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Blood, spice and follyIt has a period of unrest and opportu-

nity in the Galaxy. The Galactic Empire

enforces its relentless will across count-

less civilised worlds. Where it does not,

the Hutt clans squeeze every credit they

can from every imaginable dishonest

trade.

Meanwhile, scoundrels and smugglers, ex-

plorers and fringers of all kinds scramble

to make a living on the edges of Galactic

civilisation. It is a hard life, but these rene-

gades have more freedom and opportuni-

ty than any citizen of the Core Worlds.

Aboard the Illesh Star, a small group of such

fringers struggle to make ends meet on an

honest income, shuttling cargo and passen-

gers around the remote Arkanis sector. . . .

You are a member of the crew. or possibly a loing-term passenger, of the Illesh Star, a Wayfarer-Class medium freighter, owned and commanded by the good-na-tured Corellian, Julan Tarn. Life is not easy, as you eke out a living transporting other peoples goods through

the Outer Rim, along the hyperspace lanes of the Arkanis Sector. Tarn struggles to find the cash to pay both the mortgage on the ship and the repair bills needed to keep her flying. Profits, when they come, are small and life on the ship is on a cargo by cargo basis.This isnt helped by Tarns awful business sense. He never seems able to negotiate

a good price for the cargo he hauls, making barely enough to cover costs and some-times not even that. When he has had some spare cash, his efforts to speculate by shipping his own cargo have proven profitless, either only just breaking even or, more usually, losing out to less scrupulous dealers. Nevertheless, you owe Tarn some loyalty and the options for alternative employ-

ment are probably much worse. Who wants to be indebted to the Hutts, Or stuck on the ground scrabbling in the dirt on some backwater speck of dust? Alar Mentom is the Stars competent, fussy and fastidious human pilot. This pudgy,

pale-looking man is always quick to remind everyone of his importance to the ves-sel. His rigid adherence to protocol and guidelines seems to annoy the Stars sullen

Welcome To The Edge

co-pilot, Jacen Tyrol, a recent Academy graduate whom Tarn picked up on Mon Calamari about six months ago.The Illesh Stars other crew are droids.3-LOM-5DS is a protocol droid and serves as the Stars cargo master and primary translater on board the freighter.

Despite his somewhat off-putting insectoid appearance, he is efficient and friendly.FX-6-DDY is the Stars medical droid. Unfortunately, it suffers from Tarns poor maintenance record and is non-func-

Julan Tarn

Every system operation performed by the crew of the Star must include one Setback die given the generally poor condition of the vessel, unless the sys-tem in question has been recently re-paired. A Threat t result renders that system dangerously under-maintained and sub-sequent tests involving it upgrades one Difficulty die to a Challenge die un-til it is repaired. One or more advantage a results indicate that the system has been stripped and overhauled and can be tested normally until another threat result breaks it again.

tional most of the time. Like most medical droids, his bedside manner is perfunctory when he is functional, not helped by his blackouts.R5-X5 supports the hyperdrive system, navigation and basic maintenance. Tarn

acquired him cheaply from a native species on some bckwater planet along the Corellian Run. The poor astromech obviously has a tale or two to tell and can best be described as a bit twitchy.Another astromech, R1-G8, is a non-functional antique acquired several years ago

to keep the Stars hull patched, the sub-light engines running and most of the other systems in working order. Unfortunately, these tasks have been delegated to R4-P40 and his small coterie of mouse maintenance droids until Tarn tries to scrounge together the two thousan credits worth of parts he needs to repair R1. R4-P40 also supports R5, grumpily splitting his time between the two sets of tasks.

