Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 3:
Let’s Get Civilized

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. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy.

Before we get to the episode, I have a quick note from Laura about some exciting developments.

LAURA: Hello squadron. This is Laura here, letting you know that we have some cool new artwork! But, we will only release it when we hit ten iTunes reviews. Yes, we are holding our own artwork hostage. So, please head over to iTunes and leave us a review. Every review helps new people find us, so leave us a five-star review.

##

NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Episode 3 of Tabletop Squadron. You’re back for more. Isn’t that great. I’m here with the whole party today. We’re gonna be doing some stuff and some things. We’ll go around, say who you are, and what character you are playing.

CAMERON: Hi!

NICK: Hello.

CAMERON: (giggling) I’m Cameron. I’m playing Karma Nailo.

STEVEN: Hi. I’m not Cameron. I’m actually Steven. (laughter) I’m playing Sabos Niks.

NICK: Great.

HUDSON: Hi. I’m Hudson, and I’m playing Tink.

LAURA: Hi, I’m Laura, and I’m playing Xianna’fan.

NICK: And I’m Nick, your game master, working on my podcast voice… Okay. You guys got some experience from the last couple of sessions that we played through. Go around and if you purchased anything to make your characters better please let me know what you did.

HUDSON: So, Tink used the 20 XP. I purchased an item from the talent tree called Defensive Slicing. When I’m defending a computer system, add a black die per rank of Defensive Slicing to the opponent’s checks. I also leveled up my Piloting: Planetary to Level 2.

NICK: Ooh.

CAMERON: Alright. I spent a mystery 10 points on some skills that I don’t know what I upgraded… But! I also bought two talents from my talent trees. From my Skiptracer tree I’ve got Hardboiled. When I’m recovering strain after an encounter, I can spend an advantage up to my ranks in Hardboiled to recover one wound per advantage. I also bought Stalker from my Assassin tree, so I add a blue die per rank of Stalker to all Stealth and Coordination checks.

NICK: Ooh. Wow, that’s pretty cool.

CAMERON: Yeah. I am death. Hear me.

LAURA: I used my points to buy Street Smarts, which is to remove a setback or black die per rank of Street Smarts from Streetwise or Knowledge: Underworld checks. I bought Indistinguishable, which upgrades the difficulty of checks to identify my character once per rank of Indistinguishable. And I got Grit, so I have +1 strain.

NICK: Neato.

STEVEN: I done used my extra points. I’m not sure if that’s how a Togrutan talks.

(snickering)

CAMERON: Oh gosh. (laughs)

STEVEN: To upgrade my Piloting: Space to Level 2, and I added a level of Galaxy Mapper to my fringer tree which I can remove a black die per rank of Galaxy Mapper from Astrogation checks.

NICK: Yeah. God knows you need that.

CAMERON: That’ll be needed. That’ll be useful.

STEVEN: Now it’ll take half the normal time.

NICK: Right. So, that’s what your characters are doing. Time to roll your… force… points…

CAMERON: Destiny Roll.

NICK: Destiny… points…

STEVEN: (laughs)

CAMERON: Destiny—(laughs)

NICK: Destiny’s Child points. All the single Togrutans.

CAMERON: One dark side.

HUDSON: Quick, no one chase waterfalls.

STEVEN: One light side.

HUDSON: Ah, it was almost white side, but it’s one dark side.

LAURA: One dark side.

CAMERON: Oh dear.

STEVEN: Y’all suck.

HUDSON: We. Suck.

NICK: Excellent.

STEVEN: Am I the only one here on the white side?

LAURA & CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: Can we call it light side, please?

STEVEN: That’s what I said. (laughs)

NICK: I’m hearing white side from multiple of you.

STEVEN: Oh, no, on the light side. Light. (emphasizes) Light.

(laughter)

NICK: Light side.

STEVEN: Light side.

CAMERON: So we have one light side, three dark side.

NICK: Sweet.

CAMERON: This is gonna go great.

STEVEN: Yup. This will be fine.

NICK: When we last left off you saw an Imperial contingent coming into Outpost 4. You’d kind of gotten a lay of the land, and they showed up, and you watched them enter. You saw some stormtroopers. You saw a strange, shark-like monster with millipede feet all over it called a Kirtsen’s beast, and you also saw the supposed leader of the outpost, a Zabrak man with light tattoos and an all-white expeditionary outfit who managed to pack his own martini with him on the trip. He climbed out of the speeder and said, “Oh boy. Sure is good to be home.”

The locals were going to cut down that big shark thing, and as you’re taking in this scene they cut the rope that’s attached to its tail, and it falls and hits the ground. There’s a poof of dust, and you see the monster’s eyes open.

CAMERON: Uh-oh.

NICK: They’re bright red, and they have segmented, like insect eyes that you didn’t see under the lids, and it locks with you. I’m going to need Cool checks from everybody.

CAMERON: Oh shit.

STEVEN: (nonchalantly) Oh yeah.

NICK: Or I guess that would be Vigilance, wouldn’t it?

CAMERON: That would be Vigilance, yeah.

LAURA: Ew.

NICK: Because this thing immediately starts scuttling towards you.

STEVEN: Are you sure it can’t be a Cool check?

NICK: Yes.

CAMERON: (laughs) Because we weren’t planning for this to happen.

HUDSON: What level of difficulty?

CAMERON: None.

NICK: I just need to know what you guys get.

STEVEN: Sure. This will be fine.

HUDSON: Oh, two successes.

NICK: Your Vigilance is one green?

HUDSON: Yes.

NICK: That’s gonna be real bad for you.

HUDSON: It’s one Willpower.

LAURA: One success and two advantages.

CAMERON: Karma got a success and a triumph, so two successes and a triumph?

