Hi all,

I previously posted some warts-and-all email summaries of the ‘Curse of Strahd’ campaign I ran in 2017-18, the ‘Tomb of Annihilation’ campaign I ran in 2018-19 and ‘Out of the Abyss’, a campaign I ran in 2020. CoS was the first campaign I sent summaries to players by email after each game (I was a bit lazy prior to that). Here’s another grand campaign that started out with a slightly warped version of ‘Lost Mine of Phandelver’, then rolled on to merge ‘Storm King’s Thunder’ and ‘Princes of the Apocalypse’ (it took the intrepid heroes to 20th level using experience points – yes, those antiquated things lol). Please note it was never called ‘Footfall’ in the beginning, as it was originally just going to be playing the Lost Mine, but I had some ideas along the way and the campaign grew as it went along in an ad hoc, improvised manner, adapting parts of Storm King’s and Princes to fill out the story. The main villain wasn’t even thought of until about three-quarters of the way through the 70-session campaign. Each session was approximately 5 hours (sometimes more) long. This campaign was also the first time I didn’t write all the summaries – some of the players were given that task and did so admirably! Most of the summaries appear here as they first appeared (with minor edits). If you’re a D&D fan you may enjoy them. And maybe even if you aren’t.

Steve 🙂

Part 13: Neverwinter Night

(Transcription by Pieter, who played Aelwyn the elvish wizard.)

After the Venomfang fiasco, Aelfwyn went invisible, and Athena the owl familiar disappeared. The rest of the party continued watching as Venomfang destroyed the tower and flew off to the east with their treasure. Three hours later, they rejoined Striver, the resting dwarven cleric, and told him what happened. Noticing Aelfwyn, the elven wizard, didn’t rejoin the party, they looked around town and tried locating him via magic, to no avail.

Aelfwyn made a quick pace towards Neverwinter. His invisibility spell lasted for an hour, allowing him to make some distance without being spotted. Along the road, Athena the owl noticed some roaming goblins and hooted to let Aelfwyn know. He tried to sneak around them, but his fast pace caused a lot of noise – the goblins spotted him and started chasing. Fortunately, they all ran closely together, and a perfectly placed Shatter spell knocked all seven of them out at once. Feeling cocky, Aelfwyn took some coins from them and with a jump in his step and his chin up high, he continued quickly towards Neverwinter, finding his way to the House of Knowledge (in the Temple of Oghma) and resting there.

The party, after resting in Thundertree, decided to pass by Neverwinter as well. Everything went well until just a few miles out of the city – a pack of bloodthirsty dire wolves set upon them. These dire wolves, dwarfing regular wolves, were salivating at the sight of three juicy horses, and promptly leapt to devour them. It didn’t take long for Striver to be thrown off his horse, while another horse collapsed in the reigns of the cart. Despite valiantly defending themselves, the party failed to save their horses. Out of money, out of horses, tired, bloody, angry, they arrived at the city gates, pushing forth the cart. People laughed at their plight, but promptly went silent when Grigor glared at them while caressing his sword.

Resting up in Neverwinter, the party got in touch with Bill, their contact from the Lord’s Alliance, and handed over Fuzz the halfling rogue’s hand-drawn map of Thundertree and asked for work and leads on Venomfang. They also received some replacement draft horses. They split up: Lady Atrasian the fighter went to the House of Knowledge and found Aelfwyn in deep thought, reading a book. Seemingly distant, he agreed to meet up with the rest of the gang. Aelfwyn had been studying the past day, trying to find any useful information on green dragons, but had of yet not found anything noteworthy.

Aelfwyn wanted to spend more time gathering information and contemplating his duties, while the rest of the party looked for work around town. They found a bounty on a local criminal’s head – not as much as they’d normally earn adventuring, but a fair wage to bring a dangerous criminal to justice. They gathered up and went looking for his whereabouts, eventually finding an old warehouse with rooms on top, windows barred and sealed from within. Striver knocked on the door, only to surprise the man with a touch of death – his face, melted away as he screamed in agony. Then Striver opened the lock, and the party stormed inside. The few guards weren’t much of a threat, but the gang leader and his second-in-charge proved very challenging. Clearly skilled fighters, they gave as much as they took, with Striver going down once and Grigor, multiple times. In the end, the party managed to knock the gang leader out, while the second tumbled down the stairs and broke his neck.

The party took in the gang leader, one of his cronies and proof of death of his second, which netted them 50 GP at the marshal’s office. They also found some gemstones, a potion of necrotic resistance and a bag of dust of disappearance. (The party is now level 5)

Part 14: Haemond Missing & Cragmaw Calling

(Transcription by Pieter, who played Aelwyn the elvish wizard.)

