Starfinder Society Scenario # 1-35: "Rasheen's Riches" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

Rasheen's Riches isn't going to knock your socks off or win any awards for originality, but it's a solid scenario nonetheless.  It's more of an exploration and combat scenario, with little opportunity for role-playing.  The plot is fairly straightforward, but it has an interesting premise and potentially starts a new minor storyline.  I'd place it in the "average, but definitely playable" category.

SPOILERS

Rasheen's Riches has a fun premise that I imagine will be used to fuel multiple scenarios over future seasons.  The Starfinder Society has come across a map that purports to show the first stop on legendary explorer and relic-hunter Jelev Rasheen's last expedition (from which she never returned).  It'd be more elegant if such a "legendary" figure from the setting's past had been mentioned before this scenario, but still, I can't argue with the classic pulp plot of following in the footsteps of a missing explorer.

The scenario begins with a briefing from Radaszam of the Acquisitives Faction that takes place in a Starfinder museum.  I think it's the first time we've seen this location in Starfinder Society, and it could make a really good backdrop for briefings.  I wish more had been done with it here.  Anyway, Radaszam tells the PCs about finding the map in the Society's archives and how it could lead to a beacon in the Arat System (a largely unexplored part of the Vast).  Apparently, Rasheen left one of these beacons, numbered in sequential order, in each system she explored as a sort of "trail of bread crumbs" and a way to store data of her findings for subsequent retrieval.  The PCs are expected to travel to the Arat System and recover the beacon, and perhaps even discover the fate of Rasheen.

At one point during the weeks-long travel through the Drift, the PC's vessel comes into contact with a salvage vessel examining the wreckage of another ship.  The salvage vessel is crewed by an insect-like type of fey called bulabar (a creature from Pathfinder I'm not familiar with), and reports that the wreckage is of a civilian liner destroyed by armed starships.  With some skill checks, the PCs can learn that the destroyed ship is of Izalguun manufacture and that the attackers were jinsuls!  All of this is here purely to provide some backdrop flavour for the ongoing season-long story arc, but I think scenario writers need to be careful about how they do stuff like this--it can be tantalizing enough to get players thinking this is something they should investigate immediately (after all, Rasheen has been missing for hundreds of years--she's not going anywhere!).

When the PCs reach the Arat System, scans don't pick up a beacon, but they do detect the wreckage of a starship on Aratrosim, the nearby moon of a gas giant.  Aratrosim is a dangerous place because of extensive "cryovolcanic" activity, and apparently the only safe place to land is several miles away from where the wreckage is detected.  This is becoming an annoying trope in Starfinder Society scenarios: dubious rationales for the PCs' ship to have to land someone other than where they're going so there can be overland travel and encounters (especially with all the means that PCs have at their disposal to bypass unconvincing explanations, such descent thrusters, feather fall spells, etc.).  Anyway, there are some randomly-determined environmental hazards during the PCs' cross-country journey, but only a couple are more than trivial impairments.  Everyone having such reliable and long-lasting environmental protections automatically built into their armor makes it really hard for Starfinder to do wilderness survival hazards well.

The middle part of the scenario consists of exploring the wrecked starship.  By recovering log entries and finding other clues, the PCs will learn that the ship belonged to the Golden League (a criminal organisation) that came in search of Rasheen about five years ago in the hopes of finding her rumoured stash of incredible treasures.  But the ship was ambushed by another starship and had to crash land, though the pilot was able to bring it in near the beacon.  The crew survived and hatched a plan to adjust the beacon to send an emergency distress signal, but before they could complete the job the crew of the attacking starship arrived to finish the job--and that ship belonged to the Corpse Fleet (renegade Eoxian undead)!  Apparently, the Arat System contains a secret Corpse Fleet base.  The PCs won't get this story all at once--instead, they'll have to put the pieces together and make some reasonable inferences.  The Corpse Fleet also left some traps behind in case anyone arrived to investigate the wreckage: undead in the form of a marooned one and a ghost.  I'm not sure if exploring a mysterious wrecked starship to discover clues about what happened while fending off spooky undead counts as "classic" or "cliched" SF storytelling at this point, but on the whole I thought this part of the scenario was reasonably well-written and interesting.

The PCs will have learned that Rasheen's beacon is only about a 20 minute walk from the starship.  There aren't any more environmental dangers to contend with on the way, but there is an attack from some native predatory fauna called glaciomonitors.  I like their ability to fight effectively in the fog they generate, though I thought the artwork for them was a bit cheesy.  Activating the beacon is easy, though the data it contains is encrypted and has to be transmitted to the PCs' ship in a process that will apparently take most of a day to complete.

I guess the scenario assumes the PCs return to their vessel and wait in orbit around Aratrosim for the data download to complete, because that's when they're attacked by a Corpse Fleet vessel.  This is a very standard one-on-one starship combat with no special features, and is pretty forgettable apart from some interesting role-playing interaction with the opposing ship's captain.  After presumably blasting the Corpse Fleet ship to smithereens, the Starfinders are able to return home without further incident.  Upon their return, Radaszam says he believes the Golden League may have information about the next set of Rasheen's coordinates, hinting at a possible plot point for a future scenario.

I wouldn't say Rasheen's Riches broke new ground in any way, but it was an overall solid adventure.  I liked the background premise of finding Rasheen (or her legendary treasure), and the scenario ticks the basic Starfinder categories of exploration, regular combat, and starship combat.  Some more opportunities for role-playing would have been nice, and the encounter designs were fairly basic.  Still, I'm curious to see what's next in this storyline.