The undead Corpse Fleet has appeared in orbit above the Gate of Twelve Suns, intent on seizing the ancient alien superweapon called the Stellar Degenerator. The heroes are massively outgunned, and their only hope to defeat the Corpse Fleet is by infiltrating the fleet's flagship and taking control of the vessel's bridge. Only then can the heroes pilot the ship on a collision course with the superweapon in a desperate bid to end both threats at once. If successful, the heroes can destroy the Stellar Degenerator, but they'll need to escape the carnage to live to tell the tale!
This volume of Starfinder Adventure Path concludes the Dead Suns Adventure Path and includes:
"Empire of Bones," a Starfinder adventure for 11th-level characters, by Owen K.C. Stephens.
Advice on how you can continue your campaign past the final encounter and details on the devastation inflicted on the galaxy should the heroes fail, by John Compton.
Technological specifications for starships of extraordinary size and power, by Owen K.C. Stephens.
A collection of starships from the dreaded undead navy known as the Corpse Fleet, by Jason Keeley.
An archive of new creatures, including a plethora of undead monstrosities and a crystalline humanoid that can redirect blasts of energy, by Owen K.C. Stephens and Larry Wilhelm.
Statistics and deck plans for a massive undead flagship, by Owen K.C. Stephens, plus an introduction to a planet constantly wracked by energy storms, by Larry Wilhelm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-64078-042-2
The Dead Suns Adventure Path is sanctioned for use in Starfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (1.7 MB PDF).
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Spoiler: The module completely surprised my players, as they thought they would have to enter the Stellar Degenerator and not a huge Eoxian ship. One of the big criticisms of this module is that it does not have a complete map for a huge ship, however, this is not really necessary as the mission is simple: go directly to the control command and not wandering around the ship without a route. My players really enjoyed this adventure, although the final battle could have been more epic. All in all, an awesome ride.
With more rails than a Grav Train and more explosions than a Bay film.
In the conclusion to the Dead Suns AP, Empire of Bones, the PCs are off to stop the Corpse Fleet from seizing the Death Star Stellar Degenerator and using it to extinguish life wherever they see fit. It's a big, flashy climax to the AP - filled with the kind of energy that you'd expect out of your favorite Sci-Fi action movie. With stellar set pieces and some flashy, high level encounters, it really leaves a strong and exciting impression. At the same time, the railroading comes in HEAVY, and it'll take some serious GM rewriting to get it to feel more natural. For groups that like to have personal agency, this adventure is likely to leave a bad taste in their mouth. But for those in it to clash energy blades with big bads over a weapon that could end the universe, and who don't much care how it happens, this has plenty to love.
Overall, it's one of the stronger books of the Dead Suns AP on virtue of its set pieces and encounters, but there's so much more it could have been.
The Good:
Great and Memorable Encounters There are a lot of interesting, novel, and challenging encounters to be had here, from fighting a starship while on foot, to shooting from a speeding grav train, to the final climactic encounter on the starship's bridge. The new enemies introduced are tough for their CR, which is an appropriate spike in difficulty for the last mission. The starship encounter at the end is outrageously easy, but super satisfying.
Desperate mission energy There's some really great vibes here as the PCs delve into the flagship - something between Star Wars and Independence Day, maybe. The PCs really feel like elite operatives taking down things from the inside.
Great art and maps Though the maps have fairly simple layouts, the theme and feel of the Corpse Fleet comes through clearly. Lots of interesting detail in them. The art is also of great quality - I especially liked the Stellar Degenerator peeking out of the demiplane, and the cybernetic zombie control room.
Very cool artifacts Gained at the 11th hour. Creepy and powerful.
The Bad:
Railroading Its been said to death already, but this adventure asks you to railroad PCs in a really unintuitive way. The Corpse Fleet arrives just in time to contest the Degenerator, but then gets delayed by convenient defenses. Rather than close the demiplane, board the Degenerator, or any other more logical approach, the adventure wants the party to board the Empire of Bones and use the ship to ram the Degenerator to destroy both ships. To say its a stretch is putting it lightly. A hardworking GM can alter the scenario to make this more palatable -- for me, I had the Pact Fleet follow the PCs to the system and then engage the Corpse Fleet in battle. Chiskisk and Ambassador Nor then served as mouth pieces to suggest a way forward, with Nor having a "man on the inside" to make boarding the Empire of Bones more practical.
