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
The Abomination Vaults in One Big Book!
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
