ARIA: A NEW BEGINNING

I am developing the story of how Aria met up with various characters and where she now fits into the Star Wars galaxy.

When I started with her, she had no history at all. Just a SW template that I modified from the 6D system. She was a former Pirate. Well now she has a history, and so does her mother.
Bear with me as I edit this; I had it saved to another server but because I only go back to it after a great while has passed I forgot my password. I frequent this Blog more often. So I have copied & pasted it, but it's currently all de-html'd now: it's all in one big clump. I have a lot of editing to do. In the meantime, I also have real-life things going on, so I am not sure how fast I can work on this or not. But I will peck at it again now, probably more often now that I see it in here when I pop in to add things to the Blog.

This has been moved to FAN FICTION CENTRAL (see link at top of blog)... I will place a better link to this one at some point, but I think because this was getting too long, several errors started occuring... So now it's on my hard drive... Stay Tuned...

THE POSTER SERIES: REBEL FORCES

TO VIEW THIS IN MORE DETAIL, YOU CAN CHECK OUT http://r3b3l4c3s.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_r3b3l4c3s_archive.html or click on the May Archives and check out UMI ROM's FIELD NOTES from the adventure. Below is more of a summary...
These pictures were done with a number 4 H pencil first, then traced and fleshed out a bit in various black inks, then finished with LetraSet PANTONE 3-tipped markers. In BASIC it says "REBEL FORCES" at the top. David Freeman, my husband, was the one who created the storyline as the GM (Galaxy Master). Together with Leah and Keith, our friends, we role-played out the story with our 6D system and this is an outline of what happened. If you are not familiar with Role Playing Games (RPG) some of the storyline is controlled by the GM, the players' decisions, and some is controlled by chance: the roll of the dice.



THE MACAAB MUSHROOM MISSION
In this adventure we had to extract bio-components from rare mushrooms: Vavo 6 was a mind-altering drug manufactured by the Empire for bringing out the honesty in their enemies during "processing." We Rebels needed an antidote in case one of our own was captured.

Lt. Umi Rom (Human female), Velexa Namoon (Falleen female) & D'Kullia D'Shane (Human female), and Ikcin Mokab (Formassan female) had a mission for the Rebel Alliance: to meet up with an operative, namely Pal Vester, who was a scientist collecting data and doing some experimenting with Macaab Mushrooms. These fungi apparently had some sort of chemical in them that could be used as an antidote against truth serums and specifically Vavo 6. The Macaab mushrooms, some as tall as the jungle canopy, were located in a dense jungle on tne planet Arzid.

Little did we know that spiders as large as elephants were living among them. Note to self: always remember to refer to the ship's database before venturing into an unknown area, and then be prepared to be surprised anyway because the database is sometimes woefully outdated. At one point we were attacked by an Aracnor spider. After we managed to get out of that mess, we began our ascent to the tops of the mushrooms.

Ikcin fell from the top of one of the mushrooms, and we didn't notice she was missing until the Stormtroopers came into our area and found her. They dragged her off, so with our few samples from the mushrooms, we intended to overtake her captors before they arrived back in the city, however we had some technical issues and were stranded overnight in Macaab Forest.We also met up with Forest Brethren (something like a cross between a wolf and an green ape): they became agitated with us because we had saved a small primate that they were using as bait for bigger prey. They managed to get ahold of one of our blasters, but we managed not to get hit. Eventually we repaired our skiff and continued on our way without further incident.

We came back to civilization and luckily, because of the fog in the area, we were not seen... By Darth Vader. Also present was Brezzac, an elite Stormtrooper who was reporting to the Dark Sith Lord. Their presence on this planet meant something important was going down. We couldn't immediately get back to our ship because the place was crawling with 'Troopers. So we kept a low profile in a local bar where we caught up with Ikcin, or so we thought. She claimed she had somehow escaped, apparently with the aid of a Lt. Phaun, an Imperial Officer.With some surveillance and eavesdropping we found out about what some old arch-enemies were up to: Vorn and Tarc. Velexa eavesdropped on an important conversation and it led us all to the mines.

