Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUSLY: The Complete Wrestling Observer Rewind 1991-2001


1-7-2002	1-14-2002	1-21-2002	★

NJPW was thrown into chaos this week when Keiji Muto, Satoshi Kojima, and IWGP Jr. Heavyweight champion Kendo Kashin all abruptly quit the company, along with 5 of NJPW's front office employees, and are headed to AJPW. Needless to say, this immediately killed the working relationship between the two companies and NJPW is already attempting to forge a new partnership with NOAH. There's also said to be a significant power struggle within NJPW right now behind the scenes that will likely be straightened out whenever Inoki returns to Japan (he's in Los Angeles right now). Tatsumi Fujinami is NJPW president but in the wake of losing these big stars, and the disappointing TV ratings for the Jan. 4th show, it's rumored his days may be numbered. There's rumors that Inoki may take over the role for the first time since he was forced out of the position back in 1983 (long story, bunch of financial scandals, Google is your friend here). Muto is currently half of the IWGP tag team champions and they were scheduled to defend the titles next month and he volunteered to still work the show, but NJPW wasn't having that so that won't be happening now and the titles will instead be vacated, along with the Jr. title Kashin held. And of course, the IWGP title is also currently vacant due to Fujita's injury, so all of NJPW's top titles are vacant right now (the only other active title is the Jr. tag belts, held by Gedo and Jado).
Lots of rumors floating around about how this happened, but the gist appears to be that Hiroshi Hase was the architect (no Seth) behind this whole thing. Reportedly, Muto (and maybe some of the other people who left) may be purchasing a stake of AJPW from Motoko Baba so he'll have some ownership say. The long-term idea is that Mrs. Baba will step down in a few years and Muto, who by then should be ready to retire (lol) will take over the role as AJPW president. Of course, that was the original plan for Misawa after Giant Baba died, but he and Motoko Baba couldn't get along and Misawa eventually left and formed NOAH instead. It's also worth noting that Kashin in particular wasn't thrilled about doing shoot fights while working in NJPW, but felt pressured to by Inoki and he reportedly wanted out of the company even if the AJPW thing hadn't been an option. As for Kojima, he and Tenzan have been the best tag team pro wrestling has seen in years and from an in-ring perspective, may have been the best pure worker in NJPW so his loss is going to hurt a lot too. The office workers who left are mostly accounting and merchandising people who will be doing the same jobs for AJPW.
One bummer of a note here is that, before this, Muto had talked of putting together a dream match against Misawa. But as long as Motoko Baba is breathing air, an AJPW star isn't going to work with Misawa, so that's probably a dead issue (yeah, sadly we never did get that match).
One final note: Muto also tried to recruit NJPW rising star Hiroshi Tanahashi, who most believe has the most potential of anyone in the entire company, to jump ship with him but Tanahashi decided to stay (oh man, can you imagine how different things would be if he had gone).
On Raw this week, Vince McMahon teased the impending arrival of Hall, Nash, and Hogan, saying he's going to do something soon that even he will regret. Vince has reportedly caved on most of Nash's demands, including the reduced schedule. Hall will be making less money than Nash and will be given an even lighter schedule, because he's a single parent with custody of his children (and Dave questions how fucked up Dana Hall must be if SCOTT is the one who has custody). And of course, you gotta figure Hogan ain't working a full schedule, since he hasn't done that in a decade and probably ain't gonna start now. Of course, this puts WWF in the same position WCW was in a few years ago: having all the top stars working TV and not appearing on house shows, which is something WWF used to openly mock WCW for. Now they'll be doing the same thing, with the same guys. It's something that killed WCW's house show business long before the TV ratings started going down. There's also the issue of how they'll get along backstage, since many of the agents (Dave says Gerald Brisco in particular) were very vocally against bringing these guys back. And then there's John Laurinaitis, who has a lot of power backstage now and he and Nash used to butt heads constantly in WCW. So things are gonna be interesting.
In a bit of a surprise, Vince has also agreed to let them use the NWO name and gimmick, and that reveal was made later in the week on Smackdown when Vince talked about killing the WWF with the help of the NWO. As of now, there's no plans for Triple H to join the group. X-Pac will probably find his way into it, given his relationship and history with the group. Nash is reportedly pushing for Shawn Michaels to be involved, but Dave has heard that's unlikely because there's still some fences that need to be mended there between Shawn and some in the company. But then again, Nash has gotten his way on everything else he's asked Vince for so far, so who knows? Anyway, Hall and Nash have officially signed, but Hogan still hasn't finalized his deal as of press time, but the office has been told it's inevitable and to start making plans as if he's signed. It's expected all 3 men will probably debut at the No Way Out PPV next month.

WATCH: Vince McMahon announces the arrival of the NWO

The Royal Rumble is in the books and was a huge success. Critically, it was an excellent show, nothing MOTY-worthy or anything, but nothing bad at all and was a legit sellout. Coming out of the show, it appears Chris Jericho will be defending the WWF title against Triple H at Wrestlemania, though that can still change. Triple H winning the Rumble was expected but made the most sense. The Rumble match lasted just over 69 minutes (nice), surpassing the 1993 Rumble and, as far as Dave is aware, making it the longest mach in WWF history (a famous Pedro Morales vs. Bruno Sammartino match in 1972 was reported in all the newspapers as lasting 75 minutes, but it was actually only 65 so don't come at Dave with no "well actually..." bullshit)
The return of Mr. Perfect and him being put over like a major star (he lasted until the final 4) proves that WWF has no intention of letting any other competitor get off the ground and will nip that in the bud before it ever happens. Hennig has been available for more that a year (WCW released him before they folded) and WWF never seemed interested, but as soon as XWF came along and made him their featured star (with plans to make him the face of the company), suddenly WWF swooped him up. Hennig's appearance was meant to be a one-off but it was known they were likely going to offer him a deal if he was impressive, and they have. It may not be a huge get for WWF, but it's a massive loss for XWF and pretty much renders their entire first set of TV tapings meaningless now, and Dave says that was precisely the point. Vince left the door open for competition once before and it nearly killed him. He won't make that mistake again (not until 2019 anyway). Dave says to let this be a lesson to any new promotion trying to start up: make sure you have people signed.
Other notes from Royal Rumble: Goldust, who was also a one-off for the match, is expected to sign a full-time deal as well. FlaiVince street fight was way better than it had any right to be considering it was between two guys over 50, one of whom isn't even a trained wrestler and the other hasn't wrestled in nearly a year since the final Nitro. Jericho retained the title over Rock in an excellent match and Dave notes that no one in the history of wrestling with the kind of main event star power Rock possesses has ever done as many jobs as him. Maven dropkicking Undertaker out of the Rumble match was the biggest pop of the entire show. But then Undertaker spent the next several minutes beating poor Maven nearly to death, lest anyone think Undertaker was actually trying to get this kid over or anything. Overall, Dave thinks it was the best Rumble match in several years.

WATCH: Maven eliminates Undertaker from the 2002 Royal Rumble

The tradition of Memphis wrestling on WMC-TV has been revived! Sorta. The show, dating back to the 70s, has been off the air since last spring when the TV station refused to allow them to tape shows in their studio anymore. For the next few months, they aired a bunch of "Best of" shows but those eventually stopped in December and they've been airing infomercials in that time slot ever since. But this week, a show featuring Jerry Lawler and Brian Christopher in the main event, taped at a nearby casino in Tunica, MS aired on the channel in the usual Saturday morning time slot. Dave says the production quality was garbage and there was no local publicity for it, so it probably did a terrible rating, but it's something (pretty much just one last dying gasp, this doesn't lead to anything).
Carlos Colon said he's going to cut back on being an active wrestler because he wants to spend more time with his kids. Dave points out that most of his kids are wrestlers in his company, so maybe he's actually trying to get away from them.
NJPW star Minoru Tanaka announced his engagement to former women's wrestler Yumi Fukawa, who retired last year (did some research and they're still married to this day. Tanaka still wrestles in NOAH and Fukawa is an actress in Japan).
Atsushi Onita, who has been issuing grandstand challenges to Antonio Inoki for months with no response, has now challenged Naoya Ogawa for a match and wants it to be a benefit show in Afghanistan for the kids there. Dave says don't hold your breath for that one either. Onita says if he beats Ogawa, he wants the match with Inoki. Again, none of this is happening, just Onita trying to work his own angle. Neither Inoki nor Ogawa want anything to do with him.
Goldberg participated in a charity golf tournament this week and while there, he made some comments about going to the WWF. "I personally believe that everything I've stood for when I got into the ring would be compromised and succumbed to the circus-like atmosphere that's out there, and that's putting it mildly. I would be an imbecile if I gave up half my money to work for a company I didn't respect." Dave wonders if his tune will change when that WCW contract money dries up (yup). Also, at the same tournament, they did a funny little angle with Goldberg throwing his caddie into a lake.

WATCH: Goldberg torpedoes his caddie into the lake

Superstar Billy Graham has reportedly lost nearly 60 pounds in just 3 weeks, most of it water weight due to edema he's suffering from and all the other liver issues he's currently dealing with.
Bruno Sammartino did an interview talking about the role he has in a new low-budget movie called Saloonatics where he plays a mob guy with cancer. Sammartino talked about how uncomfortable he was with all the profanity his character had to say but he eventually got more comfortable with it and was able to put aside his personal feelings and eventually was okay with it. (No idea where the full movie is, but here's a trailer and yeah this shit is LOOOOOOOW budget).

WATCH: Saloonatics trailer

Former WCW announcer Mark Madden is in some controversy in Pittsburgh, where he hosts a daily sports talk show on the local ESPN radio station there. A few weeks back, the sports media in the city was swirling with rumors about NFL star Kordell Stewart's sexuality. Madden went on his radio show and criticized people who were spreading those rumors. A writer who works at the radio station then went on the air and accused Madden of being one of the main people who fueled those rumors and claimed Madden had said things in the past on his show implying that Stewart is gay. Madden denied ever saying that, demanded the guy find the tapes to prove he ever said it, and basically felt like the guy ambushed him live on the air with the accusations. The radio station apparently agreed because the writer was fired when he refused to apologize (for what it's worth, several people have made accusations about Stewart being gay over the years and he's always denied them, and even successfully sued someone a few years ago for claiming he had a relationship with him. Who knows and who cares? Not anybody's business anyway).
Jake Roberts was on a radio talk show in England recently and said some interesting stuff. Said he plans to stay in the UK for the next 2 years. Said he could walk back into the WWF and have a writing job tomorrow if he wanted it. Dave scoffs at that and says I guess he prefers wrestling in front of empty indie show crowds in England instead of earning a steady paycheck. Jake also talked about the scene in Beyond The Mat where the movie alleges that Roberts asked an indie promoter for crack cocaine as his payoff for working the show. Roberts denied it happened and said he doesn't trust a promoter with anything, so he wouldn't trust one to get him crack. Well okay then. Claimed he left the WWF last time because he wasn't comfortable with the angle he was doing with Jerry Lawler, feeling like they were exploiting his sobriety. Dave pretty much rolls his eyes at all this, because Jake was actually fired for going on a bender and no-showing a bunch of events (I'm glad we all love Jake now, but he was still 1000% full of shit and off the deep end during this period).
Iron Shiek missed an appearance on the Opie & Anthony radio show this week because he was detained for several hours at the airport. Turns out he wore his curly toed wrestling boots on the plane and because this is 4 months after 9/11 and only 1 month after the attempted shoe-bomber, and let's be honest, simply because Iron Shiek is Middle Eastern, people freaked out. And when they wanted to examine his boots, he initially refused to let them and, well, you can imagine how well that went over with airport security.
If WWA's PPV in Las Vegas happens next month, Bret Hart has agreed to reprise his role as the on-screen commissioner. As best Dave can tell, no one else has really been signed on for the show and the MGM Grand doesn't know anything about this alleged plan to hold the event in their arena and in fact, WWA hasn't even applied with the Nevada commission to get a license to run a show anywhere in the state and it's almost certainly too late to get one by the scheduled date. So Dave is skeptical that this even happens, and if it does, he can't see it being in Las Vegas. (Surprisingly, it does happen and it is in Vegas, but we'll get there.)
Speaking of the Nevada athletic commission, XWF brought a bunch of wrestlers and a wrestling ring to the National Association of Television Program Executives conference in Vegas, with hopes of putting on a live show and impressing all the TV execs and trying to secure a TV deal. But the XWF didn't get permission from the Nevada commission, so they weren't allowed to use the ring and do a show. Whoops.
Speaking of XWF, morale is in the dumps in that company right now. Losing both Hulk Hogan and Curt Hennig (neither of whom were signed but had been working with them) as well as Sting reportedly not being interested has killed a lot of the excitement about the promotion for people within it.
Notes from Raw: Flair cut an emotional promo about his history in wrestling and how he was on the road so much and put wrestling ahead of his family and not seeing his kids and all that stuff. During the promo, Lawler made a sarcastic joke about Flair needing to have his priorities in order, which Dave thinks is pretty rich coming from Lawler, who lived the exact same life and wasn't much of a father to his kids either (which Lawler has admitted, to be fair). They're continuing to tease a Triple H/Stephanie split, with him being annoyed at her nagging. Speaking of Triple H, Dave thinks he needs to lose at least 15 pounds because he's totally slow and lumbering since he came back.
Notes from Smackdown: AJ Styles worked a dark match, losing to Rico Constantino, but apparently he looked awesome in the match (yeah he hits an awesome shooting star to the floor late in the match). And the show ended with McMahon doing the big NWO reveal on the back of his chair during his promo.

WATCH: AJ Styles vs. Rico Constantino dark match - 2002

Regarding Triple H's match on Smackdown last week, where they gave away his return match on free TV 3 days before the Rumble. Remember how Dave was flabbergasted that they would be so short-sighted? Turns out Triple H felt the same way and fought hard against it, but Vince wouldn't budge.
Chris Benoit is telling people he expects to be back in the ring around June (yup).
Jim Ross answered some questions at a press thing last week and had lots of interesting stuff to say. He said the criticism WWF was receiving for bringing in Hall, Nash, and Hogan hurts, but they have to do what's best for the company and Vince feels this is it. Doesn't sound like JR loves the idea too much either. They've had no talks with Scott Steiner. When told of Goldberg's recent comments (mentioned above), he said he wanted to believe Goldberg hadn't really said that and thought it was a shame. Said there's heat on Jeff Jarrett for how he left the WWF last time so he probably won't be welcomed back anytime soon. JR also hinted that the brand split will come after Wrestlemania and implied that they will be reviving the cruiserweight division. Dave says he's convinced that Vince will never get behind pushing cruiserweights as major stars so he's not holding out hope for that. Said they may bring in Rey Mysterio if they decided to launch a cruiserweight division. Said they'd love to have Eddie Guerrero back but he has to get his personal issues straightened out first. Same with Shawn Michaels, plus they don't know if he could physically do it.
ESPN's Bill Simmons wrote an article reviewing Royal Rumble 2002 and Dave thinks it was great. In one piece, Simmons managed to pretty much sum up all of WWF's recent problems while still acknowledging that the show was entertaining. And the link Dave posted for it in 2002 still works!

WATCH: Bill Simmons reviews the 2002 Royal Rumble

Unless things change, Chris Jericho is gonna be in an awkward situation next week. Jericho is scheduled to play in a celebrity hockey game as part of NHL All Star Weekend. Who will his celebrity coach be, you ask? Goldberg. As of press time, most people in WWF don't seem to be aware of it and Dave wouldn't be surprised if Jericho gets pulled from it.
Booker T was on the Howard Stern show (after his comments last week saying he wasn't a fan of Stern, go figure) and talked about his time in prison and his plans to write a book. He also said he hopes to retire in 2 years which Dave ain't buying (yeah, still about 10 years away from that). He also said someone is suing him over the term "Spinaroonie" because apparently someone else thinks they own the rights to that name. Booker also mentioned that he's dating former Nitro Girl Sharmell Sullivan. Dave notes that they've been dating since WCW and Booker is the one who helped her get hired by WWF, where she's currently in developmental.
DDP has also said he plans to retire in 2 years, to become a motivational speaker. This one actually almost happened. He left WWF just 3 months after this and didn't wrestle at all for several years. Then he had a brief run in TNA but he's been mostly retired other than some one-offs ever since.
Randy Orton is moving up to the main roster. In his final OVW match, Orton lost clean to Prototype and Dave says it's clear they're grooming Prototype to be the next OVW champion.

WATCH: Randy Orton vs. Prototype - OVW 2002
WEDNESDAY: More on the impending arrival of the NWO, more on the upcoming brand split, cruiserweight division, and more...

