume I am some sort of dancer, mistress-type person as a Twi’lek. Again, they are very xenophobic.”

STEVEN: “Yes.”

LAURA: “You, if you are holding something and you have the weird vest, they will assume you are some sort of hired messenger or errand boy who is just there to deliver packages or something. You are the hired help.”

STEVEN: “Ah, yes. There was once a nice tale on Shili about the four tailed—“

LAURA: “Okie, so never mind.”

CAMERON: “Oh god.”

STEVEN: “—Togruta that could weave their head tails into a basket with twine.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: “And then Tink, being in the back and being quite large, will be the mercenary, the hired gun, that is how it is going to look. It is going to work. Trust me.”

STEVEN: “Fine.”

HUDSON: “I don’t look that scary, do I? Do I?”

LAURA: “Well, not to us because we know you, but to them you are a very, very large creature with a gigantic axe.”

HUDSON: “Oh, I should hold my axe?”

LAURA: “No no no, keep the axe on the back.”

CAMERON: “Just the fact that you have it.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

HUDSON: “Oh… Sure that’s scary enough? Okay.”

LAURA: “Yes. The giant is scary enough.”

HUDSON: “You got it.”

CAMERON: “We don’t wanna necessarily scare the Ithorians.”

STEVEN: “I’ll just carry the bag.”

CAMERON: “You’re mostly scaring in case of video cameras.”

HUDSON: “Got it.”

CAMERON: “And the assumptions that the Empire will make based on those.”

HUDSON: “I see.”

NICK: Okay, so, in that order. You got a bag.

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: It’s just—There’s a baguette sticking out of it.

CAMERON: Messenger bag.

NICK: No, uh…

HUDSON: Messenger baguette?

STEVEN: A messenger baguette.

NICK: Okay. You have a messenger bag with the Stone Breaker in it. Like I said, it’s surprisingly heavy for its size, but it should be fine, shouldn’t get in the way. You head down the ramp, and there are two Ithorians standing off of the landing pad. They turn and regard you quietly for a minute, and one of them raises its hand and slowly waves, like if a sloth was saying hello.

LAURA: Xianna quickly waves back.

NICK: It like does a catching gesture, and like puts it in its pocket.

LAURA: Xianna winks at him.

NICK: You can’t really tell if it’s winking because it’s eyes are so far apart and you can only see one at a time. (laughter) It might be blinking. It’s hard to tell.
So, do you approach the Ithorians?

CAMERON: Yep.

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. As you get there the Ithorian says, “Welcome to Ithor.”

LAURA: Before Karma says anything, Xianna is going to run in front of her, put an ear to her face, and kind of pretend like she is getting something whispered to her, and then turn around like very non-authoritatively turn around and be like, “Oh, hello. I will be talking for, uh, him.”

NICK: “Yes. We saw you break the blockade. Nobody has come to the planet. Is that an Imperial?” It’s very hard to read their facial expressions because their faces are flat and their eyes are far apart, but it does seem to be scrutinizing the group very closely.

CAMERON: Karma nudges Xianna like through the cape, just sticks her arm out. Xianna leans back in. I whisper, “Tell them something,” and then just like wave back. (giggles) And now she has to say something.

LAURA: “Um, yes, yes, um, he is with the Galactic Empire. Um, we would like to see the Oracle.”

NICK: “Well, clearly if you are finally issuing demands, the Oracle would speak with you. This way, please.”

LAURA: “Thank you.”

NICK: The Ithorian turns around and moves actually pretty quickly down the road. You see that there’s a big old main thoroughfare, and a lot of different kinds of buildings and roads and neighborhoods. This is a full city floating about a mile above the jungle, and occasionally tropical birds and things will fly by, and they’re roosting places. The landing pad is towards the edge, and you can see some very colorful birds with what look like antennas sticking out of their heads, and by antennas I mean like mechanical antennas because that’s a thing in Star Wars. Birds with mechanical antennas, look it up.

LAURA: Yep.

NICK: They’re pecking at each other, and they dive straight down off the side toward the jungle. So, that’s going on. In the distance you see, it’s like one long, low building that seems to take up a pretty good amount of this main thoroughfare, so it’s half way through the city, and it doesn’t open up into a square, the road just leads straight into some sort of covered pavilion-type thing that looks like it’s maybe a quarter of a mile wide in any given direction. He starts leading you that way, and he gestures at you. His arm gestures are very slow and waving, but his legs are moving pretty quick, and he’s moving along at a good pace.

CAMERON: I look pretty badass walking in my cape.

LAURA: It swooshes a lot.

CAMERON: It’s very swooshy, and billowy.

NICK: We get a lot of camera shots from like real low of different parts of the city with the cape brushing past it. Do you get your boots to click authoritatively as you walk?

CAMERON: Oh yeah. They do that, yeah.

NICK: Oh, they do that anyway?

CAMERON: Well, except for when I’m trying to be sneaky.

NICK: … Okay.

CAMERON: I’m not trying to be sneaky right now, so I’m being loud.

NICK: Yeah. So, there’s the ‘I’m important’ boot click, and we get camera shots of the cape flying by, and we get camera shots of the crew of the Afternoon Delight all walking except then it’ll like zoom in on the cape and play like brass hits of (Dun-dun-DUH).
Yeah, so you make it through the city without any sort of issues, and the Ithorian says, “Continue this way to the Oracle’s receiving room.”

LAURA: “Okie.”

NICK: And he stops.

LAURA: “And, we keep going.”

NICK: Great. As you go inside, it’s basically the Oracle’s pavilion. There’s a lot of life inside here. It’s been a pretty normal city, but in here it’s kind of like an arboretum. It’s got a lot of different trees, and you can see stuff clustered by region, and there’s some small animals. You don’t really get any good looks at them, but you see some rodents and things darting in and out, and there’s more of those tropical birds swinging by, and they like to peck at each other and fly off and they’re chasing each other. As you continue through, there is a… it kind of looks like a tent if you wove a tent out of trees and then lined the inside with Japanese paper, like the Japanese paper walls. It’s an interlocked, upside down basket of that, and it’s open in the front. It looks like the doors have been pushed open, and you see an Ithorian sitting there in a simple woven tunic and some pants, and it’s got it’s legs crossed, and it appears to be meditating as you arrive. As you get there it opens its eyes and says, “Outsiders. How interesting. I am the Oracle. Who… are you?”

LAURA: “Oh, um, I think we are supposed to be delivering something, and… (hesitantly) the light will never go out in the universe.”

NICK: The Ithorian sits up real straight. “Interesting. Interesting indeed. I thought that the Empire had finally decided to tell us why it is killing the Mother Jungle, and instead… I find a friend, from Sentinel. Strange. What do you have for me? I’m going to continue to talk at weird intervals.”

(laughter)

LAURA: You can see Xianna like every time he pauses like, perks up a little bit and then stop, like oh, no, oh—okay. She points at Sabos and waves him over. “Um, we have this.”

STEVEN: I just present.

LAURA: “Well, take the bag off first!”

STEVEN: “Oh, oh, right.” I still lay it flat and just slide the bag off as I’m holding it.

NICK: The Oracle chuckles to himself and takes the pad, rock, Stone Breaker, and turns it over, and as it’s fingers touch at different points it starts to light up a little bit. The Oracle says, “Oh… The Sentinel has brought us a valuable… gift indeed. Thank you… for delivering it. I must ask… that you do not tell anyone… that we have it. It will be important… that we keep this….. a secret.”

(giggles)

LAURA: “Yes, yes, secrets.”

CAMERON: “Of course.”

LAURA: “Secrets are good. Yes. Obviously. Okie, I guess we will be going now. Uh… Have a good day?”

NICK: “If there’s anything… we can do for you… please… do not hesitate… to ask.”

LAURA: “Um. Completely unrelated.” I just point at him. “He wanted to go to a specific bar but he does not know where it is, but it was recommended to us. Do you happen to know where The Gooberfish is?”

NICK: “Ah… The Gooberfish… A wonderful establishment… It serves off-worlders, so I believe it is in financial difficulties as we are in a blockade.”

LAURA: “Mm, yes.”

NICK: “If you return… to whence you came… it will be on the right.” And, there’s a much longer awkward scene that we’ll fast forward through because we’re not the jerks that stop watching this movie. There’s some directions given out. It’s basically off the main road. It’s not too bad.

CAMERON: I had another question. “Is there a good place to get medical attention for my friend?” I gesture very billowingly with the cape, keeping my green covered, toward Sabos.

STEVEN: (through coughing) “Yeah, the walking, so…”

LAURA: “Oh yes. I forgot about that. You are so injured.”

(laughter)

NICK: With the amount of time you spent on the ship you have healed a little but you’re still in pretty bad shape. The Oracle says, “Oh… Conflict has found you like it… has found us. If you will wait… I will have someone… come to you.” The Oracle stands up very slowly and stretches, and the crazy thing about Ithorians is when it stretches his whole neck expands out like a bullfrog, really far, and you can see these black strips on either side that you can kind of see through his neck. There’s a creaking of muscles, and the arboretum area seems to fall quiet for a minute, and then he collapses back into his little body and big head and then walks off rather quickly, and you are left alone in the Oracle’s pavilion for a minute.

STEVEN: I’ll wait.

NICK: Was there anything you wanted to do while he was gone? You wanna just wait until he gets back?

LAURA: We just wait.

CAMERON: Yeah. I scratch my face.

NICK: Sounds good. The Oracle comes back with a smaller Ithorian. It’s really hard to tell if they’re male or female, but this one looks like it might be female, because it’s got like a pretty teal jumpsuit on, and it says, “Please, step this way,” and there’s a bush that the woody parts of the inside of the bush have been shaped kind of like a chair, and she has you sit down, and she starts to stitch at you. You guys feel a lot of parallels to Falx’s office, because as he’s getting stitched up and she is liberally applying bacta everywhere, so that feels like the aloe gel that you would get for a sunburn so it’s very cold but you start to feel better. So, as she’s working on that, and Sabos is responding to that…

STEVEN: “Ah, yes, that’s better.” (coughing) “I mean, little, ah, yes.”

NICK: The Oracle turns to Tink and Xianna and Karma and says, “This blockade… I hope that… Sentinel has sent you for a reason… as… it is killing us… quite quickly. We are being crushed, we are unable to trade, and as food… becomes more scarce, the herdship is becoming more deserted as people head to the planet… It is great to become one with Mother Jungle, but… we cannot have the entire population leave the herdship.”

LAURA: “Um, we were just told to bring you this box thing, tablet, stone, yes. I don’t really know what you expect us to do about a blockade.”

CAMERON: “We will have to leave the planet, though, so perhaps Sentinel has some plan involved in that.”

NICK: “Well, I trust… that it will work out. Sentinel has helped us in the past… I hope that your trip to The Gooberfish is worth the journey.” The Oracle sits back down, crosses his legs, and takes up a meditative pose again. Around this time the younger Ithorian finishes up with Sabos and puts your vest back in place, and says, “That should be enough to get you on your way” and like slaps you on the shoulder, which hurts pretty bad.

STEVEN: (coughs) “Ow… Ow ow ow…”

NICK: Yeah. As you’re saying ow, she reaches for you feeling bad, and then pulls back because she knows if she touches you again it’ll hurt again, and then holds her wrist and says, “Well, sorry,” and runs off. Where are you guys going now?

CAMERON: What’s his health situation now?

NICK: Yeah, you’re good. Between the healing on the ship and the medical attention you’re at full health.

STEVEN: Wow.

LAURA: We leave and walk towards The Gooberfish, to do whatever we’re gonna do.

CAMERON: Yep. Keep my cape on. Keep up appearances.

NICK: Right. Okay.

STEVEN: Oh, I make sure to grab the bag so it doesn’t look like I dropped something at the Oracle.

NICK: Oh, smart. Great. As you head through town, it’s basically you go down the main pathway and it’s one street over, you see The Gooberfish which is a low, plain building but it does have a sign out front of the depiction of what looks kind of like a giant angler fish with big teeth. You assume it’s giant because there’s a little, tiny picture of an Ithorian also on the sign that is less than the size of one of the teeth. You go into the bar. There is pretty much no one in there. There is an Ithorian behind the bar who does the slow sloth wave as you come in, and sitting off in the corner you see one other person in the shadows. As you walk in, that person makes notice of you all you think because it sits up a little straighter, but you can’t really make out a lot of details, but they’re not an Ithorian, you can tell that.

LAURA: I kind of lean back and whisper to the group. “I think that may be our contact considering they are the only person here, so I think that maybe was what he meant by (Cameron joins) we will know them when we see them, (Cameron stops) because he is the only thing to see. Yes.”

NICK: So, as you were whispering you see that the shadowed person has stood up and is slowly inching towards a side door and like very suspiciously trying to…

LAURA: So, Xianna tells everyone else like, “Okie, stay here,” and then walks over to them and tries to walk over as politely as possible with like visible hands of, ‘hey, it’s just a Twi’lek, you can see my hands, I don’t have any weapons,’ that you know of, but you know.

NICK: Yeah. So, as you get closer, the figure stops for a second and gives you very obviously skeezy elevator eyes…

CAMERON: Ew.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Everyone in the bar hears him say, “You know, uh, I kinda got a thing for tentacles,” and then—

CAMERON: Oh shit.

LAURA:  “Do not say tentacles, they are leku. Tentacles is a little offensive. You can call—No, never mind. Never mind. Forget what I was going to say.”

(laughter)

STEVEN: I shake my head.

LAURA: “Anyways. Does the phrase ‘the light will never go out in the universe’ mean anything to you?”

NICK: “Uh, yeah, but I never expected to hear that from someone body guarding an Imperial. What the heck is going on?”

LAURA: (smiling) “Oh, do not worry about them, they are fine.”

NICK: “If-If you say so…”

LAURA: “That is just for appearances. Do not worry.”

NICK: “This is getting real weird.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

CAMERON: “I walk closer, but I keep my hood up until I can see who he is.”

NICK: Yeah. You see a Selonian, which is like a big otter-looking person, with kind of like a beer belly and some leather pants on.

LAURA: A dude Selonian?

NICK: Yeah.

LAURA & STEVEN: Ooh.

NICK: But he’s like kinda skeezy, he’s got some bald patches, and he’s wearing a leather jacket.

LAURA: Oh, that’s why they kicked him off.

STEVEN: Oh, I walk over because I notice that he is also a dude, and wearing a leather jacket.

NICK: (laughs) Yeah. Karma, you would recognize him as Felton Mox, the bounty that you took in during your first trip to Corellia in quite a long time, that you dropped off at Sentinel’s base on your way in. he looks to be in much better shape. He isn’t shot, so that’s good, but he doesn’t recognize that you are in the cloak.

CAMERON: Underneath my cloak I’m gonna take his heavy pistol and put it in my bag.

NICK: (laughs) Okay.

LAURA: “So, do you want to buy us drinks?”

NICK: “Uh…”

LAURA: And she winks a little bit, and she’s like, ‘ugh, this guy’s skeezy, but maybe we can get free stuff.’

NICK: “I, you know, normally being an informant people buy Me drinks, but yeah, I think I can make that happen,” and he walks past you. He gives the cloaked figure of Karma a wide birth because he still seems kind of nervous about an Imperial cloak, and he goes over to the bar and you hear him asking for beverages.
The Ithorian who is very incapable of speaking quietly says, “Beverages for your elicit meeting. Right away.” And he starts mixing drinks. Again, he moves very slowly getting situated, but once he plants his feet he starts putting stuff together pretty quickly.

LAURA: What are the driiinks?

NICK: The Ithorian is putting together kind of a mixed bag. You see several tall, thin glasses that have some sort of a bluish-greenish liquid in them, and then what looks like an Imperial ale which is like a straight beer, and—an Imperial stout.

LAURA: Imperial stout.

NICK & LAURA: Haaa.

NICK: And then there’s one copper mug that gets slapped down on the bar and has some sprig of some greenish, weird, curly plant sticking out of it, and the Ithorian says, “This should be… easy to decide… who enjoys the finer things in life.” Then he looks around, which takes up a lot of air space when something with heads this wide look around—

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: –and makes himself scarce back behind the bar.

CAMERON: So, as Xianna starts to walk towards the bar Karma grabs her and pulls her in closer to her hood. (whispering) “So, this guy was my mark for Sentinel, so I’ma gonna keep my hood up because I’m not sure how he’s gonna feel about me.”

LAURA: “Oh! Okie, because I was thinking maybe if we figured him trustworthy we would let him in on the secret, but… Okie, no, secret stays.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, we’ll see how he’s doing. Yeah.”

LAURA: “The secret stays. Okie.”

NICK: As that conversation wraps up real quick, Felton comes back and gestures towards a round table and the booth that he was sitting at and he drops the serving tray down. The drinks kind of clatter around. He says, “Three Ithorian Bellows, an Imperial Stout, and a Flame Out for the adventurous. Take your pick.”

STEVEN: “Would you consider colonizing another planet adventurous?” I just say to the group.

CAMERON: The hooded figure nods.

NICK: He kind of looks you up and down, grabs the copper mug and just slides it towards you. Then he looks at everyone else and says, “The Ithorian Bellows is a pretty mellow beverage. It’s good for having a long talk with people.” He sits down and he waits for you all to select your beverages.

LAURA: Xianna would take the Ithorian Bellows.

CAMERON: Same with Karma, because she realizes that one of them says Imperial on it, so she’s gonna grab the Bellows.

HUDSON: I grab one of the Ithorian Bellows.

NICK: Okay. Felton looks at you all very shiftily. It looks pretty comical on his little otter face. He grabs the Imperial Stout and goes, “You saw through my crafty rouse, I see. No one’s given themselves away yet,” and he takes a long pull on the drink.

STEVEN: I take a sip of mine and kind of look for what reaction he thinks I should have.

NICK: He’s got the bottle back and he appears to be chugging it, but you notice it’s not going down that fast, it’s mostly for show, but he opens one eye at you as you take a sip like eager to see what your response will be.

STEVEN: I respond in such a way that would warrant someone looking eagerly for a response.

NICK: What the fuck does that mean?

LAURA & CAMERON: What does that mean?!

(laughter)

LAURA: Also, do you remember what this drink tastes like?

STEVEN: Oh, I absolutely remember, yeah. No, yeah, so, you know, I’ve had a lot of these on Corellia back when I was ambassadorizing, and I’m quite fond of it, but everyone—or at least Felton—seems interested, so I react as if I don’t like it, set it down, and then pick it back up and drain it.

(laughter)

LAURA: That’s like a Constitution check!

NICK: As you cough and splutter, he sets the beer down and chuckles to himself. “Yeah, those are pretty hard to—Oh.” As you just knock the whole cup back. It tastes like pepper’s angry, drunk cousin tried to strangle your uvula on the way down is basically what a Flame Out tastes like. Yeah, the Flame Out’s a pretty rough drink, but you like them and you’re used to them. So, as you do that, “Wow, oh, okay.”

STEVEN: (chuckles)

NICK: So you’re in the horseshoe booth sitting and he has the one chair and he skootches it toward the door a little bit and looks a little anxious. “So, you knew the passphrase… You’re from Sentinel, huh?”

LAURA: “Yes.”

CAMERON: The hood nods.

NICK: “He said, uh, if I gave you this information that he’d let me off scot-free, got me away from CorSec. If I hadn’t gotten shot it would’ve been a really good deal. I’m, uh, not 100% sure why I got shot. It seemed pretty unnecessary. The person who did—You know, bounty hunters, I’m just not a big fan of them.”

LAURA: “Yes. They are terrible. Just, all of them, every single one of them, just terrible.”

HUDSON: I cackle.

CAMERON: The hood nods.

STEVEN: “Yup.”

NICK: “So, Sentinel said that you would have most of the tools you need but I was to give you two more, and that is… I lost one of them, but I have the other one!” And he takes—

LAURA: “Wait, wait, what?!”

NICK: “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine!” He takes a plasteel box, it’s gray and looks kind of like a Chinese take-out container, it’s about a foot wide and a foot long, it’s like a square, and he sets it on the table and slides it to you very carefully and nervously. “Don’t, uh, open that until you’re in position, because it’s uh, not great, but…”

LAURA: “And, what was the thing that you lost?”

NICK: “Uhhh… I’m not sure. It was another box, um… but it’s gone now…”

LAURA: Xianna’s sitting there and is suddenly like, ‘Ohh, I had a box. Karma probably had a box.’ This is what Xianna’s thinking. So, Xianna’s gonna like drop it and just be like, ‘oh, never mind,’ because in her head she’s like ‘I had to go get a box, and if Karma took him in he probably had the box so she took it, so it’s okay, Sentinel has the box.’ That’s what’s going through her head. So, she’s like, “Oh, okie. It’s fine. Okie. I’m sure we will make do.”

