Starfinder Adventure Path: "Dawn of Flame, Chapter 1: Fire Starters" [RPG]

 NO SPOILERS

A couple of years back, seeing my subscription to the Starfinder Adventure Path result in more and more issues on the shelf, I decided I better run one of them!  I went with Dawn of Flame because I was playing in a Dead Suns campaign, wanted to save the three-chapter APs like Signal of Screams, and didn't want to choose something too new because occasionally there are fun little references to previous APs in newer ones.  For this play-by-post campaign, I decided to go with the premise that the PCs were members of a scientific expedition from Near Space sent by a university consortium to research the Pact Worlds' sun (known as Mataras).  It was really fun selecting applicants through an "academic interview" process.  I mention all that only because one of the notable things about the first chapter of the AP, Fire Starters, is how little space it gives to adventure hooks--there are literally only a few sentences that amount to "it's up to the players how they got together and why they're here."  Sadly, gone are the days of the amazing AP Player's Guides that lured me to Pathfinder to begin with.

I was very excited to see James Sutter as the author of the first chapter's adventure--I've been a huge fan of his ever since his work on City of Strangers, the Kaer Maga supplement, and his novels are also excellent.  His work is edgy, original, and full of surprises.  Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Fire Starters comes off as almost intentionally pedestrian and generic.  The resulting adventure could have been set pretty much anywhere and has very little to do with the theme of the AP.  I understand that sometimes some groundwork has to be laid to get the PCs into the overall plot and that things like character development takes time, but Fire Starters is unfortunately eminently forgettable.  It just doesn't have any of the dramatic, amazing, memorable NPCs, encounters, or plot twists I expected Sutter to bring to the table.  There's nothing bad or wrong with it--it's perfectly competent.  Playing Fire Starters is like getting a PB&J when you were expecting a gourmet meal.

I will note the art design for the entire AP is excellent--the bold colours really pop, fit the theme perfectly, and lend the volumes an aesthetic very different than any of the other APs.  The interior artwork is fine, and the maps are really good.

Although I'll talk about the adventure in greater depth below, in this "No Spoilers" section I'll cover the five parts of the issue's back matter--a new starship, a gazetteer of a location, an essay on a religion, a bestiary section, and description of a new planet.

First up is the "Aurora Yellow Dwarf" class starship (inside front- and back-covers).  This Tier 3 starship is used by Sarenites to patrol the approach to the Burning Archipelago.    It's really just too big for a short-range patrol ship (it has multiple *huge* cargo holds, for example) and gives me the impression that the designer don't really have a sense for how specialised and cramped military vessels tend to be out of both budget and efficiency concerns.

Second is "Asanatown" (8 pages), a gazetteer of one of the "bubble-cities" of the Burning Archipelago (the network of cities orbiting the sun).  The place has a really interesting background as an enclave for lashunta who feel constant psychic stress while near the sun for some reason.  That gives the residents a sort of siege mentality and makes paranoia a real concern.  The entry is well-written with a lot to offer a GM who sets an adventure there.  I particularly liked the "Centre for Eschatological Research", the potential schism between the "Church of the Burning Mother" and mainstream Sarenites, and a comedian who's a reptoid.  I would quibble at the idea that a settlement of 5,000 allows for the purchase of tech level 20 items.  This entry also has some "crunch" in the form of three new psychic-themed feats ("Telepathic Spy" is neat--eavesdrop on mental communications!) and some new pieces of equipment.

Third is "The Church of Sarenrae" (8 pages), an entry that longtime Pathfinder players may think is unnecessary.  However, there's a lot of new information here about how the Goddess of the Sun is worshipped in Starfinder, especially in the Burning Archipelago.  For example, did you know the discovery of the Burning Archipelago was made by a Sarenite?  There's a good story here.  The centrality of the Radiant Cathedral to the faith is also important.  The section does briefly cover temples and worshippers beyond the Burning Archipelago (for example, the vesk call her Firescale), and ends with a couple of pages of new weapons and magic items for Sarenites--I particularly like the plasma scabbard.

This issue's "Alien Archives" (8 pages) has seven creature entries.  Most of them are simply the Starfinder versions of creatures known to Pathfinder players: azers, imps, variant elementals (ice, lightning, and magma), efreet, and ifrits.  The only truly original ones are "fire whales" (which have both creature and starship combat stats) and "rifti proteans".  I think the rifti proteans are really fun.  I don't like how one of the seven creatures has stats that are accessible only by reference to the adventure itself--I think it's better to have a strict separation to help avoid spoilers. Ifrits are given stats as a new playable race.  With a couple of exceptions, not an impressive section.