[Let's Build] D100 starts to a campaign that aren't in a tavern

I'm tired of starting all of my campaigns inexplicably in a tavern. What are some other ways you've seen a campaign start?
1: You were all involved in a war that's now over, visiting the sight of one of the most gruesome battles. Maybe you're here because you lost someone you cared about in the fight. Maybe you wished you could have been in the fray, but were held back. Maybe you ran from the fight and guilt drove you back here.
As the sun sets, the spirits of those long dead soldiers begin to reappear, all marching in the same direction. Will you follow?
2: All PC's were captured by the guards of a large city and sent to hang (the reason for this can be up to the player. Wrongfully convicted, career criminal, spoke out against the leadership, etc.). At the last moment, right before the lever is pulled, an arrow takes out the ropes and smoke bombs explode around you. You are quickly whisked away by your saviors, down a dark alley and into a secret hide away.
Your rescuers reveal themselves to be the most powerful and feared criminal syndicate of the country, and your life has a price. A very large ship of theirs carrying illegal goods that they won't specify (stolen gold, drugs, maybe even slaves for an interesting twist) went missing in a cove, along with any groups sent to search for it.
If you can find the ship, bring back the cargo, and not be caught by the guard in the process, you walk away rich and free.
3: The PC's are in a medium sized town, checking the local bounty board for work (why their here is up to the PCs). They quickly come to a disturbing realization: All of them now have a price on their heads.
4: An annual ceremony in the town takes place at the graveyard, unusually large due to the war-torn country. It's basically a carnival, where families gather around the graves to reminisce and celebrate the lives that once were. Chaos quickly erupts as the deceased relatives start clawing their way out of their caskets, attempting to kill their past loved ones.
5: beaten and bloodied, the PC's are left for dead, tied to trees in the middle of the forest by a local bandit group. What they didn't realize is that they tied you up right next to the mushroom circle of a local fey. She agrees to release you all on one condition: kill the bandits that have been ransacking her forest for supplies.
6: Inspired by elder scrolls, oblivion: You all are invited separately as illustrious guests to an esteemed and very wealthy manor. As soon as all of you enter, all of the doors slam shut and lock magically behind you. A disembodied voice is then heard throughout the manor: "kill eachother. The last one of you left standing will go free." Will they do as the voice commands? Or will they work together to uncover the mystery of the manor and escape?
Could end very quickly, but has a lot of potential. Could even have player characters come back as undead if killed by another person, solely bent on hunting down any members that remain.
7: You are all attendees to a wedding. You each may or may not know each other, but you do know at least one of the couple. As they are trading vows, assassins burst through the doors, killing the couple before anyone can act.
8: The local university hires the party as body guards for a scholar who is transporting his revelatory research to the capitol. During the journey, the scholar is assassinated, and his research is stolen. Now the party themselves are the subject of much suspicion. If they can solve the mystery of the assassination and recover the research, their names will be cleared.
9: In various locations, though various circumstances, the members of the party have been captured to be sold into slavery. They begin on a slave ship headed to market.
10: Each player wakes up in a wooden box (a coffin) buried in a shallow grave.
11: For one reason or another, the party has all signed up for an arena, either they are placed on a team together to fight monaters, or pitted against each other (depending on your group).
They can go through the arena or the arena can be interupted by something (an assassination, explosion in the city). Either winning the prize money, ir having arena officials be skeptical of them or asking for their help.
So many option you can go, and it usually starts with pretty quick combat.
12: You see a man post a notice on the notice board, saying local mansion needs help defending against nightly hauntings. That night you go to saod mansion and find corpses that have been there at least a year
13: In Medias Res: The players are in a town, and the town is under attack! The Fighter's guild, mages guild, churches, and even the thieves guild are all rushing to help hold the line.
14: Everyone wakes up on a beach, surrounded by the aftermath of a shipwreck.
15: The characters wake up in a jail cell, their heads throbbing from the previous night's apparent bender. The guards want to know how an NPC died. Could either have the players make it up, or hand them pieces of paper telling them what they remember.
16: The players are abducted by aliens. They have to figure out where they are, why they were abducted, and how to escape.
17: Characters are all in a market when a merchant stands on a podium and begins to speak. He shows off some type of item (can really be anything you want it to be), boasting that it is completely priceless/extremely powerful. Out of the crowd, someone jumps up onto the podium, knocks the merchant to the ground, and runs off with the item. The merchant screams, "Stop them! I'll give 1,000 gold to whoever can bring them back to me alive!" The players give chase.
18: Characters are all in a market of about 100 people, going about their business. One by one, they each realize they've been the victim of a pickpocket. They look around and see that everyone around them is having the same look in their eyes. They quickly discover that every single person in the market has been pickpocketed, and no one noticed. Was it a highly organized criminal group? A magically enhanced rogue? A trick of an illusion spell? The PC's aim to find out.
19: Characters are all soldiers in a war, and have been gathered by a superior officer for a special mission.
20: Characters all died prematurely in the same event, the Fates/some deity is upset about it. They all meet in whatever equivalent of purgatory you choose, and are sent back to the mortal plane stop whoever is interfering with fate.
21: Characters are all on a trade caravan(for whatever reason) when it is attacked by X type of monsters. The monsters are more organized than normal, and all have some kind of badge/insignia that indicates allegiance to something. The characters can choose to investigate on their own, or will be requested to upon arrival at their destination, after the caravan head reports to the Watch that they distinguished themselves in the fight.
22: You are all travelling on a riverboat in a deep canyon to the furthest-most city on the edge of civilization.
The riverboat is attacked by Kobolds (or any sort of enemy, this is a great chance to use something uncommon and exotic) on ziplines that steal supplies from the boats that ply the river. The players are the only ones capable of defending themselves and the boat.
23: You all wake in a field, lying in a circle with your feet towards the center, where the ground is scorched from a small explosion. Placed delicately in the middle of the scorch mark is a single page ripped from a journal.
You know who each other are, but have no idea how or why you met, or how you got here.
24: You are all invited to a ballard performed by an incredibly famous bard. As the performance goes on, the PC's notice that everyone around them has been petrified besides themselves. The bard then says, "Now that I have your attention, I have a favor to ask..."
25: You are all invited to a Ballard performed by an incredibly famous bard. At the end of the performance, you walk out side of the theater to see that the town you were just in is deserted and overgrown. As the other patrons walk out, they turn to dust and collapse to the ground right outside, with the people behind them quickly following, not noticing what's happening right in front of them. The only people who survive going through are the PC's. They slowly discover they've somehow been teleported one hundred years into the future.
26: You are all invited to a Ballard performed by an incredibly famous bard. As the bard continues their performance, his entourage quickly and discreetly locks all doors and bars all windows. By the time the performance has ended, all of the audience is surrounded by 30-50 archers, all with crossbows at the ready. From the back of the stage, a lich comes forward. You are all to be used as a sacrifice to give life to a new lich. Can your party stop the cult and save the audience?
27: In a village far to the north, a group of onlookers gawk at the sky (your PC's included). They've always seen the northern lights over head, but never as spectacular as this! With mixes of purple, blue, and green bands intertwining and coalescing throughout the sky, the whole village is lit up by the bright light. But it looks as if the bands are getting....closer. slowly but steadily coming closer to the ground.
Finally, as the bands of light sit just above the buildings in the town, you realize: each of these bands of light are a colossal cloud of wisps, at least a billion in number.
28: at the invitation of a royal gnome tinkerer, your party meets along with at least 20 other adventurers in a palace carved into a mountain. The gnome steps forward and speaks to you all:
"I have called all of you here today because I need a crew of the bravest, strongest adventurers that this world has to offer. For I have developed a revolutionary new form of travel that will take us to places never seen before!"
"I call it, the Star Sailor!"
29: The local university hires the party as body guards for a scholar who is transporting his revelatory research to the capitol. During the journey, the scholar is assassinated, and his research is stolen. Now the party themselves are the subject of much suspicion. If they can solve the mystery of the assassination and recover the research, their names will be cleared.
30: After going to sleep for the night in their separate domiciles, the PCs share a vivid dream. They open their eyes to discover they have all somnambulated to a small shrine to a forgotten God, in the nearby countryside. This group of strangers, frightened and confused, wonders why they were called.
31: In recent years a new phenomenon has cropped up: people throughout the land are being born with strange patterns on their skin. The PCs, each having a perfect holy symbol on their back, have been gathered at the temple for examination.

The PCs are all freelancers, and a mutual contact (a Fixer) has found a job for them which requires all their unique talents. They have to meet with the employer's representative (Mr. Johnson) to receive details and their initial payment. The location in question is at the docks, as the person will be departing on a ship immediately after the meeting. They are given details on how they will get paid after that.
There's a good reason this one doesn't start in a tavern. All of the PCs have run afoul of the gang that runs the local, and they have to either side with that gang's enemies (who aren't the PCs' biggest fans either), or somehow repair their reputation.
All of the PCs are in the employ of an eccentric wizard who does not leave his tower. Prior to this, they had never directly met - but a murder has taken place and their employer needs information to solve the crime. (Nero Wolfe)
You're an ex-military unit of Lawful Good PCs, and you found out that the general and his staff worship Bane (or another LE deity). Being the only witnesses to the evil, you are convicted of a crime you didn't commit. The campaign starts on the caravan to jail. (A-Team)
All of the party is on the same boat voyage, whether across a sea or an ocean, when the boat is attacked by pirates. If they're not defeated the pirates steal trade goods while their leader gives an intimidating speech on the other boat. The party now knows a) there are pirates, and b) what the leader of the pirates in this area looks like. Any NPCs on the boat spread word of the party's deeds when they reach land.
A scholar of the ancient, extinct cyclops race hired the PC's as body guards. They were ancient warriors who were immortal and had the ability to see briefly ahead in time. They became larger, stronger, and able to see farther into the future as they became older. You travel with him to the ancient cyclops ruins of one of their largest cities. After traveling a day and a half just to reach the center of the city, you arrive upon a circle that looks like it used to be a stadium of some sort. After walking into the center, he pulls a large vial from out of his coat, and smashes it on the ground at your feet. Suddenly, the buildings around you rematirialize, and your surrounded by a large group of extremely surprised cyclops, currently in the middle of a political meeting.
You've been sent eons back to the past. Will you attempt to find the reason for their downfall, and try and save them? Or will you try and find your way back, ignoring their future demise?
A country with an incredibly storied past is known to pay adventurers VERY well, due to a long history of them being saved from peril by legendary heroes and dragon slayers. Word has spread of a highly organized group of kobolds terrorizing this country. They are not merely raiding trade caravans, their isolating settlements, taking over whole towns and making the citizens slaves. The PC's meet at the capital either to help, or earn easy money. They are tasked with taking out a nearby kobold compound, scouring the capital and probing it for weaknesses. They have been ordered to take back the kobold warchief head as proof of their deed, which will adorn a spike on the city wall.

Before leaving, the king sends his personal body guard, a rangerogue to lead you to this compound. He seems extremely reluctant at first, but the king forces him to go. He tries his best to stay as far from combat as possible, almost like hes looking to bolt at the nearest opportunity.
During the course of the encounter, the kobold warchief catches the party by surprise, swinging a battle axe straight at the bodyguards head. The battleaxe literally cracks in half, with the bodyguard not even flinching. He immediately reaches behind on instinct and grabs the kobolds head, crushing it into pieces inside it's plated helm.
After the party questions him, he reveals that he is actually an ancient brass dragon, as old as the country itself. He considers the country his home, and loves being a part of the humans. He has often protected them, or even spinned tails of himself defeating dragons that had been terrorizing the area, bringing back one of his own scales as proof. Almost every legendary warrior in the countries history was actually him, in human form.
This kobold threat is new, though. They are the slaves of a red dragon, who heard tales that an ancient brass dragon had been hiding here. He wants to take him and his country as his slaves. It is up to the party to fight him and his slave army back, alongside the brass dragon.

The party has been conscripted to fend off a cult from overthrowing the local lord. The general of the army and the lord are vassals of a corrupt, failing dynasty.
Mad Margull’s Mysterious Menagerie and Miracles Show is in crisis – all the performers are desperately ill from the basilisk egg soufflé. So, the party meets as stand-in performers providing: Stunning Showcases of Strength and Stamina, Amazing Aerial Acrobatic Acts, Spine-tingling Sorcerous Summonings, Stupendous Stories and Songs, Accurate Archery of Apples atop Audience heads, and *Complete Conversations with Crabapple Trees…Tonight only!!!!
Curtains close and the wagon cabin surrenders to darkness. The group of complete strangers ringed around the table links hands and are encouraged concentrate…concentrate…concentrate. The crystal sphere centered atop the table begins to glow, and the séance begins…
Doing their civic duty, the party joins together as an impromptu jury in a witchcraft trial.
Seeking free drinks, each has joined in as laborers at a brewery and wine-making faire.
A bolt of lightning sparks from the sky to the top of an individual and jumps from person to person in a busy market. For a moment all five (Four? Three?) people are enveloped in light and joined by lightning bolts. Afterwards, they appear unhurt and undamaged. Why them?
Each PC has a flashback to an event in there past that could have ended catastrophically but at the last second something happened. (Almost fell asleep on guard duty, and would have missed the Assassin comeing for the king. Or playing with a friend as a child they bump into an oil lamp in a barn.) But in the vision everything falls apart and they see themselves saying "I would give anything to..." after a voice in there head says "I've come to collect."
The annual goblin hunt contest. The local town gets together once a year, everyone signs up and is put on a random team. (The players are on the same team, but it was random) The goal is kill as many goblin's as you can. The time of the event Sundown to Sunrise, and takes place in the forest. Each person has two Firefly jar's attached to them to prevent friendly fire.
A meteor strikes the town next to yours a hour ago, the local guard is are asking any willing body's to help with the rescue, and see what happened.
A carriage large enough for the party pulls up and the door opens to let you in. There’s no one driving, no one inside and the carriage is pulled by skeleton horses. Do you get in?
You've all woken up in a grave yard, in holes 6 feet deep. One of you is currently having dirt shoveled on you.
The PCs were all hired by different people to do the same job. When they run into each other at the job site, the first question is "Why is this job so important that so many people are willing to pay for it?"
The PCs were all hired by the same person to do several different jobs at the same time. Each PC also received a note only to be opened when their job is done. That note gives the name of another PC (no two notes have the same name) and an offer to double their payment if they kill that person. (Best to save this one for groups that are okay at handling inter-party conflict, of course...)
The PCs were all members of the same criminal gang. They're picked by the boss to carry out an assignment. When they come home, the city guard/police have swarmed over the gang's hideout. One of the guards/cops is holding a list of known members. Time to relocate.
Each party member books passage on a ship heading for a local city. Each is on his or her own business. They're caught in a rift/wild magic surge/whatever you want and instead of docking at the target destination, the ship puts into a port far, far away from the original destination. From there, they can be in trouble because it's an enemy country, they can't get back because they don't have enough money, or some other hook you like to keep them there. This could also work with a merchant caravan or some other group travel method. large pieces of hostile geography could serve to keep the PCs in the new location at least for the beginning of the campaign.
Party meets in a casino. They're suckered, either together or individually, such that they owe more than they can pay to the casino's owner who is also a local fixer. He's on the hook to map out a stretch of dangerous, unknown country, however large you want. To get rid of that problem, he offers to outfit the party with what they need, including a cartographer if no one has a compatible background, and then bullies them into performing the mapping mission to clear their debt. From there, they can run into whatever hooks you need to start your campaign somewhere in the wild. and if they abandon the mapping mission as a result, then they have a villain chasing them (the casino owner) who can pop up when they least expect it.
For a less-then-good party (depends on each character's back story): The party is in prison, working at hard labor. They know each other's names, but not much more. they're on the same work detail, working outside the prison walls. Farming near a swamp, mining in a guarded shaft, farming in harsh weather conditions near a large forest. Take your pick. A monster runs through the work detail, killing the guards but leaving the party alive. Or a wild magic storm, or a war party from the local bandits or a neighboring but hostile country. Bottom line: guards are gone or dead, the coast is clear. Each party member is on the hook for a long sentence, guilty or not is up to you and their back story. They can get basic equipment off the bodies of the fallen guards and then it can either be a quiet escape into a nearby city from where they need to book passage out as quickly as possible...or a wild chase through a swamp or forest being pursued by angry guards and tracking dogs. They can escape outright or find a helpful NPC who hides them while dropping the first hook to your campaign in the process.
The party are all young adults in the same family. If races become a problem, then remember adoption as part of the back story. A low-rank noble family is easiest since those kids would be trained in straight D&D classes as part of their education -- knight, ranger, cleric, even wizard. rogues could be rogue-centric rangers or they could be bad-boy nobles who spend too much time with the wrong crowd in the local city so they actually develop first-level rogue skills. A creative backstory is required for each character. Once that's done, then something happens to the family. A patriarch is convicted of treason, the family is ruined and cast adrift. Or the kids unwittingly commit a crime -- they hurt the son of a local king, they accidentally release some long lost horror that was being kept beneath the family castle. Two other directions might be a peasant family, though this will require some creative back story-ing for why an entire family of peasants would be trained in non-serf skills. but if you can work that out, then the village could be ransacked or the family could go bankrupt forcing the oldest kids to hire on as caravan guards or something to support themselves and the family. The final direction would be an upper-crust noble family. Princes and princesses of a major nation. A coup casts the family out and the campaign is about regaining the throne.
The party are all low-level employees of a local thieves guild. They don't have to all be thieves. Fighters can be enforcers. priests can be back-room healers. wizards can be tool makers or simply in debt to the guild master and trading services for debt-reduction. again, dependent on a character-specific back story. The campaign starts when the players attend some kind of general meeting -- they're all at the neighborhood capo's tavern on separate business maybe (paying debts, paying tribute, reporting on operations, etc). A rival thieves guild suddenly attacks, mostly wiping out the PC's guild. The PC's an a very small number of unknown other survive and must escape the city before the rival guild finds and neutralizes them. That's why they stick together. They can run towards your first campaign hook if you make it part of one of their back stories, or they can run for the nearest safe haven and encounter the first campaign hook there.
(From DND memes, which got it from tumblr user probablyfunrpgideas) The players are a squad of government investigators, trying to prevent monsters from claiming new habitat. Making sure abandoned properties are sold and dont remain vacant too long, trying to keep people from stockpiling loads of alchemical/magical ingredients in one place, etc. Its mainly negotiation, but sometimes people have an interest in attracting dangerous entities for their own purposes.
Maybe your party dies in the middle of a campaign, maybe they died separately of natural causes. Either way they all "wake up" next to each other, in a cold and bleak mirror image of the regular world. You can all feel it in your bones. Something is coming. You have only minutes to talk and prepare before whatever it is will be there.