NICK: Mm-hmm.

STEVEN: I got a success.

NICK: Okay. This monster thing is moving at you surprisingly quickly. You see that its tail is actually moving back and forth like a shark would while swimming, but it’s on the ground, and you hear this really gross (squeaking) noise as it comes across the dirt.

CAMERON: Ew.

NICK: And as if in slow motion, Karma is able to bring her blaster rifle to bear on this thing as it gets within about ten yards of you, and you can try and do something about this.

CAMERON: I’ma shoot it—

NICK: Makes sense.

CAMERON: –in the face.

NICK: So, the rest of you are staring aghast at this monster, and you’re also noticing that all of the stormtroopers who are at parade attention are slowly going for their weapons, much slower than Karma would.

CAMERON: What’s the difficulty? Average?

NICK: Two.

CAMERON: Okay.

NICK: But also a black die, because gross.

LAURA: (laughs) Ew.

NICK: So, roll me that shot.

CAMERON: Okay. Hey… Two successes, three threats.

NICK: Great. So, you manage to hit—

CAMERON: Can I fall prone, (dramatic bass noise) because there’s a giant shark coming at me and I fall backwards as I shoot?

NICK: Absolutely. Three threats is you fall prone. Fall prone.

CAMERON: Three threats is fall prone. I wanna fall prone! (dramatic bass noise) I fall on my butt.

NICK: How much damage do you do?

CAMERON: Let’s see… That was my carbine. I do 11 damage.

NICK: Wow. That’s a pretty solid hit. You hit it right between the eyes, and it stumbles for a second, and stumbling on a thousand legs looks pretty interesting, but it keeps coming at you. As Sabos and Xianna go to pull their guns up as well, you hear two more shots ring out, and it’s the two locals that you saw standing by the speeder. They both draw and fire pretty much in unison just a little behind you, and they hit it and you see the light go out of its gross bug eyes, and it skids on its nose right up to your feet, and it stands still.

CAMERON: Eww.

NICK: That happens.

CAMERON: I just kind of stare at it.

STEVEN: I still kinda wanna shoot it.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Go ahead, if you want to. It’s not moving. You don’t really have to roll. How much damage does shooting it do?

STEVEN: Nine.

NICK: Okay.

LAURA: Double tap it.

STEVEN: Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. I’m the double tap.

CAMERON: You have to have an even number of shots for double attack to work.

STEVEN: That’s true.

NICK: As you draw your pistol and shoot the—

STEVEN: Oh, it’s not a pistol.

CAMERON: (laughing) It’s his rifle.

NICK: Oh, your giant rifle.

STEVEN: This is a blaster rifle.

NICK: I forgot. As you unsling your rifle, it just blows the head open in a fountain of fish guts. I know what fish guts smell like, I don’t really know what bug guts smell like, but this creature smells like a combination of the two

STEVEN: I actually could imagine that.

NICK: Hmm. Great. That means my descriptions are perfect. As you blow it open, the locals both put their guns back into the speeder and the male kind of shakes his head. “Waste of a good trophy.” He walks off to the other side of the speeder and starts to unpack.

You have drawn the attention of Mr. White Clothes who says, “Well, that was a surprise Mills, I thought you said you killed the thing.” The local shrugs again, and he pulls out a vibro-machete looking thing, so it’s almost vibro-sword, bigger than a vibro-knife, ‘now this is a knife’ type weapon.

HUDSON: Vibro-axe level, or?

NICK: No. it’s not a giant death machine. It’s like, not quite a fight people with this weapon, but much bigger than what you would use normally. He goes over to the Kirtsen’s beast and starts lobbing the head off of it, what’s left of the head, mostly a puddle at this point.

CAMERON: As more and more shark, fish, bug guts start flying, I back up and shake the guts off of me that I assume got on me when Sabos shot its head right in front of me.

NICK: Yeah. You didn’t get hit with like big, goopy bits, but it did shoot a fine, purple mist into the air that’s been kinda raining down, so you’re sort of speckled on your shoulders.

CAMERON: Ew.

STEVEN: That’s… trophy juice?

LAURA: How much is on Xianna, if any?

NICK: Probably a little, not much.

LAURA: Ew.

NICK: (laughs) You were a little further away. You can see there’s a lot of it, it definitely atomized a lot and it’s blowing through the crowd, and you see a couple of officers drop attention and go ‘Ew…’

STEVEN: “Back on Osaron we’re proud of our trophy juice.”

(laughter)

CAMERON: That’s disgusting.

LAURA: “No… Just no…”

NICK: That being said, when you look at the gentleman in the white uniform, he’s spotless. None of it gets on him. It gets on people around him. The guy decapitating it is about elbow deep in purple goop, but white clothes guy is clear. Speaking of him, he walks over and says, “You’re new to the outpost. What brings you here?” He’s looking at Karma, because she was the one who shot the thing, but he addresses the group as a whole.

STEVEN: Uh… (laughter) “We had an issue with our Astrogation system and ended up here, and then tried some of your fine ales.”

NICK: “Right.”

CAMERON: “I think that was straight up an issue with Your Astrogation, not the ship’s.”

STEVEN: “I don’t believe so.”

NICK: “Well, I was out in the jungle so I didn’t see as much, but I’m sure we’ll be able to look at our orbital observation post and see what went wrong. Maybe we can help with your ship.”

STEVEN: “Absolutely. Uh, the trees just came out of nowhere.”

CAMERON: “Like I said sir, I don’t think it was the ship. I believe it was him,” she says looking at Sabos pointedly.

STEVEN: “No, it was the trees.”

LAURA: “It was definitely him.”

