Arc 2, Session 4

Star Wars: Halfway to Nowhere is a solo Ironsworn: Starforged actual play set in the Star Wars universe. It’s set in the Harron Marches sector of the Expansion Region during the reign of the Galactic Empire, and follows the misadventures of freighter captain Fyl Cridu as he struggles to pay off his debts and survive in a changing galaxy.

---

Begin a Session: Influential character or faction is introduced or given new detail.

On her homeworld, Sinyani told me, her personal name and clan name were joined - a way of showing that she belonged. She was born Sinya’nilim, Sinya of clan Nilim, and it was only later that she adopted a transliterated Basic name. Becoming Sinyani was a symbol of her separation from her people; it was a linguistic separation often used for outcasts, but for her, it was a choice. Born far from Ryloth, she never felt much of a connection to Twi’lek culture. Her parents were penniless miners in the Mid Rim.

Growing up, Sinyani carried the weight of her family’s hopes on her shoulders. Her parents saved every credit they could to put toward helping their only child, the daughter they prayed would lead a better life than they had. As she grew into a young adult, the pressure of those high expectations weighed on her. The shadow of her impoverished family hung over everything she did; none of her triumphs were sufficient or complete until she could come back and rescue her parents from poverty.

That was why she took a job with CRMA, and why she served in it so cheerfully. It wasn’t just that, as Procurement Officer for ORSH-1, she earned many times what her parents had earned combined; it was the potential for advancement, to rise through the company’s ranks and reach a position of modest wealth and stability via consistently-demonstrated competence. She had always pictured the day she would be able to buy her parents a house, maybe down the street from her own, and vindicate their faith.

Losing her position at CRMA wasn’t just an economic blow to Sinyani Lim. It was the collapse of a dream, the destruction of the vehicle she’d meant to use to fulfill the goal she’d been working toward since childhood. All her work, all her struggle, all her positivity in the face of pervasive apathy and despair, it had led her nowhere in the end. She was going to have to face her family and tell them it had all fallen apart, that she wouldn’t be able to uplift them from their desperation as they’d always hoped.

I didn’t want her to go through that. I wanted to keep her dream alive.

I had faith that, given a second chance, she could still pull it off.

Honestly, I had a lot more faith in her than I did in myself.

---

Oracle: Settlements (Starsmith: Expanded Oracles, by Eric Bright)

First Look: 60 (Precarious location / Location of natural beauty / Location with unusual atmospheric conditions)
Initial Contact: 88 (Captured / Quarantined / Cultural observance)
Settlement Trouble: 32 (Feuding factions / Political schism / Political protests)

Oracle: Factions (Starsmith: Expanded Oracles, by Eric Bright)

Type: 38 (Dominion)
Dominion: 8 (Artistry / Belonging / Capitalism)
Leadership: 47 (Dynastic lineage / Cult of personality / Monarchy)
Project: 45 (Incite conflict among rivals / Ignite a conflict with another faction / Improve operation efficiency at any cost)
Quirk: 46 (Keeps exhaustive records or archives / Proud to have hunted important species to extinction / Important roles bestowed upon children when they are born)

Type: 93 (Fringe Group)
Fringe Group: 9 (Exiles / Black Marketeers / Black Ops)
Project: 13 (Disrupt the operations of a rival / Cripple a rival headquarters / Destroy a powerful device)
Quirk: 79 (Suspicious of outsiders / Shuns new or upgraded commodities for traditional ones / Societal roles determined by age)

Hurn’s Hollow lived up to the name. The town was nestled in the hollow between three broad hills, shielded from the winds that swept across the plains on all sides. A lake filled much of the valley, and the town had built inward from its shores, over the water. Most buildings were on top of stilts and connected by catwalks, all of it about a meter above the placid water. Once a watering hole for nerfs, a convenient place for the animals to rest before being shipped off-planet, the place was now a true town.

“It’s pretty,” Sinyani said, no doubt relieved to see something green and growing after the horror of Verdacine’s denuded surface. She was right, though. A gentle breeze sent ripples skimming across the lake’s surface, most of which was still uncovered. The town’s builders had been careful not to close in the lake or choke it off from the sky. The buildings were all carefully spaced to avoid blocking too much of any one section of water, and the catwalks were metal grids you could easily see through.

“Yeah,” I said, “it is. But it’s also awful quiet.”

