The Untold Adventures of Fap Longwood & Friends!

[mikeawmids]

The Adventures of Fap Longwood #27 (Tyranny of Dragons)

Before Horatio confronts Cyanwrath, Brian casts Warding Bond, creating a spiritual tether between the two dwarves. Horatio gains resistance to all damage, but any injuries he does sustain are mirrored on the cleric’s person.

“So, ye like picking on low level characters, do ye?” Horatio growls, circling the dragonborn warrior.

Cyanwrath lunges, swinging his massive greatsword in a savage downward slash. Horatio deflects the blow with his shield but is caught by surprise when the dragonborn uses Action Surge to take another swing. Up on the battlements, Brian grunts as a bloody gash appears along his arm.

Horatio lands a few good hits on his scaly opponent and Cyanwrath retaliates by spitting lightning in the dwarf’s face. Horatio hops back, his beard bristling with static electricity. Above, Brian grimaces as invisible shockwaves wrack his body.
The duel continues for a few more rounds, until Horatio defeats the dragonborn, thanks largely to his warding bond with Brian. Horatio beheads his opponent and waves the gristly trophy like a flag. The dragon cultists can barely contain their dismay as Cyanwrath goes down! The prisoners are released and the cult pulls back from the keep. Horatio returns to the walls and hurls insults at the retreating forces.

 

[mikeawmids]

The Adventures of Fap Longwood #28 (Tyranny of Dragons)

Governor Nighthill encourages the heroes to rest, but Horatio is too energised after his duel for sleep to come easily. Instead, he interrogates the two cult prisoners in the keep’s dungeon. Despite Horatio’s intimidating presence, the cultists cannot be broken; they fear the wrath of Tiamat far more than the threat of a vanilla beating.

After a short rest, the heroes return to the walls. Governor Nighthill is in a flap because the Dragon Cult are trying to burn the town’s mill and incinerate their stockpile of flour. Escobert is gathering men to defend the building, but someone needs to stop the cult from burning it down before he gets there.

The party exit the keep via an old run-off tunnel, emerging on the muddy bank of the stream running through the centre of town. Four masked cultists and a heavily armed human mercenary loiter outside the building, but something seems off. The bad guys are making a big show of brandishing their torches, but it’s more of a pantomime peril than an actual threat. Fap sneaks around the back of the mill and is unsurprised to find another eight enemies waiting in ambush. It seems like the Dragon Cult wanted to lure the heroes away from the keep….

Regardless, the cult forces need to be dealt with before Escobert walks into a trap. Horatio triggers the ambush and Mara hits the concealed cultists with Burning Hands as they pop out of hiding.

“That’s why you don’t play with fire!” she chastises the cultists, as they writhe on the floor to extinguish their flaming robes, “That’s right. Stop, drop and roll you lizard-loving freaks.”

The party defeat the cultists with little trouble and Escobert arrives soon after, with enough manpower to defend the mill until dawn. The heroes return to the keep and begin their report to Governor Nighthill. They are interrupted by a terrifying roar, as an adult blue dragon dives toward the battlements!

 

[mikeawmids]

The Adventures of Fap Longwood #29 (Tyranny of Dragons)

This isn’t the parties’ first dragon fight, but while Venomfang was an adolescent, the specimen descending on Greenest is fully grown and scary as fudge. Fap fails his WIS save to resist the dragon’s fearsome presence and cowers behind the battlements beside Governor Nighthill. Fap masters his terror long enough to take a shot at the dragon, but his hands are shaking so violently that he misses by miles.

Since Horatio can’t reach the dragon while it’s airborne, he dedicates his turn to aiding Fap overcome his fear. Meanwhile, Mara prepares to cast Lightning Bolt from a scroll – then suddenly remembers they are fighting a blue dragon and puts it away, shaking her head ruefully. Silly wizard. She casts Firebolt instead, which does 2d10 damage now that she is level 5 – or it would have done, if she had hit, which she did not. Brian casts Guiding Bolt (at third level) and also misses. The dragon vomits lightning all over the walls, killing one man outright and wounding six more.

