Starfinder Society Scenario # 1-11: "In Pursuit of the Scoured Past" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I ran this at Subtier 3-4 using the four-player adjustment.  In Pursuit of the Scoured Past is a solid scenario that has one great set-piece encounter.  It incorporates a lot of interesting setting lore, contributes to the season-long plot, and makes excellent use of NPCs from past scenarios.  Although the cartography needs work, it’s a very strong scenario that shouldn’t leave players disappointed.

SPOILERS

In Pursuit of the Scoured Past is an important scenario for the major “Year of the Scoured Stars” storyline that has been running through Season 1.  In the adventure, the PCs are sent to a nomadic library world where they have to obtain information crucial to discovering how to breach the golden shield that has trapped so much of the Society in the Scoured Stars region.  There’s some pretty cool stuff in the scenario, and, although it has some faults, for the most part it’s a worthwhile continuation of the storyline.

The scenario starts, as they do, with a briefing by Luwazi Elsebo, the Society’s nominated First Seeker.  She introduces Royo, a ysoki scholar and librarian that the players may remember from # 1-5 “The First Mandate.”  Together, Luwazi and Royo explain about the library world of Athaeum: that it disappears and reappears in space in an unpredictable manner and is maintained by the mysterious Curators who place within its vaults only information that is unique in the universe (and who go to great lengths to make sure it becomes or stays that way)!  The PCs are told they’ll be travelling to Athaeum with a member of AbadarCorp who has somehow made a connection with the Curators: an android named Iteration-177 (also introduced in # 1-5).  The PCs’ goal is to learn whatever they can about the Scoured Stars and establish a positive relationship between the Society and the Curators for future research opportunities.  From the start, it’s clear this is an important mission and it has an intriguing hook (a mobile library planet!).  I really like how well the overseers of Season 1 have brought back and integrated key NPCs into subsequent sessions.  Both Royo and Iteration-177 are memorable, and their presence makes earning those “High Society Influence” boons from # 1-5 worthwhile.

During the journey to Atheaeum, one of my favourite events in the entire season (so far) takes place.  It’s a very cool, original idea that cleverly gives players an opportunity to integrate their characters’ backstories into the session—something that can be *very* hard to do in normal organized play.  It takes the form of a very unusual dinner party in which Iteration-177 explains he’s obtained a rare device called a pencibiter—a machine capable of transmuting memories into edible food for consumption that conveys those memories to whomever eats it.  How this works in practice is that each player gets a chance to share a memory from their PC’s backstory with the others and convey the look, feel, and “taste” of that memory.  Players who only show up for tactical combat may scoff, but Starfinder is a *role-playing game*, not just a miniatures skirmish game, and I loved the idea.  More, the type of memory each player chooses has (unspecified) import for the future, as one of the boons on the Chronicles is tied to their selection.  I would love to see other examples of ways to encourage the introduction of PC backstories appear in future scenarios.

During the dinner party, the PCs realize they (and Royo) are not the only travellers that Iteration-177 is ferrying to Athaeum.  A contingent of Hellknights are on board!  The Hellknights belong to the Order of the Pyre, a group dedicated to the destruction of heretical works.  Ostensibly, they’re journeying to Athaeum to ensure its defences are adequate, but I think you can guess that their presence on the mission is going to cause problems.

Once the ship lands on Athaeum, the Starfinders meet one of the mysterious Curators.  They’re told where they can obtain the information they seek, but that if the agents assist with some problems that have cropped up, the usually-exorbitant fees for research can be reduced or even waived.  There are essentially three tasks that the PCs can undertake in any order in this part of the scenario.  First, they need to destroy some security droids that have been infected with a virus that makes them hostile.  The battle against the robots is pretty mundane, but what makes it exciting is that the PCs need to extract a copy of the virus from the robots and only have one chance to do so (with a few different means—and skills—potentially viable).  Second, they need to placate or subdue a dangerous beast that has gotten loose from its cage (a ksarik) without killing it.  Again, not the most original encounter, but it is a good test of the PCs’ ability to handle problems without murdering everything in their path.  Third, and my favourite, is overcoming a “mindmaze” that contains the actual information on the Scoured Stars.  This requires the PCs to enter a trance and send their minds into virtual representation of a maze, with successful Intelligence checks taking them closer to the center but failure inflicting Wisdom damage and making the DCs for all future Intelligence checks much harder.  It’s a simple mechanism, but I thought it was quite flavourful and was a nice way to recognise the more cerebral PCs over the more brawny ones.  In all these encounters, Royo’s presence is quite helpful to the Starfinders, and particularly so for any who have slotted his “High Society Influence” boon.  It’s good to have friends in high places!

The last part of the scenario triggers when the three encounters above are completed.  The PCs receive an urgent request for assistance from the Curators because the Hellknights have started burning down one of the library vaults!  After the PCs rush to the scene, they see a chaotic scene as Hellknights with flamethrowers systematically incinerate one-of-a-kind tomes.  The battle against the Hellknights is made even more exciting by the presence of some unique elements.  The encounter starts with the PCs in a control room that extends over the library, but it’s been weakened by the Hellknights and a single explosion (grenade!) will send the whole thing tumbling down.  There are fire-suppression systems that PCs might be able to take advantage of in order to suppress some of the flames.  But, the leader of the Hellknight incineration crew is a devil with the special ability to (quite literally) incinerate the limbs of a PC who gets too close!  I was *really* hoping he’d get to use this ability on one of the PCs I ran it for because it would have been an awesome, “OMG!” moment, but alas my dice rolls didn’t cooperate.  Anyway, it’s a tough battle but a fair one.  The only thing I would have liked to see added was a mechanism for the fire to spread and a sort of “countdown timer” for failure.  Senses of urgency are always good to add drama!

One of the criticisms I do need to make of this scenario is the cartography.  I rarely comment on the maps, but they’re really bad in this scenario.  They’re either too plain and unclear about who starts where (the robot encounter), so small and basic as to be almost unworthy of inclusion (the ksarik encounter), or poorly laid out and described (the Hellknight encounter—specifically how the hallways on the side relate to the control room).  Maps aside, the artwork (much of it recycled from past scenarios) is fine.

The scenario concludes with the Curators thanking the PCs for their (presumed) assistance in (mostly) stopping the Hellknights.  There’s an interesting reference to one of the Hellknights escaping with stolen material that I hope plants the seeds for a future mission.  Speaking of plot seeds, the information that the PCs recovered on the Scoured Stars from the mindmaze is exactly that: a bit too complicated for me to get into here, but it essentially sets up the need for PCs to recover artifacts or relics scoured across the galaxy in order to lower the golden shield.

Overall, I really liked In Search of the Scoured Stars.  It’s a meaty scenario that has a lot going on, but is very satisfying both on its own and as part of the season story-arc.  A couple of the encounters are a bit mundane and the maps need work, but in spite of that I’d definitely recommend it.