We were practically hovering over town, and no one had hailed us. Admittedly, this was a frontier town, not an Imperial spaceport… but it still struck me as odd that we hadn’t gotten any communication at all. The port was pretty busy, at least by Marches standard. Surely someone down there was coordinating who landed on which pad; that was a bare minimum for safety, even if you weren’t the kind of place that bothered to check transponder codes or worry about the legitimacy of a captain’s license.

I was uncomfortably reminded of the all-too-silent Barge 717.

As I took the Fool in toward an unoccupied landing pad, though, I started to be able to make out the figures of individual people on the catwalks. A whole lot of them seemed to be clustered around one of the central platforms, near a large, squat building. I couldn’t tell too much from high up about what they might be saying or doing, but even at this distance, it didn’t seem like a happy crowd. Maybe the problem, the reason no one said hello, was that we were showing up while the town was otherwise occupied.

Something big seemed to be going down. Of course.

“Wonder what that’s about,” Sinyani said, an edge to her voice.

“Not sure,” I said, extending the landing gear and lowering my ship toward the platform. “Looks like trouble, though.” Almost everything in the Marches was scarce or tapped out these days, but the sector still had bountiful yields of trouble. The Fool rocked slightly as she made contact with the platform, leaning awkwardly where her landing gear were bent. I wondered if there was a halfway decent mechanic anywhere on this rustic moon. If the Vahl cultists paid up, I might be able to afford one.

“Guess we’d better find out,” I said, getting up from the pilot’s seat. Sinyani nodded, rising and following me down to the loading ramp. Neither of us had any kind of weapon - not that a blaster would’ve saved us if a crowd of the size we’d seen decided to go ugly on us. We were trusting that someone in town would fill us in, rather than fill us full of holes. It’s not like either of us had anywhere else to go. The metal catwalk clanked beneath our boots as we walked, heading up toward the central platform.

Confront Chaos: 70 (Site of a baffling disappearance / Dangerous and deadly hostage situation / Impossible and crippling reappearance)

Oracle: Characters (Starsmith: Expanded Oracles, by Eric Bright) and Species (SW Universe Oracles, by FilmFans)

Species: 96 (Rare Species)
Rare Species: 6 (Cyborg)

First Look: 29 (Distracted / Frail / Freckled)
Initial Disposition: 93 (Threatening / Brash / Paranoid)
Character Role: 32 (Guard / Explosives Expert / Financier)
Character Goal: 73 (Solve a mystery / Spread misinformation / Start a conflict)
Revealed Aspect: 37 (Experienced / Foolish / Forgiving)

There was a low, angry buzz emerging from the crowd as we approached. They were clearly ranchers and the townspeople who catered to them - rugged frontierfolk who were all armed to the teeth. They carried a dizzying array of sporting blaster rifles, high-power electro-prods, and vibroknives as long as my forearm. I approached one who was standing at the edge of the group. He was an older human, heavily scarred, with cybernetic replacements for his left leg, left eye, and two fingers on his left hand.

“Excuse me—” I started, and he whipped around, pointing his blaster at my chest.

I raised my hands, holding them away from my sides, showing that they were empty. Beside me, Sinyani let out a frightened yelp, then raised hers too. “Who the feth are you?” the man asked, his organic eye narrowed. He was clearly on edge, and we’d accidentally snuck up on him, distracted as he was by whatever was going on in the center of town. “Offworlders… you with them?” The way he said both offworlders and them dripped with disgust. We’d stumbled into something that had gone badly wrong.

“I’m not sure who they are,” I said, speaking slowly and calmly, “so no, we’re not. We just came in from Caerost. I’m looking for a ship mechanic, and she’s—” The man cut me off with a wave of his hand. Mercifully, he lowered the gun; I felt Sinyani sag with relief next to me. Having a weapon waved in our faces was much newer to her than it was to me, and the first time is terrifying. For me, it was starting to feel worryingly normal. My shoulder twinged where I’d been shot by a pirate just a few days earlier.

Thank feth for bacta treatment. There was hardly even a scar.

“You should leave,” the man said. I could see that he was wearing some kind of badge; local law enforcement, maybe? “We’re in the middle of a mess, and things are about to get real ugly. Some off-planet terrorists are holed up in town hall with a bunch of hostages and a list of demands. We’re about a hair’s breadth from just storming the place. Whatever happens, the Hollow’s closed for business until we sort this out.” He turned away again, eyes fixed on the central building, blaster brandished toward it.

