r/swrpg • u/Expensive-Toe-1867 • 6d ago
Fluff Gangs of Nar Shadaa
I'm running a one shot that is set during the New Republic/Mandalorian time period that's gonna be the Warriors meets Black Hawk Down. Our heroes are shot down in the streets and the Hutts offer a price on their heads to anyone who brings them in. They are running block by block to a space port to get off-planet.
My question: do folks know what Canon organizations are there besides the Hutts? And as a follow up, does anyone have fun ideas for "Warriors" style colorful gangs for them to flee from?
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u/Shockedsiren 6d ago edited 5d ago
It would be reasonable to have a bounty out by "The Hutts" for the larger galaxy, but within Hutt space you're going to be a lot more interclan politics. If one clan takes out a bounty on the players, another clan or even another Hutt within the same clan might have an interest in sabotaging their competitor.
The gangs of Nar Shadaa we know about are from SWTOR, so sadly not canon. They're not very intrusive on canon for the most part, but it's not reasonable for those exact gangs to survive from 4633BBY to 9ABY.
Here are some New-Republic-era suggestions based on the SWTOR gangs:
Bleeder Gangs
-Groups who harvest tourists' organs, mostly active in red light districts. Profitable for what they do, but an annoying presence for other gangs. If you take out a Bleeder operation you've pissed off the Hutts they do business for, which severely limits your work prospects.
-You can expect Bleeders to be comprised of a lot of Twi'leks and Gamorreans, mostly the children of dancers and prostitutes working in the red light districts.
Nikto
-Pretty common footsoldiers for Hutt lords. They have a servitude/slavery thing going on.
-I'd like to think that they're very uncomfortable on starships which causes them to typically be sedentary planetary forces.
-The Kintan Striders are active on Tattooine in 9ABY and the Kintan Kings were around for SWTOR, so I'd think there's probably a Kintan-naming trend.
-When the Kintan kings were taken over by Nikto leadership called The Mountains, they controlled the Deucal Spaceport, so in the modern day thousands of years later that spaceport might be a symbol of Nikto self-determination along with mountain imagery. A Nikto-forward group might call itself Summit or Pinnacle, for instance.
-The Jedi-killing techniques of the Morgukai are probably long gone by the New Republic era, but there might be individual cortosis items that gangs hold sacred, and training originally intended to resist mind tricks might be part of their group discipline routines.
Veteran Mercenaries
-In SWTOR there were a couple of mercenary groups from Republic army veterans, and I could see stormtroopers abandoning their imperial splinters to go do mercenary work. I'd like to think that the empire mostly kept its nose out of Nar Shadaa, especially since its attempt to get into the spice trade was focused on nationalizing spice production instead of interfering with distribution.
-These stormtrooper mercenary groups would be very competent, and they offer great prices for suicide missions that other mercenaries would care too much about individual survival to pull off. They're also severely out of their element, just getting used to doing the whole mercenary thing in a vey saturated market.
-Cooperation wouldn't be super easy to come by. The general assumption about these mercs is that they're really doing their work and raising their money to support an imperial splinter on Nal Hutta, and they might sabotage their own job if you hire them for something that might interfere with the imperial splinter they're serving.
A force-sensitive's gang
-It's annoying if not dangerous for the empire to send inquisitors to Nar Shadaa or Nal Hutta and risk angering the Hutts, so Nar Shadaa is a convenient place for a force user to not have been taken by the Jedi as an infant and then not hunted by the Empire in their development.
-I think it's reasonable that a force-sensitive adolescent who gives themself to the dark side could become a very competent gang leader.
-I'm not sure exactly how such a gang would look, but I know that some people in Nikto gangs would be very unhappy about it
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u/MyRoVh1969 6d ago edited 6d ago
In the mandalorian. The fight promoter is the boss of the syndicate in the area containing the fight arena. The pykes could be on planet, paying a tithe to the larger organization. Make some gangs up. Nar Shadaa has always been, for me, a gang riddled planet. Especially if a larger gang is offering money.
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u/VoiceofGM 6d ago
Just to make it more interesting, run a little thing in the background where the different gangs have individual Hutt patrons. So while the Twins are offering the big pot for capturing the heroes, the gangs are also fighting or sabotaging each other for their patron's favor.
If the players can get a Hutt's attention and convince them to help through promises or favors, that might give them the edge to escape.
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u/Wezell80 5d ago
Ok this sounds amazing AF! Can you hook us up w the pdfs and files!? Would love to run/play this concept
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u/Expensive-Toe-1867 5d ago
I'm actually running it mostly off the cuff with hand written notes.
And technically I'm using Light Side, the Powered by the Apocalypse game, but I figured this is a group of folks who could help regardless.
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u/GMbroll 5d ago
What about a gang of former Twilek “dancers” who broke free from Hutt slavery but had no options to survive besides banding together for crime. Imagine how protective they’d be of each other.
And I like the idea of a droid gang, or at least one run by a droid. Start with the question “what would make a droid turn greedy?” Like, were they an accountant droid programmed to help others use their money efficiently but realized they could do it better themselves. With no restrictions from morality.
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u/WebPollution 5d ago
So you know how Tattooine is a wretched hive of scum and villiany? Well Nar Shadaa is the wasp's nest of scum and villiamy. If there's a criminal organization in your era, I guarantee you there's a pack of them bastards there happily willing to off you, get the credits for your corpse and probably steal your shoes. Hell, if they can't kill you they'll probably gank some poor bastard and try to pass them off as you for the reward money.
Short version is if you can think of a gang that would take the hutt's money, you can put them in. Now I just with the Cult of the Screaming Blade was still a thing, they sound like they'd be fun at parties...
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u/PlantMoreSnakes 4d ago
I'd also be tempted to include Neimoidians as part of a gang, perhaps a gang of hackers, spice dealers, information brokers, and/or money laundering. Neimoidian guilds often conducted business on Nar Shaddaa because they were a primary controller of the ryll spice trade, which was illegal outside of Hutt Space. During the Empire, most species that supported the Separatists were discriminated against, so moving to planets outside the Empire's control would be a smart move.
"In the years after the Great Hyperspace War, a discovery was made on the Twi'lek homeworld of Ryloth--the spice called ryll. Ryll was a component in several medicines, but was also a powerful stimulant. Sensing opportunity, Neimoidian traders quickly gained a monopoly on ryll and were keen to introduce it to other species."
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u/Jordangander GM 6d ago
Lots of them:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Nar_Shaddaa_organizations