Introduction

I previously posted some warts-and-all email summaries of the ‘Curse of Strahd’ campaign I ran in 2017-18, the ‘Tomb of Annihilation’ campaign I ran in 2018-19, the ‘Out of the Abyss’, a campaign I ran in 2020, the ‘Phandelver’s Pact’ campaign I ran from 2020-21, and the ‘Shadows over Saltmarsh’ campaign from 2021-22. CoS was the first campaign I sent summaries to players by email after each game (I was a bit lazy prior to that), which is why I could use them for this column.

Here are the session summaries from my first Pathfinder 2e campaign which I started running in 2023 after WoTC stunned the TTRPG community by deciding to be dicks about the OGL (remember that?). Like many who started playing PF2e, we commenced with the Beginner’s Box, progressed to Troubles in Otari and then to the Abomination Vaults campaign. The players, calling themselves the “Otari 2600s” (it’s amusing if you’re old enough to remember lol), are still currently playing the campaign every Sunday night!

I apologize in advance for the writing in these summaries – they’re a bit raw and not fancy at all (I don’t have time for fancy writing when typing them up late at night after each game lol).

Steve 🙂

Warning: These summaries contain spoilers for Paizo’s Abomination Vaults campaign

Session 41 – Near Death Experiences

The party entered a chamber just south of the fungal room, where a magical fire burned in a nearby fireplace and one of the doors was blocked by a divan and sealed up with pitons. Lob, the goblin alchemist, opened one of the other doors. Inside was an old, inactive teleportation circle, which Ezren the wizard and Lob spent an hour with the Awaken Portal Ritual to reactivate.

Gunnar opened the room sealed with pitons, carefully extracting each one with a crowbar. Inside was a cranky, coughing, mummy wizard called Chafkhem, who told the party he had been trapped in the room for 500 years because its wards to prevent teleportation were too strong. After some probing, Chafkem revealed he had once been an Arena Administrator working for Belcorra. His archenemy, Jafaki, an otherworldly slug creature called a Seugathi and a flesh-warping scientist, had ordered the administrator sealed within this room so that it could take over his role. Over time, Chafkem used unholy rituals to convert himself into a mummy. Chafkem wanted Jafaki dead. The mummy asked the party to return the Seugathi’s head, and in return he would give them a map of the Arena area, the password to a blade trap within the level, and teach Ezren the Create Undead ritual (Ezren was rather enamored with the aged mummy wizard at that point). Chafkem advised he would wait four days for the PCs to return while he prepared his papers, then he would head back to his home in Osirion.

Gunnar tried to seal up Chafkem’s door again, but the mummy objected, frightening the fighter with visions of his incarceration and torture at the hands of the voidglutton. The rest of the party managed to dissuade Gunnar from his course of action, and they rested awhile to recover.      

Lob opened the door to a huge chamber to the south, where overturned furniture and bones littered the floors. As Corny the cleric and Lob entered, they disturbed several bones and animated a huge Skeletal Hulk. The battle took less time than expected, with Vidar the ranger claiming another notch to one of his bows.

Ezren decided to leap into an active teleportation circle in the room, and was transported to a long, dark chamber where he was attacked by some form of eyeless, bipedal lizard, which screamed at him with a sonic cry. He managed to duck back into the teleportation circle in time, but returned with a strange sigil on his forehead that no one could identify.

Lob and Vidar spotted a spy hole in the wall and a corridor beyond. Exploring another passage, Gunnar and Lob identified several rooms with bolts on the outside of the doors, apparently used for prisoners. Ezren located a room with a tapestry depicting the use of Gauntlight to transport flesh warped monsters to war. Gunnar identified and opened a secret door behind it.

The party traveled up a narrow corridor and into a bare room, where Gunnar stepped on a pressure plate. Swishing sounds echoed from a corridor to the south. Lob stepped into the room after him and suddenly everyone in the corridor was surprised by scything blades appearing from the ceiling and walls. As the party fled, Gunnar chastised Lob for rushing in when the fighter had already told them he had activated a trap.

Investigating a northern corridor, Gunnar discovered another prisoner room. The next chamber he entered contained a huge viscous Black Pudding, which trapped and burned him with its acid, knocking him unconscious. Corny healed the fighter from a distance, and Gunnar fought back. Unfortunately, his new magic scimitar split the creature in two. As the second Black Pudding flowed down the corridor it overwhelmed Ezren, bringing him close to death. Luckily Corny was able to bring back the wizard. Vidar shot arrows at the pudding holding Ezren, but split it again. Ezren used Fireball to destroy the two new puddings, and Lob took out the one constricting Gunnar with an alchemist’s fire.

The party gathered in the mural room to rest and lick their wounds, somewhat sobered by the encounter with the puddings…

Session 42 – Velstrac Attack!

After a night of rest and some time fixing their damaged armor and weapons, Lob, the goblin alchemist, decided to re-investigate the pressure plate that activated the scything blades. He realized it was too complex for him to disable and so returned to the others.   

The Otari 2600s moved back out into the room where they previously dispatched the bone gladiator. They decided to check the north corridor because they had missed a door. Working their way north, they came upon a store room with a display cabinet in the corner. Lob discovered it was a secret door, which Gunnar, the fighter, pulled back from the wall. A narrow corridor beyond zigzagged into the distance. Lob led the party in, but the goblin walked into the big room with the pressure plate they’d entered previously. He set off the blade trap and was sliced to pieces. Ezren the wizard summoned a hunting spider to drag the limp goblin into the corridor, and Corny the cleric healed him, but then blades sprung from the walls and floor and almost everyone was hit (Vydar, the ranger, managed to leap and duck the blades). Gunnar carried Lob to safety as everyone exited back into the storeroom, relieved to be out of the deadly corridor.

After some extended first aid, the party decided to head through the east door, into a tunnel with a stone bridge that spanned a corridor 20 ft. below. They moved across and north, where several double doors awaited. The east doors led to a supply room, where Corny found some medical supplies.

The double doors to the west revealed a blood-spattered dissection room, with three stone slabs and a dead morlock. A specter rose from its body to attack, enthralling Corny, Gunnar and Lob and making them help it during the battle. The undead creature proved difficult to kill, but Ezren’s magic missiles made a difference, and Vydar finally took it out with his magic longbow. Gunnar and Lob discovered pulling on chains next to the slabs deposited the morlock corpse 40 ft. down to a room on the level below.  

To the north was another set of double doors. Gunnar entered, to find a giant room with multiple chains hanging from the ceiling. He confronted a depressed and angry Velstrac, similar to the one upstairs that the party had fled from. Corny managed to persuade the Velstrac they were just passing through, and Gunnar stood strong while the party dashed to the north doors. Although the fighter would have preferred to battle the Velstrac in its lair, the huge number of chains put it at a decided advantage.

In the northern room, Lob found three cells, bloody and pulpy masses within. These were Shanrigol Heaps, which slid through the bars and attacked the goblin and Corny, grabbing them and draining some of their life essence. The heaps took longer to dispatch than normal, and just before they could dispatch the last two, the Velstrac attacked Ezren from behind. Although the wizard was able to escape and summon a Cave Scorpion to help attack, the Velstrac lashed out with its rusty chains at Vydar (who was very focused on taking out the heap attacking Corny, even though his arrows caused less damage than he would have liked). The Velstrac continued to attack, and as Lob and Gunnar finished off the last of the heaps, the big fighter was knocked unconscious as the Velstrac’s chains tore into him. With everyone badly wounded, even with the benefit of Corny’s long distance healing spells, things were looking bleak…