PaizoCon 2013 Pin [RPG]

 Imagine if King Kong were a giant-sized goblin, and instead of climbing the Empire State Building he climbed the Seattle Space Needle, and instead of holding onto to Fay Wray he had a massive dogslicer!?!  You need imagine no more thanks to the PaizoCon 2013 Pin.  This is your classic round metal badge with a sharp pin to poke holes in your shirt or draw blood from your chest.  These days, 99 cents won't buy you much, but it will buy you this.

Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 18 [RPG]

 [15 Desnus, 4708 A.R.]

Rain clouds fill the skies above the troubled city of Korvosa as Ralph, Yraelzin, and Goldcape spend the day running errands and preparing for the evening’s fancy masquerade party at Carowyn Manor.  Goldcape checks on Rodolfo and is heartened to see that the old toymaker is recuperating.  Yraelzin’s faith in Razmir and efforts to attract converts seem to be rewarded when he adds a new spell to his repertoire—remove disease.  Ralph visits the pentagram-shaped Temple of Asmodeus in search of a wand of infernal healing, but discovers the plague has caused a run on everything related to magical healing—even those requiring devil blood!  But a contact leads him to one of the city’s many black market entrepreneurs: a student of the Acadamae who has taken the dreadful risk of stealing from the school’s storerooms and selling the fruits of his criminal labor.  The prices are high, but Ralph ends up finding what he’s looking for.

At dusk, the scattered members of the group assemble.  Ralph helps everyone with their costumes, taking extra effort to fine-tune everyone’s garb so they appear to be of upper-class status.  Goldcape will go as The Harrower (completely disguising her vanaran heritage), The Reckoner is going as himself, Yraelzin insists on going as a pirate bandit from Osirion, and even Rocky gets to join in the fun.  Goldcape planned to leave her roc companion behind, but Ralph expects trouble, and wants the team to be fully prepared. 

Carowyn Manor proves to be a stately, gabled estate along Shoreline Way that includes a limestone manor house, a servant’s residence, and a meticulously manicured garden—complete with a gazebo and pond.  Every element is as fine as the nouveau riche can afford, and the party’s guests have come similarly well-dressed to match in garish outfits and elaborate masks of all shapes and sizes.  The proffered invitation obtained from Jolistina’s bolt hole and Ralph’s skilled costuming is enough to get the group in the front door. 

Mercival Jeggare is an ancestor of the famed Montlarion Jeggare,
and is also related to noted Pathfinder Society agent Count Varian Jeggare.

The wealthy, aristrocratic, and/or famous guests enjoy the party in grand style, with little thought to the disease they believe only affects those living in squalor.  Splitting up to look for anything suspicious or any word of Rolth Lamm, members of the group make idle chit-chat with a variety of partygoers.  Goldcape realises Maximos Flavicos, leader of Longtail’s performing troupe, is at the party, but her disguise holds up and Maximos has no idea he’s speaking to the city’s only vanaran.  Ralph speaks to Ausio Carowyn (host of the party), and also notices that Amin Jalento—the bearded youth he helped save from a mob in the early days of the unrest—is present as well.  Mercival Jeggare, the learned curator of the Jeggare Museum and chief consultant for the University of Korvosa’s Jeggare Library, is overhead speaking about a new order of books on arcane and esoteric subjects requested directly by Queen Ileosa herself.  Ralph subtly makes a reference to Rolth Lamm, and it seems like Mercival knows something—but he immediately changes the subject.

It seems like the night will slide into the tedious mingling favoured by the idle rich, but at least one guest has a hunch that the group does not really belong at the party.  Darvayne Gios Amprei, Korvosa’s snooty ambassador from Cheliax, loves nothing more than to prove his wit and status by embarrassing those of a perceived lower station.  He rounds on the group, loudly mocking everything from their accents to their footwear to the way they eat hors d’ouvres.  Sniggering can be heard from the crowd, as all ears and eyes turn to the ensuing confrontation that promises someone being laughed out of the party.  But although a verbal duel isn’t what they were expecting, and they no longer possess the letters obtained from Eel’s End implicating the ambassador in immorality, the Harrowed Heroes rise to the challenge.  Ralph makes cutting remarks about the ambassador’s devil-worshipping heritage, Goldcape has Rocky do charming stunts, and Yraelzin is unmatchable when it comes to pompous oratory.  Amprei fights back with every tool of his manipulative trade, but eventually finds himself outmatched and forced to stride away, humiliated.

