Scoured Stars AP: Part 5

 Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Scoured Stars Adventure Path. 

See the Scoured Stars Adventure Path: Index page for links to all of my campaign journal blog posts for this AP.

Part 5: Reclaiming the Time-Lost Tear

We played Part 5 over two sessions due to time constraints.

Session 1

Last time, our heroes followed a lead in search of one of several relics originating from the Scoured Stars system. This relic matched the description of one that First Seeker Jadnura, leader of the ill-fated expedition to that system, had used to penetrate the energy shield around those stars. They discovered the izalguun, who had fled that system to be free of a tyrannical god. They had received the relic, but spurning all "godtouched" gifts, had sent it to a secret repository on the moon of another planet in the same system as their new home of Izalraan

The izalguun elder Naarma gave the Starfinder Society permission to attempt to retrieve the relic, and provided directions to the silo where it should be located. The PCs were chosen to go back to the Izal system to retrieve it.

Reaching the moon was routine, but while the Starfinders traveled from the nearest safe landing site to the silo, they were attacked by two faudius demons. These small, cyborg-like fiends had been sent by their mysterious masters to locate the site, but had chosen not to enter after detecting radiation within. They ambushed the PCs to try to prevent them from entering. This proved to be a challenging fight due to their demonic defenses and potent body lasers. 

[The demons had the PCs outgunned, literally, in both accuracy and damage, especially when they opened with a supercharge weapon ability. I ended up ignoring their DR 5/magical, to give the PCs a better chance of survival, because the demons' immunities and resistances made them difficult to damage with energy weapons, and their SR was a challenge for the technomancer.]

After defeating the demons, the PCs spent some time resting before continuing on to the silo. Inside the silo, the found a catwalk which had once been connected to an inner airlock by a bridge, now missing. Below was a long drop into thick smog. This was no obstacle to the PCs, who included two hanakans and an ikeshti with climb speeds, and a maraquoi with a jetpack (loot from their last mission). However, the door was trapped with turret guns, which the team quickly disabled, but not without some injuries.

When they opened the airlock, their radiation badges immediately pinged, as radiation inside the complex poured out into the silo. Gambit and Zzyssa resisted the initial exposure, but Sasha and Sssami were weakened by radiation poisoning. 

They explored the upper level of the repository. The first room of interest contained a sort of nest with shed feathers and skin that they determined contained izalguun DNA, but mutated somehow. Nearby their found the skeleton of a dead izalguun, wearing a strange visor that combined a motion detector with an x-ray scanner.

The next room was a research lab that had been deliberately wrecked. They managed to repair the mainframe, restoring power, but before they could hack into the files, they were interrupted by three defender robots entering the room. Thanks to a comprehend languages spell, they PCs were able to understand the machines' demands to present themselves for scanning. One of them recalled the DNA samples from the nest, which they had collected, and presented those. When that worked, the other three quickly did the same, after which the robots ignored them. [This avoided the fight entirely, and we broke for the night there.]

Session 2

The PCs hacked the mainframe, unlocking the complex's interior doors and turning on the lights. They also found the logs of a mated pair of izalguun who had been caretakers of this place. They found entries about the arrival of the relic, which gave off radiation that caused the caretakers' bodies to mutate and their minds to become more animalistic. The male managed to produce a cure, but before he could use it, his now-paranoid mate killed him and retreated to the lower level to prepare for the birth of their children. (All four PCs made their periodic saves vs. radiation poisoning during this time, so none suffered any worse effects.)

The most obvious passage to the lower level had collapsed since then, so the PCs had to make their way through a chamber with conveyor belts going down to a factory floor obscured by smoke. Their ability to climb or fly made this descent trivial, bypassing one trap without even knowing it and easily deactivating another hazard (pistons on the factory floor) without risk. 

[The first trap was a chute to a trash compactor, which afterwards would have deposited its victims at the bottom of the silo they had entered through--where a scavenger slime would have attacked them before any survivors of the trap could have treated their wounds. Because they did not search the conveyor belt, they did not find the discarded mutation cure, which eliminated the possibility of saving the mutants in the lower level. But I was just as happy not having to run two nasty encounters back-to-back, which could have easily brought the adventure to an abrupt, bloody end.]

The remainder of the lower level was flooded, and mostly consisted of a large chamber that had become a swamp-like pool, still dark due to smashed light fixtures. At the far end, a dim glow could be seen coming from a tear-shaped metal device--the relic the PCs sought! The made their way along the walls to avoid the water and the slimy catwalks that lined part of the room. Their presence was promptly detected by  three mutant, batrachian izalguun hiding in the pool, who attacked when the intruders approached the Tear. 

