Abomination Vaults - Play Review
The Abomination Vaults is a 258 page Pathfinder Adventure Path, originally published as 3 volumes (Ruins of the Gauntlight, Hands of the Devil and Eyes of Empty Death) for Pathfinder Second Edition. I played the republished, single-volume version through its Foundry VTT implementation. Each of the three volumes is written by a different author, credited to James Jacobs, Vanessa Hoskins and Stephen Radney-MacFarland respectively. Lyz Liddel was the design lead on all three books (with Mark Seifter on Ruins of the Gauntlight), Judy Bauer as the Editing Lead, Ron Lundeen as the Developer and James Jacobs as Creative Director.
Whew, these Adventure Paths have a lot of people involved with them. Random small world fact, I've been birding with the brother of Paizo's publisher. We saw timberdoodle mating dances.
My play group had 4 players and I was the GM. It took us 57 three hour sessions to complete the Abomination Vaults finishing at level 11. We played on Foundry using the free Archetype rules and XP leveling.
This review will be full of spoilers. Consider yourself warned.
What is this?
The Abomination Vaults is a megadungeon adventure: a desperate delve through 10 floors with over 300 keyed rooms. It takes place just outside the small port of Otari, a week's travel from the metropolis of Absalom. The heroes are encouraged to investigate by Wrin, a merchant and astrologer. She shares a premonition of something ominous stirring in the ruins, foretold by a mysterious blue light in the Gauntlight lighthouse.
This landlocked lighthouse in the Fogfen swamp was built by Belcorra Haruvex and is only the tip of the chthonic iceberg. The lighthouse stretches through 9 floors and from it spiderwebs her Abomination Vaults. The Gauntlight is a massive weapon designed to teleport an army of fiends, abominations and undead into the city of Absalom to raze it to the ground. This incredible feat is powered by the Empty Vault where the echo of an Outer GodâNhimbaloth the Empty Deathâlingers. This residual energy is amplified and focused through the Gauntlight lighthouse and then four fulcrum lenses. Remember those lenses. They're key to this whole adventure.
Scratch away this big picture and narrative description and what's underneath? A lot of combats with a few social interactions sprinkled in, as a treat. But mostly combats. Many, many combats. I can see this in my session notes which usually note narratives bits, story hooks and other events. For Abomination Vaults it is just a list of combats and XP totals with a social/hook note every tenth entry or more.
At the (virtual) table
The Foundry module really makes this quite usable at the table. Each room entry is pinned to the map and has very clear break outs between read-aloud-text, encounters, hazards, treasure, and general room "lore." These entries are probably still longer than they need to be but are far superior to the PDF with its rooms spilling across pages and hard to parse encounters. There are a couple of sidequests and links that are hard to decipher in both PDF or Foundry.
The biggest drawback as a DM is trying to decipher what's in the next room. Or worse yet what is the DC of this locked door and does it have a key? If a locked door is off an unkeyed hallway? Good luck. All in all the Foundry module is a play-ready tool, with a few missteps.
The Foundry module has ambiance tracks for every floorâor sometimes certain sections of a floorâand they're good! Some key encounters have music and the Ghoul Cult leader has an absolute banger of a track.
Let's delve into the adventure and like the original tome, I'm breaking my review into the three original books that Abomination Vaults is constructed from. Each book covers around 3 levels.
Ruins of the Gauntlight
Abomination Vaults starts strong with an interesting map full of denizens, the Fogfen swamp and the ruined buildings that surround the Gauntlight. Mitflits have made their home here and there is a nice ecology to these ruins they inhabit. Exploration is rewarded by hidden features to find and foreshadowing of the final foe. A separate building makes for an interesting tonal change that builds lore for the dungeon. I think my players still have nightmares about Mister Beak. He was the cause of their first retreat and set the tone for the danger of this space.
There are three different paths to the first subterranean floor and they all feel very different: a hidden water filled cave and stairs in both secret and non-secret varieties. Having multiple points between the dungeon floors helped incentivize exploration and made these first 3 floors feel Jacquaysed.
