A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 3-6.
The Exo-Guardians' leader, Zigvigix, has been forced by recent events to revaluate the Society's arsenal of weapons. They order a new exploration mission to the irradiated nuclear wasteland world of Elytrio, homeworld of the beetle-like ghibrani species. Far from the homes of the surviving ghibranis, the PCs travel into a missile silo that contributed to the death of a world. What deadly weapons can the PCs find and what further concealed truths are there to uncover about the history of the ghibranis?
As others have pointed out, this one definitely works a whole lot better if you've played 1-03, Yesteryear's Truth beforehand, so I strongly encourage you to play/run that one first before this. However, the mission briefing does have enough of a description to understand the context for what's going on for those who have not played in that scenario before.
The big selling points here are the environmental hazards/skill tests and the creepy atmosphere. This one definitely has some unusual challenges that the party has to deal with in order to meet their objectives and find success, so inventive solutions and having the right tool to solve problems is very rewarded. The theming also ramps up in the second half very well, building to a good emotional climax once the players understand the full story of what's going on.
The main failure here are in the combats - they're simply too easy. I ran this for a table of 4 players but forgot to apply the scaling encounters, but even then my party simply was not challenged by them. The first proper combat encounter is straightforward to deal with and not a huge threat, whereas the final encounter doesn't carry enough gameplay menace to deliver on the build-up throughout the back half of the scenario. Admittedly my players were well-built and were smart about dealing with the challenges beforehand, but the hazards and environments leading up to the fights were more dangerous then the fights themselves. That's what holds this one back for me.
So many fun and enjoyable traps and weirdness in this module. It is a stumbling in the dark episode that is just a strange and fun romp. I enjoyed it a lot.
A nice follow up, with a strong link to Yesteryear’s Truth (play it before).
The scenario was fun, and some nice fights and such... but I really like the discovery of the backstory the most.
A great step by step insight into a sad event...
Very nice.
Based on my experiences running and playing at my local gaming store...
I went back and forth on giving this three or four stars. The scenario is the much-anticipated sequel to SFS 1-03, which I highly recommend, but doesn't quite capture the same world-spanning impact of the first one. This scenario does a very good job executing an SFS dungeon crawl from finding the first hatch to the final battle. There are environmental effects, a unique BBEG, a nice mix of skill checks and combat, and cool scenario rewards.
All of that being said, I had trouble rating it four or five stars because of the comparatively limited scope of the adventure. I think the scenario definitely works well in a pinch, but in two out of my three play throughs (GM'd twice, played once) I couldn't really point to a memorable moment or "wow" take away. (My third table had such a moment during the final battle, but it was based more on poor PC luck during combat than the scenario itself.) By all means I think this scenario does a lot right, but I wouldn't rank it among the very top of the SFS scenarios from season one.
Let's do some more history while stealing some nukes
So first of all, I have to continue to comment on this trend because I love it - the Starfinders are neutral as hell and they do history and archaeology to solve their problems.
The resource strapped Starfinders need weapons to go back to the Scoured Stars region to save their stranded and improbably still surviving comrades in that system.
While other groups are looking for a way in, the Exo-Guardians need supplies. Fortunately, we have made contact with a planet that was once so warfaring they nearly wiped themselves extinct! No one will mind if we go pick the bones of that civilization, surely not! It's exactly the sort of logical yet unexpected development that makes campaigns like this fun.
I definitely recommend playing 1-03 Yesteryear's Sorrow first and if possible recommend playing the same character. We get a more in depth look at that culture's history and while the explanation for what happened here is a bit disappointingly simple, it is well teased out and hinted at throughout the dungeon and makes for a satisfying conclusion.
We learn a lot more about a doomed society's final days and now we GOT NUKES so we have that going for us. Win/Win right?
Wow! My Second Seeker PC, Kylex, became heavily invested in the events of Yesteryear's Truth and there was a bit of a conflict brewing between the characters about the final course of action they would take. Learning the ghibrani language became an imperative and Kylex vowed to be of service to their needs should he ever be called upon. I look very much forward to this chapter.
Scenario is yet to come, but in event reporting form there is its option - and there are still no such options for Dead Suns IV and V. How is that?
Hi Fedor! While I appreciate your enthusiasm for the status of future Dead Suns reporting, I would kindly request that you not clog up all of the product page threads with the same post about them. If you have concerns, the proper venue would be to create a new thread in the Organized Play boards, or if you'd prefer, contact me directly via email or private message.
That being said, I'll take some time to answer the question here: The Dead Suns installments are intended to be open for reporting once the associated sanctioning document is ready. Currently, those documents are not yet ready for public distribution. I've talked about it in some other threads, but the short version is that we're focusing on making sure we get all our convention scenarios ready before we focus on wrapping up the Dead Suns sanctioning.
Starfinder Society Developer
