HoloNet Uplink – Old School Chart Cool – Ancient Ruin Generator

Copyright LucasFilm.

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.

I’ve decided to take a quick breather on Solo content this week to revisit an old sub-series of mine. Don’t worry, I’ll be back with more movie-inspired stats shortly.

For now, I return to my sub-series Old School Chart Cool. The purpose of these charts is to generate prompts to spur your own creativity. They are not meant to constrain you. If you get an inspiring result, awesome. If you’d rather pick something else, go for it. Don’t want to roll, but one of the chart results has you thinking? Great! This is meant as a tool in the toolbox to be used, disregarded, or modified as you see fit.

Today I have on offer an Ancient Ruin Generator. Star Wars is true to its pulp routes with a strong focus on ancient civilizations and ruins. This is pretty much in the background for most of the movies, with some Legends material kicking it up to eleven. Fans of The Old Republic may remember the Indiana Jones Nazi inspired Imperial Reclamation Service and their various misadventures. I see these charts being most useful to Force and Destiny GMs for use in their campaigns, with Edge of the Empire GMs with an Indiana Jones-style bent also benefiting. The Rebellion has used ruins before to house their hidden bases, so Age of Rebellion GMs may find these useful as well with some extra modifications – perhaps try using in conjunction with the Base Purpose Chart in the Imperial Bases post.

Ancient Ruin Generator

Roll 1d10 to determine the location of the ruin.

d10 The Location
1 In Plain Sight
2 Underwater
3 Deep Space
4 Mountaintop
5 Cavern
6 Glacier
7 Volcano
8 Jungle / Forest
9 Desert
10 Below City

Roll 1d10 to determine the builder.

d10 The Builder
1 Rakata
2 Kwa
3 Celestrial
4 Sith
5 Sith
6 Jedi
7 Jedi
8 Hutts
9 Local Civilization
10 Gree

Roll 1d10 to determine the original purpose of the ruin.

d10 The Original Purpose
1 Vault
2 Factory
3 Temple
4 Headquarters
5 Library
6 Tomb
7 Monument
8 Palace
9 Fortress
10 Prison

Roll 1d10 to determine to the current inhabitants.

d10 Current Inhabitants
1 Original Inhabitants
2 Rebels
3 Droids
4 Animals
5 Animals
6 Animals
7 Grave Robbers
8 Criminals
9 Scientists
10 Original Inhabitants in Stasis (Carbonite, Black Hole Time Dilation, etc)

Example Ruin

The Tomb of Darth Bastion

Roll: 9 – Desert, 5 – Sith, 6 – Tomb, 3 – Droids

Long forgotten beneath the shifting sands of Blenjeel lies the tomb of Darth Bastion. A dutiful servant to Emperor Vitiate, Darth Bastion fought against the Republic over three thousand years ago. Darth Bastion terrorized the battlefield, directing legions of wardroids of his own design. Legends say this Sith Lord combined his Krath heritage with ancient Rakata technology. While the Republic eventually emerged victorious and destroyed these war machines, it is said Darth Bastion’s apprentice secreted away this technology alongside the body of the Sith Lord. Few have tried to locate the tomb, deterred by thousands of years of windswept dunes and the vicious sand worms indigenous to Blenjeel. Should the tomb be located, however, unspeakably powerful weapons could once again be unleashed upon the galaxy.

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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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2 Comments

  1. But what if the Ancient Ruin Generator rolls up an ancient, ruined generator?

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