As it gets closer, you can make out what is on it's way. A creature standing at least eighteen feet tall is shambling awkwardly towards you. It is vaguely humanoid, with three legs of slightly different lengths all jutting from a central point at where it's pelvis would be. It has six arms, four of which are holding human sized cages (it can be more if the party is larger than this). It's hands bend in the opposite direction of a normal humans, curling sickly out from it's body. The body itself is deathly pale and malnourished, clearly showing the veins and musculature beneath the skin. It has a normal head, but is absent a face. It has sunken in skin where it's eyes would be, with cracks covered in dried blood at the center. A long, jagged crack in the skin also stretches across where the mouth would be. A spike twice the length of a spear is stabbed downward through the creatures ribcage. At the upper half of the spear, a lantern with a blue flame is attached.
If the players manage to steal the lantern or kill the creature (it may be large and swing pretty hard, but it is practically unable to avoid attacks with its awkward gait and has no outside armor whatsoever. Removing the lantern from the creature will cause it to immediately drop to the ground, lifeless.), they will discover that releasing the flame sends them back to the material plane, in the middle of the wilderness. The lantern is still with whoever opened it, albeit it's no longer lit.
They just managed to do something no other living being has ever done. They have obtained one of the lantern of the collectors, a literally priceless artifact that can bring people back from the dead, and traverse the dead realms. Now they just have to figure out how it works.

Strange groups of identical looking adventurers have started roaming the country, taking on assignments for very little money. You gotta figure out who they are, where they came from, and how to stop them before they take all your work.
A fallout new Vegas one. Basically the group all wake up in a doctors office with no memory, only a letter explaining they were delivering something to a location.
In the central city of the empire/nation, during a major celebration, the king is assassinated, and resurrection spells fail when cast on him. There is a major bounty placed on discovering why.
Your party is a bunch of strangers that has been framed for a crime. Now your group has to work together to prove their innocence and put the real culprits behind bars!
All members of party are found in strange place.. no floor, no ceiling, no nothing. They are just floating around. Suddenly, man dressed in black suit walks in, and proposes a deal. The party is going to hell either way, but if they help him out, he might secure them a way back to mortal realm.
All the PC's are in a huge open air bazaar in the center of a large desert fortress town (they do not need to know each other or be shopping together). Suddenly, a young boy (early teens) comes crashing down through an awning of a nearby stall, a short sword in one hand (still sheathed) as a merchant and several of the local guard chase him yelling "Stop, thief!"
The party is all half human and half other races looking for their shared parent.
All members of your party are part of the town guard. Monster attacks have been on the rise lately and a nest of goblins/orcs/whatever has been discovered and your party has been sent to wipe them out (along with other soldiers who, alas, don't make it.)
The PC’s all meet in a gnomish tinkers shop, looking to get their pocket watches repair. Oddly they all have pocket watches that have stopped on the exact same time.
All the PCs are going about their own business in the market square. Suddenly time stops and everyone and everything is frozen for 3 minutes, apart from the PCs.
All the PCs meet out in a field next to a large flat topped rock, having received a note to be there at this specified time and date. A flapping gushing sound starts softly getting louder and louder until thud, a body from the sky hits the rock. Clasped in the bodies hand is a note which reads ‘avenge me’.

Niagara Ice Wine

Angela was the coolest supervisor I’ve ever had. At the time, we were working at a little advertising startup called Digital Marketing Technologies, or just DMT. She was a graphic designer and I was hired out of College to manage Google ad accounts. But to Brad, none of that mattered.

Brad was the owner and only salesman of our little startup. A balding, late thirties wannabe celebrity, he envisioned himself as the next Gary Vee. So much so that he regarded his LinkedIn self promotional videos as more important than his clients. He was a good salesman, but he had nothing even remotely approaching anything resembling knowledge on how to effectively run a business.

Case in point, almost all of the staff who wasn’t strictly video, were designated as ‘graphic designers’ whether or not they actually were one. That was the bucket I currently fell in.

Brad had tossed me into that position after jerking me around his company as an intern for the better part of a year, and treating me like absolute garbage.
At first, I took it with a smile, figuring that’s just how it was. While I was working under Angela though, she made it abundantly clear just how fucked up Brad actually was.

Being a young white man, with little experience, I didn’t see the rampant sexism, barely subdued racism and ethically dubious business practices that defined Brad. He hid it well for the most part under his fantastical razzle dazzle of technobabble and pompous self importance. He paraded around like a rock star, hosting $10,000 seminars in Toronto that no one came to, and uploading what he considered to be nuggets of marketing genius, most which were barely more than drunken ramblings. He was a sham and Angela saw right through him, and she made sure he didn’t try and fuck over his own employees.

Brad’s startup was already circling the drain. His VP, Craig had quit in a rage about a month ago, followed by his assistant Janice. With the structure of his upper management compromised, he’d made the crucial mistake of bringing in Jake.
Jake was Brad’s biggest fan. A mechanic by trade, who sold juice for a multi level marketing scheme on the side, his ‘job application’ had been an overlong fan letter that Janice had shared with us just before she left.

While Brad didn’t openly call him Craig’s replacement, that was basically what he was.I would have felt bad for him. An inexperienced Yes Man getting put into a role he couldn’t possibly fill. Maybe I could have even related, but Jake had one fundamental flaw.

He was every bit the asshole that Brad was, and something of a creep to boot. He stared at people too long, smiled too wide and acted so condescendingly friendly. He’d ask the stupidest questions in a tone that implied that YOU were the idiot who didn’t know what was going on, not the other way around. Like Brad, he fancied himself a Marketing guru. He even had his own website that was essentially a blank screen with a link to his merch store. Yes, he had a merch store. No, no one ever bought anything off of it. His one redeeming quality was that he was about as dumb as a box of rocks, and it was almost pathetically easy to slip stealth insults into casual conversation with him.

So, to put a lid on it all, DMT was already a rapidly sinking dumpster fire of a company, with more problems than I have time to list. Being the ‘genius’ that he was however, Brad had a fix.
Since the holidays were coming around, and I’m pretty sure it was impossible not to notice that his modest staff all hated him, Brad elected to throw the Christmas party early, and he wanted to pull out all the stops.
He booked everyone individual hotel rooms in Niagara Falls for a Thursday-Friday night of partying. To Brad, that meant enough alcohol to kill most living things and gambling away that years profits.
The idea was not a popular one… But, most of us stuck it out, hoping that maybe, just maybe it wouldn’t suck.

It did.

Angela and I had driven down together, and suffered through the disappointment together. I wouldn’t call that Thursday night much of a Christmas party, as much as a disorganized bender. We all watched Brad knock back drink after drink, getting louder and more obnoxious.
Given that it was a Thursday in November, very little was open late, and the evening barely lasted until around 10 before Brad decided it was time to hit the casinos!
I bowed out at that point. Gambling never interested me, and I had absolutely zero interest in watching Brad get hammered and waste more money that he probably didn’t have. He didn’t take that so well.
“Come on, Greg!” he slurred, just outside the Fallsview Casino. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. I’ll stake you. If you win, it’s yours man!”
“No thanks, it wouldn’t feel right to gamble with your money.” I said.

“Okay well… Okay… What about a years payroll, right?” He looked around at the others with us. I saw Angela’s brow crinkle in disgust.

“Let’s just pool it, and see where we get?!”
No one took him up on that offer, and he waved it off, enthusiastically going to feed another of his many addictions.

According to Angela when I talked to her the next morning, it had gone about as well as expected. Brad hadn’t gone broke, but he had needed Jake to carry him back to his hotel room. Angela herself had left shortly after I did and only got that information from one of the other ‘Graphic Designers’ Leanne.
As soon as we had the chance to leave, Angela and I were in my car and headed back to Hamilton.

“You know, you’d think he would’ve taken the hint that none of us wanted to go, but he did it, and then he wonders why no one had a good time. It’s Niagara Falls at midnight on a Thursday. Of course nothing was open!” Angela said as we drove.
“Well, least we got free food.” I said, it was just about the biggest and only positive aspect of the event.
Angela scoffed.
“Yeah… Funny how he ran out on the bill and made Jake pay.”
I hadn’t noticed that, but I still believed it.
She looked down at her phone, checking a game she was playing on it, before pausing.
“Oh shoot, hey, do you mind if we make a quick stop?”
“Not at all, why what’s up?”
“I figure we’re in wine country, right? I wanted to pick up some ice wine for my Mom, I didn’t really get the chance while we were in town.”
“I don’t really see why not.” I said, “Google it, lemme know if there’s a place nearby.”
She did, and sure enough there was a place a few exits ahead.
“Looks like the only one open today…” She murmured, “Greystone Winerys.”
She scrolled through their website for a bit, as the GPS told me where to go in a soothing British accent.

The exit led me to a narrow backroad. On either side of us, all I could see was empty farmland and sparsely populated trees. No sign of anything resembling a winery.
“How much further?” I asked, and she checked her phone.
“Says about fifteen minutes… I dunno, it’s acting up.”
I scanned the horizon for any indication of a driveway or something. But the road was just a straight unbroken line through empty lifeless land. The only sign of civilization was the phone lines on the side of the road.
“Up ahead!” Angela said, just when I thought I saw something past a patch of trees.
The turn she indicated led us to a worn out, empty parking lot. A skeletal gazebo sat in the middle of it, amongst patches of snow.
The building in front of that gazebo was old and looked almost Victorian. Behind it, I could see what a vineyard that looked strangely empty.
“This is the place.” Angela said, as I parked my car. I couldn’t help but admire that creepy parking lot. I snapped a photo of it, before following her to the building where she was trying the door.
“Locked.” She said, and frowned, “Maybe they aren’t open then.”
She checked her phone again, since there were no listed hours.
“Google probably just lists their summer hours.” I said, “This place has to be abandoned right now.”
“Yeah… Maybe I’ll stop off at a liquor store or something then. They might have some there.”
Angela seemed to shrug it off, and we headed back to the car after our very brief little adventure.

We were barely halfway there when I saw a familiar bright orange Corvette round the corner into the parking lot.
I actually felt disappointment upon seeing it.
The Corvette sped into a parking spot right beside my SUV, and Brad got out wearing the biggest grin on his face.
“Hey! What are you guys doing here!”
Jake got out of the passenger seat, as Brad approached us. Angela looked like she had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes and groaning in disappointment.
“Keeping the party going, huh, Champ?” Brad asked playfully, and punched me on the shoulder a little too hard.
“No… We were just stopping to-”
“Hey, we were gonna do a wine tasting! C’mon! Join us, it’ll be fun!”
That was the worst idea I had ever heard in my life, and I hated Brad even more for saying it.
“I really don’t feel like it.” I said, and Jake helpfully chimed in with;
“A bit of wine won’t kill you y’know, have some fun! It’ll be good for morale!”
He wore the sort of smile I imagine must have physically hurt to maintain. I also felt my eyes drawn to his shirt, which naturally came from his merch store, the one that no one on the planet knew existed except for him.

Shiitake Happens

Real original.

Brad was already pounding on the door of the winery as if the people who weren’t inside owed him money.
“HEY! COME ON! WE’RE HERE FOR A WINE TASTING!” He yelled. Amazingly, no one answered! Who’d have guessed?
“They’re closed.” Angela said, “We already tried.”
“But Google says they’re open!” Jake chirped.
“And no one’s here, so they’re closed.” Angela replied. Jake didn’t take the hint.
“But Google says-” He started to repeat, but he was thankfully cut off by a gruff voice behind us.
“We’re closed.”
A man had come around the side of the building. He looked gruff and wore wading overalls.
“Finally…” Brad murmured under his breath, “We’re here for a wine tasting!”
“Those are in the summer.” The man replied, “We’re closed for the season.”
“But you have wine, right?” Brad asked. The man frowned.
“We do… But we’re closed.”
“Well, obviously not entirely or you wouldn’t be here.” Brad said, and took out his wallet, “Look. We’re here for a wine tasting. For four…”
I started to protest, but Jake had to cut me off, to avenge the stupid sentence he didn’t get to finish earlier.
Angela sighed in exasperation.
“Yes sir, four please!”
Brad took a handful of bills I didn’t think he actually had, and offered them to the man.
“Come on, it’s fine!” He assured the man.
The Man just stared at him. He looked at Brad, then at Jake, then finally at Angela and I. He took the money and jammed it into one of his pockets.
“Come on then… I suppose I can arrange something since you came all this way. Lemme just call Mr. Greystone.”
He marched off towards the back of the building, fumbling with his cell phone and Brad followed him.

“I told you it was open!” Jake said smugly, as if Brad hadn’t just begged and bribed the man to give us a wine tasting.
Angela and I stayed put for a moment.
“Fuck it, let’s just go.” She said. Me, misconstruing that, took a weary step forward to follow. She hesitated for a moment, before going after me. She didn’t bother correcting herself.
The man led us to a long barn out behind the vineyard. Going through the empty grapevines felt a little unsettling, and as we headed out towards the barn, I heard the man and Brad talking.
“So, where abouts are you folks from?” He asked.
“Well, I’m from Texas originally, but I settled down here. Jake, you’re from… What, Oshawa? Hey Greg! What’s that town you live in again? Brantford? Our office is in Vaughan and this guy commutes from Brantford, can you believe that?”
I didn’t answer, even though he got it right. Angela trailed behind us, being ignored by Brad, but I could tell she was furious to be caught up in this.
“He’s supposed to be meeting with a client.” She said, once Jake and Brad were far enough ahead of us, “That’s where he said he was going this morning. Did you smell the booze on him?”
I hadn’t, but it wasn’t hard to guess that Brad was drunk.

“This is why he keeps losing business.” She said. We’d had conversations like this countless times before. I knew Angela had even brought it up with Brad, and he’d laughed it off.
The Man opened the barn door, letting us inside.
“I assume you’d like the tour first.” He said coolly.
“Hell yes we want the tour!” Brad said and immediately stepped inside, followed by the rest of us.
The Man followed us in, and closed the door behind us. As soon as he did, we heard another man speak.
“So, you’re the ones Archie found out front?”The speaker was a younger man in similar wading overalls. He had a full beard and sparkling blue eyes. His handshake was firm.
“I’m Isaac Greystone, I own the place. Archie tells me you were looking for a tour?”
“That and a tasting!” Brad said, and hastily introduced myself and Jake. He didn’t even bother introducing Angela.
“Well then, it’s a pleasure to meet you all. You just came at a really exciting time. We’re not open to the public right now, but I figure since you’re offering to pay for it, I might as well show you around, right?”
“Damn right.” Brad said, “A man after my own heart.”
Isaac tipped a thousand watt smile that almost rivaled Jakes.
“Well, let’s get started… I suppose you know how ice wine is made, right? How we freeze the grapes, and press them to make sure our wine is concentrated. It takes a little longer to ferment, but the final product is so, so worth it.”

