Pathfinder Society Scenario # 1-17 (# 45): "Delirium's Tangle" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I played through Delirium's Tangle in a live tabletop game with my Prophet of Kalistrade who totally doesn't become a befanged, furry, bloodlusting beast when injured.  Although a scenario that is a pure dungeon crawl with no NPCs or role-playing to speak of, it does make good use of skill challenges and some original encounter variants to keep things fresh.  It has a classic D&D feel and is a good scenario for a more relaxed night when people aren't in the mood for deep storytelling and angsty character development, but want something a *bit* more involving then beating up on orcs and bandits.

SPOILERS!

Delirium's Tangle is one of those adventures that has a really interesting backstory that the PCs will probably never learn about.  It goes all the way back to when the elves first returned to Golarion (after their self-imposed exile when they foresaw the destruction of Earthfall). An elf named Abysiel Greensummer was the son of an ambassador and raised among humans, only to see them age and die in what seemed to him like mere flickers of time.  He became obsessed with trying to slow aging and death, and his obsession led to him being contacted by a powerful entity from beyond the stars called the Void Whisperer.  The Void Whisperer revealed to Abysiel the secrets of an artifact that could slow time called Izryen's Hourglass.  Abysiel obtained the artifact and followed the Void Whisperer's instructions to install it in an intricate labyrinth of twisted geometry deep below Absalom.  The labyrinth became known as the Tangle, and the Void Whisperer planned to use it--and Abysiel's body--as a portal to enter Golarion; but Abysiel's body was too weak, and he collapsed--alive but broken and feeble, unable to move or age or die.  A millennium and a half later, and just a few decades ago, a tribe of morlocks burrowed into the Tangle and adopted Abysiel as a god-like figure.  And most recently, just a few days ago, Grandmaster Torch discovered an account of an insane explorer who claimed to have entered and escaped from the Tangle, having seen Izryen's Hourglass at the center of it.  Torch being Torch, he used a a magical rod to put a mind-whammy on Nuar Spiritskin (Absalom's "Minotaur Prince") to get him to go into the labyrinth to retrieve it for him.  But Nuar hasn't returned, and Torch is worried his actions might be discovered unless he handles the search for the famous figure himself.  Thus, he calls in an old favour owed to him by the Pathfinder Society (from The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch) and puts the organisation on the case. This is where the PCs come in, with a classic in media res beginning/ret-con briefing by Torch and Venture-Captain Dreng.  Torch says all he cares about is the Society finding his "lost friend" who "voluntarily" entered the labyrinth, and he sweetens the deal by saying the Society can keep the elven artifact if they find it.

Act 1 ("Far Below Absalom") has the PCs traversing maintenance tunnels and then natural caverns under the city to find the entrance to the maze.  This is handled as taking 2d6 hours modified by the results of a Survival check by a character with the Track class ability (go rangers!).  The PCs get their blades wet by battling some giant beetles and leaping morlocks.

Act 2 ("Deeper Into the Maze") is comprised of a well-designed skill challenge to represent the PCs trying to navigate the Tangle.  As a sidebar mentions, actually drawing a maze on the table or otherwise trying to "accurately" represent each twist and turn of a labyrinth often ends up being a fairly boring task at the gaming table, so the scenario abstracts it through skill checks.  As a group, PCs need *ten* successful checks to find their way through the maze, with each round of checks representing one hour in-game.  A good mix of skills are usable (with a nice bonus for a creature with Scent to follow Nuar), but if a check is failed by five or more (reasonably likely given the high DCs at these subtiers) then a random trap or encounter is triggered.  If PCs flub five times and trigger five problems, then they're assumed to stumble into the center through sheer luck, even if rather the worse for wear.  A fair compromise in my mind, and I think that's exactly what happened to my group--our PCs just happened to be pretty terrible at all the skills that would have been handy!  Various descriptive passages are included for the GM to help narrate the PCs travel through the maze.

Act 3 ("The Void Whisperer") is a time-dependent optional encounter against a psychic fragment of the cosmic entity called the Void Whisperer (mechanically represented as a re-skinned giant leech or gibbering mouther).  Players aren't really missing out on much if they don't do this encounter, as they have no real context for understanding what it's supposed to represent in the story.

Act 4 ("Abysiel's Prison") starts with a classic whole-group trap: a locked chamber filling with water.  I like these sorts of traps that require the entire party to get involved to work out an escape, as they're a nice type of non-combat teamwork.  After escaping the trap, the PCs then reach the big climax: Abysiel himself, dangling by chains to a massive astrolabe fixed to the ceiling.  Nuar Spiritskin is unconscious on the ground nearby. It's a well-described scene and has cool, video-game boss battle vibes (even though the PCs will still probably have absolutely no idea who this fool is).  In game terms, Abysiel is a modified sorcerer and, by being off the ground, likely to survive more than a single round against the PCs (unless they happen to include some ranged combatants).  Still probably not a difficult encounter, but a reasonable spin on one.

