Do any of the adventure paths touch on the Dominion of the Black?

[Mahavira]

More or less what the subject line says - the Dominion of the Black keeps getting brief mentions in rulebooks (new monsters in particular) and occasionally setting information, but I don't think I've seen anything that goes into any depth. This seems odd - the idea predates Starfinder, and Starfinder is the most natural venue to address it. I dropped out of the AP subscription a while back (early in the swarm one) - do any of the subsequent ones (or projected ones) have DotB as a major antagonist?

[FormerFiend]

Not yet, no.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Dominion AP comes up after Horizons of the Vast, though. Of the six major factions listed under "threats" in the Core Book, the Swarm & the Unseen both had AP's dedicated purely to them, the Azlanti got a 3-volume AP dedicated to them leaving more room for exploration there, the Cult of the Devourer featured heavily in Dead Suns, and I believe(could be wrong) the Aspis Consortium are major players in Fly Free or Die.

So that just leaves the Dominion as untouched, but, hey, someone on the list had to be last. And they are, by everything we know about them, likely *the* biggest threat in the Galaxy. I could see the Dominion AP, when it comes, as being Starfinder's equivalent of Wrath of the Righteous in the "okay now we're at the big kid's table" moment. Though, hopefully, it'd be balanced & plotted better than Wrath was.

[Perpdepog]

And hopefully go to level 20. That'd be fun for a Dominion-focused AP.

[FormerFiend]

Agreed. I'd definitely want to see the Dominion AP be one that reaches lvl 20, however they wanna go about that.

[CorvusMask]

FormerFiend wrote:

Not yet, no.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Dominion AP comes up after Horizons of the Vast, though. Of the six major factions listed under "threats" in the Core Book, the Swarm & the Unseen both had AP's dedicated purely to them, the Azlanti got a 3-volume AP dedicated to them leaving more room for exploration there, the Cult of the Devourer featured heavily in Dead Suns, and I believe(could be wrong) the Aspis Consortium are major players in Fly Free or Die.

So that just leaves the Dominion as untouched, but, hey, someone on the list had to be last. And they are, by everything we know about them, likely *the* biggest threat in the Galaxy. I could see the Dominion AP, when it comes, as being Starfinder's equivalent of Wrath of the Righteous in the "okay now we're at the big kid's table" moment. Though, hopefully, it'd be balanced & plotted better than Wrath was.

Nah Aspis Consortium are more featured in Horizons of the Vast, Fly Free or Die has more Golden League stuff

[FormerFiend]

Thought I might be mixing that up but I didn't feel like taking the time to double check. Still, has the Aspis Consortium featuring as a major player in an AP before the Dominion.

Though given that Horizons of the Vast has possibly the most direct parallel with a Pathfinder AP in Kingmaker, and Kingmaker is rather infamously coy about who the actual main villain is until the end, I could see the back half of that AP being "well we got our colony in order & everything was peaceful BUT THEN THE DOMINION INVADED!"

Not that I actually want that; I'd want the Dominion AP to be dedicated from the start & to reach lvl 20, which I don't think Horizons promises to do.

But it isn't a creative decision that I'd rule out as impossible.

[CorvusMask]

My only issue with Dominion of the Black is that they are best suited for "alien invasion" storyline aka I think they would work best in Pathfinder rather than Starfinder. Though I still would like to see Starfinder Dominion ap as well, I just hope devs won't feel too squeamish to do them twice :'D (I mean yeah Dawn of Flame is similar in concept to Legacy of Fire, but there was over ten years in between!)

(Dominion of the Black does have nice unique factor of being only known faction in Starfinder confirmed to be intergalactic. Thing with Unseen is that nobody knows their true capacities :p)

[FormerFiend]

Personally I'm perfectly fine with them not doing much with the Dominion because the Dominion is where I homebrew in mindflayers, & we're never going to get mindflayers proper, so them not doing that doesn't step on my toes.

[SpiderOrc]

I sincerely hope Paizo will do this soon. And that part of it takes place on Aucturn.

We could also use an Apostae/Drow-influenced adventure, and something that hits Aballon's machine cities...

The possibilities are huge.

[Mahavira]

Thanks for the info everyone - I just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything in Annihilation Ark or threefold conspiracy. If they use DotB in Horizons of the Vast, my suspicion would be that rather than "the Dominion invades" it would be "the dominion has been here but dormant for thousands of years and you woke it up" - this is a distinction without a difference in some ways, but it makes a difference to how it is introduced.