Baykoks are quite overtuned Even with a fairly low save DC, 1d3 rounds of paralysis is far too long to be delivered on every successful attack. I reduced it to 1 round and still found the baykok's combination of high accuracy, flight, solid damage, and control effects to easily let them punch up against higher level PCs.
With a few exceptions, its too stingy with loot Thanks to the lack of opportunity to buy and resupply, the PCs are likely equipped with outdated armor and weapons by the time they hit this book. There's a feel-bad sense that you're underequipped to handle the increasingly difficult encounters. A more generous selection of loot would help with that.
Yes, I did save the galaxy. You're welcome. Empire of Bones is the sixth and final installment of the Dead Suns adventure path, designed to take characters from Level 11 to Level 13 or so. If you've read my review of the previous instalments, you'll know I'm not a big fan of the AP overall. It has a pretty cliched plot and a very heavy-handed approach to ensuring PCs stick to the rails no matter what. Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't bits and pieces that are salvageable, or that a GM couldn't take the (pardon the cover art pun) skeleton of the AP and make something better out of it. But Chapter 6 has pretty much the same flaws as the earlier chapters. Now that a lot of other APs have been released, I'd suggest shopping around for something better.
As usual, I'll start with the non-spoilery back matter.
* The inside front- and back- covers feature the stats, interior layout, and some background on a truly massive Tier 20 Corpse Fleet ship class called the Blackwind Annihilator. Categorised as "supercolossal ultranoughts", there only a handful of these vessels in existence. They're best thought of as the equivalent of Imperial Super Star Destroyers. I can't speak to the stats, etc., but I like the little description of the status/fate of each individually-named one of these (adds a bit of fun lore to the game).
* The first back matter proper is "Ships of the Line" (4 pages). This section introduces the supercolossal base frame, a category that allows for unlimited expansion bays and designed for a crew of over 100,000! Lots of new starship systems are added here to support such a large ship. The new "spinal-mount weapons" category is pretty cool. "Take 6d12x10 damage from my vortex devourer, fools!" I should note that this all came out before Starship Operations Manual, and I don't know how that book treats the material here.
* Next, we get "Ships of the Corpse Fleet" (6 pages). This section has a ton of cool stuff for ships crewed by undead, like a "ghost drive" (allows a ship to become briefly insubstantial) and a "corpse recycler" (turns bodies into necrograft UPBs). Several new Corpse Fleets ships are introduced, ranging from a tiny Tier 1/3 "Barrow Boneshard" to the hefty Tier 16 "Barrow Cenotaph." Starfinder starship combat has never appealed to me, but I know it does to some folks, so hopefully they get something out of this section.
* This issue's "Alien Archives" (8 pages) is 85.7% undead. Many of the creatures will be familiar to long-time gamers. We get 1) baykoks (soul-devouring undead); 2) corpsefolk (formerly known as "zombie masters"); 3) gatecrashers (these guys are neat, as they wield multiple massively oversized unwieldy weapons with ease); 4) kuobozus (also known as "black monks"; they have pretty much the CREEPIEST artwork ever); 5) mohrgs (paralysing skeletal undead); 6) pale strangers (very cool undead gunslingers); and 7) shimreen (the only non-undead entry, this is a playable race of crystalline undead with an incredibly wussy special power--occasionally add 3d4 damage to an attack once you get to Level 16!).
* For the "Codex of Worlds" (1 page) we get Shimrinsara, the home planet of the crystalline shimreen introduced above. The place is a "storm-torn world of master artisans". If you were *really* a fan of "The Saga of Crystar, the Crystal Warrior" in the 1980s, now's your chance to live out your childhood dreams.
SPOILERS!:
Previously on Dead Suns/Star Wars: A New Hope: A ruthless master of eldritch forces (with a huge military fleet) sought a superweapon capable of dominating the galaxy by sending entire planets to their dooms! Fortunately, a rag-tag bunch of heroes stepped up to save the day.