The rest of the party is uneventful, though Ralph gathers more background on Mercival Jeggare and learns that an entertainer named Ruan Mirukova (a Varisian prodigy) never showed up as planned.  Having obtained some interesting new leads, members of the group agree that the next day they’ll follow up on an earlier one by investigating the submerged wreckage of the purported plague ship!

[16 Desnus, 4708 A.R.]

The next day, Goldcape visits Sgt. Clenkins at Citadel Volshyanek and receives a warm welcome.  When asked, Clenkins says all he knows about the sunken ship was that it went down somewhere near North Bridge.  He’s able to direct Goldcape to one of the trebuchet crews stationed on the Wall of Eodred, and a helpful member of the Korvosan Guard is able to narrow the area further.  The guard says that efforts to send a salvage team below have been hampered by the river’s depth in that area (80 feet), the difficulty in suitably outfitting a dive team with water breathing and anti-plague magic, and the presence of a jigsaw shark.  By flying on Rocky’s back, Goldcape is able to skim right over the surface of the Jeggare River and she sees, despite its muddy currents, the wreckage of a ship.  It looks to be a merchant ship from Nidal and is very similar to the one that brought her and Longtail over from Casmaron.  But the vessel has hit the river’s bottom on its side and cracked in two from a rocky outcropping.

After Ralph and Yraelzin are notified, the group prepare for a dangerous dive.  Ralph purchases short swords that will be much easier to wield underwater than his battle maul, special weighted harnesses are obtained, and a gnome fisherman is persuaded to (for a reasonable fee) take the unusual trio out on the river in his small boat.  After securing the harness chains to the boat and swallowing the magical potions obtained from the Temple of Abadar, the Harrowed Heroes dive into the river.  The waters are tolerably warm and visibility, aided by magical light spell, isn’t bad.  The wondrous ability to breathe water lessens the group’s anxiety as they descend deeper and deeper.  Goldcape’s inherent talent for natural magic allows her to see trails of multiple aquatic creatures in the area—small eels, a shark, and some sort of humanoid.

The group aim their descent to the aft portion of the fire- and trebuchet- damaged vessel, landing near the captain’s cabin.  The door is swollen shut, forcing The Reckoner to laboriously hack it open.  Inside, amidst the tattered sheets of a canopied bed, the body of a drowned man can be seen floating in the murky water.  The corpse is dressed in simple black robes and wears an amulet depicting a skull shaped like a housefly.  The Reckoner notices a wound on the man’s head that matches a patch of skin and hair on the edge of a nearby footlocker.  When Goldcape opens the footlocker, she sees that its seals have remained intact, and the contents—coins, a robe with the same housefly-skull symbol, and a heavy book bound in darkwood—are unharmed.  The Reckoner motions for Goldcape to open the book, but she shakes her head, suspecting its pages would be ruined.

Swimming out of the cabin, the group move amidships and open one of the hatches in the now-canted deck. Wooden boxes and crates—all surprisingly completely empty—float in the water, but it’s the small jigsaw shark that catches the intrepid explorers’ attention!  Curiously, instead of attacking, the shark swims over to a door in the wall and butts its head against it multiple times!  The Reckoner and Goldcape swim over and, in their first taste of the awkwardness of underwater combat, manage to subdue the shark.

Now, eighty feet underwater in the rotting hulk of a suspected plague ship, questions abound.  Where’s the crew and passengers?  Why is there no cargo? And who—or what—was the shark trying to signal?

GM's Commentary

I was glad to see the PCs make use of Korvosa's black market.  Before the campaign, I had developed a rules sub-system (drawn from one of the hardcover books or Player Companions) about the risks and opportunities of engaging with it.  The black market only matters, of course, because the settlement rules limit what PCs can purchase.  I really like how these limits contract and expand in the AP (even down to the availability of healing items here in Chapter 2), which really adds to the flavour of the campaign instead of a "anyone can buy anything they can afford at anytime" thing.

The players were expecting a big fight at Carowyn Manor, but what they didn't know was that by killing Jolistina early, they stopped the "zombie apocalypse" that would have happened during the party.  I mostly improvised the party, drawing on the rich collection of NPCs the campaign makes available, and I used the Social Combat card deck for the confrontation with Amprei.  It was fun and worked really well to bring out some good role-playing.

The PCs prepared extensively for the exploration of the sunken ship, not knowing that there's really only a couple of battles down there.  I had also prepped cheat sheets to explain underwater combat, and I think it went relatively smoothly (3D combat will also be a bit tricky), with the fact that they could fight on the bottom of the river making it easier.

Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 17 [RPG]

 [14 Desnus, 4708 A.R. continued]

Having fought their way through a wererat pack and other dangerous denizens of Korvosa’s sewer system, the Harrowed Heroes finally find an exit.  But they jump from the frying pan and into the fryer, as a group of wererat-hunting locals have staked out the sewer grate and launch an ambush!  The Reckoner dodges a hurled net and shouts for them to stand down while holding his battle-maul threateningly.  Goldcape emerges and persuades the aggressors that they’ve made a mistake.  She even gets them to release a very real wererat they had previous caught.  The wererat, Eries, explains that she had come to the surface to find help because Girrigz was planning a war in response to all the recent murders of rats and wererats due to suspicion they were spreading blood veil.  She’s grateful for the rescue and returns to safety underground.

After their exhausting day, the members of the group split up.  The Reckoner changes back to Ralph Blackfeather and visits the shops at Eodred’s Walk.  While chatting with Phaeton Skoda, Ralph learns the man flunked out of Theumanexus College—a worrisome sign for a proprietor of a magic shop.  Yraelzin makes it back to his “Temple of Razmir” in Old Korvosa and promptly lays down to rest, as he’s battered and beaten from the time in the sewers.  Goldcape goes to the house of Rodolfo and Wynda Giotorri, the friends of Old Lady Cloggins who have provided them shelter since the arson made their own homes temporarily uninhabitable.  Wynda is pacing back and forth, as Rodolfo is late for supper, something she says never happens.  When more time passes and she speculates that maybe he’s had to stay in the toy shop he runs because the streets are too dangerous due to rioting and the plague, Goldcape kindly offers to take some food over there to check on him.

Goldcape first stops at the Burnt Honey Inn to find Ralph.  As she waits, she chats with Potter Minehan.  The mild-mannered innkeeper is glad to hear that there won’t be any further thefts from his storeroom.  He expresses confidence that this plague that has affected his business will soon be over, as the Queen’s Physicians are very good at their jobs and are setting up a new hospital to help the victims.  When Ralph arrives, Goldcape shares what she knows about Rodolfo not coming home; the mention that Rodolfo had been complaining in recent days about a terrible smell near his shop seems ominous to Ralph, and he agrees to join Goldcape.  When they cross one of the many bridges to Old Korvosa, they see the neighbourhood is in even worse shape than usual: garbage isn’t being collected, fires have reduced some tenements to smouldering cinders, and some homeless persons have died from the plague and been left to rot on the streets!  The pair, along with Rocky (who has been growing steadily), stop to collect Yraelzin.  The priest complains stridently at being awakened, but pride makes him refuse the offer of being left behind.  He grumbles that a “disreputable street preacher” outside a nearby tavern has been “stealing” his “flock” with tales of a miracle cure for blood veil.

When the group reaches Giotorri’s Toys, a peak through the front window shows nothing amiss inside.  Although Rodolfo clearly isn’t a talented toymaker, there’s no sign of him or a disturbance, and the front door is locked.  The terrible stench from an alley adjacent to the shop is almost overwhelming though.  Goldcape climbs with monkey-like skill up the front of the building and across the roof to peer into the alley from above, but completely fails to realise she’s not alone up there!  Fanged teeth, pale skin, clawed hands, and red eyes mark the figures who ambush her as vampires!  Fortunately, the vampires are newly-spawned and awkward in their movements, and they push and shove each other to get at their prey, giving Goldcape a chance to escape and call Rocky for help.

The Reckoner tries to climb up but finds the brick walls too difficult, so he advances into the alley itself—only to stumble upon a gruesome sight.  Heaped against a bent wooden wall rises a pile of more than three dozen plague victims, their faces blistered and flushed, eyes open and staring.  Obviously, one of the plague cart drivers has been saving himself a trip to the Gray District by unloading his collections here!  More vampires, who must have been using the corpses to help disguise the bodies of their own victims, emerge from the darkness.  But although he’s hampered by fighting only in the moon’s dim light, The Reckoner once again puts his silver-tempered battle maul to good use!  One after another, the freshly-made vampires are crushed and assume a mist-like form to escape. 

