Starfinder (Drift Crisis Case Files)

As write this, Paizo’s massive year-long event, Drift Crisis is getting close to coming to an end. But it’s not over yet. The universe is still feeling the impacts of The Drift crashing. People are still missing and property has disappeared, reappeared, and changed hands that shouldn’t have. When the cops can’t be trusted (and really, when can they) who you gonna call? No, not Ghostbusters, a private detective agency like the Eyeswide Agency. Under the watchful eye (no pun intended) of Detective Tyver Vorsten, the players are contracted by the agency to help deal with the influx of new clients. Who knows, if they do well enough finding their client’s answers maybe they will also find themselves as full time Eyes.

As always, I don’t consider the promotional descriptions on the back of the book or website as a spoiler, but if you wish to avoid it, those descriptions will be italicized below.

In the aftermath of the Drift Crisis, investigators working for the Eyeswide Agency scramble to take on an influx of cases to track down missing people, bring back lost property, and unravel the tangled threads of interrupted lives. The strange stories born from those strange times would later come to be known as the Drift Crisis Case Files. […] To solve each case, investigators must navigate Absalom Station’s seedy underworld of criminals, corrupt Station Security forces, and wealthy puppet masters—luckily, they have their own allies to rely on.

But before we get to those adventures, the book delivers a short GM’s guide and an investigator’s Manual. The Investigators Manual is only a could of pages long, and framed as an in-game letter from Tyver introducing themselves to the Characters while advising the players what sorts of skills might be helpful to succeed at some common Investigator-y encounters like interviewing witnessed or gathering intel on a topic. 

Smash cut to the end of the book and you’ll find an Adventure Toolbox with a bunch of options to help build a character with psychic powers, followed by character Achetypes to specifically build a Psychic Detective or a Psychic Charlatan. The Psychic Charlatan Archetype is especially fun, as your character probably doesn’t actually have psychic powers. But they sure can fake it real good, maybe good enough to fool some of the NPCs included as part of the Contacts Codex. 

The first adventure is Charmed Life, in which “A wealthy socialite hires the investigators to search for her missing friend, influencer Kym Testa, who was among thousands to disappear during the Drift Crash. The Eyes must trace the celebrity’s digital trail, all the while avoiding a team of ruthless Hellknights hired by Testa’s desperate father to bring her home at any cost!”

The adventure starts with a flavour quote from Tyver, before introducing the client, in this case, a shaved and tattooed dwarf by the name of Ingrid. Despite looking like something out of a Kardashians x Jersey Shore mashup, Ingrid wants to hire Eyeswide to find her missing friend and fellow influencer, Kym Testa. The players will have to opportunity to explore several similarly opulent locations and a sweet rock bar. Overall the adventure is nothing special, with very little that isn’t predictable. 

Next up is Family Heirloom in which “Edriad, a shirren refugee, hires the investigators to find a precious family heirloom stolen from her hotel room—a highly coveted cursed artifact known as The Heretic Worm. The investigators tangle with a wealthy drow arms dealer and his bodyguards, corrupt Station Security officers, and other pursuers in their race to recover the Worm before its deadly curse claims another victim!” 

This one has a lot more going for it than the Charmed Life adventure. The grandmotherly client is sympathetic. The goal isn’t just another boring MacGuffin but actually has some impact on the adventure. There are even a few small twists that are less obvious than in Charmed Life. Even better is that some elements of Family Heirloom actually carry through to into the third adventure, Twisted Business.

In Twisted Business, “Maro, an android who returned to Absalom Station after being presumed dead in the Drift Crash, hires the investigators to recover a lost valuable that he traded under extreme duress for safe passage home. But there’s more to Maro’s case than meets the eye. After the investigators locate the missing item … [sorry, not giving this twist away. It’s just too good. – dc] 

The finale of the Drift Crisis Case Files is definitely the best of the three. It feels more connected to not only the previous adventure but potentially to future adventures as well. (Published and home-brewed, alike.) The twists are bigger and the stakes are higher. You can find the part of the description I’ve censored here, but you shouldn’t. It will be more fun that way.

I was a bit harsh in my opinion of Charmed Life. Not so much that I felt the need to go back and sugarcoat it, or anything like that. I will admit that some recent personal interactions may be turning me a bit sour on the characters, but I also just read a book with a nearly identical subplot. I certainly wouldn’t refuse to pay or run it, and it’s very likely that the average player will enjoy the whole thing. Even a mediocre Paizo adventure runs smother than most adventures you’ll find on the market. There is one thing that bothers me across the whole book though. Maybe I just haven’t noticed this in other adventures, and I’m not writing this somewhere I can check, or maybe I’m just extra cranky right now but the maps in this book seem wildly out of scale. Tables bigger than cars, chairs big enough to be a table. The art is beautiful, but feels like someone had a bad day and just dropped a default 1 square = 5′ grid over it without really looking. But on the other hand, the maps in the book are really more inspiration than anything. You can’t exactly play on a book sized map very easily. 

The Drift Crisis may be coming to an end, but before your game table moves on, I definitely suggest spending some time as a Psychic Scooby-Doo gang. Hopefully, I kept this review Spoiler free enough that you’re just going to have to play through the Drift Crisis Case Files in order to find out just how much (if any) Scooby will be in what you do. But whatever you do do, do the Drift Crisis Case Files.

There is a Drift Crashers landing page at paizo.com/store/starfinder/adventures/adventurePath/driftCrashers.
As the event moves forward, you can recognize all of our Drift Crisis content by the logo to the right, and click the link to find it all.

You can find everything Starfinder, and all things Paizo, online at paizo.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/paizo.