He led us deeper into the barn. Massive machinery worked on the frozen grapes around us, and it was almost too loud to hear him speak clearly as he walked Brad and Jake through the process. I barely paid any attention, hoping we could just get this over with as soon as possible and looking for the earliest opportunity to make an excuse to leave.
“We just finished our harvest this year!” Isaac said, “So the wine we’re making now is going to keep us stocked for the next year or so. It’s not going to be ready quite yet, but we’ve still got some samples!”
“Well bring them out then!” Brad said, “Let’s taste these bad boys!”
Isaacs grin never faded, and he led us to a side room.
“I think you’re gonna love this.” He said, “We have a bit of a special fermenting technique, I can’t say too much about it right now. Trade secret and all, but it gives our wine just the right amount of body and personality. It’s why Greystone is one of the top selling ice wines in the world. We even have some exclusive labels, that we make special for some of our particularly discriminating clients…”

Isaac went behind a small bar, and fetched a couple of bottles of the ice wines from a fridge beneath it. He set out four glasses.

“So you do special blends?” Brad asked, and traded an approving look with Jake.“See that, that is branding. That’s what having a brand is all about!”
Jake nodded enthusiastically in approval.
“It’s amazing branding.”
I was pretty sure that had very little to do with branding.
“I’ve got some samples of those right here.” Isaac said, as if he hadn’t heard a word they were saying. He held up a bottle with the Greystone logo, and a stylized wolfs head on the label.
“This we manufacture for one of our best private companies. You ever heard of the Tallinn Corporation?”
“No, I don’t think I have, who are they?” Brad asked.
“Our best customers, that’s who. They’re Estonian, but they love us. Here. Try a glass…”
He filled all four glasses, and Brad immediately snatched one up. I saw Isaac set a bucket on the counter for us to spit the wine into after tasting it. I’d never been to a wine tasting before in my life, but even I knew you weren’t supposed to actually drink it.

Brad drank it. He drank it all in one big embarassing gulp. Isaac looked at him with a bit of surprise, as if he hadn’t quite expected that.
“Oh Jesus, that’s brisk!” Brad said, “Here, lemme have some more of that…”
Jake, for all his flaws, had the decency to drink the wine slowly. Angela didn’t drink at all. He did not however, have the decency to not make weirdly sexual moans as he enjoyed the drink. I hated it when he did that.
“Greg, try that!” Brad said, as Isaac filled up another glass for him. I took a sip. Never in my life had I ever had ice wine before, but it was delicious. Easily one of the sweetest things I’d ever tasted!
I spit it into the bucket.

“What? You don’t like it?” Brad asked.
“No, it’s delicious!” I said, “I just thought…”
“Well, here’s a toast then!” Brad raised his second glass, “Hey, Angela! Come on! Don’t be a spoilsport.”
Angela just glared at him, as if to ask ‘Do you know what the fuck you’re even doing right now?’ She set her glass down.
“No thanks.”
“Alright… Fine, whatever.” Brad said, shrugging it off. He tossed back the glass, and Jake attempted to do the same. I just took another sip and swallowed it. I guessed it would’ve been a shame to let it go to waste.
“That’s got kick…” Brad murmured. I watched as Angela headed towards the door.
“I think I’m just gonna wait by the car.” She said, and I understood that she wanted to get out of there. I did too.
“Greg, have some more!” Brad urged me. Angela was waiting by the door, before sighing and stepping out. I didn’t, and set my glass down.
“I think I’m good, actually. Angela’s got an appointment and we should get going.”
“Oh boo!” Brad said, “You can be a bit late, come on!”
“We’re already late.” Angela said, “Thanks for everything, Brad. Really. See you on Monday.”
She left abruptly and I followed.

“Who the hell does he even think he is?” She growled as she stormed towards the exit to the barn.
“Seriously, blowing off his meetings to go and get drunk? What an idiot!”
I tried to keep up with her, but was starting to feel a little woozy.
“Yeah, he’s a prick.” I murmured. Angela stopped in her tracks and looked back at me.
“Hey, you alright?”
“I think so.” I said. I could see the door to the barn, and the man who’d led us in, Archie, still standing out front of it.
“How strong was that wine?” I asked.

“It’s wine. There’s no way you’re drunk!”
I took another few steps forwards before my legs gave out from under me and I hit the ground. Angela was on top of my immediately.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Greg, Greg, are you alright?”
My vision was going hazy, and the last thing I remember was seeing Archie coming up behind Angela and raising something over his head.

I woke up to someone shaking me.

“Greg! Wake up, Goddamn you!”
I recognized the voice was Angela’s, and slowly as I came to, I could see her standing over me.

“Finally… I was beginning to think you weren’t waking up.”

“I’m awake…” I murmured, “What happened?”

“You passed out and someone hit me.” Angela replied, “We’re in deep shit, Greg… Look!”
My vision was groggy at first, but as I slowly pieced together my surroundings, I began to feel a creeping fear seep into my gut.
We were in a cell, and outside of those bars, was a sight I wish I’d never seen.

The machinery around us looked similar to what I’d seen before, but this was a completely different part of the factory. This looked more like a butcher shop.

I could see bodies, human bodies suspended from the ceiling. Their throats had all been cut, and I watched the blood dripping into one of six swimming pool sized mixing vats full of ice wine beneath them, and I suddenly felt sick. That was what I’d been drinking with Brad and Jake…
Just above the surface of the wine in each vat, a large propeller spun slowly, making sure that horrible concoction of blood and wine was evenly mixed.
I patted my pockets. No sign of my wallet, keys or cell phone. Of course they’d taken those.

“Angela? Greg?”Jake sounded like he was in the next cell over, and I’d never heard him so terrified in my life.

“What the hell happened!” I asked.

“I don’t know! We were drinking the wine, and then Brad was on the floor and… Jesus Christ, did they drug us?”
That was the most logical explanation, wasn’t it?

“Let’s just shut up, and figure a way out of here!” Angela said, “Jake, Brad’s in there with you, right?”

“No! They took him! I don’t know where! Jesus Christ, we need to get out of here! D-do you see the vat?”
Angela didn’t reply, but we’d all seen it, and we all knew that.
She reached up towards her hair, taking out a hairpin. Something that whoever had emptied our pockets had missed.
“I might be able to get this lock…” She murmured, and immediately set to work on it.

“Are you picking it? Come on, come on, come on…” Jake groaned, “Hurryyyyy.”
Angela worked diligently, before pausing suddenly, and putting her tools into her pockets. I heard the voices down the hall too.

“We’ll get them processed today and have this whole thing taken care of. Later on I’ll call our usual guy to get the cars... ”
I recognized the voice as Isaacs, and heard his footsteps getting closer.

“Ah, you’re awake!” He said. It sounded like he’d stopped in front of Jake’s cell.

“What the hell do you want from us?!” I heard Jake say, “You can’t just keep us here! Where’s Brad!?”

“Well, like I said you’ve come at an interesting time…” Isaac replied. His tone was even and calm. “Usually, we buy our secret ingredient from the Tallinn Corporation. They deal in that sort of thing mostly. People go missing in the old Soviet Union all the time and no one cares. So we don’t really hurt anyone and we get a better tasting product! But, we do care a lot about quality and we’d like to keep all our ingredients locally sourced, if you catch my meaning.”

“W-what the hell…?” It sounded like Jake was crying and Isaac chuckled.

“You’ll see soon enough… Shock him, let’s get him processed.”

I heard Jake scream as he was tased, and the sound of the cell door opening.
Archie and another worker carried Jake past our cell. As they passed, Isaac stepped into our view.

“Hey there.” He said smoothly, “I understand if you’re not excited to be in this position… I got the feeling you two didn’t really want to get dragged into this.”

“No shit!” Angela snapped, “Where are you taking him?”

“To become part of the Greystone legacy.” Isaac teased, and looked up towards the bodies hanging above the mixing vats.
“It’s a slow process, but quality takes time… Anyways, I wanted to say, before you get angry, that I am sorry you got dragged into this.”
He smiled, and walked away from us, following the others.

Angela was silent for a bit, listening to his footsteps fade. When she was sure he was gone, she got the hair clip out of her pocket, and worked on the lock with renewed vigor. It didn’t take long until we heard the click of the lock, but Angela didn’t open it. It didn’t take me long to see why.

Archie, his associate and Jake came into view again, this time on a catwalk above the nearest mixing vat.
Jake was still unconscious, which made it easy to bind his ankles and place a hanging hook through the rope.
“W-what…” Jake’s voice was faint and echoed from the distance, but he was starting to come to. He let out a startled yelp as the hook yanked him up just like the other bodies.
“Wait, WAIT, WAITWAITWA-”
He didn’t get to finish his pleasing. Archie pulled a knife from his overalls, and opened his throat. Jake squirmed and choked out his death rattle, blood pouring over his face and dripping into the vat below.
Shiitake happens.

The other worker took a long pole, and used it to push Jake out towards the other bodies, right over the center of the mixing vat.
We watched as they prodded the others, before choosing a few to pull towards them and take down.
As soon as they were gone, she opened the door to our cell.
“We’re leaving.” She said curtly. I didn’t argue. For a moment, I thought about Brad, but Jake had said they’d already taken him. He was probably dead, and I could have cared less!

Neither of us knew which way to go, but we opted for the way that Archie and the other worker hadn’t taken Jake. That way led to a hall that seemed impossibly long, and on either side were massive chilled vats of Ice Wine.
I tried not to think about just how many people had died to fill these… But the thought still came.How many people around the world were unknowingly drinking human blood in their wine? How many people did it knowingly?

Down the hall, I heard a voice, and paused.I ducked into the narrow space between one of the vats, and I saw Angela doing the same across from me.

“50% in under three months, now that is unprecedented growth, but it’s doable! I’ve done it. Not everyone can, but if you’ve got the product, you’ve got the brand, and you’ve got the know how, it’s already done!”
That was Brad’s voice!
I had to peek out from behind my vat, and I saw him and Isaac passing through the hall in front of us, side by side like old friends.
“It’s a bold claim.” Isaac said. I wasn’t sure if he was impressed or not, “But you sound like you can back it up.”

“Dude, if you just let me show you my numbers, gimme a phone, something. I won’t try anything! But I’m telling you, you’re making the right call. Those other guys? Fuck ‘em. They’re disposable, I mean, hell. I was honestly looking for a chance to get rid of Angela anyways. But me, I’m the one you wanna keep. I get it, this whole operation here, it’s about adding value to your brand. What you’re doing gives the wine it's signature flavor, and it’s honestly kinda hardcore! I dig that! But you and I both know, that I can give you more value right here, like this, then I would in a bottle of wine.”
Isaac and his workers were going to slaughter us for wine, and Brad was trying to fucking sell them on his service?
I sincerely hoped someone would show up to drag Brad off to the same fate Jake had met, but I didn’t get that wish.

“Well, if you’re half of what you claim… Maybe you’d be worth it.” Isaac said thoughtfully. He idly played with his beard. “Let’s say I kept you around, huh? I’m gonna need to make sure you don’t try anything. I’ll give you what you need to work. Just work. Nothing else. You let me down, and you’re going in with the next batch.”

“Hey, that’s A-okay with me! I just want the chance!” Brad said, grinning from ear to ear, “Trust me. You and me are gonna do some amazing shit.”
Isaac nodded slowly, and from my vantage point, I could see the rage on Angela’s face, but she stayed still.
“HEY! CELL’S EMPTY!”
Archie’s voice cut through the hall, and both Brad and Isaac looked up suddenly.
“They’re out. Find them.” He said, “They can’t be far!”
Isaac was coming towards us again, with Brad trailing behind him. I heard Archie coming up from the opposite direction, and I realized that sooner or later, one of them was going to see us. I think Angela knew it too.
She moved suddenly, running for her life, and I did the same, but I wasn’t as fast.
She slipped past Brad easily enough, but I didn’t get past Isaac.

He grabbed me, and I felt Archie grabbing me too. Both of them wrestled me to the ground, and the last thing I remember was a terrible jolt of electricity before everything went black.

I woke up in the hall. I don’t know how long later. Archie and another worker had me draped over their shoulders, and dragged me slowly. Ahead of me, I saw Isaac.
“Shock him again.” Isaac said. I hadn’t even given any indicator that I was awake, but Archie didn’t waste any time. I didn’t pass out this time, but I wasn’t in any condition to fight.
“I know you probably think this is barbaric.” Isaac said, still not looking at me, “It’s… well, an old family tradition. One gets desensitized to it. But as heinous as this all must seem, I need you to understand that this really does make it a superior product! The blood sweetens the wine, and the corpses do wonders for the vineyard. Every year, we have a bountiful harvest. It’s because of this that we’re the best, and if your friend Brad delivers on his promise, we might even be the biggest.”
Up ahead, I saw the hanging bodies… But now they were much closer to eye level.
“I wouldn’t take it personally.” Isaac said, and stopped, letting us pass him.
“Make it quick for this one!” He ordered, “Suffering taints the wine.”
With that, I heard him walking away.
We were at one of the vats, and Archie shocked me one last time. I felt his associate starting to tie my legs together. Archie pulled the knife from his overalls.
“It’s never personal, kid.” He said gruffly. I looked at the knife, my heart racing as I waited for what was coming.
Then I heard the worker behind me scream, along with a dull thud. Archie looked up, and I caught a glimpse of Angela behind us. She was holding a shovel, and swung it ruthlessly at Archie’s head. It bounced off his shoulder and he grunted in pain.
I didn’t have much time to react, but by God I made the most of it!

I grabbed him by the wrist, and jerked his arm towards me, then I sank my teeth into the skin. His grip on the knife loosened, and I tore it out of his hands.
Archie kicked out blindly at Angela when she tried to hit him with the shovel again. He uselessly slapped at me to try and keep me away from him, but I had the knife now, and I put it in his throat.
It was very personal.

Archie twitched, eyes looking up at me in surprise, but as the blood trickled out of his throat, his body went limp.
I was panting heavily, and looked over at Angela. The worker she’d hit lay on the ground, unconscious or dead. I didn’t care which.
“Are you alright?” She asked, and I absentmindedly nodded, before backing away from Archie’s body.
“I just killed this guy…”
“Yeah. I guess you did…” Angela replied, “Take the knife, we need to go and…” She swallowed, “We might need it.”
I didn’t want to touch that knife. I didn’t even want to look at Archie. I wanted to scream and cry and lose my shit, but I did what she said. It came out easier than I expected.
Angela started down the hall again, and I followed, still a little shell shocked from committing a murder!
“After I split off from you, I found what I’m pretty sure was Isaacs office.” Angela said, “Here, we needed these.”
I saw her reaching into her pocket for my car keys and wallet.
“Our phones were missing. Probably broken.”
“Shit… We can’t call for help then?”

“Which is why we need to focus on getting the hell out of here.” Angela replied,
We moved silently. For the time being, there was no sign of any other employees, but we didn’t want to risk it. We both knew there was more than Archie and his associate lurking around.

In a few moments, we’d made it back to the lower level of the mixer room.
“I think the door to the main factory is down that way.” Angela said, “We just need to find it, and-”
A gunshot cut her off. She ducked, and looked around for the source. I saw it before she did, and pulled her towards one of the vats. We ducked beneath it to avoid another shot.
“Found you!” Brad cried, “Ah shit… I guess you picked up Greg too, huh?”
He held the gun professionally as he crept towards the vat we cowered behind.

“Well, I’ve got enough ammo to do you both. I hope you know it’s nothing personal! But it’s honestly just me or you, and even with the… well, unusual recipe, this is still a big client! Do you have any idea what this is gonna do for DMT? Isaac gets me, man!”
He was drawing nearer, but even when he had us cornered, Brad was still an idiot. The second he got close to our hiding spot, I was ready. He came into view slowly, and I lunged at him when he did, catching him off guard.

The knife went into his shoulder, and I caught the gun across my face. Angela was on him next, tearing at the knife and trying to rip it out of him. Brad struggled against her, and frantically brought the butt of his gun down on her head, over and over again.
He shoved Angela off of him, and she hit the ground holding the handle of the knife. The blade poked out of Brads shoulder.He grinned through gritted teeth as we took aim at her, but he wasn’t watching me.

