[Free RPG Day 2026] Rescue on Raxil

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

—oOo—

Since its original publication in 2017, titles for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game—the Science-Fiction/Science Fantasy role-playing game published by Paizo Publishing—have been a regular feature of Free RPG Day. Free RPG Day 2026 is no exception, but this year, the scenario is for Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition. This is Rescue on Raxil, a short scenario for five Third Level Player Characters. Its plot and set-up are simple. Raxil is a peaceful, fertile world with a delicate ecology, which is suddenly threatened by the arrival of a clandestine expedition from Absolute Zero, an augmentation research group with little regard for both the effect of their research on the environment and the ethics when it comes to its experiments, and even worse secret backers, Frozen Trove! Despite the best attempts of Absolute Zero, word has got out about its operations and contact has been made off world with the mystical protectors known as the Xenowardens. They have dispatched a team of operatives to land on Raxil, get as close to the Absolute Zero laboratory as possible, and then shut its operations down as well as gathering proof of the connection between Absolute Zero and Frozen Trove.

The scenario is short and so throws the Player Characters into the action in the first of three scenes. They are dropped deep in the forest near the Absolute Zero where they suddenly see two strange creatures. These are Dracotoads, the first signs of Absolute Zero’s activities, two toads spliced with modified dragon glands. The Player Characters can fight them, but two of them have Wildwise Grafts which allows them to talk to animals, so they can use other means to get past the Dracotoads. They can do the same with the next encounter too. The scenario will climax in the laboratory with Player Characters confronting the leader of the Absolute Zero expedition, Feskagazar, a non-binary dragonkin genetic scientist. This is a nicely staged affair with the Player Characters needing to decide whether they want to fight Feskagazar or save the research data they have set to delete.

Rescue on Raxil includes five pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of an Elf Envoy, a Skittermander Witchwarper, a Raxilite Mystic, a Ryphorian Operative, and a Dragonkin Solarian. All are Third Level and all are given a two-page spread which includes a background, advice on playing the character in and out of combat, and relationship to the other Player Characters. Besides the Starfinder Player Core, the scenario also makes use of the Starfinder Galaxy Guide and Starfinder Galactic Ancestries. Maps of the two locations in the scenario are placed inside the front and back cover.

Physically, Rescue on Raxil is as professionally presented as you would expect for Paizo, Inc. It is in full colour, the art and cartography are excellent, and the adventure is well written.

Rescue on Raxil is a straightforward Science Fiction adventure. In fact, too straightforward. Even simplistic. Two of the encounters can be solved by talking and it ends with a big fight at the end. There is not enough variety in the game play or the challenges and it could have done with another encounter to give it some variety and perhaps a little less in the way of character backgrounds for what is a short adventure. Rescue on Raxil is as professional a product as you would expect from Paizo Publishing, but just too short and lacking variety to make it a good one-shot or demonstration scenario.