Shortly after the descent to this first subterranean level the heroes will see the power of the Gauntlight as they rest in Otari. The Gauntlight, a level 20 magical item, has two main powers: to raise the dead as -1 undead or to teleport creatures where the beam falls. The heroes see both here. It was a fun scene and creates some pressure on the heroes. Pressure which is never used again, unfortunately.
With the Gauntlight's foulness swept from Otari, the heroes descend to a level partially occupied by Morlocks. The ecology is quite solid here. The morlocks drove the Mitflits to the surface but are held in check by the ghoul librarians below. There are signs of the morlock's presence and how they developed the space by deconstructing traps, devising barricades and reinforcing their home. The basement of that outbuilding also includes great environmental storytelling that builds on Mister Beak's story and Belcorra's minions. This floor is the morlock floor but there's other critters that feel appropriate for the space like the river drake.
Next up is the library. Belcorra's librarians turned to cannibalism after her death, became ghouls and then decided that they could restore Belcorra through the harvesting of flesh. And well, we got all this humanoid meat around, let's just have a taste... I don't understand where these ghouls have been getting human flesh for the last few hundred years. There are no rumors in Otari or the floors below.
This floor has some wild encounters, presenting choices both pedestrian and insane. They can mime being scribes to pump a ghost for information. With some self-dismemberment they can prevent a combat. There's connections here between the surface and this floor the heroes can call on. Demons and their contracts are introduced, a theme that sees fruition on the 7th floor.
The final floor of this book is Belcorra's retreat which doesn't have any faction presence, but does have a few bigger foesâVolluk, who has been hinted at and the Voidglutton, a servant of Nhimbaloth. My campaign's TPK occurred on this floor at the hands of Vaulgrist when they decided to push their luck by stealing her whip. This is an enemy that is described as having no will to fight unless provoked, which my heroes did!
This floor also delivers more plot by introducing the trapped spirit of Otari Ilvashti, the Roseguard's rogue. While the heroes have seen echoes of him on other floors, this is the location of his full spirit. He provides a lot of backstory and information on Belcorra and her plans.
What stands out in this area is the three factions, their solid motivations and the ability to negotiation with them. This chapter has a lot going on and while some lore feel awfully close to forsaken easter eggs. My players enjoyed interacting with the flavorful NPCs on floors 1 through 3. Borbo, Augrael, and the hapless morlock king Graulgust were all entertaining and fun to play as a GM.
The focus on OSR style play with its factions, absolutely deadly encounters and well expressed ecology is the highlight of the dungeon style play this adventure path is known for. Danger is prevalent, but there is a lot of options for our intrepid heroes with many enemies willing to negotiate and secrets that can change interactions.
While there is a passing mention of restocking the dungeon and having factions move around there is no guidance given. Even if there was guidance, XP leveling shackled me and limited my options. Feeding these players more XP would have quickly scaled the heroes beyond the level of future encounters.
Hands of the Devil
This section of the adventure begins with a tottering step tying Otari back into the story. The path deeper into the Abomination Vaults is blocked by a magical barrier that can be broken only by the presence of MacGuffinsâthe signature "icons" of the heroes that defeated Belcorra 500 years ago, the Roseguard.
This quest line is part fetch quest and part investigation. The fetching is very simple though it tie-ins with a previous quest and a future quest nicely. The only icon that presents any difficulty is the investigation into the theft of an icon. It feels arbitrary and the investigation was a bit underbaked. Everyone knows who stole the icon, the town guard has an "out of our jurisdiction" response and the thief is just cooling his heels less than a day's travel out of town in the local teen party spot. The thief has motivations but they feel confused and I didn't really enjoy running this NPC.
With the barrier broken the party can descend to the next floor, the Arena. Things start to feel off here. There's no gladiators remaining, no factions. This is a kick-down-the-door-and-kill-the-monster-floor.