The "Codex of Worlds" (1 page) introduces Zeres, a watery world that has been turned into a planet-wide luxury resort.  Such places are a staple of space fantasy, and I'm happy to see one included here (though the addition of an adventure hook or two would have been nice).

SPOILERS!

The premise of the entire AP is that an invasion is brewing deep in Mataras.  In a background section for the GM, the adventure tells a really interesting story involving a mysterious entity from the Plane of Fire named Malikah (half-brother of Ragathiel) who has decided to expand her empire and reputation by establishing a permanent empire on the Material Plane--starting with the Pact Worlds' sun!  To that end, Malikah has charged an efreet named General Khaim with making preparations for war, and he's claimed an abandoned magical city deep in the sun as his headquarters and named it the Crucible.  But a peaceful species called the anassanois that also live deep in the sun have become aware of the invasion plans and have been sending vague psychic signals to warn the peoples of the Burning Archipelago.  For the telepathic lashuntas, these signals are received as a constant background noise of anxiety and fear.  All of this is just background, however, and the PCs won't learn any of it for several chapters of the AP.

Instead, from the PCs' perspective, the adventure starts in Part 1 with them witnessing a mysterious starship emerge from a portal near the sun, quickly followed by a massive "fire whale" that's attacking it.  The PCs are supposed to engage the fire whale in starship combat (it's a pushover at 1/2 CR); I tend to think starting a campaign with starship combat is a bad idea, but fortunately it's the last one the players will have to deal with for a few chapters.  The starship that was being chased ends up adrift, and the PCs are urged by the staff of a nearby space station to board it and investigate.  It's essentially the "explore the derelict ship" cliche with an interesting (though hard to justify story-wise) mix of encounters: a hesper in the engine room, a fun rifti protean, a magma elemental, and an azer soldier working for General Khaim (though the PCs won't learn this).  The azer is notable for wearing an allegiance collar, which is a decent plot device to keep the PCs from interrogating her--it disintegrates the wearer if they get captured.  The main overall campaign story tie-in is that the PCs will find a holographic recording on the bridge from an ifrit named Tash, which reveals only cryptic references to Khaim, a place called Noma, and hints that he stole the starship.  Mystery is good, but the whole thing might be too vague to really accomplish anything--I'm 99.9% sure, for example, that my players have completely forgotten about Tash as we continue on in Chapter 3.

Part 2 of the adventure has the PCs arriving in Asanatown (the bubble-city discussed in the "No Spoilers" section above).  The premise is that the PCs have met a scientist named Taeress who promises she knows someone with connections to the Deep Culture Institute, an organisation devoted to studying the secrets of the sun.  Taeress doesn't reveal right away that her "connection" is her ex-wife!  The ex-wife, Nib, is a ysoki far more willing to go out on a scientific limb than Taeress.  I really like this story element, as they're an endearing non-couple (who, with some intervention, might reunite!).  The adventure element comes around because Nib is actually in the hands of rebels who have just seized Asanatown in a coup!  The PCs need to extricate Nib (a known loudmouth) from the local police station, which is now in the hands of the rebels who call themselves the Sunrise Collective.  There are a couple of other encounters on the street that are handled well, as they provide both peaceful and violent ways to resolve them.  Even getting Nib sprung from jail can be handled through diplomacy, something my group managed.

Part 3 has the PCs trying to free Asanatown's city councillors who are being held hostage inside the central government building (on the premise that no one can leave the bubble-city until the security situation gets back to normal).  The Sunrise Collective has believable defensive tactics and there are a couple of clever elements, like a secret tunnel under the building that allows the PCs to maneuver unseen.  The encounters are also of the right difficulty level--my group teetered right on the edge of defeat before finally managing to beat the chapter boss.

As I mention above, there's nothing particular bad about the adventure.  It just feels a bit like stalling until the real adventure begins, as terrorists (in this chapter) and gangs (in the next chapter) are pretty common Starfinder villains.  There's a really subtle theme here that the players might pick up on in that the Sunrise Collective wanted to seize control of Asanatown in part because of their paranoia from the psychic background noise emanating from within the sun, but it's all too vague for any of it to really come together in a concrete way for the players.

On a general note, I found the lack of a Player's Guide problematic as the GM as well.  It was really hard to guess how much PCs should know about things like azers, ifrits, efreet, the Plane of Fire, the history of the Burning Archipelago, etc.  Similarly, although I manufactured my own adventure hook, the AP really needs to do a lot more to draw the PCs into the campaign.  

All in all, Fire Starters is not an auspicious beginning to the Dawn of Flame adventure path--but things can always get better!