PbP - GeekDad Crew Takes on Claim to Salvation!

Game Master RyanH

Here is where game-play will happen.

Let's play some STARRRRFINNNDERRRR!!

For this scenario the iconic pregens are not—at least not yet—Starfinders, and instead represent intrepid mercenaries hired for a single mission.

The band of mercenaries arrive at the Lorespire Complex on Absalom Station, where they await the arrival of their contact, a woman named Luwazi Elsebo. The room is a lavish meeting space, with several couches and a central table. Luwzi Elsebo has contacted the rag-tag team for a secretive mission.

As they wait, they look around at each other ....

Obozaya a vesk soldier
Navasi a human envoy
Raia a lashunta technomancer
?

Through some witty banter everyone gets to know each other a little better...

Everybody post to confirm I have the iconic in use correct, also introduce everyone to your character and a little about your capabilities as you understand them. It's a good time to ask any questions about how your character functions in the discussion tab. How would you classify your character, Tank? Striker? Etc

This is...nice? Where are the drinks? Obozaya requires beverages!
turns to Navasi
You! Human! I bet you can't guess how many goblins I killed on my last op! Go ahead, guess! Their heads make such funny popping sounds when I cleave their helmets!

Aw, bless your heart, Scales. Guess what reptile my boots are made out of.

Obozaya likes you, tiny little thing. You're...what? Some kind of errand girl?
Grabs a glowing drink out of the hand of a passing damaya lashunta, giving him a lurid wink that uses her entire face. She drinks it all in one smooth motion and exhales loudly
I'll make sure you die last

Sure... something like that
Grabs a drink that is boiling and also on fire. Downs it in one swallow and blows some smoke rings.

Raia plops down on the couch, putting her feet up and laying back. She feigns yawning out of boredom as she casts Dancing Lights and "juggles" the balls of light over her head.

She then secretly uses her Detect Thoughts ability, "listening" for Luwazi or anything else interesting.

Any ideas what Luw called us here for?

Leans forward, elbows on knees, hands dangling. Looks Raia in the eye.
I'm one hundred percent sure it wasn't for YOU to root around in our brains
using her sense motive and bluff ^

Stares down into her glass, mournfully, wishing it would refill on its own.
Is the lashy trying to do something to our brains?
Taps forehead +2 to Will saves
Not much gets through this skull!

Glides in slowly, only the slight whirring of servos belying his movement.
Greetings, gentlebeings.
Has no organic mind to read, and is oblivious to the mental pressure the others feel.
When does this shindig begin?
Playing as Iseph, so I'll change this alias. But ironically, I'd created an android operative before I looked at the -remade char sheets :-D

An android! Obozaya approves. You can charge my banners before I charge into combat!

I shall endeavor to be of service, but please, call this one Iseph.
Going still, Iseph's lighted eyes slowly run through several colors, looking at each of the gathered mercenaries in multiple spectra

Navasi. Next time Iseph, I expect you to buy me dinner first.
leans back, drapes her arms over the back of the couch, making sure her right hand is near the grip of the tactical semi-auto she hid in the padding when she first arrived.

After a brief time, a short hiss precedes the opening of an adjacent door. A woman with a determined look steps through the opening, (image on Google Doc) holding a datapad in one hand as she sits down at the nearby table, takes a calm breath, and begins to speak, “Ah good, you made it. I see you found your way into the liquor cabinet", waving her hand at that transgression, she continues"All of you come highly recommended. You have skills, and the Starfinder Society has credits.”

She pauses, looks over the group she has assembled, and continues, “How rude of me—introductions. I am Luwazi Elsebo, the elected First Seeker of the Starfinder Society, and I have an exceptionally fair sum of credits available in return for your specialized services. For this mission, each of you will represent the Starfinder Society, but hold no official title within our organization. As you can probably tell by the empty halls around us, I need to use mercenaries to act as temporary agents. If you agree to the terms, I would like to offer you all a job.

“The Starfinder Society endured a staggering setback several months ago when our previous First Seeker led a mission into a region of space known as the Scoured Stars. We lost almost all our experienced field agents and assets in that endeavor. What the Starfinder Society really needs right now is something to entice outside interest and investment. In short, we need to make a major discovery.

