When the fog is creeping,
And the moon is low;
When the town is sleeping,
Gauntlight starts to glow!

That’s when she arises
For her midnight lunch.
Naughty kids are prizes
For her teeth to crunch.

But if you obey me,
And obey the rules;
You’re safe from Belcorra;
She just eats the fools!

So warns a popular nursery rhyme among the parents in the town of Otari, as they often sing the melodious but unsettling poem to their children at night to encourage good behavior. As a result, everyone who grows up in Otari has a healthy mix of fear, respect, and curiosity for the old ruins out in Fogfen and the strange lighthouse that stands at the swamp’s heart.

As they grow older, townsfolk learn what’s more often accepted as truth: that the heroic founders of Otari had slain the wicked sorcerer Belcorra many years ago. For a time, thrill-seekers explored the ruins around the lighthouse called Gauntlight, but today, common knowledge holds that the place has become a haven for pests—no longer a source of active danger or significant treasure after being completely picked over. Nearly 500 years have passed since Belcorra’s defeat after all, and in that time, she has only posed a menace to Otari through sinister rhymes.

Or so the citizens of Otari believe.

Enter the Megadungeon!

Spiteful evil stirs beneath the mysterious lighthouse called Gauntlight. When the lighthouse emits an eerie glow, locals suspect that something sinister threatens the countryside. Brave heroes must explore the ruins around the lighthouse and delve into the dungeon levels beneath it. Hideous monsters, deadly traps, unexpected allies, vengeful ghosts, and more await the heroes who dare to enter the sprawling megadungeon called the Abomination Vaults! The Abomination Vaults Adventure Path is a complete campaign taking heroes from 1st to 11th level.

Now through midnight October 31, pre-order Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults (5E) or Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults (5E) Special Edition and get a complimentary PDF of that product when yours ships. You will also receive a $5 off coupon code for the Pathfinder Abomination Vaults Pawn Collection while supplies last.

Additionally, those who pre-order Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults (5E) Special Edition will also receive a complimentary Pathfinder Kingmaker Bestiary (5E) PDF when your product ships.

Existing pre-orders are included in this offer.

Flashback to The Abomination Vaults Comes to 5E! blog for more background on these innovative new products coming in Spring of 2023!

Pre-Order Today!

A Complete Campaign with Dungeons—and Dragons!

I’m Ron Lundeen, the development manager responsible for the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path. At Paizo, we have a lot of confidence in our adventures. We’ve been crafting phenomenal campaigns for many years, and the Pathfinder Second Edition rules have only helped us make more. The Abomination Vaults Adventure Path has been one of our best campaigns, and our fans love it. But a lot more gamers all over the world play the newest edition of the world’s oldest RPG, and we wanted to show them how great Paizo’s Adventure Paths can be, too.

Cover Illustration by Setiawan Lee

Once we realized what a hit we had in the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path, we started a Pathfinder Second Edition compilation and a 5E conversion at roughly the same time. James Jacobs, Vanessa Hoskins, and Stephen Radney-MacFarland had done phenomenal work creating the three individual Adventure Path volumes. The story, maps, and art were already in place. So while I was compiling the Pathfinder Second Edition version, I brought in David N. Ross, a 5E expert, to convert the entire campaign from its 1st-level beginning all the way to its 11th-level conclusion. This conversion is a rules overhaul from the ground up. We streamlined all the combat encounters, adjusted all the treasure, adjusted all the XP awards, and loaded the book with tons of 5E stat blocks.

This isn’t the first time we’ve adapted one of our adventures to a different game’s rules. It’s not even the first time we’ve adapted one of our campaigns to the 5E rules: that would be the Kingmaker Adventure Path. But while the Kingmaker 5E rules cover an extensive bestiary of monsters and NPCs, the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path gives you a complete 5E campaign in a single book! This hardcover is the only thing you need to run this campaign at your gaming table—from a complete gazetteer of the town of Otari to every one of the ten dungeon levels beneath the eerie Gauntlight lighthouse. There are doors to be kicked down, loot to be plundered, side quests to fulfill, people to help, and even a few dragons to fight.

One of the things I loved about putting this book together was all the extra art we could include. Pathfinder Second Edition players already know what grothluts, gogiteths, and shulns are. We have those monsters illustrated in our Pathfinder Bestiary. But 5E players don’t know what they are, so I packed in a lot of our art to show them off.

