Starfinder Flip-Mat: "Spaceport" [RPG]

 I've used each side of the Spaceport flip-mat a couple of times while GMing Starfinder Society scenarios.  One side is a big runway for large ships to take off and land.  Looking closely, I really like how it has been laid out.  There's an adjoining road for maintenance vehicles and luggage carts (just like an airport would have), drones flittering about, and staircases to separate launch/hangar bays for smaller ships.  It's a good location to have a long-range blaster fight, something Starfinder encounters don't actually do that often in published adventures.  The other side of the flip-mat is the futuristic equivalent of an airport terminal.  The layout of seats next to the gate desks will be familiar to anyone who travels, and there are the other things one might expect: a cafe, public infosphere kiosks, display screens presumably showing departures and arrives, and toilets.  I like the holographic display in the center of the mat, as it adds just enough "future" to distinguish things from a real airport.  For both sides, one of the things that works well for Spaceport is the sense that every airport (spaceport) is the same, so you can reuse these without damaging the verisimilitude of your game.  Both sides have an excellent, clear design, and are certainly fit for purpose.

Starfinder: "Near Space" [RPG]

After Pact Worlds was released, the next logical gazetteer-style hardcover for Starfinder was Near Space.  Like the other Starfinder hardcovers, this one is pricey—a $ 40 cover price for just 158 pages of content.  It’s certainly an attractive book, however, with lots of great interior art and maps.   And speaking of art, you can’t go wrong with that cover—Obazaya tearing off a rocket launcher from an armored vehicle is pretty impressive!

The book starts with brief introduction, “Welcome to Near Space”, that provides a useful reminder that saying a planet is in “Near Space” doesn’t mean it’s close in any geographical (astronomical) sense to any other planet, only that there’s a sufficient collection of Drift beacons to make it a relatively brief hyperspace jump away.  The rest of the introduction is an overview of the book’s four chapters: “The Veskarium”, “Worlds of Near Space”, “Starships”, and “Player Options”.

Chapter 1, “The Veskarium” (56 pages) is the longest section of the book.  Starfinder team, we need to talk about the Veskarium.  It is, quite canonically, a ruthless imperialist and expansionist military junta that committed genocide on its homeworld before invading and subjugating the native peoples of every other planet in its solar system.  It then tried to do the same to the Pact Worlds.  So why have I played multiple Starfinder Society scenarios where the PCs help the Veskarium (including by killing pahtra rebels in one!) and Near Space glosses over any moral or political implications of the Pact Worlds being allied with such an empire?  In a sort of “dark and gritty”, morally ambiguous setting, having adventures in the Veskarium could be great storytelling—but to give it the same Disney treatment as the rest of the Starfinder setting just strikes me as a design team that hasn’t thought things through carefully.  Anyway, ranting aside, this book devotes four to six pages to each of the eight planets of the Veskarium plus the mobile super battlestation called Conqueror’s Forge.  The section provides a real deep dive into Vesk culture, which is really useful even if not necessarily containing a lot of surprises. The history of the Veskarium is interesting, and the section talks about the organisation of its military, economy, and more.  I really appreciated how much setting lore was integrated from previous Alien Archives and Adventure Path volumes, and loved the little shout-out to Nakonechkin Salvage from the Free RPG Day adventures.  There are a lot of adventure hooks here, and I’ve already seen some of them form the premise for Starfinder Society adventures.

Chapter 2, “Worlds of Near Space” (42 pages) covers twenty different planets, each with a two-page spread.  I took notes on every planet, but it’d be a bit crazy for me to go through each one here.  I’ll call out some of my favourites, though.  Daegox 4 is a prison planet, something really useful if you need to plan a “great escape” or “jail break” adventure.  On Daimalko, you could have a whole campaign dealing with the colossal monster apocalypse.  Embroi is the homeworld of the embri and is secretly ruled by devils—good thing my embri character, Speaker for the Dead, doesn’t know!  The Gideron Authority and the Marixah Republic were introduced in SFS scenarios, and it’s great to see them integrated here.  Helfen-Thel has thousands of magical portals going to who-know’s-where, and exploring some of them could be the premise for a nice campaign formed by unrelated adventures.  I’ve used the university planet of Pabaq in a campaign before, and had an adventure on Phoskar (home to giants).  It’s a really nice selection of planets, with tons of adventure hooks and intriguing bits to unpack, and I’m pretty sure there’s something for pretty much everyone in the collection.