Emboldened by the support of his friends, Fap places a Hunters Mark on the dragon and inflicts modest damage. With Horatio’s aid, he recovers from the Frightened condition. The dragon lands atop the battlements, claws digging deep gouges in the stone walls of the keep. The party are divided, Fap and Horatio on one side of the dragon, Brian and Mara on the other. Mara experiences an unpleasant sensation of deja-vu as the dragon snaps her up in its jaws. That’s the second time something awful has tried to eat her! Horatio bull-rushes the dragon and is targeted with a tail swipe that bats him off the wall! He flies through the air and splashes down in the stream beneath the keep, unconscious and dying!
Mara picks herself up, leaning heavily on the battlements. Fresh blood stains her ravaged robe.

“You need to go!” Brian shouts over his shoulder.

“I can’t leave you!” Mara protests.

“Just go! We’ll be fine! Go help Horatio!”

Mara misty-steps to safety. She finds Horatio floating in the stream and forces a potion of greater healing down the dwarf’s throat. Brian tries to cast Blindness on the dragon, but it resists. The dragon retaliates with two claw attacks, driving Brian back and demolishing more of the wall. Fap shoots the beast in the flank and Brian slaps it with Inflict Wounds. Having been reduced from 225 to 128 hp, the dragon takes wing and breaths lightning over the battlements to cover its retreat. Fap dodges the worst of it (but still takes half damage), whereas Brian is hit for a massive 66 damage and is only 3 hp away from perma-death! Fap digs frantically through the fallen rubble to find and stabilise the dying cleric.
Seeing their draconic ally routed, the rest of the Dragon Cult cut their losses and quit Greenest also, retreating to the north with their stolen plunder.

 

[mikeawmids]

The Adventures of Fap Longwood #30 (Tyranny of Dragons)

After an interminable night of fire and bloodshed, dawn breaks hard over the smoking ruins of Greenest. Over two dozen buildings have burnt to the ground and one side of the stone keep has been reduced to rubble. Bodies (a mash-up of civilians, cultists and kobolds) litter the streets. As the light of the new days dispels the terrors of the long night, those residents who did not seek sanctuary within the keep emerge from hiding and tearfully absorb the devastation around them. The Dragon Cult was repulsed, but the cost was great.

Greenest was not the only town hit. Sildar receives word from his allies in the Lord’s Alliance that other towns across the Greenfields were also targeted by the cult. While these attacks have been ruinous, destruction was not the cult’s primary objective. In each instance, eye witnesses report the cultists piling stolen treasure into wagons. These wagons have been tracked north along the Trade Way, before turning off the road and into the Mere of Dead Men. Sildar and his spies are unsure what the cult is doing in that blasted swampland, but they need to find out. Since the Heroes of Phandalin have already survived (although not actually won) two dragon fights, they are the ideal candidates to scope out the cult’s activities.

 

[mikeawmids]

The Adventures of Fap Longwood #31 (Tyranny of Dragons)

The Mere of Dead Men is a vast, tangled marshland of sucking muck and cold grey water. Sparse clumps of scrubby weeds sprout from the few islands of solid ground. The Heroes of Phandalin slosh through the knee-deep sludge, making painfully slow progress to avoid marching into another patch of quicksand or the territory of some carnivorous ooze.

“Remind me, why did we accept this quest?” Horatio grumbles, waving the biting insects away from his face.

“Someone has to stop the Dragon Cult.” Fap answers.

“I mean, sure.” Horatio agrees, “But why does it have to be us?”

Earlier that day, the party had found several abandoned wagons half-submerged in the muck near the edge of the mire. The stolen plunder had already been offloaded and hauled deeper into the swamp.

As darkness falls across the marsh, the heroes stumble upon an empty camp erected atop a small island of semi-solid ground. A half-dozen crude canoes have been pulled up alongside a circle of shanty lean-to’s. Fap examines the muddy ground and finds a mess of recent lizardfolk tracks. With no real alternative, the party reluctantly prepare to spend the night in the lizardfolk campsite. The party are wary of the camp’s previous occupants returning in the small hours and set a watch. They don’t have long to wait.

