I come to you from the Pathfinder side of things with the question in the title.
Iron Gods is what got me into Pathfinder, and Distant Worlds is one of my favorite books they ever released for PF1. I've really enjoyed PF2's few jaunts to other planets in Adventure Paths, and greatly appreciated that each has come with a gazetteer. There's a PF2 Society scenario with an alien in it that's very, very cool, and Androids are my favorite Ancestry in the game.
But I've found Starfinder's lore surprisingly slippery... which is odd, because I like sci-fi a lot more than fantasy in most cases! It might just be the novelty of the sword-and-planet Pathfinder iterations, but I've honestly not been able to chew on any SF1 books well enough to see if I even like the lore or not. So far, I've mostly just caught a lot of glimpses of vague corporations all over the place.
So I come to you with my request: what stands out to you as exciting in the core part of the Starfinder setting? I'm tentatively bought in on its version of Aballon, but would love to be sold on more of the rest.
Akiton called to me because I realized it would be the best place to do a Night City setting within the Pact Worlds. It is vague and slippery, yes. And part of me as a GM is frustrated with that. But the vagueness means I can also slip in a lot of those Cyberpunkisms without much worry. But now I can have Cyberpunk plus magic. (Though now I'm really wondering how possible it would be for Starfinder to have a netrunner-style pure hacking class. Doesn't feel feasible to make it with seperate hacks, as it'd likely take up a lot of page space. Perhaps as an alternate spell school that's not actually magical, like the 1E alchemist... but I feel that'd be a weird one for folks to wrap their heads around.)
I'm in a similar boat where I've only been chewing through core rulebook in release order (barely started the character operations manual, but taking a break for Galaxy Guide), so I've not gotten to see a lot of specific lore.
I think eox is pretty interesting. Could do a very cyperpunk horror adventure there amongst the cities of a mostly dead planet inhabited by the undead who have to go to work for big corporations. Giant factories designed to produce artificial sapient flesh and blood to feed the inhabitants. Their version of cyber ware from the planet necrotech is basically implanting necromantic technomagic items that mimic tech augmentation but tend to be cheaper due to the side effects.
The new galaxy guide does a good job of helping show the different ways you can use different parts of the setting from distopian/high science/high magic/unknown weirdness/war stories.
I think Eox has a lot to offer as a unified culture with a variety of playstyles that's a bit different than the rest. You can do extreme survival/mindless undead horde stuff while traveling the wastes between cities, do diplomacy with bone sages who want you to attack/undermine their rivals, deal with Corpse Fleet agents or isolated high powered undead horrors who are against Pact membership at all, do economic/corporate stuff in a major port involving necrografts, selling corpses, or signing yourself into undead raising/servitude, etc.
I come to you from the Pathfinder side of things with the question in the title.
Iron Gods is what got me into Pathfinder, and Distant Worlds is one of my favorite books they ever released for PF1. I've really enjoyed PF2's few jaunts to other planets in Adventure Paths, and greatly appreciated that each has come with a gazetteer. There's a PF2 Society scenario with an alien in it that's very, very cool, and Androids are my favorite Ancestry in the game.
But I've found Starfinder's lore surprisingly slippery... which is odd, because I like sci-fi a lot more than fantasy in most cases! It might just be the novelty of the sword-and-planet Pathfinder iterations, but I've honestly not been able to chew on any SF1 books well enough to see if I even like the lore or not. So far, I've mostly just caught a lot of glimpses of vague corporations all over the place.
So I come to you with my request: what stands out to you as exciting in the core part of the Starfinder setting? I'm tentatively bought in on its version of Aballon, but would love to be sold on more of the rest.
One thing that has grown on me with Galaxy Guide layered on top of my old SF1 lore sources is the interwoven nature/capabilities of different factions across different worlds/moons. This lets you weave a story that easily interacts with multiple factions across multiple locations in the Pact Worlds, just as the APs do. The hard part is reading enough to build up a sense of enough pieces to fit them together.
Aballon has its machine factions, but now Akiton has a First Ones crash site that will bring them in and allow elements of both planets. Aballon also has the ice well that causes Starfinder/Xenowarden interference/interest to clash with the locals, and per a SFS module the same well has a planar portal that goes to Lao Shu Po's big assassin ship on the Shadow Plane/Netherworld. You can also use the machine court to tie in almost any other organization that employs or oppresses machine intelligences or androids, and the Mechanized faction of augmentation terrorists can easily cross over to Verces and get involved in politics, piracy, kidnappings, etc. on many worlds or hideouts.