Alar Mentom & Jacen Tyrol3-LOM, FX-6-DDY, R1-G8, R5-X5, R4-P40

The Wayfarer-class freighter Illesh Star is nearly a hundred years old. Julan Tarn bought her sev-en years ago from an Aqualish merchant on Cadan, taking out a forty-year mortgage to pay off the supposedly 280,000 credits she cost him, dreaming of a life as a free-footed trader wandering the hyperlanes. Thanks to her modular design, she has served many roles over the years. According to her logs she was first registered on Ord Obril in the Tion Cluster as a spice freighter, later converted to a basic passenger ferry between Arkanis and Jakku, before seeing action as a troop transport for Confederacy forces during the evacuation of Christophsis. Finally, she was converted once again to serve as a cargo freighter and had changed hands twice more before Tarn bought her.She is in desperate need of a major overhaul. Her hyperdrive and life-support systems are on the verge of complete collapse; vital components such as the hypermatter injectors and atmosphere scrubbers are well past their operational lifespans, and yet Tarn can only afford to have them re-paired or replaced by equally worn-out scrap wherever he can scrounge it. Every landfall includes a trip to a junkyard and a serious bout of haggling, every re-entry threatens yet another piece of the hull falling off altogether. Its almost become a joke to hear Mentom grumbling that the shields will fail next time he powers them on, or that the landing gear will drop out of its housings, or some other prediction of doom; at the back of everyones mind, however, is the very real possi-bility that hell be proven right.

Cargo module detached and armature retracted

Key

1. Bridge2. Crew Quarters3. Infirmary4. Conference Room5. Galley6. Recreation Lounge7. Airlock8. Engineering9. Officers Quarters10. Cargo Lift

The Illesh Star

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Arkanis SectorThe Arkanis sector has been a crossroads for traders and travelers since the earliest days of the Republic. It is bor-dered by the Corellian Run which many use to travel from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim and beyond. It is also crossed by the Triellus Trade Route, which leads into Hutt Space.A subsector is formed around the so-called Regency Worlds, a relatively prosperous region on the Corellian Run formed around the former Arkanis Regency. Unfortunately, this pros-perity rarely extends to other parts of the sector, with only a mild boost in trade and a significant one in crime as Hutt interests moved in towards the end of the Republic era.

Your story begins around nineteen years after the end of the Clone Wars and the formation of the Empire. The Republic has been swept away and replaced by the iron fist of the Galactic Empire, but its hard to spot any difference here in the Outer Rim even if youre old enough to remember the Republic. The Republic never really had much of an influence here, but those who do remember - or claim to remember - grumble about how much more difficult it is to avoid official entan-glements.Of course, youve heard Imperial propaganda about how the Jedi attempted a coup against the Emperor, but that all hap-

pened on the Core worlds. Youve heard enough muttering from old timers that the sanctioned history probably isnt true, not that you believe anything the Empire forces down your throat, any more than those those ridiculous illegal holovids depicting heroic Jedi. No-one you know ever met a Jedi. No-one you know was ever that righteous. Official Imperial history describes the Clone Wars as a conflict between the corrupt old Republic and a group of rebel-

lious planets who were eventually defeated only after several years of incompetent leadership, if not outright betrayal, by the Jedi. Only when the Chancellor took personal charge was the Confederacy of Independent Systems finally defeated. Stripped of their status and position, the Jedi attempted a coup against the legitimate government and an assassination of the Chancellor but were foiled by loyal troops. The Jedi Order was subsequently outlawed and its fanatics ruthlessly hunted down and executed for their crimes, while the Senate and the Great Houses offered the Chancellor the ultimate accolade, the title of Emperor of the Galaxy. In order to prevent the chaos of the Clone Wars happening again, the Empire imposes its order ruthlessly. Nowhere is too remote for their rule to be exercised.So the Empires no joke, but its nothing compared to the Hutt clans. If youre desperate enough to take their money they can make you rich, but once youre in their slimy clutches youll be

forever trapped in a web of devious, criminal schemes. Cross them and youll find a bounty on your head so large you wont be able to go near a civilised system for the rest of your natural existence. You could always defect to the Black Sun, or another criminal organisation, but youre only swapping one viper for another.Then there are the growing rumours of a rebellion, an Alliance to restore the Republic. The Empire paints them as dan-

gerous terrorists, a remnant of the separatist movement that the caused the Clone Wars; but wherever it may be, its all a long, long way from here.

A Galaxy of Opportunity

Timekeeping isnt much of an issue in the Star Wars films, but tracking time is usually a concern for players and char-acters and the antagonists they face. A Hutt crime lord may set a deadline for a bounty to be collected, or a debt to be repaid, or for crippling interest on a loan to be calculated.In this campaign frame, the official year used by Imperial bureaucrats is 19 Im-perial. The vast majority of the trillions of sentients in the Galaxy stick to the old Republic calendar, marking the year as 3562 (3562 years since the Treaty of Coruscant created the Republic in its last incarnation, a piece of truly obscure triv-ia). Therefore, the events of The Empire Strikes Back will occur in 22 Imperial (or 3565) and The Return of the Jedi in 23 Imperial (or 3566).Despite this, the Empire still uses the old Coruscant annual calendar that ev-eryone else in the Galaxy uses. This is made up of 10 months of 35 days each, split into seven 5-day weeks, with an ad-ditional 14 celebration days to make up Coruscants 364-day cycle.