NICK: He looks very comfortable watching you guys kind of snipe at each other, and he says, “Well, either way, I’ll have someone look at it,” and he waves a hand. You see a couple of people from the back—

STEVEN: “Oh, you don’t need to do that. I think we got it all taken care of.”

NICK: “Oh, no, no. I insist.” And a couple of Imperial engineers start heading out of the outpost.

STEVEN: “Uh, if y’all could just look at the back of the ship at the rudder thing, that would be great. Don’t go in the ship.”

LAURA: Xianna is kind of like surreptitiously patting her pockets to be like, ‘Okay. I do have this. That means it’s not on the ship for them to accidentally find.’ (laughs)

NICK: Was there anything specific you wanted to make sure was in your pockets?

LAURA: All my drugs.

NICK: All your drugs?

LAURA: All of them!

NICK: Okay. Great. Yeah. I would imagine most of your drugs are in your coat. You did hide some stuff around the ship last episode. What did you put in there?

LAURA: Oh. I hid the weird mask thing in a box. I don’t think I actually hid that. I think that was just still sitting on a shelf. I was looking for hiding spaces.

CAMERON: You found a lot of hiding spaces.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Oh, okay. So, there’s some stuff sitting out, and most of your very obviously illegal things are on your person.

LAURA: I would say all of them, just, except the mask that’s in a box and the decanter of whiskey that is now empty on the floor.

NICK: Okay. This guy watches you kind of talking back and forth. He watches the engineers start heading towards the ship. He basically just ignores your protest. “Make sure you give it a full sweep.” And they run off. As you’re talking he’s like scratching at one of his little head horns, because he’s a Zabrak so he has a ring of devil horns which are neat looking, and he says, “So, you must be here looking for someone. No one comes to Unroola Dawn looking to sightsee.”

HUDSON: Until us.”

(laughter)

NICK: “Riiight.”

CAMERON: I feel like that’s a Deception check.

LAURA: “Yes, sightsee… That is what we are doing.”

NICK: Yes. I would love a Deception check from Tink. That would be great.

STEVEN: “As you can tell, our friend Tink hasn’t seen places like these.”

NICK: This is gonna be a red and two purples.

HUDSON: Oh no…

LAURA: You don’t have Deception…

(laughter)

STEVEN: Mother fucker.

LAURA: And you’re not very cunning.

HUDSON: Oh no, and I’m not very cunning. Oh, this is not good.

LAURA: You are just smart. (laughs)

NICK: Wait, hang on, let me see. Deception would probably be against Perception, right?

CAMERON: Yes.

NICK: What is his Perception…? Oh. You’re lucky. It’s actually…

HUDSON: Is it actually a Perception check?

CAMERON: No. Your Deception goes against his Perception.

NICK: It’s just three purples. He’s actually not trained in Perception.

HUDSON: Oh. Great.

CAMERON: Three purples.

NICK: But, flip a dark side point, we’ll go ahead and upgrade one of those.

CAMERON: Oh god.

HUDSON: To a red?

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: There we go. Same roll.

LAURA & CAMERON: Ooh!

NICK: (laughs)

HUDSON: Two successes…

LAURA: No, those cancel out.

HUDSON: Oh wait, with those, yeah.

CAMERON: A failure and a despair.

HUDSON: A failure and a despair. So, before anything can happen, I try to save it by saying, “Just kidding!”

(laughter)

NICK: He looks at you, and you get the feeling—He is still smiling at you, he seems very friendly and welcoming, but you totally understand that he does not believe your bullshit in the slightest. He’s been here for a while, and he understands that. But with the despair…

LAURA: Xianna knows that Tink has just messed up so badly that she doesn’t even hide it, and she sighs and like puts her hand on her head, and (sighs heavily).

NICK: That happens. That helps with the despair. He looks back and forth to the four of you and goes, “Oh. Smugglers. Great!” And he starts to walk away towards the large building that you saw previously that’s made of wood, and nice, the mansion. He says, “Well, you might as well come and have a meal with me, because we probably got some talking to do. Most smugglers talk to me at one point or another.” And he walks away without seeing if you’re gonna follow him. You also notice that the locals, and still a pretty good amount of stormtroopers, are all just staring at you to see what you’ll do.

CAMERON: I follow him.

HUDSON: Yeah.

LAURA: Oh, Xianna heard food and is following him, and going, “Excuse me. What kind of food?”

NICK: “Well, the cooks here are a little… barbaric. They do tend to prefer open flame, but they make quite a good roast Kirtsen’s beast.”

CAMERON: (wavering) “Oh…”

STEVEN: “Oh, I’m down. Yeah. Especially having shot the Kirtsen’s beast myself.”

NICK: “Yes. Clearly you did it.”

CAMERON: “Oh my gosh. You shot it once it was dead.”

STEVEN: “I’m not sure how you know it was dead. I mean, it was right at your feet when I shot it.”

LAURA: “The light had gone out of its eyes. That is how we know it was dead.”

STEVEN: “I’m not sure about eye light on Osaron.”

CAMERON: God…

LAURA: (sighs)

NICK: The guy stops and turns around at hearing that the light had gone out of its eyes. “You seem like my kind of person. By the way, my name is Falx, Falx Urnstad. I’m one of the Vice Governors of this planet. This outpost is mine, and it’s great to meet you.” He holds out a hand to shake, specifically to Xianna.

LAURA: Oh, Xianna absolutely shakes it, winks, and says, “I am Serene.”

NICK: “Well, great to meet you, Serene.” And he throws an arm over you and just starts gesturing towards the mansion.

LAURA: Yep.

NICK: “Come along. I’ll give you the grand tour!” And he smells like sandalwood.

LAURA: Oooh.