Assuming the PCs win, they can get Nuar to safety and recover Izryen's Hourglass for the Pathfinder Society.  I'm guessing the artifact must have been hurled into one of the Grand Lodge's many vaults and forgotten about, as I've never seen reference to it again anywhere--despite it potentially being a major plot-driving item (anyone around it ages half as fast; not as good as the Sun Orchid Elixir, but still something kings and emperors would fight over!).  Anyway, although I do wish there were more ways for the PCs to learn how the past was prologue to what they were doing, I thought Delirium's Tangle was a pretty solid adventure.

Starfinder Society Scenario # 4-01: "Intro: Year of the Data Scourge" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

The first scenario in Season 4 starts off the "Year of the Data Scourge" with a bang.  It gets the PCs into the action immediately, and makes it clear that this season's metaplot won't be subtle.  As a scenario designed to be new-player friendly, it's a repeatable, has a good mix of skill challenges and light combats, and doesn't lore-dump heavily while serving as a bit of an impromptu tour of Absalom Station.  There are parts of the scenario that are just too "gamey" and I'm not a fan of rolls without consequences, but I may just be an old curmudgeon--the scenario is fine for what it is.  I played it via play-by-post with my "junkomancer", Nixxer.

SPOILERS!

Intro: Year of the Data Scourge does something I've long advocated as a change of pace: start off with the PCs thrown into a dangerous situation and dispense with a formal briefing.  Here, the PCs are riding on an automated train from the spaceport on Absalom Station to the Lorespire Complex.  Each player can decide for themself why they're on the train (there's a suggestion this could be run as the third part of the introductory series after The First Test and For the Factions), and there's an opportunity for the PCs to role-play with each other a little before the train abruptly screeches to a halt, the power flickers on and off several times, and then it starts accelerating at a frightening speed, as it's clear the autopilot is no longer engaged!  Someone better do something to get it into control before it crashes, and that sounds like a job for Superman the PCs.  A few Engineering or Computers skill checks should set things right, but there is limited time and the DCs are reasonably high.  Fortunately, if the train does crash, the damage is pretty minimal (1d6 at low subtier, with a Reflex save to halve even that).  I like that the scenario forces android and SRO characters to make a saving throw or get the Confused condition as the PCs realise that a virus has infected all electronics they possess: there's no using comms, datapads, or computers.  All those things are now so much junk (and perfect fodder for a junkomancer!).

After helping any victims of the train incident, the PCs find themselves at a deserted train station.  They need to make some skill checks to get their bearings and figure how which direction will take them toward the Lorespire Complex.  I like that there are bonuses for PCs who have previously played a scenario on Absalom Station and/or have Absalom Station listed as their home world on their character sheet, but it's annoying that if all the PCs fail the checks, they just "ramble aimlessly for a few blocks before finally getting their bearings and finding their way to the next area".  Why waste time having everyone roll (and look up old Chronicle sheets for bonuses) if it makes absolutely no difference?  Skill checks without consequences are one of my (many) gaming pet peeves.  *Anyway*, there's also a battle against some glitching security robots that are now hostile to everyone.  As an aside, I found it amusing that the PCs are allowed to "raid the vending machines" (i.e., break into them) to get a bunch of serums--one incident and the Starfinder Society becomes looters!

A few parts of the scenario are optional, as the PCs can choose to bypass them entirely.  In the Freemarkets, the group is flagged down by Dot, a stall owner NPC who has appeared in some previous scenarios.  As in at least one previous appearance I remember, she asks the PCs to do odd jobs in exchange for extraordinarily valuable treasure.  Here, the PCs are asked to fix her radio and move some crates from the back of her shop outside--in exchange, she gives them multiple spell gems, force field armor upgrades, and even a diamond-studded antique gold wedding ring that's a ring of resistance!  It's just plain stupid, and there's no need to have such awkward loot drops built-in a scenario like this.  Separately, the PCs can help emergency workers at an aid station set up in the Freemarkets; there are some skill checks for various tasks and the need to repulse some "polyphonic gels" (oozes) escaped from a local music store.  Another optional encounter is at the Security Resources Pavilion, apparently known as the "Merc Lurk".  The PCs are talking to a cool-looking shirren soldier named Lizisk when an AbadarCorp prototype mech suit switches into autopilot mode and starts firing indiscriminately.  You wouldn't expect low-level PCs to be fighting mechs, but it's scaled appropriately.  And finally, PCs will come to an intersection where glitching traffic lights have caused a chaotic scene of collisions, injured commuters, and so forth.

The last part of the scenario has the PCs reaching the perimeter of the Lorespire Complex.  There, they find it under attack from (cinematically) dozens of spider-like attack bots.  These are no mere "robots gone haywire", but instead part of a concentrated effort to deliver malicious code into the heart of Starfinder headquarters!  The PCs need to do their part by fighting off six of the "Scourge Harbingers".  It's a good way to help them feel like part of something larger, especially if the GM does some narrative description of other Starfinders fighting off other swarms of the robots.  After the battle, a cool "Battle Celita" briefs the PCs on what they know so far: most of Absalom Station is infected, the Lorespire Complex is safe (for now), and it's unknown whether other parts of the Pact Worlds have been infected by the computer virus as well.  It's a good, tense start to the rest of the season's metaplot.