Chapter 3, “Starships” (12 pages) is the shortest section of the book.  It includes some new starship options like a cloaking field (for non-combat use only) and a ramming prow (that does disappointingly little damage).  The Gideron Authority, Szandite Collective, and Veskarium each receive a couple of pages of new ships.  The Veskarium flagship Conqueror of Worlds receives a full stat-block.

The artwork is a bit rough in spots in Chapter 4, “Player Options” (34 pages).  The section starts with a single page of options for each of the following races: damais, embri, ghorans, hobgoblins, ijtikris, osharus, pahtras, skittermanders, and vesk.  Some of the options, such as the feats, aren’t race-restricted.  Everything looks reasonably balanced, though some are just too minor to be even worth taking.  Five new character themes are introduced: bureaucrat, giantblood (I like “hurl debris”), prisoner, quartermaster, and stormrunner.  Of the five new archetypes (assassin, battle leader, commando, doshko specialist, and mediator), I thought the assassin was interesting but that the save DCs were *really* low, and the battle commander was excellent.  Next, there are six pages of new weapons, shields, and armor.  Nothing stood out to me, for better or worse.  The book ends with a couple of pages of spells—one of them, defrex harness, seems overpowered.

And that’s Near Space.  The production quality is high, the artwork is generally really good, and the writing is strong.  Although pricey given its limited page count, it’s a pretty good book overall.

Pathfinder Campaign Setting: "Belkzen, Hold of the Orc Hordes" [RPG]

 I read Belkzen, Hold of the Orc Hordes just in case my players in Curse of the Crimson Throne happened to visit the area.  They didn’t really (magic is a wonderful thing), but that’s okay—it’s a good book anyway!  As a product in Paizo’s Campaign Setting line, the book is 64 pages long, has high-quality glossy paper, and is in full colour.  As the title indicates, it covers Belkzen, rugged region east of Varisia inhabited primarily by various orc tribes.  If you have an interest in orcs or are just looking for a dangerous place to set an adventure, this could be the book for you.

I’m not a huge fan of the cover—it’s cool, but also confusing and I had to look at it multiple times before realising the orc is mounted on an armored rhinocerous-type creature.  This art is reproduced on the inside back-cover sans text.  The inside front cover is a beautiful map of Belkzen.  It’s done in a “realistic” in-game style apart from the place-name captions.  The inside of the book is divided into three sections of unequal length.  The interior artwork is strong, and the book is laid out well.

The “Belkzen Gazetteer” (24 pages) starts with a history of the region and a useful timeline.  The writers have done their homework, as it encapsulates material from previous campaign books, adventures, etc.  Each of the various areas of Belkzen are then covered in a 3-4 page spread, and it quickly becomes clear that Belkzen is a region, not a nation-state, as warring orc tribes hold their territories fiercely.  The section includes coverage of the Blood Plains (with some great Shoanti flavour), the Conquered Lands (from Giantslayer?; the hanging Peacock fortress of Sech Nevali is really cool!), Smokespur (lots of mysterious places and megafauna—now I want to do an all-orc campaign to explore it), Urgir (the “capital” of Belkzen), and Whisperfall (a borderland haunted by dragons; Freedom Town is interesting).  Perhaps most useful to GMs preparing for their PCs to visit Belkzen is a sidebar on what it takes to do so safely (a tribal token or joining an established caravan).