Part 1 ("Close to the Bone") of Chapter 6 starts with the PCs seeing a massive armada of Corpse Fleet ships arrive to claim the Gate of Twelve Suns, intent on taking the Stellar Degenerator for their own nefarious purposes. The flagship of the Corpse Fleet armada is the Empire of Bones, one of the "supercolossal ultranoughts" mentioned above. As the Corpse Fleet ships begin engaging the automated defense batteries protecting the Gate, the PCs realise there's only one thing to do: destroy the Gate before it's too late! No. Such a plan would be "beyond the scope of this adventure." The one and only, completely obvious and viable plan is to sneak aboard the Empire of Bones, navigate its miles-long corridors without getting caught, storm the bridge, kill the admiral and bridge crew, and set the ship on a suicide course to ram the Stellar Degenerator. Like, duh! Sarcasm aside, I do really like the variety of new crew actions ("Fly Casual", "Dampen Life Signs", "Garbled Communication", etc.) to support pretending to be a Corpse Fleet vessel in order to land in the Empire of Bones. It's an idea that could be easily abstracted to other Starfinder starship encounters.
Part 2 ("Mass Graves") has the PCs landing in "hangar country" aboard the flagship, trying to figure out exactly where they are and where the bridge is. There's a cool battle in the hangar here, as one of the Corpse Fleet starfighters turns its guns on against the PCs when they're on foot! (honestly, it should have been tougher) and a crane that can be used to pick up and smash opponents. But after this, the PCs are then expected to do a room-by-room search (as if dungeon crawling) which really slows down the excitement of what should be a crazy bold plan. My main criticism of this entire section is that there's hardly any feeling whatsoever that a massive space battle is going on outside. The ship never rocks from being hit, there aren't constant emergency crew orders being given over the intercoms, damaged vessels and injured crew being attended to, etc. Essentially, there's no timeline whatsoever for the PCs, and no hurry--the adventure even contemplates them taking multiple overnight rests! It's just a really weird way to dampen suspense, like if Luke was depicted having a brief cockpit snooze in the middle of the trench run. Anyway, the PCs learn they need to take a grav-train to the bridge.
Part 3 ("In the Marrow") provides a cool map of the grav-train station (though it's a big one!). But securing the grav-train is one thing, fending off a security train that gives chase is another. Unlike some gamers, I actually enjoy Chase sub-systems, and the author certainly provided a lot of detail for this one.
Part 4 ("Dead to Rights") has the big bridge battle against Admiral Serovox and his minions. It's a genuinely tough battle, as Serovox uses greater invisibility and displacement to make himself hard to hit and uses wall of force to separate the PCs from one another. I think our GM let us win. There's some good dialogue and really interesting relics in trophy cases here. Assuming the PCs win, their final task is to steer the Empire of Bones toward the Stellar Degenerator and then get away *quick* (actually, *slow* is just fine; there's no time limit on how long it takes them to escape, as long as they don't take anymore overnight rests).
I've jumped over some interesting bits in the summaries above: for example, the PCs can find a computer virus to mask their movements from security cameras, there are security keys scattered about that provide bonuses on hacking attempts, there's a battle against some ginormous ellicoths, and there's a cool pale undead planning a mutiny that the PCs can interact with. Again, I really did find the lack of a timeline for how long the Corpse Fleet will take to overcome the automated security batteries made it impossible to tell how much of a hurry the PCs should be in.
Assuming the PCs succeed, they get praise from the Starfinder Society and (if they reveal what they've done publicly) become famous in the Pact Worlds. The artwork of the PCs receiving medals from Luwazi Elsebo just like at the end of A New Hope is cute. Many, if only there was a Star Wars role-playing game out there!
A "Continuing the Campaign" section (6 pages) offers some alternatives for GMs, including ideas of what happens if the PCs fail. Two two-page write-ups offer further storyline ideas. One involves an "apocalypse atrocite" getting the Cult of the Devourer to use the Gate of Twelve Suns itself for nefarious purposes; it looked interesting but perhaps a bit too "samey" to the previous stories. The other was really clever, involving a stowaway invasive species aboard the PCs' ship spreading plague everywhere they go.
A serviceable ending that is of suitable spectacle for the AP.