This was also a tough fight, because the mutants had an easy time hitting them with their tongue lash attack, and hit hard. Sasha was hit by adhesive spittle, and spent the rest of the combat entangled. The party soon worked out that their foes' spitting range was very limited, so mostly stayed out of range. However, Zzyssa (the vanguard) is much more effective in melee combat, so descended to engage one. She was soon grabbed by a tongue and knocked unconscious by two of the izalguun ganging up on the only target they could reach. One of the other PCs managed to deliver some healing to get her back in the fight (with more than the 1 HP she would have had if she had needed to spend a Resolve Point to do the same thing). As the second izalguun was being taken out, Sasha decided to fly down to the Tear to try to stuff it into a null-space chamber the team had found on the upper level. She was foiled momentarily by the relic being adhered to the floor with spittle, but she did get the last mutant's attention! Fortunately, Gambit and Zzyssa intercepted it, keeping it off Sasha while she cut the Tear loose with her laser, and the pair soon ended the fight. 

[I forgot to compare this adventure's stat blocks to the original scenario before running it. Fortunately, there were none of the "wrong subtier" issues from earlier parts of this AP. In the original scenario, the four-player adjustments would have removed one defense robot and one mutant izalguun.]

As the fight ended and the PCs began to search the room for other loot, a strange cloud with a glowing gold triangle at its center appeared for just a moment. [This is a mystery that will be explained later in the AP.] 

While the team collected anything of value from both levels, I asked them to make one last radiation save. Gambit and Zzyssa began to succumb to the radiation, and Sasha's condition deteriorated, as she began to sprout feathers and act more like a bird.  

The Starfinders returned to their ship, reported to Naarma on her species' new homeworld, then returned to Absalom Station with the Tear to report to First Seeker Luwazi Elsebo. They received treatment for their emerging mutations. 

[Sasha had reached the spliced condition stage of the magic radiation. Mental checks become harder at this point, but fortunately no more skill checks were required to finish the adventure. Sasha's player was given the choice of mammalian, avian, or batrachian traits, and chose avian because her hanakan allies' native language, Akan, uses moments of their arm and tail feathers. The team uses Akan as their "secret" language to communicate amongst themselves, despite two of them having atrocious "accents." After the adventure, Sasha wanted to keep the feathers so she would be more fluent. I've decided to allow it as a touch of cosmetic color with an interesting story behind it.]

The PCs were all interested in being part of the efforts to research the Tear. The Starfinder Society learned a few of the Tear's uses:

• A person could use the Tear to learn one language of any of the eight peoples to whom a Tear was sent. But they can only do this once each. (So far, they have only met the izalguun. Because the made friendly contact with that species, I am letting the PCs to also have access to the language through the Culture skill, if they choose.)
• A person could put an imprint of themselves into the device. Once per year, the Tear can be petitioned to return one creature with a stored imprint to life (as raise dead). 

Next time: Our heroes will join Luwazi Elsebo's expedition to the Scoured Stars system, where she will attempt to use the Tear to pierce the Godshield to rescue the Starfinders trapped within. [This will be the first of two multi-table special adapted to a single-party adventure, which makes them double-length scenarios. I anticipate it taking at least 3 sessions, but probably more likely to be four.]

Scoured Stars AP: Part 4

Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Scoured Stars Adventure Path. 

See the Scoured Stars Adventure Path: Index page for links to all of my campaign journal blog posts for this AP.

Part 4: On the Trail of History

We played Part 4 over two sessions due to time constraints.  

Session 1

Last time, our heroes discovered records in the Athaeum showing that eight groups had left the Scoured Stars system at some past date. Later, eight relics were sent out along those same trajectories. First Speaker Jadnura had found one of these relics, which had opened up access to the Scoured Stars. If the Society could find another, then they might be able to use it to reach the Starfinders trapped in that system.

A planet called Icefront lay along the path of one of these migrations, so the team was sent there to try to learn more about the relic and the people it was following. As they prepared for their mission, they learned from Ykris (who they had befriended during "The First Mandate") that a Triaxian megacorp named Frozen Trove was thought to be doing clandestine research in the area.

Scenario artwork and minis
for the izalguuns

When the Starfinders reached Icefront, they learned that it had a similar climate to Triaxus, and was currently in its long winter phase. It was inhabited by a species of Large bipeds with four arms, the lower pair of which was sometimes used for faster locomotion. Their ship was hailed by Dr. Monsylkis, the verthani leader of a Winterharvest research facility. Their talk with her was interrupted by the appearance of an unknown starship, which immediately attacked. 