“Adventuring in Belkzen” (28 pages) begins with coverage of orc deities—each gets about a half-page of coverage.  Although they’re all Chaotic Evil, I found them really interesting to read about, and I imagine this is probably the only place to find so much information on them (the general books on gods in the Inner Sea tend to short-change the racial pantheons).  Next up, the numerous orc tribes in Belkzen receive a brief overview of a couple of paragraphs each.  Some real attention has been paid to established canon here, with references to Eando Kline, the oft-forgotten NPC Guide, and more.  Readers interested in how orcs do war will enjoy the pages on orc siege engines (compatible with the rules from Ultimate Combat).  Probably the bulk of the section is taken up with an overview of adventure sites (about half a page or so for each).  There are some really interesting places here—the Battle of Lost Hope (a bridge miraculously guarded by a Paladin of Iomedae), The Sleeper (the capital of the Runelord of Gluttony!), and the Flood Road (with important information on the Flood Truce, an annual event that brings the warring orc tribes together).

Last up is the Bestiary (10 pages).  It has random encounter tables for each area, provides four new animal companions for the pet lovers, and introduces some new monsters (a couple of which, the “burning child” and the “floodslain” template, are pretty neat).

Overall, this is an excellent product, and I can’t think of anything substantive to complain about.  If the topic piques your interest, it’s definitely worth the purchase.

Pathfinder Legends—Curse of the Crimson Throne #3: Escape from Old Korvosa [RPG]

 

NO SPOILERS
 
This third instalment of the Pathfinder Legends audio version of Curse of the Crimson Throne comes close to meeting the strong expectations set by the first two.  It’s an impressively faithful adaptation of the written version of the AP.  Off-hand, I can’t even think of anything major that has been left out, though perhaps some artistic liberties were taken with the climax.  The voice acting remains strong.  There’s perhaps less humor in this one than in previous ones and a couple of confusing scenes, but the overall plot is well-handled through some excellent exposition.  I probably understand a crucial sequence of background events better from listening to this CD than I did reading and running the adventure!

 
Like all of these Pathfinder Legends audio stories, the running time is relatively short (about an hour and a half).  I got the physical two-CD format and, as with the previous ones, the paper insert has a nice spread of the Iconic heroes.
 
SPOILERS!
 
In this version of Escape from Old Korvosa, the four main Iconics (Valeros, Ezren, Merisiel, and Harsk) have spent several weeks moving from inn to inn to stay one step ahead of the Queen’s agents.  Kyra, who has been helping Ishani Dhatri address lingering illnesses from blood veil, arrives with the startling news that she witnessed Queen Ileosa impossibly survive an assassination attempt from Marcus Endrin—clearly, she has powers no ordinary human could possess.  Kyra’s description is very vivid and handled well, and she also mentions Togomor and the Queen’s new crown.
 
The rest of the story plays out fairly similarly to that in the written adventure.  The PCs go to Vencarlo Orisini’s academy in Old Korvosa to find it burned to the ground, survive a sudden attack by Red Mantis assassins while looking for him in his house, encounter the foppish (but funny) Amin Jalento to get a lead that Vencarlo may be with “Sebastian” (not Salvatore, for some reason) Scream, hear from Glorio Arkona that Scream is probably with the “Emperor of Old Korvosa”, rescue Scream and learn about that the castle’s seneschal (Neolandus) is still alive, and return to Arkona’s palace looking for him and Vencarlo—only to be thrown into the Vivified Labyrinth underneath.  The climax falls into cliché territory, with Glorio ordering the sphinx Sivit to kill his rakhasa sister Vimanda, only for the PCs to then free the magically-enslaved creature which promptly turns and devours Glorio himself.  I think I prefer the written ending, which has the characters faced with the dilemma of choosing which of the siblings to support, with repercussions that can echo throughout the rest of the adventure.
 
Throughout the audio version, we’re treated to scenes of a demonic creature apparently spying on the Iconics and manipulating them for his own ends.  This turns out to be Bahor (Glorio’s alter ego); I found it intrusive rather than compelling, but I *loved* the idea of Glorio giving the heroes “House Arkona badges” ostensibly to ease their passage throughout Old Korvosa only to use those badges for his magical scrying attempts.  I didn’t think the Bahor/Vimanda rivalry was particularly well-portrayed.  I also found the Iconics’ time in the labyrinth confusing, and I imagine listeners who weren’t familiar with the plot would be even worse off.
 