We went out to the mines after we had gathered some more information. If that wasn't enough, Umi met up with her estranged father on this mission. He was on the run, and apparently did seem reformed from his former days of being a bounty hunter for the Empire. He offered his services and then left in a hurry.

In the meantime, the plans were laid to halt the goings-on at the Mendicar Mines... Which brings us to POSTER NUMBER 2:

MISSION AT MENDICAR MINES
On our way there we ran into a rock-creature that rammed our skiff. That's when we found out that Ikcin wasn't really Ikcin: she was Shi'adu - a shapeshifter. We also hid out for a time to make repairs in a ruined city, partially buried. The city was ancient and it had a Guardian by the name of Gentry. We explored the city and found some useful Force-Embued items: Umi had a rod, Velexa, a necklace, and D'Kullia had some armor and a helm.

Umi had contacted her father again: together they all thwarted plans for an evil Shi'adu to use this Vavo 6 formula on his own kind. It rendered his species much more susceptible and complacent rather than its intended use as a truth serum. This mad Shi'adu was experimenting with plans to create a mindless army for the Empire to control: with microchip implants and small recording devices attached to the eyes of the hapless victims, the Empire could turn these Shapeshifters into a deadly army of spies and assassins, if not soldiers. Not only that, but we met up with some of our old arch-enemies from previous missions. Velexa (the Falleen) was intent on getting the guy in the breath-mask: Torrel Vorn had met up with us in a previous adventure and we knew he was up to no good. We also wanted to take out his side-kick, too, who went by the name of Tarc.

However, as I said, things are not always as they seem!



As you can see, we also encountered some Spine-Wolves that lived in the cave: they were menacing creatures: their spines rattled eerily when they moved, so you could hear them before you could see them.

At the end of all this, Tarc turned out to be the mastermind behind plans, not Vorn, and Tarc killed him. He turned out to be a greater threat than anyone realized: he had Dark Jedi powers. This had been masked well.

Velexa had in the past placed a bounty on Vorn's head, so she was very angry that Tarc had taken away her chance to kill Vorn, and to rub it in, Tarc had taken the credits from her account: see the datapad with the words "BOUNTY... paid in full" at the bottom there... Tarc turned out to be a much more powerful and evil man than we had ever believed: he was a dark jedi, strong in the dark ways of the force. The only reason Tarc escaped was because he had several bounty hunters waiting to take us out as his ship took off. We were so busy fighting them that we couldn't stop Tarc... This time.

We had to rendevous back at the Alliance. We were battle-worn and weary, and D'Kullia had to be taken to surgery to recover from some severe wounds. Jakmon Rom, Umi's father, was duly processed and appeared to be on the side of the Alliance now. We had the unfortunate task of having to explain to Sabrina that Ikcin had fallen prey to the Empire. We also met up with other friends from our base, and were informed of a mysterious message that was sent to Karnic Foe: he was missing. Aria, who was quite close to the old reptile, was furious that we weren't going to rescue him first. Sabrina wanted to help us track Ikcin down, but first we decided we must go find more party members: so we went to Tatooine to find Crovax. Aria stayed behind to prepare and to study some clues, such as a threatening communication that was sent to Karnic before his disappearance. And that brings us to POSTER NUMBER 3:




REIGET RECRUITING & FREEING A FORMASSAN
Umi, Sabrina (Ikcin's friend), and Velexa needed some heavy-duty assistance, so they sought out Crovax, AKA "Bruiser"on his current residence, Tatooine. It turns out that he was at Chulum's bar and easy enough to spot, being all big and blue like he was. We learned he had some errands to run from his current employer, Jabba the Hutt. It turns out that Jabba might have some information to help us bring down Sibarra the Hutt, an intense rival. And it was lucky we went on this errand with Crovax because otherwise we would not have learned from Jabba that Ikcin had been captured by Sibarra.

Unfortunately we ran into a young Krayt dragon... Or rather it ran into our transport and tore it up. We had a few intense moments that seemed like days, but with lightsabers and blasters we took it down. Mind you it didn't hurt that the boxes we were delivering to Jabba were filled with SPICE, the purest and most potently addictive drug across the system. Umi had the presence of mind to throw the boxes directly into its mouth, so if it didn't die from our weapons, it certainly succumbed to the overdose it ingested.