Although Goldcape is badly hurt in the fighting, the group chase the fleeing bloodsuckers into a workshop that exits onto the alleyway.  There, they find Rodolfo—the victim of repeated feeding--unconscious but still alive.  A rickety trap door is opened to reveal a crawlspace under the workshop containing six coffins!  One by one, the helpless vampires are staked and destroyed.  Interestingly, coins found hidden in the coffin soil are all Ustalavic in origin.

As they carry Rodolfo home, the group speculate where the vampires came from, and who their master is.  Ralph says the various tragedies taking place in Korvosa could be connected in a web of conspiracy.  Goldcape says the city is cursed!  Yraelzin just wants a good night’s rest.  The Harrowed Heroes make plans to meet up the next day at sunset, because they have a masquerade to attend!

GM's Commentary

The passing reference to Rocky "getting big" denotes that he's now Large-sized at this point.  Alas, animal companions never get any bigger than that, but after the campaign's over we can imagine Rocky growing into a full-sized Gargantuan roc.

This session was a nicely self-contained story.  I really like how the AP provides several of these that can be run in any order and easily customised by the GM.  Coming across the vampire on the rooftop was a twist the AP probably didn't expect.  The Reckoner did well, as good rolls kept the miss chance from dim light from becoming a problem.

Pathfinder (GameMastery) Compleat Encounters: "Grove of the Mad Druid" [RPG]

SPOILERS!

Grove of the Mad Druid is another product in Paizo's short-lived "Compleat Encounters" line.  Combining a short adventure, gridded encounter tiles, and metal miniatures, the line was an interesting and innovative idea that ultimately didn't succeed.  I ran Grove of the Mad Druid as part of a homebrew "Roots of Golarion" ("The Magic Mirror") campaign, and for whatever reason, I liked it better than some of the others in the series I've played.  As the name indicates, the adventure involves a druid (named Gaskar) whose devotion to the natural concept of rot has started causing problems in the area.  There's not really much of an adventure hook (the PCs can either just stumble into his grove or be "hired by someone" to investigate).  The encounter involves Gaskar himself, his condor animal companion, a "carrion golem" he's constructed, several traps, and a cool new spell called spiritual menhir (it allows a caster to hide while casting spells that emanate from a mobile menhir).  Unlike some of the flip-cards of other products in the line, I found the ones with this set intuitive and actually pretty neat--the hollow tree and the collapsed compost heap were fun to reveal.  The artwork of the carrion golem is awesome (I love the equivalent of "roadkill" integrated into its body) and the drawing of the menhir is fine (a bit generic, but that's understandable), though the art for Gasker needs work.  The set I have didn't include the miniatures (either by design or because I purchased it second-hand), but from photos, the pattern from the artwork continues (carrion golem and menhir are cool, druid not so much).

Anyway, this is a "Compleat Encounter" that does live up to its name.  It'd be easy for a GM to spice up a long overland trek through the forest with gradual but ominously increasing signs of decay that lead to the mad druid's grove.  I've now played all but one of the products in the line, and Grove of the Mad Druid may be the best.

Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 16 [RPG]

 

[14 Desnus, 4708 A.R. continued]

Having stumbled onto the trail of thieves operating from the sewers below the city, the Harrowed Heroes find themselves in the middle of subterranean wererat den!  Although the pack’s outer guards have been subdued, sounds indicate more are on the way.  The Reckoner and Goldcape take up defensive positions alongside one tunnel, only to be blindsided by a veritable swarm of rats that squeeze through a crack in another wall!  Yraelzin hurls a flask of alchemist’s fire to slow the squeaking horde, and The Reckoner manages to disperse the rest with mighty blows from his war maul.  Wererat reinforcements also fall to the mighty weapon, its silvered head sizzling on impact.  Goldcape expresses frustration that she and Rocky’s attacks can’t seem to hurt the monsters.

The group advance to another chamber full of oversized rats’ nests.  When several dog-sized dire rats pour through from the north, with another from a small tunnel to the east, The Reckoner orders Yraelzin to take care of the lone one.  But the priest of Razmir is in for a surprise when that dire rat’s body begins to somehow shift and expand with a sickening crunch of bone and flesh, to reveal the leader of the wererat pack!  The burly wererat shouts about a war for revenge on the surface world for what they’ve done to his kin.  Yraelzin is stabbed and bitten by the foe, but manages to retreat as Goldcape and Rocky rush to his aid.  Once the dire rats to the north are dispatched, The Reckoner arrives as well, forcing the angry foe to shift back to rat form and escape through a crack in the wall.  But they give chase through another tunnel, and The Reckoner is able to put him down for good.  A search of the chambers reveals a stockpile of supplies and a small armory of weapons—it sounds like the wererats’ shouts about a planned war wasn’t just rhetoric!  But what drove them to such desperate measures?

