Greetings, players! In today’s blog we’d like to recognize the talented freelance authors who contributed to our most recent slate of Starfinder Society adventures. Some of these authors have been writing for us for years, while others saw their names in print for the very first time!
Alex Speidel
Organized Play Coordinator
Joseph Blomquist (he/him)
SFS1 #6-03: Project Dawn and SFS1 Special #6-99: The End Awakens
This season, I had the opportunity to put my stamp on two adventures that couldn’t be more different.
For the first one, Starfinder Society Scenario #6-03: Project Dawn, I was given the chance to dive back into the nostalgia of my gaming youth when Shadowrun was my game of choice. Project Dawn is truly intended to be a standard espionage run against an evil corporate entity and was a ton of fun to write. Jess even let me bring back an NPC from my first ever SFS adventure! In all honesty, using a simple subsystem to create tension while sneaking around the Dayside Inc. head office was a treat unto itself.
Starfinder Society Scenario #6-99: The End Awakens brought entirely different obstacles and opportunities. As a special, its needs were far different than a standard SFS adventure. Fortunately, I was working alongside the dev of some of my favorite PFS adventures, Mike Kimmel. While our styles are very different, they complement each other well, which just shows Jess’s high Wisdom score in pairing us together. One of my goals was to bring a lot of the big moments and decisions back to the table instead of solely allowing the house to have all the fun. And we got away with it! We had forking paths, aid tokens based on table decisions, and even a big moment to understand Krethiskar that occurred at a table level! But more importantly, I got to return to terrorizing Starfinders with bugs, as happened in my somewhat infamous adventure Illegal Shipment from four seasons ago. Starfinder tears really do taste so sweet…
Anyway, for more about me, check out the blog I never update at www.UnderwearOnTheOutside.com or on social media under the name DoctorMono. Or better yet, pick up Mechageddon! and get to know what makes me tick (spoilers: Mechs vs. kaiju).
See you in Second Edition!
Charlie Brooks (he/him)
SFS1 #6-09: Ridgerock Rescue
Hi everyone! My name is Charlie Brooks, and my pronouns are he/him. I had the privilege of writing Starfinder Society Scenario #6-09: Ridgerock Rescue, which was my first Starfinder publication and an opportunity to engage with this season’s metaplot by revealing the truth behind the Organization.
My gaming group loves “adopting” cute and unusual creatures. Since I was going to involve them in the playtest for this scenario, I made sure to add some elements that would make them smile. A big piece of that picture was the skittermander Baazo and his “burnydooms.” Jessica Catalan provided sage advice in crafting this encounter, leading to a sidebar with sample “chitter-chatter” and placing Baazo in a control center so particularly quick groups wouldn’t wipe him out in a single round. In playtesting, the encounter went exactly as I hoped, which is a rare thing in any game for me.
Writing a revelation scene in an RPG adventure is different from doing it in a novel, since you don’t have control over the characters and their reactions. The end of Ridgerock Rescue features a lot of exposition about the Organization. I tried to use Ongie’s voice in a compelling way so players felt like they were unraveling a mystery.
Outside of the RPG sphere, my recently-released novel Meddling Heroes mashes up a hard-boiled detective story with Silver Age super-heroics. You can find more about that and my other projects at www.ChBrooks.com.
Alison Cybe (they/them)
SFS1 #6-10: The Death of Kortus IV
In The Death of Kortus IV, your characters enter a region to evacuate citizens facing the threat of genocide, proactively interceding against the forces trying to destroy them. Starfinders are not a military faction, but they possess enough strength, expertise, and allies to be a positive force for change in the galaxy.
The Starfinder Society has been shown to possess corruption, and no small number of agents have gone rogue; this isn’t a utopian setting. But at the same time, they’re the protagonists and can act heroically.
And I don’t believe that any true hero, any group on the side of good, would stand by idly while an entire country or planet is subject to genocide. At the time I wrote this adventure, that wasn’t a heavily political statement to make. Things have changed. My position has not. All genocides are an act of raw, unfiltered evil and must be acted against unilaterally.
I’m aware that the adventures I’ve written are highly political; I include transgender characters where I don’t have to and make political stances very clear. I strongly believe gaming can be used as a means to discuss, explore, and unify ourselves. I’m also well and able to make a load more of these; ask the devs, loudly and repeatedly, to give me more. You do that, you’ll get more queer and political adventures like this.
https://www.facebook.com/alisoncybe
https://x.com/A1IS0NCYI3E
https://bsky.app/profile/alisoncybe.bsky.social
Jeremy Corff (he/him)
SFS1 #6-11: Gifts Ungiven
Hello! I’m Jeremy Corff (he/him) and I wrote Starfinder Society Scenario #6-11: Gifts Ungiven. Inspired by a few antics from my own childhood, as well as classics like Home Alone, I tried to set a light tone while still keeping to the “well-meaning disaster” theme. Without giving away spoilers, I think my favorite part of the adventure is the running gag of Big Cherry Goo-gurt (tm). No doubt available at all respectable space ports in the Pact Worlds and beyond! I just hope folks have enjoyed the scenario half as much as I enjoyed writing it.
