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 21: Showdown Above Phandalin!

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

After the arduous ordeal with the roper, the party took a long rest back at the Forge of Spells. After some sleep, we took the time to re-enchant our weapons and armor and discuss the battle plan to face Versh’arek once more. We had been getting closer and closer to his ultimate demise, as we destroyed the first four out of six towers, with this one being the fifth. If we defeated him here, he’d have but one place left to turn to, though this place was, of yet, unknown.

The time had come. We ventured forth to the force field containing him and pushed through. Striver, the dwarven cleric, was the first to witness Versh’arek’s growing power, as the huge spirit creature he’d become loomed above the old bellows of Wave Echo Cave. Seeing the room filled with shades, Striver called upon his deity to strike fear into their essence, chasing nigh all of them away. Fuzz, the halfling rogue, rushed in, loosing an arrow and ducking behind cover. Grigor the fighter killed the one shade that did not fear Striver’s wrath, before Versh’arek came down and tried to control the cleric. Fortunately, the dwarf managed to resist his influence. Aelfwyn, elvish wizard/fighter, gave Lady Atrasian the fighter the potion of flying, granted her haste, and encouraged her to “do her thing”, before finding a more suitable place to strike from afar. Lady Atrasian began by drinking the potion of necrotic resistance, before running into the fray and slashing at Versh’arek. What followed was a plan well executed. Arrows flying, magic missiles hitting, and Lady Atrasian doing some serious ‘weed whacking’ with her greatsword. Striver’s guiding bolt, Fuzz and Grigor with their arrows and crossbow bolts – all struck true! Versh’arek seemed to be overwhelmed by the onslaught and kept failing to hit or take control over us. Lady Atrasian, truly in her prime, struck several mighty blows in a row, critically wounding the wraithlord multiple times in mere seconds, until his essence could contain itself no longer, and dispersed in the air. A truly powerful warrior, she was.

However, what came next, came as a very big surprise indeed. As Versh’arek’s essence faded, an image appeared. It was Haemond – the wizard we had adopted as our own, who we had offered a place within our Tressendar Manor home – speaking to us from elsewhere. As he spoke, he exposed how he, behind our backs, managed to uncover the secrets of Versh’arek, how he hired goblins to take the wraithlord’s bones and how he tapped into Versh’arek’s power, gaining in strength each time we defeated the wraithlord. In his monologue, he showed us the location of the final tower – Phandalin! What was worse, he had the villagers there tethered under his control. Sildar, Quelline, little Carp… this was a betrayal of the biggest kind. But he did not mind at all, as he started destroying the tower in Wave Echo Cave, with us still in there. Taking some hits, we managed to get out of the collapsing room, but got separated from each other. Grigor on one side, Aelfwyn in a separate room, and Atrasian, Striver, and Fuzz in another corridor. Aelfwyn found the trio shortly, and they decided to head for the Forge of Spells, hoping to find Grigor there, as it seemed a logical gathering point. As we headed that way, the cave would rumble, bits of stone falling, cracks forming in the walls. We found our guy, but the tunnels seemed very fragile. It was time to move out, and fast. As we ran, the ceiling started to collapse on us – we took hits. We had to run quickly, but then Fuzz went down. Striver used a healing word, Aelfwyn and Grigor helped Fuzz up, and we have to get out, fast! In the final chamber, we climbed up as more rocks fell, more sustained injuries, but battered and bruised, we finally made it out of Wave Echo Cave. A plume of dust puffed out of the cavern as we faced the warm embrace of the morning sun once more.

We took a short rest to gather our breaths and patch up some wounds, before heading towards Phandalin. We took the rest of the day to get near, but as we got closer, we saw a dark thunderstorm rise above Phandalin, the ground rumbling as if of an earthquake. We were still several miles out, when we saw the town breaking loose from the ground, rising into the air, into the storm. This was a sight unseen for ages. How were we to handle such a powerful foe? We took a long rest for the evening, though to call it an uneasy rest would be an understatement. Our travels had seen us grow more powerful and harness those powers to achieve wonderful things, but this – this was daunting, to say the least. We discussed plans on how we could handle it. Sending one man would be too risky – we would do this together, or not at all.

The party tried to sneak up to Phandalin, Aelfwyn scouting ahead through Athena’s eyes, though we were all awe-struck and thus sneaking was out of the question. A few buildings were still standing on the ground. The island that as once Phandalin was floating high above at the center of the black storm, with many pieces of ruin and large sections of ground circling around it. We quickly searched them for survivors and items of use, but all were empty. Time to get up there, it was. Fashioning ropes together, especially using the Rope of Climbing and Athena to help raise them, we climbed up one floating rock at a time, getting closer to the top, though taking several hours to get there.

As we found ourselves on the final approach, Athena was sent scouting ahead. We saw several civilians from Phandalin, standing still, mist-like tethers extending from their backs, disappearing into a building with a large, 100-foot tall tower. And a roar, a too familiar roar. It was the roar of a dragon – Venomfang must be there as well. We got up to the top floating island, and as we took our positions, shadows attacked us. Grigor took to his longsword, slashing a shadow down. Lady Atrasian, skillfully dispatching two in a row. A shocking grasp, a sneaky halfling, and then there he was: Venomfang. A tether extended out of him, his eyes darkened by the wraithlord’s power. He, too, was mind controlled. A wave of poisonous breath descended upon Aelfwyn, Striver and Lady Atrasian. While Grigor and Atrasian finished off the shadows, I cast a web on top of Venomfang, gluing his wings together as it tumbled from the air onto the floating island. Striver conjured a sleet storm, turning the entire area into a slippery ice field with gusts of wind. The Dragon was now stuck to the ground, and another poisonous breath spewed in the direction of Aelwfyn and Striver. Aelfwyn barely held his concentration as he almost lost consciousness. With Venomfang stuck, a bird having lost his flight, Striver fistbumped Aelfwyn with a cure wounds, reinvigorating the wizard. Lady Atrasian skillfully slashed away at the immobile wyrm, causing a lot of damage. A ray of frost hit Venomfang and it was stabbed deep in its underbelly by Fuzz, before it managed to break free from the webs. Lady Atrasian, standing in front of it, blade in hand, instilled fear into the dragon, as she finished it off with a mighty blow. The terror of the woods was no more.

