Rajani Jones, Dark Marchessa of Coffee

Rajani is not a Vancouver native, but is instead darkly, dreamily, exotically American.  Rumors swirl around the mocha-skinned beauty: She came from the American South and sacrificed her soul to the Dark, that she and Abigail Ng were ferocious rivals or the best of friends, that she broke the Windflower Law for the world famous Yukimura Yuji, her prophet and lover, that she sacrificed her hometown to the Camorra in exchange for protection from some dread crime.

Rajani is certainly a very attractive and successful African-American woman with two degrees, one in business and one in philosophy, who is often the most popular girl in the room.  She's as hot as an espresso, as sweet as ice cream, and as strong as the blackest coffee in the darkest of dawn.  She serves the Dark, and often worked closely with Magnus Carter on previous occasions.  With the death of Abigail Ng, Rajani dropped all her plans and took the first flight to Vancouver, where she plans on getting some answers.

Rajani's flowers are the Lotus, the Key of the Descending Angel, and Chamomile, the Key of Something Romantic.  Her anchors are Rebekah Jones, the ghost of her dead grandmother, Yukimura Yuji, her prophet and the greatest barista to ever live, and Starbucks, which is her temple.

Minions: Criminals

The game Star Wars: Empire at War has three factions: Empire, Rebellion and Criminal. This seems logical, if watching the films. Criminals serve neither faction, only themselves, and can pose a threat to either, and criminals are a deeply central part of Star Wars, present in all three original films, from the “hive of scum and villainy” of Mos Eisley, to Lando Calrissian, to Jabba the Hutt. However, it might be a mistake to see them as on par with the Empire or the Rebellion. After all, the full might of Jabba the Hutt is a laughable fraction of that of a single Imperial dreadnought and its accompanying legions, or a full armada of Rebellion forces. Setting aside sheer numbers that either faction can bring, they also bring superior training and equipment. What is a Gamorran with a vibro-axe against a fully armed and armored storm trooper?

This mistakes the role of criminals in the setting. They are not a military faction, but a presence on the streets, in back alleys and in gloomy cantinas. They represent the corruption of the world and the slow failing of institutions in the Galaxy. They are your slavers, your drug dealers and your muscle. They live in a different world than military might, one where heavy weapons will rarely come to the fore for a variety of reasons, but weapons still matter. I discussed them at length when analyzing the tactics of Psi-Wars. Given how differently criminals will fight than military forces, I think it might be useful to examine what sort of mooks we might face were we to anger the wrong crime-boss, or meet the wrong sort of person in a dark alley.

Spy 4.0

I'm largely happy with the spy.  Her design has remained pretty consistent since Iteration 2.  Most of her skills hit 16, which is appropriate for a skilled generalist, but she can easily hit 18 on skills that matter to her particular focus.  Her focus still remains on infiltration, either by means of deception or stealth, gathering intelligence, engaging in a little light sabotage, and then getting out.

The only substantial change has been to remove the Conspirator power set.  I like it... but I'm not sure it fits.  I want to look at a few more elements, especially in Iteration 5, before I approve of that one.  The rest of the power sets help her focus on her various specialties, giving a cinematic boost either to infiltration or deception, and adding Hacker as a possibility to give her an entirely new direction

Minions: Alliance Troopers

If the Empire and the Storm Trooper are the golden standard of soldiers from Star Wars, the brave troopers of the Rebellion are the silver standard. Of course, a typical Star Wars game doesn’t feature combat against the Rebellion, but there’s no reason for that to be true of Psi-Wars. Moreover, heroes of the Alliance may well be accompanied by Alliance Troopers. Thus, they’ll need as much detail as Imperial Troopers.

The Concept of Alliance Troopers

The soldiers of the Rebellion are defined by being in a state of rebellion. They’re the brave resistance to the great and powerful empire and stand as a contrast to it. The empire is the Leviathan, the great, tyrannical state, and the Rebellion fights against it: they’re the Minute Men, La Resistance, the Viet Kong, and the Taliban. George Lucas often described the Rebellion in these terms. If the Empire is Goliath, the Rebellion is David.

In a sense, both forces are foils to one another. Where the Empire’s soldiers are faceless, the Rebellion’s soldiers show their faces. Where the Empire is well-funded with sleek and advanced technology, the Rebellion is poorly equipped and makes use of old technology. Where the Empire has legions of soldiers at its disposal, the Rebellion has only a few desperate heroes to defeat the great military-industrial behemoth that marches on them.

While describing the Rebellion as “the Taliban” might seem harsh to modern ears, it fits tactically. Like the Rebellion, modern terrorists fight a technologically and numerically superior foe. They must make use of spoiler tactics, explosives, old and reliable weapons like jeeps and AK-47s, and cheap missile launchers to defeat their opponents. They must also make use of the land, network with the local natives, and scatter when their foe launches a serious attack.

The Rebellion differs from the terrorists on two key points, though. First, terrorists lack professionalism. They generally draw their ranks from disenfranchised and disposable youths. The Rebellion, though, shows signs of full military training and also have access to military hardware. If we look at the Rebellion as a splintering of the Empire, then that seems appropriate, and closer to the Revolutionary war, where a portion of the military broke with the Empire and joined forces with the Rebellion. Second, terrorists are villainous. They sow discord for the sake of discord and often have no real plan, other than nebulous idealism, for what will come if they achieve victory. The Rebellion, thanks to its superior professionalism and leadership, is heroic, and has a real plan in place, a restoration to the Golden Age that came before. To evoke this, the Rebellion should represent something from our past, from our own golden age of war.