“Prior to the Scoured Stars incident, the Society acquired exclusive rights to explore a rather unique moon. The inhabitants of the nearby planet call it Salvation’s End and see it as a ‘false moon’ due to its visible metal components and underlying superstructure. There’s the potential that it’s nothing more than a mangled hunk of stellar debris on the remains of a moon, but there’s also the chance that the entire object could be one inconceivably large structure.”

Luwazi lets loose a devilish smile. “This is where you come in. I want you to go to Salvation’s End and explore the surface. First, you’ll need to make a quick trip to the moon of Varos, which orbits the nearby gas giant, Bretheda. There’s a highlevel security complex on Varos that has a survivor from a rogue prospecting mission to Salvation’s End. I want you to question the prisoner, find out what you can about the so-called ‘false moon,’ and then make way to Salvation’s End. Once there, you will need to see if the moon is worthless, or something valuable enough for the Society to announce. Understood?”

Map on Google Doc

Typically in a Starfinder Society Session you'd have a chance to "Slot Boons" right now. This is basically picking which of the Boons you have, you want to use. There are a few different categories and you can have one of each category....

Sounds like an excellent opportunity. But before I go through the trouble of packing, I'm curious about why this survivor is being held prisoner. And whether or not we'll end up in similar circumstances if WE survive. I'm also curious as to what you consider to be "exceptionally fair." I'm wondering exactly what sort of protections you'd be providing while we're officially slash unofficial as regards the society. It's not that I mind the danger, in fact, I rather enjoy it. But I'd like to know for certain if it's going to be worth my while and whether or not I'm going to be free to enjoy these promised rewards.
finds the outline of the tactical semi-auto through the material on the couch and taps the trigger a couple of times

This one simply questions our mode of transportation and how many credits we can expect to receive on our return.

Obozaya leans forward, forearms on her knees. She stares intently at Luwazi.
My tiny friend has a point. What did this prospector "survive?"
She leans back slowly, her mouth opening in a toothy grin.
And do I get to kill it?

"The prisoner... she was running an illegal salvage operation on Salvation's End. She is a pilot named Livewire, who is interred at the ‘Sauna’—a prison colony on the volcanic moon Varos. We don't know what happened to the rest of her salvaging crew nor how she survived... that's where you come in. Once you establish contact, it’s a matter of gathering intelligence. We doubt this information is cheap, so we authorized a spending account for you to encourage Livewire to talk. We need to know why her team’s illegal salvage on the moon failed. Once you get this information, we need you to travel the false moon, Salvation's End. Touch down, scout for hostiles, and look for any indications that it’s more than a moon with crashed starships piled atop it.”

"Protections?, she chuckles, "You're on your own while you are there. It's important you don't let on that you are working with the Starfinder Society... The warden denied our requests to meet with Livewire. They indicated that our presence would rub salt in a fresh wound. So, whatever you do, do not let the warden or Livewire know that you are working for the Starfinder Society. I have set up a front to explain your meeting with Livewire: you are all investigators hired by an unnamed corporation looking to remain anonymous. You’re researching a rash of disappeared spacecraft that have gone missing when their flight path took them too close to Salvation’s End.”

"As for your rewards, I’m able to providea spending account of 2,500 credits for mission expenditures; this does not include expenses for personal use, but instead for dealing with Livewire and the other occupants at the Sauna to help in your mission. Upon completion of your greater mission to Salvation’s End, you will each receive 3,000 credits. In addition, you have use of a brand-new Pegasus-class starship for the mission. If we end on agreeable terms, you can count on the Starfinder Society for more work in the near future. Trust me when I say an ongoing partnership would be quite… lucrative, for both parties.”

"Kill it? Well, diplomacy is often the best route, but whatever obstacle is on Salvation's End likely needs to be removed."

She beckons you to follow, "Follow me and I'll take you to the ship...” Luwazi continues walking toward a private hangar bay in the Lorespire Complex.

I get a DC -5 bonus for starship lore
Pegasus-class? This should be interesting. This one is eager to see the condition of our vessel.