NICK: “Yeah, so, totally didn’t lose it gambling. Uh…”

LAURA: He says that and Xianna’s like, ‘oh, wait… oh no.’

CAMERON: ‘My plan has a hole in it.

NICK: “Here’s the deal. This is a special kind of weapon and Sentinel wants you to break the blockade. This weapon is powerful enough to take down a Super Star Destroyer if you can get onboard. That’s all I know. My job was to get the weapon to whoever told me the light of the universe would never go out.”

LAURA: “Okie. Thank you.”

CAMERON: How are we seated in this booth?

LAURA: I imagine that Xianna took lead and got in next to him, and then…

CAMERON: I probably have an edge spot, because scooting in my cape wouldn’t have been the best.

LAURA: I imagine it would be, like from one end of the horseshoe to the other, it would have been like Karma, a wide space, Felton, then Xianna, then Sabos, and then Tink, guessing that Tink would have a harder time fitting in, and he probably doesn’t slide well just being all fuzzy. Probably a lot of friction.

HUDSON: I don’t. I just cause static on myself.

NICK: I can imagine if you sit on your hair and try to scoot you’re just pulling all your hair. That couldn’t be fun.

SEVERAL: Yeah.

NICK: Booths were not designed for Gigorans.

CAMERON: So, I’m just gonna go into my hood. I’m wearing gloves now so my green doesn’t show if I put my hand up. I’m gonna whisper into my com links so they can hear me, because none of them are close enough to pull over to me. (whispers) “Ask who he lost it in gambling to, because we may need to track them down.”

LAURA: “So, um, who were you playing in the gambling game?”

NICK: “Well, you know, it’s a little embarrassing. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve done. She’s a pretty heavy hitter in this sector, but uh… Yeah, I may have lost your other tool that you need to, uh, the Queen. Maybe you’ve heard of her. She’s a gangster from Corellia. I mean, she’s not that big a deal.”

STEVEN: “Ah yes, the Queen.”

NICK: “Oh, you’re familiar?”

LAURA: “Um, I guess so, yes. It appears.”

STEVEN: “I used to play the cards as well.” (grinning)

NICK: “You know Kettle, the Queen of Corellia?”

STEVEN: “I know Kettle.”

NICK: “Well, more power to you, man. You can try and go get it back, but I didn’t have any deal with having to do with her.”

STEVEN: “Oh, I didn’t say nothing about trying to get it back from Kettle.”

LAURA: (nervously) “Okie. We take the box now. Thank you, so much, heh, thank you.”

NICK: “Great.” Can I get Perception checks from you all?

LAURA: Can do.

NICK: This will be an average Perception check.

HUDSON: One success.

CAMERON: Karma got two successes and an advantage.

LAURA: Three successes.

STEVEN: I got one success.

NICK: You all see that he’s pretty anxious to leave, and he also looks like he feels a little guilty about it, but he’s scared and trying to get around. It’s pretty easy for you all to interpret that he had further instructions he was supposed to do to help you all out and is just trying to get out of there with the bare minimum.

LAURA: When he does that Xianna’s gonna reach into her pocket, get her blaster, and like push it towards him through her coat so that he can like feel the blaster. “Um, you seem very quick to leave. Do you maybe have something to tell us?”

CAMERON: Karma stands up menacingly at the end of the booth and just lets her cape fall.

HUDSON: I start mean-mugging.

STEVEN: I say, “Hey buddy, you got anything else for us? It’d be a shame if Kettle had to hear about this.”

NICK: “Um… Wow. This—I thought we were having a friendly drink here.”

LAURA: “Well, we were, and then you decided to get all shifty.”

NICK: “Uh, I’m a Selonian. We do shifty. That’s like our thing.” … That’s not their thing.

STEVEN: I chuckle, because that’s… (laughs)

CAMERON: Because you don’t know species.

STEVEN: Right, because I’m a Togrutan. (laughs)

LAURA: “No, no, I dated a Selonian once. They were not very shifty.”

NICK: “Uh, well, okay. Part of my contract was that I’m supposed to help guide you until you leave the planet again, but you’re all very capable. You have an Imperial. You don’t need me. You should really just let me go. I’ve got things to do.”

HUDSON: “Everyone could use a helping hand.”

CAMERON: The hood tilts.

LAURA: “Guide in what way?”

NICK: “Uh, just help you find anything you need for your assault, uh, maybe inform him once the mission’s complete. I’m supposed to be like an observer type thing, but he’s got eyes everywhere. You should really just let me go. There’s really no reason for me to…”

CAMERON: The hood shakes it’s head.

LAURA: “Where do you live?”

NICK: “On Corellia…”

LAURA: “Where are you staying currently?”

NICK: (hesitantly) “Uh, why do you wanna know?”

LAURA: “In case we do need your help later on.”

NICK: So, he perks up a little bit at that, because it sounds like you’re going to let him out of your immediate eyesight, and he goes, “Oh, I’m right above The Gooberfish. You could find me if you needed me, but you won’t. You’re all very capable.”

CAMERON: I look over at Tink, and I’m like—

HUDSON: “You’re gonna help us out.” I hold my vibro-axe higher.

(laughter)

NICK: Can you roll me a Coercion, please?

HUDSON: Great. I can do that.

NICK: It’s gonna be easy, and you have two blue dice because everyone is backing you up.

CAMERON: Oh wow, your Willpower is one?

HUDSON: Wow. Two advantages.

NICK: Is there something that you would like to spend your advantages on specifically?

HUDSON: Look more intimidating.

NICK: That’s not how that works.

LAURA: Yeah, because this roll was to look intimidating.

HUDSON: Oh, sorry. This was Coercion.

NICK: You don’t intimidate him, but you can get something else tangential out of it, if you want.

HUDSON: Oh. The bartender brings me another drink to calm me down.

NICK: Nice. Okay. The bartender runs up with two. “You seem to be a big fellow.”

HUDSON: “I am.”

NICK: “Here’s another one, on the house… and another one… that you will pay for.” He sets them down. They’re Ithorian Bellows.

LAURA: Xianna is seeing Tink, and I imagine it’s something where like Tink tries to narrow his eyes but instead they look even more cute and round, so Xianna’s like, “Okie. So I know he is very cute and fluffy, but he is very large, and he has a gigantic axe as you can see.” She like head tilts at Sabos. “That one, I do not know what that one does. Apparently he knows Kettle. I don’t know. That seems to be important.”

STEVEN: This one’s crazy,” I say.

LAURA: “And, um, also…” She points over at Karma. “The Galactic Empire, so you know, maybe, also I have a gun… Maybe you should help us.”

NICK: “Ah. I thought you were just happy to see me. Heh, heh…”

LAURA: “No…”

STEVEN: I check my head tails really quickly.

LAURA: Xianna’s just kind of shaking her head. “No, you see, I would have to say that to you because I being a woman do not do the thing you are implying. You as a male can, so you see it has to be me to you.”

NICK: “Yeah I can. Wait—“

LAURA: “No. No.”

NICK: “Oh, yeah. Oh boy.” And Felton Mox looks right into the camera and says, “Well, Felton Mox, it looks like we’re in a whole bunch of trouble.” (groans and laughter) And that’s gonna be the end of the episode!

(all make dramatic noises and Star Wars tunes)

## Outro

CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show please consider logging into iTunes and giving us a five-star review. Five-star reviews will help new listeners to find the show.

Xianna’fan is played by Laura Penrod. She can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.

Tink is played by Hudson Jameson and he can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.

Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.

Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet.

Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.

Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.

Additional music by James Gunter.

Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tabletop_squad. For real! We’re real people and we wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.

The crew of the Afternoon Delight have eaten many cups of instant noodles. They’re tasty, perfect for spending days in hyperspace, and you can have original or spicy. They first appear in Episode 14 when Xianna makes a few cups for everyone.

While the following “recipe” isn’t as shelf stable as cup noodles and it isn’t quite as instant, but they’re much better tasting and still pretty fast.

“Recipe” is in quotations because what follows is less of a specific recipe and more of a set of guidelines. There’s a lot of ways to customize your specific noodles.

noodles and broth in a glass container. kettle in background.
A finished jar of *Almost* Instant Noodles.

These noodle cups can easily be stored in the fridge for a few days and handle being at room temperature for a few hours, which make them great for office lunches. You can even make them with all dry ingredients for shelf stable cups that should last at least a few weeks.

You’ll want a 16-ounce container that is heat-proof since you will be adding boiling water. Large mason jars or wide-mouth preserving jars work great.

Let’s start at the bottom with the soup base. You can use bouillon paste, a bouillon powder, or even powdered soup mix. If you want to use bouillon cubes you’ll want to smash them up a bit before adding. They dissolve better that way. You’ll want to use 1-2 servings of whatever soup base you use, depending on how strong you like your soup.

We’re using Better Than Bouillon paste in their Vegetable flavor and adding 3 teaspoons, about 1.5 servings worth.

Then you’ll want a “flavor boost”. Something to give your cup a little extra flavor and depth. This could be soy sauce, chili paste, miso, fish sauce, curry paste. Anything that will add something a little extra to the soup. You can even combine them. How much you add will depend on which you choose and personal taste. If you’re going completely shelf stable then omit the “flavor boost” and just add a bit more powered base.

four glass containers with various "soup bases" and "flavor boosts"
Soups bases and “Flavor Boosts”. Left to Right: Bouillon paste, miso, chili paste; Bouillon paste, chili paste; Bouillon paste, soy sauce; Bouillon paste, miso,.

Next, the vegetables. There’s a lot of options for this step. Kimchi is a great choice, carrots and peas are common in many noodle cups along with
dried shiitakes, freeze-dried vegetables are great, fresh or frozen edamame works, basically anything you can think of. You do want whatever you add to require minimal cooking, since they will only get a short soak in hot water. So raw onions may be a bad idea.

Now we’re at the strangest option: beef jerky. Since we want these sit in a fridge for a few days, at a desk for a few hours, or even on the shelf for a few weeks, raw meat is a bad idea. It also probably won’t be cooked by just a few minutes in hot water. But if you’re looking to add something meaty to your cups jerky is the way to go. It lasts for a long time, and when it reconstitutes in the water it softens up and gains a pleasantly chewy texture. You can even play around with what flavor you use. We used a “Hot & Spicy” jerky.

The four glass jars with various vegetables and jerky added.
The veggies and jerky. Left to Right: Jerky, dried shiitakes; kimchi; kimchi, dried shiitakes; jerky.

And now, we have come to the noodles. You can use precooked wheat noodles, such as udon, Lo Mein, or even spaghetti noodles. You can also use “fast-cooking” dried noodles, which are basically the noodles that come in ramen packages and commercial noodles cups without all the extras. Rice noodles are also a great option since most only take a few minutes to cook. There’s rice vermicelli, flat “pad thai” noodles, pho style noodles, and many more. The vermicelli styles can be rolled or folded into little nests that can fit into the jars. Long, straight noodles may have to be cut in half to fit into the container.

Finally we have green onions or chives. These add a little fresh pop that ties everything together. You can use fresh or the freeze-dried kind that you can often find in the produce section.

The four glass jars with various noodles added.
The noodles and green onions. Left to Right: dried vermicelli; cooked udon noodles; cooked udon noodles; fast-cooking ramen noodles.

Then, whenever you want your noodles, simple add boiling water, close the lid, and let sit for 3-5 minutes. Then, give it a good stir and you’re all set!

A noodles jar with boiling water added.
Boiling water added.
A noodle jar after it's 3-5 minute wait.
After 3-5 minutes. It’s noodle time!
A close up of the prepared noodle jar with noodles, jerky, and shiitakes.
Look at that soupy goodness.

Almost Instant Noodles
Per Container:

1-2 servings base (bouillon paste, bouillon powder, powder soup mix)
2-4 teaspoons flavor boost (soy sauce, chili paste, miso, fish sauce, curry paste)
Vegetables (kimchi, dried mushrooms, freeze-dried vegetables, diced, julienned, or small fresh vegetables)
Beef jerky, optional, torn into bite sized pieces
Noodles:
3-4 ounces precooked wheat pasta
2-3 ounces “fast-cooking” dried wheat noodles
1-3 ounces dried rice noodles
Sliced green onion or chives

In the bottom of a 16-ounce heat-proof container add 2 servings of the base, the flavor boost, vegetables, and jerky, if using. Place noodles on top and then the green onions or chives.

When ready to eat, fill the container almost to the top with boiling water. Loosely set lid on top and let sit for 3-5 minutes. Stir to combine.

A close up of the prepared noodle jar with noodles, jerky, and shiitakes.
Tasty noodles.

Word document download: Episode 8 Let’s Check Spacebook

PDF download: Episode 8 Let’s Check Spacebook

Read in browser:

Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 8:
Let’s Check Spacebook

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

Note – Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in an accent. Most of her soft I’s sound like “ee,” and most of her TH’s sound like Z’s. Example: “this and that” = “zees and zat”

## Intro

NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your game master. Every other Thursday, our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, a fringer, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy, helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

I want to thank everyone who sent in one of our questionnaires about the show. Thank you for taking the time. We’re taking your feedback seriously to make the show better. Remember everyone, if we get to 20 iTunes reviews we’ll be releasing a flashback starring Karma and her twin boys. It was a blast to record and we wanna share it, to tell your friends to review the show.

Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy.

##

NICK: Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode 8 of Tabletop Squadron. We’re really getting into the swing of things now. Let’s go ahead and go around the table. Everybody say who you are, who you’re playing, and if you spent any experience what you spent that experience on… starting with Hudson.

HUDSON: Hi internet. I’m Hudson, and I’m playing Tink the Gigoran. I moved up two ranks in Astrogation and one rank in Coordination. I also got the Natural Programmer talent off the slicer tree that lets me reroll any one Computer or Astrogation check once per session.

NICK: Yay. For anyone wondering why he did that, he’s been hoarding experience for like three sessions.

HUDSON: In secret. It was the best kept secret.

NICK: Next we’ll go to… Cameron.

CAMERON: Hi. I’m Cameron, and I’m playing Karma Nailo the Nautolan bounty hunter. I spent some experience going up to rank two in Perception, and I also bought Toughened on my Skiptracer tree to add two to my wound threshold.

NICK: Yeah, after getting shot a bunch.

CAMERON: Apparently it’s important, yeah.

NICK: Yeah, makes sense. Next up we have… Laura.

LAURA: Hello. I’m Laura. I play Xianna who is a Twi’lek smuggler, and I believe I bought a rank in Underworld. I forgot to mark it down, but I’m like 80% sure that’s what I bought with my points.

NICK: Alright. Book keeping, the best part of RPGs. And, last up is… Steven.

STEVEN: Hi, listeners of the network formally known as Arpanet. I’m Steven. I’m playing Sabos. What’s that face?

(laughter)

NICK: I don’t get that reference at all?

STEVEN: One person might.

LAURA: Because Hudson said welcome to the internet.

NICK & HUDSON: Oh.

LAURA: It used to be the Arpanet.

NICK: Oh man.

STEVEN: I used some of my experience to purchase the Master Starhopper trait on my fringer talent tree which allows me to once per round suffer two strain to decrease the difficulty of the Astrogation check by one to a minimum of one black die.

NICK: Oh, neat.

CAMERON: Useful.

NICK: Oh gosh, you can set it to zero.

STEVEN: Yup.

HUDSON: The real question is who’s better at Astrogation. Me?

STEVEN: Probably you. I have two. I can upgrade sometime.

CAMERON: You’re smarter though, Tink.

HUDSON: I’m smarter, though.

NICK: So y’all would just be the Astrogation Bros. it’ll be fine.

CAMERON: #AstrogationBros.

NICK: #AstrogationBros…

HUDSON: We’ll know our three fans by someone actually tagging that on Twitter.

NICK: Yeah. Hi Ted, our one international fan that we talked to last time. #AstrogationBros.

So, before we get into the show, let’s go ahead and make our Destiny Rolls, please.

LAURA: One light side.

HUDSON: One dark side.

CAMERON: One light side.

STEVEN: One light side.

LAURA & CAMERON: Yay!

CAMERON: So three light side, one dark side.

NICK: Great. Last time, you went to a secret asteroid base in the middle of nowhere, you found Quiggle the Quarren and made an exchange for Falx. He gave you a briefcase to give to them, and it didn’t go great. You ended up killing pretty much everyone except for Tiny, your small gun-toting friend. You were also contacted by Sentinel and told kind of what you’re supposed to do next, that you’re supposed to go to Ithor, and that you’re supposed to get down to the planet, and that there’s a very strong blockade with a super star destroyer involved. You’re gonna have to figure out how to get around that, and then you promptly ignored him to go on an adventure to an asteroid belt. I’m sure that won’t come up. That’s great. Am I forgetting anything?

STEVEN: I’m super dead.

CAMERON: (laughs) Yeah.

NICK: Oh yeah, and Sabos got shot a whole bunch, and is very dead. I believe you’re at what, negative seven? So, yeah, we’re gonna have to deal with that. And the last thing that happened was Tiny surrendered and said he was gonna be the captain of Quiggle’s Crew from now on, and that’s where we ended. Picking up right there.

You are in a wide, open space in the middle of a hollowed out asteroid and there is the corpse of Quiggle and his large Gamorrean who is also dead. Tiny has been wounded quite severely. There is an oil drum fire with some fold-up camp chairs around it, and your ship is probably about a hundred yards behind you, and their ship is somewhere off in the dark. You haven’t actually seen it yet. Ready, set, go.

LAURA: I wanna go check the bodies. For fun items.

NICK: I will need a Skullduggery check to pat them down.

LAURA: Can do!

NICK: It’s going to be a hard difficulty, because these are smugglers.

LAURA: That is one triumph with its success, and an advantage.

NICK: Pretty good. I can tell you that Quiggle has a pretty nice light blaster. It’s nothing particularly fancy, it just looks like it’s got pretty plating all over it. It has a water theme. There’s lots of bubbles up the sides.

LAURA: Ooh.

NICK: Yeah. The Gamorrean has a vibro-axe, it’s a standard vibro-axe. With the triumph, tell me two things that you really want them to have.

LAURA: Stim packs and impact.

NICK: Yep, sounds about good.

LAURA: All the packs.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Yeah, so this makes sense. The Gamorrean has a set of six stim packs in a pouch on his belt. It’s one of those unrolly artist kits, so you undo the cloth tie, it falls open, and there’s just a line of syringes.

LAURA: Fancy~

NICK: Quiggle has a little snuff box. It’s a really pretty chrome plated one, and it has a little electronic reader on it, but it looks like when he fell it opened. In the snuff box there’s four doses of impact in little individual vials, and you also see that it’s got a little thumbprint reader on the snuff box, and from the inside, with your triumph, you see that you can reprogram it to open only for you.

LAURA: Oh yes.

NICK: It would make it so that if someone say found your stash, they wouldn’t be able to tell what your stash was or get into it right away. So, you have a little thumbprint reader snuff box that can hold four doses of impact in it. Actually, it can hold eight doses of impact. It looks like Quiggle’s been partying lately.

LAURA: Okay good, because I already had some.

NICK: Yeah, so it can hold a decent amount. That’s what you find on the bodies. What else does anybody want to do?

CAMERON: Karma’s going to drop down next to Tiny and start applying pressure to one of his wounds.

NICK: He is bleeding. It doesn’t look like he’s gushing blood. He’ll probably be okay, but he appreciates the medical assistance. Would you like to make me a Medicine check?

CAMERON: Sure!

NICK: It is average, because he is not unconscious.

CAMERON: Okay, that’s three successes!

NICK: Three successes! So he gets three wounds back. That actually—You’re able to stop all the bleeding, get him patched up, he is by no means in fighting shape but he is not going to go septic or anything.

CAMERON: Yay.

NICK: Good work. Why would Karma know how to do like field medicine? Tell me about a time that happened.

CAMERON: So, when she’s most often used it is when she’s going after a mark and there’s another bounty hunter going after the same mark. With Felton Mox in the first episode where he got shot by the other bounty hunter, it’s either that situation or the other bounty hunter is like I don’t care, I’d rather get them both dead than have her take him in alive, so the mark will get damaged. It’s keeping the mark alive until we get to the drop point.

NICK: Right. So, very business-like, not really paying attention to people’s comfort so much.

CAMERON: Yep. But then also, she was paired up with her sons. She’s probably being nicer to Tiny then she would be to just a random person she was bringing in, because he’s tugging heartstrings by just being young.

NICK: Right. When you were going on missions with your sons was one of them more of a medical specialist?

CAMERON: Yes.

NICK: Since clearly you weren’t super trained in it.

CAMERON: Yes. My son Jet is much smarter than me.