If you’d like to find out more about other projects I’ve worked on, you can find me on Blue Sky at @solorunstudio.bsky.social or at my Starfinder blog https://solorunstudio.com/ where I post weekly homebrew Starfinder content.
Hilary Moon Murphy
SFS1 #6-12: Yesteryear’s Hope
Hello, I’m Hilary Moon Murphy, also known as Hmm. I wrote Starfinder Scenario #6-12: Yesteryear’s Hope, a whimsical and hope-filled repeatable adventure that can be summed up as a party on a bug planet. It takes the Starfinders back to Elytrio, home of two very thought-provoking early scenarios by Jason Keeley (#1-03 Yesteryear’s Truth and #1-21 Yesteryear’s Sorrow).
There are so many things to mention about this scenario. I had a chance to return to the delightful ghibrani and give them a brighter future, while showing Elytrio in all its radiation-blasted glory. Fans of the earlier scenarios will find many callbacks to the earlier storyline.
Shortly after getting the scenario assignment, my dear friend, Jack Brown, died. I made a request to my developer, Jessica Catalan. Could I write Jack’s favorite PC, Lucius, into Yesteryear’s Hope as a special tribute? She said yes (with the approval of Jack’s family). The scenario is dedicated to his memory. In writing this story, I felt that I had come full circle. Yesteryear’s Truth was the first Starfinder Scenario that I GMed, and Jack and I had prepped it together for GenCon, learning the starship combat system as we did. I think Jack would be very happy to see Lucius returning to the planet where his career had gotten its start.
Linda Zayas Palmer (she/her)
SFS1 #6-16: Dawning Fate
Hi folks! I’m Linda Zayas-Palmer (she/her), former development manager for the Organized Play team and current full-time freelancer. I was delighted to have the opportunity to write Starfinder Society Scenario #6-16: Dawning Fate, the epic finale to the machinations of the villainous Order of Dawning Fate. Jessica Catalan and the authors of previous scenarios stretching all the way back to the Order’s first appearance in Starfinder Society Special #3-00: The Last Bite gave me plenty to work with. Storming the stronghold of an organization that has been reading and twisting fate for over a century is no easy task, but the Starfinder Society isn’t going to back down. To avoid spoilers, my favorite parts of the adventure are the lasers and the timey-wimey stuff. I’m excited to see what people think!
You can find me on my twitch stream Arcane Mark [link] twitch.tv/arcanemark [/link] on Tuesdays at 8pm Eastern and Saturdays at 1pm eastern, and on the Arcane Mark Discord [link] tiny.cc/arcanemark [/link]. My next project is a Pathfinder Second Edition conversion of Dr Dhrolin’s Dictionary of Dinosaurs, which will launch soon on Kickstarter [link] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/palaeogames/pathfinder-second-ed-dr-dhrolins-dictionary-of-dinosaurs [/link]. Produced by paleontologists, it features detailed and scientifically accurate information alongside dozens of new stat blocks for Mesozoic dinosaurs and reptiles, plus plenty of new player content.
Sara Jeffers (she/they)
Starfinder Bounty #10: Those Who Were Taken
‘Way! Hello! I’m Sara Jeffers (she/they), and I’m the author of Starfinder Bounty #10: Those Who Were Taken. I really enjoyed pulling inspiration from personal experiences and cultural influences to create a banal evil, a thoroughly unremarkable force that can permeate quietly—something that has directly impacted my lives and the lives of my family. It was freeing to channel that, and now I can repeatably defeat it in a variety of exciting ways! The anacites are one of my favorites in the whole game because the idea of self-modification to become who you truly are and need to be is something I feel to my core. The idea that each individual is not only allowed to but is celebrated for their uniqueness is something I staunchly and stubbornly support. You can catch me on Twitter @BabaYagaQuest, Discord @babayagacreative, and on Twitch with Enchanted Sorcery Productions in a Murder Mystery Monster of the Week game set in Thedas. End of Love airs all summer on Thursday at 7:30 PM Pacific!
Basil Wright (he/they/xe)
Starfinder Bounty #11: The Aucturn Dilemma
Inspiration:The Aucturn Dilemma was somewhat inspired by Henrietta Lacks and the unethical usage of her cells.
Favorite Part: The orocoran encounter when the players enter the laboratory for the first time. I also really enjoyed getting the chance to employ the sci-fi trope of broken screens displaying a spooky message.
Social Media: https://twitter.com/Kobanya_kana & https://bsky.app/profile/kobanya.bsky.social
Meet the Authors: Starfinder Society’s Year of Fortune’s Fall
Thursday, June 13, 2024