This narrative starship combat was a more evenly-matched battle than their first one (see Part 1), but the PCs held the upper hand the whole time. The enemy's all-out attack failed the first round, while the PCs inflicted 2 hits (out of 5 HP). The next round, the enemy managed to hit, and their vandal drones did additional damage to the ship before the engineer neutralized them. After that, the unknown ship had to spend its turn repairing damage, which left it slightly more vulnerable (regain 2 HP, but its Threshold lowered by 1). They finished it off in the fourth round, with their ship still at 2 HP (out of 5). (See the Conversion Notes below for starship star blocks.)

Dr. Monsylkis, who was just as surprised by the attack as the PCs were, offered to help repair their ship, and give them a tour of her facility. They were accompanied at all times by the doctor and two other base personnel: Farvenzi, the dragonkin head of security, and Spinjack, the ryphorian chief of operations. The tour was an investigation encounter to learn more about the facility before Spinjack insisted that they go on their way. Some keys discoveries included:

• Some of the genetically engineered plants produced here were designed not for agriculture, but to reverse-engineer other companies' pharmaceuticals. Other plants had a strongly addictive effect on the lab's research animals.
• The computers and personal gear of base personnel was surprisingly expensive for a nonprofit.
• The facility included a climate-controlling weather station, which was used to provide a consistent, stable environment for their experiments. However, the scientists were abusing its use by trying to stave off the effects of the beginning of spring.
• Dr. Monsylkis seemed to be perfected sincere and dedicated to her research, while Farvenzi and Spinjack seemed to be hiding something. (The dragonskin and ryphorian were also oddly in sync with each other, suggesting they were a bonded pair with telepathy.)

Dr. Monsylkis was not able to provide any of the information the Starfinders sought about the relic that was sent here, but suggested that they talk with the izalguuns, the species that the PCs' scanners has picked up. The party decided to do this, got directions, and set out.

Soon after their entered the forest, they heard the sound of a fight. They found two izalguun hunters trying to fend off three agitated megafauna--a sort of long-necked giant sloth. They went to the izalguun's assistance, but the beasts proved extremely dangerous and hard to hurt, so both izalguun were badly mauled, and one survived only because the PCs finished off the last beast in time to give the hunter prompt medical attention. (The other had been down for a couple rounds longer, and was beyond help.)

The PCs (lower left) come across a battle between izalguun hunters
(yellow and green bases) and megzoloths (Huge pawns)

After the fight, another group of izalguun approached, led by an elder named Naarma who, unexpectedly, spoken flawless Common. She thanked the Starfinders for their efforts to save the hunters, and rewarded them with a paid of tactical knives and three thermal capacitors--another surprise, given the way the PCs had been told tat the izalguuns were "simple and quaint" creatures. The PCs had many questions, but Naarma asked them to come with her to their tribe's home before answering any of them.

The fight with the megafauna (megzoloths) proved very challenging, as they were high CR for this level, with high AC, attack bonuses, and damage. Because the players were struggling to inflict damage, I reduced their HP by a third, and let the PCs stabilize one of the fallen izalguun when someone reached its side the round after it was dropped to 0 HP (which normally kills anything lacking Resolve Points). After the session, I compared the encounter with the original SFS scenario (#1-13), and found an error in adapting that scenario for the AP: In the original, the PCs face 2 megzoloths at levels 3-4, or 3 at levels 5-6. The AP version makes this part a 4th-level mission, so there should have only been 2 of the beasts. The final fight (next session) appears to use the correct subtier's stat blocks, but I'll be comparing both versions more carefully in future scenarios in this AP. (Note also that the AP does not include any scaling adjustments, as it assumes a party of four PCs. However, in the original, a party of 4 players would have a third izalguun to help balance the fight.)

After the battle: 3 dead megzoloths; 1 dead and 1 dying izalguun.

Session 2

Naarma led the Starfinders to her camp, which was composed of temporary shelters and earthen ziggurats, and populated by izalguun using archaic-looking tools and wearing furs. A closer look, however, revealed that the camp was laid out to optimize access and defense, and the izalguuns' gear incorporated advanced materials. 

Naarma took them inside one of the ziggurats, where the PCs discovered she had pharmaceuticals on par with those of the Pact Worlds, and that the building seemed to be a disguised starship medical bay. The elder showed them an izalguun patient suffering withdrawal symptoms from ingesting some of the plants modified by the Frozen Trove research station. She believed she had identified how to treat the addiction, but lacked the resources to keep pace with the station's output. The elder was cagey about how she knew so much about the station's activities, and how much she knew about the artifact the Starfinders sought. But she was willing to share what she knew on one condition: that the Frozen Trove outpost be removed from this world, which her people call Izalraan. They agreed to this, thinking that Dr. Monsylkis, at least would see reason.

