The Devastation Ark AP is the first adventure Paizo has produced for Starfinder aimed at characters beyond 12th level. High-level play can be challenging for a GM in any system, and Starfinder is no different, but Starfinder also poses some specific concerns.

Require Abilities, Don't Block Them

High level characters have access to story-breaking abilities. They can safely perform reconnaissance with arcane eye or infiltrate a base with perfect shape-changing disguises. They can read the minds of their enemies or cast dominate person. They can banish powerful outsiders to their home planes and even teleport to another planet. And, of course, they can come back from the dead.

It’s tempting to design adventures that prevent the PCs from using these abilities, inserting walls of force that block teleportation, for example, or zones of antimagic to prevent divination spells. After all, that makes the adventure much easier to write and more like the adventures we usually read and play through—but that’s exactly why we shouldn’t do it. High level play should feel special. Your players have worked their way up through a dozen levels, over months or even years of play, in order to get access to these special abilities—let them use them!

Instead, write the adventure so that the PCs must use these abilities to succeed. To give just one obvious example, the PCs might need to reach a computer located in a room that is inaccessible to ordinary people. It’s buried 100 feet down in solid rock, with no doors, no windows, no access at all. But a group of PCs with clairvoyance and teleport can get there, and now you have an adventure where only high level characters can succeed, which is exactly what your players want.

Be Ready To Improvise

As characters progress in level, they gain access to more and more abilities; it soon becomes impossible for the GM to keep track of these abilities or anticipate them. So don’t try! When the PCs are high level, you can create a problem without knowing for certain how the PCs will solve it—just trust that they’ll come up with something and be open-minded when they do. For example, let’s go back to that room surrounded by solid rock. What if the PCs don’t have teleport? Well, they’ve got plenty of other abilities, and the credits to spare. There’s probably a way they can tunnel through the rock, go incorporeal, or otherwise get into this “impossible” room. You don’t have to worry about how they’ll get in; let them figure it out, and then reward them when they do.

Skill DCS

As characters advance in Starfinder, their skill bonuses improve, but operatives get better at skills than every other class. Inevitably you’ll reach a point where a skill DC that is challenging for an operative—one in which the player has to roll a 15 or better to succeed—is impossible for everyone else. Even if your player characters include an operative, keep an eye on these skill DCs and set them at a number your player characters can reasonably hit. Be generous with aid another attempts, so that even when the other characters can’t hit the DC themselves, they can at least contribute to the operative’s check.

There’s a lot more that could be said about high level adventures for Starfinder, but the tips here should get you started making and running solid stories for your players, in the Devastation Ark Adventure Path and beyond!

Jake Tondro
Developer

The discovery of a series of millennia-old ruins sets off a chain of events that puts an ancient titanic spacecraft on course to the Pact Worlds. When the vessel—which belongs to an evil, warmongering civilization long thought dead—begins destroying all other ships in its path and attacking important resources to increase its power, the heroes must rescue millions of lives from destruction and find a way to stop the ship and all aboard it. Will the heroes be triumphant? Or will the alien species take the Pact Worlds as its new home and conquer the galaxy?

Start saving the galaxy now in Waking the Worldseed!

The tunnel ran smooth and deep, a gullet boring down into frozen ground, beckoning explorers into its belly. Ariad-N5 planned to accept its invitation. Nifri joined Ariad at the edge of the chasm.

“This is it,” the kasatha said, cross-referencing the coordinates displayed on his datapad. Together they peered down at the decrepit ramp that curled nautilus-like within the tunnel.

“I’m ready to get out of this cold,” Talla grumbled. The quorlu trudged through the deep snow, her movements slowed by the thermal suit she wore to protect her sensitive skin from the frigid temperatures. This was a first; in all their years working together, Ariad had never heard her complain.

“Construction’s delayed until we survey the ruins, so AbadarCorp wants us in and out.” Talla explained.

“What’s our timeline?” Ariad asked. “We need a few weeks to—”

“The corp gave us 12 hours,” Talla snapped. Ariad and Nifri exchanged concerned looks, but their leader appeared unphased by the impossible deadline. She studied the ramp and shook her head decisively. “Looks unstable. We’ll rappel down.” Nifri helped her create an anchor using two ice screws connected by a sling, then ran a cable line through it. The three explorers clipped in with practiced technique. Nifri rappelled down first, the crunch of boots against ice echoing through his open comm channel. Then, he looped his cable through a belay device to assist Talla, leaving the android alone in a swirl of snow at the edge of the ruins.

“Your turn,” Nifri said finally. “I’m on belay.”