I often mention scenarios that are likely to run a bit longer than a normal time-slot, but I'd wager Intro: Year of the Data Scourge is probably on the flip-side as a scenario that will run relatively quickly (there's not a huge amount of RP to do, the GM is encouraged to keep up a quick pace, and some of the challenges and encounters can be bypassed).  There are multiple things I found annoying about the scenario, but overall it should be a good experience for players.

Pathfinder Society Scenario # 1-11 (Scenario # 39): "Citadel of Flame" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

As context for these reviews, I should confess that I'm writing many of them well after I first played or ran them.  I played Citadel of Flame nearly a year and a half ago (so far behind am I in my reviews!), and when I first saw it come up on my list, I had absolutely no recollection of it whatsoever!  After doing some research, I was able to reconstruct what PC I ran and who I played it with, and then bits of it came back.  But still, it's fair to say that this review is more based on my reading the scenario than it is recounting my actual experience of it.  As to that last bit, I played my bizarre android oozeshifter Genesix in a live tabletop game.  I can say that there's agreement from what little I do remember of playing it and my evaluation of the scenario as written: it's pretty forgettable.  There's nothing outright bad or broken about it, and indeed it has a somewhat interesting main location.  But the storyline and encounters are fairly vanilla, and there's probably only one short opportunity for role-playing in the whole session.  In short, Citadel of Flame is nothing to write home about.

SPOILERS!

The background section of the scenario presents a solid, interesting tale.  Three hundred years ago, the cult of Moloch (an archdevil and the so-called "God of Fires") began to spread through Qadira's Meraz Desert.  It was a time of the fiercest heat waves ever recorded, and some Qadirans were persuaded it was a sign of Moloch's power.  Preachers invited the converted to trek through the desert to reach paradise; most died in the attempt (which the cultists claimed as a sacrifice to their god) but a lucky few reached the Citadel of Flame, the hidden home of the cult deep in the southern Meraz.  But as the cult's strength grew, so did opposition from the Dawnflower, Sarenrae's dervishes.  They launched a crusade into the Meraz, seeking to destroy the Citadel of Flame.  The greatest sandstorm in a century rose up and swallowed both the army and the Citadel, with neither ever having been seen since!  Until now, that is--a Pathfinder Society wizard was flying (as one does) over the desert and saw the minarets of the Citadel from above.

This is where the PCs come in, with a briefing by the unfortunately named Venture-Captain Hamshanks.  Good ole' VC Baconthighs wants the PCs to trek to the Citadel of Flame and explore it; and more to the point, Swinehaunches wants the group to retrieve a bull-headed idol of Moloch said to symbolise the judgment of Moloch.  Smash and loot: that's how the PFS does archaeology!  Fortunately for the PCs (and unfortunately for this Kuthite reviewer who loves inflicting grueling environmental effects), the actual travel through the desert is handwaved.

Act 1 ("Heat of the Hoodoos") has the PCs following a path through a maze of cliffs when they're attacked by a pair of fire elementals.  It's about as generic as encounters get.  After the battle, the PCs can investigate some bull-headed statues, flame-carved hoodoos, and stone glyphs that line the cliffs.

In Act 2 ("The Ember Halls"), the PCs learn that the Citadel of Flame actually consists of two minareted (?) fortresses connected by a stone bridge.  The descriptive text is well-written, and the place sounds pretty cool (or--hot--as it were).  The first of these fortresses is the Ember Halls.  The gist of what happens here is that there's a secret central room with spyholes in the surrounding rooms.  A sorcerer named Gali Sinquil hides in the central room and uses illusions each time the PCs enter an adjoining room to try to get them to waste their resources and be frightened away.  It's a fairly clever concept, actually.  Neither The Ember Halls or the other fortress have anything approaching realistic architecture as a residence where people would actually live, but I'm not too fussed about that.  The Halls also contain "The Sacred Sauna" (a ritual prayer room for priests of Moloch, trapped with fire magic for unbelievers) and "The Bridge of Flame"--a covered bridge connected to the other fortress, here guarded by a small flying devil called a gaav.

Act 3 ("The Inferno Heart") has the PCs force their way into the second of the two fortresses.  There's a mention that the fortress is hot enough that the PCs need to make hourly saves against heat--at normal exploration pace, that probably means just one, but I appreciate the scenario throwing me a bone.  There's a massive forge here called the Volcanic Anvil, currently tended to by a single dwarf.  This fellow, Vulcus, is a weaponsmith hired by the newly re-started cult's leader to begin making weapons to outfit the cult.  Vulcus, however, has no particular loyalty to the Cult of Moloch, and is happy to chat with the PCs because his boss is a real jerk.  He'll even tell the group how to shut down certain heat vents that will otherwise trouble them as they continue their explorations.

