Aaris III

Aaris III, a planet situated in the Kathol sector within the Outer Rim Territories, maintained connections to Brolsam, Charis, and Kolatill via hyperlanes. This world served as the original homeworld for the Aaris, a reptilian humanoid race. The Aaris had cultivated a vast civilization on the planet in the millennia preceding the Galactic Civil War, but their society was nearly destroyed in a civil war. By 8 ABY, the primitive descendants of the Aaris survivors inhabited the subterranean levels of their cities' ruins.

Characterized by dense jungles and expansive oceans, Aaris III presented a lush blue-green appearance from space. Extensive mountain ranges stretched across the landscape, piercing the jungle canopy and reaching heights of several kilometers. Enormous ruins, remnants of the indigenous Aaris civilization, were scattered throughout the planet, spanning hundreds of square kilometers and concealed beneath the jungle foliage. A sizable desert was located at the center of the planet's equatorial jungle. Diverse fauna populated the planet, with Aaris III supporting abundant animal life in both its jungles and oceans. A standard day on Aaris III consisted of nineteen standard hours, while its year lasted for two hundred and ninety-nine local days.

The Aaris civilization prospered thousands of years before the Galactic Civil War. They established an industrial society and primarily communicated through oral tradition. They erected grand cities across the planet and were an organized society with scholars and professional soldiers among their ranks. Although generally peaceful, they occasionally engaged in wars with each other. One notable Aaris citizen was the scholar Kastays, who resided in one of the planet's cities.

One evening, prior to 3643 BBY, a comet blazed through Aaris III's atmosphere. Several days later, a military legion from an outpost entered Kastays's city carrying a triangular metal ingot they called the "Plaque of Victory." Unbeknownst to the Aaris, the artifact was sentient, albeit inanimate, and thrived on the life force of living beings. The Plaque's objective was to cause destruction, not through direct action, but by manipulating emotions, inducing paranoia, irrationality, and homicidal behavior.

Within six days of the artifact's arrival, civil unrest plagued the population. Violent crime surged, often resulting in death. The situation rapidly deteriorated, with street gangs engaging in bloody conflicts throughout the city. Eventually, even units of the city guard turned on each other and killed innocent civilians, claiming betrayal. Each faction shared a common belief: the Plaque of Victory had communicated with them, and each claimed to be its guardian.

One faction, possessing the relic, removed it from its place in the gushaz and transported it to a tower in the city's government complex, hoping its elevated position would pacify the population. To safeguard it, the artifact was entrusted to Kastays, who concealed it in a floor vault. The plan failed, and the Aaris civilization descended into civil war and anarchy, nearly destroying itself. Kastays documented these events using bas-relief pictographs that stored sound, mounting them on the walls of his chamber at the top of the tower where he had secured the relic. Despite the collapse of their society, the Aaris persisted. As the jungle reclaimed their cities and achievements, the primitive descendants of the survivors established their homes in the ruins.

By 3643 BBY, during the Galactic War between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire, many of Aaris III's cities lay abandoned. Scavengers frequented the planet's ruined cities in search of valuables, discovering well-preserved bunkers filled with functional equipment, including weapons and military supplies. The Sith Empire maintained a presence on Aaris III during the war. The Empire's activities on the planet were linked to Project Chimera, a Science Bureau initiative studying the effects of the Nightmare Lands on Voss on non-native lifeforms.

Shortly after Moff Kentor Sarne took command of the Kathol sector in 2 BBY, he dispatched a scouting mission to the system. The team mapped Aaris III, deployed a standard Imperial marker beacon, and returned to the sector capital of Kal'Shebbol to report their findings, although they found no sign that the Aaris species had survived. Soon after, all team members vanished. Sometime between the scouting mission and 8 ABY, Sarne established a supply cache on the planet, stocked with standard Imperial equipment. The Moff intended to use the cache if Kal'Shebbol fell to his enemies, allowing his forces to resupply during a retreat or to regroup for a counterattack to reclaim the capital.

In 8 ABY, Sarne organized and sent a scientific mission to the planet. The team, designated MS-133, was headed by Doctor Lancer Brunou, a respected archaeologist who had taught at the University of Byblos before joining Moff Sarne's forces. Scientists Doctor Theda, Grigor Tansad, and Jelok were also assigned to the team, along with research assistant Solla Deremot, at least three technicians, and ten soldiers commanded by a lieutenant who also served as the team's shuttle pilot. The mission was kept secret, and their task was to excavate the planet's ruins for artifacts and information, particularly focusing on the cause of the ancient Aaris's demise. They set up a base camp in a field of ruins and deployed a subspace comm transfer satellite in orbit.