Action: Compel (+Heart)
3 + 3 (Heart) = 6 vs 7, 9
Miss, burning 8 Momentum for Weak Hit

“Look,” I said, stepping closer to him, “maybe I can help.” What the feth are you doing, asked a little voice in the back of my brain, and I had no good answer for it… no good answer except that I needed this standoff to be over so that I could get a technician to help me get to Verdacine, and that it looked like it wasn’t going to end well. “They don’t want to talk to you, but maybe they’ll talk to me. I’m an outsider, no skin in the game. Maybe I can help deescalate the situation, get them to let some people go.”

The guard turned back toward me, eyeing me suspiciously. For a moment, I thought I’d made a terrible mistake. Offering to negotiate could well be seen as tipping my hand and revealing that I actually was in league with the hostage-takers, and looking for some way to get close to them. So I poured every ounce of disarming charm I could muster into my expression, trying to let honestly shine through. Finally the guard grunted and shrugged. “What the feth, it can’t hurt at this point. Come with me.”

“Fyl, what are you doing?” Sinyani whispered. “You’re not a hostage negotiator!”

She was right, of course. I had no idea how to do the thing I’d just offered.

I shrugged and smiled wanly. “Guess I’m about to be. Wait here.”

I let the guard lead me through the crowd, which took a look at his badge and parted for him. There had to be at least a couple hundred people on the platform, all of them armed to the teeth; there was no way the hostage-takers were getting out alive if this crowd had their way, and they had to know that. I tried to get into their headspace, the siege mentality they must have going on. It was tough because I didn’t really know who they were or what they wanted, beyond the vague description of terrorists.

A group of men and women, mostly humans, stood in a loose perimeter around the building - a two-story metal structure capped with a transparisteel dome, simple but elegant, clearly the local center of government. All of them wore the same badge as the bald, scarred cyborg who was escorting me through the crowd - definitely some kind of local police or marshal service. They gave him terse nods as he approached, keeping their focus on the building’s windows and doors, their weapons raised to fire.

A few were working on keeping the rest of the crowd back. It was only barely working.

“This offworlder that just showed up wants to try negotiating,” the cyborg told them, jerking a thumb in my direction. A few turned to give me an appraising glance, and I looked them over in turn. Their gear was pretty good for a fringe law enforcement agency; they had blast vests and helmets, and I saw some DC-15a rifles among them, Clone trooper blasters they definitely weren’t supposed to have. It was military grade hardware, either stolen or gained through deep pockets and deeper connections.

“Fine, whatever,” said a tall, thin woman, grey hair peeking out from under her helmet.

“But after that we go in. He won’t get anywhere with them. Fething Bruvians.”

The last word hit me like a truck. The ecoterrorists were Bruvian? That… made a lot of sense, and also made everything a whole lot more complicated. The bad blood on both sides of this standoff ran deep, and that was going to make it even harder to get this mess resolved without anyone getting killed. On the other hand, it made me all the more determined to try to deescalate the situation. I needed help from Hurn’s Hollow, but I wasn’t about to stand aside while genocide victims were gunned down to get it.

The Bruvians had gotten fethed over harder than almost anyone else in the Marches…

… and in the Marches, where everyone got fethed, that was really saying something.

Action: Swear an Iron Vow (+Heart)
Difficulty: Dangerous (2 Boxes / 10 per Progress)
I will deescalate the hostage situation and find a nonviolent solution.
1 + 3 (Heart) = 4 vs 1, 7
Weak Hit - +1 Momentum, begin with more questions than answers

“Give me a chance,” I snapped, irritated by the guard’s callous attitude. “If you go in, those hostages are dead — and so are a whole mess of other people, some of you quite possibly included.” Before she could respond, I snatched a discarded megaphone and stepped forward, walking toward the building with my hands raised. “Hi there,” I called out, keeping my voice as calm and level as I could. It occurred to me about two steps in that I might very well just get shot at any moment. I kept walking anyway.

Encounter: Bruvian Hostage-Takers
Rank: Dangerous

Action: Enter the Fray
Approach: Facing off against your foe (+Heart)
2 + 3 (Heart) = 5 vs 2, 10
Weak Hit - In Control

Action: Gain Ground
Approach: Negotiating (+Heart)
4 + 3 (Heart) = 7 vs 7, 8
Miss - In a Bad Spot

Action: React Under Fire
Approach: Changing the Plan (+Wits)
2 + 2 (Wits) = 4 vs 2, 8
Weak Hit - still In a Bad Spot, Suffer (-1)

Action: Endure Stress (+Heart)
3 + 3 (Heart) = 6 vs 8, 7
Miss - Lose 1 Spirit, Lose 2 Momentum, Shaken

“My name’s Fyl. I’m an offworld freighter captain. Who am I talking to in there?”