I was on my feet again and I grabbed his arm, forcing it upwards. He fired off a stray bullet, but it went harmlessly into the ceiling.
Brad may have had a gun, but I was bigger than him. Angela recovered and went with the age old trick of going straight for the groin. I went for the stomach. Brads grip on his gun loosened. I watched as Angela tried to rip it from his hand. But Brad saw that coming. With a jerk of his arm, he sent the gun flying across the factory floor. I didn’t see where it landed. His elbow caught me in the face, and I barely had time to see him drive his fist into Angela’s jaw. He grabbed her by the throat, and got ready to punch again.

I grabbed him from behind and tried to drag him off of her. Brad flailed helplessly, and I almost got him there, before his head slammed into my face. The first time just stunned me. The third time, I had to let go. Brad glared hatefully at us once he was free.

“I shouldn’t be surprised you two are the ones I have to deal with right now. You’ve always been a poison to MY company, Angela. Since I hired you you’ve been trying to cripple MY success!” His eyes shifted to me.

“And you? You’re just dead weight! I am DONE with you people! I am DONE with your disrespect!”
He probably had more to say, but Angela didn’t give him the chance. She’d noticed something that Brad hadn’t.
He was standing right in front of a vat.

As he opened his mouth to speak again, she lunged for him, pushing him back towards it. I caught on quickly and went to help her. Between the two of us, we were able to press him right up against the vat.

Angela and I traded a brief look, before I ducked down, grabbing Brad by the legs. She pushed him by the shoulders. Brad struggled, but he went into that vat of blood and wine. The mixers arm was coming around again. I know Brad saw it in the moment before it struck him over the head. I don’t know if it killed him, but the force of it pulled him into the vat entirely. Given how little of a struggle there was, I’d have guessed it just knocked him unconscious. The arm dragged him around the vat slowly, his head submerged in that disgusting mixture of blood and wine he’d been willing to murder us over.

We didn’t stick around to see if he was ever going to wake up, and as far as I’m concerned, he drowned in that vat.
I wish I'd said 'Cheers'.

The next room was more familiar territory. This was part of what Isaac had shown us, and we sprinted for the door, and through the empty vineyard. It was starting to get dark. Halfway through it, I let myself look back. I could see people coming out of that long barn, and I didn’t wait for them to start running after me.The gazebo was up ahead, along with my car and Brad’s ugly orange coupe. I didn’t waste any time getting inside my car, and as soon as Angela and I had our doors closed, we were speeding off down our driveway, as fast as we could go.

We drove until the next town over, and made it to the police station looking like hell. I’m pretty sure my statement came out as a rambling incoherent mess, but I didn’t care. I told them just about everything… except the part where I murdered Archie and helped drown Brad.

If the Police believed my statement… I never found out. I heard talk of an investigation, but from what I understood, they found nothing. Not even Brad’s ugly orange coupe.

DMT dissolved quickly without him. He and Jake were just considered to have disappeared. Brads so called ‘fans’ barely seemed to notice his absence.Our story never got out.

I still talk with Angela on occasion, but we don’t talk about Niagara. The unspoken agreement is that we did what we had to do, to survive. We both know that, and we don’t need to remember.

I almost wish we could talk about it though… I wish I could talk to her about the nightmares I’ve had of drowning in a vat of freezing cold wine. I wish I could talk to her about the anxiety I have whenever I’m alone. I wish I could tell her that I received a bottle of ice wine from Greystones Winery in the mail the other day.

Because I don’t know who else to tell.

I wish I knew if Isaac is congratulating me on my escape, mocking me for my inability to stop him… or warning me...

A post mortem of Britney Jean, 5 years later

https://preview.redd.it/z45fsq17ce221.jpg?width=953&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49131fb1d1aeb49fee7c8b1a781c106b0172d877

“I can't believe this is my eighth studio album and I know I keep telling you that it is my most personal record yet, but its true and I'm really proud of that”

This quote from The Legendary Miss Britney Spears would most likely haunt her for the rest of the career, especially because it came in the eve of the release of her infamous 2013 album Britney Jean, whose title anticipated a rare introspective look into a star with over a decade on the spotlight (most of the times for the wrong reasons)… also, it came right after her previous album, 2011’s Femme Fatale, became her first full-length effort without any songwriting input from the Princess of Pop, although a Japanese bonus track features a co-writing credit from her.
Of course Britney Jean deserves most of the criticism it receives and yet, it also deserves way more than just being outright ignored even by most of Britney’s diehard fans: Britney Jean is more than just Work Bitch and 13 b-sides, is more than Brit’s most dated-on-arrival release… Britney Jean is a case study of what was pop in its time, what changed and why it stopped being as popular as it once was….

POP BEFORE BRITNEY JEAN

https://preview.redd.it/p5ecdbd9ce221.png?width=1500&format=png&auto=webp&s=d0662fd24b364cf6cf25b1961e9d15f98d9d39b6

Early 00s pop music was being left aside by the general public during the heydays of gangsta rap, Timbaland/Pharrell-infused R&B and rock/nu-metal… at least until around the period between 2007 and 2009, the start of the Golden Era for popheads: The anthemic choruses, the prominent synths, the light and care-free nature of the lyrics, everything was there to pump you up and make you dance… however everything would change in 2013, when streaming was finally introduced to the Billboard formula. After the satirical K-pop track Gangnam Style by Psy took the world by storm, it was noticed how in the United States the song was blocked from the top spot by the inconsequential One More Night by Maroon 5, even if Style had the lead in sales for most of the 12 weeks it stayed at the Top 10 (as you might have guessed, radio had something to do with that), pushing Billboard to update their methodology and add streaming to the mix.
The first song that benefited from the change in the tracking methodology would prophetize what would come next for the charts in general: Harlem Shake, a nearly-instrumental meme song debuted at the top spot and stayed there for 6 weeks total. Another novelty song, Ylvis’ The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) would visit the Top 10 later in the year based on virality alone.
Although rap, indie music and more traditional pop music found their way during this year, the presence of outliers like Lorde’s Royals, genre-defying tracks like Avicii’s Wake Me Up! (a country/folk tinted EDM anthem) and Florida Georgia Lane’s Cruise (considered the grandfather of the bro-country genre, made popular on pop radio thanks to a tackled-on rap feature by Nelly), and the aforementioned viral hits not only showed that general audiences were craving something new, but their success would pave the way for a big change in pop music.

BRITNEY BEFORE BRITNEY JEAN

"Sometimes you don't need to use words to go through what you need to go through, sometimes it's an emotion you need to feel when you dance, that you need to touch. And the only thing that can touch it is when you move a certain way."
Britney Spears on the For The Record documentary, one of the rare glimpses she gave us on her life before Britney Jean

Britney, of course, was partially a pioneer and a tail-rider of the maximalistic electro sound of the era, as proven by the influence and cult following of what most people consider her magnum opus, or at least her more direct and honest album, 2007’s Blackout, which is ironic considering that Britney only has two writing credits in the whole project and how even The Unstoppable Danja called it ‘impersonal’.
After Blackout, Britney would continue to ride the same sonic palette with her follow-up, 2008’s Circus and then move onto Femme Fatale, which, in spite of its “forward-thinking” nature (as described by the label-appointed producer and current persona non grata Dr. Luke) and slick production, it was heavily criticized for its anonymity and lack of input of the singer in the record, which led to Britney to defend herself stating, rightfully, that she had nothing to prove.

THE MAKING OF A PERSONAL ALBUM

https://preview.redd.it/tzfh8fqsce221.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e7bf1a1a7f9469be632470e1d6bb53397ff2f62

The mastermind behind Britney Jean was none other than hitmaker will.i.am, whose involvement on the record came as a surprise to no one given how they have collaborated twice at that point and get along really well (you can read more about it in this post I made a couple of months ago), however, the Black Eyed Peas frontman doesn’t deserves all of the credit for the record as Britney herself decided that she would be more involved and had a pivotal role into the making of this record.
Although the early stages of the album pointed towards a more hip-hop release, will.i.am’s involvement and her chemistry with Britney put her forward into the recording and making of the album.
Realizing that she wanted a more straightforward release that wasn’t as bouncy and genre-hopping as her predecessors, Britney searched with will.i.am a series of collaborators that could help her bring her ideas to life, as she didn’t wanted to sing impersonal songs that her team just happened to receive; this, unfortunately, ruled out the involvement of the Saint Patron of pop production Max Martin, although it relegated Dr. Luke to a sole bonus track so that’s a win in my book. Britney Jean is her only release in which she’s credited as a co-writer in each track, including bonus tracks… her closest before that was In The Zone in which 9 of the 14 (including bonus) tracks sported a Britney co-write.

THE PERKS OF BEING A PERSONAL ALBUM

I have been through a lot in the past few years and it has really inspired me to dig deeper and write songs that I think everyone can relate to […] I want to show you the different sides of Britney Spears.
I am a performer.
I am a Mom.
I am funny.
I am your friend!
I am Britney Jean.
Britney Jean Spears

Britney has never been the kind of performer that would pour her soul into her lyrics, and even have occasionally distanced her private life from her lyrics (she famously rejected the Timberlake-bashing Sweet Dreams My LA Ex, later given to ex-S Club 7 member Rachel Stevens as her debut single), although in the few glimpses we have gotten from her real persona (the stunning Everytime and the dubious My Baby for example) have always leaved her fans with the idea of her getting more involved with the subject matter of the tracks… I mean, the exploration of fame in tracks like Circus and Piece of Me are great, but what about explorations of who is Britney?
Britney Jean is her first album released in her 30s, and after finally deciding to get this involved in the songwriting department 15 years into her singing career was no fluke: chalk it up to coincidence, to the fact that it was long due given her background (Britney had lived A LOT of unwanted stuff during her career, married twice, had two kids, survived the most public mental breakdown unimaginable and more while being one of the most successful female performers currently working… also, that year she had ended her engagement with her manager Jason Trawick) or to misogyny (if you wanna go there) but female singers seems to go personal and/or mature in their 30s, with some popular examples including Madonna’s Like A Prayer (described by her as being "about my mother, my father, and bonds with my family"), Mariah Carey’s post-divorce genre-bender Butterfly (if her birth year is believed to be 1969), Beyoncé’s whole post-Matthew Knowles era (4 was released three months before she turned 30), Nicki Minaj’s back-to-my-roots release The Pinkprint and Katy Perry’s purposeful woke pop release Witness (Katy, I love you but 💀) among others.
Another thing to consider is that doing “personal” songs have always being interpreted as tracks with stripped-away or piano-driven arrangement, something that Britney, who had sung about being on the club or having sex (or even both on the same track) so many times it kinda become her trademark, is not something she’s might get allowed to do, especially when the current-at-the-time pop scene and Britney’s then-current sound were a far cry from the kind of sound these “confessional” tell-all songs normally have.

#BritneyPleaseSavePopMusic

(this was a real hashtag that was worldwide trending topic on Twitter in September 2013)
With the anticipation of what a Britney-fied personal record would sound like, anticipation was in an all-time high among fans… so it was natural that her most introspective record would be anchored with an EDM song called Work Bitch. In Britney’s defense, will.i.am pointed out almost immediately how the braggadocio track didn’t represented the album but it was rather about Britney Spears herself.
Promoted with what was heavily rumored to be a 6.5-million-dollars budgeted video which was supposedly heavily sanitized from its originally sexed-up original version (more on that later), the video itself represented most of the promotion the whole album received, as the album’s second and final single (Perfume) was left to rot in negligence after the album’s release.
Outside of a couple of TV appearances (not performances, just interviews), including one to promote her then-upcoming “2-year” Las Vegas residency Britney Spears: Piece of Me, and an E! documentary about the making-of the album and said residency, no actual promotion took place for Britney Jean, which led to the inevitable.

BRITNEY UNLEASHES HER MOST “PERSONAL” ALBUM

https://i.redd.it/1no6q6iqce221.gif

Britney Jean was unleashed to the world on December 3rd of 2013, one day after the Princess’ birthday, and was a big commercial disappointment, debuting at number 4 on Billboard with sales of 107,000 copies (a little bit more than a third of the sales of Femme Fatale), even lower than those of her debut album …Baby One More Time; 3 years after its release, BJ had sold less in the United States than FF in its opening week, although it was eventually certified Gold by the RIAA… this February. Internationally, the release didn’t fare any better and debuted at record-low positions for her releases in most international markets, including missing the Top 30 in the UK.
As most of you already know, reviews we’re nasty all around, the worst of Britney’s career. Because of the somewhat mean content of some of those reviews, I would instead resume what are the biggest perks critics had with the release:

The album’s production (carried mostly by will.i.am protégé Anthony Preston, who hasn’t done anything ever since) was considered monotone, repetitive, dated, backward-thinking, overproduced and by-the-numbers. The album, full, on EDM beats and synthesizers, doesn’t really have that much of a breathing spot as there’s not that much of musical variety.
Lyrically, the album was considered a disappointment considered its nature as a “personal album”, with the lyricism being considered somewhat superficial given the self-titled naming and Britney’s hype surrounding the content itself.
Vocally, Britney Jean was ripped apart by critics and even some listeners. When the opening track’s autotune-less “warm up” vocal sessions leaked in 2014, critics complained about Britney’s (lack of) vocal talent and added fuel to the debate about wherever she’s actually talented at all, accusations that the song producer William Orbit dismissed.

SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE, MISS BRITNEY SPEARS

After one of the songs leaked ahead of the album’s release, there were accusations that backing vocalist Myah Marie (who had appeared on Brit’s previous two albums) was the lead singer not only on said leaked track but also in a large portion of the album (this is what she sounds like), accusations that Marie herself denied as well as Britney’s reps.
Her representatives claimed that Marie wasn’t involved in neither Perfume nor Passenger, the tracks that were the source of most of the controversy, and ultimately she wasn’t credited in none of those songs, although she’s credited as a (not background) vocalist in several of the other tracks of the album (mostly the Preston-produced songs as Work Bitch, Tik Tik Boom, Til It's Gone, Chillin' With You and Now That I Found You), including Alien (in which she’s not credited), who had a vocal steam leak in 2014 which showcases how uncanny is Myah’s impression of Britney is. A credited background singer is Sia in her co-composed single Perfume, which was the source of a weird misstep when Britney was caught lip-syncing to a version of the song with Sia’s vocals forefront in the mix.
A lot has been said about how Britney’s signature singing ‘baby’ voice is not her real one, how do they compare and how much damage has done to Brit’s current vocal chops, and even though she can still sing wherever she wants to, it’s quite obvious that she’s not that comfortable with it and, as such, she prefers to enhance her voice with the use of technology and some studio trickery… also, she might have gotten used to it considering how effortless and vivid were her earlier performances… here’s I’m A Slave 4 U at the 2001 VMAs just because how iconic it is.

