HoloNet Uplink – Imperial Intelligence Watchers

Copyright LFL.

Welcome to the HoloNet Uplink, citizen. This series focuses on Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars Roleplaying Game, with content aimed mostly at the Gamemaster. Threats, adventure seeds, rules supplements, and more are all to come for those who access The HoloNet Uplink.

Behind ever cool guy unrealistic spy are the nerds who crunch the data, make the connections, and ultimately do the real intelligence work. Moving on from my Cipher Agent stats and basic Imperial Intelligence write up, today I cover the Imperial Intelligence Watcher.

Imperial Intelligence Watcher [Rival]

Copyright LucasFilm.

The exploits of Imperial Intelligence in the fields of assassination, deception, and manipulation were infamous, but were only possible through the sheer analytical horsepower of its Watchers. Analysts and handlers, Watchers provided direction and information to agents in the field. While Watchers worked closely with fixers and cipher agents, they were supervised directly by Keeper, the operational head of Imperial Intelligence. A team of operatives, or a single Cipher Agent, would often be assigned alongside a Watcher subject matter expert as a task group. While field operatives conducting covert operations, the Watcher would provide intelligence and direct future operations on behalf of Keeper.

Intelligence’s most recent cohort of Watchers benefited from enhanced cognitive abilities, the result of the Empire’s experimental eugenics program. These natural abilities were enhanced with a punishing regimen of academics and mental conditioning, creating a class of analyst that was also a biological CPU on par with conventional information processing droids. The loyalty of these enhanced Watchers was ensured by deeply implanted post-hypnotic suggestion, essentially encoding a psychological kill switch linked to a specific audiovisual stimuli capable of rendering a watcher unconscious or even comatose. The existence, let alone the nature, of this stimuli was a closely guarded secret, as that information could be used to debilitating effect on Imperial Intelligence.

Br 2, Ag 3, Int 4, Cun 3, WP 3, Pres 2

Soak 3, W. Threshold 13, Def M/R 0/0

Skills: Computers 2, Cool 2, Deception 2, Discipline 2, Knowledge (Core Worlds/Education/Outer Rim/Underworld/Warfare) 3, Knowledge (Lore 1), Perception 2, Ranged (Light) 1, Vigilance 2

Talents: Encoded Communique (Upgrade the difficulty of checks to decrypt this character’s coded messages without the proper cipher twice.), Improved Researcher (On a successful Knowledge check, character and allies gain 2 Automatic Advantage on checks to act on those facts until the end of the watcher’s next turn.), Knowledge Specialization (one of: Core Worlds, Education, Outer Rim, Underworld, or Warfare.) Researcher 2 (Remove 2 Setback dice from knowledge checks. Researching a subject takes half the time.), Stroke of Genius (Once per session, make one skill check using Intellect instead of the normal characteristic.), Thorough Assessment (Once per session, take a Hard Knowledge check to gain Boost dice equal to Success than can be distributed during the encounter.).

Abilities: None.

Equipment: Blaster pistol (Ranged [Light]; Damage 6; Crit 3; Range [Medium]; Stun Setting), intelligence uniform (soak 1), code cylinder, encrypted datapad.

 

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Christopher Hunt

Staff Writer at d20 Radio
Christopher Hunt is a long-time gamer and has recently broke into the world of RPG freelancing. Chris’ unofficial Star Wars RPG blog ran weekly on d20radio.com for the past three years. He has written for Rusted Iron Games, Raging Swan Press, and most recently Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars RPG. Chris is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Political Science. Always the gamer, his thesis, which explores conflict short of war by uniting current threats to historical events, was inspired by a historical board game.

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