Apostae can do high tech dungeon delves, arms deals involving travel to any isolated location or war zone, Castrovellian elven atagonists, Stewards law enforcement entanglements/investigations, the same sort of corporate stuff you can get on other planets but with more demons and magical nihilism, etc.
Eox is dangerous mindless undead, friendly diplomatic undead, war like oppositional spy/fleet action undead, secret undead horrors, environmental horrors, gross/quasi-legal commerce, ancient planet destroying secrets, a galaxy wide mass media conglomerate, etc. These can tie in with Corpse Fleet locations anywhere in the galaxy, the Church of Pharasma attacking/defending various aspects of Eox, lots of customers coming to buy from Eox, Diaspora sarcesian terrorists still caring thousands of years later, etc.
Pulonis gives you high tech malfunctioning jungles infested with body snatching oozes (if I recall that other species correctly), Vesk imperial entanglements with their secret police/intel agencies, arms dealers, gold rush corporations trying to establish new business relationships, cultural stuff including a goddess going through changes, the possibility of Azlanti raids/invasion, etc.
The various mercenary/investigation/law enforcent groups (including the Xenowardens) give you a way as allies or antogonists to do missions in half a dozen locations against half a dozen enemies, etc.
For a cyberpunk style campaign, Apostae is perfect. Amoral corporations control everything, including looting the ancient magic, tech, and magitech for adaptation into new products.
Eox, easy call. Deadly gameshows, Pharasmin terrorists, the economics and politics of undeath, the lesson of never firing your doomsday weapon from in the atmosphere, and my headcanons about how scary the planet's reputation in the Veskarium must be after being such a key part of the war.
For a cyberpunk style campaign, Apostae is perfect. Amoral corporations control everything, including looting the ancient magic, tech, and magitech for adaptation into new products.
Oh yes it is really the far end state of capitalism out of control. The corporations own everything up to and including the air you breath. Lots of espionage and runs by disposable assets due to all the relic weapons/items that are being dug up in the deep tunnels/caverns and reverse engineered in the various house corporations.
Well, that's Eox and Apostae vouched for - and my worries that the setting is mostly stuffed with corporations somewhat affirmed. Any fans of the other locales?
I'm rather fond of Songbird Station, in the Diaspora. It's the absent goddess Shelyn's largest temple in the Pact Worlds, and her faithful do her proud whether she's listening or not. One entire SFS scenario is set there (which I'll be running again in a few days!), and it's featured in the backstory for at least one bounty and one one-shot module.
I'm very curious how the creation of Zon-Shelyn will affect the place in 2E!
Honestly, Castrovel has a special place in my heart. Despite being a Pact World signatory, the jungles always make it somehow feel like it's just hanging on and there always seems to be some new terrifying beasty around each corner. Add to that the enclave of elves that are a fascinating consequence of the Gap and then the major formian population and it becomes a bizarre little intersection of three very distinctive peoples.
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If Galorian is a kitchen sink setting, then Starfinder is a warehouse of kitchen sinks. If you want to run a campaign that feels stuffed with corporations, you can, but you could also go to most of those locations and completely ignore the presence of corporations.
Several people here have compared the center ring of Verces to Night City or Coruscant. My shirren character is from one of the shirren colonies on the bright side of Verces, which they would describe it more like a small colony on Tatoone.
Akiton can be many things: Space Detroit, the road warrior, the Las Vegas of junk collecting, Firefly, John Catter, it's also home of the Contemplatives. Whatever is going on in Akiton, it's not stuffed with it; places tend to be spread out and isolated.
One thing I love is that Starfinder has its own Pop Culture, everyone knows about Zo! or the band Strawberry Machine Cake. For me, it's details like this in the lore that make the setting feel more lived in, it can give a character goals and motivation outside of just being an adventurer. It also gives characters some common knowledge that makes getting to know new people on a mission easier. Songbird Station is a place where my characters often go during downtime for concerts.
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I think the corpos are mostly there to fill the same roles that feudal lords do in adventure design: you need Guys With Influence to be patrons and villains, and a more modernized setting with a more complicated/specialized economy measures that influence in capital rather than land ownership. It's easy faction building and conflict generation.
Anyway, I think the bubble cities on the sun and Liavara are really neat. The one on the sun--the Burning Archipelago--is my favorite, as it's a great place to have magic and religion meet high technology and modern conflict. The fact that nobody knows who built it makes for a fun mystery, especially when you add in the detail that there is probably a hidden civilization deep within the sun itself. It's also just cool that, during an argument between a priest, a developer, and a scientist about whether to use a specific bubble for worship, habitation, or research, you can just have a random fire genie show up and offer their two cents. Because yeah, the sun's a magical gateway to the fire and positive planes too, because why not? It's a microcosm of Starfinder itself: a place where high-concept sci-fi meets silly little D&Disms.
