While the heroes recover in the liberated sun-city of Kahlannal, efreet launch an assault on the Burning Archipelago from deeper within the sun. The PCs have the advantages of position, knowledge, and surprise, giving them a unique opportunity. Using technology from their new allies, the anassanois, the PCs can approach stealthily to infiltrate the efreeti base known as the Crucible. Thwarting the invasion requires returning the Far Portal to the surface of the sun. However, the forces overseeing the base won't stand idle. In the end, General Khaim, the efreeti commander, risks everything to realize his plan to dominate the Burning Archipelago and destroy the meddlesome intruders!
"Assault on the Crucible," a Starfinder adventure for 11th-level characters, by Jason Tondro.
Ways to continue the campaign after the efreeti invasion, as well as two villains who might have plans involving the heroes of this Adventure Path, by Tracy Barnett.
A survey of the Plane of Fire—including its denizens, plots, and realms—by Thurston Hillman.
An archive of elemental outsiders and bizarre inhabitants of the galaxy, from capricious water genies to swarms of fey rodents, by Tracy Barnett, Violet Hargrave, Owen K.C. Stephens, and Jason Tondro.
Statistics and deck plans for an efreeti cruiser, by Thurston Hillman, plus a look inside a hollow world containing a miniature sun, by Violet Hargrave.
ISBN: 978-1-64078-145-0
The Dawn of Flame 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 (1.2 MB PDF).
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Assault on the Crucible (Book 6 of Dawn of Flame) is the culmination of the campaign against the efreeti invaders that started in earnest in Book 5. I'm very much mixed on this entry. It provides some pretty good stakes and tension, some allies to recruit, a ticking clock, and a few unexpected surprises. On the other hand, the dungeon that dominates the adventure is solidly composed but somewhat dry, presenting a partly nonlinear final dungeon that isn't quite robust enough to serve as an infiltration sandbox, not quite challenging enough as a gauntlet, and not interesting enough as a set piece. The lack of sandbox-iness is not unusual for Starfinder or Paizo design, but it feels like the location is on the cusp of something really cool without quite getting there. Unfortunately, the plot and story to be had here is decidedly bland for how exotic the setting is. The enemy faction's vaguely imperialist motives are banal, the unique artifact and twist (the hags) feels incongruous with the rest of the campaign, and the ultimate villain just doesn't have much build-up or personality for the GM to play with.
Despite my disappointment however, this adventure is still solidly written. It's structured well and there's a bounty of useful information to help the GM run the main location. I made a few changes when running this for my group to give Khaim and the final encounter a more dramatic flourish (and to give Khaim more personality), but kept much of the rest as is. I think if I was running it again I would more extensively adjust the set-up to give the players much more up front information (probably via data seized in Book 5) to give them the tools to plan and deliver a more surgical strike, increase the difficulty to discourage "full clears", replace the hags with someone more narratively connected with the rest of the AP, and also give the antagonist more visible presence and build up.
All in all it was worth playing, but it's not the best Starfinder has to offer.
The Good:
There's some fun potential for interactions. The little subbosses in each wing are fleshed out with their own motivations, including potentially betraying their allies based on the circumstances. There are several potential allies to pick up to aid in the assault, breaking them out of jail in one case, and the tenuous alliance with the hags adds some much needed intrigue. My group picked up several allies and had several spots where a B-team of NPCs were off running interference or tackling other encounters while the PCs fought the harder stuff. This was *very cool*.
The ticking clock and the aesthetic of the daring raid on an enemy stronghold are quite effective. There's definitely a sense of pressure.
The maps are very solid, clear and visually interesting. There's also some nice art to be had.
The final boss can be pretty challenging, possessing some powerful capabilities that demand effective counters. I particularly appreciate that if the PCs kept one of the hag cloaks, they have a potential counter even if they didn't bring their own anti-invisibility methods. His two bodyguards are also surprisingly menacing for their CR. My party tackled this fight when they were mostly depleted on resources and it was very tough.
The Bad:
The initial events on the trip to the Crucible are odd due to the unlikeliness of directly crossing paths with multiple unrelated individuals so deep within the sun's plasma, and while I appreciate the extra variety presented, it seems like there could have been a more elegant/logical way to do this.