NICK: Yeah. It’s nice, and the uniform is very soft. Normally they’re like that institutional fabric that holds up really well. This one’s not. This one is like silk and—

LAURA: Yeah. This guy definitely seems like he has a nice cashmere silk blend going on.

NICK: Yeah.

HUDSON: Everything Xianna would fall for.

(laughter)

LAURA: Oh, yeah. Xianna has a very low bar (laughs) for what ‘falls for’ is.

HUDSON: Yes.

LAURA: That was how words work. (laughs)

STEVEN: Oh.

HUDSON: Oh.

STEVEN: Oh.

NICK: “Mildly interested.”

CAMERON: So, as I’m following Xianna and dude-guy, I start cleaning the bug mist guts off of my gun.

HUDSON: What was his name again?

NICK: Falx.

STEVEN: Falx Urnstad.

HUDSON: F-A-L-X?

NICK: Falx, F-A-L-X, Urnstad, U-R-N-S-T-A-D, and he’s a Zabrak.

STEVEN: I tell Karma to wear the purple mist proudly.

CAMERON: “It’s going to rust my gun.”

STEVEN: “What type of crappy guns do you have on… where you’re from?”

(laughter)

CAMERON: “Yeah! Let’s continue this thread of conversation.”

STEVEN: Let’s not. (laughs)

CAMERON: “Where am I from, Togrutan?”

STEVEN: “Uh, not Osaron.”

CAMERON: “That is correct.”

STEVEN: (smugly) “Got it.”

CAMERON: “No—“ (snickers)

STEVEN: “The place where the Nautolans are from.”

CAMERON: “Which is?”

STEVEN: “Nautolania.”

HUDSON: Oh yeah…

CAMERON: “No…” (laughs)

STEVEN: “Nautolis.”

CAMERON: “No, but I do like that one.”

STEVEN: “Atlantis.”

CAMERON: “No.”

NICK: Closer.

(laughter)

HUDSON: You are getting closer.

STEVEN: Damn it. (laughs) Yup.

NICK: For the confused listeners at home, the planet is called Glee Anselm.

CAMERON: Yup.

STEVEN: “Yes.”

NICK: It’s a happy planet.

CAMERON: (laughing) You don’t hear that. The GM says that!(laughter)

STEVEN: Oh, right.

NICK: The narrator booms from the heavens, Curious George style.

LAURA: You don’t hear God! You’re not important enough. (laughs)

NICK: So, as you get close to the mansion the two main double doors swing open. You see exactly what you were expecting to see, it’s extremely stereotypical. A large grand staircase, the rug over the stairs you would expect to be like red crushed velvet, but instead it’s woven reeds, but the reeds are super fine so it’s still a nice carpet, and there’s wings going off in either direction. He leads you back around behind the staircase and a servant opens the door. It’s very strange to see one of the local humans who are all basically Conan the Barbarian jacked and scary looking people wearing a formal Imperial servants uniform, all like slim cut, and it looks like he’s about to burst every single seem on this thing.

CAMERON: (giggles)

NICK: He bows and pushes open the door, and you see a long banquet hall with a very large table, and there is one place setting at the head on the far side, but as you watch you can see some droids and one other person wearing servant gear. This one looks to be not a local, so someone that they must have brought with them, setting four extra places. He says, “Well, make yourself at home. Have some—“

HUDSON: “Gray stuff?”

NICK: “It’s delicious.”

HUDSON: All I could think of was Be Our Guest the whole time you were describing this.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: And then he turns into a giant furred monster! No.

CAMERON: Oh no!

NICK: He says, “Make yourself at home. Try some appetizers. I’m gonna go change into something a little more… comfortable, and I’ll be back.” And he turns around and leaves. The large local servant is still holding the door and bowing graciously, but you see that he does not drop eye contact from you and is clearly waiting for you to enter the room.

CAMERON: I enter the room and walk over to the table where I assume there are white cloth napkins.

NICK: Oh yeah, absolutely.

CAMERON: I grab one from one of the spots and finish cleaning my gun.

NICK: Great.

STEVEN: I’ll follow her into the room, keeping on annoying her about why cleaning your gun is—

CAMERON: Just keeps suggesting planet names.

STEVEN: Yeah. Yeah, that’s actually what I’m doing, I keep on guessing planet names where I think the Nautolans are from.

NICK: Hit me with a couple more.

STEVEN: “Water World.”

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: “No.”

STEVEN: “Head-tentacle-landia.”

LAURA: “That is offensive.”

CAMERON: (grinning) I am not even going to respond to that one.

LAURA: “That is just offensive. You should stop right now.”

STEVEN: “The land where people don’t like purple mist on their gun.”

LAURA: “So, most lands?”

CAMERON: (frustrated sigh)

NICK: So, as you all enter the room—

HUDSON: Mos Eisley?

(laughter)

NICK: You clean your gun using one of the tablecloths, and one of the droids is a protocol droid. “Oh my!” It takes it from you and scurries off to bring you a fresh napkin, because now this one’s gross and it can’t even imagine what that would be like. “Why would you do that to my perfect napkins?” And off it goes.

CAMERON: “I thought that was kind of the point of napkins.”

LAURA: “Well, for food, not for weird…”

STEVEN: “This was food.”

CAMERON: “Did you not hear that they were serving that beast? It is food!”

LAURA: “Yes, but like, if you came in covered in fish guts, and then used the napkin to wipe away the fish guts, that would be a little different than if you used the napkin to wipe away the cooked fish—“

CAMERON: “The cooked fish guts?”

LAURA: “—off your mouth. No, you don’t eat the guts… all the time.”

(laughter)

LAURA: “I do not know. I do not think there are fish on Ryloth.” I don’t think there’s a whole lot of fish. (laughs)

NICK: Probably not.