Does that weird dread Lashunta feel in the sun ever go anywhere, or does it remain a loose plot hook still?
Does that weird dread Lashunta feel in the sun ever go anywhere, or does it remain a loose plot hook still?
From what I remember, that plot line is covered in the Dawn of Flame AP? As the inciting incident. I’ve only read the backmatter in that AP though, so I can’t vouch for more than that.
Yes, the source is identified and dealt with in that AP.
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if you have an evil party, an interest place to send them is the Skittermander home-world. They are the ancestry that managed to annoy the world conquering Vesk so much that assignment to their paradise planet is consider a punishment. They did so not being being rude, offensive, or combative, but by being so accommodating and helpful that the Vesk cannot tell if the Skittermander realize the Vesk came to conquer them... and now they serve so many administrative and bureaucratic roles that many wonder who conquered who?
Imagine an evil party trying to do evil surrounded by a group of manically helpful care-bears. And if they really get their evil going... suddenly... "Accidents" start happening. The Skittermander are only too happy to help the PC's recover, and as the accidents keep occurring, recommend that this place maybe cursed, maybe the party should move on.
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As so many have said, there's so much to choose from and there's pretty much a place for anything and everything. Which might be why it's a bit slippery compared to what we get in Pathfinder.
The solar system, as presented during Golarion's time, is much more tightly contained. Sure, each planet still has its own thing going on, but the scope is smaller, each planet feels like it has large barren mysterious spaces peppered with intriguing tidbits of lore from "beyond". That gives the Pathfinder solar system a theme as a whole: it's pulpy, its weird, and its creepy, with a few other major species isolated in the dark and trying to make their way. Interplanetary trade is a promising but near future promise for many of them. All of this gives the solar system a cohesive whole that's tighter to grab on to as a setting.
Starfinder's setting is two orders of magnitude larger in scope. The species of the Pact Worlds are interspersed across each planet and into the stars. Most places are pretty cosmopolitan. Since none of the Pact Worlds are isolated anymore they all have to lean on doing their "thing" and serve much more like the nations and regions in Golarion. So the Pact Worlds end up functioning like the Inner Sea Region and feels much more "kitchen-sink" than pulpy and weird - sure the pulp and the weird are still there, in all of the thematically respective places. And then you throw Near Space and the Vast on top of all that.
When the material from Distant Worlds shows up in a Pathfinder adventure it feels special, like a little piece of the wider universe that's crept in and and given a taste to the Golarion locals. In Starfinder, you are that wider universe.
My recommendation, if you find the setting as a whole a bit slippery, is to look for the themes that interest you, find a piece of the galaxy, one world, that connects and dig into that place. Much the same as if you were getting into Golarion but started looking at the lore from a continental view, where it just looks a lot like most other earth continent analogues - don't do that, get into the Inner Sea Region and dive into the places that stand out to you.
I'll add to the voices giving their recommendations, but at the end of the day, I think you'll be best served by going with your own gut and start with Aballon and the wider First Ones lore, which is getting expanded on in 2nd from the looks of it.
I'd put up Verces like others already have, but it doesn't seem like corporate-facing sci-fi is your jam. Now, there's plenty of cool stuff on Verces outside the ring that contrasts against all the corporate stuff, sort of mysterious raiders and monasteries and cults (some going back to the Distant Worlds days) which gives a taste of the old Distant World vibe. So I'd recommend looking into the Fullbright and Darkside stuff.
Castrovel is pretty much the new fantasy/Golarion stand-in. Absalom Station may serve as the actual Absalom stand-in, but the whole wilderness and towns and cities aspect is covered by Castrovel. And Triaxus. But Triaxus is getting a bit of facelift in 2nd edition with the huge overhaul to its seasonal cycle, so I'm not sure what it's going to become. Not to say those planets don't also have major modern population centers filled with corpos and businesses, but they have a lot more opportunities for traditional rural vibes.
I also like the Diaspora. It still has a similar mysterious feel like it did in Distant Worlds, just expanded upon. And with pirates now. It's got ties to Aballon and Eox, regarding plot points, and quite a few anomalies hinting at wider cosmic mysteries and history while also being a great place to set an Expanse-style Belter-focused game or the Starfinder version of Skull and Shackles. One game I would like to do involves a massive Diaspora-wide dust-up between the Free Captains, the Android Abolitionist Front, and the inner planet security forces.
Thank you for such a thoughtful reply, The Block Knight!