Thus, I propose that the Rebellion be professional soldiers with a focus on spoiler tactics, explosives and agile hit-and-run tactics. Thematically, they should evoke Americans of WW2 or possibly the revolutionary war crossed with the French resistance movement.

Fighter Ace 3.0

The Fighter Ace is already a pretty good template.  It's nicely focused and excels at what it sets out to do, which is to be good at piloting a starfighter. This makes him ideal in handling military-scale problems set in space, giving him an interesting relationship with the commando.  Unfortunately, the Fighter Ace is arguably too focused.  Is he good at anything else? This creates two problems.  First, how often will military-scale issues come up in space?  If everyone is a fighter ace, it can come up all the time, but if your party consists of an assassin, a spy, a bounty hunter and a fighter ace, what does the rest of the party do while the fighter ace if dogfighting the enemy, and what does the fighter ace do when the rest of the crew is doing their thing?

To help with this problem, I've made sure that handling any vehicle, mostly through the rules I've applied to defaults, as well as a few secondary skill options.  Thus, the fighter ace can assist people with any movement needed.  He's not as good as the Smuggler for getting you there, but he can also help you navigate space, and he's better than the smuggler at bypassing military-style blockades.  He can also support the more military characters with close-air support.

I've tried to expand his secondary skillsets in a few useful directions, which have resulted in his power-up packages.  First, the Fighter Ace can easily be very social, with access to good looks, charisma, and a variety of social skills to complement his leadership skills.  This is not a unique power-up package, though, because enough of those skills are fundamental to how a fighter ace needs to work that they make little sense to refactor out.

If a pilot falls behind enemy lines, he'll need to escape, which gives us the Evasion package.  I had already included a variety of skills and advantages meant to assist a pilot in resisting torture, escaping imprisonment and surviving on a deserted planet, and I have since shifted those into the Evasion package.  This gives the pilot a secondary role as infiltrator and chaser.

Finally, knowing how to fix and maintain technology is a useful skill for a fighter ace.  Add to this the possibility of deploying unique technology on his preferred fighter, and he can turn his fighter into a temporary swiss-army knife, using it to solve the situation in unique ways.

Finally, to take advantage of unique "starfighting styles," I've included a few martial art packages to guide players in choosing their perks and techniques.

Commando 3.0

The Commando primarily focuses on the Great Galactic War.  They are military characters.  Their niche is access, and ability to play with, heavy military equipment appropriate for ground-pounders.  As such, they are consummate gunmen.  They must be extremely good with blaster rifles (skill 16), and competent with all other military things (skill 14).

I've kept the MOS divisions and added two more: the Field Medic (with rudimentary medical skill, in case a medi-bot is unavailable) and the Sergeant (an intermediary position between officer and commando, with high levels of leadership, soldier and various, squad-level command skills).  However, I've made their specializations even more important: Instead of spending 30 points on a specialization, characters now spend 50, but they can also access skills, techniques and perks appropriate to their MOS. Assault troopers gain access to Riot Control techniques and Infantry techniques.  Recon troopers gain access Sniper tactics. Heavy troopers gain access to Elite Gunner tactics.  This has resulted in less dexterous, less intelligent commandos, but it seems to give me the numbers I'm looking for.

For power-ups, I've added a single one: Demolitionist.  Perhaps as time goes on I'll think of more, but Demolition seemed an important addition that didn't require a complete MOS.  For the rest, Cross-Training seems to work well enough. And, of course, each Commando has more than enough skills, techniques, perks and advantages to keep him busy if he should seek to expand his skillset.

Minions: Imperial Troopers

We already discussed Imperial Troopers in some detail when we talked about building mooks, but let’s go from theory into concrete detail. I want to start with Imperial troopers because they represent the most obvious element from Star Wars that we’d want to port into Psi-Wars. We already know what Storm Troopers look like and how they fight: They’re terrifying, they’re highly inaccurate, and they’re impressively armed. In Psi-Wars, Imperial Troopers will have the same vibe, but I want to dig a little deeper into the reasoning behind the decisions and the impact they’ll make on how combat plays out for our heroes.

The Concept of Imperial Troopers

When we discuss empire, especially in the context of something like Star Wars, we really mean dictatorship, the rule of a single august emperor, directly, over all of his territory (one can make the case that the big shift in Rome with the victory of Augustus Caesar was not from republic to empire, but from republic to dictatorship, since the Roman Republic had been an empire for many years, in the same way that the British Empire was also a parliamentary democracy). Typically in these sorts of dictatorships, the military is personally loyal to the dictator, and their loyalty and might keep him, directly, in power. This fact also forces him to conquer, since his conquests result in increased wealth and prestige for his military forces, which gives him more power, but also more military officers to please, which means he needs to conquer again.

The military in these cases needs to be deeply loyal and very impressive. They need to march in the square, to intimidate the populace, as much as they need to march on the enemy. Thus, as said before, they need to be about shock and awe. The empire also has vast resources that it constantly pours into its military (at the expense of its civilian populace), meaning the empire has all the coolest toys. Their deep loyalty, though, either needs some form of personal empowerment or a deep sense of belonging to the group and a willingness to sacrifice oneself for the “greater good” represented by the dictator. The former would result in heroes who could overthrow the emperor, though, so the latter is far superior. Imperial troopers need to be brainwashed and devoted to the imperial cause or, at least, made to fear those loyal to the cause enough that they’re willing to fight.

We also know what stormtroopers feel like in a film: Faceless mooks who look really frightening but prove to be rather ineffective. They might have the coolest toys, but they often prove overpriced and fragile, glass cannons easily destroyed by a focused and skilled opponent. They pour firepower into the enemy, but they’ll seldom actually hit. They are Goliath, vulnerable to a focused and skilled David.