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 some edits). If you’re a D&D fan you may enjoy them. And maybe even if you aren’t.

Steve 

Disclaimer

If you’ve been following these posts from the beginning, you’ll have noticed the initial summaries were written by my players because I just didn’t have the time. Then I started doing them because they didn’t have the time (even though I still didn’t have the time – it was a bit of a chicken and egg situation, really). Then another of my players volunteered, and he actually recorded the sessions so he could transcribe them. As you might expect, his summaries had a lot more detail than the previous ones because of this (and no, I don’t have those recordings lol).

All the remaining summaries from 57 onwards were done by me, and the length basically came down to how much time I had (or more accurately, didn’t have).

Cheers

Steve 🙂

Session 67: Tarrasque Down

While half the party finished off the Frost Giants in the lodge, Verendus (the tiefling sorcerer) freed Cryovain the White Dragon. The rest of the Frost Giants surrendered. The Pact gathered up their treasure, took the Pennant of the Vind Rune from the longship and returned to their airship. Cryovain was now a new ally for the Pact, promising Verendus one of its children.

The next morning the party leveled up to 19th.

Returning to Neverwinter, the Pact discovered the city was in a panic as the skies glowed redly and a set of three giant green eyes stared down from above. Aelfwyn (the elvish wizard/fighter) built Fuzz (halfling rogue) a lead helmet to stop Fu’at Fu’al messing with the poor halfling’s head. Receiving several magical gifts from patrons of the Lord’s Alliance, the Pact decided to use the city’s teleportation circle and head to Waterdeep to confront the Tarrasque ravaging that city. Bill Ormond, the party’s Lord’s Alliance contact, appeared to be dead as all contact with him was lost.

Arriving in the ruins, the party fought the Tarrasque and defeated it (it had 1500 HP) in 7 rounds via Aelfwyn’s ever-reliable illusory dragon, Kathra’s new sunforged sword (he’s an aasimar paladin), invisible Fuzz’s sneak attacks and Verendus’s meteor swarm. Grigor (human fighter) delivered the final blows by shooting with magic arrows from the inside. Ho hum. Just goes to show how powerful 19th-level PCs are. Meanwhile, the green eyes overhead seemed… irritated… by this development.

Part 68: The Maelstrom & the Storm Giants

In the eerily quiet ruins of Waterdeep, the Pact attempted to recover their magic harp, which was stored in a bank vault here before the city was destroyed by the Tarrasque. Unfortunately, everything had been laid to waste – there was no life, no sound, no magic. To the west over the horizon, the skies over the Maelstrom (the Storm King’s palace) were a swirling torrent of red clouds and lightning.

The party teleported to the Eye of the Allfather to talk to the Oracle. They spent a day and night there, discovering a Conch of Teleportation embedded in the wall and asking the Oracle how to use it to get to the Maelstrom. They also asked where the final conflict would be, and some research from Aelfwyn in the Apocalyptica confirmed it would be Phandalin – a nexus of power for the Netherese wizard Versh’r’ak and Footfall. In the night, everyone experienced terrible nightmares, all pointing to the destruction of everything at the hands of Footfall. Verendus, learning that Neverwinter might be in danger, teleported with Kathra to rescue his parents (against the wishes of the party). Sure enough, Neverwinter was about to be overtaken by a tidal wave of red sands, just as Aelfwyn had dreamed it. Verendus saved his mother and father, Bill the Hobgoblin manservant and 500 people in a demiplane and teleported to Citadel Felbarr just before the wave buried Neverwinter completely.

Meanwhile, Aelfwyn was very upset that Verendus had abandoned the party when the priority should be defeating Footfall. Fuzz and Grigor persuaded Aelwyn not to blow the Conch. A few sending messages later, and Verendus and Kathra advised they would either meet the party at the Maelstrom or in Phandalin. Aelfwyn blew the conch and Fuzz and Grigor traveled with him to the Storm King’s Palace.

The Dwarven armies based at Citadel Felbarr, 30 000 strong, were waiting to link up with the Fire Giants and Dragons, who were on their way. They would travel together to Phandalin for the final conflict. Messages were sent to the Elves and the remnants of the Human armies of the Lord’s Alliance. Kathra and Verendus sought the assistance of a Felbarr Wizard to scry Grigor’s location, who then teleported the two to join the Pact.

After waiting in a room for an audience with the new king, the Pact were taken to the throne room, where they found Iarno Albrekt, their old foe and current patron, sitting on the Wyrmskull Throne and clutching the Korolnor Scepter – the last two items they needed before facing Fu’at Fu’al. Iarno explained he had been contacted by Aelfwyn who told him his copy of the Apocalyptica was incorrect, so he had decided to scrap his previous plan of having the Pact recover all his items and just take them himself.

Roll for initiative…

Part 69: Showdown with Iarno

The Pact defeated Iarno Albrech and his Storm Giant entourage after getting slammed with multiple lightning bolts and a meteor swarm! Grigor peppered the wizard and Fuzz finished Iarno off by sneaking invisibly onto the Wyrmskull Throne and backstabbing him. A short battle later and it was all over. The party recovered the Throne and the Scepter – they now had all the items they needed to battle Footfall. Verendus unfortunately missed out on having his revenge against the man who cast him into the streets of Neverwinter as a child.

Teleporting to the ruins of Phandalin (just as they heard the sounds of cracking glass in the next room – no doubt the huge window to the sea being impacted by something big), the Pact started to plan for the big battle. The armies of the dwarves, elves, giants, dragons and the Lords Alliance were on their way and would arrive in a few days.

The Pact teleported to Ironslag and used the Iron Flask to trap Maegera the Dawn Titan – another ally for their final battle against Footfall…

The PCs advanced to 20th level.

Next Week: The Final Session of the Campaign: The End of all things…   

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