The Azlanti Star Empire and Veskarium—two interstellar powers with a long history of conquest and war—are set to sign a historic accord on the distant settlement of Atuity. A group of heroes attend the peace talks on behalf of the Pact Worlds, navigating civil unrest and negotiations to make sure everything goes as planned. When a surprise attack interrupts the diplomatic proceedings, the heroes must fight back against rogue Azlanti forces and mysterious saboteurs to protect Atuity (and the entire Adalawe system) from the destructive schemes of Devourer cultists who are preparing to activate a weapon of cosmic destruction!
Empires Devoured is a complete Starfinder Second Edition playtest adventure for 10th-level characters written by Thurston Hillman, and features classic creatures updated to Second Edition, all-new monsters and threats, and a mix of cinematic combats, intense negotiations, and dramatic events that will shake the galaxy. This adventure is designed to introduce the Starfinder Second Edition Playtest rules, giving players like you a chance to shape the new edition through feedback surveys about your playtest experience! It also takes place during a pivotal moment in Starfinder history—even if you miss the playtest window, you won’t want to miss the adventure!
The module covers a lot of ground; and like a great novel it takes time to build in intensity. One or two of the fights are very difficult; we often found ourselves in desperate straights, scrapping for every character sheet detail advantage. This module makes you think, and as a veteran player I really enjoyed that aspect.
The final skill challenge iced the cake; the odds are clearly against you.
If it's a player's first time in those high stakes situations, and your character dies (as is more than likely) that could leave a sour taste.
As a veteran player of RPGs, I was glad for the slim chance at surviving total annihilation, and was not attached to my Playtest character. I'm glad Paizo took advantage of this being a Playtest module, and putting a very real chance of death at the end. For me that upped the stakes and heightened the excitement of actually prevailing, despite a rough start of low die rolls.
That said, I'm glad we were alive for the denouement; and I'm glad there was no cut scene to finish, but we got to see what was going to develop afterward.
Now I'm left to ponder what Hellknights will do if their pizza is not delivered in 30 minutes or less....
5/5 adventure, but skill challenges and hazards dropped it down
So to clarify, this is super good story, super good characters and fun combat, but the skill challenges range from confusing(does it want one or multiple successes) to requiring really specific skills (there are multiple dcs that seem important for doing something really important that require really specific lore) and hazards are really painful. Like, multiple hazards require entire party to participate for total 6 successes or like despite requiring really high dc specific skills only one in party might succeed in reliably. Like some hazards feel like they assume every character has same skill as master. There is also things like encounter where simple hazard can trigger multiple times despite that should have complex hazard damage.
But yeah my tiredom upon seeing that if I run the final hazard as written, party would have tpk'd aside, I love the adventure overall also <3 captain vasoya and commander eiran. bit bummer I didn't manage to finish running it before survey ended. Basically I think I would have considered it 5/5, then dropped to 4/5 from skill and hazards, then dropped further to 3/5 because my players walked away with experience of "we did great, kicked ass, then run into hazard where adventure said you created characters wrong"
SWEET, can't wait for this and I even has some backstory for my Mech girl in Mechageddon on being an Envoy.
Going on official mission from Ab station, but sadly a remnent of the Drift Event gobbled her ship and fellow Hellknight staff up.
Spit back up in Hell then as the lone survivor due to the Hellknight mech crash coarse of learn this mech stuff or die here. LOL She got drift spitted onto the Daimalko planet when all Hell breaks loose with large beasties!! Ha Ha Ha
The playtest runs through the end of the year, more-or-less. A Cosmic Birthday, a 1st-level playtest adventure, is being released alongside the Playtest Rulebook.
This adventure is for 10th-level PCs. (We don't yet know the expected upper level range.)
Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
The playtest is going to be several months. There are other announced playtest modules, including a Cosmic Birthday. "Empires Devoured is a complete Starfinder Second Edition playtest adventure for 10th-level characters"
Cultists of the Devourer blowing things up and looking to activate a presumably ancient superweapon to kill us all?
Ahhh, that takes me back, fond memories. Hmm, I should check up on Istamak at some point, hopefully the Kish weathered the Drift Crisis better than the rest of us did.
