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wreck encounter

Encounter Context & Prerequisites

  • Location: Numidian Prime, deep within a dense, corrosive jungle canopy at the crash site of a Clone Wars-era Separatist Frigate.

  • Mission: Escort some NPC to an unknown location and back with some salvaged goods. More/higher value good resulsts in higher payment there is some wiggle room. but also payment penalties if equipment or npc get damaged.

  • Employer: The Party is hired by a pantoran expedition leader named Keeloss "Key" Odo-Vey. He is a contractor to an external minor faction (some rich person) and his security expert (loyal friend) H'sharr, a cathar veteran.

  • Mission-plan: Since the exact position of the wreck is not known some scanning site is to be set up (by the npc) and defended (by the players) when the expedition reaches the general area where the wreck is suspected. the scanning is completely done by the npc BUT the local wildlife is interrupting the process. The party needs to scare (and maybe even fight) them off so that the technicians get more details before deciding to stop the scan and go "just go into the direction they had something big on the scanners". there will be no skill check for the technician NPCs, the level of success will be purely dependent on the PCs protection success, to give the players agency while bridging the missing scanning/technical skills of the more combat heavy group. but the real consequences will only be revealed in the second part. Up until this point I have prepped the adventure with detailed NPC backgrounds and a battlemap for the encounter. But the second part still needs some work. I have different ideas of what might happen at the wreck:

Wreck Ideas:

1. The Clues of Lingering Doom (The 3-Clue Solution)

Because the G9-Rigger and Viss-Ka-Liss are remaining at the staging area, the ground team must rely on physical, environmental indicators inside the wreck to gauge the stability of the vessel if their initial scan was insufficient. Use these three distinct clues across different sensory channels to signal the countdown without explicitly showing the mechanical clock track until they deduce the threat:

  • Clue 1 (Visual - The Creeping Frost): The containment cells housing the hyper-dense ordnance rely on pressurized cryo-coolant. As the system fails, liquid nitrogen-equivalent fluids are venting into the adjacent maintenance shafts. The players see a rapid, aggressive line of thick white frost crawling along the floor and pipes, moving away from the lower decks. When the frost hits a junction box, it shorts out, killing the local emergency lights.
  • Clue 2 (Auditory - The Structural "Groan" and Frequency Screech): The massive ship's spine is snapping under the weight of the jungle canopy. At regular intervals, a deep, sub-bass metallic buckle vibrates through the floorplates, forcing characters to make Coordination or Athletics checks to stay on their feet. Simultaneously, E3-PO’s audio receptors pick up a rising harmonic whine from the ship's internal comm-lines—the sound of power transformers cascading toward an overload.
  • Clue 3 (Environmental/Olfactory - Ozone and Bitter Almonds): The air inside the entry corridors shifts rapidly. The distinct smell of electrical fire (ozone) is suddenly replaced by a sweet, chemical scent resembling bitter almonds—the signature odor of deteriorating binary explosive stabilizers used in Separatist dreadnought shells.

2. The Danger Clock & Pacing Framework

To execute this inside the FFG narrative system, use an 8-Segment Progress Clock. The clock does not advance strictly by the clock on the wall; it advances based on a combination of exploration choices and the narrative results of player actions.

graph TD
    Start[Wreck Opened] --> Clock0[Segment 0: Quiet/Frozen]
    Clock0 -->|Exploration / Time Block Pass| Clock1[Segments 1-4: Escalating Clues]
    Clock1 -->|Mechanical Failure / Threat Spends| Clock2[Segments 5-6: Localized Fires]
    Clock2 -->|Critical Mass Reached| Clock7[Segment 7: Minor Explosions / Hull Shakes]
    Clock7 -->|Terminal Segment Filled| Clock8[Segment 8: Total Hull Detonation]

Clock Advancement Rules

  • Time Blocks: Entering a major structural zone (e.g., moving from the Crew Quarters to the Munitions Bay) automatically fills 1 Segment due to navigating collapsed bulkheads and debris.
  • Narrative Dice Complications: During checks inside the wreck (Athletics, Computers, Mechanics), the GM can spend 3 Threat or a single Despair to immediately advance the clock by 1 Segment as a pipe bursts, a bulkhead settles, or a power line arcs into a fuel pocket.

The Terminal Step (Segment 7 Filled)

When the 7th segment fills, the lingering doom manifests physically:

GM Mechanics: The floor drops out. A chain reaction in an auxiliary torpedo tube detonates three decks below. Every player must immediately suffer 4 Strain from the sheer atmospheric shockwave. All subsequent physical checks (Athletics, Brawn, Coordination) gain two Setback dice as the ship tilts at a permanent 15-degree angle into the jungle mud.

3. The Loot Heist Profile

The interior of the Munificent contains four distinct vaults. The players must choose their paths based on a balance of risk, physical capability, and their specific character backgrounds.

graph TD
    Entrance[Node 1: Forward Hangar Breach] -->|Flooded Shafts / Athletics| Munitions[Node 2: Warhead Magazine]
    Entrance -->|Security Grid / Computers| Vault[Node 3: Republic Commerce Loot]
    Entrance -->|Debris Corridor / Mechanics| DroidBay[Node 4: Storage Bay 4]
    Entrance -->|Exposed Wiring / Perception| DataBridge[Node 5: Aux. Tactical Bridge]

Loot Location Breakdown

A. The Credit Vault (The Republic Commerce Prize)

  • The Narrative Hook: Discovered via a partial manifest downloaded during the initial scan, this heavy security safe contains un-minted Republic hard-currency bars and raw precious metals seized from Mid-Rim trade lanes during the war.
  • The Obstacle: Fortified behind a thick blast door with a mechanical backup tumbler system. It cannot be sliced remotely; it requires physical destruction or a specialized Skulduggery (Cunning) or Athletics (Brawn) check to breach the locking pins.
  • Risk vs. Reward: Medium Risk / High Reward. The loot is heavy but highly stable. It directly appeals to Borlat Slaim's desire to erase his syndicate Debt.