LAURA: It’s mostly a desert planet, so I’m assuming very little fish.

CAMERON: “What about land sharks?”

STEVEN: “Mm.”

LAURA: “I mean, eh, you grind that stuff up into like a sausage. Then it is different.”

NICK: So, are you all sitting, or are you standing near the table, what are you guys doing?

LAURA: Xianna’s gonna sit next to the head chair, and she looks at everyone. “I am going to milk this. Yes. (giggles) He seems to like me. I’m going to use this. Okie? Good.”

HUDSON: “I think that’s a little TMI that you’re gonna milk him.”

STEVEN: “Yup.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: “Well, I mean, Zabraks do seem to be mammalian, so I could? But… Oh! Oh, you mean—Okie. Uh… Maybe. We will see. (laughter) We will see. Who knows.”

CAMERON: Karma swings her gun back around to her back, and then sits in the other seat next to the head seat, so that one of the boys doesn’t sit there.

STEVEN: Yeah. Sabos just kind of stands in the background.

NICK: Okay.

HUDSON: I sit next to Serene.

NICK: Hey. Good job.

HUDSON: I’ve been picking up on it.

NICK: Sabos, then you would notice first, a small astromech droid, you know, like R2D2, or I5D7, or… Anyway. A small astromech droid with a table hat, like they have in the movie on R2, rolls up and it’s got a ring of drinks along the outside. They’re all in tumblers. You see some whiskey, and you see a bunch of various tropical looking mix drinks. Then, in the middle, there are three square bowls, and inside there’s little diced up bits of meat with toothpicks in it. You can make a Perception check about that if you want.

STEVEN: Sure.

NICK: It bumps you in the back of the knees, because you were the one still standing up, and it’s offering you stuff.

STEVEN: How hard is it?

NICK: Uh, easy.

STEVEN: That would be one purple?

NICK: Yeah, just one purple.

STEVEN: Three successes and a triumph.

NICK: So, you notice off of that platter that this bowl is furry on the outside, and with your triumph you realize this is probably one of those dishes where they cook the meat inside of the animal they got it from, but you see that this creature was cooked in its own juices and then prepared, but it looks good.

STEVEN: Yeah. I take a bowl and a glass of whiskey.

NICK: Oh, you take the whole bowl?

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: The bowl’s like—

STEVEN: Oh, is it like toothpicks already in the cut up meat?

NICK: Yeah, there’s toothpicks in the stuff.

STEVEN: Oh, then I’ll grab a couple of toothpicks and then a glass of whiskey.

NICK: Okay. Yeah. With three successes and a triumph, it looks good.

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: It looks like you probably don’t want to think about it too much, but it looks tasty.

HUDSON: No food poisoning today.

LAURA: I’m sure tribbles taste fine.

NICK: So, you grab— It’s not a—(laughs)

LAURA: You said a round bowl that was furry, and I immediately thought—

NICK: No, it’s a square bowl!

LAURA: Oh, a square. Okay, so they pressed a tribble.

CAMERON: Yeah, so it’s a square tribble.

(laughter)

NICK: What’s the duck thing where you squish the duck and it makes food?

LAURA: Oh. It literally translates to pressed duck.

NICK: Oh, well, pressed tribble. Great. The astromech makes its way around the table and you all see that. You can roll that same Perception check if you want. I’ll say, if you wanna figure out that it’s weird, you can. You will all notice that the bowl is furry, so it’s up to you.

LAURA: Mm…

STEVEN: I just start definitely chewing on the meat.

CAMERON: What the heck.

HUDSON: I wanna check it out. I definitely care.

LAURA: A success and two advantages.

NICK: Yeah. You see that the bowl is furry, and that it looks reasonably tasty, and you notice that these are Imperial issued toothpicks. They were not made here.

LAURA: Do they have like the little gear Imperial symbol on them?

CAMERON: (gasps)

NICK: Yeah, like burned into the side.

LAURA: yes!

CAMERON: Nice.

NICK: These are very fancy.

CAMERON: Karma got three successes.

NICK: You notice not that it was necessarily cooked in its own juices, but like, this is not a normal bowl, this is pretty organic.

HUDSON: One advantage, a success, and a triumph.

NICK: You notice all that stuff. You know that they obviously killed this thing, drained it out and just cooked it in its own juices, and then made it prepared so it didn’t look gross.

CAMERON: Many of us in our past lives had a culinary career.

HUDSON: Apparently.

NICK: Yeah, probably.

CAMERON: Or we’re all just foodies. We all have food blogs. (giggles)

STEVEN: Being a fringer, I’m experienced with the cooking animals in their own juices.

CAMERON: That makes sense actually.

STEVEN: it does.

NICK: (laughs)

LAURA: Honestly, I’m probably okay with it. I’m sure Ryloth is mostly roasted meats. Also, I’m gonna take the girliest looking drink that’s there, and I bet it has like a weird frilly name like A Scarif Sunrise or something.

NICK: Okay. Describe A Scarif Sunrise for me, please.

LAURA: Okay. A Scarif Sunrise is green on the bottom, then orange, and then yellow.

STEVEN: Ooh.

NICK: Does it come in a special glass? Is there a sunrise glass in the Star Wars universe?

LAURA: Yeah, like a champagne goblet.

NICK: Okay.

HUDSON: So um, this is probably a good time to mention that Tink had a vegan period, (laughter) but it was only in college to impress a girl, so I know a lot about food and mostly about if food has animals in it or not, but not about animal cooking.

NICK: Okay. That’s important to know, and I’m sure it’ll come up again. You have busted open the meta-plot already. Good work.

HUDSON: Thank you.

NICK: So, around this time you guys are (emphasized) eating appetizers?

