STAR WARS Roleplaying: The Lannik Sector Pt. 1 - The Knife of Nambeno Trading Outpost

 Surprisingly, I have very little to bemoan about Fantasy Flight Games / EDGE Publishing's series of Star Wars RPG books. They're generally well written, they work well to explore established canon, while gently expanding things here and there. Granted, it seems the latest additions to the Star Wars canon like Andor, and The Mandalorian seem to have bits and pieces that now contradict things here and there, but that's nothing the average player and/or Star Wars enjoyer would notice. 

Because I generally like the exercise of creating my own RPG stuff, I went and put together this system about which there isn't much in the official sources. This basically started out with the idea of having a busy space station that was carved out of an old ship from the Clone Wars. Initially I wanted that to be an Acclamator but those aren't large enough to make for a good Star Wars station, so I went instead with a derelict lucrehulk. Everything else kinda came from there... 

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The “Knife of Nambeno” trading outpost

 

 

The "Knife of Nambeno" trading outpost is an independent space station in the Lannik system asteroid belt. The station was initially just a small trading post on a mineral-rich asteroid. Following the Battle of Lannik during the Clone Wars, mercenaries hired by the Surkellos family managed to capture a heavily damaged Geonosian Lucrehulk, left adrift in space after the battle. The massive ship was fitted around the asteroid in the following years, effectively more than quintupling the habitable area of the station, adding a formidable defensive system, and vastly improving energy supply while also significantly expanding the spaceport facilities compared to the previous state of the station. The Surkellos adopted the name of the ship as the name of the station.

 

After the Clone Wars, the Galactic Empire occupied the previously independent system, deposed the Lannik monarchy and installed an Imperial sector governor. The Imperials greatly accelerated the mining processes in the system, bringing in a captive labor force that quickly stripped Lannik of most valuable materials. With the system now seen as mostly useless for the Imperial war machine, the Imperial Fleet pulled out, leaving behind only the regional governor, with a small detachment of armed forces at his command, while otherwise leaving the Lannik System to its own devices. However due to the system's location, between Bothan, Hutt Space, and the Core worlds, and due to a continued presence of minable materials - just not any that are important to the Empire at the moment - the station remains a vibrant trade outpost. With the Empire no longer paying particular attention, Nambeno quickly became a haven for people on the run, from the Empire, from the Hutt crime lords, or from other powerful enemies across the galaxy.

 

As the station’s importance for the system’s trade grow, the population eventually outgrew the durasteel hull of the old warship. Especially the sizable population of drifters and other unsavory elements that ended up stuck here made up a steadily growing part of the population, lacking means to leave but also lacking means to rent living space of their own. This led to the station's administration allowing those less fortunate to expand habitation into the body of the asteroid and its abandoned mining tunnels. The result is locally referred to as the warrens, a labyrinthine sector of slapdash development, with frequent blow-outs and cave-ins, in perpetual disrepair and re-invention. The warrens grow over and into the asteroid like a cancer. They are barely regulated and controlled only by criminal gangs and other scum.  They house an untold variety of underworld artisans who create all manner of products, from clothing to weapons to starship components.

 

Chief Administrator of the Knife of Nambeno, Pon Surkellos (Nemesis)

Brawn (2) Agility (2) Intellect (4) Cunning (3) Willpower (2) Presence (4) 

[Soak value (2)] [W Threshold (14)] [S Threshold (12)] [M/3 Defense (2|0)]

Skills: Charm 3, Coercion 4, Cool 2, Deception 3, Negotiation 3, Knowledge (Education) 3, Knowledge (Outer Rim) 2, Streetwise 2, Vigilance 2 

Talents: Adversary 1, Improved Scathing Tirade, Improved Inspiring Rhetoric

Equipment: Holdout blaster (Ranged [Light]; Damage 5, Critical 4, Range [Short]; Stun setting), personal deflector shield (+2 melee defense), encrypted expense voucher with 10,000 credits

Nambeno is ruled by Chief Administrator Pon Surkellos, eldest daughter of the Surkellos family that has been ruling the station since before the Clone Wars. The Surkellos are a human family that grew rich as traders in the sector since the halcyon days of the Old Republic. Pon is aware that the station is a hub for smugglers and miscreants, but she and her family have isolated themselves through generations of well-placed bribes and arrangements with the local Imperial authorities and several layers of plausible deniability. Also, they profit from providing a mostly legitimate cover for the station's criminal underworld.