NICK: Oh, okay, so he was the medic guy. Okay, cool. Tiny gets patched up. “Well, th-thanks. I’m gonna leave, because honestly it’s a little bit more jarring than I expected to see you patting through the pockets of my dead friends.” He’s just kinda staring at Xianna.

LAURA: “Um, sorry, but you know… They did shoot at us, and they are dead…”

NICK: “Yeah, it’s the space pirate code, I understand. It’s just having a little bit more of an emotional impact than I expected. I’m gonna go back to the Quarren Quagmire and take off. I’ll have to meet up with the rest of the crew, and… I guess figure out what we’re doing. But I’m the captain now, right?” He gives a weak smile.

CAMERON: “Since you’re the captain now, do you want his tri-cornered hat?”

NICK: “Oh, yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” He goes and picks it up and it’s dripping with blood a little bit, so he has to wring it out and it’s kind of misshapen. He kinda pats it back into shape and puts it onto his head. “Well, I think it’s sort of a work in process,” and he wipes some charred ash off of it, “but it is important, so thanks for the advice there.” A little rivulet of blood runs down his temple dripping out of the hat. He wipes it off and it leaves a smear on his face. “So, yeah, it’s pretty good, I guess. Yeah, this is, this is…” He looks at Quiggle and gulps. “Yeah, this is awesome. Thanks for, whatever, not killing me. That’s important. I’m gonna go now. Byeee.”

HUDSON: “You’re welcome.”

NICK: He does finger guns at Tink and backs cautiously into the shadows.

CAMERON: Oh, karma walks after him, and starts sharing life advice, and shares contact information.

NICK: You’re gonna have to give me some actual life advice. You don’t get to just make a \broad statement\ like that.

CAMERON: Oh damn! Uh, let’s see. Not getting shot is a good one. Getting cover, I noticed he didn’t get that.

NICK: “Okay so, take cover… Well, so, I figured like the auto-turret was gonna be a lot more helpful, but…”

CAMERON: “Maybe next time though if you set up the auto-turret so it’s in front of one of the barrels, and you can be behind the barrel, just to kind of block you, because if you have the situation again where you throw the target and it doesn’t hit then it kind of leaves you open as you’re then the one with the big gun.”

NICK: “Yeah, that makes sense.” You guys are walking through the shadows, and probably 50 yards away around a small corner, in like an actual parking spot instead of the middle of the thing, you see an angular freighter. It looks like some form of YT but like a weird off-brand one. It’s kind of shaped like a croissant. So, he’s walking towards that. “Well, yeah I guess cover would be a good idea. Duly noted. Thank you for that.”

CAMERON: “Yep. I really hope you achieve your hopes and dreams.”

NICK: “Thanks That’s… This got a little weird. Uh, thanks for not shooting me. You almost did. I could see you thinking about it, so… I guess we’re friends now. Cool. I… If you ever need anything, call on Quiggle’s Crew—or I guess it’s Tiny’s Crew now.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, are you gonna rename that?”

NICK: “Yeah, Tiny’s… Tiny’s Terrible… Tallahassee… that’s not a thing.”

CAMERON: “Tango!”

NICK: “Tango?”

CAMERON: “Tiny’s Terrible Tallahassee Tango!”

NICK: “Oh gosh. What’s a Tallahassee?”

CAMERON: (laughs) “I don’t know. You said it.”

NICK: “Mmm…”

CAMERON: “I thought it had some sort of significance for you for you to have said it.”

NICK: “Yeah, it’s my mom’s name. I forgot.”

CAMERON: “Oh, okay. So that makes sense.”

NICK: “I think I’ve lost more blood than I thought I did.”

CAMERON: “Okay, so you can call your ship the Tallahassee after your mom, I guess.”

NICK: “…Yeah.”

CAMERON: “That seems really sweet.”

NICK: “Yeah… I think it might be the Tallahassee Quagmire. We gotta remember our roots.”

CAMERON: “True, true.”

NICK: At this point he’s hitting a panel on the croissant-shaped ship and the ramp is dropping down. He starts to limp up. From the inside you can see a very large Wookie kind of leaning down on the ramp and it makes a Wookie noise. (low groan)

CAMERON: Hahaha!

NICK: (smiling) I can’t do that. You can see Tiny turn around and say, “It’s a really long story. I’ll explain on the way out of here.” And there’s more Wookie noises. (low groan)

CAMERON: (Chewbacca sounds)

NICK: Oh, that’s way better. Do it again.

CAMERON: (Chewbacca noises)

NICK: Yeah, that’s good. “No, it’s fine. I… Look. He fell behind. You know the pirate’s code.” The ship stars to go (rushing and clicking noises), and you hear the engine start to cycle up. Great.

CAMERON: I walk back.

NICK: Cool. Sabos is bleeding out on the ground.

CAMERON: Sabos is still laying there! (laughs)

HUDSON: “Should we do something about him?”

CAMERON: “Yeah. Hey Tink, come here.”

HUDSON: I come over.

NICK: Okay. Are you gonna take him back to the ship, or just work on him out in the open?

CAMERON: Let’s go back to the ship.

HUDSON: I pick him up.

LAURA: “I think we need to make up some lost time.”

CAMERON: “Yeah. We can fix him on our way to Ithor.”

HUDSON: “You got it.” I carry him to the ship, and then get in the cockpit.

STEVEN: (distant coughing noises)

CAMERON: Yup. (laughs)

NICK: Okay. We get a side wipe, and we get like two side by side screens. We get one of somebody piloting, which I guess would be Karma probably.

CAMERON: So, Karma would probably have Tink help with the Astrogation check and then would take over piloting.

NICK: Right. We’ll skip the Astrogation part, because it’ll make the story better. So, it’s you flipping switches and starting to take off, and then it’s still a bedroom, like a weird 70s sheik hotel room, but the bed is not a water bed and has just plain white sheets on it, and it has like a linoleum floor, so you guys have used this as your kind of medical suite. We see Sabos laid out on the bed. You got a big slash across your chest from where you got hit, and some blaster bolt wounds, and you’re shirtless. Is Sabos in good shape?

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: Yeah? So you got that Hollywood shot of the injured, but still very attractive, torso. Just the torso, your head’s cut off of it. (laughter) Oh, and then you hear Tink rummaging around, and a single head tail falls into the frame off the side of the bed, and jiggles a little bit, because it has to be gross because it’s Sabos. So, the camera pans out and we see Sabos on the bed. Is Xianna helping with the medicine stuff, or did she just leave Tink to it?

LAURA: Xianna like has a drink and is sitting on a night table next to the bed, and is watching, and is just… She’s not really helping. She doesn’t really know too many medical things, which is why she tends to carry stim packs, and she’s just hoping she doesn’t have to use one on Sabos.

NICK: Okay. We’re gonna cut real quick to a weird, hazy dream sequence. Sabos is having a flashback while he is unconscious.

LAURA: Ooh, ooh! Xianna wants to be the scarecrow. (laughter) And Tink can be the cowardly lion, and then I guess…

CAMERON: I’d be the tin man.

NICK: I feel like Karma’s probably Dorothy.

(laughter)

CAMERON: Sabos is the scarecrow!

LAURA: Sabos is the scarecrow in his own dream sequence!

STEVEN: This is my story.

CAMERON: Yeah, exactly. If you wanna be the scarecrow, you can be the scarecrow.

NICK: So, it actually is probably more like plot and character relevant than this bit that we’re doing right now, but—

LAURA: Oh, so he’s the dog. He’s Toto.

NICK: Sabos, what is going on in this flashback of yours? What does your ‘I’m injured and dying’ dream sequence look like?

STEVEN: So, I wake up in a hut on Shili, and well, you know there’s the rest of the schoolkids, the nice Shilian schoolkids, and then the concerned parents—not my parents, just the concerned Shilian schoolkid parents—looking over me saying, “You better wake up. You’ll be alright. We need you to wake up.” As it turns out, I mean, there’s another schoolkid next to me. Just don’t know what happened, right.

(distant giggling)

So, yeah, you know, pack instincts are very important in Togruta culture, so we were practicing our packing, which would be fighting other Togrutas because yeah Shili, and you know it got a little bit too real and I got pretty beat up. That’s when I decided I didn’t want to have anything to do with the pack instinct culture on Shili.

NICK: Cool. So, we see you as I guess a small seven year old Sabos. You always kind of punched people?

STEVEN: Yeah, yeah.

NICK: Never really got along. That was the beginning of you deciding that maybe this pack instinct wasn’t the way to go, when you were practicing fighting and got knocked out, and also knocked out the other kid.

STEVEN: Yes. I got knocked out harder.

CAMERON: That fourth head tail just flew and just smacked him on his way down.

STEVEN: To be clear, he was okay.

NICK: Well, that’s what happened. He got a head injury and it caused the fourth head tail to grow.

STEVEN: Ohhh.

LAURA: Whoaaa.

STEVEN: The other kid was okay. He was just a little bit dazed and confused, but I got my ass kicked pretty darn hard, and wasn’t cool with it.

NICK: And then, because this is like a post-traumatic flashback, the camera pans out and there’s just like a Quentin Tarantino amount of blood everywhere.

STEVEN: Just like a kid on top of me beating the living crap out of my fourth head tail specifically. (laughter) They didn’t like me—They picked on me in all the reindeer games. Okay?

LAURA: Sabos used to have five head tails…

(laughter)

NICK: Oh, please no… Yeah, so the camera pans out. There’s a ton of blood. The older adult Togrutans grow long fangs and smoke starts to go everywhere, and the camera jump cuts back out to Tink standing over this compatriot of yours who is not bleeding so much anymore, but you’re pretty sure it’s because they’re running out of blood to fall out.

HUDSON: “You got blood all over the nice sheets.”

(laughter)

LAURA: “He cannot hear you.”

HUDSON: “Oh, no. I’m just saying this to him anyway.”

LAURA: “Okie. Are you going to, you know, heal him?”

HUDSON: I think on my medical experience… Non-existent. “Sure. I’ll heal him.”

(laughter)

LAURA: Yeah, but you’re smart. You can figure it out.

HUDSON: Yeah, I’m smart. I can figure it out. “It’s basically mechanics, right?”

LAURA: “Sure.”

CAMERON: You hear over the com, “Just picture the body as a machine.”

HUDSON: “Great. Alright, get my toolbox.”

NICK: So, a Medical check for someone who is unconscious is going to be hard difficulty.

STEVEN: Like the fourth head tail.

LAURA: You don’t have Medicine, so it’s just gonna be your Intelligence.

NICK: It’s an Intelligence check. You can flip light side points to make yourself better at this. You can explain why you deserve blue dice.

HUDSON: “I deserve blue dice because I’m Being Brave.” (laughter)

LAURA: Xianna’s like flipping through data pads. “Ooh, that muscle connects to this one,” and like holding up the data pad a little bit. “Okie, so this is how you do it, I think.”

CAMERON: We’re using Technology to assist.

NICK: Okay. The camera’s definitely gonna go over Xianna’s shoulder and this “medical text” that she’s looking at looks a lot like Ikea assembly instructions. It’s just like very cartoony pictures, and in a box on the side there’s a scalpel, and then like an arrow going to the wound with like an X over it.

LAURA: They don’t have scalpels in Star Wars!

NICK: It’s like a space scalpel.

LAURA: It’s those little sticks that just shoot lasers.

NICK: … Oh yeah.

CAMERON: It’s a little baby laser stick.

NICK: It’s like a light saber scalpel.

LAURA & CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: It seals as it cuts, because that’s what you want a scalpel to do.

LAURA: I mean, maybe.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: So, you can get a blue die from Xianna sort of helping.

HUDSON: Yay.

NICK: Yeah, go for it.

HUDSON: Alright.

NICK: Wow, that’s pretty good.

HUDSON: Is it just one success?

CAMERON: Yes…

NICK: Oh, then it’s not very good.

LAURA & CAMERON: One success.

NICK: Okay. You manage to stabilize him. You start using medical supplies, and then half way through you pull out a wrench because you’re more comfortable with it and just start using that to like apply pressure to things, and for some reason it kind of works. So, you’re at negative six now.

STEVEN: Yes.

CAMERON: (laughing nervously) You’re getting there.

LAURA: Xianna just like sees him pulling out the wrench, sighs, walks over and like digs through her pockets, and just shoots him up with two stim packs.

NICK: Okay. So that gets you up to…

LAURA: The first one would be five, the second one would then be four.

NICK: So you’re at three. You’re positive. You wake up.

STEVEN: (gasps and coughs) “Shili…”

LAURA: “You owe me two stim packs!”

STEVEN: “Only two?”

NICK: Three now, right?

LAURA: “No, three! I forgot about the first one.”

STEVEN: “Two stim packs.”

HUDSON: “You owe me your life.”

LAURA: “Three stim packs.”

STEVEN: “Two stim packs.”

LAURA: “Mm… Close enough.”

NICK: So, Sabos is still in pretty bad shape.

STEVEN: “Where are we?”

NICK: I’ll say because it was a hard difficulty your critical wound was also fixed. That’s mostly what Tink was doing. You had a pretty nasty head wound, and maybe a piece of bone kind of out of place in your skull, like a skull fracture, and that’s what he used the wrench to kind of tap back into place. So, you’re in a lot of pain still, but you feel mobile, able to do something gat least.

STEVEN: “More importantly, who’s flying this ship?”

HUDSON: “I’m flying it, but first Sabos-“

LAURA: “N-No… Karma. Karma.”

CAMERON: “That would be me. I’m flying the ship.”

HUDSON: “Oh, currently.”

STEVEN: “Do I just hear that over the com?”

CAMERON: “You just hear it over the coms. Yeah.”

STEVEN: I say loudly, as loud as I can, (through coughs) “I’m the captain now.”

CAMERON: “If that makes you feel better, sweetie. Sure.”

STEVEN: “…Okay.” I pretend to fly, just laying on the table.

NICK: (laughs)

LAURA: “I mean, she is the co-pilot, and we are, you know, in hyperspace. There is not much to do.”

STEVEN: I still have my hands out, like upward on the table, as if I’m grabbing the yolk to fly.

LAURA: “Okie, sure.”

NICK: Around this point, yeah. As you say we’re in hyperspace, Karma, you get the ship out of the little asteroid belt aimed in the right direction and hit the lever, and go flying off. I’m assuming you’re going to Ithor. Right?

CAMERON: Yes.

NICK: Okay. We’re gonna fly to Ithor. So, the ship is going to take a few days to get there. You’re going from the outer rim. Fun fact, Ithor is located in the mid rim, and it’s on the wrong side of the hub from you, so it’s gonna be quite a trip. The good news is it’s very well populated and the routes are very well documented, so it’s pretty easy to get there but it’s not like there’s a lot of shortcuts or anything.
So, you guys have some time, a couple of days. What do you guys do?

LAURA: So, the first time everyone’s all together, Xianna sits down and is like, “Okie. So, what did we learn?”

STEVEN: “Don’t get shot.”

LAURA: “Open the briefcase before the handover.”

STEVEN: “Oh, that too.”

LAURA: “Uh-huh. Everyone? Uh-huh.”

HUDSON: “Uh… Eh..”

STEVEN: “Getting shot is bad.”

HUDSON: “I will agree that I think all of us learned something today.”

CAMERON: “What is the proper protocol if you open the briefcase and it is empty?”

STEVEN: “Put something in it.”

CAMERON: “Do you then just not ever continue, or do you put something else in the briefcase?”

LAURA: “You just don’t deliver it, and then you call up who gave you the briefcase, and you yell at them. A lot. It works sometimes.”

STEVEN: “What happens the other times?”

LAURA: “Uh, the person who gave you the briefcase tries to kill you.”

STEVEN: “Oh, okay.”

CAMERON: “That would be why you’re comming them then, so it’d be more difficult to kill you right then…”

LAURA: “No no no. Not the people you are giving the briefcase to, that would be empty and then they shoot you. The person that gave you the briefcase to give.”

CAMERON: “Yes, you then com them, and they try to kill you eventually, but you’re not there because you commed them, so they have to track you down.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

CAMERON: “Okay.”

LAURA: “I mean, is slightly better than the people that are physically there with you shooting you. It gives you more time.”

CAMERON: “Okay. I’m much more comfortable with the people coming after me scenario of that. I know how to deal with that.”

NICK: Also, where is this scene happening? Are you all in the hot tub?

LAURA: Yes.

CAMERON: (laughing) Yes…

HUDSON: Yeah.

LAURA: Definitely in the hot tub. I don’t know if anyone else is in the hot tub. Xianna is in the hot tub.

HUDSON: I think we left Sabos in the medical area and took a dip.

LAURA: There’s like chairs he can be…

STEVEN: I can limp.

NICK: He’s got like his feet in, but he doesn’t want to get blood into all the hot water, so he’s just—

STEVEN: Open wounds, and hot water, and infections, yeah.

NICK: He’s just sitting with his feet in the hot tub, yeah.

STEVEN: And one head tail. Every now and then I dip one head tail.

CAMERON: Oh, gross. “Okay, next steps. We need to come up with a plan for this blockade.”

LAURA: “We should probably try to fake our credentials.”

STEVEN: “Or you can say you have an injured Togruta.”

CAMERON: “Honestly, I don’t think they’d care.”

LAURA: “Um, it is the Empire. They will not care.”

STEVEN: “They might know this injured Togruta.”

LAURA: “And then we would all be arrested.”

CAMERON: “Yeah. I don’t understand how that’s helpful.”

STEVEN: “You could turn in the injured Togruta.” (coughs)

CAMERON: “Don’t think I haven’t considered it.”

STEVEN: (laughs)

LAURA: “I mean, do you know how much you are worth?”

STEVEN: (nervous, stumbling) “Negative… really…”

CAMERON: “I can look it up.”

NICK: You can look it up, actually. That’s a thing you know.

LAURA: (gasps)

CAMERON: (giggles)

LAURA: Can we look up what everyone is worth?

NICK: Sure. Yeah, we can do that. We’ll say that the Afternoon Delight has a self-updating holo-net uplink, so whenever you’re parked not in hyperspace it pulls certain websites for info. So, it does that. You’re looking at like cached websites off of Google.
One of them is Bounty Boards. That makes a lot of sense. You have the credentials for it. It’s like being a notary – when you’re a bounty hunter you get certain rights and privileges as afforded your positon. So, you can just look it up, honestly. If you were trying to find information on somebody you didn’t already know or help track someone down with the info, it would probably be either a Computers or Skullduggery. Probably Computers, honestly.

LAURA: My guess is that there’s like… I’m thinking of the MSI system where you can put in like, I want a 2,000 square foot house with three bedrooms. They have that for bounties where you can like put in their species, and then you put in like what age range you think they are, and like identifying marks, and then it pulls up a list of all the people who match that so you can try and find who you were getting.

CAMERON: I also probably have the reverse, like, I’m currently located on Ithor. What bounties are near me? It’s like the Restaurants Near Me function in Google Maps.

LAURA: You move your little dot around, and you’re like, Bounties Near Me!

CAMERON: Five mile radius.

STEVEN: Uh, I can be found under fourth head tail.

CAMERON: No, but if like you’re searching for a specific name…

NICK: So, if you pull up Sabos, he is a pretty small fish. You’ll remember he owes the Empire like a 150,000 Credits which in the grand scheme of things isn’t a ton especially since the person he owes that to doesn’t really want it getting out. So, he has the Imperial equivalent of a parking ticket. He has like, Disturbing the Peace and Racketeering, which—

CAMERON: Boring.

NICK: For the Star Wars universe is Most people. So, it’s like a 2,000 Credit bounty.

STEVEN: (laughs)

NICK: It’s not that much. He is in the system, but there’s no picture of him and most of the stuff is blank. His name, Sabos Niks is in there. The way the system works it has different tiers of notoriety and stuff, so one of the things it’ll do is the names will get linked through the network for like known aliases and stuff like that so they’re more likely to show up in the search. I gotta be careful making up computer shit with who I’m sitting at the table with, but we’re gonna say this is how it works. The more notorious they are, the more important they are, the more likely they’ll pop up on related searches. ‘Those who hunted Sabos Niks also hunted…’

(giggling)

Sabos has no connections, it’s just him, so unless somebody specifically already had him or was looking for him, which they probably wouldn’t because he’s pretty cheap, he’s not gonna show up. So, he’s not very notorious, it’s unlikely people are gonna pull him on a related search, he’s not worth very much, but the Empire knows who he is.

CAMERON: Okay. I’m gonna look up everybody else too, (laughs) since I’m in here.

LAURA: Once she looks up Sabos, Xianna starts bouncing. “Ooh, ooh! Look me up! I want to see.”

LAURA & CAMERON: ‘Me next! Me next!’ (giggles)

NICK: Okay.

LAURA: “You will want to search for Xianna’fan…”

CAMERON: Okay.”

LAURA: “…and we will go from there!”