Soon after dusk, nine lizardmen paddle out of the mist hanging low over the mere. Brian and Horatio hide in the lean-to’s, while Fap and Mara duck beneath the unattended canoes. The party hope to go unnoticed.

“Someone’s been sleeping in my bed!” one of the lizardmen cries (in Draconic), “And they’re still here!”

After a brutal skirmish, the heroes defeat the lizardmen, leaving just one survivor. Donning her Helm of Comprehension, Mara questions the injured warrior. His name is Snapjaw and the Dragon Cult have compelled his tribe to act as scouts and porters, hauling treasure across the Mere of Dead Men to the cult headquarters in the ruin of Castle Naerytar. Before the arrival of the cult, the lizardfolk warred with a tribe of disgusting bullywugs – now both groups are subservient to the cult leaders. Snapjaw can lead the party to the castle and agrees to do so if the party free his kin from the tyranny of the Dragon Cult.

 

[mikeawmids]

The Adventures of Fap Longwood #32 (Tyranny of Dragons)

Castle Naerytar is a crumbling ruin long abandoned to the swamp, slowly sinking into the mire under the weight of its own stone. The entire edifice is slightly lopsided as a result.

Snapjaw tells the party that a black dragonborn called Rezmir calls the shots and that she has two lieutenants; an elven duellist called Dralmorrer Borngray and a bullywug shaman called Pharblex Splattergoo. Rezmir and Borngray both have quarters in the castle proper, while Splattergoo can usually be found in the flooded caverns beneath the keep.

Lizardfolk pickets challenge the party as they approach, but Snapjaw claims they are new cultists he is escorting to see Borngray. The party are permitted to pass. The heroes regret not stealing any cult attire from the many dead dragon cultists they’ve left in their wake since Thundertree.

The barbican is defended by ten bullywugs and a pair of giant toads.

“Who – CROAK – you?” the bullywugs demand.

“New cultists,” Snapjaw explains, “I am - ”

The lizardman is silenced by a wet slap from the lead bullywugs webbed hand.

“Be – CROAK – silent! They – CROAK – talk!”

None of the heroes are proficient in Deception, but the two dwarves have the best CHA and Horatio doesn’t need to worry about annoying his god with a few white lies.

“Er… Hail Tiamat!” he says, unconvincingly.

The bullywugs look unconvinced.

“Er… Death to the non-believers!” Horatio adds.

The bullywugs nod along and wave the party through.

“Not – CROAK – you!” one says, shoving Snapjaw away, “We – CROAK – take.”

The lizardman slinks away with his tail between his legs.

Four bullywugs march the party across the causeway and into a muddy courtyard occupied by yet more bullywugs bossing around a handful of resentful lizardfolk. A three-storey tower with a domed roof stands in the centre of the courtyard. Two bullywugs take up positions to either side of the entrance, while the other two lead the party inside and up a flight of stone steps to the first floor. There is one door off this landing and one bullywug knocks, while the other keeps a pair of beady eyes fixed on the heroes. There is no response from inside the room, other than the muted squawking of a bird. The bullywug knocks more loudly, then turns to shrug helplessly at his friend.

“Where – CROAK – elf? Not – CROAK – here!”

“How I – CROAK – know? What we – CROAK – do – CROAK – now?”

While the two bullywugs argue, Mara casts Sleep and they both nod off, leaning heavily on their spears. Fap tries to open the door that the bullywugs were banging on, but the lock proves too complex for his one level in Rogue to overcome. Horatio kicks the door open, the bullywugs downstairs don’t respond to the noise. The room beyond is a simple, sparsely furnished sleeping chamber; wooden cot, stool, stone wash basin. A large raven thrashes at the bars of an iron bird cage suspended from the ceiling, shedding black feathers across the floor. The party search the room but find little of interest, besides a few bespoke dressing gowns with the initials D.B sewn into them.

“Borngray!” an irate voice bellows from beneath the floor, “Shut that damned bird up or I will turn it to stone! Some of us are trying to work!”

Fap lifts the rug off the floor and throws it over the birdcage to muffle the raven’s racket. Doing so reveals a loose floorboard concealing a sealed lockbox. Fap picks the lock and the party pocket the contents. Horatio wants to stuff the raven into the box and put it back beneath the floor, but the rest of the party vote him down.

