3,996 BBY
*So, this appears in an issue of the now defunct Star Wars Galaxy magazine, specifically issue thirteen. It can still be purchased on line for the relatively cheap price of around 4 dollars, not that I’d recommend doing so, at least not for this.
*So, Jedi Protector is a three page (or four, if you count the page entirely taken up with an image of the titular character by someone named Durfee) solo RPG. You may recall The Ruins of Kabus-Dabeh (spelling not guaranteed) from the TotJ Companion.
*Now, the last time I wrote about one of these solo RPGs, someone mentioned that they sounded more like choose your own adventures than RPGs. That’s pretty well true; they really are, by virtue of being intended to be played solo, more like choose your own adventures. They do away with the idea of a game-master and the idea of a group of players and also with the idea that you have your own custom character that you have personally brought to the game.
*About all they have from the RPG, in addition to the ol’ choose your own adventure style choices, is the stat card on the character you’re playing and the action of rolling the dice to see if you succeed or fail at various moments in the game.
*I think the way to think about these is as tutorials. It’s a quick way to teach you the basic mechanics of RPGing: how to read a stat card, how to use the dice, etc.
*Okay, so let’s get to Jedi Protector. I’m playing as Shalavaa, a Jedi Knight on my first assignment. My master, Ortraag, has just completed my training and dumped me on a backwater planet to be the Jedi Protector to ‘an outlying colony of fenti bean farmers and nerf herders.’
*I hope this doesn’t end with my liver being eaten with some fenti beans and a nice nerf.
*You laugh, but that’s about how The Ruins of Kabus-Dabeh ended.
*Anyway, this seems a pretty plum assignment given that the Sith War is apparently raging throughout the galaxy, killing billions. This story, and the last one, comes after the Sith War comics on the timeline, but before some other retellings of the war, so I’m kind of lumping these in as happening concurrently with the war. Since both this one and Light & Shadow are so self-contained, both taking place on tiny, isolated planets that are barely inhabited, I think this works really well.
*So, a nerf herder disappears and you have to investigate. You find a strange ravine near where he was last seen and decide to enter it.
*Okay, so The Ruins of Kabus-Dabeh had a similar setup: numbered paragraphs that you jumped around through. But Kabus-Dabeh had eighty paragraphs. This one has seven. So this is a lot more rudimentary than Kabus-Dabeh. Which hopefully means I’ll actually succeed at this one.
*So, immediately on entering the ravine, you have to roll a perception or magnify senses or whatever. I succeeded and thus noticed some strange vines above me. Then, they attacked! I rolled a dexterity or lightsaber skill or something and killed it. Master Ortraag appeared out of the shadows and said I had done well. Since I had passed this final test, it was time for me to leave this planet and join him in a fight against a greater evil.
*Oh, great! I get to go fight in the Sith War after all. Some timelines place this one a few years later than this placement, but this ending makes it really work with it being concurrent with the Sith War. No word on whether Shanana or whoever gets killed in the Sith War. He very nearly got kacked by some vines, so probably.
*Oh, wait, so what about the nerf herder?
*Anyway, this is incredibly simple and easy. It’s like the very, very first tiny step into RPGing. It is possible to fail. If you miss the magnify senses roll, then the vine attacks before you notice it. This isn’t fatal as it just sets you back to the section where you have to fight the vine. If you fail the lightsaber roll, Master Ortraag has to save your pathetic behind and he kind of gripes you out for not being ready for the larger galaxy yet.
*Which would be the better outcome, frankly.
*So, I’d say that a solitaire adventure, since that’s what Schweighofer calls it in the articles, in a magazine like this is aimed at the general fanbase and is an incredibly simple entry piece. The Ruins of Kabus-Dabeh is a lot more complicated by virtue of actually being in a roleplaying source book; it’s aimed at people who have been intrigued enough to pick up the source book and thus already have some interest in role playing games. They’re both entry pieces, but this one was far simpler and less interesting (and less fun) than The Ruins of Kabus-Dabeh.
*Warned against. 1 star.
*CANONICAL STATUS: This odd story exists in a very fragmentary form and features no details or individuals that can be tied to any other historical records. It is most likely a rudimentary Jedi legend that was passed down orally and eventually recorded in text. It is NOT RECOMMENDED as a historical resource.
Peter Schweighofer
*Okay, next time, we’ll hit one of those Sith War retellings and you may recall me reacting very favorably to the first entry in this series and even giving it canonical status even though I hate the story it’s based on. I wonder if this one will fare the same. Join me next time to find out as we discuss Timeline 10: The Exar Kun War.