GM Cellion's Dawn of Flame AP

Game Master Cellion

Welcome all! If you've gotten selected, chime in here and get yourself settled in nice and comfy. Feel free to make your own OOC introductions and get to know one another. We'll be here a while :)
There's a few items to sort out before we get started.

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Starship Roles and Character Rebuilds
In selecting PCs, I've made some effort to ensure there is some variety in what the party is capable of, getting a mix of ranged, melee, skills, and magic. But what I wasn't able to resolve was getting a well balanced Starship crew. As a result, I'd like to open the floor for your guys to make adjustments to your characters (if you'd like) to cover skills or get starship roles filled.

To ease the character build burden on this mystic and solarian heavy party, I'm instituting the following house rule:

For the purposes of Gunnery checks, you may use either Dex or Wis as your skill modifier.

Character Corrections
A few of you have some errors in character creation. I'll run you through those soon so you can get them corrected before we start.

Collective Backstory Generation
So this AP starts with all the PCs already knowing each other (at least as acquaintances, if not longer term) and working together on a rickety Starship. Take a look at each others' backstories and star working out how you might have ended up together!

The adventure itself will start with you handling a very mundane task - delivering a shipment from Absalom Station to the Dawnshore Spaceport within the Sun's Burning Archipelago. But this very humdrum task will quickly be interrupted by a crisis that thrusts your characters into an adventure that'll take them all over the Sun.

Burning Archipelago? Mataras? Whats all this?
The Burning Archipelago is the initial focus of this AP - a set of cities floating in magical bubbles within the outer surface layer of the sun. These bubbles magically maintain a habitable interior and shield the cities within from the sun's radiation and blinding brightness. When a starship approaches the appropriate area of the sun, a narrow tunnel opens an entrance to the Burning Archipelago, specifically to the Dawnshore Spaceport; the outer end of the tunnel is guarded by the Sunrise Station, which is garrisoned by the Sarenite Dawn Patrol, who checks whether visitors have legitimate business in the Burning Archipelago or not, and keeps watch for any suspicious individuals.

Each of the Burning Archipelago's bubbles has its own unique flavor. Cities include the heavily religious central bubble of Dawnshore, containing the Radiant Cathedral of Sarenrae, as well as the more corporate Fireside or scientifically-focused Stellacuna. The bubbles are connected to each other and kept in a static formation by energy tethers. At the ends of each tether are magical membranes which all vessels must go through if they want to enter or exit the bubble. Linecrawler ferries hug the tethers, while those in a hurry can charter sunskimmers, vehicles built to harness solar winds.

You can read more about the Sun in The Starfinder CRB, but I'd recommend skipping the Pact Worlds writeup - in part because of spoilers, and in part because I may be making some minor adjustments that will contradict minor elements of what's written in there.

Building a Starship?
So you get to start with a Starship in this AP. I'll leave it up to you guys if you want to build a Tier 1 Starship from scratch using the normal starship building rules, or if you want to select one of the prebuilt ships from the various books to use instead. Archives of Nethys has a good selection of ships to choose from if you want to try that.

Hey everyone! Regarding starship duties, I'm pretty well suited to Engineer, Pilot, and especially Science Officer. Of course, I can't do all 3 at once. I think I'm the only person with Engineering, though. This does fit nicely with my backstory, though!

Hello! So, first things first. one thing Cellion discussed with me via PM was possibly adjusting my character to better balance the party. As I demonstrated in the initial recruitment, I have no issue doing this, since as soon as I saw we had multiple stellar solarian entrants, I switched her to mystic.

I think I'll see where everyone else shakes out before making my final decision, I made Belmarniss into a pilot after seeing Flint had his heart set on captaining, and I can still do that even after finalizing things. Who knows? I could even be a Technomancer!

Thanks SO MUCH for the selection, Cellion!

"Captain" Flint Conners, as he styles himself, is probably better suited to a first officer position until he gains some experience, but his ego apparently expands to fit the size of whatever ship he is on.

Somewhat of a balance between warrior (melee focused) and a "face" character, Flint actually needs to rely a lot on his crew during starship combat due to his focus more on personal combat than intellectual pursuits, so his leadership style during ship combat is going to be (more or less) do what you were already planning to do, only better! I hope this works well with the more cooperative nature of RPG as opposed to the more top-down command structure typical of, say, your typical sci-fi TV series.

Thanks to the others for being flexible in character concept. I can certainly change the mechanics of Flint around as needed to fit into the group as well.

Please also take a look at the ship builder link in recruitment. I took a shot at the Sunskimmer Flint is currently captaining, but that is by no means the ship we start the adventure on. I will be looking into our backstories to find out how we may know each other...