See, now I'm curious. And I'm in.
pulls the tactical semi-auto out from its hiding place and slips it back into the holster, making no attempt to be covert AT ALL.
Come along, precious.

She arrives at a vast entry door. She opens it with a slight flourish to embellish the significance of the moment, and then crosses the threshold into a hub of activity.

“Wonderful! I am so excited to conduct business with you.” With a renewed energy, Luwazi steps further into a large hangar bay containing a pristine ship with a stylized symbol of the Starfinder Society along its hull. Several engineers, laborers, and mechanics buzz about the hangar running diagnostics, polishing the vessel’s unspoiled hull, and finishing the last touches for a maiden launch. Luwazi looks up to the ship with beaming pride, reaches into the folds of her clothing, and pulls out an expensive vintage of champagne, and extends the bottle outward as she exclaims with a wide grin, “The ship is yours for the mission, it is only right you christen it! Tonight, we celebrate; tomorrow you sail off into the stars.”

Touring the ship you see it's a medium explorer class outfitted with a Drift Engine. It sports light sheilds, a forward shooting light particle beam, port mounted laser net, starboard mounted light laser cannon and a second light particle beam on a turret. you can see all ship stats and an image on the shared google doc.

You have the evening for any final preparations.

I like it! But it's way too shiny. Bet I can fix that.
Looks over the group
Anyone know how to actually fly one of these things? Last transport I tried to pilot ended up embedded in the second stomach of a Diaspora World Worm.
I have no idea if that's a thing, but it totally should be. Do we need to gear up? What was that about slotting Boons? I couldn't find anything in the Core Rulebook about it.

Slotting boons is totally a Stafinder Society thing. It would be in the Starfinder Society Guide... http://paizo.com/products/btpy84k4.... not the Core Rulebook.

In Starfinder Society you get "boons" for each game. They are little rewards that give you bonuses and such. If you're 10th level, that's around 30 played games and 30 boons. You have a few "slots", a ship slot, a faction slot, etc. You can pick 1 boon to put in each slot. It's a way to manage all the boons. In Pathfinder you have all 30 available and that's just not manageable, and pretty slow. You slot the boons after the main mission briefing because then you have an idea of the type of scenario you're running.

In a Starfinder home game you'd have a ship that was yours and leveled with you. In Starfinder Society, since you might always be playing with different people, the ships are "checked out" from the Starfinder Society. They have a pool of ships available. You may have some special boons you've earned that can be applied to the ships.

This one can fly the ship. Quite easily, actually.
So where would we *find* these boons?

Each time you play a Starfinder Society Organized play scenario, you get a boon that you assign to the character you played with (or, in this case, you'd assign it to one of your characters). If any of you decide to continue playing Starfinder Society by PbP, or in person somewhere, we'll get you signed up and get you the boon... I skipped that right now as there was enough setup issues."

In Starfinder and Pathfinder Society play you build characters with some options disallowed (most everything in Starfinder is allowed, but some broken (extra powerful because of poor design) classes are not allowed.

Every THREE scenarios you level. You get credits each scenario (tracked on the boon as well)... and you get prestige to apply to whatever faction you chose to work with (there are different factions within the Starfinder Society... focusing on things like knowledge, or exploration, or studying the Gap, etc.) Again, left that out for now because we're playing pregens.

If any of you continue, I'll go into more depth as you make your own characters. Even if just one of you wanted to continue, you could, as Society is set up so that you can sit down with any group and play. I am also currently running this on Play by Post for another group... people I don't know at all other than their characters on this forum... actually, I THINK I met one of them this past PaizoCon."

My Pathfinder Society play (and now my Starfinder Society Play) consists entirely of me leveling characters on Play by post throughout the year, then playing 10 scenarios or so at PaizoCon with my son. When I play face to face at home it's all non-organized "home-games"

These questions are excellent ... the intent of this game is 1) to introduce you to Starfinder 2) Introduce you to Play-by-post (PbP) gaming 3) Introduce you to Organized Play (works similar for Pathfinder and Starfinder)... so keep on asking!

