Starfinder Adventure Path: "Dead Suns, Chapter Six: Empire of Bones" [RPG]

 NO SPOILERS

Yes, I did save the galaxy.  You're welcome.  Empire of Bones is the sixth and final installment of the Dead Suns adventure path, designed to take characters from Level 11 to Level 13 or so.  If you've read my review of the previous instalments, you'll know I'm not a big fan of the AP overall.  It has a pretty cliched plot and a very heavy-handed approach to ensuring PCs stick to the rails no matter what.  Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't bits and pieces that are salvageable, or that a GM couldn't take the (pardon the cover art pun) skeleton of the AP and make something better out of it.  But Chapter 6 has pretty much the same flaws as the earlier chapters.  Now that a lot of other APs have been released, I'd suggest shopping around for something better.

As usual, I'll start with the non-spoilery back matter.

* The inside front- and back- covers feature the stats, interior layout, and some background on a truly massive Tier 20 Corpse Fleet ship class called the Blackwind Annihilator.  Categorised as "supercolossal ultranoughts", there only a handful of these vessels in existence. They're best thought of as the equivalent of Imperial Super Star Destroyers. I can't speak to the stats, etc., but I like the little description of the status/fate of each individually-named one of these (adds a bit of fun lore to the game).

* The first back matter proper is "Ships of the Line" (4 pages).  This section introduces the  supercolossal base frame, a category that allows for unlimited expansion bays and designed for a crew of over 100,000!  Lots of new starship systems are added here to support such a large ship.  The new "spinal-mount weapons" category is pretty cool.  "Take 6d12x10 damage from my vortex devourer, fools!"  I should note that this all came out before Starships of the Galaxy, and I don't know how that book treats the material here.

* Next, we get "Ships of the Corpse Fleet" (6 pages).  This section has a ton of cool stuff for ships crewed by undead, like a "ghost drive" (allows a ship to become briefly insubstantial) and a "corpse recycler" (turns bodies into necrograft UPBs).  Several new Corpse Fleets ships are introduced, ranging from a tiny Tier 1/3 "Barrow Boneshard" to the hefty Tier 16 "Barrow Cenotaph."  Starfinder starship combat has never appealed to me, but I know it does to some folks, so hopefully they get something out of this section.

* This issue's "Alien Archives" (8 pages) is 85.7% undead.  Many of the creatures will be familiar to long-time gamers.  We get 1) baykoks (soul-devouring undead); 2) corpsefolk (formerly known as "zombie masters"); 3) gatecrashers (these guys are neat, as they wield multiple massively oversized unwieldy weapons with ease); 4) kuobozus (also known as "black monks"; they have pretty much the CREEPIEST artwork ever); 5) mohrgs (paralysing skeletal undead); 6) pale strangers (very cool undead gunslingers); and 7) shimreen (the only non-undead entry, this is a playable race of crystalline undead with an incredibly wussy special power--occasionally add 3d4 damage to an attack once you get to Level 16!).

* For the "Codex of Worlds" (1 page) we get Shimrinsara, the home planet of the crystalline shimreen introduced above.  The place is a "storm-torn world of master artisans".  If you were *really* a fan of "The Saga of Crystar, the Crystal Warrior" in the 1980s, now's your chance to live out your childhood dreams.

SPOILERS!

Previously on Dead Suns/Star Wars: A ruthless master of eldritch forces (with a huge military fleet) sought a superweapon capable of dominating the galaxy by sending entire planets to their dooms!  Fortunately, a rag-tag bunch of heroes stepped up to save the day.

