One of my players complained when the Bounty Hunter series ended, as he had hoped I would explore how to defeat all of them. This isn’t a bad idea, actually, as it informs the sorts of things bounty hunters should be able to do. The primary argument against it is a matter of time: how much of my time is better spent building sample bounty hunters vs building out more of the setting? This isn’t a rhetorical question, as I don’t know the answer, but I’ve had to balance it, and it does directly feed into Tall Tales of the Orochi Belt, even if we’re unlikely to see these hunters right away. So, shall we come up with one last bounty hunter to fight the legendary Axton Kain?
Some of my favorite people are bounty hunters — Greef Karga, the Mandalorian
This isn’t an entirely inappropriate question. Patrons have already seen the current state of the Bounty Hunter document, but one element I’ve begun to include are Bounty Hunter Lodges, organized groups of bounty hunters, and one of the three I intend to release is the Exilium, a group of hunters deeply embedded into Maradonian society, who have the diplomatic finesse to operate across several borders, including in Imperial Space, without being questioned or sanctioned. Thus, this asks the question: how do you hunt a Maradonian?
The Maradonian aristocracy aren’t Jedi by any stretch. In some ways, they’re far harder to hunt, and in other ways, far easier. On the one hand, their mastery of psychic power leaves much to be desired when compared to the psychic mastery of the Jedi and they’re not elite force swordsmen. On the other hand, they are all psychic force swordsmen, who also have armies and international influence networks and vast wealth available exclusively to them. When you fight a space knight, you’re not just fighting him, you’re fighting his house, thus you must move with caution. Presumably, a nobleman with a bounty on his head has been cast out of his house, and thus can be as easily caught as any aristocratic pretender, but this is not always the case, especially in circumstances where a rival has begun placing bounties on a member of the house.
Of course, Axton is a little different: he’s not psychic at all, but cybernetic. He belongs to a House that skirts the line between legitimate aristocracy and pirate-lord empire. Where the other aristocrats play at being a space knight, he’s trained in the Old Ways and has personally knocked genetically augmented super-soldiers off their feet with the full force of his cybernetic body, single-handedly taken on a dozen men and shrugged off plasma shots to his chest. He’s not an easy mark to take down, and still, someone in the Exilium must be able to take down a member of House Kain.
So how would you do it?
How to Fight Axton Kain
- Diplomatic: Obviously, our bounty hunter moves through dangerous waters in hunting aristocrats. Thus, we might expect to see him have Diplomacy, Legal Immunity, and Law (Galactic) to know what he can and cannot do. Politics also helps you get a sense of where the wind is blowing.
- Polite: It’s not enough to have the law on your side. If a cybernetic space knight decides he doesn’t like you, and said space knight is already on the wrong side of the law, all that may keep him from killing you immediately is that he likes you. Savoir-Faire (Servant) might help ingratiate you, and also helps you glean some information about the character. Some positive reaction bonuses wouldn’t hurt either.
- Honorable: If you want a member of House Kain to like you, you’d best follow a code, just like they often do. The manlier, the better. The Bounty Hunter’s code is a good one: by fastidiously sticking to the rules of what it means to be a bounty hunter, then everyone knows where you stand, and you claims that it’s “just business” have a lot more weight behind them.
- Lodge Hunter: This hunter won’t be independent, but will have the benefits associated with being associated with a Lodge.
- Flanking: If we want to take down a member of House Kain, it’s important to understand their weaknesses. Almost all members of the House use either the Destructive Form or Knightly Force Swordsmanship, both of which are forward focused, which means if you can hit him in the back, you can take him out pretty quickly. The best way to do that is to hit him from two sides at once. With our set-up, I’ll focus on a “tank,” our primary hunter, who will occupy Axton’s attention, and a “sniper” Ally who will strike when the time is right.
- EM Disruptors: Obviously, our weapon of choice should be something, anything, that shorts out electronics. A stunner will work, and we can use EMP grenades too (as limpet mines, or from a payload rifle). We’ll need pretty high-grade stuff, as all members of House Kain tend to have a high HT and resistance to cybernetic threats, which means they need a really big penalty before they start to notice a problem and slow down. In the case of Axton, shutting down his cybernetics will likely shut him down, rather than just knock out an arm or a leg, as is often the case for most members of the House.
- Strength on Strength: If we’re going to “tank” Axton, we need to be tough. We need to be at least as strong as Axton, and we need the ability to withstand strikes from a force sword. That sort of armor is really hard to come by without serious cash or serious ST, preferably both. This suggests a cyborg, at some level, a “dark mirror” to Axton Kain. This also fits with being someone Axton would like: someone as tough as him, who thinks the way he does, but is respectful of the Kain and their way of thinking. Thus, the “tank” needs high ST and high DR.
- Tempered Cunning: Like all big game, if you’re going to catch someone like Axton Kain, you have to out think them. The core tactic as noted in the “flanking,” is to hit him from two sides at once. For this to work, you need to lead him, somehow, into an ambush without the support of his regulars or robot or, if they are, there, they need to be eliminated in such a way that it doesn’t draw reprisal from the house. Our Hunter will need to know our target well enough to figure out what would motivate him to leave the protection of his group (suggesting Psychology and perhaps Acting) and have some sort of ambush prepared (Tactics, Shadowing and Stealth, and perhaps Traps and Foresight).
Taken together, I see a character who would, after carefully watching Axton (Observation, perhaps) and getting a feel for him, would approach him directly to notify him of the hunt and give him a chance to surrender. He would lay out the terms of the hunt in such a way that it clarified to Axton how he could eliminate any potential harm to his allies, and under what circumstances the Hunter would leave empty handed, to create the sense that this was a game in which Axton could prove himself, and become the victor. Then, when it came to the hunt, the Hunter would quietly stack things in his favor; if he failed, he would likely follow the terms he laid out and walk away, as doing otherwise risks drawing down too much heat. He’d make an interesting contrast with the previous “generic” Bounty Hunter, who would come across as crass by contrast.
Mailanka's Musing 