Perhaps my favourite part of the adventure was the representation of Laori Vaus.  Not only is she (somewhat creepily) hilarious, but the audio version draws a compelling connection between her and Merisiel, as both are Forlorn elves who experienced the short lifespans of humans around them.  Merisiel deals with her pain by continually running away, while Laori embraced the pain through worshipping Zon-Kuthon.  It actually explains a lot about Laori’s background and personality that I just couldn’t quite get a grip on in the written version.  Other things I enjoyed include Valeros’ enthusiasm for Blood Pig (it does sound really fun as long as you don’t think about the fate of the pig), Scream’s exposition (it’s not only 100% canon, but so much more coherent than what I was able to role-play), and the nice lead-in to Chapter Four.
 
All in all, I can’t say it’s a *perfect* audio version of the adventure, but it’s pretty good.

Starfinder Society Scenario # 2-19: "Truth Keepers" [RPG]

 NO SPOILERS
 
I played Truth Keepers via play-by-post some months ago.  Some of the core gameplay is very similar to that of a lot of other Starfinder Society scenarios in that it has the space equivalent of a dungeon crawl.  On the other hand, there’s at least one really fun, perhaps even unique, element to the scenario that I loved.  The underlying story is an interesting one.  As for the repeatable nature, I would say the first half of the scenario showcases this well, but the second half of the scenario doesn’t.  All in all, it’s a really good, but not great, adventure.

 
SPOILERS!
 
My favourite part of Truth Keepers, and what makes it stand out from every other PFS and SFS scenario I’ve played or run, is that it doesn’t start with a briefing.  Instead, as I’ve often advocated, it departs from the conventional format and tries something different.  The PCs begin in a bar on Absalom Station called Seeker’s Respite.  The idea is that this is a favourite spot for Starfinders between missions to socialise with their fellow agents.  Adding such a location to the setting makes the idea of the Starfinder Society seem more “real,” and is surely a place that can be utilised in future stories.  The scenario provides an interesting bartender for the place (a witchwyrd) and several different brief role-playing/skill check scenes (only a few of which are used in each run) to get the PCs socialising.  In a fun addition, two of the scenes involve NPCs who were the “losing” candidates in the election for First Seeker in # 2-07 Four for the First (glad to see they haven’t been forgotten!).
 
Suddenly, there’s an explosion and the sound of gunfire outside!  Rushing out to the street, the PCs see a Starfinder Society cargo escort team under attack from several unknown assailants.  Once the PCs intervene to save the day (with the help of one of three randomly-chosen NPC agents), Venture-Captain Naiaj contacts them and explains what’s going on.  The attackers were members of a secret society in the Veskarium called the Keepers of the Lie—a group that believe the “Gap” is a hoax or conspiracy, and that there was never anything before it. The attack the PCs witnessed was just a distraction, as the Keepers have actually succeeded in stealing a (randomly determined) recently acquired, pre-Gap magical artifact from a docked SFS vessel.  As the Keepers have already made it into the Drift, Naiaj says she’s sending the PCs to Vesk Prime to track them down before they can figure out how to destroy it (magical artifacts being pretty much indestructible by definition, after all).  In an interesting addition, if there are four or fewer PCs in the group, Naiaj assigns the NPC that helped the group in the battle to come with them for the duration of the scenario.   It all comes together nicely to make the scenario start out with a bang instead of the conventional “sit through some exposition” opening for scenarios.  Free idea to Paizo writers: have a SFS scenario start in media res as the PCs’ ship is crash-landing on an unknown planet; the scenario can skip the mission briefing altogether, since the mission is obvious: survive until rescue!
 
