Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore
That long black cloud is comin’ down
I feel I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door
--Bob DylanAs we approach the anniversary of our total party kill at the bottom of the Abomination Vaults, it’s time to make public what we sometimes call “Session Plus One.” While we’d love to sit around and chat after the final die roll is made, the end of a marathon is usually a frenzy: players are leaving for long rides or flights home, there is the cleanup after days of Pathfinder, a scramble to capture any material we can, and then finally much-needed sleep. The Abomination Arsenal ended with a 22-hour session, which compounded everything just mentioned. Typically, after things settle down, we get together (remotely if necessary) and chat about everything from our favorite moments of the project to the rooms we wish we had explored. Everyone brings questions for our GM about all the things we missed along the way, feedback about the project, and especially the “what if” scenarios that we just have to know the answer to. Suffice it to say, Adam is all about reflection, and weighs it evenly with the prep sessions before a launch.
Before we go behind the scenes, you might want a refresher on how our party of gunslingers managed to reach the bottom of Pathfinder’s largest megadungeon:
We’ll start with a glance at the hours, as this campaign clocked in close to some of the six-part Adventure Paths we’ve played. The foremost reason for this is that we roleplayed a ton; there is plenty of story to be found in Abomination Vaults, and we brought a party with a lot of depth. Privately, we set out to prove that just because we all had the same class, that didn’t mean our roleplaying would suffer. Second, we often featured many members of the Black Powder Cadre at each marathon, which meant more players at the table and slower combats. Lastly, we backtracked a bunch, including revisiting old levels to double-check certain areas or comb them again for anything we may have missed. We never did get the teleporters working, and we remember spending the better part of an afternoon being chased through the megadungeon by a flesh golem that always seemed to know where we were.
- Completed Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults
- Total Marathon Hours: 431 hours, 15min
- Total Session Hours: 280 hours, 25min
Misses
□ The luckiest shot of the campaign was the one that never landed. If you’ve read community feedback about Abomination Vaults, you’ve probably heard of the voidglutton on level four. While James Jacobs was kind enough to let it kill a single character so the rest could flee, for groups that should flee immediately but stick around, it’s bait for a TPK. Zoric went first and rolled a 29 to hit. If he had hit, we wouldn’t have known its armor class was insanely high, so we would have stayed – we all agree the project would have ended. The same can be said if Zoric rolled too low and missed. Our character builds weren’t developed enough and we were really struggling at those levels, so we ran on round one and never went back.
□ One of the factors that lead to our failure in the final encounter was a general lack of understanding regarding Belcorra, Nhimbaloth, and possible ways to defeat the ghost queen. On level three, we missed finding a secret door in the library that contained an important book: The Whispering Reeds. There is no way to overstate how key it was that we failed to obtain this, as it contained highly useful information about Nhimbaloth that might have changed our actions in the final encounter. Worse yet, you saw we missed several rooms the voidglutton was guarding, which contained more lore about Belcorra and the Whispering Reeds. Here is the best part: To make sure we didn’t miss anything, we returned to the library as higher-level characters and searched once more – but our Perception rolls were terrible.
□ So there we were on level nine, and we still had only a vague idea of what we needed to do to kill Belcorra permanently. Another bit of hope was lost when we ran into one of the encounters that can shut down and downright abuse a party of gunslingers. A clay golem AND a graveknight emerged from a secret vault together – in close quarters – with little room for our retreat. We were lucky to have survived, and never found the fulcrum lattice that would have helped us better understand what to do with the lenses we kept acquiring.
Behind the Scenes:
□ What we didn’t say at the outset, was that there had never been a single gunslinger (or equivalent class) in any of our campaigns – not one. We also have no plans, nor any desire to include a gunslinger in our future projects. We absolutely loved this journey and want it to remain a cherished memory. Instead, let this project be appreciated as a testament to the diversity of experiences that can be found within Pathfinder.
□ There are props that don’t always show up in pictures but are with us throughout. Our favorite was the ammo crate mentioned briefly in the introduction blog. This crate with “OAD” emblazoned on it was at every marathon, whether it was in the studio, on the patio, or around us where we slept. We put dice, books, even Gatorade in it, and you can see it with the Amber Die alongside a set of our own Norse Foundry dice.
□ With the sheer number of session hours we clocked, we added more new members in this project than any that has come before, bringing the total to thirty-two since 1987. Congrats to Auralee, Theodora, Doug, and Karee! That makes two more nurses, another teacher, and the owner of Critical Hit Cookies!
□ Our projects have a lot more that we can’t always slow down to feature. One of these was every gunslinger’s friend: custom-painted magnetic trackers for whether your gun was loaded, jammed, or empty. Another was the set of bullet dice our GM handed us after the first marathon—one die for each player. The last was Doug’s painting of our favorite scene, which will forever hang on the walls of Fort Rannick (our headquarters) for future members to behold!
□ Want to play Abomination Vaults with us? We’ve been known to run the Vaults at Philly Area Gaming Expo. Actually, we still have our character sheets and miniatures in case you want to play a party of gunslingers…
Abomination Vaults by the Numbers
- Real-life time passed: 18 months
- Longest single session: 22 hours, 15 min.
- Overall combat record: 109-8-9
- Party shared feat: Toughness
- Most valuable skill: Crafting
- Most valuable feat: Risky Reload
- Coolest gunslinger ability: Redirecting Shot
- Total character deaths: 9
- Infernal contracts signed: 5
- Critical Hit Cookies consumed: c. 800
- Approximate mg of caffeine consumed from Wawa per marathon: c. 5300
- Number of times a nurse began a marathon straight from an overnight shift: 11
Party Data
Zoric
Way of the Sniper (Unexpected Sharpshooter)
Highest single shot damage: 102Vlai Cafellyn
Way of the Vanguard
Scattergun splash damage against foes: 441
Scattergun splash damage to allies: 351Grundak, son of Bashdak
Way of the Sniper
Doors destroyed with Barricade Buster: Unknown
Number of shots missed against doors with Barricade Buster: 4
Clutch play: Critical hit to open combat against BelcorraBreen Danaan
Way of the Pistolero (Pistol Phenom)
Total uses of Treat Wounds: 185
Total uses of Continual Recovery: 648
Total hit points healed: 8,865Lady Sniper
Way of the Sniper
Number of single arquebus shots over 50 damage: 12
Total amount of ammunition crafted by party: c. 7,100
Quote not to forget:
(near the end)
Adam: “Alright guys, it’s 5am, just keep that in mind.”
Julian: “It’s 5am? We need to beat Belcorra quick, cause I gotta be in homeroom in two hours!”
Aftermath
The town of Otari wasn’t the same after the Black Powder Cadre failed to emerge from the Vaults that last time. The citizens had already begun to speak of us as the Roseguard reformed, and had no idea they would never see us again. By now, a statue to our first fallen companion—Rome—stood in the center of town. Ayla’s Oddities and Collectibles, a general store started by our companion Maloika, had become the go-to place for just about all your needs. Carman Rajani, the dejected blacksmith, used his acquaintance with us to win the election for mayor, and had promised to rename the town “Rome.” It was a slick move, as the town had been named Otari for the fallen companion of the Roseguard hundreds of years before.
When you arrive, you’ll find Otari a dark place, with an empty general store and a careless mayor. Yet, the damage we did to the Abomination Vaults will take Belcorra years to repair as she replaces her forces.
Which is just enough time for your group to finish her off.
Follow Order of the Amber Die:
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The Abomination Arsenal: Reflection
Friday, September 26, 2025
