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), finished the campaign after 85 Sunday night sessions!

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

Cheers

Steve 🙂

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

Session 82 – The Initiation of Nimbhaloth

The Otari 2600s followed the eerie skeleton down a twisting stairwell to a stone door. The skeleton waved its bony hand and the door ground open. They entered a broad chamber with doors to the south and west, and two metal tubes with iris doors to the east. The skeleton pointed to the east door, and the party dutifully went through.

They entered a short corridor that led to a room with arrow slits in the walls. As Gunnar the fighter and Corny the cleric moved forward, ghostly blow darts shot from the walls. The darts drained their life force, and the battle was on. Lob the goblin alchemist sought cover on the southwest side of the room, noting more doors to the north and south. Corny and Ezren the wizard blasted a specter through the arrow slits, while Gunnar rushed across to where Lob stood by the wall. The others followed. As they huddled by the south door, six specters emerged from the arrow slits and grouped in front of them. Ezren was hit by a dart and became enthralled, his eyes rolling back in his heard as he stood rigidly in place.

Lob managed to open the south door and drag the static wizard into a room with two copper bathtubs in it. Gunnar and Corny followed as one of the specters rushed in to drain the wizard’s life force. The other specters followed and spells, bombs and magic scimitars slowly cut them down to size. Eventually, Ezren’s specter was dispatched, returning him to normality so he could join in with some magic missiles. Gunnar realized the Disrupt Undead ability of his amulet was great fun, and he was now far less suspicious of magic. Eventually all the specters were dispatched.

Corny set to work treating everyone’s wounds as Lob searched the room. The goblin located a spinning secret door behind one of the bathtubs.

The party found themselves in a cave tunnel leading to a larger cavern. Gas erupted from seven holes in the ceiling, but magic air bubbles protected Ezren and Lob as Gunnar and Corny made their way to the south wall, locating another secret door – one that wouldn’t open. Lob plugged the nozzles with some hybrid tanglefoot resin and deactivated the trap, then they could escape.

The Otari 2600’s passed into a corridor where the walls swirled with images of pleasant memories. At the end was another door, and through that a corridor with images of failure on the walls, with each image a viewer’s personal memory. These memories caused intense pain – Gunnar rushed forward into a safe space between corridors before collapsing to his knees.

Corny attempted to dispel the wall illusions, but the magic was too powerful. Ezren succeeded with his dispel magic, and the walls cleared.

The next corridor showed images of powerlessness. Gunnar rushed headlong in, facing shocking memories of a night of torture at the hands of the voidglutton and a night of dispassionate and humiliating love making with the drider. He made it to the end of the very long corridor, found a secret door and pivoted into an empty room with plain walls.

Corny drank one of Lob’s Eagle Eye elixirs and ran down the corridor. Lob and Ezren soon followed. Each suffered through their own memories of powerlessness, with Lob suffering the most as he remembered his anguished childhood. Finally, they all made it through the secret door at the end of the corridor and joined Gunnar. Drained of mental resilience, they collapsed exhausted to the floor.      

Session 83 – The Nightmare Continues…

The Otari 2600s rested briefly in the empty room, treating their wounds. Exiting the south door, they encountered the strange skeleton that had directed them to the other challenges. It now indicated they should enter two pipes on the east side of the room. After investigating a massive stone slab blocking the way to the south, Lob the goblin alchemist decided to scout along the pipe.

The cavern beyond was massive, foul smelling and filled with murky swamp water; the pipe’s end was 25 feet above the water below. Lob could spot several rusty boxes poking through the surface of the water, and several pipes running just below, stretching north to south. He informed the others and they all entered the pipe.  

Lob had noticed a ledge to the south, and tied a rope to his body so Gunnar the fighter and Corny the cleric could swing the goblin towards it. He managed to make it over half the way after a tremendous swing from Gunnar, and landed in the water just 15 feet from the ledge, which rose 5 feet above the surface. In the middle of the ledge was a dam door, raised to the ceiling, with rusted metal gear wheels on either side of it. Lob pulled himself up the wall, but as the goblin reached the top, he noticed a tree covered with writhing vines in the center of the room beyond the ledge. Feeling uneasy, he dropped back down into the water.

To the east a Voidbracken Chuul emerged from the water. Gunnar dropped from the pipe and swam south to follow Lob. Corny followed, while Ezren the wizard stayed above, kneeling at the end of the pipe overlooking the cavern. The Chuul rushed across the swampy murk to attack Gunnar, grabbing him and sliming him with its toxic tentacles. Luckily, he was made of sterner stuff and he fought back, slashing it with his scimitar. Lob hid in the water and emerged to throw electricity bombs. Corny cast telekinetic projectiles, electric arcs and healed from afar as the Chuul wrestled with Gunnar. Ezren cast electric arc from the safety of the pipe end.

Another Voidbracken Chuul broke the surface and attacked the cleric, grabbing him and wrapping its tentacles round his head to drain his life energies. Lob finished off Gunnar’s Chuul, but another rose to replace it. Corny broke free of the creature’s embrace two times before Lob and Gunnar killed the Chuul on the fighter, so Gunnar could flank the other. Lob managed to finish the last Chuul with an electricity bomb.

It was difficult to treat the party’s wounds in the swamp, so Lob moved north, finding the rusty boxes and opening their valves. He realized that more of the mechanism lay further north, but the cavern was protected by Deepwater Dhuthorexes, and having fought the beasts before was not keen to do so again (despite the presence of machinery on three islands that might link to the rusty boxes).

The Otari 2600s headed south, climbing the ledge and facing the writhing tree. From its branches emerged a horrifying creature with a head composed of transparent egg-filled larvae. Ezren identified it as a Isqulug, and the party realized the fight had only just begun…   

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