Welcome to this written chronicle of a full tabletop roleplaying game session, set in the Pathfinder universe. Throughout this series, we follow step by step the official adventure Crypt of the Everflame, with real dialogue between players, Game Master descriptions, dice rolls, tactical decisions, and moments of pure narrative roleplay. The story unfolds in the village of Kassen and its legendary crypt, in a campaign that’s perfect for both newcomers to Pathfinder and fans of immersive, interactive dark fantasy. Each chapter captures what truly happened at the table—unfiltered, filled with tension, drama, and dice.
Join us in this Pathfinder 1e adventure, told like a living novel.
This adventure is played using the rules of Pathfinder First Edition.
DM: Night hangs over Kassen like an old winter blanket—damp and far too heavy. The clouds crawl across the sky as if Gozreh himself had forgotten them, and the flames in the village lanterns flicker with a cold whisper. The murmur of the Tourondel River is barely audible beneath the symphony of wind howling through the trees, rattling shutters and bending branches. It’s a night made for deep sleep… or for nightmares.
But for Thamir Odran, rest has been a denied luxury.
You sleep poorly that night.
Winter’s weight has not yet fully descended, but you can already feel the dampness creeping through your walls like a persistent whisper. The blanket is too thin, the mattress too hard, and the memory of last week’s conjuration exams still buzzes in your head like a maddening fly.
Then you hear it: tap, tap, tap…
Not at the door, but at the window—rhythmic, and not quite human. When you open your eyes, still half-caught in the veil of dreams, you see a flickering green light vanish just as you sit up. Your heart skips a beat. There’s only one person in Kassen who uses magical messages in the dead of night.
Holgast. Your master.
Your stomach tightens. The old man barely speaks to you during the day… and if he does so at night, it’s because something can’t wait.
The cold greets you the moment you pull the blanket aside. Your bare feet touch the stone floor, and the chill snaps you fully awake. Outside, no crickets sing. The wind whistles between the houses like an old faceless spirit. You dress quickly, grab your staff —which has yet to channel a real spell in combat— and step onto the threshold.
The mist has settled over the streets, low and thick, like a sheet dragged by unseen hands. In the distance, at the eastern edge of the village, you see your master’s crooked tower. A single light burns at its peak. He’s waiting for you.
Each step crunches against the creeping frost. The houses sleep. The village sleeps. But you do not.
When you reach the base of the tower, the wooden door creaks open on its own with a long, drawn-out groan. The familiar scent of Holgast strikes you like a memory: old scrolls, dried ink, singed herbs… and the faint hint of ozone that lingers where magic sleeps.
From above, his voice spirals down the staircase like contained thunder:
Holgast: Thamir! Come up. Erastil grants us this night for something important. The shadows… the shadows have begun to move. And you must see them before it’s too late.
DM: As you pass by a fogged window, you catch your reflection in the glass. It’s easy to forget how young you are on nights like this—when the weight of the unknown settles on your shoulders.
Your face is slender and angular, with a pallor that doesn’t speak of weakness, but of long hours spent between books and candlelight. Your hair—black as wet ink—is tied back with a simple cord, save for a few rebellious strands that always slip down your forehead, as if to remind you you’re human, not a statue carved from wisdom.
Your eyes are grey, cold as well water before dawn. Not for lack of feeling, but because your gaze always seems to reach further—beyond the visible world, beyond daily lies, as if you’re always on the verge of remembering an important dream.
Your build is average, but steady—like someone who has learned that the mind is a muscle that must also support the body. You stand about five foot ten—178 centimeters—and your back already bears the subtle curve of someone who’s spent too many hours hunched over scrolls. Still, your movements have a precision to them, almost meditative.
You wear a brown wool robe, cinched with a leather belt lined with small compartments for flasks and chalk. A burgundy scarf—your mother’s gift—wraps your neck in knots that echo old protective charms. In your right hand, the birchwood staff you carved yourself under Holgast’s watchful eye: plain, straight, unadorned… but full of potential.