It seemed like a strong start, but whoever was in there obviously disagreed. A blaster bolt streaked out of a second story window and slammed into the ground right in front of me, bringing me to an abrupt halt. “Turn around,” came a harsh voice from inside. “Take another step, and people start to die. You think we won’t kill them? You’re wrong. Don’t make us prove it.” The cold certainty in his voice chilled me. It was the voice of a person ready to die for the cause, and to kill for it as well.

“Look,” I said, abandoning my rapport-building efforts, “I’m trying to help—”

“Turn around,” the voice said again, cutting me off. A moment later, a terrified human woman was shoved against the window; I could see a hand pressing a blaster against the back of her head. “Right now. I’m very serious. Walk back over to the marshals and tell them we stand by our demands.” I felt my stomach drop out as I realized just how out of my depth I was here. I could very easily get someone killed. I swore for a moment that I could see Jekoralt standing in another window, staring at me.

Action: React Under Fire
Approach: Creating a distraction (+Shadow)
+2 from Scoundrel for lying / bluffing
4 + 2 (Shadow) + 2 (Scoundrel) = 8 vs 7, 1

Action: Gain Ground
Approach: Studying a situation (+Wits)
4 + 2 (Wits) = 6 vs 2, 5
Strong Hit - Mark Progress (2/10), +2 Momentum

Action: Gain Ground
Approach: Negotiating (+Heart)
3 + 3 (Heart) = 6 vs 4, 2
Strong Hit - Mark Progress (4/10), +2 Momentum

I turned around… but I didn’t give up. Not quite. Not yet.

Instead, I decided to embellish a bit. Enough to get them to listen.

“Fine,” I said, offering an exaggerated shrug to cover my shot nerves. “Your call. But when the Empire gets here in an hour, you might wish you’d heard me out. They’re not going to listen to your demands. They’re not going to care about the hostages. They’re going to kill most of you, and the ones they take alive will be wishing they’re dead weeks from now. The things I’ve heard about ISB interrogation techniques…” I shivered, and that part wasn’t acting. The best lies have a grain of truth at their core.

I started to walk back toward the marshals, but I didn’t make it far. “Wait,” the voice said, and the smallest burst of hope soothed my terror. “Stop walking. What are you offering?” I turned back around, hands still raised, and shrugged again.

“I’m an offworlder who got here about ten minutes ago,” I said, reverting fully to the truth. “I don’t know who you are or what you want. I’m just trying to make sure no one leaves in a body bag… or Imperial cuffs. What are your demands, anyway?”

There was a low buzz from inside as several voices conferred. “We want an end to Glevaris’s food shipments to Bruvia,” the first voice finally came back. “No more nerf meat for colonizers and occupiers. There are three shipments scheduled to go out today. We’ll release the hostages if they’re dumped into the lake.” So that was the game - disrupt supply lines to the people who had displaced them from their stolen homeworld. I could see the logic, but it was never going to work out for them.

Action: Gain Ground
Approach: Negotiating (+Heart)
2 + 3 (Heart) = 5 vs 2, 6
Weak Hit - Mark Progress (6/10)

Action: Gain Ground
Approach: Negotiating (+Heart)
2 + 3 (Heart) = 5 vs 2, 3
Strong Hit - Mark Progress (8/10), +2 Momentum

Action: Take Decisive Action
8 (Progress) vs 3, 5
Strong Hit - Prevail, +1 Momentum

Action: Mark Progress
Resolve the hostage situation - 2/10

“You’re Bruvians, then,” I said, confirming what I already knew. “Look, I get what you’re doing and why. You’re striking a blow against the system that took your homes. In your shoes, I’d probably do the same - something that feels concrete, like it matters, like you’re advancing the cause.” I paused, letting that sink in. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but this plan… can’t work. Look at these people behind me. They’re not going to dump those shipments. They’re going to kill you, and they’ll take losses to do it.”

“They’re proud,” I went on, “like you, and they’re not going to give in to this kind of coercion, just like you wouldn’t. You’re ready to die to get this done, and they’re willing to see some of their own get killed to prevent it. The difference is… there are a whole lot of them, and only a few of you. And I don’t mean just here, I mean anywhere. I don’t have to tell you that your people, and your way of life, are on the brink. You can’t afford senseless losses. Don’t throw your lives away on a failed mission.”

There was another long pause. I waited, sweat beading on my forehead, heart racing.

“Come in here,” the voice called out. “Alone. We’ll hear you out for now.”

I swallowed hard… then walked into the belly of the beast.