The Mandalorian Wars go badly for the Republic; the enemy is vast and skilled at warfare, marshaling their resources and driving in from the Outer Rim with unparalleled skill and ferocity. The Republic is tottering and frayed at the edges while one of its most potent institutions, the Jedi Order, abstains from engaging this threat to the Republic itself.

Yet within the Order, there is a faction, mostly of younger, more idealistic Jedi, who maintain that they cannot simply sit by and watch the galaxy burn, that they must make a stand for the greater good and put a stop to the rampaging Mandalorian horde. These Jedi have a strong and compelling leader in the form of a man known as Revan, or the Revanchist who argues persuasively for intervention to save the Republic. Yet the Masters hold the Order back, arguing for nonintervention in what they view as merely a political affair. They stand apart, while the Galaxy slips out of control. They fear that if they get involved, it will be all too easy to slip to the Dark Side.

When a group of Jedi visit the planet of Cathar, devastated years ago by the Mandalorians, they experience a vision of massacre and wanton slaughter, and of a woman that tried to argue against the Mandalorian slaughter, ordered by Cassus Fett, of the defeated and helpless Cathars. Revan dons this woman's helmet and vows to come to the aid of the Republic; many younger Jedi who were wavering commit, and the older Masters relent in their neutrality to the degree that they grudgingly allow the Revanchists to enter the war as a "Mercy Corps" intended to provide battlefield support. Yet the young Jedi, so close to the fray, cannot help but commit once in it; for the sake of the Republic and innocent lives, they use the half-agreement of the Masters to enter the war...

The RP is about the fall of the Jedi under Revan, their experiences in the battles and the consequences of their choices. It is about wrestling with one's very soul and how the best of intentions often pave the path to Hell (or the Dark Side, in Star Wars.) The characters are likely to be Jedi Knights, perhaps even Padawans, and fairly young. They have not experienced true warfare on this scale, nor do they realize how it is going to change them. Much like the youth in the autumn of 1914, the first year of World War I, they are in for a shock to their entire being, a life-altering event that will mark them for the rest of their days.

Of course, those of you who have played Knights of the Old Republic, 1&2, know what is in store. We'll try to avoid foreshadowing too much or giving away spoilers.

Characters should be Jedi or Republic soldiers of varying races; I'm not entirely keen on the idea of droid characters, but if one can make a persuasive argument for having one, we'll see on a case by case basis. Characters cannot be highly experienced Jedi Knights that know warfare on this scale beyond, say, a theoretical basis, rooted in military history. No Jedi Masters. I'd like to try to keep the feel of this being a new and traumatic experience for the characters, so I'm going to scrutinize things carefully; a character may be used to chasing around bounty hunters or the occasional chase in a starfighter, or smuggling or dealing with what the peacetime Jedi deal with, but nothing's going to prepare them for the scale of death and destruction that comes with a war of galactic-scale mass mobilization.

The RP will definitely start with events right after the visions on Cathar, when the Jedi are just joining; the Republic troops are probably skeptical and bitter about the Jedi stance on non-involvement up to this point. The story arc will probably end with the Battle of Malachor V, that being the final battle. For the sake of those who don't know the KOTOR games, let's not spoil things.

The characters will probably be leaders of small NPC units or independent operators, specialists, basically. The exact nature of how this works will be determined if the RP proceeds into OOC.

The characters find themselves assigned to Intelligence, Reconnaissance and Special Operations Group (IRSOG) 37, a highly specialized unit that is used for a variety of unconventional operations; they are the first to land on a battlefield, securing high value targets, prepping the battlefield or acting as an elite spearhead in the various operations of the Republic Army. There is a high turnover, because the Mandalorians are extremely good warriors, even though they are mass-recruiting their 'Neo-Crusaders' these days.

The veterans of the IRSOGs have seen heavy fighting and are aware of the dangers inherent in their trade. They are at the tip of the spear, in the most extreme of circumstances and some of their missions resemble nothing if not suicide operations; many of the most motivated recruits have had their homes devastated by the Mandalorians, or lost loved ones. That is, of course, the non-Jedi, the ones that'd carried the war to this point.

With the entry of the Jedi into the war, the Mercy Corps Revan formed is technically supposed to provide battlefield support as healers and the such, and yet the line is blurred in the IRSOG unit where the missions are not always direct combat. But the Jedi are authorized to defend themselves, and a convenient circumvention of the restrictions the Masters placed on them is for a Jedi to find themselves in a combat situation. Of course, there is circumvention and downright disobedience.

For the Jedi, this is the first step into unfamiliar territory, actual resistance, in deed, to the Jedi Masters at the various temples. They are generally believers in the rightness of this course, perhaps the Force even tells them that this is the right thing to do, the course of compassion. Many of they younger Jedi chafe at the inaction of the Masters and yet, chafing and disobeying are two different things, particularly for rigorously disciplined Jedi.

These new arrivals are not greeted by open arms by their would-be comrades. They sat out much of the war, and the average line trooper does not understand or care much about Jedi politics; there is a split of opinion between relief and derision, a sort of 'about time you got here' attitude that runs the gamut from forgiveness to bitterness for previous Jedi inaction in the face of a Mandalorian menace that seems intent on swallowing the Republic whole.

IRSOG 37 faces these problems, as well as the other problems shared by the Republic Army as a whole; the integration of Jedi and their capabilities into their structure, the adaptation of command and control and tactics to this infusion of Jedi. For while there is bitterness about the Jedi, there is no doubt that even a handful of Jedi can change the course of a battle. Much as resentments may divide allies during the downtime, there is a greater enemy that looms.