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NO SPOILERS
Man, I’m really getting behind on these reviews! It’s not from lack of interest, just from
lack of time. Anyway, I got to play Extraction
from Azlanti Space via play-by-post with my drug-addicted solarian, Troivayan. It was nice to see a scenario designed for
such high-level PCs (Tier 11-14!), and since Troivayan is my first and highest
level character, he was a natural choice.
Moreso, the mission was one that genuinely warranted the (in-game)
Society sending elite operatives to accomplish.
My take on the scenario was that it was an enjoyable experience: the
story was solid, the setting was great, and the encounters were fine. I do think there could have been more risk in
a non-combat vein, but I’ll explain that more in the Spoilers! section below. I found the artwork a mixed bag, as I think
the more cartoony style adopted over the past couple of years is a detriment
compared to the original, more “realistic” vein.
SPOILERS!
I’m not being sarcastic when I say one of the most
interesting parts of Extraction from Azlanti Space is the “Adventure
Background” section. It tells the story
of how the Starfinder Society first discovered the Azlanti Star Empire fifty
years ago in-game, and the isolation it has tried to keep from the Pact Worlds
since (not always successfully). I’m not
sure if this material has been presented before elsewhere, but I found it a fascinating
bit of setting lore. As for the current
mission, the background is that despite explorers, diplomats, and colonists
being forbidden to enter or exit Azlanti space, the Starfinder Society has
managed to slip in some spies. One of
the undercover operatives, a man named Felthaum Pixiulu, transmitted an
emergency extraction call that got temporarily lost and delayed because it took
place during the Drift Crisis trouble.
So, as Venture-Captain Naiaj explains, the PCs are being sent to the Azlanti
throne world of New Thespera to find Felthaum and bring him home! It’s a great set up for a story, a bit like
the Federation sending a team to extract Spock from an undercover mission in
Romulan space. I’m here for it! Now, why exactly the SFS would enlist
disgruntled, aggro, pill-popping Troivayan in the mission is another question;
though, to be fair, he proved his worth.
The SFS arranges for an unmarked vessel to carry the PCs to
the border planet of Khetaria, a world caught in a longterm stand-off between
the Azlanti and the Vesk for complicated reasons I won’t get into. Here, the PCs can meet with a Society contact
named Mohaul (of the “screedeep” species first introduced in the Against the
Aeon Throne AP) to obtain forged credentials to get them into Azlanti space
proper. In an area of a city that gives
off some Mos Eisley vibes, the PCs encounter a shouting match between Vesk
soldiers and Aeon Guard soldiers. The
scenario lets the PCs try to intervene to prevent violence, but if they fail
the Diplomacy check (and I like the big penalty for non-humans attempting it)
they provoke an attack in turn! Even if
they succeed in the check, they still get challenged by the Aeon Guard leader
to a fight. I have no idea why
Starfinder agents on an undercover mission would want to intervene in
the mess at all (and neither did Troivayan), but the rest of the group
dutifully stepped in and started a fight.
I think too many players have the idea that they have to swallow every
encounter hook that a scenario dangles. There’s
a little bit at the end of this sequence I really liked: when the PCs are just
about to board their new “clean” ship to leave Khetaria, a pair of armed Aeon
Guards approach and ask rudely “Where do you think you’re going?” It’s easy (and natural) for the PCs to react/overreact
dramatically here, but it turns out the guards have a sort of joking banter
with the local and were just having a bit of fun—they’re not suspicious at all! I liked the misdirect that plays with
adventure tropes (“Bluff the Guards”) like this.
The group reach the Azlanti capital of New Thespera a few
days later, and their forged credentials check out, allowing them free movement
around the city of Eronesse. I thought
this part could have been handled a bit better to bring out more setting
flavour, as I imagine the usual Starfinder Society group of motley aliens from
all over the Pact Worlds, Near Space, and beyond would attract a *lot* of
attention in the rigid and xenophobic Azlanti society. At the very least, any non-human members of
the group would be scrutinised more carefully in social interactions, or
perhaps the PCs would have to give some not-so-subtle trackers the slip. I prefer the approach that a long-ago
Pathfinder adventure took when the PCs have to slip into a city of (mythical,
non-existent) drow: they have to *look* like drow in order to avoid suspicion
and have freedom of movement. I do get
it’s hard to accomplish everything in one single scenario, however, so maybe
this would have been better as a two-parter.