The next two floors are the laboratory and the prison and they are an improvement over the Arena but still a step down from the first 3 floors. The laboratory is run by Jafaki, an aberration that is fleshcrafting Belcorra a "perfect warrior". The prison is the domain of Urevian, a contract demon that was Belcorra's head of demonic HR. These two factionsâthe Jafaki and his seugathi and the demonsâare supposed to be locked in a cold war but the actual keyed creatures for each side is maybe a dozen. It all rings a little hollow.
What the laboratory and prison do have is interesting environment and ambiance. A little environmental story-telling. There's Jafaki's scientists collecting data, preserved specimens, a hellforge, and a portal to the abyss that help make these places live up to the themes.
The best and weirdest part of this section of the Abomination Vaults? The Warped Brew Tavern. Yes, a tavern in the middle of a horrid laboratory that turns people into monsters. It's full of weird little freaks and they have their own punk band. A nice break in the dungeon crawling. Does it make the laboratories a little weird? Yes! Where are all these future test subjects going? How are there enough to support this tavern? Eh, you get to have a battle of the bands, so who cares.
The key encounter of the Prison level is meeting Urevian the contract demon. The author, really, really wants you to barter with him but I don't know why any party would do so. Give this demon the immortal soul of (the annoying) thief of the icon from the beginning of this section and he'll call of his attack and open the way down. I don't see many players that would entertain these negotiations. Mine didn't! He doesn't have the armies that the lore would have you believe. You're just 1 under level encounter from having everything with no moral quandary. Urevian doesn't bring an interesting incentive to lure players and falls flat.
Eyes of Empty Death
This book is an immediate, palpable change. The Hands of the Devil began a shift that is realized here. Part of this is a result of my heroes being over-leveled for what the adventure is planning. I have thrown nothing at them that's not in this book but they are a level ahead of what the book expects. Yet the encounters aren't just moderate or lowâ they are trivial. That leads me to believe that all of this is undertuned even if you are the appropriate level. Was the intent to make you feel bad-ass? I don't think it landed, if so.
It's here, 7 levels beneath the surface where the first random encounter tables appear. They're... a mixed bag.
The first table for level 7, the Farm, covers only the large Fetid Lake and has two types of entries: moving a monster from another keyed location and a monster that isn't from a keyed room. The wandering monsters are a nice feature! Make the dungeon kinetic and uncertain. Unfortunately, with the route my heroes took they killed every one of these random encounters before they could be encountered randomly. The two unique monster encounters? They're trivial even for an appropriately leveled party. One of these two encounters is half the trivial value. Why even include these?
The second table covers level 8, the Hunting Grounds and is considerably better. The table is for the central portion of the map and it entirely moves monsters around dynamically. As this encounter zone is more centrally located, I can see the design into to make this area feel contested by the various factions. It didn't work at the table with zero encounters rolled.
There's a third somewhat random encounter: Belcorra. When you enter this section of the Abomination Vaults you are given detailed instructions for how to introduce her through encounters with escalating difficulties. At first she pops up and drops a big spell. At a certain point she'll engage in combat until a hero is knocked out. My heroes got to that all out combat really quickly and annihilated Belcorra. Ruh-roh. These players are going to level up 2 more times before the final showdown without Belcorra gaining any new powers.
The Decaying Garden, the seventh floor, is filled with under level encounters, spaces that don't make any narrative sense, underbaked factions and 2 monster closets. Just a 10ft by 10ft room with a large monster in it. One large chamber has 4 encounters keyed to it with nearly all of these being in line of sight and some less than 30 feet away. The whole thing feels like a mess. The different factionsâundead gnome farmers led by a lazy naga and some cultistsâaren't really in conflict and are innately hostile.