The party continue to climb the tower. The top floor has been converted into some kind of observatory, dominated by a large and complicated looking telescope-like contraption. It looks both fragile and expensive.

“I reckon someone will be right inconvenienced if we smash that!” Horatio says.

Mara glowers at the dwarf and steps forward to examine the device. She peers through the lens, but the image is distorted and confusing. She begins to feel dizzy and steps away from the strange apparatus – just as four stone gargoyles drop in through trapdoors in the domed ceiling!

 

[mikeawmids]

The Adventures of Fap Longwood #33 (Tyranny of Dragons)

“Mind of the telescope!” Mara shrieks, as Horatio swings Talon with reckless abandon, hacking large chunks of stone off the nearest gargoyle.

The gargoyle knocks the sword from his hand and Horatio uses his second attack to head-butt the creature, cracking his own skull in the process. Mara casts Firebolt, blasting off another gargoyle’s arm. It retaliates by biting her head. Brian hits a gargoyle with Inflict Wounds (lv3), exploding it into a fine powder. Horatio reclaims his weapon and uses it to smash another two gargoyles in quick succession (at this point, Horatio’s player decided that Talon emits a piercing bird cry whenever he rolls a critical hit). The final creature retreats through the trapdoor in the ceiling and flies off to raise the alarm.

“Time to go,” Fap says.

The sound of webbed feet slapping against stone rises from below. The bullywugs are climbing the tower!

“The telescope!” Fap cries, “We can climb it to reach the roof!”

The heroes scale the strange apparatus to reach the trapdoor in the ceiling. They slam it shut just as the first wave of bullywugs hurl their spears. There is no way off the domed roof of the observatory, other than the 30ft drop to the courtyard below.

“We can jump to the roof of the main hall!” Fap says, eyeballing the distance.

“You might make that jump, but Mara can’t!” Brian protests.

“I’ll make it!” Mara cries, taking the leap.

She nearly does.

The treacherous tiles shift under her weight as she lands atop the roof of the main hall and Mara finds herself slipping backwards into the void, arms flailing helplessly. The two dwarves hop across, grabbing the little wizard and pulling her to safety.

“Where now?” Horatio roars, “There’s no way off this roof either!

“Sod this lark! I’m making my own!”

Horatio rips out a handful of roof tiles with his bare hands, revealing a long (20ft) drop down into the main hall of Castle Naerytar. A dozen cultists look up from sorting through a vast pile of plunder. A large iron chandelier dangles above the gleaming hoard and the party drop down onto it.

“Going down!” Horatio cries, swinging Talon at the rusty chain suspending the chandelier from the ceiling.

The rest of the party cling to each other for dear life as the chandelier plummets, crushing four cultists and scattering stolen treasure across the floor. The party crawl from the wreckage and mop up the remaining hostiles. The cultists are outmatched, but they are fanatically loyal to Tiamat and fight to the death to defend their hoard. Horatio barricades the door to the courtyard before the bullywugs make it back down the tower. The only other exit from the main hall is a dank staircase descending into the flooded caverns beneath the keep.

 

[mikeawmids]

No spoilers, but in tonight's session the party suffered such a calamitous setback that we're having to roll up new level 7 characters to finish the first half of the book....

 

[mikeawmids]

The Adventures of Fap Longwood #34 (Tyranny of Dragons)

The barricaded door to the castle courtyard shudders as the bullywugs on the other side throw their weight against the rotting wood. It isn’t going to hold for long. With nowhere else to turn, the heroes descend into the water-logged dungeon beneath the keep. A string of guttering torches lead around the edge of a murky pond and off along a passageway to the north-west. The dark water looks greasy and unpotable, the party give it a wide berth. The tunnel ends at a ledge, dropping 15ft to another well-lit cavern below. The cultists have erected a lift-like mechanism to raise/lower cargo between the two levels. A dozen crates have been stacked on the wooden platform, ready to be moved. Horatio pops the lid off one box and finds it to contain a small fortune in stolen silver! The next box is filled with gold!