LAURA & STEVEN: Yes.

CAMERON: I grab one toothpick, and taste it, and then I’m like okay, this is alright, and I’ve just been nibbling. I did not grab a drink, though.

NICK: So, you’re snacking, the astromech droid is basically doing laps of the table… Astromechs, you guys know, they’re intelligent, they’re smart, it’s not like a Roomba, this thing is just straight up like, it told me to serve the room, I’m serving the room.

LAURA: They are so murderous.

NICK: You get a very petulant, like, obviously it is following the exact letter of whatever its instructions were, and it’s driving around. Around this time Falx reenters, and he’s wearing an entirely different outfit. He’s wearing a blue tunic with like a purple-ish blue overwrap giant scarf poncho thing, and like flowy pants…

CAMERON: That was a lot of words. (giggles)

NICK: Yeah. Well, it’s like a scarf, but also bigger, and also kind of a poncho. It’s like an extra shirt.

CAMERON: Okay.

NICK: You all would know it’s very Corscanti, maybe a little Alderanian thrown in. it’s very high class clothes, lots of extra fabric. He walks in and says, “Well, it seems that you’ve already been enjoying my hospitality. I’d like to welcome you again to Outpost 4.” He starts to walk by and the astromech runs into him, and he looks at it, and for just a second you see his pleasant exterior drop and he looks a little scary. He looks a little derisive, and you see him kind of shove the astromech away, and it almost drops its drinks and has to drive very quickly to catch them, and it beeps at him and drives out of the room.

He sits down, and it’s like that never happened, and he looks very happy. He says, “So, let’s talk. Smuggling, huh? What brings you to my humble, backwater residence?”

STEVEN: “Uh, you did, sir.”

NICK: “Well, yeah, if you’re gonna be nit-picky about it. I mean, what brings you to Unroola Dawn?”

STEVEN: “I just saw the trees.”

CAMERON: Oh god.

LAURA: (sighs)

(laughter)

NICK: So, if anyone would like to, if you wanna make a Knowledge: Underworld or a Knowledge: Core Worlds…

LAURA: I will do Knowledge: Underworld.

HUDSON: I can Underworld as well.

STEVEN: Yeah, I’ll roll. Sure.

LAURA: Difficulty?

NICK: Average.

CAMERON: Okay. I’m rolling Core Worlds, because it’s the exact same check for me, so I’m gonna be different.

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: Just a threat.

STEVEN: I’ll roll Underworld.

HUDSON: Four successes and two threats.

LAURA: I had one advantage.

STEVEN: I have two failures and an advantage.

NICK: So, everyone failed except for Tink, and we’ve got a couple of advantages and a couple of threats in there. Okay. So, Tink, you in your experience working as an underground hacker and things like that have a pretty good sense for when people are trying to get someone to work for them, or like a broker, or a job giver-outer, and this guy is doing a lot of those same things. You feel like, having interacted with the Empire before, he wouldn’t have invited you to dinner if he was on the straight and narrow. This guy’s got some stuff going on, and he probably wants to help in one way or another. Anybody with advantages recognizes that his outfit is alderanian, like it’s very much an Alderan politician’s outfit, granted with some upgrades and very nice cloth, so this is somebody who may see themselves as like a head of state kind of person. Who had threats?

CAMERON & TINK: Me.

NICK: Did you succeed?

CAMERON: No.

HUDSON: I succeeded, with threats.

NICK: Okay. Tink, with your threats, you have a feeling that this guy probably wants to work with you or to actually help you because he could see himself getting an advantage from it, but you’re also getting very comfortable with that, probably more so than you should being in the middle of an Imperial outpost. Karma, you had two threats, no failures?

CAMERON: It washed with two threats.

NICK: Okay. With two threats, you’re just very into the ambience right now, the architecture looks very familiar to you, and your next Perception check in this room you’re probably gonna have a black die because you’re having a lot of trouble focusing. That’s all of those.

He says, “I often deal with people in your kind of situations, and I may be able to help, if you could just tell me a little more about why you’re here.”

LAURA: “So, quick question. Do you happen to have a box that you were wanting to have transported? No reason.”

NICK: “Hmm. That is particularly vague. I like it. I have a lot of boxes. One might even say I specialize in moving things that the Empire doesn’t have strongly stated opinions about.”

STEVEN: “Moving things the Empire does not have strongly stated opinions about?”

NICK: “Right. Things that, if I asked, may not be a great idea, but they haven’t ever specifically said, and I get to keep my little home away from home in top shape.”

STEVEN: “Oh. I see.”

HUDSON: “You might be able to help us, then. We are having to move an item…” I feel very comfortable with him, so I say, “Does the word centennial mean anything to you?”

(laughter)

LAURA: (groans)

NICK: You say centennial, and he’s already—So, he had a space martini, and he downed that one during the first part. He’s half way through his second one, you say that, and he does a spit take. “Um, centennial? No.”

CAMERON: “Sentinel?”

NICK: “Oh… Sentinel. I was a little wrong about the smuggling thing. I am a little embarrassed you let me keep going with that for so long, but if you’re moving something for Sentinel, yeah. I’ve got something he told me to go ahead and get. Do you know where you’re bringing it?”

CAMERON: “No…”

LAURA: “There was an issue at the meeting. We did not get all of the information. also, is that drink droid coming back?”

NICK: “Yeah. I could make that happen.” He snaps his fingers, and the droid, you hear very angry astromech tootling from behind a closed door, and as soon as it bumps into the door and the door swings open it turns into just very low, muted grumbling, and it comes back around with a fresh thing of drinks. They were originally just around the outside of the platter, now it fills the whole platter.

