A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 5–8.
The Exo-Guardians faction once maintained an impressive fortress known as Sangoro's Bulwark. Years ago, mysterious forces assaulted the bulwark, and the location was thought forever lost—until now. The Starfinder Society selects the PCs to launch an initial foray back to the area around Sangoro's Bulwark, in hopes of retrieving a cache of deadly weapons the Exo-Guardians had guarded before the fortress fell. Can the PCs discover the lost weapons before they fall into the wrong hands?
This is such a boring mod. The traps are annoying and pedantic. Worse since this entire mod has such a high difficulty for skill challenges the worse you do with the traps the worse the module becomes. Once again Piazo has designed a module that is terrible for society play. It's extremely hard for a pick up group to complete as you can't count on having an operative who can handle the high skill difficulties. Unavoidable traps, punitive traps that devastated parties for not being able to handle skill challenges. Add in rewards that are gated behind certain boons, and credits and equipment that are destroyed by traps. Well, I found it to be a mess of bad tuning and would not recommend it.
I played The Stumbling Society, Part 1: Sangoro's Lament via play-by-post with my skittermander Steward character, Officer Swizzers. The scenario is an important part of the Season Two metaplot, but also ties up a nice loose end from a very early SFS scenario. It's fair to say that it boils down to a (space) dungeon crawl with limited role-playing opportunities with NPCs. However, the scenario is atmospheric and the background story is integrated well into the action and exploration. The result is a solid (and reasonably difficult) scenario.
SPOILERS!:
Jump with me back in time, if you will, to a simpler world! The year is 2017, no one has ever heard of Covid-19, and in the first wave of SFS scenarios is # 1-04: Cries from the Drift. Although at the time discussion of the scenario focussed on how difficult it was to kill an incorporeal monster if the party lacked the right weapons, an important SFS story element was introduced in the adventure's background. Prior to the Scoured Stars Incident, the Exo-Guardians maintained a massive fortress-armory called Sangoro's Bulwark (after the faction's founder, who discovered it). But when so many of the faction's members were lost in the Scoured Stars, the few remaining members of the Bulwark were overwhelmed by a mysterious threat and all contact (and even the location) of the base was lost. In Cries from the Drift, the PCs collect data from the sole ship to escape the Bulwark and return it to Lorespire Complex in the hope that somehow, the location of the Bulwark can be reassembled.
Now, that time has come! After intensive work, the Dataphiles have managed to learn the location of the Bulwark: a planet in the Vast called Mazdrun. In the scenario briefing, Zigvigix (leader of the Exo-Guardians) explains that the Society can't afford to send a full, highly-visible assault force to the Bulwark because of how much scrutiny the organisation is under recently. But, it can send a smaller force to the Arsenal, a satellite site near the Bulwark that was used for research and training purposes. From the PCs' perspective, their mission is very straightforward: get to the Arsenal and secure it. As an aside, I'll mention that the briefing is held at the Nest, the just-renovated warehouse HQ of the Exo-Guardians in the site secured by the PCs in # 1-01: The Commencement. I love it when little story nuggets from previous scenarios pay off!
The journey through the Vast is event-free, apart from the usual foreshadowing of a future scenario. Surprisingly, Zigvigix comes along on the ship (though not on the mission)--perhaps this pays off in Part 2? I'm not sure.
The rest of the scenario involves exploring the 14 rooms in the Arsenal. There are multiple traps to overcome and some dangerous monsters (an apari hive, special radiation-themed moonflowers) that were being experimented on at the time the place shut down. In addition, a barachius angel (devoted to safeguarding dangerous technology) named Negator-XIII has lost most of its memories and has to be carefully negotiated with (through a sort of role-playing skills challenge) or it will turn violent. As they explore, the PCs will find some scattered clues about what happened to the Arsenal and the Bulwark, but not enough to really put a full picture together. I'm not going to review the individual encounters, but I'll just say as a whole that they're fun, fit the story well, and are tough but fair.
What the PCs won't know, until a great reveal late in the scenario, is that Datch (a ysoki devotee of Lao Shu Po) has already been to the Arsenal and looted it! Not only that, her tap on SFS communications gave her the foreknowledge to leave some traps behind, including a cursed idol that could make the PCs gradually more and more suspicious and paranoid as they explore. For some players, this will just be some bland negative modifiers, but with a good group, some really fun role-playing could result. And Datch really twists the knife when the PCs finally get to the treasure vault and discover a single credit stick containing . . . six credits (one for each of them)! The scenario does a great job of making players hate Datch, which is important for the season meta-plot to succeed.