The night breeze shakes your cloak, and for a moment, you look like the apprentice you’ve always been. But in your eyes, a spark burns. Tonight, something begins.
What do you do?
Thamir: Seeing Holgast calling me from above, I hurry upstairs, asking why the rush.
DM: The stairs creak beneath your boots as you climb two at a time, your staff tapping sharply against the stone with every hurried step. The inside of the tower is shrouded in gloom, lit only by floating embers that drift slowly like old fireflies. The air smells of stardust, melted wax… and something else, something metallic, like blood spilled on an ancient tome.
Holgast’s voice, distant and cracked, reaches you from above, laced with barely-contained urgency:
Holgast: Quickly, boy! Time won’t wait for us tonight!
Thamir: He raises his voice as he ascends, tone taut from the shock and lingering fatigue:
“Master Holgast! What’s going on? Why the urgency? Why call me at this hour?”
DM: There’s no immediate answer. Only the dry snap of a book being shut… and then, a whisper:
Holgast: “Because something that was never meant to dream… has awakened.”
DM: As you reach the final step, you push open the door to the upper chamber. It groans as if it hadn’t been opened in years, though you know Holgast passes through it daily. The room is cluttered with books drifting at different speeds, a chalkboard scribbled with symbols that rewrite themselves, and a hunched figure standing before a mirror black as the void—taller than a man’s height twice over.
It’s Holgast, yes… but tonight his silhouette seems more stooped. His robe is crooked, his beard disheveled, and his eyes—normally lost in the haze of pipe smoke—are locked onto you like blades.
Holgast: “The flame of Kassen doesn’t answer. The signs have changed. The cards. The crows. And I dreamed… of him. Of Asar.”
DM: He casts a look at you—and for the first time in all these years, you see real fear in your master’s eyes.
Holgast: “Something stirs in the crypt, Thamir. And you’re going down there tomorrow. It’s no longer just a ceremony. It’s a warning.”
Thamir: “Who is Asar?”
DM: The question leaves your lips like a heartbeat—instinctive, urgent. Holgast closes his eyes for a moment. A sigh escapes him like air from an ancient tomb. With trembling hands, he pushes aside one of the floating books and gestures toward the black mirror before him. Its surface—opaque just moments ago—begins to shimmer with a bluish sheen, revealing blurred images: blackened trees, a stone crypt, bones scattered across marble… and a fleshless face crowned by a dented helm, its empty sockets staring straight at you.
Holgast: “Asar Vergas… was once a man, nearly two centuries ago. Comrade-in-arms of none other than Ekat Kassen himself—the founder of our village. Adventurers. Brothers-in-arms. And eventually… enemies. The official tale says he betrayed Kassen, returned with a band of mercenaries to claim a treasure he believed was rightfully his. But the truth, Thamir… the truth is darker. And tonight, his bones have begun to stir.”
DM: The mirror flickers, and for a brief second, you glimpse a toppled torch beside a bloodstained wall. Then all goes dark again. Holgast looks at you now, more grave than ever:
Holgast: “Asar was sealed with his men in the crypt, in a deep chamber. A precaution. A warning. But the seals have been broken. Something… someone… has desecrated the place. And the flame of Kassen, which has burned for generations, has gone out in my dreams.”
DM: He pauses.
Holgast: “And if my nightmares speak true… you and the others are walking into a trap.”
DM: He fixes his gaze on you, heavy with meaning.
Holgast: “Tell me, Thamir… are you ready to see death without its mask?”
DM: As Holgast’s apprentice, you’ve often heard him say that the line between genius and madness is as thin as a poorly folded piece of parchment. And if anyone walks that edge barefoot, it’s your master.
Holgast has always been an enigma to the people of Kassen—an eccentric sage who talks to an unlit pipe, forgets your name mid-lesson, or claims he corresponds magically with the trees of Fangwood. Children fear him and mimic his deep voice; adults respect him, though not always seriously.
