Good question!
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There are numerous colossi, of a variety of species, throughout the AP.
NPCs don't calculate their AC the same way PCs do. Her EAC and KAC are determined by her CR and array -- and as a CR 1 expert, those stats are accurate. (See Table 3: Expert Array-Main Statistics in Alien Archive).
For future reference: An index to all named NPCs in SF 1st ed. But to save a few clicks: Spoiler: Auntie Khalin: New to this scenario (7-09) Lunesha: 5-10: Shadow of the Vault Lord Vradak: 3-06: Rise of the Vault Lord
Meanwhile we have a dragon on Triaxus who was considered a threat pre-Gap and who is now, from the information given, no more than 800 years old, physically. That's the thing about the Gap; you can't solve the puzzle. The pieces don't fit together.
Honestly, I don't think Radaszam did anything really wrong. Everyone had pit crews honestly, and the Junk Racing cycle is meant to be a bit cutthroat. For me, Radaszam (and by extension his agents, the PCs) went over the line in three ways; one motivational and two operational. Spoiler:
Improving Laboni's junkracer? Socializing? Investigating the enemy? All totally valid. But here's where the Acquisitives go wrong:
1. Motivational: Laboni makes a mess of her social media when she burns Ratrod (idly aping her Starfinder superiors) and Ratrod, local sports hero and community-based entrepreneur, very justly blasts her on main. The scenario is explicit that Radaszam knows Laboni has no chance to win on her own and, out of pure ego (fueled by the desperate take of the Society at this specific point in time that virtually anything is justified to keep the lights on at the Lorespire Complex), sends the PCs to cheat Ratrod of his championship. A fair race is the opposite of Radaszam's intentions. 2. Operational: The PCs have the option to sabotage other racers (and we have to assume they do so). This is clearly taboo and risks total disqualification if the PCs are caught. 3. Operational: Laboni isn't totally helpless with tech, of course; her junkracer can be operated via remote control. Junk racing tests competitors in two areas: mechanical ingenuity and piloting skill. Laboni's more passenger than pilot in the race, with a PC covertly working her controls from the pit. The PC pilot is a ringer! So, basically, they came at the event in bad faith and then cheated in two separate and serious ways.
Note that by the era of Pathfinder, Bretheda, Eox, and Verces had already been planet-hopping for thousands of years.
Varies a ton between artists, but skimming through my art archive I see that most artists who show off a little vesk skin depict slightly pebbly, lizard-like scales.
Unrevealed, but with contradictory vague clues. Spoiler: The Veskarium? Unlike the isolationist Azlanti Star Empire, the Veskarium is known to have worked with the Order in the past. If the Veskarium government did hire the Order, however, they did so without informing their representatives on-site.
The Azlanti Star Empire? The Order tries to leave the system as soon as the Azlanti reinforcements arrive, suggesting that the Star Empire may have quietly hired the Order simply to keep a lid on the situation until they could muster their forces. The Pact Worlds? Seems quite unlikely, since this makes the Order de facto allies to the PCs out of the gate. Could be a powerful special interest within the Pact Worlds, though, such as a discreet AbadarCorp looking to keep trade flowing. An Unknown Third Party? Maybe? he said, with shrug. I think the real answer is: "Don't sweat it, this doesn't matter for the purposes of this adventure."
Justice for Ratrod! Seriously, Radaszam was utterly in the wrong when he fixed that match and Datch could and should have hung this albatross around the Society's neck back all the way back in Season 2!
Since this is the final for the metaplot, and no other scenarios were announced in November. Is this going to be the final scenario for the 1E campaign? It would just be nice to know so can plan how to play the last few scenarios for characters. I would assume a total of 16 scenarios this season.
In addition to the above, 2-18: Forbidden Tides the most overtly Lovecraftian adventure in the Starfinder lineup. If you want to delve into third-party publisher material: Frightfinder is a short adventure for 5th-level PCs. The Project Singularity adventure trilogy Grimmerspace (which, admittedly, is still struggling its way toward a full release) is a sci-fi/horror setting with a sample adventure, Abattoir 8.
Last announcement I saw was that the APs (now published as single volumes) and standalone adventures would be rolled into a single Starfinder Adventures subscription, which would reportedly consist of 2 to 4 releases per year.
That placeholder picture was from Drift Crash book 3 right? Trying to place it in my mind where that one was from Or what if we've already seen the First Ones?
Starfinder discussion (aside from 2E playtesting, and even then) has moved almost entirely to Discord. But for Starfinder 1E, a dearth of posts is what I would expect; the forum culture here is such that posters are generally only active when it comes to 1. Theorizing what's going to be in an announced book, 2. Asking what's in a just-released book, and 3. Theorycrafting rules or calling out errata in recently released books.