While resting at the camp, the party watched some izalguun playing a sport involving passing a discus. Sasha and Zzyssa asked to join in, and their athletic abilities allowed them to each successfully score a point in the game, gaining the other players' respect. The team captain even took Sasha's rifle and tinkered with the sights to give a bonus to hit targets with cover. [This was a temporary advantage, lasting the duration of this adventure.]

Soon enough, the Starfinders had to return to the research outpost. As they approached the weather station, the security guards there hailed them, claiming Dr. Monsylkis was inside and wished to see them. This was an obvious lie, and one of the PCs noticed one of the three guard talking into his comm unit. But the party went along with the ruse long enough to get better positions for fighting back. The PCs took a few hits but quickly killed or knocked out all three enemies. [The security guards were not a serious threat, being a few levels below the PCs, and outnumbered, but were there merely to soften up the Starfinders before the final battle.]

However, the guards' bosses had been alerted. The Starfinders soon spotted the dragonkin Farvenzi flying towards the weather station from the main installation, with her rhyphorian partner Spinjack on her back. Because the PCs had defeated the guards so quickly [in less then 3 rounds], they had a moment or two to prepare for this next fight. 

During that first fight, Gambit had found the scaffold tower easy to climb, but had trouble holding on when shooting, and fell off. [Their climb speed negated the need for an Athletics check, but an Acrobatics check was needed to keep their footing on the icy tower while doing any other actions.] While waiting for the dragon to arrive, Gambit climbed the tower and tied themself in place so they wouldn't fall.. Meanwhile, the others spread out along the walls and courtyard.

Fighting Farvenzi and Spinjack
(pawns) at the scaffold tower

Farvenzi landed in the courtyard between the nearest wall and the tower, allowing her to threaten both Gambit and Sssami, who stood in the courtyard. Zzyssa rushed into melee with the dragon, flanking her with their fellow hanakan. Meanwhile, Sssami retreated out of melee reach to hurl spells, and Sasha kept up firing her rifle and directing her teammates [using get 'em]. The Starfinders focused fire on the dragon--the biggest threat of the pair--and knocked her out within a few rounds, though she mauled a couple of the PCs pretty well before she fell. Spinjack refused to surrender, and moved around the compound as best he could while fighting, until he was cornered and killed. 

[I forgot until a couple rounds into the combat that dragonkin are immune to fire, and a couple PCs had been using laser weapons. I decided to just ignore the immunity, because it was a tough enough fight without try to retcon that.]

While the Starfinders were still binding their wounds, disarming their fallen foes, and tying up the unconscious dragon, Dr. Monsylkis arrived on the scene and was quite upset by the violence. The PCs presented their evidence that Winterharvest was a Frozen Trove front, that her research was being used for nefarious purposes, and that the local wildlife was being harmed as a result. Their persuasion resulted in the verthani scientist not only agreeing to leave the planet with all her staff, but asking about how to join the Starfinders' organization instead.

Another view of the fight. The red die tracks Gambit's height on the tower (3 squares = 15 ft.) while the Glyph of the Open Road die is a reminder of Sasha's get 'em target. 

In thanks for the Starfinders' help, Naarma provided them with a handwritten star chart showing the location of a moon orbiting another planet in the same solar system. The relic they seek was sent to a secret facility hidden inside the moon. However, the site was designed so that the relic would never be found, so the PCs should proceed with caution. She would not elaborate further, but expressed her hope that the izalguuns' technologically advanced status would remain a secret. The Starfinders pointed out that they would have to report everything to their superiors, but promised to recommend that her people's wishes be respected. 

The team was true to their word when they returned to Absalom Station to report to Luwazi Elsebo. The nominated First Seeker agreed, and showed some concern about Frozen Trove. She felt it likely that the megacorp would eventually learn the Starfinders were responsible for foiling this operation, but hoped they would refrain from retaliation rather than risk drawing more attention to their illegal activities.

During downtime, the PCs heard reports of more attacks across Near Space and the Vast, from mysterious ships matching the description of the one that attacked them near Icefront. These raiders seem to be scouting dozens of systems. 

Next time: Our heroes will return to the Izal system to attempt to recover the Scoured Stars relic from the izalguuns' secret repository.

*****

Conversion Notes: See my post about Part 1 for a discussion about converting Starfinder Society ships. This time, the party chose the Pegasus, which has an improved Computer bonus at this tier. Stat blocks for Tier 4 starships are as follows: 

DRAKE (TIER 4)

Average DC 16; Hard DC 21

HP 5

Skill Modifiers +1 to any three checks per round

PEGASUS (TIER 4)

Average DC 16; Hard DC 21

HP 5

Skill Modifiers +2 to any two checks per round; +4 Computers; +1 Piloting

And here is my converted start block for the ship that ambushes the Starfinders' ship upon their arrival at Icefront:

UNKNOWN STARSHIP (TIER 4)
Average DC 16; Hard DC 21
HP 5; Threshold 2
Skill Bonus +12

Special Abilities
Vandal Drones: When this weapon does a hit to a ship, the shrapnel animates into drones that continue to damage the hull. Each successive round, the struck starship suffers 1 additional hit until the engineer makes a Hard engineering check or the pilot makes a Hard Piloting check to remove the drones. 
Self-Destruct System. 