Part 1 ("Close to the Bone") of Chapter 6 starts with the PCs seeing a massive armada of Corpse Fleet ships arrive to claim the Gate of Twelve Suns, intent on taking the Stellar Degenerator for their own nefarious purposes.  The flagship of the Corpse Fleet armada is the Empire of Bones, one of the "supercolossal ultranoughts" mentioned above.  As the Corpse Fleet ships begin engaging the automated defense batteries protecting the Gate, the PCs realise there's only one thing to do: destroy the Gate before it's too late! No.  Such a plan would be "beyond the scope of this adventure." The one and only, completely obvious and viable plan is to sneak aboard the Empire of Bones, navigate its miles-long corridors without getting caught, storm the bridge, kill the admiral and bridge crew, and set the ship on a suicide course to ram the Stellar Degenerator.  Like, duh!  Sarcasm aside, I do really like the variety of new crew actions ("Fly Casual", "Dampen Life Signs", "Garbled Communication", etc.) to support pretending to be a Corpse Fleet vessel in order to land in the Empire of Bones.  It's an idea that could be easily abstracted to other Starfinder starship encounters.

Part 2 ("Mass Graves") has the PCs landing in "hangar country" aboard the flagship, trying to figure out exactly where they are and where the bridge is.  There's a cool battle in the hangar here, as one of the Corpse Fleet starfighters turns its guns on against the PCs when they're on foot! (honestly, it should have been tougher) and a crane that can be used to pick up and smash opponents.  But after this, the PCs are then expected to do a room-by-room search (as if dungeon crawling) which really slows down the excitement of what should be a crazy bold plan.  My main criticism of this entire section is that there's hardly any feeling whatsoever that a massive space battle is going on outside.  The ship never rocks from being hit, there aren't constant emergency crew orders being given over the intercoms, damaged vessels and injured crew being attended to, etc.  Essentially, there's no timeline whatsoever for the PCs, and no hurry--the adventure even contemplates them taking multiple overnight rests!  It's just a really weird way to dampen suspense, like if Luke was depicted having a brief cockpit snooze in the middle of the trench run.  Anyway, the PCs learn they need to take a grav-train to the bridge.

Part 3 ("In the Marrow") provides a cool map of the grav-train station (though it's a big one!).  But securing the grav-train is one thing, fending off a security train that gives chase is another.  Unlike some gamers, I actually enjoy Chase sub-systems, and the author certainly provided a lot of detail for this one. 

Part 4 ("Dead to Rights") has the big bridge battle against Admiral Serovox and his minions.  It's a genuinely tough battle, as Serovox uses greater invisibility and displacement to make himself hard to hit and uses wall of force to separate the PCs from one another.  I think our GM let us win.  There's some good dialogue and really interesting relics in trophy cases here.  Assuming the PCs win, their final task is to steer the Empire of Bones toward the Stellar Degenerator and then get away *quick* (actually, *slow* is just fine; there's no time limit on how long it takes them to escape, as long as they don't take anymore overnight rests).

I've jumped over some interesting bits in the summaries above: for example, the PCs can find a computer virus to mask their movements from security cameras, there are security keys scattered about that provide bonuses on hacking attempts, there's a battle against some ginormous ellicoths, and there's a cool pale undead planning a mutiny that the PCs can interact with.  Again, I really did find the lack of a timeline for how long the Corpse Fleet will take to overcome the automated security batteries made it impossible to tell how much of a hurry the PCs should be in.

Assuming the PCs succeed, they get praise from the Starfinder Society and (if they reveal what they've done publicly) become famous in the Pact Worlds.  The artwork of the PCs receiving medals from Luwazi Elsebo just like at the end of A New Hope is cute.  Many, if only there was a Star Wars role-playing game out there!

A "Continuing the Campaign" section (6 pages) offers some alternatives for GMs, including ideas of what happens if the PCs fail.  Two two-page write-ups offer further storyline ideas. One involves an "apocalypse atrocite" getting the Cult of the Devourer to use the Gate of Twelve Suns itself for nefarious purposes; it looked interesting but perhaps a bit too "samey" to the previous stories.  The other was really clever, involving a stowaway invasive species aboard the PCs' ship spreading plague everywhere they go.