 

Syndicate Leader "The Dead" (Nemesis)

Brawn (2) Agility (3) Intellect (3) Cunning (3) Willpower (3) Presence (4) 

[Soak Value (3) ] [W Threshold (18)] [S Threshold (15)] [M/R Defense (1|1)]

Skills: Astrogation 3, Charm 2, Cool 4, Gunnery 3, Knowledge (Underworld) 3, Ranged (light) 3, Piloting (Planetary) 3, Piloting (Space) 4, Skulduggery 2, Streetwise 4, Vigilance 3

Talents: Adversary 1, Skilled Jockey

Equipment: Heavy Blaster Pistol (ranged [light], Damage 7, Critical 3,  Range [Medium]; Stun setting), armored, (+1|+1 defense) 

The sizable shady operations on the space station – and most of the system -- are run by a crime syndicate led by an enigmatic - and eponymous - figure known as "the Dead". The Dead have connections with most galaxy spanning criminal syndicates, without being directly involved with any of them. They serve as the local enforcers of several Hutt crime lords, and have regular dealings with the Black Sun and if necessary will even deal with Crimson Dawn. Despite the Dead's good connections, the organization never attempted to grow beyond Lannik. Due to how well the Dead are dug in at Lannik, other, larger criminal operations have so far deemed it not worth the effort to cut out the Dead as a middle man. Wisely, the mysterious, skull-faced leader of the organization has chosen not to push any fellow criminal overlord hard enough to change any minds.

 

Imperial Governor of the Lannik System Lenn Krestner (Nemesis)

Brawn (2) Agility (2) Intellect (3) Cunning (3) Willpower 3 Presence (3)

[Soak Value (3)] [W Threshold (4) ] [M/R Defense 0|0 ]

Skills: Charm 3, Coercion 4, Cool 2, Deception 3, Perception 4, Knowledge (Education) 4, Leadership 3, Ranged (Light) 3, Piloting (Planetary) 2, Resilience 2, Streetwise 2, Skulduggery 3, Vigilance 2

Talents: Improved Inspiring Rhetoric, Kill with Kindness,2, Nobody's Fool2

Abilities: Leader

Equipment: Light blaster pistol (Ranged [Light], Damage 5, Critical 4, Range [Medium]; Stun setting) 

The local imperial governor Krestner uses the station to supply Imperial work camps with captives from Hutt Space. These captives are mostly nonhuman aliens lacking proper Imperial documentation, essentially slaves, that through Nambeno are rebranded as criminals and introduced into the Imperial penal system via the prison camp outposts on Lannik II and IV. The penal camps on Lannik II are operated by the Mining Consortium, who pay the governor back a part of the revenue generated by their operations. Governor Krestner has an arrangement with the Surkellos family. He gets his slaves, the Empire looks away when dangerous materials are smuggled through Nambeno. It is in everyone's interest that nothing big happens in the Lannik system…

 

The Knife of Nambeno has five distinct sectors:

1: Nambeno medium craft Spaceport - taking up most of the of the cruiser’s front section

2: Residential sector and bazaars - in and around the core ship in the center of the open circle of the lucrehulk

3: Administrative sector on top of the control ship

4: Ore processing facilities and capital ship dock at the low end of the asteroid

5: The Warrens - unplanned and barely regulated structures that crisscross the captured asteroid and house the bulk of the station's laborers – and irregulars.

 

The spaceport is immediately surrounded by the grand bazaar, the heart of Lannik system's merchant economy, as well as a sizable number of bars, cantinas, and guest houses catering to spacefarers. The "top" of the Core Ship houses the administrative levels, including the lavish private quarters of the Surkellos family.

 

The "donut" of the cruiser houses most of Nambeno's residential quarters. A dizzying array of workshops in which all manner of craft are serviced, repaired, or rebuilt, can be found on the hullward decks. Towards the tip of the "right" arm, some of the old hangar decks have been converted into secondary "spaceports" of their own, with varying levels of clandestinety.

 

The old station’s asteroid home is wedged into the front part of the Lucrehulk’s donut. The asteroid’s overall girth is less than the three-kilometer radius of the warship, but the rock protrudes for six kilometers below the place it has been fitted “into” the cruiser. The old station is accessible through durasteel tunnels built between the hull of the warship and the station on the surface of the asteroid. The old station runs through the length of the asteroid, but is mostly made up of ore processing, storage, and loading facilities. A large cluster of industrial turbolift shafts run through the center of the asteroid. The station's capital ship docking facility is located at the lowest end of the asteroid. Here all the ore collected from the various mines of the Lannik system, that has been processed and refined through the station, is transferred onto large, long-haul bulk freighters of the mining consortium. These ships transport the ore to out-of-system markets. The capital ship docking facility is itself well defended with several missile tubes and a turbolaser battery. Due to its location, the dock is also well-covered by the defense system of the old lucrehulk.

 

The structure of the old station is the official entrance to the Warrens. The Warrens are home to two kinds of people: those too poor to live within the structure of the old cruiser, or those too untrusting of Surkellos power over the station itself. The Warrens are a maze of ever-changing habitats with widely varying atmospheres. Most inhabitants here are nonhumans, with Lanniks making up a sizable majority. Most of the Warren’s denizens are workers in the ore loading and processing facilities. The Dead provide a questionable sense of order and stability here.