For what it's worth, plasma casters were longarms in 1st edition.
Starfinder Galaxy Guide hits in May 2025 and the Starfinder Player Core in August 2025 (a Gen Con release). Starfinder GM Core will also release in 2025 (I assume at the same time as SFPC, but I don't know).
Glad to see this in the lineup!
1. Destination DCs I'd slot "visited once" at "seldom visited" and "only have coordinates" as "unfamiliar" but adding the DC 20 option is fine. I wouldn't allow navigation based on just someone's "description" though. 2. How Do We Track Tbis? I read the navigation rules as meaning the character who makes the Piloting check, aka the pilot. And yes, you'd need a basic mental map of where the pilot has been to before. 3. Initial Impact of the Drift Crisis Initially, the Drift beacon network is entirely offline, so Drift engines just don't function. This seems to last a few weeks at most before the Drift comes back online in malfunctioning fashion. 4. Sell Price Yes, all setting lore suggests that selling (and purchase) prices should go up. Interstellar economic chains all but collapse during the early days of the Crisis. (The book even suggests that interplanetary commerce nigh-on collapses as well, despite only being delayed by 2 days in mechanical terms.)
According to page 9, the ladders shown on the map are exterior ladders leading along the hull from the airlocks to the starship's weapons - which is to say, yes, the bug-things in the center of the map.
No Starfinder creature matches that description. Feline humanoid defaults to pahtra in SF; playable species with multiple snake heads is the ilthisarian. You might be thinking of the caypin, which isn't playable.
The Gap (in no coherent order): * Golarion and other worlds in the Mataras system catch up with Verces and Bretheda, developing interplanetary and eventually interstellar travel. Various nations and worlds from the system establish colonies in nearby systems, often requiring the use of generational arkships. Some notable colonies include: * Hobgoblins, presumably from Tian Xia, establish an interstellar empire that the modern Gideron Authority claims as its own. The hobgoblin empire eventually collapses, for unknowable reasons.
* Absalom Station is constructed and the Starstone relocated from Golarion's surface to the station's core. * Somehow, either through a fluke mutation or a blessing from Hylax, shirrens, a component of the Swarm, gain individuality. More later!
Quick n' dirty additions, and trying to avoid any major spoilers: Pre-Gap dates assume the Gap began somewhere in the 4700s AG, just for a baseline. If you disagree, just slide those numbers around to taste. Millions (or hundreds of thousands? Sources contradict) of years ago: The Sivv Dominion uses its advanced technology to aggressively spread across the galaxy, stopped only when the Kishalee empire, possessing its own incredible technologies, cripples the sivv empire in a stunning act of sabotage. The Sivv Dominion collapses and is soon wiped out by its surviving enemies. Hundreds of Thousands of Years Ago: The act that doomed the Sivv Dominion also sent the Kishalee Empire into a long slide of cultural decay. Eventually it, too, collapses. The Sivv and the Kishalee are eventually forgotten by history, remembered only in the prehistoric legends of other species. Unknown Pre-Gap: Eox fires a doomsday weapon that destroys the planets Damiar and Iovo, creating the Diaspora. The weapon also backfires, devastating Eox. The handful of native elebrians who survive the initial cataclysm turn to undeath to persist. Unknown Pre-Gap: The planet Golarion's first great human empire, Azlant, uses magical portals to explore the galaxy, establishing colonies on Akiton and New Thespera. Unknown Pre-Gap: The Oatia elves of Castrovel study the stars, making advanced discoveries, and eventually use portals to depart to distant worlds, eventually spreading to numerous worlds and possibly even other galaxies. Circa 10,100 Pre-Gap: Earthfall. An asteroid pulled from the Diaspora smashes into Golarion, obliterating Azlant and ushering the planet into the "Age of Darkness." Azlanti colonies elsewhere in the galaxy, including those on Akiton and New Thespera, are suddenly and permanently cut off from home. Unknown Pre-Gap: The Azlanti humans of Akiton wage war against the planet's resident witchwyrds. The witchwyrds are outnumbered. The majority stay and fight the Azlanti, eventually evolving into shobhads. A smaller population negotiates a peace with the Azlanti. The smallest percentage develops starflight and flees. Of these, those who remain nomadic are the witchwyrds we know today. Some settle on a new world, Kasath, and eventually evolve into kasathas. The Azlanti humans gradually become the Hylki. Much of this history will be forgotten or suppressed by the start of the Gap. Circa 9,160 Pre-Gap: A massive starship from a distant galaxy crashes into Golarion. Its wreckage and the alien creatures and technology that trickle out of it fascinate the local human barbarians, who call the wreck the Silver Mount. This event introduces androids to the galaxy and releases small populations of some creatures collected on Akiton and Castrovel into the wild. Circa 9,000 Pre-Gap: Gnomes first emerge on Golarion. Unknown