The Drift is Starfinder’s answer to hyper drive, but it is more than just a way to cross incredibly vast distances at a swift rate. Discovered, or created, by the newly merged tri-part construct god Truine, the Drift is a bit of a planar junkyard in the cosmology of Starfinder. Or planar parasite, depending on how you look at it. Ever expanding, the Drift randomly snips bits and bobs out of other plans every time a Drift engine is used. Statistically speaking, the vast majority of these little thefts are going to be empty areas of whatever material primarily makes up the plane being stolen from – vacuum for the physical plane, water for the plane of Elemental water, etc. That’s fine, but the interesting part is the statistical outliers; those moments when the Drift managed to snap up something really intriguing. Here are ten you can drop in for your players.
- The tip of a tentacle, which is larger than a spaceship. Dotted with strange eyes, no two alike, the tentacle shudders into unlife as soon a spaceship comes close…
- A gargantuan throne carved with Thassilonian runes. There is a piece missing around the top, perhaps when the Drift grabbed it, it didn’t get the whole thing. What might happen if the fragment was returned and the throne made whole?
- A small library of silver disks, each a psychic thought catalog detailing the history and culture of a race of living memories, destroyed by the Gap.
- A pocket of pure negative energy, with a host of shadows inside guarding an alabaster white coffin that has the likeness of an angel carved on the lid.
- A small data bank of computers. Once connected to another device they appear to have been a catalog of viral memes stored by some unknown alien culture, which then take on a virtual life of their own and must be fought in a holographic mindscape least they take over the ship, escape the drift, and spread once more.
- A trove of angelic weapons, ranging from archaic swords to modern firearms and perhaps even more advance weaponry. Were the weapons forgotten here, or will their owners eventually come looking for them?
- The massive heart of a dead god. Infested with parasites feeding on the long decaying remains of the fallen deity, the heart is a dungeon in its own right, but perhaps some spark of divine power remains at its center.
- A tiny star, blazing with celestial light in the void of the Drift, and home to fiery worms that dive in and out of the burning orb.
- Three Inevitables guarding a huge alien chained to a rock. They will not allow anyone to free the alien, but you can ask it three questions.
- A massive tree-ship of Elven design. The ship is alive, and possess an intelligence somewhat like a great Ent, but it doesn’t remember how it arrived here, and there is no sign of the Elven crew.
Jeremy Corff
Artist and Writer