The name of the Psi Wars game I’m starting over on RPG.net is “Golko Wants You Dead”. That is also its premise: there’s a crime lord named Golko, he wants the PCs dead, and they need to do something about it. During character creation, each player gets to decide why Golko wants their PC dead, and to state a true thing about Golko himself. I love this, because I love using player input in this way. I did something similar with my 2015-2016 X-COM campaign.

I can’t claim credit for the “Golko Wants You Dead” premise, however - I first saw it used a number of years ago in a Wushu game, also on the RPG.net forum. I’m just recycling it here, and in fact I already got a nice nostalgic compliment from a player in that original game!

I already posted a brief summary of who our PCs are, and I promised to post about Golko too. Now it’s time to deliver. Each Golko Wants You Dead game ends up with a different Golko, and this one is ours. The description below synthesizes all the True Things my players said about him, plus a few things of my own invention.

Golko the Slaver

Golko the Slaver. Illustration by raylotic on DeviantArt.

Golko cuts a large and imposing figure: his body plan is basically centauroid, though the first word that comes to mind when looking at him is “lobster” rather than “horse”. He has six articulated legs and four arms: a pair of hugely strong and sharp crab-like pincers, and a smaller, weaker pair of hand-like manipulators. He’s a callous and cruel individual who views anyone but himself as assets or liabilities to be dealt with accordingly.

His species is native to the planet Geryon, which lies outside Empire space. Psionic ability is extremely common among them, and while this gave rise to a rich psionic tradition it also caused some conflict in their otherwise peaceful society. A minority of Geryonites are born without psionic potential, and they tend to be seen as embarrassments to their families. Golko was one such individual. He left his planet out of spite, and found a profitable niche renting slaves to the Empire.

You see, Imperial law forbids its citizens from owning slaves, but its elites exploit a loophole that allows slave-owning aliens based outside the Empire’s borders to “rent” these slaves to Imperial citizens. Golko is a very big player in this market, having clawed his way to the top both literally and figuratively. He sells human and alien slaves to rich nobles and businessmen, bloodsport arenas, and to whoever else wants to buy any. He also keeps a portion of them for himself, particularly those who display psionic abilities. Golko is funding a secret lab whose scientists experiment on these psions in hopes of finding a way to awaken his own psionic abilities.

The PCs have recently dealt blows to all of these operations, either by disrupting his slave shipments or by escaping slavery themselves. Golko’s current obsession is making an example out of all of them, so that business as usual can resume.

Golko’s organization is composed of criminals belonging to several more common species, like humans and other humanoid aliens. Many of them use Imperial gear that comes to Golko through the same routes through which he sells his slaves. He also has a sizable force of brand new combat droids acquired through the same channels.

Design Notes

The details of Golko’s business operations and his psionics obsession were all given to me by the players, as was the fact that he could be described as a “creature”, which meant he’s an alien.

Now, an alien slaver inevitably draws comparisons to Jabba the Hutt, who fills this role in Star Wars. I wanted my Golko to be both reminiscent of Jabba while also being different from him. So you have a large, non-humanoid alien crime lord who isn’t an immobile mound of quivering flesh, and is instead a formidable threat all by himself. All of this is known to the PCs, which is why I’m posting it as part of the blog. Further campaign developments will be posted as they appear in actual play!

Geryon, the name of his native planet, is also the name of a mythological giant defeated by Hercules in one of his twelve labors: he had three heads and six arms. Golko has a different collection of surplus appendages, but I still felt the name was appropriate.