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 53 – Alarm! Alarm!

Gunnar the fighter opened the double doors to find a large octagonal room with a peaked ceiling. A circular beam of ruby light partially filled the room, leaving a gap of several feet around the sides. Lob the goblin alchemist thought it best to avoid the light by sidling around the walls to reach the southern doors. Ezren the wizard determined the light was likely a trap and concurred with the alchemist’s advice. Corny the cleric stood next to Gunnar at the southern doors to open them and Vydar the ranger took up a position across the room (avoiding the light as he did).

Inside the southern room were two armoured mulventoks and two biomechanical dreshken. Corny cast a cone of bright light, temporarily blinding some of them. One of the mulventoks rushed forward and although dazzled by the light, managed to land multiple blows with its magical Tamchal Chakram, knocking Gunnar unconscious.

One of the dreshken fired a rain of needle spikes into the octagonal room, striking several of the party and setting off the redlight alarm. Several party members were stunned by the extreme noise emitted by the beam, with the dresken and mulventoks talking advantage of the situation. Lob fired off numerous bombs from the external corridor, savagely burning the mulventoks. Ezren managed to dispel the magical alarm trap. Corny healed Gunnar, getting him back on his feet and blasting the monsters with an electric arc. Eventually the creatures were defeated, but many in the party were badly hurt.

The monsters’ bodies were dragged into the southern room, which turned out to be a prison ward converted into a barracks. While Vydar checked three cells off to the side, Corny treated everyone’s wounds. Lob opened a door to an old, dust-filled office, but stepped on a rune on the floor that activated a counterfeit haunting. Told to “get out” and facing incredible mental pain, he collapsed in the corner of the barracks. Vydar checked the office and entered, but the rune appeared to have ceased functioning.

The ranger found a secret door in the south wall of the office, and scouted down the corridor to a door at the far end. As the others followed, they decided to check the corridor to the north, where Lob located another secret door. Vydar realized it opened like the previous one – beyond was a room with various maps on the walls and a giant crawling hand, which crept towards him. The ranger drew his rapier and ran into the room, only to be confronted by a strange robed, humanoid figure. The crawling hand headed into the corridor at the direction of the stranger and attacked Lob. Gunnar leapt over the hand and attacked it from behind. As his scimitar struck, black pus sprayed all over him, making him sick.

Vydar was facing a Denizen of Lheng, an extremely agile humanoid creature which avoided his rapier lunges and cast phantom pain. The ranger’s head spun, and he could feel bile rising in this throat…

Session 54 – Downed & Dazed

Vydar the ranger was quickly taken out by the robed Denizen of Lheng. Gunnar the fighter sliced the giant crawling hand with his scimitar and was covered in sickening pus for his troubles. Eventually the hand’s fingernails sliced him to pieces and he fell unconscious. Corny the cleric healed Gunnar and brought him back so he could finish off the giant hand, but the Denizen of Lheng ran over and dropped him. Vydar was brought back with a heal spell but knocked unconscious again as the denizen’s powerful jaws ripped chunks of flesh off him.

As the party piled into the room, Gunnar was healed and attacked the robed denizen, which used a suggestion on him to send the big fighter running out of the room and into the next – a giant chamber with transparent tubes containing horrifying monsters! Hovering in the air was a Witchfire Warden, which blasted the poor fighter with its sickly flame blasts. Lob the alchemist attempted to slap some sense into the fighter and Corny tried to shove the big man back into the other room, but to no avail. Ezren the wizard managed to finish off the Denizen of Lheng with a barrage of magic missiles.

Eventually the sickly green flames of the Witchfire Warden dropped Gunnar. Ezren managed to drag the fighter back to safety as Corny closed the door and secured it with a lock spell. The warden didn’t pursue the retreating heroes.

Returning to a safe room, Corny treated the party’s wounds for the next hour or so. Lob listened at a door up the corridor but heard nothing, then beckoned the others to enter. Gunnar, now feeling better but still somewhat under the weather because of the various conditions he’d suffered over the last few days, entered the black walled room to find an open trapdoor in the floor. As he peered into the crawlspace, a silver-whisp with a woman’s face appeared in the air next to him, screaming at the top of its lungs. The fighter was shocked with electricity and then his brain blasted with crisis of faith. He dropped unconscious to the floor. 

Lob tossed acid bombs at the whisp, while Corny healed Gunnar from the door. Vydar attempted to fill the whisp with arrows but his hands were shaky and his shots went awry. Lob closed the door and they all fled back to the safe room. The whisp didn’t follow.

After some more wound treatments, the party headed back to the denizen’s chambers, sneaking quietly past the whisp’s still closed door. They found a small office with a wall of pinned, mummified hands, recovering some spell scrolls within, and what seemed to be a small meditation chamber with numerous candles in a circle.

The Otari 2600’s decided to call it a day and head back to town to restock their supplies and get some proper rest. As they headed back down the corridor, Gunnar turned the corner to face the screaming whisp…

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