There's a long ramp up to the fire temple that caps the second fortress, and along the way PCs could do various rituals to Moloch to gain some minor fire resistance, but it's really not worth it considering all the nasty side effects (interesting flavour, but not warranting the lengthy descriptions).  The fire temple itself is well-described and evocative, with rivers of slowly bubbling lava, an elaborate altar containing the bull-headed man idol that pours lava from its mouth, vents of hot steam from the floor below, obsidian bas reliefs, and more.  Probably, it'll all just amount to forgotten background as the PCs battle it out with the boss of the scenario, a cleric of Moloch who uses summons and whip-trips to give the invaders a hard time.

The Conclusion consists of two short sentences that essentially amount to "everything returns to the status quo."

So that's Citadel of Flame.  An interesting location, flat encounters, and a storyline that could have been randomly selected from a d100 list.

Pathfinder Society Scenario # 1-06 (Scenario # 34): "Encounter at the Drowning Stones" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

Encounter at the Drowning Stones is a pretty good Season 1 scenario.  It's in the classic "pulp adventure/jungle hero" vein, and the author does a good job setting and presenting a Pathfinder version of the classic "greedy treasure hunter" tale.  Environmental rules are put to good effect, though encounters are more on the average side.  There's probably not a ton of role-playing opportunities.  The scenario is also longer than many from this time period, so the GM and players shouldn't expect a quick session--which is perfectly fine as long as its accounted for.  I played it with my dwarf Oracle of Groetus, Makras Vekker, in a live tabletop game.  Makras wears boots of the winterlands into the jungle, because that's just how he rolls.

SPOILERS!

The scenario, set in the Mwangi Expanse, has an intriguing background section.  It tells of an isolated, legendary site of monoliths carved in human-like shapes rising from a small gorge, where water from nearby streams pour into the figures' open mouths--thus, they've come to be known as the Drowning Stones.  However, they've also come to be associated with cannibalism and suicide, and are shunned by modern tribes.  The taboo is warranted, because the Drowning Stones sit above an ancient temple to Sifkesh, the demon lord of heresy and suicide, and her herald in the region, a succubus known as Sifkesh's Razor, still lures explorers to their doom.  Most recently, Wynard Lichten, a vile and ruthless treasure hunter working for the Aspis Consortium, has fallen under the sway of Sifkesh and has arranged for an entire expedition to be sent to retrieve the temple's treasures (and thus spread Sifkesh's madness more broadly).  However, the Pathfinder Society had a secret agent named Eiastor Wyrn join the expedition.  Unfortunately for him and the PFS, Eiastor sucked at his job and was discovered almost immediately.  I liked this line because it's so true: "Lichten forced Wyrn to send a final missive to his handlers in Absalom in the hopes that the Pathfinder Society would do what they always do: send another team to find their missing agent."  Sending good agents after bad is classic Pathfinder Society!

Osprey, who's one of the quirkier of an admittedly quirky bunch of Pathfinder Society leaders in this period, has (or is disguised as) a vagrant slip the characters a slip of paper giving them the location to meet for a mission: a mead hall of ill repute in Absalom called the Saucy Wench.  Osprey explains the mission (find Eiastor, keep the demon-linked stones from falling into Aspis hands) and has the resources to teleport the PCs all the way from Absalom to the Mwangi Expanse!

The PCs arrive at a Pathfinder jungle waystation that is near the lands of the Rumawa tribe (regrettably described in the text as "savages").  Dirch, a PFS agent at the waystation, is able to give the PCs information that the Aspis expedition went upstream and hasn't returned, and that following the river would be the safest way to make their way through the dense jungle.  He also provides them with flat-bottom push-rafts to help navigate the shallow rivers in the area. The scenario does a good job setting out why travel is difficult in the jungle, and expects the GM to impose environmental rules for heat, dim light (under the jungle canopy), slow travel through dense vegetation (if moving overland), and frequent downpours that then result in thick mists. I fully approve of making PCs' lives difficult in this way. 

Act 1 ("Rumawa Territory") has the PCs hear drumming from the forest as they slowly drift down the river.  PCs who make a Knowledge (religion) check here--and we didn't in my game--will realise that the drumming is a ritual request for trespassers to offer a sacrifice to the totem animal of the Rumawa: crocodiles!  If the PCs fail this check, the Rumawa emerge in person and offer the same request and warnings--but in the language Polyglot.  If the PCs again fail to learn the required information--like us--the Rumawa attack.  It's a perfectly fair encounter, as the PCs have multiple chances to avoid it.  Blood in the water attracts the aforementioned crocodiles, but I particularly liked this encounter because the Rumawa know their lands well and get the PCs to chase them into the jungle and right into some camouflaged spiked pit/poison spear traps.  Makras fell for it (literally).  It's nice to see traps actually integrated into combat encounters in this way as opposed to being freestanding, isolated threats.  Unlike us, a group able to communicate with the Rumawa diplomatically learns that four members of the Aspis expedition were killed by the tribe while the rest continued upriver toward the Drowning Stones.