LAURA: I definitely take a new one, put my empty glass on top of it, and I say, “Thank you,” and I boop the astromech, just a little.

NICK: The front panel on it opens up and one of those little shock arc-welders comes out and, bzzt, and you hear (alarm noise).

LAURA: “How rude.”

NICK: Falx snaps his fingers and pulls out a remote with a button on it. “Don’t make me do this.” And it goes, (disappointed robot noise), and drives away, and makes jingle bell noises. It is not the nicest of droids, but you have another drink. “So, now that we’re all further supplied with libations, where are you taking this thing? It’s a pretty weird artifact.”

LAURA: “Again, we do not know. We are winging it.”

NICK: “Oh yes, probably a good choice. Sentinel tends to bring stuff only with half the information involved. You should’ve seen what I had to do to get this thing.”

CAMERON: “So, you had to get it from Sentinel as well?”

NICK: “No I thought Sentinel was the guy who sent you. Is he not?” You see him start reaching under the table suspiciously.

LAURA: “No, no, he was.”

NICK: (hesitantly) “O-Okay…”

CAMERON: “Sorry, just the way you phrased that sounded like, the things I had to go through to get this, because of the way Sentinel set stuff up, it just sounded like he’d also sent you to go get it…”

NICK: “Yeah. That’s what happened.”

CAMERON: “Okay. That’s what I was asking. Sorry.”

NICK: “Yes. He sent me to go get it, and I didn’t know a lot about what was going on. I still don’t, but if you’re picking it up, that means he probably sent you with some goods for trade and a bunch of credits, right?” He looks really happy. He’s leaning back in his chair.

CAMERON: “I’m sure if we have anything your troopers will find it on our ship.”

NICK: “Uh…”

CAMERON: “We did take his ship, so… There are cargo boxes on there, right?”

LAURA: Xianna just kind of like gives a glance at Karma, like, ‘You don’t tell them we don’t have money. You always lie about having money,’ kind of a look, and then like turns back to Falx—

CAMERON: If Karma could, she would raise an eyebrow at Xianna, but I don’t think she has eyebrows. So, her eye triangle shifts slightly on one side.

LAURA: Either a Charm or a Deception to look and be like, “Oh, no no no, we have stuff to trade. We have things. I’m sure, yes, we do.”

NICK: Alright. Yeah. You can roll.

LAURA: Would that be Charm or Deception?

NICK: He likes you, so you can use either.

LAURA: Okay. I’m gonna do Deception. That’s higher.

NICK: Okay. It’ll be two purples, and flip me another dark side point, so it’ll be two purples and a red with the flip.

LAURA: Two advantages!

NICK: Mm.

LAURA: Yep.

NICK: Any way in particular you would like to spend those advantages?

LAURA: Um, so I’m assuming he’s gonna know that I’m lying, but I would like him to still like me, and maybe have there be an implication that even though we don’t have anything we are willing to work something out.

NICK: But the implication…

LAURA: There’s an implication, and Xianna is fine with however he takes that implication.

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: Oh goodness.

NICK: Okay. He kind of leans forward in his chair, his smirk drops a little, and he sets his now empty martini glass on the ground. The protocol droid walks out with a decanter of space martini and pours it for him, and then shuffles away. This takes about two minutes, because those things walk really slow, and he says nothing during that time so it’s just a very awkward, long pause. He takes a sip, and he says, “Well, you weren’t kidding when things got out of hand. This is highly irregular. I think we can work something out. I’ve got some people I need tracked down, and—“

CAMERON: Karma perks up a little bit.

NICK: He notices that. “From the way you all have responded, I think some of you may have some skills to help with that. I’ll still give you the Stone Breaker, by the way it’s called the Stone Breaker, if you will go and get some deserters out of the jungle, because I sent some people to go find them and they never reported back.”

CAMERON: “How many deserters?”

NICK: “Two.”

CAMERON: “How long have they been out?”

NICK: “About two weeks, but they can’t have gotten far.”

STEVEN: “Do you care if they come back alive?”

NICK: “Not particularly.”

STEVEN: “Excellent.”

NICK: “I just need them identifiable. Examples, you know.”

HUDSON: “What if we find a group that’ similar to them, but not the same people, but maybe even better?”

CAMERON: “Tink, that is not how bounty hunting works.”

LAURA: “I do not— That is not how it works.”

HUDSON: “I’ll be honest, I’m not as experienced in bounty hunting as these people are.”

CAMERON: “How many people did you send out after them?

NICK: “Five. Just a small platoon.” At Tink’s suggestion he stands up and starts pacing back and forth at the head of the table. “Two people, but better, but not the same people… Interesting. Interesting.”

(laughter)

LAURA: Xianna immediately puts her finger over Tink’s mouth. “Tink, shh, do not talk anymore please.”

HUDSON: I crumple my face but don’t say anything.

LAURA: Or over his little translator thing, because he doesn’t have a mouth visible. He has one.

CAMERON: Probably.

NICK: Yeah. He leans over and puts his elbows on the back of his chair. “Well, while that’s an interesting proposition, I think in this case I’m gonna need the actual ones, but you keep in touch, big guy. I like the way your brain works. At least, I assume you have a brain.”

HUDSON: “Yeah. I got a brain. I like yours as well.”

NICK: “Thanks!” He winks at you. Around this time the Imperial and the local servant come in with some big trays of food. It all looks like it was cooked over a spit over an open fire. It’s like turkey legs, and big roasts, and charred vegetables and things, but all the food looks mildly off-putting. Like, the turkey legs maybe have one little leg still stuck to it that they didn’t clean off, like on a shrimp when they don’t quite clean it all, or the roast is, by all intents and purposes upside down, the way it’s shaped it’s like the leg worked backwards. Things are just slightly weird. The flora and fauna here are not great. All of the vegetables have thorns on them, which is why they charred it so it could come off, but you can see every once in a while there’s still like a spine that you’re gonna have to peel off. But the food, if you eat it, is delicious. It’s very good.

