Sunday, May 17, 2015

The Proving Ground


For those beings who want to pursue a career in bounty hunting, application to the Bounty Hunters' Guild is a must. In some places, attaining membership in that organization requires little more than paying a fee and filling out the appropriate paperwork. In others, however, the local guild representative prefers to subject applicants to a little test. Tsul Hyo and Tenga Moran are the kinds of beings who prefer the latter option.



The buildings that make up these ruins are simple duracrete structures. Some of them have walls that have crumbled into piles of rubble, creating difficult terrain.


The Test
The proving ground consists of a cluster of ruined buildings, ones that are empty of habitation. To test applicants, Hyo and Moran fill the ruins with a number of challenges.
  • The “quarry” consists of one or more security droids, ones that are programmed to defend themselves using stun blasts only. The number of droids used depends on the number of hunters involved in the test (refer to page 412 of the Core Rulebook for stats).
  • As an unpleasant surprise, the Guild officers may trap a beast inside one of the sealed buildings, such as an unhappy gundark (page 415) or even a swarm of mynocks for a droid applicant (page 413).
As long as they can defeat these challenges, applicants pass the initiation test.


Using the Proving Grounds in an Edge of the Empire Campaign
There are multiple ways in which these ruins can be used in the PCs' adventures; a few of the possibilities are detailed here.
  • The most likely way, of course, is if one or more PCs wish to join the Bounty Hunters Guild and thus are being subjected to a test.
  • In the event that Tenga Moran or Tsul Hyo takes a dislike to one of the PCs, the security droids might be programmed to fire lethal blasts instead of on stun.
  • A rival bounty hunter could always challenge a PC to a standoff in this location.