Everyone on the Starfinder team agrees that the setting is our favorite part of the game. As stewards of Starfinder, we’re more interested in preserving and expanding lore than we are in reinventing it, but a new edition is the perfect time to update our beloved setting. Here are a few exciting changes you can look forward to in Starfinder Second Edition!
Aucturn explodes! That’s right, everybody; we’re kicking Starfinder Second Edition off with a bang and blowing up one of the Pact Worlds! For those who weren’t keeping up, Aucturn is the most distant, mysterious planet in the sun’s orbit (kind of like Pluto), except it has a toxic atmosphere and is crawling with monsters like orocorans and carrion wheels. Yikes! To make things worse, most people who live on Aucturn are cultists of eldritch gods. That said, though it was a pretty weird place, nobody expected it to explode!
Many people in the Pact Worlds believed Aucturn was really an egg. There was even a cult dedicated to nurturing the eldritch being inside it, and it’s rumored that the planet’s ruler drank his power from the unborn monstrosity. Well, it turns out they were right—Aucturn is an egg, and it just hatched. As you can imagine, this immediately caused problems in Pact Worlds space and across the whole galaxy. Magic went haywire, planets got knocked out of orbit, people experienced bizarre visions, and a strange new god called the Newborn emerged into cosmic consciousness. The weirdness isn’t going to end anytime soon, but it all starts with the playtest. PlayA Cosmic Birthday, a playtest module for 1st-level characters, if you want to experience the disaster/miracle of the Newborn’s emergence firsthand.
Pulonis declares independence! Pulonis (formerly known as Vesk-6) was defeated and occupied by the Veskarium for a long time, but its war for freedom never truly ended. While Veskarium forces were stretched thin during the Drift Crisis, Pulonis finally achieved independence. Soon after, Pulonis joined the Pact alliance as the first full member not located in the Pact Worlds system. Starfinder Second Edition is celebrating Pulonis by adding pahtras as a core ancestry and Meyel the Dancing Fury (their patron god) as a core deity. Surely this won’t upset the Veskarium, right? Well, speaking of that…
Azlanti Star Empire challenges the Veskarium! It’s the war we’ve all been waiting for—let them fight! The Pact Council must have been feeling pretty smug about the Veskarium getting distracted right after the stunt they pulled with Pulonis, until they realized that an interstellar war has far-reaching consequences even for those who aren’t involved. If you want to be part of Starfinder history and experience the beginning of this war, playEmpires Devoured, a playtest module for 10th-level characters.
New gods join the core pantheon! You’ll notice that old favorites like Oras and Triune have been joined by some new divine faces. We’ve added the patron gods of the Azlanti Star Empire and Pulonis, as well as two completely new deities that emerged after recent cosmic events, to the list of core deities. Now your character can be a rune-scourged follower of Lissala, a graceful warrior of Meyel, study the enigma of the Newborn, or channel pain into art for Zon-Shelyn. You can read more about all the gods, old and new, in theStarfinder Playtest Rulebook.
If you’re still curious about setting updates and want to find out about new Starfinder content, keep an eye on GenCon news next month. Not only will we be launching the first public Starfinder Second Edition playtest, we’ll also have plenty more news to share that you won’t want to miss.—The Starfinder Team
Starfinder Second Edition Setting Updates
Friday, July 26, 2024
