Starfinder Society Scenario # 1-24: "Siege of Enlightenment" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I ran this at low sub-tier using the four-player adjustment.  Siege of Enlightenment isn't exactly ground-breaking, but it's a solid, enjoyable scenario that introduces some new lore elements into the Starfinder universe that could provide the seeds for further scenarios.  The encounters are satisfyingly dangerous but not unfair.  It's definitely one worth playing.

SPOILERS

Although the briefing in the Lorespire Complex with the ever-bland Venture-Captain Arvin is what you would expect, the mission premise is solid.  Out in Near Space, beyond the jurisdiction of the Pact Worlds, two starfaring nations are at war: the Marixah Republic and the Gideron Authority.  The Marixah Republic is trying to evacuate its population from a mining colony called Sansorgis that is likely to be invaded soon.  The Starfinder Society has contracted with them to assist in the evacuation in exchange for free reign to explore sites of archaeological interest on the planet.  V-C Arvin gives the PCs diplomatic credentials in case they encounter they encounter the Gideron Authority and are challenged.

You know that when the players have to pick a ship after the briefing, it means a starship combat is coming.  On their way to Sansorgis, the PCs are intercepted by a ship called Susumu's Sword (cool artwork!), a Gideron Authority vessel that orders them to turn back.  It ain't gonna happen, of course, so a space battle breaks out, with two little twists being that the Gideron ship has a ramming prow and that a proton storm makes some hexes dangerous to fly through.  I'm on the record of not being a fan of how starship combat is handled in Starfinder, and this encounter did nothing to change my mind.  The PCs won easily, simply avoiding the dangerous hexes and making sure they stayed out of ramming range of the enemy ship.  If the PCs somehow lose, it's not a big deal: they lose 100 credits and one of those "you'll be told if this boon is important" boons that get invoked once in a blue moon.

When the PCs land on Sansorgis, they're greeted by the locals, led by a Corporal Kalyavata (again, nice artwork).  The reason the colonists need help evacuating is that a series of strange computer and mechanical glitches have slowed the process down, and now one of their cargo freighters is stuck in its hangar because the hangar doors won't open.  The PCs have to lend a hand or get some Infamy (fair enough).  The Space Station flip-mat is used to represent the hangar, and it's kind of a goofy choice, as it's about the further thing from a hangar I can picture (you'd be lucky to cram a speeder bike in there, much less a cargo freighter!).  Still, I thought the encounter here was well-conceived and fun.  The reason for all the glitches is that a group of computer gremlins have infested the hangar.  When the PCs start manipulating the equipment, they manifest to start wreaking havoc, and the scenario allows them to do fun stuff like overload nearby computer consoles to explode, force vents to emit thick smoke, have robot arms to grab the PCs, etc.  PCs can use terminals to do this stuff as well, and the flip-mat is big enough and has a couple of hazards in it so that the (very weak) gremlins aren't just massacred in a single round.  It's not an encounter that's going to seriously threaten PCs, but it's an enjoyable one.

Once the gremlins are defeated and the colonists are safely evacuated, the PCs can head to a nearby set of ruins.  The scenario has a feature I really liked and hope to see more of: it tracks "Discovery Points" for exploration.  Discovery Points are achieved for doing things "real" xeno-archaeologists might do, such as mapping the ruins, translating documents, successfully removing very fragile items, etc.  In other words, it encourages more than just a "kill and loot" mentality.  The ruins themselves turn out to be an old military installation of a pre-Drift hobgoblin empire that existed sometime during the Gap.  The scenario does a good job laying out the clues here, and I'm intrigued by the back story and potential for further adventures building on the discoveries.

In a gameplay sense, the ruins probably come across to players as a dungeon crawl (the flip-mat is even Ancient Dungeon!).  Threats include some cool "Terra-Cotta Spider" constructs with "taserweb grenades" guarding the entrance, some "Howling Devils" (with sonic screams) that proved more of a challenge for the PCs to kill than I expected (the creatures have several energy immunities and resistances), a gleefully evil "Body-Gripping Trap" that crushes PCs and can even deal the Wound critical hit effect for permanent disfiguration(!), and, for the big final battle (which actually may occur relatively early in the exploration depending on which directions the PCs take) an encounter against a Ja Noi Oni (a sort of samurai hobgoblin spirit who thinks the entire thing is a simulation) and his pet Tashtari ("laser wolf").  This last encounter is pretty tough, especially if the PCs have been weakened by encountering everything else in the complex.  When I ran it (if I remember right), one of the PCs died before the others surrendered and were allowed to leave (thus missing out on some rewards).  Anyway, as far as dungeon crawls go, it's a professionally written and entertaining one.  There's a variety of challenges, the difficulty is reasonably high but fair, and there's plenty of little things in each room to discover to further expand the story.

Once the PCs have finished their explorations of the ruins, they can make it back to Absalom Station with no further problems.

If I had my druthers, I would have added more of a sense of urgency building on the natural implications of the premise: some sort of timeline before the Gideron Authority invasion fleet arrives, for example.  I would happily say something like "Scanners show you have four minutes before the Gideron vessels land--I'm keeping track of rounds--go!"  But maybe that's just me.  All in all, I really liked Siege of Enlightenment despite the fact that its core game-play mechanic (investigating a series of rooms, each with their own danger) hasn't evolved since the 1970s.  There's enough story around it that it works.  The introduction of the Marixah Republic (a loose confederation of allied colonies) and the Gideron Authority (a militaristic empire dominated by hobgoblins) is done well, and the war between them could be the backdrop to several good stories.  I definitely hope we see more of them and more related to the tantalizing hints of the lost empire that were found on Sansorgis.