BRITNEY JEAN… BY BRITNEY JEAN SPEARS

"People can take everything away from you, but they can never take away your truth.
The question is: Can you handle mine?"
Britney Spears in a song that’s not from this album and not originally from her

Described by critics as “a concept album about the loneliness of pop life”, Britney Jean actually open with quite a promise with Alien, a mid-tempo, melancholic, airy, ethereal dance pop opener that works as a more teenage-sounding version of Ray of Light, which is not surprising considering the involvement of said album’s mastermind (the aforementioned William Orbit) and that sonically picks-up where FF closer Criminal left off, but lyrically is quite different, as it portrays Britney having an intimate and personal realization that she, after years of tumultuous and erratic events, has lost grip of who she was and how she felt like an extraterrestrial in her own world; however she realizes that she’s not longer alone as she looks at the glow in the stars as a light to guide her home away from her insecurities of the past, and to feel safe and finally finding comfort in her true skin, as the chorus repeats the catchphrase ‘not alone’ “until it is pitchshifted up like a departing space ship”
Originally intended to include Gaga in the song (and also supposed to be released as a single, which unfortunately didn’t happened), Alien was considered the conceptual and musical highlight of the project by critics, and is easily the most personal, vulnerable and my personal highlight of the project… which made everything that came afterward a hard pill to swallow. Before that, I can’t help to mention THE GLITCH (2:14 in the song), which was apparently, as everything wrong with music of the period, will.i.am’s fault.
https://preview.redd.it/sqy5pdvjce221.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc818c3624856731e041c2380840004b0c8edea6

Work Bitch (alternatively known in censored form as Work Work, or in the explicit version as Bitch Bitch) is a hard hitting EDM smasher and heavy mood-whiplash, which was definitely not co-written by Sebastian Ingrosso, in which Britney gently asks us (over a basic club beat which grows more overloaded as the song moves forward) is we want a hot body, an European luxury car (either a Bugatti, a Maserati or a Lambo ^{skirrt skirrt skirrt}) or to sip martinis while partying in a big mansion in France, only to disappoint us by calling us bitches and telling us to better work as if we were supermodels and she was RuPaul.
WB is, if you wanna practice some mental gymnastics, more ‘personal’ than its given credit for, as Britney details how much benefits she gets from hustling all these years, and inviting us to dance with that smashing wall-of-sound-laden beat that drowns most of the track. Way more forward-thinking and exciting that everything that comes after it, WB has become somewhat of a new classic for the Princess of Pop, and is pretty much deserved of said designation.
Perfume, co-written by Sia, is another album highlight (actually Britney’s favorite from the album) and one of the finest ballads of Brit’s late-catalogue. Written about her ex-fiancé Jason Trawick, the song deals with Britney’s insecurity about a current relationship, with Britney singing with some of her strongest vocals in years about how she believes that her partner is cheating on her and how she puts on her perfume in order to mark her territory. Released with a tie-in with her perfume Fantasy, the song kinda flopped worldwide and halted all of the promotion of the album, however it still remains (alongside the rawer Dreaming Mix, included as a bonus track) as one of the most interesting songs in 2010s Britney catalogue.
The music video, directed by known troll and middling talented videomaker Joseph Khan, has an unreleased director’s cut in which the straightforward concept of a cheating partner is changed to that of Britney playing the Angelina Jolie role in a gone-wrong version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith sans the boyfriend who is also an assassin.
It Should Be Easy finds Britney’s voice drown in both the auto-tune setting used by Kanye for the Runaway coda and the vocals of guest-star will.i.am in the chorus, all while produceco-writer David Guetta rehashes Swedish House Mafia (which originally broke up the same year in which BJ was released). The song, about Britney imagining a bright-normal-future with a man who had stolen her heart, stating that love “shouldn't be complicated”. Although I like this song, and her team obviously likes it to as it commissioned remixes to be serviced to clubs, it signals when things start to go somewhat downhill.
Tik Tik Boom, the T.I.-assisted fifth track, was always dubbed as a potential third single (remixes were commissioned but nothing official ever came up), and it’s not hard to see why: as one of her rare collaborations with a rapper, the static-y, dance-floor ready production presents Britney teasing a male partner with a night of… well… tik tik boom… that means sex, doing so while serving some circa-2001 sexy vocals as T.I. raps about treating her like an animal up to the point that PETA (which hates Britney) should be called in response. It’s fast, it’s straightforward and yet, it’s kinda forgettable and also very disappointing coming from or Princess Urbanney.
Guetta comes back with Body Ache, another outdated EDM bop in which Brit (accompanied by vocoder and several dozens of vocal distortion treatments) sings about the kind of ‘I wanna dance so hard it gonna turn you on’ anthem which Miss Spears can do on her sleep, with a backtrack that sounds straight out of the EDM will.i.am was doing with the Peas during the Beginning/E.N.D. era. Also it ends in a somewhat anticlimactic way.
Personal Britney makes a return with this track that wouldn’t be too out of place in FF: The Guetta co-written Til It’s Gone, in which Brit realizes that, after losing the love of her life (Trawick), her life would never be the same, or how “you never know what you got 'til it's gone”. Coming some two years to late sonically, in terms of lyrics the track it’s another story, as some interesting imagery pops here and there and it’s nice to leave the dance floor behind, especially when talking about a woman who (at least in the previous albums) rarely shut up about them.
Katy Perry arrives on the record but not as a feature, but as a writer, in the Diplo-produced, Sia-co-written and Prism outtake Passenger, in which some interesting EDM beats moves out of the way after the opening (they come back, don’t worry) to reveal a refreshing and very welcome electropop rock song with some great Britney vocals about letting someone to guide her after she’s willing to let herself be his ‘passenger’. Great lyrics, daring production, good vocal performance… it’s not hard to see why critics loved this track so much, and it’s a shame it gets buried among so much underwhelming stuff.
https://preview.redd.it/hkdoktqmce221.jpg?width=970&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b349cd2e99a44dc732760b6f131be7dc3be1da38

Chillin’ with You, the album’s most infamous moment, finds Britney dueting with her sister, ex-Nickelodeon star and attempted country singer Zoey Meredith Brooks, about hanging out together and drinking wine (Brit likes red, Chase Matthews' ex likes white wine) while, as the southern white suburban moms they are, they feel they have nothing else to worry about. Although the lyrics are… well… cute, and the subject matter is decidedly novel by Britney’s standards, the mixture of country and EDM doesn’t mash as well as the producers might had expected… also, the fact that their vocals were so obviously recorded in different sessions (as showed by the kind of chemistry you only see in cheesy 70s movies starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin) makes the whole ordeal so surreal.
The album closer in the standard edition is Don’t Cry, a FUCK YOU MR. TRAWICK song in which Britney reassures his man that it’s not worthy to cry as their relationship was always directed to end no matter what they do, and how she’s gonna go to not see him all tear eyed. The bouncy but subdued dubstep back track by pop goblin and producer will.i.am enhances what is arguably Britney’s best vocals in the whole album and some really nice lyrics which still doesn’t work as an album closer.
Sia comes back in the first bonus track of the deluxe edition, Brightest Morning Star, and she brings with her current pop Pariah (that would be Dr. Luke, but he’s only in this track) to the mix, on a track about God (or maybe about her kids, according to Dr. Puke), or at least one that implies to be one; in Sia’s words: ‘Britney was extremely sweet. She came in with the title ‘Brightest Morning Star’ and told me that’s how Jesus found his way. She wanted to write a kind of gospel song that wasn’t ramming it down your throat’. Despite the good intentions, BGS is no Jesus Walks and it gets short in the musical department, with a surprisingly weak instrumental which doesn’t do any good service to the song.
Britney continues her religious quest with Hold on Tight, a mid-tempo ballad that in which Miss Spears details how God comes into her dreams (or it might be an Incubus?) showing her the path to righteousness, even when the road is not as friendly with her, and… to be honest, this is my least favorite song on the album, it’s just so forgettable even if it’s quite refreshing in the context of BJ.
To end the evening, Britney continues her unintentional audition to become a gospel singer with Now That I Found You, a shameless EDM track (with early-10s euphoric drop and everything) about how incomplete she was until she found Him (to be honest, this could also be another love song, but after two bonus tracks about God it’s easy to see where she was pointing towards with the vague lyrics) and how everything is better now. Unlike the forgettable predecessors, NTIFY is fun (dated? Sure… but also fun), it’s bright, it’s colorful, it’s happy, and one of my favorite songs on the record… even if co-writer Guetta basically ripped off his own hit Without You from 3 years before.

u/radiofan15’s UNWANTED OPINION ABOUT BRITNEY JEAN

Britney Jean is not an autobiography, it’s not a tell-all gossip-venting machine, it’s a clean, overproduced product of misdirection and lack of focus… and yet it’s actually fascinating in several ways: it’s arguably the greatest resume you would find of how pop music sounded in between 2008 and 2013, it’s a great bridge between the impersonal heavily-polished Femme Fatale and the serviceable and engaging Glory, which saw Britney leading the way on how everything would sound from the start.
It’s quite ironic how the album’s naming (taking a cue from Janet Jackson’s Damita Jo, her actual middle name) plays against it, as self-titled releases (unless they are debut albums) are associated with being in control of your output or reinventions (pop examples includes Paramore as their first release as a trio, Beyoncé to fit the minimalistic sounds and Janet Jackson’s janet. to showcase independence from the Jackson family) and unless you’re Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel or Weezer, the idea of having a second eponymous release usually means that audiences should expect to experience the performer in a never-seen before way. 2001’s Britney was the album that give a meaning to the phrase “I’m not that innocent” spurred in her previous effort, with lyrics talking about womanhood and sexuality being complemented with R&B vibes and rock/hip-hop elements. Britney Jean, when compared to Femme Fatale, is way behind the difference between Britney and Oops!... I Did It Again, which in retrospective is even worse as the relative freshness and reinvention of Glory leaves the ‘openness’ and ‘variety’ of BJ in shambles.
One of the album’s biggest mistakes is in its sequencing: the first three tracks are the obvious highlights, the next three are basically DOA EDM songs, the next four are the most “adventurous” musically speaking and the bonus tracks are all about God. Taking out some of the ‘pure club’ anthems could theoretically create an album more deserving of its ‘personal’ label, going full Spinal Tap and amp up the production values to do something crazier might have given us something that was at least digestible in a single listening.
The album, as it is, is not perfect, but it’s far from the dumpster fire more people called it, including some of the most interesting Britney songwriting in years (or even her career) and some tracks that are already started to show signs of cult classic. The only positive thing most people seems to agree with is how short it is: with the alternative mix of Perfume included, BJ is ‘only’ 50 minutes long (the standard edition is just 36 minutes long), which is something most performers (even today) seems to struggle with.
Also, she didn’t came to play games with the art cover and aesthetics this era, the album cover and the booklet is her most gorgeous to date, with the former having her most flattering front picture of any of her albums and the neon typography creating a very pleasing contrast with her elegant black-and-white imagery (in the deluxe edition) or the elegantly, milky pastel coloring of the standard edition.

THERE CAN BE 100 LISTENERS IN THE ROOM AND 99 LEAVE BUT ONE... - BRITNEY JEAN THE DAY IT DEBUTED

https://preview.redd.it/hpjl86hfce221.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a01c8129a31203474b2bafbc17ea994d5f83e132

Britney and her team gave up quite easily on Britney Jean and, honestly, they shouldn’t be blamed: the offer to have a Vegas Residency with a salary of $15 million dollars per year seems like the kind of offer a pop star and mother of two with enough money already for several timelines would accept, with the album itself being more of an afterthought.
Britney was originally slated to remain on the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino for two years but ultimately extended her run for another two years, before finally touring overseas (without an album attached to the performances) during 2017 and 2018.
Because of the lack of promotion, Britney Jean underperformed when compared to Miss Spears’ previous releases, with estimated worldwide sales (as of April 2018) being close to 1.3 million copies, less than a third of Femme Fatale’s sales.
Truth be told, BJ flopped hard… HOWEVER, not everything would have turned out that terrible (not even in a million years it would have sold as much a FF but at least the downfall could have been smaller) with some actual promotion and interest from Brit herself.

SOME REACHING… I MEAN… THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BRITNEY JEAN

BJ is, in my opinion, a compilation of the era, the resume of “in the previous episode of” that you get on serialized TV shows, a farewell to the bombastic era of synth-heavy EDM club anthems with gratuitous drops and interchangeable lyrics. During the genre’s opus, some performers tried to bend this sound (and their equivalents) to their benefit, either mixing it with their style or playing with the boundaries of the sound: it could be a Taylor Swift doing a We Are Never Getting Back Together to get a broad crossover hit, a Lady Gaga mixing multiple genres to create a sonically complex pastiche called Born This Way, or even straight-up jumping almost seamlessly from rap/R&B to club bangers like Nicki Minaj did in Roman Reloaded. Britney in Britney Jean did almost the opposite of that.
Britney Jean is, in some ways, a time capsule of the era in its rawest and purest form (some might differ and replace those buzzwords with generic and bland), with the average user being able to trace mostly any track to a style, influence, sub-genre or even performer. Listening to BJ is like watching a 70s movie in VHS in an old, square TV, basically an unintentional period piece that reflects the volatile, bombastic and extravagant style of those golden years of 2008-2013, which, within the mindset of Britney Jean sounds kinda tired and bland, surprising no one when that branch of pop went back into obscurity and irrelevance almost as fast as grunge music did when Kurt Cobain died.
Britney Jean came up in a time of transition of popular music, with streaming showing the kind of power it had on the charts and more subdued, minimalistic music taking the world by storm. Popular music, as you might already noticed, evolved into a slower, more melodic, calculated, numb, almost anticlimatic entity which was more fitting with our current social and political climate. To paraphrase Todd in the Shadows: 2013 had a hit literally called Happy and 2018 had both a hit called SAD! and another called Happier with a video about a dog that dies.
In terms of Britneyology (both the study of Britney Spears and the religion dedicated to her persona), BJ is also a glimpse into Britney the full-fledged artist. Britney has never been the kind of performer that gets heavily involved into her music, with Britney’s role being generally limited to the choice of songs, sequencing, development of sounds and themes with her assigned team of writers and producers, and performing of course; sometimes Britney gets involved into the heavier portions of her music (the classic Everytime is a great example of it) but most of the time she remains quite anonymous, with her voice and choice being overwritten by the men on charge, something that became quite apparent during and after the Dark Ages (2004-2008) with the cancelling of the legendary Original Doll, her lack of songwriting credits in both Blackout and Circus, and her much-criticized anonymity in Femme Fatale.
BJ was Britney deciding who does want to work with, what does she wants to sing and even how to equilibrate her musical and visual persona. Britney has always being in control of how is she portrayed on official media, most famously rejecting an animated concept for the video of …Baby One More Time in favor of a Lolita-inspired take on catholic school girls, and then the slow process from jailbait to grownup woman. During the post-production of the Work Bitch video, she clashed with director Ben Mor over the kind of content the video should show, as she was a mother in her 30s now instead of an unreachable male gaze fantasy.
With BJ, the Legendary Miss Britney Spears showed us how much she has changed since that controversial 2003/2004 period (the last time she was that involved with an album) in which she received the Kiss of Death from Madonna, suffered her infamous accident and, of course, married twice in a calendar year. This new Britney was a much-different person, and her voice deserved to be heard, and even if the results weren’t the greatest, it was a step into the right director for Britney to get what she always wanted: being a full-fledged artist capable of taking her own decisions and learning from her mistakes.

POP AFTER BRITNEY JEAN

https://preview.redd.it/382f3hucce221.png?width=1500&format=png&auto=webp&s=b270179e2de3c085b7dd38ea838588f2f45d9e4b
Coincidentally in 2014 most of the ambassadors of the dominant pop sound of the early 10s were either taking a musical break, flopping or changing lanes, so that year paved the way for the transition of what do we define as popular music, with the winners of the evolution race being trap (Fetty Wap’s Trap Queen), meme music from awful people (Bobby Shmurda’s Hot Nathans) or untalented losers (T-Wayne’s Nasty Freestyle, Silentó’s Watch Me), trop pop (OMI’s Cheerleader, Justin Bieber’s entire Purpose era) or whatever outlier track dared to pass through those filters.
What happened afterwards is a horror story most of popheads tells in fire camps a la Are You Afraid of the Dark?

