Pathfinder 2E Running Abomination Vaults: SPOILERS!

[Gfreak2x9]

Hello!

First off, SPOILER ALERT! In this thread myself and others will be talking about the Pathfinder 2e Module "Abomination Vaults" from a GM's perspective! Ye be warned!

So its been well over a year since I ran a game and I find myself struggling to retain the info that I'm reading in the module! I am also having some issues understanding exactly what is going on in the story! I have read the module over, but its just not sticking! With that said here are some of my questions...

Whats up with Belcorra? Is she supposed to be a full on mystery? Are the players to know of her return? Are they supposed to figure it out on their own? In the module it includes a nursery rhyme about her that parents tell their children to get them to behave! But is that to imply that people actually knows that she is down there in he Vaults?

Has this dungeon been locked up all these years and is just now being opened? If so how did these monsters live all that time? On what food? Did they venture out into the world to eat or is this whole place a self contained ecosystem?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions as this thread goes on, but please help me with the questions I have asked thus far!

 

[Retreater]

Whats up with Belcorra? Is she supposed to be a full on mystery? Are the players to know of her return? Are they supposed to figure it out on their own? In the module it includes a nursery rhyme about her that parents tell their children to get them to behave! But is that to imply that people actually knows that she is down there in he Vaults?

My players didn't know about her activity until investigating the dungeon. People in the area might know the legends and tell stories, but I don't think many actually believe she still lives there.

Has this dungeon been locked up all these years and is just now being opened? If so how did these monsters live all that time? On what food? Did they venture out into the world to eat or is this whole place a self contained ecosystem?

Yeah, some get out into the wild. There's a river drake on level 2 who likes going into the swamp to eat. Also, there are underground connections to the Darklands (aka Underdark) where some of them can get food.

But mostly (and this is one of the reasons my group fell off the AP before we finished Book 1), it's mostly a monster hotel without stakes, a timer, or any connection to the outside world - at least initially.
If your group is looking for those elements, you might want to add some of your own details.

 

[thullgrim]

we just started chapter 2. I gave my players some information about Belcorra in the context of the founding of Otari and the Roseguard. Basically just the first couple of paragraphs from the intro in chapter one, stripped of anything about her return.

Now that my characters have enters the dungeon proper on level 2, she’s aware that someone is in her business. When the scalathrax is teleported into the graveyard during the Dead Rise event I had a messages carved into its chitin that amounts to a warning to stay out! I want to create a reason for my players to continue to delve the dungeon and really want to start building some hate towards her.

I think periodically she is going to sho up, or be seen, and leave little messages for them.

 

[Velderan]

Whats up with Belcorra? Is she supposed to be a full on mystery? Are the players to know of her return? Are they supposed to figure it out on their own? In the module it includes a nursery rhyme about her that parents tell their children to get them to behave! But is that to imply that people actually knows that she is down there in he Vaults?

The people of Otari knew about Belcorra in the past because of the Roseguard settling in town, so I think modern day Otari is under the assumption she's dead and people use her legend to scare kids into behaving.

I decided to rework the intro a bit, since my players were running the Beginner Box first. I stuck with using Wrin as a hook to get the players interested in what was happening in the area. Most of the heroes knew her from past experiences, so she asked them to come to Otari to help figure out why she was having troubling visions. Since Tamily mentioned to Wrin strange occurrences in the fishery, that gave them a reason to go see what they could do to help her first. Upon clearing out the tunnels below the fishery, they ended up following a tunnel out of town to a camp a couple hours away from town. The timing worked because it put them far enough away from town that it was later in the evening when they returned to claim their reward from Tamily for taking care of her problem. They reported the events below the fishery to Captain Longsaddle and were planning to retire to an inn room for the night when they saw the Gauntlight begin to glow. I then ran the graveyard encounter and had the group deal with that to transition to the AP material. Upon clearing out the graveyard, Wrin arrived to give them a little bit of history of Gauntlight and Belcorra. Since her troubling visions didn't go away when they cleared out the tunnels below the fishery, she urged them to investigate Gauntlight Keep to find out how it was able to raise the dead. I had Wrin mention Belcorra's worship of Nhimbaloth and feared what may happen if she was somehow able to make a deal with the Outer God.

Investigating the first level, they learned about Volluk Azrinae from Tangletop in area A19 and connected that with the portraits in A22 to piece together he may be behind whatever is happening. The blood hazard in A11 helps keep Belcorra as a background threat, but it seems like my group left that encounter thinking Volluk was trying to use the power of the lighthouse to revive her. They just found the key to open the hatch into the upper part of the lighthouse, so they'll likely go straight there when we play next week. The session ended with a near TPK in A15 because the corpselights started combat with the first 2 moves and scored back to back crits which put 2 PCs down before the encounter really started. They had enough healing to get both PCs up, but they ended the fight in pretty rough shape.