The party spent a couple of days in Neverwinter, getting everything sorted. They gathered supplies for Phandalin, while Aelfwyn learned a few spells and the basics of the Netherese language, then took to the road for Phandalin. As night fell, Grigor decided to hunt while the rest hunkered down for the night. As darkness fell, they heard heavy footsteps coming closer. With a flick of the wrist, Aelfwyn put out the campfire, while Striver, Lady Atrasian and Fuzz set an ambush. As the footsteps drew closer, they saw two hill giants wandering near their camp. Ready to pounce, they snuffed out their torch, and gave them a good show of lightning and fire, cutting them up. As the first fell, a third hill giant rushed in, but to no avail. He fell with his brethren, leaving three grotesque bodies on the road. They carried with them a lot of gold and silver, some moldy bread and a tombstone with the engraving “Bilbo was here” carved on it.

The next day, as the party drew closer to their destination, another giant showed up in the distance. This one looked different – taller, leaner, more intelligent – and didn’t attack. He waved at them and came closer, saying something in his native language. With the use of Comprehend Language, the party discovered he was asking for the road south, and seeing how he was so gracious and waited ten minutes for the ritual, they helped him on his way.

Finally arriving in Phandalin, the party took the tombstone to Sister Garaelle, whom, using her influence within the Harpers, informed them that Venomfang had been spotted in the mountains to the southeast. She noted a lot of giant activity in the area, to which the party shared their experiences: the hill giant aiding the Dragon Cult, the ones they killed along the road and the friendly stone giant. If they didn’t have more pressing matters, it would be something to investigate. Fuzz visited his sister and nephew, entertaining them with wild tales of his adventures.

That evening, the party gathered once more to rest in their home base, Tresendar Manor. As they entered, things seemed eerily quiet. No Haemond, no Droop, not even a lit torch. They moved cautiously, lighting torches along the way, looking for any signs of what may have happened. Their first instinct was to check the research room where Haemond had been busy translating the Netherese tablets. As Aelfwyn opened the door, ghastly hands reached forth, slashing him. He stumbled back, instinctively casting a fireball in the room (why is it wizards instinctively go to fireball). The blast, combined with the volatile materials of the alchemy set in the room, was far bigger than normal. Grigor skillfully dodged away, but when the dust settled, everything in that room was gone. Monsters, books, clues, all gone. Strangely enough, the stone tablets were also gone – not even a trace of them being destroyed by the blast – simply not there. As Grigor investigated the next room, crimson writing decorated the wall in Netherese script. It translated along the lines of: “I have taken Haemond, come to Wave Echo Cave”. After investigating the rest of the base, nothing was out of the ordinary, except the question remained: how did the foe get in? The entrances were protected by arcane locks. Investigating them lead to the conclusion that the spells were broken and recast. The party cast new arcane locks, just in case, but if their foe could get in before, it wouldn’t help much now.

Not knowing the location of Wave Echo Cave, the party set forth the next day for Cragmaw Castle, to look for Striver’s cousins. As with several locations before, it was shrouded by a dark dome, a force field they struggled to get through. Once inside, two owlbears attacked. There was something strange about them, but the party continued. They figured the element of surprise was no longer in play. Aelfwyn went into Athena’s mind to scout around the castle, but Striver couldn’t wait and rushed forth. Apparently, nobody was interested in guarding the blind and deaf wizard, for as Aelfwyn returned back to his own mind, everyone was already moving into the castle. Striver laughed hysterically and cried “I’m fine, I got this!” As the rest of the party slowly climbed the entrance stairs, they saw him surrounded by a pack of goblins and hobgoblins. Aelfwyn pointed out there were some hill giants and dire wolves around the back of the castle. Striver blasted the goblins apart with roaring thunder. As he moved further in, more goblins attacked, surrounding him. The rest of the party moved inside as well, finding plenty of goblins for all to enjoy. Getting shot at from the sides, Fuzz lit up a flask of oil and threw it inside one of the arrow slits, while another shatter and a big fireball killed the last of the goblins. The entrance was filled with a huge pile of over thirty slain goblins. The strange thing was that all of them were emotionless – darkness filling their eyes, with a mystic black tether connecting them all to something further inside the castle. As much as the party wanted to continue, the fight had already drained them of resources, so Aelfwyn conjured up a Leomund’s Tiny Hut for a long rest…

Next episode: Deeper into Cragmaw!

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