Heavily wounded in the fighting, Goldcape suggests the group backtrack the way they came and exit the sewers as quickly as possible.  But The Reckoner presses for an exploration of the sewer tunnels around the wererats’ den.  They come across a sewer beast trapped between two gates, and despite its protests, attack it with a volley of arrows.  The aberration is easily defeated, though Goldcape shows mercy and uses magic to keep it from dying.

The group continue on through the tunnels and are nearing an exit when they turn a corner and find themselves only a few dozen feet away from an equally-surprised cytillipede.  The ten-foot-long segmented creature with a chitinous body and venomous mandibles looks like a giant centipede, but displays an unusual ability: it begins to glow brightly to stun its prey.  Goldcape jumps on Rocky’s back and charges forward with her new rapier, only to be bitten by the cytillipede!  Goldcape is badly hurt and near death, but Yraelzin rushes forward and saves her life.  With Goldcape out of the fight, Rocky flying around frantically to defend her master, and Yraelzin almost out of spells, the situation looks dire indeed!  But although he bleeds from multiple wounds, The Reckoner perseveres and finally succeeds in breaking through to a vital part in the cytillipede’s anatomy and killing it.

They’ve been victorious in every battle, but the sewers and its denizens are clearly draining the strength of Goldcape, Yraelzin, and The Reckoner.  Can they escape before their endurance gives out?

GM's Commentary

A short recap here, because sessions that are mostly combat don't take nearly as long to recount as ones with lots of role-playing.  We definitely start to see the dynamic of Goldcape urging caution while The Reckoner tends to want to push on further.  The battle against the cytillipede was a random encounter--sometimes those are cakewalks, but this one sure wasn't!

Pathfinder Pawns: "Bestiary 2 Box" [RPG]

 As the name indicates, this box comes with pawns for the monsters appearing in Bestiary 2.  The Bestiary 2 Box is made up of 246 different creatures, though there are multiples of many of them (there are three ice trolls and two fetchlings, for example; I haven't figured out any rhyme or reason why there are multiples of some rather than others).  Creatures ranging from size Small to Huge are included, which means you're left to your own devices for Gargantuan or larger creatures.  As with all Paizo pawns, these are double-sided, full-colour, thick cardboard pawns and can stand up to a fair amount of wear and tear. Bases are included. I've been using this box for years and haven't had any problems with it.  Keeping the pawns organised does require some custom solutions.

In terms of overall usefulness to a GM, I would start with the collection for Bestiary 1 because that box has the most common (classic) monsters a GM is likely to need.  Still, this box includes a few must-have creatures as well, including banshees, blink dogs, and hippogriffs.  GMs running Rise of the Runelords will get good value for their money, with several creatures in this set also appearing in that AP.  

Overall, it's a solid (if not quite indispensable) set.

Starfinder Society Scenario # 2-07: "Four for the First" [RPG]

 

NO SPOILERS

Four for the First is an important Starfinder Society scenario because it really embodies the "living campaign" premise of organised play.  In the scenario, PCs are exposed to four candidates for the role of First Seeker (leader) of the in-game Starfinder Society.  Each of the candidates was a real player's PC who reached the highest Reputation tier with the Luwazi Elsebo faction, and I think that's pretty cool!  When the scenario was released, players could vote online about which of the four candidates they thought best suited to the role.

Unfortunately for me, my local SFS group fell apart at the very beginning of Season Two, so although I was still able to play online, I quickly feel behind of current events and had to avoid spoilers.  By the time I played Four for the First via play-by-post, the winning candidate had long been announced.  Anyway, as a playing experience, I'd say the scenario is honestly a bit mediocre, and well-below the quality of the exciting adventures I've seen the author craft in past publications.

SPOILERS!

I like the original way the "briefing" for this scenario is staged.  Luwazi Elsebo pretends to happen by the PCs as they're returning from another mission and invites them to play a game of harcolo (a Castrovellian sport) in the rec room with her.  While she's playing, she explains that she's hoping to get some insight into what rank-and-file Starfinders think of the different candidates for the First Seeker position since she plans to step down from the role.  She provides brief descriptions of the four candidates and asks the PCs to visit with each one and then let her know what they think.  It's a fun alternative to the standard "mission briefing room" exposition.