And yet, Holgast is the one who secretly oversees the village’s oldest tradition: the Ceremony of the Everflame.
Over the years, you realized—like other sharp-eyed youths before you—that the crypt ritual is a trial, yes… but also a carefully staged performance. False traps, illusory monsters, riddles meant to frighten only those who still believe in them… All of it orchestrated.
The adults don’t speak of it openly, of course. But you’ve learned to hear the silence between their words. In their knowing glances, their overly formal warnings, the mayor’s theatrical tone when announcing the departure. It’s all choreographed so that those who enter the crypt feel like they’re living a grand adventure… while the veterans ensure nothing truly goes wrong.
Thamir: “If death wears shadows, then I’ll bring enough light to see it coming. I’m more than ready, Master. Besides, I’ve got Harlon with me—and that brute could split anything that gets in our way in half.”
DM: Holgast doesn’t smile… but his eyebrows rise, and for a moment, a flicker of pride flashes in his eyes. Perhaps for your resolve. Or perhaps because you understood the subtext. You know how to play the game. And he values that more than any well-cast spell.
He turns slowly and retrieves a small wooden case etched with symbols you recognize—old, but still functional glyphs of minor protection.
Holgast: “Then take this, Thamir.”
“Inside is a magic pearl—small, seemingly worthless. But if you hold it at noon, and speak the words inscribed at its base… you’ll be able to remember me, even if I’m not there with you. Use it only if the shadows are no longer part of the script.”
DM: He hands you the box without meeting your eyes, and adds—almost as if speaking to himself:
Holgast: “Good students repeat what they’re taught. True mages… do what must be done when the master can no longer act.”
DM: Thamir, as you hold that small wooden box in your hands, you can’t help but feel a torrent of memories rise—chaotic, frustrating, often ridiculous, but undeniably valuable—like scattered pages from a grimoire refusing to stay shut.
Your training under Holgast was not what you expected.
When you volunteered to be his apprentice, you imagined arcane trials, ancient riddles, magical challenges to test your mind. And for a few minutes, that’s exactly what you got. He asked you to solve a riddle about the number of fingers on a stone golem’s hand. You solved it.
Then he had you scrub the 38 steps of his tower with a toothbrush. One he’d enchanted to sing “Kiss Me Mucho” every time you used it wrong.
For weeks, you learned more about cleaning messenger raven cages than about spellcraft. He made you wash his robe using only rainwater collected in clay jars you had to craft yourself—then smash, to prove you understood the impermanence of matter. Once, you spent three full days in rotating shifts to keep a magical candle lit… only for him to blow it out with a sneeze and say:
“Good. Now you know that nothing lasts—except the poor memory of a scholar.”
He slept most of the day. He snored so violently once that it toppled a stack of books by sheer vibration. His lessons, when they came, were erratic, cryptic, and often began with, “Did I ever tell you about the time I argued philosophy with a wind elemental…?”
But you didn’t quit. You waited. You watched. You spied.
You discovered that Holgast left books open “by accident”… only when he wanted you to learn something. You stole glances at his grimoire while he drooled on its runes in slumber, and copied spells with trembling hands by moonlight.
And what you learned… was real. Not orderly. Not elegant. But real.
You learned to cast Magic Missile using the reflection of his pipe on the ceiling as your guide. You learned Detect Magic by watching how his eyes would sharpen whenever someone entered with an enchanted item. And you learned Discipline—not through his teaching, but through your own decision not to give up.
Because, in the end, Holgast only teaches those who insist long enough to stop needing him.
And you, Thamir Odran, did.
He never told you so. Never praised your progress. But that pearl he gave you tonight… that truly enchanted object, with no joke, no trick—it means something.
For the first time, you’re not standing in his tower as an apprentice.
You’re standing there… as a wizard.
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