Act 2 ("Crimson Soil") starts with the PCs several miles' upriver when they spot a bloated corpse floating in the river.  Investigation reveals it to be a member of the Aspis expedition killed by claw and blade attacks.  From the raft, the PCs spot a freshly-hacked passage into the underbush and can follow the path to a makeshift clearing where the expedition had set up camp.  But the camp is in ruins--tents shredded, possessions scattered--and even worse, there are gory husks of bone, blood, and hair strewn across it.  And even worse than *that*, a pack of dire boars is scavenging in the area and the PCs are going to have to deal with them.  After the battle, good Perception checks to search the ruins will find several intriguing clues to what happened: webbed footprints, a broken weapon with an unholy symbol to Sifkesh carved on it, a journal entry about another member of the expedition being lured into the jungle by a beautiful woman and not returning, another journal entry about finding the temple and taking some of the stones while leaving Eiastor behind, and yet another entry about Lichten acting more and more strangely.  And perhaps most oddly, a discovery that all the wounds on the corpses in the camp were self-inflicted!  Near the camp, in a crude cage-pit, the PCs will discover a member of the expedition alive!  This is actually Lichten himself, but he's been driven mad by the brutal attack on the camp (led by Sifkesh's Razor and her skum minions) and believes himself to be another member of the expedition.  (I find this bit unconvincing.) He offers to lead the PCs to the Drowning Stones.  I remember my GM did a really nice job with Lichten's crazy babbling.

Act 3 ("A Razor in Waiting") has the PCs going further into the jungle.  At one point, they'll find a canvas bag hanging from a tree, and inside is a single black stone--something intentionally placed by Sifkesh's Razor in the hopes that a member of the Pathfinder Society's relief team will find it and take it with them into the Drowning Stones--the reason being is that it marks them as one of Sifkesh's chosen (and gives them a -8 penalty to Will saves vs enchantment effects to resist self-harm!).  A little later, near a huge waterfall, the PCs see a "mermaid" sitting on a rock.  This is Sifkesh's Razor in disguise, and is frankly a pretty ridiculous disguise and attempt to lure the PCs in closer--I would think a succubus with an Intelligence of 18 could do better than that!  (a mermaid is one of the *last* things one would expect to find in the jungle; except maybe a polar bear, unless one has seen Lost).  Anyway, there's an ambush here as the Razor and her skum companions attack (though they leave the stone-carrier unharmed).  I remember thinking that was the big climax of the scenario, but there's actually a lot left!

Act 4 ("The Drowning Stones") has the PCs descend a shaft hundreds of feet below the Drowning Stones monolith and into the ancient temple.  There's some potential classic cinematic fun with a slide and a long, long fall if the PCs aren't careful.  (There's also a time-dependent optional encounter with advanced fiendish dire bats on the way down.)

Act 5 ("The Temple") has the PCs finally locate the missing PFS agent, Eiastor Wyrn.  Unfortunately, it's far too late, as Eiastor was sacrificed days ago and his bloody, bound corpse is on an altar.  A skum cleric of Sifkesh named Moglar-Tor is here, and uses darkness and invisibility magic (plus her skum minions) to make a potentially tough climactic encounter.  I remembered we really struggled before eventually succeeding.  There are loads of ceremonial treasures to find, as well as thousands of pounds of the demon-infused black stones (which, hopefully, the PCs are smart enough to leave behind).

Osprey will be waiting for the PCs back at the waystation, teleportation scroll in hand for the journey back to Absalom.

Encounter at the Drowning Stones isn't the most original and creative scenario, and I think in the past I've criticised some of author Tim Hitchcocks's writing for being derivative, but for whatever reason I liked the classic pulp jungle action in this one.  Lost temples, demon lords, sacrificial altars--what's *not* good about that?  This is a good scenario to play if you don't want to have to think too hard, and just want a good, solid night of adventuring.  But maybe leave the boots of the winterlands behind.

Starfinder Society Scenario # 2-17: "Cost of Living" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I ran Cost of Living at high subtier (5-6) via play-by-post.  It's a solid part of the Season Two "Year of a Thousand Bites" metaplot.  I thought the setting was well-conceived (and suitable for return adventures), the writer made full use of the Starfinder rules around non-combat dangers, and the social/political commentary on real-world events was done subtly but well.  I liked seeing the return of an NPC from a memorable Season One scenario.  I did think the combats were a bit vanilla, but on the whole, this was a satisfying experience.

SPOILERS!

Venture-Captain Naiaj delivers the news: a pandemic has broken out on Zeyther-3!  A remote arctic planet in the Vast, Zeyther-3 is inhabited by only a single small mining colony named Glimmershield.  A disease called Gutmelt has caused severe stomach distress and led to those infected being quarantined.  The Starfinder Society has quickly assembled medicinal supplies to send (thanks to Fitch's connections with the Izalguuns from # 2-16), and the PCs' task is to get them there safely and assist with anything else the colony needs.  AbadarCorp also reacted with surprising speed, and sent a batch of supplies--though the PCs will later learn they had an ulterior motive.  It all sounds pretty straightforward, and time is of the essence, so the PCs hop a chartered freighter called the Tale of Sustenance and, apart from noticing blackouts of some Drift beacons (which adds to their travel time and foreshadows a future storyline), the journey is uneventful.

