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Skitter Warp was Paizo’s Free RPG Day 2022
release for Starfinder. It continues
featuring the skittermander crew of the salvage vessel Clutch, with
pre-gen PCs at Level 5. I ran it live
tabletop for my son’s birthday. The
adventure features some excellent artwork, the return of some familiar settings
and NPCs from previous Free RPG Day offerings, and solid writing. There’s actually a lot packed in it, which
means (depending on how much role-playing occurs) a group might be harried to
complete it in a normal 4-5 hour slot.
If you liked the previous adventures in the serious, you’ll like Skitter
Warp too.
SPOILERS!
In some ways, Skitter Warp is a sequel to Skitter
Crash, as it’s also set on the osharu planet of Varkulon 4 and features a
return of the Helix Lyceum and NPCs like Ponatia. At the same time, it’s also a tie-in to the
“Drift Crisis” event. In an interesting
twist, one of the normal group of Skittermanders—Nako—isn’t a playable PC, and
is instead replaced by his namesake Nakonechkin (their vesk boss). As we’ll see, the reason for the swap is a
fun one that might be a good surprise to the players.
Part 1 (“Into the Danger Zone”) starts with a little
freeform role-playing, as each PC is aboard the Clutch and gets a chance
to describe the fun little memento they picked up from Varkulon 4 during their
latest salvage job (Nako is still planetside helping to gather the last of
it). But then it’s right into the
action, as the Drift Crash strikes, hurtling the planet and the orbiting Clutch
into a strange miasma. The Drift Crash
threatens to become a literal starship crash, and the PCs have to make some
skill checks to keep their ship aloft.
If they fail too many of the checks, their ship will have reduced
shields for another threat posed by the miasma: a type of ghost ship called a
derelict shade. It’s a cool foe for a
starship combat, but again Paizo doesn’t have the courage of its convictions
and even if the good guys lose, all it means is the PCs take some damage to
stamina points (which they can promptly regain with a 10-minute rest and the
trivial expenditure of a resolve point).
Having played Starfinder since its beginning, I really do think one of
its weaknesses is a demonstrated reluctance to let genuinely bad things happen
to PCs. Anyway, after the battle, the
PCs get a transmission from Headmaster Kiodea at the Helix Lyceum request an urgent
visit.
Part 2 (“Golden Siege”) has the Clutch descending to
the surface of Varkulon 4 and its crew realising that the effect of the strange
cosmic storm has been radical! Planar
energy has surged randomly throughout, changing the landscape, building, and
even inhabitants. The area around the
Helix Lyceum was struck by good-aligned planar energy, and its residents have
become quasi-angelic beings! However,
those in some of the surrounding areas were struck by infernal or umbral energy
and altered accordingly. Upon landing,
the PCs have to fight off an “infernal nilothera” (a good call back to Skitter
Crash where they fought a normal one) before meeting with Headteacher
Kiodea. He explains that the
city-university has received a threatening transmission, and plays it for the
group: on screen is Ponatia, but his head now bears curled ram’s horns and his
face is twisted with rage as he vows “vengeance” on the Lyceum. Hundreds of wrath-filled foes soon surround
it, and the PCs are tasked with three missions to aid in its defence. They can do the missions in any order, with
the one they choose to do last altered to be a little bit harder. One mission involves escorting civilians to
safety past some corrupted umbral-infused osharus. I liked how stealth (instead of combat) was a
legitimate option for success. Another
mission, fortifying the Lyceum’s defenses, is purely skills based. A third mission is a straight-up fight
against some undead (bone trooper) osharus.
Once the missions are over, Headteacher Kiodea say he may have a true
solution to the problem: he’s identified the precise source of the planar
contamination, and if the PCs douse it with a mystical cleansing oil, the
corruption should abate.
Part 3 (“Spring of Evil”) has the PCs travelling to the
source of the contamination (the Acavo River), fighting a warmonger devil and
(hopefully) avoiding a sinkhole trap before the big climax. Not only must they face “Evil Ponatia” (a
fiendish mystic) their friend Nako is present as well—but she’s full of hate
and immediately attacks! I love the
artwork they gave for her. Smart PCs
will have one of the group who’s trained in Mysticism immediately attempt the
ritual to reverse the corruption, because otherwise they’ll have a knock-down
fight on their hands. Once the
corruption is reversed, Nako and Ponatia return to normal, and the crew of the Clutch
can head off to another adventure.
Playing these Free RPG Day adventures on my son’s birthdays
over the years has been a happy and memorable experience, and I should thank
Paizo and the author (Jason Keeley) for the opportunity. With Second Edition Starfinder in the works,
I’m not sure whether or not the crew of the Clutch will return. I think they’ve got a lot of adventuring left
in them, so I hope so!
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