“On rappel.” Ariad gripped their cable and kicked off from the ledge. They watched the sky shrink as they walked down the side of the tunnel in a controlled descent. Suddenly, their toe caught a patch of ice, and they plunged downward. Ariad grabbed for the nearby ramp, but it crumbled in their grip. The cable snapped taut as Nifri caught them, and a chunk of debris plummeted toward their teammates below.

“Rock!” Ariad shouted. Nifri sidestepped and the rubble shattered harmlessly on the ground beside him.

“Close one, thanks!” He yelled.

When the android reached the end of the cable, a dim halo of light was all that remained of the world above. Their eyes roamed over the alien architecture surrounding them. The walls were mottled red and purple like the exposed intestines of a great beast. Brown, scabby patches festered in places, but there was no scent of decay. Metallic panels embedded into the fleshy walls reinforced the structure, and a glowing blue pillar towered at the center of the cavernous chamber. The wall rippled as a constellation of arcane symbols flashed across its surface.

“Did you see that?” Ariad whispered. Talla gasped as the same symbols wriggled into view across the room.

“Fascinating,” she breathed. “There’s magic all around us.” Nifri, transfixed by the blue pillar, ignored them.

“Old wards, perhaps, or maybe this peculiar building material is magical,” Ariad observed, peering at the wall where the symbols had appeared. They avoided touching the nonmetal parts during their examination; the spongy reddish substance made their dermis crawl.

“Let’s move on,” Talla directed, and motioned toward an aperture on the far side of the room. Before she stepped through it a deep, percussive boom reverberated through the ruins. A shape charged out of the shadows, and Talla instinctively reached for the pistol holstered at her belt. She relaxed when she recognized Nifri, all four of his arms flailing as he sprinted toward them.

“It…shocked…me,” he panted, skidding to a halt.

“What shocked you?” Ariad asked. They peered into the kasatha’s eyes, examining him for pupil dilation and other signs of trauma. Then they noticed his bare hands. “What happened to your safety gloves?”

“I took them off before I touched the pillar,” Nifri admitted. “I know it’s against protocol, but I wanted to gauge its temperature.”

“You should have used a thermal scanner,” Ariad scolded.

“Enough,” Talla pronounced calmly. “Once, I got so enthusiastic about an excavation that my team leader had to pry me off a trapped statue.” She chuckled at the memory. “Not my finest hour. Are you hurt?”

“Only my pride,” Nifri said sheepishly. Talla smiled at him.

“Remember your training, and stick with safety protocols from now on,” Talla commanded. With the incident dismissed, they emerged into a hallway studded with valve-like openings that hinted at a vast network of chambers within the ruins. As they passed the abandoned rooms, Nifri’s flashlight illuminated the silhouettes of machinery somehow both antiquated and advanced, now immortalized in disrepair.

“If you’d purchased those retinal reflectors I recommended, you wouldn’t need that.” Ariad nodded to Nifri’s flashlight.

“I’m saving my credits for a tropical vacation. I got more than enough hands, so don’t worry, Ensie.” Nifri retorted, but his voice lacked its usual confidence. Ariad often struggled to read others’ emotions, but they had no problem interpreting their colleagues’ behavior. Nifri’s shallow breathing and Talla’s frantic heartbeat betrayed their fear. Ariad noted the prickle of adrenaline in their own system. They knew the source of these symptoms—the hideous decaying walls, unidentified magic crawling through the air, the ruins’ reaction when Nifri touched the pillar—this was not a routine survey.

Talla’s authoritative voice broke the silence. “Let’s split up to cover more ground. Nifri, the gloves stay on this time, please.”

“You got it, boss.,” Nifri nodded and disappeared around a bend. Determined to master their own unease, Ariad followed Talla’s directions without comment. They chose a room close to the entrance that housed rows of gyroscope-like contraptions. Strangely, each device contained a seat designed to accommodate a small creature. Ariad had only completed a cursory inspection of the machines when their comm unit crackled to life.

“Ari, come take a look at this.” Talla sounded calm, but she must have found something interesting. Talla stood in front of a hexagonal column they hadn’t noticed before. Unfamiliar pictograms studded its seamless obsidian metal surface, forming an incomprehensible cipher.

The xenoarchaeologists examine the strange ruin in this illustration by Pixoloid Studios.

“At least this text is stationary.” Ariad said. They scanned the symbols, cross-referencing their own internal database of language and magical code. Unfortunately, their cybernetically- enhanced eidetic memory proved no match for the strange writing. Talla waved a chemalyzer along the length of the pillar. The device beeped and Talla’s eyestalks craned eagerly toward the readout. The knitted thermal cap she wore to protect her delicate organs bobbed comically as she shook her head in confusion.