The eight floor is the Hunting Grounds, a sprawling cavern featuring a drow outpost, a camp of ravening urdefhan, a dragon, a hunting lodge occupied by caligni, Belcorra's vault, a temple of Nhimbaloth, and a smattering of random monsters. There's a lot going on here! The intent is to make common cause with the drow, break into the vault and learn about the MacGuffins needed to end the game. From there you collect those Macguffins, descend through the temple to the final area and use the plot device to end Belcorra, who is otherwise immortal.
The process of connecting with the drow and learning about the adventure's goal is basically scripted and feels unearned. After showing up and saying what you're doing the drow will help you unless you're a total tool. Similarly, to learn how to defeat Belcorra, you read a book in her vault and Belcorra herselfâthrough the book!âtells you how to use the 4 lenses (remember those?) to hoist her by her own petard.
Again, my player's characters were all wildly over leveled for this despite following the adventure as written. The urdefhan camp really brought this home; described as this incredibly challenging area that would take care to clear out and traverse. My heroes stood toe to toe with the entire camp in one incredibly long combat and slew them all with only minimal issues. Most of these enemies could only hit on a critical hit. Pointless.
That was the first change I made to a combat. It made no sense to be a stone's throw and in light of sight from the camp and not draw in the other urdefhan. So they fought the whole camp and it wasn't even hard. I made other changes as well. A death knight guarding the vault suddenly had a twin brother. The dragon morphed into a new level appropriate dragon. Some encounters were combined. Other hostile creatures of trivial difficulty disappeared or became non-hostile.
Combat difficulties escalated here. Fights that weren't trivial by the rules were defacto trivial thanks to poor setups. Spellcasters in tiny rooms were forced to use melee strikes or risk Reactive Strikes while casting spells. Monsters in closets getting poked from through the door Terrain and tactical movement were rarely used.
My group went "out of order" and descended through the temple of Nhimbaloth to the final floor. This ended up being somewhat dangerous as they followed an undead priest through the trials of Nhimbaloth. These felt poorly explained and arbitrary but the heroes muddled through. They tapped their resources, made the final encounter far more difficult, but still slew the scheming undead priest of Nhimbaloth without breaking a sweat.
With a bit of backtracking my players scooped up the remaining lenses, confronted Belcorra and slew her by pointing her own deranged god at her. It was a dangerous fight thanks to the heroes unwittingly freeing some minions to assist Belcorra. It didn't feel super satisfying with its scripted finale. The players didn't get to exercise any creativity, just leverage the solution the authors wrote. With Belcorra dead, the Gauntlight collapses into the Abomination Vaults leaving a very dangerous hole in the Fogfen swamps but leaving the rest of the dungeon intact.
Final Thoughts
The Abomination Vaults bills itself as a dungeon delve but it doesn't entirely deliver. Things like interlevel teleportation circles and a secondary town on the Hunting Grounds are meant to make movement easier and provide respite in this hostile space. Without time pressure, restocking guidelines and a rule system that doesn't break under that restocking, that respite has no real purpose. Why not go to Otari when the floors above you are empty? Why build relationships with factions when you can just wipe them out and know you're safe.
Using milestone leveling would help, but not fully alleviate this issue. A level 9 Pathfinder character would have no issue fighting level 4 monsters that moved into the Library after the ghouls were ousted. It might provide some good story-telling or make the place feel lived in but it wouldn't be a good game. That time pressure lifted its head as well. Belcorra doesn't do anything. And if the players get deep enough, what monsters is she teleporting into Otari? After clearing out the Vaults, narratively her plan seems utterly toothless. From a mechanical standpoint, the last two acts have no inertia from interesting combats and lose the spark of exploration.
The highlight of the Abomination Vaults was a first act that felt hard scrabble and challenging. A delve through a living space full of weirdos and monsters where you had a huge variety of tools at your disposal. Beyond act 1 the light grew dim, but the Warped Brew Tavern was great. Jafaki's laboratory was pretty good, but missed its full potential.
The last two acts of the Vault slide into mediocrity. The encounters aren't well conceived, the spaces lose their personality and the open ended feel of the first act gives way to a scripted path lacking even mechanical challenge.