With the Wis-to-guns house rule Ordyt can serve as a reasonably competent gunner!

I look forward to playing the Spock to your Kirk, Flint. :P

I had a heck of a time trying to balance out a group of players that A) were consistent posters, B) had neat character concepts, C) are a balanced ground combat/skills group, and D) are a balanced starship crew. In the end, I decided to err on the side of making sure A and B were satisfied and mostly ignored D.

So as it currently stands, the party has the following classes, stats and potential starship roles:

I could do a little bit of rebalancing to have some Piloting or Science, but I don't have the skill points to ever be stellar (ha ha) at it.

Never hurts to have a backup, so we can be a bit more flexible in our roles. Since we've got 3 people who can pilot already (and it won't make you a better Gunner with your full BAB), I think putting a point into either Computers or Engineering to cover the station that I'm not at should work.

I don't have the skill points to ever be stellar (ha ha) at it.

Also: boooooooooooooooo

lol

I look forward to playing the Spock to your Kirk, Flint. :P

Ahhhhh...you have found me out...

Thinking a blend of 1 part Riker, 2 parts Kirk, and 3 parts Mal...we’ll see if I can pull off the RP appropriately.

I am also thinking that perhaps Flint and Sammad know each other, with Sammad being a frequent traveler on the Flame Dancer. Perhaps Flint takes the leading role on shipboard as Captain, and Sammad takes the leading role on diplomatic missions as Envoy/Ambassador. We can flex as the situation demands—given the backgrounds, I see Flint taking the ‘bad cop’ to Sammad’s ‘good cop’ more often than not...

How do you folks feel about me taking Belmarniss in a radical new direction, swapping her Ace Pilot theme for Solar Disciple and becoming a Technomancer (keeping her Star Knight archetype)? That way I can maintain SOME connection to the stars to tie her to the story of the campaign, not steal Ordyt's thunder, while still being able to pilot and maybe help take some of the pressure off Marisol skill-wise!

Basically shifting her from a paladin to more like a magus (to borrow Pathfinder parlance)?

Works for me!

Thank you all for being flexible with starship roles. My character concept is pretty focused on being a Captain, but I can also modify if needed...right now, though, he is pretty low on Dex and Int based skills.

Perhaps Flint and Marisol met when the Flame Dancer has some minor engineering issues. Flint was intrigued by a being so different from himself, both in natural aptitude and culture.and offered to buy her a drink. How much time they spent together is flexible, but we can say that Flint at least gained an appreciation for the lithe Sylph form, if a bit intimidated by her intellect.

That sounds great, Belmarniss!

As far as building our own ship (or not) does anyone have any strong feelings? For the sake of time I feel like we should nominate one of our group to handle the bulk of it, with our input, then let Cellion give the final thumbs up or down. That way we don't have to hash out each individual aspect via PBP which could take weeks.

Yeah, as far as starships are concerned, that's how I've seen it done before. The person who was most into ship building makes the ship and everyone else just comments.

They way I specified the Flame Dancer in the recruitment thread is more of a shuttle sized passenger vehicle. If it is appropriate thematically for the adventure to start on a different type of ship (big enough for a 5 person crew), we could certainly have Flint reassigned to a rickety rust bucket and I could spec out something like that in the ship builder.

I can volunteer if you like—maybe a tier 1 explorer class or a light freighter?

Thanks Flint! I have a deep and abiding love of coilguns and missiles but otherwise I'm good with whatever.

If we have 2 gunners, I recommend an Explorer. For 1 gunner, I recommend a light freighter. We will always need a pilot and engineer and at least one gunner. It depends if we want to run with a science officer or captain flexing to a second gunner in combat, I suspect...

Whatever you pull together, I'll do my best to keep her flying. Mark me down as another member of the Coilgun Fan Club, though.

Regarding Mari joining the crew: I sketched this out in my pitch, but I envisioned her being a pretty recent addition to the crew. Maybe the previous engineer jumped ship at Bretheda or there was some issue that was beyond his capabilities, which necessitated bringing Marisol in. From there it wouldn't be a hard sell for Flint to get her to sign on, since she was already looking to leave.

Sounds good Flint. As long as everyone in the party has a spot to sit, you should be OK with any Tier 1 ship you can dream up.
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Some mechanical corrections and feedback after scanning people's character sheets. I didn't go over things with a fine-toothed comb. You guys may be aware of this stuff already, but just to highlight:

Also, I'd like it if everyone could set up stat lines for their character that have the same info that Belmarniss is currently showing.