Pre-Gap: Eshovok the Far-Sighted unites the vesk and establishes their empire, the Veskarium. The Veskarium wages a war of extermination against the other two sapient species on their planet. Eventually, the Veskarium rules the planet, unopposed. Unknown Pre-Gap: The deity Kadrical first arrives in the system modern Pact Worlds explorers call the Scoured Stars and adopts the system as his domain. Kadrical first manifests a powerful field, the Godshield, to protect the jinsul species from the ravages of their sun. Unknown Pre-Gap: Under Kadrical's watchful eye, izalguuns develop technology considered advanced even in modern times. Several other species in the Scoured Stars unite to form a blended civilization; much much later this civilization will call itself the Kreiholm Freehold. Jinsuls serve as Kadrical's enforcers, maintaining the peace and guarding against external threats. Unknown Pre-Gap: A mysterious "darkness" from space threatens the Scoured Stars. Kadrical responds by engulfing the entire trinary star system in the Godshield, cutting the planets off from each other and the rest of the galaxy. Unknown Pre-Gap: Centuries later, Kadrical slips into a torpor and the Godshield falls. The eight indigenous civilizations of the Scoured Stars all flee, scattering across the galaxy by various means. One of Kadrical's heralds attempts to stop the exodus, but succeeds only in scattering it. Unknown Pre-Gap: Not long after (no more than a couple of centuries later), Kadrical briefly wakes, discovers that he has been abandoned, and sends an artifact out into space, each one intended as a beacon to ask its civilization to return. None respond. Circa 4,800 Pre-Gap: On Golarion, Aroden raises the Starstone from the bottom of the Inner Sea and builds a great capital city around it: Absalom. This ushers in the "Age of Enthronement." 3,226 Pre-Gap: Having developed interplanetary travel, the Veskarium invades and conquers the neighboring world in their system, Iji. The Veskarium renames the planet Vesk-2. Circa 200 Pre-Gap: Aroden dies and prophecy is forever broken in the multiverse. 161 Pre-Gap: The Veskarium completes its initial conquest of all eight planets in their solar system. Circa 100 Pre-Gap: The Russian Revolution of 1917 takes place in a distant galaxy. 0 Pre-Gap: The Gap begins, marking the end of the reliable historical record in the Golarion system. The start of the Gap is porous, with no clear and singular cutoff point. The physical loss of Golarion post-Gap means that most historical records do not survive, leaving a tattered history that grows even sparser as the Gap approaches. Surviving records of dubious authenticity suggest that Golarion was in the early stages of technological society, with isolated usage of aircraft and orbital vehicles. The ancestors of space goblins are reputed to have snuck onboard a spacefaring vehicle and infested an orbital space station. The Pathfinder Society is active in this era, eventually inspiring the formation of the Starfinder Society.
That was my headcanon as well. Shirrens are just biologically and culturally accustomed to being in general agreement on important matters. Conversely, they delight in other individuals' quirky choices as much as their own, so seldom feel the urge to convince anyone else that their idiosyncratic opinions are wrong. Shirrens do not do "edition wars."
I can attest that I'd been noodling a short series of write-ups of "overlooked" PC species for Starfinder, taking species who had simply been mentioned in passing and providing them with stats and lore on how they fit into the setting. An expansion of this post in the homebrew forum. I've abandoned those plans entirely now and, as far as I can see, were I to offer up or update that forum post now, I would be in violation. Sad thing is that I'd been specifically waiting for the end of SF1 with the purposeful intent of not stepping on any creative toes.
In practice that sounds like 1. the critfailed player giving lip service to the silly disinfo, and 2. the other players shrugging and ignoring them. If nothing mechanically compels a player to act on bad info, then it's purely the bluffing skills of the GM that will make them do so. And if they don't act on it, then you're making the GM jump through an unexpected hoop, often mid-combat, for nothing.
Is there a proper place to post rules clarification questions regarding this book? This forum in general
Of course, it's possible that what we're actually seeing here is a sneak preview of the limitations to environmental protections we know are coming in SF2. (It isn't.)
Well obviously you're going to want to use a four-armed character (runs and hides)
So the "A Cosmic Birthday" and the playtest rulebook are looking a lot better, but the PF2E player and GM core, when I try to open those in Acrobat, are registering as inaccessible pdfs, and when they get processed with its cloud services to improve the accessibility, it ends up in a document without any headings--is there a difference with these documents compared to the playtest materials? I couldn't tell you, but I do know that for reasons unknown the entire Pathfinder 2E product line chokes the software I use to grab images. Something hidden in the formatting, but what? I dunno.
