For Pathfinder Society, we announce the yearly themes and logos at the PaizoCon preview banquet. This works well for Gen Con releases, but not so well for events in June and July. In deciding to launch new year storylines at Origins, we needed to move up our timeline for announcements. If you want to join me, lead developer John Compton, and developer Thurston Hillman at Origins for the premiere of Starfinder Season Year 2, you can find the Origins catalog of events on the Origins website.

The year numbering is a bit of a misnomer, as we’ve had the Starfinder Society for 20-ish months at this point, but this is the first major storyline pivot; hence, the Year 2 title. As the primary developer for Starfinder Society, Thurston Hillman is the best team member to provide a sneak peek into what’s coming. Without further ado, here is your glimpse into what the team has in store for you:

Today, the Organized Play team is proud to reveal the name and symbol for our upcoming season of Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild content. If you’ve been following Starfinder Society, you’ll know that we’re coming into the home stretch of our Year of Scoured Stars* and that there are only a few months of scenarios left before our Origins debut for Starfinder Society Year 2. With that in mind, it seemed like a good idea to provide some information on what Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild participants can look forward to starting in June of 2019.

Let me be the first to welcome all our players and GMs into the upcoming “Year of a Thousand Bites."

There’s a lot to parse and make guesses from in that name, but let me give you a bit of a preview of what this name and season represent. Taking a quick step back to the ongoing Year of Scoured Stars, the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild has focused a lot on a fairly sweeping “science fantasy space opera” storyline. Over the past two years of play, we’ve seen the Starfinder Society rebound from a nasty event in the Scoured Stars, come face to face with a new alien menace, and made inroads with new civilizations across the galaxy. This all culminates in our second interactive special, Starfinder Society #2–00: Fate of the Scoured God, a Tier 1–12 special debuting at Origins that bridges the gap (not that Gap) between Year 1 and Year 2. With all that in mind, our new season of play takes us back to somewhere we’ve been away from for too long: the Pact Worlds.

The Year of a Thousand Bites brings us back to the Pact Worlds and re-focuses the campaign on two major concepts: what it means to be a Starfinder and the living aspect of our campaign. Being a Starfinder can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and we’re going to get some insight into what people outside the Society think of Starfinders this season. We’re also going to get a chance to revisit some choices that players have made over the past twenty months of play and see how those choices have worked out.

Since taking on the role of Starfinder Society developer, I’ve pushed for a campaign that lets the players decide where our story goes. It’s taken some time for us to spin up this process, but I want to re-emphasize a promise that the Starfinder Society is a representative organization directly influenced by the player base. I suppose now would also be a good time to remind all our Second Seekers faction members out there to look at getting that Rising Star capstone boon and emailing us your character description—it’s going to be very important. In fact, for all you Second Seekers out there, you’ll probably want to look at getting that to us no later than 11:59 PST on April 30th**.

As for what else is in store for this year’s story… well, how about we take a brief look at our first Year of a Thousand Bites releases! (Expect product pages soon)

Starfinder Society #2–01: Pact World Warriors brings back the ever-lovable undead media mogul, Zo!, who wants a group of skilled Starfinders to participate in a series of televised events. Since the Society needs to improve its reputation in the Pact Worlds (hmmmm… wonder why they need to do that?) it’s up to the PCs to step in and participate in these—absolutely not deadly and ridiculous—events.

Starfinder Society #2–02: Waking the Past takes us out beyond the Pact Worlds to investigate a recently unearthed complex on an AbadarCorp-sponsored frontier colony world. I’m sure nothing could go wrong with Starfinders investigating an unearthed set of ruins.

We’ll have a lot more information on the Year of a Thousand Bites to reveal in the coming months, with a dedicated Q/A session at PaizoCon 2019 for all those of you in attendance. I’m really looking forward to showing some of the stories we have planned for this upcoming year of Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild play and am equally excited to hear from all the players who get a chance to participate in (and directly impact) where our shared campaign goes in the future!***

Footnotes:



*Ok, it's been a bit more than just a single year.

**Don't fret if you can't get us those capstone write-ups by this date. There will be more opportunities later on for those who complete this!

***Bad sci-fi/futuristic pun. I apologize.

Until next week, when we preview the April scenarios, I ask you all to Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Wolridge

Organized PlayManager