S5-02: Road to Reconciliation


GM Discussion


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Very interesting adventure, but one of those times when I wish SFS would get a little more specific with some of its dates just to nail down a consistent timeline.

Couldn't help but put on my timeline chronicler cap to examine some conflicts the scenario's backstory. These conflicts don't "break" the adventure in any way, but GMs might want to note them and pick one "story" to go with over the others.

Assuming that the scenario is set in the "present day" of 322 AG, I'll put the rest in spoiler tags.

Spoiler:

1. Pallena Lervo is initially described as "one of the first" Starfinders. We don't know exactly when the Society was founded, but we're generally told that it was formed shortly after the end of the Gap and the introduction of Drift engine technology. (In my own campaign, I've pinned it down to circa 25 AG, but that's just me.)

Pallena Lervo, a human, is depicted as having had a long career and even longer life, but if she toured the Idari, it was presumably just after it arrived in the Pact Worlds in 240 AG (one of the only fixed dates we have to work with here). Even if she toured the Idari as a revered elder statesman, to have been around in the early days of the Society means she was kicking around for well over two centuries.

2. The loosest temporal marker about Lervo we get in the scenario is Celita's comment that Lervo was most active as a field agent in a period when the Society was primarily concerned with learning about the Gap. That makes sense if she really was around in the Society's early, post-Gap days, but it could also coincide with the tenure of First Seeker Lanrah, which would place her peak field career in the neighborhood of 160 AG.

Alternatively, Celita could just as well be referring to some other, previously unmentioned period, presumably separated by years or decades to either side of First Seeker Lanrah's disastrous legacy. Ultimately Celita's comment is really too vague to be able to cause conflicts.

However, if Lervo is a fresh-faced field agent in 160 AG, then it becomes more feasible for her to be a venerable retired venture-captain and Forum member in 240 AG. But...!

3. The final temporal marker we have for Lervo's backstory is the most important; the one with the most direct effects on the adventure itself: the family history connecting Koyonn (modern day) to his great-grandmother Ahusata (Lervo's contemporary).

Now, we don't know the ages of any of these characters, so there's going to be decades of slack built in here, but we do know that strix reach the age of maturity at 12 and their maximum age tops out at 70. Let's keep it super simple and assume an average age of 30 for Koyonn now and each of his ancestors. If Koyonn was born in 292, let's assume his mother was born in 262 and his grandmother was born in 232. His great-grandmother, Ahusata, is described as being a young woman when Lervo entered the Aerie of the Sun (and couldn't have had her child any later than her trip to Absalom Station), so let's make a final leap of faith that the backstory of this scenario took place circa 215 AG or so. Give or take.

So! What this means:

Pallena Lervo's "expedition" to the Aerie of the Sun, the core of the scenario's backstory, probably took place circa 215 AG. This potentially makes her a contemporary of Sangoro, founder of the Exo-Guardians. Having her tour the Idari 25 years later is pretty reasonable and could have occurred in any number of contexts. However, the Starfinder Society's interest in the Gap at the time was not tied to First Seeker Lanrah, but may have led into another (unnamed) First Seeker's decision in that period to pull most of the Society's resources back from the Vast to focus on the Pact Worlds.

Any references to Lervo being one of the "first" Starfinders should probably be downplayed, though.

5/5 5/55/55/5

No one actually ages to death in starfinder unless they want to. its in the lifestyles section.

I have a ysoki named mom who makes a lot of references to something called "the 60s" and given the prison terms for some events there needs to be more than one of them...


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Sorry, lost track of my math there; 215 AG is my guesstimate for when Ahusata was born. The inciting incident in the adventure's backstory must have been sometime (shortly?) after the birth of her child, so more like 230 AG or so. But could just as easily have been as recent as 260 AG, give or take.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Thanks for this, John. I ended up picking this up late and running it (cold!) at a convention and it... ran weirdly smoothly, but I couldn't get any of the implied dates to line up, and I didn't have the time to figure it out. I'm glad I'm not crazy.

Community / Forums / Organized Play / GM Discussion / S5-02: Road to Reconciliation All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in GM Discussion