The party says farewell to Soren and then they level up. 🌱 feels the bridge between life and death shorten, becoming one with whatever the hell he's up to. McSneakle decides he will forever remember Soren by wearing his clothes and taking all his shit. Uul'valaar gets suspicious after seeing the swamp boiling, so he believes some evil nonsense haunts this castle.
And Uul'valaar ain't tolerating evil nonsense's nonsense!
They kick the door down to the main castle keep and bust into a throne room. To their shock, two bullywugs and a bullywug king prepare for battle! And the bullywug king is riding a giant frog! And there's a captured PC who is tied up because that's how we introduce new characters.
The bullywug king commands them to leave at once, but the party is like "Well if you ain't a bitch then I ain't a bitch," so they start fighting. Uul'valaar tosses a dagger to the captive so that he can free himself and join in the fight.
The party notices that the bullywug king's crown looks suspiciously suspicious with its voodoo aura and gooble-gobble witchcraft vibe, so 🌱 lashes out with a vine but can't quite snatch the crown off the king's head. The prisoner escapes, then obtains his magical orb to wave around in the hope that magic happens.
The bullywugs start kicking all four of the players' asses, and then the frog king lets out a melodic tune that kicks their asses further. Uul'valaar gets beat even harder, so 🌱 sings sweet soft nothings into his ear to get him back into the fight. McSneakle does what he can, which at this point is just not getting hit.
The freed captive starts cowering under the table like a little bitch, so 🌱 restores his hit points too. After getting de-bitch'd, the captive uses his orb to cast lightning powers to shock the big frog, exploding it everywhere and it's the tits! Someone says "Can he squat?" And I forgot why because I didn't put anything in my notes. I can only assume it was the mysterious captive's victory cry after blowing apart the mega frog.
At one point the party gets really pissed off that the frog king is still kicking their asses because, in Lamentations of the Flame Princess, they killed a dungeon boss using just a bar of soap, which is kind of funny because before we even began playing 5E, they complained "Lamentations of the Flame Princess is too dangerous we want to play 5E blah blah blah wah wah wah fuck being just dwarves and humans and spellcasters who can't blow shit up I want to be Toad from Mario whose name is a picture!" Then they get mad that I'm trying to kill them, but I protest, stating that I'm running them through Lair of the Frog King, which is a third party DM's Guild product written by RP Davis, and it specifically states that it's an adventure for 1st-level characters, and the current party is at level 2, so if they're having problems killing the frog king who hits on a +5 and does 2d8+3 damage and attacks twice per turn and has 52 hit points and has a challenge rating of 3 and has some bullywug bodyguards and a giant frog mount and a magical helm that does voodoo nonsense and an initial fight that killed a PC and fucked up their hit points, then that's their problem!
They kill the frog king and quit bitching.
A remaining bullywug guard throws down his weapon and surrenders. The party barricades the door, ties the bullywug to a stool, then sets that stool in a bear trap. They figure out that the frog king was using mind control nonsense to force the bullywug to work for him, so Uul'valaar says "He may have been in control of this other guy, but now he's under control of me."
Obviously, the frog king acquired his magic to command the bullywugs through some kind of ghastly artifact, like maybe a crown that gave off weird vibes--a crown that may be dangerous or cursed.
McSneakle puts on the king's voodoo crown and, surprise, there's voodoo. He discovers the crown forces him to be "utterly convinced your way is the correct and only possible way, and you command others to do your bidding without regard to their opinions on the matter." So pretty much McSneakle doubles in assholery. He enslaves the remaining bullywug, commanding him to be his personal pack mule, and makes him carry all his shit starting immediately.
The party meets their new comrade, who looks like a genie and is named Zanzibar, from the townzibar of Kinchasa, which is conveniently close to where they are now and is ruled by his father, the Manzibar. Zanzibar came to the castle on a magical errand, and he invites them to come to his hometown and to bring their slave along.
