Your Guide to Every Starfinder Adventure Path

The Starfinder roleplaying game by Paizo can handle a nearly unlimited number of adventure styles due to its wide-open setting.

To make it easy for game masters (GMs) to run a sweet campaign-style adventure for players, Paizo innovated (and then perfected) the “Adventure Path” (AP) model. These Adventure Paths are a series of monthly softcover books.

Each of the individual volumes provides one part of a serialized adventure, as well as backmatter articles to help GMs run the Adventure Path. Additionally, the parts have a connecting theme and story that links all the parts into one epic campaign that starts at 1st level and takes players all the way into the teens or higher.

The Pathfinder Adventure Paths have long been the flagship of the Pathfinder RPG and this continues with the Starfinder roleplaying game as well. The Starfinder Adventure Paths create a myriad of story options to choose from, with more releasing each month. So, we’ll keep this article updated!

Starfinder Adventure Paths

(August 2017 – August 2018) Dead Suns was the launch adventure for the Starfinder roleplaying game and, as a result, was tasked with establishing Absalom Station as the space station at the center of setting, while also jumping adventurers to and fro in order to give them a taste of the far-flung features and flavor of the setting.

It mostly worked in that regard. Any unevenness in the Adventure Path is easily forgiven, as it was being written literally as the final rules were being codified. Understood in that way, Dead Suns might lack the final polish Paizo Adventure Paths are typically known for, but it more than makes up for that in scope and curiosity, as it represents 300 pages of adventuring goodness in the setting.

You can also listen to it being played. The Androids and Aliens podcast from Glass Cannon is using Dead Suns as the framework for their play through podcast.

– Get volume 1: Incident at Absalom Station

(August 2018 – October 2018) Whereas Dead Suns was intended to give players an epic adventure that that showed off the locales and cultures of the Pact Worlds setting of Starfinder, Against the Aeon Throne was designed to broaden that further by featuring a neighboring galactic empire.

Against the Aeon Throne also mixed things up as Adventure Paths go: It’s only 3 issues long, as opposed to the traditional 6. Why will become clear as you read on. Starfinder Adventure Paths also went roughly monthly starting with Against the Aeon Throne.

There is an experimental warp drive, a space colony, and a prison escape from a moon, so there is a lot to like about Against the Aeon Throne.

– Get volume 1: The Reach of Empire

(November 2018 – February 2019) Signal of Screams picks up where Against the Aeon Throne left off, meaning it starts at level 7, making this 3-volume AP a perfect pairing with that 3-volume AP.

Signal of Screams is also the first horror AP for Starfinder. I’ll let Paizo’s marketing copy do the work on this one:

“A vacation at a luxury resort located on an asteroid goes horribly wrong as the facilities malfunction and the guests and staff turn violent. The heroes must protect themselves, aid others who have remained rational. and hopefully find a way to stop the growing delirium, even if it means going through guests who have been transformed into hideous abominations! But what will the heroes do when they realize the same condition has begun affecting their own minds?”

– Get volume 1: The Diaspora Strain

(March 2019 – September 2019) The next Adventure Path goes back to 6 volumes with Dawn of Flame.

Understanding Dawn of Flame takes an open mind. An obvious homage to the old school Pathfinder Legacy of Fire AP, Dawn of Flame features an efreeti invasion.

But Dawn of Flame tells the story from within a star.

There is an alien bubble-city in the sun, interplanar travel, and high magic, all set in a technological setting. Dawn of Flame represents the Starfinder developers pushing the boundaries of how gonzo they could take the Starfinder setting. But if gonzo is for you, you can’t do better than an adventure that takes place within a star.

– Get volume 1: Fire Starters

(October 2019 – March 2020) Attack of the Swarm! was a fun tribute to the classic sci-fi trope of an invading locust swarm. In fact, several of the encounters drip with homages to classics like Starship Troopers.

Another 6 part AP, Attack of the Swarm! begins with players being the sole survivors of their military regime as the swarm buzzed through and levels players to the point where they take the fight to the swarm’s hive mind with the might of an entire military behind them!

It’s fun and rollicky, while also being seeped with gritty military elements. If my overview of Attack of the Swarm! reads like I have a bias, it’s because I feel like it was the Starfinder Adventure Path written specifically for me.

– Get volume 1: Fate of the Fifth

(March 2020 – August 2020) But, Clave, doesn’t the name suggest a 3-part Adventure Path?” Well, yeah, but it’s a 6-part adventure with more than a couple conspiracies.

Again, I’m going to let the marketing copy cover it:

“What begins as a normal trip through the Drift back to the Pact Worlds turns into a mind-bending whodunit as a crewmember goes missing. The heroes must unravel an intricate web of motives and opportunities before they discover the seeming truth behind the disappearance. However, this only leads the PCs down a twisting path of strange conspiracies and devious machinations that could reach into the very heart of the Pact Worlds’ government! How deep are the heroes willing to go to uncover the truth?”

– Get volume 1: The Chimera Mystery

(September 2020 – November 2020) Another 3-part adventure, Devastation Ark flips the script yet again by starting players at level 13.

Uncovering a hidden facility beneath a moon’s surface, high-level adventurers must save the galaxy from devastation.

Being that it’s from the future, I’m not yet familiar with Devastation Ark, but it’s fun to see the Starfinder developers release an adventure specifically to challenge high level players. The stakes of RPG adventures are almost always “one you can save the world,” which feels a little silly when you think about level 1 players. So kudos to the Starfinder team for a little experimentation.

[Note: At some point in 2020 the release schedule for Starfinder Adventure Paths shifted away from a monthly schedule and I lost track of the timing.]

– Get volume 1: Waking the Worldseed

(April 2021 – ???) “A crew of scoundrels, rogues, and misfits finds it hard to survive in a galaxy where everyone has a price. Targeted by a crime boss and his army of enforcers, preyed upon by faceless mega-corporations, and hounded by rivals, the crew of the Free Trader Oliphaunt line up the big score that will at last make them rich beyond their wildest dreams.

But when their many enemies join forces and the crew loses it all, they find out there’s two things in the galaxy that can’t be bought: freedom… and revenge.”

Fly Free or Die has proven to be one of Starfinder’s most popular adventures yet. The story of a crew taking jobs to keep fuel in their starship while they try to stay one step ahead of old grudges is a trope that has proven so enduring because it is so gorram fun.

– Get volume 1: We’re No Heroes

With the discovery of an uncharted, resource-rich, and uninhabited planet in the Vast, several factions begin a joint settlement effort, and the heroes are given the chance to be the scouts and administrators of one such charter.

As they explore the surrounding wilderness and grow their new settlement, they must contend with all manner of problems, from wild animal attacks to dissatisfied settlers. And the planet holds mysteries beyond counting!

It is space colonization that turns into so much more!

– Get volume 1: Planetfall

---

That will in no way be all from Paizo when it comes to adventure support for Starfinder. As a result, we’ll keep this post updated.