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Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Starfinder RPG Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition)

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Chapter 4: Running Starship Campaigns / Starship Adventure Seeds

Travel Into The Unknown

Source Starship Operations Manual pg. 144
The following adventure seeds revolve around the PCs boldly flying their starship into unknown territory, whether in search of knowledge lost to the Gap or to perform a daring rescue mission.

One Final Plea for Help

Source Starship Operations Manual pg. 145
Starships throughout the Pact Worlds system have received a strange message of distress from the Shamadis, a stranded Kevolari explorer floating somewhere between systems in Near Space. A recorded message from the vesk captain reports his vessel suffered a catastrophic power failure of unknown cause, endangering five lashunta scholars who had paid for safe passage to what they claimed was a research site at a classified location. The Shamadis has now disabled onboard comms, probably in hopes of conserving available power for life support. What appears to be a simple rescue operation, however, is anything but. Signal data eventually pinpoints the location of the stranded craft—a Venture-class explorer with ample cargo bays—near the shattered island cluster of Orry. Suspecting that the ship’s true purpose was a salvage mission—and no doubt dreaming of a bounty of ancient technomagical artifacts stowed inside—several dozen pirate convoys, smugglers, and other opportunists have mobilized and are preparing to jump to the Shamadis’s position. The PCs each have a personal reason to care about the Shamadis and its crew—whether it’s a personal tie to one of the researchers, an investment in the vessel’s mission, or a suspicion of a deep conspiracy at hand—and it’s up to them to rescue the ship, protect its crew and the researchers, and get some answers.

A Signal from the Dark

Source Starship Operations Manual pg. 145
Researchers in the employ of AbadarCorp recently discovered a faint, pulsing signal emanating far beyond the Pact Worlds system, deep in the Vast. Initially, researchers thought it to be a remnant broadcast long since silenced. But they soon discovered that not only is the signal still pulsing, its source is a low-frequency channel signature from an old Equoi-class cruiser—a group of early Drift-enabled ships used only briefly in the years immediately following the gift of Drift engine technology from Triune. A review of starship records revealed a likely candidate for the lost cruiser: a ship named the Durodal. Retrofitted with a rudimentary Drift engine, the Durodal had seemingly attempted to jump to a newly discovered adjacent star system, but never arrived. Records indicate no known final location for this long-lost ship, and the fate of the crew likewise remains a mystery.

Given the ship’s age, it could have operated during the Gap, and thus it could contain secrets lost to time, along with answers about the final fates of the crew. As such, Starfinder Society archaeologists are clamoring to secure funding for a recovery expedition. So far, the usual benefactors are unwilling to help retrieve the lost ship, pointing to the remoteness of the signal’s origin and the lack of substantiated evidence about the potential value of its cargo. Some Society agents believe that a larger conspiracy to cover up the Durodal’s clandestine agenda is at play, whereas others worry that signs of mystic radiation detected near the signal origin could mean that supernatural interference is afoot. Either way, it would be wise to take every precaution possible before exploring this mystery.