 

Note: This ship's  original stat block includes the Reversible quality, which gives a bonus to Piloting for the Flip and Burn stunt. Given the more abstract tactical positioning of narrative starship combat, this ability has no effect.

Scoured Stars AP: Parts 2 and 3

Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Scoured Stars Adventure Path. 

See the Scoured Stars Adventure Path: Index page for links to all of my campaign journal blog posts for this AP.  (Note: Part 1 has been updated to add narrative starship combat stat blocks for the Drake and Pegasus.)

Part 2: The First Mandate

In this adventure, Luwazi Elsebo and Radaszam ask the PCs to attend a gala at which the First Seeker will make an important speech. Their primary job will be to influence certain guests who have instrumental in the Starfinder Society's recovery from the losses of the Scoured Stars incident.

The influence encounter featured 5 NPCs, including two important Starfinders (Venture-Captain Naiaj and Forum member Royo); undead media mogul Zo!; Ykris, representative of a biotech company; and Iteration-177 of the Aspis Consortium. Our heroes struggled at first to learn what skills would be useful to influence these dignitaries, and never did learn any of the mysterious android Iteration-177's personal foibles. However, they did do better in the second half of the encounter, and just barely managed to fully influence all five in the allotted time. 

[Those who had played this adventure before were shocked that they managed to influence Iteration-177, as they assumed this would be more  difficult than the others. However, the DCs were the same across the board, and they just had poor dice luck with the Apsis agent until very near the end.]

The highlight of the encounter was Gambit's interactions with Ykris, who was a symbiotic parasite bonded with a half-elven host. As an evolutionist, Gambit was keenly interested in augmentations (though their own are strictly cybernetic) and proved to be knowledgeable and entertaining on the subject. Gambit also leapt at the chance to experience the symbiotic relationship for themself, very briefly (earning an automatic success).

Once that portion of the ball was done, Radaszam approached the PCs to help him investigate a potential threat to the event. He had reason to believe that a dangerous assassin known as Triloteya was on the station, and that they might intend to target someone at the gala. His sources had provided an address, and the PCs went to check it out. They found a workshop guarded by a shock-trapped door and two electrovores. Once they dealt with these defenses, they found ample evidence of the assassin's plan to target the First Speaker at the gala, using explosives.

Conferring with Radsaszam on the way back, the PCs were given the choice of whether to deal with the assassin while the vesk's Obsidian Spiders dealt with the bombs, or to split the party to try to tackle both threats at once (riskier, but potentially earning more glory for the Starfinders). They decided on the latter, but soon discovered that the two technically-oriented PCs lacked the Perception skills to find the bombs quickly. (Nobody in this party is outstanding at Perception.) I allowed them to change plans on the fly, and call in Radaszam's team to deal with the explosives while those two PCs joined the others in confronting the assassin. Despite the close quarters of the audio-visual booth, Triloteya proved to be hard to pin down thanks to her operative training. The PCs did finally manage to take her down just as she tried to flee the area, and kept her distracted enough to not set off the explosives (which the Obsidian Spiders finished defusing a few rounds later).

With the threat averted--very publicly--Luwazi was able to make her speech. She announced that the primary goal of her tenure as First Seeker would be researching the Scoured Stars, in the hopes of rescuing the Starfinders trapped there. And the PCs would be just the right team for the first mission toward that end...

Part 3: In Pursuit of the Scoured Past

The First Seeker tasked the PCs with escorting Royo to the mysterious library world of Athaeum, which stores knowledge that exists nowhere else, to seek information about the Scoured Stars. They were offered a ride there by Iteration-177, who was already acquainted with the Curators of Athaeum. 

During the voyage through the Drift, Iteration-177 invited the PCS to dinner with their other guests, two Helknights of the Order of the Pyre. The android owned a pencibiter, a device that translated memories and thoughts into food, and they asked each guest to contribute a memory to share. The memories that the Starfinders chose to share were: 

• Sasha: The memory of her death, on the job when she worked for a mob boss. (Tasted fiery and spicy; choleric.)
• Zzyssa: The first time that they were punched in the face during a dance-off (a popular way to settle disputes among hanakans). (Lemony/citrusy taste; sanguine.)
• Sssami: The hatching of his children, after the violence involved in ikeshti mating. (Eggy taste, happy but bittersweet; sanguine.)
• Gambit: They were shunned by their people for becoming obsessed with technology (which  most hanakans strongly distrust). However, this led to them being able to be themself. (Phlegmatic.)

