ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS

Welcome to Project: Horizon! As part of this onboarding seminar, we’ll be exploring some of the challenges you should expect to face when administrating your first charter. We look forward to your contributions, both individual and collective, to Project: Horizon!

Future Administartors, your roles aren’t just mere titles. You are the overseers and managers of a slice of New Harmony, with all the responsibilities that entails. You will be expected to explore your charter’s lands, deal with any problems that arise, and manage the development of civilization therein. This is a process measured in months, and the Adventure Path assumes this. The other charters each have legal rights to their own parcels of the planet, just as you have rights to yours in your patron’s name; while friction and even hostilities may occur, open warfare or campaigns of conquest are not within the charters’ rights.

This process is managed as a group, and no one character is given authority over the others. You will also have the opportunity to select the patron who is funding your expedition from the five options below:
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:43, Sun 25 Aug.

AbadarCorp (Grant): As usual, AbadarCorp is throwing money at the situation. You might be AbadarCorp employees doing their god’s work and civilizing the wilderness, or godless folk hired for their expertise with promises of a rich reward at project’s end.




Starfinder Society (Exploration): The Starfinder Society wants to know of any mysteries on this new planet. You are likely agents of the Society, drawn from its diverse ranks and set off exploring for knowledge and glory.



Veskarium (Expansion): Perhaps this new system could eventually be the next part of the Veskarium? You might be loyal patriots of the Veskarium claiming this charter for their home, mercenaries paid to be here, or outsiders sent to settle under promise or threat. You might even be former Veskarium prisoners, put to work on Project: Horizon in exchange for commutation of your sentences.


Xenowardens (Conservation): The Xenowardens are interested in being in tune with the natural environment. You likely share the organization’s views or have something to gain from working with them, such as access to natural resources.


Zenniledie Labs (Experimental): Zenniledie Labs is a medium-sized Triaxian dragoncorps founded and run by the silver dragon Zenniledie, who seeks a cure for the draconic disease that killed their mate. As scientists, you are part of their grand research project. You might be researchers in the draconic CEO’s employ, employees whose skills make them well-suited to charter management, or sympathetic souls moved by Zenniledie’s plight.

WHY US?

There are many possible reasons why you might be interested in joining Project: Horizon and establishing a new life on a recently discovered planet. The thrill of exploration and of making one’s mark on a land is as old as history itself, while those of faiths such as Abadar or Weydan might sign up for religious reasons. Others might be less concerned with the destination than with escaping what they leave behind; charter development is a years-long commitment, and entanglements as minor as a romantic relationship gone bad or as serious as being marked for death might motivate someone to flee to the secrecy of a new world.

Characters of any class can thrive against the challenges of charter development and the planet’s secrets. Despite the wild nature of their new home, the other charters—and the people of your own charter—might require social solutions or strong leadership skills to keep things on the path to success. However, given the unpeopled nature of this new world, you should be wary of relying too heavily on mind-affecting and language-dependent spells and effects (unless they work solely on your allies); while opportunities to use such powers may arise from time to time, a good explorer is ready for anything. Likewise, while your patron provides you with a starship, a CompEnt Star Settler named the Burnished Dawn, starship combat plays only a somewhat small role in this campaign, and characters focused primarily on this aspect are not recommended. In fact, the Burnished Dawn is slated to be broken down into component parts to create your first settlement once you reach orbit. Other, smaller vessels might come and go as the campaign proceeds and you will have the opportunity to create your own starship as the Adventure Path proceeds, but it won't be a central focus.

FAR FROM HOME

The main focus of this Adventure Path is on the Weydana system in the Vast, which presents specific challenges and changes to the default assumptions many groups may be accustomed to. Given the remoteness of the Weydana system, it takes several days, possibly weeks, for messages to reach your patron and for responses to arrive in turn. You're on your own—along with the other charters, of course—and if problems arise, it’s up to you and the other settlers of your charter to sort it out.

This also means that you will be relatively disconnected from the general galactic economy, since you can’t very well leave your charter for weeks to go shopping on Absalom Station. You should be prepared to craft many of the items you will need. You might also want to purchase more field rations or R2Es than you otherwise might or invest in ranks in Survival to make living off the land easier; the other settlers will be able to provide for themselves, but there won’t be easy access to restaurants or groceries. You can assume that either another charter or your patron will purchase any items you want to sell (at standard 10% value) at regular intervals via a courier ship.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:58, Mon 26 Aug.

This adventure assumes a system of “hexploration,” where the map is split into a grid of hexagons. Each hex represents an area 12 miles across and features its own dominant biome, be it plains or forest, marsh, or mountain. A group of PCs gains a number of hexploration activities per day based on the speed of the slowest member of the group, as shown on the table below. During the course of the day, the PCs can use their hexploration activities either to travel or to perform recon.




You move into or toward an adjacent hex, requiring a number of hexploration activities equal to the required activities (see the table below) for both your origin hex and the hex into which you’re moving. For example, a party moving from a mountain into a forest would require 5 hexploration activities. If you don’t know the biome of the destination hex, you learn it after using the number of exploration activities required by your origin hex (2 in the previous example). If you don’t have enough hexploration activities in a day to move into an adjacent hex, you can use as many hexploration activities as you want to move toward that hex and then add that progress to travel you perform on subsequent days.
Keep in mind that with hexploration, movement from one hex to another includes some degree of exploration of the hex entered rather than point-to-point travel, so the travel rate is often slower than typical overland speed. As the group gets further and further away from the colony food and supplies may become an issue. Make sure to stock up and if necessary return to the colony if supplies start running low. Or put alot of points into Survival.

You carefully explore and map a single hex, gaining as much information as you can. This activity requires a number of hexploration activities equal to the hex in which you’re performing recon, and you choose whether to be more careful or more thorough. If you choose to be more careful, the encounter DC increases by 2; if you choose to be more thorough, it decreases by 2. Upon successfully performing recon in a hex, you discover all the hex’s major features that don’t require a check (at the GM’s discretion), and you learn the biome of each hex ajacent to that hex. In addition, if you chose to be more thorough, you find the fastest way through the terrain; reduce the number of activities required to travel in or through that hex by 1 (to a minimum of 1). This reduction can apply only once per hex.