The journey through the drift is uneventful, apart from a little tidbit referencing the brass dragon Zafeldrin of Triaxus from a memorable past scenario.  When the PCs’ starship arrives on Vesk Prime, there are some meaningless skill checks to get through security and then they meet Paxel, the memorable vesk commander of the Veskarium’s Division of Disloyal Organizations.  The repeatable nature of the scenario works well here, as Paxel presents the group with a randomised selection of leads (3 out of a group of 6) for tracking down the Keepers of the Lie.  Each of these leads involves some role-playing and a few skill checks, and the scenario does an excellent job incorporating and expanding on what we know about Vesk Prime and the organisational structure of the Veskarium.  I particularly liked the “skitteracracy” (skittermander bureaucracy) in one of the investigations.  Again, there are little bits of previous SFS lore dropped into the scenario, such as one of the NPCs being the pawnbroker Julzakama’s cousin; Truth Keepers was obviously written by someone who paid attention to previous stories!  The PCs need to return to Paxel after completing each of the three leads, and at one point they’re ambushed by Keeper of the Lie agents.
 
Although the first part of the scenario is really innovative, the second half is pretty pedestrian.  The leads point to an “abandoned military research station” that the Keepers of the Lie are holed up in.  This is the Starfinder equivalent of a dungeon crawl (just trudging through a complex instead of a cave network).  There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but it’s fairly forgettable (and the randomised elements here are just the different mix of Keeper agents that are encountered).  As an aside, I wish the awkward treasure drops could be avoided—they’re really not necessary and always appear forced.  Once the PCs reach the final room and fight off some more Keeper agents, they’ll find the purely Macguffin artifact and can head home.
 
I wish the second half of Truth Keepers could have been as strong as the first half.  I do appreciate the attention to setting detail and past SFS adventures.  I’m not confident it succeeds entirely as a repeatable scenario.  Overall, the scenario mixes some really clever elements with some uninspired choices, but I’d say it’s still worth playing.

Pathfinder Player Companion: "Blood of the Beast" [RPG]

 When the Advanced Race Guide came out, the number of playable races in Pathfinder suddenly increased substantially.  There’s an argument to be made that perhaps it was too much, too fast, with some of the new races competing (stats-wise) more than favourably with the classic Core Rulebook races.  I frankly get tired of seeing nagaji bloodragers and kitsune swashbucklers, but I guess that’s neither here nor there.  The value in Blood of the Beast is that it grounds these new races into the Golarion campaign setting, adding some  information about where they come from and how they’re perceived.  For GMs and players interested in a cohesive view of the setting, the promise is an important one.  As with all of these Player Companions, of course, there’s plenty of crunchy new options for character building as well.  The races covered here are catfolk, gripplis, kitsune, nagaji, ratfolk, tengus, and vanaras.

I really like the concept for the cover art, though the actual execution is a bit too cartoony for my tastes.  The inside front cover is a zoomed-out map of the Inner Sea with coloured highlighting showing where the various races covered in the book originate.  I think it’s too zoomed-out to be of a lot of real use though.  The inside back cover is the cover art minus any text.

After a page for the table of contents, we then get a two-page introduction.  There’s a new trait for each race covered in the book.  Some of the traits are fine, but some are of the generic “+1 to a skill and it’s a class skill” type that are really just space-fillers and list-lengtheners. 

Each of the seven races then get a four-page long entry with a brief overview, some favoured class options,  an archetype or two, and often other options like new feats or spells.  Although many of these new options are flavoured as tied to a particular race, most don’t actually have being a member of that race as a prerequisite to taking them.  I’ll go through each of these entries briefly.

Catfolk get a few new archetypes, including the Prowler at World’s End for bloodragers (giving them medium spirits), the Ravenous Hunter for inquisitors (a specialist demon-fighter with an oracle revelation), and the Serendipity Shaman for shamans (gets some new hexes—one of them, Tweak the Odds, is really good!).  There are some new, forgettable feats, and a new natural course for wildsoul vigilantes called “feline.”  Of the new spells, bit of luck is really powerful since it can be used before or after the results of a die roll have been revealed (which is rather unusual).