[The italicized descriptors will have an effect later in this adventure path. For now, the PCs only know that the choice had some importance, but not why yet.]

The PCs also experienced memories from Royo (a dry taste and smell of enjoying reading old books) and the two Hellknights: One underwent an ordeal of fire, emerging unscathed. The other was some kind of fiery fiend who inhabited the armor of a Hellknight who died during the ritual that summoned him.

At the Athaeum, each of the three groups (the Starfinders, Iteration-177, and the Hellknights) were met by an axiomite Curator, who reviewed the rules of accessing the archives. One fundamental rule was that no copy of any kind could be made of the knowledge found here, but an exception would be made for information on the Scoured Stars, because the Curators had learned that their copies were no longer the only ones in existence. [As explained in a sidebar, this was a change to the original adventure to fix some plot holes relating to why the PCs were allowed to copy the information they sought to take elsewhere.] The Athaeum teleports from place to place, but had suffered some damage in its most recent transit, so the Curator requested that the PCs do a couple of tasks for them, in exchange for a reduction in the astronomical fee to access the vaults. 

The first issue involved a machine virus that had breached containment and infected some of the library's mechanical guardians. These needed to be destroyed, and the virus downloaded so that it could be safely stored once more. The PCs fought the two constructs, taking a number of injuries from the lore wardens' spells, but prevailed and then easily downloaded the virus for storage. They then rested for a while before continuing. Sasha made the mistake of trying to examine some scrolls floating in special containers in the room, and suffered some Wisdom damage as a result. (Her player played up the fact that Sasha now had only an effective Wisdom of 5 by making her brashly overconfident and eager to be in the thick of things for the remainder of the adventure.) 

The second task required them to track down a ksarik that had escaped its cage, and needed to be returned there. The PCs managed this with minimal harm. 

With the tasks completed, they were able to proceed to the vault containing data on the Scoured Stars. This data was stored in a mindmaze, a psychic device that allowed characters to enter the maze on its surface. Ssamai and Sasha entered the mindmaze, while Royo, Gambit, and Zzyssa provided guidance from outside. They reached the center quickly, without taking any psychic strain, and were treated to a vision of the history of the Scoured Stars--including one detail that Royo thought was a significant lead. 

Almost immediately after completing the mindmaze challenge, the Curator sent a message requesting help. The Hellknights were burning books in one of the library's vaults. The PCs rushed to stop them, being both outraged by the destruction and eager to have their access fee reduced even further.

Fighting the Hellknight arsonists

They reached a vault where two Hellknights guarded the entrance,  while two others and Loomarch (the fiend) burned books in the chamber below. This was a long, grueling fight that pushed our heroes to the limit. Here are a few highlights:

• Sssami cast holographic console to clone the controls to the fire-suppressing cryo-nozzles (located on the other side of the two Hellknights at the entrance), and spent most of the fight putting out fires and dealing cold damage to Hellknights in the line's path. (One Hellknight was knocked out solely, or very nearly so, by repeated blasts from the nozzles.)
• Sasha headed down into the chamber below fairly early on, and played cat and mouse with a couple of the Hellknights there. (She has the combat expertise alternate class feature for envoys, but Hellknights have high Intimidate scores to resist demoralizing, so she rarely did as much damage as she hoped to.) 
• After trading blows with the Hellknights at the entrance for a few rounds, Zzyssa moved down into the lower room to face off with Loomarch. They managed to land a couple critical hits on the fiend, but then the devil grabbed them in its claws. They easily made the saves to avoid losing a limb to Loomarch's incinerating maw, but suffered enough fire damage to go unconscious within two rounds of being grabbed.
• Gambit used their climb speed to mostly keep out of the range of the Hellknights' flamethrowers and pikes. This left them with fewer wounds than the vanguard or envoy, which meant they were able to played a key part in taking down Loomarch late in the fight, when Zzyssa was running out of HP and time.
• The cyro-nozzles had very little effect on Loomarch (despite being a fiery being, it was also cold-resistant) so Sasha did not engage. (Her longarm does cold damage, and she did not like her changes in melee against it.) Instead, she gave some inspiring boosts to her allies and pumped healing serums into Zzyssa to keep the hanakan vanguard standing a little longer. 
• Sssami joined the fight once the lesser Hellknights were taken out, and cast spells at Loomarch. Gambit also moved closer to harass the devil, but got a bit too close, and became its next target after Zzyssa was taken out. A critical hit seriously wounded the hanakan evolutionist, and threatened more pain, except that Sssami took down Loomarch with a junk shards spell before it could try to incinerate any of Gambit's limbs.