NICK: Alright. You pull up Xianna, and there’s a mugshot photo of her. Ooh, what would the background on an Imperial mugshot be?

HUDSON: Laura already drew it.

LAURA: Well, I just drew a very standard…

NICK: Yeah.

LAURA: My guess is it would be either white, a steel blue, or just kind of a mat gray metal.

NICK: Yeah, so I think you’re right. It’s probably like a blue steel background, because this happened when you got arrested at a local area. It’s not like in a major holding facility. It’s someone’s backwoods jail kind of situation. The picture is you smiling and making the peace sign at the camera, and you look absolutely unworried, absolutely unphased.

LAURA: “I do not remember which one that was…”

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: Can I look up where that mugshot came from, specifically?

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: I wanna know which one of her arrests was that mugshot.

LAURA: Xianna’s just sitting there mumbling to herself. “That definitely was not the doorway incident. Was that… I think maybe that was just standard burglary. Huh…”

NICK: So Laura, this particular one, kind of like a backwoods arrest, probably one of your earlier ones…

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: What happened with Xianna? Where was the photo taken?

LAURA: I think it was just a local station, a trooper outpost. I think what I had tried to do was seduce some low-level politician, sneak into their house, and steal goods and information to then later sell, and I probably just tripped an alarm. It was probably a silent alarm and I didn’t realize it, and then also the person came home, and it was just like, “Oh, um, hello. I thought you would be gone. Uh… Do you want pancakes?”

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: We get another shot from the flashback of you doing something, getting caught, and then looking up and making eye contact with a pretty obvious security camera and making the exact same face that happened in your prologue where you realize you’ve been made and now you just have to figure out what to do about it.
Okay, so, where was that though?

LAURA: Um…

NICK: Pick a planet, any planet.

LAURA: Corellia.

NICK: Corellia? You spent a lot of time bouncing around there?

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. If that’s the case, then it actually says on the website Coresec sub files on it, and you recognize that steel background. It’s very distinctive of small Corellian holding patterns. It’s like a drunk tank, basically, but they use it for not just drunk people. It’s people who are in holding until they post their very small bail or their court date happens. There’s that, but under the picture there’s a pretty long list of misdemeanors, solicitation, because you figured out it was easier to get busted for solicitation and pretend you were being a prostitute than what you were actually doing, which was trying to rob people.

LAURA: Oh, yeah. Xianna’s definitely figured that out. ‘Ohh, if they think I’m a prostitute they just let me go… They usually don’t even check my pockets…’

NICK: Yup. So there’s a lot of solicitation things. You see that there is some burglary, but it all seems to be minor theft, and then there’s a lot of alleged things or skipped bails or warrants out in various places. The list is a little hard to read. It’s got—not the same thing as Sabos where nothing’s linked, but it’s obvious that the system’s a little messed up because a bunch of it is CorSec but then there’s some Imperial stuff and those systems don’t mesh real well, so whoever was looking for her would have some problems. She’s like a 5,000 Credit bounty. It’s solid.

CAMERON: “Hey, you’re worth more than Sabos.”

STEVEN: When we discover that I say, “Oh, you’re a bad girl?”

LAURA: (exasperated laughs)

STEVEN: “You like bad boys?”

LAURA: Xianna’s just like, “I will shoot you.”

STEVEN: (laughs) “That’s what the thing said.”

HUDSON: “Look me up!”

(laughter)

CAMERON: Okay. I look up Tink.

NICK: Tink’s not in there, at all.

HUDSON: I knew it.

NICK: What’s Tink’s holo-net alias?

LAURA: “Do you have any fake names?”

HUDSON: “StarDestroyer1.”

(laughter)

LAURA: “Yes. Look up StarDestroyer1!”

NICK: So, StarDestroyer1, it looks like a default Facebook profile. It’s got just the outline picture silhouette. It says StarDestroyer1, it says Alleged Low-Level Slicer, and that’s it. It says Insert Allegations Here, Insert Warrants Here, like it’s all mostly blanked out. So, he’s either an amazing slicer who’s cracked the CorSec and Imperial systems, or he’s done not very much and he’s not in there, and it’s hard to tell.

LAURA: It could be either one. (gasps) “Karma! Are you worth anything?”

CAMERON: “I don’t think so.”

LAURA: “Look it up!”

CAMERON: I look myself up.

NICK: Yeah, so you have a full profile, but it’s all accolades. You’re not wanted for anything. There were a couple of removed threats. There are some dismissed allegations that you can see like grayed out with lines through them, and it’s some violence charges that got thrown out, some disturbing the peace charges that got thrown out, things that you may have collected as a bounty hunter that you either got dismissed or got overturned due to lack of evidence, but no, you’re squeaky clean. It actually links to another database which is of bounty hunters, and your profile there—it looks like LinkedIn. It’s all like, pretty, and it’s like, Qualifications, Known Associates, and there’s little pictures of your two twin sons below yours in the contacts thing. The weird thing if you are looking over Karma’s shoulder is the Known Associates tab maxes out. It just keeps going, way past, it just says 99+ and it runs out.

CAMERON: And then if you look at the Friend Requests it’s like also maxed out.

HUDSON: What a socialite.

CAMERON: But I can’t add more people to my profile, so. (laughs)

NICK: Yeah. Well, it’s not like the bounty hunter social media. That would be… Oh. Bounty hunter social media pun, guys?

LAURA: BountyBook.

NICK: FaceBounty?

LAURA: Mm… My Bounty.

NICK: … SpaceBase. SpaceHunt.

HUDSON: iBounty.

NICK: Egh, that just sounds like electronic paper towels.

LAURA: HuntersOnly.

(laughter)

NICK: HuntersOnly.com, that’s it!

STEVEN: That’s what it is.

LAURA: Great.

NICK: HuntersOnly.com is a different thing. This is just the Imperial records thing, so it has basically—you’ve maxed out its thing. If you go to HuntersOnly.com, which you do have a profile—you don’t look at it very much, but a lot of people are really into it. I think the twins made you a profile at one point.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: That one is just totally full of stuff. There’s a bunch of people that you don’t even know that wanna be friends with you. That one’s really maxed out. But as far as this one, you just have a lot of known associates in the bounty hunting world.

LAURA: Going back to mine, how many like known aliases were listed on mine?

NICK: We’ll say six known aliases. What were they, Laura?

LAURA: Oh, and I have to write them down. Okay.

CAMERON: So we know not to use them.

LAURA: So I know, yeah, what they are.

HUDSON: Chris Angel.

NICK: Felicia Day.

HUDSON: Kate Bush.

LAURA: Yeah, there’s Felicia…

CAMERON: I feel like Xianna only ever gives first names.

LAURA: Yeah. There’s like, and it’s like, with a P-H.

STEVEN: Ooh.

NICK & CAMERON: Ahh.

LAURA: P-H-T-I-F-F. (giggles)

CAMERON: (laughing) Oh, that’s not what I was thinking it was.

NICK: ‘Pa-tiff’

LAURA: No, no, it’s T-I-P-H Tiff, there’s Roxie, Sion with an S, ooh the Lia would probably have a last name.

HUDSON: Alia Keys. (laughter) That makes me feel weird, not saying the name right.

STEVEN: Me too.

LAURA: I’m trying to think of the Twi’lek last names. There’s Lia Fortuna.

NICK: That works.

LAURA: And…

CAMERON: Oh yeah. Is Serene listed?

LAURA: Serene probably wouldn’t be.

CAMERON: I’m just wondering if Falx updated the entries.

LAURA: Ooh. Yeah.

NICK: Uh, no.

CAMERON: Or if he just knew it was a purple Twi’lek and didn’t specifically know it was Xianna.

NICK: Mmm…

CAMERON: Because I’m assuming she didn’t give her real name to the other guy either.

NICK: So I’ll say Serene is not listed on here. That’s all I’ll say about that.

CAMERON: Okay. Don’t use that one either. (laughs)

NICK: I’m going to avoid talking about my NPCs without them being in the room.

LAURA: And then the last one is Moa’tel.

NICK: Moa’tel.

LAURA: Yes.

CAMERON: Mo-tel.

NICK: Tell me Moa.

HUDSON: Like where you take your clients?

CAMERON: Yeah, motel.

HUDSON: To the motel?

NICK: Hotel. Holiday Inn.

(snickers)

LAURA: And then, how many arrests do you say are on there? Because I know I’ve been arrested a number of times, but how many do you think?

NICK: I think you’ve probably been arrested a few times, a handful of times. This particular database doesn’t register that. It’s only like the legal proceedings and stuff. So, that is not on there. You did say earlier that you’ve been arrested at least four times.

LAURA: At least.

NICK: At least. And the first planet that you all went to had been one of them, so that’s not a great sign.

LAURA: Eh.

STEVEN & CAMERON: (giggles)

LAURA: It’ll be fine.

HUDSON: “So, I have an idea for us getting through the barrier.”

CAMERON: “Go for it.”

HUDSON: “Alright. I think I can rig some credentials and send out a distress signal acting like this is from a very important vessel and that we have a high ranking official that we’ll disguise Sabos as, and he’ll be you know injured and looking in bad shape, and they’ll let us through so that we can immediately get him to the medical area, but then as we’re getting taken to the medical area we’ll overpower them and then get into the ship deeper.”

CAMERON: “We’re not trying to get into the ship. We’re trying to get to the planet.”

HUDSON: “Oh, sorry.”

CAMERON: “We just need to get past the blockade.”

LAURA: “So, similar concept. We say we are a political transport ship, and trying to get to the planet, and we have fake credentials.”

HUDSON: “Yes.”

STEVEN: “I am an ambassador.”

LAURA: “I don’t think that is true, but…”

HUDSON: He plays one on TV.

STEVEN: “It’s laminated, damn it.”

CAMERON: “We also learned that Osaron does not have the best relationship with the Empire at the moment.”

STEVEN: “Ehhh.”

CAMERON: “You are listed as having a bounty. Your badge does nothing for you right now.”

STEVEN: “Ehhh.”

LAURA: “I also have had laminated badges before. They can be faked.”

STEVEN: “We made this on Osaron.”

CAMERON: “Goodness.”

STEVEN: (laughs)

CAMERON: “Things I could help you with, Tink, on the     creating fake credentials and getting through… I have the low clearance code cylinder from Duelson, and then he also told us that the low frequencies are easier to sneak through than the high.”

HUDSON: “Alright. I can program that.” I program that.

CAMERON: (laughs) I hand over the code cylinder.

NICK: Okay, so, while you’re flying to Ithor you’re going to try to forge low class Imperial credentials. That’s what you’re trying to do?

CAMERON & HUDSON: Yes.

CAMERON: If you could then make it so that we don’t show up on their scanners too, that would be better, but having the credentials in place in case we don’t make it through…

HUDSON: Okay. I try the credentials first.

NICK: Okay. For the credentials it’s going to be hard. You can have a blue die because you know about the low frequency thing. You can upgrade one die because you have the code cylinder to work off of. You also have two black die, because the last time you tried to hack a Star Destroyer you left your signature, StarDestroyer1, over a bunch of stuff. Or, I think you put ‘leet hacker.’

HUDSON: I have Bypass Security. Remove a black die rank from checks made to disable a security device or open a security door. Oh, no. Per rank of code breaker—I don’t do codebreaker right now. I can reroll if I want.

NICK: Cool. Great. What’s that, once per session?

HUDSON: yes, once per session.

CAMERON: You need two black dice.

HUDSON: Four successes, two threats.

NICK: Okay. Your threats are gonna get spent. You are always pretty careful when you’re forging stuff. You pretty much do the forgery, go back and redo it, and then double check everything. So, you’re able to get something made that avoids activating that little boobytrap about they know what your signature is. The threats are you don’t figure out that signature is in their database, so you include it. The stuff is gonna work, you got four successes, it’s solid. The credentials themselves will not be suspect in any way, but you’re still gonna have this issue the next time you try to hack a Star Destroyer. They know there’s someone who’s been able to get through their system.

HUDSON: Yeah.

NICK: So, yeah. You make some solid ass ship credentials for like Petty navy Officer, I don’t know. What do you name your guy?

HUDSON: George Jetson.

NICK: George Jetson. (laughter) Petty navy Officer George Jetson gets made. Yeah. You got it, it’s got a picture on it. It’s actually a picture of Sabos, but a human Sabos.

HUDSON: Eww.

NICK: Like, the head tails are gone, and you photoshopped it around a little bit, so it looks pretty believable as long as they don’t like see Sabos in person. So, you have got some credentials.

HUDSON: Mm-hmm. Alright! I high-five Karma.

CAMERON: Yeah!

LAURA: Nice.

STEVEN: “I make a good Imperial. … Oh, shit, uh—(garbled speech)

CAMERON: “Can you turn off our camera so that when we get hailed it’s voice only from our side?”

HUDSON: “Yeah. I can make it break accidentally.”

CAMERON: “Yeah.”

LAURA: “None of us are human.”

CAMERON: “Yeah. If they see any of us this isn’t gonna work.”

HUDSON: I break the camera.

NICK: Oh, you just break it?

LAURA: “No, you don’t have to break it!”

CAMERON: I wanted you to like remove the wire so that we can—(laughter)

HUDSON: “It’s now too late. The camera’s broken.”

LAURA: “You just had to disable it. Ugh.”

NICK: So, Karma and Tink are standing up front, you have that conversation. You go, oh yeah, and take out a wrench and go whack whack whack, and punch a little hole in the dashboard.

CAMERON: (sighs) Okay…

STEVEN: That makes me twitch a little bit when I see him take out the wrench, and I don’t really know why.

HUDSON: The blood loss.

STEVEN: Yeah, you know, the head fixing wrench.

CAMERON: “Alright. Then do we wanna try and set us up to not show up on scans?”

HUDSON: “I’ll go for it.” I go for it.

NICK: Alright. How are you trying to not show up on scans? What exactly are you trying to do? Normally you would do that with a highly specialized stealth suite that is military only and extremely expensive.

HUDSON: Actually, we don’t want to do that, because that’s actually suspicious if we’re acting like we’re a real ship, like a real envoy.

NICK: That’s true.

HUDSON: So, I don’t do that.

NICK: That would be like trying to sneak into somewhere and then when they get there be like, oh hi, I’m your cousin, nice to see you.

CAMERON: Oh, did we have that turned on? Whoops.

NICK: Yeah. I mean, you could pull it off, it would just be difficult.

STEVEN: Did we the petty officer have that device on the ship? Yeah, that’s normal I’m sure.

NICK: Yeah, you’d be able to talk your way through it, it just wouldn’t be easy. So, cool. You guys are set up, and you have a way to try to spoof your way past the blockade and get down to planet, and that’s where we’ll end the episode.

(all make dramatic noises)

## Outro

CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show please consider logging into iTunes and giving us a five-star review. Five-star reviews will help new listeners to find the show.

Xianna’fan is played by Laura Penrod. She can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.

Tink is played by Hudson Jameson and he can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.

Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.

Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet.

Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.

Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.

Additional music by James Gunter.

Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tabletop_squad. For real! We’re real people and we wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.

Xianna has used Corellian Coffee to get through many tough mornings on the ship. First mentioned in Episode 14, there are two ways to make this drink.

The Laura Way and the Xianna Way.

Corellian Coffee in a clear mug, with ingredients in the background

Corellian Coffee

The Laura Way is to use freshly brewed French Press coffee, a Scotch whiskey, some Irish cream, a few dashes of chocolate bitters, and garnished with whipped cream.

The Xianna Way is to use whatever coffee is there (probably from yesterday), and then add whatever alcohol is closest (from a flask, whatever mini bottles are laying around the kitchen, or an open bottle picked up off the floor). The Afternoon Delight does seem to have a decent stock of Kenobi’s Irish Cream, so that is a must. Then drink until you can’t feel your emotions anymore.

We recommend the Laura Way. For many reasons.

Corellian Coffee in a clear mug with whipped cream. ingredients in background

Laura’s Corellian Coffee

Correllian Coffee [serves 1]

1½ ounce Irish whiskey
1 ounce Irish cream liqueur (“Kenobi’s Irish Cream”)
8 ounces coffee, hot
3 dashes Aztec chocolate bitters (optional )
Garnish: whipped cream

Add ingredients to a warm mug. Stir to combine. Garnish.

top down view of whipped cream swirl

Look at that swirl

Word document download: Episode 7 Shootout At the Space Rock Corral

PDF download: Episode 7 Shootout At the Space Rock Corral

Read in browser:

Tabletop Squadron Transcript

Season 1 Episode 7: “Shootout At The Space Rock Corral”

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

Note – Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in an accent. Most of her soft I’s sound like “ee,” and most of her TH’s sound like Z’s. Example: “this and that” = “zees and zat”

## Intro

NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your Game Master. Every other Thursday our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, a fringer, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy, helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

We return this week to our regularly scheduled programming. Thanks for sticking with us during our Jedi Adventures.

I have a big announcement. We are looking for some constructive feedback, and have made a short two minute survey. There’s a link in the notes for the episode and on our Twitter. If you’ve listened to the show, which you are, swing by and let us know how we’re doing. This is your chance to shape the media you listen to, and everything’s anonymous, so no pressure.

I want to thank HungryMan174 for their iTunes review. You are a shining star against the dark tyranny of us… not having enough iTunes reviews. Remember everyone, if you get to 20 iTunes reviews we’ll be releasing a flashback starring Karma and her twin boys. It was a blast to record and we want to share it, so tell your friends to review the show.

Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy.

##

NICK: Hello everybody, and welcome to Episode 7 of Tabletop Squadron. Welcome back. We’ve been doing this for quite a while now. We’re gonna go around the table, and everybody introduce yourselves and say who you are playing, starting with Steven.

STEVEN: Hi, I’m Steven.

NICK: Hi Steven.

STEVEN: Hi Nick. I’m playing—

NICK: How are you?

STEVEN: … Now I’m super confused. I am both playing Sabos good doing well who’s a Togruta pretty well and I haven’t spent any experience. I’m okay.

(laughter)

NICK: Great. Cool. (laughing) And next up, we have Hudson.

HUDSON: Hi Nick. I’m Hudson, and I’m playing a Gigoran named Tink.

NICK: Good for you.

HUDSON: Good for me.

NICK: We’re all very proud.

HUDSON: Thank you.

NICK: And, Cameron.

CAMERON: Hello.

NICK: Hi!

CAMERON: I’m Cameron.

NICK: Good to meet you.

CAMERON: (laughs) Right. I’m playing Karma, the Nautolan bounty hunter.

NICK: Yay.

LAURA: Have you two not met before?

CAMERON: No.

NICK: This is the first time. The previous episodes was a different name.

LAURA: Wow, that wedding must have been really awkward.

CAMERON: Yeah, it was an arranged marriage. I regret it.

STEVEN: Nick, meet my friend Cameron.

NICK: Oh, hi. Good to see you.

CAMERON: I’m new here. I just came with Steven.

NICK: Oh boy. I’m gonna have to delete all of this.

(laughter)

NICK: Last up, we have Laura.

LAURA: Hi, I’m Laura, and I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler.

NICK: Horray. Good job being professional and getting through it without getting distra—

LAURA: Dicks!

(laughter)

NICK: Great. Off to a great start.

LAURA: Leave, that, in.

NICK: It’s gonna be in.

STEVEN: That’s what she said—Ohh.

(groans)

LAURA: Don’t leave that in.

HUDSON: Leave that one in too.

LAURA: That’s also what she said. All of it.

CAMERON: Who are you, Nick?

NICK: Oh, I’m Nick. I’m the GM. I do everybody else.

STEVEN: Have you met Cameron?

NICK: Oh, hey Cameron, good to meet you.

CAMERON: (giggling) Hi! It’s nice to meet you. Weird, we have the same last name.

NICK: Oh yeah.

STEVEN: That’s awkward.

NICK: Okay. Well, we have now established that we are all friends who know each other, so now we can get started in Star Wars. And, by getting started in Star Wars, of course I mean the Destiny Roll.

STEVEN: Ah yes, destiny.

NICK: Ah-ha. A great RPG shooter.

CAMERON: Heyyy.

LAURA: Two light side points! Ha-ha.

STEVEN: Two dark side.

HUDSON: Two dark side points from me.

CAMERON: Get your shit together.

HUDSON: I’m sorry!

STEVEN: Ooh, another light side point.

CAMERON: One dark side.

HUDSON: And, so it’s even.

STEVEN: Yep, three light side, three dark side.

STEVEN: Better than last game.

LAURA: Yes.

CAMERON: Yes, much better than last.

NICK: We are neutral, which is appropriate for where we’re starting.
If you remember, when we last left off you finally got off of Unroola Dawn after killing some Imperial officers, learning some interesting facts about Xianna’s criminal past and Sabos’s also criminal past.

STEVEN: Just inept.