Of course, all these new critters need 5E stats, and the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path provides them. This hardcover is a great 5E resource, even if only as a great big book of new monster and NPC stats. Shulns for everyone!

Illustration by João Fiuza

But the key, as always, is the story. Despite the differences in rules, the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path is still the tale of the sleepy coastal town of Otari, the Gauntlight’s dread light, and the spiteful ghost who lurks deep underground. Heroes must explore the dungeon, solve its mysteries, and help the helpless. That’s a story I love telling in any rules system.

Ron Lundeen
Development Manager

Enter the Megadungeon!

I’m Ron Lundeen, development manager responsible for the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path. I knew this campaign would be a big hit from the start: it has old-fashioned kick-down-the-door dungeon exploration seeded with interesting NPCs, side quests, and tons of roleplaying. The authors—James Jacobs, Vanessa Hoskins, and Stephen Radney-MacFarland—really blew me away by adding exciting action sequences and compelling character personalities to every dungeon level. The Abomination Vaults present more than a place to fight monsters and grab loot (although there’s plenty of that!), but an opportunity for heroes to solve mysteries, negotiate old feuds, rescue innocent people, and much more. And, of course, the villain lurking behind the scenes is a terrifying and powerful enemy. She’s right there on the cover and, wow, does she look angry!

Cover Illustration by Setiawan Lee

This is perhaps the most approachable Pathfinder Second Edition Adventure Path that we’ve made.

• It features a more focused scope, taking characters from 1st level to 11th level (instead of all the way to 20th level, as all our previous Pathfinder Second Edition Adventure Paths have done).
• It offers the heroes a clear “home base” in the town of Otari that could be dropped into just about any campaign setting, Age of Lost Omens or otherwise.
• It extends the locale of the Pathfinder Beginner Box, which has already attracted lots of eager new players to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

With the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path, experienced GMs have enough content to make their campaign really shine, and newer GMs can trust us to give them something they can handle that will amaze their players.

Illustration by Christoph Peters

When we saw how much people loved the Abomination Vaults campaign—I was thrilled to see so many people saying it was the best megadungeon they’d ever seen—we knew it was destined for something special. The work to convert the campaign into a hardcover was already going on when the first subscribers were still playing it. I watched the Paizo forums I set up for each of the adventures, making notes about errors to be corrected and rough spots that people found difficult to understand. I filled my three volumes of the Adventure Path with dozens and dozens of sticky notes, each one marking a place we could make the campaign better—such as by fixing a reference to a room that didn’t exist, ordering some art that players felt necessary, smoothing out the treasure progression, or replacing a certain foe’s 3rd-level spell with one a little less (ahem) deadly.

We’re looking at you, Mister Beak. Illustration by Artur Nakhodkin

As it turns out, no drastic overhauls of the campaign were necessary. That meant I could really focus on how to make the campaign easier to run. This isn’t just a reprint of the three adventures bound within a hard cover. It’s been reorganized to make it even more usable and fun. As an overview, here’s what you’ll find inside:

• We open with a synopsis of the whole campaign, including the primary villain’s background, a timeline, and an easy leveling guideline: “the dungeon level your heroes are on is the character level they should be.”
• Next, you’ll find a chapter detailing the town of Otari. As the heroes’ home base and the source of numerous rumors and side missions, it’s presented right up front. We included the new backgrounds and other rules from the standalone Pathfinder Abomination Vaults Player’s Guide here, to put everything in one place.
• The bulk of the hardcover includes the next 10 chapters, each detailing one of the 10 dungeon levels.
• We included an article about the evil god lurking behind the events of the campaign.
• Near the end, an enormous Adventure Toolbox presents all the new items, spells, artifacts, archetypes, and more. This toolbox also contains nearly 30 new monsters featured in the campaign!
• I’m particularly happy with the adventure’s final page, a Glossary that gives a short summary and location for dozens of NPCs, groups, unique items, and more. This will help GMs keep details regarding NPCs with similar names in mind, such as Vandy, Volluk, and Vethris.

Picking up the entire Abomination Vaults Adventure Path in a single book is a fantastic way to bring this campaign to your table. There’s a ton of support for it, too, from the Abomination Vaults Battle Cards to licensed products like Pathfinder Terrain and Foundry Virtual Tabletop.

I hope you have as much fun enjoying this megadungeon as we did building it!