Female NG drow ace pilot mystic 1 | SP 6/6 HP 10/10 | RP 3/3 | EAC 12; KAC 13 | Fort +0; Ref +1; Will +4 | Init: +1 | Perc: +8, SM: +6 | Speed 30ft | Active conditions: None.

You don't need all the fancy color, and you can add more info if you'd like, but this is the minimum I need to be able to run things easily.

So the Light Freighter would more fit the “rickety” ship trope, and we could have linked coilguns in the forward arc.

The Explorer would mean more compromises, but we could have a coilgun in the forward arc and a missile launcher in the turret.

Oops. I'll sort that out asap.

Corrections made!

Looks great Marisol, thanks!

Sorry I'm late, classes today were a drag and I couldn't get away at lunch. I've set up the alias, and I'm going to look at everyone else's info to decide how I might want to modify Sammad for starship roles. I'll have him finished by the end of the night.

I'm very excited to play, though! Your characters all seem interesting, and I love the geniekin rep, lol.

Still in the process of revising my character to be a Solar Disciple Technomancer and seeking some advice on how to go about it here (Feel free to chime in if you have advice, I just didn't wanna clutter up this thread here).

Sammad, your bio mentions you have contacts on Apostae. What if some of those contacts were Belmarniss' parents or some other relatives of hers in House Rycast? It could be that you and Belmarniss became acquainted around the time she was studying at Eclipse or shortly after, and you've kept in contact even after Belmarniss cut ties with her family.

Hey there Sammad! I'm also loving the elemental-kin representation here.

I've tried to make the melee technomancer build a couple of times and have never really been satisfied with it. The low BAB and bad initial proficiencies really make it an uphill battle. That said, HMM has a melee technomancer Magical Mu that you might want to check out for ideas.

Also Belmarniss, don't feel pressured to switch classes (especially if you're struggling with how to revise the character while retaining its identity). I think both your original solarian and the new mystic will work just fine in this party. Roll with whatever you want to play!

Oh I like that. Sammad would've first been to Apostae as a youth, tagging along with his cousins while they conducted business. If the Al-Fayirs did business with Balmarniss's parents directly, they could've met during their personal time. I haven't sorted out an age or timeline for Sammad yet, but I think ifrit and elves/drow age pretty similarly.

I don't think Starfinder gives ages, but in Pathfinder at least, Ifrit reach adulthood at age 60.

Adjustments made to Ordyt's character sheet & quick reference bar!

So, working on options for a "rickety" spaceship:

Hey there Sammad! I'm also loving the elemental-kin representation here.

I've tried to make the melee technomancer build a couple of times and have never really been satisfied with it. The low BAB and bad initial proficiencies really make it an uphill battle. That said, HMM has a melee technomancer Magical Mu that you might want to check out for ideas.

Also Belmarniss, don't feel pressured to switch classes (especially if you're struggling with how to revise the character while retaining its identity). I think both your original solarian and the new mystic will work just fine in this party. Roll with whatever you want to play!

Pressured? You misunderstand, GM Cellion! I am INSPIRED!!!

Good to hear Belmarniss! I was hoping that might be the case.
Also, thanks Ordyt for the update, and thanks Flint for the starships! Both look like solid (rickety) options to me.

BTW folks, here are my play by post ground rules. I'll include them in the Campaign Info tab as well. Those of you that are also in my RotRL game should be familiar with these as I've kept them mostly the same for this game.

Ground Rules:

Botting instructions done! Let me know if I missed anything.

Botting instructions complete.

*thumbs up*

Go ahead and work out your group/team backstory, choose which of Flint's two excellent starships you like better, and finish any other pre-game prep. I'll look to get us started with an initial introduction post in gameplay tonight!

(Bel, shout if you need more time for your character. We can even start and have you make revisions during the initial couple of scenes.)

Hope everyone is excited and ready to go! :>

I'm happy with the backstory I set out above, but I'm open to suggestions.

My preference would be for the Explorer ship. It's a bit easier to hit but the turret lets us position ourselves so that weakened shield quadrants can be rotated out. Otherwise I think I'm set.

I am open to comments on the ship as people like, and I lean toward the Explorer as well. My character details are in the link, but I will populate the alias as well including the BOT instructions tonight.

Let me know if you have comments about trade offs between AC, Speed, Weapons, etc. I can scrub the numbers and make a link to the final design in our discussion using that shipbuilder website tonight. If people want to have science labs, enhanced sensors, etc, please also comment.

Question for DM Cellion: Do you want this to be Flint’s current assignment (the passenger sunskimmer) or a new assignment—I think I would prefer that. In the second case, we need a name for the new ship, and I won’t accept any variations of “Century Eagle”, if you know what I mean...