Jabba was not very impressed about the missing drugs, however, he knew just by looking at us and by the trophy we brought back to him: he now has the skull of a Krayt Dragon on display at his palace.

We got the information we needed to infiltrate Sibarra the Hutt's vast estate: we were told to be wary of a security guard with silver hair and eyes, by the name of Dunan Par'ell. He owns a security corps, has had about a decade of military service, and may have some connection with the Imperials. We were going to the Casino, THE ACE OF SABERS, with the pretense of gaining employment. Dunan was the one to ask for employment.

Because we were worried about the spies in Jabba's palance, Umi had planted a bomb to cause a distraction to cover our departure. However someone caught up with us: someone who wanted Umi dead -- some Bounty Hunter Guild members from the same guild her father was from tried to ambush their transport with their speederbikes. We did manage to shoot them down and escape, but it certainly did add to the drama!

We were working for a while under our casino employee badges trying to get information on how to find Ikcin. We decided the best way we could do this was to present Dunan with the proposal to give Sibarra information on Tarc, Vorn, and some other important names in exchange for Ikcin.

However, much to our chagrin, we thought we had a hearing, but it turned out we were speaking to Sibarra's hologram: we were lured into what we thought was a conference room, but it was really a holding cell. The only exit was through a large maze, which we were assured, in one part of it was Ikcin awaiting rescue. We had no choice but to play along. We could tell there were bets being placed for or against us: everything is a gamble for Hutts.

After much searching and avoiding (for the most part) booby traps and dangerous animals; we managed to find Ikcin. She was solid Carbonite! Apparently, true to his word, Sibarra had seen he had lost his bet and let us go. I'm glad we put on such an entertaining show for him.

With Ikcin in tow, we scrambled back to the Rebel Base to get medical attention for everyone. Then it was on to the last chapter in our adventure, POSTER NUMBER 4:

THE BETRAYAL OF THE TRANDOSHAN HIT-SQUAD

As I mentioned, upon our first rendezvous with the Alliance to report Ikcin's disappearance, we heard that Aria's comrade, Karnic Foe, was missing. The last thing that anyone found was a coded recording. After CT 3PO decrypted it, we all heard a distorted voice stating,

"Remember Onderon? My wife? Murder? Remember Urska? The past is
about to blow up in your face, Major Karnic."

Urska, it turned out after an extensive search through the SpyNet, was Karnic's mate. The Bothan that gave us this information to go to a certain warehouse district on Onderon, because apparently the spies had last seen Karnic in that area. Our contact there took us to the site.

What we ended up seeing made our blood ran cold: Karnic was trussed up on an altar, and there was Tarc, along with several other Trandoshans from the Trandoshan Hitsquad (which, it turns out, is the unit Karnic was from before he gave it up and joined the Alliance)... This was all news to us (er, that is, he was a very private reptile and uh, also, we hadn't developed as much of a history with this character) and while that was sinking in we found out why Tarc had tied up the Trandoshan: he was going to kill him! Aria tried to stop them, but we had to hold her back: there were too many of them. In reality, Tarc had killed his own wife because she had found out about his plans to wipe out the senate: the HitSquad was a highly skilled team of assassins, their targets: senators and high seats of government. Tarc had tricked them all into thinking Karnic had murdered Tarc's wife, and with the Hitsquad, vengence was dealt with accordingly. So the knife came down, us all helplessly watching.

(It turns out that it wasn't really Karnic, but we had to keep that confidential from even the Alliance at his request. The reason being was because Karnic went into his own protection program -- to raise his only remaining son. He wore a silver mask and told us to call him Acroyer Zar-Karza. The Trandoshan that was killed was, in fact, Karnic's brother who had a terminal illness, and was therefore willing to die for something honourable rather than a disease he couldn't see)...

More coming soon...

I apologize for not having much new and interesting lately... I have been extremely busy. My hours changed and I come home much later and I just don't seem to have the energy I normally did when I used to start work at 8AM... So, finally, I have gotten around to finishing my Star Wars posters... All four of them... At least I ALMOST have them all done. Then I will scan them and place them next to the sketches I placed on here so many months earlier: that way you can see how the ideas were developed and then the finished product.

See you soon!