I added some flourishes to it here and there (a rag-tag coalition of Hellknights, Iomedaens, and Diaspora pirates came to help engage the Corpse Fleet) but ran it mostly as written. With the Starship Operations Manual I might even consider replacing parts 1-2 with an armada battle if that's what your players are into, with a boarding action at the end to reconnect parts 3-4 into it.
I really don't understand the issue of a party wanting to go towards the superweapon and being denied and feeling railroaded. Just throw several Barrow Reaper cruisers at them. If they smash those, throw five at them. Eventually they'll get the message that they can't approach the superweapon. I explained that the superdreadnought was almost completely exposed save for a small picket escort because its ships were busy subduing the anti-capital ship weapons & securing the macguffin and that seemed to do the trick for my players.
If all else fails, it's not really a huge annoyance to run the entirety of the AP on board the Steller Degenerator using the maps for the Empire of Bones.
And by the way - this isn't railroading. Railroading is ignoring good ideas by your players, not preventing bad ideas from coming to fruition.
Part 3 and part 4 were especially memorable for my group -- the enemies were challenging, but at a higher level the group had lots of ways to deal with those encounters.
...In practice the biggest problem of this book didn't matter much :'D
Yeah I agree 100% that as written, book assumes a LOT of coincidences and plans from PCs they would have no idea would work out :'D Like even if PCs assume on meta that Tier 20 starship isn't piloted by CR 20 officers because otherwise adventure would be impossible, AP assumes that they 1) decide to go on suicide mission without any intel 2) they scan ship with dc that is basically impossible to fail if they had invested in computer ranks and notice distress beacon near one of hangers. The distress beacon is set up by group of hostile undead unrelated to corpse fleet 3) The place they went to enter ship because of beacon ALSO happens to be where treacherous Commander is stationed who decides to not set off alarm yet 4) the treacherous commander just happens to have two viruses that allows PCs to head to location they just discovered can be used to take over the ship.
...Yeah, all of that could have been solved with just PCs being contacted by Nor's corpse fleet double agent to give them intel so that it doesn't seem like massive coincidence that works out in PCs favor :p I didn't even go with Malakar being the double agent in my version, but its really silly what book normally assumes. As said that almost made me lower the score to four stars, but because it was easy to fix and because book is otherwise great...
...Ah yeah, Owen did suberb job with this one. All encounters are mechanically and tactically interesting and challenging(though unfortunately for me, the train chase ended fast because I rolled super low for enemy pilots roll to keep up) and book makes good job of making the corpse fleet mooks feel threatening and competent. And final boss has memorable super villain personality and competent enough to almost kill the party :D The taste of power with piloting the ship in the end was fun, though admittedly book overestimates difficulty of it(the omenbringers don't do enough damage to threaten ship with 1050 hp)
So yeah this was best book in dead suns and I consider ap worth to run just for it :D Now to homebrew cr 20 version of the crew for ship ;D
I can tell what those are based on the previous volume's preview.
Yes, there is continuing the campaign article, rest of the articles are ships of the corpse fleet and ships of the line which includes "Sometimes battleships and dreadnoughts just aren’t big enough! This article presents new rules for starships of extraordinary size and power capable of acting as mobile bases for entire fleets"
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
CorvusMask wrote:
I can tell what those are based on the previous volume's preview.
Yes, there is continuing the campaign article, rest of the articles are ships of the corpse fleet and ships of the line which includes "Sometimes battleships and dreadnoughts just aren’t big enough! This article presents new rules for starships of extraordinary size and power capable of acting as mobile bases for entire fleets"
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
I'm not super excited about those suport articles, i love scy fiy but for some reason ive never been super into space ship designs, tho im well awre that just me and i have been suprised before
To be frank, the woioko (from AP #2) should have been in #1, to go with the description of their planet in the first volume's Codex of Worlds. Similarly, we have a new planet in this volume's Codex of Worlds with a new playable race to go along with it!
You know, I got that impression, actually. About the woioko, that is.
And I for one am glad to hear that there'll be yet another new race in this coming book. Honestly I kind of hope there are new playable races in the majority of AP's going forward.
