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I got to play The Missing via play-by-post
with a really fun PC, my “junkomancer” Nixxer (a character who has never spent
a single credit!). I had a good time,
but truth be told, the scenario is pretty average. It makes poor use of a solid premise, offers
a pretty flat view of a potentially interesting setting, and comes up with a
fairly generic villain. It’s not really
bad, just forgettable, with a lean into the sappy.
SPOILERS!
The hook to The Missing is good, classic
adventure material. Aboard the kasatha
world-ship Idari, several residents have gone missing over the past six
months. The missing kasathans are from
two adjoining (but rival) communities that have rejected mainstream
society. One community, the Vocation of
Voices, are an insular, agrarian society that rejects technology and only
interacts with the wider world to sell their homemade goods and heirloom
crops. Basically, Space Amish! The other community, the Red Corridor, are
artists, outcasts, and criminals living in a series of interconnected basement
complexes. In other words, something
like the movie Rent. The two
communities often clash, and tensions are worse now with one blaming the other
for the disappearances. Captain Xogathu
of the Idari briefs the PCs alongside First Seeker Ehu Hadif, and gives
a very plausible reason why outsiders like SFS agents have been brought in to
investigate: neither of the outsider communities trust the leadership of the Idari
(the Doyenate) and their law enforcement officials. I don’t have my copy of the Pact Worlds
handy, but I’m guessing these two communities are drawn from it, and I always
like seeing setting material get spotlighted in scenarios.
The investigation is pretty simplistic. I sort of thought this would be like an FBI
serial killer investigation with a list of victims, their common
characteristics, and subtle clues to pierce together leading to a suspect, but
I can be very naïve! Despite one or two people going missing every couple of
weeks for six months, the scenario only has information about two of them: an
adolescent girl from the Vocation of Voices named Nindir and an adolescent boy from
the Red Corridors named Rahosa. (If you immediately
jumped to a Romeo and Juliet situation, you should aggressively pat yourself on
the back with both hands simultaneously).
A little conversation with Nindir’s
father and Rahosa’s art teacher, plus an easy skill check or two leads the PCs
to a remote lookout over the Lake of Memories where Nindir and Rahosa would rendezvous. Disturbances in the ground reveal a battle
and a chase took place, and PCs quickly get confirmation of danger when they’re
attacked by a sort of rat/leopard cross called a “leoporine”. The scenario does a strong job with rules for
ambush and terrain here, and the artwork for the creature (and really, throughout
the scenario) is great! After the
battle, the PCs can follow tracks to the entrance to a once-concealed
underground bunker.
The bunker is a secret research station operated by a disgraced
scientist named Hynes. In an origin
worthy of a Marvel super villain, his research into genetically engineering
animals for military purposes ran afoul of ethical and legal rules, and he was
ostracised. So he took to the bunker to
do it all on his own—only his creations have a bad habit of getting loose and
killing kasathans who wander through the area!
Fortunately (and oddly), Nindir and Rahosa escaped the leoporine attack
at the lookout and happened to run right into the bunker, where they’ve been
hiding since. Searching the bunker
requires overcoming the de rigeur laser turret and another cool creation, a
combination scorpion and shark called a “carusidae”. Again, the artwork makes a potentially
ludicrous idea seem pretty cool. Hynes is
in the complex and taunts the PCs over the intercoms as they explore, but he
immediately surrenders once confronted in person—as every cowardly scientist
type should.
As a bit of an epilogue, the PCs can help Nindir and Rahosa
overcome their respective families’ prejudices against each other’s
communities. Man, Shakespeare really
missed a beat in not giving his little play a happy ending too!
I snark, but really The Missing is perfectly
fine. A bit too simplistic and twee for
my tastes, but I really should have adjusted my expectations for Starfinder
Society now that we’re in Season Six.
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