“Strange, these isotope levels look…pre-Gap?” Talla gave the device a solid tap to ensure it was working properly. “Yeah, probably pre-Gap.” Talla sighed, clearly frustrated. With hundreds of successful excavations under her belt, she was team leader for good reason, and not used to being thwarted like this. “This writing isn’t in any language I’m familiar with.”

“I don’t recognize it either,” Ariad confessed.

“Too bad. I was hoping you could translate,” Talla said in a muffled voice as she rummaged through her pack.

“Where’s Nifri?” Ariad asked. Concern for their absent colleague suddenly gripped them. Nifri was a competent, though inexperienced, professional. His earlier judgment lapse was uncharacteristic, but what if he ran into more trouble?

As if on cue, Nifri’s voice exploded from Talla’s comm unit. “Boss, I don’t think we’re in a tomb. This room has cryo-storage and an operating theater. I found some partial specimens that look like—no, that can’t be.” Nifri’s voice trailed off, distracted by his latest discovery.

“Roger, Nifri,” Talla responded. “Ari and I are finishing up here. Take samples while you wait for us.” Ariad wondered how she could sound confident when they weren’t any closer to unraveling the mystery of the ruins.

“We need an icebreaker,” she declared, and produced a glob of iridescent putty from her pack. She attached it to the pillar the way a child might stash a piece of gum beneath a desk for safekeeping. It rolled slowly over the object, seeking concealed edges and mechanisms invisible to the naked eye. Talla grinned when it settled and revealed the outline of a control panel.

“What is that?” Ariad wondered. They gasped when the panel popped out from the pillar as though activated by their voice. At this angle, they realized it housed a keypad labeled with unfamiliar pictograms.

“Let’s find out,” Talla flashed them a mischievous grin. She reached toward the keypad, then jumped back as the panel immediately retracted. A loud whirring sound filled the room and the column’s six faces began to rotate. The object lowered, spinning, into the floor as its exterior surfaces unfurled, revealing a central core of blue plasma. A hologram depicting an unknown species materialized in the glow. The plasma flickered and warped, forming distorted images that hinted at the creature’s anatomy. It stood atop four overlapping tentacles, its segmented neck arching forward from the far side of its body like a striking serpent. Three sets of clawed arms protruded from its ribbed belly. Its only discernable facial features were two pairs of mismatched eyes that blazed with inscrutable intent. Its mandibles twitched in synchronization with its vestigial front arms as it vocalized. A roar of growls and glottal stops that Ariad’s linguistic processors registered as noise filled the corridor. Suddenly, an arc of electricity shot out from the panel.

“Watch out!” Ariad screamed, shoving Talla out of the way. The bolt surged and struck the floor where she had just been standing. Residual static pulsed through the android’s synthetic skin as they stared at the charred spot left behind.

“Thank you,” Talla gasped. “I thought—” A howling klaxon from the ruined complex’s core interrupted her. This warning needed no translation, and the two researchers fled toward the entrance. A magnified voice boomed overhead as they ran, speaking the holographic creature’s dissonant language. A series of crashes chased them down the hall as shutters lowered over doorways they’d planned to investigate. A metal slab slammed down in front of them, blocking the exit.

“Over here!” Nifri called from behind them. He stepped into the hallway and waved his team toward an accessible room. Ariad and Talla sprinted through the doorway seconds before it sealed itself shut.

“I think we’re safe in here,” Nifri said. Ariad wasn’t so sure. Their refuge was a control room crowded with dusty consoles and machinery. A hundred orange eyes blinked awake as the ancient equipment rumbled and whined, booting up for the first time in millennia.

“I can’t find a signal in here.” Talla paced while frantically typing into her comm unit, but her companions’ attention snapped back to the room’s central console. A holoprojection of a planet floated above it. A beacon at the center of the topographical map radiated veins reaching across its mountains and valleys. The two watched in horror as the tendrils elongated and writhed out from the beacon, infesting the planet’s surface. Ariad recognized the planet. It was Jedarat.

“What have we done?” Nifri gasped.

“I have a signal!” Talla exclaimed. “Talla to HQ. We’re trapped. Do you copy?” Only a burst of static answered her.

“Keep trying,” Ariad urged. There were hundreds of workers on Jedarat’s surface. Ariad’s team was trapped, but they had to warn the others.

---

Eisyfina Nott stood in the chalet’s doorway. Outside, a shroud of snow concealed the world, obscuring a picturesque view of the alpine landscape. The storm had appeared out of nowhere, right when all the terraforming equipment in the valley went haywire.