Most of the encounters in the Crucible are against weapon-wielding soldiers that attack with fire and which are weak to cold. As a result, bringing cold damage and fire resistance significantly reduces the danger, and at this point of the AP the party is more than prepared for this. To some degree, its a good payoff for their preparations, but it does mean things feel pretty easy. It is very possible to just wipe out the entire garrison by smashing straight into every encounter. There's no need for any planning, sneaking, infiltration, information gathering, or anything else that might add more texture to the experience. My particular group just swept through, even as several encounters combined due to enemies going for reinforcements after the alarm was raised. They took no long rests. A cool "Rambo" experience, but it didn't feel thematically right for the adventure.
While the layout of the Crucible allows for multiple routes, the dungeon is not structured with much consideration for player decision making. There IS info for the GM, but the player-facing experience lacks the tools needed for a modern-setting infiltration, like ways to get advance info on the layout, get security camera access, paths that allow for isolating foes or conducting ambushes, the means to disable alarms, and so on. The presumption is also that the PCs enter the facility "blind" (without a clear plan or objective) and only gain direction on how to tackle taking down Khaim's organization after being contacted by the hags. Ultimately what that means is that the players are presented with several different routes to explore, but that they don't have the tools to decide which route is better to take. That doesn't exactly make for a satisfying raid on the seat of a major military organization's power.
The "clock" mechanic that ties the outcome at the Burning Archipelago to the speed and effectiveness of the PCs strike on the Crucible is a neat idea, but it lacks clear feedback for the players, so it's hard for them to know exactly what consequences their choices will have. Since this is so opaque I ended up dropping the system part way through and handled the resolution more narratively.
The story unfortunately never amounts to much. The invasion of the Burning Archipelago lacks a clear motivation, being conquering for the sake of it. The Malikah's ascension seems only tenuously connected to the campaign Khaim is undertaking. The untethering of the Far Portal as an objective feels irrelevant, as even if the Far Portal is returned to its initial location, the ability of the Malikah to reinforce her armies at the Burning Archipelago seems like it'd be minimally affected. Khaim himself is painfully underdeveloped, with no visible characterization for the players worth mentioning, and his final encounter with the PCs just happens in a random location rather than being dramatically built up over time, making him feel like a strangely difficult mid-boss. And finally the Malikah just has no presence at all in the AP, despite being the ostensible mastermind.
The Crucible feels *small*, much more like a scouting post than the heart of Khaim's organization. I don't think it needs more encounters, but it's lacking the sense that there's more to be explored beyond the scope of the adventure. I personally expanded it out to multiple floors, but made it clear that the remaining floors contained non-critical infrastructure and were a source of potential enemy reinforcements. It's quite weird that the whole base is serviced by a single elevator with no backup stairs or other access points. What if it breaks down?
The adventure is very strongly (and strangely) bottlenecked by the elevator, with a significant amount of verbiage dedicated to explaining how this elevator is super difficult to bypass, hack or trick. The trap in the elevator is astonishingly deadly for an organization that was not expecting anyone to invade their station. This bottleneck enforces a strict order to the final part, which I feel is rather unnecessary.
So uh, I'm starting to see a pattern with Starfinder AP's final books: They tend to be combat focused books less focused on exploration and more focused on taking on bad guy's stronghold. Yeah yeah I know, "How does that differ from each of Pathfinder AP's having final dungeon and final boss?" and difference is mostly in page count for adventure. Like Rise of the Runelord's final book isn't just the final dungeon, its also traveling to said city where final dungeon is and then navigating the city until you reach the dungeon. Meanwhile Starfinder AP's final books tends to be more of action scenes ramping up to the climax. Its mostly the page count as I said, there isn't much of space in Starfinder AP's for final book to contain much build up to the final dungeon.
That wasn't really much of criticism, it was observation. What IS criticism is that we never really learn much about General Khaim and Malikah that we didn't learn in book 1, General Khaim is loyal servant of Malikah that wants to impress her(I think his side project of trying to become demigod to be worthy of her is the new fact revealed?) while Malikah is ruler of vast empire on plane of fire and jealous of her half-brother.(and a CR 22 creature) Thats pretty much all we learn about them, Malikah is never really featured in adventure at all besides as some faraway distant figure one of higher rank soldiers has met and Khaim doesn't have any presence until final battle(and he doesn't even come with descriptive personality like Dead Sun's final boss did. Though I gotta give it to him, he has style, I mean besides him being badass as hell on the cover, he has two of his dead efreet enemies converted into cybernetic golem bodyguards :D)
It really makes both Khaim and Malikah feel less memorable to have them only being name dropped once a while. I mean even a propaganda speech or taunting over intercoms would have been nice.