I've often said I wish there was more artwork of locations in PFS/SFS, and Cost of Living obliges with a great shot of Glimmershield from the outside.  Upon arrival, the PCs meet with an epraksa (a sort of birdlike species) named Firstsight Taksta, the colony administrator.  Taksta understandably has a *lot* going on at the moment, so in addition to unloading the supplies, she asks the Starfinders to see if they can repair some external generators that have gone down and try to calm down some of the residents that have gotten unruly due to the quarantine.  The two latter tasks can be done in any order. Getting the generators going involves some skill checks and a battle with some ice elementals.  I remember running this encounter and thinking it was maybe a bit *overwritten*, taking up a lot more word count than was really necessary.  Dealing with the civil unrest (from boredom, bad food, frustration, etc.) is a good role-playing opportunity, with success depending on various skill checks.  Successfully dealing with both tasks makes attaining the scenario's Secondary Success Condition a little easier.

Afterwards, Taksta introduces the PCs to Dr Monsylkis, a redeemed scientist who had been working on the wrong side of the law when the Starfinder Society first encountered her in # 1-13.  Monsylkis has come to Glimmershield to try to develop a vaccine and cure for Gutmelt, and tells the PCs she has a real chance: she just needs to obtain a specimen sample from the wild creature native to Zeyther-3, an "estri", that first bit a resident of the colony to infect them and kick off the pandemic.  However, a couple parts of this plan promise to be tricky.  First, Monsylkis says her best chance of success is with a sample obtained from a living estri.  Second, estris are only known to live around First Bore, an abandoned mine almost fifty miles from Glimmershield.  Because of the arctic conditions and a transitory weather phenomenon called Coilstorms, transport is unavailable: the PCs will have to go via skis!

I really like that the scenario doesn't handwave or nerf the challenges of journeying multiple days through arctic conditions; it applies the rules for cold, for forced marching (the PCs have to choose between being fatigued and getting there quickly, or being in top shape but risking infected patients dying from the delay), rations (yay!), and more.  I know some of my players were surprised and grudging about these things, but I really believe that if GMs and adventures don't require them, it only further encourages players to focus on combat, combat, combat over other importance choices (like being good at Survival, or stocking up on rations, or taking wilderness-related feats and class features).  Additional complications ensue when the PCs arrive at the base of the rock formation that First Bore is on and have to figure out the best way to get to the top (climbing the treacherous rock face, following meandering trails where it's easy to get lost, trying to repair a broken elevator, etc.).  It's all handled very well.

Once inside the mine tunnels, the PCs will notice a couple of vital things.  First, they'll come across a recent-looking campsite that investigation may reveal was from the AbadarCorp relief team!  In short, the Starfinders aren't the first to come looking for estris.  Second, they'll come across the estris themselves: interesting, multi-legged burrowing creatures with corrosive bodily fluids.  I remember my PCs struggled trying to take one alive to get the sample that Dr Monsylkis requested.  There's also a chance a PC will contract Gutmelt.

Fortunately, the PCs may be able to repair an old tram terminal so they don't have to repeat the laborious journey back to Glimmershield on foot (or skis).  When they return with the specimens and news of AbadarCorp's presence, Dr Monsylkis confirms their shuttle left just a day before the PCs arrived.  As she gets to work developing a cure and vaccine, news breaks on the infosphere: "AbadarCorp develops miracle drug for gutmelt!"  But corporations don't do anything out of goodwill, and they're selling it for thousands of credits for a single dose!  It's a nice commentary on "Big Potion" (what we call Big Pharma in the real world), and ties in really well to the more modern problems a writer can insert into SFS compared to PFS.  Oh, and I have to mention the Chronicle boon is pretty sweet--allowing for discounted pharmaceuticals--I know a certain Solarian who was very happy.

Cost of Living is a solid adventure.  And if any of your players whinge about having to keep track of rations, make sure you impose the starvation rules! :)

Pathfinder Society Scenario # 2-24: "Shadow's Last Stand, Part II: Web of Corruption" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

Web of Corruption finishes the two-part story started in # 2-23 (At Shadow's Door).  In that scenario, mysterious forces affiliated with the Shadow Lodge launched an attack on the Grand Cathedral in Almas to capture Pathfinder Society leadership.  The PCs presumably intervened and rescued those at risk, and now in this scenario they have to finish the job by bringing those responsible for it to justice.  In my review of the earlier scenario, I criticised the blunt and clumsy execution of the Shadow Lodge, which was a great premise in principle, but I thought it should have been more like the subtle smear campaign leading to a big reveal like the Year of a Thousand Bites in Starfinder.  I think this second half of the story is better than the first, as it better mixes investigation and role-playing in with the action.  It shows the Paizo writers were getting better in these early seasons, even if they weren't quite at the standard they would reach in later ones.

SPOILERS!

Web of Corruption has a long but relevant background section on Dorianna Ouidda, the Almas Shadow Lodge cell leader who uses her secret alter ego as The Spider to run a secret slave-trading business.  Dorianna has long had a seething grudge against the Pathfinder Society and wants to destroy it, so she's launched a crusade to publicly undermine the organisation in the city by using her role as "upstanding member" of the Peoples' Council to besmirch it.  Dorianna and The Spider would have been a perfect use of the Vigilante class, had it existed when the scenario was written!