The rest of the scenario is essentially four Quest-style missions each done at the behest of one of the candidates.  These can be done in any order.

First, there's Calder Soren, a mormalaw who joined the Starfinder Society right after the events of a previous mission that saw contact with his homeworld of Arniselle.  Soren's candidacy rests on a promise to return the Society to its former glory by reestablishing lodges in Near Space and the Vast.  His penchant for respecting queues and playing weird guitars makes him into a sort of likable dork.  He sends the PCs on a mission to oust squatters from an abandoned lodge on the planet Kalcijet 5.  The first thing that jumps out at me is . . . why?  The lodge is well and truly abandoned, and there are no immediate plans to put it back into service, so why are Starfinders going to go in and kill a bunch of squatters?  Anyway, the squatters are a type of gremlins called hobkins, and the resulting encounter is pretty straightforward.

Next up is a candidate named Avor Stelek, "Swordsman! Scientist! Healer! Dancer!"  He comes across as bit of a showman Mary Sue, and his mission doesn't make a ton of sense either. It involves a Starfinder named Pave-5 who signed a long-term contract with Zo! to have everything he does filmed, and this has caused so many headaches that Pave-5 no longer gets assigned to missions.  Avor wants the PCs to figure out a way to get Pave-5 out of the contract.  The answer is apparently that Zo!'s production manager for the filming crew (a ghast named Wazasha Kevir) finds the job of watching Pave-5 mope around incredibly boring, and would also like production to end.  But instead of doing something logical like convincing her boss that she's not getting any good material and it's costing too much to keep filming 24/7, Wazesha has a plan to release a bunch of dangerous creatures (electrovores) so that Pave-5 will have to fight them.  Then, Wazasha will take the exciting footage to Zo! and . . . somehow that will be enough to get Pave-5 out of his contract?  Honestly, I don't get the plan here, as staging something exciting could only make Zo! double-down on enforcing the contract and continuing to film Pave-5 long into the future.  Anyway, the PCs have to fight the electrovores because Pave-5 is a loser, and somehow that solves the problem.

Third on our list is Tara Nova, a professional vidcaster (YouTuber) who uses propaganda on behalf of the Starfinder Society.  She seems disingenuous but canny.  Her mission is another bizarre one that my character, at least, found morally objectionable.  After a battle out in the Vast some time ago resulted in both a jinsul ship and a Starfinder ship being destroyed, some surviving jinsuls have occupied the wreckage of the Starfinder ship.  The mission is to go on a "cleanup mission" to kill the "scum of the galaxy" apparently just for the sake of pride (there's nothing of value and no Starfinders left alive).  So if you stop and think about this, Tara Nova wants the PCs to travel for weeks into the Vast and place themselves in mortal danger by engaging jinsuls harmlessly occupying a shipwreck in hand-to-hand combat.  It's a bit like shooting the survivors of a sunken ship who are clinging to buoys to stay afloat.  Not only are sapient creatures being killed "just because," but it's also ridiculous to think that some blasting of the wreckage from space wouldn't be far easier and less dangerous for the Starfinders asked to carry out the mission.  *Sigh*  Anyway, there's a trap and a few jinsuls.

Last up is Ehu Hadif, the eventual winner and the one I would have voted for. Ehu is a kasatha solarian who is interested in  history and would like a dedicated, long-term mission on the library world of Athaeum to help uncover the mysteries and secrets that the Starfinder Society has long been dedicated to solving.  Although perhaps humorless, he comes across a serious, thoughtful, cautious individual with the Society's best interests at heart which is why I liked him the best.  He sends the PCs on a mission to Athaeum to follow-up on a tangling clue from a recent previous mission there (in # 1-11): the Society had once sent a mission to Athaeum that it has no records of!  I tend to think this is too good of a plot hook to "waste" in the brief encounter (against some weird book-vermin called gishvits), but it does result in another tantalising lead: the Pact World once had colonies out in the Vast that went missing, and this fact was mysteriously never acknowledged by the Pact.  It could be the start of an interesting storyline.

Once the PCs finished their missions for each of the candidates, they can return to Luwazi and tell her their thoughts.

Overall, although I really liked the premise of the scenario, three of the four actual missions just weren't thought out well.  I honestly thought this was another "have four junior freelancers cobble together a scenario" type of thing, until I saw Thurston Hillman was the sole writer.  I've loved a lot of Thurston's work in the past, so I just have to assume this may have been a rushed writing job done in the midst of various other duties.