MS-133 spent several months exploring the ruins around their camp and landing site. On the expedition's forty-ninth day, Tansad discovered an entrance to one of the ruined metallic structures. The structure was the chamber at the top of the tower that Kastays had used thousands of years prior, and the team found the pictographs created during the Aaris civilization's final days. Doctor Brunou authorized the establishment of a second camp closer to the chamber to further investigate the find. By studying the pictographs, which emitted sounds when touched, they discovered that they corresponded to a dating system, and the sounds were a record of events. Tansad and Jelok, with Deremot's assistance, worked to decipher the alien language.

During their work in the chamber, Jelok and Deremot discovered the Plaque of Victory concealed within Kastays's floorsafe, where he had hidden it millennia earlier. Unaware of its true nature, Doctor Brunou took the artifact back to the main base camp and examined it. The analysis revealed that it was made of a metal unknown to Imperial science. The equipment also detected faint energy traces emanating from it, and Brunou decided to send it to Kal'Shebbol for further analysis by Sarne's laboratories, suspecting it might be a new form of energy the Moff could exploit.

A day after the artifact's discovery, its influence began to spread among the team, causing hallucinations. Members of the trooper detachment reported seeing "spies" watching them from the jungle. MS-133 was unaware that the Aaris descendants still lived among the ruins and believed the planet was devoid of intelligent life except for themselves. The commanding lieutenant led five soldiers into the jungle to find the beings they believed were watching them. An hour later, the team at the base heard blaster fire in the distance. Fearing the worst, weapons were distributed to all members of the science team. The troopers who had entered the jungle did not return. Believing them dead, Brunou considered recalling the expedition to save lives, although canceling the mission was against Sarne's orders.

That night, the Aaris attacked the base camp, wounding Doctor Theda with blaster fire. The remaining troopers returned fire, but they never got a clear view of their attackers and were unaware of their assailants' identity. At daybreak, an investigation of the area revealed the bodies of several troopers who had entered the jungle the previous day. Brunou decided to evacuate the planet and ordered the abandonment of the secondary base camp after Jelok reported Tansad missing and two technicians with him were shot by Aaris sniper fire from the jungle. Initially, Jelok refused, arguing that his research into deciphering the chamber's pictographs was nearing a critical stage, but the remaining troops forcibly escorted him to the team's shuttle while the base camp was packed up.

As night fell, a fireball erupted over the jungle as the team's shuttle was destroyed using detonite. The remaining team members established a defensive position at the main base camp, digging into one of the mounds in the ruins and erecting makeshift fortifications. An E-Web heavy repeating blaster was mounted on the ramparts, and Brunou sent a distress call to Kal'Shebbol, hoping for support or rescue. The following night, the camp was attacked again by the Aaris, prompting the remaining soldiers and technicians to charge over the barricades to confront the enemy. The survivors began to lose hope of rescue, wondering if the team's booster satellite in orbit had been destroyed, preventing Kal'Shebbol from receiving their distress call.

Brunou's distress signal did not reach Moff Sarne but was intercepted by the New Republic CR90 corvette FarStar. Kal'Shebbol had fallen to the New Republic in the months since the team had been on the planet, and the FarStar had been assigned to track down Moff Sarne, who had fled his capital after the New Republic's liberation of the world. While on a mission in a nearby system, the crew of the vessel became aware of the team's plight. Lieutenant Jessa Dajus, a former Imperial Intelligence agent in Sarne's regime, knew about the expedition and believed it was connected to the mysterious "DarkStryder," an entity Moff Sarne was known to be associated with. She recommended that the FarStar divert and respond to the distress call to the vessel's commanding officer, Captain Kaiya Adrimetrum, stating that the expedition members might possess information about Sarne's location.

Adrimetrum agreed and organized a rescue mission led by the FarStar's First Officer, Gorak Khzam. The team, including pilot Brophar Tofarain, scout Kl'aal, and Lieutenant Dajus, descended to the surface in one of the corvette's shuttles. Landing in a clearing on the edge of the jungle, the rescue team had to trek through the foliage to MS-133's base camp. Upon arriving, the FarStar crew had to convince Deremot, who was manning the E-Web repeating blaster on the makeshift fortifications, that they were there to help the Imperial team. Nervous, tired, and afraid, Deremot initially believed they were connected to the Aaris who had besieged them previously. The team managed to convince her of their intentions and provided medical aid. However, Doctor Theda had died from her blaster wounds. Brunou and Deremot were evacuated to the FarStar, although Brunou insisted on bringing the Plaque of Victory, considering it a significant archaeological find. On the corvette, the two Imperials were questioned about their activities on the planet, and they answered truthfully. The crew also examined the artifact.