The adventure gets underway with a briefing from the rarely-seen Venture-Captain Alissa Moldreserva.  The scenario is carefully (though perhaps unnecessarily) written in such a way that it can be run before Part 1, so the briefing leaves out any specific mention of the Grand Cathedral and instead refers only to the general slander against the Pathfinder Society and the need to stop it before the group is run out of Almas.  Moldreserva explains the Society has it on good authority that Dorianna Ouidda is actually The Spider, but the problem is proving it.  This is where she needs the help of field agents, especially because Dorianna is scheduled to give a major speech before the People's Council in 48 hours.  If proof of her treachery isn't presented to the Council before then, it may be too late to ever save the Society's reputation.

Act 1 ("The Investigation") has the PCs hitting the streets to see what they can find out about The Spider.  This part of the scenario is handled pretty well mechanically, as it's not the usual "make one check and you're done" thing.  Instead, there are effectively three buckets of information, and each successful check reveals the top layer of the category--so the PCs can dig deeper into other layers of that cateogry or try a different one.  But with a Diplomacy (Gather Information) check taking 1d4 hours (per the Core Rulebook) and the adventure on a clock, the PCs need to be smart about how much time they spend.  It's also a nice opportunity for those PCs who have feats or class features to speed up Gather Information checks to get some value from them.  It's also fitting that Andoren PCs get a bonus on the checks--make those backgrounds count!  One thing I especially liked is the scenario's paragraph-long description of several NPCs for the GM to choose from that can be used to feed the PCs various pieces of information; it's always better for role-playing to have an idea of who a PC is talking to, and I'm not always the best at improv-ing a non-generic NPC on the spur of the moment.

Act 2 ("The Plot Thickens") has the PCs visit (in any order) three locations linked to The Spider that they learned about in Act 1.  Some careful persuasion, intimidation, or enchantment is necessary to get the proprietor of Jarovar Investments to admit he's an accountant and money launderer for The Spider's slave-trading business.  An ambush by dhampir fighters awaits the PCs if they board the Sailswift, the vessel The Spider uses to traffick in slaves.  And at a theatre cleverly titled The Captive Audience, the PCs will certainly be surprised when the eccentric director reveals himself as a doppelganger and attacks! (it turns out The Spider arranged for the actors to be charmed/enslaved and for it to become a secret brothel).  There are various pieces of evidence at the three locations--not all of them obvious--that the PCs can collect.  The more they have, the better, because persuading the People's Council that one of their own is a criminal mastermind won't be easy.

Act 3 ("The Unveiling") has the PCs arriving just in time to interrupt Dorianna's speech.  To persuade the Council that she's a crook, the PCs need to make a certain number of successful Diplomacy checks (the exact number depending on the number of PCs and the subtier they're playing at).  Each piece of evidence they've obtained gives them a particular bonus on a check, and the GM is explicitly authorised to add a small role-playing bonus.  It's a solid way of handling a social encounter, though I find the whole thing undermined by the fact that there's no limit to the number of retries the PCs can make--so effectively, they cannot fail.  And, Dorianna doesn't have any dialogue or arguments to counter the PCs.  This would have worked really well as "social combat" or using something like the verbal duel rules from Ultimate Intrigue (if it existed at the time, of course).  In any event, Dorianna is likely apprehended by guards and led to her quarters--but she kills them and drinks an invisibility potion!  The PCs have one last fight (which shouldn't be too hard; she's a bard and alone) before finishing the scenario.  In her quarters, they'll find loads of evidence to incriminate her as well as a captured Pathfinder Venture-Captain, Amenopheus.

All's well that ends well, and the Shadow's Last Stand two-parter is indeed stronger in the second half than the first.

Starfinder Society Scenario # 2-24: "Cornered Rat" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

Cornered Rat is the last scenario in Season Two, and the penultimate adventure in the "Year of a Thousand Bites" (which concludes in a multi-table Special).  Set for PCs of Levels 9-12, it does a nice job of giving such high-level field agents some recognition.  I played it via play-by-post (at low subtier) with my first SFS character, a drug-addicted Solarian named Troivayan.  The scenario didn't make a big impression on me while playing it, at it seemed like a pretty standard space-dungeon crawl.  Reading it for the purposes of this review, however, I can see it contains some nice touches, like numerous callbacks to previous scenarios, a well-implemented skills challenge, a bit of old school mapping, and an interesting final battle.  Plus, it's Luwazi Elsebo's final briefing as First Seeker!  I think with the play-by-post games, I'm often just so focused on posting my PC's actions and moving on with my day that I don't really take in the big picture of an adventure, and Cornered Rat is a good example of one that's better than I realised at the time.

SPOILERS!