Eisyfina’s datapad pinged with an incoming message, a video file from the xenoarchaeology team contracted to explore Jedarat’s ruins. She watched silently, transfixed by the video’s disturbing contents. She shut it off with a decisive tap of her finger, but the message’s final words echoed in her mind: we woke it up.

“This is Nott requesting immediate support to New Horizons headquarters.” She barked into her earpiece. “We need help. Now.”

About the Author

Jenny Jarzabski is a freelance writer, sommelier, and nature enthusiast. She writes adventures and rules for Pathfinder and Starfinder, in addition to some weird fiction of her own. She is just as likely to be found on the trails or at the climbing wall as delving the word mines or gamemastering at a convention. You can follow Jenny’s real life adventures on Twitter at @jenjski.

About Devastation Ark

In the Devastation Ark Adventure Path, the discovery of a series of millennia-old ruins sets off a chain of events that puts an ancient titanic spacecraft on course to the Pact Worlds. Will the heroes be triumph in stopping the dreadnaught? Or will the alien species take the Pact Worlds as its new home and conquer the galaxy? This three-part Starfinder campaign is designed to take player characters from level 13 to 20 and can serve as a sequel to any previous Starfinder Adventure Path.

From the vast reaches of space comes an unusual sight: the first volume of the Devastation Ark Adventure Path for Starfinder, “Waking the Worldseed” by Jenny Jarzabski. This adventure is for 13th-level PCs, marking it as our first official foray into higher-level adventure content! But what is the Devastation Ark and what does it want with the Pact Worlds? Does it spell doom for the system? Or will a group of courageous heroes stop the return of an ancient, warmongering civilization?

Don’t worry, I’m here to give you (some of) the answers. While the spoilers presented here are mild, if you want these adventures to complete surprise you, you might want to skip some of the more revealing plot-related questions.

How many volumes are in this Adventure Path? The Devastation Ark is a 3-part AP.

What are the other titles and who has written those adventures? The second volume of the Devastation Ark is “The Starstone Blockade” by Eleanor Ferron, and the third is “Dominion’s End” by Ron Lundeen.

What levels do these adventures cover? “Waking the Worldseed” will take characters to 16th level, “The Starstone Blockade” will get PCs to 18th level, and before the finale of “Dominion’s End,” the heroes will be 20th level!

How did you plan to fit in all that adventure content? Well, each adventure of the Devastation Ark will be approximately 8 pages longer than normal for Starfinder Adventure Path volumes. To do this, we had to cut one of each volume’s articles, but each volume still contains a new world to explore, a new starship, and a bunch of new high-CR aliens!

Who is this ancient evil? And how are they returning? Those who have played through the Dead Suns Adventure Path might recognize the builders of the Devastation Ark. Millennia ago, the sivv and the kishalee empires were locked in a bloody war that lasted for centuries. The sivvs crafted a deadly superweapon—the Stellar Degenerator—to end their hated foes, but when kishalee spies eventually captured the device, the sivvs eventually lost the war. However, one sivv commandant had little faith in the Stellar Degenerator project and headed a project that would allow a collection of sivvs to escape destruction by going into stasis aboard a massive colony ship. That vessel, dubbed Ark Prime, launched into a kind of “quantum hyperspace” and has spent countless ages waiting for the right time to emerge and rebuild the Sivv Dominion!

Will there be any tie-ins to other Adventure Paths? Yes! The Devastation Ark is designed to be played by any group who has completed any of our other 6-part Adventure Paths (or Signal of Screams), with advice for the GM to help bring those PCs into the plot.

The first volume mentions a gazetteer of the moon of Hibb. What do the bantrids have to do with this plot? Our little wheeled aliens (as seen in the art below) have a mysterious past, having only recently awoken from their own stasis with no memory of their history. Without giving too much away, bantrids were a servitor species of the Sivv Dominion, and the moon of Hibb might involve more than meets the eye.

Can you preview some of the other content? “Waking the Worldseed” features a daemon who represents large-scale death by corporate malfeasance, an azata who roots out corruption in business and politics, and a ghostly vehicle called a “death cruiser” (yes, that’s an updated Pathfinder creature!). “The Starstone Blockade” features an article about the Church of Eloritu, one of the more mysterious deities, as well as a few more powerful outsiders. “Dominion’s End” features a collection of sivv relics and stats for the toughest sivv soldiers and mages.

Illustration by Franklin Chan

We’ll have more about this AP as it gets closer to the release date. I hope that in August, you’ll grab your parallax laser pistols and join the fight to stop the Devastation Ark!

Jason Keeley
Developer