OK, I've run the numbers with this additional data point and reached a different conclusion: Prime Executives are elected to four-year terms. Elections take place early in the year, on "the fours," and the office is limited to two terms. So, working backward: 324 AG: By mid-year Melacruz is out of office and providing counsel to the new Primex. We can assume elections are held early in the year; the first Primex took office as a reaction to the end of the Gap, aka Day 1, 0 AG. So if the social catastrophe that was post-Gap Absalom Station began on "January 1st," getting someone in charge by "Spring" makes a lot of sense. So we can assume that as of A Cosmic Birthday, Melacruz has been out of office for just a few months, and that the election was held within the calendar year: 324 AG. 320 AG: Melacruz is re-elected, placing her in her second term by the time she appears in The Devastation Ark. This checks out, assuming TDA takes place later in the year. 316 AG: Melacruz is elected. Within her first year in office, she survives an assassination attempt, which has already happened when she and the entire setting are first introduced in 317 AG. Checks out. Screaming backward in time, now: 8 AG: The first Primex, Loqua Tem, leaves office. (Assumed.) 7 AG: Loqua Tem is Primex during the Magefire Assault. This checks out, placing the event toward the end of his second term. 4 AG: Loqua Tem is re-elected. 3 AG: Loqua Tem is in office during the Signal. This checks out. 0 AG: Loqua Tem is elected within a few months of the end of the Gap. Okay! I'm sorted, this all works. Next Primex election's coming up in early 328 AG, and might actually be democratic for the first time! See you there.
Well, as of last night I can officially say that running this adventure path took my group exactly five years and nine months to complete. But we included a few bells and whistles.
Buckle up, starfarers, we're flying back into The Great Tuvix Debate sector.
Little Akiton has never been mapped, no.
My subscription shipped Monday.
(Although, on further consideration, the math still makes my head hurt)
No other vesk kids. Artwork of children in Starfinder is vanishingly rare, as a general rule. Off the top of my head, I think I can count on one hand the number of illustrations of kids -- of all species -- across the SF1 product line. ETA: I checked, and it's two hands. * A young version of Quig, a ysoki
The description of this flip-map definitely does not match the original Space Station flip-mat.
As for part 3, there surely was a great deal of chaos. Based on printed sources, when Absalom Station emerged from the Gap, no one knew if or where anyone worked, which implies no financial trails to follow. Many starship manufacturers are noted as having lost their design documents to the Gap and having to reverse-engineer their own ships to stay afloat, which not all successfully did.
Right, but the issue under discussion is that this is the only time, I believe, in the full run of the RPG, that it's been suggested that characters with environmental protections active can't verbally communicate directly with other people who aren't on comms. I think we've all been assuming that Starfinder RPG armor comes with something like Stormtrooper-esque helmet mics at a bare minimum, since this is a ruleset that assumes you can smell and even put objects in your mouth through active environmental protections. Of course, it's possible that what we're actually seeing here is a sneak preview of the limitations to environmental protections we know are coming in SF2.
To un-muddy a little bit of this discussion, the Starfinder 2E core book is set to be released at Gen Con 2025. I'm "betting" (actually just musing what I would do, if handed the reins) that starships will be introduced in a theoretical book released 1 year later, at Gen Con 2026.
And remember, contact them via the portal rather than via e-mail. (I've always received nigh-immediate responses through the portal.) I used the portal (a while ago, but still) to tell CS I didn't want the playtest hardcopy, but that I didn't know if I could just suspend my subscription for July or if I'd need to cancel it (and then renew it again afterward). The CS person got back to me right away and canceled the playtest book from my July subscriptions, basically just crossing it off my list of this month's orders. (Since then, on the Paizo site, the playtest book then displayed as "You purchased this," which had me slightly nervous, but when this month's subscription order processed, all was as it should be.)
Venture-Captain: Hey, everybody! I need you to rescue Envar-- PCs: Uggggghhhh... Venture-Captain: ...'s body double! PCs: Oh! Okay then!
I'm sure it doesn't make sense for a playtest adventure but any info if starfinder 2e adventures in the future will receive Foundry virtual tabletop treatment similar to most of the newest pathfinder 2e adventures? Well, on that topic, they've said that while A Cosmic Birthday and Empires Devoured are playtest adventures, they're also full, I'll-call-it "real" adventures they hope people continue to play long after playtesting has come and gone.
It appears to take place after. Perhaps not long after.
And remember, contact them via the portal rather than via e-mail. (I've always received nigh-immediate responses through the portal.)
And indeed, there's that little vesk girl in today's blog.
I have no idea but my gut tells me to put a chip down on a Gen Con 2026 release.
That's my read as well; just a little bit of assumed "realism" that the setting as published otherwise just handwaves.
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