Anyway, back from what adventure isn't to what it is: Its assault on skeleton crew of efreetis' base while main force are attacking Burning Archipelago. Aka, there is countdown that decreases when time passes(no long rest for pcs :D) that can be increased with PCs actions until efreeti have successfully conquered the sun. I like the stakes, even if PCs successfully defeat Khaim, if they took too long the sun is under control of Malikah(or good guys' side had horrific losses). There is also that the adventure details what each rank of soldiers knows so its nice for interrogation/detect thoughts parties to learn stuff :D
I also noticed that yeah Dawn of Flame is indeed having lots of inspiration from Legacy of Fire: Besides the whole thing with male efreet wanting to become demigod to impress female divine being from Plane of Fire, it has same thing with wishes. In case of Legacy of Fire it was efreeti gathering wishes to resurrect spawn of Rovagug, in this one its using them to empower a hag cauldron in order to tether the far portal(and hopefully become a demigod).
Speaking of Fivefold Cauldron, its never really mentioned at all in previous adventures. Like I'm not even speaking about it being name dropped, I mean, thematically it has nothing to do with rest of the AP. Its not really related to sun at all, its just witch cauldron powered by efreeti wishes. Even backstory wise, Khaim just somehow learned with City of Brass' intelligence gathering that void hag coven with cauldron powered by wishes could do the trick of tethering the far portal, and then went out of his way to capture three of them. Its... Kinda oddly specific. And its not really explained why specifically void hag coven with wish powered cauldron would do the trick. Is it because they have gravitation related abilities as a coven? Heck, its kinda left up to GM what the cauldron COULD do besides the listed abilities in adventure, so if PCs let the void hag coven go freely with the cauldron, its not really clear what bad things would happen if any besides the hag coven themselves doing bad things I guess.
Anyhoo, back to good stuff, there is lot of variables at Crucible of how players could proceed and what they could do. Heck, they might have accidentally lured a fey with them that acts as third party that attacks both sides :D I could see Crucible being very different for different parties. There is also nice varieties of different personalities there and surprising outcomes for PC perspective.
I think one of best parts of the books are both continue the campaign articles. Both of them feature evil divine being offering PC's chance to help them fight other evil beings :D Gotta say that I hope Eshtayiv related materials come back in future starfinder books. And I like Malikah being CR 22(though again, I feel sad that this ap ended at level 12 or didn't have more than six parts... This feels like AP that would have benefited from going to much higher levels)
Plane of Fire article is nice enough though it didn't teach us much about the good elemental lord of fire to my sadness, but bestiary section is standout once again :D My favourites being neotophet onkushus and rheonnaghans. Oh and we got a really cool new world in codex of the worlds.
But yeah, I give this adventure 3.5 since while I think its fine enough/good, I feel like it could have been much better.
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Thanks for the update, Rick!
It will be interesting to see the first real "science-fantasy" campaign for Starfinder, as the first three were full-blown science-fiction and really great imo.
Hmm, ah, I only now realized this: We probably won't fight the semi divine being in the AP itself(assuming that didn't get changed in development), that will be covered in either continuing the campaign section or future APs ._. Seems like final boss is probably the right hand efreet general? Yeah that would explain the level 12/13
"While the heroes finish the liberation of an alien bubble-city in the sun, efreet launch an assault on the Burning Archipelago from within the star. The heroes have advantages of position, knowledge, and surprise, giving them a unique opportunity." Lol- looks like the enemy general is committing a classic blunder. Never turn your attention away from the enemy at hand. Unless, of course, he's hoping the attack on the Burning Archipelago will distract the heroes, and draw them up from their deep dives into some kind of trap- in which case, he's failed.
So any info on what is in continue the campaign section articles? :D The previous starfinder aps have had nice statblocks in them
Sorry, I do not have the time right now to write an extensive post, and only skimmed the PDF, but I can confirm: there are two statblocks, one high level and one very high level.
So any info on what is in continue the campaign section articles? :D The previous starfinder aps have had nice statblocks in them
Sorry, I do not have the time right now to write an extensive post, and only skimmed the PDF, but I can confirm: there are two statblocks, one high level and one very high level.
I guess one of them is the General Swolefreet's boss, but is the other one either the "creature of light"(forgot how to spell the name starting with E) or agent of it?
Welp, I got my answers :D And geezus, both of the continue the campaign statblocks are super cool. I think one of them is the first CR 22 statblock in Starfinder?