With the Hellknight threat ended, the Curators happily waived the Starfinders' fee, and the team was able to leave with a new lead: the path of a relic similar to the one First Seeker Jadnura had discovered and used to enter the Scoured Stars. If they could recover that second relic, perhaps they could use it to reunite with the lost Starfinders. 

Next time: "On the Trail of History," in which our heroes will follow the trail of the strange relic.

Loomarch, unique devil Hellknight

[Update 11/30/2024: Gambit's player has decided to name their evolutionist's augmentations after X-Men: their datajack is Charles, thrusters are Storm, and voice amplifier is Banshee.]

Scoured Stars Adventure Path: Index

This page will collect links to each installment of my campaign journal for the Scoured Stars Adventure Path (Starfinder 1st Edition). 

Spoiler Warning: Unsurprisingly, these posts contain numerous spoilers for the AP. 

• Session Zero and Part 1 (Level 1; 4/22/2024): Meet our heroes; "The Commencement."
• Parts 2 and 3 (Levels 2-3; 7/22/2034): "The First Mandate"; "In Pursuit of the Scoured Past"
• Part 4 (Level 4; 11/30/2024): "On the Trail of History"
• Part 5 (Level 5; 12/28/2024): "Reclaiming the Time-Lost Tear"
• "The Scoured Stars Invasion"
• "Truth of the Seeker"
• "Treading History's Folly"
• "Heart of the Foe"
• "Honorbound Emissaries"
• "The Herald's War"
• "Fate of the Scoured God"

Other useful links for reference:

• Scoured Stars Adventure Path: Paizo product page.
• Narrative Starship Combat: We are using these alternate rules from Starfinder Enhanced.

Our heroes:

• Gambit: hanakan, evolutionist (mechanized niche), street magician; ship's gunner. 
• Sasha: borai maraquoi, enhanced envoy, bouncer; ship's pilot. (Multi-classed into solarian at 5th level.)
• Sssami Kuppa: ikeshti, enhanced technomancer, tinker; ship's engineer. (Junkomancer archetype at 2nd level.)
• Zzyssa: hanakan, vanguard, personal trainer; ship's captain. 

Update May 2026: We paused this campaign at the end of 2024 in order to participate in the playtest for Starfinder Second Edition. My group has proven much more enthusiastic about 2E than 1E, so it seems highly unlikely that we will resume Scoured Stars unless one of us is ambitious enough to convert it to 2E--a task which I confess that I find more than a little daunting. Even just converting the PCs to 2E would require a great deal of development work, because hanakans, evolutionists, and vanguards have not yet been published for the new edition.

Scoured Stars Adventure Path: Session Zero and Part 1

Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Scoured Stars Adventure Path. 

See the Scoured Stars Adventure Path: Index page for links to all of my campaign journal blog posts for this AP. 

Earlier this year, Paizo released the Scoured Stars Adventure Path, which repackages the primary story arc from Season 1 of Starfinder Society into a level 1-15 campaign. This story line sees the Starfinder Society struggling to recover from a recent disaster: the loss of the majority of their ships and personnel in a massive expedition to the mysterious Scoured Stars system. Over the course of the twelve adventures that make up this AP, the PCs start as newly trained recruits but quickly become central to the Society's investigations of what happened in the Scoured Stars, their return to the system to rescue any survivors, and the resulting conflict with an aggressive new enemy that intends to reclaim the system for themselves.

I have played all twelve of the original Starfinder Society scenarios that make up this "metaplot" arc, and GMed a few of them myself. Some of them are among my favorite organized play experiences, so this book was an easy sell for me. Some of the players in my home group have played many of them as well, but none of us have played them in any coherent order with the same characters throughout, so much of this treatment will still be novel to them.

We had a "session zero" to work out characters a few weeks ago. For the AP, I decided to allow most of the species on the "always available" list for Society play, minus a few species that were first introduced during this arc, or who were first encountered in later seasons. This still allowed for a very unusual mix of characters, and the resulting party was made up of species that nobody in our group had played before. Our heroes are:

• Sasha, borai maraquoi, envoy, bouncer; ship's pilot. This character's concept was inspired by the "space monkey mafia" line from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." She is a borai who used to be a maraquoi in life. This isn't one of the standard choices for the undead borai, so we decided that the species trait she would retain was prehensile tail. 
• Gambit, hanakan, evolutionist, street magician; ship's gunner. Hanakan are magical raptor-like aliens who normally distrust and avoid technology, but Gambit is a (literally) shocking exception: a mechanics evolutionist, who becomes part robot as they mutate during combat.
• Zzyssa, hanakan, vanguard, personal trainer; ship's captain. Zzyssa is a little more typical of their species, except for the fact that they're a Small species filling the the front line/tank role. 
• Sssami Kuppa, ikeshti, enhanced technomancer, tinker; ship's engineer. Having survived his species' brutal mating cycle, Sssami left Akiton to seek his fortune on a less impoverished world. 

