It doesn't matter what they already have, player characters ALWAYS want to go and buy some more weapons! So here is an adventure to make a mundane shopping trip into a bit more than a flip through the equipment list and a haggle with the GM.

The setting is a seedy weapons market, the sort of place in which the average space-faring rogue will feel quite at home. Rather than a complete adventure, this product consists of several unrelated encounters which may be used on different visits to the Kaoch Yokon Gun Bazaar if it's a frequent haunt, or they can be melded together to make it a trip that will never be forgotten if the planet of Arsubar is somewhere they'll visit only once. Each encounter could be used to trigger further adventures, or they can be used as mere interludes to demonstrate that 'adventure' does not always come neatly packaged.

Kaoch Yokon is the sort of place that cops visit in well-armed teams of five. The market itself consists of an open square filled with makeshift stalls and runs every hour of the day and night, many stallholders sleep on their premises (as they'd quite like them to still be there come the morning). While most sell weapons, there are a few food vendors and suppliers of other goods as well. Like all the best bazaars, there are plenty of youngsters who'll offer to guide you for a few credits, some are honest and others less so, but they usually know what's going on as well as touting for whichever particular stallholders are prepared to give them a kickback. It is a good place for the GM to ensure that the characters get that vital piece of equipment or information for whatever's planned next...

Several individual stalls are described in detail, including a knife specialist and a fence - a good place to put an intriguing item to get the characters involved in your next plot, or for them to offload their ill-gotten gains from the last one. Several other stalls are also detailed, some more honestly-run than others.

If that doesn't give you enough action, next several encounters are presented. There's a bounty hunter who decides one of the characters is wanted... this may or may not be the case, and if they get hauled off to the local police station it could prove embarrassing. There's a violent mugging which might cause the characters to intervene. There's your classic damosel in distress (or is she?). There's some easy money to deliver a message. Or perhaps a character falls victim to a pickpocket. Although brief, each encounter comes with considerable detail to enable you to play it out knowing what everyone involved is really up to and - like the stalls described earlier - each comes with complete statistics for all the people around.

It's a fine side-trip to give characters a good feel for one place - a good example of how to set up some random events - and probably worth a look whichever set of science-fiction rules you are using!

Return to Lets Go Shopping page.

Reviewed: 19 February 2006