To be frank, the woioko (from AP #2) should have been in #1, to go with the description of their planet in the first volume's Codex of Worlds. Similarly, we have a new planet in this volume's Codex of Worlds with a new playable race to go along with it!
This is mostly speculation on my part, but was the Woioko left out of the first book because you didn't want to include any new playable races right on release and/or were waiting for the Alien Archive to drop? That would make sense to me but I don't know the full story so thought I'd ask.
To be frank, the woioko (from AP #2) should have been in #1, to go with the description of their planet in the first volume's Codex of Worlds. Similarly, we have a new planet in this volume's Codex of Worlds with a new playable race to go along with it!
This is mostly speculation on my part, but was the Woioko left out of the first book because you didn't want to include any new playable races right on release and/or were waiting for the Alien Archive to drop? That would make sense to me but I don't know the full story so thought I'd ask.
It's much more than since Alien Archive wasn't out yet, we pretty much needed ever monster slot in the back of the book to be used for things in the adventure itself.
I can tell what those are based on the previous volume's preview.
Yes, there is continuing the campaign article, rest of the articles are ships of the corpse fleet and ships of the line which includes "Sometimes battleships and dreadnoughts just aren’t big enough! This article presents new rules for starships of extraordinary size and power capable of acting as mobile bases for entire fleets"
!!!
Wow. That alone might make this worth getting!
Stuff like this is mentioned in the adventure path drift article. To keep a fleet together during the drift you need to have them all linked up or docked to one ship so clearly there are some monstrous ships out there to work as fleet carriers.
Iiiiit's June! Crazy excited to read this. We're in book 4 and intend to continue on past level 13 after this conclusion. I've been very curious how to twist the character's backgrounds up into this conclusion for future story arcs and what the continuing campaign article holds. The guy on the cover is exactly what I was hoping for though, it's building up to be quite the exciting path.
Just got my subscriber download but no time to jump into it. a super fast skim peaked my interest. Sorry for just a tease got to work and prep for starting book 3.
If anyone does get an early copy and feels like sharing, I'd really really like a spoiler for Corpsefolk. I usually get my shipping pretty late in the cycle and don't want to wait.
Got my copy and I have to say I love this book! The feel of the whole adventure is great, and the support articles were a really cool read. Looking forward to seeing what great stuff you guys do in the next AP!
Could somebody spoiler how you can continue the campaign & what happens if you fail?
Thx!
Spoiler:
The book gives a few smaller examples of ways you can continue the campaign (investigating the Kishalee civilization or tracking more superweapons for example) and gives further details on two specific ways of continuing things. One involves facing an incredibly powerful atrocite who tries to turn the 12 suns system into a superweapon, the other involves tracking and facing a creature from Abaddon that was coincidentally freed by the destruction of the 12 suns demiplane and is now destroying the ecosystems of planets across the Vast. If you fail, either the corpse fleet or Cult of the Devourer get the weapon (depending on GM choice) and end up using it to cause untold destruction, it's also heavily suggested that further attempts to face the Corpse Fleet would involve facing off against the reanimated forms of fallen party members.
Geez, lot of undead creatures from 1e got starfinder versions here. 7 creatures in total with seventh one being the crystal alien race. Anyhoo, need to now read it to know what I think about this final part
All of them but the new race is undead. I won't really bother with CRs though since all undeads in Starfinder are template grafts(because would be weird to assume all undead in the galaxy are human) besides 6 of them are from Pathfinder
:
Baykok
Corpsefolk
Gatecrasher(basically undead in power armor)
Kurobozu
Mohgr
Pale Stranger
Shimreen(that new race)
Anyhoo, after reading this through, I can safely say that final two books are best books in Dead Suns ._. I mean, its mostly action, but its REALLY cool climactic action with cool encounters and cool personalities for the named baddies. All three main officers you face aboard the ship have chance to shine their personality in nice ways.
I especially love how the final boss is set up
:
My favourite being this being example question for one of them: "Why do you talk so much during the fight?"
I also love that their explanation for "Why is the ship controlled easily from single location? Isn't that unsafe" is basically "At that point where enemies have taken this place over I'm already dead so why would I care?"
Also, I love how badassness of the final boss is foreshadowed in their trophy room with four high level equipment each gained from defeating something powerful :D Thats cool
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