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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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?