The new favoured class bonuses for gripplis are interesting, and I really like a cool new archetype for mediums called the Fiend Keeper—it specializes in containing an evil spirit.  The other archetypes are the Poison Darter for rangers and the odd War Painter for skalds.  There are also some new feats and spells, but nothing that jumped out at me.

Kitsune get some alternate racial traits, new advanced versatile performances for bards and skalds, and a new archetype, the Nine-Tailed Heir for sorcerers (great artwork here!).  There are some new feats for shapeshifters, a really clever new spell called contagious suggestion, and some new vigilante talents (I like the one called “obscurity”—it’s basically the opposite of renown).

For Nagaji, there are new naga bloodlines for bloodragers and sorcerers.  There’s a new cavalier archetype called First Mother’s Fang, which is a sort of governor/general concept; it’s pretty good in broadening the knowledge skills available to cavaliers, and who doesn’t want to ride around on a giant snake?  There’s also some new mesmerist tricks and spells.

I love the new ratfolk archetypes, and might have to give one a try soon.  There’s the Opportunist for fighters (a really cool, skills-focused alchemist mix), the Scavenger for investigators (a gadget type of alchemist with a great feel), and the Swarm Monger for druids (which is pretty much what it sounds like).  There are several feats, all of which build off the Swarming special ability of ratfolk, and they’re quite good too.  The only “meh” thing in the entry is a new psychic discipline, Warp.

Tengus receive several new feats (I like Lovable Scoundrel) and spells, as well as several new archetypes.  Courser for swashbucklers makes for a super-mobile character, though they have to give up a lot.  The Jinx Witch for witches provides for some interesting abilities to absorb and expend spells (and has some great art).  The Red Tongue for skalds provides an odd mix of rogue talents.  I think a lot of writers just don’t know what to do with skalds, but I can’t blame them—I don’t know either.

I will always hold a special place in my heart for vanaras, since that’s the race of my favourite character (Goldcape) in the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP I’ve been running for a couple of years now.  The race here gets some new alternate racial traits, including size changing, as well as the usual favored class options.  There are then several new Meditation feats, but none of them are worth it.  Fighters may be interested in the new advanced weapon training options.  There’s one new archetype, the Fortune-Finder for rangers—it’s frankly just kind of bland.  Unchained monks get some new style strikes and ki powers (with freedom of movement particularly great).  Last, there’s a new eidolon subtype for unchained summoners called Ancestor, but it’s not particularly interesting.

Pretty much every book in the Player Companion line is going to contain its share of filler mixed with some real gems of creativity.  I thought Blood of the Beast is better than many in the proportion of wheat to chaff.  I would have like more than just a couple of paragraphs on how each of the races fit into Golarion—remember, that’s the value-add of the books (along with the art), as all the new rules options will be immediately stripped out and placed on the Archives of Nethys. But all in all, this is a worthwhile book to buy.

Starfinder Adventure Path: "Dawn of Flame, Chapter 1: Fire Starters" [RPG]

 NO SPOILERS

A couple of years back, seeing my subscription to the Starfinder Adventure Path result in more and more issues on the shelf, I decided I better run one of them!  I went with Dawn of Flame because I was playing in a Dead Suns campaign, wanted to save the three-chapter APs like Signal of Screams, and didn't want to choose something too new because occasionally there are fun little references to previous APs in newer ones.  For this play-by-post campaign, I decided to go with the premise that the PCs were members of a scientific expedition from Near Space sent by a university consortium to research the Pact Worlds' sun (known as Mataras).  It was really fun selecting applicants through an "academic interview" process.  I mention all that only because one of the notable things about the first chapter of the AP, Fire Starters, is how little space it gives to adventure hooks--there are literally only a few sentences that amount to "it's up to the players how they got together and why they're here."  Sadly, gone are the days of the amazing AP Player's Guides that lured me to Pathfinder to begin with.