B. The Munitions Bay (The Volatile Warheads)

  • The Narrative Hook: A visual scanning overlay shows twenty intact Class-A Heavy Proton Torpedo warheads sitting in their magnetic cradle.
  • The Obstacle: The magnetic fields are failing. Removing a warhead requires a delicate Mechanics (Intellect) or Agility check to decouple the volatile firing pins without causing a localized spark.
  • Risk vs. Reward: Extreme Risk / Sky-High Reward. Each warhead is worth a fortune to planetary militias or arms dealers, but generating a Despair ($\text{d}$) during extraction instantly advances the Danger Clock by 2 segments and inflicts critical wounds on the technician.

C. Droid & Ship Components (The Salvage Yard)

  • The Narrative Hook: Storage Bay 4 contains crated, unassembled pieces of high-grade Separatist starfighter engines and deactivated vulture droid logic cores.
  • The Obstacle: The cargo bay doors are partially jammed by a fallen structural pillar. Clearing the path requires brute force (Athletics/Brawn) or rigging a jury-rigged pulley system.
  • Risk vs. Reward: Low Risk / Medium Reward. The parts are inert and safe to handle, but they are bulky. Ong Bak can use these parts to directly upgrade the G9-Rigger's sublight speed capabilities.

D. The Data Cores (The Intelligence Cache)

  • The Narrative Hook: The auxiliary tactical bridge houses an intact tactical memory core containing old Separatist hyperspace bypass routes and secret supply cache coordinates.
  • The Obstacle: The bridge is suspended precariously over an open hull breach. Accessing the terminal requires a character to balance across an exposed structural beam (Coordination/Agility) and slice the corrupted drive (Computers/Intellect).
  • Risk vs. Reward: Lowest Risk / Lowest Immediate Cash. The physical data pad weighs nothing, meaning it doesn't slow the getaway. While Keeloss pays little for it, the information opens a brand-new narrative node for future high-paying missions.

4. Roll20 Visual Optimization & Situational Awareness

To maximize the impact of this encounter without official deck plans, use a Dual-Layer Macro Map layout inside Roll20:

1. The Cross-Section UI Tracker

Place a large, stylized cross-section diagram of the Munificent-class frigate at the top or side of your primary map space.

  • The Dynamic Danger Token: Create a custom multi-sided token (rollable table) representing the 8-Segment Danger Clock. Place it prominently on the screen so players can visually track the escalation as you flip through the sides.
  • Party Tokens: Instead of individual character tokens on a grid, use a single "Party Location Marker" token on the cross-section to show which distinct sector of the ship the group is currently occupying. This eliminates the tediousness of moving individual tokens through non-combat corridors.

2. The Thematic Grid Style

For the specific zones where the players drop down into tactical play (the vaults or the bridge), use a stark, high-contrast visual style on your map layer:

  • Dynamic Lighting Aura: Set your Roll20 dynamic lighting tokens to emit a very short radius of dim light (3-5 meters) with a sharp falloff. This simulates the claustrophobic, dark, emergency-lit interior of the dead ship, forcing players to rely on light glow-rods or their droid’s internal sensors.
  • The "Structural Failure" Token Layer: Place translucent red or yellow tint polygons on the GM layer over specific hallways. When the clock advances, move these to the Map layer to visually indicate to the players that a corridor has just been blocked by fire, frost, or a structural collapse, forcing them to find an alternate route on their cross-section map.

5. Scripted Scene: The Sight of the Wreck

  • Context: The players are riding inside the expedition's heavy landspeeders, cutting through the dense, corrosive jungle of Numidian Prime.
  • Command Verification: This description is tailored to the second-person plural perspective, avoiding any hidden secrets or GM-only narrative beats.

Read-Aloud Flavor Text

The relentless, hissing patter of corrosive rain against the landspeeder’s reinforced canopy suddenly shifts in pitch as the vehicle clears a dense wall of weeping, calcified giant ferns. The yellow fog of Numidian Prime parts, revealing a gargantuan silhouette that defies the organic chaos of the surrounding jungle.

Before you lies the skeleton of a titan. An ancient Munificent-class Star Frigate, broken into three distinct, overlapping segments, rests at a catastrophic angle where it plowed into the planetary crust two decades ago. The distinctive twin-pronged bow of the Separatist warship rises out of the swamp like the jawbones of a dead leviathan, completely choked by thick, weeping vines that seem to be slowly digesting the dull gray hull plating.

As the landspeeders slide to a halt near a gaping fissure in the forward hangar bay, the scale of the wreck becomes suffocating. The hull is a vertical cliff face of rusted metal, scarred by old turbo-laser burns and weeping oily, synthetic fluid into the black mud below. The silence of the jungle is broken only by the rhythmic, heavy dripping of acid rain collecting on the ship's massive communication dish high above, and a deep, cyclical thrumming vibration that you can feel raw in your teeth—the final, dying heartbeat of a ship that refuses to stay buried.

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