I'd kind of like to see a "Dark Tapestry" sourcebook (Horrors of the Void or some such name) detailing DotB, the various Cthulhu mythos stuff etc.. My suspicion is that the reason we haven't seen it really detailed is that they're having trouble getting it into focus at a sufficiently granular level to allow them to do it, so we just get fuggly monsters that are referred to as being part of the DotB.

[Perpdepog]

Mahavira wrote:

Thanks for the info everyone - I just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything in Annihilation Ark or threefold conspiracy. If they use DotB in Horizons of the Vast, my suspicion would be that rather than "the Dominion invades" it would be "the dominion has been here but dormant for thousands of years and you woke it up" - this is a distinction without a difference in some ways, but it makes a difference to how it is introduced.

I'd kind of like to see a "Dark Tapestry" sourcebook (Horrors of the Void or some such name) detailing DotB, the various Cthulhu mythos stuff etc.. My suspicion is that the reason we haven't seen it really detailed is that they're having trouble getting it into focus at a sufficiently granular level to allow them to do it, so we just get fuggly monsters that are referred to as being part of the DotB.

The other reason is that having random, fugly monsters be part of their organization is part of their ethos. They're very much a "all your species are belong to us" kind of faction and like to repurpose whoever they find into either new forms to use, or new food to feed the old forms they already use.

Also, the Machine Cities would be a super awesome place to set at least part of an adventure featuring the Dominion because if I remember right they have a real big hate-boner for advanced technology that isn't corruptable biotech.

[Mahavira]

The other reason is that having random, fugly monsters be part of their organization is part of their ethos. They're very much a "all your species are belong to us" kind of faction and like to repurpose whoever they find into either new forms to use, or new food to feed the old forms they already use.

Also, the Machine Cities would be a super awesome place to set at least part of an adventure featuring the Dominion because if I remember right they have a real big hate-boner for advanced technology that isn't corruptable biotech.

Interesting, I missed that point. One wonders how they feel about undead? Eox might also be interesting. We saw a bit of Eox in Dead Suns but a scenario where they are more unequivocally "on side" might also be fun. Some bone sage who thinks, rightly or wrongly, that being undead is protection from going mad might be an "expert" on them that the party has to consult, only to discover that his research includes things like trying to find out if an undead brain collector can still collect brains...

[Opsylum]

When Starfinder does a Dominion AP, I'd love for the story to be about liberating a world that has already fallen, and has been for some time. Dominion is kind of the quintessential "alien invasion" threat, and we've kind of already done that with AotS, DoF, and TTC. While the Swarm and the Unseen don't seem to have too much going on in the way of a strong culture and identity (Swarm devour everything and leave little behind, and Unseen's big schtick is all about being completely enigmatic), the Dominion already has a very sophisticated, bizarre, and layered culture that's been cultivated since Pathfinder 1e days. It has a complex hierarchy of different member species, strange scientific practices explored through "fleshfarms" and genetic manipulation, and even an expansive, horrifying religion, which the Dominion is fanatically devoted to.

So I hope this faction gets a lot of time up close and personal when it finally rears its ugly head. I kind of like the idea of adventuring with a Casandalee-type guide, journeying across this doomed planet and discovering little pockets of its preserved past (contrasted by how the Dominion has warped and twisted it everywhere else) — or being escaped lab rats trying to escape a scary world — or perhaps being the invaders of a Dominion-controlled planet to prevent a nefarious plot or liberate a captive people.

That, or a Beyond Good & Evil inspired campaign. I'd be psyched out of my mind for either.

[Mahavira]

I like the idea of escapees. "invaders" liberating a DotB planet would be interesting but I suspect it might be difficult to make PC level actions seem significant given that this would probably be a fairly large scale military operation. One possibility would be the PCs are survivors of a failed attempt who have banded together to try to make the evac point, and along the way run across information that would allow a small strike force to turn the tide / make a second attack successful (maybe they were the part of the first wave, which went rather badly, but the actual liberation force is still viable).

[Perpdepog]

Some manner of escapee scenario would be fun. One of the Dominion tools that hasn't made the jump to Starfinder yet is the rhu-chalik, which are tiny invaders that copy the consciousnesses of various beings and replicate them to transmit back to their masters.

This introduces the disturbing possibility that you escape, but are also left behind, or the possibility of initiating a rescue mission where the people you're rescuing ... are you.