The PCs arrive armed with three potential leads to finding
their spy-in-distress.
The first lead is a café and lounge called Conquerer’s Rest,
which was the original designated extraction point before the communication got
delayed. Here, the PCs can bribe a gosclaw
(another species introduced in Against the Aeon Throne; glad I’m playing
it!) bartender to reveal she hasn’t seen Felthaum in months, and that he was
spending a lot of time hanging around a shatori female.
The second lead is the workplace where Felthaum found
employment: ironically, it was the Ministry of Citizenship! (actually a really clever place for a spy to
gather intel about comings and goings in Azlanti space, and to be able to
bolster their own credentials). The
scenario leaves it fairly open ended here when it comes to skill checks to get
inside and find relevant information, which is fine with me—the only tricky
part is that players could spend a *lot* of time planning a super-careful
infiltration when really they just each need to make one skill check to
discover a piece of info, and there are no consequences for failure. Again, probably a problem due to the scenario’s
lack of space and gameplay time. Anyway,
the PCs may discover that Felthaum was fired after a week’s unexplained
absences and never turned up to gather his desk belongings. One of the items in Lost & Found is a
book marked with a Starfinder cypher that reveals a partial address to an
apartment complex in an affluent area of the city.
The third lead is Felthaum’s home. Neighbours say they haven’t seen him in
months, but inside the PCs can discover more ciphers that reveal he was
investigating a Lissalan cult called the Seven Stars that was aggressively
pushing for the Azlanti Star Empire to attack the Pact Worlds! A clever twist is that some maintenance bots
working on the property are actually Aeon Guard surveillance robots (Felthaum
aroused suspicions), and they activate to try to capture the PCs. The map tiles used for this are a bit weird,
and I didn’t like that that the PCs are expected to spend *fifteen minutes*
after a very public battle against robots, while undercover on the Azlanti
homeworld, to hack into the robots’ memory banks to find the address to the
Seven Stars compound. I don’t know about
you, but years of Starfinder have taught me that bad-guy robots are there to be
blasted, and there’s no point in trying to dredge up useful information from
their memory banks. I guess a GM would
have to drop a heavy hint here, because finding that address is crucial for the
rest of the scenario.
There’s an essentially optional side trek the PCs can take
if they go to the address they found hidden in Felthaum’s books at this
workplace. The address belongs to Ghwenti
Ghanti, a former co-worker, who was fond of Felthaum and eager to assist in
locating him. She’s an interesting character,
and it was cool that she was (slightly ret-conned) into being one of the
shatori present during # 2-13: Storm of the End Times and so friendly
with the Society. She can fill the PCs
in a bit more on what Felthaum was doing investigating the Seven Stars, but
there’s nothing crucial here. It’s a
solid role-playing scene, but I probably would have cut it for space and
replaced it with more setting-related stress for the PCs to really hammer home
how isolated and exposed they are if they get discovered on this mission
well-behind enemy lines.
The last act of the adventure has the PCs arrive at the
Seven Stars compound. Although the map
makes this look like a standard room-by-room “space dungeon” sequence, there’s
actually only one encounter and so it should go fairly quickly. The battle is against the fanatic leader of
the Seven Stars, a soldier named Xyam, and her two mystic acolytes. The fight was forgettable (at least, I don’t
recall anything about it) apart from that I loved the irony that Troivayan’s
lazy-stubborn refusal to learn Azlanti from an offered spell gem earlier in the
scenario made him automatically immune to a greater command spell cast by
one of the mystics!
Felthaum and several other prisoners can be freed from the
compound here, and the rest of the escape from Azlanti space is pretty much
hand-waved. The closing line from
Venture-Captain Naiaj was a fitting one: “The most important thing for you to
know at this moment? This mission never happened.” All in all, although I would have liked the
scenario to lean more into the “undercover behind enemy lines” angle and
perhaps offer some new mechanical twists for high-level play, I thought Extraction
from Azlanti Space was a solid experience.
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