I don't want to overstate my review: there are limits to what can be done within a dungeon crawl structure, and there's definitely a "enter a chamber, deal with threat, search for clues or loot, and then do it all again at the next chamber" playstyle for the scenario. But within that framing, this was a solid, enjoyable scenario, and I'm looking forward to Part 2.
I really liked this one. It *sort of* furthers the ongoing storyline and reintroduces a character that the players have likely run into before.
The narrative is great. Afterall the society is being accused of being a militant organization, and here they are heading over to a military-like base to recover weapons! As one of the NPC's brings up, why would the Society, supposedly so focused on exploration, need such weapons?
Surprisingly light on combat for what's more or less a straightforward dungeon. But with a pretty neat skill challenge, the potential of some persisting afflictions for the players to deal with, and a cool end fight with multiple moving parts in it (even if it almost got one shot by an operative's crit...)
Oh and the complete end, the very last little bit with the credit. Yeah. Great. Amazing. A+
I have just played it, and while my mood might change a bit after prepping and running it...this is not was I was looking for when I heard about a scenario that is attached to this storyline.
Maybe it was because I was not using my Exo Guardian, since the table was mostly level 5s and 6s, and coming with a level 8 would be a bit of a Richard relocation. Maybe.
There are some things I really did not love:
Spoilers:
- The first encounter was basically just a relatively boring fight against an escaped creature, it did not really tell a very interesting story.
- The curse just made the things pretty damn unpleasant, particularly since most characters left the location after the first time when the operative wanted to open something that looked like it would trigger.... the fact that this kind of tactic works, and splits the party really bothers me.
The trap is kind of connected, honesty with the curse and the damage... it is not necessarily bad, it just feels that way. SFS already seems to have some pretty high DCs to challenge some classes like operatives (at least if feels that way) but if you feel like you really can't contribute since you fail to roll pretty high... not a great experience if I am honest.
The curse was ended not that much later, but honestly all pretty anticlimactic. The final encounter was a bit more interesting but it kind of ends in a bit of a disappointment.
It is not necessarily a bad scenario, and I still need to run and play it, but it feels a bit like a bait and switch with the connection to this season's plot kinda cheapens it a bit.
Or maybe that makes it better, depending on your point of view.
If you want to find out more about the lost Headquarters, this will not tell you much, it might advance the plot a bit, but I was left a bit disappointed.
Usually, this would be a pretty solid 3 stars, though I realize that this is very personal feedback... unfortunately the way one boon was gated behind having slotted the Exo Guardian boon, and having reached the 2nd rep tier... honestly that just feels like a step back.
Reducing the rating to 2 stars feels a bit unfair, but I was pretty unhappy with this.
Also, the dropping of hints for further scenarios is really kinda getting old, it only seems to distract players from the current scenario.
Will update this one after I have run it, that might help.
This adventure really was completely excellent. Getting to explore a unique locale like Sangoro's Bulwark (or at least one of its outlying warehouses) and getting to experience a very living and vibrant area which had such a distinct and memorable history.
The combats and social encounters - yes the rare dungeon crawl with a great social encounter - were all very well constructed and memorable. The final fight was a true challenge and had my players sweating as they gutted out a victory.
It also advanced the meta-plot and the final moments were such an effective tease of what is to come!
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Mike Kimmel
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
Has there been any allowance made for being able to play 2-08 after this if you level to 9 from 2-06? If we expect xp to be evenly distributed we should have one player at every other table of this leveling out of being able to do what seems like it is the second half of a story. Feels like a design issue with an otherwise neat idea.
Has there been any allowance made for being able to play 2-08 after this if you level to 9 from 2-06? If we expect xp to be evenly distributed we should have one player at every other table of this leveling out of being able to do what seems like it is the second half of a story. Feels like a design issue with an otherwise neat idea.
No special allowance. When we present multi-part scenarios, we know that some people may level out of them, but there's not really an easy solution to that issue. If you are interested in experiencing a full story arc with the same character, we recommend playing earlier parts with a character that is not at the maximum level for the tier.
That makes sense, just wanted to make sure there wasn't a loophole. It does seem that you could get around this by making the second module one tier higher, though clearly that comes at the cost of delaying the ability to play the second half for a different (and larger) subset of the players. Don't envy you the decision between two awkward cases.
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