I was very excited to see James Sutter as the author of the first chapter's adventure--I've been a huge fan of his ever since his work on City of Strangers, the Kaer Maga supplement, and his novels are also excellent.  His work is edgy, original, and full of surprises.  Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Fire Starters comes off as almost intentionally pedestrian and generic.  The resulting adventure could have been set pretty much anywhere and has very little to do with the theme of the AP.  I understand that sometimes some groundwork has to be laid to get the PCs into the overall plot and that things like character development takes time, but Fire Starters is unfortunately eminently forgettable.  It just doesn't have any of the dramatic, amazing, memorable NPCs, encounters, or plot twists I expected Sutter to bring to the table.  There's nothing bad or wrong with it--it's perfectly competent.  Playing Fire Starters is like getting a PB&J when you were expecting a gourmet meal.

I will note the art design for the entire AP is excellent--the bold colours really pop, fit the theme perfectly, and lend the volumes an aesthetic very different than any of the other APs.  The interior artwork is fine, and the maps are really good.

Although I'll talk about the adventure in greater depth below, in this "No Spoilers" section I'll cover the five parts of the issue's back matter--a new starship, a gazetteer of a location, an essay on a religion, a bestiary section, and description of a new planet.

First up is the "Aurora Yellow Dwarf" class starship (inside front- and back-covers).  This Tier 3 starship is used by Sarenites to patrol the approach to the Burning Archipelago.    It's really just too big for a short-range patrol ship (it has multiple *huge* cargo holds, for example) and gives me the impression that the designer don't really have a sense for how specialised and cramped military vessels tend to be out of both budget and efficiency concerns.

Second is "Asanatown" (8 pages), a gazetteer of one of the "bubble-cities" of the Burning Archipelago (the network of cities orbiting the sun).  The place has a really interesting background as an enclave for lashunta who feel constant psychic stress while near the sun for some reason.  That gives the residents a sort of siege mentality and makes paranoia a real concern.  The entry is well-written with a lot to offer a GM who sets an adventure there.  I particularly liked the "Centre for Eschatological Research", the potential schism between the "Church of the Burning Mother" and mainstream Sarenites, and a comedian who's a reptoid.  I would quibble at the idea that a settlement of 5,000 allows for the purchase of tech level 20 items.  This entry also has some "crunch" in the form of three new psychic-themed feats ("Telepathic Spy" is neat--eavesdrop on mental communications!) and some new pieces of equipment.

Third is "The Church of Sarenrae" (8 pages), an entry that longtime Pathfinder players may think is unnecessary.  However, there's a lot of new information here about how the Goddess of the Sun is worshipped in Starfinder, especially in the Burning Archipelago.  For example, did you know the discovery of the Burning Archipelago was made by a Sarenite?  There's a good story here.  The centrality of the Radiant Cathedral to the faith is also important.  The section does briefly cover temples and worshippers beyond the Burning Archipelago (for example, the vesk call her Firescale), and ends with a couple of pages of new weapons and magic items for Sarenites--I particularly like the plasma scabbard.

This issue's "Alien Archives" (8 pages) has seven creature entries.  Most of them are simply the Starfinder versions of creatures known to Pathfinder players: azers, imps, variant elementals (ice, lightning, and magma), efreet, and ifrits.  The only truly original ones are "fire whales" (which have both creature and starship combat stats) and "rifti proteans".  I think the rifti proteans are really fun.  I don't like how one of the seven creatures has stats that are accessible only by reference to the adventure itself--I think it's better to have a strict separation to help avoid spoilers. Ifrits are given stats as a new playable race.  With a couple of exceptions, not an impressive section.

The "Codex of Worlds" (1 page) introduces Zeres, a watery world that has been turned into a planet-wide luxury resort.  Such places are a staple of space fantasy, and I'm happy to see one included here (though the addition of an adventure hook or two would have been nice).

SPOILERS!