NICK: Inept past, we’ll go with that. You made a decision to smuggle more than just the things you originally had come to procure, and you got off of the planet. That’s where we’re gonna start this time. You’ll remember that you got a notification that there was somebody in the holo-theater. There was a transmission coming in, and you all went to the holo-theater, and you saw a sentinel sitting down. A hologram of sentinel, not real sentinel, that would be weird. He says, “Alright, so you managed to make the deal. Now it seems like we’ve got a lot to talk about.” Then, we’re gonna kick it off.
Sentinel starts off without preamble. He makes eye contact with all of you which is impressive because you’re spread out pretty far. He is sitting down, wearing a brown kind of shapeless robe. He has salt and pepper hair slicked back. He looks older, he looks very much in control, and he says, “You are going to deliver this artifact to the Oracle of the Ithorians on Ithor. You will be able to contact them when you get on the surface. Tell them you have a gift from an old friend, and that the friend assures him the light will never go out from the universe. The Oracle’s inner circle will know what that means, but you’ll need to get to them to explain. However, that’s the easy part. Ithor is under an Imperial blockade, a large one. The flagship for the armada is a super star destroyer, the Vengeance. You will need to find some way to get to the surface past the blockade. You’re gonna need stealth or some form of trickery. I’ll leave that solution up to you. Once down on the planet, deliver the Stone Breaker to the Oracle and find the shop called The Gooberfish nearby. There will be a contact there. Use the same passphrase. He will give you instructions on the last leg of the mission. After that, you will be paid, with potentially more contracts afterwards. Any questions?”

LAURA: “Um, is there a timeframe for this delivery?”

NICK: “Every minute that you delay more Ithors are squashed under the Imperial boot, so immediately.

LAURA: “Oh, so more like an existential timeframe, not like it will expire or anything like that. Not saying that we are not going to be quick and professional with our delivery, just you know, in case we have to make any pit stops along the way.”

NICK: “You will need to make a pit stop if you’re picking up any technology to skip past the blockade.”

STEVEN: “Yes.”

NICK: “Besides that you should be headed there right away. We don’t know how much longer this blockade will last until they do ground infiltration. Any minute you delay is an extreme risk.”

LAURA: “Yeah… Okay.” What was the passphrase again?

CAMERON: The light will never go out in the universe.
It’s the what oracle?

NICK: His title is The Oracle, yeah, on Ithor.

HUDSON: I’m going to whisper, “But wait, aren’t we supposed to do that other job first?”

STEVEN: “No.”

NICK: Roll me a Force die please.

CAMERON & TINK: Two light side.

NICK: Yeah. You were very subtle. Everyone in the room hears, and the holo-projector does not pick that up.

LAURA: Xianna gives him like a little jab in the side. It’s probably like more your hip because of height, but just like a, “Shh.”

HUDSON: “Ow.”

(laughter)

LAURA: And just keeps looking at him like, “Uh-huh, yes. A speedy delivery. Uh-huh. Got it.”

NICK: “Any other questions?”

CAMERON: “So, we’re delivering the Stone Breaker to the Oracle…”

NICK: “Yes.”

CAMERON: “Ithorian lives may be lost…”

NICK: “Many.”

LAURA: “I mean, in a general sense, there is a blockade.”

CAMERON: “Like, it normally happens with Imperial blockades.”

LAURA: “Many planets are under Imperial blockade. Just saying.”

NICK: “I feel like I should mention that they’re periodically bombarding communities.”

LAURA: “Really? Really?!”

CAMERON: “Oh, see, that does explain the deaths.”

LAURA: “You’re going to tell me, a Twi’lek, about periodic bombardments of a planet?”

NICK: “Clearly you may have had some experience on Ryloth of similar tactics, but if you’re planning on doing some sort of side trip I would remind you that thousands of people  could be obliterated in laser fire at any moment.”

STEVEN: “Just enough to get past the blockade.”

NICK: “Enough what?”

STEVEN: “Just enough side trip to get past the blockade.”

NICK: “Yeah, that would be a good recommendation, either come up with some sort of plan to circumvent their technology, or some sort of stealth, or some sort of ruse. I don’t know. That’s why I hired you all.”

LAURA: “We’ll figure it out.”

CAMERON: “Do you have any nifty things on your ship?”

NICK: “Um, not really.”

CAMERON: “Cool. Just wondering.”

NICK: “You may find with some careful searching that there are some great places to hide things,” and he winks into the camera.

LAURA: “Uh-huh. Yes. I figured it out already.”

NICK: “Oh, well, yeah. That’s pretty much it, smugglers compartments.”

CAMERON: “Cool. Alright, just checking.”

LAURA: “Is there any more alcohol?”

NICK: “I’m surprised that that’s your prior—Actually, I’m not surprised that that’s your priority. You can restock, I suppose, but the wet bar is pretty much it.”

LAURA: “Eh, okay.”

NICK: Well, you’ll remember, you haven’t drank it all. There’s several half bottles still in there.

LAURA: No, I know, but I remember you saying there’s just kind of like weirdly basic stuff.

NICK: Well, so, it was a full bar, but a lot of it is empty and what’s left is like quarter bottles, so it was on a long party trip and didn’t get restocked before you took it off.

LAURA: Xianna kind of like holds her hand up and she’s like, “Ooh, are there any flags out for this ship? Like, do we need to get false credentials specifically for this ship?”

NICK: “The Afternoon Delight is not the original name of the ship.”

LAURA: “I mean, that does not matter, but…”

NICK: “It’s a clean identity. It’s a clean registration.”

CAMERON: “Okay.”

LAURA: “Got it.”

NICK: “So you should be fine there, although if you can find some sort of registration that would let you pass an Imperial blockade, that could be one way to do it.”

CAMERON: “Who is it registered to?”

NICK: “Shell corporations, nothing that fancy.”

CAMERON: “Okay. Just wondering, in case that comes up.”

NICK: (goofily) “Uh, it’s registered to Star Corp.”

CAMERON: “Cool. Thank you.”

NICK: “Anything else?”

CAMERON: “At The Gooberfish, do we just walk in and tell the bartender the passphrase, or is there a particular person we should be on the lookout for, or is it just walk into the bar and scream at the top of our lungs and see if anyone responds?”

NICK: “Haven’t you done covert exchanges before? You’ll know.”

LAURA: “I got this.”

CAMERON: “I’m normally dealing with law enforcement officials.”

NICK: “So you’ll know.”

STEVEN: (laughs)

LAURA: Xianna’s just kind of shaking her head. “I got this. We will be fine. Probably.”

NICK: “Something tells me that you’ll recognize the contact. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

CAMERON: “Okay.”

LAURA: “It’s always good when they say that.” (giggles)

NICK: “Absolutely. Well, if there’s no more questions…” The feed starts to get kind of staticky, and you think you maybe hear blaster fire, and it cuts out.

LAURA: Xianna’s like “Okay byeee.”

NICK: And sentinel is gone.

HUDSON: “That was weird.”

STEVEN: “This is a wonderful ship.”

NICK: As you say that, the lights dim up automatically to a comfortable level, because they had dimmed once the holo-call started.

LAURA: Nice.

STEVEN: Yesss.

LAURA: “Okay. So, we need to deliver the briefcase very quickly, so no shenanigans from any of you, and by any of you I think you two know who you are.”

HUDSON: “I get the feeling that Sabos doesn’t know the definition of shenanigans.”

CAMERON: “He seems very good at them.”

HUDSON: “Yeah, I know. He’s just blissfully unaware.”

STEVEN: “I’m just gonna fly us there.”

LAURA: “Also, can we have a, how you say, team meeting for a moment? Sabos, are you actually a politician, or are you some sort of a con artist?”

STEVEN: “What’s the difference?”

(Vocal drums crashing noises, “ba-dum-tss”)

(laughter)

LAURA: Xianna sighs. “Well, for one, a politician sticks around and actually occasionally accomplishes things and continues using the same name. A con artist hits and runs. So, you changed your name, you don’t use your real name.”

STEVEN: “Oh, definitely politician.”

LAURA: “Like, if you noticed I gave a fake name on the planet.”

STEVEN: “Oh.”

LAURA: “You do not have to keep calling me Serene anymore. that was a fake name.”

STEVEN: “Oh. Yeah, no. I’m…”

LAURA: “So you are a regular politician, just very bad?”

STEVEN: “I mean, it depends on what you mean regular. Osaron isn’t necessarily a recognized colony.”

CAMERON: (sighs) “Oh my gosh.”

LAURA: “So, where did all that money go? What did he say, a hundred thousand something credits?”

CAMERON: “A hundred thousand credits.”

STEVEN: “I mean, Osaron, my home planet, my new home planet…”

CAMERON: “Yep, we get it.”

STEVEN: “Osaron …”

CAMERON: “Uh-huh.”

LAURA: “So the credits where?”

STEVEN: “Well, it was a very underdeveloped planet that we took over, and we used the Imperial credits to—“

LAURA: “Wait wait wait, are you colonialists? Not like you are making colonies, but like you are kicking out indigenous peoples?”

STEVEN: “Oh, there were no indigenous peoples that we encountered.”

LAURA: (reluctantly) “Okay… I mean—“

STEVEN: “Yup. We never encountered any indigenous Osa—I mean… There’s no indigenous people on Osaron.”

LAURA: “Huh…”

HUDSON: “Hmm…”

LAURA: “Okay then.”

CAMERON: “Is there really?” (laughs)

STEVEN: Everything’s fine.

NICK: I feel like this calls for a Deception check.

LAURA, CAMERON & HUDSON: Yeaaah.

STEVEN: Sure.

LAURA: What’s Xianna’s Perception?

STEVEN: I have wonderful Deception.

LAURA: My Perception, that would be three purple, one red.

NICK: What’s Karma’s Perception?

CAMERON: I’ve got a red and two purple.

NICK: Tink, are you paying attention to their conversation at all?

HUDSON: Yeah, I’m just kind of sighing.

CAMERON: How many Perception do you have?

NICK: Okay. What’s your Perception score?

HUDSON: Oh, Perception would be two.

STEVEN: Perfect. Yeah, this is fine.

CAMERON: So four total, two red, two purple.

NICK: Yeah, because you’re lying to all of them.

STEVEN: Sure. Yeah, that’s cool.

NICK: Two red, two purple.

STEVEN: That’s cool.

LAURA: Okay yeah, because his cunning is only a two.

NICK: You can flip a dark side point to upgrade Sabos’s roll.

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: Getting a little loose with the rules.

EVERYONE: Ooooh.

STEVEN: Not much going.

CAMERON: Two failures, a threat, and a despair.

HUDSON: We are about to throw you out of the ship.

(laughter)

CAMERON: We found a hole we can use!

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Oh yeah. It’s pretty skinny. Eh, whatever.

CAMERON: One head tail at a time.

LAURA: I mean, yeah. One body part goes down, and yeah.

NICK: I think you’ve just found the subtitle for the show.

LAURA & CAMERON: One head tail at a time.

NICK: Tabletop Squadron: One Head Tail At A Time.
Okay, so the way this is gonna play out with the failures and the despair especially, everyone stares at you looking extremely nonplused, and you get real nervous, and you’re gonna say exactly what happened on Osaron here.

STEVEN: Oh, sure. “You see, we Togrutas that had to leave Shili for absolutely no reason at all had nothing to do with, you know, not being contributing members of—never mind—for absolutely no reason at all had to find a new place to live, and you know, we were just astrogating through the galaxy as one might say, and we came upon this.. well, this planet that was clear had something happen to it. So, we decided to investigate and land there, and yeah, sure enough the Empire just finished like, you know, Impericalling the planet. There was a couple left, and you know we ran the couple of Storm Troopers that were still left out, and just settled here. And uh, you know, there might’ve been some indigenous people, you know, with the Empire. As it turns out, when you kind of squat on a planet after the Empire done, you know, Empire’d it, (laughter) they start to think you might owe them for something. But it’s a great planet now, great planet, great flora, great fauna, good place for a Togruta to raise their young.”

(laughter)

LAURA: Um… Huh.

NICK: So at this point Sabos is like streaming sweat and looking extremely nervous, and wringing his hands.

STEVEN: And my head tails.

LAURA: “Huh… I do not like you.”

STEVEN: “I mean, we needed somewhere to go.”

CAMERON: “I still don’t understand why you didn’t pay the Empire back if you’re going to be stupid enough to make deals with them.”

STEVEN: “We just didn’t have any money. It was expensive.”

CAMERON: “Well, yeah.”

LAURA: “Did you not have some sort of trade?”

STEVEN: “Like I said, it was a very underdeveloped planet.”

CAMERON: “You keep telling us that you’re an ambassador who is trying to set up trade routes.”

STEVEN: “Indeed.”

CAMERON: “If you have nothing to trade—“

STEVEN: “Correct.”

CAMERON: “—what are you doing?”

STEVEN: “Getting things to us.” (laughing) “It’s more of a one-sided trade.”

LAURA: “And you keep saying underdeveloped planet.”

STEVEN: “Indeed.”

LAURA: “I get that the planet was underdeveloped before you arrived, but Togrutans as a people have technologies, because you know you flew there in your space ships.”

STEVEN: “And we brought these technologies to the people of the planet.”

CAMERON: “There were Togrutans on the planet already?”

STEVEN: “No, that’s the people on the planet.”

LAURA: “So, how do you not have some sort of trade or manufacturing or artisan goods?”

STEVEN: “We’re not in the best graces with the other Togrutas as one might imagine.”

CAMERON: “Did you take anyone with any useful skills with you?”

STEVEN: “No.”

CAMERON: “Or did you just take the useless Togrutans?”

LAURA: “Did you even take prostitutes? They would make money. No?”

STEVEN: “Just, I mean…”

CAMERON: “Just the Togrutans like you.”

STEVEN: “Yeah, we went there for a reason.”

LAURA: “Oh, they got kicked out. They got kicked out. I got it.”

CAMERON: “Oh, okay. It makes sense. Alright, making more sense now. That’s how they thought differently than the rest of the Togrutans on the home world.”

STEVEN: (laughs)

LAURA: “What are the rest of them doing? Do they not just have jobs?”

NICK: Sabos looks real sad as you point out that he got kicked out.

STEVEN: “Eh, it was mutual. That’s entirely what happened. Yep, yep, and—yep.”

LAURA: (sighs) “Okay. We do not trust him with anything, and um…”

STEVEN: “I wasn’t the bad guy here.”

LAURA: “You do not get any fun things. If we get fun things you do not get them. Agreed?”

CAMERON: “Agreed.”

STEVEN: “I wasn’t the bad guy, just… We went to Osaron because that’s close and we needed somewhere to go…”

CAMERON: “Mm-hmm.”

STEVEN: “And we just decided to exploit—I mean, to develop the planet.”

LAURA: (hushed) “Tink. Tink. You just have to say you agree. Say you agree. Just say agree.”

HUDSON: “I… I agree.”

LAURA: “Okay. We are agreed. Sabos does not get fun things if we find things.”

STEVEN: “I’m with you, Tink. I’m with you.”

HUDSON: “You get no fun things.”

STEVEN: I rub my head tail against Tink as we leave.

CAMERON: Oh god.

LAURA: Eww.

HUDSON: I push you harder against the wall.

NICK: Okay. So you all leave the holo-theater. What is your destination?

STEVEN: The coordinates on the box.

CAMERON: The coordinates on the briefcase, right?

LAURA: Yes. Well, the data pad was given to use with coordinates that were handed to…

CAMERON: Sabos.

STEVEN: Yup.

LAURA: So he has those to punch in, and then I guess the plan is fly to those coordinates and try to accomplish what we were set to do: hand off this briefcase.

NICK: Okay. Cool. Sabos, I’m assuming you’re the one with the coordinates, so make me an Astrogation check please.

STEVEN: Sure. How hard is it?

NICK: Hard.

CAMERON: Can I help? Since I’m in the…

NICK: Yeah, you can help.

LAURA: I mean, Tink can also help.

HUDSON: I can help with Astrogation.

CAMERON: Yeah. Do you wanna come up and be our navigator?

HUDSON: I can’t- I don’t-

LAURA: You don’t have a rank in it—

CAMERON: But you’re super smart.

LAURA: But you’re intelligent.

HUDSON: I’m very intelligent, so I can help, yes.

CAMERON: Yeah. Come hang out with us.

NICK: You can use your Intelligence score and his Astrogation training.

CAMERON: So that’s how that works.

LAURA: That means it would be your four for Intelligence but his two.

NICK: Okay. Well, roll first. Let’s see what happens.

STEVEN: That’s a lot of successes.

CAMERON: Three successes  and a threat.

NICK: Nice. What does this scene look like as Tink who doesn’t know how to astrogate is smarter than you and helps you astrogate?

CAMERON: He knows how the computer works. (laughs)

STEVEN: “Yeah, yeah. See, this data pad thing, like I said I got kicked off Shili. We don’t really have data pads.”

LAURA: I bet he’s like putting the coordinates into the wrong—Like, he’s putting the X axis coordinate into the Y.

CAMERON: We saw him last time trying to turn on the ship and just doing everything. He has no clue… He knows how to figure out the route we need to take, but he doesn’t know how to put that into the computer at all. (laughing) But Tink understands.

HUDSON: “Click the square. No, the square. No, the square. Sabos, Sabos no, Sabos, do you know what a square is?” (groans)

STEVEN: “I astrogate by maps and stars. All this new technology…”

HUDSON: “You do not use any kind of manual—No, you don’t. Just type it in.”

CAMERON: “Is this why you were looking for landmarks last time?”

STEVEN: “Yeah. Trees.”

CAMERON: “You weren’t going into hyperspace the last times you were flying things?”

STEVEN: “Trees are the best landmarks.”

CAMERON: “You were just manually flying those long distances?”

STEVEN: (incredulously) “You can hyperspace… just, time.”

(laughter)

NICK: So, the scene is Karma in the co-pilot seat, Sabos in the pilot seat, and after a minute he switches and Tink sits down, and Sabos starts leading off calculations and Tink does data entry. It works super well. You guys are very successful, and it actually is bringing you somewhere that is not on the galactic map at all. It is a place, but there’s nothing there as far as the map is concerned.”

LAURA: We were told-

LAURA & CAMERON: It was an asteroid belt.

NICK: Yeah, but it’s not on the maps. According to this it’s empty space.

LAURA: So, Xianna would probably be familiar with asteroid ports, like shadow ports that are sometimes built into asteroids or just floating stations, so she assumes it’s something like that.

NICK: Mm-hmm. So, you put it in. It looks like it’ll probably take about six hours to get there. It is in the exact wrong direction to Ithor…

CAMERON: Yeah.

STEVEN: Awesome.

NICK: So, it will take longer to get there. Something potentially bad could happen while you’re driving the wrong direction, and by driving I mean flying, of course. Something bad could happen while you’re flying the wrong direction, but that’s your chosen route. You punch it in, hit the lever, the stars turn into lines, and off we go. You guys have six hours in hyperspace. Is there anything you’re gonna do with that time?

LAURA: While the rest of them were arguing Xianna was already rifling through ay cabinet she could find, especially in—I’m assuming there’s like a dining area.

NICK: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: She’s just going through and looking in everything trying to figure out what there is.

NICK: Okay, so you want a full inventory of what’s on the ship?

LAURA: Pretty much. Also, if she finds any like fun little snack cakes she’s gonna eat those while looking around, (laughter) because thinking about it I don’t think we’ve eaten in a while.

CAMERON: We had dinner at the manor.

STEVEN: We had monkey.

LAURA: Yeah, so we have eaten dinner the previous day.

CAMERON: Yeah. (laughs)

LAURA: Yeah, so Xianna’s just gonna take the space equivalent of a zebra cake and just start eating it while looking through stuff.

NICK: Okay.

STEVEN: “Also, if anyone’s familiar with asteroid stuff we should figure out if there’s cloaking devices in the…”

LAURA: I mean, are you talking like the physics of an asteroid belt, or are you asking about like underworld things?

STEVEN: No, the tradings. Yes, the dealings which might go on.

LAURA: So, someone who might have-

LAURA & CAMERON: Underworld. (laughs)

STEVEN: Indeed.

LAURA: Yes. Some of us have that Knowledge skill.

HUDSON: I have that Knowledge.

NICK: Okay, a couple of checks. I need either a Perception or a Skullduggery check from Xianna for searching the ship, and then if someone wants to do Underworld Knowledge about cloaking devices.

LAURA: What was the difficulty?

NICK: Let’s do average.

HUDSON: And what’s my difficulty? I’m doing the Underworld check.

NICK: Yours is gonna be hard.

LAURA: Nice. Five successes.

NICK: What do you want to find on this ship? What were you hoping to find?

CAMERON: Well, obviously zebra cakes.