As the party released some of the villagers from their dark tethers, Striver felt very proud of himself. He sat on the dragon’s corpse, smoking his pipe. Aelfwyn gave the newly freed Sildar one of his shortswords, while Fuzz gave his spare studded leather armor to his cousin, Quilline. Eventually, all the civilians were freed, and gathered to the south of the island, hoping for a safe escape.

We gathered our strength once more, the final showdown was upon us. We closed in, and as we did, the towering pillar at the island’s center unleashes chain lightning on us, striking Aelfwyn down. Fuzz revived him with a healing potion. Versh’arek was there, now gargantuan size. As Grigor shot him with arrows, a familiar voice was heard further back – it was that of Haemund. As we moved closer, a fireball blasted us, hitting Striver, Grigor and Fuzz, with Striver going down. With haste in her boots, Lady Atrasian bullrushed Haemund, tackling him to the ground. Aelfwyn followed with a dash, trying to keep up. Fuzz quickly went in to heal Striver, while Haemund tried to fly away from the fight. He was too slow, however, as Lady Atrasian grappled and held him with his feet in the air. Grigor loosed an arrow at the wizard, critically wounding him, and moved quickly to loose another shot, striking the wizard right through his head. It was the end of Haemund. With this, Versh’arek was himself again, no longer controlled by the mad wizard and at his most powerful. Striver cast Beacon of Hope, encouraging us all to keep up the good fight. This was our stand, this was where it would end, for better or worse.

Lady Atrasian now focused her onslaught on the wraithlord, as Aelfwyn scoured the dead wizard for any useful items or clues as to how the island floated. Immediately noticing the wizard’s winged boots, Aelfwyn exchanged his own boots, though they seemed to have no particular effect at the time. As this was happening, Versh’arek summoned more of his loyal shades to attack once more, wounding several of us. Striver’s turn undead struck fear into them once more, though not all. As Atrasian and Fuzz missed their hits, Versh’arek struck, and struck hard. Striver ran in to cure wounds on Atrasian, while killing a shadow. Atrasian managed to get some more critical hits in. As Aelfwyn took Haemund’s wand, one of the shades managed to critically wound him, knocking him unconscious. Grigor too got hit and drained of some strength, while Lady Atrasian came to a halt, now that Aelfwyn’s haste spell was no longer in effect. Striver chased off the last of the shades, and healed Aelfwyn again. We struck a few more hits unto the wraithlord, Striver trying to keep us all alive, Athena now being sent in to help distract Versh’arek, giving the rest a better chance of hitting him. And so, Striver struck with a critical guiding bolt, sending radiant energy coursing through the creature. Versh’arek was looking dire, and he tried to lumber away. Grigor hit, Atrasian hit, Aelfwyn sent a huge surge of magic missiles his way, crippling the creature further as Athena distracted. Striver sent another guiding bolt, but in the end, it was the smallest of us all and perhaps the bravest – Fuzz – who flung his sword right into the deep dark depths of the wraithlord. Versh’arek crumbled to dust.

With the wraithlord finally dead, the clouds started to disperse, the storm ending… and the floating island started to shake and crumble. It appeared he was the source of the magic keeping it in the air – the island slowly started falling. Aelfwyn deduced what was going on – with Versh’arek holding the tower as a rod funneling lightning – lightning must be the answer. He rushed up to the tower – with all his strength, focus and expertise in evocation magic, he channeled all into casting powerful lightning into the tower, as the island continued to crumble. Fuzz and Lady Atrasian had already run out of the tower, gathering the civilians and trying to get them down via the ropes. Grigor had been sapped of strength and could barely move, as Striver took some of his load off of him. He tried to drag Aelfwyn away, but Aelfwyn managed to shake him off, shouting that this is what he had to do. This is what could give them all a chance to survive, even if it would cost him his own life. A greedy little bastard, Striver took whatever he could find on Aelfwyn that wasn’t being worn and took off with his possessions, with Grigor in tow, dashing to get off the floating island, of which most had already crumbled and fallen to the land below. Only a small path remained, allowing the party to escape, while Aelfwyn kept his focus and gave everything he had in him. As they all tumbled further towards the surface, the powers of Aelfwyn proved enough by a bare minimum to slow them all down just enough to not plummet all to their deaths. As they hit the ground, the tower collapsed over Aelfwyn.

As the party and the civilians, all wounded from the crash landing and the earlier battles, got back on their feet, they witnessed the destruction that had befallen them. As the dust settled, one man stood tall over the ruins, breathing heavily; an owl on his shoulder, fierceness in his eyes. Aelfwyn had managed to dodge the falling debris, and while heavily wounded from the battle, managed to save everyone from falling to their deaths.

It had been done. Versh’arek was no more, his towers destroyed. Haemund was gone. But at what cost? Wave Echo Cave was no more, Phandalin was wiped off the map, with many dead along the way. A path of destruction had followed the party now known as the Phandelver’s Pact. Was it all worth it in the end? What would happen to them after this great adventure? I hoped we would all find out soon enough.

This has been an amazing campaign and I for one am thrilled with this climatic ending. Thank you Steve, for making this campaign so awesome. You’re all the best!

Next Time: The campaign is over! Or is it…

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