The premise of the entire AP is that an invasion is brewing deep in Mataras.  In a background section for the GM, the adventure tells a really interesting story involving a mysterious entity from the Plane of Fire named Malikah (half-brother of Ragathiel) who has decided to expand her empire and reputation by establishing a permanent empire on the Material Plane--starting with the Pact Worlds' sun!  To that end, Malikah has charged an efreet named General Khaim with making preparations for war, and he's claimed an abandoned magical city deep in the sun as his headquarters and named it the Crucible.  But a peaceful species called the anassanois that also live deep in the sun have become aware of the invasion plans and have been sending vague psychic signals to warn the peoples of the Burning Archipelago.  For the telepathic lashuntas, these signals are received as a constant background noise of anxiety and fear.  All of this is just background, however, and the PCs won't learn any of it for several chapters of the AP.

Instead, from the PCs' perspective, the adventure starts in Part 1 with them witnessing a mysterious starship emerge from a portal near the sun, quickly followed by a massive "fire whale" that's attacking it.  The PCs are supposed to engage the fire whale in starship combat (it's a pushover at 1/2 CR); I tend to think starting a campaign with starship combat is a bad idea, but fortunately it's the last one the players will have to deal with for a few chapters.  The starship that was being chased ends up adrift, and the PCs are urged by the staff of a nearby space station to board it and investigate.  It's essentially the "explore the derelict ship" cliche with an interesting (though hard to justify story-wise) mix of encounters: a hesper in the engine room, a fun rifti protean, a magma elemental, and an azer soldier working for General Khaim (though the PCs won't learn this).  The azer is notable for wearing an allegiance collar, which is a decent plot device to keep the PCs from interrogating her--it disintegrates the wearer if they get captured.  The main overall campaign story tie-in is that the PCs will find a holographic recording on the bridge from an ifrit named Tash, which reveals only cryptic references to Khaim, a place called Noma, and hints that he stole the starship.  Mystery is good, but the whole thing might be too vague to really accomplish anything--I'm 99.9% sure, for example, that my players have completely forgotten about Tash as we continue on in Chapter 3.

Part 2 of the adventure has the PCs arriving in Asanatown (the bubble-city discussed in the "No Spoilers" section above).  The premise is that the PCs have met a scientist named Taeress who promises she knows someone with connections to the Deep Culture Institute, an organisation devoted to studying the secrets of the sun.  Taeress doesn't reveal right away that her "connection" is her ex-wife!  The ex-wife, Nib, is a ysoki far more willing to go out on a scientific limb than Taeress.  I really like this story element, as they're an endearing non-couple (who, with some intervention, might reunite!).  The adventure element comes around because Nib is actually in the hands of rebels who have just seized Asanatown in a coup!  The PCs need to extricate Nib (a known loudmouth) from the local police station, which is now in the hands of the rebels who call themselves the Sunrise Collective.  There are a couple of other encounters on the street that are handled well, as they provide both peaceful and violent ways to resolve them.  Even getting Nib sprung from jail can be handled through diplomacy, something my group managed.

Part 3 has the PCs trying to free Asanatown's city councillors who are being held hostage inside the central government building (on the premise that no one can leave the bubble-city until the security situation gets back to normal).  The Sunrise Collective has believable defensive tactics and there are a couple of clever elements, like a secret tunnel under the building that allows the PCs to maneuver unseen.  The encounters are also of the right difficulty level--my group teetered right on the edge of defeat before finally managing to beat the chapter boss.

As I mention above, there's nothing particular bad about the adventure.  It just feels a bit like stalling until the real adventure begins, as terrorists (in this chapter) and gangs (in the next chapter) are pretty common Starfinder villains.  There's a really subtle theme here that the players might pick up on in that the Sunrise Collective wanted to seize control of Asanatown in part because of their paranoia from the psychic background noise emanating from within the sun, but it's all too vague for any of it to really come together in a concrete way for the players.

On a general note, I found the lack of a Player's Guide problematic as the GM as well.  It was really hard to guess how much PCs should know about things like azers, ifrits, efreet, the Plane of Fire, the history of the Burning Archipelago, etc.  Similarly, although I manufactured my own adventure hook, the AP really needs to do a lot more to draw the PCs into the campaign.  

All in all, Fire Starters is not an auspicious beginning to the Dawn of Flame adventure path--but things can always get better!