NICK: Yeah, so you find a case of space zebra cakes.

LAURA: Oh, but they have to have a fun name. But yeah, I just wanna make sure we have lots of food.

NICK: Bantha cakes?

CAMERON: That doesn’t sound cute.

LAURA: No, they’re like blue…

NICK: Porg cakes?

(groans)

STEVEN: Just porg filets.

LAURA: No, no, I want a bantha cake. It is like a very round shape, but it’s blue, and it’s called that because it’s made with bantha milk. So, it’d be the equivalent of a milk cake or something.

NICK: Yeah, so you find a whole case of those. It seems to be the one thing that wasn’t touched from all the supplies before you guys found the ship.

LAURA: Xianna also wants to find some mixers for the alcohol. There’s a fridge. And…

NICK: Okay. So the dining area is pretty big, and it’s actually separate from the kitchen area. The separate kitchen is designed for there to be staff on there, and the kitchen area is very well done. You could pretty much make whatever you want. There’s a decent amount of supplies, but it’s all very spotty, so there are some juices and things but it’s all the weird juice that you wouldn’t normally pick. It’s like, Dr. Skipper soda and things like that are left.

LAURA: Yeah. Off brands.

NICK: Mm-hmm, because most of it is already used.

LAURA: And then, with six hours, she also wants to look in any of the hallways or closets, and can there be some extra random clothes, and like makeup that’s been left behind? Just random little odds and end bits.

NICK: I’ll say with five successes on your check that throughout the ship you find basically the equivalent of one and a half costume changes for everybody.

LAURA: Cool.

NICK: So, not necessarily a full disguise, you could probably put a disguise on someone, but if you just wanted a different look for a different situation, there’s one and a half of those for each of you on the ship.

LAURA: Cool.

HUDSON: Okay.

NICK: So like, a different top hat for Tink, I guess. So that’s what you find. Tink, if you wanna make that Underworld check about cloaking devices and junk.

LAURA: Can I help with that?

HUDSON: I would love help with that. I’m upgraded.

NICK: So, since Xianna’s helping you, then you have… You’re following her around thinking out loud and she’s kinda helping you brainstorm why she’s up to her waist in cabinets.

LAURA: Okay, so then… Oh no.

HUDSON: This is, uh…

STEVEN: Not good.

HUDSON: So that gets cancelled out, right?

STEVEN: Yeah, that cancels, so that’s a…

HUDSON: That’s a failure and an advantage.

NICK: Okay. So, failure, you don’t know necessarily anyone who sells it. You do know that you can buy those things. Generally they’re illegal, because they’re military grade.

HUDSON: Have I checked the ship for this? Do we already have it?

STEVEN: I think we asked.

CAMERON: We asked if he had any cool things on his ship and he said no. he said we probably wanted to look into it, so probably not.

HUDSON: Oh, okay.

NICK: Yeah, the ship doesn’t really have anything like that.

CAMERON: And you know everything about the ship at this point.

NICK: Yeah, because you \won\ very early on. You are very familiar with the ship. You know that cloaking devices are illegal, because they are military grade technology. They’re very, very expensive and they’re hard to get. There are other things like jammers for scanners and things that you could use to get you a head start heading to a planet, but that’s about all you know. You’re not really sure where you would get one except for somewhere sketch. Xianna is helping you out the same way, and that’s about what you learn, because she’s more interested in searching so she’s not that helpful. She’s mostly wondering why you’re following her around.

LAURA: You probably get a few things thrown on you. Like, as I’m pulling things out, I’m just tossing stuff behind me, so a random scarf just falls over you.

HUDSON: Comically getting doused in random items.

CAMERON: Random costume changes.

LAURA: Oh yeah, like imagine how this scene would play out in a sitcom, and that’s what’s happening. So just like random things, every so often you just get like, you probably come away from the situation and you’re like wearing a bunch of clothes and have blush on your face now, splotches of fur are pink now.

CAMERON: Bright blue eye shadow.

HUDSON: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: But it’s not on his eyes, it’s just like on him in splotches as if I threw it and it just kind of like hit him and then fell down.

NICK: Dibs on a clown makeup face being on his chest.

HUDSON: Mm-hmm.

STEVEN: Two top hats.

LAURA: I mean, if you squint it kind of looks like a clown, maybe.

CAMERON: After we jump to hyperspace Karma leaves the cockpit and goes and takes a shower, because she’s kind of bloody and gross.

NICK: Yeah. There are several sanisteams in the ship. Everyone’s quarters have their own because this is a super nice ship.

CAMERON: Marvelous.

NICK: Yeah. You’re able to peel off your armor, get clean, you soak in a lot of the water because you’re aquatic.

CAMERON: It feels great.

NICK: The bacta’s doing a really good job of getting rid of any cuts and things. It won’t scar. You’re still pretty tender, the stitching will fall out eventually, but you’re also able to after you’re all clean you’re able to check through your armor and there’s no permanent damage on that either, so you’re able to repair that as well.

CAMERON: Nice.

LAURA: Very important question. Are there any hot tubs or Jacuzzis on this ship?

NICK: Oh, there absolutely is.

LAURA: Okay. That is how Xianna is gonna take a bath. She gets herself a nice drink and goes and sits in the Jacuzzi.

NICK: So the Jacuzzi is actually in the center of the ship, so…

LAURA: Oh, that’s fine.

NICK: Well, so there’s like, the living quarters are on one of the big storage containers, there’s another storage container that’s mostly for shipping, and then the middle spine of the ship has most of the important stuff like the cockpit and the engines and things like that. In the middle of that where you come up the ramp onto the ship there’s a big, round open entry way that has a centerpiece, it’s like a big, round pedestal, and there’s decorations on it, and there’s a hollow of a fountain. When you’re digging through the ship you find a little panel on the side and you start messing with it, and the top slides off, and there’s a large ten person Jacuzzi in the middle of the ship.

LAURA: Yes. Haha.

NICK: So, do you just like skinny dip in the Jacuzzi?

LAURA: So, Xianna probably goes back to her room, or like makes a drink, leaves it on the bar, goes to her room, takes off her clothes, and just like takes a tiny little towel and holds it around her, and that’s how she walks back through the ship, picks her drink up, and then goes to the hot tub and then just like gets in and skinny dips, but does leave the towel folded really nicely to the side.

NICK: Do you do like an origami towel fold or just really neat and square?

LAURA: It looks like a little loft cat.

NICK: Okay. Great.

LAURA: You do have to be told it’s supposed to be a loft cat.

(laughter)

NICK: Yeah.

LAURA: It’s one of those towel folds where you’re like, uh, it’s some sort of animal, but I don’t remember what. Hmm.

CAMERON: I can tell you were folding something.

NICK: Okay. You’re chilling out in the ship. You spend a couple hours drinking and hot tubbing it out.

LAURA: I mean, I let everyone else know that there’s a hot tub. Like, as I’m walking through holding my tiny, little towel around me, I’m just like, “Oh, there is a hot tub by the way. I am going in it.”

HUDSON: Is there a shower that fits me?

NICK: Yes.

HUDSON: Okay.

NICK: The showers go very high up, and the shower heads—the sanisteams, have a whole bunch of jets that just shoot out all at once. So, yeah, you can comfortably take a shower if you wish.

HUDSON: So, I take a hot sanisteam, and I sing in the shower, because that’s what I do.

NICK: Great.

STEVEN: I feel like you’re saying Santa steam.

CAMERON: Do you have your translator on when you take a shower or do you take the translator off?

HUDSON: Yes.

LAURA: No, I imagine you would take it off.

HUDSON: Really?

CAMERON: And just sing in Gigoran.

LAURA: Yeah, you’re just singing in Gigoran, which…

HUDSON: Okay, that makes more sense. Let’s do that.

CAMERON: Because you don’t want it to get wet.

HUDSON: True.

CAMERON: I’m sure it’s waterproof, for the future.

LAURA: Which we haven’t ever heard Gigoran in any sort of official canon stuff.

NICK: Ooh, what if it’s just a weird airy whistle or something?

LAURA: No, I have to imagine it’s more it’s similar to a Wookiee of just like weird growls and snarls but you can’t tell.

NICK: What’s a Gigoran mouth look like?

LAURA: Um…

NICK: What if it’s a proboscis.

CAMERON: (laughs)

HUDSON: It just sounds like a Binks with a cold.

(groans)

STEVEN: No…

LAURA: Yeah, there’s no new canon images of Gigorans without them from my knowledge.

NICK: Well, if you wanna sing with your mask on that makes it easier. We don’t have to guess. It’s waterproof, like you can swim in it.

HUDSON: I sing with my mask on.

NICK: Okay. What is your song that you like to sing in the shower?

HUDSON: The song of my people.

(laughter)

NICK: I walked into that one, I guess. Alright. You’re in the sanisteam taking a steam and singing. Karma is cleansing.

CAMERON: Yeah, so I shower and then like put my armor pants back on and like have a black tank top, and go and sit in one of the living areas and start fixing my armor before I put it back on.

NICK: Okay. Are you in the main area with the hot tub fixing things?

CAMERON: Yeah. I’m also cleaning all my guns, very in depth.

NICK: There’s a side table with a nice flower display and a big vase, and you set the base aside and slide it off, and it makes a pretty good work bench.

CAMERON: Yeah. I’m cleaning and shining my new vibro-sword, cleaning my blaster carbine, cleaning my vibro-knife, cleaning my heavy pistol, and cleaning my light blaster.

NICK: Great, you’re armed well.

CAMERON: I just dump all of it on the table.

NICK: And then Sabos, what are you doing?

STEVEN: I’m in the cockpit, and I’m flipping the switches on that she turned off before.

LAURA: Oh god.

NICK: For six hours?

STEVEN: Yes.

NICK: Okay, so…

CAMERON: He keeps finding new ones. (laughs)

STEVEN: Yeah, like I’m running out of switches and it’s kind of bugging me.

NICK: There’s one point, Xianna, while you’re taking your hot tub that the lid starts to slide back on.

(laughter)

LAURA: Xianna starts turning around, and like it’s starting to close, and she’s like, “No! No no no! Go flip the switch! No, put it back! Put the switch back!”

NICK: Karma probably runs over and flips it down on the base so it goes back.

CAMERON: I’m gonna throw my dagger at it so the hilt of it hit sit and flips it back on.

NICK: Wow, cool, okay.

CAMERON: Then I have to get up and go get my dagger, but I looked really cool.

LAURA: As she does that, Xianna’s like crawled out of the hot tub, like splayed out, and then she kind of pushes her empty glass. “If you are going to go that way, can you make me a new drink please? Thank you.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Do you make her a drink?

CAMERON: Yeah!

NICK: Okay. So, Tink, at some point when you’re hanging out in your room doing stuff all the lights turn off, then they turn on, then your bunk beds turn into one big side-by-side bed then go back.

CAMERON: The shower gets really cold for a second.

HUDSON: “Who’s messing with me?”

NICK: (laughs)

HUDSON: “Sabos, if that’s you I’m gonna kick your ass!”

STEVEN: “Nothing’s happened.”

LAURA: Yeah, Xianna yells out, “Yes, Sabos is flipping all the switches in the cockpit!”

HUDSON: “Stop flipping switches, Sabos!”

LAURA: “He almost trapped me in the hot tub!”

NICK: The first switch Sabos flipped was the seal door into the cockpit, and the second switch he flipped was the com system, so he’s just back there like dum da-dum dum dum, and you’re all yelling at him, and he has no idea. Karma, from where you’re sitting you can see down the hallway into the main living quarters and a disco ball flips on, and you hear like Barry White singing and then it flips back off, and like another one a bunch of colored lights are flashing and then they flip back off.

CAMERON: Why are all these controls in the cockpit?

NICK: It just has a lot of switches.

STEVEN: It’s a fancy ship.

NICK: So, that all happens. Then after a while with these fun hijinks you come out of hyperspace and you are in a very small asteroid belt. It’s a lot of car sized asteroids that look like potatoes or shoes, a lot of zucchini looking asteroids, and there’s one bigger one that the rest seem to be orbiting around… Zucchini, yes.

CAMERON: Huh.

NICK: Yes. (laughs)

LAURA: Uh-huh…

CAMERON: Right. It’s a zucchini, sure.

NICK: Yeah, it is.

LAURA: Is it cucumber shaped?

STEVEN: Eggplant?

NICK: Nope, zucchini, it has the little pointy end.

CAMERON: Uh-huh…

LAURA: Ohh, okay…

NICK: Oh, this is getting worse.

LAURA: What zucchini are you looking at?

STEVEN: You know, zucchini.

CAMERON: It’s like, yeah, when it has the stem still on it.

LAURA: Oh! That’s what he means.

CAMERON: That’s what he means, yeah.

NICK: I’m glad you know what I’m trying to say.

CAMERON: Yeah, I got you. It’s okay.

LAURA: I was imagining…

CAMERON: (laughs) Yep. Nope.

NICK: All these smaller asteroids are orbiting around one larger asteroid that’s probably 500 meters across, and as it slowly rotates you see a port carved into it. It’s like most Star Wars entry things. It’s flat on the bottom, kind of semi-circly on top, and you see the slight shimmer of a ray shield in front of it, and it looks like a landing pad there.

STEVEN: I bring her in.

NICK: Alright. Make me a Piloting check on how smoothly you land.

STEVEN: Sure.

HUDSON: No trees this time.

STEVEN: This is gonna be fine guys.

CAMERON: I’m helping.

STEVEN: How hard is it?

NICK: Average, because you do have to lop through the asteroids, but they’re pretty slow.

CAMERON: Gah.

STEVEN: Well that worked out. Nothing happened at all.

CAMERON: Two advantages.

STEVEN: Yeah, two advantages.

NICK: Okay. With two advantages, you come straight in, you have to juke to the left at the last second. Karma grabs her piloting controls and does something that makes the ship kind of flip sideways, and you come in to land, and you land pretty hard and ungracefully. There’s a loud crunch. You’re not sure what part of the ship must have buckled a little, but you’re able to land, and through the front view port you see what looks like an oil drum fire and some fold up camping chairs that have some indistinct figures sitting on them, and as you land they immediately stand up and start to look suspicious. And you see that they are armed.

CAMERON: Cool.

STEVEN: Perfect.

CAMERON:  I get out of the cockpit. I take my headband off, because then I’m just a Nautolan. Removing the distinguishable features from me.

HUDSON: Xianna should be out of the hot tub.

LAURA: Oh, yeah.

(laughter)

LAURA: Xianna got too pruney a while back. It was what, six hours? Yeah, I imagine she spent a while in there, and that would be like three hours. So, she probably went and took an actual sanisteam, dressed, maybe took a little bit of a nap, stuffed her pockets with bantha cakes.

NICK: Yeah, you guys have all had time.

LAURA: Oh yeah. I do have bantha cakes in my pockets now.

NICK: Okay. You can put them in your inventory if you want.

LAURA: Oh, it’s in there. I have four bantha cakes. I’m only taking four.

NICK: Roger that.

HUDSON: I have a light blaster.

CAMERON: Not yet.

HUDSON: Oh. Not yet?

CAMERON: Yeah.

HUDSON: Oh.

NICK: Okay. The ship lands. You are all aware that it’s landed.

CAMERON: So, I get up out of the cockpit, take my headband off, walk down to the main area where Tink is, and I pass him the light blaster I took off of Spark Duelson’s body. “Why don’t you hold onto this?”

HUDSON: (light gasp) “Thank you.” I take it.

CAMERON: “Do you know how it works?”

HUDSON: “Uh…”

CAMERON: (laughs)

HUDSON: “I’ll learn.”

CAMERON: “Cool. Great. Pull this trigger. Point this end at the person you want to shoot.”

HUDSON: “Oh, I know that much.”

CAMERON: “Well, okay. I didn’t know how basic we needed to get.”

NICK: So, you have a very obviously Imperial issue side arm, but you’ve got one. It’s got the little gear symbol on multiple parts of it.

HUDSON: I think it looks pretty cool.

NICK: Yeah, it looks cool.

LAURA: “Just put it in one of your side pockets on your little backpack.”

HUDSON: “Okay. You mean my utility belt?”

LAURA: Well no, you have a utility belt and a backpack.

HUDSON: Oh yeah, that’s right.

LAURA: Because we imagined that the utility belt is more of a bandolier style that you can then hold your vibro-axe on, but you also have a little backpack. I imagine it’s a tiny little…

CAMERON: It’s super cute compared to your size.

LAURA: I’m picturing a little backpack and it’ so cute.

NICK: Is it of an ewok?

CAMERON: (gasps)

LAURA: No…

NICK: It’s a little ewok backpack.

CAMERON & HUDSON: No.

LAURA: No, it’s just a cute little leather backpack. It’s a regular sized backpack, but because of Tink’s size and width it looks super tiny. Kind of like when you see Shaq get into a car, and you’re like oh, look at that, it’s cute.

CAMERON: (laughs) Try not to let anyone see that, but you have it if you need it.

HUDSON: Alright.

NICK: It won’t be super obvious, but if you hold someone up they may wonder, “Hey, why does this person have an Imperial blaster?”

CAMERON: We can mod it later.

HUDSON: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. So, what else?

STEVEN: I grab the briefcase.

NICK: Smart.

STEVEN: And we lower the stairs.

CAMERON: I’m gonna go pop the thing open, pop the ramp down.

NICK: Okay. You drop the ramp. Do all of you head out? Who’s in the lead? What are you all doing?

LAURA: Xianna’s gonna walk in front, and again she’s gonna look at Sabos, and stop, and sigh. “Sabos, look at me. Look into my eyes. Do not talk to them.”

STEVEN: “The light will never go out in the universe.”

CAMERON: “Wrong planet.”

(laughter)

STEVEN: “I know.”

LAURA: “This is why I am asking you do not talk, because even Tink does not say the things you say. Please let me or Karma do the talking. Please.”

STEVEN: “I am an ambassador.”

LAURA: “No. I think you are a war criminal.”

CAMERON: “Anyway, walking down the ramp. Hush.”

NICK: So, out you go. Sabos is carrying the briefcase. As you get closer to the oil drum fire you see that there is a Quarren out front. He has a lot of scars on his face tentacles. For those of you not versed in Star Wars species, a Quarren basically looks like Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. He has a tentacle face and kind of a squid head, and before they were officially named in the books they were called squid heads on their action figures and stuff. So, there’s a Quarren, and he is standing in the lead. He’s got what looks like a smuggler kind of captain outfit, so it’s nice and indistinct.

CAMERON: So, a vest?

NICK: Mm-hmm.

CAMERON: Nice. Okay.

NICK: Yeah, but like rather than just a vest and pants he has like epaulets, and he’s obviously a little bit fancier.

CAMERON: Oo-ooh. Got some girl scout patches on his vest.

NICK: Mm-hmm. Then there’s a human who’s kind of small but has a bunch of different blasters strapped to them, a guy with dark, short hair. Then there’s a Gamorrean in the back who has a tusk broken off and a robotic arm and a vibro-axe who stays behind the fire ad looks imposing. The Quarren steps up to the front and says, “You here to make the drop?”

LAURA: “Yes. Hello. How are you today?”

NICK: “That seems irrelevant to this business negotiation.”

LAURA: “I was just being polite.”

NICK: “Fine. Uh, let’s just do this. Do you have the briefcase?”

LAURA: “Yes.”

STEVEN: “Right here.”

NICK: “Uh, yes, you are clearly the leader.”

HUDSON: “Don’t—Don’t boost his ego.”

STEVEN: I nod, but I try to nod, like, you know an under the…

CAMERON: You nod curtly.

STEVEN: Yeah, curtly. I really don’t want anyone else to notice except him.

NICK: “So you, leader, how did you convince Falx to make the delivery?”

CAMERON: (laughing) The leader looks to Xianna.

LAURA: Yeah. Xianna sees this and kinda rolls her eyes. (sighs) “Our leader had a one on one talk with him and convinced him to do the delivery. I do not know of the exact details. Our leader does not like to discuss these things with the rest of us.”

STEVEN: “Yep.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: “Ah yes, a man of few words, much like me.” You see the Quarren’s tentacles all curl up into his face in maybe pride, hard to tell, he’s got a squid for a face.

CAMERON: (giggles)

LAURA: Xianna’s just keeping a smile on her face, just internally being like, ugh I hate this, but I’m smiling.

HUDSON: Yeah, I’m dead inside.

CAMERON: Karma’s taking the role of the Gamorrean in the back and is just standing, looking imposing behind everyone.

NICK: The Quarren says, “Tiny, go and get the briefcase.” The small human seems very suspicious, and he keeps a hand on the grip of one of his blasters, and reaches out for the briefcase.

STEVEN: Yeah, I let him take the briefcase. I also have a hand on my big rifle behind my back because I think that’s what we’re doing now.