First things first: wow, Datch has a cool backstory!  A poor physical talent in a school for assassins, she realised the only way she could win was through manipulation and making her fellow students look bad (even if they weren't).  In short, Datch became the ultimate character assassin, destroying reputations, using blackmail to coerce people, influencing entire communities through social media botfarms and trolls, etc.  I had known the general idea of "Year of a Thousand Bites"--that Datch was behind a smear campaign against the Starfinder Society--but I never put the pieces together that her doing so was just to provide AbadarCorp a "dangerous enemy" that she could then use to gradually work her way up in the organisation.  As this scenario starts, there's about to be a vote of no-confidence in AbadarCorp's current executive archdirector, and Datch has positioned herself to be the natural alternative (all while seemingly keeping her hands clean!).  It's all an effective commentary on modern politics and really excellent storytelling.

From the PCs' perspective, things start with a briefing by Luwazi Elsebo.  She explains that SFS agents have discovered the location of a hidden installation in the Diaspora established by Datch and currently inhabited by several worshippers of Lao Shu Po ("Grandmother Rat", the deity worshipped or feared by many ysoki).  Luwazi wants the PCs to lead a strikeforce into the installation to find information they can use against Datch in the upcoming AbadarCorp vote.  The briefing has some nice bits about this being Luwazi's final briefing, and the PCs being amongst the most senior field agents in the Society, a sign that this mission is of the utmost importance to the SFS.  The mission here shows the fruits of what happened in # 2-20 ('Shades of Spite'), where the PCs impressed a ysoki master assassin enough to gain information about the location of Datch's installation.  Throughout the scenario, there are references to several bits of lore from Season 1 and Season 2 scenarios, and the GM is instructed to highlight these for PCs with the relevant Chronicles--I really appreciate the efforts at continuity.

The Society is expecting trouble, so although the PCs are leading the strike force, several vessels are being sent with them into the Diaspora.  When the fleet approaches the asteroid where the installation is supposed to be located, a starship battle against several drones begins.  I'm a well-known critic of starship combat in Starfinder, but this one has some nice touches: hexes full of asteroids that have to be evaded (but can provide cover), fixed turrets providing alternative targets, and the interesting ability to direct other ships in the SFS fleet to attack certain targets.  Once the battle is won by forcing the enemy drones to pull back, the idea is that the PCs' ship will land on the asteroid while the rest of the fleet provides cover against further drone attacks.  In game, this translates to a fixed in-game countdown--90 minutes--for the PCs to get in and out of the installation; and if they exceed that timeline, they automatically fail the mission!  High-stakes make for good gameplay, and several later bits in the scenario explicitly take certain #s of minutes (and if the PCs are in the lazy habit of taking a 10-minute rest after every battle, this will come back to bite them).

Although the Society knows they're on the right asteroid, the actual entrance to the installation is hidden.  This portion of the scenario is a 5-step skill challenge as the PCs need to land safely, avoid falling debris from the starship battle, locate the entrance, maneuver across the asteroid in limited gravity, and unlock/blast through the doors.  Each of of these steps is accompanied by direct damage or negative conditions on a failed check.  A good mix of skills are used across different steps, and this isn't a skills challenge where one single Operative makes everyone else redundant (multiple successes by different PCs are necessary for the group to succeed).  It's a strong example of how to do a skills challenge right, and just needs a good GM to add a bit of colour in describing the events and their outcomes.

The next part of the scenario involves navigating the interior of the complex.  Here, the writer (Mikko Kallio) did something really interesting.  Instead of the traditional room-by-room crawl, the PCs have to navigate a literal maze!  Players who remember the "good old days" may make an actual pencil-and-paper map, because every wrong turn and dead end takes a fixed amount of time (usually five minutes) from their ongoing 90-minute countdown.  In addition, many intersections and dead ends have traps (explosives, toxic spores, flying daggers, etc.) or encounters (Laoite cultists, a "troll factory", etc.), so PCs who are poor at navigating the maze will find themselves more and more worn down before they finally get to the center.  It's also the first time I've really seen the potential of the flip-tiles, as the GM just needs to lay down the designated combination of tiles for the area/intersection where the encounter takes place (because drawing the whole thing on a flip-mat would be agonising work and lessen the point of it being a maze where the players can't automatically know where they are in relation to where they've already been).  I really liked the unique (for modern gaming) premise and execution.

Success in navigating the labyrinth leads to the installation's inner sanctum (and a very cool map!) where the PCs will encounter the master assassin Dispassion, Datch's former instructor.  Dispassion is willing to tell the PCs about Datch if they can defeat him.  He's a high-level Operative with some unique special abilities relating to having shadowy puppets that he can switch positions with and make attacks with.  As a very mobile foe, he'll avoid the "cornered and full attacked every round" problem, though I don't thing he really has enough pure offensive power to defeat the PCs (unless they truly got worn down on the way in).  Once defeated, Dispassion spills the beans about Datch before triggering a self-destruct mechanism that will consume the asteroid in a fiery explosion!  (the PCs' escape is hand-waved, however)

All in all, Cornered Rat is one of those scenarios that rewards looking beyond the surface.  It's a solid segment in the "Year of a Thousand Bites" and nicely sets up the big finale to come.