Sasha (L) and Gambit (R)

Our group frequently play characters who all learn an unusual language they can all use when they wish to talk amongst themselves without being understood by outsiders. For the Against the Aeon Throne AP, it was Eoxian (common in the Pact Worlds, not so much in Azlanti space). This time, with two hanakan PCs, they choose that species' native language, Akan.

This past weekend, we started the campaign proper by playing the first adventure, "The Commencement." In this adventure, the PCs have just finished their training as Starfinders, which has been accelerated due to the urgent need for more field agents. They are asked to perform some tasks for the leaders of the four of the most prominent factions (Acquisitives, Dataphiles, Exo-Guardians, and Wayfinders). 

In the original scenario, the Acquisitives mission involves a junk-cycle race that, in practice, frequently runs much longer then the other missions due to the number of skill checks and NPCs involved. For the AP, this was replaced with a starship combat from another scenario, which introduces an NPC who will reappear later in the AP. Starship combat is not my group's favorite subsystem of the rules, as it is frequently time-consuming, and characters who aren't pilots or gunners are regularly overshadowed. With this in mind, I decided that we would try the narrative starship combat rules in Starfinder Enhanced. These were new to us, because they aren't used in Society play, but for an AP, GMs have much more latitude to make changes for their own games. These rules promised to make combats more fun because they were vastly simplified and because every crew role has a more equal opportunity to contribute to victory. 

This adventure's starship combat was an honorable duel rather than a deadly encounter, so it made for a good test for the rules, before the stakes get higher in later missions. This first trial proved to be not just a resounding success, but a quick and flawless victory! The enemy ship failed its skill roll to attack, while the PCs had large enough success margins on their checks to force a surrender after one round. It took much longer to explain the (fairly simple) rules than to play out the combat. I don't expect the PCs to ever have it that easy in the future, but it was definitely more fun to run and play than the standard starship combat rules, which are my and my group's least favorite part of the game--especially when both sides are so evenly matched that the battle becomes a tedious slog of attrition.

None of the other three missions were nearly that easy, but they performed well on them, only achieving less than complete success on one (recruiting a hacker for the Dataphiles by faking their death). However, they did well enough to not lose out on any rewards.

Monster hunt in a warehouse intended for conversion into the Exo-Guardians' new base.

My mini for the feather stalker, a crinoid-like alien.

All my players seemed to enjoy the game a great deal, and are looking forward to the rest of the AP. Apart from GMing occasional PFS (1E) and SFS scenarios, this is the first campaign I've run in a few years. I've definitely been missing being in the GM's seat for a long-term game, so I'm excited to be running this one.

Next time: "The First Mandate," in which our heroes try to impress some dignitaries at a gala while helping out with security for the event. 

*****

Conversion Notes: For those who are interested, here is the Honorbound's stat block, converted for narrative starship combat following the guidelines in Starfinder Enhanced:

HONORBOUND (TIER 1)

Average DC 11; Hard DC 16

HP 5; Threshold 2

Skill Bonus +7

The Honorbound has no Special Abilities. Yuluzak will surrender after his ship has been reduced to 2 HP or less.

And here are the stat blocks for the party's options at this Tier:

DRAKE (TIER 2)

Average DC 13; Hard DC 18

HP 5

Skill Modifiers +1 to any three checks per round 

 

PEGASUS (TIER 2)

Average DC 13; Hard DC 18

HP 5

Skill Modifiers +1 to any two checks per round; +2 Computers; +1 Piloting

Note that the amount of simplification required for the narrative starship combat rules makes the differences between these two models' armor, weapons, and shields largely irrelevant unless they deviate significantly from the tier's norm. This is a significant change from the standard starship combat rules, where the Pegasus excels in speed, maneuverability, and sensors, but the Drake has heavier weapons and defenses. Here, the only real distinction between the two are the skill modifiers from their computers, sensors, and thrusters. (IIRC, my group chose the Drake this time out because they could use its skill bonuses on any of their checks.) At the highest tiers, the Pegasus will outperforms the Drake in all ways thanks to its superior computers and thrusters giving it more generous skill bonuses.

*****

[Edited 7/11/2024 to add the spoiler warning, a link to the Index page, and stat blocks for the Drake and Pegasus.]