SpiceSpice is the general name for a number of naturally occuring minrerals, mined in various systems throughout the Galaxy. There is a legal if heavily regulated trade in spice for refinement into a variety of medical and industrial products. The Empire taxes the trade extortorionately and controls the largest and most profitable of all the spice mines, on Kessel. Other sources in the Arkanis Sector are Ryloth and, to a lesser extent, Tatooine.There is also a massively profitable illegal trade in the substance. Smugglers ship car-goes of spice under the noses of Imperial customs; once in the hands of the various criminal cartels, spice can be either sold to any number of corporations at a massive profit, or further refined into a variety of narcotic substances, all of which have been out-lawed since the time of the Republic. The Hutts own the largest cartels and have an almost complete monopoly on the smug-gling trade. The Black Sun organisation competes fiercely with them in both arenas.

The Empires punishment for spice dealers and smugglers is swift, absolute and merci-less.

With 35 years of written and filmed material, theres almost too much Star Wars to digest. The question of can-on is a tricky one. Since the purchase by Disney, much of the non-filmed content has been thrown out.Where does this leave the campaign?Most PCs are unaware of the history of the Jedi or their downfall and their fate is, by and large, irrelevant to the vast majority of Edge of the Empire charac-ters. The Force will not play a central role in this campaign.Player characters exist within the larg-er canvas of the Star Wars universe and their actions will not change the events of that story, although they may become involved with elements or characters from it from time to time.For those players who care, in-game canon is restricted to the events of the original trilogy (Episodes IV-VI), the Star Wars Rebels cartoon, Marvel comics pub-lished since 2015 and certain tie-in nov-els published since 2014. The Prequel Trilogy and the Clone Wars TV series cannot be trusted as accurate. In fact, their story may turn out to be very dif-ferent.Alderaan has yet to be destroyed, the Death Star is still a terrible secret; the Senate still rules under the Emperor on distant Coruscant, the shining centre of the universe which youll never obtain a permit to visit.

There is a character generator available at: http://bit.ly/15dSR5g. This aids the mechanical process massively, but the following restrictions apply for this campaign.All of the species and careers in the Core rulebook are available. In addition, the following species can be chosen from the relevant sourcebook: Aqualish (Dangerous Covenants) Arcona (Far Horizons) Chiss (Enter the Unknown) Corellian Human (Suns of Fortune) Drall (Suns of Fortune) Duros (Enter the Unknown) Gotal (Fly Casual) Gran (Far Horizons) Klatoonian (Dangerous Covenants) Quarren (Fly Casual) Selonian (Suns of Fortune) Weequay (Dangerous Covenants)

The following additional specialisations are also available at character creation: Colonist - Entrepreneur (Far Horizons) Colonist - Marshall (Far Horizons) Colonist - Performer (Far Horizons) Explorer - Archaeologist (Enter the Unknown) Explorer - Big-Game Hunter (Enter the Unknown) Explorer - Driver (Enter the Unknown)

Play Options

There are several possibilities for roles as either crew or passengers on the Illesh Star. The vessel requires a chief engineer, a merchant as a face for managing negotiatns, a surgeon or chief medical officer, a security guard, hired muscle or gunner. Long-term passen-gers - perhaps on the run from the Em-pire, the Hutts or someone else - would have their own stories.Luckily, Tarn is a generally decent man and your obligation to him is of a pos-itive form; most likely this is a Debt in the form of a favour hes done for you, or youre Dutybound, or tied by Family, Favour, Oath or Responsibility. The detail is up to you.

Gunslinger - Enforcer (Dangerous Covenants) Gunslinger - Demolitionist (Dangerous Covenants) Gunslinger - Heavy (Dangerous Covenants) Smuggler - Charmer (Fly Casual) Smuggler - Gambler (Fly Casual) Smuggler - Gunslinger (Fly Casual)

No Force careers or options may be taken.Alderaan-born characters of any spe-cies over the age of 35 should discuss certain elements of their planetary history with the GM which may differ from the general interpretation.