Ron Lundeen
Development Manager

We are pleased to present this guest blog product announcement from our friends at Archon Studio. Dungeons & Lasers is their line of plastic unpainted and unassembled miniatures and environments. Paizo is excited to work with Archon Studio on a way to bring the Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults Adventure Path to life, and we look forward to the many future releases that will do the same to the wider world of Golarion. We can’t wait to see these dungeons take shape on your own tabletop!

The New Era of Dungeons & Lasers Begins Now

Our goblins are happy to announce a new product line, Pathfinder Terrain. These sets feature the most iconic places from the Pathfinder universe, starting this month with the dark and grim Abomination Vaults and traveling to farther lands in future releases. These new dungeons are also our first retail release of half-height walls which retaining full backward compatibility with our classic full-height walled sets.

Abomination Vaults Pathfinder Terrain Design

Abomination Vaults is one of the most popular Pathfinder Adventures Paths ever, with a hardcover edition coming this May. The famed megadungeon is split into 3 parts, chronicling the tale of the evil sorcerer Belcorra Haruvex, her revenge and the bold heroes who venture forth to oppose her.

Pathfinder Abomination Vaults Adventure Path Trailer

We’ve approached this challenge open-minded, yet focused on the lore and story. Our Art Director, Tomasz Badalski, says:

“First thing that came to my mind was the abomination angle of the design. How to make a dungeon that clearly says, “We reject all that’s natural and give ourselves to all kinds of heresy and evil rituals?” That’s why you’ll notice good-ol’ tentacles on the walls and evil-eyes overseeing the adventuring party. Even the metal door ornaments are looking more like veins on living, cursed organisms than a piece of engineering. How cool is that?”

Half-height Walls Enter the Game

The most noticeable feature of Abomination Vaults Pathfinder Terrains are the new half-height walls, designed to make it even easier to handle miniatures inside of the dungeon. These half-height walls stand roughly 25 millimeters, or 1 inch, tall. They are also much thicker than in previous packs. Doorways are kept at 50 millimeters/2-inch height to make it easier to locate them during the game.

Open Functional Doors!

What do both Game Masters and mimics love? Yes, that’s right—doors. For the first time, we’ve implemented a functional door in the Dungeons & Lasers line. It works using a push and fit system, allowing you to open and rotate the door or remove it from the doorway altogether if you don’t need it. Also, doorways are aligned with the grid, for all you tactic-loving fighters!

All the Extra Bits Included

Abomination Vaults Pathfinder Terrains come with extra set pieces that will help you customize your dungeon. Columns are a perfect all-rounder when it comes to removing a single tile from the map and blocking a line of sight at the same time if you need that. A small pile of rubble works great as a blockade. Some walls also include special holes to place torchlights you will find in your set.

Dwarven Mine

Our second release this month is Dwarven Mine, terrain set in the wet and dark depths of mountains, where Dwarves used to have a lot of fun. Now the place is abandoned - or is it?

Dwarven Mine also features half-height walls, functional and grid-aligned doors, and extra customization bits. Fully compatible with Abomination Vaults and with the classic full-height walled Dungeons & Lasers sets.

Next Pathfinder Terrain Pack?

What awaits those who manage to survive the adventures in Abomination Vaults? Our Dungeon Lords are keeping the secrets for themselves, but they gave us a hint - can you guess the next Pathfinder Terrain release?

Get Pathfinder Terrain Online or at Your Local Store

You can pre-order both Pathfinder Terrain: Abomination Vaults and Dwarven Mine on our online store by clicking the button below or asking in your favorite local gaming store. If your local merchant wants to stock Pathfinder Terrain, make sure they contacts us.

Now off to the Vaults, Adventurers! Time to get some loot!

Check out Archon today!

What about the Archon Starfinder Miniatures? We know that many of you are waiting to hear more about your Starfinder Masterclass Miniatures that are being produced by Archon Studio. Stay tuned! We should have some news on that front soon.

All Paizo PDFs and digital products are 25% off through Sunday, May 2nd! Just click on the “On Sale” tab in your favorite sections of the Paizo Store and add it to your cart.

New Releases

Grab the newest hardcover releases like the Pathfinder Bestiary 3, Pathfinder Lost Omens: Ancestry Guide, and Starfinder Alien Archive 4.

Start a new adventure campaign with the Starfinder Adventure Path: We’re No Heroes (Fly Free or Die 1 of 6), Pathfinder Adventure Path: Ruins of Gauntlight (Abomination Vaults 1 of 3) or Pathfinder Adventure Path #145: Hellknight Hill (Age of Ashes 1 of 6)!