A ladder has been driven into the wall below the crane and the heroes climb down. The distant crash of splintering wood suggests the cult have broken into the main hall. The heroes pick up the pace, although it seems increasingly unlikely that they will find another way out of these dank caverns.

The party reach an intersection. The first route leads to a large chamber, where the cultists have arranged yet more crates of plundered loot in the centre of a large magical circle inscribed into the floor. Mara realises that this is a teleportation circle and the Dragon Cult must be transporting their ill-gotten goods even further afield. Mara has no idea how to activate the circle, or where it would send them if she did. Better the frying pan than the fire. The party backtrack to the intersection and try the next tunnel.

Door #2 leads into a shrine celebrating all things amphibian. Hundreds of crude frog statues squat within candle-lit hollows in the dripping walls. Ten bullywugs leap to the defence of their slimy sanctum. The sound of combat rouses Pharblex Splattergoo from his contemplation of the universe in the adjacent chamber and the bullywug shaman joins the fight. He is an especially obese and slimy specimen of his species, with a severed crocodile head wedged atop his fat head like a hat. Splattergoo offloads Poison Spray into Horatio’s face. The dwarf splutters in outrage, but isn’t particularly poisoned. Mara casts Lightning Bolt, obliterating Splattergoo in a splatter of… goo. Horatio is plastered in frog guts as his opponent explodes.

After finishing off the rest of the shaman’s entourage, the party loot the shrine. Mara finds a pair of advanced spell books that she can barely even begin to comprehend. She packs them away for later study, once she has a few more Wizard levels under her belt. There is nothing else of interest in the room, unless you have a thing for frogs.

“Considering all the loot the Dragon Cult are moving, this adventure has been a little light on decent treasure!” Fap grumbles.

 

[mikeawmids]

The Adventures of Fap Longwood #35 (Tyranny of Dragons)

As the heroes get ready to leave the frog sanctum, they hear voices from the direction of the intersection. Fap creeps closer and spies a group of cultists descending via the wooden crane. The most imposing figure among them is a black dragonborn wearing purple robes, with an oversized greatsword strapped across her back. She is attended by a one-eyed elven man and a balding human in the distinctive crimson robes of the Red Wizards. Fap curses under his breath; it is Hamun Kost, who the party last encountered near the ruins of Old Owl Well, east of Phandalin. It seems the necromancer took a detour on his way back to Thay. How is he involved in all this?

“Have you found them yet?” the dragonborn snarls.

“Not yet, Wyrmspeaker,” fawns the elven cyclops, “But we will. We know they came down here and the stairs back up into the castle are guarded. It’s only a matter of time until we flush them out of whatever dark corner they’re hiding in.”

“Get it done. If they’re still alive, find out how much they know before you dispose of them.”

“At once, Wyrmspeaker.”

“Come, Master Kost,” The dragonborn says, turning to the Red Wizard, “The circle will teleport us to a place of safety, where we might continue our conversation without further interruptions.”

‘So that’s Rezmir,’ Fap thinks, as the dragonborn leads Kost away, leaving the one eyed elven man to harangue his subordinates, ‘And you must be Borngray.’

Sound echoes strangely through the tunnels and if Fap listens carefully, he can hear Rezmir bark the command word to activate the teleportation circle (“Draezir”), followed by a flash of light as she and Kost are transported god-knows-where.

“You heard the Wyrmspeaker!” Borngray screams, “Find them! I’ll be in my quarters!”

The cultists disperse, leaving the intersection clear. The party are injured and low on resources. They are deep in enemy territory with little chance of escape. Should they try to clear the rest of Castle Naerytar and see what clues they may have missed, or leap headlong through the teleportation circle in pursuit of Wyrmspeaker Rezmir?

“Borngray might know something, but he’s middle management,” Fap says, “We need to know why the Dragon Cult are getting cosy with the Red Wizards. Let’s follow them!”

The party drain the rest of their healing potions and step into the teleportation circle.

“Draezir!”

There is a flash of light as the circle activates – and the Heroes of Phandalin are gone!

They also advance to level 6!