BRITNEY AFTER BRITNEY JEAN

Glory , the follow-up Britney Jean, received very positives reviews and was considered a strong return-to-form for Britney, and even if it wasn’t as successful as her label might have wanted, the truth is that, at the end of the day, whatever Britney decides to do next (and considering the direction she seems to be taking) it can be as underwhelming as Britney Jean.

https://preview.redd.it/t7rph8g4ce221.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b8d0a459f5caed0d41c087c7658cce2e79f2210

Episode I: Kindling

In the early days of the year 420 ABY, the galaxy was in a state of relative peace - at least when compared to the four tumultuous centuries prior, which had culminated with the ending of the Outer Rim War two decades earlier. While the aftershocks of that war could still be felt by most of the galaxy’s beings, our tale begins on a world that had been nearly untouched by the larger conflicts of the galaxy. A lone starship would land on the planet of Dathomir and an unlikely meeting would commence between three very different individuals. Borcha of Clan Ferel, a maverick Mandalorian mercenary; Owyn 'Sibo' Sivokino, an Agent of the Principate Security with a skill for vibroblades overshadowed only by his inflated ego; and Ciaran, the mysterious, blind Shaman and de facto leader of a rogue group of Nightsisters. While the three of them kept their true motives hidden from one another, destiny ironically unified them in their shared suspicion of each other. Words were given and promises of assistance were made between Borcha, Sibo, and Ciaran, each of whom was just as likely to try to kill the other two as they were to cooperate. The first seeks an ancient and venerated treasure, the second seeks power through self-perceived subterfuge, and the third claims only to seek peace and unity among her people…
Far from the dark and swampy world of Dathomir, a restless, well-off entrepreneur and former Captain of the New Galactic Republic Marine Corps by the name of Hellexix Ordo leaves behind the picturesque beaches of Spira, beckoned unexpectedly from his vacation by a lead for a multimillion-credit catering contract with the upper-echelons of the Principate government - an opportunity too good to pass up for the up-and-coming restaurant owner. No time was wasted, and within a matter of days, the high-end restaurant owner found himself on Taris standing face to face with none other than the First Citizen of the Severan Principate, Murith Severan himself.
The leader of the boldly Imperial-styled nation had met with many potential businessmen and entrepreneurs from throughout the galaxy that vied for the chance to extend their business dealings into the borders of the Severan Principate, but for what he had planned, Murith would accept only the finest that the galaxy had to offer - including what would be on the menu. Perhaps it was the low-level celebrity status and potential political access that Hellexix Ordo had garnered on Coruscant thanks to his restaurant being in close proximity of the NGR Senate Rotunda, or maybe it was that Murith could sense something different about the recently-retired NGR Marine, but at the end of their brief meeting, a deal was struck, granting Hellexix and his restaurant the exclusive rights to cater the Principate's upcoming diplomatic event, upon which Murith promised the fate of the galaxy would turn...
Elsewhere in the Outer Rim, the planet of Ubrikkia - once the center of a thriving trade empire before the fall of the Hutts during the Outer Rim War - received a seemingly unimportant and unremarkable visitor. Touching down on the planet on a hot, dry day, a seasoned Twi’lek merchant (and extremely well-connected criminal lord) by the name of Bril Rha sets up a small shop near one of the more well-off markets in the city surrounding Takwin Keep. Possessing an unassuming quality, Bril Rha goes unrecognized by all those that come to visit his shop, where he offers various goods from off-world, including fine clothes, exotic foods, and several models of droids and hardware. It was on this day that among the petty lords of Ubrikkia walked a man who, unbeknownst to either himself or Bril, was of particular interest to the galaxy. Formerly a member of the Jedi Order, Maskar Kython had returned to his homeworld of Ubrikkia some months prior, seeking to reclaim his rightful place and title as Prince of the once-great Trade Empire - and, perhaps one day, to revive its fallen throne. Bril Rha was offered to sell several high-end, modified KX-series droids to the Ubikkian noble for a significant sum of Credits. Both individuals walked away from the exchange oblivious to the other’s place in the galaxy, with Maskar unaware that he had just purchased droids from an ex-member of the notorious Black Lylek Cartel, and Bril ignorant to the fact he was assisting the Prince Maskar Kython himself in his machinations...
On the planet Ord Trasi, Jedi Knight Xijun Zhen found herself chasing the Force, being led to different perceived disturbances; a dead forest on a distant planet, a continental drought on another. The Force was leading the Jedi on a path, but the destination was unclear. Xijun was granted a vision of all of the steps in her path thus far, and one more that she had not yet taken. The vision shown to her by the Force pointed to Dantooine, though she wasn't sure why.
On a distant planet in the fringes of the Outer Rim, a young smuggler by the name of Sairah O’Rinn met with her Uncle and mentor Toni in a seedy tavern. Toni, a long-time friend of the notorious crime lord Haldar Varss, had managed to set up a meeting between the pirate and his niece, hoping to kick start Sairah into a successful smuggling career with good contacts and steady work with the Tarran Consortium. Haldar agreed to give Sairah a chance and offered her a job as a way to test her ability. The Consortium had long endured trouble smuggling cargo onto the planet of Dantooine due to the growing Reformation militia on the planet, let alone the presence of a small NGR Naval force. Sairah was to smuggle a new shipment past any NGR blockades or Reformation forces on the planet and deliver the shipment to Haldar’s pirate allies planetside. Tagging along to oversee her first major job, Toni joined Sairah, helping her load Haldar’s cargo aboard the Raven’s Nest before they set off for Dantooine.
The Raven’s Nest would exit hyperspace above Dantooine only to find itself in the middle of a pitched battle between Reformation corvettes and a Republic Star Destroyer. Sairah deftly maneuvered the Raven between the battling ships, shaking off a squadron of Republic fighters as her Uncle Toni manned a turret aboard the smuggling craft. The pair managed to escape with their lives as, behind them, the NGR Star Destroyer beat an unexpected and hasty retreat from the star system. Once planetside, Sairah brought the Raven’s Nest down in a clearing before setting off to meet their contacts. After a couple of days of hard riding and dodging Reformation camps and patrols, the smugglers arrived at their rendezvous point only to find the pirates they were supposed to meet under siege from Reformation militiamen. Dantooine, it seemed, had become one of the Reformation’s major bases of operations - though the NGR Navy would surely return once word reached the Core worlds.
With a job well done, Toni and Sairah head back home to Rishi. After flying the Raven’s Nest for one last time, Toni set it down on a landing pad in the planet’s preeminent spaceport. With a tear in his eyes and filled with pride, Toni turned the ship over to his niece. Sairah, the new captain of the Raven’s Nest, now looked to the distant stars, awaiting the next adventure.
On the planet of Umbara, Lesh Deechi - a well-known native of the planet and lifelong political and military leader - considers his position in the cell-based nature of the Reformation. Having spent many years in the Umbaran militia, Lesh sees the current leaders of the Reformation movement as ineffectual, from his perspective. Holding a seat on the Reformation Action Council (the Reformation’s temporary equivalent to a ‘Senate’ for those worlds that supported the Reformation), Lesh was afforded a look into the inner workings of the movement's hierarchy and military leadership. Barring the recent actions taken on Dantooine, Lesh concludes to himself that his superiors are ineffectual military leaders, himself a proponent of much more decisive and assertive action - again, barring the Dantooine situation. As such, the Umbaran begins laying out an elaborate and sinister plan to assassinate his direct superior, none other than the legendary Outer Rim War hero and NGR defector and Grand Marshall of the Reformation military conglomerate, Jason Haig.
On the planet Deneba, Jedi Master Frifth Nilim - while waiting to select a new Padawan - was having a holocall with his former Padawan, now a Jedi Knight, Ravee Chasel, about recent discoveries she’d made. While researching alternative Force traditions, Ravee discovered that many years back, a Jedi Master named Mimuahr Niadh had gone mysteriously missing while researching the Dathomirian Nightsisters. She decided to use the opportunity of joining the Jedi Ambassadors that would go to the Princep’s ball as a chance to go to Dathomir. Also inspired by Frifth’s search for a new Padawan, Ravee hoped to find a potential prospect to train for herself, and teach them the ways of the Jedi. Later Frifth met up with Mirialan Jedi Master Lail Staark. The two observed the Jedi initiate exercises. To get a better idea of each initiate’s skill, Frifth decided to personally spar with each initiate. By the end, he selected the energetic Jackson Melafinious and the reverent Se'Soom Ra'Bhamus.
The following day, Jedi Master Frifth sent his two new Padawans down to the crystal caves beneath the Deneba Temple, where the two were faced with visions from the Force. After experiencing a harrowing vision, Se’Soom awoke with two Kyber crystals in his hand. Returning to the surface, Se’Soom was greeted by Master Frifth, who informed him that he had been down in the caves for a day and a half. After constructing his lightsaber, the two would leave Deneba for Ossus as Master and Padawan. While Se’Soom had passed his trial, Jackson, unfortunately, did not. Unable to overcome his own visions and stuck in a comatose state, Jackson never left the caves. Several weeks later, his body was located and the young Padawan was pronounced dead, his body cremated by the Deneba Temple Guard.
Several days after their initial meeting, Bril returned to Ubrikkia with the KX-series droids after he performed a series of complicated, but minute modifications that Maskar Kython had specified. Maskar would end up sending the droids to the Randon Security Force; perfect for covert operations on the important financial world, which Maskar hoped to bring under Ubrikkian influence through clandestine means. After their trade-off was made, Bril earned even more credits from Maskar by selling him information about a rumored holocron, said to exist somewhere on the planet Lamaredd, a rumor that intrigued the Ubrikkian ex-Jedi greatly...
With the nefarious preparations set, Lesh Deechi invited his rival Grand Marshal Jason Haig to Umbara to give the former NGR Marine a tour of the Umbaran weapons development facilities and showcase a prototype armored attack walker. During a demonstration of the new walker unit, Lesh’s plan was enacted, resulting in the sudden and “tragic” death of Jason Haig at the hands of an unseen sniper. Lesh’s plan proved successful in that there was no suspicion thrown on him by the Reformation Action Council. Additionally, Haig’s passing would go on to result in Lesh’s seemingly reluctant acceptance of the role that had been left unfilled in Haig’s sudden absence. The victory would likely prove to be double-edged, however, as while Haig’s death would allow Lesh to seize more direct control over the Reformation’s military agenda, the people of the New Galactic Republic would no doubt be only further turned away by the increasingly radical actions of the Reformation movement once word of the war hero’s death began to spread through NGR space.
At last, the day had come. After generating significant buzz within certain social circles of the galactic elite, the Severan Principate would host a diplomatic ball. Taking place in the governmental palace on the nation's capital, Taris, no expense had been spared in preparation for the event. Galactic holovid celebrities, business moguls, NGR politicians, Outer Rim world representatives - even a few members of the Jedi Order, including Jedi Knight Kaseerah Holdan (a respected Jedi and owner of a clinic on Coruscant specializing in the rehabilitation of war veterans) and Jedi Knight Ravee Chasel - all gathered within the walls of the palace to attend, indulging in rich, robust cuisine of Ordo's Ristorante and partaking in ballroom dance by the sweeping tempo of a live orchestra. From the high-end dining experience and entertainment to the guest list, this was to be a grand and unforgettable night that would leave its mark on history, just as Murith Severan would have it.
One particular high-profile guest that would not be in attendance at the Principate's historic event was billionaire Telvuga Acco, the CEO and Chairman of manufacturing conglomerate Accotech United, based out of the Corporate Sector. Hosting his own press conference, Telvuga offered biting words attacking the Severan Principate's leader while publicly declining his invitation. While Telvuga Acco's public display of opinion towards Murith Severan didn't garner much attention from the galaxy, it did give the holonet drama tabloids something to talk about for the next several weeks as they tried (and failed) to elicit a response from the heir of the Severan dynasty.
Telvuga’s slight mattered not to Murith Severan, as the Ball (or "the Orb," as holonet messaging boards would later dub it) was simply Murith’s way of gathering together many of the Outer Rim's business and political representatives, and while the exclusion of one of the Corporate Sector’s leading moguls was unfortunate, Murith Severan would not be perturbed. Hidden beneath the veneer of the Ball was Murith’s true purpose for the extravagant event - a much smaller and less publicized meeting behind closed doors with said business and political representatives of nearby Outer Rim worlds, where Murith Severan made an offer for them to join the Severan Principate. Using the promise of protection and trade, he hoped to bring the worlds under his dominion. While the majority of the more well-established worlds refused the offer, citing political differences and or lack of need, a few key systems readily accepted the offer, thanks in no small part to the words of the Delegation sent from Presbalin. While not the grand, sweeping victory that Murith had hoped for, several smaller system would go on to follow Presbalin’s example and agree to integrate under the banner of the Severan Principate.
Jedi Knight Ravee Chasel, having been in brief attendance of the Severan Principate’s diplomatic Ball, found herself romantically spurned while attempting to interact with the non-Jedi denizens of the gathering. Embarrassed and frustrated with herself, she left the extravagant event in a flurry of emotions, much to the concern of the Jedi Masters in attendance. Instead, Ravee slipped away from the high-society crowds in search of a smuggler that would be able to secret her from Taris, past the Principate’s fleets, and onto the neighboring planet of Dathomir. After all, it was there that Ravee’s findings back on Deneba pointed, regarding the disappearance of former Jedi Master Mimuahr Niadh. As the Force would have it, Knight Ravee traveled down to the Undercity of Taris, where she was able to find and hire someone willing to get her to Dathomir for the arguably exorbitant price of 10,000 Credits. Thus, Ravee set off aboard the light-freighter owned by freelance bounty hunter Gavray Kast.
It took only a matter of a few hours for Knight Ravee Chasel to reach Dathomir with Gavray’s help, the latter agreeing to stow his ship out of sight and await Ravee’s word to retrieve her, per their deal. Upon stumbling her way to a Nightsister village, Ravee was devastated to find that the missing Master she was seeking was, in fact, the leader of the village, Ciaran. The shaman, in turn, was surprised that someone had finally bothered and managed to track her down, but was nevertheless welcoming to the nervous Jedi Knight. Ravee was taken into the village, where both Ciaran and other Nightsisters explained how they lived, trying to convince their guest that despite their alignment to the dark side of the force, they were still a thriving and tightly-knit community. Knight Chasel, tempted by the thoughts of having a family, ultimately managed to resist the temptations, and after being given a transmitter by the Nightsister Shaman, she left for Gavray’s ship, leaving Dathomir - and Mimuahr Niadh, now known as Ciaran - behind.
During the journey away from Principate space, Ravee attempted to recruit Gavray to the Jedi Order, due to his latent Force-sensitivity. Already having been asked to join the Order in the past, Gavray refused. As the days progressed on, Ravee began to doubt her purpose in the galaxy, looking towards her failure to sway Ciaran or Gavray to the Jedi as a sign that she no longer knew the will of the Force. Thus, the Arkanian-offshoot Jedi Knight went on to take the Barash Vow.
On the planet Eiradu, Sith Paladin of the Holy Order Tommentis Tiranis lay in the afterglow of a passionate moment with his lover, unaware that a strike team of Jedi Shadows were about to interrupt them. Jedi Master Lytrinn Halt - along with the Jedi Knights Kairus Ririkan and Jae Feistine - stormed Tommentis’s estate after sneaking through the Eriaduan’s defenses and fighting their way through a small detachment of battle droids. Having caught Tommentis by surprise, a brief duel ensued. The Jedi proved victorious, though the Sith and his woman were killed before the Jedi could extract any valuable information from them. One less evil man claiming to be a “Sith” had been purged by the Jedi Shadows, though at the unseen cost of the Jedi Order narrowly missing their opportunity to learn of the existence and whereabouts of the Sith Holy Order in the Unknown Regions.
Unseen by the vast majority of the known galaxy, the Holy Order of the Sith were followers of an obscure and strict religious Order based around the eons-old teachings of the Pius Dea. Established four centuries earlier, the Holy Order had flourished in the Unknown Regions, far from the eyes of the Jedi or the New Galactic Republic. As such, they had conquered many of the former First Order remnants and peoples that inhabited the Unknown Regions, committing multiple genocides over the past several centuries in the name of fanatical, religious xenophobia. With nearly all but the Chiss subdued, the Holy Order had begun looking to expand its reach into the known galaxy. While some like Dumenaris Axios looked inward to delve deeper into the mysteries of the Sith’s past, the Holy Order’s newly proclaimed Lord had ambitions to look beyond the Unknown Regions. Styling himself as Darth Prodigal after seizing control of the Holy Order, Prodigal began dispatching something akin to diplomatic emissaries into the known galaxy, hoping to eventually turn some of its oblivious inhabitants into allies...
In response to the consistent reports of trouble with the local tribals on Dathomir, the Severan Principate tasked one of their most elite and effective Security Agents, Lilith Amaria, with resolving the issues that were now beginning to spill beyond petty tribal disputes and proving an annoyance to the local Principate garrison. According to the reports Lilith looked over, the Dathomirians were caught in a tribal dispute of some kind that had turned violent, with some reports detaling attacks on Principate outposts on the planet. One of the Witches (none other than Ciaran herself) promised to ensure an end to any future hostilities towards local Principate forces in exchange for the Principate Military’s backing in her war with the current Nightmother. Additionally, Ciaran demanded that the Principate lift their military blockade of the planet once the conflict was resolved. As a Senior Operative of the Principate Security, Lilith had extensive authority that went as far as allowing her to operate above and beyond the Principate’s Military command, so she used this power to call in the assistance of Arthur Xadran, Captain of the Imperator V-Class Star Destroyer, Monarch. With the imposing vessel at her disposal, Agent Lilith Amaria planned to land on Dathomir to have a meeting of her own with this Ciaran to assess the details of the Witch's proposal, personally.
Aboard the Ace of Staves,- a retrofitted, Imperial-era carrier now equipped to serve as a casino - former NGR intelligence agent, racketeer and co-owner of the casino vessel Marclay Coppola awakens from a spice-induced bender, coming to the realization that he has a potent addiction but pushing it from his thoughts, as there was business that needed attending. He met with his half-brother and co-owner of the Ace, Gavyn Coppola, himself also a former NGR Marine-turned criminal. In addition to discussing recent dealings as well as planning for their financial future, they met up with their newly-appointed Security Chief, an older Zabrak male by the name of Pexuu Vrasro. His shadowy past, contrasted by a bright reputation as a very capable veteran of the Outer Rim War with no known family or obligations to tie him down, Pexuu seemed like a great new addition to the Coppola’s Casino - provided that the old Zabrak didn’t have any old ghosts from his past still chasing him.
After the departure of their new Security Chief, Gavyn - a notorious hothead - incites a brawl on the gaming floor. After dispatching several pirates and allowing security to handle the rest, Marclay dragged his half-brother, now blacked-out from drinking too much, back to his room. Whilst lugging Gavyn, an idea occurred to Marclay, a drunken thought to better secure their financial security and gain considerable capital to continue building their empire upon. The next day, head pounding from his hangover, the idea stayed with Marclay, and he began planning what would amount to an elaborate bank heist. The target? None other than the Seswenna Sector bank, headquartered on Eriadu. To accomplish something like this, the Coppolas knew they would need a team, so they began work on seeking out individuals of talent to hire for the job. They started by sending an invitation to a smuggler that had recently made some noise over Dantooine, earning a name for herself after slipping right through a pitched naval battle between the NGR and Reformation forces to get planetside. Seeing as Eriadu was within NGR jurisdiction, it made sense to bring in someone like Sairah O’Rinn, based on her recent experiences.
In the bustling, lower city streets of Coruscant, a down-on-his-luck pilot named Corman Candar meets with a long-time friend, Aval Derevan. In a small cantina known as Frassi’s Corner, Corman greets with the older man and they discuss the possibilities of future job offers before they are interrupted by a Cathar assassin. After disarming the Cathar, Corman begins to question the would-be assassin but his line of questioning is cut short when, to Corman's suprise, Aval suddenly kills the attacker and stuns Corman, knocking him unconscious. Inexplicably, Aval flees the scene and, in turn, frames Corman for the murder of the Cathar.
A day later, Corman awakens in Coruscant Security custody. He is questioned by Coruscant Security Forces before being set free, the officer piecing together that Corman had been framed. Back on the streets of Coruscant; Corman calls his co-pilot, a Rattataki named Shuriah Reynault, asking for the fuel to get off-planet. They met at an abandoned hangar, where Corman had been illegally parking his light freighter, The Sunset Eclipse. Bent on tracking Aval down (either for revenge or even just for answers), Corman reveals to Shuriah their destination - The Ace of Staves - a casino that Aval had mentioned to Corman previously. Knowing Aval, this would be his most likely destination.
Before departing Coruscant, however, the Sunset Eclipse received an encoded, one-way transmission. In it, a man named Ulric Sigliano spoke of Twado Hyrotia, the Sunset Eclipse’s previous owner - now dead - and was hoping to catch a ride off-world. Unbeknownst to Ulric, Twado had left the Sunset Eclipse to Corman Candar, so it would be up to Corman whether or not to grant Ulric’s request for passage. Despite their hesitations, Corman and Shuriah agreed to follow the rendezvous coordinates, which lead them to a landing pad of the 500 Republica building. Awaiting them there was the man himself, Ulric Sigliano, son of the late Frank Sigliano, a local legend from Corellia. Along with him was none other than Hellexix Ordo, recently returned from Principate space and ready to spend some credits. When The Sunset Eclipse landed, Hellexix and Ulric were greeted by a hesitant Corman and Shuriah. While there was some initial, cautious tension between the two parties, the crew of the Sunset Eclipse agreed to allow Hellexix and Ulric passage. As the will of the Force would have it, Hellexix and Ulric were also bound for the Ace of Staves - Hellexix going to gamble away some of his recently-acquired Credits, while Ulric needed to meet with one of the Casino’s owners on business. After agreeing on a modest sum to cover the cost of Hellexix and Ulric’s passage, the four were off towards the Eriadu system, the last known location of the Casino.
Meanwhile, back on Dathomir, Borcha and Sibo returned to the Nightsister village for their part of the deal: the Mandalorian in Exile revealed he was seeking the Darksaber, an ancient and unique black-bladed lightsaber created nearly one and a half millennia ago by the first Mandalorian Jedi. While it remained unclear as to the exact motives of Borcha’s longing for this ancient artifact, it was clear he was adamant on finding it, and his original plan when coming to Dathomir was to visit a long-abandoned First Order base, that supposedly held vital information within its still-working database. The Nightsister Shaman revealed, however, that a splinter group within the Nightsisters — the Spiderclan — had claimed the base as their new home after being driven from their previous one long ago. Knowing full-well that taking Borcha to them could spell trouble, Ciaran insisted on retrieving the data on her own and was soon on her way together with her partner, Aijjling. Once at the base, she chose to head in alone, weaponless, in an attempt to further signal her well-meant intentions: the Clan Mother had come here not only to retrieve the data for the Mandalorian, but also with hopes of reconciling with the Spiderclan, seeing them as a possible ally to take down her rival. This feeling was one-sided, however, as Ciaran was met with a clan that had centuries worth of nothing but contempt and hatred for the outside world. Appalled by the savagery and degeneracy of the Spiderclan, she was allowed to get the data she needed and was released back to the surface, where she would soon give Borcha his data, fulfilling her part of their deal.
There was no time to rest, however, because Lilith Amaria had entered the Dathomir system, soon joined by Captain Xadran and his Star Destroyer the Monarch. With the fleet on oversight, the Principate’s elite security agent headed down to the surface to meet with the Nightsisters, under the guise of Commodore Rose Maral, a Star Destroyer commander. Despite the large difference between the two women, they seemed to be on equal footing, not only in their personality but also the lies they carried along with them at all times: Ciaran lied about who contacted the Principate, whereas Lilith lied about who she truly was. And while neither of these lies was found out by the other, it was clearly having an effect on the negotiations: neither party was particularly forthcoming to the other until the Principate officer made a peculiar offer: the Nightsister would get her requested airstrike, but she would have to give up her wife as collateral. Ciaran initially refused, but when Aijjling herself agreed, the Shaman could do nothing but concede.
It turned out to be a ruse, however, because as soon as Lilith had left the planet, she and the supporting fleet left the Dathomir system, leaving the Nightsisters back to their own devices. Enraged, Ciaran called a meeting at her village, and in a speech fueled by hatred and disdain, she rallied her people to come together and take down her rival without the assistance of the Principate Navy, before leaving with a small group for a distant planet to receive an ancient artifact...
After several days journey through hyperspace, the Sunset Eclipse arrives in the Eriadu system. A quick scan of nearby space locates the signal of the Ace of Staves, the Coppola’s retrofitted casino. After passing a security check under the watchful eye of the casino’s Security Chief, all of the Sunset Eclipse’s passengers would be granted admission into the casino proper. Unbeknownst to Hellexix Ordo, Pexuu recognizes him, though not for the man’s entrepreneurial accomplishments in the Core. Rather, the arrival of Hellexix Ordo brought a flood of memories from decades prior to Pexuu’s mind - memories of Corellia. The Zabrak Security Chief keeps these memories to himself, however, seeing as Hellexix had been too young to recognize him from their shared past. Ulric Sigliano, having come to the Ace specifically for the sake of meeting with the Coppola brothers, splits off, leaving Hellexix and Corman to head to the casino floor, where debts owed are paid in full for Corman allowing Hellexix and Ulric passage aboard his ship. Later that same day, Sairah O’Rinn, captain of the Raven’s Nest, also arrives at the Ace, invited to the Casino with the possibility of another lucrative job, though the details of the job had yet to be revealed...
After receiving payment and saying his farewells to Hellexix Ordo, Corman Candar began his hunt for Aval Derevan, the man who framed him for murder. It wasn't long before Corman found who he was looking for. Sitting down opposite the older man, the two engaged in a game of Pazaak against each other. To throw Corman off of his game, Aval reveals that he was the one who murdered Corman’s foster father Twado. The stakes of the game are raised to a lifetime of savings, and Corman barely takes the victory in the final round. An enraged Aval leaves the Ace of Staves, but not before Corman can place a tracker on him. With Coordinates in hand, the crew of the Sunset Eclipse leaves the Casino to follow Aval’s footsteps.
Back in the heart of the New Galactic Republic on Coruscant, a young man by the name of Calvin Tiberiusolis - in an attempt to spite his father - graduates from the Senate Guard’s Officer Training Facility and gets assigned to the Public Duties Company. While optimistic about his new lot in life, Calvin came into his new profession at an… interesting time. For years, Chancellor Snow’s political career had been suffering, mostly due to the ongoing talk of guerilla warfare and attacks employed by rogue Reformation sympathizers in the Outer Rim. While the Reformation had only recently begun mounting into a true threat to key NGR planets (Dantooine, most recently), many of the NGR’s citizens and representatives placed the blame for their continued existence at the Chancellor’s feet. Unhappiness with the Chancellor’s performance came to a head when, during one of Calvin’s first deployments with the Senate Guard, a few of the Senate Guards were ordered to fire live mortar rounds into a crowd of peaceful protestors. While the official report claimed that it was an accident, rumors began to fly that the Senate Guard had faulty received orders from somewhere above. The investigation, to this day, is still pending, though it is theorized that the call was made by someone wishing to further diminish Chancellor Snow’s reputation with the NGR’s populace - a strategy which proved effective, as popular support for the Chancellor reached an all-time low, and rumors began to swirl in the Senate of a vote of no confidence.
Several days after leaving Deneba, Jedi Master Frifth brought Se’Soom to the Jedi Temple on Ossus. Frifth spent two weeks instructing Se’Soom with the goal of expanding upon his bases. During a meeting with the Academy of Archaeology, they were shown a message from the planet Spintir, sent to the Jedi Temple by the leader of the planet’s only city offering a recently-discovered Jedi holocron for study. Initially puzzled by the sudden request, Frifth and Se’Soom were offered the opportunity to travel to Spintir to retrieve the holocron, to which Frifth and his new Padawan accepted. While researching prior to the expedition, they learned that Spintir was an artistic and agricultural world that fell on hard times and had likely come into possession of the holocron centuries earlier. Suspecting that they might run into trouble of some kind, Frifth shifted Se’Soom’s training regiment to focus on defensive techniques as a precaution. An old friend of Master Frifth’s, the Jedi Knight Tal Margos, also requested to join Frifth and his Padawan on their expedition to act as a backup in case something went wrong.
Wielding knowledge of the rumored holocron on the planet Lamaredd, Maskar Kython journeyed to the far-off world. Upon arriving, Maskar posed as a representative of the Outer Rim Oreworks Company, going by the false identity of Haken Tull. His ruse proved highly effective when dealing with Lamaredd’s local authorities (if one could call them that), which led “Haken” to meeting a Duros of peculiar interest by the name of Obadd Ulat. A former member of the loose organization of darkside practitioners often referred to off-handedly as the “Sith Union,” Obadd had, through means of his own, learned of the possible location of an old, Sith Temple hidden somewhere on the planet - though, much like Maskar, the Duros had lied to the Lamaredd officials in order to conceal his true reason for coming to the planet. Their lies landed them both in a speeder planetside, spurred onward by the enthusiastically oblivious Lamaredd officials that were just thrilled to have something happening on their backwater planet and under the impression that both Maskar and Obadd were there on official business. Though their speeder ride was a long and awkward one, it gave Maskar and the Duros the privacy they needed to eventually delve into their own suspicions of one another, eventually acknowledging that they were both not only liars but two individuals after the same thing. For better or worse, they agreed to cooperate in their efforts to track down the supposed location of the ancient Sith Temple that Obadd was sure existed, and where Maskar hoped to find the holocron that Bril Rha had spoken of...
While the galaxy continued to inexorably expand, a small-scale war was waging on the planet of Sy Myrth in the Outer Rim. Falling under the jurisdiction of Mandalorian space, the planet and its surrounding systems were in dispute as thousands of rival Mandalorian New Crusaders fought for dominance in the wake of Mandalore the Reaper’s death, which was followed quickly by the patricide of one of the New Crusader’s greatest leaders and founder, Warlord Harkon Ordo. Assassinated by his own son, Harkon’s death kicked off one of many bids for power that were going on throughout Mandalorian space as the hierarchy of rulers and warriors of the Mandalorian culture was tested in light of the fact that the conquering nation now stood without a clear successor to the title of Mandalore. In the midst of all of this, the battle for Sy Myrth stood out, as Harkon’s forces were divided between those loyal to his son Glaz Ordo, and those loyal to another warrior of growing infamy, a Twi’lek Mandalorian and survivor of the Outer Rim War’s Battle of Ryloth by the name of Maelzagard. Two weeks of scorched-earth warfare would lead to Glaz’s forces eventually crumbling under the weight of Maelzagard’s loyalists, resulting in Glaz’s death and his Twi’lek rival claiming the title of Warlord over the Sy Myrth New Crusaders. Meanwhile, the mystery of Mandalore the Reaper’s death and who would claim leadership over the rest of the Mandalorians remained unknown…