That's a lot of words... tell me again how many of these sweet little prizes WE get to abscond with. I mean "borrow?"

how do we know if we can pilot? I mean, my backstory suggests that I would be able to but I can't find that it says anywhere. I'm probably missing it.

The next morning, once you've completed any unfinished business, Luwazi Elsebo comes to see you off. "It is not far to Brethada, you should avoid using your drift engines. It won't save you much time, and I can't afford losing you to an unfortunate encounter in the Drift.", She wishes you luck and a speedy return, and you depart Absalom Station for Varos.

While a short trip, like most space travel it does take a few days.

I posted the skill list (that includes piloting) on the shared google doc. You can see from that list that piloting is something you can do untrained, so anyone can. You bonus to the D20 role is your Dex bonus, plus any ranks (and other bonuses) you put into piloting. If or when there is Starship combat we will explain the rules there."

Obozaya excitedly paces the control deck during takeoff, then becomes lethargic. She takes out one of longarm rounds for her rifle and starts trying to make it spin. After several unsuccessful attempts, she slumps back and breathes out loudly through her snout.
Are we there yet?

I'm going to take a look around the ship, do a quick inventory on any supplies and weapons we might be able to use to our advantage

Raia heads off to look for any goodies stocked on the ship.

I'm going to find the liquor cabinet.
[occ] scouts locations for secret weapons/credit caches also the way because one can't be too careful. [/ooc]

Pilots

Your journey is uneventful. Rummaging around the ship you find ok crew quarters, a mk 2 duonode computer with minesweeper installed, the Expansion Bays include a mostly empty cargo hold, escape pods, science lab, and a tech workshop.

When you arrive at the Sauna... This bizarre organic complex wildly contrasts the more pleasing Brethedan arcologies found within the swirls and eddies of the neighboring gas giant. Here, only the indentured or the foolhardy suffer Varos’ tidally heated hellscapes for a chance to mine the moon’s spectacular gemstones. While the prison is safely above the moon’s surface, the extreme temperatures radiate upwards, heating the structure despite its distance and advanced organic coolant systems. From this clammy complex, indentured prisoners descend upon the moon’s blistered surface as conditions permit.

Inside the Sauna, prisoners endure strict discipline under the threat of exile to the inhospitable surface. Several communal areas provide the prisoners with the opportunity to roam freely amid a reek of flowers and sweat—a by-product of a bustling black market of deodorants, perfumes, and soaps. The prison staff is comprised solely of barathu guards who have adapted to the torrid climate with their race’s notorious bioengineering acumen.

When you arrive in orbit over the colony, you are hailed...

"This is Sauna Station Control... state your call sign and the nature of your business.

So what are we christening this vessel? Crate Fire?

I roll a 1d20 knowledge local to see if crates exist in this universe

Knowledge Check: 1d20 ⇒ 4

With that roll, you are unsure, but there are none on the ship....

Rolls eyes and also rolls a knowledge check because if the doesn't get settled it's going to take us weeks to get off this bucket
Knowledge check: 1d20 -> 16

[ dice=Test]1d20+1d6+5[/dice]

Note the format for dice rolling

Remove the space in front of that first dice... and it'll do this

Test: 1d20 + 1d6 + 5 ⇒ (9) + (5) + 5 = 19

Knowledge Check: 1d20 ⇒ 18

There are certainly crates, but you'll likely not need them.

The party relays their cover story, that they're "investigators hired by an unnamed corporation looking to remain anonymous. You’re researching a rash of disappeared spacecraft that have gone missing when their flight path took them too close to Salvation’s End."

The voice on the radio responds...

"Received... Pegasus, land on floating landing pad 17."

"You will be escorted to the Warden at that location. Be warned Pegasus... leave all armaments and contraband such as food... toiletries...or other pleasantries on your ship. Credsticks are welcome as we accept donations."

Once the party docs, an organic bridge connects the pad to the structure itself. As soon as the the group disembarks from the ship, extremely hot air (over 120 degrees Fahrenheit) blasts them. The band of "investigators" realize that while their armor should protect them for the jaunt towards the Sauna, it becomes evident that any prolonged exposure outside the prison is foolhardy.

