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NO SPOILERS
Songbird Rescue is the first of the Starfinder
Bounties (short, 60-90 minute adventures) that I’ve been able to play in
person. I really like the premise for
the story, and there’s strong artwork and clever use of one of the
flip-mats. There’s actually a fair
amount packed into the Bounty, including combat, traps, lots of opportunities
for skills, and some role-playing. Given
all this, and that it’s designed for Level 1 PCs, it would make an excellent adventure
to introduce new players to Starfinder.
SPOILERS!
I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of dead or
forgotten gods. It’s amazing to think
that there could be a time when a god has thousands or even millions of
followers, but that over time, cultural shifts, and new religions, worship in
that god could dwindle to the point where few if anyone remembers them. And it’s not unrealistic, as plenty of
examples can be found in the real world (there’s a memorable H.R. Mencken quote
about it). All that leads into why I
find the premise behind Songbird Rescue really interesting. The bulk of the adventure is set on Yashu-Indiri,
an airless moon around Bretheda, that is littered with shrines to dead and
forgotten deities. An android named
Sharaphine is part of an order of mystics that maintain some of the shrines
when she suffers a terrible accident when one collapses on her. After spending three days digging herself
out, she finds herself emerging at the base of a shrine to Zyphus, the god of
accidental death, disasters, and tragedy!
Epiphany strikes, and Sharaphine finds a new patron. Immediately, she engineers “accidents” to
kill the others in her order and then hatches an even crazier plan: she
assembles a device (a “calamitter”) to foul the navigational landing systems of
ships approaching Yashu-Indiri to create “accidental” crashes! It’s a pretty cool backstory to the
adventure.
The Bounty starts with the PCs aboard Songbird Station (a
performance venue/school/temple to Shelyn) in the Diaspora. There, they’re hired by a kobold cleric of
Shelyn named Kivi to set out on a rescue mission to Yashu-Indiri. It seems that a Shelynite named Nairon
Shalorrh piloted her shuttle on her usual bimonthly visit to the moon, sent out
a transmission when she was approaching it, and then hasn’t been heard from
since! The PCs are given a
rainbow-coloured vessel named Vivacity and promised a couple of hundreds
of credits each when they return.
Sharaphine’s “calamitter” wreaks havoc on the Vivacity’s
nav systems as it approaches Yashu-Indiri, forcing a crash landing. This takes the form of a multi-round skill
challenge. A good GM can make this
pretty exciting, even if the worst consequences (failing every round of the
challenge) is only a couple of dice of damage and the fatigued condition. (Then again, at Level 1, that could be a big
impact).
After surviving the crash, the PCs find their way to Kivi’s
nearby shuttle—a scene perfectly presented by the Crashed Starship flip-mat. Here they encounter Sharaphine and her posse
of anacite wingbots. The artwork for
Sharaphine is excellent. After
(presumably) defeating her, the PCs can begin excavating the shuttle, and that’s
where they may meet the most dangerous thing in the Bounty: an electrical trap
that could do 3d6 damage—it’s not likely to actually kill any PCs (Resolve
Points in Starfinder make that practically impossible), but it could certainly
knock one out. The missing cleric, Kivi,
is badly hurt but still alive. The PCs
need to tread carefully here, as skill check mishaps here could very well kill
her. There is where there’s a chance for
some role-playing.
Having hopefully rescued Kivi, the PCs need to locate the “calamitter”
and disable it before repairing their ship and setting off back to Songbird Station. This only takes a couple of skill checks
(that can be repeated without failure), so shouldn’t be too hard.
I can’t think of anything to complain about with Songbird
Rescue—so that must mean it’s pretty good!
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