(laughter)

NICK: Okay. So, Tiny takes it and he sets it down in one of the folding chairs. You see, you didn’t really look at the briefcase that carefully but it has a pretty complicated locking mechanism on it, and Tiny starts typing some stuff in.

STEVEN: “We best be going.”

LAURA: Yeah, Xianna’s standing here in her head going like, we didn’t check what was in the briefcase.

STEVEN: We need to get out.

LAURA: Umm… and starts putting her hands like nonchalantly into her pockets, and kind of like, I mean hopefully he would’ve put something in the briefcase, but we don’t really know this guy and he did blackmail us into this.

CAMERON: Karma’s already looking terrifying, so she’s holding onto her weapons already.

NICK: So, as Sabos starts to back away towards the ship, Quiggle says, “Hold on, Quiggle always verifies the deal.”
Tiny types and you hear an (error noise) and he goes, “Shit,” and he starts typing again, and there’s like 20 seconds of awkward beeping and then you hear (error noise). “Okay, wait wait wait, I think I remember.” Quiggle’s starting to look kind of awkward as he’s still standing there. You can tell his swelled up personality can only be held for so long. Now, the Gamorrean on the other hand, that’s pretty much his default setting, big and scary, but Quiggle not so much.

CAMERON: Karma shifts her weight to her other hip.

NICK: Finally, Tiny hits a button and you hear (a clicking noise) and it clicks open, and he opens up the briefcase, and you hear him go, “Uh-oh.”
Quiggle turns around and goes, “What is it?”
Tiny says, “I’m sure it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
Quiggle says, “Tell me now.”
“Uh, briefcase is empty boss,” and Quiggle immediately starts to go for his gun.

LAURA: Ugh, yeah, Xianna just throws her head back, rolls her eyes, and sighs. She already has her gun out, because she does have quick draw.

NICK: Okay. Nobody starts shooting right away. Quiggle says, “What did you do with the money?” He’s pointing a gun at… I guess Sabos, probably.

(laughter)

STEVEN: Sure.

CAMERON: Leader. Our leader.

LAURA: Which everyone I think is okay with at this point.

NICK: Tiny draws two pistols and then draws a big rifle on a tripod and drops it in front of him, and kicks it forward a little, and is pointing all of those weapons at Sabos as well.

LAURA: Xianna looks over at him. “Yes, leader, where did the credits go?”

STEVEN: I’m gonna try to be really cool here. “As you know, I didn’t know the password. I’m just the currier.”

NICK: “Clearly you are someone more put together than that. You’re trying to screw us!” And they go to start shooting.

STEVEN: I mean… sure.

LAURA: We shot first.

(laughter)

NICK: So, I will need Vigilance rolls from everyone.

STEVEN: (sighs) Right. I really need to get some of that.

HUDSON: Me too.

LAURA: Yeah…

HUDSON: I have no Vigilance and one Willpower.

CAMERON: Guys! Seriously? (laughs)

LAURA: Hey, I have like Cool, and Streetwise, and Skullduggery, and Deception.

CAMERON: Am I the only one with the Vigilance skill?

LAURA: Yes.

CAMERON: Oh great.

STEVEN: It’s just so expensive.

HUDSON: I have one success.

LAURA: A success and an advantage.

STEVEN: Two successes and an advantage.

CAMERON: Two successes and an advantage.

NICK: Can you roll me a three green dice check, please?

CAMERON: One success, four advantages.

NICK: Roll it for me again.

CAMERON: Two successes, three advantages.

NICK: And then roll me two green dice, please.

CAMERON: Two advantages.

NICK: Okay. Who had the most successes?

STEVEN: Me and Cameron.

NICK: Had how many?

STEVEN & CAMERON: Two.

NICK: Two? Okay, so it’s gonna go NPC, two PC slots… How many people had one advantages? You guys did?

CAMERON: Successes?

NICK: Successes, I mean.

HUDSON: Successes, yeah.

NICK: NPC, two PC slots, NPC. Nice and spread out. Alright, so Captain Quiggle, the Quarren, is gonna go first.

(someone snorts)

LAURA: (giggles)

NICK: It’s a perfectly respectable pirate name.

LAURA: ‘Queegle.’

HUDSON: ‘Queegle.’

NICK: He says—

CAMERON: (musically) Quiggle, Quiggle, Quiggle…

SEVERAL: (musically) Do, do, do do, do…

STEVEN: That’s no more respectable than I am the leader.

CAMERON: (laughing) I’ve been thinking that every single time since you said it.

NICK: Ah, okay! So Quiggle says, “Damn it, Falx. You’ve betrayed us for the last time!” And he takes a shot at Sabos.

STEVEN: I say, “Not Falx, not Falx. Sabos, not Falx.”

NICK: “Close enough!” Can you make me a two difficulty check with two greens and a yellow? This guy’s pretty good.

CAMERON: Not good enough. Failure, two advantages.

NICK: Okay. He shoots at Sabos while he ducks back behind the oil drum fire, and he takes a shot, and Sabos is able to duck to the side, but when he does so he presents a very clear target to Tiny who’s gonna go next. So, that’s what happens there. He will have a blue die on his next check. Then we’ve got two PC slots. Who’s gonna go first?

STEVEN: I’ll shoot.

NICK: Okay. Who are you shooting at?

STEVEN: The big guy’s behind cover now?

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: The squid man is behind cover.

STEVEN: Quiggle? Quiggle the Quarren?

NICK: Quiggle the Quarren Captain is behind cover!

STEVEN: So, just Tiny and the Gamorrean are out?

CAMERON: The other big pig man.

NICK: Mm-hmm. So you can shoot Quiggle, it’ll just be a little bit harder to hit him.

STEVEN: I’ll shoot the big pig. \inaudible\ scary.

[ ]: Shoot the big pig, yeah.

NICK: Okay. That’s racist as heck, by the way.

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: Maybe he’s their slicer. Don’t make judgments.

LAURA: I mean, but have you met Sabos?

NICK: So he’s at medium range, so it will be average, yeah.

STEVEN: Yeah, well, nothing happens.

STEVEN & CAMERON: One advantage.

NICK: How would you like to spend your advantage?

STEVEN: Can I get behind cover on the ship?

CAMERON: You can do that anyway \inaudible\

NICK: You’re at long range from the ship. To run back to the ship would take several maneuvers, but you can use a maneuver to run back to the ship. That doesn’t even cost an advantage. It’s just gonna take you a while to get there.

STEVEN: Uhh… How far are we from the trash fire?

CAMERON: You can use your advantage to set up another piece in the environment that you can jump behind, like there’s a crate or something.

STEVEN: Oh yeah. Also, who goes next?

NICK: It’s another PC slot.

STEVEN: Can I use the advantage to make the pig more presentable?

NICK: Yeah. You can make it so the next person to go will get a blue die.

STEVEN: Yeah, I’ll do that.

NICK: Okay, so it’s the same kind of thing. You shoot at him and he ducks out of the way, but he steps a little bit closer into the fire light, so it’s gonna be real easy to hit that guy. And, another PC slot.

HUDSON: I think that I want to take my light blaster, feel overly confident but like secretly pretty scared of using it, and try to hit the pig person.

NICK: Okay. It’ll be two difficulty with a boost die.

HUDSON: And I have nothing in ranged light weapon.

NICK: Great!

STEVEN: Hold on, wait, does that—No, no. Does that help? No, it doesn’t.

HUDSON: Yeah. None of my \inaudible\ help either.

STEVEN: Is that an assist? No, okay.

NICK: You can’t assist people with combat checks, unless you wanna do the like ghost thing where you’re behind him massaging his shoulders, and if we do that you have to specify.

STEVEN: (laughs)

LAURA & CAMERON: Hmm…

HUDSON: Just advantage.

CAMERON: So, it fails, because it’s a wash.

NICK: Okay, so you miss. How would you like to spend your advantage?

HUDSON: Um… I’ll help the next PC character slot out.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Alright. So it’s the same thing. You all are shooting right above your left shoulder, and there’s this weird triangle of blasters going around, and everybody’s taking one step to the left each time. It’s rather comical. It’s how I imagine \bar fights\ in the old west would get. Everybody’s just shooting near people and nothing’s happening.

[ ]: Pew!

NICK: Now we’ve got another NPC slot, and it is Tiny. He takes both of his blasters and he is going to shoot at Sabos, still, because that was his last order. He has a green and a yellow, and a blue die because he got set up.

STEVEN: Don’t listen to him, Tiny.

CAMERON: Two difficulty still?

NICK: It’s gonna be three, because he’s dual wielding.

CAMERON: Two failures and an advantage.

NICK: Alright. So, he shoots a whole bunch, and you hear him going, aaaaah, pew pew pew, and they just go all over the place…

LAURA: Aww, so cute.

NICK: And pepper the back wall, and with the advantage he actually hits something somewhere off on the back wall and the ray shield starts to flicker, and some of the atmosphere starts to go out and it gets really windy and crazy in here. He’s destabilized something important. That advantage is going to start with whoever gets shot at next by the Quiggle Crew is going to have a blue die. Oh, no, so whoever next attacks from your team, not the Quiggle Crew, will have a black die, because the atmosphere is thinning.

HUDSON: The Quiggle ‘quew.’

LAURA & CAMERON: The Quiggle Crew~!

STEVEN: Quiggle the Quarren crew, captain.

NICK: Quiggle the captain of the Quarren Quiggle crew.

LAURA: If it’s a PC slot…

NICK: Yeah, it is a PC slot next, yes.

LAURA: Yeah. I imagine Xianna would go since she was already hands in her pocket of like, oh this is going south. Like, immediately, she was like, ugh. (musically) We didn’t check the briefcase, gonna shoot someone…

CAMERON: You have a blue die and a black die.

LAURA: Yes. Who’s closest to me?

NICK: Tiny is closest to you. Quiggle’s behind cover, and the Gamorrean is behind them.

LAURA: Probably Tiny, yeah? I’ll shoot Tiny.

NICK: Guys, we are so good at shooting.

CAMERON: Some of us.

LAURA: Two successes.

NICK: Nice. How much damage does your blaster do?

LAURA: Six, so that will be eight damage.

NICK: Ooh. Okay, you hit Tiny square in the chest, and he yelps and kind of crouches down. He drops his blasters. So, he’s down and he’s bleeding pretty hard, but he doesn’t look down completely. He says, “Quiggle’s Crew never quits!”

STEVEN: Oh boy.

NICK: He’s still moving. Another PC slot.

CAMERON: That’ll be Karma. I am going to shoot at the… I can only think of Gigoran.

NICK, STEVEN & CAMERON: Gamorrean.

LAURA: ‘Quigmorrean!’

HUDSON: ‘Quigmorrean?’

LAURA: You know…

STEVEN: The Quiggle Gamorrean.

LAURA: When Quiggle and the Gamorrean have a little baby.

CAMERON: Yep, gonna shoot at the Gamorrean.

NICK: Aww, little pig with tentacle face.

CAMERON: It’d be so cute~

LAURA: It’d be terrifying.

CAMERON: With tusks coming out of the tentacles?

HUDSON: Eww.

CAMERON: That sounds gross.

LAURA: I mean, I actually think that would probably be cute.

STEVEN: So like a catfish.

NICK: Yeah, basically.

STEVEN: Yeah. Just sharper.

CAMERON: Two successes, one threat.

NICK: One threat. Okay, so the threat is you step forward and start spraying blaster fire with your carbine and come into the fire light. The atmosphere is kind of venting, it’s starting to get a little light, but you’re really good at dealing with low oxygen environments so that’s not too big a deal, and your blasters scrape across the Gamorrean’s chest. How much damage do you do?

CAMERON: Eleven.

NICK: Ooh-hoo-hoo.

LAURA: Damn.

CAMERON: I have a big gun.

NICK: That’s a palpable hit. He grunts, and a little trickle of greenish blood comes down the side of his mouth, and he begins to step forward as it is his turn. He is at medium range which means it takes a maneuver to get to short range and then another maneuver to get to engaged, and he’s gonna go ahead and engage with… Roll me a force die, would you

CAMERON: Oh no. One dark side.

NICK: Sabos! So, even though you shot him his orders had been take down the leader, so he takes one strain to do a double move action, and he is going to try and hit you in the face with a giant vibro-axe. This is gonna hurt real bad.

STEVEN: Cool.

NICK: Go ahead and roll me a yellow and two greens versus an average check.

STEVEN: Oh, that hurts pretty bad.

CAMERON: Wow. Four successes.

NICK: Oh shit. What’s the damage on your vibro-axe there, Tink?

HUDSON: Brawn plus three.

LAURA: Well, it’s also pierce two, sunder, vicious three I believe, because your serrated edge adds plus one.

HUDSON: Yeah, that’s what it is.

NICK: h, okay, so pierce two. So you take Brawn is three, plus three is six, plus four is ten, and then that does get reduced by your Soak, but by two less than your normal Soak because it’s pierce two.

CAMERON: So you still take…

STEVEN & CAMERON: Eight.

NICK: You take eight damage. How are you looking there, Sabos?

STEVEN: I’m doing pretty good.

CAMERON: Oh, he’s fine.

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: He’s almost… A little less than half health.

NICK: The Gamorrean twirls; he sprints up to you, twirls his vibro-axe with surprising agility, and slashes you across the chest, and it bites deep, and it hurts real bad. Do you respond in any particular way?

STEVEN: Good thing it wasn’t my head tail.

(laughter)

CAMERON: (groans) There’s an idea.

NICK: We’re back to the top. Quiggle says, “Great work! Quiggle’s Crew always stands correct!” And then he also goes to shoot Sabos.

CAMERON: How are they spelling these words?

(laughter)

LAURA: I do not know. Maybe in their language it makes more sense. Like, it is actually alliteration and not just phonetic alliteration.

NICK: So, he’s gonna shoot at Sabos, which is a two difficulty still, except he’s gonna take a maneuver to aim now that he’s down behind cover. He’s gonna try to shoot at Sabos.

CAMERON: Blue die! He’s gonna try. Two failures, six advantages.

NICK: Alright, so he’s gonna give three blue dice to Tiny, because he doesn’t actually shoot with his blaster pistol, he actually shoots a little tracking dart that hits Sabos in the chest. It doesn’t hurt, but it starts to beep a little, and that big rifle that’s on the ground has a laser that lines up with it, and the rifle starts to beep. So, I wonder what that’ll do.

CAMERON: I’m sure it’ll be fine.

NICK: I’m sure it’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.

LAURA: It’ll be okay.

NICK: Yeah. So that was Quiggle’s turn. Two PC slots.

STEVEN: I’m gonna pull the tracking dart out.

NICK: Nope.

STEVEN: I can’t?

NICK: Nope.

STEVEN: Can I shoot it out?

NICK: You can try.

STEVEN: Can I use my vibro-knife to cut it out?

NICK: You can absolutely try.

STEVEN: That seems like a good idea.

NICK: Alright. Do that.

STEVEN: Oh wait, no—Oh, I have some Melee. Yeah, that’s fine. Is Melee what we’re gonna do here?

NICK: That or Medical.

LAURA: (laughs) Melee against the tracking dart. (laughter) I wanna try to cut something delicately out of my torso… Eh, Melee check!

HUDSON: Melee!

NICK: Use an uppercut!

LAURA: I’m gonna use a giant knife!

CAMERON: What’s the difficulty?

NICK: We’re gonna say it’s average, but every threat is going to hurt you.

CAMERON: Okay. There you go, buddy.

NICK: Also, flip me a dark side point. Let’s upgrade one of those suckers.

STEVEN: Alright. That’s cool.

NICK: I want Sabos to stab himself so bad.

STEVEN: Nah, we’re gonna be fine.

CAMERON: Hey, you’re fine.

STEVEN: A success and an advantage.

NICK: Yeah. You’re able to carve the tracking device out. You don’t hit yourself, you just put a little divot in the armor and the tracking device falls out, and with the advantage it rolls far enough away from you—

STEVEN: Can I get behind cover?

NICK: Yeah. You can use a maneuver to try and get to some cover. There are the mobile folding chairs, and there is the trash can fire.

STEVEN: The trash can sounds amazing. Just warm up behind the trash can fire.

NICK: Okay, so it’s gonna take two maneuvers to do. You can use one maneuver to move up to the trash can fire, and if you take a strain you can take another one to take cover on the opposite side of the barrel from Quiggle.

CAMERON: (giggles)

STEVEN: Yeah, I’ll take a strain.

NICK: Okay. You are now both back to back with the barrel between you.

STEVEN: That sounds fine.

NICK: As you slam into the barrel and it rolls you hear Quiggle go, “Hey! Give up now. There’s no chance.” That’s one PC slot. Next PC slot?

HUDSON: Can I go?

LAURA: Well, it doesn’t matter the order.

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: You can go if you want.

HUDSON: Okay, unless you had something really cool you wanted to do.

LAURA: I mean, I was gonna shoot someone. I don’t know if that’s cool in a…

HUDSON: I’m like super close to the Gamorrean, I think, so I was gonna go vibro-axe on him.

STEVEN: Just saying, there’s a, if y’all wanted to pick up the dart and put it somewhere useful…

CAMERON: No, that’s fine. You got this, buddy.

STEVEN: Haha, I mean it would help you all too.

HUDSON: So, the Gamorrean’s the pig monster, right?

NICK: That’s really mean.

LAURA: Stop calling him a pig monster! They’re an actual species that like does stuff!

CAMERON: Tink is the yeti monster.

HUDSON: I’m the yeti monster.

LAURA: They’re not monsters. They are people.

HUDSON: I just keep thinking of the pig monster from Power Rangers, and that’s what I visualize. Anyways. I have my vibro-axe, and I go after the Gamorrean for a vibro-axe battle!

NICK: In the background it starts going- (hums Duel of the Fates from The Phantom Menace).

NICK: Make your attack. Vibro-axes don’t have defense, do they?

HUDSON: No.

NICK: Okay.

HUDSON: Two successes and a threat.

NICK: Okay, so the threat is you swing wide and leave yourself a little open so that when he attacks you he’s gonna be able to do something similar. Two successes… So, what’s your Brawn, three?

HUDSON: Yep.

NICK: So that’s eight damage, but his Soak is three, so he’ll take five. Ooh, he’s not doing well.

HUDSON: Ha-ha!

NICK: You bury the vibro-axe into that space between his neck and his shoulder. It sinks in real good, and he squeals, and then he pulls back and gets ready to attack you except it’s not his turn. So, Tiny drops down prone, uses his maneuver to drop prone, which it’ll be harder to hit him, and he grabs that rifle, and he’s going to take another shot at Sabos. At this point he’s just trying to have done something with his life. So, it’s a yellow and a green versus two purple. Can you flip a dark side point?

CAMERON: Ugh.

NICK: It’s strong with him.

STEVEN: Behind the barrel even, only two purples?

NICK: Well, he’s off to the side. He’s not behind the barrel. Oh, you can have a black die for cover.

LAURA: I should note that throughout this whole time Xianna keeps yelling like, “Yes, Sabos, our leader, you told us to do this.”

STEVEN: “Everything’s fine.”

LAURA: “Defend yourself, leader!”

STEVEN: Well, that’s not good.

CAMERON: Two successes, four threats.

NICK: Hey, you know what happens when we get more than three threats.

CAMERON: The guy laying on the ground falls prone.

NICK: He falls prone. (deep bass noise) So, I guess that means the kick from the rifle is so strong that he goes flying backwards and he ends up on his back without his rifle anymore. How many successes was it?

CAMERON: Two.

HUDSON: Mega prone.

NICK: Two? So, it’s seven damage \reckless\, so it’s nine damage coming at you, Sabos.

CAMERON: (gasping laughter)

LAURA: Umm…

NICK: Minus your Soak.

CAMERON: Yeah, yeah, four. He’s down to one health.

STEVEN: Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah.

CAMERON: I’m sure he’ll be fine.

STEVEN: Yeah, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah. I’m sure you’ll be fine.

STEVEN: Yeah, that’s fine.

LAURA: Good luck finding someone on this team who’s gonna heal you.

CAMERON: (laughing)

STEVEN: No, it’s all good. It’s all good.

NICK: That was Tiny’s turn, so it’s a PC slot.

LAURA: Is Quiggle visible, or is he still in his hiding spot?

NICK: He’s behind the barrel. You would get a black die to shoot at him, but you can see him. It’s just kind of hard to tell where the shadows end and he begins.

CAMERON: If you take out the almost dead guy, I’ll go after the live one.

LAURA: Well, because I don’t wanna get in the middle of this vibro-axe battle. That’s like an honor thing right now. They’re good.

CAMERON: Oh, see, I was gonna end that.

HUDSON: I’ll finish this!

CAMERON: Okay, you got it! You got it, Tink!