casino bender a wake-up call video

SlotJoint Casino is home to hundreds of slots, and now you can enjoy them with more cash in your casino wallet thanks to this 300% welcome bonus with 20 Casino Bender A Wake Up Call Free Spins for new players on the ‘Wolf Treasure’ slot!. Deposit for the first time and enjoy a 300% match bonus and play the best online slots and pokies at this epic fast-paying online casino! It was the wake-up call that helped break that spell. “I’ve never been a guy who cares about money as a way of showing off. At first it was more about the fun and being with people you like. [Pan over space, planets and meteors.] [Caption: BLACK DWARF SYSTEM - DEEPEST SPACE] [A green light claps in them middle of the screen and a pulsing, green ripple expands outward. Cut to a violet star.] [Caption: VIOLET DWARF SYSTEM - SLIGHTLY DEEP SPACE] [One of the green waves passes over the system and the planets all glow a light green. Zoom into the largest celestial body in the system Premier Inn London Leicester Square Hotel: Wake up call - See 2,696 traveller reviews, 311 candid photos, and great deals for Premier Inn London Leicester Square Hotel at Tripadvisor. IHOP® is the home of all things breakfast and everything delicious. Try us for lunch or dinner. We burger as good as we pancake. Order online or visit near you. Casino Bender A Wake Up Call, poker sky city, italian restaurant sands casino, 21 blackjack documentary Our Games and Betting Offers are provided for entertainment only. Any stakes you place on a Game or Casino Bender A Wake Up Call Bet (including pre-purchased bingo tickets) are non-refundable as the product is virtual and is instantly consumed. If you play a Game or Casino Bender A Wake Up Call Bet with Real Money, funds will be drawn from your Account instantly and cannot be returned. The slots machine, often known as the Casino Bender A Wake Up Call “one armed bandit”, became an Casino Bender A Wake Up Call icon of modern online gaming. At Slotomania, you can start playing your favorite slot games Casino Bender A Wake Up Call with crazy graphics, top of the line sound effects, and hundreds of variations to choose from. Join the amazing free slots experience played by Bendtner says a casino bender during his Arsenal days left him on the verge of bankruptcy. Pic: Getty It was the wake-up call that helped break that spell. Hamer called the 2016 election a “wake up call” to the need to reform the initiative process to prevent unions from pushing more allegedly job-killing policies like the minimum wage increase through Arizona’s initiative process. including a $500,000 boost from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Bender, the constitutional lawyer, said

casino bender a wake-up call top

24KGoldn - Valentino (Lyrics) - YouTube

Rust - CLAN gets a WAKE-UP CALL (Duo Survival) - Duration: 33:54. ... GTA Online Casino Heist: Stealing Diamonds $3,619,000 Silent & Sneaky (Elite & Hard Mode) - Duration: 18:58. Queen Air Bender Tarot 948 views. 13:35. ... Virgo "Someone Is Having A Wake Up Call Concerning You" June 2020 Tarot - Duration: 17:41. Soul Segments Recommended for you. 17:41. I think this past month has been a wake up call for all of us as we work diligently to protect our health during these trying times. Let us use this opportunity to look inward and ask those ... Queen Air Bender Tarot 948 views. 13:35. VIRGO - THEIR REAL REASON FOR LEAVING ... Virgo "Someone Is Having A Wake Up Call Concerning You" June 2020 Tarot - Duration: 17:41. Soul Segments 28,210 ... Get “WAKE UP CALL” https://K-S-I.lnk.to/WakeUpCallIDCheck Out KSI’s Debut Album “Dissimulation”: https://ksi.ffm.to/dissimulation.opr Follow KSI on all plat... Hi Everyone And Welcome To My YouTube Channel... Feel Free To Subscribe If You Enjoyed My Content... I hope you enjoy the video! Please Like & Subscribe If You Did Enjoy :) DEEP CLEANING The Nastiest Car Ever! Complete Disaster Full Interior Car Detailing Transformation! - Duration: 28:44. Stauffer Garage Recommended for you I get trapped in a clothes stores here's what happened Leave a like if you enjoyed Subscribe down below •Social Media Instagram: @johnanthonyforeal Twitter: ... 🎵 Follow 7clouds on Spotify : http://bit.ly/7CLOUDS🎧 24KGoldn - Valentino (Lyrics)⏬ Download / Stream: http://smarturl.it/24kgoldnvalentino🔔 Turn on notif...

Casino Bender A Wake Up Call - SC2Strat.Net

casino bender a wake-up call

casino bender a wake-up call - win

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Jan. 28, 2002