Not 100% clear on what you mean by your question Flint, but the setup for the start of the AP is that the PCs have been tasked to run a delivery from Absalom Station to Dawnshore in the Burning Archipelago. (Though don't get too attached to this boring job, as something much more interesting and lucrative pops up almost immediately)

Not 100% clear on what you mean by your question Flint, but the setup for the start of the AP is that the PCs have been tasked to run a delivery from Absalom Station to Dawnshore in the Burning Archipelago. (Though don't get too attached to this boring job, as something much more interesting and lucrative pops up almost immediately)

Flint’s backstory is that he is currently assigned to a passenger ship called the Flame Dancer. I am assuming that our first mission would not be on this ship, since it is a somewhat sleek passenger vessel, not a rickety cargo vessel, but for RP I wanted to know for sure.

I am sure that being reassigned from “diplomatic envoy” captain to “delivery boy” will rub him the wrong way, even if the new ship is bigger...

Gotcha. Hmm, looking at the AP opening, I don't see a reason why you couldn't be using the Flame Dancer. The rickety-ness or the cargo isn't critical to how the AP starts. It should still be a ship that has stations for the full party as well as a reason for why the party would be all on board to help you go from Absalom Station to Dawnshore.

Lots of flexibility otherwise if you have a particular idea you'd like to pursue.

Understood. It would fit pretty well with the interwoven backgrounds we are creating—Sammad could be the honored envoy and Marisol could be the ship’s engineer (temporarily reassigned or actually a full time crew member if she likes). Others could have similar tie-ins or just be passengers needing transport. Anyone have a preference? We can make it an Explorer class with just some cosmetic changes if people want to go that way. To be clear, I am good either way.

Full crew member is good by me.

I was thinking about making minor adjustments to Ordyt's backstory to have him doing the mercantile circuit from his family's mining colony to nearby hubs, so the pirate assault would have occurred while he was gone. Having him have joined up on the Flame Dancer's crew a few weeks before as the final leg of his pilgrimage to the sun would work nicely.

So, our illustrious GM Cellion has indicated the ship we start on *could* be the Flame Dancer, or it could be a more standard transport--probably Explorer class, for which we would need a new name. I am hoping people may have a preference? Anyone?

Thinking about it some more, I see the sunskimmer as local transport in close proximity to the sun, so probably not drift capable and reliant on being close to the sun to operate at full power. Given this, I suggest that perhaps Flint has been temporarily reassigned by the Radiant Cathedral while the Flame Dancer is undergoing yearly maintenance to captain a long haul starship (the Explorer class ship) to Absalom Station to pick up some cargo and personnel.

Marisol would be with him on the crew, and the diplomat Sammad might be along for the ride as well to see how people live far away from the Burning Mother's warmth. Sammad's business associate, Belmarniss, may have come up with the cargo delivery angle and be waiting for us at Absalom station for the pickup. Ordyt, perhaps you were contracted to round out the crew (given your devotion to Sarenrae and desire to head that direction) once we picked up the cargo and started the return leg to Dawnshore spaceport in the Burning Archipelago.

What do you think? And please help me with a ship name--maybe something with "Radiant" in it?

Constructed in the ship foundries of Aballon, I give you...the RCS A Series Of Unlikely Explanations

Okay, everyone! Meet the new and improved Belmarniss Rycast! Her conversion to Technomancer is complete, along with revised botting instructions, and she'll fit well as a Pilot, Engineer or Science Officer (depending on who is better than her at what). It actually allows me to kind of get her back to her roots as a Solarian, except instead of a solar weapon it's a junksword!

I'll be making a few minor tweaks to her backstory (changing Urshar to a half-orc instead of a dwarf, since those are more likely to be seen on Apostae, giving Belmarniss a younger sibling or two, etc.) but that won't have any impact on starting the game.

I like the idea that Flint suggested that Belmarniss joins the group as Sammad's contact on Absalom Station, basically "My parents asked me to be House Rycast's rep for this job, and while I'd normally tell them to go space themselves, it's an easy job and it gets me passage to the Burning Archipelago, where I can start my tour-of-errantry in earnest. Besides, I've always wanted to observe stellar phenomena up close!"

Botting details are now on the alias. Also I decided to switch out Improved Initiative for Skill Focus (Diplomacy). I figure that it makes more sense for his character, and mechanically given that he's the 'diplomatic one' I feel like he should be the best at it.

Hmm, perhaps the Radiant Voyager for the Explorer?

And I like those thoughts on backstory, Flint.