LAURA: Xianna’s gonna like honor their little one-on-one battle.

HUDSON: Thank you!

LAURA: Wait, Tiny’s alive, right?

CAMERON: Yeah, but Tiny’s down, almost.

NICK: He’s down on the ground, he’s bleeding a little, he’s not near his rifle…

LAURA: Oh, no, yeah, then Xianna’s gonna shoot at Quiggle.

NICK: He is covered in pistols, though.

LAURA: She’s gonna shoot at the Quiggle.

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: Hee hee hee…

STEVEN: Quiggle the Quarren.

LAURA & CAMERON: (musically) Quiggle, Quiggle, Quiggle, do, do do, do…

NICK: I’m never naming NPCs again.

LAURA: I’m going to aim.

STEVEN: Ooh.

LAURA: I’m gonna flip a light side point.

NICK: Oooh.

LAURA: Four advantages. That’s it.

NICK: How would you like to spend those?

LAURA: He is going to drop the weapon he is holding.

NICK: Okay. So you shoot the blaster out of his hand. “Hey, that was the blaster my mother gave me.”

LAURA: “Oh, I did not know that. Sorry. I should have just shot your face instead.”

NICK: “I swear eternal vengeance. You have been submitted to Quiggle’s quarrel!”

(snorts and giggles)

LAURA: Xianna just kinda like stops. “What is with these names? Seriously.”

STEVEN: (laughs) Quiggle’s quarrel… “Were we not already in Quiggle’s quarrel?” I say behind the other side of the barrel.

NICK: “Shut up! Come out where I can shoot—Oh wait, I don’t have my gun anymore.”

HUDSON: Before this time there was an \accorem\.

STEVEN: “Come out where I can shoot you.”

CAMERON: Go get in Quiggle’s corner.

NICK: (laughing) So, it’s Karma’s shot.

CAMERON: I am going to shoot at Quiggle. I’m going to take a black die because he’s under cover. I’m going to take a blue die because I’m going to aim.

HUDSON: Shoot his privates.

LAURA: Nooo.

STEVEN: So, Tiny. So, you mean Tiny?

CAMERON: I’m going to flip a light side point to upgrade.

NICK: “Don’t castrate Quiggle~”

STEVEN: ‘Quastrate.’

CAMERON: And I’m going to—Stop. (laughs) I’m going to shoot him.

STEVEN: ‘Quiggle quastration.’

CAMERON: A success, two advantages. So that’s only ten damage.

NICK: Ooh, okay. That’s the first time he’s been hit. He yelps and ducks further behind the barrel as you hit him solidly in the shoulder. He’s not super happy. What?

CAMERON: Ah, my crit’s three.

NICK & LAURA: Ohh.

CAMERON: Dang! So close. I have two.

LAURA: So, I still had an extra advantage from my turn. I don’t know if it’s too late to add a blue die to that.

CAMERON: (laughing) Can I have a retroactive blue die?

NICK: You can add a blue die to Karma.

CAMERON: Can I see what it does?

NICK: If you get an advantage.

CAMERON: If I get another advantage? Let’s see… Aw, it’s nothing. Damn.

NICK: Aw, bummer. It was worth a try.

CAMERON: Can my advantages be that the barrel falls over?

NICK: Sure.

STEVEN: No…

NICK: And shoots sparks everywhere.

CAMERON: Yup, and he and Sabos fall back to back, because it just disappears.

NICK: Yeah. It falls to the side, shoots sparks everywhere, they’re very illuminated. Whoever shoots at Quiggle next will get a blue die, and Sabos and Quiggle actually are touching backs right now, and they do the thing where Quiggle looks left, and he looks left, so they look over each other’s opposite shoulders and they don’t make eye contact for a second. Then the Gamorrean, our giant pig friend, goes. He squeals to himself and swings his vibro-axe at Tink, because there’s a giant person with a vibro-axe in front of him. That’ll be two greens and a yellow versus two purple dice.
Oh, he failed the hell out of that.

CAMERON: One failure, two advantages.

NICK: So, the two advantages: He’s going to attack but get deflected, and he’s going to defend himself so whoever attacks him next will get a black die. How do you block his axe attack, Tink?

HUDSON: With my axe.

NICK: Okay. Does it shoot sparks everywhere and look super cool?

HUDSON: Yeah!

CAMERON, LAURA: (hum Duel of the Fates from The Phantom Menace).

NICK: Great! It’s up to Quiggle’s turn. He doesn’t have a gun, so he’s gonna straight try to punch Sabos in the back of the head. So he turns around and like grabs him, and he tries to punch Sabos in the face. That’s gonna be a yellow and a green versus two purples.

CAMERON: One threat.

NICK: One threat. No successes?

CAMERON: Nope.

NICK: Aw, okay. So, whoever shoots at him next it’ll be two blue die. He tries to punch you and you manage to just duck your head out of the way, and he ends up awkwardly hugging you.

CAMERON: Aww.

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: Quiggle cuddles!

STEVEN: Quiggle ‘kwuddle.’

NICK: “Beware the Quiggle cuddles!”

LAURA & CAMERON: Quiggle ‘kwuddles!’

NICK: ‘Kwuddles?’ I don’t wanna say ‘kwuddles.’

LAURA & CAMERON: Quiggle ‘kwuddles!”

NICK: Gosh. He’s a respectable space pirate, you guys. Okay.

LAURA: No he’s not!

CAMERON: And he’s so ‘kwuddly.’

LAURA: He’s just so quute!

STEVEN: He’s so quigglewy.

NICK: It is a PC slot.

STEVEN: I’m just gonna stab him with the vibro-knife.

NICK: Okay.

(laughter)

STEVEN: We’re sitting back to back, so.

LAURA: Stabby stab stab.

CAMERON: First person to attack Quiggle gets two blue dice.

STEVEN: Oh yeah.

NICK: He’s lit by fire light, and also just like standing awkwardly hugging you.

CAMERON: (seethes)

LAURA: What is—Okay.

CAMERON: That is cocked.

NICK: Yeah, you can reroll that one.

CAMERON: That’s cocked. Reroll it, and it better be good.

LAURA: That is a cock.

CAMERON: Hey!

LAURA: There you go.

STEVEN: Hey, two successes. It is gonna be five total.

NICK: Five damage, okay. You stab him in the throat, it severs a couple of his face tentacles, and he drops.

STEVEN: But the pierce is two on it, so.

NICK: Yeah. You went through his Soak, so that’s how you brought him down. Quiggle’s on the ground coughing up greenish blood. He’s out of the fight. Another PC slot.

HUDSON: I’ll go ahead and finish off the Gamorrean.

NICK: Okay. Go for it.

CAMERON: Two purple.

HUDSON: Two purple.

CAMERON: And a black die, because he’s in defending zone.

NICK: Yes, thank you. Glad we have Cameron to help with that.

HUDSON: Nooo.

CAMERON: Nothing.

STEVEN: Well—

NICK: Absolutely nothing.

LAURA: Literally nothing. Just blank dice.

HUDSON: Nothing.

NICK: Okay, so, like a blade ballet you both clash, titans in the asteroid night amongst the fire light, the shrieking whine of your weapons pierces everyone’s minds, and they know this is a fatal encounter… but nothing happens.

STEVEN & CAMERON: (giggles)

HUDSON: I feel like this is like Phasma and Finn fighting (mumbles)

NICK: A little bit, a little bit, yeah, except you’re both giant and kind of lumbering, so you’re not as cool.

HUDSON: Yeah, that’s true.

NICK: Tiny’s gonna go. He’s still on his back. He uses a maneuver to roll onto his tummy, so he’s prone instead of prone, and he draws two blaster pistols and he attempts to shoot Sabos.

STEVEN: “You’re gonna shoot me?” I yell out, because I’m right back to back with his leader.

NICK: No, you stabbed him. He’s on the ground now.

STEVEN: Oh, haha, alright.

NICK: And he has a green and a yellow, and it’s three purples because he’s dual wielding. So, Sabos, you’re gonna flip one to upgrade his difficulty to shoot you?

STEVEN: I will.

NICK: Eh, he’ll also take a strain to aim.

CAMERON: So that’s two purples, one red, one yellow, one green, and one blue?

NICK: Yep.

CAMERON: It’s a rainbow, guys.

LAURA: It’s so pretty.

CAMERON: I really hope this misses.

NICK: I hope it doesn’t.

CAMERON: I’ma feel real bad if I roll the roll that kills you.

STEVEN: Yup.

NICK: Ooh.

CAMERON: Eh, that’s one success.

STEVEN: Hey, look at that.

NICK: How many advantages?

CAMERON: Two.

STEVEN: Enough.

NICK: Oh man. You know what having two advantages does when you’re dual wielding, right?

STEVEN: No.

NICK: Lets him use both pistols.

CAMERON: Yeah. One success, two advantages.

NICK: Yeah! So he’s gonna use those two advantages to activate his other pistol, which means he’s gonna do double damage.

STEVEN: Sure, sure.

NICK: Which means that’s gonna be twelve damage coming at you.

STEVEN: That’s gonna be tough. (laughter) That will put me around, oh, the negative seven mark, pretty darn close to zero.

NICK: And if you go down, then that’s a crit, guys. Alright, so you are now unconscious at negative seven. We now know that it does track for negatives, and go ahead and roll that crit that Tiny got on you.

CAMERON: Thirty-four.

LAURA: A 34! Let’s see… That is Stunned. The target is staggered until the end of his next turn.

CAMERON: You’re also unconscious, though.

NICK: So you can’t take another action. Bummer.

STEVEN: Yeah, because I’m unconscious. (laughs)

NICK: So, Sabos goes down in a blaze of pistols. Tiny sits up slightly, and is like, “I hit him? I hit him! Woo!” And then everybody looks at him, and he’s like, “Uhh… Great.”

LAURA: Xianna actually is like, “Aw, good job.”

NICK: “Cool. Uh, last chance for y’all to surrender, because I’ve taken out your leader.”

CAMERON: “Sweetie, I’m gonna reverse that. Last chance for you to surrender”

NICK: “Um…”

CAMERON: “You might notice your leader’s down too.”

LAURA: “He is dead.”

CAMERON: “And I really don’t wanna hurt you.”

LAURA: “Also, he is not actually our leader.”

NICK: “What?!”

LAURA: “We just said that so that you would target him. We don’t really like him too much.”

CAMERON: “Thanks for shooting him for us.”

NICK: “Oh, you’re welcome. Well, I mean, wait—“ Can you make me a check?

CAMERON: Coercion?

NICK: Coercion, yes. It’s super duper Coercion.

CAMERON: Can Xianna help me?

NICK: Yeah, absolutely.

CAMERON: Can we co-Coercion?

STEVEN: Coerce.

NICK: Yeah.

LAURA: What’s Coercion?

CAMERON: It’s Willpower.

LAURA: Willpower? I have a two.

NICK: So you can have a blue die.

CAMERON: Okay. That at least gets me a blue.

LAURA: Okay.

NICK: For this one since it was straight her glaring at him and saying we’re about to kill you.

CAMERON: Dang. I don’t have the Good Cop skill on my tree yet.

LAURA: Oh no.

CAMERON: It’s right there, though. I can see it.

NICK: The Skiptracer tree, everyone who hasn’t read it, you should look at it. It’s awesome. You have Good Cop and Bad Cop, and it’s great.

LAURA: Wait, no, no—

CAMERON: Well, Skiptracer doesn’t have Bad Cop, they just have Good Cop, but other ones have Bad Cop.

LAURA: But in other trees. Yeah, we found the one that has Bad Cop, and I don’t remember which one it is.

CAMERON: Okay. Let’s see how intimidating we are. Nope, nada. Zilch.

NICK: Okay. He looks concerned for a minute, but then he says, “As long as our friend is standing, Quiggle’s crew of cons will stay on top.” And he looks real sad, but he doesn’t drop his weapons.

LAURA: I’m trying to think of more C Q words. You have like Quiggle’s coterie.

STEVEN: Ooh.

NICK: But he left them on the ship.

LAURA: Yes.

NICK: So, PC slot.

LAURA: Xianna’s gonna shoot Tiny, and she’s gonna kinda sigh and look sad at him.

CAMERON: No. He said as long as his friend is standing. Shoot his friend.

LAURA: Xianna doesn’t wanna get in the way of an honorable duel. Okay?

HUDSON: Don’t get in the way of my honorable duel!

CAMERON: Karma will shoot his friend!

HUDSON: No!

CAMERON: Karma don’t care! (laughs)

LAURA: Xianna is like, nuh-uh, those two are in close quarters combat. I’m going to honor that timely tradition-

HUDSON: Thank you.

LAURA: -and let them battle it out. You know. I’m gonna shoot the little tiny person.

STEVEN: (laughs)

NICK: Honorably.

LAURA: Is this like a child? I keep imagining like, short round.

NICK: He kind of looks like Mouse from the Matrix, so just like a scrawnier little guy.

LAURA: Oh. Just a small? I was straight up picturing short round, and I felt really bad because I was picturing like a little kid. Okay.

STEVEN: Seems like we’ve found ourselves in a Quiggle’s quagmire.

LAURA & CAMERON: Ohh!

NICK: Ho-ho! Too bad you’re unconscious. You gasp that around the bloody bullet wounds in your chest.

STEVEN: (laughs)

LAURA: And I’m gonna aim. Is he still lying down prone?

NICK: Yeah, so you get a black die.

CAMERON: Nooo.

LAURA: One threat.

NICK: Okay. You shoot at him and it’s obvious that you’re not super invested in hitting him, because you feel kinda bad about it-

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: -and he ducks a little, and then sees that you’re not that committed to killing them, and he is heartened. He is very confident. That’s what the threat is.

STEVEN: (laughs)

NICK: Another PC slot.

LAURA: Karma should shooty-shoot-shoot.

CAMERON: Who am I shooting though is the thing. I’m questioning.

HUDSON: Shoot Tiny!

LAURA: I feel like Karma would shoot the Gamorrean.

CAMERON: Yeah, because how old does Tiny look?

NICK: Eighteen, maybe.

LAURA: Yeah.

CAMERON: Yeah. There’s no way in hell Karma’s shooting Tiny.

HUDSON: For all you know the Gamorrean could be a child. They’re just that big.

STEVEN: (laughs)

CAMERON: Yeah, I don’t care. Yeah, I’m shooting the Gamorrean.

NICK: Okay. Ooh boy.

CAMERON: Alrighty, so that’s two successes, two threats, and a triumph.

NICK: Okay. The threats are Tiny is even more bolstered but you get a—Are you gonna use the triumph to crit, or?

CAMERON: No. I’m going to do ten damage to the Gigoran—err, Gamorrean. Not the—I’m not shooting Tink. I’m shooting the pig person!

HUDSON: Whoa!

CAMERON: Hold on. Gamorrean.

NICK: Okay, so, you hit him in the back of the head. He’s mid swing. He actually had the advantage for a second. He had used the pole of his vibro-axe to hit Tink in the stomach, and he was going up for a big overhead strike, and you just shoot him in the back of the head and he collapses like a sack of potatoes.

CAMERON: One of the things for triumphs is that they can take out—

NICK: They take out mooks. They don’t take out, like–

LAURA: Yeah, you can take out minions.

CAMERON: Oh, okay.

NICK: These are like actual PC characters you guys are shooting.

CAMERON: So you said my threats were that he was more bolstered?

NICK: Mm-hmm.

CAMERON: Mmkay, because I wanted the triumph to be that he started thinking about how sad his mom would be if he died.

NICK: I mean, the triumph could be you can go kind of through the bolster and you get one more chance to try to persuade him to stand down.

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. So, you give your speech. He’s standing there going, “I’m gonna live forever! Quiggles for life! Yeah!” Even though he’s bleeding, he’s waving his guns around.

(laughter)

CAMERON: “How old are you?”

NICK: “I’m 18. I’m gonna live forever.”

CAMERON: “Mm, I’m not thinking for that much longer actually if you keep holding that gun.”

NICK: “That sounds intimidating, but clearly we’re gonna win. I don’t need my friends. I’m the new captain. Yay!”

LAURA: So, I know this won’t help Karma dice-wise, but Xianna just kinda looks over and is like, “Do you know how many of my friends were dead by the time I was 18? A lot.”

NICK: “Yeah, most of mine, too. I mean, those two were pretty much the last ones except for Quiggle’s coterie, and they were always pretty mean to me.”

(snorts and giggles)

CAMERON: How do these words work?!

LAURA: You can see she’s using her hands to like make a Q, but then a C, and she’s like, “But isn’t coterie with a C? I do not… Nn.”

CAMERON: “Before you do anything stupid, I just want you to sit back and reflect on your short life at this point and also think of all the people who are going to be sad, like your mom, if you don’t make it out of here, but how proud she’d be of you if you left as the new captain. You could even rename the crew since Quiggle is … dead. Sorry, I can’t think of a dead word for a Q. I apologize.”

STEVEN: Quiggle has quit.

(laughter)

NICK: Sabos sits up, says that, and passes back out.

CAMERON: Thank you, disembodied voice of Sabos! Yup.

NICK: Go ahead and make me a roll. You can use whichever talky skill you think is most appropriate.

CAMERON: yeah, that’s happening, because none of mine are good.

LAURA: Okay, I’ll go ahead and flip that. I mean, not that the audience could see, because you know audio medium, but I was pointing at a light side.

NICK: I like to think that Tabletop Squadron is an audio large.

STEVEN & HUDSON: Boo!

NICK: This is what happens when we play for five hours, guys. It only gets worse.

CAMERON: I’m going to use Charm, since I don’t think Deception fits at all.

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: I flipped a light side point, so I’m upgrading it.

LAURA: I can help with that.

NICK: Yeah, since you added stuff in.

LAURA: My Presence is a three.

CAMERON: Nice! Mine is only a two. So, what am I rolling against?

NICK: It’s gonna be two purple and a black die. The triumph cut through the three black dice it was originally gonna be.

CAMERON: Alright. I really hope we don’t have to kill this kid.

NICK: You’re gonna feel real bad.

CAMERON: I’m gonna feel so bad! It’s okay, I think we’re okay, two successes and an advantage.

NICK: Oh, he goes, “Yeah, you’re probably right,” and drops his pistols, and then he proceeds to drop the other eight pistols he had strapped to his chest.

CAMERON: (laughs) Karma does a big sigh of relief.

NICK: “All hail Captain Tiny! Also, do you guys have any like medical supplies, because I’m getting pretty low on blood here.” He starts to kind of waver in place.

CAMERON: “Why don’t you… Lay down. We’ll find something.”

NICK: “Okay.” He collapses to the ground.

HUDSON: “It’s a quality Quiggle evening.”

NICK: And, that’s where we’re gonna end it.

(All make dramatic noises and Star Wars tunes)

## Outro

CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show please consider logging into iTunes and giving us a five-star review. Five-star reviews will help new listeners to find the show.

Xianna’fan is played by Laura Penrod. She can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.

Tink is played by Hudson Jameson and he can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.

Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.

Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet.

Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.

Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.

Additional music by James Gunter.

Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tabletop_squad. For real! We’re real people and we wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.

This punch bowl drink is a doozy. Tink orders it during a sabacc game at a casino in Episode 10. It’s green and red and served in a gigantic glass and was a pain in the ass to make.

Why was it a pain in the ass to make?

A large punchbowl drink with a green liquid, ice cubes, and red candies.

The Green Extermination

Because none of us had glasses big enough to make this drink. I had to find a vase in the back of my closet and wash it about forty times before feeling safe about using it.

After that it was pretty easy. A ton of bright green apple schnapps, a bit of clear cinnamon schnapps, a glug of apple juice, a hearty pour of ginger ale, and then a smattering of red candies.

Top view of the green extermination

The Green Extermination and it’s candies

Our grocery store was out of both of our first two choices, Red Hots and Hot Tamales, but they did have some generic “hot cinnamon candy dots”. They worked perfectly… for about five minutes. Then their candy coating began to melt and started turning the old drink red.

Side shot showing the red candies bleeding their color

As you can see, the red had started leaking

Because of that, we find it’s best to add the candies right before serving. The Official Tabletop Squadron Taste Testers (Nick and Hudson) found that in addition to the color change the flavor of the drink changed over time as well. It became slightly sweeter, and had more of a cinnamon bite. They both said they enjoyed this drink at all of it’s stages.

 

 

Green Extermination [serves 4-6, or 1 large Gigoran] 

12 ounces green-colored pucker sour apple schnapps
4 ounces clear cinnamon schnapps (such as Goldschläger)
8 ounces apple juice
Ginger ale
Cinnamon red hot candies

In a large punch bowl or vase combine both schnapps, and apple juice. Fill with ice, and then add the ginger ale until the container is full. Toss a handful of the red candies on top.

Serve immediately.

 

 

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