STEVEN: I eat the food. I also inquire what that amazing appetizer was.

NICK: “Oh that? Over here we just call them monkey bugs.”

STEVEN: “Cool.”

LAURA: “Okie.”

NICK: “Yeah. In the jungle you might see some of them. They’re adorable little critters.”

STEVEN: “I look forward to trying to make some myself.”

NICK: You pass through the rest of the meal with pleasantries. He flirts with Xianna a decent amount, but as far as you can tell he also flirts with Tink, and he starts to flirt with Karma and then I’m assuming that she shuts that down pretty hard.

CAMERON: Yeah. She answers very politely whenever he tries to engage her in conversation, but then will just turn back to Sabos and just keep saying no to planet names.

NICK: (laughs) He gives up on that pretty quickly. You learn from him he’s been here for like three or four years at this point. He likes to be kind of the middle man with a lot of stuff that, nothing that’s hyper illegal, but stuff that is kind of frowned upon, because no one gives a crap about his little backwater station, he figures he’ll do what he can since his career has kind of dead-ended.

After the meal, and everything is delicious and you’re full, and he’s sipping on a snifter of dessert martini, and there’s been plenty of drinks around, he says, “Well, you won’t be able to set out at night. I’ll put you up in the guest quarters next to mine. There’s a separate building for you. I’ll have you meet up with Mills tomorrow. He’ll set up the expedition for you. He’ll be your guide.” He makes a note on a data pad that he pulls out of a pocket under the table. “So, when you wake up in the morning go find him in the square. I’ll have you escorted to the guest quarters.” He stands up and leaves with a flourish of his cape scarf.

The protocol droid from before walks in holding a clean napkin. This one looks very freshly laundered. He says, “If you’ll come with me I’ll show you to the guest quarters.” He heads out the front door with that (robot noises), super slow pace. It’s like getting stuck behind someone in a hallway that’s not walking as fast as you would want. It’s annoying.

LAURA: Oh… (groans)

CAMERON: I follow.

LAURA: I mean yeah, we follow, but it’s just the annoying of like—(groans)

CAMERON: Tink’s having to take really small steps.

HUDSON: Yeah. I don’t like this pace.

STEVEN: I just take small footsteps, and be like ‘okay, this is cool.’

NICK: (laughs) So, the building that they’re leading you to is shorter than most of the other ones, and it’s behind some of the taller buildings from where you were standing before so you didn’t see it. If you guys could either make me a Knowledge: Lore, Education, or Core Worlds check.

CAMERON: Difficulty?

NICK: Easy.

LAURA: One success, two advantages.

CAMERON: Two successes and a threat.

HUDSON: Oh my. Three successes and two advantages.

LAURA: (laughs)

STEVEN: A triumph and a failure.

CAMERON: Yep, just a triumph.

STEVEN: So just a triumph.

NICK: Heh… You all recognize this, well everyone who passed recognizes this as a prefab garden shed. This is not fancy at all.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: They called it the guest quarters, but you can tell this is basically the Star Wars equivalent of that plastic shed you can get at Wal-Mart, so it’s made out of concrete, pre-assembled, a droid probably put it together in an afternoon, but with all of your advantages… As you open it, it’s actually quite nice on the inside. It doesn’t have any electricity or water, but it doesn’t have cots like it was originally going to have, it has like really nice bunk beds with not prefab mattresses, so something that the locals put together. Seated in the middle of the room is a large heater lamp. It’s basically like an electric campfire, and it’s really pleasant, and it’s a nice temperature, and it glows nicely. As you open the door, the sun begins to set below the trees behind you, and you have a moment of peace as the shuffling of the droid fades back into the distance and you hear the shut of the door. The troops that have been marching around and doing drills in the square all head off towards their barracks, and you can hear things settling down for the night. It’s a weird moment of peace. You all realize that this is the first real pause you’ve had since you all received those communications a few days ago. Even when you were on the ship it was like tensing up for the unknown, or being unconscious after being drunk for some of you, and this is a quiet, down moment before the next thing, and you finally have some answers of what you’re doing… and it’s nice.

LAURA: Xianna immediately yells, (gasps) “Top bunk! I call the top bunk!”

HUDSON: I get bottom bunk. How much do I hang off the bed?

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Uh…

HUDSON: Is this a double-long twin?

NICK: How tall are you?

CAMERON: Seven feet.

HUDSON: Yeah, seven feet.

LAURA: He’s two-something meters, so.

NICK: So, it’s that awkward length where if you have your head all the way up to the top, your mid-calf down hangs off the back, so it’s not even enough that your knees can bend.

HUDSON: (huffs)

NICK: Yeah. You have a moment of quiet, and you all realize that you don’t actually know much about each other.

HUDSON: I know enough about everyone. Y’all go ahead.

CAMERON: Can I make a Perception check of the shed to try to see if there’s any recording equipment of any kind?

NICK: Sure you can.

CAMERON: Like microphones. (laughs) What would the difficulty be?

NICK: You notice that the shed is really stripped down, so even with the nicer furnishings and everything the walls are bare concrete, so it’s easy.

CAMERON: A success and two advantages.

NICK: Yeah. You do a quick sweep. You don’t really find anything. The walls are pretty much bare. There’s not really anywhere anyone would even be able to hide a bug, so you’re pretty sure this room is clear. So, as people bed down for the evening and you have a nice moment of peace, that’s where we’ll end it for this episode, Episode 3.

(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.