Starfinder Society Scenario # 1-18: "The Blackmoon Survey" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I played through The Blackmoon Survey with my infamous self-medicating Solarian, and I didn't have high expectations going in.  I'm not sure exactly why, but the description of the scenario made it sound kind of bland and generic.  I was pleasantly surprised, however, and really had a blast.  There's a solid mystery (complete with red herrings), a very original encounter, and fantastic integration of world lore.  With its excellent mix of combat, investigation, and role-playing (plus a good setting), this one has it all.

SPOILERS

The scenario begins with the usual mission briefing from Venture-Captain Arvin.  He explains that the Starfinder Society has begun an excavation on a geological anomaly on the planet Eox (a planet of undead!).  The anomaly is called Blackmoon, and it is the surprisingly-intact portion of a moon that crashed into Eox when its ruling bone sages inadvertently triggered an ancient doomsday weapon left in orbit by a race of creatures called sarcesians that live in a nearby asteroid field called the Diaspora.  The problem is that several members of the excavation team have gone missing, so the PCs are dispatched to investigate and put things right.  It's a classic set-up, but the setting makes it work: this is the first SFS scenario to take place on Eox, one of the most memorable planets in the Pact Worlds, and the use of Blackmoon is a great location drawn from the recent hardcover book that talks about the planets in the system.

When the PCs arrive on Eox, they're ferried from the spaceport to the dig site by an imposing Vesk named Berchta Deepdelver.  Waiting for them at the dig site is the excavation's overseeer, a kasatha named Taylehm.  Taylehm is a boroi (a sort of partially-undead living creature that still has its soul), and she gives the PCs more information about what's been going on: the disappearances started at a particular dig site removed from the main excavation, some bodies have turned up, and several pieces of excavation equipment have been wrecked.  At this point, the PCs have several options for investigation, such as examining the bodies, questioning the archaeologists, looking at the site where the disappearances occurred, etc.  Some clues point to perhaps feral undead being involved, while others hint that the whole thing may be an inside job.  I won't go into detail on the clues, but on the whole I was satisfied with their variety and ultimate consistency.

Apart from a hazard called a Glass Cyclone, the first dangerous encounter the PCs will stumble into is when they try to find a security force that Taylehm dispatched earlier.  The encounter is a controversial one in the forums, but I love it.  The set-up is that the PCs enter one end of a narrow canyon and, on a rise at the other end of the canyon, nearly a *1,000* feet away, a team of snipers open fire on the PCs!  The map has a scale of thirty feet per square, and the encounter is designed to give sniper weapons a chance to shine (something long requested) and make range increments meaningful.  I thought it was a great change of pace from the standard encounter where everyone starts within charge range of one another, and even though my melee-only PC got blasted several times, I had a lot of fun with it.  Running the encounter required a little abstraction by our GM (30' squares don't always play nicely when someone moves 20', for example), but on the whole I think it was worthwhile and I'd like to see more encounters that put Starfinder's emphasis on ranged combat to good effect.

The snipers turn out to be sarcesians (the cover is an unfortunate spoiler), and a datapad allows them to be traced back to a hidden, abandoned outpost of a group called the Wings of Damiar.  The Wings of Damiar are a sect of sarcesians who have been monitoring the bone sages of Eox for signs of treachery against the Pact Worlds, but recently there was a schism and an off-shoot of the group decided to take a more violent approach.  It's this off-shoot that was responsible for the disappearances and sabotage of the SFS excavation team, as they were seen as willing accomplices to the bone sages' attempts to uncover the secrets of Blackmoon.  The PCs will be able to track the dangerous sarcesians down and confront them.  The battle isn't particularly memorable, but it's solid.

However, the scenario doesn't end there, as the PCs have to make an interesting moral decision: should they reveal to the Eoxians that the sarcesians have been watching them (and thus gain favour with the dominant species on the planet), or should they keep the existence of the sarcesians secret (and risk damage to the Society's reputation if the bone sages discover them later)?  The choice isn't an easy or obvious one, and it's quite significant for the boon the players earn: either the right to play a sarcesian in the future or, if their PC ever dies, to have them come back as a boroi!  Very cool.

I really enjoyed the writing on The Blackmoon Survey, and I feel like I understand the dicey relationship between the sarcesians and bone sages much better.  One of the best things about SFS scenarios is how they allow a player to experience so many different places in the campaign setting, and this is exemplified here.  The investigation aspect was solid, and the long-range encounter was refreshing.  All in all, I'd play this one again--if I could!