A Flotilla of four barathus— floating, iridescent masses of flesh with draping tentacle appendages—wordlessly greet the group and escort them to the nearby Warden’s office. see image on google doc

The halls and rooms of the Sauna are entirely organic, comprised mostly of fleshy blue walls replete with pulsating green veins. Tunnels take odd angles, sometimes sloping up or down, which is a nuisance to humanoid creatures but not an impediment to the floating barathus.

When the group arrives at the Warden's office several hard, plastic chairs await arranged in a semicircle around a matching table.

Opposite the table floats the Warden, an almost comical creature that looks like a dozen of the barathu guards mashed together into a floating mass of iridescent flesh and tentacles.

The Warden telepathically offers several trays of a gray mush and glasses of an opaque, milky substance as “refreshments.” While these refreshments look welcoming, especially the drink to help cool off, the ever-present stench makes the idea of eating difficult.

The Warden looks at the party expectantly.

I don't have Life Science as a skill, anyone else? Someone needs to roll it and let us know what you find under the clicky button
Obozaya clears her throat, closes her nostril slits, and grabs a glass of the "milk."
Also, someone else should totally lead the charge on talking to this thing, unless we're going to intimidate it, I'm useless in Diplomacy

The warden communicates telepathically, much like Keskodai, "Hello, hello! Pleasure to meet investigators such as you! One of our constituent barathus had a career as an investigator, and we are always excited to meet with like-minded personalities."

"We would love to hear some of your proudest moments as investigators... please tell us your investigative stories!"

"And... please enjoy some of my fine refreshments."

Obozaya give me a bluff check to try to pull off enjoying the substance.

I can read what's under the button, but is that mediated? Should I *not* be able to?
Also, I'm an android, so I have no person skills...

If you roll a DC 15 Life Science skill you SHOULD look under there. If you don't, then your CHARACTER does not know that (and the people that do don't have an opportunity right now to relay that info probably. I typically don't look if I don't make the roll. But it's character knowledge vs player knowledge...

One of the points here is to reduce the number of potential posts... asking for a roll and posting the results at the same time saves us days of back and forth. Like when you roll to-hit, roll damage at the same time

"And thus ends my seven standard days of self-imposed contemplative meditation," Keskodai says in a very slurred Basic. The Shirren's natural form of communication is telepathy, making the spoken word foreign to the alien's species. "Though I quite enjoyed choosing not to communicate. Well, the choice of it anyway." Keskodai's sensitive antennae twitch ever so slightly, a signal of the pleasure receptors firing in the chitinous creature.

Keskodai hoists a large, industrial canister, roughly six inches in diameter and eighteen inches long, up to eye level using one his slender, three-clawed hands. On the other side of the clear, fortified glass, a sluggish larvae squirms, its too-large, bulbous eyes staring intently at the warden. This, Chk Chk, is what the humans call a Barathu, the Shirren telepathically sends to his larva. It is one of the stranger species that I have encountered in the Pact Worlds.

Life Sciences Check: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22

I'd assume the Envoy / face should go ahead and spin-up a lie and a bluff check to regale the warden with your exploits?

Also, given we're without weapons, does that mean that Keskodai's staff was left at the ship as well?

Let's go with the staff being left behind as well...

Warden, please forgive my colleagues, Keskodai begins, addressing the Barathu. Most of these species are not accustomed to interpreting and sending language in this fashion. The Shirren gestures one of his three-clawed hands at Navasi. This human female, in particular, sometimes struggles with telepathy, but rest assured that her accolades precede her far and wide throughout the Pact Worlds. And beyond, he adds at the last moment. After, Keskodai flashes what could possibly be recognized as a smile, his stubby mandibles showing, obviously proud of himself.

"Yes... and I am eager to hear stories of such a fine group of investigators."

The Warden waits to hear what stories you have to tell of your experience with the job you're just claiming as a cover...

Bluff Check: 1d20 ⇒ 1

I attempt to smile to show how much I'm enjoying the..."milk."

Instead, I vomit.

bluff check: 1d20 ⇒ 4