FarStar landing parties salvaged equipment and supplies from the science team's expedition and investigated the events that had occurred on the planet. A team scoured the wreckage of the Imperial shuttle, discovering traces of detonite used to destroy the craft. They also found Tansad's body hidden under rubble in the pictograph chamber of the Place of Kastays, along with evidence of his murder: a fist-sized rock covered in blood matching a fatal wound on the back of the scientist's skull. Along with the body was a datapad with Tansad's translation of the pictographs, detailing the Aaris civilization's final days and its descent into anarchy following the discovery of the Plaque of Victory.

On the FarStar, the Plaque of Victory began to exert its influence over the crew. Paranoia and suspicion spread through the ship, but the crew soon realized that they could not all be going mad or be the target of conspiracies and personal grudges. They connected their behavior to that of the ancient Aaris, as revealed in the translation notes discovered on Tansad's body, and realized they were having similar experiences, albeit on a smaller scale. The artifact brought on board by Brunou matched the description of the Plaque of Victory, and the crew concluded that it was responsible for their heightened aggression after observing the doctor's possessive behavior. They relieved him of the object and ejected it out of one of the ship's airlocks on a course for the Aaris system's star. Shortly after, the crew's feelings of paranoia and suspicion subsided.

The Aaris were meter-tall reptilian humanoid sentients native to Aaris III. Thousands of years before the Galactic Civil War, they developed an industrial-age civilization that spanned the planet. The Aaris never developed a written language, relying instead on a strong tradition of oral communication. Information was stored in bas-relief pictographs that emitted sounds when touched, and the Imperial scientist Grigor Tansad's translation of some of these in the Place of Kastays is the only known surviving record of the species. The Aaris civilization collapsed with the arrival of the Plaque of Victory, as society descended into infighting and civil war. The survivors inhabited the ruins of their cities; thousands of years later, during the Galactic Civil War, their descendants lived underground in the remains of their civilization, as the native jungle reclaimed the artificial structures and hid most of them from view.

During the height of the Aaris civilization, numerous cities were built on Aaris III's surface. One such city was the home of Kastays, who documented the Aaris's fall after the Plaque of Victory's discovery. It featured a tower where Kastays resided, as well as a gushaz. When Aaris society collapsed, their cities fell into ruin and were overtaken by the jungle. Covered by jungle growth, the metallic structures remained undisturbed until 8 ABY, when Imperial science team MS-133 excavated them.

During his tenure as governor of the Kathol sector, Moff Sarne established a secret supply cache on the planet in case he needed to retreat from Kal'Shebbol or required a staging area to retake his capital. Ten large, pressurized cargo containers were buried in the jungle foliage on the edge of the planet's vast equatorial desert and covered with vines, plants, and fallen trees. Each unit was code-locked and rigged to explode if the wrong code was entered or if it was tampered with. The supplies within the containers were all standard Imperial issue, ranging from food packets to TIE fighter and speeder bike parts, and service droids.

A group of outlaws also established a camp on the planet, using the dense jungle to conceal their settlement. The base was located on the far side of the planet from the Place of Kastays and used the jungle canopy to mask hangars and other buildings from aerial observation.

Aaris III was created for the adventure Artifact of Aaris, part of The DarkStryder Campaign published by West End Games for use with Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The scenario's events were referenced in 2008's The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, and the planet and its civil war were later mentioned in 2011's MMORPG The Old Republic as part of a Scavenging Mission where players could send their companions on various missions to gather supplies and resources.

The outlaw camp on the planet is mentioned in an adventure hook at the end of the main scenario; the camp's population and purpose are deliberately vague, allowing the gamemaster to tailor it to their campaign's needs. Possible occupants include smugglers, slavers, or pirates, and the encounter can be hostile or peaceful depending on the gamemaster's preferences.

The adventure implies that, under the Plaque of Victory's influence, the members of MS-133 turned on each other, resulting in multiple deaths and the shuttle's destruction. However, The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia confirmed that the team was attacked by remnants of the Aaris civilization.