Beginner Bundles

New to Pathfinder or Starfinder or want to teach others? Get started with a digital version of the acclaimed Pathfinder Beginner Box or the Starfinder Beginner Box.

Step up from there with the Pathfinder Core Rulebook with the Bestiary or the Starfinder Core Rulebook with the Alien Archive.

Digital accessories with amazing images for virtual tabletop play

This is a great opportunity to acquire both PDF and JPG versions of Pathfinder and Starfinder cards, maps, and pawns!

Collect Pathfinder Cards like the huge Bestiary Battle Cards, helpful Condition Card Deck, or popular Spell Cards: Arcane!

Acquire Pathfinder Maps like Flip-Tiles, Flip-Mats, Flip-Mat Classics, and Bigger Flip-Mats, which are perfect for homebrewers or anyone who wants to save time.

Bring your PCs, NPCs, and adversaries to life with Pathfinder Pawns, like the essential Bestiary Pawn Box, versatile Gamemastery Guide NPC Pawn Collection, and the inspirational Player Character Pawn Collection!

Starfinder Accessories offer an abundance of Cards, Maps, and Pawns as well!

Grab that book you've been eyeing today!

*The discount is not valid on subscriptions, preorders, backorders, non-Paizo downloads, gift certificates, or other discounts, including the Paizo Advantage.

When the mysterious lighthouse called Gauntlight glows with baleful light, the people of Otari suspect that it’s an ominous prelude to sinister events. Heroes must explore the ruins around the lighthouse and delve into the dungeon levels below. Hideous monsters, deadly traps, and vengeful ghosts all await the heroes who dare to enter the sprawling megadungeon called the Abomination Vaults!

If you are new to Pathfinder or an Adventure Path, welcome! The Abomination Vaults Adventure Path Player's Guide is your spoiler free introduction for getting started. Inside you will find the following three chapters:

1. Coming Together

• The Abomination Vaults Adventure Path begins near the small town of Otari on the southern shore of the Isle of Kortos. A robust and spoiler-free description of the town can be found in this player’s guide. While this gazetteer does mention things that aren’t frequently discussed in polite company (such as the rough crew that hangs out at the Crook’s Nook), the contents of this gazetteer are considered common knowledge among Otari’s citizens. It’s possible for some (or even all) of the heroes to hail from Otari, but that isn’t necessary. Although most of the campaign’s action takes place in the dungeon about a half hour to the north in the swampy Fogfen, the heroes will return to Otari many times and should come to rely on its people.
  The heroes might or might not know each other, but all of them should have a friend in common: the town’s eccentric oddities merchant, Wrin Sivinxi.

2. Cosmic Caravan Pantheon

• As friends of Wrin Sivinxi, the heroes all know that she follows a pantheon of deities collectively known as the Cosmic Caravan. Any hero who wants to can also follow this pantheon. The rules for following a pantheon are set forth on page 92 of Pathfinder Lost Omens Gods and Magic.

3. Otari Gazetteer

• Otari is a thriving, diverse lumber town and trade port with a storied past and its fair share of sinister secrets. Founded by a group of adventurers over 400 years ago, the town has weathered attacks from kobolds and strange monsters, economic woes and windfalls, and cycles of prosperity and strife. Today, the town is a prosperous community and one of the largest settlements along the island’s southern coast, other than the metropolis of Absalom.

Additional Information

Content Warning from Volume One, Ruins of Gauntlight

While Ruins of Gauntlight contains typical Pathfinder action and adventure, it also presents themes of suicide. Before you begin, understand that player consent (including that of the Game Master) is vital to a safe and fun play experience for everyone. You should talk with your players before beginning the adventure and modify descriptions or scenarios as appropriate.

Planning For The End

The Abomination Vaults Adventure Path takes characters from 1st level to 10th level and concludes at about 11th level. There are certainly opportunities to continue the campaign (such as with the Fists of the Ruby Phoenix Adventure Path, which starts at 11th level and begins in the next volume after Abomination Vaults concludes). As such, keep in mind that if you’ve got your eye on a particular 12th-level feat or 15th-level class feature, it’s not something you’ll likely get the chance to select during the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path.

The Abomination Vaults Adventure Path Player's Guide is by Ron Lundeen, with James Jacobs. The cover artist is Kiki Moch Rizky.

Learn more about the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path.

Download the Abomination Vaults Player's Guide!