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
The Ark Is Coming
Friday, August 14, 2020
